Fresh Air - Author James Patterson On The Art Of Collaboration

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

James Patterson's books have sold over 400 million copies worldwide. He says he often gets ideas for them late at night. His latest, The #1 Dad Book, offers advice for fathers. He spoke with Terry Gross at a WHYY live event for the "Lifelong Learning Award." Also, Martin Johnson reviews a new album from accordionist Will Holshouser, and we listen back to Terry's interview with him when he brought his instrument to the studio.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is fresh air. I'm Terry gross my guest James Patterson has sold over 400 million copies of his many books Those books include the Alex cross detective series the women's murder club series and maximum ride Alex cross was spun off into three films two starring Morgan Freeman and another starring Tyler Perry an Amazon Prime video series called cross has been renewed for a second season. Patterson has co-authored books with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton. His second collaboration with Clinton will be published this summer. Patterson's also written non-fiction books about the Kennedys, John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, and Jeffrey Epstein, as well as books for children and young adults. His new book, the Number One Dad Book, is addressed to new fathers who need some advice. Back

when Patterson was starting to write, he took a job as a junior copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. He rose to the top, becoming CEO and then head of the agency's North America division. If you're wondering how he's managed to do all this, he typically works with collaborators. Patterson writes an elaborate outline of the story. The collaborators write the sentences. He describes this in more detail in his 2022 memoir

called James Patterson by James Patterson. I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that he's now collaborating on a thriller with the star YouTuber and influencer known as Mr. Beast. I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that he's now collaborating on a thriller with the star YouTuber and influencer known as Mr. Beast. As you can guess, Patterson is pretty rich. He's also a generous philanthropist, donating over $7 million to schools and classroom libraries around the country, establishing over 400 teacher and writer education scholarships

at 21 colleges and universities, and giving over $2 million to independent bookstores. In recognition of his work, on May 14th, James Patterson received the Lifelong Learning Award from WHYY, the public radio and TV station where Fresh Air is produced. That was the occasion for our interview, which we recorded in front of an audience. Hi, I'm Stephen King. I'm here to honor James. I love the guy. What can I tell you? First of all, congratulations and thank you for doing this interview.

I am not worthy. I am not worthy. So in your memoir, you describe how you hear voices in your head basically telling you stories. I'd really like to know what that feels like, what that experience is like. You think you do. No, I do. Until the voices won't stop and they keep you up at night. You know, it's an interesting thing, you talk about voice. All these books have a different voice. The father book has a voice, the autobiography has a voice, Alex Cross is a different kind of voice,

the kids books, different voices. I've learned not to get up in the middle of the night anymore. And start writing? I just, yeah, pretty much. Sometimes I do, right, so. So another thing that I learned from your memoir, which I found really fascinating because it's so different from the work that you do

and from the stories I keep coming to in your head. When you were young before you became a writer, when you first became really interested in reading, you read a lot of Thomas Merton, who was like the now famous Trappist monk who wrote the bestseller Seven Story Mountain, which was kind of required reading for a lot of people in college, like in the 60s and 70s.

But anyway, you actually went to the monastery that he lived in for many years. And I think you seriously considered becoming a Trappist monk. No, I didn't do that. But I was in graduate school. I was at Vanderbilt. And I was kind of wandering around thinking about when I was, it was during Vietnam, so it was a scary time for anybody in school,

or not in school. And I decided to go up there to, and I just kind of showed up, which is kind of interesting because the Trappist monks, you know, they're not supposed to really talk, but they have one. Yeah, they don't talk. It's silence and war and prayer.

They have one priest or brother who will greet people that come in. I remember I talked to him and he said, well, why are you here? And I said, well, you know, I'm doing a little too many drugs and you know, whatever. And I just need to kind of straighten my life out a little bit. And he said, James, you know, life is like a football game of football. And you run down the field, but if you step out of bounds you know the score doesn't count and at that point I just wished that he had maintained the silence rather than giving that but they did let me stay

they let me stay for about 10 days and I left there saying okay if I want to be a writer I have to do certain things and I'm gonna do this somehow I'm gonna try to do it but I needed that 10 days they really sort of think it through and focus on it and focusing is a big thing. You mentioned the autobiography and especially at my age, I think it's, it's semi interesting to me anyway. And I wrote it during COVID, but I became a better writer, writing that autobiography.

