Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, at seventy five years old, loud
Speaker 2: and Wainwright the Third released Lifetime Achievement, an aptly titled
Speaker 2: album from a songwriter whose debut came more than fifty
Speaker 2: years earlier. Over the decades, Loudan has built a reputation
Speaker 2: for his confessional style, writing candidly about the struggles and
Speaker 2: absurdities of family life, failed relationships, and the scars of
Speaker 2: parental abandonment. While his subject matter can be heavy, he
Speaker 2: often balances it with wit and humor. You'll hear that
Speaker 2: today when he performs Famvack and Back in Your Town
Speaker 2: from Lifetime Achievement. In this conversation with Bruce Headlam, Louden
Speaker 2: reflects on how he leaned into his upper class upbringing,
Speaker 2: when he first began performing professionally, what it was like
Speaker 2: collaborating with guitar virtuoso Richard Thompson in the eighties, and
Speaker 2: the magical feeling of stepping on stage for his very
Speaker 2: first time. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations.
Speaker 2: Here's Bruce Headlam with loud and Wainwright the Third.
Speaker 3: I need a family vacation.
Speaker 4: I made a family vacation alone.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna pack up the card of the Viking, the kayak,
Speaker 5: leave the fucking family.
Speaker 6: And all.
Speaker 7: Vacation away from the family, Vacation.
Speaker 8: Away from the fray.
Speaker 9: When it comes to your so cold loved ones, sometimes
Speaker 9: you gotta get away.
Speaker 7: Maybe I'll go to the mountains, or else I'll get
Speaker 7: down to the shore.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I guess there's a chance I might miss my people,
Speaker 7: but right now I can't stand them no more. When
Speaker 7: I'm barbecue in there on my webber, I might be focused.
Speaker 8: On my family.
Speaker 7: Then I'll throw down some hot dogs, burgers, and some chicken.
Speaker 6: I'll burn them all in effigy.
Speaker 10: When I get back from my family vacation, tan.
Speaker 7: And relaxed will be the shaping them in.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 9: I'll be patient and love and not dimensioned detached when
Speaker 9: I'm dealing with.
Speaker 7: My kids and my kids, we all need a family vacation.
Speaker 6: You got to keep the ashpot cut Bay Tall Story
Speaker 6: got it right when he wrote each.
Speaker 10: Unhappy family, it's unhappy in it's own way.
Speaker 8: Oh, I ran away from my parents, Still run away
Speaker 8: from my kids.
Speaker 10: As for brother and sister, we're playing twister.
Speaker 6: That's the cover up.
Speaker 11: Keep ourselves hid from each other.
Speaker 4: I need a family vacation.
Speaker 3: My family needs a vacation from me.
Speaker 4: Because you're dearest and nearest. They're the most dangerous.
Speaker 6: They're the ones that make you crave.
Speaker 12: Let's rite your dearest.
Speaker 8: And nearest, they're the most dangerous.
Speaker 13: They're the ones that make you fucking crazy.
Speaker 12: Sean Paul Sartres said it hell is other people.
Speaker 1: All right, you got Tolstoy, Sartra and a Yiddish expression.
Speaker 1: Sound man, you really pack it in. We don't have
Speaker 1: to be too official off the top, but we are
Speaker 1: here with Loud and Wayne right the third. Do you
Speaker 1: still go by Loud and Wayne right the third?
Speaker 9: I answer to Loud and Wayne right the third, but
Speaker 9: I'll also answer to Loudie or loudun or.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna use Loud and Wayne right the third.
Speaker 1: I think it's more official. And we're talking about your
Speaker 1: new album, Lifetime Achievement. Do you go into every album
Speaker 1: with a particular idea of something you want to do?
Speaker 1: Was there an idea or something that motivated this album?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 12: I what I do is I write these songs.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm trying to write songs, and then when
Speaker 9: I gather together, I'm always thinking when is it going
Speaker 9: to be time to make a record. This is the
Speaker 9: first studio record that I've made, I think, since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 9: So you gather a bunch, I gather a bunch of
Speaker 9: songs together. A lot of the songs are on topics
Speaker 9: that I've explored before in songs, But it's you kind
Speaker 9: of think, is this enough material to make a record?
Speaker 9: And then what kind of a record do I want
Speaker 9: to make? But I don't think I'm going to make
Speaker 9: a record about family alienation and the pandemic.
Speaker 12: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 9: It didn't really work that way, although the record is
Speaker 9: kind of about that too.
Speaker 1: Now You've got a song called how Old is seventy five? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the reviews have been, you know,
Speaker 1: your winter album looking back with remorse and loss. I
Speaker 1: didn't get that at all. I found this like a
Speaker 1: very upbeat, optimistic album, particularly from someone who's known for
Speaker 1: or confessional song and self lacerating wit songs that cut
Speaker 1: to the bone. This did not seem an album that
Speaker 1: is where you're overwhelmed by past failures. This seemed you're
Speaker 1: very much in the moment.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good these days, and the song's
Speaker 9: death is referenced in the song in the album, as
Speaker 9: is aging and diminishment.
Speaker 1: To be fair, you've been talking about those since you
Speaker 1: were thirty.
Speaker 9: Yeah, But the first line in my first song on
Speaker 9: my first record was in Delaware when I was younger.
Speaker 9: So I've been obsessed with this thing and now it's
Speaker 9: kind of is here. But no, I don't think it's
Speaker 9: a downer this record.
Speaker 12: We tried to be careful about that.
Speaker 1: In the first song, there's a great line, I want
Speaker 1: to talk the truth about the fountain of youth to
Speaker 1: our eager audience out there. So what's the truth about
Speaker 1: the fountain of youth?
Speaker 9: Well, I think the line is I want to I
Speaker 9: want to tell the truth and find the fountain of you.
