Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Richard Thompson. Richard,
Speaker 1: you have a new album shipped to short Why that title?
Speaker 2: Well, it seemed appropriate at the time. Let me think, Well,
Speaker 2: I think in a sense, we're all a bit out
Speaker 2: to see you know, you know, like musicians, songwriters and
Speaker 2: and uh, we're kind of sending messages to land, like
Speaker 2: a song as it is a kind of a little
Speaker 2: a little message from far far out at sea. Uh.
Speaker 2: I think as an artist, I think you always feel
Speaker 2: like like you're on the edge of society. You you're not,
Speaker 2: you're not kind of part of it, you're not in it.
Speaker 2: So I suppose that's what that really means to me. Anyway, Well,
Speaker 2: well tell me about feeling like you're on the edge
Speaker 2: of society about it. I think if you're slightly removed,
Speaker 2: if you're one of those people, you know, you go
Speaker 2: to a party and and you spend more time watching
Speaker 2: everybody else that than actually engaging that, then I think
Speaker 2: you're kind of on the edge. But when you're on
Speaker 2: the edge, you get the best of you, You get
Speaker 2: a clearer view of everything. Just being that little bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say I call you up and I say, Richard,
Speaker 1: I'm going to a party. Are you going to say, okay,
Speaker 1: pick me up. Are you going to say not interested?
Speaker 2: I used to go to parties to pick up girls
Speaker 2: and get drunk. Now I'm happily married and I don't drink.
Speaker 2: Parties become more, you know, like dinner parties. I think
Speaker 2: I love parties where you go and you sit around
Speaker 2: and you have some dinner or something, and you have
Speaker 2: really good intellectual conversations. I love intellectual conversation. That's my
Speaker 2: favorite thing.
Speaker 1: Well, let me just say that I invited you to
Speaker 1: a dinner party and you don't know anybody. Is that
Speaker 1: exciting or depressing?
Speaker 2: It depends who it is, depends who's sitting at the table.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've done that many times, and sometimes you
Speaker 2: make friends for life, and sometimes you meet really interesting people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's a table containing you know, uh, you know
Speaker 2: William Blake and Stevie Smith and Dmitriy Shostakovich and you know,
Speaker 2: Michael Angelo, then I think that that could be an
Speaker 2: interesting party, you know. And I wouldn't mind if I
Speaker 2: didn't know anybody beforehand. I could find lots to talk about.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think we're going to be going to
Speaker 1: that dinner party soon, but.
Speaker 2: Perhaps in heaven, you know. See.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, you feel like you're on
Speaker 1: the outside, but you don't have any social anxiety.
Speaker 2: Social anxiety and not really No, I used to, but
Speaker 2: I think I think I think I'm over it now. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I'm fine.
Speaker 1: Did you always feel like an outsider your whole life?
Speaker 2: Most of my life? Yeah, an outside yeah, in some ways,
Speaker 2: a bit of a stranger in some ways. You know,
Speaker 2: I was a bit of a solitary kid, I suppose,
Speaker 2: and I still enjoy my own company. I need some
Speaker 2: alone time generally speaking. So yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 2: I engage were well with people when I engage. But
Speaker 2: there is always that the artist thing where you're always
Speaker 2: thinking in terms of reflecting, in terms of reflecting reality,
Speaker 2: reflecting society, and I think to do that you just
Speaker 2: have to be that that little one degree removed, just
Speaker 2: to give yourself some perspective.
Speaker 1: So you need your alone time. What do you do
Speaker 1: in your alone time?
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: I get creative whatever that means, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I play music. I think about music. I compose music,
Speaker 2: I compose lyrics and I watched the football.
Speaker 1: Well, is your alone time because you want to create
Speaker 1: or you're sick of hanging with people?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not sick of hanging with people. It just
Speaker 2: feels like a need. If it's not daily, then it's
Speaker 2: certainly weekly that I just have to get away and
Speaker 2: create something. And that's an old human it's not a
Speaker 2: human traits. Isn't it like a creativity? I think we
Speaker 2: love to create something where we look for inspiration, you know,
Speaker 2: So I'm just looking for inspiration, Okay.
Speaker 1: I find my best inspiration comes when I'm not looking
Speaker 1: for it, primarily in the shower. Is there a moment
Speaker 1: or a place where you find that you tend to
Speaker 1: get the best ideas well?
Speaker 2: The shower is very good, so is the bath, you know,
Speaker 2: the Turkish bath very good. That work for Rumy gelidin Rumy.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: But as Picasso said, you know, the music will find you,
Speaker 2: but but it wants to find you working. And I
Speaker 2: think sometimes you kind of have to meet creativity halfway.
Speaker 2: You can't just kind of let it come, or you
Speaker 2: can wait for a long time and get very frustrated.
Speaker 2: So I tend to kind of, you know, noodle at projects,
Speaker 2: and then I find and at some point I get
Speaker 2: in the right mental state to allow creativity in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this last album came, you know, essentially half
Speaker 1: a decade after the previous album. You talked about working
Speaker 1: to let the inspiration in. Was it that you decided
Speaker 1: you were going to make another record or what is
Speaker 1: that interim about.
Speaker 2: I think the album process, unless you've got a deadline
Speaker 2: that you have to, you know, grab, I think things
Speaker 2: just accumulate. I think you accumulate enough material, and you think, well,
Speaker 2: I've got I've got sixteen songs here. Surely out of
Speaker 2: those sixteen, i've got twelve twelve good ones I can
Speaker 2: put on a record, So let's book some studio time,
Speaker 2: you know. I think it works like that. Really, COVID
Speaker 2: gave me a lot more time to write, but obviously
Speaker 2: I couldn't tour, So that was two and a half
Speaker 2: years of not touring. But you know, I wrote a
Speaker 2: couple of EPs. I wrote this album, I wrote the
Speaker 2: next album. I wrote a musical play, I'm one way ahead,
Speaker 2: I'm so far ahead, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Okay. The last song on the album talks about needing
Speaker 1: to go on the road to make the money to
Speaker 1: make that whole work. So it didn't work for a
Speaker 1: couple of years with COVID. Was that tough financially, Yeah,
Speaker 1: really tough. You think, like a lot of musicians. I
Speaker 1: had to had to dig into my pension. So many
Speaker 1: people I knew did the same thing.
Speaker 2: It was. It was tough, you know, on top of
Speaker 2: an expensive divorce. But that was really tough. And I'm
Speaker 2: still catching.
Speaker 1: Up, okay. You know, you talk about an expensive divorce.
Speaker 1: You get into the lyrics on this record and it
Speaker 1: seems to be a divorce record, and then finding love
Speaker 1: and it seems that, you know, you talk a lot.
Speaker 1: The best song on me I'm for Me is trust,
Speaker 1: and you talk about trust. How much is this reflective
Speaker 1: of the relationship you were with and then you got divorced?
Speaker 2: Probably nothing to do with that, really. I wrote the
Speaker 2: song really about my wife, who's an adoptee, and adoptees
Speaker 2: sometimes have a hard time trusting anybody, so so I
Speaker 2: really write write it for her. I'm putting words in
Speaker 2: her mouth. Frankly, It's an old trick, but I'll resort
Speaker 2: to it if I have to and you know, she
Speaker 2: has a hard time trusting people. She kind of trusts
Speaker 2: me now after seven years fifty so that's an achievement.
Speaker 1: So how'd you meet her?
Speaker 2: I mean it backstage, classic friend of a friend, and
Speaker 2: we're both from North London, both come from the same town,
Speaker 2: you know, both come from the same background, share similar values,
Speaker 2: and you know, just someone I have my I think
Speaker 2: she's a wonderful person and she does do a lot
Speaker 2: of work in the adopted your world, does a lot
Speaker 2: of important work in that world, and I'm filled with admiration.
Speaker 1: Did the new relationship have anything to do with the divorce?
Speaker 2: You could say that I suppose. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I was married to my previous wife for you know,
Speaker 2: thirty plus years, and I think at some point you
Speaker 2: realize that that there's there's no life there. It's it's
Speaker 2: a kind of a lifeless relationship and you're kind of
Speaker 2: going through the motions. So yeah, well, without being too
Speaker 2: specific about it, I should say that's true.
Speaker 1: And your present wife has children. Are they still in
Speaker 1: the home or are they outside the home?
Speaker 2: Her children are now just about left that they were
Speaker 2: in their twenties, so they're now independent. Yeah, my kids
Speaker 2: are much older. I got five kids. My youngest is thirty,
Speaker 2: so my oldest is fifty something, so might have long
Speaker 2: flown the coop.
Speaker 1: When you got involved with your present wife, you were
Speaker 1: living with her. Were the kids still in the.
Speaker 2: Home, Yeah, some so, some were somewhat.
Speaker 1: So what was it like starting all over with the
Speaker 1: kids in your home? I mean that must have been
Speaker 1: you know, some people say they don't want to do
Speaker 1: that anymore. Been there done that?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm I think it was unfortunate that the
Speaker 2: wee all got on very well. I mean I really
Speaker 2: like us that Zarah's kids, so that they're great kids.
Speaker 2: And you know, it wasn't like we were there all
Speaker 2: the time. You know, sometimes I'm working. I was in
Speaker 2: England some some of the time. She was in the States.
Speaker 2: The kids went off to college at some point, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't like we were, you know, under each other's
Speaker 2: feet or anything. So just a nice relationships all round.
Speaker 1: So you have five kids, A couple of them are
Speaker 1: well known from your first wife. What are the other
Speaker 1: three kids up do?
Speaker 2: Let's see what my daughter came He is a musician,
Speaker 2: My son Teddy's a musician, my son Jack's a musician
Speaker 2: slash interior designer. My daughter Moona's basically a mother, she's
Speaker 2: got five kids, and my son Jesse's kind of does
Speaker 2: it stuff that I don't understand.
Speaker 1: And are they all off the payroll?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Pretty much? Yeah, thank thank God that they'll start
Speaker 2: paying me at some point. I don't perhaps they'll support
Speaker 2: me in the assisted living home.
Speaker 1: And how much contact do you have with them?
Speaker 2: My kids? Yeah, I'm pretty good, fairy frequent. I probably
Speaker 2: see Teddy the most because when I'm in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: he's in New York, so we're fairly close together. My
Speaker 2: mother kids are all kind of around, you know, Southeast England,
Speaker 2: so I'll see them all in the next couple of
Speaker 2: weeks probably.
Speaker 1: So how most of the time you're in New Jersey now.
Speaker 2: It's about fifty to fifty I should say, yeah, between
Speaker 2: London and New Jersey.
Speaker 1: And with your previous wife, where were the locations.
Speaker 2: Between London and Los Angeles?
Speaker 1: And was it still fifty to fifty?
Speaker 2: I say pretty much?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you have a place in London.
Speaker 2: I have a place in London from which I'm speaking
Speaker 2: to you right now.
Speaker 1: And how long have you had that place?
Speaker 2: Oh golly, at least thirty years, probably thirty five years.
Speaker 1: And when you're not there, is there somebody stays for you?
Speaker 2: Well, where we have people look after it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So what's the difference to you living in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles is supposed to living in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I love Los Angeles. I love California as a state.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful state and it's full of variety, and
Speaker 2: in many ways it's easy living. I mean it's expensive living,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of easy in so many ways. Compared
Speaker 2: to Britain anyway, New Jersey for me is a lot
Speaker 2: more convenient. I'm much closer for doing you know, Atlantic
Speaker 2: backwards and forwards stuff. I'm twenty minutes from the airport
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's it's a handy place to be. I know,
Speaker 2: just in New Jersey. I just live it. Live at
Speaker 2: a condo and I've got a studio in the basement
Speaker 2: which is great, and some good friends and that's all
Speaker 2: I need.
Speaker 1: And what's the difference between living in the US and
Speaker 1: living in the UK? I think.