I concentrated on the sentences more than I had in a while, which is really important for me. Well, one of the things I find interesting about spending 10 days in the Trappist monastery is because they practice silence and because you're always hearing stories and voices in your head. And both the silence and the need to write,

to always have more words and more stories seems so kind of opposite from the attention to silence in the monastery. So it seemed so different from what your nature is. so kind of opposite from the attention to silence in the monastery. So it seemed so different from what your nature is. I just wanted to think, and I mean they're not in totally, so I mean they sing.

It's a fascinating life. I mean they go to bed at like 730. They get up at three or so. They have a mass or whatever, and they sing a lot. And they're all very healthy, at least they were in those days. And then they go out in the fields,

and then they come back and have these very Spartan meals. And I just found it was a time to really put my mind at peace and ease and think things through. You mentioned you were doing too many drugs. How did being an usher at the Fillmore East figure into that? And for anyone who doesn't know the Fillmore East, that was the East Coast equivalent of the Fillmore West, which is where they had all of the like psychedelic concerts, you

know, whether it was Grateful Dead or the Jefferson Airplane, I think they were there. And Demi Hendrix, the Doors. Yeah, and the Doors. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, well, no, my job there was not to take drugs. And it wasn't that I was a massive drug user, and I pretty much always had things in control.

But it just seemed to me that if I really, and my grades are always good, but I needed to just focus more was the main thing. But at the Fillmore East, I also was at Woodstock. Now everybody I know my age says they were there, but they weren't, because I looked around. And, but the Fillmore East, I did that for a couple of years.

And actually, Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the ushers. You're kidding. No, no, no, no. Yeah, I knew him a little bit back then. And actually, one of the stories in the book, which was so great, after one of the doors after one of the shows, and they were all sitting in the front. I think there was two shows that night, and they were sitting there with Graham,

who ran at Fillmore, A&M, Fillmore West. And a bunch of the ushers, we were sitting behind them a few rows. And Jim Morrison, he looked, it was a three-story theater, and he looked up and all these lights were hanging over the seats in the front. He said, Bill, this is really dangerous. Those lights would come down and kill people.

And Graham's going, Jim, just relax. The lights are not coming down. We're going to be fine. And then Morrison just stormed off. And about 10 minutes later, we hear this voice. And somebody's screaming. You look up there. This is a true story.

And Morrison is hanging from the lights. He goes, you're right, Bill. It's OK. These lights are all. You know? So people are always wondering, like, how do you do it? How do you write so many books? Yeah. And the answer is you collaborate.

Well, that's part of the answer. It's part of the answer, yeah. Part of it is you love to do it. Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do, and then it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. But even before people were paying me to do it, I just loved, and actually it was working at McLean,

the hospital, which is when I started writing, I would go into Cambridge and buy, I went to a Catholic high school and they just gave us a lot of books that none of us liked. But when I moved up there, I started reading a lot of stuff, the kind of stuff I hadn't read before, and I was loving a lot of plays, short stories, you know, and a lot of novels, and then I stuff I hadn't read before. And I was loving a lot of plays, short stories, and a lot of novels.

And then I started scribbling, and I loved it. I just loved telling stories. And I think I grew up in the woods, and I used to, as a little kid, I would go out in the woods and tell myself stories. Story after story after story after story. And I think that, and I remember actually when I used to get down to Vanderbilt,

I would drive down there from Massachusetts, it would take like 26 hours or whatever and they used to write Broadway musicals in my head driving down and sing the songs it was crazy but you know you might notice a pattern. The music and lyrics? Well yeah I mean sort of the music yes yeah yeah I would always put a tune to it whatever I was you know and the storyline whatever the heck it was and it was just You know, I don't know but it was fun. I liked it. At what point in your writing career Did you think that it would be? helpful or a good idea or more productive or whatever to work with

Collaborators and and and then maybe you can explain your process for doing that Yeah, you know, I don't know why people find it so extraordinary. First of all, in advertising, which I hate to go back to that prison, but in my mind, it's very collaborative. And you generally, you work with an art director and maybe a producer, and the two or three of you will sit in a room and you create these little stories,

little films usually. And that is collaborative. Sistine Chapel, all these, you know, some famous doing this thing on the, you know, 510 whatever number, collaborative. My own theory is if we're going to save the world, we'll have to somehow figure out to be collaborative or AI will probably figure it out for us. And either save us or destroy us depending on, you know,

the mood that day. It just seemed a natural thing to me. And the first one actually was a little golf book. And it's a guy that I knew from the advertising days. And after we played golf, we just started chatting about a story that I had. And we said, well, let's just try this. And we wrote Miracle on the 17th green.

