Episode 842 - Steve Jordan
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking here is what the fuck nicks
Marc:What the fuck-o-crats?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:I'm a little amped.
Marc:I'm a little amped.
Marc:Got a lot of clarity.
Marc:Got a lack of filter.
Marc:A lot of things going on in my mind.
Marc:Not so much around me in the real world, but I'm grateful for that.
Marc:Things not going on is fine, considering that bad things could be going on and are going on every day all around the world.
Marc:Not for me today.
Marc:I'm grateful for that.
Marc:I will say this in terms of what's happening and what you can do to help the folks on the ground in Houston and Louisiana.
Marc:A lot of people are wondering how to donate to the relief effort.
Marc:Here are a few suggestions just to keep in mind.
Marc:Make sure you do your own research on the groups you're giving to.
Marc:Know where the money you send is going.
Marc:And what it's being used for and make sure it's being used for the relief effort.
Marc:With that in mind, local groups are often the best option because they're working directly on the relief effort from the ground right there.
Marc:We use Charity Navigator to do research on charities, but there are other helpful research sites out there like GiveWell and Charity Watch.
Marc:We've made donations here at the show to the Houston Food Bank and the Houston SPCA.
Marc:Both are rated the highest possible four stars on Charity Navigator, and their volunteers have been working around the clock on this relief effort.
Marc:They're doing great work.
Marc:And they need all the support they can get.
Marc:But like I said, people, do your own research.
Marc:It won't take long.
Marc:Those research sites make it very easy.
Marc:And give what you can to the places that you think will help.
Marc:But try to give.
Marc:These are times for giving.
Marc:People are in trouble all over the world.
Marc:That's just some information I thought I'd share with you.
Marc:Today on the show, Steve Jordan is here.
Marc:Steve Jordan, the amazing drummer from the original Letterman show, from SNL, from many records.
Marc:The Expensive Winos with Keith Richards.
Marc:He's drummed with Neil Young.
Marc:He's drummed with everybody.
Marc:Neil Young, everyone.
Marc:He's got his own label now.
Marc:He's got a new album coming out.
Marc:It's out now, actually.
Marc:It's called Garage Sale by his band The Verbs.
Marc:He also produced the latest Robert Cray record.
Marc:Remember Robert Cray?
Marc:Robert Cray was great and is great still.
Marc:The album is called Robert Cray and High Rhythm.
Marc:It's produced by Mr. Jordan.
Marc:Steve's got a show on the Sirius XM channel, 106, called Laying It Down with Steve Jordan.
Marc:I was excited to talk to him because he was one of those guys that was sort of the...
Marc:A backbeat of my childhood in a way, or at least since I started watching David Letterman in college.
Marc:And I always liked him.
Marc:I always thought he was a great drummer and I was always excited to get an album that he was playing on.
Marc:Played with Keith a lot.
Marc:So we talk about Keith.
Marc:We talk about the Stones.
Marc:Talk about Cray.
Marc:Talk about jazz.
Marc:It's a good talk all around.
Marc:And he's a good cat.
Marc:I like music, guys.
Marc:I learned some things about the drums.
Marc:Oh, another thing I wanted to say in a more self-promoting way is that my new comedy special, Too Real,
Marc:is what it's called.
Marc:Premieres on Netflix next Tuesday, September 5th.
Marc:So go ahead and add that to your queue, and it will be there for you to watch when it's streaming next week.
Marc:I talked to a couple people about it who watched it.
Marc:I haven't watched it.
Marc:I watched it when we edited, but since then I haven't really sat down and taken it in, and I was very happy that the two guys that were doing pieces on me about it seemed to be very into it.
Marc:I'm very happy with it.
Marc:I'm good with it.
Marc:It came together well.
Marc:Some of the jokes that I thought might not be as relevant now are actually more relevant, which is exciting.
Marc:And I'm proud of it.
Marc:So I hope you watch that.
Marc:It's Mark Maron, me.
Marc:The special's called Too Real on Netflix.
Marc:Netflix?
Marc:No, Netflix on Tuesday, I think.
Marc:It's September 5th.
Marc:It's a Tuesday, right?
Marc:All right?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So what's happening with you people?
Marc:Where was I last time?
Marc:Quitting nicotine?
Marc:I'm still quitted.
Marc:I am still quitted.
Marc:I'm off.
Marc:Now it'll be, by the time you listen to this, unless I fucking break down today, let's see, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, tomorrow will be five days.
Marc:So Thursday, when you're listening to this, I'll be five days off the Nick.
Marc:And it's a little better than when I talk to you on Monday.
Marc:It's a tough thing.
Marc:The habit of it is tough.
Marc:You know, I deal like whenever I have to come out here, whenever I have to talk to somebody, I'm like, I need things.
Marc:I need a thing.
Marc:I need the thing.
Marc:And I wander around.
Marc:But unfortunately, I've been eating a lot.
Marc:I'm trying to eat healthily.
Marc:But I got to do something.
Marc:And I'm trying not to justify it or rationalize it.
Marc:I got to assume that it's good not to be eating healthy.
Marc:you know, eight to 12 nicotine lozenges a day to the point where I'm sick and my eyes are crossing by the end of the day.
Marc:I have to assume that I'm giving some of my organ system a rest.
Marc:I got to assume that my kidneys are relieved.
Marc:My pancreas is relieved.
Marc:My stomach is relieved.
Marc:Things are relieved.
Marc:The caffeine, I'm drinking tea, which is caffeinated, but I'm off the coffee.
Marc:So I don't get that craving to match it.
Marc:yeah every time you drink coffee the caffeine wants to be matched it wants to be matched by nicotine and and vice versa you do some nicotine it would it demands a match with caffeine it's just the way it works man it's the way it works for me i don't know who you are what your life is but that's the way it works over here
Marc:I'm going to lay off getting all worked up about the world today, if you don't mind.
Marc:Because of the nicotine withdrawal and because I'm kind of floating, I don't seem to know what day it is or what time it is.
Marc:I'm not as thorough in checking in.
Marc:I'm feeling very in the moment when I'm driving because I'm withdrawing.
Marc:I'm taking unnecessary risks behind the wheel, not looking for thrills just because I'm so in the present.
Marc:I think I got the timing aced.
Marc:Everything's aced.
Marc:When you're fucking amped up and your body's withdrawing and your whole being is craving for the outside world to make things right, you're checked in, man.
Marc:You are tapped in.
Marc:You are hooked up with the timing of reality.
Marc:So there's a moment of slow motion where I'm changing lanes and making left turns and doing shit where I'm like, I don't even think like, can I make it?
Marc:I just think I'm making it.
Marc:And hopefully that doesn't backfire.
Marc:But right now I'm enjoying the Zen.
Marc:You dig?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Boy, yeah, a little disjointed with the nicotine.
Marc:I'm also on Flonase.
Marc:I've been having some sinus congestion.
Marc:I hope that's what it is and not a tumor behind my face.
Marc:Let's get on with it.
Marc:Steve Jordan is here.
Marc:He's a great drummer.
Marc:And as I said, he's got a show on Sirius XM channel 106 called Laying It Down with Steve Jordan.
Marc:He's got the new album with his band, The Verbs, called Garage Sale.
Marc:He's produced Robert Cray's new record, High Rhythm.
Marc:That's out.
Marc:But this was a blast.
Marc:This was a really fun conversation.
Marc:Me and Steve Jordan, the drummer.
Marc:Nice to see you, Steve.
Marc:Good to see you.
Marc:Yeah, you're familiar to me from way back.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah, I remember there was a dreadlock period.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I was the first person to wear dreadlocks on network television every day.
Marc:On The Letterman Show?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You were the first drummer for Letterman.
Guest:I was the first drummer and, yeah, co-founder of the World's Most Dangerous Band.
Guest:With Paul.
Guest:With Paul.
Guest:Actually, the band was actually a band called the 24th Street Band.
Guest:We had a band.
Guest:It was Will Lee, Hiram Bullock.
Guest:Clifford Carter and myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when Paul was looking to put together a band for the show, he came to me first, and then I suggested, why don't we just get Will and Hiram, because we're already a band.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So that's why we were so tight when we started.
Marc:Oh, that's how it worked?
Marc:From day one.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we rehearsed in my home.
Guest:Where?
Guest:On Fifth Avenue.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, in Manhattan.
Guest:I have Loft.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:you still have it yes we still have it that's right when you got a deal like that in manhattan you keep it don't give it up exactly and uh and we started rocking yeah so like i remember seeing you and i remember you know dave always integrated the band into the conversation he always talked to paul who like over time developed a weird stilted timing that
Marc:You didn't know.
Marc:It was always the assumption that he was high, but I think it's just after talking to him, I think it's just the way he is.
Guest:Timing.
Guest:Timing's everything.
Marc:Yeah, and his is a little off.
Guest:Well, he's not a drummer.
Guest:Most good comedians are drummers.
Marc:in their hearts yeah yeah yeah i'm a guitar player yeah well okay yeah all right and uh but yeah no you got to know where the beats are yeah but it's a it's a different instrument but i've been you know getting you know who i ran into at the airport like i it's taken me years to appreciate music in a deeper way uh like like i had this um i i ran into but anyways i ran into daryl daryl jones oh yeah my man
Marc:Yeah, at the airport.
Marc:And he recognized me, and we were going to London, and he was going to record, and we just sat down and talked for an hour about rhythm sections.
