Speaker 1: Pushkin. John Hyatt is a Nashville based singer songwriter whose
Speaker 1: songs have been covered by a wide range of popular artists,
Speaker 1: including Iggy Pop, Paula Duel and Jimmy Buffett, Missus Sip
Speaker 1: of Bone Boom, and A Middle of the Night Bugs,
Speaker 1: Flying every Well, Crazy Against Stage Online. Hyatt signed his
Speaker 1: first record deal in nineteen seventy four, and in the
Speaker 1: years since he's released twenty four albums. His latest Leftover Feelings,
Speaker 1: he recorded with the Jerry Douglas band. Douglas, who's feigned
Speaker 1: producer and session musician, as one fourteen Grammys for solo
Speaker 1: work and collaborations that they slew of successful musicians. He's
Speaker 1: also known as one of the foremost masters of the
Speaker 1: dough bro an instrument similar to the lapsteal guitar. On
Speaker 1: today's episode, John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas performed three songs
Speaker 1: off their new album and talk to Bruce Head them
Speaker 1: about how they came together to record that album and
Speaker 1: the studio that's known as the birthplace of the Nashville Sad.
Speaker 1: John Hyatt also explains how one of his new songs
Speaker 1: helped him forgive the horrific abuse he endor from his
Speaker 1: older brother when he was growing up. This is broken
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Head them with John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas.
Speaker 1: Tell me a bit about you hadn't worked together. I
Speaker 1: don't think he'd worked directly together before. How did it
Speaker 1: even come about that you were working together? Jerry? How
Speaker 1: in the hell did we wind up with each other? Well,
Speaker 1: we're both suddenly under the same managerial umbrella. Our managers
Speaker 1: got together and talked and said, well, why don't those
Speaker 1: guys do a record together? They know each other, Why
Speaker 1: haven't they ever recorded together? And we actually have recorded
Speaker 1: together on the second circle be Unbroken Record. I was
Speaker 1: in the house band that played every day and John
Speaker 1: came through with Roseanne Cash. We did a song for
Speaker 1: that and Jerry was, yeah, Jerry played with everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we were We did do that, and we've done
Speaker 1: each other for a long time and had some great conversations.
Speaker 1: When it came up, I thought, yeah, that'd be great man.
Speaker 1: Who wouldn't want to do it? Record with John Hyatt anyway?
Speaker 1: So I felt the same way. I was excited about
Speaker 1: the ideas idea of playing with you know the man
Speaker 1: who was the logical next prince of the Dobroud Taylor
Speaker 1: to Older and Josh Grays, and then you have Jerry
Speaker 1: Douglas Boom. Now did you come in with all the
Speaker 1: songs ready to go or was it were you picking
Speaker 1: through songs and looking through files? And I sent Jerry
Speaker 1: about fifteen tunes, a couple of older ones, one of
Speaker 1: which we did on the record, a song called Little
Speaker 1: good Night, which I wrote when my thirty three year
Speaker 1: old daughter was born, but I had never recorded it,
Speaker 1: so that was kind of fun. And then we redid
Speaker 1: a song All the Lilacs in Ohio, which was on
Speaker 1: a record I put out in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Everything else was relatively new, About five or six of
Speaker 1: them I wrote, I'd call them pandemic songs. We were
Speaker 1: both ready to do the record and everything, and one
Speaker 1: of the cool things, especially for me, is we were
Speaker 1: going to use my band is going to be on
Speaker 1: the tour and did all the recording as well with John,
Speaker 1: so it just gave him a completely a different twist
Speaker 1: on John Hyatt. We didn't know what it was gonna
Speaker 1: sound like either, which I was very excited about. Of course,
Speaker 1: we never do really, but I'm interested when you did
Speaker 1: you Know all the Lilacs, which is, as you said,
Speaker 1: a song about almost twenty years old. I mean, who
Speaker 1: said we got to do that song and put it
Speaker 1: in a very different It's still fast, it's still got
Speaker 1: a lot of energy, but it's very different setting. Well.
