Speaker 1: Taking a Walk, I'm buzznight and this is the Takeing
Speaker 1: a Walk podcast. Now, when you think about the architects
Speaker 1: of rock and roll history, the people behind the glass
Speaker 1: who shape the sound of generations, my next guest belongs
Speaker 1: in that conversation without question. Spencer Prawford was born in Munich, Germany,
Speaker 1: and came to America as a child, growing up in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. By the time he was nineteen years old,
Speaker 1: he had already co written a song recorded by Gary
Speaker 1: Lewis and the Playboys, and by twenty one he had
Speaker 1: eighteen songs recorded as a songwriter. But he didn't stop there.
Speaker 1: He earned a degree in political signs from UCLA with honors,
Speaker 1: then a law degree with honors, passing the California Bar
Speaker 1: exam as one of the youngest people to do so.
Speaker 1: At the time. Most people would have chosen one path,
Speaker 1: Spencer chose music. His accomplishments go back to when he
Speaker 1: was just twenty six years old, putting Tina Turner into
Speaker 1: the feature adaptation of The Who's Tommy and producing and
Speaker 1: playing guitar on her acclaimed acid Queen's solo album That's
Speaker 1: How You Announced Yourself to the World in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: he designed and built the Pasha Music House, two state
Speaker 1: of the art recording studios in Hollywood that became a
Speaker 1: home base for his productions for the next twelve years.
Speaker 1: Out of those rooms came an Extraordinary Roster, Cheap Trick, Heart,
Speaker 1: The Little River Band, Eddie Money, The Beach Boys, Vanilla Fudge,
Speaker 1: Ian Hunter, and many more. Then came a moment that
Speaker 1: changed rock history. Spencer produced Metal Health by Quiet Riot,
Speaker 1: the first heavy metal record ever to reach number one
Speaker 1: on the pop charts, selling six million albums. That's not
Speaker 1: just a hit record, that's a cultural milestone. His work
Speaker 1: has never been confined to music alone. He was a
Speaker 1: co executive producer on the Academy Award in Golden Globe
Speaker 1: winning film Gods and Monsters, worked with Stevie Wonder on Pinocchio,
Speaker 1: earned tony nominations for the Broadway production It Ain't Nothing
Speaker 1: but the Blues, and produced Chasing Train, the John Coltrane
Speaker 1: documentary featuring the voice of Denzel Washington. And, of course,
Speaker 1: you've heard Spencer previously on Taking a Walk. He joined
Speaker 1: us to talk about the nineteen sixty eight el of
Speaker 1: his Comeback special project he brought to theaters around the world.
Speaker 1: That conversation was unforgettable. Now he's back because one of
Speaker 1: the most visionary productions is finally getting its moment. His
Speaker 1: Children of the Sun collaboration with Billy Thorpe was the
Speaker 1: first rock record to spawn a computer animated laser choreography
Speaker 1: shown in planetariums across America, and now decades later after
Speaker 1: its release, Children of the Sun is finally getting an
Speaker 1: authorized reissue that American fans have never had. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: Spencer Proffer on Taking a Walk a Walk a returning
Speaker 1: guest Alert, Spencer Prawer is back on the Taking a
Speaker 1: Walk Podcast. Welcome back, Spencer, Well.
Speaker 2: Buzz If it weren't for you giving me the buzz,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's an honor having you on. The first time that
Speaker 1: you came on, we talked about your great documentary Chasing Train,
Speaker 1: the John Coltrane Story, which was just a fantastic documentary,
Speaker 1: one of my favorites of all time. The second time
Speaker 1: you came on, we talked specifically about Reinventing Elvis, the
Speaker 1: great project that you work with Steve Binder on, which
Speaker 1: was wonderful to get behind the scenes with you. And
Speaker 1: talk about that on the Taking a Walk podcast. It's
Speaker 1: amazing every time I talk to you, there's a new
Speaker 1: project or two, or three or four coming down the
Speaker 1: pike for you. We're here to talk specifically about a
Speaker 1: project near and dear to you about Billy Thorpe, the
Speaker 1: Children of the Sun project. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: what have you been up to? I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: you in a while. Tell me what you have been
Speaker 1: up to.
