Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: I guess today is truly legendary Dan Penn known as
Speaker 1: a songwriter, a singer, a player, a producer. Dan. So
Speaker 1: great to have you on here. Good to be here, Bob. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have a new album that comes out. You know,
Speaker 1: normally I'm against type in general, but I've been listening
Speaker 1: to the album and it's really good. Okay, that's strange. Well,
Speaker 1: I had an era where there's so much crap out there.
Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. The album is called Living
Speaker 1: on Mercy. What made you decide to actually record it? Oh?
Speaker 1: Just uh, I wasn't doing anything else and this, you know,
Speaker 1: had a kind of a low here in the studio.
Speaker 1: And uh so I thought, well, you know, I still saying,
Speaker 1: so my re all making me on record. Hadn't made
Speaker 1: one in a long time. So, uh, just Spooner and
Speaker 1: I going to Japan and made made a few bucks
Speaker 1: and came back. I said, I'll just spend that on
Speaker 1: my record, and and so I started and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we just kept going. Okay, let's stop for a second here.
Speaker 1: When did Spooner and you go to Japan? We went
Speaker 1: here before last, I believe was it was the last time.
Speaker 1: So he went, we went over and played four or
Speaker 1: five shows. How does something like that come together? Well,
Speaker 1: this uh, this uh fellow who was a motor you
Speaker 1: called me, he calls better, he called me, and we
Speaker 1: got together on price and he brought us so and
Speaker 1: you know, wasn't anything strange, but it did work out
Speaker 1: really good. And you know what he had was one
Speaker 1: of the best things in the world. You know, when
Speaker 1: you go to get on a plane or when you
Speaker 1: get off, there said somebody with a wheelchair to wheel
Speaker 1: you to the next to the next gate. So we
Speaker 1: got wheeled all around Japan and all over America. So
Speaker 1: the wheelchair was you know, I'll never fly without it. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking to that, as we're all getting up in years,
Speaker 1: how is your mobility and health? Well, it's like all
Speaker 1: the people who are seventy eight years old. I wake
Speaker 1: up with new little things every day sometimes, but you know,
Speaker 1: in general, I still get around pretty good. My ballot
Speaker 1: saying as good as it was. Um, I've got other
Speaker 1: problems in other areas, but overall, in general, I feel
Speaker 1: pretty good. So I felt good enough to make that
Speaker 1: CD record and I hope I can. If they'll get
Speaker 1: this COVID thing done, maybe I could get out and
Speaker 1: do a few shows. And to what degree are you quarantining?
Speaker 1: I'm here, but if I need to go to the grocery,
Speaker 1: I'll go. I put on a mask, I go where
Speaker 1: I got to. You know, I'll quarantine you. I've never
Speaker 1: called it that. I've never considered that's what I was doing,
Speaker 1: but I guess that's what we're all doing. So but
Speaker 1: if I'll go, do what I gotta do, and I'll
Speaker 1: wear the mask and get the stuff and bring it home.
Speaker 1: But pretty soon I'll go back to Alabama. We got
Speaker 1: a place in Alabama. We just came back up here
Speaker 1: from Alabama to get to take Linda to the doctors.
Speaker 1: She had to have a pacemaker put in, so I
Speaker 1: had to bring Harry and to do that. And I'm
Speaker 1: doing a few interviews like with you. I've got one more,
Speaker 1: and then we're back to Aliba, Emma, and down here
Speaker 1: we're just out in the country. So quarantine, we don't
Speaker 1: even consider that word. But I know everybody is having
Speaker 1: to do what they gotta do. Okay, I can see
Speaker 1: in the video here there's a tape machine behind you.
Speaker 1: So you have a studio there in your home in Nashville, Yes, Sue,
Speaker 1: I've got a I've got a basement studio. Almost everybody
Speaker 1: in a music basis has got a studio somewhere in
Speaker 1: their house some kind. And this one's been here now
Speaker 1: for what wrong about twenty years? About twenty years and
Speaker 1: it's pretty nice. I mean I fixed it up pretty nice,
Speaker 1: maybe two nice, you know, but I enjoyed. I can
Speaker 1: come down here at midnight, you know, with my Jamie's
Speaker 1: and work on the song, or work on the tape
Speaker 1: that's already recorded. H you know, just keep it. It's
Speaker 1: a good to have some way you go remake something
Speaker 1: real fast. Or you know, once you leave the studio,
Speaker 1: you're in your budgets right out. You can't you can't
Speaker 1: do no more. But if you've got your own studio,
Speaker 1: the budget never runs out. You can just keep on mixing.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to do with do right mayn
Speaker 1: back in the n is and but the budget was out,
Speaker 1: we had to stop. I would have liked to have
Speaker 1: done some more, but you know how it is. Okay.
Speaker 1: So what do you have in that studio? I mean,
Speaker 1: I see the tape machine. What other kind of equipment. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a there's an old m C I board here
Speaker 1: six Uh, there's a sixteen track two inch over there.
Speaker 1: There's some HD twenty four digital recorders, and there's a
Speaker 1: there's a Harrison mixed bus, a digit of mixer, and
Speaker 1: that's what we used on this record. We mixed it
Speaker 1: through that Harrison. Okay, so you tend to read in
Speaker 1: this album to record the tapered record digitally, the recorded
Speaker 1: digitally in both places, I believe they were both proteos.
Speaker 1: So we did that number and then we brought it
Speaker 1: back here to my place, and we uh fixed a
Speaker 1: few things and and overdub some things and mixed everything.
Speaker 1: And uh, is it your room big enough to cut
Speaker 1: or is it basically a mixing room? It's big enough
Speaker 1: to cut four or five people, But we didn't cut here.
Speaker 1: My board, my console was having some crackling problems. And uh,
Speaker 1: I called a friend, buzz Case and who owns creative
Speaker 1: workshop here studio and uh, really good studio, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: come on in. So I wonder over there and cut.
Speaker 1: Three days we cut half album. I took a little
Speaker 1: to break, but maybe a lot. And I tried to
Speaker 1: get everybody else back together, and you know, you just
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. Everybody's running here and there in the
Speaker 1: studio would being booked. You know, I couldn't make it
Speaker 1: land up. So I called them a guy and muscle
Speaker 1: shows or Sheffield, Alabama at the nuthouse and I was
Speaker 1: I was able to uh to land everybody uh down
Speaker 1: at the nuthouse. And so we finished it that. We
Speaker 1: tracked the rest of the tracks three more days, and
Speaker 1: men bought it all back here and started, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at it pretty hard and what do we need
Speaker 1: to do and stuff like that. Now, now the vocals
Speaker 1: came off the floor with the band. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't redo the vocals. So I fixed a couple of places,
Speaker 1: but very small places. Okay. So in today's music business,
Speaker 1: what are your expectations for a new recording where we
Speaker 1: have streaming dominates there, I'm team tracks that aren't even
Speaker 1: listened to on Spotify. It's so different from when you
Speaker 1: started out and when I started out. So what's it
Speaker 1: like in your mind making a record knowing how hard
Speaker 1: it is to reach the audience. I don't really know,
Speaker 1: you know that that that's not my part I was saying,
Speaker 1: I play they sail, so I don't really know how
Speaker 1: that works. I don't know anything about downloading. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a CD man. I don't even know anything about
Speaker 1: But they say they're gonna put this on VINOYL so
Speaker 1: you know, so be it. I got a record players
Speaker 1: to you, so I'll listen to it. But I really
Speaker 1: like c ds. You know. They say I'm just like
Speaker 1: the studio, and that's fine with me. But these kids,
Speaker 1: you know, they've got other ideas. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. You're from Alabama, yes, sir. And you know,
Speaker 1: especially Northerners like myself, if they've even been to the South,
Speaker 1: they don't really know much about it. So we're in Alabama.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up? I grew up in a little
Speaker 1: town called Vernon, Vernon, Alabama. And where is that that's
Speaker 1: down between Tuscaloosa, Alabama road tide. You know, it's between
Speaker 1: there and uh in Columbus, Mississippi, right on the state
Speaker 1: line Mississippi Alabama state line, halfway down in the state.