And then after that, I just said, you know, well, know I can do this this will be an interesting thing and I don't remember the first one it might have been a woman's murder club where I collaborated the second or the third book. Andy Gross who wonderful guy who just died was so tragic. Yeah I read the OVN. Oh my god you know just such a healthy looking man you know and a wonderful person at any rate that was very sad for us. And obviously, it's tragic for his family. You describe yourself as being like the storyteller,

but you enjoy telling the stories, writing, you know, coming up with a story. It's doing like a very elaborate 30, 30, 40, 50 page. Yeah. Outline and then doing several. On this tour, I'm working on three outlines. Yeah. But then you leave this actual sentences. What do you see what happens to Alex cross? I gotta tell you But you leave the sentences in the book to the person you're collaborating with At what point did you think that you'd stick to the stories and leave the sentences to someone else?

Correct me. Well'm getting that wrong. Well, no, no, no, no, yeah, no, I didn't. I mean, a lot of times, especially in the beginning. My compartmentalizing too much? No, I would go in and do two or three drafts in the beginning. Not as much now because most of the people I'm working with, they kind of know the joke, but I'll still come in and rewrite. I mean, the most insane thing was when I did the book shots, which were novellas, which

I still think was a very valuable thing to do, so the stores would have these, you could read these books in a couple of hours, like a movie. They were novellas, 100 pages, 100, whatever the heck. And I think it's a useful thing. The publishers were afraid of it because, oh my God, people are going to buy these $7 books and they won't buy, well, they will buy longer books, but you're just going

to have more people and some of them, that's all they have time for. They have a couple hours and they want it. It's like a movie, you know. But the year I did that I wrote 2,400 pages of outlines in addition to two full books. So, and then that's one of the things that people are looking at, you know, what I do and they go like, well, and they always project their own situation. People are sort of funny that way. Like with this, the dad book, how to be a better dad in one hour, I'll talk to these various people who interview you

and they'll go, what's the one idea? And I go, there isn't one idea. The whole idea of this book, there's so many things dads can work on, and they just need to figure out the things that pertain to them. The reason it's one hour is because most dads will not read the 400 page book. What I did is just try to, and it's not a joke, but it's serious, because I wanted to be pragmatic about it.

What I've heard, and I've never had this experience before, but especially women who read the book and they'll say, I'm giving this quite seriously to my husband, quite seriously to my dad, and quite seriously to my two goofy brothers who are dads and really need help. And guys do. Guys need help right now. Are these things that your father did

or did not do for you? My dad, the only time, and this isn't totally true, but my, my only hug I ever got from my dad was on his deathbed. And he apologized and he cried, which he never did. He apologized for not hugging you. He apologized for just not being as close as he thought he should have been. And I just said, you were a great dad. You were a great dad. Was he? Look, he grew up in the Newburgh Poorhouse. It was called the Pogge. His mother was a charwoman there.

His father had disappeared. He never knew his father. And he didn't have the experience to be a dad. So that's fine. And I did therapy for one year, and I got in touch with, and I just don't blame him. It was fine. He did the best he could. I have a friend, his whole thing is doing the best you can, religion.

You're doing the best you can? Okay, that's good. God bless you. You're doing the best you can. Okay. What did your father end up doing to make a living? Well, he, the last thing he did after he retired, he retired at 60, 61, he actually wrote a novel.

It didn't get published, but it was pretty good. It was pretty good. And that's what he wanted to do. He went to Hamilton, which is to go from where he was, the poor house, and to get into Hamilton leap, unbelievable leap. He's a bright guy. He didn't have a lot of confidence. You know, he just didn't think he could. He sold insurance and then he actually did well.

