0:00

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

0:08

It's okay to meet your heroes, It's

0:11

okay to dream, It's okay

0:13

to let life float you to where you

0:15

should be. In twenty twenty one,

0:17

Quest Love asked me to do a one on one interview

0:19

with Elvis Costello at Electric Lady Studios

0:22

for Questlove Supreme. At

0:24

first I said no, just

0:26

kidding. I jumped at the opportunity,

0:29

but I wanted Questlove there for part of it, just

0:31

to see what two of the greatest musicologists and

0:33

music historians of our time would discuss.

0:36

I wasn't disappointed, and you won't

0:38

be either. It's hard to keep up,

0:41

but it's worth it, and it's hilarious

0:43

listening to me try to. They're

0:45

both legends, they're both brilliant.

0:48

Enjoy Part one this week and Part two next

0:50

week. This was originally aired in April

0:53

twenty twenty two. Whew,

0:55

I can't believe this happened.

1:06

Joint all

1:09

right, Castelle one and need to give you

1:11

tonight by.

1:13

You know, I don't even know the bloody words in direction

1:15

like it was trying to lift this person up.

1:17

So maybe it's a little tramatic.

1:19

Guy.

1:20

I just wanted to get your attention.

1:22

It looks like you're no good, Okay.

1:25

The reason I mentioned Elvis hostels because the records I just

1:27

called that because I gotta called from jackfrel New City. The reason I mentioned

1:29

Elvi this hostel.

1:29

Every day, the way it was written, which is kind

1:31

of much more so a strummy.

1:33

Already down with all this.

1:34

What a great first line in the history of first

1:36

lines of rock and roll songs. Huh.

1:39

I used to be disgusted, but now I try

1:41

to be amused. Sometimes you can't read

1:43

the newspaper without keeping that in mind.

1:45

But he says, well, that's fine, but you

1:47

never said what the pad's poison closed means,

1:49

So that's what you have to say. I mean in this hang

1:51

out with Elvis educational part of Right with Bae

1:54

McCarty instant hang out with Elvis,

1:56

He's very logical, so.

1:57

He goes, you know, this is.

1:59

What you gotta do that, Elvis.

2:00

There's gonna be music in it, and I'm gonna cut.

2:02

It in Els

2:05

got everything everything.

2:07

Yeah,

2:07

you.

2:09

Come out with the pious album throughout.

2:12

The interesting things that

2:14

that probably n clear, like

2:16

the roots running over a high fidelity by themselves

2:19

at thirty rock. You know before that first

2:21

performance.

2:22

Oh, let's have that. Yeah, that'd be good.

2:25

Can we get that? Yeah? Yeah, sure, do

2:28

we do that? And did we do that? We

2:30

did that on the show. Yet we did that

2:32

on the show.

2:33

Happy Yeah. It was the first first

2:35

song.

2:37

I know it is that the same one with the Chelsea And then the second

2:39

time it was like Stations of the Cross and someone

2:42

else.

2:42

Yeah and John exactly,

2:46

hey man belated

2:49

happy birthday.

2:52

I try to play a happy birthright. I couldn't play for

2:55

ship if we don't know how to play the piano.

2:57

Still feel m

3:00

h I still feel no,

3:12

I said, they said the song. Mm

3:18

hm, that's good, m

3:21

hm.

3:26

Hm.

3:28

That the easy. Yeah,

3:34

I'm a I'm a.

3:36

Mm hmmmm mmm.

3:42

I'm gonna do a slight preface. Ladies

3:47

and gentlemen, welcome to

3:52

the first quest Love Supreme that

3:54

has been done in person since

3:58

the March sixteenth,

4:00

twenty twenty pandemic.

4:02

How strange that we.

4:04

Don't have a supreme vow call Candy

4:07

home. It

4:11

should also be noted that this was recorded

4:15

on January. It's

4:17

to day's day, twenty fifth.

4:20

Okay, so the day of this recording

4:22

is January twenty fifth, and the

4:24

reason why I feel compelled to acknowledge

4:27

the date is because we are also recording

4:30

inside of Electric Lady Studios on

4:33

this the twenty second anniversary of

4:37

the seminal album that kind

4:39

of you know, brought me to the studio in the first

4:41

place, which is Voodoo by DiAngelo. So I

4:44

was rather apropos that, Sugar

4:47

Steve and I, oh, by the way, Boston.

4:52

Edited, I'm

4:56

editing this, so don't worry about anything.

4:59

I'm gonna chop it up, not shopping, sit up.

5:01

Yeah, unpaid, Bill Fontigelo

5:04

and Laia are not with us right now, so

5:06

it's right now, it's just me and Steve.

5:08

The last time we did this was with with

5:11

Herb Alpert, right at this very

5:13

studio. So for me, what's

5:15

very important about this particular episode,

5:18

and this is again me

5:22

trying to improve as a human. This is all about

5:24

going out of your comfort zone.

5:26

So I'm here.

5:28

As a third will, or

5:31

as a referee, or as training

5:33

wills, because I really

5:36

it's my dream for

5:40

Shoogars Steve to really bring

5:43

out his voice and quest

5:45

of supreme episodes because you know, half the time we hog

5:48

up all.

5:48

The the moments and he only gets

5:50

like one comet in and you know that, like

5:53

Steve.

5:53

Really has in my opinion,

5:56

Like I mean, he's like

5:59

all he has so much music knowledge

6:01

that he has yet to share with you people unless you follow

6:04

the Sugar network like

6:06

of all of us. He has his own fan clubs simply

6:09

for his music knowledge. So that should

6:11

tell you something. But for me,

6:14

I thought, what what's the best way

6:16

to throw Sugar Steve in the

6:19

and the long away to jump into the

6:21

river. And he's really uncomfortable

6:23

right now, is I mean?

6:24

Long guard?

6:26

I told you I'm editing.

6:27

You're not editing at all. Yo,

6:29

I'm sorry you're not.

6:32

I'm like you. I'm a little uncomfortable with compliments.

6:34

But and and and see we're at

6:37

a crossroads here. We're not, Yes,

6:39

we are.

6:40

This is the fact. Look, Steve, we

6:44

this is the very this is where we are.

6:45

We're literally at the cross We're in the we're

6:47

in the center of studio A. Yes, I get it,

6:49

at like the X the middle of the X point. Similar

6:52

to Samuel Jackson and Paul Fixon. You're not

6:54

talking yourself out of this ship. I'm not trying

6:56

to.

6:56

All I'm saying is that you

6:58

know, there comes a time where

7:01

we.

7:01

Have to like, how long do you have to stay

7:03

tonight? Because I'm here.

7:05

All listen, listen. My

7:08

whole point is this, My whole point is this.

7:11

The way that you're acting right now is exactly

7:13

how I was acting when David Dinerstein

7:16

and Robert Fevalent had told

7:18

me that it's my destiny

7:21

to direct the documentary.

7:22

And I'm like, dude, I'm a first time driver, Like.

7:25

All right, I got it. I gotta just jump in here.

7:28

No, no, this is.

7:31

This is a special quest love Supreme.

7:33

Yes, it's my dream

7:36

to watch Steve talk to his musical

7:38

hero.

7:39

I've thought about this. This is essentially as if

7:41

you got to interview Prince. I know, you know, like

7:43

that's essentially where that makes

7:46

sense to people. I feel like I'm the guy in the threesome

7:48

that isn't needed. So wow,

7:53

No, well see here's the that's the relief, Here's

7:56

here's the problem. And you say you're

7:58

trying to become a better person, So just accept

8:01

accept this. As much as

8:03

I'm thrilled to be interviewing you

8:05

know, my number one musical hero here, Yes,

8:08

you're very much a part of the story that I want to

8:10

tell tonight. Yeah, I'll be here, but

8:13

and I need you here to tell the

8:15

story not just the story of the last

8:17

ten years since we've met him, let's say, but a

8:19

certain theme that I want to get to that

8:21

you both have in comments. So it's like

8:24

if you're trying to like say, you're training wheels,

8:26

but you're you're the musical encyclopedia.

8:28

I'm here with two of the acknowledged

8:31

global music encyclopedias, and you're

8:34

telling and you're telling people that I have musical

8:36

knowledge about something.

8:37

Let's just do this.

8:38

This is three friends talking. But

8:41

eventually I'm gonna get up from

8:43

the seat and go to Studio

8:45

B. It's going to be just like two thousands.

8:47

It's voodoo all over again.

8:48

It's voodoo all over again. I got kimber waiting next

8:50

door. Kimber Lee's is next door, So okay,

8:52

you got two rooms tonight, Yeah, I got two rooms.

8:55

However, it's my dream to see

8:57

you top the Jimmy Jam episode.

9:00

So, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very

9:02

special in person live

9:05

at Electric Lady Studios.

9:06

You're just cracking up over here with our

9:09

good friend Elvis Costello.

9:10

Thank you all right, so and

9:13

now for the intro right

9:15

now, now, now the real intro, because

9:18

like whatever that was, okay, did

9:21

I mention that I have day hell for

9:24

later on? I mean, I really

9:26

would love to just continue with what he was saying, because

9:28

like this, dude, right here, wait, look,

9:31

this is not okay. Well

9:34

no, I think people need to hear this, okay, just

9:37

like you thought they needed to hear what you just said.

9:39

Yes, okay.

9:40

One of the reasons why he

9:43

agreed to do Wise Up Ghosts he

9:45

wanted to give me this gift of doing

9:47

an album with you. Isn't that crazy?

9:51

Well, I'm saying him give you gifts

9:53

like that before I was there. I

9:55

was there on your birthday though.

9:57

Right, and you've given me gifts to you. Anyway, Let's

9:59

let's start. Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. My

10:01

name is Sugar Steve.

10:03

I swear to God, Steve.

10:04

If you cut out what just started

10:06

the show your fire, fire, fire

10:08

fire.

10:10

I'm gonna put an echo on that fire.

10:15

Go ahead.

10:17

So with thirty something studio

10:19

albums, dozens

10:22

of other compilations and live releases,

10:24

box sets and EPs, endless singles

10:27

and B sides, with a substantial

10:29

autobiography and a forty

10:32

five year career, playing

10:34

countless live concerts and appearing

10:36

in media as diverse as singing

10:39

on a commercial jingle with his father, guest

10:43

hosting that David Letterman show, Austin

10:46

Powers movies, and his own

10:48

influential interview show Spectacle.

10:52

If you haven't been properly introduced

10:54

to him by now, I certainly can't do it in a

10:57

mere few minutes.

11:00

Get it.

11:02

But because Elvis's career has had

11:04

such a deep connection in the lives of his

11:06

fans, there is a kind of magic to it

11:09

all, and with any kind of magic,

11:11

one of the main attractions is to

11:13

try to figure out how the magician

11:15

is doing it. So here

11:18

is a very brief look at his background story

11:20

and a quick summation of his discography.

11:24

Born Declan mcmanuson London to a

11:27

musical family, his dad was a

11:29

professional trumpet player and singer, first

11:31

in popular big bands and then

11:34

on his own. His mom worked

11:36

in a record shop whose customers relied

11:38

on her to have the coolest singles

11:40

and albums from the United States. Elvis

11:44

moved from London to Liverpool and then back

11:46

again before launching his career in London.

11:49

From an early age, Elvis played

11:51

guitar and by the early seventies formed

11:53

a guitar duo with one of his friends.

11:56

Alan Mays.

11:57

Thank You I knew that He

12:00

worked a few non music related

12:02

jobs, and then in nineteen seventy six was signed to

12:04

Stiff Records, an independent

12:06

record label in London. At the

12:08

time, Elvis was performing as DP Costello.

12:12

Stiff founder and Elvis manager at the

12:14

time, Jake Riviera, suggested

12:16

using the name Elvis. His

12:18

first four albums, nineteen seventy seven's

12:21

Miam Is True, nineteen seventy Eights, This Year's

12:23

Model, nineteen seventy nine's Armed

12:25

Forces, and nineteen eighties Get Happy

12:28

came with such a variety of intense

12:31

pleasures, the poetic and

12:33

existential lyrics, the melodies

12:35

which made you play the records over and over, a

12:38

lot of energy, a lot of sound. And

12:40

that's something else that only musicians

12:43

who inspire the most fanatic audiences

12:45

have the ability to turn

12:47

all their fans into advocates of the artist,

12:50

ready to lecture you about meanings

12:53

and understandings only they and the artist

12:55

may explain to you. After

12:58

his debut, the attraction became his recording

13:01

and touring band for almost ten years, and

13:04

each player in that band, Steve

13:06

Naive, Pete Thomas, and Bruce Thomas,

13:09

had a skill set which elevated the whole

13:12

until they sounded like an unstoppable machine

13:15

cranking out literate pop which

13:18

was both political and romantic.

13:22

As he broadened the sounds and styles of the

13:24

music he used on his second great group

13:26

of records, nineteen eighty one's

13:28

Trust, nineteen eighty one's Almost Blue, and

13:31

his Jeff Emerick produced Imperial

13:33

Bedroom from nineteen eighty two, Elvis

13:36

displayed a degree of growth that

13:38

didn't seem possible because

13:40

the first few albums were already so advanced.

13:45

With nineteen eighty three's Punched the Clock. In nineteen

13:47

eighty four's Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis

13:50

switched producers, if not sounds

13:53

and styles from his earlier albums. Although

13:56

critiqued harshly by some, including Elvis

13:59

himself, these albums and certainly

14:01

the songs not only hold up today mostly.

14:06

But wait from what it's in. How uncomfortable

14:08

are you right now?

14:11

But he knows, he knows.

14:13

It's a regurgitation of facts, but it's got

14:15

some heart. Yeah, it has hard.

14:17

Okay, you're boy like man. I know you're so poetic,

14:21

But those.

