The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Paul Anka | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Billy Corgan welcomes legendary songwriter and entertainer Paul Anka for a masterclass on longevity, songwriting, and surviving every era of music. From writing his first hit as a teenager in 1957 to buying back his own masters decades before "owning your masters" was a movement, Anka reflects on friendships with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Sammy Davis Jr., and The Beatles, and explains why great songs always outlive trends. He tells the real story behind writing the English lyrics to "My Way" for Sinatra, remembers touring with Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, and recalls watching a Jimi Hendrix leave Clapton, Page, and Beck speechless in a tiny London club. Along the way, Billy and Paul dive into the Great American Songbook, and what today's artists often miss about performance and craftsmanship closing on Anka's simple philosophy for a long, fulfilled life: no rearview mirror.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It wasn't about just getting up there and singing. You had to entertain people. These incredible lyrics, these incredible songs. I mean, the absolute height of American songwriting. I sat in my basement. People laughed at me. I was spending my time just writing, you know. Where I think it's interesting with you is you actually bridge these two worlds.

We, as these young teenagers, we shifted the culture. Here you are a teen idol playing basically, you know, the beginning of rock and roll. And you know, he's an international creature. Did your parents know what you were up to? Yeah. Paul Anka, I feel I should call you Mr. Anka, Paul Anka. Thank you for being on my podcast. And I'll call you Bill and you're going to call me Paul.

You know, grown men like yourself, they have a hard time calling me Billy. So I'm actually William now, but they still want to call me Bill. So I don't know what that's about. What would you like me to call you? William. I'm going to call you, William. What's your middle name? Patrick.

Patrick. I was born at St. Patrick's Day. Lucky you, huh? William. William. Good to meet you. Thank you, sir. Do you remember where you were, August 24th, 1956?

American Bassan? No. You were singing the song, I confess. Oh, Blah Wilde de Beast Fontaine. You're digging holes here now, huh? Yeah. So, well, you know, I came out to L.A. to visit an uncle.

And I started in Canada as a writer. You know, I wrote short stories and won awards in school. And then I went and worked as a cub reporter at a local newspaper. And got thrown out of a shorthand, took music. So that was my first taste. And then I came out to Los Angeles, and I used to be absolutely enamored with the whole black culture of music. And I listened to it all the time.

Who were some of your favorites at that time? I'd go back to the satins, the moon glows, all of that, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, all of them. And I'd leave my uncle's house on sunset and go down to Wallach's Music City. Wallach's was the music store, probably the biggest in the West Coast. And you'd go in and have these little booths, and you'd go in and you'd take your vinyl, and you'd go in and listen to the records all day. Okay. And there was one record I loved, it was the number one record in the country. It was called Stranded in the Jungle by the Cadets.

Now, I know you know your music, but I don't know that you remember. I don't know that one. Okay. So stranded in the jungle was huge. And in the interim, I was reading a book. When I had to go back to Canada, I had this book for a book report that I had to write out, do a whole essay on. And it was called Presta John. And the premise was a town in Africa called Blah Wild de Bistfonte.

And I was fascinated by this little village. blah, wilder beastfontein. And one day I got up, I had plow wild the beast fontaine, blah while the beast fontaine where love is so splendor and no one could surrender. I'm going, I just wrote my first song, right?

Now, it's in my head. I'm in Los Angeles. I'm reading the book report, and I'm in Wallach's and I'm listening to this record. And I read on the label Modern Records RPM Culver City. And it was a chip shot from where my uncle was.

and I had the song finished. I said, you know what, I'm going to go to this record company. Did you ever written a song before? No. Okay. So I take the song, I think I hitchhiked out there. I'm like 14, 15. And it's a little, it's like this building here.

One story, a little garage front, nothing to it. And I walk in and there's two guys and a female. And it was the Bari brothers and their sisters. And they owned this little record company. You know, back then, there were a few Indies, but not a lot. I said, hey, guys, they said, you're delivering something? I said, no, no, I got a song I want to sing to you. Look to me.

So what do you got a song? Had you sung before? Never. To a record company? No, right. Oh, in school, I was in the choir. I sang a school place. You know, I had a voice.

Okay. So I sang on the song. I guess they had nothing to do, and they had no other artists. They said, can you come back in two weeks? We're going to record you. Right. And they gave me another song for the flip side called I Confess. Right.

And I came back. I'd learned the song. I walk in a garage and there's four guys standing there and like a rhythm section. And the four guys were the cadets who had the number one record in a country who were going to sing with me. I mean, that's for openers, right? I'm like, what? Anyway, we finished the date. I do, I confess.

Blahua, the Beast Fontaine. it came out. That was a failure at 14. Number one. Number one in my head. That's where it was. I go back to Canada. My relatives bought it.

Nothing happened. But it was my first taste of being in the studio. Yeah. And getting close to that dream, which happened the following year when I went to New York. So this is live recording, live vocal, no overdubs. William. I try to tell all the young people I work with today.

And they don't get it. You have no idea what it was like. If you didn't have decent pitch and the tone, you walked in a studio, you rehearsed for an hour, and maybe you got it in three, four, five takes. And when you were done, if you didn't like something, they took a razor blade and a piece of tape, and they would cut the tape on a piece of metal and put it back on and tape it with scotch tape. that was it. And you sang till you got it. And that's how it happened when I wound up in New York. Yeah.

Because I listened, I confessed this morning, and I was like, wow, your voice hadn't even broken yet. You know, when you go back to the 50s, everybody had to have that high-pitched sound. It even evolved into today. A lot of us, you, a lot of the guys post the 50s, it's what they were about. searching for who they were as a person or an artist,

and everybody had to sing up the octave. They're always maximizing. So you heard all this, everyone had a high voice. The only guys that didn't, indigenous to that group, were Sinatra, Sammy and Dean. They're talking voices. Yeah. Where they're singing voices.

Yeah. But somehow it evolved into that anyone that wanted to sing, even into the 70s and 80s, you had to have that screaming on the edge voice. Oh, Barry Gabb. Well, Barry, they took it to another level. You know, it was like I marveled as a kid just to have all that happen. And then to be around all of these young artists.

Yeah. You know, I like to say I, I, I, but it isn't I-I-I. I'm meaningless. It's we, we. If you think of your community of artists as we, you know, we as these young teenagers, we shifted the culture. We were aware of it, but we weren't accepted within it. But everybody had to have a certain ingredients, and part of it was that high falsetto sound.

I'll never forget. I went to London. I spent a lot of time over there. And it was part of that whole British thing before they started stealing everything from us, which we'll get to one second. And I got on a plane and I'm flying back with Mick Jagger. They were just starting to bust out, you know. And I'm on a plane with this guy. I knew he was.