He worked for financial. He did well in the insurance stuff, but he didn't have the confidence. He didn't instill confidence in myself or my sisters either, which was unfortunate. But my grandmother, she was the one. She said, listen, you're going to be real about this stuff. You're not going to play in the NBA, so forget about that. You don't go to your left very well. You're good. I could dunk in high school. There's a little white guy that could dunk,

but you're not going to make it. So, but you are going to be able to do stuff. And she had one of the lines, which I use it on Substack, is hungry dogs run faster. That was one of her things. And the other thing was Just Go and Chop Wood. Do it, do it. Stop talking about writing your book,

go write the damn book. Seriously. So I wanna ask you about your Alex Cross series, which is like your longest running series of books. Did you know that you'd be capable of writing mysteries and thrillers? No. And I...

Somewhere in there, I think it was when I read Vanderbilt, I read... And I didn't read a lot of commercial novels at that point, but I read Day of the Jackal and The Exorcist, and I went, ooh, these are cool. I like these. And maybe I could write something like that. The novel that had knocked me out a hundred years of solitude, and I said, I'm not capable of that. I thought I could write a literary, you know, an okay,

you know, but I said, I don't really wanna do that. I don't wanna write for those people, honestly. I'm not interested in those kinds of stories. But I said, maybe I could do something at Daily Jackal, maybe. But I can't do 100 years of solitude. I don't have it in me. And that's what I'd like to do.

But it's like, no, you're not going to play in the NBA. Sorry. I didn't have the confidence. And that's a big deal. And fortunately, down there, there was a professor, and I took one writing course. And he said, you have it. You have that.

And he was a real conservative southern guy. And I was hippie with the long hair and the whole whatever. I wish I had the long hair now, but you know. And that was a big confidence builder. That was huge for me. Huge. To have a professor, to have a published novelist say, you have, Peter Taylor was another one. Peter Taylor, he read some of my stuff, but you have it.

Really good short story writer who was at the University of Virginia. So another question about religion, you know we talked a little about the Trappist monastery, they spent 10 days in it, and how it helped you decide to be a writer. Yeah. Do you maintain any form of religion in your life? If that's not too personal to ask. Yeah, no, you know, yeah, something, something, some connection that, you know, certainly the idea that things are bigger than me, which I think that isn't necessarily religious, but I think it's, I think it probably has its basis back in growing up Catholic and there are things

more important than you, you know, and whether that's a society or whatever the heck it is, or your family. So I've always had that. You were an altar boy. I was. I served mass every day for like two years in a row. This is when I don't know how old I was, nine, 10 years old, yeah.

What did it mean to you? Well, I think in those days, and I think like a lot of kids, I thought about maybe I'll be a priest, that might be an interesting thing to do. I certainly respected the priests and the brothers and the nuns and what my mother taught in the school. We had priests and brothers in our house all the time.

They wrecked two of our cars. Oh, really? A little too much wine, whatever, I don't know. Not yet, honestly. Oh, he hit a fire't know. Not yet, honestly, you know. Oh, he hit a fire hydrant. Okay, that's okay, Father, no problem. And we didn't have money either. I mean, that was the other, like, oh, no.

And my father was not Catholic, so he was especially not keen on that. So, you know, I just really appreciate, like, I think so many, many, many people do, all the philanthropy you've done, the support of literacy, the support of independent bookstores, scholarships, funding school libraries. One thing I find especially endearing, which you've done, is giving bonuses to independent

booksellers. And librarians a little bit too, yeah. Yeah, that's such a nice touch, because I'm sure they're all not paid very well. And it's such a personal thing to do. It's like acknowledging not just the institution or an abstract and like loving reading, it's honoring the individuals who do the work. How did you come up with that?

I don't know. But the other piece of it which just to your point, no, no, to your point is I get the nicest notes from people. Of all the things I do, they'll send these notes. And yeah, some of them, you know, like for the first time in three years, I gave my parents presents this year, or I went to the dentist because of the,

you know what I mean? And it's real and it's honest and they're so appreciative. And so that's a nice thing. James Patterson, I want to thank you for this and congratulations on the lifelong learning award. Thank you, thank you, thank you. James Patterson's latest book is the number one dad book. The new novel he wrote with Bill Clinton will be published later this summer. Our thanks to WHYY's Nancy Stosky, Allie L'Esper, and Yvette Murray. Coming up, if you think

accordion is a corny and out-of-date instrument, stay tuned for some music that I think will change your mind. Jazz critic Martin Johnson will review the new solo accordion album by Will Holshouser and will feature my interview with him. He brought his accordion and played. I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. Molly's voiceover It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. Molly's voiceover So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. The music of Will Holshouser defies easy categorization.