Marc:He's a sweetheart.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:I didn't know he started with Miles.
Marc:Why would I know that?
Marc:Oh.
Marc:That's one of those things that I wouldn't know, and now I know it, and now I got to go look for shit.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:He's played with everyone.
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:So have you.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he played together with him, too, right?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Recently.
Guest:you know i i like to think that you know that i was uh you know i played kind of an instrumental no pun intended role in uh getting him into the stones yeah getting him that sweet gig yeah yeah filling in for bill yeah yeah i brought that up with keith richards like he got mad at me too
Marc:not hard to do when it comes to him getting mad not really mad but I said like I told him I said you know I haven't seen the Stones live in a long time and I was resistant because you know you know you know Bill doesn't play with the Eddie board and he's like he's like Bill hasn't played with us in 20 years
Marc:25 years that Daryl was a bass player.
Marc:He had nothing personal against Bill, but it's like the bass player, that's our bass player now.
Guest:We both, Daryl and I both are kind of shocked that it's been that long.
Guest:The time has flown.
Guest:It seems like he just joined a band yesterday.
Guest:Same thing with Ron Wood.
Guest:I mean, Ron, he is, you know...
Guest:not an original member, but he's been in there for 30-something years.
Guest:And it's almost like, yeah, he just left Rod Stewart, and he just joined this.
Guest:No, that was 30-something years ago.
Guest:It was a long time ago.
Marc:But the conversation, and Keith is a good place to go with it, was that I guess I never understood as deeply as I do now from listening more intently over the last decade
Marc:Just, you know, how important, and obviously you're going to think this ridiculous, that the rhythm section is the whole band.
Marc:I mean, in a lot of ways, it's all of it.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah, I listened to a reissue of Get Your Ya-Ya's Out.
Marc:And I'm listening to Charlie and Bill, and I'm like, holy shit, if they didn't keep this together, it would be a disaster.
Marc:Like, it would be a disaster.
Marc:And Keith talks about that, too.
Guest:in terms of charlie well he first of all uh his love for charlie is is is really really deep yeah and they have a connection that you know that is a bond that's unbreakable oh yeah that's that's the first thing uh but one one item of note is that uh
Guest:Keith is a great bass player.
Guest:Is he?
Guest:So he played bass on Street Fighting Man, and he played bass on... A lot of Exile, I think.
Guest:Yeah, Jumpin' Jack Flash, all that.
Guest:A lot of great bass playing was done by Keith.
Guest:And Ron Wood is a great bass player, too.
Guest:So they know...
Guest:what the base is, the function of the base.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And some of their most kind of rockiness tracks were done with basically like Keith and Charlie, you know, alone, and then they built off of stuff.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Keith, Keith,
Guest:I don't think people realize the magnitude of his brilliance in the studio.
Marc:It's so simple.
Marc:What was awesome to me was when I saw them, I went and saw them in the last tour at the beginning.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:is that they don't use any fucking backtracks.
Marc:They're just up there playing, and it's very simple stuff, but it's the Stones.
Marc:Am I wrong?
Guest:No, you're not wrong.
Guest:The band has the chemistry.
Guest:Most great bands have amazing chemistry.
Marc:But you've built stuff from the ground up with him.
Marc:Tell me more about why he's misunderstood.
Guest:I think that, you know, simplicity is sometimes mistaken for stupidity or whatever.
Guest:You know, people, they're afraid to, or they don't understand that less is more.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The space in the music is just as important as what you're playing.
Guest:That's all part of it.
Guest:You take a canvas.
Guest:You don't fill up the canvas with a bunch of paint.
Guest:You paint a picture.
Guest:You're playing the song.
Guest:He plays the song.
Guest:And, of course, being such a great writer, he writes the song.
Guest:So the music is there.
Guest:And you don't just...
Guest:Fill in the space for the sake of filling in space.
Guest:You know, like, you know, the word tacit is very important in syncopation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, that's the whole thing, the push and pull of rock and roll.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you have that in, obviously, in jazz and blues, it's the same thing.
Guest:You don't fill in every space.
Guest:No, you want to hold back.
Guest:And breathing is very important.
Guest:It's the same thing in symphonic music.
Guest:When there's a space, there's a space for a reason.
Guest:So that when you do play something, it means something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's the same thing for drummers who play too many fills.
Guest:So that means that nothing you're playing really counts, really matters, because you're playing too much.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But when you play something, when you don't play a lot, and you're just holding the groove down, and then when you do play that, whoa, that means something.
Marc:Yeah, and it stands out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, I want to talk to you about working with Chuck and Keith, because Chuck's another guy where...
Marc:You know, that rhythm is a little, like, it's tricky.
Marc:Like, the way he, you know, runs, you know, the way he hits that guitar.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Well, he developed a style.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He invented something.
Guest:Yeah, but that bounce.
Guest:Well, you know, on a musical description of that is...
Guest:And this is where jazz comes into play in the kind of development of rock and roll.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you have two of the main architects of rock and roll are Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were playing, at the risk of sounding too technical...
Guest:they were playing like eighth notes, straight eighth notes, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So either Chuck is playing that on guitar, or Little Richard on the piano, which is basically kind of a boogie-woogie type of thing, you know, coming from what, Fats Wall, you know, those guys, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Now...
Guest:the drummers that were part of the development of this style rock, here's where the role comes in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They were playing what essentially is jazz against a straight eighth.
Guest:They were playing what you call a dotted eighth notes.
Guest:Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So now you have,
Guest:And that's the push and pull.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's not just everybody going.
Guest:You know, it's not like, you know, a German marching band.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, it's swinging and it's doing that thing.
Guest:That's where the drums come in.
Guest:So like Earl Palmer, who developed that thing with Little Richard, he was the drummer on all that Little Richard.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Most of it, not all of it.
Guest:But all he ever wanted to be was Max Roach.
Guest:Same thing with Charlie Watts.
Guest:They love Max Roach.
Guest:They love Elvin Jones.
Guest:And so they were playing jazz again.
Guest:Same thing with Fred Bilo, who played at Chess, who was a drummer who played with Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.
Guest:So his drumming with Willie Dixon on bass, Willie Dixon is walking.
Guest:Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Marc:He's walking.
Guest:He's jazz.
Guest:He's playing jazz.
Guest:And so that's where that is.
Guest:So that's what happened.
Guest:That's the development of this new style born in America called rock and roll.
Guest:That's the roll against the rock.
Guest:It's got to swing, though.
Guest:It's got to swing.
Marc:Some drummers can't do it.
Guest:Oh, yeah, well, you know, yeah.
Guest:And that's how you get the generic bar band sounding, the people who can't swing.
Guest:They're staying right on top of it, right?
Guest:You know, everything is squared off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You see?
Guest:And that's the thing.
Guest:That is the secret sauce.
Guest:The swing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to be able to do it.
Guest:Either you have it or you don't.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But like, you know, mentioning all these guys, where did you get educated?
Marc:I mean, how did you come up?
Marc:Where did you start?
Guest:I was very, very fortunate.
Guest:I grew up in New York City.
Guest:You did.
Guest:And in New York City, the New York City Board of Education was a tremendous source of...
Guest:of inspiration when it came to developing children in the arts yeah and you know obviously uh the arts have been under assault for the last 40 years in regards to public education i went to a public school and which one did you go the fame school well actually i went to music and art high school which is actually the fame school is performing arts okay the performing arts is on annex okay yeah you were the original fiorello h laguardia
Guest:High School of Music and Art was the main school.
Guest:And it was right in the middle of City College in Harlem on 135th Street and Convent Avenue.
Guest:But before we even got there, when you were in elementary school, the first day of school, you were given a musical instrument to take home, and you were assigned an instrument that either was a violin or a clarinet or whatever.
Guest:And that's all part of developing...
Guest:a full human being oh absolutely and you were given drums?
Guest:I wasn't given drums I ended up playing in the percussion section the first thing I started playing was actually the concert bass drum then I graduated to timpani and the timpani is really where I yeah and so you know my you know my upbringing in symphonic music is really where I get developed disciplines
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:But that's an important point, that to engage in a musical instrument is part of a well-rounded person in a lot of ways.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:So either that or you were an art student or something.
Guest:But that was part of the arts.
Guest:Being a creative person is part of development of the total psyche of a human.
Guest:And unfortunately, that's been under assault in the last...
Guest:40 years and 30 years.
Marc:And also dismissed or just not found interesting.
Marc:I mean, at some level, I guess music's not for everybody, but creativity and engaging your imagination and learning how to express yourself is certainly important.
Marc:And there does seem to be a shortage, whether it's funding or not.
Guest:Well, it's been taken, not even taken for granted.
Guest:It hasn't been really...
Guest:completely acknowledged by a certain group of people who like to cut the budget.
Guest:Yeah, they see it as a waste.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I mean, I put it this way.
Guest:A friend of mine took me to an MSNBC party several years ago.
Guest:And I'm at this party and I'm talking to Andrea Mitchell.
Guest:And then and then she turns and she says, oh, meet, you know, so and so.
Guest:And it's Alan Greenspan.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I had no idea that they were actually a couple at the time.
Guest:It was like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the point is here is that, you know, he's a clarinet player.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, this is the guy who's telling everybody where the money is.
Guest:He plays clarinet.
Guest:And I said, you want to make a record?
