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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Fifth Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today's see the legendary senior songwriter Tom Rush. Tom. Hi, Bob,

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Speaker 1: it's good to see you. Okay. Now you had COVID

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Speaker 1: tell me about that. Well, I don't recommend it. It

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Speaker 1: was not fun. It was back in March. I was

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Speaker 1: an early adapter um and I've just felt awful for

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Speaker 1: about two weeks. It was five days of getting worse,

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Speaker 1: five days of feeling like crap, five days of getting better.

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Speaker 1: And I never got most of the typical symptoms. I

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Speaker 1: just felt exhausted and achy all over, and I ran

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a fever. But I just slept

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Speaker 1: twenty hours a day at the at the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the curve, and then I got better. And then a

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Speaker 1: couple of months later I was having heart palpitations in

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Speaker 1: the duck. Told me I should wear a heart monitor

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Speaker 1: for two weeks. I did. I mailed it in. He

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Speaker 1: calls me a five thirty on Friday, because these things

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Speaker 1: never happened Tuesday morning and says, basically, get your ass

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Speaker 1: to an ambulance and have them bring you to Mass General.

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Speaker 1: And I said, excuse me, what are you talking about

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Speaker 1: and he said, we're concerned you might have an event.

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Speaker 1: And I said, okay, what kind of event? And he said,

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Speaker 1: well the text the technical term is sudden cardiac death.

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Speaker 1: And that that got my attention, and in fact, I

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Speaker 1: didn't go straight in I because that's the kind of

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Speaker 1: guy I am. I went back to where I was

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Speaker 1: living and had a nice dinner with a glass of

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Speaker 1: wine and when in the next morning, uh, and they

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Speaker 1: put a pacemaker in me. They discovered, quite accidentally, totally

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Speaker 1: unrelated to any heart palpitations, that my heart rate was

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Speaker 1: going down to twenty three beats a minute, and so

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Speaker 1: they put a pacemaker in and now I am pretty

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Speaker 1: much invincible. Okay, for those of us out of the know,

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Speaker 1: what exactly is a pacemaker? And do you know you

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Speaker 1: have it in you? Oh? Yeah, yeah, there's a little

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Speaker 1: bump in my chest. I mean, I'm I pretty much

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Speaker 1: have to bow out of all the bathing suit competitions

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Speaker 1: from from now on. They weren't going well anyway. But no,

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Speaker 1: it's it. Basically, this pacemaker. They do different things this one.

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Speaker 1: If my heart rate goes below fifty beats a minute,

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Speaker 1: it will kick in and keep my heart rate above

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Speaker 1: fifty beats a minute. And when it does kick in,

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Speaker 1: are you aware of that? No? Okay, So other than

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Speaker 1: the bump, it's totally, you know, transparent. You don't know

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Speaker 1: what's going on. No, No, it doesn't bother me a bit. Okay.

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Speaker 1: What do they think caused it? They don't know. But

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Speaker 1: I think I think COVID caused it. I really do.

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Speaker 1: When I was in the cardiac word at mess General,

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Speaker 1: which is locally referred to as it's in Massachusetts General Hospital.

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Speaker 1: Locally it's referred to as Massive Genitals. But when I

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Speaker 1: was in the cardiac word there, uh, the nurse observed

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Speaker 1: that they had a lot of COVID survivors. And this

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Speaker 1: is at a point when less way, less than one

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Speaker 1: percent of the population were COVID survivors. So it made

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Speaker 1: me think that maybe COVID causes heart problems. And how

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Speaker 1: do you think you got it COVID? I think I

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Speaker 1: got it on a plane. I was doing gigs in Florida,

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Speaker 1: and uh, I had a week off and then more

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Speaker 1: gigs in Florida, and I was gonna I came back

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Speaker 1: to Boston for my week off and started feeling crummy

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Speaker 1: on on day three, Day four, of the week off. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: all the all the other gigs were canceled. And fortunately

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Speaker 1: my daughter was staying with me and she took care

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Speaker 1: of me. And and then she got the same bug

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Speaker 1: she had. She tested negative, but she had to have

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Speaker 1: had it. She had the same symptoms. And now I

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Speaker 1: know you frequently worked with Matt Nakoah. Was he on

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Speaker 1: that gig with you? He was? He didn't get it.

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Speaker 1: He didn't get it. There were several people that I

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Speaker 1: was hanging out with it didn't get it. So I

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Speaker 1: think I got it on the plane coming north. And

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Speaker 1: then have you gotten the vaccine. I've just I'm three

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Speaker 1: days away from being totally invincible. I've had my second

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Speaker 1: shot almost two weeks ago. Okay, Now, if one goes

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Speaker 1: to your web page, it appears that you've been doing

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Speaker 1: live gigs during this interim. Tell us the story there. Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: I think that the website may have been um misleading.

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Speaker 1: I'm about to do this this coming Saturday, the twenty March.

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Speaker 1: I'm about to do a show at the Birchmure in

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Speaker 1: in Alexandria, Virginia, which will be my first live gig

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Speaker 1: this year. The website, I think is should be telling

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Speaker 1: you that this, that and the other gig have been

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Speaker 1: rescheduled until I guess what I was saying. You know,

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Speaker 1: I follow you pretty closely, but it seemed like you

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Speaker 1: were putting it out there that you would play private,

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Speaker 1: socially distanced gigs. I was doing that. This was I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out ways to ways to survive this

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Speaker 1: and the public gigs were being canceled, and I figured, well,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, the weather is nice. This was in

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Speaker 1: the fall. I'm in the northeast, and uh, so I

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Speaker 1: put out this thing and said, hey, let's do some

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Speaker 1: private shows outdoors, properly distanced outdoor, private shows with small

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Speaker 1: gatherings and uh and it worked. I did, you know,

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Speaker 1: five or six of them, and I paid the rent

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Speaker 1: and and then winter set in. So that's over. I'm

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Speaker 1: hoping to kick it back into action, uh in a

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Speaker 1: month or so when the weather is up here. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: you will also put your price on the website. You

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Speaker 1: said you normally get paid ten thousand dollars. Is it

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Speaker 1: a factor of age and you just don't care anymore,

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Speaker 1: because certainly this is a business where you could do

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Speaker 1: the same gig and the price could vary widely, so

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Speaker 1: people are really loath to quote a price. Well it's

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Speaker 1: you know, the and the price does very widely. It depends,

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Speaker 1: you know, if I have to fly to Australia to

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Speaker 1: do it, it's gonna cost more than if it's just

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Speaker 1: down the block. Um. But um, I'm basically I was

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Speaker 1: basically giving about a fift discount on private shows and

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Speaker 1: and people signed up for them so great. Um, But

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Speaker 1: then that was shut down because of the weather. And

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Speaker 1: then I started this Rockport Sundays series on Patreon. Before

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Speaker 1: we get into the Patreon thing, you know, to what

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Speaker 1: degree do you have to work to make your nut?

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Speaker 1: And we talk about different musicians are in different levels,

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Speaker 1: and also there are a lot of very household name

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Speaker 1: musicians who have high overheads. So when this shut down,

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Speaker 1: where you starting to freak out or this was just

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Speaker 1: impacting your lifestyle? Or he said to god, I could

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Speaker 1: keep myself busy. Well, it was a little of each.

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Speaker 1: I mean the cash flow. The twenty was shaping up

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Speaker 1: to be the best year ever from a you know,

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Speaker 1: business standpoint, and then just mid March just stopped. Okay,

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Speaker 1: well let's stop. Why was twenty so deep into your career.

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Speaker 1: Sixty years into your career, why was shaping up to

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Speaker 1: be the best? I can't answer that more. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was getting more bookings for you know, for bigger crowds.

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Speaker 1: I think I've gotten better over the years. Bob Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know. Un Let's that's one thing people don't realize

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Speaker 1: about getting older. You know that all this focus on you,

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Speaker 1: we do get wiser. In many cases, we do get better.

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Speaker 1: But you were answering the question about the cash h oh, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the cash flow, it just went off the cliff. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of overhead because I don't

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Speaker 1: have a band uh these days, as you say, I

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Speaker 1: worked with Matt Nicola. Uh and he gets paid when

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Speaker 1: I get paid. Uh. And Matt is actually to go

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Speaker 1: back to the Rockports Sundays. He's been participating on a

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Speaker 1: lot of those those little episodes. But I don't haven't.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of overhead, but I do.

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Speaker 1: You know, I've got I got to pay the rent,

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Speaker 1: and now I've got to pay my wife's rent. She's

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Speaker 1: she's off in Wyoming now, um, and you know, health

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Speaker 1: insurance and I've got a kid in college and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that so um, I was invading savings and decided

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Speaker 1: I had invaded savings about enough, and I should try

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Speaker 1: to figure out how to how make some money. And

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Speaker 1: I also it's partly I just I love playing for people,

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Speaker 1: and I was I was suffering audience deprivation syndrome, and

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Speaker 1: so tell us about the patriar. Well. I checked out

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Speaker 1: a bunch of different platforms. I was living in Rockport, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: and I wrote this instrumental years ago called Rockport Sunday

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Speaker 1: that people seem to like a lot. And I thought, Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'll do this. I'll put out put out

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Speaker 1: a video clip of one song or a story perhaps

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Speaker 1: every Sunday, and it'll be a subscription series and it

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Speaker 1: costs ten bucks a month at the bottom at the

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Speaker 1: bottom level, and you get it. You get a song,

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Speaker 1: a video clip of me in the kitchen, very casual.

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Speaker 1: The production values are good because I've got a guy

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Speaker 1: who's very professional doing the audio and video. But I'm

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Speaker 1: very casual. I haven't done one in my pajamas yet,

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Speaker 1: but you never know. Um, And I'll sing a song

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Speaker 1: for you, tell you a story about the song, sing

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Speaker 1: a song, and that's it, and that song will then

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Speaker 1: be available for eight weeks, uh, and it will then

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Speaker 1: disappear to make room for whatever the newest thing is.

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Speaker 1: And some weeks I tell a story. I told the

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Speaker 1: story of Clint Eastwood and the Hashish Brownie, and I'll

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Speaker 1: tell the story about skinny dipping with Janis Joplin's some okay,

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Speaker 1: you know it just as a teaser for those of

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Speaker 1: White Side Up. Tell us the story of skinny Dipping

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Speaker 1: with Jannis. No, no, no, Bobby, you have to subscribe. Okay,

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Speaker 1: somebody someone Is it already off the eight weeks or

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Speaker 1: could they still get it? No? I haven't done the

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Speaker 1: Janis Chaplin one yet, but that was okay, I'll give

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Speaker 1: you a taste of that. I was on the Festival

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Speaker 1: Express tour across Canada and it was quite an adventure.

