The Bobby Bones Show - Takin A Walk thru music history with President/CEO of The Boch Center Joe Spaulding.

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Joe is one of the most beloved figures in the Boston music and arts scene and the Boch Center(Wang Theatre) is one of the most adored live entertainment venues in America.Joe Spaulding has a motto, ��The Arts keep us a civilized society” and join host Buzz Knight as they take a walk at The Boch Center and “The Folk Americana Roots Music Hall of Fame.”https://www.bochcenter.org *****Thank you so much for listening to the TAKIN’ A WALK PODCAST SHOW hosted by Buzz Knight!  Listen to more honest conversations with a compelling mix of guests ranging from musicians, authors, and insiders with their own stories. Get inspired, get motivated, and gain insights from honest conversations every week that can help you with your own journey. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and be part of this blessed family.Website: https://takinawalk.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebuzzknightLinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/buzzknightLinkfire: https://lnk.to/takinawalk Please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends and family!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans. A show about who we are and who we become when life makes other. plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast, the show where we explore music history on foot,

sometimes virtual and often taking a walk in person. We're available at all the podcast destinations, Apple, Spotify, IHeart, and the podcast playground. If you like Taking a Walk, please share it with your friends. Today, our host Buzz Knight talks with a man who has one of the greatest gigs of all time. Joe Spalding is a Boston institution who oversees one of the first. of the most iconic music institutions in the world. The Bach Center, known for years as the Wang Center, home to not only some of the greatest concerts ever,

but also home to the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame. Join Buzz Next with Joe Spalding. Well, Joe Spalding, it's so great to have you on the Taken a Walk podcast in person. Yeah, I'm very honored to be your Buzz. One of my great joys about the Taking a Walk podcast is connecting with new friends, but reconnecting with old friends. So I've hit the jackpot. I'm reconnecting with Joe Spalden. I'm at one of the greatest venues of all time in the Wang Center, the Bach Center.

And we're also here for the first time I'm seeing the Folk and Americana Museum. So I've really hit it out of the park. Well, we're thrilled that you're here, and we are currently sitting in one of the exhibits called the Music Hall. And if you remember back in the old days when you and I were both a little younger, I used to come to then the Music Hall rather than the Wang Theater to see all kinds of shows. And so it's kind of fun to go full circle and come back and now have the world's only Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame right here in the Wang Theater. So I'm going to put you on the spot right out of the gate. What are some of your personal favorite, either music events or just artistic events that have happened at the Wang?

Well, you know, I'm asked that question, Buzz, all the time, all right? And it's a little hard to answer because I've been the CEO here for 38 years, right? So my staff tells me I've seen over 7,000 conferences and events and all kinds of stuff. So I have personal favorites, and they happened even before I even contemplated being here. I mean, I first saw Kat Stevens here in like 1970. I saw Bruce Springsteen here in 1970-ish when he was playing on stage was just acoustic guitar and a cello player. And I've seen the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead, and I've had them back, all right, several times during my career. And so I think the most memorable concert, though, for me, was a couple of years ago, 2014, when we had Yusuf Kat Stevens back when he was touring.

And he only played six theaters in the world. And Wang was one of them because he really enjoyed being here. And back in those days in the 70s, Kat was opening for America. And that's a funny story because I spent the night under the marquee here at the then music hall to try and buy my ticket. And guess who was sitting right next to me? Ernie Bach Jr. And that's like 50 years ago, right? And so I couldn't figure out how we got to the box office window and he ended up in the first row and I ended up in the balcony.

