Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Here we Go,
Speaker 1: Suprema Some Supremo.
Speaker 2: Roll called Suprema Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo, Roll Suprema Supreme.
Speaker 3: Roll call.
Speaker 1: It's ladies night. Yeah, let's celebrate. Yeah, get down on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wron James Taylor Supreme Supremo, Role called Suprema So Supreme.
Speaker 1: Roll call.
Speaker 5: My name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm the engineer. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: I love great music. Yeah, that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2: Supreme Supremo. Roll Supreme Supremo.
Speaker 1: Roll call. My name's Boss Bill.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I ain't no sucker. Yeah, what are we doing?
Speaker 1: Roll call Brother Trucker, Supremo.
Speaker 2: Supremo, Roll Suprema So Supremo.
Speaker 1: Roll call It's like yeah.
Speaker 7: And James Taylor, Yeah, I ain't no lame, no fine range,
Speaker 7: roll call Supremo, Son Sun Supremo.
Speaker 6: Roll I'm James. Yeah, I came up here today. I
Speaker 6: guess I'm here for you. I'm ready, suprem.
Speaker 1: We'll take it. Supremo. Roll call Sprema, Roll.
Speaker 2: Supremo, roll call Suprema Sun Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 7: Roll call.
Speaker 1: Nice. All right, we got through that.
Speaker 6: Just barely know.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, we have less than an hour to
Speaker 4: unravel the complex artistry of over fifty years. That is
Speaker 4: our guest today and probably one of my favorite singers ever.
Speaker 4: I'll just say on a personal note to be selfish
Speaker 4: on the show that has my name in it, James
Speaker 4: Taylor is. His voice, in my opinion, is probably hands down.
Speaker 4: I believe one of the most beautiful, soothing, warm sounds
Speaker 4: that I can recall. It's kind of my trusted blanket,
Speaker 4: you know. It's a favorite uncle, my favorite teacher in school.
Speaker 4: And yeah, this is coming from a guy who also
Speaker 4: thinks that HR from Bad Brains is equally as soothing.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, but I'm gonna take it as a compliment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, James sale in hr Man, I'll be the first
Speaker 4: to admit that, Well, one, I'm probably the only media
Speaker 4: personality that doesn't care if that song was about you.
Speaker 1: She's already said that it wasn't about him. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, but you.
Speaker 4: Know, mainly mainly mainly because I think I pegged it
Speaker 4: in my head. With a voice that soothing, I'd never
Speaker 4: bothered to even look under the hood. I don't know
Speaker 4: if I subconsciously didn't want to look under the hood
Speaker 4: because it's just like that's my trusted blanket. And in
Speaker 4: the week and a half of preparation that I decided
Speaker 4: to search under the James Taylor hood.
Speaker 1: Yikes, I was wrong.
Speaker 4: And you know, his his newest book Breakshot, or his
Speaker 4: audiobook Breakshot Audible. Yes on Audible Exclusive. So it's a
Speaker 4: must be for us an here for every artist I
Speaker 4: ever worked with. This is literally like I'm not even
Speaker 4: separating myself. It's probably I needed this too. It dissects
Speaker 4: the first twenty one years of his life and which
Speaker 4: is kind of an understatement to say, is a rather
Speaker 4: dark journey which now really has me to the point
Speaker 4: where I'm just obsessed with entertainers or comedians or actors
Speaker 4: or whoever that managed to ruise me in a way,
Speaker 4: in a way of like ladies and gentlemen, James Tayale
Speaker 4: is here.
Speaker 1: Everyone's looking at each other.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, man, it's like we got We've only got you.
Speaker 4: We got fifty one minutes left his voice. Thank you
Speaker 4: for coming on the show. You know, you know the
Speaker 4: special this is Zarah is here. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 4: even a political figure thereah one of my managers only here.
Speaker 4: Whenever someone's here.
Speaker 1: Discuss politics and Chris, it does it out, especially, you know,
Speaker 1: if she's in the room watching how how are you?
Speaker 6: I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, you know, it's it's like
Speaker 6: a We've got a couple of projects that are coming
Speaker 6: out at the same time and a tour h starting
Speaker 6: up in April, so you know, it's a very like
Speaker 6: a it's a busy season, and it's it's kind of
Speaker 6: a promotional season, you know, and where you take your
Speaker 6: stuff to market. And that's always been you know, that's
Speaker 6: always been a kind of a difficult passage for me.
Speaker 6: Will you make a project you know over a in
Speaker 6: this case, it took us a couple of years to
Speaker 6: make this album, and uh, and then you take it
Speaker 6: by its little hand and lead it into the marketplace,
Speaker 6: you know, and and launch it. And that's that's always
Speaker 6: sort of a can be a you know, a confusing process,
Speaker 6: but but it's one that I've I've gotten used to.
Speaker 6: And not only that, it's become much much better as
Speaker 6: time has gone by. I'm talking to people almost completely
Speaker 6: who I who I admire and and respect, and and
Speaker 6: that makes all the difference.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I mean back in the beginning, you'd sort of go
Speaker 6: to Rolling Stone and hope that some intern who is
Speaker 6: interviewing you, you know, cutting your teeth on on your
Speaker 6: your project and reviewing it, that that could be really
Speaker 6: uh just just made it a daunting kind of a
Speaker 6: process to get into. But but you know, I've been
Speaker 6: feeling really good about this, this particular project and the
Speaker 6: people I've met and talked to about it.
Speaker 4: So you're saying, even this late in the game, when
Speaker 4: you create product, you still go through the process of
Speaker 4: its critical reception. It's how it fares well with your
Speaker 4: fan base and whatnot. You still have those.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, you know it. It's still a part of the work.
Speaker 6: It's it's where you you know, music used to happen. Well,
Speaker 6: it used to happen in the street, and it used
Speaker 6: to happen in the in the on the farm. Uh.
Speaker 6: But it used to happen in the church and in
Speaker 6: the court, you know, those who are or in academia somehow,
Speaker 6: you know. And I think that having music exists in
Speaker 6: a commercial context where it's saleable, is a better choice.
Speaker 6: That's better than the court or the church. In my opinion,
Speaker 6: It's not better than essentially folk music, which is which
Speaker 6: is sort of free, but it's definitely a step in
Speaker 6: the right direction to have it to take it to
Speaker 6: market in order to get people to hear it.
Speaker 4: So when you're in your formative years at least for
Speaker 4: like your first five or six albums, are you obsessively
Speaker 4: looking to see like do you take a Lester Bangs
Speaker 4: seriously or even a Christa Gal Or I'm trying to
Speaker 4: figure out, like who is the the pitchwork of his day,
Speaker 4: like the the critic that or John.
Speaker 6: Landau, John Lando or Hillman out out in Los Angeles
Speaker 6: or Robert Hillman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so that that would mean something.
Speaker 6: To you, absolutely, I mean, just inas much as it
Speaker 6: it either pushes the project along and gets it out
Speaker 6: there for people to hear or it doesn't. That was
Speaker 6: always the priority. In fact, I made such ruinous deals
Speaker 6: and decisions early on, mostly due to bad advice, that
Speaker 6: I never really saw records as a source of income.
Speaker 6: They never were, so I always just looked at it
Speaker 6: as a way to support touring and also as a
Speaker 6: way to just get my thing out there, to get
Speaker 6: my art out there.
Speaker 4: Well, that's weird to hear, because I thought I was
Speaker 4: the only artist that was like, eh, record sales whatever,
Speaker 4: like when we tore that's how I make my money.