14:22

Albums Punch Clock and Goodbye Cruel World

14:24

can now be seen to have charted

14:26

a course for the rest of his career,

14:30

a willful musical curiosity

14:32

and ambition which sees him changing

14:34

genres and collaborators with an energy

14:36

and facility that can inspire

14:38

all who witness it, Like Live

14:41

Aid nineteen eighty five, All You Need

14:43

Is Love, King of America

14:45

and Blood and Chocolate, both albums from nineteen eighty

14:47

six hold a popular place in the hearts

14:49

of diehard Elvis fans, not only

14:51

because they are incredible sets of song cycles

14:54

telling compelling stories, but

14:56

because they mark the point most of us

14:58

who love Elvis gave up trying to

15:00

figure him out. That freed

15:03

us up for the guilt free enjoyment

15:05

of Elvis's next pop breakthrough, the single

15:07

Veronica and the album Spike Is nineteen

15:09

eighty nine, which marked

15:11

a change in record companies and a high profile

15:14

deal with Warner Brothers. Spike

15:16

encompassed still greater musical territory

15:20

and in general and inclusiveness, which

15:23

made room for contributors as varied as James

15:25

Burton, Mark Reebot, Paul

15:27

McCartney and Alan Toussant, to name just

15:29

a few, all in service of an

15:31

album which hooked a new generation of

15:34

fans. Mighty Like a

15:36

Rose nineteen ninety one continued where Spike

15:38

left off with even more sophisticated

15:40

arrangements and production, and

15:42

from nineteen ninety one on, Elvis's discography

15:45

has been a hopscotch game

15:47

of going wherever his fans think he

15:50

won't be spiking his

15:52

catalog with classics of what can only

15:54

be called the genre of Elvis Costello writing

15:58

for string quartets The Juliet

16:00

Letters in nineteen ninety three. Numerous

16:04

quote unquote returned to form albums

16:06

over the years, like nineteen ninety four's Brutal

16:08

Youth, then nineteen ninety

16:10

six is All This Useless Beauty and

16:14

Kojack Variety and album of covers in nineteen ninety

16:16

five, the stunning collaboration

16:18

with Burt Backrack from nineteen ninety eight title

16:21

Painted from Memory two

16:23

thousand and twos, When I Was Cruel for

16:25

the Stars, an album with opera

16:28

singer and Sophie von Hotter two

16:32

thousand threes, Marvelous Piano vocal

16:34

Album North two thousand

16:36

four as the delivery Man with the Impostors, Shout

16:39

out to David Farreger and

16:41

oh yeah. Elvis released a

16:43

symphony that year as

16:46

well, il Sogno Aline

16:49

Music. It went to number one

16:51

on the classical charts. Humanitarian

16:56

and artistic efforts came together

16:58

on the River in Reverse, a full LP

17:01

from two thousand and six with Alan

17:03

Tussana to bring attention to the disaster

17:06

of Hurricane Katrina, an

17:09

overlooked gem called Momofuku in two

17:11

thousand and eight with the Impostors two

17:13

thousand and nine and ten

17:16

bring two more t Bone Burnette productions,

17:19

Secret Profane and Sugarcane and

17:21

National Ransom. Well,

17:24

that's a.

17:24

Lot of albums. I'm

17:28

lying down though, And

17:32

was it over at that point?

17:35

Perhaps until

17:39

and I was told this by Diana Crawl,

17:44

until Elvis

17:46

Costello's creative fire and

17:49

undernourished musical life

17:51

force was reignited. Oh we had come

17:53

on when he met Sugar. Steve

17:56

Man questlove

18:03

with that's silence. That's a direct quote from

18:05

Diana Hau.

18:05

No. Oh wow, God bless Diana

18:08

Crawl.

18:09

Can we start out, No, it's almost,

18:11

it's almost. This is

18:14

where wise up Ghost happens recorded in twenty

18:16

twelve and released in twenty thirteen. Elvis

18:18

in Quest along with the Roots got

18:21

together to create Wise Up Ghosts, and we'll

18:23

obviously spend some time talking about that tonight.

18:27

But to get current with Elvis's discography

18:30

after Wise Up Ghosts came Grammy Award winning

18:32

look Now from twenty eighteen,

18:35

the first of four albums co produced with the

18:37

most wonderful producer and engineer Sebastian

18:40

Chris. So that's look Now,

18:42

Hey, Clockface, Spanish Model, and the album

18:44

that just came out. Yet another great

18:46

Elvis album here in twenty

18:49

twenty two, the boy named if is

18:52

what just dropped QS

18:54

listeners from Electric Lady along with Questlove.

18:57

As he said, this is a very special pisode

19:00

of Questions of Supreme. Please welcome

19:02

music Icon Elvis Costello.

19:04

This is the longest like that was

19:06

seventeen minutes. That's awesome. I'm

19:09

really proud of you, Steve that I'm

19:12

beaming like I'm your dad.

19:13

Or something, and I am too.

19:17

Now this is really Steve is

19:21

wait, I don't even want to say that, like Steve only likes

19:23

the background because I don't know. To me,

19:25

like Steve and I would always talk about like having

19:28

our own radio show when we were like working

19:30

back in Philly, And this to

19:33

me sounds this is like the

19:35

equivalent of his radio shows that he used

19:37

to he used to host on his own cassettes

19:39

when he was like twelve and thirteen years.

19:41

I've interviewed you before, way back.

19:43

When I was Yes, so

19:45

to see this moment happen. How are you today?

19:48

I'm doing great. This is exactly what I

19:52

knew what happened here. Sorry, No,

19:54

I love it. Are you kidding? You're just? I just

19:57

I mean when you dubbed the little

19:59

little bit Talian organ behind as well, it's kind

20:01

of just sounded like my obituy, like

20:05

you just have to have the boys, and then when

20:08

you got to bring the choir in right you know. No,

20:11

I appreciate it, no, because it's a lot. It's

20:13

a lot of stuff. When I said, it makes me go like

20:15

did I do that?

20:16

You did a lot?

20:17

It's too damn much.

20:19

Yes, you did.

20:20

That's why I tried to just sum up the past.

20:22

Yeah, well let's start or whatever you want to talk about

20:24

it.

20:24

Yeah, I know we're going to nerd out on your career, but I

20:27

just want to ask one question that's sort of

20:29

out of the realm of anything that was

20:31

just said in the last eighteen minutes.

20:35

What did you do today?

20:36

What did I do today?

20:37

Yeah? What times you wake up?

20:39

Turn to six? How is it like?

20:41

How does your day start?

20:42

Like?

20:42

What do you do? It's mostly shaken,

20:45

like a couple of fifteen year olds out of

20:47

bed, different amounts of persuasion.

20:50

So usually still dead.

20:51

Oh yeah, yeah, they got to get on the

20:53

school bus, so five to

20:56

seven, so that's you

20:58

know, so you take a kid school, No,

21:00

I take them down of the door and they get on the

21:03

bus.

21:03

Oh okay, yeah. Do you do

21:06

your kids know you're Elvis Costella? Like, do they

21:09

get it or you're just more dead?

21:11

Oh? No, they get that something that's

21:13

been happening because they came and watched the

21:15

TV show the other night and they know what I'm doing.

21:18

Okay, so they hear me.

21:19

I mean, the thing is, the last two years, nobody's

21:21

been able to get away from anybody, you know. I mean, even

21:23

if they know they've been on the road with both

21:25

of us since they were six

21:28

months old, they remember it from when they were

21:30

four. But when I said, hey, this summer we might go

21:32

on the road with mom. That'd be

21:34

great. You know, they're good at traveling.

21:36

And they're fifteen.

21:38

They were born in two thousand and six, Yeah,

21:40

December two thousand and six, so they are you

21:43

know, they'd be sixteen extra

21:45

samber, so they not long had a birthday.

21:48

And they're great lads. And you know, I have

21:51

in the amount I've traveled in my life, and we all

21:53

have traveled, I wouldn't have I

21:55

wouldn't have traded anything about these last two

21:57

years except the fear

22:00

of friends and my family and

22:02

yeah, you know far away either you're concerned

22:04

about them and you responding to an emergency or

22:06

something. But in terms of the

22:09

time we had the four of us, that's unbeatable,

22:11

you know. And they got used to like, why

22:13

is Dad out in the garden shouting into that microphone?

22:16

That's because I was making a record. You know. I

22:18

worked out how to do it, and we all had to work

22:20

out how to do it. I learned to play the electric violin.

22:23

That was a worrying sound. You know, are

22:26

they musically inclined?

22:27

Like?

22:27

Are they that they got

22:30

music within them? And one of them is

22:32

you know, one of them told me that, you

22:35

know, he said I'm I'm piano

22:38

this year. And I said, well, do you already read music

22:40

right now? Because you played trombone for a year in jazz

22:43

band. He said, I wasn't

22:45

reading. I memorized it, so you

22:47

know, oh okay. So there's there's

22:50

some of mom and the summer Dad and it.

22:52

You know, I can't read by

22:54

a can. I can write it now

22:56

and I can, you know, but I can't read it back.

22:58

So what's the epic to nes like where

23:02

your dad is Elvis Costill in your mom's

23:04

dying and crawl like, I don't know.

23:06

My dad's a dentist.

23:09

Listen, if you go to

23:11

school, if you got to, if you told my sisters

23:13

like I was, they just had such

23:15

a complete conviction that I could sing when

23:17

I was a little boy because my dad was

23:19

on the radio every week. They were convinced. And that was

23:22

fine when it was fine, the drumming out of class, maybe

23:24

sing for who the priest or whoever

23:26

came to the school. But when you're ten, you hate

23:28

that. You know, that's the worst.

23:31

So my parents never maybe do it. So my

23:33

dad being thing never occurred to me. I was going to do it until

23:35

I was I was I

23:37

don't know seventeen.

23:39

So can you sing though, because there was

23:42

singing around you and you sang

23:44

from an early age or why that?

23:46

I don't know. I really don't

23:48

know. I mean I can only remember

23:51

music playing. I mean I can remember

23:54

I can remember being idle wi with this. This is Recopli

23:56

called a decad Kalian. I had this big

23:58

red on on on light on the front

24:01

of it, like one of those ones with a

24:03

grill, you know, like a honeycomb on the front, with a

24:05

record player, like with a lid on

24:07

it. And I just remember that looking

24:10

at that, like looking at any toy on

24:12

the ground, you know. So I must have only been crawling

24:14

around and I can remember it. I'm

24:16

not imagining it. I've got pictures, you

24:19

know, where it was in the place we lived.

24:22

So I guess my mother must have been playing

24:24

that a.

24:24

Lot back then. Let's

24:26

say, when your father was in his

24:29

prime, singers had

24:31

to Actually, yeah, he's.

24:33

A way better singer than I. I mean, he

24:35

had what really good voice, but

24:38

he was also good mimic. So

24:42

the funny thing about my dad was he sang in a kind

24:44

of The band was modeled on Glenn Miller.

24:46

It was the same kind of music Sweet Bound. Really it wasn't

24:48

a jazz group. He'd been a bebop

24:50

trumpet player in bulking

24:53

Head at the time where he was born. Came

24:55

to London to try and make a living in jazz,

24:57

like a lot of jazz musicians, found that difficult.

25:00

When my mother and him got married

25:02

and then I came along, he took a job that was

25:04

better paying, which was singing, because he could

25:07

sing, and so he had

25:09

to sing whatever was in the hip raide. You didn't get

25:11

to choose and to sing whatever was in

25:13

the charts. Now, that was fine in the fifties

25:15

for somebody just singing a ballad. I

25:17

got pictures of my dad are as big bow ties like

25:19

Frank sin Archie used to wear in the forties.

25:21

You know.

25:22

Everybody just followed the trends, and

25:24

he wanted to play like different people. When he

25:26

was playing, he wanted to play like Dizzy. Then he want

25:28

to play like Clifford Brown, you know. And then

25:32

then he got in this dance band that used to just

25:34

play what was in the charts. Well, what was

25:36

in the charts by nineteen sixty three sixty

25:39

four was a huge range

25:41

of music that wasn't really designed

25:43

for a sixteen piece sweet

25:46

man to play, but they did it nonetheless

25:48

because that was how music filtered through to us.

25:50

We didn't have twelve

25:53

hour day, let alone twenty four hour day pop radio.

25:56

Just that's why we had pirate radio because that

25:58

was a revolution that brought like the continuous

26:01

pop music to English listeners.

26:03

My dad was part of a process that preceded that, which

26:06

was interpreting those songs. So he

26:08

would have to sing a song like it wouldn't

26:10

matter whether it was the latest song

26:12

by Tom Jones or the latest song by the Who, or the latest

26:14

song by the four Tops or the

26:17

Searchers. You know, he had to do all those songs

26:19

so crazy, I know, but I mean they didn't get

26:21

he didn't get any choice whatever was in it. Break.

26:24

So you're saying that there was somewhat

26:27

a big band scene over there, but was there

26:29

really a jazz like a hard bop

26:31

jazz.

26:32

Scene over there.

26:32

Yeah, I mean there's musicians that he that

26:35

he wanted to were some

26:38

of his friends when they first came from Liverpool,

26:40

were the people that founded the modern

26:43

jazz scene. You know. He

26:45

tried to get the gig with Ronnie Scott. Everybody

26:47

wanted that gig Ronnie formed the club.

26:50

The other musicians of that Joe Ronnie Scott was

26:52

an actual person because yeah know, Ronie Scott

26:54

was a tennis saxophone player then founded the club

26:57

and he was like one of the people that led the way. And

26:59

there's one or two of musicians. Another

27:01

great Tanner play called Tubby Hayes came

27:04

to New York and was accepted.

