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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Set podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is singer, songwriter musician Willie Nile. Willie,

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Speaker 1: you had an adventure at the end of the year

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Speaker 1: your home town of Buffalo. Tell us the story. Hello, Bob,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I was born in Buffalo, raised there,

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Speaker 1: and I live in New York. I've lived in New

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Speaker 1: York off and on for about fifty years. And my dad,

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Speaker 1: I have a father's one hundred and five years old,

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Speaker 1: lives at home outside of Buffalo. One of my brothers

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Speaker 1: lives with him. In the last four years and he's

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Speaker 1: one hundred and five. But he's doing great. He goes

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Speaker 1: to church every day. He's like he just takes no medication.

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Speaker 1: You'd think that he was in early eighties. So I

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Speaker 1: went up to Buffalo for Christmas and staying at his home.

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Speaker 1: He's a great storyteller and funny guy. And after a

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Speaker 1: couple of days, we saw this big storm was coming in,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Buffalo blizzard, and I read about it

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Speaker 1: ahead of time about how high winds, really high winds

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Speaker 1: and cold weather it can cause frostbite. Anyway, So I

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Speaker 1: wake up on Friday morning, two days before Christmas twenty

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Speaker 1: third of December, and I, you know, eleven fifteen, I

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Speaker 1: wake up. My brother says we're on a power no heat,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, you're kidding me, right. Apparently someone in

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Speaker 1: a truck ran into a utility pol and with a

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Speaker 1: driving band on. I wanted them to put that person's

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Speaker 1: picture on the front of the Buffalo newspaper so that

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Speaker 1: everyone know who ran into the pole. They caused eight

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty some homes to be without power. So

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Speaker 1: there was no power, Okay. I got up, got dressed,

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Speaker 1: and Dad was doing Crossford puzzles like all this. You know,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't complain, it's really great. So we were without

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Speaker 1: power for three days and three nights. It was eighty

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Speaker 1: mile in our winds. It was eight degrees outside and

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Speaker 1: it was freezing. It was so cool. I grew up

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Speaker 1: in Buffalo, you know, I know the winner there's eighty

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Speaker 1: five words for snow, and buff there's not. But it

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Speaker 1: was so cold. I had we had a fireplace, but

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Speaker 1: no wood, had you know, gas fireplace. We turned it on,

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Speaker 1: lit it all the way up, but it doesn't emanate

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Speaker 1: much heat. I would put my hands at the top

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Speaker 1: of the you know, the fireplace just to hole. You know,

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Speaker 1: the stones had warmth that it didn't emanate heat. Long

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Speaker 1: story short, there was a neighbor next door who was

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Speaker 1: really great x marine. In the middle of this blizzard.

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Speaker 1: There was four feet of snow in the driveway. It

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Speaker 1: was beautiful. Everything was going sideways because the wind was

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Speaker 1: so hard, and so I thought, my phone's dying, you know,

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Speaker 1: like later in the day on Friday, and we had

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Speaker 1: no contact. We were we were everyone was stranded in

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Everywhere there was so much snow. So I

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Speaker 1: made me It took about ten minutes to go just

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Speaker 1: right next door. I used to shovel as an anchor

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Speaker 1: to get through the snow. Was I just to pull

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Speaker 1: myself up. Knocked on their door and they that they

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Speaker 1: hesitated to open the door. There was some figure in

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Speaker 1: black outside their door. They didn't know who it was.

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Speaker 1: The guy answered and said, Hi, you know I lived

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Speaker 1: next door. My dad's one hundred and five and my

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Speaker 1: phone is dying. Can I use your car, you know,

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Speaker 1: to charge the phone. He goes, oh, we'll do it inside.

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Speaker 1: So I took my phone. He charged my phone like

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Speaker 1: six or seven times over the course of three days.

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Speaker 1: Sunday morning. The third day, they couldn't do it anymore.

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Speaker 1: And the second when I went back Saturday morning to

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Speaker 1: get my phone one time, I said what's your phone number?

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Speaker 1: And he said, I'll give it to you later. Go No,

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Speaker 1: I'll take it. I'll take it now. I took my

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Speaker 1: glove off for thirty seconds. How long does this take?

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Speaker 1: The type of number the phone? I typed it in

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Speaker 1: and you know, my hands were really cold, put it

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Speaker 1: back on, went home and my fingers, my three fingers

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Speaker 1: on my right hand are still a little numb. It's

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Speaker 1: gotten better, but it's not one hundred percent. And this

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Speaker 1: was well whatever. It was a twenty fourth of December.

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Speaker 1: Long story short, we had We were freezing. Getting in

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Speaker 1: bed on Friday night was brutal. Dressed we might have

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Speaker 1: been going skiing in the Alps. We were dressed that

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Speaker 1: that much on multiple coats, hat, socks, all kinds of clothes,

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Speaker 1: and it didn't help much. Woke up early early six

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Speaker 1: o'clock because it was so cold you couldn't sleep. And

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Speaker 1: Dad was great. My brother he took the grill off

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Speaker 1: his grill and put it on the fireplace and on

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Speaker 1: the great and he made some eggs and some coffee

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Speaker 1: for Dad, but it was still so cold, and Dad

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Speaker 1: never complained. Once I had we had wine, you know.

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Speaker 1: So I opened up bottle of wine. We were drinking

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Speaker 1: and I made a couple of video clips and put

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Speaker 1: them on Facebook. Next thing I know, on Tuesday night,

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Speaker 1: Inside Edition goes meanwhile in Buffalo, this guy cuts to me,

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Speaker 1: this guy, So I'm changing my name officially to this guy.

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Speaker 1: And they did edits my clip of Dad, and the

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Speaker 1: thing about the clip was and so many people responded, oh,

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Speaker 1: your father. I love your dad. You know, he's a

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Speaker 1: really good guy. But people, here's one hundred and five.

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Speaker 1: And I said, I'm looking at my phone, you know, selfie, Hey, Dad,

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Speaker 1: say hello everybody, Hi, everybody. We're having a blast. He

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Speaker 1: holds up his glass of red wine. And it was

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Speaker 1: really cold, and I did another clip where I said,

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Speaker 1: just so you know how cold it is, and I

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Speaker 1: would just breathe out and you could see my breath

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Speaker 1: three feet away, you know. And it was pretty rough

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Speaker 1: and brutal. On the third day, in the morning, I

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Speaker 1: woke up with chills and low fever, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: this is going downhill, you know, So I called there's

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Speaker 1: a plow service we have for my dad. And I

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Speaker 1: called the guy and say, I'll give you five hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars if you can get my dad out of here.

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Speaker 1: You know, Max's wife lived a mile and a half away,

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Speaker 1: and he says, I'm trying to get there. I hope

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Speaker 1: you in two hours. He called me up. Two hours later,

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Speaker 1: he goes, I'm at the six houses away and I'm

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Speaker 1: stuck in ten feet of snow. But i can get out,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go to the local fire hall. Because

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Speaker 1: I called nine one one, I called the National Guard.

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Speaker 1: I got put on lists. I called the fire hall. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: he went to the fire hall and said there's one

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Speaker 1: hundred and five year old man in a house that

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Speaker 1: they're stranded. We weren't the only one stranded, but you know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't eighty five, he wasn't ninety five. He was

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Speaker 1: one hundred and five. And he didn't say a word. Occasionally,

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Speaker 1: it's say, you know that born name is Robert Bob. Bob,

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Speaker 1: turn on the Christmas tree lights. I go, dad, there's

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Speaker 1: no power, Oh yeah, yeah right, you know, God bless him.

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Speaker 1: He never complained once I did. I complained. My brother says,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to help the complain. I go, well,

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Speaker 1: it's helping me. The police and fire rescued us on

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Speaker 1: the third day at three o'clock and there was a

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what you call him, a snow cat

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Speaker 1: or something, one of those a snow removal thing with

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Speaker 1: not wheels, but like a tank, snow cat, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It went over everything, got down our street, went in

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Speaker 1: a driveway, backed out and took snow out enough for

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Speaker 1: another emergency vehicle to back end and we got in

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Speaker 1: the car. That was the first heat we had in

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Speaker 1: three days, and I thought, wow, And I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about the people in Ukraine during that I thought, you

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Speaker 1: know what we have. At least we have gas, we

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Speaker 1: could cook, you know, whatever we have. I could put

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Speaker 1: my hands on the stones. You know, my hands are

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Speaker 1: really you know, I'm extra sensitive now to the cold,

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Speaker 1: and there's still numb in these fingers in the tree.

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Speaker 1: But I thought about the poor people in Ukraine. They're

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Speaker 1: getting bombed to hell, you know, just absolute savagery, and

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Speaker 1: they don't have gas, fireplaces I can turn on. So

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Speaker 1: I just really my heart went out to them. And

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Speaker 1: they took us to a warming center and it was

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Speaker 1: a junior high school. And you know when one hundred

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Speaker 1: and five years old, sitting on a little stool, dad

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Speaker 1: said I need something at my back, and someone heard

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Speaker 1: them and went and got a real chair. And I

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Speaker 1: must say this, there's a silver lining to us, the

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Speaker 1: way that neighbors treated neighbors, like I believe in this country.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's obviously a lot of a lot wrong,

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Speaker 1: a lot wrong in the history, there's so much wrong.

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Speaker 1: But when you know people are shoveling each other's driveways out.

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Speaker 1: I saw a neighbor across the street go into the

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Speaker 1: next two houses checking on people. The guy next door

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Speaker 1: on Saturday morning, he comes over and brings a bag

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Speaker 1: of handwarmers. Those handwarmers saved our butts, they really did.

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Speaker 1: I carry one of my in my pocket now, just because.

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Speaker 1: And the volunteers, the cops, the firemen, the people volunteering

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Speaker 1: in the vehicle that rescue. We were in a car.

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Speaker 1: We were five different cars that day, and because we

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Speaker 1: went to two warming centers, went to a hotel, whatever,

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Speaker 1: three hotels, finally got in. But the way people pitched

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Speaker 1: in to help each other, it was really I thought,

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Speaker 1: this is really encouraging to me. People are there is

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Speaker 1: good in a lot of people. So it was really

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Speaker 1: a brutal experience. Dad was fine. I mean he I've

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Speaker 1: heard of going to bed Saturday night. Second night. I

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Speaker 1: wasn't going to go back in that bed. I moved

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Speaker 1: the couch in front of the fireplace. Even though it

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Speaker 1: didn't give much heat, it was light the illusion of heat,

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Speaker 1: and I heard Dad get into the bed. Oh he's

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Speaker 1: a hundred and five, were crying out loud. Anyway, the

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Speaker 1: silver lining was that I'm with his man. There's some

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Speaker 1: really good people. People pitched him to help each other,

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Speaker 1: and it was heartening to see. Anyway, that was my Christmas. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you say your father called out to Bob. Your real

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Speaker 1: name is Bob Noonan. Yes, how did you become Willie dile?

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Speaker 1: So I moved. I graduated from the University of Buffalo

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Speaker 1: in seventy two, and I know I was. I was

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Speaker 1: writing poetry in high school and college. I started writing songs.

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Speaker 1: I played to classical piano lessons. My grandfather ran an

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Speaker 1: orchestra for twenty plus years in Vaudeville when he died

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Speaker 1: in fifty three. Eddie Cantor had a nationwide TV show,

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Speaker 1: and does It Come up Camaradie with musicians, and my

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Speaker 1: dad has talked about it for years. And when he died,

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Speaker 1: figured Eddie Cantor's got a live TV show across the

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Speaker 1: nation half an hour. He's probably on the air for

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Speaker 1: twenty minutes or twenty two minutes. And he took time

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Speaker 1: out to say, my good friend Dick Noonan passed away

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Speaker 1: this week, and Condole insisted the family that he would

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Speaker 1: do that from New York City. I thought, man, those

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Speaker 1: guys must have been close. Both Angles. Robinson used to

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Speaker 1: send him Christmas car every year and he also carried

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Speaker 1: a gun, you know, a black man with money. And uh,

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Speaker 1: it's just fascinating stories growing up. So I'm in high

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Speaker 1: school as we started studying the poets, and I become

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Speaker 1: I think maybe I'm a poet because I stare at

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Speaker 1: sunlight when it's coming into classroom and blah blah blah.

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Speaker 1: So I started writing songs. So in my college years,

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Speaker 1: I was writing songs, and then when I graduated, I

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Speaker 1: went to New York City to try to make a living,

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Speaker 1: you know, making trying to get my songs recorded. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was never I didn't. I don't care about fame.

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Speaker 1: It's not stinking rich. I'll take that. Give me on

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Speaker 1: the minute, I'll be stinking. I could be stinking rich.

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Speaker 1: But fame didn't do a lot for Michael Jackson. That's

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Speaker 1: not why I do what I do. And anyway, So

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Speaker 1: I used to play open mics. I'm writing rock and

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Speaker 1: roll songs, and but I couldn't afford a band. I

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Speaker 1: was broke, did not want to join a group, no

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Speaker 1: curiosity whatsoever for that. I just wanted to sing the

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Speaker 1: songs I wrote. So just acoustic guitar open mics, and

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Speaker 1: I used to the Bitter End, had one every week

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Speaker 1: on Bleaker Street, Folks City, whatever, a few different ones.

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Speaker 1: So one night, when I was at the Cafe a

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Speaker 1: Go Go, I went on stage. This is why I

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Speaker 1: changed my name. Let's to answer your question. I'm on

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Speaker 1: stage at the Cafe Go Go, and I played three songs,

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Speaker 1: you know, and I would very expressive when I play.

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Speaker 1: They were rock and roll songs. And I jumped off

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Speaker 1: the stage when I was done or whatever. So I'm

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Speaker 1: clouding around and introducing imaginary characters playing behind me. There's

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Speaker 1: little bit event Beethoven on bass. Whatever. Anyway, So when

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Speaker 1: I was done with my three songs, set. I'm walking

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Speaker 1: off the stage. The guy announcing goes, we'll have some

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Speaker 1: more gorilla music for you in because it was suddenly two.

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Speaker 1: It was like sensitive singer song at a time. You know,

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Speaker 1: no offense to James Taylor, but he was like a

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Speaker 1: successful guy at the time, and there were all these sensitive,

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Speaker 1: oh so sensitive people, and this guy said, we'll have

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Speaker 1: some moret guerrilla music. I wanted to take my guitar

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Speaker 1: and smash him over the head, and my wife said, no,

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Speaker 1: no, no no, we can't afford a new one. Don't and

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Speaker 1: I didn't. The following week, I'm in line at the

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Speaker 1: Bitter End. I put my name on a list, stand

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Speaker 1: in line for forty five minutes because back then there

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Speaker 1: were long lines. I'm in line and I can in line.

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Speaker 1: And the comedian who was taking the names it just

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Speaker 1: didn't care anything about music. And I put my name

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Speaker 1: down and he didn't get until three or three in

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Speaker 1: the morning. He would put his friends on ahead of

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Speaker 1: the people on the list. Very disrespectful. Whatever. I take

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Speaker 1: it as it comes. Next week, I go there and

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Speaker 1: I'm in line waiting in the rain. I said, I go, hey,

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Speaker 1: my name is Bob Noonan. He goes, I'm sorry what

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Speaker 1: I couldn't hear you? What? I go, It doesn't matter,

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Speaker 1: you can make one up. He goes, Oh no, no,

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Speaker 1: he goes, it's very important. It gives me the thirty

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Speaker 1: second lecture about how important is what your name is?

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Speaker 1: Oh no, it makes a big difference. Oh really, says I. Well,

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Speaker 1: in that case, my name is Huey Rosenbag and he

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Speaker 1: goes Rosenberg. No, no, Rosenberg like the pictures mound. You know,

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Speaker 1: I refused. I refused to play that game. To this day,

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Speaker 1: I do not. I will not. So the next week

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Speaker 1: I I was I was uh. First week I was

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Speaker 1: Huey Rosenback. Next week I was osgod pe Quad. I

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Speaker 1: gave the guy different every name Modown's umberto snorts. I

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Speaker 1: just gave this guy a different name every week. He

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Speaker 1: didn't know the difference. He did not care. So my

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Speaker 1: wife and I would sit in the back waiting for

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Speaker 1: this clown to say this ridiculous name. And I was

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Speaker 1: watching Uh, It's great PBS documentary documentary but series search

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Speaker 1: for the Nile Terrific Series. And one night I woke

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Speaker 1: up Willie Nile. I'm a philosophy major to say something's

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Speaker 1: nihilistic made me laugh to say, Willie Nilly is kind

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Speaker 1: of selfie facing, which I thought, you know, if they're

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Speaker 1: going to praise me, they can use their name I

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Speaker 1: made up. If they're going to slam me in the press,

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Speaker 1: go ahead, use my made up name. So it's and

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Speaker 1: it's I thought it was a good rock and roll

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Speaker 1: name and it served me well. So yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 1: how I changed my name and why it did it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: In your private life, people call your boss, how do

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Speaker 1: they call you? Willie? Everybody since seventy two, it's Willie.

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Speaker 1: When I'm back with family, cousins, you know, or brothers

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Speaker 1: and sisters on one of a it's a very large family,

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Speaker 1: and we have one hundred and five. When we all

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Speaker 1: go on vacation every year, it's Bob or Bobby. But

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Speaker 1: everybody else on the planet's Willie. Okay. So you grew

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Speaker 1: up in Buffalo. How many generations was your fabily at Buffalo?

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Speaker 1: My father was born in Buffalo in nineteen seventeen. His

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Speaker 1: father was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and his mother in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four. Their parents were born in Ireland, and

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Speaker 1: so and my mom's parents something similar. Her parents were

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Speaker 1: born in eighteen eighty nine and eighteen I'm sorry, eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety nineteen hundred, and her father's grandfather was born in

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Speaker 1: French Indian Territory. I remember seeing, you know, I thought,

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Speaker 1: and I looked at a picture of him when he

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Speaker 1: was I used to work at Showtime TV Networks as

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Speaker 1: a proofreader when I got broke. I was a proof

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Speaker 1: reader for not a bunch of years, and I was

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Speaker 1: running my little record label out of my little cubicle,

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Speaker 1: and I put I would print out these old family

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Speaker 1: portraits and put them all over the queue, at least,

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Speaker 1: you know, old school stuff. One day, I'm looking at

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Speaker 1: my grandfather's picture when he was three, my mother's father,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to wait a minute. He was from

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Speaker 1: Attica in New York and his great great his great grandfather,

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Speaker 1: now his grandfather was born in French Indian Territory. I

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Speaker 1: look at his face, and he was He died at

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Speaker 1: sixty from smoking since he was twelve. Check black hair,

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Speaker 1: really dark skin. I go, there's Indian blood in this guy.

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Speaker 1: You know, you could see the photograph. So anyway, that's

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Speaker 1: where they go back, mid mid three generations, something like that,

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds of all came over here. The Irish famine,

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Speaker 1: you know, kicked a lot of people out of Ireland.

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Speaker 1: Why Buffalo, So? Why Buffalo? So in the mills and

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Speaker 1: a low Massachusett started closing, you know, and there was

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Speaker 1: no work. So my father, my grandfather, Dick Noonan, and

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Speaker 1: his brother John Noonan were musicians. You know. Dad tells

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Speaker 1: the story of at one point the local pastor of

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Speaker 1: the priest, the priest from the local church, came to

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Speaker 1: the house to talk to my mother, my grandmother's father

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Speaker 1: this waiting, saying, your daughters shouldn't be going out with

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Speaker 1: a musician. That's not a good thing. You know. I

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Speaker 1: can't disagree. He was a sweetheart, but they were. John

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Speaker 1: noon and the older brother son, I'm gonna go to Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: see if there's worked there. So he moved to Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: was there a few months, called his brother and said

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Speaker 1: there's tons of work here. Because Buffalo was like the

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Speaker 1: gateway to the west, you know, to northern Canada and

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Speaker 1: the west. If you left New yorkle outs that you

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Speaker 1: went Buffalo as a main And I often wonder because

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Speaker 1: my brother, my uncle, my great uncle, John Noonan, was

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Speaker 1: the orchestra leader for Cha's Buffalo great, great old theater.

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Speaker 1: I saw in excess there. That's an amazing place, and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that the Marx brothers passed through there. I'd

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Speaker 1: love to talk to both those guys. Go tell me

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Speaker 1: about the Marx brothers, you know whatever. So, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: how that's how they got to Buffalo. So what did

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Speaker 1: your one hundred and five year old father do for

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Speaker 1: a living. My father, when he got out of the

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Speaker 1: army in h forty five, my father was an accountant.

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Speaker 1: He was a CPA, took the CPA exam, had a

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Speaker 1: couple of kids, and so he was a certified public

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Speaker 1: accountant for some years and early fifties fifty three or four,

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Speaker 1: he had a beer distributorship, which was awesome for us

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Speaker 1: kids because in nineteen sixty one, Elston Howard, the Yankees

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Speaker 1: catcher MVP that year, of course, I mean, came to

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Speaker 1: our house. We were like, if you're back then the

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Speaker 1: only TV was two stations. There was Channel two and

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Speaker 1: Channel four. This is before Channel seven. Think where we

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Speaker 1: are now and think what my father has seen since

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen. So Elston Howard during the day weren't making

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Speaker 1: much money. So in the wintertime. They had other jobs

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Speaker 1: and he was a pr whatever for I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I was Lobat's Beer or Valentine Ale or what paps

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Speaker 1: blue Ribbon, one of those. And my dad was the

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Speaker 1: distributor in Buffalo. We weren't rich, you know, we weren't poor,

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Speaker 1: but we were, you know, somewhere in the middle. And

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Speaker 1: Elston Howard came to our house. We were on the moon.

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Speaker 1: What was I in nineteen sixty one, I was born

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Speaker 1: or forty eight, so you know, I was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was just a kid, thirteen years old or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Elston Howard come on, you know, and yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: it was priceless and he was really nice. His hands

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Speaker 1: were huge and I couldn't believe my eyes. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: he went back. My father went back to be in

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Speaker 1: a CPA and we had no money. He lost the business.

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Speaker 1: It was it was bad. Business was bad. He lost it,

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Speaker 1: and really, you know, he had to say. He took

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Speaker 1: a job teaching accounting, so he was fine. He was

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Speaker 1: an accountant, taught for a few years, paid back his debts,

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Speaker 1: and then he worked till he was seventy eight as

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Speaker 1: an accountant. Hard working guy to this day, he wakes up,

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Speaker 1: goes to church, comes home, has breakfast, hits the crossword puzzles,

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Speaker 1: gets his pencil out, has got his e racers, got

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Speaker 1: his pencil sharpener. He has crossor puzzles for a couple

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Speaker 1: of hours. Then you'll read for an hour or two

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Speaker 1: and read books. He loves history. Then you go back

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Speaker 1: to doing more crossword puzzles. So the accountant in him

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Speaker 1: is still there. When Mom died seventeen years ago at

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Speaker 1: the age of eighty seven, he just he says, you

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Speaker 1: got to just get up. I said, how do you

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Speaker 1: How are you doing it? How are you feeling? You know?