Speaker 4: And the records so were like the flyer that you advertise, Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm coming to town, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6: Well, it's also the medium that we work in if
Speaker 6: you're a recording artist, and I think that's something I've
Speaker 6: gotten better at over time. I cringe when I listened
Speaker 6: to my early stuff, but over time I've gotten better
Speaker 6: at recording and gotten closer to what I hear in
Speaker 6: my mind when I when I think about it too.
Speaker 4: I'm just curious what James Taylor album makes you. I
Speaker 4: I I'm kind of concerned. I'm like, oh, please, don't
Speaker 4: let it be one of my favorites.
Speaker 6: Ye.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm like like for you, like, what's what's your like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What what album that Every fan like, Oh my god,
Speaker 4: oh my god, you're just like whatever.
Speaker 6: Well, the first one, the James the one.
Speaker 4: But even then, it's like, if I recall correctly, you've
Speaker 4: spoken a few times that you know you were creating
Speaker 4: that right when the Beatles were creating.
Speaker 1: The White Album. Yeah, White album, correct, So like whenever
Speaker 1: the Beatles weren't tried in the studio.
Speaker 6: You were there, that's right, we were. They let you
Speaker 6: race the board and just yeah, they did. I guess.
Speaker 6: There weren't digital cameras in those days, so you you
Speaker 6: you couldn't take a picture of it and expect to
Speaker 6: have it the next day, right, a polaroid, I guess.
Speaker 6: But no, I never actually thought about that. Man.
Speaker 4: Did you realize that you were in the eye of
Speaker 4: probably the most celebrated creative storm in music history?
Speaker 6: I did. I was aware of that in a sort
Speaker 6: of But you know, in those days, I really I lived,
Speaker 6: you know, a day at a time, maybe a week
Speaker 6: at a time. I just didn't I didn't really expand
Speaker 6: beyond what was sort of in the room, you know
Speaker 6: it all. Yes, it seemed surreal to to have been,
Speaker 6: you know, a year prior to that, I'd been here
Speaker 6: in New York and my band had failed, and I'd
Speaker 6: sort of limped back to North Carolina to lick my wounds,
Speaker 6: you know, and then lo and behold, a year later,
Speaker 6: I'm auditioning for for Paul McCartney and George Harrison. So
Speaker 6: it was on one lem level unbelievable. But you know,
Speaker 6: I just accepted it as as what was happening now.
Speaker 4: You know, how did even worried about you get to
Speaker 4: to Paul and George?
Speaker 1: Were you the first artist sign to? Yes, okay, I was.
Speaker 6: The first artist signed. And my lucky break was that
Speaker 6: my main partner actually through most of my musical life
Speaker 6: as man a guitarists from from New York, lives in
Speaker 6: Los Angeles, now named named Danny Kortchmark, Cooch and Coach
Speaker 6: had backed up Peter and Gordon, a sort of British
Speaker 6: invasion group like Chad and Jeremy. They had had a
Speaker 6: World Without Love was a song of Theirs and Knight
Speaker 6: and Rusty Armor, you know, sort of a British novelty duo,
Speaker 6: you know, very much British invasion sort of mold. But
Speaker 6: and then the year after that, I had been in
Speaker 6: the band with Coach here in New York. So I
Speaker 6: called Coots after I got to London. I said, if
Speaker 6: you still got a number for Peter Asher And it
Speaker 6: turned just thinking that he might have some contacts in
Speaker 6: the music business in London, And as it turned out,
Speaker 6: he had just signed on his head of a n
Speaker 6: R for this brand new label that the Beatles were starting,
Speaker 6: Apple Records. So he was basically looking for people to sign,
Speaker 6: and it couldn't have been it couldn't have been better timing.
Speaker 6: It was just you know, it really threaded the needle
Speaker 6: and the and the window was very short for you know.
Speaker 6: I was signed, Billy Preston was signed, Mary Hopkins yeah,
Speaker 6: m j Q. Yeah, Okay, that's amazing. I didn't realize
Speaker 6: that a group called Bad Finger and a guy named
Speaker 6: Jackie Lomax, but the five or six there seven acts
Speaker 6: that were signed within the ten month period, that Apple
Speaker 6: was actually open to other people. That's that is to say,
Speaker 6: before Alan Klein came in and just shut it down.
Speaker 6: It was I'm sure it was hemorrhaging money, but I'm
Speaker 6: also sure that it was just a unique opportunity you
Speaker 6: know too. And they gave me that that first chance.
Speaker 6: So that's that's how I ended up. I got my
Speaker 6: little demo reel to reel tape to Peter Asher. He
Speaker 6: I played him a number of songs and and he said,
Speaker 6: let's go up and and see if we can play
Speaker 6: this for a beatle up.
Speaker 1: Up at uh. I love how casual that just comes right,
Speaker 1: you know, It's like, yeah, let's just see if the beatles.
Speaker 6: Here and the way Peter remembers that the day we
Speaker 6: went up to I got my guitar in my little
Speaker 6: cardboard case and I follow him up to, uh, this
Speaker 6: building in Baker Street in London where their temporary first
Speaker 6: offices were in and he, uh sort of installs me
Speaker 6: in a room and says, is there a beadle in
Speaker 6: the house? Leans out into the hall.
Speaker 1: And that's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 6: And I say, I say it's as Peter remembers it,
Speaker 6: because because I myself, the whole day is just like blur. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean I was. I was like made for one
Speaker 6: ten and plugged into two twenty. You know, it was
Speaker 6: a totally total reference, totally shocked.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, we brought up Peter Asher, who's such a
Speaker 4: at least I consider it. I mean, would you say
Speaker 4: that Asher is like one of the Mount Rushmore figures
Speaker 4: of what I think of when I think of the
Speaker 4: California sound or definitely that.
Speaker 1: So how what what is that description?
Speaker 4: Because if someone that's not familiar with your work, like
Speaker 4: I don't know how your album's got in my household,
Speaker 4: but they were there because and it wasn't like I mean,
Speaker 4: now they have titles for it soft rock, yacht rock,
Speaker 4: or whatever they want to call it.
Speaker 6: But yacht rock that's good, I know.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's made this sort of niche, comedic,
Speaker 4: you know, reference comeback thing, but that's made it cool again,
Speaker 4: like stuff that again a Lester bangs or a christa
Speaker 4: gal like, I'm better than this type of whatever, Like
Speaker 4: now it's worship and revered and those things. But how
Speaker 4: did you and Peter like figure out this plan to
Speaker 4: sort of is it folky?
Speaker 1: Is it country? Is it blues leaning? Is it you know?
Speaker 4: How would you describe the sound that you two molded
Speaker 4: that I felt really defined the next ten years of
Speaker 4: what pop music would be, the California sound if you will.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, you know I was. I was just playing
Speaker 6: on the guitar the songs that I'd written, and counting
Speaker 6: on a a sort of community of players. Russ Kunkle
Speaker 6: on the drums, coach guy named Lee Sclar playing the bass,
Speaker 6: Carol King on the on the piano. I basically was,
Speaker 6: but essentially I was counting on them to be, you know,
Speaker 6: to do head arrangements of my guitar arrangements, you know,
Speaker 6: so that you sort of pass it on to another musician,
Speaker 6: usually a keyboard player. But basically you write out it
Speaker 6: just a simple chord chart and pass it around and
Speaker 6: count it off.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: This strange thing about well, actually it's still the case
Speaker 6: that often the time when the song is recorded for
Speaker 6: posterity is the first time it's played. You know, that's
Speaker 6: an odd thing that you don't, yeah, that you don't
Speaker 6: get to or even the seventh take. But the point
Speaker 6: is you haven't had a chance to tour it for
Speaker 6: twenty performances and sort of you know, nail it down
Speaker 6: and refine it. And I've always thought that would be
Speaker 6: a good way to go.
