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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is truly alleged the one and only

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Speaker 1: Di diabb. It's a pleasure to be with you. Good

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Speaker 1: to be here. Okay, you just put out to Christmas singles.

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Speaker 1: What's the story without? Well, uh, the first one I

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Speaker 1: wrote was, you know, it's Christmas and Uh. I was

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Speaker 1: sitting around with a couple of friends of mine and

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Speaker 1: we were saying, the world could really use a shot

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Speaker 1: of some love and harmony and transcendence and and uh

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Speaker 1: peace and serenity or some togetherness. You know, we were

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Speaker 1: just I said, you know, I said, Christmas is the

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Speaker 1: grace that uh changed my life. So I'm gonna write

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Speaker 1: a Christmas song. So I thought, now, what does the

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Speaker 1: blues man do or a rock and roller do when

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Speaker 1: he when he writes a Christmas song? You know that

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a a bragging tradition. You know, I'm

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Speaker 1: from the Bronx. I was like, you know that, like

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Speaker 1: the Wanderer. You know, it's like a bragging tradition. So

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Speaker 1: I wrote a song about a guy that bought his

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Speaker 1: girlfriend a perfect present and he can't wait for her

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Speaker 1: to open it because he's he can't wait to see

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Speaker 1: the look on her face, you know, he you know,

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Speaker 1: and that happens only once every twenty years. You get

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Speaker 1: the perfect gift. So that's what the song is about.

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Speaker 1: So and then when Joe Bonamasa heard it, he said, Dion, man,

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Speaker 1: you are prolific. You just keep cranking him out. I

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Speaker 1: want to play on this. So he joined me and

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Speaker 1: we we made a little video and uh and uh.

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Speaker 1: I did the song with a few friends of mine

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Speaker 1: and it was just a lot of fun to do.

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Speaker 1: You know. The second song again, I I just thought,

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Speaker 1: you know, we need something to bring us together, you know,

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Speaker 1: and Christmas is my favorite holiday. I just I don't

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Speaker 1: know something about you know, it's it's a life is

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Speaker 1: about giving, and that's what Christmas is about, you know.

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Speaker 1: And I try to keep the spirit lady around. It's

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Speaker 1: the spirit of true charity, you know, like just giving

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Speaker 1: with it, uh you know. Uh. So we I put

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Speaker 1: this song together and welcoming Christmas and sharing it with

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Speaker 1: with people, and when I finished it, I just thought

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Speaker 1: of Amy Grant. I've known Amy Grant uh uh since

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Speaker 1: she was nineteen years old. I when I met her

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Speaker 1: when she was nineteen fell in love with a voice.

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Speaker 1: She had this song El Shadai and my Father's Eyes,

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Speaker 1: and so we've been friends all these years. I I

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Speaker 1: just called her up. I said, Amy, I have a song.

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Speaker 1: And she heard it and she said, Dion, I love

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Speaker 1: this type of thing where you don't plan. It's just

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Speaker 1: in the flow, you know. And she says, yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: do it. So she smiled through it and knocked it

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Speaker 1: out and just just she made it something sublime. I

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Speaker 1: thought it was good when I finished it, but she

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Speaker 1: really It shows you how limited I am. You know,

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Speaker 1: when when uh, when an artist, any artists, you get

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Speaker 1: somebody that distinctive like Joe Bonamassa or Amy Grant. They

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Speaker 1: they they just infuse, uh anyway attract that I did

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Speaker 1: with such wonder They make it sublime. So how do

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Speaker 1: you know Joe Bonamassa, Joe, Uh, it's crazy. His manager

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Speaker 1: must live about. He's in walking distance from me. His manager,

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Speaker 1: Roy Weisman. And I was walking one day around the

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Speaker 1: lake and I met Roy Weisman and we became friends.

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Speaker 1: I have a lake in my neighborhood here. It's like

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Speaker 1: a mile and two point too, you know, So we

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Speaker 1: walk around and uh, we have some great conversations. Uh

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Speaker 1: and uh, he says, Joe is coming into town. And

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Speaker 1: Joe comes over the house, you know, and uh, he's

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Speaker 1: just a a regular guy, likes to pick up my guitars.

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Speaker 1: We like to talk about the blues and the and

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Speaker 1: the history of what we're doing and the roots of it.

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Speaker 1: And we we have a we resonate, you know, with

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Speaker 1: the same artists. A lot of what connects what we're doing,

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Speaker 1: you know, from the thirties and forties, and you know

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Speaker 1: American roots music and this album. You know, we're in

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Speaker 1: covid era. So how did you actually do the recording?

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Speaker 1: Everybody recorded in their own space, and then you put

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Speaker 1: it together. You know, I put this album together. It

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Speaker 1: was complete. It seemed like the day I finished it,

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Speaker 1: we went and shut down. I think, like somewhere in March,

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Speaker 1: I had this is this is the album, not the

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Speaker 1: Christmas tracks, the album with all original and all these

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Speaker 1: special stars. Absolutely. Yeah, it's called Blues with Friends and

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Speaker 1: I have I tell you, it's crazy, Bob. I know,

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Speaker 1: we started out talking about the Christmas songs, but I

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Speaker 1: went in I had these fourteen songs that I had

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Speaker 1: accumulated over a few years because I was working on

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Speaker 1: a play and I never went into the studio. But

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Speaker 1: I had some time. I thought, let me go in

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Speaker 1: and cut these things. So I go into the studio.

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Speaker 1: I knocked the fourteen songs out in two days, just

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Speaker 1: me and my guitar. Well, now is this a studio

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Speaker 1: in your house or use a local studio? Would you use? Uh?

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Speaker 1: A friend of mine has a studio. Right time I

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Speaker 1: say a studio, it's a room in his house. He

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Speaker 1: has a he has all the equipment, high tech equipment.

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Speaker 1: I sat on a folding chat, took my guitar. He says,

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Speaker 1: sing them like you sing them in your house. I

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Speaker 1: took the guitar out, I went through all the I

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Speaker 1: went through about eight songs the first day. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: the second day I came back, I knocked out about

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Speaker 1: six of them. So I started, uh, you know, brought

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Speaker 1: in a bass player, drummer, keyboard, you know rhads. I

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Speaker 1: love roads. Yeah, I just love that. So so I

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Speaker 1: I built up some tracks and then I had something.

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Speaker 1: I said, Man, these things are great, this is something special.

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Speaker 1: I really felt it was. You know, I know how

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Speaker 1: to write a song, I know how to make a record.

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Speaker 1: But then this started this. This uh something I've I've

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Speaker 1: never experienced before. Again, Joe Bonamassa started it. I think

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Speaker 1: he's the catalyst. I think it's fair to say that.

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Speaker 1: You know, he gave me the vision for it because

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Speaker 1: he heard blues coming on one of the songs on

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Speaker 1: the Blues with Friends album and he he heard it

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Speaker 1: and he said, Diane, I gotta play on this. He's so,

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Speaker 1: I said, be my guest man. You know, Joe Bonamassa.

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Speaker 1: This guy's mesmerizing, masterful, you know, monster guitarists. I said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I never knew what he Listen, Bob, this this is

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Speaker 1: the This is the thing about this. It's like I

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Speaker 1: usually get a guitar player to come into the studio

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Speaker 1: and you go, yeah, give me this, give me that,

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Speaker 1: and he plays, you know, and and he fills the

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Speaker 1: track in. But you when you ask an artist, you

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Speaker 1: don't know what they're hearing, what they're they're very distinctive.

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Speaker 1: It's like they come up with something that's not even

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Speaker 1: on your radar. So he picked he picked up a

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Speaker 1: slide guitar. I mean, you know, he started playing slide

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Speaker 1: on it, and which I didn't hear. I really didn't

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Speaker 1: hear slide on it. But when he started playing, what

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Speaker 1: I was hearing was almost like a horn section, like

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Speaker 1: you you could hear and his playing. You think you're

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Speaker 1: you're listening to the Apollo Theater band with with headed

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Speaker 1: by Miles Davis and John Coltrane with King Curtis, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the side. But because he's playing this stuff and

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Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's just crazy good. You know, it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: what he did. So, uh, I'm listening to this thing

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Speaker 1: in my house, I'm thinking, what, uh this this is

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Speaker 1: something really special. I mean, I thought the song was good,

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Speaker 1: just the record I'm trying to make, but he made

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Speaker 1: it something spec It's like you go to the Olympics

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Speaker 1: to jump nineteen feet at the pole vault and I

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Speaker 1: don't know, some wind takes you three ft and you

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Speaker 1: break the world record. You know. So that's the way

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Speaker 1: it felt. So I then as I started listening to

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Speaker 1: the tracks, I said, you know, I think I'm I

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Speaker 1: told Wayne Hood, who who is the engineer co producer

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Speaker 1: with me. I said, Wayne, I think I'm gonna call

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Speaker 1: Patty Scalfe for this song. Him to him, she has

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Speaker 1: that Jersey soul. She she's like the Jersey soul girl.

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Speaker 1: She'll add something to this song. I know it. So

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Speaker 1: I sent it to Patty and I thought, here's the deal, Bob,

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Speaker 1: this is the this is the great part about why

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Speaker 1: this album was so much fun to make. Sometimes albums

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Speaker 1: excruciating hard work. This thing was like I would is

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Speaker 1: like I felt like I was riding a wave, you know. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I sent it to Patty. I thought she was gonna

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Speaker 1: echo some of the lines I, you know, sang, and

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Speaker 1: she was gonna hit some harmony, which was very uh

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Speaker 1: you know obvious. You know, maybe she'll sing harmony here

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Speaker 1: and there. This is what I'm thinking, this is why

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Speaker 1: I make a record. But no, She goes in and

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Speaker 1: lays her voice or stacks her vocals about twelve times,

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Speaker 1: and she captures the wind that the Holy Spirit on

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Speaker 1: the on the on the record, you know. And then

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Speaker 1: Bruce walks and he says, what are you doing? And

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Speaker 1: she says, I'm doing a record with Dihon. He says,

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Speaker 1: I love this song. He says, ask him if I

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Speaker 1: could play a solo. She she she calls me. She says,

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Speaker 1: Bruce wants to play a solo, And I said, do

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Speaker 1: I have to pay him? So so I said, okay,

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Speaker 1: could you know so she uh, so he played a

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Speaker 1: solo on it. So I got, you know, this this

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Speaker 1: is the fun I was. And then I I thought,

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Speaker 1: well me, and I asked, you know, I have Bruce

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Speaker 1: and Petty. Let me call Stephen van Zan. He's he's

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Speaker 1: a friend. We go way back, used to we we

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Speaker 1: played together in the seventies, you know, and we've been

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Speaker 1: friends all these years. So you know, he jumped on

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Speaker 1: a song called way Down. So that's how it started,

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Speaker 1: you know. And I just and and Bob, I kid

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Speaker 1: you not. I just didn't send the songs out from

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Speaker 1: here on in like to just two people because of

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Speaker 1: who they were or you know. Uh, I was listening

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Speaker 1: to stuff and I'm a big fan of like Sonny

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Speaker 1: Landreth's guitar slide guitar playing. I knew the song, I

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Speaker 1: got the queue and needed a slide guitar player that

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Speaker 1: I knew and and I thought, this guy, this guy

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Speaker 1: is the best. So and Sonny was just thrilled to

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Speaker 1: do it. Some anti fish. You know, I know she's

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Speaker 1: from New Orleans. I mean, I mean she lives that

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Speaker 1: nobody in New Orleans place bad nobody. So I I

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Speaker 1: you know, she jumped on it. So it was just fun.