Speaker 1: And uh, you grew up? How many kids in the
Speaker 1: family I had? I had three sisters. I've got one
Speaker 1: left and where are you in the hierarchy oldest youngest,
Speaker 1: I'm I got one sister older. I had one sister older,
Speaker 1: and I'm next, and then I had I've got Peggy left,
Speaker 1: and my baby's sister Vicky got killed in a car
Speaker 1: rash and save me nine, So just being my sister. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what did your parents do for a living back
Speaker 1: in there in Vernon. Well, first they were farmers, and
Speaker 1: he was a farmer, mother he was she was a
Speaker 1: farmer too. They had caught and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: didn't they About forty nine they started working at the
Speaker 1: government plant in Columbus, which is thirty miles away, and
Speaker 1: so they worked, and government plants in that part of
Speaker 1: the country just took over. They were in every little
Speaker 1: town and everybody had a job and everybody might, you know,
Speaker 1: some money, and that's what raised us all, really, except
Speaker 1: for the crops that were there before. And so they
Speaker 1: made men's trousers and then he worked in that the
Speaker 1: ship of department, and mother worked in something there. So
Speaker 1: you know, that's back when money with money, you know,
Speaker 1: about thirty five dollars a week was a big paycheck.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in Vernon. How many people in Vernon, Oh,
Speaker 1: back then, probably not the same now. Maybe a thousand,
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen hundred, maybe nine hundred, it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: The surrounding area, it's not a lot of people, but
Speaker 1: it's got a couple of red lacs. It is the
Speaker 1: county seat of Lamar County. And your house that you
Speaker 1: say you're going to return to, is that in Vernon, No, sir,
Speaker 1: it's outside of a few miles. That was part of
Speaker 1: my wife, Linda's grandparents farmhouse. It's an old farmhouse, over
Speaker 1: a hundred years old, and she was born in the
Speaker 1: front room where we sleep, so it's really personal to her.
Speaker 1: And it's got the front porches on the hunt and
Speaker 1: I got the back porch on the back, and it's
Speaker 1: got a hallway all the way down through it. So
Speaker 1: a very old fashioned and we rebuilt it years ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're growing up in Vernon. What does your life
Speaker 1: look like you personally? Well, I'm going to school, you
Speaker 1: know a lot. I'm going to high school. I'm going
Speaker 1: to grammar school. I started, uh playing a little music,
Speaker 1: started writing a few little songs, and finally I found
Speaker 1: his place in Solide. That that's ten miles north and
Speaker 1: they're having a square aints the College quarter Aints up there.
Speaker 1: But what it really was was a little rock and
Speaker 1: roll show with a few square ains is thrown in.
Speaker 1: And so I went up there and started hanging out
Speaker 1: with him and sitting in a little bit with a
Speaker 1: band Minnie Kegle and a rhythm Swinsters. He played there.
Speaker 1: He played it was you know, he played the square
Speaker 1: dancers with a fiddle and then he played the snare
Speaker 1: with the boat. Very good. Mr. But anyway, one of
Speaker 1: the guys in the band was Billy Sheryl really is, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He was playing electric sacks and he said,
Speaker 1: I hear you write song. Somebody has got to him
Speaker 1: and told him, man he I said, oh yeah, So
Speaker 1: he said play me one. So I played him a song.
Speaker 1: He said, why don't you come up to Florence. We've
Speaker 1: got a little studio up that we just might put
Speaker 1: a record of him. Well great, you know, I'm about
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. I need a record. So I go
Speaker 1: up there and I put down four or five songs
Speaker 1: that I've written. That's about all I've written. But one
Speaker 1: of the songs was called he was a Bluebird Blue
Speaker 1: and I put it down and came on back home,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't too long that I got a call
Speaker 1: from Tom Stafford. He was kind of the head guru
Speaker 1: up there at that little view. It was over his
Speaker 1: father's drug store that he had a little studio. And
Speaker 1: he said, Dan, he said, you've got a song on
Speaker 1: the charts. No kid, what is that? He said, He's
Speaker 1: a Bluebird blue by Conway Twitty. I said, he cut that?
Speaker 1: He said, he cut it. He said, and it's going
Speaker 1: up the charts. You moved in ten places next week.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm calling he is, is you need
Speaker 1: to sign up with bm I And if you do,
Speaker 1: since you're moving that much next week, they'll they'll frought
Speaker 1: you some money. Do you need some money? I said, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: He said how much you need? I said seven hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: He said, I've seend it right on down. Well what that?
Speaker 1: What that number? How I came up seven hundred dollars
Speaker 1: I had. I had been down to my uncle Ruben's place.
Speaker 1: He would live just right by us in the country,
Speaker 1: and he had to rebuilt the nineteen four Chevrolet. He
Speaker 1: had put a V eight in it and everything. You
Speaker 1: couldn't tell it that anything had ever been done to it,
Speaker 1: and I tried to buy it. I said, don't agree
Speaker 1: with why you take this car. He said, it ain't
Speaker 1: for sale. Really, no, it ain't for sale. I knew
Speaker 1: he used it would sell anything, you know. But so
Speaker 1: I said, well, well, if you're gonna send it, reckon
Speaker 1: what you'd have to have. Now, this is back when
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars was a lot of money. And I said,
Speaker 1: what what do you think you'd have to have if
Speaker 1: you was gonna send it? He thought of that, he said,
Speaker 1: he knew I didn't have any money. I'm just a country.
Speaker 1: Bought that and he said, ah, if I was gonna
Speaker 1: send it, I'd have to have something like seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: So I went on and I got and I blew.
Speaker 1: I got that call, you know, And so I go back,
Speaker 1: I get my check in, I cash it. I go
Speaker 1: back down to Uncle Ruben and I say, I mean,
Speaker 1: how are you damn what? What's what's he up to?
Speaker 1: I said, oh, I just came after the cheval Alcorim
Speaker 1: and he said what Chevron? I said, this one part
Speaker 1: right here? He said, I told you it wasn't for sale.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, but you also said, but if she's
Speaker 1: going to said it. You might take seven hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for it. He said, I say that. I said, I
Speaker 1: I thought you did. But I said, but if you
Speaker 1: don't want to send it, that's okay. But I started
Speaker 1: putting my money out by that time, you know, not
Speaker 1: kind of showed you my money and shuffling around a
Speaker 1: little bit. And he looked at me, and he looked
Speaker 1: at that car, and you look at that money. You
Speaker 1: go around and around. Finally grabbed that money. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm a man of my word. So I got my car. Um.
Speaker 1: They didn't pay me much for the song, but I
Speaker 1: did make some b and by okay, a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: Did that car treat you right? As a beautiful car?
Speaker 1: I didn't treat it right. You know, I'm very young
Speaker 1: and very crazy. I made and I have to say, uh,
Speaker 1: it treated me rod it it never but you got wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Yeah, I told the chrome off. Uncle Ribbon
Speaker 1: had fixed it up some knives. It was a little
Speaker 1: two tin forward door, had the little had the little hubcaps.
Speaker 1: Uh you could drave it. You never think he had
Speaker 1: a V eight But it was a brand new fit
Speaker 1: to six V eight with overdrive up here and it
Speaker 1: was sweet, sweet sweet, and I started hot rodding and
Speaker 1: pulling this off and taking that off, and changing his
Speaker 1: and changing that. Finally one not the hood blew up
Speaker 1: in despair. I traded it off. So wish I wish
Speaker 1: I had a kick it? Well, certainly today, let's go back. Also, okay,
Speaker 1: was there music in the house. What inspired you to play? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had we had daddy. Daddy had a guitar and
Speaker 1: he was playing it all my life. You know, I
Speaker 1: could hear him playing it, and sometimes you know he's
Speaker 1: saying stuff like prawl line frae, you know those old
Speaker 1: Jimmy what's his name, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Rodgers, those kind
Speaker 1: of songs. He would do those kind of songs. And
Speaker 1: sometimes he would have electric guitar player coming in from
Speaker 1: like Winfrey that's like thirty miles to the east somewhere
Speaker 1: like that. There was a guy had a black electric guitar. Wow,
Speaker 1: you know that was something else, and he'd played with Daddy,
Speaker 1: and then my school teacher played fiddling. He'd play with Daddy's.
Speaker 1: But there was front poet all the way. You know,
Speaker 1: they never played a gig. They just played on the
Speaker 1: front poet or the black poet, and they enjoyed music.
Speaker 1: And Daddy was he was a song leader of the church.
Speaker 1: Mother was a piano player in the church, and so
Speaker 1: I had music all around. And when I got about nine,
Speaker 1: he bought me a little silver tongue guitar, and I
Speaker 1: would said when they played, and I trying to try
Speaker 1: to be a musician too, but I couldn't play the chord. Finally,
Speaker 1: when I got about fifteen, I got Daddy to show
Speaker 1: me open chords at least. And so when I when
Speaker 1: I got them up a little bit, I started playing
Speaker 1: his Gibson something. It was a lot nicer, you know.
Speaker 1: I believe it's a forty nine. He bought it new,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, maybe about nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: or seven he gave it to me, gave me to
Speaker 1: Gibson maybe Ala Jambo Boy. It was sweet, and I
Speaker 1: had it in the trunk of my car and I
Speaker 1: came to Nashville. I got got to took out of
Speaker 1: my car, so I wish I could find that one. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're first instriment is the guitar. What inspires you
Speaker 1: to write songs? Well, what inspires me is what's always.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that I'm going to make a commitment,
Speaker 1: whether it's to myself or to somebody else. I could
Speaker 1: if me and Spooner are gonna get together, or men
Speaker 1: or somebody else if we get together, I ain't a commitment.
