Don Was

GRAMMY-winning producer, musician, and Blue Note Records President Don Was joins Norah.

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  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit Norah Jones' channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Norah Jones, and today I'm playing along with Don Was.

• 1:49Speaker 05

  I'm just playing along with you.

• 1:55Speaker 05

  I'm just playing along with you.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm Nora. This is Sarah Oda. Thanks for joining us.

• 2:05Speaker 06

  Thanks for joining us.

• 2:08Speaker 06

  We never say that.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Hey, thanks for joining us.

• 2:11Speaker 06

  I like it. Our guest today is Grammy-winning producer, bassist, songwriter, music director, and a longtime president of Blue Note Records, Don Was.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  He's pretty much the coolest.

• 2:26Speaker 06

  He's so cool.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  He is.

• 2:28Speaker 06

  And just so generous and humble and kind.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:35Speaker 06

  For how legendary his career is.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:39Speaker 06

  As a producer, he's worked with a huge range of artists. This list is insane. On massive records, including The Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Iggy Pop, John Mayer, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, The B-52s, and countless others. He's insanely prolific.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  He's done so much.

• 2:59Speaker 06

  Don.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  He's done so much.

• 3:02Speaker 06

  Don has done so much. He was the co-founder of the Detroit band Was Not Was.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Oh, everybody walk the dinosaur.

• 3:11Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:12Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  We all know that.

• 3:13Speaker 06

  He's also worked in film and television, producing, directing, even voice acting.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, he's in Pete the Cat.

• 3:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, he is.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  I just want to say one thing about Don before we start. He's been the head of Blue Note Records, which is my record label. He took over for Bruce Linval when he finally had to retire and step down. And so he's been in this position for over 15 years for me. I can't even remember when it happened. It's been so long. But he is just consistently one of the kindest, coolest people. Anytime someone sends me a record and asks me what I think, should I, should they send it to Blue Note Records? I send it to Don. And he always writes them a note or calls them and talks to them. And he's just like, he's definitely the coolest.

• 4:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I always feel like I'll see him in situations that seem like kind of high stress, like a big tribute show or something, where there's so many people and artists and moving parts. And he's just like, cool.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:13Speaker 06

  He's a cucumber, no, you know, just stops to talk to you. And I just think, I want to be like him one day.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 06

  I want to grow up to be him.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  He is very much the sweetest.

• 4:23Speaker 06

  Yes. Last year, he released Groove in the Face of Adversity with his group Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, which is a new project rooted in the sound and spirit of his hometown. So you'll hear about that. You'll hear stories about just his legendary career, his ability to be a chameleon in this industry, and like always just finding the passion in whatever project he's working on.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a great one. I had some, I could talk to him for hours and hang with him and play music and talk about music forever. So this is probably part one, I would say.

• 4:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  We should do another one someday.

• 4:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Hope you enjoy this, the legendary Don Was. There is some spicy language in this episode, so listener discretion is advised. It's not that bad, but just so you know, it's there.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Last time I saw you, we were in Japan.

• 5:18Speaker 07

  We were.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  A couple of weeks ago. But the last time I played music with you was at Willie Nelson's 90th.

• 5:24Speaker 07

  90th birthday.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 07

  That was something, wasn't it?

• 5:27Speaker 00

  That was so much.

• 5:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  It was like the most beautiful weekend ever.

• 5:32Speaker 07

  It really was special. I had some moments I'll absolutely never forget.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Same.

• 5:38Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you were the MD of the whole band. So you were there for like a week rehearsing, right?

• 5:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. We learned 55 songs or something like that, but we know him.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, you do know him, but it was still a lot.

• 5:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  And, because it was two nights and the setlist were completely different each night.

• 5:54Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so Chris Christopherson was there that night. Both nights, all week.

• 6:00Speaker 07

  Both nights. You and I were the last people to play with him.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  I know.

• 6:05Speaker 07

  You know, that was his last, last public performance.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  And it was beautiful.

• 6:10Speaker 07

  It was so touching, man.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 07

  I made four or five records with him. We were friends, like real friends, actually, you know, for 25, 30 years, I think. And just what a special cat, man.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 07

  I never knew anybody like him. Just smart and tough and, and tough and sensitive, like all at once, you know?

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 07

  He was, he was a superhuman.

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  And funny.

• 6:41Speaker 07

  Funny and, yeah, he just had it all going on.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  I know.

• 6:46Speaker 07

  And even as an older guy, man, I'd go places with him. Girls loved him so much.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  He still looked great.

• 6:52Speaker 07

  Crazy for him.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  I know.

• 6:54Speaker 07

  Even that last night, you know, he,

• 6:59Speaker 07

  I don't think we're telling tales out of school to say, you know, that his memory was gone.

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  Except for his songs.

• 7:06Speaker 07

  Except for the songs.

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  Yeah.

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  Which was a really incredible phenomenon that I'd never seen. He did a song once, we did it together, produced a record for him, where he sang a song called "Love is the Last Thing to Go."

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  Wow.

• 7:21Speaker 07

  And I think he had a lot of love in him. He just didn't, he wasn't sure if you were like family or a stranger.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 07

  So he was treating, and you could have a conversation with him, just it couldn't rely on anything that happened in the past or really about the future.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 07

  And I remember speaking with him, you know, before he got too far gone. I said, "What's it like, man? Is it scary?" And he said, "Well, it's a little scary to not know where you are all the time." He said, "But also, it's the thing you work for, to be present all the time." So that he had no choice but to be present.

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  That's true, yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 07

  And, and he was so healthy and so, so strong and, you know, like just an athlete, man. I just thought he'd go another 10 years. I thought he'd make it to 100 because he was so fit.

• 8:15Speaker 07

  But he didn't, and I sure miss him. He was one of a kind.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  He really was.

• 8:19Speaker 07

  And you were so beautiful with him that night. I'll never forget that.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Well, I, I give, I give Lisa, his wife, all the credit because she really helped me know what to do.

