Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bottom Left such podcast.
Speaker 1: My Yest today is the one and only legendary Richie
Speaker 1: Furay Ritchie. Good to have you on the podcast. Bob,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for inviting me. This is really
Speaker 1: nice man. I'm I'm excited. Okay, you have a brand
Speaker 1: new album coming out which I listened to. It is
Speaker 1: as good as the hype. It's fantastic, wonderful called in
Speaker 1: the Country. How did this come to be? You know?
Speaker 1: I was doing a concert for the Wild Honey Orchestra group.
Speaker 1: They take um bands like the Beach Boys or the Birds.
Speaker 1: They took Buffalo Springfield and they do they recreate the
Speaker 1: whole catalog. And uh, they invited me out and Val Gray,
Speaker 1: who I've known since way way way back in Buffalo
Speaker 1: Springfield days, he came to the show and he approached
Speaker 1: me and he said, hey, would you like to make
Speaker 1: a record. What do you got in mind? He said, well,
Speaker 1: would you like to do uh country? Uh, some iconic
Speaker 1: country songs? And I said, well, uh, let's start matching
Speaker 1: songs up. Because I didn't know how far back he
Speaker 1: wanted to go. And it might have been too far back,
Speaker 1: you know, But when we first um started the list songs. Uh.
Speaker 1: The very first song that he had on his list
Speaker 1: was a song, believe it or not, that I had
Speaker 1: on my list that I heard back in the nineties,
Speaker 1: a song by John Barry called Your Love Amazes Me.
Speaker 1: And when I saw that we were both on the
Speaker 1: same page for that, I said, let's do it and
Speaker 1: start matching songs. Okay, I did not know that song,
Speaker 1: but that's the best song on the album. Oh wow, man,
Speaker 1: that is I love it, Bob. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I heard it when I was in Montana and I
Speaker 1: was fishing, and I was driving in a car with
Speaker 1: some friends and the radio kept going in and out
Speaker 1: and in and out, and I said, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: catch a line so when I get home, I can
Speaker 1: find out what this song is and who it was
Speaker 1: that did it. And when I found it, manage, I
Speaker 1: loved it, and it was one of VAL's. It was
Speaker 1: both of our first songs on the list. So we
Speaker 1: went from there. U. Well, I love it that you
Speaker 1: love it, man, that's great. Right, Let's talk about Val.
Speaker 1: I've known Vale long time. He says he was there
Speaker 1: when Buffalo Springfield was named, when they were paving the
Speaker 1: street and think came down. Is that match your memory
Speaker 1: or it's too long ago. He's got a better memory
Speaker 1: than me, man, because I don't remember it. All I
Speaker 1: remember is we found a sign on a Buffalo Springfield
Speaker 1: steam roller on Fountain Boulevard or avenue. I don't know
Speaker 1: is a boulevard or avenue. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but and we took it into in the Steven says I,
Speaker 1: I don't know if Vow was around. He was hanging
Speaker 1: out a lot at the time. You know, he had
Speaker 1: his good I think a group of the Great Sunflower
Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't I don't even remember.
Speaker 1: But whether he was there or not, if he wants
Speaker 1: to be there, he can be there today. I don't care. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the rest of the songs on
Speaker 1: the album. How did you choose those? We had a
Speaker 1: list and uh, he sent me a list, and I
Speaker 1: sent him a list, and then we started a sort
Speaker 1: of amount um. I picked I Hope You Dance the
Speaker 1: Leanne Womack uh song, and I picked she Don't Know
Speaker 1: She's Beautiful because I just think of my wife when
Speaker 1: I sing that song. It's such a simple little rock
Speaker 1: and roll song. But you know what I mean, My
Speaker 1: wife is so unassuming and she's just the most beautiful
Speaker 1: thing in my life, you know, and so I just
Speaker 1: I picked that song. There's of course, your love amazes me.
Speaker 1: I picked Lonesome Town because Ricky Nelson had such an
Speaker 1: influence on me early on on Ozzie and Harriet. Let's
Speaker 1: stop there. Tell us about Ricky's influence. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: at the end of every Ossie and Harriet show, Uh,
Speaker 1: he would come on and he would play. But there
Speaker 1: was one significant time uh that that I remember distinctly.
Speaker 1: He maybe I made it up in my mind. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I don't know, but this is
Speaker 1: what I remember. He was singing Bebop Baby over a
Speaker 1: crib to probably David's first child. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it was, boy or a girl. But when it got
Speaker 1: to the last verse, it switched to the high school
Speaker 1: gymnasium and there he was with James Burton and Joe
Speaker 1: Osborne and I don't know who was playing drums. But
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh my gosh, I gotta do this.
Speaker 1: If he can do this, I can do this too.
Speaker 1: That's what I said. Look, not even thinking well, he's
Speaker 1: in a Hollywood family. Man, I'm just living in this
Speaker 1: little town in Yellow Springs, Ohio. You know. But that
Speaker 1: was the impetus, I really I if there was a
Speaker 1: defining moment, that was it watching him sing with just
Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar be Bump babyby be Bump Baby, and
Speaker 1: then boy, when it got to the chorus, it was
Speaker 1: like with the whole band, and it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I love this. Gotta do it, gotta do it, okay,
Speaker 1: And the rest of the tracks on the record, going
Speaker 1: through the rest of them, I actually suggested walking in
Speaker 1: Memphis may be a dispute here, but and and I'm
Speaker 1: already there and in this life and Chalk, which I
Speaker 1: remember as written in chalk, you know already there was
Speaker 1: a song I didn't even know if I was gonna
Speaker 1: be able to sing on the album because Bob, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, every time I listened to that song,
Speaker 1: I just started bawling, just started crying. And and I
Speaker 1: there was something about that song I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, my picture of it is a
Speaker 1: guy that's in the service someplace, calling his wife and
Speaker 1: getting ready to, you know, go overseas and and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know why. It just it just
Speaker 1: hit me. I was I was never in the service,
Speaker 1: I never left my wife like that, you know. And
Speaker 1: but it's just something that just hit me. And there
Speaker 1: would be times I just sit and listen Lone Star
Speaker 1: did the did the song the hit that I remember,
Speaker 1: and um, it was just I just start crying. And
Speaker 1: I just didn't even know if I was ever gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get through it when we recorded it,
Speaker 1: but we made it. Okay. You are one of the
Speaker 1: people responsible for injecting country into rock. Now, I'm a
Speaker 1: little younger than you, and country was pooh pooed at
Speaker 1: the time, even though I, you know, Tom Petty, I
Speaker 1: know was listening to it. So when you were growing
Speaker 1: up in Yellow Springs, to what degree were you listening
Speaker 1: to country music? Well, well, on the radio. I really
Speaker 1: liked what you call rockabilly. I guess you know the
Speaker 1: gene Vincent, um, uh, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can even put Elvis Presley in some of that.
Speaker 1: But Eddie Cochrane, those kind of guys, those are the
Speaker 1: guys that I liked growing up. And um, I think
Speaker 1: there's where I got the country, the country stuff, but
Speaker 1: I also moved from there to do what I love Diona,
Speaker 1: the Belmonts and and uh a little Anthony Imperials and
Speaker 1: songs like that. I had an eclectic mix, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So those who followed your career, you know, you were
Speaker 1: in Buffalo, Springfield, Poco, souther Hillman Furay band, you went solo,
Speaker 1: but then you took a long time to become a preacher.
Speaker 1: So at this point in time, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about your career and how active are you active in
Speaker 1: what way? Well, going on the road, making music, desiring
Speaker 1: more fans, satiating fans, stuff like that. Okay, I get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, um, there there was a time in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been married for fifty five years, Nancy
Speaker 1: and I have and we tried to divorce twice. We
Speaker 1: tried to divorce at three and at seven, and we
Speaker 1: both made it through. Wait wait, wait, I'm really interested man. Okay,
Speaker 1: what caused the intention of divorce and what brought you
Speaker 1: back together both times? Okay? The first time, Uh, Nancy
Speaker 1: wanted the divorce and what was happening. Poco was on
Speaker 1: the road constantly at that time because we you know,
Speaker 1: we we never had when I was in the band,
Speaker 1: We never had the A M hit and that was
Speaker 1: the thing that launches. So you're out there, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just playing every gymnasium or what a little small
Speaker 1: place in towns and we were on the road all
Speaker 1: the time. And tell you the truth, Bob, I just
Speaker 1: got lost. I got I got caught up, and we
Speaker 1: rifted apart, and uh almost uh you know, it almost
Speaker 1: cost me my marriage. I'm interested at that particular point,
Speaker 1: did you or did you not have children? Yes, we
Speaker 1: had one child. We had one child, and Nancy um
Speaker 1: actually the second time then she was pregnant with our
Speaker 1: with our second daughter. But um, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: the circumstances of that first one. Um was was just crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, I was I was just I was lost.
Speaker 1: I was caught up in in music, I was caught
Speaker 1: up in life, I was caught up in in everything.
Speaker 1: And I was actually driven at the time. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a rock and roll star, but little did
Speaker 1: I know what it would cost me. And then that
Speaker 1: led to the second Um, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: years later. Uh, it led me to the to the
Speaker 1: second time when she decided she wanted out of the
Speaker 1: marriage at that point in time, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: the first time, I guess I made a mistake. I
Speaker 1: was thinking I want out of the marriage. The second
Speaker 1: time she wanted out of the marriage. And that was
Speaker 1: the one that was because there's where the Lord caught
Speaker 1: up with both of us along the way. And this
Speaker 1: one has some pretty interesting stuff in it. We were
Speaker 1: recording with Richie Podler at American Recording Studio on on
Speaker 1: Ventura Boulevard, and I remember I went in to do
Speaker 1: uh some uh some background singing with Chris Hellman on
Speaker 1: one of his songs that he had on the album.
Speaker 1: And we were we were just really finishing up the
Speaker 1: record and I didn't think, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: very long, and I left my guitar in the car.
Speaker 1: I had a little Porsche nine eleven at the time.
Speaker 1: Everybody was driving those at the time, you know, And
Speaker 1: and I had my little Porsche out there, and you know,
Speaker 1: we went in and came out at two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, I mean, and it was night and I
Speaker 1: noticed that my windshield had been broken. I noticed that
Speaker 1: the endiction ignition in my car had been stolen, and
Speaker 1: my guitar was gone, and I had no idea, man
Speaker 1: what to do. We reported it to my business manager
Speaker 1: at the time, and then we went off to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Little did I know that my wife had had an
Speaker 1: encounter with Al Perkins, who was in Southern Hillman Furay
Speaker 1: at the time. She had an encounter with his wife
Speaker 1: and she got in the closet and basically she accepted
Speaker 1: the Lord in the colis. She just said, I don't
Speaker 1: She read a book called how Lindsay called um uh
Speaker 1: Satan is alive and well on planet of the Earth,
Speaker 1: and she said, I don't want to have anything to
Speaker 1: do with this, you know, and she made a commitment
Speaker 1: to Christ in her life. Uh, in the closet. We
Speaker 1: went to Hawaii. I didn't even know it, She didn't
Speaker 1: even tell me. And all I know is that we
Speaker 1: had a house. We rented a house from Chip Douglas
Speaker 1: and David Cassidy up on the north shore of Hawaii.
Speaker 1: And um, I mean David was a friend of ours
Speaker 1: at the time, and uh, and of course I knew
Speaker 1: Chip from just days on when he was with the
Speaker 1: Modern fol Quartet and all that we it was just, uh,
Speaker 1: everybody was in the inner circle, but my wife I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure it out. Every morning she'd be reading her Bible.
Speaker 1: And by the time we came home and my business
Speaker 1: people told me we found your get are And I said,
Speaker 1: what makes you Why do you think you found my guitar?
Speaker 1: Said well, it's in a pawn shop out in Pacoima.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, my goodness, you're you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 1: He said, no, the serial numbers match up. You gotta
Speaker 1: go out and get it. Well, on the way out,
Speaker 1: Nancy told me that she had been praying that that
Speaker 1: guitar would be found the whole time we were gone,
Speaker 1: and then explained to me, you know that she had
Speaker 1: accepted the Lord and all that. Well, when we got
Speaker 1: out the Pacoima um, you know, kind of back in
Speaker 1: those days, it was a CD into town, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. I wouldn't even let her get out of
Speaker 1: the car, and I walked in the pawn shop. They
Speaker 1: took me in the back room and dog going with
Speaker 1: my guitar. It was my DT my Martin Dwight, that
Speaker 1: Bob I had written every song that I had ever
Speaker 1: written up to that point in salary human furae on
Speaker 1: and so I mean monetarily, no one could really have it.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't buy the guitar back, but the fact the sentimental
Speaker 1: value of it, and I got it back. I got
Speaker 1: the guitar back, and lie just went on from there.
Speaker 1: But uh man, there's just so much that I mean,
Speaker 1: let's let's focus on the first issue. Why did she
Speaker 1: want to divorce them? Well, when she wanted the divorce, Um, okay,
Speaker 1: let let me just put this together. In my mind,
Speaker 1: I gotta put the two of them together. Um, I
Speaker 1: was gone. I was gone all the time. Her dad
Speaker 1: died when she was seven years old. So she grew
Speaker 1: up with her mom and she didn't have a father
Speaker 1: figure basically in the home. And she saw me out
Speaker 1: on the road, gone all the time, and she didn't
Speaker 1: want to live that life with her, you know, have
Speaker 1: our kids grow up in that same way. And so
Speaker 1: she just decided, you know, I want a divorce because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start I'm gonna have a family, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a father figure in the you know, in
Speaker 1: the in the home. And um, that was the basic
Speaker 1: reason you know that she wanted out of the marriage.