Guest:But the thing is, all of these people that I met, they were all like musicians.
Guest:They either played an instrument or they can't wait to...
Guest:to work is over until they can run to and and they have their own little bands and all kinds of stuff and here's a guy who all he wanted to be was witty herman you know or whatever you know and and benny goodman you know yeah you know and but no but he figured out what to do and now he's the smartest guy when it comes to money but that's all part of of the thing in fact
Guest:When I started reading music, I became a better math student.
Guest:Timing and, you know.
Marc:Well, because you have to read.
Guest:It's all numbers.
Guest:And my mother was very frustrated with my math skills at first.
Guest:And then I started reading music and I became a good reader and then my math got better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're all there.
Guest:It's all connected.
Guest:But when you're coming up, so you go to high school at the... Well, so music and art high school.
Guest:I auditioned for the school and I got in.
Marc:And who, like, you know, at that point you're playing timpani in an orchestra?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:Timpani and concert snare drum.
Guest:But no set, you don't have a set.
Guest:I didn't get a set until right before I auditioned for school.
Guest:I never got a full set right away.
Guest:In fact, this is how- What was missing?
Guest:Well, this is how I acquired a kit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I started taking formal lessons when I was eight years old, my grandmother and she said, okay, we'll buy you a snare drum.
Guest:It was $25 at that time.
Guest:That was a lot of money.
Guest:$25 for a Japanese snare drum.
Guest:Zimgar Gold Sparkle Snare Drum.
Guest:And it was like, they weren't going to get me a drum unless I promised to take lessons and be serious.
Guest:So I got it.
Guest:So basically, I...
Guest:I was given a piece at a time.
Guest:I didn't get a whole kit.
Marc:It was like that kind of thing.
Guest:And I think that really, it was very astute, actually, that whole concept.
Guest:You know, like the carrot.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:If you really want it, then you'll keep working and then we'll get you.
Marc:And you're listening to music saying like, well, I can't play that until I get that.
Marc:But it's all in my head.
Marc:Yeah, I need a hi-hat.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't get, the hi-hat was one of the last things I got.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And the funny story about that is that I got a hi-hat
Guest:And one of the first records I started playing to was Line of Family Stones, like Everybody is a Star, and that kind of thing.
Guest:And later on in life, I become friends, very good friends, with Gregorico, the original drummer.
Guest:And he lent me his hi-hat cymbals.
Guest:They're the same hi-hat cymbals that I practiced to.
Guest:Now I have the cymbals.
Guest:I actually own the cymbals.
Marc:They're yours?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that nutty or what?
Marc:It's great.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:Those are magical items.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And when you get into the big time, into high school, I mean, who are your teachers?
Marc:Who's influencing you?
Marc:Is it always coming out of symphony?
Marc:I mean, do you gravitate towards jazz?
Marc:Are you listening to Art Blakey and those guys?
Guest:The first thing I ever learned on the drums,
Guest:was Art Blakey's Blues March, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, written by the great Benny Golson.
Guest:And my dad, who's an architect, engineer, kind of cat, he said to me, if you learn how to play Blues March, you'll be able to play anything.
Guest:And that was, once again, another very astute comment because not only did it swing, but it had...
Guest:all the hands, you know, and so developed dexterity.
Guest:And then there was a solo in it.
Guest:And, you know, if you learn the solo, you get your, not only your type of improvisation chops together, but, you know, you listen, so you get your memory together.
Guest:And, you know, the memory thing is very important in music as well.
Guest:When you're playing symphonic music and you're playing the timpani,
Guest:you learn the music because you don't want to, you're not going to count 500 bars until you come in.
Guest:You play like, you know, you, you play a total of like four measures, the whole freaking piece.
Guest:You're not going to, you know, you better learn the music because you're going to, if you miss counting one bar, you coming in the wrong bar, you're screwed, right?
Guest:You don't want to fuck up your four beats.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So you learn the music.
Guest:Oh no.
Guest:Exactly.
You know,
Guest:The whole orchestra turns around and looks at you.
Marc:You idiot.
Marc:Your two notes.
Guest:Your two notes, you blew that, yeah.
Marc:But so did you grow any sort of affinity for classical music?
Marc:Yeah, I love Mozart.
Marc:And you understand it?
Marc:I do.
Marc:And, yeah, I'm very fortunate.
Marc:Because I can listen to it, but not unlike jazz.
Marc:You know, like, I would have to go to, you know, I think music is always accessible in that, you know, either you got a brain that takes it in and says, like, I can do this.
Marc:You know, some music, you know, I don't like this, whatever.
Marc:But, you know, to really understand classical, I think that's sort of, it takes a little research.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's kind of very, it depends on what the definition of understand really is.
Marc:I guess so, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Right.
Guest:So, I mean, it's not like a lot of people understand jazz when they're listening to it either, but they know that they like it, whether it's a beat or whether it's the freedom of the improvisation.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:based on symphonic music, a lot of jazz.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Yeah, because you have to learn.
Marc:You mean like big band jazz?
Guest:When you're playing through, if you're soloing, if you're the art of improvisation, whether it's playing through chord changes, you have to have that kind of knowledge that you would have if you were a classical musician.
Marc:because you know you have to know you know obviously when it's coming well yeah you have to know what chords do yeah and what notes are in those chords yeah but but like also but with blues you know you're talking about three chords maybe maybe four right right if you're lucky if you want to make it a soul song yeah throw that other one in the minor right yeah there you go yeah and and then you know you kind of know when those are coming is it eight or twelve or what
Marc:But like with jazz, like even something that Paul Schaefer said in here, you know, that Miles said to him, like he had one experience with Miles where they talked.
Marc:And I guess Miles said, you know, don't play the bass.
Marc:Don't play the root.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Don't play the root.
Marc:Play around it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that, you know, to Paul was like, oh.
Marc:You know, I don't know what that means exactly, but I kind of get it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, you know, and that that but that seems to be not necessarily symphonic knowledge, but but kind of blues knowledge, you know, or maybe not.
Marc:Maybe that jazz knowledge.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:That's a combination.
Guest:It's a combination of all of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you're taking lessons, do you take lessons in high school from any dudes that were like real dudes?
Guest:Yeah, in fact, here again, another amazing thing.
Marc:And did you master that Art Blakey thing?
Guest:I did.
Guest:And how old were you?
Guest:I was about, I got it down when I was about 10.
Guest:10?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what, you spent a year on it?
Guest:Well, you know, off and on, you know, just getting it.
Guest:Well, see, because I'm growing up, I got Ringo in one ear, I got Tony Williams in the other ear, I got Benny Benjamin, Al Jackson, you know, Clyde Stubberfield.
Guest:I'm listening to all my...
Guest:All music, because music was prevalent in the household.
Guest:My dad's favorite trumpet player was Clifford Brown.
Guest:Then he was killed in a tragic car accident, so then he switched his allegiance to Miles.
Guest:So there was Miles Davis playing.
Marc:I'm a newly baptized Lee Morgan guy.
Guest:Okay, so one day, I'm going to my first visit to Music and Art High School.
Guest:And it's in Harlem, as I said earlier.
Guest:It's on 135th Street and Convent Avenue.
Guest:My grandmother...
Guest:lived on 156th and St.
Guest:Nicholas.
Guest:And so my dad, who worked in a municipal building downtown, he said, look, after you go to school...
Guest:go to your grandmother's house.
Guest:There's a Jazzmobile on 155th Street, and we'll go check out the Jazzmobile concert that night.
Guest:It'll be Dizzy Gillespie's big band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And with the Jazzmobile was a foundation that taught jazz to kids in schools and obviously a great educational program, and they would do block parties.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know, block out the street, and then have free concerts.
Guest:So I go to my grandmother's house.
Guest:Earlier that day, I go and I have my first experience at music and art.
Guest:And I was told to come there because the jazz band, they had a jazz band.
Guest:And rumor had it that the drummer who was in the jazz band the term before was moving out of New York, moving down south.
Guest:And maybe if I came, I would have a shot of possibly getting in or at least auditioning.
Guest:So I get there, and the conductor is this cat.
Guest:I've never seen a guy that looked like this before.
Guest:He's a really cool-looking dude.
Guest:He had kind of like hexagon sunglasses, a crisp white shirt with...
Guest:Bell bottoms, blue bell bottoms with bold white stripes and brown kind of Florsheim Chelsea boot kind of thing.
Guest:Like wild looking cat.
Guest:You know, I'm like, wow, is this like, this is going to be like, this is a teacher?
Marc:Wow, this is amazing.
Guest:Music and art is already the most incredible thing, experience I've ever had.
Guest:And it's like, I don't even know anything yet.
Guest:I mean,
Guest:And so I have this guy in my head.
Guest:And I'm like, wow, this is wild.
Guest:So I'm telling my grandmother and everything.
Guest:So then we go.
Guest:My dad gets to her house.
Guest:And he takes me around the block.
Guest:And we go see Dizzy's big band.
Guest:And I'm always going right up to the front.
Guest:I want to see who's playing what or whatever.
Guest:And I don't really know anything.
Guest:But I'm trying to.
Guest:and I look up at the trumpet section, and...
Guest:I turned to my father and I said, Dad, that's my teacher.
Guest:That's my teacher.
Guest:I met him today.
Guest:It was Lee Morgan.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So you played in a band conducted by Lee Morgan?