27:07

Obviously, some English musicians made

27:09

it into the American scene, but there were so many

27:11

great musicians here. Marrimount Partland

27:14

that the piano players, she's

27:16

from England, so you know there's people like

27:18

that that came over, that came and they wanted

27:21

to play with the great people on fifty

27:23

second Street. But that was it was

27:25

difficult enough to get in the door in

27:27

London because this music wasn't that popular

27:30

and popular music was. You could

27:32

turn the radio on when I was a kid and it sounded

27:34

like it was nineteen thirty five. I

27:36

mean the music was still like little

27:39

kind of string group playing the melody

27:41

of something, but it wouldn't be anything

27:44

like the record.

27:45

So there was a there was so little

27:47

music and that was known as mainstream

27:49

radio.

27:49

Then that, yeah, we only had one channel playing

27:52

music on the BBC. We just had the light

27:54

program.

27:59

So what I know is Northern Soul, like

28:02

when did that breakout?

28:03

Norton Soul was kind of like that

28:06

was really a club thing that happened

28:10

late sixties, I think through mid to late

28:12

sixties. The thing that happened

28:14

all simultaneously was the Pirate Radio happened,

28:17

and that changed the fact that we could

28:19

get the pop music played by the original

28:21

artists not interpreted in these slightly square

28:24

ways, and the TV

28:26

shows that played pop music got hippa.

28:30

Like one week, Ready Steadygo, the Friday

28:32

Night for show just

28:34

had the Motown Review on, and like just

28:37

blew everybody's minds because suddenly all these people

28:39

with like style and you

28:41

know, coordinated moves and everything. You've

28:43

got to think before that. It's four lumpy

28:46

lads in beetlesuits and their hair

28:48

brush forward for twenty minutes before

28:50

the show. You know, they just thought to do that, and

28:53

they're doing I don't know, Fortune Teller

28:56

or something by Aunt Hussan. Next thing,

28:58

you've got David ruffin O Love

29:00

and Gay. You know, it was a bit of a mind blower,

29:03

obviously, you could hear the bands,

29:05

you can hear the musicians who they

29:07

were listening to. They copied

29:09

everything off records and records took about

29:11

six weeks to get to England.

29:13

I just met this

29:15

weekend. I was in LA and one

29:19

of the main cameramen from Ready Steady

29:21

Go oh Yeah, happened to come to an event

29:23

of mine. So it's kind

29:25

of where in the last month

29:28

and a half, well,

29:30

I've been talking to the Shindig

29:32

people air quotes talking.

29:35

That's all I can see.

29:36

Now.

29:36

I can't tell you the context, but

29:39

I've been learning a lot about how the

29:42

pop scene got developed over

29:44

in the UK.

29:46

And you know, I'm learning

29:48

these things.

29:49

Totally different, totally different timeline,

29:52

totally different availability. It wasn't

29:54

commercial for one thing, so they

29:56

didn't have that drive in it, you know, it didn't have the

29:59

same thing driving it. We had commercial

30:02

television. We had two only two channels.

30:04

When I when say, at the time the Beatles

30:06

started, there were only two TV channels BBC

30:09

one BBC two hel BBC and ITV

30:11

so BBC and one commercial channel.

30:14

Okay, so they both had pop

30:16

shows, but they were kind of square and

30:19

they were based on different things and then then

30:21

they started BBC two and they would have jazz programs

30:23

and that was kind of amazing actually,

30:26

because they'd get really good people on them. You'd see Errol

30:28

Gahan or he'd see Escapedis and there's

30:30

a lot of footage, and the BBC went

30:32

very good at keeping it, so I don't know how much they

30:35

they went over a lot of things, So things I saw

30:38

as a kidnapped memories of I learned that they would

30:40

they were they would wipe the tapes, you know. But

30:43

I mean, you know, if you saw something like Hendrix

30:47

when he he was

30:49

on the Lulu Show and he and the Whak Cream

30:51

broke up and he just played at

30:53

San Sorron of your Love. He said, we're going to stop

30:55

playing this rubbish, which was Hey Joe, which was his

30:57

hit, and that was I saw that love

31:00

and it just blew my mind and it was like, hey,

31:02

television just went out of control, you know, because

31:05

you remember this is at

31:08

a time when when on

31:10

the radio, when I was a kid, they used to make the newsreader

31:13

put on a dinner jacket to read

31:16

the news on the radio. They

31:19

had to wait, they had to be formally dressed

31:21

to read the news. I

31:23

don't ask me why. Maybe it made of them

31:26

to think that I was this, this is the BB

31:29

Yeah they were. Yeah, So it was a whole completely

31:32

different world. And when you know, you

31:34

can imagine Hard

31:37

Day's Night was a film where the group

31:40

talking in their ordinary voices, not

31:42

like they were in show business, but they seemed like they just

31:44

were lads from Liverpool. And the

31:46

American hop movies were

31:49

mostly Elvis Presley and they were just involving

31:51

Elvis as a truck driver, Elvis

31:53

as a racing driver, Elvis as a helicopter

31:55

pilot, what Elvis on a surfboard,

31:58

you know, Like.

31:59

I gotta tell you, I saw Jailhouse

32:01

Rock for the first time this Sunday.

32:04

That's a good movie.

32:05

Well they okay.

32:07

So in context, Quentin

32:09

Tarantino has a what

32:11

we would call a grindhouse in la

32:14

It's called the New Beverly and basically,

32:16

Quentin Tarantino purchased this place

32:19

because he wanted to recreate what

32:22

movie theaters were like back in the seventies

32:24

when he was a kid. So it's only

32:26

thirty five millimeter or sixteen millimeter

32:28

print, and it's weird things like you know, a

32:31

kung Fu flick science fiction

32:33

film, an.

32:33

Old Western or an old classic.

32:35

Or Italian new or whatever, and

32:38

he graciously transferred my

32:41

movie Summer of Soul to thirty

32:43

five millimeter and was done

32:45

in double features. So on Sunday, the double feature

32:48

was Elvis's Jailhouse

32:50

Rock in Summer of Soul. So I saw Jailhouse

32:53

I've seen that scene before, but

32:55

I've never watched Jailhouse

32:58

Rock, and it just hit me that I I think,

33:00

with the exception of is there a film called Blue Hawaii

33:03

or Blue Yeah,

33:05

I think that's the only Elvis

33:07

film that I've seen, and now I want to watch them

33:10

all because well,

33:13

just for the format, the format

33:15

of this film is like, there's any excuse

33:18

two make what

33:21

videos basically like to you know?

33:23

All right, well, we're also going to rabbit holes out

33:25

of it, so let's go back to you were

33:27

taking us to. This is your beginning.

33:29

It's nearly impossible for me to stay

33:32

to pick up the guitar when I was thirteen without

33:35

referring to the fact that I

33:37

know because I've read you know, your book,

33:40

so I know that we have this one

33:43

and we talked about it before we have this one, you

33:45

know, so Key similarity despite all the different

33:47

experiences. Is the example

33:49

of your father playing music weekend. We got

33:51

whatever it is is very

33:54

different and it gives you the sense of

33:56

it being both magical and you

33:58

get an idea of the Monday. And remember really

34:00

going in with my dad to the radio

34:02

studio when they were on. When

34:04

I was on the school holiday, I'd go with him

34:07

in the morning and to be a bunch of people reading

34:09

the paper and I think still smoking in the theater.

34:11

I remember them as having cigarettes. Maybe they didn't,

34:14

but they were definitely just reading the paper. And

34:17

then the conductor would come, the

34:19

band leader and then bring it to attention. They rehearse.

34:21

Then a group would come in and rehearse, and that group would

34:23

be somebody from the charts, so it'd

34:25

be the Hollies or Engelbern, Humperdink

34:28

or whoever was on the show singing a couple of

34:30

songs. Inevitably, if that's

34:32

your perspective of it, it changes.

34:34

It just me and a kid waiting for your favorite

34:36

record to come on the radio, or your favorite record

34:38

to come on. The couple of TV shows a week

34:40

that played the music. You liked the fact that

34:43

my dad was in the front room learning the songs

34:45

that I loved, Like the first

34:47

record I ever owned was

34:49

Please Please Meet. He gave it to me because

34:52

I asked him for it, but it was advanced

34:54

copy that he was learning off a piece of

34:56

sheet music so he could sing it on the radio that

34:59

week the Beatles, so he was second

35:01

hit. Okay, I see, so he's singing

35:04

please Please Me in the front room. And

35:06

then my folks split up not long after

35:08

that, so then he would just give me the records. He'd come around

35:10

and give me a stack of singles.

35:12

I was going to ask, what was the first

35:14

record that you remember buying

35:17

with your own money.

35:19

Fame at Last was an

35:21

e ep by Georgie

35:23

Fame and it was pretty cool because

35:25

it had one song by Lambert

35:28

Andricks and ross one by mos Awson, but

35:30

it was a it was a Willie Dixon

35:32

song, one song that

35:34

was by Lou Jordan and

35:36

one song by Ray Charles that there was that's

35:38

who he was covering. So that was

35:40

a pretty good education for four songs a

35:43

twenty one year old organ player from

35:45

Lancashire. They were napped for a nine year

35:47

old kid. That was a lot of information

35:50

to get all on one record because

35:52

he was he was no

35:56

no, no was way after. That was a later one. It was a point

35:58

in no Return. It was a it was

36:01

a golflin king song. It was it was

36:03

sixties like wow, it was later

36:06

later, Yeah, okay. And Georgie did g McDaniels

36:08

and like a Sander Maria and he

36:11

had he was Hippie, knew Eddie Jefferson,

36:13

and he knew a lot of

36:15

music that the other organ players

36:17

didn't know, like Stevie Winwood, the New

36:20

R and B R, all those guys all

36:22

knew all the great R

36:24

and B singers. But Georgie was

36:27

unusual and did he He sang like like

36:29

mosaices and he sang like a

36:31

cross between John Hendricks and Moses, and he

36:33

saying, you know, you see me, welcome this man.

36:36

He had that kind of dead panwez you know, goddamn

36:40

Like he could sing like he could sing John

36:42

Hendrick's music just great. Yeah, he

36:45

could sing like things like he could sing like

36:48

down for the Count and Little Darling

36:50

and those things, the Neil Hefty things. He could sing, the basy

36:52

things he sang with a big band.

36:55

He was a really great musician.

36:57

Fort for our listeners out

36:59

there, if you can peep,

37:02

it's a later John Hendrick song, but there's

37:04

a okay, So if

37:06

you're familiar with I've talked about this on

37:08

the show before. The idea of vocal

37:11

lise, vocal ease is where jazz

37:14

lyricists would put words

37:17

to jazz songs that never had lyrics before.

37:19

And so John Hendricks

37:22

does this really amazing version

37:24

of Miles Davis's Freddy

37:26

Freeloader, and he does it with al

37:29

Jio, George Benson,

37:31

and Bobby McFerrin, and basically the

37:33

four of them, with their very unusual

37:36

jazzy voices, verbatim

37:40

recreate all the solos or Miles's

37:42

original Freddy freeload with the lyrics, which

37:47

is the hardest thing to do. I

37:49

mean, they notated each like

37:51

I've played the original and their version

37:54

simultaneously, and they followed every

37:58

lick of those solos and put lyrics

38:00

to it and a narrative to a story about a

38:03

guy loves alcohol. But anyway,

38:05

I digress. If you're into John

38:07

Hendricks, that is definitely.

38:09

Well that That was the song on not EPI

38:11

that they did, which was lined by Hendricks and Ross. Conny

38:14

Ross also, yeah, another Scottish

38:17

import to the jazz saying, you.

38:19

Know whoa I did not know that?

38:20

Yes she thought she was American,

38:23

No she won Americans, she was I think Scottish.

38:25

Yeah fuck this, yeah, I

38:28

mean seriously, like you just

38:30

invented your a new podcast,

38:32

like the two of you fucks. I could talk

38:35

the fucking ever and

38:37

it's all great, but the problems there's like ten

38:39

references every five seconds. So

38:42

it's like for people trying to figure out what the heck

38:44

what we're talking about, they

38:47

have to you know, you can turn a podcast down to to

38:49

like half speed or like you know, I

38:52

do that. Actually, I mean, all right, you guys

38:54

are ridiculous. Honestly, it's ridiculous.

38:56

No take over, Steve, forgive me.

38:58

I know that Elvis

39:00

wants to talk a little bit about Summer

39:02

of Saw.

39:03

I do I know that you that you saw Smer

39:05

soldiers. I mean, I have to thank you for

39:08

morelos that you know some

39:11

of us al had to come out when it came,

39:14

when when it was shot, it

39:16

would have had a corrective

39:19

I think for the way people sort

39:21

of regarded is it. And I mean I

39:23

remember going to see Woodstock and that was our

39:25

first glimpse of a festival. You

39:28

know, I was living in the north of England. You know, it

39:30

rains all the time, like constantly,

39:33

it seems like for years, it seemed

39:35

in those days, and we just thought, Wow, that's gonna

39:37

be great. One of these days, We'll have one of these festivals and everybody,

39:40

all the girls that take the clothes off and were all slide around

39:42

the mudin and all the great you see summer

39:44

and sold. It was kind of for one thing, it was in the city,

39:47

right so right right there, you kind

39:49

of had whole families. You didn't have this one

39:51

generation of people working. Wait time out,

39:53

I got to ask you a question.

39:55

So you're telling me that in nineteen

39:57

sixty nine, yeah, reading

40:01

Aston Berri, they hadn't happened. Oh wait,

40:03

So I'm under the impression that

40:05

America was lead to the table. No, no, and

40:07

that Europe had been throwing festivals

40:10

all day.

