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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is the one in the truly legendary

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Speaker 1: Steve Kropper. Steve, great to have you here. So, how

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Speaker 1: you been handling COVID very delicately? Okay? So have you

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Speaker 1: been vaccinated yet? I have not. That is my choice, okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: and that's your choice because and if they come up

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Speaker 1: with this thing about a vaccination to get on the plane,

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Speaker 1: that's today I stopped flying. Okay, okay. There's only two

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Speaker 1: people on this planet and not hear anymore. They're in

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Speaker 1: the planet. My mom and Daddy. The only people tell

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Speaker 1: me what to do. So you have a new album.

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Speaker 1: How did that come together? Well, but because of this pandemic,

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Speaker 1: and it came together and now it's it's almost over.

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Speaker 1: The pandemic is almost over. But during the lockdowns, so

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Speaker 1: it was John Tivers I did to pull up these

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Speaker 1: old tracks and do something with him and they turned

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Speaker 1: out great. So and I had just written them off.

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Speaker 1: Did you know Tivin before this? Oh yeah, known him

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Speaker 1: for a long time. So all the songs we wrote together. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So he approached you and just for those out of

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Speaker 1: the loop, exactly what is on the record. I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: say exactly. I'll tell you what happened. Let me tell

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Speaker 1: you about the album. He has a studio in his house.

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Speaker 1: I do not. I have never had a studio at

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Speaker 1: my house. When I go home, I go home. I

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Speaker 1: don't take my work home with me. But with the

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Speaker 1: computer age, you know, you're on doing emails or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And when I get up in the morning, I'm usually

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Speaker 1: on the computer before seven thirty. And today I got

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Speaker 1: off at nine third. Two hours of just getting rid

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Speaker 1: of stuff and answer things and it's fun. Okay, we've

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Speaker 1: got two things going up. What are you? Who's looking

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Speaker 1: for you that it takes two hours to go through

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Speaker 1: your email? Everybody just trying to sell something. And I

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Speaker 1: bet you I have deleted every morning at least twenty

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Speaker 1: or thirty emails, and I try to not be subscribed

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Speaker 1: to them, and I hit that and they call back.

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Speaker 1: So I have an old car. Just to give you

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Speaker 1: an example, Okay, I bet I get three or four

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Speaker 1: calls a day wanting to extend my warranty on my

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Speaker 1: old car. Okay, what kind of car is it? And

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Speaker 1: Infinity a good one? Really? You see Avanti the old

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Speaker 1: student baker, Did I hear that correctly? I could go

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Speaker 1: for an old car, but it's not. It was new

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Speaker 1: when I bought it. I have a twenty eleven. My

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Speaker 1: wife has a twenty our team. Okay, so you get

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Speaker 1: all the email and phone calls that are junk calls?

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Speaker 1: How many personal and business personal business email and calls

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Speaker 1: do you get? Hundreds? And what are they looking for? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question. Either an autograph or want me

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Speaker 1: to play something. We'll do a concert or you know,

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Speaker 1: perform or whatever. And what does it take for you

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Speaker 1: to say yes? A question? Do you want to do this?

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Speaker 1: I will say? Is you always say so? Guys that

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Speaker 1: are farm more important than I am, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how they deal with life. It's amazing because if a

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Speaker 1: little guy like me guess that kind of mail, they

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Speaker 1: must be getting thousands a day. So if I emailed

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Speaker 1: you for some reason I had your email address and

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Speaker 1: I asked you to play on my record, you would

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Speaker 1: say yes, Well, that depend on what the record is.

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Speaker 1: I'd have to hear it first, Okay, But you're open

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Speaker 1: to everybody absolutely. Okay, Well, that certainly gives you more opportunity,

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Speaker 1: but it certainly takes you two hours to get through this?

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Speaker 1: And is it mostly on the computer or how many

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Speaker 1: people still call it's motionally on a computer? By email? Okay? Now,

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Speaker 1: you have a big birthday coming up this year, and

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Speaker 1: I don't want to go too deeply into that at

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Speaker 1: this moment. But what's it like having some of your

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Speaker 1: best buddies pass? It's not fun. So I am one

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Speaker 1: of the few lucky people on this planet. I can

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Speaker 1: say that my father lost my best friend. I've lost

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Speaker 1: all my other friends and families. Is your father in law?

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Speaker 1: How old is he? Same age? Okay? And what about

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Speaker 1: how do you handle all your contemporaries dying? Say it again,

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Speaker 1: contemporary dives that what you said? You know, know your

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Speaker 1: old musician friends, your old buddies who are dying. Even

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Speaker 1: I'm younger than you, I'm still experiencing this. It's weird

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Speaker 1: that my friends die and it makes me think about

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Speaker 1: dying myself. Well, you're trying not to think about it.

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Speaker 1: I try not to think about it. But you know,

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Speaker 1: there's only one guy left and the out of the

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Speaker 1: original band, and uh, as far as book of ten

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Speaker 1: m g s, it would be book A ten MG.

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Speaker 1: Now three of the other mgs are gone. They have

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Speaker 1: since gone. Ben. You know, the funny thing is these

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Speaker 1: people are in plain sight and one day they're gonna disappear.

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Speaker 1: And everybody says, oh, I could have seen him, I

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Speaker 1: could have talked to him. It's really so sad. So

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Speaker 1: Tivin approaches you and he says, well, we wrote these

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Speaker 1: songs together. Let's let's lay him down. Yeah. And I said,

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Speaker 1: if you want to bring these things back to life,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna Ben a singer. He says, I got one.

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Speaker 1: I said you better send me something. So he did.

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Speaker 1: And when you do, and I said, where's this guy

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Speaker 1: been on my life? Roger Real or something else? I

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Speaker 1: never heard it? Hands? Okay, So where'd you come from? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's up north. That's probably why I never heard of.

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Speaker 1: We never crossed pass We should have crossed passed somewhere

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Speaker 1: down the line, but we didn't. Okay. And did you

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Speaker 1: do it via the computer? Did you go to John Studio? Well,

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Speaker 1: every song on this album, if you listen to it,

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Speaker 1: was done. The vocal was done through an iPhone and

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Speaker 1: even my engineers, yeah, which is amazing. That was mixed

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Speaker 1: in Pro Tools, so it was bounced down to Pro tools,

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Speaker 1: which I don't think pro tools didn't change anything, but

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Speaker 1: it was all done with an iPhone and it's for

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Speaker 1: the sake of the record and promotion. It's too bad

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Speaker 1: because that would have been a real good, uh promotional item.

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Speaker 1: But now they're into movies. You can edit your own movies,

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Speaker 1: just like Hollywood and all that. So let's hope they

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Speaker 1: can do that. And I know that the iPhone people

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Speaker 1: have been bragging about their phones or their microphones in

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Speaker 1: their in their telephone us for a long time, and

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Speaker 1: people just took it for granted. They were more into

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Speaker 1: the picture thing with selfish and so forth, which is fine,

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Speaker 1: and people just kind of forgot that that's a real

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Speaker 1: good mike in that iPhone. And then how did you

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Speaker 1: lay down your guitar? Well, originally it was just the

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Speaker 1: rhythm tracks mainly with a loop, and then we brought

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Speaker 1: in extra drummers. Now, as far as all the solo licks,

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Speaker 1: when Roger finished the vocals, I said, I'm not laying

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Speaker 1: down any any lead licks until I hear the vocal

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Speaker 1: and so I just get inspired by that. That's the

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Speaker 1: way I get inspired. I hate working things out. I

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Speaker 1: don't like that at all. I just don't work things out.

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Speaker 1: I like the spawning Eddie and listen to something for

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Speaker 1: the first time, and and and let the emotion just

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Speaker 1: flow and let it go and be a chanler. I'm

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Speaker 1: actually the exact same way. That's how you get inspired.

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Speaker 1: So let's just soon the vocal is cut. You don't

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Speaker 1: want to hear it until you're in the studio with

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Speaker 1: the guitar strapped on, ready to play. Correct. Okay, And

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Speaker 1: let's say in one song, how long is it gonna

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Speaker 1: take you to work out what you're gonna play and

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Speaker 1: lay it down. Not very long. So we do piece

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Speaker 1: things together sometimes and I'll get hit with something and

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Speaker 1: play something in the engine will say that was a

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Speaker 1: good look you did three takes ago, or if it's

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Speaker 1: not completely say let's say another one, and then we

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Speaker 1: put them all together. So that's the way we do it.

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Speaker 1: The same thing with vocals. Okay. So if I if

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Speaker 1: you laid down a lick and it was a half

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Speaker 1: hour later, the engineer said, play that lick again. Could

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Speaker 1: you remember it and do it? Probably not? If you

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Speaker 1: pleasure to me, I could probably duplicate it, But to remember, no,

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Speaker 1: it comes and goes, but it comes about as fast.

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Speaker 1: I mean it goes about as fast it comes, So

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Speaker 1: there you go. I have always approached I have always

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Speaker 1: approached sessions the same way. So when we were learning

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Speaker 1: a song and the old days, we learned it together

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Speaker 1: at the same time, heard it for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and the and the writers, we weren't there the night before.

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Speaker 1: You used to we would write songs the night before

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Speaker 1: we cut them. Today you might write a song and

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Speaker 1: it might be two years before it gets cut. You

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Speaker 1: just don't know what's gonna happen today. It's certainly different now.

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Speaker 1: In the old days we're talking about pre internet, you

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Speaker 1: would have made this record. There was a limited number

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Speaker 1: of records, and everybody would have been aware of it,

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Speaker 1: whether it was successful or not, depending on what was

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Speaker 1: in the grooves. Today you can put out a record

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Speaker 1: and almost nobody can know about it. How does that

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Speaker 1: affect your inspiration to do it? You just do it

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Speaker 1: one at a time, and uh, you know, when you're

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Speaker 1: when you're overdubbing something or listening to something, you treat

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Speaker 1: it as the only song on the planet at the time.

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Speaker 1: And there's only two singers that I've ever worked with.

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Speaker 1: The singer song as though it was gonna be the

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Speaker 1: last song they would ever sing. Otis reading for number one,

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Speaker 1: Number two, rods shuret even though and I I refer

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Speaker 1: to Rod the fact that he knew that he would

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Speaker 1: take the track home that night and change the lyrics,

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Speaker 1: change the idea or whatever, and knowing that for the

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Speaker 1: musicians in the studio at the time, he would sing

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Speaker 1: it as though he was on live on stage for

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Speaker 1: the last time. I've always been how did you get

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Speaker 1: hooked up with Rod Stewart through Tommy Dodd? Okay, so

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Speaker 1: that of course makes a question, how did you know

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Speaker 1: Tom Doubt? I don't think we have a month or

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Speaker 1: a year to do this, but how did I know

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Speaker 1: Tom Doubt? Atlantic was our distributed stacks and he was

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Speaker 1: a vice president or in our director for a long time,

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Speaker 1: then became a vice person and okay, I've known him

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Speaker 1: since since sixty three, let's put it that way. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So right now you're in Nashville, Yeah, okay, why Nashville?

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Speaker 1: You you grew up in Memphis, you were in California

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Speaker 1: for a while, You're in Nashville. Why these different places? Well,

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Speaker 1: I was asked by some friends of mine to come

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Speaker 1: here and write some songs, and I said no. Then

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Speaker 1: I met my present wife. This June will be thirty

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Speaker 1: thirty two years that I've been married to her. And

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Speaker 1: I met her in this town and I was she

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Speaker 1: was up here from Dallas. She was living in Dallas

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Speaker 1: and I was living in l A at the time,

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Speaker 1: and so I took her out to l a show

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Speaker 1: to the house and she said, I'd rather have a

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Speaker 1: house in Nashville. Okay. So we've raised two kids and

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Speaker 1: head place. Wow, it's hard to say that that I'm

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Speaker 1: in in the music city of the world. And it's

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Speaker 1: hard to say that I didn't come here for the music.

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Speaker 1: But I didn't here because of my present So was

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Speaker 1: it was? It loved first sight? Absolutely? Did Did she

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Speaker 1: feel the same way or did you have to work?

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Speaker 1: I think so, except she tells it a little different

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Speaker 1: that she didn't. The good news is she didn't know

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Speaker 1: who I was, and she said, all another one one hit.

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Speaker 1: Wonder Then she found out letter that I had written

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Speaker 1: more than one song. So you've been married thirty years,

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Speaker 1: you have two kids, what are they up to? Well,

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Speaker 1: one of them is has our own merchandising company and

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Speaker 1: the other one is in college. That I put him

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Speaker 1: on the plane yesterday to fly back to Fort Collins.

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Speaker 1: He's going to Colorado State in four columns Colorado and

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Speaker 1: he'll be home back here from school. Let's out, which

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Speaker 1: is the end of my I think? And how many

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Speaker 1: times you've been married twice? And do you have kids

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Speaker 1: from your first marriage? I do older kids. And how

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Speaker 1: how many of you have and how old are there?

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Speaker 1: I have another boy and another girl, the boy being

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Speaker 1: the oldest. Then what are they up to? I said

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Speaker 1: that my my son is retired. My daughter works for

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Speaker 1: Ashley Furniture. Wow. And are they on the payroll or

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Speaker 1: totally independent? She is? And he he rant managed a

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Speaker 1: bookstore for a long time and he decided not to

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Speaker 1: He's he overmarried too. He married a girl in Memphis

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Speaker 1: that's head of the card services, and they transferred to

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Speaker 1: her to Atlanta, and that's where he went to college.

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Speaker 1: So he's very happy to be back in Atlanta. He

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Speaker 1: loves it. Okay, so you're in Nashville, and you've did

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Speaker 1: a lot of early work in Memphis. You grew up

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Speaker 1: in Memphis. Most people have not been to those places.

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Speaker 1: They say, oh it's Tennessee. Having been to those places,

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Speaker 1: I experienced them is radically different. Would you say the

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Speaker 1: same the two cities. Yeah, uh, totally musically inclined and otherwise.

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Speaker 1: Memphis is a melting pot. Now, Nashville gets a lot

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Speaker 1: of people here too, from Kentucky in different places, but

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Speaker 1: Memphis gets at all Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri. So they

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Speaker 1: get a lot of entitled an album one time called

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Speaker 1: Melton Park. And that's been going on since way a

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Speaker 1: long time ago, when the river boats were gambling boats

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Speaker 1: or so forth. Wow. Yeah, people don't realize that when

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Speaker 1: you're in Memphis, you look over the river, it's Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: You don't realize that it's just that close. Never Mississippi,

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Speaker 1: just down south. Okay, So what age were you at

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Speaker 1: when you moved to Memphis ten years old? And where

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Speaker 1: were you the ten years before that? Missouri? Some people

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Speaker 1: call it Missoury. Just a state with three names Missouri, Missouri,

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Speaker 1: and Missouri. And there's say, misery, Why do you call

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Speaker 1: a Missoury? I said, obviously you didn't grow up on

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Speaker 1: a farm. So where was this farm in Missouri? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's not too far. If you know where West Plains

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Speaker 1: is and there and that those places. It's not in

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Speaker 1: the Booth Hill. It's in the southern part, right in

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Speaker 1: northern Arkansas or southern Missouri. The line is not too far,

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Speaker 1: thirty miles away, I guess something like that at the most.

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Speaker 1: But it's uh. It's it's just uh west of the

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Speaker 1: Booth Hill. And your father was a farmer. He was

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Speaker 1: originally uh, and then he met my mother at teacher's college,

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Speaker 1: and uh. He was a teacher, and so was my mom.

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Speaker 1: The thing about me was very simple. They didn't have

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Speaker 1: babysitters in those days. There was no work to and

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Speaker 1: we didn't have any close relatives that she could drop

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Speaker 1: me off at. So she put me to school. I

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Speaker 1: was full when I started a month later. I was five,

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Speaker 1: So you know, I started when I was five years old.

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Speaker 1: The thing was, my mother told me, I don't know

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Speaker 1: this to be a fact. She said, I did as

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Speaker 1: good as the registers. She said, I didn't really have

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Speaker 1: any choice. I had to move you up. So she

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Speaker 1: took me from the first grade to the second grade

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Speaker 1: and on to the third grade. Except she's as a

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Speaker 1: retired teacher, she stayed on the on the teacher's board.

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Speaker 1: So we moved to West Plains, which was in those

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Speaker 1: days is if you were raised on a farm. That

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Speaker 1: was a big town nineteen miles from the farm. And

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Speaker 1: she put me back. So I took the third grade twice.

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Speaker 1: I was in the fourth grade for about three weeks

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Speaker 1: and she said, these city boys are too big for

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Speaker 1: my son, so she put me back. What kind of

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Speaker 1: student were you? I did pretty good until I started

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Speaker 1: playing guitar. I was a straight AS student, and I

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Speaker 1: spent most of my time playing the guitar instead of studying,

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Speaker 1: so my grades went down a little bit. I started

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Speaker 1: making season bees, right, And what your parents? They were teachers?

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Speaker 1: What did they say about that? They didn't like it

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Speaker 1: very much, but they never discouraged me in the guitar playing.

