WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 842 - Steve Jordan

Episode Date: August 30, 2017

Steve Jordan is considered one of the greatest rock and roll drummers of all time. He joins Marc in the garage to talk about his years playing in the house bands for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, which included being part of The Blues Brothers' band. Steve also shares stories of his collaborations with Neil Young, Don Henley, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones, which led to a prolific partnership and friendship with Keith Richards. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gate! All right, let's do this.

How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking here is? What the fuck Knicks? What the fuck? Oh, crats. What's going on?

I'm Mark Marin. This is my podcast. WTF. Little amped. I'm a little amped. Got a lot of clarity. Got a lack of filter. A lot of things going on in'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf i'm a little amped i'm a little amped got a lot of clarity got a lack of filter a lot of things going on in my mind not so much around me in the real world but i'm grateful for that things not going on is fine considering that bad things could be going on and are going on every day all around the world not for for me today. I'm grateful for that.

I will say this in terms of what's happening and what you can do to help the folks on the ground in Houston and Louisiana. A lot of people are wondering how to donate to the relief effort. Here are a few suggestions just to keep in mind. Make sure you do your own research on the groups you're giving to. Know where the money you send is going and what it's being used for and make sure it's being used

for the relief effort. With that in mind, local groups are often the best option because they're working directly on the relief effort from the ground right there. We use Charity Navigator to do research on charities, but there are other helpful research sites out there like GiveWell and Charity Watch. We've made donations here at the show to the Houston Food Bank and the Houston SPCA. Both are rated the highest possible four stars on Charity Navigator, and their volunteers have been working around the clock on this relief effort. They're doing great work, and they need all the support they can get. But like I said, people, do your own research.

It won't take long. Those research sites make it very easy. And give what you can to the places that you think will help. But try to give. These are times for giving. People are in trouble all over the world that's just some information i thought i'd share with you today on the show steve jordan is here steve jordan the amazing drummer from the original letterman show from snl from many records

uh the uh the expensive winos with keith richards he's drummed with neil young he's drummed with everybody neil young everyone he's got his own label now he's got a new album coming out it's out now actually uh it's called uh garage sale by his band the verbs he also produced the latest um robert cray record remember robert? Robert Cray was great and is great still. The album is called Robert Cray and High Rhythm. It's produced by Mr. Jordan. He's also got, Steve's got a show on the Sirius. He's got a show on the Sirius XM channel 106 called Laying It Down with Steve Jordan.

I was excited to talk to him because he was one of those guys that was sort of the backbeat of my childhood in a way. Or at least since I started watching David Letterman in college. And I always liked him. I always thought he was a great drummer and I was always excited to get an album that he was playing on. Played with Keith a lot. So we talk about Keith.

We talk about the Stones. Talk about Cray. Talk about jazz. It's a good talk all around and he's a good cat i like music guys i learned some things about the drums uh oh another thing i wanted to say in a more self uh self-promoting way is that my new comedy special uh too real is what it's called. It premieres on Netflix next Tuesday, September 5th. So go ahead and add that to your queue,

and it will be there for you to watch when it's streaming next week. I talked to a couple people about it who watched it. I haven't watched it. I watched it when we edited, but since then I haven't really sat down and taken it in, and I was very happy that the two guys that were doing pieces on me about it seemed to be very into it. I'm very happy with it. I'm good with it.

It came together well. Some of the jokes that I thought might not be as relevant now are actually more relevant, which is exciting. And I'm proud of it. So I hope you watch that. It's Mark Maron, me. Show's called, the special's called Too Real on Netflix. Netflix? No, Netflix on Tuesday, I think.

It's September 5th. It's a Tuesday, right? All right. Okay. So what's happening with you people? Where was I last time? Quitting nicotine? I'm still quitted.

I am still quitted. I'm off. Now it'll be, by the time you listen to this, unless I fucking break down today, let's see, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, tomorrow will be five days. So Thursday, when you're listening to this, I'll be five days off the nick.

And it's a little better than when I talk to you on Monday. It's a tough thing. The habit of it is tough. You know, I deal, like, whenever I have to come out here, whenever I have to talk to somebody, I'm like, I need things. I need a thing. I need the thing.

And I wander around. But unfortunately, I've been eating a lot. I'm trying to eat healthily. But I got to do something. And I'm trying not to justify it or rationalize it. I got to assume that it's good not to be eating, you know, eight to 12 nicotine lozenges a day to the point where I'm sick and my eyes are crossing by the end of the day.

I have to assume that I'm giving some of my organ system a rest. I got to assume that my kidneys are relieved, my pancreas is relieved, my stomach is relieved, things are relieved. The caffeine, I'm drinking tea, which is caffeinated, but I'm off the coffee so I don't get that craving to match it. Every time you drink coffee, the caffeine wants to be matched. It wants to be matched by nicotine and vice versa. You do some nicotine, it demands a match with caffeine.

It's just the way it works, man. It's the way it works for me. I don't know who you are or what your life is, but that's the way it works over here. I'm going to lay off getting all worked up about uh the world today if you don't mind because of the nicotine withdrawal and because i'm kind of floating i don't seem to know what day it is or what time it is i'm not as thorough in checking in i'm feeling very in the in the moment when i'm driving because i'm withdrawing you know i'm taking unnecessary risks behind the wheel not looking for thrills just because I'm so in the present.

I think I got the timing aced. Everything's aced. When you're fucking amped up and your body's withdrawing and your whole being is craving for the outside world to make things right, you're checked in, man. You are tapped in. You are hooked up with the timing of reality so there's a moment of slow motion where i'm changing lanes i'm making left turns i'm doing shit where

i'm like i don't even think like can i make it i just think i'm making it and uh hopefully that doesn't backfire but right now i'm enjoying the zen you dig all right oh boy yeah a little disjointed with the nicotine i'm also on flonase i've been having some sinus congestion i hope that's what it is and not a tumor behind my face let's get on with it steve jordan is here he's a great drummer and as i said he's got a show on sirius xm channel 106 called laying it down with steve jordan he's got a show on Sirius XM, Channel 106, called Laying It Down with Steve Jordan. He's got the new album with his band, The Verbs, called Garage Sale. He's produced Robert Cray's new record, High Rhythm. That's out.

But this was a blast. This was a really fun conversation. Me and Steve Jordan. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance? Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong.

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Drummer. Nice to see you, Steve. Good to see you. Yeah, you're familiar to me from way back. Yeah? Yeah, I remember there was a dreadlock period. Absolutely. I was the first person to wear dreadlocks on network television every day on the letterman show that's right you were the first drummer for letterman

i was the first drummer and uh uh yeah co-founder of the world's most dangerous band with paul with paul actually the band the band was actually a band called the 24th Street Band. We had a band. It was Will Lee, Hiram Bullock, Clifford Carter, and myself. Yeah. And when Paul was looking to put together a band for the show, he came to me first, and then I suggested, why don't we just get Will and Hiram, because we're already a band. Right.

So that's why we were so tight when we started. Oh, that's how it worked? From day one. Yeah, yeah. And we rehearsed in my home. Where? On Fifth Avenue. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, in Manhattan. I have a loft. Yeah. You still have it? Yes, we still have it. That's right. When you got a deal like that in Manhattan, you keep it. Don't give it up.

Yeah, exactly. And we started rocking yeah so like i remember seeing you and i remember you know dave always integrated the band into the conversation he always talked to paul who like over time developed a weird stilted timing that you didn't know it was always the assumption that he was high right but but you know i think it's just after talking to him i think it's just the way he is yeah timing timing's everything yeah yeah and his is a little off well he's not a drummer no most good comedians are drummers in their hearts yeah yeah yeah i'm a guitar player yeah well okay yeah all right and uh but yeah no

you got to know where the beats are yeah but it's a it's a different instrument but i've been you know getting you know who i ran into at the airport like i it's taken me years to appreciate music in a deeper way uh like like i had this um i i ran into but anyways i ran into daryl daryl jones oh yeah my man yeah at the airport and he recognized me and we were going to london and he was going to record and now we just sat down talk for an hour about uh about you know rhythm sections he's a sweetheart he's a great guy he's a great guy I didn't know he started with Miles why would I know that oh that's one of those things that I wouldn't know and now I know it now I gotta go look for shit oh totally he's played with everyone are you kidding so have you

well yeah but uh he yeah and he played together with him too right absolutely recently and uh in fact um you know i i like to think that you know that i was uh you know i played kind of an instrumental no pun intended role in uh getting him into the stones yeah getting him that sweet gig yeah yeah filling in for Bill? Yeah. I brought that up with Keith Richards. Like, he got mad at me, too. Not hard to do when it comes to him getting mad.