Speaker 1: Oh okay.
Speaker 9: That's another song that just talks about what I've been
Speaker 9: doing all this time. It's been you know, I've been
Speaker 9: making records for fifty plus years and wondering how much
Speaker 9: longer it can go on. But at the moment it's
Speaker 9: feeling could go on. I think I'm going to make
Speaker 9: it to my seventy sixth birthday.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's written as many songs about family
Speaker 1: as you have, or certainly as many by win that competition,
Speaker 1: You win that competition. Many many great songs, you know,
Speaker 1: your Mother and I and Lullaby The Days We Die, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hitting you, hitting you when you leave? There are a lot.
Speaker 1: Are you conscious when you're writing the songs? Are you
Speaker 1: conscious of other people's reactions, your family's reactions.
Speaker 9: Kind of like, oh, he's gonna hate this one.
Speaker 12: Well, I'm aware of it.
Speaker 9: Yes, So I'm conscious of it certainly.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I mean, you know, but it's it is as you say,
Speaker 9: it's it's I've been doing it for a long long time.
Speaker 9: It's my it's the waterfront I cover, you know, I
Speaker 9: want one of the big ones.
Speaker 12: Certainly.
Speaker 9: You know, we've had some tense Thanksgiving dinners over the years,
Speaker 9: but I think my family, uh has come to expect this,
Speaker 9: and the members of my family, uh, you know, three
Speaker 9: out of my four kids are songwriters, and my my
Speaker 9: other daughter is a is A is a wonderful prose writer.
Speaker 9: And they they've all written about me and referenced me
Speaker 9: and talked about their take on the whole thing. So
Speaker 9: it's it's it's it's just part of the whole deal.
Speaker 9: And uh, I feel okay about it now.
Speaker 1: Growing up, it seemed to me that you wanted to
Speaker 1: be a performer. You went to acting school.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you did play guitar, starting quite young, I think.
Speaker 1: Did your dad give you a guitar that?
Speaker 9: Yeah, my dad, who was a journalist for Life magazine,
Speaker 9: He also loved music, and he had a friend in
Speaker 9: the nineteen fifties quite a well known songwriter and singer
Speaker 9: called Terry Gilksson. He wrote, you know, memories are made
Speaker 9: of this, that big Dean Martin head and other things.
Speaker 9: But he was a drinking buddy of my dad's. He
Speaker 9: gave my dad a nylon string, beautiful little Mexican guitar,
Speaker 9: and then my dad bequeathed it to me. So that
Speaker 9: was my actual first guitar. Got it when I was
Speaker 9: about thirteen.
Speaker 1: And did you immediately take to folk music?
Speaker 9: You know in the early sixties, you know, and the
Speaker 9: folk boom happened. You know, I saw people like Ramblin,
Speaker 9: Jack Elliott and Pat Sky and Dave van Ron and
Speaker 9: of course Bob Dylan who were playing steel string guitars
Speaker 9: and at the Newport Folk Festival and stuff. Then I
Speaker 9: still hadn't written anything myself, but I I got myself
Speaker 9: a Martin Dreadnought and you know, started to emulate those
Speaker 9: guys who were all just a few years older than me.
Speaker 9: Actually right, I mean Jack Elliott's not a few years
Speaker 9: older than me. He's in his nineties. But yeah, he
Speaker 9: sure was always springy and youthful.
Speaker 1: So it was songwriting just a way to get you
Speaker 1: up on stage.
Speaker 9: I mean I wanted to be on stage ever since
Speaker 9: I was seven, you know, and I was showing off
Speaker 9: from my parents and stuff. But when I got on
Speaker 9: stage with a guitar, it's something seemed to click, and
Speaker 9: I was off and running, I suppose.
Speaker 1: But you didn't emulate those guys. You didn't try to
Speaker 1: be a beatnik. No, you were out there in like
Speaker 1: a Brooks Brothers se right.
Speaker 9: You know, you have to figure out a way to
Speaker 9: be noticed in the world, and in show.
Speaker 12: Business in particular.
Speaker 9: I'd say, So, I wore what I wore in boarding school,
Speaker 9: you know, a Books Brothers blazer and gray flannel pants,
Speaker 9: bell bottoms. I had short hair on my first couple
Speaker 9: of albums. Yeah, that was the look that I created
Speaker 9: to separate me from the pack, and it worked kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you worry? People would say, why do we
Speaker 1: want to listen to this kid from a private school
Speaker 1: in Westchester.
Speaker 9: I didn't worry about it. I understood that I had
Speaker 9: to write about I mean, I wasn't going to write
Speaker 9: about writing being a hobo on the rails, or like
Speaker 9: Jack Elliott, you know, invent myself into something that I wasn't.
Speaker 9: I decided to more or less take what I was,
Speaker 9: which was a guy that grew up in Westchester and
Speaker 9: went to boarding school, and you know, emphasize it and
Speaker 9: write about it. And then when I got married, I
Speaker 9: wrote about that. And you know, I've just been writing
Speaker 9: about my swing in life all this time.
Speaker 1: One thing that comes through in your autobiography Liner Notes,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to recommend everybody because it's a wonderful book,
Speaker 1: is how competitive you were. I mean, you were a
Speaker 1: big swimmer, so I think maybe some of that comes
Speaker 1: from sports, but you were competitive with everybody. You say,
Speaker 1: at some point when somebody else gets trashed, you feel
Speaker 1: a little bit better. I mean another singer, I don't
Speaker 1: mean just a person walking down the street. Where does
Speaker 1: that competition come from?
Speaker 9: Well, my father, you know, the aforementioned father was was
Speaker 9: successful in the world of journalism, and and and he
Speaker 9: was competitive, And you know, I don't want to blame
Speaker 9: it on my parents.
