WEBVTT - James Taylor Comes Clean 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:16.520 Pushkin. It's hard to mistake James Taylor's voice. It's sweet 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.120 and sounds care free, and if you know the cliff 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.080 Notes version of James's life, that kind of makes sense. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.400 Summers and Martha's Vineyard as a kid signed by the 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.320 Beatles to Apple Records at only nineteen years old, relationships 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.800 with Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, becoming one of the 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.199 premier singer songwriters of the seventies when competition was stiff. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.839 But these autobiographical details and his sweet voice belie the 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.960 traumatic events of his early days, two stints in a 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.760 mental institution, heroin addiction, and alcoholic father. This is the 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.080 life James attempts to make sense of and his new 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.880 audio memoir Breakshot, all of which he traces back to 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.360 a traumatic family event he says left the Taylor's cursed. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.440 When Malcolm Gladwell and James Taylor got together to talk 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.160 about his new memoir, they dove into these darker memories 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.480 from James's past and how his songwriting started as a 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.640 form of therapy. They also discussed why James fields his 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.640 last five albums have been his absolute best work, including 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.000 his latest American Standard. His new albums out February twenty eighth, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.399 and is full of the songs James Hurd growing up, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.720 songs that offered him refuge, songs that ultimately offered him 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:37.880 a new life through music. This is broken record liner 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:45.960 notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmonton. Here's Malcolm 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.320 Gladwell and James Taylor from GSI Studios in New York. 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.320 What I wanted to start with the most unexpected fact 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.840 that came up as I was preparing, which was Taylor 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.760 Swift is named for you. Yes, that was a surprise 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:07.080 to me too. We first met at a benefit for 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:12.000 an organization that is meant to mitigate teenage pregnancy and 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.639 she was doing a couple of songs and so was I. Yea, 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.160 and she told me at that point that was before 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:25.040 she you know, it was such a success. But it 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.640 makes me wonder how many tailors out there have you 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:36.079 inadvertently spawned. That's a good question. So I the I 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.920 was listening to break shot your audible original, which I 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:46.440 thought was fascinating. So your your dad grows up in Morganton, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.359 North Carolina, and your mom is in New England. There 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.840 I kind of put a real you're saying grew up 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.400 as a fisherman's daughter in New Report. So a real 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.920 New England there, that's right. Your parents married and what 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:07.079 year they married in forty well probably in nineteen forty 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.640 seven seven, Yeah, so in nineteen forty seven, that would 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.160 be right, they would have That's what I mean one 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.359 your your father or Southern or your mother or New 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.560 England or those are distinct identities in that they are 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.399 they are. I mean, they were politically very aligned, but 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.560 they were from two different cultures. But my father was 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.200 you know, the thing is really about him is that 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:36.640 he didn't belong you know in uh. I think that 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.680 that he he didn't really he identified uh sort of 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:47.240 as we identify our context. He identified that as being Southern. 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.720 But I don't think he felt a part of anything really. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:55.680 I think he was quite um, quite isolated. It's sort 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.440 of it's the I think that's the key to to 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.560 understanding my father say that he was He never really 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.960 had a context in which he felt he belonged, and 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:13.080 you know that changed over time. But I'm pursuing this 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:18.120 both because this is the a big part of breakshot, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.800 this memoire that you've done, but also because it so 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:26.719 obviously feeds into a lot of your music, but I 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.119 wanted to linger a little bit about your You tell 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.040 this story? Can you tell the story in the book? 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.719 It's the most one of the most heartbreaking stories I 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:40.040 think I've ever heard about your Your grandfather, I think 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.880 it's my great grandfather. You mean the one who delivered 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:52.040 my father, right, Well, my grandmother biologically was a warrant 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:58.679 from Springfield named Theodosia Haynes, and she met met Alexander Taylor, 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:04.719 my grandfather father, and the two of them fell in 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:10.119 love and she got pregnant. They married, and the child 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:18.119 was delivered by my grandfather's father, my great grandfather, and 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.640 he hadn't delivered a child for for a while. And 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:27.400 I think after the birth of my father, she contracted 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.800 what was called childbirth fever, but it was really just 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:36.000 an infection, you know, it was this was pretty antibiotics. 