Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Bowen had hired for his division, which
Speaker 1: was autonomous. He ran that separately from the rest of
Speaker 1: MCA Records. He basically he hired Emmy, Gordy, Tony Brown,
Speaker 1: and David Hungay, there's A and R people and told them,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, you're hired.
Speaker 2: Now go out and sign hereever you want to.
Speaker 1: And Tony and Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl,
Speaker 1: And he said, anybody but Steve Earl.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcasts podcast where Buzz
Speaker 3: Night talks with the legendary artists, storytellers, and icons to
Speaker 3: hear their stories behind their music. Today, Buzz is with
Speaker 3: the true American original, Steve Earle, Grammy winning singer, songwriter,
Speaker 3: fearless storyteller, and musical outlaw. Steve's career has spanned decades, genres,
Speaker 3: and generations, from the back roads of Texas to the
Speaker 3: streets of Nashville and New York City. Steve shares his
Speaker 3: stories behind the music and his most beloved songs, the
Speaker 3: lessons he's learned from his heroes, and how the simple
Speaker 3: act of putting one foot in front of the other
Speaker 3: keeps them grounded and creative. Steve URL's hitting the road
Speaker 3: with fifty years of songs and stories summer tour this
Speaker 3: summer coming to a city near you, and he joins
Speaker 3: buzz Night on the Taking a Walk podcast right now.
Speaker 4: Hello, Steve Earle, thank you for being on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2: It is good to be here.
Speaker 4: If you could take a walk with somebody living or dead,
Speaker 4: who might that person be, and you know where you
Speaker 4: might take that walk with them?
Speaker 1: Uh Ramdas because I knew him a little to the
Speaker 1: end of his lock and he couldn't walk by the
Speaker 1: time I met him, because he had had a pretty
Speaker 1: catastrophic stroke, but he was still Ramdas. And it was
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal for me because I I
Speaker 1: just kind of I read me here now when it
Speaker 1: came out, and so for my sixties, you know, it
Speaker 1: was always a big deal to me. But I've never
Speaker 1: managed to sort of put any sort of daily spiritual
Speaker 1: practice together, even though I tried. I'm an old hippie,
Speaker 1: and then as a person in recovery, it's something else
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to do, and I just didn't manage
Speaker 1: to do that until for my sixtieth birthday, my manager,
Speaker 1: who had none rambos for a while. It took me
Speaker 1: to Mali, to a small retreat at Ardi's house, and
Speaker 1: I met him finally and and I started going to
Speaker 1: Mali every year for the last few years of his
Speaker 1: life and uh. And then got there just a few
Speaker 1: days after he died in twenty twenty and so missed
Speaker 1: that one and uh. And there was another time that
Speaker 1: we couldn't see him because I didn't get to see
Speaker 1: him or Willie. You know, Willie Nelson and Chrisco Stofferson
Speaker 1: lived in Mali as well, and I'd visit them. But
Speaker 1: when you're when you when you show up with a
Speaker 1: stuning ose kid, you don't go visit the occagenarians who
Speaker 1: all my friends at Mali were so uh. It was uh,
Speaker 1: but it was it was something that really important to me.
Speaker 1: And it did get me going on a daily yoga practice.
Speaker 1: This that's can they need to now? And it's uh,
Speaker 1: and walk probably in Mali. I haven't been back to
Speaker 1: Mali since since Rhmbas passed away, and I'd never been
Speaker 1: before I went toward that conference.
Speaker 2: I'd never been to Hawaii. And somebody asked me one time,
Speaker 2: why do you go to Mali? Why don't you go
Speaker 2: to the Big Island Mali. That's so seventies.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm pretty seventies and uh and and plus Ramdas,
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson, Chris Christopherson. That was my reasons for a
Speaker 1: pilgrimage to Maui and Ramdas used to go swimming once
Speaker 1: a week at uh at keih and uh and I
Speaker 1: used to stay over by there, and so I always,
Speaker 1: you know, wish that I could have gotten there for that,
Speaker 1: and uh, I just never I just never quite lined
Speaker 1: up and h because it was right in front of
Speaker 1: the hotel where I normally stayed. I was just never
Speaker 1: there when it worked out on the day when they
Speaker 1: were taking Rambas swimming and and so probably to take
Speaker 1: a walk and then down to the beach to go swimming,
Speaker 1: that's what the walk would be.
Speaker 4: It'd be pretty pretty awesome. As somebody who lives in
Speaker 4: New York, a great walking city as well, do you
Speaker 4: have any favorite spots to walk in New York?
Speaker 2: Well, I walk a lot of different routes. H.
Speaker 1: I dropped my son off at school every day. He
Speaker 1: has autism, and he goes just co called the Caswell School,
Speaker 1: which is in It's in the Lower it's in the
Speaker 1: Lower East side. It's like kind of you know, right,
Speaker 1: we're standing INDs there, you know. And and so I
Speaker 1: live in Bettery Perk City, so that's about three miles.