Speaker 1: I was gone, and she just she wasn't going to
Speaker 1: live that life again. And she you know she didn't think.
Speaker 1: So how did it resolve itself? Well, I meant with
Speaker 1: a whole lot of friends. Uh. Al Perkins introduced me
Speaker 1: to a bunch of folks down at Coasta Mesa, California,
Speaker 1: in a in a church called Calvary Chapel down there,
Speaker 1: and I met a lot of friends, and uh, I
Speaker 1: just started really digging into the Bible. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: she had already set accepted the Lord, and so she
Speaker 1: was having a dilemma because you know, I mean, she
Speaker 1: she knew that the scripture says is God doesn't look
Speaker 1: highly upon divorce. So she was having a dilemma. And
Speaker 1: when I finally called her and told her that I
Speaker 1: accepted the Lord, you know, this was like a crisis
Speaker 1: in her life. You know. Oh, no, I gotta bring
Speaker 1: him back home now all that and it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it was just one thing after another. But she finally
Speaker 1: acquiesced and and I came home. I remember um a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine. Oh, this is a funny story.
Speaker 1: When I when I went home the first time, because
Speaker 1: it happened more than once, I had to go. I mean,
Speaker 1: she didn't she didn't buy into it the first time,
Speaker 1: but I was Uh. I was staying with Alan Debbie
Speaker 1: at the Perkins at their house, and Uh, I just
Speaker 1: got this, I got this, I gotta I. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was. It was something just told me
Speaker 1: go home. And I didn't know why. I didn't know
Speaker 1: why I was supposed to go home. And uh I
Speaker 1: walked back in the house and and told Alan Debbie
Speaker 1: that I just I really since I gotta go home.
Speaker 1: We've been we'd we'd been separated for probably four or
Speaker 1: five months at this time. And UM, they said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's take you to the airport. Because
Speaker 1: the message to me basically, and I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: want to get weird and eerie here. But it was
Speaker 1: like go home now. Don't wait two weeks, don't wait
Speaker 1: three days, go home now. It was it was like
Speaker 1: I was I was moved to go and uh they
Speaker 1: took me to the airport and this guy as I
Speaker 1: was walking up to the to the ticket counter, Uh,
Speaker 1: he started singing, picking up the pieces and humming. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my gosh, I gotta deal with this now,
Speaker 1: you know. I looked at this guy's a a big
Speaker 1: six foot guy. Can't even remember his last name. It
Speaker 1: was his first I know his first name was John
Speaker 1: because he was a good friend of mine. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you in a minute. And uh, I acknowledged him, but
Speaker 1: then I ignored him when I started walking down to
Speaker 1: the gate, and of course he was going to Denver
Speaker 1: as well, and he started humming picking up the pieces again.
Speaker 1: So we struck up a little bit of a of
Speaker 1: a conversation, and he said, how are you getting? Are
Speaker 1: you going to Boulder? I said, well, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: and get there. I don't know how I'm gonna get there.
Speaker 1: He said, well, I had a friend that was gonna
Speaker 1: pick me up and and take me to Boulder, but
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to get ahold of him. This
Speaker 1: was way before cell phones and computers and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And he said, let me try and call him one
Speaker 1: more time. And while we're both waiting down here, I
Speaker 1: didn't know how I was going to get home. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how I was gonna get the Boulder. All
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to get to Colorado. And
Speaker 1: he called the guy up and lo and behold it
Speaker 1: was a guy I had done an interview with on
Speaker 1: numerous occasions only, and the last one was probably about
Speaker 1: three or four months earlier, Kenny Weissberg. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know Kenny or not. I do. I hear
Speaker 1: from an email all the time, and Kenny's a great,
Speaker 1: great friend. And he said, Kenny's gonna pick me up.
Speaker 1: He'll take you right up to your house. And so
Speaker 1: it was worked there, and I remember sitting on the
Speaker 1: porch Nancy had gone to get our daughter, Timmy, who
Speaker 1: was in school, and sitting on the steps because I
Speaker 1: tried to do the whole credit card thing to get
Speaker 1: in the door. I didn't have a key anymore, trying
Speaker 1: to do the credit card thing, and uh. When she
Speaker 1: drove up, she looked at me, man, and it was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? You know? And you know,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know. I just I got this
Speaker 1: feeling and I was supposed to come home right now.
Speaker 1: She says, well, I didn't think you're supposed to come
Speaker 1: home right now. What are you doing? But you know, Bob,
Speaker 1: this was probably one of the most sensitive things that
Speaker 1: ever happened to me in my life. Nancy was scheduled
Speaker 1: to have an abortion with our second daughter in that
Speaker 1: next week, and that's what I went home to try
Speaker 1: and get her to stop, and it did. She stopped it,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, she didn't go and have it.
Speaker 1: But that was why I wasn't supposed to go two
Speaker 1: weeks from then, I wasn't supposed to go three weeks.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go right then, and we started
Speaker 1: to talk things out, but she wasn't ready for me
Speaker 1: to come home, but she did. She did cancel her appointment.
Speaker 1: So how did you ultimately come home. Well, we were
Speaker 1: recording the second souther Hillman Furae record up at Cariboo Ranch,
Speaker 1: which was like three miles from my home. And during
Speaker 1: that whole period that we were up there, and this
Speaker 1: is one of the most I when I think back
Speaker 1: on it, it really hurts a lot. Because we had
Speaker 1: Tommy Dowd producing the record. I don't even remember making
Speaker 1: the record. I don't I was so I was so
Speaker 1: disco disconnected to making that record that I don't even
Speaker 1: remember it. I don't even remember with working one of
Speaker 1: the greatest producers of all times, you know. But she
Speaker 1: had me move everything out of my house. I had
Speaker 1: a road manager go up and take the stuff out
Speaker 1: of the house and and all because I couldn't even
Speaker 1: do it. But as we were finished sen up the record,
Speaker 1: she called me and she said, you know, Timmy, our
Speaker 1: first daughter. She said, Timmy wants to come up and
Speaker 1: and see you. And so I said, great, I'd love
Speaker 1: to have her come up and you come up, you know.
Speaker 1: And so they came up and they had dinner, and
Speaker 1: Nancy actually spent the night with me, and uh, and
Speaker 1: we talked and uh, we we kind of started to
Speaker 1: work things out. But even at that, it still would
Speaker 1: take probably about another month before you know, she actu asked.
Speaker 1: And even on the night that I was because I
Speaker 1: went back to California to live with some friends out there. Um, uh,
Speaker 1: even before we started back. Um, the night that, the
Speaker 1: night before I was supposed to leave, I called her up,
Speaker 1: said we're on our way. She said, don't come, don't come. Well, man,
Speaker 1: I had sold my Porsche, bought a pickup truck. I'm
Speaker 1: ready to come to Colorado. And I said, we're coming.
Speaker 1: And so that was basically it, I mean, and it
Speaker 1: and it took work, you know. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 1: something like just flipping on a switch and everything was
Speaker 1: blue sky's, green lights and tops down weather Man. We
Speaker 1: had to we had to work on it, and she
Speaker 1: had to see that I was actually committed to her
Speaker 1: and the marriage and and wasn't so, you know, driven
Speaker 1: anymore by by this rock and roll stuff, because that
Speaker 1: was the thing that I had to decide, do I
Speaker 1: want to be a rock and roll munician musician or
Speaker 1: do I want my family? And I chose my family.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted. And so I met all these
Speaker 1: folks out at Calvary Chapel at Costa Masa, great friends,
Speaker 1: and and that that was how we started. You know,
Speaker 1: I came back and um, it took a while, but
Speaker 1: we we worked out our our differences and here we
Speaker 1: are today. Okay, how did you ultimately go to the
Speaker 1: pulpit from someone who started out as you know, far
Speaker 1: from that. Everybody that I met at Calvary Chapel was
Speaker 1: a pastor. I mean they were young pastors. And some
Speaker 1: of these guys, I mean they had there's a there's
Speaker 1: a book that's out now that talks about some of
Speaker 1: these young pastors that Chuck Smith who was the pastor
Speaker 1: of Calvary Chapel and Cousta mac passed away a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. But some of these guys were like crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy crazy guys, I mean drug dealers. They were like
Speaker 1: they were like crazy guys and they became my friends.
Speaker 1: And when I finally went back to Colorado, we found
Speaker 1: a church and I basically said, Lord, what will you
Speaker 1: have me to do? And I didn't have a clue.
Speaker 1: I was writing some songs with a guy that was
Speaker 1: actually doing what they have where Saturday night concerts at
Speaker 1: Coasta Masa at the time, and I became friends with
Speaker 1: this guy. He actually took me into his house, the
Speaker 1: first guy to take me into the house when Nancy
Speaker 1: and I were separated, and he moved back to Colorado
Speaker 1: later on because we were writing songs together. His name
Speaker 1: was Tom Stipe, and he passed her to church in Denver.
Speaker 1: He too, just passed away a couple about a year ago.
Speaker 1: But uh so one day I was just, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what do you want me to do? Lord? I I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was to be another, you know, put
Speaker 1: another rock and roll band together. It ultimately turned into
Speaker 1: that because the guys that I was now uh talking
Speaker 1: to about who were pastors, some of these guys were
Speaker 1: musicians and I actually used part of them in a
Speaker 1: in a band that Bill Shnay and Michael o'marty and
Speaker 1: both produced with me called I've Got a Reason. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't certainly on my radar that I was going
Speaker 1: to put a band together and uh, just ask the Lord,
Speaker 1: what do you want me to do? And there was
Speaker 1: a little diversion for me actually starting to become a pastor.
Speaker 1: I actually did put a band together with these guys
Speaker 1: and went out and did a little more music together.
Speaker 1: But then that didn't you know, it didn't last long,
Speaker 1: and I, uh, I stepped back, you know, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that my wife knew and that
Speaker 1: I was focused on on my family. She was pregnant
Speaker 1: with our second child and actually had he had to
Speaker 1: check a second child, and so it was oh boy,
Speaker 1: it was man to relive. Some of this is like, uh,
Speaker 1: heavy duty stuff. Man, that's good though, it's good, Okay.
Speaker 1: Subsequent to the demise, we're talking about this period nineteen,
Speaker 1: the demise Southern Hillmansury Bean. You made a number of
Speaker 1: albums on a silo. I did, So, how was that
Speaker 1: relative to the marriage. Well, I owed David Geffen three
Speaker 1: records and basically I've Got a Reason, dance a little light,
Speaker 1: and I still have dreams were the records, uh that
Speaker 1: I made, and the first one, I've Got a Reason,
Speaker 1: was an interesting record because again I was torn. I
Speaker 1: didn't know whether I was going to be a musician.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was gonna be doing, and uh,
Speaker 1: so I made this record, I've Got a Reason. And
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, that record was, um it was it was
Speaker 1: to Jesus for the uh, secular world, and it was
Speaker 1: too secular for the Jesus people or the or the
Speaker 1: Christian market that I was in. Interesting enough, the name
Speaker 1: of Jesus isn't on the record at all. I just
Speaker 1: told about some of my story when Nancy and I
Speaker 1: were uprated, and that's the one that Bill Schney and
Speaker 1: uh and Michael o'marty and produced together. Um. And then uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't go out on the road a lot,
Speaker 1: but we did travel, but I really kept it under control.
Speaker 1: Then dance a Little Light came along, and well, I
Speaker 1: would tell you that, you know when I when when
Speaker 1: I Got a Reason was getting underway, David Geffen did
Speaker 1: call me and he said, you're not gonna give me
Speaker 1: any of that Jesus music, are you? And uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's the time he started to do Donna Summer
Speaker 1: and some of these other people that were, you know,
Speaker 1: really becoming outspoken Christians or whatever. But it was kind
Speaker 1: of funny. I love David. I mean I really, I've
Speaker 1: only had good experiences with him. Lots of people don't
Speaker 1: like him, but you know what, I I've only had
Speaker 1: good experiences with David. Haven't seen him for years, but
Speaker 1: when those things were going on, we were pretty close
Speaker 1: and spent some time together. And and that's why I
Speaker 1: felt obligated to make these records and just finish this commitment,
Speaker 1: you know, without trying to bail out. But by the
Speaker 1: time I made Dance a Little Light, David had left
Speaker 1: Asylum and it was Joe uh oh, gosh, Joe Smith,
Speaker 1: Joe Smith, thank you um and I made Dance a
Speaker 1: Little Light. And each each one of these records became
Speaker 1: less and less about me and who I was with
Speaker 1: my faith, but they were more secular in uh in,
Speaker 1: in scope. But it did nothing. And I remember playing
Speaker 1: at the Roxy, and I remember Asylum, you know, coming down,
Speaker 1: we want to come down and here you and I
Speaker 1: was hoping, boy, they're gonna come down and say get out.
Speaker 1: We don't want you know you're out of your contract.
Speaker 1: We don't want you any more. Well, we blew the
Speaker 1: place apart. I had a band. It was terrific, and
Speaker 1: we blew the place apart. And they said, when are
Speaker 1: you gonna do your next record? Oh man, that that
Speaker 1: one had just come out, you know, but that's what
Speaker 1: they wanted, and that's when I got together and ended
Speaker 1: up doing I Still Have Dreams. That was another interesting
Speaker 1: project because I recorded most of that record the first time.