Speaker 2: What's the truth that I think? You know, Europe's older,
Speaker 2: that's the main thing. The The socialist historian Eric Hobsbaum
Speaker 2: said late in life he said that the best place
Speaker 2: is to live a constitutional monarchies because they give you
Speaker 2: the greatest chance of freedom. And I feel that really
Speaker 2: about Britain's a kind of stability to bring and you know,
Speaker 2: there's a security so that people there's a lot of
Speaker 2: things people don't worry about. That the kind of accept
Speaker 2: a certain continuum that Britain's been around for a couple
Speaker 2: of thousand years and it will continue to be around
Speaker 2: in the future. Well, with America, it feels much more unstable,
Speaker 2: and it feels like so much more like it like
Speaker 2: a new country and has all the insecurities of a
Speaker 2: new country. And you know, right now politically America is
Speaker 2: very divided. Although politics in Britain is pretty bad, it's
Speaker 2: never at that level. So I'm concerned about about America,
Speaker 2: about how divisive it's become, and it seems to be
Speaker 2: really tearing itself apart, and perhaps it'll end up as
Speaker 2: being a bit more fragmented than it is now.
Speaker 1: When you say there's more freedom in a constitutional monarchy,
Speaker 1: can you amplify that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think of the British royal family and you think,
Speaker 2: you know that these are over privileged people. You know
Speaker 2: that I mean, my god, you know what, we pay
Speaker 2: them all this money and they dressed up in these
Speaker 2: uniforms and they do these ceremonies, and is it all
Speaker 2: really necessary? You know? I think, particularly if you're an American,
Speaker 2: you could look at that and think it's ridiculous. But
Speaker 2: I think in Britain, you think, you know, the Queen,
Speaker 2: the King, you know, it is a kind of kind
Speaker 2: of a continuity, and politicians come and go, and their
Speaker 2: egos come and go, and their incompetence comes and goes.
Speaker 2: But there's a kind of stability about the fact that
Speaker 2: the Queen was there for like seventy years and you know,
Speaker 2: went through god knows how many prime ministers. You know,
Speaker 2: you have a fair price. The first prime Minister is
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill. So you know, there's there's this very very accomplished,
Speaker 2: very knowledgeable figurehead in the Queen for seventy years, and Charles,
Speaker 2: I think also fills the same role. It's just a
Speaker 2: sense of inheritance and continuity, and it means that there's
Speaker 2: less emphasis on the politicians. I think in America sometimes
Speaker 2: the politicians get treated almost like royalty. But you know,
Speaker 2: mister President's you know, people kind of genuflector a bit
Speaker 2: to just the office of president.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait a second, we're in the US, so we're
Speaker 1: one step removed. And we read about modern European history
Speaker 1: when the kings and queens had all this power. But
Speaker 1: to us the queen feels like a figurehead with no
Speaker 1: political power. How do the people in the UK view
Speaker 1: her or here now it's a king.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, the view is a good idea. The
Speaker 2: kings and queens of Britain I have have not had
Speaker 2: constitutional power for a long time, so that they've always
Speaker 2: been figureheads. As I said, they say the Queen reigne,
Speaker 2: she does not rule, but I should say now the
Speaker 2: king reigns, he does not rule. So it's it's a
Speaker 2: symbolic can continue them if you like, in theory that
Speaker 2: the king can can dissolve parliament. He can say that's it,
Speaker 2: you know, you're out, but he'll never do it. Like
Speaker 2: a lot of things about British politics, a lot isn't
Speaker 2: written down. It's just kind of tradition and and you
Speaker 2: know a previous experience really so yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 2: totally symbolic continuity. But but but it does take the
Speaker 2: emphasis away from the politicians as themselves. And what about Brexit?
Speaker 2: What about Brexit? Absolute mess, absolute mess. I'm a stupidity incompetence.
Speaker 2: If you were going to leave the European Union, at
Speaker 2: least have a plan, at least look at it thoroughly
Speaker 2: and figure out what you're actually going to do. This was,
Speaker 2: you know, the Conservative Party of Britain basically in fighting
Speaker 2: and mister Cameron thinking well that the way I'll unite
Speaker 2: the party is to have a referendum over Europe, which
Speaker 2: is absolutely stupid. No one expected people to vote for
Speaker 2: outs anyway, but they did. I had to. I had
Speaker 2: to hold to that and it's a disaster. There's a
Speaker 2: movement to rejoin the EU and I might be a
Speaker 2: fan of that actually.
Speaker 1: And we hear, you know, labor just got in. But
Speaker 1: we hear that the NHS is underfunded. We hear that
Speaker 1: immigration did not decrease, which was one of the big
Speaker 1: points of Brexit. What's the status of the country today.
Speaker 2: I think you just hit hit upon the two big
Speaker 2: issues right now, which is immigration. But Britain does not
Speaker 2: have a successful immigration policy and that they're gonna have
Speaker 2: to deal with that. It's serious stuff. And the NHS
Speaker 2: has been underfunded for years and years and years. The
Speaker 2: problem is the medicine keyps becoming more and more expensive.
Speaker 2: You know, to treat certain patients you need big expensive machines.
Speaker 2: It costs a fortune and the NHS has not been
Speaker 2: able to keep up. It's a brilliant idea, but it
Speaker 2: just needs more funding.
Speaker 1: And if you become ill, do you go to a
Speaker 1: private doctor or the NHS?
Speaker 2: What if I can afford, I'll go you a private doctor, okay,
Speaker 2: or I'll get ill in America? Where where where I'm
Speaker 2: on medicare?
Speaker 1: So you grew up in notting Hill.
Speaker 2: Briefly. Yeah, when we were five we moved to Highgate.
Speaker 1: And for those of us you know geography challenge, where
Speaker 1: is there?
Speaker 2: Well, notting Hill is a few miles west of central London.
Speaker 2: Highgate is about five miles north of central London and
Speaker 2: it's kind of a leafy suburb or on the edge
Speaker 2: of a leafy suburb. There's a big park called Hampster's Heath,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, you can't build on it. It's like
Speaker 2: too sandy to build on. So it survived in close
Speaker 2: proximities London. And that's where I live now in London.
Speaker 1: And what do your parents do for a living.
Speaker 2: My mum was a housewife, my dad was a policeman.
Speaker 1: So when marijuana and other things became a big deal,
Speaker 1: and your father was a policeman, how did you square that?
Speaker 2: Well, he said, probably in the seventies, you know, he
Speaker 2: said to me. Oh yeah, people talking about marijuana all
Speaker 2: the time. He said, Well, we used to call it
Speaker 2: Indian hemp back in the day, and it's pretty talking
Speaker 2: about the nineteen sixties or even the fifties, he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, well we used to confiscate some sometimes from
Speaker 2: the West Indian immigrants, you know, and we'd have a
Speaker 2: little smoke at the police station. And he said, it
Speaker 2: didn't do much for me, he said.
Speaker 1: And so how many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: In Oh, my siblings just a sister. I have an
Speaker 2: older sister.
Speaker 1: And okay, you were born in forty nine. Did you
Speaker 1: still feel the after effects of the war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, London was pretty bombed, you know, during the war.
Speaker 2: So as kids were we play on these bomb sites.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really dangerous and our parents didn't know
Speaker 2: necessarily what we were doing, but you know, we play
Speaker 2: in the broken glass and you know, thank thank god,
Speaker 2: we never encountered an unexploded bomber or an incendiary or anything.
Speaker 2: But you know what, we just you know what, it's
Speaker 2: your childhood. You've got nothing else to compare it to.
Speaker 2: So it just seemed fine, you know. And the street
Speaker 2: we lived on was like all shrad or damage on
Speaker 2: the buildings, and at the end of the street was
Speaker 2: actually a bomb site. But that was just our child well,
Speaker 2: we just had fun. We enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And when did the fog live? When did it go
Speaker 1: from black and white to color? I think.
Speaker 2: It probably took till sixty seven. I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: sixty three when the Beatles, Mary Korn's, you know, the
Speaker 2: whole fashion and music thing. London became the center of
Speaker 2: that whole world. I think it was still black and
Speaker 2: white then, and I think sixty seven with sort of
Speaker 2: psychedelia flower power, I think then suddenly it turned it
Speaker 2: turned to color far as I remember, and you know,
Speaker 2: the fifties was very gray as far as I remember
Speaker 2: as a kid, that just seemed like the weather was great.
Speaker 2: It's just seemed like the people's energy was kind of down.
Speaker 2: But as kids were we just enjoyed it anyway. But
Speaker 2: looking back, it did seem basically kind of post war
Speaker 2: you know, poversy really And what was it like when
Speaker 2: the Beatles hit exciting? Exciting? I think, well, you know,
Speaker 2: even when I was I was like thirteen, fourteen years old,
Speaker 2: it was very easy to get caught up in pop
Speaker 2: culture because you had the radio, you had music on
Speaker 2: the radio, you had some very good TV shows for teenagers.
Speaker 2: And by the time I was fifteen, I was going
Speaker 2: out to hear bands, going out to clubs, folk clubs,
Speaker 2: rock clubs. I knew you had a lot of choice
Speaker 2: in London. You had a huge variety of things that
Speaker 2: you could go and see, so you kind of felt
Speaker 2: you were at the epicenter really.
Speaker 1: So from your house you could get the tube or
Speaker 1: how would you actually get to these clubs? And how
Speaker 1: long would it take?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could take the tube or the bus. The
Speaker 2: tube is very quick. I mean from my from our
Speaker 2: house at that point, we could you could be in
Speaker 2: town in like fifteen minutes, twenty minutes from the kind
Speaker 2: of inner suburbs. Well, when my parents moved us to
Speaker 2: the outer suburbs, it took it took about you know,
Speaker 2: half an hour thirty five minutes.
Speaker 1: So did your parents ever care that you went alone,
Speaker 1: or they say, hey, go be your own person. I'd
Speaker 1: always I'd always.
Speaker 2: Deceived my parents really about what I was doing and
Speaker 2: where I was going. So sometimes I missed the last
Speaker 2: train home, so I'd have to walk home, which made
Speaker 2: I'll be getting in at like one o'clock two in
Speaker 2: the morning, and thank god, my parents were heavy sleepers,
Speaker 2: and I kind of sneak in and they say, what
Speaker 2: time did you get in last night? I said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, eleven, eleven thirty. I said, oh, okay, so
Speaker 2: I did that for years. Okay, how good a.
Speaker 1: Student were you?
Speaker 2: Not very good?
Speaker 1: And was there always music in the house?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents were musical, you know, they weren't professional,
Speaker 2: but my mom was a good singer and my father
Speaker 2: was an amateur guitar player. So we have Let's Pool records,
Speaker 2: Jago Reinhart records, lot Lonnie Johnson records from my father's
Speaker 2: collection and from my sister's collection, who was five years
Speaker 2: older than me. We had all the good rock and roll.
Speaker 2: But so we had Buddy Holly, Elvis, Jean Vincent, Jerry Lee,
Speaker 2: all the good rock and roll as well. So always
Speaker 2: music in the house.
Speaker 1: And when did you start to play an instrument.
Speaker 2: My father brought home a guitar that was damaged when
Speaker 2: I was ten, and he kind of glued it back
Speaker 2: together again, and then I just picked it up and
Speaker 2: started playing because it was something I wanted to do
Speaker 2: for a long time. I've been asking my parents for
Speaker 2: a guitar since I was five, So at ten, I
Speaker 2: finally got one.
Speaker 1: Why were you asking them at age five?
Speaker 2: Rock and roll? You know? You know Elvis had a guitar,
Speaker 2: but Buddy Holly had a guitar, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: posing with a tennis racket in the in front of
Speaker 2: the mirror. I had to suffice for a while, but
Speaker 2: then I was very glad to get my hands on
Speaker 2: a real one.
Speaker 1: So your father glued the guitar back together. Did you
Speaker 1: ever take lessons? I did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I took classical lessons for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: which was great. That really got my fingers working properly.
Speaker 2: I'm very glad to this day, I'm very glad that
Speaker 2: I did that.
Speaker 1: And can you read music to this day?
Speaker 2: I can't. I can, Yeah, I'm not particularly good read.
