Episode 772 - David Bromberg

Episode 772 • Released December 29, 2016 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuckineers?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuckadelics?

00:00:16Marc:What's happening?

00:00:17Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:18Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:00:20Marc:How's it going?

00:00:21Marc:Are you okay?

00:00:23Marc:Did you get through the Christmas and the Kwanzaa and the Hanukkah?

00:00:26Marc:Did you get through whatever you went through?

00:00:28Marc:You all right?

00:00:29Marc:I don't know what to tell you.

00:00:32Marc:You know, I was in New York and I had a nice time.

00:00:34Marc:I think the last time I talked to you, I was in the city, in the hotel room.

00:00:39Marc:But I hadn't done a lot yet.

00:00:41Marc:I did one thing.

00:00:43Marc:I did one thing when I last talked to you and I was a little bit cagey about it.

00:00:49Marc:Non-disclosing, but I will tell you now because on Monday, our first WTF of the new year, I will share about an hour-long conversation I had with the boss, with the Bruce, with the Springsteen out there in Jersey.

00:01:08Marc:Hung out with him at his place.

00:01:11Marc:Not actually in the house, but out in the studio building.

00:01:16Marc:Stable looking building.

00:01:18Marc:Looks like a stable, but it's a studio.

00:01:21Marc:And I talked to Bruce.

00:01:23Marc:So that's going to happen on Monday.

00:01:25Marc:I thought I'd tease that out of the gate for those of you who are listening on the downtime or for those of you who listen no matter what, even though you may not know who David Bromberg is.

00:01:35Marc:I would imagine that's fairly common.

00:01:37Marc:I'm not saying that in a negative way about David, but I barely knew who he was.

00:01:41Marc:I'll explain to you what happened with that and why it happened.

00:01:44Marc:But OK, so New York City.

00:01:46Marc:What?

00:01:46Marc:It's amazing.

00:01:48Marc:I was there over Christmas.

00:01:50Marc:It was nice.

00:01:50Marc:It was quiet.

00:01:51Marc:The weather was pleasant.

00:01:53Marc:It wasn't chaos.

00:01:54Marc:The emperor incoming is was out of town.

00:01:57Marc:So traffic was reasonable.

00:02:00Marc:People were nice.

00:02:01Marc:I tell you, man.

00:02:03Marc:The one thing I noticed when I was walking around New York was, of course, just all the different kinds of people.

00:02:08Marc:Oh, everybody in the streets enjoying themselves, walking through the streets.

00:02:14Marc:All is one in New York City in a lot of ways.

00:02:17Marc:And all the two.

00:02:18Marc:It just I kept walking down streets thinking, like, how is this bad?

00:02:22Marc:How is all this diversity bad?

00:02:24Marc:How are all these different kind of people not adding something interesting and unique and proactive to the world and the country we live in?

00:02:32Marc:How is this intersection and community of people, all different kinds of people moving through the streets in New York, not a beautiful thing?

00:02:40Marc:Then I started thinking about so many of the places that voted against tolerance, that voted against diversity,

00:02:46Marc:And where they live and they don't even have the level of diversity that you see in New York.

00:02:51Marc:I don't know what, I don't understand it.

00:02:53Marc:It was so nice to eat at places like Mogador and just be in a packed little restaurant with people from all over the world, speaking all different kinds of languages and just thinking like, this is amazing.

00:03:05Marc:This is how it's supposed to work.

00:03:08Marc:And then it all comes raining down on my head again.

00:03:12Marc:What the hell is going on?

00:03:13Marc:Do you know what I mean?

00:03:16Marc:Of course you know what I mean.

00:03:17Marc:Of course you do.

00:03:18Marc:I mean, look, I hope all of you out there had a comforting holiday as comforting and nice as possible.

00:03:24Marc:But, you know, it's just hard not to be pensive.

00:03:26Marc:I mean, we should be pensive.

00:03:29Marc:It's just we've entered this time where we don't know what's real and what isn't.

00:03:34Marc:And we only have our own perception to rely on.

00:03:36Marc:And how we load up that perception, that's on us.

00:03:39Marc:How we want to inform ourselves, what sources we draw from, what our priorities and beliefs are and how we buttress or question those priorities and beliefs.

00:03:48Marc:Do we detach entirely thinking that focusing on our own business and life in the most morally responsible way possible is enough to be proactive?

00:03:57Marc:I mean, we have lives, right?

00:03:59Marc:But it just might not be enough because we have to be morally responsible citizens of a country we still believe in.

00:04:08Marc:We have to believe and we have to push back against an avalanche of anti-democratic psychological brutalization on all fronts, soon to be government sanctioned.

00:04:20Marc:And obviously some of it was before, too.

00:04:22Marc:But you know what I'm saying.

00:04:23Marc:I mean, we can't buckle and be defeatist and we can't have blinders on, which is a drag because there are some really great blinder options out there.

00:04:34Marc:I mean, you can get all of them, all the blinder options you want on the Internet.

00:04:38Marc:All different types of blinders are available.

00:04:44Marc:Bottom line is we might actually have to get involved, get our hands dirty and help others in a real way.

00:04:51Marc:I mean, me too.

00:04:53Marc:I'm talking about me.

00:04:54Marc:I'm not saying any of this in a condescending way.

00:04:56Marc:I think about what I need to do all the time.

00:04:58Marc:That's what I've been doing during this downtime.

00:05:01Marc:I have to stop thinking and start doing things.

00:05:05Marc:I can't think that talking about this in a broad and vague way is actually doing something.

00:05:10Marc:I can't think that yammering on.

00:05:13Marc:But yeah, it is.

00:05:14Marc:I guess it kind of is.

00:05:15Marc:But I know there's more I can do.

00:05:17Marc:And I'm just like trying to figure it out.

00:05:19Marc:Get clear on what that might be.

00:05:20Marc:And I hope you are too over these holidays.

00:05:22Marc:It's easy to get overwhelmed and terrified and hopeless.

00:05:25Marc:And then that becomes debilitating and can provoke a depressive state.

00:05:29Marc:And then that depressive state becomes the focus.

00:05:32Marc:The bleak feelings of dread.

00:05:34Marc:They are not the pathology.

00:05:37Marc:The events you are reacting to are pathological.

00:05:41Marc:Your brain and body are doing the appropriate thing.

00:05:45Marc:And we need to relieve it by coming together.

00:05:50Marc:We cannot let a fucking half a nationwide gaslighting event stop us from keeping our brains and our sense of fucking focus and what is right and wrong.

00:06:02Marc:God damn it.

00:06:06Marc:All right, but all that said, I hope you got some cool presents.

00:06:12Marc:I hope you ate some good things.

00:06:14Marc:I hope you don't feel too bad about yourself as we enter this new year.

00:06:19Marc:There are enough external things to feel bad about.

00:06:22Marc:Let yourself off the hook a bit with your interior attacks if you are waging those battles against you.

00:06:28Marc:Let's externalize them, my friends.

00:06:32Marc:Use that critical energy for things that need to be criticized, that aren't you, myself-involved, correct-minded people, friends, countrymen.

00:06:44Marc:So, New York City.

00:06:47Marc:Outstanding time.

00:06:48Marc:I ate at Mogador.

00:06:50Marc:I ate at Butter.

00:06:51Marc:I got in touch with Alex Gornicelli, who I've had on this show, and that's her restaurant.

00:06:55Marc:I went there with Sarah and her friend Iris.

00:06:58Marc:And then where else?

00:06:59Marc:I ate at Viselka, of course.

00:07:01Marc:I got a slice of Joe's Pizza, of course.

00:07:04Marc:And I went and saw Othello, this new production.

00:07:09Marc:That is that is on now by the guy who directed it is Sam Gold.

00:07:14Marc:He's the guy that directs Annie Baker shows.

00:07:16Marc:And in the show was Daniel Craig.

00:07:19Marc:You know, he was James Bond, wasn't he?

00:07:22Marc:And David Oyelowo.

00:07:25Marc:I hope I'm pronouncing that the guy from Selma.

00:07:27Marc:And it was pretty amazing because I can't handle Shakespeare because I can't follow it.

00:07:33Marc:My eyes just peel back and I get lost pretty quickly.

00:07:36Marc:But this was a it was a very upfront production.

00:07:39Marc:It was at the the New York Theater Workshop.

00:07:42Marc:So you're right on top of it.

00:07:43Marc:The entire set and theater was covered in plywood.

00:07:46Marc:It was taking place in what was an army barracks, a contemporary army barracks.

00:07:51Marc:It was very.

00:07:52Marc:broadly lit the entire space was lit up for a lot of the show except when other effects came into hand you could see the actors spitting and talking and uh i could follow it i could follow the story i was so proud of myself it was like i know what's happening i knew the basic story going in because i wikied it and i just i i was able to follow it for the most part and and parse the language properly and it was very exciting for me and that was no easy task because i

00:08:18Marc:I didn't realize it at the beginning of the play, but towards the middle, I realized, holy shit, I knew I recognized the guy in front of me, because at intermission, I saw Frances McDormand, who was there, and she was with the guy, and I'm like, oh shit, that's Frances McDormand and her Coen brother.

00:08:35Marc:They're married.

00:08:37Marc:So they were sitting in front of me, and directly across from me was Rachel Weiss,

00:08:42Marc:Weiss.

00:08:43Marc:Is it Weiss?

00:08:44Marc:Whatever.

00:08:44Marc:I like her.

00:08:45Marc:She's a good actress, but I guess she's married to Daniel Craig, but she was sitting like directly across from me.

00:08:50Marc:So I had those distractions.

00:08:52Marc:Coen brother, Frances McDormand, Rachel Weiss directly across from me and Othello happening in between us.

00:09:00Marc:And I stayed on the Othello occasionally glancing at the side of I believe it's Joel Cohen's head and ask myself, what's happening in there?

00:09:08Marc:How is the Cohen brother processing Othello with Francis?

00:09:12Marc:I thought like, well, she's an actress.

00:09:13Marc:She's watching the acting.

00:09:14Marc:She's enjoying the Shakespeare because she knows Shakespeare and she appreciates it.

00:09:18Marc:And she's doing that way.

00:09:19Marc:But what is the Cohen brother doing?

00:09:21Marc:How is he framing it?

00:09:23Marc:How is it?

00:09:24Marc:How is it entering his perception?

00:09:25Marc:How is he boxing Othello?

00:09:27Marc:Is it provoking things?

00:09:29Marc:Is he thinking of other things?

00:09:31Marc:Oh, and I saw this amazing show at the new Metropolitan Museum of Art extension.

00:09:37Marc:I guess it would be.

00:09:38Marc:It's the old Whitney, which I have a lot of.

