1
00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:15,120
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Don Was remembers the exact moment music changed him.

2
00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:17,759
Speaker 1: He was fourteen running errands with his mom when Joe

3
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:21,480
Speaker 1: Henderson's Mode for Joe came on the car radio. Joe's

4
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:24,279
Speaker 1: Tenor Sacks taught Don an important lesson you'll hear about

5
00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,920
Speaker 1: later in this episode. It also cemented his love of music,

6
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: which was everywhere in Detroit in the nineteen sixties, from

7
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:35,479
Speaker 1: Motown to the Stooges to George Clinton in Parliament Funkadelic.

8
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:39,000
Speaker 1: It's no surprise the city as musically diverse as Detroit

9
00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:43,120
Speaker 1: turned out someone like Don Was, who's worked across generations

10
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:46,640
Speaker 1: and genres for decades now. He led the avant garde

11
00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 1: new wavy band Was Not Was produced career defining albums

12
00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:52,559
Speaker 1: for the B fifty twos and Bonnie Rate, including her

13
00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:55,640
Speaker 1: biggest hit, Something to Talk About. He's also worked with

14
00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:58,440
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and as a Rolling Stones go to producer.

15
00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 1: For the last decade, he's worked as a president of

16
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:04,560
Speaker 1: Blue Note Records, reviving the same legendary jazz label that

17
00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:07,800
Speaker 1: issued Mode for Joe way back in nineteen sixty six.

18
00:01:08,319 --> 00:01:10,199
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin caught up with Don Was to talk about

19
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:13,199
Speaker 1: his wide ranging career and why his latest gig, playing

20
00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:15,880
Speaker 1: Base for the Grateful Dead's Bob Were is a single

21
00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:22,759
Speaker 1: best thing he's ever done. This is broken record liner

22
00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:30,679
Speaker 1: notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick

23
00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: Rubin and Don was who. We start with Detroit. You're

24
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:37,319
Speaker 1: from Detroit, Yeah, sure, yeah. I was born in Detroit

25
00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:40,120
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two, which meant I was a teenager

26
00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 1: there in the nineteen sixties, which was a really great

27
00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,520
Speaker 1: time to be in Detroit. You know, the Stooges played

28
00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:51,320
Speaker 1: at my high school. Wow, Bob Seger played at my

29
00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 1: high school, George Clinton, and they were just called the

30
00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:58,920
Speaker 1: Parliaments then, right, and there was a five piece vocal

31
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 1: group and they came to lip sync. God just want

32
00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:05,960
Speaker 1: to testify at at my junior high school at Asaka.

33
00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:09,359
Speaker 1: So there was incredible music and there was an incredible

34
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:13,200
Speaker 1: atmosphere in the city. You know. After World War Two,

35
00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:15,520
Speaker 1: people from all over the world started heading up there

36
00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,560
Speaker 1: to get jobs and auto factories, and they brought their

37
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:21,080
Speaker 1: cultures with them and they all kind It was like

38
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:25,280
Speaker 1: going to you know, a great bazaar. Every day. You

39
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:27,360
Speaker 1: could hear all kinds of music and meet all kinds

40
00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:30,480
Speaker 1: of people beautiful. There was something about coming from Detroit

41
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: back then that there was no point in putting on

42
00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:37,080
Speaker 1: any errors. You know, it's a very honest city because

43
00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:41,079
Speaker 1: everyone's state was tied to the success of the auto business.

44
00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:45,480
Speaker 1: My parents were both teachers, and if auto sales were down,

45
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,320
Speaker 1: the families and move away to find other jobs, and

46
00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:50,679
Speaker 1: they'd lay off teachers, and they'd lay off barbers, and

47
00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:54,400
Speaker 1: they'd lay off waitresses, and so there was really no

48
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:58,000
Speaker 1: point in like Lisa and Mercedes, to impress people because

49
00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:00,600
Speaker 1: everyone knew we were all in the same boat. And

50
00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:04,880
Speaker 1: that was that was something very special about Detroit in

51
00:03:04,919 --> 00:03:07,120
Speaker 1: that era. And I think the music reflects that if

52
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:10,040
Speaker 1: you listen to the people who came out of there.

53
00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:15,000
Speaker 1: To me, the godfather of Detroit music is John Lee Hooker,

54
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:24,440
Speaker 1: and that's just brutally honest, incredibly raw stuff without affectation. Incredible, lucky,

55
00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:28,280
Speaker 1: lucky that you found yourself there. It's amazing how the universe,

56
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 1: the universe plays a role in all of this. It's incredible.

57
00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:36,160
Speaker 1: What was the world in Detroit? Like, paint a picture

58
00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,040
Speaker 1: of your childhood in Detroit. Well, I see it in

59
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,800
Speaker 1: black and white, probably because we were watching black and

60
00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:46,400
Speaker 1: white TV, but I don't see it bright and colorful.

61
00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:51,880
Speaker 1: There was a grit to the place, but a warmth. Man.

62
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 1: The people are really nice, man. Really, it's Midwestern and

63
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:02,080
Speaker 1: it's got that Cone Brothers kind of elevolence, but its

64
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: urban and and sophisticated, so it's it's it's not a

65
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:11,840
Speaker 1: farm town. There's a pretty hiptown. And the culture was

66
00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 1: great to music was unbelievable, man, not just in rock

67
00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:17,880
Speaker 1: and roll, you know, certainly when it was about the

68
00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,359
Speaker 1: R and B that came out of there, but like

69
00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:24,440
Speaker 1: just on the Blue Note roster, for example, there's a

70
00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:28,760
Speaker 1: really an ordinate number of musicians from Detroit who ended

71
00:04:28,839 --> 00:04:32,560
Speaker 1: up recording for Blue Note. It's an incredible jazz scene.

72
00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,640
Speaker 1: I feel like there are other industrial places that don't

73
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,040
Speaker 1: have that legacy. Is what do you think is specific

74
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:42,600
Speaker 1: about what was going on in Detroit particularly that created this.

75
00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:47,960
Speaker 1: I think it's the combination of no bullshit and having

76
00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 1: an incredible number of jobs in one period of time

77
00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:53,600
Speaker 1: that that drew people from all over the world. But

78
00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 1: it's just it's just some weird phenomenon. It was a

79
00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,880
Speaker 1: booming scene, man. How long did you stay in Detroit?

80
00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:02,360
Speaker 1: A long time? Man? I was there till I was

81
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: in my thirties. Wow. Yes, I left in the nineteen

82
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,719
Speaker 1: eighty six. So I started making records there. I loved.

83
00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:14,960
Speaker 1: I loved recording studios. David was my buddy, my partner.

84
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:19,320
Speaker 1: His parents were both voiceover actors, and so they remember

85
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:21,520
Speaker 1: them taking us to a place called the United Sound,

86
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:24,479
Speaker 1: which is the studio where John Lee Hooker cut Boogie

87
00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:27,920
Speaker 1: Chilling and George Clinton had it locked out from the

88
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 1: late seventies early eighties and it still standard by the while,

89
00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:34,600
Speaker 1: And so they took us down there maybe when we

90
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:37,520
Speaker 1: were twelve, to watch and records and commercials or something.