Speaker 1: I can make it four miles if I take a
Speaker 1: long route. I lived in Greenwich Village for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: I still buy my coffee there at Puerto Rico and
Speaker 1: coffee there, and so I'll re route to the village
Speaker 1: to Bleaker Street and get coffee sometimes and then walk
Speaker 1: straight out to the west side and down down the
Speaker 1: Hudson River, you know, and which is beautiful when it's
Speaker 1: I do this rain or shine, no matter how cold
Speaker 1: it is. So I don't suggest that walk in January
Speaker 1: or February. I usually go straight to Chinatown that way,
Speaker 1: which is always of town at eight thirty nine o'clock
Speaker 1: in the Morning's fascinating.
Speaker 2: It always has been. Chinatown's funny.
Speaker 1: Because Little Italy shrank to a block, Chinatown did not,
Speaker 1: and in fact they got some of what used to
Speaker 1: be Little Italy. That community is holding together and it's
Speaker 1: still vibrant, and it's still you'd think you'd gone off
Speaker 1: into another country.
Speaker 2: Every time you cross one of those walks into Chinatown.
Speaker 4: To this day, the amazing part about New York is
Speaker 4: you just lose track of time when you're walking the
Speaker 4: streets and just looking at people and kind of clearing
Speaker 4: your head.
Speaker 2: It used to be that way for me.
Speaker 1: I used to come here to chill out after tourists
Speaker 1: before I lived here, and now I live here, so
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm watching the clock a little bit more, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm know, I live here and work here and
Speaker 1: get my kid to school, and I come back and
Speaker 1: I just hammer trying to get something done before you
Speaker 1: gets out of school and be after you like every
Speaker 1: other single parent in the world.
Speaker 4: So we're going to talk about you going out on
Speaker 4: your long run of a tour. We'll touch on that,
Speaker 4: but I wanted to mention something Charlie Reid from the Proclaimers.
Speaker 4: He says that your album Guitar Town was at this
Speaker 4: time when he said it, he said it was the
Speaker 4: best record of the nineteen eighties in his opinion.
Speaker 1: Well, they ended up recording you know, mile Friend the Blues,
Speaker 1: which was from that record, and then that ended. My
Speaker 1: luck was on the record of Theirs that sort of
Speaker 1: found a new life after they had a hit from it.
Speaker 1: You know that was on Sunshine and Leath and it's funny.
Speaker 2: And Craig's daughter.
Speaker 1: Like it showed up at my songwriting camp when here
Speaker 1: when she was eighteen years old, and she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: she's really, really, really good. And I'm knowne those guys
Speaker 1: a long time and I appreciate that. But I was
Speaker 1: a big fan of theirs from record one.
Speaker 4: What was the Guitar Town session? Like the whole creation
Speaker 4: of that? What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 1: It was weird because I was I've been to Nashville
Speaker 1: for thirteen years or twelve years, but when we started it,
Speaker 1: I'd had one record deal that I got just by default.
Speaker 1: I tried to get a record deal for years, and
Speaker 1: I just missed. I was sort of a baby and
Speaker 1: what they you know, what people think of as the
Speaker 1: outlaw movement, and then you know, the record deals kind
Speaker 1: of dried up pretty quickly on that. You know, they
Speaker 1: wanted to control again, and so I remember I just
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough. But you know, there's some songs I
Speaker 1: still played that were written back then. That's part of
Speaker 1: the point of this tour. But you know, by the
Speaker 1: time I'd been through a couple of publishers. I'd been
Speaker 1: on Epic Records for a minute. I had a three
Speaker 1: piece rockabilly band, and that finally got me a record
Speaker 1: deal of all things. And I didn't think that I
Speaker 1: would be doing that for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: but it was sort of fun. And the first time
Speaker 1: I ever played electric guitar was in my late twenties
Speaker 1: when I had that band, and then those those singles
Speaker 1: we released and Epic didn't work, so they dropped me,
Speaker 1: and then I signed to a publishing company that belonged
Speaker 1: to the Oakreage Boys called Silver Line goal Line a
Speaker 1: gentleman named Noel Fox who had been the bass singer
Speaker 1: the Oaks back when they were really when they were
Speaker 1: a gospel group before they went secular, and Noah was
Speaker 1: a song guy, and he just told me i'd been
Speaker 1: you know, when Justin was born. I started panicking trying
Speaker 1: to write songs I could get cut and I had
Speaker 1: very marginal success with that. A few people covered my songs,
Speaker 1: but not very many, not enough for to really, you know,
Speaker 1: turn into a career. And none of us, my crowd
Speaker 1: of people went there to be staff writers for the
Speaker 1: rest of our lives.
Speaker 2: We were singer songwriters. We wanted record deals, and Noel
Speaker 2: believed in me. He told me to go write a record.
Speaker 1: I went out and saw Bruce Springsteen and the East
Speaker 1: Street Man on the Born in the USA tour. He
Speaker 1: came out and opened with Born in the USA. I
Speaker 1: went home and wrote Guitar Town and started writing an album.
