Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Let's That's Podcasting. My
Speaker 1: yesterday is being running over Haul anch Haul. Good dab
Speaker 1: you on the podcast, Bob. It's great to be on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I've been looking forward to this. Okay, you
Speaker 1: have a new album Making Memories just came out. What
Speaker 1: motivates you to make an album at this lead date?
Speaker 1: Pretty much the same when I was a kid, when
Speaker 1: I had to do three of them. Because I love writing.
Speaker 1: I love what I'm doing. I never stopped. I don't
Speaker 1: have a rear view mirror when I keep writing as
Speaker 1: I've been doing, I want to get it out there.
Speaker 1: Certainly times are not what they used to be, but
Speaker 1: you know, with COVID, i'm locked up. The reality sets
Speaker 1: in that what are you gonna do with yourself? So
Speaker 1: now you're gifted with writing, and you say, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sit down and write. It's what I love to do.
Speaker 1: So you you're right. And then when you're done with
Speaker 1: about thirty songs, you say, well, I like what I'm hearing,
Speaker 1: Let's make some choices and let's just get it out there.
Speaker 1: So it's an ongoing process, Bob. For me, I never
Speaker 1: stopped writing, and as age means nothing to me. You know,
Speaker 1: they throw dirt on you if you stand still. I'm
Speaker 1: just doing what I do. I'll have a tour going out.
Speaker 1: But the album was very important this year, and we're
Speaker 1: producing a documentary. We're starting on that in a couple
Speaker 1: of months. Okay, need Let's just say that the business
Speaker 1: is completely different from when you started in its sixty
Speaker 1: plus years ago, and in addition, in the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: it's changed for everybody. So first you you write the songs.
Speaker 1: Who paid to make the record? Well, I paid for
Speaker 1: most of it because I really didn't have an outlet yet.
Speaker 1: Then I have a deal with primary Wave, primary Wave
Speaker 1: and my partners in publishing, copyrights, etcetera. And I said,
Speaker 1: let me get him the first crack. So I called
Speaker 1: Larry Mistell. Love Larry. He's doing a great job over
Speaker 1: there with his team, and I said, here's what I got.
Speaker 1: You know, I had my buddy Hervey's off. We talked
Speaker 1: about it, and we talked about where we'd want to
Speaker 1: go with it, and I said, let's go to Larry.
Speaker 1: You know he's in that business. We went, They loved
Speaker 1: what they heard, gave me some money back, not all
Speaker 1: of it such as the record business, and that was that.
Speaker 1: How much money did it cost to make the record?
Speaker 1: Cost me about a hundred dollars Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: an old school budget. This is not done on the cheap.
Speaker 1: So you write the songs, how do you then go
Speaker 1: about actually making the record, especially during COVID, Well, the
Speaker 1: process with the new technology is, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the same, and that the technology dictates. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: do most of it in my studio here at the house.
Speaker 1: I'll ship some of the files over to guitar players
Speaker 1: and drummers. The big question was what do we do
Speaker 1: when we want strings and orchestra, et cetera. We find
Speaker 1: out that in Budapest, Hungry, they have a symphonic orchestra
Speaker 1: that meets five times a week and if you want
Speaker 1: music done, you just plug it in and they'll give
Speaker 1: you what you want from Budapest. So we shipped all
Speaker 1: the arrangements over. We had great talk with the conductor.
Speaker 1: They did everything from Hungary. Wow, that's really amazing. Were
Speaker 1: you supervising everything or did you have a producer? No, listen,
Speaker 1: I have a team. I have a team of people.
Speaker 1: I got good arrangers, good engineers. We were. It's a
Speaker 1: team effort, you know, success as many fathers, Bob as
Speaker 1: you know. And we sat down and looked at everything
Speaker 1: and uh I said, okay, take it, you guys, give
Speaker 1: m a call, see what you want, what we want where?
Speaker 1: And the team just dictated everything. I produced it all
Speaker 1: myself with them, with them. Okay. Now, the old days,
Speaker 1: even in the somewhat recent days, to cut basics, everybody
Speaker 1: would get together in a big studio. On this album,
Speaker 1: did everybody ever just get together like that? No, we
Speaker 1: didn't go near a big studio. We we couldn't with
Speaker 1: COVID even when it was proposed. We didn't want to
Speaker 1: take the chance. I thought that, well, why we don't
Speaker 1: have to as long as we can go to Budapest.
Speaker 1: And if I need a guitar player over here, great
Speaker 1: keyboards are all done here, great h J R R drummer.
Speaker 1: He's at home and like myself, many people you know,
Speaker 1: ship everything over to him and he does it. So
Speaker 1: we don't all meet unless we have to. Okay, And
Speaker 1: you have a studio in the house so you can
Speaker 1: cut your parts. I have a studio in the house.
Speaker 1: We have the technology here to put down a core,
Speaker 1: put down a base of everything. UM pretty simple. I
Speaker 1: mean the last time I was in a studio with
Speaker 1: a full orchestra was with UM when I was doing
Speaker 1: rock Swings. You know, I wanted to be very authentic.
Speaker 1: It was career threatening, so I wanted to get the
Speaker 1: best of everything. We went to Capital, We used all
Speaker 1: the best mikes we could get to get the sound,
Speaker 1: best orchestra, and put all our money in being in
Speaker 1: a studio. But that's the last time I've been in
Speaker 1: a studio. Okay, are you yourself technologically savvy or you
Speaker 1: were of a you know, you know there are people
Speaker 1: who are whizzes on their iPhone whizzes in the studio,
Speaker 1: and other people are more conceptual. How about yourself. I'm
Speaker 1: not a multiple whiz expert. I'm a whiz and maybe
Speaker 1: one or two things. I have an understanding of what
Speaker 1: it is. I don't really want to do it, Bob.
Speaker 1: I want to sit home. You know, I'm out a
Speaker 1: keyboard all day and you know I'm you know, I
Speaker 1: do everything I used to on a typewriter because I
Speaker 1: was going to be a journalist. But more than that,
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in doing you know, I pay people
Speaker 1: that know what they're doing. They're on a day to
Speaker 1: day and I have really no interest to do that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I'm not even a prisoner in my phone. You know,
Speaker 1: people text me, you may hear from me three or
Speaker 1: four days later. I don't jump to it because if
Speaker 1: it's an emergency, they find you. And other than that, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a prisoner to that stuff.
Speaker 1: So now, now that the album is done and out,
Speaker 1: what are your expectations? None? Uh, the way the business
Speaker 1: is today, you know, Look, I plan on on on
Speaker 1: house money at this age and everything I've been through
Speaker 1: in this business. I don't sit there and chew my
Speaker 1: nails off. I'm not chewing my nails. But in my
Speaker 1: number one, number three, I have enough friends and young
Speaker 1: artists that I talked to that they can't sleep at night.
Speaker 1: Not interested what I'm interested in. It's all about the music.
Speaker 1: You put it out there, whatever happens. You know, I've
Speaker 1: got my core following. However they respond. It sets you
Speaker 1: up for the tour and lets you know you're still running.
Speaker 1: You've got a historical moment, whether it's with Olivia Newton
Speaker 1: John because of this TikTok bou blay and uh, Bocelli.
Speaker 1: That's enough for me. Now, whatever happens to what happens.
Speaker 1: But outside of this box of show business, I don't
Speaker 1: live with expectations. I think it's a dangerous mindset to
Speaker 1: be in. Have you always in that way, or you've
Speaker 1: learned that over time? I've learned most of it over time.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, when I left home with a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks and you know, at fifteen and a few songs
Speaker 1: in my pocket, you know, I had the dream, I
Speaker 1: had the expectations. I bought into all of that stuff, live, breathe,
Speaker 1: rock and roll. And then I realized that everybody that
Speaker 1: I was dealing with, everyone around me, they weren't sophisticated.
Speaker 1: You know, none of us, most people in our industry,
Speaker 1: they're not sophisticated. They get lucky with something and then
Speaker 1: they start crawling along this journey trying to deal with
Speaker 1: the success and hoping that ultimately down the road to
Speaker 1: get some wisdom has to deal with it. But that
Speaker 1: ended for me maybe twenty years in or I just said,
Speaker 1: no more expectations. I'm done with that, okay. Staying on
Speaker 1: the album just for a few more minutes. The opening
Speaker 1: track Fool for Love, Yes, if it didn't have your
Speaker 1: name on it, it would fit right in on Serious's
Speaker 1: yacht rock channel. It sounds very rock and it's very good.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the story on that record? On
Speaker 1: that track, Yeah, I purposely on a couple of the tracks,
Speaker 1: just you know, I wanted to sound different. Not that
Speaker 1: it was tough, but I have a songwriter's voice and
Speaker 1: then I've got, you know, in aclectic kind of way
Speaker 1: I sing different things. I wanted to make it very
Speaker 1: rock that Ariana. There's a few on there that I had,
Speaker 1: how already done all of that pop kind of sounding
Speaker 1: stuff and the way that I wrote it, in the
Speaker 1: way that I heard it, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: surround it with that kind of rock attitude, which you
Speaker 1: know I did, you know, years ago, and I've been
Speaker 1: a fan of it, and I purposely just said I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do the typical kind of anchor batted
Speaker 1: approach to those and it all came easy. So we
Speaker 1: laid it down, felt good and even the sound, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that I was singing it, I felt that
Speaker 1: that really fit was indigenous to the song. Okay, there's
Speaker 1: also a track Power to the People, which seems somewhat political,
Speaker 1: although it doesn't really take a side where you take
Speaker 1: a steam politically or is that too dangerous? Why did
Speaker 1: you cut that track? Good question? I um, I've always
Speaker 1: shunned from getting myself up there politically because you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose half or more. Um, I'm just and further one
Speaker 1: I would ever step down. So the politics and what
Speaker 1: I've seen in politics very dangerous game. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to write about it. There's three tracks on there where
Speaker 1: I was very you know, moved and emotional about the
Speaker 1: fact that where we are right now in the world,
Speaker 1: where we are in this country, I wanted to make
Speaker 1: my statement, thus, crazy world, if everyone could sing one
Speaker 1: song and power to the people. Now, if you go
Speaker 1: back maybe two years and one of your columns, you've
Speaker 1: obviously done so much great stuff that we all love.
Speaker 1: For the most part, you had a you had a
Speaker 1: a column about, uh, the state of the country. There
Speaker 1: are words that you used, et cetera. Well, if you
Speaker 1: listen to that again, there's about four instances in there
Speaker 1: where I lifted, I was moved, where I used and
Speaker 1: if you listen to it, you're gonna you'll go and
Speaker 1: find the piece you said people know the power no no, uh,
Speaker 1: voice of voices, voices just a voice unless it's heard.
Speaker 1: There's about four times and then you that you moved
Speaker 1: me and I used it in the song. Now don't
Speaker 1: get irving to come after me for royalties. You know,
Speaker 1: your open game for all of us. But I used
Speaker 1: I used a lot of your stuff. That's great, it's
Speaker 1: great to be the inspiration. Let's talk about the writing process.
Speaker 1: You say you're a writer. How do you do it?
Speaker 1: Do you sit down at the piano at ten am?
Speaker 1: Or you wait to get inspired? How does it come together? Well,
Speaker 1: all of us are right, um, were the same, but
Speaker 1: we're different. I think for me, the way I wrote
Speaker 1: in the fifties were it all started. I wrote all
Speaker 1: the time, had a hundred bucks a month, and I
Speaker 1: sat in a room that the record company locked me
Speaker 1: away and I had to give him, you know, three
Speaker 1: albums a year or more. And that process was just
Speaker 1: right right right live rock and roll through the years.
Speaker 1: What's happened is depending on how I'm motivated to what. Uh.
Speaker 1: You take something like The Longest Day, which I wrote
Speaker 1: for the film The Longest Day, You know that was
Speaker 1: a lot way out of my Bailey Wick in terms
Speaker 1: of the film historical day in our country. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm with Darryl Zank and I'm at lunch with this guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying, God, you know, thank you for having
Speaker 1: me this film. I'm twenty, etcetera. I'm saying, who who,
Speaker 1: who does? Who's doing the music? He says, no music,
Speaker 1: no love story. It's a documentary type film. Okay, I
Speaker 1: go home. I got the melody in my head. I
Speaker 1: got it half finished on the way home on the airplane.
Speaker 1: I went in the studio after maybe about two weeks
Speaker 1: refining it and doing what I want to make a demo.
Speaker 1: I send it to him, gets back to me in
Speaker 1: two weeks, as there will be music. Now I'm off
Speaker 1: I'm off point, but it just shows you when that's
Speaker 1: totally on point, you're inspired and you're literally writing it
Speaker 1: right away while you're inspired. Right So the point is
Speaker 1: when I get inspired like that, you sit down. I
Speaker 1: like to do it at night because there's no distractions.
Speaker 1: I like to sit down when I really feel I'm
Speaker 1: in a good kind of frame of mind. I don't
Speaker 1: like to force anything because as you evolve as a craftsman,
Speaker 1: which many of us are, uh, you know, good becomes
Speaker 1: the enemy of great, especially today where everybody does it.
Speaker 1: Everybody writes, everybody sings, everybody everybody. But to get it
Speaker 1: to where you want it to be, I need to
Speaker 1: be totally alone. I need to be totally in a
Speaker 1: great frame of mind without any baggage. And you're right
Speaker 1: away and you just hope, you hope you get it
Speaker 1: to the place where you want it, where you like it.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's something like She's a Lady. You know,
Speaker 1: I knew I had to write for Jones because we
Speaker 1: were buddies. I flew to England did his TV show
Speaker 1: and he said, to write me, you write me a
Speaker 1: song because I've never been number one in the United States,
Speaker 1: which he wasn't. And uh, I said, yeah, sure. So
Speaker 1: I jumped on t w A flying home and you
Speaker 1: know we're on planes. Is not paper around when it
Speaker 1: moves you, you know you need paper, You need something
Speaker 1: on the back of a menu. I wrote, She's a Lady.
Speaker 1: Put the words down first, which is not part of
Speaker 1: the regular process. You usually like to get the structure
Speaker 1: and the note, and the word is as good as
Speaker 1: the note under it. So with with She's a Lady
Speaker 1: and knocked that off in just maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: days because I was inspired by this guy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's all about sexuality. I really put myself in his place.