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Speaker 1: Like some months later he goes, I'm all right. He says,

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Speaker 1: you got to pick yourself up. Life will hit you hard,

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Speaker 1: it'll hit all of us. Hit don't getting around at

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Speaker 1: And he said, you gotta just pick yourself up and

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Speaker 1: get on with it, you know. And he he sure

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Speaker 1: did it. So accounting in him I still see at

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00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 1: the kitchen table when he's doing his crossword puzzles. A

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Speaker 1: dear guy. He went to the doctor this week. My

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00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:53,719
Speaker 1: sister took him for a check up. Doctor looks at

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Speaker 1: his hands. He's got a lot of bruises. Doctor says,

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Speaker 1: what happened to your hands? I was checked by a chicken. Anyway,

390
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Speaker 1: I've been writing down things he's been saying. I've got

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Speaker 1: like thirty pages, and I have hours of him. When

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00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:10,320
Speaker 1: he starts telling stories when I was a boy, I

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00:20:10,359 --> 00:20:12,880
Speaker 1: get out my phone and hit voice memo. I got hours.

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00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:22,360
Speaker 1: I love the guy. We're all lucky having still So

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Speaker 1: your parents stayed married all that time? Oh did they ever?

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00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: They would wake up in the morning, you know they

397
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:31,400
Speaker 1: were They went there very devout Catholics, and they would

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Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, you know, get cleaned up,

399
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Speaker 1: get dressed, and go to church. Before the church, Good morning, Bob,

400
00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:39,800
Speaker 1: Good morning Joe. And they kiss each other on the

401
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 1: lips and they go, what planet are you people from?

402
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:44,160
Speaker 1: They're like eighty five years old. They just loved each other.

403
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 1: It was so beautiful to see. We're a lucky bunch

404
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:50,080
Speaker 1: of kids having parents like that. How many kids in

405
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Speaker 1: the family. There were eight children in the family, six boys,

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Speaker 1: two girls, and we had nineteen fifty six. We always

407
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:01,840
Speaker 1: saw that dad was the center of the family until

408
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: mom died and we realized, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's just

409
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: sweet woman, gentle kind. Never had a bad word about anybody.

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Speaker 1: I remember in nineteen seventy two, I'm watching TV and

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Speaker 1: Richard Nixons on I'm sitting there with Magoon and point,

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Speaker 1: this is a bad guy. This is a bad Oh, Bobby,

413
00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: there's good and everyone. And I went, yeah, I'm not

414
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Speaker 1: so sure about this guy. And she she wouldn't hear it.

415
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 1: She was a sweet woman, and they had the greatest relationship.

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Speaker 1: But in fifty six Mom decides they were part of

417
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: this thing called the Christian family movement. We said more

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Speaker 1: prayers growing up than I don't know. And she said,

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Speaker 1: I think we should get a foreign exchange student to

420
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Speaker 1: my father. Okay, Joe, And so we got eight kids.

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Speaker 1: A cousin who was a lost sheet, you know. He

422
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:54,479
Speaker 1: joined a Trappist monastery and he was suicidal and the

423
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:56,879
Speaker 1: head of the monastery called my dad. He was like nineteen.

424
00:21:56,920 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: He called my dad, he goes, this guy's in really

425
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: bad shape. You should come and get him. So that

426
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:05,159
Speaker 1: one and got him, took him back home, and I

427
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:06,800
Speaker 1: thought he lived with us for two or three years.

428
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 1: It turns out it was ten. And mother, with her

429
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,440
Speaker 1: love and her kindness, you know, the guy did great.

430
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: Graduated from Kinesius College, got a master's you know. And anyway,

431
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:19,719
Speaker 1: so with nine people in the house and two parents,

432
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: my mom thinks it's a great idea to get a

433
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:26,640
Speaker 1: foreign exchange student. So Elena Segatti from Bueno Cyres, sixteen

434
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:29,359
Speaker 1: year old comes to our house. Boy did we love her.

435
00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:32,679
Speaker 1: She stayed a year. When she left, we cried for

436
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,000
Speaker 1: two days, every one of us, balling our eyes out

437
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: like a little baby. I'm serious. And the next year

438
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:43,480
Speaker 1: we had Francis Kuggenheim from Dunkirk, France, and again we

439
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,000
Speaker 1: just all hit it off. Was so a year. And

440
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 1: the year after that was Ronado zenenga banker's son from Milan, Italy.

441
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 1: And you know, they came and went. My parents eventually

442
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 1: start every year we had some foreign exchange student. And

443
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: because we lived in Buffalo near and I Falls, where

444
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 1: foreign visitors would come all the time, they would go

445
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 1: to this Christian family we want to go to a

446
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: normal American family came to our house and we knew

447
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: it was not a normal American family. There was no

448
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 1: house around our neighborhood that was going All this stuff

449
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 1: was going on. We had a governor from India, we

450
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 1: had the head of the education thing in Vietnam. Who

451
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 1: or red robes, who my mother couldn't speak to because

452
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:26,399
Speaker 1: she was female, or wait on, my father had to

453
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: I didn't dig that anyway. There was so much name

454
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 1: a country in this world. They came to our house.

455
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: So it was us kids from what was I eight

456
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 1: years old? Seven eight years old? Had foreign visitors, priests

457
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: was priest was in jail for twenty years in China.

458
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: Taught people our family how to use chopsticks. We had

459
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: a guy from Hungry in fifty seven or eight whenever

460
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: they had the revolution fifty six without a thumb. They

461
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,239
Speaker 1: tortured him, cut his thumb off. Nice guy. We just

462
00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,159
Speaker 1: name So growing up with different people, different language, is,

463
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: different dress, different smells, and it was fascinating experience. It

464
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:06,959
Speaker 1: was not normal. So we had eight kids in the family,

465
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: Long West cousin and everybody from around the world. Okay,

466
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 1: so if the eight kids, where are you in the

467
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: hierarchy of what kind of kid were you growing up? Well,

468
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: in the hierarchy, I was fourth, and my brother Richard,

469
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: Tom Nancy, then myself Teresa, Joey friend and John and

470
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 1: I was fourth. So they were ahead of me, three

471
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 1: of them and behind me. So I saw him coming

472
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: and going, and I was kind of like, I wouldn't

473
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: say the wise guy the group, but like, you know,

474
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: with that many kids, you could you could run wild,

475
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: which we did, and I had a lot of fun.

476
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: I love my brothers and sisters very much, and we're

477
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: all really close to this day. And I was inquisitive.

478
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: I would walk into a room like at two or

479
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 1: three years old. I remember, I remember seeing a two

480
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 1: years old I'm what, I was just about to go

481
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: to bed. And my grandfather, the piano player, boy he played.

482
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: He would throw at a white sheet over the piano,

483
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 1: play the sheet. That was a parlor trick, I was told.

484
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 1: And he would play a song like in the Shade

485
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: of the Old Apple Tree. Well hit the word tree.

486
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: He was the most the wrongest note you could hit

487
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: in the piano in the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.

488
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: And the women he had him laughing and crying. I

489
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: saw that, and I saw and I heard all kinds

490
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: of stories about the early part of the last century.

491
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: So I really my grandparents on my mom's I lived upstairs,

492
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of neighborliness. And you know,

493
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: my grandma, Grandma said, if everybody pitches in the job,

494
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: will get done quicker. Just really good people, shirt off

495
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: your back kind of people, you know. So we were

496
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: really blessed because not everybody gets so lucky. Oh okay,

497
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: so did you have a lot of friends. Did you

498
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: do well in school? Yeah, I had a fair amount

499
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: of friend I had so many brothers and sisters, but

500
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: I had friends at school. School was easy for me.

501
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: I just would clown around. I didn't have to study,

502
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,160
Speaker 1: you know. And I was very small. I'm small now,

503
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: but I was really small. I have I'm celiac now

504
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: fifty eight years old. All of a sudden, couldn't eat gluten.

505
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 1: But I ate everything up to then. But I must

506
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: not have digested everything because I just didn't grow much

507
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: in high school. I grow a little bit. One of

508
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: my five four now a towering five four, I might say,

509
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 1: and I would. I had a great time in school,

510
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: I mean with it was friends. It was boring as hell,

511
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: like great school is. But my older brothers brought home

512
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: rock and roll records. They would have the radio on.

513
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: I saw Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan because they had

514
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,400
Speaker 1: the TV on. So I was exposed. At the very beginning.

515
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: We went to camp. I'll never forget this. Camp Turner

516
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 1: was one of those summer camps for kids, and I

517
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: went one year, and my brothers would go, and you know,

518
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: it's a bunch of kids in the wild, animals in

519
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: the country, in the woods, whatever. And on the way home,

520
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: on the bus, they had a radio and Rock around

521
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,400
Speaker 1: the Clock came on and the kids on the bus

522
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: started going crazy. And that beat. I went, oh, I

523
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 1: like this. It was rock and roll, you know, And

524
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: that was and Elvis, a little Richard, Chuck Barry, give

525
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: me a break, you know, and Buddy Holly Everly brothers.

526
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 1: So that stuff hit me a red square and I went.

527
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: It changed my life. And I met some years ago.

528
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: I think it was two thousand and nine. I was.

529
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: I went to south By Southwest. I went there about

530
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: four to five times, and this lawyer friend I played

531
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: at like twelve thirty in the morning or towel thirty

532
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: in the afternoon some gigs, Willy came here as somebody

533
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: I want you to meet. And the way he said,

534
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: I thought this sounds interesting. He takes me over near

535
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: the merchship because Willy, this is Marie Elena Holly and

536
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: I almost fell off the floor. I went no, Marie

537
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: Elena Holly, Buddy Holly. The first record I ever bought

538
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: was Peggy Sue. I had two quarters. I went to Cabbage,

539
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: just walked by myself. I've never been in a record store.

540
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: I walked in. Uh, hi, sir, I want to can

541
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 1: I buy? I want to buy get Peggy sup By.

542
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: Buddy Holley gives me the forty five. I gave him

543
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: my quarter, two quarters, and I had a little plastic

544
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: white record player and I played a thousand times then

545
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: didn't didn't, didn't pay. Suit changed my life. And here

546
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: I am meeting Marie Helena Holley, who lived a fleet

547
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: blocks for me. They lived with a six months before

548
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: Buddy died on Fifth Avenue in ninth Street in the village.

549
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: And I said, I mean, I love her. She's such

550
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: a sweetheart. She's in Dallas now and uh it was

551
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: an honor to meet her. And she said she want

552
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: me to sign a CD. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, No, no,

553
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: no, no no, how about I get your autograph? She was

554
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: so nice. I remember I saw her a couple of

555
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: years later in then I played. She signed with us,

556
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: you know, south By Southwest, so I'm there two years

557
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: later and they have a had a Buddy Holly Educational

558
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: Foundation party. I am an official ambassador to the Buddy

559
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: Holly Educational Fund Foundation, which I still can't believe. You know.

560
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: It's like a who's who a rock and role, you know,

561
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: like this Mick and Keith, you know, everybody you know.

562
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: And I got to get what's wrong with this picture?

563
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: Who's this little guy at the end of the line.

564
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: And Marie Lena said, I want willing to be an ambassador,

565
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: you know, And so I got a Buddy Holly guitar

566
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: with one of his frats on the inside for a

567
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: two year loan. Dion's got it now, I think, permanently.

568
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: And they gave me a really nice people. And I

569
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: said to Maria Elena we were having dinner in Nashville once.

570
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: I said, Marie Lena, you live a couple of blocks

571
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: some where I live now I've lived for fifty years.

572
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: What did you do for dinner? Where did you go?

573
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: What did you and Buddy do? And she said, Buddy

574
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: loved New York. Buddy, would they live in the fourth

575
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 1: floor of this you know, I don't know how many

576
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: fifteenth floor apartment building? Right on Fifth Avenue in Ninth Street.

577
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: I walked back many a time. I give people tours

578
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood and say, you know, Buddy Holly lived there.

579
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: She said. He used to stand on the balcony all

580
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: the time and just in wonder, watching New York Goodbye.

581
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: She said he would take his acoustic guitar into Washington

582
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: Square Park one block away and play it. He just

583
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: loved to play it. Kids would come up to him,

584
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: not knowing his Buddy Holly, and asked him about chords,

585
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: and he would show him stuff. And so they said,

586
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: when we get older, let's have an educational foundation for

587
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: teenagers kids who want to learn music. And so to

588
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: this day there's a Buddy Hall Educational Foundation, and I'm

589
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: I'm an ambassador anyway, asking Marie, oh, I said to

590
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: Marie Lena, I go, Marie Lena, did Buddy like Elvis?

591
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: Because like this, you're talking to the horse's mouth here.

592
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: You know, I love history and I love right and

593
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: you know I can ask her things that nobody else knows.

594
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: Marie did he like Elvis? She goes, oh, he loved Elvis.

595
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: Elvis came to Let's you're talking love at Texas. You know,

596
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: and she said, one day Alvis came to town. They

597
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: went to a movie together. He loved Elvis and they're

598
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: both kids basically. And I said, what about Little Richard?

599
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: Did Buddy like I got a story for you? Did?

600
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: But did Buddy like little Richard? She was, Oh, boy,

601
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: he loved little Richard. One day he brought out. He

602
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: brought little Richard back to the house. This is Lumpock, Texas,

603
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: the Deep South. And he comes to the front door

604
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: with little Richard, this little tall black guy and his

605
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: father comes to the door and he says, this, so

606
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: and so is nut coming in this house. So Buddy

607
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: took himround in the backyard and they did they had

608
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: a cook out or whatever. But he couldn't go in

609
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: the house. So Buddy Holly had this is, I don't

610
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: know what you're Buddy died about fifty eight, so I

611
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: figured fifty seven eight he you know, and he married

612
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: a Puerto Rican woman. You know, Buddy Holly. I really

613
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: wonder what Buddy would have done like James Dean, you know,

614
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: people gone too soon. But Buddy Holly, yeah, I forget

615
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: how I got on that story about Buddy Holly. But uh,

616
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: oh okay, But let's go back. So you're talking about

617
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: all the music and buying the record, etc. Were the

618
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: Beatles that they broke a big impact upon you? Oh

619
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah. So I used to listen to the radio.

620
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: Gary Gary Us Bonds is a friend of mine. I

621
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: used to listen to the radio waiting to hear quarter

622
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: to three. I transistor. I had a green, I'm kind

623
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: of puke green transistor radio under my pillow and I

624
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: go to bed at night and I turn it on.

625
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: I just put it to my ear and listen. I mean,

626
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: and it was magic. You heard these songs. I got

627
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: to sing it with him with Springsteen at Chase Stadium

628
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: years later. I mean, it's so funny. I tell these stories.

629
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: You can't make this stuff up. So much of this

630
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: stuff is like that that really happened. Well yeah, and

631
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: it goes on and on. So I listened to the

632
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: radio all the time. I loved rock and roll. And

633
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: you know I heard at school I saw I think

634
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: it was I'm and Steve Allen. One night there was

635
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: a clip about this sensation in the in England called

636
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: the Beatles. And I saw the clip and I went, wow,

637
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: that looks like fun So, yeah, I saw him out

638
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: as Sullivan and just changed my life, like so many

639
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: people of our generation to see. And the thing about

640
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: it was four guys like a gang, clearly drusted the same,

641
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: the way, the way they interacted each other. They they

642
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: were a little club, a little gang they had. They

643
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: were self sustainable. They were the joy. That's what amazes me.

644
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: You know. You and I could go to fifty fifty

645
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: different venues and see people play music and that could

646
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: be good, bad and ugly, yeah, like always, and then

647
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: if you walk in this other club and there's this

648
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: guy's having the time of their life, just emanating joy,

649
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: emanating like you know, irony, sarcasm, passion. You know, it

650
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: was just to this day watch those clips that are

651
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: like the energy. That was something beautiful. I've been to

652
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: their boy I went to John Lennon's boyhood and Paul

653
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,239
Speaker 1: McCartney's boyhood. Holme my private tours of those places, you know,

654
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: the curator and his wife, this great guy, Colin Hall.

655
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: I saw a National Geographic Hours show about the fixing

656
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: up of Mendips John Lennon's boyhood home and how they

657
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: tried to find a curator and Colin got it and

658
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: I get there this. A friend of mine was taking

659
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: us for a private tour, a few of us in

660
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: my band, and Colin comes to the gate and he's

661
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: holding my first Vinyl LP. I thought, oh, we're in.

662
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: He's a fan, and we had to I mean, I

663
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: don't know if you've been there, Bob, but to go

664
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 1: to John's because like that. He took us for a

665
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: walking tour around what's it called Woolton, which is like

666
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 1: seven houses down the little village where John they showed

667
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: the movie theater John used to go to where they

668
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: show John Wayne movies, the graveyard where they got eleanor

669
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: Rigby's name on it. Wherever that came from, who knows,

670
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: But we just it's like history coming to life. Fascinating

671
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: and I forgot what question by the Beatles I mean

672
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: changed my life and to see them grow and to

673
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: see it was the same time like Dylan hit you know,

674
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: I think the first song on Dylan's I heard was

675
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: I Shall Be Free number ten. I'm just average, common too,

676
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: just like him, the same as you. I'm every buddy's

677
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: brother and son. I ain't different than anyone. And they

678
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: used to talk to me it's just the same as

679
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: talking to you. And the next song was Chimes of

680
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: Freedom and the dichotomy. The contrast was not lost on me.

681
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, something's going

682
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: on here. And at the same time you had these

683
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: four guys from Liverpool starting a real revolution, the combany

684
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: and everybody and the Stones give me a break. The

685
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: whole British invasion hit me like a wave. And as

686
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: a kid back then, as you know, Motown, Hello, Memphis,

687
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: Stacks come on the wide Range. You had like Walter Brennan.

688
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: You had Jimmy Deane singing about whatever, and you had

689
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: rock and roll, you had Little Richard, you had all

690
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: this great stuff, you know, a surf music. So the Beatles,

691
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: absolutely it was a major force that helped change my life.

692
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of reasons why, but the energy,

693
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: the purity. It was something wild, something innocent, something play

694
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:45,399
Speaker 1: so much playful. I mean, look at the movie, look

695
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: at Hard Day's Night. What a riot? Is there anybody

696
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: around at all making music now with that kind of vibe? Maybe,

697
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: but it's it's that was pretty special and I loved it.

698
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,760
Speaker 1: And then the Stones come, these the Stones, the rolling

699
00:35:57,840 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: up these whatever the us to call them, and they

700
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: were so gray. I'm not gonna smile. You know, watch

701
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 1: them on TV carrying on, Come my Satisfaction. Best song ever,

702
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: you know, I saw television and we'll talk about it

703
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 1: in a minute. CBGB's I Got Stories and I'm so

704
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: sad about Tom Verlaine's passing. And one night I'm on

705
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: the side of the stage I went every time they played.

706
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 1: They would open for Patti Smith, and one night, all

707
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: of a sudden, at his encore, Tom was Dad, Dad,

708
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 1: got what they're playing to it? Anyway? I love the Beatles.

709
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: To answer question, yeah, changed my life. Okay, what point

710
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,760
Speaker 1: did you pick up a guitar and become a wannabe

711
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: rock star? Um? I played eight years old. I took

712
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: classical piano, and my older brothers played. We always had

713
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: a piano in the house. We had a you know,

714
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: stereo like a you know, a piece of furniture. Mom

715
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: played classical music, big band music. My brothers play. My

716
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: uncle's one of my uncles, Uncle Ray, was an incredible

717
00:36:56,160 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: ragtime player. Incredible. I mean, I've seen you know, the

718
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:03,920
Speaker 1: clips of famous ragtime players, and this guy played the

719
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: lightside of the piano. His father, my grandfather, took him

720
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 1: to a piano the best piano teacher in Buffalo. And

721
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: the guy said, to Ray, my uncle is. The teacher

722
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: said to Ray, Ray play something. And Ray we started

723
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: playing boogie woogie and Ray think, okay, that's enough, and

724
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: he said to his father, he said, you're wasting your money.

725
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: He already knows too much. He played by side and

726
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 1: the guy, you know, so he didn't teach him. He

727
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,959
Speaker 1: taught his other brother, Rich, who was a fantastic piano player.

728
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: But that was always music. So when I was eight

729
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 1: years old and I loved music, I took piano, classical piano,

730
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,720
Speaker 1: but I also wanted to play the drums. I remember

731
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: having a real angsty one fall. I go, I don't

732
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: want to play the piano. I'll play the drums, and

733
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: they said, no, you got you can take both, but

734
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: you can't. You know, you gotta play the piano, which

735
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: was I'm so grateful they did that. And I took

736
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: piano lessons until I was about sixteen. And uh, you

737
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: know when you begin in high school and you're looking

738
00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: to party and chase girls and you know, play sports,

739
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: listen to rock and roll, sitting out the piano for

740
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 1: half an hour practice and nah, so I played the

741
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 1: piano and I quit. And when I went away to college, um,

742
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: I didn't play any guitar then. I never even thought

743
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: about being a musician. I was writing poetry in high school,

744
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: went to college and my room. I went one year

745
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 1: in Canton, Ohio, to Walsh College. I clowned around in

746
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: high school, and when I tried to apply to colleges,

747
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: I couldn't get in. I was I was, you know,

748
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: I had like eighty six average or something, and it

749
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is not looking good. And so

750
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: one day the guidance counselor said, well, there's a school

751
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: in Ohio that just built a dorm and they need

752
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: out of state students. You might want to apply there.

753
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: So me and all the other losers from the northeast whatever.

754
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: And so that dormitory was full of wise guys, losers,

755
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,240
Speaker 1: you name it, crazy's And my roommate, one of my roommates,

756
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: Denny Wentz from Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh, had a guitar. And

757
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,320
Speaker 1: it was boring. I mean, you're you're in three miles

758
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: north of Canton. It's flat, there's nothing, there's cows. There's

759
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: a Hoover factory three miles down we're talking nothing. So

760
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,479
Speaker 1: I said, well, can you teach me? And he goes, yeah, sure.

761
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: The funny thing but he was a writing and I

762
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: threw things with both hands. But I was a lefty

763
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,399
Speaker 1: guitar player, and I played pool left handed at bow

764
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: and arrow. If I shot a gun, it's left handed.

