Fresh Air - Questlove Digs Into 50 years Of 'SNL' Musical Hits (And Misses)

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Questlove's documentary, Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music, airs tonight on NBC. It highlights some of the show's most iconic musical performances and comedy sketches — from break-out stars to lip-syncing controversy. Our TV critic David Bianculli reflects on the documentary, and then Questlove joins Terry Gross to talk about some of the highlights. Also, Ken Tucker reviews Ringo Starr's new country album, Look Up.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. As part of Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary celebration this year, tonight NBC will premiere a documentary highlighting the music guests and music comedy sketches that the show has featured over the decades. It's called, Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music. It was co-directed by my guest, Grammy-winning musician and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Amir Kueslev-Thompson.

He's the co-founder, leader, and drummer of the hip-hop band The Roots. It's the house band for another late-night show, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Before Kueslev talks about the movie and how SNL has influenced him as a musician and late-night bandleader, our TV critic David Bianculli is going to review the film, along with a documentary series that's also part of the 50th anniversary celebration. That series is streaming on Peacock. The two new Saturday Night Live documentaries come from filmmakers who bring their own interests and perspectives. NBC's Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music comes from Amir Questlove Thompson,

who's both a musician and a music historian. And the four-part SNL 50 Beyond Saturday Night, now streaming on Peacock, comes from Morgan Neville, who's as interested in the creative process as he is in letting people tell their own stories. Questlove, in his movie length study, mines the archive of a half century of musical performances as well as the emergence of hip-hop and other genres into the show and the culture. Some classic performances are run full length. Others are sampled in cleverly compiled montages and mashups. It's such a solid, well-selected

overview that I can think of only one SNL music performance I really wish had been included. Paul Simon, backed by Lady Smith Black Mambazo, on their thrilling 1986 rendition of Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes. But Questlove covers a lot. Not only infamous appearances by Elvis Costello, Sinead O'Connor, Ashley Simpson, and Kanye, but even comedy sketches and videos built around music. The infamous D*** in a Box Christmas song with Justin Timberlake and SNL cast member Andy Samberg is deconstructed. So is another classic SNL musical moment,

featuring guest host Paul Rudd and musical guest Beyonce. Timberlake tells how that got on the air, with Timberlake, Samberg, and cast member Bobby Moynihan as her music video backup dancers. Partway through Timberlake's account, we hear the start of the actual single ladies' sketch. Andy texted me and he said, Hey, are you in town? I said, yeah, I'm in the city.

He said, Bobby Moynihan has this great idea for a sketch about you, me and him being Beyonce's background dancers for single ladies that never made the cut. She's going to be the musical guest this week. I was like full like leotard and he's like, yeah. And I was like, oh, this is too funny. Like we have to do this. She was very polite about it, but she was very hesitant. And when I say hesitant, I mean like she was not having it. Beyoncé!

Oh my gosh, I'm so psyched to do this new video with you. Me too. But you know, there's this one thing. I haven't met the other dancers. Are we going to have time to rehearse? Oh, look, don't worry about the other dancers, B-Town. I hand-picked them myself. These guys are pros. These guys?

I'm like, does she know how funny this is gonna be? Like, how beloved this whole moment will be? So I said, bring me the leotard. So I put the leotard and the heels and the hose on and everything, and I put a robe on, on and I walked and I knocked on her door. I walked in and I threw the robe down and I put my hands on my hips and she was like, no you didn't.

Morgan Neville's SNL documentary series is broken into four episodes, each one looking at a different aspect of the show and its history. The first one looks at the original audition tapes by many of the people who tried out for SNL, with those same people watching and reacting to their younger selves. Some scream, some cringe, some cry. Some, like Pete Davidson, laugh.

I'm not good at sex, you know, because I wasn't raised in a brothel. I'm 20. Like, I don't, I'm not good at it. I know, because I wasn't raised in a brothel. I'm 20. Like, I don't... I'm not good at it. I don't understand why my girlfriend gets mad. She's like, that's it? I'm like, yeah, like, what did you expect? Like, you know any good guitar players that have been playing guitar for a year?

