1
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

2
00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:08,360
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. Last week we lost one of

3
00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:13,400
Speaker 1: the greats singer songwriter, folk rock legend, and hands down

4
00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:16,200
Speaker 1: one of the kindest people I've ever met. In the

5
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:20,720
Speaker 1: making of this podcast, musician Gordon Lightfoot, I wanted to

6
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:24,079
Speaker 1: take a moment to remember Lightfoot and his influence on

7
00:00:24,239 --> 00:00:28,080
Speaker 1: all who were lucky enough to hear his music. Lightfoot

8
00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 1: was on a short list of music legends I was

9
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,879
Speaker 1: anxious to interview. The opportunity finally presented itself while I

10
00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:38,440
Speaker 1: was attending the Toronto Film Festival. He was one of

11
00:00:38,479 --> 00:00:42,360
Speaker 1: my favorite artists and he will be deeply missed. Here's

12
00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:49,000
Speaker 1: my twenty sixteen conversation with the late Gordon Lightfoot.

13
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:09,200
Speaker 2: At times, I just don't know.

14
00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:15,319
Speaker 3: How you could be anything but beautiful.

15
00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:18,600
Speaker 1: Over the course of a career that has lasted more

16
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:23,280
Speaker 1: than fifty years, Canadian singer songwriter Gordon Lightfoot has achieved

17
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:31,160
Speaker 1: global stardom and exceptional influence. Bob Dylan's a fan. About

18
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:34,600
Speaker 1: Lightfoot's songs, Dylan said, I can't think of any I

19
00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:38,440
Speaker 1: don't like these songs, which include Beautiful, The Wreck of

20
00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:41,360
Speaker 1: the Edmund Fitzgerald If you could Read My Mind, and

21
00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:45,480
Speaker 1: many others have been treasured by generations of popular musicians

22
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:49,920
Speaker 1: and listeners around the world. Many people know about the

23
00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:53,000
Speaker 1: folk music revival that brought Bob Dylan to New York

24
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,080
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties, but north of the border

25
00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,600
Speaker 1: there was an equivalent explosion of talent at that time,

26
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:03,080
Speaker 1: and Lightfoot, who got his start singing in boys choirs,

27
00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:07,400
Speaker 1: found himself heading to Canada's cultural capital to try his luck.

28
00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:11,960
Speaker 3: Beautiful Well, I was down in Toronto here looking for work,

29
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 3: and I got a job as a cooral performer in

30
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:20,240
Speaker 3: a television series that was on every week. And at

31
00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:23,959
Speaker 3: the same time I branched out and began working in

32
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:29,480
Speaker 3: the folk oriented places. Because the folk revival had occurred

33
00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 3: around about nineteen sixty and I would have been maybe

34
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:38,120
Speaker 3: twenty years old there about twenty one, and so I'd

35
00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:40,760
Speaker 3: be working on the TV show in the daytime and

36
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:42,959
Speaker 3: going out and working at the coffeehouses at night.

37
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:47,480
Speaker 1: No, you had a period where you wrote jingles for commercials. Correct.

38
00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:49,160
Speaker 1: I tried to make a living.

39
00:02:49,639 --> 00:02:51,760
Speaker 3: They locked me in a room one time, a manager

40
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,920
Speaker 3: in a place on Madison Avenue and just left me

41
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:56,000
Speaker 3: there all afternoon.

42
00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:56,560
Speaker 1: How'd that go?

43
00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:00,560
Speaker 3: Well? I wrote the commercial, but they they didn't like it.

44
00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,320
Speaker 1: They didn't play your version of the commercial. But you didn't.

45
00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:05,919
Speaker 1: You didn't. You went in New York for a long time?

46
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 3: Correct, Well, I would go back and forth in New

47
00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:11,240
Speaker 3: York all the time because my management company was in

48
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,880
Speaker 3: New York. I was one of the fortunate ones who

49
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,560
Speaker 3: was able to acquire a management situation south of the border,

50
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:20,560
Speaker 3: so to speak, down in the States, and that was

51
00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:25,400
Speaker 3: in New York. And he was a great manager. He

52
00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,919
Speaker 3: recognized my songwriting ability immediately, and I got a couple

53
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:33,880
Speaker 3: of tunes recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, and one

54
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:36,600
Speaker 3: of them went up to number five on the Board

55
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:38,200
Speaker 3: chart for loving me.

56
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:47,160
Speaker 1: That's what you get, full loving me. That's what you get,

57
00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:48,080
Speaker 1: full loving me.

58
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,400
Speaker 2: Everything it was gone, as.

59
00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 4: You can see, that's what you get for love.

60
00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:05,760
Speaker 3: And so I was introduced to the industry in the

61
00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:08,880
Speaker 3: States really as a songwriter before they even knew that

62
00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,640
Speaker 3: I sang, you know it was. It sort of happened

63
00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:14,040
Speaker 3: on its own.

64
00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:15,600
Speaker 1: Do you think you would have been Do you think

65
00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:18,039
Speaker 1: you would have been happy to just stay in that

66
00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,760
Speaker 1: place and just produce records and write music and was

67
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:23,880
Speaker 1: performing the goal all along? Did you want? Were you

68
00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:25,040
Speaker 1: itching to do that? Oh?

69
00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:29,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I wanted to even as a child, you know,

70
00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:33,479
Speaker 3: I didn't mind singing in my grandmother's house on the

71
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,360
Speaker 3: Sunday get togethers. You know, they would single me out

72
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:40,880
Speaker 3: and I would solo. I enjoyed the feel of the

73
00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:46,479
Speaker 3: communication that and I could feel it then. That's what

74
00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 3: I feel now. I feel a communication when I have

75
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,440
Speaker 3: a wonderful band and we have a great repertoire and

76
00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:55,760
Speaker 3: we just lay the stuff right out there.