765
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: And I suspect when I was a kid, and I said,

766
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: put the pen in your right hand and start writing.

767
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,439
Speaker 1: At first grade, I can do things with both hands.

768
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit of both. So I washed myself

769
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: to learn to play the guitar right handed. And so

770
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: I learned to play the guitar, just simple chords. My

771
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: first song I learned was Love and Spoonful. God, I

772
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: love Love and Spoonful. It was darling be home soon,

773
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 1: d G A easy and even an idiot like me

774
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: could do that. And I met John John Sebastian years

775
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: later and told him, hey, I learned. He goes, my

776
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: wife plays your records at our dinner table. I go,

777
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: what get out of here? You know? Anyway? So I

778
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: learned to play guitar at school. And what that did

779
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: for me because I was still writing poems. I just

780
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness. I love the beat poets, just whatever

781
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: comes to mind. You know, there's no right and wrong,

782
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: there's no nobody looking over your shoulder. Oh that's not right. No,

783
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: it's like you can write whatever you want. So I did.

784
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: So I started putting songs together, and then all my

785
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: writing went into writing songs and just simple stuff. My

786
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 1: stuff is quite simple. And I came home from Buffalo

787
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,439
Speaker 1: that Chris that that you know, that bread semester break.

788
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 1: I sat at the piano, which I hadn't played in

789
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: a while, and I started playing chords on the piano,

790
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: g E minor ce, the just chords, and I started

791
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: playing songs, and I stride like the left hand when

792
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 1: you like this, the left hand back and forth. My

793
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,320
Speaker 1: uncles did all that, so I taught my I re

794
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 1: taught myself to play the piano. And I could teach

795
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: a kid now in ten minutes to play Twinkle Twinkle,

796
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: Little Star or jingle bells. Real simple, you know, it's

797
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: easy chords. There's a guy anybody listening and wants to

798
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: learn the piano for real. His name is Scott Houston,

799
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: and he's the PBS piano guy. I was in Sweden

800
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: one time. I landed in Sweden and it was four

801
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: in the morning and I was wide awake. I'm watching

802
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: television and this guy comes on TV, you know, pitching

803
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 1: his videos and stuff. And I watched him and I go,

804
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: that's what I do. I just play chords so he

805
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,399
Speaker 1: can teach adults. There's no end to when you can learn,

806
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,760
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how old you are. My uncle John broad

807
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:32,720
Speaker 1: RECUISO sergeant and the police force in Low Massachusetts, after

808
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: watching me play for half an hour one summer, said, oh,

809
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: I give anything to be able to play the piano. Well,

810
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:39,800
Speaker 1: now had I known that back then? I go, you know, Juny,

811
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: this guy you don't need to read music. It's chords,

812
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: you know, and you can learn your favorite songs. And

813
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,280
Speaker 1: it's easy. I'm telling you. If you google the piano

814
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: guy PBS Scott Houston, look at some of his videos,

815
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: and it's you can learn by the piano in no time.

816
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: And I did that. I thought myself that style. Okay.

817
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: So you're going to school in Ohio. Then what happens

818
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: you end up switching from there to Buffalo. Yeah. I

819
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: went to school in Ohio, and you know, it was

820
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: a time of experimentation. You know, drugs made their way

821
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: into our into our circle, you know, smoking weed took

822
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 1: LSD a few times, but it was not it was

823
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: just no, it was nothing. You know, I go, I'm

824
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: not feeling nothing, what about you now? Nothing? And it

825
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: was it was just beyond boring. Although I will say

826
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 1: the silver lining there it was there were two great professors.

827
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: That was a great philosophy professor and a great English teacher.

828
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 1: You know, you get a great teacher who can open

829
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 1: up things to you, whether it's history or language. So

830
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: I transferred. I got. You know, the night before final exams,

831
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: we were growing our hair and it was a Catholic college,

832
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 1: and so the night before final exams we were called

833
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: the Haystack Crew because of our hair, and we were

834
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: getting in trouble a lot. If you got to the

835
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: dorm after midnight, you had to do fifty push ups.

836
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: I mean, really, why don't we babies here? We basically

837
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: were babies anyway, So the night before exams, the Prefective

838
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: Discipline calls us into his office. He goes, you can't

839
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: take exams unless you get a haircut. And I said

840
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: to him, you're kidney right, this is united serious. Oh

841
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: I'm serious, brother, James, brother. We had to get our

842
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: hair cut. I mean really, it wasn't even nearly as

843
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: long as this, and uh so I got, I got,

844
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: you know, Dean's list, you know, and uh I did

845
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: good grades, and so I transferred University Buffalo Night School.

846
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: What a difference. People smoking in class, dressed the way

847
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: you want hair growing. Timothy Leary walking through that, it

848
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: was so fast. The University of Buffalo was a great

849
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,919
Speaker 1: place in nineteen sixty seven, sixty eight, nine, seventy it

850
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 1: was really seven. I think I went there from sixty

851
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 1: seven to seventy one, something like that. Ginsburg, Gregory Carso

852
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: came to read. Oh was he good? I met him,

853
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: I met, I've been did a couple of gigs with

854
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: with Alan Ginsburg. Always fascinating. I saw all the great

855
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: poets come through you University of Buffalo. It was inspiring.

856
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin came. Many times. Abby would

857
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: go on stage, do a handstand, walking around on his hands,

858
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,760
Speaker 1: and then talk revolution. It was just like fascinating times.

859
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 1: Remember seeing Timothy Leary walking through the student center out

860
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: of his mind. He was just looking up at the

861
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: going oh oh yeah, staring at the ceiling. He spoke

862
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: that night, but he didn't say two words. It was

863
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 1: just a fascinating time of change. And there were marches,

864
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: there was protests. I got gassed one day. They were

865
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: marching on one side of the campus and they tear

866
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: gassed everybody. And these poor people across the campus waiting

867
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: for bus home from work. You know, they weren't doing

868
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: nothing and they're getting gassed, you know. And anyway, I thought, Wow,

869
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: crazy world. So I went to University of Buffalo, graduated

870
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: with a philosophy degree. I just took classes that I liked.

871
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: So how did you end up moving to the city,

872
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: and what was the plan I graduated? I went in

873
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: my senior year, I went to see my guidance counselor

874
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: for the first time. I had no plan. Now, when

875
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: kids go to school smartly, so they go, well, I'm

876
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: going to become an engineer, I'm gonna be a doctor,

877
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a whatever, and you take courses. I

878
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: just took what I liked. Philosophy of art and beauty.

879
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: I took that. It was lousy, you know, Walt Whitman,

880
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: you know, the beat poets. So in my senior year,

881
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: I went to my I got good grades. It was

882
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:29,399
Speaker 1: easy for me you know. I just came easily four

883
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: point er a couple of times, and classical quik mythology fascinating.

884
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, I had all these songs, and

885
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: I thought, well, these songs aren't bad. They're not much

886
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,359
Speaker 1: worse than anything i'm hear on the radio. I'm gonna

887
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: go to New York. So I said to George Boger,

888
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 1: my philosophy teacher, my guidance counselor how am I doing?

889
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: He goes, You're doing really good. You got a three

890
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 1: point five average and you're a philosophy major. And I thought, oh, philosophy.

891
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:56,800
Speaker 1: Well that sounds heavy. What can I do with the

892
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 1: philosophy degree? He goes, you can go to graduate school.

893
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: I went, no, no, no, no, I'm out. I'm going

894
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: to New York City to make records, thanks George. Which

895
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: I graduated, you know, And I went down to New York,

896
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: got an apartment, got married, moved to New York and

897
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: got a little apartment. When the village just stopped, stopped

898
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: for a second. How many times have you been married?

899
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: I've been married twice. I got married in seventy two,

900
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: moved to New York the day after we got married,

901
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: and lived in New York. I've been there fifty years

902
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:33,839
Speaker 1: right now, and same apartment. And I got married two

903
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: years ago October in Italy and the Italian Alps. I metam.

904
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: I got divorced the ninety one and while touring, I've

905
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: been to Italy a lot. I've been to Europe a

906
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: lot over the year's touring. And one time, the promoter

907
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: in Italy was almost thirteen years ago. Hired a photographer

908
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: to come shoot me Christina, and we started. We hit

909
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: it off right away, you know, And it was the

910
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 1: year that the volcano in Iceland was stopping all flights,

911
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: so we did some shows. All of a sudden volcano

912
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: happens and I couldn't get me or my band back

913
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: to the States. So they're on my dime and I'm

914
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: not making big money. I'm not a big rock star.

915
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,240
Speaker 1: I never was this then, it was never my plan anyway.

916
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: So I ended up my UH road manager called Christina.

917
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 1: We met, we had we just met that night. We

918
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: just really hit it off, and she wonder why I

919
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: went mine. But a few days later my road manager

920
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 1: calls her up and said, you know, we're trying to

921
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: find places for Willie and his band can wham state

922
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: at your place. She goes, yeah, I'll take Willie. I

923
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: went there and it's spend ever since, you know, or

924
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 1: just really I got really lucky, you know, and we

925
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: we got married. We were apart for six months in Covid,

926
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 1: you know, we couldn't get in each other's country, and

927
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: we finally met in Edinburgh, Scotland at a friends because

928
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: we a friend's house, dear friend Jonas, so we could

929
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: see each other. And she said, you know, they just

930
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: changed the laws in Italy for long term relationship can

931
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: get in. And she said, if we were married, we

932
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 1: could get in each other. Like, let's do it. I'm

933
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:06,919
Speaker 1: not I'm not moving, I'm in love with you. Let's

934
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: do it. So we got married in a small town

935
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: in the Italian Alps, at this little city hall, it's

936
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: like a medieval building, fifty yards from a waterfall. Da

937
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: Vinci drew in the fifteen hundreds. She decided she wants

938
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: to ride a horse. It's a beautiful fall to day

939
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: as fifteen people. This is twenty twenty October, the middle

940
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: of Covid, you know, and like fifteen people, her male person,

941
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: the male woman came. It was just she was our

942
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 1: one of our witnesses in front of the the a

943
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 1: notary public. It's just you can't make this up. So

944
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 1: she so she gets she's had a horse. She rides

945
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: a horse onto the property and I said to her, after,

946
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: why did you want to? Why did you ride a horse?

947
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: When was the last time you rode a horse? He

948
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: goes that was five? I got, well, why did you

949
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: want to? She's a very independent woman and one of

950
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:56,320
Speaker 1: the great photographers in the world. Jackson Brown fleor to

951
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: uh Scotland to shoot him. You know, he hasn't let

952
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: photogot photographer is on stage. But she's great, all the

953
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 1: album covers since twenty thirteen American Ride. She shot. Just

954
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: a brilliant photographer. And we've been We've had a great

955
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: thing going. I'm very lucky. Okay, So why did the

956
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: first marriage break up? I think in the long run

957
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,839
Speaker 1: it was the hardship. You know, we were married for

958
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:23,280
Speaker 1: eighteen years together, twenty three. We were like sixteen and fourteen.

959
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:27,479
Speaker 1: We were childhood sweethearts, great woman, you know, dear dear woman,

960
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: love he her pieces, you know, and I think that

961
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 1: I would say over the years, you know, like I

962
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: got mono nucleosis, and I think seventy four whatever something. Now,

963
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 1: Luke was born in seventy three. We moved on seventy two,

964
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: and I was writing songs at night, working in a

965
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 1: mail room during the day, and I was, you know,

966
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: working too hard. And I got a really wicked case

967
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:53,799
Speaker 1: of hYP pneumonia that winter, and I had to go

968
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: back to New York get a job because my son

969
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: was about to be born. Love story short. I got

970
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: a really bad case of mono, like eight months in bed.

971
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: It's probably upstein Bar back then. And it was a

972
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: struggle for years, you know. And I think that the

973
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: struggle and she was she stuck with me all those years.

974
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: I would say to her, No, woman would be staying

975
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: with me all these years? Are you crazy? You know,

976
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: I go, she goes, No. She hung in there so long,

977
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: and I think it just took its toll, you know.

978
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:25,879
Speaker 1: And and there was medical issues at her end where

979
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: she thought she might be on the way out, you know,

980
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: and that caused like a fight and flight whatever. But

981
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 1: we had a great run, you know, And it was

982
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: a difficult break up. But I love her dearly, you know,

983
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 1: and she's a great grandmother, dear friend, and and you know,

984
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: I met Christina and Italy and I basically married Italy.

985
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: How how many kids do you have? I have four children,

986
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: four great children, you know, Luke, Josephine, Mary and Bob.

987
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: They're great. We're all close, you know, given my parents

988
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: close relationship, and they're always encouraging family. It's about family,

989
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: you know, take care of each other. You know. We

990
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:05,399
Speaker 1: grew up with that, and to this date, the whole

991
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: family goes on vacation on the coast of New Hampshire.

992
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: One hundred and five, we ran a bunch of beach houses,

993
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: you know, and one hundred and five people. We used

994
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: to all go to one house for dinner. But once

995
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,839
Speaker 1: it got over it eighty five people couldn't do one house.

996
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: So the last few years it's been it's glorious. It's

997
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: just a really close family. And yeah, and I have

998
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: four children, have four grandchildren who I'm crazy about. My

999
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 1: sister and Nancy said to me when Jason was born,

1000
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: he's no Lilian. Lilian's fourteen now, she said, that's a secret.

1001
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: Witting down the road, you know, grandchildren now, granted, kids

1002
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:42,880
Speaker 1: can be a nightmare, you know. It's the people who

1003
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: don't have children. It's some people have a rough time.

1004
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:48,399
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not always easy, you know, And when it's

1005
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: when it's good, it's really good. And I've been blessed,

1006
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: four kids, four grandchildren. I'm on the moon. I'm lucky.

1007
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: To dude, I've been. I must be still dreaming, Bob.

1008
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,479
Speaker 1: It must be that I must have taken some at

1009
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: the LSD must have kicked in in nineteen sixties. I'm

1010
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: still dreaming. Okay. You talk about the struggle. Did the

1011
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: struggle ever stop or you still struggle? You what kept

1012
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: you going? Well? I think I don't. I didn't didn't

1013
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: know what else to do. But I'm so driven. I

1014
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: so love what I do. I get to express myself

1015
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:24,320
Speaker 1: in words and music. At still, the fire still burns

1016
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,239
Speaker 1: in me big time when I play the original songs

1017
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: back from nineteen eighty. I still plan with the same

1018
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: passion and vigor. I think I'm too dumb to know better.

1019
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: That's probably the first answer to I don't know what

1020
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: what else would I do? You know, I could be

1021
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: a delivery man, I could you know, Liverpool point A

1022
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 1: to point B. But I kept writing songs that I

1023
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: believed in. I thought this doesn't suck, you know. I

1024
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 1: remember I was in Buffalo. I walked away my music business.

1025
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: I made two records on ariston. I got signed. That's

1026
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: another story about getting signed by Robert Palmer saw me

1027
00:52:55,200 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: play at Kenny's Castaways on Bleaker Street nineteen seven eight

1028
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: July twenty ninth, and he wrote an incredible review. I

1029
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: was the opening act, you know. And Don Hill, who

1030
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:11,280
Speaker 1: was a manager at the time, great club owner for years.

1031
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 1: It's gone now and miss him. Robert Palmer, great New

1032
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 1: York Times reviewer, was coming called and some I'm a

1033
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: coming to see the headliner. And Don said to him,

1034
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 1: I didn't know about any of this till later. You

1035
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: might want to come early to see the opening act.

1036
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: He's real good. So Robert came early and wrote this

1037
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:32,919
Speaker 1: incredible review. You know, it's like if if my mom

1038
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: sat down to write a review about how Sweller Kid was.

1039
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: It just was a really great review, you know, compared

1040
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 1: me to Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, whatever, and it was

1041
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 1: really and that guy means I'll tell you what. I

1042
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:45,399
Speaker 1: learned a major lesson with that because I knew people

1043
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: in the village for years, you know, and I was

1044
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: opening shows. It was six nights a week, you'd played

1045
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: Kenny's Castaways in two sets, and I get written up

1046
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: in New York Times, and you know, this guy's declaring me,

1047
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:02,879
Speaker 1: you know something special. And I liked what I did.

1048
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: But I never never went to my head, not a minute.

1049
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 1: All that great press that first record got. I knew

1050
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 1: that it was just whatever. Anyway, that night when I

1051
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 1: when a paper came out that day, when I walked

1052
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,919
Speaker 1: into Kenny's Castaways, you could barely get in. People hanging

1053
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 1: off the balcony areas areas. You know, people that knew

1054
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: me for years looked at me completely different. Something about

1055
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: being in writing gives it a certain kind of validation

1056
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: that the music on that song might not. And so

1057
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 1: I was on stage and I did my set. I

1058
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 1: didn't know Robert was in the audience at night, and

1059
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 1: I was introduced to him later. And I'm on stage

1060
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 1: doing my thing, planning my song, was introducing the maginary

1061
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: on drums tonight We've got William Shakespeare whatever. And I'm

1062
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: jumping off the stage, telling stories, carrying on, having a

1063
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: good time, having fun with it, you know. And before

1064
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: I got off the stage that night, this guy comes up,

1065
00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 1: steps up because Hi, I'm Paul Rothschild, I managed the

1066
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: doors or whatever. I want to talk. I want to

1067
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,839
Speaker 1: work with you. And it was that Clive Davis came

1068
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:05,279
Speaker 1: out different record labels. The coolest thing for me that

1069
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: night was that Clive Davis wasn't like the fourth table

1070
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: and behind him was Luck sin Terrior and Ivy Roorschok

1071
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:14,480
Speaker 1: at the Cramps who who I knew? The Cramps at

1072
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:16,359
Speaker 1: Clive Dave are like, oh this, you can't make this up.

1073
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:19,160
Speaker 1: It was so cool. And four days later on Clive's

1074
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 1: office doing a show and tell in his office in

1075
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 1: front of forty five whenever the top people on the label,

1076
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: and you know that that was terrible. The sound in

1077
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: the room was dead. But I did it and I

1078
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:34,799
Speaker 1: got signed that day. Okay, you know Clive, he's got

1079
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 1: his self promotion machine going, but a lot of artists

1080
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: complained that he meddles with the music. How was your experience?

1081
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: I was very lucky. Um well I was. You know

1082
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:49,799
Speaker 1: when I when I told him what eleven songs I

1083
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: wanted to put on the record, you know, he so

1084
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: this is great. I played when I played Across the

1085
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:57,840
Speaker 1: River on the piano, a song I wrote about the

1086
00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: people starving in Ethiopian Chad and seventy eight. He thought

1087
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: that was our hit, you know, so I went in.

1088
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: I made the record, no interference whatsoever. The next year

1089
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 1: I made and that year I was at the label

1090
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: in this early spring, and my A and R guys said,

1091
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: product manager said, oh, I hear Pete Townsen loves your record.

1092
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: I mean, well, these great reviews were coming in, you know,

1093
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: like that's great, you know, I mean I was insulated

1094
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: enough as a guy who wrote poetry and libraries and

1095
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: college and just wrote his heart out. I was writing

1096
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: for that. I was just trying to express myself, not

1097
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: trying to prove anything, convince anybody, how swallow. It was

1098
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 1: none of that. I was just expressing myself. And I

1099
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:44,439
Speaker 1: can call up by the chorus, make a song out

1100
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:48,760
Speaker 1: of it, you know, entertain So all the great press,

1101
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: I was grateful because I was just hoping after such

1102
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: a struggle, and I was you know, I was broke

1103
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 1: for years, and I thought, well, maybe this could help

1104
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: change things, you know, And when I heard Pete towns

1105
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: and loves your record, I just thought, oh yeah, I

1106
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:04,480
Speaker 1: didn't believe it. I thought, yeah, sure he does. And

1107
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,200
Speaker 1: then we took the last tour. We did that that

1108
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: uh for that. The last show we did was in La,

1109
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 1: Los Angeles at the Roxy in nineteen eighty and uh,

1110
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 1: we just they just did it. Look the records over,

1111
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: but we're going to have you go out and play

1112
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 1: in LA just because you know, it's for the it's

1113
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: for the cameras. I didn't care. I'll go. Let's go.

1114
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: I'd like to go. I've never played in LA and

1115
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 1: went there played the Roxy. Freddie Mercury came to the show.

1116
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: Graham Parker came out and unbeknownst to me, Bill Kurbishly

1117
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: from the Who in a bunch of the whose management

1118
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 1: were there, came backstage and you know, he came up

1119
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 1: to me and said, how well much you liked the performance?

1120
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, we're on tour and out

1121
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 1: turn across the US, and we'd love to have you

1122
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 1: opened the tour. I mean, I think the Pretty Things

1123
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: were already opening. They did eight shows in the West Coast.

1124
00:57:56,520 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 1: And I thought he was kid and I just laughed,

1125
00:57:58,000 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, And then I thought, well, wait a minute,

1126
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: he means it. You know, I go. I'd love to assure.

1127
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: Let me call Clive, you know, And so I got

1128
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,200
Speaker 1: word from the label that they weren't going to support it,

1129
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: the reason being I was driven around LA in a

1130
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: fancy car and fancy streets, explaining, look, when Bruce Springsteen

1131
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 1: played opened up for Chicago at the Garden, they booed.

1132
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: They didn't know he was and it left a bead

1133
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 1: taste in his mouth. We didn't want that to happen

1134
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: to you. I figured, well, whatever, you're not going to

1135
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,000
Speaker 1: support it, I can't. What am I going to do?

1136
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: So I went backed up Bill Kurbishly and this is Bill,

1137
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: they won't I can't do it, and he says, what

1138
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: do you need? Have your tour manager make up a budget,

1139
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 1: and you know that's seven. Got five guys in the band,

1140
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 1: a roady and a road manager. Flights, pay, hotels, cars, meals,

1141
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: They paid the WHO paid for everything, you know, and

1142
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:49,640
Speaker 1: I toured. I went across the United States. It was

1143
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 1: time of you know, you couldn't make that up. And

1144
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 1: I'm friends with the WHO to this day, you know.