I have subsequently figured out how Ernie did all. that. And one of my great pleasures in life before Ernie stepped up to be the box center was I got Ernie hooked when I brought back Kat Stevens and I put Ernie in exactly the same seat that he was in that many

years ago. That's tremendous. So I've had the opportunity to do a lot of things that way. You know, opening a Phantom of the Opera, opening with Saigon, being the first city out of New York for rent the musical to many.

concerts that continue on today. In fact, last week I had a real special one and his name was Ed Shearren played here right before he played Gillette Stadium for two sold-out shows. So it has been really special and they all have a combination to the Hall of Fame and they all have an affinity to this theater. So tell me about the genesis of the museum. Well, back in 2000, probably 17, 18, you know, when you're doing this for a living for all these years, and you know I was back one of the founders of Great Woods and go back further than that. So listen, it was a, it sort of evolves. You have to be able to change, right? And as consolidation is gone, and the live nations have gotten

bigger and, you know, the AGs have gotten bigger. And, you know, we're a nonprofit performing Art Center. We're our own little entity here in the city of Boston representing all of New England. And so you have to think outside the box. So what are you going to do when all this consolidation is going to go on? So in 2019, I actually came up with this crazy idea to open a Hall of Fame. And because of my years of experience, I have friends who run the Country Music Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Grammy Museum. So I went around and I visited all these places and decided that, geez, we really could do this, and I went looking for a venue. But I had Neil Young playing here at that time. And Neil said to me, I don't think you should go

anywhere. Why would you want to leave the building? Why don't you put it in the place that we all perform? And I thought, wow, that was an interesting idea, to go and discover that I had 57,000 square feet of available space with nothing in it. And I said, okay. let's do it actually in a performing arts hall. And no one has ever done that before. Well, I was at that Neil Young show, first of all, which was the only time I ever saw Neil, which was such an amazing show.

I have goosebumps just thinking about that moment. But so Neil prompted that. Well, so he prompted it to the sense that, you know, and that after we had the conversation, he got up on stage twice in that conversation and said to the audiences on both nights, you know, Boston is the folk capital of North America. And I thought to myself, my God, he's actually saying that kind of thing.

And then he put it in his blog. And I said, okay, we're in. So now we've got to figure out how the hell we're going to pull this off, right? Well, I had some really good friends. And David Bieber, an old-time friend of ours. And the David Bieber archives, you know, we decided, okay, well, let's try to look at this and you know I've had a long career as a singer of songwriter too. So I knew most of these players. And so when you look around the musical, you see Ron

Pinell's pictures or you see Robert Corwin's picture of Bob Pete Seeger or you see the famous ones of Peter Paul and Mary and you see all the artists that are on the wall here. Every single one of those artists played here. And actually some of those pictures are of them playing here. And so this gave us the genesis of saying, okay, here's what we're going to put together. So then we decided, okay, you've got to have good people. So we made a deal with a group called the Museum Collective, which is Bob Santelli, who used to work at the Country Music, Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Paul Allen's popular run, ran the Grammy Museum for 15 years, now runs the Bruce Springsteen Archives. And we band it together with Dean McLeod from the Woody Guthrs Center.

in Tulsa, we went out and we went to the world. Everything that you're going to see today, Buzz, on your walk, has been delivered by the arts. All right? So, nothing's been purchased. Everything's on loan from estates,

from Pete Singer's original banjo to Tom Rush's guitar that I saw in play in 1968 with the naked woman on the fret to Tom Schultz's guitar from Boston. They're all here. because the artist thinks this is a good idea.

You have a great advisory board also for the museum. There's a long list of some notorious figures that are part of that. Talk about some of that group. Well, that was fun too, all right? Because there used to be an album in this case right over here, Buzz, and it had a picture of Noel Paul Stuckey from people. Peter Paul and Mary on releasing his first album that wasn't Peter Paul and Mary. It was called Body Works.

And in that picture is a gentleman with a tying coat with a long, darker beard than mine is today, with a little bit darker hair than I had then. And 45 years ago, he was a friend of mine. and I had recorded at his studio in Blue Hill, Maine, and I had, you know, he was a mentor to me, and I helped do that album cover shot, and we had the record here in part of the Hall of Fame. And Noel came on board, and, you know, we were friends with Joan, and, you know, Betsy Siglinson's from around here to, you know, I could just go on and on and on, and they all said, yes, I want to be a part of this. And we then had a big gala, and all the artists came.