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Speaker 1: It was a bunch of musicians on a train, The

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Speaker 1: Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the band Delaney and Bonnie Ian

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Speaker 1: and Sylvia um on and on, and we went across

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Speaker 1: we wanted. We started in Toronto, ended in Calgary. And

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Speaker 1: when we got to Calgary, this was the best party

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Speaker 1: I have ever been to. It was we kind of

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Speaker 1: regarded the stadium shows that we had to stop and

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Speaker 1: do as unwelcome intrusions into the flow of the party.

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Speaker 1: We got to Calgary and the promoters had hired the

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Speaker 1: municipal swimming pool so that we could all go for

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Speaker 1: a swim, which was very sweet and much appreciated, and

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Speaker 1: of course all of these hippie musicians wanted to go

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Speaker 1: skinny dipping, which horrified the pool officials. But it was

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Speaker 1: our pool, you know. They couldn't stop us. But they

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Speaker 1: did have a rule, hard and fast rule that anyone

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Speaker 1: with long hair, which was everybody, had to wear a

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Speaker 1: bathing cap. And my my mind is permanently scarred by

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Speaker 1: the sight of seeing Leslie West of Mountains coming out

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Speaker 1: of the changing room wearing nothing but a bathing cap

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Speaker 1: over his afro and a second bathing cap upside down

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Speaker 1: over his beard. You can't unsee something like that. And

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Speaker 1: uh now, on that festival press, certainly Janis Joplin was

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Speaker 1: a famous drinker with Southern comfort during that day and

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Speaker 1: maybe even today. To what degree did you partake in substances? Well,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of substances on that On that train,

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Speaker 1: alcohol was very popular. We in fact drank the train

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Speaker 1: dry about four hours out of Toronto, which was the

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Speaker 1: first and we remember we stopped, We made them stop

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Speaker 1: in a prairie little prairie town, went into the liquor

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Speaker 1: store and bought everything, every every bottle in that store.

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Speaker 1: Went back on the train and we continued on, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it was a very it was a very strange experience.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure for the staff on the train. These were

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Speaker 1: guys with jackets and little red bow ties who were

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Speaker 1: used to dealing with families on vacation and all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, they've got a train full of hippies, you know,

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Speaker 1: smoking dope and doing god knows what um but they

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Speaker 1: were it was all It was very cool. I remember

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Speaker 1: seeing Janice job I was I was talking with Delaney

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Speaker 1: or Bonnie Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonny. I was

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Speaker 1: chatting with her. Janie comes running in and says, Bonny, Bonny, Bonny,

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Speaker 1: you've gotta come. I'm doing an interview with Time magazine.

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Speaker 1: And I just realized that you and I are the

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Speaker 1: same person. You've got to come and participate in this

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Speaker 1: interview with me. And so she gets and I trailed

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Speaker 1: along because I wanted to find out how it was

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Speaker 1: that Janis and Bonnie were the same person, and Bonnie

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Speaker 1: was talking about how talent was. It was a gift

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Speaker 1: from God, but it was also a curse in a way,

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Speaker 1: because because God had given you this gift, you were

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Speaker 1: obliged to go out and share it with people, and

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Speaker 1: it means leaving your family and leading a very difficult

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Speaker 1: life out on the road, and but this is what

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Speaker 1: God demands of you. Janis, on the other hand, was

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Speaker 1: talking about how great it was to be a rock

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Speaker 1: star because you get laid a lot. Somehow, they were

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Speaker 1: the same person in Janis's mind. Just going back though,

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Speaker 1: when you were on the road, to what degree or

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Speaker 1: in your career did you partake of drugs, whether it

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Speaker 1: be marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or anything. I did. I did

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Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, U pot. Of course it was

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Speaker 1: kind of derry gur I did too much cocaine for

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Speaker 1: a while, and I actually stopped cocaine because I got

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Speaker 1: ahold of some pharmaceutical coke and it was so good

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Speaker 1: that I was so pissed that I had been spending

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Speaker 1: all this money on garbage, been snorting mothballs. I just stopped.

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Speaker 1: I never got involved in the harder stuff because when

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Speaker 1: I was a little kid, I was sickly and I

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Speaker 1: got a lot of injections and I developed a real

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Speaker 1: aversion to needles. So anything that involved a needle, no,

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Speaker 1: thank you. Get that thing away from me, which served

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Speaker 1: me well. Okay. Also, you had a very big birthday

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Speaker 1: about a month ago. How does that affect you emotionally? Well?

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Speaker 1: Not much. I mean, I'm I'm feeling good, I think, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm writing more than I ever wrote. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm having a lot of fun with Rockports Sundays and

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Speaker 1: very much looking forward to getting back on the road.

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Speaker 1: Uh So the only the only part of it was

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Speaker 1: it was a you know, a big birthday bash scheduled

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Speaker 1: for the Whang Center in Boston, which is this absolutely

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Speaker 1: dropped at gorgeous seat hall, and we were going to

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Speaker 1: get all kinds of guest artists and Garth Brooks in fact,

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Speaker 1: you know, put together happy birthday video clip for the

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Speaker 1: occasion and it had to be canceled. So basically, Bob,

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Speaker 1: I have suspended aging. As soon as we can do it,

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Speaker 1: we'll have my eightieth birthday party at the Wing Center. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So what's your relationship with Garth Brooks? Uh, he's he's

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Speaker 1: credited me many times over the years as being one

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Speaker 1: of the first people his dad, I guess played some

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Speaker 1: of my albums for the kids when he was when

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Speaker 1: he was little, and he was he came to like

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Speaker 1: my music a lot. So that's that's really the only

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Speaker 1: connection I've never met the guy. Um. Okay, So you

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Speaker 1: talk about being very creative and writing at this particular

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Speaker 1: point in time, but on some level, which is interesting

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Speaker 1: from an outside observer, the landscape is identical to when

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Speaker 1: you started. When you started first, you know, there was

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Speaker 1: fifties rock, rank Sinatra, then the teen idols, and now

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Speaker 1: we have teen idols again and everything spread out. So

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Speaker 1: what do you think about this change in landscape and

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Speaker 1: what motivates you today. I guess what motivates me is

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Speaker 1: is again, I love to play for people. I love

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Speaker 1: to get up on stage and make people laugh and

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Speaker 1: cry and you know, dig into their emotional uh, their

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Speaker 1: emotional life. I get. I get a big a lot

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Speaker 1: of pleasure out of that. Um. The landscape is because

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Speaker 1: of the Internet, is totally different. You know, when I

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Speaker 1: started out, if you didn't have a record deal, you

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Speaker 1: did not exist, because it was the record companies who

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Speaker 1: got you on the radio and got you written up

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Speaker 1: in the magazines and and that sold tickets and um.

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Speaker 1: But without that you were invisible. Now any kid with

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Speaker 1: a laptop can you know, make music in their bedroom

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Speaker 1: and put it up on the internet. And some of

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Speaker 1: it's terrible, some of it's wonderful, but you don't need

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Speaker 1: the record company anymore. Um. And it's become very confusing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the whole the whole genre question has become

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Speaker 1: very muddy. It used to be, you know, there was jazz,

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Speaker 1: there was classical, there was folk, There were blues and

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Speaker 1: raw u and that was about it. And I remember

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Speaker 1: actually my first album came out on a little private

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Speaker 1: label in Cambridge, and I went into the Harvard Coope,

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Speaker 1: the local record store, and they'd put my album under

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Speaker 1: Blues in the blues section. And I went to the manager.

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Speaker 1: I said, excuse me, I do some blues, yes, but

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Speaker 1: I also do traditional folk material. And he said okay,

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Speaker 1: and he took took my albums and put him in

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Speaker 1: the folks section. I said, well, wait, wait a second.

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Speaker 1: I yes, I do some folk, but I also and

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Speaker 1: he finally, after a couple of more of these, he said, okay, kid,

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Speaker 1: and he put me in miscellaneous, and I learned my

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Speaker 1: lesson not to argue about categories. But now there's so

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Speaker 1: many categories. I mean, I want to Actually, I'm thrilled, Bob,

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Speaker 1: to be able to announce that the last night I

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Speaker 1: won all the Grammys, every single every single one of them.

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Speaker 1: Anybody that's as otherwise it's false and that's false news.

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Speaker 1: Were you ever nominated programming? To be honest, I can't remember.

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Speaker 1: I don't think so well except you went there. What

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Speaker 1: is your thought about the Grammy organization in the Grammy winning?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's I I've fallen so far away

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Speaker 1: from the industry um that I don't really pay much

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Speaker 1: attention to it. I mean, it's it's great for the

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Speaker 1: folks who wins something, but I'm not sure what it means.

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Speaker 1: It means that a bunch of people with a very

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Speaker 1: uh skewed point of view voted for them. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily mean they're good. It just means they're popular with

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Speaker 1: a certain, very restricted crowd. So, um, I don't I

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Speaker 1: just don't put a lot of stock in it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now you have very ring levels on peach. We tell

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Speaker 1: us about that. Well, I started out with just one

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Speaker 1: that they call them tears. And the tier that I

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Speaker 1: started out with was the ten dollar a month tier

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Speaker 1: where you get every Sunday a brand new song or

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Speaker 1: a story or and then I added a bunch more

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Speaker 1: tiers for so for twenty five bucks a month, you get,

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Speaker 1: of course the song or the story, but you also

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Speaker 1: get pages from a book I'm writing. And it goes

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Speaker 1: all the way up to a thousand dollars a month

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Speaker 1: where you get a private concert at the end of

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Speaker 1: so many months, and uh, you know, some zoom chats

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Speaker 1: zoom chat once a month and some special treatment. Is

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Speaker 1: one one of my thousand dollar guys wants me to

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Speaker 1: come up with an instructional video teaching him how to

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Speaker 1: play the Dreamer, which is a song I think it's

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Speaker 1: one of my better songs, not not better known, but anyway,

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Speaker 1: he's he wants me to and I will got to

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Speaker 1: come up with an instructional video and he will learn

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Speaker 1: how to play the Dreamer. Okay, that begs the question

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Speaker 1: of these people are paying Does that affect your relationship?

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Speaker 1: And this also blends to you know, you tour sort

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Speaker 1: of on a circuit, do you tend to know your fans?

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Speaker 1: Does that good or is it a burden? What's that like?

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Speaker 1: I don't know the the you know I do. I

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Speaker 1: do see some of the same face as it shows.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things I do when I remember

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Speaker 1: is when I hit the stage and say, how many folks,

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Speaker 1: how many? How many of you guys have never been

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Speaker 1: to one of my shows before, and about half the

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Speaker 1: crowd will put put their hand up, so it's not

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Speaker 1: the same people coming back every time. UM. The the

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Speaker 1: Patreon series of rockports Sundays, I get a lot of comments.

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Speaker 1: People can write comments, and I respond to as many

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Speaker 1: as I can. UM, and I've noticed that some of

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Speaker 1: the same people comment every week. UH. The song goes

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Speaker 1: up at midnight Eastern time, midnight on Saturday and Sunday morning.

