Fresh Air - Remembering Action Hero Chuck Norris

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

We remember martial arts champion turned Hollywood action hero Chuck Norris, who died last week at age 86. In addition to his many kung fu and action films, he was the star of the long-running TV show, ‘Walker, Texas Ranger.’ He spoke with Terry Gross in 1988 about the karate he learned while stationed in Korea. Also, we remember Tex-Mex musician Augie Meyers of the Texas Tornadoes, who died March 7 at age 85.  His signature sound was created on the vox organ, an instrument made in Britain. When he went to England in the ‘60s he got a call at his hotel. “George Harrison and John Lennon called the hotel and wanted me to come to the studio because they wanted to see how they had a vox organ but they couldn't get the sound I had out of mine,” he told Terry Gross in 1990. Justin Chang reviews the film ‘Miroirs No. 3’ and David Bianculli reviews ‘Marshals’ and ‘The Madison.’ To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Chuck Norris, the martial arts champion turned Hollywood action hero, died last week. He was 86. Norris broke into movies with a cinematic fight to the death against Kung Fu Master Bruce Lee in Return of the Dragon. Norris first learned karate in Korea while serving in the Air Force. Back in California, he kept at it and became the world middleweight karate champion, a title he held for six years. He also set up karate. Academies where he taught several Hollywood celebrities. One of his students, Steve McQueen, encouraged him to pursue a career in acting. Norris went on to make a dozen Kung Fu films and became a martial arts cult hero. Then he diversified to become an all-around tough guy action star. His films include Code of Silence, Invasion USA, Delta Force, Missing in Action Part 1 and 2, and Braddock Missing in Action Part 3. From 1993 to 2001, he starred in the TV series Walker, Texas Ranger, playing a lawman you don't want to mess with.

Here he is confronting a couple of bad guys. Ninja Walker, I'm so sorry about the tragic death of your partner. Sure you are. I know you're the one that arranged the hit. And I know you're the one that pull the trigger. I assume you have proof. If I had proof, you'd be dead right now. But I'm going to take you down, and I'm going to take you down hard.

You want me, Walker? You got me. Just name the time and place. You've got the guts. Chuck Norris also wrote an autobiography titled The Secret of Inner Strength. We're going to listen to Terry's 1988 interview with him. She asked him to describe the kind of karate he learned while stationed in Korea. Well, at that time it was called Tong Su-Doh. Today it's more prominently known as Taekwondo, which is an emphasis on kicking.

Okay. Now, you taught karate in America, won many karate championships. Bruce Lee got you your first film roles. Did you already want to break into acting when you met Bruce Lee? No, not at all. When I did the film with Bruce, I had no desire to be an actor. I was still in the karate business. still competing. And I did Return of the Dragon strictly as a kick. No pun intended, right? Okay. Well, that was in 1972. Would you describe the fight scene that you were in

in Return of the Dragon? Well, of course, the fight scene is to the death in the Colosseum in Rome, about basically like two gladiators pitting their skills against each other. And it was very exciting you know, to be in the Coliseum in Rome and just look out into the arena there and think that a few hundred years ago they were doing it for real.

So it was quite exciting, actually. Now, you both choreographed the scene together, right? You chef and Bruce Lee? Yeah, we'd worked out together for about three years prior to this. And so when we decided to do the fight itself, he said, well, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I'll do this, this and this.

So we just kind of choreographed it right there on the set. Now, you did Korean karate, Taekwondo, and he was a Chinese form of karate at Kung Fu. Were there any differences in style that you had to reconcile before getting the choreography together? No, not at all, because we'd both studied many other styles as well, and I'd studied the Chinese, and with Bruce and the Japanese style, so I was really a conglomeration of several styles, and so was Bruce Lee. Bruce did stick strictly to the Chinese styles. He'd studied many different styles, so there was a real good chance, you know, ability of us working together.