Not really mad, but I said, like, I told him, I said, you know, I haven't seen the Stones live in a long time, and I was resistant because, you know, Bill doesn't play with the Eddie board. And he's like, Bill hasn't played with us in 20 years 25 years again daryl was the bass player it's a i got nothing he had nothing personal against bill but it's like the bass players that's our bass player you know it's we we both daryl and i both are kind of shocked that it's been that long you know the time has flown it seems like he just joined the band yesterday same thing with ron wood i mean ronnie is you know you know not an original

member but he's been in there for like 30 something years and it's just like it's almost like yeah he just left uh rod stewart and he's like he just joined this no yeah you know that was 30 something years it was a long time ago yeah but uh but the conversation and keith is a good place to to go with it was that like i i guess i never understood you know as deeply as i do now from listening more intently over the last decade just you know how important and obviously you're going to think this ridiculous that the rhythm section is the whole band and it's i mean in a lot of ways it's all of it i listened to yeah i i listened to a reissue I mean, in a lot of ways, it's all of it.

Absolutely. Yeah, I listened to a reissue of Get Your Ya-Yas Out. And I'm listening to Charlie and Bill, and I'm like, holy shit, if they didn't keep this together, it would be a disaster. Like, it would be a disaster. And Keith talks about that, too, in terms of Charlie. Well, first of all, his love for Charlie is really deep. And they have a connection that is a bond that's unbreakable. Oh, yeah.

That's the first thing. But one item of note is that Keith is a great bass player. Is he? So he played bass on Street Fighting Man. Yeah. And he played bass on, you know. A lot of Exile, I think. Yeah.

Drummer Jack Flash, you know, all that. Yeah. You know, a lot of great bass playing was done by Keith. And Ron Wood is a great bass player, too. So they know what the bass is, the function of the bass. Right. too so they know what the base is the function of the base right and and and uh some of their most uh kind of rockiness tracks yeah were done with basically like keith and charlie you know alone and then they built off of stuff really yeah so keith keith um i don't think people realize the magnitude of his brilliance in the studio.

It's so simple. And what was awesome to me was when I saw them, I went and saw them on the last tour at the beginning, is that they don't use any fucking backtracks. They're just up there playing. And it's very simple stuff but it's it's the stones am i wrong no you're not wrong there's you know the band has a chemistry most great bands have amazing chemistry but you've built stuff from the ground up with him what is what tell me more about why he's misunderstood i i think that uh you know um simplicity is sometimes mistaken for stupidity or whatever. People, they're afraid to, or they don't understand that less is more.

Right. Space. And the space in the music is just as important as what you're playing. That's all part of it. You take a canvas. You don't fill up the canvas with a bunch of paint. Right. You paint a picture.

Right. You're playing the song. He plays the song. And of course, being such a great writer, he writes the song. Right. So the music is there. Yeah. And you don't just

fill in the space for the sake of filling in space you know like you know the word tacit is very important yeah in in in syncopation right you know that's the whole thing the push and pull of rock and roll yeah yeah and and you have that in obviously in jazz and blues, it's the same thing. You don't fill in every space. No, you want to hold back. Oh, yeah, and breathing is very important.

It's the same thing in symphonic music. When there's a space, there's a space for reason. Yeah. So that when you do play something, it means something. Right. You know? Yeah, yeah. And that's the same thing for drummers who play too many fills.

You know, so that means that nothing you're playing really counts, really matters, because you're playing too much. Right. But when you play something, when you don't play a lot, and you're just holding the groove down, and then when you do play that, whoa, that must have been, that means something. Yeah. Wow. And it stands out. Right. Well, I mean, I want to talk to you about working with Chuck and Keith because Chuck's

another guy where, you know, that rhythm is a little like, it's tricky. Like the way he, you know, runs, you know, the way he hits that guitar. Absolutely. Well, he developed a style. Yeah. He invented something. Yeah. But that guitar. Absolutely. Well, he developed a style. Yeah. He invented something. Yeah, but that bounce.

Well, I mean. You know, on a musical description of that is, and this is where jazz comes into play. Yeah. In the kind of development of rock and roll. Right. So you have two of the main architects of rock and roll are Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And they were playing, and at the risk of sounding too technical, they were playing like eighth notes, straight eighth notes. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, right? Yeah.

So either Chuck is playing that on guitar. Do, do, do, do, do, do, that, right? Yeah. So either Chuck is playing that on guitar, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, or Little Richard on the piano, which is basically kind of a boogie-woogie type of thing, you know, coming from, what, Fats Wild, you know, those guys, right? Da-na-da-na-da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, the drummers that were part of the development of this style rock, here's where the role comes in. Right. They were playing what essentially is jazz against a straight eighth. They were playing what you call a dotted eighth note. Yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah.

So now you have ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. And that's the push and pull. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just everybody going da, da, da, da, da-nee, da-da-dee-nee, da-da-dee-nee, and that's the push and pull, right? Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just everybody going da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Right.

It's not like a German marching band. Right, right, yeah. No, it's swinging and it's doing that thing. That's where the drums come in. So like Earl Palmer, who developed that thing with Little Richard, he was the drummer on all that Little Richard stuff, or most of it, not all of it. But all he ever wanted to be was Max Roach.

Same thing with Charlie Watts. They love Max Roach. They love Elvin Jones. And so they were playing jazz against him. Same thing with Fred Bilo, who played at Chess, who was the drummer who played with Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. So his drumming with Willie Dixon on bass, Willie Dixon is walking, boom, boom, boom, boom.

He's walking, he's jazz, he's playing jazz. Yeah, yeah. And so that's where that is. So that's what happened. That's the development of this new style born in America called rock and roll. That's the roll against the rock. It's got a swing, though.

It's got the swing. Some drummers can't the rock. It's got a swing, though. It's got the swing. Some drummers can't do it. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. And that's how you get the generic bar band sounding, the people who can't swing. They're staying right on top of it, right? You know, everything is squared off. Right.

You see? Yeah. And that's the thing. That's the secret sauce. The swing. Yeah. You got to be able to do it. Either you have it or you don't.

Exactly. But like, you know, mentioning all these guys, where did you get educated? I mean, how did you come up? Where did you start? I was very, very fortunate. I grew up in New York City. You did. And in New York City, the New York City Board of Education was a tremendous source of inspiration

when it came to developing children in the arts. Yeah. And, you know, obviously, the arts have been under assault for the last 40 years in regards to public education. I went to a public school. Which one?

Did you go to the FAME school? Well, actually, I went to Music and Art High School, which is actually the FAME school is Performing Arts. Okay. Performing Arts is our annex. Okay. Yeah. You were the original? Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art was the main school.

Yeah. And it was right in the middle of City College in Harlem on 135th Street and Convent Avenue. But before we even got there, when you were in elementary school, the first day of school, you were given a musical instrument to take home, and you were assigned an instrument. It either was a violin or a clarinet or whatever. Yeah. And that's all part of developing a full human being. Oh, absolutely.

And you were given drums? I wasn't given drums. I ended up playing in the percussion section. The first thing I started playing was actually the concert bass drum. Then I graduated to timpani. And the timpani is really where I... Yeah. And so my upbringing in symphonic music is really where I developed a discipline.

Yeah, right, right. But that's an important point, that to engage in a musical instrument is part of a well-rounded person. Absolutely. So, either that or you were an art student or something, but that was part of the arts. Yeah. Being a creative person is part of development of the total psyche of a human. And, you know, unfortunately, that's been under assault in the last 40 years and 30 and also you know dismissed or just not found interesting i mean i i get at some level i guess you know music's not for everybody but creativity and engaging your imagination and learning how to express yourself is certainly important and yet there does there does seem to be a shortage

whether it's funding or not well it's what it's been taken, not even taken for granted. It hasn't been really completely acknowledged by a certain group of people who like to cut the budget. Yeah, they see it as a waste. Yeah, exactly. Short-sighted. I'll put it this way. A friend of mine took me to an MSNBC party several years ago. Yeah.

And I'm at this party and I'm talking to Andrea Mitchell. And then and then she turns and she says, oh, meet, you know, so and so. And it's Alan Greenspan. Right. You know, I had no idea that they were actually a couple at the time. It was like this, you know, I had no idea. Right. But the point is here is that, you know, he's a clarinet player.