00:09:41Marc:Childhood memories at going to the Whitney with my mother, seeing James Calder's circus sitting right there in the foyer.

00:09:48Marc:But it's now the Brewer Metropolitan Museum.

00:09:52Marc:And they had Sarah wanted to see this Kerry James Marshall.

00:09:56Marc:retrospective which was probably the high point of my trip to New York if you're going to New York if you live in New York go see that before it goes away these spectacular large canvases small canvases it's a whole retrospective of a man he's still alive he's an LA artist primarily African-American themes but so many layers and so many different stylistic elements to each painting and so powerful

00:10:22Marc:Very socially conscious, very sort of gut and brain punching work and solid.

00:10:31Marc:And it's a big retrospective and it just blew my fucking mind.

00:10:35Marc:And that's why you go to New York to engage in a media culture and enjoy the diversity around you and the miracle of New York City and then go and see some actual shit.

00:10:49Marc:and get kicked in the fucking head with some fucking culture.

00:10:54Marc:That's how they say it.

00:10:55Marc:Get kicked in the head with culture, NYC.

00:10:59Marc:Christmas morning, it was very quiet at the hotel I was staying at.

00:11:02Marc:I went down to do some writing, and there was a guy...

00:11:07Marc:There's a guy there.

00:11:09Marc:I was the only other guy in the lobby and he's wearing headphones and they were, I could hear the music from the headphones filtering out, which is not a pet peeve of mine, but it can be annoying.

00:11:18Marc:And I was like, nah, fuck, I'm trying to think.

00:11:20Marc:And now I got to listen to what that guy's listening to.

00:11:23Marc:But you know, in a very kind of a broken up way.

00:11:26Marc:Yeah.

00:11:27Marc:Probably in the worst way possible.

00:11:29Marc:But I listen.

00:11:30Marc:I'm listening closer.

00:11:31Marc:I'd recognize that tune.

00:11:33Marc:It was some early Tom Waits stuff.

00:11:35Marc:Just, you know, I heard Tom Waits just, you know, flammily shouting out of this guy's ear phone.

00:11:43Marc:One side of his headset.

00:11:45Marc:One side of his Bose noise reductions.

00:11:48Marc:was squawking out some early weights.

00:11:56Marc:But I did recognize that.

00:11:57Marc:I don't remember what it was right now.

00:11:59Marc:And I was annoyed.

00:12:00Marc:And then I remembered that Tom Waits once was asked,

00:12:04Marc:What's his favorite kind of music?

00:12:07Marc:And he said an AM radio across the street.

00:12:09Marc:And I'm like, well, that's exactly what that sounds like.

00:12:11Marc:So I'm going to appreciate weights as he would appreciate his favorite music.

00:12:17Marc:Just for across three tables coming out of the side of a guy's head.

00:12:24Marc:Still annoying.

00:12:26Marc:So my guest today.

00:12:29Marc:David Bromberg.

00:12:30Marc:David Bromberg is a guitar player and multi-instrumentalist, but he was years ago.

00:12:36Marc:I had this record that I inherited from somewhere when I was in junior high that I got a big bunch of records from my aunt's house.

00:12:42Marc:And one of them had a sketch of a guy playing guitar on front, just really just a line drawing.

00:12:47Marc:And it was a David Bromberg album.

00:12:49Marc:I remember trying to listen to it, but I just couldn't lock in.

00:12:51Marc:It was a little folky, a little laid back.

00:12:54Marc:And I just couldn't get into it.

00:12:56Marc:But I never forgot the record.

00:12:58Marc:And then from somewhere, I got the new David Bromberg record in the mail.

00:13:02Marc:There's like some 30, 40 years later.

00:13:04Marc:And I'm like, this guy is still at it.

00:13:06Marc:What's his story?

00:13:08Marc:He did a lot of sessions work.

00:13:09Marc:He was involved with the dead, with the band, with M.U.

00:13:14Marc:Harris in New York.

00:13:15Marc:I just, you know, I get nostalgic for an era that I missed.

00:13:20Marc:And I'm like, I want to talk to that guy.

00:13:21Marc:So I found him and I talked to him.

00:13:26Marc:And he's got a new record out.

00:13:28Marc:The blues, the whole blues and nothing but the blues.

00:13:32Marc:You can get that wherever you get music.

00:13:33Marc:It's a straight up kind of blues record, all different styles of blues.

00:13:38Marc:David Bromberg is a very earnest guy and a very earnest player.

00:13:43Marc:And he took like a 20 year hiatus to learn about something else, which I found fascinating.

00:13:49Marc:So here now is me.

00:13:53Marc:And David Bromberg.

00:13:55Guest:Of all the guitars I owned, I kept one.

00:14:05Guest:Which one?

00:14:05Guest:An Esquire from 1958.

00:14:08Guest:Really?

00:14:09Guest:Yeah.

00:14:09Guest:And if I lose that, my career's over.

00:14:11Guest:So you're a Fender guy?

00:14:12Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:14:13Guest:All the way back.

00:14:14Guest:No Gibsons.

00:14:16Guest:I had a few Gibson Electrics.

00:14:18Guest:Yeah.

00:14:18Guest:Too many knobs.

00:14:19Guest:Yeah.

00:14:19Marc:yeah you just want two knobs just two knobs in the switch hell one you know volume tone yeah what the hell do you need yeah i know well you know it's funny because i you know i listen to the new record and it's it's old blues tunes right yeah but you mix it up i mean you do acoustic and then you get you know you get dirty with it and you know and then you you do the whole the whole spectrum

00:14:43Guest:Yeah.

00:14:44Guest:There's two guitar players on there.

00:14:47Guest:Mark Cosgrove, a brilliant guitar player.

00:14:50Guest:You can tell him.

00:14:50Guest:He's got a beautiful, sweet sound.

00:14:52Guest:Mine is the nasty sound.

00:14:54Guest:That's me.

00:14:54Marc:And you like nasty?

00:14:55Marc:Did you evolve into that?

00:14:57Marc:Because your earlier stuff isn't nasty, is it?

00:15:00Guest:No, I guess not.

00:15:03Guest:I used to play more off the neck pickup of the same guitar.

00:15:08Guest:Now I play mostly off the- So it has the bite to it.

00:15:10Guest:Yeah.

00:15:11Marc:So going back to that, here's the weird story about a couple things happened when I saw that you were around, is that I had-

00:15:20Marc:When I was a kid, I'm 53, and I'd somehow inherited a stack of records, and your first record was in there, the first one, the one with the sketch on front.

00:15:28Marc:Yeah.

00:15:29Marc:And I remember as a kid who was in high school listening to townie rock and some blues and stuff, I couldn't quite lock into it, but I kept it, and it was always just there, that sketch of you demanding, like, why can't I get this?

00:15:43Marc:Because I think it was just a little too laid back for me.

00:15:46Marc:I was kind of an amped kid.

00:15:48Marc:And then I get this new record that you put out.

00:15:52Marc:And then I got to go back.

00:15:53Marc:And I'm like, I know this guy.

00:15:55Marc:He's the real thing, this guy.

00:15:56Marc:And I got to get it.

00:15:58Marc:And then I listened to the new record.

00:15:59Marc:And I ended up playing it like six or seven times, playing it along with that.

00:16:02Marc:Went back to the old records and kind of regrouped around it.

00:16:05Marc:And I knew you would play it on a lot of records.

00:16:07Marc:And then I get this other stack of records recently.

00:16:09Marc:And for some reason, I pull Derringer's record, All-American Boy, Rick Derringer's record.

00:16:14Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:14Marc:And I'm poking around researching you and you're like, you're on that record.

00:16:18Marc:And I'm like, what the fuck is happening?

00:16:20Marc:But the thing that fascinates me about you and guys of your ilk is that you were really there at that transition

00:16:31Marc:where that first, you know, people like you were a kid, I imagine, when you first started hearing those original blues records.

00:16:37Marc:Because I just watched a documentary that involved the story of, what's his name, the guy who went down and found, or tried to find Sun House.

00:16:47Marc:And it dawned on me that I didn't really realize that that generation, and that's like in the mid-60s, that those guys were just sort of these voices on records that didn't exist on the real plane in a way.

00:16:58Marc:And that was sort of where you were coming from, wasn't it?

00:17:01Guest:Kind of, except I was very lucky.

00:17:04Guest:I mean, I was a student of Reverend Gary Davises.

00:17:07Guest:Yeah.

00:17:08Marc:Where'd you find him?

00:17:09Guest:Like, where'd you grow up?

00:17:11Guest:I grew up in Westchester County.

00:17:13Guest:In New York.

00:17:14Guest:Yeah.

00:17:16Guest:But I found the Reverend when I was going to college, and I'm walking down Bleecker Street.

00:17:21Guest:Where'd you go to college?

00:17:22Guest:Columbia.

00:17:23Guest:Okay.

00:17:23Guest:And what were you studying?

00:17:24Guest:I was only there for a year and a half.

00:17:26Guest:The music got you.

00:17:28Guest:I'm on a leave of absence.

00:17:30Guest:I don't know if they'll take me back.

00:17:31Guest:You could try.

00:17:33Marc:They might offer you a job.

00:17:35Marc:All right, so you're walking down Bleecker Street.

00:17:37Marc:What year are we talking?

00:17:39Guest:It must have been in the 60s, mid to late 60s.

00:17:44Guest:And you're like 20.

00:17:45Guest:20.

00:17:46Guest:Yeah.

00:17:47Marc:Okay.

00:17:47Guest:And what happened?

00:17:49Guest:So there's a sandwich sign out in front of a place called the Dragon's Den.

00:17:54Guest:It said, Reverend Gary Davis here this afternoon.

00:17:56Guest:It was the middle of the afternoon.

00:17:57Guest:And you knew who he was.

00:17:58Guest:I knew because I'd already gotten a record of his.

00:18:02Guest:Yeah.

00:18:02Guest:Like a 78?

00:18:03Guest:No.

00:18:04Guest:There was a record that he had half of and Pink Anderson had half of.

00:18:09Guest:And I had that.

00:18:10Guest:And it was a wonderful record.

00:18:11Guest:Yeah.

00:18:12Guest:So I went in and listened.

00:18:14Guest:Was there anyone there?

00:18:15Guest:There were a few people there.

00:18:16Guest:Yeah.

00:18:17Guest:And it was great.

00:18:18Guest:Yeah.

00:18:18Guest:I mean, it was unbelievable.

00:18:20Guest:And he must have been in his 60s?

00:18:21Guest:Yeah.

00:18:22Guest:Uh-huh.

00:18:22Guest:And I went up to him after, and I asked him if he'd give me lessons.

00:18:26Guest:And he said, yes, $5, bring the money, honey.

00:18:30Guest:Uh-huh.