40:10

They were showing festivals where they used to kind of like

40:13

hit each other on the head with a bladder

40:15

on a stick, you know, or like jump around the maypole

40:17

and stuff back in the medieval times.

40:20

But they didn't have like rock festivals.

40:22

No, they didn't. I mean they had gatherings.

40:24

So when did festival cultures

40:26

start?

40:27

And I think Glastonbury is the

40:29

first one, is seventy or seventy one? Wait

40:31

what Yeah, I mean one

40:33

of the big festivals that every remembers was Bath

40:35

in seventy. Yeah, but it was a

40:37

pretty small festival. And then we

40:40

didn't really have any

40:42

big gathering, like, like nothing

40:44

on the scale of Woodstock. I mean maybe

40:47

in Europe they had them. I don't remember hearing about

40:49

him though, I didn't wasn't paying that much attention,

40:51

but we saw so we saw the film Woodstock,

40:54

right, And then I was talking

40:56

to some people the other day about I went to the

40:59

biggest festival in seventy two.

41:01

I was already playing then in Liverpool,

41:04

and I remember did a gig on the Friday night and

41:06

I came out and it was raining, like they

41:09

said, cats and dogs, you know, just like looks

41:11

like a load of needles dancing on the on

41:13

the on the pavement. And it never occurred

41:15

to me that it would be slightly damp in the field.

41:18

I was going to outside thirty miles

41:20

away and then got on a train the next morning with

41:23

just a blanket and boots, no

41:25

sleeping bag, no tent, and I

41:27

didn't even think about it. I just I'll

41:30

just sleep under the stars, like and

41:32

it was like, you know, it was like a

41:35

way back from the lines in the First World War. When

41:37

I got there, it was like you had to wade through

41:39

feet of mud and it was miserable

41:41

and cold, and I and they were selling

41:43

these giant like messenger bags, human

41:46

sized messenger bags, and that's the only

41:48

thing that stopped us from all getting

41:50

hypothermia. And then listened

41:53

to Captain beef Hard at about three o'clock in the morning

41:55

and the next day The Grateful Dead played for four hours.

41:57

You know, it was like and that was glamour. You

42:00

know, that was the baddest glamor. And I had trench foot

42:02

when I came home. You know, it was like it

42:04

was it was nothing like we imagined.

42:07

So seeing summer soul and seeing

42:09

a festival happening inner city, right,

42:11

Okay, it's over weekends, so it's like it's

42:14

a collection of festivals really, but with the

42:16

whole thousand. Yeah. But I mean, the thing

42:18

that's so great is the fact that you've got those

42:20

interviews with the little kids

42:22

that were there, that were witnesses to

42:24

this stuff, and there's a whole corrective

42:27

to like what that all

42:30

of those people meant a part from the fact that they had the jazz

42:32

and the gospel people, and then you know,

42:35

all the little vignettes like Mehalea

42:37

Jackson handing the mic to mad this, you

42:40

know, I mean parts

42:43

of it that just I don't know whether I'm reading into

42:45

this, but like having said sixty

42:48

five or something when the Motown review

42:51

came over, and the fact that you were, you know, in

42:53

the same way as people say, are you beatles

42:55

or stones? Are you, as we said, Temmy's

42:58

or tops? You know, you

43:01

can't like them both, you know, right, really

43:03

because I like them both.

43:04

You know that.

43:06

So David Ruffin when he comes out and he's

43:09

he's like the kind of returning

43:12

prints, you know, and then he's

43:14

sort of fragile. You know.

43:16

It was a curious look because

43:19

when he comes out and then his act kind

43:22

of looks slightly stiff because

43:24

he's used to playing much more he's not. He's

43:26

also used to four people being yeah, because

43:29

it's right after he left, right, so it's like yeah, yeah.

43:32

And then guess what, you know, the band

43:34

that everybody's shocked by is

43:36

fift to mention to completely kill, and

43:39

they're kind of seen as kind of square, and then when you see

43:41

him, they're not square at all. They're looking great, but

43:44

everything's great. And then you get the Vinish vision

43:46

from the future. You get like the visitation from

43:48

the future with Sly, and I

43:51

mean we just if that at all. I mean Sly

43:53

at Woodstock it's so far

43:56

an advance of everything else on the bill. I

43:58

mean, it's so far the best thing on It's

44:00

the best music, even

44:02

Jimmy. It's like by the end of it, it's like

44:04

there's nobody there watching him. The

44:07

big moment is Sly. But

44:10

if people had seen that in

44:12

the context of all of it, can you imagine

44:14

how different things would have been the Stevie wanted

44:16

to right before me makes talking book, you know, like

44:18

that's exactly what the hell it's all these

44:21

things, you know, that's literally.

44:22

Like that's why I made it, because I

44:25

meant the time when it was offered to me, Prince's autobiography

44:28

was out and he was talking about like being

44:31

an eleven year old watching Santana do

44:34

this guitar solo and he's like, that's what I want

44:36

to do when I get older and like, I'm really

44:39

he was discouraged from doing music because his dad was

44:41

like, he'll never be as good as me. So already

44:44

that chip on the shoulder, I got to be better than

44:46

my dad. Thing happened, and his dad wasn't

44:48

the nurturing type. But his dad

44:50

takes him to the seawoodstock and through

44:52

Santana's set, Prince

44:55

is like, that's what I want to do.

44:56

And so.

44:58

For me, you know, luckily I got.

45:01

There because well again epigenetics,

45:03

like my parents, coming

45:06

into that situation in the world where your parents

45:08

are musically inclined, you

45:10

can't help but reach this destination. But I just

45:12

wondered the hundreds of millions of people that

45:15

who could have been affected by this, And

45:18

again to hear you say it, because in my mind,

45:21

I'm thinking that America got a

45:23

festival idea from

45:26

over in Europe.

45:27

But I don't think so. No, I think it was

45:29

a spontaneous I mean, there's you

45:32

know, when you will look at jazzon the summer's day, you

45:35

know, and you see that and you see Chuck Berry

45:37

come out, and you watch the band

45:39

behind him like it's an all star

45:42

band behind him and they're really a band that designed

45:44

to back Little Armstrong, you know they and

45:47

they're just looking is Jack t God? And they

45:49

played trombone with Little som Strong just

45:51

looking at Chuck Berry like what thing

45:53

is he doing here? Because I guess that

45:55

guitar sounds like twelve times louder than anything,

45:59

and really it's not that loud. But but the

46:01

difference is in the music is so great and that's

46:04

but that looks pretty. That's pretty kind

46:06

of still like an it's not really like a festival. It's

46:08

like an open air show. It's still

46:11

like a garden part. It's a bunch of people

46:13

up in Newport, like, looking at this, it's great

46:15

that we got it. Newport Folk vessels

46:18

the same. You get a bunch of bohemians

46:20

and then you get Bob Dylan comes out and it's totally

46:23

like a revolution. But I don't

46:25

think there's anything in England that's

46:28

there's a Cambridge Folk Festival and things like that.

46:30

I don't remember there being anything that we could

46:32

go to like that.

46:33

Well, this shows me that Woodstock

46:35

the movie is the legend that's

46:38

set people's

46:40

thoughts about festivals, and people's thoughts about

46:42

hippies and people's thots about America and people's

46:45

thoughts about those acts that plead.

46:47

So, yeah, we saw all those

46:49

movies. You know, we saw an Easy Rider with a

46:51

with all the music, with Hendrix in and Steppenwolf,

46:55

you know, and that seemed like whatever

46:57

the movie was about, whatever it represented,

47:00

those movies were things that people or have

47:02

you seen that because it was it was an X because

47:04

there was naked people in it and drugs,

47:06

so those things don't The country

47:09

was pretty buttoned up. People think

47:11

it's like, oh, it's all happening, that's swinging sixties

47:13

and all that, But that's all just happening

47:16

on the films that the that they made

47:19

pop films in the fifties, like

47:21

on the Elvis Model. They put the star of the day in

47:23

the movie, made up some daft thing. What's

47:25

this one about? Oh he's he's got a race horse?

47:28

Okay, well, this one's about a race horse, this guy's

47:30

got a chip shop, whatever it is. You know, they make up

47:32

some story, right and stick a couple of songs in

47:34

it. Then then it all changes again.

47:37

So the idea of a bunch of people getting together and

47:39

putting music on and I mean, I

47:42

mean, what's the name of the guy that's that the MC

47:44

Garyeah God is like

47:48

you could make a whole you know. I

47:51

said to Jeff Jones that, you

47:53

know, I went to the Get Back premiere in London

47:56

and I sat next one away from Glen Johns.

47:58

Well, you went to the Get Back premiere? How long was

48:00

the movie?

48:01

It was like one hundred minute cut with a with an

48:03

introduction Peter Jackson on one of the

48:05

days of the eighteenth day.

48:07

Have you seen us yet?

48:08

This is where I got to cut you guys off. There's no and

48:10

you talk about that documentary the next

48:12

hour. Let me, I've decided

48:15

this ship.

48:15

Let me just say this one thing though, because it attains

48:18

the quest. But I mean, I think

48:20

there was an actual article in the New York Times about

48:22

Glenn john Sen that he was kind

48:25

of like had it with people ringing him up, going what

48:27

about your clothes and get back? Because Glen

48:30

is wearing like the greatest outfits. He's

48:32

the most stylish man in the movie. Likewise,

48:34

you could have had a Summer of Soul line of clothing

48:36

from the MC's got the greatest cussion.

48:39

No matter who's on the stage, he's he's

48:42

like he's got an outfit

48:44

almost as good and nearly always like right

48:47

for their style too. It's like he dressed

48:50

he knew, Okay, I'm going to come out and I'm going to introduce

48:53

I'm going to be right for that, you know. It's like

48:55

he's given a lot of thought to it.

48:56

One no, he changed for every act.

48:58

Was that was fantastic?

49:00

So do you want to ask your first question?

49:03

So that was the introduction this first

49:05

hour of whatever.

49:07

But I did see Get Back. It's

49:10

freaking mesmerizing, obviously,

49:12

if you're a Beatles fan, there's so much.

49:14

And even if you're not, actually I think if it, I think,

49:16

yeah, sir, if you just like people, you know, if you just

49:18

like people.

49:19

Yeah, But if you're a Beatles fan, it's like.

49:23

All right.

49:23

For me, I think this is where the story begins

49:26

with regards to the two of you. It's the

49:28

year two thousand, and it's right

49:32

after Voodoo had come out in

49:34

nineteen ninety nine. But for me,

49:36

the story starts with a Vanity Fair

49:39

article more of a list addictionary

49:42

that came out that Elvis put

49:44

out in Vanity Fair in the year two thousand. It

49:46

was essentially his five hundred favorite albums

49:48

or most recommended album something along those lines,

49:51

and five hundred.

49:52

Records ant to Haven if you died. I think,

49:55

yeah, like that. It was very ominous that article.

49:58

That article started my friendship with Lisa Robbins because

50:00

I was like, I want to do that.

50:02

I could do that, you know, so we sort of

50:04

yeah.

50:05

I don't know how I came across it, but my

50:07

first subscribe.

50:09

I'm going to I'm gonna tell you how he came across.

50:11

No. Literally, it was a big deal that Vanity

50:13

Fair did a music.

50:15

Issue was just unheard

50:17

of at the time, and I

50:20

remember I think I brought ten

50:22

copies of that. Okay, I'm gonna

50:25

tell you how how that article

50:28

and that specific issue saved

50:32

Annie Leebwoitz's life.

50:34

Are you ready for this?

50:35

And it's a voodoo connection. So my

50:38

publicist gives me a call. We

50:40

get the Roots, get word that we're going

50:43

to be one of the subjects in

50:45

the music issue, and at Annie

50:47

Leewoods is going to shoot us, which is

50:49

the highest honor at the time, Like there's

50:52

a photographer that's going to shoot you, has

50:54

to be Annie. So of course I'm I'm the point person

50:57

for the Roots or whatever. And you know, I talked

50:59

to her on the phone and she's

51:01

in Paris right now and she's shooting

51:04

maybe three or four artists that like she's traveling

51:06

Europe like getting them and whatnot. So

51:09

this is mid two thousand, we're on tour

51:12

with DeAngelo. I also

51:14

think that the first leg of the Voodoo Tour

51:16

is done. We're about to start rehearsals for the

51:18

second leg of the Voodoo Tour, and

51:21

all I remember was okay, So we had maybe

51:23

two or three weeks off of which

51:26

I scheduled time with Anny Leewoods to do

51:28

this shot with the Roots, and something

51:31

happens on DiAngelo's

51:33

end. Could be anything, right,

51:36

no, no, but yeah, it was you

51:39

know, like we missed the deadline

51:41

or missed whatever it was, whatever

51:45

the set date was supposed to be. We had

51:47

to kick the can to the next week, and then the next week

51:49

and then and then when we kicked it the third

51:51

time, I told Alan Leeds and the

51:54

guys like, look, I got

51:56

a photo shoot with Anny Leewoods in Philadelphia.

51:58

I can't do that day.

51:59

But it was like our only date to rehearse, like, you

52:01

know, it was one of the things where D'Angelo

52:04

happened. So what winds

52:06

up happening is I

52:09

don't want to lose this shot, and

52:12

I hit my publisher something. We hit her up, and we're

52:14

just apologizing profusely, and she's like, look,

52:16

look it's cool, we

52:19

can handle it. Matter of fact, I'll

52:21

tell you what this This will give me a week to

52:24

I think Most Death was coming to Paris. She's like, it

52:26

gives me a chance to shoot him and do other

52:28

two other artists, and then I'll hop

52:31

on the plane and come back, and then we could do you on this particular

52:33

day, which was great. So we

52:36

have that settled turns out and

52:38

this and this is where D'Angelo

52:41

isms saved her life.