Speaker 1: And there was only one song that wasn't written in
Speaker 1: that few months before we actually recorded Guitar Town that
Speaker 1: I took from it a couple of years earlier, and
Speaker 1: I played it with a rockabilly man that was Fearless Heart.
Speaker 2: I thought it was just such a good song and
Speaker 2: didn't want to leave it behind, and it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: But I didn't go back for any of the songs
Speaker 1: that I'd written over, you know, the twelve or thirteen
Speaker 1: years before I got there. I did record some of
Speaker 1: those songs later on training, coming after I got out
Speaker 1: of jail, I recorded a few of those songs, and
Speaker 1: those are the ones that you're going to hear on
Speaker 1: the tour this year. Those are the older songs that
Speaker 1: I that I still play. But it was the sessions where,
Speaker 1: you know, they were pretty disciplined. We were doing different
Speaker 1: than Nashville was doing. When I first got there. They
Speaker 1: catered and they did everybody just stayed in the studio
Speaker 1: at eight there, and we didn't We worked, you know,
Speaker 1: at least two sessions a day, you know. We worked
Speaker 1: from you know, usually noon or so till pretty late,
Speaker 1: and once the tracks were done, we work even later. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: It was just one of those things. It's one thing
Speaker 1: I don't do anymore. I'm standing recording studio show two
Speaker 1: or three o'clock in the morning anymore. But you know,
Speaker 1: we discovered I think when you're younger, you think it's
Speaker 1: you know, you finally turn out later that you throw
Speaker 1: away most of the stuff that you do when you're
Speaker 1: too tired anyway.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: But the best stuff gets done of the first couple
Speaker 1: of takes, in the first couple of hours.
Speaker 4: Did you ever do any work in your time in
Speaker 4: Nashville at the infamous Quantcet Hut studios?
Speaker 2: No, I never recorded there. It's the conset Hut.
Speaker 1: You can still see the shape of the Quantset Hut itself,
Speaker 1: you know, a conset hut for people that don't know
Speaker 1: is if you've ever seen gum er pile, you know
Speaker 1: those those structures that they that they used for barracks
Speaker 1: in that marine camp. The quantset that was invented is
Speaker 1: a is a I guess by within the military to
Speaker 1: be a structure that could be thrown up quickly. But
Speaker 1: was what was was really sound set up to wind
Speaker 1: sit up to other things, you.
Speaker 2: Know pretty well.
Speaker 1: And it was basically Owen Bradley got the idea. There's
Speaker 1: a sort of a theory in studios that you don't
Speaker 1: want parallel walls to close to each other because it's
Speaker 1: what they call a standing wave. And the quantset has
Speaker 1: one long curved wall to ceiling, you know, just like
Speaker 1: a tunnel, and and so there are no parallel surfaces
Speaker 1: unless you put some in it.
Speaker 2: So that was the idea.
Speaker 1: He thought it would make a perfect recording studio, and
Speaker 1: so he bought one, put it on music Row and
Speaker 1: built a recording studio in it, and then he sold
Speaker 1: that to Columbia Records and they built their building around it.
Speaker 1: And I can show people you can drive past the
Speaker 1: Sunny building now in the back and you can still
Speaker 1: see the crack where two buildings are, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of together there an annex. You can see the curve
Speaker 1: at the top of the quantset in between them and I,
Speaker 1: because it's sort of it's sort of what connects the
Speaker 1: two that long ago got turned into offices. It was
Speaker 1: still a recording studio when I got there.
Speaker 2: Billy Cheryl was in.
Speaker 1: Sconce there and was still recording there when I got
Speaker 1: there in nineteen seventy five, but I never got to
Speaker 1: record there myself.
Speaker 4: As an obvious student of the greats of Nashville, how
Speaker 4: does a song such as I Saw the Light by
Speaker 4: Hank Williams make an influence on somebody like you?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think there's gospel songs like that. First personally I
Speaker 1: knew that wrote gospel songs was Towns Fanzant and which
Speaker 1: was seemed, you know his reputation, it seemed in Congress.
Speaker 1: He wrote one called two Hands, which was a very
Speaker 1: traditional tempo gospel song, and one called when He Offers
Speaker 1: His Hand. They're both on the same album, and you
Speaker 1: know he write them for his mother's That's that's why
Speaker 1: why he did it. I've written a couple I've written
Speaker 1: I've written one Christmas song. It's not really a gospel sung,
Speaker 1: but it is a Christmas story that does have to
Speaker 1: do with what Christmas is about. It's called Nothing but
Speaker 1: a Child, and I wrote I've got a gospel song
Speaker 1: that I'm pretty proud of that's actually called Tender Mercies.
Speaker 1: That's in this musical of Tender Mercies that I'm that
Speaker 1: I'm working on right now.
Speaker 2: It's just one of those things.
Speaker 1: Gospel music was always such an integral part of country music.