Speaker 2: Spencer Proffer, loving my family, building my business, looking at
Speaker 2: models that have inspired me for a long time, from
Speaker 2: MGM to Vince Lombardi, to looking at people who've built
Speaker 2: businesses like Richard Branson who built Virgin into a really
Speaker 2: significant company with his big heart of charitable activities. I'm
Speaker 2: very much enamored with the DreamWorks model on how Steven
Speaker 2: Spielberg has now been able to He's always controlled the
Speaker 2: narrative of his projects, but now he can own them
Speaker 2: a little, you know, more than he did thanks to
Speaker 2: the brilliants of David Geffen when they put DreamWorks together.
Speaker 2: And now as I'm a ripe old guy crossing the
Speaker 2: seventy yard line in my life, what I want to
Speaker 2: do is I want to leave legacy for my family.
Speaker 2: I have one grandkid who's three years old now, Caspian,
Speaker 2: who's the product of my oldest son, Sterling Propher, who
Speaker 2: helped Bill Wece Media into a formidable company. And my
Speaker 2: other younger son, Morgan, informed me recently when he was
Speaker 2: graduated up to being a pilot for United Airlines a captain.
Speaker 2: He was a pilot all along, but now he's actually
Speaker 2: master of the destiny of all of his flights. And
Speaker 2: he told me I will be a grandfather of a
Speaker 2: baby girl come this October. So those have been the
Speaker 2: biggest highlights, plus my love for my wife Judy. We
Speaker 2: celebrated our twenty fifty year wedding anniversary, which is cool,
Speaker 2: but business wise, I'm hitting it out of the park
Speaker 2: with the things that we're developing, but they deal with
Speaker 2: courage and social justice and how media and how songs
Speaker 2: play a part making a difference in pop culture. Not
Speaker 2: only did I do it with the Elvis, the America
Speaker 2: and Pie Project, but with a number of things like
Speaker 2: a slide in the Family, Stone feature and some other
Speaker 2: docs that I'm doing with some former partners. I'm actually
Speaker 2: digging in to doing what I could have and he
Speaker 2: should have been doing thirty forty years ago, but I
Speaker 2: was busy just producing records. Now producing media where music
Speaker 2: plays an important component. That's what I've been doing.
Speaker 1: That sounds amazing. Congratulations on all of it. You know,
Speaker 1: we also did talk on a podcast about your stand
Speaker 1: By Meat project. Can you update us on that one?
Speaker 1: That is a fascinating one.
Speaker 2: Well, we do stand in the words of Slash Stone,
Speaker 2: we stand together. And I had spoken at length to
Speaker 2: Mike and Peter Stoller, Mike Stoller having written a song
Speaker 2: with Jerry Lieber and Benny King about my vision of
Speaker 2: it is more than a love song. It's about standing
Speaker 2: next to your brother, black and white, straight and gay.
Speaker 2: You know in the foxhole you stand next to your brother,
Speaker 2: that the bullets flying have donkeys or elephants on them.
Speaker 2: Me stand together. So where we are is we're still
Speaker 2: building the house. Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis have now
Speaker 2: come on as executive producers next to me on it.
Speaker 2: We will do a new version of stand By Me
Speaker 2: custom for our doc with a major artist that they
Speaker 2: will arrange and produce the song. We have yet to
Speaker 2: start production. We will start production in probably a month
Speaker 2: or so. I plan to screen it at the United
Speaker 2: Nations in New York because it speaks to us standing together,
Speaker 2: and that's what nations are supposed to do. That's what
Speaker 2: people are supposed to do. But that's later. Today we're
Speaker 2: celebrating my fifty year anniversary of the release The Children
Speaker 2: of the Sun, which is a record that I produced
Speaker 2: and arranged and mixed back in nineteen seventy eight. And
Speaker 2: that's actually I met you when we morph that into
Speaker 2: a laser computer animated laser show. And I spoke at
Speaker 2: when I was I think in my twenties at the
Speaker 2: Brookhard Abrams Convention in San Diego at the Ruberty Fleet
Speaker 2: Space Theater where we premiered our laser show, and there
Speaker 2: was buzznight young buzz at the Lee Abrams convention, meeting
Speaker 2: Spencer saying, Hey, maybe we'll see you again someday. So
Speaker 2: we're taking a walk fifty years later.