52:43

Had we kept that.

52:44

Original arrangement, any

52:47

Leewards would have been on that last

52:50

Concord flight that crashed

52:52

and killed all the passengers.

52:54

Wow.

52:55

So in

52:58

the week that she decided to stay for Most

53:00

Death, she avoided

53:03

being on that flight. You know, thank

53:05

God for that.

53:06

So yeah, it's crazy. And

53:09

the epilogue is that I told di'angelo

53:12

what happened and

53:15

he says, who's Anny Leewood?

53:18

And I was like, dude, she's the most epic

53:21

photographer of all time. Dude, like, and

53:24

he's like, and

53:27

he pulls out a jet magazine that he's on the front

53:29

cover of.

53:30

Right, this is what I'm about.

53:32

Right, Well, now I know how I found

53:35

the article because it was you.

53:37

Yeah, I was on that tour.

53:41

I had ten of those. But yeah, I think, yeah,

53:43

I had ten of those issues because it was

53:46

a big deal.

53:46

I still have it because I used

53:48

to use it. I was like, this is the ultimate record

53:50

store tool to have.

53:52

Absolutely, I purchased many an

53:54

album off that list.

54:00

So on that list was

54:03

Voodoo. That's

54:05

the first time that I knew that

54:08

you, Elvis, knew about him

54:10

quest and about DeAngelo, and I'd

54:12

heard that record. So how did that? How did Voodoo

54:15

get on your radar? How did you get your hands

54:17

on it?

54:17

I have no idea. I

54:19

don't remember anybody. I think. I just you

54:22

know, like anything, you something filled us through

54:25

and then you listen to it and it's great. Maybe

54:27

I read about it somewhere, well,

54:30

maybe the video. I

54:36

lived up on hill in Ireland

54:38

and still in those days, I didn't see

54:41

any I didn't have any cable television.

54:43

The story that I've always gotten from people, there's

54:45

always a younger person someone's life that's

54:47

sort of like, I think this

54:50

is an album that's going to resonate with you, because

54:52

this feels like an era that you

54:54

loved, And if you're if you're a fan of Stevie

54:56

Wonder, if you're a fan of if

54:59

you're a fan of that sort of pure

55:01

soul, then there's

55:03

no way this record didn't hit your

55:05

radar.

55:06

I think it's probably that

55:08

recognition, but that's kind of also

55:11

common to a bunch of other records that

55:13

are probably for one thing, I

55:15

had no idea you were going to ask me. I would probably be

55:17

surprised by some of the records that are and aren't

55:20

on that list, because you could have asked me three days later

55:22

and it would have got a different five hundred. Do you know so?

55:24

I mean I remember thinking that almost

55:27

The only thing I really calculated was

55:29

I didn't feel obliged to put records on

55:32

that I knew a lot of other people really held

55:34

in high regard, Like there's

55:36

no records by the Doors because I can't

55:38

stand the Doors. Why can't you Door?

55:41

I know I knew that about him, but I don't I

55:44

can't figure out why I.

55:46

Just never spoke to me. It just never did

55:48

I don't know why I can. I

55:50

like a lot of them. I

55:53

don't like it. I

55:56

don't know. It's sort of like.

55:57

It's kind of cool that you don't like to do it.

55:59

Yeah, No, And people always think I would because

56:01

of the organ and you know and everything, But I just

56:03

and I think they're all sure. They're all refined

56:06

players in their own way. And when

56:08

I break on through to the other side.

56:10

I like that one record that's the only

56:13

record by the Doors. I like the Fame. No,

56:17

my friend played on it. It's like, you

56:19

know, Jerry Chef played on that. He

56:22

was in my band. But no,

56:25

no, at led Zeppelin, there's no led Zeppelin records

56:27

on that. I literally never owned

56:29

one. Really, there's no Pink Floyd

56:31

records because I

56:34

only to own two Pink Floyd discs

56:36

and they're both singles, c Emily

56:38

Play and Arma Lane. I've never

56:41

even listened to Dark side of the Word. I have no idea

56:43

what the Wall sounds like.

56:44

Wa Is there any

56:47

homegrown act

56:49

that you dug homegrown?

56:53

Well, I mean just from I mean from England?

56:55

Yeah, who the Beatles?

56:57

So you forgot the Kinks?

57:00

The Small Faces? The Small Faces for me was

57:02

the next group after the Beatles. It was

57:05

like, not the Stones, it was the

57:07

Small Faces, really Tin Soldier,

57:11

you know, all or nothing, all of

57:13

those records. Yeah, but the Kinks, the

57:15

Kinks, absolutely, the Kinks only

57:18

up to a certain period. Tell this man please in

57:20

the same thing. It's really selective. It's

57:22

anything about musical choices. Like I say, it

57:24

would have been a different five hundred of been You

57:26

could probably pull one up there. What's with that

57:28

record? I go, I don't even remember saying

57:30

that should have been on the list. I would

57:33

still put Voodoo on there now, but I don't know

57:35

what else is on there that was surprise, And I don't know that

57:37

was such a relation. I think what I said is right. Though

57:39

I think it's right, I think it speaks to some continuity.

57:43

And you see, this is the

57:46

part of the thing that comes from our

57:48

inability to hear everything. Is

57:51

the things that we did hear in England

57:54

really went deep. So nobody

57:57

said have you when you asked me about Northern Soul

57:59

like two hours ago. You know, that's

58:02

an organic kind of movement

58:05

to kind of dance to records that nobody

58:07

else had. Like there's a particular

58:10

kind of beat A lot of the Northern Soul records

58:13

are not from Detroit. They're from Chicago.

58:16

There are a lot of Chicago things, so

58:18

because they I don't know why it was,

58:21

but maybe that slightly different sound

58:24

motown or as we didn't even call

58:26

it motown. We called it Tamla. You

58:28

say you've got the new if you got the new Tamla

58:30

record, right, we said, what do you listen to? I listened

58:32

to Tamla and it's Tamla. And

58:36

all we had were these singles, or

58:38

we had compilations Motown

58:40

Chartbusters Compilations Volume

58:43

three particular is a particularly good one, you

58:45

know. And what is Soul,

58:48

which was was an Atlantic Records

58:50

compilation of it, and Tighten Up

58:52

two which is which is a regular

58:55

rosteatic compilation. Those

58:57

you can have a party with those, and we didn't

58:59

have a lot of other records. And because

59:01

the radio, yeah, but that was

59:03

pretty good. You could play those round and round, and

59:07

I think that's it made you

59:09

really kind of like go behind a painted

59:11

smile. You know, this

59:13

whole herd of mine heard it through

59:15

the Great those records, but we didn't

59:17

know the gladys Knight version who heard it through the Great Vine

59:20

necessarily we knew the Marvin version,

59:22

so all these records there were, and then people

59:24

got into the more esoteric thing, and then they started

59:27

dancing at the Week in Casino and

59:29

this kind of slightly looser

59:31

beat that they had on those Chicago records,

59:34

Major Lance and these kind

59:36

of Curse Mayfield produced records. They're not like

59:38

the Curtis seventies records. These are

59:40

things that sound like they're imitating Motown, are

59:43

not quite getting it right even, you know, they're not on

59:45

the same level of musicianship as

59:48

the Motown rhythm section. But

59:50

people, for whatever reason, it

59:52

was a particular kind of bpm. It was

59:54

a particular kind of rhythm way faster, faster,

59:57

and it and this crazy dancing,

59:59

the and the crazy clothes. You've seen the you've

1:00:02

surely seen the documentary about Lord and Sold. You know,

1:00:05

it's a whole thing, and it's totally based in

1:00:07

the North and it's nothing to do. And

1:00:09

the suburbs where I lived, we

1:00:11

were rock steady, motown

1:00:14

or tabla you know these that. And

1:00:16

then I went to Liverpool in nineteen seventy

1:00:19

and they asked me what kind of music you like? I

1:00:22

said, I like otis Renning and Lee

1:00:24

Dorsey, and you like soul music,

1:00:27

I said, yeah, and tabla

1:00:31

that's for that's for Divvis. They would say

1:00:33

Divvy's means like Y's like like

1:00:36

idiots like that music really like because

1:00:38

it was I don't know why they

1:00:40

were into kind of pink Floyd and like

1:00:42

all this prog rock and heavy

1:00:44

rock. And so I ended up liking The Grateful

1:00:47

Dead because nobody would nobody to go with me on that because

1:00:49

so, well, what's it.

1:00:50

You don't you're not a big prog rock guy, but you like

1:00:53

the Dead.

1:00:54

The Dead are not a prog rock Well, in

1:00:57

nineteen seventy seventy, wait,

1:01:01

we're gonna go down a whole other Robberts.

1:01:02

I honestly thought I was just going to say one thing and the

1:01:04

ease out of here. But now you stuck

1:01:07

me, and I do this with almost every

1:01:09

guest. Guest the

1:01:12

house with your entire record

1:01:14

collection is on fire.

1:01:16

Yeah, you can only say five records,

1:01:19

and they can't be greatest hits or box sets?

1:01:21

All right?

1:01:22

Can they be forty fives or LPs

1:01:25

LP?

1:01:25

I mean more records?

1:01:27

He might want his please please meet forty five?

1:01:29

You know, well, now, don't mean the sentimental Saving

1:01:32

But what five albums

1:01:35

non greatest hits, non live unless

1:01:37

it's a

1:01:40

special live record like Volume

1:01:42

three of James Brown.

1:01:44

At the can't be a compilation record, though, can't

1:01:46

be a compilation record.

1:01:47

It can't be a compilation That's not fair, though, Okay,

1:01:49

go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

1:01:51

No, I'm just saying some artists like you

1:01:53

don't know their albums because I'm just trying to.

1:01:55

Figure out, like, what what is the what is

1:01:57

the canon of original albums? Yeah?

1:01:59

But you I think if you really had a chance

1:02:01

and you knew where they lived, how could you ask him

1:02:04

this question? You knew though, if you knew that your

1:02:06

house was on fine, you're going to lose everything, you'd

1:02:08

you'd pull the rarest records that

1:02:11

you knew you couldn't replace. You wouldn't. Like

1:02:13

it's a difficult question because I would definitely.

1:02:16

I still have my original Mono Revolver

1:02:18

two part of all right, Okay, I picked that

1:02:20

one rare. Five the rarest albums

1:02:22

that you own?

1:02:23

Yeah, and five of the.

1:02:26

Seminal okay, Mono Revolver

1:02:29

No, okay, but all right, what five of the rarest

1:02:32

albums you own?

1:02:32

What are they? I don't know that. I

1:02:35

don't really know that I have rare records in the

1:02:37

same way as you do. I mean, I

1:02:39

think at this time, revolver,

1:02:42

a mono revolver definitely okay, sound

1:02:44

venture, sound venture, Bud George means

1:02:47

a lot to me. Okay, not so easy to get uh

1:02:51

from later on?

1:02:52

I what's the most expensive record

1:02:54

you shelled out for?

1:02:56

Actually, probably a seventy eight? You

1:02:58

know some of the D eight's come in like

1:03:01

four or five hundred.

1:03:02

Are you you have a seventy eighth collection,

1:03:04

because that's a whole rabbit hole.

1:03:06

That's a whole rabbit hole.

1:03:07

Yeah, So should I accept those because people

1:03:09

all the time, well no, not

1:03:11

real records don't go into that world.

1:03:13

Dude.

1:03:14

Well, I mean, I'm not really interested in seventy eighths,

1:03:16

but you know, like old great grandmothers

1:03:18

are passing away, the nieces and nephews

1:03:21

are like your quest.

1:03:21

I don't know what to do this, but it's an endless way,

1:03:25

know you, I should take it.

1:03:27

I'll tell you why. Because acoustic

1:03:30

records, acoustic records before there

1:03:32

was electrical recording. Think about

1:03:34

it, You're like literally staring into the

1:03:36

horn of the victrola and you're

1:03:39

you can go right through that little hole into

1:03:41

the room they're playing. It's coming. It's one

1:03:43

generation away, isn't it. It's one

1:03:45

generation closer than electrical

1:03:48

recording. Wow.

1:03:49

All right, so the answers, yes, I should accept

1:03:51

los.

1:03:52

I'm strong on an electrical recording, absolutely.

1:03:54

But his collections are pretty He's got

1:03:56

a collection of collections, are I'm sure? I

1:03:58

know I've seen that he's got a storage room for

1:04:00

his storage rooms.

1:04:01

Yes, yeah, so what you don't know? The

1:04:04

most expensive I.

1:04:05

Never in a way of collecting records.

1:04:07

It's always been about what's in the groove. It's

1:04:09

never been about the catalog number, or the funny

1:04:11

label, or this is a different sleeve.

1:04:14

I never cared about any of that stuff. The

1:04:16

other reason is because when I first came to America

1:04:20

after the first trip, I you know, the

1:04:22

handle fell off my suitcase on the way home because

1:04:24

it was so full of records I'd bought in second hand

1:04:26

stores. I used to come with

1:04:29

an empty suitcase, no one, I'd fill it up.

1:04:31

And the whole joy of it was like, Oh, here's

1:04:34

a whole album by Bobby Blue Blant, here's

1:04:36

a whole album by the Luvin brothers. You

1:04:38

know, I had maybe one track on a compilation.

1:04:41

All those here's a whole team one Walker

1:04:43

record.

1:04:43

You know you were a complition guy.

1:04:46

Well, no, that's what we That's how we got to

1:04:48

know about stuff because of getting

1:04:50

the Motown records or

1:04:52

stacks and Atlantic collections. I

1:04:55

didn't have a whole record of William Bell until

1:04:57

it came to America. Then

1:04:59

you could you could find them everywhere. You could

1:05:01

find like Great records, whatever it was.