Guest:And he was killed that summer, actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what was that, like 70?
Guest:Slugs.
Guest:What was that, what year, 60-something?
Guest:No, it was 72?
Guest:Two or three?
Marc:71, 72.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did get a chance to, you know, Lee Morgan.
Wow.
Guest:And, you know, in that band, that was the first time I saw the great Mickey Roker, who just passed away two weeks ago.
Guest:Incredible drummer and an inspiration.
Guest:And so that's New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so, you know, that's the whole experience.
Guest:All the players that were at Music and Art High School, they're all...
Guest:A lot of them have gone on to really big things.
Marc:Well, I like the idea that to commit to a piece when you're young and say, I got to do this.
Marc:I got to learn this.
Marc:Because I always used to believe for years, but I'm not a professional musician, that in order to understand the blues, if you can't make rolling and tumble in your own...
Marc:Right, sure.
Marc:Like whatever that is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can't play it like Muddy did or whatever, though that's a beautiful slide.
Marc:But somehow that song was a portal in my mind to understanding it.
Marc:And I think Keith did it with Jimmy Reed and Chuck, right?
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:It's like, I'm going to do this right.
Marc:It's not going to sound like him, even though you may think it does or whatever, but the more important thing is to own it somehow.
Marc:Own it and try to understand it.
Guest:Try to get into the mindset.
Guest:You know, a lot of my favorite players, and especially when I got to see them play, because that's another great thing about New York, you could actually go and see these legends all the time.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:And then you get into, like, well, how are they feeling?
Guest:Okay, now I'm not just listening to them.
Guest:I can actually see them as well.
Guest:That's incredible.
Guest:And then you start mimicking them, whatever it takes to get to until you get to where you're going.
Guest:And another great experience about being in New York.
Marc:And with drums, because it's not my instrument, I don't think I've ever really talked to a drummer at length, is that, well, first of all, I guess one thing you learn is that you get to spend time and be mentored by brilliant players, but you also realize maybe jazz isn't a great living.
Guest:That too.
Guest:Sonny Rollins was very upset with me when I left and went and started playing with the Rolling Stones.
Guest:He was like, oh, I know you're going to be a rock star.
Guest:You know, whatever.
Marc:You played with Rollins?
Guest:Yeah, in fact, I played with Sonny.
Guest:I started playing with Sonny when I was about 18, 19 years old, and I worked with him off and on.
Marc:the rest of my life basically he just stopped playing only a few years ago and I played with him right up until that point right and in jazz like I guess the question I was about to ask is like you know once you learn the basics you know what are these you know tidbits of wisdom that you gain from these masters
Marc:Like, you know, like, I mean, I know with guitar, you know, like, I can go over and Jimmy Vivina will show me a lick, and, like, I'll just work with it for a year.
Marc:Like, you know, he'll show me two blues licks, and I'm like, oh, that's how you get to that other thing.
Marc:Right, sure.
Marc:And that's that.
Marc:I mean, is it the same with drums?
Guest:You try to work out a vocabulary of stuff that you can go to, for sure.
Guest:But the main thing, the most...
Guest:great jazz musicians, most leaders, they wanted to feel good.
Guest:They don't want somebody to just play a bunch of extraneous stuff.
Guest:And so my relationship with Sonny in particular is he enjoyed my groove, so to speak, my pocket, as you would say.
Guest:And because, you see,
Guest:Sonny Rollins is from the Caribbean.
Guest:And my roots are Caribbean as well.
Guest:And he's written the most famous calypso ever, St.
Guest:Thomas.
Guest:So his go-to thing is a calypso.
Guest:No matter all the great jazz and everything that he has been responsible for and all this brilliant stuff,
Guest:His go-to thing is a down-home calypso.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's a rhythm.
Guest:And that is a rhythm.
Guest:And that is a kind of... Calypso tunes are very... They're melodic.
Guest:They're fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they bring...
Guest:up-tempo high spirits yeah yeah into your soul right and that's that's that's his root that's the calypso delivery system yeah yeah up-tempo high spirits into your soul what does calypso do oh well if you need up-tempo high spirits in your soul and you dance you know and and it makes you dance what does that be what what oh yeah
Guest:yeah yeah yeah and that's at the root of him that's that's him so like if you were if you know if you guys were working out some shit he he would say like you know you know pop that up a little bit when we when we would play calypso during a show and usually it's toward the end of the show because it kind of has that finale feeling and you get the crowd into it after he's played all this incredible stuff all night and yeah yeah trying to figure it out and everything
Guest:Yeah, like what just happened.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And then he gets into playing one of his great calypsos.
Guest:And I would think of it as almost like...
Guest:the hip-hop section of the concert, where it was just like, okay, I'm gonna lay this Calypso beat down, and he's gonna play forever, and we're gonna get the crowd going, and the people will be standing and dancing and freaking out at a Sonny Rollins concert.
Marc:Right, because now they can get out of their heads.
Guest:They can get out of their heads and just get into the rhythm, exactly.
Marc:They sweat through the first hour.
Guest:Exactly, trying to figure out taking notes.
Guest:You know, what happened there?
Marc:Then you just kick in with a calypso beat.
Marc:They're like, oh, thank God.
Thank you.
Marc:But that's an important part about show business.
Marc:It's sort of like you want to close strong.
Marc:Yeah, there you go.
Marc:You want them to leave dancing, not going like, I don't know what just happened.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, my brain hurts.
Guest:They got way out there.
Marc:way out there man what happened i don't know if i can stand that again yeah because i listen to like sometimes i gotta now see now i'm gonna go listen to rollins and i'm fortunate that i have like a handful of rollins records in there that i have not paid proper attention to because i didn't know this key bit of information so now i go in there with the calypso information and the you know the up tempo you know elevating the soul business and now i'm gonna like i'm gonna look through that prism
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm going to see it.
Guest:So Max Rhodes plays drums on St.
Guest:Thomas, which is basically the most famous calypso ever written.
Guest:But he's not really playing a calypso beat.
Guest:He's playing more like almost like a Latin-y type of beat.
Guest:It's not a real Caribbean type of calypso.
Guest:So if you want to hear some real calypso stuff, you have to dig into that.
Guest:Like who?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:uh the mighty sparrow okay stuff you know yeah that's it yeah that then i'll just be flying around yeah exactly it'll take me out yeah yeah so what what does it because like your groove your pocket if i recall correctly in whatever my first experience of watching you play was it has a lot to do with the snare right yeah
Guest:That was the loudest thing on television, that's for sure, yeah.
Guest:I used to carry the snare drum around with me, too.
Guest:There was a drum that was made for me.
Guest:It was very funny.
Guest:A friend of mine, Danny Gottlieb, who's most famous for playing with the Pat Metheny group.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:See, I missed the whole Matheny thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So he played... I have a problem with fusion.
Guest:I'll put it right out there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that wasn't really fusion.
Guest:That was kind of... That was post-fusion, thank goodness.
Marc:Well, it seemed a little soft to me for some reason.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:That was like kind of...
Guest:eerie, spacier kind of thing, even though there were changes involved.
Guest:But there was more breathing room in there.
Guest:And so anyway, at a party, I was having a birthday party, and he said, Danny said, if you had your ultimate snare drum, what would it be?
Guest:And I just made up some stuff, you know.
Guest:Yeah, 15 plies of this and eight coats of polyurethane over here.
Guest:And he had the drum made for me.
Guest:And it was made by Joe McSweeney for a boutique drum company called Ames Drums out of Massachusetts.
Guest:And it was a powerhouse.
Guest:A tank.
Guest:It was a tank.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It was a tank.
Guest:And so for a couple of years.
Marc:I didn't read it wrong.
Guest:No, you did not.
Guest:And for a couple of years, I carried that drum around with me.
Guest:you know, I didn't even take clothing.
Marc:I was just, I threw it somewhere.
Guest:I just, speaking snare drum case.
Marc:The magic drum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a lot of drummers, you know, they have a cymbal back.
Guest:You know, I didn't do cymbal.
Guest:No, just the snare drum.
Guest:And so that's what you heard on the Letterman show.
Guest:And I would, you know, go.
Guest:So when we started doing Letterman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My first experience of playing live television was, you know, I was in the original Saturday Night Live band.
Guest:I was the second drummer in that band.
Guest:The first drummer was a guy named Dawood Shaw.
Guest:I was the second drummer.
Marc:In 76?
Guest:I came in in 77 with Bill Murray, the third season.
Guest:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But you'd already been recording before that.
Guest:I started recording maybe just a couple of years earlier.
Guest:With jazz?
Guest:Actually, my first recording session was with basically half of Wonder Love, Stevie Wonder's group.
Guest:It was with Michael Cimbello and Nathan Watts, who had just gotten a job with Stevie.
Guest:Carlos Alomar, who, you know, the guitar player, David Bowie.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's doing great.
Guest:He's a wizard.
Guest:He's a wizard.
Guest:Yeah, Carlos and his wife, Robin Clark, you know, a great singer.
Guest:And, you know, part of the reason why Bowie went R&B, you know, and, you know, Carlos.
Marc:Carlos was on the.
Marc:He co-wrote Fame.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So that was his previous to Let's Dance.
Marc:I remember seeing Carlos.
Marc:Oh, way before Let's Dance.
Guest:I mean, Carlos is, you know, young Americans and all that stuff.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Stevie Ray, I think, played on Let's Dance.