Speaker 1: I sent it to Jeried because I talked with him
Speaker 1: in his band, you know, fiddle and upright bass and dobro,
Speaker 1: that it would really lend itself to the song. And
Speaker 1: I felt like the song, although I thought it was
Speaker 1: a successful recording for what it was, but I felt
Speaker 1: like the story in the song it might have gotten
Speaker 1: a little lost. This to me, is a little more
Speaker 1: focused in terms of being able to follow this story,
Speaker 1: which was basically an idea I stole from one of
Speaker 1: my favorite movies, Lost Weekend, and it was actually a
Speaker 1: line in the movie Ray in the land talking to
Speaker 1: Sam and the bartender telling him. Ray plays a drunk
Speaker 1: who wants to write weren't we all? And don't we
Speaker 1: all want to? We've been through that part too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He talks about this girl he's just met. They're in
Speaker 1: New York City and he says, you know, I go
Speaker 1: to see her and the sunlight hits the gray of
Speaker 1: the drain pipe on her building. And then she can't
Speaker 1: meet me at the assigned time, but she sends a
Speaker 1: note down to be given to me by the doorman,
Speaker 1: and I opened it and it smells like all the
Speaker 1: lilacs in Ohio? Is that right? Is that what that
Speaker 1: came from? Yeah? I didn't do that. Oh that's it's
Speaker 1: so beautiful. It's a beautiful story. And I'm from Ohio
Speaker 1: and I never saw any lilacs in Ohio, so I
Speaker 1: really was concerned. Yeah, you should just be stealing songs
Speaker 1: from old movies, because like those old kind of tough
Speaker 1: guy ben Hecked dialogue. Listen, I'll steal from anywhere, any
Speaker 1: idea there's laying about. So when you heard the songs, Jerry,
Speaker 1: now you've produced a lot of records, But what did
Speaker 1: you think, said? I mean, you knew it was going
Speaker 1: to be your band, But did a certain sound, at
Speaker 1: a kind of atmosphere come to mind when you were
Speaker 1: going through the songs? Well, yeah, I always thought of
Speaker 1: us the band as an electric band. I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't take away. We're making a record with John Hyatt,
Speaker 1: We're gonna sound like John Hyatt. You know, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna be chameleons and tap into whatever it is that
Speaker 1: he's hearing here, and we're just gonna give it legs.
Speaker 1: The song All the Lilacs in Ohio. I've heard it
Speaker 1: as like a sing along for a lot of people
Speaker 1: in an audience, you know, when it gets to the
Speaker 1: line all the Lilacs in Ohio, and it's a real
Speaker 1: easy thing for people to pick up and attach themselves
Speaker 1: to sing it, you know, sing it loud. I love
Speaker 1: to be a great live concert kind of song. I
Speaker 1: always kind of try to imagine us on stage playing
Speaker 1: songs for somebody. Well, that's interesting because it's pretty much
Speaker 1: all we did in the studio. Well, they were live performances.
Speaker 1: I played and sang live. What you what I played
Speaker 1: is what you got. Yeah. The studio that we recorded
Speaker 1: in our CEA studio Beat was one of the first
Speaker 1: real recording studios in Nashville. It's owned by the Country
Speaker 1: Music Hall of Fame and let us go in there
Speaker 1: and record there, And people don't usually record in there anymore.
Speaker 1: They run tourists through there. So we got in during COVID,
Speaker 1: so there were no tourists, so nobody to bother us,
Speaker 1: and we didn't have to tear down or anything. And
Speaker 1: so we just set up and recorded. But like nine
Speaker 1: months after we were supposed to. They gave us four days.
Speaker 1: We made the record in four days, did a few
Speaker 1: overdubs later, but the basic records was done, afforded. Is
Speaker 1: that the fastest you've ever done a record, It's tied
Speaker 1: Bring the Family was four days. It's a really good
Speaker 1: way to do it. That's a good omen. So you
Speaker 1: don't have time to overthink anything, that's for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well you did the last one, Bring the Family. You
Speaker 1: did with Nicolo, who's famous for not overthinking things. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: he's no overthinker. Yeah, he's an underthinker. That could be
Speaker 1: his next album, could be Nicolo the Underthinker. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was where he got his nickname, the Basher. His
Speaker 1: motto was bash it down, tarted up. That's how he
Speaker 1: made record, bash it down, tarted up. But you didn't
Speaker 1: tart this one up. You just bashed it down. Now
Speaker 1: we bashed it down pretty much, well, Jerry. They did
Speaker 1: a bit of tarting. They did Christian Stellemer and Daniel
Speaker 1: and put a little string section. These guys what blows
Speaker 1: my mind on Jerry's band is these guys. These are
Speaker 1: young guys who are schooled musicians, and they can play anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jerry hasn't playing jazz We're goodness say, but
Speaker 1: they can play songs, and that's to me, that's a
Speaker 1: rare combination. They come from a country music background, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of so they've played with country musicians. In country
Speaker 1: musicians sort of backup vocals in a different way than
Speaker 1: in a rock and roll tune or you know, any
Speaker 1: other kind of music. You really listen to the singer
Speaker 1: and you try to emote as the singer does and
Speaker 1: try to accent the phrases that are really important in
Speaker 1: the line. And you know, there're just some some unwritten
Speaker 1: rules about how we do that here, especially internationale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, it's very true. And that's what happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was playing with a group of
Speaker 1: singers or just painting around him. Well, that's that's interesting
Speaker 1: because when I think of you're playing, Jerry, you know,
Speaker 1: you are this virtuoso. You're the world's best best known
Speaker 1: dobro player. You're not to the dobro with like Eric
Speaker 1: Clapton is to the guitar. You're not going off on
Speaker 1: your own, or maybe you do and I just don't