91
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:40,480
Speaker 1: And I walked into that big room and saw them

92
00:05:40,520 --> 00:05:43,600
Speaker 1: mic stands everywhere in the cables hanging in all the

93
00:05:43,839 --> 00:05:47,279
Speaker 1: year and it just looked like I wanted to spend

94
00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:50,320
Speaker 1: the rest of my life in Edinburgh, Man. So that

95
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:53,320
Speaker 1: got me going. When I was in my early twenties,

96
00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:57,760
Speaker 1: there's something called the Recording Institute of America which had

97
00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: started like almost like trade school, six week class and

98
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,479
Speaker 1: recording engineering, and they franchised it out in Detroit, and

99
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,440
Speaker 1: the class itself, it wasn't looking back on it. They

100
00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 1: taught EQ wrong. They didn't even know how equalizers are,

101
00:06:17,279 --> 00:06:20,360
Speaker 1: so the curriculum needed work. But it got me in

102
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,560
Speaker 1: that room at United Sound, and then from there I

103
00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:26,160
Speaker 1: was able to come a guy, really, I don't know

104
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:29,279
Speaker 1: any other way to put it, a guy named Jack

105
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:31,920
Speaker 1: Tan who owned a little Hrax studio on top of

106
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,320
Speaker 1: a warehouse. He needed an engineer, and I told him

107
00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:39,480
Speaker 1: I was a graduate May and I got in there.

108
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,120
Speaker 1: I was able to experiment. Then later got into a

109
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:46,680
Speaker 1: west Lake room called the Sound Suite. SOU and D

110
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,160
Speaker 1: s U I. T. E. Were Aretha recorder and Bob

111
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: Segre made records and there it was kind of jumping

112
00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 1: and they let me go in at midnight and just

113
00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 1: start making making any kind of records I could At

114
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:03,120
Speaker 1: that point, were you making purely your ound stuff or

115
00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:06,000
Speaker 1: we did you already start producing other people? Now that

116
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:08,000
Speaker 1: it was there was not Watch Stuff was really the

117
00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 1: first actual record we made that that came out, and

118
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:14,720
Speaker 1: that was we were just trying to create a little

119
00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,560
Speaker 1: little microcosm of the music we grew up with. You

120
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:20,960
Speaker 1: can hear on our first record we had Wayne Cramer

121
00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:25,200
Speaker 1: from the MC five playing guitar. We had Marcus Bellgrave,

122
00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:27,560
Speaker 1: great jazz trumpeter who at the time was playing to

123
00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:33,160
Speaker 1: Charles Mingus. He played trumpet on Larry Fritangelo from George

124
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,960
Speaker 1: Clinton's organization. It was playing percussion, and it was meant

125
00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:41,480
Speaker 1: to amalgamate all those sounds and to create the vibe

126
00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:45,000
Speaker 1: of that period in Detroit and what we grew up

127
00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:47,240
Speaker 1: listening to. And I didn't know what I was doing, man,

128
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:50,280
Speaker 1: it was we were just doing anything we could. We

129
00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:52,760
Speaker 1: had no money to work with, so that's a really

130
00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:54,560
Speaker 1: great thing. When you have no bread to work with,

131
00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,040
Speaker 1: you have to rely on creativity. You can't just hire

132
00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:00,920
Speaker 1: David Campbell to come write some strings to fill up

133
00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:03,960
Speaker 1: the bridge and make it rise. You gotta like find

134
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:06,800
Speaker 1: rusty nails and grind them together and put them in

135
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,640
Speaker 1: pitch and a harmonizer. So it was. It was a

136
00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:13,320
Speaker 1: great period along for that period in the way where

137
00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,000
Speaker 1: we were. It was an uphill battle. It's a twenty

138
00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:19,800
Speaker 1: four tracks studio. There were always two tracks that weren't working.

139
00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:25,160
Speaker 1: Two that's great and some and somehow we came up

140
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:27,480
Speaker 1: with an album and a guy named Michael Zulka. I

141
00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:29,200
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever ran in Michael. He owned

142
00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:34,360
Speaker 1: a copy called See Records The Coconuts. Yeah, yeah, So

143
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:37,360
Speaker 1: he gave us a deal. I think also, who else

144
00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:41,160
Speaker 1: was on the label the Contortions Maybe the Contortions, Yeah, yeah,

145
00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,720
Speaker 1: James White and the Blacks, Christina, the waitresses, the Kid

146
00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:52,400
Speaker 1: Creole and Cody Mundy were They were the foundational artists

147
00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:55,160
Speaker 1: at the label. I got an email from Michael Zulka

148
00:08:55,240 --> 00:08:58,839
Speaker 1: the other day, so wow, yeah, now he's wonderful. I

149
00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:02,079
Speaker 1: stay in touch with him, and he was a Medici man.

150
00:09:02,120 --> 00:09:05,280
Speaker 1: He was great. He just encouraged us to be as

151
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,679
Speaker 1: different as we could be. My favorite story with him

152
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,120
Speaker 1: we were recording in Detroit. He was sending us money

153
00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 1: in little and drabs and he said, I want you

154
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:20,800
Speaker 1: to send me rough mixes every night of what you're doing.

155
00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,839
Speaker 1: These are like my babies. Well at that time you

156
00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:27,800
Speaker 1: can just like burn files and email them. It meant.

157
00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,000
Speaker 1: And I was working all night to ten in the morning.

158
00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:33,640
Speaker 1: I had to stay up to runoffs in real time,

159
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:38,280
Speaker 1: make a cassette and go to FedEx myself and drop

160
00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:39,960
Speaker 1: it off for him so he could listen to it

161
00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:43,360
Speaker 1: the next day. And it got really tires of that,

162
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:49,000
Speaker 1: you know, for so so we said said, let's let's

163
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:51,680
Speaker 1: put an end to this, right, So we programmed all

164
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:55,240
Speaker 1: these sequencers we had laying around with the volume down,

165
00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:57,480
Speaker 1: so we couldn't hear what we were doing. We didn't

166
00:09:57,480 --> 00:09:59,680
Speaker 1: know what sounds were attached or what we We're just

167
00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:02,719
Speaker 1: banged down him. And then I said to David was,

168
00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:04,640
Speaker 1: I said, just go out there and yell something man

169
00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:08,839
Speaker 1: and uh. And the sax player Dave McMurray, went out

170
00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:11,080
Speaker 1: there with him and started playing. But they were just

171
00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:13,320
Speaker 1: they weren't hearing the music. They were just playing stuff.

172
00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:17,160
Speaker 1: And he yelled something about hello Dad, I'm in jail.

173
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:20,640
Speaker 1: Was about two minutes long. We put it on a cassette.

174
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:23,600
Speaker 1: We brought the brought the sound back up. It was.

