Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George
Speaker 1: nor with you, Harvey Kopernick back with us. Noted author
Speaker 1: of many books, including Canyon of Dreams, The Magic and
Speaker 1: the Music of Laurel Canyon, and Turn Up the Radio, Rock,
Speaker 1: Pop and Roll in Los Angeles, Harvey is very active
Speaker 1: in the music, documentary and TV film world. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: he served as consultant on the Laurel Canyon A Place
Speaker 1: in Time. I think about Laurel Canyon every time I'm
Speaker 1: on a Harvey thinking about you. Welcome back. Always a
Speaker 1: pleasure to do your program. Thank you have you been.
Speaker 1: I've been doing great. We miss you at the Greek Restaurant,
Speaker 1: but you're still with us all the time. I'll be
Speaker 1: back in a few weeks for my winter days in
Speaker 1: La so I'm looking forward to that. We'll get together
Speaker 1: out there. How did you get involved in such incredible
Speaker 1: interest in the music field, You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: about it. I don't even know if it's I think
Speaker 1: it was Deepak Chopra who claimed the term sincro destiny.
Speaker 1: Part of it is I've had regional access to music.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, going to high school and West Hollywood,
Speaker 1: being born literally overlooking the Hollywood one oh one Freeway.
Speaker 1: I'm from Hollywood. I'm a native of Los Angeles. So
Speaker 1: the music and the bands have always been in front
Speaker 1: of me since like nineteen fifty six or nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: And like you, I'm a child of AM radio and
Speaker 1: we you and I grew up in a world and
Speaker 1: I still think I think it's it's still relevant now.
Speaker 1: We didn't have labels, we didn't have these genres, we
Speaker 1: didn't have these different camps. We are. We are all
Speaker 1: coming out of this kind of tribal society like music
Speaker 1: almost as real egon, and we just heard the music.
Speaker 1: We didn't know it was rhythm and blues or country western.
Speaker 1: And where you grew up with Casey Kyson just jockeys
Speaker 1: in Detroit, you could hear Marty Robbins next to the
Speaker 1: current or new music of Motown and it just stuck
Speaker 1: in our DNA, all of us, including your listeners. And
Speaker 1: now it's so multigenerational, and rock and roll is forty
Speaker 1: fifty sixty years old, and Alice's being so well documented
Speaker 1: because of the platforms of downloading and streaming and of
Speaker 1: course music documentaries, and are there are people like me
Speaker 1: who are who are assuming these librarian custodian positions simply
Speaker 1: because we have been reporters for half a century and
Speaker 1: we're not Wikipedia children. We were there at the birth witnesses,
Speaker 1: my friend witnesses. I've grown my appreciation and someone like
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra has grown in my later years,
Speaker 1: but not when they were their stars at the at
Speaker 1: their peak. Why is that? Why is it? Why did
Speaker 1: it take me so long, Harvey to appreciate them? Part
Speaker 1: of it is the cycle of life. You hear it
Speaker 1: when you're five or ten, or twenty or twenty five.
Speaker 1: Before you realize it you're forty five or fifty, and
Speaker 1: then you start hearing these recordings in the dental office
Speaker 1: and an elevator at somebody's house, or your kid or
Speaker 1: your grandkid is bringing you, you know, some something on
Speaker 1: an iPod to hear strangers in the night, and you
Speaker 1: remember when it came out in nineteen sixty six, when
Speaker 1: you heard it, and and it's it's it's so embedded
Speaker 1: in our souls that we all have this collective appreciation
Speaker 1: because the music also, I mean, it's so overrated to go, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the soundtrack of our lives, but it's it's not
Speaker 1: just the soundtrack of our lives. It's a reminder of
Speaker 1: our life. And as we get older and we live
Speaker 1: in such a terrifying society at times we want the comfort,
Speaker 1: you know, of some of this music, which was if
Speaker 1: it wasn't soothing, it kind of was a guidepost. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a compass for our own sonic explorations,
Speaker 1: and it just sticks with us absolutely. And I also
Speaker 1: remember hard my mother playing records in those days over
Speaker 1: and over again, and that's how I learned how to
Speaker 1: sing by the way I sing at our live events,
Speaker 1: and I learned how to sing by listening to my
Speaker 1: mother's records. Well, it's about vinyl. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: somebody like Taylor Swift right now who's accomplished a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting we'll call it a reap tail accomplishment where her
Speaker 1: most recent product, the vinyl, has outsold like the CD format,
Speaker 1: I mean, and there has been a renaissance in vinyl
Speaker 1: and Menorah Records. And part of the reason for the vinyl,
Speaker 1: you know, explosion, part of it is traced to maybe
Speaker 1: National Record Store Day. But the mastering engineer, Bill Inglot,
Speaker 1: and I have discussed this and he pointed out to
Speaker 1: me and reminded me listening to a record vinyl is
Speaker 1: a very almost romantic experience because you're one to one
Speaker 1: with the unit. You are stationary. It's not transportive where
Speaker 1: you're in your car or you're having earbuds or something.