77
00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:57,160
Speaker 1: For them, just pure joy.

78
00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:01,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I enjoy doing that. But when you were take

79
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:04,440
Speaker 3: care if it pays the bills, that's.

80
00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:08,560
Speaker 1: A that's a desirable silver lining there. Yeah, all that

81
00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:12,240
Speaker 1: hard work, well, but when you were writing, when you

82
00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,919
Speaker 1: turn that corner and singing takes over. You know.

83
00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:18,880
Speaker 3: I was doing like like small time stuff, and all

84
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:23,040
Speaker 3: of a sudden I was asked to come to New

85
00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 3: York and open for Paul Butterfield concert nineteen sixty six thereabouts.

86
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,640
Speaker 1: I suppose sixty So you won the radio then recording.

87
00:05:33,279 --> 00:05:35,719
Speaker 3: No, we didn't actually get on the radio until about

88
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:36,800
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one.

89
00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:38,760
Speaker 1: What was the first song that I mean? I have

90
00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:40,279
Speaker 1: a list here. But what was the if you could

91
00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:40,839
Speaker 1: read my mind.

92
00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 3: If you could read my mind, if you knew that ghost.

93
00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:52,560
Speaker 4: Is me and I won't be sad as long as

94
00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:56,200
Speaker 4: time I'm a ghost. You can't see.

95
00:05:57,839 --> 00:05:59,880
Speaker 3: The record was that it was my first album on

96
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,280
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers, and it was out for eight months and

97
00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:08,000
Speaker 3: there was no single, and all of a sudden other promotion.

98
00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:11,320
Speaker 3: Guys said to his girlfriend, we listen to this and

99
00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:14,760
Speaker 3: come back and give me an opinion. On Monday morning,

100
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:17,280
Speaker 3: his girlfriend she likes, if you could read my.

101
00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:22,559
Speaker 4: Mind, where the hard he is gone, the hero would

102
00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:23,080
Speaker 4: be me.

103
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:26,520
Speaker 3: Hero of.

104
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:36,320
Speaker 2: You won't read that book because the endangers.

105
00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:39,120
Speaker 1: If you could read my mind hits the charts, so

106
00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:42,159
Speaker 1: to speak, it becomes a big hit for you. What

107
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:44,520
Speaker 1: changes for you, Like did you have to sit there

108
00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:48,040
Speaker 1: and say, oh, people are telling you to do things

109
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:50,000
Speaker 1: differently and now you're going to be a success and

110
00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:51,200
Speaker 1: they want you to We.

111
00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:54,279
Speaker 3: Get so busy we got to hire an aircraft. Literally,

112
00:06:54,480 --> 00:06:57,000
Speaker 3: that's what happened. We had to hire an aircraft. Everyone

113
00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:01,040
Speaker 3: wants to book, say, get the same place two different

114
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:02,080
Speaker 3: places in one day.

115
00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:06,640
Speaker 1: So when you reached that point, that and then that

116
00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:09,320
Speaker 1: turning point is the is the next imperative. You've got

117
00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:11,440
Speaker 1: to start coming up with more songs and writing more songs.

118
00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:13,679
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you record. Yeah.

119
00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:18,840
Speaker 3: We made three more albums and nothing happened. But I

120
00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 3: kept doing one a year and something had to give eventually,

121
00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:25,760
Speaker 3: And then one summer I wrote that song Sundown, and

122
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:29,120
Speaker 3: I knew that it was it was going to happen,

123
00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,520
Speaker 3: that it was it was the right thing, and it did.

124
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,320
Speaker 3: When we're up to number one. That was our second one.

125
00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 3: Then it was almost seven two albums later that we

126
00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:42,120
Speaker 3: had the record the Abne Fitzgerald, and that happened all

127
00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:47,840
Speaker 3: by itself too. That became a responsibility. It did a

128
00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:49,680
Speaker 3: very large responsibil.

129
00:07:49,280 --> 00:07:52,880
Speaker 1: The song became a responsible But tell me in your

130
00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,320
Speaker 1: own words. Many people go on about that, about the

131
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:57,800
Speaker 1: tragedy and the history, and it's a very, you know,

132
00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:01,800
Speaker 1: important song to people, you know history. People talk about

133
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:04,160
Speaker 1: it very reverentially. Why was it important to you?

134
00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:11,960
Speaker 3: Because it was only one verse contained any conjecture of

135
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,280
Speaker 3: any kind of the rest of it was taken from

136
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:18,840
Speaker 3: directly from newspaper articles and the aftermath, which only lasted

137
00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:21,600
Speaker 3: for about three days. If I had not wrote that song,

138
00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:26,480
Speaker 3: everybody would have forgotten about it. A week after it happened,

139
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:33,000
Speaker 3: I said, people are all around the Great Lakes area

140
00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:36,120
Speaker 3: are going to wonder if the song is appropriate. And

141
00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:40,240
Speaker 3: some did wonder about it, whether it was appropriate for

142
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:42,400
Speaker 3: me to have written a song of that kind. But

143
00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 3: I had gone pretty much with the newspaper articles that

144
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:51,360
Speaker 3: I scraped up. We had no CPS in those days,

145
00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:54,560
Speaker 3: and you went back that you went to the publisher

146
00:08:54,640 --> 00:09:00,840
Speaker 3: and got the back copies of the newspapers. And it's accurate.