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:41.200 And she died. Uh And the the great grandfather, my 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.560 great grandfather, who delivered her, was dead within two months, 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.880 and I think the assumption is that he may have suicided, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:58.760 you know. So, um so, my father really like his mother, 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:05.920 went to the family because my grandfather, Alexander just fell 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:12.240 apart really and descended into alcoholism, which was there was 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.680 a lot of addiction in the family. Yes, it was 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.359 a tragic start, and I think it it gave my 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.719 father the sense that that his position was very conditional, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.919 you know, that he didn't really have a secure place 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.479 in the world, and that his performance was going to 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.280 really you know, that was that was going to be 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.479 the thing that that allowed him, you know, a place 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.520 in the lifeboat. In in Brickshot, you talk about a 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.800 lot about how that's almost like the original sin of 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.840 the tailors, that it cast a shadow, a multi generational 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.120 shadow in the famid does. It's like ripples and they 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.839 spread out. And I think the thing manifested when my dad, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.559 you know, he had he had five kids in Bally 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:06.159 in six years and we all as as we entered 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.440 adolescence and the prospect of leaving home. I think that 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.720 my dad just was out of his depth. I think 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.640 it it was something that he just didn't know how 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.840 to how to deal with. It also coincided with his 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:28.080 drinking becoming. You know, alcoholism progresses. My father is an 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:34.480 extremely functional alcoholic for many, many years, but ultimately that 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.520 you know that you lose control of that eventually, and 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.760 and that happened around the same time. So my parents 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:47.480 marriage also fell apart at that that time. And the 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:54.760 culture was was the Vietnam baby boom culture of nineteen 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.400 sixty eight or sixty six, you know, it was it 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.440 was every buddy was was questioning their connections and their 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:08.560 context and the and the thought was abroad in the 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.440 land that we change everything, you know, that it would 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:18.360 all that there was a distinct interruption, you know, discontinuation 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.440 with the last with the World War two mentality of 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.560 that generation. And we were a new generation that was 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:28.920 really going to change things. And there were so many 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.400 of us at the same time, so you know, all 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.760 of these things happened at once. Uh. And and I 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:39.920 my own personal story is that I sort of had 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:44.680 a breakdown, you know, I just couldn't go forward, and 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.080 I sort of had a crisis there, and it precipitated 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:54.240 in my siblings a similar a similar sort of derailment. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.160 And how many of your siblings end up you and 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.079 how many of your siblings end up intitutionalized to him, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.320 to two others. But my older brother really should have 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:10.360 he was he was the ultimately the sacrifice, my brother Alex. Yeah, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:16.520 so you you spend ten months at McLean Hospital. Um, 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.520 and once again we're as you point out, McClean hospital 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:25.640 is where Robert Lowell went where uh and Sexton was 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.400 teaching poetry classes. You said at some point, so your 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.800 Platt worked there. Yes, Um, I mean the list is 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.760 kind of like it's it's a kind of another you know, 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.079 there's there's a series of these kind of um iconic 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:47.959 set pieces. It's like a nexus. Yeah, yeah, that's true. There. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.080 I never I didn't think about it at the time, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:55.080 but it sort of was where one went, you know, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:10:00.720 if you had a breakdown. Yeah, yeah, it was you know, 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:06.160 it was Harvard Medical School and mass General Hospital. Yeah, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:11.680 did you I was curious about in those So you 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:19.280 had this very tumultuous teenage late teenage years where you're 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.880 you leave North Carolina, you go to boarding school for 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.040 a while, then you have your breakdown, you go back 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.760 to North Carolina, and then you finished school at Milton Academy. 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.839 Were you writing music in that period? What's what was 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.880 your musical identity in those years? Yeah? I was starting 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.960 to well when I went home to North Carolina for 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.040 that junior year, I was in a band with my 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.800 brother Alex. But before then on Martha's Vineyard, it would 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.400 had been the middle of what a friend of mine 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.679 calls the folk scare of the of the early sixties. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.920 You know, so folk music was the sort of thing 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.120 on campuses, and it was you know, Bob Dylan and 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.679 John Bias and the Kingston EO and Peter Paul and 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:07.560 Mary and you know that, but also Odetta and Lightning 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.920 Hopkins and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Jesse Loncat 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:16.120 Fuller and Reverend Gary Davis. You know, there was country 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.720 blues in there as well. So on Martha's Vineyard in 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.920 the summertime, it was easy to pick up a guitar 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.280 and learned from other people who were around, and and 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.840 to find people to sing with and play with. And 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.319 there were open mics at a various a couple of 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.760 coffeehouses they were called. But what's the function of am 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.240 I reading too much into it? But his music? Does 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.800 music have a kind of psychological function for you in 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.840 that troubled moment? Is it your own personal therapy as 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.120 you deal with all of this? Yeah, without a doubt, 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:58.360 I think that probably a good deal of what art is, 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.320 if this can be called it's a commercial art. It 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.160 is you know, is a kind of therapy or a 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:12.120 way of getting something insoluble that's inside just in front 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.320 of you somehow. You know, it's like, you know, I 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.239 was a cutter when I was when I was a teenager, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.800 and it's almost like that you sort of want to 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:29.160 see the scar. Uh So music definitely started to me 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.480 to uh, you know, it was always a celebratory thing. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.680 That was that was the main thing about it is 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.560 that it was fun and joyful. But when I started 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.439 to write, I started to write from a sort of 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.320 a therapeutic place, I guess. And that's what I'm known for, 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.600 sort of that that kind of uh. I mean, people 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.240 who go into my stuff in any depth realize that 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.720 that's just a corner of it. But but it was 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.800 the thing that really resonated with people when when fire 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.960 and rain took off. Yeah, I guess my question and 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.600 this is an unanswerable question, but a fun one. Nonetheless, 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:15.840 had your mother Trudy married a prosperous, happy New England 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.880 merchant and had that been the version of your life? 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:26.920 Are you a musician or are you something else? No? 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.640 I mean there was no My mother had studied voice. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.840 She sort of was the last generation that went to 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.640 finishing schools, and she went to a school in Boston 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.360 called Missus Child's School on Beacon Hill, and those women 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.000 were learning to be wives. It was sort of pre 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:55.400 Ruth Vader Ginsberg, you know, it was pre my mother 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:00.240 could see she could see the promised land. But but 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.000 you know, and it was frustrated, and you know, so 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.920 she had children and um and was basically a sort 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.040 of a faculty wife, which was a it was a 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:18.000 job really. But when I you know, so in the 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.840 summertime I had been playing the guitar and getting into 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.280 blues and folk music. I met my friend Danny Korchmar, 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:32.240 who coach who was to be for my whole life, 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.760 a major connection for me musically, and he introduced me 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.360 to a lot of the music that I was has 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.040 been a source to me, so that there was this 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.240 musical life on the vineyard. Then when I went home 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.560 to North Carolina, I was in a band with my 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.880 brother Alex, and I played the electric guitar and we 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:56.600 basically were we played fraternity parties, we played what were 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.000 you playing? What kind of music? Well, it was called 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.960 beach music, and what it was was the music that 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.400 Southern college students loved when they went to Virginia Beach 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.080 or Myrtle Beach or or Rightful Beach when they took 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.160 their spring break and they went to party on the 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.920 on the coast. That was the music to what kind 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.800 of can you remember any of the songs. I've never 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.000 heard that term before. A song like Shotgun by Junior 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.480 Walker in the All Stars. That's beach music. Yeah. It 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.200 was very close to the to the Chitland circuit, you know, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.800 I see those acts that could work that circuit could 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.160 also do the beach circuit. It was a place where 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.720 race is mixed to a certain extent, a limited extent. 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.360 And that's what my brother Alex got into. You know. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.479 He just loved that music. Anyone who heard it loved it, 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.000 and it was just it was great, Like, uh, you 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.560 know that song a search in by the Coasters. That 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.760 was That was a song called Searching and it was 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.960 the first soul music that I ever heard. I was 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:10.800 in a bus going from a camp in the mountains 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:16.240 of North Carolina to Tennessee over the border, and the 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.680 bus driver had a like a I don't know if 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.440 it was the car radio or if it was a 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.040 transistor or what it was, but it was playing that 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.040 song and I just it was like it was like 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.440 somebody you know, carbonated my blood. You know, it was 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:36.240 just amazing. Yeah, was it unusual for for white people 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.200 to be playing that music in that part of North 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.120 Carolina at that point? I mean it was your brother. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.360 Was your band with your brother an oddity or was 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.160 it commonplace? Well there was only there was only one 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.520 among high school students in our town, so in the 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:56.040 town of Chapel Hill, and for that reason we got work. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.120 We weren't very good, but we were you know. So 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:05.840 that was a big influence. Folk music first, then beach music, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.639 my brother's music, and then after McClean, I came to 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.280 New York and started playing here in town for about 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.160 a year. We had a band called the Flying Machine, 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:25.120 and it just we we just couldn't compete. We petered out. 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:27.760 You had to get a record contract in those days, 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.240 and we did sign one, much to my chagrin years 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.879 later when when it turned out I'd also signed a 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.360 publishing contract. But we were in their hands and they 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.320 gave us two days in the studio and that's it. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.040 You know, just what kind of music was that, you know, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.639 it was funny. It started by we sort of identified 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.080 as a blues band, but you know, we realized that 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:57.919 was sort of inappropriate. We were essentially suburban kids, you know, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.879 but we love the music. But we also played Jogi 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.960 Carmichael songs. We played God Bless the Child to billy 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.800 holiday tune, and so we we had odd material, you know, 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.240 and I wrote a couple of songs for that. I 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.359 wrote a tune called a night Owl. I'm a night Owl, 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.560 and I wrote a song called Brighten your Night with 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.520 My Day. I cringe to think of it, but there 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:33.240 it is. And uh, um, you know, we we tried 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.760 our best. We were We got a job as the 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.640 house band at a club called the night Owl at 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.760 McDougall and third. That's just down to yeah, but this 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.560 is a little bit after Downs Gone, Dylan's has left, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.520 um and Stephen Stills had had gone to the coast 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.200 and started Buffalo Springfield. That was also you know, that 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.199 was a you know, an example of what we were 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.320 aspiring to. But our record deal was a dead end 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.320 and it basically killed us. We were signed to people 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.600 who wouldn't record us. So yeah, yeah, that was the 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.919 end of the sand. Is there anything that you wrote 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.080 in those years that you feel like stands with some 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.639 of your best work. Do you look back fondly on 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:22.280 anything from that and say, you know what that was? 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.840 That was really the beginning of what I really stand for. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.760 You know. I wrote a song called I'm a Night 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.119 Out that I think was the best thing I wrote 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.159 in those days, just as a song, the way it 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.200 was constructed, and you know, and it had a feel 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.720 to it. You know, it was good. And and I've 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.960 often thought that I'd like to, you know, try to 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.840 cut that. Yeah, cut did it go? Oh? It was? 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.240 You know. A fish likes the water, that's where he's 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.720 going to be. A monkey lives on fruits and bananas, 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.080 so he lives in the top of a tree. But 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:59.760 my eyes are made for darkness, so the nighttimes right 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:04.080 from me, I'm a night owl. Most folks like the daytime. 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.479 They're light to see the signing shining sun. They're up 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.600 in the morning, off and run until they're too tired 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.160 to have any fun. But when the when the sun 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.920 goes down and the bright lights shine, my daytime has 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:23.040 just begun. I'm a night owl. Close those curtains, form you, honey, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:28.640 it's just about to make me blind anyways, point out 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:34.120 that you are reciting from memory a song written over 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.639 fifty years ago, and you must have written in the 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.119 course of your life. How many songs? How many? I 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.520 think it's probably approaching one hundred and fifty. Now maybe 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.560 it's more, maybe it's more like two hundred. But it's 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.080 pretty impressive. You know. It's a funny thing. I think 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.399 that for me, anything that has music connected to it, 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.520 I can remember. I don't know any Italian, but I 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.639 can sing. I can sing ladone mobile as you know. 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.040 I learned it in Italian and it's just because there's 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.200 music attached to it. It sticks in my mind. Yeah. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.720 In fact, I think that that's why people when they 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:16.199 learn English, why English songs, English popular music is so 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.720 useful to them. You know that that a lot of 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:20.840 people have told me. You know, I learned English by 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:26.560 by listening to English lyrics. Yeah. Yeah, who to go 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.359 back to? So we're talking about what years now that 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.879 you are. What year are you in Are you in 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:37.560 Grene Village playing in those clubs? Well, um, that's nineteen 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.200 sixty six, sixty six, I'm eighteen years old. You're eighteen 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.320 years old when you look back on that year. I know, 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.959 you you fall back into drugs or fall into drugs, 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.359 I guess for the first time. Um, but do you 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.760 have is the is the is the year in your memory? Chaotic? 