Speaker 12: I mean, I.
Speaker 9: Yeah, this need to achieve or succeed is in me,
Speaker 9: you know. And and as far as my you know,
Speaker 9: people would say, boy, it must be great when you
Speaker 9: and Steve Goodman and John Prine and Leo Kotkey can
Speaker 9: all go out and you know, have a cocktail or something,
Speaker 9: and I mean, we would do that and.
Speaker 12: That's all and stuff.
Speaker 9: But I don't know about them, but I was always
Speaker 9: thinking does he sell more records than me? And is
Speaker 9: that song better than my song? And uh, you know,
Speaker 9: I I'm I'm not happy to admit it. I'm I'm
Speaker 9: ashamed to to admit it. But I do have a
Speaker 9: competitive streak.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad thing.
Speaker 9: It it spurs you on, you know, to to do
Speaker 9: the best work that you can, you know, and uh,
Speaker 9: you know, I'm again I'm not I'm not proud of
Speaker 9: it necessarily, but it's an engine. It provides you with
Speaker 9: an engine.
Speaker 12: And uh, but it it's it's.
Speaker 9: It's it's murder on your family life and it leads
Speaker 9: to isolation and depression. So I would not advise being
Speaker 9: competitive danger the kids out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, stay in school, don't be too competitive.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You in your autobiography, I'm remembering now you put your
Speaker 1: finger on I think one of the most terrifying moments
Speaker 1: in documentary film. And you talk about it, and it's
Speaker 1: in Don't Look Back.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Dylan documented, Yeah, yeah, Oh that's a great moment.
Speaker 9: Uh and and and scary too. They're in London, I guess,
Speaker 9: and they're in a hotel room and Dylan is there,
Speaker 9: you know, at the height of you know, his whole thing.
Speaker 9: Bobby Nowrth is kind of lurking in the corner. The
Speaker 9: guy from the Animals, Alan Price, is there, and Donovan
Speaker 9: is there, and the guitar is being passed around, and Donovan,
Speaker 9: who's great, you know, sings try and Catch the Wind
Speaker 9: or something like that, you know, which was a big
Speaker 9: radio record, probably all more records than any Bob Dylan single.
Speaker 9: But a little twee, a little a little twee and soft,
Speaker 9: and so Dylan and Newarth, you know, kind of nodding
Speaker 9: and saying that's a pretty good song man. And then
Speaker 9: Dylan takes the guitar and plays It's all all over,
Speaker 9: baby Blue. It's all over now, baby Blue, And you
Speaker 9: can just see the look on Donovan's face. It just like,
Speaker 9: oh my goodness, it was just so powerful.
Speaker 1: And he smiles through it. But you can just see them.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just break the guitar from my head?
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's killing, Yeah, I mean it's you know, jazz musicians,
Speaker 9: you know, saxophone players in the forties used to they
Speaker 9: were called cutting sessions, you know, and Lester Young and
Speaker 9: Charlie Parker and you know does Hey Gillespie and these
Speaker 9: guys would They're all they were all competitive with each other.
Speaker 9: I mean they so it's it's not I don't and
Speaker 9: again I don't think it's a bad thing.
Speaker 12: Really.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more from Loud and Wing right
Speaker 2: the third and Bruce Hadlam after the break.
Speaker 1: What did you take from your father as a writer?
Speaker 1: Do you are there similarities in what you do?
Speaker 9: Do you think I've come to realize that there were.
Speaker 9: You know, I was competitive with my father and and stuff,
Speaker 9: which again I don't advise for parents and children, but
Speaker 9: I got a lot from him. He died in nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty eight. And the way that I write songs are
Speaker 9: there's a journalistic element to them. They're they're descriptive, there's
Speaker 9: a beginning, of the middle and an end.
Speaker 12: I'm always trying to.
Speaker 9: Be very clear about what it is that I'm saying.
Speaker 9: And I think I got that from my dad, I hope,
Speaker 9: So anyway, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Do you have any of his habits? Do you carry
Speaker 1: around a notebook and scribble down thing?
Speaker 12: I carry around my file of facts.
Speaker 9: You know, people can't see this, but it's a pretty
Speaker 9: beat up old file of facts I got from the
Speaker 9: nineteen eighties in the hope that I'll see something or
Speaker 9: hear something and jot something down and it could lead
Speaker 9: to a song, and it has done.
Speaker 1: How often does something like that happen?
Speaker 12: A song?
Speaker 1: Just an idea of thought that you'll jot down.
Speaker 9: Well know, I've got it in the bag. I mean,
Speaker 9: you know, that's where the mystery comes in. How does
Speaker 9: the song start, or any any piece of work. It's
Speaker 9: mysterious to me, despite the fact that I've been doing
Speaker 9: it for a long long time. I liken it to fishing.
Speaker 9: You know, I've got a line in the water. Whether
Speaker 9: I get a bite or can get it in the
Speaker 9: boat once I get a bite depends.
Speaker 12: But it's it's mysterious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the old line it's called fishing, not catching.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: And then do you sit down with your guitar and
Speaker 1: just flip through the book and see what happens?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean it's all very disorganized in random, you know.
Speaker 9: Or I'll write something down, or I'll find something in
Speaker 9: the book that I've forgotten about, and or i'll you know,
Speaker 9: quite often for me, a song can start from the first.
Speaker 12: Line, you know.
Speaker 9: You know, an example from the new album would be
Speaker 9: I need a family vacation, I mean a family vacation alone.
Speaker 9: So that's a good starting place for a guy like me.
Speaker 9: You know, the first line is often a kind of springboard.