147
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:06,240
Speaker 3: It's accurate in the way the story on folds. I

148
00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:08,360
Speaker 3: remember the night I wrote it. I was working in

149
00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:11,600
Speaker 3: a deserted house and there was a heck of a

150
00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:15,200
Speaker 3: windstorm going on right in Toronto that night, and I

151
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,840
Speaker 3: remember myself wondering, Gee, I wonder what it's like up

152
00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:21,440
Speaker 3: on the Great Lakes right now, because I sailed up

153
00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,200
Speaker 3: there myself. I had a couple of two different sailboats

154
00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:28,040
Speaker 3: up there, and wondered always, I wonder what the Great

155
00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:31,400
Speaker 3: Lakes are like tonight, because you're always hearing about what

156
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,280
Speaker 3: things happening up in the Great Lakes. And eleven o'clock

157
00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:37,040
Speaker 3: in the evening there was a report of a ship

158
00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:41,480
Speaker 3: sinking three hours earlier in the Lake Superior, and they're

159
00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:45,880
Speaker 3: out looking for the people, and they never found any

160
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:51,120
Speaker 3: of them, and twenty nine people gone. And I had

161
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:55,199
Speaker 3: a melody, and I had some cords that I was

162
00:09:55,400 --> 00:10:00,559
Speaker 3: knocking around in this deserted house with the wind howling outside.

163
00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,040
Speaker 3: Really it was kind of kind of a classic setting

164
00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:08,200
Speaker 3: to write a song like that. So I began writing

165
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 3: the song and finished writing it like two or three

166
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:13,880
Speaker 3: weeks later. We were right in the middle of a

167
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:17,439
Speaker 3: recording a series of recording sessions at the time, so

168
00:10:17,559 --> 00:10:20,440
Speaker 3: we put it in and didn't work the first day.

169
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:24,440
Speaker 3: We put it in the second day and did you

170
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:26,200
Speaker 3: ever stomp and Tom Connors?

171
00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:30,400
Speaker 1: No, I will. Now I'm gonna run down and get

172
00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:32,520
Speaker 1: all of stomp and Tom Connery he was recording.

173
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:35,480
Speaker 3: He was one of our very famous Canadian folk artists.

174
00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,680
Speaker 3: Stomping Tom Connors poke his hit and said that sounds

175
00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:45,080
Speaker 3: like a hit. He just heard the melody going like

176
00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:48,400
Speaker 3: he didn't heard the lyrics or anything. So the appeal

177
00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:50,240
Speaker 3: of the song is definitely in the melody and the

178
00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:54,520
Speaker 3: chord changes, and then the story of the actually made itself.

179
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 3: I got as accurately as I could by pursuing old

180
00:10:57,960 --> 00:10:58,880
Speaker 3: news articles.

181
00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:04,960
Speaker 2: The wind and the wires made the tattle tale sound,

182
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:12,240
Speaker 2: and the wave rope over the railing, and every man

183
00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:15,719
Speaker 2: you as the captain did to twis the Witch and

184
00:11:15,960 --> 00:11:17,640
Speaker 2: love and stealing.

185
00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:22,880
Speaker 3: The dawn came leading, and.

186
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:26,400
Speaker 5: The breakfast had the week when the girls in Lovember

187
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:32,520
Speaker 5: and slashing what afternoon came into screeeze and rad in

188
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 5: the base of a hurricane west wind.

189
00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:55,520
Speaker 1: We'll have more with Gordon Lightfoot after the break I'm ALC.

190
00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:58,000
Speaker 1: Baldwin and this is here's the thing. I spoke with

191
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:02,920
Speaker 1: musician Gordon Lightfoot twenty sixteen. I was curious how his

192
00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:06,720
Speaker 1: musicianship had changed over time and what it was like

193
00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:10,360
Speaker 1: for him recording and performing in the early days.

194
00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:15,960
Speaker 3: The first time I started doing it, I felt under like,

195
00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:19,120
Speaker 3: I'm not confident in what I was doing, what I

196
00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 3: was hearing, I didn't I didn't like what I.

197
00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:24,200
Speaker 1: Was hearing of your own stuff.

198
00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:27,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't like the sound. The sound of my

199
00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:31,320
Speaker 3: voice bothered me. And you know, I started working on

200
00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,000
Speaker 3: that stuff and I've been working on it ever since.

201
00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,800
Speaker 3: On my vocal and I've worked on my intonation, on

202
00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 3: my instruments.

203
00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:43,079
Speaker 1: Someone told me that when you land because you perform

204
00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,920
Speaker 1: in so many different areas. You really dwell on tuning

205
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:47,440
Speaker 1: your instruments alot. Correct.

206
00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:51,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes I chase it around too, but I've learned

207
00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,719
Speaker 3: through the years that there is a method that you

208
00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:58,760
Speaker 3: can get me into into Scarborough fair Country, you know,

209
00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:01,439
Speaker 3: like the like the sound that Simon and Garfuncle used

210
00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:07,120
Speaker 3: to get on their acoustic orchestral arrangements that they put

211
00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:13,720
Speaker 3: together for their songs. And it actually came it became

212
00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:16,959
Speaker 3: real for me maybe six or seven years ago after

213
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,880
Speaker 3: I was recovering from a mini stroke that I had

214
00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:21,719
Speaker 3: and I had to practice a lot more all of

215
00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,320
Speaker 3: a sudden, so it really got me zeroing in on it.

216
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:29,800
Speaker 3: And it all comes down to the fifths and the octaves,

217
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:31,080
Speaker 3: and I'll just leave it at that.