Speaker 1: There was always a gospel song in every country show,
Speaker 1: and so it got ingrained and you know, why me, lord,
Speaker 1: that's still one of my one of my favorite, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's you would call that a sacred song or
Speaker 1: a spiritual song. Gospel is actually and I know way
Speaker 1: too much about gospel when it comes down to because
Speaker 1: the roochs of rock and roll are also found there.
Speaker 1: And I wrote for a company that belonged to the
Speaker 1: Ukrage Boys, and I've learned the history of all that
Speaker 1: from them, at least from the white gospel side, and
Speaker 1: that's connected to the black gospel side. And you know,
Speaker 1: I knew other people in Nashville that were involved in
Speaker 1: that kind of gospel music and it always fascinated me.
Speaker 4: So I was programming rock stations when Copperhead Road came
Speaker 4: out right, and it really was super cool how it
Speaker 4: stood in between a Rolling Stone song and a Jimmy
Speaker 4: Hendrick song and really really worked fabulously. We absolutely loved
Speaker 4: that when that came out, and still love it. Can
Speaker 4: you take us back to that time with the creation
Speaker 4: of that certainly great produce.
Speaker 1: I started out, you know, when I made Guitar Town,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make credible country records and I never
Speaker 1: saw that much difference between country and rock and roll,
Speaker 1: not the good stuff anyway, So Guitar Town and Exit
Speaker 1: of Zero, I was definitely trying to do that. By
Speaker 1: the time Egit of Zero came along, Guitar Town was
Speaker 1: more successful, almost a little too successful, according to Jimmy Bowen,
Speaker 1: who ran who ran MCA Nashville at the time, and
Speaker 1: Bowen basically Emmy Gordey and and Tony Brown decided they
Speaker 1: wanted to sign me. I'd worked with Emery on the
Speaker 1: when I was on Epic. He produced the stuff that
Speaker 1: I did there, and they he hired Bowen had hired
Speaker 1: for his division, which was which was autonomous. He ran
Speaker 1: that separately from the rest of MCA Records, and he's
Speaker 1: he basically he hired Emmy Gordy, Tony Brown, and David
Speaker 1: Hungate as A and R people, and David hung Gate
Speaker 1: was the base original bass player in Toto, and they
Speaker 1: and told them, you know, okay, you're hired, Now go
Speaker 1: out and sign hereever you want to. And Tony and
Speaker 1: Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl, and he said,
Speaker 1: anybody but Steve Earl because he knew me because the
Speaker 1: rockabilly record I made. And he hated that because he
Speaker 1: kind of came from it. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: that's about, but I know he did come from that.
Speaker 1: Buddy Knox and he were partners and recorded together and
Speaker 1: Party Doll the A side, well, they was shipped as
Speaker 1: a double A, but Party Doll became the hit and
Speaker 1: the other side is the song that Jimmy Bowen sings.
Speaker 1: And so he went on to be a really successful
Speaker 1: producer in LA and a part of that whole Oklahoma
Speaker 1: you know, migration to the West Coast that created a
Speaker 1: lot of great music. But he ended up in Nashville
Speaker 1: running MCA, and he just did not like me, did
Speaker 1: like my voice, and did not want me on.
Speaker 2: This record label, Guitar Town.
Speaker 1: He let them go ahead and do it because he
Speaker 1: told them that they could sign anybody that they wanted to,
Speaker 1: but I had to go. I had to go prove
Speaker 1: to him that I could sing. I had to go
Speaker 1: make a special demo. I did it, and then so
Speaker 1: he gradually let him sign me. We made the record.
Speaker 1: We put out one single that got into the thirties,
Speaker 1: which was Hillbilly Highway, and the guitar town just sort
Speaker 1: of exploded and radio stations jumped all over it, and
Speaker 1: they even tried to pull the plug on it at
Speaker 1: one point because they had a McIntire record they were trying.
Speaker 2: To get added, and you how that works.
Speaker 1: Every every label is going to get what they're going
Speaker 1: to get according to whatever their relationship with the with
Speaker 1: the programmer is. And and they were told, no, we're
Speaker 1: getting phones on this. This is an active record here,
Speaker 1: and most of the stations wouldn't drop it, so they
Speaker 1: just that record went on. It became a number one
Speaker 1: country album, and then I made exits. He WoT the
Speaker 1: second record, and you know, there's a lot of sophomore slunt,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that was the case of that record.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty proud of that record. I think it holds
Speaker 1: up there's still a lot of songs on it. I
Speaker 1: sing every night, but I've had people that were working
Speaker 1: there at the time tell me that they were told
Speaker 1: absolutely not to work my record.
Speaker 2: So Copperhead Road.
Speaker 1: Will, I knew that I was dead if I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a seven you know, album contract.
Speaker 2: I knew I wasn't going to get dropped.
Speaker 1: And I was thirty two by that time, and I just,
Speaker 1: you know, I just knew that I needed to do something.
Speaker 1: So I was in London producing a record and MCA
Speaker 1: had started an imprint that they'd had before called UNI,
Speaker 1: and I Irving asof was running the whole record label
Speaker 1: at the time. And I walked up to Irving at
Speaker 1: a party and said I want to be on UNI.