175
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:32,520
Speaker 1: It was written, recorded and mixed simultaneously, and we FedEx

176
00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 1: that to him. We thought that would We figured he'd

177
00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:37,600
Speaker 1: call and say, all right, you don't have to send

178
00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:42,520
Speaker 1: us anymore stuff every day. No, of course, not at

179
00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:45,160
Speaker 1: ten in the morning. The next stayed up. I wanted

180
00:10:45,160 --> 00:10:47,320
Speaker 1: to hear his reaction, right, And of course he called

181
00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:49,680
Speaker 1: up and he said it's the most wonderful thing you've

182
00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:54,880
Speaker 1: ever done, and he was probably right. It turned out

183
00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:58,200
Speaker 1: it's been in like eight different movies and the summoned

184
00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:03,320
Speaker 1: in an animation or toured in animation festivals for years,

185
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:06,200
Speaker 1: and it was a It was a great lesson in

186
00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:12,240
Speaker 1: not overthinking stuff and dropping self consciousness and just having

187
00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:17,320
Speaker 1: the confidence to go out there and do anything. And

188
00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:21,920
Speaker 1: it's also testimony to Michael's taste that he heard that

189
00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,240
Speaker 1: and recognized the honesty of the thing. Yeah, it's amazing

190
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:29,200
Speaker 1: how these things work. What motivated you just move from

191
00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:32,880
Speaker 1: being an artist to being a producer. I never saw

192
00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:37,320
Speaker 1: them as disconnected. I'm old, but I'm not old enough.

193
00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:42,240
Speaker 1: I remember the Beatles using this, using the studio as

194
00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:45,520
Speaker 1: a musical texture, so to me that they were all

195
00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:48,800
Speaker 1: one and the same, it was just it was another instrument.

196
00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,400
Speaker 1: And I still see it that way. Well, what was

197
00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,320
Speaker 1: the first thing you produced that way? It wasn't your group? Well,

198
00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:58,400
Speaker 1: I did some odd things for Michael. I've produced his wife,

199
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:02,040
Speaker 1: a singer named Christina, and then there were some English

200
00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:04,719
Speaker 1: groups that it was that was our first album. We

201
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:07,520
Speaker 1: we did all right over in England and then we

202
00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:10,280
Speaker 1: started getting a coached by people. But the first big

203
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: artist to call me was Carly Simon and she really

204
00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,120
Speaker 1: went out on a limb. I think Frank Philippetti had

205
00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:20,720
Speaker 1: had worked on some of her stuff, and she was

206
00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:24,680
Speaker 1: looking for younger people to come in and infuse some

207
00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:27,120
Speaker 1: new blood. And she took a real chance on me.

208
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:30,560
Speaker 1: And what was the experience like for you? Oh? Man,

209
00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:35,280
Speaker 1: it's Carly Simon. I used to I used to stare

210
00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:37,679
Speaker 1: at the cover of playing possum, right, you know, And

211
00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:40,640
Speaker 1: now here I am in her house, eating dinner with her.

212
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 1: It blew my mind. And she was she was lovely.

213
00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,280
Speaker 1: I was going to a rough period then, as in

214
00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 1: the middle of a divorce, and she helped me get

215
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,120
Speaker 1: an apartment in New York. She actually went to the

216
00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:57,959
Speaker 1: tenants committee, and at that time, Carly Simon where she's

217
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,280
Speaker 1: like the queen of New York, right, So of course

218
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:02,439
Speaker 1: they wouldn't. I didn't even have a credit card. But

219
00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: she came in and vouched for me, and I got

220
00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:09,520
Speaker 1: an apartment and she was wonderful. Man. I learned a

221
00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:11,760
Speaker 1: lot from working with her too. And we're still living

222
00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:13,680
Speaker 1: in So this is when you were still living in

223
00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:16,160
Speaker 1: Detroit and then you moved to New York. I moved

224
00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 1: to New York while I was making a Carley Simon record.

225
00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:21,040
Speaker 1: I got a divorce and moved to New York. And

226
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:23,280
Speaker 1: then it was an adjustment. In fact, I don't think

227
00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,200
Speaker 1: I ever really found my groove in New York. I

228
00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: was struggling. I was doing the same thing I was

229
00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:32,760
Speaker 1: doing in Detroit, approaching the records the same, but they

230
00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:36,160
Speaker 1: weren't getting over. We weren't getting any hits. Then I

231
00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:40,280
Speaker 1: had this one experience, and this was a life changer.

232
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,680
Speaker 1: I got hired to produce a band for Virgin Records

233
00:13:44,679 --> 00:13:47,559
Speaker 1: in the UK. And my wife was the A and

234
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:50,280
Speaker 1: R at Virgin in the UK. That's not met her,

235
00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:53,840
Speaker 1: so she was somehow involved in hooking me up at

236
00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:57,080
Speaker 1: the spank called Award Brothers three brothers from Barnesley, which

237
00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:59,920
Speaker 1: is kind of like being from Iowa. And they had

238
00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:04,280
Speaker 1: a little church where they made these great four track demos,

239
00:14:04,440 --> 00:14:08,400
Speaker 1: great guitar basin drums, and then a bidding war started

240
00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:11,000
Speaker 1: over them. And now there's all this pressure. Now you

241
00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:13,200
Speaker 1: can't go to Barnesley to make a record with these guys.

242
00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:14,720
Speaker 1: We got to bring them to New York and do

243
00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:16,640
Speaker 1: it right. So they've never even been in New York,

244
00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:19,040
Speaker 1: so they get plunked down in the middle and it

245
00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:21,920
Speaker 1: didn't go well. And then and our guy came in

246
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:24,840
Speaker 1: from England and didn't like what he heard, and he

247
00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 1: pulled the band out. Man. He took him home and

248
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:29,680
Speaker 1: didn't call me. I came to the studio the next

249
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:32,480
Speaker 1: day and they were on a plane going back. I

250
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,680
Speaker 1: didn't hear from them for a month. It was harsh.

251
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:38,400
Speaker 1: And then they called me in a month. They said, well,

252
00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,800
Speaker 1: we're going to do some overdubs here. You can. We're

253
00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:43,760
Speaker 1: not gonna pay for it, but if you if you want,

254
00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:47,800
Speaker 1: you can fly over on your own dime and pay

255
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:49,920
Speaker 1: for a hotel, but you can still work on the record.

256
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,480
Speaker 1: And I had nothing going so I thought, all right,

257
00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:54,440
Speaker 1: I'll go. So I went over and I did overdubs

258
00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:57,120
Speaker 1: with him for two weeks and it's okay, you're back

259
00:14:57,120 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: in our good graces now. Then I didn't hear from

260
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,920
Speaker 1: them for a month. Then when they called me said

261
00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:05,920
Speaker 1: we're going to start mixing on this date in uh

262
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:09,720
Speaker 1: Like it was a residential studio in England somewhere again.

263
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:11,760
Speaker 1: You can fly over on your own dime if you want,

264
00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:13,720
Speaker 1: and you can be present if you want. So I

265
00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:16,160
Speaker 1: flew over and it was not going well. It was

266
00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:17,880
Speaker 1: not the right guy to mix the song. He was

267
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:20,520
Speaker 1: a good engineer, but he wasn't the right guy, and

268
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,480
Speaker 1: they kept talking about and our guy. I was saying,

269
00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:27,080
Speaker 1: it's got a sound like Don Henley, and it sounded nothing.

