Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back and Bob Left Step Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is singer songwriter author Elliott Murfy. Elliot, good
Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. Good to be here, Bob,
Speaker 1: to see you again on this side of the ocean here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's my first question. You live in Paris, but
Speaker 1: when we were setting this up, you said, we're going
Speaker 1: to be in the US. Why are you in the States.
Speaker 1: I just had a two week break and this is
Speaker 1: literally my first flight out of France and since the
Speaker 1: COVID started, and I had a two week break, and
Speaker 1: my wife as well, so we decided to come here
Speaker 1: and see friends and family. And we're in Brooklyn, where
Speaker 1: my father grew up, and I'm staying a block away
Speaker 1: from a thing called the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is
Speaker 1: where my father worked during World War Two. So everything
Speaker 1: has become full full circle here. Okay, why did you
Speaker 1: move to Paris? To begin with? In what year did
Speaker 1: you move? I moved France permanently in UH nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of a transitional event. I played
Speaker 1: my first show in Paris in nineteen seventy nine, and
Speaker 1: by that time, my career in America was kind of
Speaker 1: on the down Sling and uh, I did this show
Speaker 1: in Paris, my first show ever. I thought it was
Speaker 1: going to be in a little club with a couple
Speaker 1: hundred people. Have turned out to be like a fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred people. I did six encourse. They knew all the
Speaker 1: words to my songs, and I said, WHOA, I might
Speaker 1: have a second act in this business. And in the
Speaker 1: ten years between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: my career totally shifted to Europe. When I was touring
Speaker 1: in Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, not so much the UK. I'm
Speaker 1: that rare example of American artists who didn't enter into
Speaker 1: Europe through the u K. And by nine it was
Speaker 1: just time to move. Is your wife of American? Her Parisian?
Speaker 1: My wife is a hundred percent she's French. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she'd call herself Parisian. She calls
Speaker 1: me Parisian now because she said, all I do is
Speaker 1: complained about Paris, like all the rest of the Parisians.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet your wife? Well, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear my side of the story. Sometimes you'll hear her
Speaker 1: I was on tour bomb in three in France, in
Speaker 1: a city called Cone, which is in Normandy, very near
Speaker 1: the Normandy beaches there where they where d date took place.
Speaker 1: And my wife is an actress and she was touring
Speaker 1: with a little acting troop and I was on tour there,
Speaker 1: and of course in a town like that, there's one
Speaker 1: restaurant that's open late, and I ended up in there
Speaker 1: and she was in there with her with her acting colleagues,
Speaker 1: and we started talking and we had we did a
Speaker 1: couple of dates. Then I went back to America and
Speaker 1: I did not see her, are communicating with her for
Speaker 1: six years. And when I moved back to France. When
Speaker 1: I moved to France in nineteen eighty nine, I looked
Speaker 1: for and I found her through France at that time
Speaker 1: had an amazing little thing in every house with a
Speaker 1: telephone called the minitel, where you could find phone numbers
Speaker 1: and even book flights and things like that was right
Speaker 1: way ahead of its time, and I found her on
Speaker 1: that and we've been together ever since. And we have
Speaker 1: a son, gas Bar who's thirty one years old. So
Speaker 1: moving to France had nothing to do with her. You
Speaker 1: moved completely independently. I certainly did like French women that
Speaker 1: was but you know, that was not a problem. But
Speaker 1: you know, the European I my first trip to Europe,
Speaker 1: just to go back a little further, was Ine and
Speaker 1: I came to Europe, you know, a long haired hippie. Uh.
Speaker 1: San Francisco was kind of over, but Amsterdam was still
Speaker 1: in its heyday, and uh I played on the streets.
Speaker 1: I started to write a lot of songs. Whatever creative
Speaker 1: juices I had in me just on froze and started flowing.
Speaker 1: And that was I wrote a lot of the songs
Speaker 1: during that trip that I actually used on my first album,
Speaker 1: Acquid Show, a few years later. So I liked Europe
Speaker 1: right away. I liked the lifestyle. I like the sense
Speaker 1: of history all around me. Uh I came from, you know,
Speaker 1: a very difficult family situation. My father had passed away
Speaker 1: when on sixteen on Long Island. So I was happy
Speaker 1: to get away from all that, and Europe was it
Speaker 1: was the new world for me. Okay, let's focus in
Speaker 1: a little bit. Certainly, France recently had an election. Lapine
Speaker 1: is the right wing candidate. Her father was a candidate
Speaker 1: before her, and it was always a fringe thing. Even
Speaker 1: though McCrone won handily. What is going on with the
Speaker 1: politics in France. Well, first you gotta understanding it. The
Speaker 1: election shin system is totally different from America. They don't
Speaker 1: have this electoral college. It's a very centralized government. It's
Speaker 1: not a federal system with different states. And they have
Speaker 1: two runs. They have the first run. Almost anyone who
Speaker 1: can get five mayors in France to sign their sign
Speaker 1: off on them can run for presidents. So you go
Speaker 1: for your first vote and there might be twelve candidates
Speaker 1: running all over the spectrum, all over the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: and then the two win if none of them get
Speaker 1: the two winners from that runoff, and the two winners
Speaker 1: were Macron, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Penn, who was
Speaker 1: the daughter of the her father ran against had also
Speaker 1: run for president for many years. So I mean, just
Speaker 1: speaking personally, I am just so happy Macron one because
Speaker 1: we're big supporters of him. He's a forward looking president.
Speaker 1: He's he seems to be neither left nor right. He
Speaker 1: just and he's young and it's great to see a
Speaker 1: young face there. But to what degree is their right
Speaker 1: wing incursion in France? Because her percentage of the vote
Speaker 1: has been going up, it has been going up and
Speaker 1: when her father, Jean Lepin ran, he ran against Jacques
Speaker 1: Sharek and he only got twenty of the boat, but
Speaker 1: she got much more than that. You know, Bob, It's
Speaker 1: a lot of the same issues as here, fear of immigration.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of immigration coming into France
Speaker 1: from from Africa and from and from the East of Europe,
Speaker 1: and it's the same fear factor that uh that is
Speaker 1: going on in America, you know. And and I think
Speaker 1: when things change as fast as society is changing, people
Speaker 1: are looking for simple answers, and unfortunately they get those
Speaker 1: answers from people like Leapin. Over the years, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of anti Semitic attacks Muslim issues. To what
Speaker 1: degree is that something that penetrate society or we just
Speaker 1: reading about that from a distance In the US, well,
Speaker 1: the major event was, of course the terrorist attack Batta Clone,
Speaker 1: which is a a concert venue there that an American
Speaker 1: band was playing. I forgot their name, we're playing, and
Speaker 1: you know, over a hundred people were killed and were
Speaker 1: shut down during that attack. So that was that really
Speaker 1: galvanized France in a lot of ways. And there has
Speaker 1: been some anti Semitic attacks as well, uh not, Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I think it's really France is
Speaker 1: Mike is, this is a reflection of what's happening in
Speaker 1: America at the at the same level, it's a little
Speaker 1: more educated of a country. I could say higher education
Speaker 1: is free in France. If you want to go to
Speaker 1: the university, you can go. I I also, I always
Speaker 1: think the problem in America's higher education just became too expensive.
Speaker 1: A lot of people can't afford to go to college,
Speaker 1: so they get their education from reality TV. But it's
Speaker 1: a little commer in France, and it is here. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think and on the talk shows
Speaker 1: is much different than in America. You know, there it
Speaker 1: tends to be less headline news, breaking news. It tends
Speaker 1: to be more you get five different people talking about
Speaker 1: what's going on. So what's the difference between France and America?
Speaker 1: Those are some specifics, but generally tell us some more
Speaker 1: what the differences. It's a very very old country, you know,
Speaker 1: they've been around forever France. There was France before there
Speaker 1: was an Italy, before there was a Germany, before there
Speaker 1: was in Spain. I mean, they've just been around forever.
Speaker 1: They are the cultural epicenter of Europe, you know, for centuries,
Speaker 1: and I think that sense of history. You know, every
Speaker 1: French person walks a little bit of pride, I guess
Speaker 1: about that. And there's this fear that this new wave
Speaker 1: of immigration, they're losing their identity as as French people.
Speaker 1: A lot of Americans go to France and they think
Speaker 1: that they're rude, you know, but I think it's more
Speaker 1: they're very polite and you have to say, you know,
Speaker 1: when you walk into buy bread, you have to say
Speaker 1: bonjeur before you ask for the bread. And you know,
Speaker 1: the first time I came to New York with my wife,
Speaker 1: I think I walked into a gap to buy some
Speaker 1: clothes and the sales girl come over to me and
Speaker 1: she says, hey, how you guys doing today, Great to
Speaker 1: see you. And my wife turns me and just do
Speaker 1: you know her? God? So they're they're different in that way. Uh,
Speaker 1: they are more Uh, their lifestyle is more regimented. You know,
Speaker 1: they eat meals at a certain time. They don't eat
Speaker 1: between meals very much. U. Even though they're not a
Speaker 1: religious country, there's supposed to be a separation of state
Speaker 1: and religion. They have more religious holidays than you could
Speaker 1: count about. All I can say is they have certainly
Speaker 1: been very good to me and recognizing me. And they
Speaker 1: actually have a history of recognizing a lot of American
Speaker 1: uh talent that is not as recognized in their own country.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, a director like John Cassavetti's He's
Speaker 1: huge in France, you know, And there was a point
Speaker 1: you could watch a John Cassavetti's movie in some theater
Speaker 1: in Paris and the unit of the week, you know, uh.
Speaker 1: And in my case, you know, they really have supported that.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning of me kind of being able
Speaker 1: to work as a as a musician, as a singer
Speaker 1: and a songwriter. But if I remember correctly, you yourself
Speaker 1: do not speak French fluently. Now I speak French. I
Speaker 1: mean I can hold a conversation, I can go to
Speaker 1: dinner conversations. If I have to write in French and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of accents and things you got to
Speaker 1: do like that, I need my wife's help, but I
Speaker 1: can certainly my French has described as almost fluently. Okay,
Speaker 1: pretty good. So let's just broaden the conversation a little bit.
Speaker 1: What is the view of France and the EU. I
Speaker 1: was talking to Bob Geldoff, and he said that the
Speaker 1: UK was the buffer between France and Germany, and as
Speaker 1: a result of Brexit, you know, the whole issue was
Speaker 1: in question. What's the French viewpoint on Brexit, the EU, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Or is it just calm and this is just hogwash?
Speaker 1: We'll all due respect to Bucks or who I love. Uh,
Speaker 1: I would say the UK was more the thorn in
Speaker 1: the side of the EU than the buffer between you know,
Speaker 1: the EU began between Germany and France. I think it
Speaker 1: was a treaty for Cole or something like that. That
Speaker 1: was the first step in creating the EU. Energy between
Speaker 1: France and England didn't join until much later. Uh, I think,
Speaker 1: and it is it is. I don't know why England left.