They all performed. We raised like $300,000, and then COVID came. And we shut down for two and a half years. So how are things post-COVID? Well, that's the fun part about this thing. You know, when you look at the history of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and I'm only going to use that as one example. But most people don't know that the country music hall of fame is like 59 years old, right?

And it started a long time ago, you know, when Broadway wasn't quite like what Broadway is today in Nashville. And, you know, we've actually reopened in September of 2021, 22, all right, last September. And we now have seven exhibits going. We're ahead of the game of where my sisters and brothers out there have no long struggle to get to where they are today. And today, Country Music Hall of Fame is quite something, right? It gets a lot of tourists. Our model is not quite the same because we're a living, breathing, performing arts center. So it's not general admissions that you're going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Country Music Hall of Fame.

You've got to come and make a tour. You've got to book a tour. you've got to go on a tour. And if we have artists playing here, you can't go to certain places. But we even put exhibits backstage. And why do we do that? So that when artists come, they actually don't rarely come to the front of house. So they get a chance to walk right from their dressing room

right into Arlo Guthrie exhibit that you'll see today. Or Life in Sixth Strings, which is Ernie Box guitar collection. And they say, holy mackerel, this thing really does exist. Would you like my guitar? And the answer is, yes, Neil, we would. So that's how it works. We had on the previous episode, Paul Kingsbury, actually, from the Country Music Hall of Fame. So he sort of took us through as the, I guess, the curator or historian there.

So is it fair to say you are the Paul Kingsbury of the Focan Americana Museum? Well, at the moment, that is true, all right? And I am. and I have a great team in Bob Santilly and Dean of McLeod and David Bieber and others that have been, and you saw the advisors, yeah, these are

famous musicians that play Bob Crawfords and the Abbott brothers, right? So, or David Brothers if you want to. And it's been really wonderful that way. And so they have helped to spread the word, right? And as you spread the word, it takes

time to build. but it's helped us get artists to come. So it's, you know, when you're competing against, and it's not competing, because we promote and present with Live Nation and AEG, but, you know, we're having to battle MGM Fenway, and we're having to battle roadrunner, and you have to balance between the pavilion and here, and are there enough artists, and you have to do that all day long,

and then we wanted to start our own proprietary program, which we just had our first festival. It was called Was Fest. And we had Don Was, you know who he is, one of the most famous producers in the world. And we had a festival for four days, and it was a huge success. So we're feeling pretty blessed at this moment.

And so we're 10, 11 months back open. And things are going along very swimmingly at this particular. And we're opening two new exhibits, one in October, 2 in August, in September, September 13th. One is Bruce Springsteen, which will be in both spaces backstage. And on the third floor, we're opening the Legends exhibit. And the instruments that we're going to have, and the memorabilia, have been in the Smithsonian.

They've been in the National Museum for African American Music and Nashville. They've been in other venues. But they have never been in the same place at the same time as they will be at the Folk of Arcana Roots Hall of Fame. in September. I love it. I love it. Well, can you take me around to the room here that we're in first and share some of your thoughts and showcase

stuff? That would be great. So, you know, I was mentioning that one of the things I always do when I do the tours myself, which is rare these days, but I go to people like you. We've been in the business a long time. So you look at that

album cover. One of my favorites of all time, music from Big Pink. That's the music from Pink Pink. But as your audience knows, there's no the band on there, and there's no music from Big Pink, right? Do you know why that is? No. Okay, well, that looks like a pretty good illustration, original, right?

So then you walk around here and I say, well, so let me just tell you who did that. So here's the self-portrait. Can you read what it tells me right there? I think that says Bob Dylan. That is exactly correct. So here's Mr. Dillon's picture, and Mr. Dillon painted that picture. picture of the music of Big Pink. Bingo.