Speaker 4: Okay, So the question I have about Sweet Baby James
Speaker 4: is how do you have an active record deal and
Speaker 4: you're still homeless, like, or at least I've heard you
Speaker 4: mentioned a few times that for that first album you're
Speaker 4: kind of just a nomad, like crashing on couches and
Speaker 4: how like was money just not available back then, or
Speaker 4: like how did you.
Speaker 6: Well enough money was you know, and I didn't have
Speaker 6: a place to stay in Los Angeles, so Peter had
Speaker 6: a house at the corner of Olympic and Highland, and
Speaker 6: and you know, I just would crash there with at
Speaker 6: Peter's house while while we were recording in Sunset Sound.
Speaker 6: But I started building a house for myself in I
Speaker 6: think in nineteen seventy two in the back in the
Speaker 6: woods on Martha's Vineyard Island, where my family had sort
Speaker 6: of fetched up because my folks had taken me there
Speaker 6: and had taken all of us there in the summertime
Speaker 6: from North Carolina. My mom was a you know, she
Speaker 6: really was culture shocked by moving to North Carolina and
Speaker 6: where my dad was worked with the University of North Carolina.
Speaker 6: So she wanted to bring us up north every every
Speaker 6: and try to keep our sort of Yankee roots to
Speaker 6: the extent we could. And so my family all gravitated
Speaker 6: towards that place as being the happiest place, you know,
Speaker 6: and and we ended all ended up living there. But
Speaker 6: your question was about being homeless. I suppose that it
Speaker 6: was sort of rootless.
Speaker 4: Okay, right, no, no, no, yeah, let me clarify. It wasn't
Speaker 4: like he was sleeping on the street cords like it
Speaker 4: was all this guy out.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: In my mind, I just feel like there's a certain
Speaker 4: level of comfort that one has to have, at least
Speaker 4: I think in order to find their creative space. Where
Speaker 4: I've been in a few situations in which if my
Speaker 4: personal life is in shambles, that affects my creative output.
Speaker 1: And so am I.
Speaker 4: You know, to hear you hear describe that you were
Speaker 4: crashing on couches and you didn't have a house. I'm
Speaker 4: I'm wondering, like, is the the rest of the stress
Speaker 4: of of of not having roots pun intended? Does that
Speaker 4: affect your creative output or not?
Speaker 6: You know, I never thought about it, but I think
Speaker 6: you're right. If I can think back to any two
Speaker 6: particular creative periods, it's always been a sort of protected
Speaker 6: period during the time that I'm that I'm writing, you know,
Speaker 6: And I think you're right. I think it does take
Speaker 6: that the songs for Sweet Baby James, that that first
Speaker 6: Warner Brothers album, that which you'd you know, rightly describe
Speaker 6: as sort of the the beginning of the California sound.
Speaker 6: But you know, back to that question for a second,
Speaker 6: you know, Peter, I and I didn't really discuss the sound.
Speaker 6: We just, you know, as I said, I just introduced
Speaker 6: the songs to these other players, and we played it
Speaker 6: the way we heard it, you know, it and recorded it.
Speaker 6: It really wasn't directed in any real sense other than
Speaker 6: just the the you know, the sort of template the
Speaker 6: form of my playing it on the guitar.
Speaker 4: Were you somewhat aware of what the marketplace was and
Speaker 4: how somewhat different than the marketplace that you were that
Speaker 4: this output was presenting itself. I'm not saying it was
Speaker 4: radically radically different, but you know, I feel as though, you.
Speaker 6: Know, I definitely distanced myself and identified myself as being
Speaker 6: apart from music business. You know, to me, music business
Speaker 6: was still Dean Martin playing at the sands, you know
Speaker 6: in Las Vegas. Well, in fact, Dean Martin was a
Speaker 6: great singer and and and did some great songs, but
Speaker 6: at the time we identified that as being another generation. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's right, sort of, so you want to avoid the
Speaker 6: Kopa tensil Tensil town. Yeah, I swore I'd never play
Speaker 6: Las Vegas. You know, we I got two Grammys. I
Speaker 6: didn't show up.
Speaker 4: I said, ooh oh, even like, oh yeah, that's so funny,
Speaker 4: and how each artist. Okay, I'm slowly discovering that every
Speaker 4: clique or people that I would think were the establishment.
Speaker 1: They have their I'm sort of yeah, I'm above.
Speaker 4: That, which is weird because not like I see you
Speaker 4: as the establishment, but even now you're saying like in
Speaker 4: your way, like I'm rebelling against that.
Speaker 6: And we very much wanted to to distance our else
Speaker 6: from it. And I mean we uh that's that was
Speaker 6: the sense in the you know, the zeitgeist in the
Speaker 6: in Los Angeles at the time was was that we
Speaker 6: belonged to a different generation and uh, you know, a
Speaker 6: sort of the sort of demographic bulge you know that
Speaker 6: happened after the war, that baby boom bulge in the
Speaker 6: population when it came to college age. It's sort of
Speaker 6: it manifested in a way with with FM radio too.
Speaker 6: It sort of started to and the Beatles and Dylan
Speaker 6: and you know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask I'll let you give you a question.
Speaker 8: I wanted to I just want to say, hippies.
Speaker 4: But that's the thing though, But I feel coming into
Speaker 4: the seventies, though, what I felt like there was this
Speaker 4: sort of air at least with like with with Neil
Speaker 4: Young's after the after the Gold Rush, that there was
Speaker 4: this sole disillusionment with with all the lofty ideas of
Speaker 4: what the hippies were trying to present in sixty seven
Speaker 4: sixty eight. It was kind of a more of a
Speaker 4: cynical thing, even though you didn't go that route, Like,
Speaker 4: was this your response to it, like just to be.
Speaker 1: Establishment, like you know, I'm I'm a serious singer songwriter.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 6: Right. No. That was part of it too, is that
Speaker 6: there was nothing serious about it. You know, it was
Speaker 6: like it didn't have any pretensions. You know, Wow, was
Speaker 6: was the was the idea? You know? I mean, yes,
Speaker 6: I was judgmental of other music, but you know, I
Speaker 6: realize now that to be judgment metal of Frank Sinatra
Speaker 6: because he's he's my parents' generation, you know, is that's absurd?
Speaker 6: And you know so, uh, you know, I've I've come
Speaker 6: around to to understanding that that those I've got an
Speaker 6: album coming out of a you know, American songbook type
Speaker 6: tunes arranged for the guitar called called American Standard, which
Speaker 6: is also the name of a toilet manufacturer.
Speaker 1: Is hate you for bringing that up?
Speaker 4: Next to the Beatles, I'll probably say that, Uh, soul
Speaker 4: music interpretations of your songs are probably the most interesting.
Speaker 4: That's really how I got to introduce to it. So
Speaker 4: let me tonight. I was going to say my obsession
Speaker 4: with Oscar Meyer. I mean I was three when three
Speaker 4: plus three came out. I thought it was boloney. I
Speaker 4: thought it was about lunch Ronaldsley, the way he announced it,
Speaker 4: his word, don't let me bolooney?
Speaker 1: Yes, oh god, what did I say? Look, there's just.
Speaker 5: No one knows what bolooney is anymore, so they plant baseballoney.