Speaker 1: All my English friends don't know why they left. They
Speaker 1: don't know what's gonna happening with the Northern Ireland, you know,
Speaker 1: is part of England the UK. Southern Ireland is still
Speaker 1: in the EU and there's a border there. They don't
Speaker 1: know how they're going to handle that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think the English, you know, they wanted to
Speaker 1: keep driving on the right, whatever side of the road
Speaker 1: they drive on. They were never gonna give up their
Speaker 1: pound for the euro uh, you know, and they were
Speaker 1: a little there an island. They're an island, Okay, needless
Speaker 1: just say there's a war going on in Ukraine. To
Speaker 1: what degree is that a major issue in France. Anybody's
Speaker 1: been to Europe knows that these countries are not that
Speaker 1: far away, So to what do we use it impacting?
Speaker 1: And in part of conversation in France to put it
Speaker 1: in context, the distance between Paris and Kiev, Kiev is
Speaker 1: the same as the distance between New York and Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 1: So it's it's very close. Uh. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of refugees coming in from the Ukraine into France, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think it's a big Everyone's
Speaker 1: very fearful. They don't know quite what to do, you know,
Speaker 1: how to how to keep a lid on this without
Speaker 1: it just turning into something, you know, monumental. Ah. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what's going to happen at this point, but
Speaker 1: it is a major issue in France and in Germany especially,
Speaker 1: they're very close. Is there any fear that this will
Speaker 1: I mean the fear on an individual level that while
Speaker 1: this could spread and effect us directly, I think the
Speaker 1: fear is that if either by mistake are on purpose,
Speaker 1: any NATO country was attacked in any way, you know,
Speaker 1: a drone gone off course into Poland or something like that,
Speaker 1: that I think by the agreement, the NATO agreement, if
Speaker 1: one members attacked, the others have to defend it. I
Speaker 1: think that's a big fear. Uh. And I think they
Speaker 1: don't really well of course I don't know, but they
Speaker 1: don't really know what Putin's motives are, how far does
Speaker 1: he want to go? You know? But I think what
Speaker 1: the reason the Ukraine has really hit home is because
Speaker 1: they look like Europeans. When you watch those scenes, they
Speaker 1: look like they're dressed like the rest of the Europeans.
Speaker 1: Those cities look like European cities. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: a few countries within the old USSR, which I think
Speaker 1: Chechna and a couple of others which but they didn't
Speaker 1: really have They didn't identify with them as much as
Speaker 1: with the Ukraine. And you know who knows they certainly
Speaker 1: you know, as I said in my last show, which
Speaker 1: I did in Paris a couple of months ago, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I really enjoyed the five minutes between the
Speaker 1: pandemic and World War three. Okay, one more political question.
Speaker 1: You know, we read about strikes in France. Unions have
Speaker 1: been busted in the United States are making a little
Speaker 1: bit of a comeback. Is this ultimately good for workers
Speaker 1: or is this just something that is constantly putting a
Speaker 1: stop in regular society both. I would say the syndicates,
Speaker 1: which is what they call the unions in France, are powerful. Uh.
Speaker 1: France never went through the violent labor movement that America did. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know in those early days of when they were
Speaker 1: really when they bring in the Pinkerton's I mean and
Speaker 1: shoot down the strikers. France never really went through that.
Speaker 1: It evolved, and I think it's evolved in a good
Speaker 1: way where there's a power sharing between the two. Uh.
Speaker 1: But if you're a touring musician like me and that
Speaker 1: the strikes there's a trained strike, it's really a pain
Speaker 1: in the ass, let me tell you. But they do
Speaker 1: protect the workers. Sometimes. You feel in France that when
Speaker 1: you go into a store, you're more into that store
Speaker 1: to help the worker work than to buy something. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a different mentality, but you know, the motto of
Speaker 1: France is egality, fraternity and I think they take that
Speaker 1: to heart in a certain way. And of course, if
Speaker 1: you're in Europe France, supposedly everybody's on vacation in August,
Speaker 1: and they say they observe. It's unlike America, where they
Speaker 1: work seven days a week and everybody's available. What is
Speaker 1: it really like you're there. It's changed. The American work
Speaker 1: life has really changed. People don't take a month off
Speaker 1: in August anymore. I mean they take more than in America,
Speaker 1: and that's for sure. They don't take two hour lunches
Speaker 1: with two bottles of wine anymore either, you know. Uh
Speaker 1: to this to the shame of the French, the second
Speaker 1: biggest market from McDonald's outside of America is France. So
Speaker 1: you can see, uh no, it's very it's very much.
Speaker 1: You know, there's Paris and there's France, and that's important
Speaker 1: to remember. Those are two different things. You know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like New York and a lot of the
Speaker 1: rest of America. You know, Paris is a very international
Speaker 1: city and it changes as the world changes. The rest
Speaker 1: of France is a little slower. Oh yeah, let's switch
Speaker 1: to your music career. At this point, do you have
Speaker 1: an age and do you have a manager or do
Speaker 1: you do it all yourself or what do you do
Speaker 1: or not do personally? I do some of it myself,
Speaker 1: but I do have an agent in usually each country
Speaker 1: who manages, who finds the shows and organizes them. In France,
Speaker 1: I went in Spain, Italy, Germany. Uh. So I don't
Speaker 1: do it all myself in terms of touring. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's possible. You can really, you can't do that. You know,
Speaker 1: when I started out, how far you want to go back?
Speaker 1: But go back to the beginning. It's a long winding road.
Speaker 1: You know. I did my first album in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three on on Polydor, which I've heard you talk about
Speaker 1: what Polydor was like in the seventies, And of course
Speaker 1: I owned that album and I bought it because you know,
Speaker 1: the press was unbelievable. It was unbelievable, and it kind
Speaker 1: of shot me out of the counton in a way
Speaker 1: that I've been able to stay up, stay up in
Speaker 1: the air ever since. But that album, Acqua Show, which
Speaker 1: came out on Polydor, got tremendous critical acclaim and you know,
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone proclaimed me and Bruce Springsteen the new Bob Dylan's.
Speaker 1: Our albums were reviewed together and Uh, and it was tremendous.
Speaker 1: You know, I really went overnight from you know, kind
Speaker 1: of living on food stamps to uh staying at the
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Hotel. Ah, but it was an interesting time,
Speaker 1: as you know. You know, I feel very fortunate that
Speaker 1: I came about in this golden age of music. I mean,
Speaker 1: we really did showcases in New York with my band,
Speaker 1: knocked on doors of record companies. Half the time you
Speaker 1: were ludden, you could give someone your demo. That's what
Speaker 1: we did at Polydor. In fact, we walked into Polydor,
Speaker 1: we had just come from w Warner Brothers, and we
Speaker 1: were we got a kind of positive reaction there, but
Speaker 1: we were told they had to send it out to
Speaker 1: the West Coast and see what they thought. But we
Speaker 1: knocked on the Lord Polydor and we asked their receptions
Speaker 1: as that's what we wanted us with my brother Matthew Uh,
Speaker 1: who's had an amazing career as a tour manager. He
Speaker 1: works for Steve Martin now and the Seven says how
Speaker 1: can I help you? And I said, is there anyone
Speaker 1: who can listen to our demo? And she calls someone
Speaker 1: and someone from A and R KM out brought us back,
Speaker 1: listened to our demo, said listen, can you guys do
Speaker 1: an audition at Bill's Musical Instrument Rental. If there's anyone
Speaker 1: listening here from the old days, they will remember that name.
Speaker 1: Two days later we did that audition in front of
Speaker 1: Peter Siegel, who was the head of A and R there.
Speaker 1: He said, you got a deal, We got a lawyer. Uh,
Speaker 1: we got a contract. And to show you how innocent
Speaker 1: we were, Bob, when I got the check for the advance,
Speaker 1: I had no bank account. I had to go to
Speaker 1: Polydor's bank and cash the check. And it wasn't that
Speaker 1: much anyway, but well, do you remember how much it was?
Speaker 1: It was ten thou and you took that in cash.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of cash. Would you do with it?
Speaker 1: Ten tho much? It's only about this thick actually, well
Speaker 1: we don't have video, but he showing about this about
Speaker 1: an inch. Well. I gave some of it to the
Speaker 1: guys in the band who helped me get to that point.
Speaker 1: But Polydori didn't want to sign the rest of the
Speaker 1: guys in the band. They just wanted me and my
Speaker 1: brother Matthew, because I thought we had the hair. They
Speaker 1: thought we looked like the new Allman Brothers or something.
Speaker 1: And then they sent us out to l A to
Speaker 1: record our album and I recorded started to do an
Speaker 1: album with producer named Thomas Jefferson Kay, who was no
Speaker 1: longer with us, but me and him did not see
Speaker 1: eye to eye. How did that even happen? Which part?
Speaker 1: How did you get hooked up with Thomas and Jefferson Kay.
Speaker 1: Thomas and Jefferson Ka had just had a hit with
Speaker 1: loud and Wainwright called Dead Skunk in the Middle of
Speaker 1: the Road, and Louden was also in that new Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan category. So I think Peter Siegel, who was the
Speaker 1: head of A and R, he thought it was It
Speaker 1: was an obvious move. And Thomas Tommy Kay heard us
Speaker 1: play in New York and he liked it, and he
Speaker 1: brought us out to l A. And we did one
Speaker 1: day in the studio, but he was heading much too
Speaker 1: much in a country direction for me and I wanted
Speaker 1: to sound like Blonde Blonde Our Highway sixty one or
Speaker 1: something like that, our exile on Main Street. So something
Speaker 1: happened that trip. It was after the first day in
Speaker 1: the studio we were sitting in was it the Rainbow
Speaker 1: I think the Rainbow was that still exists absolutely, and
Speaker 1: it's not much different. And we're sitting there and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do. I'm gonna call the record
Speaker 1: company and tell them this is not working out. I'm
Speaker 1: a nobody, you know. I just got signed. And I
Speaker 1: put my arm up like this. It was like those
Speaker 1: banquet kind of seating. Maybe those are still there, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I bumped into someone behind me. It was Bob
Speaker 1: Dillan Okay, I swear I bumped into his shoulder. I
Speaker 1: turned for out an excuse me. He was sitting at
Speaker 1: a star studded table with Joni Mitchell and Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 1: and and that just I don't know, it was like
Speaker 1: an epiphany, you know. I said, wow, okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call them. We did. When Bob left, we did try
Speaker 1: and follow him in his car, but he lost us
Speaker 1: pretty pretty I think he might have been with Bobby
Speaker 1: Neworth that I can't stay for say for sure. And
Speaker 1: I called up Polydor and I said, listen, this is
Speaker 1: not working. We came back to New York and Peter
Speaker 1: Siegel himself decided he would produce the album. Put together
Speaker 1: a great team of musicians. Gene Parsons from The Birds
Speaker 1: was the drummer. We had Frank Owens on the keyboards,
Speaker 1: who played on Highway sixty one on that album. Uh.
Speaker 1: We recorded at the record Plant. And this was also
Speaker 1: at the time the New York glam scene was happening,
Speaker 1: you know, so the New York Dolls were also recording
Speaker 1: at the record Plan. You know. They were down on
Speaker 1: the first floor and it was like a Mardi Gras.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just wild, you know, them all
Speaker 1: their girlfriends and boy, it was just packed with people.
Speaker 1: We were up on the tenth floor in the other
Speaker 1: studio B and it was like a church, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, totally quiet and serious. But we made Acquisher.
