WEBVTT - Tom Rush 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.040 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Fifth Podcast. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:17.880 My guest today's see the legendary senior songwriter Tom Rush. Tom. Hi, Bob, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.560 it's good to see you. Okay. Now you had COVID 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.960 tell me about that. Well, I don't recommend it. It 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:29.440 was not fun. It was back in March. I was 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.960 an early adapter um and I've just felt awful for 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.560 about two weeks. It was five days of getting worse, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.440 five days of feeling like crap, five days of getting better. 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.479 And I never got most of the typical symptoms. I 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.319 just felt exhausted and achy all over, and I ran 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.440 a little bit of a fever. But I just slept 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.879 twenty hours a day at the at the bottom of 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.800 the curve, and then I got better. And then a 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.000 couple of months later I was having heart palpitations in 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.680 the duck. Told me I should wear a heart monitor 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.000 for two weeks. I did. I mailed it in. He 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.839 calls me a five thirty on Friday, because these things 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.679 never happened Tuesday morning and says, basically, get your ass 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.200 to an ambulance and have them bring you to Mass General. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.600 And I said, excuse me, what are you talking about 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.959 and he said, we're concerned you might have an event. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.119 And I said, okay, what kind of event? And he said, 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.320 well the text the technical term is sudden cardiac death. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.880 And that that got my attention, and in fact, I 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.319 didn't go straight in I because that's the kind of 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.240 guy I am. I went back to where I was 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.160 living and had a nice dinner with a glass of 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.640 wine and when in the next morning, uh, and they 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.440 put a pacemaker in me. They discovered, quite accidentally, totally 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.920 unrelated to any heart palpitations, that my heart rate was 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.360 going down to twenty three beats a minute, and so 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.559 they put a pacemaker in and now I am pretty 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.240 much invincible. Okay, for those of us out of the know, 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.000 what exactly is a pacemaker? And do you know you 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.120 have it in you? Oh? Yeah, yeah, there's a little 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.359 bump in my chest. I mean, I'm I pretty much 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.160 have to bow out of all the bathing suit competitions 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.480 from from now on. They weren't going well anyway. But no, 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.480 it's it. Basically, this pacemaker. They do different things this one. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.560 If my heart rate goes below fifty beats a minute, 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.160 it will kick in and keep my heart rate above 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.360 fifty beats a minute. And when it does kick in, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.639 are you aware of that? No? Okay, So other than 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.400 the bump, it's totally, you know, transparent. You don't know 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.480 what's going on. No, No, it doesn't bother me a bit. Okay. 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.320 What do they think caused it? They don't know. But 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.639 I think I think COVID caused it. I really do. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.080 When I was in the cardiac word at mess General, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.760 which is locally referred to as it's in Massachusetts General Hospital. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.720 Locally it's referred to as Massive Genitals. But when I 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.320 was in the cardiac word there, uh, the nurse observed 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.880 that they had a lot of COVID survivors. And this 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.400 is at a point when less way, less than one 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.839 percent of the population were COVID survivors. So it made 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:24.760 me think that maybe COVID causes heart problems. And how 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.000 do you think you got it COVID? I think I 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.080 got it on a plane. I was doing gigs in Florida, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.560 and uh, I had a week off and then more 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.920 gigs in Florida, and I was gonna I came back 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:44.960 to Boston for my week off and started feeling crummy 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.640 on on day three, Day four, of the week off. Meanwhile, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:54.400 all the all the other gigs were canceled. And fortunately 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.320 my daughter was staying with me and she took care 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.640 of me. And and then she got the same bug 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.000 she had. She tested negative, but she had to have 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.000 had it. She had the same symptoms. And now I 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.920 know you frequently worked with Matt Nakoah. Was he on 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.440 that gig with you? He was? He didn't get it. 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:13.920 He didn't get it. There were several people that I 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.560 was hanging out with it didn't get it. So I 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.800 think I got it on the plane coming north. And 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:25.400 then have you gotten the vaccine. I've just I'm three 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.520 days away from being totally invincible. I've had my second 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:35.279 shot almost two weeks ago. Okay, Now, if one goes 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.320 to your web page, it appears that you've been doing 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:44.720 live gigs during this interim. Tell us the story there. Well, actually, 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.680 I think that the website may have been um misleading. 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.640 I'm about to do this this coming Saturday, the twenty March. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.960 I'm about to do a show at the Birchmure in 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.200 in Alexandria, Virginia, which will be my first live gig 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.640 this year. The website, I think is should be telling 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.400 you that this, that and the other gig have been 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.400 rescheduled until I guess what I was saying. You know, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.520 I follow you pretty closely, but it seemed like you 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.600 were putting it out there that you would play private, 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:19.440 socially distanced gigs. I was doing that. This was I'm 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.760 trying to figure out ways to ways to survive this 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.360 and the public gigs were being canceled, and I figured, well, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.320 it's you know, the weather is nice. This was in 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.520 the fall. I'm in the northeast, and uh, so I 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.320 put out this thing and said, hey, let's do some 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:41.840 private shows outdoors, properly distanced outdoor, private shows with small 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:46.400 gatherings and uh and it worked. I did, you know, 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.400 five or six of them, and I paid the rent 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.880 and and then winter set in. So that's over. I'm 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.000 hoping to kick it back into action, uh in a 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:01.880 month or so when the weather is up here. Interestingly, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.400 you will also put your price on the website. You 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.800 said you normally get paid ten thousand dollars. Is it 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.239 a factor of age and you just don't care anymore, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.480 because certainly this is a business where you could do 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.520 the same gig and the price could vary widely, so 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.440 people are really loath to quote a price. Well it's 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.680 you know, the and the price does very widely. It depends, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.800 you know, if I have to fly to Australia to 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.560 do it, it's gonna cost more than if it's just 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:36.039 down the block. Um. But um, I'm basically I was 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:41.920 basically giving about a fift discount on private shows and 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.680 and people signed up for them so great. Um, But 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.360 then that was shut down because of the weather. And 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:54.520 then I started this Rockport Sundays series on Patreon. Before 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.520 we get into the Patreon thing, you know, to what 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.880 degree do you have to work to make your nut? 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.880 And we talk about different musicians are in different levels, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.240 and also there are a lot of very household name 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.200 musicians who have high overheads. So when this shut down, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.720 where you starting to freak out or this was just 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:16.920 impacting your lifestyle? Or he said to god, I could 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.920 keep myself busy. Well, it was a little of each. 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:25.240 I mean the cash flow. The twenty was shaping up 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.720 to be the best year ever from a you know, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.800 business standpoint, and then just mid March just stopped. Okay, 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.280 well let's stop. Why was twenty so deep into your career. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.600 Sixty years into your career, why was shaping up to 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.400 be the best? I can't answer that more. You know, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:46.040 I was getting more bookings for you know, for bigger crowds. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.360 I think I've gotten better over the years. Bob Okay, yeah, 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.320 you know. Un Let's that's one thing people don't realize 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.200 about getting older. You know that all this focus on you, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.280 we do get wiser. In many cases, we do get better. 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:02.080 But you were answering the question about the cash h oh, well, yeah, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:06.160 the cash flow, it just went off the cliff. Um. Now, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.640 I don't have a lot of overhead because I don't 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.200 have a band uh these days, as you say, I 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.160 worked with Matt Nicola. Uh and he gets paid when 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.720 I get paid. Uh. And Matt is actually to go 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.320 back to the Rockports Sundays. He's been participating on a 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:30.160 lot of those those little episodes. But I don't haven't. 