Speaker 9: Look, we're not do not think that he was my
Speaker 9: My whole point though, was were you aware at all
Speaker 9: of how radical the soul music interpretations of your songs
Speaker 9: were like?
Speaker 4: Because to me, even though yes, I love your version
Speaker 4: of Fire and Rain, but the Isley Brothers have this
Speaker 4: really notorious eight minute version of the.
Speaker 1: Song that.
Speaker 4: Almost wound up on every mixtape I've ever given a girl.
Speaker 4: So and on top of that, are you rather chagrined
Speaker 4: that for those that don't know the how the song
Speaker 4: came to be and what it's about and how you
Speaker 4: wrote it. How almost like Fire and Rain gets or
Speaker 4: most of your songs get misinterpreted because we just want
Speaker 4: to see it through our rose colored filter.
Speaker 1: This is just this mentioned.
Speaker 6: Ship.
Speaker 4: This is always the second song on every.
Speaker 6: It's like a minor to mature, Like, uh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they won't even get to the lyrics until four
Speaker 4: minutes in, Like they just stay here for it for.
Speaker 1: Like five minutes. But I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: The are you are you rather chagrined when people take
Speaker 4: your songs and sort of have it for the wrong meanings,
Speaker 4: Like I'm certain that it's been placed in movies, in
Speaker 4: romantic songs. You're like, no, this is about friends suicide
Speaker 4: and you know, all.
Speaker 6: Right, and drug recovery. Yeah it's it's true, and you know,
Speaker 6: but but it's the emotional impact of the song that
Speaker 6: really counts. And I think that that that's why that
Speaker 6: that song resonated with people, because you know, and I
Speaker 6: think that the line I always thought I'd see you again,
Speaker 6: I think the islay said, right, that's basically the sort
Speaker 6: of the emotional core of it.
Speaker 4: Like well, when I've seen it's always like someone rides
Speaker 4: to the train station too late and the love of
Speaker 4: their life already like left, or like at the the
Speaker 4: the airport.
Speaker 1: Moment, like.
Speaker 3: Commercial TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, those two puppies, like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no, it is it's it's it's an emotional package,
Speaker 6: I think, and uh, and it that's what comes through
Speaker 6: more than the you know, the literal reading of the song,
Speaker 6: I think, and that's but that's the nature of music.
Speaker 6: You we don't get to decide about it. It's not
Speaker 6: a cerebral process. It either connects with us or it doesn't.
Speaker 6: And and to a certain extent to talk about it,
Speaker 6: although I talk about it a lot and think about
Speaker 6: it a lot. But but that's sort of you know,
Speaker 6: after the fact. I mean the music either, you know,
Speaker 6: because it's a real thing. It's it's not you know,
Speaker 6: words are all words represent something else. But the only
Speaker 6: word that is the thing that it represents is the
Speaker 6: word word wow.
Speaker 8: Words of wisdom, time to get something.
Speaker 6: Well so so, you know, so so we we put
Speaker 6: words together to to describe all kinds of things, the world,
Speaker 6: the universe. But but music, although it's like a language,
Speaker 6: we we manipulate it like a language and we use
Speaker 6: it for it definitely has emotional I'm not sure if
Speaker 6: they're culturally you know, established, or if they're if if
Speaker 6: everyone in the world here is a minor chord the
Speaker 6: same way as opposed to a major chord, or you know,
Speaker 6: but I do think that there's a reality to it
Speaker 6: because it follows the laws of physics, you know, an
Speaker 6: octave is twice the frequency of the octave below it,
Speaker 6: and and half of the one above it, and and
Speaker 6: and that the overtone series is a real thing that exists,
Speaker 6: and so music has its base, and it's based in
Speaker 6: a real truth, you know, and and not one that
Speaker 6: we have to arrive at a consensus about. And that
Speaker 6: way it hits us directly, and and that you know
Speaker 6: that means that it you know, the cliche the universal language,
Speaker 6: but you know it, Uh, you know that's that's we
Speaker 6: were talking about people misinterpreting lyrics and and and I
Speaker 6: don't think they really do. I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: the way a song hits you is probably what it
Speaker 6: actually has.
Speaker 1: To find a common emotion. So do you feel as
Speaker 1: though your.
Speaker 4: Your voice Okay, now now I'm gonna feel like Chris
Speaker 4: Farley asking this. Your voice is really cool man, but
Speaker 4: you're just just your The tone and the sound of
Speaker 4: your voice is such a warm gift. Uh, that could
Speaker 4: possibly I mean, I'm certain that you could sing in
Speaker 4: her stand in by by Metallica, by Metallica, and it
Speaker 4: would just be the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you?
Speaker 4: I know the answer is going to be like, well,
Speaker 4: I've had this voice, and there's a gift from God
Speaker 4: or whatever. People people always say to avoid the question,
Speaker 4: but how did you develop your voice or what made
Speaker 4: you sing? And I guess you're a lower register like
Speaker 4: it's it's it's a rare thing to have that much
Speaker 4: impact under a tenor.
Speaker 6: You know, that's a really good point. I've never you know,
Speaker 6: you're the first person I've ever spoken to who's who's
Speaker 6: actually put it that way. And I totally agree, I totally,
Speaker 6: I totally agree. You know. The way I look at
Speaker 6: it is if if you if you have the guitar
Speaker 6: as your instrument, you know, to sing down in the
Speaker 6: same range as the guitar itself is like it's muddy,
Speaker 6: you know, it's you. You really wish you could get
Speaker 6: above it. But I just don't have that that range.
Speaker 6: I can't get above a you know, literally above an F.
Speaker 3: You know, like and what was the story that I
Speaker 3: read about that you injured your voice because you were
Speaker 3: singing too harshly years and years ago? How does what
Speaker 3: is singing too harshly sound?
Speaker 1: Like, let's not make them, you know, to sing harshly
Speaker 1: like what yeah.
Speaker 6: No, it's uh uh, it's I was just singing in
Speaker 6: a club. Uh you know, six days a week, five shows,
Speaker 6: a night over, a li out, banned without any monitors
Speaker 6: and and eventually I just I got to you know,
Speaker 6: you get little blisters. I guess it's you.
Speaker 3: So what did you learn as a singer in a
Speaker 3: way to learn how to take care of your voice?
Speaker 6: That you did? It took a long time, and now
Speaker 6: I find that as I get older, you know, you
Speaker 6: you use it or you lose it. So I I
Speaker 6: exercise my voice every day. That's Tony Bennett told me that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you do warm ups?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well actually.
Speaker 1: Like the seth Riggs variety, Like.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, I do, and but they're not warm ups.
Speaker 6: They're actually like a workout. It's a it's an hour
Speaker 6: long process and I do it every day.
Speaker 4: Really okay, So I guess yeah, if you're working that,
Speaker 4: you're working out.
Speaker 6: Like a trumpet player and you know his chops, his
Speaker 6: his armbro sure and his you know you got to
Speaker 6: keep it going or.
Speaker 4: So okay, Can I ask what your daily workout is,
Speaker 4: like what time do you wake up in the morning
Speaker 4: and do you set time to create like at six
Speaker 4: am when everyone's asleep.
Speaker 1: Do you ride at three in the morning when everyone's asleep, or.
Speaker 6: I guess it's just that entertainment tainer's hours. I don't
Speaker 6: know what what's it like for you? When do you
Speaker 6: wake up? When do you wake up in the day?
Speaker 1: Shut up?
Speaker 4: First of all, Okay, as of this speaking, As as
Speaker 4: of this talking, I'm in a relationship with someone who
Speaker 4: absolutely insists I sleep eight to ten hours every night.