Speaker 1: It was no different than Buddy Holly. He was my friend,
Speaker 1: we were we were bus mates. We're going to start
Speaker 1: a music company together. And he said, Paul, you know
Speaker 1: I'm getting fleeced by my man. You're I want to
Speaker 1: change my style. He said, you know, write me something.
Speaker 1: I want strings. I want to do what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And I wrote, it doesn't matter anymore on a ukulele,
Speaker 1: And the process was always the same inspiration. Now, when
Speaker 1: you're writing for yourself like this album, you know, love
Speaker 1: is the strongest emotion and it's what I've always dealt in.
Speaker 1: That's a different thing because I'm kind of I know
Speaker 1: the parameters. I know pretty much what I want to do,
Speaker 1: how I should be doing it, and I just sit
Speaker 1: and write and write. I continue to write even when
Speaker 1: I get down to doing the vocal, because once that
Speaker 1: comes together, if there's a line or a rhyme or
Speaker 1: an attitude line, I'll rewrite it and I'll keep rewriting
Speaker 1: until I get what I want. So it's just eclectic
Speaker 1: it's all over. As to the approach, now, you say
Speaker 1: you're writing all the time, Yeah, let's just talk in
Speaker 1: the last seven days. If you're written in the last
Speaker 1: seven days, I started, uh one song in the last
Speaker 1: seven days. And then I've been working with a young
Speaker 1: rapper type pop singer who's sixteen working with him. So
Speaker 1: I put a lot of energy into that. And uh.
Speaker 1: Other than that, I'm on the phone from six in
Speaker 1: the morning with radio all over the country, you know,
Speaker 1: promoting the record company want me to talk to these guys,
Speaker 1: which is great, and that eats up my time. So
Speaker 1: I'm dedicated to that, and I'm dedicated to sitting here
Speaker 1: through boxes and boxes of photos and film they'll go
Speaker 1: back sixty years, trying to get ready for what's going
Speaker 1: to go into this documentary. Okay, let's talk a little
Speaker 1: deeper on the writing process recovered when you're rawly inspired
Speaker 1: with Buddy Holly and Tom Jones, etcetera. But are there
Speaker 1: other days where you'll literally just say I want to write.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down in front of the piano. I got nothing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Uh more So let's say on
Speaker 1: the second half of my writing life, Um, where I'm
Speaker 1: much more of a critic to myself. And there's other
Speaker 1: things around ound you in your life, you know, which
Speaker 1: will go nameless for the moment. Yes, you're absolutely effect
Speaker 1: and I don't force it. I just don't force right.
Speaker 1: There's times I've sat there for an hour and I said,
Speaker 1: it's just not happening. It's just not happening, yes the answers, Yes, well,
Speaker 1: tell me about what it is happening. Well, when it
Speaker 1: is happening, there's a certain feeling that you get. You're
Speaker 1: just you know, you're walking around the house, you're driving,
Speaker 1: you're out, you're doing you can get this sense because
Speaker 1: you're coming up with lines and you're writing them down
Speaker 1: and you're recording them into your phone. You've got this
Speaker 1: vibe happening where it's that that once in a what
Speaker 1: where you go, wow, I gotta get the pianos. It's happening,
Speaker 1: and you sit down and it flows and flows and
Speaker 1: you just keep writing, keep writing, keep melody, lines going,
Speaker 1: getting your structure, and it's just one of those moments
Speaker 1: that you know you're given a gift. I feel, and
Speaker 1: I think that for for a lot of guys. You know,
Speaker 1: Bert backrock, He said, dear buddy of mine. I octobert.
Speaker 1: You know many times a week he's still writing. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about when he's moved as I am, and
Speaker 1: when he's not well right now last week he wasn't.
Speaker 1: So we we understand the process of when we get
Speaker 1: excited about something that we internally here or a lyric
Speaker 1: that's turning us on, that it's time to sit down
Speaker 1: and nail it. But don't force it. It just can't
Speaker 1: force it. You know, we're not building a house that
Speaker 1: has to be done by October. Let's say you're really hot.
Speaker 1: You say, man, I'm in the mood. Yeah. Do you
Speaker 1: find that you almost have to disconnect because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: self conscious and you go off the rails? Say that again, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying. I'm talking about writing. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll write something and I go I'll realize, I go, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is really good. And if I realize it's really good,
Speaker 1: it's hard to stay that good. Whereas other times, if
Speaker 1: I just stay in the zone, don't worry about reaction
Speaker 1: and just let it flow, it's easier to stay on
Speaker 1: point with the great stuff. Wow, how do I answer that?
Speaker 1: That's um? No, If if I'm really on it and
Speaker 1: and you know, throwing the dice with it because it's
Speaker 1: so good and reaching out and trying to do it.
Speaker 1: I just stay there. I get disciplined when I get
Speaker 1: the sense that I've kind of done well, you know,
Speaker 1: the ready process. When I went to school, I was
Speaker 1: typing seventy words a minute. I was going to be
Speaker 1: a journalist, as a cup cup reporter. You know, you're
Speaker 1: sitting there for a minute. You don't know how to
Speaker 1: start the piece. You don't know what that first line is,
Speaker 1: you know, and you get hung up. It's a very
Speaker 1: lonely existence when you're all by yourself there and you're
Speaker 1: looking at it and waiting for it. But when it's
Speaker 1: flowing you you just jump right on. You keep going
Speaker 1: with it. I'm not afraid of it in either area,
Speaker 1: not at all. Okay, So, how do you, with so
Speaker 1: much experience and so much success, separate good from great? Yeah? Tough,
Speaker 1: it's tough. You you're really hard yourself. Um for the
Speaker 1: most part, when you're really done with it, Uh, you
Speaker 1: can separate it. Uh. Functional has some appeal? Is it great?
Speaker 1: You know none of us have that magic wand and
Speaker 1: the music business. We don't know. Nobody sits there, says
Speaker 1: this is number one, this is this, this is this.
Speaker 1: But you know, within the scope of what you're capable of,
Speaker 1: that you've written something that's just not okay, you know,
Speaker 1: because I I hate just being good, because I think
Speaker 1: that you've got to really go beyond that, way beyond this.
Speaker 1: Too much of that around today in music that's just
Speaker 1: too much. Let alone the fact you don't know where
Speaker 1: you're gonna go with it. It's it's just a very
Speaker 1: tough landscape to deal on. Okay, let's talk a little deeper.
Speaker 1: You start on the piano, Yeah, to what degree? Will
Speaker 1: that be locked? And we'll be locked before you do
Speaker 1: the lyrics or will the will the music sometimes change
Speaker 1: as you're writing the lyrics or when the lyrics even finished.
Speaker 1: All of that. I think first, once I get the
Speaker 1: title or the concept of the song, which will set
Speaker 1: in motion the melody base. Uh, it all morphs out
Speaker 1: of that. You know. If I'm if I'm adding on
Speaker 1: a structure five more words, I've got to change the
Speaker 1: melody under it. So it's all back and forth between
Speaker 1: the two. Unless I really have a melody that I know,
Speaker 1: it's a lock it's like my way. That was a lock.
Speaker 1: There was no way I could change that melody, not
Speaker 1: not a bit, but the way the lyric came out
Speaker 1: of me at you know, one in the morning. You know,
Speaker 1: I sat with that melody for a long time. And
Speaker 1: it was only because I'm in Florida, I'm at the
Speaker 1: fountain Blue. Frank Sinatra was my guy, my enter. I
Speaker 1: hung with him, Sammy, don't forget Dean Martin, great singer,
Speaker 1: great guy. And these were my guys. And all through
Speaker 1: the years I hung with them. From Vegas Sinatra and say,
Speaker 1: when you're gonna write me a song, When you're gonna
Speaker 1: write me a song? Kid, well as intimidated. I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't give a popularve or lonely boy would have
Speaker 1: thrown a chair at me. It was in Florida when
Speaker 1: he said I'm retiring from Chopez, I'm quitting. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do one more album, one more album, and I'm out
Speaker 1: of here. I'm gonna do it with Don Costa. Well,
Speaker 1: Don Costa was my producer. I introduced him to Frank
Speaker 1: in the sixties and they did a great album called
Speaker 1: Sinatra and Strings. And after dinner, I sat there and
Speaker 1: I just said, you're you're really quitting. I'm done, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, the FBI is all over me, the rat
Speaker 1: packs over, but I gotta do one more album for
Speaker 1: the company. I go back to New York and I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there at my typewriter. It's one of the morning,
Speaker 1: thunderstorm outside, and I'm going quitting Schobez. I got to
Speaker 1: write something, and I got right off the head I
Speaker 1: got and now the end is near metaphorically the final curtain.
Speaker 1: And I started writing it as if he were sitting
Speaker 1: in the chair, because there's stuff in there. I'd never
Speaker 1: normally right ate it up and spit it out, all
Speaker 1: part of what he was about. So by five in
Speaker 1: the morning, I had finished this thing, and it just
Speaker 1: came and came out and came out a little refinement.
Speaker 1: But that was the one moment that I could say,
Speaker 1: I don't know where the hell it came from. I
Speaker 1: don't know how every word, every verse locked in like that.
Speaker 1: I did a demo the next day. I flew out
Speaker 1: to Vegas. I called him. I said, Sir, I got
Speaker 1: the song. Blah blah blah blah. He said, come on out.
Speaker 1: I took it to him. His dressing room. He was
Speaker 1: finishing up at Caesar's Palace, you know, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: a guy and I love and he did. You know,
Speaker 1: he's always played cool. I love it, kid, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do it so great. Two months later, I get a call.
Speaker 1: I'm in my apartment in New York. He's in a
Speaker 1: studio with on at I think Sunset Sound, one of
Speaker 1: those places, and the operator said Mr Sinatra calling. Okay,
Speaker 1: I pick up the phone. He says, kid, listen to this,
Speaker 1: and he takes the phone. He puts it next to
Speaker 1: one of those big speakers, and I heard my way
Speaker 1: for the first time, and I started crying. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just said, ship, this is unreal. I finally got
Speaker 1: Sinatra to do one of my songs, and then a
Speaker 1: couple of years later he decided to come back. And
Speaker 1: he calls up and says, ken, I'm coming back. Write
Speaker 1: me in other songs. I gave him. Let me try again,
Speaker 1: and he introduced it. Jerry Wittrop called. He said, because
Speaker 1: he was my other buddy. He says he's gonna do
Speaker 1: it and introduce it at Madison Square Garden. PAULI. I said,
Speaker 1: oh God, you're killing me. Bring it on and that
Speaker 1: was a very those moments writing for him. I've never
Speaker 1: had that kind of experience. Did you ever write something
Speaker 1: for somebody and they said no, Yeah, yeah I have.
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of yeah, yes, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had, uh, I know, something with a
Speaker 1: fifth dimension. Because I liked the group. I finally got
Speaker 1: one on there, but they turned me down twice. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I said something to Presley, but he finally
Speaker 1: did my way. Um, Michael bou Ble. I gave Michael
Speaker 1: a couple of new songs and it wasn't working. And
Speaker 1: that's okay, you know that. Look, that's so okay. As
Speaker 1: a writer. When you're writing like that, you're just right
Speaker 1: and whatever. It is a great song. Ultimately, something's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Now I'm looking at this whole TikTok thing. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was. I had no idea until these
Speaker 1: kids showed up at my door. I have this sixteen
Speaker 1: year old son and these girls start singing this put
Speaker 1: your head on my shoulder and I don't know why,
Speaker 1: and they said, TikTok, TikTok. I said, what is TikTok? Well,
Speaker 1: of course, did my homework gut involved. I'm listening, I'm watching,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I don't believe this. I wrote her at
Speaker 1: seventeen and who they all knew that with TikTok, and
Speaker 1: none of us knew where this business was going. Who
Speaker 1: would have envisioned this? You know, all we ever saw
Speaker 1: was the wrapback then when I you know, I talked
Speaker 1: to Normy Weiss and said, Bernstein, who are my agents?
Speaker 1: When I was living in Europe and I come home
Speaker 1: and say, there's these Beetles, these Beatles, and they go,
Speaker 1: what do you mean Beatles? What beetles? I said, you
Speaker 1: got They're amazing and I but I was knocking these
Speaker 1: guys to go bring him to the States, and I
Speaker 1: think VJ Records trying to put something else that bombed.
Speaker 1: And finally norm me, he goes over because I told
Speaker 1: him to, and they bring him back in sixty four.
Speaker 1: And the point is until the Beatles came and opened
Speaker 1: everything up. You know, Madison Avenue didn't like us kids,
Speaker 1: the parents didn't like us. Kids were slepping around the
Speaker 1: country on a bus making two a week, which we
Speaker 1: loved until the Beatles out here. Then it started opening up.
Speaker 1: Ben Hendrix and you know, the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: But you know we were back then. We're just these
Speaker 1: little pioneers. Okay, let's talk about the Beatles. When did
Speaker 1: you When did you first experience the Beatles? Well, I
Speaker 1: had off point a little. I I toured in Europe
Speaker 1: from age seventeen on. I'm going everywhere and I'm loving it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a kid out of Canada, New York
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I'm introduced to the world.
Speaker 1: So I'm over in Europe a lot and I'm performing
Speaker 1: him a lot. I'm one of the first, you know, kids,
Speaker 1: rock and roll artists, whatever. Pop going to Japan, I'm
Speaker 1: going to Paris, I'm going to Italy. I'm in Paris.
Speaker 1: I'm in Paris. I get married in Paris, and I
Speaker 1: go to the theater where I started as a kid,
Speaker 1: the Olympia Theater, to see one of my friends who
Speaker 1: was top of the bill for a man called Bruno
Speaker 1: Coca Tricks, who was a wonderful guy, a great promoter,
Speaker 1: and he is my guy in France. When I walk
Speaker 1: in and I see the undercard the Beatles, I don't
Speaker 1: know the Beatles, trying to say, what's what's the what
Speaker 1: are they doing with Gilberber go, these kids aren't fresh,
Speaker 1: and I see the hair and I see everything. I said, well,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be interesting. So I'm sitting there, luities
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, please dear loo to the Beatles. They didn't
Speaker 1: know who the hell they were either. And these kids
Speaker 1: come on and they're my age and they start and
Speaker 1: I'm going, God, damn, this is interesting. This is good, right,
Speaker 1: So I go backstage. Bruno takes me back. I'll send
Speaker 1: you some pictures that we took together. And I meet
Speaker 1: these guys and they say, hey, Paul, how are you?