Speaker 1: Where does that impulse come from? I mean, your father
Speaker 1: wrote about his family Life Magazine. I don't think he
Speaker 1: wrote about it quite in the way you write about it, right. Well,
Speaker 1: he was Life Magazine.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, I mean, yeah, he had constraints on him
Speaker 9: because Life Magazine was fairly conservative actually, but I think
Speaker 9: by nature he was a little more conservative. He was
Speaker 9: a different generation, you know, the afore mentioned Bob Dylan.
Speaker 9: I mean, you know, he kind of freed it up.
Speaker 9: I mean, you could write about your life. I mean,
Speaker 9: he was always oblique so you never knew exactly what
Speaker 9: the hell he was talking.
Speaker 1: You could listen to every Bob Dylan song and not
Speaker 1: know anything about Bob Dylan.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I suspect he likes it that way.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely have a con professional straight
Speaker 9: streak propensity, as it were.
Speaker 1: But have you ever felt you've gone too far with
Speaker 1: the song?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I have, and then I go ahead and go
Speaker 9: too far anyway. I mean, although there are there are
Speaker 9: some songs that I don't sing anymore that I you know,
Speaker 9: that I know have upset people or that they've they've
Speaker 9: told me that, and I'm trying to you know, I'm
Speaker 9: working on it.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example of one that you
Speaker 1: just don't you just don't perform for that reason.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I mean there's a song called It's About. It's a
Speaker 9: song called that Hospital and it's about it's about a
Speaker 9: hospital in northern Westchester where some key events happened, and
Speaker 9: I just realized that I shouldn't do that song anymore.
Speaker 9: On the other hand, I think I'll think, oh, this
Speaker 9: is uh just as close to the bone, and then
Speaker 9: I'll think that's a good thing, you know. I want
Speaker 9: to push it for my audience, you know. And again
Speaker 9: when I'm writing about my experiences in my family or
Speaker 9: my marriages, or with my kids or this is not
Speaker 9: foreign territory, people know exactly.
Speaker 12: What I'm talking about.
Speaker 9: People will come up and say, boy, that song about
Speaker 9: you and your sister or you and your kid. You
Speaker 9: mentioned that song hitting you. You know, they'll actually thank me.
Speaker 9: You know. They don't give me any extra money, but
Speaker 9: they will thank me.
Speaker 1: When you write a song like that, are you stating
Speaker 1: the way you feel? Or in writing it, are you
Speaker 1: are you working through those feelings?
Speaker 12: Well?
Speaker 9: Working through make it somehow implies that you know, you've
Speaker 9: that there's a therapeutic aspect to it. I don't think
Speaker 9: there is. I mean, you know, and it could be
Speaker 9: argued that that focusing on marital familial problems, you know,
Speaker 9: could make it worse. But it's interesting, you know, writing
Speaker 9: about my loved ones. They're the most important people in
Speaker 9: my life. They're the biggest people in my life. They're
Speaker 9: the people that I were all part of each other.
Speaker 9: So it's always struck me that that's who I should
Speaker 9: be writing about.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite lines from your book is
Speaker 1: in reference not to your work, but in reference to
Speaker 1: your father and mother, you're imagining how they came together,
Speaker 1: your father being a upper middle class guy, your mother
Speaker 1: from Georgia. You'd a beautiful line which was, it's basically
Speaker 1: about how men, at some point after they feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: feel the need to tell everybody what a piece of
Speaker 1: shit they are. And the line was, the confession of
Speaker 1: weakness to a woman is so often a search for
Speaker 1: sweet absolution. Boy, Yeah, you're good.
Speaker 12: Yeah you surprised.
Speaker 9: That's good, And that's certainly was the case in my
Speaker 9: with my parents. You know, I can, I think I
Speaker 9: might go. You know somehow I think of the imagine
Speaker 9: you imagine your parents before before you were on the scene,
Speaker 9: or even maybe the night after the moment after you
Speaker 9: were conceived, you know, lying in bed, and undoubtedly my
Speaker 9: father would be smoking a cigarette and you know, just
Speaker 9: unloading and talking about how he felt. And my mother
Speaker 9: was a good listener. In the end, the marriage didn't
Speaker 9: work out for that could have been one of the problems.
Speaker 12: He didn't listen well enough.
Speaker 9: Or you know, she didn't get a chance to to
Speaker 9: unload her emotional baggage.
Speaker 1: Do you feel your confessional nature's in part looking for
Speaker 1: absolution is it a way of making amends to put
Speaker 1: it in song.
Speaker 9: There's plenty of amends to be made. I guess just
Speaker 9: writing about it maybe is saying, Okay, here it is,
Speaker 9: let's look at it for three minutes. Maybe that's part
Speaker 9: of some kind of an amend's process. But again, it
Speaker 9: can create distance too, so an isolation.
Speaker 12: So I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Your father was also I'm surprised to read a successful
Speaker 1: short story writer which he had to give up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: family reasons. But tell me a bit about that.
Speaker 9: Well, you know, every young writer imagines and hopes to
Speaker 9: be in the New Yorker magazine. And my dad has
Speaker 9: had three of his short stories published in The New
Speaker 9: Yorker in the late forties, and they are one in particular.
Speaker 9: It's brilliant and completely holds up a story he wrote
Speaker 9: about the boarding school that he went to that I
Speaker 9: actually went to too, the same school, And so when
Speaker 9: he writes about it, I can I can picture it
Speaker 9: in my own mind. Anyway, the stories were in New
Speaker 9: York or he was twenty two or twenty three, whatever
Speaker 9: he was, and boy, that's the beginning of something big.
Speaker 9: But he had a wife and three small kids, me
Speaker 9: and my brother and sister at that point, and they
Speaker 9: moved up to New York and he had to get
Speaker 9: a job, and so he started to work for Life
Speaker 9: magazine and he stayed at the magazine for his pretty
Speaker 9: much life. So he never got to really focus on
Speaker 9: writing fiction. Then he tried to write a lot of
Speaker 9: you know, nonfiction books, and he had problems with that too.
