WEBVTT - John Sebastian 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.400 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob must Ne's Podcast. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.919 My guest today is the one and only John Sebastian. John, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.599 good to have you on the podcast. Terrific to be 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.200 hit Robert. Okay, so for a minute there, your first 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:29.159 solo album with Rapriez was John b Sebastian. What was 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.720 that all about? Well, I didn't want people to be 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:41.199 confused between me and my actual classical virtuoso father. I 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:46.800 just knew there were occasions. These were more before I 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.160 was putting out a solo album where people would see 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.400 that name and think, oh, gee, Mr Sebastian is sort 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.080 of slumming now, isn't he? And and you know, so 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.120 that was really the stimulus. And what is the B 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:07.280 stand for Benson Benson? Yes, if your father was John 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.920 and you were John, what did they refer to you 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:17.319 growing up? As I would be John Benson, John Benson, yes, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:22.959 or I'd be j b or Giovannino in Italy because 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:27.840 I have a kind of a checkered past. Uh. And 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.520 when I was in Italy, I'd be Giovannino. Okay, A 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.639 couple of questions. There is the Benson Benson your mother's 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.200 maiden name, you know ben No, No, the her maiden 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.600 name is Bisher b I s h I R. And 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:48.200 I was only recently, uh explained to me before my 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.760 mom passed that she didn't know why my grandfather had 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.280 that middle name, except that there had been an Ohio 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:04.240 senator of that name that she thought maybe the folks 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.960 were nam me after. I really don't know. It's it's 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.880 a little mysterious. And you mentioned spending time in Italy. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.560 What was going on there? Well, my dad had a 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:22.160 career that started in the United States. Uh, and as 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:27.000 time went on, he began to be able to travel, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:36.240 uh and tour. He was a classical harmonica virtuoso. I 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:41.799 can only tell you that, Uh there's been nobody since 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:47.080 uh maybe Buon Fido a little bit, but this guy 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:55.680 really had a remarkable uh sphere of abilities, and people 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.400 like Villa Lobos were writing for him. Cherubin N wrote 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.880 for him. Uh. So this wasn't just a you know, 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.160 peg of my heart type harmonica player. So okay, but 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.680 I haven't gotten to it, have I. Uh So, what 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:18.200 what happen is that most summers, as time went on 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.919 and my dad started to get a reputation in Europe 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:29.799 that became a primary a primary source of income for him, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:34.480 so that he would go to Europe most summers, and 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:41.320 his solution for not being an absent dad was he 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.720 would take the family and parked us in this beautiful 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:52.560 little red towered villa outside of Fez. I mean, if 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.640 you were gonna have an ideal place, it's ridiculous. I 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:01.040 should be ashamed of myself. At what a good age, 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.640 five to about eleven. And so every summer we would 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.840 go there after my schooling was done for the year. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.760 That was the queue, and uh we would go and 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.920 sometimes Dad would go before us, but most of the 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.280 time we'd get on the boat and go to Geneva. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.440 You would go by boat, not by plane. Correct. Wow, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.560 I was a little kid. You know. Good experience, bad 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:32.240 experience on the boat, fantastic experience. All the Italian guys 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.760 love you. I mean, it's it was it was too 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.440 it was great fun. Uh yes, seven days. And you 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.800 know the larcenous quality of the Italians was so evident 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:50.159 because uh, I would go up to the first class 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:55.960 movie and try to get in and inevitably, the the 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.839 Italian guys that that we're working at would go okay, yeah, yeah, 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.160 they get in there, and and so I had really 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.720 full run of the boat. So one of the reasons 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.520 was that my dad spoke fluent Italian, uh the kind 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:17.520 that you really can't detect as an American. So uh 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.200 so he just really had carte blaunch on the boat 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:27.000 and really in Italy and in those remember it's in Italy. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:35.680 Oh my god, everybody looks like Anita expert. Okay, you're 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.039 only you know, you're less than ten years old. But 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.440 it's as right. But it's also five years after the 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.400 Second World War? Correct? You know we saw movies they 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.000 were made there in black and white about the aftermath. 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.480 Did you experience that or you were just a kid 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.640 you didn't know. Okay, I was just a kid and 0:05:55.720 --> 0:06:01.440 didn't know. But my friendships were all with people of 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.839 lower Uh how can I say this? They were It 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:13.359 was a lower class background that I was immersed in. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.960 I was hanging out with farmers. I was hanging out 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:24.040 with the cooks and the cleaning ladies, because that's what 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:32.119 children of that era did. So I did have this 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:39.000 this experience of understanding a certain sorrow that I that 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:44.320 I couldn't really uh, I couldn't define. But I was 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:50.200 aware that Paolo and Paula, the two the two farmers, 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:59.279 the farmer and his wife were experiencing hardships. Okay, did 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:04.039 you learn a tow in fluently fluently just by going 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:12.280 every summer? Oh? Yes, see, don't call me so no 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:19.280 Borgino Medicant's saying. I have some flatterers who tell me 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:26.080 that I'm fairly undetectable as a Florentine, but not everybody. Okay, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:27.680 so you know, I need to say a lot of 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.520 years have gone by. How do you keep up your 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.720 Retalian or once you have you can't lose it? Well, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.280 it does stay with you, but I do occasionally. I 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.360 mean I've been over there for these week and a 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.640 half visits, not nearly enough, but I would always feel 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.560 like I was struggling my way up a ladder with 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.280 missing rungs, and I was trying to get all the 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.840 way up the sentence, you know. And then did you 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.280 have the experience of going back years later after you 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.760 had a certain amount of fame and success and interacting 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:07.239 with the same people. Yes, I did manage to uh 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:13.760 go back to um adjoining. The little vila that we 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:20.679 were living in is a hotel. The pension Benshista and uh, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.840 it's been there forever and it's all ex pats and 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.600 it's it's just it's a little slice of the nineteen 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:34.880 forties that's just sort of still there. And uh, that 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:43.880 experience of of of being there was it was amazing. Okay, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:49.000 where was your father born? My father was born in Philadelphia? Okay? 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.800 And how many how many generations is he removed from 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:59.720 the old country? His father was born in Italy? So yeah, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:05.839 we were all Abrutzes, uh by background, and how does 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.400 it become Sebastian or that what it was? Okay, here's 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:16.880 how it goes. Uh. We we start my father Giovanni 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.960 bot now, so he's going to have Herford. He's Magna 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:29.280 cum laud. But they keep calling him Puggles. Now you know, 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.920 a guy can be patient about that for a while, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.520 but after a while you start to go, is it 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.200 so far off that you couldn't pronounce this? So there 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.640 was a point and he tells the story. Uh, well, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.440 actually I had made the inquiry at one point because 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:51.880 I saw, uh, you know, uh his name on a 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:56.400 billboard or something, and I said, Dad, you know, how 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:03.520 come our name is different than Grandpa? And he said, son, Here, 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:10.200 here's what it is. Polis is a name that Americans 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:17.120 have a lot of trouble with. And uh so that's 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:26.079 uh one strike. Then I'm a classical harmonica player. That's 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:32.400 two more strikes. So at that point I decided that 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.200 Polis could go. Because John Sebastian looks real good on 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:42.080 a on a marquee. You know what an amazing story. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.200 Well how about your mother? Where what's her background? Oh? Man, 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.040 and this is the one that nobody gets to. I'm 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:55.040 very glad because my mom at sixteen, uh, became an 0:10:55.080 --> 0:11:01.320 amazing writer for radio. It's it's really it's Tina Fey story. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.560 It really is. It's the same story where this young 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.640 woman comes in and just kills it. She writes funny 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.520 and she makes up crazy stuff. Uh. You know, there's 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.520 an Amos and Andy show, so she does and just 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:24.000 an amy and it's about stupid white people. Uh, and 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:30.920 she does a show uh uh, father is an Idiot 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.160 was another thing that she did. So she's always punning 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:42.240 on existing radio material. But what happened was then she 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.320 got the job at at the big the big station, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:53.160 the big town. She went to Cincinnata. So she works 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.520 there for a while at NBC, and NBC finds out 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.560 about her and they go, oh, you're going to New York. 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.320 So at the end of her sixteenth year she is 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.079 she comes home and goes, so, uh, they're gonna hire me, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.480 and I'm gonna go to New York. And her father, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.160 my grandfather, says, that's wonderful, honey, And you know, I'm 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.880 coming right along with you because I'm gonna be your roommate. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.360 And that's what he did. For the next couple of years. 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:30.040 Uh was sort of zip back and forth between Dayton, 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:36.000 uh and UH and and New York. And then eventually, uh, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:39.360 the grandparents on my mother's side moved to Florida. So 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.520 that was another wonderful little visit that I could make 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:48.800 in the winter usually. Okay, so how did your parents meet. Well, 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:56.680 I'd say that they probably met um in in New 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:05.240 York society. Uh, in the life of professional artists. They 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:11.240 crossed paths. Um mom had a couple of dear friends 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:16.080 who met dad and said, oh, you have to meet 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:21.160 this guy, and uh, people like Vivian Vance who were 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:29.440 just like blood sisters, Jane and and she and people 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:35.800 like Oh, there were a few great sculptors and people 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:40.320 like Garth Williams who were sort of pals with them, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:46.440 and somehow or another they all met through those channels. Okay, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.960 you say your father was magna come loud. So he 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:54.600 was educated, man, He graduated magna cum laud from Haverford. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.640 So then he goes then he gets a scholarship to 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:06.400 the in the Versadroma, and now, uh, what about twenty 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:12.080 he's living in Rome and he's living there with the cats. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.880 I mean, you know, Casals and Picasso and and Garth 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:22.400 Williams and all these cool guys who I would later meet, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.520 and you know, it was just such a wonderful, uh 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.680 a little mini society that I was dropped into. I mean, 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.920 if I hadn't done something constructive, it would have been 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:43.040 a real mess. Okay, So how does one become harmonica 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.600 player on that classical level? And where was he traded? 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:57.880 So it starts in Philadelphia. Um, he gets a job, Well, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:04.400 he becomes the soul list for um, the composer of 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:09.440 every damn march we we use? And yes, okay, so 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:18.640 Dad was a uh a player in that harmonica orchestra, 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.080 and then he became the soloist. So by sixteen he 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.600 was the main soloist for that band. It was his 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:33.280 Philadelphia group, and they toured quite quite a lot and 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.600 and quite far in there. Well, you know, in the 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.720 rock era, most harmonica players herself taught. Did your father 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:46.680 have formal lessons? You know, I really don't know some 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.040 of this because Dad was the guy that was giving 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.520 people formal lessons. You know. We'd have Johnny Palo over 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.800 at our house and you know, two or three harmonicats, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.960 and they were all trying to learn, you know, tongue 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.360 blocking and and some of the advanced techniques that my 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.760 father really had under control. So how did your father 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.080 feel that you didn't graduate from college? You know, it 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:18.800 was a great disappointment to him and all the pouliasis. 