Speaker 1: I recorded it twice. I recorded it up at Cariboo
Speaker 1: Ranch with my band, with my with my band, and
Speaker 1: when we got done with it, it just it didn't
Speaker 1: have I wanted it to sound more alive. And a
Speaker 1: guy named Charlie Reardon was working with me at the time.
Speaker 1: He was an Asylum UM record uh runner here in Denver,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, let me, you know, call Asylum
Speaker 1: and tell him you're not gonna do it, and we'll
Speaker 1: just call, you know, we'll see, you know what we
Speaker 1: can do. We ended up doing Val Gray and the section,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was like, oh man, I tell you, Bob,
Speaker 1: it was a record that I'll never forget because that's
Speaker 1: one thing with Val that on both records that I've
Speaker 1: done with him, I've been able to sing nine percent
Speaker 1: of the records live while the tracks are going down,
Speaker 1: and most of the time you're always overdubbing, you know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, um, we had already recorded up at Cariboo,
Speaker 1: and I said, I don't like it and I don't
Speaker 1: want to you know, I don't want to put this out.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, let's go out there, l A
Speaker 1: and do it. Man. We'll get the section and get
Speaker 1: uh you know, so Val produced. I still have dream
Speaker 1: teams with you know, Russ Kunkin and Les Clare and
Speaker 1: Dan Doug Moore and and Wadi wak Tell and Craig
Speaker 1: Dergy and there was the band man and you know,
Speaker 1: I still have dreams. Became a top ten radio hit,
Speaker 1: but no one bought it it, uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: so things are kind of like, okay, what now? And
Speaker 1: I think that's when I decided, you know, I need
Speaker 1: to really figure out what I'm gonna do. And that's
Speaker 1: when I started pastoring a church for about thirty five years. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you didn't make another record for fifteen years. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in the details of how you end up getting
Speaker 1: your own church. Did you get involved with the church
Speaker 1: that existed. Did you start your own church? How did
Speaker 1: you start preaching? How did that all happen? Well, basically,
Speaker 1: we started a home Bible study. Nancy and I start
Speaker 1: a home Bible study in our home. We were living
Speaker 1: up off of uh, you know, up in the mountains
Speaker 1: west of Boulder, and there was a neighbor up there
Speaker 1: and said, hey, would you like to He approached me
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, I've heard, you know from another
Speaker 1: neighbor up here that you're a Christian and and um,
Speaker 1: you know, want to do a Bible study. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, we got together on our home and we
Speaker 1: both sat around and it was like, okay, who's gonna
Speaker 1: lead this thing? And nobody did anything, you know. We
Speaker 1: were just sitting there twiddling our thumbs and kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: that was nice. We'll get together some other time, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I went down to the local bookstore and
Speaker 1: I got I'd already come home with a bunch of
Speaker 1: Chuck Smith tapes through the Bible. That's what he did. Uh,
Speaker 1: Calgary Chappell does book by book, verse by verse, and
Speaker 1: so you you got to hit everything or you or
Speaker 1: you don't. It's not topical studies in other words. And
Speaker 1: so I went down and I got I got the
Speaker 1: Book of John, a commentary on the on the Book
Speaker 1: of John, and uh, I said, Okay, when we get
Speaker 1: together again, I'm gonna take over. I'm gonna start and
Speaker 1: lead this thing. And so that's basically how I started doing.
Speaker 1: And I listened to Chuck Smith tapes and I listened
Speaker 1: to and I read, I read commentaries that I got
Speaker 1: at the local bookstore, and you know, we started get
Speaker 1: some more people that would come around to the house
Speaker 1: and and uh, we just had our little home Bible.
Speaker 1: Say that's how the church got started. Okay, so what
Speaker 1: happened after that? After that, I had a friend down
Speaker 1: at which was really Calgary Chapel in Denver, who was
Speaker 1: making worship records at the time, and came to a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who was in our church at the time,
Speaker 1: and um, he was my worship leader, and asked if
Speaker 1: we had some songs to contribute to a worship album
Speaker 1: that we were doing well. By the time we got
Speaker 1: around to it, we had played him ten or twelve songs.
Speaker 1: He said, you've got enough for an album yourself. And
Speaker 1: so we went into studio with this guy, Randy Rigby,
Speaker 1: and John Macy here in Denver, and uh, and we
Speaker 1: recorded in my father's house. And so that was the
Speaker 1: first record that I actually made after Seasons of Change,
Speaker 1: which was really uh that was that was one of
Speaker 1: the last secular Christian when I was I don't like
Speaker 1: to call my my my records or my Christian records
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know. Some of them are more devotional,
Speaker 1: some of them, you know, but they're just in my
Speaker 1: father's house. And I am sure we're two devotional records
Speaker 1: that came out of that accounter with Randy Rigby and
Speaker 1: and John Macy. Okay, but that was already I got
Speaker 1: way ahead of myself here. So you're having Bible study
Speaker 1: in your house, you're leading that. How do you end
Speaker 1: up with your own church? Well, as it turned out, um,
Speaker 1: in the Bible study that we did, people came to
Speaker 1: me and they said, you know, because the Bible study
Speaker 1: was growing, and they said, when are we going to
Speaker 1: start church? And I'm trying to think that must have
Speaker 1: been about a d two or eighty three somewhere, maybe
Speaker 1: two somewhere and there. I can't remember. Man, it's like beep, beep,
Speaker 1: beep beep. Their short circuiting. But they came and they
Speaker 1: said and I basically told him, I said, well, when
Speaker 1: the Lord leads, well, some of them decided they were
Speaker 1: in a hurry to get started, and so they kind
Speaker 1: of broke off from our little Bible study and they
Speaker 1: started their own thing on on Sunday mornings, and it
Speaker 1: just flopped and went nowhere. And in the meantime, I
Speaker 1: went looking for a building, you know, that maybe we
Speaker 1: could meet in with the rest of the people. And
Speaker 1: so that's what we did. I found a little Seventh
Speaker 1: day Baptist church on the corner of a Rapaho and
Speaker 1: Ninth Street and Boulder, and they didn't meet on Sundays,
Speaker 1: and so we we started meeting on Sundays in in
Speaker 1: that place that we I took the rest of that
Speaker 1: Bible study over there, and actually we just we started church.
Speaker 1: We just we're Calgary Chapel a Boulder at the time.
Speaker 1: No no seminary, no nothing, just Chuck Smith tapes and
Speaker 1: the way we go. Okay, so you recently retired, when
Speaker 1: you retired and passed the baton, how big was the church?
Speaker 1: How many people would come? You know, My wife and
Speaker 1: I were just talking about this, and our church was
Speaker 1: always pretty small. And as she said, we had between
Speaker 1: two hundred and two undred fifty people, you know, counting kids. Right,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good size. I have to ask because it
Speaker 1: is the music business. Yeah, your deal with the asylum
Speaker 1: is over. What are you doing for money? Living? Financially?
Speaker 1: I had the church, but I also would go out
Speaker 1: and I would play some concerts because this one band
Speaker 1: that I had with Randy Rigby, UM, we actually did
Speaker 1: some churches. And then Kenny called me and he said, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to come out to um? Uh what
Speaker 1: what did it by the bay out there in San Diego?
Speaker 1: Um Humphreys Humphrey. Yeah, And he said would you like
Speaker 1: to come out now? It's been probably ten years, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I got this little band, but Kenny,
Speaker 1: I haven't played. I just don't know if I can do.
Speaker 1: I'll find the show for you. And he called me
Speaker 1: back in about a month and he said, I got
Speaker 1: the perfect show for you to do. And he said
Speaker 1: as Steven Stills. I said, really, And I thought about
Speaker 1: it and I talked to my to my buddy at
Speaker 1: the time that was he was like my band because
Speaker 1: he played guitar, ban Joe and do Bro and all
Speaker 1: kinds of it was just the two offus we were.
Speaker 1: He said, we can do this, and so we put
Speaker 1: about seven or eight songs together and one out and
Speaker 1: open for Steven Stills, and the next thing I know,
Speaker 1: you know, we've we're going out back and forth to
Speaker 1: Calvary to Humphreys by the Bay. Kenny had us out
Speaker 1: there six times, and each time I had a little
Speaker 1: more of a band, a little bit bigger of a band.
Speaker 1: And so I'm actually playing music on um you know,
Speaker 1: I'm taking time off from from the church. Not lengthy time,
Speaker 1: so I would I would never be away from the
Speaker 1: church for more than probably two weeks at a time.
Speaker 1: And that was that was like very rare that I
Speaker 1: would do that maybe a week. But that's how all
Speaker 1: of that just started. Kenny was really the impetus behind
Speaker 1: all of that off but he he had his plan
Speaker 1: with the Emmy Lou Harris, and then he had his
Speaker 1: plan with Poco, and he had his plan. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had us doing all kinds of concerts out there. Okay,
Speaker 1: so tell me about how you decided to retire as
Speaker 1: a pastor, and it appears that you're more invested in
Speaker 1: music subsequent to that. Tell me, what's going through your brain? There? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: You know, once you really have music, it's always there.
Speaker 1: And I not only had had recorded in my father's
Speaker 1: house and I am sure, but then I recorded Heartbeat
Speaker 1: of Love. I did Alive the double C D with
Speaker 1: my band. I did Heartbeat of Love and I did.
Speaker 1: I am sure. But but what's going on here? Is
Speaker 1: pose the question again? I'm sorry man, I'm getting old. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: you know you have a thirty five year career as
Speaker 1: a pastor. How did you decide to retire? And it
Speaker 1: appears that you're refocusing on music? But tell me what
Speaker 1: you feel. Well? See, I never walked away from music.
Speaker 1: Always made these records on my own, went to next film,
Speaker 1: made him. But here's what happened with the church after
Speaker 1: thirty five years. Um, you know, my life has always
Speaker 1: been giving. It's always whether it's been music, whether it's
Speaker 1: been the church. You know, you're you're always doing it.
Speaker 1: And I came down with Bell's palsy. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know what Bell's palsy was. And this was like two
Speaker 1: days before Christmas. Um, and uh, my wife and I
Speaker 1: are having breakfast and he she says, she said, are
Speaker 1: you okay, I said, yeah, what's wrong? She said, well,
Speaker 1: it looks like the whole left side of your face
Speaker 1: is just drooping. And so we headed over to the
Speaker 1: doctor and the next thing, I know, you know, they
Speaker 1: diagnosed it the best they could and said, you got
Speaker 1: Bell's palsy. After putting me in that little tube that man,
Speaker 1: I just I can't. I'm claustrophobic and can't do that thing.
Speaker 1: But they finally got me in it. Man, they drugged
Speaker 1: me up enough they got me in it. And you know,
Speaker 1: Nancy and I just talked and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think I was seventy five at the time, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, we've we've we we've really
Speaker 1: put a lot of time in and probably have neglected ourselves.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time just to step away so that I
Speaker 1: don't always you know, I don't always have to be
Speaker 1: in one place at one time. Let's just start focusing
Speaker 1: on ourselves. And bobbed us basically, what really caused me
Speaker 1: to step away from the church apter thirty five years.
Speaker 1: We just wanted to spend more time with ourselves, with
Speaker 1: our kids, with our grandkids, and just you know, just
Speaker 1: really uh um, you know, living our life together. Here
Speaker 1: we are old people, you know, but we're still wanting
Speaker 1: to you know, we're I wrote that song called hand
Speaker 1: in Hand. You know, after all these years, we're still
Speaker 1: going hand in hand. And we just that was really
Speaker 1: the what was behind it. We just wanted or I
Speaker 1: just wanted to step away from having the commitment of
Speaker 1: having to be at church and serving and doing this
Speaker 1: and do it. I wanted to. I wanted to focus
Speaker 1: on my wife, which maybe I should have done even
Speaker 1: ten years earlier, but who knew. But it took Bell's
Speaker 1: palsy to really, you know, put me in that uh,
Speaker 1: in that frame of mind to start thinking about that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Bells pausy doesn't go away. So how is your
Speaker 1: Bell's pauls? It's great, you know, And I was. It
Speaker 1: was like it was almost like a miracle. Mine lasted
Speaker 1: maybe maybe six to seven, maybe two months, two months.
Speaker 1: My friend and I spoke about earlier Tom Stipe, who
Speaker 1: was a pastor that just passed away. That was my
Speaker 1: good friend. I wrote quite a few songs with him
Speaker 1: and I've got a reason and uhh, yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: a reason to dance. He got it and he had
Speaker 1: it for a long time. I mean, he really did
Speaker 1: have it for a long time. But uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can wink at you right now with both eyes. And
Speaker 1: it was crazy though, Man, I never even heard of
Speaker 1: Bell's palsy. I didn't even know what it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a friend who had it. And so in
Speaker 1: any event, you're stepping away from the church, is music
Speaker 1: just one thing you're doing, or you refocusing and devoting
Speaker 1: more time to music A little bit of both. You know.
Speaker 1: I stepped away and I had a band together at
Speaker 1: the time, and we were actually um uh there were
Speaker 1: some crisis is that went on in the church after
Speaker 1: after I stepped down and turned it over. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I necessarily need to get into him, but
Speaker 1: I had some things booked. I had actually David had
Speaker 1: had actually encouraged me to do the delivering uh c D.
Speaker 1: And um you know, I already was playing all but
Speaker 1: three songs, uh you know, at a various times, uh,
Speaker 1: in my in my sets, and so I was doing that,
Speaker 1: I was focusing on music. I wasn't focused. I never
Speaker 1: have focused on it, like, Okay, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have another career and do that again. I never
Speaker 1: thought about that. And so around the same time. You know,
Speaker 1: that's when Val kind of approached me not too long
Speaker 1: after that about in and Um. So, I mean it's
Speaker 1: always been music. And you know, one thing that I've
Speaker 1: been very um, I've been very proud of that I've
Speaker 1: been able to write music that I really feel is
Speaker 1: is good music, you know. I mean it's really good
Speaker 1: music on heartbeat of love and and and I am sure.