Yeah. You know, this is the guy who's, you know, telling everybody where the money is. Yeah. He plays clarinet, you know, and I said, you know, you want to make a record? You know, I mean, but the thing is, all all of these people that i met they were all like musicians they all either played an instrument or they they can't wait to to work is over until they can run to and and they have their own little bands and all kinds of stuff and here's a guy who all he wanted to be was woody herman you know or whatever you know and he went on benny goodman you know yeah you know and or whatever, you know, or Benny Goodman, you know, you know, and, but

no, but he figured out what to do and now he's the smartest guy when it comes to money. But that's all part of, of the thing. In fact, uh, when I started reading music, I became a better, a better math student. Timing and, well, because you have to read, it's all numbers. And, and, and my mother was very frustrated with my math skills yeah at first and then i started and then and then i started reading music and i became a good reader and then my math got better so they're all there it's all connected but when you're coming up so you go you go to high school at the uh well so music and art high

school i i auditioned for the school, and I got in. And who, like, you know, at that point, you're playing timpani in an orchestra? Yes, yes. Timpani and concert snare drum. But no set. You don't have a set. I didn't get a set until right before I auditioned for the school.

I never got a full set right away. In fact, this is how- What was missing? Well, this is how I acquired a kit. Yeah. When I started taking formal lessons when I was eight years old, my grandmother and she said,

okay, we'll buy you a snare drum. It was $25 at that time. That was a lot of money, $25 for a a snare drum uh it was 25 at that time that was a lot of money 25 for a japanese snare drum zimgar yeah gold sparkle snare drum and it was like they weren't going to get me a drum unless i promised to take lessons yeah so and be serious yeah so i got it so basically i i was given a piece at a time yeah i didn't didn't get a whole kit. You know, it was like that kind of thing. And I think that really, it was very astute, actually, that whole concept, you know, like the carrot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, if you really want it, then you'll keep working and then we'll get you. And you're listening to music saying like, well, I can't play that. Right. Until I get that. But it's all in my head.

Yeah, I need a hi-hat. Yeah, I didn't get, the hi-hat was one of the last things I got. Oh my God. And the funny story about that Yeah, I need a hi-hat. Yeah, I didn't get the hi-hat was one of the last things I got. Oh, my God. And the funny story about that is that I got a hi-hat, and one of the first records I started playing to was Sly and the Family Stones, like Everybody is a Star and that kind of thing.

And later on in life, I become friends, very good friends with Greg Erico, the original drummer, and he lent me his hi-hat cymbals. They're the same hi-hat cymbals that I practice to. Now I have the cymbals. I actually own the cymbals. They're yours? Yeah.

Yeah. Is that nutty or what? It's great. That's crazy. Those are magical items. Absolutely. And when you get into the know the big time into high school i mean who are your you know teachers who's influencing you is it always is it you know coming

out of symphony i mean do you do you gravitate towards jazz are you listening to art blakey and those guys listen the first thing i ever learned on the drums was art blakey's blues march art blakey and the jazz messengers, written by the great Benny Golson. Yeah. And my dad, who's an architect, engineer kind of cat, he said to me, if you learn how to play Blues March, you'll be able to play anything. And that was, once again, another very astute comment

because not only did it swing but it had all the hands you know and so developed dexterity and then there was a solo in it and you know if you learn the solo you get your not only your type of improvisation chops together but you know you listen so you get your memory together yeah and and and uh you know the memory thing is very important in music as well when you're playing symphonic music and you're playing the timpani you learn the music because you don't want to you're not going to count 500 bars until you come and you play like you know you you play a total of like four measures the whole freaking piece you're not like you know you you play a total of like four measures the whole freaking piece you're not gonna you know you better learn the music because you're gonna

if you miss counting one bar you come in in the wrong bar you're screwed right you don't want to fuck up your four beats exactly exactly so you learn the music exactly you know you know the whole orchestra turns around and looks at you. You idiot. Your two notes. Your two notes. You blew that. So did you grow any sort of affinity for classical music?

Yeah, I love Mozart. And you understand it? I do. Yeah, I'm very fortunate. Because I can listen to it, but not unlike jazz. I would have to go. I think music is always accessible in that either you got a brain that takes it in and says, I can do this. Some music, I don't like this, whatever.

But to really understand classical, I think it takes a little research. and classical, I think that sort of, it takes a little research. Well, it's kind of very, it depends on what the definition of understand really is. I guess so, yeah. You know what I mean? Right. So, I mean, it's not like a lot of people understand jazz when they're listening to it either. But they know that they like it, whether it's a beat or whether it's the freedom of the improvisation. Right, right.

But it's very much based on on symphonic music a lot of jazz is it yeah because you know you have to learn you mean when you're playing through if you're a soloist yeah if you're uh the art of improvisation uh whether it's playing uh through chord changes yeah You have to have that kind of knowledge that you would have if you were a classical musician because you know, you have to know, you know, obviously a large- When it's coming? Well, yeah, you have to know what chords do.

Yeah. And what notes are in those chords. Yeah, but with blues, you know, you're talking about three chords, maybe four. Right, right, if you're lucky if you want to make it a soul song yeah throw that other one in the minor right yeah there you go yeah and and then you know you kind of know when those are coming is it eight or twelve or what but like like with jazz like even something that paul schaefer said in here you know uh that miles

said to him like he had one experience with miles where they talked and i guess miles said you know don't play the the bass don't play the the root right don't play the root play around it right and and that you know to paul was like oh you know like i i don't know what that means exactly but i kind of get it right well you know and that that but that seems to be not necessarily you know symphonic knowledge, but kind of blues knowledge, or maybe not. Maybe that's jazz knowledge. I don't know. Well, that's a combination.

It's a combination of all of it. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're taking lessons, do you take lessons in high school from any dudes that were like real dudes? Yeah. In fact, here again, another amazing thing. And did you master that Art Blakey thing? I did. And did you master that Art Blakey thing? I did.

And how old were you? I was about, I got it down when I was about 10. 10? Yeah. And you spent a year on it? Well, you know, off and on, you know, just getting it. Well, see, because I'm growing up, I got Ringo in one ear, I got Tony Williams in the other ear,

I got Benny Benjamin, Al Jackson, you Jackson, Clyde Stubblefield. I'm listening to all music because music was prevalent in the household. My dad's favorite trumpet player was Clifford Brown, then he was killed in a tragic car accident, so then he switched his allegiance to Miles. So there was Miles Davis playing. I'm a newly baptized Lee Morgan guy. Okay, so my first, okay, so one day,

I'm going to my first visit to Music and Art High School. Yeah. And it's in Harlem, as I said earlier. It's on 135th Street and Convent Avenue. My grandmother lived on 156th and St. Nicholas. And so my dad, who worked in the municipal building downtown, he said, look, after you go to school, go to your grandmother's house. There's a Jazzmobile on 155th Street. And we'll go check out the Jazzmobile concert that night. It'll be Dizzy Gillespie's big band.

And what the Jazzmobile was a foundation that taught jazz to kids in schools and obviously a great educational program, and they would do block parties. You know, block out the street, and they'd have free concerts. So I go to my grandmother's house. Earlier that day, I go and I have my first experience at Music and Art, and I was told to come there because the jazz band,

they had a jazz band, and rumor had it that the drummer who was in the jazz band the term before was moving out of New York, moving down south. And maybe if I came, I would have a shot of possibly getting in or at least auditioning. So I get there and the conductor is this cat.

I've never seen a guy that looked like this before. He's a really cool looking dude. He had kind of like hexagon sunglasses, a crisp white shirt with bell bottoms, blue bell bottoms with bold white stripes and brown kind of floor shine chelsea boot kind of yeah wild looking cat you know i'm like wow is this like this is gonna be like this is a teacher yeah this is amazing music and art this is already the most incredible thing experience i've ever had and it's like i don't even know anything yet i mean and so and i'm so i have this guy in my head

and i like wow this is wild so i'm telling my grandmother and everything so then we we go my dad gets to her house and he takes me around the block and we go see dizzy's big band yeah and i'm always going right up to the front. I want to see who's playing what or whatever and I don't really know anything, but I'm, you know, I'm trying to. And I look up at the trumpet section and I turn to my father. I said, dad, that's my teacher.