Speaker 1: haven't heard it, but I almost feel like I think
Speaker 1: I remember. I can remember the first song I heard
Speaker 1: you play on. It was I don't Believe I've Met
Speaker 1: my Baby with Alison Kraus, and I can still remember
Speaker 1: that solo. If I could sing, I could sing it
Speaker 1: for you. But you have this very kind of melodic
Speaker 1: it's not background. But how do you compliment what's the
Speaker 1: singers doing with your and not overpower the singer with
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I'll tell you he had ten thousand
Speaker 1: hours of schooling in the Nashville session tradition. It's a discipline,
Speaker 1: it is, actually yeah, yeah, there are you know, don't
Speaker 1: step on the singer, you know, stay stay out of
Speaker 1: the singer's range. You know, don't detract. So there's this thing,
Speaker 1: you know, that this sound spectrum that you don't want
Speaker 1: to cancel anything out, so you don't want to get
Speaker 1: up in the singer's range. You kind of stay away
Speaker 1: from the singer and stay around the singer and sometimes
Speaker 1: playing nothing, playing and playing nothing can can speak volumes,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of playing notes. So when you say
Speaker 1: his range. You literally mean his vocal range. You stay
Speaker 1: out of the vocal range. Yeah, oh, I didn't. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that. You play above a blow. Where I
Speaker 1: learned that was from Brian or Hearne, who produced Emmy
Speaker 1: Lou Harris's first records, and I was doing an overdub
Speaker 1: for Brian and he said, that's all great, except he said,
Speaker 1: stay out of her range because you know, you get
Speaker 1: up there, we don't know which one of you it is,
Speaker 1: you know, and you might cancel out at or something
Speaker 1: that she sings, and so stay away from that little
Speaker 1: box that she's in and it works. Wow, I'd never
Speaker 1: heard that. That's completely fascinating. He's brilliant. I mean, Brian
Speaker 1: or hearn Canadian Toronto guy and just amazing producer. But
Speaker 1: after the Emmy Lou stuff pretty much he's kind of
Speaker 1: stopped producing. He was amazing and I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from him. Ricky Skaggs, did Rodney kraw all of the
Speaker 1: guys that surrounded, you know, in the Emmy Lou Harris
Speaker 1: or but we all learned how to make records from Brian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just a genius. I just feel that you've given
Speaker 1: me some secret that should be locked up somewhere. It
Speaker 1: seems like everybody kind of knows it, but it's unseid.
Speaker 1: And when you say it out loud, you know, stay
Speaker 1: out of the singer's range. You used to listen to
Speaker 1: records and you hear that. You know, that's why you
Speaker 1: can hear what the singer is saying. As a singer
Speaker 1: and songwriter, from my point of view, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that there's plenty of me musicians who do not
Speaker 1: go And as Jerry was big, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like he doesn't hit a note
Speaker 1: that I've sang at some point in a song, it's
Speaker 1: just where he does it. Do you guys want to
Speaker 1: play a song now? And then we'll keep talking. Does
Speaker 1: that make a great idea? We'll play your song. Here's
Speaker 1: the lilac, the famous lilacs from Ohio that aren't in Ohio.
Speaker 1: You man her there on a New York City stre
Speaker 1: you were throw lean upon your shoe, trying to write
Speaker 1: the great book, but it really had you shoot with
Speaker 1: a bad case of win a time blue. You drank
Speaker 1: her down to the ragged samtime share the taxi to
Speaker 1: carry her home, and she left her handkerchief there beside
Speaker 1: you on the seat, as if to emphasize that you
Speaker 1: were all alone, smelled like springtime, and you were just
Speaker 1: a boy, and all the lilac sino Hi, All the
Speaker 1: lilac sino hi. There you go in the city streets,
Speaker 1: in the thirty winter snow, all the lilacs sino Hi, hil.
Speaker 1: She is the love story you speak up when you
Speaker 1: talk to Sam at the bar, But it's in the details.
Speaker 1: Your story always fails me. Your close but no cigar,
Speaker 1: And you might see your own ass in a double
Speaker 1: whiskey glass, but cannot erase her smile. And you'll never
Speaker 1: write it down, never find her in this town the
Speaker 1: fanom dreams and fingernail fires. It was springtime and you
Speaker 1: are just a boy. And all the lilacs seen, or
Speaker 1: how all the lights seen, nor how in the city
Speaker 1: streets and the dirt and winter slow, all the lilacs
Speaker 1: see RhI. So you beIN her handkerchief till clean white
Speaker 1: linen shoots, and you want make your beIN crawling you
Speaker 1: imagining her there, and you're tangled in her hair, and
Speaker 1: she smells like flowers, and it's springtime, and you are
Speaker 1: just a boy. And how the Lilacs FINOHI? How the
Speaker 1: lilaxino Hi? There you go in the city streets and
Speaker 1: a doted winter snow. How the lilaxino Hi? Hi. That's
Speaker 1: John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas with All the Lilacs in
Speaker 1: Ohio from their new album Left Over Feelings. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more after a quick break. We're back with
Speaker 1: more from John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas. On a previous
Speaker 1: show that Malcolm and Rip did with Jack White, Jack
Speaker 1: White said you could never you could never write a
Speaker 1: good song about a tesla old contrary, Jackie, Well, then
Speaker 1: you always had to write about Oh you know, why
Speaker 1: is it we have to write about old technology? But
Speaker 1: then you wrote the first the first song on this album,
Speaker 1: which is Dynamite, isn't about an electric Cadillac. Maybe because
Speaker 1: it's not a tesla, it's a Cadillac. What made you
Speaker 1: want to write a song about an electric car? Well,
Speaker 1: first off, writing in a song about a Cadillac is
Speaker 1: sort of in my dna. I guess I've probably written
Speaker 1: a couple it's dreaming. You know who who wouldn't want
Speaker 1: an electric Cadillac that goes a thousand miles between charges.