Now, in the scene, I imagine that you didn't really hit each other hard. I mean, what are the rules there when you're choreographing a fight scene for the movie? How did you do it in 1972? Well, of course, we didn't go to hurt each other. There's light contact, but just as we would make contact, we would pull the blow right at the point of contact rather than following through with it, so we could finish the fight. Is that something you're used to from sparring? Yeah, you learn to control your kicks, and especially from my movies. You know, I have to learn to do that in my films.

to keep from hurting the stuntmen. Did you enjoy kung fu movies at the time? Did you see a lot of them? In the beginning I did, but they became redundant. They were all the same. When you have a movie that just has fight from beginning to end, and there's no story or no emotion involved, it becomes redundant, and it gets boring after a few minutes

of watching kick, kick, kick, punch, punch. And so it's important, I think. That's why they died out. That's why there's no longer those kind of films. in the American market is the fact that after a while you get bored of them. That's why I didn't want to do those kind of films. But earlier, aren, didn't you want to convince Hollywood

that you would be a good star for Kung Fu-type American vehicles? In the beginning, of course, when I was trying to break through into the film business, when Bruce Lee died, the karate market or the Kung Fu market in movies died with him. All producers thought, well, since Bruce died,

there was no one else that could fulfill that. bill. And so when I finally broke in in 77, you know, I was known as the Kung Fu Star in Hollywood or in the media. But I knew that if I was stuck strictly as a Kung Fu Star, that my career would be very limited and I'd never, you know, I wouldn't be able to grow. So I started working more into the action orientation of my films with, you know, martial arts or karate integrated into the action. And that way wouldn't be limited to be strictly a kung fu star, and that's what's worked for me. What were some of the things that you had to learn in order to broaden into more general action films? Learning how to act was the main thing.

Remember, I jumped into the films with absolutely no experience as an actor, had very little acting classes and so forth, so I had to kind of learn on the job, and it wasn't easy to do that. Well, Steve McQueen, who was a friend of yours and whose son, studied at your karate school, gave you some advice on acting, he told you not to verbalize what's already on the screen. It almost seems like that became a code for you. I mean, you're really known in your movies as not saying a lot. Most of your action, actors, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, I think all of us kind of stick to that mode to, you know, is that when there's something to say,

say it. It isn't important and keep your mouth shut, you know, and whether that's right or wrong is up to debate, but, you know, the thing is that we're not Dustin Hoffman, who's got that ability to express in words, because he can express in words and you can visualize them. But not many actors have that ability to verbally express himself, and you can, in your mind, see what he's saying. And so the thing is, if you can show it on the screen visually, rather than verbally, it's much better. Let's talk about stunts some more. Now, do you always do your own stunts? Not all of them. Some I don't do.

way out of my range of ability, then, of course, I won't do it. I don't do fire burns, which is really extremely dangerous. That's what, like you're walking through an exploded bomb or something like that? Right, or catching on fire. And things like that, I wouldn't want to do. There's just certain things or high dives. I'm not a high diver, so I have to have a stunt, double-do that. But anything that requires balance or coordination or a certain amount of strength, then I can do that. Well, I remember in Code of silence, there's a great scene in which you're fighting with someone on top of a New York City train. Yeah, I did that.

And the train is moving. That's you. That wasn't a stuntman. No, no, I did that. Ah, now the train was actually moving while we were doing that, wasn't it? It was doing about 35 miles an hour. In fact, you know, the thing is the stuntman that I was fighting with was a little bit apprehensive about me doing that because we were relying on each other to keep our balance on that train

because we're 50 feet in the air. That's an L train. We're 50 feet in the air. And he said, I don't know if you should do this or not. I said, well, look, let's do it with the train stopped. If you feel I'm not capable of doing it, then we'll bring in a stunt double. So we did it with a train stop. He said, no, no, he says, you'll do okay. So I did the fight with him. Do you carry any kind of insurance? Well, of course, the studio gets very upset when I do that, because if I do get hurt, then production stops, and it costs a lot of money. But the audience today is very sophisticated. They look, they look to see

if it's a stunt double or if it's the stunt man or the actor doing it. And so if it's something that I can do, then I like to do it. Especially when you do an acting scene, you really don't know if it's good or bad until it gets on the screen. But when you do a stunt, you know immediately whether it's good or bad. And there's an immediate exhilaration when you do a stunt that you don't get as an acting scene. I want to get back to this fight scene in Cote of Silence on top of the train. How did you and the stuntman that you were working with

keep your balance while the train was moving? What were some of the tricks to doing that? Well, the tricks is just having the ability to maintain your balance up there. We had the fight prearranged, of course, but we're rolling all over the top of that train. And we're really controlling each other. We're preventing each other from falling off.