That's my teacher. I met him today. It was Lee Morgan. No shit. Wow. So you played in a band conducted by lee morgan just just for and he was killed that summer actually yeah so what was that like 70 slugs what was that what year 60 something no it was 72 or 73 71 72 yeah yeah so um so i i did get a chance to, you know, Lee Morgan.

And, you know, in that band, that was the first time I saw the great Mickey Roker, who just passed away two weeks ago. Incredible drummer and an inspiration. And so that's New York. Yeah. You know, so that's the whole experience. All the players that were at Music and Art High School, a lot of them have gone on to really big things. Well, I like the idea that to commit to a piece when you're young

and say, like, I got to do this, I got to learn this. Because I always used to believe for years, but I just play, I'm not a professional, because I always used to believe for years, but, you know, I'm just an, I just play, I'm not a professional musician that, that in order to understand the blues, if you can't make rolling and tumble in your own, like whatever that is, you know, you can't play it like Muddy did or, or whatever though, that that's a beautiful slide, but that somehow that song was a portal in my mind to understanding it. Right.

And I think Keith did it with Jimmy Reed and Chuck, right? Yes, absolutely. It's like, I'm going to do this right. It's not going to sound like him, even though you may think it does or whatever, but the more important thing is to own it somehow. Yeah, own it and try to understand it, try to get into the mindset. You know, a lot of my favorite players, and especially when I got to see them play, because that's another great thing about New York,

you could actually go and see these legends all the time. It's crazy. And then you get into, like, well, how are they feeling? Okay, now I'm not just listening to them. I can actually see them as well. That's incredible. And then you start mimicking them, whatever it takes to get to takes to get moves until you get to where you're going you know and and another great experience about uh being in new york yeah you know and like with drums

like because it's not my instrument i don't think i've ever really talked to a drummer at length is that um well first of all i guess one thing you learn is that you get to spend time and be mentored by brilliant players. But you also realize, like, maybe jazz isn't a great living. That, too. Sonny Rollins was very upset with me when I left and went and started playing with the Rolling Stones. He was like, oh, I know you're going to be a rock star. Yeah. You know, whatever.

You played with Rollins? Yeah. In fact, I played with Sonny. I started playing with Sonny when I was about 18, 19 years old, and I worked with him off and on the rest of my life, basically. He just stopped playing only a few years ago. I played with him right up until that point. Right. And in jazz, I guess the question I was about to ask is,

once you learn the basics, you know, what are these tidbits of wisdom that you gain from these masters? Like, you know, like, I mean, I know with guitar, you know, like I can go over and Jimmy Vivino will show me a lick and I'll just work with it for a year. Like, you know, he'll show me two blues licks and I'm like, oh, that's how you get to that other thing. Right, sure. And that's that. I mean, is it the same with drums? You try to work out a vocabulary of stuff that you can go to for sure.

But the main thing, most great jazz musicians, most leaders, they want it to feel good. They don't want somebody to just play a bunch of extraneous stuff. Right. You know? Yeah. And so my relationship with Sonny in particular

is he enjoyed my groove, so to speak. Yeah. My pocket, as you would say. Right. And because, you see, Sonny Rollins is from the Caribbean. Yeah. And my roots are Caribbean as well. And he's written the most famous calypso ever, St. Thomas.

Yeah. So his go-to thing is a calypso. Yeah. No matter all the great jazz and everything that he's in that he has uh uh been responsible for yeah and all this brilliant stuff his go-to thing is a down home calypso yeah and and that's a rhythm and and that is a rhythm and that is a kind of and these calypso tunes are very they're melodic, they're fun and they bring

up-tempo high spirits into your soul and that's his root. That's the calypso delivery system. Up-tempo high spirits into your soul what does calypso do? Oh well if you need up-tempo high spirits into your soul. What does Calypso do? Oh, well, if you need up-tempo, high spirits in your soul.

And you dance, you know, and it makes you dance. What does that be? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's at the root of him. That's him. So, like, if you were if you know if you guys were working out some shit he he would say like you know pop that up a little bit when we when we

would play calypso during a show and usually it's toward the end of the show because it kind of has that finale feeling and you get the crowd into it after he's played all this incredible stuff all night and yeah yeah trying to figure it out. Yeah, like what just happened? Yeah, exactly. And then he gets into playing one of his great calypsos. And I would think of it as almost like the hip-hop section of the concert, where it was just like, okay, I'm going to lay this calypso beat down, and he's going to play forever, and we're going to get the crowd going, and the people will be standing and dancing and freaking out at a Sonny Rollins concert. Right, because now they can get out of their heads.

They can get out of their heads and just get into the rhythm. Exactly. They sweat through the first hour. Yeah. Exactly, trying to figure out taking notes. You know, what happened there? You just kick in with a calypso beat

and they're like, oh, thank God. Thank you. But that's an important part about you know show business it's sort of like you want to close strong yeah there you go you want to believe dance and not going like i don't know what just happened exactly my no my brain hurts yeah he got way out there way out there man what happened i don't know if i can stand that again yeah because i listen to like sometimes. I got it.

Now, see, now I'm going to go listen to Rollins. And I'm fortunate that I have like a handful of Rollins records in there that I have not paid proper attention to because I didn't know this key bit of information. So now I go in there with the Calypso information and, you know, the uptempo, you know, elevating the soul business. And now I'm going to like, I'm going to look through that prism. Right. And I'm going to see it.

And you know when, so Max Rhodes plays drums on St. Thomas. Yeah. Which is basically the most famous calypso ever written. But he's not really playing a calypso beat. He's playing more like a, almost like a Latin-y type of beat. Yeah. It's not a real Caribbean type of calypso.

Right. So if you want to hear some real calypso stuff, you have to dig into that. Like who? Like the Mighty Sparrow. Okay. Yeah, that's it? Yeah.

I'll just be flying around? Yeah, exactly. It'll take me out? Yeah, yeah. So what does it, because like your groove, your pocket, if I recall correctly in whatever my first experience of watching you play was, it has a lot to do with the snare right that was the loudest thing on television that's for sure yeah i used to carry

the snare drum around with me too yeah there was a drum that was made for me um it was very funny uh a friend of mine uh danny gottlieb who's most famous for playing with the Pat Metheny group. Oh, yeah. See, I missed the whole Metheny thing. Yeah, yeah. So he played with Pat Metheny. I have a problem with fusion. I'll put it right out there.

Right. Well, that wasn't really fusion. That was kind of, that was post-fusion. Thank goodness. Well, it seemed a little soft to me for some reason. Well, yeah, that was like a kind of airy, spacier kind of thing, even though there were changes involved. But there was more breathing room in there.

And so anyway, at a party, I was having a birthday party, and Danny said, if you had your ultimate snare drum, what would it be? And I just made up some stuff. Yeah, 15 plies of this and eight coats of polyurethane over here. And he had the drum made for me. And it was made by Joe McSweeney

for a boutique drum company called Ames Drums out of Massachusetts. And it was a powerhouse, the snare drum. It was a tank, exactly. It was a tank. And so for a couple of years.

I didn't read it wrong. No, you did not. And for a couple of years, I carried that drum around with me. I didn't even take clothing. I was just somewhere, I just had a freaking snare drum case. The magic drum.

You know, a lot of drummers, they have a cymbal back. I didn't do a cymbal. No, just the snare drum. And so that's what you heard on the Letterman show. And I would go. So when we started doing Letterman, my first experience of playing live television was,

I was in the original Saturday Night Live band. I was the second drummer in that band. The first drummer was a guy named Dawood Shaw. I was the second drummer in that band. The first drummer was a guy named Dawood Shaw. I was the second drummer. I came in in 77 with Bill Murray, the third season. Okay, yeah, yeah. And so my- But you'd already been recording before that.

I started recording maybe just a couple of years earlier. With jazz? Actually, my first recording session was with basically half of Wonderlove, Stevie Wonder's group. It was with Michael Cimbello, Nathan Watts, who had just gotten a job with Stevie. Yeah.

Carlos Alomar, who, you know, The guitar player. The guitar player, David Bowie. How's he doing? He's doing great. He's a wizard. He's a wizard. Yeah, Carlos and his wife, Robin Clark,

you know, great singer. Uh-huh. And, you know, part of the reason why Bowie went R&B, you know, and, you know, Carlos and his wife, Robin Clark, you know, the great singer. Uh-huh. And, you know, part of the reason why Bowie went R&B, you know, and, you know, Carlos. Carlos was on the. He co-wrote Fame. Okay. So that was his previous to Let's Dance.