Speaker 1: Peter Siegel produced it. It came out and bam. Polydor
Speaker 1: didn't know what it hit them, really because they had
Speaker 1: never had an album like this that got so much
Speaker 1: pressed so quickly, and they try their best, but before
Speaker 1: you get there, were you ultimately happy with the album
Speaker 1: that came out. I was very happy with the album
Speaker 1: came out with Acquisher. Pollin Or puts it up. They
Speaker 1: don't know what hit them. Keep going, they don't know
Speaker 1: what hit them. You know, I'm in before I know it,
Speaker 1: I'm in Rolling Stone, I'm in Newsweek because you know,
Speaker 1: there were two or three angles the press picked up.
Speaker 1: One was the new Bob Dylan thing. The other was
Speaker 1: the literary as Scott Fitzgerald thing. But the other was
Speaker 1: the suburban rock. You know that I was complaining about
Speaker 1: the suburbs and songs like white metal, class blues, hometown.
Speaker 1: And there was an article in Newsweek with me and
Speaker 1: Billy Joel called a pain in the Suburbs, you know
Speaker 1: about our music. I got my picture, not Billy. So
Speaker 1: I went on on tour, open for the Kinks, open
Speaker 1: for Jefferson Starship, but Polydor just could not bring it home.
Speaker 1: At this time, I lou Reid came into the picture.
Speaker 1: Now I got to go back a little. Uh. When
Speaker 1: I was first knocking on doors in New York to
Speaker 1: get a deal at Mercury, there was a man named
Speaker 1: Paul Nelson. He was head of A and R at Mercury,
Speaker 1: also a rock writer, the same Paul Nelson, Right, that's
Speaker 1: the rock he's passed away in unfortunately, but he signed
Speaker 1: the New York Dolls. He had gone to school with
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan in Minneapolis. In the short time Bob was
Speaker 1: at university there and him and he became kind of
Speaker 1: a mentor to me. Although Mercury offered me a deal
Speaker 1: for five thousand dollars, so even less than Polydor's terrible deal.
Speaker 1: So uh, Paul Nelson at that time that Mercury was
Speaker 1: putting out an album of live, a live Velvet Underground album.
Speaker 1: It was called Live nineteen nine. I owned that record
Speaker 1: double album absolutely well. If you open it up, I
Speaker 1: wrote the liner notes. Haven't looked at it for a while,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure I knew that when I looked at it.
Speaker 1: Paul asked me if I would write liner notes for that,
Speaker 1: and I love the Velvet Underground Loaded. It was one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorite albums still is. And I
Speaker 1: was riding home on the Long Expressway and I wrote
Speaker 1: those liner notes. And the next time I came into
Speaker 1: the city, my mother who lived in the city, and
Speaker 1: that was the number that Paul Nelson had. I guess
Speaker 1: he had asked lou Read if these notes were okay
Speaker 1: with him, and lou Reid called my mother. I showed
Speaker 1: up at her apartment and she said, it is very nice.
Speaker 1: Little Read called you. We had a long conversation because
Speaker 1: He's from Freeport, Long Island and I was from Baldwin,
Speaker 1: right next to each other anyway, And I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: My mother passed away a few years ago at ninety too,
Speaker 1: but she still remembered that conversation because the last word
Speaker 1: she said to Lou, she said, Lou, my son will
Speaker 1: be very happy you called. And LU said why and
Speaker 1: she said, because he's a big admirer of yours, and
Speaker 1: LU said, isn't everybody. So then I got to know
Speaker 1: Lou a little bit, and every time I do a
Speaker 1: show in New York, Lou would come down. We got
Speaker 1: to be friends, and he said, Elliott, you gotta get
Speaker 1: off Polydor, you gotta get on our c A, because
Speaker 1: he was on our CIA at the time. And I
Speaker 1: started working with Lose manager Dennis Katz. Did you have
Speaker 1: a manager? Before that? I was with Leeber and Cribs,
Speaker 1: Steve Leeb and David Cribs because they had the Dolls
Speaker 1: and they were very involved in that that New York
Speaker 1: glam scene which came out of the Mercer Arts Center,
Speaker 1: which was eventually fell down by the way to find
Speaker 1: that whole scene of the New York bands, the Dolls
Speaker 1: me Patty's Smith. The biggest group that came out of
Speaker 1: it was Kiss. They came out of that. So I
Speaker 1: left liber and Crebs. At that point, I went with
Speaker 1: Dennis Katz. He got our c A to pay Polydora
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty thousand just for my contract, plus
Speaker 1: some money for me a four album deal. Now at
Speaker 1: this time Clive Davis, who had also come to some
Speaker 1: of my shows in New York and Uh, I was
Speaker 1: very friendly with a guy named Bob Phiden who has
Speaker 1: passed away, but he worked with Clive and Clive was
Speaker 1: just starting Arista and Clive also order UH. He also
Speaker 1: offered me a deal, but Lucid, no, you gotta go
Speaker 1: with our CIA. Lady. When I'm gonna produce you, you're
Speaker 1: gonna go to our c A. They love me there,
Speaker 1: So I went with our CIA. I've always wondered if
Speaker 1: that was you know, in anyone's career, you have these crossroads.
Speaker 1: You wonder if you took the right move. But I
Speaker 1: followed loose advice of course. Us Two years later, Lou
Speaker 1: left our c A and went with Arista himself, but
Speaker 1: Lou didn't lu Didn ended up not producing that album
Speaker 1: because he had some problems with the law. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think fake prescriptions or something out in Long Island.
Speaker 1: Uh So I went out to l A and I
Speaker 1: worked with Paul Rothschild, who was the Doors producer, and
Speaker 1: I did my my second album with him in l A.
Speaker 1: That's when I really got to know the Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew Paul Rothschild. He was a man
Speaker 1: who believed in his opinion. I wouldn't quite call him
Speaker 1: easy going. How was that experience and were you happy
Speaker 1: with the results. I love Paul's musical side. You know,
Speaker 1: he really didn't know his music. He came out of
Speaker 1: that New York folks scene. Uh. You know, he produced
Speaker 1: the first Paul Butterfield blues Man album, not to mention
Speaker 1: Janice Joplin and of course all those classic Doors. Um.
Speaker 1: He was a bit of a diva as a producer.
Speaker 1: And the head of ann R for r C at
Speaker 1: that time was a guy named Mike Bernerker. Now, Mike
Speaker 1: had been a staff producer at Colombia and produced people
Speaker 1: by Barbara Streisand and he was convinced any solo act
Speaker 1: had to have a strong ballot. And you know, they
Speaker 1: got into a screaming argument about that and at Electra
Speaker 1: Studios where I was, where we recorded that album. But
Speaker 1: I was happy with that album. Has a Man. We
Speaker 1: had Jim Gordon on the drums. Did you know at
Speaker 1: the time that he was insane? We didn't not know.
Speaker 1: He was the sweetest. He was a teddy bear of
Speaker 1: a guy. I'm in a big teddy bear, but he
Speaker 1: was the sweetest guy. And he went on, I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody knows the story, schizophrenic, he killed his mother. I
Speaker 1: think he's still in a psyche metric hospital. But for me,
Speaker 1: two years before that, I had seen him playing with
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton and Derek and the Dominoes, and I thought
Speaker 1: this drummer had the most swing of any drummer I
Speaker 1: had ever seen in my heard in my life. We
Speaker 1: had him, We had Richard t who had come from
Speaker 1: Paul Simon. We had sunny Land with a great slide player.
Speaker 1: We had Steve brou Paul Roch had just brought up
Speaker 1: a bunch of musicians from New Orleans who went on
Speaker 1: to be in Toto. The lead singer was Bobby Kimball.
Speaker 1: Bobby Kimball. Bobby Kimball sang background on that album with me.
Speaker 1: But yes, I am happy with that. I wish our
Speaker 1: cia had not interfered as much with the order of
Speaker 1: the songs, and we kind of have to remix some
Speaker 1: things that they thought were too rock and roll for them.
Speaker 1: But take a sip of water here. And I loved
Speaker 1: l A and I loved l A. And I got
Speaker 1: to hang out with Glenn Fry for a while, who
Speaker 1: was a very guy. Well, just slow down a little bit.
Speaker 1: How did you meet Glenn Fry? I met Glenn Fry.
Speaker 1: My wife was friends with a woman named Sandy Gibson, publicist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Sandy knew everybody, and she took us to some
Speaker 1: parties and Glenn was there. And that Ned Doheny was
Speaker 1: the guitar player on that album, and that was involved
Speaker 1: in that credit. I loved you know that the music
Speaker 1: coming out of l A at the time. Jackson Brown
Speaker 1: of course, and uh. And I was a big fan
Speaker 1: of the Eagles, although the East Coast rock establishment did
Speaker 1: not give them an easy time. But I love the Eagles,
Speaker 1: So that was that was the experience there. But that
Speaker 1: that album UH again got great critical reception, not quite
Speaker 1: as great as Zach was show. I had a big
Speaker 1: supporter and Robert Hillburn, big critic for the Los Angeles Times,
Speaker 1: arguably the most in the country, arguably, yes, most important,
Speaker 1: most powerful. I mean he would rate a couple of
Speaker 1: songs as his best on that album, as the best
Speaker 1: singles of the year. Uh. And then for the next time,
Speaker 1: I went back to New York and worked with Dennis
Speaker 1: Katzs brother, Steve Katz, who came from Blood, Sweat and Tears,
Speaker 1: because Steve had produced Lou Reed as well Sally Can't Dance,
Speaker 1: which till his dying day, Lou hated that album, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you when he made it, he loved
Speaker 1: that album. But I don't know why he disowned it
Speaker 1: almost but he loved it well when I know. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we worked with Steve Katz, recorded an Electric Ladies Studios.
Speaker 1: Billy Joel played on a couple of cuts, but still
Speaker 1: it just didn't break. It just didn't break. It's the
Speaker 1: same question, were you happy with the end broducts. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of songs on that album, Diamonds by the
Speaker 1: Yard Isadora's Dancers. I would not change the thing. I
Speaker 1: was very happy with the end result and the song
Speaker 1: Billy Joel played on called Deco dance still one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorites. Uh, but I was. I was
Speaker 1: not happy with Our c A at that point with
Speaker 1: my career. Then, in a complete reversal, Libra Cribs started
Speaker 1: barking at my door again and told me that if
Speaker 1: I came back to them, maybe they could get me
Speaker 1: on Columbia where they had Errol Smith, who was the
Speaker 1: person who was interested in you. Because they were quite
Speaker 1: different characters. Although they're still with us Libre or Cribs
Speaker 1: and what was their pitch, they were quite different characters.
Speaker 1: I started out with Cribs in the early days. The
Speaker 1: first time I was with Libring Cribs, but he seemed
Speaker 1: to be more involved with Errol Smith. That was really
Speaker 1: his baby. He really discovered them Steve. Then I got
Speaker 1: more involved with Steven. Steve was a long Island guy
Speaker 1: like me, and Steve talked Colombia into paying Our c
Speaker 1: A another hundred and fifty thousand dollars to buy that contract,
Speaker 1: plus some money from me. And I was also very
Speaker 1: close with Arma Anden. I don't know if that name
Speaker 1: rings a bell. He was the vice president up there
Speaker 1: at the time, working with Bruce lun Voll. The guys
Speaker 1: I worked with at Colombia. You know Bill Freston. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know Bill. Bill first Tom's brother,
Speaker 1: Tom Freston's brother. They sent me to England to do
Speaker 1: Just a Story from America, which was my fourth major
Speaker 1: label album there, and I worked with an engineer named
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Robin Cable, Robin Jeffrey Cable, who would came from
Speaker 1: Trident Studios. That was a family worked with. He had
Speaker 1: been the engineer in a lot of Elton John albums
Speaker 1: and things. And I had Phil Collins on the drums
Speaker 1: and I'm I never forget wing Phil. In between sessions
Speaker 1: he Genesis. Peter Gabriel had just left Genesis, and I said,
Speaker 1: what are you guys gonna do now? And he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had auditioned so many singers. I'm so discussed.