270
00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:31,000
Speaker 1: There was nothing on any track that sounded like Don's record.

271
00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:33,760
Speaker 1: But finally I said, all right, let me go to

272
00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:38,160
Speaker 1: LA and I'll mixed with let me mix the single

273
00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:42,160
Speaker 1: with Greg Ladanni, who engineered Don Henley's records. From the mix,

274
00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 1: So fly back to New York. I'm going to pick

275
00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:46,680
Speaker 1: up my wife. We're going to look at apartments and

276
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:51,440
Speaker 1: in LA while we're there, So I take a taxi in,

277
00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:53,240
Speaker 1: we get we get in the cab at midnight on

278
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:57,160
Speaker 1: a Friday. I got the two two two intrials under

279
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:59,320
Speaker 1: my arm for the mix, and we get up to

280
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 1: the ticket count there and she says, wait, we're the tapes.

281
00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:05,280
Speaker 1: And I left him in the trunk of a New

282
00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:09,880
Speaker 1: York taxicab at midnight on a Friday night. And thankfully

283
00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:11,840
Speaker 1: I kept the receipt and I had the medallion number.

284
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,800
Speaker 1: But nothing was going to happen till Monday, and Greg

285
00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:20,080
Speaker 1: Ladonney was waiting for me on Saturday. So I didn't

286
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:22,520
Speaker 1: know what to do. Man. I actually I lied to

287
00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 1: people and I said I got mugged at what's the

288
00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:30,280
Speaker 1: bus terminal called her, It's a transit authority. So I

289
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:36,520
Speaker 1: got mugged at the and I called. I called Michael

290
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:40,040
Speaker 1: Brauer and Media Sound, who they were good friends, and

291
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,640
Speaker 1: that I need I needs to help me with this.

292
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:46,640
Speaker 1: And we found a reel that had everything but the

293
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:50,080
Speaker 1: drums on it, so we had that flown over and

294
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:54,200
Speaker 1: um and Steve Ferronia came in and I said, you

295
00:16:54,280 --> 00:16:56,240
Speaker 1: got to it's a band of brothers. You got to

296
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:58,360
Speaker 1: play exactly what he played, and I gave him a

297
00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 1: cassette of it, and he learned the part and he

298
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:02,840
Speaker 1: overdubbed it and they all did it for free, and

299
00:17:02,920 --> 00:17:05,320
Speaker 1: I was able to get on a plane Saturday night,

300
00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:08,160
Speaker 1: and Gregor Donnie says, fine, we'll do it Sunday instead.

301
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:13,200
Speaker 1: So I go to the complex that was y Yeah.

302
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:15,000
Speaker 1: So I go over there to meet greg and he says,

303
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:16,639
Speaker 1: all right, well, I'll have a seat in the lounge.

304
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:21,679
Speaker 1: It will take you know, take you know, eight hours

305
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:23,919
Speaker 1: or something to mix it. And I'm sitting there. I

306
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 1: got my walkman and I remember Peter Gabriel's album, so

307
00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:29,800
Speaker 1: I had just come out right. I'm playing the song

308
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:33,919
Speaker 1: Don't give Up over and over and crying. I'm just

309
00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:37,640
Speaker 1: sitting there with the walkman on crying like I thought

310
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:40,840
Speaker 1: I bottomed out. And while I'm sitting in that lounge

311
00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:44,000
Speaker 1: because I was working there on Sunday instead of Saturday

312
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:45,760
Speaker 1: when there was a different artist in the other room,

313
00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:48,760
Speaker 1: Bonnie Rate came into the lounge and that's how I

314
00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:52,520
Speaker 1: met Bonnie. And meeting and meet and Bonnie Rate changed

315
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:56,480
Speaker 1: my whole life. So it's a good lesson, man, And

316
00:17:56,560 --> 00:18:01,040
Speaker 1: how you know you can when you think everything's going wrong,

317
00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:05,439
Speaker 1: maybe it's really going right. Yeah, I never know. We

318
00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:09,440
Speaker 1: never know, and the brakes really never come from where

319
00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 1: you expect them to come. It's always someone you met

320
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 1: along the way to do the thing. That's the one

321
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:19,360
Speaker 1: who's going to change your life. So so I'll moved

322
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:23,360
Speaker 1: out to LA and started recording with Bonnie Ray. How

323
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:27,160
Speaker 1: long did you work with Bonnie? Well, we did four albums,

324
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:30,119
Speaker 1: but that album Nika Time was the first one we

325
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:34,399
Speaker 1: did and that that changed you know that wanted a

326
00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:37,320
Speaker 1: Grammy for album album. I think it one like five

327
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,679
Speaker 1: Grammys or something. Man, I really went from being a

328
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:46,879
Speaker 1: pariah to having work. I feel like I'm still riding

329
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:52,760
Speaker 1: the like the wind from Bonnie Ray still in my

330
00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:55,359
Speaker 1: in my sales. Yeah, You've done a lot of good

331
00:18:55,359 --> 00:19:00,960
Speaker 1: work in between, though, I'll say thank you, appreciate, but

332
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:04,480
Speaker 1: it was a very special working with her Man. She's

333
00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,720
Speaker 1: just such a great artist. We'll be back with Rick

334
00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:14,680
Speaker 1: Rubin and Don Was. After a quick break, we're back

335
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:17,800
Speaker 1: with more from Don Was. Do you think that there's

336
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,639
Speaker 1: something special that happens when you work with an artist

337
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:25,399
Speaker 1: the first time that's different than when you work with

338
00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:28,480
Speaker 1: them over and over again. Yeah. I mean, I think

339
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,199
Speaker 1: when you do anything for the first time, you know

340
00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:37,800
Speaker 1: you have I think creating and recreating a two very

341
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:44,280
Speaker 1: different neurological processes. So the first time, it's all creation

342
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 1: because you have no routine, you have no anything, You're

343
00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 1: you're just building a dynamic and method of working together.

344
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 1: Then to go back then, especially if it's been really successful,

345
00:19:57,320 --> 00:19:59,240
Speaker 1: to go back to that same method and try to

346
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,720
Speaker 1: do it again now. We actually, I think the second

347
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:05,960
Speaker 1: record we made after the one after Nicked Time, I

348
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:08,920
Speaker 1: think that's a better album. It actually had more hits

349
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:11,960
Speaker 1: and sold more records. Yeah, and it had that song

350
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 1: I Can't Make You Love Me on that Wow. But

351
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:17,639
Speaker 1: we were aware at the time that we had to overcome,

352
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:20,159
Speaker 1: but we were aware of the phenomenon that we were

353
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:24,679
Speaker 1: going back to recreate a methodology, for lack of a

354
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:30,160
Speaker 1: better term, a pattern that was set on something previous

355
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 1: that had just caught some kind of crazy wind and spread. Yeah.

356
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:42,320
Speaker 1: I think more often than not, when you catch that wind,

357
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:46,520
Speaker 1: the healthiest thing to do is to just start from

358
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 1: scratch on the next one. Is opposed to try instead

359
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 1: of trying to part to it? Well, you can't. You know.