Speaker 1: I may not have anything. There's no inspiration yet, there's nothing.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I'll have an idea. But you know, I
Speaker 1: call a songwriter sessions when I don't even have anything.
Speaker 1: I just always pray, Lord, if you can't give it
Speaker 1: to me, give it to him. And and you know,
Speaker 1: usually somebody walk in with something, either an idea or
Speaker 1: they can just sit down on a pin and play
Speaker 1: the right chord. And I'm often running. I make a
Speaker 1: commitment on spot to write a song today. And you
Speaker 1: know we used to do okay, But back when you
Speaker 1: were a kid, what inspired you to write songs? All?
Speaker 1: Just the idea that I wanted to write a song.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I remember I plowed a
Speaker 1: muw daddy. When Daddy went to work at that plant.
Speaker 1: He uh about me. When I was nine years old.
Speaker 1: He he sold his two new left fit. He had
Speaker 1: all the plows and the muse and he farmed, but
Speaker 1: when he went to work the plant, he decided he
Speaker 1: would get me a one MW up fit and keep
Speaker 1: me busy. He didn't want me to to go wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, so he wanted to keep me busy. So
Speaker 1: you know what was the question? Question is when did
Speaker 1: you start writing songs? And what was the inspiration for that? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I would hear Hank Williams on the radio and
Speaker 1: other people on the on the radio, and while I
Speaker 1: was plowed, I couldn't remember exactly the words. So I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember making up words to John Buloh. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I could make up my own words when I when
Speaker 1: I ran out, I couldn't remember. I still can't remember lyrics.
Speaker 1: But that's the first thing I remember about writing a song.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the other first part I don't. I
Speaker 1: can't remember. Well, let me ask you this. Did you
Speaker 1: have a dream of making music your life as a career. No,
Speaker 1: I can't say I did. I was. I was. I
Speaker 1: was too young. But you know a long about my teens,
Speaker 1: early teens. You know, I started here in l A. C.
Speaker 1: John Are and all these guys playing black music, and
Speaker 1: that really parked my ears. I mean I. I was
Speaker 1: used to church music. I would saying with oh Daddy
Speaker 1: and him into church. But when I heard the Black Stuff,
Speaker 1: it was different, you know, and it's like kind of hip.
Speaker 1: My switch on a little bit. And men, here comes
Speaker 1: to Elvis and all those guys, Jerry Lee and Elvis
Speaker 1: and Charlie Rich and all those fifties guys. I really
Speaker 1: loved all that, but then they always started making old
Speaker 1: movies and I kind of fell out of that that
Speaker 1: deal right there. I didn't much like that anymore for
Speaker 1: a while. And then here comes Ray, Charles, and Ray
Speaker 1: turned us all along. He turned on every Southern singer
Speaker 1: and we all wanted to sound just like Ray. And
Speaker 1: I could sound pretty much like Ray. Ah, I could
Speaker 1: sound like Ray and Jane Bryan and Bobby Blue Blaine.
Speaker 1: But one night in Birmingham, Alabama, after my show I
Speaker 1: was playing six nights a week, I went to another
Speaker 1: club that stayed open later and I walked in and
Speaker 1: here's the guy up there playing will Be three and
Speaker 1: his name is Charles Ray and he saund exactly like Rachel.
Speaker 1: I said, my love, you know where. So this is
Speaker 1: a lucid proposition. So one long after that that I
Speaker 1: got in with fame and I started looking for my
Speaker 1: own voice. Okay, A couple of questions on the Conway
Speaker 1: Twitty song. Did they take any of the ownership or
Speaker 1: do you own all the publishing on that? Well, that's
Speaker 1: a Actually I never got paid for the poishtion and
Speaker 1: I think the game Conway of the post and I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not sure. But anyway, you know, I just
Speaker 1: let it go. I said, Hey, I got my b
Speaker 1: M I got my door over in the music business.
Speaker 1: It's okay. I mean, I don't like to have all
Speaker 1: the money, but you know, you don't get everything all
Speaker 1: the time. And so. But it wasn't but about a
Speaker 1: dozen years ago that my friend Donnie Fritz, who just
Speaker 1: passed away, Uh, come to me and Danny said, Dan,
Speaker 1: I've got the publish into Bluebird. He said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it to you. I said, okay, give it to him.
Speaker 1: So he signed over to him, and uh, so that's
Speaker 1: come home. Of course, there's nothing happening, but I got it.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, before you beat Billy Sheryl, how much
Speaker 1: are you gigging around? You're talking about playing six seven
Speaker 1: nights a week. Were you doing that frequently that's a
Speaker 1: little bit later than okay. So after after the Conway
Speaker 1: twitty hit and after you get the car, what's your
Speaker 1: next move? Well, you know, I was playing a lot
Speaker 1: of little high school gigs. But I had a little
Speaker 1: high school band. I had a piano player and a
Speaker 1: guitar player and the drummer, and so we played some
Speaker 1: has to hops and stuff around. After I got the car,
Speaker 1: started date my wife and who came out to Linda,
Speaker 1: Linda Pounders, and later we married. And but it's hard
Speaker 1: to say, you know, I just did the teenage stuff.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up going to fame? Well
Speaker 1: it was Billis Sheryl. He said, play me a song.
Speaker 1: He said, we've got a studio up in Florence. From
Speaker 1: what we might cut a record on you. When I
Speaker 1: went up and I put these songs down and and
Speaker 1: then went on with the car thing and everything, and
Speaker 1: somewhere along there, I was playing six nights a week.
Speaker 1: I was I was drinking a bit. You know. My
Speaker 1: mother didn't care for that. Uh, I ain't came in
Speaker 1: from Dallas, Texas. She said, let me have him send
Speaker 1: him over here, let him stay with me. He'll get
Speaker 1: a job we'll we'll see what we can do with him.
Speaker 1: So I did. I went to Dallas. We're in the
Speaker 1: Fit four show, and I got a job at Coach
Speaker 1: Barry Him. I was a mail or a clerk like
Speaker 1: my daddy, and so um they went along real good.
Speaker 1: I've worked in that place about a couple of months.
Speaker 1: I was doing okay, pretty good, pretty good hand. I
Speaker 1: reckon they they seem to like me. And it was winter,
Speaker 1: and Dallas is cold in the winter. So I drive
Speaker 1: my fit for ship right down to the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Then I had to walk over to the coach Barry
Speaker 1: Him and which was not too far, but enough to
Speaker 1: get you cold. And so anyway, I'm I'm working. I'm working,
Speaker 1: And I started dating a little girl out there, and
Speaker 1: we ended up in a little dairy queen or something
Speaker 1: like that. One night we started to get a comb
Speaker 1: or something, you know, and and I'm sitting on these
Speaker 1: two little guys a lot younger than me, out on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. They had a little guitar amp and a
Speaker 1: little electric guitar and a mike, and they were singing
Speaker 1: employee and having a big time. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I got so lonely for the music business, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to sing something. I gotta had. Asked the guy,
Speaker 1: I said, you mind about playing you get tart? I
Speaker 1: want to say one song. He said, no, that's fan.
Speaker 1: So I sang a song. I got back in my car.
Speaker 1: I took that girl home. I turned in my notice.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, that's it. They's see the music or nehew.
Speaker 1: So I came back to Alabama and married Lindon and
Speaker 1: you know it, and I went to Fame. Right after that.
Speaker 1: I went to Fame and I asked her just give me.
Speaker 1: I went the muscle shows, and I asked around about Rick,
Speaker 1: because Rick was always the one ricka Ricka, and so
Speaker 1: I asked about Rick and his father in law. He said, well,
Speaker 1: he's down in the studio. I said, what worries that
Speaker 1: he's told me? And I went down there and I
Speaker 1: found Rick. Rick was one of the people in that
Speaker 1: studio up there at Tom Stafford, so it was Billy
Speaker 1: Rick and Tom stuff. So anyway, I find Rick. Now
Speaker 1: this is a few years later, maybe two years later,
Speaker 1: after you better move on, he had already cut that
Speaker 1: on the author And so I found Rick walking around
Speaker 1: on his cement pad. I said, hey, Rick, what's you doing?
Speaker 1: He said, I'm building my studio, he said. The next
Speaker 1: thing I was mouth. He said, why don't you come
Speaker 1: to work for me? I said doing what? And he
Speaker 1: said writing song? Because he knew I had as a
Speaker 1: bluebird blue and there wasn't too many kids walking around
Speaker 1: and had a hit at my age. I said, what's
Speaker 1: that page? He said twenty five bucks a week. So
Speaker 1: so that was a lot of money back then, don't
Speaker 1: you know? It seemed like nothing now? But twenty five
Speaker 1: week plus I played on the weekend, I made an
Speaker 1: another fifty. Hey, I'd make it seventy five bucks. Of course,
Speaker 1: I didn't get home with much of it, because, like
Speaker 1: I said, I was drinking. But anyway, i'd go down
Speaker 1: to the garden one day that I told I told daddy.