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.000 I didn't have a lot of overhead, but I do. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.880 You know, I've got I got to pay the rent, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.600 and now I've got to pay my wife's rent. She's 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:45.040 she's off in Wyoming now, um, and you know, health 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.080 insurance and I've got a kid in college and stuff 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:54.120 like that so um, I was invading savings and decided 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.800 I had invaded savings about enough, and I should try 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.720 to figure out how to how make some money. And 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.440 I also it's partly I just I love playing for people, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:10.080 and I was I was suffering audience deprivation syndrome, and 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:14.400 so tell us about the patriar. Well. I checked out 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.920 a bunch of different platforms. I was living in Rockport, Massachusetts, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:22.880 and I wrote this instrumental years ago called Rockport Sunday 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.920 that people seem to like a lot. And I thought, Okay, well, 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.959 maybe maybe I'll do this. I'll put out put out 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.559 a video clip of one song or a story perhaps 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:39.199 every Sunday, and it'll be a subscription series and it 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.720 costs ten bucks a month at the bottom at the 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:44.800 bottom level, and you get it. You get a song, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.760 a video clip of me in the kitchen, very casual. 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.920 The production values are good because I've got a guy 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.400 who's very professional doing the audio and video. But I'm 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.280 very casual. I haven't done one in my pajamas yet, 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.600 but you never know. Um, And I'll sing a song 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:04.680 for you, tell you a story about the song, sing 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.000 a song, and that's it, and that song will then 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:12.400 be available for eight weeks, uh, and it will then 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.480 disappear to make room for whatever the newest thing is. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.200 And some weeks I tell a story. I told the 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.280 story of Clint Eastwood and the Hashish Brownie, and I'll 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.120 tell the story about skinny dipping with Janis Joplin's some okay, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:29.760 you know it just as a teaser for those of 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.400 White Side Up. Tell us the story of skinny Dipping 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:38.600 with Jannis. No, no, no, Bobby, you have to subscribe. Okay, 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.160 somebody someone Is it already off the eight weeks or 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.599 could they still get it? No? I haven't done the 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.719 Janis Chaplin one yet, but that was okay, I'll give 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.840 you a taste of that. I was on the Festival 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:58.760 Express tour across Canada and it was quite an adventure. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.440 It was a bunch of musicians on a train, The 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.840 Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the band Delaney and Bonnie Ian 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:13.840 and Sylvia um on and on, and we went across 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.360 we wanted. We started in Toronto, ended in Calgary. And 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.120 when we got to Calgary, this was the best party 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.400 I have ever been to. It was we kind of 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.320 regarded the stadium shows that we had to stop and 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.720 do as unwelcome intrusions into the flow of the party. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.959 We got to Calgary and the promoters had hired the 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.680 municipal swimming pool so that we could all go for 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.320 a swim, which was very sweet and much appreciated, and 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.840 of course all of these hippie musicians wanted to go 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:50.920 skinny dipping, which horrified the pool officials. But it was 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.520 our pool, you know. They couldn't stop us. But they 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.920 did have a rule, hard and fast rule that anyone 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.080 with long hair, which was everybody, had to wear a 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:07.120 bathing cap. And my my mind is permanently scarred by 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.480 the sight of seeing Leslie West of Mountains coming out 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.760 of the changing room wearing nothing but a bathing cap 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.640 over his afro and a second bathing cap upside down 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:24.640 over his beard. You can't unsee something like that. And 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.560 uh now, on that festival press, certainly Janis Joplin was 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:33.120 a famous drinker with Southern comfort during that day and 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:38.280 maybe even today. To what degree did you partake in substances? Well, 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.240 there were a lot of substances on that On that train, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.040 alcohol was very popular. We in fact drank the train 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:50.200 dry about four hours out of Toronto, which was the 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.920 first and we remember we stopped, We made them stop 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.000 in a prairie little prairie town, went into the liquor 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:03.920 store and bought everything, every every bottle in that store. 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:10.600 Went back on the train and we continued on, and uh, 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.079 it was a very it was a very strange experience. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.360 I'm sure for the staff on the train. These were 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.560 guys with jackets and little red bow ties who were 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.439 used to dealing with families on vacation and all of 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.840 a sudden, they've got a train full of hippies, you know, 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:31.760 smoking dope and doing god knows what um but they 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.760 were it was all It was very cool. I remember 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.240 seeing Janice job I was I was talking with Delaney 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.200 or Bonnie Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonny. I was 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:48.439 chatting with her. Janie comes running in and says, Bonny, Bonny, Bonny, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.880 you've gotta come. I'm doing an interview with Time magazine. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.000 And I just realized that you and I are the 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.240 same person. You've got to come and participate in this 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.600 interview with me. And so she gets and I trailed 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.400 along because I wanted to find out how it was 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:09.439 that Janis and Bonnie were the same person, and Bonnie 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.600 was talking about how talent was. It was a gift 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.720 from God, but it was also a curse in a way, 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.000 because because God had given you this gift, you were 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.960 obliged to go out and share it with people, and 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.840 it means leaving your family and leading a very difficult 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.760 life out on the road, and but this is what 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.600 God demands of you. Janis, on the other hand, was 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:36.480 talking about how great it was to be a rock 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:41.520 star because you get laid a lot. Somehow, they were 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:46.520 the same person in Janis's mind. Just going back though, 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.800 when you were on the road, to what degree or 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.840 in your career did you partake of drugs, whether it 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:57.640 be marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or anything. I did. I did 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:02.040 a bunch of stuff, U pot. Of course it was 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.560 kind of derry gur I did too much cocaine for 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:13.120 a while, and I actually stopped cocaine because I got 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.520 ahold of some pharmaceutical coke and it was so good 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.640 that I was so pissed that I had been spending 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:26.600 all this money on garbage, been snorting mothballs. I just stopped. 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.280 I never got involved in the harder stuff because when 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.480 I was a little kid, I was sickly and I 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.680 got a lot of injections and I developed a real 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.640 aversion to needles. So anything that involved a needle, no, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.320 thank you. Get that thing away from me, which served 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:50.240 me well. Okay. Also, you had a very big birthday 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:55.440 about a month ago. How does that affect you emotionally? Well? 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.840 Not much. I mean, I'm I'm feeling good, I think, Uh, 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.360 you know, I'm writing more than I ever wrote. Um, 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.520 I'm having a lot of fun with Rockports Sundays and 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.080 very much looking forward to getting back on the road. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.320 Uh So the only the only part of it was 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.160 it was a you know, a big birthday bash scheduled 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.320 for the Whang Center in Boston, which is this absolutely 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.840 dropped at gorgeous seat hall, and we were going to 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.480 get all kinds of guest artists and Garth Brooks in fact, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.800 you know, put together happy birthday video clip for the 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.600 occasion and it had to be canceled. So basically, Bob, 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.080 I have suspended aging. As soon as we can do it, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.640 we'll have my eightieth birthday party at the Wing Center. Okay. 