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Speaker 1: Every time, either I was in the studio with people

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Speaker 1: like Little Stephen and John Hammond, or I had to

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Speaker 1: send it to send them the recording, like uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Brian sets up he was in the Midwest somewhere

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Speaker 1: I had I I sent them Uptown number seven. But

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Speaker 1: I heard him on it. It was like a rockabilly thing,

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Speaker 1: you know, so um you know, it just it went

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Speaker 1: from there and it was exciting. Man, it was like fun.

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Speaker 1: It was just it was like every time uh, I

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Speaker 1: got someone to contribute their vision and what they were

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Speaker 1: hearing onto the track I did. It was so exciting

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Speaker 1: for me because it was like a gift. It was

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Speaker 1: almost like unwrapping a present or something, you know. And

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Speaker 1: I found out something about myself at this age, all

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Speaker 1: the years that I've been around, man, I hate to

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Speaker 1: ask anybody for anything. You know. I was brought up,

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Speaker 1: you know, you do it yourself, you know, like a

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Speaker 1: pride thing. You know. I don't know what it was.

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Speaker 1: I just never said, hey, I could use your help.

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Speaker 1: Never that would have been like, I don't know weakness,

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Speaker 1: I don't know the neighborhood, I was in this macho

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Speaker 1: Italian crap. You know, I don't know what it was,

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Speaker 1: but I'm telling you did I appreciate people these acts

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Speaker 1: of service or the or the the giving or the

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Speaker 1: time they put into uh my thing. It was like

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Speaker 1: it was like truly a blessing. Okay, how did you

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Speaker 1: get Van Morrison and Jeff back on the record. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'll go with from Marrison first. Van Morrison is my

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Speaker 1: wife's favorite singer and I know him. We go out

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Speaker 1: for dinner. Every time he comes close to my house.

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Speaker 1: He gives me a call. Let's let's go back. How

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Speaker 1: do you know Vann Morrison? I met Van Morrison back

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Speaker 1: at the Spectrum in Philadelphia with the Moody Blues, back

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Speaker 1: when he had uh, you know, moon dance out and

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Speaker 1: we became friends. I'm just a little more interested. So

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Speaker 1: you were out the Spectrum, we were on the show together. Oh,

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Speaker 1: you were on the show together. Okay, we were backstage

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Speaker 1: and uh, I just we started talking and we both

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Speaker 1: uh we hit it up because we we both had

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Speaker 1: something in common with Bert Burns. Uh with an Then

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Speaker 1: again you start you start like bonding on on people,

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, with John Lee Hooker and and

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Speaker 1: jazz and the horn players at the Apollo. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was telling him one time, I said, I said Van,

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Speaker 1: I said, you know, I said, the when I put

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Speaker 1: these guys together and I recruited what became Dion and

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Speaker 1: the Belmonts. I said, uh, the way I used to

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Speaker 1: do the arrangements for the wander or Runaround Sue or

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Speaker 1: Ruby Baby. I said, when I heard the the the

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Speaker 1: horn section at the Apollo, I would just try to

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Speaker 1: imitate the horn section. So I give these guys parts,

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Speaker 1: you know, like Ruby Baby. It's like Rue Man, it's

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Speaker 1: like a horn section. Madd Ant and dad at and

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Speaker 1: Dad or the Wanderer. We were we're going like that

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Speaker 1: lola la la la up. But it's like uh bot

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Speaker 1: blood do and do it out out and do that ut.

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Speaker 1: Now you know it's it's like horns. So when I

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Speaker 1: when I was explaining that stuff to him and he said, man,

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Speaker 1: I want to sing like a horn, I said me too.

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Speaker 1: I said, I'm a rhythm singer. I don't hold notes.

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Speaker 1: I like to but that. But let her doesn't do

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Speaker 1: that and do that. But do you know, so, I said,

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Speaker 1: I'm a rhythm singer. You give me a beat and

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Speaker 1: we just bonded on that stuff, you know, and so

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Speaker 1: we've been fresh. So I always told my wife, I said, listen,

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Speaker 1: Van Morrison and I are soul brothers. Man. She said, no,

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Speaker 1: he's bad, you know, She's give me all this stuff,

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Speaker 1: but she loves Van Morrison. She's like you get in

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Speaker 1: her car. She has twelfth Van Marrison c ds, so

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Speaker 1: still has a CD playing right of couse. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: I I I asked Van. I thought, you know, let

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Speaker 1: me ask him, and I wanted him to play Actually

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Speaker 1: I wanted him to play horn, and he said no,

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Speaker 1: I'd rather sing with you. So I wrote this song.

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Speaker 1: I had this song called I Got Nothing. So I said, man,

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Speaker 1: when you got Van Mark, I told Susan. I said, man,

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Speaker 1: when you sing it with Van Morrison, nothing is good

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Speaker 1: enough is more than enough, you know. I said that

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Speaker 1: it was so much fun doing this record with him,

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Speaker 1: because you know, he's he's just so free a band

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Speaker 1: and he yells, he's just so not he's so honest,

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Speaker 1: so natural, you know, And you know I'm like that

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Speaker 1: when I'm inside a song, I just like expressing it.

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Speaker 1: I don't produce anything, you know, I express it. I

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Speaker 1: never sing a song the same twice, you know. So,

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Speaker 1: so I I enjoyed that and it came out good,

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Speaker 1: came out good. Then well, I had this beautiful ballad Bob.

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Speaker 1: It's called I Can't Get Started Again. I Can't Get

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Speaker 1: Started Again. I'm i'm, I'm listening to it. I'm thinking.

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Speaker 1: You know, Jeff Beck is the only guitar player that

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Speaker 1: can make me cry. I mean, I've I've heard him

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Speaker 1: do Ori ears that from La Traviato. You know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know he he can make me cry? So I

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Speaker 1: you know, Susan says, I don't know Jeff Beck. You

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Speaker 1: know he's he's pretty much, you know, isolated out. You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if he's gonna respond. I

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Speaker 1: asked him. I I wrote him an email. He said,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to do it. He said, in fact, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to put the song on my new album. I said,

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Speaker 1: you got it, so he It was that simple. He

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Speaker 1: was very easy to work with. He was so generous

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Speaker 1: with me. It was it was incredible. So, okay, how

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Speaker 1: do you know Jeff Beck? Well? I met Jeff Beck

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Speaker 1: at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He he

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Speaker 1: played a song he did uh uh. People get ready,

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Speaker 1: you know, and he just amazed me. You know he uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I know him from his you know, early recordings,

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Speaker 1: whether with you know Male or the you know people

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Speaker 1: he was with early on and you know followed him,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he's just he's just a gold standard

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Speaker 1: bearer because when people are in the room with Jeff Beck,

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Speaker 1: they like at attention. You know, he's just something he

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Speaker 1: he and he does it just with his hands. I know,

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Speaker 1: no pick, It's amazing. He's got gold in his hands.

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Speaker 1: He's like, uh, he's got a touch that I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't use, he doesn't use effects, he doesn't use

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of crazy sting. He just plays with

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Speaker 1: his hands and he gets the sound. It's just I

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Speaker 1: don't know, it's incredible. It's it's just it's amazing what

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Speaker 1: he does. I was just grateful to get him on

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Speaker 1: the song. I'm so grateful that he said yes, Okay.

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Speaker 1: A couple of things you are literally alleged. Do you

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Speaker 1: find when you're in these situations like the Rock and

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Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame, people just are drawn to you.

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Speaker 1: They want to meet you. I don't know, I don't

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Speaker 1: I really don't know. But about that maybe some of

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Speaker 1: those guys voted for me. I really don't know. But uh,

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Speaker 1: but you know when I called Jeff Beck and started

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Speaker 1: talking to him, you know, he he did an album

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Speaker 1: called Crazy Legs, and uh, you know he uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: Geen Vincent had had a guitar player that uh uh

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Speaker 1: never left Virginia, you know, but uh, Jeff Beck honored

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Speaker 1: him by uh Cliff Gallup. He he honored him by

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Speaker 1: doing this whole album around Cliff Gallup because the guy

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Speaker 1: was just a great player, you know. And uh I

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Speaker 1: was talking to Jeff about that. I said, man, when

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Speaker 1: you made that album, Gene Vincent must have been smiling

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Speaker 1: down on you, you know, because uh, this guy is

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Speaker 1: just so I don't know, he's the best. You know,

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Speaker 1: people don't real They talk about Clapton, they talk about Hendricks.

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Speaker 1: I don't care. Jimmy Page. Beck is the best. I agree,

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Speaker 1: I agree, and I love Joe Bonamas. I think he's

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Speaker 1: lots a whole new generation he's got. Yeah, well you

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Speaker 1: know it comes down from you got Muddy Waters, Howling

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Speaker 1: Wolf and all all those guys, you know, skip James

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Speaker 1: Robert Johnson. Then you get that next generation with Jeff

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Speaker 1: Beck and Claude Then and Jimmy Page and Joe Bonamas

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Speaker 1: is the nu kid on the block. Okay, you talk

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Speaker 1: about all these people are literally high profile legends themselves.

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Speaker 1: You say you don't like to ask for favors, but

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Speaker 1: are you someone to use the old term, who has

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Speaker 1: a pretty big rolodex and stays in touch with these

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Speaker 1: people or this just because you're making the album it

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Speaker 1: came together? Yeah, a little of both, you know, a

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Speaker 1: little of both. I like Jon Hammond, Rory Blocks. You know,

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Speaker 1: most most of the people on here on the album.

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Speaker 1: You know, I I see periodically and have dinner with

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Speaker 1: him and UH know them. But some of the people

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Speaker 1: I just know and you know, I don't go out

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Speaker 1: with them, but you know, I don't see them like

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Speaker 1: daily or you know, frequently. But you know how it

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Speaker 1: is when you have a friend, it's like you don't

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Speaker 1: see him for five years and you pick up it's

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Speaker 1: like right there, It's like absolutely, you didn't move an inch,

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Speaker 1: you know, It's like you just continue. So um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a little of both, you know. Okay. Um, Now,

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Speaker 1: the music business has certainly changed since you started. When

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of independence and it was all

359
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Speaker 1: about the hits. Today, even a Gigiana kid is nowhere

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Speaker 1: close to what it was in the sixties. People have

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Speaker 1: no idea these songs would play, everybody would know them.

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Speaker 1: So when you make music today and it's harder to

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Speaker 1: get the message out and you know inherently for everybody,

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Speaker 1: the impact is lower, is it hard to keep your motivation? Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like I've I did more

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Speaker 1: in this in this last year, and then I didn't

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Speaker 1: the last twenty years for some reason. But so I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm motivated just because I was, uh like, I love

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Speaker 1: talking about this album because it's I don't feel like

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about me so much. It's just that I've

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Speaker 1: been surrounded by these incredible artists, so I got got

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Speaker 1: into their lives a little and just to appreciate what

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Speaker 1: they do and being connected with them and and them

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Speaker 1: doing me such a giving me such a gift. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's it was a it was just a nice time

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Speaker 1: of life for me. You know, it was uh just enjoyable.

