Episode 866 - Jimmie Vaughan / Kasper Collin & Bennie Maupin
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters uh what the fuckadelics what's happening how are you so all right before i get ahead of myself and start talking about trying to deal with thanksgiving today on the show i'm
Marc:I've got, it's a big show.
Marc:It's a big show.
Marc:I've got Casper Collin and Benny Maupin.
Marc:They were both, Benny Maupin's a jazz musician who was very tight with Lee Morgan, played with him.
Marc:Several different instruments, little sax, a little clarinet, big clarinet.
Marc:uh others we'll talk to him but and also uh casper colin who who directed the documentary uh i called him morgan about lee morgan and then after that jimmy vaughn jimmy vaughn
Marc:The blues guitar player, Jimmy Vaughn, Tex-Mex Max.
Marc:Yeah, Jimmy Vaughn.
Marc:Stevie Ray's brother, also the guitar player and front man, half front man.
Marc:Used to be him and Kim Wilson for the fabulous Thunderbirds.
Marc:He's going to be here.
Marc:I'm very excited about that.
Marc:He's a real musical hero to me.
Marc:What's going on right now is it's Thanksgiving.
Marc:I give the same advice every year.
Marc:I'm not doing anything for Thanksgiving for the second year in a row.
Marc:I'm not going down to my mommy's house to cook a big dinner this year because I don't have time.
Marc:I'm in the middle of shooting glow and I'm in the middle of moving.
Marc:And we're going to go to some Sarah, the painter has some friends.
Marc:We're going to go over there.
Marc:And it seems like a hippie ordeal, a progressive vegan endeavor.
Marc:But that's all right.
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:I no longer have to make exceptions in terms of like, look, I haven't been eating much meat lately.
Marc:Just keep the cholesterol down, keep things level, keep the levels level in the blood, in the heart, in the fat, in the organs.
Marc:So I know I could blow it out, blow it,
Marc:blow it out today somewhere i could i could just go drop in some friend's house i know you didn't invite me but you gotta have something to eat but i'm not gonna point is this the holidays a lot of shit's going down shit is going down every fucking day some of it good some of it terrible some of it good some of it fucking just heinous heinous
Marc:Where do you fall?
Marc:And I'm being vague on purpose.
Marc:I'm being vague on purpose because one person's heinous is another person's awesome.
Marc:That's what seems to be the big problem.
Marc:Your heinous is my awesome.
Marc:Sorry, sorry.
Marc:How do we figure out how to talk about that?
Marc:Here's the deal.
Marc:I know you're at family's house where you got people over, some annoying guy, some annoying woman, some annoying kid, some annoying cousin, some annoying parent, mommy, daddy.
Marc:The levels of intensity of annoying bordering on just a crime against sanity is high.
Marc:It's high today.
Marc:I know you're going through it.
Marc:I know you're going.
Marc:Hey, look, you people that have wonderful families and you're just having a nice time and everybody's sweet and everyone's smiling, maybe holding hands, praying a little bit in different languages.
Marc:Maybe, you know, grandma still got all her marbles.
Marc:Grandpa's, you know, passed away, but he was old and everyone's just thrilled.
Marc:And maybe you're that and your kids are perfect and everything.
Marc:Maybe you're that person and you get along with everybody in your family.
Marc:Maybe you're that person.
Marc:I don't know what to say to you.
Marc:Have a nice day.
Marc:Enjoy your food.
Marc:And congratulations on being mentally and spiritually healthy, you fuckers.
Marc:That was rude.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:No, I'm serious.
Marc:I don't envy you, but I'm happy for you.
Marc:So let me talk to the other people.
Marc:All right, so what do I usually do?
Marc:It's very hot here.
Marc:I don't know what the temperature is like.
Marc:Hopefully, the best you can hope for, maybe you're already there anywhere east of Los Angeles or California.
Marc:You know, Midwest even.
Marc:I just hope it's crisp and nice.
Marc:Maybe even a light snow would be good.
Marc:But just that crisp, nice fall, leaves changing, chill in the air that makes you reflect.
Marc:Makes you reflect on who you are.
Marc:That's what the Thanksgiving is for.
Marc:Who are you?
Marc:Who are you in there?
Marc:Take that walk.
Marc:Get out of that room in between cleaning up and coffee.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:Don't help out, especially if it was a rough dinner.
Marc:If you had to fucking strap in for some political bullshit or some just emotional onslaught of triggering, if you had to strap in for that, get out.
Marc:You don't have to help clear the table.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:There's other people.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:Take a walk before you fucking hurt somebody with your mouth.
Marc:By saying something horrible.
Marc:Take that walk in that crisp air.
Marc:Take it in.
Marc:Think about it.
Marc:Think about the crisis at hand.
Marc:Think about the gratitude at hand.
Marc:Balance them out.
Marc:How's the macro?
Marc:How's the micro?
Marc:Macro, not great.
Marc:Micro, could be good.
Marc:Could be good.
Marc:What do you got to do?
Marc:What do you got to do?
Marc:What's coming up?
Marc:What are your challenges?
Marc:Who are you?
Marc:How can he be better?
Marc:Do you have apologies to make?
Marc:Do you have apologies to yourself to make?
Marc:Do you have things that you want to go back into that house and make some shit right?
Marc:Might be a good time to do it.
Marc:Or you know what?
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:Don't worry about it.
Marc:Just bathe in a certain... Breathe in that fall air.
Marc:Breathe it out.
Marc:Maybe cry a little bit.
Marc:And just think about who we are.
Marc:Who you are.
Marc:Who we are.
Marc:What we can do to be better people.
Marc:Get a little humility.
Marc:Spread a little love.
Marc:Make an amends.
Marc:Eat some fucking pie.
Marc:Be nice to the kids.
Marc:Rambling now, but Jesus, have a good Thanksgiving.
Marc:Don't make it worse.
Marc:Don't hurt yourself.
Marc:Try not to emotionally hurt others.
Marc:And think about what you need to do next to further your growth as a person and help the bigger picture.
Marc:How does your micro impact the macro?
Marc:The big pick.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So that's all I got.
Marc:But seriously, if the pie is good, enjoy it.
Marc:And don't eat with a berry pie.
Marc:Vanilla ice cream is the way to go.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, all right, so this is going to be interesting.
Marc:Casper Collin and Benny Maupin.
Marc:Benny is a jazz musician.
Marc:The documentary that they are both involved with, Casper directed it, I Called Him Morgan, is streaming now on Netflix.
Marc:If you're a voting member of the Academy, I urge you to check it out.
Marc:It was just nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary, and it blew my mind, and I was just getting into Lee Morgan.
Marc:It all synced up, and now I get to talk to a guy who knew Lee Morgan, and I'm very excited about that, so...
Marc:This is me talking to the director, Casper Collin, and to Lee's friend and musician, Benny Maupin.
Marc:Now, I didn't know you did another documentary before I called him Morgan about Albert Eiler.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:Very much so.
Marc:But see, the fucked up thing about me and jazz is I didn't know who Albert Eiler was.
Marc:I'm sure you did, Benny, right?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I knew him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So there's this whole world of jazz that I'm just starting to get into in the last few years.
Marc:And it seems never ending.
Yeah.
Guest:It is for me too, after like 25 years now.
Guest:And I mean, after making this first film about Albert Eiler, it took me seven years.
Guest:To make the film.
Guest:To make the film.
Guest:It was a fantastic journey.
Guest:Why him?
Guest:Why him?
Guest:Because the music.
Guest:I loved the music so much.
Guest:And at that time I was playing saxophone myself and Albert was something else.
Guest:But it was also because of Albert's connection to Sweden.
Guest:And I was living in Stockholm at that time and he kind of lived in, he was from Cleveland, Ohio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then he moved to Sweden in 1962 and stayed there for almost a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And made his first album there.
Guest:And, you know, but at the same time he was touring with Swedish dance orchestras in the far north up to Lapland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and looked at the midnight sun and everything got like a spiritual awakening uh-huh and then he moved to new york and became this kind of underground hero and young coltrane was very inspired by him and finally asked him to to play at his funeral in 1967 so albert was there with his group and ornette was there with this group so that's kind of who he was very much an underground hero at this time and because you're from sweden you were you felt connected to it
Guest:I think that was a very important part for me, yes.
Guest:But I mean, I love music so much.
Guest:And Albert was someone I heard for the first time when I was maybe 18, 19 years old.
Guest:I think I found the record either in my father's collection or at the library in Gothenburg.
Guest:And it was music that, you know, if you ever heard Albert Tyler, it's kind of... Well, now I got to go.
Guest:This morning I know I got to go listen to it now.
Guest:Because when you hear it, it's like, oh, well, I did not know what to do with it.
Guest:It took a lot of years.
Guest:Then I was living in Gothenburg.
Guest:When I moved to Stockholm, I realized the story with him there, and I connected to it.
Guest:And then that film came about.
Marc:How far back do you go with it?
Marc:Where was jazz when you started?
Guest:Well, you know, I'm from Detroit, so I got to grow up listening to gospel music, blues, of course, the beginning of Motown, all of these things.
Guest:And so many great musicians came to Detroit.
Guest:During my early years, I got to be very close to John Coltrane.
Guest:I met Sonny Rollins in Detroit.
Guest:There was Yusef Lateef, who was a big influence on
Guest:on me as well as a lot of the other musicians.
Guest:You were younger than them?
Guest:From Detroit, yeah, much younger.
Guest:You know, like Sonny Rollins, he's like 10 years my senior.
Guest:He's 87 now.
Guest:And you know, of course, Coltrane is gone, and Yusuf Latif is gone as well.
Guest:But I got to hear all of these different things.
Guest:And little by little, that music that was coming from New York, basically, was sort of getting its way into radio in Detroit.
Guest:But they would always apologize before they would play some of it.
Guest:You know, at that time, I didn't have any records, and so the radio was like my saving grace.
Guest:At 12 noon, there was a guy who came on, and he was the one who introduced the music, but he would always say, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to present something to you now.