Speaker 2: I can write it fast than I can read it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're making a record, you ever write
Speaker 1: down charts.
Speaker 2: Not usually, I mean sometimes we write you know, like
Speaker 2: like you know, a Nashville style chart, you know where
Speaker 2: you just you know, you have the bars and you
Speaker 2: have the you know the one called the four called
Speaker 2: the five chord get kind of shorthand charts. Really, if
Speaker 2: I'm bringing musicians in like a string quartel or something
Speaker 2: there that then I'll notate that properly.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're playing in the guitar, At what point
Speaker 1: do you start playing with other people?
Speaker 2: Pretty quickly, as soon as I started, my friend who
Speaker 2: live around the corner started as well, so we took
Speaker 2: lessons together and I was like a week ahead of him,
Speaker 2: so I got to play lead and he played rhythm.
Speaker 1: And when did you start forming a band or start
Speaker 1: playing out?
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, well, I think when I was twelve.
Speaker 2: I think I was in a band, like an instrumental band.
Speaker 2: And I think when I was thirteen or we did
Speaker 2: our first show and that was also our last show
Speaker 2: because it was it was so bad experience traumatic that
Speaker 2: we basically broke up at that point. And then I
Speaker 2: played with other kids at my school. I was in
Speaker 2: a band with Hugh Cornwell, who was in the Stranglers
Speaker 2: that lasted a couple of years, and then I met
Speaker 2: the Fairport guys, probably when I was sixteen, started playing
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: At what point in this story do you say this
Speaker 1: is going to be what I do for a living.
Speaker 2: Almost at no point, really, you know, it wasn't a
Speaker 2: career choice. If you see interviews with the Beatles in
Speaker 2: ninely sixty four sixty five that they say, well, we'll
Speaker 2: do this another couple of years and then we'll move over.
Speaker 2: We'll just write for other people, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: a career choice. That there was no sense of longevity
Speaker 2: being in popular music. So I think we thought we'd
Speaker 2: do it for a couple of years. Really, I'm eighteen,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty. At some point, I'm like twenty two, and
Speaker 2: I'm still going. Twenty five, I'm still going, but I'm
Speaker 2: still looking over my shoulder, and I'm still thinking that,
Speaker 2: you know, this cannot last. And I'm thirty thirty five,
Speaker 2: you know, but I think I was forty when my
Speaker 2: mother said, no, when are you going to get When
Speaker 2: are you going to get a real job? You haven't really,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you going to settle down and
Speaker 2: stop this music nonsense? You know, this is this is
Speaker 2: when she came to see me at the Royal Festival
Speaker 2: Hall in London. So so I think in my nightmare,
Speaker 2: so I'm still kind of looking over my shoulder thinking
Speaker 2: that this isn't a real job. What am I doing?
Speaker 2: At some point I've got to go back to university
Speaker 2: or something, you know, and do more study. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Did things ever get tough in you how to get
Speaker 1: a day job?
Speaker 2: Not quite? Somehow I always managed to survive when I
Speaker 2: left school. I was a stained glass stained glass artist
Speaker 2: for a year. What we did graphic design and stained glass,
Speaker 2: and I worked at the Zoo for a while. But mostly,
Speaker 2: you know, I survived on music, and when I wasn't
Speaker 2: in a band, I could survive on playing sessions, studio sessions.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, for lack of a better term, Fairport and
Speaker 1: those other racks were folk oriented. When you started in bands,
Speaker 1: were you playing that music or were you playing more
Speaker 1: rock and roll type stuff. I think.
Speaker 2: Growing up in London listening to a wide range of
Speaker 2: music meant that I could play a wide range of music.
Speaker 2: I could play folk music, I could play rock and roll,
Speaker 2: I could play a bit of jazz, I could play classical,
Speaker 2: so I was kind of ready for anything, really, and
Speaker 2: when Fairport started, we really were a folk rock band
Speaker 2: and I was happy to play that. That seemed to
Speaker 2: me a great choice of music. And we love lyrics.
Speaker 2: We were a real lyric band, so we would be
Speaker 2: covering you know, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, Jonny Mitchell.
Speaker 2: We'd be covering songs by the great singer songwriters.
Speaker 1: Okay, something that always fascinated me. We had a big
Speaker 1: folk movement late fifties early sixties in US, completely wiped
Speaker 1: off the map by the Beatles, and then in the
Speaker 1: late sixties there was the folk era from England, Fairport Convention, Steele, iye,
Speaker 1: span all these other acts. What caused that.
Speaker 2: Becaused it? I think, well, you know, since the grammar phone,
Speaker 2: or maybe since like Stephen Foster, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of UK music has been imported, and you know, songs
Speaker 2: like you know, Carolina Moon Keeps Shining that that you
Speaker 2: know that these songs were kind of romantic and almost
Speaker 2: mythological to the Brits. It was like somewhere somewhere else
Speaker 2: you could go that in your mind at least, that
Speaker 2: was a better place somehow, and you know, all through
Speaker 2: the jazz era, the swing era, music was more popular
Speaker 2: from the other side of the Atlantic, and I think
Speaker 2: when you have rock and roll that the same thing happened.
Speaker 2: And I think even the British folk revival of the
Speaker 2: fifties was sparked by people like Pete Seeger and the Weavers,
Speaker 2: and it took till the fifties for people like you
Speaker 2: and mccol and A. L. Lloyd to say, okay, well
Speaker 2: we're gonna start out of folk club and you have
Speaker 2: to sing songs from where you come from. You've got
Speaker 2: to sing British songs. If you're Scottish, you've got to
Speaker 2: sing Scottish songs. If you're English, English songs. And that
Speaker 2: was a big change, you know, And for Fairport it
Speaker 2: seemed to us a logical thing to do in the
Speaker 2: sixties was to contemporize folk music, was to bring it
Speaker 2: into the twentieth century by playing it on amplified instruments
Speaker 2: and drums. So really that was that that revival which
Speaker 2: started sort of sixty eight sixty nine fair Butt start
Speaker 2: started playing traditional music as a rock band and still
Speaker 2: I spam followed, other bands followed, but it took us
Speaker 2: that long, I think to really shake off the American
Speaker 2: shackles in some ways.
Speaker 1: Well there's also Britange and Pentangle. To what degree were
Speaker 1: you out in the forest alone or were there other
Speaker 1: English bands pushing you forward and leading the way in
Speaker 1: this type of music?
Speaker 2: Not really, no, I mean I think we thought Pentangle
Speaker 2: were more of a kind of folk slash jazz fusion band,
Speaker 2: if you like that, And we thought they were a
Speaker 2: bit wimpy, you know that they didn't play particularly loud,
Speaker 2: so we weren't influenced by by them. I mean, I
Speaker 2: love but yanch as a player, and I've seen him
Speaker 2: for years in folk clubs, and I love Danny Thompson,
Speaker 2: but we didn't really pay much attention to Pentangle. You know,
Speaker 2: all those guitar players David Graham, John Rambourn, Bert Yan
Speaker 2: Martin Carthy. I saw a lot of in folk clubs
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager, so I was strongly influenced
Speaker 2: by them at the time. And it was part of
Speaker 2: that mix, that that London mix of you know, being
Speaker 2: able to hear all these different different things. You know,
Speaker 2: they went in there with the Who and the Yardbirds
Speaker 2: and anything else you could see in London at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, so it was really fair boss idea. It's
Speaker 2: idea to amplify and play traditional ballads.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You're going to clubs. What acts
Speaker 1: did you see rock clubs?
Speaker 2: There was a great club called the Marquee Club, of course,
Speaker 2: in Soho, which started out as a jazz club, started
Speaker 2: by a guy called Chris Barber, and by about nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five you had The Who playing there as in
Speaker 2: a residency, a little club like three hundred, three hundred
Speaker 2: people standing. Maybe you had the Yard Buds on Fridays
Speaker 2: were there at Clapton then with Jeff Beck, then with
Speaker 2: Jimmy Page lost the guitar players to go and watch
Speaker 2: their Spencer Davis group with Steve Winwood would play there.
Speaker 2: The Nice Who, kind of the the the precursor to
Speaker 2: Emerson Lincoln Palmer, lots of good music. I saw a
Speaker 2: billboard for one particular week of nineteen sixty five, and
Speaker 2: I realized that I'd seen three shows that week. And
Speaker 2: I saw The Who on Tuesday, I saw the Yarbas
Speaker 2: on Friday, I saw the Bill Evans Trio on Thursday.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, what a week that was. That was
Speaker 2: just fantastic education.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you saw these bands, all these bands went
Speaker 1: on to be household names, and certainly and who live
Speaker 1: at Leads they had the poster from the Marque when
Speaker 1: you saw them at the Marquis. Did you think they
Speaker 1: would be as big as they would become? Were they
Speaker 1: as good as they became?
Speaker 2: In some ways? I think when the who were writing
Speaker 2: really great three minute pop songs before they became you know,
Speaker 2: you know, like an arena band or a stadium band.
Speaker 2: I think that they were just a great club band.
Speaker 2: And you know that they had a lot of visual
Speaker 2: stuff that they had all that great pop art ideas
Speaker 2: you know from people like Peter Blake. So that was
Speaker 2: very very exciting. And they played very loud and they
Speaker 2: would destroy their instruments on a regular basis, which is
Speaker 2: quite exciting too. So you know, a very anarchic, very
Speaker 2: very visual and as a fifteen sixteen year old, I mean,
Speaker 2: just what you wanted to see really, you know, it
Speaker 2: was that kind of thing, you know, you know, the
Speaker 2: yard Bers were just a pretty good R and B band.
Speaker 2: I think when we heard the real stuff from Chicago,
Speaker 2: when we actually heard Howling Wolf Records, we raised that
Speaker 2: Yelberds were actually a bit kind of wimpy, you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't have that kind of testosterone, you know, the
Speaker 2: running through the music that you heard on Muddy Waters
Speaker 2: and records. But yeah, exciting stuff. And you can see
Speaker 2: great jazz as well. In London, all the good jazz
Speaker 2: came through and you can see great classical concerts as well.
Speaker 2: So it was a real small gas board of excitement there.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see the Beatles live?
Speaker 2: No? I never did. I probably wouldn't have been able
Speaker 2: to hear them anyway. Reports say that you just couldn't
Speaker 2: hear a thing, but it sure was exciting.
Speaker 1: And what about the Stones?
Speaker 2: I saw the Stones quite early on. I didn't think
Speaker 2: they were very good. Actually I still don't think they're
Speaker 2: very good, but I think live that they're not that interesting.
Speaker 2: But they've made some great records. There's some absolutely definitive,
Speaker 2: wonderful rock records that that you know, pretty much set
Speaker 2: the standard for decades for other bands, which records what
Speaker 2: the things least like you know, Street Fighting Man, Brown Sugar,
Speaker 2: you know that generation of Stones records I think are
Speaker 2: really really great, fantastic records. They've got great grooves, great sounds,
Speaker 2: and they just does everything that a rock band should do.
Speaker 2: And you know the bands that followed, like Pearl Jamer
Speaker 2: kind of in the shadow of what the Stones could
Speaker 2: achieve in the seventies, I think.
Speaker 1: So in America started with the Beatles, and although the
Speaker 1: Stones were an element, we got all what was called
Speaker 1: the British invasion, everything from Herman's Hermits to Freddie and
Speaker 1: the Dreamers. What degree did they have impact? Were you
Speaker 1: paying attention to them in the UK?
Speaker 2: Well, in the UK it was just like saturation, you know,
Speaker 2: especially the bands from the North, the bands from Liverpool
Speaker 2: and Manchester pretty much saturated that the charts for a
Speaker 2: long time. You know. All we could offer from the
Speaker 2: South was the Dave Clark five, which there made some
Speaker 2: good records, but they were not a good band at all.
Speaker 2: So you know, the Beatles, the Holly's, you know, the
Speaker 2: Mersey Beats, the Big Three, the Escorts, you know, all
Speaker 2: these Liverpool bands. We're actually pretty good and what we
Speaker 2: really enjoyed them and tried to learn stuff from them,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So why did the innovation come from the North as
Speaker 1: opposed to the South?