Speaker 1: Bring it on, you know, I'll order one if you know.
Speaker 1: If I got the dough, I want an old one
Speaker 1: with an electric motor. World. Sure we can retro fit.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it now. Jack whites it. He's from Detroit.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't even say the word tesla. That's probably well,
Speaker 1: I mean point taken and Jack Jack, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get what he's saying absolutely. But it is true
Speaker 1: that a lot of the technology, like you know, there's
Speaker 1: still trained songs because people used to tell the time
Speaker 1: before they watches by the trains. They still sing train songs.
Speaker 1: But everybody's got to watch now. In fact, nobody has
Speaker 1: to watch because everybody has a phone. And I can't
Speaker 1: think of a good country song about a cell phone
Speaker 1: that's interesting. You'd bring up trains. When I first came
Speaker 1: here in nineteen seventy, I lived on Music Row. In
Speaker 1: those days it was a much more humble business, and
Speaker 1: all the publishing companies, all the riot songwriters houses were
Speaker 1: next door to the publishing companies, which were in houses,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the studios were in houses. Coming
Speaker 1: from Indianapolis, I had had no clue what a country,
Speaker 1: how to write a country song, or even what you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew about Hank Williams, and I was
Speaker 1: about it. But I got a deal with a publishing
Speaker 1: company and I was in a house full of young,
Speaker 1: hopeful songwriters and I remember asking this kid from Birmingham.
Speaker 1: I said, so, how do you write a country song?
Speaker 1: Because he was you know, that was his thing. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, you're gonna need a train song, train song,
Speaker 1: a murder ballad, something to do with the fire. Did
Speaker 1: you write a train song? Then? I did train to
Speaker 1: Birmingham and I wrote it when I was nineteen. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really because of this guy, Richard, I can't think
Speaker 1: of his last name. Why did you show up to
Speaker 1: Nashville to be a songwriter if you couldn't write a
Speaker 1: country song? I had met a guy named Bob Frank
Speaker 1: who was in Nashville, but he was from Memphis and
Speaker 1: he was a folk singer. He had a deal with
Speaker 1: Tree Publishing company. I met him the year before I
Speaker 1: moved here, passing through Nashville. He said, man, you got
Speaker 1: to come down here. This is a good place. And
Speaker 1: so I went home and spent the year kind of
Speaker 1: trying to get a little dough together and eighteen. I
Speaker 1: came down to Nashville and a thirty five dollars corvet
Speaker 1: that I bought from a buddy burned five quarts of
Speaker 1: oil on the way down. It's only a three hundred
Speaker 1: mile trip, and check the gas and fill it up
Speaker 1: with oil. That was it. And I came down here
Speaker 1: and I went to different publishing companies the first few days,
Speaker 1: and I made a tape which I thought was my opus,
Speaker 1: you know, where I played all the instruments and we
Speaker 1: bounced them back between two Wallen Sack stereotape recorders I had.
Speaker 1: Buddy had a pair of them, and so I made
Speaker 1: my masterpiece and I brought it to Nashville. But it
Speaker 1: was all these bad songs, terrible songs, trying to kind
Speaker 1: of be a rock guy. I played him for three
Speaker 1: or four companies and struck out, and I saved the
Speaker 1: publishing company that Bob Frank wrote for. I saved it
Speaker 1: till last Tree Tree Publishing, and I called the guy
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I'd like to for you to
Speaker 1: listen to some of my stuff. And he said, do
Speaker 1: you have a tape? And I did, but I lied
Speaker 1: and I said, nope, I don't have a tape because
Speaker 1: it wouldn't get me anywhere. I said, I'll have to
Speaker 1: come in and play him. This turned out to be
Speaker 1: Larry Henley, who was the lead singer for the was
Speaker 1: at the New Beach or the I Like Bread and Butter,
Speaker 1: remember that song I love? Yeah, he worked for Tree,
Speaker 1: So that was the guy that I called. And he said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: it's it. We don't usually do that, but come on in.
Speaker 1: And I sat down and sign him three or four songs.
Speaker 1: And I have no idea why they decided to sign
Speaker 1: me because it was just quirky singer songwriter, weird stuff,
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with what's going on in Nashville.
Speaker 1: They were refreshed by that. Apparently, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it was not good stuff. But God bless him. He
Speaker 1: brought the boss down, Bud. He killed him, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want? And I remember what Bob was
Speaker 1: getting as an advanced weekly advance, and I said, I
Speaker 1: want twenty five dollars a week. Yeah, I said, They said, okay,
Speaker 1: so I was a professional songwriter. Wow, And I thought
Speaker 1: i'd you know, I thought I'd made it for Christ's sake?