Guest:It's a little bit different.
Guest:So don't change the station.
Guest:But this is a young man who's creating quite a stir in the New York music scene.
Guest:And he's doing something that's quite different.
Guest:So just sit back and just listen to it.
Guest:And then I started to hear.
Guest:R&S music and it was like wow because you know in my years I grew up with the blues and the gospel and and of course the bebop Detroit was very much a bebop city heavily influenced by Charlie Parker and all the great musicians from that era.
Marc:Were you playing at this point?
Guest:i was beginning to play yeah i was beginning to play i was like uh i was about 14 or 15. what was your first instrument my first instrument was actually the piano and then from there i went to the clarinet but i really wanted to play the saxophone so just before i got to go from middle school to like high school i was able to get my first saxophone and that's when i really i was able to dig in thanks to my band director at the high school and that was a tenor
Guest:No, it was alto.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:But Ornette, he's the one who captured me.
Guest:It was a completely different approach.
Guest:There was no piano, first of all.
Guest:There was the absence of the piano that opened up the aura of the music.
Guest:I guess that's the only way I could describe it.
Guest:And since there was no chordal thing going on harmonically, it was just the rhythm with Billy Higgins or Eddie Blackwell or whoever was playing, then Don Cherry.
Guest:And, you know, that was like, wow.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I was like in Charlie Hayden and they were playing some things, but it was so unified.
Guest:That is what really enabled me to understand.
Guest:This is well thought out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you have something that sounds like, you know, from the future.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But the context is solid.
Marc:It's grounded.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I had a conversation once when I was about 18 or 19 with John Coltrane and he didn't talk about his music at all.
Guest:But he was very excited about something.
Guest:He said, there's a young man in New York right now who's creating quite an uproar.
Guest:I went to hear him the week before I came here to Detroit, and he was playing in a place called the Jazz Gallery, which was a place that was known for presenting things that were really cutting edge things.
Guest:And his name is Ornette Coleman.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And so I said, you know, I've been hearing him a little bit on the radio.
Guest:He says, yeah.
Guest:And it was Coltrane who planted the seed in my mind.
Guest:He said, you need to come to New York because there's some young musicians in New York.
Guest:They're a little bit older than you, some of them a little bit younger.
Guest:He says, but the music is moving forward.
Guest:And he said, and that's what I'm interested in.
Guest:I'm interested in being able to capture some of that spirit in my music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what got you there?
Guest:That's what got you to New York?
Guest:He was the first one.
Guest:He encouraged me.
Guest:He said right away, straight out.
Guest:He said, even if you don't stay in New York,
Marc:come and feel it and just feel it and listen to what's being done yeah yeah and and coltrane himself was to be you know he was certainly pushing the envelope yes towards the end so he he sort of was pushing out into what ornette took up right that's right yeah
Guest:he was very influenced by Ornette yeah there were a lot of musicians who were influenced by Ornette but I think they kept it kind of on the down low because because I mean if you were a bebopter a bebopper then if you were listening to Ornette then you were like you know well what's wrong with you you know why are you listening to that
Guest:You know, what is that?
Guest:Because it was the changing of the guard, so to speak.
Guest:So some of the older guys who had worked so hard to develop that approach that was popularized by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and all those musicians.
Guest:They didn't want to go out there.
Guest:They did not want to go out there.
Guest:They had no intentions of going out there.
Guest:And so there was a lot of bad, bad, bad conversations about Ornette destroying the music.
Guest:Isn't that interesting?
Guest:You know, he's taking away from the art form that's been so sacred and so special.
Marc:Conservative hipsters.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Beyond conservative.
Guest:American music is the only music that continues to unfold.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And jazz...
Guest:around the world is warmly embraced, not only by musicians, but listeners and people who look to America for something different, something fresh, something adventurous that takes a lot of courage.
Marc:Right, and it's more appreciated, it seems,
Guest:outside of America.
Guest:You're absolutely right about that.
Guest:I can't deny it.
Marc:You know, like in Sweden, this kid, he gets hip to Albert when he's like 14 and changes his life and they make a movie about him, right?
Guest:That's how it is.
Guest:That's how it is.
Guest:But I think you really, I mean, that was the film about Albert was partly about that, that they could not get any gigs really in New York.
Guest:I mean, Cecil had to play for the door, but then they went to Sweden and they were booked for two weeks, you know, prepaid.
Guest:So it was a big, big thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's part of this film, how the appreciation was bigger in Europe and in Scandinavia for this music.
Marc:Now, Lee Morgan, you got me at an interesting time with Lee Morgan because I had the experience with Lee Morgan that you had with Albert.
Marc:My guy down at the record store, he gave me... I think the first one I had was Sixth Sense.
Marc:Is that the Lee Morgan album?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't register it.
Marc:And then I got Gigolo, and I put it on, and I'm just walking around the house, and I'm hearing this tone, and I'm like...
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Like, it just went in.
Marc:Like, I didn't register Sixth Sense.
Marc:I didn't know really who Lee Morgan was.
Marc:I was just buying records.
Marc:But the tone on Gigolo just kind of blew my mind, and I felt something.
Marc:And then I locked into Lee Morgan stuff.
Marc:And I was sort of like, does everybody know about this guy?
Yeah.
Marc:Like there was part of me that's sort of like, I think he's better than Miles.
Marc:Exactly, exactly.
Marc:And then when your movie came out, I'm like, I had no idea about that story.
Marc:And I'm sure everyone in the jazz world knows that his wife or his common law wife shot him in the club.
Marc:I guess the story was that he was in the middle of a set originally was the story.
Marc:But then you somehow track down the coincidence of that guy.
Marc:What's his name?
Marc:Larry.
Marc:Larry Ridley.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Larry Rennie Thomas with a cassette.
Marc:Larry Rennie Thomas, who ran into her, Helen Morrigan, who was just working at a church, correct?
Marc:Or working for the school?
Marc:What was it?
Guest:She was actually taking an evening course.
Guest:She had no education, so she came to his evening course in history.
Guest:He was a history teacher and jazz radio DJ.
Guest:This was in the late 80s.
Guest:And they connected.
Marc:And then he finds out, figures out who she is, and he's like, holy shit.
Marc:And then you've got this weird cassette recording interview with her, and you fill in all these gaps.
Marc:And then you've got all these guys who were able to fill in the gaps in the film, too.
Marc:Now, you didn't hook up with Lee until later in his career, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Actually, it was 1968.
Guest:But prior to that... Yeah.
Guest:During my teenage years, when Lee was actually playing with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, I got to hear him, I think the first time I heard him was maybe 1958, 1959, because they came to Detroit.
Guest:They would come usually maybe twice a year.
Guest:And it just happened that even though I was under 21, because it was a law, if you weren't 21, you couldn't come in.
Guest:The guys would even just let me in.
Guest:They said, you have to sit somewhere special.
Guest:Because they knew you were a player.
Guest:Well, they knew that I wanted the music, and I didn't come in there to drink any alcohol.
Guest:I didn't want a beer or any of that.
Guest:But Morgan was always a part of my musical infancy, I say.
Guest:He came with Art Blakey, and that music just captured me with Benny Colson and all those guys.
Marc:Well, that hard bop stuff is accessible.
Marc:that's true it wasn't like straight up bebop and it had a pretty strict blues groove you could lock right into it and swing a little and maybe even snap you're not going to get confused yeah well I mean it was the beginning of a shift yeah
Guest:from the bebop itself as a pure form of the music.
Guest:And with composers like Benny Golson and Bobby Timmons, I mean, they created these things that were related
Guest:basically to the black church again.
Guest:This here and that there and those tunes.
Guest:It just kind of went on from there.
Guest:Those were things that the general public could have access to.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:It seemed like there was an innate marketing strategy.
Guest:Well, there was an innate marketing strategy and there was also some tremendous foundational stuff going on with Art Blakey as the drummer.
Guest:He knew
Guest:He knew how to form it.
Guest:And he had the guys who could carry it over.
Guest:So Morgan was there.
Guest:He was in my head.
Guest:But then, you know, fast forward, when I moved to New York, which was 1962, I never saw Lee Morgan.
Guest:Who were you seeing?
Guest:I saw Freddie Hubbard.
Guest:I heard, of course, I heard Dizzy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kenny Dorham.
Guest:What year is this that you go, 66?
Guest:No, this is like...
Guest:Shortly after I got there, these guys were active.
Guest:Like what year were you there?
Guest:I moved there when I was 21 in 1962.
Guest:So I celebrated my 22nd birthday in New York.
Guest:So the scene was everyone was on the scene.
Guest:Everybody was happening.
Guest:I never saw Miles because that was another realm.
Guest:He was?
Guest:What realm was that?
Guest:He wasn't like...
Guest:He wasn't accessible.
Guest:He wasn't out in the clubs.
Guest:No.
Guest:Later I discovered he would go to the club to hear what they were doing.
Guest:But his thing was on a completely different level.
Guest:Just artistically and where he was as a band leader.
Guest:The whole strata of the thing.
Guest:The mystique of Miles.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:The prince of darkness.
Guest:That's what they used to call him in New York.
Guest:But, you know, I got to hear these guys, but I never saw Lee.
Guest:Because that was when he was down for the count?
Guest:That's when he was busy.
Guest:Strung out?
Guest:Yeah, he was very much addicted.
Guest:I discovered, you know, actually, I knew he was addicted the last couple of times I saw him in Detroit because I could just tell.
Guest:I mean, Detroit musicians were heavily influenced by Charlie Parker, so many of them were addicted.
Guest:So, you know, when you're around people who are addicted...
Guest:And you look at them enough, you can tell physically.
Guest:Oh, yeah, they're droopy.
Guest:They're droopy, they're scratching.
Guest:Their whole being is droopy.
Guest:Yeah, that whole thing that goes with that nasty habit.
Guest:And so fast forward, you know, I'm in New York working, doing my private lessons, playing with the Puerto Rican cats, just getting all of the exposure that I could possibly get, hanging out with Marion Brown and
Guest:Wayne Shorter's brother, Alan Shorter, who was a great composer and trumpet player.