Ha ha ha ha! Another episode spends a week observing how an installment of SNL is created by following the process from start to finish, mostly from the point of view of the writers. A third episode gets even more laser-focused, spending an hour on a single sketch. And it's a brilliant choice, coming from the midway point of the show's 50-year run. It's the sketch recording session, featuring guest star Christopher Walken and cast members Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell and others. You may know it better by the name most associated with it, More Cowbell. It's a sketch Walken and Ferrell elevated after

the dress rehearsal by going all out in character. The sketch was set during the recording session for Blue Oyster Cult's 1970s hit, Don't Fear the Reaper. Farrell plays a very loud cowbell and Walken portrays the track's very enthusiastic music producer. Jimmy Fallon remembers. Christopher Walken for air upped his game. He was almost doing an impersonation of Christopher Walken. He was talking like no other human being would talk ever.

All right, here we go. Don't fear the reaper. Take one, roll it. All right, one, two, three, four. MUSIC Once the sketch began on the live show, Farrell, who had written it, knew they had connected big time with the studio audience. Are you sure that was sounding okay?

I'll be honest, fellas, it was sounding great, but I could have used a little more cowbell. As soon as he delivers that first line, I could use a little more cowbell. And that gets a huge lot. I'm like, oh, they're in. They're in, oh goody, there's more coming. In this new recounting, we do not hear from Christopher Walken himself, which Dana Carvey says is writing character for him. Carvey even slips into character as Walken

to make his point. That keeps his cool factor here. Yeah, that he's not gonna, not gonna go down memory lane, let the work speak for itself. The final episode of Neville's documentary series hones in on one seemingly random, but ultimately seminal year.

The 1985-86 season, when executive producer, Lorne Michaels, who had left the show after its first successful five-year cycle with the original cast, was asked back by NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff. SNL was in freefall and the common wisdom was that Lauren never would return to a sinking ship. But he did. When Brandon was trying to get me to come back in 1985. Hello, I'm Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC Entertainment.

Someone said, you know, you've already done Saturday Night Live. Somebody who wants to be you does Saturday Night Live. And I thought, oh, right, well, I kind of enjoyed being me. It's one of the few times in either documentary we hear from Michaels. Clearly, he prefers to let the cast and crew and the shows speak for themselves. And they do. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, among others, tell some really great stories. There may not be enough screen time given to some SNL veterans in their stories, from Bill Murray to Kate McKinnon and Sarah Sherman, but there are an awful lot of laughs and memories and music and insights, and just the right amount

of cowbell. David Bianculli is Professor of Television Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey. The Morgan Neville documentary series, SNL 50, is streaming on Peacock. The documentary, Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music is streaming on Peacock, the documentary, ladies and gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music, will be broadcast tonight on NBC and will start streaming on Peacock tomorrow. It was co-directed by my guest Amir Kwestlov Thompson. He's the co-founder of the hip-hop band The Roots, which is the house band for the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, who is a former SNL cast member. Questlove has become one of Fresh Air's

most frequent guests because he does so many interesting books and movies in addition to his work with his band on and beyond The Tonight Show. Questlove actually has two new documentary films. The second is about Sly and the family Stone. It's called Sly Lives, aka The Burden of Black Genius. It premiered over the weekend at the Sundance Film Festival and will start streaming on Hulu February 13th. We'll talk about that documentary in the next few weeks. His 2021 documentary Summer of Soul about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival won an Oscar for Best Documentary.

Amir, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you back on. Thank you for having me. Were there roots ever on SNL? You know, it's weird. I've been on SNL in every configuration except for the one that I want to be on, which is actual music guest. Like, I've been a punchline on Weekend Update. I've been part of a Timothée Chalamet sketch. I've been mentioned in monologues. I've been in, like, a Lonely Island sketch.

But I guess one could say that my dream, one of the main reasons why I was excited to be on The Tonight Show like 16 years ago when we first got offered the position, I was like, great, this puts me within like one degree of the brass ring, which is, you know, doing SNL. So, you know, kind of funny how I'm a part of that ecosystem almost in every way, but the one way I want to be, which is like musical guests one day. But you know, the Roots are working on their 17th album right now. So, you know, I'm still hanging on to my dream. Good.