Streaming services have variously filed his albums as jazz, folk, even easy listening. There's more than a grain of truth to these classifications, but adjectives like elegant, ebullient, and saucy fit much better. And maybe ambitious. Holzhouser is an accordionist and his new recording, The Lone Wild Bird, is a solo effort, a rarity for a virtuoso on his instrument. Martin Johnson has this review and after Martin's review we'll hear my interview with Holzhouser. He brought his accordion and played. Accordionist Wilholzhauser has played in a wide variety of bands, from violinist Regina Carter's jazz hybrid group Reverse Thread, to singer-songwriters like Suzanne Vega and

Rufus Wainwright, to klezmer bands, to his own trio Musette Explosion. On his latest recording, Lone Wild Bird, he goes it alone, solo. The austere setting allows Holzhouser to really showcase the sound of his instrument and its versatility. In the hymn-like track that we just heard, it can be solemn and pensive, but it can also be boisterous and joyful. The setting also allows us to hear the inner workings of his instrument. Underneath the accordion sound are grunts and huffs from the air that gets pumped inside of it. On the track Avery, he shakes the bellows on the instrument to create a rhythmic underpinning for the tune,

almost as if he was accompanied by someone on the washboard. Holeselzer grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the son of two ministers, so hymns were an early part of his musical diet. He was studying jazz piano and turned to accordion when a college pal gave him one as a gift. He was fascinated by the mechanics of the instrument and its versatility. It was a cornerstone in folk music from New Orleans to Madagascar. And Holzhauser, who was 56, was finding his way through his instrument's range at a time when exotic music was rapidly becoming more accessible via the recording boom of the 80s and 90s and the rise of the internet shortly

thereafter. It is this variety of music that is reflected on Lone Wild Bird. Holsthouser's original Three Glasses is a minor key and intimate tribute to composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Holzhouser's jazz roots are a prominent part of the program. Blue Waters reflects his interest in counterpoint, and it has a bluesy feel. It's a tribute to jazz organ great Jimmy Smith. You might not get the collard greens and cornbread that Smith's music often evoked, but you can Hohshauser's jazz interest also led him to the traditional hymn, Abide with Me. The music dates back to the 19th century, but legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk recorded an all-horns arrangement. It made the accordionist ponder what would it have sounded like if Monk played the piano of the Celtic punk rockers,

the Pogues, and Holshouser touches on the Irish traditions on Reel to Reel, a tune written in part by his brother-in-law, who makes violins and played on a solo accordion recording, but it seems essential to address the Cajun tradition, and Holzhouser covers the New Orleans waltz, Che Se Sells, in tandem with Balfa Waltz to close out this stellar recording. I'm gonna be a good boy. Martin Johnson writes about jazz for the Wall Street Journal and Downbeat. He reviewed The Lone Wild Bird by Will Holshouser. I recorded an interview with Holshouser. I recorded an interview with Holshouser a few years ago during which he played his accordion. We'll hear

that after a break. This is fresh air. Now that we've heard Martin Johnson's enthusiastic review of the new solo album The Lone Wild Bird by accordion player Will Holshouser, let's hear from Holshouser. I spoke with him in 2014 when his album Introducing Musette Explosion was released. It features French waltzes and dances as well as original songs in the musette style. He brought his accordion to the studio and played. Since I think most people don't have an accordion at home and don't get to see accordion very much, I'm assuming a lot of people

aren't really familiar with what an accordion very much. I'm assuming a lot of people aren't really familiar with what an accordion can really do and how it works. So give us a little tour of your very beautiful accordion. Well, sure. On the right side, there's a keyboard. It looks like a piano keyboard. And these keys, when you push a key, it opens a valve in the accordion and that allows