Marc:Now, when do you start playing all the instruments?
Marc:Like you play flute, piccolo, right?
Guest:Bass, clarinet.
Guest:Well, basically, when I got to New York, I was playing the tenor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had the flute.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then a little bit later on, a musician who was known as an avant-garde musician, his name was Marzette Watts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was one of the... He's going deep now.
Guest:Really deep now.
Guest:The ESP guys.
Guest:But Marzette was like... He was a painter.
Guest:Heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock.
Guest:So, you know, people in New York say, oh God, he's out of his mind.
Guest:But he was also working to play...
Guest:The saxophone and the bass clarinet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one day he called me up.
Guest:He says, man, I know you play different instruments.
Guest:He says, but I was just in Paris doing a show because he was showing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This cat was actually going.
Guest:He was making more money doing his paintings than he was as a musician because as a musician, he is too lame.
Guest:I can't hire him for anything.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He doesn't read music.
Guest:He doesn't know any standards.
Guest:I mean, you know, he's better off just, you know, let freedom ring.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he called me and he says, I got this bass clarinet.
Guest:I just purchased a new one and I want to sell my old one.
Guest:He says, why don't you come over and take a look at it?
Guest:And if you like it, then you know, we'll just strike a deal.
Guest:So I said, okay.
Guest:So I went over to his house and he showed me the bass clarinet and I looked at it.
Guest:I picked this up and I kind of felt it.
Guest:I'd never held one in my hands.
Guest:He says, yeah, it's a decent instrument.
Guest:I said, well, how much do you want for it?
Guest:And he said, give me $50 for it.
Guest:So I said, okay, can I give you $20 now and I'll come back when I get some more bread?
Guest:He said, yeah, just pay me when you...
Guest:when you get straight.
Guest:So now you got a whole new thing.
Guest:I got a whole new voice all together, man.
Guest:And I kept it in my apartment.
Guest:I did not bring it out in public at all.
Guest:No?
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, first of all, it was humbling.
Guest:And I couldn't really get the sound.
Guest:It was just the nature of it.
Guest:First of all, it's made out of wood.
Guest:And I had to develop my embouchure and my ear for listening to it.
Guest:Of course, I had already heard Eric
Guest:which was a motivating factor, Eric Dolphy.
Guest:I said, wow, if I could play even one iota as well.
Guest:That was his instrument?
Guest:That was one of them, but he played the flute, the alto, and he played regular clarinet, and he played the bass clarinet.
Guest:I mean, in my mind, he's the one who set the tone for me.
Guest:But later, like I said, I just kind of developed myself.
Guest:I got to be around New York with the guys.
Guest:They were hiring me and kind of take me through some of the gigs and everything.
Guest:And then I got a good gig, which is the first real important international gig.
Guest:And that was with the great composer and pianist Horace Silva.
Guest:Horace Silver.
Guest:I auditioned for his band one time, and he turned me down.
Guest:He says, no, I don't think I got somebody else in mind.
Guest:And then I'm in a rehearsal fight.
Guest:He did hire me after a second audition.
Guest:By then, I had played with McCoy.
Guest:I had played with a bunch of people.
Guest:And I didn't give a damn if he hired me or not.
Guest:But I wanted the gig because I knew that it was going to work because Horace worked.
Guest:He had bands that actually made trips and went to Europe.
Guest:It's exciting.
Guest:I was in rehearsal with him for our first tour.
Guest:It's 1968.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the door opens and it's Lee Morgan.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he looked great.
Guest:He got all cleaned up.
Guest:He was sharp as could be.
Guest:I mean, he was dressed well and the skin looked good.
Guest:I mean, you know, he was definitely not high.
Guest:And, you know, he came right over to me.
Guest:He says, Horace, I'm sorry to interrupt your rehearsal, man, but I got to see for a second if I can talk to your saxophone player.
Guest:And he came over to me and he said, hey, man, I'm getting ready to do another recording with Blue Note.
Guest:Will you do it with me?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:He said, okay, I have somebody from Luno call you.
Guest:He said, that's it.
Guest:And he was gone.
Guest:That took every bit of about three or four minutes.
Guest:And, you know, the first recording I did with him was called Karamba.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was my first one.
Guest:And what was he like?
Guest:He was really during a time that we came together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he was clean.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was no private side.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:No secrets?
Guest:No, he wasn't trying to go off somewhere so he could come back all lit up.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we focused on the music.
Guest:That was our thing.
Guest:And as a result of other recordings we did, we did Tenor Moments with McCoy Tyner.
Guest:And we did one with Lonnie Smith.
Guest:U.N.
Guest:Lee.
Guest:Well, it wasn't just us.
Guest:It was Julian Priester and a bunch of other musicians.
Guest:And we did these things.
Guest:You know, we just got tied.
Guest:We loved the way we played together.
Guest:The sound was great.
Guest:Caramba was the turning point.
Guest:And then finally, after my stay with Horace Silver, which was about two years, I came back to New York and I called Lee.
Guest:I said, hey, Lee, I'm home, man.
Guest:And I'm done.
Guest:Horace just fired everybody.
Guest:Because that's what he would do.
Guest:He'd keep you a couple of years.
Guest:And then he'd say, OK, now you go out and do your thing.
Guest:yeah you know and so he said well that's that's really cool he says uh uh george coleman great saxophonist he says george has been playing with me but george is starting to get more of his own work and he wants to have his own band and i need a tenor player he said will you come and work with me i said hell yeah you're back i'm back so i just went like from being unemployed for maybe two weeks well how'd you meet herbie hancock i met herbie hancock before all of this happened
Marc:Yeah, because you did a lot of records with him.
Guest:Well, yes, I did.
Guest:And I met Herbie Hancock through my chief mentor, Sonny Rollins.
Guest:Once I got to New York, I called Sonny because I met Sonny in Detroit when I was like 17.
Guest:And to this day, he's my man.
Guest:I call him at least once a week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, Sonny.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's doing good.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Yeah, he's in great shape.
Guest:Good, good.
Guest:And just, you know, tremendous spirit.
Guest:You know, I went to see him at the beginning of September and spent three days at his house and we just hung out and talked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gave him a full report on what I'm doing, you know, where I'm going and, you know, what's happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He encouraged me.
Guest:He always has, you know.
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:That was the beginning of a completely different cycle, you know, but the beauty of it
Guest:was that during that period where I was working during the day and everything, I called Sonny, and Sonny's going to play at a place called the Half Note.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A really famous place where Coltrane plays all those incredible solos, and everybody played the Half Note.
Guest:It was like when Trane wanted to play somewhere for four or five weeks, he could play in the Half Note.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and nobody else could get a gig.
Guest:They could just forget about it.
Guest:He said, no, I'm sorry.
Guest:Train is here for the next month.
Guest:You just have to come back later.
Guest:And it was the same with Sonny.
Guest:And so one night, Sonny says, well, meet me when you come, and you can go in the club with me.
Guest:And so I said, OK.
Guest:So I'm standing outside.
Guest:It's wintertime.
Guest:I'm all bundled up and everything.
Guest:And I look one way and I see Sonny walking towards me and I look down the street and there's Herbie walking towards me because I had seen him with Miles, but I didn't know him.
Guest:But we all kind of met like that.
Guest:And Sonny looked at Herbie and says, Herbie, do you know Benny?
Guest:that was it that was it that was it so what made you make this lee morgan movie and how did you reach out to all these guys that's a very good question because when you said before how you found lee yeah i found it's a little bit similar to me i think even if i've been around listening to yes for a long time yeah i made this film about ab it took me seven years after that being a filmmaker i said to myself i will not spend another seven years making a documentary about a dead jazz musician because i'll
Guest:Edward died in 1970.
Guest:It's quite a challenge to do those films.
Guest:Find the people, find the material, find the money.
Guest:And you would try to create the film because there's not too much material left, you know?
Guest:But then being very music interested, it was, I think, eight years ago now.
Guest:I was just watching YouTube.
Guest:I like to do it sometimes, see if there's something I haven't seen or heard.
Guest:And then it was Lee Morgan playing with Art Bacon, Jazz Messengers.
Guest:It was from 1961 in Tokyo.
Guest:It was Lee's solo.
Guest:Lee's solo there in that live recording.
Guest:I never heard anyone play trumpet like that before.
Guest:So it is like that when I find something, I kind of listen to it on repeat for a week.
Guest:So it just goes on and on.
Guest:And I was still reluctant to do another jazz film, but it grew on me.
Guest:And this Lee Morgan is kind of a special guy, I realized.
Guest:And I found another great music like Search for the New Land and the music that you did together, Live at the Lighthouse.
Guest:It was new to me.
Guest:I had listened a lot to jazz, but I missed Lee somewhere in there.
Guest:But then I said, maybe there's a film there.
Guest:We're going to see you do this initial research.
Guest:How many people are still around?
Guest:Is there an archival footage?
Guest:Can we do something?
Guest:And then I realized quite a few people were still around, like Benny, like some other people.
Guest:And I remember in the beginning, I just called around and I had a few meetings with them, started to listen to them.
Guest:Because at this time, I only know about the very basics about Lee, like the Wikipedia knowledge, which was like, he was this young guy that was...
Guest:Recorded with everyone at 18 years old, you know, and just a teenager.
Guest:And he was with Art Blakey, he was with Dizzy.
Guest:He was recorded.
Guest:I mean, he was signed with Blue Note when he was 18.
Guest:What did you do when you were 18?
Guest:I mean, not much.
Guest:Not much.
Guest:I mean, that's quite remarkable.
Guest:And, you know, he did all those records for Blue Note.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:And then I know that he was shot by a woman at the club in the early 70s when he was in the young 30s.
Guest:I didn't know anything about this woman.
Guest:And it didn't seem many people know anything about her either.
Guest:I realized when I read them and also when I saw those YouTube clips, because you can see the comments under.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of the diehard Lee Morgan fans said, he's so great.