Speaker 2: Good question, I think because Liverpool is a seaport, you
Speaker 2: had sailors, American sailors bringing over records and perhaps you know,
Speaker 2: trading them in in in you know, in pawn shops
Speaker 2: and junk shops. So in Liverpool you could buy Motown
Speaker 2: records at a time when when they were harder to
Speaker 2: find in London. And obviously you know that the Beatles,
Speaker 2: for instance, started off doing some great covers. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got a hold on me things things like that,
Speaker 2: All these these great Motown and R and B records,
Speaker 2: the well, we never heard in the South. You know,
Speaker 2: where we heard we heard chuck Berry and bow Didley,
Speaker 2: where we heard that kind of R and B stuff
Speaker 2: from Chicago, but where we never heard we never heard Motown,
Speaker 2: particularly until they started to tour in the UK.
Speaker 1: And I have to ask before we move forward, what
Speaker 1: about skiffle?
Speaker 2: Skiffle? My god, yeah, interesting UK phenomenon. Why I asked myself,
Speaker 2: why was this skiffle? Very strange thing?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: I think because after World War Two kids didn't have
Speaker 2: any money, you know that there was there were these
Speaker 2: teenagers who were just impoverished. Things are still unrational, you know,
Speaker 2: through the fifties, you know, you like couldn't get sweets,
Speaker 2: you couldn't get butter. You know, it's crazy, and no
Speaker 2: one could afford a real instruments and so people would
Speaker 2: make homemade instruments there that they'd make, you know, the
Speaker 2: washtub bass, sorry, the wash the washboard rhythm and then
Speaker 2: the washtub bass, and if you can afford a guitar
Speaker 2: or two that that would be good as well. And
Speaker 2: they just played like led Belly songs, Wouldy Guthrie songs. Uh.
Speaker 2: There was a famous skiffle band run by Lonnie Donegan
Speaker 2: and he he had major hits in the UK. I
Speaker 2: think he recorded That's the Right Mama, like a week
Speaker 2: after Elvis Presley or a week before Elvis Presley. So
Speaker 2: so he nearly invented rock and roll, but not quite.
Speaker 2: But he was kind of the beginning of the skiffle
Speaker 2: movement and and it just spread like wildfire through Britain.
Speaker 2: But because it was homemade music, you could make the
Speaker 2: instruments yourself, you know, the Beatles filmed the Quarrymen, you know,
Speaker 2: John and Paul. Anyway, and I don't know how long
Speaker 2: it lasted a couple of years. Maybe it was just
Speaker 2: a strange British phenomenon. And then after that you had
Speaker 2: a traditional jazz boom in Britain as well. You're concurrent
Speaker 2: with rock and roll. You had this revival of New
Speaker 2: Orleans traditional jazz basically in the nineteen twenties. So you
Speaker 2: had all these bands like like I could Builk playing
Speaker 2: trad jazz. And my sister, you know, used to used
Speaker 2: to go and dance to traditional jazz. That was one
Speaker 2: of her things. Concurrent with rock and roll. Very strange.
Speaker 1: And let's go back to the clubs. You know, you
Speaker 1: talk about the yard Birds. They have clapped in, they
Speaker 1: have Page, they have Beck. Of course, you have John Mayle,
Speaker 1: you have Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac. To what degree did
Speaker 1: not only you go to see these these guitarists, were
Speaker 1: they influential to you?
Speaker 2: Well, I learned how to copy those guys, and then
Speaker 2: I kind of rejected it, and I thought that this
Speaker 2: is an overcrowded world, the world of the the British
Speaker 2: blues man, you know, the Peter Greens and the Eric Clapton's,
Speaker 2: you know, and the Mick Taylor's, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. I just said, well, I'm going to play
Speaker 2: something different, you know, I'm not going to be like
Speaker 2: these guys. So when we started playing the traditional music,
Speaker 2: that was much more of an influence for me, so
Speaker 2: that I have more of a Celtic influence on on
Speaker 2: my guitar playing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you form Fairboard Convention. How long do you play
Speaker 1: before you get hooked up with Joe Boyd?
Speaker 2: Not very long, I think. I think I left school
Speaker 2: in May sixty seven. We were playing around the clubs
Speaker 2: that summer. I think it was something like September when
Speaker 2: we hooked up with Joe. Joe discovered us, Haha, as
Speaker 2: they say, so just a few months really, which is
Speaker 2: extraordinary in so many ways.
Speaker 1: Well, you know a lot of bands in the US
Speaker 1: they formed and they said, oh, we got to get
Speaker 1: a record deal. Was that in Fairport Convention's mind? Or
Speaker 1: did Joe Boyd find you and then you got a
Speaker 1: record deal.
Speaker 2: We weren't thinking about a record deal at all. We
Speaker 2: just thought we're thrilled to be playing anywhere, to be
Speaker 2: playing music, and to actually be an opening act for
Speaker 2: people like the Pink Floyd. I mean that was just
Speaker 2: staggering to us. They're just amazing. So Joe offering to
Speaker 2: record us felt amazing and we were very very excited.
Speaker 2: So how did Joe actually find you. Joe ran a
Speaker 2: club called the UFO Club in London. I think it
Speaker 2: was only one day a week. It was most of
Speaker 2: the time it was an Irish club, and on the
Speaker 2: weekends it suddenly became uh, you know, light shows and
Speaker 2: hippies and all that stuff. And we were opening for
Speaker 2: the Pink Floyd and Joe came to the dressing room
Speaker 2: and said, I really enjoyed what you guys played. Let's
Speaker 2: make a record. It was it was some cliched you know,
Speaker 2: and we did.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you know, you make a record, you have
Speaker 1: to sign a deal. It involves money. To what degree
Speaker 1: were you conscious of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, Joe had a relationship at that point with
Speaker 2: the Who's managers kittlee em Bird and Yeah, Lamberton Stanley, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they had all so Joe just said, let's do
Speaker 2: a record for those guys, and we did. We just
Speaker 2: did a single for those guys, and then after the single,
Speaker 2: what we kind of looked around a bit wider and
Speaker 2: we did the next record on PolyGram and then really
Speaker 2: we jumped to the label everybody really wanted to be on,
Speaker 2: which was Island Records at that time, which was you know,
Speaker 2: the label that that was the place to be, a
Speaker 2: really good, well run independent record label.
Speaker 1: And in retrospect, how good a producer was Joe Boyd.
Speaker 2: I think he was a very good producer. I would
Speaker 2: have to put him in the context of working with
Speaker 2: John Wood as an engineer. John Wood was a great engineer,
Speaker 2: and the combination of the two of them I think
Speaker 2: was excellent and led to great results. And Fairport Records act.
Speaker 2: I think the first record doesn't sound particularly good, but
Speaker 2: from the second record onwards, the records sound really good.
Speaker 2: You know, Sandy Denny records sound really good. Nick drect
Speaker 2: records sound really good. So whatever that was, whatever that
Speaker 2: that team produced in that particular room, the soundt ning
Speaker 2: studio was a great studio. The mixing desk was a
Speaker 2: great mixing desk. You know, all these things contribute to
Speaker 2: to the to the sound of those records, and it's
Speaker 2: all analog, and that that stuff sounds absolutely great. Still
Speaker 2: sounds great, and I think it sounds good because Joe's
Speaker 2: approach was really not to be too fiddly about special effects,
Speaker 2: about hyping that the sound too much. He would kind
Speaker 2: of try to get a naturalistic sound on records, and
Speaker 2: I think that gives you a certain longevity, so that
Speaker 2: stuff doesn't sound dated. I can listen to an incredible
Speaker 2: string band record and it just sounds fresh as a day.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just sounds wonderful.
Speaker 1: Interesting act, Go back one step. How did the band
Speaker 1: actually come together? The first iteration of the band.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a school friend who lived next door
Speaker 2: to Ashley Hutchings and the bass player in Fairport. And
Speaker 2: at some point Ashley's blue blues band, the guitar player
Speaker 2: was sick or something like it couldn't make a show.
Speaker 2: That's so I filled in for him. I filled in
Speaker 2: for another actually's bands. He had a jug band going
Speaker 2: as well, so I think I filled in for that
Speaker 2: as well. And at a certain point he and Simon Nicol,
Speaker 2: who is also a neighbor of Ashley's, and I, the
Speaker 2: three of us said well, let's put a band together.
Speaker 2: Let's let's put together a folk rock band. You know,
Speaker 2: we all love that kind of music. We love the birds,
Speaker 2: we love the loving Spoonful, you know what, we love
Speaker 2: all those great lyric writers. Let's do something along those lines.
Speaker 2: So that was really the beginning. So three of us
Speaker 2: we had a drama temporarily called Sean Fraser. He didn't
Speaker 2: last very long. Martin lamble that the drummer who joined
Speaker 2: us came to see us at the show and said
Speaker 2: I can do a better job, and he fit in very,
Speaker 2: very very quickly. So really four of us. Judy Diable
Speaker 2: was a singer who was again local to another neighbor
Speaker 2: of Ashley's. And so it's a five piece to begin with. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: and how about Ian Matthews. Yeah, In Matthews joined because
Speaker 2: we felt we were a bit vocal light. Judy was
Speaker 2: really our only singer and she's more of a folks
Speaker 2: singer than a rock singer. So Ian added a bit
Speaker 2: more spine to the vocal department.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you find Ian?
Speaker 2: He was recommended me. He was in a bank called Pyramid.
Speaker 2: When Pyramid broke up, he was at a loose end
Speaker 2: and someone said, oh, that there's a band auditioning. You
Speaker 2: should go down, and I just came down to the studio.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really like an audition. Well, we were working
Speaker 2: on a song and he said, we just said, oh,
Speaker 2: sing some harmony on that song. So so he just
Speaker 2: kind of started working with us and that was it.
Speaker 2: Really that there wasn't any sense of audition or or
Speaker 2: you're in the band or anything. He just he was
Speaker 2: instantly in it.
Speaker 1: And how did Judy Devil get replaced by Sandy Danny?
Speaker 2: Well, Judy, as I said, was really a focusinger who
Speaker 2: did better with a lighter accompaniment. She had a hard
Speaker 2: time singing over the volume of a band. So we
Speaker 2: asked Judy to leave. We auditioned for Sandy.
Speaker 1: A little bit slow. How do you tell her she's
Speaker 1: out of the bit? Well, how does she react?
Speaker 2: How does she react? She reacted? You know, how can
Speaker 2: you react that? You know, you've been playing with your
Speaker 2: friends for for a year or so and then suddenly
Speaker 2: they asked you to leave. It's it's a tough one,
Speaker 2: but we had to be realistic. We had to say,
Speaker 2: you know, your Judy, you know you're yeah, you're you're
Speaker 2: not singing in tune. You know, you're pushing too much
Speaker 2: to sing over over the band. And I think actually
Speaker 2: who was kind of the it was kind of actually
Speaker 2: his band really at that point, and actually we would
Speaker 2: do the hiring and firing as so he took it
Speaker 2: on one side and went for a walk and broke
Speaker 2: the news to her. But it's it's a tough it's
Speaker 2: it's the worst thing to do in a band, and
Speaker 2: the second worst thing to do it is auditioning. So
Speaker 2: we were very glad that after probably only two or
Speaker 2: three singers, Sandy came in and was just like on
Speaker 2: another level. Actually, she was absolutely wonderful stella and so
Speaker 2: she was hired instantly.
Speaker 1: Did she have any status or she just some girl
Speaker 1: came in and sang. Were you aware of who she
Speaker 1: was prior to auditioning her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we were aware of who she was. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure i'd ever seen her. She was singing mostly
Speaker 2: in folk clubs, but had a very good reputation in
Speaker 2: folk clubs, and you know, it was a friend of
Speaker 2: a friend of a friend and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, lots of social connections, but really, you know,
Speaker 2: it was a leap for Sandy, I think, and a
Speaker 2: leap for us as well. But it was something that
Speaker 2: just worked really well. From the beginning. She was so good,
Speaker 2: and I think she was looking for a new challenge
Speaker 2: and I think she was really happy to be in
Speaker 2: that environment at that time.