Speaker 1: I said, Daddy, I'm moving to Florence. And he said
Speaker 1: that what are you gonna do? I said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: write songs. He said, uh, I don't know nothing about
Speaker 1: writing songs, son, he said, but if you, if you
Speaker 1: want to, i'd get you on where I'm working making
Speaker 1: the same thing. I'm I'm making forty dollars a week,
Speaker 1: I said, daddy, you might a hold on to that job.
Speaker 1: I may need you, but right now I gotta go
Speaker 1: give this a try. Listen, I understand, go do it.
Speaker 1: So I didn't went to mood to Florence, and it
Speaker 1: took me five years. I mean, we go up plenty
Speaker 1: of good songs in those five years, but it took
Speaker 1: five years to get the time your puppet, which was
Speaker 1: a big head. And you know, I was always doubtful
Speaker 1: up until that point about all this songwriting and stuff.
Speaker 1: So after that, I said, Okay, you're a songwriter. Don't
Speaker 1: look back, keep on going. And That's what I've done.
Speaker 1: I've just kept on triding alone. Okay, so you're he
Speaker 1: built the studio, you're a songwriter. For those five years
Speaker 1: other than writing songs, you do anything else at the studio?
Speaker 1: Do you play, do you cleaned, you worked the board?
Speaker 1: Or you just a songwriter? Well it all came down
Speaker 1: and around sixty four the band that Rick had in
Speaker 1: the studio was David Briggs and Huttingham and Jerry Carried
Speaker 1: that also happened to be Dan Penn and Apolar Bears.
Speaker 1: We we we traveled in a hearse and we went
Speaker 1: to all these fraternity parties at Alabama and Auburn, Missippi State,
Speaker 1: all around the South, and we played those every weekend.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, these guys were great. Now
Speaker 1: they were a great band, and they were great in
Speaker 1: the studio. But all of a sudden they got a
Speaker 1: call from somebody up here in Nashville and they wanted
Speaker 1: them to come to Nashville to be, uh be the
Speaker 1: session players, the new Bunch. So then they went to Nashville.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting in my car looking at the doorway
Speaker 1: of Fame and and I'm kind of I'm kind of
Speaker 1: kind of sad, you know. And I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what have you got to be sad about
Speaker 1: there at the door. Why don't you just walk through
Speaker 1: that door and learn everything you can about studio, about songwriting,
Speaker 1: about record production, about engineering. Don't you learn all you
Speaker 1: can about that and keep on writing songs. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I do. Walked in there, and I started.
Speaker 1: I started hanging out other people's sessions, like the people
Speaker 1: from Atlanta would come in Tommy Road, the town's people
Speaker 1: like that. And I was a gopher, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have anything on the session, but I'd say, you
Speaker 1: need cigarettes, you want some burgers, I go get them,
Speaker 1: and suddenly I was part of the session, you know.
Speaker 1: So so I started watching everything I could have sobered
Speaker 1: it and and it was quite a lot. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's what makes me what I am. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know how to do that apart. Okay, so how
Speaker 1: does I'm your puppet come together? Well? I just bought
Speaker 1: a little twelve string Stella guitar. Never had one before that.
Speaker 1: I bought one, little little brown one, had a sweet
Speaker 1: little sound. And you know, we have spent a way
Speaker 1: over the studio right and fixing it right, and I
Speaker 1: just break out that little stella and I started ding
Speaker 1: ding ding ding ding dinging, and he starts throwing cowords
Speaker 1: out of me. Thanks thing. I know, I'm singing about
Speaker 1: a little puppet because it sounded that way, and it
Speaker 1: was called the puppet. Strange, we get you. I'm the puppet. Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's the puppet all the way through. And I've
Speaker 1: always like things that were called the the letter the puppet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: these guys, these guys go up to James and Bubby
Speaker 1: purified Dan Shoulder brought them to fame, and I get
Speaker 1: the gig. By this time, I'm the second engineer, and
Speaker 1: so I'm engineering on I'm Your Puppet with the Pure
Speaker 1: Fire Brothers. And they had going upstairs like many artists did,
Speaker 1: and found on a song and they kind of changed
Speaker 1: it around a little bit, you know, they put they
Speaker 1: put it I'm your Puppet. Think they took it up
Speaker 1: about a click or two on the speed. I wasn't
Speaker 1: real crazy about all that. I thought, well, they're missing
Speaker 1: with my song. You know, when you're young, you don't
Speaker 1: want anybody playing around with your music. Uh. Later I
Speaker 1: found out everybody does. But anyway, I engineered the record,
Speaker 1: and you know, I didn't thank too much of it.
Speaker 1: Later it came out on the radio. I heard it,
Speaker 1: said him, great, I thought. Then when they sent me
Speaker 1: a check, I said, that's my favorite version. Okay. So
Speaker 1: how do you meet Spooner Roldham, same little place I
Speaker 1: met everybody I met? I met all the Paul Bear's
Speaker 1: Rick band, I met Spinner, I met Fritz, I met
Speaker 1: everybody that I ever met in muscle shows at that
Speaker 1: little studio up there, uh Tom Stafford's little place. It
Speaker 1: was called spar Music. So I met Spinner up there
Speaker 1: and he was laid back cat me and Donnie Fritz
Speaker 1: and wrote a couple of songs and Spinner. I've seen
Speaker 1: him play it, and I heard him play it, and
Speaker 1: I like the way he played. And we became pretty
Speaker 1: good friends. And we started hanging out right and sun
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes we'd write two songs to night.
Speaker 1: Sometimes two out of two was pretty good. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: didn't get anything, but most times we did. So I
Speaker 1: met him way back there. Okay, when you were writing
Speaker 1: all these songs, that theme was anybody cutting them and
Speaker 1: they were stiffs, or you just cut demos and nothing
Speaker 1: happened to him, basically that cut demos and nothing happened.
Speaker 1: You know, I said, we're righting all these songs pour
Speaker 1: nights a week, you might say, and so let's just
Speaker 1: say what average two songs. That's eight songs. That's eight
Speaker 1: songs a week. We ended up with like a hundred
Speaker 1: two songs, you know, and at that point not too
Speaker 1: many people were coming. I mean, you know, some of
Speaker 1: Tummy Road cut on here. Well, we got a backside
Speaker 1: on everybody, Everybody's got the Blue. We had one called
Speaker 1: sorry I'm Late Lisa. Not a very good song, but hey,
Speaker 1: my politics because we were in Rick House, uh production company.
Speaker 1: We got the cut. That's the way things happened in
Speaker 1: the music business. You know, you get a cut because
Speaker 1: somebody knows somebody or you know somebody and they like
Speaker 1: you and they look kind of like your song and
Speaker 1: they want to hip you out. So we we got
Speaker 1: cuts like that, We got backsides and we gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta Joe Simon cutter too, Let's do it over. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a big record, but it was a good record
Speaker 1: and we we we got the puppet and then Percy's
Speaker 1: Sledge came along and cut some of our songs, and
Speaker 1: and then other black artists. So you know, Rick would
Speaker 1: come to me and say, I got this guy I
Speaker 1: want to cut next Tuesday. I need something up tempo
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so I would go to work and
Speaker 1: sometimes I would tell Splender most time, and I said,
Speaker 1: we need en up tempo for this guy. And we
Speaker 1: would come up with something that he had cut. And
Speaker 1: Wilson Pickett, you know whoever come in to the studio. Uh,
Speaker 1: we got cut so like that, and was Spooner on
Speaker 1: Rick's pay roll too, Yes, he he was also five
Speaker 1: week when we first started, right and he wasn't, but
Speaker 1: Rick sent him a little bit later and we were
Speaker 1: both on his play room. Okay, so what's the next
Speaker 1: step after I'm your puppet? Well, a lot of cuts,
Speaker 1: but finally I could say I was a second edge here.
Speaker 1: So so Rick Hall came to me one day and said,
Speaker 1: Dan today at two o'clock because he's a black guy
Speaker 1: coming in here to try out. He wants he wants
Speaker 1: me to hear him, and I can't be here. Would
Speaker 1: you put down a tape on him? That's what? So
Speaker 1: around two o'clock here comes Percy Sledge, you I did
Speaker 1: not know, and two more guys friends of his, and
Speaker 1: they were dragging to be three organs, complete with Leslie,
Speaker 1: and they came into the studio. I threw up a
Speaker 1: few of my action and I cut this one song
Speaker 1: and it was something like all love your baby, and
Speaker 1: he had this descending cord line, which is what a
Speaker 1: man love. Well the way it got there with some
Speaker 1: friends of mine, but i'll tell you about that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I put him down and next day I played
Speaker 1: the tape to Rick. I said, Rick's guys, great, you're here.