00:18:31Guest:Yeah.

00:18:32Guest:That was a reverend, and that's how it started.

00:18:34Guest:After a while, instead of $5, I'd lead him around.

00:18:37Guest:Yeah.

00:18:38Marc:What do you mean?

00:18:39Marc:He needed help?

00:18:40Marc:He was blind.

00:18:41Marc:He was always blind.

00:18:42Marc:There was another blind one, too.

00:18:44Marc:Blind Lemon, what was that guy?

00:18:46Marc:Blind Lemon Jefferson.

00:18:47Marc:There was also Blind Blake.

00:18:49Marc:And Blind Fuller?

00:18:50Guest:Blind Boy Fuller, who was a student of Reverend Gary Davis'.

00:18:53Marc:Also.

00:18:54Marc:Yeah.

00:18:55Marc:So what was Reverend Gary Davis's history?

00:18:57Marc:He was a multi-instrumentalist, right?

00:18:59Marc:Like he played a few things.

00:19:00Marc:Yeah, but mostly guitar.

00:19:01Marc:Uh-huh.

00:19:02Marc:Slide?

00:19:03Marc:No slide.

00:19:04Marc:He could play slide, he just didn't bother with it very much.

00:19:07Marc:Did you find, you know, in studying this and working with these guys, that there was a distinct difference in between those regions in terms of the music that was being played?

00:19:16Marc:Well, the Reverend was...

00:19:19Guest:just about unique.

00:19:21Guest:Some of Blind Boy Fuller's stuff sounds like the Reverend.

00:19:24Guest:And that's the only recorded stuff that I've heard that really sounds like the Reverend.

00:19:29Guest:And the only other guitar play that the Reverend would speak of complimentary was Blind Blake, who was another phenomenon.

00:19:35Guest:yeah and and the reverend used to say you know on on record there's nobody could beat blind blake and now you know he didn't have anything good to say about anybody else really yeah very competitive or just uh critical he was a whole lot better than everybody else and what did you learn from him i mean like what did he show you were these open tunings what were you working with no it wasn't open tuning stuff yeah um

00:19:58Guest:Five finger chords, and I do mean five finger chords.

00:20:02Guest:You know, with the thumb over the edge.

00:20:04Guest:And you still use those?

00:20:07Guest:Yeah.

00:20:08Guest:And when I started with him, I was playing with three fingers, and he only used two, and I figured, well, I can do much more.

00:20:15Guest:What, picking?

00:20:15Marc:Yeah.

00:20:16Marc:Really, he's one of those two-finger guys.

00:20:18Marc:I'm talking to Matt Sweeney about this.

00:20:19Marc:The two-finger thing is really big in the blues, and I just started hearing about it.

00:20:23Guest:Well, I thought that three fingers would be better, and after a while, I discovered it isn't.

00:20:28Guest:Why?

00:20:29Guest:For what he does, for what the Reverend does, because he would do these rolls that were really syncopated, and when you just did them like this with either double finger or double thumb, you got a great sound.

00:20:42Guest:so it's a unique sound yeah if you want to play a certain way you use three fingers but if you want to have that sound you play two yeah pretty much i mean he did things that i can't really duplicate he used to pick every single note with his first finger and some of that stuff was real fast how he did that is beyond me but he did it really so just running up the strings moving up moving down moving up those top three three strings one finger yeah he was amazing

00:21:10Marc:All right, so now you're down the village.

00:21:11Marc:You're taking lessons from Reverend Garrett Davis.

00:21:13Marc:You're in Columbia studying what?

00:21:15Marc:The lessons were in the Bronx to begin.

00:21:16Guest:Oh, that's where you lived?

00:21:18Guest:Well, when I first met him, he was living in a little hut, a shack that was in between two large buildings.

00:21:26Guest:And then at a certain point, Peter Paul and Mary recorded his version of Samson and Delilah.

00:21:35Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:21:35Guest:And they got him to copyright it.

00:21:37Guest:And he moved to a little house in a nice neighborhood in Queens.

00:21:41Marc:Oh, so they did the right thing.

00:21:43Marc:They sure did the right thing.

00:21:45Marc:And it was on one of their big selling records.

00:21:48Marc:Yeah.

00:21:48Marc:And it got them out of the garbage.

00:21:51Marc:Yeah.

00:21:52Marc:That's beautiful.

00:21:53Marc:Yeah, it was.

00:21:53Marc:Well, they're not necessarily... You wouldn't call them blues people.

00:21:56Marc:Blues men.

00:21:57Marc:No.

00:21:57Marc:Peter, Paul, and Mary.

00:21:58Guest:No, but they had big ears, you know?

00:22:00Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:22:01Marc:It's very interesting to me that there was just a few...

00:22:05Marc:Kind of like young Jewish dudes that really took to the blues and became real bluesmen.

00:22:15Marc:There were a lot of us.

00:22:16Guest:Right.

00:22:17Guest:Like Bloomfield.

00:22:18Guest:Yeah.

00:22:19Guest:Did you know Mike?

00:22:20Guest:I met him once and we played together once.

00:22:22Marc:How did you like his playing?

00:22:23Marc:Oh, he was great.

00:22:24Marc:because I know a lot of Jewish guys that love the blues, and they're certainly part of the history of sort of resurrecting the blues on record and in finding blues guys and whatnot.

00:22:36Marc:Do you think there's a connection between being Jewish and the blues music?

00:22:42Guest:blues bob dylan there's another good example yeah blues is soulful yeah and full of irony yeah so there you go maybe go were you brought up religious no no no just kind of you know anything but religious oh yeah oh yeah at pesach my father would always say this god must be a very insecure creature to require so much constant praise

00:23:05Guest:What did he do?

00:23:07Guest:He was a shrink.

00:23:08Guest:Oh, he was?

00:23:09Guest:He was a psychiatrist.

00:23:10Guest:In the city?

00:23:12Guest:First in the city, and then he moved it out to Tarrytown, where we lived.

00:23:16Guest:And what were you studying when you went to Columbia?

00:23:19Guest:I thought I was going to be a musicologist, because what I wanted to do was play music, but I wasn't supposed to.

00:23:25Guest:I was supposed to be something white-collar.

00:23:29Guest:What is the job of a musicologist?

00:23:32Guest:Damned if I know.

00:23:33Guest:Well, you sort of are one now.

00:23:35Guest:Well, musicologists study different aspects of music.

00:23:39Guest:I mean, some of them study construction, some of them study composers, some of them study cultures.

00:23:47Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:23:48Marc:So when you start taking lessons with the reverend,

00:23:53Marc:This must have been like an amazing sort of strange and beautiful opportunity that you knew you were integrating yourself into part of history in a way.

00:24:04Guest:I didn't think of it that way.

00:24:06Marc:Yeah.

00:24:06Marc:I just knew I was learning some great guitar shit.

00:24:09Marc:But you knew he was like the real deal.

00:24:11Marc:Oh, yes.

00:24:12Marc:Like he wasn't like some more back of the music store guitar teacher.

00:24:15Marc:You knew there was a legacy.

00:24:18Marc:You were being passed along some very specific historical wisdom.

00:24:23Marc:Yeah.

00:24:23Guest:It's true that I was being passed some historical wisdom, but I'm not that bright.

00:24:32Guest:I didn't see it in that way at all.

00:24:35Guest:All I knew was that I was learning to play some stuff that very few other people on the planet could play.

00:24:40Guest:Okay, and it was blues specifically, and that was the music you loved?

00:24:44Guest:No, it wasn't blues.

00:24:45Guest:No?

00:24:45Guest:The Reverend would not play blues in public.

00:24:48Guest:He played religious tunes.

00:24:50Guest:And what a lot of people miss is that...

00:24:55Guest:You know who Blind Willie Johnson was.

00:24:57Guest:Yeah.

00:24:58Guest:He sang only religious tunes.

00:24:59Guest:Right.

00:25:00Guest:And you know who Bessie Smith was.

00:25:01Guest:Yeah.

00:25:02Guest:Yeah.

00:25:02Guest:When they pressed albums of Bessie Smith and Blind Willie Johnson, they would press twice as many of Blind Willie Johnson's because he sold twice as much.

00:25:11Guest:Because of the religious songs.

00:25:13Marc:The religious songs sold much better than blues.

00:25:15Marc:Well, Sam Cooke was in the Soul Stirrers for years.

00:25:17Marc:Yeah.

00:25:18Marc:I mean, gospel music is connected.

00:25:21Marc:Yeah.

00:25:22Marc:Right?

00:25:22Marc:And it was always connected, religious music.

00:25:24Guest:spiritual music but the point is that in in the community that the uh the african-american community of the 30s even yeah also you know much later i'm sure the people weren't listening to the blues they were listening to religious music and sermons recorded sermons was he a good preacher the reverend yeah he was but he had a pretty thick accent and i couldn't always understand him yeah one night um uh

00:25:53Guest:One night, Stefan Grossman, who was maybe his closest student, was doing a concert in the village, and I was playing at the gaslight down the basement.

00:26:03Guest:Yeah.

00:26:04Guest:And I didn't know it, but the Reverend went to hear Stefan, and then I saw him when I came on stage sitting out in the audience.

00:26:13Guest:So I played one of his tunes, and I played one of mine and dedicated it to him, and he stood up and gave a sermon.

00:26:19Guest:And it started, I Have No Children.

00:26:22Guest:but I have sons.

00:26:25Guest:And boy, man, that was just a great thing for me.

00:26:29Marc:It's moving.

00:26:30Marc:So before you even started to take lessons from the Reverend, you were playing out in the village in 19... No, I don't think I was playing out.

00:26:40Marc:No, but you were noodling around.

00:26:42Marc:Yeah, I was playing.

00:26:43Marc:I started playing when I was 13.

00:26:45Marc:And what was your music at that point?

00:26:47Marc:Like, what'd you like?

00:26:48Marc:Was it always folk music and blues music?

00:26:51Guest:no it was whatever i heard that right you know i liked everything on the radio and that's how i started playing you know three four chords yeah uh what was on the radio were you ever in a rock band in high school or anything i wasn't in a rock band no i wasn't a folk band yeah yeah folk was a big thing it was a big thing it's hard to imagine like i did did you see the movie the the lewin lewin davis the cohen brothers movie

00:27:14Guest:No.

00:27:14Guest:You didn't?

00:27:15Guest:No, I didn't.

00:27:15Guest:Because Terry Thal, who was Dave Van Rock's wife, said that she saw it and I know Terry and I trust her.

00:27:25Guest:And she said what disappointed her was there was no joy in it and that they missed all the joy that we all took in playing the music.

00:27:33Guest:And I figured then there's nothing in it for me.

00:27:35Guest:Really?

00:27:36Marc:Interesting.