1145
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: So we toured across the US. I made another album

1146
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: next year, and we've gotten a legal problems former manager lawyer,

1147
00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: and I thought when it became more about business than music,

1148
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 1: I just came home one day, I was I was

1149
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:12,960
Speaker 1: going to arbitration in the morning, playing at night. It

1150
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 1: was such a bad taste in my mouth. You know,

1151
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: I got in this for I wanted to have to

1152
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:20,960
Speaker 1: be a joyful thing. And obviously I'm not. I'm a

1153
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 1: bit of an idiot. But they're killing my buzz. I

1154
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: said to my wife, let's get out of here. They're

1155
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: killing my buzz for music. I didn't want that, so

1156
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: we moved back to Buffalo. Not the smartest thing to

1157
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 1: do a little a little bit slower. What was the

1158
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 1: legal issue specifically, Well, uh, there was complaints coming from

1159
00:59:46,280 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: the number two guy at Arista call me on the

1160
00:59:49,160 --> 00:59:52,480
Speaker 1: phone and said, you know, this record not going to

1161
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:59,040
Speaker 1: come out at the moment because your representation is not

1162
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 1: to par. And so it was problems with the management

1163
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 1: and a lawyer, and uh, you know, I tried to settle.

1164
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: I said, look, you know, I don't want to hurt you.

1165
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, you could stay part of the team,

1166
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 1: but let's let's bring in somebody who could help make

1167
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: the most of this. You know, I love you. You're

1168
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 1: trying to help me, but you're I'm I'm getting told

1169
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:26,640
Speaker 1: that you're you know that I might not put the

1170
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: record out. So long story short. Um, I had to

1171
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: fire a couple of people, you know, and it wasn't

1172
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 1: any fun. I didn't get in this business to fire people.

1173
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:39,880
Speaker 1: That's that's hurtful to me, you know. I don't want

1174
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: to do that anyway. And I back at a family,

1175
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:44,520
Speaker 1: had two I had three kids at the time and

1176
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 1: another one to come in, you know. And and the money,

1177
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: whatever money we got, was twinland. And so we walked

1178
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:54,960
Speaker 1: away from the I walked back from a business and

1179
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: lived in the you know, Siberia Buffalo snow. But I

1180
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 1: kept writing songs, you know, just that's what I do.

1181
01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:03,280
Speaker 1: I write the right songs. I'd expressed myself. Wait wait, wait,

1182
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: wait a little bit slower. The second record does come out. Sure,

1183
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: Golden Down came out right. And then after the second

1184
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: record comes out, what is Darris to say? Are they

1185
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 1: willing to make another record or they're saying, hey, we

1186
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:20,439
Speaker 1: don't like this or we don't like that. Well, no,

1187
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 1: they were, they were willing. But um, let me think,

1188
01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 1: scratch my memory. Um, it wasn't. It wasn't them that

1189
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: I had. Clive was always good to me, I must say,

1190
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: you know, two albums. Second album, same thing, by the way,

1191
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 1: to answer your question, never meddled. I played that whatever

1192
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 1: how many songs are on that rec panim for Clive?

1193
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 1: He goes, great, good. You know Mark Knopfler back then,

1194
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:53,160
Speaker 1: God bless him. Jimmy Ivin called me one day, Hey, Willie, Yeah,

1195
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 1: I'm in a power station with Mark Knaffler. It must

1196
01:01:55,800 --> 01:01:59,160
Speaker 1: to meet you. Come on down. So, you know, up,

1197
01:01:59,160 --> 01:02:01,720
Speaker 1: I go to the power the power station in New York.

1198
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:04,840
Speaker 1: Mark's in the back of the studio barefeet doing the

1199
01:02:04,880 --> 01:02:09,000
Speaker 1: solo for Tunnel of Love. You know, just a magical moment.

1200
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:13,000
Speaker 1: And Mark we hung out talking. He said, what do

1201
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:14,640
Speaker 1: you what are you doing? I'm looking for a producer,

1202
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 1: He said, I'd love to do that, you know, and

1203
01:02:18,200 --> 01:02:20,440
Speaker 1: I go, oh, I'll tough live. You know. But the

1204
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 1: time when I told Clive, he said, well, what's he done?

1205
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 1: You know, he had produced. He didn't have a name

1206
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:27,440
Speaker 1: then as a producer. Who was the nineteen eighty eighty

1207
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 1: I made that album. I was in the studio and

1208
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,400
Speaker 1: night John Lennon was killed in the same studio, and

1209
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:36,320
Speaker 1: that's another story. But so you know, Mark had not

1210
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:41,840
Speaker 1: enough credibility, so I ended up Tompizi and I co

1211
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 1: produced it with Jimmy Iveen executive producing it. You know,

1212
01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:47,440
Speaker 1: I love the way because the night sounded, you know.

1213
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:56,439
Speaker 1: I mean, who didn't like that record? So you put

1214
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,960
Speaker 1: the second? Second record comes out? Yeah, told me about

1215
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: going back to Buffalo because you have to earn a

1216
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: living too. I had some money saved up. I just

1217
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:11,360
Speaker 1: was like impulsive, and I said, they're killing my buzz.

1218
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here. And oh you know, Um

1219
01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: I had new management who a really good guy, Fret

1220
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:29,560
Speaker 1: Kuley's going now and UH and Bert Block who started ICM,

1221
01:03:29,600 --> 01:03:36,560
Speaker 1: and Uh, I got out of my record company. I went,

1222
01:03:36,640 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: I have a filed bankruptcy, you know, and got out

1223
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:42,640
Speaker 1: of my ars to contract. You know, it's a long story.

1224
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 1: And UH signed with Geffen for ten minutes. I made

1225
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:52,760
Speaker 1: some demos from Buffalo. They didn't like him, drop me.

1226
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: You know. So I had some money saved and uh,

1227
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:59,040
Speaker 1: it just I thought I was already I had already.

1228
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 1: It was a on that I forget the timing. I

1229
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:02,920
Speaker 1: walked away somewhere and then I got you know what

1230
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: I didn't this is this is turning into a business nightmare.

1231
01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: What fun is that? That's not. That's not like listening

1232
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:11,480
Speaker 1: to the Beatles on that sold. And that's not like

1233
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: hearing Bob Dylan saying like a rolling stone, driving around

1234
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:16,240
Speaker 1: with your buddies, hanging out the window, yelling at people.

1235
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:19,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't any fun. So I thought, to

1236
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: hell with this business. And then two years later, living

1237
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:25,040
Speaker 1: up in Buffalo, I had all these songs, so trying

1238
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 1: I couldn't get arrested. I made phone calls calling people up, Hey,

1239
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 1: I got some songs, couldn't get couldn't get a phone

1240
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: called answered. You know, you know it better than I do.

1241
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: You've seen them much more of the business, and it's like, well,

1242
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 1: you know, they dropped it like a hot potato, and

1243
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:40,040
Speaker 1: I don't. I never had. When I first moved to

1244
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 1: New York, I saw so many musicians with chips on

1245
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:45,880
Speaker 1: their shoulder. Another reason I changed my name. I don't

1246
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 1: want to be like that. You know, to this day,

1247
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 1: I don't have any hard feelings none. You know, nothing's

1248
01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 1: handed to you on a platter. Oh yeah, you're good,

1249
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:57,439
Speaker 1: we like your hair. Here's a lot of money. Don't

1250
01:04:57,480 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: worry about the rest of your life. It doesn't work

1251
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 1: that way, you know. And so I was realistic enough

1252
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 1: to know, you know that dozen things don't always work out.

1253
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:07,160
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of good people who tried

1254
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 1: to help me for real, tried hard, believed in it,

1255
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 1: but I couldn't get arrested, and I stopped touring. I

1256
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: think the last show I did was in eighty one,

1257
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 1: and uh then tour again and eighty seven. So anyway,

1258
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:24,920
Speaker 1: during that period, I read out of money, brought a

1259
01:05:24,920 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 1: bunch of money and worked in a post office briefly.

1260
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: I was too inept, couldn't cut it. You know, it

1261
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:35,439
Speaker 1: was a lousy postman. You know. I'd be delivered mail

1262
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 1: at four or thirty, people coming up to me and

1263
01:05:37,120 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 1: I under rote, where's my mail? Where's my check? And

1264
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:46,360
Speaker 1: I didn't last and I got a publishing deal in

1265
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:50,320
Speaker 1: eighty seven that really helped a few years. And then

1266
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 1: in eighty seven I went to maybe it was eighty

1267
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:55,880
Speaker 1: five I went to I got a phone call one

1268
01:05:55,960 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: day from a promoter in Oslo who said Greg Trooper

1269
01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 1: was touring here, and he said he knows you, and

1270
01:06:06,120 --> 01:06:08,920
Speaker 1: there was a famous writer there. His name might come

1271
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 1: to me in a minute. He was like the godfather

1272
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: of writers in Norway. I hope it comes to me anyway.

1273
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:22,400
Speaker 1: He died in some kind of a car accident coming

1274
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:24,960
Speaker 1: back from on a Sunday visiting of the magazine Whatever.

1275
01:06:25,360 --> 01:06:27,400
Speaker 1: Really good guy championed me big time. So I get

1276
01:06:27,400 --> 01:06:29,280
Speaker 1: this phone call. They're doing a benefit for his wife

1277
01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 1: and kids. Would I come over and play? And I

1278
01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 1: hadn't played since you know eighty one The Greg Trooper's

1279
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:39,080
Speaker 1: Band will back You. Larry Campbell, a Bob Dylan's guitarist,

1280
01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:41,720
Speaker 1: was in the band. I knew all those guys. God

1281
01:06:41,720 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: bless Gregg. He's gone now. Great guy, a little talented cat.

1282
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:47,919
Speaker 1: So I went to Oslo and did a twenty five

1283
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 1: minute set that was filmed, and I carried on like

1284
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: I usually do, had a good time, and I got that.

1285
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,560
Speaker 1: I took that film to Rick Chardoff at Columbia Records

1286
01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:02,680
Speaker 1: in eighty seven and eighty eight. Eighty seven, I guess

1287
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:06,440
Speaker 1: at the end of the year, and I had just

1288
01:07:06,480 --> 01:07:09,920
Speaker 1: written a song called Renegades, and I played it for

1289
01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 1: him and he didn't tell me at the time, but

1290
01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: that's all he needed to hear, and then he saw it.

1291
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:17,960
Speaker 1: He was at arrist in nineteen seventy eight and wanted

1292
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 1: to produce my first record, but he had not he

1293
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: didn't have enough credibility. I didn't know what he could do.

1294
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:25,560
Speaker 1: And by then he had had a lot of hits.

1295
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 1: And a good guy, good dear friend, signed me to

1296
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 1: Columbia for peanuts. You have no idea how a little

1297
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 1: bunch of money I got. I got a family of

1298
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: four with a wife, you know, and anyway, they took

1299
01:07:36,560 --> 01:07:38,480
Speaker 1: a chance on me, which I'm very grateful for. And

1300
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 1: I made a record. I love like places places I've

1301
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:43,200
Speaker 1: never been. You know, Roger mcgwins on that record. Richard

1302
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 1: Thompson's on that record. Tebone Woke co produced it. You know.

1303
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:51,920
Speaker 1: Two guys from McCartney's band, Wicks, the keyboard player Robbie

1304
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 1: McIntosh Stewart Smith. I mean he's with the Eagles, but

1305
01:07:56,280 --> 01:07:58,880
Speaker 1: he played. I was so blessed with some of the musicians.

1306
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:03,040
Speaker 1: I've always been lucky that way, and made that record

1307
01:08:03,080 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 1: and that you know, it turned out to be a

1308
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: wrong time, wrong place. You know, the business, Sometimes it's

1309
01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:11,520
Speaker 1: right time, sometimes it's a wrong time. Won that record fight.

1310
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 1: It took two years to get it made because Rick

1311
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,160
Speaker 1: was appointed head of an R and they didn't want

1312
01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:19,439
Speaker 1: it in the studio. We were looking for a producer. Now,

1313
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:21,519
Speaker 1: I waited for two years while I finished a Patty

1314
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:25,439
Speaker 1: Smith Smith's record and our Hooters record Tommy Conwell, And

1315
01:08:25,479 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 1: when it came time, no, We've done six months searching

1316
01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: for a producer. By the time it came out, he

1317
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: was on the way out of Columbia. So it was

1318
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:35,240
Speaker 1: just my champion there was was not able to help.

1319
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:37,040
Speaker 1: Had it been a year earlier, he could have pushed

1320
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:38,759
Speaker 1: the buttons. I could have opened up for Tom Petty

1321
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:40,920
Speaker 1: and blah blah. But at the time, I was just

1322
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: genuinely grateful that I got to make that record. You know,

1323
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 1: it's the music that I care about. You know, I'm

1324
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: not the smartest cat on the planet. I loved the

1325
01:08:50,200 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: record and I go, well, too bad, bad luck, bad

1326
01:08:53,360 --> 01:08:55,799
Speaker 1: timing for me, and so I was back out again,

1327
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:57,800
Speaker 1: you know, out of the you know done. You know,

1328
01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: Ron Fierstein was managing me at the time. Time, and

1329
01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:04,600
Speaker 1: you know, there's right time and right place. But I

1330
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:07,120
Speaker 1: kept writing. I've always been written. I'll do that. If

1331
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:09,040
Speaker 1: I was a plumber new in Alaska, I would still

1332
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:12,040
Speaker 1: write songs. That's what I do. You know, it's meaningful

1333
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:14,200
Speaker 1: to me. You know, what do you do in your life.

1334
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:16,160
Speaker 1: It's meaningful. Some people coming to watch the sun and

1335
01:09:16,600 --> 01:09:19,800
Speaker 1: chant home. Some people shoot guns at a gun range

1336
01:09:19,800 --> 01:09:21,560
Speaker 1: and imagine them in their teachers. I don't know, but

1337
01:09:21,880 --> 01:09:26,000
Speaker 1: I like the right songs. And I've been blessed looking back,

1338
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:28,120
Speaker 1: and there's more than a million stars I can tell

1339
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:30,160
Speaker 1: you, you you know. The first day I went to see

1340
01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:33,160
Speaker 1: BGBS before television, played before it became the punk me

1341
01:09:33,240 --> 01:09:38,240
Speaker 1: Guy played there, and through the hard times in the seventies,

1342
01:09:38,280 --> 01:09:40,719
Speaker 1: the hard times, because you earlier it asked about the struggle.

1343
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:44,439
Speaker 1: The hard times in the eighties, very hard, you know,

1344
01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:46,600
Speaker 1: trying to kids go to go to school in September,

1345
01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:50,080
Speaker 1: needing to new shoes, they need new clothes, they need books,

1346
01:09:50,920 --> 01:09:54,400
Speaker 1: you know, and the money's like running out. A lot

1347
01:09:54,439 --> 01:09:57,800
Speaker 1: of a lot of a lot of years like that.

1348
01:09:57,880 --> 01:10:01,080
Speaker 1: But got through it, you know, and persisted. I was

1349
01:10:01,120 --> 01:10:04,960
Speaker 1: never very good at making a living, and just stayed

1350
01:10:04,960 --> 01:10:07,599
Speaker 1: with it, you know, made the Columbia Record. A year

1351
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:09,439
Speaker 1: later there was an election and I had a song

1352
01:10:09,479 --> 01:10:12,000
Speaker 1: called hard Times in America. So I put a little

1353
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 1: ep out because I wanted to get the song out,

1354
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:17,840
Speaker 1: you know, and small label didn't didn't make a ripple,

1355
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:21,680
Speaker 1: and you know, remember Friday Morning Quarterback. I don't know

1356
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 1: if it's still around, but on ninety one, yeah, I

1357
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:28,720
Speaker 1: was on the cover of that in the February of

1358
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:32,439
Speaker 1: ninety one. You know, God bless Paul Hine. And you know,

1359
01:10:32,640 --> 01:10:35,639
Speaker 1: sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. I'm not feeling

1360
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:38,840
Speaker 1: that I'm old or anything, you know, but I must

1361
01:10:38,880 --> 01:10:41,679
Speaker 1: say my father said this when I first started out,

1362
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:45,120
Speaker 1: when I moved to New York struggling. He said, you know,

1363
01:10:45,439 --> 01:10:49,160
Speaker 1: enjoy these Enjoy this hard climb, which says, because if

1364
01:10:49,200 --> 01:10:52,240
Speaker 1: you become successful, it'll just taste all the sweeter. Well,

1365
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:54,439
Speaker 1: I never gave up. You know, there's a there's a

1366
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:56,800
Speaker 1: guy making a documentary about me now, and I met

1367
01:10:56,880 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: him to say, no, I didn't know it was guy

1368
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 1: wants to make a movie about you. We've been doing

1369
01:11:01,400 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 1: it five years now, on and off. So I spent

1370
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:10,719
Speaker 1: forty five years, you know, struggling, trying to have quality,

1371
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:15,600
Speaker 1: the highest quality, trying to make masterpieces, you know, and

1372
01:11:15,920 --> 01:11:18,160
Speaker 1: somebody come along make a lousy movie about all that. No,

1373
01:11:18,439 --> 01:11:21,559
Speaker 1: thank you. So he flew from Vienna, Austria. I met

1374
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:23,600
Speaker 1: him as a courtesy because he flew over. I got

1375
01:11:23,600 --> 01:11:25,720
Speaker 1: a bunch of letters, I'll meet you, but I meant

1376
01:11:25,840 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 1: I want to say no, you know. We so we

1377
01:11:29,400 --> 01:11:33,080
Speaker 1: met at Cafe Reggio on McDougall Street, and how nice

1378
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:34,760
Speaker 1: to meet you. Thanks for coming, thanks for wanting to

1379
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:35,880
Speaker 1: do it. But why do you want to make a

1380
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:38,400
Speaker 1: movie about me? I'm not a rock star. I don't

1381
01:11:38,400 --> 01:11:41,600
Speaker 1: have its songs, you know. And he says, because he

1382
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 1: says right away, you never gave up. You're doing your

1383
01:11:44,160 --> 01:11:48,519
Speaker 1: best work now and with New York City as a backdrop,

1384
01:11:49,520 --> 01:11:53,760
Speaker 1: it's the story of inspiration and okay, because I love

1385
01:11:53,800 --> 01:11:57,960
Speaker 1: New York City, madhouse that it is. And we talked

1386
01:11:58,000 --> 01:12:00,720
Speaker 1: for two hours and every single thing picked up on.

1387
01:12:00,920 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 1: We were just you know, talking about our lives, telling

1388
01:12:04,400 --> 01:12:06,479
Speaker 1: the stories, you know. Being in Paris, I did an

1389
01:12:06,520 --> 01:12:09,719
Speaker 1: interview tour with JD Doherty, my drummer. We just drank

1390
01:12:09,720 --> 01:12:16,519
Speaker 1: our way across Europe, you know, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Munich.

1391
01:12:16,720 --> 01:12:19,440
Speaker 1: We drove through the Italian We drove through the Alps,

1392
01:12:19,439 --> 01:12:21,920
Speaker 1: throwing stop every half an hour to throw snowballs. In

1393
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 1: June and the Alps, it was like talking to God.

1394
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 1: End up in Hamburg, you know where the Beatles played.

1395
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:31,760
Speaker 1: We went to the Reaper Bomb, fascinating, the red the

1396
01:12:31,800 --> 01:12:34,760
Speaker 1: Red Light District, the most unsexty place you'll ever see,

1397
01:12:35,400 --> 01:12:38,120
Speaker 1: and it was. It was magical. But everything he picked

1398
01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:42,960
Speaker 1: up on this director Lucas was like really smart. Like

1399
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:44,760
Speaker 1: if we talked a few things, everything he picked up

1400
01:12:44,800 --> 01:12:47,360
Speaker 1: and I go, this guy's pretty smart, you know. And anyway,

1401
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:49,960
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, maybe I'm wrong about this. No,

1402
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:53,800
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, well let's try it. And so that

1403
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:57,040
Speaker 1: was like five years ago. So Phil, we filmed in Italy,

1404
01:12:57,640 --> 01:13:00,679
Speaker 1: in London at the BBC with the great Johnny Walker,

1405
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: around London, around I was Buffalo, in the northeast New

1406
01:13:04,479 --> 01:13:06,680
Speaker 1: York City, a ton of New York. You know, it's

1407
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:09,840
Speaker 1: pretty fun. You should do it sometime. Put has somebody

1408
01:13:09,840 --> 01:13:12,519
Speaker 1: put a microphone on you in a camera and follow

1409
01:13:12,560 --> 01:13:15,240
Speaker 1: you walking the streets in New York. Within ten minutes,

1410
01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 1: something's going to happen. That's peculiar. It's happened time and

1411
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:22,000
Speaker 1: time again, and it's really fun and interesting. You know.

1412
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:28,280
Speaker 1: I like character, whether it's you know, a medieval city

1413
01:13:28,320 --> 01:13:31,760
Speaker 1: hall and the Italian Alps, or whether it's you know,

1414
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:36,479
Speaker 1: some grungy club in Lower Manhattan on a Bowerie. You know,

1415
01:13:36,600 --> 01:13:39,559
Speaker 1: things with meaning a character. I love that. That inspires me.

1416
01:13:39,600 --> 01:13:42,599
Speaker 1: That's why I keep doing it. Anyway, this thing's coming

1417
01:13:42,640 --> 01:13:45,240
Speaker 1: along pretty good, this film. You know, we did a

1418
01:13:45,280 --> 01:13:48,280
Speaker 1: show so I tore it to who in nineteen eighty

1419
01:13:48,280 --> 01:13:51,240
Speaker 1: across the US, right, And I've kept good, great relations

1420
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:55,400
Speaker 1: with Bill Kurbish, Lee and Roger Daltrey and Pete Towns

1421
01:13:55,400 --> 01:13:58,400
Speaker 1: and they've been really good to me. You know, I

1422
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:02,600
Speaker 1: played a few years ago, five years or so, the

1423
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:06,080
Speaker 1: Music Cares was honoring Pete Townsend and Bill Kurbishly. I

1424
01:14:06,120 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 1: get a call one day early May and it's my

1425
01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:13,240
Speaker 1: book an agent and he says it a few years ago, Hey,

1426
01:14:13,280 --> 01:14:16,000
Speaker 1: what are you doing May twenty eighth? I remember that date.

1427
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:19,519
Speaker 1: I go, i'mre in New York because we just got

1428
01:14:19,520 --> 01:14:22,240
Speaker 1: a call from the Grammys. They want they're honoring Bill

1429
01:14:22,280 --> 01:14:24,759
Speaker 1: Kurbishly and Pete Townsend. They want to get five artists

1430
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:28,839
Speaker 1: to sing two Pete Townsend songs, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Daltrey

1431
01:14:30,120 --> 01:14:33,040
Speaker 1: joint you at Billy Idol and you I'm thinking, what's

1432
01:14:33,040 --> 01:14:36,920
Speaker 1: wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this picture? Wait

1433
01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:40,400
Speaker 1: a minute, there's anyway. That's that's how nice these guys

1434
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:43,680
Speaker 1: have been to me, and sure enough whatever the Danocchia

1435
01:14:43,800 --> 01:14:46,920
Speaker 1: Theater or whatever it was called, what a blast. You know.