I remember seeing Carlos. Oh, way before Let's Dance. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Carlos is, you know, young Americans. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all that stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah. Stevie Ray, I think, played on Let's Dance.

Yes, he did. Yes yes he did yes he did odd pairing unbelievable playing oh god what a solo i mean that was you know on let's dance yeah yeah yeah it's amazing incredible so that was my first session um with stevie or no no stevie it was with a guy who played a saxophone with stevie um took Trevor Lawrence's place, actually, a guy named Danny Morales, and he put together. So my first session was in Studio B at Electric Lady. Oh, yeah. And, you know, that's my very first recording session.

That's the Magic Studio? And it's a Magic Studio, and going in there, and I thought, okay, this is what I want to be doing. And spaces are magic, I think. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you go to Abbey Road, you go to Capitol, you go to Royal Studios in Memphis, you go visit 2120 in Chicago.

You know, there are places, you know, even like in New York right now, if you're not going to Avatar which used to be Power Station you can go to Brooklyn Recording and Brooklyn Great Recording Studio

or Germano Studios in New York they hold the ghosts right they hold the ghosts and there's something you know the environment

is there and especially well you're talking about holding the ghosts Royal Studios is and that's where you did the new Robert Cray record? Yes, exactly.

Was that a Stax outlet? No, it was High Records. That's where Willie Mitchell, that was his studio. And he developed, you know, he tuned that room. It was an old movie theater. Okay. And much like the original Stax was a movie theater and he just uh built that room and tuned it every day meaning just tweaking every corner of it oh yeah putting up

wool here and you know and it's still all there it's still all there uh uh you know augmented by several cobwebs and corners which we don't touch yeah no you can't and and it's an amazing oh that's that's the only place in the world that sounds like that no shit you know and uh yeah there's a lot of great studios still around you know uh you know blackbird studios in nashville you know, Blackbird Studios in Nashville, you know, great studio. But there are certain studios that have a thing that only that studio has. You can only get that sound there. You can only get that sound there. You can try, a lot of people try it,

and you can mess around. Sure, there's people like, you can do it on the computer. Yeah, yeah, oh God, please, let's not go there. You can't. So, yeah, so, all right, so you did a little recording before, and then you're in the second wave of the SNL band, which is the Blues Brothers band.

It's Lou Marine. Right. Lou Lou, Bones, the whole thing. So the reason why I brought it up is because when I first walked in there, there were two mics on the drums. Yeah. That's it. You know, one of the 57 and a kick drum and a 57 overhead not even a

snare drum like i had to lobby to get a snare drum mic you know that's another 57 yeah exactly another dollar another 57 and the and the engineer was a guy named bob lifton who like started with milton burl you know what i mean yeah yeah and so when we the first day i go into uh So the first day I go in to do Letterman, and I walk in, and all the drums are mic'd with Sennheiser 421s and it's an RE-20, and I'm on the bass drum. I'm going, holy cow, this is amazing. And there was an engineer. Her name was Pam Gibson.

Yeah. Her name is Pam Gibson. Yeah. Her name is Pam Gibson. Yeah. And she was the one that got that great sound. Oh, yeah? And it had never been done on television before, where drums were actually mic'd like they were in a recording studio. So that is why that four-piece band,

besides the fact that we were already a band, sounded so good. And so now, couple that with this tank of a snare drum, right? Yeah. I mean, so that's all you heard basically go pow, you know? Yeah. And so every night, between the dreadlocks and the snare drum, that was good. I remember, man. That was good. I remember Hiram too. Yeah, you know, so every night, you know, between the dreadlocks and the snare drum, I was good. I remember, man.

I was good. I remember Hiram, too. Yeah, absolutely. No shoes. Yeah, it was crazy. It was a great band, you know, watching that show. And just the juxtaposition between you cats and Letterman, you know, who played this kind of like,

you know, kind of cranky broadcaster fella. Yeah. It was groundbreaking yeah but you were on that you did the the snl stuff so you backed everybody you know at different points who came through the show but you're also in that blues brothers band right but were you in the movie no i did not do the film who would drum on that uh the drummer who willie, the great Willie Hall who played drums on Shaft. Okay. Yeah.

But he took my place. I didn't do it. The 24th Street Band, we had our first offer to play in Japan. You, Will, and Hiram? Yes, with Cliff Carter. And that was all music? There was no singing? There was singing.

We were all singers. Okay. And we were like the East Coast Toto without the songs. Oh, boy. Nothing good about what you just said. Yeah, yeah. No. You know, but David Page, you're so bad.

David Page, you know, I mean, those guys played, Jeff Piccaro, they played on a lot of great records, and they were a great rhythm section. The way Jeff Piccaro played on the Steely Dan records and Boss Gags and all that stuff. And so they were the backbone of a lot of records coming out of LA that were good. And then when Toto came out,

they basically took that thing and then they did the thing. So we were playing on a lot of records ourselves, but we didn't have the hits. We didn't have the hits. We didn't have the hits. So anyway. But you had a following. You could play. But we did have a following, and we played.

So we were big in Japan. Sure. So we had a tour booked, and the Blues Brothers movie was booked. Now, you know, in film, as you may or may not know, everything takes eight times as long. Sure. Everything is blah, blah, blah. So we had a tour, and I could have done the tour and then been on the set,

and it would have been fine. But the producer said, no, everybody has to be on the set at the same time. It was completely ridiculous. And I felt it was more important for me to do this tour because I was in a real band. Yeah. I really wanted it to happen. Yeah. So John was a little upset with me,

but I had a conversation with Dan Aykroyd the night before I made the final decision and he understood that I wanted to pursue the goal. Your own career? Yeah, exactly. As opposed to this half comedy I have the original script

which is nothing like the actual is that true is it better or worse it's better it's more clever Danny is a very smart person what was interesting about the record I guess the movie they developed this comedic duo but you guys played real shit you don't see the

here's a difference this was part of the frustration when we cut briefcase full of blues it's a good record it's a it's it's it's wonderful and we have great we have legendary players yeah oh yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah. MacGytar Murphy. Yeah. When we played, the energy was unbelievable. When we did that first record, we were playing the Universal Amphitheater before there was a roof on it. Yeah. And we were sound checking.

Bob Hope was complaining we were too loud. Yeah. We were doing the whole thing because this house is right behind the amphitheater. And the energy was amazing. People didn't know what they were going to see. We were opening for Steve Martin, who was the hottest thing in entertainment at the time. Yeah. And so, you know, you have this thing where you're going to see this Blues Brothers thing, but you don't really know what it's going to be.

Now, we had played as the Blues Brothers on the last show of the season before. Yeah. So the third season, we played Hey Bartender. Like 77? Yeah. We played Hey Bartender and we, with the Saturday Night Live band. Yeah. And I was in that band as well. Right. And then John put together the Blues Brothers band that summer. Yeah. And we recorded the album.

And he was serious about it. He was very serious about it. He loved the blues. He befriended this guy, Curtis Salgado, who kind of showed him the ropes, played him all the music, and he just fell in love with it and being from Chicago and the whole Chicago blues thing. Yeah. And it was pretty intense.

So, you know, we did the record, and, you know, the record came out, and it went to number one in seven weeks. We had a number one album. Yeah. We were, like, platinum. And they're giving us, like, platinum records at the Radio and Records Convention. You know, it was unbelievable.

So now the film and... so the 24th street band at that point yeah well well yeah i was still well i remember playing the record for hire them you know and everything and i was very excited but anyway so so now what we could still do the thing yeah and and uh but the film deal was signed before we made the record yeah uh but uh you know it was the whole john landis yeah kind of thing and it was just different from my way of thinking and i'm thinking about we made a real live record yeah it's actually a good record number one yeah we we should think about the music yeah you know you know the music does warrant something. I mean, it's helping the life of this film, but the musician's got no respect.

So basically, I opted to be a real musician. And so I didn't do the film. Neither did Paul Schaefer, and neither did Tom Scott. We call ourselves the triangle. So you do that stuff with SNL. You do Letterman, and now you work with Booker T too, right? Yeah.

You know, that's good. But then I remember you showing up on talk is cheap because I'm like, God, it's the dude from the Letterman show. He's a great drummer. He's like the best. And now you're playing with Keith and that record's a good record.

Yeah, it is. It's a fucking great record, man. Locked away. Come on. It's a beautiful song, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So how does that happen? Because I would assume that looking at what you're doing now and sort of like that part of your career, the relationship with Keith is a big deal. I mean, that was a big chunk of what you were doing. Yeah, absolutely.