Speaker 1: Stood I might just sing myself and that's what he
Speaker 1: did and the rest is history. So that album came out,
Speaker 1: Just a Story from America, and of course for the
Speaker 1: fourth time. Were you happy with that? I was very
Speaker 1: happy with that album. Like okay, you know, Bob, I
Speaker 1: made a lot of bad business decisions back then, and
Speaker 1: I had some personal problems, you know, I had some
Speaker 1: demons I had to deal with, like almost everybody in
Speaker 1: the seventies. But musically I feel I made the right decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, and the fact that all those albums are
Speaker 1: still almost available, still have lived on they're all still
Speaker 1: not Spotify and everywhere else, you know. So I was
Speaker 1: happy with that result. But I was really happy about
Speaker 1: when there was one track on just a Story from
Speaker 1: America called Anastasia, which became kind of a minor hit
Speaker 1: in France. Uh. And that's what brought me to France
Speaker 1: the first time to do like a promo tour, and
Speaker 1: I realized there was interest there and that kind of
Speaker 1: started lit the fires the reason I am there today.
Speaker 1: So I'm very happy in terms of that. What I'm
Speaker 1: not happy about it is it's very difficult to get
Speaker 1: royalty statements out of these companies. Okay, one step at
Speaker 1: one time, the album comes out, it's a regional hit
Speaker 1: in France. What is your experience with Columbia, what happens
Speaker 1: going forward with the label and the manager the liber
Speaker 1: Crebs philosophy in my opinion back then, and they were
Speaker 1: both former agents. I think Steve was the head of
Speaker 1: the music department, William Morris, uh, you know, to give
Speaker 1: them credit, they did a thing called Beatlemania, right, they
Speaker 1: got sued after they lost a lot of the profits.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but they were really ahead of their times
Speaker 1: with that. I mean now they're attribute Broadway type shows
Speaker 1: all over the world. You know. Everybody put down Beatlemania,
Speaker 1: including the clash in the song, you know. But they
Speaker 1: were both agents, and their philosophy was to break baby
Speaker 1: acts like me. It's to call me a baby act.
Speaker 1: Was to open for bigger acts. And I did a
Speaker 1: long tour with E. L. O open for Elo, a
Speaker 1: lot of dates, opening for Hall and Oates, Billy Joe,
Speaker 1: and you know, when you're opening for someone like Electric
Speaker 1: Light Orchestra who I Love Loved Uh, and you're dinner
Speaker 1: in an arena and you've got thirty minutes and the
Speaker 1: people are still walking in and you get half the
Speaker 1: lights and half the sound, I don't think you make
Speaker 1: much of an impact. Now. My buddy Bruce Springsteen, he
Speaker 1: was smarter than me, and I think at a very
Speaker 1: early point he said, I don't want to do these
Speaker 1: opening acts anymore. He was opening for Chicago, I think
Speaker 1: for a while. I saw him just yesterday and we
Speaker 1: were talking about all the acts we had opened for
Speaker 1: back in the day. I think he said he had
Speaker 1: opened for Black Oak, Arkansas. And I saw Bruce the
Speaker 1: first time when he is at Maxis Kansas City. I
Speaker 1: think he was opening for Bob Marley or something like that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he made a decision he was not doing that. He
Speaker 1: would rather play the small clubs on his own. But
Speaker 1: I went along with the liber Creb's philosophy. But it
Speaker 1: was very disheartening, you know, you just really never felt
Speaker 1: you were making an impact. I should have gone out
Speaker 1: probably on a solo acoustic tour, you know. Uh. So
Speaker 1: that kind of all ended, and then there was a
Speaker 1: lot of internal struggle going on at Columbia, my feeling
Speaker 1: Walter yet Nikoff and Bruce Lonvoll and Lieber and Crebs,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was kind of a collateral damage
Speaker 1: of that. And in ninety eight I found myself without
Speaker 1: a label. Really I left Liebre Crebs. Uh. I thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna do it all on my own, and
Speaker 1: that was literally impossible. And it was really one of
Speaker 1: the lowest points in my life. My brother at the
Speaker 1: time was working at as the tour manager for Talking Heads,
Speaker 1: and I was broke. I was broke and they needed
Speaker 1: to move some equipment gear and I was driving a truck,
Speaker 1: you know, to make a hundred bucks to move on amplifier,
Speaker 1: and I remember I fell asleep at the wheel. I
Speaker 1: almost on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I just pulled off
Speaker 1: to the side of the road. Tears came out of
Speaker 1: my eyes. You know, how did I get to this
Speaker 1: point in my career? And then I kind of slowly
Speaker 1: but surely picked myself up, uh you know, stopped all
Speaker 1: my bad habits. Okay, wait, wait, let's not paper over that.
Speaker 1: You talk about your demons which were the hindrance to
Speaker 1: the success of your career, Go a little deeper. What
Speaker 1: were those demons? I mean, you're a very calm on
Speaker 1: the ball guy. What were you like back then and
Speaker 1: what were the demons? Well? I think, like you know,
Speaker 1: I hate to come off as one of those uh
Speaker 1: sobriety changed my life kind of artists, but you know
Speaker 1: it was the old story of cocaine and alcohol. Really
Speaker 1: that was it. And that the way that really impact
Speaker 1: in my career was I think that came more of
Speaker 1: my priority than then the music, you know, the the lifestyle,
Speaker 1: rather than the making them making the music my priority.
Speaker 1: Although I did manage to make albums that have stood
Speaker 1: the test of time, and I'm very great for that,
Speaker 1: you know. But I dropped those demons, and I I
Speaker 1: really started from the bottom again. Wait, wait, just a
Speaker 1: couple of things really slow. How did you drop those demons? Well,
Speaker 1: I went to the usual twelve step programs. Usually there's like,
Speaker 1: you know you're at the bottom, there's a moment of awakening.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that moment of awakening before you went
Speaker 1: to the twelve step program. Okay, uh, you can't read
Speaker 1: about this in my memoir. Just to start from America,
Speaker 1: if I can put in a pitch that is available
Speaker 1: on Amazon, both in an audiobook and in a paperback.
Speaker 1: It has also been published in Spanish and French versions. Okay, Bob,
Speaker 1: this is what happened. It was five, I guess, and
Speaker 1: and I was. It was about ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: I had been up all the night before. You know,
Speaker 1: I was stoned. I was chugging vodka. I was dropping
Speaker 1: value m I was looking for anything on the shag
Speaker 1: carpet that resembled cocaine. And I was just basically saying, God,
Speaker 1: don't let me die. At this moment, you know, and
Speaker 1: this voice, it wasn't a voice in any other worldly sense,
Speaker 1: but I just got this message that this is what
Speaker 1: you do, and this is what you'll continue to do.
Speaker 1: And uh. And I had to catch a flight that
Speaker 1: afternoon to go out to Milwaukee to work with Jerry
Speaker 1: Harrison from the Talking Heads. And Jerry had been in
Speaker 1: my band and he had recorded night Lights with many
Speaker 1: of the tracks on that and he had taken an
Speaker 1: interest in my career and he wanted me to record
Speaker 1: out in Milwaukee with them. And I caught a plane
Speaker 1: that afternoon. I got to Milwaukee. I discovered some people
Speaker 1: you know who who were recovering from drugs and alcohol
Speaker 1: and I hooked up with them. And that was thirty
Speaker 1: seven years ago. Okay, part of the twelve step processes,
Speaker 1: you have to make amends. What was your experience there
Speaker 1: going back to all these people to make amends that
Speaker 1: you can remember. I didn't have to make any amends
Speaker 1: to any labels that I remember. I was hoping I
Speaker 1: might receive some, but you know, maybe maybe I think
Speaker 1: with some of the musicians I worked with, I had
Speaker 1: a band and when I left to go to London
Speaker 1: to do just Store of America. I really didn't even
Speaker 1: let the band know what I was doing. You know.
Speaker 1: There were some things like that, uh, family, family things.
Speaker 1: But you know they say the biggest a men, you
Speaker 1: have to make it to yourself. And I guess that
Speaker 1: for me that was the most important. You know. I
Speaker 1: really had an incredible opportunity in the for my music,
Speaker 1: and I did not respect it enough in those days.
Speaker 1: I remember once I was having in my heyday with
Speaker 1: Eric Anderson. You know Eric, I've met him, I seen him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: famous folk singer, still alive living in another expatriate America,
Speaker 1: right right, Scandinavia. And uh we were sitting there with
Speaker 1: with Bob finding a couple of people, and Eric said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, Elliott, you gotta pay your dues.
Speaker 1: And I said, Eric, I'd rather collect the dudes, you know.
Speaker 1: So that was my attitude. I've changed, Bob. Okay, just
Speaker 1: a couple of clean up things. Do you still go
Speaker 1: to meetings? Oh? I do? Yeah, yeah, I do? How frequently? Well,
Speaker 1: there's there's lots of them in Paris, I mean since
Speaker 1: the COVID you know, it's all on zoom right well
Speaker 1: as we are today. But yeah, I gotta have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends there. And when I used to go
Speaker 1: to meetings in New York, the great thing was that
Speaker 1: all the people I used to get high with were
Speaker 1: in the meetings. You know, that's funny. Okay, you mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of times royalties. Let's drill down there right
Speaker 1: for a second. So there's record royalties and publishing royalties.
Speaker 1: Let's start with record royalties. Needless to say, one would
Speaker 1: think you were in the whole at these labels. Did
Speaker 1: they charge your royalty account these hundred and fifty k
Speaker 1: that the other labels paid to get you off? What's
Speaker 1: going on? There's what's going on and what was supposed
Speaker 1: to go on. I mean, as I understood the situation
Speaker 1: when r c A paid Polydor hunt thousand, that was
Speaker 1: supposed to leave me with a clean slate at Polydor,
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to start getting paid royalties from
Speaker 1: Record one because that basically what Polydor was saying they
Speaker 1: had invested. Same with our CIA. Uh with Colombia. It
Speaker 1: was more complicated because I was signed to Columbia through
Speaker 1: a production company that Libra Crepsa and I think it's
Speaker 1: called Contemporary Communications. Now, after many years of struggle and
Speaker 1: with the help of my dear friend Kenny my Salue.
Speaker 1: You know Kenny my Salue, No I know the name.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he is an attorney's with Alan
Speaker 1: Groupman firm and he is if we got a minute,
Speaker 1: so Kenny buy Salas. When I was playing in St.