1:05:04

You know, it's weird.

1:05:05

Detroit Spinners as we called them, you know, right,

1:05:08

you could. I had singles on the Spinners, but

1:05:10

then you could just go.

1:05:11

Buy albums of them, you know, so you know it's

1:05:13

weird now, Philip Wynd, you know, yes,

1:05:16

you know it's weird.

1:05:17

Now.

1:05:19

I am collecting and paying top

1:05:21

dollar for UK

1:05:26

acts that would cover American

1:05:28

stuff. Like I'm

1:05:30

going through a kitchen phage now where

1:05:33

I'm big into cover songs. So

1:05:36

there will be again like party records,

1:05:38

the idea of doing a compilation

1:05:41

with just straight up hits that you could put on at

1:05:44

a party and let play all the way through, and then

1:05:46

put on side and let play all the way So there would

1:05:48

be these bands from like from

1:05:50

Liverpool, pans from

1:05:53

Brighton, especially in Brighton there's one group with

1:05:55

the name Brighton in it but they're not known,

1:05:58

but it's like they're cheap imitation

1:06:01

of James Brown's I got the feeling or

1:06:04

whatever was hitting at that time, like science

1:06:06

will delivery and what what what kind of period

1:06:08

of time is this sixty six to seventy

1:06:11

six?

1:06:11

It would be like the k Tell of whatever,

1:06:15

shout out to k TEL where did

1:06:17

they come from?

1:06:17

Hey? Before? I mean, this is this is the thing. I know.

1:06:20

This sounds like I'm bringing my dad in this all the time. But this is

1:06:22

what he did.

1:06:23

That's what I'm saying.

1:06:23

He did it in the early sixties. I mean you I

1:06:25

don't know whether you know this, but the beginning of pirate

1:06:28

radio there was the guy

1:06:30

Ryan O'Reilly. Everybody knows about that name

1:06:32

is Irish guy who's found of Radio

1:06:34

Caroline. His partner was

1:06:36

an Australian guy who had the other

1:06:39

pirate radio ship was which

1:06:41

was anchored in the in the estuary of the Tams broadcast

1:06:44

into London. Now, this guy had a

1:06:46

crazy scheme and this is true. He

1:06:49

thought that he could cover records,

1:06:52

make him cheaply at nine in the morning in downtime,

1:06:55

and the record the song

1:06:58

was because he'd come out of publishing. He believed

1:07:01

that he could have those records

1:07:04

taught the original versions, so

1:07:06

those are the super kitch versions because they

1:07:09

are no phino copies, and he

1:07:11

thought he could get away without paying anything

1:07:13

but publishing. I guarantee he's

1:07:15

saying this is genius. It was like, Okay,

1:07:17

of course it failed, and that the plan failed,

1:07:20

you know, because people so through it.

1:07:21

Okay.

1:07:21

So in Portland, Oregon, Yeah,

1:07:24

there's a writer who wrote

1:07:26

the Encyclopedia of Kitsch Records

1:07:29

or whatever.

1:07:30

He sold me.

1:07:31

It's like the most I've ever paid for a record collection.

1:07:34

But even the stories like wait, you guys,

1:07:36

you know this not the original stuff, right, These are

1:07:38

like cheap imitations or whatever. But for

1:07:40

me, the same drum

1:07:43

break intro for Superstition of Stevie,

1:07:45

it's just as valuable if another drummer

1:07:48

did it, like it's still a drum break is a drummer.

1:07:51

Plus, there warn't that many musicians in England

1:07:54

planned on these records, So when my dad would go and sing

1:07:56

on these records, the guitar player

1:07:58

would be Vic Flick the same guy

1:08:00

that played the James Bond thing. It would

1:08:02

be that it would it would be the same

1:08:04

guy that would be playing on the legit session. Anyway,

1:08:07

they did these things, and they paid

1:08:09

them cash and they sold them

1:08:11

at the supermarket. They sold them at the gas station

1:08:13

or the petrol stations, we called them, and they were

1:08:15

they were forty five EPs. These were before

1:08:18

the albums that you'd probably know from the you

1:08:20

know, they were later called Top of the Pops

1:08:22

because that was the name of the BBC weekly show.

1:08:25

This a whole subculture of music. We

1:08:27

used to get them even when we were on the road. First we'd

1:08:29

get our records done in

1:08:31

Sweden where they wouldn't know any of the

1:08:33

words. They just make up a bunch of nonsense words

1:08:35

to lyrics. It's half

1:08:38

Swedish, half English.

1:08:40

Wait for the record. What is your dad's name?

1:08:42

Ross McManus, And that's the that's

1:08:45

his. He had a bunch of names

1:08:47

because he was a different person on every track. Dude,

1:08:49

Okay, you'd never find him.

1:08:51

So I have seven thousand pieces of

1:08:54

just a bunch of bands from Europe

1:08:56

covering American funk

1:08:58

songs and American soul songs and rock songs

1:09:01

or whatever.

1:09:01

But also the other thing quests is that there

1:09:04

was five There was five or six weeks between

1:09:06

an American release, so no matter

1:09:08

how fast they got that

1:09:10

the publisher got that song over. What was

1:09:13

going to happen first was sheet music travel faster

1:09:15

than records. So if

1:09:18

you had Billy J. Kramer or somebody, some good

1:09:20

looking guy out of Liverpool, he could get a

1:09:22

cover of a but new Bert backrack song before

1:09:25

the American version could come out. Quite

1:09:27

often you'd see two songs on the charts, the same

1:09:29

song done by you know,

1:09:31

the the English cover version, which

1:09:34

and then there'd be a ghost

1:09:36

record, as you might say that the ones we're

1:09:38

talking about. So there'd be that version playing

1:09:41

on a pirate radio station. There'd be the local

1:09:43

English group like Silla Black

1:09:45

singing anyone who had a heart,

1:09:48

and Warwick hates her for having done

1:09:50

that, really still was going on about

1:09:52

it. Now after next time you see

1:09:54

the on Silla Black

1:09:56

and see what, No,

1:09:59

she's still matter. So and

1:10:03

then of course what would happen was the version

1:10:05

would come out, the American version.

1:10:07

People would notice it was a little slick, or

1:10:09

maybe the broc list was better. Certainly

1:10:12

the standard of production I think generally

1:10:14

was better. It's sound of arrangement. There's a big difference

1:10:16

in the sound of an English horn section of American

1:10:19

horn section, different tombre. I could

1:10:21

tell you two bars whether it's

1:10:23

an American or English record from if there's brass

1:10:25

on it.

1:10:25

You know, well, I'm gonna blow your mind now because

1:10:29

now the inferior

1:10:32

covers is what would

1:10:35

attract a hip hop producer

1:10:37

today, like the trash here and

1:10:39

the more off notes they play.

1:10:41

Yeah, this is right over all. I've

1:10:44

got one for you right before we go back

1:10:46

to Steve's agenda here, because you got to

1:10:48

go. Do

1:10:50

you know the label Habibi Funk I've

1:10:53

heard of it, Yes, yeah, it's they do all

1:10:55

they do companies get the compilation. Yeah,

1:10:57

number seven in the series cast

1:11:00

a Blanker's Shuffle. Okay, it's

1:11:02

a note for note cover of Bob and Nol Harlem

1:11:06

shovel. Yeah, and

1:11:08

the guy goes to the first phrase of it, you know, the lid,

1:11:12

except he goes up past the note down under

1:11:14

the note because he's hearing microtones.

1:11:16

You know, he's hearing like like

1:11:18

Arabic music inflection. You got

1:11:21

to hear it. It's it's crazy. First

1:11:23

time you hear it, you think, oh, that's just out of tune.

1:11:25

Then he does it the second time he realized that's the way

1:11:27

he sings. He's and other than

1:11:29

that, sounds like they got a you

1:11:32

know, a real to real tape recorder and put the microphone

1:11:35

against the wall of an apartment

1:11:38

that was playing the record next door. That's what the

1:11:40

fidelity sounds like. But it's killer, damn

1:11:42

ya, you really know your music, That's

1:11:45

what it sounds like. My memory of

1:11:47

the Harlem Shoffle is going to a

1:11:49

works dance at a chocolate

1:11:51

factory when I was about fifteen,

1:11:54

and all the girls lining up, all

1:11:57

the girls. It was somebody, a cousin

1:11:59

of some word there and I got to go to

1:12:01

this works dance and they all lined

1:12:04

up, all these all these girls at work

1:12:06

there and did the dance that they thought

1:12:08

was the whole no idea what it was. It

1:12:10

was like, you know, they just gone it there when that record came

1:12:13

on, And that record didn't sound

1:12:15

in that place reverberating. It wasn't playing

1:12:17

through a very good system. It sounded

1:12:20

no more you know, polished

1:12:22

than that, right exactly, But the spirit of it

1:12:24

and all of all of these records, because half

1:12:26

of them are like mishearings of records

1:12:29

that you know, they sound like dyking the Blazers

1:12:32

is what this sounds like.

1:12:33

You know.

1:12:33

Oh Jesus Christ, don't even give me start

1:12:36

there. All right, I'll be right there, But Steve,

1:12:38

this is now officially your show.

1:12:40

Okay's

1:12:47

he brings up a topic that I that

1:12:49

I wanted to bring up anyway about what's

1:12:52

now become known. I think in general

1:12:55

as flipping something. Somebody

1:12:58

will hear a song in old songs, a

1:13:00

producer, let's say, and we'll say I'm

1:13:03

gonna flip that, which means essentially,

1:13:05

I'm going to take that, chop it up, sample

1:13:08

it, or even not sample it physically,

1:13:10

but take the idea or the vibe

1:13:12

by energy.

1:13:13

I mean, you know, obviously when

1:13:16

we started is like

1:13:19

we had about three I don't think there was

1:13:21

any ability to sample

1:13:23

it. There was, I wasn't aware of it, and music didn't

1:13:25

take the same advantage of it. People might have

1:13:28

copied choruses. I

1:13:30

guess they would have had to lose a generation to do that.

1:13:32

In analog. No, No, I'm not no, no, I'm talking

1:13:34

about we would in terms of hearing

1:13:37

figures within songs, you

1:13:40

know, Like that's why I never had to write anything

1:13:42

down early on, because you're going, it's

1:13:45

the rhythm from this song with the guitar

1:13:47

part from that. We want no change. So you get

1:13:49

what I'm saying now, it's not different to sampling, except

1:13:51

we were just playing it.

1:13:52

It's not different, and that's kind of what I'm That's.

1:13:54

Why when Somon begame dominant, it

1:13:56

didn't necessarily sort of seemed to me like

1:13:59

some people had their instruments reacted

1:14:01

to it like it was some kind of cheating. I

1:14:03

said, this is everything we've been doing all along.

1:14:06

It's the degree of imagination that

1:14:08

you bring to the to the new version

1:14:10

of it, the flipped version, as you say, is

1:14:13

whether it's any good at all. I mean, that's

1:14:15

the difference between being Jeff

1:14:18

Lynn and somebody you know, like

1:14:20

from Manchester. Like I won't to

1:14:22

say the name you know, but you know what I'm talking about.

1:14:24

And you sometimes, I believe, reveal

1:14:26

these types of things your inspirations

1:14:28

for certain songs in concert.

1:14:30

In the middle of you might quote something you

1:14:32

know that's obviously underneath the

1:14:34

song that you play it, or I think it's

1:14:36

also the way you get the particular

1:14:38

notes in a vocal. If you're not like you

1:14:41

alluded to, the kind of not having a melodious

1:14:43

or particularly beautiful voice, it

1:14:46

helps to think like another sing of phrases,

1:14:49

so that you know you do something

1:14:51

with your own Are

1:14:54

you.

1:14:54

Still doing that these days?

1:14:55

Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Sometimes odd

1:14:57

words will come out my mouth actually

1:15:00

sound momentarily like somebody else for one

1:15:02

word, but it's not

1:15:04

really important to the understanding of the song, so

1:15:06

I never underline it. If somebody comments on it,

1:15:09

then if they notice it, then it

1:15:11

was because it was there. But it's

1:15:14

not important to the telling of

1:15:16

the story that people reckon.

1:15:18

I'm not doing it to be recognized. It might have been

1:15:20

like, how would such and such a single approach

1:15:23

that line?

1:15:24

Well, there's a I guess, innumerable

1:15:27

ways of approaching what we're

1:15:29

talking about. You hear a baseline that

1:15:31

you admire and so you inverted

1:15:34

or you use well, but.

1:15:35

Didn't we get into this when we did, when we when

1:15:37

we first started, when

1:15:39

I first came on the show, and we

1:15:41

were I was playing with the roots. And

1:15:44

you know, when we listen back now to the sample

1:15:47

that you made, and we're getting

1:15:49

a little ahead of ourselves into wise up ghosts.

1:15:51

But say, the sample for my new

1:15:53

haunt is Quest play, and it

1:15:56

is derived from Quest Play and Chelsea,

1:16:00

which is Pete Thomas playing fire by Mitch

1:16:02

Mitchell, well by Hendrix, but it's

1:16:05

specifically the firepart that he's referencing.

1:16:08

So that's like a that's

1:16:11

like, you know, a flip of a flip of a flip

1:16:13

correct four times.

1:16:15

And I don't know if you're counting this as one of your flips.

1:16:17

But the sound is actually a sample

1:16:20

of you and the Roots playing

1:16:22

live on the stage. Yeah,

1:16:24

so it's a sample of you guys.