Okay? So bingo. That's how you try to tie these in. These guitars you see here are... These are Breddner's. And, you know, he was in the modern lovers. He was in Robin Lane and the chart busters. He created this as a hobby. And right before he died, unfortunately,

the heart attack, he donated all these guitars to the Hall of Fame. And, you know, these are sort of interesting when you look at these to decide, okay, well, you know, it stimulates thought, right? And you keep going around the room. And, you know, these are the famous pictures by Robert Corwin,

and this is of Pete Seeger and banjo. And when you go to the third floor, his original banjo is now on the third floor. And it hasn't been anywhere in a decade or more. It's been sitting inside a vault. But it's here. And these are all Ron Pinell's pictures, which we were talking about early,

on of Neil Young, all playing here. So he's played here over 50 years, right? Now, I love this picture over here, and since we're friends, everybody comes in and says, oh, my God, look at the, this is in the Wang Theater. You can see everybody's up and going like crazy, and they all want to know who was the act. And I didn't really want to tell them that this is 10-inch nails. because it has nothing to do with folk Americana roots. But the idea was it's a beautiful picture.

And you'll see it on the third floor where we have pictures of Billy Strings playing here and others. But this does sort of connect in that didn't Trent Rezner work with Johnny Cash? Yes, he did. So it all kind of comes back. Well, that's the point of Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame. So everything started with roots, all right? And then it just blossomed out. And, you know, Ed Sheeran walked to the front of the stage after he played with his band and then did his hits.

And then he walked to the front of the stage, unplugged his guitar, walked away from the mics, stood in the front stage of the wang, looking at 3,500 people, and said, I am a folk artist. I have always been a folk artist, and I'm going to sing you an Irish folk song that my grandmother taught me. and then he sang it Acapella. That's great. And you could have heard a pin drop. So he talked about the experience of being an artist where I'm now going to play you this hit song.

But I used to play this song just the way I'm going to play it for you now in bars and nightclubs for 20 years and nobody listens. And you threw things at me. Now I'm going to play it and you're going to sing it back to me, which they did. And that's the point. It grows from where it is. But arts keeps us a civilized society, and the music and the history of that does the same thing.

And then if you keep going around the room, this is a famous picture of Mr. Dillon and Al Cooper at Newport Folk and Joni Mitchell at Newport Folk. And this is the most famous picture of Peter Paul and Mary. And look how young Nola is. Noel is now my friend. He's 83 years old, 84. He makes me look, you know, I'm only 72. he looks 50, right? And I'm walking around,

looping, and all that kind of stuff. You have the energy of a 14-year-old. Well, I shouldn't say that. You have an energy of somebody who's a year and a half old who has that boundless energy, because we know some 14-year-olds just stay in their room and play video games. That's exactly right.

So then we mix it up with a lot of stuff that David Bieber has in his archives and famous pictures of Joni and a lot of her stuff. And, you know, she's been here and she played. One of her last concerts was here. And Mark Spector, who's her manager, is a very good friend, manager of Graham Nash as well. And all these artists, we just presented Graham Nash at the Cabot and the musical

and hopefully having them back here. And then the purpose of this wall, and this wall is about to come down, so you're probably seeing it for the last time. All these artists, you know, from Odetta to Doc Watson to Jolney, these were all here, Cat Stevens. 1974, Bruce Springsteen, 78, John Prime. So all of these artists then came along. Look at Brandy.

Now Brandy's the biggest artist on the planet right now. And this is her, that the Life is Good Festival and Cannes. She was just a levitate this past weekend. And then the idea of this was that you have established, new, and the newer. That artists never changed. The old artists are the past and the newer artists are the present and the ones that are coming. You've got to nurture, right? And that's what the Hall of Fame is about.

And then again, over on this side. And, you know, we have Leonard Cohen's Lifetime Achievement Award, lots of memory. And so you can spend a lot of time here when you come back. And isn't it interesting as you get up and go around to other events? spots in the building, you're going to see exhibits that the public sees every time they come to a concert. So when 3,500 people were here for Ed Sheeran, they're wandering the thirds and the fourth floors and down here and through the cultural heroes and seeing all of the exhibits that they can see. But they don't have any time, right? So what do they do? They book a tour and they come back. And that perpetuates what we're trying to do.