Guest:Why is he gone?
Guest:Or that bitch that shot him, she's burning hell forever.
Guest:It was a lot of those very...
Guest:Anger, anger, a lot of anger.
Guest:Of course, I mean- Anger on the internet comments.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very common.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is.
Guest:But I mean, I can see those guys.
Guest:I mean, she, this woman took their idol away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I mean, talking with those guys that I found that were still alive,
Guest:Quite a few of them started to talk about the last four years in Lee's life that he has spent with a woman named Helen.
Guest:And they talked about her, like you did, in a very lovely and passionate way.
Guest:So you knew her, Benny?
Guest:Oh, yeah, most definitely.
Guest:We spent a lot of time together.
Marc:It seemed like everybody sort of knew her in the scene.
Guest:Oh, I spent hours at their home up in the Bronx.
Guest:She was always at the gigs.
Guest:She was always handling the receipts and making sure that the money was right at the end of the night.
Guest:So he didn't have to be preoccupied with any of that.
Guest:He was just playing his music.
Guest:You know, coming back from being, you know, addicted.
Guest:She helped him, you know, of course, you know, fight through the... The sweating and the horrible... Yeah, you know, got him on a methadone and everything.
Guest:So I got to see him at that time.
Guest:You know, when he was really fighting...
Guest:to to to re-emerge yeah to reinvent himself and and and you recorded with him like on the live at the lighthouse that's like that's right we came here at homosa beach that's a big album man yeah well we came and you know uh when i started playing with him he wasn't writing a lot so i came to a rehearsal one day and he uh
Guest:He said, hey, man, you got any tunes?
Guest:So I said, yeah, I got one.
Guest:I got one that brought it with me.
Guest:And we played it.
Guest:And he messed around with it.
Guest:He says, ooh, I like this.
Guest:Have you got any more?
Guest:I says, yeah.
Guest:So pretty soon, there was five tunes.
Guest:And they all on live at the lighthouse.
Guest:He gave me all of it.
Guest:He said, hey, man, these are your tunes.
Guest:Publish them.
Guest:Do whatever the hell you want to do with them.
Guest:He says, I love playing them.
Guest:And he used those tunes.
Guest:My tunes and Harold Mayburn's tunes and Jamie Merritt's tunes.
Guest:Everybody wrote tunes.
Guest:The only one who didn't write a tune was Mickey Roka, the drummer.
Guest:But Mickey added a flavor to the tunes with his drumming and his special touch that the tunes never would have had had it not been for Mickey Roka, the drummer.
Guest:He was fantastic.
Guest:So in a sense, his work was a part of those compositions that made them come to life when he played Eric.
Marc:The backbone.
Guest:Yeah, it was really a tremendous thing.
Marc:So he's coming back.
Marc:He's doing good.
Marc:Lee Morgan's kicking ass.
Marc:Man, he's kicking some serious ass.
Marc:And Helen seemed okay.
Guest:Everything seemed okay to you.
Guest:Hey, man, look, we had a lovely time.
Guest:We spent two weeks in San Francisco playing at a place called The Both And.
Guest:And during that time, we recorded for the radio, which ended up being a bootleg.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's out there somewhere.
Guest:I never made a dime from that because somebody took the masters.
Guest:Nobody know where the masters went.
Marc:You've seen the record, though?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we finally saw it.
Guest:You know, they put somebody else's name on it.
Guest:It wasn't my name.
Guest:It was Billy Harper's name.
Guest:But, you know, I said, hey, look, so be it.
Guest:I mean, you know, that's just the way stuff goes, you know, but...
Guest:we had a fantastic time here in california because san francisco was so great and we're playing like six nights a week and you know having great times to just travel around the city is helen traveling with you guys yeah yeah so everybody was one happy family yeah man we came here we went out to the lighthouse out of the ocean beautiful but that was really really a feeling i had when looking into this talking to those guys it was like one big family and helen was a part of it and then i realized okay this is the same woman that actually shot lee morgan
Guest:And it was like I was in the middle of a Greek tragedy or something or a Shakespearean drama.
Guest:That was the feeling I had in the early.
Guest:And then I found this cassette we were talking about.
Guest:How the fuck did you find that?
Guest:You know, this was in the internet era, you know, still.
Guest:So you knew it was out there?
Guest:No, but I mean, I did this initial research and I found on internet because I didn't know much about Helen.
Guest:I saw this guy.
Guest:He had a blog, Larenda Thomas, and you could read parts of that interview he made with her.
Guest:So I realized, okay, she lived until 1996.
Guest:Okay, and he made an interview.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:I want to hear it.
Guest:So I got in contact with him and he sent me not a cassette, but a CD of it.
Guest:And I remember listening to it the first time was that...
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It wasn't just the story she's telling because she's telling about her life, you know, getting her first son when she's 13, the other one she's 14, leaving them behind because she was looking for another life.
Guest:This was outside Wilmington in North Carolina and then went on into New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And created a new life, met Lee, became his manager, wife, everything.
Guest:But also took care of a lot of the guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Everyone was hanging out.
Marc:She's making food.
Marc:You know, it was like the den mother.
Yeah.
Guest:She was, she was in a way.
Guest:But that was the feeling I had, really, that this camaraderie that she was part of.
Guest:And this tragic night when she shot him, because everyone was hating Helen, of course, has been, that wasn't part of this family that you were.
Guest:They didn't know.
Guest:They didn't know what she had done to him, that she actually helped him through those hard years, and they didn't know that story.
Guest:So I thought that she should be remembered also for that part.
Guest:Sympathetic character.
Guest:Yeah, but it's wrong to kill someone, of course.
Guest:We all think so.
Guest:But people should know her not only as the murderer, also as part of this family.
Guest:And also know what went down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See, there were a lot of things that happened that Lee shared with me personally because he and I were very, very close.
Guest:And he told me one time, he said, you know, Helen comes from a background where she's been severely abused by a man that she was close to.
Guest:And Lee sort of describes it as he was the kind of guy coming from work.
Guest:And, you know, she was there.
Guest:Everything would be beautiful.
Guest:She was a very great cook and a great homemaker.
Guest:And the guy would just start beating her.
Guest:So, you know, that kind of suffering and that kind of struggle, that is not something that's easily forgotten.
Guest:I mean, you can go on away from that.
Guest:And a lot of women don't.
Guest:they stay for whatever reason and uh she did yeah that's why when she moved away from where she had been living she left all of that behind ran away but you can't you can't run from the pain yeah and the scars that an abusive relationship leaves right and the film helped me to to to sort of deal with my own closure about everything oh yeah how so
Guest:Well, you know because we were so close yeah, you know, I just felt like wow You know something with terribly wrong there, you know because when I left Everything was kind of shifting a little bit and and Lee was going through some real transformative.
Guest:Where were you going?
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:Well, I left him after a couple of years and we had done all this stuff because I got a call from Herbie and
Guest:Okay, right.
Guest:And so I said, Lee, I want to take this gig with Herbie.
Guest:And he kind of paused, we were talking on the phone, and he said, man,
Guest:Do it.
Guest:It's going to be good for you.
Guest:That's how much he loved me.
Guest:Whenever I would go back to New York, he was the first person I called.
Guest:This last conversation we had, it was about what he was going through.
Guest:He told me how he was withdrawing from the methadone.
Guest:He told me how he felt.
Guest:He says, I feel bad.
Guest:I feel really bad.
Guest:He says, I ache all over my body.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, because anything that's strong enough to counteract the withdrawal symptoms of heroin has got to be stronger than the heroin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He says, I've given up one habit for another.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He said, but I'm backing off from it.
Guest:I'm backing off from it, man.
Guest:He says, and I'm not feeling good.
Guest:I'm not feeling good.
Guest:You know, he's telling me I was feeling, you know, we never talked about feelings.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was never it, you know, but he was, he had to, he had to unload the
Guest:because emotionally he was going through these changes.
Guest:And then he told me about this woman that he had met and he had spent the night at her house, which was kind of like that was never an issue.
Guest:After our gigs, he went home with Helen.
Guest:That was always it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was the end of the night.
Guest:Receipts.
Guest:The gig was over.
Guest:Everybody got paid.
Guest:And everybody went there on separate ways.
Guest:So he said, I spent the night out, and Helen's calling around.
Guest:She didn't know what to think.
Guest:Where is he?
Guest:Is he hurt?
Guest:She called the hospitals, called the police, and everything.
Guest:And so finally, when he did get back home, she realized that there was a vibe.
Guest:But by then, I wasn't there physically anymore.
Guest:Fortunately for me.
Guest:You weren't there.
Guest:No, I wasn't there.
Guest:But when I saw Casper's film and I heard the comments from the other guys, I started thinking about the conversations that we had had and how he pushed her.
Guest:Very aggressively to the point that she ended up being out on the street with no coat and none of that.
Guest:And then I started thinking, you know, I said that kind of violence triggered something that was deeply buried in her life.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She was temporarily insane as far as I'm concerned.
Guest:Sure, and he was her whole life.
Guest:He was.
Guest:He was.
Guest:And the way she responded, it was just like, for whatever reason, she bought the gun.
Guest:I mean, that was the comic thing.
Guest:He bought the gun for her.
Guest:I saw the gun.
Guest:I held the gun in my hand.
Guest:One time I went to dinner and Lee said, hey, man, come here.
Guest:I want to show you something.
Guest:Takes me in their bedroom, which is lovely.
Guest:I mean, the whole apartment was fantastic.
Guest:And then he opens up a drawer and he pulls out this pearl handle revolver.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:He says, yeah.
Guest:He says, I got this.
Guest:I said, man, what are you going to do with this?
Guest:And he says, well, you know, somebody might try to stiff me for my bread, man.
Guest:I might have to run up on somebody else.
Guest:I mean, you're not going to use that, man.
Guest:And he said, you want to get one?
Guest:I said, no, I don't want anything to do with that.
Guest:I handed it back to him.
Guest:He folded it up in the cloth and he put it back in the drawer.