1:16:26

Yeah, that's what I mean. No, I mean, but but

1:16:28

it's being quoted twice over,

1:16:31

you know, because Quest is rationalizing it to his

1:16:33

style of play based on Pete's part,

1:16:35

which is based on Mitch's part. So that's

1:16:38

that's that's why, you know, people

1:16:41

are a surprise that I didn't take exception

1:16:43

about, you know, the pump it Up

1:16:45

quote on the Olivia Rodriga record.

1:16:47

But that would be just ludicrous because it's like it's

1:16:50

common language. Really, you know, if it had been

1:16:52

a whole melody or a whole lyric, that was

1:16:55

just stolen that that would be

1:16:57

obvious and you would take exception. But I

1:16:59

think it's amount of language in songs

1:17:01

and beads particularly, that's

1:17:04

that's common.

1:17:05

That's folk music, right, I mean, that's

1:17:08

that's how it happens. I'm certainly not trying

1:17:10

to get into that discussion of whether this is right to

1:17:12

do or to do or anything like that, but just

1:17:14

to acknowledge that, you know, motes are probably

1:17:16

sampled from chopin or whatever. Okay,

1:17:20

that figures you freaking out, But anyway,

1:17:23

the real comparison I want to get

1:17:25

you guys to talk about is how you've been doing that

1:17:27

since the beginning, you know, and he's

1:17:30

been doing that, and you're both doing essentially

1:17:32

the same thing, but with different techniques

1:17:34

and different technologies.

1:17:36

Definitely, Yeah, I mean that one

1:17:38

of the things that I think that we've talked about, you

1:17:40

and I have talked about and we experienced

1:17:42

over the you know, I was still

1:17:45

making the previous record I've made before

1:17:47

we worked together was recorded analog

1:17:49

and and edited digitally. Most

1:17:51

of the records part of that were recorded analogue.

1:17:55

Since then, the distance between the

1:17:57

two mediums is closed

1:18:01

because nearly all of the outboard plugins

1:18:03

that people designed to work in digital recording

1:18:05

today are in it our imitations

1:18:09

of analog, the

1:18:11

warmth of analog equipment,

1:18:14

valve equipment, and and you

1:18:17

know, sort of very carefully modulated

1:18:21

recreations of spaces

1:18:23

and all of these things, all these libraries of plates

1:18:26

you can download in an attempt

1:18:28

to bring something less brittle

1:18:31

to this very facile way of recording

1:18:34

of digital, which of course is amazing

1:18:37

if you don't want to bother to play more than two

1:18:40

bars and music in succession, because

1:18:42

you could go on forever, you know, you could,

1:18:45

you could have every two bars have a slightly

1:18:48

different sort of resonance. If

1:18:51

you could be bothered to do it, you could. You could, you

1:18:53

could process. You could just play

1:18:55

a two bar loop and and and

1:18:58

you know, paste it sequentially and make

1:19:01

it sound like the most incredibly organic

1:19:03

sounding track now if you wanted to do that, or

1:19:06

you could just fucking play it.

1:19:07

You know, digital is like a photograph of

1:19:09

something where you like sort of immediately lose a generation

1:19:12

just right off the bat.

1:19:13

There is something to that, for sure, but I

1:19:16

actually come into piece with it because it is much

1:19:18

more and I certainly couldn't have made the latest

1:19:20

record unless.

1:19:22

We had or wise Up Ghosts.

1:19:23

For that matter, wise Up Ghosts, And as we

1:19:26

know from the one first time we played the music

1:19:28

in the room, the music changed shape

1:19:31

the minute. Even though

1:19:33

you know, we were all the same people

1:19:35

that had played those parts for the most

1:19:38

part. The minute we actually

1:19:40

just played those numbers in a room, the

1:19:42

music completely changed shape, stopped

1:19:45

being quite as angular and became

1:19:47

greasier and like you know, flowed

1:19:49

in a different, totally different way, just

1:19:51

because it was happening simultaneously.

1:19:54

It's a totally different not a collage, you

1:19:56

know.

1:19:56

Yeah, And I wasn't involved at that point.

1:20:00

I didn't want to say.

1:20:02

But before we get to wise Up goes

1:20:05

more in depth. You know, you're on Quest of Supreme

1:20:07

and the audience here are

1:20:10

as fanatic about Quest as I am

1:20:12

about you. So can

1:20:15

you tell the audience what it was like

1:20:18

the first time you played live with Quest

1:20:20

and the Roots when you came onto

1:20:22

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in

1:20:25

December of two thousand and nine and

1:20:27

you did high Fidelity and Chelsea.

1:20:30

Well, I think the high Fidelity

1:20:32

was a particularly interesting

1:20:35

thing because it

1:20:37

was the decision which I don't

1:20:40

think was mine, was it?

1:20:41

No?

1:20:41

It was mine.

1:20:42

That was your idea. You you

1:20:45

had heard the which was then a bootleg.

1:20:48

You'd heard the bootleg. We were since legitimized

1:20:51

it and released it in the Unfuls's box set, but

1:20:53

it was an arrangement that we had not issued.

1:20:56

I don't think was it available that it was available

1:20:58

for Rhino. Well maybe we hadn't

1:21:00

released it, but we hadn't remixed it as well. We hadn't

1:21:02

done We hadn't because we hadn't gone back to the So

1:21:05

what you you were referencing was a board tape,

1:21:08

and so we put the board tape on that Rhino

1:21:11

thing, and then in twenty

1:21:13

twenty we actually went back to the multi tracks.

1:21:16

We got the multi track and remixed the whole

1:21:18

Wow. That's sebass ended that wow.

1:21:20

So that's why the version that's in Armfuls is a little

1:21:22

bit more kind of bodied to it. But

1:21:24

that was that was this. I

1:21:27

mean, when we did

1:21:29

that record in

1:21:32

Hillsham Wistloud Studios

1:21:34

in nineteen eighty, it was supposed to be some sort

1:21:37

of take on all

1:21:39

the music that we were talking about earlier. The

1:21:41

stuff that was kind of like that

1:21:45

wasn't made in England. It was all the stuff that

1:21:47

filtered through. There's much about R and B

1:21:49

as we kind of knew. As we call it

1:21:51

R and B and soul, that's the words we use

1:21:54

for it. Those words have different meanings

1:21:56

now they have different associations.

1:21:58

But when I said, you know, you know, like nowadays,

1:22:01

and say you're talking about fifties R and B, you're talking

1:22:03

about early sixties like Halean

1:22:05

Woolf or Slim Harper, you're talking about

1:22:08

you know, these these

1:22:10

different kind of feels. And then

1:22:12

the music that we identified we

1:22:15

saw as distinct. It was a sudden soul or

1:22:18

soul that was on the Atlantic label. We saw

1:22:20

something different than Tamla, which

1:22:23

was obviously had a more poppy

1:22:25

The way the voices were and the way things were arranged,

1:22:28

and the way that, you know, the the

1:22:30

orchestration, the different kind of other instruments that would

1:22:32

pop up in them, they seem to have more in common

1:22:34

with a lot of pop records that were

1:22:37

being made by the mid sixties. And you know, in

1:22:39

these definitions of what we heard, it was the

1:22:43

just just the fact that the Atlantic

1:22:46

records for the most part, had horns

1:22:49

and a rhythm section with maybe piano and organ

1:22:52

whereas the Motown or

1:22:54

Tamela records from the mid sixties had a lot

1:22:56

of vocal group like often the

1:22:58

Temptations, even the six and on other people's

1:23:01

records, but really kind

1:23:03

of like very very well arranged vocal

1:23:05

parts and strings,

1:23:08

and they were played by jazz musicians. You can tell

1:23:10

they're played by jazz musicians. They're kind of light, feel

1:23:14

incredible, you know, James jameson

1:23:16

to hold that whole kind of funk brother's band. It's

1:23:19

a very different sound to something like Musclesholls

1:23:23

or the you know, stuff made up on forty

1:23:25

eighth Street Atlantic, you know, and

1:23:27

all the bands in England that copied the cues

1:23:30

from these records were trying very hard to

1:23:32

play that. So we grew up hearing, as I said, twice

1:23:35

over those things and sometimes

1:23:37

then turned up a little bit like the small Faces.

1:23:40

Gradually brought volume to bear on that picture.

1:23:43

You know, you could tell which

1:23:45

records different English singers were

1:23:47

listening to, but they didn't necessarily

1:23:50

sound like Faithful Colors. I gradually

1:23:52

got looser and then

1:23:55

by the time we got making records it

1:23:57

was completely different. We had

1:23:59

a lot of stuff to draw from when

1:24:01

we went to do

1:24:04

that record in Holland that we

1:24:07

had already had pretty much all

1:24:09

the hit records that we were likely to have in

1:24:11

England. We'd had from Get Happy,

1:24:13

you mean well up to Get Happy, we had a couple

1:24:15

of hits off that Everything we made

1:24:17

was a hit. From late seventy seven

1:24:19

to eighty there was everything

1:24:22

was a top thirty to top five

1:24:25

record, every single, So

1:24:27

that was a good run, you know. That was like what established

1:24:30

us in England. At the same time we

1:24:32

were barely getting on the radio in America, so the

1:24:34

things are kind of out of joint,

1:24:36

you know. So when

1:24:38

we got in to do that record, we had arrangements

1:24:41

that were still carried some of our ideas

1:24:44

from the previous year, and the

1:24:46

big influence on the Armed Forces

1:24:48

record were European signing records like ABBA

1:24:51

and funnily enough, the Bowie records,

1:24:54

you know, specifically low in heroes,

1:24:57

but also stationed the station and

1:24:59

station the station was what we were aiming

1:25:01

at when we did the slow, high fidelity that's

1:25:04

brain you know stuff. No, that's before Brian,

1:25:06

you know, that's the I don't know who produced that record.

1:25:09

I don't know, I don't know. I never really checked

1:25:11

who produced it, but it was, you know it

1:25:14

it had a sort of a funk bass, you

1:25:16

know, it had a funk bassis to it. But

1:25:19

then David Bower's kind of vocal and

1:25:21

it had like the Nina Simone the

1:25:24

song associated with Nina Simone, Wild is

1:25:26

the Wind on that record and at TVC one five

1:25:28

and the beginning of that kind of you

1:25:31

know, European influenced funk that

1:25:34

it didn't. So we were trying to we were

1:25:36

enamored of that, all that music,

1:25:39

and we're trying to play like a machine. But

1:25:41

we didn't have the guitars, we didn't have the sustained

1:25:44

guitars, we didn't have the layers

1:25:46

of synth, we didn't have the layers of production that he did.

1:25:48

You know, we were just a four piece band.

1:25:51

So the live arrangement

1:25:53

of that was a sort of feeble attempt to

1:25:55

play like station to station. And

1:25:57

all that happened was when we got in the studio, I said we better

1:26:00

pick up the tempo because the song is getting away, you

1:26:02

know.

1:26:02

So the live recording was prior

1:26:04

to the recording the studio that was.

1:26:06

In the summer. That was in the summer of seventy nine,

1:26:09

so we were Yeah.

1:26:11

Well a strange. I mean, maybe

1:26:14

you weren't satisfied with with that arrangement,

1:26:16

but that arrangement does have so much hard

1:26:19

to it.

1:26:19

It has a lot of freedom to the to

1:26:22

the where the vocal lies. Yeah, because

1:26:24

you can dance around the beat a lot more because it's much

1:26:26

slower and you can sing the melody. I mean, if you here's

1:26:29

the thing is that high fidelity song at that

1:26:31

tempo is similar territory to You'll

1:26:34

Never Be a Man. It's both influenced

1:26:36

by the Spinners. You know,

1:26:38

they're like the Spinner's tunes, you know, some

1:26:41

things, you know, you

1:26:45

know, so Philip Winn was like one

1:26:48

of my you know, the people the voices in the

1:26:50

head kind of thing I could never sing, like wow,

1:26:52

but it shapes the way you phrase melody.

1:26:55

Allison is based on Philip Winn, you

1:26:57

know. So it's based on Ghetto Child,

1:27:00

you know that.

1:27:05

I know it sounds crazy to say that it doesn't

1:27:07

tracks my tears or tears of clown or something

1:27:09

like that. Well I would quote those on the

1:27:12

end of it, but but it's it's really laughing

1:27:14

just a little. And the Spinners that are much

1:27:16

more the the

1:27:20

staccato way that the figure

1:27:22

that part

1:27:27

of the Allison, you know, comes from the Spinners

1:27:30

or the Detroit Spinners as we knew them, right.

1:27:33

I guess my point and we got to it, which was that

1:27:35

this this arrangement had some real funk

1:27:37

to it, some hump to it. It sounded to me like

1:27:39

questlove.

1:27:41

That's why that was exactly. I mean when he dropped into

1:27:43

it, it was like, oh, now it's home because

1:27:45

now he understands that thing and

1:27:48

that and it's more resolute and we've got

1:27:51

like a bigger band, you

1:27:53

know, it's it's got the sounds and had

1:27:55

horns, got horns, and you've got coked

1:27:58

who can has got? You know? I I just had

1:28:00

i'd have any effects in those days, I'm like God,

1:28:04

instead of effects was travelop I

1:28:07

don't think I had even a distortion that might

1:28:09

have had a distortion pedal by the

1:28:11

time we got to seventy nine or

1:28:13

some sort of lyft because I never played solos, so it

1:28:16

was like the guitar straight in and maybe

1:28:18

just a tramlo pedal. Later

1:28:21

on I used to play with a rolling

1:28:23

space echo, you know, and

1:28:25

then later on an ecoplex, an acoplex

1:28:28

so what Watkins copycat?

1:28:30

You know, but I didn't really get into

1:28:33

processing pedals so much

1:28:35

later twenty years ago. Really, I didn't play

1:28:37

with any really until then.

1:28:39

So so you come on onto

1:28:41

the show apparently not to promote anything

1:28:44

at that appearance, because there's.