That was another commitment. When I started leaving Letterman, I would take leaves of absence. To do sessions. To go. I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, worked with Neil Young, Stevie Nicks. Really? Don Henley. Oh, no kidding.

And all that. Doing what? Playing on records and actually co-wrote a song on Henley's End of the Innocence album called Shangri-La. I wrote that with Danny Korshmar. And he's a drummer. song on Henley's End of the Innocents album called Shangri-La. I wrote that with Danny Korshmar. And he's a drummer. Oh, Henley, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Henley, very underrated drummer. No, he's good, man. And, of course, one of our most unbelievable singers ever and a great writer. So you're in demand and you're working. I'm working a lot. What'd you do with Neil? And we did a record called Landing on Water, that is his comeback rock album after he did a rockabilly thing in a country thing.

David Geffen was so upset with him because he thought he was signing like Neil Young. And then he got this other thing. Yeah, I remember the rockabilly thing. And he freaked out. But we did this record, Danny Kortschmar, Neil and I as a trio called Landing on Water, which has a serious cult following.

I don't have that record. And I talked to him about it. It's a pretty wild record. And working with Neil, that's sort of like he's a genius in his own. Incredible, incredible. Like what kind of instruction or what was that dynamic like in terms of what you have to do to accommodate neil young i just had to be me yeah you know i'm i play songs first and uh and it's all about the feel and we just got on right away because he's like a a lot of these guys and gals are just like um they they're like one person bands right you know when you see neil young play solo or bruce

springsteen solo whatever they're like a band sure and you know it could go on for a while and bruce yeah yeah they can just play all night you know what i mean with no problem yeah no problem yeah yeah so anyway so when um when i hooked up with Keith, it was a weird thing. Going back to the Saturday Night Live days, I was doing the show that the Stones appeared on, which was the first show of the fourth season. When they did Shattered and Beast of Burden? Right.

Yeah. The pants, the weird pants that Mick wore and the hat. We were all kind of like, what's happening? What's going on here? So there was a lot of security, a lot of hoopla, trying to keep people away from the band. I wasn't interested because all I was interested in, the Yankees were in the American League Championship Series.

So I was just in the band dressing room, which was called the Departure Lounge. And I'm up there. I'm watching the game. I don't really care about what's going on down there. I could care less. And then all of a sudden, Charlie Watts, who wanted to find me, comes in the dressing room. And he said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm just watching a baseball game. And nobody's in the dressing room but me. Everybody's trying to get close to me. The stones. Yeah, I don't care. So I'm watching the game, and he sits down next to me.

And so I'm watching the Yankees and I think the Royals or something with Charlie Watts. And he's trying to figure it out. And he goes, oh, it's like a combination of rounders and cricket. And I said, yeah, I guess so. And that's when we became friends. So cut to like 84, 85. And I'm in Paris doing a record with a Duran Duran offshoot band called Arcadia with Simon LeBond and Nick Rhodes.

Wow. And so we're there. Yeah, exactly. So I'm there. Gig's a gig, right? Yeah, gig is a gig, right? So I'm there and I'm in Paris. I mean, you can't really go wrong.

Right, yeah. So I'm there and, you know, road crews talk to each other a lot you know we have the night off you know so that crew knew that crew and the stones were recording at pat marconi emi and uh so it was a full moon and one thing led to another and Charlie invited me to the studio. What album? This was Dirty Work. Yeah. So they were doing pre-production to Dirty Work, which is the way they do pre-production

is basically recording for any other unit. But their whole pre-production thing is like, yeah, we're going to go and record for a few weeks and then figure out what we have and then come back right so it's kind it's winter i go i get in a cab i speak no french the driver speaks no english takes me to the suburb of paris he dumps me all the call boxes are broken i'm freezing because i'm underdressed because i'm rock and roll so i'm underdressed and then and i'm walking out there and i think i'm gonna get arrested for loitering or something you know it's really bad yeah close to tears and then i thought i gotta really hunker down here and i start to listen to see if i can hear some music and i just hear

something faint in the background i just follow the sounds and I go down an alleyway, and I go up the street, and boom, lo and behold, I look up, and it's EMI Path Amarcar, and the big glass doors, and I go up to the door, and I hear the Rolling Stones. I just can't believe it. I knock on the glass, and this little guy comes in. He goes, Monsieur. I go, I'm here to see the Stones. And the guy opens the door

and lets me in. I'm like, yeah, really high security. This is great. I walk in the control room and the Stones are playing. And they're set up like they're live. It's not like they're all sitting there standing up. They're playing like it's a gig. And I can't believe it. And I'm crying. I just can't believe it

because I've never seen them play live. You ignored them on SNL. Yeah, now I'm crying. I just can't believe it because I've never seen them play live. You ignored them on SNL. Yeah, yeah. Now I'm in tears. And so now the song is over. They play for X amount of time. And then it's like, yeah, go in. So I go in, and everybody greets me.

And it's just a wonderful thing. And that's when it all started. I started working with them. From that point on, I would go every other night. Ian Stewart would call me up and go, the boys need you tonight. And I would go in because Mick would arrive every other night. So on those off nights, I would go.

And I didn't want to play drums. Charlie would say, play some drums. I said, no, I'm not going to do that. As a Stones fan, if I know that you're alive and some guy is playing the drums i shoot that guy because it's like why are you doing that so i played like percussion i sang background sometimes i did some mock lead vocals for some songs yeah and and and just you know and got to know them all and um and uh uh and that's when i first heard keith sing in a lower register on there's a

song on that album called sleep tonight yeah you gotta get some sleep tonight yeah and i thought wow if i ever work with this guy i'm gonna get him down get him down there yeah and which led to make no mistake make no mistake yeah you, yeah. What a sound. Yeah. You know, different than the octave. We can hear all of the dark wisdom. Right. Exactly, yeah. What a mysterious, what a thing.

Right, right. And so that's when I first heard that. And, you know, I think, you know, to myself, when I first saw them on the Ed Sullivan show, little did I know that he'd end up like being like a big brother. You know, I mean, I. Yeah, I imagine that went both ways, though. Yeah. Brother.

Come on, Keith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. There was a lot of that, you know. I can't imagine, you know, this sort of like, I mean, I talked to him, but it was like, I don't know. I i i mean i talked to him but it was like i don't know i thought it was a good interview but it was just basically me grinning you know for for an hour going really you know but like uh he's a smart dude well that's the thing like i've been

a stones fan my whole life and then i read that fucking book you know you go through your whole life thing like this guy he's a quintessential junkie guitar player, and then you read that book, you're like, oh, no. He's a smart man. He knows a lot. I mean, we'd go to the Caribbean, and we'd be on the beach, and we'd be reading books. Yeah.

I mean, and he'd go to the beach with a freaking book the size of a dictionary. That's what he's doing. Not like with tons of drinks and chasing people. Half asleep the whole time.'s what he's doing not like yeah with tons of drinks and yeah chasing half asleep or whatever you know no he's no he's like reading well i mean his knowledge of music and like you know what's always interesting is that it's like he can like he plays keith richards but he can play other shit like i mean he can play like you know but you know but he plays the way keith richards plays but if you say like well if he's like referring to robert johnson or something right he'll lay it

out absolutely he can do it yeah but but so like when you did um talk is cheap i mean that you were you were writing with him yeah we were in we in fact uh uh the story goes that the first writing session that we did, we just went in and we started playing together. Apparently, we were in there for like 13 hours without a pee break. Right. Is that true? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's all hazy to me. I know that I joke about him cutting at least five years off of my life because of this smoking, secondhand smoke.

I would leave working with him with a pain in my chest. Because he couldn't breathe? Yeah. I'm looking at the songs, and I know this record really well. I listen to the shit out of this record. Because I was a big Stones guy, but I was a huge Keith guy. And I remember, Bootsy Collins is on it, right on it right yeah on the first cut yeah like i remember that yeah yeah yeah yeah there you come in yeah yeah i mean with bootsy you know but there's like two lives of

bootsy there's like the james brown life and then there's bootsy's solo life which is a whole different thing and it became like the jimmy hendrix of the base yeah only he only took trains i think buses right wasn't he afraid of flying well yeah maybe quite possibly i know aretha is but you know but i mean the thing is he would play with his you know when he played that stuff you know like uh get involved and and talking loud and saying nothing that kind of stuff with james brown yeah. There's a certain style. And then, of course, when he joined Funkadelic, and then he whipped out the thumb a la Larry Graham, and he started playing that way. That's a different style of playing.