You know, I was. And I'm talking to him. When I was familiar with his record, I think he's going, well, you know, when we make a record, you know, it's kind of only if it's giving me this noble sounding

posture, some noble guy. I'm saying, here's a guy that sings black, wants to be black, all of those groups over there. And, you know, I knew the Beatles,

and I was part of that whole scene with them, they all took what we did. I mean, they were all looking at muddy waters. They were all our great guitar. players. They were copping every lick from every great guitar. In a way, they did it. Not better than we did it, but they made it popular. Yeah, well, they made it popular for them, but they were copying us.

You know, they all loved Chuck Barry. Now, Chuck wasn't a great guitar players, you and I know. He was grew great, but it was a combination of what he played in his songs. But they emulated him. Because when I went to England, none of them were on the charts. It was me and it was Presley. They weren't even on the charts, so we started to really get into what we're about, copped it, made it their own. And I'll never forget, you had Clapton, you had Page, a Clapton, Page, and Beck, right? Those were the cat.

The three. The three bigies, yeah. They were it. And I'm in England. I live in there. And then the word was out that there was this guy that was going to open at this little club in London, guitar player. And everybody showed up. They went, they saw this guy.

And then they went home and wanted to cut their wrists. Yeah. Hendricks. Hendricks. Every time you talk to them after they discovered Hendricks, they were like God had arisen, right? And the sad part of it, Hendricks had a three-year period. Yeah. How sad.

But he was the guy when you listen to him. Yeah. The editing, the economizing of the notes. These guys, Paige Beck and Clapton, you know, Clapton got very poppish, but he's still a great guitar player. always was, it was Hendricks that they looked up to. Yeah. And an American from Seattle. Seattle.

Who played on what they call the Chitland Circuit with, you know, Little Richard and Isleys. Well, I traveled with Little Richard. I traveled with James Brown. I traveled with all the guys that all his young, new artists there are copying. You know, Michael took a little, Bruno's taken a little. It's from Jackie Wilson. It's from James.

Those guys, they were. the core and the pillars of what we see today. Yeah. Even as it evolved. At that time, I mean, at that time, did you have a sense that these men, like in particular, once you mentioned, that they would go on to be legends? Did you have a sense of that at the time, or was it just exciting and everybody's kind of in the moment?

We were all in the moment. We had nothing to look up to. You know, all of us only could look up to these cool guys invade us. I see. Rat Pack Vegas Mafia. Yeah. That was it. But we were all just working and happy to be doing it.

It was we again. We were a collective little band of artists. They were just finding our way. None of us were sophisticated. Yeah. None of us came from wealthy families. We were given whatever, and I don't consider it and go get in it. I was given a gift.

Whatever we were given from that universe. And you can identify. You're a writer. You're a great writer. I almost did a couple of your songs on rock swings. Oh my God, I wish you would have. I couldn't break the code tonight tonight. And Butterfly, I just couldn't.

Next time you got to call me. I went through 200 songs, right? Anyway, back to the point. We were these guys that were in such a minority. Yeah, it's true. What was going on. And all we looked at was, can we have another hit record to sustain it? It was very hand to mouth.

Oh, we're really. 200 bucks a week. Yeah. You know, we were traveling on a bus together. Yeah. The big dilemma was getting our hair right. Took us an hour to get our hair right. You had great hair.

You had great hair. Back then, not now. But back then, you know, we'd spend more time getting ready. Yeah. And we'd all do one or two songs. Yeah. Chuck and Fats would close the show or screaming Jay Hawkins. And that was it.

You didn't have any vision or sense of where it was going. Of the artist that you toured with back then, who was like your favorite? looking back now. Look, I admired guys like Chuck Berry, Fet's Dominole, Jackie Wilson. I looked at what they were doing, but I looked at the, because they were writers. Because when I started and the people I listened to that my parents played at home, they were pop singers, Perry Como, that whole group. They weren't writers with them.

The guys that were writers, the guys that were writers. were the ones that I admired because I realized, kind of early in my career, the only gravitas that I may have in the future is if I do what I feel I do best, and that was a writer. I had this squeaky little voice.

Nobody wanted to help me. So I just started writing. But I admired the guys that wrote because I figured out there'd be no business, no record companies, no managers, no agents,

nothing. If the writer wasn't in first place. The writer was what's important for all of us. Look, look what you did. You were writing all that stuff. You could never do what you did if you weren't the writer. When I sat with the Beatles in Europe when I first met them, all they talked about with me is,

oh, we want to write like you're doing and publish and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, they were a cover band when I saw them. But the writer, and I respected everybody that wrote, always did. You're really touching my heart because there was this moment in my life where I was living with my father. My father was a musician and I was kind of in this like sort of like the basement, you know, and I was trying to learn a song. Yeah. And I'm not good at learning other people's songs. I don't know why.

I just don't have a good ear for it. Yeah. And my daddy came down and he said, what are you doing? I'm trying to figure this song out. And he occasionally would come help me learn something. And he said, don't bother. And I was like, but I got a gig, I got to kind of learn this song. He said, if you ever want to really be successful in the music business, write your own songs.

He was right. I was in my basement. Yeah. And my dad bought me an old piano. Yeah. And he knew I could sing, but he ultimately knew I wanted to write. And I sat in my basement. People laughed at me.

I was spending my time just writing, you know, writing what I felt knew. I mean, is there anything more stupid that I'm so young and you're so? so old. I mean, today as I'm so old and you're so young. But back then, I was just writing what I felt. I'm sitting in church, looking at this girl who wouldn't pay attention to me. And that was it, man. It was just the writer became so important in my life. And then I slowly evolved. It gets you to nature or nurture. When you get on a topic of nurture and nature, what was it? Did you get it from your parents? Because it's a great discussion to think of where did that come from? What influenced you to build you into the character and what you've got?

Yeah. Well, the thing that all writers share is at some point we're alone in a room with a blank piece of paper. That's correct. There's no chord, there's no melody, there's no lyric. And somehow we've got to figure this little universe out. That's correct. That voice. Yeah, whatever that is. It's saying it's getting better. Yeah. That's it. I mean, you know, it gets you to a point early from me where good was the enemy of you. great. I always lived by that. You know, you've got so, think about it this way, William, there's millions of people out there today that want to sing and can. Back when I started, probably more great singers now than ever. If you just might have gone voice, yeah. I always said

there's got to be somebody better than me. But when you think about, I've got a theory, it's called the wow theory. Okay. Guy wants to build a luxury building, a resort. Guy wants to to do what you do, wants to do what I do. And we sit and you're gracious and I'm giving and I try to teach them. You know, you're sitting and you talk. And you know instinctively they're not ever going to be or get to where, however this universe has given us, they'll never get there. Because ultimately, if you don't get to, whatever your finished product is or that building

that you want to build, that group and can't, you get to the point where you hear, something and go, wow. When you can get to the wow in life, whether it's developing something, and there's few people that can do it. You can't teach it, William. Well, it's a form of madness if you really look at it on paper, bad analogy. But like a therapist once told me, you know, he said, everyone that sits in the chair, meaning the therapist's, you know, patient share, he said they're all delusional and you're

delusional too. The only difference is your delusion came true. Yeah. And the only difference is they're wearing a white coat. Yeah. God bless. Talk a little bit if you could because I love these personalities in our shared world. And Don Costa. Oh, man. Can you talk about Don Costa?