360
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,840
Speaker 1: One of those things that I've learned lately. I've been

361
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:59,120
Speaker 1: playing live more than ever in my life. I've been

362
00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 1: playing with Were you did a wonderful show? Oh you

363
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:08,120
Speaker 1: did well? I didn't know that I pay in Kawaii.

364
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 1: Oh right, that was a wild night. Yeah, that's fantastic.

365
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,359
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Yeah. Well, playing with Bobby, first

366
00:21:17,359 --> 00:21:19,919
Speaker 1: of all, you can never play the same set twice.

367
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: And you can, I mean, like ever, you can never

368
00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:26,680
Speaker 1: put the same list together twice. We have one hundred

369
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:30,479
Speaker 1: twenty songs to draw from, and we really don't repeat

370
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,919
Speaker 1: anything for four nights, but they're always put together in

371
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 1: a different combination. And on top of that, we never

372
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: ever ever play it the same way twice. There might

373
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,760
Speaker 1: it's got some loose form to it, but you don't

374
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:47,159
Speaker 1: know what thing is going to get stretched out. I

375
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 1: don't know what the drummer is going to play a

376
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,919
Speaker 1: different beat, so it doesn't there's no point in playing

377
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:55,399
Speaker 1: the same thing I played last night, because everything's gonna

378
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,800
Speaker 1: be different. So the one thing I've really learned about

379
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: him is that any thing but trying to repeat what

380
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 1: you did the previous night is probably going to get

381
00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:07,879
Speaker 1: you somewhere. But you also learn not to not to

382
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 1: worry too much about it, and I just go out

383
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: there and play. It's a hard thing to learn. It

384
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 1: was one of the attractions that taking the gig. I

385
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 1: was interested obviously in playing with them and playing those songs,

386
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: but what I was really interested in was expanding fearlessness.

387
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 1: I wanted to self consciousness is the enemy of really

388
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: everything right, and I just wanted to get better at

389
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,040
Speaker 1: going out there, not knowing what I was going to

390
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 1: do in front of twenty five hundred people and just

391
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,240
Speaker 1: start playing. And it's been. It's been great for that,

392
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:50,919
Speaker 1: but it it obviously has implications and everything that you

393
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: do in life and in making records. I think that's

394
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,159
Speaker 1: been I don't stay up, threatening over what's going to

395
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:58,239
Speaker 1: happen the next day. I used to get. I mean,

396
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 1: I still get nervous before every session. And it doesn't

397
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: matter if it's Bob Dylan coming in or it's from

398
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: nineteen year old kid making a first album, because you

399
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 1: really don't know where that magic thing is going to

400
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: come from. We all know how we can make an

401
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 1: okay record in our sleep, but okay is your enemy. Man,

402
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:21,719
Speaker 1: just being good is your enemy. How are you going

403
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: to get that? How are you going to make it great?

404
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 1: Something lightning? It's got to hit the room. Yeah, it's

405
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: completely out of our control. Totally out of control, right,

406
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: So that that's terrified. I understand why. You know why

407
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: a lot of musicians end up on heroin and stuff,

408
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 1: you know, because having to live with that is a

409
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: tough thing. It's out of our control. So how do

410
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,680
Speaker 1: you going to deal with that? I used to get,

411
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: Really I feel that my stomach before every session, Like,

412
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: where's the magic going to come from? Today? I don't know?

413
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: But it always comes to varying degrees. Something good always happens.

414
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: You have to, but you got to open your self

415
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: up to that. Anyone's got to be open to the

416
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 1: same and you got to make sure to takes role

417
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: and when when when it hits Yeah, and be patient,

418
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: you know, like that's another big part. It's like just

419
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: gotta wait for it time. It's like fishing, you know,

420
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,399
Speaker 1: you gotta wait for it to well, that's exactly. It's

421
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 1: very much like the surfing, you know, like going out,

422
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: you gotta wait for the wave. You're gonna get one

423
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: and it's going to be exhilarating when you catch it. Yeah,

424
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 1: but you don't exactly know what shape it's going to be.

425
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:29,160
Speaker 1: You don't exactly know when it's gonna come. Never, never,

426
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: Every session is different. How do you deal with it same?

427
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 1: It's like I'm always I always have anxiety before, especially

428
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: before the first session of any project, because I really

429
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: that then I really have no idea what's going to happen.

430
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: Usually after we've started, there's something reveals itself as to

431
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: it's going to be one of these you know it's

432
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: going to be in this ballpark, and then at least

433
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: I still don't know what it's really going to be.

434
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: But at least I'm calm about it because it's not

435
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: just a blank page. Do you know what I'm saying

436
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: it's there's some at least there's a frame that I

437
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: can see, there's where it's going to be contained, and

438
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: that's helpful. Yeah, no, exactly, And it sounds like from

439
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,880
Speaker 1: your experience with Weir, it's almost more like a jazz

440
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: approach in terms of playing free. It's totally like a

441
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: jazz approach, except the modes and scales are a little

442
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: bit different. And even then he listened a lot to

443
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: McCoy tyner, Love McCoy tyner, and he'll he'll do things

444
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: like we've we've referenced Coltrane records as far as to

445
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: try to shape the nature of our improvisation. And I

446
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: had to really try to come up with a way

447
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: to play bass. I'll tell you the story. I was

448
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: producing John Mayer in twenty eleven and John got me

449
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: really into the Grateful Bed again. I'd seen him play

450
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, but I hadn't really been like

451
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: a deadhead or anything. And John was a fanatic for him.

452
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 1: Every time we got in the car, it was the

453
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: Grateful Bead channel, and he could identify the year that

454
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: the concert was even if it wasn't on the screen.

455
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: He really knew their plan so I started listening again

456
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: and started appreciating what they were doing. And then I ran.

457
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: I'd known Bob since the early nineties, but ran into

458
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: him somewhere and he started talking and he was looking

459
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: for something new to do, and how were they going

460
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: to move forward? As it's a band that Bobby and

461
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: Mickey Hart came over to my office at Blue Note

462
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: in the Capitol Tower and John was working downstairs, and

463
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: I said, man, you'd better come up here. You won't

464
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: believe was in my office. And that led to the

465
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: two of us going up to Bob's studio and San

466
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 1: Raphael and that was how Dead and Company started. And

467
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I would have elected been

468
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: the bass player and Dead and Company. And I did play,

469
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 1: but John, there's about a two month lag. And John

470
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: stopped his album and went home and shedded Grateful Dead

471
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: songs and I did, so we got up. I didn't

472
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 1: really know the songs, and I made him sound when

473
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: I played, it sounded like a bar band doing Grateful

474
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: Dead signs. Know it was the guys, but it worked

475
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: out great with John, but I didn't know how to do.