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Speaker 1: And I remember I never thinked. People would ask me,

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Speaker 1: why what do you think last night, which was the

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Speaker 1: song that we had number three in the world, Uh,

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Speaker 1: why was it such a hit? And I said, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, but I do remember that my mother the

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Speaker 1: first time I played on the record, she started doing

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Speaker 1: a twist. I said, well, I guess it was the

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Speaker 1: first twist instrumental. That's the thing. I com credit it

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Speaker 1: to Dad at that at that at that so your

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Speaker 1: parents were supportive did they understand the level of success

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Speaker 1: that you achieved. I don't not until later. No, And

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Speaker 1: how were you were you an only kid or with

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Speaker 1: other kids in the family. I was the only one,

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Speaker 1: So I remember the time. I do remember this. My

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Speaker 1: dad came home. We were eating dinner, and he looks

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Speaker 1: up and he says, I've been transferred to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: We're moving to Tulsa. And I said I'm not and

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Speaker 1: he looked at me very sternly and said, so you

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Speaker 1: don't have a voice in this conversation. I said, yes,

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Speaker 1: I do. I've got a working band making money. And

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Speaker 1: he said, oh okay. He said, well I've got to go,

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Speaker 1: and he did. And my mom stayed until I graduated

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Speaker 1: from high school. And uh they found a duplex to

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Speaker 1: put me in that that sort of thing. But Dad

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Speaker 1: went ahead to Tulsa. He was gonna put me in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma State, in the Norman Oklahoma and uh, I said,

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Speaker 1: I don't you know, but you'll be going to Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: State much better than Memphis. And said, uh, I want

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Speaker 1: the band. That's all I care about. The thing is

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Speaker 1: that on my entrance to x AM, I failed the

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Speaker 1: English part, but I raised it so high in the

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Speaker 1: math part, they let me take the take it over,

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Speaker 1: and I did it with There was a girl that

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Speaker 1: took it over to There was only two of us,

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Speaker 1: and she had already had two years of pre college

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Speaker 1: and she failed it as well, and that's why she

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Speaker 1: got to take it again. Of course we passed it secondary.

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Speaker 1: So go ahead, no, no, you continue. Well, I was

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Speaker 1: gonna say that. I got reprimanded one time for calling

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Speaker 1: it Memphis State. It always was. Now it's Memphis University.

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Speaker 1: And so my daughter's golf coach said, Steve, it's Memphis

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Speaker 1: University's something infish state anymore. I said, It'll always been

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Speaker 1: in the state as far as I'm concerned. So, m

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Speaker 1: my daughter played the high school college of golf, came

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Speaker 1: out of pretty good golfer. So how good a golfer

333
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Speaker 1: are you? Well? I used to be pretty good at

334
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:12,119
Speaker 1: my age terrible, but I played with a lot of

335
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Speaker 1: guys in the nineties and all, and I said, well,

336
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Speaker 1: when I grow up, that's what I'm gonna do. You know,

337
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 1: you don't go on the road for fifty years and

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Speaker 1: been over like you used to. So, uh, people have

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Speaker 1: back trouble. Everybody does. And so I waited and waited

340
00:19:27,119 --> 00:19:30,720
Speaker 1: and waited to until I had some time off to

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Speaker 1: get my back work on. And the doctor said, Steve,

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Speaker 1: I can't help you anymore. So what do you mean

343
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Speaker 1: you can't help me? He said, because three and four

344
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Speaker 1: years together, and I'm telling you, when you've been over

345
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,480
Speaker 1: it's like having or two before in your back. I

346
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:44,440
Speaker 1: can't bend over and pick up anything anymore, and never

347
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Speaker 1: could anybody. Well, it's funny because you're the first person

348
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Speaker 1: who ever told me a similar story. I have back

349
00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:54,800
Speaker 1: problems too for fifty years, and I had to get

350
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Speaker 1: an injection. I used to get him in. The guy

351
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Speaker 1: who did the injection said, who did your surgery? Who

352
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Speaker 1: few is the disks? Yeah? So, uh, of all people,

353
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Speaker 1: Peter Jacobson was a pretty good friend of mine, still

354
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,639
Speaker 1: is and he is one of the chief investors in

355
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Speaker 1: the Backs Clinic down in Florida. And he said, if

356
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:18,840
Speaker 1: you have back trouble, I'll put you the head of

357
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Speaker 1: the line and you get in there. So my doctor said,

358
00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:26,919
Speaker 1: we can't shooting anything in there. I can't cut him apart.

359
00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:30,240
Speaker 1: They fused together. So that's what the m R. I showed.

360
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Speaker 1: And so I suffer with it absolutely Okay, So what

361
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:41,399
Speaker 1: major parents move from Misery to Memphis. I well, it

362
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Speaker 1: had to be my dad getting a job he was on.

363
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Speaker 1: We moved from the farm to West Plains, Bressouri because

364
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Speaker 1: he was on the police force, filled out an application

365
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Speaker 1: of the railroad and and got picked up as a

366
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Speaker 1: railroad detective immediately. And that's when we went to Memphis.

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Speaker 1: And I remember right before we crossed the Mississippi, my dad.

368
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Speaker 1: I was asleep in the back seat. My dad wiggled

369
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Speaker 1: me up and he said, so you better get up.

370
00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:07,359
Speaker 1: You might want to see this. And it was a

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Speaker 1: river a mile wide. You know, I grew up on

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Speaker 1: rivers and strangers that I've never seen anything that big

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Speaker 1: in my life. It's amazing. So your father was a teacher,

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Speaker 1: then he was a railroad cop, and then he was

375
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Speaker 1: a teacher with the FBI for years. Really. Yeah, on

376
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Speaker 1: the good side, what kind of relationship did you have

377
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Speaker 1: with your dad? Very good relationship. And uh, I never

378
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Speaker 1: met anybody that ever said anything negative by my dad,

379
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Speaker 1: And everybody really liked my dad. He was just nice

380
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Speaker 1: to everybody. And I didn't even know my dad had

381
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Speaker 1: a sense of humor. But when the when some of

382
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:48,920
Speaker 1: the boys would come over from from high school and

383
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Speaker 1: all he would start telling Jockson said, I didn't know

384
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Speaker 1: my dad could do that. He'd have everybody's stitches. And

385
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Speaker 1: that's just the way he was. But he was also

386
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: very serious, had a serious Uh as he got older. Uh,

387
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:04,720
Speaker 1: he could have made a lot of changes and things,

388
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: but he didn't. He didn't. He didn't but end anything.

389
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:11,160
Speaker 1: He just said back and listen. So, so you moved

390
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,720
Speaker 1: to Memphis at age ten. That's a hard transition for

391
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Speaker 1: a kid to go from one school to another, making friends,

392
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Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, it's like going to Disney World for

393
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 1: the first time. So what was it like for you?

394
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing. I mean everything that I looked at and

395
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:28,119
Speaker 1: saw her her was was a shock treatment and I

396
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:30,880
Speaker 1: just dealt with it. And uh, he was talking about

397
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:32,879
Speaker 1: best friends. Donald Duck Dunn and I met on a

398
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 1: softball field one in the sixth grade, so we were

399
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: out well in the tenth or level. We were sophomores

400
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 1: and juniors when we started a band, and we got

401
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: real good in our sophomore year and we were doing

402
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: proms and you know, local stuff, and it's very simple.

403
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: We played music of the day that kids could dance to.

404
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: We played a lot of dances, socops and dances and

405
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: palms and so forth. And uh, we played the music

406
00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,679
Speaker 1: that they could dance to. Obviously they couldn't afford the

407
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 1: real artists. It's too expensive for him. Even in those days,

408
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: it was expensive today. I don't know how they deal

409
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Speaker 1: with it. It's amazing. I know what we make as

410
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: a Blue Brothers. I know what we make as a band,

411
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,639
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a ceiling, and there's a we

412
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 1: don't go any lower than a certain price, even on

413
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,360
Speaker 1: an off night. That's gonna cost you this much. Well,

414
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: when you do that, you know the the artist is

415
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: one thing. Then you gotta deal with the back line

416
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: and all that. If you can get it donated, that's great.

417
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: If you can't, he's got to shell it out. So

418
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: he's into your profits. And I would never be a promoter.

419
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: There's no way. Listen, it's a license to lose all

420
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: your money. It's just crazy. Okay, so you're in Memphis.

421
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 1: At what point do you start playing the guitar? But

422
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: around fourteen? And what's the inspiration? That's a good question.

423
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: I really don't know. I guess radio here and here

424
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 1: in the radio and seeing people happy, dancing and all

425
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And that's what this record is

426
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: all about. Two Fired Up. It's all about fired up

427
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: and get to get the dancing again, feel good music.

428
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: I'm twelve years younger than you, and in my generation

429
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: people picked up the guitar to play folk songs in

430
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: the early sixties and then the Beatles hit, everybody got

431
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: an electric guitar. When you were starting, what was on

432
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: the radio? What was the inspiration that made you want

433
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: to play music? Well, that's a good question, but I

434
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 1: first heard gospel at that age, and that blew me away.

435
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,640
Speaker 1: I had never heard gospel music before, just happy, good

436
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: feeling music. So I think I'm guilty of taking u

437
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:44,640
Speaker 1: gospel grooves and turning it into you know, lyrically love

438
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 1: songs basically, or different things like that. So you're fourteen,

439
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: you get a guitar. What guitar do you get? I

440
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: found one that I liked out of a Serision Rollbuck catalog.

441
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: That's silvertone. That's silvertone, flat top, sunbursts, round hole, flattop.

442
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: Did you have one where the case had the ample

443
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: fire in it? No, that was a big thing of

444
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: the thick. But my dad, bless his heart, And I

445
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: told you he never discouraged me. He said, son, you

446
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: learned how to play that, and I'll buy you a

447
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: good guitar. Wow. Well he bought my first electric guitar

448
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 1: from a guy who had one for sale, and the

449
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: amp came with it. And I still have that app today. Well,

450
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: I don't have that app anymore. It's Smithsonian. But okay,

451
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: what was the guitar and what was the app? Uh?

452
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: The guitar was a Birdland cut Away or not? Wasn't

453
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: the bird Landers one seventy five got the bird Land letter.

454
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: It was a one trapeze bridge thin about thin body,

455
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: sharp cut away sunbursts. And the app was a Fender Harvard. Wow,

456
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: that really was on green onions. That was on green

457
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: onions and a bunch of otus reading and of other things.

458
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: And when I wanted that sound, I always pulled that

459
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: amp out and I still have it today. I had

460
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: it until I gave it, specially in a few years ago. Okay,

461
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: so there's the Harvard and the Princeton. The difference is

462
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: the Princeton has we verb? Is that it or reverse? Well,

463
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: I don't own a person. I've used it to tune

464
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: up with backstage when they have one. But I've never

465
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 1: owned one, the thunder Harvard. I've owned three since then.

466
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 1: None of them sound like this one that I had.

467
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: I don't know what I knew the difference in the sound,

468
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: but the quality was just unbelievable. And Tom Dad, we

469
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: missed it earlier. He always wanted me to take that

470
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: on the road. I said, Tommy didn't put out enough.

471
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: He said, just mike it and running through the sound system.

472
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: I never did do that, but I could have so.

473
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: Certainly back in the sixties and seventies when I was

474
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: into it, you go to the guitar shop, even if

475
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: it was the same model, they all sounded different. Was

476
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: that your experience then in his that you experienced still today? Well,

477
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: I think so. I will tell a quick story and

478
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: this I love the story, and it was validated. I

479
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: did a podcast too for a while, and uh, the

480
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,479
Speaker 1: guy was interviewing and said, you know, I've told you

481
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: a story about Chad Atkins. He said, I was the

482
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: owner of that guitar shop. So he said, chat you

483
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: used to come around and look at the guitars on

484
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: the wall and all light he pulled them down and

485
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: start planning it. So this kid comes running up and said, man,

486
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: that's a great sound of guitar, and Chet takes it,

487
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: hangs it back on the wall. It says, how's the

488
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: sound now? That's a good story. That's a good story.

489
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: I love that one. That that blows me away. I

490
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had guts enough to do the how's it

491
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:48,199
Speaker 1: sound now if he just said If he had come

492
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: up and said, man, you're a great guitar player, that

493
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: would have been a different answer. But he said, man,

494
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: that's a great sound of guitar now. And I got

495
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: to beat Chad a few times, and uh, I figured

496
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: you get around, asked me, hadn't asked me yet? Who

497
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: who are my influences? I listened to Less Paul and

498
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: said actors like everybody else did. And I said, the

499
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: world doesn't need another Less Paul or to actings or B. B.

500
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: King or another of those guys. So I started pattern

501
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: what I did after a guy named Loman Paul and

502
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: who was the leader and guitar player for the Five Royals.

503
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 1: And that's some music. I grew up on dancer too.

504
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people today don't even know

505
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:31,479
Speaker 1: who the five Royals were not and uh Betty LaVette,

506
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: who was on a dedicated album, she said she dated

507
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: Loman's brother and they always want to be the Royals.

508
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: I'll go, okay, be the Royals. That's sort of like

509
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: the Royals. Sounds like a sports team. But if you

510
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: say Royal's that's big, that's enormous. It's just spelled. It's

511
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: spelled the same bit pronounced a little bit different. The Royals. Yeah, man,

512
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: I hear from her all the time. I'll have to

513
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: ask her about that story. So, okay, you're playing in

514
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: the being when you playing? Okay, your fourteen, when you

515
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: get a guitar, when do you start forming the band?

516
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: Let's see fourteen is when I was about sixteen. And

517
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: how did that come together? You say me, Well, there

518
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: was another guy in school, Charlie Freeman, Charles Freeman, who

519
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: was more into jazz than I was. But he was

520
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: taking the guitar lessons and I wasn't. My family couldn't

521
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: afford the guitar lessons. So when he his mom would

522
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: pick him up at school on the day he had

523
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: his lessons. I would run home and get my guitar

524
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: and be sitting on his front porch whenever he got

525
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: home from his lesson, and he would showing me what

526
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: he learned today, and I would stay and play behind

527
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: him so he could practice what he had learned. And

528
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: that seemed to work out pretty good. He went on

529
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: to further his career in jazz and all. And uh,

530
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: there was a guy named Mashew Skipper who had a

531
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: jazz band. And I don't know where Mashey was from.

532
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: I think he was from Arkansost, but I'm not really sure.

533
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: And uh, I remember, but Charlie went off with him

534
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: and did it a two up in Canada in a

535
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: bunch of places. And uh, he was the other guitar

536
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: player in the Marquees, so we always had if one

537
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: of us couldn't make it didn't matter, you know. But

538
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: he played with us at the in clubs and so forth. Now,

539
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: how much did you practice? Were you one of those

540
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: guys sitting in your bedroom for hours working it out? No?

541
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: I wish I had it, but I didn't. I still

542
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: look today, I come off the road, I put it

543
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: in the corner and I picked it back up, and

544
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: we'll go back on the road again. It's kind of

545
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: a silly way to look at things, but I never did,

546
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: and as I'm self taught, and I learned by doing.

547
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: You learn in the studio. So can you read music?

548
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: Not at all? Not enough to hurt my plan. So

549
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: you're playing in the Marquees, how do you end up me?

550
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: How do you end up recording? Uh? I guess because

551
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: we I was on for the dance songs and all

552
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, And I remember the first session

553
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: I did it. Son Scotty Moore had me come in

554
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: and double an upright bass and that's when the transition

555
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 1: was happening and recording and for those who could afford offender,

556
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: it sounded like you're playing with a pick. So I've

557
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: overdubbed the baritone guitar down electoral baritone that I played

558
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: with a pick, just like a guitar six strang and

559
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: it it wasn't a bass guitar. It was a baritone guitar.

560
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: So it was an oxic below a guitar, but it

561
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: was you could get it low and really pop the

562
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: upright bass, so you know the upright basically doom them

563
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: tom and you played with a pick and double and

564
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: get it right, and it sounds like an offender. Well

565
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: wait a second here, you're in Memphis, you're playing in

566
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: a high school band. How do you end up knowing

567
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: Scotty Moore and recording its son? Well, that's that's I

568
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: don't know, that's weird. I got I got a call,

569
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: that's all I know. And I remember the first time

570
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: I got called to plays session. I asked, Chips moment

571
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: I knew, you know, he was the engineer at Stacks

572
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: and whatever helping. Jim stirred and I said, Chips, I've

573
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: been asked to play on a session. What I played?

574
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: He said, just play what you feel. If they don't

575
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: like it, they'll tell you they don't like it. And

576
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: they asked you to play what they want. When I

577
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: hear you play otherwise, he said, if they like it,

578
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: then you just keep playing what you're playing. And that's

579
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: what I did. And I'll always give him the credit

580
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: for teaching me about the unwind G string. You can

581
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: bend it better, because all guitar strings in those days

582
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: and the best words were the Gibson Cinematics, and they

583
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: came with a wound G string and that was very

584
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: very hard to bend. I mean, it was very extremely

585
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: hard to be in but you could do it and Uh,

586
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: you know when I started using we used a B

587
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: string in those days because you couldn't buy gauge strings. Wow,

588
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: that's those are the That was a big breakthrough. When

589
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: they have the later games strings, that's for sure. So

590
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: you go to Scotty Moore. When do you start recording

591
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: as the Marquees? Wow? Well. Charles Acton came to me

592
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: one day and he said, I understand you have a

593
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: good man. I said, I'd like to think so, but

594
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: you know, he said I want to be in your

595
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: band and said you do what? He plays a saxophone.

596
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:18,239
Speaker 1: I said, how long you've been playing? He said, man,

597
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: I've been taking lessons for three months. And somewhere in

598
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: that conversation he said his uncle on a recording studio.

599
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: That was Jim Stewart. I went, okay, can you show

600
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: up for rehearsal this Saturday. Come to find out, Jim

601
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: had some recording equipment in his garage in North Memphis,

602
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: but he had built a little sound booth. I guess,

603
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: put the singer isolated. The singer put some carpet down

604
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: on the concrete and that's what he called the studio.

605
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: So the first studio that was it was still satellite.

606
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: It wasn't stack ship was in Brunswick, Tennessee, about ten

607
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: miles out of town, now very you know minute ride

608
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: out there. And then Chips came to Jim and said, Jim,

609
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: there's this Capital theater building, an old movie theater that's

610
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: up police and I think we can get it if you,

611
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: if you want it. And Jim didn't have the money,

612
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: so he goes to a Stell and it Stell says

613
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: a Stell action. So Stuart Jim start st and action

614
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: A X S T A X. That's what they come

615
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: up with stacks. But anyway, uh, she said, I'll lend

616
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: you the money. I'll mortgage my home and lend you

617
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: the money, but you're gonna have to give me a

618
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: record shop. And that's where satellite records came came to pass.