Wow. Because Don Costa basically changes your life. He was the guy. I only got myself in the door. He brought me in, put me into bed. You know, those are the unsung hero. for all of us. I've always said it. The Don Costa's, the Nelson Riddles,

the Quincy Jones, people that I knew that I admired because when they looked at, unlike you and I at a blank piece of paper, they're looking at a score sheet like this.

Yeah. And they're going to put every note from every aspect of an orchestra. You and I can't do it. Yeah, I would sit with him with his guitar and his piano,

and I would just go, I'm just a little, ooh, and he'd take, I could never do what the Don Kossas of the world. Yeah. Or the Nelson Riddles. I introduced it to Sinatra, and he worked with me in Sinatra for years. But here was one of the guys of the many who absolutely studied the art of arranging. Yeah. And knew what to do with somebody like a green kid, like me that walked in, banging at a piano,

pouring his heart out and that was it. Yeah. He was responsible for making me who I am. Nelson Riddle was responsible for putting Sinatra in the framework. And I learned at an early age that you've got to put the best around you, whether it's Panama, Francis, Milton. You know, back when I started, electric guitars were, huh? There was no electric bass.

You know, when I started, it was a whole new thing. It was standup. But the costas of the world knew how to take those artists and frame them up with those arranges. They were the true geniuses. The two geniuses are those arrangers. Yeah. So Don Costa is the one who sort of saw Diana and sort of made that all happen, right? I sat there singing licks.

You know, put your leg. My original title was put your legs on my shoulder. He's always messing around with lyrics. But with shoulder, I'd go, go, go, you know, my shoulder, he would write, listen, he was the guy responsible. You know, because that's what it was back then. You had to have an arranger, the great, you look at even how it evolved out of that. The guys like Michael Amardi, and I don't know if that means any of you. There's like guys like Michael, the Randy Kerber's, all those great keyboard players.

When you listen to Steely Dan, you know, you know, of my favorite groups, you know, great musicians, flawless albums, we all know what it is, but you look at those guys that contributed. Yeah. The unsung heroes. Yeah. Michael, you know, Jeff Piccaro, all those guys were musicians for me in the studio. Yeah.

And I knew that if I never surrounded myself with guys that were better than I was, you're dead. Well, you haven't such an interesting thing because was it you that sort of had the vision that you could cross over into the kind of the synachra, you know, the crooner world. Because most guys who sort of got the teen idol thing, they kind of went the one way, which let's call it the Elvis Lane. Here's your audience.

It's about mass popularity. Who was it you or your manager? Who was the person that said, no, you have this other, because of all the artists that had popularity in the times that you did, you were the only one who really was able to reach back into this other world, which certainly wasn't fading,

but it was on its, it's on, it's like kind of last decade. Yeah. You know, before disco took over or whatever, right? Well, when it hit and I had the taste of it, I didn't want it to leave. And I said, well, I can't have hits all the time. Can you stop for a second? So you were aware that you had to build other base of popularity not born on hits. Where did that come from?

Just street smarts? Whatever it was, the tenacity I had to leave Canada and was hungry for it, I was just, I would sponge everything up because I knew I wanted this in my life. But I knew that even though I'm crawling along this journey of success, trying to achieve some wisdom to deal with it and not be an... That it couldn't last. I saw it all around me. And the only reason I kept saying, I've got to keep writing,

because I felt it would be the tool that would allow me to last. Thus, Buddy Holly that I wrote for, I mean, all the things I started giving away. But I knew that when's the voice going to change? And I had this kid's voice, you know, and everybody was copying. Everybody felt they had to sing to their margin, you know. And I said, but when it changes, really, where do I want to be knowing I can't have the hits And back to our little milieu of guys, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darren,

we all knew each other. It was a small community. The essence of it was New York, a little bit of Nashville, Philly, no Chicago, and a touch of... Yeah, we had nobody in Chicago. You had chess records, that was it, right?

Yeah, but we were blues, but we had no pop guys came out of Chicago in the late 50s, early 60s. So back to the question, all I saw were these cool guys, the coolest guys I'd ever seen. And Bobby and I'd say, look at those guys in Vegas. They're drinking and smoking and the chicks and they're dressing and cool them. And I'm going, I want to be like them.

We didn't see anything past that, obviously. Was it because the world you came from? You know what I'm saying? Was there something about the world that you came from? No, no. It was the world I walked into. Okay. I was a kid with jeans, a t-shirt, and a dream, and a bunch of songs, right?

But when I started working for the boys, I hate the word mafia, but I started working for the boys. And I knew that in Chicago and New York and Vegas, these guys ran the record business. They ran the nightclubs. They ran the disc. And I'm working for them. And no one was shy to say, that's who you're working for. Just keep your nose clean. And I'm running around going, yes, sir, no turn.

I'm shaking hands at 16 with whoever. But I wind up in Vegas. I was the first guy there. I was in 1958 with Sophie Tucker. Elvis had tried. Sophie Tucker. Now there's a name you don't hear every day. And you won't.

God bless Sophie Tucker. God bless Sophie. As the Beatles called her, America's favorite group. Amazing. When they told me that, I laughed. But she was a wonderful woman. Anyway, I'm among these guys.

And, you know, not unlike today, and it's kind of stupid in a way today, we all had stylists. But they weren't stylists. You know, we all had to wear shirt and ties. The British guy's shirt and tie, shirt and tie, shirt and shirt. True. Even early stones, what are they wearing? Shirt and tie. Today, you don't get an artist out of a room for eight hours when they're glaming and just so, nothing.

It's the same bullshit more light, frankly. So back then, we looked at these guys, we started working for them, and it was the shirts, the ties, and sponging up a kind of intelligence that was the template of how you deal with life because they were smart. They were Jews and Italians, old bookmakers,

mafia guys from each city, but there's something about their intelligence and their integrity that you were attracted to. And that's what it was. I said, I want to be like them because that was the maturity factor that I felt would help me last. Okay.

In an industry where all my friends, there were one-hit wonders. And Bobby and I would talk about it, and we evolved. Okay. Yeah, because there's this, I found that documentary of you, like about 62.

It's, it's, it's, you're playing an amusement part. Lonely boy. Lonely boy. With the horse that jumped off and wouldn't jump after time. But such a cool, almost like French New Wave.