Yeah. And so I said, okay, I said, we're going to get Bootsy to play on this thing. And he started to play, and he was doing the second part two Bootsy. I said, no, no, no, no. I want the other Bootsy. And he says to me, oh, you want the tiptoe funk, baby?

I said, yeah, the tiptoe, you know, with the two fingers. So, yeah, he gave us the tiptoe. That's hilarious. But that was the whole thing. Like, this is your first solo album. You can do anything you want. We can get anyone you want. And there was a big concern of, like, what we were going to do. And we had, when Keith flew out to L.A. to sign the deal or whatever,

to meet with the label, we happened to get together with Tom Waits that afternoon. Yeah. And Tom Waits played us a sneak, he gave us a sneak preview of Frank's Wild Years. And he played that record for us and it blew my mind. It just completely blew my mind. And I said, okay, now I know. We can do, we can make music. yeah yeah we can do we can make music

right we can go in and make music we don't have to make well you're you're in the stones people are going to expect to hear something similar to that which is what I was most terrified about because the stones are the stones right you don't want to do and they weren't getting along at that time oh they go in and out there you know you don't get between brothers you know they they might fight amongst themselves but if you get in there then they kill you you know what i mean so right you become the ass yeah exactly exactly so um but yeah so frank's wild years was very inspirational yeah interesting yeah and so that's because of the space no just because of the song writing the sound, everything.

It really went out there. And, you know, it's a story. Yeah. And so I thought, okay, great. And it really freed my thinking up as far as going in with the approach of what we can do and what we can't do. And that led to the Hail Hell Rock and Roll thing? Well, that actually came out of that but oh you did talk at sheep after that yeah i believe i believe that's how it went but is that where you first uh like you you were you sort of uh part of putting that band together yes i brought keith to

the bottom line to see uh joey spampanato the nrbq, which was probably my favorite band at the time. And he played bass. Yeah. And we wanted somebody, a Willie Dixon type, somebody who understood that. Yeah. And Joey Spampanato understood that and played it. And Keith had never heard Joey play before. And so I took him to the Bottom Line, which is a club that no longer exists in New York. It's an NYU cafeteria now or something.

And you got Johnny. And then Keith's main thing was to get Johnny Johnson, to turn the world on to Johnny Johnson, for Chuck to finally pay proper tribute to Johnny Johnson, and for us to experience what it's like to play with Johnny Johnson. Yeah. Because basically it was Johnny Johnson's trio that Chuck Hijacked. Hijacked, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And dealing with Chuck and Keith. Unbelievable. You're lucky you lived through that one, huh? Yeah, I'm telling you. It was close. Was it? Well, I was kind of, I played referee, you know.

Two hotheads. Two very passionate people about what they do. Oh, okay. That's a more diplomatic way of putting it. Yeah, there you go. We had this guy working with us who thought of himself as a kind of a technical guru sound guy. Right. So they rigged up this thing where they were going to control Chuck's sound from under the stage.

Oh, boy. Yeah, exactly. So you know where this is going. So Chuck goes to the amp and is not really doing doing anything yeah not good yeah okay and so chuck susses it out and freaks out yeah you know he just flips out and rightfully so like you guys are going behind his back going behind his back this is a movie about him in his home yeah and he's a co-producer of it and now you're gonna mess around with his sound you're like he's an idiot yeah not good okay and you so well can you imagine the the the groundswell of like memories coming back of institutionalized racism and all kinds of stuff like where you

think i am i'm some freaking primitive idiot you know like you don't think i know what i invented this freaking thing. Yeah. The reason why you're over here is because of me. Yeah. And now you're going to do this? Yeah. I'm going to kill all of you.

Yeah. You know, and that's what was coming out. And so Keith had to take the. Take the hit. Take the hit. And there was a point there. Was that, did he actually get hit by Chuck during that thing? Not during that thing, but the first time they met.

Yeah, he got hit. He got greeted. He was like, ah, you know, yeah. Well, I guess, you know, I imagine that Chuck, despite the respect he was getting, still the chip on the shoulder of those guys like Little Richard and Chuck Berry for creating the sound that so many people made such big money off of. That doesn't go away. That doesn't go away. It doesn't go away.

And Little Richard had a little bit of a softer disposition about it. But Chuck, you know, they went after Chuck. Just do everything we can to stop you, pal. There was a moment there where, I mean, I guess the real concern was that he played in these keys that were primarily piano keys. Exactly. And you guys were kind of you know just you know kind of you know moving him towards playing in more accessible keys and there was a moment there where he wanted to change the key during the show

during the show yeah after after the guys have worked everything out and these other keys that well you know what happened the backstory to that is yeah is that he did a show the weekend before the concert yeah and he did the ohio state fair in which he sang and lost his voice by the time we get to now filming he's got no voice yeah that's why he wanted to bring the key down that song right and all kinds of stuff so there was like we had to actually, I mean, the movie is 30 years ago, so I can say it now. We had to actually dub a lot of the lead vocals on the film. After?

Yeah. With him? With him. Oh, so he didn't have a problem with that. He just. Well, he had to do it. He had some of the things he couldn't sing. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, for people who are actually there, they don't actually remember that he had very, you know, half of the voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, for people who are actually there, they don't actually remember that he had very, you know, half of the voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, you remember the experience. Sure, sure. But we had to do a significant amount of fixing. Yeah.

Because he sang, he blew his chops out on a freaking gig that he wasn't supposed to do, by the way. Right, right. Yeah. With a pickup band? Of course. Well, that was the thing about this film,

to Keith's credit, was Keith wanted to, besides get Johnny Johnson his props, he wanted to re-familiarize Chuck with his own genius and to show the world

how brilliant these songs were. They're not all one big Chuck Berry medley. Yeah, that's rightley because that's what he had turned everything into right he had forgotten the brilliance of his own songs right because it was just like can you do okay yeah great and i'll sing all my lyrics yeah yeah whatever and then if i like it i'll give you a thousand bucks cash back and that's like bruce

rings get in the car when they put we're pickup band for him what are we playing right chuck berry song exactly exactly exactly yeah well yeah i thought you did a great job with it i mean i've watched it you know i've watched it several times cray is that where you met cray that's where we met robert you know it's weird thing about robert cray is that you know i don't know all his records but he's one of those guys where like that guitar sound man that straight strat fucking oh my god but besides besides his sound which you know he's a good singer he's a great singer yeah he's not a good singer he's a great singer he's one of the best singers of our generation that's number one number two his playing style what he is playing

is not anything that you've ever heard before in other words a lot of guitar players you can oh yeah that's from albert, that's from Albert. Oh, that's from B.B. No, that's right. You don't get any of that in his playing. And he takes the same space those guys did. He's not a noodler. He is not a noodler.

Every note he plays counts. Yeah, he's got his own phrasing, which is rare. It's a very unique phrasing, and nobody can do it, and it's incredible. Yeah, I agree. And it's wild. So the way he got in the band was uh in 85 i'm down in jamaica with keith and uh we're listening to stuff and we're just getting to hang out and maybe do some writing or whatever and he likes it down there, huh? Yeah, and I'm thinking that I'm going to hear the greatest reggae music

and everything like that, and I hear this guitar, and he's playing this cassette of some guy, and I'm going, who is this guy? And it's Robert Cray. All Keith was doing was listening to Robert Cray. Eric Clapton had turned Keith on to Cray, and they had the first two albums were two cassettes on the first two things that

Robert ever did and that's all I really that's all he was listening to I'm like dude are you gonna play anything else or what you know and that's it so that's how I learned about Robert Cray and then when we're putting the band together then it was like okay we need another energy you know we had Johnny Johnson, Chuck Lavelle, Joyce Pomponato. We needed another guitar, but who was going to be that person? Yeah. And we're like, Robert Craig. Yeah.

I mean, obviously you love him. Yeah. And he's like a young Chuck Berry. He's the same age when Chuck came out and the whole thing, and he had that energy, and it was great. And he did Brown Eyed Handsome Man? Yes. That's great. That song thing and he had that energy and it was great and he did brown eyed handsome man yes that's great that song like and he really made it his own because like he you

know i know the buddy holly version of that too right yeah right buddy right right yeah i forgot about that yeah yeah and and you know in chuck's version like oh man there's a that box set the chuck box set where you really look at all the shit he did. It's a lot of great songs, man. A lot of great. He's a genius. And like, I don't think like, I think that he's, I think he was essential to Bob Dylan too. He's, he is totally essential to Bob Dylan.