476
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: What Phil did that really baffled me. He's I think

477
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: he's a really unique musician, and I don't know where

478
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: he's coming from me. It's a unique voice that belongs

479
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: to him, and I can't figure out what he's doing

480
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: or imitate him. So I was not the right guy

481
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: for that. But then Bob called me about two years later,

482
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: he said, let's start a trio. I said, I had

483
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: a dream. We started a trio. Beautiful and you play

484
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: acoustic bass. So I started. You know, this time, I thought, well,

485
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: I'm really gonna shed man, I'm really gonna practice these

486
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: songs and I'll be ready. And I was ready, but

487
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: I was. I started, I was playing a whole lot

488
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: of notes. And then once we started playing together, I

489
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: realized that he wanted something different. It wasn't It wasn't.

490
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,959
Speaker 1: He wasn't saying play like Phil. He was saying, I

491
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: want to I want you to play with what I'm singing.

492
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: Play play the play the lyrics, play the song, don't

493
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 1: worry about the chords, don't worry about a bunch of notes.

494
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: I want to be able to phrase, and I need

495
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,680
Speaker 1: you to support me. So then it became a whole

496
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: different challenge. Not how do I play like Phil? It

497
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: became how do I stay the fuck out of the

498
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: way of his phrasing and still be supportive. What's the

499
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: what are the fewest notes I can play that will

500
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: still provide support, but that won't inhibit his guitar playing

501
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: or singing. And that was the challenge, and it is

502
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: every night, because every night's different. He phrases something, He

503
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: phrased the song completely differently. Every night he approaches it fresh.

504
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: It's like, what's the next line, Where's he going to sing?

505
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: Where don't you need to play? So no, but that forces,

506
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: it forces an interactive nature of performance and focus that

507
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: if you were playing your same part every night wouldn't

508
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: be there. It's like we know a lot of we

509
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 1: know a lot of rock bands that essentially go on

510
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: autopilot when they play live, and it sounds like this

511
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: every night. You're in this moment and much are I

512
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: like jazz again? It's also you know what else, It's

513
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: like it's like meditation. Yeah, because we played for three

514
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: hours every night, and really, if if I take my

515
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: eye off the ball, I'm gonna get hit in the head. Yeah,

516
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: the whole time. I've got to be like inside, and

517
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: I come off those shows like flying. So exhilarated from it.

518
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: So great, that's so great. That's the best, it's the best.

519
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: It's actually the best thing I've ever been involved with

520
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: in my life, playing with Bobby Industry beautiful. We'll be

521
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: right back with Don was after a break. We're back

522
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: with the rest of Rick's conversation with Don was, let's

523
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: talk about about jazz, and let's talk about Blue Note.

524
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: So how did Blue Note? How did Blue Note come

525
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: into your life? Blue No, Well, in nineteen sixty six,

526
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: I was fourteen years old and I was riding around

527
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: running errands with my mom in Detroit, and I was

528
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: being grumpy. You know, I don't want to be with

529
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: my mom. I wanted to be out at the mall,

530
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: hanging out with my friends. I was a pain in

531
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:24,959
Speaker 1: the ass. So she left me in the car with

532
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: the keys I could play with the radio. She running

533
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: to do something. I started messing with the dial, and

534
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: on weekends, the local R and B station WCHB, which

535
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: simulcast the local jazz station WCHD, and I landed on

536
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: the station. I didn't know anything about it, but I

537
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: landed on the station and there I came in just

538
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: as the saxophone solo of a song that I later

539
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: learned was called Mode for Joe by Joe Henderson. The

540
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: saxophone solo was beginning and I could hear like about notes,

541
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: and it wasn't about instruments. It was a guy talking

542
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: to me and he was anguished, man, and so was

543
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: I because I stuck driving around with my mom, so

544
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: I totally related to By About twenty seconds later, the

545
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: drummer Joe Chambers. So by the way, we just resigned

546
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: to blue note. He was making a new album for us.

547
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: As we speak, Joe Chamber starts kicking him with this groove,

548
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: and Joe Henderson kind of falls into place, and then

549
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: he starts swinging and he's mollified by the groove. And

550
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: the statement that came through to me from listening to

551
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: that music, although not necessarily in these words, was down

552
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: you got to groove in the face of adversity. And

553
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: sure enough, man, when my mom came back to the car,

554
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: I was a nice kid again. I was happy, and

555
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: this music spoke to me and changed my frame of

556
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: mind one hundred eighty degrees, that's fourteen. I didn't know

557
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: what hit me, but I did know that I liked

558
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: the music a lot. And so it was on the

559
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: broadcast on the FM all the time, and back then

560
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: he had to go audio way to listen to after

561
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: you had to buy a special radio. So so I

562
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: got a AMFM portable radio and started listening to the

563
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: jazz station. And I found that a lot of the

564
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: music I liked was coming from this one little label

565
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: out of New York called Blue Note Records, and I

566
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: wanted to know more about him, and I started collecting

567
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: the record started looking at him. You know, there's no internet,

568
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: you couldn't just look at all the covers. So my

569
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: friends are not. We just get on buses and go

570
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: record store to record store. And back in those days,

571
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: every record store was you know, it was like a

572
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: mom and pop store, and the stock reflected the taste

573
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: of the owner, and so you tried different ones at

574
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: different stores. And I remember once calling around and find

575
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: out that there's a copy of Larry Young's album called

576
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: Unity Blue Note Classic, that there was one on the

577
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: east side of Detroit, And we wrote a bus for

578
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. Didn't even buy it. We just wanted

579
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: to look at it. We need the liner notes and

580
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: maybe you could count the owner of the store into

581
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: breaking the plastic seal and playing some of it for you.

582
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: So I was just enthralled not only by the music

583
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: and the message behind the music, but by the whole

584
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: vibe of it. Man. It had the great black and

585
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: white photos of these musicians sitting and smoke and wearing

586
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: cool clothes, and I just wanted to be part of that.

587
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in that room. And the album

588
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: covers themselves all designed by a guy named Reid Miles,

589
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: who really changed the language graphic design. You can see

590
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: his influence everywhere now. But those covers just made such

591
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: a strong individual statement. The whole culture around Blue Note

592
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: was appealing to me, and I followed the company my

593
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: whole life, right up until twenty eleven, when I was

594
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: again that same record talk about other records leading the

595
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: situations I was producing John Mayer. We had one night

596
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: off and I read that a singer named Gregory Porter

597
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: was appearing up at a club you Harlem called Smoke.

598
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: So on my night off, I went up there and

599
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 1: it was just the greatest show I'd seen in years. Man.

600
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: I sat to three sets, eating ribs and drinking coffee,

601
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: and the next morning I had breakfast with a guy

602
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: named Dan McCarroll. I don't know if you know that.

603
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: He used to be a drummer, played with Sheryl Crowe

604
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: and Lloyd Cole and emotions and somehow one of the

605
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: best guys ever and he worked his way up and

606
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: at that moment he was president of Capitol Records. So

607
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: we're just having breakfast. We're old friends. And right at

608
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: the end of the breakfast, I said to Dan, said,

609
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: is Blue Note's still part of Capital, because if it is,

610
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: you should sign this guy. But I saw last night

611
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: and he said, But as it turns out, unbeknownst to me,

612
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 1: Bruce Lundball, who'd run the label for thirty years, was

613
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: sick and he couldn't carry on, and they weren't quite

614
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: sure what they were going to do to keep the

615
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: ethos alive. There was some talk about turn it into

616
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 1: a website that sold catalog and blue T shirts. Was

617
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: to plan down most uncomfortable with it. And I came

618
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: in with an idea on the day that they were

619
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: looking for an idea, and you offered me the job

620
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: right there in this little diner in New York City.