It's brilliant. This poster here, that's my old radio station that I was part of. That is exactly correct. This is 92-9 W-B-O-S, the holiday concert, Indigo Girls, Amy Mann, Tuesday, December 10th. I don't know what year that was. You know, isn't that the funniest thing? I've now noticed it that as I collect all this memorabilia, and I'm trying to decide what it was. none of us dated these things. Right.

You know, how stupid of that was that we didn't say, you know, 2019, 1964, we just didn't do things like that, right? We just thought it was, hey, this is what's happening. It's happening now. It's awesome. And look, this is my friend Chuck McDermen and Wheatstraw. Chuck is on the Hall of Fame board, and I don't know if you remember him. Boston artist.

Sure. Smart, businessman, politics. went into environmental and energy, now is making records again in his 70s. How cool is that? I noticed Birdholm and an old friend that you reminded me of. Is he

still active? He's very active with us. Yeah. Very active with us. He was Almond Brothers. He still is Almond Brothers manager. So can we go out of this room and go to the cultural heroes? Absolutely. All right. And I'll just do that and then I'll let you guys wander on

the third floor. I don't know. I'm going to time we have. We have time. Time's on our side. So in the lower lobby, and they're not lit up at the moment, and I apologize for that, I went to National, and we were a sponsor of the Americana Music Festival down there, and we worked with Jed Hilley, who runs that, who's a great friend and a great guy, and he's really made that come to life. It's a great event. And so we're very involved in that. And in fact, we're We're going to be announcing very soon our inaugural class that's going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

And we're going to announce it just before Americana. And many of the artists are going to be there, and we're going to do a workshop on the Hall of Fame at Americana. But I'm down in National, and I'm told by one of our other friends who's on our board, Doug Yeager, who's our sort of theater historian Greenwich Village guy, said, you've got to go see. this guy named Alan Laquire. He's a sculptor. And I said, well, why the hell would I go and do that? And he said, because

he has the cultural heroes. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, these huge headbuss of his cultural heroes, his cultural heroes. And I said, well, who were they? Well, they were

Leadbelly, they were Woody Guthrie, they were Billy Holiday, they were Paul Reardon, they were Josh White, they were, you know, Paul Robes and all of these cultural heroes. And I went and I went to a studio and here they were. So look, Buzz was he walked by, this is about lead belly. And look at the eyes. Look at these.

And so those Perkins kids were here, they were touching it, all right? And be able to find it. You can shoot a QR code, tells you the music. We bring kids down here on tours and they sit here in the lower lobby and they take a break from the tour because the tour takes about an hour and a half and they then can study what's going on and why did these people

change the world. Every single one of these people in this room has a United States poster stamp. Now Jerry Garcia doesn't have one. I don't have one. But they all do.

And yet all of these people were thought of as communists. They were leading revolts. They were all about, but they were all about diversity and inclusion back in the 20s. And so I said, my God, we've got to have these in Boston. Would you loan them to us? And they did. Awesome. So they're here, and they represent what we do. So in this room, which is the lower lobby, will be the Hall of Fame.

So all these walls, spaces, will have the names of all the classes as the years go on. the cultural heroes, you'll be amongst the cultural heroes. Isn't that a pretty cool idea? It's terrific. And, you know, here in Boston we talk about, you know, well, you know, we're sometimes are referred to as a racist city, and we're sometimes not, and we're working hard to change that. Well, this is our small way of which we can say this is really a special and important.

So we do concerts in here. We do readings in here. In fact, Bert Holman has a friend Alan Paul, which just wrote the new book. on the Allman Brothers is going to be having a speaker series in here later on in the fall. So we're doing all those kinds of things and making it really fun that way. Has a tremendous presence for sure. Yeah. I could feel it.

So the tour sort of starts from here. Yep. And then moves backstage and moves on to stage. And we're using the stage too. So the long-term plan is, Well, you'll get a chance to go to the stage. But we have the second largest stagehouse in the country. It's huge.