Speaker 1: So I played it to him. He said, I don't
Speaker 1: think so I said, really, I said, you know what
Speaker 1: like this guy? He said, Now I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: hear it. Dan, I don't hear it. And I said,
Speaker 1: let me tell him I want to produce him. I
Speaker 1: don't do that either. And at that point, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm young. I'm trying to take a step further. I've
Speaker 1: done everything I can do in the studio. Sup I
Speaker 1: hadn't produced any records. So you know, my little brain
Speaker 1: starts clicking along. About that time, I run into a
Speaker 1: guy named Chip's moment and h he had a studio
Speaker 1: of Memphis. I went up feel a little been a
Speaker 1: few days with him and who became good friends. And
Speaker 1: my contract was coming to an end. He had a studio,
Speaker 1: and so I went to Memphis to go to work
Speaker 1: for American studios right, and I went to have a cause.
Speaker 1: I thought I could produce a record. And I added
Speaker 1: him in my in my mind, in my heart that
Speaker 1: I was going to cut ahead. Don't ask me how
Speaker 1: I know these things, but back then I knew. I
Speaker 1: just new things sometimes, you know, And I knew I
Speaker 1: was gonna cut ahead. And so I told Jips, me
Speaker 1: and him I'd gone around co producing, so to speak
Speaker 1: some stuff, and but basically he was cutting it and
Speaker 1: I was doing, oh yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: And finally I told him, I said, look, I want
Speaker 1: to cut a record by myself. I don't want you
Speaker 1: anywhere around or nobody else. I'm going to cut ahead.
Speaker 1: He looked at the kind of funny he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I said, give me your worst startist. I don't care it,
Speaker 1: don't have to be anybody. I was really really putting
Speaker 1: myself out there every time I did that back then,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty forward. So he walks. He said, okay,
Speaker 1: here's this little group. You can talk to them. So
Speaker 1: they came to the studio and they had a regular
Speaker 1: little band and they had this vocalist and he was
Speaker 1: carrying on, cussing a little and basically upsetting the vibes
Speaker 1: in the room. And I told their there their manager.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'll cut him, but bring me another singer.
Speaker 1: I can't work with this guy. So I said, number
Speaker 1: four song on this rail, right, he have and learned
Speaker 1: this song, and meet me here back here ten o'clock
Speaker 1: two weeks from saturday. Okay, they go away, and you
Speaker 1: know what to do. Get another singer. So the next
Speaker 1: that Saturday that they supposed to come. They walked right
Speaker 1: in with Alex Shieldon, whom I've never seen or heard of.
Speaker 1: I believe he was right around sixteen years old, and
Speaker 1: he knew the song. He said it meticulously. Just the
Speaker 1: talent right out of the box. You know. It's a
Speaker 1: nice guy. We're easy to work with, and you know,
Speaker 1: we cut We cut the letter that day and I
Speaker 1: thought it was a pretty good little record. But my goodness,
Speaker 1: it was one of the records of the years. You know,
Speaker 1: it was quite a quite a time. Okay, how did
Speaker 1: you find the letter? The song? Wayne Carson Chips gave
Speaker 1: me a tape they had, uh Like Wayne Carson, a
Speaker 1: great songwriter, had given him the tape and he had
Speaker 1: a lot of songs and I'd heard them all, but
Speaker 1: I liked that letter, so I got it from him.
Speaker 1: But I picked out the song. And okay, was the
Speaker 1: arrangement on the demo, like how you cut it? Well?
Speaker 1: The guitar, the little licks on the front, dude down
Speaker 1: there down there that was there Layne had played. But
Speaker 1: the but the horns and the strange and the airplane
Speaker 1: I put on airrowin so harfway there Okay. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing is all of Alex Chilton's vocals with the Box Top,
Speaker 1: except for maybe Neon Rainbow, are completely different from the
Speaker 1: ones he had with Big Star. His voice was gruffer.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us how you got that? Vocal? Just
Speaker 1: came out of him. I had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I never did hear a Big Star.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they sounded like, but I think
Speaker 1: it was like some of that stuff he played me
Speaker 1: back then. It was kind of like flower Child music.
Speaker 1: It was much softer and uh, kind of hippie music.
Speaker 1: I thought so, so I didn't do any of those
Speaker 1: so so later he did all that with a Big Star,
Speaker 1: but I never heard it. Okay. So the other thing
Speaker 1: about the letter, it's one of the shortest hit records
Speaker 1: of all time. Did you real I said when you
Speaker 1: were cutting it? No, I just I just I just
Speaker 1: cut how much Wayne had given me. There was a
Speaker 1: minute fifty eight or something I said on his demo,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think much of it. You know, back then,
Speaker 1: we had a we kind of had a wall. We
Speaker 1: to twenty to twenty was you it never need to
Speaker 1: go any fur them to twenty All the program directors.
Speaker 1: Anything over to twenty was. I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: but this was a minute fifty eight. I didn't think
Speaker 1: much of it. Later I said, that thing ain't but
Speaker 1: a minute fifty eight. But you know who that was
Speaker 1: a great thing because jocks could play it and in
Speaker 1: a few minutes they could play it again right to
Speaker 1: get paid again. Okay, so you cut it, you immediately
Speaker 1: know it's a hit record. No, Now, I knew it
Speaker 1: was a pretty good record. Chips told me. I plented
Speaker 1: to him one night. He said, we got you a
Speaker 1: pretty good little record or pie. And he said, if
Speaker 1: you'll take that airplane off, And I said, I got
Speaker 1: me a razor blade. And I picked the type up
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, I'll cut this tape right off
Speaker 1: the reel if you don't like it. He said, oh
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. I'm just he said,
Speaker 1: it's your record. I said, thank you, that's exactly red,
Speaker 1: it's my record. So so I got my way, and
Speaker 1: it would have been the same record without the airplane.
Speaker 1: I mean, those guys in Vietnam, you know, when they
Speaker 1: heard that, they just melted. They want to go home.
Speaker 1: I don't blame them. So how did the record become
Speaker 1: a hit, well, just overnight almost, you know. Uh, the
Speaker 1: old records picked it up and pressed it and put
Speaker 1: it out. And I don't know how it became a
Speaker 1: hit other than the fact that somebody started playing it
Speaker 1: and then somebody else and they started playing It's the
Speaker 1: same old thing, you know, but it got some promotion,
Speaker 1: it was worked on, and uh, I just became a
Speaker 1: pretty much overnight. Okay, you mentioned Vietnam. How do you
Speaker 1: get out of go into Vietnam? Well, I had a
Speaker 1: little football energy and injury. I told Daddy. I said
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out for football. And it was math grade.
Speaker 1: He said now, he said, you're too little. You will
Speaker 1: get hurt. And I waited about a hundred fift you know.
Speaker 1: I said, now, I'm tough, Daddy, I ain't gonna get hurt.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, you get hurt. He said, I don't
Speaker 1: want you going out. So I said, okay, So it's
Speaker 1: a small town, you know, so word it gets around.
Speaker 1: So I decided to go out for a cheerleader. Now
Speaker 1: I didn't not want to be a cheerleader, but I
Speaker 1: knew Daddy was here about it. So anyway, I went
Speaker 1: out for a cheerleader. I didn't get it. I made
Speaker 1: some arrangements, I forgot my yail. This all kind of
Speaker 1: stuff I did to keep from being and surely, but anyway,
Speaker 1: when I got home that day, then he said, son,
Speaker 1: He said, come here. He said, if you want to
Speaker 1: play football that bad you know, out there and hit it,
Speaker 1: He said, but you're gonna get hurt. Well I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't think much of that. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: was tough. I thought, so I go out on the foot.
Speaker 1: We got spring training. So I go out on on
Speaker 1: the field and I picked out the biggest guy out there,
Speaker 1: and I said, I will body will show him the boss.
Speaker 1: So I picked up the biggest guy and we were
Speaker 1: doing hit on, hit on, tackling and can't hit me?
Speaker 1: Big guy twice to belease me, he hit me, and
Speaker 1: I felt something kind of gilt, but I didn't think
Speaker 1: much about it because I was tough, you know. So
Speaker 1: I laying back up, and just as I was getting
Speaker 1: back up there and just a boy ready to hit
Speaker 1: him again, I said, I raised up as a coach.
Speaker 1: I think I hurt my arm when I hit this guy.