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Speaker 1: I've got, you know, an inbox full of comments from

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Speaker 1: Patreon and UH, and some of the same people are

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Speaker 1: commenting each time. But the feedback is really positive. It's

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Speaker 1: almost as good as live applause. Let's just assume we

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Speaker 1: had to cut you off from the feedback. Would you

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Speaker 1: be able to survive it? Would it would cut out

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Speaker 1: a lot of dopamine, the dopamine rush from the the

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Speaker 1: applause or the feedback is part of what's part of

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Speaker 1: what's in it for me. Uh yeah, I want to hear.

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Speaker 1: I want to hear what you think. I want it

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you like it. If you don't like it,

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Speaker 1: then I'd like to know that too. Okay, at this

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Speaker 1: point in time, are you still concerned with growing your audience?

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Speaker 1: You know, how do you deal with that? Because as

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Speaker 1: you say that, the game has changed, we don't have

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Speaker 1: the record company push and there's so much in the channel.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm very I'm very uh focused on growing

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Speaker 1: the audience. I mean, it's actually one of the exciting

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Speaker 1: things about the Rockport Sunday Series online. I keep it

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Speaker 1: keeps me up at night that there are seven and

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Speaker 1: a half billion people on the planet that haven't signed

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Speaker 1: up yet. But I know that having you know, been

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Speaker 1: on Bob left It's podcasts. Are you're going to the

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Speaker 1: moon now yet? Year? Fasten your seat belts. Absolutely No.

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Speaker 1: I think the potential for growth is is terrific on

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Speaker 1: the Internet because there really is no ceiling. Well, there's

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Speaker 1: a potential, but there's so much there. Do you find

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Speaker 1: in this Internet era of last twenty years, when everybody's

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Speaker 1: got more questions than answers that your audience is increasing

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Speaker 1: or maybe you can't even tell it all well, the

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Speaker 1: online audience, UM, you know, I've got I also sent

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Speaker 1: out a newsletter from my uh website, tom rush dot

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Speaker 1: com and you can sign up for the newsletter at

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Speaker 1: tom rush dot com. Um, and people seem to like

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Speaker 1: that a lot. I get silly. I try to keep

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Speaker 1: it amusing, and people seem to be amused. So I've

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Speaker 1: got you know, about fifteen thousand people there, but that

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Speaker 1: could easily you know that, you know, I would love

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Speaker 1: to see that grow as well. UM. And as for

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Speaker 1: the you know, the the the lie of audiences. Of course,

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Speaker 1: right now it's really restricted. I'm playing the Birch Mirror

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Speaker 1: this coming Saturday. It's a five hundred seat room. They're

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Speaker 1: only selling two tickets. H and some of the other

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Speaker 1: gigs coming up in May and June or that couldn't

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Speaker 1: be the same kind of thing. Either they've they've moved outdoors,

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Speaker 1: or they're gonna have restricted capacity and hopefully, hopefully sometime

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Speaker 1: in the fall something this will, um, this will start

410
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Speaker 1: to loosen up. So what's the key to a great show?

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Speaker 1: I wish I could well, of course me well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's a given. You're here, we're talking to you have

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Speaker 1: a profile, but you know you're there. Do you feel

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Speaker 1: that you have to convince them? Or you're singing rock,

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Speaker 1: you're singing no Regrets and you're thinking about your next

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Speaker 1: connection at the airport. No, I'm in the best of worlds.

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Speaker 1: I'm very, very focused on the on the audience. Um.

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Speaker 1: Part of the fun for me is figuring out who

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Speaker 1: this audience is. I visualize an audience as being a personality,

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Speaker 1: and it's been striking to me. I used to play

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Speaker 1: clubs way way way back in the day. I'd be

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Speaker 1: it would be a two week gig, show up, you know,

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Speaker 1: and play every night for two weeks, and it was

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Speaker 1: really amazing how different the audience was from night tonight.

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Speaker 1: It was the same town, the same demographic, the same weather,

426
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 1: but the audience would be totally different each night, and

427
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: I would have to figure out who that audience is,

428
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: who what that personality is, and then basically play to

429
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 1: that person Some audience is really like the funny songs,

430
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: so I do more funny songs, and some like the touching,

431
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: introspective stuff. The the sensitive ship. As my lead guitar

432
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: player used to call it. And so, especially when you

433
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: had a band, to what degree did you have a

434
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: set listen? To what degree depending on the audience did

435
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: you change your repertoire and to this day, Well, I

436
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: I know what song I'm gonna start with, I know

437
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: what song I'm gonna end with, and in between I'm flexible. Um,

438
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 1: I do have to One of the disadvantages to having

439
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: a band is you have to stick to the songs

440
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: that the band knows. Um. Whereas solo, I don't have

441
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 1: that problem. And with Matt, I can throw a new

442
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: song at Matt and he will play it as though

443
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 1: he'd been doing his entire life. He's quite an amazing talent.

444
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: I should throw in Matt Akoa dot Com into the conversation.

445
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: He's we've been playing together for about six years, but

446
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: he's got his own career which is burgeoning, and I

447
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: don't think he's going to be backing me up for

448
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: too much longer. I'm hoping when he's playing stadiums he'll

449
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: let me open the shows. Okay, you went to Harvard

450
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: to what degree? Does that inform your music in your career?

451
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: I don't know that Harvard Harvard, If anything, I was

452
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: an English major, and when I'm writing, I tend to

453
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: be intimidated by the idea that Blake would never say

454
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: anything that's stupid. You know Shakespeare. Oh No, I'm nowhere

455
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: near that level. Um, So that was a little bit intimidating,

456
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: although it did expose me to a lot of really

457
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: amazing writing. What was important, I think was being in Cambridge,

458
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: Massachusetts at that time, the early sixties, when there was

459
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: such a vibrant folks scene going on, and being able

460
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: to hang out at the Club forty seven in Cambridge

461
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: was a coffeehouse that was one block from my dorm

462
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: roo and this was the place they hosted the local kids,

463
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: as all their coffeehouses did, but they also brought in

464
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,959
Speaker 1: the legends, and you could sit in this little adc

465
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: room and listen to Maybelle Carter or Flattened Scrugs or

466
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: Sleepy John Estes. They brought in a lot of the

467
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: blues guys, and I adored the blues guys, partly because

468
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: I was an English major and and just love what

469
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: these guys could do to syntax. Okay, so at what

470
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,479
Speaker 1: point did you pick up the guitar. I picked up

471
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: the guitar as a little kid, I was forced to

472
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: take piano lessons for about twelve years, and I hated it.

473
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: Nobody explained to me, it's a little bit like studying

474
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: English at Harvard. Nobody explained that these were great books

475
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: because people loved to read them. It was your grim

476
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: duty to study and analyze them. Piano was not fun.

477
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: It was an exercise and manual dexterity. Nobody explained that

478
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: this music was great music because people actually liked it. Um.

479
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: But I had an older cousin named Bo Beals and

480
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: Bo and b Beals I'm not making this up used

481
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: to come visit. Um. They were my parents best buddies.

482
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: And bow Bells was in my eyes as superstar heat.

483
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: This guy could take a lettle cigarette, flip it back

484
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: into his mouth, dive in the swimming pool and blow

485
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: smoke bubbles from underwater. I mean, when you're ten, that's huge.

486
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: And he played the ukulele, and Bo taught me how

487
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: to play the ukulele and taught me a bunch of

488
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: silly old songs that Abdula bo bol Amir and my

489
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: father's whiskers and um, and that was a lot of fun.

490
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: And that's where I just you know, came to realize

491
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: that music was fun. And then as I got older,

492
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: the uku lele turned into a guitar because I thought

493
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: it was more manly, and um, I got really swept

494
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: up in the rock and roll scene in the late fifties.

495
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: I heard my first Josh White recording when I was

496
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: around sixteen. Changed my life. I just I'd never heard

497
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: a guitar played like that. I've never heard songs like that.

498
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: And then I hit Cambridge and there was all this

499
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: music going on, all different flavors and stripes, and I

500
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: just got sucked up into it. So what was it

501
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: like growing up in the fifties with the rock and

502
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: roll era, Elvis, etcetera. Well, it was. It was absolutely magical.

503
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: I mean I remember Bill Haley and the comments doing

504
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: rock around the clock and thinking this is different. Uh.

505
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: And then more and more and more kept coming, and

506
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: there was it was a fabulous outpouring of talent. I mean,

507
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: there were all these really talented people who were not

508
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: like one another. Every single you know, Elvis was not

509
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: like Fats Domino, who was not like the Everly Brothers.

510
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: They were each each and everyone was a totally different

511
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: flavor and it was very exciting and it but the

512
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: whole thing only lasted how many years, four years maybe,

513
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: and then it was gone and what was on the

514
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: radio next was really kind of boring in my mind,

515
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: and I think in the minds of a lot of people,

516
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: which is why the people in the Cambridge folk scene

517
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: were so excited about discovering this music that nobody was

518
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: trying to push down their throats on the radio. You'd

519
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: have to go to the you know, the used record

520
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: store and look for seventy eight and discover this stuff

521
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: that it was totally new, and it must have been.

522
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a certain irony in a bunch of

523
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: Harvard kids sitting around singing about how tough it was

524
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: in the coal mine or on the chain gang. But

525
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: we felt that we made up in sincerity what we

526
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: lacked an authenticity. Okay, you heard that Josh White record.

527
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: Did you pick out the note yourself? Or did you

528
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: take lessons? Or how did you get up to speed?

529
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: I would I just listened to those records over and

530
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: over and over and tried to figure out how he

531
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: was doing what he did um and was moderately successful

532
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: at that. I mean, he was he was playing by himself.

533
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 1: Or with a bass player. Um, so it was not.

534
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: His guitar parts weren't obscured by a lot of instrumentation

535
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: and uh other stuff. But I was pretty good at that,

536
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: and then I also was fairly successful at figuring out

537
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: what the blues guys were doing. One of the cool

538
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,919
Speaker 1: things about the Club forty seven, though, was when these

539
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: blues guys played there, or whatever, the bluegrass guys or

540
00:34:55,360 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: the Scottish balladeers. There was usually a party at been

541
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: Betsy Shiggins House after the show, and you could go

542
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: to this party and ask these people how do you

543
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: do that thing you do? And they would tell you

544
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: it would show you. It was quite amazing. Okay, so

545
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: do you show up at Harvard with your guitar in

546
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: its case? Um? Yes, I did. I did, and fairly

547
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: quickly I got a There was a radio show on

548
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: Harvard's uh FM station called Balladeers, and I somehow inherited

549
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: that show. The guy that was hosting Balladeers was graduating

550
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: or moving away or whatever, and somebody said, hey, do

551
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: you want to take it over? And I said, well, okay.

552
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: And it was a show where the host played a

553
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,359
Speaker 1: little bit, but you had to have guests come on.