It was. was cinema you know you in the dressing room you with like the the guy running the copa that's it that guy he ran it for the boys yeah julie podell with the ring yeah but you know you give him a gift you give him a gift of a picture of yourself and then the cameraman said kiss him again it was classic woman you know for those guys but you know it just shows you the kind of the power of celebrity which we all in it even those guys soften up otherwise with Putin or what they love Liberty. Yeah.

You know, that mass comes off. But back then, I was working at a place in Atlantic City, what you're referring to, where the diving horse would jump at nine. I'd go on after the horse. Then the movie would go on. And we did that five times a day. And I made about, I don't know, $13,000 in a month. So the horse opened for you.

The horse opened for me. I followed the horse. And the son of him didn't jump, I had to get dressed real quick. Oh, that's what that seems. is. There's a scene in the movie where you're having to get dressed really fast. Yeah, the horse wouldn't jump. Oh, it was the horse. Oh, okay. I guess, you know, the most comparable current example would be somebody like Justin Bieber. I mean, you were basically in that jet stream at that age, that young age. Yeah, yeah. I'm not asking for like, you know, stories of excess, but how did you manage that level of idol? because there's scenes even in that documentary. It's about 20 minutes long. It's on YouTube if people want to watch it.

Yeah. Like where you're like you're literally talking to like 40 young girls and they're crying and, you know, shaking in front of you. I mean, that's got to go to your head or maybe it didn't. You know, when Justin hit, it was all over Canada of the paper. They had a picture of me and a picture of him because we both lived with. So there was a comparison of, you know, people that liked a compartment. compartmentalized in society today.

Nobody can live on their own. It's always the comparisons. So when it hit for me, you know, I was a young kid with this dream. I wasn't pretty, I didn't have any great looks. I didn't have any height. I was an athlete, but it stopped because I stopped growing. Yeah. So I found something that really turned my life upside down.

So when you're in the middle of all of that action, and I had a good up. bringing. He had a great father. I had a great mother, you know, who was an ally of mine, who, you know, I lost at 18, and that was the toughest part of my life. But, you know, they were always around me to keep me as level as one could, keeping that in mind. And somehow, even though I looked at it with amazement and I enjoyed it, I wouldn't let it go to my head. You know, I just, I really felt that I was always in fear of losing it. And if you had any way of being not grateful for what you're giving or misbehaving, you would lose it. So to answer your question, it was challenging many times.

I all of a sudden had a lot of money, you know, and I all of a sudden went out and bought custom shirts and nice suits, everything I didn't have. But I never let the other go to my head. The only way that I really bought into it was I was really very active sexually. I said, you know what? The money, the fame. I want what I couldn't have as a kid. And I was nailing everything that I could. And, you know, I was an international creature.

I was in Japan in 57. I was all over the world. So all of a sudden this door open of these flavors that I went, who do I give the money back to? And that's the one overdose of all that thing. Did your parents know what you were up to? Yeah.

I used to bring them home. Oh, my goodness. I was poking around your catalog and I found something that I enjoyed. So I wanted to ask you and take it however you want. You did this album, songs I wish I'd written. Correct.

And I was looking at some of the choices. Did you personally, I got the feeling you chose the songs you wanted to sing. So I love that you picked Can't Stop Loving You, which Don Gibson had a great writer. End of the World, Skeeter Davis had that hit with. I don't know if she wrote that. No, she didn't. Maybe Chad Atkins wrote that? No, Chad didn't write that either.

Can't get used to loving you, Andy Williams, great song. I thought it was cool. I got something from you. in looking at the songs you were attracted to at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, because of that background and where I came from, I just realized I'm just a little part of all of this. You know what I mean? It's great to sit and... Do you know how rare that is to think like that at that age?

Well, okay. But the point was, maybe it was because I was always the youngest kid and I was writing these silly little songs. Like when I met the Beatles, you know, off point pivot, even though they were into the fact that I wrote, I don't know that they idolized what I did. I sing in these little teeny songs, big orchestra. That wasn't their thing, right? But I realized early that, you know,

I'm just a small part and thought that for years of all of this. You know, you could sit down and people kiss your lyrics or me, but you and I know there's a lot. Other guys doing it, but we're all part of this. Okay. So when I sat down and said, I want to do an album of songs I wish I'd written, I admired all those other songs. You know, the one regret I had, William, I started taking piano,

and I had Mrs. Reese, who was my teacher. This is like 13, 14, just like you with your guitar, you know. And my dad was sending me to Juilliard. This is before I hit. I was going to Juilliard in New York, because I was doing this, I was singing in school, and I was getting it. What gets in the way, I'm so young and you're so old, you know, four chords. If you had four chords and knew how to use them, a guitar or piano, you could write hit songs.

Yeah. That was it. And I'm banging away. I never got to Juilliard. And I never learned how to really be the musician I wanted to be. Knowing that, I was so proud of a guy where my uncle lived and he was a Canadian, Oscar Peterson. Oh, okay. I want to talk about great key.

Did you know Oscar? Met him once. Oh. What incredible. Was there anybody? You could talk about them all, right? And we know all the parents. Probably the greatest.

Yeah. And my parents would say, Oscar Peterson. We were so proud of them. And that was always in my head. Yeah. But I knew at some point I could never be any of that. And I also learned that when I started working with great arrangers, because they were so schooled and knew all of it and could play all of it,

they couldn't write hit songs. Yeah. If there's something about not knowing what you're doing that is a certain advantage. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because I can't read music either. Yeah, it's like everything's up here, yeah. Yeah, well, I was the same, but I did learn to read music.

Okay. You know, I learned to read from Leachies and a lot of that. I found it was important that I did. But other than that, I just wrote songs. You know, I could write songs, but I would never be Oscar Peterson. I was stunned by the fact that, I think, if I'm, correct me if the date's wrong, 1963, you purchased your publishing back. I purchased everything back.

That is, and you would have been how old in 63, you would have been? 21, 22, 23, yeah. To have the prescience to think these songs are valuable and I'm going to. Well, I also realize that you've got to learn the business. You've got to know the business. Did somebody wise you up to the business? Like, kid, this is how it really runs type of thing. When I started, there was two guys in Washington called the Fell Brothers,

Izzy and Irving. And they had drugstores. But in the drugstores, they racked the top 40 record, these vinyl. And they would see what was selling. Then they formed this little company and started booking whoever was on. the top 20, they'd reach out, and they'd hire all of us, 200 bucks a week, and throw us on a bus. And then... And they'd take us all around this great country.

Was there a name to a Calvacado Star? Cavalcator Star. Right. And it was it. All of us kids were together, shifting the culture, but loving what we were doing. But I realized it was a business. When I went back to Canada, I wrote my second hit, which was You're My Destiny for my mother. And it became a hit.

And the Feld's called and said, we want to take you on tour. I said, okay, my dad said, no, you're going to finish school. And I said, no, I got to go do this. This guy. And I said to Irvingfeld, I said, you know, you're a smart guy. He paid me 200 bucks the last time. And I'm worth more than, that was a very, not that I was in, because of the lack of help that I had, when pop music was in this infancy stage, I had to fend for myself.