Speaker 1: I want to go. He was talked. He talked like
Speaker 1: that Brooks Johns, he said, catching stax Penticton's infirmary, and
Speaker 1: I think he broke his down arm. And sure enough
Speaker 1: I had two places, but I broke it up around
Speaker 1: the shoulder and down in here too. And they didn't
Speaker 1: even want to see me in Montgomery. They just sent
Speaker 1: to They just sent the the X ray in the
Speaker 1: next thing under I didn't have to go that he
Speaker 1: may find. Well, so now you cut the letter, it's
Speaker 1: a gigantic kit. Where does that leave you? In chips
Speaker 1: his eyes and opportunity wise, well, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: I had cut the biggest record in American studio. He
Speaker 1: didn't much think much of that. He was pretty egotistical
Speaker 1: about his cutting. You know, he was a great producer.
Speaker 1: I just happened to Lucky in Out of the Wire,
Speaker 1: you know, hit record which I said I was going
Speaker 1: to and uh, well, you know, they started cutting a
Speaker 1: lot of people to him and Tommy Cogbill and I
Speaker 1: would use the studio over at John Fry's. What's that
Speaker 1: artist studio that sometimes I have to go there to
Speaker 1: record my stuff the overdub I would I would track
Speaker 1: it American, but sometimes I couldn't get in to do
Speaker 1: what I needed to do, so I would take another studio,
Speaker 1: but it seemed to kind of go downheel from there.
Speaker 1: We h, we just didn't seem to be able to
Speaker 1: reconcile he So anyway, I hung around for a couple
Speaker 1: more years and a couple another year. So I just
Speaker 1: decided to build my own studio and to leave. And Uh,
Speaker 1: I think it mostly came from the fact that I'd
Speaker 1: cut ahead. It was bigger than any of he is
Speaker 1: at that time, so he was kind of a kind
Speaker 1: of a jealous guy, you know, And so I just
Speaker 1: split but out on my home. Okay, So how do
Speaker 1: you end up continuing to work with the uh box tops?
Speaker 1: You have more hits with the box tops? Are they
Speaker 1: aligned with Chips? Are they part of your thing? No?
Speaker 1: They were, they were his thing. They were signed to
Speaker 1: that company. I used up all my box top I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't cut anymore. I try left, so
Speaker 1: him and tog Chips and Tommy Tog Bill started cutting
Speaker 1: them and they cut sold eat, which was a big hit.
Speaker 1: I tried. I lived, but you know, I didn't cut
Speaker 1: him anymore. And then later he went to the the
Speaker 1: Jim Dixon thing, the big Star thing, and I never
Speaker 1: had any more contact with him until I was playing
Speaker 1: a showdown and we rys at the Stone they called
Speaker 1: it the Stone down there, and I was playing. I
Speaker 1: had a little part. I was playing, and I came off, stayed,
Speaker 1: I told my guitar, and Alex walked out on stage,
Speaker 1: got my guitar and carried it off stage for me.
Speaker 1: And we had a good time that night. We talked
Speaker 1: and we were good for friends. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some of them said he was mad at me, but
Speaker 1: he never had a reason. We always got along. Okay,
Speaker 1: you cut me on Rainbow. I love that song. Tell
Speaker 1: me the story on that. Okay, that was just one
Speaker 1: of the first the first album and I love that song.
Speaker 1: Was another White Carson song, and I just love that
Speaker 1: who Lilt, you know? And I thought it was a smash,
Speaker 1: but you know, it only sold about a half a million,
Speaker 1: which which wasn't you know the four million on the
Speaker 1: letter initially. And all of a sudden, I get a
Speaker 1: call I'm done at the world fare and send him
Speaker 1: tone me and Wayne and actually we're on our way
Speaker 1: to Mexico with our lives and h so we are
Speaker 1: we were down there. I get it. I called into
Speaker 1: the Bail Records. I was supposed to check in that again,
Speaker 1: and I called him and I said, okay, what's up.
Speaker 1: They said, well, me on Rainbow's coming off the chart.
Speaker 1: It ain't setting really no, it's not selling. So the
Speaker 1: half a million I saw, I said, well, a good
Speaker 1: bit and he said, no, that's not nothing. What the
Speaker 1: other song gone? So suddenly I'm on. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: you know, they're expected me to come up with another letter.
Speaker 1: That's when. And nobody was sending me And he saw
Speaker 1: Wayne and quit setting me songs. Nobody would send me songs. Uh,
Speaker 1: they just weren't coming my way. And I called Sputter
Speaker 1: and I said, we got to write to the next
Speaker 1: box top of it. Okay, fine, he said, so we
Speaker 1: get together on anyway, if we get together on a
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, I had set the session up from maybe
Speaker 1: Thursday morning. Got to all the guys called and go
Speaker 1: cut it America and figure men, Spooner would come up
Speaker 1: with a song. Well, we just tried and tried and tried,
Speaker 1: and we'd tire up paper, throw it in the can,
Speaker 1: and we drank coffee and we did all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff trying to come to a place that we had
Speaker 1: to hit nothing nothing. Finally, in despair, we decided, as
Speaker 1: but let's go home, he said, right. So we go
Speaker 1: across the street to this little barbecue place. It was open.
Speaker 1: It was thirty six in the morning, and we walked
Speaker 1: in and we ordered were setting it. We're setting it
Speaker 1: a little booth and you know, just out of no
Speaker 1: wor Sputter put his head over on the table. I mean,
Speaker 1: he said, I could cry like a baby. I said,
Speaker 1: what did you say? He said, cry like a baby.
Speaker 1: That's a spoon, that's it. It hit me just like
Speaker 1: a lightning boat. And then he hit him, and certainly
Speaker 1: we were alive. Now we had just about died, but
Speaker 1: we were alive. I told her chat, I said, just
Speaker 1: keep the money. I thought it was the money. I
Speaker 1: should keep the food. We don't need it now. So
Speaker 1: here we go back across the street and I got
Speaker 1: the key in the studio. Always had us cheated the
Speaker 1: studio whatever studioized that. And so you know, time we
Speaker 1: got to the key to the to the lock already had.
Speaker 1: When I think about the good love you gave me,
Speaker 1: I cry like a baby. To tune in, we go,
Speaker 1: I said, Sputter, get to get to get the the
Speaker 1: B three back on, I'll turn on the the board
Speaker 1: and stuff. We've just been in there. You know, there's
Speaker 1: still So we turned it on and and I put
Speaker 1: on a quarter inch reel, a quarter inach tape, a
Speaker 1: big wheel, and we wrote the song. How that reel
Speaker 1: was was recording. And when we came back in the
Speaker 1: control and heard it, I said, I ain't leaving this building.
Speaker 1: And this is about seven in the morning. He said
Speaker 1: me neither. And you know, we just washed our face,
Speaker 1: drank another cup of coffee and waited him out, waiting
Speaker 1: for the band that came in come in. And when
Speaker 1: Alex heard that, he said, all right, So he was.
Speaker 1: He was really in the cry like a baby. Can
Speaker 1: you tell that day? How long did it take to
Speaker 1: actually cut it? Well, it took about two hours. We
Speaker 1: might have you know, we we got sounds and then
Speaker 1: we got We probably went through it three or four times.
Speaker 1: And it was a three track. America was three track
Speaker 1: at that time, so I had all the ban on
Speaker 1: one track, I had Alex on one track, and I
Speaker 1: had an empty track and that's where I put my
Speaker 1: horns and strange right there. And at the end when
Speaker 1: Alex had quit singing. I had a little space. That's
Speaker 1: where I put the airplane. Okay, so now you build
Speaker 1: your own studio. Where do you build your studio? There
Speaker 1: in Memphis? Uh over on what was that stream Highland
Speaker 1: Highland Street of beautiful Sounds. It was a good studio.
Speaker 1: But I never did do much over there. Uh I
Speaker 1: cut nobody's food over that on myself, and I did
Speaker 1: a record on B. J. Thomas that never come out.
Speaker 1: But I was not a businessman, still ain't. But and
Speaker 1: I'm still doing a bit of drinking. And eventually I
Speaker 1: lost the studio. You know. Ever, you don't ever gain
Speaker 1: until you lose something, you know. But I learned a
Speaker 1: lot in that exchange. So but I had about I
Speaker 1: had about the land in the building, so I didn't
Speaker 1: lose everything, but I did lose my equipment that I
Speaker 1: put in there. But you know, like I say, I'm
Speaker 1: no business man. I can do business, but I don't
Speaker 1: really know how. Now you say you learned a number
Speaker 1: of things, can you tell us a couple of things
Speaker 1: you learned? Well, you just learned sometime not to trust people.
Speaker 1: It's bad and it's sad, but you know, you've got
Speaker 1: to get things rolled down on the piece of paper
Speaker 1: if you're gonna claim your part. So I learned that.
Speaker 1: I learned that you can't drink on the job. Uh.