619
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: And so there was nothing legally wrong with having satellite records,

620
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,439
Speaker 1: but you couldn't have a record out the satellite leavel

621
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: because he got a season assists a letter from some

622
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 1: lawyers in California, so that you know, a satellite records

623
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: already exists, but a satellite record shop didn't matter. So

624
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: it's stayed the same, and uh, we had to go

625
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: change to the label from satellite to stacks and then, uh,

626
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: like all record companies, Stacks had a subsider vote, So

627
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: Green Onions came out on vote one oh two. So

628
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 1: I'm told I don't know. I wasn't there on the

629
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: other end of the line for this one. But they

630
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 1: said that we don't have time to promote a new

631
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: level because you had Atlantic at co, you know, and

632
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: every every big label had had an alternative levels so

633
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: they can put out more records. And they said, we

634
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: don't have time to promote a new label, get that

635
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: thing on stacks. So it came out on stack or

636
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: something originally Green understood. Okay, if Green Onion was number

637
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: one O two one vote, do you remember what was

638
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: one oh one? No, I don't properly, Charles Hines or

639
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: Nick Charles one or the other. I couldn't remember. Okay,

640
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: So you're in, You're in. You know your house? How

641
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: far was your house from downtown Memphis? About twenty minutes? Okay,

642
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: so was it the Memphis School District though? Oh yeah? Okay.

643
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: So Stewart goes into the movie studio a movie theater.

644
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 1: Do you help build him build it? Since you're there

645
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: at the ground floor. Well, let's I don't want to

646
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: say help build it. But when they took the seats

647
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 1: out of a lot of the boats and come up

648
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 1: from the concrete, so I remember Packy Ashton, Charles Ashton

649
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: and myself. We'd take a hammer and knock them back

650
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: down into the concrete. That's what we did, or if

651
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: there were long enough, we break them off, going back

652
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: and forth until I got hot and broke off. Okay,

653
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the original Stacks was torn down. Now

654
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: there's a museum that tries to replicate the field. But

655
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: what always blew my mind was the floor wasn't flat, No,

656
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: it was angle. So what was that like? Making all

657
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: these records and it's the same exact angle today it was.

658
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: Then What happened was some guys came in the day

659
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: before they tore it down. They wanted me to remember

660
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: everything I could remember about Stacks when they went to

661
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: look at it. Even though it was leveled. The guy

662
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: never to build it back. Existing blueprints were still on

663
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,720
Speaker 1: file downtown, so they didn't need what I remembered at all.

664
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: I remember colors and stuff, but the angle of the

665
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: floor is exactly the same facade out fronts exactly the same.

666
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: Everything is exactly the same, except some of it is

667
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: now a museum. Okay, but I know it's were you

668
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 1: worked all the time. But either one leg was higher

669
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: than the other or your toes your heels were higher.

670
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 1: Were you were aware of that when you were working there. Nah,

671
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: you didn't deal with that. It was just the saying.

672
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: It was up the top and the horns are down

673
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: at the bottom, and the piano was down there in

674
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: the drum riser. I remember the drum riser. We had

675
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: to build a little off angle so the floor of

676
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: the drums was flat the drum riser, and it was

677
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: only guarded on two sides instead of four. It was

678
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: more of a just an ail thing to isolate it.

679
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: And I remember piano note broke one time, one of

680
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: the strings and it's stuck in the baffled behind the

681
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: bass player. WHOA. That was scary for it to hit him.

682
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: That had been the end of that, but it broke.

683
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: I would never will forget that. That was pretty scary.

684
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: M Okay. So you make the record is the Marquees

685
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: Jim Steward opens up the big recording studio in the

686
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: movie theater. How you end up. How do you end

687
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: up getting integrated into that? I don't know, but I

688
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: do know this that Jim Stirt hated the band. Stelle

689
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 1: loved the band. Why because her son played saxophone in

690
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: the band, right, So she kept pushing the Jim to

691
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: record him and we recorded out Brunswick one time and

692
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: I still have those tapes. Is pretty bad, pretty amateurish. Uh.

693
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: The song last Night was written by a lot of guys,

694
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: but the the initial riff was written by Jerry spot Smith,

695
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: the piano player in Chips Woman's band. And they were

696
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,720
Speaker 1: already they were older than we were, and uh already

697
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: had a big gig at one of the big clubs.

698
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: I think they were planning of Vapors or somewhere like that.

699
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: But anyway, uh so Smoochy was on that session. Chiffs

700
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: Woman engineered it and we called the band and I

701
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: wanted Duck to play based on it, and they say

702
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the record because there's no guitar and

703
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: the record, however, I am on it. I'm playing the

704
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: whole note on the organ when Smoochy texas organ solo,

705
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: two different, two different solos on the record. So the

706
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: night before the evening afternoon before they recorded it. There

707
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 1: was a Friday afternoon. They recorded on a Saturday, packing

708
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: and I came up with the dada dada, and I

709
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: don't I didn't come up with that whole note on

710
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: the intro. So that was something the horns came up

711
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: with later. Maybe it was package out did I don't know.

712
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: I never did asked buh. That was my idea to

713
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: do the drum roule. So we had the drummer from

714
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 1: the plantation in plane and during the show he was

715
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: always Jackson played with his hands and people love that

716
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: play the drums like hunger drums. And I said, you

717
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: know that thing you do, that little show piece. You

718
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 1: do what you do with your hands? He said yes,

719
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: said can you do that same with sticks? He said

720
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: like this and he played it and I said, that's it.

721
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: And that was the intro. That that that that that

722
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: that we don't know where things come from. They just

723
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: follo out the ceiling and you go forward. Just be

724
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: a good channeler. Okay. So he records the marquees, but

725
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: then you personally get integrated into the Stax operation, right,

726
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: And I do remember the first session I played the

727
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: stacks and uh like all guitar players they want to

728
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 1: be engineers. I don't know why. It's just one of

729
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: those things, especially in Memphis. That's why Scotti, the combination

730
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: of myself going down and playing on Scottish session, he

731
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 1: wanted to be an engineer and he engineered the other

732
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: thing that Like, when Green Onions came around, I knew

733
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 1: it was pretty groove. They had no title yet, it

734
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: was just tracks, and I had the singer that we

735
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: were there to record showed up that day, and we

736
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: heard later that he did show up at the record shop,

737
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: but he had sang all night the night before. This

738
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: is on a Sunday afternoon, and uh, he didn't have

739
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: any voice, and so he never came back in the studio.

740
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: So we were just playing around, keeping our chops up,

741
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: and Jim hit the record button because it was ready

742
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: to record, and uh, he said, guys, come up. Listens

743
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: you recorded that, So yeah, so we'll come up. We

744
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: listened to it. He said, if we decided to put

745
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: something like this out, do you have anything else you

746
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: could put on the flip side? In those days of

747
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: the A side of bisade. So we just were dumbfounded.

748
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: We said we didn't have anything and I got to

749
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: thank and I said, book or you remember you played

750
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 1: me a roof about two weeks ago. You thought it

751
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: would be really good for vocal song? He said, I

752
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: don't remember, but come down to the organ. I'll play

753
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: a couple of roots. You tell me if, I said,

754
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 1: and he played the green engin and said, that's the

755
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: one right there. So how long did it take to

756
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: record Green Onions third tap? And did you know what

757
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: you have? No? I just knew it was good. I

758
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: knew it was danceable, and so I took it to

759
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 1: Scotty Moore, who at that time was running the lathe

760
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: and Elvis's contract was Samitory sold. Elvis's contract had a

761
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: lot of money, so he bought a lathe that was

762
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 1: very much unheard of it. All the maston came out

763
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: of Nashville, out of where we're setting now, in the

764
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: same studio. Uh, in those days, and uh, I don't

765
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: think this building was built still sixty four, so that

766
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: was a year. We had the Green Onions in sixty two,

767
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: I think it was, but it was mastered up here

768
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: and uh, chips, I remember wanting me to play on

769
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: a session. You wanted to engineer it and it was

770
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: Prince Connelly I'm Going Home was it was the title

771
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: of the song. Brought up a chip shutter to me

772
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: young guitar and I duplicated played And that was my

773
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: first session at sax Okay back at that level. Was

774
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: it one or two track mono? Yeah? Mono? So was

775
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: there any you know they laid it down? Were there?

776
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: It was there any so called mixing, any effects added after? No,

777
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: just the way it was recorded. In those days, you

778
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: mixed a song the way it was gonna be sounded

779
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: on the record. Basically, the engineer tried to do that

780
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,280
Speaker 1: since it was mono, so any echo and any effects

781
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,800
Speaker 1: had to be done at the time. So Green Onions

782
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: is cut. How long after you cut it does it

783
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: hit the market? Well, that's a good question. I don't remember.

784
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: That could have been more than a than a month,

785
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 1: several weeks, I guess. And do you remember the first

786
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: time you heard it on the radio? No? But I

787
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 1: do Green Onions. I was there, That's why I know.

788
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: But and all I had was that dub that that

789
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: Scotty had made me, and I took it to a

790
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Ruben washing On w l Okay had

791
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: the drive time and the reason I used to go

792
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 1: there my wife at the time was working for Celia

793
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: Mattress Company. I drop her off at her gig at

794
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 1: seven o'clock and I'd be it at the radio station

795
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: about seven torenty or whatever, and I always got in.

796
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:15,919
Speaker 1: Reuben and I were really good friends, and so that's

797
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: where he got started. And I said, I want you

798
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: to hear something we cut Sunday. I had scott This

799
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,359
Speaker 1: was on a Tuesday morning, and I had I said,

800
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: I had Scotty cut me a little doub on this

801
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: thing yesterday, so tell me what you think. He's a

802
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: disc jocket, so he would know. And he plays the

803
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: intro and about two bars and stops it, backs it

804
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: up and I said, you don't like it, and he said, no,

805
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: it's good. I just want to make sure I heard

806
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: what I heard. I said, okay, but I didn't know.

807
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:40,320
Speaker 1: He put it out on the air and the phones

808
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: lived up all I was playing. That's how that record

809
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: got broke. By playing on the on the radio. People

810
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: calling said I don't know what it is. He said,

811
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. We're gonna find out,

812
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: and then the phone ring again. I don't know what

813
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: it is, we're gonna find out and it becomes a

814
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: national hit and you're a young guy. What is that

815
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: experience like? Well, it's overwhelming, but it's all your dreams

816
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,280
Speaker 1: come come together real quickly. So everything you thought about

817
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 1: happens very quickly. And we were in such de man,

818
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: it was amazing. And I the thing with green onions

819
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: already had experienced that with the last night. We did

820
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: a tour of the United States, the Atlantic sort of

821
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: Father or whatever, and we did Dick Clark. We were

822
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: on Dick Clark and uh, unfortunately that's one of the

823
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: tapes that got erased. Before you get a get a

824
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: judge to give her, don't do that. They were taking

825
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: all of his old kide scopes and destroying them because

826
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: they wanted to make more room. So Dick Clark himself

827
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: in those days, he finally got a judge to rule

828
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: it and make him stop. So and I went to

829
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: he was a friend of mine. I went to Dick

830
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: and I said, did you still have the a tape

831
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 1: of the markets and we're on your show? He said, non, Steve,

832
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: that was one of the ones that got destroyed and

833
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: get out of here. So there's no record of it,

834
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: and uh, there may be one up in Canada because

835
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: there's a TV show. We did it up there one time. Okay,

836
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: that was the sixties through the lens of today. Everybody

837
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: would ask. The first question they would ask it. I'm

838
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: not saying it's right, but it's the first question they

839
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,960
Speaker 1: would ask would be about the money. So did you

840
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 1: ever make any money on Green Onions? Absoluteness still do today,

841
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 1: But that was not why we cut it. That was

842
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 1: not why I picked up the guitar warts to make money.

843
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're good at what you do, you're

844
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: gonna make money out of it, I think. And if

845
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: you don't, you just keep going until you do. Okay.

846
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: A couple of questions here. You were going to Memphis State.

847
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: Did you graduate from Memphis State? No? I went two

848
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: years and we had green Onions, So I quit. I said,

849
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: I can always go by, and I never went back.

850
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: And what'd your parents say when you quit? I guess

851
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:08,840
Speaker 1: he knows what he knows what he's doing, because I

852
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: convinced him I was gonna go back whenever all this

853
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: was over, and they never did stop. Okay, So Green Onions,

854
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: you tell the story, you go to the radio station.

855
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: You talk about a woman. Were you married to her

856
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: at that point? Uh? Yeah, whens were done. Okay, let's

857
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: be honest here, all your dreams come true. You go

858
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:35,919
Speaker 1: on the road with a hit record. You know, there's

859
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: a lot of perks of being on the road. You

860
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: take an advantage of the perks. I don't know. That

861
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,279
Speaker 1: was not again, that was not a purpose baby. We

862
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: did it was influenced by some of them, but that

863
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: was not the real orison we did it. Okay, So

864
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of womanizing and drugging out there, No,

865
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: not at all with that. Then, Okay, let's go back

866
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: to Memphis at this time. What was it light between

867
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: the races in the fifties and sixth Well, basically, there

868
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: was no color in those days. Now, when you read

869
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: the history books, it says Memphis was the most segregated

870
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: town in the South. And it might have been. I

871
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,359
Speaker 1: don't know, but it was something we all just took

872
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: for granted. I didn't look at a book or anybody

873
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: being any different color than I was. And that's not

874
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: why we did it. We were all there it stacks

875
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: as a team and working as a team, and it

876
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: seemed like everybody in Memphis was working as a team

877
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: because Memphis was the most was credited with being the

878
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: most beautiful city in the United States for about eight

879
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: years in a row. And I remember doing something in school.

880
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: I made a little wishing well and whatever, and it

881
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: got first place from the Quanners Club. So there were

882
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 1: and I have said this over and over, there was

883
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: never any color that I knew of its stacks. There

884
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:00,359
Speaker 1: might have been later some division, but not not while

885
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: we were making all those records. And all that came later.

886
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: It came after Martin Ruther King was assassinated. So okay,

887
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: what the day that he was assassinated? What was it

888
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,799
Speaker 1: like being in Memphis. I wasn't. I was in San Francisco.

889
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: The whole band had gone out there a day early

890
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: to play at the Fillmore West, and I think we

891
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: were supposed to be on the same show with Dina

892
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: Ross and the Supremes, who never got on the plane

893
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 1: in Detroit. When I heard about it. We were already

894
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: out there. Did the show play? Oh yeah, Now there's

895
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: a there's a small story that Bill Graham came to me.

896
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: I went to the restaurroom and Bill Graham came in

897
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: there behind me, and he said, Steve, I might have

898
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: send you guys back to Memphis. We have not sold

899
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: a ticket since we heard about that today, so it

900
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: really he said, yeah, he said I'm gonna take it.

901
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: He said, I'll take care of you, but I can't

902
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: pay you what I promise you. I'll pay you, but

903
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: I'll get you back to Memphis. And uh, you know

904
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: he had to deal with the Jack Tar motel hotel.

905
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: What it was, I stated, the Jack Tar and you

906
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:12,399
Speaker 1: stayed there, and uh, Bill Graham always uh to get

907
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: off of that story a little bit, I'll get back

908
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: to it, uh, Otis when he did sitting on the

909
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: dock of the bay. Bill Graham always offered to the

910
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,840
Speaker 1: Jack Tar Hotel or his boat house and Sausalita and

911
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: Otis decided to stay in the boat house, and that

912
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: was validated by new Young. We were out there with

913
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 1: him in ninety three. He was reading a book. So anyway, Uh,

914
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: we get we get back to the hotel a motel

915
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,840
Speaker 1: and we get a call from the guys at the

916
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: Fillmore and they said, get your butts back down here

917
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: as soon as you can. There is a line around

918
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 1: the block. So we drive back down there and sure, enough,

919
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 1: there was a line all the way around the block.

920
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to get in to hear the Book of

921
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,440
Speaker 1: Two the MG's. But there was a period during that

922
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: day that zero It just went to zero nothing. So anyway,

923
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:57,959
Speaker 1: we had a great show that note night. And I think,

924
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: uh one of the bands that Mothers of Invention was

925
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 1: on Earth and I think and uh, I don't even

926
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: know who else played that night, but we were minus

927
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: the Supremes. Maybe they had a local band play. I

928
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't remember. We played there so many times. Right,

929
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: so you go back to Memphis. What's the vibe in Memphis?

930
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: Pretty ugly? So things have changed. I can tell you

931
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: that the only building left standing in that block where

932
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: Stacks was was Stacks. Wow, that was the only one

933
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:35,360
Speaker 1: that didn't torch the bank. We got it. All the

934
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: other play all the other buildings, the sandwich shop across

935
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: the street, the bakery, all those places, the filling station,

936
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: everything was tourist, the liquor store, everything except Stacks. So

937
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: it is what it is, Okay, Now today Bull Street

938
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 1: is just a tourist trap. Was Bull Street already over

939
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 1: by time you came of age? Was this still happening?

940
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 1: It was still happening, and what was it like now

941
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: some of the streets were redeemed like Rufus, Thomas Boulevard

942
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,359
Speaker 1: and so forth. And they started doing that, and uh,

943
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 1: the music notes with people's name on it came way later.

944
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: I don't know when they started that, but you know,

945
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: they're still doing it as far as I know. So

946
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 1: would you go hang out there and go to the

947
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: go to the clubs? Now? What we did when I

948
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,280
Speaker 1: was in high school, we used to drag that place.

949
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: In other words, we we'd go by the Hippodrome and

950
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 1: places like that and roll the windows down and drive

951
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 1: real slow so we could hear Ray Charles's music or

952
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: whenever they came to town, James Brown or BB who

953
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 1: it was performing and we could hear it. So that

954
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: was a place that you went to the Pond shops

955
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 1: on Saturday and you looked through the window and you went, oh,

956
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 1: you're just dreaming at those guitars and stuff, and say,

957
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 1: then I liked on one of those one of these days.

958
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,759
Speaker 1: It was a wish factory basically, and there were still

959
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: guys on the corner selling pencils and and their thing.