Speaker 1: Louis opening for E l O. Uh, he was in
Speaker 1: a punk band and he liked my music and he
Speaker 1: came to my hotel room to meet me. And my
Speaker 1: brother was the tour manager and he said, no, you
Speaker 1: can't disturb Elliott. But I came to the door, saw him.
Speaker 1: I liked him, and we chatted for a while. And
Speaker 1: he has gone on to be just a real mover
Speaker 1: and a shaker, and I mean his clients are Lady Gaga,
Speaker 1: Puff Daddy. I mean, just incredible guy. And so he
Speaker 1: has helped me try to get some royalty statements out
Speaker 1: of them. But it's complicated because now our c A
Speaker 1: is part of Sony, So those two r c A
Speaker 1: albums and uh so that's the situation of that publishing side.
Speaker 1: It's easy. Before we leave that A, do you even
Speaker 1: get statements irrelevant of getting paid? And if you ever
Speaker 1: got opinion royalties, I get statements. Now I got a
Speaker 1: statement from Sony. Uh. I used to get statements from Polydor.
Speaker 1: They stopped with Polydor. I was always like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars in the red or something. You know,
Speaker 1: it never seemed to increase that. Uh So I've never
Speaker 1: received any record royalties from either of those companies in
Speaker 1: uh forty years now, Kenny been working with you. Is
Speaker 1: there any income in the future or you in arrears?
Speaker 1: What do you project going forward? Well, what I hope
Speaker 1: is that there always this movement on artists being able
Speaker 1: to reclaim their albums after a certain number of years. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the one Copyright Act which which impacts that, it was
Speaker 1: for albums recorded after and all my four major label
Speaker 1: albums were recorded before that, so they're kind of in limbo.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping you know, it's not really for me, Bob,
Speaker 1: It's for my my son just at some point to
Speaker 1: establish who owns those albums. And you know, when you know,
Speaker 1: when Chevrolet decides to use drive All Night as their
Speaker 1: theme song for the new commercial, that somebody will be
Speaker 1: there to collect some royalties. So tell me about the
Speaker 1: publishing song. Publishing side is much easier because from the
Speaker 1: very beginning. Everyone used to tell me, hold onto your publishing,
Speaker 1: Hold onto your publishing, and I did for the most part.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have my two R C A albums.
Speaker 1: I had to give half to their publishing company, which
Speaker 1: then turned into Warner Chapel, but they I get royalty
Speaker 1: statements from them and and all the rest. I own
Speaker 1: all my publishing. So and I'm in France, the equivalent
Speaker 1: of of as Captain b M I is called Sassam.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've heard of that. And uh, they're they're really
Speaker 1: very good society. And I have healthcare through them. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of things through them. So the publishing
Speaker 1: side has been pretty pretty good, okay. And is their
Speaker 1: income in addition to the benefits is their income from
Speaker 1: from publishing? You get your health care, you get other benefits,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and I get yeah. And also in Europe,
Speaker 1: when you play shows, a portion of the ticket sales
Speaker 1: goes to the to the publisher of the songs that
Speaker 1: are played, and after each show you got to fill
Speaker 1: out a form to say what shows, what songs you performed.
Speaker 1: That's not the same in America. America, it is much
Speaker 1: more a winner take all. You know, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a feaster famine situation. But in Europe they tend to
Speaker 1: take more care with with the artists in the middle
Speaker 1: and songwriters in the middle. So I do get. I
Speaker 1: do get. For many years, Sasam has treated me very well.
Speaker 1: You mentioned your son when we talked previously. You said
Speaker 1: your son, although raised in France, went to college in America.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about him and what's
Speaker 1: he's what he's up to today. Gas Bar Murphy is
Speaker 1: my son. He's thirty one years old and he went
Speaker 1: to He grew up in France. He speaks English like me,
Speaker 1: speaks French like his mother. Uh. He got a guitar
Speaker 1: when he was twelve years old and just fell in
Speaker 1: love with a kind of similar same story with me.
Speaker 1: And he got into production very early, you know, like
Speaker 1: it was using pro tools when I first came out.
Speaker 1: He went to soon he purchased which is a State
Speaker 1: University of New York school in Purchase in Westchester County
Speaker 1: where they have a marvelous UH studio production program. So
Speaker 1: he came to the US. He went to four years
Speaker 1: that got his degree. UH. During that time he did
Speaker 1: some amazing things. Uh. He had to do like an
Speaker 1: apprentice thing during one summer. So I asked Bruce if
Speaker 1: he knew a studio he could work at or something
Speaker 1: like that, and Bruce Sprinstein said, well, he can come
Speaker 1: on the road with me. So gas Bar went on
Speaker 1: the road with Bruce Springsteen and the Eastreet Band for
Speaker 1: a couple of months. That was wonderful. My brother at
Speaker 1: the time was working for a bank called Incubus. He
Speaker 1: went on the road with Incubus for a little while
Speaker 1: as well, and he did a long internship with a
Speaker 1: very well known mixer named Tony Maserati. You may have
Speaker 1: heard of him. Wonderful guy. You know, he's from Beyonce
Speaker 1: on down. He's done everybody and gaspar worked with him
Speaker 1: for for quite a while and now he's back in
Speaker 1: Paris and he's got his own studio and he's he's
Speaker 1: he's been pretty successful, you know, as a as a
Speaker 1: producer and a mixer. When he has time, he will
Speaker 1: work with me. He produced my last you know, five albums,
Speaker 1: and we have a new single coming out on May
Speaker 1: twenty which is called Hope in Your Eyes that will
Speaker 1: be out on all the Spotify and all the platforms. Okay,
Speaker 1: a couple of questions there you're from New York. Well
Speaker 1: you're living in Paris. He goes to Sunny Purchase. Did
Speaker 1: you get in state rates? He did not. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you paid through those good taxpayer good Night's left wing
Speaker 1: not working yet? Yeah? Yeah. The second thing for an
Speaker 1: artist like you who has never gotten record royalties anyway,
Speaker 1: what's your view on streaming helping? Hurting? Agnostic? You know,
Speaker 1: for me, bum it's been a godsend. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: the not just streating, but the whole Internet has teared
Speaker 1: down the wall between me and my fans that I
Speaker 1: used to have to go through a major label to
Speaker 1: get to. But for digital distribution, I'm with a company
Speaker 1: called Believe. If you've heard of them. They started in France, US,
Speaker 1: but now they're they're a major player all over the world.
Speaker 1: They get my albums out everywhere. Uh. I'm pretty active
Speaker 1: on social media and those who A lot of people
Speaker 1: are upset about the money from streaming, but I have
Speaker 1: to remind them, you know, back in the day, radio
Speaker 1: didn't play pay anything, nothing, just just to the publishers,
Speaker 1: but nothing to the Uh So I'm okay with streaming. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the moment. We're falling asleep at
Speaker 1: the wheel and you're at your low thing. You thought
Speaker 1: about doing yourself? How do you rebuild your career at
Speaker 1: that point? What do you actually do? What I had
Speaker 1: to do was learn how to record albums on a
Speaker 1: very smaller budget than I was used to. Let's start
Speaker 1: before that. Did you ever contemplate giving up and going straight?
Speaker 1: I did in the mid eighties, Well, going straight, I
Speaker 1: don't know. In the mid eighties, it was really a
Speaker 1: tough time and I was just getting sober, and I
Speaker 1: got a job at a law firm, a music law
Speaker 1: firm called Prior, Cashman, Sherman and Flynn. They were on
Speaker 1: Park Avenue in New York, and I worked for a
Speaker 1: litigator named Don Zacharin, great guy. In his famous case
Speaker 1: was about the song Feelings and Feelings, and that there
Speaker 1: was a French writer, interestingly enough, who said he had
Speaker 1: written the song and sent it so anyway, so I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there in this office and there was another music
Speaker 1: business attorney and after a couple of weeks there, he
Speaker 1: came over me. He said, listen, a lot of people
Speaker 1: are coming here into my office and they're saying that
Speaker 1: this legal secretary looks like this singer songwriterer Elliott Murphy,
Speaker 1: is that you? And I said, yeah, it is. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, what are you doing here? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of tough times in the music business.
Speaker 1: I needed a job. And I I said, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm actually thinking of becoming a lawyer, because during this
Speaker 1: time I went back to college, I got my degree,
Speaker 1: and I was really thinking about becoming a lawyer. And
Speaker 1: he just looked at me and said, don't do it now, Bob.
Speaker 1: I think you're you got some legal background there. I
Speaker 1: got a similar story. But this is about you. You know.
Speaker 1: My father always said, you know, get a law degree.
Speaker 1: It's good background. Never was good background until Napster hit.
Speaker 1: But I certainly never wanted to practice law and didn't
Speaker 1: practice that much. That experience working at the law from
Speaker 1: I worked there for two years was marvelous because, as
Speaker 1: I said, the week I got there, if anyone can remember,
Speaker 1: they switched from typewriters to computers. So I was sent
Speaker 1: to for two weeks. I was learned how to use
Speaker 1: a computer and word processing. I did all my work
Speaker 1: there to get my degree. I went back to a
Speaker 1: school called Empire State University, which is turning mostly adult educational.
Speaker 1: I got my AM bachelor's degree there. They had a
Speaker 1: telex remember telex, of course I used to arrange all
Speaker 1: They'd let me go to Europe every once in a
Speaker 1: while a couple of weeks on a tour. I did
Speaker 1: all my touring through telex. So and what was most
Speaker 1: important I learned that, you know, two lawyers can be
Speaker 1: fighting about something and creating reams and reams of paper,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, a judge is
Speaker 1: going to write two lines and say who wins. So
Speaker 1: it was really an eye opening experience. How did you do?
Speaker 1: The music kept pulling me back. It was just too
Speaker 1: much was going on. I had an album that came
Speaker 1: out that was nominated for New York Music Award. I
Speaker 1: don't think those exist anymore. I was getting more and
Speaker 1: more offers to come to Europe to play. Um uh.
Speaker 1: I was you know people today called at least over there,
Speaker 1: they called me a pioneer in terms of independent artists.
Speaker 1: Because when I went to Europe for the first time
Speaker 1: in seventy nine, I saw that people licensed their albums
Speaker 1: two smaller labels all that you know, you'd have one
Speaker 1: in France when in Spain one in Scat and everyone. Uh.
Speaker 1: I had never heard of that concept before, and they said,
Speaker 1: all you gotta do is gather for me to make
Speaker 1: the product and then you can license it. And so
Speaker 1: we started licensing, you know, and I started to get
Speaker 1: a really good relation with about five or six companies
Speaker 1: over there. When you say we who's week, it was
Speaker 1: with my brother. My brother and I had a girlfriend
Speaker 1: at the time named Kathleen Smith, and she was also
Speaker 1: involved a little bit. Just to be clear, your brother
Speaker 1: was originally in your band before he was a road manager. Yes,
Speaker 1: my brother Matthew. He played bass on Acqua Show. Uh
Speaker 1: and then uh, right before the second album he had
Speaker 1: a car accident. Really couldn't play the bass anymore. I
Speaker 1: had to keep moving forward. Uh. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a heartbreaking time. He has gone on to be he
Speaker 1: He started work with all those New York bands like
Speaker 1: Robert Gordon Talking Heads B fifty two has worked with
Speaker 1: the Rhythmics for a long time now. He has the
Speaker 1: dream to our manager job because he's worked for Steve
Speaker 1: Martin for the last twelve years. Steve Martin and Martin
Speaker 1: short and just great guys and he loves working with them.