So do you think that the Saturday Night Live band, particularly in the Paul Schaeffer era, though I don't know what era you started watching. I assume it was Paul Schaeffer. The very beginning. So my Saturday Night Live obsession really starts with, you know, the epicenter of my entire music world is Soul Train. And it just so happens that, you know, for most of America, especially with Soul Train

and its prime, you know, for most of America, especially with Soul Train in its prime, you know, everyone has a Saturday afternoon, 12 p.m., cleaning the house, watching Soul Train experience. But in Philadelphia, kind of weird, my Soul Train experience was always at one in the morning. And so, I had parents that were very forward thinking, very cool. And of course, I'd have to be in bed like 8 30 p.m. So whenever like the love boat theme starts,

it's like, gotta go to bed. Not with that deep voice, but yeah, basically gotta go to bed. And the agreement was that be in bed at 8 30 and then at 12 30, midnight, we will wake you up. And by 12.30, Weekend Update is over for SNL, and then their music guest does two songs. And so I would go downstairs, turn on the TV, watch the two songs from SNL, whoever

the music guest was, and then Soul Train comes on at one in the morning. And then I'm in bed at 2 a.m. and up for church at 7.30 in the morning. That's pretty much like my life from like five until maybe 11. Then Soul Train started coming on like in the afternoon. But I never stopped watching SNL. So I was there from the very, very beginning. It was, it was nothing like it. I know that's the cliche that you're gonna hear a lot

about this 50th anniversary, but there was truly nothing like it on television. One of the questions that you ask both cast members and people behind the scenes at SNL is, can you hum the SNL theme? So I wanna play the attempts to hum the theme and then talk to you about it. Yes, okay. Ba ba ba do, wee. Wee. Wee.

Da da da da. Da da da da da da da. Da da da da da da da. Wee do wee wee. Ba ba da da da da da da da. Wee. Wee da da da da da da. Wee. Wee. Wee. Wee. I can't hum the theme either. Hey, no one can.

I immediately went to the actual theme. Before we hear it, I want to challenge our listeners to just pause and think for a second if they can hum the theme. Now let's play the theme. You know what I realized listening back which I hadn't ever really thought of before? What? There isn't a melody. I mean, it's like you're coming in in the middle of an improvisation. It's the most iconic nondescript theme song. And kind of in my, that was my first realization back when I would,

pretty much any Saturday that the Roots aren't touring and they're taping, I'm in the audience watching. That to me is one of the most humorous things ever. Like, wow, you know it when you hear it. You know that's SNL, but it's a feeling. It's almost like it's the last theme that offers a feeling, but not any evidence of it. I don't know, it's like trying to put water in

your pocket or something like that. It's abundant, but it's whatever you want it to be. Now, you wrote the theme for The Tonight Show at Jimmy Fallon. Yes. It's almost as if to avoid people saying, I can't wrote the theme for The Tonight Show at Jimmy Fallon. And it's almost as if to avoid people saying I can't hum the theme. You and the band actually kind of hum scat the theme. Well the weird thing was it was by accident. You know our very, that theme for The Tonight Show, the infamous

Hey Hey Hey Hey song, was literally, we were making, we were kind of making fun of Santana's So Cool. And, you know, it was like, we were just sound checking. Like we literally got, there was like our first day on the job and they were like, all right guys, play something. And we just started, you know, mocking a Santana song and just started singing a whole bunch of Hey Hey Hey's

and then attempted to write about 19 themes, none of which Jimmy liked. And at the end of the thing, he heard the song we were mocking and was like, that's the song. We're like, well, no, we're just messing around. Like that's not a real song. He's like, yes, it is. And so that wound up being the song. It's, that's the song. We're like, well, no, we're just messing around. That's not a real song. He's like, yes, it is. And so that wound up being the song. It's ear candy. But I admire the fact that SNL for 50 years

has been able to provide a feeling without necessarily melodic evidence to it. OK. Let's hear a little bit of your theme. Okay. For the Tonight Show. So having gone through 50 years of musical guests, what's one of the performances that had a big impact on you when you were a kid and had to be in bed at 830 but you managed to watch Saturday Night Live? I will say that, you know, the first five years was pretty much, you know, SNL, the role of SNL was that was our YouTube, that was our viral

video. For me, that was the one place where I could watch. At the time, I think my all-time favorite artist was Bill Withers. You know, there really just wasn't a show in which you can see actual musicians playing. I mean, you could watch American Bandstand or Soul Train where they might be lip syncing. Occasionally on Soul Train they play live, but you know, back then it was slim pickings. Either Friday night you watched a midnight special,

sometimes a rock concert would come on like Sunday nights. But basically SNL was just, it was a rare moment in which you got to catch really cool bands. So even like Devo coming on, like I was eight years old when they did the Jocko Homo song, are we not men, we are Devo. And like me and my cousins minds were blown. So practically any group that came on in

the first five to six years, I was an instant fan of. One of the things that you highlight in the SNL documentary is the role of SNL in the world of hip hop. And tell the story of how Debra Harry basically broke hip hop on SNL. Okay, so Saturday Night Live is the first time that America and the world will get to see what hip-hop culture is.