Speaker 3: I love it how it's come full circle and I
Speaker 3: remember it like it was yesterday. I remember also having
Speaker 3: my senses completely aroused from the experience. It was the
Speaker 3: first time seeing something like that in a theater sync
Speaker 3: to music. This would sort of become a new model
Speaker 3: in recent years of course, with how the sphere has
Speaker 3: become a big popular destination for music and media. How
Speaker 3: does that make you feel when you think about how
Speaker 3: the sphere has become such a piece of entertainment culture
Speaker 3: and how you sort of started that back with the
Speaker 3: project initially back in San Diego.
Speaker 2: Well, it actually started in Los Angeles at the Griffith
Speaker 2: Park Planetarium. But immersive entertainment is something that hit my
Speaker 2: DNA way back to when I actually produced the ten
Speaker 2: Asse Queen album a couple of years earlier, putting music
Speaker 2: against visual. Pete Townsend was brilliant when he created Tommy,
Speaker 2: And when I was running the creative division of the
Speaker 2: United Artists and I inherited Icontina, I thought, how cool
Speaker 2: would it be for Tina to be cast in the
Speaker 2: movie and make an accid Queen album, which I did,
Speaker 2: which I produced and arranged in midst played guitar on it. Also, Man,
Speaker 2: I was like twenty six years old. This was two
Speaker 2: years before my Billy Thorpe record. But immersive entertainment to
Speaker 2: hit your point, as now promulgated by the Sphere, I
Speaker 2: think is the future of fankind where you integrate all
Speaker 2: the elements. That's pretty much where the media business has
Speaker 2: come to now where the streaming has you know, it
Speaker 2: involves audio, it involves visual. We're doing a verbal podcast
Speaker 2: in the spirit of Orson Welles in the thirties when
Speaker 2: he did just verbal on all the worlds. But now
Speaker 2: we can actually put images next to the verbal, which
Speaker 2: is pretty cool. Which is a podcast. And I commend
Speaker 2: both Serious XM and iHeart, especially those two companies for
Speaker 2: having the vision with the iHeart. Pittman was the guy
Speaker 2: Pittman who started with John Sykes. They began in MTV,
Speaker 2: and MTV was probably in the early eighties thanks to
Speaker 2: Tom Preston and Bob Pittman, the brainchild of marrying audio
Speaker 2: and visual. So here we are now in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: twenty seven, doing it again. So I'm kind of honored
Speaker 2: that you saw that, as I saw that in my
Speaker 2: twenties fifty years ago. So here we are. So take
Speaker 2: me back.
Speaker 1: How did Children of the Sun as the initial project
Speaker 1: come together? And what drew you then to Billy Thorpe
Speaker 1: as an artist?
Speaker 2: Good question, Well, it came about because I was always
Speaker 2: a fan of extra terrestrial exploration. I had read Cosmos
Speaker 2: by Carl Sagan, Little did I know that the biggest
Speaker 2: artist maybe in the history of Australia the Springsteen justin
Speaker 2: Timberlake of Actually he's a hard rocker, the Springsteen of Australia.
Speaker 2: Billy Thorpe. It was cut from similar cloth. He was
Speaker 2: fascinated by outer space. And when I met him at
Speaker 2: a party for that Fleetwood Mack, who had blown up,
Speaker 2: were the special guests by their lawyer of Mickey Shapiro.