Guest:But that weapon had been in my hand.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I said, it's a great weapon.
Guest:My father used to have weapons, so I knew about weapons already.
Guest:But that whole exchange.
Guest:So when I saw the film, I started thinking and I started thinking.
Guest:And I said, you know, from her abusive past,
Guest:Something snapped.
Guest:Yeah, well, she thought that he was with another woman.
Guest:But not only that, it was the aggressiveness of him pushing her out into the street.
Guest:From the club.
Guest:From the club.
Guest:That violent act.
Guest:There was a snowstorm going on.
Marc:With his hands.
Guest:I said, okay, that was the trigger.
Marc:Right, but she had the gun.
Marc:She went down there with the gun.
Marc:She went down there with the gun.
Guest:To make a statement of some kind.
Guest:I don't know if that was what her intentions were, and we'll never know.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But she did have the weapon.
Guest:I think she wanted to confront him.
Guest:Well, of course she wanted to confront him, because he wasn't coming forth and telling her very much, and everything was all coming up in the air and everything.
Guest:But I felt that at the moment she killed him, she killed herself.
Guest:She killed herself.
Guest:That's what happened there.
Guest:And I said, this is really clear to me from seeing the film.
Guest:I've seen the film now three times.
Guest:And I said, ah, I got it now.
Guest:I see what happened.
Guest:Temporarily, she was insane.
Guest:She never would have done that.
Guest:yeah but do you know when you carry something and someone's violent towards you and he and she was hurt and she felt deeply betrayed you know like you all of that because you know all the guys knew right you know i mean you know they were in the band so yeah i don't know how public it was right them but he shared with me right that he met somebody and he said you know helen is older than i am sure and i've got a vibe with this woman
Guest:and I didn't mean to hurt her, he says, but at the end of the night, the vibe was such, I just wanted to go and be with her.
Marc:He couldn't get out, though.
Marc:She wasn't gonna let him go.
Guest:Well, he didn't come home, and then when he did,
Guest:I don't know what their exchange was, but I'm quite sure it wasn't lovely because it was painful.
Marc:So did you see Helen after all this went down?
Guest:You know, after I left, I never saw her again until I saw the film.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And that wasn't her.
Guest:That was just her voice.
Marc:What happened there?
Marc:What kind of time did she do?
Marc:How did she end up out?
Guest:Yeah, this is like a film in itself almost.
Guest:We could make another film.
Guest:You could continue and continue.
Guest:We had to make a lot of decisions when we made it.
Guest:I mean, because, yeah, it looks like pretty short time.
Guest:She was in there five years.
Guest:And then it was, did you say parole?
Guest:What do you say in English?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she was...
Guest:out in New York for a while, and then she moved back with the help of her son down to North Carolina and started on again, and again, built another life for her.
Guest:But from a filmmaking perspective, I mean, the big challenge in this film was, you know, with Lee, we had the fantastic music, all the Blue Note photographs, almost 2,000 black and white fantastic photographs to choose from.
Guest:He is one of the most well-documented musicians ever from this era, playing jazz from Blue Note there.
Guest:He liked to dress up, Decker.
Guest:He liked to dress up.
Guest:And then we had all the footage when he was playing.
Guest:But with Helen, she did not like to be photographed.
Guest:We had maybe nine or 10 still photographs of her.
Guest:But then we had her voice.
Guest:So how are we going to solve this?
Guest:I mean, balance those two lives up in film.
Guest:That was the biggest challenge.
Guest:So I think...
Guest:That was what I was trying to say before.
Guest:When I first heard her voice, it wasn't just only the story she was telling that is magnificent.
Guest:It's the sound of her voice, too.
Guest:So I think when we were making this film and editing it, we were feeling kind of almost like musicality in her voice.
Guest:I really loved listening to that voice and working with that cassette recording like a...
Guest:like a music piece in a way.
Guest:So I think the nicest comment I ever had on this film was when it was shown, it was premiered in Venice, and then I went to Telluride Film Festival, and there the opera director, Peter Sellars, where he was there.
Guest:The guy from the opera?
Guest:Yeah, and he really loved the film, and he hugged me and said, hey, man, what have you done?
Guest:This is fantastic.
Guest:And I will never forget it because you've done the duet, the duet between Helen and Lee, you know, between his trumpet and her voice.
Guest:And I said, oh, wow.
Guest:That...
Guest:That was deep to me because that was really what we felt when we edited this film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was trying to treat her.
Guest:I mean, that's her story with what she's saying, but it's also like music.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So you made a little jazz yourself.
Guest:there you go good job with very few elements yeah i thank casper for making the film because you know i was with herbie all this stuff happened i was stunned yeah and i couldn't come back to new york yeah i didn't go to the funeral because i couldn't yeah herbie booked all these gigs
Guest:And, you know, I was just fucked up behind it.
Guest:I stayed high a lot, that's for sure.
Guest:Some of my friends had some good weed and a great cocaine and shit.
Guest:And I was getting higher than a motherfucker, as they say.
Guest:But then it got to a point where it started to be abusive, and I've always been able to say, okay, that's the end of that.
Guest:But it just hurt me, man.
Guest:And when I came back to New York, there was an emptiness that I felt.
Guest:I said, wow, I can't call him.
Guest:I can't call him.
Guest:Or her.
Guest:Or her.
Guest:I was never angry with her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wasn't.
Guest:I was hurt, but I wasn't angry because I loved her too.
Guest:It's like losing two good friends.
Guest:I never saw her again until I saw her in the film.
Guest:And then it just brought back all these moments that we shared.
Guest:You still got those?
Guest:Yeah, the dinners that we had.
Guest:Because I would go up there
Guest:And Lee would say, oh, man, let's have dinner.
Guest:Let's go get some blow and just go out and hear everybody.
Guest:And that's what we would do.
Guest:We might go to three or four clubs in one night.
Marc:I'll tell you, it was a tragic movie, but the feeling at the end was not sad.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's not easy to do.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's not easy to do.
Guest:Yeah, you have to get your head really straight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You thought about this for seven years.
Guest:This guy lived with this, you know.
Guest:I would say that the editing, we edited this film over a three-year period, and so that was very important to really have that time, and I worked with excellent editors when making this film.
Guest:But it was very important, really, to coming in from the music side with Lee and also ending with the music in this film and to have that music feeling all through the film.
Guest:So, yeah, it was a lot of struggle to get it together because, I mean, basically it's a fantastic story, but you also will have that music as part of it all the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the idea was really to make this film to be experienced in a cinema with the right sound, quite loud.
Guest:So we really hear the beauty and the power in this music.
Marc:Well, thanks for doing it, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:And thanks for talking, guys.
Marc:Hey, thank you.
Marc:Okay, as I mentioned, I called him Morgan is in Contention for a Best Documentary Feature nomination, so if you're a member of the Academy and you haven't seen it, please check it out.
Marc:Speaking about documentaries, I'd also like you to check out another doc that's in contention.
Marc:It's called Sidemen, Long Road to Glory about the lives of some legendary bluesmen.
Marc:I did the narration for it, and I hope you're considering voting for it as well.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Dig it.
Marc:So, Jimmy Vaughn.
Marc:Jimmy Vaughn, what can I say about Jimmy Vaughn?
Marc:I was thrilled to meet the guy.
Marc:When I was in high school, later in high school, I don't know where I got them.
Marc:The first two fabulous Thunderbirds records that girls go wild.
Marc:And what's the word?
Marc:Those two records.
Marc:I didn't know who they were.
Marc:I'm not sure where I got the records.
Marc:I tend to think that I got them from a box of records from the record store next door, the RB record store next door to where I worked in high school, and they didn't want them anymore.
Marc:But it was just like the greatest, most fun, you know, just kind of swing groove Texas blues music that I'd ever reckoned with.
Marc:And I just loved it.
Marc:And I loved the cover.
Marc:It was just this goofy-ass cover.
Marc:Keith Ferguson, Jimmy Vaughn, Kim Wilson, Mike Buck.
Marc:And then I saw a sign somewhere in Albuquerque that the Fabulous Thunderbirds are going to be playing the Golden Inn out on Highway 14 in Albuquerque.
Marc:I'll tell Jimmy about this.
Marc:So, like, at that time, I was very into buying vintage clothing.
Marc:I had a couple of... I had a sharkskin jacket that I was sort of obsessed with.
Marc:And then there was a couple of shiny suits.
Marc:I had a gold suit and a silver suit that were shiny.
Marc:It wasn't quite sharkskin, but it was shiny.
Marc:I don't know what the material was, but shiny.
Marc:And I got my skinny ties.
Marc:And, you know, I combed my hair up.
Marc:I did a little of that.
Marc:I've been out there in the desert fashion-wise for 40 years.
Marc:40 years lost in the desert.
Marc:I finally figured it out about five years ago.
Marc:But I can't remember who I went up there with to see the Fabulous Thunderbirds at this old biker bar, the Golden Inn, which later burned down.
Marc:But I had a great time, man.
Marc:Got drunk in the car, maybe smoked a little weed, went in there with my shiny suit, and just danced until I sweat my ass off for like an hour and a half, man.
Marc:And they just rocked the place.
Marc:And it was just life-changing, or at least month-changing.
Marc:Maybe half a year changing.
Marc:But since then, I've always loved Jimmy Vaughn.
Marc:I love the way he plays guitar.
Marc:He had a big influence on how I handle a guitar and...
Marc:I imagine most of you never heard of him, but Jimmy, he'll be playing in New York next week, December 1st and 2nd at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Marc:The most recent album of the Jimmy Vaughn trio with Mike Flanagan is called Live at Seaboys.
Marc:I saw that band with Jimmy Vivino in Austin the last time I was there, and that's when I first met Jimmy, and I was a little fucking starstruck.
Marc:Jimmy Vaughn's the guy that makes me starstruck.
Marc:So this is me and Jimmy Vaughn talking.
Marc:I live the dream in the garage, Jimmy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like many people.
Marc:But when I play blues, when I want to play with records, I play to your first two records.