The very first rap performance on TV is when Debra Harry hosts the show in 1981 and brings on a Sugar Hill act called The Funky Four Plus One More. And she took a liking to this group, even though there were other popular groups at the time, like there was Grandmaster Flash and The Fury's Five Sugarhill Act called The Funky Four Plus One More. And she took a liking to this group, even though there were other popular groups at the time, like there was Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five and the Sugarhill Gang,

both like platinum hits and really music and culture changing songs at the time. But she took a liking to this group because it was similar to Blondie, a band that had a woman in the lead of it. So she took a liking to them. For me, that's such an SNL move where those first 10 years, they weren't about, well, who's the most popular person to bring ratings in? It was always like the cool factor,

like, okay, who's the most popular person now? Who's the person under that person that we could give a boost to? And that's like a prime example of how cool, how the, how SNL always had their finger in the pulse of, you know, who's next. And, you know, as a result, come 20 years later, a lot of those first time acts, you know, your early hip hop groups, like, you know, them getting Run DMC before Run DMC was Run DMC, or them getting Prince before Prince was Prince, or the Talking Heads or Devo, whoever, like a lot of those risks that they took

in the first 10 to 15 years, those guys will wind up being like the household names and the fiber of the mainstream, once SNL becomes the mainstream instead of the underground. So, but yeah, with Deborah Harry using her power to bring attention to a culture that no one knew about, like, that is a prime moment of the SNL effect and how it builds American entertainment culture.

My guest is Amir Kwestlov-Thompson. His film, Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music, premieres tonight on NBC and starts streaming on Peacock tomorrow. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. Hi this is Molly C.V. Nesbitt, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the

weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. Some of my favorite parts of the movie are the stories about things that have gone wrong, followed by clips of showing what went wrong and

how it really, really shocked everybody behind the scenes. Right. And one of those stories is Elvis Costello. So, you know, he does one song during dress rehearsal that I guess he and Lorne Michaels had agreed on. Right.

And then he stops it after a few bars. Let's hear what happens. Here's Elvis Costello. In the dress rehearsal we did a song that was on my first album, but I thought it sounded a little too slow. It was a medium tempo song and I didn't think it was exciting enough. And I realized the show is live. We can do anything we want. Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika, that to the hills of vacant you're waiting in. I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here. When he stopped, the hubbub in the studio was like,

oh my god, oh my god, what's going to happen? You couldn't hear it. Radio, radio. One, two, three. ["Hobbub"] With the Elvis thing, I was sitting with Dan Aykroyd on home base, we were just watching him. I go, oh, I think we were being hijacked.

I watched you in the shine of the light, that dial door, and I think we're being hijacked. All of this stuff, it builds up in legend in the retelling. But I didn't come out there to give a political lecture. I came out to kind of shake it up. They say you had better do as you were told. You'd better listen to the will. Why the fire when it burns? As we finished the song, the initial reaction in the moment was, I think we'd better get out of here. APPLAUSE

Somewhere in it, somebody said in anger, you'll never work on American television again. But the idea I was banned from television is nonsense. That's such a great story. I love it. And I think you made a good choice. I love both songs, but I think you made the right choice. He made the absolute right choice. And you know, that's the thing about SNL is there's a risk factor

involved. And usually it starts with no. Like Eddie Murphy talks about, I did not want to do Hot Tub with James Brown. Justin Timberlake goes on and on about trying to convince Beyonce to do the single lady sketch. Like everything starts at no. And it's like, wow, like you almost talked yourself

out of history. And I'm trying to get people in the mind state that, you know, oftentimes we get in our own heads about why something won't work. And sometimes you just got to take a risk and you never know, this might be part of the American fiber, the history of it. But also I know people have so many questions about

what happens on a live show if something goes wrong. For me, one of my favorite clips is the Ashley Simpson moment where you hear the directors freaking out because they don't know what to do. Said I go to commercial, what do I do? Describe what happened. Well, Ashley Simpson had a sore throat and was a little iffy about her singing,

so she opted to lip-sync instead. And her drummer, who's controlling all the music, accidentally plays the wrong song for the second song. And... He, in fact, plays the song that we already heard as the first song. Right, exactly. Everyone in the audience knows this is wrong, and there's no way of covering that up.