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:51.160 So what's your relationship with Garth Brooks? Uh, he's he's 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:56.400 credited me many times over the years as being one 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.800 of the first people his dad, I guess played some 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.199 of my albums for the kids when he was when 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.000 he was little, and he was he came to like 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.680 my music a lot. So that's that's really the only 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:15.560 connection I've never met the guy. Um. Okay, So you 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.840 talk about being very creative and writing at this particular 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.160 point in time, but on some level, which is interesting 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.520 from an outside observer, the landscape is identical to when 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.040 you started. When you started first, you know, there was 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.840 fifties rock, rank Sinatra, then the teen idols, and now 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.680 we have teen idols again and everything spread out. So 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.520 what do you think about this change in landscape and 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.320 what motivates you today. I guess what motivates me is 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.880 is again, I love to play for people. I love 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.159 to get up on stage and make people laugh and 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:55.120 cry and you know, dig into their emotional uh, their 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.440 emotional life. I get. I get a big a lot 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:05.959 of pleasure out of that. Um. The landscape is because 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.639 of the Internet, is totally different. You know, when I 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.480 started out, if you didn't have a record deal, you 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.040 did not exist, because it was the record companies who 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.159 got you on the radio and got you written up 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:25.800 in the magazines and and that sold tickets and um. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.760 But without that you were invisible. Now any kid with 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.640 a laptop can you know, make music in their bedroom 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.359 and put it up on the internet. And some of 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.760 it's terrible, some of it's wonderful, but you don't need 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:47.080 the record company anymore. Um. And it's become very confusing. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.040 I mean, the whole the whole genre question has become 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.399 very muddy. It used to be, you know, there was jazz, 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:59.679 there was classical, there was folk, There were blues and 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.800 raw u and that was about it. And I remember 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.320 actually my first album came out on a little private 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.800 label in Cambridge, and I went into the Harvard Coope, 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.440 the local record store, and they'd put my album under 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.280 Blues in the blues section. And I went to the manager. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.600 I said, excuse me, I do some blues, yes, but 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.520 I also do traditional folk material. And he said okay, 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.720 and he took took my albums and put him in 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.080 the folks section. I said, well, wait, wait a second. 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.960 I yes, I do some folk, but I also and 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.960 he finally, after a couple of more of these, he said, okay, kid, 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.439 and he put me in miscellaneous, and I learned my 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:46.040 lesson not to argue about categories. But now there's so 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.640 many categories. I mean, I want to Actually, I'm thrilled, Bob, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.760 to be able to announce that the last night I 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:59.320 won all the Grammys, every single every single one of them. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.240 Anybody that's as otherwise it's false and that's false news. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.560 Were you ever nominated programming? To be honest, I can't remember. 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.359 I don't think so well except you went there. What 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.880 is your thought about the Grammy organization in the Grammy winning? 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.520 I don't know. It's I I've fallen so far away 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.800 from the industry um that I don't really pay much 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.520 attention to it. I mean, it's it's great for the 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.520 folks who wins something, but I'm not sure what it means. 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.080 It means that a bunch of people with a very 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:43.200 uh skewed point of view voted for them. It doesn't 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:49.119 necessarily mean they're good. It just means they're popular with 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:55.639 a certain, very restricted crowd. So, um, I don't I 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.800 just don't put a lot of stock in it. Okay, 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.400 now you have very ring levels on peach. We tell 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:07.600 us about that. Well, I started out with just one 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.320 that they call them tears. And the tier that I 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.440 started out with was the ten dollar a month tier 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.800 where you get every Sunday a brand new song or 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.920 a story or and then I added a bunch more 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.640 tiers for so for twenty five bucks a month, you get, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:25.720 of course the song or the story, but you also 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.520 get pages from a book I'm writing. And it goes 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.520 all the way up to a thousand dollars a month 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.840 where you get a private concert at the end of 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:41.720 so many months, and uh, you know, some zoom chats 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:46.480 zoom chat once a month and some special treatment. Is 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.720 one one of my thousand dollar guys wants me to 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.720 come up with an instructional video teaching him how to 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.959 play the Dreamer, which is a song I think it's 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.400 one of my better songs, not not better known, but anyway, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.639 he's he wants me to and I will got to 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:07.800 come up with an instructional video and he will learn 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.760 how to play the Dreamer. Okay, that begs the question 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:17.040 of these people are paying Does that affect your relationship? 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.280 And this also blends to you know, you tour sort 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.600 of on a circuit, do you tend to know your fans? 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.600 Does that good or is it a burden? What's that like? 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.439 I don't know the the you know I do. I 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.480 do see some of the same face as it shows. 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.560 But one of the things I do when I remember 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.760 is when I hit the stage and say, how many folks, 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.280 how many? How many of you guys have never been 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:46.879 to one of my shows before, and about half the 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:52.200 crowd will put put their hand up, so it's not 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:59.200 the same people coming back every time. UM. The the 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.360 Patreon series of rockports Sundays, I get a lot of comments. 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.400 People can write comments, and I respond to as many 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.960 as I can. UM, and I've noticed that some of 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:16.720 the same people comment every week. UH. The song goes 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:22.679 up at midnight Eastern time, midnight on Saturday and Sunday morning. 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:29.240 I've got, you know, an inbox full of comments from 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.720 Patreon and UH, and some of the same people are 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:36.160 commenting each time. But the feedback is really positive. It's 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:41.640 almost as good as live applause. Let's just assume we 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.480 had to cut you off from the feedback. Would you 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:50.080 be able to survive it? Would it would cut out 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:54.480 a lot of dopamine, the dopamine rush from the the 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.560 applause or the feedback is part of what's part of 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:01.960 what's in it for me. Uh yeah, I want to hear. 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.960 I want to hear what you think. I want it 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.320 and hopefully you like it. If you don't like it, 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:11.720 then I'd like to know that too. Okay, at this 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:16.919 point in time, are you still concerned with growing your audience? 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:19.040 You know, how do you deal with that? Because as 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:21.000 you say that, the game has changed, we don't have 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:24.240 the record company push and there's so much in the channel. 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:28.639 Oh yeah, I'm very I'm very uh focused on growing 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.360 the audience. I mean, it's actually one of the exciting 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:37.119 things about the Rockport Sunday Series online. I keep it 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:39.359 keeps me up at night that there are seven and 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:42.240 a half billion people on the planet that haven't signed 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:45.560 up yet. But I know that having you know, been 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:50.320 on Bob left It's podcasts. Are you're going to the 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:56.439 moon now yet? Year? Fasten your seat belts. Absolutely No. 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:02.480 I think the potential for growth is is terrific on 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:06.800 the Internet because there really is no ceiling. Well, there's 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:09.879 a potential, but there's so much there. Do you find 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.480 in this Internet era of last twenty years, when everybody's 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:17.320 got more questions than answers that your audience is increasing 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:20.560 or maybe you can't even tell it all well, the 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:25.320 online audience, UM, you know, I've got I also sent 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.680 out a newsletter from my uh website, tom rush dot 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:32.959 com and you can sign up for the newsletter at 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:36.199 tom rush dot com. Um, and people seem to like 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:39.880 that a lot. I get silly. I try to keep 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:44.920 it amusing, and people seem to be amused. So I've 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:50.280 got you know, about fifteen thousand people there, but that 0:25:50.320 --> 0:25:52.080 could easily you know that, you know, I would love 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:57.240 to see that grow as well. UM. And as for 0:25:57.320 --> 0:26:01.920 the you know, the the the lie of audiences. Of course, 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:04.840 right now it's really restricted. I'm playing the Birch Mirror 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:07.960 this coming Saturday. It's a five hundred seat room. They're 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:12.920 only selling two tickets. H and some of the other 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:17.119 gigs coming up in May and June or that couldn't 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:20.440 be the same kind of thing. Either they've they've moved outdoors, 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:26.600 or they're gonna have restricted capacity and hopefully, hopefully sometime 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:30.680 in the fall something this will, um, this will start 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:33.920 to loosen up. So what's the key to a great show? 