Speaker 1: So I've been creative. I haven't just sat around and
Speaker 1: twiddled my thumbs. And I've always been creative. And when
Speaker 1: something came around to write some music and some songs,
Speaker 1: I've done that. And um, and been fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: have some good people to play with. I got some
Speaker 1: great people right now, Dan one of them, who's sitting
Speaker 1: back here with me, who's helping to tape this, and
Speaker 1: and on, and my daughter Jesse, and then I've got
Speaker 1: some other friends in San Diego. Because I had some issues,
Speaker 1: I had to break up my band that I actually
Speaker 1: played with longer than I ever played with any other
Speaker 1: band in my life. So how come you have to
Speaker 1: break him up because I was betrayed? Yeah, I will
Speaker 1: leave that of that. Let's go back to the beginning. Okay,
Speaker 1: Yellow Springs Ohio was a college town. So what were
Speaker 1: your parents doing there when you were growing up? My
Speaker 1: dad and mom had a drug store. Now my dad
Speaker 1: was not a pharmacist, but he owned the business. He
Speaker 1: owned the drug store, and um, he passed away when
Speaker 1: he was forty five years old. I was thirteen years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had an aortic aneurysm. And I can remember it
Speaker 1: to this day when the ambulance pulled up in front
Speaker 1: of our house at six one six Zeni Avenue, and um,
Speaker 1: you know they were they were carrying him away and
Speaker 1: that was it. I mean, you know, it's like John
Speaker 1: Ritter when he passed away. If you're not in the
Speaker 1: hospital and something like that, uns, you're done. And he
Speaker 1: was done. But they were business people and um, you know,
Speaker 1: my mom then after after he passed away several years,
Speaker 1: uh you know, sold the business of the drug store
Speaker 1: and opened up a gift shop and uh and all
Speaker 1: and so they were they were business people in town.
Speaker 1: How the family just my sister and uh, she's three
Speaker 1: years older than I am. Just saw her last week
Speaker 1: at the coach House, which was really sweet, and her
Speaker 1: whole family. So what kind of kid were you? Good student?
Speaker 1: Bad student? Popular, not popular. I was a terrible student.
Speaker 1: I would like to think that I I was a
Speaker 1: popular student. Uh My. My graduating class at Brian High
Speaker 1: School in Yellow Springs was forty six people, so I
Speaker 1: mean it was very small, and I'd like to think
Speaker 1: I ran with the with the in crowd, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that, But who knows me. Did
Speaker 1: you play any music in high school? I did basically though,
Speaker 1: from the junior high to just into high school. Uh
Speaker 1: is when I played most of the music because it
Speaker 1: was popular. Music wasn't really the popular thing to do
Speaker 1: at the time. The popular thing to do was to
Speaker 1: be an athlete, and so I really started focusing on
Speaker 1: baseball factors. When I went to college, I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to I thought I really wanted to pursue a
Speaker 1: baseball career. And I got the I got the college man,
Speaker 1: and I went to the team. Well that's not gonna work,
Speaker 1: is So I think, I think I'll be an actor.
Speaker 1: Then you know what happened. Man, my roommate he was.
Speaker 1: He he was an actor, and here we are freshmen,
Speaker 1: and we both tried out for the first play and
Speaker 1: we went into the into the room you know where
Speaker 1: they have the list of you know, and he got
Speaker 1: the lead into play and I had to go clear
Speaker 1: down to the cleared down to the chorus to find hours.
Speaker 1: So I said, well, this isn't gonna work either, and so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of thumbing along at that time,
Speaker 1: not knowing what I was gonna do. I met two guys,
Speaker 1: Bob Harmelenke and Nels Gustuson, and they were they were
Speaker 1: good friends. I did win the college talent show. I sang.
Speaker 1: They called the win Mariah. And so that's where we
Speaker 1: picked up and we became we became the campus folk singers.
Speaker 1: We went around from otter Vine in Westerville, Ohio, Ohio,
Speaker 1: Staton around there and singing, you know. And and that's
Speaker 1: when we went off to New York later on, you know,
Speaker 1: on on the Acapella Choir tour. Okay, so how long
Speaker 1: were you in college here and a half. I actually
Speaker 1: had a rupture dependix my sit my sophomore year and
Speaker 1: I never went back. At Christmas time, I never went back.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide not to go back? And
Speaker 1: what did you do that? Well, college wasn't for me, man.
Speaker 1: I went to college because it was the it seemed
Speaker 1: like the thing to do at that time. I was
Speaker 1: following in the footsteps of my sister, she went to
Speaker 1: atter Vine and all. But the one thing that really
Speaker 1: um attracted, I mean that that kept me kind of
Speaker 1: hooked into college was there was an acapella choir tour
Speaker 1: that was planned for the spring of my sophomore year
Speaker 1: that was going to New York and Bob and Nels
Speaker 1: and I who were doing all the Peter Paul and
Speaker 1: Mary Kingston trio and and all those songs, you know,
Speaker 1: and we were gonna go in uh downtown in the city,
Speaker 1: and we were we were going to become the next,
Speaker 1: you know, the next big thing in in New York,
Speaker 1: you know. And here I have I have a rupture
Speaker 1: to panics, and I said, I I school didn't appeal
Speaker 1: to me. And I was able to talk to college
Speaker 1: into allowing me to go on that choir tour if
Speaker 1: I came up for the rehearsals. And so I would
Speaker 1: drive up to Westerville, you know, probably two times a week.
Speaker 1: I was working at a place called Pratt and Whitney
Speaker 1: Aircraft making tire no no no no no Morris meaning
Speaker 1: company uh making um tire castings at the time at
Speaker 1: home and then driving up there to um to uh
Speaker 1: do the rehearsals. And you know, they allowed me to
Speaker 1: go on that trip. And that's how it all got started,
Speaker 1: you know, from way back when we went down into
Speaker 1: the village on a Saturday night on our on our
Speaker 1: day off, and Nell's who could sell you anything. I
Speaker 1: get a load of this, this is good. He he
Speaker 1: went up to these clubs and uh, I think we
Speaker 1: played at the Village Gate and I think we also
Speaker 1: played at the four not the we did play at
Speaker 1: the Four Wins, but at the Cafe Wah. But here's
Speaker 1: the catch. We played as they turned the audience over.
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought, man, this is the big time.
Speaker 1: But you know, this was the time when tourists were
Speaker 1: coming through the village, you know, and folk music was
Speaker 1: the big thing. And they said, sure, man, you can play. Well,
Speaker 1: we're getting the people out and the other people in,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's what we did. But Bobby was
Speaker 1: enough to sell me man that Uh. You know, we
Speaker 1: went back that that next summer. I talked the guys
Speaker 1: in the on back that summer and and um we
Speaker 1: one of the other little clubs we played out was
Speaker 1: a past the basket place called the Four Winds, and uh,
Speaker 1: that's that was that's where I met Stephen. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you went back and worked in the tire planted for
Speaker 1: a year and then came back to New York City.
Speaker 1: It actually wasn't a year when when when the tour
Speaker 1: was over, when the Apell acquired tour was over, we
Speaker 1: went back and they finished their sophomore year. So I
Speaker 1: only went back to that tire company. Morris beIN a
Speaker 1: company for probably what another three months or so before
Speaker 1: we all went back to New York around probably June
Speaker 1: or July something like that. So how do you meet
Speaker 1: Steven Still? He was in the same pack. I I
Speaker 1: contacted Johns Hopkins, who was the kind of like the
Speaker 1: manager of the Four Winds, and um, man, I was
Speaker 1: kind of stupid, you know, I mean, can we come
Speaker 1: back and work at your club? Well, of course you can.
Speaker 1: It's a pasta basket place. I don't have to pay you,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, he didn't say that. But so
Speaker 1: I went back and Stephen was doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: He was in that same club, and um uh, and
Speaker 1: that's where we met. And so we started, you know,
Speaker 1: becoming we became friends. Okay. Was it a natural connection,
Speaker 1: you know, you bonded, or was it more like, this
Speaker 1: is a business, how can we make it work? Now,
Speaker 1: it was definitely a bonding thing, and but at that
Speaker 1: time it was just I appreciate you, and he appreciated us.
Speaker 1: He he liked us and and Bob and Nells and
Speaker 1: it was very friendly and Stephen was an outgoing guy
Speaker 1: and so so we hit it off. But there was
Speaker 1: a guy his name was Eddie Miller, and he came
Speaker 1: to us at one time and he he had he
Speaker 1: had I'm not sure if he was managing this group
Speaker 1: that was working up on eighth I think it was
Speaker 1: Eighth Street. They were called the Bass Singers, and there
Speaker 1: was a guy named Roy Michaels in that band who
Speaker 1: was in Cap Mother and the All Night Newsboys. But
Speaker 1: but but that was a group, another folk group. They
Speaker 1: were kind of like more uptown than we were. And
Speaker 1: he took that group and took my group with Bob
Speaker 1: and Nells and Stephen, and then he took Roy Michaels,
Speaker 1: who was in the Bay Singers, his girlfriend Kathy King
Speaker 1: and put us together as like a new Christie minstrel
Speaker 1: serendipity singer backporch majority whatever you know. We ended up
Speaker 1: being called the Go Go Singers after the Cafe a
Speaker 1: Go Go the hair in the city. But he put
Speaker 1: us together and we we uh we in in a
Speaker 1: sixth probably in a six month period of time, we
Speaker 1: did a Rudy Valley on Broadway to night television show.
Speaker 1: We did a off Broadway play that was off off
Speaker 1: Broadway in two weeks. Very quickly, we did a supper
Speaker 1: club tour of Texas, and I'm trying to think there
Speaker 1: was one other thing we made that record for for
Speaker 1: Roulette Records called they call us a Go Go Singers.
Speaker 1: So we did all of that, then it broke up.
Speaker 1: And when it broke up, uh, Steven's the Bass Singers,
Speaker 1: I guess had booked a little tour across Canada, and
Speaker 1: Stephen went with them as their lead singer because they
Speaker 1: really didn't have a lead singer. And that's where he
Speaker 1: met Neil Young in Toronto, and so he told Neil man,
Speaker 1: come on down to to New York or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: if you need to do anything down there, because we've
Speaker 1: kept an apartment down there, and I would come down
Speaker 1: and and stay at the apartment and do auditions in
Speaker 1: New York myself when I was working up at Pratt
Speaker 1: and Whitney Aircraft, because I was working at Pratt and
Speaker 1: Whitney at the time. Okay, you're in the Go Go Singers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you end up working at Pratt? And when
Speaker 1: when the group broke up, I needed to eat and
Speaker 1: doing auditions wasn't paying me anything. But there were things
Speaker 1: that we're going on. Uh, you know, I called my
Speaker 1: cousin who um uh you mentioned in the in in
Speaker 1: your liner notes of the of the Delivering record, you know,
Speaker 1: my cousin up at Pratt and Whitney, and uh he
Speaker 1: convinced you know, I con tim basically that I was
Speaker 1: in for the gold Watch and u uh he had
Speaker 1: me come up and I was actually uh dating basically
Speaker 1: one of the uh the girls in the base thing
Speaker 1: or her sister at the time. They lived in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: So I went up and and stayed with that family
Speaker 1: while I commuted from Wilbraham down to East Hartford. And um,
Speaker 1: so that's how I started working at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft.
Speaker 1: And UM, I don't want to get ahead on myself here.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I got all that right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically when when the Agogla Singers broke up,
Speaker 1: I just needed to eat. And a living across the
Speaker 1: street from me in New York City, though, was Graham Parsons.
Speaker 1: And Graham's the one that really kind of I gotta
Speaker 1: say he was. He was really a force in getting
Speaker 1: me to call Stephen to find out what he was doing,
Speaker 1: because there was nothing happening for me. I was handing
Speaker 1: out tools in the tool crib, and I was probably
Speaker 1: gonna be handing out tools in the tool crib until
Speaker 1: the day I died if something didn't happen. And what
Speaker 1: happened was Graham brought the Bird's first record up to
Speaker 1: me and he said, you got to hear this. This
Speaker 1: is fantastic. And when I listened to it Bob and
Speaker 1: heard it, it was like I never heard anything like it.
Speaker 1: Here's Bob Dylan electric. You know, It's like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is terrific. And so I got ahold of Stephen,
Speaker 1: and um, I think, as you elated to in in
Speaker 1: the in the liner notes, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to get ahold of Stephen, but I contacted his dad,
Speaker 1: sent him a letter, give me Steven's address, give me
Speaker 1: is you know, give me somehow to get in touch
Speaker 1: with him. And I waited and I waited, I wait
Speaker 1: and I waited, and I thought, oh my gosh, the
Speaker 1: letter did never reach him because he was in El
Speaker 1: Salvador and I had I mean, I was, I don't
Speaker 1: even know how I had that address. I really don't
Speaker 1: to this day know how I had that address. But
Speaker 1: the letter came back no postage, not enough, not enough postage,
Speaker 1: and it was like, oh my gosh, Uh so I've
Speaker 1: got enough postage, sent it back, and you know what,
Speaker 1: within two or three weeks, I was in touch with Stephen.