Speaker 1: I learned that business just ain't gonna come in just
Speaker 1: because you're kind of hit. Okay, the studio closes what
Speaker 1: you're moved. After that, I came. I came to Nashville. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I had a little studio there in Memphis
Speaker 1: in a little carriage house back there a year, maybe
Speaker 1: a year or two, and it was a little forward track,
Speaker 1: and I've wrote songs and put them down and hang
Speaker 1: out there. But then we moved to Nashville and send
Speaker 1: me fo the December, sent me forward. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: have a number of hits. How's your economic situation, because
Speaker 1: you talked about not getting paid by Conway Twitty song.
Speaker 1: Are you making enough or in the down periods are
Speaker 1: you're scraping by? Well? You know, I was making okay
Speaker 1: until when when Martin Luther King got killed the Memphis
Speaker 1: and that changed everything. Well, the black singers quick coming
Speaker 1: to the to the white armed studios, and then it
Speaker 1: just went downhill, and I would writing for all these people,
Speaker 1: you know, and so suddenly they didn't need my songs.
Speaker 1: They weren't fair. And so there was a big, big
Speaker 1: space there that I just didn't write much. I was
Speaker 1: kind of kind of mixed up during that point. I
Speaker 1: didn't know just what my next move was going to be.
Speaker 1: But I came to Nashville not to be a country writer,
Speaker 1: but just just to be some kind of writer, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was trying to keep on going and
Speaker 1: and during that time, I wouldn't do it really that
Speaker 1: as you say, I wouldn't I wouldn't flush with money. Uh.
Speaker 1: Around seven I came here and seventy five, around seventy eight,
Speaker 1: Linda walts is n tells me I need to take
Speaker 1: the I need to take the bringing off the phone
Speaker 1: in the garage. I said why, She said, that's five
Speaker 1: dollars a month. She said, we're we're running low. We
Speaker 1: need to just cut everything we can out. And I said, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So I went long after that that that the Commitment
Speaker 1: movie came out and they had cut Do Right Woman
Speaker 1: and Dark down the Street a good job on him too.
Speaker 1: That with those people did a great job, little Irish movie.
Speaker 1: And suddenly they started sending me checks again, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, maybe we're not through. You know,
Speaker 1: there's all kind of doubt. Can can feel your mind
Speaker 1: when when you're not writing. Okay, so how does uh
Speaker 1: reath end up cutting? Uh do right Woman? Well, I
Speaker 1: have back in sixty seven. I believe sixty seven. I
Speaker 1: guess six d nine. Well I just left. I guess
Speaker 1: you're sixty seven. I left muscle shows in sixty six
Speaker 1: and come to American in Memphis, And so the moment
Speaker 1: and I running around together, we wrote Dark on the
Speaker 1: Street and uh do Right Woman, kind of you know,
Speaker 1: close space, and uh so he got cold to play
Speaker 1: guitar on the Aretha Franklin. She was Don't Cut It
Speaker 1: fame and he was a great gutar player at that time.
Speaker 1: And uh so I said, hey, I'm going to You know,
Speaker 1: we were we were parted, so I've jumped in and
Speaker 1: went to But right before we went down there, we
Speaker 1: put a little tape down and just see him playing
Speaker 1: guitar and me singing dark and the streaming do right Woman.
Speaker 1: So we get down to most of the shows and
Speaker 1: they cut I Never Loved a Man the Way I
Speaker 1: Love You, which was a big hit and we all
Speaker 1: knew it and everybody knew it, and they knew it
Speaker 1: so well that everybody started drinking a little and before
Speaker 1: you know it. So anyway, Mr Wex and Jared Waxer
Speaker 1: came to me. I'll go back to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But he came to me and said, hey, damn baby,
Speaker 1: he said, I'll cut that, do right, song said? She
Speaker 1: played it to me. I want to go, okay, but
Speaker 1: there's no words for the bridge. I said, well, we
Speaker 1: can get you some words. Uh okay, I said, just
Speaker 1: give me a few minutes. So I went over to
Speaker 1: this little closet and I'm over there and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to come up with something, all right, So I said, well,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite song? And I had to say it
Speaker 1: was It's a Man's Well. So that was my favorite
Speaker 1: song at the time, and that's one of my favorite ships.
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, they say it's a Man's World.
Speaker 1: Wrote that down. Now I'm stumped again. Mr X, I
Speaker 1: can said in the door, said hey, Dan, honey, baby,
Speaker 1: what you got from me? I said, that's what I got, Jerry,
Speaker 1: they say that this Man's World. He said, I've got
Speaker 1: your next part. I said, what's that? He said, But
Speaker 1: you can't prove that by me. Note that, Dawn, I said,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jerry, And then you know, I've got two
Speaker 1: lines now. And the next thing I know, Reatha sticks
Speaker 1: curiad in the door. Hey Dan, honey, what you got
Speaker 1: full wreath? And I said, this is what I got.
Speaker 1: Reason they say that it's a man's world, but you
Speaker 1: can't prove that by me. She said, I've got your
Speaker 1: next part and I said, what's that? She said, as
Speaker 1: long as we work together, baby, shows some respect from me.
Speaker 1: I wrote that down. Thank you a Wretha. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden we had words for the bridge. So now
Speaker 1: I gotta go out and saying she she she likes it,
Speaker 1: but she she is not ready to make a commitment
Speaker 1: to sing it. So now I gotta go sing the
Speaker 1: pilot vocal in her key. She had found her key,
Speaker 1: and man was it high. It was way up there.
Speaker 1: So I go out and I'm doing the pilot and
Speaker 1: when we run through it about once, maybe the twice
Speaker 1: second run through, and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: look around and everybody's gone, and I'm standing at the mic,
Speaker 1: and I go, what's this? And so find it? I
Speaker 1: think when the secretaries came in and said Dan the
Speaker 1: sessions over. I said, what's wrong? She said, Jerry's pulling
Speaker 1: her out of here. He's taken her back to New York.
Speaker 1: It's a no kid. So I said to myself, well,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna make any money today, you know, because
Speaker 1: it was not coming off. It was just playing down,
Speaker 1: you know, and the dude right, and I was way
Speaker 1: up high and it sanded off. And so then later
Speaker 1: Mr Wexford said, called everybody to come to New York
Speaker 1: to finish the album. Well I said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: So sure enough I did, and I go up there
Speaker 1: and just as we come out of the Heedlevate, just
Speaker 1: we come out of the elevator, Jerry said, Daniel and
Speaker 1: Chips come with me, and we went down to the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Control room and he played as the do Right
Speaker 1: Woman with the wreath of players piano, her and her
Speaker 1: sisters singing. It was big time magic. It still is.
Speaker 1: I play it nine, it's like, wow, what a record.
Speaker 1: And when it left Alabama, it was it didn't even
Speaker 1: what name nuts Moats, it was just nuts. We'll then
Speaker 1: to get that in a minute. Okay. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: having been to a couple of these places, the radically
Speaker 1: different I mean, Nashville is very different from Memphis. I
Speaker 1: haven't been to Muscle. Soul has been to Alabama just barely.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us the difference between all those places. Well,
Speaker 1: I can just say you in recording, uh, recording language,
Speaker 1: Muscle shows well, Memphis, let's go in Memphis. Memphis is
Speaker 1: down on them on the Mississippi River, and it's just
Speaker 1: so such a magical city. It was really before Dr
Speaker 1: King got shot, but it was when I rolled in
Speaker 1: there at sixty six. It was clean, it was magical,
Speaker 1: and you know, you could look in some of those
Speaker 1: ladies eyes and I almost get song. They carried songs
Speaker 1: in their eyes. And and then you come to Nishville
Speaker 1: and Nashville and it's like low. It's like it's got
Speaker 1: the low mids and the base and the middle and
Speaker 1: some highs but not over highs. You come to Nashville
Speaker 1: and it's it's a wonderful place to record also, but
Speaker 1: it's it's up in the it's more mountains, it's in
Speaker 1: the high end of things. You still can get the base,
Speaker 1: but you need to go direct because it's not the
Speaker 1: same recording air that Memphis has got. It's different. Sea level,
Speaker 1: sea level see the sea level is different, and then
Speaker 1: you go down to Muscle Show and it's just almost
Speaker 1: in between them. So Muscle Shows it's a fantastic place
Speaker 1: to record because of the sea level. It's down a little,
Speaker 1: but it ain't down its flow. And then New Orleans
Speaker 1: does don't even lower. You know, the Memphis and and
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a lower sea level. It's
Speaker 1: a great place to record, but my favorite place is Memphis. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: ultimately after you leave, there's a schism in Muscle Shoals
Speaker 1: where Barry Beckett and those guys start Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
Speaker 1: Do you have a take on that? Well, I wasn't around,
Speaker 1: but I do know kind of what happened. You know,
Speaker 1: they went over and built their own studio with the
Speaker 1: help of Jerry Wexler. He was and behind that because
Speaker 1: I guess him and Rick had had a few following
Speaker 1: out things. But anyway, they built their own studio and
Speaker 1: Jerry started setting people there, and people started coming there,
Speaker 1: and they cut a lot of hit records in that
Speaker 1: a little place. But you know, that's about all I
Speaker 1: know of it. They did go on down later to
Speaker 1: the river and built a bigger studio. That's where I
Speaker 1: cut do right man, So you know that it was
Speaker 1: a happening thing. But Rick got You know, you can't
Speaker 1: stop Rick Hall. He would he just he just looked around.