00:27:37Marc:I mean, if I think about it, that's sort of true.

00:27:40Marc:It is sort of a dark tale in a way.

00:27:42Guest:And they missed that.

00:27:43Guest:You know, they got a lot of things right, but according to Terry, I mean, I can't say firsthand, but I believe that they missed...

00:27:50Guest:That's why we did it.

00:27:52Guest:Yeah.

00:27:52Guest:You know, we were having a ball.

00:27:54Marc:But it was before you when it started, you started the folk thing started actually before it.

00:28:00Marc:It wasn't political in nature to begin with.

00:28:04Marc:Oh, yes, it was.

00:28:04Marc:It was.

00:28:05Marc:It very definitely was.

00:28:07Marc:And who were the leaders of it?

00:28:08Marc:Who were the inspirations?

00:28:09Marc:Like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie?

00:28:11Marc:Yeah.

00:28:12Marc:And that was the first generation?

00:28:15Marc:I mean, those were the guys before you?

00:28:17Guest:Well, before them, there was actually Carl Sandburg and a guy named John Jacob Niles.

00:28:22Guest:Carl Sandburg, the poet.

00:28:24Marc:Yeah.

00:28:25Marc:But the popularization of the folk music and the working man's folk music.

00:28:30Guest:Yeah, then it was Lead Belly, Pete Seeger.

00:28:35Guest:Right.

00:28:35Guest:Yeah.

00:28:36Guest:Then did you see Lead Belly?

00:28:37Marc:No.

00:28:38Marc:Never saw him?

00:28:38Marc:Never saw him.

00:28:39Marc:Oh.

00:28:40Marc:Pete?

00:28:40Marc:Yeah, I saw Pete a number of times.

00:28:42Marc:Uh-huh.

00:28:43Marc:And so when you got to it, when you got to the village, who was around?

00:28:47Marc:Who were part of the crew?

00:28:48Marc:Who were you kind of like meeting at the diner afterwards and smoking cigarettes with?

00:28:53Marc:Well, Richie Havens.

00:28:54Marc:Right.

00:28:55Marc:He's an interesting player, huh?

00:28:58Marc:Oh, he's a marvelous player.

00:28:59Marc:Oh, my God.

00:28:59Guest:And he invented his whole thing.

00:29:02Guest:He invented his own tuning.

00:29:04Guest:He plays mostly with his thumb over the neck.

00:29:07Guest:Right.

00:29:07Guest:And his time, his right hand.

00:29:12Guest:Very fast.

00:29:12Guest:But breaks down the beat.

00:29:15Guest:I mean, he's brilliant.

00:29:16Guest:Yeah.

00:29:17Guest:And he was a big deal.

00:29:18Guest:Yeah.

00:29:19Guest:Well, you know, I used to play guitar for him.

00:29:21Guest:Yeah.

00:29:24Guest:When Dino wasn't around, there was a kid named Dino who learned from Richie and played great.

00:29:29Guest:Where did Richie learn?

00:29:31Marc:He taught himself.

00:29:31Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:29:32Marc:Yeah.

00:29:33Marc:But that thumb over the top thing is very specific.

00:29:35Marc:I think Hendrix did it a little bit, too.

00:29:36Marc:Well, so did Gary Davis, but not across four strings or five strings.

00:29:42Marc:Okay, so it's Richie Havens and you.

00:29:46Guest:Emmylou Harris, Paul Siebel.

00:29:48Guest:Emmylou Harris started down the village, huh?

00:29:50Guest:Well, I don't know that she started there, but she might have started in D.C.

00:29:55Guest:and came up to the village for a few years.

00:29:58Marc:And this is mid-60s?

00:29:59Marc:Yeah.

00:29:59Marc:Who were the people that you would go watch, go out of your way to see no matter when they played?

00:30:04Guest:Gil Turner and Zaharia Malmoli.

00:30:09Guest:Let's see.

00:30:09Guest:Oh, you know who we left out of the first wave?

00:30:12Guest:Who?

00:30:12Guest:We left out Odetta.

00:30:13Guest:Oh, that's right.

00:30:14Guest:Yeah.

00:30:16Guest:I thought of that because I mentioned Zaharia's last name.

00:30:19Guest:She just performed as Zaharia.

00:30:21Guest:And I once called Odetta by her whole name.

00:30:25Guest:And she said...

00:30:26Guest:You don't do that.

00:30:27Guest:That's too powerful.

00:30:28Guest:Oh, really?

00:30:31Guest:What's Odette's wife's whole name?

00:30:33Marc:She didn't want me to say.

00:30:34Marc:And you can't say it still?

00:30:36Marc:I love her.

00:30:37Marc:All right, so when did you first start achieving success?

00:30:43Marc:How did it happen?

00:30:45Marc:When did you record?

00:30:46Marc:When did you start being recognized?

00:30:48Guest:Well, the first national act to ask me to play with him was Tom Paxton.

00:30:56Guest:Uh-huh.

00:30:56Guest:and i played with him and then it was back to the village opening no no no as his guitar player i was an accompanist that's that was my whole thing i didn't sing yeah uh you sing i do now yeah yeah but back then i didn't i was i was guitar player for all the people that i most of the people i mentioned you know paxton's the first guy these are guys that play as well though right you know most of them

00:31:18Guest:Yeah, but I would add ornamentation and solos and things.

00:31:24Marc:So he was the first guy that kind of... The first national act.

00:31:28Guest:I mean, you know, I mentioned Paul Siebel and Emmylou.

00:31:31Guest:I used to play guitar for them and for Richie and for anybody who'd let me.

00:31:34Guest:Yeah, right.

00:31:36Guest:Yeah.

00:31:37Guest:And so you toured with Paxton.

00:31:38Guest:But the big thing was probably I ran into a guy named Donnie Brooks, who was a harmonica player, introduced me to a pal of his named...

00:31:48Guest:well, eventually named Jerry Jeff Walker.

00:31:51Guest:Right.

00:31:51Guest:And Jerry Jeff was part of a jazz fusion rock band.

00:31:57Guest:Really?

00:31:57Guest:Yeah, called Circus Maximus, along with a great songwriter named Gary White.

00:32:05Guest:the rest of the band hated Jerry Jeff's tunes and I loved playing on them you know we met and we played together so I used to drag them around was it primarily country his stuff yeah it was very country yeah so I you know Paul Colby might say well I'm looking for an opening act I was not an act right so so I'd say well let me see if Jerry Jeff will do it you know yeah yeah bring Jerry Jeff and then we used to go

00:32:30Guest:to uh wbai fm and this was a very important thing yeah uh in jerry's jerry jeff's career and mine because i became known through being jerry jeff's band right and uh we used to go up to wbai radio unnameable bob fass it was an important show and it went from midnight until and what'd you do up there

00:32:52Guest:Well, we played.

00:32:54Guest:Live.

00:32:54Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:32:56Guest:I think it was someone else had brought me up there.

00:33:00Guest:Yeah.

00:33:01Guest:And so I would get Jerry Jeff to come when I could.

00:33:06Guest:Right.

00:33:06Guest:And the two of us would go up there and we'd play.

00:33:08Guest:And Bob Fass fell in love with Mr. Bojangles.

00:33:11Guest:And he recorded it three separate times and put him on a tape loop.

00:33:14Guest:And if we weren't there, he'd play that several times a night.

00:33:17Guest:Yeah.

00:33:17Guest:Your version of it.

00:33:18Guest:Not mine, Jerry Jeff's.

00:33:19Guest:Jerry Jeff's.

00:33:19Guest:Is that his song?

00:33:20Marc:Yeah, he wrote it.

00:33:21Guest:He wrote that song.

00:33:22Guest:He absolutely wrote it, yeah.

00:33:23Guest:Some people have asked me, who really wrote it?

00:33:26Guest:He wrote it.

00:33:27Guest:Yeah?

00:33:27Marc:Yeah.

00:33:28Marc:That is one of those songs that everybody knows.

00:33:32Marc:Yeah, it's a great, great song.

00:33:36Guest:Did you play on the original recording of it?

00:33:38Guest:Yeah, you want the story?

00:33:40Guest:Yeah.

00:33:41Guest:Okay.

00:33:42Guest:Okay.

00:33:42Guest:There was a guy down in the village, a publisher and manager and doing a lot of things named David Wilkes.

00:33:50Guest:And I remember him taking me and Jerry Jeff to an airplane, a little Piper Cub, and we flew down to Memphis.

00:34:01Guest:Yeah.

00:34:02Guest:The song was already out.

00:34:04Guest:before Jerry Jeff recorded it, because at Jilly's Bar, which was where Sinatra would hang out, the piano player was a guy named Bobby Cole, and he heard it on the late night radio.

00:34:15Guest:He figured, that's a great tune, I'll cover it.

00:34:18Guest:He didn't know it wasn't out.

00:34:19Guest:So he recorded it for Date Records, and Jerry Jeff eventually signed with ATCO, which was a division of Atlantic.

00:34:25Guest:But he credited Jerry, right?

00:34:27Guest:I don't know.

00:34:28Guest:But I think he did.

00:34:29Guest:Yeah.

00:34:30Guest:But the only thing that a songwriter has that he can say about a song is he gets to pick the first person to record it.

00:34:39Guest:Right.

00:34:39Guest:After that, anybody can.

00:34:41Guest:Okay.

00:34:41Guest:And so Bobby Cole put out the first recording without Jerry Jeff knowing.

00:34:46Guest:Well, he assumed it had already been out.

00:34:48Guest:So David Wilkes, Jerry Jeff, and I flew down to Memphis where a brilliant engineer, a brilliant man, the guy who invented faders, was producing and engineering the session.

00:35:03Guest:And the Dixie Flyers were the band.

00:35:06Guest:And they were having a difficult time with it.

00:35:10Guest:Because it kept sounding like a Viennese waltz.

00:35:14Guest:Oh, like the groove.

00:35:16Guest:And I really wanted to be in the studio.

00:35:19Guest:And after a while, I was in tears.

00:35:22Guest:I'm a little embarrassed, but it's the truth.

00:35:24Guest:You're sitting in the booth?

00:35:25Guest:I'm sitting in the booth, because he didn't want some kid he never heard of.

00:35:28Guest:And finally- The engineer.

00:35:30Guest:The engineer and producer, Tom Dowd.

00:35:33Guest:Okay, there you go.

00:35:34Guest:Who also was involved in the Manhattan Project, just so you know how intelligent Tom Dowd was.

00:35:40Marc:Okay.

00:35:41Guest:But Jerry Jeff didn't say, I want the kid?

00:35:43Guest:No, after a while, Tom Dowd said, let's put the kid in.

00:35:45Guest:Okay.