air to pass over metal reeds which are inside the box. So the nickname for it, one nickname for it is the squeeze box. So as you move the bellows back and forth that generates the air and then when you push the keys on the right hand or the buttons on the left hand that lets the air through in the reed sound. So my accordion has four sets of reeds it can play very low notes on the right hand or very high notes if you hit, there's these register switches, you can change the reed bank that's activated. So, and then there are two middle sets of reeds which are slightly detuned. And you can also play all four sets together. So, and then the left hand has buttons which in the standard accordion system

are bass notes and chords. This was made, invented in the 19th century to play music that did that. European music and it's all based of course around the European tonal system. That system is called Stradella. There's a town in Italy called Stradella where it was invented. So it's a lot of fun. It's a very versatile instrument with a very wide range and wide dynamics. The dynamics come from the bellows which it's often said the bellows in the accordion is like the bow of the violin. That's where you get dynamics,

expression, and a whole host of other effects. So manipulate the bellows differently to give us a sense of how the tone changes depending on how you're... what's the verb for what you do with the bellows? What's the right verb? Bellowing. Bellowing, alright. I suppose, but yeah. Well it's, you know, what's the verb for what you do with the bellows? What's the right verb? Bellowing. Bellowing, all right. I suppose, but yeah. Well, it's mostly dynamics, but you can,

the sound of the note does change as you change the air pressure. ["Bellowing"] So it's going from slow to fast in terms of what you're doing with the bellows? Yeah, as you push harder, it gets louder as you push more air across the reed. And there's some special effects if you open the valve halfway and push the air really hard, it can bend the pitch. Wow.

I didn't know you could bend notes on accordion. Bend notes on a keyboard instrument that's not a synthesizer. It's pretty... Right. Pretty good. So I should ask you to play a song for us. Okay. And your new album, Introducing Musette Explosion, is all musette, which is a type of French song. Tell us what the genre is. Well, it's basically French dancehall music from the first half of the 20th

century, and it's led, the accordion is the lead instrument, the guitar is also very important, and one of the standard forms in this type of music is the waltz. And to us as Americans it sounds iconically French but then if you look beneath the surface it's actually has a very multicultural family tree. So it began with French peasants in Paris playing an instrument called the musette which was actually a little bagpipe. And then around 1900, there was a wave of Italian immigrants who brought the accordion and a lot of their music to Paris, and they kind of took over the dance halls.

The accordion became the lead instrument. The bagpipe was forgotten, but left its name to the genre musette. And there are also a large Roma Gypsy population in France, and they contributed a lot of their style to this genre also. Some people say the Roma guitarists were the first ones to write waltzes in minor keys, which became a classic musette sound. And the tradition that Django Reinhardt was from? Exactly, his first gig was playing banjo

in a musette dance band. Banjo? Wow, oh, you have banjo, you're a guitar player, Matt Minasteri plays banjo on some of the tracks. That's right. On your album. Oh, okay. So you should play one of the musettes

from your album for us. Do you wanna do Swing Falls? Sure, that sounds great What are you doing to your accordion? Oh, I was just making sure that I had the right register on okay because you can Depending on which register you have you can get you know in a different octave or each one has a sort of different sound Okay, and this is this is my guest will Holzhouser. All right this is Swing Vals written by Barre Ferre and Gus Vizur. That's great. That's just so beautiful. Thank you. So how were you first introduced to the songs known as Musette?

Through reissues that came out in the 1990s. There's a great label in France called Fremont and Associates. So I heard them and I was struck by this music and kind of blown away by how do they get these sounds out of the accordion. And Matt Muniserri, my friend, felt the same way and that's sort of how we started playing together. We were both interested in French musette. And it's so expressive, virtuosic.

It's an unusual type of... Some of these tunes, especially swing-vols, are hybrids of jazz and French music. So when some of these French musette musicians fell in love with jazz in the 20s and 30s, they began to write these hybrid tunes that were, and hence the name, Swing Vals, inspired by the American records that they were crazy about. We'll hear more of my interview with Will Holshouser and I'll play more music after a break. This is Fresh Air. There's something very old-fashioned and avant-garde about the accordion and Miesha, if I can explain that, it seems old-fashioned because in this era of like digital instruments and everything, like you're physically pumping

air into it, you know, you're doing it manually to get the air over the reeds to create the sound, but there's something kind of avant-garde about it because you can get all these really unusual overtones through this array of buttons almost as if it was some kind of either synthesizer or organ where you're you're you know you're just creating unusual harmonics. It's true and especially yeah dissonance on the accordion playing notes very close together can bring out those overtones and there is a whole range of effects you can get. Go show us some effects you can get. All right well here's a here's some very high notes with special overtones. If you shake the bellows you can make it shimmer like that. You can do these bending notes like I showed you before.