1436
01:14:46,960 --> 01:14:49,040
Speaker 1: I got to play with the Who, I mean, give

1437
01:14:49,080 --> 01:14:51,719
Speaker 1: me a break again. It can't make it up. And

1438
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 1: I sang substitute and the kids are all right, two

1439
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:58,360
Speaker 1: of the best songs ever. And and then so we're

1440
01:14:58,400 --> 01:15:00,439
Speaker 1: sound checking. Here you go, you can't make this. We're

1441
01:15:00,479 --> 01:15:03,559
Speaker 1: sound checking. And I did my sound check electric guitar,

1442
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:06,680
Speaker 1: signed my songs, you know, with the Who band. I mean,

1443
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:10,200
Speaker 1: Pete wasn't playing when I played so great. And then

1444
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:12,960
Speaker 1: Bruce sound checked, and then we all went out to

1445
01:15:13,000 --> 01:15:15,800
Speaker 1: do the encore run through. I won't get fooled again.

1446
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:18,760
Speaker 1: And I'm at the very end of the stage microphone,

1447
01:15:18,840 --> 01:15:20,559
Speaker 1: says Willie Nile. At the bottom of it. I go

1448
01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:24,000
Speaker 1: so proud to be here. Won't get fooled again. I

1449
01:15:24,080 --> 01:15:26,400
Speaker 1: never played on guitar, but I know I tip my

1450
01:15:26,520 --> 01:15:30,240
Speaker 1: hat to the new constitute. I'll send the chorus. So

1451
01:15:30,360 --> 01:15:32,320
Speaker 1: Pete comes with this acoustic guitar and he's looking down

1452
01:15:32,320 --> 01:15:35,880
Speaker 1: to all the people that goes, we need another electric guitar,

1453
01:15:36,400 --> 01:15:41,080
Speaker 1: and he's looking at me. I'm going, we need another

1454
01:15:41,120 --> 01:15:43,800
Speaker 1: electric guitar. He's looking right up and go ah, I'll

1455
01:15:43,800 --> 01:15:46,280
Speaker 1: get bye. So I turned around. I walked back again.

1456
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what are you doing, you idiot. I'm not

1457
01:15:48,360 --> 01:15:50,720
Speaker 1: Richard Thompson. I cannot I don't know where how to

1458
01:15:50,760 --> 01:15:53,240
Speaker 1: play it. So get my guitar. I'm thinking, jeez, now

1459
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:54,920
Speaker 1: you did it. And I get back to this front

1460
01:15:54,920 --> 01:15:57,120
Speaker 1: of the stage and then moved my microphone right next

1461
01:15:57,160 --> 01:16:00,400
Speaker 1: to Pete and uh and Roger and Bruce. I'm going,

1462
01:16:00,600 --> 01:16:02,639
Speaker 1: this is this is not work. This is gonna be trouble.

1463
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:08,160
Speaker 1: And so I'm so they started playing the song. I'm going, oh,

1464
01:16:08,240 --> 01:16:10,920
Speaker 1: this is fun, but I'm petrified. I knew two of

1465
01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:12,479
Speaker 1: the chords I hit him and then the rest. I'm

1466
01:16:12,520 --> 01:16:16,080
Speaker 1: just going I was just chinking away. I didn't know

1467
01:16:16,160 --> 01:16:18,120
Speaker 1: the chords. You know, if I was Richard Thompson, I

1468
01:16:18,160 --> 01:16:21,080
Speaker 1: could have pulled it off. So Pete goes, oh, that

1469
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:22,720
Speaker 1: was pretty bad. Looks around him. He goes, will he

1470
01:16:22,800 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 1: loosen up? It's like right out of a Bill Murray movie,

1471
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:31,000
Speaker 1: right and and uh. So we did it again, and

1472
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:33,080
Speaker 1: I did the same thing, you know, and I thought, well,

1473
01:16:33,080 --> 01:16:35,200
Speaker 1: Bruce will be really allowed, you know, he'll cover it.

1474
01:16:35,840 --> 01:16:38,559
Speaker 1: He was you couldn't hear him. And he goes, ah,

1475
01:16:38,600 --> 01:16:40,920
Speaker 1: well we'll be okay. Pete left, you know, and and

1476
01:16:40,960 --> 01:16:43,320
Speaker 1: Bill Bill Kurbers and God blessed him goes, well if

1477
01:16:43,320 --> 01:16:45,240
Speaker 1: there's not even if there's no mistakes, it won't be

1478
01:16:45,240 --> 01:16:48,720
Speaker 1: a who show, you know. So so we go in

1479
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:51,120
Speaker 1: the dressing room. I'm walking by Bruce. I go, I'm

1480
01:16:51,120 --> 01:16:52,639
Speaker 1: taking this to the dressing room. I don't know how

1481
01:16:52,680 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 1: this song goes. So I get in the dressing room

1482
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:57,120
Speaker 1: sitting down. Bruce comes back with his guitar and the

1483
01:16:57,479 --> 01:16:59,960
Speaker 1: lyrics are spread out in front of us by Kevin

1484
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:04,120
Speaker 1: dear guitar tech. And so Bruce and I picture this

1485
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:09,280
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes on a couch like like teenagers, like high

1486
01:17:09,280 --> 01:17:12,760
Speaker 1: school kids, learn it. Won't get fooled again. He didn't

1487
01:17:12,760 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 1: know it either, and I go, I think that's a

1488
01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:17,080
Speaker 1: being minor. He goes, I don't know, like yeah, yeah. Anyway,

1489
01:17:17,120 --> 01:17:19,040
Speaker 1: After about ten minutes, he goes, I got it. I go,

1490
01:17:19,479 --> 01:17:21,519
Speaker 1: I don't. So I took the lyrics, went in the

1491
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:24,600
Speaker 1: corner for other twenty minutes and learned it, and we

1492
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:26,599
Speaker 1: played it that night and it was so much fun.

1493
01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:28,240
Speaker 1: You know, this clip of the clips of it on

1494
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:30,360
Speaker 1: if you Google, Won't can Fool Again? With a Who

1495
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:33,400
Speaker 1: and Bruce and me. It was just glorious. You know,

1496
01:17:33,400 --> 01:17:35,600
Speaker 1: when you've got nothing to lose and you go on

1497
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:38,200
Speaker 1: stage and you're not trying to show off, and you're

1498
01:17:38,200 --> 01:17:41,920
Speaker 1: there because you love the music. I mean, that's why

1499
01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:44,520
Speaker 1: you like it, you know, you you you you persist

1500
01:17:44,800 --> 01:17:47,639
Speaker 1: because you love it, you know, and because you care.

1501
01:17:48,160 --> 01:17:51,760
Speaker 1: Obviously it's mostly crap, but there's some great stuff. And

1502
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:54,400
Speaker 1: growing up the way we did with all that music,

1503
01:17:54,439 --> 01:17:58,759
Speaker 1: that's so much inspiring music, Soul music, Won't R and B, Blues,

1504
01:17:59,280 --> 01:18:03,080
Speaker 1: British and Fade Dylan, you know, the whole revolution that happened.

1505
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:07,439
Speaker 1: You know, it's meaningful, you know, and music still means

1506
01:18:07,479 --> 01:18:09,760
Speaker 1: something to me, it really does. You can tell. I'm

1507
01:18:09,960 --> 01:18:11,920
Speaker 1: I mean it, you know, and I make these I

1508
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:14,880
Speaker 1: made nine albums in the last twelve years on my

1509
01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:18,680
Speaker 1: own label, you know, House of a Thousand Guitars, The

1510
01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:22,160
Speaker 1: Innocent Ones, American Ride ten years ago. I made an

1511
01:18:22,160 --> 01:18:25,960
Speaker 1: American Ride. Last week we did a tenth out of

1512
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:28,559
Speaker 1: anniversary and played a top to bottom. I hadn't heard

1513
01:18:28,560 --> 01:18:31,679
Speaker 1: half of those songs and years that was so much fun,

1514
01:18:32,160 --> 01:18:33,760
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm gonna do Streets in New York

1515
01:18:33,920 --> 01:18:37,719
Speaker 1: next month at the City Winery in March. Nine albums

1516
01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:40,000
Speaker 1: in the twelve years and two thousand and six, when

1517
01:18:40,040 --> 01:18:42,519
Speaker 1: I put out Here's the sixth, Here's the positive side

1518
01:18:42,560 --> 01:18:45,400
Speaker 1: of this story. In two thousand and six, I put

1519
01:18:45,400 --> 01:18:48,840
Speaker 1: out an album called Streets of New York Again. You know,

1520
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:51,639
Speaker 1: I waited for Andy York, the great guitarist who helped

1521
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:56,080
Speaker 1: co produce the records Rich Pogano and my band and

1522
01:18:56,520 --> 01:18:58,640
Speaker 1: made this. I waited for Andy. He's worth waiting for

1523
01:18:58,680 --> 01:19:01,840
Speaker 1: his melancamp's lead guitar play, and he was busy. Finally

1524
01:19:01,840 --> 01:19:04,479
Speaker 1: had some time. We made this record and I love it.

1525
01:19:04,560 --> 01:19:06,719
Speaker 1: It's about the streets in New York. It's a picture

1526
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:08,800
Speaker 1: on the back of my feet, you know, on the

1527
01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:13,680
Speaker 1: stones my son took and a great photographer, and it

1528
01:19:13,800 --> 01:19:16,600
Speaker 1: came out and it put men, put me back in

1529
01:19:16,640 --> 01:19:19,400
Speaker 1: the map. You know. It made the charts in Billboard whatever.

1530
01:19:19,479 --> 01:19:21,600
Speaker 1: It didn't make me rich. You know, nothing's made me

1531
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:27,000
Speaker 1: rich that's coming anyway. I thought, then, you know what,

1532
01:19:27,920 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 1: I can't control the business. I can't control radio. All

1533
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:34,600
Speaker 1: I can control is the songs I write and the

1534
01:19:34,640 --> 01:19:37,320
Speaker 1: records I make and the shows I put on live.

1535
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:40,440
Speaker 1: You know, I want to try to make a masterpiece

1536
01:19:40,479 --> 01:19:42,479
Speaker 1: every time out. I'm just gonna try to make the

1537
01:19:42,479 --> 01:19:45,000
Speaker 1: best records I can make. Why wouldn't I. You know,

1538
01:19:45,080 --> 01:19:46,519
Speaker 1: when I make a record, I don't make them in

1539
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:49,280
Speaker 1: the studio. I got the songs written, you know, and

1540
01:19:49,479 --> 01:19:51,960
Speaker 1: I have it picked out. I sometimes sequenced before we

1541
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:54,880
Speaker 1: record them, and I won't go in. I won't record

1542
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:57,519
Speaker 1: a song if I don't think it's special. I don't

1543
01:19:57,520 --> 01:20:00,920
Speaker 1: want anybody to subject anybody to that. There's enough crap

1544
01:20:00,920 --> 01:20:03,240
Speaker 1: out there with I me ed to it. So I've

1545
01:20:03,280 --> 01:20:05,639
Speaker 1: made these records and I try to make everyone and

1546
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:08,080
Speaker 1: there's a now that I said I'm gonna build a catalog.

1547
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:11,439
Speaker 1: I didn't care about fame anyway. Money, Yeah, I'm open

1548
01:20:11,479 --> 01:20:15,639
Speaker 1: to that. But now I have, you know, fourteen records

1549
01:20:15,640 --> 01:20:19,120
Speaker 1: I put out and our thirteen whatever, and I'm proud

1550
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: of them, and you know, I feel really good about that.

1551
01:20:22,360 --> 01:20:27,320
Speaker 1: So the journey, the struggle which continues. You know, I'm

1552
01:20:27,360 --> 01:20:30,240
Speaker 1: still working hard. I'm not rich. I still live five

1553
01:20:30,240 --> 01:20:33,360
Speaker 1: flights up. You know, we got it in the documentary.

1554
01:20:33,360 --> 01:20:35,600
Speaker 1: There's film footage to me walking up. You know, you

1555
01:20:35,640 --> 01:20:38,120
Speaker 1: shoot somebody's feet from the back walking up five flights

1556
01:20:38,160 --> 01:20:40,120
Speaker 1: carrying a guitar in a bag at two in the morning,

1557
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:45,320
Speaker 1: with wet socks, damp underwear, wet pants. You know, you're

1558
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:50,320
Speaker 1: still close from the show. And over the years I

1559
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:53,360
Speaker 1: used to hate those stairs. Now I thank you, thank you,

1560
01:20:53,439 --> 01:20:55,679
Speaker 1: thank you, because it's kept me fit, you know, three

1561
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:58,680
Speaker 1: times a day walking up five floods, you know, and

1562
01:20:58,720 --> 01:21:02,920
Speaker 1: it's been fascinating. The characters I've seen that I've met,

1563
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:08,519
Speaker 1: but many of gone now, you know, George Girty's many people.

1564
01:21:08,600 --> 01:21:11,479
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't trade it for anything, you know, I mean,

1565
01:21:12,400 --> 01:21:15,599
Speaker 1: it was hard on my family. All They will say

1566
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:17,840
Speaker 1: this if in nineteen eighty when I made that first

1567
01:21:17,880 --> 01:21:20,960
Speaker 1: record and there was a double page spread in Billboard,

1568
01:21:21,080 --> 01:21:25,759
Speaker 1: page seven and eight Willie Nile's first album, Isn't He Swell? Whatever?

1569
01:21:25,960 --> 01:21:28,320
Speaker 1: Whatever it said, you know, New York Times, La Times,

1570
01:21:28,400 --> 01:21:32,880
Speaker 1: Terry Review, glowing reviews. I was deeply grateful for I

1571
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:35,280
Speaker 1: really was, for the people who wrote those for Aris

1572
01:21:35,360 --> 01:21:39,559
Speaker 1: to try and for me, you know. And from then,

1573
01:21:39,640 --> 01:21:43,800
Speaker 1: if I'd become really, really rich and really famous, who

1574
01:21:43,840 --> 01:21:46,200
Speaker 1: knows what destruction that could have wrought. Would my four

1575
01:21:46,280 --> 01:21:49,000
Speaker 1: kids be as good people as they are now being

1576
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:51,240
Speaker 1: able to have anything they want. I need a new

1577
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:54,040
Speaker 1: car dead, oh you know what I need. You know,

1578
01:21:54,680 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 1: my kids are really good people, you know, and we

1579
01:21:57,320 --> 01:21:59,680
Speaker 1: all love each other, and my grandchildren because there's a

1580
01:21:59,680 --> 01:22:04,360
Speaker 1: sense of family. Had fame and riches entered into that equation,

1581
01:22:05,520 --> 01:22:07,840
Speaker 1: might it be the same, I don't know. It was

1582
01:22:07,880 --> 01:22:10,920
Speaker 1: certainly a hard road and it continues. I'm seventy four

1583
01:22:11,000 --> 01:22:14,880
Speaker 1: years old now, you know. And there's a gig at

1584
01:22:14,880 --> 01:22:19,759
Speaker 1: this June Willie and Ail's seventy fifth birthday. That's funny.

1585
01:22:20,040 --> 01:22:22,160
Speaker 1: I don't feel it, you know, And I'm enjoying it.

1586
01:22:22,160 --> 01:22:23,839
Speaker 1: And I got one of the best bands in the world,

1587
01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:27,720
Speaker 1: and it's never been better, actually, so I live to

1588
01:22:27,720 --> 01:22:30,120
Speaker 1: tell the tale to this point. Okay, if you go back,

1589
01:22:30,160 --> 01:22:32,479
Speaker 1: those of us were there when the first Erast album

1590
01:22:32,520 --> 01:22:35,799
Speaker 1: came out, which I certainly bought. There was a huge buzz.

1591
01:22:36,400 --> 01:22:40,920
Speaker 1: So from the outside it looks like it didn't happen.

1592
01:22:42,000 --> 01:22:45,479
Speaker 1: So from the inside all of this, you're, you know,

1593
01:22:45,600 --> 01:22:51,400
Speaker 1: your very level, but I have to believe you were

1594
01:22:51,479 --> 01:22:55,559
Speaker 1: really distraught or maybe temporarily bitter when you have these

1595
01:22:55,600 --> 01:23:01,160
Speaker 1: setbacks before you equalized. Oh my god, Yes, it was

1596
01:23:01,280 --> 01:23:04,360
Speaker 1: so hardn't I don't know if bitter is the word.

1597
01:23:04,400 --> 01:23:09,880
Speaker 1: Distraught absolutely, you know, just terrified, absolutely, and it didn't happen,

1598
01:23:10,000 --> 01:23:11,400
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it was a lot of hype.

1599
01:23:11,400 --> 01:23:14,599
Speaker 1: It was overhyped, but they were trying. You know, it's

1600
01:23:14,600 --> 01:23:17,160
Speaker 1: a work. Sometimes it doesn't. But it was really difficult.

1601
01:23:17,640 --> 01:23:20,720
Speaker 1: The strain on my family was really immense. So it

1602
01:23:20,840 --> 01:23:24,479
Speaker 1: was a very difficult times. I mean mostly really hard years.

1603
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:26,280
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not not trying to put a rosy

1604
01:23:26,320 --> 01:23:30,439
Speaker 1: picture on it. You know, it was tough and you know,

1605
01:23:30,760 --> 01:23:32,960
Speaker 1: trying to make a living as a musician not the

1606
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:36,559
Speaker 1: easiest thing, you know, and sometimes you can be deserving

1607
01:23:36,560 --> 01:23:38,759
Speaker 1: of it and doesn't happen. You know, there's no deserves

1608
01:23:38,800 --> 01:23:41,400
Speaker 1: in this world. It is what it is. But I

1609
01:23:41,640 --> 01:23:47,760
Speaker 1: was I absolutely brewed blue and distraught and dismayed and heartbroken.

1610
01:23:47,840 --> 01:23:52,559
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely absolutely. But like my dad says, you got

1611
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:55,240
Speaker 1: to pick yourself up and get on with it, you know.

1612
01:23:56,120 --> 01:23:58,400
Speaker 1: You know it's funny. This is a pretty good example.

1613
01:23:59,439 --> 01:24:02,240
Speaker 1: Last December a year ago, I was in Buffalo for

1614
01:24:02,240 --> 01:24:06,200
Speaker 1: the holidays, stand at the dad's house and it was

1615
01:24:06,439 --> 01:24:10,439
Speaker 1: four degrees out and it's the morning Dad's waking up.

1616
01:24:10,439 --> 01:24:12,360
Speaker 1: He's going to go to church. My brother's gonna take

1617
01:24:12,400 --> 01:24:14,840
Speaker 1: him to church. And I'm waking up to you know,

1618
01:24:14,880 --> 01:24:17,000
Speaker 1: wash my face and you know, hit the men's room

1619
01:24:17,040 --> 01:24:20,080
Speaker 1: and go back to bed. And I'm coming out of

1620
01:24:20,080 --> 01:24:22,880
Speaker 1: the bathroom and Dad's about, you know, in the shirt,

1621
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:25,760
Speaker 1: you're getting ready. I go, it's like four degrees out there.

1622
01:24:25,800 --> 01:24:28,880
Speaker 1: It's pretty cold. And he goes outside the door to

1623
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:32,920
Speaker 1: get the newspaper, comes back and he goes, yeah, he says,

1624
01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:35,599
Speaker 1: that's cold, and he goes he pauses for a minute.

1625
01:24:35,640 --> 01:24:40,400
Speaker 1: He said, bring it on. The guy's one hundred and three,

1626
01:24:40,240 --> 01:24:42,439
Speaker 1: one hundred and three years old, and he goes, bring

1627
01:24:42,439 --> 01:24:46,120
Speaker 1: it on. I mean that kind of spit that, you

1628
01:24:46,200 --> 01:24:48,320
Speaker 1: know what. Yeah, I'm knocked down, but I'm getting back up.

1629
01:24:48,360 --> 01:24:51,400
Speaker 1: What's that great band movie where Levan says New York City,

1630
01:24:51,400 --> 01:24:53,880
Speaker 1: He'll kick you, kick your ass, you know, and you

1631
01:24:54,080 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 1: run out of you leave town with the tail between

1632
01:24:56,120 --> 01:24:57,960
Speaker 1: your legs, and you get back up again, you go

1633
01:24:58,439 --> 01:25:01,000
Speaker 1: head back into the fight. I ain't never given up.

1634
01:25:01,040 --> 01:25:03,519
Speaker 1: I'll drop before that. But was I blew? Was I

1635
01:25:03,640 --> 01:25:07,320
Speaker 1: just maye? Was I broken hearted? Absolutely? Oh my god? Yeah,

1636
01:25:07,560 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 1: trying to support a family and there's no you know,

1637
01:25:10,560 --> 01:25:12,840
Speaker 1: there's no ways. Everybody's got a tough story to tell.

1638
01:25:12,960 --> 01:25:16,120
Speaker 1: Mine's no different than anybody else. Everybody's got it hard.

1639
01:25:16,479 --> 01:25:26,160
Speaker 1: That's why that's what music offers us. Okay, Gay, go back.

1640
01:25:26,200 --> 01:25:28,479
Speaker 1: You said it earlier that you were a proof feeder

1641
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:33,160
Speaker 1: for showtime. When was that? Yeah, it was a proof

1642
01:25:33,160 --> 01:25:35,920
Speaker 1: feeder for showtime. So in nineteen ninety nine, I had

1643
01:25:35,960 --> 01:25:38,960
Speaker 1: a ninety seven eighty nine, I had a band in

1644
01:25:39,000 --> 01:25:41,800
Speaker 1: New York, Willie All and the Worried Dolls and New

1645
01:25:41,920 --> 01:25:45,800
Speaker 1: York Rich Bergano Bread I'll Better great, scrappy little band,

1646
01:25:46,160 --> 01:25:47,720
Speaker 1: My god. We made a We went in to cut

1647
01:25:47,760 --> 01:25:50,800
Speaker 1: some demos and came out with I thought, this is

1648
01:25:50,840 --> 01:25:54,120
Speaker 1: an album called beautiful record the world, you know, and

1649
01:25:54,479 --> 01:25:56,720
Speaker 1: it holds up to this day and I love it.

1650
01:25:57,479 --> 01:26:00,400
Speaker 1: And at ninety nine, I'm running out of money again

1651
01:26:00,600 --> 01:26:03,160
Speaker 1: and I go and yeah, I'm getting broken. He goes, yeah,

1652
01:26:03,240 --> 01:26:05,280
Speaker 1: it kind of sucks, but you can always proof read.