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Speaker 1: And you know, the to enjoy relationships like that, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the the impact, I know what you I know what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about. You know, there was a time when

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Speaker 1: you come out with an album and it sold six million.

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Speaker 1: None none of mine. But you know what I'm saying, uh,

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Speaker 1: And I don't really like. There's a kid across the

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Speaker 1: street from me. I've known known him since he was born.

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Speaker 1: His name is Zach Cone. He has a he has

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Speaker 1: a group called Red Drum Society. But this kid used

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Speaker 1: to come in my house, I would say. He would

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Speaker 1: ask me how to play guitar, and I taught him

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Speaker 1: how to play guitar. And then a couple of years

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Speaker 1: ago he said I can't sing. I said, yeah, you

390
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Speaker 1: could sing, Zach. I took him out on the street

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Speaker 1: and we started yelling. And now he's singing. And now

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Speaker 1: he has a number one EP on the blues charts,

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Speaker 1: Red Drum Society. And and I go to him and say, Zack,

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Speaker 1: what kind of business am I in? Because I don't

395
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: now he's teaching me about them. I taught him about

396
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Speaker 1: the art, he's teaching me about the business. He's teaching

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00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 1: me about the meta tags and the and the UH,

398
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: the analytics and the and the UH on the back

399
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: end the Facebook and in the back end of Instagram

400
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 1: and all you know who. I didn't know what what

401
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: he was talking about you know, but uh, you learned

402
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: about it about these uh you know, uh the marketing

403
00:25:55,119 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: part of it because he's doing it alone, and uh

404
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: he knows the inner workings of it, you know, so

405
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: we're helping each other. It's crazy, but it's a great business.

406
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: It absolutely is. Let's talk about the blues. Certainly all

407
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: of the uh British guitarists were influenced by the Delta

408
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Speaker 1: Blues people who were tend to be ignored in America

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Speaker 1: until college kids picked him up in the sixties and

410
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Speaker 1: they started to book him. Were you always a fan

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Speaker 1: of the blues and these blues musicians? No, I grew up.

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Speaker 1: I grew up. Well, I did hear John Lee Hooker.

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Speaker 1: I did hear Jimmy Reid. Jimmy Reid's part of my

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Speaker 1: d n A. Uh, that's why I got into this business, Bob. Like,

415
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: I heard a song by Hank Williams on my radio

416
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Speaker 1: when I was like ten years old, and it just

417
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Speaker 1: that was it? What song was it? It was called

418
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Speaker 1: honky Tonk Blues. It threw me right on the road.

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Speaker 1: There was a little radio station that came out of Newark,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey, the the Don Larkins show. He was an

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Speaker 1: army guy and he got into country music. He started

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Speaker 1: he was a DJ. I used to run home from

423
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 1: from junior High school just to get the last twenty

424
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: minutes of it because it was like from three to four.

425
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: So uh, and I and I, you know, this is

426
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: after I heard Hank Williams. I tracked it down who

427
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: was playing it, and you know, stuff like that, and

428
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: and then I went. I went up to Fordham Road.

429
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: There was a in the bronx Um. There was a

430
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: little record shop called Cousins Record Shop. Luke cha Ketty

431
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: owned it, and I asked Lou I said, I heard

432
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:49,719
Speaker 1: a song by Hank Williams, um honky tonk blues. And

433
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: he pulled the record out and I I went upstairs

434
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 1: and put it on the turntable with the needle and listen.

435
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: I said, that's I want this. And I heard the

436
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: back side of it, and I learned my uncle got

437
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: me a guitar, and I start. I just was mesmerized

438
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,360
Speaker 1: by this stuff. You know, it's hard to explain what

439
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: what that does to you when you hear it, you know,

440
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,120
Speaker 1: like because it threw me on the road, you know it. Uh,

441
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: it was so engaging, so Uh, Luca Ketty said, I'll

442
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: just give me a number. I'll call you when every

443
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: every new Hank Williams song comes out, I said, please.

444
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 1: I fell in love with this guy. Then I heard

445
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: Jimmy Reid, and then I was a weird kid man

446
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 1: because in my neighborhood people was they were listening to

447
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: Jimmy Riselli and Jerry Vale, and uh, you know, here

448
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: I am listening to Jimmy Reid and Hank Williams, you know,

449
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: and you know when you hear something like, uh, you know,

450
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: Jimmy Reid, I want I wanted to I wanted to

451
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: communicate like Hank Williams, and I wanted to groove like

452
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: Jimmy Reid. So uh, that's how I got into that.

453
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: And what was the question? No, I forgot. You know,

454
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: it's your affection for the blues, the generation of that,

455
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: and when it happened. Yeah, well, well I I started.

456
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: I I kind of digested that music and and started

457
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: to make my own records. And when I got to

458
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: run around Sue, which is probably a a cleverly disguised

459
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: blue song, and the and the Wander is a blue song,

460
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: and Ruby Baby is a blue song. And Drip Drop

461
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: is a blue song. And I was up at Columbia

462
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: and right across the hallway, which was only about three

463
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: ft four ft they had hallways, and John Hammond Sr.

464
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: His office was right across the hallway from Tom Wilson,

465
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: who was producing me. He produced Dylan too. I was

466
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: the first rock and roll assigned to Columbia Records, you know,

467
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: before it became Sony Records then. Uh. John Hammond asked

468
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: me one day, I was I was sitting on on

469
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: the pianos bench with Aretha Franklin and we was we

470
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: were doing got to tell this story. How are you

471
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: sitting on the bench with the Wreatha Franklin who was

472
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: signed to Columbia before she goes to Atlantic and has

473
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: her big hits, right, And they didn't know what to

474
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: do with both of us. They were giving us Al

475
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,719
Speaker 1: Jolson songs. They gave Aretha, I don't know, you know,

476
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: some kind of rock, a Bye My Baby, but a

477
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: Dixie mellow, you know. And they gave me a couple

478
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: of Al Jolson songs. I liked al Jolson. My father

479
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: used to listen to him and him I liked he

480
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: was you know, he just had some swagger back then.

481
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: You know. Now it's a little corny body, you know,

482
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: but he was great. So yeah, but tell me the

483
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: story of meeting in Wreatha Franklin and sitting on the

484
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: piano bench. We both were a recording uh, and Bob

485
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: Mercy was uh producing her Al Jolson songs and producing

486
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: my Al Jolson songs. So it's it. And I'm sitting

487
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: in his office was and the pianos right near the doorway,

488
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: and we're doing drip drop, you know, the roof League

489
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: and in the rain falling, No my head, drip drop,

490
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: I said, the roof fifth League and in the rainfall

491
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: and no my head hand I need him mop I

492
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: crossed so hot, tear all and down in my bed

493
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: head drip ity drop and uh, you know Hammond John

494
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: Hammond walks, He says, hey, uh, he says, come in

495
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: my office when you're finished. So I walk in there

496
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: and he says, Dean, you know you got a flare

497
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: for the blues. You know. He says, uh, I gotta

498
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: play it. He says, my son is getting into the blues.

499
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: He said, uh. So he plays me something of his size. Man,

500
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. He takes out the Robert Johnson album

501
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: this is one, Bob. This is before Clapton probably heard

502
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: Crossroads and John Hammond plays me preaching blues and Crossroads,

503
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: and I was mesmerized. I said, I need one of you.

504
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: Gotta get get me one of those albums. And I

505
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: brought it home and nobody when I played it, nobody

506
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: would there was going, what the hell are you listening to?

507
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: They thought it was like Chinese music. They didn't know

508
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: what the hell. I thought, you don't hear what he's doing.

509
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought it was unbelievable. I

510
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: got crazy and I started really getting into the You know,

511
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: I did all kinds of blues songs in the early

512
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: sixties up at Columbia with the the Apollo Theater guys.

513
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: I did Spoonful by Howling Wolf early in the sixties,

514
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: way before Cream or any any of those guys have

515
00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: a touched now. I was up at Serious Radio and

516
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: and Peter Townsend and uh Roger walked in. They because

517
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: they heard I was doing an interview, and they said, Dian,

518
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: we love that song Spoonful. How the hell did you

519
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: record that song? We want to know. I said, I

520
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: was listening to Howland Wolf. I loved the song. One

521
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: of my favorite Holland Wolf's songs. I said, I had

522
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: this Birdland Gibson guitar, and I got into tremlow because

523
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: Abou Diddley and I went up to Colombia and I

524
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: had all the guys from the Apollo Theater band there,

525
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: Buddy Lucas and Stick Sevens on drums, and Panama Francis

526
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: and percussion, all these Mickey guitar, Baker and or Concurs,

527
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: all these guys and and they would encourage me, and

528
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: I said, I just said follow me, and I sang it.

529
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: I said, that's the record. So they said, that's one

530
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: of our favorite records. Who you know who? Who knows?

531
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: You know? If to all these years, somebody tells me

532
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: that it's crazy because you never know who you're reaching

533
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: or who's listening. Well, you're at the I of the hurricane.

534
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: That's why I say, if I write something, I don't

535
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: know what people are talking about. People the same type

536
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: of thing. These records have a long life. Let's go

537
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: back to you growing up though. You go to school,

538
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 1: good student, bad student, popular kid, unpopular kid. I wasn't unpopular, No,

539
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: I was pretty uh in the mix, you know, Uh?

540
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: I wasn't the greatest student. I was really good with math.

541
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: I was a good I was good with math, but

542
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 1: I had problem hims. I had like these, I'd get

543
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: in fights and I don't know I had these. You know,

544
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, my father never had a

545
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 1: real job, so when my uncle's and everybody got together,

546
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 1: you know that they would put him down at the

547
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 1: dinner table. They'd be like laughing at him. And at

548
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: seven years old, I must have said to myself, nobody's

549
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: ever gonna treat me like that. I'll break their freaking face.

550
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: You know, I got this attitude. So I was like

551
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: like this angry, like, don't ever, I don't ever. Yeah,

552
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm nobody's joke, you know. I'm like, you know, I

553
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: didn't want to be treated. I must have sworn out

554
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: to heaven or you know, vowed an oath that no one.

555
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 1: I got this attitude, you know, So that's what I

556
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: You know, I was like a good kid. I wanted

557
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:52,959
Speaker 1: to be a good kid. I was a weird kid

558
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: because I'm into Hank Williams, I'm into Jimmy Reid, and

559
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 1: I'm reading St. Thomas a coinas I'm like interested in

560
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: blues and God. I wanted to know who God was,

561
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: where he was. You know, I just that's that was

562
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: my deal. Okay. But I was a good I was

563
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: good with sports. You know. I had a good eye,

564
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: hand coordination, you know, whatever sport was around. But you know,

565
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,959
Speaker 1: one day I challenged this guy up at Mount St.

566
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: Michael on track on the track because I thought I

567
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: was fast. We got on the track. I want to

568
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: tell you something I forgot about track. After I raised

569
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: this guy. I forgot. I said, that's not that's not it.

570
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: I'm not going there because I couldn't be best at it.

571
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: So I picked up the guitar and I started, you know,

572
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: writing or trying to do something there. Okay, tell me

573
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: more about your father. He didn't have a job. Where

574
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: did the money come from? Your mother worked too? Yeah?