218
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm just a handmaiden here for all you guitar people

219
00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,800
Speaker 1: out there. That's Gordon Lightfoot's gift to you and his

220
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,760
Speaker 1: present to you. That's the fifths and the octaves. And

221
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:44,079
Speaker 1: I don't have one damn idea the fifths and the eye.

222
00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:45,960
Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell he's talking about, but

223
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:50,720
Speaker 1: there it is. There's his message to you today. McCartney

224
00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:52,920
Speaker 1: told me when I spoke to him, once Paul told

225
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,400
Speaker 1: me that he said, in the beginning they would go

226
00:13:55,440 --> 00:13:59,440
Speaker 1: into a recording studio of the Beatles, and he said,

227
00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:01,760
Speaker 1: you know, it was really these weren't his words, but

228
00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:04,360
Speaker 1: the message was kind of like time is money. He said.

229
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:06,040
Speaker 1: These guys were like, you know, we want two songs

230
00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:08,240
Speaker 1: in the morning, and then you go have a lunch

231
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:09,440
Speaker 1: break and you go down to the pub and you

232
00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:11,480
Speaker 1: have a cigarette, you have a fission chips where you

233
00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,920
Speaker 1: come back. They want two songs after they really moved

234
00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:16,160
Speaker 1: along at a clip when they were doing the first

235
00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:20,080
Speaker 1: albums for Parlophone or whoever it was, or em I,

236
00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:22,640
Speaker 1: and then when they became, you know, the success they

237
00:14:22,640 --> 00:14:24,720
Speaker 1: obviously became, then they would take a year. You know,

238
00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:26,280
Speaker 1: all musicians are the same. Then they would take a

239
00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: year to do their next album. You know, they would

240
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:32,080
Speaker 1: do Sergeant Pepper's or what everyone really really luxuriate and

241
00:14:32,640 --> 00:14:35,120
Speaker 1: getting every They gave them more time because it was

242
00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:38,520
Speaker 1: worth it was worth that investment for them. Was the

243
00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:40,280
Speaker 1: same true with you. Do you find that the more

244
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 1: successful you became, the more time you wanted to make music.

245
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:46,440
Speaker 3: Perhaps later on, but I pretty much stuck to the

246
00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:50,280
Speaker 3: to the schedule as much as I could. We made

247
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:53,760
Speaker 3: like eight or nine albums in ten years there, so.

248
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:56,640
Speaker 1: You didn't feel rushed by them.

249
00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:01,160
Speaker 3: No, we were getting more time. But I was also

250
00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:04,080
Speaker 3: improving because what I didn't like hearing I was I

251
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 3: was changing all the time. I was always an improvement venture,

252
00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 3: like a guy building himself up and for to play

253
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:15,240
Speaker 3: on an important sports team. You know they got it.

254
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 3: It's just not just the game, it's the preparation. Say

255
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,440
Speaker 3: you haven't played for for a month and all of

256
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:24,200
Speaker 3: a sudden you got to get back up on stage.

257
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:25,760
Speaker 3: You should be able to crank it out just like

258
00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:29,040
Speaker 3: it was just you did the show last night, right.

259
00:15:29,880 --> 00:15:33,160
Speaker 1: But you like rehearsing, Yeah, well you believe rehearsing.

260
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:35,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're learning new material or you're going back into

261
00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:39,040
Speaker 3: the old catalog with which we do. Because I have

262
00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:43,640
Speaker 3: a rotational situation going on, the biggest problem in my

263
00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,240
Speaker 3: whole life's been too many tunes, too many women.

264
00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:50,280
Speaker 1: For my listeners. Right now, Gordon Lightfoot is turning sheepishly

265
00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:53,520
Speaker 1: toward his wife with a sheepish grin on his face,

266
00:15:53,560 --> 00:15:56,600
Speaker 1: and she just patted his shoulder to say it's okay.

267
00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:58,240
Speaker 3: Gordon, Well I can't step on your toes.

268
00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't do that. But I remember reading I

269
00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:03,720
Speaker 1: remember listening to an article. I remember reading an article

270
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:06,480
Speaker 1: that the Rolling Stones did years ago, and I was

271
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:09,880
Speaker 1: taken by how you know, in terms of musicianship, Jagger

272
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 1: and Keith Ridgard were very, very married to rehearsal. And

273
00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:15,000
Speaker 1: for you to say that that is a great meaning

274
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:16,920
Speaker 1: to me. For you, someone as great an artist as

275
00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:21,360
Speaker 1: you are, that the preparation and the preparation beforehand so

276
00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,920
Speaker 1: that when you when the audience is there, bloom, you

277
00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,360
Speaker 1: strum that guitar and you're you're ready. You're ready.

278
00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:31,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we we have the the artistra itself. I

279
00:16:31,880 --> 00:16:35,480
Speaker 3: have four really talented guys.

280
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:37,880
Speaker 1: And very loyal people. I read about that your band

281
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 1: is very loyal to.

282
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:44,040
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's there's no reason why they should

283
00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:48,400
Speaker 3: not be. You know, we're all the same path. I mean,

284
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 3: we just want to do a great job and you

285
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,040
Speaker 3: got to like make almost make a science out of it.

286
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:59,680
Speaker 3: I don't know. My guys are all professionals. I mean

287
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:04,760
Speaker 3: there's they're serious musicians. Yeah yeah, and they do other things.

288
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:08,800
Speaker 3: I just got to let them know what's coming up.

289
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:11,560
Speaker 1: You know, what were you listening to back then? In

290
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:13,760
Speaker 1: the sixties when you were coming up, Who did you

291
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:14,199
Speaker 1: listen to?