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.840 I wish I could well, of course me well, I mean, 0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:42.879 that's a given. You're here, we're talking to you have 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:46.080 a profile, but you know you're there. Do you feel 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.440 that you have to convince them? Or you're singing rock, 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:52.720 you're singing no Regrets and you're thinking about your next 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:57.400 connection at the airport. No, I'm in the best of worlds. 0:26:57.400 --> 0:27:01.880 I'm very, very focused on the on the audience. Um. 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:04.600 Part of the fun for me is figuring out who 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:08.720 this audience is. I visualize an audience as being a personality, 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:13.120 and it's been striking to me. I used to play 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:17.280 clubs way way way back in the day. I'd be 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:20.639 it would be a two week gig, show up, you know, 0:27:20.680 --> 0:27:23.800 and play every night for two weeks, and it was 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:27.240 really amazing how different the audience was from night tonight. 0:27:28.119 --> 0:27:31.480 It was the same town, the same demographic, the same weather, 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:36.200 but the audience would be totally different each night, and 0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:38.960 I would have to figure out who that audience is, 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:44.280 who what that personality is, and then basically play to 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:47.160 that person Some audience is really like the funny songs, 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:51.880 so I do more funny songs, and some like the touching, 0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:57.560 introspective stuff. The the sensitive ship. As my lead guitar 0:27:57.600 --> 0:28:02.800 player used to call it. And so, especially when you 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:04.560 had a band, to what degree did you have a 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:07.440 set listen? To what degree depending on the audience did 0:28:07.480 --> 0:28:12.480 you change your repertoire and to this day, Well, I 0:28:12.480 --> 0:28:14.359 I know what song I'm gonna start with, I know 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:21.119 what song I'm gonna end with, and in between I'm flexible. Um, 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:23.400 I do have to One of the disadvantages to having 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:25.240 a band is you have to stick to the songs 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:32.040 that the band knows. Um. Whereas solo, I don't have 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:35.160 that problem. And with Matt, I can throw a new 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:38.120 song at Matt and he will play it as though 0:28:38.120 --> 0:28:41.720 he'd been doing his entire life. He's quite an amazing talent. 0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:46.640 I should throw in Matt Akoa dot Com into the conversation. 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:51.120 He's we've been playing together for about six years, but 0:28:51.160 --> 0:28:55.000 he's got his own career which is burgeoning, and I 0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:58.120 don't think he's going to be backing me up for 0:28:58.200 --> 0:29:01.840 too much longer. I'm hoping when he's playing stadiums he'll 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:10.880 let me open the shows. Okay, you went to Harvard 0:29:10.920 --> 0:29:15.040 to what degree? Does that inform your music in your career? 0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:20.120 I don't know that Harvard Harvard, If anything, I was 0:29:20.160 --> 0:29:23.800 an English major, and when I'm writing, I tend to 0:29:23.800 --> 0:29:26.760 be intimidated by the idea that Blake would never say 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:32.280 anything that's stupid. You know Shakespeare. Oh No, I'm nowhere 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:36.480 near that level. Um, So that was a little bit intimidating, 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:39.400 although it did expose me to a lot of really 0:29:39.480 --> 0:29:44.240 amazing writing. What was important, I think was being in Cambridge, 0:29:44.240 --> 0:29:48.400 Massachusetts at that time, the early sixties, when there was 0:29:48.480 --> 0:29:53.600 such a vibrant folks scene going on, and being able 0:29:53.640 --> 0:29:57.040 to hang out at the Club forty seven in Cambridge 0:29:57.120 --> 0:29:59.720 was a coffeehouse that was one block from my dorm 0:29:59.800 --> 0:30:04.200 roo and this was the place they hosted the local kids, 0:30:04.400 --> 0:30:07.800 as all their coffeehouses did, but they also brought in 0:30:07.840 --> 0:30:10.959 the legends, and you could sit in this little adc 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:15.240 room and listen to Maybelle Carter or Flattened Scrugs or 0:30:15.680 --> 0:30:17.760 Sleepy John Estes. They brought in a lot of the 0:30:17.760 --> 0:30:21.560 blues guys, and I adored the blues guys, partly because 0:30:21.560 --> 0:30:26.920 I was an English major and and just love what 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:30.480 these guys could do to syntax. Okay, so at what 0:30:30.640 --> 0:30:34.479 point did you pick up the guitar. I picked up 0:30:34.480 --> 0:30:38.280 the guitar as a little kid, I was forced to 0:30:38.360 --> 0:30:41.600 take piano lessons for about twelve years, and I hated it. 0:30:42.360 --> 0:30:45.800 Nobody explained to me, it's a little bit like studying 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:48.960 English at Harvard. Nobody explained that these were great books 0:30:49.000 --> 0:30:52.080 because people loved to read them. It was your grim 0:30:52.160 --> 0:30:56.520 duty to study and analyze them. Piano was not fun. 0:30:57.080 --> 0:31:00.600 It was an exercise and manual dexterity. Nobody explained that 0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:05.400 this music was great music because people actually liked it. Um. 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:10.400 But I had an older cousin named Bo Beals and 0:31:10.520 --> 0:31:14.040 Bo and b Beals I'm not making this up used 0:31:14.080 --> 0:31:18.480 to come visit. Um. They were my parents best buddies. 0:31:18.760 --> 0:31:22.440 And bow Bells was in my eyes as superstar heat. 0:31:23.320 --> 0:31:25.720 This guy could take a lettle cigarette, flip it back 0:31:25.760 --> 0:31:28.040 into his mouth, dive in the swimming pool and blow 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:33.920 smoke bubbles from underwater. I mean, when you're ten, that's huge. 0:31:35.040 --> 0:31:38.360 And he played the ukulele, and Bo taught me how 0:31:38.360 --> 0:31:40.640 to play the ukulele and taught me a bunch of 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:43.960 silly old songs that Abdula bo bol Amir and my 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:48.480 father's whiskers and um, and that was a lot of fun. 0:31:49.520 --> 0:31:51.760 And that's where I just you know, came to realize 0:31:51.800 --> 0:31:55.080 that music was fun. And then as I got older, 0:31:55.280 --> 0:31:58.000 the uku lele turned into a guitar because I thought 0:31:58.000 --> 0:32:02.320 it was more manly, and um, I got really swept 0:32:02.360 --> 0:32:04.840 up in the rock and roll scene in the late fifties. 0:32:05.960 --> 0:32:08.240 I heard my first Josh White recording when I was 0:32:08.280 --> 0:32:12.680 around sixteen. Changed my life. I just I'd never heard 0:32:12.680 --> 0:32:15.080 a guitar played like that. I've never heard songs like that. 0:32:16.160 --> 0:32:19.000 And then I hit Cambridge and there was all this 0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:24.440 music going on, all different flavors and stripes, and I 0:32:24.560 --> 0:32:27.120 just got sucked up into it. So what was it 0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:29.520 like growing up in the fifties with the rock and 0:32:29.600 --> 0:32:34.520 roll era, Elvis, etcetera. Well, it was. It was absolutely magical. 0:32:34.600 --> 0:32:38.560 I mean I remember Bill Haley and the comments doing 0:32:38.640 --> 0:32:43.920 rock around the clock and thinking this is different. Uh. 0:32:44.640 --> 0:32:47.120 And then more and more and more kept coming, and 0:32:47.160 --> 0:32:52.000 there was it was a fabulous outpouring of talent. I mean, 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:56.640 there were all these really talented people who were not 0:32:56.720 --> 0:33:00.920 like one another. Every single you know, Elvis was not 0:33:01.000 --> 0:33:04.760 like Fats Domino, who was not like the Everly Brothers. 0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:08.560 They were each each and everyone was a totally different 0:33:08.560 --> 0:33:11.240 flavor and it was very exciting and it but the 0:33:11.280 --> 0:33:14.400 whole thing only lasted how many years, four years maybe, 0:33:16.000 --> 0:33:19.320 and then it was gone and what was on the 0:33:19.400 --> 0:33:24.320 radio next was really kind of boring in my mind, 0:33:24.400 --> 0:33:26.040 and I think in the minds of a lot of people, 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:29.640 which is why the people in the Cambridge folk scene 0:33:29.640 --> 0:33:34.320 were so excited about discovering this music that nobody was 0:33:34.440 --> 0:33:38.560 trying to push down their throats on the radio. You'd 0:33:38.560 --> 0:33:40.600 have to go to the you know, the used record 0:33:40.680 --> 0:33:45.560 store and look for seventy eight and discover this stuff 0:33:45.600 --> 0:33:49.960 that it was totally new, and it must have been. 0:33:50.040 --> 0:33:53.600 I mean, there's a certain irony in a bunch of 0:33:53.640 --> 0:33:56.640 Harvard kids sitting around singing about how tough it was 0:33:56.760 --> 0:34:00.160 in the coal mine or on the chain gang. But 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:02.800 we felt that we made up in sincerity what we 0:34:02.880 --> 0:34:07.440 lacked an authenticity. Okay, you heard that Josh White record. 0:34:08.160 --> 0:34:10.160 Did you pick out the note yourself? Or did you 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:12.800 take lessons? Or how did you get up to speed? 0:34:13.400 --> 0:34:16.239 I would I just listened to those records over and 0:34:16.280 --> 0:34:18.080 over and over and tried to figure out how he 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:24.719 was doing what he did um and was moderately successful 0:34:25.120 --> 0:34:28.880 at that. I mean, he was he was playing by himself. 0:34:28.960 --> 0:34:31.839 Or with a bass player. Um, so it was not. 0:34:32.960 --> 0:34:36.120 His guitar parts weren't obscured by a lot of instrumentation 0:34:36.280 --> 0:34:42.680 and uh other stuff. But I was pretty good at that, 0:34:42.760 --> 0:34:46.160 and then I also was fairly successful at figuring out 0:34:46.239 --> 0:34:48.560 what the blues guys were doing. One of the cool 0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:50.919 things about the Club forty seven, though, was when these 0:34:50.920 --> 0:34:55.239 blues guys played there, or whatever, the bluegrass guys or 0:34:55.360 --> 0:35:00.200 the Scottish balladeers. There was usually a party at been 0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:03.719 Betsy Shiggins House after the show, and you could go 0:35:03.760 --> 0:35:06.080 to this party and ask these people how do you 0:35:06.160 --> 0:35:08.680 do that thing you do? And they would tell you 0:35:08.800 --> 0:35:13.560 it would show you. It was quite amazing. Okay, so 0:35:13.640 --> 0:35:15.880 do you show up at Harvard with your guitar in 0:35:15.920 --> 0:35:20.680 its case? Um? Yes, I did. I did, and fairly 0:35:20.800 --> 0:35:24.799 quickly I got a There was a radio show on 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:33.560 Harvard's uh FM station called Balladeers, and I somehow inherited 0:35:33.600 --> 0:35:37.279 that show. The guy that was hosting Balladeers was graduating 0:35:37.360 --> 0:35:40.840 or moving away or whatever, and somebody said, hey, do 0:35:40.880 --> 0:35:44.000 you want to take it over? And I said, well, okay. 0:35:44.239 --> 0:35:47.160 And it was a show where the host played a 0:35:47.160 --> 0:35:49.359 little bit, but you had to have guests come on. 0:35:49.760 --> 0:35:54.120 Every week there would be a different guest, and this 0:35:54.200 --> 0:35:57.600 meant that I had to start habituating the coffee house 0:35:57.680 --> 0:36:01.400 is going to the hoot nannies to recruit guests to 0:36:01.440 --> 0:36:05.920 come on my show. Uh and I. The tradition was 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:09.520 to have local kids as the guests. I also branched 0:36:09.520 --> 0:36:13.040 out and started getting people like like Josh White or 0:36:13.080 --> 0:36:18.200 Odetta or Pete Seeger to come on, but mostly it 0:36:18.280 --> 0:36:20.319 was the local talent, and so I had to go 0:36:20.360 --> 0:36:23.200 to the hooting nanny's and listen to people and decide 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:27.759 who I wanted to invite. I discovered that you could 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:29.799 get in for free if you had a guitar with you. 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:32.799 I then discovered you could get in for free if 0:36:32.840 --> 0:36:36.120 you had a guitar case with you. So I would 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:39.359 put a six pack in the guitar case and head 0:36:39.400 --> 0:36:42.960 off to the hooting nanny and I got caught one 0:36:43.040 --> 0:36:49.680 night at the the Golden Vanity Club in Boston. Hey kid, 0:36:49.719 --> 0:36:52.239 get on stage. You got in for free. I had 0:36:52.280 --> 0:36:55.680 to borrow a guitar. I was terrified, but I got 0:36:55.760 --> 0:36:59.280 up and I did twenty minutes or something and apparently 0:36:59.360 --> 0:37:01.120 was good enough. I have no idea what I did. 0:37:01.520 --> 0:37:05.120 I was so so scared. But about a week or 0:37:05.160 --> 0:37:07.800 two later, the owner calls me and said, whoever is 0:37:07.840 --> 0:37:09.799 playing to night got sick and could you come down 0:37:09.840 --> 0:37:13.680 and be a substitute folk singer. So nice. I did 0:37:13.680 --> 0:37:16.759 that for a little while, and it's pretty much been 0:37:16.800 --> 0:37:21.120 downhill ever since. Bob. Okay, let's go a little bit slower. 