575
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: My mother worked. She was a work She died a

576
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: hundred and four. She worked. She worked down in the

577
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: in the Millinary district in Manhattan. She took two three

578
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: busses and come back and cooked dinner with a coat on.

579
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: She you know, she she was the hub of the

580
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: of the family, you know. But but they argued all

581
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 1: the time because my father was like an emotional thirteen

582
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: year old. You know, he I don't know. Maybe he

583
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: was on the grid somewhere, you know, I don't I

584
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: don't know where he was at. But but I gotta

585
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 1: tell you my father had great qualities. The guy was

586
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: an unbelievable athlete. He could swim and we would go

587
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: to Orchard Beach. He'd swim out to an island. He'd

588
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: dive off the city island bridge, and then he would sculpt.

589
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: He would go in the cellar and sculpt something or

590
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: lift weight. But he didn't like to work. How many

591
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: kids in the family, Uh three? I was the oldest.

592
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: I had two two sisters. Well, use are the oldest.

593
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: All the hopes and dreams were in the oldest kid,

594
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:09,919
Speaker 1: and the oldest kid gets pushed. Was that your experience? Well,

595
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: I didn't need to get pushed. I was pushing myself.

596
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: I was like, Uh, I was just on a mission.

597
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:21,760
Speaker 1: The drive was on, and then uh was there music

598
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: in the house. My father listened to Al Jolson. He

599
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: listened to Louis Prima. I always say Louis Prima would

600
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if

601
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 1: he didn't sing Italian song. Because Sam but Tera was

602
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,439
Speaker 1: one of the best sex sax players I've I've ever

603
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: heard you know that guy he was. He was just great. Okay,

604
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: I'm a little younger than you, but I certainly were.

605
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: And one of the big things they always said was

606
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: street corner sea What was really going on there? Were

607
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: you really seeing it on the street corners? Absolutely? Where else?

608
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: Are hallways? When we found out the hallways had a

609
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 1: better sound, we got into the hallways or the or

610
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: the subway stations. But but we were saying anywhere, you know,

611
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: on the stoops mostly you know, yeah, absolutely it was

612
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: street music. Uh you know, we weren't on stage. We

613
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: we didn't have a studio. It was like, uh, it

614
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: was street music. We we get together and make up sounds,

615
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: you know, you know, dead lead lead lead let yeah,

616
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:44,919
Speaker 1: dead little lead lead let yeah. You know down dome, dome, dome,

617
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: dom dom and just jump on it with some harmony

618
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: and it it was an art form, you know. And

619
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: at what point do you say, hmm, I can make

620
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: this a career, I can earn a living at this Well,

621
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: I went down to a little company. Uh. There was

622
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: a black guy in my neighborhood. His name was Willie Green.

623
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: He was the Uh, the janitor of one of the

624
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: apartment buildings. I couldn't wait to get with him after

625
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: school because he played guitar and he listened to John

626
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: Lee Hook. I loved this guy man, you know, I

627
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: just couldn't wait to get with him. You know, it

628
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: was the real deal for me. It was it was

629
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: stuff that made me feel alive, you know. So I

630
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,839
Speaker 1: uh and he you know, then I found out that

631
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: there was this company and they wanted me to audition.

632
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: There was a songwriter in the neighborhood, not a very

633
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:45,399
Speaker 1: good one, but he knew this company and he he said,

634
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: you should go down here in the audition. He got

635
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: me an audition, and I was I was kind of

636
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: frightened about it. And I told Willie Willie Green, this janitor,

637
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: he said, just be yourself, he said, he said, sing

638
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: that called Perkins song sang for me. You know. So

639
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: I went down there and I did that, and I

640
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: got a record deal. And uh, I didn't know what

641
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: I was doing. I just you know, saying they they

642
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: signed me right away. So uh, then they wanted they

643
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: put me with this group from Oklahoma called the timber Lanes.

644
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: You know, like to tote, you know, like you know,

645
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,240
Speaker 1: like uh, I said, I can't sing with these guys.

646
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: So that was how I recruited all the best uh

647
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 1: you know street doo wop singer is from the streets,

648
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: you know that used to hang out in different neighborhoods

649
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: listening to different jukeboxes. And uh, I got the best,

650
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 1: you know, the best of the best and put them together.

651
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:52,399
Speaker 1: And it came out with my house one day and

652
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: we put I wonder why together, Bob, you should have

653
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,760
Speaker 1: been there. I'm telling you, it was like a dream.

654
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: I'm true. I don't know, you know, I wasn't in

655
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: to do up that. I mean, I never sang with

656
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: three other guys in the room. I had had a

657
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,720
Speaker 1: guitar and I would do Hank Williams songs or something.

658
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 1: But being this company wanted to, you know, put me

659
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: with this group, the Templings, and they did. I recorded

660
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: uh something and I just didn't like it. I said,

661
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: you know, let me try it. Being you want this,

662
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: I'll get some guys. I'll do anything, you know, because

663
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: I would do anything to make a record or you know,

664
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: being an artist or so I got these guys and

665
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: we put this song together and the first day we

666
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: sang that song in my parents apartment, in my bedroom.

667
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: Those three guys, it was it was like I was

668
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: on a carousel in heaven. One guy was singing then

669
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: and and that and and that and let edit and

670
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: that and done, done that. The other guys on whoo

671
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: and the other guy when when you know, and I'm

672
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: singing lead. We were doing four different things. It was

673
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: like dixie Land, but it was our own thing. Uh.

674
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: But it was amazing. It was like a golden It

675
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: was a golden moment, a real defining moment in my life. Okay,

676
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: you have success. What would you consider to be your

677
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 1: first big hit record? I think that I wonder why? Okay,

678
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: so if we go, wonder why you cut it in

679
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: the studio and they used to cut really fast. Did

680
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: you know it was gonna be as big as it

681
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: ended up being. No, But I knew we had something special.

682
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: I liked it. I thought it was I thought it

683
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. It was different, you know. Uh, the

684
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: intro to it is is as distinctive as for doop

685
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: as Chuck Berry's in True and Row to Johnny be

686
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: Good on guitar. Okay, but you're a young guy, you're

687
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: living in the Bronx. Everybody's listening to the radio. What

688
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: to like? What your song comes over the radio? What

689
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:15,320
Speaker 1: are the kids of the neighborhood saying? What do you think, Bob?

690
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: It was It was crazy because, uh, you know, we

691
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 1: didn't have air conditioners, so everybody had their there windows

692
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 1: open in the summer right there, just you know, in

693
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: the radios around and and they know that Dion and

694
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 1: a Bellmans. They know I'm Francis as kid patent Francis

695
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 1: Kin and I got a record out, so everybody's listening

696
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: to the countdown. Everybody listened to the same music. Back then,

697
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 1: we didn't have all these stations. Now you look, they

698
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: have like fifty genres. Know, everybody listens to the same stuff,

699
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: so I wonder why it comes on. It was. It

700
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 1: was like it was surround sound coming out of everybody's window,

701
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: so you know, and out of the convertibles in the street.

702
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: So it was amazing. We uh, we bought jackets and

703
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 1: we painted Dion and the Belmont's on the back. You know,

704
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: we were like we were crazy. So it was a

705
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,399
Speaker 1: lot of fun, okay, but then you go on an

706
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: incredible run both with him without the Belmont and you're

707
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: a young guy. How do you handle that emotionally? You know,

708
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: I'm bob. I I couldn't handle my emotions for I

709
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: didn't even know what they were, where they came from. So,

710
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I started, you know, like a lot of people,

711
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: I started with the drinking and the drugging, and uh,

712
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 1: I started pretty young. Actually I started before I was recording.

713
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: I started, uh fooling with with drugs when I was fourteen,

714
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, so I uh, you know, I

715
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 1: wanted a umplished something with the singing and the contract

716
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 1: and the records, but really I my feet were firmly

717
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,839
Speaker 1: planted on the in the air. You know, I had

718
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:18,760
Speaker 1: no I had no foundation at all. So it's crazy. Uh,

719
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: and I you know, I got it, you know with

720
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: that stuff, it's progressive and you get hooked. And the

721
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 1: mid sixties were you know, I always say this, this

722
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: three stages to drug addiction or alcoholism and all that

723
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. The first stage goes up, it's a

724
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 1: lot of fun, you think you found heaven. The second

725
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:50,399
Speaker 1: stage is it flattens out. It's like fun and some problems.

726
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: And then the third stage is nothing but problems. So

727
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: that's how it went for me, uh the mid you know,

728
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: when I was at Colombia, I was it was fun

729
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:09,959
Speaker 1: and then it got fun and some problems and uh

730
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,919
Speaker 1: you know like that. Okay, so you go on the road,

731
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: you're a young success, do you partake of all of

732
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: the goodies on the road, not only the drugs but

733
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:28,919
Speaker 1: the sex, etcetera. And I I I was a shy kid. Man.

734
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: I was shy, so I I wasn't uh you know,

735
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: it just wasn't part of my nature too. Uh just

736
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I wanted to, you know, and I did,

737
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't say it was like overboard. I was

738
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: like I meet somebody. You know, if it happened, it happened.

739
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: But you know, uh, I mean, yeah, you know, it's funny.

740
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: I go back to the St. Thome as A Quintas

741
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: that I was reading. It's funny how things are backed

742
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 1: you when you're older and you're and you're having problems

743
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: emotionally and you're you're taking drugs because uh uh. I

744
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 1: started thinking about St. Thomas Aquinas and I started thinking

745
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: about some of the things I I learned, and I

746
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: you know, it's Acquaintas would say, if you don't have

747
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: God in your life. You have to fill up on something,

748
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:31,720
Speaker 1: and it's usually the four substitutes, the the typical temptations

749
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: or addictions. Its wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. And you

750
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: want you got to get the money, the pleasure, sex, drugs,

751
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: rock and roll, you gotta get you know. You you

752
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 1: could see the politicians with the power, and people got power.

753
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 1: That's that's a big addiction. And and honor. You gotta

754
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: be right, you gotta win, you gotta be better. You

755
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 1: got back all this stuff. So you try to fill

756
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: yourself up with that stuff and it doesn't really work

757
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: because it's outside yourself. You know, you're really not finding

758
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:11,959
Speaker 1: uh you, It'll never satisfy that deep longing of of

759
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: the of your heart and spirit, you know. So I

760
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 1: started to think about these things when I started getting addicted,

761
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: you know, and I was when I was miserable, you know,

762
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: coming into nineteen. I started thinking about the Mon Senior

763
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,280
Speaker 1: who stopped me on the street one day and he said, yo, Dion,

764
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: come over here. What makes a man happy? And I said, Mon,

765
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: seeing you, if I could get a thunderbird, if I

766
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: could get a Gibson J two hundred guitar, I could

767
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: get a hit record, I'm talking about when I was

768
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: fifteen years old. I said, if I could get a

769
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: date with that girl, Susan who moved down from Ver month,

770
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: I'd be a happy guy. He said, no, Dion, the

771
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: virtuous man is a happy man. I said, what the

772
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: hell is virtue? I had no idea what it was

773
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 1: because I was up to no good. And he said,

774
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: it's a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.