Marc:Yes, he did.
Marc:Yes, he did.
Marc:Odd pairing.
Guest:Unbelievable playing.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:What a solo.
Guest:I mean, that was... On Let's Dance?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:Incredible.
Guest:So that was my first session.
Guest:With Stevie or no Stevie?
Guest:No Stevie.
Guest:It was with a guy who played saxophone with Stevie, who took Trevor Lawrence's place, actually, a guy named Danny Morales, and he put together...
Guest:So my first session was in Studio B at Electric Lady.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, that's my very first recording.
Guest:That's the magic studio and it's a magic studio and it's a man and going in there.
Guest:And I thought, OK, this is this is what I want to be doing.
Marc:And spaces are magic, I think.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, you go to Abbey Road, you go to Capitol, you go to Royal Studios in Memphis, you go to Visit 2120 in Chicago.
Guest:You know, there are places, you know, even like in New York right now, if you're not going to Avatar, which used to be Power Station, you can go to Brooklyn Recording and Brooklyn Great Recording Studio or Germano Studios in New York.
Marc:They hold the space.
Marc:They hold the Ghosts.
Guest:right you know they hold the ghost and there's something you know the environment is there and especially well you're talking about holding the ghost royal studios is and that's where you did the new robert cray record yes exactly and was that a stacks outlet no it was high record high high records
Guest:that's where Willie Mitchell that was his studio and he developed he tuned that room it was an old movie theater and much like the original Stax was a movie theater and he just built that room and tuned it every day meaning just tweaking every corner of it putting up wool hair and you know and it's still all there
Guest:It's still all there, augmented by several cobwebs and corners and stuff, which we don't touch.
Guest:No, you can't.
Guest:That's the only place in the world that sounds like that.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:There's a lot of great studios still around, Blackbird Studios in Nashville, great studio.
Guest:But there are certain studios that have a thing that only that studio has.
Guest:You can only get that sound there.
Guest:You can only get that sound there.
Guest:You can try.
Guest:A lot of people try it.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:There's people like, you can do it on the computer.
Guest:Oh, God, please.
Guest:Let's not go there.
Guest:You can't.
Marc:All right, so you did a little recording before, and then you're in the second wave of the SNL band, which is the Blues Brothers Band.
Marc:It's Lou Marino.
Guest:Right, Lulu, Bones, the whole thing.
Guest:So the reason why I brought it up is because when I first walked in there,
Guest:There were two mics on the drums.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:You know, the 57 and the kick drum and a 57 overhead.
Guest:Not even a snare drum mic.
Guest:I had to lobby to get a snare drum mic.
Marc:Another 57?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Another 57.
Guest:And the engineer was a guy named Bob Lifton who, like, started with Milton Berle.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so the first day I go in to do Letterman and...
Guest:I walk in, and all the drums are mic'd with Sennheiser 421s, and it's an RE20, and I'm on the bass drum.
Guest:I'm going, holy cow, this is amazing.
Guest:And there was an engineer.
Guest:Her name was Pam Gibson.
Guest:Her name is Pam Gibson.
Guest:And she was the one that got that great sound.
Guest:And it had never been done before.
Guest:on television before, where drums were actually miked like they were in a recording studio.
Guest:So that is why that four-piece band, besides the fact that we were already a band, sounded so good.
Guest:And so now, couple that with this
Guest:this you know tank of a snare drum right yeah i mean so that's all you heard basically go pow you know yeah and and and and you know so every night you know between the dreadlocks and the snare drum you were that was good i remember man it was good i remember hyrum too yeah absolutely no no shoes
Marc:Yeah, it was crazy.
Marc:It was a great band watching that show.
Marc:And just the juxtaposition between you, Katz, and Letterman, who played this kind of cranky broadcaster fella.
Marc:It was groundbreaking.
Marc:But you were on that.
Marc:You did the SNL stuff.
Marc:So you backed everybody at different points who came through the show.
Marc:But you were also in that Blues Brothers band.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But were you in the movie?
Guest:No, I did not do the film.
Marc:Who was John on that?
Guest:The drummer.
Marc:I can't remember.
Guest:Willie Hall.
Guest:Willie Hall, who played drums on Shaft.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he took my play.
Guest:I didn't do it.
Guest:The 24th Street Band, we had our first offer to play in Japan.
Guest:You, Will, and Hiram?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:With Cliff Carter.
Marc:And that was all music?
Marc:It was no singing?
Guest:No, it was singing.
Guest:We were all singers.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And we were like the East Coast Toto without the songs.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:Nothing good about what you just said.
Guest:You know, but David Page, you're so bad.
Guest:David Page, you know, I mean, those guys played Jeff Piccaro.
Guest:They played on a lot of great records, and they were a great rhythm section.
Guest:The way Jeff Piccaro played on the Steely Dan records and Boss Gags and all that stuff.
Guest:And so they were the backbone of a lot of records coming out of L.A.
Guest:that were good.
Guest:And then when Toto came out, they basically took that thing and then they did the thing.
Guest:So we were playing on a lot of records ourselves, but we didn't have the hits.
Marc:We didn't have the hits.
Marc:But you had a following?
Guest:We did have a following and we played.
Guest:We were big in Japan.
Guest:So we had a tour booked and the Blues Brothers movie was booked.
Guest:Now, you know, in film, as you may or may not know, everything takes eight times as long and everybody, everything is blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So we had a tour and I could have done the tour and then been on the set and it would have been fine.
Guest:But the producer said, no, everybody has to be on the set at the same time.
Guest:It was completely ridiculous.
Guest:And I felt it was more important for me to do this tour because I was in a real band.
Guest:I really wanted it to happen.
Guest:So John was a little upset with me.
Guest:But I had a conversation with Dan Aykroyd the night before I made the final decision, and he understood that I wanted to pursue the goal.
Marc:Your own career?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:As opposed to, you know, this half comedy, half, you know.
Guest:Well, you know, I have the original script, which is nothing like the actual.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Is it better or worse?
Guest:Yeah, it's better.
Guest:It's more clever.
Guest:Danny is very smart.
Marc:Yeah, well that was interesting about the record and also not so, I guess the movie, but was that they developed this comedic duo, but you guys played real shit.
Guest:Well see, here's the difference, this was part of the frustration.
Guest:When we cut Brief Pace Full of Blues.
Guest:That's a good record.
Guest:It's wonderful, and we have great, we have legendary players.
Guest:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Marc:Mac Guitar Murphy.
Guest:Yeah, when we played, the energy was unbelievable.
Guest:When we did that first record, we were playing the Universal Amphitheater before there was a roof on it, and we were sound checking, and Bob Hope was complaining we were too loud, the whole thing, because his house is right behind the amphitheater.
Guest:And the energy was amazing.
Guest:People didn't know what they were going to see.
Guest:We were opening for Steve Martin, who was the hottest thing in entertainment at the time.
Guest:And so you have this thing where you're going to see this Blues Brothers thing, but you don't really know what it's going to be.
Guest:Now, we had played as the Blues Brothers.
Guest:on the last show of the season before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the third season, we played Hey Bartender.
Guest:Like 77?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We played Hey Bartender with the Saturday Night Live band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was in that band as well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then John put together the Blues Brothers band that summer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we recorded the album.
Guest:And he was serious about it.
Guest:He was very serious about it.
Guest:He loved the blues.
Guest:He befriended this guy, Curtis Salgado, who kind of showed him the ropes, played him all the music, and he just fell in love with it and being from Chicago and the whole Chicago blues thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and it was pretty intense.
Guest:So we did the record, and the record came out, and it went to number one in seven weeks.
Guest:We had a number one album.
Guest:We were like platinum, and they're giving us platinum records at the Radio and Records Convention.
Guest:It was unbelievable.
Marc:So now the film is- So the 24th Street Band at that point.
Guest:Well, yeah, I remember playing the record for Hiram and everything, and I was very excited.
Guest:But anyway, so now we could still do the thing, but the film deal was signed before we made the record.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it was the whole John Landis kind of thing.
Guest:And it was just different from my way of thinking.
Guest:I'm thinking, well, we made a real live record.
Guest:It's actually a good record.
Guest:It's number one.
Guest:We should think about the music.
Marc:You did your job.
Guest:Yeah, you know, the music does warrant something.
Guest:I mean, it's helping the life of this film.
Guest:But the musician's got no respect.
Guest:So basically, I opted to...
Guest:Be a real musician.
Guest:And so I didn't do the film.
Guest:Neither did Paul Schaefer and neither did Tom Scott.
Guest:We call ourselves the triangle.
Marc:So you do that stuff with SNL.
Marc:You do Letterman and now like you work with Booker T too, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, that's good.
Marc:But then I remember you showing up on Talk is Cheap because I'm like, God, it's the dude from the Letterman show.
Marc:He's a great drummer.
Marc:He's like the best.
Marc:And now you're playing with Keith and that record's a good record.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:It's a fucking great record, man.
Marc:Locked Away?
Marc:Come on.
Marc:It's a beautiful song.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So how does that happen?
Marc:Because I would assume that looking at what you're doing now and sort of like that part of your career, the relationship with Keith is a big deal.
Marc:I mean, that was a big chunk of what you were doing.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:That was another commitment.
Guest:When I started leaving Letterman, I would take leaves of absence.
Guest:To do sessions.
Guest:To go.