Speaker 1: He had moved from his he was up in San
Speaker 1: Francisco with it at his mom and had moved down
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles and he said, hey, come on out
Speaker 1: to l A. I've got a band together. All I
Speaker 1: need is another singer. We're ready to go. And I said,
Speaker 1: let me take care of business here and I'll be
Speaker 1: out there now. That was pretty bold on me because
Speaker 1: I had also heard Stephen a couple of months earlier
Speaker 1: try to put a night owl, uh love and spoonful
Speaker 1: type band together and it was awful handy, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a train wreck. Actually, I backed Stephen and
Speaker 1: I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: he didn't even remember doing it, so you know it
Speaker 1: it had to be bad, man. But uh, handing out
Speaker 1: tools into tool croup sounded better. So for me to say,
Speaker 1: I'm on my way to go clear across country, man,
Speaker 1: this was a big step. And uh, interestingly enough, when
Speaker 1: I got out there, I waited at the at the
Speaker 1: l A Airport, and I watched all these little yellow
Speaker 1: they looked like vacuum cleaners driving around that little circle
Speaker 1: on the at the airport. Man. It was it was
Speaker 1: like these little cars, man, And the one that stuck
Speaker 1: out was a bright yellow car. They were Porsches, you know,
Speaker 1: these nine eleven Porsches, and and watch them go around
Speaker 1: and go around and go around and find a little
Speaker 1: v w you know, keep packed up and and and
Speaker 1: stopped in front of me, you know. And it was
Speaker 1: it was Stephen and he was with Dickie Davis, and uh,
Speaker 1: uh you know, we went back to I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was Dickie's house or Steven's apartment or whatever,
Speaker 1: but that was how we, you know, the whole thing started.
Speaker 1: But when I got there, there was no band. It
Speaker 1: was me and him, and it was like, oh boy,
Speaker 1: what have I done now, you know, because this was
Speaker 1: like I come all the way across country, I've i've
Speaker 1: I've quit my job, and there's no band. He had
Speaker 1: told me all I need is another singer, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: but when I get But you know what, that all
Speaker 1: worked out perfect. And it worked out perfect because for
Speaker 1: probably a month, maybe three weeks, three to four weeks,
Speaker 1: we sat in this little apartment on Fountain Avenue, sitting
Speaker 1: right across from one another. Stephen had written all the
Speaker 1: songs that he wrote for the first Buffalo Springfield Record,
Speaker 1: and we learned to harmonize, we learned a phrase, We
Speaker 1: learned to sing in unison because the Beatles were like
Speaker 1: you know, they were like that, yeah man, and so
Speaker 1: it was like the Lennon and McCartney. And then when
Speaker 1: and when Lennon McCartney sang together, yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: were three, you know, with George Harrison and Paul and
Speaker 1: George and John they were all lead singers. But then
Speaker 1: Paul and John would sing together, and so Steve and
Speaker 1: I learned to sing unison. We learned to sing harmony,
Speaker 1: we learned a phrase, and so when we went in
Speaker 1: to make the record, which was actually at gold Star
Speaker 1: on a four track, you know, uh, you know, some
Speaker 1: of some of the singing we had already just we
Speaker 1: had already leveled it, you know, but we hadn't at
Speaker 1: Neil yet. It was just me and him. Okay, So
Speaker 1: how did the band ultimately come together? And how long
Speaker 1: did it take? You know, I don't know the time frame.
Speaker 1: We had a guy, Barry Friedman, who was working with us.
Speaker 1: Uh later changed his name to Fraser Mohawk and uh,
Speaker 1: he was he was he was helping us out. Um
Speaker 1: and Stephen and I were kind of like living up
Speaker 1: in a little place in front of his house. In
Speaker 1: the back. He was working with another group called Maston
Speaker 1: and Brewer, which later became Brewer and Brewer and then
Speaker 1: Brewer and Shipley. Uh so it was Tom Maston and
Speaker 1: and and Mike Brewer and UM. They were putting a
Speaker 1: band together. Barry didn't think that we were ready, so
Speaker 1: he took us down his screen Gems and Stephen that
Speaker 1: was when Steven sold sit Down, I Think I Love
Speaker 1: You two screen Gems and the Mojo Men made a
Speaker 1: hit out of it. I sold a song called My
Speaker 1: Kind Of love. We both sold him for a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks man and that was it. But but I think
Speaker 1: Stephen did better than I did with with Mojo Man.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Um, that's that's what helped us live for
Speaker 1: a little bit. And we just kept doing our thing
Speaker 1: until one day we're on Sunset Boulevard and I have
Speaker 1: no idea. Um, you know, Barry didn't think we were ready,
Speaker 1: and but we were hanging out with him and we
Speaker 1: were driving down Sunset Boulevard. We were actually going west
Speaker 1: and he was uh and and Neil, I'm sorry, we
Speaker 1: were going east. We were coming east. Neil and Bruce
Speaker 1: in Niel's old hearse with Ontario license plates. Kind of
Speaker 1: we crossed right there. I don't know what the intersection is,
Speaker 1: but it used to be Ben Frank's and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is that what is it
Speaker 1: that uh today changed to a chain? But you're just
Speaker 1: west of Lasiana, Yeah, La Sienega and there's a traffic cam.
Speaker 1: Figure it out. Figure it out. No, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like fate happening right a way, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean Steven has already been a friend of of Nil's.
Speaker 1: Neil had come down to New York to pedal songs
Speaker 1: and I I met him down there. He actually taught me.
Speaker 1: Nowadays Clancy can't even sing at that particular time. But
Speaker 1: here we are on Sunset Boulevard. They have been there,
Speaker 1: Bruce and and Neil had been there for I don't
Speaker 1: know for weeks anyway, And again this is well before
Speaker 1: cell phones and computers, and you know, nobody knew how
Speaker 1: to get in in touch with one another. And Bruce
Speaker 1: and and Neil were leaving town. They were heading west
Speaker 1: on on Sunset Boulevard to the four oh five to
Speaker 1: go to San Francisco. They were done with l A.
Speaker 1: And there we were, man right there at that little
Speaker 1: intersection or nearby where where Ben Franks was and and uh,
Speaker 1: Stephen or and I. I. I've heard so many stories
Speaker 1: of how it happened, But in our car, I don't
Speaker 1: know who it was, if it was me or here
Speaker 1: you nobody. Wow, look at that. That's gotta be new
Speaker 1: young man, and that stupid looking Hurst man with Ontario
Speaker 1: license plate. And sure enough, man in the middle of
Speaker 1: a traffic jam, we got everybody turned around and pulled
Speaker 1: into Ben Frank's parking lot and there was Neil. We
Speaker 1: took him back to the apartment, played him some of
Speaker 1: the things that we were doing that Stephen and I
Speaker 1: were working on steven songs and I had actually played
Speaker 1: and taught Stephen. Nowadays, Clancy can't even sing at the time,
Speaker 1: so we were able to like audition that if you
Speaker 1: will for Neil, and he was sold. And so now
Speaker 1: we've got a We've got a two lead guitar players
Speaker 1: and a realthic guitar player and a bass player. We
Speaker 1: need a drummer. But there's the beginnings of the band
Speaker 1: right there. How does it become the band? How does
Speaker 1: it become Buffalo Springfield? How do you get a record deal? Well,
Speaker 1: we became a band. Um Again, Barry was trying to
Speaker 1: put us together with a couple other people, and he
Speaker 1: tried to put us together with Billy Mundy and I
Speaker 1: love Billy, Billy say sweet guy. Um but um it
Speaker 1: didn't work. And somehow another David Crosby and Chris Hillman
Speaker 1: both you know, had found out about us and knew
Speaker 1: that we were looking for a drummer. And they were
Speaker 1: being managed by uh dis uh Tickner and Dixon at
Speaker 1: the time, and the Dillards were also being were managed
Speaker 1: by them, and they were a blue grass group that
Speaker 1: had tried to you know, put bass and drums, make
Speaker 1: you know, make it a little more lively with stuff,
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't working for him. And Dewey Martin
Speaker 1: was their drummer, and so it all turned around that
Speaker 1: Dewey was introduced to us and um uh so when
Speaker 1: he auditioned, he said, the only thing, you know, if
Speaker 1: if he gets it, the only thing he wanted to
Speaker 1: do is be able to sing a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: because he said, I sing like Wilson Pickett. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: we listened to Dewey and you and you know Bob
Speaker 1: so often it's like this. You know, it might not
Speaker 1: be the greatest players, might not be the greatest singers
Speaker 1: or whatever, but you know what, it worked. It worked
Speaker 1: somehow with Bruce and Dewey. Bruce was a phenomenal bass player.
Speaker 1: Dewey was a very simple drummer, you know, but it
Speaker 1: just worked for us. And and that's that's what, you know,
Speaker 1: The band worked like that, and it wasn't. Man, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was. Uh, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much it was weeks you know that we were actually
Speaker 1: going out and we were opening up for the Birds
Speaker 1: doing some of their concerts at that time, and it
Speaker 1: was like crazy. And then then we became the house
Speaker 1: band along with the Doors and Love and um Um
Speaker 1: maybe leaves in a couple of the other bands, you know,
Speaker 1: the l A bands at the time at the Whiskey
Speaker 1: Igogo thanks to Chris and and and David at the
Speaker 1: same time. You know. But that was how you know
Speaker 1: it all started. You know, they heard us and they
Speaker 1: got us. Uh, they got us, Dewey, and Dewey was
Speaker 1: satisfied and uh, there you go. Okay, tell us the
Speaker 1: story of how you name it Buffalo Springfield and how
Speaker 1: you actually get the record deal. Okay, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have much money at that time, so I
Speaker 1: think we'd I think we're going out to Pioneer Chicken.
Speaker 1: You remember Pioneer Man. That is the best cheap chicken
Speaker 1: in town. And I gotta jelly. I loved it, man.
Speaker 1: And so we had gone down to Pioneer Chicken Man
Speaker 1: and got some chicken, and we're coming back and there
Speaker 1: was there was a steam roller. They were doing some
Speaker 1: work on Fountain is an avenue or Bulevard It is avenue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on Fountain Avenue and there was a Buffalo Springfield steam
Speaker 1: Rollers that was there, and somebody, I don't know who
Speaker 1: it was, I'm not gonna take credit for it, took
Speaker 1: one of the ten signs off and um came back
Speaker 1: to Barry's house in the way I remember it man
Speaker 1: as we put it up on the Barry Friedman's Uh.
Speaker 1: He had a little fireplace in his house, put it
Speaker 1: up on the mantel and said, looks like a name.
Speaker 1: You know, now we've got a name for the band,
Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield and uh. Um. I don't know how long
Speaker 1: it was that we got introduced to Charlie Green and
Speaker 1: Brian Stone. Um they were they were managing Sunny and
Speaker 1: Share at the time. You know, I can't remember how
Speaker 1: they became involved with us. Uh, Barry must have introduced us.
Speaker 1: Um I'm an rdigan. Oh gosh, I'm I'm I feel
Speaker 1: like uh, I feel like I'm really old. Now I'm
Speaker 1: short circuiting because I can't remember this this exact little
Speaker 1: part about how who introduced. For some reason, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: that I'm an Erdigan introduced us to Charlie and Brian.
Speaker 1: But Charlie and Brian had Sonny and Share. I don't
Speaker 1: know how there's a there's something going on there. I'll
Speaker 1: have to go back and read one of my stories
Speaker 1: when I was younger to see if I remember. Man. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what does Ahmed say about the band? I'm an erdigan.
Speaker 1: Loved the band. He was knocked out. I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean he really, he really loved the band. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember around the time the Buffalo Springfield
Speaker 1: was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he got up there and there were almost
Speaker 1: tears in his eyes that he he was talking about
Speaker 1: the time when uh, you know, we we broke up. Basically, Um,
Speaker 1: he was he was, he was a good man, and
Speaker 1: we really liked domand a lot and Ahmad really uh
Speaker 1: he supported the band. Unfortunately, you know, we didn't really
Speaker 1: stay together long enough to uh he he did help
Speaker 1: us though, Uh in in in with for for what
Speaker 1: it's worth? Uh the song because he's the one that
Speaker 1: actually heard the song. Yeah, I tell you a little
Speaker 1: story about that. We the first the first album didn't
Speaker 1: really um, it didn't have the sales that they thought
Speaker 1: and and my opinion is they released the wrong single. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: Clancy was too Esoteric to be the first single. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to say that I love the song, but I
Speaker 1: think if we would have released do I have to
Speaker 1: come right out and say it, I think it had
Speaker 1: more accessibility to people at the time. It was a
Speaker 1: love song and had a good melody and had a
Speaker 1: hook to it, you know. But that's that's regardless of that. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we had all gathered together at Steven's house and uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted to hear songs if we had songs for
Speaker 1: the next album, and um, you know, Neil played his
Speaker 1: songs and Stephen played his songs, and I played my songs,
Speaker 1: and as everybody's kind of packing up at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, Uh, the way I remember, Stephen said, well,
Speaker 1: I've got another one, for what It's Worth, and that
Speaker 1: was it, and Alma said, we gotta record that right now,
Speaker 1: and so we went back into the We went back
Speaker 1: into the studio and recorded for what It's Worth and
Speaker 1: it took one of Stephen's songs, baby Don't Scold Me
Speaker 1: off of the first album and then re re released
Speaker 1: it again with for what It's Worth on it. But
Speaker 1: that's how I remember it came about. Okay, so that
Speaker 1: was about the Sunset Strip riots. You were there, what
Speaker 1: was your sensation of what was going on? Well, I
Speaker 1: did not see the riots. Steven did, obviously he had
Speaker 1: right there at the last Uh yeah, las Cienaga, suns
Speaker 1: up Boulevard Laurel Canyon. There was a little triangle there,
Speaker 1: there was a there was a club there called Pandora's Box,
Speaker 1: and um, the police had decided a gathering like that
Speaker 1: was a little bit more than what they really wanted,
Speaker 1: and so they were trying to shut the place down,
Speaker 1: clear out all the traffic. And that's what Stephen was.