So we're really balancing each other as we're fighting on top of that train. And you just, you know, either you have the athletic ability to do it or you don't have it. Now, as you're actually holding on to each other and trying to help each other keep balance, you have to look as if you're fighting each other and trying to throw each other off the top of the train. Exactly. Can you talk a little bit about how you kind of make it seem like you're trying to throw the person off the train

while you're really hanging on to them? It's kind of a hard thing to describe, you know, because you're up there and you're just doing the thing as strong as you can without losing your balance. And a couple times, you know, I broke my balance once, but he controlled it for me, and then he broke his balance once, and I brought him back on balance. And it's just a matter of being able to have the experience and the ability to be able to do that. Okay. Let's look at fight scenes for a second. When you're choreographing a fight scene, will you be using martial arts?

Are there certain things that you think have to get into the scene, like a certain number of kicks or certain number of, A certain amount of really dazzling stuff. No, the main thing, when I do a fight scene, I try to make it as real as possible. You know, the thing is that if I'm fighting two guys is one thing, if I'm fighting four. Like in Code of Science, I fall about 12 or 14,

and I got the daylight speed out of me. You know, I didn't win because it would have been totally unrealistic for me to whip that whole bar room. And so in turn, you know, I wound up losing that fight. But that's the realism of it. If I'd have whipped everybody in that bar room, it would have been totally unrealistic.

No matter how good you are as a martial artist, you only have so much ability. And so in turn, I wound up losing that particular fight, but I tried to make it as exciting and as dramatic as I could before I got whipped. You have a kind of spin kick that you do. Yeah, spinning heel kick, yeah. Would you describe what that is for listeners

who haven't seen it? It's like having a baseball bat in your hand and swing at a ball. But you'd just, you know, you torque your whole body around in a full circle and your leg swings around like a bat would. And it's extremely powerful kick. And I have to be, when I do that in my fight scenes, I've got to be very, very careful because if I hit one of my stuntmen with that, it would cause real serious damage.

In your autobiography, you talk about having to break the pain barrier in karate. And you've had a lot of broken bones during your years as a karate teacher and as a karate student. broken hands, broken noses. So what do you mean when you say breaking the pain barrier? Well, you're able to eliminate and really ignore the pain. It's something you practice and train, and you get to a point where you're able to really ignore the pain. Is this something you've had to practice as a stuntman too?

You know, in your role as doing your own stunts? Oh, yeah. That still doesn't mean I like pain, because I don't like pain. I'd prefer not to be hurt than being hurt. But the thing is, like in Firewalker I did, I broke my ankle in the second week in the filming. So I had to go eight weeks with a broken ankle. And I couldn't put a cast on because I was still filming, so I had to keep it taped through the whole movie. So it was painful, but you learned to work with it.

Other times when a stunt has gone wrong, when someone who you were fighting with actually connected instead of almost connected, or when someone fell off something that they were... Well, my poor brother has taken a tremendous beating. I've knocked him out twice. I broke his leg once. And so he's taken the worst beating of all the stuntmen I've worked with because I work with him so much

that sometimes we get carried away a lot of times and I try to get too close to him or he tries to get too close when I'm kicking at him. And so in turn we've made a little bit of contact and he's had his injuries from our fights together. Chuck Norris is my guest.

I recently saw your new movie Missing in Action Part 3, And, you know, it's interesting, you're without a shirt during a good deal of the movie. And I wonder if that's intentional, you know, to show off all the muscles. No, not really, because I'm not an Arnold Schwarzenegger. But, you know, in the torture scene that you saw, you know, it was conducive to not have the shirt on. Conduasive to what? Well, you know, because I'm being electrocuted and all the stuff here.

So, you know, they had to be able to see the reaction of my body being electrocuted. Can I tell you my reaction to that scene? Sure. Just to describe it, you're being tortured by South Vietnamese, right? North Vietnamese. Well, now he's from Saigon, yeah. Okay. And they've kidnapped your son.

So you're being tortured in the cell. You're suspended by your hands. Your hands are tied over your head. And you're standing on your toes. Now, your son is in bondage in a chair in front of you, and there's a gun pointed. him and the torturer tells you that if you step down you know you're on your toes but if you if your heels touch the ground and your arms lower about an inch that this gun is going to go off shotgun yes

yeah and and shoot your son now seeing you kind of writhing up there with all your muscles exposed it struck me as as almost a sexual bondage scene is that good or bad i don't know i'm not trying to put any value on it it just it just struck me and i was wondering if that was uh conscious or No, not with me it wasn't conscious, no. I didn't see it as that. But maybe the women might, I don't know. Or some men might, I don't know. I don't know, really, because I don't see myself as that way. But it's interesting youth thought that way.