Speaker 1: And at some point there's a car accident where our
Speaker 1: van accident where the drummer and your girlfriend are killed.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was sixteen nine. So we were traveling
Speaker 2: back from Birmingham to London, which about one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty miles, something we did all the time. But we
Speaker 2: didn't stay in a hotel when we played Birmingam. We
Speaker 2: just drive back and our driver had been ill. He
Speaker 2: had an ulcer, so he hadn't been sleeping very well.
Speaker 2: Sandy traveled separately. She was traveling with her boyfriend. So
Speaker 2: you know, the van went off the road, somersaulted. It
Speaker 2: killed Jenny Franklin, who was my girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 2: It killed our druma, Martin Lamble. Very very traumatic for
Speaker 2: the band, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Well, how was it for you with your girlfriend passing away?
Speaker 2: Well, it seemed unreal, you know in some ways, being
Speaker 2: twenty years old, it was my first experience of somebody
Speaker 2: dying and actually watching somebody die, So it was very
Speaker 2: tough and it took me a long time to get
Speaker 2: a real perspective on it. Were very, very difficult, and
Speaker 2: I think you know, in those days, you didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: have counseling, you didn't have therapy, You just kind of
Speaker 2: I think it was close enough to World War Two
Speaker 2: that the people said, Okay, well, you know, put yourselves together,
Speaker 2: you know, just get on with it, come on, you know,
Speaker 2: move on to the next thing. So we'd have aggrieved properly,
Speaker 2: it just wasn't on the agenda in those days, so
Speaker 2: we just kind of dealt with it or didn't deal
Speaker 2: with it. And I think we made bad decisions for
Speaker 2: the next couple of years in many ways. I think
Speaker 2: I think a lot of stuff was kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: You know. I actually had a nervous breakdown at some point.
Speaker 2: Rest of us we're not in a good mental state
Speaker 2: for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: And what were some of those bad decisions?
Speaker 2: Bad decisions that people leaving the band actually actually left
Speaker 2: the band. Sandy left the band. I left the band,
Speaker 2: and I think given a different set of circumstances, it
Speaker 2: would have stayed together much longer. But it was all
Speaker 2: it's all a little upside down at that point.
Speaker 1: And so was I in the first one to leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ian left, Yeah, it was the first one to leave.
Speaker 2: He was really into a different kind of repertoire, I
Speaker 2: should say. You know, he loved country rock, and when
Speaker 2: he left Fairport, he formed a band called.
Speaker 1: Southern Comfort.
Speaker 2: Southern Comfort, Yeah, and that was much more Ian's thing,
Speaker 2: and he kind of stayed in that style really for
Speaker 2: the rest of his career. And yeah, Ian's a great
Speaker 2: thing and he's still a great singer, and he's made
Speaker 2: some wonderful music over the years.
Speaker 1: Ok Ian has a hit international hit with a cover
Speaker 1: of Woodstock Fairboard does not have a hit. Are you
Speaker 1: jealous or what do you think about that?
Speaker 2: We didn't think hits were important at that time. It
Speaker 2: was really about albums in sort of nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy to have a hit album would have been
Speaker 2: our ambition. And I think we had a couple that
Speaker 2: scraped the top ten in the UK. But you know,
Speaker 2: singles that was really for pop bands. You know what,
Speaker 2: We weren't paying attention at all to singles. Maybe a
Speaker 2: single would help you to sell an album. That was
Speaker 2: the virtue.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're making album after album. Our finance is tight
Speaker 1: or is there enough to live and be?
Speaker 2: Okay, we made cheap records back in those days. You know,
Speaker 2: a record wouldn't cost you that that much or you know,
Speaker 2: ten fifteen thousan pounds wasn't really a lot of money
Speaker 2: even then, so we were always in the studio and
Speaker 2: Joe would bankroll us anyway. If we needed funds to record,
Speaker 2: he kind of find money from somewhere and just stick
Speaker 2: it on our never ending bill. But we were always
Speaker 2: in the studio. We'd sometimes after shows, we'd drive back
Speaker 2: to London and go in the studio and just record
Speaker 2: all night.
Speaker 1: And at what point did you start writing songs?
Speaker 2: Well, I started co writing for the first Fairpoor album
Speaker 2: in sixty seven, and I think I co wrote because
Speaker 2: I didn't have the confidence to write something on my own.
Speaker 2: And I think in sixty eight I wrote a song
Speaker 2: called Meat on the Ledge, which was my first solo effort.
Speaker 2: And having done it, I kind of got comfortable with
Speaker 2: the idea. I thought, I, Okay, I can write lyrics.
Speaker 2: I can write the melody as well. This is fun.
Speaker 2: I love doing this. I'll do it some more, but
Speaker 2: I'm still doing it.
Speaker 1: And at this late date, what's your process.
Speaker 2: At the early day?
Speaker 1: No, now today or you know, listen, you know you
Speaker 1: have all a billion things. People you know, write the music,
Speaker 1: then write the lyrics. Some people write it all at
Speaker 1: the same time. Some people go back the snippets they've
Speaker 1: recorded previously. Build a song brick by brick? How do
Speaker 1: you do it? Oh?
Speaker 2: I do it? I do all of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I write lyrics first, sometimes I write melody first.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it comes all at once. That that that's like
Speaker 2: a gift from God. That's wonderful. Uh. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 2: like to limit the possibilities. I like to give as
Speaker 2: many doors open to the creative process as possible. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's hard to define what the process is.
Speaker 2: Many have tried and most have failed.
Speaker 1: So did you have any advanced morning that Sandy was
Speaker 1: going to leave the band? Or was that a shock?
Speaker 2: I think Sandy was just in a bit of a state,
Speaker 2: you know, I think we all were. We weren't thinking
Speaker 2: rationally necessarily. Sandy could be fairly, you know, up and
Speaker 2: down in terms of mood. So and she hated flying.
Speaker 2: And we were on our way to some shows in
Speaker 2: Denmark which we had to fly to, and she wasn't
Speaker 2: on the plane. And I suppose she missed a few
Speaker 2: other shows before that. So so I think we thought
Speaker 2: that was the our straw, and wonderful though she was,
Speaker 2: maybe we could live without her.
Speaker 1: Well. It certainly changed the character of the band. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was the first album. First time I saw the
Speaker 1: band with full house. Was there any thought that while
Speaker 1: we need to replace.
Speaker 2: Her, Yeah, there were thoughts that we should replace her,
Speaker 2: but nobody really sprang to mind. So in a spirit
Speaker 2: of camaraderie, I think we just said, oh, we'll split
Speaker 2: the vocals between us, which especially what we did. So
Speaker 2: none of us felt we were the greatest singer in
Speaker 2: the world at that point, but well, we just divided
Speaker 2: it up. You know. We'd split songs sometimes into different singers,
Speaker 2: we'd harmonize songs. I think we felt a little exposed,
Speaker 2: but I think we also thought that we were a
Speaker 2: very good instrumental band at that point and that was exciting,
Speaker 2: and that if we were a little over balance, if
Speaker 2: we're little under balanced on vocals, then we were over
Speaker 2: balanced instrumentally. That would make up for it.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to leave?
Speaker 2: I mean, again, I think still some trauma from the accident.
Speaker 2: I wasn't thinking clear. It's like a gut reaction. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I've been in band since I was twelve, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to do something on my own for a while. Really,
Speaker 2: that was all it was, you know, these people were
Speaker 2: my best friends. But I literally just couldn't go on.
Speaker 2: I just hit a wall. I'd had it, so I
Speaker 2: had to get out.
Speaker 1: And at that point was it about playing sessions or
Speaker 1: cutting your own record.
Speaker 2: I had ambitions to make my own record, but I
Speaker 2: survived on session work. I did a lot of session
Speaker 2: work for the next two years, which was great. I
Speaker 2: didn't even go looking for it. Just the phone started
Speaker 2: ringing a wonderful thing, and my diary started filling up,
Speaker 2: and that was great that that kept me going. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. But I've been accumulating songs
Speaker 2: and I thought I'd really like to put these songs
Speaker 2: on a record. So at some point, I, you know,
Speaker 2: I went into the studio with John Wood and I
Speaker 2: recorded them and that was the first solo album.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what it was like being a
Speaker 1: session musician in a couple of sessions you played.
Speaker 2: On session musician? Well, first of all, it was nice
Speaker 2: because I was working with people mostly that I knew
Speaker 2: and producers that I knew. So, you know, I play
Speaker 2: on Ian Matthew's record, I planned Sandy Denny's record, and
Speaker 2: then I play on that kind of the folk rock records,
Speaker 2: singers and names I can't even remember. But you know,
Speaker 2: you get to know a producer and he'd say, can
Speaker 2: you come and do this session? And you say, okay,
Speaker 2: can you You know, that was great? Can you now
Speaker 2: do some of my other artists? So you get to
Speaker 2: do a roster, You get book for a whole roster
Speaker 2: of artists, and you know, occasionally I'd step out of
Speaker 2: that kind of comfort area into like a real pop
Speaker 2: session where you're playing with you know, seasoned, hardened, first
Speaker 2: call session musicians, and that was fun. Sometimes too, that
Speaker 2: could be great. But yeah, and a lot sometimes you
Speaker 2: didn't know who the artist was. That was true. Maybe
Speaker 2: a third of the time. Yeah, you didn't know who
Speaker 2: the artist was. You just turn up and do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you make the first solo album, it certainly gets
Speaker 1: good distribution in the US. It's PND it first, then
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom changes. What was your experience of Henry the
Speaker 1: Human Flyer.
Speaker 2: My experience, well, you know, I thought it was an
Speaker 2: okay record, and I was kind of alarmed at the
Speaker 2: reviews that it got, which were very negative, and at
Speaker 2: a certain point that they were so negative that I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to treat this as a positive. I'm going
Speaker 2: to think I've gone somewhere that people aren't ready for.
Speaker 2: I must be ahead of the game. How can people
Speaker 2: not understand this record? Yeah, the arrogance of youth. So
Speaker 2: I just thought, well, I shall persevere. You know, this
Speaker 2: is one thing. I'll make another record and I'll see
Speaker 2: how they like that one. But it was a notoriously
Speaker 2: bad selling record. According to Warner Brothers, it was their
Speaker 2: worst selling record ever, which I I'm quite proud of.
Speaker 1: How do you meet Linda? When does it become a
Speaker 1: rong antique relationship? And when do you start making music together?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think I met Lenda in sixty nine
Speaker 2: when we were making a Fairport record call Leigion Leave,
Speaker 2: and she was a friend of Sandy's, and we have
Speaker 2: Sundy's best friends really, and at a certain point we
Speaker 2: became romantically involved. And for about six months there or
Speaker 2: maybe longer, maybe it was a year, we didn't see
Speaker 2: much of each other. But because she was working on
Speaker 2: various projects and I was playing with Sandy, I was
Speaker 2: playing with Ian, I was on the road, I was
Speaker 2: doing us tours, and we said, well, you know, if
Speaker 2: we work together, well why don't we just work together
Speaker 2: and we'll be a duo and at least we can
Speaker 2: travel together, we'll spend some time together. So that's really
Speaker 2: what we did. And we went back to the folk
Speaker 2: club So that seemed, you know, a way to earn
Speaker 2: a living at that point, not having a manager all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, where we just what is the
Speaker 2: folk clubs got paid in cash, you know, gas was
Speaker 2: you know, twenty five cents a gallon or something. Everything
Speaker 2: was very cheap. Never stayed in hotels, stayed in the
Speaker 2: promoter's house, spare bedroom, and we were comparatively well off.