Speaker 1: He goes, he got this slice and he didn't like
Speaker 1: Bowing very much.
Speaker 2: They didn't get along, but Boem's division made money, so
Speaker 2: he left him alone. And I think I presented a
Speaker 2: way for him to fuck with Bowen. It was part
Speaker 2: of it, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just I said, I said I want to
Speaker 1: be moved to UNI. And he got this look on
Speaker 1: his face. He said, Unie's not for country, Unie's for
Speaker 1: rock and roll, and hip hop, and I said, I'll
Speaker 1: make a rock record, and so I went to Memphis
Speaker 1: to make it. I'm surprised I got to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they didn't just pull the plug right there.
Speaker 1: I think they could have. I don't you know. I
Speaker 1: barely understood the contract that i'd signed anyway, so I
Speaker 1: know it was seven albums that they wanted it to
Speaker 1: be seven albums, and and and you know one if
Speaker 1: they only wanted it to be one, and they got
Speaker 1: the second one got made, So.
Speaker 2: You know that I went to Memphis.
Speaker 1: There was a rule about the type of recording equipment
Speaker 1: that you had to use because Bowen, because he owned
Speaker 1: all those the machines of that type in Nashville.
Speaker 2: That was part of it, but.
Speaker 1: But it was it was supposed to be about sound quality.
Speaker 1: But they had the same equipment that arted in Memphis.
Speaker 1: And I knew that because I was I was dating
Speaker 1: and getting ready to marry an A and R person
Speaker 1: at the time, and she had made some records over there,
Speaker 1: and I'd been over there with her. So I decided
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to Arden and make Copper. It's
Speaker 1: the studio that that the Zzy Top records were made there.
Speaker 1: Parts of led Zeppelin three were made there. It was
Speaker 1: still open a very very famous recording studio Memphis. So
Speaker 1: I went to Memphis, made Copper Hit Road to be
Speaker 1: a rock record and and and we got played at
Speaker 1: rock radio someplace. There were some places that just still
Speaker 1: thought it was two country, you know, and up north.
Speaker 1: And I already had a pretty good thing going at
Speaker 1: h And one of the reasons that I did what
Speaker 1: I did is even on Guitar Town and especially on
Speaker 1: EGSIT zero w XRT in Chicago were sort of unknowingly
Speaker 1: inventing a radio format at the time because it got
Speaker 1: so wide open and it became you know, the tripa
Speaker 1: a format, you know, and and adult album alternative whatever.
Speaker 2: Well, whatever order you put those words in, it's that's
Speaker 2: three words. I never can't remember what order it goes in,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: It was a XRT, you know, convinced me that there
Speaker 1: was an audience out there, and I knew I needed
Speaker 1: to stay on the road. Luckily, my publishing deal ran
Speaker 1: out right as Guitar Town was number one, so they
Speaker 1: had to re sign me on a better deal. So
Speaker 1: I got a big enough publishing deal that I could
Speaker 1: live on it and I just put the money from
Speaker 1: the road into the bus and paying the band and
Speaker 1: stayed on the road.
Speaker 2: And uh, I had a career from that point.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Speaker 3: Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4: Is there a genre you haven't touched yet that you
Speaker 4: would consider touching in the future.
Speaker 3: Jazz?
Speaker 1: I guess because a friend of mine told me after
Speaker 1: I've made a bluegrass record. He's his mother started the
Speaker 1: station in in Nashville. He's like, he's in some really
Speaker 1: good I guess they would call alternative bands that were around,
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh and he but his grandfather's
Speaker 1: was Woody Hermann. And he told me that he grew
Speaker 1: up being a bandboy with his with with his dad
Speaker 1: and he he just I mean, with his granddad. And
Speaker 1: he just said, we have you can probably make any
Speaker 1: kind of record you want.
Speaker 2: To steps a jazz record. Don't ever try to make
Speaker 2: a jazz record.
Speaker 1: That kind of I took that as a double dog there,
Speaker 1: and so I have thought about it a few times.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic. Any jazz players in particular that that you admire.
Speaker 1: Pretty old passion, you know, like hard bop and and
Speaker 1: and I love Woody Herman, and I love Stan Kenton
Speaker 1: and that kind of big band jazz.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it's really jazz.
Speaker 1: And and I love Birth of the Cools probably my
Speaker 1: favorite jazz album, which is Miles and that you know
Speaker 1: that that well relatively large band, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: that's a really really great record. But I like, I
Speaker 1: like piano players are kind of, you know, more than
Speaker 1: almost anything else. I mean, I love I love Bird
Speaker 1: and I love I love Filonia s Mont. But I'm
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, just Bud Poalell. That's I listened
Speaker 1: to a lot of Bud Powell.
Speaker 4: Have you checked out the Lewis Armstrong Museum there in Corona, Queens.
Speaker 1: I've never been out there, and I need to go
Speaker 1: out there because I love all that stuff there, you know,
Speaker 1: the early Lily Armstrong stuff.