Speaker 9: You know, the book was looming for him.
Speaker 1: So you know, it was common among journalists they think
Speaker 1: they've got to do their magnum opus.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they just had and it was torture for him.
Speaker 9: But he was so successful as a journalist, as an editor,
Speaker 9: as a columnist. You know, his columns are are all
Speaker 9: so brilliant, and a few of them are I had
Speaker 9: I printed in my book because I just wanted.
Speaker 12: To share the work.
Speaker 9: I mean, the quality of the writing is so great.
Speaker 9: And then later I constructed a kind of theatrical show
Speaker 9: called Surviving Twin where I actually.
Speaker 12: Performed some of his columns.
Speaker 9: So it looked like, you know, it's such a pity
Speaker 9: that he couldn't have enjoyed his success. But he was
Speaker 9: tortured about the book.
Speaker 1: You know, the people he was writing with probably at
Speaker 1: that time, were people like John Cheever, and you're often
Speaker 1: sort of thought of as this chiever character. You went
Speaker 1: to private school. Yeah, well, from the sounds of it,
Speaker 1: you didn't like it. You went to boarding school.
Speaker 12: Didn't like it, but it sure had an impact on me.
Speaker 1: Oh what was the impact?
Speaker 9: Yeah, it had a big effect on me. I mean
Speaker 9: my first I referenced that's in Delaware when I was younger.
Speaker 9: My very first song on my first record was about
Speaker 9: that boarding school. I'm kind of I have some gratitude
Speaker 9: about that boarding school. First of all, it was a
Speaker 9: good school. It is a good school Andrews It's in Delaware.
Speaker 9: But at the time I was a miserable young man.
Speaker 9: I probably would have been miserable anywhere. So I'm not
Speaker 9: blaming my old boarding school.
Speaker 1: You just you just wanted your parents to pay for it, right.
Speaker 9: Well, I didn't want to go, but my father again,
Speaker 9: he my father went to the same school. He was miserable.
Speaker 9: He thought I should go.
Speaker 1: And did his father go to that school as well?
Speaker 12: He didn't go to that school. He went to uh.
Speaker 9: Trinity Palling I think or something. My son Rufus went
Speaker 9: to boarding school, different school. He went to Millbrook and
Speaker 9: he succeeded and found himself kind of at Millbury. I mean,
Speaker 9: this is what I think. I think it was a
Speaker 9: I think he wouldn't. He would say that it was
Speaker 9: a good experience for him.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned I started this by saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you're compared to Chiever because of your background, but to me,
Speaker 1: you're more like Updyke. And this is why when I.
Speaker 12: My girlfriend's going to love this because she loves John.
Speaker 1: Up She likes John Updike. Okay, well, I've only really
Speaker 1: read the Rabbit books. But my issue with Updyke is
Speaker 1: he's kind of giving the game away of being a man.
Speaker 1: He tells things about men and their wormy little desires
Speaker 1: and their awful behavior that I feel would be best
Speaker 1: not put out into the world. And you've got some
Speaker 1: of that, you've you you know, I think of songs
Speaker 1: like four by ten one Man, Guy Less, so one
Speaker 1: of my favorite songs of yours, which is just called Men.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in what that part of it is like
Speaker 1: for you to be a guy and kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: because guys are sort of taught not to yeah, not
Speaker 1: to emote, not to reveal ourselves or traditionally men well
Speaker 1: in songs.
Speaker 9: You know, my songs are written to be performed, you know.
Speaker 9: I mean, I make RECs, but but I I'm always
Speaker 9: thinking about what what's this going to do to the
Speaker 9: three hundred people or if if it's good, maybe three
Speaker 9: thousand people that are sitting out there in the dark
Speaker 9: and talking about that stuff. You know, I feel safe.
Speaker 9: I mean, I know that there there could be an
Speaker 9: ooh factor, you know, but who don't don't do that,
Speaker 9: or don't say that, or don't reveal that. But I
Speaker 9: just as a guy who wanted to who wanted to
Speaker 9: be a performer from an earth, I just know that
Speaker 9: it has I can feel that it's that that it's
Speaker 9: doing something to the audience. It might be making them
Speaker 9: a little uncomfortable. I've had a tendency to do it.
Speaker 9: I don't quite know why, except that it seems to
Speaker 9: work for me.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Even on this album, when you're writing these songs,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, how's this going to work live? How's it
Speaker 1: going to affect people?
Speaker 9: I think so when I'm actually you know, I'm always
Speaker 9: thinking of that group of people and in the audience
Speaker 9: and will it have an effect on them? And it
Speaker 9: can be different effects. You know, some of the songs
Speaker 9: are funny, some of them are not funny at all.
Speaker 9: Some of them can do both. They can swerve into
Speaker 9: they have jokes planted in them, comic relief, if you
Speaker 9: will use the theatrical term. But it's all about taking
Speaker 9: that three minutes or if it's a whole show, that
Speaker 9: ninety minutes, and just taking them somewhere or dragging them
Speaker 9: somewhere in some case.
Speaker 1: But that does sound like you conceive of your performances
Speaker 1: almost as theater.
Speaker 12: I think it is.
Speaker 9: You know, it's a way you're in the dark. You know,
Speaker 9: people are in the dark and they're watching you on
Speaker 9: stage and you're you're performing for them.
Speaker 12: It's an act.
Speaker 9: But again it can create there's some magic.
Speaker 12: There can be magic.
Speaker 1: There is that magic you feel when you're on stage.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of feeds your performance?