The thing is, what we were trying to show the mental torture as well, because here he is trying to force my feet down, so the shotgun will go off and kill my son. So it was the tension in the mental torture that was going on as much as the physical torture. Because it doesn't work out that way. A lot of adults in America, especially like parents of children, get very upset at certain action movies in which there's a lot of violence depicted. Now, I understand that you actually get more upset by movies that are sexually explicit. Well, the thing is when we talk about violence, again,

And it's how you do it. If you provoke violence on the screen, if it's a provocation of violence on the screen, then I don't think it's done in a very negative way. What I try, my films are kind of a retaliation against violence. And I don't see that as a bad thing for children to see. And I've got to, I kind of have that reputation, I think, with the audiences, with the families throughout the country,

that they don't mind their children coming to see my movies because it's action-oriented, but not, But there's no extreme language and there's no strong sexual scenes in the movie. And I think most families are more concerned about that than they are the action sequences in the movies. Well, there's a scene in the movie, and this is part of the commercial that is being shown on television to advertise the movie. You're basically told by the CIA not to go into Vietnam and don't step on any toes there. And you say, I don't step on toes. I step on next.

Yeah. Well, it was funny how that term came up. I was in New York about a year ago. And some kids are following me down the road, you know, and so they're all, you know, so they're talking to me and all the stuff here. And one kid says, man, he says, you don't step on toes, you step on next, you know?

And that's how I remembered that. So that term, I kind of stuck in my mind. And so when the movie came about, I said, hey, I like that terminology. So that's why we inserted it into the movie. In your movies, your character is constantly being provoked to use his martial arts skills and to pull out guns and knives as well. Do people ever try to take you out in real life?

Have you been called on in real life to use those skills? I've never had to use it. I've been all over the world and travel everywhere, and I've never had anyone, you know, approach me in that respect. I think mainly, again, it's the philosophy that I demonstrate on the screen. It's not a guy who's walking around looking for trouble with a chip on his shoulder. That's what brings that type of people on to challenge you. It's a guy who doesn't want trouble,

but he's forced into the situation to have to deal with it. And with that philosophy in mind, it's not the type of character that people think that you're walking around looking for trouble. So in turn, I don't think... That's probably one of the reasons I haven't been encountered that way. I'm sure that knowing the martial arts gives you a lot of self-confidence.

Have you ever used that to psych someone out in a potentially violent situation? Not in an antagonizing way. Again, when you see trouble happening, you try to diffuse it before it becomes uncontrollable. And I've had to do that several times where I've been able to diffuse a potential physical altercation before it got to that extreme.

And the thing is, if you don't get emotionally involved and you analyze the situation of why it's happening, generally you can get out of it. And especially when the person realizes you're not doing it because you're afraid, but you're doing it just because you don't want the trouble. And they can feel that. They can generally get a sense of that. And when they do, then if you give them an out,

then generally they will take it. Okay. What effect do you think you've had on the American view of mailness? God, Jesus. I don't know. I don't know if I've had any effect on it. on that respect. You know, because, again, I don't even think of me having a mailedness type of an effect on the audience.

I just play a particular type of character that I enjoy being. It was a character that I demonstrated as a karate instructor for 15 years, and I've tried to carry it on into my screen life. And, you know, a guy who has a certain compassion for life and people. and doesn't want violence, but then he's put into position that there's no choice but to deal with it. And we all would have to do that in our life if we're forced into it.

Well, Chuck Norris, I want to thank you very much for talking with us. Thanks for being with us. You bet. My pleasure. Chuck Norris spoke with Terry Gross in 1988. He died last week at the age of 86. Coming up, we remember Augie Myers of the Texas tornadoes. He helped shape the sound of Tex-Mex on his Vox organ. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Since introducing his Yellowstone TV series starring Kevin Costner in 2018, Taylor Sheridan has made a very successful career of building dramas around veteran stars. Jeremy Renner in Mayor of Kingstown, Sylvester Stallone in Tulsa King, and Billy Bob Thornton in Landman. But some of his best work has come in prequels to his Yellowstone story, featuring Sam Elegate and Faith Hill in the series 1883, and Harrison Fort and Helen Mirren in 1923.