0:37:21.440 --> 0:37:24.960 The Balladeer show was on? How often once a week? 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:29.479 And how long was it? It was thirty minutes? Okay, Now, 0:37:29.800 --> 0:37:32.880 I certainly remember this folk era, the folk boom and 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:35.360 the hoot Ninnies. But for those people, and you know 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:37.960 we're going out, we're on the wrong side of the curve. 0:37:38.400 --> 0:37:41.600 But explain what that scene was like. Well, now they're 0:37:41.600 --> 0:37:45.600 called open mics, but basically it was, you know, a 0:37:45.640 --> 0:37:48.640 bunch of kids would come and bring their guitars and 0:37:49.120 --> 0:37:55.040 there'd be an mc and uh. I can't remember. Actually, 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:58.200 if you had to audition to get into the hoots, 0:37:58.239 --> 0:37:59.799 I don't think so. I think it was if you 0:38:00.000 --> 0:38:02.480 owed up with a guitar, you could get up and 0:38:02.480 --> 0:38:05.799 do two or three songs. And how many of these 0:38:05.800 --> 0:38:08.960 places were there? Oh? There were in the in the 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:13.080 greater Boston area there were probably a dozen. And was 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:15.400 there a palpable scene. Did you feel like you were 0:38:15.480 --> 0:38:17.360 part of something bigger? You said, well, yeah, this is 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:20.960 just what I'm into. No, I think that, Well, there 0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:25.480 was definitely, in my mind there was a scene because 0:38:25.480 --> 0:38:27.720 there was a lot of overlap. There were people who would, 0:38:27.800 --> 0:38:29.960 you know, go and play this club and then that club, 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:34.839 and um, in my mind, the Club forty seven was 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.080 the flagship of the fleet and they definitely had there 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:41.759 was a click there and I wanted very much to 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:45.319 be part of that. And it took a while, but 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:49.720 I finally got got welcomed into the Club forty seven scene. 0:38:49.840 --> 0:38:54.279 And how long did that take? Well, I'm trying to think. 0:38:54.400 --> 0:38:59.279 I UM. I was playing at a place that called 0:38:59.320 --> 0:39:04.759 the Unicorn in Boston. The manager there felt that the 0:39:04.800 --> 0:39:07.440 best way to build an audience for an artist was 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:10.960 to have them play every same day every week, and 0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:13.920 so I was playing every i don't know Tuesday at 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:17.720 the Unicorn, and sure enough, and you know, an audience 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:22.160 started to accumulate after a while. That guy Byron Leonardos 0:39:22.239 --> 0:39:26.120 then went over. He was recruited to come manage the 0:39:26.120 --> 0:39:31.960 Club forty seven. Uh, and he basically brought me with him. Right, 0:39:32.000 --> 0:39:34.799 you remember how much money you were making. Oh it 0:39:34.920 --> 0:39:37.440 was it was big bucks, Bibe. I think you know, 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:41.279 on a good night you could clear ten dollars. But 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:44.200 ten dollars was a hundred dollars then, well, I don't 0:39:44.200 --> 0:39:47.640 know about that. It was probably seventy three dollars. Okay, Well, 0:39:47.640 --> 0:39:50.440 certainly you know it was enough. It was enough to 0:39:50.440 --> 0:39:53.120 buy a six pack and have some fun. But who 0:39:53.160 --> 0:39:57.799 else was on the scene at your profile of that. Well, 0:39:57.920 --> 0:40:01.360 Joan Bias had kind of grant graduated from that scene. 0:40:01.400 --> 0:40:04.560 She shet up and gone. She would show up once 0:40:04.600 --> 0:40:09.320 in a while. But um, other people on the scene 0:40:09.320 --> 0:40:14.040 were Jim Queskin's jug band, Um Jeff and Miriam Muldar. 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:20.440 That one of the striking things about the Cambridge scene, 0:40:20.440 --> 0:40:23.520 I think, Bob, was that it was basically an amateur 0:40:23.600 --> 0:40:26.839 scene in the good sense of the word. Uh. These 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:29.840 are people playing because they loved the music, not because 0:40:29.840 --> 0:40:34.600 they had professional aspirations. There was, you know, a psycho 0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:39.880 pharmacologist banjo player who was who was very popular, uh, 0:40:40.160 --> 0:40:42.600 but he didn't plan to be a professional banjo player. 0:40:42.640 --> 0:40:45.520 There was a typewriter for Pairman who was a mandolin player, 0:40:45.600 --> 0:40:49.799 high harmony singer. It was great, but he didn't, you know, 0:40:49.840 --> 0:40:52.960 plan to go on the road or anything. So there 0:40:52.960 --> 0:40:56.279 were a lot of really really talented people who were 0:40:56.280 --> 0:41:01.880 not headed for professional life. The ones that did go 0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:07.760 pro or myself, Jim Queskin of course, um, Jeff Maulder, 0:41:07.880 --> 0:41:14.760 Maria maldar Um. It was a fairly small selection. Okay, 0:41:14.760 --> 0:41:17.440 since you mentioned Jim Queskin, were you familiar with the 0:41:17.480 --> 0:41:21.879 mel Liman family. I was, and it was a very 0:41:21.960 --> 0:41:27.399 puzzling thing. Mel was. For the listeners who don't know Mel, 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:31.600 he was. He was a harmonica player, pretty pretty good one. 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:38.400 But he also became a guru. Somehow this guy attracted 0:41:38.400 --> 0:41:43.120 to a family. UM not quite like the Manson family. 0:41:43.640 --> 0:41:46.520 They weren't. They didn't do anything as bad as the 0:41:46.520 --> 0:41:50.000 Manson family. But it was, at least in my mind, 0:41:50.120 --> 0:41:56.400 it was a pretty uh strange cult that Mel assembled 0:41:56.400 --> 0:42:01.520 around him. Jim question was and is still a part 0:42:01.560 --> 0:42:11.800 of that family. Uh Mel Mel died, but the his 0:42:11.800 --> 0:42:16.680 his gathering still is together in California, and I guess 0:42:16.719 --> 0:42:23.000 they have a pretty successful construction business. Um it keeps them, 0:42:23.080 --> 0:42:26.759 keeps them going, but questions still out there playing. I 0:42:26.840 --> 0:42:30.200 went to see him. It was probably it was before COVID, 0:42:30.600 --> 0:42:33.680 so a year and a half ago maybe, and he's good. 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:37.680 He's still as good as ever. He really engages the 0:42:37.680 --> 0:42:41.359 audience and draws him in, gets them going. So how 0:42:41.360 --> 0:42:44.680 did you make your first record? I was playing at 0:42:44.719 --> 0:42:49.239 the Unicorn on a weekly basis. Guy named Dan Flickinger 0:42:49.400 --> 0:42:53.120 came in and said, do you want to make an album? 0:42:53.160 --> 0:42:55.400 And I'd heard that a couple of times before, nothing 0:42:55.400 --> 0:42:58.799 had come of it, so I said, yeah, sure, and 0:42:59.040 --> 0:43:03.680 he actually showed up Ah dragging this tape record at 0:43:03.719 --> 0:43:07.400 the size of an oven dark dragged it down the 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:10.800 flight of stairs into the basement and recorded two nights. 0:43:12.640 --> 0:43:16.720 I remember him saying that it it was unethical to inter cut, 0:43:17.040 --> 0:43:18.920 to splice, you know, take the first half of the 0:43:18.960 --> 0:43:21.320 song from night one and the second half from night to. 0:43:21.920 --> 0:43:25.319 Oh no, that was morally indefensible. I later learned it 0:43:25.360 --> 0:43:28.359 was he didn't know how to splice tape, he didn't 0:43:28.360 --> 0:43:32.760 know how to edit um. But it was put together 0:43:32.840 --> 0:43:37.760 Tom Rush live at the Unicorn on Dan Flickinger's little 0:43:38.080 --> 0:43:43.000 non existent label like Hornew which was Latin for Unicorn 0:43:44.520 --> 0:43:49.719 or Greek I think um, and he distributed out of 0:43:49.760 --> 0:43:53.520 the back seat of his whatever, his studebaker. But it 0:43:53.600 --> 0:43:56.239 was an odd thing because I had an album and 0:43:56.280 --> 0:44:02.719 nobody else did, and it somehow made me mortallygitimate. I was, 0:44:02.880 --> 0:44:05.200 I was, you know, a more serious artist because I 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:08.160 had an album. Never mind that it was, you know, 0:44:08.680 --> 0:44:11.360 on a made up label. You know. I think we 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:15.239 pressed three hundred copies. I've seen him go for three 0:44:15.280 --> 0:44:20.800 hundred bucks on eBay now. But and then that lasted 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:25.760 for about a minute, and then Vanguard and Prestige Records 0:44:25.840 --> 0:44:29.640 came to town and started signing up everybody except me. 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:34.120 I could couldn't get a real record label to sign 0:44:34.160 --> 0:44:41.120 me up. And finally Paul Rothschild, working for Prestige, did 0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:45.200 sign me up and I made my first, my first 0:44:45.239 --> 0:44:49.480 album for a real label with Paul. By the time 0:44:49.520 --> 0:44:55.360 I graduated, I'd made I put out two albums, um, 0:44:55.400 --> 0:44:59.160 which probably explains why I didn't get better grades, I 0:44:59.160 --> 0:45:02.360 would assume so. And to what degree did your profile 0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:05.280 at school change as result of having these two albums? 0:45:06.520 --> 0:45:09.000 I don't think not not by much. I mean, the 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:11.640 school was one thing, that folks scene was another thing. 0:45:11.680 --> 0:45:17.080 There was a little bit of overlap. But um, most 0:45:17.120 --> 0:45:20.480 of the people in my dorm had no idea what 0:45:20.600 --> 0:45:22.840 I did, except I made you know I made noise 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:28.239 playing the guitar when they wished I wouldn't. Um, So 0:45:28.320 --> 0:45:31.840 there wasn't There wasn't too much overlap at that stage. Then, 0:45:31.880 --> 0:45:34.200 you know, when when I became better known. I think 0:45:34.960 --> 0:45:39.080 the class of sixty three now recognizes my name, but 0:45:39.400 --> 0:45:43.560 not not back then. Okay, so you graduate, what's your 0:45:43.600 --> 0:45:47.840 next step? Well, actually, before I graduated, I took a 0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:50.759 year off. I was on the verge of flunking out, 0:45:52.360 --> 0:45:55.680 and in fact I did flunk of course, and I 0:45:55.800 --> 0:46:00.319 decided I must, I must take a break or I'm 0:46:00.360 --> 0:46:03.959 just gonna get kicked. The obvious question from this era 0:46:04.160 --> 0:46:08.120 is what your parents say about that They were They 0:46:08.120 --> 0:46:11.319 were you know, I think they were supportive. I mean 0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:15.040 they thought forever that I'm going through a phase. My 0:46:15.080 --> 0:46:17.160 mom wanted to know to a dying day when I 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:22.560 was going to get a real job. Um. But I 0:46:23.000 --> 0:46:26.719 had flunked one course. I don't remember having a talk 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:29.920 with my parents, and I'm sure I must have, but 0:46:30.040 --> 0:46:32.919 I said, okay, I want to take a year off. Uh. 0:46:32.920 --> 0:46:35.759 And Harvard at that point would let you, and then 0:46:35.800 --> 0:46:39.160 maybe they still do, would let you withdraw if you 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:42.759 were in good standing, let you withdraw any time you want, 0:46:42.840 --> 0:46:45.120 come back any time you want. I was not in 0:46:45.200 --> 0:46:51.080 good standing. I had to actually withdraw and reapply to 0:46:51.160 --> 0:46:54.960 get back in. So it was a risky, risky proposition. 0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:57.640 But I felt pretty convinced that I was going to 0:46:57.760 --> 0:47:01.799 flunk out and be kicked out if I did do this. 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:05.200 So I took a year off and I went to 0:47:08.000 --> 0:47:14.200 I started traveling around and doing concerts New York, got 0:47:14.239 --> 0:47:18.240 to Philadelphia, I got to Florida a couple of times, 0:47:19.640 --> 0:47:24.120 and discovery that I really did love playing for people, 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:28.600 still do, and that I could make just about enough 0:47:28.640 --> 0:47:34.760 money to to live. Not nothing more, but I could. 