621
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 1: I said, you should sign them. Amazing, So so I

622
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: never aspired to work at a record company. In fact,

623
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: I never my whole my whole life was kind of

624
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: devoted to avoiding having a job if I just didn't

625
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:34,720
Speaker 1: have to. I never thought about playing or making records,

626
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: just being a job as long as I have to

627
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: get a job. I was okay, I was fifty eight.

628
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: I almost made it irresistible offer, so I couldn't say

629
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: no to that. I walked around for an hour, thought

630
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: about it, and it was like, what the fuck it?

631
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: And did you sign Gregoryporter? Those first call? Yeah, first call,

632
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: great choice, thank you and h and then the second guy.

633
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: I ended up on an airplane with the lawyer named

634
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: Kenny Hurts, who I've known for years, and he represented

635
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 1: Wayne Short. I said, Wayne ever want to be on

636
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: Blue Note again? And that was that was the second signing. Amazing,

637
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 1: So it's really worked out. I love it. I love

638
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: doing it. I love being a part of maintaining the

639
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: legacy of the company and extending it. There's nothing, which

640
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know you've experienced time and time again,

641
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 1: there's nothing quite like a feeling of finding a young

642
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: artist and saying come with us, and you see something

643
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: build off of that and you've enabled them to grow

644
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: and to have their music. It's it's just a it's

645
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: a wonderful experience. Absolutely. Tell me, what do you know

646
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: about the beginnings of Blue Note? When was it founded?

647
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: What's the story of from the beginning? Founded in nineteen

648
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: thirty nine by two German immigrants, Alfred Lyon and Francis Wolf,

649
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: who were getting away from Hitler and they came over here.

650
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: They were totally enamored of Black American music and just

651
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 1: started hanging out listening to it. They were in a

652
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: like a jazz club, not a bar, but like a

653
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: like chess club. They joined a club and they would

654
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: talk about records and all that, and then their way

655
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: in was to start recording some of the musicians they loved.

656
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 1: So the first record was released in nineteen thirty nine

657
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,399
Speaker 1: is a Mead Lux Lewis and Albert Ammas. And they

658
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 1: just kept going and it seems that if there was

659
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: a pattern there, it was that they signed artists who

660
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: had strong fundamentals, knew the history of the music that

661
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: came before them, had had a gift. But we're looking

662
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:54,479
Speaker 1: to push the threshold of what was then contemporary music

663
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: and go one step beyond, do something new and reflect

664
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: the times that they lived in. So I jumped in

665
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight. They could have signed anybody in bebop.

666
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: They signed Thelonious Monk, who was definitely left the center.

667
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: Of course, we listened to Monk. Now it sounds you've

668
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,399
Speaker 1: become such a part of the vocabulary. You don't think

669
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: of it as radical music. But it was totally radical

670
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: when he created it, and he changed the face of composition.

671
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 1: He changed in the nature of the way people voice chords.

672
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just had such an influence on generations

673
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: to come. But they took a chance on him and

674
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: repeated that again five or six years later when they

675
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: put Art Blakey and Horace Silver together to form the

676
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:41,479
Speaker 1: Jazz Messengers, and and that became the birth of hard bop,

677
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: which again revolutionized music. He jumped into the sixties where

678
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: I came on board as a fan, and they had

679
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 1: Herbie Hancock and Wayne short Of doing all these incredible

680
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: modal things, but they had Ornett Comer and Eric Dolphy

681
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: and Cecil Taylor, and even the most commercial I have

682
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: a label was probably Jimmy Smith, the organ player. But

683
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: what he was doing with the D three, even though

684
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: you could dance to it and had a group that

685
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: was radical and revolutionary. No one had done that but

686
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: a B three before they played bass with this hand

687
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 1: and foot and combination, like that's incredible, but Jimmy Smith

688
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: did so that seemed to be the legacy. That's the

689
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,320
Speaker 1: real essence of the label, and we try to continue

690
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: that today. When my first day on the gig, Robert

691
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: Glasper came in to play rough mixes of Black Radio,

692
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: which I just remembered being totally transported when I heard that,

693
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: because I'd never heard anyone put hip hop and jazz

694
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: together the way he did on that record. People have

695
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: done me to Roy Hargrove did incredible things ten years earlier,

696
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: but no one had done it quite like the way

697
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 1: Robert was doing it, And I just remember being totally

698
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: tripped out listening to it. And now that was, you know,

699
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: that was maybe nine years ago or something like that. Credible. Now,

700
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 1: if you go to a student concert at any college,

701
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: someone's going to get up and say, we'd like to

702
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: do Robert Glassper song now Afro Blue, which of course

703
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: there's an old Mongo Santa Maria song the Coltrane, but

704
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: everyone knows Robert's arrangement and he's now become a permanent

705
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: part of the jazz vocabulary. So the goal is to

706
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: keep doing that. Amazing. How often do you see someone

707
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: who can fit in that lineage? Seems like they're few

708
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: and far between. Yeah, they are few and far between.

709
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: Now you don't see some of that often, but you know, recently,

710
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: I actually asked my sons, my youngest kid, Solomon, he's

711
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: bass players twenty he's going to be twenty four this year,

712
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: and I said, who in your generation is like the

713
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,919
Speaker 1: Miles Davis, you know? And he didn't hesitate me. He said,

714
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: there's a vibes player out of Chicago named Joel Ross.

715
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: To check him out. So we started watching the videos

716
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: and he's awesome, man. So I called him up and

717
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: he'd already had an album recorded, you know. He was

718
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: He was really sharp, he really on the case. The

719
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: more I hung with him, I realized that he was

720
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: quite well known and he's the leader among the musicians

721
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,720
Speaker 1: of his generation. And I can see that when people

722
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: play in his band, they played differently. He elevates the

723
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: playing just bout being with them. But when whenever, wherever

724
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: he goes to play, it changes, which reminds me of Miles.

725
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: It reminds me of Charles Lloyd, the same thing. So

726
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: we signed him and he put out a record about

727
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: a year ago and he's really blossoming. And now we

728
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: just signed the guy who plays saxophone with him, Emmanuel Wilkins.

729
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: Such a record coming out. Both Joel and Emmanuel new

730
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 1: records coming. So they're there. Uh, you know, people are

731
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: out there. You just have to keep listening and stay open. Yeah.

732
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 1: It sounds like the same like being in the studio.

733
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: Just the patience, you know, that's it. That's exactly like that.

734
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of the things I

735
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: learned in the studio and also learned as an artist

736
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: who ended up being produced by other people. I think

737
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:07,800
Speaker 1: that's been that's been really helpful. I don't I don't

738
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: rule with an iron fist. I do the opposite. I'll

739
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: try to sign people whose instincts I trust. Yeah. Absolutely.