Speaker 2: Billy Thorpe was there to meet with Alan Parsons about
Speaker 2: making a record coming to America, and Billy I was
Speaker 2: a single guy. Billy was single, real good looking guy
Speaker 2: would come to America, and he actually wasn't single. But
Speaker 2: there weren't enough pretty girls at the party. So Billy
Speaker 2: and I said, let's get out of here and let's
Speaker 2: go see. There was a movie that just came out
Speaker 2: I couldn't wait to see, called Close Encounters of the
Speaker 2: Third Kind by one of my heroes, Steven Spielberg. So
Speaker 2: Billy and I went and we saw the movie instead
Speaker 2: of hanging out at the party, and we looked at
Speaker 2: each other at the end and said, hey, aliens made
Speaker 2: contact with the Earth. What happened afterwards? So I said
Speaker 2: to Billy, because I was a guitar player now as
Speaker 2: good as Billy, who was fantastic. Let's go up to
Speaker 2: my house and been at a canyon and let's jam it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about it. So we did, and we made
Speaker 2: it too, probably five hours bottle of courvossier and some
Speaker 2: pretty good smoke to come up with a fictional story
Speaker 2: called Children of the Sun, which we wrote together, and
Speaker 2: it dealt with at the time, the Americans and the
Speaker 2: Afghanistanians had teamed up and the Russians were threatening kind
Speaker 2: of to blow up the world. This was down nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, and Billy and I said to each other, well,
Speaker 2: what if, thinking of Carl Sagan and Cosmos and close encounters,
Speaker 2: the Americans would unite with another galaxy from another planet
Speaker 2: and leave planet Earth and go to another galaxy and
Speaker 2: start a new civilization. Billy said, right on, mate, that's
Speaker 2: a real good idea. So we started jamming and stuff,
Speaker 2: and as I said, about many hours later, as the
Speaker 2: sun was coming up, we created a seven minute song
Speaker 2: actually six point fifty three was the record, called Children
Speaker 2: of the Son. And I then three days later Billy
Speaker 2: and I we became friends, and I was very much
Speaker 2: into surreal, out of worldly stuff. Billy called me and said,
Speaker 2: I think I can create a whole record around our concept.
Speaker 2: Why don't we do it? I said, well, maybe we'll
Speaker 2: do it as a half an album and see if
Speaker 2: it works, and if so, we can morph it something else,
Speaker 2: which was the sequel twenty first Century Man. So the
Speaker 2: children of the Son record came together. I engaged two
Speaker 2: players that I thought were fantastic musicians, Billy being a brilliant,
Speaker 2: brilliant shredder and guitar player. Alvin Taylor, who had played
Speaker 2: with George Harrison, who was playing with Eric Burden at
Speaker 2: the Whiskey Saw on Play. He's an African American drummer
Speaker 2: who was about the best drummer I had ever seen.
Speaker 2: And Leelandslawer was somebody bass player I was friendly with.
Speaker 2: And James Taylor. He was James's bass player at Crosby
Speaker 2: Stillson Nash's bass player on the road, and both of
Speaker 2: those acts weren't on the road, so Lee Lived was free.
Speaker 2: So I called him up and I told him about
Speaker 2: the vision of this. He said, where do I sign?
Speaker 2: I'd like to meet this guy Thorpe. So the three
Speaker 2: of us met at the same time and with my
Speaker 2: engineer at my side, Larry Brown, who built my recording studio,
Speaker 2: and we talked about it, and these guys said, let's
Speaker 2: do it. Little did they know what they were signed
Speaker 2: up for. Took me eleven months to make the record,
Speaker 2: the three of us and Larry as the engineer, and
Speaker 2: lo and behold, when we finished it, it was out
Speaker 2: of this world great. I couldn't get arrested, buzz I
Speaker 2: went shopping to every record company because I had started
Speaker 2: to build a name as a producer, especially after the
Speaker 2: Tina album, and everyone, even though Clive Davis got Restassoul,
Speaker 2: who was my mentor and my first boss, I was
Speaker 2: a class assistant when I graduated Lawhoole back when I
Speaker 2: was twenty three years old, Clive Aired again, Joe Smith,
Speaker 2: all these brilliant record guys passed on the record so
Speaker 2: I couldn't get arrested. And here I was, having made
Speaker 2: the record at my studio that Larry Brown had designed
Speaker 2: and built. Long story on how it came out, but
Speaker 2: we ultimately got it released through Capricorn Records, which was
Speaker 2: a Southern rock label helmed by Phil Walden and Frank Vanner,
Speaker 2: and they and the Dixie Drag and the Almond Brothers
Speaker 2: and Delbert Mclinton a lotical acts. They wound up at
Speaker 2: my studio and we turned the lights down, I lit
Speaker 2: some incense, I took off my shoes, my hair was
Speaker 2: down at my shoulders, and we played the record, blasted
Speaker 2: it so loud, and these guys got off on it
Speaker 2: big time, and they made a record deal with me
Speaker 2: through distribution through polyt Or Records at the time. Little
Speaker 2: did I know that the Almond Brothers would sue them
Speaker 2: when the record was number one, having sold nearly a
Speaker 2: million copies, and that never got paid on it. But
Speaker 2: I still got to make the record. I still got
Speaker 2: the goosebump, and that's a memory that I wound up,
Speaker 2: you know, morphing it. Electro was my next label when
Speaker 2: we did the follow up record. That's when we did
Speaker 2: the show that premiered at the rub In Fleet Space Theater.