So I would say, I'm worth more than I said, if you become my partner, I'll come and work for you. And I talked to him into being my partner. Wow. I moved to Washington and I was brought up in a Yiddish home for three, four years. And this guy was my partner. That's amazing. And he was smart. And he taught me a lot of business acumen.

And I would sponge it off of him. And I attribute him. And I'm still friendly with his son. Kenny felt, who was my roommate then, who now runs the circus and all that enterprise. Wow. I learned a lot from him to where, as I would evolve, I'd say, hey, Irv, you know,

I'm traveling all over the world with my music. And, you know, my records aren't in these hardware stores, and they're not in these stores, and these people aren't distributing. But I see RCA Victor. Everywhere I go, I see RCA Victor, washing machines, toasters, records. I said, I want to be with them.

because I knew that ABC Paramount that I was with stopped believing because the voice was changing. I was cranking, you know, you lived rock and roll back then, those of us that wrote all the time. I was paid $100 a month and you had to crank out three or four albums a year. Every year.

They felt I was running dry. They didn't know what the future was. I was disenchanted. And I said, I have $250,000, $300,000 in the bank. I want to buy everything. everything back. They don't believe in me. And nobody had the vision of where this was going, William. And I gave him 300,000. And I bought the publishing, the master's. Which in today's money would be... It's millions of dollars. Three, five million dollars. So I own all my masters and I own all my publishing. That's crazy. And then when I ran into Ray Charles and his manager, because I loved Ray Charles. He was on ABC Paramount too, right?

He came to ABC Paramount. Oh, okay. Oh, no, no. No, no. Wisney. Okay, you know the story. No, he came over and I loved, to me to this day, there's nobody like Rachel's. Yeah. Okay. And I said, own your masters. Own your masters. And he made a deal with him to get his master.

No one had done it back then. Yeah. Wow. You've told this story many times about My Way and Frank. So it's certainly a fascinating story for people to know. You wrote the lyrics to My Way. You purchased the rights to the song. Yes.

It was just this kind of song in France, right? Yeah. So I thought to try to come at it slightly differently. Certainly in his time in your youth, Frank was a Titanic figure on the American cultural scene. He was it. I mean, that was it. Movie star, you name it. So start here.

Does it surprise you that Frank still to the, this day is still a top artist. Does that surprise you? It doesn't surprise me. I think you can never underestimate the consumer. They ultimately are going to seek out what's good. Yeah. Sanatra, as you stated, he was it. And when Presley came along, he became the potential it, but certainly not in the genre of Sinatra. Yeah. Sinatra did not like Presley. He didn't like, I don't think, what I was doing. He embraced me because I was making money for the boys who he was making money for the boys.

So they mentored me, looked after him. But I heard all this stuff. I was around all this stuff. You know, I was the young kid in a steam room with Sammy Davis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra on a slab of marble nude. And I'm this young kid. Just but listening. And I'm having trouble with eye contact. But, you know, he never liked any of that stuff.

Yeah. He was the guy. He continued to be the guy. Only till he started buying into the fact and had his own record company that things were changing. Did he start getting a sense for pop music, the modern music, right? And started doing it. Yeah. But up until then, he was the guy and an important guy.

He's important today because he's one of these casons in this industry that really was the basis of everything that we're doing today in a sense, okay? And you can't ever take away any of the grades in any field, from Shakespeare on to writers to be. When you are the absolute best and top, you evolve and you evolve because art has no. time. Yeah. And Frank Sinatra today, but there are some young people that don't know who he is or Johnny Carson or Paul Anka. You know, he and Elvis to me were the two important towers.

Yeah. When Elvis was around, he just, they both owned a room. And they were both given that it factor. You know, if Elvis were a five foot four over one, guy singing with that black voice. We wouldn't be talking about him. I hate to put it that way. But when you think of how the United States and its culture, it's emanated all over the world as to the importance of aesthetics, how you look and what you are. I saw it in countries that I go to from Israel to Asia. And they say, why are they sending this stuff over? We don't believe in looking great. But those two guys had the totality. and the content of what it takes to be everything.

Yeah. And Elvis worked his stuff. This was a shy guy. I would sit with him like this. Hey, Polly. How you doing, man? Yeah, Paul. You know, one day I'm going to do that my way.

I love that my way. Elvis, you don't want to do my way. It's not your kind of. Yeah. He was a shy guy that probably, couldn't live with the enormity of the success and the pressure every day. But what an amazing force to watch and be around it. Yeah. And sit there and watch show after show as I did and to discuss with him. You know, what we learned he and I, it wasn't about just getting up there and singing.

you had to entertain people. And to this day, whether it's subliminal or not, you've got to entertain people. They don't want to sit up there and just watch you. You know, it's a case and point. I love Dylan. We get it. You know, some nights Bob gets up there.

You couldn't give a, you. You know, look at the back. And people walk out, what the f-if? If you don't entertain people, you're dead. But back to Sinatra, the force will get bigger. Young people will learn exactly what true quality is.

You know, at a time when there's no auto tune, think about the difference. I don't know who the is doing the singing today, do you? Not really, no. I don't know. Can you imagine back then

if you said to Sinatra were going to give you an auto tune, you would have thrown a chair on you. You walked in a studio after rehearsing, as I stated earlier, and you kept singing and that band kept playing until he got perfect. Yeah.

That was it. And he was the guy. He made it tough for anybody to ever stand in front of a band again. You all came second. But he was the guy we emulated. Yeah. Now let me just add. No, please, yeah.

The short-changed guy was Sammy Davis. To Frank and Dean and to all of us, he was the most talented. Wow. Sammy Davis, Jr. to this day, and they've taken from him, I'd sit and watch him from a young kid. He was a, I was as close to him as I was, Sancto. That was the most talented guy.

He was a musician. He played drums. He played dis, he did, play. He sang great. He was the guy that I hope today. Somehow they put him back in the forefront. And Dean was an underrated singer. But let's talk about Sammy for a second,

because, uh, uh, My manager, Bruce Eskowitz, told me this story where, I guess at some point Sammy was preparing to do some kind of book or something. So they have all these tapes of Sammy telling his true story, not the uncensored, the unvarnished, where he talks about what he really went through. And my manager said they cannot get anybody to do Sammy's story. That's insane to me. Well, he had, Yes, I Can, which was the book. I've heard the romings about that.