Speaker 1: Was it a good life? Did you like it. It's
Speaker 1: where I learned. I put in what's Malcolm's thing about ten?
Speaker 1: I mean I started the ten Thousand Hours when I
Speaker 1: was eleven, but I was really started working on it
Speaker 1: when I got here. But you probably met a lot
Speaker 1: of people once you got here that turned you onto
Speaker 1: hod It. Oh absolutely. I mean there was a guy
Speaker 1: Bobby Braddock wrote for Tree at the time. When he wrote,
Speaker 1: you know, he stopped loving d I V O. RC and,
Speaker 1: but he was a character, a lovely guy, and he
Speaker 1: was sort of my little mentor. You know, he sort
Speaker 1: of patted me on the shoulder and you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, those quirked little songs are right,
Speaker 1: It's okay, just keep riding, keep riding. Yeah, he's been
Speaker 1: on the show two or three times. I think he's like,
Speaker 1: he's pretty amazing. Yeah, incredible guy. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about your next song on that because and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go through every song, but I thought it was so
Speaker 1: great after long Black Electric Cadillac, that you have a
Speaker 1: song called Mississippi Phone Booth that you know is not
Speaker 1: in the present day, because well, maybe maybe I haven't
Speaker 1: been to the Mississippi. Maybe there are a lot of
Speaker 1: phone booths there still, but I doubt it. I doubt
Speaker 1: there's even one. If there is a place with hass
Speaker 1: phone booths, it's in mississip Tell me about that song,
Speaker 1: how it came about. It was one of those COVID songs.
Speaker 1: I was reflecting as when you hit my age, you
Speaker 1: tend to do. There's more behind you than there is
Speaker 1: in front of you, so they tell me. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I remembered sort of my last my last drunk, which
Speaker 1: was a spree, and I was down south. I had
Speaker 1: come to Nashville, made a record that I don't remember making,
Speaker 1: and then I rented a car. I brought a gal
Speaker 1: over from Holland, who I met, and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to show you the South, and we drove around.
Speaker 1: We drove to New Orleans, so we drove to a
Speaker 1: coast of Mississippi, Gulf Coast. I was drinking quartz of
Speaker 1: vodka and twenty four packs of beer, and I had
Speaker 1: eight balls of cocaine being sent to me from my
Speaker 1: dealer in Nashville. And then I couldn't stop or weeping,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't get drunk anymore, and I couldn't get
Speaker 1: high anymore. It was the most amazing thing. It just
Speaker 1: this girls sitting there like, what the hell am I
Speaker 1: even doing it? You know who what swallow this guy?
Speaker 1: And so anyway, I just it culminated at three in
Speaker 1: the morning at a phone booth at a gas station
Speaker 1: with the just just as that opening verse states bugs
Speaker 1: everywhere the gas station light and basically trying to call home.
Speaker 1: I was I was married, it's time for going to
Speaker 1: say it's kind of quality life. I was hurting and time,
Speaker 1: but I called home and said I'm done. I like
Speaker 1: the line where you say tell Jesus I'm out at times.
Speaker 1: That is a great just a great line. And maybe
Speaker 1: this is why songs about modern technology aren't as interesting
Speaker 1: because they don't connect people in the same way you're
Speaker 1: talking to an operator, which I thought, yeah, so lovely. Well,
Speaker 1: you know how how it went on the long distance
Speaker 1: calls on the old phone booths. They did interrupt you
Speaker 1: when you when your tie is up, and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh wait shit, I don't love the sorry conversation over.
Speaker 1: I think the most atmospheric song on the album is
Speaker 1: I Keep wanting to say I'm in Nashville. It's I'm
Speaker 1: in Asheville. It was titled differently. I originally titled the
Speaker 1: song left Over Feelings, but the chorus, of course, is
Speaker 1: in Asheville. Yeah, another winner of a fella in that one.
Speaker 1: I love that guy. We're leaving somebody and saying I've
Speaker 1: messed up, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. At the same time
Speaker 1: he's driving away, he's kicking himself in the ass, but
Speaker 1: he can't stop doing it. Tell me, just as an example, Jerry,
Speaker 1: when you sat down to produce that, do you have
Speaker 1: an idea immediately when you heard the song? This is
Speaker 1: how it should sound, This is how I want the
Speaker 1: instruments to move in and out. Or is this just
Speaker 1: something you'd sit down and people start playing in the studio.
Speaker 1: I think we sat down with the band and we
Speaker 1: just started playing. We write charts, okay, we write, we
Speaker 1: write out these musical charts. In Nashville, it's a number
Speaker 1: of system So I sat down with a band and
Speaker 1: we just started playing the song, and it got this
Speaker 1: sound all on its own. Mike Seal was playing electric guitar,
Speaker 1: and he had this really beautiful tone going on, and
Speaker 1: and all of these things were really beautiful against this
Speaker 1: song that's so sad and so you want to grab
Speaker 1: this guy, you know, and straighten him out the whole time.