00:35:46Guest:There was a woman who was playing 12-string, and he said, let him play your 12-string.

00:35:51Guest:And so I had a part.

00:35:52Guest:Yeah.

00:35:53Guest:And my part was in 6-8, not 3-4.

00:35:56Mm-hmm.

00:35:56Guest:And that did it.

00:35:57Guest:That did it?

00:35:58Guest:That did it.

00:35:58Guest:You were the key.

00:35:59Guest:Yeah.

00:36:00Guest:I think I was.

00:36:01Marc:Yeah.

00:36:02Marc:Yeah.

00:36:02Marc:And it's so funny because Jerry Jeff Walker is one of these guys I had to come back around to thanks to my buddy Dan over at Gimme Gimme Records.

00:36:11Marc:Because when I grew up, it was Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers.

00:36:13Marc:That was the song.

00:36:14Marc:That was later.

00:36:16Marc:That was much later.

00:36:16Marc:I know.

00:36:17Marc:Much later.

00:36:18Marc:But it's not unlike you, as a guy my age who missed the 60s, really.

00:36:23Marc:Yeah.

00:36:23Marc:So anything I got, I had to pick up from the rubble.

00:36:26Marc:And I'm still doing it.

00:36:28Marc:Like, you know, I'm still like, you know, that guy was that guy, you know, like, like right now, like you're the guy that was on the 12 string, but then you, you go on.

00:36:37Marc:So I imagine that session, how does it pick up for like, cause you played with fucking everybody of that era.

00:36:43Marc:And I don't know how that works.

00:36:45Marc:My false assumption is that, you know, because, you know, you play with most of the Grateful Dead's on, what, two or three of your records.

00:36:53Marc:Yeah.

00:36:54Marc:And that, you know, with Ronstadt, who I know, I just recently, within the last six months, got the first two Stone Ponies records.

00:37:02Marc:which i love yeah like to hear her sing like that oh she's such a great singer and then but you did you have that moment though when you you listen to stone ponies and you're like she's above and beyond this that there's something transcendent that we you can feel that it hasn't been realized yet that she was a great singer but folk almost held her back in a way somehow

00:37:23Marc:No.

00:37:26Guest:I just... You know, here's the thing.

00:37:29Guest:Yeah.

00:37:29Guest:I live in the moment.

00:37:30Guest:I know.

00:37:31Guest:And that's all I wanted.

00:37:32Marc:Okay.

00:37:32Guest:Was to live in the moment.

00:37:33Guest:I heard her and she moved me.

00:37:34Guest:She was just great.

00:37:35Marc:With the stone ponies?

00:37:36Guest:Yeah.

00:37:37Guest:She used to play the bitter end.

00:37:39Guest:Yeah.

00:37:39Guest:And if you... She talks about this in her...

00:37:42Guest:uh autobiography one night she was there after different drum she released a number of tunes um uh high muddy waters was one of them you know she sang that it was just great but yeah but after different drum nothing did anything uh-huh so one night when she was at the bitter end i got her and dragged her to the apartment house where i lived

00:38:08Guest:And also Gary White and Jerry Jeff lived.

00:38:11Guest:And I rounded up Paul Siebel and Gary White and me and Linda.

00:38:16Guest:And I was not a songwriter or singer at the time.

00:38:19Guest:I was everybody's guitar player.

00:38:21Guest:So they sang her songs.

00:38:23Guest:And her next album was mostly Gary White and Paul Siebel songs.

00:38:30Guest:And the hit that restarted her career was Long, Long Time, which Gary White sang to her that night.

00:38:38Marc:Really?

00:38:38Guest:So if I'd sit in with her, she'd introduce me as somebody who helped her start her career.

00:38:43Guest:Over the top stuff.

00:38:44Guest:But I loved it.

00:38:46Guest:But that was a moment.

00:38:47Guest:You were like, come on.

00:38:48Guest:But there was more to that night.

00:38:51Guest:That night when she decided to go back to her hotel,

00:38:55Guest:She ran into Jerry Jeff in the hallway, and he was on his way uptown for God knows what.

00:38:59Guest:Right.

00:39:00Guest:And they shared a cab.

00:39:01Guest:Yeah.

00:39:01Guest:And he told her that she had to hear this song that the McGarrigle sisters had written and sang, Heart Like a Wheel.

00:39:13Guest:Yeah.

00:39:13Guest:Which is one of her favorites ever, and that was a huge hit, too.

00:39:16Guest:Yeah.

00:39:16Guest:So there you were.

00:39:18Marc:It was a momentous night.

00:39:19Marc:It's interesting to, like, I imagine, you know, for me, but I don't know for you, because you seem to, you know, not to have the same sort of, you know, I romanticize, you know, groups of people and times and eras.

00:39:33Marc:But I mean, like, in retrospect, to be at the sort of, like, the pivotal juncture of these things and making these kind of impulsive decisions that have a kind of ripple effect.

00:39:45Marc:Yeah.

00:39:45Marc:It must be sort of interesting and exciting.

00:39:47Marc:I loved playing guitar with these guys.

00:39:50Guest:You're not nostalgic.

00:39:52Guest:No.

00:39:53Guest:I loved playing guitar with these guys, and I wanted to do it as much as I could.

00:39:58Guest:I would get Jerry Jeff and Paul Siebel booked at the Folklore Center to do a concert so I could play guitar with them.

00:40:05Guest:And with Siebel, I got Siebel one of those.

00:40:10Guest:And I had just done an album with Paxton.

00:40:13Guest:Yeah.

00:40:14Guest:So I got the producer to come down and listen to Paul.

00:40:19Guest:Peter Siegel was his name.

00:40:20Guest:Yeah.

00:40:21Guest:And he was an excellent producer.

00:40:23Guest:And so Paul got a contract.

00:40:26Marc:Uh-huh.

00:40:28Marc:It was a smaller business then, too, huh?

00:40:31Marc:I mean, it was intimate.

00:40:32Marc:Not as small as it is today.

00:40:35Marc:Well, I know recording in general, I guess, but it just seemed like there was more.

00:40:39Marc:Maybe I'm wrong.

00:40:40Marc:It just seemed like there was a community, that there were these.

00:40:43Marc:You go to a certain city, and then people were hungry for new talent, and everybody was sort of around.

00:40:50Yeah.

00:40:50Marc:You know, it doesn't seem that maybe it works that way still.

00:40:53Marc:I don't know.

00:40:54Guest:Well, one of the things that the record companies did is they were editors because everybody wanted to make a record.

00:41:01Guest:Right.

00:41:01Guest:And the recording studios didn't record everybody.

00:41:05Guest:Right.

00:41:05Guest:So, so they, you know, today you have to be on YouTube along with how many million others?

00:41:12Guest:Right.

00:41:13Guest:Anybody can do it.

00:41:14Guest:Yeah, but to get known if you're really good, I mean, how do you stick out in YouTube?

00:41:19Guest:It ain't easy.

00:41:20Guest:No.

00:41:20Guest:I think it's harder today.

00:41:22Marc:So eventually you played with Richie Havens?

00:41:26Marc:Oh, I played with Richie Havens, I think, before I ever met Jerry Chaffee.

00:41:29Marc:Yeah.

00:41:30Marc:And I'm just looking at some of the people you worked with.

00:41:33Marc:Al Cooper.

00:41:34Marc:Al, I didn't meet till later.

00:41:36Guest:Right.

00:41:37Guest:Yeah.

00:41:37Guest:He's a character, huh?

00:41:38Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:41:39Guest:Yeah.

00:41:40Guest:And I really love him.

00:41:41Guest:Good producer.

00:41:43Marc:Yeah.

00:41:43Guest:And you can't write the history of rock and roll without Al Cooper.

00:41:47Guest:Sure.

00:41:47Guest:Like a Rolling Stone, right?

00:41:49Marc:Yeah.

00:41:49Guest:Yeah.

00:41:49Guest:That organ.

00:41:50Guest:Yeah, well, with that and the Blues Project and what was the name of that great horn band he founded?

00:41:57Guest:At Blood, Sweat, and Tears?

00:41:58Guest:Yeah.

00:42:00Guest:But, I mean, even before that, he wrote a song that Gary Lewis and the Playboys recorded, I think.

00:42:05Guest:Or was it Short Shorts?

00:42:07Guest:He wrote one of those songs.

00:42:08Guest:pop things you know he was one of the kids who like paul simon was also who lived in the uh publishing buildings uh-huh there were there were two buildings in new york one of the most famous was the brill building right but there was another one too yeah and and there were kids who would hang out there do whatever they could because they wanted to write songs yeah

00:42:28Marc:Paul Simon was doing that?

00:42:30Marc:Yeah, I think he was.

00:42:31Marc:Yeah.

00:42:31Marc:Did you know him?

00:42:32Marc:No.

00:42:33Marc:They were already coming.

00:42:34Marc:No, I met him much later.

00:42:36Marc:I want to talk about the dead.

00:42:37Marc:Yeah.

00:42:37Marc:Because you seem to jive with those dudes.

00:42:41Marc:I mean, they played on your record.

00:42:42Marc:Yeah.

00:42:43Marc:And you played with them.

00:42:44Marc:Yeah.

00:42:45Marc:What was that?

00:42:46Marc:What were they...

00:42:48Marc:what was the vibe there because i noticed in your playing and when i listen to stuff that it seems like you guys were able to really and also the band too yeah um to find this this space there's a space to it that you know you kind of like you're not filling up every hole you're letting things sit there's a groove uh that that

00:43:11Marc:I think people are trying to get back to a little now, but there's something about, I never really put it all together until, it was a few years ago, and Eric Clapton had, there were two, when Jimi Hendrix went to England, a lot of the rock guys were like, well, it's done, it's over.

00:43:29Marc:Yeah.

00:43:30Marc:But for some reason, when the band's first record out, Eric Clapton said, it's over.

00:43:36Marc:That they've achieved this perfection that I'm never going to achieve.

00:43:41Marc:And for years, I couldn't figure out what that is.

00:43:42Marc:And it's really about the space.

00:43:44Guest:I think you're right.

00:43:45Guest:Yeah, I think so.

00:43:46Guest:The band was so soulful.

00:43:49Guest:I mean, my taste is if it's not soulful, if it doesn't strike me as soulful, I got no time for it.

00:43:56Guest:And the band was very, very soulful.

00:43:59Guest:And I loved their records.

00:44:00Guest:And I used to run into them in later years everywhere.

00:44:03Guest:Really?

00:44:04Guest:Yeah.

00:44:05Guest:I'd run into them at hotels.

00:44:06Guest:Well, that's understandable.

00:44:08Guest:Gigs.