960
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: And it was a great place to hang out and

961
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: what about the Duke Joints? And I've been through Memphis

962
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: and people have pointed them out, But was that a

963
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: factor something you were aware of back then? No? The

964
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:18,280
Speaker 1: hippodrama named the Handy Club was another one. Uh Courage

965
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: Tropicana was way outside. It wasn't outside of the city,

966
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:26,439
Speaker 1: but it was away from Bill Street. And I don't

967
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: remember very many club has been down on Bill Street.

968
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 1: The Landscape Brothers was there where it was bought his

969
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 1: suits and the mgs did too, But that was or

970
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: Elvis was earlier, way before us. Were you ever bothered

971
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: that it was Booker T and the MG's that your

972
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: name wasn't in the band? No? Done horse. However, so

973
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: when Jim found out what had happened that day and

974
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: Mrs Ashton, I want walked into the record shop, you know,

975
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: just my normal gig at nine o'clock, got to be

976
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: there by nine. She said, there's a lot going on.

977
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 1: I bet you're responsible, and I said, I held up

978
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 1: the devil. I said, you're not talking about this. The

979
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: phone was running off the wall before I got there.

980
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: What did I just hear on the radio to day?

981
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: I want to buy it? Nobody knew what it was.

982
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,359
Speaker 1: So I still called Jim and he was working at

983
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 1: the bank. Still working at the banks, she said, will

984
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: you take your lunch break. You better get down to

985
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: the studio because there's something going on you need to

986
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 1: know about. So when he was told what was going on,

987
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 1: he said, we gotta get the guys in for emergency session.

988
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: We gotta come up with a name for the song

989
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: in a name for the group. And that's what we did.

990
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,760
Speaker 1: Was everybody was there with Louis Stainberg and Al Jackson, Booker, team, myself. Okay,

991
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: then how did you come up with the names? What

992
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: Green Unions? A book of both Booker came up because

993
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: Booker it was a book of things. Booker came up

994
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: with that idea. But you know, even though we all

995
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:55,280
Speaker 1: shared in the writers of it, we did. But uh,

996
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 1: Louis Stainberg, the bass player, said, let's name it onions.

997
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: Why would you want to name and onions? He said,

998
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: because that's the stink of hist music I've ever heard

999
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:07,439
Speaker 1: my life. So I I said, okay, onions is fine,

1000
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,760
Speaker 1: but think about the negative side of onions. Sometimes onions

1001
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: made people cry and there's other people indigestion. I said,

1002
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: what about Green Onions And they said, ah, good idea,

1003
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: So it became Green Onions. Okay, so the record is

1004
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 1: a smash. You go on the road. Now you're back

1005
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: at Stacks and you're coming back in with a hit

1006
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 1: under your under your arm? How do you become integrated

1007
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: in the scene and working? Uh with Stacks, it's both

1008
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: an A and R guy and in the studio. Well,

1009
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell my side of the story, which I

1010
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: know to be the truth. Jimm Third couldn't rebuttle it

1011
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: if he wants to rebuke it or whatever you call it. So, uh,

1012
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 1: we have been very lucky at Stacks with instrumentals, so

1013
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:53,919
Speaker 1: they wanted to know all the instrumentals that I had.

1014
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: They never even asked me. I've been writing lyrics to

1015
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 1: song since I was fourteen. Not one time did they say,

1016
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: have you got any songs? Steve, No, not one. So

1017
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: I go to Jim Sturt's favorite artist, Carla Thomas, and

1018
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,360
Speaker 1: I said, Carla came to the record shop. I said, Carla,

1019
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:12,080
Speaker 1: can you come back in the back. I've got an

1020
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:14,279
Speaker 1: idea for a song I think you're gonna love. There

1021
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,000
Speaker 1: was no time to lose, and she says Steeve. That's great.

1022
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:20,760
Speaker 1: So she went to Jim and said, Jim, this Steve's

1023
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 1: got a great song. I want to cut it. He said, okay,

1024
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 1: if you want to cut it, we'll cut it. And

1025
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: I started. He said, let me see the lyrics. I

1026
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: had no time to into O L O O s C,

1027
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: no time to lose, so I don't think I ever

1028
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: could spell. I still can't spell, but I know how

1029
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:42,840
Speaker 1: to spell lose now. And uh so they cut it.

1030
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:45,799
Speaker 1: There was the biggest money making records Ship has since

1031
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:48,319
Speaker 1: she was now. They have tried to come up with,

1032
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 1: you know, follow ups and all that, had not done

1033
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 1: very well with it, but no time to lose. They

1034
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: played on the radio and their social records and had

1035
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 1: a little income on it. So that's pretty good. Okay,

1036
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: the songs you wrote, who owned the publishing then and

1037
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: who owns it now? Well, the original masters Universal owns it.

1038
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 1: That's the record it was originally the song was East

1039
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 1: Memphis Music. Now you know, everything reverted back. It now

1040
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: owns my share of the publishing. And I came in

1041
00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: one day. I told my wife, I said, I'm getting

1042
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 1: ridy to sell something I've never owned. That's the publishing

1043
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,240
Speaker 1: so primary Way in New York ons it. I see,

1044
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 1: So what do you do with the money? Well, I

1045
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: say about the money, They said, you just made a

1046
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:42,840
Speaker 1: Fortunates said, but I don't know, but it keeps me

1047
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 1: in golf balls and fishing. Reverse. It's always, you know,

1048
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: you never know what you can do with the money. Okay,

1049
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 1: So now you have success with Carla Thomas, Jim Stewart

1050
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:56,040
Speaker 1: must be pretty impressed, I think. So he finally got

1051
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: around to asking me, did I have any more songs?

1052
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 1: Of course I had a bunch. We kept coming up

1053
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 1: with him and and hitting and so forth. So Wilson

1054
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: I wrote Midnight in the Midnight Hour, and there's a

1055
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: whole story behind that song. And wait, wait, tell the story. Okay.

1056
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: I didn't know who Wilson Picktt was at all, and

1057
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,000
Speaker 1: so Mrs Action said, I think he's sang on some

1058
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: gospel songs. So we're playing him and said, oh, I'm

1059
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 1: seeing my Jesus at the midnight I wolf, I want

1060
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: to wait till the midnight hour, said, that's that guys label,

1061
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: He's midnight Hour. And he wrote, I'm gonna wait till

1062
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: the midnight hour to take my girl out. You know

1063
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 1: that basically and when there's nobody else, no one else around,

1064
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 1: just you and I in the midnight hour. So came

1065
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: out to be a pretty good idea, I would say,

1066
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: even though we spread him. He wrote most of uh,

1067
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 1: don't fight it, you got the fee you And then

1068
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: I came up with I'm not tired, Doom, the Doom,

1069
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: the doomdom. It's just an old gospel groups all that is.

1070
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,439
Speaker 1: So we wrote three songs at night, cut all three

1071
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: the next day. All three were chart wricords. Unbelievable, It

1072
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. Okay, we're most of your songs written in

1073
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: collaboration like that, all of them, all except I can

1074
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:22,000
Speaker 1: remember one. It was for the Marquees. Everything. I love

1075
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: to collaborate. That's on the on the way I like

1076
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: to do it because it doesn't matter what percentage of

1077
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 1: something somebody rights. It does if you if three people

1078
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: writers thirty third if four people, rather just about it

1079
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:39,880
Speaker 1: that way pretty simple. And Jim Jim made a decision

1080
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 1: that I don't think any studio ever made. If you

1081
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:44,880
Speaker 1: played on it, you got a part writers on it.

1082
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 1: On instrumentals, wow, not the vocal songs. That was up

1083
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: to the writers that wrote the song and all that

1084
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Uh. And if the writer wanted to

1085
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: share it with the artists, that's fine, but he did not.

1086
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 1: It wasn't an automatic thing. On instrumentals, it was definitely automatic.

1087
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 1: So if you needed a song, would you schedule the

1088
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:09,280
Speaker 1: equivalent of a writing session or would you have a

1089
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: recording session and work it out in the studio. Now, well,

1090
01:00:13,240 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: we've worked it out in the studio a lot of times,

1091
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 1: but most of the songs were written the night before.

1092
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 1: So mostly artists that had you know, recording session lined up,

1093
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: they would fly in the day before that night. We

1094
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 1: would get together and right, and this is what I

1095
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: want you to say, and we'd find the keys and

1096
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:30,600
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So then we'd show it to

1097
01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: the band the next morning, starting around uh eleven, I

1098
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 1: think most successions started and ended by five. Sometimes they

1099
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: ended earlier, but they always started no later than eleven o'clock.

1100
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: Ten eleven o'clock. They were ready to go, and we

1101
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: would show them what we've written and they would come

1102
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 1: up a lot of a lot of the things. We're

1103
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 1: here to arrange a lot of the stuff, maybe some

1104
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 1: of it probably alas actions should have got some writers

1105
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: on some of the songs that he did because he

1106
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 1: set the group for everybody. Everybody to listen to Al Jackson.

1107
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 1: He was a drummer, he set the tone for so

1108
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: he was doing okay with with the boot MGS. He

1109
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: got of that. So if you really think about it,

1110
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: half goes to the publisher and half goes to the writer,

1111
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: so that half that fift percent gets divided. That means

1112
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: that the MGS made twelve of every song that we

1113
01:01:25,360 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 1: ever had is twelve and whatever it is. Yeah, in

1114
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: the midnight hour, as big as Green Onions was, it

1115
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 1: was an instrumental, it was in its own category. But

1116
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 1: in the midnight hour there was not a band alive.

1117
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 1: And this is after the Beatles hit. They did not

1118
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:58,120
Speaker 1: play in the midnight hour. Could you realize the success

1119
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: of that record? No, a little bit. You and I

1120
01:02:04,880 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: used to get asked how many versions of in Him

1121
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:09,040
Speaker 1: that hour was there? I said, I don't know about

1122
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 1: have been pedo and over a hundred and fifty world.

1123
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 1: So do you get intimidated? You feel, well, I have

1124
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: this gigantic kid, I might not be able to make

1125
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: another one. No, I know I should have, but I didn't.

1126
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: And uh, let me tell you a quick story. Eddie

1127
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 1: Floyd and I were put together by Al Bell. He said,

1128
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: I've got this friend of mine who's an artist and songwriter.

1129
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 1: I know you guys will hit it off. So I

1130
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 1: go to Worston, d C. And I meet Eddie Floyd

1131
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: and we wrote three or four songs that week and uh,

1132
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:48,200
Speaker 1: so he and I are in in the Uh we

1133
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: had written six or four or five, seven, A nine

1134
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: for Wilson coming in and on his record knock on Wood.

1135
01:02:57,600 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 1: I said, Uh, we knew we had a good song.

1136
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 1: You know, you don't think of every being you think

1137
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 1: of maybe it's been a hit, but we knew he

1138
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:07,160
Speaker 1: had a good song. Could not come up with an intro.

1139
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:10,120
Speaker 1: And after about an hour of that, I said Eddie,

1140
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 1: I wonder what in the midnight hour would sound like backwards?

1141
01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know, play it. So I played

1142
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 1: it backwards. It starts on the D goes dB A

1143
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 1: G E A, so I started on E G B

1144
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: A B d V. Same thing. So I tell people

1145
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:32,680
Speaker 1: in my show, follow the dots. You want to know

1146
01:03:32,720 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: how to write songs and store or something, just follow

1147
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:37,479
Speaker 1: the dots. Well, you're mentioning one thing that people don't

1148
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 1: admit you really, people, you may not know exactly what

1149
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 1: will be a hit, but you know when you do

1150
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: something great, you can feel it's different from the rest

1151
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,160
Speaker 1: of the stuff. Well, you feel it as good. It's

1152
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: better than other things that you've had. Yeah, that much,

1153
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:56,400
Speaker 1: I don't know about greatness. But I tell us also

1154
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 1: that whenever we had a recording session, if we had

1155
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,520
Speaker 1: three songs on the session, they all got treated with

1156
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:05,440
Speaker 1: the same energy, and we didn't know which one was

1157
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:08,480
Speaker 1: a hit. Maybe the writers did felt that this was

1158
01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:11,919
Speaker 1: better than something else they had, But as far as

1159
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: the backing band, the session band, we treated them all

1160
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 1: with the same inflection. We treated Uh soul Man exactly

1161
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 1: the same what we did the other songs on the

1162
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,560
Speaker 1: on the date, same thing with Otis and stuff and

1163
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: all that we didn't know what was hitting to this

1164
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 1: press and release and put out there. Then you know

1165
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 1: for sure if you have a hit or not. The

1166
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 1: difference in Otis rating is he had seventeen in a

1167
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: row from these arms of mine. Now, a lot of

1168
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:41,439
Speaker 1: guys can't follow up, but Otis had as far as

1169
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: R and B is concerned, as far as generating enough

1170
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 1: income to say that was a hit. He had seventeen

1171
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:50,880
Speaker 1: in a row. But he started off as the road guy.

1172
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 1: He wasn't even the singer. Now he was the singer

1173
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: in the band when he showed up the Stacks and

1174
01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:00,080
Speaker 1: Johnny Jenkins in the Pine Toppers. The thing is that

1175
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,080
Speaker 1: we were there to record Johnny Jenkins in the Pine Toppers,

1176
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:06,480
Speaker 1: who already come off of a hit called Love Twist.

1177
01:05:06,520 --> 01:05:08,560
Speaker 1: They couldn't come up with a follow up, so it

1178
01:05:08,680 --> 01:05:12,920
Speaker 1: was Joe Walcotta Jerry Wexter's idea to send him to Memphis.

1179
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:15,480
Speaker 1: Maybe they can come up with something, because they really

1180
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:20,360
Speaker 1: they they they're good and be doing instrumentals. So when

1181
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: Otis he wanted me to hear him saying he went

1182
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:24,760
Speaker 1: to Al Jackson first and Al said, you know, that

1183
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 1: big tall guy came up driving the car and I

1184
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 1: thought he was a roadie and so that's probably where

1185
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:32,600
Speaker 1: you got that from. But he was a singer. And

1186
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:36,800
Speaker 1: they told me later that, uh, some something happened with

1187
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 1: Johnny Jenkins and he didn't have a light driver's license

1188
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:42,560
Speaker 1: at the time, and so he didn't want to get

1189
01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:44,640
Speaker 1: caught driving a car without a license, so he had

1190
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:48,960
Speaker 1: orderst So Otis gets out out of the car. We've

1191
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:51,120
Speaker 1: watched them pull in front of us. We're standing outside

1192
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 1: of the studio waiting for the session to happen, and

1193
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 1: they showed up and he pulled on down and he

1194
01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:58,720
Speaker 1: gets out, unlocks the trunk and started carrying in mikes

1195
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:01,720
Speaker 1: and stuff. And I said, man, we got mix and sad.

1196
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 1: You don't need to bring those mix as you said

1197
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:06,680
Speaker 1: up like it was a gig, right, I said, bring

1198
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:09,439
Speaker 1: Johnny's guitar and apps whatever you want. But I said,

1199
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 1: you don't need neither of mix. Put him back on

1200
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:13,480
Speaker 1: the trunk, and that's what he did. So I thought

1201
01:06:13,480 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 1: it was a rotor. So he comes to Ale Jackson

1202
01:06:15,680 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 1: and al I said, you know that guy would come

1203
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,160
Speaker 1: up driving a car, the big tall guy, and said yeah,

1204
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: And he said he wants you to hear him saying

1205
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:24,120
Speaker 1: I've already told him you only hold the auditions on Saturdays.

1206
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:27,520
Speaker 1: Probably the chance that you hear him saying won't happen.

1207
01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: So at the end of the session, Jim Schurch send

1208
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 1: everybody home early. He said, why don't we just take

1209
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 1: off and start again to mar guys. So we did

1210
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:37,480
Speaker 1: that and we're back in the back listen to stuff,

1211
01:06:38,160 --> 01:06:39,720
Speaker 1: and now comes to me, and he said, you know

1212
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: what I told you earlier about this guy when you

1213
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: want you to hear him saying? I said yeah. He

1214
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 1: said he's driving me nuts. Can you just take five

1215
01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 1: seconds out of your time and get this guy off

1216
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 1: of my back? I said, okay, bring him down to

1217
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: the pian He brings them down and I said, okay,

1218
01:06:53,960 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 1: saying something. He said, I don't. I don't play piano.

1219
01:06:55,680 --> 01:06:58,200
Speaker 1: Play a little guitar. I don't play piano. Said give

1220
01:06:58,240 --> 01:06:59,800
Speaker 1: me some of them church courts. Did you play pian

1221
01:06:59,880 --> 01:07:02,200
Speaker 1: and not enoughing? Just to ride with it? He said,

1222
01:07:02,280 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 1: play me some of the church squads. And he's time

1223
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 1: about six eight trips that that that he starts these

1224
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:09,720
Speaker 1: arms of mine and I went, whoa, the hair of

1225
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,360
Speaker 1: my arm litterally stood up. I should stop it right there.

1226
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:13,920
Speaker 1: He said, you don't like us some men I love it.

1227
01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 1: But I got Jim Sturch here this so I go.

1228
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 1: I knew I would get fired if Jim did. Brushed

1229
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: me off and said, no, Steve, I'm not doing it,

1230
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:23,200
Speaker 1: he said. I said, Jim, you gotta come out and

1231
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 1: hear this guy saying you're gonna die. So he did.

1232
01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: He heard it. He said we gotta get this down

1233
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:31,320
Speaker 1: on tape. Call the guys back. So Duck had to

1234
01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:34,800
Speaker 1: remind me in Tokyo one time, the two days before

1235
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 1: he passed away that I came running out of the

1236
01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:39,960
Speaker 1: studio and he was putting his base in the tronk

1237
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 1: of the car, and I said, get your base back out.