Speaker 1: But there's this really placid music, you know, underneath it,
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful. The song itself is the chord structor,
Speaker 1: and everything is just really beautiful. And we just played
Speaker 1: did that. We didn't really pay attention to the lyrics
Speaker 1: so much. We separated ourselves from the lyrics and just
Speaker 1: laid down this nice bed of music for these words,
Speaker 1: for these heartfelt words to lie upon. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a collective ache that you guys made. Do you
Speaker 1: respond one of the lyrics on faster songs, because you've
Speaker 1: got a couple almost rockabilly songs where you guys are
Speaker 1: louder and kind of rocking out a little more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this song dictated that we stay to the ground and
Speaker 1: not jump up, you know, no erratic behavior. It went
Speaker 1: on the rockabilly kind of you know, the faster songs
Speaker 1: and with and we are listening to the words. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean that. We just divorced ourselves completely, hurting my feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew that. I saw the look on your face,
Speaker 1: so I'm straighten to say the words they were great too.
Speaker 1: Their words were good too, But we were words the
Speaker 1: faster songs. Yeah, you are listening to the words to
Speaker 1: get clues about what to do, about how to play
Speaker 1: against it. We should we should play that song. That
Speaker 1: would be great. I'm in Ashville. I'm sorry. I guess
Speaker 1: I really dropped the ball in this game we were played.
Speaker 1: I thought I giving it my just to get us
Speaker 1: back to zeal Or on some scoreboarding here. I'm in Ashfield.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry all throwing in the town. That's sunlight ruled
Speaker 1: the mountain. I'm the rain. It chased me down. I
Speaker 1: could feel the heat from your face. Lord almost turned around.
Speaker 1: There's some things you can't come back from. If there's
Speaker 1: some things you won't go through. I'm in ashfil I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I wanted this with you on road. I never travel
Speaker 1: to a place I never been from the east, left
Speaker 1: old feeling. A vision of you comes up again and
Speaker 1: you're dancing by the radio in some hotel room. In
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm in Ashfield. I'm sorry for leaving you behind. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm in Ashville. I'm sorry for leaving you behind. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It occurs to me that I think one reason I
Speaker 1: love that song is you don't actually say anything about Asheville.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It's like usually people say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to ask you what Asheville means
Speaker 1: to you, because it's I don't want to wreck it
Speaker 1: for other people. But I love those songs that are
Speaker 1: about cities, but they don't say anything like I'm in
Speaker 1: this city because it's cold, it's raindy reminds me. It's
Speaker 1: it's like, um, that's how I got to Memphis by
Speaker 1: Tom T. Hall. It's like that you don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just like if you got a broken
Speaker 1: heart and stuff, well that's how I got to Memphis,
Speaker 1: and you're like okay. And it's also got the I'm
Speaker 1: going to get this wrong. Some things you can't get
Speaker 1: back from. Some things you can't come back from. If
Speaker 1: there's some things you won't go through, that seems to
Speaker 1: me the theme of almost the entire album. To me, Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't mean that in a funny way.
Speaker 1: I mean, so many of the narrators in this album
Speaker 1: are people they're thinking back or they're trying to go
Speaker 1: back to things and for whatever reason, they can't get there.
Speaker 1: And you've been through a lot, but you have to
Speaker 1: go through these things. First. There's a lot of regret
Speaker 1: on the album about not being able to go back.
Speaker 1: Were you thinking that when you were writing it. I
Speaker 1: think it's less about regretting, just more about pointing that out.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of us look at where where we've come.
Speaker 1: A lot of it's look at how how far we've come.
Speaker 1: That's really the story. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more of Bruce Headlam's conversation with John Hyatt
Speaker 1: and Jerry Douglas. We're back with the rest of Bruce
Speaker 1: Headlam's conversation with John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas, and just
Speaker 1: a quick heads up. There's talk of sexual assault in
Speaker 1: this next section. Tell me about light of a Bringing Sun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much just an accounting of my brothers. He
Speaker 1: took his own life when he was twenty one. I
Speaker 1: was He was the oldest of seven kids, and I
Speaker 1: was the next to youngest, so I was eleven. It's
Speaker 1: like any kind of traumatic event in a person's life.
Speaker 1: I've sort of dealt with it, you know, as I've
Speaker 1: gone through life. I was relieved when I wrote the
Speaker 1: song you have to kind of get some help and
Speaker 1: work on these things. But I'm reminded of what Guy
Speaker 1: Clarke used to say about his songs. And he played
Speaker 1: a song and we'd go, oh man, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: be stunned, and he'd go, yeah, you can't make that
Speaker 1: shit up. So and so this was one that you
Speaker 1: can't make that shit up. It's just a pretty much
Speaker 1: just at accounting. Why do you think it took you
Speaker 1: this long to to want to write that song? Things
Speaker 1: come when they come, and it was such a as
Speaker 1: I say, it was such a relief to write it,
Speaker 1: and I think I've done some work. You know, the
Speaker 1: family basically blew apart. It's like it says in a song,
Speaker 1: family basically exploded, as families will when when a child
Speaker 1: takes his own life, or even that child that dies.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really know about recording it, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, but I had sent the song to Jerry,
Speaker 1: so I must have thought that it was something to consider.