Speaker 2: And we did that for you know, like a year,
Speaker 2: and then at a certain point where we thought, well,
Speaker 2: we're going around in circles here, you know, the folk clubs,
Speaker 2: at the folk clubs, but that they don't translate to
Speaker 2: something else, that there's no progress. You have to kind
Speaker 2: of jump out of there. So we took on a
Speaker 2: manager and then we started playing concerts and sometimes where
Speaker 2: we hired a band, where we had a band sometimes
Speaker 2: and we started to tour more and you know, we
Speaker 2: have a bit more of a career there.
Speaker 1: Okay, you made a number of albums with her, and
Speaker 1: the first one that really got noticed in the US
Speaker 1: was poured down like silver in seventy five, and then
Speaker 1: four albums after that, in eighty two, Shootout the Lights
Speaker 1: gets phenomenal reviews, and then the duo was over. So
Speaker 1: the period of time that you're with Linda, what was
Speaker 1: it like on the inside.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we're raising a family and trying to
Speaker 2: work at the same time, so we're always compromised to
Speaker 2: some extent, and we were never really able to do
Speaker 2: a US tour. We could never quite bring the whole
Speaker 2: family over or whatever, you know, travel with a nanny. Well,
Speaker 2: we didn't quite have the budget or the the inclination
Speaker 2: really at that point to tour America. So you know,
Speaker 2: touring was bits and pieces. Recording was bits and pieces
Speaker 2: where we're kind of throwing it together as we could
Speaker 2: when we could. But it wasn't like Light. We were
Speaker 2: full on trying to promote ourselves at that point.
Speaker 1: Okay, but when you know, the band breaks up or
Speaker 1: the act breaks up at the height of it's both
Speaker 1: commercial and critical success. I mean, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you get these phenomenal reviews. It's the opposite of Henry
Speaker 1: the Human Fly. You know, is there anything well, I'm
Speaker 1: onto something. How do we maximize this?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I think you know, it was
Speaker 2: the end of our relationship. But yeah, we were married
Speaker 2: for ten years. We were in a musical relationship for
Speaker 2: ten years, and it was kind of you know, I
Speaker 2: think we've grown a part enough. You know that it
Speaker 2: was it showed, you know, it was significant enough to
Speaker 2: uh to break up. You know. Yeah, musical partnerships can
Speaker 2: be pretty finite as well, So it was just time,
Speaker 2: what can I say. And the lights were successful, I mean,
Speaker 2: there wasn't really a way to capitalize on that. I
Speaker 2: think we tried to do a US tour at that point,
Speaker 2: but it was a bit of a disaster on the whole.
Speaker 2: And you know, I went off and pursued a solo career.
Speaker 1: Now, at some point you get involved in Eastern religion here.
Speaker 2: Sufiism, yeah, well a Sufism yeah yeah. Another band I knew,
Speaker 2: a band called Mighty Baby, who were good friends who
Speaker 2: actually I did a lot of session work with. Uh.
Speaker 2: It embraced Sufism. That that went to North Africa and
Speaker 2: they met a teacher there and they came back and
Speaker 2: I thought, oh that these guys are different. Well, what's
Speaker 2: going on? You know? So I kind of hung out
Speaker 2: with them and I thought, well, this is for me
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: And at that point, is there a point where you
Speaker 1: stop your musical career.
Speaker 2: There was a point where when I just felt like
Speaker 2: absolutely drained musically speaking, I had nothing left to offer.
Speaker 2: I was like empty on the inside, and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I've got to stop for a while. I think it
Speaker 2: was at seventy six seventy seven, And you know, I
Speaker 2: ran an antique shop for a while. I had a
Speaker 2: little antique business which was moderately successful. But after a
Speaker 2: year I kind of got reinspired, you know. That's that.
Speaker 2: Then punk came along, you know that, the Sex Pistols,
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, this is it. This is the
Speaker 2: energy that you need to play music. This is this
Speaker 2: is going back to like Elvis the Sun Sessions. It's
Speaker 2: got the same kind of energy to it. Really, so
Speaker 2: this should be inspiring me. And it did, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to get back into music.
Speaker 1: So you make a couple of records with Joe Boyd.
Speaker 1: What's that experience like?
Speaker 2: Really good? Well, Joe and I've always been friends and
Speaker 2: I've always admired Joe's uh, Joe's musical intelligence and ability
Speaker 2: to spot talent, all that kind of stuff, all the
Speaker 2: stuff you know you expect from people like you know,
Speaker 2: John Hammond Senior. Joe's a bit like that. You know,
Speaker 2: he could spot potential and I think he made such
Speaker 2: a difference to the British music scene in the sixties
Speaker 2: and seventies. No one else had the ears, I don't
Speaker 2: think to sign the incredible string band Fairbaal Convention, Sandy Denny,
Speaker 2: John Martin, Dudu Paquana, Nick Drake. No one else could
Speaker 2: see that stuff in the right perspective. And that's why
Speaker 2: we love Joe because he seemed like he was on
Speaker 2: the same wavelength as us.
Speaker 1: And how did you end up working with Mitchell Frum
Speaker 1: after a couple of albums with Joe?
Speaker 2: Well, at that point I was signed to Capitol Records.
Speaker 2: We had the same management, the same record label as
Speaker 2: Credit House, and my manager said, oh, you should hear
Speaker 2: this Credit House record. Mitchell Froom's has such a great
Speaker 2: job on it. You should have them on your record.
Speaker 2: And I love the Credit House record. I though it's fantastic,
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, if I can get you know,
Speaker 2: ten percent of that spirit on my record, that would
Speaker 2: be great, and I'm not sure that ever happened, but
Speaker 2: but Mitchell was great fun to work with. I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed working with Mitchell. Well. I think we did like
Speaker 2: four records or something together. It was just fun. We
Speaker 2: were just enjoying ourselves, which is what you're supposed to
Speaker 2: do in the studio. Really great fun.
Speaker 1: Well, what was different working with Mitchell's supposed to Joe.
Speaker 2: More quirky about sound. I think in a sense, you know,
Speaker 2: Joe was more naturalistic and he just kind of let
Speaker 2: things happen. He basically sit reading the baseball scores in
Speaker 2: the in the in the Herald Tribune and let things happen.
Speaker 2: Mitchell was a bit more hands on than that. And
Speaker 2: also between Mitchell and engineer Chair Blake, there was this
Speaker 2: idea of kind of garage to garage excuse me, that's
Speaker 2: you know, the stuff that sounds like it's been recorded
Speaker 2: low fi. And I think we we went in for
Speaker 2: a lot of that. That that kind of idea that
Speaker 2: you make it sound you know, funky again, you make
Speaker 2: it sound like it was recorded at Sun Studios. I
Speaker 2: mean it kind of all goes back to that again,
Speaker 2: so kind of funky drum sounds, funky room sounds, and
Speaker 2: you know, kind of purposefully downgrading the high five if
Speaker 2: you like. You know, So I think we did a
Speaker 2: lot of that, and I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1: And then the rumor INSI album happens and there's a
Speaker 1: burst of energy in terms of acceptance on the exterior.
Speaker 1: What did it feel like on the interior?
Speaker 2: Uh, it felt different. Well, you know, I was on
Speaker 2: Capitol Records, you know, for for a few albums, and
Speaker 2: then uh, there's a new head of the company comes
Speaker 2: in and the company kind of transforms and I actually
Speaker 2: get my records promoted, uh, which I can't say really
Speaker 2: happened much before that. But suddenly I have that the
Speaker 2: Capitol Records machine is working on my behalf as opposed
Speaker 2: to you know, everybody else's behalf. So that was the difference. Really.
Speaker 2: Hail Milgram, who became the head of the company and
Speaker 2: just a great guy and a great friend to this day,
Speaker 2: just a wonderful music person. You know, sometimes you think,
Speaker 2: you know, record executives forget the reason that they were
Speaker 2: They went into the record business, and they get caught
Speaker 2: up in numbers and percentages and you know, chart positions
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. It's always refreshing when
Speaker 2: record executives really care about music, and it just doesn't
Speaker 2: always happen.
Speaker 1: So who signed you with Capitol Records? Originally?
Speaker 2: Uh, good question. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, but this was before hal.
Speaker 2: Again, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, how does it end with Capitol Records? For you?
Speaker 2: There it ends, my contract ran out, hailed left by
Speaker 2: that time, my contract ran out, and basically they said,
Speaker 2: let's do a compilation album and goodbye. And that was fine.
Speaker 2: I was glad at that point because a lot of
Speaker 2: people were beginning to question the role of the major
Speaker 2: labels because you never seem to earn any money. And
Speaker 2: I think people thought, well, maybe, you know, if I
Speaker 2: work with an independent label or if I put out
Speaker 2: my own records, I'll see some return. And that did
Speaker 2: turn out to be the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you receive any royalties from all the records
Speaker 1: you've done?
Speaker 2: A streaming has basically killed royalties. Roches used to be
Speaker 2: half my income, half my income. That's recording rotter's and
Speaker 2: songwriting and royalties. It was about fifty percent of my income.
Speaker 2: It's now about two percent of my income. And that's
Speaker 2: down to you know, Spotify and or these companies paying
Speaker 2: you virtually nothing for putting your intellectual property out there,
Speaker 2: and people being able to do hundreds of thousands, but
Speaker 2: somehow it's millions of streams of your music and paying
Speaker 2: you ten bucks. Is it a moral? Yes, it is
Speaker 2: a moral. What can you do about it? I don't
Speaker 2: know what you do about it. Sustainable model, No, it
Speaker 2: isn't a a styinable model. Musicians deserve better.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back, because you know the usual model
Speaker 1: of a record deal is they advance you money. They
Speaker 1: do or do not sell records, forget the creative accounting.
Speaker 1: But you're earning back at a very low rate. So
Speaker 1: there's some household named bands that are still in the red.
Speaker 1: So where did the royalties come from? The royalties come
Speaker 1: from the Fairport records, from the Richard and Linda records,
Speaker 1: from the solo records? What generated money forgetting the songwriting?
Speaker 2: Just?
Speaker 1: Were there ever any recording royalties?
Speaker 2: Actually recording anti is? I probably make a bit from
Speaker 2: the really early stuff, from the Fairport stuff a bit,
Speaker 2: But I mean that these records that they turn over,
Speaker 2: but they don't they don't sell a lot, particularly you know,
Speaker 2: on a label like Capital. I enjoyed my time at Capital.
Speaker 2: But you get an advance from which you would make
Speaker 2: the record, and you pay your your manager fifteen percent,
Speaker 2: and you pay the lawyer probably ten percent for making
Speaker 2: the deal, and and and and you wouldn't end up
Speaker 2: with anything. You'd also, yeah, you'd make a video in
Speaker 2: those days, and the video budget could be like seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars, which you didn't necessarily want to spend,
Speaker 2: but the video department wanted to spend that money just
Speaker 2: so that that it didn't go down. That they went
Speaker 2: to every artist to spend the maximum, so that the
Speaker 2: video department could keeping being funded to the max. Someone
Speaker 2: a Capital told me, at some point, you know, just
Speaker 2: before I left, I think that I had never made
Speaker 2: a record that lost money, and yet I still appear
Speaker 2: to capitally. Am I about you know, four hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars which I'll never recoup. It's like the film industry.
Speaker 2: You know, you have all these write offs, yet you
Speaker 2: try to never show a profit. Like you try to
Speaker 2: never show a profit on a film, you try to
Speaker 2: never show up a profit on a record. Is it corrupt? Yes,
Speaker 2: you know it wouldn't happen in other industries. It only
Speaker 2: happens in creative industries.
Speaker 1: Okay, prior to streaming, literally, what was generating the royalty income? Sales?
Speaker 1: What was it?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, records on independent labels. You know, I
Speaker 2: was on Joe Boyd's label for a while, Hannibal Records,
Speaker 2: and that I actually actually got paid for records, so
Speaker 2: that would be good. But mostly I'd be earning rossies
Speaker 2: from songwriting rather than performance, not that much from performance
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: And the songwriting royalties that you were getting were from covers.
Speaker 1: Where was the money coming from?
Speaker 2: From your own records and from covers, A mixture of things.