Speaker 1: I think he's done better than he might have done
Speaker 1: as my base. Okay, so you're done with Columbia, You're
Speaker 1: done with libre cribs. You're picking up a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: here and there. You decide you want to go independent?
Speaker 1: How do you actually do it? How do you actually
Speaker 1: make your next record? How does it come together? Well?
Speaker 1: I was also playing. I was doing kind of a
Speaker 1: house band at a club Quilled Tramps in New York
Speaker 1: with David Johansson was there from the New York Dolls,
Speaker 1: and I would play there every wednes Day night. Every
Speaker 1: Wednesday night. It rained. Anyway, I kept writing songs. I
Speaker 1: got some time at the Record Plan because I've done
Speaker 1: two albums there and they let me. They gave me
Speaker 1: a little time. We recorded six tracks to make an EP.
Speaker 1: Got the mastered by my friend Greg Calbayo, was a
Speaker 1: mastering engineer in New York who you know, really gave
Speaker 1: me a great deal. And then we had to figure out, well,
Speaker 1: then what do you do? How do you make the records?
Speaker 1: So there was actually a pressing plant in Midtown Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and we I finally saw how records are made. You know,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. You go in there. They'd have these machines
Speaker 1: that look like they're making pancakes or wildfles. They take
Speaker 1: this little round piece of plastic, put it in the middle,
Speaker 1: two labels on either side. Next thing you know, it
Speaker 1: was all run by Eastern European ladies. And so we
Speaker 1: started pressing albums. Affairs was the name of that albums,
Speaker 1: my first independent release. Now, although my brother was working
Speaker 1: with me, he was also on tour a lot with
Speaker 1: the bands. I had mentioned what year are we in?
Speaker 1: Were in about? And crazy Eddie does that ring about?
Speaker 1: Of course, the electronics prices are insane, right as I say, well,
Speaker 1: they were all They also sold vinyl, they sold records.
Speaker 1: They were big and they were they were so they
Speaker 1: had sold like a hundred of my albums and they
Speaker 1: had ordered more. But my brother was out of town.
Speaker 1: So I took the phone call and I brought the
Speaker 1: albums down there myself, and I walked in Southern manager
Speaker 1: and I said, you ordered the Elliott Murphy albums. He
Speaker 1: said yes, he said, aren't you Elliot Murphy. He said yes,
Speaker 1: he said, and you delivered the albums yourself. I said yes,
Speaker 1: He said why, I said, well, you know, after four
Speaker 1: albums with the majors. Now I like total artistic control.
Speaker 1: So so that was my experience and I just really
Speaker 1: learned the whole business, you know, making little publishing deals,
Speaker 1: making licensing deals all over. It was. It was really
Speaker 1: an education. I don't think that business model exists anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's these businesses all require money. Where did you
Speaker 1: get the money to pay for the records and the
Speaker 1: little like paying the reduced rate to Calby, etcetera. Touring?
Speaker 1: That was all from touring. So it was all your money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was all our money. Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: all my money. Yeah. I think my brother contributed as well.
Speaker 1: We would go off on tour for a couple of
Speaker 1: months in Europe, our month because I didn't start working
Speaker 1: at the law firm until a little later. When you
Speaker 1: say to go on the road, it was you alone
Speaker 1: playing acoustic or other band members or what. No, we
Speaker 1: would have a band. I had a band with Ernie
Speaker 1: Brooks who was from the Modern Lovers, Jonathan Richmond's ban m.
Speaker 1: My piano player was Richard Soul who then was in
Speaker 1: the Patty Smooth Smith group. But I pretty much always
Speaker 1: had a and and at that time in Europe, if
Speaker 1: you were really willing to do the travel and it
Speaker 1: wasn't easy, you know, but festivals paid well. Uh it
Speaker 1: wasn't uh saturated with American acts you know over there
Speaker 1: like it is now. And Uh, okay, so that record
Speaker 1: comes out, how many copies can you sell? We could sell.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of that record, but I
Speaker 1: think between what we sold and between what the licensees sold,
Speaker 1: you know, it might have sold fifty thousand. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of records. That's a lot of records hip, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot of territories. So if you're selling ten
Speaker 1: thousand in France and then you're selling you know, seven
Speaker 1: thousand in Italy and seven you know, and I think
Speaker 1: in America we sold about that. So when it's all
Speaker 1: said and done, because collecting is a whole another different
Speaker 1: thing from selling, did you make any money selling the
Speaker 1: records and then collecting from your distributors? That is a
Speaker 1: whole different thing, you know. I remember we had one
Speaker 1: distributor in Texas a word us money and man, I
Speaker 1: just used to have to call them every day and
Speaker 1: try and shame them into you know, I need the
Speaker 1: money to make the next album, and uh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: So that cycle ns. Tell me about what goes on
Speaker 1: before you start to work for the law from you
Speaker 1: make another record. We made a couple of records there
Speaker 1: I made as Steve Katz was working at Mercury. I
Speaker 1: think by that time he gave me some studio time.
Speaker 1: We made another album out called Murph the Surf, which
Speaker 1: did very well in Italy of all places. UH had
Speaker 1: a song called The Full of Saigon did very well
Speaker 1: over in Europe. But it was tough, you know, it
Speaker 1: was tough. Touring was tough. It was long driving and
Speaker 1: a lot of vans, and I was discouraged. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what I kind of thought, Well, maybe I
Speaker 1: should kind of quite well on my head here and
Speaker 1: head to the law firm. Let's go back to the
Speaker 1: very beginning. Let's start with something awkwad show. When the
Speaker 1: press came out that was the name of the album.
Speaker 1: Was the whole story about your relative running the Akway show?
Speaker 1: Was that your idea? Who were they saying, well, this
Speaker 1: is an angle, let's work this well. Going back even further,
Speaker 1: my father, who was Elliott Murphy Sor, I'm a junior UH,
Speaker 1: and he was the son of an Irish immigrant who
Speaker 1: was a Blacksmith in Brooklyn. My father he started a
Speaker 1: show called The Aqua Show on the site of the
Speaker 1: ninety nine World's Fair, although it was in the fifties
Speaker 1: when he had it, and it was like with a
Speaker 1: certain kind of spectacle doesn't even exist today. It was
Speaker 1: eight thousand seats outdoor theater. There was a huge Olympic
Speaker 1: sized pool. There were clown divers jumping off everything. There
Speaker 1: was a revolving stage, and there were some credible bands.
Speaker 1: There was Duke Ellington play there for while. There was
Speaker 1: Cap Halloway who played there. Some iconic comedians like Jackie Mason,
Speaker 1: you know, performed there. And and my father was the producer.
Speaker 1: He owned the show. You know. I learned the greatest
Speaker 1: lesson from him about show business. He said, no matter
Speaker 1: how good the show is, if it rains, nobody comes.
Speaker 1: And that's really true. Now, my father, we lost him.
Speaker 1: He died young. I was sixteen, and by that time
Speaker 1: he had he had gone from the Aqua Show. He
Speaker 1: had a restaurant called the Sky Club out in Garden City.
Speaker 1: It was very politically connected. Bobby Kennedy came there, Nelson Rockefeller,
Speaker 1: I mean, all the the the big names of that
Speaker 1: political era and he had that restaurant and then he
Speaker 1: had a heart attack at the age of Uh. It
Speaker 1: just traumatized me and the whole family. You know, it
Speaker 1: was really a bad time to go. There was not
Speaker 1: much to fall back on. Uh any thoughts of going
Speaker 1: on to college or anything. At that point, we're squashed. Luckily,
Speaker 1: you know that I still held onto the music. I
Speaker 1: started playing the guitar since twelve, and that really got
Speaker 1: me through. Well, since we're mentioning this, So you grew
Speaker 1: up on the island or in the city. No. I
Speaker 1: grew up in Garden City, Long Island, which is right
Speaker 1: in the middle. It's where Charles Lindbergh took off from
Speaker 1: to go to Paris, although his reputation has been heard
Speaker 1: amished in recent years. Okay, you go to school, good student,
Speaker 1: bad student, terrible student, terrible student. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was twelve, they couldn't understand why I was not doing
Speaker 1: well at school, and they told my mother he needs
Speaker 1: something to channel his energies. I guess I was kind
Speaker 1: of a hyperactive kid, and they suggested I learned a
Speaker 1: musical instrument. So with my mother, I went to a
Speaker 1: Quickly's music center and knew Park, and we started playing
Speaker 1: studying the guitar together. And by when I picked up
Speaker 1: that guitar, my school work out worse, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: And I I just fell in love with the guitar
Speaker 1: and it's an instrument, and I I witnessed all those
Speaker 1: life changing events for musicians of my group. In my generation.
Speaker 1: I saw Elvis Presley and Ed Sullivan, you know. And
Speaker 1: my grandfather was from Tupelo, Mississippi, the same town as Elvis,
Speaker 1: so I really had a connection there. So the Beatles
Speaker 1: on TV. At my father's restaurant, he sometimes would have
Speaker 1: college mixers and there'd be the Rondettes singing. I think
Speaker 1: the Loving Spoonful played there. So yeah, that's I was
Speaker 1: a terrible student, you know. It wasn't until I went
Speaker 1: back to school to college in the eighties, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm luckily I made it out of high school. Actually,
Speaker 1: And was your brother older or younger? My brother was younger.
Speaker 1: And were you a popular kid outsider? What were you like? Well?
Speaker 1: I was voted best dressed? Whoa you know, but that
Speaker 1: was I was maybe the first of my class to
Speaker 1: start wearing bell bottoms and Tom Jones shirts. If you
Speaker 1: remember what those man I also have an older sister, Michelle.
Speaker 1: Uh she's the one who gave me In nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: year sixteen one, she went to see Bob Dylan play
Speaker 1: at Princeton and the next Christmas she gave me his
Speaker 1: first album as a Christmas present. And I love that album.
Speaker 1: And my favorite song was Housel Rising Sun. So when
Speaker 1: a few years later the Animals had a hit with it,
Speaker 1: I already knew it, uh so, but it was really
Speaker 1: you know, if it wasn't for the guitar, I don't
Speaker 1: know what would have happened to me. Really, it's really
Speaker 1: kept me afloat. And did you play in bands in
Speaker 1: high school? Bob? Not only did I play in bands?
Speaker 1: I won the nineteen six the six New York State
Speaker 1: Battle of the Bands in high school? Tell us that story? Okay?
Speaker 1: Well that was I had a band called the Rapscallions,
Speaker 1: and we used to do There was a studio recording
Speaker 1: studio in Hempstead which was right next to Garden City,
Speaker 1: and that's where the Shangri Laws recorded Walking in the Sand.
Speaker 1: There was a producer named Shadow Morton, remember him? Of course?