There's sort of nice clusters you can get. I'm letting your hand flop around on the keyboard like a fish. There's rhythmic things you can do with the bellows. Sometimes when I play for my daughter's class, I'll do a train effect and the kids like that. I like that too. Anyway so yeah that's and that's done by shaking the bellows back and forth. So yeah, there are all kinds of things you can do, you know, you can use the breath, the breathing sound. And you just heard the bellows kind of squeezing, flopping together. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of effects you can get. I love it. I love it. There's an original song I'm going to ask you to play that

you do on your new album, the Musette Explosion. And this is an original song in the style of a French Musette. And it's called Chanson Pop, which translates to pop song. So would you talk about composing it? And there's two different parts to the song. It's like a six minute piece on the recording. I'm going to ask you to play an excerpt of the opening melody and then we'll talk about that and then we'll play an excerpt. I'm going to ask you to play an excerpt from deeper in. Okay. So, but give us an overview of this piece and writing it and what your intention was. Well, one of

the kinds of work that I've really enjoyed doing as an accordionist in New York over the last 20 years or so is accompanying singers. And I've had great pleasure to accompany some singers that do French repertoire from the chanson tradition, which, of course, just means song. But it's, for example, the most famous exponent of the chanson tradition is Edith Piaf. And for a while I was playing with a great singer from France named Michel Hermand.

And I was the only accompanist. It was really fun because I was, it was just vocals and accordion. So I was the entire backdrop and he would, he was very good at coaching me in developing these accompaniments. And he said a song, one of these songs is like a movie. So this verse is one scene and you need to create a backdrop. Maybe it's like a sunny day or something. Then the next verse or the next part of the song is totally different,

create a different backdrop. So to me, learning about that tradition, which is a little different from the musette tradition, the musette tradition is more the waltzes, the dances, the dance music, and the chanson tradition is more the poetic songwriting. There's some overlap, but this piece, I was thinking of some of those Piaf songs and not really trying to imitate them, but sort of trying to tap into the wonderful grandiosity

of some of those pieces. So I'll play the opening melody first. Perfect, yes. Okay. the opening melody first? Perfect, yes. So So That's beautiful. And that's Will Holshauser in our studio playing the opening of his song, Chanson Pop. And I know you said that that's based on like, chanson, French song. To me, it sounds like it's also based on hymns. Okay.

And I know that your father was a minister. That's right. And I imagine you heard a lot of hymns growing up. Do you hear a little hymn-like quality in that piece? You're a very perceptive listener. Aren't I? Yes, absolutely. And that's really, for me, that's almost the beginning, very beginning of my musical life. My interest in music is going to church as a kid and hearing these hymns and

feeling something stirring inside me that I couldn't describe. Feeling almost like a kind of truth or something that was a very direct experience and that I really couldn't put into words. Was it a combination of beautiful music in a sacred place? I think so, yeah. It was clearly people coming together to be quiet and to think about serious things.

My first music teacher was the artist in residence at our church, and he wrote jazz for the services. His name is Douglas Cook, and he wrote very beautiful, very dissonant, meditative jazz that would be in the services. So for me that's the beginning of a lot of my what I like about music is the hymns, the music that Doug wrote in our service. And to me it's music that's what's great about music is it's it's this internal language that we can all share. It's accessible to

everybody. My interview with Will Holzhouser was recorded in 2014. He has a new solo accordion album called The Lone Wild Bird. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll talk about how J.D. Vance rose from a struggling Ohio steel town to Yale Law School to venture capital and now the vice presidency. Along the way, he shed old convictions and adopted new ones, some deeply divisive. We'll talk with Atlantic Magazine staff writer,

George Packer, about Vance's transformation and what it reveals about the future of American politics. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Ganny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering today from Adam Staniszewski. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann-Marie Boudinado, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivi-Nesker. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.

I'm Tar be a good boy. Thank you.