Everything is timing. Okay. And I will say to you that ultimately they will do the Sammy show. I hope so. Without question. And the one song that I do, you know, people say, what's your favorite moment, favorite song? You know, songs are like your kids. But the one song that I get off on every night is singing with Sammy Davis, him on the screen,

for a song that I wrote for him. that when he recorded, and I was at the studio that night, that was as important to me as my way with Sinatra. And you will hear and see something on Sammy in these coming years. I hope so. If this alien door that's all thrown at us today doesn't open, and we start to just, you know, I'm a big reader and I believe it's all out there, you know, and I don't question the fact that there is no God,

but I need some proof. But things are going to change in the next four years where all of us are going to have to get into a new mental state. One thing I was going to say on Mr. Sinatra, like a lot of people of my generation, we would hear the stories about Frank. Because growing up in the 70s, you know, Frank was on TV.

You were on TV a lot. So you were always presented as great stars. But, you know, you were, you were something that our parents or our grandparents would say, oh, this guy. So you almost like inherit the vibe on an artist, but you don't have a personal relationship. I didn't have a personal relationship with Mr. Sinatra,

other than he was, oh, my God, Frank Sinatra's. You could tell by everybody's body language. Frank, the way Frank moved, the whole thing. So, like a lot of people in my generation, we would hear this, what people would say about Frank was like, he hates rock and roll, or he. He doesn't like rock and roll. And, and, but of course I saw at some point where he, you know, he did, he did, uh, something by the Beatles.

But as only Frank, but something in the way, she moves, you know. He did Frank. He did Frank. And stuff before that. Sure. But I have to say as somebody who, uh, came later in life to the Great American songbook, the Harry Warrens, the, the, the Gershwin's. Sammy Cohns.

These incredible songs. songs. Johnny Mercer, right? Hockey Carmichael, a whole bunch of them. If you, if you, and I say this to people who are rock fans, I mean, I've made my life in rock and roll, until you really understand the Great American Songbook, what Sinatra said makes total sense. How are we going from, you know, some of these incredible charts that, you know, Nelson Riddle wrote, I got the world on.

a string, these incredible lyrics, these incredible songs. I mean, the absolute height of American songwriting. So of course, to that guy who was the great interpreter of that song or a garland, you look at rock and roll and go, what? Can't invest in it. How could I possibly even understand what is this? So I get it now where as a kid, I was like, oh, that's just old people talk, right? Where I think it's interesting with you is you actually bridge these two worlds. I mean, you had one foot in the rat pack world. And then here you are a teen idol playing basically, you know, the beginning of rock and roll. I mean, that's, I can't think of anybody else that's in both worlds.

Can you? Okay, no. I'm just one individual that continue to get lucky that applied himself with hard work. You must have a lot of luck. I want to know what horse you're betting on. Well, it's football and hockey, a little NBA. You know, I don't know. Who bets on hockey?

You bet on hockey? Oh, I love hockey. I was growing up on hockey. I played hockey. I helped bring the Ottawa senators. Oh, that's right. You're Canadian. You can't help.

You can't help it. You can't help it. You never forget my Canadian blood. I played it as a kid. I wanted to keep going. But as I said earlier. Okay. Here's a little connection we can make.

Sure. Within a few days, I'm actually singing at one of the Wirtz family's weddings. Chicago? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The words, of course, on the Blackhawks. So, yeah. It was my little connection there with it.

Well, you know, Canada, it was all hockey. We did it all. It was only Canadians. Well, that's all you guys have. That's all we had. And moose jerky. But, you know, then it's evolved into what it is. But, you know, look, when you're an individual who has work ethic, you know, work ethic is so important.

And you find something you love doing. And I can only speak as a humble individual. There's nothing great about what I did. You know, you think I'm the only success story in the world? There's so much of it out there. I just didn't want to lose this passion that I had. And I don't overdo passion. It's something that you do well that you continue on to do.

The evolution, and you can't, you know, Darren made the transition with me. You know, he and I would talk about it. And Darren was more musical than Sinatra. Darren was a musician. A dynamic performer. dynamic singer. Absolutely. And he evolved with me. And, you know, he's with him four months before his death. But you had, but you had hits in rock. That's the interesting thing. Well, because that's, listen, there were times I'd sit and say, I'm getting rid of this

tuxedo. And I know if I get, get up there, I can do what they're doing. And I'd say to myself, no, don't do it. You know, Bobby tried it. He did it with the jeans and the Dillon thing. And I'd say, Bobby, I don't know if it's really eager. I just stayed with what I knew and wanted to continue. And what kept the chain going from the rock where I started was being the writer. You know, to wind up in the 80s and 90s with the last three Michael Jackson hits, I sit there and go, I'm going to be kidding. I'm singing these songs I wrote with this kid that was talented. Yeah.

You know, and I was so fortunate. I wrote with great writers. Bert Baccarat was my buddy all my life and loved his work. And nobody could ever emulate him. Yeah. Him and Hal David, never forget the lyricist, right? And I was around a guy like Bert and continued to say, keep writing, keep writing. And that was the core of my longevity.

Wow. Whether it was that, she's a lady with Jones. But to work with the Michael McDonald's and Kenny Loggins and to wind up working with Michael. You know, that was a huge leap. Yeah. Because his family would bring in to see me at Caesar's Palace. And, you know, those of us in the music business, we don't have crystal balls. But you had a sense that this kid was going to bust out.

Yeah. And he was working with me as Thriller was just coming out. I had three tracks with him. Yeah. On my duets album on Sony. We were both on Sony. And the timing of it, we were just going to finish it. Thriller takes off and he took the tapes out of the studio.

I don't want to say he stole them, but he stole them. That's nice. Yeah. Now, I laugh about it because I think it's funny. Yeah. And, you know, I didn't want to litigate because I don't believe in that. Did you forget about the songs? And when they came out, you were like, oh, there they are.

I was aware of them, but I couldn't do anything with them. Right. And there were little outings with them. The point was, when he passed, and they found them. Yeah. And they were building the This Is It Tour. Yeah. And they found This Is It in the drawer.

Because he took the tapes, re-recorded them, and through the lawyers, I got them back. not knowing. And they found everything. So they found this song. My original title was, I never heard a single word about you. And that was the title. Harvey Levin, who's on top of everything.

I love those guys. He called up and said, there's a song coming out called This Is It, Michael Jackson. And somehow someone said you wrote it. I said, I wrote some songs, but this is it, doesn't ring a bell. Yeah. How can I hear it?

And he sent it to me. What they did was, whoever were around him at the time, his music group, they took the very first word, this is it, and they changed the song and changed the title. There they were a week before release, a week before the tour, and they were in a bind. I went, aha, so we're on the phone with lawyers. I said, look, ain't going to hold you up, I just want half of everything. Same I did with Johnny Carson, with the Johnny Carson theme. And that was it, the Michael Jackson story.

But to work with him, you know, when you listen to a lot of the tracks on some of those albums, they're not amazing tracks. Talented guys putting them together. Yeah. But don't ever think that Michael's contribution, he made sounds when I would work with him. can. I never worked with anybody like that. And he was doing,

it was a bass, whatever. I knew the kid was so talented. And I had to work from that. So the collaborations, which I loved were working with people because there's people more talented than me. And I want to see whatever brings to the table.