00:44:08Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:44:09Guest:um truck stops oh really yeah you just kept running into him just kept running into him and um and i i really liked did you ever play with any of them sure yeah oh yeah well uh danko i love rick danko well danko was my best friend in the band we were at um uh the chateau marmont i was staying there i i forget why yeah and i'm walking around the grounds for some reason and i bump into danko and he says oh thank god

00:44:39Guest:he says i gotta do this ringo star album and he wants me to play fiddle uh-huh will you play fiddle with me well i don't have i don't remember if i had a fiddle with me or not actually i said okay so that got me on a ring we were trying to hide behind each other because we were both pretty terrible fiddlers uh and you know so i got that was the first of the ringo star albums i played on danko seemed like he was a pretty funny guy he was a sweetheart he was really wonderful and um

00:45:08Guest:And so was Levon.

00:45:10Guest:Yeah.

00:45:11Marc:Did you ever go up there to Woodstock and hang out?

00:45:13Guest:Oh, sure.

00:45:13Guest:No, not till later years.

00:45:15Guest:Yeah.

00:45:16Guest:You know, the problem was it was too fashionable to do that.

00:45:20Guest:Uh-huh.

00:45:20Guest:And I have always been, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.

00:45:24Guest:Yeah.

00:45:25Guest:Militantly anti-fashion.

00:45:27Guest:Uh-huh.

00:45:28Guest:Uh-huh.

00:45:28Guest:Didn't want to be trendy?

00:45:30Guest:Didn't want to seem like you were part of the gang?

00:45:32Uh-huh.

00:45:32Guest:Yeah, I just wanted to find a way to do things myself, you know.

00:45:37Guest:And you were talking about how I was playing in the folk thing.

00:45:42Guest:Yeah.

00:45:42Guest:But I wasn't playing that much folk music.

00:45:45Guest:I played as much rock and roll on the acoustic guitar as I did folk music.

00:45:50Guest:I played all kinds of different music.

00:45:52Guest:Yeah.

00:45:55Guest:It was a whole different thing.

00:45:56Guest:I always said if what I do ever becomes popular, I got a corner on the market.

00:46:02Marc:You're the only guy doing it.

00:46:05Marc:I'm the only guy doing it.

00:46:07Marc:But when you play with... Danko just struck me such a great voice and such a fun spirit.

00:46:14Marc:When you talk about...

00:46:16Marc:in the folk stuff, in that, the sort of, you know, because I'm thinking about that, that there's an ecstatic sort of communal feeling to that music.

00:46:28Marc:I guess it exists with any band that has popularity, but there seems to be something simple and pure about folk music in a weird way.

00:46:38Guest:Well, maybe.

00:46:39Guest:I mean, I never really thought of myself as a folk singer.

00:46:43Guest:Right.

00:46:44Guest:But you were there and you said that.

00:46:45Guest:But I was there.

00:46:45Guest:I came out of the folk clubs, absolutely.

00:46:48Guest:But I was asked to give a keynote speech a couple of years ago to the Folk Alliance.

00:46:55Guest:And so I thought about it and I decided to talk about the difference between folk music and Americana.

00:47:02Guest:Okay.

00:47:02Guest:The term Americana didn't exist when I was first out there.

00:47:06Guest:That's sort of now.

00:47:07Marc:There's a bit of that going on now.

00:47:09Marc:So lay it on me.

00:47:10Marc:Help me out.

00:47:11Guest:Folk music is music that has been or is being played where there's no chance of money changing hands.

00:47:18Guest:Okay.

00:47:18Guest:I mean, if you think about it, that's true.

00:47:21Marc:But define it.

00:47:22Marc:So you mean it's done at social events or gatherings?

00:47:26Guest:Or at work or in prisons or on ships.

00:47:32Guest:It's a personal thing.

00:47:34Guest:Nobody's getting paid for it.

00:47:35Guest:Uh-huh.

00:47:36Guest:So, and Americana music is music that kind of sounds like that, but it's written for profit.

00:47:43Guest:Okay.

00:47:43Guest:And I had T-shirts printed up, 50 of them, saying the David Bromberg Quintet, Making Americana Great Again.

00:47:53Guest:And that's for the new record?

00:47:56Guest:No, it was just for the hell of it.

00:47:58Guest:So you consider yourself a rock musician all the time?

00:48:02Guest:I don't know.

00:48:03Guest:I mean, I played on rock records, certainly.

00:48:05Guest:Country records?

00:48:07Guest:I played on some country records.

00:48:08Guest:I play on all kinds of records.

00:48:09Guest:What instruments do you play, all of them?

00:48:12Guest:I'm really a guitar player.

00:48:13Guest:I can play a little mandolin.

00:48:16Guest:I play a little dobro.

00:48:17Guest:I can play a tiny bit of fiddle.

00:48:19Guest:I used to play a little banjo.

00:48:24Guest:I can mess around with a lot of different instruments.

00:48:27Marc:So, you know, in your career, you know, you put out like 20 of your own records almost.

00:48:33Marc:And, you know, you played with a very eclectic bunch of people.

00:48:36Marc:But like what I'm gathering, though, is that as you know, I mean, you played with Link Wray in his country.

00:48:43Marc:Yeah.

00:48:45Marc:And what I'm gathering, though, is that.

00:48:47Marc:like usually unless you start with somebody or you have a friendship like with rick or linda or jerry jeff that you know you're going in to do the job and you don't you know you don't necessarily end up becoming pals right with with whoever is there no matter how right and so like it's and i i know that in my heart but like for some reason i i still want to know that like um that maybe you know you and in david amram you know we're buddies yeah we're friends you are we were yeah yeah yeah and we are

00:49:17Marc:yeah yeah because he was sort of an interesting kind of beatnik legacy very interesting man yeah and he does music that i wouldn't necessarily think that was your music no but you found a way in yeah i'm on a couple of his records yeah and we've played together on other people's records yeah and like if but with someone like link ray do you have impressions

00:49:39Marc:Like when you show up for work with Link Wray, who at that point I imagine is in his more country mode as opposed to breaking apart amps with that sound.

00:49:52Marc:What do you walk in with?

00:49:54Marc:I mean, what do you... Okay.

00:49:58Guest:In order to talk about Link Wray, I have to tell you about Tommy Kay.

00:50:02Guest:Okay.

00:50:02Guest:Thomas Jefferson Kay.

00:50:04Guest:Okay.

00:50:04Guest:He was a producer and he never paid scale.

00:50:08Guest:He underpaid everybody.

00:50:11Guest:But it was working, getting on records.

00:50:14Guest:So I did a lot of records with him.

00:50:16Guest:And he produced the Link Wray record that I played on.

00:50:21Guest:And also I played on a Wilbert Harrison record, the guy who wrote Kansas City.

00:50:26Guest:And I also played on the very last hit that Jay and the Americans had.

00:50:32Guest:And it was a Tommy K record.

00:50:34Guest:And he produced a lot of records for Mercury, which was doing kind of a scam back then.

00:50:39Guest:They would get a band and they would put, no, not a band.

00:50:42Guest:They would get studio musicians to play a pop tune.

00:50:46Guest:And if it was a hit, somebody put together a band by that name.

00:50:49Guest:If it was a real band and they did a record, they'd print up a lot of them and then delete it from their catalog so that they wouldn't have to pay any royalties.

00:50:59Guest:I mean, it was a whole weird thing.

00:51:02Guest:But to explain Tommy K to you, Tommy K produced an album with Dr. John, John Hammond.

00:51:10Guest:I just got that album.

00:51:12Guest:And Michael Bloomfield.

00:51:14Guest:Yeah, it's terrible.

00:51:15Guest:Yeah, it's pretty bad.

00:51:16Guest:How could anybody take those three guys and make a terrible album?

00:51:20Guest:So eventually I stopped doing records with him, doing dates, because I started getting...

00:51:26Guest:scale double scale triple scale i was i was in demand yeah and so he calls me one day and he says listen i got a session you i said i don't know i i i think i might be busy that day tommy he said no no no you got to play this one yeah i said okay why do i have to play this one yeah he said well the other guitar players are clapton uh-huh i said okay i guess i gotta play this one yeah so were you clapton fan yeah sure he's a great great player yeah

00:51:52Guest:So I get to the studio, and I see this other guitar player setting up.

00:51:59Guest:Yeah.

00:52:00Guest:And I go up to Tommy.

00:52:01Guest:I say, Tommy, that's not Clapton.

00:52:04Guest:He says, I know, but he looks just like him, doesn't he?

00:52:10Marc:So you didn't get to play with Eric Clapton?

00:52:12Marc:No.

00:52:12Guest:No, no.

00:52:12Guest:It was a typical Tommy K. maneuver.

00:52:15Marc:But you played with Link Wray.

00:52:16Marc:Yeah.

00:52:17Marc:And what was your impression of him?

00:52:20Guest:It was so long ago.

00:52:21Guest:I thought he was cool, though.

00:52:22Marc:Yeah.

00:52:23Marc:Yeah.

00:52:24Marc:But he wasn't playing that.

00:52:26Marc:Was it on a country record or was it on a dirty record?

00:52:29Guest:I don't even remember anymore.

00:52:30Marc:Really?

00:52:31Marc:Yeah.

00:52:31Marc:So that's where it goes.

00:52:33Guest:Do you realize how long ago that was?

00:52:34Guest:That was more than 50 years ago.

00:52:36Marc:All right.

00:52:36Marc:I guess, yeah, you're right.

00:52:38Marc:And you recorded with Dylan as well?

00:52:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:52:42Marc:And do you remember that?

00:52:43Guest:yes oh yeah well but not that clearly the first recordings what'd you do which record the first record that i played on with him was uh um self-portrait yeah i like that record yeah yeah he called me up and i was at first i thought it was somebody pulling my leg right

00:53:02Guest:And he said, I want to check out the studio.

00:53:06Guest:Will you come with me and check out the studio?

00:53:09Guest:Really?

00:53:09Guest:Out of nowhere?

00:53:10Guest:You'd met him before?

00:53:11Guest:I had shook his hand when he came to the club where Jerry Jeff was playing.

00:53:18Guest:I was accompanying him, and I never thought he paid any attention to me.

00:53:22Guest:So, of course, later I learned that he knew the studio very, very well.

00:53:27Guest:Oh, really?

00:53:27Guest:He was just sort of, he was checking you out?

00:53:29Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:So we went in and it was the way I love to work.

00:53:33Guest:Yeah.

00:53:33Guest:No rehearsal.

00:53:34Guest:This is it.

00:53:34Guest:Boom.

00:53:35Guest:Yeah.

00:53:35Guest:And so I had a good time.

00:53:37Guest:I can tell you a great story.

00:53:40Guest:Well, years later in the 90s, and I was not performing at all.

00:53:44Guest:You know, I stopped performing for 22 years.