Speaker 2: Didn't premiere we actually developed that hit the Griffect Parkment Planetarium,
Speaker 2: but we premiered the whole thing at the Berkeard Ingrams Convention, which,
Speaker 2: if you remember I had a big mouth and I
Speaker 2: spoke a lot. Then I'm still doing it even though
Speaker 2: I'm older, but I really love that record. I loved
Speaker 2: Billy a lot. We wound up making four albums together,
Speaker 2: and they hear that it was now going to be
Speaker 2: reissued as an anniversary record with massive pre orders. It
Speaker 2: made a lot of sense for me to spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time with the guy who with the liner notes,
Speaker 2: Ralph Chapman, to talk to me about the evolution of it,
Speaker 2: getting pictures of me as a young guy in my twenties,
Speaker 2: and I just I'm thrilled about it. So I'm glad
Speaker 2: that I met you at context and here we are
Speaker 2: talking about it.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Speaker 4: Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1: What was so cool about that record back then was
Speaker 1: as programmers of radio stations, this was nothing we had
Speaker 1: really heard before a song like this, you know, Children
Speaker 1: of the Sun. And that's what made it even more special.
Speaker 1: That's what drew I know, people like Lee Abrams and
Speaker 1: the whole consultancy of the Superstars group, you know, towards it,
Speaker 1: because then album oriented rock was beginning to take shape.
Speaker 1: Lee had the Superstars format, which was really built on
Speaker 1: all different types of sounds. The symphonic rock, the headphone
Speaker 1: music like Children of the Sun. So it was so
Speaker 1: unique at that point, which is why programmers gravitated towards it,
Speaker 1: because it was unlike anything really we had heard, and
Speaker 1: that's what made it really very special. And then of
Speaker 1: course Lee would promote it further on, you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: of radio stations and as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1: What happened with the rights to that over time to
Speaker 1: the you know, the release? Did that become complicated?
Speaker 2: Yes, very complicated. When Capricorn went bankrupt, their distributor ultimately
Speaker 2: succumbed to getting the rights to put it out. We
Speaker 2: put it out again unpolled or about a year later,
Speaker 2: but we lost the moment. That's when I had the
Speaker 2: rights to my vision as I wrote the song, I
Speaker 2: had the publishing, Billy had his end of the publishing,
Speaker 2: and we just took ourselves over to We got into
Speaker 2: a meeting work because it was such a big deal
Speaker 2: at rock radio. Actually before when Abrams got behind it,
Speaker 2: there were a couple of stations that blew an out
Speaker 2: care o Q and la kt XQ and Dallas KMOD
Speaker 2: and Tulsa and kat let me see it was kiss
Speaker 2: and Santa Ana telling you they had the balls to
Speaker 2: put it on the air, and every station that played
Speaker 2: that seven minute track, which actually was influenced by a
Speaker 2: Don McLean song called American Pie, which was also seven minutes,
Speaker 2: which is something funny enough fifty years comes forward there.
Speaker 2: I made Don stock on American Pie through Paramount Plus.