Now Sheridan has a new official sequel series, Marshalls, on CBS, and a seemingly unrelated series, The Madison, that our TV critic David B. and Cooley suspects, will connect to the Yellowstone storyline before too long. Here are David's reviews. The Madison is a six-episode drama starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell that streamed half its episodes when it premiered March 14th on Paramount Plus. It has been renewed already for a second season. Its first three episodes were written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by Christina Alexandra Voros, who directed many episodes of both Yellowstone and 1883. It's set up as a sort of dramatic Green Acres and presents Pfeiffer and Russell as Stacey and Preston, wealthy New Yorkers who

are close to approaching their 50th wedding anniversary. They have daughters and granddaughters, and Preston also has a cabin and some land he shares with his brother Paul in Madison River Valley, Montana. He goes there when he can to relax. When he does, his wife Stacy stays behind in the city. It's a loving relationship, but one night, when Preston checks in by cell phone, he gives Stacy some news, and she has some of her own. You feel rested?

What time do you land tomorrow? Okay. Yeah, going to have to push it back a day, honey, because Paul has something very, very special plan for tomorrow. Mm-hmm. It's a stretch of river that can only be reached by pack horse. It takes like a week. Paul has permission to fly us into it, honey. This is like, well, it's virgin water. Oh, now there's virgins involved. Nobody fishes this stretch, honey. Nobody. Maybe a dozen people a year, if that.

Some bad news. Paige got mugged today down in the village. What? Mugged. Is she okay? Yeah, she just, you know, she got a pretty good shiner and a decent cut. The doctor saw her six ditches. Damn it, I cannot come up with one plausible reason why we still live in that city. Well, I'll give you two, our children, two more, our grandchildren, my parents. Make her use the car, honey. That's what it's for.

She thinks it's a garish display of wealth. Well, if my money's so offensive, maybe we should stop giving it to her. Before long, Stacey decides to take her daughters and granddaughters to see the Montana cabins for the first time. The whole family is there. One older divorced daughter with two girls, a teenager and one in grade school. And the younger married daughter, who has just been mugged. Conditions and provisions are Spartan. And when a thoughtful neighbor arrives unannounced, dropping off conditions.

containers of pre-made meals to help them get by, Stacy is grateful for the food and the gesture. But once the neighbor leaves, her granddaughters are less so. This is one scene in which Fyfer really gets to shine. Okay, do we really want to be eating some strange person's food? Fried chicken, fried steak? Why would they fry steak? Don't eat it, then.

Maybe ask what we like before you bring... I blame myself. After all, she's raising you like I raised her. Complete strangers spent. I don't know how much time they spent, how much thought went in to this, not to mention money. Looking at that truck, money isn't something they have in abundance.

And you have the nerve to judge it? What spoiled little bitches we've raised? The Madison, like Yellowstone and all its prequel series, is all about legacy and responsibility and relationships, but focusing on the women instead of the men. Some scenes and concepts in the Madison are absurd in the extreme, like the idea that the streets of New York are more dangerous than any Wild West. But there also are moments of true beauty and calm,

and the valley setting itself, I suspect, eventually will link to previous series in the Yellowstone Canon. Fly fishing figures prominently here, as it does in most other Yellowstone-connected series. But Sheridan and the Madison, with Kurt Russell fully enjoying the piece of the river, nails the emotion. The new CBS sequel, Marshalls,

which also has a male-bonding fly-fishing scene, does not. Marshalls, which premiered March 1st on CBS, stars Luke Grimes as Casey Dutton, one of the sons of Kevin Costner's John Dutton from Yellowstone. Sheridan co-wrote the first episodes, but Marshalls isn't nearly as good a series as the Madison. It finds a way to get Casey hired as a U.S. Marshal, but mostly to give the character a chance to run around with more advanced weaponry. And his relationship with his son Tate, played by Breck and Merrill from Yellowstone, is explored a lot less credibly and dramatically than the maternal dynamics on the Madison. Here's Casey having a father-son talk with Tate in the premiere of Marshalls.