Speaker 1: Glad you did. But anyway, Jerry, I said, Jerry, I
Speaker 1: don't know about that. I think I called you after
Speaker 1: I sent the songs. I said, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know about that. A lot of the burning, so it
Speaker 1: was pretty dark. I said that people need to hear
Speaker 1: this song. It is very very personal. I mean there
Speaker 1: are things down to you know, found him in a
Speaker 1: cornfield and the line that Reedy got me and the
Speaker 1: song was talking about what his father did, selling uh
Speaker 1: burn orange and avocado kitchens all across the Midwest. I
Speaker 1: mean we've all been in houses that had those, you know,
Speaker 1: an avocado refrigerator or stove or hey, but he built one.
Speaker 1: He put one in for my mom. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was so much personal stuff about it, but it's
Speaker 1: happening a lot. People need to hear it and need
Speaker 1: to just need to raise the consciousness and raise the
Speaker 1: awareness of it. I worked around that song that was
Speaker 1: We framed that one in how do you mean you
Speaker 1: wooked around the song? I put it in a place
Speaker 1: in the record for a couple of different reasons. It
Speaker 1: was right after, you know, a pretty raucous kind of song,
Speaker 1: you know, before it the record needed to come down
Speaker 1: to the needed to make a dip. And also when
Speaker 1: you're making vinyl records, like we're talking about records now,
Speaker 1: vinyl records, the closer you get to the center of
Speaker 1: the album, the more distortion you pick up, so you
Speaker 1: can't put a real loud song in the middle because
Speaker 1: it's going to be distorted. You're gonna hear so much
Speaker 1: cross talk. Mean, the grooves get very very small. You
Speaker 1: mean it like at the end of side one when
Speaker 1: you're making a record and decide one and decide two,
Speaker 1: you always put a quieter song there, you know, And
Speaker 1: I put a little space between it two. So on
Speaker 1: a CD, so you get you actually get a chance
Speaker 1: to think about it before the next song hits. You
Speaker 1: kind of built in a side one on the side
Speaker 1: two on the CD. I did? I did? I put
Speaker 1: a little more good, more space in there. Speaking of
Speaker 1: old technology, are you still thinking about records? I'm still
Speaker 1: thinking about records even if I'm making It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what we're making. I think about pacing according to the
Speaker 1: way we used to do. Vital Well, you know, records
Speaker 1: now make more money than CDs. How about that they
Speaker 1: outsold CDs last year? Yeah? Absolutely, are all the songs
Speaker 1: details in the song like he wanted your brother wanted
Speaker 1: to have a clothing, he did. He wanted his own clothing,
Speaker 1: So my father put him to work. He was a
Speaker 1: sole proprietor sold kitchen equipment, and he was a very
Speaker 1: clever guy. He had his own team that would go
Speaker 1: he went to these home shows and he would show
Speaker 1: women shopping for new kitchens what he could do, what
Speaker 1: magnificent kitchen he could install for them. And in those days,
Speaker 1: there was no digital support or anything. So he had
Speaker 1: these little, tiny, you know, miniatures of cabinets and he
Speaker 1: could arrange him around on a twenty four twenty four
Speaker 1: inch surface. He was a good salesman. He was excellent,
Speaker 1: and he was a great storyteller. So he put my
Speaker 1: brother to work, and my brother didn't want to sell kitchens.
Speaker 1: He was the golden child as the states, and my
Speaker 1: mother adored him. There was a lot of weight. I
Speaker 1: know people who've lost kids, and in retrospect they're often well,
Speaker 1: you know that was the one, and you know they
Speaker 1: don't want to say I loved him or her the best.
Speaker 1: But at the time, were you conscious that your brother
Speaker 1: was the golden child? As you say, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let it all hang out, Okay. I knew he was
Speaker 1: a golden child. I worshiped him. He was so cool
Speaker 1: with the skinny ties and the skinny pants and he
Speaker 1: was so hip that he put on a dance and
Speaker 1: actually brought Joey d and the Starlighters from New York City,
Speaker 1: these kids. He got these kids together nineteen and rented
Speaker 1: this place and had Joey Diana Starlighter's play, you know,
Speaker 1: Peppermint Twist for God's Sake in Indianapolis, Indiana. But he
Speaker 1: was also a predator, a sexual predator, and he raped
Speaker 1: me when I was very young, so he was my hero.
Speaker 1: He also had abused me, so it was it was
Speaker 1: a it was a lot unopened over the years, and
Speaker 1: it took me a lot of time. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one, you know. I talk about my abuse
Speaker 1: because I think it can help other people as well.
Speaker 1: I know plenty of guys that were abused when they
Speaker 1: were little kids. Did you have to forgive that part
Speaker 1: of him in a sense before you could write the song?
Speaker 1: I guess the song was probably the final bit of forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I forgave him a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I know. I mean I know that it wasn't who
Speaker 1: he you know, wanted to be, and that he was driven.