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:00.400 Is it a pleasant? I mean, how do you kind 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.320 of look back on that? Oh? It was great, you know, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.439 the whole thing was it was a riot. You know. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.760 I was free, eighteen and living in New York City. 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.120 The drinking age was eighteen at that point. So where 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.400 were you living? We lived in the Albert Hotel, which 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.800 was at on University at Eleventh Street. It was below 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.960 just below Union Square, and there was one of the 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.639 floors of the hotel it burned, you know, there'd been 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.960 a serious fire. But there was one room that had 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.639 survived it. But they couldn't rent it, really rent it. 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.440 But they rented it to me and the bass player, 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.240 my best friend, Zach Weasner, who I knew from the Vineyard. 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.879 Zach and I took that sort of suite of rooms 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.720 for just for almost no money, I mean, and we 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.480 rehearsed in the basement of the Albert Hotel. So that 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:59.320 was where I lived first. And then I you know, 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.560 I would crash at different people's places too, and Eventually 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.160 I got an apartment on eighty fourth in Columbus, which 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.000 in those days was you know it was yeah, it 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:14.760 was a rough neighborhood and and it was you know, 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.200 it was a cheap rent. What are you doing all? 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.160 That's question? But what are you doing all day at 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.639 that age in New York City? Well, you get up 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.720 late and you go to work at the night Al Cafe, 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:28.960 which is where our gig was. And that was six 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:32.720 days a week. So from when to end, probably from 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:37.399 seven o'clock till midnight, three four or five sets we 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.600 would do. People would come in the order hamburg and 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.080 a cup of coffee or something. They didn't have a 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:48.320 liquorized and you know, we play a twenty minute set. 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:52.399 There was no backstage to speak of. There was like 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:57.040 a closet where we could hang out or in the kitchen. 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.080 But are you are you writing? How much music are 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:04.320 you writing in those years? I'm starting to write now, 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.919 but uh, like that night Owl song is written in 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:12.800 that in that era? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:16.080 know the guy who ran the club, it's a labor 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.280 of love. I don't know why he did it. He 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:20.280 did it because he loved the music. I think and 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.760 just wanted to be part of the life because it 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:27.240 you know, it wasn't a living the guy. We were 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:31.520 making like less than a hundred dollars a week for 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:35.600 each of us. But you could live on that then, Yeah, 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:39.120 it's amazing that you could live on that. But you know, 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:42.359 the subway still wasn't a quarter. It was still a 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:45.360 dime to ride the subway, so one hundred dollars could 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:48.719 go a certain distance. Yeah, those days. And you know 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:52.080 they also fed us dinner, I mean free free Hamburgs 0:24:52.119 --> 0:24:56.280 at the yeah, the night owl. So really, rent was 0:24:56.320 --> 0:25:03.240 the only consideration the So you're things get bad and 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:07.480 you and then your father comes and rescues you, which 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:13.120 was an incredibly touching moment, given how troubled your relationship 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:16.199 was with him and how troubled your family life was. 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:22.040 He drives from North Carolina to New York. He did. 0:25:22.280 --> 0:25:27.240 He I called home. The Flying Machine had had disbanded. 0:25:28.200 --> 0:25:33.400 You know, I had a habit, a heroin addiction that 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:36.200 I was. It really was going to get me in 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:41.560 trouble sometime very soon, you know, because I no longer 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:45.400 was in contact with with Joel O'Brien, who was had 0:25:45.440 --> 0:25:48.520 been my sort of source and a sort of safe 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:52.719 way to get into the to get access to the 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.920 to the drug. But being an eighteen year old kid 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:02.159 on the street trying to hustle an to have a 0:26:02.200 --> 0:26:05.880 habit was going to really get me in trouble soon, 0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:08.560 There's no question about it. And my father really did. 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.679 It was like the cavalry coming over the hill. I 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:16.880 think he sensed it. I called him up. He said, 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:18.879 how are you doing. I said, you know, Dad, not 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:25.439 so good. And he just said, where are you. I 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:31.040 told him the address eighty fourth in Columbus. He said, 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:35.679 don't move. He says, stay right there, do not leave 0:26:36.080 --> 0:26:40.800 the apartment. So you know, I went home to North 0:26:40.840 --> 0:26:43.280 Carolina and I stayed there for about six months, and 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:48.560 then I went to England. Yeah. Yeah, And you serendipitously 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:54.160 get in touch with someone who is involved with Apple Records. 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:59.040 That's why you see my friend coach Danny kortchmar who 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:01.879 had been the other guitar in the Flying Machine and 0:27:02.480 --> 0:27:05.520 who had known from Martha's Vineyard and we'd played. He 0:27:05.560 --> 0:27:10.160 had introduced me to the blues and some Latin music 0:27:10.200 --> 0:27:14.240 and stuff, and he had in the year before the 0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:17.040 Flying Machine he had been with a group called the 0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:21.000