Speaker 1: And do we love what you're doing? And uh, you
Speaker 1: know you write your own stuff and we want to
Speaker 1: write our own stuff and you produced them in your
Speaker 1: public and I'm wrapping with these guys and I really
Speaker 1: like them. I go to London. We meet up again.
Speaker 1: What I realize in seeing them that there's something else coming.
Speaker 1: But there's not a huge placement for them with me
Speaker 1: because I'm writing these teenage songs. I'm not a guitarist.
Speaker 1: I'm not influencing them on guitar. They're all talking about
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry, they're talking about Fats Domino, you know, all
Speaker 1: the the American acts, the blues. But they're looking at
Speaker 1: me with a respective Well, we hear those violins, but
Speaker 1: you know we're not there, but they're they're really gracious.
Speaker 1: They're really gracious. So I go home after meeting them
Speaker 1: and seeing them on a few occasions, and that's when
Speaker 1: I told Noramy and Sid Burnstein, I brought some records, pictures, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And they're looking at me. You know, they're scratching. They
Speaker 1: had because you know, pop music back then, it was
Speaker 1: in its infancy stage, was still growing. There was like
Speaker 1: two agencies. You had three or four cities that were
Speaker 1: making records. I mean, I didn't know where to go,
Speaker 1: and I left Canada. I went to New York because
Speaker 1: it was the closest to Canada. Had a feel for it.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to contest collecting souper rappers. So
Speaker 1: that's how I got in New York. And I know
Speaker 1: that it's it's the center of the music. So with
Speaker 1: it all just starting out like that, when I go
Speaker 1: to England, they didn't have anybody in the charts. We
Speaker 1: we dominated. There wasn't one English act. You had a
Speaker 1: guy named Tommy Steele. The Beatles hadn't really hit yet.
Speaker 1: And then we dominated. Well, of course what they did,
Speaker 1: they took it made it better. We know that story,
Speaker 1: and they had their own life going. But until then,
Speaker 1: there was no way that we were in an accepted
Speaker 1: entity other than our fans, nobody, and you know, certain
Speaker 1: guys in radio, you know, we were some of us.
Speaker 1: We widified rock and roll. You know, when I traveled
Speaker 1: in some cases there's the only white kid on a
Speaker 1: bus and they were my buddies. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: the South for the first time. But the black experience
Speaker 1: was motivating me in Canada. And when you look at
Speaker 1: the history of the music in this country, it's always
Speaker 1: the black experience that is dominating and really happening with
Speaker 1: some legs to it. And that's what I experienced then.
Speaker 1: And to watch it the way it motivated all the
Speaker 1: English and to watch how it grew here and how
Speaker 1: I was pretty much growing up with that music and
Speaker 1: with these fellow artists that were my buddies. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: do a little fill and you talk about writing the
Speaker 1: song for Buddy Holly. Did you know that Linda ron
Speaker 1: Stat was cutting it or was only when it came
Speaker 1: out and then ultimately success. I had no idea issues
Speaker 1: going to sing it. I might have been informed in
Speaker 1: terms of uh issuing a license. Uh wow, what a record,
Speaker 1: what a great singer, what a natural, What a great
Speaker 1: job she did with that song. There's been many covers
Speaker 1: on that song, but I will tell you, outside of Buddies,
Speaker 1: that's my favorite rendition of it doesn't matter anymore of
Speaker 1: Linda Ron said, great, let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: So we're exactly do you grew up in Canada? I
Speaker 1: was born in Ottawa, Canada, which is in the east.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, quite a few miles from Toronto.
Speaker 1: It's a near Montreal, which was a drive from there,
Speaker 1: A hundred fifty thou people and the capital of Canada.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in Ottawa. Two. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Ottawa. I started. I went to school until I
Speaker 1: was in grade ten for the second time, and I
Speaker 1: realized I got to get out of here. And I
Speaker 1: took a course in UH because of journalism of shorthand
Speaker 1: and typewriting. And while growing up, you know, when television
Speaker 1: went on at five in the afternoon and off at ten,
Speaker 1: none of these talent shows. So I was this kid
Speaker 1: thrown out of shorthand. I took music. I was a big,
Speaker 1: big fan of all the music. My mom worked out
Speaker 1: at Sears Roebuck and she me money to go buy
Speaker 1: my records, and that's all I wanted to do. One day,
Speaker 1: it just clicked that I wanted to write and I
Speaker 1: wanted to sing. I started a group called the Bobby Sucksers.
Speaker 1: We would hitchhike do local stuff thirty bucks. I got
Speaker 1: rid of the group because I knew that wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 1: And I was a fan of all the music stuff.
Speaker 1: So while growing up and going to school, Uh, music
Speaker 1: was all I wanted to do. I want to get
Speaker 1: the hell out of there and go wherever I can
Speaker 1: make a record. Now I did prior to getting my
Speaker 1: deal in New York, I came out to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: on a vacation. Let's not go for a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're holding it. Why did you have to go to
Speaker 1: grade ten twice? Because I didn't like school that was
Speaker 1: not doing well. I was just it was sports and
Speaker 1: music and they weren't gonna pass me and that was okay.
Speaker 1: And what did your parents say about having to do
Speaker 1: it twice? Well, we all know what parents are like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were not They weren't happy. They're dealing with this
Speaker 1: kid or wherever he can sing, sing, sing, no homework,
Speaker 1: no homework, no homework. They weren't happy. You know, my
Speaker 1: dad was you gonna be a lawyer, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: a journalist, and what happened, Well, Dad, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: I want to write, I want to sing. I want
Speaker 1: to hit shike and sing at the universe. Not happy.
Speaker 1: In fact, I went to juvenile court. Not many people know.
Speaker 1: I was so going home about singing and doing. My
Speaker 1: mother had an Austin Healy. May she rest in peace.
Speaker 1: I lost her at eighteen and I would practice in
Speaker 1: the driveway because it was Canada. You know, You've got
Speaker 1: Ontario and a river in the middle, and then you've
Speaker 1: got Quebec, and the only place you could go to
Speaker 1: get drinks and have a nightlife was in Quebec, and
Speaker 1: all the clubs were there. And I heard about this club,
Speaker 1: the Glen Lee Club, where you'd go amateur contest and
Speaker 1: they throw money and you can make about twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to go over there to put the
Speaker 1: milagin because you know, none of these guys that we
Speaker 1: see today made it like that. It's all you gotta
Speaker 1: put the mileage in, so I started practicing with the
Speaker 1: Austin Healey and then I knew that the Friday night
Speaker 1: was the big night, and I backed the car out.
Speaker 1: My mom was asleep because you know her diabetes, and uh,
Speaker 1: I start driving and I go over this bridge called
Speaker 1: the Champlaine Bridge, and I'm driving this Austinity and it's
Speaker 1: a gearshift right and I'm struggling with the gear shift.
Speaker 1: And I get over there and I parked the car.
Speaker 1: I go in had a guitar, was to do it
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley imitation, Johnny Ray song, uh Bill Haley and
Speaker 1: the comments. And I win the contest and I got
Speaker 1: about twenty bucks and I jumped back in the car
Speaker 1: as a major, major snowstorm like only Canada gets. And
Speaker 1: I'm driving home over this Champlaine Bridge and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get the goddamn gear up in the second and
Speaker 1: third car starts smoking and I hear the parts of
Speaker 1: the hood flying out and hit the hood and I'm
Speaker 1: leaving half the car behind me. And there was an
Speaker 1: exit off the bridge, and I get off the exit.
Speaker 1: I go down to what was Lover's Lane. There was
Speaker 1: a Chinese restaurant and all the kids would go park there. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm a real kid, I'm like fourteen, and I'm sitting there.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, ship, what what am I gonna do here?
Speaker 1: And I see behind me the red beacon and the
Speaker 1: police pull up and they bang on the window. Kid,
Speaker 1: what are your THEA was your pup? Pup? Pup? Uh?
Speaker 1: They leave the car, they take me home. They wake
Speaker 1: up my mother. The poor woman comes through the door.
Speaker 1: You got these huge mountains. You know, I'm like about
Speaker 1: five three at that point. Is this your son? She
Speaker 1: was just so upset. My dad was livid, and I
Speaker 1: found myself in court. He took me to juvenile court
Speaker 1: in front of a judge. They're gonna send me to
Speaker 1: a reform school. So I'm sorry. So I won't do
Speaker 1: it again. Won't do it again. But that was a
Speaker 1: turning point for me because it didn't curtail me in
Speaker 1: any way. I still had my bad habits, and I
Speaker 1: still wanted to write and be in the business. Okay,
Speaker 1: what'd your father do for a living? My dad owned
Speaker 1: a restaurant. He had the restaurant in town. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, for Ottawa. It was a very classy place.
Speaker 1: American Canadian type cuisine, and he owned this restaurant until
Speaker 1: it burnt down. We usually restaurants, you're working and the
Speaker 1: kids are working in the restaurant. What was it like
Speaker 1: in your family? Exactly what you said. My dad would
Speaker 1: not get home until two in the morning, worked his
Speaker 1: ass off. I mean, I remember the first little house
Speaker 1: we had, you know, one bathroom, scuffling to make it.
Speaker 1: It evolves. We moved out to the west out of
Speaker 1: town a couple of years. I forget what age, maybe fourteen.
Speaker 1: I'm working in the kitchen. I'm peeling potatoes, I'm doing
Speaker 1: the carrots, I'm doing the garbage, and I'm going more
Speaker 1: reason the hell out here. I did not want to
Speaker 1: be in the restaurant business. And he was just watching
Speaker 1: over me and you know, trying to figure out every
Speaker 1: movie how to handle it. You know, he said, really,
Speaker 1: is this what you want to do? And you know, why, why, why? Why?
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to be in the restaurant business.
Speaker 1: And this poor guy was busting his ass till one
Speaker 1: two in the morning every night, So you know, he
Speaker 1: got that call at three in the morning. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget the places on fire. It was on fire. And
Speaker 1: it just broke his heart. It broke his heart. I mean,
Speaker 1: thank god. A couple of years later, with my number
Speaker 1: one record, he came and he worked with me. I
Speaker 1: bought my mom a home like she never had, and
Speaker 1: then you know, she died like a year later. I
Speaker 1: just gave it all back to them, right out of
Speaker 1: the first check. Okay, Now we're your parents warn in
Speaker 1: Canada or they come from the old country as we say,
Speaker 1: their parents old country, My parents in uh in, Ottawa. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was one of eleven children, and how many kids
Speaker 1: in the family, my sister, my brother, and where are
Speaker 1: you in the hierarchy? Hello, I'm de bas I'm a
Speaker 1: big guy. And put them through school, sent my sister
Speaker 1: to finishing school in Switzerland, sent my brother and uh,
Speaker 1: I'm the big brother. Okay, So what kind of kids
Speaker 1: are you growing up? I wish I wish I knew
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, did you have a lot of friends?
Speaker 1: Were you an outsider? Were you the leader of the pack?
Speaker 1: Were you always a limit tester? I was social, I
Speaker 1: wasn't the leader of the pack. I I was very
Speaker 1: confident in terms of what I wanted to do. The
Speaker 1: student situation, we know, I was kind of at some
Speaker 1: at some point, not in the pack because with the
Speaker 1: music and then running around singing, you know, they were
Speaker 1: looking at me, my friends saying, you know where I'd
Speaker 1: sit down to the the piano and play for them. You know,
Speaker 1: they loved it, but I wasn't really a part of them.
Speaker 1: You know. I was successful with girls, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I was still growing and I was a goalie in hockey.
Speaker 1: I was very active in sports. But because of my size,
Speaker 1: I just knew that I wasn't getting the girls and
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be a professional or do anything
Speaker 1: in school. I was this little kid, was very precocious,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just I was a loner. Other
Speaker 1: than being social when I had to on the weekends,
Speaker 1: I was just a determined kid. Okay, how did you
Speaker 1: so tell us the story about being in l A.
Speaker 1: So I had an uncle living out here and they
Speaker 1: wanted me to come out and visit. My dad said,
Speaker 1: you know, you should go out, go on your vacation
Speaker 1: and see California blah blah blah. And so I flew
Speaker 1: out and still music, still music for me. So I'm
Speaker 1: in his apartment, but I'm going down to this Wallacks
Speaker 1: Music Center Wallacks music music, music, right, and I'm in
Speaker 1: the booth that I'm listening, and there's one song on
Speaker 1: the radio I loved called Stranded in the Jungle. Let
Speaker 1: me tell if you remember by the who do you
Speaker 1: remember the Cadets? Right right, right right, Okay. So now
Speaker 1: I'm loving this song, and I got the vinyl and
Speaker 1: I'm playing at the apartment, driving them nuts. And in
Speaker 1: the interim, I got two book reports. I got to
Speaker 1: prepare for school when I go back in the fall.
Speaker 1: So there's this. There was a town called blah Wild
Speaker 1: to be Spontan, and it's it's the premise of the book,
Speaker 1: and it was written by our ex Governor General, so
Speaker 1: it's called Prester John. So I said, wow, what an interesting,
Speaker 1: interesting sounding word. So I started this song blah while
Speaker 1: to be Spontan, blah will to be Spontane were love
Speaker 1: is so splendor? And I write this song. When I
Speaker 1: look on the label the Cadets Stranding in the Jungle,
Speaker 1: it says, uh Modern Records cover City. And it was
Speaker 1: like a few miles from my uncle, so I said,
Speaker 1: I said to my uncle, look, will you drop me
Speaker 1: off at this place or I'm gonna hit psych he's
Speaker 1: a gulf taking so he drops he drops me off,
Speaker 1: and I walked in us a storefront. I mean, you
Speaker 1: might as well have been at Harry's, uh confession er.
Speaker 1: And I walk in and everybody's just sitting around the battery,
Speaker 1: brother Saul and I forget his brother's name, the sister,
Speaker 1: and they're like waiting for something. So I walk in. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Paul. How you do a kid? What
Speaker 1: do you want? Blah blah blah. I got this song,
Speaker 1: so Saul says, sing it. So I started singing in
Speaker 1: the lobby. I hate like that anymore? Blow will He's
Speaker 1: fund it. Well, I don't know if they were like
Speaker 1: in Shock, but there's a shortage of talent. And the
Speaker 1: guy says to me, he says, well did you get here?