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.280 I must say, yeah, I was fighting an uphill battle 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:27.400 for for respect because as dyslexic as I am, I 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:32.320 just could not pass an ancient history course and so 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:37.520 so really I was a poor student. Um. But luckily 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:43.640 my dad started to see it somewhere around eighteen. And 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.160 my brother, my little brother, always quotes him because he 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.440 loves the quote. Because people would say, you know, your 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:56.760 son has a number six record on the billboard, Sharks, 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.520 and Dad would look into the near distance and say, 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:10.080 I can't understand it. He always lands on his feet. Okay, 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.320 So how many kids in how many kids in the family? 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.760 Just to me and my brother Mark, he's seven years 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:21.480 my junior. Okay, you grow up in Greenwich Village, Yes, sir, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:27.680 you were literally there and it started and long before 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.080 it became penetrated to the rest of society, late fifties 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.480 and early sixties. What was it like being a city 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.000 kid in the village. It was so great. I mean, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.439 part of it was that this was the this wonderful 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:48.760 neighborhood where there's like multi culty couples and every LGBT 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:54.760 undeclared person at that point. Uh. They also all my 0:17:54.880 --> 0:18:01.480 dad's friends and and and so we were experiencing you know. Uh, 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.640 Burl Lives is over at the house one one evening, 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.919 and he's the one who gets Dad talked into the 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:12.120 idea of you gotta let this songwriter guy from Oklahoma, 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.000 you gotta let him stay with you for a couple 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.959 of weeks. He's kind of out of sorts, and it 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.880 turns out to be Woody Guthrie. Uh. You know, this 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.919 was going on. This was going on pretty regularly. I 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:30.040 remember and I do remember distinctly lying in my bed 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.359 and remember it's practically a crib. I may have been 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:38.680 four or five. And uh and uh, there's this guy 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:44.520 in the other room. He's have ye seen that virgility? Man? 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.960 And I'm listening and I'm going not not as good 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:55.679 as Dad. That was my conclusion. Okay, you know a 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.080 lot of kids grow up in the fifties and sixties. 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.280 They have sports center. But you're living in the city. 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.439 Are you playing any sports or you're entertaining yourself? What 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:09.560 is your passion growing up? Well, uh, you know, the 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:14.840 guitar started to be important by about thirteen or fourteen, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:21.919 and then I spent five years where all summer I 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:26.360 would be at a really great comedy summer camp, and 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.880 then all winter I would be at conservative old Blair 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.800 Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey. So I was having this. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.800 I mean, it was a great contrast, but it was 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:44.720 very difficult because I had very little patience for you know, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.200 I mean Blair Academy at the time. Their their main 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.679 concern was that I cut my hair because when I 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.399 came from Italy, I had an Italian haircut. That's called 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.320 a good haircut. But no, Yeah, I had to go 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.120 and know be a have butch haircuts and that kind 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:14.199 of stuff. You're growing up, Are you a member of 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.639 the group with a million friends or you're more of 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.200 a loner. What kind of kid are you? Yeah, I'm 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.480 I'm I'm not the guy with a million friends. But 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.520 what did start to happen was that it was kind 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:32.680 of like a miniature fan base over the five years. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.000 Remember I've got a lot of years at that place, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.560 so they had time to like, see me bomb and 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.280 then actually do something good and then play with the 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:49.520 Fearsome Foursome. Wow, the do wop group. The Fearsome Foursome 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.640 needed a guitar player, and I became one, even though 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.919 I was a freshman. Okay, wait, let's go back a 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.879 few chapters. One, what greed? Do you go to New 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:05.680 Jersey to Blair Academy eighth grade? Eighth grade? So before 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.800 that you're living in the city, going to public school. 