292
00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:17,320
Speaker 3: Well, I was listening to the country music, you know,

293
00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 3: Hank Snow and then folks. It was Pete Seeger, and

294
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,919
Speaker 3: it was Bob Gibson. It was Bob Dylan and Simon

295
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:27,879
Speaker 3: and Garfunkel, and you know Peter Paul and Mary and

296
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 3: Ian and Sylvia. They were a duet and it was

297
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:34,200
Speaker 3: a beautiful act that they had.

298
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:39,040
Speaker 1: Eventually you met these people, well I met, but you

299
00:17:39,119 --> 00:17:40,080
Speaker 1: became one of them.

300
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,679
Speaker 3: My management company because they were the first ever to

301
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,879
Speaker 3: do one of do any of my songs was Ian

302
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:52,440
Speaker 3: and Sophia, which one for Loving Me and Early Morning Rain.

303
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:56,800
Speaker 3: I found an opening with the Folk Revival, you know.

304
00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:59,280
Speaker 3: So I was lucky to be a part of that,

305
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:04,280
Speaker 3: to write that one through and survive. Uh, there's there's

306
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:08,080
Speaker 3: nothing much out there these days. Uh, you know, they're

307
00:18:08,119 --> 00:18:11,600
Speaker 3: they're they're busking. We've got a look a whole bunch

308
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:15,479
Speaker 3: of people here in Toronto who who are hovering around

309
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:19,000
Speaker 3: all the time that the folk oriented artists who are

310
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:24,600
Speaker 3: songwriters and you know, trying to get somewhere, and some

311
00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:28,600
Speaker 3: of some of them are succeeding in some or not.

312
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:30,479
Speaker 3: I get to hear a lot of the stuff because

313
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 3: it comes across my desk and I get to hear it,

314
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:40,840
Speaker 3: and you wish, you know that something grand could happen

315
00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:42,720
Speaker 3: for these people, but you don't know what to do.

316
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:45,159
Speaker 3: All you can do is respond.

317
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:46,520
Speaker 1: Right, encourage.

318
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:47,280
Speaker 3: Yeah.

319
00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:50,120
Speaker 1: Where do you think people learn to hone their craft

320
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,240
Speaker 1: as a musician in in in clubs and performing live?

321
00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:56,520
Speaker 3: Well, I was as well as I was working in

322
00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:01,040
Speaker 3: bars too, you know, like bars and lounges as well

323
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 3: as the coffeehouses. And so I had the kind of

324
00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 3: a repertoire that was acceptable to plant bars. So I

325
00:19:11,240 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 3: got him following in a couple of these bars. Then

326
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:20,119
Speaker 3: I've sort of moved uptown into the village area, you

327
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 3: or Yorkville, which was just coming into bloom here in town,

328
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,919
Speaker 3: and get into places like the Purple Onion, and then

329
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:31,840
Speaker 3: the Riverboat, which was really the plumb of the whole lot,

330
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:36,880
Speaker 3: was the Riverboat because Bernie Feeder brought every person into

331
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,919
Speaker 3: that place. You could fosply image and play there, from

332
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,399
Speaker 3: James Taylor to Joni Mitchell to to Kneel Young right

333
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:46,159
Speaker 3: on down the line.

334
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:47,920
Speaker 1: Is he is he a friend of yours? Yes?

335
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:48,280
Speaker 3: He is?

336
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:54,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, your songs and you're singing of your song, you're

337
00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:56,960
Speaker 1: performing of your songs is so vulnerable and so emotional.

338
00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:59,200
Speaker 1: What was the most difficult song for you to write

339
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:01,480
Speaker 1: or among the most difficult songs for you to write?

340
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:05,040
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that a lot of times you don't

341
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 3: know you're doing it. You're drawing the material from your

342
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 3: subconscious you know, you don't actually know what you're doing.

343
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:17,560
Speaker 3: You're you know, you're drawing it from somewhere, and then

344
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:20,920
Speaker 3: later down the line, three or four weeks later, you

345
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:26,119
Speaker 3: can sign it back to the actual event that brought

346
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:31,120
Speaker 3: it on. I mean, that's like, if you could read

347
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 3: my mind is about actually the crumbling.

348
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,560
Speaker 1: Of a Really was that painful for you to write? No?

349
00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 3: Because I didn't know what I was doing right I

350
00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:43,040
Speaker 3: wrote it. It's just I didn't really.

351
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 1: Tell me that all these beautiful folks songs that people

352
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,200
Speaker 1: weep when they listen to, you're just like tossing it off,

353
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:50,640
Speaker 1: like I don't really know what this is. Let's take

354
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:52,359
Speaker 1: a song for example. Let me let me pick one

355
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:54,679
Speaker 1: song now, one of my favorite songs of yours. I mean,

356
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:58,440
Speaker 1: a song that I just kills me is beautiful, describe

357
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:01,080
Speaker 1: to me recording the song beautiful. I mean, do you

358
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,240
Speaker 1: go out with your friends and your get ship faced

359
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 1: drunk and you come in with a hangover and just

360
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,280
Speaker 1: lay this thing down and you play poker ro all night?

361
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:08,639
Speaker 1: Or do you enter a state?

362
00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 3: First I get a card progression, Then I get a melody.

363
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:20,920
Speaker 1: It's fifth syn octaves, people, it's fifth syn octaves.

364
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:24,240
Speaker 3: Then I get the lyric. You got the melody, you

365
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:26,920
Speaker 3: got the chords, but you don't know, so you draw.

366
00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 3: You find an idea that that fits the fits the melody.

367
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:36,119
Speaker 1: That's Gordon Light for the songwriter, Gordon Light for the singer,

368
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:40,600
Speaker 1: the performer. Do you enter a state? Do you take

369
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 1: yourself to a place when you perform your recorded music

370
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:45,639
Speaker 1: or you don't?