Speaker 1: And my uncle dad a dice? Glad you find he
Speaker 1: says how? He says, how did you find us? I said,
Speaker 1: you're on the record label the Cadets. I said, I
Speaker 1: love that, so him he says, well, he says, how
Speaker 1: would you like to record it in the garage back
Speaker 1: here and I'll get the Cadets to sing with you.
Speaker 1: I go, this is I'm fourteen, Bob, I'm fourteen. Right,
Speaker 1: I go, you're kidding. He said no, No, he says,
Speaker 1: come on back in three days. We're gonna do the SPA.
Speaker 1: Now I am. I am just going nuts with this.
Speaker 1: Now I come back. I walk in the room. They
Speaker 1: introduced me to this guy named Ernie Freeman. Hello Ernie.
Speaker 1: He was just starting up how you do get here? Here?
Speaker 1: I did this arrangement sill of the Cadets, Cadets. These
Speaker 1: were my idols for a month. They said, now you
Speaker 1: stand over here, blah blah blah blah blah, and I
Speaker 1: record the song. The other side was a record, a
Speaker 1: song called I Confess Now I'm in the process. Now, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get it to the hound Dog and Buffalo.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get it to the guy in Chicago. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And they released the record How's a Failure fourteen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's sold two records. We are right,
Speaker 1: but it got a little noise in Canada, where I
Speaker 1: was from, for obvious reasons. On this kid out of
Speaker 1: Ottawa and they played it up there. That was my
Speaker 1: first taste in my first recording with the Bahrry Brothers
Speaker 1: Modern Records and the cadets, Blah, Wild the Beast mote. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you go back to Ottawa. What's your next step
Speaker 1: going to school? Paul? You just snow now, So I
Speaker 1: go back. Great ten. But now I got a little
Speaker 1: notoriety up there. Right now, I got a call from
Speaker 1: Norman Jewison, big director up in Canada, who remained a
Speaker 1: friend for years, and he's got this talent show. Well, Paul,
Speaker 1: we've got this record. We're gonna get it on the charts. Here,
Speaker 1: come on to Toronto. I go to Toronto, I sing
Speaker 1: the song blah, and then somebody else called. Then that
Speaker 1: was it. Then, you know, you have to have sent
Speaker 1: Canada back. In the fifties, we're in the shadow of
Speaker 1: a big giant down here. You know, we didn't dominate
Speaker 1: the way we do today. All these great talents out
Speaker 1: of Canada. There was no one Jasell Mackenzie, you know. Great.
Speaker 1: So that was it. My career ended. But I said,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something. That's when I read about winning
Speaker 1: a contest for I J Food Stores to New York
Speaker 1: and I win, and I go down. But I'm writing now,
Speaker 1: So now I got Diana whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: let's just go a little bit slower. Okay, you have
Speaker 1: your hit in quotation marks. That ends a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: About the talent contest, the writing in Diana, I got
Speaker 1: the taste blow allabys fonte, and I want to keep writing.
Speaker 1: Now I'm throwing out a shorthand class I'm taking music.
Speaker 1: I sit down doing all the classical stuff. Then I
Speaker 1: drift off and start doing my own stuff. There's a
Speaker 1: girl three three years older than I. Now. Back then
Speaker 1: it was relevant. If you're older, the chick is older
Speaker 1: and you're young, you're not getting a date. So I
Speaker 1: write this song I'm so young, you're so old? I mean,
Speaker 1: no Shakespeare, how I felt and I do. I sit
Speaker 1: down and now I've got some command of the piano
Speaker 1: and I'm writing. So I start writing, uh, Diana, tell
Speaker 1: me that you love me and don't gamble with love.
Speaker 1: And I'm playing them to my friends. We're parties and
Speaker 1: I'm playing it. But what am I gonna do with it?
Speaker 1: So I went to a local station and made a
Speaker 1: demo record because I told that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Then I said, I got to get to New York
Speaker 1: and play for somebody. Back then in the fifties, the
Speaker 1: Canadian groups, the Crew Cuts, the Four Lads, they were
Speaker 1: the covers for all the black songs. They're doing Earth Angel,
Speaker 1: all the black artists, whether it was Little Richard whomever.
Speaker 1: You know, they were not allowed on white radio. That's
Speaker 1: what prevailed. So you had everybody white to fight, whether
Speaker 1: it was Pat Boone, whether it was these groups in Canada.
Speaker 1: They come to my dad's restaurant, one of the groups
Speaker 1: when I was peeling potatoes in the back and I
Speaker 1: come out and my dad said, you know, my son
Speaker 1: writes you know, and they're looking at me like, please
Speaker 1: let us finish dinner. So now they said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we're at this new label ABC Paramount, and if you
Speaker 1: ever get to New York, look him up and say
Speaker 1: we sent you. I got that occasion when I left
Speaker 1: for on an Easter vacation. I go down and uh
Speaker 1: do go down alone, not knowing anybody where you gonna stay.
Speaker 1: My my my had an uncle who was living down there. Uh.
Speaker 1: They they put me in a room at the President
Speaker 1: Hotel on f Street and he's watching over me. But
Speaker 1: I want my own room. So I'm living at the
Speaker 1: President Hotel. I got this one room, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: out at New York and New York back then, as
Speaker 1: you know, that was it, man, that was it. And
Speaker 1: I'm walking the streets and doing and my uncle's watching
Speaker 1: over me. But I don't want to live with him
Speaker 1: so now, and I was only and I only had
Speaker 1: four days to do this. So I get an appointment
Speaker 1: at ABC Paramount and I walk from the hotel up
Speaker 1: to down to forty second. They had a building, the
Speaker 1: Paramount Ability and I walk in my jeans a T
Speaker 1: shirt appointment see Mr Costa and I walk in and
Speaker 1: he looks at me like the Barry Brothers. But it's
Speaker 1: a year later. He says, yes. I said, no, not
Speaker 1: from Canada. I've had da dada and I got these songs.
Speaker 1: He says, we'll sit down and play him. And he
Speaker 1: was a guitar player, and I said at the piano
Speaker 1: and the walls are shaken because I'm a heavy handed
Speaker 1: piano player. He says, we're your parents. I said, there
Speaker 1: in Canada. And he said, well, I want you to
Speaker 1: meet some people. I said, okay. So he gets Am Clark,
Speaker 1: Irwin Garr, Larry Newton, and these guys walk in with
Speaker 1: the suits and they're looking at me. He says, sing
Speaker 1: for him, So that's that singing. He said, where are
Speaker 1: your parents? I said, Darren, Canada. What's but the parents?
Speaker 1: He said, uh, well, we want to sign a contract,
Speaker 1: and you're you're you're too young, but we want to
Speaker 1: record you. Ah. Here I am again. The Baharry brothers
Speaker 1: all over, but no cadets, just these guys. So I
Speaker 1: call my dads. The dad, the dad bah bah. They're
Speaker 1: flying you down. My dad said you sure. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: just get on the plane. They want to sign me.
Speaker 1: They fly the parents down. We signed a contract. I
Speaker 1: get a hundred bucks a month to write, and my
Speaker 1: parents go home in disbelief. And two days later I
Speaker 1: gotta get to Capitol Records on Broadway and two o'clock
Speaker 1: the afternoon, but at night I'm enjoy in New York
Speaker 1: FI to two. I wake up. I'm late. I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be at the studio ship And I wanted to
Speaker 1: fix Diana because at the end of the bridge, I go,
Speaker 1: oh my heart, oh oh oh. It always bothered me
Speaker 1: because you know, oh, I mean what's oh? So I said, Scott,
Speaker 1: I didn't fix it. So now I run down Broadway.
Speaker 1: I would get into capital. Now. In those days, the
Speaker 1: cool thing about it, unlike today, everybody had to know
Speaker 1: their parts. Now there's six great musicians looking at me.
Speaker 1: Costs rehearsed them, they know their parts. They put me
Speaker 1: in the booth. I think I know my parts. The
Speaker 1: engineers in there, I'll forget his name. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a tape machine. It's a quarter of an inch thick,
Speaker 1: and everything's gonna go through that right onto that tape,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get it done in three hours. They start,
Speaker 1: and I'm in there and we get to Oh, and
Speaker 1: I apologized to Dawn. He said's all right, leave it in.
Speaker 1: We like oh. So we've finished the three songs in
Speaker 1: the Yeah in three hours. I say goodbye the musicians.
Speaker 1: That was it. That was it. Then they do a
Speaker 1: vinyl back. Then you do a vinyl, you ship it
Speaker 1: to the guys in radio. Within a week, you gotta hit.
Speaker 1: Two months later, I'm on American Bandstand, and then a
Speaker 1: month later I'm on Ed Sullivan that I used to
Speaker 1: watch in Canada. So when this span from May to September,
Speaker 1: my life absolutely upside down changed. There's no more Grade
Speaker 1: ten and the American dream is just sitting there in
Speaker 1: my lap, and I couldn't believe it. The cool thing
Speaker 1: about what I felt of the story is what changed
Speaker 1: my life. Prior to going to New York. The Rock
Speaker 1: and Roll Show comes through Canada. They put all these
Speaker 1: guys together on the bus and Chuck Berry Fettes Domino.
Speaker 1: They all came and in the hockey arena about ten acts.
Speaker 1: And I had bought this new jacket with white sleeves,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna break in and get back and
Speaker 1: haven't signed my jacket. I find a way because I
Speaker 1: was a hockey player and I knew the way into
Speaker 1: the backstage. And I go backstage and I get into
Speaker 1: Chuck Barry's dressing room and Chuck is there, first time
Speaker 1: I met him, putting his guitar away. Said oh, Mr
Speaker 1: Barry and Paul Anka, I'm a songwriter night and I
Speaker 1: love your music. And I got this song called Diana.
Speaker 1: He says, sing it. It's such singing Diana. He says,
Speaker 1: the worst song I ever had. Go back to school.
Speaker 1: It's in his book. He'll tell you the worst song
Speaker 1: I ever heard. I said, really, so, I you know,
Speaker 1: I looked at him. I oh, okay, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: dejected there at all. As I'm leaving, this guy comes
Speaker 1: around the courtineamed Irving Feld, remember that name. He was
Speaker 1: responsible and a smart cat for all that early stuff.
Speaker 1: He was a very Him and his brother Izzy on
Speaker 1: drug stores in Washington called superstores. But what they did
Speaker 1: they used to rack records, pretty much all the black experience,
Speaker 1: and they would see what was selling, and he and
Speaker 1: Izzy would call up book the act, put them all
Speaker 1: on a bus whoever it was, fifteen Clyde mcfatter, the platters, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And that's how he started all of those big rock
Speaker 1: and roll tours. He says to me, what are you
Speaker 1: doing back here? I said, I got a song, and
Speaker 1: he says, get out of here. I said, sir, you're
Speaker 1: gonna hear from me. One day, I said, remember my
Speaker 1: name Paul Anchor. He said, just go. You're not what
Speaker 1: Paul like? Fade out, faded. I get a call the
Speaker 1: following year, guy calls my house. Is Paul Anchor there?
Speaker 1: My dad says, yeah, who's calling? He said, well, my
Speaker 1: name is Irving Fell and I'm looking for Paul an.
Speaker 1: He's got the record Diana and it's huge. I want
Speaker 1: to book him. So my dad said, dad, bah bah ba,
Speaker 1: and Irving Feld I said, I know who he is.
Speaker 1: I get on the phone. I said, Mr Feld, Paul Anco,
Speaker 1: remember you threw me out of the auditory. So he says,
Speaker 1: oh my god, yes, yes, he said, I want you
Speaker 1: on the tour. I said, great, give me three bucks.
Speaker 1: I'm with this guy. I'm under age, taking care of me.
Speaker 1: I'm living in Washington with him and his family because
Speaker 1: I'm this kid. And he said, wow, amazing story. What's
Speaker 1: happened here? He said, you know, I want you to
Speaker 1: come back and do another tour because then after the
Speaker 1: tour and ended, I had you are my destiny. I said, look,
Speaker 1: first of all, you got me for three week. You're
Speaker 1: a real smart guy. I said, I'm not coming back
Speaker 1: here unless you become my partner. He said, what I said,
Speaker 1: I want to be in business with you. You're gonna
Speaker 1: look after my career. He says, let me think about it.
Speaker 1: Called me back. He said, we're gonna be partners. Mom
Speaker 1: back down, and Irving felt he was the key to
Speaker 1: my success. I learned more from him. You know, guys
Speaker 1: like Geffen and wine Troup smart guys. They all knew
Speaker 1: Irv and those are the guys, whether it's a geffn
Speaker 1: or Wine Troup, Irving, all those guys, the old school
Speaker 1: guys that went through that experience back then, you'll never
Speaker 1: ever see them again ever. And that's what felt was
Speaker 1: for me. He taught me so much from business life,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. This guy raised me in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Till I left when I was twenty one, I got married. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have success, you're on television, you're on the bus first,
Speaker 1: how do you cope with this emotionally? There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people the success happens, they get into substance
Speaker 1: abuse or they crack up. How do you stay on
Speaker 1: the rail? Well, we had no problem about then. We
Speaker 1: got all we wanted. But seriously, you know, it's a great, great,
Speaker 1: great question to all of us. And I look at
Speaker 1: the kids today and we know those stories back then
Speaker 1: because of my Canadian upbringing, because of Irving, who watched
Speaker 1: over me. And I'm trying to deal with the success.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to keep the nose clean. Now. When
Speaker 1: you see Frankie Lyman, may he arrest a great artist,
Speaker 1: you know, shooting up in the bathroom. Uh, And you
Speaker 1: know the end of the story and how it was
Speaker 1: really hurting his career. Uh and many others that were
Speaker 1: into drugs and not being able to deal with what
Speaker 1: their commitment called them what they were supposed to do
Speaker 1: in terms of respect to what they were given. I
Speaker 1: just realized that I wanted to stay in control. I
Speaker 1: did not want to go there. But then you know,
Speaker 1: it's um. I was always curious about it. I went
Speaker 1: on drug grades with detectives in uh New York that
Speaker 1: that you know. I was the first kid to work
Speaker 1: the COPA and these detectives would come and see me
Speaker 1: and they said, you want to go into drug rade.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, but it was just out of curiosity.