Your grandfather, he warned me about this. He said one day you test me. Forced me to make a decision that not only affects your future but my place in it. I want you to forge your own path. East Camp is your home. It's not your destiny. You won't hate me for that? Marshall's adds to the Yellowstone legacy,

with its allusions to long-established storylines, like a seventh generation land surrender, and modern clashes that echo deadly standoffs of old. But it's the Madison, like 1883 and 1923, that brings the best out of Taylor Sheridan. And bringing back veteran movie stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, even in a modern Western, that's a real bonanza.

David Bion Cooley reviewed The Madison and Marshalls. Coming up, we remember Tex-Mex pioneer Augie Myers of the Texas tornadoes. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Augie Myers, who helped shape the sound of Tex-Mex music with the 60s band Sir Douglas Quintet, and then with the Texas Tornadoes,

died earlier this month. He played keyboards, organ, and accordion. His signature sound came from using the Vox organ, a smaller, readier-sounding instrument than the richer-sounding Hammond B-3 organ used by more bands. The Vox organ came from English, and at one point, the Beatles approached Myers to ask how he got his distinctive sound out of the instrument. Author and historian Joe Nick Potoskey described Augie Myers and his Vox organ as

the element in Tex-Mex music that gives it the bounce, the appeal that made Tex-Mex more than a regional sound. Myers' bandmate in the Sir Douglas Quintet was guitar prodigy and singer Doug Somm, a childhood friend. The group formed during the British invasion, and the band name was chosen to say. sound British. Their biggest hits were She's About a Mover and Mendocino. The group broke up in 1972. In 1989, Myers and Somme came together again to form the Grammy Award-winning band The Texas Tornadoes, with Country and Tejano star Freddie Fender and accordion aficionado Flaco Jimenez. Their hits include Hey Baby Ke Paso, Soe de San Luis, and Who Were You Thinking of? Augie Myers was also a sideman on albums by Wille and Elmonds.

Nelson, Tom Waits, Rahul Malo, and Bob Dylan. Terry Gross spoke with Augie Myers in 1990. They began with the Texas Tornado song, Who Were You Thinking of? My guest, Augie Myers, featured on both accordion and organ on that recording. Are you overdubbing on that? Yes. Yeah, I guess you'd have to. You really use Oregon as a rhythm instrument.

I was wondering how you started playing Oregon that way. My main instrument, I guess, years ago was piano, and that was the first Fox organ that was ever in America. I bought in 1962. And I didn't like the way it sounded trying to play solos on it. So I just started playing rhythm on it, just used it as a rhythm instrument. I think a lot of people picked up on that. Did you have anybody to pick up on? I mean, had you heard organ played that way before?

No, no way. I listened to, I guess my piano player's way back then was Moon Mulligan, and then Ray Charles. A lot of people don't know, Ray Charles played with Guitar Slim. He was called R.C. Richardson way back then, and he played a lot of shuffle stuff, and it was mostly rhythm. Piano was mainly used as a rhythm instrument, way back in the blues era. And that's what I mainly play is rhythm. You play Vox and Hammond B3 on the new record.

What's the difference between the two and what you can get out of it? Oh, a lot. I mean, now, Hammond B3 is, you know, it's like a milkshake. you know, with a whipped cream and ice cream, and a Vox organ is just a glass of water, but a good glass of water. So there's a lot of difference between that. I mean, you've got more sounds out of the Hammond organ for rhythm and blues and jazz and stuff, where Vox is mainly used for a lot of the English stuff.

This is one of those little organs that kind of stand up. Right. Like a small keyboard. Right. So you were the first person in the States to have a Vox organ? Right. How did you become the first person to do that? I used to prescribe to a lot of English magazines back in the early 60 just to check up and see what's going on.

And I remember it was $285 and a man, God bless him, he's gone now, but he owned a music store in San Antonio named Mr. Woods. He helped me get it. It was $285. Then after the Beatles and the Stones and Dave Clark 5 and everybody came out, they ran up to like $1,500. I still have my original one. I've got four of them. And if anybody out there's got one to sell it, please let me know. I like to buy them all.

Oh, really? So did this make you in demand having this new sound and new instrument? For a fact, yes, I did. I remember when me and Doug first went to England in the 60s, George Harrison and Lennon, John Lennon called a hotel and wanted me to come to the studio because they wanted to see how they had a Vox organ, but they couldn't get the sound that I had out of mine. They couldn't get their sound out of theirs. But it was only due to the amplification. They didn't have reverb in their amplifiers back then. The reverb was a new thing that came out. Now, I know you had polio as a child.