Speaker 2: And I got I got.
Speaker 1: Obsessed because of a great book Michael Lodace wrote, Coming
Speaker 1: through Slaughter with the whole legend of Buddy Bolden because
Speaker 1: we never really heard him play in his prime because
Speaker 1: they weren't making records when he was younger, and then
Speaker 1: he basically had mental health issues. I mean, he lived
Speaker 1: into the forties, but he he never was quite right
Speaker 1: when they when they when there was really a market
Speaker 1: for jazz, and he could have gotten a record deal.
Speaker 1: But but but according to Louis Armstrong and everybody else
Speaker 1: that was around, you are hearing Buddy Bolden if you
Speaker 1: hear Louis Armstrong early on, and a lot of almost
Speaker 1: anybody else in town. He was the trump He was
Speaker 1: a cornet player. He never owned a trumpet.
Speaker 4: The museum is cool, but the house is incredible. It's
Speaker 4: got some great archival sound there and everything as you
Speaker 4: walk through.
Speaker 2: You know, in New Orleans where I spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: I was on a television show called Tremet and it
Speaker 1: was about you know, New Orleans after the you know,
Speaker 1: just characters in New Orleans after after the storm. Most
Speaker 1: of the musicians. I played the street musician. But there's
Speaker 1: there's a guy there, but I can't remember his name.
Speaker 1: But he he collected a lot of jazz memobilia. He's
Speaker 1: he's an academic. He teaches, he teaches that stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of neurons culture. But he owned Louis Armstrong's
Speaker 1: first cornett wow and it ended up and that water.
Speaker 2: Was so toxic, was so caustic.
Speaker 1: That flooded his house got flooded, and they opened the
Speaker 1: case and it just fell apart. It left only the
Speaker 1: steel parts, the valves, the hardened parts of all the
Speaker 1: brass parts dissolved.
Speaker 2: That's how caustic that water was. It was in the streets.
Speaker 1: That's why all those trees along those boulevards going out,
Speaker 1: you know, back towards the river, you know, back towards
Speaker 1: the you know, the levees in the back. That's why
Speaker 1: all those trees died, all those big magnelio's, all that
Speaker 1: stuff that.
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't know that. God, bluegrass is important to you,
Speaker 4: and I think it's an interesting time with some of
Speaker 4: these newer creators that have come on the horizon. I
Speaker 4: wonder it's great.
Speaker 2: It's the biggest it's ever men and.
Speaker 4: The Sierra Halls and the you know those.
Speaker 1: Strings you know, sells out multiple nights at Red Rocks
Speaker 1: and and plays arenas, and and yeah, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: and I've watched all that stuff, and I just I did. Actually,
Speaker 1: Molly Tuttle's band backs me up along with Molly at
Speaker 1: Harley Strictly Bluegrass last year and it was a blast.
Speaker 2: I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm gonna do. I've done some few bluegrass gigs.
Speaker 1: I played with Molly at Harley Strictly last year, the
Speaker 1: Outlaw Cruise.
Speaker 2: This last year, the Earls of Leicester backed me up
Speaker 2: for one show, which.
Speaker 1: Is That's That's you know, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that that it's a it's a flatten Strudge, you know,
Speaker 1: tribute band that Jerry Douglas put together, and Sean Campsen,
Speaker 1: who's one of the best musicians I know, pound for
Speaker 1: pound in that whole town.
Speaker 2: And and a lot of great players in it. It
Speaker 2: was a blast. It was real, live, holding on for
Speaker 2: dear life, adult bluegrass. It was fun.
Speaker 4: Is there a thing you have to reconcile as far
Speaker 4: as the improvisation of bluegrass versus the you know, other
Speaker 4: forms that don't I don't know, embrace improvisation.
Speaker 1: I'm if you played according to Monroe, then the lead
Speaker 1: singer is a guitar player, and guitar players and monros
Speaker 1: bands never saw loads, so I get off light with that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There are guys like Billy Strings that you know, but
Speaker 1: Bill's thing was no takeoff guitar.
Speaker 2: That was his deal. He just didn't do it.
Speaker 1: And because he want a guitar holding down the middle,
Speaker 1: and it allowed, you know, the mandolin to stop playing rhythm.
Speaker 1: It allowed you know, guitar had to stay, had to
Speaker 1: hold that down no matter what.
Speaker 2: And bass. I heard him one time. I got to
Speaker 2: be around Monroe.
Speaker 1: A little bit the last few decades of his life,
Speaker 1: and I got to go sit in on a session
Speaker 1: Emmory Gordy who's produced by something My Stuff of that
Speaker 1: pick and was a co producer and guitar Town and
Speaker 1: Egs zero. He was producing a Bill Monroe record and
Speaker 1: I got to go. It was called Bill Monroe and
Speaker 1: Friends and it was him with all these other bluegrass bands.
Speaker 1: He was finally kind of acknowledging he created a genre
Speaker 1: and playing with all these bands. Some of the people
Speaker 1: that he didn't talk to you for years because they
Speaker 1: had left his band, but they had figured out by
Speaker 1: that time, long years before that, that that's because he
Speaker 1: invented something in an American art form and and that's
Speaker 1: how that works.