The turn of phrase. You know, like too much monkey business. That's it. That's business. That's it. That's it. That's it. That and Can't Catch Me. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

But monkey business in particular is the bedrock of that thing. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, of leopard skin pill box hat. And Mediterranean. Subterranean. Subterranean. Subterranean whatever. Homestick blues. Yeah, definitely, man.

And you play with Clapton, too? Yeah. You like him? You like playing with him? Yeah, it was fun. You know, the band that I finally played, because we had talked about playing together over the years, but the schedule's never really worked out.

Yeah. And, but we got together and, and we did a thing with Derek Trucks and Willie Weeks. Oh, right, right, right.

And, and, and, I talked to Derek. And, you know, Billy Preston was alive at the time and he was supposed to play and he fell ill right before the tour and he died while we were on tour man so i was my fantasy was to get willie weeks and billy preston back together and

all that and we've ended up playing a lot of derrick and the dominoes stuff which i loved yeah and and uh you know megan and i are huge derrick and the dominoes fans so when when the prospect came up of doing it we thought oh and and and derrick being in the band with oh man this would be great about willie and then derrick and billy yeah you know you play with dylan too yeah that was good that was fun that was wild yeah it was pretty crazy why uh because he was in this this kind of, he was searching. Well, I guess he's always searching. When was this?

But this was like, I don't even remember, like late 80s, early 90s, something like that. You toured with him? I didn't do the tour. He asked me to put together a band for him. For which record? So it was, I had the honor of playing on his, I think, I would call it his worst record, Down in the Groove or something. You know that record?

Yeah. Yeah, so I'm on there. And he wanted me to put together a band. So I put together this band. It was a little hotshot studio band that we could follow him, like a SWAT team, Danny Kortschmar, Randy Jackson, and myself. And it became clear during the rehearsals that this wasn't gonna really work.

So I opted out. Oh, yeah. And then they, and that's when I think, that's when the G.E. Smith era began. Well, but your relationship with Kray, so you put out this new record. It's a great record. It was nice to hear from him again.

And this is on your label? Yes. Megan and I have a label called JV Records. Megan's your... Yeah, she's my way better half and great musician and songwriter. We have a band called The Verbs. Yeah. And we put our own records out on JV. JV.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like a classic old-style label sound. Exactly, exactly. It sounds like, you guys been around since the 50s? That's right, that's right. And so we were fortunate enough to have Missy Collazo at MRI Distribution partner up with us.

And, you know, for me, at this stage of my career, when I'm making records, I like people to hear them. So I was not very happy about making records for bigger labels, and then if they're not really behind it, the record gets lost. So we knew, and nobody's really funding records the way they should yeah they don't really take into account what it takes to make a good record and you know the first thing people want to do is not pay the musicians or not still yeah oh yeah

i mean you know people are playing live again because you're not making any money from yeah you got it recording you gotta go play live and sell those T-shirts. Exactly. It's all about merchandising. And, you know, for us, you know, for producers and writers, when we were the canaries in the coal mine, our zeros started disappearing, you know, 20 years ago. But now, like, nobody's making any money.

And, you know know eventually some legislative action really has to take place for us to get you know uh for us to be able to really make a living again in the studio you know you know like spotify and all these you know you know kind of streaming yeah things is like, for instance, I equate it to this. Say if you were like Whole Foods, right? Yeah. And you gave out a card to people and said, hey, all you can eat for $10 a month. Yeah.

Be hard to get into Whole Foods. Well, not only that, what would it do the agriculture department and shipping and manufacturing? You could not sustain anything. There'd be nothing. You can't do it. It's the same thing with music. You know, it's the same.

All of those ingredients are the same. You have to cultivate. You have to grow the musicians. You have to maintain the studios. You have to, you know. You got to pay more for the organic musicians. Absolutely. And for people who are actually really good.

Yeah. Yeah. The premium organic. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same exact thing. Yeah. And if people started to think of it that way then maybe we would get

somewhere as far as compensation goes well people are buying the records again a bit well i'm buying vinyl records again thank goodness and and and and there are new vinyl machines being developed and new plants coming up and everything is cyclical so we're not dead yet yeah but uh but we have to police uh the the revenue stream of the internet where people get proper compensation yeah you have to people have got to do their part and you know behave you know properly and and do their part to support the musicians look if they if they knew and that's why i use the analogy of the the you know the shopping yeah for groceries analogy because then it becomes clearer to people oh because for them it's a convenience you know they go well

what's wrong with that i can hear all your music and it's easier for me to get it then i can listen to yeah but yeah but we're not we're not making a dime you know fucking shame and and um so that's that's a problem yeah that's a real problem somebody else made a lot of money making that deal it's always gonna be those guys oh yeah sure well the music business i say is the only business you can fail upward yeah well no there's a lot of businesses on that side of it yeah you know where the executive structure seems to uh the the primary incentive is like who can i blame if this gets fucked? Yeah, yeah. And then you're ruining the label. Why don't I give you, you ruin our company,

I'm going to give you $20 million to get out. Yeah. And then two years later, they've been hired by another. Yeah. I don't know what happened over there, but we heard you're good. But we think, it reminds me of, remember when you were a kid

and there were like baseball managers or basketball coaches that weren't very good yeah but they kept getting gigs yeah and you know well how did these guys keep getting gigs yeah because they know how the system works right right so they're easier to instead of breaking somebody new in and they're also not a problem right you know they'll throw the fight right yeah exactly there you go i hadn't even thought of it that way, but yeah. Yeah. Well, what's the new band called?

My band? No, it's Crow. High Rhythm. Yeah, High Rhythm. So it's Robert Cray and High Rhythm. Now, High Rhythm is the legendary rhythm section from Memphis that Willie Mitchell actually developed. The Hodges brothers, Leroy Hodges, Reverend Charles Hodges. Leroy Hodges, the bass player.

Charles Hodges, organ and piano. Archie Turner, also known as Hubby. Electric piano, clavinet. The late, great Teeny Hodges was the guitar player. He wrote Love and Happiness and Take Me to the River and stuff like that. Willie Mitchell taught these guys how to play. He adopted them, actually. They were his adopted children.

And as he was tuning his studio and developing this stuff, he also schooled these kids to play. So he brought them back to their place. Yeah, and they live in Memphis. They're alive and well. This is not a retro record, okay? No, no. Let me be very clear.

It doesn't sound like it. It's just like these guys still play great, and this is what we wanted. And Robert and I have been working together off and on since 98. Yeah. And the last couple records we did together, nobody really heard because of, for one reason or another, I'm not going to get into it, but like, I didn't want to do

another record like that where you pour your heart and soul into something and then nobody hears it. Right. So I, and, and Megan and I were discussing, uh, our way to grow, go forward. We can't continue on this path of making these records for intermediate labels or big labels and them not supporting it. So it's time to, we know how it's got to be done.

Why don't we just do it? These guys are still around. And they're around. So one day it hit me. Robert Crane, High Rhythm. So I sent Robert an email. I got it. He was like, he was totally into it.

And then we just moved forward. And Megan and I started listening to material and sending it to him. And he would, yeah, that's great, you know, boom, boom, boom, whatever. And it just, the ball started rolling. And one key thing that we did was I made sure that the band

participated fully in the arrangements and everything. So it was a band. It wasn't like we were hiring some sidemen. Because that's not how it was done on those records. Right. Those great records had full participation of all the musicians.

So it was an ensemble. Yes. And that's how you wrote and created it all that's basically how we created the track when was the last time these guys played in that hall they played their line oh they do they do they they work out of there so that's it that's their home that's their home absolutely oh cool well i mean i enjoyed the record now i know more about it i'll go listen to it again with this all this new new wisdom good good job man it was great talking to you it's great talking to you as well pleasure that was fun we learned we laughed we talked about music i wanted to say because steve wanted

me to uh to tell you he forgot to mention the late bob cranshaw as someone who was a mentor to him he was the first musician hired for the snl band, and he took Steve under his wing. And sometimes you get talking and you forget to pay respect to the people you respect, and he wanted me to tell you that. And he wanted to make sure to let you know that that guy was important to him. Pay a little tribute on this episode for Mr. Bob Crenshaw. All right, I won't be loopy for long i'm gonna i'm gonna play some loopy blues people seem to be responding to the basics guitar solo Boomer lives!

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