I mean, you don't really notice how big it is. It's huge. I can seat 750 people to dinner on the stage if I wanted to, right? And sometimes we do. But we're going to use it as exhibit space as well. And so we're designing exhibits to go in container cargo type things, where the door opens up on one side. It's all air-conditioned on the inside, the humidified, all the rest of that stuff.

And the exhibits in. And then a forklift, pick it up and stacks it at the back of the stage. So when there isn't a concert, we just take the forklift and put things on the stage, and you get to look at exhibits on the stage. It's kind of clever, right? I love it. So I think that's what we've been attempting to do. Very cool.

Awesome. Does that work? It's perfect. And there's shows in here. We do events, smaller events. Yep. That's what I'm saying. We do concerts.

We just had Chuck McDermott did his record release party. So if we have more time, we'll go to the third four if you want. Sure, let's go. I've got a few minutes, right? Yeah, if you do, I do. All right. Your energy is amazing, Joe. Well, what did you have for breakfast?

I haven't had breakfast yet. I spent two hours commuting. So we shut down. A lot of people, I let go about 750 people. I ended up keeping 15. and we took a tact, which was an unusual tact. Those were dark, shut, we did the Ghostlight series. And if you haven't watched it, you should.

It's on our site, right? And from that, people were blown away. And I didn't do it live streaming it. I actually got it on broadcast. So Joe and Adam and we helped get it on NBC, Boston, and NECN, and Telemundo. It all went at the same time. And they were half-hour specials, 10 of them. And they were highly successful, raised $400,000, and that kept us going.

So then you just rode in a hundred-year-old elevator, this elevator. But it took me two and a half years during COVID, and $3 million that I had to raise to do, get these elevators. so you no longer have to hand crank them. You push the button. They're modern. We just went to the third floor. And they had never gone to the lower lobby. So we took the third floor. So this was a hallway.

And the hallway you're about to see was completely empty. Nothing. It was just space. And we decided, all right, let's start and create Boston a music town. Why is Boston a music town? And let's get memorabilia, and let's do more than that. Let's show folk, blues, bluegrass, rock, classical, hip-hop, the whole nine yards, right? And that's what we started.

And this was the second exhibit that we did. So Music Hall, the Cultural Heroes, third exhibit, and this one here. And this space, as you can see, has really nothing in it at the moment, but it will, in September. This is where all the legends, guitars. So we're going to have Leadbelly's guitar, Josh White's guitar, Oscar Brand's guitar, Robert Johnson's guitar. We're going to

have all that here. Woody's Fiddle. And here's Pete Sanguars Banjo. Look at that. So you saw the picture in the musical, but now you see it in real life. This is the original one, right? Pete had a second one made

because this one was so heavy that when he got older, he couldn't really It just didn't work as well. So he has another one. So we're going to have both of them. You know, I had Yorma Kalkinen on a few episodes back, and I asked Yorma the question about his first connection with finger-picking. And he told this amazing story that even before he played guitar,

his father, Yorma's father, took him backstage after a Pete Seeger show. and he actually asked Pete to hold up his hand because he was so fascinated by, you know, the hand and the finger-picking. Yorma said, I told Pete that story years later, he wasn't as impressed as I was. Well, then, so then we created this hallway. And here is, you know, all kinds of stuff. So here's, you know, Time magazine with Joan Baez on it.

and representing a lot of the artists that were there. Here's the guitar of Tom Rush that I was talking about. This is really one of the reasons I got into being a singer-songwriter because, gee, Tom Rush, young, long hair, big bushy mustache. Women were screaming and yelling and he's playing the guitar with a naked woman on it singing Joni Mitchell songs, and I said, Jesus, I want to do that. Right? And so we've taken and created here honoring each one of the different genres, as you can see.

And nowhere has anyone ever done hip-hop in a Hall of Fame. And we did. And there's a reason that most people don't know this in Boston. So the hip-hop archives are at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Right in our own hometown. And that's very important. And it's very important to represent this genre music as it's very, it was critical. Here we got rock, but at the same time, we're doing, this is Dropkick Murphy's stuff, right?