Speaker 2: But he he you.
Speaker 1: Know, they were signing the pay the Time cards at
Speaker 1: the end of the session, everybody signing and Jack Cook,
Speaker 1: who was who was Ralph Stanley was it was his band,
Speaker 1: right and Jack Cook was his bass player for years
Speaker 1: and so he had the seniority. So he made him
Speaker 1: the session leader because you get double scale. And he
Speaker 1: was signing the card and Bill was watching Jack Cook
Speaker 1: sign that card and he elbows Emory.
Speaker 2: And he says, Emory, we don't pay bass players. You
Speaker 2: can't hear them, you know. So it's it's what those say.
Speaker 1: He was hit this very very dry, almost English sense
Speaker 1: of humor.
Speaker 2: It was pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1: Uh, some people mistook it for something else, but he
Speaker 1: was really smart and really funny.
Speaker 4: Somebody sent me the incredible performance there in goal Way
Speaker 4: that was you know, it seems like there was hundreds
Speaker 4: of thousands of people that were singing Galway Girl.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Monday and Monday and Sharon Shan and
Speaker 1: Monday actually had the biggest hit on the Galway Girl
Speaker 1: that finally pushed it into Irish culture once and for all.
Speaker 1: Cheveral years after my Version Insurance version, my Version Insurance
Speaker 1: version of the same things that the accordions lived on
Speaker 1: the mix on her record.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and I wasn't around for that, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was people trust me. I got that
Speaker 2: video forwarded to me a lot.
Speaker 4: It must make you feel really great watching that. It's
Speaker 4: so joyous, I mean, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's also I got one from a from a class,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine's, you know class, and you know,
Speaker 1: a school teacher, friend of mine's class, and everybody's singing it,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They are musicians that hate me for it because it's
Speaker 1: become such a part of culture. You know, there's you know,
Speaker 1: I also had, you know, a friend of mine who
Speaker 1: runs the Galway Traditional Music School. He's Mick Crean, and
Speaker 1: he's he's he's a whistle player. He's he plays he
Speaker 1: plays you know, the low whistle and and and and
Speaker 1: you know, penny whistles to ten whistles, whichever you want
Speaker 1: to call him, and some flute. But monthly he's about whistles.
Speaker 1: And he's like, he's an old he's an old socialist.
Speaker 1: He's like, he and I have a lot in common
Speaker 1: and and uh got to be really really good friends.
Speaker 1: But he uh, he's like, uh, he teaches at that
Speaker 1: school and he and he had he plays mandolin and
Speaker 1: guitar too. And this this kid came in he was
Speaker 1: about eight or nine. Yeah, Mandolin, and he said, I
Speaker 1: want to play the learn to play the Gallery girl.
Speaker 1: And this is Mitt telling the story, so I have
Speaker 1: his word, only have his word for it that this
Speaker 1: was how win. He goes, I want to learn to
Speaker 1: play the Gallway Girl. And he goes, well, first let's
Speaker 1: show you. Here's a g cord.
Speaker 2: He goes, I just want to learn to play the
Speaker 2: fucking Gallway girl.
Speaker 3: And that was it.
Speaker 2: That's all he who's interested that. I think he learned
Speaker 2: to play it.
Speaker 4: Eventually, I want to talk about some causes that are
Speaker 4: important to you. Obviously, the Keswell's School is is one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know I got a kid that goes
Speaker 2: to school there. Yeah, anybody that's got a kid that
Speaker 2: goes to school is probably raising funds for it in
Speaker 2: some one form or another nowadays.
Speaker 4: So you will do another show coming up later in
Speaker 4: the fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna do when we're moving venues this year.
Speaker 2: We haven't announced it yet, but we'll be announcing pretty
Speaker 2: soon since we get off Headliner.
Speaker 4: Locked In and I know Better than Jail is an
Speaker 4: equal justice organization that you support as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you know I don't. I still am
Speaker 1: opposed to the death penalty. That was a core issue
Speaker 1: for me for a long time. I don't get directly
Speaker 1: involved with inmates anymore because that eventually led to me
Speaker 1: witnessing an execution, and I don't have it in me
Speaker 1: to go through that again.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So I try not to get too close to inmates.
Speaker 1: I feel bad about it sometimes, but I was. I
Speaker 1: had about eleven guys that I corresponded with. They've all
Speaker 1: been executed now, and one of them I witnessed that execution,
Speaker 1: and I just can't do that again. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was blindsided. He asked me, how are you going
Speaker 1: to say? No, it's a dying man's last request. And
Speaker 1: my guys weren't innocent, you know, innocent guys never wrote me. Ah,
Speaker 1: my guys were guilty. But I'm opposed to the death penalty.