Speaker 1: But I never wanted to, nor would Irve allow me
Speaker 1: be in those circles to where I'd ever get a
Speaker 1: taste of that. Now, you know, when I'm with the
Speaker 1: Everly Brothers, Um, Buddy Holly, we drank beer. Uh Don
Speaker 1: was the only one we knew that really got into
Speaker 1: the heavy ship. But for the most part, and other
Speaker 1: than the beer, there's a group of us said we're
Speaker 1: just never ever get unstable. We we just didn't have it. Now,
Speaker 1: when you start working for the mob at the COPA,
Speaker 1: you start and then you go to Vegas. You're in
Speaker 1: this group of eyes. They're twice your age. They're telling
Speaker 1: you to keep your nose clean. They're not gonna put
Speaker 1: up with any ship. Even though the rat pack. I'm
Speaker 1: experiencing these guys drinking doing, never saw any drugs. You
Speaker 1: had to keep your nose clean. You're doing two shows
Speaker 1: a night. You're trying to be a responsible artist. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're realizing that that's taboo. You're gonna get yourself in trouble.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to lose it. All of this ship was happening before
Speaker 1: I was twenty one, watching those that got in trouble,
Speaker 1: and you make a choice in life. I did not
Speaker 1: want to go there. I wasn't a drinker. I'm still
Speaker 1: not a heavy drinker today. I never smoked a cigarette.
Speaker 1: Have I done weed, Yeah? Sure? Have I given a
Speaker 1: little shot at cocaine? Yeah? What is it about? You're
Speaker 1: curious but never crossing too lines to where you'd get destabilized.
Speaker 1: And IRV was like on my ass all the time
Speaker 1: he traveled with me. He made sure I didn't get
Speaker 1: any any trouble. And I've been that We've been like
Speaker 1: that ever since. It's been like that ever since. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know you talk about especially the wave that follows
Speaker 1: the British invasion. You have all these guitars and other
Speaker 1: players who are all they can do is play, and
Speaker 1: I feel they're playing will help them with the opposite sex.
Speaker 1: So you were an older teenager but a young man.
Speaker 1: You go on the road and a bus with all
Speaker 1: these other guys. What were your sexual love experiences? I
Speaker 1: couldn't get enough. Who do I give the money back to? Uh?
Speaker 1: But you have to realize. You have to realize when
Speaker 1: you're on that bus at seventeen and you're nowhere with
Speaker 1: what we're allowed today in terms of what sexuality was,
Speaker 1: what it represented, you couldn't bring him into Hope tells
Speaker 1: you're always doing it on the sly. You were always
Speaker 1: aware of the fact that when you were getting to
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania that you had to get Chuck Berry off the
Speaker 1: bus because he was wanted in eight states in between
Speaker 1: and ultimately went to jail at the end of the tour.
Speaker 1: You heard all the horror stories of the trouble that
Speaker 1: some of them got into my experiences as a young kid.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't really start getting into it till
Speaker 1: I planned in Europe, where there were so ahead, what setuality.
Speaker 1: You know, my first major girlfriend out there was from England,
Speaker 1: brought her over, moved her over to the States, wouldn't
Speaker 1: let her go. So it was it was all European
Speaker 1: and anything domestic I had to be so careful with
Speaker 1: because you're getting trouble, and we didn't want to get
Speaker 1: in trouble like Chuck. You know, we love Chuck, we
Speaker 1: know his talent, but he loved the ladies. And there
Speaker 1: was a story every time. And you know, I'm a kid.
Speaker 1: I can't do it. Chuck was doing one or you know,
Speaker 1: anybody else. I'm the youngest there. The Everley's Buddy Hall,
Speaker 1: I mean buddy married the secretary at the record company.
Speaker 1: And it was so elated, and you know, we used
Speaker 1: to sit around and talk about change your glasses, buddy.
Speaker 1: Get we were talking about chicks. But they were there,
Speaker 1: obviously we were there, you know. It was it was
Speaker 1: this group of guys. You know. I had had lunch
Speaker 1: with the Phil Everley may he rest and I took
Speaker 1: him in the valley here. He was starting to get
Speaker 1: ill and we were reminiscing and we haunded like a pack.
Speaker 1: Were these pack of guys And we went to were
Speaker 1: a little town up in Canada, and every afternoon what
Speaker 1: do we do with each other? Because all we had
Speaker 1: to do that night was saying one or two songs
Speaker 1: and uh. We go to the movie theater and they
Speaker 1: must have been six of us, and these guys, about
Speaker 1: ten of these leather biker types were sitting behind us,
Speaker 1: and I think they knew who we were, but they
Speaker 1: didn't like us, and they start tapping us in the
Speaker 1: rating us in the theater and we're getting nervous because
Speaker 1: we're out numbered and these guys were tough. So we
Speaker 1: walk out of the theater and they follow us out
Speaker 1: and Phil and I were like, what then, we gotta
Speaker 1: get back on Hoteling. You now, the band, the Paul
Speaker 1: Williams Orchestra that traveled with us, Bob, they're all black, right,
Speaker 1: and great musicians, and there was twelve of them, right,
Speaker 1: and they were all on the tour together. As we're
Speaker 1: walking down the street with these guys approaching us aggressively,
Speaker 1: what comes around the corner? But these twelve black dudes
Speaker 1: can well, these guys took off. I don't think they've
Speaker 1: ever seen that many lettle On see the black dude right,
Speaker 1: what's up baby? You need some help there? And he
Speaker 1: and I were just telling story after story after tour.
Speaker 1: He was a great guy, Phil and they were so talented.
Speaker 1: You know, people don't realize today, even though they're they're
Speaker 1: touching on it, the influence of those guys, and you've
Speaker 1: written about it. You know, when you sit in that
Speaker 1: room and I'm in the piano, they're playing guitars and
Speaker 1: you're hearing you know what's gonna come out, and you're
Speaker 1: talking about the harmony, what they're doing. Look at who
Speaker 1: they turned on between Buddy and that guitar and the
Speaker 1: harmonies and all of this to be a part of that.
Speaker 1: And then you land in England and all they're talking
Speaker 1: about are these guys and they're copping everything from them.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't ever forget those foots. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, you can't forget it because it was so
Speaker 1: natural back then. You know, today these guys have got
Speaker 1: the luxury. You can sit around for eight months, you've
Speaker 1: got the technology. You're gonna put this great time to
Speaker 1: grow up, great time to learn, great time for me.
Speaker 1: When I watched the rat pack when I started as
Speaker 1: young kid, and I'm at the sad you got me
Speaker 1: hold if I if I had to hold it, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be married. Go ahead, Bob, to what degree on
Speaker 1: those tours did you see and experience racism? Oh? Baby,
Speaker 1: does the pope prey? It was when you come out
Speaker 1: of Canada at my age and not exposed. We're not
Speaker 1: in a media driven society and you travel down south,
Speaker 1: that's all you saw. These guys were my brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters on that bus. I got religion real quick, shockingly.
Speaker 1: So when you pull up to that building for the
Speaker 1: first time and it goes whites to the left, black
Speaker 1: to the right, and you get into the theater itself
Speaker 1: and that's all segregated, and there's police with these dogs
Speaker 1: and they're going after my brothers on that bus. Won't
Speaker 1: let them eat. I had to go around the corner
Speaker 1: with the bus with all those acts. I'd have to
Speaker 1: go around into a restaurant and bring the food onto
Speaker 1: the bus. When we had to go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: we weren't allowed. We'd slow down about three miles an hour,
Speaker 1: open the door, and we would piss out the door.
Speaker 1: I saw so much back then it was brutal. It
Speaker 1: was brutal to watch and even reared it's ugly head
Speaker 1: when I started working in Vegas, when they wouldn't let
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis or Lena Horn when we're at the Sands
Speaker 1: and they're living over on the other side of town,
Speaker 1: talented people, and they wouldn't let him into the goddamn
Speaker 1: hotel or into the pool, and everybody put their foot down,
Speaker 1: and Sinatra led it and said, this ain't going to fly.
Speaker 1: So from fifty to Vegas and beyond, sir, beyond sir,
Speaker 1: it was brutal. On me. It was brutal. I've never
Speaker 1: witnessed anything like that in my life ever. Okay, you
Speaker 1: mentioned playing the copa and the mob. Yeah, go a
Speaker 1: little more details. At what point did you become aware
Speaker 1: there was a mob in the music business and what
Speaker 1: was your ultimate interaction The moment I got my feet
Speaker 1: wet and I had IRV who was older, experienced. He said, look, Paul,
Speaker 1: this is the business. Here's who controls it. You're gonna
Speaker 1: hear about mafia. You're gonna hear about the mob. They
Speaker 1: got their hands on the record business, they got their
Speaker 1: hands on the copa. I want you to wear a
Speaker 1: shirt and tie. I want you to be polite, and
Speaker 1: I want you to know, Paul, that you're gonna be
Speaker 1: working for them. They're never gonna hurt you, and you're
Speaker 1: never gonna ask them for a favor. But this is
Speaker 1: who you're going to work for. IRV the Record Company
Speaker 1: educated me. Now you have to realize that whole mob scene, mafia,
Speaker 1: it didn't really hit mass public attention until after fifty seven.
Speaker 1: It was all under under under. You know, I'm living
Speaker 1: in an apartment around the corner and he gets shot
Speaker 1: in the barbershop. All of that mafia stuff started to
Speaker 1: come to its head fifty seven fifty night, and I
Speaker 1: was aware of it, and that was okay. I would
Speaker 1: go to work at the COPA. Mr Podell was a gentleman,
Speaker 1: shook his hand. I'm always aware of who I'm working for.
Speaker 1: They were the greatest to work for. Bob, you shook
Speaker 1: their hand. You didn't need a contract. And I saw
Speaker 1: stuff from there till I moved from New York to Vegas.
Speaker 1: You better keep your nose clean because they were for
Speaker 1: real and they ran it in and out. They have
Speaker 1: Mush Levy, Morris Levy, great colorful guy back then had
Speaker 1: to let records, and we all know what he was doing.
Speaker 1: And he started what we called write a word, get
Speaker 1: a third, which means when one of these kids walking,
Speaker 1: must you go and you're not gonna say, uh, don't,
Speaker 1: We're gonna use the word wound. Okay, Mr Levy, write
Speaker 1: a word, get a third. So we know what they
Speaker 1: were doing, you know, and that was okay. They had
Speaker 1: trucks coming up to the back door delivering records peppep.
Speaker 1: You know. We knew we weren't going to get all
Speaker 1: our money, but that's who you work for, and you're
Speaker 1: aware of it now. It really sunk into me by
Speaker 1: the time I got to Vegas because I'm working the
Speaker 1: sands a little bit slower. Sure, you're playing the copa, yep,
Speaker 1: how do you end up in Vegas? Very simple, Spoka.
Speaker 1: They're all connected. They all know each other. The Copa
Speaker 1: that was your testing ground. They pick up the phone,
Speaker 1: they call the guys a big jack and Trotter was
Speaker 1: a waiter at the Copa. He goes out to Vegas.
Speaker 1: He's running their joint. They all knew each other. If
Speaker 1: you well, let me stick back a little bit, Darren
Speaker 1: me Frankie Avalon. We're knee deep in these careers, but
Speaker 1: we're hearing, Oh, you may not always have a record,
Speaker 1: You're not always gonna have a hit. We don't know
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be around. We're now looking up at
Speaker 1: these guys, the rat Back, Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Team Mark,
Speaker 1: the other way they dress. Look At how cool the
Speaker 1: sound we got to do that. We had no vision.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, no vision, there's no hand Rich, there's no Beatles.
Speaker 1: So we get schooled. We get to tuxedos. We hired
Speaker 1: these guys that teach us how to do a nightclub
Speaker 1: act because we got to get to the Copa. I
Speaker 1: get to the Copa. I opened with the I think
Speaker 1: Jackie Mason was my opening act, and uh, well, I'll
Speaker 1: get a point a little bit. We're a huge hit
Speaker 1: first time kids there. I got Jackie Mays. There are
Speaker 1: prompt kids all the way around Fifth Avenue till three
Speaker 1: in the morning, and we're doing three shows a day
Speaker 1: and Jackie Hi, We're a huge hit. Now. For those
Speaker 1: that remember the Cope, it was his basement club mob
Speaker 1: Rannit and next door was a hotel called the Hotel fourteen.
Speaker 1: You had to go through this hotel fourteen to get
Speaker 1: into the copa because there was no dressing room in
Speaker 1: the basement, so you're dressed upstairs and came down through
Speaker 1: the kitchen. So we finished. We're a huge hit. And
Speaker 1: Jackie was Jackie back then and one of the funniest guys.
Speaker 1: I mean I have known for years Mary Rest and
Speaker 1: you know he had big balls. And We're a big
Speaker 1: hit that evening and hear you. So now we go
Speaker 1: to work the next night. I go through the entrance.
Speaker 1: Jackie wants to go through the front door of the copa,
Speaker 1: but the kids lining outside around the corner and Mr
Speaker 1: Podel used to sit there at the table right at
Speaker 1: the entrance with his big ring and chat time. He was.
Speaker 1: He was a cool guy. So Jackie walks in and
Speaker 1: he's passing the kids and Podell sees him as he's
Speaker 1: entering into the lounge and Jackie says, oh, Mr Podell.
Speaker 1: He says, get back in line, kid and threw him out.
Speaker 1: He didn't know who he was. So so getting back
Speaker 1: on point, you know, once you work the copa, the
Speaker 1: word got out the kids making money for us. The
Speaker 1: kid can sing the kids an entertainer. This is me
Speaker 1: Darren and Frankie, you know, trying to evolve to where
Speaker 1: we wanted to go. They make the phone call, You're
Speaker 1: going to Vegas. Now, Presley didn't work for EVI us unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but it did later. Do you want to work the
Speaker 1: sands with the wrap back? I said, are you kidding? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I go out there and uh, I start and
Speaker 1: I'm with these guys. Now. The testing ground for me
Speaker 1: was before I opened the Sands. They want me to
Speaker 1: work with Sophie Tucker, America America's favorite group. Make she
Speaker 1: rest and uh. They bring me out and said, look,
Speaker 1: you're gonna open a show for Sophie Tucker because we
Speaker 1: want to get a field for us. Yeah, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to do. I opened the show at the Sahara Hotel.