775
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I remembered it because we sat there for

776
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and he drilled it into my head and

777
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: I was up to no good. So but later on,

778
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 1: when I'm hooked and baffled and wondering about he started

779
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: thinking about these things. Gee. Maybe what he said was

780
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: I wonder how you get there? You know? And then

781
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: I met a guy I was like, I was, you know,

782
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,359
Speaker 1: I had twelve gold records on the wall, and I

783
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: had a you know, I I had success run around

784
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,760
Speaker 1: Sue and the Wanderer and route. I had some big

785
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,439
Speaker 1: records with teenager in love as a kid. And then

786
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: it rolls around nineteen six and February of nineteen sixty eight,

787
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: Frankie Lyman dies of an overdose and I used to

788
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: I ran the streets with Frankie Lyman. We used to

789
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: we used to like take drugs together and stuff, and

790
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: it just scared me. I thought, you know this is

791
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 1: this is not gonna end up well. So I got

792
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: on my knees one night and like that's why I said.

793
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: It was like December fourteenth, there was I got on

794
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: my knees and I asked God for help. I said, God,

795
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're real, I don't know what's

796
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: going but you I need help. I'm telling you I

797
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:28,720
Speaker 1: haven't had a drug or a drink in fifty two years.

798
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 1: So that was my Then I meet this guy and

799
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,320
Speaker 1: I'm having coffee with him. I don't know if you

800
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: want to hear this, but keep going, keep going. But

801
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 1: this is crazy, you know, because I'm from the streets, man,

802
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: I'm from Crotona Avenue in the Bronx. We don't talk

803
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: about this stuff. Nobody says, are you serene? Or how

804
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: do you find peace of mind? You know who the

805
00:51:56,239 --> 00:52:00,040
Speaker 1: hell cares? You know, nobody's thinking like that. But this

806
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: guy says to me, do you know where feelings come from?

807
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 1: I said no. He said, they come from your thinking.

808
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:12,879
Speaker 1: Your thought, you will feel what you're thinking, now, who

809
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: the hell of a knew that? I didn't know that.

810
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: So now if if you know, if I get off

811
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: someday like a little which I don't, you know, I'm

812
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: I'm a funny guy. Because if you would open up

813
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: my brain, if you would open up saw my head

814
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: in half and look inside my brain, you'd see a

815
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: very peaceful, orderly place. So and that's because of this

816
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: guy who told me that. Because so you know, he

817
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: was like into pursuing wisdom, you know, cultivating the life

818
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:47,919
Speaker 1: of the mind. He used to say, this is where

819
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: you live in your mind. You live here. You know,

820
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: it's got you gotta be right because I was a mess.

821
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 1: I was a mess, bob, you know. But thank god,

822
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: I I think from that point on, well, I've always

823
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: had this. I've always had this. I gotta say, I've

824
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: always had this wonderful gift to surround myself with great

825
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:12,879
Speaker 1: people that knew more than I did, much more than

826
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: I did. I don't know what that and and I'm

827
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 1: not saying all the time I was around, you know,

828
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: there were people coming out of my life that weren't

829
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:25,879
Speaker 1: like that. But the people that I really appreciated, I

830
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: I I had this ability to notice that I wanted

831
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,839
Speaker 1: to be this guy's friend. You know, he he could

832
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: take me to higher ground. Okay, man, let's say look,

833
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: let's say hypothetically tomorrow you went to the doctor and

834
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 1: he said you have a year to live tragically, but

835
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't not really happening. Would you partake of drugs

836
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 1: and alcohol or would you stay off? Oh? Absolutely not,

837
00:53:54,120 --> 00:54:01,000
Speaker 1: absolutely stay clean. Now I'm I'm high. I'm like, Uh,

838
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: I'm a very grateful guy. I wouldn't want to be

839
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: any other place than in the presence of beauty and

840
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:14,360
Speaker 1: ore and wonder and life and I and my friends. No, okay,

841
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:18,440
Speaker 1: you become sober and sixty eight, that's very early, you know.

842
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: So being sober today is a big thing. But certainly

843
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,720
Speaker 1: it's something like me who gave up alcohol in for years.

844
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: People are cajoling me, have a drink, have a drink.

845
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: Did you experience that? Yeah, But it's not something I

846
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 1: got rid of or something. It's it's just something that uh,

847
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want and I don't need to

848
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: go there, and I don't need to feel better than

849
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:50,760
Speaker 1: I feel. I really I like to feel what I'm feeling. Um,

850
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: I like to experience life in a very real way,

851
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: on a higher reality. Um, it's just uh to me,

852
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: it's the real deal. It's something uh and and drugs

853
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 1: are alcohol. They they I want to be fully alive,

854
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 1: and that's not the way to go if you want

855
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 1: to I'm totally with you. There's no drug I've ever

856
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:19,959
Speaker 1: taken that's as good as a natural Hye me sound

857
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: like a cliche, but I firmly believe that. No, I

858
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 1: uh And, Look, it's been fifty two years. I have

859
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: three daughters that loved me dearly. They walk in the house,

860
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 1: they want to lean on my shoulder and hug me,

861
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: and they don't feel judged. I don't judge them. I

862
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:42,280
Speaker 1: enjoy them. I have. I have a wife, that girl Susan.

863
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: I told you I met her when I was fourteen.

864
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: Still my wife been married fifty seven years. I'm like,

865
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 1: if I had one year to live, I'd probably get

866
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:55,799
Speaker 1: closer to my friends and uh and and closer to

867
00:55:55,840 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: the people I love. But I wouldn't. You know, rugs

868
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 1: and alcohol would take you further away from that, So

869
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't even think of that. Okay, So

870
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: when you started out the package tour was the big thing.

871
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: What were those days? Like? Wow, I'll tell you something,

872
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 1: I learned a lot because you know, back in those days,

873
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:32,320
Speaker 1: well even today, the music brought the races together, brought

874
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:36,720
Speaker 1: different cultures together. You know. I traveled with Bobby Blue Bland,

875
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 1: I traveled with Sam Cook. I'll tell you a story

876
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 1: I put in. Uh. There's a song actually Songwriters of

877
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 1: America UH picked it as the best song of Uh.

878
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:53,319
Speaker 1: It's called song for Sam Cook here in America. And

879
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: what the song comes out of is um uh and

880
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: and and Paul Simon helped uh is on it. He

881
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: uh he sang some harmony with me, who made it

882
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:11,720
Speaker 1: just really something special. But when I met Sam Cook,

883
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 1: I traveled with Sam Cook um for about form for

884
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 1: for a month on a big show called show of

885
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: Shows show. Uh, I forget something like that. I forget

886
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 1: the name of the tour. But we we traveled all

887
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,479
Speaker 1: over the country and then we went on another tour

888
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 1: and uh we were down in uh Memphis, and he

889
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:42,919
Speaker 1: was a very refined guy, Sam Cook, very intelligent. Uh.

890
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: You know, I was rough, I was rough around the edges.

891
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: I was kid from the Bronx. You know. He was

892
00:57:49,160 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 1: a preacher's kid. And uh, I saw him in a

893
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 1: lot of different situations in Memphis and people were you know,

894
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: there was racism in New York, but it wasn't the

895
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 1: same because I was, like I told you, I was

896
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: at Columbia Records with all the Apollo guys that you know,

897
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: and I was friends. I I became friends with Buddy

898
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 1: Lucas for all his life, you know. And Sam Uh.

899
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 1: You know, they had the Jim Crow laws down here.

900
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: I who knew anything about that? You know, that was

901
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 1: a whole different thing from me. So when when I

902
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: saw people treating him the way they treated him, he

903
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 1: was a very beautiful guy Statue West. He was tall,

904
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: he was stood straight, he was bright. He he wanted

905
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: to be around them because you know, like I said,

906
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: you could learn from guys like this, so I would,

907
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 1: you know, he he taught me basically that racism was,

908
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 1: you know, a peculiar way to become a man. And uh,

909
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 1: and if race matted to you, basically I learned it

910
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:02,640
Speaker 1: from him. If if race matters to you, if it's

911
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: significant to you, you're a racist. It didn't matter to us.

912
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:09,800
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to you and me. It's like I

913
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: color a shoe color, you know. So I would watch

914
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: this guy and I'd say, Sam, an youa punch that

915
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: guy in his face, you know, And he'd say, Dan,

916
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: you know, why what? Why should I get down on

917
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 1: that level? You know? You know. So I got to

918
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: observe him in a lot of different situations and the

919
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 1: way he responded, and I never seen him get ruffled.

920
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: I've never seen him get angry. I've seen him say

921
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: things that were like incredible to just just deflective stuff

922
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 1: that would like putting somebody's face, like put up a

923
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 1: mirror in somebody's face to show them where they were

924
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: really at. And I would think, what the hell that,

925
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 1: you know, And then it dawned on me after about

926
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: three weeks that he was the smartest guy in the room.

927
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: But he never lets you know it. He just he

928
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 1: was that smart. He didn't even have to go there.

929
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: These people were idiots, you know. So he wanted to

930
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: and he would talk about God and he would talk

931
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 1: about brotherhood and friendship and understanding. He was he was

932
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:21,200
Speaker 1: like living out the Gospel. He would understand me. He

933
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:23,959
Speaker 1: he stood up for me. He he Sam Cook took

934
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:27,240
Speaker 1: me to a club in Memphis to to to see

935
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: James Brown and the Flames, and people were getting on

936
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: my case and he sayd hey, he's the kids with me.

937
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: That's Dion, you know, we're doing shows things. But he

938
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: was He was a good guy. So I wrote this

939
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: song years ago and I never recorded it. It's called

940
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 1: song for Sam Cook. And uh, last year when I

941
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 1: when I saw a Green Book, I said to my wife, Wow,

942
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 1: they wrote a song. They wrote they put a movie together.

943
01:00:53,280 --> 01:00:56,360
Speaker 1: Reminds me of my song. You know, it's it's like backwards,

944
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:58,920
Speaker 1: but it it reminds me of my song. So I

945
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: took the song out and it ended up on Blues

946
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 1: with Friends. And when I get when I played it

947
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: for Paul Simon, you know, he mentioned racism. He said

948
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: a song and I said, it's not really. I said, yes,

949
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 1: there's a racism component to it, but it's really about it.

950
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 1: It's really a song about brotherly love and friendship and understanding.

951
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,200
Speaker 1: And uh he said, yeah, I get it. I get it.

952
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 1: So we did it together. Okay, who turned you onto heroin?

953
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:37,360
Speaker 1: What were the circumstances there? Ah, one day, you know,

954
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:41,320
Speaker 1: the the idea of that. I was young and my

955
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: parents were always arguing, always, man just twenty four seven.

956
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: My father never had a job, and they would, you know,

957
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:54,479
Speaker 1: just be at it all the time. So the first

958
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 1: time I snorted some of this stuff, I was like, whoa.

959
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: I was on the street the next day looking for it.

960
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 1: I want more of that. It made me feel good, period,

961
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 1: and uh that's what happens, you know. Uh, I just

962
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 1: felt good. Okay, So tell us your version of splitting

963
01:02:17,920 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 1: up with the Belmont. My version is is the real reason.