Speaker 1: I opposed to if the government kills somebody and the democracy,
Speaker 1: which we're barely hanging on too, but we're all sensibly
Speaker 1: a democracy, then then I'm killing someone, and I object
Speaker 1: to the damage that dost to my spirit. I'm not
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to keep me from going to hell.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to save anybody on death row necessarily.
Speaker 4: Any other charities and causes you want to make mention.
Speaker 1: Of Autism Speaks obviously, which funds a lot of the research,
Speaker 1: and that the causes of autism. In every city there's
Speaker 1: there are local autism you know charities, and those are those.
Speaker 2: Are pretty near and dear to my heart. You know,
Speaker 2: American Civil Liberties Union, you know, I also I do
Speaker 2: stuff for them all the time.
Speaker 1: I've done I've played their plenary every year, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's just it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: I it's more or less the same causes.
Speaker 2: The have been my causes pretty much all my life.
Speaker 4: So you're you're heading out for a couple of months
Speaker 4: on the road here with these three months months.
Speaker 2: Pretty much ninety days, sixty nine shows and ninety days.
Speaker 4: So people can go to Steveborol dot com and check
Speaker 4: out all of the devils there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're starting and and the KA Alabama like coming
Speaker 1: up in it's next Sunday night, actually the twenty the
Speaker 1: twenty as we're as we're taking this to twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and it goes through the week till Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 1: and it's at rhythm and Roots Festival in Rhode Island
Speaker 1: is the last show.
Speaker 4: Any other venues that you've played before that you'll be
Speaker 4: playing that are some of your favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some clubs, some theaters, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: really cool like art center in Grass Valley, California. I
Speaker 1: haven't played in years and years, and Utah Phillips lived
Speaker 1: there the last, you know, a few decades of his life.
Speaker 1: It's funny U Tap Phillips and Chuck Yeger ended up
Speaker 1: in the same place on the planet for the end
Speaker 1: of their lives.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm playing playing the Calgary Buck Festival, that's what the
Speaker 1: reckless Kelly. I'm playing the VIC in Chicago, which I
Speaker 1: haven't played in years, which used to be sort of
Speaker 1: my home base in Chicago and but like especially the
Speaker 1: nineties right after I got out of jail.
Speaker 2: But I haven't played there in quite a while, and
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 4: So, Steven closing, I know you're a big Yankee fan,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to ask you, were you ever a ballplayer?
Speaker 2: First of all, No, I was the worst athlete in
Speaker 2: the history of Texas and my brother was. My brother
Speaker 2: played everything. My dad was you know, we held a
Speaker 2: held a record in a high school record in the mile.
Speaker 1: Relay until he was you know, until I was on
Speaker 1: the planet. And it was broken when I was about
Speaker 1: ten years old. But I was just terrible at everything.
Speaker 1: The baseball thing got. I was a Dallas Cowboys football fan.
Speaker 1: I just kind of quit watching American football. I don't know,
Speaker 1: several decades. I got Jerry Jones started to piss me off,
Speaker 1: and so it was one of those things I got
Speaker 1: tired of watching guys get hurt.
Speaker 2: I follow English Premier League.
Speaker 1: Soccer, you know football, you know that football in general,
Speaker 1: and the Premier League because I produced a lot of
Speaker 1: records in England, and I got kind of hooked, and
Speaker 1: I've been an arsenal guy. But the Yankees thing started
Speaker 1: with my grandfather, he's actually my mother's stepfather, who mustled
Speaker 1: out of the army in New York City, intended to
Speaker 1: stay here, but he was dragged back to Jacksonville, Texas,
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming because his stepfather died and he had
Speaker 1: to go home and run the family hardware store because
Speaker 1: that was his mother's livelihood. So but he came back
Speaker 1: a Yankees fan, and you only got the Yankees and
Speaker 1: the Dodgers on TV when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: That was it the game of the week.
Speaker 1: So you were either in the middle of the country
Speaker 1: if you had no baseball team, you or Dodgers or
Speaker 1: a Yankees fan. That's pretty you know that the originally
Speaker 1: America's team that wasn't coined for the Dallas Cowboys. It
Speaker 1: was a coin for the Yankees. And it was because
Speaker 1: of that that period in history. So I was issued
Speaker 1: Penns tricks when I was six years old. My first
Speaker 1: team was sixty one Maris and Mantel and that record
Speaker 1: and that story. So and as a big Yogi Bearer guy,
Speaker 1: I like catchers, Thurman Munson and Yogi Bearra.
Speaker 2: You know, catchers are a big deal for me. For
Speaker 2: some reason.
Speaker 1: They're the only player on the field that gets to
Speaker 1: see a whole baseball game. That's why so many of
Speaker 1: them become managers.
Speaker 4: The tools of ignorance, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yogi Barra was such a character too, He said, My
Speaker 1: favorite yogiism is when people die, you should go to
Speaker 1: their funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
Speaker 2: That's my very favorite.
Speaker 4: Steve, thank you so much for being taking a walk
Speaker 4: good luck on the tour, and I really appreciate you
Speaker 4: being on.
Speaker 2: Thanks say down the rug.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Speaker 3: Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
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