Speaker 1: It was the first time ever they've ever seen kids
Speaker 1: coming to a club with their parents. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking twenty It was like hundreds of these kids with
Speaker 1: their parents and I do what I do and they're screaming.
Speaker 1: And when Sophie came on, they'd leave. They weren't interested.
Speaker 1: She was really cool. At the end of the I
Speaker 1: think the second and said, my boy, I want you
Speaker 1: to close the show. I can't follow you, my boy,
Speaker 1: I said, I said, it's tucking or whatever. So I
Speaker 1: closed the show. That led me over to the Sands
Speaker 1: Hotel with the wrap Pack. Okay, you know because so
Speaker 1: much has changed since then, and we know even at
Speaker 1: this late date, every entertainer has a deal with a
Speaker 1: specific casino, although some operations are more than one casino.
Speaker 1: All the rat Pack worked at the Sands. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Jane Martin, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, wherever Frank was. That's
Speaker 1: where you wanted to work. They all worked there, And
Speaker 1: that's where IRV and I would go when we weren't working.
Speaker 1: We would go and what I saw stuff from Kennedy
Speaker 1: and Monroe and the guys. I got such an education,
Speaker 1: but it had to be at the Sands Hotel. They
Speaker 1: owned it, They owned it. What was the education? God
Speaker 1: tell us a couple of things. Well, you certainly learned
Speaker 1: how to perform, or at least you had a guideline
Speaker 1: as to the stick part um. The concept of the
Speaker 1: fund that they had. Getting the understanding that you'd better
Speaker 1: take those vocal lessons because those cats are singing for real.
Speaker 1: There's no technology making you sound better didn't exist, only Fabian,
Speaker 1: and I'll deviate quickly who they found in Philly, part
Speaker 1: of the Frankie avalon that whole group, nice kid, great looking,
Speaker 1: because that's what they were selling back then, you know, aesthetics. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the Americans have sent that all over the world to
Speaker 1: where it's a priority when it shouldn't be. But anyway,
Speaker 1: even just with Fabian, when he recalls that there was
Speaker 1: a hundred splices on the song, they took a racer blade,
Speaker 1: they put the tape and they cut it in a
Speaker 1: hundred pieces just to get a vocal. So what I'm
Speaker 1: saying to you is you have to have a vocal coach,
Speaker 1: and you have to be as good as they were
Speaker 1: professionally in being able to stay in tune and to
Speaker 1: sing the kind of arrangements. Uh, the whole ambiance was magical.
Speaker 1: There was nothing like it. There was nothing like it.
Speaker 1: You're on a bus in this broken down stadium, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're in these great nightclubs. Then
Speaker 1: we started meeting these guys and you started getting the
Speaker 1: input when they liked you, and you saw that behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff. I mean right down to when we
Speaker 1: all meet in the steam room at the Saints Hotel
Speaker 1: at one in the morning in a town that had
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighties show girls who all wanted to
Speaker 1: be in there, and whoever was in there shared in
Speaker 1: the enjoyment. Right, So all that I mean, by four
Speaker 1: in the morning, we were getting haircuts by Jay Siebrin,
Speaker 1: who's the hot guy. He fly up from l A.
Speaker 1: We're all sitting on the lawn getting hair. Guess the
Speaker 1: girls are waiting inside and I'm looking at these guys
Speaker 1: that I idolized, say what a life? Right, So it
Speaker 1: was all of that, and it was all of you know,
Speaker 1: structuring yourself as to be as good as you possibly
Speaker 1: could be in the professionalism that was in that town.
Speaker 1: And that's all that that was. That was that was
Speaker 1: the entertainment town, every lounge, every place that tough people
Speaker 1: in the business were there. Okay, there are in show business.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows everybody, but they're not necessarily friends. No, you're
Speaker 1: adopted by the rat pack. You're you know, a member yourself.
Speaker 1: Why you what does that happen? And in addition, this
Speaker 1: was an error with very little publicity, very little story,
Speaker 1: unlike today. Yeah, well was there. It was the reality
Speaker 1: as good as the images. My question. Yes, yes, yes, Look,
Speaker 1: we're all working for the same group. They're all a
Speaker 1: part of the success Sammy, Frank, Dean. Did I profess
Speaker 1: to know all of them well early in the game. No,
Speaker 1: do I profess to say that I knew Dean Martin,
Speaker 1: who was very much a loner. No, I was their respect.
Speaker 1: Sammy got to know well, Frank, I got to know well.
Speaker 1: But the point was there was there was this thing
Speaker 1: of well, if you're working here with us and we
Speaker 1: like what you're doing, the gravitas that I brought to
Speaker 1: the table, if you will, that they were aware of,
Speaker 1: unlike the others. As a writer, so the time you
Speaker 1: write the Longest Day, the Tonight Show theme, you've got
Speaker 1: this different kind of respect to him. Maybe this kid's
Speaker 1: gonna last. And the reviews of me as a performer
Speaker 1: started to embellish, embellish. We need him here because Carl
Speaker 1: Cohen was my godfather. Carl Cohen ran the joint for
Speaker 1: the guys, as did about six of them. The word
Speaker 1: got out, we're gonna nurt you the kid. He's making
Speaker 1: money for us at the copa where I spent years. Look, ultimately,
Speaker 1: you learn all of us early, you know what the
Speaker 1: whole thing about in this world is all about the money.
Speaker 1: Don't give me its principal, all that bullshit, everything today
Speaker 1: as it was yesterday. It's all about the money, okay.
Speaker 1: And you learned that early. And those guys, I was
Speaker 1: a money machine. I'm selling millions of records. I'm working
Speaker 1: their clubs. There was no one else, you know. I
Speaker 1: think Frankie Avalon came in a few years later. They
Speaker 1: needed to put text us we belonged to them, now
Speaker 1: belong we made money. They never put the muscle on me.
Speaker 1: So Frank would be always there for me. Every time
Speaker 1: I met him for dinner, he talked to me, trying
Speaker 1: to teach me and say, and do you know he
Speaker 1: wasn't an educated man in that sense. He was educated
Speaker 1: because he read a lot and wanted to be but
Speaker 1: he would take care. He was the greatest guy and
Speaker 1: the greatest friend you could ever have. And if he
Speaker 1: didn't like you, that's a whole other story. But they
Speaker 1: protected you, okay. And you know there's an incident. I
Speaker 1: mean it even hurts me to talk about it, because
Speaker 1: Sinatra can do no wrong for me. I mean, he
Speaker 1: and even Sammy, those guys were something else for me.
Speaker 1: But I was there the night that when Howard Hughes
Speaker 1: took the place over. You know you hear that, you
Speaker 1: hear everything. That's it with Jimmy Riseli after my show,
Speaker 1: Hey kid, you know we love you, and keep your
Speaker 1: nose clean in this and then he winds up in
Speaker 1: an oil and I'm going, what you start hearing all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, you still getting to get the background
Speaker 1: as to why. And I realized that if I didn't
Speaker 1: keep my nose clean, I wasn't going to really have
Speaker 1: any kind of career after that. And that's right. Put
Speaker 1: the cards on the table with those guys. Okay, you
Speaker 1: have the success very quickly. Yeah. Do you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: in it or do you have a certain amount of
Speaker 1: impostor syndrome. I'm very comfortable, very comfortable from day one.
Speaker 1: You feel you belong you're unequal. I never felt so comfortable, well, inequal.
Speaker 1: I wasn't unequal to the RAPPI I was in the business.
Speaker 1: I was a singer and entertainer, and I was always comfortable.
Speaker 1: I was not intimidated by them. Now you're in all
Speaker 1: of them, but I always felt comfortable. I felt that belonged. Uh,
Speaker 1: I learned quick. I was very aggressive and where I
Speaker 1: wanted to go. You know, I I took two U
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars pretty much all I had after I
Speaker 1: bought my parents at home. I gave it to the
Speaker 1: record company. I wanted out because I go to Europe
Speaker 1: and it's all down to what it is was today
Speaker 1: is today distributed distribution. My record company wasn't there go
Speaker 1: these little towns. I see r C A Victor, r
Speaker 1: C A Victor, UH washing machines to Victor. So I said,
Speaker 1: the earth, you gotta be with these guys because I'm
Speaker 1: going international. And they were in every store I go to,
Speaker 1: and I don't see the ABC paramount. So I gave
Speaker 1: him back. I gave him two to fifty. I bought
Speaker 1: all my rights back, and I got very aggressive, started
Speaker 1: a company and started making records for our say Victor,
Speaker 1: and I said, I want to go back to Italy
Speaker 1: because I loved that I was singing there for years.
Speaker 1: And I signed with our C Taliana, and I started
Speaker 1: writing with the Italians and my my in r director
Speaker 1: was in A Morricone who as you know, became the guy,
Speaker 1: but he was my guy. We sold four million records.
Speaker 1: When I was there, first time ever, they had a
Speaker 1: million seller in Italy. I went to France, started singing
Speaker 1: in French. I did it in German, I did it
Speaker 1: in France. So I got aggressive in terms of where
Speaker 1: my home would be and it was our c Victor.
Speaker 1: And that changed my life and I rode right through
Speaker 1: that until I wrote My Way in the mid sixties. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell us the story of you in the net. You
Speaker 1: look so interested. Did you like her? Well, she was
Speaker 1: America's sweetheart, literally, but you liked her, right? Were you
Speaker 1: a fan of her? Everybody liked her. She was the
Speaker 1: Queen Squeaky Glee. You know, she was Squeaky all right.
Speaker 1: So we're touring and then that she's on as you know,
Speaker 1: the whole Disney thing, and Earth says, we're taking this
Speaker 1: girl and then on the old Okay, and I get
Speaker 1: to knowre on the road. We all liked it, obviously.
Speaker 1: So I'm working at. I'm working at. I got this crush.
Speaker 1: It's no more. I'm so young and you're so old.
Speaker 1: So we start swapping spit with all due respect. Good family.
Speaker 1: The mother's out there traveling with us. It's got teachers,
Speaker 1: Disney protected, and we get close. We get real close.
Speaker 1: I'm out at the home in Encino. We're spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time. Um Disney said, could you write an
Speaker 1: album for you? Write some songs. Absolutely, I do the album.
Speaker 1: We're getting very serious. Disney's now getting hot under the
Speaker 1: collar with We don't want this kind of image. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing happening there. It's puppy love, puppy love, and
Speaker 1: they call so I get a song out of it.
Speaker 1: I write some songs for her. We had a great relationship.
Speaker 1: She's probably the first to hear put your head in
Speaker 1: my shoulder because I was playing her everything. I go
Speaker 1: to her house and then seeing these fans. They gave
Speaker 1: her bears. It must have been two teddy bears and things.
Speaker 1: We'd lay on these bears and sit and talk all
Speaker 1: night at her home over there. I realized that she
Speaker 1: did even though she wanted to get married, that that
Speaker 1: was not going to happen. You know, because when you
Speaker 1: look historically now and that I know I made the
Speaker 1: right decision. Whether you're an athlete, a singer, whatever, When
Speaker 1: a woman comes into your life and you're very successful
Speaker 1: and focused and I want to be careful here your
Speaker 1: I can get off the ball, and you lose a
Speaker 1: lot of momentum because obviously you're over here. So I was,
Speaker 1: my eye was off the ball. I was so wrapped
Speaker 1: up and in love and I was too young, and
Speaker 1: we talked it out and said, look, let's just be friends. Fadeo,
Speaker 1: fade in. My agent Jack you Alarnadi Marrier. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's all I'm gonna tell you. I realize I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna dig any deeper. Tell me how you're right there.
Speaker 1: Tonight show theme. I'm in England doing a garage TV
Speaker 1: special and they want two hours, I think, and I said,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of music. You need some relief here?
Speaker 1: Do we have some comedy? Now? Back then I started
Speaker 1: two guys called Lou and Leslie Grade who later became
Speaker 1: but when I met him that a little office. They
Speaker 1: met me at the airport. Lue shows up at the cigar.
Speaker 1: He takes me to his little office. I'm sitting with
Speaker 1: his brother. We want you to do this Granado show
Speaker 1: because it will help you with blah. We got a
Speaker 1: band for you. Well, come on. They take me to
Speaker 1: this little club and I see these eight guys up
Speaker 1: there in pink suits, yellow suits. Gritz John Barry, John
Speaker 1: Barry seven trumpet player becomes my band, and they said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this Granada TV show. He said, great guys,
Speaker 1: and they were my bookers. They booked me all over Europe.
Speaker 1: I said, can we get some comedy? So they send
Speaker 1: me these kinescopes and I'm sitting there all day watching comics.
Speaker 1: This one guy drank all night. He was absolutely blitzed
Speaker 1: by three in the morning, goes to bed, but he
Speaker 1: had to get up the next day at eight in
Speaker 1: the morning and host a kiddie show but just screaming kids.
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson. I said, that's funny, So I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: bring him over. So Johnny comes over. Got to know
Speaker 1: him a little, you know, Johnny. No one really got
Speaker 1: to know Johnny Well. He was brilliant what he did,
Speaker 1: but he was It was nice enough. It was the
Speaker 1: beginning of his career. Okay, does his job. We do it.
Speaker 1: I fly home. He fights home. Had an office some
Speaker 1: fifty seventh Street, and I see Johnny coming out of
Speaker 1: this building. We're in my office. Hey Johnny, Hey, fine
Speaker 1: bou what are you up to? John? Well, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing this and looking he said, I may
Speaker 1: take over this uh tonight show. Well, I might do
Speaker 1: it for like two years. Ha ha ha. So two years,
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, says, you know, I'd like to have
Speaker 1: like a theme song, you know, for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, sure. Now I had had this melody
Speaker 1: tweaked around. Was giving it to a net that might
Speaker 1: even have been a thing. He says, I only need
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds. So again, I take about fourner books on
Speaker 1: my bank account, I glue with the band, take my vision,
Speaker 1: I put down dad and I give it to him.
Speaker 1: That's great. So he takes it, calls me back two
Speaker 1: days later. Any think, he says, Paul, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: I can't use it. I said, why. He said, there's
Speaker 1: a guy that's already been on the show, Sketch Henderson.