0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:38.680 I could make enough money to pay the rent and 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:42.760 buy some cheap groceries. Um. And then I went back 0:47:43.960 --> 0:47:48.239 and finished up my three semesters. I quit in the 0:47:48.280 --> 0:47:50.359 middle middle of my junior year, so I had three 0:47:50.360 --> 0:47:53.399 semesters to go. I went back actually did very well 0:47:53.440 --> 0:47:55.680 because I knew what why I was there. I was 0:47:55.719 --> 0:48:00.320 there for a diploma. There was nothing, nothing real antic 0:48:00.360 --> 0:48:02.680 about it. I went I wanted to get that diploma 0:48:02.800 --> 0:48:07.520 and then move on, and uh so I did, and 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:12.760 then continued living in Cambridge for a little while before 0:48:12.760 --> 0:48:15.640 I moved to New York City, New York is where 0:48:15.680 --> 0:48:19.080 the action was. That's where my record company was. I 0:48:19.480 --> 0:48:25.399 made one more album for Prestige with Paul Rathschild. It's 0:48:25.440 --> 0:48:29.680 a bit of a funny transition there. Paul. Paul moved 0:48:29.719 --> 0:48:34.600 on to Electra Records, where he was there ace producer, 0:48:35.960 --> 0:48:38.960 and I wanted to go to and Jack Holsman at 0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:42.440 Electra wanted me on the label, but I had a 0:48:42.520 --> 0:48:47.080 contract with Prestige. So I went to Prestige and I said, 0:48:47.080 --> 0:48:49.120 can I get out of my contract? And said no, 0:48:51.520 --> 0:48:54.480 and I so I bluffed. I said, Okay, screw it. 0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:57.200 You know I have a Harvard diploma. I don't need 0:48:57.239 --> 0:49:03.560 this music ship. I'm going to quit show is um. 0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:06.560 But I'll tell you what. I'll make one more album 0:49:06.600 --> 0:49:10.600 for you if you'll let Paul Rothschild produce it. And 0:49:10.640 --> 0:49:14.359 they weren't happy with Paul at all, and they were 0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:18.840 convinced that Jack Holsman would never let Paul produce for 0:49:18.880 --> 0:49:23.320 another label. So they said okay, kid, and so Paul 0:49:23.320 --> 0:49:25.360 and I went in the studio and we recorded my 0:49:25.440 --> 0:49:29.239 second Prestige album, which is all folky, just me and 0:49:30.280 --> 0:49:34.319 Fritz Richmond on washtub base. The next week we went 0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:38.120 into a different studio and made my first Electra album, 0:49:38.160 --> 0:49:43.400 which actually hit the market before the Prestige album came out, 0:49:43.440 --> 0:49:46.799 because Prestige didn't know that this was going on in 0:49:46.880 --> 0:49:53.280 the background. And that's actually the album that Garth Brooks's 0:49:53.360 --> 0:49:58.719 dad played for him. What did Prestige ultimately say? What 0:49:58.840 --> 0:50:01.759 did they say when they found out that you had 0:50:02.080 --> 0:50:04.520 pulled a fast one on them? Well, they didn't have 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:06.640 They didn't have much to say about it. I mean, 0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:09.200 I was out of there, so they might have been 0:50:09.280 --> 0:50:13.600 yelling at me, but I couldn't hear them. Okay, Now, 0:50:13.680 --> 0:50:17.360 you were famously the first to record so many legendary 0:50:17.440 --> 0:50:22.200 singer songwriters, Jackson Brown, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor. How did 0:50:22.200 --> 0:50:26.200 you end up with their songs? Well, it's a bit 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:29.719 of a different story, uh, for each one I was 0:50:30.080 --> 0:50:35.319 I had made. Oh how many albums did I make 0:50:35.360 --> 0:50:38.840 for Electra? I made the first one, and then I 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:43.560 think in any case, I was running out of traditional 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:48.960 folk stuff that I was interested in doing. My next 0:50:48.960 --> 0:50:52.080 to last album for Electra was a bit schizophrenic. It 0:50:52.160 --> 0:50:55.319 was folk on one side and late fifties rock and 0:50:55.400 --> 0:51:02.000 roll on the other. And then I owed them, you know, 0:51:02.040 --> 0:51:04.840 I don't. I owed them more albums, and I didn't 0:51:04.880 --> 0:51:08.000 have any more songs that I was really excited about doing. 0:51:09.680 --> 0:51:12.840 I was playing a club in Detroit, Michigan called the Chessmate, 0:51:14.480 --> 0:51:19.240 one of my two week gigs, and this young slip 0:51:19.239 --> 0:51:22.520 of a girl named Joni Mitchell came in one night 0:51:23.200 --> 0:51:26.799 and I gather she'd been playing there as part of 0:51:26.800 --> 0:51:30.480 a duo with her then a husband, Chuck Mitchell, on 0:51:30.520 --> 0:51:33.920 a regular basis, but she just started writing songs and 0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:35.960 she wanted me to hear some of these new songs 0:51:37.000 --> 0:51:41.480 because I might record one or two. And she came 0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:44.120 in and did a little fourth song guests set that 0:51:44.280 --> 0:51:49.160 just knocked me off my feet. Um. I asked her 0:51:49.160 --> 0:51:52.080 if she had any more songs. She said, no, but 0:51:52.160 --> 0:51:55.360 give me a minute her words to that effect, And 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:57.480 then a few weeks later sent me a tape with 0:51:58.320 --> 0:52:03.319 six fabulous songs, one of which was The Circle Game, 0:52:03.360 --> 0:52:06.680 which I named the album after. She actually apologized on 0:52:06.760 --> 0:52:09.120 the tape she that I've just finished writing this. It's 0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:11.319 not much good. I'm so embarrassed, but here it is, 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:14.799 and I am ended up naming the album after it. 0:52:16.160 --> 0:52:20.760 Um Jackson Brown was being published. He was not really 0:52:20.800 --> 0:52:23.759 a performer. At that point, he was a writer and 0:52:23.840 --> 0:52:26.040 he was being published by Electric so I had access 0:52:26.080 --> 0:52:29.719 to his demo tapes and that's how I met Jackson. 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:36.719 James Taylor. Um, it's a bit odd. I had a 0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:40.319 roommate on my Cambridge apartment. I had a roommate named 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:45.200 Zach Weasner who was part of a band called the 0:52:45.239 --> 0:52:49.520 Flying Machine that James was in. It was James band. 0:52:50.320 --> 0:52:52.400 And Zack kept saying, you got to hear it this 0:52:52.480 --> 0:52:55.640 guy James. And I kept saying, Zach, would you just 0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:59.000 pick up the living room please? And I didn't meet 0:52:59.080 --> 0:53:05.440 James back then. And then Paul Rothschild said, you gotta 0:53:05.640 --> 0:53:07.959 you should hear this. You should get together with this guy. 0:53:08.800 --> 0:53:11.160 And I remember we sat on the floor in an 0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:16.160 empty room, no furniture, at the Electra offices in New York. 0:53:16.920 --> 0:53:19.839 We sat on the floor with a real to real 0:53:19.880 --> 0:53:24.239 tape recorder and James sang, you know, I don't know, 0:53:24.560 --> 0:53:31.040 half a dozen songs into the tape recorder for me. Uh, 0:53:31.239 --> 0:53:35.400 and he was you know, I just I loved him. 0:53:35.400 --> 0:53:38.960 But the the thing was that here were these here 0:53:39.000 --> 0:53:41.319 were these songs that they weren't the other side of 0:53:41.320 --> 0:53:45.239 the Moon from folk music. They were informed by that 0:53:45.320 --> 0:53:48.240 kind of sensibility, but they had they were much more literary. 0:53:48.280 --> 0:53:55.160 They had a lot more chords. Uh, there just fabulous songs. 0:53:56.000 --> 0:54:00.960 Um And I've been accused of ushering in singer songwriter 0:54:01.200 --> 0:54:04.520 Erro with the the Circle Game album because it was 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:09.200 the first, you know, time James Jackson and Janie were 0:54:09.239 --> 0:54:13.879 presented to a wider public um. But I wasn't really 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:19.719 looking to uh looking to introduce an era or or 0:54:20.360 --> 0:54:23.840 discover anybody. I'd really just I wanted to meet girls, Bob. 0:54:23.920 --> 0:54:28.200 That's why I was in the working for you. Yeah, no, literally, 0:54:28.239 --> 0:54:30.839 how was that working for you? Well? It worked very 0:54:30.840 --> 0:54:34.520 well at the time. Okay, And what kind of guy 0:54:34.560 --> 0:54:36.920 were you? Different girl in every town or you know, 0:54:37.360 --> 0:54:40.760 hometown honey or what was it like? Well, it wasn't. 0:54:40.800 --> 0:54:42.799 It was a different girl in every town kind of 0:54:43.560 --> 0:54:45.120 kind of a scene for a while. I mean I 0:54:45.160 --> 0:54:50.080 did have I did have a girlfriend, Jill Lumpkin, who's 0:54:50.160 --> 0:54:54.520 on the one standing behind me on the Circle Game album. 0:54:54.640 --> 0:55:02.279 Um and that lasted for a few years, but um, 0:55:02.320 --> 0:55:05.920 you know, I was basically the traveling musician. So I 0:55:06.040 --> 0:55:08.279 was working for you. Yeah, I was working for me. 0:55:08.960 --> 0:55:12.400 Now uh, the cover of that album with Joe that 0:55:12.440 --> 0:55:15.320 was shot by Lynda McCartney Linda Eastman. At that point 0:55:16.200 --> 0:55:18.640 it was she was I didn't know her. She was 0:55:18.719 --> 0:55:23.719 assigned by Electra to take take me out into a 0:55:24.160 --> 0:55:30.080 Central park and shoot some pictures, and um, I got 0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:32.399 to know her a little bit later on. She'd keep 0:55:32.400 --> 0:55:37.279 in touch over the years. I remember at one point 0:55:37.360 --> 0:55:39.920 getting a note from her as playing somewhere on Long Island, 0:55:40.040 --> 0:55:44.480 and she sent me a note saying that she and 0:55:44.520 --> 0:55:47.160 Paul were in the neighborhood, might stop by, but it 0:55:47.200 --> 0:55:56.439 didn't happen. So what was it like with the Beatles, Kid? Well, 0:55:56.480 --> 0:55:59.960 I you know, I had I loved the Beatles a lot, 0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:02.400 with everybody else. I mean, it was hard to resist 0:56:03.640 --> 0:56:07.359 that thing um that they did. But I don't think 0:56:07.360 --> 0:56:10.440 it changed. I didn't. I didn't want to become a 0:56:10.480 --> 0:56:15.279 Beatle or you know, imitate them. I was. I was 0:56:15.320 --> 0:56:21.000 doing my own thing and the folk was was morphing 0:56:21.040 --> 0:56:25.000 into folk rock at this point, and I this is 0:56:25.040 --> 0:56:27.160 this is when I started getting a band, and we 0:56:27.200 --> 0:56:33.399 started getting louder and traveling more vigorously and more relentlessly. 0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:36.680 There was a five year period when I think I 0:56:36.719 --> 0:56:40.600 had ten days off, But did you feel like, holy 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.240 sh it, the British invasion is happening and it's killing 0:56:43.280 --> 0:56:46.480 my career, it's killing the whole scene I'm in. I 0:56:46.520 --> 0:56:50.319 don't remember thinking that. No, I don't remember thinking that. 0:56:50.360 --> 0:56:53.439 I think my take was that there are a lot 0:56:53.440 --> 0:56:56.760 more people interested in music now than there were before, 0:56:57.680 --> 0:56:59.680 and it might might you know, I didn't have the 0:57:00.080 --> 0:57:03.640 you know, the Beatles were We're huge with the with 0:57:03.719 --> 0:57:07.160 the teeny boppers, and that wasn't my crowd anyway. Okay, 0:57:07.160 --> 0:57:10.280 how'd you end up switching to Columbia after the Circle 0:57:10.320 --> 0:57:18.080 Game album? My contract with the Lecture was up, and um, 0:57:18.280 --> 0:57:21.080 Jack Holsman was willing to renew the contract but not 0:57:21.240 --> 0:57:26.400 improve on it, and Columbia was willing to make a substantial, 0:57:27.920 --> 0:57:32.640 a much better offer. So I moved over there and 0:57:32.680 --> 0:57:35.280 it was a very There was a bit of culture 0:57:35.320 --> 0:57:40.200 shock there, because a Lecture really was a family and Jack. 0:57:40.320 --> 0:57:41.760 You know, if you had a problem, you go to 0:57:41.840 --> 0:57:45.360 Jack and talk to him about it, and if he could, 0:57:45.440 --> 0:57:49.480 he'd fix it. Um at Columbia you had to make 0:57:49.520 --> 0:57:54.520 an appointment to talk to anybody's secretary, big big building 0:57:54.600 --> 0:57:56.840 with everybody had to wear who had to wear a 0:57:56.920 --> 0:58:07.440 tie and uh, very very corporate, wholly entirely different different 0:58:07.520 --> 0:58:12.280 scene there. But they did have you know, they had 0:58:12.280 --> 0:58:17.400 a lot more marketing muscle than Electra, and they you know, 0:58:17.440 --> 0:58:22.200 they could make a lot of noise, which was good. Um. 0:58:22.240 --> 0:58:24.800 You know, I never sold the tonnage for them that 0:58:25.040 --> 0:58:28.640 you know, a lot of their acts were selling. But 0:58:28.880 --> 0:58:35.880 they made money on me. The way the deals were structured. Basically, 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:43.320 they paid for the record production, but then they also 0:58:43.440 --> 0:58:48.640 would build against your royalty account that the production costs 0:58:48.640 --> 0:58:51.600 were building against your royalties. And I was making I 0:58:51.600 --> 0:58:55.000 don't know, twenty cents an LP and they were making 0:58:55.440 --> 0:58:58.400 a couple of dollars in LP, so they were in 0:58:58.440 --> 0:59:03.000 the black very quickly, but working off a hundred thousand 0:59:03.080 --> 0:59:08.320 dollar production budget. Plus then they would they would add 0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:11.880 you know, promotional stuff to your production budget, to your 0:59:11.960 --> 0:59:15.080 royalty account and paying it off at twenty cents a 0:59:15.160 --> 0:59:21.280 copy just wasn't happening. So they made money on me. 0:59:21.360 --> 0:59:25.600 I never I never got royalty checks. I would make 0:59:25.640 --> 0:59:29.400 some money off of the production budget when the album 0:59:29.480 --> 0:59:32.280 was made. But again, you know, the part of the 0:59:32.520 --> 0:59:37.200 part of the the benefit was if you didn't have 0:59:37.240 --> 0:59:40.040 a record deal, you didn't exist there. You know what 0:59:40.080 --> 0:59:42.400 they did for me was they got my name out there, 0:59:42.760 --> 0:59:44.800 They got me on the radio, they got me written 0:59:44.880 --> 0:59:48.960 up in the magazines, newspapers which sold tickets to the shows, 0:59:49.040 --> 0:59:52.000 which is always where I've made my living is you know, 0:59:52.480 --> 0:59:57.640 on stage. I've never I've never found recordings to be 0:59:59.120 --> 1:00:02.360 really profitable. I've made some on my own label that 1:00:02.440 --> 1:00:06.040 have you know that, Yes, I've made money on him, 1:00:06.080 --> 1:00:10.040 but but you know, on stage is where I've made 1:00:10.040 --> 1:00:14.200 my living forever. So on those Clubbia electoral records, are 1:00:14.240 --> 1:00:17.720 you still in the red? Are you ever getting royalty checks? Well? 1:00:17.760 --> 1:00:22.360 I actually, um, the last album for a lecture, Ladies 1:00:22.400 --> 1:00:26.160 Live out Laws, was put on too. No wait a minute, 1:00:26.160 --> 1:00:29.560 Wait a minute, wait a minute, Ladies Live out Laws. 1:00:31.560 --> 1:00:36.640 There's a little bit of a kirk kerfuffle there. Um, 1:00:36.720 --> 1:00:39.600 if I may go off on a sidetrack. They were. 1:00:39.640 --> 1:00:41.400 They had to deal with me where they had to 1:00:41.600 --> 1:00:44.920 renew my contract every year by a certain date. They 1:00:44.960 --> 1:00:47.680 failed to do that. This is