• 8:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  She said, "Just guide him and look at him when it's time for him to sing. He knows the song, he'll know the song."

• 8:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  And she really made it happen, I feel like.

• 8:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  The last few times I saw him, I feel like she really helped make it happen.

• 8:42Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, Lisa was, was great with him, yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 07

  It was great.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  So what was the first album you worked on with him?

• 8:47Speaker 07

  First album I did with him was, it's called A Moment of Forever.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  What year was that? Do you remember?

• 8:53Speaker 07

  It's in the 90s somewhere. And I was always kind of intimidated. I'd been around him, but I never spoke with him, really.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  He was kind of intimidating, even though he was very warm once you talked to him?

• 9:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, no, he was, he was the guy, you know?

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Him.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  And what had happened was, did you know Steven Bruton?

• 9:15Speaker 00

  No.

• 9:16Speaker 07

  He was a guitar player. He played with Chris for years, songwriter, and real talented guy, great guy. And he was also friends with Bonnie. And he, he wanted to play in Bonnie's touring band. So he said, "No, Chris isn't doing anything." And so Bonnie hired him. And then Chris said, "Why would you take my guitar player? So she said, "Well, I'm so sorry, you know, I didn't, I didn't mean that. Maybe, maybe we can get something else going." So she brought him to the studio for me to talk to him about making a record together. And so this was probably early 90s.

• 9:53Speaker 07

  And like I, like I said, I was intimidated. I was scared. And we got in the room and he said, you know, he said, "You want to make a record?" And I was thrilled to, you know, I'd gone to see him. I'd been a fan since he, since his first album came out.

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  Of course.

• 10:06Speaker 07

  And, and I said, "Of course I want to make a record with you." And he started crying.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 10:14Speaker 07

  Because he was just at a point in his career where his politics had kind of hurt him. And, you know, you know, it's cyclical.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Well, I feel like if anyone, he had the most up and down career.

• 10:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Because not only was he the best songwriter, you know, and we love him for everything he did in music, but he was a huge movie star.

• 10:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  And that is the most fickle business of all.

• 10:39Speaker 07

  It was, it was a wild trajectory he launched on. And, yeah, and the, the waves were big waves.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, huge waves.

• 10:49Speaker 07

  He was at the, at the trough of the wave at that point and unsure about his own value, I think.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Wow, and so he wasn't sure that you would say yes, maybe?

• 10:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, yeah. And, and just to see him just open up like that.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 11:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget it. So we made an album.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  That's beautiful.

• 11:11Speaker 07

  And then I bumped into it. We had a great time. It was a really nice record, too. And then I bumped into him a decade later and I saw him play, he started playing live solo.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  I remember when he was doing that. I missed it. I didn't get to see it, but it was.

• 11:28Speaker 07

  It was beautiful. It was really intimate. And I said, let's do an album like that. So he came to a studio to show me the songs he wanted to cut.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  And what, this is in like early 2000s?

• 11:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, early 2000s. Yeah, yeah. It's about 10 years after we did the album.

• 11:49Speaker 07

  And some people had come to see me right before this about doing some surround sound. They said, rather than repurposing old things, we want you to record it with that in mind. So Chris walked in and they had left a bunch of equipment for me. And we were just in the lounge of a studio in Hollywood. And I said, you know what I'm gonna do, man? Let me just set up like six mics around you. And it'll be like, like you're in somebody's living room. And we'll get to surround, but just with acoustic guitar and vocal. So let's just try it. It's an experiment. So we cut him out. The air conditioner was going. And there was a refrigerator in the room. And he just sat down and he played the whole album through. It's an album called This Old Road.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:33Speaker 07

  And at the end, I said, all right, I guess we're done.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  And that was it?

• 12:38Speaker 07

  Well, then I overdubbed some stuff.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 07

  I had Jim Keltner come in, play drums on a couple of things. And I played bass. I played piano on a song. And just Steve Bruton came in, played some mandolin. And we filled out a few things. But yeah, that was the record. And he was, it took him 45 minutes to make the album.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 12:58Speaker 07

  And, and I really loved that record. We did two other ones that were kind of like that. They're rough edged. Even rough edged, Pete, like Rodney Crowell said to me, man, that's pretty raw.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  But I think Chris lends, I mean, he, the way he played music lent itself, his gravelly voice. I don't want to hear him smooth.

• 13:17Speaker 07

  No, you don't want to hear him smooth.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 07

  This was very real. It was hyper real. And what he was singing about was, was very real. There's a song that he wrote on there called This Old Road. And it's just so crisp, man. The chorus is, ain't you come a long way? Which means something, like you're sort of proud. Ain't you come a long way down?

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 07

  Oh, I see. He's saying something else. This old road. So it kind of levels out. But he takes you out. What great writing that is, man.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I mean, he wrote so many great songs in all the eras, didn't he?

• 13:53Speaker 07

  All the eras. Yeah, he never stopped being a great writer.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, he put so many great records out when he was old and still doing it.

• 14:01Speaker 07

  Yeah. The last one we did is called Feeling Mortal. That's one of the last songs we cut. Wide awake and feeling mortal.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  That's all, that's all you need to say right there?

• 14:13Speaker 07

  And he, and he wrote to his age and to his time. And now that I'm his age, when, when we did those things.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 07

  I'm starting to look at him differently. I can really relate to things that were in the songs. And I just thought, oh, that's good poetry. Now I go, oh, I get it.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  I get it. Now you get it. It's funny how your frame of reference changes as you get older for everything.

• 14:37Speaker 07

  It sure is.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Especially for songs.

• 14:39Speaker 07

  It was getting old. It's the weirdest thing, Nora. It's like, I'm 73 and I don't feel.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  You don't seem like it.

• 14:47Speaker 07

  Well, I don't feel like it. I don't even really know what it means.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  You don't look like it and you don't seem like it.

• 14:52Speaker 07

  I wasn't fishing for that, but I appreciate it.