Speaker 1: You know, he's sixties and big attitude, and yeah that's
Speaker 1: a sad scene. But he doesn't want any kid writing anything.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to do it. I said, Oh Jesus, John,
Speaker 1: He says, John, let me ask you a question. If
Speaker 1: I gave you half of the writer's royalty and half
Speaker 1: the publishing, would that make a difference, He said, Let
Speaker 1: me get back to you. Well, you know the rest
Speaker 1: of the story, right business not two years, it turns
Speaker 1: into thirty nine and he makes a shipload of money
Speaker 1: as I did. And that's the Tonight Show. How much
Speaker 1: money you think you made over the life of the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show from the theme song, Bob, you know I
Speaker 1: should have got it? Well, I know that it made
Speaker 1: so much that NBC stopped the the payments in terms
Speaker 1: of they put a new infrastructure as to how much
Speaker 1: you can make. So my guests, my guests thirty nine years,
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars, ten million dollars. And you have no
Speaker 1: idea this was going to be the cash cow that
Speaker 1: it was. Nobody did he did he he was editor
Speaker 1: two years. That was the contract. I didn't even think
Speaker 1: about it. You know, there's so much, you know, there's
Speaker 1: so much that in our industry you can sit back
Speaker 1: and envision what it's gonna be, and there's so much
Speaker 1: you don't even see coming. You know. If that's what's
Speaker 1: that's what's great about our business, you know, because I
Speaker 1: first learned you do something that's gonna make them come back. Well,
Speaker 1: you're songwriter performing, and then don't sit and listen to
Speaker 1: the last person that tells you what to do and
Speaker 1: think negative because you don't know. And William Goldman put
Speaker 1: that great quote nobody knows what he's talking about here,
Speaker 1: and so true in our business today. You look at
Speaker 1: what we're experiencing today, and unfortunately, when I look at
Speaker 1: the economics, what's happening. I don't know that half of
Speaker 1: these people are even be in business next year. You know,
Speaker 1: labels are not friendly anymore artists. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say they're the enemy, but there here's guys, and you know,
Speaker 1: guys like Lucien who are smart first brick to make it.
Speaker 1: These guys five years ago were making let's say two
Speaker 1: or Adian millions, Sony, they're both doing three of them
Speaker 1: are all doing billion dollars today and without artists, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not sitting there nurturing and working with new people, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Now we know where they have to go to make it.
Speaker 1: You've written all about it, but it's so true. You're
Speaker 1: no longer part of the record company business an artist
Speaker 1: and they sit and you've got the whole Spotify thing.
Speaker 1: Press the button. So the point is it's such a
Speaker 1: new business. Nobody saw this coming, nor would they see.
Speaker 1: I want to see what's gonna happen. You know, we're
Speaker 1: probably my tenth year in the business. Every ten years
Speaker 1: or so, something new comes along. The Beatles came along,
Speaker 1: This came along, then Michael Jackson, you know, which is
Speaker 1: a whole other story with my life with him. And
Speaker 1: you know that something's coming in five years. What's that
Speaker 1: going to be? What is the new form going to be?
Speaker 1: Who's going to be around? As I said, my fear today,
Speaker 1: if you're a young lawyer, if you're an agent, let's
Speaker 1: forget about Bruno Mars and Weekend and that the echelont
Speaker 1: that are going to be fine. What's gonna happen to
Speaker 1: all that mid core agents, lawyers, artists. You're gonna see
Speaker 1: some fire sales if things don't pick up. Bob a
Speaker 1: lot in Jeopardy. Here a lot in Jeopardy. Okay, just
Speaker 1: going back, Sure, this enormous success and then style changers.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with this? And how do you
Speaker 1: maintain your relevancy decade after decade after decade? Okay, you're
Speaker 1: building on a solid foundation. That's how That's how I started.
Speaker 1: I said, Look, I'm gonna stay true to what I do.
Speaker 1: Could I become a heavy rock artist? Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: play guitar. I stayed true to who I was where
Speaker 1: I felt comfortable on a solid foundation, and I kept
Speaker 1: changing within that structure with whoever was happening around me.
Speaker 1: But the the criteria of it all was stay the writer.
Speaker 1: That's where you're gonna get the attention and the respect.
Speaker 1: Stay the writer. So I stayed true to writing, gave
Speaker 1: stuff away. I worked at my craft as a performer,
Speaker 1: and I just try to stay with what was happening.
Speaker 1: But keeping my own identity to it not easy. Not easy,
Speaker 1: you know, when you get to have my baby and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, not that easy. Okay, So you had
Speaker 1: my way, but if you just I used to talk
Speaker 1: to Darren about it when we took the guitar and
Speaker 1: the Geene jacket. You know, we'd sit around. He's a
Speaker 1: good friend. See Bobby, why are you? Why are you
Speaker 1: doing the Dylan thing? You can do it, but it's
Speaker 1: not as good as what you did and who you are?
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this? But he was very politically
Speaker 1: and tied in. I said, just stay true to who
Speaker 1: you are and our guys will follow us, our crowd
Speaker 1: will follow us. I don't know that I'd be around
Speaker 1: Bob if I wasn't the writer, I don't know, I really,
Speaker 1: you know till I I always stayed as the writer
Speaker 1: first and then a performer, you know. I wrote it
Speaker 1: right through the stuff with Jackson, working with Blue Blay,
Speaker 1: always staying with no rear view mirror, staying relevant as
Speaker 1: you could today, the moment, the moment. You've been married
Speaker 1: three times, Yes, you're not a monk. What have you
Speaker 1: What have you learned about loving relationships? You never learned? Okay,
Speaker 1: what did I learn? Well, my first wife and makes
Speaker 1: she rests thirty nine years uh, five great children, nine grandchildren,
Speaker 1: and it was a beautiful time in my life. We
Speaker 1: lost her to cancer. Um. I went on to marry
Speaker 1: twice after the first one of the second I had
Speaker 1: a child with. I wasn't planning on getting married, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't planning on having a child. Well, as things
Speaker 1: evolved and I took care of business. I was a
Speaker 1: gentleman through it all. I fell in love with this boy,
Speaker 1: my first boy, and at the same time I just
Speaker 1: knew that there would be no future in terms of
Speaker 1: the concept of marriage. Okay, it's a tough business. It
Speaker 1: really is a tough business for everybody. I'm a numbers guy,
Speaker 1: and when you look at the numbers and a divorce
Speaker 1: of the other fifty are miserable. So that has never changed.
Speaker 1: As I've looked at life and looked at guys, and
Speaker 1: all my buddies were miserable, and I wish them happiness.
Speaker 1: But I realized that, you know, you get to a
Speaker 1: certain point where a woman and they need to get married. Well,
Speaker 1: if you get married for whatever reasons, and you protect yourself,
Speaker 1: I no longer look at it as a necessity for
Speaker 1: me to be married. I'm very I'm very happy the
Speaker 1: way I am. I've got a great woman in my life.
Speaker 1: I've got my son. I fought in a sense getting married.
Speaker 1: The last two probably won't get married again. Um, you
Speaker 1: know you don't know your wife, Bob to your meet
Speaker 1: her in court. I've definitely learned. So you're never gonna
Speaker 1: beat it, because God bless him. Look, if you read
Speaker 1: Freud on his dying bed and they said to him,
Speaker 1: you know, sigma of all the great things you've done
Speaker 1: and you've achieved in the human mind, is the something
Speaker 1: you couldn't figure out. And if you read the book,
Speaker 1: he said, I can't figure what a woman wanted. I
Speaker 1: can never figure out what a woman wanted. I'm not
Speaker 1: slamming women. I love him, we all love them. It's
Speaker 1: it's just if it isn't working, and if it isn't fitting,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have a friend, and then it's
Speaker 1: it's it's senseless. You know. There was a great study
Speaker 1: at Harvard. They took these hundred guys from the age
Speaker 1: of twenty on. We're gonna follow you through your life,
Speaker 1: and we get into your seventies or eighty, want to
Speaker 1: come back and see you, guys, which they did, and
Speaker 1: they sat with all of them, billionaire, millionaire, pivot, pivot,
Speaker 1: and they said, what have you learned throughout of this?
Speaker 1: What is it you want now right now? With everything
Speaker 1: you've achieved at your life, all of them, we only
Speaker 1: want now some that we can live with, that cares
Speaker 1: for us. We want someone that cares. How true? You know, men,
Speaker 1: we're not complicated. We're not easy to live with, obviously not.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have that right fit, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna be married three times, which I was, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know what it is. It's a date gone
Speaker 1: wrong because I wasn't married that long and either one
Speaker 1: I knew what was happening, but it just wasn't working.
Speaker 1: Wasn't working. I guess I I gave my all to
Speaker 1: my first wife, who is an amazing woman, loved you
Speaker 1: dearly and such a great mother, and I had my
Speaker 1: taste of it. You know, I've been with the best
Speaker 1: of the guys, the Sinatras, the ali Cons, the guys
Speaker 1: I know in Europe, all these great stockers who really
Speaker 1: know about this. That none of them were successful. So
Speaker 1: maybe it's like the flu. You're gonna get it every year.
Speaker 1: You gotta fight and you get rid of it. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you that I could give you any wisdom there,
Speaker 1: I've just known. Okay, how about the fact you are
Speaker 1: are ah a road guy? All performers are. Can you
Speaker 1: keep a relationship going if you're on the road a lot?
Speaker 1: And what is the key there? Anyone that travels, you're
Speaker 1: in a restaurant, you travel, anybody very difficult, very different.
Speaker 1: Now you're down to quality of time and not quantity
Speaker 1: of time. So when you come home the quality you
Speaker 1: put in, because it's just very tough on both parties
Speaker 1: as you're growing. What is the secret the woman in
Speaker 1: your life, not the guy, The woman if she's adjusting
Speaker 1: and still feels that love and understands the guy, you've
Speaker 1: got a chance of making it. Because if you're not giving,
Speaker 1: and if you're not there for in all the needs
Speaker 1: of some of the needs that they need, it's so
Speaker 1: tough because you know, the only only the way I
Speaker 1: looked at it was and I said to my wife,
Speaker 1: makes she rest. I said, this is what I do
Speaker 1: since fifteen years old. You sure you want to be
Speaker 1: a part of this, are you sure? And I would
Speaker 1: take her, and I would take the kids. And I
Speaker 1: found a friend who understood. Guys just want a friend first.
Speaker 1: That totally gets us, because it ain't e it's a none,
Speaker 1: It's an unnatural state. It was created for the nomadic race.
Speaker 1: The nomadic race they lived to what whatever it was,
Speaker 1: it wasn't created for today. People go to me, hey, Paul,
Speaker 1: let me missed the old days. It was so simple
Speaker 1: back then. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no. The times weren't simple. You were simple.
Speaker 1: I was simple because you know where you are today.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of brilliant, smart people now. And
Speaker 1: I say to them, don't give me this bullshit about
Speaker 1: oh yesterday, is if nothing's like yesterday, forget yesterday. You
Speaker 1: need to live in this moment now where all the
Speaker 1: intelligences get with it. Don't be judgmental about it. Whether
Speaker 1: you're married, you're dating, you're working. This is it, baby.
Speaker 1: The trains coming down a track step aside. Smart people today,
Speaker 1: smart stuff happening today, and they're being smart kids today.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting married. Oh there's too much trouble. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna way to wear thirty. They get it, these kids,
Speaker 1: you know, as much as they think they've got the answer,
Speaker 1: some of them do, right. So how are you ever
Speaker 1: going to figure out what you're gonna do if you're
Speaker 1: living with someone, whether you're married together, give it your
Speaker 1: best shot, give it your best shot. You'll know, you'll
Speaker 1: know and you won't know. No, it's just what it is. Okay.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Michael Jackson. Yeah, tell me about your interaction
Speaker 1: with him and what he was really like. Michael. I
Speaker 1: knew him and his family when they come to Vegas.
Speaker 1: It see mes, Frankie, I mean, Joe drove that whole family,
Speaker 1: show business, show business, show nice family, you know, talented,
Speaker 1: but we all kind of sensed in the record business
Speaker 1: and the business itself that Michael had that thing. We
Speaker 1: just saw it when I was doing my album for
Speaker 1: Sony Duets album and I had everyone, Michael McDonald, Canny,
Speaker 1: look great, writers, all kinds of people, real proud of
Speaker 1: that album. Michael wanted to be on the album. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do two songs with me. So he came
Speaker 1: to see me and Carmel at home at a studio
Speaker 1: and we sit. He spent weeks up there in my
Speaker 1: guest house, sit and talk to business. Here's a sponge.
Speaker 1: He just you couldn't tell his kid enough, right, he
Speaker 1: was so into it. In the interim, thriller is about
Speaker 1: to come out and explode, right, But I'm in the
Speaker 1: middle of this project and he's my last artist. We
Speaker 1: sit down, we start writing, and I get the core
Speaker 1: of the songs done and the you know, the rhythm, piano,
Speaker 1: some drum, but I get the core of where it
Speaker 1: has to go. I shipped the tapes to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: because I gotta I couldn't have a big band at
Speaker 1: my home, and I'm gonna fly down and work with
Speaker 1: Michael and finish the songs in Los Angeles. I get
Speaker 1: a call, uh from the record studio in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Mr Ranca, Michael Jackson, one of his people came over
Speaker 1: and they took the tapes out of the studio. We
Speaker 1: told him we couldn't release him, but they took him.
Speaker 1: I said, what he took the tapes, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be recording. Oh so now I fly down from
Speaker 1: Garmel and I go to my lawyers at the time. Uh,
Speaker 1: who remained nameless even though it's out there and there
Speaker 1: were Michaels. They just I think they just took Michael.
Speaker 1: And then my contract was done between all of us
Speaker 1: because we're the same firm, and I had a contract
Speaker 1: sewing up. Hey, John, and uh, what's going on? The
Speaker 1: kids took my tapes. I gotta delivered to Sony. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna well, you know, Paul, he's a thriller, is now
Speaker 1: taken off and you know he wants to live. And
Speaker 1: then they gave me all this bullshit rhetoric about what
Speaker 1: he wants to do. Oh what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: I got Sony, I gotta finish, and he's breached this
Speaker 1: contract and this is not nice. This is just not nice.
Speaker 1: You just don't do this, I know, I said, look
Speaker 1: at the contract he's He says to me, does it
Speaker 1: what was in file thirty seven? But we can't find it.