the electoral Columbia, This 1:00:47.800 --> 1:00:52.560 is Columbia. They failed to do that. Um, And I said, okay, 1:00:52.640 --> 1:00:55.600 I'm out of here, and they said no, no, no, 1:00:56.320 --> 1:00:58.280 you can't leave. If you leave and make an album 1:00:58.280 --> 1:01:01.560 for somebody else will sue. So I got a lawyer, 1:01:02.520 --> 1:01:06.040 and the lawyer gave me basically said yeah, yeah, you 1:01:06.080 --> 1:01:10.640 gotta do what they say. The lawyer then within about 1:01:10.680 --> 1:01:15.280 a month went to work for Columbia, So I think 1:01:15.320 --> 1:01:18.320 I might have been getting bad advice. But we made 1:01:18.320 --> 1:01:22.920 this the Ladies Live Outlaws album to be the final 1:01:22.960 --> 1:01:25.280 album and I was. Then then they dropped me because 1:01:25.280 --> 1:01:27.520 it didn't sell as well as they had hoped. So 1:01:27.560 --> 1:01:30.840 instead of being out on the street on my own volition, 1:01:30.880 --> 1:01:32.680 I was, you know, I went on the street because 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:37.280 Columbia had had dropped me, which made getting a new 1:01:37.720 --> 1:01:41.680 deal a much more difficult thing, and I didn't in 1:01:41.760 --> 1:01:45.840 fact make another album for quite a while. Then they wanted, 1:01:46.160 --> 1:01:51.040 decades later, wanted to make a retrospective on me, and 1:01:51.080 --> 1:01:53.760 they wanted to record one new song, which John Levinthal 1:01:53.840 --> 1:02:00.720 produced um, but we made that a separate deal. It 1:02:00.800 --> 1:02:05.520 was not not the same under the same contract. So 1:02:05.560 --> 1:02:08.680 I did make money on that one on the retrospective, 1:02:09.520 --> 1:02:12.320 The very best of Tom Rush actually turned to profit 1:02:12.360 --> 1:02:16.040 for me. Uh, And then I didn't record for thirty 1:02:16.080 --> 1:02:20.640 five years after Ladies Live outlaws or actually I shouldn't 1:02:20.640 --> 1:02:22.800 say that. I made a couple of live albums on 1:02:22.880 --> 1:02:26.480 my own label. We're profitable. What was going on for 1:02:26.600 --> 1:02:28.760 thirty five years in your mind? And what were you 1:02:28.800 --> 1:02:31.680 doing that well? And for a while I was courting. 1:02:31.760 --> 1:02:37.520 I was courting the major labels, unsuccessfully trying to get 1:02:37.520 --> 1:02:42.760 a deal with you know, uh, with a major. And 1:02:42.840 --> 1:02:45.640 because that didn't work out, I didn't I didn't go 1:02:45.680 --> 1:02:51.000 back in the studio. I was, you know, I was touring. 1:02:51.840 --> 1:02:55.800 I was making, you know, making good money touring, figuring 1:02:55.800 --> 1:03:03.040 out how to connect with my with my audience. Um, 1:03:03.080 --> 1:03:04.520 it was you know, it was a it was a 1:03:04.600 --> 1:03:07.200 strange thing. It was a strange period of time because 1:03:07.280 --> 1:03:12.320 the record industry had decided somewhere in the seventies that 1:03:13.440 --> 1:03:17.520 that their audience, their core audience, was eighteen to twenty 1:03:17.520 --> 1:03:24.200 three years old, and the demographic that had built the 1:03:24.240 --> 1:03:28.040 record industry, the baby boom, was no longer eighteen to 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:34.520 four years old. They basically the record industry let them 1:03:34.520 --> 1:03:36.160 walk out of the room. I remember being at a 1:03:36.200 --> 1:03:41.560 meeting at Columbia where they were talking about how do 1:03:41.600 --> 1:03:44.560 we get the baby boom to buy our records? That's 1:03:44.560 --> 1:03:47.400 really important we've got to get the baby boom buying 1:03:47.400 --> 1:03:52.160 our records. And some poor schmuck stood up and said 1:03:53.440 --> 1:03:57.800 maybe if we made records they wanted to buy, they 1:03:57.840 --> 1:04:02.640 would buy them. And there was this awkward silence and 1:04:02.720 --> 1:04:06.760 the guy sat back down and the conversation continued about, well, 1:04:06.800 --> 1:04:08.600 how do we get these people to buy the records 1:04:08.840 --> 1:04:15.840 we're making? Um? Anyway, I you know, I knew that 1:04:16.160 --> 1:04:18.200 my audience was still out there. They couldn't all have 1:04:18.240 --> 1:04:20.560 died at once. It would have been in the newspapers. 1:04:21.560 --> 1:04:23.440 So how do I connect with them? And so I 1:04:23.480 --> 1:04:27.920 started a you know, a mail order, snail mail campaign, 1:04:27.960 --> 1:04:30.480 build a mailing list, and I took out ads in 1:04:30.880 --> 1:04:35.840 New Yorker and sold albums through the mail and it 1:04:36.000 --> 1:04:40.200 and it worked. You know, I wasn't selling tonnage by 1:04:40.240 --> 1:04:44.360 any means, but it was profitable. Okay. Was it depressing? 1:04:45.520 --> 1:04:52.040 Uh no, maybe maybe it should have been. UM, but 1:04:52.080 --> 1:04:54.080 it was a challenge, and I felt I was meeting 1:04:54.080 --> 1:04:56.280 the challenge and it was you know, my what I 1:04:56.320 --> 1:04:58.360 was trying to do was working, okay. But at some 1:04:58.440 --> 1:05:01.160 point you moved into he I'm sure, and you said 1:05:01.160 --> 1:05:04.320 I'm gonna become an agent. M hm. So you actually 1:05:04.400 --> 1:05:07.720 did pivot there at some point. Well, I moved to 1:05:07.720 --> 1:05:10.680 New Hampshire. There was a there was a point early 1:05:10.840 --> 1:05:18.640 seventies UM when I uh, a lot of my buddies 1:05:18.680 --> 1:05:20.720 were moving to the West Coast because that's where the 1:05:20.760 --> 1:05:25.200 action was now. And I decided, I'm burned out. I 1:05:25.440 --> 1:05:28.320 want to go where the action isn't and I went 1:05:28.360 --> 1:05:30.360 back to New Hampshire where I grew up, and I 1:05:30.400 --> 1:05:34.520 bought a farm. I had six acres with the house 1:05:34.560 --> 1:05:38.720 in the middle, and I basically rolled up the driveway 1:05:38.760 --> 1:05:43.520 and quit showbiz for about six months. And then I 1:05:43.560 --> 1:05:48.520 got an audience deprivation syndrome kicked in and I really 1:05:48.560 --> 1:05:51.840 wanted to to play for people again, and so I 1:05:51.840 --> 1:05:58.000 started on a very small level. Um you know, I 1:05:58.040 --> 1:06:01.640 got a I got a secretary and she called the 1:06:01.720 --> 1:06:07.440 venues that I used to play and booked me. And 1:06:07.440 --> 1:06:10.480 and then I decided, well, there's some other artists, you know, 1:06:10.680 --> 1:06:14.840 the people I'm excited about, but they're they're just starting 1:06:14.840 --> 1:06:18.440 out in their careers. So as long as I'm booking, 1:06:18.440 --> 1:06:21.680 why don't I try to book them as well? And 1:06:21.720 --> 1:06:28.760 so Christine Lavin and Patty Larkin, Bill Morrissy Um and 1:06:28.800 --> 1:06:33.600 a few others. I started started booking them within my 1:06:33.680 --> 1:06:40.480 little booking agency, which was not profitable because we were selling, 1:06:40.560 --> 1:06:45.800 you know, getting maybe two fifty bucks a night for 1:06:45.880 --> 1:06:48.760 these people and there's just no way to you know, 1:06:49.120 --> 1:06:52.640 pay the phone bill and the heat and the electricity 1:06:52.720 --> 1:06:57.480 and the salaries and make that work. So I was 1:06:57.520 --> 1:07:00.600 funding the operation by going out on weekends and doing shows. 1:07:02.560 --> 1:07:05.760 And I remember there was there was an eye opening moment. 1:07:05.800 --> 1:07:09.360 I did a show somewhere and I broke a string 1:07:09.560 --> 1:07:13.960 in the last song of this of the evening, and 1:07:14.040 --> 1:07:17.280 I didn't have another gig for three weeks. And I 1:07:17.320 --> 1:07:20.800 got to the next gig and I opened my guitar 1:07:20.880 --> 1:07:24.920 case and the string was still broken. I said, not, 1:07:25.440 --> 1:07:30.320 something's not right with this picture. And so I started 1:07:30.320 --> 1:07:36.880 slowing down and basically and at that point, I had 1:07:36.880 --> 1:07:40.760 a house fire that's pretty much destroyed the house and 1:07:40.920 --> 1:07:45.520 the the studio and the office space we were using. 1:07:45.600 --> 1:07:49.280 So I at that point scaled way back and just 1:07:49.440 --> 1:07:52.840 I was still booking myself for a little while. I'm 1:07:52.880 --> 1:08:00.320 now working through Skyline Music, which has been great. Um, 1:08:00.360 --> 1:08:04.560 but I got you know, I got back on the road, 1:08:04.680 --> 1:08:08.160 and one thing led to another, and I finally ended 1:08:08.240 --> 1:08:13.680 up signing up with Appleseed Recordings and went back into 1:08:13.680 --> 1:08:19.360 a real studio with Jim Rooney, my old buddy UM 1:08:19.360 --> 1:08:26.240 producing down in Nashville. And that was on the one hand, 1:08:26.240 --> 1:08:29.400 it was kind of disorienting because I had not been 1:08:29.439 --> 1:08:34.320 in a digital studio. Everything was analog in my head 1:08:35.160 --> 1:08:38.880 and I just couldn't adjust my brain to the idea 1:08:38.920 --> 1:08:41.559 that I would come out of the vocal booth and 1:08:41.600 --> 1:08:43.800 say I think I sang a little bit flat on that, 1:08:43.960 --> 1:08:46.240 and the engineer would interrupt me and say, I fixed it. 1:08:47.400 --> 1:08:49.559 I said, I, but I came in a little bit late. 1:08:49.800 --> 1:08:54.559 I fixed it. Why am I here? Why don't I 1:08:54.600 --> 1:09:01.439 just sing one note every note once and go home? Um? 1:09:01.479 --> 1:09:05.280 But it really is. It's a it's a you know, major, 1:09:05.640 --> 1:09:09.000 major step forward. It makes recording a lot more fun, 1:09:09.040 --> 1:09:12.679 a lot less tedious. And then I made my second 1:09:13.560 --> 1:09:17.000 album of Voices, my most recent one with Jim Rooney 1:09:17.000 --> 1:09:20.719 and Nashville, and that's the first album I ever wrote 1:09:20.760 --> 1:09:25.160 all the songs on. I'd always done mainly other people's 1:09:25.160 --> 1:09:28.439 songs a couple of my own, and I didn't set 1:09:28.479 --> 1:09:31.880 out to write an entire album, but I just when 1:09:31.880 --> 1:09:34.560 I sat down and looked at the song list, I said, hey, 1:09:34.840 --> 1:09:37.519 I wrote all of these, and I think it's my 1:09:37.560 --> 1:09:40.320 best album, and at this point I've got enough enough 1:09:40.439 --> 1:09:43.719 new songs for another new album. Okay, let's go back 1:09:43.760 --> 1:09:46.599 at what point, like if the Circle Game ironically has 1:09:47.160 --> 1:09:50.559 legendary songs by others that you first recorded, but also 1:09:50.760 --> 1:09:54.639 a couple of your own legendary compositions, So what point 1:09:54.720 --> 1:09:58.639 did you start to write and how did you balance 1:09:58.680 --> 1:10:00.920 whether you wanted to use other of people's songs or 1:10:00.960 --> 1:10:05.599 your own. Well, if you I'll back up to that 1:10:05.720 --> 1:10:09.320 first Live at the Unicorn album. There's a song on 1:10:09.400 --> 1:10:13.840 there called Julie's Blues, and I'm I'm uncertain as to 1:10:13.880 --> 1:10:18.200 whether I should say that I wrote it or assembled it. 1:10:18.200 --> 1:10:24.439 It's almost entirely compiled of floating verses, which is the 1:10:24.479 --> 1:10:27.559 folklore term for verses that appear in a lot of 1:10:27.600 --> 1:10:30.400 different songs. So there are a lot of lines in 1:10:30.439 --> 1:10:33.120 there that I lifted from this blues or that blues, 1:10:34.040 --> 1:10:36.240 and I assembled the song. I don't feel I really 1:10:36.280 --> 1:10:40.160 wrote it, but technically it's you know, the copyrights in 1:10:40.200 --> 1:10:43.479 my name, so I wrote that. The second one was 1:10:43.640 --> 1:10:48.320 on the Road Again, um, which I just actually served 1:10:48.400 --> 1:10:52.439 up yesterday for Rockport Sundays because I'm on the road 1:10:52.479 --> 1:10:58.920 again going to Alexandria to play the Birchmere UM and 1:10:58.960 --> 1:11:02.200 that that was based age that that song is from 1:11:02.320 --> 1:11:06.599 what I call the Rand McNally school of songwriting, you know, 1:11:06.640 --> 1:11:09.880 talking about a trip to Florida. And then the third 1:11:09.880 --> 1:11:13.960 song I ever wrote was No Regrets, which came about 1:11:14.080 --> 1:11:17.360 because my girlfriend Joel Lumpkin, who was on the cover 1:11:17.479 --> 1:11:22.400 of UM of the Circle Game album, had come to Boston. 1:11:22.560 --> 1:11:25.240 She wasn't my girlfriend at that point. She came to 1:11:25.320 --> 1:11:30.360 Boston and spent the weekend with me, and I had 1:11:30.439 --> 1:11:33.559 never at that point spent an entire weekend with anybody before, 1:11:34.720 --> 1:11:37.760 three days and three nights in a row. And I 1:11:37.800 --> 1:11:40.600 took her back to Logan Airport on Monday morning to 1:11:40.600 --> 1:11:44.559 put her on the plane, and it felt strange walking 1:11:44.600 --> 1:11:49.839 away alone. And I went back to my apartment and 1:11:49.840 --> 1:11:53.439 and started working on No Regrets, which is about the 1:11:53.600 --> 1:11:56.320 end of a long relationship where it feels strange walking 1:11:56.360 --> 1:12:00.839 away alone, feels strange lying awake along and feel strange 1:12:00.880 --> 1:12:05.120 living my life alone. UM. And then we actually did 1:12:05.200 --> 1:12:07.479 have a long relationship and we broke up, and the 1:12:07.600 --> 1:12:10.519 song came true. But that was the third song I 1:12:10.600 --> 1:12:14.280 ever wrote, and it's the one that's been covered by 1:12:14.640 --> 1:12:17.519 a lot, a lot of a lot of people. Johnny 1:12:17.600 --> 1:12:24.160 Cash and Waylon Jennings. And where's Julie Lumpkin today, Jill Lumpkin? 1:12:24.520 --> 1:12:29.559 Excuse me, Jill Lumpkin. I've been out of touch with 1:12:29.600 --> 1:12:32.200 her for quite a while. But my understanding is she's 1:12:32.479 --> 1:12:37.800 in in India. While we were together, I sent her 1:12:37.880 --> 1:12:41.200 to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I 1:12:41.200 --> 1:12:43.599 paid for tuition to go there, and she got into 1:12:44.720 --> 1:12:48.559 the clothing trade and ended up spending a lot of 1:12:48.600 --> 1:12:52.360 time in India. My understanding is that she moved there, 1:12:53.560 --> 1:13:00.639 she adopted a young orphan kid, and that young orphan 1:13:00.760 --> 1:13:05.439 kid is now a very wealthy man who bought her 1:13:05.439 --> 1:13:10.280 a house and has basically taken care of her, which 1:13:10.320 --> 1:13:12.439 I think is a fact fact. Do you know how 1:13:12.479 --> 1:13:15.880 the kid became so wealthy? I do not. But she 1:13:16.000 --> 1:13:18.519 never got married. You ruined her for that. Well, I 1:13:18.520 --> 1:13:20.920 don't know about that. I don't think she ever got married. 