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:15.919 Coupley uh well no, uh friends seminary Okay, and what 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.639 do you have to say when your parents said you 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.080 got to go to boarding school? You know, it seemed 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:27.200 like a natural transition. My uncle had gone to Blair 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:35.240 Uh and I also was watching my parents marriage fall apart, 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.200 and I could see the logic of getting me out 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.680 of the house. So there was a sort of a yeah, 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.480 I could be good to do this. And the other 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.920 thing was, boy, it could really be good for my 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.719 parents to be because I knew it wasn't gonna you know, 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.760 it was gonna take a dive. But but you know, 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.600 if they could do it with as little screaming as possible, 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.080 that would be great. So like that. Okay, So how 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.440 old were you when your parents got divorced? Uh? For 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:13.040 did my fourteen? About fourteen? Okay? You usually that fox 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:19.160 people up? How how was it for you? Uh? You know, uh, 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:24.280 for one thing at a time when nobody was smart 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.480 about divorce, my parents were kind of smart about divorce. 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:33.880 Dad took an apartment up at sixty seven Street. I'm 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.560 living on Washington Square West. I can walk up to 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.919 see him if I have the impulse, and so I 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.360 must save it. I suffered less than than a lot 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.439 of folks. Okay, So how old are you when you 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:56.200 pick up the guitar? About about twelve or thirteen? Okay, 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.760 before you go to Blair Academy, or when you were 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:03.560 a Blair Academy slightly before. Okay. Now I'm of a 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.320 slightly younger generation where the Beatles were on TV, everybody 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:09.640 picked up the guitar, and there was the Folk movie 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.360 before that, so maybe we played with nylon string guitars. 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:18.239 What inspired you to play the guitar? Um, That'll be 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:25.480 the Day by Buddy Holly. It's little things, you know. Rumble. 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.000 I heard rumble, and I went out of my mind. 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:33.960 I said, what are those chords? Uh? And in years, 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.280 in later years, when I got a chance to talk 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.640 to Pete Townsend about this, we found that we totally 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.920 agreed and it had the same exact experience where we 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.400 heard it one night in the evening on the channel 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.120 and just stayed on that channel until three or four 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.120 in the morning on the off chance that it might 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:59.679 play again. And it did. Okay, so you were definitely 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:07.679 a did you pick up? That's I don't want to 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:12.400 make an incomplete impression here, because the other thing, remember 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:16.280 these same five summers, I'm going to this summer camp 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:20.200 where Pete Seeger comes and visits, where all the cool 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:25.760 girls know every damn folk song in the world. Uh. 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.280 There's two sisters there and they both know how to 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:33.480 carter pick, so I'm learning folk music there. Uh. The 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:36.520 other thing is that the woman that ran the camp 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:40.560 quickly put me in a little sugar house and said, 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:44.640 your job is to teach the kids folk songs and 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:48.320 maybe make up little plays. And that's that's the thing 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:52.480 that I did for five summers, and Matt really honed 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:59.120 my uh whatever craft I have, uh more than almost 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:03.280 anything I think to be to try to hold eight 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:09.320 to fifteen year old's attention for forty five minutes. Okay, 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:18.080 ever take any guitar lessons? Uh? You know it was no. 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.440 I guess it's the answer because I um. I had 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:25.879 a friend who had a beautiful sister with a classical 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:30.399 guitar who I talked into borrowing for a week, And 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:35.400 I started off with an E minor chord and by 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:43.960 the end of the week I had invented d Okay, 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:46.600 needlet's just say, when we first see you on television, 0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:49.800 you're playing an auto harp. So your father is a 0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:54.720 musician music. Did your father teach you the harmonica the 0:25:54.760 --> 0:25:57.479 auto harp? Was he too deep into his own stuff? 