• 14:56Speaker 07

  Now, I feel the same. And I don't really know what it means. I think I will in a few years when things start to hurt. That's one reason I'm, I'm trying to play so much and get out. Well, I want to play bass. I want to get as good as I can on the thing.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  I think that's important.

• 15:15Speaker 07

  While my fingers still work, you know? But maybe I got 10 years of good fingers. I don't know.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Look at Willie, you know?

• 15:20Speaker 07

  Yeah, well, he's a real inspiration. Willie Ron Carter.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 07

  Ron Carter's 88. We just made a record with him on Blue Note.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Really?

• 15:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Was it with, with Bill? Or that's a different thing?

• 15:32Speaker 07

  It's a really wild record. I said to him, all right, you're 88. What's something you always wanted to do and you've never been able to do? And he surprised me. He said, as I get older, I keep hearing the sound of my old church in my head. And he grew up about a mile and a half from me. He's older than me.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  In Detroit?

• 15:50Speaker 07

  Detroit, yeah. And he said, the church he went to was so poor that they didn't have instruments. So it was an a cappella choir. And he wanted to do bass and a cappella gospel choir.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  What?

• 16:01Speaker 07

  So we hooked him up with a guy named Reverend Ricky Dillard, who's a very popular gospel choir master. And it's a gospel record.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  How beautiful.

• 16:11Speaker 07

  It's gorgeous, man. It's like, and it's straight ahead gospel. And Ron Carter's being Ron Carter on top of it. Same exploration he did on Stella by Starlight. He, he did on these gospel songs. And it actually is quite timely.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  I can't wait to hear that.

• 16:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's coming out early next year.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 16:31Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Well, I was wondering if, since you're feeling that song, that Chris song, if you wanted to do it.

• 16:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  You had suggested this one. And I remember when this album came out and I loved this album.

• 16:41Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  How do you feel about singing songs?

• 16:45Speaker 07

  Well, let's, let's find out afterwards.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  I love your voice, so.

• 16:54Speaker 07

  All right, we'll see.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  All right.

• 16:57Speaker 07

  G?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  This Old Road. Yeah. Is it cool in G?

• 16:59Speaker 07

  This Old Road, yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:08Speaker 07

  Look at that old photograph. Is it really you?

• 17:15Speaker 07

  Smiling like a baby for dreams.

• 17:23Speaker 07

  Smiling ain't so easy now. Some are coming true. But nothing ends as simple as it seems.

• 17:39Speaker 07

  I guess you count your blessings with the problems

• 17:47Speaker 07

  that you're dealing with today.

• 17:54Speaker 07

  Like the changing of the seasons.

• 18:00Speaker 07

  Ain't you come a long way?

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Ain't you come a long way?

• 18:08Speaker 07

  Ain't you come a long way down?

• 18:15Speaker 07

  This old road.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Looking at a looking glass. Running out of time.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  On a face you used to know.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Traces of a future lost

• 18:44Speaker 00

  in between the lines.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  One more rainbow for the road.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Thinking of the faces in the shadows

• 19:04Speaker 00

  that you passed along the way.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Or the last thing you believed in.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Ain't you come a long way? Ain't you come a long way? Ain't you come a long way down?

• 19:33Speaker 00

  This old road.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  See, you tried to chase the sun down.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  And to let it slip away.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  And the holy night is falling.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Ain't you come a long way? Ain't you come a long way? Ain't you come a long way down?

• 20:30Speaker 07

  Look at that old photograph.

• 20:35Speaker 07

  Is it really you?

• 20:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, Don.

• 20:44Speaker 07

  I got to sing with Norah Jones.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, I love your voice.

• 20:47Speaker 07

  Oh, God.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  I felt it.

• 20:51Speaker 07

  Well, that's good. Well, I mean it, you know.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  That's all that matters.

• 20:55Speaker 07

  I think it is.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 20:57Speaker 07

  But it'd be nice to have what you got.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, sometimes, yeah, I mean, you know, when you're singing pretty, if you're not feeling it, it doesn't matter.

• 21:09Speaker 07

  It doesn't matter.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  I messed up one word, but I think Chris would forgive us for a good take. I said shadows instead of window, and as soon as I did it, I thought, ah, that could work.

• 21:20Speaker 07

  That's actually maybe better.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Definitely not better, but.

• 21:23Speaker 07

  It's a stronger image.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  I think Chris would forgive it.

• 21:26Speaker 07

  He would.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  For a take that we felt.

• 21:28Speaker 07

  Well, the shadow could be, it's a reflection of you.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true.

• 21:32Speaker 07

  Whereas you weren't looking at yourself in a window.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Thinking of the faces in the window, thinking of the faces in the shadow. Well, I'm just gonna go with it. I feel good about that if you did.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  It's beautiful, though.

• 21:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 00

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• 23:48Speaker 00

  So you've never really sung on a record lead?

• 23:51Speaker 07

  Never.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Never?

• 23:53Speaker 07

  Never.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  What about live?

• 23:56Speaker 07

  No.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 23:58Speaker 07

  I'd like to, you know, I mean, I've always tried to get really good singers. We had a guy named Sweet Pea Atkinson in Was Not Was, who had the voice that I wished I had.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Oh, gotcha.

• 24:08Speaker 07

  He was the person I wished I was, man. I'll tell you a story. One time, we played a gig at the university in Glasgow, and they threw a little party for us in a pub next door. So we went over there, and it was, they were just so, so smashed, everybody, really drunk.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  That sounds fun.

• 24:29Speaker 07

  We hung out for a while, got back on the bus, and I looked out the window, and there were some, like, hooligans, like, maybe 20 of them, who had, who broke bottles and were pushing it under the tires of the bus.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 24:44Speaker 07

  And David Was and I, looking out the window, and we go, oh, no, what are we gonna do?