Speaker 1: I think the d Fudge too, did Genesee and Society's child,
Speaker 1: great track, great track, and we'd go over there and
Speaker 1: kind of listen and stuff. Anyway, I had this band
Speaker 1: called the Rep skuy Ands, and we had a very
Speaker 1: talented and pretty girl who was our lead singer, and
Speaker 1: we would do songs like that walking in the sand, remember,
Speaker 1: walking in the same all that stuff, and and we
Speaker 1: won the Long Island Battle of the Bands in Eisenhower
Speaker 1: Park out there, and then we went up to west
Speaker 1: Chester and when the New York State Battle of the Bands,
Speaker 1: we got Blazers and a hundred dollars savings certificate, and
Speaker 1: we were supposed to march in the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Speaker 1: But none of the parents of anyone, all the other
Speaker 1: kids wanted their kids to go on into music. You know,
Speaker 1: Garden City was a very conservative, upper middle class kind
Speaker 1: of town, and you know, that was not the route
Speaker 1: that their parents were looking for him, whereas me, it
Speaker 1: was always the road I wanted to take. So your
Speaker 1: father dies, how is your family paying the bills? We're not,
Speaker 1: We're not. He at the restaurant was in a bad
Speaker 1: state that it went bankrupt. My mother, who was really
Speaker 1: at I mean she was only thirty nine when he
Speaker 1: passed away. She had her that generation she had and
Speaker 1: my sister I think when she was nineteen. You know,
Speaker 1: they started families early. Uh. With my father, she had
Speaker 1: gone to the White House and danced with Eisenhower. You know,
Speaker 1: my father was My father was that old style Republicans
Speaker 1: if you remember them, Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. Rockefeller who was
Speaker 1: the senator from Connecticut. Uh, began with the douvil Anyway,
Speaker 1: my father was that kind of Republican, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean I never heard him say a racist or Marcus
Speaker 1: whole life. He just didn't like the Union's telling him
Speaker 1: what to do in his restaurant. He didn't like paying
Speaker 1: a lot of taxes. But aside from that, Uh so
Speaker 1: my mother who had gone from you know, my father
Speaker 1: used to organize a lot of charity shows and people
Speaker 1: like Perry Como would saying or Mike Todd was that
Speaker 1: one with Liz Taylor when they were married. And uh,
Speaker 1: my mother went from that lifestyle to really starting over again,
Speaker 1: and she ended up working at Tiffany in New York. Okay,
Speaker 1: you win the Battle of the bands? Were you also
Speaker 1: playing bar Mitzvah's Sweet sixteens and making a living as
Speaker 1: a musician, making a living, making some money, making some money.
Speaker 1: I mean, we mostly played at the bar joints that
Speaker 1: we're on Hempstead Turnpike. There's a couple of colleges that
Speaker 1: were there. There's Hofstra University, there's a Delphi, the CW Post,
Speaker 1: so that were there were college mixers we would play at.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was tough, but it was a
Speaker 1: great education. You do five or success a night. You
Speaker 1: had to just know hundreds of songs. Uh, And that's
Speaker 1: what basically I did until a and then I took
Speaker 1: this trip which I mentioned before, to Europe in n Okay.
Speaker 1: But how do you become one thing about your songs
Speaker 1: to this day? Is there very literate? Where did that?
Speaker 1: What was the generation of that couple of things come
Speaker 1: into play with that? First of all in the sixties,
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, It's hard to imagine, but it
Speaker 1: seemed like all the different cultural elements were coming together.
Speaker 1: There was cinema and there was music. I mean, you
Speaker 1: look on the cover of Sergeant Sergeant Pepper there, it's
Speaker 1: full of writers, you know, it's that that collage of
Speaker 1: all those faces. It's Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde
Speaker 1: and everybody else. So I was very influenced by those writers.
Speaker 1: I always was attracted to the writers in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: especially if Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby took place on
Speaker 1: Long Island. You know, we used to get stoned and
Speaker 1: drive up past those mansions which still existed on the
Speaker 1: North Shore and Long Island and dream and uh uh.
Speaker 1: And then there was the beat generation. You know, there
Speaker 1: was Jack Carolak. I mean, if you wanted to be
Speaker 1: in in the right place culturally in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: you had to have an awareness of all that. You know,
Speaker 1: you had to know who Allen Ginsburg was and Howell
Speaker 1: is his poem and uh And at the same time
Speaker 1: there were incredible films happening. So I think I came
Speaker 1: out of that, but I don't know. I'm a reader.
Speaker 1: I still am a reader, you know, I like fiction today.
Speaker 1: I tend to read more biography than fiction because you
Speaker 1: just want to see how other people got through this life.
Speaker 1: And I have written a few books. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: going to get to that, but let's continue the narrative.
Speaker 1: So you go to Europe, and what is your intention
Speaker 1: that was? When you know, going to Europe you could
Speaker 1: get a flight very cheap, you could live very cheap.
Speaker 1: But what was your theoretical agenda or was there nothing
Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna go and see what happened, or
Speaker 1: we're going for inspiration. My sister was a pan Am
Speaker 1: stewardess legendary. I think there's been TV shows made about
Speaker 1: so because because of that, she got a family discount,
Speaker 1: and I think I got a flight to answer to
Speaker 1: them for pennies, you know, just for nothing. And uh,
Speaker 1: I just really wanted to get away from Long Island.
Speaker 1: And I had a friend who had gotten there earlier
Speaker 1: and just said, you've got to come to Europe. Everything's
Speaker 1: happened there in Amsterdam. And and so I went over
Speaker 1: with him and a couple of other guys and we
Speaker 1: went to Amsterdam, and we went to Paris, and then
Speaker 1: we went to Rome, which is really where I spent
Speaker 1: most of my time in and I was He had
Speaker 1: a guitar and I was playing in front of restaurants
Speaker 1: and we passed the hat. And his brother, if you
Speaker 1: follow this, was living with an American actor named Farley Granger.
Speaker 1: Now Farley Granger was in Strangers on a Train, the
Speaker 1: Alfred Hetchcock movie, and he had become quite a big
Speaker 1: star in Europe, kind of in the Clint Eastwood Mold,
Speaker 1: you know before. And Farley Granger said to me, listen,
Speaker 1: if you want to make some money, you should get
Speaker 1: yourself out to Chinni Chita, which is a big studio,
Speaker 1: because Felini is making a film and he's he's hiring extras,
Speaker 1: and you gotta look, you know, maybe he'd hire you.
Speaker 1: So my brother and I went out to Chinnichita and
Speaker 1: I don't know how we talked away in there, but
Speaker 1: we did. And we went into a room. The door opened,
Speaker 1: and Federico Folini looked in that, you know, by Benny
Speaker 1: shut the door, and we got hired to work for Felini.
Speaker 1: He was filming Roma, his film Roma. And although I
Speaker 1: was really just an extra, you know, but everybody was
Speaker 1: an extra in that film. And and at one point
Speaker 1: Felini stood right next to me because they did the
Speaker 1: clapper on my face and he said, young boy, stand here.
Speaker 1: I was a young boy then. So it was an
Speaker 1: amazing And if you watch Roma today, you can see
Speaker 1: me in it, you know, I mean it not too long,
Speaker 1: but you can see me in that. So to fast forward, Bob,
Speaker 1: and this is amazing. I was telling this story about
Speaker 1: working with Felini when I was playing at a gig
Speaker 1: in a little club in trust Savery in Rome, and
Speaker 1: after the show someone said, listen, I have Leny's address
Speaker 1: if you want to write to him. So I wrote
Speaker 1: to him and I wrote said how that experience was just,
Speaker 1: you know, life changing, and I've told talked about it
Speaker 1: all the time, and I sent him a c D.
Speaker 1: And when I got back to Paris, I'm fast forwarding
Speaker 1: now well into the nineties. When I got back to Paris,
Speaker 1: there was a letter in my mailbox from Federico Fley.
Speaker 1: I still have it. It's on my wall, written in English,
Speaker 1: many mistakes, words crossed, and he said, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your music and kind words. Elliott. He said,
Speaker 1: unfortunately ages weaken my memory and I don't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what you did in my film, but all the critics
Speaker 1: tell me it was marvelous and that he wished me
Speaker 1: good luck. And really just a few months after that
Speaker 1: he passed away. How long did you actually work on
Speaker 1: I think it was like a week. So all this
Speaker 1: time you're writing music and then tell me the evolution
Speaker 1: of coming back and starting in the band world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to write songs. I'm starting to write a
Speaker 1: white middle class blues. I think that was a song
Speaker 1: I wrote over there, Last of the rock Stars, because
Speaker 1: when we came, when I came to Europan nine, I
Speaker 1: think that it was Janis Joplin had died and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Hendricks had died, and Jim Morrison, and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, who was going to be left to play?
Speaker 1: Which is a line of rock and roll is here
Speaker 1: to stay, but who will be left to play? And
Speaker 1: I started writing that and then I came back and I, uh,
Speaker 1: we started to put a band together with my brother
Speaker 1: and started to play that. It was, as I said,
Speaker 1: a business model which doesn't exist anymore. You could play
Speaker 1: all over New York. There was Max's Kansas City, there
Speaker 1: was the mercer Artis and It's Kenny's Cast the Ways,
Speaker 1: and they were all kind of bands, especially the New
Speaker 1: York Dolls that were Patti Smith. And it was before CBGBs.
Speaker 1: I was never a CBGBs guy. Uh, that was a
Speaker 1: different thing. And we started to play, put the band together.
Speaker 1: I kept writing until I had, you know, ten of
Speaker 1: twelve songs, and then we knocked on Polydorus door. And
Speaker 1: here I am a little point of information. How did
Speaker 1: you record those songs for the demo? And where and
Speaker 1: who paid for it? I think my mother. I don't
Speaker 1: remember exactly, but I know there was some point with
Speaker 1: my father's life insurance. Maybe we got a couple of
Speaker 1: thousand dollars each each kid or something. And when I think,
Speaker 1: with that money, me and my brother bought some musical
Speaker 1: equipment and we went to a demo studio in Port Washington,
Speaker 1: Long Island, and that's where we recorded those songs the demo.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned and a number of artists from Mooie
Speaker 1: to David, Joe Hansen to Springsteen. And from previous conversation,
Speaker 1: I know that when Springsteen came to Paris he invited
Speaker 1: you up on stage. To what degree do you still
Speaker 1: have contact with anybody from that seventies scene and how
Speaker 1: much and what are they up to. I saw Bruce yesterday,
Speaker 1: so I have pretty close contact with him. We had
Speaker 1: my wife and I had lunch at dinner with him
Speaker 1: out of his house in New Jersey. And so Bruce says, uh,
Speaker 1: And he is just the most generous. I mean, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, he's brought me up on stage many times,
Speaker 1: and the last time he was playing the stad de France,
Speaker 1: which is an eighty thousand seat uh you know, stadium
Speaker 1: in Paris, and he he brought me and my son
Speaker 1: gaspar up on stage with him. We were backstage and
Speaker 1: Bruce said, you want to come up and play? I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you want me to play? Said? How about
Speaker 1: Born to Run? And I said, whoa. I said that
Speaker 1: is a difficult song and it is. It's like a
Speaker 1: symphony that song. And my son was there and he
Speaker 1: said I know it, Dad, and Bruce said you know it?