Speaker 2: But that's another conversation. These stations played it, it went
Speaker 2: to number one, the kids called in and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it spread like wildfire. Before you knew it,
Speaker 2: the thing was skyrocketing up the charts. What happened with
Speaker 2: the rights, Well, when Capricorn filed a bankruptcy, it all
Speaker 2: went to Polydor, but under the terms of the deal
Speaker 2: that I had made with Capricorn, all rights would revert
Speaker 2: to me after ten years. Well ten years later it
Speaker 2: all came back to my company called Morling man Or Music,
Speaker 2: named after my children, Morgan and Sterling, and we put
Speaker 2: out a reissue of it, which I remixed in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight on my record company labeled Pasha, But it
Speaker 2: didn't get a lot of marketing and promotion. To be
Speaker 2: perfectly Frank Sony at the time was more interested in
Speaker 2: promoting my Quiet Riot records and some other records that
Speaker 2: I had done, so that reverted back to me. I
Speaker 2: knew a showrunner who had written and directed a show
Speaker 2: called Fargo, and it was a big hit. It had
Speaker 2: gotten I think eighteen or nineteen Emmy Awards. I don't
Speaker 2: remember exactly what the year was. But I got contacted
Speaker 2: by the distributor was MGM, who was putting up the
Speaker 2: money to make the Fargo episodes, and Noah actually wanted
Speaker 2: to do a call with me, which we did, and
Speaker 2: we talked about me licensing a song because I have
Speaker 2: a little bit of a business orientation, being able to
Speaker 2: turn down all licenses to use that song again. Because
Speaker 2: it was so precious it had to be used in
Speaker 2: its original contest couldn't be covered. I wouldn't license it
Speaker 2: out to anyone, so I didn't. But when Noah said
Speaker 2: he would premiere season two using four minutes of my
Speaker 2: original record without any dialogue from the actors on Fargo,
Speaker 2: I said, BINGO, I gotta do it. So of Lynthorpe
Speaker 2: in Australia. This was after a billion had passed because
Speaker 2: I had to honor his marriage to Lynn. They became
Speaker 2: my friends. Bill, these kids and Lynn all and I said,
Speaker 2: I want to do this, and I will give you
Speaker 2: fifty percent of every time. I yet, do I have
Speaker 2: your blessing to do it? She said, you do, so
Speaker 2: I did. So. We made a bunch of money on
Speaker 2: the license because it wasn't just Fargo who gave me
Speaker 2: the money to borrow the song. It was MGM, and
Speaker 2: they add a few dollars. So I did that. I
Speaker 2: got the dollar. I gave Lynn fifty cents and season two,
Speaker 2: episode one, it opens the four minutes of music with
Speaker 2: no dialogue, first time ever on Fargo. And that was
Speaker 2: the last time that song went out to the world.
Speaker 2: Sirius XM continues to play it through deep tracks and
Speaker 2: it's one of the most requested all these songs of
Speaker 2: all time. And I found out last year it was
Speaker 2: now coming back out to the world in its anniversary,
Speaker 2: and here we are doing this podcast. That's a long
Speaker 2: winded answer to a short question. Yeah, Billy did pass away.
Speaker 2: God rest his soul. He was a great guy. He
Speaker 2: became very dear to me as a friend and as
Speaker 2: a collaborator.
Speaker 1: He passed away in two thousand and seven. What do
Speaker 1: you think Billy would make of this moment today? With
Speaker 1: this being reissued.
Speaker 2: I think he'd be proud. I think he'd be proud
Speaker 2: that it finally caught up to the vision he had
Speaker 2: and I had back in nineteen seventy seven, seventy eight.
Speaker 2: The fact that we just had a great space mission,
Speaker 2: the fact that we're integrating the mediums, the fact that
Speaker 2: this was something that was audio and visual way back
Speaker 2: before it was cool to do that. I think Billy
Speaker 2: would be infinitely proud, and he would be happy, and
Speaker 2: I would be proud to be his partner and his collaborator,
Speaker 2: and as I am still today, And that's why I'm
Speaker 2: doing this podcast review. Bus.
Speaker 1: So tell me when you think of other reissues that
Speaker 1: you might like to get back into the world. Are
Speaker 1: there other ones that tickle your fancy.
Speaker 2: My favorite records? I think there are two that I
Speaker 2: would like to see reissued. One, funny Enough, was on
Speaker 2: Pauly Gore. It was called Framed. It was by Dave
Speaker 2: Lambert who was the lead guitarist of an English band
Speaker 2: called the Strops, and I had put a band together.