Well, yeah, I mean, they could have just patiently just stopped the song and started all over again as if nothing happened. But she infamously does a weird dance and runs offstage, kind of humiliated, and they go to commercial. It just so happens that Az Rodriguez, my co-director of this documentary, said that, you know, they also have the audio recording of the production room, like what was happening at the time.

And for me, it was so hilarious to hear the producers and the directors inside of the control room. It sounds, to me, it sounds like a bunch of teenagers that stole their parents' car in San Francisco and then the car is like, the brakes just give out in a San Francisco hill going down 100 miles per hour like, what do we do? Oh no, oh no!

You know, so I love showing like, not how the sausage is made, but you know, you get to see what's under the trunk. And that to me is the most fascinating part of SNL, like how it's able to happen every week without fail. Let's hear some of what happened behind the scenes. Uh-oh. On a Monday, I'm sh**.

Spoil, wrong song, wrong song. This is bad. This is bad. This is good. This is good. They should play it. And it was just like, you know, those old movies of two locomotives hitting each other, full bore. What are we doing?

I don't know. She should sing. People were running in and out of the studio, and it just seemed like the show came to a screeching halt. And the rumors were after that, I think there were two rumors after that, if I remember correctly. One was that, oh, she really can't sing, so, not because of a sore throat, but because she's not capable of singing live, and therefore, they had to have her lip-sync. And the other rumor was, oh, there's probably lots of acts that are really lip syncing.

Well, you know, the thing is, you know, we went through this like 10 years before with Milly Vanilli. You know, the kind of, this is what I call, this is what I call the post-thriller effect of 1982, where suddenly your music video became the most important way to sell the song. And, you know, it came to the point where if you're in concert, fans expect whatever you did on your video, you would have to surpass it. And, you

know, because Michael Jackson's introducing this whole idea of, like, not only do you have to sing the song, but you have to sell the song, dance the song, act the song. For most people, it's hard to, it's hard enough just to sing it, but also to sing and perform or dance or whatever you have to do. They're, you know, they're, since the eighties, there have been options on how to sell the song without you giving up your voice or whatever and so I mean Kind of the lip-syncing aspect has been a thing since the early 80s, but for me as a musician That's just a fact of life. But for a lot of people there

There's a smoke a mirror at aspect to it. And I guess with that Ashley Simpson performance You know most of America found out that half their favorites kind of do that. Like, it's just the standard. Really? I don't want to pop any more balloons than I have to, but it's just, again, like, from the artists that I talk to, it's like they might get in their heads that, you know, if I move too much and I'm out of breath, then I won't be able to hit the notes like I normally do.

You know, I think people, again, the thriller effect is it must be perfect. And I'm kind of from the school of warts and all. Like, I love seeing the warts. I love seeing the pimples, the mistakes. Like, to me, that's the human touch. And I think people need to trust that more. Like, you know, things don't have to be

Instagram filter perfect 24 seven. So I assume that what they're lip syncing to is a live performance. That's not the record. You know, for the... There's some people, you know what? There's a few artists that are smart enough that will maybe do eight specific takes of a particular performance so that you're under the impression that they are, you know, that will do like 10 or 20 versions of a song to sort of customize or not get caught out there. But I think just in the name of presenting a perfect package,

that's what people go through. You're talking about in concert right now, right? Yeah, in concert or most, you know, I'm on television. I'll say that 90% of, you know, it's very rare for a person to just go 100% live. Like I'll say that on the Tonight Show, 85 to 90% of what you see is a perfected delivery. Like in their minds, it's like I must sell this song to sell my album. And so they don't want to leave risk or to chance any, you know, any flub that would make you say,

no, that note was flat, so I'm not supporting that group. So yeah, that's kind of where we are now in entertainment. Well, you still have one mystery for me, which is how do singers manage to sing when they're doing this elaborate workout with their choreography when you're going to be out of breath. Exactly. So, pretty much it's just Partho chorus. It's always been that way.