00:53:46Guest:I know.

00:53:47Guest:I was going to ask you about that.

00:53:48Marc:We'll get to it.

00:53:48Marc:Yeah.

00:53:49Guest:So I did...

00:53:53Guest:A couple of shows here and there, and I did one at the bottom line.

00:53:56Guest:I used to play their anniversary every year, so I kept doing that from time to time.

00:54:01Guest:And one of those times, Neil Young was playing at the Beacon in New York, and Bob went to that, and they both came down to hear me.

00:54:11Guest:And evidently, Neil said to Bob, you ought to have this guy produce you.

00:54:16Guest:So Bob asked me to produce him.

00:54:18Guest:He thought it was a good idea, I guess.

00:54:19Guest:Yeah.

00:54:20Guest:And so I produced a bunch of tunes.

00:54:25Guest:Two of them have been released.

00:54:26Guest:I think eventually they may all get released, but who knows?

00:54:29Guest:On which record?

00:54:30Guest:What period are we talking about?

00:54:31Guest:um well it was in the 90s but it was released a little later on one of the bootleg albums okay yeah it was the one that was four no three discs yeah yeah but it was released as two discs and you paid extra for the third uh-huh and um so the tunes were miss the mississippi and you which is on the first or second and the first tune on the third cd if you bought it was uh duncan and brady and that was had you done a lot of production previous

00:54:57Guest:I always produced myself.

00:54:59Guest:Yeah.

00:54:59Guest:I produced Carly Simon's demo.

00:55:01Guest:Uh-huh.

00:55:02Guest:I produced Johnny Shines.

00:55:05Guest:But mostly I had produced myself.

00:55:09Marc:Yeah.

00:55:09Marc:And what was that like working with him as a producer?

00:55:11Guest:Oh, it was fun.

00:55:12Guest:Yeah.

00:55:12Guest:I mean, we had a very good relationship.

00:55:14Guest:We'd known each other for a very long time.

00:55:16Guest:From that day you went to the studio?

00:55:18Guest:Yeah.

00:55:19Guest:Yeah.

00:55:19Marc:Yeah.

00:55:20Marc:And you stayed in touch?

00:55:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:55:22Guest:Yeah.

00:55:22Guest:There was a time when we would hang out together in the village.

00:55:24Guest:Yeah.

00:55:25Guest:Anyhow, I really should have told this to Bob before I tell it to you.

00:55:29Guest:I've never told him this because I keep forgetting.

00:55:31Guest:Yeah.

00:55:32Guest:But I got to tell you this story.

00:55:32Guest:Okay.

00:55:33Guest:My wife was the only white person in a church choir in Chicago.

00:55:37Guest:Yeah.

00:55:38Guest:We were living in Chicago.

00:55:39Guest:Yeah.

00:55:39Guest:And I asked the choir to come in and sing on a few of the tunes that we were recording.

00:55:45Guest:With Bob.

00:55:46Guest:Yeah.

00:55:47Guest:Yeah.

00:55:47Guest:They never heard of Bob Dylan.

00:55:48Guest:Yeah.

00:55:49Guest:They, you know.

00:55:50Guest:What year are we talking?

00:55:51Guest:95, I think.

00:55:53Guest:They probably heard of him.

00:55:54Guest:No.

00:55:55Guest:Uh-huh.

00:55:55Guest:absolutely not huh they you know there's a there's a very important record store in chicago called out of the past uh-huh and um i was there once and i found a uh a bob dylan um what do you call it pirate record yeah you know bootleg yeah bootleg you know they make up the prices when you bring it to them yeah i brought it to them i had no idea who it was either and they did a buck

00:56:20Guest:really there's the only thing in there that was a buck there's the only record store which was the size of a airplane hangar uh-huh where there are no Beatles records uh-huh you know yeah what records do they have every block artist you ever heard of right and people come from all over all over the world to that place it's a great record it's still there yeah

00:56:41Guest:As far as I know, out of the past.

00:56:43Guest:You bring the choir in.

00:56:44Guest:So I bring the choir in.

00:56:46Guest:And Nancy tells me later, they were at one end of the studio and Bob was in the vocal booth at another.

00:56:52Guest:And he was doing a tune that I actually ended up recording twice called Nobody's Fault But Mine.

00:56:57Guest:which is a church tune.

00:57:00Guest:And the first time I recorded it was during the famous disco scare.

00:57:05Guest:And so I recorded a disco version, and I hadn't yet done the second version.

00:57:08Guest:The disco scare?

00:57:10Guest:Yeah.

00:57:10Guest:Well, what else was it?

00:57:12Guest:And so Bob has this, and for some reason he wanted to record a lot of my tunes or tunes that I'd recorded.

00:57:18Guest:And he's in the booth trying to get a groove that's not that one.

00:57:25Guest:Yeah.

00:57:25Guest:And it took him some time.

00:57:27Guest:He's working on it, you know.

00:57:29Guest:And Nancy told me later that they had a little prayer.

00:57:35Guest:Let's pray for this man.

00:57:37Guest:And they prayed, Dear Lord, please help this man find whatever it is he's looking for.

00:57:43Guest:And with a quickness.

00:57:47Marc:I'm not sure it worked.

00:57:49Marc:Yeah.

00:57:49Marc:In the big picture, I'm not sure it worked.

00:57:53Marc:But maybe that day it did.

00:57:55Marc:That day it did, yeah.

00:57:56Marc:Good.

00:57:57Marc:And Ringo Starr, when you worked with him, did you get to hang out with him or did you talk to him?

00:58:01Marc:It always seems like there's a lot of people on his records.

00:58:04Guest:He told me some things that made me feel very good.

00:58:06Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:58:06Guest:He told me that John Lennon had sat the other three guys down and made them listen to my first album from start to finish.

00:58:15Marc:Really?

00:58:15Guest:Yeah.

00:58:16Guest:I wish I'd known that before.

00:58:17Marc:That's one of those great moments in life.

00:58:21Marc:Tell me about it.

00:58:22Marc:Oh.

00:58:22Marc:Yeah, that was very nice.

00:58:24Marc:So, all right, so you put out all these records on your own, and how's your following?

00:58:28Marc:When you go out and play, do you get a nice group?

00:58:31Guest:Amazingly enough, I do.

00:58:32Guest:Yeah.

00:58:33Guest:And I...

00:58:34Guest:You know, I mean, I'm able to play places that people who had hit records, which I never did, can't play.

00:58:40Guest:So I'm very, very, very lucky.

00:58:42Marc:Do you find that there are people that you would maybe see yourself hanging out with?

00:58:48Marc:Are they your age?

00:58:49Marc:I mean, what is it?

00:58:49Marc:Like, are they, you know, the crew from the 60s?

00:58:53Marc:I mean, who goes?

00:58:55Marc:Do you notice?

00:58:57Guest:um there are occasionally some younger people but they're mostly people uh my age uh-huh they are uh but there recently we've seen more and more young people but you know for me i am who i am i am my age i'm 71 yeah and and that's that's not a good thing in uh in this business you know i'm old news i don't know the stones just put out a blues record so did i

00:59:24Marc:It's good, too, man.

00:59:26Marc:The record's good.

00:59:27Marc:Thank you.

00:59:27Marc:I've been playing along with it.

00:59:29Marc:Because I like the groove, you know?

00:59:31Marc:I'm proud of it.

00:59:32Marc:Yeah, it's great.

00:59:33Guest:That's my band on it, too.

00:59:35Marc:What's it called again?

00:59:36Marc:The blues, the whole blues, and nothing but the blues.

00:59:39Marc:Yeah.

00:59:39Marc:That's your band.

00:59:40Marc:That's your touring band on there.

00:59:41Marc:Yeah.

00:59:42Marc:It's tricky with the blues, isn't it?

00:59:44Marc:Because the blues...

00:59:45Marc:Is not really owned by anybody.

00:59:48Marc:Right.

00:59:48Marc:So when you show up for them, you know, it's on you to make it your own.

00:59:54Marc:And it's a tricky thing.

00:59:56Guest:It's a very tricky thing because there's something that happens to all kinds of music where it ossifies.

01:00:03Guest:And there are people who say in Dixieland jazz that you can't play high society without playing that one clarinet part.

01:00:11Guest:Right.

01:00:11Guest:You can't play a bluegrass tune without Roll Strug's break.

01:00:16Guest:Uh-huh.

01:00:16Guest:And there are people who are that way about the blues.

01:00:19Guest:And...

01:00:22Marc:Well, the interesting thing about it is that because, like, somebody like me can play it.

01:00:26Marc:Like, it's everybody's music in a way.

01:00:28Marc:Yeah.

01:00:28Marc:And, you know, the structure of it has been sort of worn down and over-familiarized.

01:00:33Marc:Like, you know, like any bar band can make their way through a blues tune, you know, give or take.

01:00:39Marc:Yeah.

01:00:39Marc:Right?

01:00:39Marc:Okay.

01:00:40Marc:So...

01:00:41Marc:How do you make it special?

01:00:43Marc:What defines that?

01:00:45Guest:It has to be what you bring to it.

01:00:48Guest:Exactly.

01:00:49Guest:Not what you do to it.

01:00:50Marc:Right.

01:00:50Marc:What you bring to it.

01:00:51Marc:Yeah.

01:00:52Marc:That was the interesting thing about your record and also about the Stones record.

01:00:56Marc:Those songs are for everybody.

01:00:58Marc:We're familiar with the song, but what's going to make you go like, I like this version?

01:01:04Marc:You know what I mean?

01:01:05Guest:It's interesting.

01:01:06Guest:Well, I discovered something about blues guitar playing in church.

01:01:11Guest:You go to church?

01:01:12Guest:I used to bring the reverend to church.

01:01:15Guest:Right.

01:01:16Guest:And it was the place on the planet where I felt the most welcome and the most at home.

01:01:21Guest:So I would check out a few other churches now and then.

01:01:25Guest:Only African-American churches.

01:01:27Guest:The white churches, I didn't feel welcome.

01:01:30Guest:And I started to really dig some preachers.

01:01:35Guest:And then I realized something listening to B.B.

01:01:40Guest:King and Albert King.

01:01:42Guest:If you listen to B.B.,

01:01:44Guest:He said that the tone that he gets is an attempt to duplicate Lonnie Johnson's sound on the acoustic guitar on the electric.

01:01:54Guest:And you can hear this if you listen to Lonnie and you listen to Bibi.

01:01:58Guest:His choice of notes is his own and it's brilliant.

01:02:01Guest:His phrasing is a preacher's phrasing.

01:02:04Guest:And that's the difference between the white blues players and the black blues players, is the phrasing.

01:02:10Guest:Because the preachers will be talking to you, and then at some point they will...