Speaker 1: He there's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.
Speaker 1: There's a man with a gun over there, and telling
Speaker 1: us we'd better be aware. And so, I mean, he
Speaker 1: it was perfect, you know. I think he wrote the
Speaker 1: song just like that. But so, yeah, they wanted to
Speaker 1: shut down Pandora's Box, and you know, things were intense
Speaker 1: at that time. Um. I remember, uh, you know, being
Speaker 1: at the Whiskey sometimes and and I would avoid I
Speaker 1: was down at living off of hermosa and and um
Speaker 1: a fountain at the time, and with with Dickie Davis,
Speaker 1: and I remember I would avoid Sunset Strip and go
Speaker 1: down a block, you know, to where you could just
Speaker 1: down the fountain basically, And I remember that a little
Speaker 1: convenience store had been broken into, and I got stopped
Speaker 1: by the cops and I remember distinctly man them asking
Speaker 1: for my I d or They didn't say i'd either.
Speaker 1: They said driver's license, and I said, I'm not driving.
Speaker 1: That was not the That was not the right thing
Speaker 1: to say, because that was not at that particular time
Speaker 1: in my life. That was not the right thing to
Speaker 1: say because I didn't I know what was going on.
Speaker 1: But they want to check me out. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not driving. He said, show me your driver's license
Speaker 1: right now, because I want to see him. And if
Speaker 1: you don't show it to me, I'm gonna knock you
Speaker 1: on your You can you can fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1: So what did I do. I pulled out my driver's
Speaker 1: license man and showed him. But yeah, it was so,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was there was some intense things going
Speaker 1: on in l A at that time. And and um,
Speaker 1: obviously you know, with long hair and hippies and and
Speaker 1: uh kind of like that, you know, we were, we
Speaker 1: were we could have definitely been tagged at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, so you cut for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: I'm it said, that's a hit. Tell us about cutting
Speaker 1: that track to the degree you remember, it went right
Speaker 1: over my head. I mean, when I'm gonna heard it,
Speaker 1: the song went right over my head. I said, that's
Speaker 1: a nice little folks song. Man. I was into Bluebird
Speaker 1: and rock and roll woman and Mr Soul and I was.
Speaker 1: I was into the rock and roll at the time,
Speaker 1: and here we got this little bing bing you know,
Speaker 1: something happened. You know. To me, it was a nice
Speaker 1: little folks song. But I was wanting to play for
Speaker 1: rock and roll, so it basically went over my head.
Speaker 1: But Ahmad knew, he knew that there was a hook
Speaker 1: in there that uh that that had something, you know,
Speaker 1: something that he could latch onto. Okay, so what was
Speaker 1: it like when they had to begin a huge smash.
Speaker 1: There were nine people in and out of Buffalo Springfield
Speaker 1: in two years, so you can figure out what was
Speaker 1: going on. Even though there was a hit going on.
Speaker 1: Neil I I don't think Neil ever really settled into
Speaker 1: wanting to be in the band, I really don't. I
Speaker 1: think he always wanted to be a solo guy. And
Speaker 1: that's fine. You know, I don't have any problem with that.
Speaker 1: I love Neil to this day, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have a problem with it, and and all. But he
Speaker 1: was he was off. He he had been off and
Speaker 1: starting to do his own thing. Nick Bruce had been
Speaker 1: busted a couple of times and had been deported. So
Speaker 1: we were having trouble. And here we got this hit record,
Speaker 1: and I think we went back to Boston, you know,
Speaker 1: and and we were gonna go to New York and
Speaker 1: be on the Johnny Carson Show. And Neil never showed
Speaker 1: up at the UH at the airport, you know, so
Speaker 1: we went back and that was the only time that
Speaker 1: I can ever remember we got fired from a gig
Speaker 1: in Boston where we played one night with four of
Speaker 1: us and they said, you guys don't need to come
Speaker 1: back tomorrow. Not so um. It was tough. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was hard because we did we had a hit record.
Speaker 1: We had, I mean, who you couldn't ask for anything
Speaker 1: more at that time, and you we had a hit record.
Speaker 1: We were on our way, and there was so much
Speaker 1: craziness going on, you know, because we just couldn't juggle
Speaker 1: the band. It was like one step forward and two
Speaker 1: steps back. So it was. It was a struggle. So
Speaker 1: how did it ultimately break up? I remember appearances without
Speaker 1: you know young one night I saw you, you know,
Speaker 1: how did everybody say this is the end for me?
Speaker 1: As long as Stephen was in the band? I had
Speaker 1: in my heart, I said, I'm gonna be in the band.
Speaker 1: We were friends from New York. I was gonna be
Speaker 1: with him. But when Stephen decided, you know, hey, enough
Speaker 1: is enough, you know, And it never got down to
Speaker 1: enough is enough. I mean he never said that, but basically,
Speaker 1: you know, he he was off and and started to
Speaker 1: go off to do some other things, and and and
Speaker 1: we just knew it it was over. Um, we were
Speaker 1: doing beach Boy tours and I mean we were really
Speaker 1: living the life. It was fun at that time. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of stuff that was going on. But again,
Speaker 1: we just couldn't keep up with with the with the traction.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Messina was now playing bass with us at the time,
Speaker 1: and we just couldn't We couldn't keep up with the
Speaker 1: uh with with all the changes, and finally, you know, Stephen,
Speaker 1: we just knew it was over. And so when it
Speaker 1: was over, Jimmy and I had become friends and we
Speaker 1: had basically said, if ever this falls apart, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't we just go ahead and pick it up
Speaker 1: and pick up the pieces? Okay, when Steven left, did
Speaker 1: you have any idea he was gonna cook up with
Speaker 1: Crosby and Mash. I didn't know at that particular time
Speaker 1: he was doing the Mike Bloomfield Umson Uh, the super sessions, right,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't know it at that time. No,
Speaker 1: So tell me about the formation of Poco. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: Jimmy and I had decided that we were gonna con
Speaker 1: canue on. At this time, Amma had come to him
Speaker 1: and asked him to ask Jimmy because Jimmy was an
Speaker 1: engine and Jimmy's a He's brilliant. I mean he really is.
Speaker 1: He's not only a fantastic uh and and uh stylized
Speaker 1: guitar player, but he really understands, you know, the technical
Speaker 1: aspects of recording. And Ama already gonna come to him
Speaker 1: and asked him if he would finish uh last time around.
Speaker 1: And that's when everybody was just coming with bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of songs or not bits and pieces. But here's
Speaker 1: the song for you, here's the song for you. Put
Speaker 1: him together. I think the only song, I I think
Speaker 1: the only song that the that the full band was
Speaker 1: on at that time was on the Way Home. I
Speaker 1: think I don't I can't remember for sure, but um
Speaker 1: so we've we finished that album, but we wanted to
Speaker 1: put a steel guitar on a song of mine called
Speaker 1: kind Woman and a road manager of ours at the time,
Speaker 1: because Jimmy and I didn't have a clue who do
Speaker 1: I mean, we had names that we could have called.
Speaker 1: But a guy named Miles tom m us Uh came
Speaker 1: and he said, look, I know the best deal guitar player.
Speaker 1: Where his young guy back in Denver, Colorado, and and
Speaker 1: he would be great on this song sight Unseen. We
Speaker 1: got ahold of him, told him to come out. You know,
Speaker 1: we got him out to We didn't tell him were
Speaker 1: you pay to get We paid his way out to
Speaker 1: Colorado and um and and uh he came out Rusty
Speaker 1: played on the song. I think when he played on
Speaker 1: the song, Jimmy and I kind of looked at each
Speaker 1: other and said, there's our guy, you know. And so
Speaker 1: when he got through with kind Woman, Uh, we started
Speaker 1: talking to him about joining the band. And we didn't
Speaker 1: have a drummer. We didn't have a bass player. So
Speaker 1: he said, I know a drummer. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: playing with this guy back in Colorado and he's a
Speaker 1: great drummer, and he's also a really good high he
Speaker 1: sings high harmonies. George grant them and so we got
Speaker 1: George out to Colorado and George joined the band. So
Speaker 1: once again here we are with four people, but this
Speaker 1: time we got the drummer. We don't have the bass player.
Speaker 1: And so Myles Thomas, I think again, was instrumental in
Speaker 1: recommending Randy Meisner and um, Timothy B. Schmidt both. Timmy
Speaker 1: was in a band named Glad at the time, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think Randy was in a group called
Speaker 1: the Poor and um we we auditioned Randy and Timothy
Speaker 1: at the same time. I'm not at the same time,
Speaker 1: but on the same day from what I remember, and
Speaker 1: um it was kind of cool. Um uh you know
Speaker 1: when when Randy, uh we we settled on Randy and
Speaker 1: I got a letter though from Timothy, which was I
Speaker 1: just found it in a box of stuff, maybe about
Speaker 1: five or six years ago, and Timothy had written he said, man,
Speaker 1: I really thank you for the time. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Timothy and he's just the sweetest guy in the world. Matthy.
Speaker 1: You can see this letter, and it's really I just
Speaker 1: thank you so much for letting me have the privilege
Speaker 1: of of of auditioning for you, and I know you'll
Speaker 1: may the right choice. And I just want you to
Speaker 1: tell you how honored I was to be able to
Speaker 1: have this opportunity and all and and then Randy of
Speaker 1: course got got the gig. But I framed that little
Speaker 1: letter and sent it off to Timothy because I thought
Speaker 1: he needed he it should be in his possession more
Speaker 1: than mine. But then he turned out to be in
Speaker 1: the band. A little bit later on when Randy, you know, decided,
Speaker 1: you know, for reasons, you know, there's different reasons that
Speaker 1: that he had for not uh um, you know, stick
Speaker 1: stick with the band. But that's how basically the band
Speaker 1: with George and Rusty and Jimmy and myself and Randy
Speaker 1: got together. How do you end up on Epic? Well,
Speaker 1: that was the first base and only baseball trade of
Speaker 1: the music business, because Crosby, Stills and Nash was getting together,
Speaker 1: Graham was on Epic, I was on Atlantic. Ahmad were
Speaker 1: wanted Crosby, Stills and Nash and uh so um. In
Speaker 1: order for you know, us to end up on on Epic, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Live Davis had to be willing to give
Speaker 1: up and go for Graham Nake. Now, don't don't make
Speaker 1: me get into this. Who got the best deal? You
Speaker 1: know because as as a as success went, you know,
Speaker 1: but that's basically what happened. It was a swap. You know.
Speaker 1: There wasn't really much to it except to swap. Graham
Speaker 1: went over to Atlantic and I went over to the Epic.
Speaker 1: I have to ask, do you believe if you'd been
Speaker 1: on Atlantic it would have played out differently? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you. Okay, So this is very much
Speaker 1: your band. The record comes out, has phenomenal reviews, phenomenal reviews,
Speaker 1: and it sells. It's an album era, but there's not
Speaker 1: a hit, right And of course at the same time,
Speaker 1: Crossby Stills in Nash blow up. What's going through your head?
Speaker 1: You know? There was there was disappoint where with our band,
Speaker 1: obviously because there was still the struggle with Randy who
Speaker 1: even when it came you know, before the record came out,
Speaker 1: he had decided to leave and I thought, oh man,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do what happened to the band, to
Speaker 1: the off of Springfield or the Birds and all this
Speaker 1: here we here, we got it happening. So, you know, Bob, honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't really say that, uh that there
Speaker 1: was any I mean I was happy for Stephen and
Speaker 1: Graham and David at the time. I really was. I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't think that we were in a competition. You know.
Speaker 1: All I knew was what I was doing, and I
Speaker 1: was focused in on what I was doing at the time.
Speaker 1: I heard the Crosby Stills and Nice record in David's
Speaker 1: apartment New York, and I thought, Wow, this is terrific.
Speaker 1: I was happy for him, I really was. What was
Speaker 1: I not happy for my for for Poco? Because yeah,
Speaker 1: we were we were we were we like you said,
Speaker 1: we had wonderful reviews. We had uh you know, audiences.
Speaker 1: I mean we were playing at the Troubadaur I think
Speaker 1: at the time, and I mean we're having full houses.
Speaker 1: It was great. I mean it was great. You know,
Speaker 1: we had everything but the hit record. Okay, Randy leaves
Speaker 1: and then Jim Leaves. What was going on there? I
Speaker 1: guess Jimmy, you know you're gonna have to talk to
Speaker 1: jim me about this because to this day, you know,
Speaker 1: I think he has issues that you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: even aware of, because he even said when I tried
Speaker 1: to get him to come when I was when I
Speaker 1: was recording uh the new album in the Country, Jimmy's
Speaker 1: moved to Nashville, and I wanted him to come, you know,
Speaker 1: and and there was there were some difficulties. And I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, man, I love Jimmy, I mean,
Speaker 1: I really do. But he he did not even want
Speaker 1: to come. I invited him to uh to get on
Speaker 1: uh my Heartbeatle Heartbeatle Love record with a Kind Woman
Speaker 1: and all that. I wanted Jimmy to sing on the
Speaker 1: song or do a song, and and he's not. I'm
Speaker 1: too busy, you know. But Kenny's on it. Kenny Loggins
Speaker 1: is on Kind Woman. And also, um, you know, Jimmy's
Speaker 1: Jimmy's issues were. I think he thinks I was too dominearing.
Speaker 1: That's what it was. He he thought I was too dominearing,
Speaker 1: and you know, who knows, maybe I was. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I apologized to him, I did if I was, I
Speaker 1: apologized to you, I did. I made that apology and
Speaker 1: and all. So when Jimmy left, it was it was
Speaker 1: kind of hurtful, but at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: auditioning and looking for I think at the time that
Speaker 1: he left, we were looking for something a little more
Speaker 1: rock and roll than a little cut a little more country.
Speaker 1: Jimmy was a little more you. Jimmy was a little
Speaker 1: more James Burton, who was one of the greatest guitar
Speaker 1: players in the world, you know, I mean, James is
Speaker 1: absolutely terrific. And Jimmy had that he had that same
Speaker 1: he had that same uh stratocaster telecaster. You know, he
Speaker 1: was good. But we wanted something a little more electric,
Speaker 1: and so we set out. I mean, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know. And and Jimmy
Speaker 1: was actually very agreeable. Even when we got Paul Cotton,
Speaker 1: Jimmy said, look, I'll go on the road with you
Speaker 1: and I'll teach Paul all of all of the parts
Speaker 1: that I played. So, I mean, it was it was
Speaker 1: all amicable. I think that's the word, right. And and
Speaker 1: and Timmy, Timothy had already joined the band. After that.
Speaker 1: That was another trip. After you know, Randy quit, I
Speaker 1: went up to Sacramento where Timothy was playing with his
Speaker 1: band and Dickie Davison. I went up and we were
Speaker 1: in also, jymnasiing up there where where his group Glad
Speaker 1: was playing, and they all knew why I was there,
Speaker 1: you know, and asked timmoth Iffy if he was still
Speaker 1: up for joining the band, and he said yes, so
Speaker 1: he had come down. So we already had, you know,
Speaker 1: somebody to replace Randy, but we needed someone to replace
Speaker 1: uh Jimmy. And so when we we auditioned, uh, we
Speaker 1: auditioned Paul, who had been in Illinois speed Press passed
Speaker 1: away a little recently. Okay, so you sold Geron, you know. Ultimately, Crosby,
Speaker 1: Stills and Nash gets young and they implode. But there's
Speaker 1: a million solo albums. Theoretically, Missina is gonna be a producer.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he hooks up with Loggins and they have huge hits.
Speaker 1: What's going through your head? I'm thinking, man, what about me? Literally?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I'm just as good as these guys.
Speaker 1: This is my ego speaking. This isn't really I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just my ego speaking to my heart. You know,
Speaker 1: you're just you're just a good there? What what about me?
Speaker 1: But we couldn't, you know, come up with the hit
Speaker 1: record at the time. We couldn't. We couldn't come up
Speaker 1: at the hit and so I was. I was frustrated
Speaker 1: at that point in time. I was, because, yeah, they
Speaker 1: had all gone off, Jimmy and Randy and and all
Speaker 1: of them going off and haven't hit records, and and
Speaker 1: Steven and Neil and on, and it's like, whoa, I'm
Speaker 1: left behind here. Things work out the way they work out, though,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I got get over it, you know,
Speaker 1: I got over it. But at the time, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like I can't deny it, you know, I thought, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: what do I mean? To what degree did you feel
Speaker 1: the pressure, whether from the company or yourself to make
Speaker 1: a hit record? And to what degree did you follow
Speaker 1: through on that? Well? I think I tried, and I
Speaker 1: wrote a song called good Feeling to Know, and everybody
Speaker 1: you know in our little camp thought we had Jack
Speaker 1: Richardson who we were looking for a producer at the time,
Speaker 1: we were looking for a hit record producer. I actually
Speaker 1: wanted Richie Poddler at the time because he had done
Speaker 1: Three Dog Night and Stepan Wolf and he was all
Speaker 1: over the radio and m epic wouldn't. They wouldn't go
Speaker 1: for it, And so we started looking for a producer
Speaker 1: and we all settled on Jack Richardson, who was doing
Speaker 1: the guests who at the time, and um, everybody thought,
Speaker 1: Good Feeling to Know is the record, And we made
Speaker 1: the record. And here we are, man, we're back in
Speaker 1: New York playing every s U N why there is
Speaker 1: back there, you know. And on the radio, you know,
Speaker 1: we're on the way to the gig and I hear
Speaker 1: what We're traveling at a road trying to listen to
Speaker 1: the load, and it's like, ah, my heart just sunk again,
Speaker 1: you know, because Good Feeling to Know came out around
Speaker 1: the same time, and it was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: really and there was another dud. So how did you
Speaker 1: end up leaving Poco? Had you already gotten the offer
Speaker 1: to join Southern Hillman or had you decided to quit?
Speaker 1: How did that all go down? Well? I was frustrated,
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. And so at one point
Speaker 1: in time, you know, I got a to David and
Speaker 1: and and I, you know, we were we had recorded
Speaker 1: a Good Feeling to Know and the whole album. We're
Speaker 1: probably doing some work. But all this time it was
Speaker 1: going through my mind. You know, it's it's never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: For Poco, It's never gonna happen. And so I called
Speaker 1: David and I had that conversation with him and said, well, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, Chris Hillman is looking for something to do.
Speaker 1: J D. South is looking for something to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's writing all these songs for the for the Eagles
Speaker 1: and all, and he you know, why why don't we
Speaker 1: just put together another Crosby Stills in Nash And I thought, really,
Speaker 1: that's all there is to it. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: at this for six seven years and I can't get
Speaker 1: a I can't get and all I have to do
Speaker 1: is join up and we'll put together another Crosby Skills
Speaker 1: in Nation. You know, Bob all the all the time
Speaker 1: in the background. I think there's an awful lot of
Speaker 1: business that's going on, you know that. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: just doing music. I'm not involved in that, and I
Speaker 1: think that was a part of it. But so, you know,
Speaker 1: David convinced me that if I got together with the
Speaker 1: UM with J D and and Chris, you know, that
Speaker 1: we would we would start having to hit records and
Speaker 1: have the success that they had, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I stuck around long enough for Crazy Eyes and UM
Speaker 1: and that album. And then you know, David actually came
Speaker 1: down and called the guys off into the back room
Speaker 1: and he told him I was leaving. I tell him.
Speaker 1: I didn't even tell him I was leaving. Man, it
Speaker 1: was I think it was a sore spot for a
Speaker 1: long long time, you know, but uh um, you know.
Speaker 1: And and so then joined up and with Chris and
Speaker 1: j D and we started working out. But you know,
Speaker 1: there was never the family feeling for like I did
Speaker 1: with Poke. There there was even with all the stuff
Speaker 1: that went on with Poco, there was a family feeling.
Speaker 1: I can't explain it, you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: really more of a family with with with Chris and
Speaker 1: j D, who I loved this day. I mean, Chris
Speaker 1: and I worked together. J D came by the studio
Speaker 1: when I did in the country, and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, man, it was so good to see him.
Speaker 1: It was I mean, he was a ferent guy. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was, but he was just a
Speaker 1: different guy. Man. And not that j D was difficult,
Speaker 1: but he was a young he was a young guy
Speaker 1: on his way man when we were putting this thing together.
Speaker 1: But he he had just he had just changed, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and we did this record.
Speaker 1: It was so good to see him. It was just wonderful. Anyway. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Southern Helman Furay is not organic. Geffen tells Poco
Speaker 1: you're leaving. How does he introduce you to the other
Speaker 1: guys and not even start? Well, I knew Chris and
Speaker 1: and I knew Actually I can't say I knew j D.
Speaker 1: But I knew of j D with Glenn because of
Speaker 1: Long Branch Penny was when Glenn used to come over
Speaker 1: to my house and somebody told me that j that
Speaker 1: j D came over to when I was rehearsing Poco
Speaker 1: at hundred Laurel Canyon Boulevard, you know, and and uh
Speaker 1: and but uh so I think I I think David.
Speaker 1: David had the he had the he knew us all,
Speaker 1: so he brought us all together. I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew Chris and uh and all, but
Speaker 1: I don't I can't say that I knew j D
Speaker 1: at the time. So it was David. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: sit in a room and what do you say, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be another crossby Steals and I don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember. All I know is that at that point
Speaker 1: in time, we knew we were going to be a band,
Speaker 1: and we needed to start to find a band, get
Speaker 1: some songs together. I think we probably started playing, you know,
Speaker 1: different songs. Um. I had a song called Believe Me
Speaker 1: and a song called for falling in Love and uh
Speaker 1: fly to the Dove I think on on that particular record,
Speaker 1: and and I can't remember all the other songs the
Speaker 1: other guys on the record, but you know, we started
Speaker 1: putting them together. We started putting a band together. Chris
Speaker 1: brought in uh j D. Chris brought in UH Paul
Speaker 1: Harris on keyboard. And actually when he brought in Al Perkins,
Speaker 1: I said, no, I don't want this guy. I don't
Speaker 1: want Al because you know why because Al Al had
Speaker 1: a fish sticker on his guitar that said Jesus Lord.
Speaker 1: And I said, huh, that guy is gonna stop us
Speaker 1: from becoming rock and roll stars. I Al could have
Speaker 1: been anything. He could have been a womanizer, a drunk,
Speaker 1: a drug addict, he could have been a but he
Speaker 1: was a Christian, and I didn't want him in my band,
Speaker 1: but Chris went out and he joined the band, and
Speaker 1: then we got Jimmy Gordon. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: we got Jimmy Gordon, but jim I tell you, I
Speaker 1: never met a guy that was I mean he okay,
Speaker 1: everybody know he was Jack on Hide. I mean when
Speaker 1: when when Jimmy was straight man, he was like just
Speaker 1: the sweetest, loving, big teddy bear that you would ever
Speaker 1: want to meet. And when he was not, he was not,
Speaker 1: he was like just it was Jack on Hide and
Speaker 1: I just my heart goes out. My heart goes out
Speaker 1: for him today because it's not you know, obviously not good,
Speaker 1: but boy to play with him and uh to have him,
Speaker 1: uh you know, I mean it was. It was one
Speaker 1: of one of the best rock and roll drummers ever
Speaker 1: I can remember. I mean, he had three sets of
Speaker 1: drums going around town when he was working with us,
Speaker 1: putting our our songs together. And we would go to
Speaker 1: town sometimes playing and we would go out after after
Speaker 1: after a show to a little funky, you know, place
Speaker 1: to eat or something. Somebody playing the jukebox and there
Speaker 1: was a song Jim played on you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it was he It was just like he was. He
Speaker 1: was on everything you heard at the time. Man, what
Speaker 1: a drummer, what a what a rock and roll drummer,
Speaker 1: And what a musician to playing the end of of
Speaker 1: such things as Layla on the piano. I mean, what
Speaker 1: a guy, man. But what a tragic story, Bob, what
Speaker 1: a tragic story. It most certainly is. Was this an
Speaker 1: album recorded as a group or was it more like
Speaker 1: the songs were recorded individually and then assembled at the end. No,
Speaker 1: we recorded as a group, and Richie Podler was definitely
Speaker 1: the right guy at the right time. Man. He and
Speaker 1: Bill Cooper, man, they were terrific and I think everybody
Speaker 1: loved working with. In fact, is Richie who was an
Speaker 1: accomplished um um not a Flamenco but yeah, maybe Flamenco guitar.
Speaker 1: You was a guitar player, a really accomplished guitar player.
Speaker 1: We could not come up for an intro to Falling
Speaker 1: in Love, and he brought a you know, the little
Speaker 1: talk back and his hey, guys canact him out there
Speaker 1: and just give you a guy, let me try something
Speaker 1: to see if you like it or not. But it
Speaker 1: was a whole band effort that we were doing. But
Speaker 1: Richie sat out there there, I turn air turned there
Speaker 1: and there it was. Man, we had the intro to
Speaker 1: the song. Man, Okay, was it your decision to have Richie?
Speaker 1: I definitely think it was because I wanted Richie to
Speaker 1: produce Poco well years earlier, and I knew that he was.
Speaker 1: He knew how to make hit records. Man, nobody made,
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody made records like he and Bill made.
Speaker 1: I mean they would take at that time at the
Speaker 1: board and you you could have a word that had
Speaker 1: three syllables in the word, and they would take it
Speaker 1: from three different tracks, I mean, and put a word
Speaker 1: together and you wouldn't even know it when you listen back.
Speaker 1: They were great. I loved him. I bought that album.
Speaker 1: I love that album, played it incessantly. The album went gold.
Speaker 1: So what was going on on the other side of
Speaker 1: the fence. I was having issues at that time. My
Speaker 1: wife was deciding. That was at the time that she
Speaker 1: was deciding we're done. So I was that's you know,
Speaker 1: everybody thinks that Chris and j D and I didn't
Speaker 1: get along. You know, it wasn't at all. It was
Speaker 1: I was having personal issues that I had to deal
Speaker 1: with in my own life that had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Chris or j D. You know, that was when
Speaker 1: family stuff started to really happen in my life. Okay,
Speaker 1: the second album, it's almost like it didn't even come out.
Speaker 1: You said earlier you were kind of checked out. What
Speaker 1: can you tell us if anything about the second album? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, not a whole lot. It was recorded like
Speaker 1: three miles from my home and I wasn't even able
Speaker 1: to live there. My wife and I were separated. Um,
Speaker 1: we had our band up there. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: who was drumming for us at the time, because Paul
Speaker 1: was up there hours up there. It says, you know,
Speaker 1: I just looked it up Ron Grinnelle. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: familiar with Ron. You're now thank you boy. You're quick man,
Speaker 1: you got that damn um. But you know, for for me,
Speaker 1: I was really distant. Man, I just don't. I don't
Speaker 1: remember a lot about that record. I even felt like
Speaker 1: the the two songs that I offered were not really
Speaker 1: completed songs. Um. It was a very very very dark
Speaker 1: time in my life, man. I mean my I you know,
Speaker 1: it was just a dark time. I was like devastated
Speaker 1: that you know, Nancy and I were not you know
Speaker 1: C and I I and we were going to break
Speaker 1: up and head for divorce and it was it was
Speaker 1: it was hard, man, it was really hard. So how
Speaker 1: did Southern Hill in Fury ultimately literally died? Well, I
Speaker 1: think it was at the end of that record. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't go on tour, and uh, basically it was over.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I just told him I can't
Speaker 1: do it. And that's when, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: put the focus on family and all of it, trying
Speaker 1: to get my wife back together, and you know, we
Speaker 1: we were separated. I you know, again, it was at
Speaker 1: that time. I remember um uh you know, being uh
Speaker 1: lost in l A at the time, you know, living
Speaker 1: with uh, living with people down in Coasta, Mesa, John
Speaker 1: Mayler and Tom Stipe and and uh and up with
Speaker 1: Al Perkins. It was during that whole time, that whole
Speaker 1: transition was just really taken taking part. And I had
Speaker 1: no interest in I had no interest in a band
Speaker 1: at all. Okay, how did you meet your wife at
Speaker 1: the whiskey to go go? We're in your tenure? What
Speaker 1: were you doing when you were at the whiskey? Well,
Speaker 1: we were playing no, I mean, was it Buffalo Springfield?
Speaker 1: What was it. No, it was Buffalo Springfield and a
Speaker 1: friend of um uh, well, her boyfriend. Uh he was
Speaker 1: actually in a band I think called Leaves the Leaves.
Speaker 1: His name was Bill Reinhardt, and he said, you gotta
Speaker 1: hear this band at the Whiskey. They're a great band.
Speaker 1: And so she came down. Listen if you know anything
Speaker 1: about my wife today. Even then, I looked back on
Speaker 1: it and I think, oh my gosh, man, this is
Speaker 1: so the Whiskey A go go is so. I mean,
Speaker 1: that scene was so out of character for Nancy. How
Speaker 1: she ever met Bill, I I don't even know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: she would stand right at the foot of the stage
Speaker 1: and I can remember singing sit down and I think
Speaker 1: love you, you know to her, you know. And another
Speaker 1: friend of mine and who was actually Val Gray's pardner today.
Speaker 1: His name's Michael Miller. Um uh. Michael was was a
Speaker 1: friend of mine and a friend of the groups, and
Speaker 1: he was really instrumental in helping you know, me get
Speaker 1: to know or introduced it, introduced me to Nancy. And uh,
Speaker 1: I remember when I finally got it together. You know
Speaker 1: that that I'm that I'll see you tomorrow night, you know,
Speaker 1: she said, no, I'm on my way to Hawaii with
Speaker 1: my friend and was like, oh, no, you know. But
Speaker 1: when she got over there and she she found out
Speaker 1: you know that, um, because Dickie was actually dating the
Speaker 1: friend that she went to uh to Hawaii with. And
Speaker 1: when when she found out that I actually wanted to
Speaker 1: start dating her, she actually left and came back, um,
Speaker 1: back to California and uh and we started dating. How
Speaker 1: many times did you come to the whiskey? I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's more than once. It wasn't a one time deal. No,
Speaker 1: you would come and and then she she would come
Speaker 1: back because I would remember she had a friend and
Speaker 1: her name was Nancy too, and they both stood right
Speaker 1: at the front of the of the stage, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like I wore glasses, you know, and I
Speaker 1: have my glasses on. I look around which one, you know,
Speaker 1: and I decided, you know, I like this one better.
Speaker 1: And I was right. So how did you get rid
Speaker 1: of the old boyfriend? They broke up. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they broke up, but they broke up. And so
Speaker 1: once you started dating, it was pretty much clear sailing
Speaker 1: onto marriage from there. Well, you know that there was
Speaker 1: there was moments, I know, Buffalo Springfield was working at
Speaker 1: the time, and um, you know, we were actually doing
Speaker 1: some some of those gigs where there's three or four
Speaker 1: bands on a on a on a show, and The
Speaker 1: Turtles was on one show that we did at Redondo Beach,
Speaker 1: and I had I didn't have a place to stay anymore.
Speaker 1: And I remember Mark Vollman, you know, he said, hey,
Speaker 1: come on man, Stad was right around Happy Together time.
Speaker 1: He said, come on my house. Man, no problem, man,
Speaker 1: you can got a room. But done a done this
Speaker 1: and the other, and so did Dad and Nancy and
Speaker 1: I actually stayed up there for a while and and
Speaker 1: I thought, man, I had lost her at one point
Speaker 1: in time because she and her she had a roommate
Speaker 1: that they lived right around the corner at a little
Speaker 1: school right on Lookout. And I remember they lived in
Speaker 1: a little apartment. Man, I hope I'm not wandering too much. Man,
Speaker 1: know this is great, Keep going, keep going. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: they had a little apartment, and I know that her roommate,
Speaker 1: they both had. Nancy had a red Volkswagen and her
Speaker 1: and her her her roommate had a green Volkswagen. And
Speaker 1: I decided, you know, I'm gonna put some flowers on
Speaker 1: my on my girl's car, you know. And little did
Speaker 1: I know that her roommate had literally broken up with
Speaker 1: her boyfriend at the time. So I sneak over early
Speaker 1: in the morning, and I'm color blind or basically color weak,
Speaker 1: and so guess what I put the I put the
Speaker 1: flowers on the wrong color car. Man, and I found
Speaker 1: him laying in the in the in the in the
Speaker 1: road man run over and I thought, oh, no, man,
Speaker 1: I have lost my I've lost my opportunity with my girl,
Speaker 1: you know. And so that was a nightmare. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. But anyway, we got back together, Nancy
Speaker 1: and I we started we started dating for real, and
Speaker 1: I think we only knew each other maybe, I don't know,
Speaker 1: six months before we actually said I do. And we
Speaker 1: said I do and and um, it was really close
Speaker 1: to a night we were doing some television show I
Speaker 1: can't remember. I don't think it was Smothers Brothers, but
Speaker 1: it was. It was one of the shows that Buffalo
Speaker 1: Springfield did. I can't remember which one, but m yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we we got married and the next night, man,
Speaker 1: I do a television show and it was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was like NonStop from there, you know. And what
Speaker 1: was Nancy doing for work when you met her? She
Speaker 1: worked a little club on not a club, a little
Speaker 1: address shop on La Sienega Lasi Angego Boulevard called a
Speaker 1: hole in the wall. And she was she was working
Speaker 1: at that, at that club down that, that little dress
Speaker 1: shop down there. And how did you end up living
Speaker 1: in Colorado? Well, it was during the Poco days, and
Speaker 1: it was that time, and think things were nuts. She
Speaker 1: read something in the paper one time that a child
Speaker 1: born in l A at the time would develop emphysema
Speaker 1: by the time she was two years old, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we decided that it was time to make
Speaker 1: the move. And Rusty and and and George were from Colorado.
Speaker 1: But interestingly enough, we also were looking at and don't
Speaker 1: ask me how this happened, we were looking at San Francisco.
Speaker 1: That was like going from the from the fire, from
Speaker 1: the frying pan into the fire. I can remember going
Speaker 1: up and telling George, now, George, we're gonna move to Colorado.
Speaker 1: He's on a ladder painting, and I think he dropped
Speaker 1: his paint brush. At the time, he had already rented
Speaker 1: a place up there, you know. But so that's how
Speaker 1: we we ended up in Colorado though we uh just decided,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna make the move to Colorado. Nancy
Speaker 1: and I came back here and found a place. You know,
Speaker 1: Rusty was able to find a place, Paul and Timothy
Speaker 1: found a place, and George finally found a place. But
Speaker 1: it was because of it was because of that little
Speaker 1: article that Nancy had read that said a child would
Speaker 1: develop emphysema. You know by the time they were like
Speaker 1: two years old, had they had. We stayed in l
Speaker 1: A with all the smog and all that at the time,
Speaker 1: and so we we decided that we're out of here,
Speaker 1: we're moving. We're gonna find another place to go, and
Speaker 1: ended up in Uh, we ended up in Colorado, and
Speaker 1: I'm the only guy that lasted Okay, and you're still
Speaker 1: alive unlike some of them. Man. Oh yeah, so maybe
Speaker 1: that article was right. But in any event, you have
Speaker 1: this marriage crisis, you sort of remove yourself from the
Speaker 1: everyday music business. You have this gold record, the first
Speaker 1: Southern Hillman Furay band. But then Timothy B. Schmidt goes
Speaker 1: to the Eagles and Poco Chain just labels and starts
Speaker 1: having hits. But at that time, I was so wrapped
Speaker 1: up in what I was doing. I mean, not that
Speaker 1: you know, Timothy going to the Eagles Man that was
Speaker 1: that was a that was a fine thing, you know,
Speaker 1: But Poco having hits, and and you know, Rusty never
Speaker 1: failed to mention, you know, we didn't have any hits
Speaker 1: as long as Ritchie was in the band. As as
Speaker 1: he left the band, we start having hits, you know,
Speaker 1: and so he never he never failed to rub it in.
Speaker 1: But uh, I I really believe, Bob, in my heart
Speaker 1: of hearts, we had hits, you know, I really do.
Speaker 1: I believe good feeling, you know, it should have been
Speaker 1: a should have been a hit. I believe that Paul
Speaker 1: Cotton had some songs, you know that could have been hits.
Speaker 1: I believe that a song called Just for Me and
Speaker 1: You on our second uh uh well, uh the Steve
Speaker 1: Cropper record, I believe that that was a hit, you know,
Speaker 1: Besid mean, I believe we had hits. I just don't
Speaker 1: think they ever never materialized. But that's the way it
Speaker 1: happens in the business. Looking back from this great distance,
Speaker 1: any regrets, any feeling like you know, you got screwed,
Speaker 1: any issues of legacy, what's your perspective here, almost sixty
Speaker 1: years off. I wouldn't change the thing. I wouldn't change
Speaker 1: the thing. I've got a I've got a wife of
Speaker 1: fifty five years, i got four daughters, I got three
Speaker 1: great son in laws, I got thirteen grandkids. What what more?
Speaker 1: I mean? And I'm still making music at this age. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't even believe it. You know, the Lord has
Speaker 1: allow me to make music. And I've got great friends,
Speaker 1: you know, working with me and and I. The record
Speaker 1: that I made with Val is just I mean, I
Speaker 1: love it, man, I was. I can't even believe I
Speaker 1: can still see myself standing the only thing I just
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I was just taking three years
Speaker 1: to get it out because of this COVID COVID deal,
Speaker 1: you know, and and but I can still my see
Speaker 1: myself standing in that in that vocal booth, looking over
Speaker 1: seeing Victor and Drizzio and looking over here and seeing
Speaker 1: Glenn Wharf, and seeing Dan Doug Moore, my good friend,
Speaker 1: and Chris losing your and uh and then meeting Tom
Speaker 1: Bucavic and Steve um um oh or give me Steve's name, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like uh oh, I can't remember the keyboard. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is terrible. I can't remember. I gotta I gotta
Speaker 1: have Steve's name. Can you find? Can you get the album? Find?
Speaker 1: I gotta find because we were cutting. Um uh is
Speaker 1: it open? Can I can you open it? I'm sorry, Dan, um,
Speaker 1: we we were cutting. I hope you dance and he
Speaker 1: came back and you know I played on the original
Speaker 1: of that. I love it. Man, Oh man, I know
Speaker 1: Steve's name. I go, oh man, I'm terrible. I'm getting old,
Speaker 1: but I can just see it, you know, man, going
Speaker 1: down that wreck. This record is I don't even know.
Speaker 1: The record business has changed so much. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it means. But the record to me is a
Speaker 1: most satisfying record. Um. I mean it's it's really great
Speaker 1: to find Steve's name, Steve Nathan, Steve Nathan. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the business is riddle with musicians who have no money
Speaker 1: and broke and terrible stories. You have a good story,
Speaker 1: but how you're doing financially and do you ever get
Speaker 1: any royalties? What's going on there? You know? Somehow I'll
Speaker 1: know that they keep coming in and I'm thankful when
Speaker 1: they do. Not great. I never had a hit record,
Speaker 1: had I had to hit record, you know it'd be
Speaker 1: would be even bigger. But you know, a little piece
Speaker 1: of for what it's worth has helped me out along
Speaker 1: the way. And you know, Nancy and I were frugal,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't we don't overspend, but you know what,
Speaker 1: we're able to do what we want to do when
Speaker 1: we want to do it, and things been. It's it's
Speaker 1: been good, you know. I mean, I'm not a I
Speaker 1: don't have three houses and an airplane park someplace and
Speaker 1: this not in the other. But you know what I got,
Speaker 1: I got all I need. Man, that's fantastic. You've been fantastic, Richie.
Speaker 1: I could listen to tell these stories all day long.
Speaker 1: I think we got the general overview, so I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna draw close to it in this chap All right, man, excellent,
Speaker 1: that's a great storyteller. The personality not even know why
Speaker 1: you have such success. That's Richard Furay. Until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left side,