1238
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:46,040
Speaker 1: We gotta get this song down. The next morning, we

1239
01:07:46,040 --> 01:07:48,640
Speaker 1: were cutting a B side for these Arms of Mine,

1240
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 1: Hey Baby, or whatever was called, and I Johnny played

1241
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:54,960
Speaker 1: guitar on and I played piin on on These Arms

1242
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:58,280
Speaker 1: of Mine, and as Johnny Jenkins playing guitar a little,

1243
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:01,720
Speaker 1: little little. A lot of people don't know that either.

1244
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:04,320
Speaker 1: They think us Me and I don't care what they think.

1245
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:06,920
Speaker 1: It's it is what it is. If they've read a

1246
01:08:06,920 --> 01:08:09,240
Speaker 1: book and tell the story, I tell a story about

1247
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:11,240
Speaker 1: tell her now that it was john and Jenkins played

1248
01:08:11,240 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 1: guitar on that and I played piano. You don't play piano,

1249
01:08:14,040 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: I said, I know that I don't play. Okay. Ultimately,

1250
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:22,960
Speaker 1: after Otis passes, uh, Dock of the Big comes out.

1251
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 1: Now if one listens to Dock of the Bay, you

1252
01:08:26,280 --> 01:08:30,040
Speaker 1: can hear the fingers on the strings. You know what

1253
01:08:30,080 --> 01:08:32,559
Speaker 1: I'm talking about? No, I don't. I played guitar on

1254
01:08:32,840 --> 01:08:35,120
Speaker 1: I played both guitars on that, right, I know. But

1255
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:37,040
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's you know, when you heard it

1256
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: on I never I never noticed it. You can hear,

1257
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:43,320
Speaker 1: you know, if your guitar player, you can hear the

1258
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:45,680
Speaker 1: fingers moving on the strings. You didn't steer it on

1259
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: the radio, but on every you know, it's not that subtle. Well,

1260
01:08:50,280 --> 01:08:52,080
Speaker 1: when we get to today, I'll gonna listen to it

1261
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:57,040
Speaker 1: exactly explain what it was. Okay, Now, at this point

1262
01:08:57,080 --> 01:09:01,480
Speaker 1: in time, you have a number of successes. Los Angeles

1263
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: is just starting to build up as a recording center.

1264
01:09:05,280 --> 01:09:09,960
Speaker 1: You certainly have New York, you have Nashville, and then

1265
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:13,680
Speaker 1: Muscles Shoals is starting to become a thing. To what

1266
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:16,800
Speaker 1: degree did you know these other guys or compete with

1267
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:18,840
Speaker 1: these other guys who are just in your own world?

1268
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 1: I didn't. That was Al Bell's I did farm stuff up.

1269
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:29,440
Speaker 1: So he had already started farming sessions up, WORSA, DC, Chicago,

1270
01:09:30,120 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 1: l A, and Muscle Shoals. Now Jerry was already aware

1271
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 1: of it. And what happened with Jerry Wessler, who was

1272
01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 1: president out of Atlantic Records. Uh, he knew that these

1273
01:09:42,640 --> 01:09:45,479
Speaker 1: guys and muscle shows were cutting some good records. So

1274
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:48,920
Speaker 1: when Jim Stir decided no more outside recording, I said, Jim,

1275
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:51,559
Speaker 1: I'm just on a roll with Wilson Pickett. You know,

1276
01:09:51,600 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 1: we've had three hits in a row here. And he said,

1277
01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:57,800
Speaker 1: like I said to you, no outside recording. I went, oh,

1278
01:09:57,920 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 1: so maybe that was the start of the downfall. I

1279
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:02,559
Speaker 1: haven't idea. I don't know. I wasn't that upset about it,

1280
01:10:02,560 --> 01:10:04,519
Speaker 1: but I was a little upset. We still had a

1281
01:10:04,520 --> 01:10:09,799
Speaker 1: lot going on. And what we did after the Stacks

1282
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:13,680
Speaker 1: vote tour, everybody wanted to be their own producers. They

1283
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:17,080
Speaker 1: wanted to go on instead of same produced by staff,

1284
01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:19,600
Speaker 1: they wanted to produced by whoever was in charge of

1285
01:10:19,640 --> 01:10:24,439
Speaker 1: the session. So that's what we did and the sister Okay. Now,

1286
01:10:24,600 --> 01:10:27,559
Speaker 1: as years are going by, it's kind of like the

1287
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:33,680
Speaker 1: Internet twenty years ago. There's an incredible advancement in recording technology.

1288
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 1: We go from one to two to four to eight

1289
01:10:36,320 --> 01:10:39,920
Speaker 1: to sixteen to twenty four tracks. We have boards with

1290
01:10:40,040 --> 01:10:44,479
Speaker 1: multiple channels to what degree with stocks keeping up with

1291
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,040
Speaker 1: that into what degree being a guitar player and being

1292
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:49,680
Speaker 1: in you know, gear head, to what degree were you

1293
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 1: up to speed on all that stuff. Uh, technically, I'm

1294
01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:58,479
Speaker 1: not sure we were speed. We were always behind everybody

1295
01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: in technology. Now. The thing about Atlantic was way ahead

1296
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:04,479
Speaker 1: of the game. They had an eight track. There was

1297
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:09,320
Speaker 1: two in the world and they had one of them.

1298
01:11:09,360 --> 01:11:14,880
Speaker 1: So that's what they did. And they, when I say they,

1299
01:11:15,880 --> 01:11:18,960
Speaker 1: I should say that Motown brought in Diana Ross I

1300
01:11:19,080 --> 01:11:22,520
Speaker 1: brought the four Seasons in different things to do those handclaps,

1301
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,559
Speaker 1: and that's that great sound that made everybody want to dance.

1302
01:11:26,240 --> 01:11:28,760
Speaker 1: They would dub it down on eight track at Atlantic

1303
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 1: and put all that stuff on it. And Tom Dowb

1304
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 1: being a good friend, taught me how he did a

1305
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:36,200
Speaker 1: lot of stuff and a lot of the handclaps. We're

1306
01:11:36,240 --> 01:11:40,960
Speaker 1: done with the metal flanges from the reels because they

1307
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:43,840
Speaker 1: were more metalic that they sounded more like they just

1308
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:46,479
Speaker 1: sounded about it. Well, well, a little bit slower. How

1309
01:11:46,520 --> 01:11:50,240
Speaker 1: were they done with the reels and the metal flanges. Well,

1310
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:52,280
Speaker 1: if you took a real apart, you got this round

1311
01:11:52,320 --> 01:11:54,559
Speaker 1: metal flange, you get two of them together and clap

1312
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:58,280
Speaker 1: it together. What you're saying, I thought that with hands

1313
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:00,840
Speaker 1: and it sounds like a million hands on it's not.

1314
01:12:01,360 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: And the other thing is chay was a board over

1315
01:12:05,160 --> 01:12:11,040
Speaker 1: a broom handle, one guy with two flanges clapping and

1316
01:12:11,080 --> 01:12:14,400
Speaker 1: doing his feedback and forth. And if you might it properly,

1317
01:12:14,479 --> 01:12:16,439
Speaker 1: you can get this big chat sound. And they used

1318
01:12:16,479 --> 01:12:21,280
Speaker 1: to do and what were you using for weaverb We

1319
01:12:21,360 --> 01:12:26,440
Speaker 1: had our own echo chamber. Originally it was your bathroom

1320
01:12:26,479 --> 01:12:30,840
Speaker 1: that had these old, uh black and white tiles hex tiles,

1321
01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:34,080
Speaker 1: just like all the bathrooms. And Jim says that was

1322
01:12:34,160 --> 01:12:37,040
Speaker 1: the girl's bathroom. It might have been. I don't know,

1323
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:40,880
Speaker 1: but one of them was taken up for the record

1324
01:12:40,880 --> 01:12:44,080
Speaker 1: shop and the other one was still over there. And uh,

1325
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 1: there was a guy there is a guy here in

1326
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,639
Speaker 1: town that's doing a book on recording studios, and he said,

1327
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:52,799
Speaker 1: how did you send the signal over? I knew the

1328
01:12:52,800 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 1: return of the echo was on the eighth pot, so

1329
01:12:56,120 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: of two Ampex mixerers, so it was on one side

1330
01:12:58,880 --> 01:13:00,880
Speaker 1: or the other. There was know, we didn't have any

1331
01:13:00,880 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 1: pan pots in those days, and you could have spent

1332
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:05,240
Speaker 1: the signal. But Jim guy said, maybe you need to

1333
01:13:05,280 --> 01:13:07,519
Speaker 1: ask Jim that Jim couldn't remember how we said it

1334
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 1: eire and well to Jatan who built all of that,

1335
01:13:11,880 --> 01:13:16,120
Speaker 1: he's gone. So he's not around to ask anymore. We

1336
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:17,920
Speaker 1: know about the return, we don't know how it was

1337
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:22,519
Speaker 1: sent over there. So were you always kind of a

1338
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:25,439
Speaker 1: producer or how did you decide you were going to

1339
01:13:25,479 --> 01:13:29,519
Speaker 1: become a producer? M Well, the way I became a

1340
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:31,439
Speaker 1: producer there was no one else to do the job.

1341
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:35,080
Speaker 1: And I have been asked in the past, how come

1342
01:13:35,080 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 1: there's only one guitar on the sessions because we couldn't

1343
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:44,320
Speaker 1: afford a second guitar player. That's why. Pretty simple, And uh,

1344
01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:48,240
Speaker 1: my job at Stacks as a producer all that. While

1345
01:13:48,280 --> 01:13:51,360
Speaker 1: we're on our subject, Mrs Axon, I had a job

1346
01:13:51,400 --> 01:13:54,920
Speaker 1: at the record shop and she went to Jim Still

1347
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:57,559
Speaker 1: one day and said, you're gonna start paying Steve because

1348
01:13:57,800 --> 01:14:00,719
Speaker 1: he's spending more time in the studio than his record shop.

1349
01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:03,200
Speaker 1: So they come up with a deal and Jim started

1350
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 1: paying me. And okay, you talk about when everybody becomes

1351
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:15,080
Speaker 1: an independent producer. At what point do you disconnect from Stacks?

1352
01:14:16,960 --> 01:14:20,920
Speaker 1: September nine, Well, it must have been a big effect

1353
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:23,680
Speaker 1: if you remember exactly what it was. I remember the day,

1354
01:14:23,720 --> 01:14:25,960
Speaker 1: I remember the day of the time, the day and everything,

1355
01:14:27,920 --> 01:14:30,800
Speaker 1: So what happened, I don't remember the whole week. But

1356
01:14:30,840 --> 01:14:34,360
Speaker 1: I remember that day well. I was told I couldn't

1357
01:14:34,360 --> 01:14:38,679
Speaker 1: get out, that you can't leave Stacks, you know, yeah,

1358
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:42,240
Speaker 1: And I'm gone by No, you can't leave Stacks. So

1359
01:14:42,280 --> 01:14:45,640
Speaker 1: I went to Albil, who was by then vice president

1360
01:14:45,720 --> 01:14:48,200
Speaker 1: of the label, and I went to Al I said, all,

1361
01:14:48,439 --> 01:14:50,719
Speaker 1: I'm not happy here anymore. I want to go. He said, Steve,

1362
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:53,360
Speaker 1: if you want out, I'll help you get out. It's okay.

1363
01:14:54,400 --> 01:14:57,080
Speaker 1: And he did and we got out. I had already

1364
01:14:57,080 --> 01:14:59,120
Speaker 1: told Jim I said, I'll get my lawyer. I want

1365
01:14:59,160 --> 01:15:03,400
Speaker 1: to get out of studio. I gotta go. And uh,

1366
01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:06,920
Speaker 1: there was a great tant transition to go from Stacks

1367
01:15:06,920 --> 01:15:09,120
Speaker 1: to t M I. They have been working on the

1368
01:15:09,200 --> 01:15:12,880
Speaker 1: studio for a long time and the owner and uh,

1369
01:15:13,320 --> 01:15:15,840
Speaker 1: one of my best friends are our lead singer in

1370
01:15:15,840 --> 01:15:17,479
Speaker 1: our band who did a lot of art work on

1371
01:15:17,520 --> 01:15:20,680
Speaker 1: the album covers and all that for Stacks have been

1372
01:15:20,720 --> 01:15:22,320
Speaker 1: working with this guy for a long time. And they

1373
01:15:22,360 --> 01:15:23,960
Speaker 1: come and got me out of bed one night and

1374
01:15:23,960 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: said we're gonna show you something. So they showed me

1375
01:15:28,160 --> 01:15:30,559
Speaker 1: that and they said this is yours if you want it.

1376
01:15:30,600 --> 01:15:34,240
Speaker 1: That was t M I was a great studio, and uh,

1377
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:36,800
Speaker 1: that did I mean that helped, but it didn't really

1378
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:39,200
Speaker 1: entice me to leave Stacks. That's not why I left Stacks.

1379
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: What I did tell Al and Uh and Jim start,

1380
01:15:42,400 --> 01:15:44,599
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna leave Stacks and going across the street

1381
01:15:45,280 --> 01:15:48,519
Speaker 1: in competition with you. I'm not doing that. I'm gonna

1382
01:15:48,560 --> 01:15:50,479
Speaker 1: make a different kind of music. I'm not gonna make

1383
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:54,400
Speaker 1: R and B music anymore. And so Al says, well,

1384
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 1: I've got this artist I need you to do. You've

1385
01:15:56,200 --> 01:15:58,479
Speaker 1: already agreed to do it. And Uh, he said, you're

1386
01:15:58,479 --> 01:16:00,800
Speaker 1: doing real good with Eddy Floyd. You're not gonna stop

1387
01:16:00,800 --> 01:16:06,240
Speaker 1: doing that. So I recorded them at him. Okay, a

1388
01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:11,320
Speaker 1: couple of a couple of questions here online It says

1389
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:14,200
Speaker 1: you were an A and R guy for Stacks. Is

1390
01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:18,680
Speaker 1: that accurate? Yeah? So did you ever sign things? Or

1391
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 1: we're talking about it was so loose. Someone come in

1392
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:23,960
Speaker 1: and you say, hey, this is a good guy. Well,

1393
01:16:24,000 --> 01:16:27,800
Speaker 1: I know, I don't think I ever signed anybody. Uh.

1394
01:16:28,479 --> 01:16:31,840
Speaker 1: It happened most of it by accident. I can't tell

1395
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:35,839
Speaker 1: you this. I don't ever remember telling somebody becoming famous

1396
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:38,080
Speaker 1: that I said. I listened to her said they're not

1397
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:41,280
Speaker 1: gonna happen. That never happened as far as I can remember.

1398
01:16:41,720 --> 01:16:44,000
Speaker 1: So you have great ears. So how did you decide

1399
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:48,599
Speaker 1: you weren't gonna make R and B music anymore? Well,

1400
01:16:48,640 --> 01:16:50,680
Speaker 1: I knew I couldn't get out if I said I

1401
01:16:50,680 --> 01:16:56,680
Speaker 1: was going to Carcion Cita Buld competition. So at this

1402
01:16:56,840 --> 01:17:00,840
Speaker 1: I'm just following the footsteps of Lincoln, Wayne Moment, Chips Bowman.

1403
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:04,880
Speaker 1: He started doing. He did the Sweden inspirations, he did

1404
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:10,880
Speaker 1: King Carters, Elvis and uh However and writers a bunch

1405
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 1: of guys. You know. He did Neil Neil, not Neil

1406
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:20,439
Speaker 1: sadaka Neil Diamond Diamond. So you go, at this point

1407
01:17:20,520 --> 01:17:23,800
Speaker 1: in time, not only is the Memphis sound famous, not

1408
01:17:23,880 --> 01:17:28,240
Speaker 1: only Stocks famous, you were individually famous. And the way

1409
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:32,320
Speaker 1: people read the credits on the records in depth, so

1410
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:36,000
Speaker 1: I would assume from around the world people are contacting you,

1411
01:17:36,080 --> 01:17:39,120
Speaker 1: they want to work with you. Okay? Is that what

1412
01:17:39,240 --> 01:17:43,200
Speaker 1: happened when he went to work? Pretty much the thing.

1413
01:17:43,400 --> 01:17:46,000
Speaker 1: The thing is, I left him. I made a production

1414
01:17:46,040 --> 01:17:49,200
Speaker 1: deal with Columbia Records. I didn't leave to him. I

1415
01:17:49,280 --> 01:17:52,120
Speaker 1: left Stacks and and made a deal with the Columbia

1416
01:17:52,160 --> 01:17:56,640
Speaker 1: Records And at the time, Clive Davis, the President, and

1417
01:17:56,840 --> 01:17:58,400
Speaker 1: he kind of took me in and he wanted to

1418
01:17:58,479 --> 01:18:01,000
Speaker 1: make sure that you know, I was on his team,

1419
01:18:01,000 --> 01:18:03,680
Speaker 1: and I was, so I did a lot of the

1420
01:18:03,840 --> 01:18:06,719
Speaker 1: thank The first artists he sent me was a band

1421
01:18:06,760 --> 01:18:12,960
Speaker 1: called Dreams. Very successful with that. Then we did Jeff Beck. Okay, okay, wait,

1422
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:18,000
Speaker 1: wait forget whatever his personality is, and one on one

1423
01:18:18,120 --> 01:18:22,040
Speaker 1: he not really the public personality anyway. But of all

1424
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:25,280
Speaker 1: of them, we'll leave you out of this because we're talking.

1425
01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:29,000
Speaker 1: I consider Beat to be the best, better than Hendricks,

1426
01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:32,839
Speaker 1: better than Jimmy Page, as I say, not the greatest

1427
01:18:32,880 --> 01:18:37,080
Speaker 1: songwriter in terms of player, unbelievable. So what did you

1428
01:18:37,240 --> 01:18:40,519
Speaker 1: think of working with Jeff Beck also being a guitar player?

1429
01:18:40,680 --> 01:18:43,639
Speaker 1: It was a treat, big treat. The thing I can

1430
01:18:43,680 --> 01:18:48,280
Speaker 1: say about Jeff as a guitar player, I would watch him.