Speaker 1: He said yeah. He said, okay, then you come up
Speaker 1: to So there we were in front of eighty thousand people,
Speaker 1: my son, gas Bar and Bruce Springsteen the Street Band,
Speaker 1: and what can I say? It was magic? It was
Speaker 1: who else from that era? A little bit? David Johansson
Speaker 1: stay in touch with him a little bit. Uh. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think many of them are. I was. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I tell my son about the people I met back
Speaker 1: then and he can't believe it. You know, It's like
Speaker 1: I I met Shakespeare. My second album, I asked David
Speaker 1: Bowie to produce it. He was on our c A
Speaker 1: as well, and he invited me down to Electric Ladies
Speaker 1: studios and he couldn't produce it because he was going
Speaker 1: out on her. But when I told my son I've
Speaker 1: met I mean, but who from the seventies? Wow, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of a lot of them are not
Speaker 1: still with us? Okay, well, let's change the question. Because
Speaker 1: you've met all these people, you know, as Letterman used
Speaker 1: to call brush with greatness. Tell me you know you
Speaker 1: have the experience with Bowie, any other experiences where they
Speaker 1: were very memorable, either the person delivered or if you
Speaker 1: want to the person disappointed you. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: I think I've I've been very, very fortunate in that
Speaker 1: most of the people I met uh icons, rock icons.
Speaker 1: You know, I had enough of an end that I
Speaker 1: wasn't bothering them. Let's say, I mean I met Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger a couple of times, and you know he's always
Speaker 1: charming and smart and that. Who have I had a
Speaker 1: bad experience? I don't, I don't know. I can't lea say. Okay,
Speaker 1: somewhere along this line, you become a writer, You write
Speaker 1: record reviews, the other stuff. What was the inspiration? How
Speaker 1: did that happen? After I was dropped by Columbia seventy
Speaker 1: eight or so. So I was right seventy nine or something.
Speaker 1: I was walking down fifty seventh Street and I ran
Speaker 1: into Yon Winner from Rolling Stone. I had known John
Speaker 1: because we had done a couple of TV shows together
Speaker 1: at some point because Rolling Rolling Stone and me kind
Speaker 1: of started at the same time. And he asked me
Speaker 1: what I was up to, and I told him I
Speaker 1: was writing some short stories and he said he'd like
Speaker 1: to read them. So, uh, he liked it and he
Speaker 1: said you should expand this and were published in Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: So that was really my first published work. It was
Speaker 1: a short story in Rolling Stone that was published in
Speaker 1: called Cold and Electric, and Jan said, you know, you
Speaker 1: should expand this story into a novel because there's never
Speaker 1: really been a novel written. It was a story of
Speaker 1: a rock star who would climb the rock mountain and
Speaker 1: falling off the other side. You know. It was not autobiographical,
Speaker 1: but it certainly about a world I knew. So he
Speaker 1: encouraged me to write that as a novel, which I did.
Speaker 1: Then Rolling Stone tried to find a co publisher, and
Speaker 1: at this time there were no books about rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were no biographies. There was nothing, and
Speaker 1: they kept getting back the same feedback from from publishers,
Speaker 1: which was, you know, the people who like this music,
Speaker 1: they don't read books. That was really, you know, the
Speaker 1: common wisdom. That's changed now, thank god. But I did
Speaker 1: turn it into a novel and I found a publisher
Speaker 1: in France. It was published in French, it was published
Speaker 1: in UH, in Spanish and in German. So since that time,
Speaker 1: I've written I think five novels, a couple of collections
Speaker 1: of short stories, and then last year I wrote my memoir,
Speaker 1: Just a Story from America. Okay, let's get to today.
Speaker 1: How far in advance do you plan? I mean, are
Speaker 1: you booked for four or is it six months in advance?
Speaker 1: To what degree is your life and career planned out
Speaker 1: in advance? Well, there's pre COVID and post before covid um,
Speaker 1: I would be planned out pretty much a year in advance.
Speaker 1: I say. There's a club in Paris I play called
Speaker 1: the New Morning, which is very similar to like what
Speaker 1: the bottom Line was in New York or the Roxy
Speaker 1: in l A. I played there two nights every March,
Speaker 1: which is my birthday. For twenty five years, uh I
Speaker 1: did a tour of Spain. Every January ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: shows for twenty five years as well. And there are
Speaker 1: other places that I went back to regularly. Now we're
Speaker 1: just picking up the pieces again and trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, where to go. I think my my agent
Speaker 1: in Spain went out of business because of COVID. There
Speaker 1: was not much France. They really supported the culture and
Speaker 1: help keep companies going on a bigger Looking at that bigger, Bob,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, like most of us, we
Speaker 1: go through life. We make it's chaos. We make the
Speaker 1: best decision we can based upon the information we have.
Speaker 1: But when I was writing my memoir and I got
Speaker 1: through with it, it seemed like this had all been
Speaker 1: a perfectly perfectly planned out from A to B, and
Speaker 1: this is where I end up. Finally, after nearly a
Speaker 1: fifty year career talking to Bob left, it's okay, let's
Speaker 1: talk pre COVID, because everything you know, as you say,
Speaker 1: has been changed. How many gigs a year do you
Speaker 1: want to do? How many did you do, and how
Speaker 1: many you want to I used to do close to
Speaker 1: a hundred hundred gigs a year, and now maybe three
Speaker 1: or four years ago I cut down a little, maybe
Speaker 1: sixty shows here, so that that's what I feel comfortable with,
Speaker 1: you know, and you work both with him without a band.
Speaker 1: How do you decide that? Well, nowadays I work always
Speaker 1: with my guitarists. Olivier to Rome was a French guitarist
Speaker 1: and we've been together for twenty six years. I also
Speaker 1: worked with an Australian violinist named Melissa Cox. Uh. They
Speaker 1: both played on my last couple of albums, and sometimes
Speaker 1: with a drummer and sometimes if it's a festival and
Speaker 1: we expand. But now the basic format is a trio.
Speaker 1: How and when do you decide to make an album?
Speaker 1: That's interesting because Bruce and I were talking about that
Speaker 1: because some of my generation they just stopped making albums.
Speaker 1: Most Billy Joel has stopped making albums, you know, for decades, decades. Uh,
Speaker 1: Bruce keeps making albums, and I keep making albums because
Speaker 1: that was really the art form that we came into
Speaker 1: this with an album, you know, and it's hard to
Speaker 1: remember now, but there was really a point in music
Speaker 1: history where an album became an art form, you know,
Speaker 1: before that was all singles and everything else, as you know,
Speaker 1: and so that for me, the I mean the road
Speaker 1: has always been. You write the songs, then you want
Speaker 1: to record the songs. Then you want to make an
Speaker 1: album that in some way those group of songs fits together.
Speaker 1: Then you want to take those songs on the road
Speaker 1: and play them for people, and that usually sparks new songs,
Speaker 1: and then it just begins over and over again. Well
Speaker 1: do you sit down and say I need to write
Speaker 1: songs or you just inspired in the shower? How do
Speaker 1: the songs get written? I have to tell you hotel
Speaker 1: rooms are very good for writing songs. I think I've
Speaker 1: written some of my best material in hotel rooms on
Speaker 1: the road. When you're really you know, you're so connected
Speaker 1: to the music through sound checks and through the shows
Speaker 1: I write. I used to write the words of music
Speaker 1: together they seem to come together very quickly. But now
Speaker 1: I often will write the words and then the music
Speaker 1: will come. Okay, you're running your business yourself. Let's just
Speaker 1: talk pre COVID because everything has been screwed up. Do
Speaker 1: you need to go on the road to earn a living?
Speaker 1: Is it lucrative or you're just keeping your head above water?
Speaker 1: What are the numbers looking? Well, I've been fortunate in
Speaker 1: that for an artist, and my dimension, France and Europe
Speaker 1: is a very good place to live. Number One, you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about healthcare. You have healthcare. Everybody
Speaker 1: I know in New York is paying a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a month or something for healthcare. You have healthcare there.
Speaker 1: I recently had a cataract operation. I paid zero for that.
Speaker 1: You know, all kinds of things. So you have that,
Speaker 1: you have benefits. I get a pension now because I
Speaker 1: am officially retired, you know, from the French government, and
Speaker 1: also some from from social security here. So I think
Speaker 1: I've done better than keep my head above water. I
Speaker 1: have a nice apartment in Paris that I own. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, managed to put my son through college. That
Speaker 1: was really my perhaps my greatest achievement. Uh. I was
Speaker 1: talking about that with Bruce yesterday, and he's in a
Speaker 1: whole other world, but I'm talking about my career. And
Speaker 1: he said to me, You've managed to make a living
Speaker 1: music and that's incredible. And I gotta agree with them,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta agree with or is my pal
Speaker 1: Billy Joel why my note? He inducted me into the
Speaker 1: Long Island Music Hall of Fame a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: He once said to me, He said, you know, we
Speaker 1: picked a good job. Okay, how long do you plan
Speaker 1: to do this? Do you drop or you see sunset?
Speaker 1: Nobody quits? I think nobody quits. Who can doing that?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there are physical things you have to
Speaker 1: deal with. I have pretty bad tonight. It's in my ears,
Speaker 1: ears ringing, which is just almost every musician I know
Speaker 1: my age gets hearing problems of some sort or another. Uh.
Speaker 1: I try to stay in good shape. You've got to
Speaker 1: be in good shape if you want to go out
Speaker 1: there on the road. Ah. I remember just a few
Speaker 1: years ago, my brother was working with Blondie and I
Speaker 1: went up to see him in Brussels and I went
Speaker 1: down to work out in the gym in the hotel
Speaker 1: in the morning, and there were three or three members
Speaker 1: of and they said to me, you know, twenty years
Speaker 1: ago we'd all still be up in the room getting loaded,
Speaker 1: and now we're down at the gym. So you know,
Speaker 1: nobody quits. I don't plan on quitting, you know. And
Speaker 1: just to be clear, you are or not a fringe citizen.
Speaker 1: I am you are, I am both. So if we
Speaker 1: look back at this story, certainly other people who were
Speaker 1: in the scene in the seventies with you had higher
Speaker 1: profiles in you know, I don't want to define success,
Speaker 1: but their reach was further. They might have made more
Speaker 1: money that might have been through it. How do you
Speaker 1: feel how they made it to such elevated heights and
Speaker 1: you didn't make it to those elevated heights. Tough question
Speaker 1: sometimes can be a painful question. Uh. When I listened
Speaker 1: back to the music I created in those years, sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't know why it didn't reach a wider public.
Speaker 1: I think every artist wants to reach as a wider
Speaker 1: public as possible. Ah. Jumping from label to label, it's
Speaker 1: not the best career move. Not having continuous management as
Speaker 1: I as I have never had, it's not the best
Speaker 1: career move either. H. But as you know, in this business,
Speaker 1: we tend to look up. We tend to look at
Speaker 1: all those who are doing better than us, but everyone's well,
Speaker 1: I gotta look down, and I got to think of
Speaker 1: all those really great musicians I know who had to stop,
Speaker 1: who can't make a living, can't make music, have to
Speaker 1: do another job or something like that. So in that way,
Speaker 1: I'm probably in that same as Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel.
Speaker 1: You know someone who's been able to make a living
Speaker 1: from my music from for nearly fifty years, and uh,
Speaker 1: I have to be grateful. Okay, we've been talking with
Speaker 1: Elliott Murphy. I got a lot more questions, but I'm
Speaker 1: that very insightful note. I think we're gonna call it
Speaker 1: to a close for today. Elliott, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time and telling you. Scot my pleasure. Until
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left Sex