Marc:I play to those fabulous Thunderbirds records.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:Those are the ones I play to because your guitar sound and your guitar playing, to me, was the best to learn from and to play to.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:That's just the truth of it.
Marc:That's where I come from.
Marc:And I saw you in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Golden Inn.
Marc:There's an old biker's bar up behind the Sandia Mountains.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was in high school.
Marc:I put on my sharkskin suit and I went and saw you.
Marc:That must have been like, what, 78?
Marc:Well, you know, the whole thing is a dream.
Marc:Right now?
Guest:No, it was from the beginning.
Guest:So, you know, like you're a kid, and you don't like the way things are going necessarily, or something ain't right, and you get this idea, gee, I wonder if I could be a guitar player.
Guest:Because you heard a B.B.
Guest:King record or something, or you heard whatever it is, you know, that flipped your switch, and you...
Guest:You just do it because, first of all, you find out you can do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:And then your dreams take over and you just go for it.
Guest:And then you just sort of end up... Playing with Clapton in Madison Square Garden.
Guest:Well, yeah, but I think... I mean, everybody with a guitar, that's the American dream, isn't it?
Guest:It's one of them.
Guest:One of them, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I remember when I first started playing guitar, I had a...
Guest:The guy at school in junior high told me, he said, look, he said, if you want a girlfriend, if you want the girls, you're going to have to play football.
Guest:There's no other way.
Guest:And I was like, really?
Guest:And he said, well, you have to come down there on Thursday and you have to go out for football.
Guest:And I'm thinking, I didn't say anything.
Guest:I was thinking, man, I'm the worst football player in the whole school, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that didn't make any difference.
Guest:So I went down there, and I said, I don't even know what to do.
Guest:He said, well, you look like you're a left halfback.
Guest:Get over there in that crowd over there.
Guest:So they said, okay, Jimmy Vaughn.
Guest:I ran out there, and I mysteriously caught this pass.
Guest:It was an accident.
Guest:And they all...
Guest:piled on me and i brought my collarbone that was it so they sent me home was home for three months my dad came home from work and said i don't know what we're going to do with you he said here he gave me this guitar that he had gotten from a friend of his had three strings on it so i've been playing ever since since he had those three strings yeah and i'll show you if you hand me that damn guitar i'll show you what i did
Marc:I don't know what, that might be in an open tuning, I don't know, check it out.
Guest:It's okay, it doesn't matter, because I only had three strings and I didn't know what to do, but I had a... I didn't know how to do it, so I went...
Guest:That's what I learned the first day.
Guest:That's all you need.
Guest:And I'm still doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I was so fucking excited when I learned how to do that.
Guest:It was backwards, but I did it anyway.
Marc:But, you know, that thing, that thing, and when you learn how to change to the A. Oh, man.
Yeah.
Marc:it's so fucking exciting so i've still got that bug yeah that's what drives me i'm excited i'm excited thinking about it because i learned chords first but when someone told me taught me i think it was honky tonk really i was like oh my god and then it just ended there for me that was that was
Marc:Well, I still play that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I still play it all night.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:It's pretty satisfying, right?
Marc:It's fabulous.
Marc:What was the guy, like when you were a kid, I mean, if that's the way it happened,
Marc:What was the first blues song?
Marc:What was the first thing that just entered your head and didn't let go?
Guest:There was a guy, there was a radio station called WRR in Dallas that came on at 10 o'clock at night, I believe it was, played till midnight, and they would play Jimmy Reed, lots of Jimmy Reed, and they would play Lightning Hopkins and three or four guys.
Guest:So I had a transistor radio, and you're supposed to go to bed at 10,
Guest:You know, you can lay in the bed with a light out and click that transistor radio on and you can just hear it if you put it to your ear.
Marc:Right, stick it right up there.
Guest:And it doesn't do anything to your head like nowadays.
Marc:Yeah, it doesn't blast your ears out.
Guest:Well, you know, nowadays it's... Oh, yeah, it might be.
Guest:The whatever the... Yeah, satellite.
Marc:The beam.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:Satellites making babies in your brain.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, that was it.
Guest:And then at midnight, I would flip over...
Guest:to XCRF, which was Wolfman Jack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I learned after that I could get Nashville.
Guest:Oh, you could get all the way out there.
Guest:Because they were the big stations, you know.
Guest:From Dallas you could get it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Late at night, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I could probably.
Guest:And that was the horse man and all that stuff.
Marc:Like, what, just country stuff?
Guest:No.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:No, it was blues.
Guest:It was a blues show.
Marc:From Nashville?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All blues?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you were like, what, like a kid?
Guest:How old?
Guest:12, 13.
Guest:And what's your brother doing?
Guest:He was eight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he wasn't there yet.
Guest:But when I got a record player and started playing albums, I would try to play some song.
Guest:I'd get a record and try to play it, put it down, and say, don't touch my guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had the same room, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then he would pick it up and as soon as I left and play the same thing.
Guest:So he basically started a little bit after I did, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did you take lessons?
Guest:No.
Guest:You never did?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I tried to take lessons one time.
Guest:My dad said, son, if you want to get good on that, you're going to have to learn your majors and your minors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went down on Jefferson in Oak Cliff to Boyd's Guitar School.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went down there the first lesson.
Guest:He gave me a couple of things, you know, notes and stuff.
Guest:He said, I'm not going to tell you what this song is.
Guest:I want you to learn the notes.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:So I'll see you next week.
Guest:So I came back.
Guest:After a couple weeks, I finally figured out that the melody was Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Guest:So I played that, and he goes, you're not reading that.
Guest:And I said, well, look, what do you want me to do?
Guest:You want me to read or play?
Guest:I can't do both.
Guest:So he fired me after a couple of lessons.
Guest:As a student, he let you go.
Marc:I'm not going to teach you, kid.
Guest:It's over.
Marc:And when did you start?
Guest:What business was your dad in?
Guest:My dad was an asbestos worker.
Guest:What they called a pipe cover.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's not healthy.
Guest:It's not real healthy, no.
Guest:No.
Guest:You know, they would insulate.
Guest:He was called an insulator.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:They would insulate pipes on buildings, big buildings.
Marc:Oh, and that was it?
Marc:Before it was safe?
Marc:Yeah, and so he... Did he get sick from that?
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:He died from the black lung and asbestosis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:But, you know, that's...
Guest:There was a lot of musicians in his local in Dallas, a lot of rock and roll guys, hillbilly guys and all kinds of people were there because you could go and make a lot of money on a couple of weeks.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then go off on tour or whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Anybody that you knew?
Guest:Well, there was a guy named Leonard.
Guest:I don't know his last name, but his name was Leonard and he had a guitar.
Guest:He had a big Gibson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like an L5 or something with two pickups and his name in the neck.
Guest:Pearl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Leonard.
Guest:And he told me, he came over to my house.
Guest:My parents would play dominoes on the weekends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he came over there with another guy and they played in the living room while they were playing dominoes.
Guest:and i said uh i like i like that blue stuff and he goes you mean like this so he he started playing jimmy reed he showed me how to play jimmy reed chuck berry and john lee hooker in one night oh you need to show me how it went yeah right sure the what the chords were and he had actually played with chuck berry like backed him up you know
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:A lot of people did, I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Chuck would come into town and go, who's going to do it?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he told you, those are three pretty essential things, man.
Marc:It's unbelievable.
Marc:I mean, God sent that guy there, you know, for me.
Guest:You need that guy.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:How old were you when that happened?
Guest:I was about 12, 13.
Guest:I mean, I just started trying to play.
Yeah.
Guest:So were there other people that taught you stuff?
Guest:My uncles on both sides of my family.
Guest:My uncle on my mom's side played guitar.
Guest:They played in hillbilly bands and on my dad's side too.
Guest:He was people.
Guest:Like hillbilly bands?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, which was just country at the time.
Guest:Merle Travis, you know, they like Merle Travis and Hank Williams and all that stuff.
Guest:And so...
Guest:But, you know, when I first started playing, I didn't know that there was a difference between... It was just cool music, I thought.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:You know, I heard blues on the radio...
Guest:And, you know, B.B.
Guest:King and all that stuff.
Guest:Jimmy Reed and Chuck Berry.
Guest:I had, you know, I had Chuck Berry records.
Guest:And then I met this harmonica player who was about 15 years older than me.
Guest:He was a grown-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:he gave me a little walter album oh yeah yeah the best of little walter um yeah and then he then i found you know muddy waters and all that stuff yeah the chest box yeah but it wasn't a box it was just the best it's a real album yeah yeah of of little walter would juke on it yes yeah man that thing that that's a life changer and so did you play harp at all
Guest:well no i mean i tried but but but you know i never could play and then i got uh i met kim wilson so i didn't really that guy is sort of a savant he's a he's he's a great harmonica yeah like he's just a gifted player yeah so i you know where'd you mean i stuck to the guitar how old were you when you met him
Guest:Well, I guess it was in the 70s, so I was probably 19 or 20, something like that.
Marc:And he was just around?
Guest:No, he came down.
Guest:He came to Austin, and I was already playing down there, and he came to Austin.
Guest:came to this place where I was playing and said, I want to sit in.
Guest:We said, okay.
Guest:And he got up and he did the big Walter Horton, George Smith thing, you know, and tore it up.
Guest:And so about two weeks later, we're like, well, we need to get a band.
Guest:I think we'll call it the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Guest:And he was like, yeah.
Guest:So, you know, that's how we got started basically.
Guest:But you grew up in Dallas mostly?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, I moved to Austin when I was 18, so that was in 1969.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Permanently.
Guest:I had been playing there.
Guest:I used to play, and when I was 15, I got in this band that was a band that played fraternity parties, and they made a lot of money playing fraternity parties.
Marc:Top 40 stuff?
Guest:Yeah, anything.
Guest:Beatles, whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they were all 21, and I was 15.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got to stay out all weekend, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a lot of fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was making $300 a week.
Guest:That's pretty good for 68.