Guest:I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, worked with Neil Young, Stevie Nicks.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Don Henley.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:Playing on records and actually co-wrote a song on Henley's End of the Innocence album called Shangri-La.
Guest:I wrote that with Danny Korchmar.
Guest:And he's a drummer.
Guest:Oh, Henley, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Henley, very underrated drummer.
Guest:No, he's good, man.
Guest:And, of course, one of our most unbelievable singers ever and great writer.
Guest:So you're in demand and you're working.
Guest:I'm working a lot.
Guest:What'd you do with Neil?
Guest:And we did a record called Landing on Water.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:that his comeback rock album, after he did a rockabilly thing in a country thing, David Geffen was so upset with him because he thought he was signing like Neil Young, and then he got this other thing.
Guest:Yeah, I remember the rockabilly thing.
Guest:And he freaked out.
Guest:But we did this record, Danny Korchmar, Neil, and I as a trio.
Guest:called Landing on Water, which has a serious cult following.
Guest:I don't have that record, and I talk to him about it.
Guest:It's a pretty wild record.
Marc:And working with Neil, that's sort of like he's a genius in his own.
Marc:Incredible, incredible.
Marc:Like what kind of instruction or what was that dynamic like in terms of what you have to do to accommodate Neil Young?
Guest:I just had to be me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I play songs first, and it's all about the feel, and we just got on right away because he's like a lot of these guys and gals are just like they're like one-person bands.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, when you see Neil Young play solo or Bruce Springsteen solo, they're like a band.
Guest:Sure, and you know it could go on for a while with Neil.
Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They can just play all night.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But no problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, so when when I hooked up with Keith, it was a weird thing going back to the Saturday Night Live days.
Guest:I was doing the show that the Stones appeared on, which was the first show of the fourth season.
Marc:When they did Shattered and Beast of Burden?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The pants, the weird pants that make war in the hat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We were all kind of like, what's happening?
Marc:What's going on here?
Guest:So there was a lot of security, a lot of hoopla, trying to keep people away from the band.
Guest:I wasn't interested because all I was interested is the Yankees were in the American League Championship Series.
Guest:And so I was just in the band dressing room, which was called the Departure Lounge.
Guest:And I'm up there.
Guest:I'm watching the game.
Guest:I don't really care about what's going on down there.
Guest:I could care less.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, Charlie Watts, who wanted to find me, comes in the dressing room.
Guest:And he said, what are you doing?
Guest:And I said, you know, I'm just watching a baseball game.
Guest:And nobody's in the dressing room but me.
Guest:Everybody's trying to get close to.
Guest:Yeah, I don't care.
Guest:So I'm watching the game, and he sits down next to me.
Guest:And so I'm watching the Yankees and I think the Royals or something with Charlie Watts.
Guest:And he's trying to figure it out, and he goes, oh, it's like a combination of rounders and cricket.
Guest:And I said, yeah, I guess so.
Guest:And that's when we became friends.
Guest:So cut to like 84.
Guest:And I'm in Paris doing a record with a Duran Duran offshoot band called Arcadia with Simon LeBond and Nick Rhodes.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so we're there.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So we're there.
Guest:Gig's a gig, right?
Guest:A gig is a gig, right?
Guest:So I'm there, and I'm in Paris.
Guest:I mean, you can't really go wrong.
Guest:So I'm there, and road crews talk to each other a lot.
Guest:We have the night off.
Guest:So that crew knew that crew, and the Stones were recording at Pathé Marconi EMI.
Guest:And so it was a full moon, and...
Guest:One thing led to another, and Charlie invited me to the studio.
Guest:What album?
Guest:This was Dirty Work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they were doing pre-production to Dirty Work, which is the way they do pre-production.
Guest:It's basically recording for any other unit.
Guest:But their whole pre-production thing is like, yeah, we're going to go and record for a few weeks and then figure out what we have and then come back.
Guest:So it's winter.
Guest:I go.
Guest:I get in a cab.
Guest:I speak no French.
Guest:The driver speaks no English.
Guest:Takes me to the suburb of Paris.
Guest:He dumps me.
Guest:All the call boxes are broken.
Guest:I'm freezing because I'm underdressed because I'm rock and roll, so I'm underdressed.
Guest:And I'm walking out there, and I think I'm going to get arrested for loitering or something.
Guest:It's really bad.
Guest:I'm close to tears.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I thought, I got to really hunker down here, and I start to listen to see if I can hear some music, and I just hear something faint in the background.
Guest:I just follow the sounds, and I go down an alleyway, and I go up the street, and boom, lo and behold, I look up, and it's E.M.I.
Guest:Pathfinder.
Guest:Big glass doors, and I go up to the door, and I hear the Rolling Stones.
Marc:I just can't believe it.
Guest:I knock on the glass, and this little guy comes in, and he goes...
Guest:I go, yeah, I'm here to see the Stones.
Guest:And the guy opens the door and lets me in.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, really high security.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:I walk in the control room and the Stones are playing and they're set up like they're live.
Guest:It's not like they're all sitting there standing up.
Guest:They're playing like it's a gig.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't believe it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm I'm crying.
Guest:I just can't because I've never seen them play live.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know you ignored him on snl but yeah yeah now i'm in tears yeah and so now the song is over there you know they play for x amount of time and then and it's like yeah go in so i go in and everybody greets me and yeah and it's just a wonderful thing and that's when when it all started i started working with them from that point on i would go every other night he and stewart would call me up and go
Guest:The boys need you tonight.
Guest:And I would go in because Mick would arrive every other night.
Guest:So on those off nights, I would go and I didn't want to play drums.
Guest:Charlie said, you know, play some drums.
Guest:I said, no, I'm not going to do that.
Guest:As a Stones fan, if I know that you're alive and some guy is playing the drums, I shoot that guy because it's like, why are you doing that?
Yeah.
Guest:So I played percussion.
Guest:I sang backgrounds.
Guest:Sometimes I did some mock lead vocals for some songs and just got to know them all.
Guest:And that's when I first heard Keith sing in a lower register.
Guest:There's a song on that album called Sleep Tonight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gotta get some sleep tonight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, wow, if I ever work with this guy, I'm going to get him down there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And which led to make no mistake.
Guest:Make no mistake.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What a sound.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, different than the octave.
Marc:We can hear all of the dark wisdom.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:What a mysterious.
Guest:What a thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so that's when I first heard that.
Guest:And, you know, I think, you know, to myself, when I first saw them on the Ed Sullivan show, little did I know that he'd end up like being like a big brother.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I imagine that went both ways, though.
Marc:The brother.
Guest:Come on, Keith.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:There was a lot of that, you know.
Marc:I can't imagine the sort of like, I mean, I talked to him, but it was like, I don't know.
Marc:I thought it was a good interview, but it was just basically me grinning for an hour going, really?
Marc:He's a smart dude.
Marc:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:I've been a Stones fan my whole life, and then I read that fucking book,
Marc:You know, you go through your whole life thinking like, this guy, he's a quintessential junkie guitar player, and then you read that book, you're like, oh no.
Marc:He's a smart man.
Marc:He knows a lot.
Guest:I mean, yeah, we'd go to the Caribbean, and we'd be on the beach, and we'd be reading books.
Guest:And he's like, he'd go to the beach with a freaking book the size of a dictionary.
Guest:That's what he's doing.
Guest:Not like with tons of drinks and chasing people.
Guest:No, he's like reading.
Marc:Well, I mean, his knowledge of music and like, you know, what's always interesting is that it's like he can like he plays Keith Richards, but he can play other shit.
Marc:Like, I mean, he can play like, you know, but, you know, but he plays the way Keith Richards plays.
Marc:But if you say like, well, if he's like referring to Robert Johnson or something, he'll lay it out.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:He can do it.
Marc:But so when you did Talk is Cheap, you were writing with him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In fact, the story goes that the first writing session that we did...
Guest:We just went in and we started playing together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Apparently we were in there for like 13 hours without a pee break.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I mean, it's all hazy to me.
Guest:I know that I joke about him cutting at least five years off of my life because of this smoking, secondhand smoke.
Guest:I would leave working with him with a pain in my chest, okay?
Guest:Okay, he couldn't breathe?
Guest:Yeah, because, you know, it's like...
Marc:I'm looking at the songs, and I know this record really well.
Marc:I listened to the shit out of this record.
Marc:Because I was a big Stones guy, but I was a huge Keith guy.
Marc:And I remember like, Bootsy Collins is on it, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On the first cut.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I remember that.
Marc:Big enough, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Boom, boom.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There you come in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, with Bootsy, you know, there's like two lives of Bootsy.
Guest:There's like the James Brown life, and then there's Bootsy's solo life, which is a whole different thing.
Guest:He kind of became like the Jimi Hendrix of the bass.
Marc:He only took trains, I think, and buses, right?
Marc:Wasn't he afraid of flying?
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:Quite possibly.
Guest:I know Aretha is, but, you know.
Guest:But, I mean, the thing is, he would play with his...
Guest:You know, when he played that stuff, you know, like get involved and talk loud and say nothing, that kind of stuff with James Brown.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a certain style.
Guest:And then, of course, when he joined Funkadelic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he whipped out the thumb, a la Larry Graham, and he started playing that way.
Guest:That's a different style of playing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I said, okay.
Guest:I said, we're going to get Bootsy to play on this thing.