Speaker 1: So he used to sleep three hours a night. Right.
Speaker 1: I used to be one of those people that's very
Speaker 1: proud to you know, whatever sleep sleep is death, right right.
Speaker 1: I was one of those people.
Speaker 4: But you know I I had to get out the situation.
Speaker 4: No sleep is the best thing that ever happened in
Speaker 4: my life, which I'm like, kind of mad I missed
Speaker 4: out on it. But that said, I like, at least preliminary.
Speaker 4: I'm used to creating late at night.
Speaker 7: Yea.
Speaker 4: So I'll say that a lot of my practice was
Speaker 4: kind of a I'll say that's eighty percent of my
Speaker 4: career was somewhere between seven pm and eleven am, which
Speaker 4: Quincy Jones has a has a weird theory about what
Speaker 4: he calls what the alpha alpha state. The alpha state,
Speaker 4: so Quincy Jones would purposely have his his musicians come
Speaker 4: in around six pm. He feeds them a lot of food,
Speaker 4: give them a lot of wine, and they fall asleep
Speaker 4: in the break room. Then he weighed around midnight one
Speaker 4: am and wake them up one by one to start
Speaker 4: playing their parts. The short version is because when you're tired,
Speaker 4: you can't argue with Quincy Jones is like, all right,
Speaker 4: but you're not you're not overthinking the part you're He's like,
Speaker 4: when you're tired, you actually give a better performance, which
Speaker 4: which is mainly to go back to your first take thing.
Speaker 4: A lot of times, I Steve uh has been like
Speaker 4: my longtime engineering for like twenty years. A lot of
Speaker 4: times I don't want to know when the tape is rolling,
Speaker 4: because usually when it's like, all right, this is running
Speaker 4: down real quick and then we'll record it. For like,
Speaker 4: the best performance is always when you're not aware, you're
Speaker 4: not hyper aware that it's that that the.
Speaker 6: Meter's running and you're saying, oh man, just just sixteen
Speaker 6: bars to go, you know kind of you know that
Speaker 6: right when?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So a lot of the times I'm reading something I
Speaker 4: can I can now play effortlessly without thinking, you know,
Speaker 4: and people see me a few times check my phone
Speaker 4: or eat cereal or while I'm playing. That's how effortless
Speaker 4: I am as a musician. But I mean for you, like,
Speaker 4: if you get an idea, do you keep always keep
Speaker 4: a device.
Speaker 6: On you need to, Yeah, yeah, I sort of have
Speaker 6: to to trap those song ideas. Sometimes it'll come when
Speaker 6: you're driving the car. Sometimes it'll come when you're you know,
Speaker 6: just often when you're sitting down and just practicing a
Speaker 6: little start playing a little figure, a little wheel, and
Speaker 6: then you get the thought of a melody and a
Speaker 6: little scrap of lyric and you you have to put
Speaker 6: that down so that you know, and sometimes you'll be
Speaker 6: lucky and that thing will like be half the song
Speaker 6: you know, you'll get and then you you know, come
Speaker 6: back to it and write a bridge or But I've
Speaker 6: always assumed it was because I had to be ready
Speaker 6: to be on the stand at at eight o'clock at night.
Speaker 6: Between eight and eleven is when I was performing, and
Speaker 6: then it takes me about three hours to you know,
Speaker 6: calm down enough to go to sleep. So and often
Speaker 6: I'm on the bus go into the next town, you know.
Speaker 6: So I just drifted into this thing where I was
Speaker 6: falling asleep at two o'clock, you know, and I just yeah,
Speaker 6: and I'm sleeping till till ten.
Speaker 1: You know. Do you have performance anxiety?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I do to this day, Yes I do.
Speaker 3: What does that mean for you?
Speaker 1: What is that so it's not a thing? Yeah? Okay, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: I see you, like you still have anxiety.
Speaker 6: You know, it calms down after a week on the road,
Speaker 6: but that first night. I'll definitely I've gotten a little
Speaker 6: bit more efficient at dealing with it. You know, I
Speaker 6: don't feel it until about half an hour before I
Speaker 6: go on, but it's sort of packaged in that time.
Speaker 1: But I definitely must you be alone. To you, you're like,
Speaker 1: how do what a half hour before showtime? What are
Speaker 1: you doing?
Speaker 6: That's right? You know, I put in contact lenses because
Speaker 6: I if I have my glasses in the in the
Speaker 6: stage lights, it's like it's hard to read, uh, and
Speaker 6: hard to read the set list and uh, but I
Speaker 6: don't use the teleprompter. I still remember the lyrics.
Speaker 1: But you're better man than I don't know what artists.
Speaker 4: Once you get past like sixty songs, then something's gonna
Speaker 4: you're going to forget the second verse to something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right, and and that does happen. Sometimes you
Speaker 6: you'll get to the what what more typically happens is
Speaker 6: you you'll get to the end of the second chorus
Speaker 6: and you say, wait a minute, was that the first
Speaker 6: or the second chorus? I just fini, you don't know,
Speaker 6: and you're not sure it's fun it is. Are we
Speaker 6: going into the bridge or are we going into the
Speaker 6: next verse?
Speaker 1: May I suggest to you pulling what they call a
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown y'all say it sing that ship?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, actually I'm curious about something. So for the
Speaker 4: two songs that I got introduced to you in real
Speaker 4: time as a five year old in first grade, now
Speaker 4: I'm realizing that.
Speaker 1: Is it the One Man Dog album? All right?
Speaker 4: So all the songs are what I would call when
Speaker 4: when I refer to the end a series or vignettes
Speaker 4: of short, shortest songs, it's like a beatles the end.
Speaker 1: That's how I referred it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like a it is they're they're compressed that
Speaker 6: there's not one of them that's longer than a minute,
Speaker 6: and and they're they're all they all lead into each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's really great for kids because one of
Speaker 1: the first songs. All right.
Speaker 4: The second song I've ever had to perform in second
Speaker 4: grade was Chili Dog. All right, Miss Lewynn made us
Speaker 4: all earned Chili Dog, No kidding, Yeah, dude, bless my heart,
Speaker 4: blown smoke up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, with what was what was the reasoning for
Speaker 1: the way you structured that album? You know?
Speaker 6: I realized that I had all of these short pieces,
Speaker 6: and uh, I just found a way to put them
Speaker 6: all together, like Little David play on your Heart. That's like,
Speaker 6: you know, I had a dog I lost, and I
Speaker 6: and I really shouldn't have had a dog, and I
Speaker 6: felt bad about it. You know, I was traveling too
Speaker 6: much to have my dog, and and you know.
Speaker 1: So this is why I have a dog. There, that's true,
Speaker 1: poor guy.
Speaker 5: Before we move on, though, Yeah, I know I encourage
Speaker 5: every listener to check out One Man Dog. I feel
Speaker 5: like it's overlooked and underrated and nobody really mentions it
Speaker 5: often enough.
Speaker 1: So One Man Dog, You're right, Steve, I'm adding it
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah? Why? Okay?
Speaker 4: So I don't know why I feel like I again
Speaker 4: my history of embracing the wrong album the wrong albums,
Speaker 4: and everyone's cannon.
Speaker 1: I don't know about One Man Dog.
Speaker 4: Because miss Lewin would play that in second grade, and
Speaker 4: you know they're short songs, they're easy to learn.
Speaker 1: But why what were your at the time. You're on Warner? Correct?