1653
01:26:06,000 --> 01:26:09,080
Speaker 1: I go, what's that and he goes, well, that's pretty bad.

1654
01:26:09,120 --> 01:26:11,200
Speaker 1: It's probably boring, but like you know, you can survive.

1655
01:26:12,160 --> 01:26:14,519
Speaker 1: So I found this place. He gave me this number

1656
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:16,519
Speaker 1: you could call, and this guy gave a three day,

1657
01:26:16,560 --> 01:26:20,120
Speaker 1: two hour class what it was about, and he brought

1658
01:26:20,160 --> 01:26:24,799
Speaker 1: up a fake resume, and so I take this fake resume,

1659
01:26:25,200 --> 01:26:27,479
Speaker 1: you know, and I would go into a you know,

1660
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:29,840
Speaker 1: employee places, and I guess they sent me out for

1661
01:26:29,880 --> 01:26:32,519
Speaker 1: a job. I go to a law firm I didn't

1662
01:26:32,520 --> 01:26:36,120
Speaker 1: even know. I remember the first I get that showtime.

1663
01:26:36,280 --> 01:26:38,439
Speaker 1: I had a job I was doing legal proof reading.

1664
01:26:39,320 --> 01:26:41,519
Speaker 1: And it was easy because on the left side you

1665
01:26:41,560 --> 01:26:43,960
Speaker 1: had a pile of paper, on the right side had

1666
01:26:43,960 --> 01:26:45,320
Speaker 1: a pile of paper. He said, to make sure that

1667
01:26:45,360 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 1: they were they were the changes were correctly made. So

1668
01:26:49,680 --> 01:26:52,559
Speaker 1: so I did that and a financial proof reading midnight

1669
01:26:52,600 --> 01:26:55,080
Speaker 1: to eight. Oh my god, I'm drinking coffee all night.

1670
01:26:55,080 --> 01:26:57,439
Speaker 1: I get home at eight in the morning. I laid

1671
01:26:57,439 --> 01:26:59,840
Speaker 1: down to go to sleep, and my eyes are wide open.

1672
01:26:59,880 --> 01:27:03,160
Speaker 1: I couldn't sleep anyway. I got to offer part time

1673
01:27:03,240 --> 01:27:06,360
Speaker 1: job at showtime. A dear friend said, they're looking for

1674
01:27:06,360 --> 01:27:09,280
Speaker 1: a part time proof reader. This is like June or

1675
01:27:09,360 --> 01:27:13,400
Speaker 1: July of two thousand, I think it was something like that.

1676
01:27:14,200 --> 01:27:16,519
Speaker 1: And I went up and I applied. Yeah, sure, you know,

1677
01:27:16,520 --> 01:27:18,840
Speaker 1: it was easy. The boss there at Paul was so great.

1678
01:27:19,400 --> 01:27:21,400
Speaker 1: I get this part time job and I'm there in

1679
01:27:21,400 --> 01:27:23,400
Speaker 1: the summer and it was easy worked. It wasn't much work.

1680
01:27:24,360 --> 01:27:27,200
Speaker 1: And one day I hear my boss playing beautiful reck

1681
01:27:27,240 --> 01:27:30,920
Speaker 1: of the World in his office and he calls me in. Willie,

1682
01:27:31,000 --> 01:27:34,240
Speaker 1: get in here, Yeah, he goes, He holds on my record.

1683
01:27:34,280 --> 01:27:38,080
Speaker 1: He goes, this is really good. I got thanks. No, no, no, no,

1684
01:27:38,160 --> 01:27:40,800
Speaker 1: this is really good. He says, I know music. I

1685
01:27:40,880 --> 01:27:43,080
Speaker 1: used to play saxon a band. This is really good.

1686
01:27:43,120 --> 01:27:45,040
Speaker 1: And I was, well, thank you, and he says, you

1687
01:27:45,040 --> 01:27:46,920
Speaker 1: know what, I'm looking for, a full time proof read

1688
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:50,520
Speaker 1: you want the job. Just like that, I went, yeah,

1689
01:27:50,640 --> 01:27:53,240
Speaker 1: So I got a day job at Showtime in the

1690
01:27:53,240 --> 01:27:58,519
Speaker 1: creative department. Great, great people. The CEO of Showtime, Matt Blank,

1691
01:27:59,160 --> 01:28:04,320
Speaker 1: huge fan, the president less mmm wait less, Oh, come on,

1692
01:28:06,560 --> 01:28:11,719
Speaker 1: might come to me Les Moonves, who's not not Moonves?

1693
01:28:11,800 --> 01:28:14,320
Speaker 1: It was I'll come to me, great guy, he was

1694
01:28:14,320 --> 01:28:16,720
Speaker 1: a president. They'd stopped me in the hall. How are

1695
01:28:16,720 --> 01:28:19,240
Speaker 1: you doing you making another record? Meanwhile, I'm in my

1696
01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:23,559
Speaker 1: little cubicle running my little label, river House Records, and

1697
01:28:23,680 --> 01:28:25,320
Speaker 1: doing the work or here comes the work, no problem,

1698
01:28:25,360 --> 01:28:27,960
Speaker 1: ba ba blah booh, okay, okay, next what about you know?

1699
01:28:28,120 --> 01:28:32,040
Speaker 1: And uh we filmed it for the for the documentary,

1700
01:28:32,040 --> 01:28:34,439
Speaker 1: we got footage of me in that cubicle. And one

1701
01:28:34,520 --> 01:28:36,840
Speaker 1: day I leave the cubicle. You know, I got a

1702
01:28:36,880 --> 01:28:41,040
Speaker 1: call from Terry who was somebody called me a Springsteen people.

1703
01:28:41,960 --> 01:28:44,080
Speaker 1: Bruce wants you to come to Giant Stadium when they

1704
01:28:44,120 --> 01:28:47,080
Speaker 1: were closing the last five shows at Giant Stadium. Bruce

1705
01:28:47,120 --> 01:28:48,960
Speaker 1: has been really good to me. I mean, he's invited

1706
01:28:49,000 --> 01:28:51,120
Speaker 1: me on stage many times. He's joined my band on

1707
01:28:51,200 --> 01:28:54,320
Speaker 1: stage many times. You know, he's just he's been really

1708
01:28:54,400 --> 01:28:58,200
Speaker 1: good to me. And so I'm it's I'm a cubicle

1709
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:01,160
Speaker 1: doing this, you know, this job. And it was I was,

1710
01:29:01,479 --> 01:29:05,040
Speaker 1: it's steadied my boat after all those years of wolf

1711
01:29:05,120 --> 01:29:09,639
Speaker 1: at the door, you know, fear and worry and stuff,

1712
01:29:10,240 --> 01:29:13,400
Speaker 1: and that was clowning around in there, of course. But

1713
01:29:14,680 --> 01:29:16,479
Speaker 1: so next thing, and so I got out of work,

1714
01:29:16,520 --> 01:29:18,639
Speaker 1: I get a boss. I go to Giant Stadium. I'm

1715
01:29:18,680 --> 01:29:21,240
Speaker 1: in Bruce's dressing room and he goes, We're gonna play

1716
01:29:21,560 --> 01:29:23,920
Speaker 1: American Land. It goes like this, it plays me and

1717
01:29:24,040 --> 01:29:28,439
Speaker 1: I got it. So I'm on seventy thousand people going

1718
01:29:28,600 --> 01:29:32,160
Speaker 1: nuts at Giant Stadium. It's loud, and I'm laughing at

1719
01:29:32,160 --> 01:29:33,920
Speaker 1: because I know the Eastreet band, I'll play with him

1720
01:29:33,960 --> 01:29:36,840
Speaker 1: before they got it covered. So I figured this is easy.

1721
01:29:37,920 --> 01:29:40,439
Speaker 1: So I go up and I'll play with Bruce. And

1722
01:29:40,600 --> 01:29:42,439
Speaker 1: because I'd played with him at schae Stadium in two

1723
01:29:42,479 --> 01:29:44,920
Speaker 1: thousand and three, and this was the last five shows

1724
01:29:44,960 --> 01:29:49,879
Speaker 1: at Giant Stadium. And uh, I go from my cubicle,

1725
01:29:50,160 --> 01:29:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, and near Time Square too, you know, in

1726
01:29:53,240 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 1: front of seventy thousand people going nuts. And I finished

1727
01:29:56,200 --> 01:29:58,400
Speaker 1: the song, left the stage and next time you here,

1728
01:29:58,439 --> 01:30:00,360
Speaker 1: they're going, well, he wants it back. He's going get well,

1729
01:30:00,520 --> 01:30:02,240
Speaker 1: I'll back up here. I go back up. We do

1730
01:30:02,320 --> 01:30:04,519
Speaker 1: two more songs and do you know how at the

1731
01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:07,439
Speaker 1: end this shows Bruce so the band will all go

1732
01:30:07,520 --> 01:30:09,120
Speaker 1: to the front of the stage. Well it was that

1733
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:11,080
Speaker 1: moment when they all went to the front of the stage,

1734
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:12,639
Speaker 1: you know, the very front. So I go, well, I'm

1735
01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:14,160
Speaker 1: going too, So I followed him at the front of

1736
01:30:14,200 --> 01:30:16,800
Speaker 1: the stage. I remember looking down. This woman's looking up, going,

1737
01:30:17,479 --> 01:30:19,920
Speaker 1: who the hell is that guy? I just looked at

1738
01:30:19,960 --> 01:30:23,360
Speaker 1: I went I looked like, I don't know, I'm just here,

1739
01:30:23,439 --> 01:30:27,000
Speaker 1: you know. And God bless him. Generosity is that spirit

1740
01:30:27,160 --> 01:30:31,400
Speaker 1: of He's got that spirit of loving the play, you know,

1741
01:30:32,080 --> 01:30:35,360
Speaker 1: loving the music. That makes a difference. Anyway, I forget

1742
01:30:35,400 --> 01:30:39,080
Speaker 1: where I started off on that tale. But how many years?

1743
01:30:39,600 --> 01:30:43,120
Speaker 1: How long did you work for Showtime? Twelve years? I

1744
01:30:43,200 --> 01:30:45,280
Speaker 1: worked at twelve years, and they were so good to me.

1745
01:30:45,760 --> 01:30:48,560
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I never minded going, you know, And

1746
01:30:49,439 --> 01:30:51,639
Speaker 1: because it was not hard work, I wasn't thinking ditches,

1747
01:30:52,200 --> 01:30:55,080
Speaker 1: you know. And I had I had. I had healthcare.

1748
01:30:55,920 --> 01:30:58,599
Speaker 1: My brother, my youngest brother, John, had a heart attack

1749
01:30:58,720 --> 01:31:01,240
Speaker 1: at fifty years old because he had no healthcare. For

1750
01:31:01,360 --> 01:31:05,040
Speaker 1: four years, he managed a club restaurant of our restaurant

1751
01:31:05,360 --> 01:31:07,240
Speaker 1: that went that he had that went under, and for

1752
01:31:07,320 --> 01:31:09,720
Speaker 1: four years he was doing the apartment fix ups. So

1753
01:31:09,800 --> 01:31:11,960
Speaker 1: I didn't go to a doctor. I asked a woman

1754
01:31:12,000 --> 01:31:14,240
Speaker 1: to do the autopsy. I found his body an apartment

1755
01:31:14,320 --> 01:31:16,439
Speaker 1: right next to mine. Then I have two days. I

1756
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:20,720
Speaker 1: found his body and it was just dreadful, and I

1757
01:31:20,760 --> 01:31:22,760
Speaker 1: asked a woman to do the autopsy. I said, hey,

1758
01:31:22,920 --> 01:31:24,559
Speaker 1: if he went to a doctor, she goes, oh, yeah,

1759
01:31:25,040 --> 01:31:27,360
Speaker 1: he'd still be here, you know. But he couldn't afford it.

1760
01:31:27,439 --> 01:31:31,080
Speaker 1: So Showtime I got. I had a regular salary, I

1761
01:31:31,120 --> 01:31:33,559
Speaker 1: could pay my bills, I had healthcare, and I could

1762
01:31:33,640 --> 01:31:36,479
Speaker 1: run my record label, make records, and Showtime was nice

1763
01:31:36,560 --> 01:31:39,320
Speaker 1: enough to let me get unpaid leave to go to

1764
01:31:39,400 --> 01:31:42,719
Speaker 1: Europe to tour two weeks here, two weeks there, until

1765
01:31:43,160 --> 01:31:45,559
Speaker 1: one time they said to me, a boss, Paul, I said,

1766
01:31:45,600 --> 01:31:48,439
Speaker 1: you know, we can't do that anymore. This people are saying, well,

1767
01:31:48,479 --> 01:31:49,960
Speaker 1: why can't If will he can do it, why can't

1768
01:31:49,960 --> 01:31:52,720
Speaker 1: I get unpaid leave? And I understand that, and so

1769
01:31:52,840 --> 01:31:54,200
Speaker 1: I really had to make a decision. It was a

1770
01:31:54,280 --> 01:31:56,960
Speaker 1: real fork in the road for me. Do I quit?

1771
01:31:57,520 --> 01:31:59,479
Speaker 1: You know, I was doing gigs? Do I really take

1772
01:31:59,520 --> 01:32:02,800
Speaker 1: that jump off the deep end? Well? The deep end

1773
01:32:02,880 --> 01:32:04,800
Speaker 1: must be my home. Because I took the leap. I figured,

1774
01:32:04,800 --> 01:32:06,559
Speaker 1: all right, I'm leaving this job and I'm gonna try

1775
01:32:06,560 --> 01:32:08,479
Speaker 1: to get gigs on my own and no book an agent,

1776
01:32:08,560 --> 01:32:14,720
Speaker 1: no manager, and buddy my always managing me. No, I

1777
01:32:14,760 --> 01:32:20,320
Speaker 1: think it stopped at that point. Anyway, I worked a

1778
01:32:20,360 --> 01:32:25,000
Speaker 1: show down twelve years and met Christina around that time,

1779
01:32:25,200 --> 01:32:29,960
Speaker 1: and then I've been making records and touring as much

1780
01:32:30,000 --> 01:32:33,560
Speaker 1: as I can since then. You know, Oh, okay, so

1781
01:32:33,760 --> 01:32:37,519
Speaker 1: let's start with that. How many gigs a year do

1782
01:32:37,680 --> 01:32:41,200
Speaker 1: you do? What are the economics? You have a band?

1783
01:32:41,360 --> 01:32:44,559
Speaker 1: How does this all work over there. It varies. Before COVID,

1784
01:32:45,240 --> 01:32:48,720
Speaker 1: I was doing maybe fifty sixty shows a year or

1785
01:32:48,760 --> 01:32:51,760
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, i didn't have a book

1786
01:32:51,760 --> 01:32:53,360
Speaker 1: an agent for a while, but I've had one for

1787
01:32:53,439 --> 01:32:57,719
Speaker 1: some years now. So sometimes i play solo, sometimes duo,

1788
01:32:58,280 --> 01:33:01,519
Speaker 1: sometimes full band, depends on my I'm getting paid, you know,

1789
01:33:01,760 --> 01:33:05,160
Speaker 1: and I've been blessed with a great great players who

1790
01:33:05,360 --> 01:33:08,880
Speaker 1: if you see the band play every single song, they

1791
01:33:08,960 --> 01:33:12,559
Speaker 1: give everything they got every night. Nobody phones it in like, yeah,

1792
01:33:12,960 --> 01:33:15,519
Speaker 1: pay me, none of that. They are passionate about it

1793
01:33:16,520 --> 01:33:22,120
Speaker 1: as as I'm i and economically I'm going to the

1794
01:33:22,280 --> 01:33:28,160
Speaker 1: UK for some shows in April. Four shows Edinburgh, Leicester,

1795
01:33:28,880 --> 01:33:31,240
Speaker 1: Chichester and London. We're playing one hundred Club. I'll played

1796
01:33:31,240 --> 01:33:33,880
Speaker 1: there before, The Who played there in the sixties, The

1797
01:33:34,000 --> 01:33:37,040
Speaker 1: Sex Pistols played there, a great venue. The great Johnny

1798
01:33:37,080 --> 01:33:38,760
Speaker 1: Walker is going to come to the show that night,

1799
01:33:38,840 --> 01:33:42,040
Speaker 1: you know, the great legendary DJ from the UK. And

1800
01:33:43,280 --> 01:33:45,120
Speaker 1: I was going to get a couple of guys from

1801
01:33:45,160 --> 01:33:47,880
Speaker 1: the two there's a guitar player, drummer. I'm taking my

1802
01:33:47,920 --> 01:33:51,240
Speaker 1: bass player. That was original plan. There's two guys would

1803
01:33:51,280 --> 01:33:56,479
Speaker 1: join us in Edinburgh and Joe Strummer's old drummer in

1804
01:33:57,160 --> 01:34:02,559
Speaker 1: the mescal Aros Smiley, Bernard Barnard and James Stevenson from

1805
01:34:02,640 --> 01:34:05,280
Speaker 1: The Alarm the Cult. We're going to join me in

1806
01:34:05,360 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 1: two of the gigs, and all of a sudden they

1807
01:34:07,280 --> 01:34:10,760
Speaker 1: couldn't do one of the gigs because they had to

1808
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:13,320
Speaker 1: rehearsal all day with the Alarm. And I wasn't bringing

1809
01:34:13,439 --> 01:34:16,080
Speaker 1: my band because it didn't pay for itself. You know,

1810
01:34:16,120 --> 01:34:20,480
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to bring them flights, pay band, pay hotels,

1811
01:34:21,600 --> 01:34:26,799
Speaker 1: van rental backline. So taking going to Europe having instruments

1812
01:34:26,960 --> 01:34:31,640
Speaker 1: or not instruments, but amplifiers, drums, and transportation. That adds up.

1813
01:34:32,120 --> 01:34:34,000
Speaker 1: If you were in a group, you could split it three,

1814
01:34:34,040 --> 01:34:36,960
Speaker 1: four ways, five ways. But when you're a solo artist,

1815
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:39,760
Speaker 1: you pay. You have to pay people. So I've done

1816
01:34:40,080 --> 01:34:42,840
Speaker 1: play tour with a Spanish band in Spain, and I'm

1817
01:34:42,840 --> 01:34:46,080
Speaker 1: gonna spands great players there in Italy. I got I'm

1818
01:34:46,120 --> 01:34:48,479
Speaker 1: doing dates in Italy the February duo show with a

1819
01:34:48,560 --> 01:34:51,479
Speaker 1: great blues guitarist. So it depends where I go, how

1820
01:34:51,560 --> 01:34:52,960
Speaker 1: much money is being paid, if I could take the

1821
01:34:53,000 --> 01:34:56,080
Speaker 1: full band or not. A great friend and fan has

1822
01:34:56,120 --> 01:34:57,880
Speaker 1: come up with some money to allow me now to

1823
01:34:58,000 --> 01:35:01,280
Speaker 1: bring my New York City band to the UK. So

1824
01:35:01,840 --> 01:35:05,679
Speaker 1: uh for three shows. Three of those four shows, I'll

1825
01:35:05,960 --> 01:35:08,000
Speaker 1: so in London. I'll have my guys, my New York

1826
01:35:08,040 --> 01:35:12,360
Speaker 1: City bad Boys. It's gonna be fun. So it varies, Bob,

1827
01:35:12,520 --> 01:35:15,439
Speaker 1: from from how much you're making but you can't afford.

1828
01:35:16,200 --> 01:35:19,160
Speaker 1: And I've been, I mean I've I've been. I've played

1829
01:35:19,520 --> 01:35:25,720
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, uh arenas, I've played dentist's office. I've

1830
01:35:25,760 --> 01:35:27,960
Speaker 1: played no Kid in south By, Southwest. It was a

1831
01:35:28,000 --> 01:35:31,640
Speaker 1: dentist's office. You know, this guy did gigs for He

1832
01:35:31,680 --> 01:35:34,240
Speaker 1: would do work for musicians who couldn't afford it. So

1833
01:35:34,360 --> 01:35:37,519
Speaker 1: they were doing a concert in his dentist office. We've

1834
01:35:37,560 --> 01:35:42,559
Speaker 1: done everything. We've played, closets, played, uh you know, arenas, whatever, it's,

1835
01:35:42,600 --> 01:35:44,880
Speaker 1: it's all of the above. And I find that pretty

1836
01:35:45,000 --> 01:35:48,679
Speaker 1: looking back fascinating. You know, it hasn't. It hasn't. There's

1837
01:35:48,720 --> 01:35:53,599
Speaker 1: no chip on my shoulder and hasn't knocked me down yet. Okay,

1838
01:35:54,280 --> 01:35:56,559
Speaker 1: So if you stop today, do you have any money?

1839
01:35:57,439 --> 01:36:00,479
Speaker 1: Not enough to live on? Nope, Nope, not no nest egg.

1840
01:36:00,520 --> 01:36:03,040
Speaker 1: It was doing all right before COVID hit. You know

1841
01:36:03,160 --> 01:36:07,800
Speaker 1: when Covid hit. There was a lot of gigs and

1842
01:36:07,920 --> 01:36:10,519
Speaker 1: I was doing all right, you know, starting to save money,

1843
01:36:10,960 --> 01:36:13,120
Speaker 1: you know, and but COVID came in. The gigs went

1844
01:36:13,320 --> 01:36:17,479
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty. After I had a gig

1845
01:36:17,560 --> 01:36:21,000
Speaker 1: with the band February twenty ninth, and then we had

1846
01:36:21,040 --> 01:36:24,120
Speaker 1: one gig the rest of the year. One gig. I

1847
01:36:24,240 --> 01:36:27,519
Speaker 1: did a series of online once a month online shows,

1848
01:36:28,160 --> 01:36:32,000
Speaker 1: you know, through veeps dot com, and they're fascinating. One

1849
01:36:32,040 --> 01:36:33,599
Speaker 1: of them we went, I went with my bass player

1850
01:36:33,760 --> 01:36:35,240
Speaker 1: on the streets of New York and we went to

1851
01:36:35,600 --> 01:36:38,639
Speaker 1: the Bowery Mission through a song we went to outside

1852
01:36:38,680 --> 01:36:42,120
Speaker 1: the the Dakota where John Lennon was murdered, you know,

1853
01:36:42,240 --> 01:36:44,559
Speaker 1: and just did songs around New York, told stories about

1854
01:36:44,600 --> 01:36:47,960
Speaker 1: the city. I had my band in Bowery Electric Great Club,

1855
01:36:48,120 --> 01:36:52,160
Speaker 1: in the Manhattan Punk Club, Jesse Mallen's Club. So I

1856
01:36:52,280 --> 01:36:56,599
Speaker 1: got through that year by doing online shows. Well after

1857
01:36:56,760 --> 01:37:00,000
Speaker 1: that year that people don't care about seeing online shows anymore,

1858
01:37:00,640 --> 01:37:04,160
Speaker 1: and there's gigs enough to survive. But it's the last year.