Guest:In the 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the mid to late 60s for a 15-year-old kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Better than football.
Guest:A whole lot better.
Guest:And there was girls there.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You get more girls with a guitar than a football.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I don't know about that, but it's a lot easier.
Guest:I do.
Guest:Unless you're the quarterback.
Guest:But see, the thing was, I didn't know how to play football.
Guest:I was the worst football player in the world.
Marc:I know.
Marc:The guitar worked out better.
Marc:So you're playing, you're doing $300 a week.
Marc:You're 15 years old.
Marc:Did you just quit school or did you stay in?
Marc:I just ran off.
Marc:Yeah, that was it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To Austin.
Guest:Well, I went to Dallas first.
Guest:I went downtown and I had...
Guest:gigs down there we had we played a place called the cellar yeah for a while and then with the fraternity band no that was a different band i was in a band called the chessmen yeah who i was telling you the guys were 21 yeah yeah and uh we got a gig we opened for uh hendrix you did when this was when hendrix came out his first like his first tour of the states yeah so we played at smu
Guest:uh in dallas other southern methodist university auditorium in dallas was was he popular at that point yeah he was big well he was you know he was it was a big buzz i mean he filled up the yeah
Guest:2,000 seats.
Guest:I don't know how many.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a small auditorium.
Marc:Was that the same tour that Billy opened for him?
Marc:Probably.
Marc:With that first band of his?
Marc:Moving Sidewalks.
Marc:Moving Sidewalks, yeah.
Marc:I'm sure it was.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So what was your experience with Jimmy?
Guest:He was a nice guy?
Guest:He was real nice, but I just remember when they came out, and I just remember his...
Guest:his the licks he did when he came out to see if his guitar was working when he first put it on yeah he just went yeah it was like but it was like five times that fast right yeah i can't even do it that fast right but uh you thought he was fabulous i got some work to do
Guest:Well, I already knew that, but he was Jimi Hendrix and I wasn't.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But most of those wicks were blues wicks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was fantastic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I always thought of Hendrix as, you know, he was like...
Guest:Muddy Waters' stepson who had just got back from his tour of Mars.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Yeah, that makes sense.
Marc:When watching somebody like Hendrix at that time, I can't imagine, because you play pretty straight in.
Marc:You just go right into the amp for the most part, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:People then...
Marc:He just, like, what, he had one or two pedals and then just went right into the amp, just turned that thing out, right?
Marc:It was kind of pure.
Marc:It seemed more pure back then.
Guest:Well, they didn't have all that stuff.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And it sounds better, right?
Guest:If you were in the studio, you could have echo and things.
Guest:But basically, he had the Univibe and he had a fuzz face, I think, something like that.
Guest:And so he could...
Guest:The amp's already all the way up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the fuzz face will give you a little more... I guess he was using it for the sustain and all that.
Guest:It was just everything all the way up.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So he could do the space travel.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I mean, you know, he did...
Guest:You know, the first time I found the first Hendrix record, there used to be a TV show in Dallas when I was a kid.
Guest:I come off from school.
Guest:It was called something else.
Guest:And it had cheerleaders dancing and they would play records.
Guest:It was one of those kind of deals after school record party dance.
Yeah.
Guest:And I went over there and would go through the bin in the back, the trash bin, and they have other records they didn't like in there.
Guest:And I found Purple Haze, the 45.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Foxy, I think, I forget what's on the other side, maybe Foxy, whatever it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I brought it home and played it because I had seen his name in a little blurb somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that was the way I found Hendrix.
Marc:In the garbage.
Marc:In the garbage.
Marc:They had been put out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They decided that wasn't the kind of music they were going to play for their people.
Marc:And you were a teenager still.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was so exciting.
Marc:Well, what is it about Texas, man?
Marc:Because I listen to you guys on those first two Fabulous Thunderbirds records.
Marc:Those are real Texan records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And those are, that sound is very specific.
Marc:And at that time, when I first heard, I'm like, what the fuck is, no one was playing blues like that.
Marc:You know, it was a, it was, it almost, I think it almost happened at the same time as punk rock somewhere in that area.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they called us, what'd they call us?
Guest:Blue punk or something like that.
Guest:Are they trying to think of what to do with us?
Guest:Trying to market you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it all comes from a certain number of people that are specifically Texas.
Right.
Guest:Well, you know, it came from everywhere, really.
Guest:But in Texas, like T-Bone Walker's from Texas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was the first guy to play the electric guitar on the blues.
Guest:He's the guy.
Guest:He's the guy.
Guest:So he comes from Texas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But everybody had to go to LA to get a record.
Guest:Not everybody, but there was guys in Houston and guys in Dallas.
Guest:Back in the day, are we talking?
Guest:How far back?
Guest:Before you?
Guest:30s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:35, I think T-Bone made his first electric guitar record.
Guest:All the licks are on those records.
Guest:Every lick.
Guest:That's before World War II.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:So, think how heavy that is.
Guest:And then right next to him was Gate Mouth Brown, who was, there's pictures of him playing together.
Guest:So, T-Bone goes to LA, gets gigs, records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gate Mouth goes and takes... When T-Bone goes on tour, Gate Mouth gets his gig at whatever the place was, you know.
Marc:Out here?
Guest:Yes, right here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's where it spreads, the Texas sound.
Guest:But some of them, you know, it's going on in Houston, and then the Mississippi guys go to Chicago.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know how it is?
Guest:You find T-Bone Walker, you find Chuck Berry, and then you read the back of the album and it says, I like...
Guest:T-Bone Walker and T-Bone says, I like Charlie Christian.
Guest:So you go get Charlie Christian.
Guest:Charlie Christian leads you over here.
Guest:You hear Jimmy Reed.
Guest:You go over here.
Guest:You go over there.
Guest:It's on a reverse search.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah, it's a rabbit hole.
Guest:Just so I connect the dots.
Guest:And so, you know, I'm still finding guys that I didn't know about.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's impossible.
Guest:It'll never end.
Guest:It's so exciting.
Marc:On record, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And now there's young guys coming up that are going to be fine, let me tell you.
Marc:The blues are going to be fine?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Have you seen Gary Clark?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I've seen him.
Marc:You've seen him in person?
Marc:I've seen him.
Marc:I saw him open for the Stones in San Diego.
Marc:And that other guy, the guy who plays with him, the guy in the poncho.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's his name?
Marc:Zapata.
Marc:Zapata.
Marc:He can play too.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:So I think we're going to be all right.
Marc:Well, let me ask you about that.
Marc:When you were coming up in Austin, when you kind of settled down after you opened for Hendrix, that was in Dallas, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With the first band.
Marc:But once you get to Austin and you're 18 years old, there's a scene there, right?
Marc:Already in the 60s.
Guest:no there was only bill campbell and uh who's that guy he was a he played similar to uh freddie king oh he was uh like that he played great and then there was uh did you see freddie king yeah many many many times i played with freddie king yes yeah wow man that's heavy he was serious yeah yeah okay what do you mean
Guest:Well, I mean, he was just like Albert King.
Guest:He was big and imposing and cool and just loud and just badass.
Marc:Isn't it interesting you listen to those earlier records just how fluid he was and then later he just lay into just riffs that ran deeper somehow?
Guest:I never could understand how do these guys figure out what they're going to play?
Guest:Because when you're a kid and you have their album, you hear the beginning.
Guest:And all the stuff in the middle.
Guest:How do they know how to solo?
Guest:And how do they know what they're going to play?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You mean in the actual song?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How do they land that thing?
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I haven't figured it out.
Marc:That's why I stay in the garage.
Guest:Well, so I imagined myself one time.
Guest:If I was in the room with all my favorite guys, Albert King, Buddy Guy, B.B.
Guest:King, Freddie King, and they all played and we did a roundy roundy and it got to me, what was I going to do?
Guest:I'd be pretty much screwed.
Guest:That's what you think?
Guest:It starts off a pretty good fantasy, and then all of a sudden, the pressure's on.
Guest:Well, then you realize... Yeah.
Guest:I'm not as good as I thought I was.
Guest:Yeah, these guys.
Guest:So, I mean, that's... Well, then you have to ask yourself, what do I do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you take from all these guys, and you learn from them, and you emulate them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:When it gets your turn, what are you going to do?
Guest:Because you can't do what they did.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You have to have your own voice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a couple guys that could use that information.
Guest:And that's what I've really worked on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Not that I don't- You were conscious of it.
Marc:Yeah, you were conscious of it and-
Marc:Like, you know, I've listened to these guys.
Marc:I know how to play like these guys.
Marc:But in order to find my own groove, my own thing, you got to let it happen.
Marc:I mean, you can't.
Marc:You have to ask yourself, what do I do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what did you come up with?
Marc:I mean, I hear it on the record.
Guest:Well, I mean, it.
Guest:Your own personality will come out eventually if you keep playing.
Guest:I think.
Guest:I think you're right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it does.
Guest:But I'm still trying to learn, and it still changes.
Guest:And five years ago, I probably didn't play what I play now exactly.
Marc:And how do you feel that your playing has evolved?
Guest:Well, it just changes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you got to play what you want to hear.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's the idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it just sort of changes.
Guest:You don't want to play the same thing over and over exactly.
Marc:So now when you get up to Austin, you know, you're starting to play up there.
Marc:And I imagine Stevie's still at home in Dallas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, when I ran away from home,
Guest:My mother and dad sort of clamped down on Stevie and said, you're not going to do what he did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to do your schoolwork.
Guest:You're going to we're going to watch you.
Guest:So don't think about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And which just made him.
Guest:Try harder.
Guest:On the guitar.
Guest:On the guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he came up.
Guest:When he got out of high school, he came to Austin.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you knew he was just down there doing it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Just down there working it out?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Did you guys get along pretty well?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:So he came up after high school?
Marc:So now the Vaughn brothers are in Austin.
Marc:That sounds like trouble to me.
Marc:That must have been trouble.
Guest:Well, he did pretty good right away.
Guest:Started playing around.