740
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 1: How did your relationship with the Stones begin? They called

741
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 1: me in ninety two. They just signed a Virgin Records,

742
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: and Virgin Records is trying to get them to use

743
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:30,280
Speaker 1: a producer. And you know, I was on the heels

744
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 1: of I'll just be fifty twos Bonnie Rate stuff, and

745
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: they suggested I meet with them, so I went to

746
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 1: New York City. They were right after Bill Wyman left

747
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: the band and they were auditioning based new bass players.

748
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: I went to sir, and you gotta understand. I saw

749
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: them play for the first time in nineteen sixty four,

750
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: bought the first album, bought every album subsequently, went to

751
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: every tour subsequently, and now here I was in a

752
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: room watching them play the greatest hits audition and a

753
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 1: bass player and there's nobody else in the room. I

754
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: just couldn't believe it. So then Mick and Keith come

755
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: over and they sit down next to me. I hadn't

756
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: met Keith before, but I'd met Mick before, and they

757
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: both started talking at the same time, and it was

758
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 1: like like watching a tennis match, and my head's going

759
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: back and forth which guy that I listened to, and

760
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 1: they did not yield to the other guy for it

761
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 1: felt like an eternity. But it's probably a good three

762
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:32,839
Speaker 1: minutes right, probably yet probably still to this day it

763
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 1: thinks I haven't changed that much. But Keith was basically

764
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: giving me, you know, all the reasons that they didn't

765
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: need a producer. I don't need some fucking guy to

766
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: tell me how to play guitar. And Mick wanted the producer,

767
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: but he had he had his read so they were

768
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: both talking at the same time, and then they both

769
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,399
Speaker 1: stopped at the same time and Keith said, you share,

770
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: you want to be the meat in this sandwich. And

771
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: I thought, oh man, they're never gonna hire me. But

772
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: I got a great story to tell my grandchildren. So

773
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: I split that day thinking I was never going to

774
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: see him again. And then and then Keith telled me

775
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks later, and we figured out what

776
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: they did need and what they don't need. He doesn't

777
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: need someone to tell him how to play guitar, so

778
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: I don't have to do that. But there are there

779
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: are other things where having an objective third party helps.

780
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: So it's been really nice that it's been. It's those

781
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, so it's twenty seven years, and they've

782
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: been good friends. They're really good friends and really generous guys,

783
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: and they are the best rock and roll band ever

784
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 1: I think, you know. And I just every time we

785
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: go in to make a record and I get to

786
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: sit in that little circle with them playing live I

787
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: can't believe how good they are. And I've gotten to

788
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 1: play with them too, which is nice. There's been times

789
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 1: that darl Jones hasn't been able to be at a

790
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 1: rehearsal or session. When you when you play bass with them,

791
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: you become a where that the conversation, the musical conversation

792
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: that's going on, there's zero tension in it. It's quite jocular.

793
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 1: They're having so much fun, and it's kind of like

794
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,280
Speaker 1: you know when when you go to a baseball game,

795
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 1: before the inning starts, there'll be several balls out in

796
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: the field and they're just tossing it around, warming up

797
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 1: before the inning starts. So that's kind of like what

798
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,479
Speaker 1: they do to each other. They throw each other these

799
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: really nice softballs, these beautiful pitches that just land right

800
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: in the glove, and that they're just flying around and

801
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: Charlie will play something that makes Keith play something, that

802
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: I'll make Nick play something something, that I'll make Ronnie

803
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: play something, and they're so quick and there's so much

804
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 1: listening and it's so improvised and it's so much fun. Man,

805
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: they have a ball when they play. It's great. Tell

806
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,439
Speaker 1: me about tell me about the show in nineteen sixty four.

807
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: What was it like seeing them back then? I didn't

808
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: know anything about it, man, No one knew who they

809
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: were in nineteen It's like February nineteen sixty four, March,

810
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,800
Speaker 1: the Beatles had just been on Ed Sullivan, so everyone

811
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: was totally into this whole notion of English groups coming

812
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 1: over and here's another Beatles kind of group. And they

813
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: played the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, which is a hockey arena,

814
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,439
Speaker 1: and there were maybe three hundred people in a place

815
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: that held eighteen thousand. But a couple of weeks later

816
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 1: they were you know, they're on Ed Sullivan and then

817
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: they were huge. How would you say your relationship to

818
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,359
Speaker 1: music has changed from the time you were a kid,

819
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,399
Speaker 1: from the time that you were in your mom's car

820
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: and you heard that saxophone yep. How was your relationship

821
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: to music changed to today? Well, there's made me just

822
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of awareness of the backbone behind you

823
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 1: what you see pathy. The impact is still exactly the same,

824
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of research about, like the neurological

825
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: implications in music that the part of the brain that

826
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: processes these is there originally so you could communicate with babies.

827
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: It's the pre language communication. And so like a mother

828
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: CRUs to a baby, Oh look at the baby. Last music.

829
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: Those are intervals, and those intervals are repeated and disparate

830
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: cultures all over the world the same thing. It soothes

831
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: a baby. But once you learn to speak, you know,

832
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: by the time you're three years old, maybe close that

833
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,280
Speaker 1: area of the braindown. We close down nineteen of twenty

834
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 1: active synopses by the time we're twelve or something like that,

835
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: because we can't have them all open, and we keep

836
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: open the synoptic pathways that we use, and we keep

837
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: the music one open. Well why is that? I think

838
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: it's because conversational language, no matter how particulate deep you

839
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: get with it, it still fails to convey the full

840
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 1: depth of our inner emotional lives. That's why we have art,

841
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: you know, because you have to convert these emotions to

842
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: another medium in order to communicate that to somebody. And

843
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: great art is made by someone who's is willing to

844
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: dig deep inside and take something even that it makes

845
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: them really uncomfortable and really you know, tears them up,

846
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:22,359
Speaker 1: and bring that out in some way and share that

847
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,439
Speaker 1: with other people so that when they receive it. It

848
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,919
Speaker 1: puts them in touch with their lives. So anything that

849
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 1: brings you some understanding of what's going on inside of you,

850
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: anything that even just brings you comfort for three minutes,

851
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 1: that's an amazing thing to offer to people. So I

852
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: just know that even before I was making music, I

853
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: was impacted by music and it sued my soul and

854
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: made life bearable. And it's nothing has changed, and that's that.

855
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: I just have a little bit of insight into how

856
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: you can at that from the artist to the listener.

857
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 1: It's still all magic and all it's a big fucking mystery. Yeah,

858
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: we're so lucky that we get to feel that on

859
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: a regular basis. I feel super fortunate, I really do. Man,

860
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 1: it's a great way to spend your life. You can

861
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: hear all of our favorite Dona Was related tracks on

862
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: a playlist we created for this episode at Broken Record

863
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: podcast dot com, and be sure to check out our

864
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, where you can find all of our past

865
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: episodes and also some great bonus material. You can subscribe

866
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast. Broken Record

867
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Mel LaBelle Leo Rose,

868
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme

869
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: music is by Kenny Beats. Thanks for listening. I'm justin Richmond.