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:50Speaker 07

  It was a mob of yobs, I think is what they call me, soccer yobs. And, and we called Sweet Pea over, who was, like, it was winter time, he had his shirt off, he was changing out of his suit in the bus. I said, look what they're doing. He didn't hesitate, man. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and went out there with no shirt, but he had his hat and suit pants on. And he's like, you motherfuckers, clean this shit up.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  He scared him away.

• 25:17Speaker 07

  No, they cleaned, he made them clean it up.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  He, they actually cleaned it.

• 25:20Speaker 07

  Made 30 people, and they're, sorry, Sweet Pea, we didn't, you know.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Wow, that's intense.

• 25:24Speaker 07

  That was, that's the guy I wish I wasn't.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  I get it, I get it. Well, I mean, there's something to be said for being able to put that together.

• 25:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, it took character and courage and bravado.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 07

  And fearlessness. And he could sing like Wilson Pickett.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  And that's how he sang, with fearlessness, I think, also.

• 25:47Speaker 07

  He was like, why would I open my mouth when I had him in the band?

• 25:51Speaker 00

  That's crazy. My daughter, when we were texting about songs, she literally was humming "Everybody Walk the Dinosaur", and I swear I hadn't been playing it. It was so weird, the whole, the vibes there.

• 26:03Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  That was freaking me out.

• 26:04Speaker 07

  Creating a little Brooklyn energy vortex.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  I knew she knew that song, but like, still, it was weird that she was singing it right when I was texting.

• 26:10Speaker 07

  How'd she know it?

• 26:11Speaker 00

  I don't know. I mean, it's, it's pretty well-known, Don. I don't know if you know that.

• 26:15Speaker 07

  It pops up in cartoons. One time I took my son Sal, who's now 30, I took him to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese when he was three. And they used to, the animatronic band used to play it.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Oh, boy, that's fun.

• 26:28Speaker 07

  So I said, Dad wrote that song. And he's like, Dad?

• 26:31Speaker 00

  You didn't believe it? That's too funny. What year did that come out?

• 26:37Speaker 07

  Late 80s.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Okay. And at that point, had you been in the business, producing, playing, doing session work?

• 26:44Speaker 07

  What? I've been trying to. I've been trying to get a hold on things, and I was old, you know? I mean, relatively, to be going at it without real success. I was able to get some producing gigs, but I didn't have any hits. And actually, I was about at the point where I was gonna call Arif.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 27:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, who I didn't know.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  Arif Martin.

• 27:09Speaker 07

  I was just gonna say, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm doing the best I can, and.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Did you already know him?

• 27:15Speaker 07

  No.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  You just knew he would, you just wanted to call him?

• 27:19Speaker 07

  Because I admired him so much, and he'd made so many great records. I just wanted to, you know, even though I was in my late 30s at that point, I just want, I would have gotten coffee for him just to watch him work and try to figure out what I wasn't getting right. And then that summer, I did, I recorded Love Shack with the B-52s and Nick at Time with Bonnie Raitt, just a month apart.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  It's a good summer.

• 27:47Speaker 07

  It was a good summer, and I went from being a pariah to having work, and I'm still kind of riding the wave of those two records, I feel.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Isn't that crazy?

• 27:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  What year was that?

• 27:58Speaker 07

  I think it came out in 88, and it won the Grammys in 89.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 28:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, similar, you've been through a similar experience, where one night at the Grammys, kind of changes everything.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Changes everything, yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  I remember all that. I remember listening to the radio.

• 28:17Speaker 07

  It was so unexpected, you know? It was...

• 28:23Speaker 07

  The A&R guy at Capitol Records was a guy named Tim Devine, and he came to the studio to listen to a playback in Nick at Time. And he said to me, he said, you got a tux? I said, of course I do. What are you talking about? He said, well, you're going to the Grammys.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 28:38Speaker 07

  And I wanted to hit him. I mean, my first instinct was, you know, don't come around here with your fucking hyperbole, man. Just, do you like it or don't you?

• 28:47Speaker 00

  It's music, yeah, be soulful of that.

• 28:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, but he was being honest.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was right in the end.

• 28:52Speaker 07

  I've had to apologize to him once a decade since.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  That's so sweet.

• 28:58Speaker 07

  But we didn't see it coming.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  But it was such a great record, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 07

  We just wanted to make something that we'd be proud of 25 years later. That was, that was the goal.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  But shouldn't it always be the goal?

• 29:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, it should always be the goal. That was what I learned, the best business plan.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  At least for me. You know, there are some people who really, I think you have to be the thing. You just can't be, try to be something other than who you are. And if you have this pop sensibility, there are people making great pop records. And I'm just not one of them. I never was. It's just not what I like, and it's not.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Modern pop, maybe, but I mean, Love Shack is pretty.

• 29:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, Love Shack.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  But it was a unicorn, it was not like anything else.

• 29:42Speaker 07

  There was nothing like it.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  And so you did Bonnie and B-52s in the same, those are so different as well.

• 29:48Speaker 07

  They are, but.

• 29:51Speaker 07

  Not when you, when you take a step back and, and think about how goofy genre is, you know, I mean, you're a living testimony to the value of staring genre in the eyes and facing it down and defying it.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  I'm not, I, I, in my heart, I am, but from a commercial standpoint, I don't know. I wonder if I had gone-

• 30:18Speaker 07

  You're one of the most successful recording artists of all time.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  No, but I mean, after that first record, if I had gone more jazz and not tried to do all kinds of random stuff, I wonder if I would have stayed a little more successful. Do you know what I mean?

• 30:32Speaker 07

  I think you did the right thing.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  I'm not complaining. I'm happy where I am.

• 30:35Speaker 07

  Well, you've got a-

• 30:36Speaker 00

  But you know what I mean? That first record was huge.