Speaker 2: And that's still the case, except the numbers are now
Speaker 2: are now tiny.
Speaker 1: So when they were at their max, how much money
Speaker 1: were we talking about?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I should say, really was it six figures?
Speaker 2: Six figures could be okay a good year.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now we're in this, you know, all these
Speaker 1: years later, a couple of decades on, we're in this
Speaker 1: internet streaming era. Needless to say, is you just said
Speaker 1: your royalties are down? Has streaming has the Internet benefited
Speaker 1: you at all? Or has it only been a negative?
Speaker 2: Hard to quantify, but probably if people can stream your music,
Speaker 2: they might come and see you live, and live is
Speaker 2: the place you own money these days, and that's why
Speaker 2: everybody is out there playing live. Apart from that, it's
Speaker 2: a big negative. If I owned more of my own music,
Speaker 2: I would not put it on streaming services.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. Let's say you own the
Speaker 1: music and you license it directly to the streaming company,
Speaker 1: which means you would get sixty odd sense okay, especially
Speaker 1: with songwriting, and you could sell physical copies, there would
Speaker 1: be some money there.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you might be overwriting what an artist actually
Speaker 2: gets from a streaming services. I get points zero zero
Speaker 2: zero six of a dollar.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into a long discussion of
Speaker 1: stream streaming royalties on demand pace different from radio streaming,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. All I know is people who are
Speaker 1: a lot less famous than you, who are earning just
Speaker 1: because they own everything, are doing earning six figures from
Speaker 1: streaming companies. But let's forget that for now. So you
Speaker 1: made records that were independent, Now the new record is
Speaker 1: with new asked, do you have a feeling about making
Speaker 1: a record independently or as opposed to a company.
Speaker 2: Well, I consider news to be like a bigger independent label,
Speaker 2: and they've been great for me. I did another record
Speaker 2: in New West. They've been great, They've been absolutely great.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a different question. You put out
Speaker 1: a couple of records on your own label. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was that experience? Like?
Speaker 2: It's good? I mean, it's that there's a lot to cover.
Speaker 2: It's hard work. You really do have to work at it.
Speaker 2: It's easy to put stuff up on bank camp, for instance,
Speaker 2: and then you do get a good return on it,
Speaker 2: but people have to find it, like most things on
Speaker 2: the internet that people have to actually find you. So
Speaker 2: a little promotion doesn't hurt. You can hire own publicists,
Speaker 2: I suppose sometimes that's not switch about it. I did
Speaker 2: an instrumental record back in the seventies which I made
Speaker 2: for six hundred pounds and I basically delivered it myself
Speaker 2: to the to the record stores. That was quite interesting.
Speaker 2: That was an interesting exercise in being the hands on
Speaker 2: label manager.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you made independent records though in the last
Speaker 1: couple of decades, by time the cycle was done, were
Speaker 1: you in the black or the red?
Speaker 2: I'd be in the black. I'd be in the black.
Speaker 1: So why did you decide to go back just because
Speaker 1: it was so much work to do it yourself.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Sometimes it's a matter of coordinating, coordinating,
Speaker 2: work with with your management, coordinate with your agent, can
Speaker 2: augizing work with the record company, and doing something that
Speaker 2: that can work, you know, give it given a balance
Speaker 2: of those elements. So sometimes you want something that has
Speaker 2: a bit more cloud to it to push a record,
Speaker 2: let people know it's there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this record that came out, did you cut
Speaker 1: it independently and then make a deal with New West
Speaker 1: or do you make a deal with New West and
Speaker 1: then make the record.
Speaker 2: I made the record independently and then went to the
Speaker 2: record companies.
Speaker 1: So you had enough cash in your coffers to do
Speaker 1: it yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's a cheap record. So tell me
Speaker 2: cheap in quality of course, ye?
Speaker 1: Right right? Tell me how you did it, right, tell
Speaker 1: me how you did it, How I did it?
Speaker 2: How amde it went into a studio.
Speaker 1: Well let's go back. Okay, wait, wait, you get divorced,
Speaker 1: you get remarried, you have COVID, I mean the COVID period.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get COVID? Oh? Yeah, a couple of times. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so serious, So when do you decide you're going to
Speaker 1: make another record, because no one, you don't have a contract,
Speaker 1: No one's breathing down your throat. When do you decide
Speaker 1: I want to do it?
Speaker 2: Well, we figured that we couldn't really go into the
Speaker 2: studio during COVID, so we had to wait that out.
Speaker 2: So I made a couple of things at home in
Speaker 2: my home studio. But then I had a lot of
Speaker 2: material that I really wanted to get out there, you know,
Speaker 2: get it off my chest. So I discussed that with
Speaker 2: my management and I said, you know, I was living
Speaker 2: in Woodstock at the times, and so I said that
Speaker 2: there's this really good studio in Woodstock I'd like to use.
Speaker 2: So we arranged for the musicians to fly in from
Speaker 2: lah and book studio time. Made the record in a week.
Speaker 2: Basically sounds really good. Ah, does it have a Woodstock
Speaker 2: sound to it? I don't know. Maybe there's a Woodstock
Speaker 2: vibe there somewhere.
Speaker 1: So when it's all said and done, how much did
Speaker 1: it cost you?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure? I actually don't know. Okay, not a
Speaker 2: lot cheap.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the manager you presently have he is or
Speaker 1: she is.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm with a company called Vector Management and My
Speaker 2: manager is Brad.
Speaker 1: Okay, how long have you been with Vector Effect?
Speaker 2: For about ten years?
Speaker 1: So what can you tell us about managers?
Speaker 2: Let's say about managers. There's almost as many kinds of
Speaker 2: managers as there are human beings. I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: huge range there. I've had managers who were kind of
Speaker 2: screamed down the phone style, you know, old school, old school.
Speaker 2: I've had managers who take far too high a percentage.
Speaker 2: The nice thing about Vector is they're a big enough
Speaker 2: company that if you do want to do something like
Speaker 2: get on TV, they could probably do it for you.
Speaker 2: That they could probably get you on the late night
Speaker 2: chat shows. So that's nice.
Speaker 1: That they are.
Speaker 2: So you know, there are reasonable human beings. That they
Speaker 2: like music that's important, and that they look out for
Speaker 2: my interests, which is what I need from my management,
Speaker 2: is you know, people who care about you and look
Speaker 2: out for you.
Speaker 1: And what about agents.
Speaker 2: I have a wonderful agent in the States, Frank Riley,
Speaker 2: who's been major now for like like twenty years, who again,
Speaker 2: you know, things career. He doesn't just just book me
Speaker 2: because the money is there. He'll think, Okay, you shouldn't
Speaker 2: play this market too often, you know, let's go back
Speaker 2: in another year or two. Just you know, a smart guy,
Speaker 2: a very respected agent, and he's been wonderful. We have
Speaker 2: a great relationship.
Speaker 1: Okay. Needless to say, the business has changed radically from
Speaker 1: when you first started. Okay, when you first started, there
Speaker 1: were a limited number of albums released a year. I
Speaker 1: remember in the early seventies when I went from twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred to five thousand albums, people say, oh, that's
Speaker 1: way too many. Now i'm streaming services, they'll get sixty
Speaker 1: thousand tracks a day. So from making the music, A
Speaker 1: lot of your contemporaries don't make any new music. A
Speaker 1: lot of them had vast success. They say, I'm going
Speaker 1: to spend all the time and effort and it's going
Speaker 1: to make a very little dent in the universe.
Speaker 2: True?
Speaker 1: Does it the landscape affect you mentally and creatively? Knowing
Speaker 1: no matter what you do, because nobody reaches everybody anymore,
Speaker 1: it's not like the sixties or seventies. How does that
Speaker 1: affect your motivation? I can't help doing what I do.
Speaker 1: I can't help writing songs. I can't help being creative.
Speaker 1: I can't help it. I'm driven by something. God knows
Speaker 1: what it is, but I have to do it. I'm
Speaker 1: not a happy human being if I don't do it.
Speaker 1: People can't live with me if I don't do it,
Speaker 1: family get upset with me if I'm not being creative.
Speaker 1: So I'm always going to do it. And whether the
Speaker 1: m is it gets out there or not, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I'd rather it did get out there. But if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: well that's too bad. But I'm still going to do it.
Speaker 2: And I've had this conversation with with other singer songwriters
Speaker 2: of my age, who say, what's the point. What's the
Speaker 2: point of me making music? What's the point of me
Speaker 2: putting out records? Nothing ever happens? You know, my audience
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to get any bigger, you know, I you know,
Speaker 2: I break even, you know what, what's the point? And
Speaker 2: and I kind of agree with them, except for that
Speaker 2: fact that I can't stop doing it. I have to
Speaker 2: do it, uh, you know. And my audience it doesn't
Speaker 2: get smaller. I think it gets bigger actually slowly, slowly, slowly,
Speaker 2: maybe through word of mouth. More people come to shows,
Speaker 2: and as my old fai and move on to another
Speaker 2: plane of existence. Younger people seem to fill up those slots,
Speaker 2: so I just keep doing it. I can't help it.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you doing anything actively you as an individual
Speaker 1: to promote or grow the audience? Are you on social media?
Speaker 1: Are you doing anything else? Or are you doing it
Speaker 1: essentially the same way you've always done it.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you right now.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, and other people.
Speaker 2: I do promotion. I go on you know, podcasts, and
Speaker 2: I go on websites, and I physically turn up at
Speaker 2: radio stations and I do all that stuff. Besides playing shows,
Speaker 2: I do promote. And I suppose that after COVID, in
Speaker 2: some ways it's easier because in the old days, I
Speaker 2: used to expect you to to get on a plane
Speaker 2: and visit two or three cities a day, you know,
Speaker 2: to promote yourself and visit all these radio stations. Now
Speaker 2: I can do it from home. I just could be
Speaker 2: at one place and I can talk to a lot
Speaker 2: of people from that one place. So in that sense,
Speaker 2: it's easier. But I do it. Yes, I promote myself.
Speaker 1: So you know, you make records. Everybody who's creative. You
Speaker 1: know you're never going to do something bad. You've had
Speaker 1: your chops. You've been doing it for so long. But
Speaker 1: when you do something that's great, and artists know when
Speaker 1: they do something that it's great, can't have an eleven
Speaker 1: with every attempt. But when you do something great and
Speaker 1: not much happens in the marketplace, is that disillusioning?
Speaker 2: Not at this point, No, it doesn't accept it. I
Speaker 2: accept it. I'm a seventy five year old artist and
Speaker 2: I'm not catered for by popular media anymore. So I
Speaker 2: do what I do. If I end up playing, you know,
Speaker 2: in you know, assisted living facilities, you know, to fifteen people,
Speaker 2: I'm still going to do it because I love to
Speaker 2: do it. I love to perform. I love to communicate
Speaker 2: music to people. This is stuff I love doing, and
Speaker 2: it's not going badly for me. It's actually it's actually
Speaker 2: going very well. You know. If I gets frustrated, it's
Speaker 2: more with things like streaming that that kind of kill
Speaker 2: so many people's ambitions and careers.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're telling me your audience is replenishing and
Speaker 1: it's growing, but you really don't know what's causing.
Speaker 2: The No, I don't know. I do what I do.
Speaker 2: I put the energy out there, and I figure if
Speaker 2: you do that, then it comes back in some form
Speaker 2: and maybe it's not the form you're expecting that, but
Speaker 2: it does come back eventually.
Speaker 1: And how many gigs do you do a year?
Speaker 2: A year? One hundred?
Speaker 1: And is that the right number? Would you like to
Speaker 1: do more or fewer?
Speaker 2: I might have to do less, I'm funny. It harder
Speaker 2: to travel, so I might cut down to seventy five
Speaker 2: or even fifty. I mean, I mean I've done that.
Speaker 2: You know how many things I've done in my life,
Speaker 2: like five thousand or something. It's a it's a lot
Speaker 2: of shows, but I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So do you love every gig? Or you playing
Speaker 1: some of the songs thinking about are you going to
Speaker 1: be late for the plane? This is a shitty hotel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, you just deal with that stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: shitty hotel, You think, well, tomorrow will be a better hotel.