But when I go to SNL, yeah, I'm entertained by what I see, but I'm not sitting in the audience just to watch Saturday Night Live. For me, the best part of the show is what happens in the audience just to watch Saturday Night Live. Like, for me, the best part of the show is what happens in the commercials. Like, watching the Teamster guys and the crew guys, like, at furious pace in two minutes, like, build an entire set while, you know, they're quick, the artists are quick changing in the back,

and, well, they make it in two minutes flat. And to me, that's the best part of the show, like watching the choreography of a well-oiled machine. My guest is Questlove. His film, Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music, premieres tonight on NBC and starts streaming on Peacock tomorrow. We'll be right back after a short break.

This is Fresh Air. So, you know, we were talking a little bit about how you ended up being the bandleader of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Did Paul Schaeffer or any subsequent bandleaders influence your, like, how you wanted to be, both as an individual and as a band on The Tonight Show. Absolutely. So even though Paul Schaeffer was the first generation SNL late night band,

when Paul went to the David Letterman show, which, you know, I will say the, the David Letterman talk shows, especially in its first 10 years, um, it was such a kind of eighties counterculture moment. Um, my parents always felt that those guys were hip, even though they were like totally nerdy. They kind of liked the irony hip, the nerdy hip of Paul and David Letterman. And so as a kid, I just, you know, Paul was just like the coolest guy ever. And so, you know, I mean, at the time, I didn't realize as a 10-year-old that, you know, someone were to come to me and say, you know, young man in 35 years,

that will be you on television. Like, you know, like my version of, you know, a Christmas story, you know, like my Jacob Marley. But to me, when I was offered the late night thing, when you're doing the pros and the cons of it all, yeah, in my head, I was like, wow, you know, this is my chance to be the Paul Schaeffer. But Paul's very unique. I'm definitely not the Paul Schaeffer of The Tonight Show. Paul and David almost have this run DMC-esque, finish each other's sentence kind of camaraderie going on.

I'm not there with Jimmy yet, but I've made my mark still. So several of the people who have been music guests on Saturday Night Live talk about how nervous they were the first time around or the only time around. And one of them is Dave Grohl, who talks about how his first appearance with Nirvana, he was so nervous, he played so hard, he said, when I get nervous, I play really hard, that he broke like a drumstick within 20 seconds and a little while later broke through the skin of one of his drums. But I wonder if that's

something you have to deal with on The Tonight Show. Do you ever have to calm down guest artists who either get nervous in front of an audience in general or just get nervous because they're not really used to national TV? All the time. I can tell what type of artists we're dealing with based on how late the camera blocking, the rehearsal, the day of is, and kind of a way that artists handle that control issue is usually with time. Oftentimes we'll get an artist that will drag their feet. It's now 10 minutes late, It's now 15 minutes late. And, you know, the artists don't understand, like, blue collar and white collar office politics like, hey, we're a union group and we have to take an hour break at this specific

time. And, you know, the things that they don't generally get, you know, artists are sometimes in their own ecosystem, their own world, their own bubble where they're not thinking like, oh, am I going over union time? Like, we might have to do lunch and a half or, you know, like things that only office people understand. And I learned long ago, like this is why I'm really big on micro meditation and just sitting in a quiet room for like 10 minutes before I go on, because sometimes you have to just calm yourself down

so that you can really focus on what you have to do. But a lot of times artists are in their own heads and they often talk themselves out of the magic, because when you're worrying, you're almost praying for something bad to happen. Like that's my definition of worrying. Like, oh, I hope I don't mess up. You're basically saying, hey, I would like to mess up

just subconsciously. So as a result, most artists will stall, take their time, be an hour late, be two hours late, not show up at all, hijack their career in the name of fear. And as always, once you do it, then it's like, oh, that's all it was? No big deal. But I'm used to it because I've been doing this for a couple of decades. But oftentimes, I'll pull an artist to the side and just be like, okay, I want used to it because I've been doing this for a couple of decades, but oftentimes I'll pull an artist to the side and

Just be like, okay. I want you to listen to my voice. I want you to inhale Exhale I do that a lot to them, especially the new artists that are like nervous and scared You can't say don't worry about it's no big deal. It's just national TV No, see the people in their heads and you know, it, it's a tightrope walk and I get it. It's easy to think, like, what if I fail? What if this doesn't work? What if no one likes me? But there's another side of that coin, which is like, what if this works out?