Speaker 4: I was on Warner at that point, So what's more
Speaker 4: Austin and those guys saying as far as like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we neede a single.
Speaker 6: Well, they don't let me be lonely. Tonight was a
Speaker 6: single from that that album, and it did well enough too,
Speaker 6: and it also is covered more than any of my
Speaker 6: other songs, so it you know, it was a The
Speaker 6: thing that was a problem is that if you look
Speaker 6: at the album and count each one of those little songs,
Speaker 6: you know, little David, Chili Dog Jig, you know, all
Speaker 6: of those various little scraps, they wouldn't pay for individual songs.
Speaker 6: You know, they're not going to pay publishing on an
Speaker 6: album that's got twenty two songs on it, right, So
Speaker 6: we have to make that's right. It was a rule
Speaker 6: of ten, I think. And if you do a cover
Speaker 6: of someone else's song, they're definitely getting paid. If you know,
Speaker 6: you're the one who has to has to eat.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 5: So they's just certain songs you get publishing on, and
Speaker 5: certain songs just you don't on that record.
Speaker 6: If your contract says that an album shall constitute ten
Speaker 6: songs and the record company, will you know, we'll only
Speaker 6: pay for that, you know, publishing on that many songs.
Speaker 6: If you want to put extras on, it has to
Speaker 6: come out of your piece. If if you wrote the song,
Speaker 6: it's that that's an obvious choice. But if if someone
Speaker 6: else wrote it then and if you do cover another
Speaker 6: person's song, you're going to have to pay someone will
Speaker 6: I mean, that's that's not you can't contract yourself out
Speaker 6: of somebody else's rights.
Speaker 1: So any inspiring musicians just rewind that and listen to
Speaker 1: that one more time again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, question, okay, true. If I'm afraid to ask this question,
Speaker 4: the I guess the myth of what you would call
Speaker 4: again the do you call it the Kenyon Ranch or
Speaker 4: or or just not the Canyon Ranch. There's there's a
Speaker 4: specific title for it, the California Lord. Well the click
Speaker 4: of right of Jonie, you like, was there an actual
Speaker 4: were you guys interacting with each other in the way
Speaker 4: that it was kind of the myth of it of
Speaker 4: the stories or how we see it in our heads,
Speaker 4: like oh, okay, yeah, you probably hung with Linda.
Speaker 1: You know Linda Poker at Linda Ronstadt's house on Thursdays.
Speaker 6: Or oh you know Peter Peter managed and produced both
Speaker 6: both myself and Linda. So so yeah, I saw a
Speaker 6: lot of Linda, and I sang on a number of
Speaker 6: her records. Carol and I were sort of in a
Speaker 6: band together and and toured together for for a long time.
Speaker 1: Well, Carol, Carol King, you knew were even back in
Speaker 1: the Bridal days or no, I didn't.
Speaker 6: Know her when she was here in town, although Cooch
Speaker 6: says that she came down to the night Al Cafe
Speaker 6: and met us when we were the house band down there,
Speaker 6: our ill fated Flying Machine days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm saying that does he even is he
Speaker 1: a where the breakbeat or flying Machine? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, oh there's
Speaker 1: a bonterfid uh Diamond, Oh we go tell somebody there's
Speaker 1: a well known breakbeat.
Speaker 2: Record.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's part of the that's part of
Speaker 1: the hip hop diet. But good digress.
Speaker 6: But uh, I think, oh so yeah, Linda and I
Speaker 6: had that connection, and Carol King and I had that
Speaker 6: Linda on set and Carol King and I had a connection.
Speaker 6: Joany and I were together for a for a year.
Speaker 6: We we we traveled together, we lived together. I stayed
Speaker 6: at her placing in Laurel Canyon and and we we
Speaker 6: also uh performed on each other's record. She's the background
Speaker 6: vocals on on You've Got a Friend and long ago
Speaker 6: on far Away Uh, She's you know uh and on
Speaker 6: a later song of mine called you Are My Only
Speaker 6: One that was Jony and Don Henley singing. But at
Speaker 6: any rate, Jony was also very personally involved with with
Speaker 6: Crosby Stills and Nash Jackson. Brown worked with Coats with
Speaker 6: Danny kurtzbar in the section which was my band made
Speaker 6: that Running on Empty album for him. So there there
Speaker 6: was a sense of a of a group of sort
Speaker 6: of community of musicians, and it it centered around the
Speaker 6: Troubadour Cafe, which was which is a dive in.
Speaker 7: In l A.
Speaker 4: That's where Donnie Hathaway recorded. His version of You Got
Speaker 4: a Friend was made of the Troubadoor.
Speaker 5: He skipped over the part where you where he played
Speaker 5: on Blue Mitchell's album for People who fantastic.
Speaker 1: Fucking album Blue It is.
Speaker 6: It is great Johnny, So.
Speaker 4: Uh, why is walking Man the one album that at
Speaker 4: let's see Peter why he didn't produced.
Speaker 6: It was the first album he didn't produce. Well, you know,
Speaker 6: I had made already my first four albums with Peter,
Speaker 6: and I really wanted to uh to Well, for one thing,
Speaker 6: I wanted to record in New York because I never
Speaker 6: lived in Los Angeles. I always lived East Coast, and
Speaker 6: I would stay out there with with Peter or at
Speaker 6: another you know place. But I did three albums, one
Speaker 6: with Spinosa and then two with with Warner Brothers staff
Speaker 6: producers Lenny Warrenker and uh and Russ Titelmann and and
Speaker 6: those guys who also.
Speaker 1: Said that so casually like those are gods. Wait, they
Speaker 1: were just staff members.
Speaker 6: Well, they were staff members at Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4: And never I'm one second year old now that I'm
Speaker 4: realizing that all the good stuff, all the stuff they
Speaker 4: produced was on Warner which explains.
Speaker 1: Why the sound was so consistent, why.
Speaker 6: All those things were made at Amigo's studios right there
Speaker 6: in Burbank.
Speaker 4: It never occurred to me that, like, oh, that they
Speaker 4: were staff producers. And I mean I came after an
Speaker 4: era where labels didn't have producers on standby to take
Speaker 4: all the artists in like people just chose on their.
Speaker 1: Own who they wanted to work with.
Speaker 4: But that explains why Russ okay, all the all the
Speaker 4: stuffs engineered the same and has the consistent sound.
Speaker 6: And yeah, a guy named Lee Hirschberg was the was
Speaker 6: the staff, you know, that was the record company studio.
Speaker 6: So it was sort of like if you were making
Speaker 6: a movie on the on the Warner Brothers lot.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 6: It was the musical equivalent of that. So we'd go
Speaker 6: to I made two albums, Gorilla in the Pocket.
Speaker 1: In the Pocket one of my favorites.
Speaker 5: Yeah, those were those were good days.
Speaker 6: I felt as though I had sort of negotiated the
Speaker 6: process of being public, of going public. I felt I
Speaker 6: felt stable in my marriage, and I felt healthy and well,
Speaker 6: and it was just like you show up at the studio,
Speaker 6: you do your work for day, you go home. You know,
Speaker 6: it was very work a day. It was very stable
Speaker 6: place to work, the you know, the basically working for
Speaker 6: Warner Brothers, making these two albums, and I really I
Speaker 6: think that was a very good period for me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it makes sense for a record label
Speaker 5: to have staff engineers to have a continuity to their sound.
Speaker 5: I mean I think that's a sort of a lost
Speaker 5: thing now with labels where.