• 30:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, but nobody can, you can't sell 30 million records of every record you put out. Nobody does that. But who are the people that have had interesting careers? Bob Dylan? Miles Davis, Neil Young? Prince had an interesting career. And God knows what he could have done in these last 10 years. It's such a tragedy, man. But you, you look at all those artists, what did they do? They kept moving and kept people guessing and brought people with them. Because they never changed who they were. Miles Davis, the manager's kind of blew Bitch's Brew or the stuff he did with Marcus Miller towards the end. He always was Miles. He just changed the textures around him. And Bob Dylan, it's kind of the same thing.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Can't change Bob.

• 31:24Speaker 07

  Always Bob, yeah. But the textures have changed dramatically. Neil's done that, changed his bands.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  No, I'm, I'm here for it. You know me, I'm happy.

• 31:33Speaker 07

  Well, you, you've done the right thing.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  I'm thrilled with how, how it's gone.

• 31:36Speaker 07

  I use you as a role model for younger artists. I thought they should aspire to be you. You, you want to be in that position.

• 31:44Speaker 07

  But you can play anytime you feel like playing. You can draw thousands of people to come and, and participate in the experience with you because there's nothing like that experience of playing live.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  It's so fun.

• 31:57Speaker 07

  That's what I really have become aware of in the last 15 years.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, you've been doing so much of it.

• 32:03Speaker 07

  I've been doing more, especially touring with Bob Weir. We have a band called Bob, Bobby Weir and the Wolf Brothers. And that Grateful Dead audience is a very receptive audience.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  I'll say, yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 07

  And they, they're, they're tuned into everything you're doing. They, they hear every note you play. Some of them can taste it, you know?

• 32:24Speaker 00

  They're in it.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  They're very present.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  They're very in it.

• 32:27Speaker 07

  And you, you can feel the energy of them responding. You get this kind of collective ecstasy going. And you feel it come back and it changes the next note you're going to play. And you play something different addressing that and they respond to that. And you get the cyclical energy thing going. You can blow the roof off a place.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's pretty special.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  And I don't know anything that feels like that, anything else, you know?

• 32:51Speaker 00

  No, it's addictive.

• 32:53Speaker 07

  It's super addictive. But you, you have to have the people there to have the experience. So you've done that. And you've done that by staying interesting, but never betraying yourself. You're always you.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  That's what I've always tried to do. I don't know how I got that at an early age, but I think I was just bad at faking it. So it just didn't feel right if I was faking it. Or like doing something I wasn't a wholly me.

• 33:18Speaker 07

  Well, I've been watching you up close now for 15 years as your record company president, right? And I've never seen you do anything that compromised integrity, ever.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Thanks, Don.

• 33:30Speaker 07

  And that's a very important quality. Most people will compromise to make a buck.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Well, I've, I've recently, yeah, sometimes you need to, but sometimes, I don't judge people anymore for doing it.

• 33:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't judge them either.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  As you get older, the bills add up, right? As we say, kids and family and bills, but I feel like when you took over the record company 15 years ago, you know, losing Bruce was such a big deal for me because he was really a mentor and a friend. And, but when you took it over, it felt not so scary. And it was great. And I feel like, you know, we've really gotten to know each other over the last 15 years. And I feel like you see me and I like that. I feel like you see me.

• 34:18Speaker 07

  I do, I really do.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  A nice feeling. Even Bruce didn't sometimes, you know? He didn't like a few of the last records I put out when he was there because it just wasn't his generation or something. But he, he was, he was a good enough friend to admit it, actually. After I'd done the promo and everything, he didn't say anything until after. He's like, did I ever tell you that story? After I did Little Broken Hearts with the Danger Mouse album, he's like, yeah, you know, I wasn't really into this. I didn't really get this album, but I kind of see it now. This is like a year after I put it out.

• 34:53Speaker 07

  But that's what you want, though. You want, I think that's the reaction you want. If, when people like a song in the first 30 seconds, they usually discard it within a week.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 35:04Speaker 07

  And it takes a while for some things to grow on you. It took me five years to figure out what was going on on Bitch's Brew. I listened to that. What are you doing? What are-

• 35:13Speaker 00

  I know.

• 35:13Speaker 07

  That's, those aren't the chords. I, I know. What is he playing underneath Miles? What, what is this music about?

• 35:20Speaker 00

  I have records like that that didn't, didn't click until years later.

• 35:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 07

  But then they click. And, and then you realize how great they are. So I think that's, there's something about instant gratification that's a non sequitur. To really be gratified, you need to drag it out.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, people have a lot of short attentions now. They, people have short attention spans now, but I think they should get more credit because

• 35:49Speaker 00

  stuff that is deep and meaningful really, really does connect with people. Even if it's not instant.

• 35:56Speaker 07

  I agree. People haven't fundamentally changed. Even if trends change, even if the way you receive your music and listen to it changes, it's still got to accomplish the same thing. It's still got to get under your skin, make people feel something. And hopefully you make them at least, at the very least, they feel better. After listening to you. But at, you know, when, and art's really great, they discover something about themselves. Helps them make sense out of life. Life is-

• 36:26Speaker 00

  That's the real connection, I think.

• 36:28Speaker 07

  It really is, you know, it's,

• 36:32Speaker 07

  yeah, I mean, life is so confusing. It's hard to be alive. It really is. There's so many challenges. And particularly in these times, so stressful and chaotic. And just for people to know that they're, that they're not alone, that's a, that's a big deal. You're not the only one sitting at home stressed out and waking up worrying about the government and everything, you know? That's a big thing to, to do for people. Let them know that

• 37:03Speaker 07

  you're, you're, there are other people like you, a lot of them, and that there's hope. It gives people hope.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  It does, I think.

• 37:09Speaker 07

  So, you know, that's what matters, not, not what textures are behind you.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's fun, too.

• 37:18Speaker 07

  It's cool. Well, that's, it's really fun. No, I mean, that's great.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just the feeling. It's really just the feeling, however you get there.

• 37:24Speaker 07

  By whatever means necessary.

• 37:25Speaker 00

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• 39:36Speaker 07

  Pan Detroit on sound.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Pan Detroit on sound.