Yeah, I tell them from when I was two years old, till I was almost 10, I had polio, I couldn't walk. So you didn't start walking until you were around 10? I was about 10. So I live with my grandparents, and when they used to go out in the field every day and pick cotton, they took me over to this black lady's house, and her husband picked cotton from my grandfokes,

and they had a piano, and he played in their church in the black church. But they used to set me up. on a piano just to pacify my time away all day, and that's what I did, because there was no TV back then. They didn't have radio electricity in the house. Were your hands and fingers strong enough to play? Well, my right one was. My left one was a little affected by the polio, but my grandfather, I owe it all to him. He made me walk again, plus the good Lord, you know, but my grandfather,

he did his home remedies on me. So do you think learning to play when one hand was still weak affected the way you ended up playing, the style that you ended up having? Well, I think so because I do a lot of rhythm on my right hand and my left hand just kind of hits the dominant card on there. I still have a problem. I do therapy I play. That's why I bought my accordion for therapy for my hands and my fingers,

and I learned to play guitar that way, too. Did you get full strength back in your hands? Well, I put it this way. I appreciate what I got. If I got it, if I had any more, I don't know what I'd do with it. How did you meet Doug Sum, who you played with for many years, and are still playing with on the Texas Tornado's record. Well, his folks traded in my mother's grocery store,

and he used to come there and buy all his baseball cards. And I was a sack boy, and that was it. That was in the... I guess we were 14, 15 years old. One of the great rock and roll stories was how... When you were produced by Uwee Mo, how we wanted to pass you off as a British invasion group? Who?

Yeah, do you feel that way also? Are you into the Who also? No, no, no, no. Freddie just looked at me and said who. I just said who. Okay. No, but, yeah, he wanted to pass. But, I mean, it was really hard because there was two gringoes and three Mexicans in the band, you know,

and trying to get these Spanish dudes to sit there and try to, you know, I like a spoff key, you know, and try to talk English. When they'd sit there and say, hey, what's though, man, what time is it, man? Let's go get a beer, you know. And that was their kind of accent, you know. So trying to be English. It pulled it off till Trini Lopez on, I think it was Holla Blue said, man, they're from Texas, you know. Well, what is your.

ethnic group? What's your ethnic background? Oh, Gemini. So am I. Ready, Jim and I do. Now, what do you mean my ethnic background? Well, I'm thinking, you know, you're a gringo playing a lot of, you know, Tex-Mex, Mexican-inspired music, so I, no, I wasn't sure what your... No, I'm a German and Polish.

German and Polish? German and Polish. Okay. Yes. So you probably heard the music of a lot of different ethnic, of groups growing up in Texas. Oh, yes. Well, back, I mean, actually back, I guess Freddie can say, when we were growing up in Texas,

there was either country music or Spanish music. I mean, there was nothing, you know, then all of a sudden the M-O-R came in, which was Little Richard and Elvis Presley, you know. So we kind of combined all three of them. Well, you know, why don't I play something that's kind of half Spanish? This is a song that you wrote called, Hey, Baby, K Paso. Do you want to say anything about the song and about, uh, Well, I wanted to write something that was, you know, at one point,

nobody would play my records back home because I either had a, the country station wouldn't play, they had horns on it, the rock station wouldn't play it because I had a fiddle or steel, the Spanish station wouldn't play it because there was no Spanish in it. So I just did the Kepposso, you know, to half English, half Spanish, put a little accordion in it. Actually, I wrote that song about one of my girlfriends running off with my best friends. Uh-huh, okay.

I miss him too, because we used to go out and shoot pooling in. drink bear. Well, this is the version of it from the new Texas Tornado's record, and it features Augie Myers on vocals, accordion, and organ. Freddie Fender is on electric guitar, and here we go. You can hear him yelling in the background, too. Okay. Hey, baby, get my soul. No care you ever if I know. Hey, baby, get my soul. Come on, baby, Ben and kind. You know, That's Augie Myers on organ, accordion, and vocals with the Texas tornadoes. Myers spoke with Terry Gross in 1990. He died March 7th at the age of 85.