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a great it's a great feeling
Speaker 9: the moment. You know, when I was a kid and
Speaker 9: I was in school plays, it was I was never
Speaker 9: was happier just just showing off, just being there.
Speaker 12: I mean, I knew that that's as good as it gets.
Speaker 1: And so songs like Your Mother and I, which is
Speaker 1: one of your most famous songs as a heartbreaking song,
Speaker 1: hitting You, which is about hitting your daughter, realizing you've
Speaker 1: hit her too hard.
Speaker 9: Right, losing it in an anger, was giving her a whack.
Speaker 1: That would be the story. But underlying the song is
Speaker 1: something I think that terrifies all parents, is that you've
Speaker 1: broken something that can't be fixed. Yeah, when you get
Speaker 1: to those kind of lines, does that can you feel
Speaker 1: that reaction.
Speaker 12: The song? Yeah?
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, again people coming up after the show and
Speaker 9: saying that's song, you know, and you have the person
Speaker 9: kid that's getting whacked, But then you have the parent
Speaker 9: that did it and just thinks, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 9: going to pay for this.
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 9: That was that was I lost it, you know, And
Speaker 9: so it's a it's a subject which is which is
Speaker 9: pretty powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking of your songs like Your Mother and I
Speaker 1: and other romantic songs or anti romantic songs. You mentioned
Speaker 1: in the you come up with a syndrome in your book,
Speaker 1: Sir Walter Raleigh syndrome. Yeah, I'd love for you to explain.
Speaker 9: That the Sir Walter Raleigh syndrome. You know, Sir Walter Raleigh. Famously,
Speaker 9: I guess it was Elizabeth the first or some Elizabeth
Speaker 9: or other you know, was walking along with the queen
Speaker 9: or and there's a mud puddle and he lays down
Speaker 9: his cape so that she doesn't get her you know.
Speaker 9: And again it's generational, you know, my mother urged it,
Speaker 9: you know, this thing for just making sure that women
Speaker 9: are you know, opening the door and giving them the
Speaker 9: chair and paying the check always. You know that that's
Speaker 9: a role that some men do or have, and I
Speaker 9: certainly have it. But of course what it does is
Speaker 9: it creates a kind of a resentment. You know, hey,
Speaker 9: why doesn't she walk around the damn mud puddle, you know,
Speaker 9: or get the these capes? You know, I have to
Speaker 9: go to the dry cleaner again with these capes.
Speaker 12: Give me a break, you know.
Speaker 9: So it's a kind of a syndrome and it's probably
Speaker 9: not good for either the Queen or Sir Walter Rawley.
Speaker 9: But in this case, I was identifying with Sir Walter Raleigh.
Speaker 1: And you've seen that.
Speaker 12: It's played out in my own life.
Speaker 1: Tell me about I think it's just a beautiful song
Speaker 1: on the album, which is back in your Town.
Speaker 12: Back in your Town.
Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you. That's that's that's a bit older. That's
Speaker 9: about fifteen years older, fifteen years old. You know, I
Speaker 9: had a Now she's a great friend of mine, Tracy McLeod.
Speaker 9: She know, we lived together for a couple of years
Speaker 9: and she's English and she so it's about going going
Speaker 9: back to London and actually walking past her house in
Speaker 9: Saint John's Wood where we live together, and just that
Speaker 9: feeling of God she's up there, and just being in
Speaker 9: you know, the power of going back to that place.
Speaker 1: You've a line about feeling like a refugee and a louse.
Speaker 9: Yes, yeah, yeah, So it's always tricky to come up
Speaker 9: with a word to rhyme with house, but you know
Speaker 9: you got this mouse. There aren't many but laos in
Speaker 9: this case seemed to work.
Speaker 1: You have other songs like a Little Piece of Me,
Speaker 1: which is about traveling. Are they all instigated by specific episodes?
Speaker 1: I could see somebody writing back in your town and saying, well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't really about anybody. That's just that feeling you
Speaker 1: get in another city. But for you, that was that
Speaker 1: very specific feeling.
Speaker 9: Well again, in the process of writing it, I think
Speaker 9: of the specifics. I think of the town, I think
Speaker 9: of that person. I can picture that straight. You know,
Speaker 9: I know exactly where that looking up into that window
Speaker 9: is so And again we talked about what my dad's influence,
Speaker 9: you know, specificity in the process for hopefully it's generic,
Speaker 9: hopefully everybody can identify with it, but I work with
Speaker 9: the specifics of things.
Speaker 1: I also thought, listening to that song, you have your
Speaker 1: dad's journalistic tendency, which is you never want to use
Speaker 1: the same word twice. So it's place, or it's town,
Speaker 1: then it's place, then it's berg, which rhymes with cerb,
Speaker 1: which means you can do that line about almost getting
Speaker 1: hit by a bus.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only thing that gives away that the song is
Speaker 1: the double decker bus. I thought, well, it must be English.
Speaker 12: I feel like I should play the song for you.
Speaker 12: Play it please, for the people.
Speaker 3: Gosh, I'm back in your town.
Speaker 6: I'm walking around.
Speaker 5: Crossing the street on sure on my feet, and I'm
Speaker 5: carefully looking around.
Speaker 4: Because I'm back in your town.
Speaker 3: Yes, and not.
Speaker 12: Back in this bird.
Speaker 4: Oh heaven sure, I better.
Speaker 8: I look to the right.
Speaker 4: A double decker just mate.
Speaker 9: Hit me when I step off the curve.
Speaker 4: I'm back in this boot.
Speaker 10: Just sit back in that place.
Speaker 2: Last time I left the hardy trees.
Speaker 12: Now that out to.
Speaker 4: Turn and ask me what of I learned?
Speaker 9: Go ahead and take a look on my face.
Speaker 5: I'm back in that place.