371
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 3: Well, I can, I can use my imagination. I actually

372
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 3: saw it as a sincere love turn to a guy

373
00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 3: for his wife or his girlfriend. It it reminds me

374
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 3: of when I was I learned how to sing with

375
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 3: emotion when I was about twelve, when I was doing

376
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:14,120
Speaker 3: handling material from Handles Messiah, the Voice of Him who

377
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 3: Cries in the Wilderness and all that sort of thing,

378
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:22,360
Speaker 3: And I learned what emotion meant when when I were

379
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 3: saying handles Messiah. At age twelve, I sang in a

380
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 3: competition so I could apply. It was easy for me

381
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 3: to apply to summon up that emotional uh something or

382
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 3: whatever it is when it came time to put that

383
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 3: song down. But I didn't have to the point at

384
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:48,160
Speaker 3: the beginning that I wanted to have it. And that's

385
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 3: why I've been working on all my life is getting

386
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:58,199
Speaker 3: controlling that emotional approach to it, making it work for me.

387
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 3: You don't overdo it, and.

388
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm saying. That's what's beautiful about

389
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: your music is you go right up to a point,

390
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: but you don't do a lot of handholding. You let

391
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: the audience do the crying for you. You know what I mean.

392
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 3: You're your We balance it off with a lot of

393
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 3: toe chappers. You got lots of to.

394
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 1: For a prime example of the delivery Gordon Lightfoot does

395
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: so well. You don't have to look beyond this song sundown.

396
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 2: I can see you land back seven.

397
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 3: Room where you do what you don't confess.

398
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 4: Some better dickas.

399
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: Around coming up. Lightfoot talks about some of his musical

400
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 1: inspirations that explains why he and Bob Dylan didn't get

401
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: along right away explore the Here's the Thing archives. I

402
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,880
Speaker 1: talk with a very different kind of songwriter, Tom York

403
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: from the British rock band Radiohead. He tells me how

404
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 1: his producer gave him the confidence to explore wild new

405
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: electronic sounds.

406
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 6: I mean, I was like a kid being given a hammer.

407
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 6: I was just hamm and reliance stuff. I didn't really

408
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 6: know what I was doing, but he was kind of

409
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 6: fascinated by that, you know, and he'd come and literally

410
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 6: tidy up the mess on the computer.

411
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: Take a listen at Here's Thething, dot Org. I'm telling you.

412
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 3: That you beautiful.

413
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's

414
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: the Thing. Gordon Lightfoot has straddled the worlds of pop

415
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: and folk music for decades, but his confessional songwriting appealed

416
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: to country music performers like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Junior,

417
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: and Glenn Campbell as well. They all covered his songs.

418
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 1: And there's good reason that's what Lightfoot was listening to

419
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: when he started thinking about what kind of musician he

420
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: wanted to be.

421
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 3: It was probably a country music I made the crossover

422
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 3: into adult contemporary music, you know, fairly soon and there

423
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 3: was a lot of good writing going on in the

424
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 3: folk revival too, and I got I was influenced by that.

425
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 1: So you didn't come into the music business and say

426
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,400
Speaker 1: I want to be Sinatra, I want to be Elvis,

427
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 1: I want to be Dylan. Well, I think you wanted

428
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: to find your own voice.

429
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't. I certainly did not take lightly the

430
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:40,719
Speaker 3: fact that I was really influenced by Bob Dylan because

431
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 3: of the not only the quality of the work, but

432
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 3: the output that they achieved. He was prolific. Yeah, that

433
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 3: was the amazing Particut and said, well, it can be

434
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 3: that easy for him, it must surely be be easier

435
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 3: for me. I mean, if he can do this much work,

436
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 3: surely I can do this much work. While appreciating the

437
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 3: music that he was producing at the time. When did

438
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 3: you first meet him nineteen sixty five, What was that

439
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 3: like for you in Woodstock? Well, it was a it

440
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 3: was an interesting time. We actually didn't didn't get along

441
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 3: when we first met. He criticized my my rules at

442
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 3: playing Manhattan on his pool table in Woodstock, and I

443
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 3: got a little he got a little sarcastic about it,

444
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 3: and we were all He was very sarcastic, and I

445
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 3: started seeing this coming on to me and I left.

446
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 3: I left their house wow, and went back down the

447
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 3: hill to Albert's house. Alberts, Albert Grossman. He was the

448
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 3: manager I had before, part of that stable, that fam

449
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 3: that's stable yet, so natives say, since I knew him

450
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 3: for so many years after that, because we're all working

451
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 3: in the same place, I became sort of party party

452
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 3: central for them when they when they came to Toronto,

453
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 3: which was often, and with the band and everybody, and

454
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 3: we had a great time. And I, you know, it

455
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 3: was good to have known Bob.

456
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 1: Is it safe to say, because I've read this in

457
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 1: different articles and so forth when I was reading up

458
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: about you. Then when you say you got together and

459
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: had a good time, was there a period of your

460
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: life where you had too much of a good time?

461
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there was lots of drinking went on there.

462
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 3: There was a little bit of everything. It just depended

463
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 3: upon how severely you were affected by it and what

464
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 3: kind of a constitution that you possessed. Did. I drank

465
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 3: heavily right up until nineteen eighty two, and then all

466
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 3: of a sudden I stopped last I stopped it for

467
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 3: twenty three years because it was good. I was going

468
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 3: to ruin my career and I was making unrational, irrational decisions.