964
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 1: You know, we did the first album and I had

965
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: this love for Hank Williams and Jimmy Reid and these

966
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:43,920
Speaker 1: three guys that I put together started wanting to do

967
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:47,960
Speaker 1: they I don't know what they want, you know, because

968
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 1: people back then talked about legitimate music like I wonder

969
01:02:52,240 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: why wasn't legitimate? And they wanted to do stuff like

970
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 1: for four times ups I don't know, like the like

971
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:05,280
Speaker 1: the uh the let him I forget. You know. It

972
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:11,920
Speaker 1: was like these these groups that sang smooth harmonies. Uh,

973
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 1: and and we did a whole album of the this

974
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:20,920
Speaker 1: these songs that I guess from the Great American Songbook,

975
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: you know, the Swinging on a Star and you know,

976
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:27,440
Speaker 1: in the Still of the Night, not the not the

977
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:29,920
Speaker 1: five sentence in the still of the night. But you

978
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 1: know some of the like where when we had to

979
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:35,480
Speaker 1: hit record called where When because it was I did

980
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:41,439
Speaker 1: it because of it was the record company president's favorite song.

981
01:03:42,200 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 1: So I put a version of that together. Then they

982
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:49,080
Speaker 1: wanted to sing everything like that. I said, I can't

983
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 1: do that. I just can't do that. I'll blow my

984
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: brains out. So we just split. And that's how I

985
01:03:56,640 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: got to make runaround Sue and the wander and everything.

986
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:01,840
Speaker 1: You know, because if I would have stayed with them,

987
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 1: I would have been if I would have stayed with that,

988
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:08,800
Speaker 1: not not basically with them. I love the guys I

989
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 1: was there were great talents, and the guys in the

990
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 1: Belmonts they were great, great singers. I loved them, you know,

991
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: and it was humble to sing with them. But but

992
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 1: the music I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

993
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, it was driving me. Uh

994
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:33,800
Speaker 1: I had no choice. I really didn't have a choice.

995
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:38,080
Speaker 1: Uh So, and I'm still doing it and I still

996
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 1: don't have a choice. And I, um, what was the

997
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:44,680
Speaker 1: difference between being on LORI Records and an independent being

998
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: on Columbia? Uh? I gotta say there wasn't too much difference.

999
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 1: They both were I tell you the way it was

1000
01:04:57,640 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 1: back then. They both were with me, Okay, you want

1001
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:05,919
Speaker 1: to do that song, ruby baby, do this song. We'll

1002
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 1: make you you do one song that you want to do.

1003
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: Do one song that we want you to do. So

1004
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: it was like one for you, one for me. Same

1005
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: with Glory Records. That was it. So, you know, I

1006
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:23,000
Speaker 1: didn't know any better, you know. But when I got

1007
01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 1: a little older, when I got when I started getting

1008
01:05:26,000 --> 01:05:30,400
Speaker 1: like I was about twenty three, I just I left

1009
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: Columbia and I left a lot of money on the table.

1010
01:05:33,240 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: I came home and I told my wife Susan, I said,

1011
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:38,440
Speaker 1: I I left. I can't they they're not going to

1012
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 1: release the Kicking Child album. They don't like and it's

1013
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: a great album. They just released it recently and it's

1014
01:05:44,280 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 1: a it was a great album. Did it all live

1015
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 1: with with uh? I don't know, just life right in

1016
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:59,080
Speaker 1: the studio four guys with Al Cooper on the on

1017
01:05:59,160 --> 01:06:03,560
Speaker 1: the keep warts and Tom Wilson produced it. But I

1018
01:06:03,840 --> 01:06:06,320
Speaker 1: told Susan, I left Columbia. I left the money there,

1019
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 1: you know, And I had a I had a contract

1020
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:10,520
Speaker 1: and I had I had I was making a hundred

1021
01:06:10,520 --> 01:06:13,280
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year for five years. That was the contract,

1022
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:17,360
Speaker 1: I said, And I left within two years. I left

1023
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars on the table. I said, keep it.

1024
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:26,680
Speaker 1: That's how much the music meant to me. That's how much. Uh.

1025
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 1: I just couldn't do it. It was the only thing

1026
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:31,960
Speaker 1: I had in my that that that was my salvation.

1027
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:35,120
Speaker 1: Was this this gift you know, that was in me.

1028
01:06:35,320 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 1: So I just I never lost my artistic curiosity. And

1029
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: I feel like the same as when I was a kid,

1030
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 1: you know. I like coming out on the stage with

1031
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:49,960
Speaker 1: a guitar and just rocking, you know, and just doing

1032
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 1: a great song and taking and taking people on a trip.

1033
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:56,480
Speaker 1: But it's gotta be. It's gotta be from the inside

1034
01:06:56,480 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 1: of you. How are you gonna do it with somebody

1035
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 1: else telling you that it just doesn't work? You know?

1036
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:07,240
Speaker 1: Do it with this song? Nah? I don't think so. Okay,

1037
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: What was your perspective when the Beatles arrived in the

1038
01:07:11,160 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: whole British invasion? What do you think of that? Well?

1039
01:07:15,480 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: I didn't, to be honest with you, The Beatles didn't

1040
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: affect me one bit. I didn't even to me, I

1041
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:27,120
Speaker 1: don't even call it the British invasion. I call it

1042
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: the uh, the British infusion, because I got into the

1043
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:34,920
Speaker 1: Stones and you know, and some of the stuff they

1044
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:39,120
Speaker 1: were doing, like the animals, uh, you know with the

1045
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 1: House of the Rising Sun. The Beatles were like too cute,

1046
01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 1: I love you, Yeah, yeah, who who you know? I

1047
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: was like nah later for that stuff. I it was

1048
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:52,720
Speaker 1: too many chords, too cute for me. I I didn't.

1049
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:55,240
Speaker 1: I didn't get into it, but you know I got

1050
01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:58,240
Speaker 1: I came to appreciate them when they did rub a soul.

1051
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 1: They were were they were writing some great songs, you know,

1052
01:08:01,640 --> 01:08:06,200
Speaker 1: and then revolution you know. Uh. But it wasn't like

1053
01:08:06,280 --> 01:08:09,640
Speaker 1: anything that threatened me. I wasn't even it didn't you

1054
01:08:09,680 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 1: know why it didn't bother me because I mean it

1055
01:08:12,160 --> 01:08:17,599
Speaker 1: didn't affect me because I was in my room when

1056
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:21,120
Speaker 1: I after I heard Jon Hammond, after he gave me

1057
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:26,200
Speaker 1: U an arm full of albums of Furry Lewis and uh,

1058
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:32,799
Speaker 1: Fred McDowell and Lightning Hopkins and and and and Robert Johnson,

1059
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 1: I was in my room. I love Bob Dylan. Bob

1060
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:38,760
Speaker 1: Dylan came to Columbia. I was at a lot of

1061
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:42,280
Speaker 1: the early sessions, just sitting there with John Hammond. But

1062
01:08:42,439 --> 01:08:46,400
Speaker 1: I tell you I loved him. That was incredible. But

1063
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:48,879
Speaker 1: that's what I was into. I was into the blues,

1064
01:08:49,360 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 1: love Dylan. Um. You know, I got into a lot

1065
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: of the people in the village that was that was

1066
01:08:55,479 --> 01:08:58,800
Speaker 1: down are, like Tim Harden. Uh. I was watching the

1067
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 1: Loving Spoonful Creation, you know, Um, Richie Havens, John Hammond Jr.

1068
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:14,560
Speaker 1: Playing at the gas light, hanging out there, Paul Butterfield. Yeah.

1069
01:09:14,560 --> 01:09:19,519
Speaker 1: So so the Beatles and not to make it sound

1070
01:09:19,600 --> 01:09:21,880
Speaker 1: try to like, you know, like I'm putting them, but

1071
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:25,680
Speaker 1: it wasn't for me. I was more. I was more

1072
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:29,120
Speaker 1: in the blues and the folk thing, you know, the okay,

1073
01:09:29,200 --> 01:09:32,280
Speaker 1: tell us tell us the story of Abraham Martin and John.

1074
01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 1: You know. I was living in Miami. I had moved

1075
01:09:42,120 --> 01:09:47,960
Speaker 1: there a geographical cure because I had been drinking and drugging.

1076
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:52,040
Speaker 1: And I was, like I said, I ended up there.

1077
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:55,879
Speaker 1: Frankie Lyman died. I was in Uh. I was in Miami,

1078
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:05,559
Speaker 1: and I I met a guy and UH introduced me

1079
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:09,719
Speaker 1: to a spiritual twelfth Step program and I got into

1080
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:13,439
Speaker 1: that and I man, I never looked back. I got

1081
01:10:13,479 --> 01:10:15,439
Speaker 1: on my knees one night. I've never been the same.

1082
01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:19,479
Speaker 1: I just I took to it like a I don't know,

1083
01:10:19,640 --> 01:10:24,600
Speaker 1: a duck to water, you know. I So I was,

1084
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:32,479
Speaker 1: I was working on myself and uh, working on my

1085
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:36,800
Speaker 1: you know, putting things back together mentally for myself, because

1086
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:40,000
Speaker 1: I had taken drugs and was drinking for quite a while.

1087
01:10:41,160 --> 01:10:49,560
Speaker 1: That uh, this song, Uh it comes to me Abraham

1088
01:10:49,600 --> 01:10:55,439
Speaker 1: Martin and John Uh three months after I cleaned up,

1089
01:10:55,680 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: you know, after I stopped drinking and drugging, and uh,

1090
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:02,640
Speaker 1: Dick Holla walks in into my house, as you know,

1091
01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:07,200
Speaker 1: uh uh he wrote it. He wrote it kind of

1092
01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:10,559
Speaker 1: like cutesy dude. You know. I remember, you know, as

1093
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:12,920
Speaker 1: I picked up my guitar, I had a gut string guitar,

1094
01:11:12,960 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 1: and I kind of arranged it, you know. I put

1095
01:11:15,560 --> 01:11:18,479
Speaker 1: it together in a way that uh I thought it

1096
01:11:18,479 --> 01:11:21,320
Speaker 1: would be interesting because I was listening to Tim Harden

1097
01:11:21,400 --> 01:11:26,880
Speaker 1: back then Kenny Rankin, you know. Uh so I don't know,

1098
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: I thought, let me try it like this. I put

1099
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:34,200
Speaker 1: the song together and I recorded it for Lorie Records.