1:28:45

No even that way. Yeah, I don't know how that even

1:28:48

came about. It was it? It could

1:28:50

have had.

1:28:51

I think you were either supporting Fallon or you want

1:28:53

to play with the roots or something.

1:28:55

I think it was just that, or it's

1:28:57

what year is it again?

1:28:58

This was end of two thousand

1:29:01

and nine, December of two thousand and nine.

1:29:02

It could have been something. Do it spectaful that's

1:29:05

around then as well. Yeah, gave Maybe you were a couch

1:29:08

guest too. I can't remember. I can't remember now, you

1:29:10

know. I just remember two thousand

1:29:12

and nine is around the time of that

1:29:16

Secret Friends Sugarcane and being

1:29:18

in Nashville and Momofuku. I was

1:29:21

making those records all at the same time, you

1:29:23

know, if it had been in the days of Twitter

1:29:26

and I remember when we were making What Was Up

1:29:28

Ghost? I remember one

1:29:30

time we were waiting for Quest to come from something

1:29:32

that he was at and we were checking

1:29:35

his feed to find out where he was. So, you

1:29:37

know, and if that had been the case, it

1:29:39

would have been like that. There was a period where I was

1:29:41

doing like a lot of different

1:29:43

things. When we did the Spectacle

1:29:46

show, that required a lot of balancing

1:29:48

of getting all these people, you know, like

1:29:51

anything like any television show, getting the guests

1:29:53

to be there, and then rehearsing

1:29:55

for it and the different musicians that played on each

1:29:58

one. But I could be coming from Nash having

1:30:00

made Zigrafine was made in three days,

1:30:03

so you know, we just went It was a three day

1:30:05

session. It wasn't an album. There

1:30:07

were three record dates as in the old Star

1:30:09

because it was acoustic music.

1:30:11

You know, I'd been in So

1:30:13

were you thinking EP or something for that now?

1:30:15

I was thinking I was thinking something,

1:30:17

But I was thinking, we'll get these songs in

1:30:19

the time, because look who is playing on it. Wow,

1:30:21

I got the beggest, greatest. You know, that's like an

1:30:23

all star band to beat the band, you know

1:30:25

that those players. I had

1:30:28

nothing at all to do with bluegrass. I mean, half

1:30:30

the songs we recorded there I wrote for an opera. You

1:30:32

know. Half the songs we can't on that record were

1:30:35

written for an opera that I wrote

1:30:37

that I did for Copenhagen about Hans

1:30:39

Chris and Anderson. So it was a kind

1:30:42

of wild lot of harmony for players

1:30:44

who played a mandolin to play, you know, they all

1:30:46

were like they never had

1:30:48

anything to do with bluegrass, so it was just acoustic,

1:30:51

acoustically rendered. It was like chamber

1:30:53

of music, you know. So all those

1:30:55

different experiences there, I

1:30:58

think playing with the band again in

1:31:01

this in a studio on television

1:31:04

was pretty much unprecedented. The previous band

1:31:06

I'd played with on television that wasn't my

1:31:10

own group in some one way or another.

1:31:13

Would it be in Letterman's band or something.

1:31:15

I never played with Lettermans band ever. No,

1:31:19

No, never played with them. I always

1:31:21

played with on my own.

1:31:23

Well, on Spectacle you must have played with I

1:31:25

played.

1:31:25

With other mans on that. But prior to that, the other

1:31:28

experiences for the return to SNL.

1:31:31

When I went back, I played with the house ban of SNL,

1:31:34

and Paul may have been in that band then. I

1:31:36

don't think you think he'd already left and

1:31:39

the Beasties, but when the Beastis

1:31:41

backed me and whenever he did on the

1:31:43

twenty fifth anniversary show, But

1:31:45

the.

1:31:46

Roots known as one of the greatest

1:31:48

live acts that there is on the planet for the last

1:31:50

thirty years something like that. And

1:31:53

so you know, to feel that energy

1:31:55

behind you on that version of high Fidelity,

1:31:58

yeah, I guess you felt like you made the right decision

1:32:00

to come on the show hopefully totally.

1:32:03

Yeah, totally. I mean it's like it

1:32:05

was like a realization and we would have

1:32:07

never gone back to that version in that arrangement.

1:32:09

You know. I did it occasionally

1:32:12

after that, and I think the band Impostus

1:32:15

did learn it, and we did it occasionally that way

1:32:17

or started like that and then cut into

1:32:19

tempo.

1:32:20

That version is what's known as a banger,

1:32:23

yeah, because it bangs, yeah,

1:32:25

like you.

1:32:25

Know, no question. And then here in

1:32:27

Chelsea that's a different thing again, you

1:32:29

know, because that's that was I.

1:32:31

Think a mistake on my why. I

1:32:34

mean, obviously we got a whole new

1:32:36

song out of it, and you know,

1:32:38

we were referencing not only the original, but there's

1:32:40

a like a there's another demo version

1:32:43

of it with a like a distorted organ.

1:32:44

Oh yeah, that's the earlier version. Yeah, slightly slow,

1:32:47

slower and bit reggae, and you know,

1:32:49

like and we used to come in you know.

1:32:52

Bear in mind they used to make us re record for

1:32:54

television, so when the record was a

1:32:57

hit in England, you would get you

1:33:00

would get these three hour sessions, and

1:33:02

most bands couldn't play their records, so they

1:33:04

were glad to just switch the tape while

1:33:07

they weren't looking.

1:33:09

They'd switch it for a copy of the record

1:33:12

and give the BBC essentially just

1:33:15

a dove at the record and then say

1:33:17

they'd cut it.

1:33:18

You know.

1:33:19

So there was this whole subterfuge where you had

1:33:21

to go into the studio for three

1:33:23

hours. It was intended

1:33:26

to protect the jobs and the union

1:33:28

members that had played on records in the

1:33:31

sixties, and by the time we

1:33:33

got to everybody playing on their own records, which

1:33:35

was most everybody that was on these shows,

1:33:38

there was a whole game going on where all the studio

1:33:40

time went to waste. So of course, because

1:33:42

we could play, we would come in

1:33:44

and play the live arrangement, which maybe faster

1:33:47

or had a different break, and then get pissed off with us

1:33:49

because they got

1:33:51

their camera cues from the record, and then it would

1:33:53

be different when we turn up at the studio. We just

1:33:55

used to fuck with them, you know, Ray, but it

1:33:58

was just something to keep it from getting stale,

1:34:00

because the whole thing is like the

1:34:04

one thing about American television

1:34:06

from the get go. And the very first time I was ever on

1:34:09

TV in Americas, he did play live. I

1:34:12

was never heard on the BBC until

1:34:14

Live eight. Every single performance

1:34:16

on the BBC I was lip syncing. So

1:34:19

my first ever performance is in front of seventy

1:34:21

thousand people with one guitar. Good

1:34:23

chart on the BBC, I did okay, but

1:34:26

I played on the other side, on the commercial side.

1:34:28

My debut was on was just with one

1:34:31

guitar as well, on a sort

1:34:33

of early evening, Sharon Manchester and I did one

1:34:35

or two performances with the band and

1:34:37

then the shout out to wave away flag

1:34:39

while we're here sorry, and the attractions

1:34:42

played only one time a session

1:34:44

where we played more than one song on the BBC in

1:34:47

eighty six when Blood and Chocolate was

1:34:49

out, and then we didn't play again until

1:34:51

the nineties. There was no live at

1:34:54

all, and even now you don't. The

1:34:56

other night I was on TV in England, I sang

1:34:58

over a track which is just carry out. It's

1:35:00

not real because the music

1:35:03

doesn't go with you anyway. You have

1:35:05

to kind of just sing over it. It doesn't sound very

1:35:07

good.

1:35:07

No, I'm not a fan of that.

1:35:09

No, it doesn't feel very alive.

1:35:11

And Aretha Franklin came on The

1:35:13

Tonight Show or Leaking Now with Jimmy Fallon a

1:35:15

long time ago. She sang to her

1:35:18

track and I was like, come

1:35:20

on, you know, you got the roots here and for

1:35:22

one and even you know.

1:35:24

Just that does seem like a missed opportunity,

1:35:26

but a little bit. She

1:35:28

was great obviously, but you know, yeah, no, but you still

1:35:30

want to you know, And I mean by the same

1:35:33

token, there's a clip

1:35:35

of her like dragging a BBC band through

1:35:37

Don't play that song from about

1:35:40

sixty eight where she's just killing

1:35:42

on the piano. She's playing piano and

1:35:44

you hear, like how one player that really

1:35:46

knows how it goes can influence even

1:35:49

a band of musicians that probably wouldn't ever have played

1:35:51

anything like that before. So well,

1:35:53

sometimes that was a really great thing when you have

1:35:55

that.

1:35:56

Sure. Yeah, with regards to Chelsea,

1:35:58

the reason why, I just I thought it was going

1:36:00

to be perfect for the Roots and

1:36:02

they played it just too similar I think, to the

1:36:04

original, and it didn't. I was trying

1:36:06

to get the reggae aspect into I was trying to

1:36:09

mash those two versions up the original and

1:36:12

should have.

1:36:12

Played it even a little slower. It would have been interesting,

1:36:14

because then that would have been a different field.

1:36:16

So the second time you came on, you

1:36:19

were promoting National Ransom.

1:36:21

Oh yeah, that's the one I really have

1:36:23

a clear memory of. Really right the other

1:36:25

one, I think it's also intimidating when you go in and

1:36:27

it's a a whole bunch of new guys and you don't

1:36:29

know what they made

1:36:31

of it. And I'm not bringing in a hit song

1:36:34

or a song that's even on the radio or anything I'm playing.

1:36:39

But even the first time, I'm bringing in like

1:36:41

a here's a version that we didn't

1:36:43

record in the studio. This is something I just did

1:36:45

in a field in Holland, well twenty

1:36:48

five years ago. This is a good idea, I fellas you

1:36:50

know, I think we know, but I think

1:36:52

I knew right away that the curiosity,

1:36:56

coming from you and coming from everything

1:36:58

that I knew about the band and than you'd already

1:37:01

done, was this was this

1:37:03

was okay, this was really good. In

1:37:05

fact, it was actually what it's about. And

1:37:08

I think a little bit like you're talking about

1:37:10

the festival band. You know, they used

1:37:12

to put festival bands together that have like all

1:37:15

stars played together on jazz festivals.

1:37:17

Particularly harder to do with rock and roll bands

1:37:20

or any other kind of music because they're not

1:37:22

equipped to do it, you know, to get off their own

1:37:24

script. But they but they but

1:37:27

to do this. It seems like really

1:37:29

in the spirit of being on TV where

1:37:32

you'd get like really unusual combinations

1:37:35

like being Crosby House here

1:37:37

Feliciano and the Supremes. Now check

1:37:39

that one out on YouTube. You know, there

1:37:42

is actually a clip of them going through about

1:37:44

ninety not ninety,

1:37:46

about twenty five songs in about four

1:37:49

minutes medley on those crazy

1:37:51

Medalis. It changes every three lines,

1:37:53

you know. I know they make you nervous,

1:37:55

but it's in the same spirit of the way

1:37:58

they used to jam people together that should

1:38:00

have never been seen and occasion

1:38:02

that there'd be magic, there would be on TV,

1:38:04

there would be some risk involved as well.

1:38:11

So on November fifth, twenty

1:38:13

ten, promoting National

1:38:16

Ransom, playing Stations of the Cross

1:38:18

and Black and White World with the Roots,

1:38:21

tell us what happened that day?

1:38:23

Well, first thing, the first thing I remember

1:38:25

is that I was playing World's.

1:38:29

I don't usually play piano for one thing, not

1:38:31

leading the band, but I really

1:38:33

wanted to play. I

1:38:35

wanted to play the field of that song simply

1:38:38

on the World's that sort of get it locked

1:38:41

in from where I was sitting. I knew the rhythm would

1:38:43

be great. I felt like there

1:38:45

was something going on with the bassline

1:38:49

that had been played on a double bass by Dennis

1:38:51

Crouch, so I was really interested to hear I

1:38:54

play it.

1:38:55

Shout out to Mark Kelley, who specifically asked

1:38:57

me to mention his name on this POCS.

1:38:59

I bet, and then it's

1:39:02

it's kind of like it was always

1:39:04

supposed to be a really ominous song. It was a very

1:39:07

dark song. It is a very dark song.

1:39:10

Then I remember we were walking I don't know, in the hallway

1:39:12

and quest said this thing about I

1:39:14

think you've been in here right with with

1:39:17

D'Angelo and it had

1:39:19

gone really late, that's what he told me. Or

1:39:21

it'd been working or something, you'd been on a session

1:39:24

anyway, you know, this

1:39:26

was for some other thing. I don't know what it was. And then

1:39:28

he said, and now we're learning these inner Mountain Flame

1:39:31

songs and what the hell for me.

1:39:33

You know, that's so difficult, it said, because

1:39:35

John mcgoughlin is here as I was sitting in with us,

1:39:38

so I said, well, can he play on my song?

1:39:41

And the next thing we're in what I think of? I

1:39:43

mean, I'm always I don't know where are

1:39:45

you still in that little room or you've got bigger

1:39:48

since COVID had to give you a bigger

1:39:50

room.

1:39:50

Where do you think we are?

1:39:51

I imagine you're still in that little room. The tartis

1:39:55

so the tartist, I'm sure has been described

1:39:57

at length on this show. But I mean, from my

1:39:59

perspective, it is incredible that

1:40:01

I'm sure it was just the tech covered where they used

1:40:03

to keep like spanners and whatever

1:40:06

it was before it was your studio. It

1:40:08

is amazing that so many people can function

1:40:10

and breathe in there.

1:40:11