This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Our film critic Justin Chang recommends the German movie Mirwar No. 3 from writer and director Christian Petzold, who's known for his earlier dramas, including transit and a fire. The new film stars Paula Beer as a young Berlin woman who forms a strangely powerful bond with the family she meets in the countryside. The film is now playing in select theaters. Here's Justin's review. The title of the quietly haunting new film Mirwar No. 3 comes from a piano piece by Ravel that beautifully evokes the movements of a boat sailing in the ocean.

It's no surprise that such music would appeal to the superb German filmmaker Christian Petzold. In movies like the enigmatic refugee drama, Transit, or the watery modern-day fairy tale, Undina, he loves to focus on characters who are lonely and adrift. Mouroir is also the French word for mirrors, and that meaning resonates throughout the new movie, which is full of mysterious reflections and distortions. There are also deliberate echoes of great movies past. Petzold is famously obsessed with film noir. and watching his work can sometimes make you feel like you're wandering through that labyrinth of mirrors at the end of the lady from Shanghai.

That's a very good thing. Mewar number three begins in Berlin, where we meet a young woman named Laura, played by Petzold's frequent collaborator, Paula Beer. Laura doesn't say much, but we can tell from her piercing stare that she's profoundly unhappy, and her boyfriend, Jacob, doesn't seem to be helping. Jacob is an inconsiderate partner, and it turns out a reckless driver. One day as they're speeding through the countryside in his cherry red convertible, he crashes the car and is instantly killed. Laura, though, miraculously survives with just a minor scrape.

A middle-aged woman named Betty, who lives near the crash site, comes to her rescue. And after a medical exam, Laura asks if, instead of going to the hospital, she can stay on and recuperate at Betty's house. Betty immediately says yes. She's played by the wonderful actor Barbara Hour, and you can tell just from how the two women look at each other that a close and instinctual bond has developed. One of the oddball pleasures of Mirwa No. 3

is how readily we accept what's happening, even though Petzold withholds and only gradually reveals significant information about his characters. We have little sense. of who Laura is, or whether she has any friends or family. In time, we learn that she is studying to be a classical pianist. Betty proved similarly elusive, though we do meet her husband, Richard, and their grown son, Max, who work together at an auto garage nearby. They're somewhat estranged from Betty for tragic reasons that eventually come into focus. Betty and

Richard had a daughter, who's now dead, but who seems to have had a lot in common with Laura. right down to their shared love of the piano. But the music that you might remember best from Mirwara number three isn't a classical piece. It's the 1972 song, The Night, by Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons, which plays in the garage one day when Max and Laura are hanging out. It's a joyous song, but it's also a tale of romantic caution, as though warning these two acquaintances not to get any closer.

What I love about Petzold's movies is that although they're very much tethered to the real world, they're not afraid to embrace implausibility, coincidence, and even hints of the supernatural. He has the head of a realist and the heart of a fantasist, or maybe it's the other way around. He also loves the conventions of classic Hollywood filmmaking, and clearly believes they can speak powerfully to the audiences of today. In Mirwa No. 3, the notion of lore, serving as a stand-in for a deceased woman is clearly a riff on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, one of Petzold's favorite films. The protagonist's name also reminded me of one of my favorite

films, the 1944 Otto Preminger classic, Laura, which also has a memorable back-from-the-dead element. But you don't have to spot these illusions to feel captivated and moved by the story that Petzold is telling. The surrogate family bonds that Laura forms with Betty, and in time with Richard and Max, are undeniably therapeutic. And Petzold suggests there's something precious about these connections, even if they are built on a shared delusion.

In showing us characters who feel the ache of love and loss, and who dream of a second chance, Petzold holds up a mirror to us all. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker magazine. He reviewed the new film Mirwar number three. On Monday show an inside look at Info Wars, the conspiracy factory run by Alex Jones. Josh Owen spent four years there in his 20s,

where the staff learned to dread Jones' erratic behavior and constant demands for sensational stories about the dark deeds of the deep state. Owen's new memoir is The Madness of Believing. I hope you can 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. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash This Is Fresh Air. We're rolling out new videos with in-studio guests, behind the scenes, shorts, and iconic interviews from the archive.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorak. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with a special director. additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Adam Stanishefsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldinado, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Paya Challoner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Wizzler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.