0:25:57.480 --> 0:25:59.679 What was going on in the house? You know? I 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:04.040 think fit part of my father's Ethos came from going 0:26:04.080 --> 0:26:10.120 to school with a tremendous number of lawyers, guys studying law, 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:13.840 and he he explained it years later when he would 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:17.800 visit these guys and there'd be their son, and the 0:26:17.920 --> 0:26:21.919 son is already in school to be a lawyer, and 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:26.040 doesn't seem that motivated, you know, And so he said, 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:29.399 I don't want to do that with music or the 0:26:29.480 --> 0:26:33.800 harmonica or any of that. Uh. You know, you're you're 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:38.200 gonna fly your own your own ship. You know it's 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:47.440 it's gonna be uh, your your impulse. So although how 0:26:47.640 --> 0:26:51.560 could I not listening to a man rehearsed for six 0:26:51.640 --> 0:26:56.040 to eight hours a day, and that's a real number. Uh, 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:59.880 some of these buccarini can share those that go far 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:04.040 and by so fast you have to practice for years 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:07.119 to be able to do it. My dad started adapting 0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:11.919 a technique with vassoline that horrified the owner company completely. 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:15.040 But you know this is this is what some of 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:20.640 these uh disciplines demanded. Okay, so your father never taught 0:27:20.640 --> 0:27:24.000 you how to play harmonica, never gave you any tips. Correct. 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:30.640 However he did he did a better thing. He came 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:37.000 home with a sunny terry silver acetate and I put 0:27:37.080 --> 0:27:42.800 that thing on, and I was mystified because I had 0:27:42.880 --> 0:27:47.399 never heard the instrument that way, And it actually was 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:50.720 a good half a year of trying to figure out 0:27:50.720 --> 0:27:53.720 and then I suddenly realized, oh my god, the time 0:27:53.840 --> 0:27:58.200 that court is on the inhale. How could I have 0:27:58.280 --> 0:28:03.240 missed this? So so then really from then on, a 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:07.040 part part of the my background at that point is 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:11.440 that I start meeting Sunny Terry fairly regularly in these 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.560 folk clubs, and I'd go in there, and by the 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:19.800 second time I went, I go, Sonny, Hey, go is 0:28:19.800 --> 0:28:25.240 that Johnny's son? So it was very fast. Uh and 0:28:25.680 --> 0:28:29.280 he and Sonny in many ways was sort of a 0:28:29.320 --> 0:28:34.479 conduit into what would become really a focus, which was 0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:39.200 Sam Hopkins in years later. Okay, let's go back to 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:42.120 Blair Academy. You said there were five years there that 0:28:42.240 --> 0:28:45.000 you were the musician. You're kind of playing in bands, 0:28:45.320 --> 0:28:49.600 So tell me more about that. Well, Uh, there there 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.600 was a great incentive to play in those bands because 0:28:52.760 --> 0:29:00.400 those bands would go to dances, and dances required women, 0:29:01.080 --> 0:29:05.680 and there would be, you know, your loan opportunity to 0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:12.120 actually hold a woman in your arms. And so uh, 0:29:12.800 --> 0:29:16.800 me and one of my roommates caught onto this very fast, 0:29:17.160 --> 0:29:20.360 and he was a piano player or sort of learning, 0:29:20.680 --> 0:29:24.240 and I was, you know, playing straight aids on the guitar, 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:29.280 and so that really was really all about that, uh, 0:29:29.480 --> 0:29:34.680 that that those band things would form. And then there 0:29:34.760 --> 0:29:38.160 was this even dozen thing um and said there was 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:47.280 this uh fearsome forsomething and that was a a do 0:29:47.440 --> 0:29:52.320 op group, fairly tame, but but you know, it was 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:55.320 the perfect moment because that's when all of those da 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:57.240 da da da da da da da da da da 0:29:57.360 --> 0:30:00.480 da da da, all of those tunes were on the 0:30:00.520 --> 0:30:05.480 air and we learned everyone. So did it work for you? 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:08.480 You were in the band, the girls were there? Oh yeah, 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:12.320 I got kicked out once because of that. Okay, what 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:16.480 happened there? Hey, I'm not going to tell you no no, 0:30:16.760 --> 0:30:20.440 I you know, it was so innocent that it's really 0:30:20.920 --> 0:30:28.600 it's a sorry tale because uh what happened was, uh, 0:30:28.680 --> 0:30:34.600 I went to a dance. It was a younger classman's 0:30:34.760 --> 0:30:39.160 dance and they had asked me to come and play, 0:30:39.760 --> 0:30:45.520 and I did, and I pulled a very nice girl 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:51.360 who was very happy to go out and see what 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:55.600 the golf course really looked like. In the evening, and 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:59.800 so we did, and we were caught by a history teacher. 0:31:00.400 --> 0:31:04.120 And you know what's really tragic is I was suspended 0:31:04.160 --> 0:31:07.000 for two weeks and that girl was kicked out of 0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:12.480 her school. Wow, that's talk about you know that difference, 0:31:12.760 --> 0:31:17.600 Well that sexism. Okay, you graduate from high school, then 0:31:17.680 --> 0:31:23.480 what I go to n YU for a year because 0:31:23.520 --> 0:31:28.880 it's across the park. Okay, I had no other reason. 0:31:29.000 --> 0:31:34.440 And and my dad, uh, he took me up there 0:31:34.440 --> 0:31:38.280 at Washington Square North and we we we go up 0:31:38.320 --> 0:31:41.200 and get to the door, and I said, well, this 0:31:41.280 --> 0:31:43.080 is gonna be great. Dad, come on in and we'll 0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:47.520