Guest:And...
Guest:He started to play, and he was doing the second part two Bootsie.
Guest:I said, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I want the other Bootsie.
Guest:And he says to me, oh, you want the tiptoe funk, baby?
Guest:I said, yeah, the tiptoe, you know, with the two fingers.
Guest:So, yeah, he gave us the tiptoe.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:But that was the whole thing.
Guest:Your first solo album, you can do anything you want.
Guest:We can get any one you want.
Guest:And there was a big concern of what we were going to do.
Guest:And we had, when Keith flew out to LA to sign the deal or whatever, the label, we happened to get together with Tom Waits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that afternoon.
Guest:And Tom Waits played us a sneak, he gave us a sneak preview of Frank's Wild Years.
Guest:And he played that record for us and it blew my mind.
Guest:It just completely blew my mind.
Guest:And I said, okay, now I know.
Guest:We can do, we can make music.
Guest:We can go in and make music.
Guest:We don't have to make, well, the Stones, people are going to expect to hear something similar to that, which is what I was most terrified about because the Stones are the Stones.
Guest:You don't want to do that.
Marc:And they weren't getting along at that time?
Guest:They go in and out.
Guest:You don't get between brothers.
Guest:They might fight amongst themselves, but if you get in, then they kill you.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You become the asshole.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But yeah, so Francois' years was very inspirational for me.
Guest:Just because of the space?
Guest:No, just because of the songwriting, the sound, everything.
Guest:It really went out there.
Guest:And it's a story.
Guest:And so I thought, okay, great.
Guest:And it really freed my thinking up as far as going in with the approach of what we can do and what we can't do.
Marc:And that led to the Hail Hell Rock and Roll thing?
Marc:Well, that actually came out of that.
Marc:Oh, you did Talk It's Sheep after that?
Guest:Yeah, I believe that's how it went.
Marc:But is that where you first, like, were you sort of part of putting that band together?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I brought Keith to the bottom line to see Joey Spampanato, the NRBQ, which was probably my favorite band at the time.
Guest:And he played bass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we, you know, we wanted somebody, you know, a Willie Dixon type, somebody who understood that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Joey Spampanato understood that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Keith had never heard Joey play before.
Guest:And so I took him to the bottom line.
Guest:which is a club that no longer exists in York.
Guest:It's an NYU cafeteria now or something.
Guest:And you got Johnny.
Guest:And then Keith's main thing was to get Johnny Johnson, to turn the world on to Johnny Johnson, for Chuck to finally pay proper tribute to Johnny Johnson, and for us to experience what it's like to play with Johnny Johnson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because basically it was Johnny Johnson's trio that Chuck... Hijacked.
Marc:Hijacked, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And dealing with Chuck and Keith.
Marc:Yeah, I got it.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:You'd be lucky you lived through that one, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I'm telling you, it was close.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:Well, I was kind of...
Guest:I played referee.
Guest:Two hotheads.
Guest:Two very passionate people about what they do.
Marc:Okay, that's a more diplomatic way of putting it.
Guest:Yeah, there you go.
Guest:We had this guy working with us who thought of himself as a kind of a technical guru.
Guest:sound guy right so they rigged up this thing where they were going to control chuck's sound from under the stage oh boy so yeah exactly so you know where this is going so chuck goes to the amp and it's not really doing anything yeah not good yeah okay and so chuck susses it out and freaks out yeah
Guest:You know, he just flips out and rightfully so.
Guest:Like you guys are going behind his back.
Guest:Going behind his back.
Guest:This is a movie about him in his home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's a co-producer of it.
Guest:And now you're going to mess around with his sound.
Guest:You're like, he's an idiot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not good.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And you, so what can you imagine the, the, the, the groundswell of like,
Guest:memories coming back of institutionalized racism and all kinds of stuff.
Guest:Like where do you think I am?
Guest:I'm some freaking primitive idiot.
Guest:You know, like you don't think I know what I invented this freaking thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The reason why you're over here is because of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now you're going to do this.
Guest:I'm going to kill all of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and that's what that's what was coming out.
Guest:And so Keith had to take the take the hit, take the hit.
Marc:And there was a point there.
Marc:Did he actually get hit by Chuck during that thing?
Guest:Not during that thing, but the first time they met, yeah, he got hit.
Guest:He got greeted.
Guest:You know, yeah.
Marc:Well, I guess that, you know, I imagine that Chuck, despite the respect he was getting, still the chip on the shoulder of those guys, like Little Richard and Chuck Berry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For creating the sound that so many people made such big money off of.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:That doesn't go away.
Guest:It doesn't go away.
Guest:And Little Richard had a little bit of a softer disposition about it.
Guest:But Chuck, you know, they went after Chuck.
Guest:Just do everything we can to stop you, pal.
Marc:There was a moment there where, I mean, I guess the real concern was that he played in these keys that were primarily piano keys.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And you guys were kind of just kind of moving him towards playing in more accessible keys.
Marc:And there was a moment there where he wanted to change the key during the show.
Guest:During the show, yeah.
Guest:After the guys had worked everything out in these other keys.
Guest:Well, you know what happened.
Guest:The back story to that is that he did a show the weekend before
Guest:the concert and he did the Ohio State Fair in which he sang and lost his voice by the time we get to now filming he's got no voice that's why he wanted to bring the key down on that song and all kinds of stuff so there was like we had to actually I mean the movie is 30 years ago so I can say it now we had to actually dub a lot of the lead vocals on the film
Marc:After?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With him?
Marc:With him.
Marc:Oh, so he didn't have a problem with that.
Guest:Well, he had to do it.
Guest:Some of the things he couldn't sing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, for people who are actually there, they don't actually remember that he had half of the voice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because you remember the experience.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:But we had to do a significant amount of fixing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he blew his chops out on a freaking gig that he wasn't supposed to do, by the way.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With a pickup band?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Well, that was the thing about this film, to Keith's credit, was Keith wanted to, besides get Johnny Johnson his props, he wanted to re-familiarize Chuck with his own genius and to show the world how brilliant these songs were.
Guest:They're not all one big Chuck Berry medley, because that's what he had turned everything into.
Guest:He had forgotten the brilliance of his own songs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it was just like, can you do da-da-da-da-da-da?
Guest:Okay, yeah, great.
Guest:And I'll sing all my lyrics.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:And then if I like it, I'll give you a thousand bucks cash back.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like Bruce Springsteen.
Marc:Get in the car.
Marc:When we're a pickup band for him.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:What are we playing?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Chuck Berry songs.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, I thought you did a great job with it.
Marc:I mean, I've watched it, you know, I've watched it several times.
Marc:Cray, is that where you met Cray?
Marc:That's where we met Robert.
Marc:You know, it's weird thing about Robert Cray is that, you know, I don't know all his records, but he's one of those guys where like that guitar sound, man, that straight strat.
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:But besides his sound, which, you know.
Marc:He's a good singer.
Guest:He's a great singer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's not a good singer.
Guest:He's a great singer.
Guest:He's one of the best singers of our generation.
Guest:That's number one.
Guest:Number two, his playing style, what he is playing, is not anything that you've ever heard before.
Guest:In other words, a lot of guitar players, you go, oh, yeah, that's from Albert.
Marc:Oh, that's from Bebe.
Guest:No, that's right.
Guest:You don't get any of that in his playing.
Marc:And he takes the same space those guys did.
Marc:He's not a noodler.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He is not a noodle.
Marc:Every note he plays counts.
Marc:Yeah, he's got his own phrasing, which is rare.
Guest:He's got a very unique phrasing, and nobody can do it, and it's incredible.
Guest:Yeah, I agree.
Guest:And it's wild.
Guest:So the way he got in the band was...
Guest:In 85, I'm down in Jamaica with Keith, and we're listening to stuff, and we're just getting to hang out and maybe do some writing or whatever.
Guest:He likes it down there, huh?
Guest:Yeah, and I'm thinking that I'm going to hear the greatest reggae music and everything like that, and I hear this guitar, and he's playing this cassette of some guy, and we're going, who is this guy?
Guest:It's Robert Cray.
Guest:All Keith was listening to Robert Cray.
Guest:Eric Clapton had turned Keith on to Cray, and they had the first two albums were two cassettes, the first two things that Robert ever did.
Guest:And that's all he was listening to.
Guest:I'm like, dude, are you gonna play anything else?
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:So that's how I learned about Robert Cray.
Guest:And then...
Guest:When we're putting the band together, then it was like, okay, we need another energy.
Guest:We had Johnny Johnson, Chuck Lavelle, Joey Spampanato.
Guest:We needed another guitar, but who was going to be that person?
Guest:And we're like, Robert Cray.
Guest:I mean, obviously you love him.
Guest:And he's like...
Marc:a young Chuck Burry the same age when Chuck came out and you know the whole thing and he had that energy and it was great and he did Brown Eyed Handsome Man yes that's great that song like and he really made it his own because like you know I know the Buddy Holly version of that too
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I forgot about that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, and, you know, in Chuck's version, like, oh man, there's a, that box set, the Chuck box set where you really look at all the shit he did.
Marc:It's a lot of great songs, man.
Marc:A lot of great, he's a genius.
Marc:And like, I, I don't think like, I think that, I think that he's, I think he was essential to Bob Dylan too.
Guest:He is totally essential to Bob Dylan.
Marc:The turn of phrase.