Guest:He got a band and started playing gigs.
Yeah.
Marc:The Double Trouble Band?
Marc:Or was it a different brand?
Guest:It was Triple Threat.
Guest:He had several different versions.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Always a three-piece or four-piece?
Guest:No, people come and go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it's not as much... You don't always get what you want.
Guest:Like, you don't always... You can't have who you want all the time.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Or they won't play what you want, or they want to do something else, or you know what I mean.
Guest:It's...
Guest:It evolves and changes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So after the first couple of Thunderbirds records, what was your relationship?
Marc:Those were on Tacoma, right, the first two?
Marc:And then you switched labels?
Guest:Well, Tacoma, they leased it to Chrysalis.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Was there pressure to change the sound?
Yeah.
Guest:Um, not really because we started out so crazy.
Guest:They didn't really know what to do.
Guest:They wanted to, they wanted us, you know, like they had some ideas.
Guest:Hey man, we could be blue wave.
Guest:We're like, nah, it doesn't sound right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so they were trying to wedge you in.
Guest:Well, they wanted to figure out how to market us, I guess.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, you know, all we wanted to do was kind of play Jimmy Reed or little Walter songs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they, uh,
Guest:It took a while to get going.
Guest:Kim wrote a lot of songs, and we would come up with stuff, so that was helpful.
Marc:And then Dave Edmonds produced that, what was that, third record or the fourth record?
Guest:And then we...
Guest:Went and toured England.
Guest:Rock Pile hired us to open their tour of England.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when we met Dave and Nick Lowe.
Guest:Nick Lowe produced us first.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was great.
Guest:That was one of our best records.
Marc:Which record was that?
Guest:I'm in the mood to tear it up.
Guest:I don't know the name of it.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:T-Bird Rhythm.
Guest:T-Bird Rhythm was the name of it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you like working with him?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was great.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:I talked to that guy.
Guest:We had a great time with him.
Marc:They did You Ain't Nothing But Fine, Fine, Fine, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's your song, isn't it?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:I was rocking Sydney.
Marc:Rocking Sydney, right.
Yeah.
Guest:We worked with Nick, and then we went on and did... It was a few years later that we worked with Dave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then... That was Tough Enough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Did you have... You had some hits, kind of, right?
Guest:Tough Enough was our hit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tough Enough, yeah.
Guest:Ain't that tough enough?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then what happened?
Marc:Then you did another record?
Guest:Well, I think we did 10 albums all together, Thunderbirds, something like that.
Marc:And it's still kind of going along without you, is it?
Guest:Yeah, Kim, they're still going.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And what happened was...
Guest:This is my version.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Against Kim's version, you mean?
Guest:Well, I don't know what Kim's version is.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But what happened was the record company, Epic Records, after Tough Enough came to me and said, Stevie was hitting really hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They said, we want you to do a Vaughn Brothers record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, okay.
Guest:Because my dad had talked about it since when I was a little kid.
Guest:He would say...
Guest:you know somebody would come out of the house and say you boys go get your guitar stevie had a toy guitar yeah go get your guitars and play a tune for so and so yeah and then we would play a song or i would play a song stevie would yeah pretend to play yeah at first and then the the person the the guest would go well you guys are pretty good maybe you can make a record someday
Guest:You know, so that seed was planted from 12 years old.
Guest:The two of you playing together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, Tony Martell from Epic Records said, we need to make a record on you guys.
Guest:And they all wanted it.
Guest:And when they want something.
Guest:it means you you know it's a good thing when they want it yeah yeah it's better money it's a lot better when they don't want it yeah when they don't want it there's no money and then you have to talk them into it and they don't want to do it no it's better than it's better when more than one people want it yes yes so i i just i wanted to do it and stevie wanted to do it stevie had just had a won a grammy
Guest:I think from his In Step record.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the third record.
Marc:I got it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Up on the Tightwire.
Marc:Was it that one?
Guest:Was that the one on there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the Sober record.
Guest:So anyway, he was kind of hitting it pretty hard and...
Guest:Everything was going along pretty good for him.
Guest:And then the record company started saying, hey, Tony Martell said, hey, we want Jimmy and Stevie to make a record together.
Guest:And he pushed it.
Guest:It was really Tony Martell.
Guest:And we said, OK.
Guest:And then it became fun, and we did it.
Marc:Was it fun playing with them?
Marc:Oh, it was fabulous.
Marc:Did you guys have a sort of sixth sense about how each other worked?
Marc:Had you been playing together long enough?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was telepathic.
Marc:It's a good record.
Marc:I loved hearing that record.
Marc:It was sad that it came out after he passed, but it was great.
Guest:Well, you know, we had no idea what was going to happen.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:And so we thought, well, we'll be able to tour, and this will be fun.
Guest:And the record company was excited about the record, too, from all along.
Guest:I remember we went and played for them.
Guest:They came over in New York.
Guest:We were at Hit Factory or wherever it was we were recording, and some of the...
Guest:Guys came over from the label, the Big Shots, and we played them a couple of the tunes, and they were just like, well, that's a hit, and that's a hit.
Guest:And we were like, yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, it was like that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then- What was on that record?
Marc:Was it mostly original shit?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You guys wrote it together?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we did the White Boot.
Guest:There was a couple of songs we didn't write, but most of them we did.
Guest:uh-huh and then uh and then and then they like when you were like right after you finished it and then we finished it and then uh stevie had a gig in wisconsin with eric clapton and all these people were going to be and he called me and said you got to come everybody's going to be here buddy guys come in and everybody's coming and that's when it happened
Guest:so and that was a month and the record was already scheduled and uh we you know the first single was going to be good texan yeah and and we got together the rec company said we can't put out good texan it's too it's silly under these circumstances it's not gonna
Guest:after he passed you mean yeah yeah because it was all you know it was a shock and it's tragic and it's just you know all that you know so you don't want to put out a comedy record right uh right it didn't feel right so so they put out tick tock which was kind of time sticking you know it was more a little heavy more heavy yeah yeah how that and then it did all right though right
Guest:Yeah, the record ended up selling really good, but it wouldn't, I think it would have sold better had that not happened.
Marc:Everything would have been better.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Had that not happened.
Guest:But I mean, it was more of a, it was such a shock.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The whole thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he'd just gotten it together, right?
Marc:You know, he was sober.
Guest:He just got sober.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had three months.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you just had three months when he got sober?
Guest:You know what I thought?
Guest:I don't know if I can talk about this on the radio, but I said, well, I got three months.
Guest:I said, if I went out and really tied one on, nobody would blame me.
Right.
Guest:And then right after that, and I thought, no, my mother and then Stevie will come back and kill me.
Guest:But, you know, it's funny is what they say is that like, you know, like that the disease was looking for a reason.
Guest:Was looking for a reason.
Yeah.
Guest:oh man well i'm glad you didn't i'm glad i didn't too it might so you guys were both out there at the same time just watching each other you know well tear it down he got sober first yeah he broke down a couple of times and went in the hospital and uh for the coke right just yeah yeah drinking and whatever yeah and so he was in the hospital in london
Guest:So I called Eric and said, hey, my brother's down the street at so-and-so.
Guest:He went over and visited him.
Marc:Eric, yeah, Clapton did, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and he planted the seed?
Guest:That's what did it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Stevie got sober, went to treatment, got sober, and then, you know, he had two or three years more than me.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And we would be on tour, and he would be all sober, and they would be in their room, and they would have Cokes and iced tea.
Guest:And I'd be standing across the hall with my screwdriver that was about this tall.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I'd be like, would you like one?
Guest:Come on over.
Guest:Oh, you're like the devil over there.
Guest:I was.
Marc:Yeah, still having a good time.
Guest:But I was at that point where I couldn't imagine life with it or without it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Waking up shaking and shit.
Guest:yeah yeah it's that's that's that's and everybody when i quit when i quit drinking everybody was like man we are so glad nobody said come on man start drinking again right yeah you were you were not the life of the party no no so what's your set list like when you do a when you're opening for clapton what do you what do you run through um you change it up
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We pretty much just, we get out there and play blues and we do a couple of things off of, you know, each record.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But not with any, it's not like we have a radio hit now that everybody wants to hear exactly.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So...
Guest:you know we just go out there and have a good time really yeah yeah you playing some of the original stuff or mostly covers what are you doing mostly covers but but yes some original yeah are you putting out a record i got a uh organ trio record coming out with mike flanagan yeah on the b3 and george range on the drums did you self-release it no it's on proper okay from england oh cool they're gonna do vinyl
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Then I'll take it.
Marc:I'll take one of those vinyls.
Guest:And it's on all those digital things, too.
Guest:You want to try to play a song?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I mean, you're going to get to jam on this, too.
Marc:It's just got some lyrics.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Go for it.
Guest:Let's do Roll, Roll, Roll.
Guest:How about that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You go ahead.
Guest:B-flat.
Marc:B-flat or B-flat?
Guest:B-flat.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:This is Guitar Junior.
Guest:The great Guitar Junior.
Guest:We're gonna cheer up the living, gonna wake up the dead Midnight girl, we're gonna paint this town red We're gonna roll, we're gonna roll Roll, roll all night long We're gonna pull back the rug, we're gonna kick up the floor Midnight girl, we're gonna boogie some more
Guest:Roll, roll all night long, play man.
Guest:Let's roll, baby.
guitar solo
Guest:We're gonna boogie fast, we're gonna boogie slow Midnight door, we're gonna boogie some more We're gonna roll, we're gonna roll Roll baby, roll all night long
Guest:Yeah, and that was a tune by Guitar Junior from Louisiana, who we all know now as Lonnie Brooks.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, thanks for hanging out, man.
Guest:I really had a good time.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Me and Jimmy Vaughn.
Marc:I think we're okay with music.
Marc:So just please, be careful this weekend.
Marc:Try to be kind to yourself, kind to other people.
Marc:Reflect on what you can do better and how you can be there for others.
Marc:All right?
Marc:And you can fight a little.
Marc:You can fight a little.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Thank you.