1431
01:18:48,400 --> 01:18:50,200
Speaker 1: I was sitting next to him, and I'll go, you know,

1432
01:18:50,280 --> 01:18:52,320
Speaker 1: I'm not the world's worst guitar player, but I know

1433
01:18:52,400 --> 01:18:55,320
Speaker 1: you can't get that there in that position. He did

1434
01:18:55,720 --> 01:18:59,519
Speaker 1: whatever was in his head. He just played. The thing

1435
01:18:59,560 --> 01:19:02,240
Speaker 1: about if is that as his career went, as he

1436
01:19:02,320 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 1: got older, he got better, better, better, better and better,

1437
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:09,280
Speaker 1: except he'll never top going down that's one of the

1438
01:19:09,280 --> 01:19:13,680
Speaker 1: best versions that's ever been done. I think Going Down.

1439
01:19:13,280 --> 01:19:16,439
Speaker 1: Don't believe me, I know it fantastic. And I think

1440
01:19:16,920 --> 01:19:19,000
Speaker 1: Bobby Chense I didn't know at the time and I

1441
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:21,519
Speaker 1: was producing Bobby that he was a great rock guitar player.

1442
01:19:21,800 --> 01:19:24,280
Speaker 1: I had no idea that he played guitar. I just

1443
01:19:24,360 --> 01:19:28,360
Speaker 1: knew him as a good singer. And it was a

1444
01:19:28,439 --> 01:19:30,840
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck group. They called it, I think at the time.

1445
01:19:31,160 --> 01:19:34,360
Speaker 1: Next Building played piano, Coos and Power played drums, and

1446
01:19:34,439 --> 01:19:38,479
Speaker 1: claud Shaman played the bass, and Bobby Chance singing and

1447
01:19:38,560 --> 01:19:42,320
Speaker 1: Jeff played that incredible guitar. Wow. I mean, I think

1448
01:19:42,320 --> 01:19:45,479
Speaker 1: the album as a whole was pretty Yankee. I don't

1449
01:19:45,479 --> 01:19:48,200
Speaker 1: think Jeff was very proud of the album, but he's

1450
01:19:48,200 --> 01:19:50,360
Speaker 1: got to be proud of Going Down. That is amazing.

1451
01:19:51,360 --> 01:19:55,400
Speaker 1: So what was your production technique? How involved were you?

1452
01:19:55,439 --> 01:19:57,400
Speaker 1: Were you type of guy who would were arrange, type

1453
01:19:57,400 --> 01:19:59,320
Speaker 1: of guy change the songs. Youre the type of the

1454
01:19:59,320 --> 01:20:02,160
Speaker 1: guy just sit behind the board, not interfere too much.

1455
01:20:03,200 --> 01:20:06,000
Speaker 1: I have no idea, but I do know this. I

1456
01:20:06,040 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 1: have told many people, if I knew what made me

1457
01:20:08,560 --> 01:20:10,919
Speaker 1: who I am, I'd bought it and give it to everybody.

1458
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:13,200
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I was just there at the

1459
01:20:13,200 --> 01:20:16,160
Speaker 1: time and it worked. The thing I say about producers,

1460
01:20:16,200 --> 01:20:19,080
Speaker 1: you gotta be able to hear something finished. You can't

1461
01:20:19,160 --> 01:20:21,599
Speaker 1: just get lucky and stair step it and get lucky

1462
01:20:21,760 --> 01:20:24,000
Speaker 1: each time you do something. You gotta hear it finished.

1463
01:20:24,439 --> 01:20:28,120
Speaker 1: And you worked for that goal. I think now another

1464
01:20:28,160 --> 01:20:30,800
Speaker 1: being you worked with. It was un epic, but part

1465
01:20:30,840 --> 01:20:35,600
Speaker 1: of the whole uh CBS enterprise was Poco. That it

1466
01:20:35,680 --> 01:20:38,720
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like anything could be further from your wheelhouse

1467
01:20:38,760 --> 01:20:43,400
Speaker 1: than Poco, all right, And recently I got to see

1468
01:20:43,479 --> 01:20:46,599
Speaker 1: Richie Farrey again for the first time since Poco and

1469
01:20:46,720 --> 01:20:48,840
Speaker 1: Timothy I have seen. You know, he's out with the

1470
01:20:48,880 --> 01:20:52,320
Speaker 1: Eagles and I knew his time. I don't know whatever

1471
01:20:52,320 --> 01:20:54,479
Speaker 1: happened to Paul Cotton. The only hit out of that

1472
01:20:54,520 --> 01:20:56,880
Speaker 1: album that I did was Railroad Days by Paul Cotton,

1473
01:20:57,640 --> 01:20:59,960
Speaker 1: and I think Richie knows that. And Richie Farrey at

1474
01:21:00,040 --> 01:21:03,519
Speaker 1: the time was the writer and they had just split up.

1475
01:21:04,080 --> 01:21:07,640
Speaker 1: Him and Jimerson has split up and uh he has

1476
01:21:07,680 --> 01:21:09,599
Speaker 1: fit up with his wife as well. It was writing

1477
01:21:09,640 --> 01:21:12,559
Speaker 1: all these great love songs, but that's all it was

1478
01:21:12,560 --> 01:21:15,120
Speaker 1: with love songs, and I don't think Polko was known

1479
01:21:15,160 --> 01:21:20,000
Speaker 1: for love songs. So I told Clive that okay, and

1480
01:21:20,120 --> 01:21:22,880
Speaker 1: put the album out anyway, and you know, we had

1481
01:21:22,920 --> 01:21:26,160
Speaker 1: railroad days. It's number one record was pretty good. That

1482
01:21:26,320 --> 01:21:29,120
Speaker 1: was all we had out of that. And another thing

1483
01:21:29,200 --> 01:21:33,280
Speaker 1: happened with looking Glass, I think with Ell Litt Laurie

1484
01:21:33,400 --> 01:21:36,559
Speaker 1: looking at us. And so I'm up in New York

1485
01:21:36,560 --> 01:21:38,559
Speaker 1: at the time, and they said, we got this group

1486
01:21:38,600 --> 01:21:41,240
Speaker 1: who wants you to go here? So I did. They

1487
01:21:41,240 --> 01:21:42,600
Speaker 1: came back the next day and I'm sitting down and

1488
01:21:42,680 --> 01:21:44,639
Speaker 1: cloud he said, well, they have any hits. I said,

1489
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:49,439
Speaker 1: they got one Brandy. He said, well, let's take him

1490
01:21:49,479 --> 01:21:51,000
Speaker 1: down to Memphis. You cut him and see what you're

1491
01:21:51,000 --> 01:21:53,200
Speaker 1: gonna said. He called me about four days into the session.

1492
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:56,519
Speaker 1: He said, how's it going. I said, going pretty good.

1493
01:21:56,760 --> 01:21:58,719
Speaker 1: She says, uh, if you got any hits, I said,

1494
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:01,519
Speaker 1: one Brandy. He said, would send them back to New

1495
01:22:01,600 --> 01:22:05,960
Speaker 1: York then, And so they, I don't know, they think

1496
01:22:05,960 --> 01:22:07,439
Speaker 1: I had something to do with it. I had nothing

1497
01:22:07,439 --> 01:22:09,479
Speaker 1: to do with that, with him going back. But here's

1498
01:22:09,479 --> 01:22:12,840
Speaker 1: what they did. They got an engineer to work for nothing.

1499
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:15,519
Speaker 1: They went in at midnight or late in the evening

1500
01:22:16,120 --> 01:22:19,360
Speaker 1: and recorded Brandy the same way. We didn't head anbaring

1501
01:22:19,400 --> 01:22:24,200
Speaker 1: record with it great. I'm proud of proud of them.

1502
01:22:24,240 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 1: I heard that in Woodstock. I heard them do it

1503
01:22:26,840 --> 01:22:29,120
Speaker 1: Brandy and it was hit. Then there's still a hit.

1504
01:22:30,320 --> 01:22:31,840
Speaker 1: So I heard on the radio. I go, man, that

1505
01:22:31,960 --> 01:22:36,599
Speaker 1: was a hit. So okay. So how long Needles Sway

1506
01:22:36,720 --> 01:22:41,599
Speaker 1: Clive gets blown out of CBS uh and how long

1507
01:22:41,640 --> 01:22:44,439
Speaker 1: does it last for you with t M I what's

1508
01:22:44,479 --> 01:22:49,000
Speaker 1: the next step for you? Well, the guy that signed

1509
01:22:49,080 --> 01:22:55,000
Speaker 1: us to Columbia whole mrs ever't doesn't matter. Um, he

1510
01:22:55,280 --> 01:22:59,320
Speaker 1: was booted out of Columbia because of indifferences or something.

1511
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:01,439
Speaker 1: I think what it was. He was part on over

1512
01:23:01,439 --> 01:23:03,920
Speaker 1: a building they were keeping the records in as a

1513
01:23:04,040 --> 01:23:08,280
Speaker 1: as a wherever storage place. He couldn't do that. So

1514
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:11,599
Speaker 1: the guy was in partnership with came to me one

1515
01:23:11,640 --> 01:23:14,920
Speaker 1: day answered, we're moving over to our c A. So

1516
01:23:15,000 --> 01:23:18,800
Speaker 1: I wind up doing three records on Jos's Feliciano and

1517
01:23:18,960 --> 01:23:22,160
Speaker 1: some other stuff. And and during that transition time I

1518
01:23:22,280 --> 01:23:24,640
Speaker 1: did a little record. My name is not on there,

1519
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:29,840
Speaker 1: but I still produced. It was Tower Power, Bump City, Yeah,

1520
01:23:30,880 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 1: down to the Nine Clubs, to leon Man and all

1521
01:23:32,800 --> 01:23:38,200
Speaker 1: those records awesome. The problem was they got busted about

1522
01:23:38,200 --> 01:23:42,439
Speaker 1: two or three times a week, and the fact that

1523
01:23:42,479 --> 01:23:45,200
Speaker 1: we were friends with the police, they didn't they just

1524
01:23:46,160 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 1: turn them loose back in the studio or whatever. So

1525
01:23:49,240 --> 01:23:51,200
Speaker 1: when it came down to do a second album, they said,

1526
01:23:51,200 --> 01:23:53,200
Speaker 1: we're not coming back to Memphis, and I said, well,

1527
01:23:53,240 --> 01:23:56,080
Speaker 1: I'm not going out to Oakland. I went out there

1528
01:23:56,200 --> 01:23:59,519
Speaker 1: later and row with Steve the bart player. He was

1529
01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:03,320
Speaker 1: a ride and uh, you know, we hit it off

1530
01:24:03,400 --> 01:24:04,880
Speaker 1: real good and all that sort of stuff. But the

1531
01:24:04,920 --> 01:24:08,000
Speaker 1: rest of the man, we would we hit it off tremendously,

1532
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:11,840
Speaker 1: all good friends, but I wouldn't go to first go

1533
01:24:11,960 --> 01:24:13,600
Speaker 1: to cut them, and they wouldn't come to l A.

1534
01:24:13,720 --> 01:24:15,960
Speaker 1: I mean, to to Nashville. So I'm Memphis, I mean,

1535
01:24:16,439 --> 01:24:19,800
Speaker 1: and uh that's where we ended it right there. So

1536
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:26,280
Speaker 1: you did Bumps, you did down to the nightclub bump City. Yeah, unbelievable,

1537
01:24:28,120 --> 01:24:35,320
Speaker 1: unbelievable records. Okay, So at any point in this game,

1538
01:24:36,040 --> 01:24:38,800
Speaker 1: do you feel in the seventies that, hey, you've had

1539
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:42,280
Speaker 1: a lot of success, be you want to walk away?

1540
01:24:43,240 --> 01:24:46,120
Speaker 1: See are you still on a roll? You fear where

1541
01:24:46,160 --> 01:24:48,240
Speaker 1: you are in the game, Are you thinking about any

1542
01:24:48,280 --> 01:24:52,040
Speaker 1: of that stuff. No, the thing is that what I

1543
01:24:52,160 --> 01:24:54,760
Speaker 1: look back on my career. I spent over nine years

1544
01:24:54,800 --> 01:24:57,439
Speaker 1: in the studio in the fifties up the years on

1545
01:24:57,520 --> 01:25:02,320
Speaker 1: the road. So uh, they say, what do you like

1546
01:25:02,439 --> 01:25:04,240
Speaker 1: the best? I said, I don't. It didn't matter. If

1547
01:25:04,240 --> 01:25:07,040
Speaker 1: I'm on stage, I'm having a great time. If I'm

1548
01:25:07,080 --> 01:25:08,800
Speaker 1: in the studio, I'm having a great time. So it

1549
01:25:08,920 --> 01:25:12,200
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But when you can make a living out

1550
01:25:12,240 --> 01:25:15,479
Speaker 1: of having fun, that's the best thing. That's now I understand.

1551
01:25:15,560 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 1: I've always understood why sports guys who get paid a

1552
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:21,000
Speaker 1: lot of money to do to play the same game

1553
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:23,439
Speaker 1: they've been playing since they were kids. And nothing wrong

1554
01:25:23,479 --> 01:25:26,120
Speaker 1: with that. No, accept it ends at some point where

1555
01:25:26,160 --> 01:25:28,960
Speaker 1: as a musician, if you're good, you can continue to go.

1556
01:25:29,360 --> 01:25:33,920
Speaker 1: You have to God takes you away, right, Okay, Now,

1557
01:25:34,040 --> 01:25:37,160
Speaker 1: working with all these people, you have a unique guitar style.

1558
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:41,400
Speaker 1: Did it ever change your guitar style being having all

1559
01:25:41,439 --> 01:25:45,479
Speaker 1: these other influences? No, I don't think so. But you know,

1560
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:47,360
Speaker 1: I listened to radio every now and then I go, hey,

1561
01:25:47,400 --> 01:25:50,120
Speaker 1: I played pretty good on that. I remember half of it?

1562
01:25:50,960 --> 01:25:53,720
Speaker 1: I don't. And then at this point you know you're

1563
01:25:54,160 --> 01:25:57,640
Speaker 1: you're in the pan theeon in that era? Does it

1564
01:25:57,800 --> 01:26:01,120
Speaker 1: end up that you end up meeting everybody like obviously

1565
01:26:01,120 --> 01:26:03,519
Speaker 1: you're working with Jeff Beck, do you know? You know

1566
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:10,599
Speaker 1: pretty close? That's the scary part. I think I've met

1567
01:26:11,080 --> 01:26:16,840
Speaker 1: almost everybody. There's anybody, whether comedians or actors or whatever.

1568
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:19,240
Speaker 1: I met him all presidents. I played for four of them.

1569
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:23,200
Speaker 1: And you know, and I would like to thank Bill

1570
01:26:23,240 --> 01:26:24,920
Speaker 1: Clinton and I were pretty good friends at one time.

1571
01:26:25,360 --> 01:26:28,240
Speaker 1: How did you become friends with Bill Clinton? Well, you don't,

1572
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:30,840
Speaker 1: I mean you he takes you on. You don't take

1573
01:26:30,920 --> 01:26:34,000
Speaker 1: him on. You might accept him as a person, but

1574
01:26:34,080 --> 01:26:36,200
Speaker 1: if if he's standing at the end of the stage

1575
01:26:36,320 --> 01:26:38,160
Speaker 1: or an address of Whiting on the restaurant where you

1576
01:26:38,200 --> 01:26:40,920
Speaker 1: get up stage, you got a pretty good ata likes

1577
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:46,040
Speaker 1: you and not eously. You know, you come from adjoining states.

1578
01:26:46,560 --> 01:26:52,920
Speaker 1: But what would you talk to Bill Clinton about? Music? Really? Yeah?

1579
01:26:53,840 --> 01:26:56,400
Speaker 1: And would he ever? Definitely didn't talk about girls or

1580
01:26:56,439 --> 01:26:59,000
Speaker 1: the state. We've talked about music. I wasn't fishing for that.

1581
01:26:59,360 --> 01:27:01,200
Speaker 1: But would he ever? Did he ever call you on

1582
01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:05,000
Speaker 1: the phone and say, hey, Steve, no, no, So what

1583
01:27:05,160 --> 01:27:07,080
Speaker 1: did you get in the Oval office? He said? You know,

1584
01:27:07,360 --> 01:27:10,040
Speaker 1: I remember where I was the day I heard Grant Onions.

1585
01:27:10,120 --> 01:27:12,680
Speaker 1: I mean not Grandos, but Dock of the Bay. He

1586
01:27:12,840 --> 01:27:15,320
Speaker 1: was in a pub in England. He told me, as

1587
01:27:15,360 --> 01:27:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm walking over, So what did you learn about famous people? Well,

1588
01:27:22,760 --> 01:27:25,479
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. There's only three guys in my

1589
01:27:25,640 --> 01:27:28,040
Speaker 1: career that could light up a room just by walking

1590
01:27:28,080 --> 01:27:32,320
Speaker 1: into it. Elvis was one of them. Bill Clinton was

1591
01:27:32,360 --> 01:27:36,479
Speaker 1: another one, and Roy Oberson was the third one. They

1592
01:27:36,520 --> 01:27:40,080
Speaker 1: walk in, every head would turn, every conversation would just stop,

1593
01:27:40,680 --> 01:27:42,960
Speaker 1: didn't go back to where it was, And that's what

1594
01:27:43,080 --> 01:27:46,880
Speaker 1: they did. And you're making this R and B music

1595
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:51,559
Speaker 1: in Memphis? What did you think about the British Invasion sound,

1596
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:54,360
Speaker 1: the Beatles and who came thereafter then ultimately clapped in

1597
01:27:54,439 --> 01:27:57,719
Speaker 1: and back, and then you have to San Francisco sound,

1598
01:27:57,880 --> 01:28:00,479
Speaker 1: and then ultimately the folk rock from Los Ange Angelists.