469
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 3: And one night I tried to climb from from one

470
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 3: balcony to the next in an apartment building on the

471
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 3: tenth floor.

472
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it.

473
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 3: Sure there was a party going on.

474
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: And you wanted to one party. I love that. What

475
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: was a better party in that other wing over there?

476
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: There was too to meet folks.

477
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: There was room for me to jump from the one

478
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 3: balcony to the next.

479
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: Did you make it?

480
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 3: Yes, Well I've said it. I here talking.

481
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: You might have fallen and broken your leg or something.

482
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 3: Who knows, I was on the tenth floor. I wouldn't

483
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 3: be here.

484
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be here.

485
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 3: Things like that, you know. But other things that I

486
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 3: did there were bad judgments, you know, and you know,

487
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 3: with people, and I felt that I was offending people

488
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 3: sometimes and I did the last thing I wanted to

489
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 3: offend anyone, you know, And that's what I felt when

490
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 3: I wrote to Fitzgerald, I said, I hope I'm not

491
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 3: going to offend any of the relatives of these men.

492
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 3: You know.

493
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: Was it never communicated to you that you had Did

494
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: anybody suggest that.

495
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 3: No, No, it never appreciated what you've been honored. We just

496
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 3: went to the fortieth anniversary ourselves, just this last novembery week.

497
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 3: Where was it helped Lake Superior? I've been fifteen miles

498
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 3: thirty miles of northwest of Sussaint Marie at the Whitefish Point.

499
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 1: Wow. You know you have had some very impactful health issues.

500
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: You had a stroke and then you had Bell's palsy

501
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: and you couldn't have what's it like to lose feeling

502
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: in your fingers and you're a guitar player.

503
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 3: Well, ask me what it was like when I had

504
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 3: the aordal aneurysm.

505
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: Okay, what was it like when you had the a

506
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: ordal aneurysm.

507
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 3: Well it put me out of business for two years?

508
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: Did it really? Yeah?

509
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 3: Put me out of business for two What a year

510
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 3: was that? Two thousand and two?

511
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: What were the symptoms of that?

512
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 3: If you pass out and you don't wake up.

513
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean the aneurysm bursts for six weeks? Yeah,

514
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: what were you feeling in the weeks prior?

515
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 3: I would have bouts of stomach ache and I'd have

516
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 3: to lay out of my belly on the bed for

517
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 3: a while.

518
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

519
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 3: Then I would subside. And that went on over a

520
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 3: period of several years, and it started about ten years

521
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 3: before the actually vent occurred. So there is a warning.

522
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 3: There is this third warning signals it's a paint. You

523
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 3: get a pretty bad stomach ache. And yeah, that was

524
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: years ago. That was nineteen you were young, Yeah, seventy two,

525
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 3: I think thereabouts.

526
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: Yeah.

527
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 3: I had to stop performing for three months and then

528
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 3: I got enough of wou'd stop puffing enough? Then I

529
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 3: was able to go back to work again. Really, so

530
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 3: I just I just boulder through, so to speak, and

531
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 3: then you had a stroke actually came back. That was

532
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 3: a mini stroke. That the fact of my right hand,

533
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 3: which was very disturbing. That in two thousand and six,

534
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 3: that was when I really started practicing, and that's when

535
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 3: I really improved learned how to really get my instruments

536
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 3: in tune at the same time. So I derived a

537
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: benefit from from that.

538
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: How do American radio interview hosts differ from Canadian radio

539
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: interview hosts.

540
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,719
Speaker 3: No difference that I can see, no difference. People folks

541
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 3: are folks. So the boys appreciated the cousins. We're all

542
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 3: cousins here in North America. That's why you're not political now,

543
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 3: that's probably I never moved down there. I've follow I'm

544
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 3: I'm a I'm a political fan. I'm a fan of

545
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 3: watching the political process observer.

546
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: Well, you you had the situation with the song in

547
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: Detroit Black Day in July. Yeah, from the Detroit riots,

548
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: that's right, and you wrote a song about that and

549
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: then cause you a little bit of a.

550
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 3: Grief in the record we released a single.

551
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: Did you and did you feel that that was something

552
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: that you resented or like, how did you feel when

553
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: you got pulled.

554
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 3: That I kind of shouldn't have done that. It was

555
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 3: almost like like the wreck well, well like like it

556
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 3: was a well I should have I was working in

557
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 3: the city a lot, in the trucky I circt there.

558
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 3: There was something about it. I kept saying, maybe I

559
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 3: shouldn't have written a song like this. You know, it

560
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 3: was written as a folk song for an album. The

561
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 3: record of the Fitzgerald was written as a folk song

562
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 3: for an album.

563
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: And the political purposes assigned by other people. You didn't

564
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: have a political purpose when you wrote the song. Interesting,

565
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: just a story Black.

566
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 4: Dan and the soul of Motor City is there across

567
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 4: the line.

568
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: That's the book of the.

569
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 2: Law and order is taken in the hands of the time,

570
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 2: So the fathers who came into this lane.

571
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: Bug Dan, July Black Dan. And when the record company

572
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: took the song off the air, so it didn't piss

573
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: you off. The record companies never pissed you off. No, never,

574
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: when they told you what songs to put on the album,

575
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: what songs not to put on the album, never bothered you.

576
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 3: Well we started, We always worked that out together.

577
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: You did. Yeah.

578
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 3: Interesting with the exceptions necess very early in the career too,

579
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 3: before I had at the level of authority that I

580
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 3: that I needed to establish. I was in how was

581
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 3: produced and I I used to be able to discuss

582
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 3: and cust and discuss things with them there and very

583
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 3: fortunately fortunately to be able to do that.