Speaker 12: You leave someone behind and.
Speaker 4: You think you won't mind until you go back and
Speaker 4: find you still can't your.
Speaker 8: Background start and enough mind.
Speaker 11: I was smart at my feeling you thought it wasn't there,
Speaker 11: still there.
Speaker 4: I walked right past your house, feeling like a refuge
Speaker 4: and alas.
Speaker 2: You were at all, But you were not alone.
Speaker 12: You were there with your kids and your spouse.
Speaker 4: I walked right past your house, so now feeling bereft,
Speaker 4: I'm feeling like I never even left. Every thanks changed,
Speaker 4: but it's the same. It's still all here, but nothing
Speaker 4: is left.
Speaker 6: I'm feeling breath.
Speaker 12: You leave someone behind and.
Speaker 4: Didn't think you won't bad until you go back and
Speaker 4: fine you still care.
Speaker 13: You're back where starting and I mine.
Speaker 4: I'm smarted by feeling you thought it wasn't there. I'm
Speaker 4: back in your town.
Speaker 11: I'm walking around, crossing the street.
Speaker 4: I'm sure on my feet, and I'm carefully looking around.
Speaker 4: I'm back in your town.
Speaker 2: One last break and we back with Loud and Wayne
Speaker 2: right the third.
Speaker 1: Before we go, I do want to ask you about
Speaker 1: a couple of our favorite people that you've worked with,
Speaker 1: And the first is Richard Thompson. Oh yeah, you did?
Speaker 1: I think two albums with him in the eighties. Tell
Speaker 1: me about that.
Speaker 12: Wow.
Speaker 9: Rich In nineteen eighty five or four, I talked about
Speaker 9: all my old gal friends, Susy Roach and I split
Speaker 9: up and I decided to go to England and actually
Speaker 9: went over there and bought a flat up in West Hampstead.
Speaker 9: And I had met Richard probably around nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 9: and it'd been a huge Prior to that, i'd been
Speaker 9: a huge fan of his work, but we did some
Speaker 9: festivals and things together in seventy eight. And so when
Speaker 9: I got over there, I was getting ready to make
Speaker 9: a record and I was talking to my friend Paul Charles,
Speaker 9: and I said, what about if I asked Richard to
Speaker 9: produce it? And Paul said yeah, and I asked him
Speaker 9: and we we He did it. It's a record called
Speaker 9: I'm all Right. And I should say that you know,
Speaker 9: in the in the late seventies, you know, I kind
Speaker 9: of got was making some kind of overproduced, kind of
Speaker 9: crappy records. They weren't totally crappy, but they were there.
Speaker 9: Certainly there was an element of overproduction so Richard and
Speaker 9: I talked about and he suggested that we really if
Speaker 9: we do production, we're gonna do production that where the
Speaker 9: song is served by the production and not worry about
Speaker 9: getting it on the radio and stuff. So and that's
Speaker 9: what we did with that record. And then we did
Speaker 9: another record called More Love Songs. Again there's drums on it,
Speaker 9: and there's a bass on it, and there's stuff on it,
Speaker 9: but it doesn't get in the way of the songs.
Speaker 9: And of course this Richard's guitar playing, which is kind
Speaker 9: of ridiculously marvelous. So those records are I feel good
Speaker 9: about those records that they got nominated for Grammys, and
Speaker 9: people liked him a lot, and so I was very
Speaker 9: happy to work with rich And occasionally we get to
Speaker 9: do shows. He last year, I.
Speaker 12: Guess it was because of the pandemic. It was a
Speaker 12: couple of years ago.
Speaker 9: He celebrated his seventieth birthday at a big show at
Speaker 9: Albert Hall in London, and I got to go and
Speaker 9: sing and play with him. And I love rich He's
Speaker 9: the greatest.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm interested in you guys sitting with guitars
Speaker 1: because he is a brilliant guitarist. You are really underrated.
Speaker 1: As a guitar player and as an instrumentalist. I think, well,
Speaker 1: I play rhythm guitar.
Speaker 9: You know, it's all about what's going on with the
Speaker 9: right hand, because I can't really play any licks like
Speaker 9: I've played with great guitar players Richard Thompson, Bill Frizzell,
Speaker 9: John Schofield. I mean, you know these guys, But I
Speaker 9: feel pretty good about my my rhythm guitar playing. It's
Speaker 9: pretty solid.
Speaker 1: Now there's some beautiful instrumentation on this news. This new album,
Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement Back in your Town's got a beautiful treatment
Speaker 1: a little piece of me. I think it's got some Well,
Speaker 1: you also played banjo.
Speaker 9: I play some banjo on the record, but that's how
Speaker 9: I'm Tannebaum playing the other banjo. My other great guitar
Speaker 9: player who's all over this record is David Mansfield, who's
Speaker 9: a great you know, he's up there in that strata
Speaker 9: with those guys.
Speaker 1: Right Also, I would say, Richard Thompson, if there were
Speaker 1: a list of artists who have turned broken relationships into
Speaker 1: great art, I would say you two would be in
Speaker 1: the top five easily. You know, he's one of the
Speaker 1: great breakup albums. Of all time.
Speaker 12: Are you talking about shoot Out the Lights?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah that Yeah, that's.
Speaker 12: A great, great record. And he and he, uh, of.
Speaker 1: Course Richard Richard does he and his wife Linda. We
Speaker 1: should mention sure.
Speaker 9: Linda just had a birthday, okay, a couple of days ago. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 9: Linda and rich I mean that they made those wonderful
Speaker 9: records and uh talk about breakup albums. I I saw
Speaker 9: some of the shows that they did to support Shootout
Speaker 9: the Lights, and boy, that was Stringberg on stage at
Speaker 9: the bottom line. I mean it was ferociously and it's
Speaker 9: so compelling, you know. Of course, Richard, if you ask him,
Speaker 9: is this one about? What's this one about? And which
Speaker 9: what girl?