What if everyone loves me? Again, leading to the slide, Doc, one of the biggest themes is, you know, there's a fear of failure, but the bigger fear is actually the fear of success. Like, what if it does work? AMT – Amir, it's been so great to talk with you. Thank you for being such a regular guest on our show. It's really, it's a joy. DC – Thank you. AMT – Amirah Questloveira Questlove Thompson's new film, Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music,

is part of SNL's 50th anniversary celebration. It premieres on NBC Tonight and starts streaming on Peacock tomorrow. There's a part two of that interview in which we talk about another new Questlove documentary about Sly Stone and his band Sly and the Family Stone. It's called Sly Lives, aka The Burden of Black Genius. It just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will start streaming on Hulu February

13th. We'll feature that interview sometime in the next few weeks. After we take a short break, Ken Tucker will review Ringo Starr's new album. This is fresh air. Ringo Starr has released a new album of country songs called Look Up. It's a collaboration with producer T-Bone Burnett who wrote many of the songs and it features appearances by Allison Krauss and a new young bluegrass star Billy Strings. Ringo recently taped a country special that will air on CBS in the spring,

and in February, he'll make his debut at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Not bad for an 84-year-old ex-Beatle. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of Look Up. It's a long way down and there's no bottom You had the plumes but you forgot them Look up in the midnight hour Look up, love is the higher power. Keep your eyes on the skies. Don't look down on the shadow town. Look up.

Beetle fans have known of Ringo Starr's love of country music ever since he had the Fab Four cover the Buck Owens hit, Act Naturally, in 1965, singing a rare lead vocal. Look Up isn't even Ringo's first country album. That was way back in 1970. It was called Boku of Blues and was more self-conscious and legubrious than the new one, which radiates the confidence and ease that an aging professional can bring to his material. While producer T-Bone Burnett has written most of the music here, he and Ringo have selected some clever new songs including a couple by an old pro, Billy Swan. Swan will forever be known for one beautiful number one hit, I Can Help, from 1974. Swan's always charming songwriting yields this lovely interlude called

You Want Some. Well I got love to give Maybe that's better than none You want some You want some Deep down in my heart Is where it all comes from You want some What makes Ringo such an effective country vocalist? Well, the rhythmic sense that made him a great rock drummer guides the way he phrases, giving

a country lyric the air necessary to breathe life into the story it's telling. Freed from the demands of rock and roll volume when singing with the Beatles, Ringo's crooning possesses the kind of relaxed authority that usually only a genius like Willie Nelson or Ray Charles can make sound so easy. I used to have a true love, everything was fine But now she's found a new love, she's no longer mine I thought it was forever, but she had other plans Now these arms are empty, and I've got time on my hands I turn my collar up, kept my eyes turned down

I walk the empty streets, the blue side of town Ringo spent a good chunk of his post-Beatle career fronting a series of what he calls his All-Star Bands with a rotating cast of rock stars. The 11 songs on Look Up feature less glitzy, but no less strong support from Nashville vets like bassist Dennis Crouch, pedal steel player Paul Franklin, and younger budding stars like guitarist-singer Molly Tuttle and bluegrass guitar phenomenon Billy Strings. Strings' most recent album, released late last year, Highway Prayers, has brought him a larger audience than bluegrass usually attracts.

The biggest guest star on this album is Alison Krauss, with whom Ringo hits an emotional peak on this collection called Thankful. I needed a friend peak on this collection called Thankful. Now I have good days, I'm changing my ways And it's a beautiful day here in California And when you came along, my shelter from the storm I put my life into your hands And you made me a better man And now I'm thankful for the love you've shown You look for me I've never. Thankful for the stars above.

Hoping for more peace and love. Thankful... The gratitude that Ringo expresses on thankful is what has made him such a beloved figure. He always came across as the most modest Beatle, grateful he'd lucked into being a member of the most influential rock band in history. But his underrated talent, his quietly persistent hard work over the years, it's all contributed to the strength of this collection, in which Ringo Starr emphasizes the value of simple, straightforward sincerity. Kentucky reviewed Ringo Starr's new country album called Look Up. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, our guests will be Harvard professor and MacArthur fellow Amani Perry. Her new book is

called Black in Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Perry's last book, South to America, won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2022. I hope you'll join us. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.