584
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: What song that when you sing it, you could sit

585
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: there and go, man, I really really nailed that. That's

586
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: a good song. Oh, there's a lot of them, But

587
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: what's the one that just comes out of you?

588
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 3: East of midnight, East of midnight, East of Midnight. That's

589
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 3: that's one of my my very best ones. But some

590
00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 3: wills the midnight West anywhere as I I don't do that.

591
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 3: I used to do it. No do you know why

592
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 3: I don't do it?

593
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: Though? These were such a funny cat East Midnight's my

594
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: best song man. You got to hear that I don't

595
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: do that anymore.

596
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 3: If I did it for years. This is my last

597
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 3: four or five albums are probably the five best albums

598
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 3: I made, But unfortunately my momentum had run out with

599
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 3: the record company at that point. But I still kept producing.

600
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: Because but isn't that interesting You just said my last

601
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: four or five albums were of the best albums I've

602
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: ever Do believe that?

603
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 3: Sure you do.

604
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, you begin one of those albums between what period of.

605
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 3: Time, nineteen nineteen eighty two and in two thousand and six.

606
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 1: So you recorded in an album in two thousand and six,

607
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: right before you got sixty.

608
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 3: Five nineteen eighty five, nineteen years, I made five of

609
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 3: the best albums. I finished an album while I was well,

610
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 3: while I was down with the aneurysm. I finished an

611
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 3: album there. I took my mind off my condition entirely.

612
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 3: So it was very fortuitous that I had a whole

613
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff city in the in the can at

614
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 3: the time, as they used to say. And the best

615
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 3: one of the whole lot is Easter Midnight.

616
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: Do you write songs now?

617
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 3: I could? I always have four or five tunes on

618
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 3: the back burner.

619
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 1: Your wife is practically groaning behind your nodding herd like.

620
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, there's always tunes in the back burner.

621
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 2: What a beautiful songs?

622
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: What do you when you write songs?

623
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 3: Now?

624
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: What do you write about? I just write right about

625
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: jumping from one balcony to the other way to kill you.

626
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 3: I just write write about women. I try to sound

627
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 3: sound intelligent.

628
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: You know what's on your mind? Now?

629
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 3: Well, I was thinking about the but the one that

630
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 3: has the turtle in it, I like that. I think

631
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 3: she likes the fact that I introduced a turtle into

632
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 3: this song. Is that the part that you like about it? Tartly,

633
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:20,399
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.

634
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: It's amazing, It's amazing. Your wife is this gorgeous young woman.

635
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: And I realized the glue of this marriage is you

636
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,800
Speaker 1: write songs about turtles for your wife. That's amazing. I

637
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: don't have that advantage.

638
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: That's just what one scene.

639
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: I've got a bullshit my wife every day and convinced

640
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: her into staying with me, and you just sit there

641
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: and go. I wrote this song for your baby turtle.

642
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 3: I know, I know. It's it's like, come if you will. Well,

643
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 3: the earth is still fertile, Lady, I see society through

644
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 3: the eyes of a turtle. Turtles are soft and they've

645
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 3: got feelings too. Maybe they think too quickly for me

646
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 3: or for you, and it really doesn't matter.

647
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: We got to end there, well maybe not, maybe.

648
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 3: Not, just to show you the kind of stuff and okay,

649
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 3: into the microphone.

650
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 1: We well.

651
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 3: Back to the table, lady, I see Marilyn Monroe and

652
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 3: there Stans Clark Gable. He'll melt the cow, she'll stop

653
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 3: the show. There's many a good hand felt, a chili

654
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 3: wind blow, and it doesn't really matter. Don't ask her.

655
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 3: You don't why I write that.

656
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 2: Stuff, ask about for loving me?

657
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,959
Speaker 3: Nothing? Oh yeah, well, we'll see. I sang for twenty

658
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 3: five years. But it's really a vicious it's it's just

659
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 3: a very vicious song of unrecinded. Quite a love song,

660
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 3: and it was it was read during the time when

661
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 3: I was I was, I was still married, and I wondered,

662
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 3: my goodness, what does my It was like almost like

663
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 3: a Will Chamberlain. I've had a hundred more like you.

664
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 3: I'll have a thousand and forum Through was one of

665
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,760
Speaker 3: the lines in it, and I was married to someone

666
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 3: and I've you know, I hated singing the song, and

667
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 3: finally I stopped singing it, the same way as I

668
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 3: stopped drinking in nineteen eighty two. But even that only

669
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 3: lasted for twenty three years.

670
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: Didn't you sing it again? No, you don't sing the song.

671
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:24,800
Speaker 1: You won't sing going to a lot of people do,

672
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: but other people record it.

673
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 3: You won't sing it. Elvis, Elvis Presley for loving me.

674
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 3: That's what you get for loving me.

675
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:36,479
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I look at these album covers.

676
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 3: You are.

677
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: You're one of the best of guys I've ever seen

678
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: in my life. I mean, was that tough for you?

679
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: That's a tough part of your career.

680
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 3: Well, I think it helped you probably, I'm sure. I'm

681
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 3: sure it did, But I'm sure sure.

682
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,439
Speaker 1: Best have what's next when you're going on the road again.

683
00:38:54,200 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 3: Friday morning, I'll be a little blue. I can soon.

684
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 4: There's still a lot of things, and I should.

685
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 3: Know anyone can gain. I don't know how to friend

686
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 3: my Saturday.

687
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you

688
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: by iHeart Radio.

689
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 4: I feel at saying to watch them leave, I'll be cool,

690
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 4: become because I don't know, really the happy times.

691
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: Ago I can still put on

692
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 4: My Saturday