Speaker 4: And what?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 9: He says he denies that it's autobiographical, but that's that's
Speaker 9: his option.
Speaker 1: The other person I wanted to ask about was Joe Henry.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, great great songwriter.
Speaker 9: Great great songwriter, a great producer. We did a couple
Speaker 9: of records together, and uh, great guy, uh all around
Speaker 9: working with Joe. Uh. When Joe works, he gets together
Speaker 9: his group of players and and it's in the room
Speaker 9: and it's live. Greg Lease, David Pilch, Jay Bellarrose, this
Speaker 9: amazing drummer that Joe.
Speaker 12: Likes to use.
Speaker 9: That the t bone Burnette has now poached and taken away.
Speaker 9: But Joe, Joe, Joe's about getting the guys in the
Speaker 9: room and just making it real in the room, and
Speaker 9: then then capturing the recording. And he makes beautiful records
Speaker 9: with with a lot of different people and writes wonderful songs.
Speaker 1: Is that a Is that a way you like to record?
Speaker 9: It's fun to do it that way. I've done it
Speaker 9: that way, and when Joe's at the helm, I feel confident.
Speaker 9: When we did this last record, Lifetime Achievement, I went
Speaker 9: into the studio by myself with my guitar and laid
Speaker 9: down all my stuff beforehand, and then we added stuff.
Speaker 9: That's another way that I've worked, you know, where you
Speaker 9: just get the core of what I do, which is
Speaker 9: me playing the guitar. And then Stewart and Dick Knnett,
Speaker 9: you know they worked with well, let's put Mansfield over
Speaker 9: here and Tannenbaum over here and maybe bring in a
Speaker 9: drummer secretly, and.
Speaker 1: You led the drums after you laid down the rhythm.
Speaker 12: Track on this record we did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. Joe's also Joe Henry's also a way
Speaker 1: of mentioning you guys worked on the Knocked Up soundtrack
Speaker 1: which had Daughter, which is a great song of yours,
Speaker 1: which we haven't talked about. In fact, you do act
Speaker 1: all the time. You're in all kinds of things always.
Speaker 9: Well, uh yeah, I get acting jobs and and Joe
Speaker 9: and I did do the Strange Weirdos record which is More,
Speaker 9: which was kind of a soundtrack record for the Judd
Speaker 9: Apatow movie of Knocked Up, and Joe produced that record Daughter,
Speaker 9: which is from that album, which I have to say
Speaker 9: and admit to you that I did not write a
Speaker 9: lot of people think I wrote it. It was written
Speaker 9: by the I'm so effusive with my praise today with
Speaker 9: the wonderful, incredible songwriter Peter Blagvad. He wrote Daughter, and
Speaker 9: I sang it and we recorded it. But a lot
Speaker 9: of people think that I wrote Daughter. I wish I had,
Speaker 9: but I didn't.
Speaker 1: Just take it. When I was just reading things about
Speaker 1: this album, about what you're doing now, I came across
Speaker 1: the NPR review of the album, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you read that or not, but there was there
Speaker 1: was a paragraph that jumped out at me, which was
Speaker 1: well before owning up to privilege was a thing. Wainwright
Speaker 1: had made a career out of being honest about his
Speaker 1: white Anglo Saxon Protestant upbringing, freely admitting that male wasps
Speaker 1: like him got away with far too much. Now I
Speaker 1: guess that's accurate.
Speaker 9: It feels a little sounds a little updikey.
Speaker 1: A little updikey, a little hostile. You know, the world
Speaker 1: has changed in the way we think about families and
Speaker 1: men and women and relationships has changed. Could you be
Speaker 1: the same singer songwriter coming up today?
Speaker 12: I mean, could I get away with it? Or would I?
Speaker 9: Yes, that's what you mean in a way, Yes, probably not.
Speaker 9: I mean there's so much.
Speaker 12: That you can't get away with today.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm thinking. I have a song on my
Speaker 9: second album as a song called Motel Blues, which you know,
Speaker 9: Joe Henry recorded it on the record that we did
Speaker 9: call Recovery with his band.
Speaker 1: It's a good song, great song.
Speaker 9: It's about being lonely and about trying to lure a
Speaker 9: woman up to my room to be because I'm lonely
Speaker 9: and that's what it's.
Speaker 1: About, and come and save my life, right.
Speaker 9: It's a come up to my motel room, saved my life,
Speaker 9: and then it then it says, come up to my
Speaker 9: motel room, sleep with me.
Speaker 12: So could just do that now?
Speaker 9: I don't know, but uh or what I've written that now,
Speaker 9: I like to think that I would have because it's
Speaker 9: what happened, and it doesn't happen now. Now it's come
Speaker 9: up to my motel room and show me how to
Speaker 9: work the Wi Fi.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 9: So it's not really an issue for me now, but
Speaker 9: as a twenty two year old lonely touring musician, you know,
Speaker 9: it was what was going on.
Speaker 12: So I wrote about it.
Speaker 1: Listen, thank you so much.
Speaker 12: Oh, I've enjoyed talking with you, just.
Speaker 1: Great talking and a great album. Another great album. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2: In the episode description, you'll find a link to a
Speaker 2: playlist of our favorite Loud and Win Right the third tracks,
Speaker 2: as well as his latest.
Speaker 12: Album, Lifetime Achievement.
Speaker 2: Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Speaker 2: Record Podcast to see all our video interviews, and be
Speaker 2: sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 2: Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with Marketing
Speaker 2: and help from Eric Sandler and Jordana McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 2: is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 2: Our theme music ex by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard