WEBVTT - America 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.840 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:17.959 My guest today are hit makers on their fiftieth anniversary 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.759 tour celebration The Act America. You have Deuey Banel and 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.079 Jerry Beckley. Great to have you guys here. Thank you. 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.760 So what's it like fifty years later? It's quite similar 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.320 to the beginning, Bob. We're still together. You know, some 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.839 people might not know, but we it was never a breakup, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.560 never come back kind of thing. We've been doing about 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.920 a hundred shows a year for the last fifty years. Okay, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.760 but the classic question would be when you started, did 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.080 you envision that you'd be doing it fifty years later. No, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.800 I can honestly say I'm shocked myself that we're still 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.520 and really we are on kind of a resurgence. It's 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.720 been a real special last couple of years. Is the 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.160 live show is locked in. We've been through all the 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.240 ups and downs and peaks and valleys, and we've got 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.480 this a couple of younger guys in the band now 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.280 that really kicked us in the butt. Our drummer rylan 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.319 Steen and and Steve Ecadion guitar, and then we have 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.679 a good seasoned, uh solid bass player Enrich Campbell, so 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.560 that five pieces just chugging along. So what do you 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:27.640 think accounts for the resurgence? Classic hits? Hits, help is 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.880 the same, you know, and there's there's a lot of 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.200 hits um and you know, we honor those every night, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:36.240 so you play all the hits every night. I have 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.600 this equation in my head. I figured that the people 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.200 that come night after night, those are the people that 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.759 bought these records in the millions throughout this career. Those 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.320 are the people that put our kids to college. You know. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.480 Our our half of the bargain is to now go 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.680 out and take this music to those people and perform 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:53.880 it around the world, which we're very happy to do. 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.000 But you're talking about a resurgence. Why do you think 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:58.720 it's on an upswing? Well, I don't know if it's 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.240 resurgence per se. It just seems like it's locked in. 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:03.840 You know. We were always kind of like, who are 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.400 these young guys that came out of nowhere? And there's 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.200 always been you know, we had a little bit of 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.000 proving ourselves in the seventies and so on, but we 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.520 just got into this cruising thing where we're just going 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.440 to power through and keep doing what we do. It's 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.960 not a it's a simple enough formula, try and write 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.800 some decent songs and like a record every once in 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.280 a while. And so maybe it's because there's been a 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:32.760 we've lost a bunch of guys the venue before everybody dies. Yeah, 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.000 well that yeah, I don't want to put it that way, 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.040 but we all know people our ages, you know, they 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.680 drop off. So, uh, was there ever a time in 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.080 the fifty years that you thought I'm done, I'm not 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.560 do this, not personally done. We we've had some challenges, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.320 as do we said, some ups and downs. When Dan, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.080 our original founding member, left in seventy seven, that was 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.600 a personal challenge he was addressing and he did actually 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.760 a great job, but it didn't allow for us to 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:01.320 carry on as a three piece. So that was a 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.679 bit of a hurdle, but it gave Dewey and I 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.040 the kind of green light to carry on. So I 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.840 can't say that I ever had a I'm out kind 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.720 of the writing and stuff goes. We seemed to be 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.760 every day we'd wake up and have some idea. In 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.440 the seventies, record something or this song or recorded cover 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.920 and I think that aspect of that excitement. It's really 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.239 hard to recreate that. I think any long term a 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.200 veteran band will say, you know, we had our these 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.080 years that just seemed to couldn't do anything wrong, you know, 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.600 but I've never wanted to stop. We can't do anything else. 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.520 We graduate from high school together, never went to college, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.280 you know. I learned my three chords, and Jerry's a 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.160 school musician over there on the keyboards and so on. 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:47.320 So I mean, really, uh, realistically, we still feel comfortable 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.200 and enjoy it. So now in the era the Internet, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.480 there's a lot of information that it used to be there. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.400 But I didn't know until I did some research what 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.520 were the exact circumstances as of Dan leaving the act. Well, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.400 we were still on a pretty heavy um series of 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.760 Right Record Produce tour and it filled the year for 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:12.960 all of us, and Dan was having a harder and 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.280 harder time making the commitment to do all of that, 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:17.320 and we would book a tour, or we would try 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.240 and rehearse and nes, hey, I can't make it or something. 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.680 He he had some emotional challenges, to put it, I 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.680 suppose mildly. He um. He had a very stable home 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.279 life with his wife, but he was wrestling with some 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.680 demons and him having the time to focus on that, 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.599 he went through a rebirth, he became born again Christian, 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.400 devoted the remainder of his life to doing contemporary Christian music, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.520 which we performed on when we could when asked, but 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.600 he couldn't keep up the schedule that we were doing. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.680 Now did you see it coming? Yeah, well we were 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.000 all thrown into the spin dryer effect, you know, with 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.159 the number one record an album when we were like 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.720 eight years old and moved out to l a and 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.360 we we were from military families that had moved around 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.520 all of our lives and had that vibe. So there 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.479 was a lot to take in. And there was the 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:14.960 usual pitfalls, drugs and women and the hectic road life, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.080 none of which were at anything really unusual when you 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.560 look at the history of bands and everything, and it's 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.479 just some can weather through some of that and some don't. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.200 And and Dan really did have We didn't know this 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.200 even that he had a strong Christian rate. He was 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.719 raised Baptists were his families, all from Missouri in for 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.680 a little place called farming to Missouri. We ended up 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.000 visiting out there and you know, we we loved Danny. 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.080 We were the three Musketeers. We've gone through high school 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.640 and we're laughing it up and then suddenly we've got 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.280 this thing, this career for God's like. He went back 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.479 to college for one semester but didn't take and he 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.200 came back to England and Jerry and I were still 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.680 in England where our parents were, and so it was 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.400 it sad time and it was that was the first 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.400 big transition. It wasn't a shock, to answer your question. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.520 We we could see it. I mean, obviously we were 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.000 all complicit in that in what we've just lump in 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.880 as the seventies, but it was really hitting Dan harder 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.279 than it was us. And he had a So what 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.320 was it were looking back with all these years and 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.760 now that he's past, what did he add to the band? Well, 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.480 a trio obviously, I always think of like the three 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.680 legs of a stool. I mean, it's a very very 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.760 stable thing. We had a democracy from day one. One 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.839 of the things that happened very early on in the 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.400 group was Dewey sang Horse with No Name, which was 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.320 a huge hit for us. The follow up was a 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.599 song called I Need You a ballad which I sang, 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.400 so we right away established a pattern of handing it around. 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.120 It never fell on any guy's shoulders. It wasn't like 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.200 a sting thing where he had the right and sing. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.719 Dan contributed some huge hits for us. A Lonely People 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.560 don't cross the river. His element, apart from being a 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.760 great lead guitarist, his writing kind of skewed a bit 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.000 more country, so those songs did to have a banjo 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.000 on him and just slightly different color, which I think 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.599 really rounded it. Was a good rock guitar player too. 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.680 He was our lead guitar player, and he was our 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.720 high harmony singer, and that was another feature that we had. 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.320 That's it's an alchemy that you can't really predict the 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.720 three voices, the blend, and that was a magical thing 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.960 when we first sat down with our acoustic guitars and 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:23.640 he had a song and Jared had a song, and 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.760 I had a song, and we started arranging and you know, 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.000 doing the usual thing, getting these voices gone and Dan's 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.640 high harmony, it was hard to recreate that. We've been lucky. Okay. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.960 So once you left the yacht, did you change the 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.559 material so you did require it or did you double 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.800 it or did somebody else do it? We had Timothy 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.080 Schmidt came in a lot. Christopher Cross when we got 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.960 to know him, just really fine high voice singers. If 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.520 we needed the three part harmony, but there's a great 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.200 history of harmony that's two part Everly Brothers and all 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.720 the Beatles stuff was built kind of on that mold. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.240 So we were very happy to be to do two 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.680 part harmony. It wasn't like a big piece missing. We 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.720 were never gonna play Dan as it were, you know. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.720 As as a matter of fact, we did some audition, 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.680 we did. We even audition we did just Michael stepped 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.680 in our our guitar tech Michael Woods at that time 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.680 when Dan left, he'd been working with us for a 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.520 couple of years and knew all the songs by heart. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.800 Was a guitar player himself. A lot of guitar techs 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.120 are you know, and he just stepped right in and 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.760 we said, okay, that's good. I think we were gonna 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.520 have auditions. And he said, hey, would you guys consider 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.600 letting me audition and we said, yeah, you can have 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.079 the gig. Just like that. We did the same thing 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:33.800 when we got We had drummer. We were just three 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.680 kids on stools, originally acoustic guitars. Three no rhythm section 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:39.640 at all. In fact, if you listen to the first album, 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.240 there's not as hardly any drums right here, because like 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.679 on Sandman, there's Dave Attwooder and old high school guy 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.360 who played drums. But when we came to the l 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.720 A and David Geffen and Elliot Roberts picked us up 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:52.800 and we were we were thrown into the deep end 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.760 of the pool. And now we're filling arenas and so on. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.719 We've got to get a band, We've got to get 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.400 a thing here. You know. It was on the job 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.920 training and we did call some rehearsals and we ended 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.080 up picking the first guy, Willie Leacox. Yeah, he was 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:07.800 a friend to our bass player at the time, David 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.320 Dickie and some guys had flown in to to to 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.559 audition and bless their hearts, you know, one guy got 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.240 got a ticket for jaywalking here in Hollywood somewhere, you know. 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.680 I mean, it was really sad, but that's how professional 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:28.080 we were were. Okay, he sounds good enough, and it showed, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.200 frankly for a while. Although Willie Leacox was a schooled drummer. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.840 He's from his family's all big band players from Iowa, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.439 and he was good. You know, he stayed forty four years. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:42.520 You don't, don't change it if it's not broken. He 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.240 just essentially retired about four years ago. So let's go 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:47.840 to the end before we go back to the beginning. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:49.960 What's it like to be an act with a lot 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.760 of hits and non quantity in the concept of putting 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:55.800 out new music today? Because there are a lot of 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.199 acts the Internet era. They make a new record, good batter, 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.360 Otherwise it sinks in a day. Yeah. And in addition, 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.920 if they play that new material live, that's when their 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.600 fans tend to have a bathroom break. Yeah. I mean 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.040 even we can see that we have many albums that 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.120 we can pick from to do the deeper cuts in 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.560 the show. But if you're I always say painters paint musicians, right, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.880 I continue to write. I mean, I can't honestly say 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.120 that the only reason I did this was to make 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.360 money off of it. It was a creative outlet, of 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.040 vital creative outlet. But you're right that dynamic ebbs and flows, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.079 it doesn't matter who you are. UM And I think 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:33.600 you just have to wrap your head around it. The 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.959 good news for us is that we built an incredibly 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:40.080 strong performance space that it didn't revolve around, you know, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.439 And we did experience putting out albums that we really 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.720 had put the nose to the grind so and it 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.760 worked hard on Jerry's studio and stuff that Jerry and 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.160 I had done, and and it was disappointing when it wasn't. 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.400 What happened the seventies, huh. You know, it's a it's 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.360 a strange thing. You put your heart and soul into it. 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.280 I don't think I put any more effort into those 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.360 albums that tanked completely that I did into the ones 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.720 that were huge hits. I don't know how that works. 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.800 But Jerry is more prolific than I as far as writing, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.840 I'm not driven to do it in the days when 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:11.760 we when we first signed with Warners, we had a 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.080 seven album deal. We had an album every year, the touring, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:18.000 everything capital the same thing. Then you're motivator. You have 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:19.840 to you have to produce, you have to do something, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.880 and so I'm not doing it to this day. I'm 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.319 I need some impetus. Something is our project. What are 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.400 we doing? Even then? It's um. It's something I really 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.559 have to make myself do. So at this stage of 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.280 the game, is already planned to do a new album 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.760 or new music because of the anniversary coming up. There's 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.000 a lot of archival things. Every label that we've been 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.560 on is doing a box set release. We just did 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.160 a show with the London Palladium that they filmed within 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.040 cameras and that's it that came out. So most of 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.360 this stuff is archival. UM. Recently or a few years ago, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.520 we did an album of covers in Nashville with a 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.920 wonderful group of players and stuff, which was a need 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.679 experience because it didn't put the weight of writing on 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.000 our shoulders. But you know, I'm sure this is your 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.120 business as much as it is. You know, you have 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.600 a new record coming out. I do solo records every 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.160 so often. It's it's kind of cleaning house a little bit, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.000 you know. I I assemble a dozen tunes. If I'm 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.480 fortunate to have a label that's interested, I will support 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.440 it to the best of my ability. But I'm not 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.600 holding my breath, you know. Okay, but you will put 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.040 out another solo album at something. Yeah, I've got one 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.959 coming out in September. Will you do it yourself? They'll 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.200 be a label. Well, it's done. But this one is 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.040 on Blue Alwan, which I didn't last and it's a 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:38.800 lovely small something like you've made it something to happen. 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:44.080 He's street email exactly. He's got that. Kirk Pesk's got 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.360 great ears, this guy who runs this and he did 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.280 an album. I did an album with him a few 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.800 years back. It was just a pleasure from start to finish. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.439 And you know, it's a different it's a different time. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:54.920 So if you cut the record at home and you 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.840 make a deal with Blue Alawn, do they give you 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.640 any money? Well, yeah, what do you have? What do 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:07.760 you call that harshold question? Anybody? Yeah, there's enough to 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.480 enough to warrant the effort. But I think, okay, that's 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.440 all I needed. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.200 buy for Kate. Let's start first with you. Jerry, So 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.199 where you from? Originally? I was born in Fort Worth, Texas. 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:21.920 My dad, as Dewey's, was in the U. S. Air Force. 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.200 I moved to England when I was one year old, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.199 so I have no memory of Texas. Okay, your father 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.920 did what in the year force? He was a sack 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.040 bomber pilot. He flew beef fifty twos during the Cold War, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.040 and he ended up at the Joint chiefs of Staff 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.520 at the Pentagon, and when we met, he was the 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.320 commander of the U. S Air Force in the UK. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.160 So he and I know some other people with the 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.360 military fathers. And it's not irrelevant where you're living. It's 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.880 not like growing up with a regular suburban dad. You you, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.719 as anybody that grows up in the service, would know 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.560 that you're you're denied a hometown, you're denied lifetime friends. 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.000 You moved from the minute and the get go. The 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.079 only good news in that, well, there's quite a bit 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.520 of good news. It broadens your horizons. You see the 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.440 world in a much broader way than most people would 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.800 living in a in the town that they were born. 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.840 But also everybody that you are with is in the 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.280 same boat. You're not sitting there going why do I 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.960 feel different from all of these people. It's not like 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.200 you had ten years of some kind of stability and 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.760 then your mom remarries a guy in the service or something. 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:25.720 So we are all in that same boat. And I 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.600 think it's something we shared and it's it was a 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.280 bonding element rather than an alienating thing. Okay, but your father, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:33.800 I mean, we see movies like The Great Cian Tini. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:35.880 What's it like having it's the only thing, you know, 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.480 But what's it like having such a military success as 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.880 your father? He was being a sack bomber pilot. He 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.440 was gone a lot. It was secret at the time, 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.040 but during the Cold War, they would go out of 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.400 an air base and Goose Bay, Labrador and fly around 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.040 the Arctic Circle for two weeks at a time, staying 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:54.560 in the air. I'll be like in the movies where 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.120 they refuel from in the air. So he would be 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.360 gone for weeks and and I we weren't allowed to 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.280 even ask where he was and stuff. So there was 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.120 a lot of absent dad stuff. But he was an 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.600 incredibly devoted father and one of our biggest fans. He 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.640 kept a scrapbook from day one, and he was very 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.120 proud of all of us. And in your particular case, 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.480 you know, in terms of in the house, was he strict, 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:21.000 because in the military he wasn't. He was. I have 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.520 great memories of all of this. But for example, when 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.680 we we got stationed in England and there was a 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.920 somewhat of a welcoming parmade. The parade the new base 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.360 commander and I had quite long hair at the time, 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.160 and he said you might want to skip that one, son, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.280 you know. He he wasn't the kind that said, you know, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.400 look sharp and okay. So you were one years old 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.040 when you moved to London from Fort Worth and then 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:44.960 were you in London the rest of the time. I 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:46.840 was there till I was five or six, and then 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.680 I moved to um off At Air Base in Omaha, Nebraska, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.520 which was a SEC base, and we were there a 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.720 few years. Then we were in Ohio for a couple 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.080 and then when he got stationed at the Pentagon, we 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.480 moved to the DC area and I was there till 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.160 sixty five, and we went to Germany, were at Ramstein 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.120 Air Force Base for a year, then went to England 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:09.720 and that's where I met Dewey for our last two 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:11.120 years of high school. So you were going for the 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.560 last two years of high school. Now, Dewey, what's your backstory? Well, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.960 first of all, my dad saluted Jerry's dad, that was 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.280 the senior master's large in the Air Force. But but 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:24.360 but they knew each other. They you know, they probably 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.240 did a small base well that when we became, when 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.120 we broke afterwards, but it was a small base. It 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.640 was more of an administrative base by then. Your dad, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.160 his dad wasn't really flying at that point, and my 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.040 dad was born and raised in Alaska and really yeah 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.360 and wait wait, so that must have been like the twenties. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:47.960 It was third how his dad was army as it 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.600 turned out, and he and his older brother, first chance 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.560 they could, signed up for Uncle Lart went into the army. 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.400 My dad, I went to the Air Force and his 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.480 first UH stationing was in Yorkshire, England, where he met 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.200 my mom and I was born, So I was born 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.800 in Yorkshire, England. By the way, Jerry didn't mention your 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.679 mom's English to my mother is English. So then he 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.280 and your father met her in the UK during the 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.400 war World War two. And now did your parents stay together, Yes, 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.160 they did in yours and mine right, and my mother 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:22.200 passed away in but we we did the same thing. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.560 My dad was actually off it also. My dad was 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.800 in communications, radar and stuff. He was in the Korean War, 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:34.040 and we lived in several places. Biloxi, Mississippi, was a 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.640 training base. Where were you born born? In Harrogat, Yorkshire, England. 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.720 He could never be president, probably not, thank goodness, but yeah, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:46.719 and I was similar to Jerry. We only stayed there 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.000 a year or so and went back to this U 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:54.359 s UM and we bounced around Pensacola, Florida, Long Island, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.679 New York, Biloxi twice, Omaha. Coincidentally, when Jerry and I 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.879 compared notes, we realized as we were living in the 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.240 same place at the same time in Omaha. Dads were 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.680 there because Sack Headquarters in Omaha, so that's the big 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.240 Air Force space there. And then we were out here 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.720 in California, Vandenburg Air Force Base. My dad was part 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.720 of a team that fired some missiles out there in 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:20.439 sixty two sixty three. And San Jose, California. There's another 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.240 base up there, Sunny Vale. But then we went back 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:29.760 to England in sixty five two. Um we left San Jose. 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.960 The music scene was happening in the Bay area. Then 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.800 that's when I was really starting to feel some stuff 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.560 going on. And we moved to Norfolk, England, a base 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.800 they're called Lake and Heath Milden Hall. So I did 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.040 my sophomore year of high school there and then he 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.960 was transferred down to London. The base where we met 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.480 and Jerry and I and Dan and the rest of 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.760 the people we met and friends were there at the 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.960 Central High London, England. Okay, now, is that an American 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.240 school dependents? There was another one in the heart of 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.320 London called a s L which was for more of 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.840 m kind of kids of oil companies and things and 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.080 executive civilian kids. But this was outside of London and 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.520 it was basically for the kids stationed in their parents 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:16.439 at the base. And how many kids went to that 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.919 school was a hundred and something a graduating class sixty 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.080 nine graduate, all quantit huts. You know. It was an 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.159 A base. Yeah, it's all r A F bases that 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.800 the U S leases. I guess the same deal in 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.600 Germany and everywhere else Belgium. But okay, just a cover 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.560 for a second. Dan's back story was essentially the same. 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.520 He came. He came the senior year. He wasn't there 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.679 for the last two years. His dad was a colonel 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.520 who worked in the b X system, the supply system, 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.400 and he had a totally different He lived in Japan 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:52.280 and the Philippines and Pakistan and stuff. Fascinating story. But 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.440 we all ended up outside of line. His father was 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.680 in the Air Force Colonel. Okay, so you're in London 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.119 in the late sixty for someone who lives like in America, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.080 that sounds like a paradise for musical for American teenagers, 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.520 are you kids? Yeah, we'd see all kinds of great music. 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.040 So you did partake of that. Yeah. We saw King 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.680 Crimson every day or was it once a week? It 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.920 was a five day or five nights at the Marquee 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.480