Speaker 8: There's just now I came after that era, so yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking of CTI and things and jazz labels and
Speaker 5: where it's just sort of like, you know, you always
Speaker 5: have the same engineers and the same producers, and it's
Speaker 5: the same studios and it's branding.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, labels used to do a better job of branding
Speaker 5: and having their own studio.
Speaker 6: And also the music was made live, you know, it
Speaker 6: wasn't all a process of put down an idea with
Speaker 6: a keyboard and a drum machine, get a vocal on it,
Speaker 6: and then start making the rounds of people to overdub
Speaker 6: on it, which is which is a great way to record,
Speaker 6: but but it doesn't give you the same sound you
Speaker 6: know of if you have a room, you're micing the room,
Speaker 6: you're miking the players and and they're actually you know,
Speaker 6: like that Stan Getz album go from Me Panimas on it.
Speaker 6: But at any rate, that's a three day process. I
Speaker 6: think round Midnight probably also three or four days, you know,
Speaker 6: very very live albums and uh and and that's a
Speaker 6: that's a rarity.
Speaker 1: It just hit me Steve that one of our most
Speaker 1: heated debates ever about.
Speaker 4: Music is over Her Town Too? Sorry, Uh, exactly. We
Speaker 4: always have this debate, all right, Oh I.
Speaker 8: See yeah, yeah, so yeah, what's going on.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 8: I'm afraid to ask. Yeah, well he knows, he knows
Speaker 8: what he heard on the radio.
Speaker 4: No, dude, like I live Dawn and my dad like Dawn.
Speaker 4: My dad had all pop and soft ron covered. So
Speaker 4: there's at least eight of his records in my house right,
Speaker 4: not in real time, not like, oh I'm in the supermarket.
Speaker 1: Oh it's James Taylor, that's James Tale.
Speaker 4: My whole point was that we were going this this
Speaker 4: is ten years ago, where we're just nerded now on
Speaker 4: James Taylor classics and in my top five is Her
Speaker 4: Town Too, which it was on Dad's work.
Speaker 1: Dad likes.
Speaker 4: Right, right right, that was out when I was like ten.
Speaker 4: It's my sister's favorite record. So I'm telling him like
Speaker 4: Her Town Too, and it just and I was so angry.
Speaker 1: For a week and I played it for him. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you what this No, I'm like and you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: Well different, different, all right, Well, I actually have a
Speaker 5: very similar story because this is this album right here
Speaker 5: from eighty five.
Speaker 8: That's why I'm here.
Speaker 5: My sister had the cassette and brought it on some
Speaker 5: family vacation, and that's why I know this one back
Speaker 5: to front and maybe don't know, you know a different
Speaker 5: one back to front, but it's it's the oldest sister story.
Speaker 1: Basically, Yes, both of our oldest sisters put James Taylor
Speaker 1: that that song was a was a.
Speaker 6: It was a real collaboration. And you know, uh, I
Speaker 6: wrote it with a guy named John David Souther, Watti
Speaker 6: walk Tel and Coots. I think we were all in
Speaker 6: the room. We were all, you know, staying up way
Speaker 6: too late. There might have been some substances involved. We
Speaker 6: we we ended up.
Speaker 1: Wait he played, I don't mean to interrupt you. Yeah
Speaker 1: he he came with Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 4: Yeah wait, you're trying to tell me the guy that
Speaker 4: I freaking did the intro to Edge of seventeen.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no no no, he co wrote
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 6: Yes he did. Watty was was was in the room
Speaker 6: and I get.
Speaker 1: To ask him this question. I wish everybody can see
Speaker 1: your face.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, actually we should look it up and make
Speaker 6: sure he that's how I'm remembering it, but.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm looking right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, does it say walked out?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 6: Oh great, great?
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, I'm sorry when when when Stevie came on
Speaker 4: the Tonight should do Edge of seventeen, he came with
Speaker 4: her and we've been nerding out on him for at
Speaker 4: least three to four hours.
Speaker 6: He is that's a that's another You know, there's so
Speaker 6: many of these really important musical figures who figure at
Speaker 6: least as deeply as the person you know who fronts
Speaker 6: the band, but you know who like the the you know,
Speaker 6: the the Wrecking Crew, like the you know that that
Speaker 6: the Motown.
Speaker 1: House band brothers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know all of all of these these people
Speaker 6: who Yeah, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1: Yes, how did you choose these musicians?
Speaker 6: You know it? The for the first album, the Apple album,
Speaker 6: I just ran ads in the music papers in London.
Speaker 6: There were two. There was one called New Musical Express
Speaker 6: and another one called Melody Maker, and we just went
Speaker 6: to the want ads and advertised for a keyboard player
Speaker 6: and a bass player and my friend Joel O'Brien came
Speaker 6: over to play drums. But but ultimately it was like, uh,
Speaker 6: by the time we got to California. I hooked up
Speaker 6: with Coach again, and Coach had been working with Carol,
Speaker 6: so that gave us that basic just two guitars and
Speaker 6: uh and and and Carol's piano and and we had
Speaker 6: a number of bass players, but eventually we settled on
Speaker 6: lease clar. There was a guy named Bobby West who
Speaker 6: played on Fire and Rain. He he played upright bass,
Speaker 6: you know, acoustic bass, and and he boted it to
Speaker 6: for for one verse.
Speaker 8: I think anyway, we know Scolar too, you know a studio.
Speaker 6: Yeah he's yeah, Li's Lee's uh also uh, you know,
Speaker 6: one of these deep sources of music. And and I
Speaker 6: think there there are musical cultures like in in Japan
Speaker 6: and and in Europe and Germany where where people follow
Speaker 6: who these session players are and understand their value. But
Speaker 6: we you know, and and particularly back when when music
Speaker 6: was being made live uh uh in the studio. Uh
Speaker 6: you know, these these players were were you know, Linda
Speaker 6: Ronstadt depended on a guy named Andrew gold As as
Speaker 6: her sort of musical director. And Andrew, you know, is
Speaker 6: a big part of that sound that that she she had.
Speaker 6: And I know you know what I'm talking about, of course.
Speaker 4: No, well, yeah, even hip hop heads. We collect records,
Speaker 4: the first thing we do is look at the credits
Speaker 4: that are not played on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll buy this record.
Speaker 4: Like Bobby Hall playing percussion on on on your albums.
Speaker 4: It was an instant whoa, I know that name Bill
Speaker 4: Withers and dada, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1: We're okay, so I asked, and of course Steve.
Speaker 5: No just speaking about collaborations and things our listeners might
Speaker 5: not know that you on albums you've appeared on, like
Speaker 5: just things. I wanted to bring up Steve Winwoods back
Speaker 5: in the high life again singing background vocals on that song,
Speaker 5: and uh, that was that was a.
Speaker 6: Rust that was a rough produced that particular track.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I mentioned you played on Blue You should
Speaker 5: really talk about that more. Uh Is it true you
Speaker 5: played banjo on Old Man?
Speaker 6: Yes, that's right. Yeah, and Linda and I sang on
Speaker 6: that too. It was a session in in Nashville, back
Speaker 6: when Nashville was, you know, an earlier generation of Nashville,
Speaker 6: which I really didn't you know, identify with. I just
Speaker 6: the country music at the at that time seemed like
Speaker 6: another country to me, you know, it did it seemed
Speaker 6: like and I was I was raised in the South,
Speaker 6: so I had a sense of what the line was.
Speaker 6: You know what the dividing line was. You know that
Speaker 6: kind of Christian gun rack, uh, a cowboy hat thing.
Speaker 6: You know that that line?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh you've noticed that.