1859
01:37:04,200 --> 01:37:06,759
Speaker 1: It's been thinner, you know, it's been thin. So COVID

1860
01:37:06,800 --> 01:37:09,600
Speaker 1: has been thin, and this year we'll probably finished the

1861
01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:12,120
Speaker 1: movie this year. I've got gigs lined up, you know,

1862
01:37:12,320 --> 01:37:19,240
Speaker 1: different parts of North America and Italy, UK, you know, England, Scotland.

1863
01:37:20,200 --> 01:37:22,880
Speaker 1: So I'm working away. I'm a working musician, you know,

1864
01:37:23,040 --> 01:37:25,360
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful to be. You know, I never thought

1865
01:37:25,360 --> 01:37:28,720
Speaker 1: I would. I mean, the Kidney, I never dreamed. I

1866
01:37:28,960 --> 01:37:32,000
Speaker 1: never dreamed, you know, this kid in college writing poems

1867
01:37:32,040 --> 01:37:35,679
Speaker 1: in a library, that I would be, you know, standing

1868
01:37:35,720 --> 01:37:37,960
Speaker 1: on a giant statium with Bruce Briegstein, that I would be,

1869
01:37:38,439 --> 01:37:41,160
Speaker 1: you know, playing with Lucin to Williams, you know, Richard

1870
01:37:41,200 --> 01:37:43,720
Speaker 1: Thompson singing. The last time I opened for Richard. He's

1871
01:37:43,760 --> 01:37:45,280
Speaker 1: a dear guy. And I said, he said, what do

1872
01:37:45,320 --> 01:37:46,720
Speaker 1: you want to do for a cover? Let's do the

1873
01:37:46,840 --> 01:37:49,479
Speaker 1: last time by the Stones listen to what do you

1874
01:37:49,479 --> 01:37:50,800
Speaker 1: want to do for a cover? I go, let's do.

1875
01:37:50,840 --> 01:37:52,960
Speaker 1: I want to be sedated? So lousten to this, this

1876
01:37:53,080 --> 01:37:54,720
Speaker 1: great show, and I got to do it. I want

1877
01:37:54,760 --> 01:37:59,120
Speaker 1: to be sedated. That's fun. And so it has up

1878
01:37:59,120 --> 01:38:01,719
Speaker 1: been hard? Hell yeah, oh my god. Would I advise

1879
01:38:01,760 --> 01:38:05,120
Speaker 1: anybody else to do it? No? But having been through

1880
01:38:05,200 --> 01:38:09,320
Speaker 1: it and survived it so far, you know, and I

1881
01:38:09,479 --> 01:38:13,200
Speaker 1: must say it tastes sweet. I got to places I

1882
01:38:13,320 --> 01:38:16,880
Speaker 1: never thought I would get ever never. I mean, my god,

1883
01:38:16,880 --> 01:38:19,320
Speaker 1: I mean the who I played with, the who I

1884
01:38:19,400 --> 01:38:24,360
Speaker 1: played with, Springsteen, Ringo start two. I put an EP out.

1885
01:38:24,960 --> 01:38:27,320
Speaker 1: I get a phone call. I met Ringo on Friday night.

1886
01:38:28,200 --> 01:38:30,519
Speaker 1: Somebody I was just a friend of sometimes took me there.

1887
01:38:30,520 --> 01:38:32,680
Speaker 1: I shook his hand at Radio City. I get a

1888
01:38:32,720 --> 01:38:35,439
Speaker 1: call the next day the person opening up and Monday

1889
01:38:35,520 --> 01:38:37,400
Speaker 1: night at Jones Beach is sick. Can you and your

1890
01:38:37,439 --> 01:38:41,599
Speaker 1: band play the show? And we did and it was amazing.

1891
01:38:42,160 --> 01:38:44,719
Speaker 1: I'm backstage. Check it out. You asked me about the Beatles.

1892
01:38:45,320 --> 01:38:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm a beatle freak. Love the Beatles, love the Stones.

1893
01:38:48,840 --> 01:38:52,840
Speaker 1: So Ringo star. So we get Monday, a June hot night,

1894
01:38:52,920 --> 01:38:55,360
Speaker 1: Jones Beach, outside of New York City on Long Island.

1895
01:38:56,000 --> 01:38:58,719
Speaker 1: We get there and me and the guys are standing

1896
01:38:58,800 --> 01:39:02,679
Speaker 1: back behind the stage, and incomes this bus was Ringo,

1897
01:39:03,000 --> 01:39:08,599
Speaker 1: Dave Edmunds, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmidt, Zack's Darky Um,

1898
01:39:09,160 --> 01:39:15,560
Speaker 1: Dave Edmonds, Uh, Todd what's his name? Todd Rundgren. I

1899
01:39:15,680 --> 01:39:20,080
Speaker 1: mean it was a pretty pretty rocking band. And Um

1900
01:39:20,960 --> 01:39:23,479
Speaker 1: Ringo walcome back stage, sees me, comes right over to

1901
01:39:23,600 --> 01:39:26,880
Speaker 1: us and I mean old school too. Here's two great stories.

1902
01:39:26,960 --> 01:39:30,280
Speaker 1: Ringo comes over to me, Are you willie? Then I'll

1903
01:39:30,280 --> 01:39:32,479
Speaker 1: go yeah. He goes, thank you for doing it. We're

1904
01:39:32,479 --> 01:39:34,720
Speaker 1: happy to have you. You know. He looks, right, are

1905
01:39:34,720 --> 01:39:37,360
Speaker 1: these the lads? Then? You know we were all just dying,

1906
01:39:37,600 --> 01:39:40,640
Speaker 1: you know? So he goes, so we're sound checking. He

1907
01:39:40,800 --> 01:39:44,080
Speaker 1: walks on stage standing like right, you know, ten feet

1908
01:39:44,280 --> 01:39:47,080
Speaker 1: looking like what's what's He cared about what the audience

1909
01:39:47,160 --> 01:39:50,880
Speaker 1: was gonna hear. And so my bass player wasn't there,

1910
01:39:51,160 --> 01:39:54,000
Speaker 1: so I had my roadie who didn't play bass. Anyway,

1911
01:39:54,240 --> 01:39:56,639
Speaker 1: he probably goes, we'll see we did great. We rocked

1912
01:39:56,680 --> 01:39:59,000
Speaker 1: at night, and they said they want us to do

1913
01:39:59,040 --> 01:40:01,639
Speaker 1: another half a dozen show. So these are like out

1914
01:40:01,720 --> 01:40:06,599
Speaker 1: indoor outdoors, six twenty thousand and sixteen thousand capacity places

1915
01:40:07,360 --> 01:40:09,760
Speaker 1: and it's it's Ringo for crying out loud. And so

1916
01:40:09,920 --> 01:40:12,320
Speaker 1: the last night of the tour, and this just goes

1917
01:40:12,360 --> 01:40:15,519
Speaker 1: to show you this is old school. I went out there,

1918
01:40:15,720 --> 01:40:18,680
Speaker 1: did my half an hour set, you know, twenty two

1919
01:40:18,720 --> 01:40:22,759
Speaker 1: thousand people what twenty thousand, and ring goes up planning.

1920
01:40:22,960 --> 01:40:25,439
Speaker 1: I saw him before I went downstairs. Two of my

1921
01:40:25,520 --> 01:40:27,680
Speaker 1: kids were there, and I said, Ring you know. I

1922
01:40:27,720 --> 01:40:32,080
Speaker 1: got a couple of photographs with Ringo and he's on stage.

1923
01:40:32,240 --> 01:40:35,160
Speaker 1: He finishes a set with photograph. But all I've got

1924
01:40:35,640 --> 01:40:38,880
Speaker 1: is a photograph, and I really, you know, I'm tears

1925
01:40:38,920 --> 01:40:43,040
Speaker 1: of my eyes. He comes off before the encores and

1926
01:40:43,120 --> 01:40:45,760
Speaker 1: he sees me, and I'm about thirty feet away. I'm

1927
01:40:45,800 --> 01:40:48,760
Speaker 1: not near him. Does a bee line, walks right over

1928
01:40:48,840 --> 01:40:51,880
Speaker 1: to me. He shakes my hand, he goes he's thank you, Willie,

1929
01:40:52,240 --> 01:40:54,240
Speaker 1: big hug. He says, I want to thank you did

1930
01:40:54,280 --> 01:40:56,559
Speaker 1: a great job. I want to thank you. He hugged.

1931
01:40:56,560 --> 01:40:58,240
Speaker 1: I get a big hug, and he's all wet and

1932
01:40:58,280 --> 01:41:01,800
Speaker 1: I'm thinking beetles sweat. I'm covered in beetles web sweat.

1933
01:41:01,840 --> 01:41:04,240
Speaker 1: I'm not washing it for another of a month. And

1934
01:41:04,439 --> 01:41:05,920
Speaker 1: he says, do you want to you want to come

1935
01:41:05,960 --> 01:41:07,639
Speaker 1: and sing? I get by with the help of my friends.

1936
01:41:07,840 --> 01:41:11,120
Speaker 1: This all happened, Bob. I'm telling you this happened. I mean,

1937
01:41:11,360 --> 01:41:13,479
Speaker 1: I must be still dreaming. So wake me up. When no,

1938
01:41:13,760 --> 01:41:16,760
Speaker 1: don't wake me. So I go. Let me get my coat.

1939
01:41:16,840 --> 01:41:19,519
Speaker 1: So I run backstage get some ridiculous polka dot jacket

1940
01:41:19,560 --> 01:41:22,040
Speaker 1: that I was wearing. I walk on stage and Rick

1941
01:41:22,160 --> 01:41:26,240
Speaker 1: Danko's on stage, who's Rick was a friend? And Ricos Willie,

1942
01:41:26,280 --> 01:41:28,439
Speaker 1: how are you nice? You know? And I'm on mike

1943
01:41:28,520 --> 01:41:31,400
Speaker 1: with Nils Lofgren again like I had been with Bruce,

1944
01:41:32,080 --> 01:41:34,200
Speaker 1: and Ringo goes and you all know who this is

1945
01:41:34,280 --> 01:41:37,280
Speaker 1: and he gives me one of these hand gestures alluding

1946
01:41:37,320 --> 01:41:39,599
Speaker 1: to me, and we sang. I get by with little

1947
01:41:39,640 --> 01:41:43,120
Speaker 1: help from my friends, which was really bitter sweet for

1948
01:41:43,200 --> 01:41:47,120
Speaker 1: me because this was nineteen ninety two and in nineteen

1949
01:41:47,200 --> 01:41:49,960
Speaker 1: eighty I was making my second album for arist at

1950
01:41:49,960 --> 01:41:53,559
Speaker 1: the Record Plant. Started the album on December fifth. John

1951
01:41:53,640 --> 01:41:55,920
Speaker 1: Lennon and Yoko were. I was in Studio B and

1952
01:41:55,960 --> 01:41:58,280
Speaker 1: they were in the mix room upstairs doing Walking up

1953
01:41:58,280 --> 01:42:03,960
Speaker 1: Walking on thin Ice and on a Sunday night. We

1954
01:42:04,080 --> 01:42:07,120
Speaker 1: started on a Friday and Tom Ponenzio, my co producer,

1955
01:42:07,280 --> 01:42:09,040
Speaker 1: new John, and he said, when do you want to

1956
01:42:09,040 --> 01:42:11,960
Speaker 1: meet John? I said, well, let's you know, Monday was

1957
01:42:12,000 --> 01:42:14,240
Speaker 1: being spent fast, so I said, let's let's do a

1958
01:42:14,360 --> 01:42:16,120
Speaker 1: couple of days and maybe you have some tracks and

1959
01:42:16,400 --> 01:42:18,360
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe playing something, or let's let's get some

1960
01:42:18,439 --> 01:42:22,720
Speaker 1: work done first Tuesday night. I'll meet him Tuesday. So

1961
01:42:23,200 --> 01:42:27,519
Speaker 1: we record Friday night Saturday, Sunday night. It's midnight. Phone

1962
01:42:27,600 --> 01:42:33,120
Speaker 1: rings and it's John Lennon's engineer, and he said, John's

1963
01:42:33,120 --> 01:42:36,000
Speaker 1: out of strings. Does any you have any guitar strings?

1964
01:42:36,160 --> 01:42:40,280
Speaker 1: He's tell him my tomponenzio and we go, yeah, we

1965
01:42:40,400 --> 01:42:42,599
Speaker 1: got strings. So I got some strings, my lead guitar

1966
01:42:42,680 --> 01:42:44,600
Speaker 1: games and strings. And I was going to put a

1967
01:42:44,680 --> 01:42:47,439
Speaker 1: note to John thanks for the music. I love you.

1968
01:42:47,880 --> 01:42:49,880
Speaker 1: That's too corny. Just send him up. I'll tell him

1969
01:42:49,880 --> 01:42:51,760
Speaker 1: when I see him. And this is Sunday night. When

1970
01:42:51,800 --> 01:42:54,240
Speaker 1: I see him Tuesday. So we come in the studio

1971
01:42:54,320 --> 01:42:58,360
Speaker 1: Monday to work, which is December eighth, nineteen eighty, and

1972
01:42:58,880 --> 01:43:02,560
Speaker 1: we started a fourth third and we were recording a

1973
01:43:02,600 --> 01:43:04,840
Speaker 1: song called I Can't Get You Off of My Mind.

1974
01:43:05,200 --> 01:43:08,000
Speaker 1: And I'm playing the piano that John played often in

1975
01:43:08,080 --> 01:43:14,679
Speaker 1: the record plant. And seven thirty John came in with Joko.

1976
01:43:14,760 --> 01:43:19,160
Speaker 1: I didn't see him. We didn't know anyway. Ten twenty

1977
01:43:19,200 --> 01:43:22,519
Speaker 1: the phone, right PM, the phone rings. Tom Panunzo answers

1978
01:43:22,520 --> 01:43:24,599
Speaker 1: the phone. Tom's a great guy. I love him to death,

1979
01:43:25,439 --> 01:43:27,080
Speaker 1: and he goes, all right, I'll be right out, hangs

1980
01:43:27,120 --> 01:43:29,080
Speaker 1: up and he says I'll be right back. We were

1981
01:43:29,120 --> 01:43:31,479
Speaker 1: all listening to a playback because we did a couple

1982
01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:34,880
Speaker 1: of takes. We were listening back making tweaks talking about

1983
01:43:34,920 --> 01:43:37,680
Speaker 1: the arrangement. Tom leaves he didn't say that he was

1984
01:43:37,760 --> 01:43:39,680
Speaker 1: going out to meet John by the elevator to get

1985
01:43:39,680 --> 01:43:42,439
Speaker 1: an autograph for whoever, the guy that gave him the strings,

1986
01:43:42,520 --> 01:43:45,600
Speaker 1: Tom Panuz, who had a buddy in Jersey, Ken was

1987
01:43:45,680 --> 01:43:47,760
Speaker 1: his first name, who had bugging him all week to

1988
01:43:47,800 --> 01:43:51,400
Speaker 1: get an autograph from John. And so Tom figured, well,

1989
01:43:51,760 --> 01:43:53,920
Speaker 1: Tom knew John, he'd worked with them before, you know,

1990
01:43:54,000 --> 01:43:56,640
Speaker 1: they were friends, and so he called and says, Hey,

1991
01:43:56,760 --> 01:43:58,720
Speaker 1: the guy who gave you the strings, whose name is Ken,

1992
01:43:59,200 --> 01:44:01,200
Speaker 1: last night, would to get an autograph of John? Could

1993
01:44:01,240 --> 01:44:04,280
Speaker 1: John give an autograph? So the phone call was the engineer,

1994
01:44:04,360 --> 01:44:06,960
Speaker 1: Saint John's coming down in five minutes. He'll give you

1995
01:44:07,000 --> 01:44:10,160
Speaker 1: the autograph. Then, so Tom goes out to meet him.

1996
01:44:10,160 --> 01:44:11,639
Speaker 1: He didn't tell us because we would have all wanted

1997
01:44:11,680 --> 01:44:13,960
Speaker 1: to go out to the elevator. He goes out to

1998
01:44:14,000 --> 01:44:17,160
Speaker 1: the elevator, sees John a big hug. John signs an

1999
01:44:17,160 --> 01:44:22,719
Speaker 1: autograph and says, to Ken, who strung me along? Love piece,

2000
01:44:23,120 --> 01:44:26,080
Speaker 1: piece and love John. John Lennon drew a picture of

2001
01:44:26,120 --> 01:44:29,920
Speaker 1: his face and Tom. He walked out into it to

2002
01:44:29,960 --> 01:44:33,240
Speaker 1: his car, and five minutes later he was murdered. The

2003
01:44:33,360 --> 01:44:35,920
Speaker 1: last autograph, the last thing he played was on guitar

2004
01:44:36,000 --> 01:44:38,759
Speaker 1: strung strings that we sent up, and all last autograph

2005
01:44:38,920 --> 01:44:41,400
Speaker 1: was to the guy who's sent up the strings. And

2006
01:44:42,000 --> 01:44:44,920
Speaker 1: we get a phone call and Tom comes walking back

2007
01:44:44,960 --> 01:44:48,600
Speaker 1: in the studio fifteen minutes after he walked out, and

2008
01:44:48,760 --> 01:44:51,880
Speaker 1: he's goes, somebody just shot John. And the band and

2009
01:44:51,960 --> 01:44:53,800
Speaker 1: I were listening to a playback and I said, John,

2010
01:44:53,880 --> 01:44:55,920
Speaker 1: John who, Because you know, I didn't know what that

2011
01:44:56,000 --> 01:44:58,160
Speaker 1: meant is John Lennon? I go, what what do he

2012
01:44:58,200 --> 01:44:59,760
Speaker 1: means somebody? And I thought, well, maybe he got shot

2013
01:44:59,800 --> 01:45:03,080
Speaker 1: in the and you know, and sure enough the phone

2014
01:45:03,120 --> 01:45:07,639
Speaker 1: rings front desk and David Geffen and he said, John

2015
01:45:07,720 --> 01:45:09,679
Speaker 1: Lennon's all right. I just got a call from Yoko's

2016
01:45:09,840 --> 01:45:12,000
Speaker 1: best friend who said John's on his way to the hospital.

2017
01:45:12,920 --> 01:45:15,200
Speaker 1: And now no he left ten minutes ago or whatever,

2018
01:45:15,560 --> 01:45:17,200
Speaker 1: you know. In the phone running off the hook, we

2019
01:45:17,240 --> 01:45:20,439
Speaker 1: couldn't record. You know, I heard my dear drummer J

2020
01:45:20,560 --> 01:45:23,160
Speaker 1: D Dorry. I heard crying in a corner behind the doors,

2021
01:45:23,240 --> 01:45:26,120
Speaker 1: crying his eyes out. You know, I'll cry, I I

2022
01:45:26,200 --> 01:45:29,160
Speaker 1: gotta stop first, I cry thinking about it. So we

2023
01:45:29,240 --> 01:45:31,600
Speaker 1: went we went out to the bar and went to

2024
01:45:31,640 --> 01:45:34,400
Speaker 1: a bar and we drank the night away. And the

2025
01:45:34,560 --> 01:45:39,360
Speaker 1: next day we'll get to the studio and the record

2026
01:45:39,400 --> 01:45:43,200
Speaker 1: Plan had hired uh a bodyguard for John when he

2027
01:45:43,240 --> 01:45:47,519
Speaker 1: was there. His name was Bobby, six feet six, three

2028
01:45:47,640 --> 01:45:51,280
Speaker 1: hundred pounds, big guy, very nice guy. I would I'm

2029
01:45:51,320 --> 01:45:53,439
Speaker 1: a little guy, and I would like challenge him to

2030
01:45:53,439 --> 01:45:55,639
Speaker 1: a fight, you know, just clown around. We were friends

2031
01:45:56,280 --> 01:45:59,920
Speaker 1: even just after a few days, and he was broke

2032
01:46:00,040 --> 01:46:04,200
Speaker 1: and hearted. He said what happened was that they had

2033
01:46:04,240 --> 01:46:08,080
Speaker 1: just mixed Walking on Thin Ice. He said, John was

2034
01:46:08,120 --> 01:46:11,640
Speaker 1: in the greatest mood. I mean, I choked up. You've

2035
01:46:11,640 --> 01:46:14,160
Speaker 1: been thinking about this, but he said, John was in

2036
01:46:14,240 --> 01:46:17,320
Speaker 1: the greatest mood. You said, they just mixed a song

2037
01:46:17,360 --> 01:46:18,559
Speaker 1: him that he thought was going to be a hit

2038
01:46:18,600 --> 01:46:21,320
Speaker 1: for Yoko Walking on Thin Ice. And if you listen

2039
01:46:21,360 --> 01:46:23,559
Speaker 1: to the guitar plan on that it's the most searing,

2040
01:46:24,560 --> 01:46:29,240
Speaker 1: gut ripping guitar and Double Fantasy was number one. The

2041
01:46:29,320 --> 01:46:32,120
Speaker 1: press were finally given us and John was getting some

2042
01:46:32,240 --> 01:46:35,280
Speaker 1: respect from the press. He was in great spirits, so

2043
01:46:35,360 --> 01:46:38,559
Speaker 1: he says to Bobby, Bobby told us the next day, Hey, Bobby,

2044
01:46:39,240 --> 01:46:41,719
Speaker 1: let's he put his arm around him. No, he said, Bobby,

2045
01:46:41,760 --> 01:46:44,840
Speaker 1: let's go to dinner and celebrate, you know. And Bobby said,

2046
01:46:44,880 --> 01:46:46,960
Speaker 1: I'm sick to my stomach. So John put his arm

2047
01:46:47,000 --> 01:46:48,719
Speaker 1: around him and says, oh, you go home. Don't worry,

2048
01:46:48,960 --> 01:46:52,120
Speaker 1: you go home. We'll go celebrate another night. So instead

2049
01:46:52,160 --> 01:46:54,360
Speaker 1: of an agat came downstairs, John got in the car,

2050
01:46:55,200 --> 01:47:00,439
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, signed the autograph Componenzio down stairs on

2051
01:47:00,479 --> 01:47:03,320
Speaker 1: the main floor, walked out in the car, went home,

2052
01:47:04,240 --> 01:47:08,439
Speaker 1: got shot, and had he not been sick, they had

2053
01:47:08,479 --> 01:47:11,160
Speaker 1: gone to dinner, the car would have taken them to

2054
01:47:11,640 --> 01:47:13,880
Speaker 1: the Dakota where Bobby would have gotten out of the

2055
01:47:13,880 --> 01:47:16,920
Speaker 1: car with John. Who knows it's it's moot now, but

2056
01:47:17,080 --> 01:47:20,040
Speaker 1: that happened. So it's yeah, it makes me choke up.