1599
01:28:01,240 --> 01:28:03,439
Speaker 1: Was that something that interested you? Or he was saying, well,

1600
01:28:03,520 --> 01:28:07,080
Speaker 1: I'm just doing what I'm doing. I would say, I'm

1601
01:28:07,120 --> 01:28:10,920
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing, and I'm okay at that. I'll

1602
01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:13,519
Speaker 1: just stick with what I got to successful. Well, I

1603
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:15,560
Speaker 1: venture out and try to do something I don't know

1604
01:28:16,320 --> 01:28:18,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people do. Okay, let's let's talk about

1605
01:28:18,760 --> 01:28:22,400
Speaker 1: another legendary moment. Okay, I remember going to see Lemmings

1606
01:28:23,120 --> 01:28:27,160
Speaker 1: off Broadway, becoming aware of John Belushi and Chevy Chase

1607
01:28:27,280 --> 01:28:31,519
Speaker 1: and the fall of seventy. SNL goes on Ackroid and

1608
01:28:31,600 --> 01:28:36,200
Speaker 1: Blush start this crazy thing with the Blues brothers you

1609
01:28:36,280 --> 01:28:39,160
Speaker 1: know from me and talking to you down a little different.

1610
01:28:39,200 --> 01:28:42,360
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, listen, how the fund does you know?

1611
01:28:42,479 --> 01:28:44,920
Speaker 1: Steve Cropper half time to say, Okay, I'm gonna pick

1612
01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:46,880
Speaker 1: up I'm gonna go on the road with these guys.

1613
01:28:47,320 --> 01:28:49,400
Speaker 1: I mean, how did all that happen? What was going

1614
01:28:49,479 --> 01:28:52,800
Speaker 1: through your mind? Okay, I don't know. It's kind of weird,

1615
01:28:53,479 --> 01:28:59,519
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you the connection. So Belushi happened to

1616
01:28:59,600 --> 01:29:02,320
Speaker 1: be the New Year's Eve gig that we played with

1617
01:29:02,520 --> 01:29:06,280
Speaker 1: Levon Helm in New York, and he said, if I

1618
01:29:06,360 --> 01:29:09,560
Speaker 1: ever put a band together, I wanted that band. And

1619
01:29:09,640 --> 01:29:11,720
Speaker 1: then he got the opportunity to Steve Martin asked him

1620
01:29:11,720 --> 01:29:14,920
Speaker 1: to open up some shows for him. So Steve said,

1621
01:29:15,280 --> 01:29:18,360
Speaker 1: that's when Steve Martin had King Tutt. His connection was

1622
01:29:18,400 --> 01:29:20,280
Speaker 1: Sating out Live. Was a writer for Saturday Night Lives,

1623
01:29:20,320 --> 01:29:24,519
Speaker 1: so he knew them very well. So he comes to

1624
01:29:24,720 --> 01:29:26,679
Speaker 1: John and he says, I want you guys to open

1625
01:29:26,760 --> 01:29:28,920
Speaker 1: from me. He said, they insist that I have an

1626
01:29:28,960 --> 01:29:30,519
Speaker 1: opening act, and I want you guys to do it

1627
01:29:30,680 --> 01:29:34,040
Speaker 1: rather than use some local band, you know. And John says, well,

1628
01:29:34,080 --> 01:29:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, Danny and I don't do stand up comedy.

1629
01:29:36,000 --> 01:29:37,240
Speaker 1: He said, I don't care what you do, he said.

1630
01:29:37,360 --> 01:29:39,200
Speaker 1: John says, good. Can we play music? He said, if

1631
01:29:39,240 --> 01:29:41,360
Speaker 1: you want to play music, play music. That's when he

1632
01:29:41,400 --> 01:29:44,720
Speaker 1: started putting the band together. So I get a call

1633
01:29:44,840 --> 01:29:48,479
Speaker 1: from him. I'm I'm working on Robin Ford's album, Great

1634
01:29:48,479 --> 01:29:52,840
Speaker 1: Guitar Player, and I have this thing when I'm mixing

1635
01:29:53,000 --> 01:29:55,439
Speaker 1: or working on somebody, and we were mixing the album

1636
01:29:55,439 --> 01:29:59,760
Speaker 1: at the time. No calls except one guy who might

1637
01:30:00,120 --> 01:30:02,040
Speaker 1: take me to lunch. He was he was worked for

1638
01:30:02,080 --> 01:30:04,720
Speaker 1: the publishing company that I was with it. I wasn't

1639
01:30:04,760 --> 01:30:07,439
Speaker 1: with them, but they had some of the old songs,

1640
01:30:08,120 --> 01:30:10,760
Speaker 1: and uh, I said, if he calls, it's okay. And

1641
01:30:10,840 --> 01:30:12,680
Speaker 1: he would always call and say I'm president so on,

1642
01:30:12,800 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 1: so this is Stevie Wonder or he'd come up with

1643
01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:18,240
Speaker 1: a name. So when I said, Belusha's on the phone

1644
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:22,240
Speaker 1: for you, I hung up. On the third time. I

1645
01:30:22,360 --> 01:30:24,120
Speaker 1: hung up again the second time on the third time,

1646
01:30:24,160 --> 01:30:26,640
Speaker 1: he said, don't hang up. It's really John Belushi. The

1647
01:30:26,760 --> 01:30:29,880
Speaker 1: thing is I had met him before at a Paul

1648
01:30:29,920 --> 01:30:33,559
Speaker 1: McCartney party and we talked for a long time about music,

1649
01:30:33,640 --> 01:30:37,559
Speaker 1: about different things, and he was there Paul had hired

1650
01:30:37,680 --> 01:30:40,200
Speaker 1: him to do that Joe Cocker thing that he used

1651
01:30:40,240 --> 01:30:43,680
Speaker 1: to do. And uh. Anyway, he said, don't hang up,

1652
01:30:43,760 --> 01:30:45,599
Speaker 1: and then he said, I understand you don't get along

1653
01:30:45,640 --> 01:30:49,400
Speaker 1: with Duck. Done very well, and so I really left it.

1654
01:30:49,760 --> 01:30:51,439
Speaker 1: But I knew that wasn't my friend. That had to

1655
01:30:51,479 --> 01:30:54,280
Speaker 1: be John Belushi, and he said no. He said really.

1656
01:30:54,320 --> 01:30:56,280
Speaker 1: He said, I've already talked to Duck and Duck's gonna

1657
01:30:56,400 --> 01:30:58,559
Speaker 1: come up and play. He said I need you up

1658
01:30:58,600 --> 01:31:00,320
Speaker 1: there and said, I'm in the middle of mixing record.

1659
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:03,560
Speaker 1: I can't do it. So he said you can't do it.

1660
01:31:03,600 --> 01:31:04,960
Speaker 1: I said, man, I can't do it. I can't be

1661
01:31:05,080 --> 01:31:09,320
Speaker 1: up there and tomorrow I can't do it. So when

1662
01:31:09,360 --> 01:31:12,200
Speaker 1: I hung up with John, Robin was sitting in the

1663
01:31:12,280 --> 01:31:14,320
Speaker 1: couch below the console. He stands up. He says, I'll

1664
01:31:14,360 --> 01:31:18,720
Speaker 1: do it. I said, you know you won't. He did.

1665
01:31:18,840 --> 01:31:20,679
Speaker 1: He said I'll do it. I said, no, you won't.

1666
01:31:22,080 --> 01:31:24,559
Speaker 1: So I talked to Bruce rob who was an engineer

1667
01:31:24,600 --> 01:31:27,040
Speaker 1: on the on the job and I said, can we

1668
01:31:27,160 --> 01:31:31,800
Speaker 1: do what you've done before with with with what's her

1669
01:31:31,880 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: name from Atlantic, Jerry Wexler, And I said, can you

1670
01:31:35,880 --> 01:31:37,720
Speaker 1: mix it? Send me the mixes and all, Okay, I'm

1671
01:31:37,720 --> 01:31:39,320
Speaker 1: gonna tell you this and that and he said, yeah,

1672
01:31:40,080 --> 01:31:42,040
Speaker 1: So well, I think we had two left was gonna

1673
01:31:42,080 --> 01:31:45,360
Speaker 1: be so I call blew you back and I said,

1674
01:31:45,360 --> 01:31:46,840
Speaker 1: if you could wait two or three days, I'll be

1675
01:31:46,960 --> 01:31:49,600
Speaker 1: up there. And he said, okay, I'll wait on you.

1676
01:31:49,920 --> 01:31:54,040
Speaker 1: So he did, and that's how all got started. So

1677
01:31:54,600 --> 01:31:56,439
Speaker 1: the other thing, the reason Duck and I are in

1678
01:31:56,479 --> 01:31:59,840
Speaker 1: the band at the time, we had done two our

1679
01:32:00,000 --> 01:32:02,600
Speaker 1: theoms and two world tours. Will leave on him and

1680
01:32:02,680 --> 01:32:05,240
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night Live Horns with a horn back at Horns,

1681
01:32:06,080 --> 01:32:10,400
Speaker 1: and uh so Belushi goes to Tom alone, he was

1682
01:32:10,439 --> 01:32:12,400
Speaker 1: a trombone player at that time in the director of

1683
01:32:12,479 --> 01:32:15,679
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night Live Horns and the band, and he said,

1684
01:32:15,960 --> 01:32:18,200
Speaker 1: you know we're gonna open these shows for Steve Martin.

1685
01:32:18,240 --> 01:32:20,040
Speaker 1: Do you want to take the whole Saturday Night Live band?

1686
01:32:20,040 --> 01:32:21,680
Speaker 1: And what should we do? And he said, you need

1687
01:32:21,760 --> 01:32:23,799
Speaker 1: to get done in cropper because they're old Road Dogs.

1688
01:32:24,040 --> 01:32:25,599
Speaker 1: I don't know where he got that from it anyway,

1689
01:32:25,680 --> 01:32:27,880
Speaker 1: that's how we got to be part of it, thanks

1690
01:32:27,920 --> 01:32:30,240
Speaker 1: to Tom alone. Okay, but if that it turns into

1691
01:32:30,280 --> 01:32:34,120
Speaker 1: a phenomenon, there ends up being multiple records. You know,

1692
01:32:34,280 --> 01:32:38,120
Speaker 1: tours are just the Blues Brothers. There's a movie. You know.

1693
01:32:38,360 --> 01:32:40,960
Speaker 1: Was that all a fun ride or did he get older?

1694
01:32:41,160 --> 01:32:43,240
Speaker 1: This most fun you didn't have in life? I guess

1695
01:32:43,439 --> 01:32:46,320
Speaker 1: it was pretty pretty fun. Yeah, And we had no

1696
01:32:46,479 --> 01:32:49,360
Speaker 1: idea that first album doing it ain't what triple platinum

1697
01:32:49,439 --> 01:32:52,400
Speaker 1: right off the bat. Now I follow up to quadruple

1698
01:32:52,439 --> 01:32:55,800
Speaker 1: platinum for four million sales at the time, it came

1699
01:32:55,840 --> 01:33:00,360
Speaker 1: out two and a half three million sales, which I

1700
01:33:00,479 --> 01:33:04,479
Speaker 1: think is the stepping stone, the one thing that allowed

1701
01:33:04,520 --> 01:33:06,679
Speaker 1: Atlanta to put them a little more pressure on Universal

1702
01:33:06,760 --> 01:33:09,559
Speaker 1: do a movie because they had turned Danny down before

1703
01:33:09,600 --> 01:33:13,040
Speaker 1: on the idea of doing a Blues Brothers movie. Okay,

1704
01:33:13,439 --> 01:33:16,200
Speaker 1: I gotta email from Tivin and he said, you gotta

1705
01:33:16,240 --> 01:33:19,000
Speaker 1: ask Steve some questions that no one's ever asked him.

1706
01:33:19,320 --> 01:33:20,840
Speaker 1: So he said me, if you and I'm gonna ask

1707
01:33:20,920 --> 01:33:26,479
Speaker 1: him what about these phone calls with Bob Dylan? I

1708
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:29,160
Speaker 1: ain't gonna go there. But anyway, I gotta call Bob,

1709
01:33:29,240 --> 01:33:32,160
Speaker 1: and I got a call from somebody worked Bob and

1710
01:33:32,200 --> 01:33:34,280
Speaker 1: said Bob was gonna call you in ten minutes, and

1711
01:33:34,400 --> 01:33:39,479
Speaker 1: he did, and I just assumed he wanted me to

1712
01:33:39,680 --> 01:33:42,320
Speaker 1: be in his band. I don't know if I had

1713
01:33:42,320 --> 01:33:44,000
Speaker 1: done or not. And he never did say was you

1714
01:33:44,040 --> 01:33:45,920
Speaker 1: to be in a band? He never gave me the

1715
01:33:45,960 --> 01:33:49,439
Speaker 1: opportunity to turn him down. So, so, did you want

1716
01:33:49,439 --> 01:33:52,560
Speaker 1: to talk music or just talk? Well, he got on

1717
01:33:52,600 --> 01:33:54,760
Speaker 1: the phone and said, Cropper, I had you in my mind.

1718
01:33:55,160 --> 01:33:57,280
Speaker 1: He must say that twenty times. I had you in

1719
01:33:57,400 --> 01:34:02,320
Speaker 1: my mind. Okay, what I had him? Man, that's all

1720
01:34:02,400 --> 01:34:04,680
Speaker 1: he said. Finally hung up. After about ten minutes, he

1721
01:34:04,800 --> 01:34:06,400
Speaker 1: kept saying that and then hung up. And that was

1722
01:34:06,479 --> 01:34:10,400
Speaker 1: into that and never heard from him again. No, but

1723
01:34:10,520 --> 01:34:15,400
Speaker 1: he's a good friend. And what about working with John Lennon. Well,

1724
01:34:15,840 --> 01:34:18,479
Speaker 1: the thing about that is that it was a pretty

1725
01:34:18,520 --> 01:34:23,439
Speaker 1: crazy session. But I stayed and so John said, are

1726
01:34:23,439 --> 01:34:25,760
Speaker 1: you gonna stay for the next song? I said absolutely?

1727
01:34:26,400 --> 01:34:29,280
Speaker 1: He said can you stay after the next song? Because

1728
01:34:29,320 --> 01:34:31,120
Speaker 1: I came up with a riff that I always thought

1729
01:34:31,120 --> 01:34:32,160
Speaker 1: it would be good for a book of D n

1730
01:34:32,320 --> 01:34:37,080
Speaker 1: M cheese. I said sure, so it's after everybody tlearned out.

1731
01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:39,560
Speaker 1: It's just John Lennon and myself in the studio and

1732
01:34:39,680 --> 01:34:42,960
Speaker 1: he gets a guitar. It passes to be his bottle

1733
01:34:42,960 --> 01:34:45,840
Speaker 1: of vodka, which I thought was water holiday long. It

1734
01:34:45,960 --> 01:34:51,240
Speaker 1: was really Holy Acrol. He could handle it. So he

1735
01:34:51,280 --> 01:34:53,160
Speaker 1: plays me this riff. It's pretty good. So I take

1736
01:34:53,200 --> 01:34:55,519
Speaker 1: it back short to my band or Tim, and we've

1737
01:34:55,600 --> 01:34:58,840
Speaker 1: made a little record, recorded it, send it to a secretary,

1738
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:03,400
Speaker 1: and one day, by accident, they said John Lennon's new

1739
01:35:03,439 --> 01:35:07,360
Speaker 1: record is out. That was imagine. Well, whoever put the

1740
01:35:07,439 --> 01:35:09,840
Speaker 1: record on the jew box put in upside down, so

1741
01:35:10,000 --> 01:35:13,280
Speaker 1: the B side played first. I said, that's the instrumental,

1742
01:35:13,360 --> 01:35:15,840
Speaker 1: I said, riff. So if you want to pick it up,

1743
01:35:15,880 --> 01:35:18,800
Speaker 1: it's called beef Jerky. He cut it in New York.

1744
01:35:20,520 --> 01:35:23,800
Speaker 1: Now are you yes? I said, you've met essentially everybody

1745
01:35:24,520 --> 01:35:28,080
Speaker 1: anybody ever intimidate you? Do you get up tight meeting people?

1746
01:35:28,320 --> 01:35:33,479
Speaker 1: Or John Lennon just another musician. Well, John Lennon was

1747
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:36,439
Speaker 1: John Lennon, but you know I had met him before.

1748
01:35:36,520 --> 01:35:39,680
Speaker 1: I bet all three, but uh, the only guy that

1749
01:35:39,840 --> 01:35:43,080
Speaker 1: wasn't there at the time, and in uh what was

1750
01:35:43,120 --> 01:35:47,240
Speaker 1: the seventies, now, sixty six the Stax Fold tour. They

1751
01:35:47,280 --> 01:35:48,639
Speaker 1: were at the Bag of Nails and we were down

1752
01:35:48,640 --> 01:35:51,360
Speaker 1: there rehearsal for the show, and uh, the only guy

1753
01:35:51,439 --> 01:35:53,960
Speaker 1: that wasn't there was George the guitar player is the

1754
01:35:54,000 --> 01:35:57,040
Speaker 1: only one who wasn't there. It's crazy, but NDO and

1755
01:35:57,160 --> 01:36:00,760
Speaker 1: Paul and and John were there. Pretty crazy. The thing

1756
01:36:00,840 --> 01:36:03,640
Speaker 1: about that is that they respected us so much they

1757
01:36:03,960 --> 01:36:08,040
Speaker 1: sent a Roles to pick us up in red carpet. Wow,

1758
01:36:10,200 --> 01:36:12,720
Speaker 1: that was pretty nice something to do that. And you

1759
01:36:12,880 --> 01:36:20,120
Speaker 1: also played with Keith Richards. Yeah, what's the smile and joke?

1760
01:36:20,240 --> 01:36:22,720
Speaker 1: Fare Well, it's the same thing you just said a

1761
01:36:22,760 --> 01:36:26,360
Speaker 1: while ago. I don't want to admit that. Uh, you know,

1762
01:36:26,439 --> 01:36:29,519
Speaker 1: I just treat everybody equal and I've always done that.