And their newest album is all acoustic, and it's all Woody Guthrie's songs, right? So here's Boston's party band recording in National, Woody Guthrie's songs, acoustically. Amazing. All right. And here is Joe Perry's famous aerosmith guitar. Isn't that really cool? Look at that. It is. Beautiful. And here he is playing it. And he delivered it.

Beautiful. And you go down and here's my friend Peter Wolfe's stuff. And that was a funny story too. Peter delivered them. And he told me what he was delivering. And then I said, but Peter, there's no, the murmurs weren't there. Weren't in the, when you brought it over. He said, oh God, I left it in the trunk of the car.

He drove back. Okay. Rick O'Casick's jacket. Look how, I mean, I couldn't even get that out of my arm. I mean, he must have been very thin, right? And here's Tom Schultz's guitar as well. And again, jazz, classical, Leonard Bernstein's jacket, tucks, Keith Lockhart's sneakers

what a great exhibit this is and this sort of brought to life of what we're trying to do and there's another one on the fourth floor that features a lot of new artist pictures that have been over the years recently to show that the new artists are coming on and they were adding guitars and that kind of stuff this summer up there

and so that's a brief history of this what a tremendous place to visit. We have a lot of Boston listeners to the podcast, but we have people from all over the country and globally. So I think anybody who's listening to this, if you're planning a trip to Boston or you're just thinking about it, you know, try to book a way to come here. Listen, we're trying to become a really new cultural destination, right?

And we're being successful at that. So the state government says, this is really important, all right? And so they've been supporting us in the budget. Meet Boston, which does all the conventions and all around. Absolutely. We want to market this. We want to help you get this known. We want people coming from overseas.

We want them staying in the hotels. We want them going to the restaurants. And that's what we're attempting to do. And we, or A, as an organization, put about $80 million into the country. the local economy anyway each year. So now this is adding a new component. It's tremendous. I first thought that was my head, but then it didn't have the bald spot, so I knew it wasn't my head.

But this is a night when we had Billy Strinks. Beautiful sound. Look at the view. As you can see, nobody's, everybody was standing. So Joe, do you think about what you do and pinch yourself every day? I consider that I have the best job in the entire world. And people do ask me, as we're looking in the grand lobby, they say, so what gives you the most pleasure?

I like to stand on the loge level and watch people come in. And they walk through the doors, get into the grand lobby, and everybody does one thing. They all look up. And the smile goes on there. and they're excited. And then, you know, as you know, because you've experienced it the same way I have, this is a unique venue between the artist and the audience, right?

And the sound is impeccable. This building is about to be 100 years old, right? And it's impeccable. And so, you know, here you have that ability to change people's lives every single day. It's almost like doing God's work. But, you know, and you, you, you know, you, you know, you, you have that ability to change people's lives every single day. know, and you, you stimulate thought. And, you know, if you believe as I do that a creative person is a better person, then I get to do that every day in my life. And that's pretty cool. And I'm

thinking about slowing it down a little bit. And, you know, I'm looking forward to, I'm playing my guitar more and more again, and I don't think I'm going to be writing that way, but I enjoy just keeping up with it, right? So I think I get the best job in the world. So in closing, we often guest on the podcast, where would we be without music? We would be nowhere without music, all right? Music has changed and will always make the world change and evolve, always. And it's not going to go away, right? So there was a period during COVID when there was a move that live is never coming back.

I absolutely thoroughly opposed that idea. Live was coming back and going to come back in a vengeance, because we all need that. And good news is that I was right. Joe Spalding, thank you for this amazing time. You could tell I've had a smile on my face the entire time here at the Wang Center, the Box Center, and the Folken Americana Roots Museum.

and thank you for being on Taking a Walk. I'm thrilled to have been a Buzz. Great to see you again. Taking a walk with Buzz Night is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor Star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Manchini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When a group of women discover they've all day. the same prolific con artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ego Woodham. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program.

Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.