1:13:20.920 --> 1:13:24.040 I'm pretty sure she didn't. Okay, and you've been married twice, 1:13:25.120 --> 1:13:29.000 I have been. It's well, I'm I'm currently married, yes, 1:13:29.720 --> 1:13:32.920 But your first marriage, how do you definally decide ty 1:13:33.000 --> 1:13:36.800 the nod? What killed that? Well, it was being on 1:13:36.880 --> 1:13:40.800 the road so much. Um, I was just I was 1:13:40.840 --> 1:13:45.679 a rotten husband basically being on the road so much. 1:13:45.880 --> 1:13:50.040 And you know, I have two boys from that marriage, 1:13:50.040 --> 1:13:53.760 and I feel badly, but I was also not a 1:13:53.880 --> 1:13:57.639 very good dad for them. I'm hopefully a better dad 1:13:57.680 --> 1:14:00.680 now than I was back then, but I was just 1:14:00.720 --> 1:14:05.839 gone a lot. And you know, my my wife, Beverley, 1:14:06.000 --> 1:14:10.600 got got sick of it and moved out and and 1:14:10.720 --> 1:14:14.880 we got divorced. And did she ever get remarried? She 1:14:15.000 --> 1:14:19.439 did not? Okay, And what's your relationship with those sons today? 1:14:20.560 --> 1:14:23.200 It's good, one of them in Scotland, one of them 1:14:23.320 --> 1:14:27.559 in Arizona. But we're you know, we're in touch on 1:14:27.680 --> 1:14:31.320 a regular basis. And you have a younger daughter too. 1:14:31.600 --> 1:14:36.840 I have a daughter who's just twenty one, uh, a 1:14:38.200 --> 1:14:44.840 senior halfway through her senior year in college. And and 1:14:44.880 --> 1:14:48.240 are we have We have a very good relationship. But 1:14:48.360 --> 1:14:51.080 you know, when one goes to see you live, there's 1:14:51.160 --> 1:14:54.040 tons of humor. You know, you say, well, I decided 1:14:54.040 --> 1:14:58.320 to have my own grandkids, etcetera. To what degree is 1:14:58.400 --> 1:15:01.760 humor important in your life at in your show. I 1:15:01.800 --> 1:15:06.760 think it's essential. It's essential in life. I mean, there's 1:15:06.800 --> 1:15:11.439 just especially now, there's so much grim stuff going on. 1:15:12.479 --> 1:15:14.800 I would rather laugh than cry. So I will try 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:19.560 to figure out where the where the funny side of 1:15:20.000 --> 1:15:23.759 things is and go there. And I think for the shows. 1:15:24.600 --> 1:15:28.000 I learned very early on Bob that if the audience 1:15:28.080 --> 1:15:31.040 likes you, they are much more apt to like the 1:15:31.080 --> 1:15:35.240 song you're about to do. So I would. I started telling, 1:15:35.479 --> 1:15:39.040 you know, stories about the songs, or stories that weren't 1:15:39.040 --> 1:15:44.640 about the songs, to try to, you know, lighten the 1:15:44.680 --> 1:15:48.720 mood and you know, draw the crowd in and it 1:15:48.920 --> 1:15:50.800 and it worked to the point where I now get 1:15:51.160 --> 1:15:54.040 requests for the stories. Tell the one about the guy 1:15:54.080 --> 1:15:58.040 from New Hampshire. It blows my mind. But I put 1:15:58.160 --> 1:16:01.880 actually put out an album called Rolling for Owls that 1:16:02.040 --> 1:16:07.080 is a compilation of silly stories and funny songs. Somebody 1:16:07.120 --> 1:16:10.519 said you should really compile. I was all into on 1:16:10.680 --> 1:16:14.000 an album and I did, and people seem to like 1:16:14.080 --> 1:16:16.680 it a lot. I have to warn people do not 1:16:16.880 --> 1:16:20.360 drive while listening to this album, because I've had I've 1:16:20.360 --> 1:16:22.920 had many people to say I almost went off the road. 1:16:24.840 --> 1:16:29.840 You know the song. The stories the same every night. Um, 1:16:29.960 --> 1:16:34.120 they evolve, they evolve. I remember one once in your 1:16:36.360 --> 1:16:39.559 you questioned the veracity of some of my songs, some 1:16:39.680 --> 1:16:43.000 of my stories, and I think my reply was that 1:16:44.280 --> 1:16:46.799 my stories are not just true, there in many cases 1:16:46.880 --> 1:16:51.160 better than true, having been polished, not unlike gemstones in 1:16:51.160 --> 1:16:55.519 the tumbler of time. Now you mentioned you have an 1:16:55.560 --> 1:16:58.480 agent you're very happy with. What is your view on managers? 1:16:59.640 --> 1:17:04.160 I have had bad luck with managers, um, and so 1:17:04.240 --> 1:17:06.439 I currently do not have a manager. I am my 1:17:06.479 --> 1:17:09.559 own manager, which is a lot like trying to be 1:17:09.600 --> 1:17:13.679 your own dentist. Um, it's probably not the smartest thing 1:17:15.200 --> 1:17:20.679 to do. But um again, I just I've had bad 1:17:20.760 --> 1:17:27.400 luck with managers, managers giving me bad advice and getting 1:17:27.400 --> 1:17:29.960 me to do things that didn't work out, and so 1:17:30.120 --> 1:17:33.520 forth and so on. It's not like, you know, I'd 1:17:33.600 --> 1:17:36.400 be a rock star to day if it wasn't for 1:17:36.760 --> 1:17:41.719 this crummy manager. But I just, you know, I seem 1:17:41.760 --> 1:17:45.840 to do okay. And are there certain songs who absolutely 1:17:45.840 --> 1:17:52.120 have to play in every show? Um? I I would 1:17:52.160 --> 1:17:56.120 say no, although there's a list of songs from which 1:17:56.200 --> 1:18:01.320 I should do some I mean, my crowd comes. I've 1:18:01.360 --> 1:18:03.240 got a problem in that I've got a bunch of 1:18:03.280 --> 1:18:06.639 new songs that I think are really good, and in fact, 1:18:06.800 --> 1:18:09.680 the audience thinks they're really good. But the fact is 1:18:09.720 --> 1:18:13.760 they came to hear the songs they know, and so 1:18:13.840 --> 1:18:17.439 I've got to scratch that itch for them. I've got 1:18:17.479 --> 1:18:21.599 to do something from I've got to do either Urge 1:18:21.600 --> 1:18:25.240 for Going or Circle Game or No Regrets or These 1:18:25.320 --> 1:18:28.400 Days or Driving Wheel or who do You Love? Or 1:18:29.120 --> 1:18:31.640 you know. There's a certain certain number of songs that 1:18:31.680 --> 1:18:35.080 I've I've got to I've got to do five or 1:18:35.120 --> 1:18:39.000 six of them during the course of the evening. But 1:18:39.520 --> 1:18:41.559 the good news is, having been doing this for fifty 1:18:41.640 --> 1:18:43.640 eight years, there's quite a long list that I have 1:18:43.720 --> 1:18:46.720 to choose from. Every time I've seen you've done the 1:18:46.720 --> 1:18:54.160 Panama Limited because their shows, you don't do it. Oh yeah, okay, okay, 1:18:54.200 --> 1:18:57.240 And so now fifty eight years in you don't have 1:18:57.320 --> 1:18:59.960 the choice. But if you could do it all over, 1:19:00.160 --> 1:19:03.400 would you be, ah, you've a professional musician, or would 1:19:03.400 --> 1:19:08.600 you have done something else? I think, you know, yeah, 1:19:08.800 --> 1:19:14.680 I can't imagine having more fun doing anything else. My 1:19:15.040 --> 1:19:18.280 you know, my career path was not really set having 1:19:18.800 --> 1:19:22.600 graduated from Harvard with an English lip degree. There's no 1:19:23.720 --> 1:19:29.799 straightforward career path there except to be an English teacher. Um, 1:19:29.840 --> 1:19:33.120 and I certainly didn't want to do that, So I 1:19:33.120 --> 1:19:36.000 don't know what else, what else I would have I 1:19:36.000 --> 1:19:39.600 would have done. I want to see David Geffen at 1:19:39.680 --> 1:19:42.280 one point when I was shopping for a record deal, 1:19:43.760 --> 1:19:46.760 and I knew David from from earlier on in his 1:19:46.840 --> 1:19:50.400 career and in my career, and I pitched him the 1:19:50.439 --> 1:19:56.839 idea of signing me up to UM asylum. And he said, oh, 1:19:56.880 --> 1:20:00.680 I I thought she wanted a producer's job and A 1:20:00.760 --> 1:20:05.759 and R an A and R job. And I guess, 1:20:05.800 --> 1:20:11.160 you know, having you know, having picked songs from Jonny 1:20:11.280 --> 1:20:14.920 Jackson and James that might have been a a reasonable 1:20:15.000 --> 1:20:18.640 notion that, okay, this guy's got good ears, But I 1:20:19.040 --> 1:20:23.479 really had no interest in in doing that. You know, 1:20:23.520 --> 1:20:27.760 I love getting in front of an audience. And with 1:20:27.840 --> 1:20:31.000 the time you have left, anything you want or need 1:20:31.040 --> 1:20:36.000 to accomplish, well, I'd like to get Rockports Sundays up 1:20:36.240 --> 1:20:42.360 closer to that seven and a half billion subscribers. Mark. Um. Yeah, 1:20:42.400 --> 1:20:45.519 I've got I've got three books in the works, maybe four, 1:20:45.640 --> 1:20:50.439 depending on how you count them. Um. I definitely want 1:20:50.439 --> 1:20:55.080 to make another album with Jim Rooney and Nashville Records, 1:20:55.160 --> 1:20:57.880 some of these new songs that haven't haven't seen the 1:20:57.920 --> 1:21:03.760 light of day yet. Uh Um. I'd also like to 1:21:03.960 --> 1:21:07.800 you know, the Club forty seven. It was very important 1:21:08.000 --> 1:21:11.720 to me and at one point, Um, I now own 1:21:11.760 --> 1:21:16.000 the name Club forty seven and I've done shows under 1:21:16.040 --> 1:21:19.400 that banner, and the theme of those shows is I 1:21:19.479 --> 1:21:21.679 get a couple of well known artists and a couple 1:21:21.720 --> 1:21:27.320 of newcomers together and I browbeat everybody into playing with 1:21:27.439 --> 1:21:29.840 one another. You can't just go out there and do 1:21:29.960 --> 1:21:33.639 your regular thing. You've got to you know, you've got 1:21:33.640 --> 1:21:36.080 to sing harmonies with this kid, or you've got to 1:21:36.160 --> 1:21:39.800 play you know, guitar behind this kid, or this kid 1:21:39.840 --> 1:21:44.000 has to sing harmonies with you. Um. And the audiences 1:21:44.080 --> 1:21:46.040 love it because they get to hear I mean, the 1:21:46.040 --> 1:21:51.840 newcomers are monstrously talented, they're just unknown, and so the 1:21:51.880 --> 1:21:56.400 audience goes home thinking, Wow, I just heard something really special. 1:21:56.840 --> 1:22:00.000 So I would love to do some Club forty seven 1:22:00.040 --> 1:22:05.840 and shows in the vein of rockports Sundays. I would 1:22:05.880 --> 1:22:12.040 love to get different artists that are their buddies of mine, 1:22:12.320 --> 1:22:15.760 maybe some that aren't. I would love to call, you know, 1:22:15.920 --> 1:22:18.960 I'd love to call Garth Brooks and say, do you 1:22:19.000 --> 1:22:21.400 have is there a kid that you're really excited about? 1:22:21.760 --> 1:22:24.880 Would you like to come do some songs with me? 1:22:26.320 --> 1:22:29.200 Where you know, you do a song, I do a song, 1:22:29.240 --> 1:22:31.280 We do a song together, the kid does a song, 1:22:32.720 --> 1:22:37.320 and we'll we'll, you know, try to get this kid noticed. 1:22:38.840 --> 1:22:41.120 I mean, that's partly why you know, I've enjoyed working 1:22:41.120 --> 1:22:43.640 with Matt Nikola so much as I do think I 1:22:43.680 --> 1:22:48.840 have helped get his name out there. I've helped him 1:22:49.000 --> 1:22:52.360 move along his audience. He's got a you know, a 1:22:52.360 --> 1:22:56.160 different audience than I do, but my audience loves him 1:22:56.160 --> 1:22:59.439 to bits and they are now part of his audience. 1:23:00.439 --> 1:23:02.479 Just going back to the books for a second, because 1:23:02.479 --> 1:23:06.000 I know on the Patreon, in addition to the music, 1:23:06.479 --> 1:23:11.320 you also reveal or distribute other information that might be 1:23:11.400 --> 1:23:13.679 part of the book. So is there one main book, 1:23:13.720 --> 1:23:18.280 like an autobiography that you're working on? The books? Well, 1:23:18.560 --> 1:23:21.600 part of what I'm what I'm doling out to the 1:23:22.960 --> 1:23:28.479 do a month crowd is pages from the the book 1:23:28.520 --> 1:23:32.920 of lyrics that I'm writing. Um, there's the lyrics to 1:23:33.000 --> 1:23:37.080 my songs with maybe a page or two of backstory 1:23:37.160 --> 1:23:39.080 about the song and what I was doing at this 1:23:39.160 --> 1:23:41.800 point in my life. It's becoming a little bit of 1:23:41.800 --> 1:23:47.720 an autobiography. Um. But then the main autobiography is kind 1:23:47.720 --> 1:23:53.760 of stalled stalled out the other book that and then 1:23:53.800 --> 1:23:56.960 there's a novel that I'm only writing from my own entertainment. 1:23:57.680 --> 1:23:59.720 I write it because I want to find out what 1:23:59.720 --> 1:24:02.280 happened is next. I don't think it will ever happen 1:24:02.320 --> 1:24:05.360 to see the light of day, probably. But the other 1:24:05.400 --> 1:24:09.320 book that I'm having fun with is um called Roadmap. 1:24:09.800 --> 1:24:14.360 Working title Roadmap and subtitle is why you probably don't 1:24:14.360 --> 1:24:18.320 want to be a touring musician. And it's a story. 1:24:18.479 --> 1:24:21.320 It's just stuff about you know, how to do a 1:24:21.360 --> 1:24:25.040 sound check, how to conduct an interview, how to keep 1:24:25.080 --> 1:24:30.560 mentioning rockports Sundays even though you're not being asked about it. Um, 1:24:30.720 --> 1:24:33.320 what does a manager do as opposed to an agent? 1:24:34.800 --> 1:24:37.880 Band dynamics? You know, how to conduct a rehearsal, how 1:24:37.920 --> 1:24:43.760 to read an audience, how to do a sound check? Um. 1:24:43.800 --> 1:24:46.559 And I've got about I don't know about three fifty 1:24:46.560 --> 1:24:49.760 pages so far. How many more do you are you 1:24:49.760 --> 1:24:52.080 are going to be necessary before you whittle it down. 1:24:52.439 --> 1:24:57.280 I'm what, They're very disorganized now. So basically, part of 1:24:57.320 --> 1:25:00.439 the part of what's good about the Patreon model is 1:25:00.479 --> 1:25:03.240 that it forces me to work on these things because 1:25:03.280 --> 1:25:06.080 I've got to you know, next Sunday, I've got to 1:25:06.080 --> 1:25:08.320 put something out, So I've got to finish up this 1:25:08.400 --> 1:25:15.600 thing that's only half finished. Um but that book, you know, 1:25:15.640 --> 1:25:17.960 I've just written a page or two or a paragraph 1:25:18.080 --> 1:25:21.559 or ten pages every time something occurs to me. I'm 1:25:21.600 --> 1:25:25.559 sure I've covered the same turf twice three times in 1:25:25.600 --> 1:25:28.960 some cases, and then there's gonna be gaps where I 1:25:29.000 --> 1:25:31.920 didn't write something that should have been written. So basically, 1:25:32.000 --> 1:25:34.120 I just I need to organize that and get it, 1:25:34.960 --> 1:25:39.400 get it shaped up and presentable. And you know, you 1:25:39.439 --> 1:25:43.000 do these things rockports Sunday and you have these live performances. 1:25:43.000 --> 1:25:45.000 So they all done it once and then dribbled out 1:25:45.120 --> 1:25:48.440 or do you get together once a week. No, they 1:25:48.479 --> 1:25:51.080 it's it's complex enough to get everybody in the same 1:25:51.200 --> 1:25:54.800 rooms that we we record a bunch at once and 1:25:54.840 --> 1:25:59.120 then serve them up. Okay, well, I'll look forward to 1:25:59.200 --> 1:26:02.320 next Sunday. Thanks for taking the time here, Tom, I 1:26:02.360 --> 1:26:04.480 know you've got to get back to work for the deadline, 1:26:04.640 --> 1:26:08.280 so thanks for doing this. Oh thanks for having me 1:26:08.320 --> 1:26:12.160 on pleasure until next time. This is Bob Left Sex