Speaker 1: You are trapped in a room in a stereo system
Speaker 1: or a home entertainment center and you're just stuck right there.
Speaker 1: Are You either absorb it or you run away from it,
Speaker 1: but you start picking up these nuances when you are
Speaker 1: one to one with the delivery mode coming at you.
Speaker 1: There's something about putting the knee alarm on a record
Speaker 1: and watching its spin around that's really neat. Yes, I
Speaker 1: agree in it. That's not to you know, newter the
Speaker 1: other delivery modes, but there is just something because we
Speaker 1: all remember, I mean, one of the reasons I'm still
Speaker 1: in this game what I do. I still get excited
Speaker 1: when I get a vinyl album or a CD and
Speaker 1: I break the plastic or I use my fingernails to
Speaker 1: do this slip to pull out the vinyl there. I've
Speaker 1: never lost that feeling of discovery. And I think my fans,
Speaker 1: my readers, my you know, global brand that's out there
Speaker 1: as these books are published in China and Russia and England.
Speaker 1: People know that it's something that propels me and makes
Speaker 1: me dig deeper as an investigative writer and also somebody
Speaker 1: who's has a cinematic approach to writing, simply because I'm
Speaker 1: a child of Hollywood. And I remember our record player
Speaker 1: in the living room of our house back in the
Speaker 1: Detroit area was like a piece of furniture. I mean
Speaker 1: the thing was like seven feet long, and of course
Speaker 1: the record was inside the record player and you just
Speaker 1: lifted up and do your thing. But I mean it
Speaker 1: was a beautiful piece of furniture. Harvey, Well, this is
Speaker 1: something Barry Gordy Junior and I discussed. I interviewed him
Speaker 1: at his mansion in nineteen ninety five when his autobiography
Speaker 1: came out, and I know how important motown music is
Speaker 1: to your life. Yeah, And I said, I said, mister Gordy,
Speaker 1: I just want to know. I'm not asking you see
Speaker 1: grits of songwriting or distribution or production. And I said,
Speaker 1: I said, what is the key to the music of
Speaker 1: motown and he said, well, it's all about the hooks
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the records. You've got to hook
Speaker 1: them real early. And I said, okay, But I said,
Speaker 1: what about the consumer And he said the consumer He said,
Speaker 1: young man, you gotta love that record. You've got to
Speaker 1: put out something where they love it and have to
Speaker 1: own it. They just can't like it. And I think
Speaker 1: that is probably translates to anybody who's on the charts
Speaker 1: or selling. And he knew because he had owned a
Speaker 1: record store that the record player was your best friend.
Speaker 1: At times you could turn to that record player for discovery,
Speaker 1: for salvation, for inspiration, but it also became something where
Speaker 1: everybody bonded together because who could afford to buy records
Speaker 1: every day or every week. Finding that seventy nine cents
Speaker 1: for a single when you're a babysitter or something, it
Speaker 1: was tough. And remember, you and I grew up in
Speaker 1: a world where there were only three channels or three networks.
Speaker 1: There was no cable television and by the way, FM
Speaker 1: rock radio doesn't really start till late nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: so we are listening to Top thirty or Top forty
Speaker 1: AM radio where a lot of the playlists were the same,
Speaker 1: and so we have this commonality and this bond and
Speaker 1: this link that is like cybal you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's beyond tribal. It's almost like a piece of jewelry
Speaker 1: that we wear that's invisible. Berry Gordon's ninety three years old. Now,
Speaker 1: what are the odds when I get back to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles having you and him in the studio for a
Speaker 1: couple hours. Well, let me tell you something. And at
Speaker 1: the end of January, Barry Gordy Junior and William Smokey
Speaker 1: Robinson Smokey was on our show. By the way, I was, well,
Speaker 1: the reason I'm telling you this, they're both going to
Speaker 1: be honored in Los Angeles as the Music Cares People
Speaker 1: of the Year. And I think Barry's being a little
Speaker 1: bit more visible these days. I haven't talked to him
Speaker 1: in a while. I've seen him in a couple events,
Speaker 1: and I mean, listen, when I interviewed him his brother
Speaker 1: Robert Gordy, who ran the publishing division for Motown, they
Speaker 1: filmed me for the Motown Museum in Detroit. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could retire after that one, you know. And Barry,
Speaker 1: but with the Hitsville documentary, that just came out, and
Speaker 1: twenty years ago the Funk Brothers, the Fanning in the
Speaker 1: Shadow of Motown documentary came out. Motown Music Is For.
Speaker 1: They're expanding more than ever, and I'll put out the
Speaker 1: smoke signal of all hook you up. Listen to more
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