• 39:39Speaker 07

  It's a mouthful.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  It is kind of a mouthful. And you grew up in Detroit, huh?

• 39:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I still have a place there. I go there a lot.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. But that's like what made you. The music of that town is so rich and specific.

• 39:52Speaker 07

  It really is, and it is specific.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 07

  And I think it has to do with, well, a couple of things. First of all, after World War II, people came from all over the world to work in the auto factories. And they brought their cultures with them. So you had this whole jambalaya of cultures and musical styles.

• 40:10Speaker 07

  And there's something about a working class town where everybody has their fate tied to the success or failure of one industry.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  That is a whole thing.

• 40:21Speaker 07

  It's a weird phenomenon.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is.

• 40:23Speaker 07

  But one of the byproducts of it is that there's really no point in putting on any airs because we all know the story. We all know we're dependent on this one business. And if it's not doing well, nobody's doing well. Not just factory workers, but waitresses and barbers. My parents were teachers, you know. They'd lay off teachers when workers got laid off in factories and moved away. So the music that comes out of there is pretty raw and honest. I always say John Lee Hooker is the essence of Detroit music. You know, it's so raw. You almost think it's going to fall apart.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 07

  But it doesn't, and it grooves like crazy. Having a strong groove is part of it. And John Lee Hooker, man, how much more real and honest are you going to get than him?

• 41:12Speaker 00

  The best.

• 41:13Speaker 07

  The best, right? So I think everything that came subsequently, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels, who were so important to put in like a real R and B groove under electric guitar band rock and roll. And then the MC5 and the Stooges come out of that. Funkadelic comes out of that. Jack White comes out of that. Donald Byrd and Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones come out of that. So there is a sound to Detroit. And what happened was Terrence Blanchard called me. For those who don't know, he's a great jazz trumpeter and film composer. And he wrote, he writes operas. He's a brilliant musician.

• 41:55Speaker 07

  And he was curating a series for the Detroit Symphony about Detroit jazz. He called me about three and a half years ago. And he said, you want to do One of the Nights? And it was two years ahead of the gig. Yeah, sure. Six months before, I started panicking like I did about singing that song.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  You nailed it.

• 42:16Speaker 07

  And I thought, oh, man, I don't have a band. I don't have, you know, I don't have songs. What am I going to do?

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Sometimes when you get to do whatever you want, it becomes confusing and yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 07

  That's it.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Difficult.

• 42:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  When there's no parameters.

• 42:32Speaker 07

  I had to remember everything I've told artists that I've produced or artists on the label who've seeked guidance. And it stems from, there was a period in the 90s where in really rapid succession, I got to work with Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Mick and Keith, Chris Christopherson, Willie Nelson, Leonard Cohen, you know, greatest writers of our time.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:00Speaker 07

  And it gave me writer's block for about five years because every time I sit down at the piano.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  That'll do it.

• 43:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, I just, you know, I watched him work and I admired him so much. And I just thought, you know, what's the fucking point? Just Brian Wilson lives a mile away. Give him this lyric, right? And then one day I was in the studio with Willie. And again, bemoaning the fact that I can't be him. And then it hit me, but he can't be you. He didn't drop acid and go see the MC5 in 1960.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 43:29Speaker 07

  George Clinton didn't play a sock hop at his junior high school, which happened to me. So be the thing he can't be, which is be yourself.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 07

  If you're just the best version of yourself, I think that's the only prayer you got.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 43:46Speaker 07

  So I thought, all right, go back to Detroit, find some other like minded individuals who grew up listening to the same radio stations and playing in the same bars and playing with the same musicians and who share this common Detroit musical language with you. So I called some people that I'd known for years and years. Some of them I've been playing with for 45 years.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 44:08Speaker 07

  And we got together in a room and we just started playing. And immediately it felt like we'd been playing together for 20 years. And one thing I've learned is if you can get that.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Don't lose it.

• 44:22Speaker 07

  Don't lose it. So we booked a bunch of other gigs and we've been touring ever since.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  It's so groovy. The record is so groovy.

• 44:29Speaker 07

  Oh, thank you.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  It's just got that feeling when you put it on.

• 44:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, good.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  It's a beautiful record.

• 44:34Speaker 07

  Thank you very much.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm happy for you.

• 44:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, thanks. We're having fun.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's special to have a new like baby. You know what I mean?

• 44:47Speaker 07

  It's a big deal. And I forgot about it. It's been a long time since I made a record. I never put, I had a record with my own name on it. And so there's a buzz in the name somewhere. But I always had a place to hide.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got you. It's a bass player thing.

• 45:02Speaker 07

  And I forgot. But it's like, I actually think it's been tremendously helpful in my role at Blue Note.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Really?

• 45:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, to remember what it's like to, when you're trying to turn life into notes, there are certain things that you need to hear and certain things you really don't need to hear. You don't need to hear about deadlines. You don't need to hear about, but you got to have the credits in next morning. And it's easy to forget what artists go through. So I think it's real important to have, it doesn't have to be necessarily the president of the company, but someone with a voice that is saying, no, don't say that to them. That's the wrong thing.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  You get it. That's great.

• 45:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, so it was a good refresher course.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  It's so wild to have a record label president who's just a touring badass busy musician as well.

• 45:57Speaker 07

  It's pretty wild. It's wild doing it. I mean, I.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it must be a lot. Do you have, do you have like brain attacks where you have to put on one hat and the other? Or does the music kind of bring those two sides together?

• 46:09Speaker 07

  You know, I'll tell you something. I read an interview with Frank Sinatra that he gave like in the 60s. And at the time, he was making movies. So he'd go to the film studio at five in the morning and film for the day. Then they'd drive him over to the studio in Hollywood, probably Capitol Studios. And he'd cut a song and then jump on a plane and go to Las Vegas and do Rat Pack at midnight. And he said, how do you do it? And he said, whatever you're doing, just be 100% present. Don't, don't be regretting the things you did earlier in the day. And don't be worrying about what's coming next. Just be there.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  That's a good, that's a good advice.