554
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: Every week there would be a different guest, and this

555
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: meant that I had to start habituating the coffee house

556
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 1: is going to the hoot nannies to recruit guests to

557
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: come on my show. Uh and I. The tradition was

558
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: to have local kids as the guests. I also branched

559
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: out and started getting people like like Josh White or

560
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: Odetta or Pete Seeger to come on, but mostly it

561
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 1: was the local talent, and so I had to go

562
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: to the hooting nanny's and listen to people and decide

563
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 1: who I wanted to invite. I discovered that you could

564
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: get in for free if you had a guitar with you.

565
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: I then discovered you could get in for free if

566
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: you had a guitar case with you. So I would

567
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: put a six pack in the guitar case and head

568
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: off to the hooting nanny and I got caught one

569
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: night at the the Golden Vanity Club in Boston. Hey kid,

570
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: get on stage. You got in for free. I had

571
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: to borrow a guitar. I was terrified, but I got

572
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,280
Speaker 1: up and I did twenty minutes or something and apparently

573
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 1: was good enough. I have no idea what I did.

574
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: I was so so scared. But about a week or

575
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 1: two later, the owner calls me and said, whoever is

576
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 1: playing to night got sick and could you come down

577
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: and be a substitute folk singer. So nice. I did

578
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: that for a little while, and it's pretty much been

579
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: downhill ever since. Bob. Okay, let's go a little bit slower.

580
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: The Balladeer show was on? How often once a week?

581
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,479
Speaker 1: And how long was it? It was thirty minutes? Okay, Now,

582
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 1: I certainly remember this folk era, the folk boom and

583
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 1: the hoot Ninnies. But for those people, and you know

584
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: we're going out, we're on the wrong side of the curve.

585
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: But explain what that scene was like. Well, now they're

586
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: called open mics, but basically it was, you know, a

587
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: bunch of kids would come and bring their guitars and

588
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: there'd be an mc and uh. I can't remember. Actually,

589
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: if you had to audition to get into the hoots,

590
00:37:58,239 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think it was if you

591
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: owed up with a guitar, you could get up and

592
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: do two or three songs. And how many of these

593
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: places were there? Oh? There were in the in the

594
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: greater Boston area there were probably a dozen. And was

595
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 1: there a palpable scene. Did you feel like you were

596
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: part of something bigger? You said, well, yeah, this is

597
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: just what I'm into. No, I think that, Well, there

598
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: was definitely, in my mind there was a scene because

599
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:27,720
Speaker 1: there was a lot of overlap. There were people who would,

600
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: you know, go and play this club and then that club,

601
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 1: and um, in my mind, the Club forty seven was

602
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: the flagship of the fleet and they definitely had there

603
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: was a click there and I wanted very much to

604
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: be part of that. And it took a while, but

605
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,720
Speaker 1: I finally got got welcomed into the Club forty seven scene.

606
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: And how long did that take? Well, I'm trying to think.

607
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: I UM. I was playing at a place that called

608
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: the Unicorn in Boston. The manager there felt that the

609
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: best way to build an audience for an artist was

610
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: to have them play every same day every week, and

611
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: so I was playing every i don't know Tuesday at

612
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,720
Speaker 1: the Unicorn, and sure enough, and you know, an audience

613
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: started to accumulate after a while. That guy Byron Leonardos

614
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: then went over. He was recruited to come manage the

615
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: Club forty seven. Uh, and he basically brought me with him. Right,

616
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 1: you remember how much money you were making. Oh it

617
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: was it was big bucks, Bibe. I think you know,

618
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: on a good night you could clear ten dollars. But

619
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: ten dollars was a hundred dollars then, well, I don't

620
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: know about that. It was probably seventy three dollars. Okay, Well,

621
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: certainly you know it was enough. It was enough to

622
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 1: buy a six pack and have some fun. But who

623
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:57,799
Speaker 1: else was on the scene at your profile of that. Well,

624
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: Joan Bias had kind of grant graduated from that scene.

625
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: She shet up and gone. She would show up once

626
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: in a while. But um, other people on the scene

627
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: were Jim Queskin's jug band, Um Jeff and Miriam Muldar.

628
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: That one of the striking things about the Cambridge scene,

629
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: I think, Bob, was that it was basically an amateur

630
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,839
Speaker 1: scene in the good sense of the word. Uh. These

631
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: are people playing because they loved the music, not because

632
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: they had professional aspirations. There was, you know, a psycho

633
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: pharmacologist banjo player who was who was very popular, uh,

634
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: but he didn't plan to be a professional banjo player.

635
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: There was a typewriter for Pairman who was a mandolin player,

636
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: high harmony singer. It was great, but he didn't, you know,

637
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: plan to go on the road or anything. So there

638
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 1: were a lot of really really talented people who were

639
00:40:56,280 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 1: not headed for professional life. The ones that did go

640
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:07,760
Speaker 1: pro or myself, Jim Queskin of course, um, Jeff Maulder,

641
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:14,760
Speaker 1: Maria maldar Um. It was a fairly small selection. Okay,

642
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: since you mentioned Jim Queskin, were you familiar with the

643
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,879
Speaker 1: mel Liman family. I was, and it was a very

644
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 1: puzzling thing. Mel was. For the listeners who don't know Mel,

645
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: he was. He was a harmonica player, pretty pretty good one.

646
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: But he also became a guru. Somehow this guy attracted

647
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: to a family. UM not quite like the Manson family.

648
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: They weren't. They didn't do anything as bad as the

649
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 1: Manson family. But it was, at least in my mind,

650
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 1: it was a pretty uh strange cult that Mel assembled

651
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: around him. Jim question was and is still a part

652
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:11,800
Speaker 1: of that family. Uh Mel Mel died, but the his

653
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: his gathering still is together in California, and I guess

654
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: they have a pretty successful construction business. Um it keeps them,

655
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: keeps them going, but questions still out there playing. I

656
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: went to see him. It was probably it was before COVID,

657
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: so a year and a half ago maybe, and he's good.

658
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: He's still as good as ever. He really engages the

659
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: audience and draws him in, gets them going. So how

660
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: did you make your first record? I was playing at

661
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: the Unicorn on a weekly basis. Guy named Dan Flickinger

662
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: came in and said, do you want to make an album?

663
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: And I'd heard that a couple of times before, nothing

664
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: had come of it, so I said, yeah, sure, and

665
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: he actually showed up Ah dragging this tape record at

666
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 1: the size of an oven dark dragged it down the

667
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: flight of stairs into the basement and recorded two nights.

668
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 1: I remember him saying that it it was unethical to inter cut,

669
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: to splice, you know, take the first half of the

670
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 1: song from night one and the second half from night to.

671
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: Oh no, that was morally indefensible. I later learned it

672
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 1: was he didn't know how to splice tape, he didn't

673
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 1: know how to edit um. But it was put together

674
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:37,760
Speaker 1: Tom Rush live at the Unicorn on Dan Flickinger's little

675
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: non existent label like Hornew which was Latin for Unicorn

676
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: or Greek I think um, and he distributed out of

677
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: the back seat of his whatever, his studebaker. But it

678
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: was an odd thing because I had an album and

679
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 1: nobody else did, and it somehow made me mortallygitimate. I was,

680
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: I was, you know, a more serious artist because I

681
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: had an album. Never mind that it was, you know,

682
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: on a made up label. You know. I think we

683
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: pressed three hundred copies. I've seen him go for three

684
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: hundred bucks on eBay now. But and then that lasted

685
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:25,760
Speaker 1: for about a minute, and then Vanguard and Prestige Records

686
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: came to town and started signing up everybody except me.

687
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: I could couldn't get a real record label to sign

688
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: me up. And finally Paul Rothschild, working for Prestige, did

689
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: sign me up and I made my first, my first

690
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: album for a real label with Paul. By the time

691
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 1: I graduated, I'd made I put out two albums, um,

692
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: which probably explains why I didn't get better grades, I

693
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: would assume so. And to what degree did your profile

694
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 1: at school change as result of having these two albums?

695
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: I don't think not not by much. I mean, the

696
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: school was one thing, that folks scene was another thing.

697
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of overlap. But um, most

698
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: of the people in my dorm had no idea what

699
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 1: I did, except I made you know I made noise

700
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: playing the guitar when they wished I wouldn't. Um, So

701
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: there wasn't There wasn't too much overlap at that stage. Then,

702
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: you know, when when I became better known. I think

703
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: the class of sixty three now recognizes my name, but

704
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: not not back then. Okay, so you graduate, what's your

705
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: next step? Well, actually, before I graduated, I took a

706
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: year off. I was on the verge of flunking out,

707
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: and in fact I did flunk of course, and I

708
00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: decided I must, I must take a break or I'm

709
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,959
Speaker 1: just gonna get kicked. The obvious question from this era

710
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: is what your parents say about that They were They

711
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: were you know, I think they were supportive. I mean

712
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 1: they thought forever that I'm going through a phase. My

713
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: mom wanted to know to a dying day when I

714
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: was going to get a real job. Um. But I

715
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: had flunked one course. I don't remember having a talk

716
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: with my parents, and I'm sure I must have, but

717
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I want to take a year off. Uh.

718
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: And Harvard at that point would let you, and then

719
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: maybe they still do, would let you withdraw if you

720
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: were in good standing, let you withdraw any time you want,

721
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: come back any time you want. I was not in

722
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: good standing. I had to actually withdraw and reapply to

723
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: get back in. So it was a risky, risky proposition.

724
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: But I felt pretty convinced that I was going to

725
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: flunk out and be kicked out if I did do this.

726
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: So I took a year off and I went to

727
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: I started traveling around and doing concerts New York, got

728
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, I got to Florida a couple of times,

729
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: and discovery that I really did love playing for people,

730
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: still do, and that I could make just about enough

731
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:34,760
Speaker 1: money to to live. Not nothing more, but I could.

732
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: I could make enough money to pay the rent and

733
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:42,760
Speaker 1: buy some cheap groceries. Um. And then I went back

734
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: and finished up my three semesters. I quit in the

735
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 1: middle middle of my junior year, so I had three

736
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,399
Speaker 1: semesters to go. I went back actually did very well

737
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: because I knew what why I was there. I was

738
00:47:55,719 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: there for a diploma. There was nothing, nothing real antic

739
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: about it. I went I wanted to get that diploma

740
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: and then move on, and uh so I did, and

741
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:12,760
Speaker 1: then continued living in Cambridge for a little while before

742
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: I moved to New York City, New York is where

743
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: the action was. That's where my record company was. I

744
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:25,399
Speaker 1: made one more album for Prestige with Paul Rathschild. It's

745
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: a bit of a funny transition there. Paul. Paul moved

746
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: on to Electra Records, where he was there ace producer,

747
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go to and Jack Holsman at

748
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 1: Electra wanted me on the label, but I had a

749
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: contract with Prestige. So I went to Prestige and I said,

750
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: can I get out of my contract? And said no,

751
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: and I so I bluffed. I said, Okay, screw it.

752
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: You know I have a Harvard diploma. I don't need

753
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: this music ship. I'm going to quit show is um.