2057
01:47:20,120 --> 01:47:24,640
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, if John Lennon was alive, could you imagine? No?

2058
01:47:24,800 --> 01:47:28,479
Speaker 1: I can't. But just stopping for one second, you're are

2059
01:47:28,560 --> 01:47:34,599
Speaker 1: you died? Intelligent, very verbal person. How come you don't

2060
01:47:34,680 --> 01:47:37,040
Speaker 1: do a one man show where you tell all these

2061
01:47:37,160 --> 01:47:42,719
Speaker 1: stories starting off Broadway? Well, you know what I'm thinking.

2062
01:47:44,080 --> 01:47:46,920
Speaker 1: There's this documentary and I've seen a bit of it.

2063
01:47:47,720 --> 01:47:50,200
Speaker 1: It could be good. I mean, it could be good.

2064
01:47:50,439 --> 01:47:53,160
Speaker 1: There's a lot of well long people in it. But

2065
01:47:53,280 --> 01:47:55,720
Speaker 1: that's not enough. You know, you know what my dad

2066
01:47:55,800 --> 01:47:58,960
Speaker 1: steals and shot my father. Isn't it us talking telling?

2067
01:47:59,080 --> 01:48:02,280
Speaker 1: He's telling stories. We're going to finish it this year,

2068
01:48:03,000 --> 01:48:05,680
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that that can make enough noise. You

2069
01:48:05,800 --> 01:48:11,439
Speaker 1: know where you can raise you know, uh, raise the

2070
01:48:11,600 --> 01:48:13,840
Speaker 1: level of the kind of places I can play, raise interest,

2071
01:48:14,640 --> 01:48:17,640
Speaker 1: you know, let me sell a catalog or whatever. And

2072
01:48:18,040 --> 01:48:19,560
Speaker 1: but that's an idea. I didn't think about that. I

2073
01:48:19,600 --> 01:48:21,040
Speaker 1: don't know if I could do that night after night.

2074
01:48:21,120 --> 01:48:23,719
Speaker 1: I don't think the same I do. I do solo

2075
01:48:23,800 --> 01:48:26,439
Speaker 1: shows more often now. You know, it's like Springsteen. It's

2076
01:48:26,479 --> 01:48:29,560
Speaker 1: not exactly the same every night. You don't have to

2077
01:48:29,640 --> 01:48:33,280
Speaker 1: tell the exactly the same stories. But you know, you're

2078
01:48:33,400 --> 01:48:37,280
Speaker 1: you're there. You talk about Buffalo, and you strum a

2079
01:48:37,360 --> 01:48:41,760
Speaker 1: few of the songs that you that you heard growing up.

2080
01:48:41,880 --> 01:48:44,479
Speaker 1: You do a little satisfaction, do a little last time

2081
01:48:45,080 --> 01:48:48,800
Speaker 1: you tell your stories. I could listen to you talk

2082
01:48:48,880 --> 01:48:53,120
Speaker 1: all night. Oh well, you know, seriously, a lot of

2083
01:48:53,200 --> 01:48:57,040
Speaker 1: people are boring or do self congratulatory. I mean, you've survived,

2084
01:48:57,600 --> 01:49:00,560
Speaker 1: I've really struggled myself. I know what this struggle is.

2085
01:49:01,080 --> 01:49:03,920
Speaker 1: My ex wife left while I was struggling too. I mean,

2086
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:08,040
Speaker 1: you know that was a big part. There's no fucking money. Yeah,

2087
01:49:08,400 --> 01:49:13,000
Speaker 1: you know, most people give up. Everybody told you to

2088
01:49:13,040 --> 01:49:15,960
Speaker 1: give up. That's the weirdest thing. I'm too done to

2089
01:49:16,040 --> 01:49:18,959
Speaker 1: know better to give up, right, you know, it's basically

2090
01:49:19,040 --> 01:49:24,839
Speaker 1: an inner strength. So you know, you have all this stuff,

2091
01:49:25,080 --> 01:49:27,799
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe just rejuggle it into a different form,

2092
01:49:28,439 --> 01:49:31,760
Speaker 1: and I think it would be a success. Listen, you

2093
01:49:31,920 --> 01:49:36,000
Speaker 1: started in one of those hotels like Robuster Point extra plays,

2094
01:49:36,439 --> 01:49:38,600
Speaker 1: you get a review, you do it. Maybe you do

2095
01:49:38,680 --> 01:49:41,479
Speaker 1: it once a week for you know, six months. I

2096
01:49:41,560 --> 01:49:43,400
Speaker 1: think the word of mouth and the reviews would be

2097
01:49:43,479 --> 01:49:46,639
Speaker 1: it would start to take off. I really do That's interesting.

2098
01:49:46,920 --> 01:49:48,960
Speaker 1: I like that idea. That's actually I'm going to think

2099
01:49:49,000 --> 01:49:51,640
Speaker 1: about that because I like to play up at a

2100
01:49:51,680 --> 01:49:54,560
Speaker 1: piano that main instrument. I could play the piano for

2101
01:49:55,080 --> 01:49:58,120
Speaker 1: two hours. I played the guitar. The stories to tell

2102
01:49:59,120 --> 01:50:02,880
Speaker 1: I've done thing and seeing things, you know, whether it's

2103
01:50:02,920 --> 01:50:05,639
Speaker 1: walking to CBGB's on a summer night, seeing a guy

2104
01:50:05,760 --> 01:50:09,639
Speaker 1: on Mulberry and bleaker, homeless guy with his head actually

2105
01:50:09,760 --> 01:50:14,560
Speaker 1: on a concrete cinder block as a pillow, and that

2106
01:50:14,680 --> 01:50:16,800
Speaker 1: inspired the song Old Men Sleeping on the Bowery on

2107
01:50:16,920 --> 01:50:21,040
Speaker 1: my first record, I've seen that. I've seen you Chase Stadium.

2108
01:50:21,080 --> 01:50:25,000
Speaker 1: I sung with Little Stephen on Mike singing Twist and

2109
01:50:25,080 --> 01:50:27,880
Speaker 1: Shout where the Beatles sang it. You know. I've been

2110
01:50:27,880 --> 01:50:30,040
Speaker 1: on Mike at one of Bruce's Christmas shows with Sam

2111
01:50:30,160 --> 01:50:33,880
Speaker 1: Moore singing Santa Claus is coming to town. I mean,

2112
01:50:34,600 --> 01:50:36,920
Speaker 1: I must be still dreaming from an lst trip in

2113
01:50:36,960 --> 01:50:39,000
Speaker 1: the sixties and I just haven't woken up yet, because

2114
01:50:39,040 --> 01:50:41,880
Speaker 1: you can't make that stuff up. But I like your idea.

2115
01:50:41,920 --> 01:50:43,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to give some thought to that, because I

2116
01:50:43,720 --> 01:50:46,639
Speaker 1: love telling stories. You know. I'm not full of myself.

2117
01:50:46,720 --> 01:50:49,320
Speaker 1: I love the journey, you know, and I've survived it.

2118
01:50:49,800 --> 01:50:54,000
Speaker 1: I'm stronger because of it. How about that? How about that? Absolutely,

2119
01:50:54,080 --> 01:50:57,519
Speaker 1: you survived that stuff. Absolutely I have a better person

2120
01:50:58,560 --> 01:51:02,720
Speaker 1: having been through these things. And I'm too either too

2121
01:51:02,800 --> 01:51:04,920
Speaker 1: dumb to know any better, or there's some serious spit

2122
01:51:05,000 --> 01:51:06,840
Speaker 1: and grit in my bones. But I want to say

2123
01:51:06,880 --> 01:51:09,960
Speaker 1: one thing. I think that my divorce was triggered by

2124
01:51:10,600 --> 01:51:12,960
Speaker 1: not by the hardships didn't help, but she had some

2125
01:51:13,040 --> 01:51:14,960
Speaker 1: medical issues and thought she was on the way out

2126
01:51:15,400 --> 01:51:18,320
Speaker 1: and had they called fight and flight, and just thought

2127
01:51:18,320 --> 01:51:20,760
Speaker 1: she was going to die. And you know, she's a doll.

2128
01:51:20,840 --> 01:51:23,559
Speaker 1: But she hung in longer than I thought anybody ever would.

2129
01:51:24,360 --> 01:51:27,720
Speaker 1: So there was a struggle. Sometimes it's worth it, and

2130
01:51:28,360 --> 01:51:30,200
Speaker 1: I wouldn't if I had to do it again, would

2131
01:51:30,200 --> 01:51:33,080
Speaker 1: I go through? You know how many years? I moved

2132
01:51:33,120 --> 01:51:35,680
Speaker 1: in seventy two to New York, signed a record deal

2133
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:39,040
Speaker 1: in seventy eight, record out in eighty eighty one, walked

2134
01:51:39,040 --> 01:51:42,200
Speaker 1: away from the business like an idiot, you know, and

2135
01:51:42,680 --> 01:51:44,960
Speaker 1: put a record, got signed to Columbia Records, put a

2136
01:51:45,040 --> 01:51:48,960
Speaker 1: record out in ninety one, Wrong Time, Wrong place, put

2137
01:51:49,000 --> 01:51:51,719
Speaker 1: an EP out the next year. Another few years with nothing,

2138
01:51:52,120 --> 01:51:53,920
Speaker 1: and then a buddy of mine convinced me, you should

2139
01:51:53,960 --> 01:51:56,000
Speaker 1: make your own put it on your own record. People

2140
01:51:56,000 --> 01:51:58,080
Speaker 1: are starting to do on your own label. People are

2141
01:51:58,120 --> 01:52:00,960
Speaker 1: starting to do that. So I ray some money, borrowed

2142
01:52:01,040 --> 01:52:04,280
Speaker 1: some money from a friend, made beautiful Record of the World,

2143
01:52:04,800 --> 01:52:08,439
Speaker 1: paid him back, you know, And I've been making records

2144
01:52:08,479 --> 01:52:10,880
Speaker 1: on that little label ever since, you know, and it's

2145
01:52:10,960 --> 01:52:15,519
Speaker 1: kept me afloat, and I'm I've got stories to tell.

2146
01:52:15,600 --> 01:52:18,439
Speaker 1: That's for sure. And you know, my dad has a

2147
01:52:18,479 --> 01:52:21,280
Speaker 1: real gift of storytelling, you know. And and the movie

2148
01:52:21,280 --> 01:52:24,080
Speaker 1: you'll see some of it. It's like, I mean, I

2149
01:52:24,360 --> 01:52:27,240
Speaker 1: didn't even more to begin. I was kicked by a chicken.

2150
01:52:27,400 --> 01:52:31,280
Speaker 1: That guy, he's something else. How is your health? I'm

2151
01:52:31,360 --> 01:52:34,280
Speaker 1: knocking on wood. You know, I've been really lucky because

2152
01:52:34,320 --> 01:52:37,479
Speaker 1: like when the seventy fifth birthday business this summer, it's like,

2153
01:52:38,520 --> 01:52:40,920
Speaker 1: I don't feel my age. I don't feel seventy five.

2154
01:52:41,200 --> 01:52:43,640
Speaker 1: You know. I've been very lucky. You know. I had

2155
01:52:43,680 --> 01:52:47,960
Speaker 1: some melanoma on my face like about fourteen years ago,

2156
01:52:48,080 --> 01:52:50,719
Speaker 1: so I go checked my skin checked everybody's six months

2157
01:52:51,479 --> 01:52:54,800
Speaker 1: but buying large. I've been lucky, you know. And you

2158
01:52:54,880 --> 01:52:57,400
Speaker 1: know I've never had problems with drugs. I like whine

2159
01:52:57,439 --> 01:53:00,479
Speaker 1: with my dinner, you know, but I've never I managed

2160
01:53:00,520 --> 01:53:04,040
Speaker 1: to stay afloat from being sidetracked by that's that nonsense,

2161
01:53:04,400 --> 01:53:09,000
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm small enough and close enough to

2162
01:53:09,080 --> 01:53:12,960
Speaker 1: the ground, and I was always pretty well. I was

2163
01:53:13,160 --> 01:53:16,560
Speaker 1: always an athlete, you know. So I feel fit. I

2164
01:53:16,760 --> 01:53:19,559
Speaker 1: feel still I'm still sharp, you know, well you could

2165
01:53:19,600 --> 01:53:22,960
Speaker 1: call it sharp, but I still feel like I'm engaged,

2166
01:53:23,640 --> 01:53:28,960
Speaker 1: way engaged to life. And I write these songs because

2167
01:53:29,000 --> 01:53:31,639
Speaker 1: they inspire me. They made me I can make sense

2168
01:53:31,680 --> 01:53:33,320
Speaker 1: out of something. I put a record out in a

2169
01:53:33,400 --> 01:53:37,360
Speaker 1: fall called Wake Up America Steve Earle to do it

2170
01:53:37,439 --> 01:53:40,880
Speaker 1: with Steve. You know, I wrote it just I follow

2171
01:53:40,920 --> 01:53:43,960
Speaker 1: the news really closely and I care about the world,

2172
01:53:44,400 --> 01:53:46,320
Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's like what a place, my God,

2173
01:53:47,320 --> 01:53:50,080
Speaker 1: And there's the good, the bad, and the ugly, and

2174
01:53:51,960 --> 01:53:54,479
Speaker 1: my songs inspire me when I plan with the band.

2175
01:53:55,439 --> 01:53:58,439
Speaker 1: I gave a show in nineteen ninety one and Providence,

2176
01:53:58,520 --> 01:54:01,720
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, and it's big, huge hall. That capacity was

2177
01:54:01,760 --> 01:54:06,000
Speaker 1: twelve hundred. There were twelve people. I'm on Columbia Records.

2178
01:54:06,040 --> 01:54:08,760
Speaker 1: There's twelve people. I invited them all on stage at

2179
01:54:08,760 --> 01:54:10,800
Speaker 1: the end of It's the same with us. Hey, so

2180
01:54:10,920 --> 01:54:13,160
Speaker 1: I've seen the good, bad and ugly, and I must

2181
01:54:13,200 --> 01:54:16,280
Speaker 1: say the song's inspire me. And when I play, and

2182
01:54:16,400 --> 01:54:19,720
Speaker 1: you could see it on my band, they're inspired. And

2183
01:54:19,840 --> 01:54:22,600
Speaker 1: if the audience people leave happier than when they came in.

2184
01:54:22,760 --> 01:54:24,600
Speaker 1: How many can't tell you how many times people have

2185
01:54:24,720 --> 01:54:26,960
Speaker 1: come up and said, you know, you've signed CDs for

2186
01:54:27,080 --> 01:54:30,240
Speaker 1: some people after a show, and oh, somebody my mother

2187
01:54:30,360 --> 01:54:32,400
Speaker 1: died six months ago and I've been down. I haven't

2188
01:54:32,400 --> 01:54:33,680
Speaker 1: been out. My friends said, oh, you should go to

2189
01:54:33,720 --> 01:54:36,400
Speaker 1: a Willie show. You'll feel better. And you know, when

2190
01:54:36,440 --> 01:54:39,160
Speaker 1: people that makes me feel good. If I can, if

2191
01:54:39,200 --> 01:54:41,760
Speaker 1: my music can inspire me and my guys to feel better,

2192
01:54:42,080 --> 01:54:44,240
Speaker 1: be able to pay some bills, and an audience could

2193
01:54:44,280 --> 01:54:48,160
Speaker 1: come out and feel better. The experience in Buffalo with

2194
01:54:48,240 --> 01:54:51,840
Speaker 1: the blizzard, I must say the silver lining was to

2195
01:54:51,960 --> 01:54:55,520
Speaker 1: see the good side of neighbors, how people can be

2196
01:54:55,640 --> 01:54:58,080
Speaker 1: good to each other, you know, look out for each other.

2197
01:54:58,240 --> 01:55:00,640
Speaker 1: I saw that right in the face because this life threatening.

2198
01:55:01,080 --> 01:55:03,120
Speaker 1: You know. My dad's one hundred and five, you know,

2199
01:55:03,480 --> 01:55:06,480
Speaker 1: and I'm seventy four and my brother's seventy and we're

2200
01:55:06,480 --> 01:55:11,280
Speaker 1: a freezing We made it. And anyway, I'm still a believer.

2201
01:55:11,400 --> 01:55:14,320
Speaker 1: I guess should say I believe in I always say

2202
01:55:14,320 --> 01:55:16,000
Speaker 1: I believe in people. I mean, I know there's some

2203
01:55:16,120 --> 01:55:18,240
Speaker 1: nasty customers out there, let's be you know, there's a

2204
01:55:18,320 --> 01:55:20,640
Speaker 1: lot of them, but there's also a lot of really

2205
01:55:20,680 --> 01:55:24,800
Speaker 1: good people. You know. My politics start like if there's

2206
01:55:24,800 --> 01:55:27,320
Speaker 1: a cul de sac and it's a little seven year

2207
01:55:27,360 --> 01:55:29,920
Speaker 1: old kid riding his bike in the cul de sac

2208
01:55:30,320 --> 01:55:32,720
Speaker 1: and Tucker Carlson's got a house on one side and

2209
01:55:32,800 --> 01:55:35,440
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert on the other side, and the little kid

2210
01:55:35,480 --> 01:55:37,960
Speaker 1: gets it back. It's the bike and down he goes.

2211
01:55:38,360 --> 01:55:40,760
Speaker 1: I would think that those two guys would come out

2212
01:55:40,760 --> 01:55:42,880
Speaker 1: and see what they could do to help. That's where

2213
01:55:42,880 --> 01:55:46,200
Speaker 1: my politics start. You know. Call me naive and clearly am,

2214
01:55:47,080 --> 01:55:49,080
Speaker 1: but I do believe. I believe in music. I believe

2215
01:55:49,120 --> 01:55:51,760
Speaker 1: in the redemptive quality. I really do. I'm on my

2216
01:55:51,800 --> 01:55:54,360
Speaker 1: soapbox now, but I do in rock and roll. In music,

2217
01:55:54,440 --> 01:55:59,879
Speaker 1: whether it's classical, jazz, blues, swamp boogie woogie, they're salvation

2218
01:56:00,160 --> 01:56:02,800
Speaker 1: in it. There can be, you know. So I that's

2219
01:56:02,840 --> 01:56:06,080
Speaker 1: the that's the way I've been riding, you know, and

2220
01:56:06,240 --> 01:56:08,880
Speaker 1: it's not has been easy. Hell no, oh my god. No.

2221
01:56:09,520 --> 01:56:11,920
Speaker 1: You know. When I leave here, I'm gonna go up

2222
01:56:12,280 --> 01:56:14,320
Speaker 1: walk up my five flights of stairs. I don't know

2223
01:56:14,320 --> 01:56:15,680
Speaker 1: if a gig tonight, so I don't have to carry

2224
01:56:15,720 --> 01:56:17,920
Speaker 1: my I have you electric in my bag. But it's

2225
01:56:18,000 --> 01:56:22,600
Speaker 1: kept me, it's kept me healthy. Knock on wood anyway, Well,

2226
01:56:22,680 --> 01:56:25,840
Speaker 1: hopefully you'll be around here for many more years. Willy.

2227
01:56:25,920 --> 01:56:28,080
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for taking this time to

2228
01:56:28,160 --> 01:56:32,440
Speaker 1: talk to my audience. You've really been a riveting listen.

2229
01:56:33,760 --> 01:56:36,280
Speaker 1: It's been my pleasure. Really, I appreciate you taking the

2230
01:56:36,360 --> 01:56:39,800
Speaker 1: time to have me on Bob. You know, I'm I'm

2231
01:56:39,880 --> 01:56:42,880
Speaker 1: grateful for the journey that I've had, happy to share it.

2232
01:56:43,320 --> 01:56:47,160
Speaker 1: And I believe, and I think people listening, keep the faith,

2233
01:56:47,360 --> 01:56:50,120
Speaker 1: do your best. My dad's advice while going through my

2234
01:56:50,200 --> 01:56:53,880
Speaker 1: divorce best device I've ever heard, because I didn't need

2235
01:56:53,920 --> 01:56:56,600
Speaker 1: for a month. I was really in bad shape back then.

2236
01:56:56,800 --> 01:57:00,240
Speaker 1: And he said, look, you can't control with anybody else

2237
01:57:00,280 --> 01:57:03,080
Speaker 1: does in this world. The one thing you can't control

2238
01:57:03,560 --> 01:57:06,920
Speaker 1: is what you do. Walk a straight line, treat people good,

2239
01:57:07,040 --> 01:57:09,480
Speaker 1: you know, right from wrong. And you know he would

2240
01:57:09,480 --> 01:57:11,360
Speaker 1: say leave the rest in God's hands because he's a

2241
01:57:11,520 --> 01:57:13,960
Speaker 1: very a man of faith and it served him well,

2242
01:57:14,000 --> 01:57:17,080
Speaker 1: I must say. But like you know, do the best

2243
01:57:17,120 --> 01:57:19,400
Speaker 1: you can really in this world. Just turn pick you

2244
01:57:19,480 --> 01:57:21,200
Speaker 1: if your neighbor's down, pick him up if you can.

2245
01:57:21,680 --> 01:57:24,080
Speaker 1: But hang in there, do your best and have some

2246
01:57:24,240 --> 01:57:26,960
Speaker 1: faith in that. You know, I'm a believer and I'm

2247
01:57:27,360 --> 01:57:29,440
Speaker 1: you know, someday I'll drop, you know, And we all

2248
01:57:29,480 --> 01:57:32,000
Speaker 1: got what a clinist would say, we all got it coming.

2249
01:57:33,040 --> 01:57:37,520
Speaker 1: In that great film unforgiven. Well, I'm alive and i

2250
01:57:37,600 --> 01:57:40,160
Speaker 1: want to celebrate it, and that's what I'm I'm trying

2251
01:57:40,160 --> 01:57:42,680
Speaker 1: to do my best at so I'm very grateful for

2252
01:57:42,720 --> 01:57:46,000
Speaker 1: you to have me on. Thank you for taking the time, Bob. Well,

2253
01:57:46,040 --> 01:57:49,280
Speaker 1: you've been great. Till next time. This is Bob left

2254
01:57:49,320 --> 01:57:49,680
Speaker 1: sensed