But he was the experience of all the people I've written with and working with Bacharach. My very dear buddy right down to the end. I got a nice compliment recently. I wrote some songs with Paul Williams. Wonderful writer. You know, the only thing I have over Paul Williams is I'm taller. But he's so talented.

Very talented. But he paid me a great compliment. And this is somebody I know that you worked with. after we wrote this second song together, he turned to me and says, I like working with you, you work fast. He goes, you remind me a Roger, Roger Nichols. Yeah, Roger was really fast.

Yeah. And I took that as such a great compliment. Yeah, I had the same experience with Richard Marks, another talented guy, Chicago boy. I don't know, Richard. It's so funny, we've never crossed paths. And so talented, I mean, around them in the beginning when no one believed, you know,

David Foster's. said you'll never make it, which broke his heart. And I nurtured him and spent time with him. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. And we wrote songs like a ton of songs, and I called record, did whatever. I loved helping new talent, you know, just because I remember how it was tough for me. But another talented guy was Richard Mike's, but we were knocking it off. He said, God, you write fast.

I enjoyed these recent albums that you, there was the Incas Sessions, Inspirations of Life and Love, which came out this year. Yeah. Because I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. listening to you, singing at 15 years old or whatever. I was struck by you. Painful. How can you get up at 4 in the morning listening to that kid? Well, I did. But I sort of love that through it all, you became the crooner that you grew up in the shadow of these great crooners.

Yeah. I mean, just Dean Martin alone is a crooner. I mean, I mean, Elvis is the secret, Dean Martin is the secret influence on Elvis. If you really listen to Elvis sing ballads, he's doing Dean. Well, Dean emulated the Mills Brothers. He loved the Mills Brothers. You ever see that clip where he's got the Mills Brothers on his show with him? Yes.

He loved the Mill Brothers. The Mills Brothers were unbelievable. Elvis was driven. When we talked, it was that black experience for him. Little Richard, it was all of the, uh, the spirit. spiritual stuff, all of those, uh, yeah, uh, that's, he would only talk about that. Yeah. You know, the only time I felt he got a little tested maybe was Tom Jones and Englebert

Humperding, which were a huge force when they hear. Yeah, yeah. But they were doing him. Yeah. They were doing Elvis. But, you know, to sit with him, it was always that, he had that amazing black voice in that white body. Yeah. And he put his soul into it. And, you know, back to what I said before, you know, sitting and talking to you, and then when I listened to your music, when I was putting rock swings, there's two different people there. Yeah. You know, you've got that guy with that voice, those great lyrics, and yet you're like a Wikipedia, you know?

And when I sat with Elvis, this was this shy guy that we would talk about limited issue type things, but certainly about his career who, you know, wouldn't just go to dinner with me or when we ran into him in Vale, Colorado, he'd only go out at night on snowmobiles, with lights, wouldn't go out in the day. But you knew that his whole thing was that whole black experience that he grew up around. Yeah. That gospel world. Yeah, it's powerful.

Real, and he was powerful. Yeah, I was, when Lisa Marie passed his daughter, I was friends with Lisa and I sang at the funeral. But what I really remember about that day of the funeral was the vocal group, I think it was the Jordanaires, got up. And, you know, when the young man who leads the group, well, he's not young, but I mean, he was a young man when his father was leading the group. He was like the high tenor gentleman.

And he spoke so deeply and passionately about what Elvis had done for his family, how Elvis really loved to sing gospel and would call them and want them to come over and sing gospel. And I really understood the depth of Elvis's love of gospel by this man's eulogy. He said, you don't understand how powerful the spiritual song was to Elvis. There'd be no Elvis without this connection to his, the spiritual root. And to see the emotion in the man's voice and body and he broke down crying that's the part about our biz everybody likes to talk about hits

and it's those rooted experiences the passion you know that that that deeper sense of the song I guess maybe the journey of the song yeah yeah okay he was very giving you know it was very giving a couple couple more things take your time I'm having fun thank you

you can edit what you want oh no we don't edit anything I'm here already Just go take it all. We just have to bleep your F bombs. Yeah, really? You don't bleep my F bombs. We do believe. A couple things.

I think I'm 59 years old, and I've been very blessed to have success for many years in the rock business. But I have such respect now for the great singers of the American song. I know we've touched on it before. Do you miss that world? Do you miss that world at all? I know you're like you know like you know like you saying that on your recent records that it was a very good year you know I changed all that it took that's life I changed them yeah yeah but I'm saying do you miss that world no with those types of singers no okay tell me

why I'm not wired that way I don't miss um I have no rear view mirror I don't believe in it I think it's wonderful to draw from I look at it as part of the totality of what I've been through, but there's no way that I would return to it. Can I be articulate in terms of the differences of Vegas then

and five little hotels and an airport not bigger than this and these great guys that I worked for and were just running the world of show business? Sure. But do I want to go back to that? No. Why would you want to go back to in life

to anything that you experienced other than drawing the great memory and the moments of it that fuel what you're living today. The importance of life, and I try to stress this to my kids, to anyone I can speak with, understand the importance of the moment

that you are living in, the necessity of respecting the asset of time. You are wasting time to ever want to go back to anything. Your time is your best asset. You know nothing about tomorrow. But no, there's no way I would want to go back.

I live for now. There's no flag in the mountain for me yet. I got the Broadway show I want to do. I've got projects I'm doing. I want to live in the moment. I've got still something to give. I still write. I still do.

I'm out touring. I just left Mexico City. You know, to go out there at my age and play 10,000 people in a stadium. I'm sorry. That'll humble you. Because I'm up there almost laughing. And because of TikTok, I got young kids running with albums. I'm going, this is ridiculous. I mean, you know, I'm humbled by it and I'm gracious with it. But you need to live in the moment to understand you still have something to give. I'm not going to dwell on ageism because I don't believe in it. I think everybody has just got to live that moment, stay healthy, and forget yesterday. Just learn from it

and cherish the memories. I got great memories of Sinatra, Sammy, and Dean, and everything I did with them. But no, I don't want to go back. I'm having too much fun now. I'm fortunate to, and I'm probably not the only one.

You know, when you peel the onion off at a ball, there's smart guys out there and women that are learning to live their lives, and yesterday is yesterday. Okay. Yeah. You know, the number one topic in the entertainment business is AI.

So I usually just toss it up as a, as a ticket where you want to take it. Okay, I'll drop just a name because I love him. Warren Buffett called me a few years ago. Okay. He's one of the smartest guys, the most humble. I love him. He said, Polly, Bill Gates is here, and he gave me this machine.