754
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what. I'll make one more album

755
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: for you if you'll let Paul Rothschild produce it. And

756
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:14,359
Speaker 1: they weren't happy with Paul at all, and they were

757
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 1: convinced that Jack Holsman would never let Paul produce for

758
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:23,320
Speaker 1: another label. So they said okay, kid, and so Paul

759
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,360
Speaker 1: and I went in the studio and we recorded my

760
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: second Prestige album, which is all folky, just me and

761
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,319
Speaker 1: Fritz Richmond on washtub base. The next week we went

762
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: into a different studio and made my first Electra album,

763
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: which actually hit the market before the Prestige album came out,

764
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: because Prestige didn't know that this was going on in

765
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 1: the background. And that's actually the album that Garth Brooks's

766
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: dad played for him. What did Prestige ultimately say? What

767
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 1: did they say when they found out that you had

768
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: pulled a fast one on them? Well, they didn't have

769
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: They didn't have much to say about it. I mean,

770
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: I was out of there, so they might have been

771
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: yelling at me, but I couldn't hear them. Okay, Now,

772
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 1: you were famously the first to record so many legendary

773
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: singer songwriters, Jackson Brown, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor. How did

774
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: you end up with their songs? Well, it's a bit

775
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 1: of a different story, uh, for each one I was

776
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: I had made. Oh how many albums did I make

777
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: for Electra? I made the first one, and then I

778
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: think in any case, I was running out of traditional

779
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 1: folk stuff that I was interested in doing. My next

780
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: to last album for Electra was a bit schizophrenic. It

781
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 1: was folk on one side and late fifties rock and

782
00:50:55,400 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: roll on the other. And then I owed them, you know,

783
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,840
Speaker 1: I don't. I owed them more albums, and I didn't

784
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 1: have any more songs that I was really excited about doing.

785
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: I was playing a club in Detroit, Michigan called the Chessmate,

786
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:19,240
Speaker 1: one of my two week gigs, and this young slip

787
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 1: of a girl named Joni Mitchell came in one night

788
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: and I gather she'd been playing there as part of

789
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: a duo with her then a husband, Chuck Mitchell, on

790
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 1: a regular basis, but she just started writing songs and

791
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 1: she wanted me to hear some of these new songs

792
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: because I might record one or two. And she came

793
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 1: in and did a little fourth song guests set that

794
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: just knocked me off my feet. Um. I asked her

795
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: if she had any more songs. She said, no, but

796
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 1: give me a minute her words to that effect, And

797
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: then a few weeks later sent me a tape with

798
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: six fabulous songs, one of which was The Circle Game,

799
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: which I named the album after. She actually apologized on

800
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: the tape she that I've just finished writing this. It's

801
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 1: not much good. I'm so embarrassed, but here it is,

802
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 1: and I am ended up naming the album after it.

803
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 1: Um Jackson Brown was being published. He was not really

804
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 1: a performer. At that point, he was a writer and

805
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: he was being published by Electric so I had access

806
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: to his demo tapes and that's how I met Jackson.

807
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: James Taylor. Um, it's a bit odd. I had a

808
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 1: roommate on my Cambridge apartment. I had a roommate named

809
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: Zach Weasner who was part of a band called the

810
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: Flying Machine that James was in. It was James band.

811
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: And Zack kept saying, you got to hear it this

812
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: guy James. And I kept saying, Zach, would you just

813
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: pick up the living room please? And I didn't meet

814
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: James back then. And then Paul Rothschild said, you gotta

815
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:07,959
Speaker 1: you should hear this. You should get together with this guy.

816
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 1: And I remember we sat on the floor in an

817
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: empty room, no furniture, at the Electra offices in New York.

818
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 1: We sat on the floor with a real to real

819
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: tape recorder and James sang, you know, I don't know,

820
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: half a dozen songs into the tape recorder for me. Uh,

821
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 1: and he was you know, I just I loved him.

822
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: But the the thing was that here were these here

823
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,319
Speaker 1: were these songs that they weren't the other side of

824
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: the Moon from folk music. They were informed by that

825
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:48,240
Speaker 1: kind of sensibility, but they had they were much more literary.

826
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 1: They had a lot more chords. Uh, there just fabulous songs.

827
00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: Um And I've been accused of ushering in singer songwriter

828
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: Erro with the the Circle Game album because it was

829
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: the first, you know, time James Jackson and Janie were

830
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 1: presented to a wider public um. But I wasn't really

831
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 1: looking to uh looking to introduce an era or or

832
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 1: discover anybody. I'd really just I wanted to meet girls, Bob.

833
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: That's why I was in the working for you. Yeah, no, literally,

834
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 1: how was that working for you? Well? It worked very

835
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: well at the time. Okay, And what kind of guy

836
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 1: were you? Different girl in every town or you know,

837
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:40,760
Speaker 1: hometown honey or what was it like? Well, it wasn't.

838
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: It was a different girl in every town kind of

839
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: kind of a scene for a while. I mean I

840
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: did have I did have a girlfriend, Jill Lumpkin, who's

841
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: on the one standing behind me on the Circle Game album.

842
00:54:54,640 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 1: Um and that lasted for a few years, but um,

843
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, I was basically the traveling musician. So I

844
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 1: was working for you. Yeah, I was working for me.

845
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: Now uh, the cover of that album with Joe that

846
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:15,320
Speaker 1: was shot by Lynda McCartney Linda Eastman. At that point

847
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 1: it was she was I didn't know her. She was

848
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: assigned by Electra to take take me out into a

849
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: Central park and shoot some pictures, and um, I got

850
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 1: to know her a little bit later on. She'd keep

851
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: in touch over the years. I remember at one point

852
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 1: getting a note from her as playing somewhere on Long Island,

853
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: and she sent me a note saying that she and

854
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 1: Paul were in the neighborhood, might stop by, but it

855
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:56,439
Speaker 1: didn't happen. So what was it like with the Beatles, Kid? Well,

856
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 1: I you know, I had I loved the Beatles a lot,

857
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,400
Speaker 1: with everybody else. I mean, it was hard to resist

858
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,359
Speaker 1: that thing um that they did. But I don't think

859
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,440
Speaker 1: it changed. I didn't. I didn't want to become a

860
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:15,279
Speaker 1: Beatle or you know, imitate them. I was. I was

861
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: doing my own thing and the folk was was morphing

862
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: into folk rock at this point, and I this is

863
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: this is when I started getting a band, and we

864
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:33,399
Speaker 1: started getting louder and traveling more vigorously and more relentlessly.

865
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 1: There was a five year period when I think I

866
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: had ten days off, But did you feel like, holy

867
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,240
Speaker 1: sh it, the British invasion is happening and it's killing

868
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: my career, it's killing the whole scene I'm in. I

869
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: don't remember thinking that. No, I don't remember thinking that.

870
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:53,439
Speaker 1: I think my take was that there are a lot

871
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,760
Speaker 1: more people interested in music now than there were before,

872
00:56:57,680 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: and it might might you know, I didn't have the

873
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, the Beatles were We're huge with the with

874
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: the teeny boppers, and that wasn't my crowd anyway. Okay,

875
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,280
Speaker 1: how'd you end up switching to Columbia after the Circle

876
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: Game album? My contract with the Lecture was up, and um,

877
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: Jack Holsman was willing to renew the contract but not

878
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 1: improve on it, and Columbia was willing to make a substantial,

879
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: a much better offer. So I moved over there and

880
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 1: it was a very There was a bit of culture

881
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 1: shock there, because a Lecture really was a family and Jack.

882
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: You know, if you had a problem, you go to

883
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:45,360
Speaker 1: Jack and talk to him about it, and if he could,

884
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: he'd fix it. Um at Columbia you had to make

885
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: an appointment to talk to anybody's secretary, big big building

886
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: with everybody had to wear who had to wear a

887
00:57:56,920 --> 00:58:07,440
Speaker 1: tie and uh, very very corporate, wholly entirely different different

888
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 1: scene there. But they did have you know, they had

889
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: a lot more marketing muscle than Electra, and they you know,

890
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 1: they could make a lot of noise, which was good. Um.

891
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: You know, I never sold the tonnage for them that

892
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of their acts were selling. But

893
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 1: they made money on me. The way the deals were structured. Basically,

894
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:43,320
Speaker 1: they paid for the record production, but then they also

895
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: would build against your royalty account that the production costs

896
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 1: were building against your royalties. And I was making I

897
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: don't know, twenty cents an LP and they were making

898
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 1: a couple of dollars in LP, so they were in

899
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:03,000
Speaker 1: the black very quickly, but working off a hundred thousand

900
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 1: dollar production budget. Plus then they would they would add

901
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,880
Speaker 1: you know, promotional stuff to your production budget, to your

902
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 1: royalty account and paying it off at twenty cents a

903
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: copy just wasn't happening. So they made money on me.

904
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:25,600
Speaker 1: I never I never got royalty checks. I would make

905
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: some money off of the production budget when the album

906
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: was made. But again, you know, the part of the

907
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: part of the the benefit was if you didn't have

908
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:40,040
Speaker 1: a record deal, you didn't exist there. You know what

909
00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 1: they did for me was they got my name out there,

910
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: They got me on the radio, they got me written

911
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: up in the magazines, newspapers which sold tickets to the shows,

912
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: which is always where I've made my living is you know,

913
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:57,640
Speaker 1: on stage. I've never I've never found recordings to be

914
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: really profitable. I've made some on my own label that

915
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: have you know that, Yes, I've made money on him,

916
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: but but you know, on stage is where I've made

917
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 1: my living forever. So on those Clubbia electoral records, are

918
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 1: you still in the red? Are you ever getting royalty checks? Well?

919
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: I actually, um, the last album for a lecture, Ladies

920
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 1: Live out Laws, was put on too. No wait a minute,

921
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, wait a minute, Ladies Live out Laws.

922
01:00:31,560 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of a kirk kerfuffle there. Um,

923
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: if I may go off on a sidetrack. They were.

924
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: They had to deal with me where they had to

925
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 1: renew my contract every year by a certain date. They

926
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 1: failed to do that. This is the electoral Columbia, This

927
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 1: is Columbia. They failed to do that. Um, And I said, okay,

928
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: I'm out of here, and they said no, no, no,

929
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 1: you can't leave. If you leave and make an album

930
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 1: for somebody else will sue. So I got a lawyer,

931
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: and the lawyer gave me basically said yeah, yeah, you

932
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: gotta do what they say. The lawyer then within about

933
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:15,280
Speaker 1: a month went to work for Columbia, So I think

934
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 1: I might have been getting bad advice. But we made

935
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:22,920
Speaker 1: this the Ladies Live Outlaws album to be the final

936
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: album and I was. Then then they dropped me because

937
01:01:25,280 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: it didn't sell as well as they had hoped. So

938
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: instead of being out on the street on my own volition,

939
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:32,680
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I went on the street because

940
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:37,280
Speaker 1: Columbia had had dropped me, which made getting a new

941
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: deal a much more difficult thing, and I didn't in

942
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: fact make another album for quite a while. Then they wanted,

943
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: decades later, wanted to make a retrospective on me, and

944
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 1: they wanted to record one new song, which John Levinthal

945
01:01:53,840 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 1: produced um, but we made that a separate deal. It

946
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: was not not the same under the same contract. So

947
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: I did make money on that one on the retrospective,

948
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 1: The very best of Tom Rush actually turned to profit

949
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: for me. Uh, And then I didn't record for thirty

950
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:20,640
Speaker 1: five years after Ladies Live outlaws or actually I shouldn't

951
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: say that. I made a couple of live albums on

952
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:26,480
Speaker 1: my own label. We're profitable. What was going on for

953
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: thirty five years in your mind? And what were you

954
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:31,680
Speaker 1: doing that well? And for a while I was courting.

955
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 1: I was courting the major labels, unsuccessfully trying to get

956
01:02:37,520 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: a deal with you know, uh, with a major. And

957
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: because that didn't work out, I didn't I didn't go

958
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: back in the studio. I was, you know, I was touring.

959
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:55,800
Speaker 1: I was making, you know, making good money touring, figuring

960
01:02:55,800 --> 01:03:03,040
Speaker 1: out how to connect with my with my audience. Um,

961
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:04,520
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was a it was a

962
01:03:04,600 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 1: strange thing. It was a strange period of time because

963
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 1: the record industry had decided somewhere in the seventies that

964
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 1: that their audience, their core audience, was eighteen to twenty

965
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 1: three years old, and the demographic that had built the

966
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 1: record industry, the baby boom, was no longer eighteen to

967
01:03:28,400 --> 01:03:34,520
Speaker 1: four years old. They basically the record industry let them

968
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 1: walk out of the room. I remember being at a

969
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: meeting at Columbia where they were talking about how do

970
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,560
Speaker 1: we get the baby boom to buy our records? That's

971
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: really important we've got to get the baby boom buying

972
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:52,160
Speaker 1: our records. And some poor schmuck stood up and said

973
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 1: maybe if we made records they wanted to buy, they

974
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:02,640
Speaker 1: would buy them. And there was this awkward silence and

975
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: the guy sat back down and the conversation continued about, well,

976
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 1: how do we get these people to buy the records

977
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: we're making? Um? Anyway, I you know, I knew that

978
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:18,200
Speaker 1: my audience was still out there. They couldn't all have

979
01:04:18,240 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: died at once. It would have been in the newspapers.

980
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:23,440
Speaker 1: So how do I connect with them? And so I

981
01:04:23,480 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 1: started a you know, a mail order, snail mail campaign,

982
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:30,480
Speaker 1: build a mailing list, and I took out ads in

983
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: New Yorker and sold albums through the mail and it

984
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 1: and it worked. You know, I wasn't selling tonnage by

985
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:44,360
Speaker 1: any means, but it was profitable. Okay. Was it depressing?

986
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 1: Uh no, maybe maybe it should have been. UM, but

987
01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: it was a challenge, and I felt I was meeting

988
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: the challenge and it was you know, my what I

989
01:04:56,320 --> 01:04:58,360
Speaker 1: was trying to do was working, okay. But at some

990
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:01,160
Speaker 1: point you moved into he I'm sure, and you said

991
01:05:01,160 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna become an agent. M hm. So you actually

992
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:07,720
Speaker 1: did pivot there at some point. Well, I moved to

993
01:05:07,720 --> 01:05:10,680
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. There was a there was a point early

994
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:18,640
Speaker 1: seventies UM when I uh, a lot of my buddies

995
01:05:18,680 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: were moving to the West Coast because that's where the

996
01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: action was now. And I decided, I'm burned out. I

997
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 1: want to go where the action isn't and I went

998
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 1: back to New Hampshire where I grew up, and I

999
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 1: bought a farm. I had six acres with the house

1000
01:05:34,560 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 1: in the middle, and I basically rolled up the driveway

1001
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 1: and quit showbiz for about six months. And then I

1002
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 1: got an audience deprivation syndrome kicked in and I really

1003
01:05:48,560 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 1: wanted to to play for people again, and so I

1004
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:58,000
Speaker 1: started on a very small level. Um you know, I

1005
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:01,640
Speaker 1: got a I got a secretary and she called the

1006
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:07,440
Speaker 1: venues that I used to play and booked me. And

1007
01:06:07,440 --> 01:06:10,480
Speaker 1: and then I decided, well, there's some other artists, you know,

1008
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: the people I'm excited about, but they're they're just starting

1009
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:18,440
Speaker 1: out in their careers. So as long as I'm booking,

1010
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: why don't I try to book them as well? And

1011
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 1: so Christine Lavin and Patty Larkin, Bill Morrissy Um and

1012
01:06:28,800 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 1: a few others. I started started booking them within my

1013
01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:40,480
Speaker 1: little booking agency, which was not profitable because we were selling,

1014
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 1: you know, getting maybe two fifty bucks a night for

1015
01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:48,760
Speaker 1: these people and there's just no way to you know,

1016
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 1: pay the phone bill and the heat and the electricity

1017
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 1: and the salaries and make that work. So I was

1018
01:06:57,520 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 1: funding the operation by going out on weekends and doing shows.

1019
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,760
Speaker 1: And I remember there was there was an eye opening moment.

1020
01:07:05,800 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 1: I did a show somewhere and I broke a string

1021
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:13,960
Speaker 1: in the last song of this of the evening, and

1022
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:17,280
Speaker 1: I didn't have another gig for three weeks. And I

1023
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:20,800
Speaker 1: got to the next gig and I opened my guitar

1024
01:07:20,880 --> 01:07:24,920
Speaker 1: case and the string was still broken. I said, not,

1025
01:07:25,440 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: something's not right with this picture. And so I started

1026
01:07:30,320 --> 01:07:36,880
Speaker 1: slowing down and basically and at that point, I had

1027
01:07:36,880 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 1: a house fire that's pretty much destroyed the house and

1028
01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 1: the the studio and the office space we were using.

1029
01:07:45,600 --> 01:07:49,280
Speaker 1: So I at that point scaled way back and just

1030
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: I was still booking myself for a little while. I'm

1031
01:07:52,880 --> 01:08:00,320
Speaker 1: now working through Skyline Music, which has been great. Um,

1032
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:04,560
Speaker 1: but I got you know, I got back on the road,

1033
01:08:04,680 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: and one thing led to another, and I finally ended

1034
01:08:08,240 --> 01:08:13,680
Speaker 1: up signing up with Appleseed Recordings and went back into

1035
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:19,360
Speaker 1: a real studio with Jim Rooney, my old buddy UM

1036
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 1: producing down in Nashville. And that was on the one hand,

1037
01:08:26,240 --> 01:08:29,400
Speaker 1: it was kind of disorienting because I had not been

1038
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:34,320
Speaker 1: in a digital studio. Everything was analog in my head

1039
01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:38,880
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't adjust my brain to the idea

1040
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:41,559
Speaker 1: that I would come out of the vocal booth and

1041
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 1: say I think I sang a little bit flat on that,

1042
01:08:43,960 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 1: and the engineer would interrupt me and say, I fixed it.

1043
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:49,559
Speaker 1: I said, I, but I came in a little bit late.

1044
01:08:49,800 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: I fixed it. Why am I here? Why don't I

1045
01:08:54,600 --> 01:09:01,439
Speaker 1: just sing one note every note once and go home? Um?

1046
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 1: But it really is. It's a it's a you know, major,

1047
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: major step forward. It makes recording a lot more fun,

1048
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:12,679
Speaker 1: a lot less tedious. And then I made my second

1049
01:09:13,560 --> 01:09:17,000
Speaker 1: album of Voices, my most recent one with Jim Rooney

1050
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:20,719
Speaker 1: and Nashville, and that's the first album I ever wrote

1051
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:25,160
Speaker 1: all the songs on. I'd always done mainly other people's

1052
01:09:25,160 --> 01:09:28,439
Speaker 1: songs a couple of my own, and I didn't set

1053
01:09:28,479 --> 01:09:31,880
Speaker 1: out to write an entire album, but I just when

1054
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:34,560
Speaker 1: I sat down and looked at the song list, I said, hey,

1055
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:37,519
Speaker 1: I wrote all of these, and I think it's my

1056
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:40,320
Speaker 1: best album, and at this point I've got enough enough

1057
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:43,719
Speaker 1: new songs for another new album. Okay, let's go back

1058
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:46,599
Speaker 1: at what point, like if the Circle Game ironically has

1059
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:50,559
Speaker 1: legendary songs by others that you first recorded, but also

1060
01:09:50,760 --> 01:09:54,639
Speaker 1: a couple of your own legendary compositions, So what point

1061
01:09:54,720 --> 01:09:58,639
Speaker 1: did you start to write and how did you balance

1062
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 1: whether you wanted to use other of people's songs or

1063
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 1: your own. Well, if you I'll back up to that

1064
01:10:05,720 --> 01:10:09,320
Speaker 1: first Live at the Unicorn album. There's a song on

1065
01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:13,840
Speaker 1: there called Julie's Blues, and I'm I'm uncertain as to

1066
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 1: whether I should say that I wrote it or assembled it.

1067
01:10:18,200 --> 01:10:24,439
Speaker 1: It's almost entirely compiled of floating verses, which is the

1068
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:27,559
Speaker 1: folklore term for verses that appear in a lot of

1069
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 1: different songs. So there are a lot of lines in

1070
01:10:30,439 --> 01:10:33,120
Speaker 1: there that I lifted from this blues or that blues,

1071
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,240
Speaker 1: and I assembled the song. I don't feel I really

1072
01:10:36,280 --> 01:10:40,160
Speaker 1: wrote it, but technically it's you know, the copyrights in

1073
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,479
Speaker 1: my name, so I wrote that. The second one was

1074
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:48,320
Speaker 1: on the Road Again, um, which I just actually served

1075
01:10:48,400 --> 01:10:52,439
Speaker 1: up yesterday for Rockport Sundays because I'm on the road

1076
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:58,920
Speaker 1: again going to Alexandria to play the Birchmere UM and

1077
01:10:58,960 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 1: that that was based age that that song is from

1078
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:06,599
Speaker 1: what I call the Rand McNally school of songwriting, you know,

1079
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:09,880
Speaker 1: talking about a trip to Florida. And then the third

1080
01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 1: song I ever wrote was No Regrets, which came about

1081
01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: because my girlfriend Joel Lumpkin, who was on the cover

1082
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: of UM of the Circle Game album, had come to Boston.

1083
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,240
Speaker 1: She wasn't my girlfriend at that point. She came to

1084
01:11:25,320 --> 01:11:30,360
Speaker 1: Boston and spent the weekend with me, and I had

1085
01:11:30,439 --> 01:11:33,559
Speaker 1: never at that point spent an entire weekend with anybody before,

1086
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:37,760
Speaker 1: three days and three nights in a row. And I

1087
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:40,600
Speaker 1: took her back to Logan Airport on Monday morning to

1088
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:44,559
Speaker 1: put her on the plane, and it felt strange walking

1089
01:11:44,600 --> 01:11:49,839
Speaker 1: away alone. And I went back to my apartment and

1090
01:11:49,840 --> 01:11:53,439
Speaker 1: and started working on No Regrets, which is about the

1091
01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:56,320
Speaker 1: end of a long relationship where it feels strange walking

1092
01:11:56,360 --> 01:12:00,839
Speaker 1: away alone, feels strange lying awake along and feel strange

1093
01:12:00,880 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: living my life alone. UM. And then we actually did

1094
01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: have a long relationship and we broke up, and the

1095
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:10,519
Speaker 1: song came true. But that was the third song I

1096
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:14,280
Speaker 1: ever wrote, and it's the one that's been covered by

1097
01:12:14,640 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of a lot of people. Johnny

1098
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:24,160
Speaker 1: Cash and Waylon Jennings. And where's Julie Lumpkin today, Jill Lumpkin?

1099
01:12:24,520 --> 01:12:29,559
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Jill Lumpkin. I've been out of touch with

1100
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:32,200
Speaker 1: her for quite a while. But my understanding is she's

1101
01:12:32,479 --> 01:12:37,800
Speaker 1: in in India. While we were together, I sent her

1102
01:12:37,880 --> 01:12:41,200
Speaker 1: to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I

1103
01:12:41,200 --> 01:12:43,599
Speaker 1: paid for tuition to go there, and she got into

1104
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:48,559
Speaker 1: the clothing trade and ended up spending a lot of

1105
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 1: time in India. My understanding is that she moved there,

1106
01:12:53,560 --> 01:13:00,639
Speaker 1: she adopted a young orphan kid, and that young orphan

1107
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:05,439
Speaker 1: kid is now a very wealthy man who bought her

1108
01:13:05,439 --> 01:13:10,280
Speaker 1: a house and has basically taken care of her, which

1109
01:13:10,320 --> 01:13:12,439
Speaker 1: I think is a fact fact. Do you know how

1110
01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:15,880
Speaker 1: the kid became so wealthy? I do not. But she

1111
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:18,519
Speaker 1: never got married. You ruined her for that. Well, I

1112
01:13:18,520 --> 01:13:20,920
Speaker 1: don't know about that. I don't think she ever got married.

1113
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:24,040
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure she didn't. Okay, and you've been married twice,

1114
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:29,000
Speaker 1: I have been. It's well, I'm I'm currently married, yes,

1115
01:13:29,720 --> 01:13:32,920
Speaker 1: But your first marriage, how do you definally decide ty

1116
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 1: the nod? What killed that? Well, it was being on

1117
01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:40,800
Speaker 1: the road so much. Um, I was just I was

1118
01:13:40,840 --> 01:13:45,679
Speaker 1: a rotten husband basically being on the road so much.

1119
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:50,040
Speaker 1: And you know, I have two boys from that marriage,

1120
01:13:50,040 --> 01:13:53,760
Speaker 1: and I feel badly, but I was also not a

1121
01:13:53,880 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: very good dad for them. I'm hopefully a better dad

1122
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:00,680
Speaker 1: now than I was back then, but I was just

1123
01:14:00,720 --> 01:14:05,839
Speaker 1: gone a lot. And you know, my my wife, Beverley,

1124
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:10,600
Speaker 1: got got sick of it and moved out and and

1125
01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:14,880
Speaker 1: we got divorced. And did she ever get remarried? She

1126
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:19,439
Speaker 1: did not? Okay, And what's your relationship with those sons today?

1127
01:14:20,560 --> 01:14:23,200
Speaker 1: It's good, one of them in Scotland, one of them

1128
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:27,559
Speaker 1: in Arizona. But we're you know, we're in touch on

1129
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:31,320
Speaker 1: a regular basis. And you have a younger daughter too.

1130
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:36,840
Speaker 1: I have a daughter who's just twenty one, uh, a

1131
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:44,840
Speaker 1: senior halfway through her senior year in college. And and

1132
01:14:44,880 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: are we have We have a very good relationship. But

1133
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:51,080
Speaker 1: you know, when one goes to see you live, there's

1134
01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:54,040
Speaker 1: tons of humor. You know, you say, well, I decided

1135
01:14:54,040 --> 01:14:58,320
Speaker 1: to have my own grandkids, etcetera. To what degree is

1136
01:14:58,400 --> 01:15:01,760
Speaker 1: humor important in your life at in your show. I

1137
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:06,760
Speaker 1: think it's essential. It's essential in life. I mean, there's

1138
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:11,439
Speaker 1: just especially now, there's so much grim stuff going on.

1139
01:15:12,479 --> 01:15:14,800
Speaker 1: I would rather laugh than cry. So I will try

1140
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:19,560
Speaker 1: to figure out where the where the funny side of

1141
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:23,759
Speaker 1: things is and go there. And I think for the shows.

1142
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:28,000
Speaker 1: I learned very early on Bob that if the audience

1143
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:31,040
Speaker 1: likes you, they are much more apt to like the

1144
01:15:31,080 --> 01:15:35,240
Speaker 1: song you're about to do. So I would. I started telling,

1145
01:15:35,479 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 1: you know, stories about the songs, or stories that weren't

1146
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:44,640
Speaker 1: about the songs, to try to, you know, lighten the

1147
01:15:44,680 --> 01:15:48,720
Speaker 1: mood and you know, draw the crowd in and it

1148
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 1: and it worked to the point where I now get

1149
01:15:51,160 --> 01:15:54,040
Speaker 1: requests for the stories. Tell the one about the guy

1150
01:15:54,080 --> 01:15:58,040
Speaker 1: from New Hampshire. It blows my mind. But I put

1151
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:01,880
Speaker 1: actually put out an album called Rolling for Owls that

1152
01:16:02,040 --> 01:16:07,080
Speaker 1: is a compilation of silly stories and funny songs. Somebody

1153
01:16:07,120 --> 01:16:10,519
Speaker 1: said you should really compile. I was all into on

1154
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:14,000
Speaker 1: an album and I did, and people seem to like

1155
01:16:14,080 --> 01:16:16,680
Speaker 1: it a lot. I have to warn people do not

1156
01:16:16,880 --> 01:16:20,360
Speaker 1: drive while listening to this album, because I've had I've

1157
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:22,920
Speaker 1: had many people to say I almost went off the road.

1158
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:29,840
Speaker 1: You know the song. The stories the same every night. Um,

1159
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:34,120
Speaker 1: they evolve, they evolve. I remember one once in your

1160
01:16:36,360 --> 01:16:39,559
Speaker 1: you questioned the veracity of some of my songs, some

1161
01:16:39,680 --> 01:16:43,000
Speaker 1: of my stories, and I think my reply was that

1162
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:46,799
Speaker 1: my stories are not just true, there in many cases

1163
01:16:46,880 --> 01:16:51,160
Speaker 1: better than true, having been polished, not unlike gemstones in

1164
01:16:51,160 --> 01:16:55,519
Speaker 1: the tumbler of time. Now you mentioned you have an

1165
01:16:55,560 --> 01:16:58,480
Speaker 1: agent you're very happy with. What is your view on managers?

1166
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:04,160
Speaker 1: I have had bad luck with managers, um, and so

1167
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:06,439
Speaker 1: I currently do not have a manager. I am my

1168
01:17:06,479 --> 01:17:09,559
Speaker 1: own manager, which is a lot like trying to be

1169
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:13,679
Speaker 1: your own dentist. Um, it's probably not the smartest thing

1170
01:17:15,200 --> 01:17:20,679
Speaker 1: to do. But um again, I just I've had bad

1171
01:17:20,760 --> 01:17:27,400
Speaker 1: luck with managers, managers giving me bad advice and getting

1172
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:29,960
Speaker 1: me to do things that didn't work out, and so

1173
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:33,520
Speaker 1: forth and so on. It's not like, you know, I'd

1174
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:36,400
Speaker 1: be a rock star to day if it wasn't for

1175
01:17:36,760 --> 01:17:41,719
Speaker 1: this crummy manager. But I just, you know, I seem

1176
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:45,840
Speaker 1: to do okay. And are there certain songs who absolutely

1177
01:17:45,840 --> 01:17:52,120
Speaker 1: have to play in every show? Um? I I would

1178
01:17:52,160 --> 01:17:56,120
Speaker 1: say no, although there's a list of songs from which

1179
01:17:56,200 --> 01:18:01,320
Speaker 1: I should do some I mean, my crowd comes. I've

1180
01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:03,240
Speaker 1: got a problem in that I've got a bunch of

1181
01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:06,639
Speaker 1: new songs that I think are really good, and in fact,

1182
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,680
Speaker 1: the audience thinks they're really good. But the fact is

1183
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:13,760
Speaker 1: they came to hear the songs they know, and so

1184
01:18:13,840 --> 01:18:17,439
Speaker 1: I've got to scratch that itch for them. I've got

1185
01:18:17,479 --> 01:18:21,599
Speaker 1: to do something from I've got to do either Urge

1186
01:18:21,600 --> 01:18:25,240
Speaker 1: for Going or Circle Game or No Regrets or These

1187
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:28,400
Speaker 1: Days or Driving Wheel or who do You Love? Or

1188
01:18:29,120 --> 01:18:31,640
Speaker 1: you know. There's a certain certain number of songs that

1189
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:35,080
Speaker 1: I've I've got to I've got to do five or

1190
01:18:35,120 --> 01:18:39,000
Speaker 1: six of them during the course of the evening. But

1191
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 1: the good news is, having been doing this for fifty

1192
01:18:41,640 --> 01:18:43,640
Speaker 1: eight years, there's quite a long list that I have

1193
01:18:43,720 --> 01:18:46,720
Speaker 1: to choose from. Every time I've seen you've done the

1194
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:54,160
Speaker 1: Panama Limited because their shows, you don't do it. Oh yeah, okay, okay,

1195
01:18:54,200 --> 01:18:57,240
Speaker 1: And so now fifty eight years in you don't have

1196
01:18:57,320 --> 01:18:59,960
Speaker 1: the choice. But if you could do it all over,

1197
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 1: would you be, ah, you've a professional musician, or would

1198
01:19:03,400 --> 01:19:08,600
Speaker 1: you have done something else? I think, you know, yeah,

1199
01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:14,680
Speaker 1: I can't imagine having more fun doing anything else. My

1200
01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 1: you know, my career path was not really set having

1201
01:19:18,800 --> 01:19:22,600
Speaker 1: graduated from Harvard with an English lip degree. There's no

1202
01:19:23,720 --> 01:19:29,799
Speaker 1: straightforward career path there except to be an English teacher. Um,

1203
01:19:29,840 --> 01:19:33,120
Speaker 1: and I certainly didn't want to do that, So I

1204
01:19:33,120 --> 01:19:36,000
Speaker 1: don't know what else, what else I would have I

1205
01:19:36,000 --> 01:19:39,600
Speaker 1: would have done. I want to see David Geffen at

1206
01:19:39,680 --> 01:19:42,280
Speaker 1: one point when I was shopping for a record deal,

1207
01:19:43,760 --> 01:19:46,760
Speaker 1: and I knew David from from earlier on in his

1208
01:19:46,840 --> 01:19:50,400
Speaker 1: career and in my career, and I pitched him the

1209
01:19:50,439 --> 01:19:56,839
Speaker 1: idea of signing me up to UM asylum. And he said, oh,

1210
01:19:56,880 --> 01:20:00,680
Speaker 1: I I thought she wanted a producer's job and A

1211
01:20:00,760 --> 01:20:05,759
Speaker 1: and R an A and R job. And I guess,

1212
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:11,160
Speaker 1: you know, having you know, having picked songs from Jonny

1213
01:20:11,280 --> 01:20:14,920
Speaker 1: Jackson and James that might have been a a reasonable

1214
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:18,640
Speaker 1: notion that, okay, this guy's got good ears, But I

1215
01:20:19,040 --> 01:20:23,479
Speaker 1: really had no interest in in doing that. You know,

1216
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:27,760
Speaker 1: I love getting in front of an audience. And with

1217
01:20:27,840 --> 01:20:31,000
Speaker 1: the time you have left, anything you want or need

1218
01:20:31,040 --> 01:20:36,000
Speaker 1: to accomplish, well, I'd like to get Rockports Sundays up

1219
01:20:36,240 --> 01:20:42,360
Speaker 1: closer to that seven and a half billion subscribers. Mark. Um. Yeah,

1220
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:45,519
Speaker 1: I've got I've got three books in the works, maybe four,

1221
01:20:45,640 --> 01:20:50,439
Speaker 1: depending on how you count them. Um. I definitely want

1222
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:55,080
Speaker 1: to make another album with Jim Rooney and Nashville Records,

1223
01:20:55,160 --> 01:20:57,880
Speaker 1: some of these new songs that haven't haven't seen the

1224
01:20:57,920 --> 01:21:03,760
Speaker 1: light of day yet. Uh Um. I'd also like to

1225
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:07,800
Speaker 1: you know, the Club forty seven. It was very important

1226
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:11,720
Speaker 1: to me and at one point, Um, I now own

1227
01:21:11,760 --> 01:21:16,000
Speaker 1: the name Club forty seven and I've done shows under

1228
01:21:16,040 --> 01:21:19,400
Speaker 1: that banner, and the theme of those shows is I

1229
01:21:19,479 --> 01:21:21,679
Speaker 1: get a couple of well known artists and a couple

1230
01:21:21,720 --> 01:21:27,320
Speaker 1: of newcomers together and I browbeat everybody into playing with

1231
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:29,840
Speaker 1: one another. You can't just go out there and do

1232
01:21:29,960 --> 01:21:33,639
Speaker 1: your regular thing. You've got to you know, you've got

1233
01:21:33,640 --> 01:21:36,080
Speaker 1: to sing harmonies with this kid, or you've got to

1234
01:21:36,160 --> 01:21:39,800
Speaker 1: play you know, guitar behind this kid, or this kid

1235
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 1: has to sing harmonies with you. Um. And the audiences

1236
01:21:44,080 --> 01:21:46,040
Speaker 1: love it because they get to hear I mean, the

1237
01:21:46,040 --> 01:21:51,840
Speaker 1: newcomers are monstrously talented, they're just unknown, and so the

1238
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:56,400
Speaker 1: audience goes home thinking, Wow, I just heard something really special.

1239
01:21:56,840 --> 01:22:00,000
Speaker 1: So I would love to do some Club forty seven

1240
01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:05,840
Speaker 1: and shows in the vein of rockports Sundays. I would

1241
01:22:05,880 --> 01:22:12,040
Speaker 1: love to get different artists that are their buddies of mine,

1242
01:22:12,320 --> 01:22:15,760
Speaker 1: maybe some that aren't. I would love to call, you know,

1243
01:22:15,920 --> 01:22:18,960
Speaker 1: I'd love to call Garth Brooks and say, do you

1244
01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:21,400
Speaker 1: have is there a kid that you're really excited about?

1245
01:22:21,760 --> 01:22:24,880
Speaker 1: Would you like to come do some songs with me?

1246
01:22:26,320 --> 01:22:29,200
Speaker 1: Where you know, you do a song, I do a song,

1247
01:22:29,240 --> 01:22:31,280
Speaker 1: We do a song together, the kid does a song,

1248
01:22:32,720 --> 01:22:37,320
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll, you know, try to get this kid noticed.

1249
01:22:38,840 --> 01:22:41,120
Speaker 1: I mean, that's partly why you know, I've enjoyed working

1250
01:22:41,120 --> 01:22:43,640
Speaker 1: with Matt Nikola so much as I do think I

1251
01:22:43,680 --> 01:22:48,840
Speaker 1: have helped get his name out there. I've helped him

1252
01:22:49,000 --> 01:22:52,360
Speaker 1: move along his audience. He's got a you know, a

1253
01:22:52,360 --> 01:22:56,160
Speaker 1: different audience than I do, but my audience loves him

1254
01:22:56,160 --> 01:22:59,439
Speaker 1: to bits and they are now part of his audience.

1255
01:23:00,439 --> 01:23:02,479
Speaker 1: Just going back to the books for a second, because

1256
01:23:02,479 --> 01:23:06,000
Speaker 1: I know on the Patreon, in addition to the music,

1257
01:23:06,479 --> 01:23:11,320
Speaker 1: you also reveal or distribute other information that might be

1258
01:23:11,400 --> 01:23:13,679
Speaker 1: part of the book. So is there one main book,

1259
01:23:13,720 --> 01:23:18,280
Speaker 1: like an autobiography that you're working on? The books? Well,

1260
01:23:18,560 --> 01:23:21,600
Speaker 1: part of what I'm what I'm doling out to the

1261
01:23:22,960 --> 01:23:28,479
Speaker 1: do a month crowd is pages from the the book

1262
01:23:28,520 --> 01:23:32,920
Speaker 1: of lyrics that I'm writing. Um, there's the lyrics to

1263
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:37,080
Speaker 1: my songs with maybe a page or two of backstory

1264
01:23:37,160 --> 01:23:39,080
Speaker 1: about the song and what I was doing at this

1265
01:23:39,160 --> 01:23:41,800
Speaker 1: point in my life. It's becoming a little bit of

1266
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:47,720
Speaker 1: an autobiography. Um. But then the main autobiography is kind

1267
01:23:47,720 --> 01:23:53,760
Speaker 1: of stalled stalled out the other book that and then

1268
01:23:53,800 --> 01:23:56,960
Speaker 1: there's a novel that I'm only writing from my own entertainment.

1269
01:23:57,680 --> 01:23:59,720
Speaker 1: I write it because I want to find out what

1270
01:23:59,720 --> 01:24:02,280
Speaker 1: happened is next. I don't think it will ever happen

1271
01:24:02,320 --> 01:24:05,360
Speaker 1: to see the light of day, probably. But the other

1272
01:24:05,400 --> 01:24:09,320
Speaker 1: book that I'm having fun with is um called Roadmap.

1273
01:24:09,800 --> 01:24:14,360
Speaker 1: Working title Roadmap and subtitle is why you probably don't

1274
01:24:14,360 --> 01:24:18,320
Speaker 1: want to be a touring musician. And it's a story.

1275
01:24:18,479 --> 01:24:21,320
Speaker 1: It's just stuff about you know, how to do a

1276
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:25,040
Speaker 1: sound check, how to conduct an interview, how to keep

1277
01:24:25,080 --> 01:24:30,560
Speaker 1: mentioning rockports Sundays even though you're not being asked about it. Um,

1278
01:24:30,720 --> 01:24:33,320
Speaker 1: what does a manager do as opposed to an agent?

1279
01:24:34,800 --> 01:24:37,880
Speaker 1: Band dynamics? You know, how to conduct a rehearsal, how

1280
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:43,760
Speaker 1: to read an audience, how to do a sound check? Um.

1281
01:24:43,800 --> 01:24:46,559
Speaker 1: And I've got about I don't know about three fifty

1282
01:24:46,560 --> 01:24:49,760
Speaker 1: pages so far. How many more do you are you

1283
01:24:49,760 --> 01:24:52,080
Speaker 1: are going to be necessary before you whittle it down.

1284
01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:57,280
Speaker 1: I'm what, They're very disorganized now. So basically, part of

1285
01:24:57,320 --> 01:25:00,439
Speaker 1: the part of what's good about the Patreon model is

1286
01:25:00,479 --> 01:25:03,240
Speaker 1: that it forces me to work on these things because

1287
01:25:03,280 --> 01:25:06,080
Speaker 1: I've got to you know, next Sunday, I've got to

1288
01:25:06,080 --> 01:25:08,320
Speaker 1: put something out, So I've got to finish up this

1289
01:25:08,400 --> 01:25:15,600
Speaker 1: thing that's only half finished. Um but that book, you know,

1290
01:25:15,640 --> 01:25:17,960
Speaker 1: I've just written a page or two or a paragraph

1291
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:21,559
Speaker 1: or ten pages every time something occurs to me. I'm

1292
01:25:21,600 --> 01:25:25,559
Speaker 1: sure I've covered the same turf twice three times in

1293
01:25:25,600 --> 01:25:28,960
Speaker 1: some cases, and then there's gonna be gaps where I

1294
01:25:29,000 --> 01:25:31,920
Speaker 1: didn't write something that should have been written. So basically,

1295
01:25:32,000 --> 01:25:34,120
Speaker 1: I just I need to organize that and get it,

1296
01:25:34,960 --> 01:25:39,400
Speaker 1: get it shaped up and presentable. And you know, you

1297
01:25:39,439 --> 01:25:43,000
Speaker 1: do these things rockports Sunday and you have these live performances.

1298
01:25:43,000 --> 01:25:45,000
Speaker 1: So they all done it once and then dribbled out

1299
01:25:45,120 --> 01:25:48,440
Speaker 1: or do you get together once a week. No, they

1300
01:25:48,479 --> 01:25:51,080
Speaker 1: it's it's complex enough to get everybody in the same

1301
01:25:51,200 --> 01:25:54,800
Speaker 1: rooms that we we record a bunch at once and

1302
01:25:54,840 --> 01:25:59,120
Speaker 1: then serve them up. Okay, well, I'll look forward to

1303
01:25:59,200 --> 01:26:02,320
Speaker 1: next Sunday. Thanks for taking the time here, Tom, I

1304
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:04,480
Speaker 1: know you've got to get back to work for the deadline,

1305
01:26:04,640 --> 01:26:08,280
Speaker 1: so thanks for doing this. Oh thanks for having me

1306
01:26:08,320 --> 01:26:12,160
Speaker 1: on pleasure until next time. This is Bob Left Sex