Speaker 1: You know, this stuff comes, this stuff. It's like some
Speaker 1: of these genes they come out of the womb attached
Speaker 1: to you from generations past, you know, so there's no
Speaker 1: telling what propelled him to, you know, have a life
Speaker 1: that was so so heartbreaking. Yeah, I mean you said it.
Speaker 1: There are some things you can't get back from. There's
Speaker 1: some things you won't go through. Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 1: But you know it's a god. I mean you to
Speaker 1: turn to your left or turn to your right, and
Speaker 1: you can talk to a person who's had a hell
Speaker 1: of a harder ride than you have. You know, that's
Speaker 1: my that's my experience. Anyway. I just want to ask
Speaker 1: about two more songs, which is Changes in my Mind
Speaker 1: and Sweet Dreams, which sort of feel like two sides
Speaker 1: of the same coin to me, a little bit one
Speaker 1: a little downbeat, one more upbeat. Changes in my Mind's
Speaker 1: got It's got a very complex line, which is you
Speaker 1: find changes in your mind in somebody else's heart. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me a bit about that? Yeah? I just
Speaker 1: think of my own marriage of thirty five years, and
Speaker 1: my mind has been changed by the love of my
Speaker 1: wife continually. That's what happens to me. Maybe I do
Speaker 1: that as well with her and with my kids. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, there's something about music. When you're
Speaker 1: performing music or they're playing music, you can have the
Speaker 1: worst argument of your whole life. You get in the
Speaker 1: studio or wherever you are playing the music. As soon
Speaker 1: as you start to play the music, it goes away
Speaker 1: all that stuff that's talking about the heart of music.
Speaker 1: Which that's what we do. Yeah, I mean, because we're
Speaker 1: all tortured. But when we get strap on these guitars
Speaker 1: and go out there and not even perform for people,
Speaker 1: but just perform, just play, it saves anything that's going
Speaker 1: on inside you that you don't know what to do with.
Speaker 1: It actually is more than a band aid. It gives
Speaker 1: you a time, time to think about it. It's healing.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, I'm going to leave it to you
Speaker 1: guys to figure out. How do you think we should
Speaker 1: round this out? What do you want to play? Just
Speaker 1: play sweet dreams okay aims like that eating honey from
Speaker 1: the casket, And I thought about you. I haven't been
Speaker 1: in that neck of the wood. I guess I'm long
Speaker 1: over you. It's getting hard to leave this hollow. My
Speaker 1: family has been two hundred years over letting me go
Speaker 1: a little while to this sweet dream disappeared. I was
Speaker 1: U bone back mountain, hitch higging in the dark, not
Speaker 1: a light for our route. Things were looking pretty star
Speaker 1: Now I think about that star and night all my
Speaker 1: eyes well up with tea, letting me cry a little
Speaker 1: while until this sweet dream disappeared. Step one time in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, by the side of the route, and I
Speaker 1: thought about your warm hall as I shivered in the cold.
Speaker 1: Now I've stayed in fancy hotel with Crystal Shandely. Let
Speaker 1: me stay here for a little while until this sweet
Speaker 1: team disappears. Got a ride from a shoe sus He said,
Speaker 1: I'll never come this way ever, and say built the
Speaker 1: new rule. I don't know why I did today. That's
Speaker 1: getting harder to travel. It gets harder every year over
Speaker 1: Letting me go a little while until this sweet dream disappeared.
Speaker 1: Eating honey from the catskin, and I thought about, you
Speaker 1: haven't been in that neck of the wood. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm a long overdue. We were a long time together,
Speaker 1: and I've kept your memory. Let mis stay here for
Speaker 1: a little while until this sweet dream disappeared. Let me
Speaker 1: stay here for a little while, until this sweet dream disappeared.
Speaker 1: That was just beautiful. I think I spoke too soon
Speaker 1: though about Jerry, because you started to tear it up
Speaker 1: there a little bit. I think maybe when you tour,
Speaker 1: you should be the first guy ever to smash a
Speaker 1: doughbro on stage. When you're done, it's a perfectly good
Speaker 1: dough bro. Yeah, just at the end, just one night
Speaker 1: at the end, just get a fake one and just
Speaker 1: smash it with the one that I want to do
Speaker 1: that too, but I just can't. Just bring it out.
Speaker 1: Just bring it out now. It's the time you helped
Speaker 1: me breaks the time that was wonderful. This was such
Speaker 1: a thrill and the album is so beautiful. Everybody should listen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, It was a real pleasure talking with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks to John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas for singing and
Speaker 1: chatting so candidly with Bruce. You can check out all
Speaker 1: of our favorite John Hyatt and Jerry Douglas songs at
Speaker 1: Broken Record podcast door. Be sure to subscribe to our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Mio Lobell. Broken Record is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and
Speaker 1: others from Pushkin, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a
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Speaker 1: listening for four ninety nine nine. Look for Pushnick exclusively
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Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
Speaker 1: podcast app. At the music with like Candy Beats, I'm
Speaker 1: Justin and Mitchell