• 46:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, but I think you and me, I think we're similar like that. We do that because we knew we were doing this interview for a while.

• 46:56Speaker 00

  I didn't text you back because I couldn't get to it yet.

• 46:58Speaker 07

  But I didn't, I didn't really get to it either till yesterday, you know? So I finished touring on Saturday. And then you focus on the next thing.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 07

  And there was actually stuff I had to focus on yesterday, too.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 07

  So on the phone, I was on Zoom calls for Blue Note all day from the hotel.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's how it is.

• 47:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, so just be, be present.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  I need to be more present sometimes because there's times when I, especially with little kids, you know, I'm trying to plan something for the next day, but I'm actually with my kids. That's like a horrible epidemic. It's not just me. I think it's everybody. But that's when I really need to not, not be thinking of the other stuff. Because the planning that goes into everything is so irritating.

• 47:39Speaker 07

  It's tough.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  You know?

• 47:40Speaker 07

  You know what's really tough? Probably my biggest regret in life is that I wasn't present enough at the time with my kids. That I was doing stuff with them. And again, just worrying about how I was going to get them to the next place or what was, you know? And it takes you, supervising them takes you out of the moment.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, having to be in charge. I was talking to my son yesterday and I said, you know, I know I'm on my phone a lot sometimes and it's really annoying. But it's more annoying to me because it's not, it's not like I'm just looking at YouTube. I'm actually planning everything in your life, your school, your extracurriculars, your doctor's appointments, the damn patient portals, whatever, you know? And then work also. So he was like, he kind of understood.

• 48:29Speaker 07

  You know something? My youngest son Saul, who's, he's not 30, record producer, bass player.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  Oh, that's great.

• 48:36Speaker 07

  All three of my kids.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Really?

• 48:37Speaker 07

  They all produce and they all play.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 48:41Speaker 07

  And but Saul, when he went to college, I had to, just wait. That's the worst day of your life when your kids go to college, man. Call me before.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll call you.

• 48:54Speaker 07

  Because it does get better, but it's really, it's heartbreaking.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  I bet.

• 48:58Speaker 07

  And I remember dropping him off and like getting all choked up and saying, look, in the back of my mind, there was always going to be time when you were older for us to hang out. And I'm sorry that it didn't happen.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Aww.

• 49:11Speaker 07

  And he said, well, if it's any consolation to you, he said, I remember maybe 10 things from when I was a little kid and, and you were present for those things. That's all, that's what I remember.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  That's what he remembers.

• 49:27Speaker 07

  Which was a really beautiful generous thing to say.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  That is, that's nice.

• 49:33Speaker 07

  Good guy.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  God, I could cry. Well, we were talking about Detroit and you suggested you you turned me on to this YouTube clip that is pretty amazing.

• 49:44Speaker 07

  Isn't that something?

• 49:45Speaker 00

  The Marvin Gaye in Belgium.

• 49:47Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Live in Belgium and it starts with him drinking his tea and taking a spoonful of honey and he's just so like debonair, you know? What a swagger, right?

• 49:58Speaker 07

  Unbelievable.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Unbelievable. And then he he does this little Tammy Terrell tribute medley.

• 50:05Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  And everything is so slow and just velvety.

• 50:12Speaker 07

  Really, he brought out the depth in those songs because they go by fast. They're there for people to dance to.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Well, it was interesting because I I mean, I know these songs, but then these versions were so different and I went back to the originals and they're just two different songs almost.

• 50:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't actually think they got If This World Were Buying Right with Marvin and Tammy. It's a good record, but it's not a great record.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 50:38Speaker 07

  And Luther and Cheryl Lynn, I think, did it better.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  They did it better.

• 50:42Speaker 07

  Because you can't race through it.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  It's so romantic.

• 50:46Speaker 07

  It's so romantic.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  And when Marvin does it in this Marvin, when Marvin Gaye does it in this clip, this YouTube clip, I feel like I feel something romantic myself. Like, I feel like he means it.

• 51:04Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Really means it.

• 51:06Speaker 07

  Well.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  It's kind of hot. Like, it's very hot.

• 51:11Speaker 07

  Marvin Gaye.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  I mean, of course, it's Marvin Gaye.

• 51:13Speaker 07

  I mean, there's really no one better. To me, Let's Get It On is the best vocal.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Woo!

• 51:19Speaker 07

  Except for some of yours.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  No, don't put me in that category. I'm not in close.

• 51:23Speaker 07

  Well, I actually do put you in that category, but that particular vocal is the is the best vocal that I've ever heard anybody do.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 07

  And it's just the way he starts out so nice and gets kind of worked up.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:38Speaker 07

  And then you know you're not getting out of the room.

• 51:40Speaker 00

  It's amazing. It's it's quite hot, yes.

• 51:44Speaker 07

  So Marvin could tap into that, he certainly went a mile. I sold him eight-track tapes once.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  You did?

• 51:54Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  When you were a kid or a teenager?

• 51:56Speaker 07

  In high school, yeah. I had a gig at Crazy Jack's.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 51:59Speaker 07

  We used to do mobile radio and they sold eight-track. So a lot of the Motown artists used to come in. Marvin come in, he lived nearby. Stevie Wonder came in.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  How cool.

• 52:08Speaker 07

  I met Ronnie Wood the first time.

• 52:10Speaker 00

  Really?

• 52:11Speaker 07

  Because he came in with with Rod Stewart and God, the drummer, I forgot his name, but they were playing with the Jeff Beck Band.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  Okay. Wow.

• 52:22Speaker 07

  In six, I was in high school, 1968 or something like that. And but yeah, but I got to got to sell Marvin.

• 52:29Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 52:30Speaker 07

  I can't remember. I think he bought the like.

• 52:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, what was it?