Speaker 2: Funny Enough who I met John Entwhistle in the contest
Speaker 2: of that Tina Turner, Tommy you know Connectivity and John
Speaker 2: was the bass player for The Who and a Damn
Speaker 2: Good One and he actually they were on a hiatus
Speaker 2: on a tour, so he flew over to la He
Speaker 2: played bass on He was a big fan of the Strops.
Speaker 2: Dave Lambert played guitar. Denny Siwell, who was Paul McCartney's
Speaker 2: drummer and wings played and Tom Hensley, who just passed
Speaker 2: the other day was Neil Diamond's ranger and keyboard player,
Speaker 2: played keyboards. And Larry Brown was my engineer on the
Speaker 2: Thorpe record engineered I framed album. I think that should
Speaker 2: come back out. I co wrote the album with Lambert
Speaker 2: and one song was a tribute to my father called
Speaker 2: sol Luki about coming to America. The first thing we
Speaker 2: saw as we took the boat over to Ellis Island
Speaker 2: was a statue of Liberty. That song reflected the spirit
Speaker 2: of my heart then it still does now because my
Speaker 2: father's memory is forever perpetual in my soul. And cut
Speaker 2: one side one was called take a little bit of
Speaker 2: my life. Out of all funny things, I'm giving you
Speaker 2: a lot of rock history that will probably wind up
Speaker 2: in my memoir at some point. Any money had just
Speaker 2: had a number one song which to take us to Paradise.
Speaker 2: And I got a call from another Jewish Polish gentleman
Speaker 2: named Bill Graham, who was managing Eddie, and he said, Eddie,
Speaker 2: who would like to record and co write the song?
Speaker 2: I said, it's already written by me and Dave. I'll
Speaker 2: give him a license, but only I can produce it
Speaker 2: and arrange it. So if you go back to nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one onto the Eddy Money No Control album, which
Speaker 2: a brilliant producer who's now now with us, Tom Down produced,
Speaker 2: there are three tracks on it produced by me, one
Speaker 2: of which is to take a little Bit of My Life,
Speaker 2: which you can look up on YouTube. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like I copied my arrangement for my Lambert album that
Speaker 2: didn't come out that big a deal in America because
Speaker 2: his management company got into a lawsuit with pollod Or
Speaker 2: over another artist. So I got screwed again, Like the
Speaker 2: Thorpe album, that album that stall in his tracks, But
Speaker 2: I'd like to see that reissue. To answer your question,
Speaker 2: that's a great one.
Speaker 4: I loved.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of the Strawbs. That sound
Speaker 1: was just so signature and so unique, and hearing it
Speaker 1: to this day, it just really makes me smile, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about it and thinking about that story.
Speaker 2: If you go onto YouTube and you put in take
Speaker 2: a little Bit of My Life, which was her single
Speaker 2: co one by Dave Lambert. If you put in the
Speaker 2: song so Lucky, which felt like it came off of
Speaker 2: McCart new record, which is pretty cool, people would analogize it.
Speaker 2: You can put in Dave Lambert framed. You'll hear a
Speaker 2: bunch of the songs today. But I would like to
Speaker 2: have that album reissued again. On the heels of this
Speaker 2: sort of thing, and I made a record with a
Speaker 2: guy named John Butcher that Glenn Ballard worked on with
Speaker 2: me way back in the late eighties, and every time
Speaker 2: that's on Capitol Records, and every time we released a single,
Speaker 2: they changed precedents. So John, who was a black guitar
Speaker 2: player who's fantastic in the spirit of Hendrix, never saw
Speaker 2: his day in court. I would like that first record
Speaker 2: that I made for Capital with John, called Wishes, to
Speaker 2: get reissued because I gets great and I'm very proud
Speaker 2: of that. I'd love to hear a new version, having
Speaker 2: Alan Parsons mix a new version of Dark Side of
Speaker 2: the Moon by Pink Floyd because that was my favorite
Speaker 2: record for many many years, as it was the world
Speaker 2: And I am going to be working, I hope with
Speaker 2: Alan Parsons making his doc next year, so how ironic,
Speaker 2: and through him, I'll get to meet David Gilmore, who
Speaker 2: I consider one of the greatest guitar players of all time.