Speaker 1: I said, what, So I convene when when my brain
Speaker 1: grew and I said, look, I'm not litigious, but you
Speaker 1: gotta assume I want my goddamn taste back. So I
Speaker 1: leave this office I was with and they returned to Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck. So I don't know what I put in there,
Speaker 1: and I don't know who it was. Fade out, fade in.
Speaker 1: Years later, Um, I get a call from Harvey Levin,
Speaker 1: good old Harvey. There's this song out with Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: about the name of the tour this is It. But
Speaker 1: word is that. You know, they found these tapes at
Speaker 1: his house. But somebody said, you wrote I said, HARVEYA,
Speaker 1: I didn't write anything called this is It. Has just
Speaker 1: sent it to me. So he sends it to me. Well,
Speaker 1: the original title, Bob was I never heard I never
Speaker 1: heard a thing. But what they did they took the
Speaker 1: first line of the song this is it. Here I stand,
Speaker 1: and they put called the tour this is it. They
Speaker 1: called the bubb but they got the plumber, they got
Speaker 1: everything is this is It? And I go, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the song. He said, what are you gonna do? I said, well,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be fun because they already screwed me
Speaker 1: the first time. Right, So I call up these these lawyers,
Speaker 1: these guys, right, and I said, okay, this could be
Speaker 1: real short. Okay, we're gonna fix this fast. We got
Speaker 1: a deadline, and I said, you know what, respect for Michael,
Speaker 1: and it putt putting behind we did. I want fifty
Speaker 1: of everything, and if we're not done by the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it's over. Well we got what we wanted, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, somebody in his company called me nice gentlemen,
Speaker 1: and he said, thank you so much for helping us
Speaker 1: solve this. You know, we found these in the drawer,
Speaker 1: and you know we don't. We didn't know, all right,
Speaker 1: he said, And I found all the stuff. He says, Hey,
Speaker 1: listen to this one. This is really a good one.
Speaker 1: I oh, yeah, we'll play to me John. He plays
Speaker 1: and I said, I wrote that too. Love never felt
Speaker 1: so good? Right, he said, ship did? I said, don't worry?
Speaker 1: Same terms. So so that was the story. Uh, karma,
Speaker 1: I guess right. Uh there was his last records, the
Speaker 1: I guess the the cherry on the top word got
Speaker 1: out to Drake that there was one more song left. Okay,
Speaker 1: I get the call. We go through all this stuff,
Speaker 1: he says, can I come over the house. So it
Speaker 1: comes over to my house over here. I live in
Speaker 1: Lake Sherwood, and we meet. The experience is new. First,
Speaker 1: I respect the guys from Toronto. I get what it is.
Speaker 1: But you're not sitting around a piano. You're sitting around
Speaker 1: a computer. You know. I'm I'm a guy that sits
Speaker 1: with guys with guitars pianos, and we're talking technical now.
Speaker 1: So I said, look, here's the song. Don't matter to me.
Speaker 1: It's what I've done here. I said, you take it
Speaker 1: and put your genius on it with your tech guys,
Speaker 1: and let's see if we can break the code. And
Speaker 1: if we do and we like it, come out. He
Speaker 1: takes it, got good guys around him. They finished their half.
Speaker 1: We piece it together and we have the last Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson hit with it don't matter to me on the Scorpion.
Speaker 1: So the point of it is, with all the bad,
Speaker 1: bad and what they did to me back then when
Speaker 1: I was really I'm not happy with it, it all
Speaker 1: came around, Bob. It all came around. Well, speaking of that,
Speaker 1: the music business is a crook business, even at this
Speaker 1: leak dep So you started out in the real wild West,
Speaker 1: as we say, and I need to know you know,
Speaker 1: your parents were not sophisticated. You had to sign a
Speaker 1: lot of bad deals. So what did you end up owning?
Speaker 1: What did you end up getting paid? What went on
Speaker 1: with the money? Not a great question. I got screwed,
Speaker 1: left it right, uh irb And I got screwed. Left
Speaker 1: ring to two cents. Uh So, hundred thousand copies that
Speaker 1: sold five hundred thousand copies Europe. It's number one that
Speaker 1: got a black But everywhere you turned, you're getting screwed. Okay,
Speaker 1: I made some money, you know, I still when I
Speaker 1: started performing, and the royalties are coming in. Uh look
Speaker 1: for a kid that had nothing and grew up in
Speaker 1: a home for real, humble and modest, and you're looking
Speaker 1: at checks coming in from b M I for a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. I trusted them more than I trusted the
Speaker 1: record companies. You're working for promoters. Money is going every
Speaker 1: which way, every which way, they're always gonna screw you.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not unlike the motion picture business with
Speaker 1: the voodoo economics. Come on, it's never changed. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got screwed left and right back then, but grateful made
Speaker 1: some nice investments. But we're always chasing somebody, always trying
Speaker 1: to get even today. You know, come on, we know
Speaker 1: what the injuries. What it is today, same bullshit, more lights,
Speaker 1: that's all. You know. You look at the promotion business,
Speaker 1: touring business years ago. You know, I'm worked Vegas consistently.
Speaker 1: I've worked there right through every regime, right through the
Speaker 1: Howard Us with the boys, Steve Win all of that. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Oh he's got a Vegas sick Oh him and Wayne
Speaker 1: Newton that town. Oh we won't go near there. Oh
Speaker 1: today they go on the road. I'll do each other.
Speaker 1: They come home with maybe ten. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: somebody decides, you know, and I knew Renee and Selene
Speaker 1: and fellow Canadians, well we can make more money there
Speaker 1: because they're gonna pay for this and they're gonna pay
Speaker 1: for that. Oh it maybe. Oh what a beautiful place
Speaker 1: this this than Elton comes in. Everybody's going to Vegas.
Speaker 1: Why it's all about the money. But when I started,
Speaker 1: you know, all of us, the everleage, and let's try
Speaker 1: we we made some money. We made you know, My
Speaker 1: first big date was ten thousand dollars at Freedom Land
Speaker 1: for the second DOORFS. I've been to Freedom right, so
Speaker 1: now I'll never forget this. They send the contracted to
Speaker 1: the g a C. The agency, the guys, no, that's
Speaker 1: not possible. And instead of ten thousand, he made it
Speaker 1: out for like a thousand, and there homes killed him.
Speaker 1: He said one. That was my first big money date
Speaker 1: because when I was working the COPA or I was
Speaker 1: working Vegas, it's making fifteen thousand a week ultimately, but
Speaker 1: I was doing two shows a night, six weeks in
Speaker 1: a row. And if you didn't like it, the boy said,
Speaker 1: out right, But you were always chasing money. You're always
Speaker 1: getting screwed left and right. And it's unfortunately a lot
Speaker 1: of money around today, some big numbers out there, Bob
Speaker 1: what of managers and a lot of these acts and
Speaker 1: what they're making. I wouldn't complain if I were them.
Speaker 1: This is real money. They're printing money today, right, and
Speaker 1: our concern is what's it going to be next year
Speaker 1: if things don't get straightened out? Okay, so who owns
Speaker 1: your songs and your records? Today? I bought my catalog
Speaker 1: and my stuff for two yo dollars years ago. I
Speaker 1: owned it, both the songs and the records, the records
Speaker 1: and the publishing. That's correct. I had sold them portion
Speaker 1: of to uh A company back in the seventies. But
Speaker 1: since I started so young, fifty years is over, it's terminating,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting stuff back, okay. But the record side
Speaker 1: of it, I've always owned it, So I was able
Speaker 1: today and answer to your question, make a deal with
Speaker 1: Primary Wave and with Larry Mistell and his group, and
Speaker 1: happy to do so because what they can do. And
Speaker 1: that's why everybody you know, you've written around it, Dylan whoever.
Speaker 1: The multiples are crazy. The multiples are crazy. Everybody's selling
Speaker 1: and I get it. It's so smart. It's so smart.
Speaker 1: I think, forget about everything else. Get that money today,
Speaker 1: because you've got families and kids fighting over it. If
Speaker 1: you're not in cash flown today's world, you've got problems.
Speaker 1: Get it and enjoy it, and just enjoy it. So
Speaker 1: I made a deal with Larry. We're partners, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be there. I'm absolutely happy to be there. Okay,
Speaker 1: is he did you sell him fifty or a hundred?
Speaker 1: Fifty's my partner. I didn't want to sell it all.
Speaker 1: I want to be in the game. I want to
Speaker 1: be in the game for my son. I want to
Speaker 1: be in the game for me because TikTok, who saw
Speaker 1: this coming, put your head on my shoulder. Now is
Speaker 1: like from this TikTok, which I'm know you're unaware of. Guy,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. They know what to do with
Speaker 1: all of that. I don't have offices and people in
Speaker 1: all I sit back and wait for a phone call.
Speaker 1: But they know what to do. They're smart, and that's
Speaker 1: their game and they're in it. They're only gonna help
Speaker 1: me more than I could help myself. Okay, So, at
Speaker 1: this late date, you've stayed in the game for sixty
Speaker 1: plus years, and that's an achievement. Literally almost nobody has.
Speaker 1: So are you running on fumes or there's still some
Speaker 1: goals you want to accomplish the time you have left.
Speaker 1: I'm rather you tell me about the time I have left. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm doing a lot of pr for the
Speaker 1: album lately. Uh you know what I tell him? Some
Speaker 1: guy comes up to me says, you know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of retiring. I say to them, you already have you
Speaker 1: already have. I don't know what that number thing is, Bob.
Speaker 1: You know, I know about my energy. I know that
Speaker 1: my number one job for the last year and a
Speaker 1: half has been my health. My health because we're all
Speaker 1: living this life lottery, every one of us. It's a
Speaker 1: life a lot It is so crazy out there. I
Speaker 1: just keep going. They throw dirt on you if you
Speaker 1: stand still. I just have to keep going, staying healthy,
Speaker 1: dealing with the energy goals, what goals I want to get.
Speaker 1: I want to get the doc done. I want to
Speaker 1: roll it into Broadway, and then I don't care. I'm
Speaker 1: playing with the house is money and it's good for me.
Speaker 1: I make more money now touring. I'm humbly submitting than
Speaker 1: I ever did. I played these stadiums and casinos, I'm
Speaker 1: doing these theaters. I'm going to Israel, I'm going to Italy.
Speaker 1: I'm going to France. I'm selling out. What smuck would
Speaker 1: walk away from that? Who? You know? What? What do?
Speaker 1: I've watched guys sit there Sinatra waya door, and and
Speaker 1: then Tony, God bless them, they paint okay, and then
Speaker 1: some they got trains, and they've got flowers, and enough
Speaker 1: already after you watch television, and after you've read all
Speaker 1: the books you're gonna read. I see smart guys die.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that because it's not in
Speaker 1: my gene to do that. So when you say goals,
Speaker 1: I don't have the same goals I had years ago. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have those goals. I'm gonna keep doing what
Speaker 1: Anka does. My audience is there, I'm gonna keep doing it,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna base my money, just my life
Speaker 1: on just money, and I'm gonna play how I can.
Speaker 1: In this whole scene, I don't look at you know,
Speaker 1: I don't look at anyone around me or anything in
Speaker 1: life as anyone beneath me. I've never ever done that.
Speaker 1: No one is beneath us. You get these artists today
Speaker 1: who are way out there, ain't gonna ever work. So
Speaker 1: I don't have any goals left. I have a goal
Speaker 1: when I read all these medical journals, I read all
Speaker 1: this stuff. I'm gonna make a hundred if I can.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at the new stats where these
Speaker 1: kids born after two thousand, they know they'll live to
Speaker 1: a hundred fifteen. You and I at our age, the
Speaker 1: way medicine is going, it ain't easy to die, Bob.
Speaker 1: It just stayed easy. So I'm gonna keep healthy. And
Speaker 1: you know what's kept me young, it's keeping myself together
Speaker 1: to know I got to go on that stage and
Speaker 1: be straight and be coherent and remember the lyrics that
Speaker 1: helps me do what I do. So the goals are gone,
Speaker 1: you know, the goals are gone. I've written the book
Speaker 1: we did find I want to get this doc done
Speaker 1: and then I want to keep going on that stage,
Speaker 1: just like Tony did. Okay, maybe it's two years too long,
Speaker 1: God bless him. Maybe Frank stayed a little, but I
Speaker 1: know because I've spoken with him. They want to die
Speaker 1: on the stage. They love it. They love it, and
Speaker 1: it's good to us. It's so good to us. Well, Paul,
Speaker 1: you're quite an amazing rock and tour. This has been
Speaker 1: wonderful and we really have only scratched the surface, but
Speaker 1: I think we've come to the end of the feeling
Speaker 1: we've known on this particular podcast. So this has really
Speaker 1: been wonderful, and it's amaz easing to me that you're
Speaker 1: you know, the way we used to say you know
Speaker 1: your hip to what's going on. That's a negative connotation
Speaker 1: forty years ago people don't really say him or but
Speaker 1: you are. I'm stop it. You're just not dropping names.
Speaker 1: You know what's going on. It's very impressive, So thanks
Speaker 1: so much for spending the time. Hey Bob, listen. Can
Speaker 1: you keep doing what you're doing, man, because look at
Speaker 1: that lyric again and you'll know when you wrote that
Speaker 1: com and I'll send it to you. Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: because my dad when I left home said, never be
Speaker 1: the smartest guy in the room. Never be nice and
Speaker 1: don't trust, but never be smart. What you do for us,
Speaker 1: your followers and your fans. No one has the balls
Speaker 1: to say and write about And I learned from guys
Speaker 1: like you. I learned from guys and I'm not kissing
Speaker 1: your ask because I don't have to because you know
Speaker 1: it and the industry knows it. Don't you stop and
Speaker 1: you live and breathe it right whether you're on vacation,
Speaker 1: I'll never stopped that. People talk about retirement. Retirement is
Speaker 1: death death. Why would I want to retire? I know it,
Speaker 1: and you know it. You've got in terms of writing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't write the same kind of stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: the same thing. If I don't write for a couple
Speaker 1: of days I start to fall apart. I said, I
Speaker 1: gotta write something. I got something. You know, that's the
Speaker 1: game I'm in. That is the game, and you're winning
Speaker 1: at it. That's the name of it. Bob, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Listed parts has been great. Until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sex