1100
01:11:34,600 --> 01:11:38,000
Speaker 1: What when I started playing it, my wife said, Wow,

1101
01:11:38,040 --> 01:11:40,760
Speaker 1: that that's the gospel. She said that that sounds like

1102
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:43,720
Speaker 1: you could kill the dream of but you cannot kill

1103
01:11:43,760 --> 01:11:46,599
Speaker 1: the dream. You know. It's people like us, we pick

1104
01:11:46,720 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: up on it and carry it further. She said, So

1105
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:51,200
Speaker 1: I'll keep you in my prayers. Do a good job

1106
01:11:51,240 --> 01:11:53,400
Speaker 1: with it. I went up to New York, got in

1107
01:11:53,479 --> 01:11:57,519
Speaker 1: the studio with the studio was loaded with musicians like

1108
01:11:57,920 --> 01:12:01,320
Speaker 1: uh and uh of the song with my gut string

1109
01:12:01,360 --> 01:12:05,519
Speaker 1: guitar and who knew because that was you know, in

1110
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:10,600
Speaker 1: that era, that was Jimmy Hendricks, Cream, Eric Clapton, you know,

1111
01:12:12,520 --> 01:12:16,040
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I would never think it would even

1112
01:12:16,439 --> 01:12:19,640
Speaker 1: you know, I just I just recorded it because it

1113
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:22,679
Speaker 1: was interesting. But I who would think it would become

1114
01:12:23,479 --> 01:12:25,920
Speaker 1: like an anthem or you know, a song that would

1115
01:12:25,960 --> 01:12:29,960
Speaker 1: you know, go to number one? Okay, you were one

1116
01:12:30,040 --> 01:12:33,600
Speaker 1: of the first, if not the first mamestream rocker to

1117
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 1: make Christian music. So he can he tell me about

1118
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:40,360
Speaker 1: that process and how you flipped back and forth from

1119
01:12:40,439 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 1: Christian to secondary music thereafter. Well, to me, you know,

1120
01:12:46,000 --> 01:12:50,960
Speaker 1: it's like to me that uh, I don't even know

1121
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,720
Speaker 1: if it makes sense, but uh, you know, if you

1122
01:12:54,800 --> 01:12:57,520
Speaker 1: go in a record store, they'll have these different bens

1123
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:03,559
Speaker 1: Christian music, folk music, blues, rock and roll, to me

1124
01:13:03,920 --> 01:13:07,639
Speaker 1: when I pick up a guitar, it's Dion music. So

1125
01:13:09,320 --> 01:13:13,040
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to sing a gospel too, umm

1126
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:17,680
Speaker 1: it I you know, I got into gospel music. Uh.

1127
01:13:17,800 --> 01:13:21,120
Speaker 1: I was listening to some of the groups and Mighty

1128
01:13:21,160 --> 01:13:25,240
Speaker 1: Clouds of Joy, and I heard something. I thought, this

1129
01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:27,640
Speaker 1: is great and you know, and I thought, hey, I

1130
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:31,719
Speaker 1: don't mind being identified with Jesus because you know, here's

1131
01:13:31,720 --> 01:13:38,559
Speaker 1: a man, god man who cared about the sick, the lonely,

1132
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:45,000
Speaker 1: the broken, the disabled, you know, the poor. I said,

1133
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 1: I don't mind being identified with him. So you know,

1134
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:50,680
Speaker 1: it never bought you know, I I thought that's an

1135
01:13:50,760 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 1: uplifting thing for me and a good way to go.

1136
01:13:53,360 --> 01:13:57,200
Speaker 1: So I wrote a lot of gospel songs, a lot.

1137
01:13:57,280 --> 01:13:59,320
Speaker 1: I think I made five albums. It was to me,

1138
01:13:59,360 --> 01:14:04,160
Speaker 1: it was very lifting. It was like, uh, you know,

1139
01:14:04,320 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 1: it just was. It had a lot to do with

1140
01:14:09,560 --> 01:14:14,840
Speaker 1: just what was happening inside of me at the time. Okay, Now,

1141
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:18,240
Speaker 1: when you started in the record business, royalties were low,

1142
01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:22,599
Speaker 1: they tended not to be paid, and a lot of

1143
01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:26,519
Speaker 1: these hit records you didn't write. So how is the

1144
01:14:26,640 --> 01:14:31,679
Speaker 1: money worked out over all these decades with me? Yeah?

1145
01:14:33,560 --> 01:14:37,920
Speaker 1: You know, I'm blessed. Man, I'm blessed. I I tell

1146
01:14:37,960 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: you a lot of guys don't end up in in

1147
01:14:41,200 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: good shape. But uh, I don't know. I for me,

1148
01:14:49,920 --> 01:14:55,679
Speaker 1: uh I reeled in all the publishing that I wrote

1149
01:14:55,720 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: about four hundred songs. So man, mailbox money is good

1150
01:15:02,280 --> 01:15:06,640
Speaker 1: for me. I mean it keeps me buoyant, you know it.

1151
01:15:06,880 --> 01:15:12,320
Speaker 1: Uh I have no complaints. I uh i, I've never

1152
01:15:12,439 --> 01:15:16,360
Speaker 1: been uh I never have to claim bankruptcy or you know,

1153
01:15:16,439 --> 01:15:20,960
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was always I don't know, I'm

1154
01:15:20,960 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: a generous guy. But I always like I didn't need

1155
01:15:25,040 --> 01:15:27,280
Speaker 1: to be fancy. I didn't need to have a car

1156
01:15:27,360 --> 01:15:30,040
Speaker 1: every year or to live. I never had to show

1157
01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:33,040
Speaker 1: anybody anything, you know. I never had to be extravagant.

1158
01:15:33,160 --> 01:15:37,599
Speaker 1: Like I just wasn't that guy. So I just I

1159
01:15:37,840 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: ate well. I lived well. I I don't feel like

1160
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 1: I'm lacking anything. You know. My wife and I uh

1161
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:49,679
Speaker 1: uh I could help my kids, I could, I could

1162
01:15:49,720 --> 01:15:52,920
Speaker 1: do a lot, you know. But I ended up in

1163
01:15:52,960 --> 01:15:57,200
Speaker 1: a good place because of a great manager. Dick Fox

1164
01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 1: is man. He is a blessing. He was like mother

1165
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:06,080
Speaker 1: Teresa to me. You know. He came into my life

1166
01:16:06,200 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 1: and I had a good guy by my side and

1167
01:16:10,120 --> 01:16:13,280
Speaker 1: who didn't rip me off for you know, because I

1168
01:16:13,320 --> 01:16:22,160
Speaker 1: come from the era that you know, clever accounting, you're

1169
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:25,360
Speaker 1: always in the red. I never made any money on albums, never,

1170
01:16:25,720 --> 01:16:28,560
Speaker 1: I never. But you still don't get any record royalties.

1171
01:16:29,080 --> 01:16:34,679
Speaker 1: But yes, through Sound Exchange, through ASCAP thank god that

1172
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:39,360
Speaker 1: uh uh publishing. You know. I talked to Lou Reed

1173
01:16:39,520 --> 01:16:43,760
Speaker 1: long time ago. He said, publishing, that's your retirement plan there.

1174
01:16:43,880 --> 01:16:46,840
Speaker 1: So I my wife ran the publishing company for about

1175
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:51,680
Speaker 1: twenty five years. So, uh, to be honest with you,

1176
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 1: I did well, I can do. What was it if you?

1177
01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:57,080
Speaker 1: Have you ever gotten a royalty on a record from

1178
01:16:57,080 --> 01:17:07,920
Speaker 1: the label? Yeah, that's and that's that's another situation, you know.

1179
01:17:08,320 --> 01:17:11,120
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what you get ripped off. You

1180
01:17:11,160 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 1: get ripped off, absolutely ripped off. Okay, but I'll tell

1181
01:17:15,320 --> 01:17:21,720
Speaker 1: you something, especially from you know, from that decade. You know.

1182
01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:25,400
Speaker 1: Now it's a different story. I'm I'm like with much honest,

1183
01:17:25,520 --> 01:17:28,960
Speaker 1: more honest than up from people that show you everything.

1184
01:17:29,720 --> 01:17:34,720
Speaker 1: But uh, back in in that day, everybody got ripped off.

1185
01:17:34,760 --> 01:17:37,639
Speaker 1: I mean, Chuck, Barry bo you talked to all these guys.

1186
01:17:37,640 --> 01:17:42,080
Speaker 1: Everybody got you know, I didn't get paid. But somewhere

1187
01:17:42,080 --> 01:17:47,000
Speaker 1: along the line, the idea comes to you, let me

1188
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,479
Speaker 1: pull back from this. Like if I'm say, take Muddy

1189
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:55,519
Speaker 1: Waters comes out of the fields, he's picking cotton, gets

1190
01:17:55,520 --> 01:17:59,679
Speaker 1: his guitar, walks into his studio, you know, Chess records

1191
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:06,040
Speaker 1: and and say it doesn't get paid. Okay. If you

1192
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:10,280
Speaker 1: approach the guy like that and say, hey, listen, money,

1193
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:15,000
Speaker 1: we are going to record you and we're gonna give

1194
01:18:15,080 --> 01:18:20,840
Speaker 1: you an international career, the world is gonna know you,

1195
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:28,360
Speaker 1: and you know you're gonna make money because you're gonna

1196
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:31,200
Speaker 1: be the man. You know. Uh, we're gonna give you

1197
01:18:31,280 --> 01:18:33,960
Speaker 1: a career. We're gonna give you a sixty year career.

1198
01:18:34,600 --> 01:18:36,360
Speaker 1: What do you think of that? Who would who wouldn't,

1199
01:18:36,560 --> 01:18:40,080
Speaker 1: who wouldn't sign on? I'd say yeah. So somewhere along

1200
01:18:40,080 --> 01:18:42,800
Speaker 1: the line you're pulled back and you look at this

1201
01:18:42,920 --> 01:18:45,599
Speaker 1: and you go, well, yeah, I didn't get paid correctly

1202
01:18:45,640 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 1: in it, But look at they took a shot with me.

1203
01:18:48,760 --> 01:18:51,439
Speaker 1: They gave me this and they were like that, and

1204
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:55,160
Speaker 1: you just I mean nothing. It's right, But you walk

1205
01:18:55,200 --> 01:18:57,400
Speaker 1: away without a resentment and you don't have to ruin

1206
01:18:57,479 --> 01:18:59,880
Speaker 1: your life thinking about people beating you and all that

1207
01:19:00,120 --> 01:19:03,479
Speaker 1: stuff and blaming people. You know, you're just so you

1208
01:19:03,479 --> 01:19:05,639
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, You gotta pull back and look

1209
01:19:05,640 --> 01:19:08,320
Speaker 1: at the whole picture. Okay. And how did you meet

1210
01:19:08,360 --> 01:19:12,840
Speaker 1: hook up with Dick Fox? He was a fan as

1211
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:17,519
Speaker 1: a kid, and when I was in uh he showed

1212
01:19:17,600 --> 01:19:22,960
Speaker 1: up when I was going through uh a difficult time,

1213
01:19:24,040 --> 01:19:27,320
Speaker 1: uh and he said, I'd I'd love to to manage you.

1214
01:19:27,400 --> 01:19:31,000
Speaker 1: This was like in the early nineties and I've been

1215
01:19:31,040 --> 01:19:35,120
Speaker 1: with him ever since. He's made my life a living dream.

1216
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:38,320
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dick Fox. Thank you God. I mean, you know,

1217
01:19:38,320 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: when you got a guy like that by your side,

1218
01:19:41,200 --> 01:19:50,320
Speaker 1: what it's just, it makes life. It just makes life wonderful. Okay. Now,

1219
01:19:50,360 --> 01:19:52,360
Speaker 1: you moved to Miami in sixty ye eight. What do

1220
01:19:52,400 --> 01:19:56,840
Speaker 1: we know about Miami? Snowbirds went there, Jackie Gleason moved there,

1221
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:01,120
Speaker 1: but maybe with criteria study. It was in the seventies

1222
01:20:01,680 --> 01:20:05,280
Speaker 1: Miami became hot, nothing like it is today. Were you

1223
01:20:05,439 --> 01:20:07,320
Speaker 1: out of the loop? It was good for you for

1224
01:20:07,479 --> 01:20:12,800
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol? Was it good for you musically? Well?