Speaker 2: Even though I have had the good fortune to work
Speaker 2: with Jeff Beck and Dave Lambert and Brian May, I
Speaker 2: would certainly love to meet Dave Gilmore. I'd certainly like
Speaker 2: to hear A Dark Side of the Moon reissued, and
Speaker 2: I'd really like to see Alan Barson's who mix it,
Speaker 2: because he did a great job on that way back
Speaker 2: in the seventies. How's that for a long answer to
Speaker 2: another short question.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And by the way, shout out to John Butcher,
Speaker 1: a man down the road from where I am here
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. So great, really great history and I know
Speaker 1: he's still out and about, so I love that you're
Speaker 1: talking about John Butcher. He was very special to the
Speaker 1: music scene and in this part of the country in particular.
Speaker 1: He well loved so and a great guitar player.
Speaker 2: To your point, yeah, I actually becoming friends with John.
Speaker 2: We made let me see one, two three. We made
Speaker 2: three albums together that I arranged and the last album
Speaker 2: I co produced with a guy named Glenn Ballard was
Speaker 2: actually writing Alanis Morissett's album, but Glenn actually worked with
Speaker 2: me on that album too. Glenn his son went to
Speaker 2: school with my son, Sterling, and Glenn was a brilliant tality.
Speaker 2: He actually wrote a Man in the Mirror with Cydia
Speaker 2: Garrett for Michael Jackson, and it's called a kind of
Speaker 2: like I'm a repository of older artifacts of people who
Speaker 2: really made a difference in the music business. Now that
Speaker 2: I'm an old guy, all I'm doing is reflecting back
Speaker 2: on all of this while I'm trying to bring the
Speaker 2: music of my era to kids of today in a
Speaker 2: new suit of clothes. That's what I'm doing with the
Speaker 2: docs that I'm producing. That's why I'm teamed up with
Speaker 2: people like Jimmy jam really talented people who are brilliant
Speaker 2: who can actually arrange and produce classic stuff and bring
Speaker 2: it to another generation. That's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: Well, Spencer, since we do call this podcast taking a walk,
Speaker 1: I do have to close out with what we call
Speaker 1: our dream walk question. Since you have last done the show.
Speaker 1: We've added that as a little signature piece the dream
Speaker 1: Walk question, who would you take a walk with? Spencer
Speaker 1: proffer living or dead?
Speaker 2: Well, I would love to have met Irving Thalberg and
Speaker 2: Louis B. Mayer who built this company called MGM, which
Speaker 2: is kind of a model that I like to emulate
Speaker 2: where you control the narrative, but you use your same
Speaker 2: team for people. But sometimes one player can work on
Speaker 2: this project and then he works on this project, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of how the MGM. I'm a student of
Speaker 2: old Hollywood. I'd like to take a walk and talk
Speaker 2: to those guys. Staalberg first creativity and creative and Louis B.
Speaker 2: Mayor for his creativity in building a business.
Speaker 1: I love it, Spencer. Spencer so great to be on
Speaker 1: with you on Taking a Walk. I know you'll be
Speaker 1: back on because you'll always have something to talk about
Speaker 1: to promote and we love the projects that you work on.
Speaker 1: They make a difference in the world. Spencer Prawford, thanks
Speaker 1: for being on Taking a Walk and congrats on the
Speaker 1: reissue of Children of a Son.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for inviting me, thanks for having me. And
Speaker 2: guess what you don't even look Maybe you look a
Speaker 2: day older than when I met you fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: but maybe maybe two days over more.
Speaker 3: You're so kind.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Spencer, I'm Buzznight and thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Taking a Walk podcast. Now, please check out our
Speaker 1: companion podcasts produced by Buzznight Media Productions with your host
Speaker 1: Lynn Hoffman. Music Saved Me, showcasing the healing power of music,
Speaker 1: and Comedy Save Me, shining a light on how laughter
Speaker 1: is the best medicine. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: Spotify and are part of the iHeart podcast network.