01:02:19Guest:pause to make you really want to hear what they're going to say next.

01:02:24Guest:And you do that.

01:02:26Guest:That's what Bebe does on the guitar.

01:02:28Marc:See, like that, what you just told me, I'm going to have that in my head now.

01:02:32Guest:Well, while you were talking, you reminded me of something else that I think I figured out.

01:02:39Guest:When I first heard bebop, I didn't care for it at all.

01:02:43Guest:It wasn't until I heard Charlie Parker that I realized this stuff is beautiful.

01:02:49Guest:And Charlie Parker, of course, is the source.

01:02:51Guest:He's what everybody was trying to sound like.

01:02:54Guest:If you listen to Charlie Parker, he's an extraordinarily melodic player.

01:03:00Guest:He plays a thread.

01:03:03Guest:Yeah.

01:03:04Guest:But in the course of playing that thread, he picks some notes that alter chords and creates different and unusual chords, if you think of it as chord.

01:03:14Guest:And all these people I listened to and didn't like, they really understood these chords he was doing, and they would play, instead of in a line, they'd play vertically.

01:03:23Guest:They'd play one chord to another chord to another chord, and it wasn't tied together.

01:03:28Guest:Yeah, so who cares?

01:03:30Guest:Well, no, you're talking about the lyricism.

01:03:33Guest:he was a melodic player he was a blues player and he played gorgeous melodies and that's why he was great and these other guys were kind of not when you're playing your best the music comes from somewhere else you're concentrating so hard that you cease concentrating yeah and the music seems to flow through you and come out your fingers you relax

01:03:55Guest:open up it just it just comes from someplace and it it works you right when i was about 23 or so and i was playing in the village that's when i did all these sessions and that's when i was at my best and i discovered the first concert that i did where i actually sang i discovered when i finished the first solo that i did in this performance that i couldn't find the english language i couldn't speak english huh

01:04:23Guest:I didn't know what the words were.

01:04:25Guest:I didn't know what any English words were.

01:04:27Guest:And it took me a while.

01:04:28Guest:I had to play through another and withdraw my mind and find the lyrics.

01:04:35Guest:You were speaking guitar.

01:04:36Guest:I was speaking music.

01:04:38Guest:Yeah, you couldn't get back.

01:04:40Guest:Right.

01:04:41Guest:So I learned.

01:04:42Guest:After a while, and I didn't learn it that night.

01:04:46Guest:I mean, I knew I had to do this, but I wasn't able to do it all that night.

01:04:50Guest:To when I could see the end of a solo coming up about 8, 12 bars away, I would also see...

01:04:59Guest:what I was going to play then, draw my mind out of the music, let my fingers do it, and try and remember lyrics.

01:05:08Guest:Uh-huh.

01:05:08Marc:Oh, so you had to be conscious that you were gonna make the jump.

01:05:13Marc:Yeah.

01:05:14Marc:Yeah.

01:05:14Marc:So, why did you quit?

01:05:17Guest:i got burnt out and i was too stupid to know i was burnt out you know you never like you know you're hanging around a lot of hardcore people you don't seem like a druggie sort no well i but i'm also not an angel you know and i had my moments yeah but what it was was i was on the road at one point for two years without being home for two weeks on doing your own shit yeah yeah with my own band yeah and and i discovered

01:05:41Guest:when i was home that i wasn't practicing i wasn't writing and i wasn't jamming there was there's nothing of a musician there yeah and i didn't want to be one of these guys who drags himself onto the stage does a bitter imitation of something he used to love so i looked for another way to live my life and what was that violins i studied violin making and violin identification and uh

01:06:06Guest:And I love it.

01:06:08Guest:I really like being able to pick up a violin.

01:06:09Guest:You know, if your guitar says Fender or Gibson on it, the chances are it was made in Fullerton or Nashville, I guess.

01:06:18Guest:Early on.

01:06:19Guest:Yeah, still.

01:06:21Guest:But if your violin says Stradivarius, the odds are not really that he ever saw the thing.

01:06:27Guest:Yeah.

01:06:28Guest:You know, so that doesn't make it a bad violin.

01:06:32Guest:Who made it?

01:06:33Guest:Yeah.

01:06:34Guest:You have to know it's like fine painting.

01:06:36Guest:You have to know the chisel strokes and the purfling material.

01:06:41Marc:So you went full nerd rabbit hole on violins.

01:06:44Guest:I went full nerd rabbit hole on violins.

01:06:47Guest:and you can make a violin i guess i could i haven't touched edge tools since i graduated from school oh so it was more about my aim was always in identification do you repair uh no no just identification just identification i also uh i'm about to i i'm i collected violins that were made in the united states

01:07:10Marc:But you're not, in your own admission, you're not a great violin player.

01:07:14Marc:No.

01:07:15Marc:You just like violins.

01:07:16Guest:Yeah.

01:07:17Guest:I just like the instruments, and I think I have a little bit of understanding of them.

01:07:23Marc:What was the fascination with that?

01:07:24Marc:Was that always a thing?

01:07:26Marc:Did it come to you later?

01:07:27Marc:I mean, violins are very specific.

01:07:30Guest:What about the violin?

01:07:31Guest:It fascinated me that somebody would look at your violin that said Stradivarius in it and say, no, this was made in Austria in the 1820s.

01:07:40Guest:Oh, okay.

01:07:42Guest:Yeah.

01:07:43Guest:And I wanted to be able to do that.

01:07:44Guest:With violins?

01:07:45Guest:With violins.

01:07:46Guest:And I actually made a place for myself in the violin world by collecting violins made in the United States, which everyone told me there were no good ones.

01:07:55Guest:Uh-huh.

01:07:56Guest:And in thinking about that, I couldn't understand.

01:07:59Guest:I don't think Americans are genetically inferior to Europeans.

01:08:03Guest:So why shouldn't they be as good?

01:08:05Guest:Well, in truth, they are.

01:08:08Guest:But there's also tons and tons of really bad ones.

01:08:12Guest:Yeah.

01:08:12Guest:So you know.

01:08:14Guest:Well, I guess I'm told I'm the expert on violence made in the United States.

01:08:19Guest:I have 263 of them in my collection.

01:08:23Guest:And the Library of Congress is raising the funds to buy a third of the collection.

01:08:27Guest:I'm going to donate the rest.

01:08:28Marc:Okay.

01:08:29Marc:Yeah.

01:08:31Marc:Now that you're back in the blues band.

01:08:33Guest:Yeah.

01:08:34Yeah.

01:08:35Guest:I got a great fiddler in the band, too.

01:08:37Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:08:37Marc:Yeah.

01:08:38Marc:That's an interesting idea.

01:08:39Marc:When you were saying that road and not practicing and not taking that time for yourself to engage in creativity in a way, that that's what really wore a lot of dudes down.

01:08:52Guest:Yeah, sure it did.

01:08:53Guest:Like it killed a lot of guys.

01:08:54Guest:Well, the hardest thing is getting the energy together night after night after night

01:09:02Guest:to be wonderful you know or whatever the hell you have to be yeah you know you got to put on the show put on the show and talking about blues you know albert king i believe had a rather unique way of doing it i think after having seen him a few times that if he was having trouble getting the energy together he would manage to become furious at one of the guys in this band and kick him off the stage and play the rest of the set in a cold fury and everybody in the band understood this was going to happen

01:09:31Guest:because he was just tired because he he couldn't work up another way to have the energy uh-huh to deliver that's interesting and you got to deliver night after night after night you got diarrhea it doesn't matter deliver yeah you know whatever's going on ticket that's right you and and they don't want to hear that tonight you don't quite have it what how much experience did you have in actually backing uh blues guys

01:09:56Guest:Not a whole lot.

01:09:57Guest:Yeah.

01:09:58Guest:Yeah.

01:09:59Guest:Although, I mean, you're thinking electric blues.

01:10:03Guest:I mean, Mississippi John Hurt and I spent two weeks in dressing rooms just playing with each other.

01:10:07Guest:That was a ball.

01:10:08Guest:I was accompanying a singer named Jerry Moore, and we were in Philadelphia opening for John Hurt.

01:10:16Guest:And John and I just played together.

01:10:18Guest:backstage and then he invited me to go with him to the Philadelphia Folk Festival and play with him.

01:10:25Guest:And I'm very proud that I had the good sense to say thank you so much.

01:10:30Guest:I can't do it.

01:10:31Guest:Why?

01:10:32Guest:Nobody would have wanted to hear me play on top of Mississippi John.

01:10:37Marc:He's a solo guy.

01:10:39Guest:Yeah, they wanted to hear what he did.

01:10:41Guest:I mean, there was a similar thing when I produced a record of Johnny Shines.

01:10:47Guest:I suspect that all the people who bought it probably hated it.

01:10:51Guest:Really?

01:10:51Guest:Yeah, because I produced it the way I produced myself.

01:10:54Guest:I used horns, I used backup singers, I used piano, I used all kinds of stuff.

01:11:00Guest:And he said twice before he died that it was his favorite album that he did.

01:11:06Guest:And I think the reason is that I didn't make him sit on a bale of hay in overalls with a red bandana, which is what everybody wanted.

01:11:16Guest:They wanted to hear him sitting on that bale of hay with a red bandana.

01:11:20Marc:Yeah, but you took it up the next level.

01:11:22Guest:Well, I don't know if I did what I would do for myself.

01:11:27Guest:I did for him.

01:11:28Guest:Yeah.

01:11:28Guest:And I think that probably the people who asked me to do it were terribly disappointed.

01:11:33Guest:Really?

01:11:33Guest:But I didn't realize that until years later.

01:11:35Marc:But he loved it.

01:11:36Marc:He loved it.

01:11:37Marc:So fuck it.

01:11:37Guest:Yeah.

01:11:39Guest:Great talking to you, David.

01:11:40Guest:Great talking to you, man.

01:11:41Guest:You feel good?

01:11:42Guest:I feel very good.

01:11:42Guest:I've admired your interviews.

01:11:44Guest:I think you're the best.

01:11:45Guest:So I'm very, very proud to be doing this.

01:11:47Marc:And I'm very happy you came out.

01:11:48Marc:Good luck with the tour and the record.

01:11:50Marc:Thank you.

01:11:55Thank you.

01:11:55Marc:That's it.

01:11:57Marc:That was me and Mr. Bromberg.

01:11:59Marc:Mr. Bromberg.

01:12:00Marc:Also go to WTFPod.com to check out my upcoming tour dates.

01:12:06Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:12:07Marc:Buy a poster.

01:12:08Marc:Whatever you gotta do.

01:12:11Marc:I believe I'll play some guitar.

01:12:13Marc:I believe I will.

01:12:35Guest:guitar solo

01:13:07Guest:Boomer lives!