Speaker 1: He got a bunch of other music and he kept
Speaker 1: on going. He got some more writers. He you can't
Speaker 1: stop him. You know. I couldn't do that. I couldn't
Speaker 1: put just put put a band together just because I
Speaker 1: needed them. I mean, I couldn't do it because the
Speaker 1: drummers probably gone quit before nightfall. I couldn't put up
Speaker 1: with all of that. But Rick could when he went
Speaker 1: through people and he would he would teach him how
Speaker 1: to record. And he's the daddy of the muscle show.
Speaker 1: Sound okay. You mentioned Dr King being shot. How much
Speaker 1: was racism a factor with you growing up being in
Speaker 1: the music business, being in the South, it was zero.
Speaker 1: I didn't Where I came up in Vernlon, there was
Speaker 1: no racism. There wasn't hardly any black folks. There was
Speaker 1: a few lived outside of town there, but I had
Speaker 1: no contact with him until I got the Muscle Show
Speaker 1: to Florence and I met author Alexander and so it
Speaker 1: never was a real big never hit me in the
Speaker 1: face until I saw TV. Well at night, you know,
Speaker 1: i'd see what's happening on the TV. You know, I went, wow,
Speaker 1: that's strange. But really never never did affect me that much. Okay,
Speaker 1: I see you're wearing overalls, and you're also wearing them
Speaker 1: in some of the photos. Is that a fashion choice
Speaker 1: or if you always warn your overalls, how do you
Speaker 1: decide to wear them? Well? I put a pair on
Speaker 1: one day and it was so neat, lots of pockets,
Speaker 1: lots of space, just you know, I mean, I'm built
Speaker 1: for comfort, not for speed, and and and you know,
Speaker 1: I just kept going. I kept I just kept for
Speaker 1: wearing them. And I don't think I've warned anything else.
Speaker 1: Maybe a funeral. I might have war with pair of
Speaker 1: slacks to my mama's funeral. But otherwise I've got new
Speaker 1: ones that I wear on the show. I wear him
Speaker 1: on the show. But I but I do this, you know,
Speaker 1: I put it. I put a real nice shirt over.
Speaker 1: And if people come up and they'll say, I thought
Speaker 1: you were gonna wear your old wrongs, and I said,
Speaker 1: well I did, They said I said see, and then
Speaker 1: they then they're happy. So now it's become a thing
Speaker 1: you know, for my gigs, they expect overalls and I
Speaker 1: got them. You know, I weren't because they're there the
Speaker 1: comfortless things in this world. And prior to this COVID era,
Speaker 1: how much were you working on the road? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I just take. I've always just taken what what what
Speaker 1: comes in and I booked my own stylf. So I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to to work every night, you know, or
Speaker 1: too to be a road musician. I'm not bill right
Speaker 1: for that. I always knew I wouldn't and that and
Speaker 1: working in the studio was just right for me. But
Speaker 1: before the COVID thing, I guess I was playing once
Speaker 1: plast a month. Oh really that much? Another question is
Speaker 1: you talk about being young, drinking, staying up all night.
Speaker 1: How did you keep your marriage together. I had a
Speaker 1: good woman better than me, and she put up with
Speaker 1: a lot. She still wouldn't Uh, I gave it all
Speaker 1: to her. She she was very good. Okay. And you
Speaker 1: also mentioned working lead at night. Do you find your
Speaker 1: more creative later in the day or it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter later in the day. Definitely, I'm I'm no good
Speaker 1: in the morning for nothing. Uh. You know, back there
Speaker 1: at one Daddy fixed me up a mute and cloud
Speaker 1: and stuff. When he go to the becoming planet, him
Speaker 1: and Mama. That would be about six thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: We'll be having breakfast and he'd tell me all these
Speaker 1: things he wanted me to do, and when they left,
Speaker 1: I'd go back to bed and i'd sleep to my
Speaker 1: common nine thirty. That's that was when my body woke up.
Speaker 1: And then I just run real fast all day trying
Speaker 1: to get done what he wanted. I usually made it,
Speaker 1: but I'm not a morning person. And I started waking
Speaker 1: up about one. Uh that on the clock, I'm pretty good. Uh.
Speaker 1: I hit my stride if if I'm writing with somebody
Speaker 1: around midnight, and we're good for a while. And so
Speaker 1: if you're not writing, if you're in the COVID era,
Speaker 1: what time do you go to bed? Oh? I go
Speaker 1: to bed about eight o'clock, but I'll watched the tube
Speaker 1: two until I fall asleep. Okay, And to what did
Speaker 1: we are you writing with other people over these last
Speaker 1: few years? Well, not not as much as I was.
Speaker 1: I used to would write with anybody, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'd ask them if they didn't ask me, just a
Speaker 1: stranger somebody that wrote, and we get together here in Nashville.
Speaker 1: I wrote with a lot of people that lived here,
Speaker 1: but pretty soon that that kind of run than to me.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get, I wouldn't want, I wouldn't getting much
Speaker 1: out of my gut. It was mostly coming out of
Speaker 1: my head, uh brain, songs all thought up. You know,
Speaker 1: a good song writers. But you know, lately I hadn't
Speaker 1: been with Spoon or a good while. We're going to
Speaker 1: probably get back together one of these days. But I
Speaker 1: wrote one one song with Buzz Chasing for this album,
Speaker 1: particularly far, And then I wrote two songs with Will McFarland,
Speaker 1: the guitar player on this album, two new songs and
Speaker 1: three with him, and I wrote two songs by myself,
Speaker 1: which is kind of odd, but I wrote him, and
Speaker 1: that's why I got to that here. Hey, you got
Speaker 1: some songs here, and you've got a few laying around you, like,
Speaker 1: why don't you cut a record? Okay, that comes full
Speaker 1: circle before we get to the conclusion, though, What is
Speaker 1: it about writing with someone else that is so appealing? Well,
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's more fun these people who can write
Speaker 1: by themselves and have fun. I don't know about I
Speaker 1: don't I can't do that I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: write one every once in a while by myself. I
Speaker 1: get serious enough to write a song by myself. But
Speaker 1: if I'm writing with somebody else, there is a fun
Speaker 1: factor that just comes into the verbal. I mean, we
Speaker 1: might tell a joke, you know, if nothing's happening. If
Speaker 1: we sat here for forty five minutes and nobody hits
Speaker 1: the chord, nobody talks about a song idea, nothing's happened,
Speaker 1: we might go boating, we might go to a movie.
Speaker 1: We gotta keep things moving, we gotta move around a
Speaker 1: little bit until the time of the night is right,
Speaker 1: all the afternoon is right, that the idea hits somebody,
Speaker 1: or the chord change hits somebody, but being able to
Speaker 1: bounce it off of somebody you respect. Usually I try
Speaker 1: to write with musicians who are better than I am.
Speaker 1: I'm a fair guitar strummer. I can keep with it,
Speaker 1: but I'm not a picker. But I write with some
Speaker 1: of these people who can really play, and that's really helpful. Okay,
Speaker 1: you talked about crying like a baby, We're lightning struck,
Speaker 1: and then you also talked about making a commitment to
Speaker 1: writing a song. Our songs better if they come from
Speaker 1: pure inspiration, or they can they be equally as good
Speaker 1: if you sit down and make a commitment. Hey, we
Speaker 1: don't have anything. We're gonna start right now. Either one
Speaker 1: can be just as good as the other. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we have to pull him out of the
Speaker 1: air when we got nothing. You know, I always looked
Speaker 1: at it that one. I mean, God's got them adel
Speaker 1: up there if you don't. If you got one and
Speaker 1: you don't write it tonight, somebody else. You know, we
Speaker 1: wrote down your puppet wasn't wasn't when a month went by, Uh,
Speaker 1: we heard this song by others. I'm just a puppet
Speaker 1: on a string. So I think these ideas are serpenting
Speaker 1: around up here in the in the atmosphere, some of them,
Speaker 1: and you can have one if you can just make
Speaker 1: the commitment. You've got to commit to do it. You know,
Speaker 1: you you can't be playing. If you commit to write
Speaker 1: a song by yourself or with somebody else, you're all
Speaker 1: in like a h and you might win. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you've had a great commitment to your new
Speaker 1: album and people should really listen to it. That's living
Speaker 1: on mercy, And thanks so much for making the commitment.
Speaker 1: To talk to me. Thank you, Bob, thanks for calling me.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob luft Sense