Speaker 2: You know, a bad sound system, You think, well, you know,
Speaker 2: what can you do? You know, if the audience can
Speaker 2: hear you that, then you know tomorrow's another day. You
Speaker 2: know you're something better. But there's always stuff on the road.
Speaker 2: There's always you know, flight delays and you know snowstorms
Speaker 2: and god knows what. But you just deal with that stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, bad food, No food, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: you just get on with it. You get on with it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm actually going about the gig itself, the hour
Speaker 1: you're on stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it always rewarding? Sometimes not as rewarding? Does it
Speaker 1: depend on the audience?
Speaker 2: Uh? The audience is usually good. There's there's really a
Speaker 2: bad audience. Rarely a bad audience, and maybe one gig
Speaker 2: in four you're thinking. This is a struggle. And it's
Speaker 2: usually done to the sound more than anything else here.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't hear yourself on the stage. There's
Speaker 2: too much blowback come from the back of the pa
Speaker 2: or something. So everything just sounds a little like it's underwater.
Speaker 2: You know that there are shows like that some nights
Speaker 2: late this stuff sounds so great. You know that you've
Speaker 2: got such a great sound on stage. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: most nights, I'm really enjoying myself and I'm really enjoying
Speaker 2: the interaction with the audience. Most nights. I love it.
Speaker 2: Nothing better.
Speaker 1: And are you concerned at all about legacy?
Speaker 2: Legacy? No, it couldn't go less.
Speaker 1: So if you walk off this mortal coil and no
Speaker 1: one remembers you, whether than the people from your generation,
Speaker 1: that's totally fine with That's okay.
Speaker 2: My legacy are my kids who play music, and they
Speaker 2: play music very well, and I'm happy to pass the
Speaker 2: baton to my children.
Speaker 1: And how often do you play the guitar.
Speaker 2: Every day? Some days I'm Some days I'm traveling all
Speaker 2: day and I can't play the guitar. Sometimes I just
Speaker 2: can't find the time to physically get my hands on it.
Speaker 2: But most days I play something. Some days I play
Speaker 2: like eight hours, you know, other days I play half
Speaker 2: an hour.
Speaker 1: And when you're doing that, you're noodling or you're rehearsing.
Speaker 1: What are you doing whole stuff?
Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes I'm just keeping my fingers working, pressing scales,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Sometimes I'm working ideas for songs.
Speaker 2: That's usually what I'm doing, working on ideas for songs,
Speaker 2: how to come up with the best accompaniment for a song,
Speaker 2: or finding a melody for a song.
Speaker 1: And you have it as dollar reputation as a guitarist,
Speaker 1: to what degree do people track you down and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to work with you, work with me not interesting? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of what I'm I'm saying,
Speaker 1: come play on my record something like that.
Speaker 2: Come play my record if I got time, Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Mostly I play on you know, people, whether it's some connection,
Speaker 2: whether it's a friend of a friend or an actual
Speaker 2: friend making a record. You know, my son just asked
Speaker 2: me to plan his record. That's great. I'll do that one.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I get too many offers to do that.
Speaker 1: Actually, Okay, all these years later, your ex wife Linda
Speaker 1: put out a record you're involved with that Fairport does
Speaker 1: these annual celebrations you've appeared there? Does time heal all
Speaker 1: wounds or were relationships pretty much steady the whole time? Well?
Speaker 2: I get on fine with Linda. That's nice. I'm happy
Speaker 2: to contribute it to her record. I think it's done very well.
Speaker 2: It's a good record. Actually, lots of great contributors to
Speaker 2: that record, Fairpol. They're like brothers. You know. Maybe you
Speaker 2: don't see them every day, but when you do see them,
Speaker 2: you get that old connection comes back. It's lovely. I'll
Speaker 2: see them next weekend. I'm going to play at the
Speaker 2: Properly Festival Forwood's Festival, and that'll be great to see everybody.
Speaker 2: Be absolute blast.
Speaker 1: And how many guitars do you own?
Speaker 2: I try not to own too many, but I probably
Speaker 2: owned twenty maybe thirty. I don't know. I like to
Speaker 2: play them. I don't know to sit in the cupboard neglected.
Speaker 2: So if I don't play a guitar, I'll try and
Speaker 2: get rid of it. But yeah, not too many. I'm
Speaker 2: not in the Keith Richard class.
Speaker 1: And what are a couple of your favorites.
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of like fenders. I suppose electric guitars.
Speaker 2: I've got a bunch of Fenders, probably my oldest is
Speaker 2: about fifty nine. Acoustics. I play Loudons that made in
Speaker 2: Northern Ireland, wonderful guitars. I've probably got half a dozen
Speaker 2: of those. But you know, they're all wonderful tools. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't treat them too reverentially, but that they are
Speaker 2: essential tools of the trade.
Speaker 1: And if you go on the road, will you take
Speaker 1: your favorites with you or say they're too valuable?
Speaker 2: Favorites too valuable? I'll take my really good road guitars,
Speaker 2: which are excellent. I'm very happy with.
Speaker 1: And how about the amps amps?
Speaker 2: I have a variety of As you know, I play
Speaker 2: a lot of Fender amps, and if I don't take
Speaker 2: my own, I'll hire Fender amps. I'm happy with Vox
Speaker 2: as well. Fox. I see fifteen's and stuff I've got
Speaker 2: nam called Divided by thirteen, which I use mostly on stage.
Speaker 2: It's kind of weird. It's got hybrid amp, which is
Speaker 2: absolutely wonderful. You know, But again, tours of the trade.
Speaker 1: And you play solo, at least when I've seen you
Speaker 1: in the past years. Is that just economically the only
Speaker 1: way you could do it? Would you rather play with
Speaker 1: the band or you like doing it solo?
Speaker 2: Playing with a band is expensive and if I break even,
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. So that doesn't happen all the time. Well,
Speaker 2: we're going out in October November this year with the
Speaker 2: band in the States. Solo, I can earn a living,
Speaker 2: and so probably two thirds of what I do is solo.
Speaker 1: And then you were coming up in a very vibrant
Speaker 1: scene in terms of music today. Is there anything happening
Speaker 1: for either all players or young players that you find
Speaker 1: interesting and stimulating.
Speaker 2: There's always good players. I'm not sure that that always
Speaker 2: get recognized. I'm not sure the industry is geared to
Speaker 2: innovation or originality. I think you know, people tend to
Speaker 2: get signed if they sound like everything else. That that's
Speaker 2: the sad truth of it. Madison Cunningham I like a lot.
Speaker 2: I think she's a really good guitar player. She's got
Speaker 2: a great band, nice arrangement ideas, not nice quirky songs.
Speaker 2: That's someone I like. You know, there's wonderful kind of
Speaker 2: singer songwriters around and they're always happening, but you know
Speaker 2: what actually sells records? Sometimes that to me is of
Speaker 2: no interest whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And these new artists that you do find that you
Speaker 1: do like, but you actively searching for them, or do
Speaker 1: people say, hey, you got to hear this? Oh?
Speaker 2: I think a combination of both. Yeah. I think I
Speaker 2: often recommendations because there's so much out there that you
Speaker 2: kind always find the stuff you know you would like,
Speaker 2: So recommendations are very important.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go back. You're the observer. You're one
Speaker 1: step removed. Do you think that makes you different or
Speaker 1: are we all one step removed whether we recognize it
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 2: Is it a good thing to be able once? I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's a good thing. I think as
Speaker 2: an artist you can't help it. You have to be
Speaker 2: that little bit away. Sometimes you can't help it. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you can't be a social human being. You
Speaker 2: can't feel an integral part of the human right. But
Speaker 2: I think sometimes you do feel like a bit of
Speaker 2: an alien somehow.
Speaker 1: So you're in the city, you may not even be
Speaker 1: talking to anybody, you're walking down the street. Do you
Speaker 1: feel different from everybody else? Or you feel like you're
Speaker 1: just like everybody else.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel that like a you know,
Speaker 2: like like a I feel like an individual. I think
Speaker 2: most people do feel like individuals. But I think I
Speaker 2: interact well with other people. When I'm walking down the street.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm just in my own space that I'm in
Speaker 2: my own world, which is usually musical walking on the streets,
Speaker 2: sometimes I just you know, I hear melodies and you know,
Speaker 2: lyrics and stuff invading me.
Speaker 1: It's it's so, if I put you down with a
Speaker 1: group of musicians, are you going to find commonality or
Speaker 1: are you going to feel separate in that environment?
Speaker 2: If you spend long enough, that's it. I think you're
Speaker 2: always going to find commonality, but it could take a while.
Speaker 2: It could take a while.
Speaker 1: And what about if I take you for a meeting
Speaker 1: with business people, are you always going to feel these
Speaker 1: are not my people?
Speaker 2: Probably? Yeah, yeah, But people in suits kind of worry me.
Speaker 2: I must say I've always had that attitude. I wear
Speaker 2: a suit as little as possible.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the sixties they said music could
Speaker 1: save the world. What's your viewpoint on music in general today?
Speaker 2: Well, it did save the world. It happened already to
Speaker 2: save the world. Music today, Well, I'd like to think
Speaker 2: it can save the world. I'd like to think that
Speaker 2: my music could change something. Who knows. But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to write an overt political song at this point.
Speaker 2: But but you know, music changes people. Listening to music
Speaker 2: changes people. It changes people's hearts. It softens people's hearts,
Speaker 2: it hardens people's hearts, it opens people's hearts. Music is
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing. It aspires to the spiritual, so it
Speaker 2: can do all kinds of wonderful things to people.
Speaker 1: How did it save the world once?
Speaker 2: How did you change the world?
Speaker 1: How did you said that music did save the world? Well,
Speaker 1: I can experiment.
Speaker 2: I think in the sixties it did. Did it did
Speaker 2: for me anyway? Yeah, it was a whole revolution in
Speaker 2: the sixties, really a social revolution. I means it was
Speaker 2: a huge component of that. But you know, it didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily last, and it was necessarily lays sincere, but it
Speaker 2: did change the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, most people who this deep into the podcast are
Speaker 1: very familiar with you and your music. But for those
Speaker 1: who are not, something most artists don't like to do
Speaker 1: is sell themselves. But if you were going to explain
Speaker 1: yourself and your music to someone completely unfamiliar, what would
Speaker 1: you say?
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, tough question. What would I say? Well, I'd
Speaker 2: probably be self deprecating and mumble and basically say nothing
Speaker 2: about myself. But if I had to, I'd say I
Speaker 2: was a singer, songwriter, guitarist somewhere between Celtic and rock,
Speaker 2: and I've been doing it for the last fifty five years.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a raw description. And then I might ask
Speaker 1: the question what makes you different? Are you special from
Speaker 1: other people in that category?
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know. I don't know what makes me different.
Speaker 2: I think everybody has a different accumulation of music that
Speaker 2: they've listened to in their lives, and in that sense,
Speaker 2: everyone is different. Everyone expresses different things when when they
Speaker 2: express music. You know, someone who only listen to you know,
Speaker 2: A C. D. C. And Beethoven and Charlie Parker is
Speaker 2: going to express things very differently from someone who's only
Speaker 2: listened to you know, the birds and Stravinsky and uh
Speaker 2: and Louis Armstrong. You know you hear, you hear music
Speaker 2: or your whole life, and some you you take to
Speaker 2: heart and some you reject. But everyone has it has
Speaker 2: a different formula of acceptance and rejection. So we're all different.
Speaker 2: We're very different.
Speaker 1: Okay, Richard, I want to thank you for taking this
Speaker 1: time with this audience. I would like to go deeper
Speaker 1: into your earlier points about the dinner table and who
Speaker 1: would you want to have dinner table. That will be
Speaker 1: another time, but thanks a lot for taking the time.
Speaker 2: Thank you well, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate until next time. This is Bob left
Speaker 1: sets