It's a GP, GP, whatever that thing. Four or five years ago, and I said to the machine, give me four versions of my way, and it did it in one minute. I said, wow, Warren, that's unbelievable. That's the first time I heard of it, right? Right? Okay. Of course there's a lot of intrepidation, a lot of fear with AI. I'm not afraid of it. It's moving quicker than you can imagine. I'm an avid reader. I'm never the smart person in the room. So the crowd I'm around, it is indeed has been changing everything. It will change everything. We will have to adapt to it. There will still be that human element. When you really, look at it, you know the guys that are going to flourish, a plumber is going to become very important now. Because a plumber and what he does, K.I. and a robot cannot replace.

So till that field, that level playing field occurs, when we realize that, you know, I go to Asia a lot, they've got robots walking around everywhere. You check into a hotel. China has I mean, it's all on the landscape. It's indeed coming. Big business that runs the world with government. Let's be aware, folks, they run the world and as bright as we all think we are. There's a backroom dialogue and plan in place as to what's going to be implemented. Sure.

And AI will take us to an absolute new level in society. companies and government must take care of the people and they'll come up with a formula because their upside will be so huge and how much they'll make that they'll go to a guy that is not blessed with some huge career windfall that's making 89 a year

and you say you're going to work two, three days a week and we're going to give you the rest of the money and blah blah blah and they will set forth a format that will exist because what will he do with that money? He'll go out and spend it again. Yeah. So it's here.

Okay, where am I concerned? You and I as writers, we know what's going on. Yeah. Right? We know what was the last big country hit, number one, AI. Let's sit and wait and collectively so that it's not ever I, I, I, I. It's we as a writing community, an artist will sit down and at the right time, go to whomever and say, here's what you have to implement to make it fair.

I see. So that this functions properly. You accept it because if you read history enough, this great country, this breadbasket of U.S., Canada, South America, against Europe, which is a waning society and the power of Asia, we've always balanced things out. That's how great this country is. When you look at its assets, it will balance out when people speak up collectively. When you look at the great revolts, the young people of today, look how they revolted with Coca-Cola put out this new Diet Coke years ago. Millions going, hey, eh, eh, so what I'm saying is it will level off.

I'm concerned as to the applications in our field. I want what's coming to you. I want what's coming to everybody else. There should be enough in there for all of us to say, listen, we got screwed for years anyway. Do you think artists and writers have always had the fair show? share. It's always been corporate. It's always been record company. It's always been these agents, but never lose the fact, as I said earlier, without us as writers, humbly, there ain't none of them.

They need to take care of my fellow artists and writers, even with AI. Now, I don't use AI when I record. I don't know what you do. One day for some reason, if I want to separate a file and come up with, okay, I get the usage. But I'm not afraid of it. Okay? I'm more afraid of mankind and politicians and the wealth, the pockets of wealth, that minority group of people that are making the changes that are not helping the common man. Yeah. Yeah, I think one interesting wrinkle in all this because there's lots to consider will be the ability to go back and take older recordings and kind of spruce them up. Yes, they're doing it. They're doing it. They're doing it with my.

Jackson right now. But I'm talking about even to your catalog. Okay. Sit down, have a meeting with me. What do you want to do? There's no question they're doing it now. Yeah. What I'm saying is you got to control the who and the they. I see you. And great, show me, I get it. I see it. I want it. But just make sure that everyone is properly taken care of for those intellectual rights. It's only fair. I want a bunch of hucksters running around taking it. advantage. Okay, last thing. Any words of wisdom? You've lived an incredible life, so it's almost hard to sum up in an hour and a half, but... Oh. Words, how about this? Words to live by. I love what you said about being in the present.

I mean, I got that. Because I'm a person who sometimes can over dwell, you know, even being romantic about other times. I think the important thing to achieve if you start... You stay smart and you're not acting from emotion all the time, and you have kindness, and understand that karma has everybody's address, which I believe in, is be kind to yourself and your health. You know, I taught my daughters years ago. They're all vagans. I take them to restaurants when they were teenagers.

They're going to kitchen and make sure there was no meat near the their plate. I eat healthy, okay? You must be healthy to maximize anything that you're looking to excel in in life or how you live. So the real key issue and wisdom from me is learn how to eat properly and know that half that crap that you've been putting in your body ain't good. Then you will function as a human being with the intelligence that you may have or whatever you have has to make the right decisions, not emotionally, and to be kind, be kind to people. And you'll be fine and be careful of how you open your big mouth politically and who you pick a fight with because it is not the right time for that.

Yeah. There was a day and age no matter what your political persuasion was. You could sit at a dinner table. The example, let me give you an example. I was the first to go to the communist country as getting on a plane in Europe in Switzerland and they had these dogs and

these militia guys with guns and they brought this guy on the plane. Big, formidable guy of no hair, well-dressed and sits across from me. And I find out he's the Prime Minister of Poland. I'm on the plane. I mean, you know, this is learning every day. I'm curious.

I'm, and I find out he's a pan. He starts talking to me, what you're, what you're new. I don't, Polank. You, Polank, yes. He said, would you ever come to my country? I got guards around me, dog, wherever. I would say no. He said, yes, I'd love to come to your country, right?

And I'm aware of communism. Because prior to that, years ago, where we had like bomb tests in school, we knew but coming. So fade out, fade in. I get a phone call from the State Department. Mr. Anker, did you meet the President Poland? Yeah. Do you promise you'd go to his country?

I said, yeah, he said, was $15,000 in the Bank of America, and we'd like you to go and represent the country. I said, what? I get my band together. We go to Poland. I'm in a communist country. Now, there I am where there's no lights. There's one bathroom on every floor.

I'm in an environment that I only heard of. And I'm playing to people that are so gracious and so giving. I can't believe it. You're right? I go from there because of my success in Poland. I get to go to Czechoslovakia. And I'm given this woman, Natalie, who's a, card-carrying communist.

Now, in those communist countries, they weren't all communists. The people weren't all communists. And she would show me her card. There's only maybe 700,000 communists in Czechos of Barking. And we would sit every night, her and I, after the concert, and talk about the difference in a country she hated, the U.S.,

and one that I was very dogmatic about as to how her people were, the communist life against the America. And we'd go through this every night nicely, but firm. And it was an experience for me to really say there's a world out here, right? Yeah. Okay, the point of all this. I'm telling you what a great country the U.S. was on what we're like and how we're raised. I leave Czechoslovakia, the Russians who had a real stronghold on Czechoslovakia, as they did Poland. They invade Czechoslovakia. If you remember, they went in with tanks and took over Prague.

Yeah. And that was a huge upheaval for the Czech people. I get a letter from this woman, Natalie Rojovio. Dear Mr. Anka, as you can see, the current event, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the rest of the room. And now I listen, I go back to all our conversations. You were so right.

She said, I had to smuggle my daughter, whom you met, to Belgium, to put her through school. And I have no money. Can you help me? Wow. And I put the kid through school. I sent her a check. I said, this is from the United States of America. Wow.

Politics. I love it. Thank you, sir. Thank you.