1763
01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:32,439
Speaker 1: You are who you are. I mean, I ain't taking

1764
01:36:32,439 --> 01:36:34,960
Speaker 1: anything away from you. But if you want to be special,

1765
01:36:35,000 --> 01:36:38,720
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to be special. Okay. I think I

1766
01:36:38,880 --> 01:36:42,280
Speaker 1: understand what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, you know, you

1767
01:36:42,400 --> 01:36:44,160
Speaker 1: just take all these people with a grain of salt.

1768
01:36:44,920 --> 01:36:46,960
Speaker 1: So you're planning for a president, Well, you just treat

1769
01:36:47,040 --> 01:36:49,320
Speaker 1: him like a regor guy, and he loves it. They

1770
01:36:49,360 --> 01:36:52,519
Speaker 1: always love it if you bow down to him, right,

1771
01:36:52,560 --> 01:36:55,400
Speaker 1: off the bat and treat them like bigger than I know.

1772
01:36:55,520 --> 01:36:56,640
Speaker 1: That's what I told me. You want to talk to

1773
01:36:56,720 --> 01:36:59,280
Speaker 1: famous people, first thing you do. First rule is don't

1774
01:36:59,280 --> 01:37:02,880
Speaker 1: ever talk to him what they're famous about, you know,

1775
01:37:03,240 --> 01:37:06,880
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. And you were working with Jeff

1776
01:37:07,000 --> 01:37:13,120
Speaker 1: Beck and Stevie Wonder sent a demo. Yeah, so the

1777
01:37:13,200 --> 01:37:19,400
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck story superstitious. So they want me to hear

1778
01:37:19,479 --> 01:37:22,000
Speaker 1: the song that Stevie Wonder has written for Jeff Beck.

1779
01:37:23,479 --> 01:37:26,880
Speaker 1: So we get to Electric Lady Studios and Stevie says,

1780
01:37:26,960 --> 01:37:28,680
Speaker 1: put it up, put it up, tells the engine to

1781
01:37:28,680 --> 01:37:30,040
Speaker 1: put it up, put it up. He puts it up.

1782
01:37:30,560 --> 01:37:33,640
Speaker 1: So while it's playing, it's superstitious. I'll lean over when

1783
01:37:33,680 --> 01:37:39,920
Speaker 1: I said, Stevie, put horns on that and put it out. Yeah,

1784
01:37:40,000 --> 01:37:42,560
Speaker 1: I did just say that, put horns on it and

1785
01:37:42,640 --> 01:37:45,720
Speaker 1: put it up. And that is that the version with

1786
01:37:45,920 --> 01:37:50,960
Speaker 1: horns that came out. Yeah, so you're responsible. So you're

1787
01:37:51,000 --> 01:37:56,040
Speaker 1: responsible for Beck not getting it. Maybe, but I heard Beck.

1788
01:37:56,960 --> 01:37:58,880
Speaker 1: So Stevie calls him up to sit in one night

1789
01:37:58,880 --> 01:38:00,240
Speaker 1: and I said, now I find it. It it I

1790
01:38:00,400 --> 01:38:04,840
Speaker 1: understand why he wrote that for Jeff Beck. Good got

1791
01:38:04,920 --> 01:38:08,040
Speaker 1: the money. Yeah, but that was a couple of years

1792
01:38:08,040 --> 01:38:09,720
Speaker 1: ago that I heard it for the first time. I

1793
01:38:09,840 --> 01:38:11,960
Speaker 1: heard Jeff play for the first time. Okay, a lot

1794
01:38:12,040 --> 01:38:14,880
Speaker 1: of time is going by. You're still eager to go

1795
01:38:15,040 --> 01:38:20,080
Speaker 1: on the road, you're still eager to play. Uh, well,

1796
01:38:20,520 --> 01:38:22,479
Speaker 1: that's hard to say. If I ever did. I think

1797
01:38:22,520 --> 01:38:26,080
Speaker 1: you asked me that similar question before. I'm not sure

1798
01:38:26,160 --> 01:38:29,759
Speaker 1: I was ever. I have a longing to go fishing

1799
01:38:29,840 --> 01:38:31,720
Speaker 1: and a longing to play golf that I don't have

1800
01:38:31,800 --> 01:38:34,760
Speaker 1: a longing to play music. I do that if I'm

1801
01:38:34,840 --> 01:38:37,439
Speaker 1: called upon, and I will say this. They don't pay

1802
01:38:37,479 --> 01:38:39,960
Speaker 1: you to play. They pay you to carry the luggist

1803
01:38:40,000 --> 01:38:43,240
Speaker 1: to an airport. But when about two hours you're on stage, man,

1804
01:38:43,320 --> 01:38:47,200
Speaker 1: that's the best fun you can have. And uh, you know,

1805
01:38:47,240 --> 01:38:50,120
Speaker 1: I'm also one of those guys. I don't. I enjoyed

1806
01:38:50,200 --> 01:38:52,760
Speaker 1: playing to be playing, but I don't enjoy planning for

1807
01:38:52,840 --> 01:38:57,479
Speaker 1: two people two thousand. I enjoy two hundred thousand. I

1808
01:38:57,560 --> 01:39:02,760
Speaker 1: rooted joy. I understand the concept there too. And uh,

1809
01:39:04,400 --> 01:39:09,840
Speaker 1: you keep up with popular music, no because you've been

1810
01:39:09,880 --> 01:39:14,360
Speaker 1: through too much or you don't like it. I think

1811
01:39:14,400 --> 01:39:18,320
Speaker 1: I know the difference in terms of I know what's

1812
01:39:18,360 --> 01:39:20,240
Speaker 1: a hit and what's not. If it's good enough to

1813
01:39:20,320 --> 01:39:22,799
Speaker 1: make my hair stand up. It's good. If it doesn't,

1814
01:39:23,000 --> 01:39:26,960
Speaker 1: it ain't. What are a few records you were not

1815
01:39:27,120 --> 01:39:32,439
Speaker 1: involved with that major here stand up? Mm hmm. That's

1816
01:39:32,439 --> 01:39:34,280
Speaker 1: a good question. I never thought of it that way,

1817
01:39:35,280 --> 01:39:39,240
Speaker 1: but I'm I can think of you probably, I don't know.

1818
01:39:42,320 --> 01:39:45,240
Speaker 1: I really don't know. Okay. And to what to do? You?

1819
01:39:45,240 --> 01:39:48,760
Speaker 1: Are you a gearhead? What a gearhead? I'm not a

1820
01:39:48,840 --> 01:39:52,880
Speaker 1: gear head? How many? How many guitars you own? Way

1821
01:39:52,960 --> 01:39:54,720
Speaker 1: too many? You want to play one at the time,

1822
01:39:55,400 --> 01:39:58,360
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm asking how many? How many? On? Well,

1823
01:39:58,520 --> 01:40:00,920
Speaker 1: I play the same gitub and playing one. I retired

1824
01:40:00,960 --> 01:40:03,639
Speaker 1: one after fourteen years and the one I'm playing presently

1825
01:40:03,640 --> 01:40:06,160
Speaker 1: I've been playing close to ten years. Now, why did

1826
01:40:06,200 --> 01:40:13,000
Speaker 1: you retire the first one? Uh? It needed to be refretted. Okay?

1827
01:40:13,720 --> 01:40:17,840
Speaker 1: And what model is this? Well, it's it's a telecaster,

1828
01:40:18,640 --> 01:40:23,360
Speaker 1: but it's made by Pete called a Generation series, very

1829
01:40:23,520 --> 01:40:27,040
Speaker 1: versatile guitar. People said, why did you pick up the telecaster?

1830
01:40:27,200 --> 01:40:30,240
Speaker 1: Because it's the most personal guitar on the planet. You

1831
01:40:30,320 --> 01:40:32,200
Speaker 1: can make it do about anything. If you want to

1832
01:40:32,240 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 1: play rock, you can hear the switch and make it

1833
01:40:34,280 --> 01:40:35,760
Speaker 1: play rock. If you want to play R and B,

1834
01:40:35,880 --> 01:40:38,080
Speaker 1: you can play R and B. You want to play chinks,

1835
01:40:38,160 --> 01:40:41,200
Speaker 1: just back beats. It's just the only guitar in the

1836
01:40:41,280 --> 01:40:45,360
Speaker 1: world is built for back beats, I think, because the

1837
01:40:45,439 --> 01:40:47,360
Speaker 1: other one you hit it, you hit a six or

1838
01:40:47,400 --> 01:40:51,479
Speaker 1: six do chord. It's going to the store. A telecaster doesn't.

1839
01:40:52,880 --> 01:40:54,799
Speaker 1: What about a strato caster. A lot of the English

1840
01:40:54,880 --> 01:40:58,240
Speaker 1: musicians played stratocasters. Listen. Yeah, they have a different sound.

1841
01:40:58,320 --> 01:41:01,519
Speaker 1: It's a different pickup set up. And and the other

1842
01:41:01,600 --> 01:41:03,920
Speaker 1: thing is that I play with my palm of my

1843
01:41:04,040 --> 01:41:06,880
Speaker 1: hand muted on the bridge. No matter who makes the guitar,

1844
01:41:07,000 --> 01:41:09,800
Speaker 1: that's where it is. So on a strap it will

1845
01:41:10,080 --> 01:41:12,160
Speaker 1: take the pick out of my hand in two beats

1846
01:41:13,560 --> 01:41:15,880
Speaker 1: because I been'll pick up. So I have several custom

1847
01:41:15,920 --> 01:41:20,760
Speaker 1: made straps with a nod midle pick up. Really. Yeah,

1848
01:41:21,560 --> 01:41:27,599
Speaker 1: And what about the amps, Well, that's different. I will

1849
01:41:27,640 --> 01:41:30,160
Speaker 1: give you a little secret on picking the best electric guitar.

1850
01:41:30,680 --> 01:41:34,360
Speaker 1: Play it acoustically. If it sounds good acoustically, you can

1851
01:41:34,400 --> 01:41:36,760
Speaker 1: find an amp to marriage with it to make it

1852
01:41:36,800 --> 01:41:40,519
Speaker 1: sound really good, even a solid body like the telecaster. Yeah,

1853
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:46,840
Speaker 1: and how about a fact? How about effects? Well, it

1854
01:41:46,920 --> 01:41:49,720
Speaker 1: depends I don't use a lot of effects. Never did.

1855
01:41:50,040 --> 01:41:53,760
Speaker 1: That's not my sound. And tremorl oh, yeah, book or

1856
01:41:53,800 --> 01:41:57,240
Speaker 1: T I have a tremulator similator thing that makes it

1857
01:41:57,400 --> 01:42:02,720
Speaker 1: vibrate um. The old super reverbs had one vibrato in it.

1858
01:42:04,080 --> 01:42:05,880
Speaker 1: The one I'm planning now the amp does not have

1859
01:42:06,040 --> 01:42:08,080
Speaker 1: one in it, so I have to use it outboard,

1860
01:42:09,000 --> 01:42:13,000
Speaker 1: just get a little deeper. Fender had tubes, then they

1861
01:42:13,080 --> 01:42:16,880
Speaker 1: went to transistors. We have marshals. Are you a guy

1862
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:19,960
Speaker 1: who says, well, transistors tubes totally different sound. You gotta

1863
01:42:20,000 --> 01:42:24,360
Speaker 1: have the right amp. Maybe the best amp I ever

1864
01:42:24,479 --> 01:42:30,400
Speaker 1: had had both one side was to the other side was,

1865
01:42:30,880 --> 01:42:35,559
Speaker 1: you know, just regularly whatever they do the new technology. Uh,

1866
01:42:37,600 --> 01:42:39,720
Speaker 1: that amp I don't have any more. What amp was that?

1867
01:42:40,920 --> 01:42:45,320
Speaker 1: It was a PDM Okay, do you like when people

1868
01:42:45,400 --> 01:42:50,040
Speaker 1: call you the colonel or not like it? It doesn't matter.

1869
01:42:50,160 --> 01:42:56,200
Speaker 1: My nickname is crap dog. Let's go back to the beginning.

1870
01:42:56,760 --> 01:42:59,519
Speaker 1: Back in the very beginning. Did they call you Steve

1871
01:42:59,680 --> 01:43:04,320
Speaker 1: or did they call you a cropper? I think Steve

1872
01:43:04,439 --> 01:43:09,320
Speaker 1: in the beginning? How far back you're going? Two stacks?

1873
01:43:11,040 --> 01:43:14,759
Speaker 1: Well before that, in high school we had a former

1874
01:43:14,880 --> 01:43:19,320
Speaker 1: that we used, so I was Saucy, son of Hollins Cropper.

1875
01:43:20,920 --> 01:43:22,560
Speaker 1: Now some of it works, some of it doesn't. But

1876
01:43:22,920 --> 01:43:26,120
Speaker 1: Tom dad always called me Saucy s a U see

1877
01:43:26,160 --> 01:43:32,479
Speaker 1: why because he thought that's what it was, Saucy. Okay,

1878
01:43:32,520 --> 01:43:37,960
Speaker 1: if you were Sauncy, did everybody else have an equivalent nickname? Yeah? Wow,

1879
01:43:38,280 --> 01:43:40,200
Speaker 1: that's definitely the man it was. I was the son

1880
01:43:40,280 --> 01:43:43,320
Speaker 1: of who whatever their dad was. Some of the works

1881
01:43:43,360 --> 01:43:46,320
Speaker 1: and some of it didn't. Okay, So then you get

1882
01:43:46,400 --> 01:43:54,479
Speaker 1: the stacks. What's your name creeper? Why is it that?

1883
01:43:55,400 --> 01:43:58,400
Speaker 1: I don't know because that's what Eddie Floyd called me?

1884
01:43:59,600 --> 01:44:04,360
Speaker 1: Creeps creeper or creepster? Is that because you crept along

1885
01:44:04,520 --> 01:44:08,880
Speaker 1: or he creeped? You know that? But he did? You know?

1886
01:44:09,000 --> 01:44:12,400
Speaker 1: His nickname is tree from from wood wood of a tree,

1887
01:44:13,040 --> 01:44:16,559
Speaker 1: so everybody calls him a tree. And then how did

1888
01:44:16,600 --> 01:44:21,120
Speaker 1: you become the colonel? And then uh, I don't know that. Well,

1889
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:23,479
Speaker 1: the horns gave me that in in Japan and they

1890
01:44:23,520 --> 01:44:28,080
Speaker 1: don't remember what I did. Uh. So Eddie Floyd called

1891
01:44:28,120 --> 01:44:30,720
Speaker 1: me also Stevie instead of Stevie wonder they call me

1892
01:44:30,760 --> 01:44:36,040
Speaker 1: Stevie Blunder. Did you make it? And I remember Eddie

1893
01:44:36,080 --> 01:44:38,000
Speaker 1: Floyd used to say, you know, if you look at

1894
01:44:38,040 --> 01:44:40,519
Speaker 1: the stea, he's one. He said, you can't see him.

1895
01:44:40,520 --> 01:44:41,960
Speaker 1: He said, if he turns out of what you can.

1896
01:44:44,240 --> 01:44:46,240
Speaker 1: And I was skinny in those days. I guess I

1897
01:44:46,320 --> 01:44:48,920
Speaker 1: don't know. And what about crumpster? What's that all about?

1898
01:44:51,000 --> 01:44:55,880
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Well do you do your friends

1899
01:44:55,920 --> 01:44:58,640
Speaker 1: call your crumpster? I'm trying to think now, since you

1900
01:44:58,680 --> 01:45:02,040
Speaker 1: asked me the question, you know they don't. I'm trying

1901
01:45:02,080 --> 01:45:05,920
Speaker 1: to think what John belushia called me other than Cropper.

1902
01:45:07,640 --> 01:45:09,639
Speaker 1: Most of the guys just say the last name Cropper.

1903
01:45:11,080 --> 01:45:13,240
Speaker 1: And then when you were he was Blushi funny in

1904
01:45:13,320 --> 01:45:18,280
Speaker 1: real in regular life. Yeah. But the thing about Belushi

1905
01:45:18,479 --> 01:45:21,599
Speaker 1: was he never turned down a fan ever. If there

1906
01:45:21,680 --> 01:45:24,320
Speaker 1: was two guys or two hundred guys, he would stay

1907
01:45:24,360 --> 01:45:26,000
Speaker 1: there till it was over with and that was it.

1908
01:45:26,560 --> 01:45:29,120
Speaker 1: And uh, when I was hanging with him in New

1909
01:45:29,200 --> 01:45:31,400
Speaker 1: York and l A, people would jump over cars and

1910
01:45:31,920 --> 01:45:33,720
Speaker 1: jump in front of cars or whatever. If he was

1911
01:45:33,760 --> 01:45:36,679
Speaker 1: across the street hanging out the windows, yelling and screaming

1912
01:45:36,760 --> 01:45:39,519
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. And Roy overs and

1913
01:45:39,640 --> 01:45:41,200
Speaker 1: they did the same thing with Roy. And I'm going

1914
01:45:42,320 --> 01:45:44,080
Speaker 1: I hope I never come in that famous I guess

1915
01:45:44,080 --> 01:45:49,000
Speaker 1: I hadn't. And how's your help? So far, so good,

1916
01:45:49,840 --> 01:45:52,439
Speaker 1: so hopefully you'll be around for another twenty years, Steve,

1917
01:45:52,560 --> 01:45:55,639
Speaker 1: this has been wonderful. There's so many stories I still

1918
01:45:55,680 --> 01:45:57,720
Speaker 1: want to hear, but I think we've come to the

1919
01:45:57,840 --> 01:45:59,760
Speaker 1: end of the feeling for today. Thanks so much for

1920
01:45:59,840 --> 01:46:03,719
Speaker 1: the with this. You better anytime, man, Okay, until next time.

1921
01:46:03,800 --> 01:46:05,080
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sets