Speaker 1: Did you notice?
Speaker 8: Is that the only uh is that the only banjo
Speaker 8: you've you've recorded?
Speaker 6: That's right. It was a six string banjo and it
Speaker 6: so you played it like a guitar and it just,
Speaker 6: you know, was stretched across that membrane that that a
Speaker 6: banjo has and made that sound.
Speaker 5: But yeah, there's one more collaboration that I don't I
Speaker 5: don't think a lot of people know about. There's a
Speaker 5: song on an Art Garfunkel album cover of Sam Cook's
Speaker 5: What a Wonderful World.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's right, Paul Simon and Art and and I.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, everybody takes a verse. It's really cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we wrote an extra verse to it too. Don't
Speaker 6: know much about the Middle Ages, looked at the pictures
Speaker 6: and turned the pages, don't know nothing about no rise
Speaker 6: and fall, don't know nothing about nothing at all. And
Speaker 6: that that was an extra verse that we snuck into
Speaker 6: it so that all three of us got a verse.
Speaker 8: Yeah, everybody should check that out. It's really pretty. We
Speaker 8: will I just guess.
Speaker 1: I have a real quick question. Can you confirm something
Speaker 1: that I've always thought in my head and in the pocket.
Speaker 1: There's a song that you did with Stevie wonder, Don't
Speaker 1: be sad because your son is down? Did Stevie come
Speaker 1: up with that title? Yes, okay, I knew it. I
Speaker 1: knew it. What's it there? It's just because that's it
Speaker 1: just sounds like Stevie, you know, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: Stevie sentence.
Speaker 6: What what Stevie gave me was this this thing that
Speaker 6: goes like a don't be sad goes your songs is down? Anyway,
Speaker 6: that's as much as here with the Tarry James Taylor,
Speaker 6: give it James Taylor, take it away. But the the
Speaker 6: the thing is that he gave me those chord changes,
Speaker 6: and he gave me but on the piano, and he
Speaker 6: gave me, uh, the title don't be said because your
Speaker 6: son is down? And he said, you know, take that And.
Speaker 1: So I think that song and shove it. This is happening.
Speaker 6: I haven't thought of that song in many a year.
Speaker 6: But we we we we did it live one year
Speaker 6: and it was really it was great. But you know,
Speaker 6: to to be able to work. Stevie was you know,
Speaker 6: it was one of those things. He sent it over
Speaker 6: and and called me up and and said, you know,
Speaker 6: give it a try, and and you you know, i'll
Speaker 6: take the publishing on this one. You take the publishing
Speaker 6: on the next one. And we we haven't got to
Speaker 6: the next one.
Speaker 3: Yet, he said, I as in him.
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, Stevie, it was you want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just had a light bulb of the moment. Ah, damn,
Speaker 4: he wants to flip some ship. There's I know, like
Speaker 4: I gotta go, I gotta flip some ship. No, it's
Speaker 4: just okay, I have one last question then I gotta
Speaker 4: let you go. Okay, I do want to tell about
Speaker 4: traffic damn. Yeah, But also I want to ask him
Speaker 4: why was it necessary for the book to come out?
Speaker 1: Right now? What's more important? All right, Well, I'll ask.
Speaker 4: You about yes, yes, ask him off the air about traffic, tam, Yes,
Speaker 4: I'll ask you off the air. Okay, I mean that
Speaker 4: was some pioneer, Nash Damn near rapping and he was
Speaker 4: rapping on that you're rapped in nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
Speaker 4: why did you feel was necessary to share. Thank you
Speaker 4: for sharing your story? Yes, yes, why did you feel
Speaker 4: was necessary to at the stage in your life to
Speaker 4: share that story?
Speaker 6: Audible came to me and suggested, sort of through my management,
Speaker 6: suggested that I do a project of some sort. And
Speaker 6: initially the idea was to take five songs of mine,
Speaker 6: play them and talk about them, you know, just sort
Speaker 6: of elaborate on them, and you know, to the extent
Speaker 6: that it would take up. However, many songs were necessary
Speaker 6: for that chunk of work, which it's ninety minutes. But
Speaker 6: when I started talking to Bill Flanagan about getting a
Speaker 6: script together, he said, you know, why don't we just
Speaker 6: take a certain that that portion of your life that
Speaker 6: predates your being public before every you know, and and
Speaker 6: why don't you just tell that story? So we sort
Speaker 6: of backed into it a little bit.
Speaker 1: Uh and.
Speaker 6: But why why we why we decided uh, just now
Speaker 6: you know it. I took the fall off because I've
Speaker 6: got kids who are seniors in high school and they're
Speaker 6: going to that through that college uh, you know, admissions thing,
Speaker 6: and I wanted to not be on the road for that.
Speaker 8: I wanted to be around.
Speaker 6: So I just had the time to do it, you.
Speaker 1: Know, thank you. Yeah, that it was necessary. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Wow, this is one for the ages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well on behalf of time?
Speaker 6: Did you did? But did you you had a question
Speaker 6: about fire and rain you were thinking of asking?
Speaker 4: No, no, I had a question about uh traffic jam,
Speaker 4: which what made you even think to approach the song
Speaker 4: like that? Because you know it's essentially hip hop.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very four or five? Was that
Speaker 1: bad that day?
Speaker 6: Yeah? You know it was written right there in the studio,
Speaker 6: right in and in the amount of time really that
Speaker 6: it took to sing the song. It was written, okay,
Speaker 6: it was freestyle and and Russ Kunkle took a foot
Speaker 6: pedal and a box, you know, like a box filled
Speaker 6: with packing peanuts and uh, and he attached the foot
Speaker 6: pedal to the box and played the top of it
Speaker 6: and with brushes, so it wasn't even a drum.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, and Russes.
Speaker 6: Russ Russ was was you know, he's a very funky player.
Speaker 6: He's he's a great player, and and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: we just basically put it together and then harmonize the Uh.
Speaker 6: The only melody in the song is in the chorus.
Speaker 6: Damn this traffic jam. How I hate to be late.
Speaker 6: It hurts my motor to go so slow. Damn this
Speaker 6: traffic jam. By the time I get home, my sup
Speaker 6: will be cold. Damn this traffic jam. And and we
Speaker 6: so uh, you know, it just uh, it just came out,
Speaker 6: and it was a very la thing because you know,
Speaker 6: he lived in Los Angeles. She just lived in that
Speaker 6: traffic all the time.
Speaker 4: And well, just because it came out in seventy seven,
Speaker 4: I was like, well, hip hop didn't exist yet. I
Speaker 4: didn't know if it was like post Woody Guthrie folky
Speaker 4: talkie thing.
Speaker 6: Right, talking blues like Bob Dylan is talking blues.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: But yeah, okay, you answered it, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: All right, we gotta go lazier gentlemen.
Speaker 8: Wait, white people invented rapping.
Speaker 1: Just want to let.
Speaker 8: Just let everyone know, no.
Speaker 4: Man on behalf of Wasp Bill and Sugar Steve and like, yeah,
Speaker 4: and sorry, Fante, you missed one. For the record, I'm
Speaker 4: baby Bill and uh even Sarah, am I missing somebody?
Speaker 4: Oh James Taylor and Julian Julian of course you're your
Speaker 4: family though.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: This has been great man.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for Thank you. Well, this is
Speaker 1: our episode of Ples Love Supreme. Amazing. Oh I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to sign off on my own television.
Speaker 8: Show, television show exactly.
Speaker 1: We'll see you on that story on a plust Love Supree.
Speaker 1: All right.
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