1225
01:20:13,840 --> 01:20:19,720
Speaker 1: I really was still connected to New York. Uh Uh.

1226
01:20:19,760 --> 01:20:24,520
Speaker 1: I moved down just to get away from drugs and alcohol.

1227
01:20:25,120 --> 01:20:27,920
Speaker 1: And I found that that I took myself with me.

1228
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:32,000
Speaker 1: But as you'd have it. You know, I met a

1229
01:20:32,040 --> 01:20:35,280
Speaker 1: guy and I got cleaning soba and cleaning soba ever

1230
01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:41,320
Speaker 1: since April of nineteen, and uh, that's a big thing.

1231
01:20:41,439 --> 01:20:45,840
Speaker 1: It kept me healthy and vital and and uh significant,

1232
01:20:46,080 --> 01:20:48,880
Speaker 1: you know, like I like I made this latest album,

1233
01:20:48,960 --> 01:20:50,640
Speaker 1: Blues with Friends. Do you think I'd go in and

1234
01:20:50,680 --> 01:20:55,120
Speaker 1: make an album if I didn't feel uh, you know, significant,

1235
01:20:55,200 --> 01:20:57,400
Speaker 1: or I had something to say? What what would be

1236
01:20:57,439 --> 01:21:00,880
Speaker 1: the reason to do it? I don't have a reason,

1237
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:05,639
Speaker 1: you know. So I feel very uh alive and well

1238
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:08,679
Speaker 1: and like, uh, actually I have more to say now

1239
01:21:09,120 --> 01:21:12,240
Speaker 1: than I did when I was nineteen. I made some

1240
01:21:12,320 --> 01:21:15,360
Speaker 1: great records then. But I just you should hear the

1241
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:17,519
Speaker 1: new thing I'm doing. I'm doing. I just went in

1242
01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:20,360
Speaker 1: and cutting. I'm cutting a new album. I must be

1243
01:21:20,439 --> 01:21:23,639
Speaker 1: under the spout where the glory comes out, because man,

1244
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:28,800
Speaker 1: these songs have been getting downloaded in my head. So

1245
01:21:30,600 --> 01:21:32,920
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this new thing I'm doing. You know,

1246
01:21:32,960 --> 01:21:36,880
Speaker 1: it's just fun. I love, you know, Bob, I've always

1247
01:21:36,920 --> 01:21:40,840
Speaker 1: loved creating something like it wasn't there and all of

1248
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:44,920
Speaker 1: a sudden it's there. The sound these songs they take

1249
01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:48,960
Speaker 1: people on a trip. I've always loved that more than

1250
01:21:49,080 --> 01:21:51,400
Speaker 1: going on the road and singing and you know, and

1251
01:21:51,479 --> 01:21:55,599
Speaker 1: doing that deal. I love. I love singing the people.

1252
01:21:55,880 --> 01:21:58,920
Speaker 1: It's just wonderful see the faces. And like I said,

1253
01:21:59,200 --> 01:22:01,639
Speaker 1: I've never changed. I love taking people on a trip.

1254
01:22:02,520 --> 01:22:06,120
Speaker 1: But let me tell you, man, I love creating. I

1255
01:22:06,160 --> 01:22:09,559
Speaker 1: love the idea of creating more than anything. It's just

1256
01:22:10,479 --> 01:22:13,639
Speaker 1: that turns me on, that that that floats my boat.

1257
01:22:13,680 --> 01:22:20,080
Speaker 1: That's why I'm still passionate. Okay, Uh, You've had ups

1258
01:22:20,080 --> 01:22:22,880
Speaker 1: and downs. You talk about alcohol, moving to Miami. Do

1259
01:22:22,960 --> 01:22:29,439
Speaker 1: you ever contemplate giving up, giving up, retiring and doing

1260
01:22:29,479 --> 01:22:37,960
Speaker 1: something else? Uh? Hey, I don't know. You know, I'll

1261
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:43,479
Speaker 1: be honest with you. I love talking to men about recovery.

1262
01:22:44,240 --> 01:22:46,479
Speaker 1: I mean, that'll always be a part of my life

1263
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:52,160
Speaker 1: because someone was there for me and uh showed me

1264
01:22:53,320 --> 01:22:55,800
Speaker 1: where the key was to open up the cell that

1265
01:22:55,880 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 1: I was in of of self bondage, you know. And

1266
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:03,840
Speaker 1: so I just love talking to men because when I

1267
01:23:03,880 --> 01:23:07,519
Speaker 1: see the lights come on, they come alive and they

1268
01:23:07,520 --> 01:23:12,760
Speaker 1: get free, a freedom of excellence, a genuine freedom, not

1269
01:23:13,000 --> 01:23:17,639
Speaker 1: not false. I and their families come together and their

1270
01:23:17,800 --> 01:23:21,479
Speaker 1: kids and that turns me on. So I so I

1271
01:23:21,479 --> 01:23:25,360
Speaker 1: would never retire from that, and I would never retire.

1272
01:23:25,400 --> 01:23:28,719
Speaker 1: I don't think I could ever retire from making music

1273
01:23:29,040 --> 01:23:34,679
Speaker 1: some some way, you know. And uh so those two things. Uh,

1274
01:23:34,840 --> 01:23:38,280
Speaker 1: Like you know, Bob, I found out a long time ago,

1275
01:23:38,360 --> 01:23:45,679
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between success and fulfillment. And uh,

1276
01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:48,720
Speaker 1: you know, they're not the same. They're they're different. And

1277
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:53,400
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, you could just read the headline,

1278
01:23:53,439 --> 01:23:55,519
Speaker 1: you could just read the tabloids and see people that

1279
01:23:55,600 --> 01:23:59,160
Speaker 1: are successful, a lot of them are not very happy.

1280
01:23:59,520 --> 01:24:03,640
Speaker 1: So uh but I'm a grateful guy because I you know,

1281
01:24:04,280 --> 01:24:09,720
Speaker 1: I found peace and and brotherhood with a lot of

1282
01:24:09,760 --> 01:24:13,840
Speaker 1: friends and community and love around me. So I'm I'm

1283
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:18,960
Speaker 1: good to go. Okay, But before you go on every level.

1284
01:24:19,240 --> 01:24:21,360
Speaker 1: Your mother lived a hundred and four, let's just say

1285
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:27,479
Speaker 1: you have twenty years left. Anything specific you want to accomplish,

1286
01:24:28,200 --> 01:24:35,519
Speaker 1: uh or do with that time? Well, you know, I'll

1287
01:24:35,560 --> 01:24:39,840
Speaker 1: tell you something that's crazy. It's crazy because I'm from

1288
01:24:39,840 --> 01:24:48,439
Speaker 1: New York, right. But John Coltrane is a quote that

1289
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:54,040
Speaker 1: really hit me. He said, the only real regret in

1290
01:24:54,080 --> 01:25:01,640
Speaker 1: life is not to become a saint. Now, you know,

1291
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:04,640
Speaker 1: you would think well, what do I want to accomplish?

1292
01:25:04,680 --> 01:25:07,160
Speaker 1: What do I want to do? Well, that's not a

1293
01:25:07,200 --> 01:25:12,960
Speaker 1: bad mission statement to try and let go of all

1294
01:25:13,000 --> 01:25:16,040
Speaker 1: the things that get in the way of of a

1295
01:25:16,160 --> 01:25:20,439
Speaker 1: terrible life, you know, all the addictions and uh you know,

1296
01:25:20,840 --> 01:25:25,839
Speaker 1: uh kind of missing the mark and trying to uh

1297
01:25:26,080 --> 01:25:28,680
Speaker 1: get older, you know, be being self centered and all that.

1298
01:25:29,479 --> 01:25:33,880
Speaker 1: You know, to try and shoot for something like that,

1299
01:25:33,880 --> 01:25:37,960
Speaker 1: that would be my mission statement to try. You know, listen,

1300
01:25:38,000 --> 01:25:39,519
Speaker 1: I got friends that are looking at me and go

1301
01:25:39,760 --> 01:25:44,599
Speaker 1: ain't gonna happen, you know, listen, Uh, you know I'll

1302
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:46,479
Speaker 1: never be you know, none of us are going to

1303
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:50,200
Speaker 1: be perfect, none of us. But it's not a bad

1304
01:25:50,240 --> 01:25:53,760
Speaker 1: thing to to shoot for like perfection and and to

1305
01:25:53,880 --> 01:25:57,559
Speaker 1: be a good person. I always say I got I'm

1306
01:25:57,560 --> 01:25:59,320
Speaker 1: a thinker, you know, I like to think. So I

1307
01:25:59,360 --> 01:26:06,759
Speaker 1: always say God without goodness is fanaticism. And goodness without

1308
01:26:06,880 --> 01:26:10,880
Speaker 1: God doesn't endure it for very long. It has no legs.

1309
01:26:11,520 --> 01:26:13,920
Speaker 1: So I have all these kind of things. I got

1310
01:26:14,000 --> 01:26:18,880
Speaker 1: my head, you know that, I that that keeps me

1311
01:26:18,920 --> 01:26:21,000
Speaker 1: on track. You know, I got good people around me.

1312
01:26:22,120 --> 01:26:24,400
Speaker 1: You know, do you do you play music in the

1313
01:26:24,400 --> 01:26:29,000
Speaker 1: house on a regular basis, Either records or playing yourself. Yeah,

1314
01:26:29,160 --> 01:26:36,240
Speaker 1: I well, I don't. There's no music blasting in my

1315
01:26:36,320 --> 01:26:38,400
Speaker 1: house all the time. But you know, I have your phones.

1316
01:26:38,439 --> 01:26:41,200
Speaker 1: I got in the truck and I like to play

1317
01:26:41,200 --> 01:26:43,320
Speaker 1: what I like in the truck, and I bought it,

1318
01:26:43,600 --> 01:26:45,920
Speaker 1: you know. But but I write in the house, I'm

1319
01:26:45,920 --> 01:26:49,080
Speaker 1: always I'm always a you know, in a room with

1320
01:26:49,240 --> 01:26:54,240
Speaker 1: my guitar and uh, because I tell you, it's just

1321
01:26:54,360 --> 01:26:57,240
Speaker 1: I have no choice. These songs get dropped in your head. Bob.

1322
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:01,639
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's just something. It's a gift, right,

1323
01:27:01,760 --> 01:27:06,080
Speaker 1: It's a gift because it comes out of the wellspring

1324
01:27:06,120 --> 01:27:10,040
Speaker 1: of creativity. And I'm under it. I just stand and

1325
01:27:10,080 --> 01:27:12,640
Speaker 1: now we are all under it. You're a fountain of

1326
01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:16,679
Speaker 1: wisdom and insight, and you have survived unlike Frankie Lyman.

1327
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:20,160
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time, Dione. Hey, Bob,

1328
01:27:20,240 --> 01:27:23,639
Speaker 1: thank you. We gotta work together. You stay well, stay safe,

1329
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:28,080
Speaker 1: stay strong. Thanks for the positive words, because I we've

1330
01:27:28,080 --> 01:27:29,960
Speaker 1: both been through it, but I certainly been through it.

1331
01:27:30,200 --> 01:27:32,639
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left text