Guest:You know, like too much monkey business.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That and Can't Catch Me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But monkey business in particular.
Guest:is the bedrock of that thing.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, of leopard skin pill box hat.
Guest:And Mediterranean.
Marc:Subterranean, man.
Marc:Subterranean, whatever.
Marc:Homesick blues.
Marc:Yeah, definitely, man.
Marc:And you play with Clapton, too?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You like him?
Marc:You like playing with him?
Guest:yeah it was fun you know that um that the band when i started the band that i finally played because we had talked about playing together over the years but schedules never really worked out yeah and um but we uh got together and uh and we uh did a thing with derrick trucks and willie weeks oh right right and and i talked to derrick and um
Guest:Billy Preston was alive at the time and he was supposed to play and he fell ill right before the tour and he died while we were on tour.
Guest:So my fantasy was to get Willie Weeks and Billy Preston back together and all that.
Guest:And we ended up playing a lot of Derrick and the Dominoes stuff, which I loved.
Guest:And Megan and I are huge Derrick and the Dominoes fans.
Guest:So when the...
Guest:prospect came up of doing it we thought oh and and and derek being in the band we thought oh man this would be great about willie and then derek and billy and you know you play with dylan too yeah and that was good that was fun that was wild yeah it was pretty crazy why uh because he was in this this kind of uh
Guest:He was searching.
Guest:Well, I guess he's always searching.
Guest:When was this?
Guest:But this was like, I don't even remember, like late 80s, early 90s, something like that.
Marc:You toured with him?
Guest:I didn't do the tour.
Guest:He asked me to put together a band for him.
Guest:For which record?
Guest:So I had the honor of playing on his, I think, I would call it his worst record, Down in the Groove or something.
Guest:You know that record?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so I'm on there.
Guest:And...
Guest:He wanted me to put together a band.
Guest:So I put together this band.
Guest:It was a little hotshot studio band that we could follow him like a SWAT team.
Guest:Danny Korchmark, Randy Jackson, and myself.
Guest:And it became clear during the rehearsals that this wasn't going to really work.
Guest:So I opted out.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And that's when I think that's when the G.E.
Guest:Smith era began.
Oh, okay.
Marc:Well, but your relationship with Cray, so you put out this new record.
Marc:It's a great record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was nice to hear from him again.
Marc:And this is on your label?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And Megan and I have a label called JV Records.
Guest:Megan's your?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's my way better half and great musician and songwriter.
Guest:We have a band called The Verbs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we put our own records out on JV Records.
Guest:JV.
Guest:It's like a classic old style label sound.
Marc:It sounds like, you guys been around since the 50s?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:We were fortunate enough to have Missy Collazo at MRI Distribution partner up with us.
Guest:For me, at this stage of my career, when I'm making records, I like people to hear them.
Guest:So I was not very happy about making records for bigger labels, and then if they're not really behind it, the record gets lost.
Guest:So we knew and nobody's really funding records the way they should.
Guest:They don't really take into account what it takes to make a good record.
Guest:And, you know, the first thing people want to do is not pay the musicians or not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know, people are playing live again because you're not making any money from recording.
Marc:You got to go play live and sell those T-shirts.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's all about merchandising.
Guest:And, you know, for us, you know, for producers and writers, when we were the canaries in the coal mine, our zeros started disappearing, you know, 20 years ago.
Guest:But now, like, nobody's making any money.
Guest:And, you know, eventually some legislative action really has to take place for us to get, you know, for us to be able to really make a living again in the studio.
Guest:You know, like Spotify and all these, you know, kind of streaming things is like, for instance, I equate it to this.
Guest:Say if you were like Whole Foods, right?
Guest:And you gave out a card to people.
Guest:Say, hey, all you can eat for $10 a month.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It'd be hard to get into Whole Foods.
Guest:Well, not only that, what would it do the agriculture department and shipping and manufacturing?
Guest:You could not sustain anything.
Guest:There'd be nothing.
Guest:You can't do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's the same thing with music.
Guest:You know, it's the same.
Guest:All of those ingredients are the same.
Guest:It takes, you have to cultivate, you have to grow the musicians.
Guest:You have to maintain the studios.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have to, you know.
Guest:You got to pay more for the organic musicians.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And for people who are actually really good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the premium organic.
Guest:And it's the same exact thing.
Guest:And if people started to think of it that way, then maybe we would get somewhere as far as compensation goes.
Marc:Well, people are buying the records again a bit.
Guest:I'm buying vinyl records again.
Guest:Thank goodness.
Guest:And there are new vinyl machines being developed and new plants coming up.
Guest:And everything is cyclical, so we're not dead yet.
Guest:But we have to police the revenue stream of the internet where people get proper compensation.
Marc:People have got to do their part and behave properly and do their part to support the musicians.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Look, if they knew, and that's why I use the analogy of the shopping for groceries analogy, because then it becomes clearer to people.
Guest:Oh, because for them, it's a convenience.
Guest:They go, well, what's wrong with that?
Guest:I can hear all your music.
Guest:And it's easier for me to get it than I can listen to.
Guest:Yeah, but we're not making a dime.
Guest:It's fucking shame.
Guest:And so that's a problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a real problem.
Guest:Somebody else made a lot of money making that deal.
Guest:It's always going to be those guys.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Well, the music business, I say, is the only business you can fail upwards.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, there's a lot of businesses on that side of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, where the executive structure seems to the primary incentive is like, who can I blame if this gets fucked?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, you're ruining the label.
Guest:Why don't I give you you ruin our company?
Guest:I'm gonna give you 20 million dollars to get out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then two years later, they get hired by another.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know what happened over there, but we heard you're good.
Guest:It reminds me of, remember when you were a kid and there were baseball managers or basketball coaches that weren't very good, but they kept getting gigs?
Guest:And you go, well, how do these guys keep getting gigs?
Guest:Because they know how the system works.
Guest:So they're easier instead of breaking somebody new in.
Marc:And they're also not a problem.
Marc:They'll throw the fight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:I hadn't even thought of it that way, but yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what's the new band called?
Guest:My band?
Marc:No, Crow.
Marc:Crow.
Guest:High Rhythm.
Marc:Yeah, High Rhythm.
Guest:So it's Robert Cray and High Rhythm.
Guest:Now, High Rhythm is the legendary rhythm section from Memphis that Willie Mitchell actually developed.
Guest:The Hodges brothers, Leroy Hodges, Reverend Charles Hodges, Leroy Hodges, the bass player, Charles Hodges, organ and piano, Archie Turner, also known as Hubby, electric piano, clavinet.
Guest:The late, great, teeny Hodges was the guitar player.
Guest:He wrote Love and Happiness and Take Me to the River and stuff like that.
Guest:Willie Mitchell taught these guys how to play.
Guest:He adopted them, actually.
Guest:They were his adopted children.
Guest:And as he was tuning his studio and developing this stuff, he also schooled these kids to play.
Marc:So he brought them back to their place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they live in Memphis.
Guest:They're alive and well.
Guest:This is not a retro record, okay?
Marc:Let me be very clear.
Guest:It doesn't sound like it.
Guest:It's just like these guys still play great, and this is what we wanted.
Guest:And Robert and I have been working together off and on since 98.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the last couple records we did...
Guest:together nobody really heard because for one reason or another I'm not going to get into it but like I didn't want to do another record like that where you pour your heart and soul into something and then nobody hears it so and Megan and I were discussing a way to grow go forward we can't continue on this path of making these records for
Guest:intermediate labels or big labels and them not supporting it so it's time to we know how it's got to be done why don't we just do it these guys are still around and they're around so one day it hit me
Guest:Robert Cray and High Rhythm.
Guest:So I sent Robert an email.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:He was like, he was totally into it.
Guest:And then we just moved forward.
Guest:And Megan and I started listening to material and sending it to him.
Guest:And he was, yeah, that's great.
Guest:You know, boom, boom, boom, whatever.
Guest:And it just, the ball started rolling.
Guest:And one key thing that we did was,
Guest:I made sure that the band participated fully in the arrangements and everything.
Guest:So it was a band.
Guest:It wasn't like we were hiring some sidemen.
Guest:Because that's not how it was done on those records.
Guest:Those great records that had full participation of all the musicians.
Marc:So it was an ensemble.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And that's how you wrote and created it all.
Marc:That's basically how we created the tracks.
Marc:When was the last time these guys played in that hall?
Marc:They play their line.
Guest:Oh, they do?
Marc:They work out of there.
Marc:So that's their home.
Marc:That's their home.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:Well, I mean, I enjoyed the record.
Marc:Now I know more about it.
Marc:I'll go listen to it again with all this new wisdom.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Good job, man.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:It was great talking to you as well.
Guest:Pleasure.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:We learned, we laughed, we talked about music.
Marc:I wanted to say, because Steve wanted me to tell you, he forgot to mention the late Bob Crenshaw as someone who was a mentor to him.
Marc:He was the first musician hired for the SNL band and he took Steve under his wing.
Marc:And sometimes you get talking and you forget to pay respect to the people you respect.
Marc:And he wanted me to tell you that.
Marc:And he wanted to make sure to let you know that that guy was important to him.
Marc:Pay a little tribute on this episode for Mr. Bob Crenshaw.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I won't be loopy for long.
Marc:I'm going to play some loopy blues.
Marc:People seem to be responding to the basics.
Yeah.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!