• 52:33Speaker 07

  I think it was The Intruders. I've tried to remember.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 52:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, he bought, I think he bought The Intruders and a Flip Wilson comedy eight-track. That's what I remember.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Yes. How cool is that? Forgive me for not knowing the answer to this, but have you written a book?

• 52:47Speaker 07

  No, no.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  I think you might need to, and then you might need to record the audiobook because I got to hear all your stories.

• 52:54Speaker 07

  Well, I got a lot of them.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just stories. Don't think of it as about, it must be intimidating to think of that, but like.

• 53:02Speaker 07

  Here's what's intimidating is that I know that to get a decent book deal, they're gonna want, all right, so tell me about all Mick Jagger's girlfriends.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  I got you, more dirt, yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 07

  And I really see the relationship that a producer has, you, but the the fun part for me is getting to know a person so well and understanding how they work so I can help them make the decisions that they want to make.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  You don't want to spill all the beans.

• 53:26Speaker 07

  You can't, man. It's like you shrink writing a book about you or something like that.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Totally. You're absolutely right about that.

• 53:32Speaker 07

  It just seemed unethical. So people started approaching me in the 90s about like, let me work on this with you. We'll just, every six months, you'll tell me all the stories. And I imagined myself being 75 and broke and kneading the bread.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  Maybe then.

• 53:48Speaker 07

  And I thought, just don't give yourself the option, you know, because if you're starving, you'll do it and it's the wrong thing to do. So I just thought I'd live them and try to forget them, but some of it's unforgettable.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  I I still think you could make it make it work without spilling a bunch of beans because you still got some amazing ones.

• 54:08Speaker 07

  I think you can do it without spilling the beans.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  You make it short stories. Do short stories.

• 54:12Speaker 07

  You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to do a graphic novel.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  That'd be cool.

• 54:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Do you draw?

• 54:18Speaker 07

  No.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  You'd have someone else draw it?

• 54:20Speaker 07

  I'd like, there's a good one. We did one for Wayne Shorter.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  I was just gonna ask if you ever saw Wayne's comic books from when he was a kid.

• 54:27Speaker 07

  Of course, yeah.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 54:29Speaker 07

  Wasn't that the wildest?

• 54:30Speaker 00

  I'll never forget going to his house and he took me down to his office and showed me these comic books from when he was a teenager that he drew and everything.

• 54:37Speaker 07

  Did he show you the Captain America figures?

• 54:39Speaker 00

  I think so, yeah.

• 54:41Speaker 07

  He used to, he told my kids this and I thought that he, I thought he was speaking metaphorically. He said, when I write a song, I turn the TV on to Fox News.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  He told me this too.

• 54:54Speaker 07

  Right. And then I set up a semicircle of Captain America figures to protect me and then I pick up the horn and I argue with the news. And I thought he was being metaphorical about play life, don't play notes, right? And then the first time I went to his house, there's the TV and there's the semicircle.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  You didn't think it was real? It was real.

• 55:14Speaker 07

  He was literal, yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  He told me that too and I was like, where am I? Who is this alien unicorn god?

• 55:22Speaker 07

  He is some, he was something else, wasn't he?

• 55:24Speaker 00

  What a sweetheart, too.

• 55:25Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm so glad we both got to spend some time with him.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 55:29Speaker 07

  Get to know him.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  Really special.

• 55:31Speaker 07

  He did beautiful work with him, too. I loved that record.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  He was the perfect example of someone who only played when he felt moved to.

• 55:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 00

  He never, he didn't even come in on one of the songs until halfway through and I thought, oh, no, he's not gonna play. But then I was like feeling it and then all of a sudden he just like came in like gangbusters.

• 55:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's a right one. I'll never forget that gig you did at the Kennedy Center. I think I had introduced you and I was just sitting on the side of the stage and that thing went to the far ends of the solar system and back.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  That was fun.

• 56:08Speaker 07

  It was just magnificent.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that wasn't even the first time I'd played with him, but it was the only time I played with him live and it was, it was pretty sweet.

• 56:20Speaker 07

  There's got to be a tape of that somewhere.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  There's a YouTube, I think, yeah.

• 56:25Speaker 07

  Oh, there is.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 56:27Speaker 07

  There got to be.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  I would assume, yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 07

  I'd like to see that again. I just remember feeling it so, so deep. I felt like there were, he took it someplace where like there were like ancient, universal truths being revealed and I think.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was a very open, modal song, too, so it got to kind of go back into that vibe that, you know? I give Jason Moran all the credit for that, putting that together.

• 56:53Speaker 07

  That was really something.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  It was really special that he, he really, I feel like he saw something there and he he made it happen.

• 57:00Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 07

  The whole show. Jason's an incredible guy. He he's still, he's batting a thousand with me in terms of maybe once every two years, he says, you got to check this kid out.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  Oh, that's amazing. And it's always something amazing.

• 57:13Speaker 07

  That's how we ended up with Emmanuel Wilkins. He pointed Emmanuel out when he was a teenager and he just said, this is the guy.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 07

  He's right.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  Jason is deep and I love him. You've never sang, but you sang a lot of harmony, right?

• 57:26Speaker 07

  No, I really don't.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  Not really?

• 57:28Speaker 07

  No, I mean, I can, but I just, with Weir, we could use an extra harmony voice, but I'm.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  You shy?

• 57:36Speaker 07

  No, I'm focusing on playing the bass right, you know? It's challenging. It was challenging doing that because of Phil.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:47Speaker 07

  To follow in in the specter of him, you know, was like hard because I don't know what he's doing. He's got an approach to bass that's.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Totally different.

• 57:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I thought, well, if you just play the right notes, it's like the bar band doing it. So how can I, how can I make it different every night and connected to something and still not get in the way of Bobby's singing? Which was the goal of both brothers, was to just have space so he could phrase and and tell the story differently every night without being boxed in by.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  That's true. Harmony's box you in a little.

• 58:26Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Unless you're a really good follower. You know who's really good at following? Well, Willie.

• 58:31Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Willie Nelson's one of the most notorious phrasers, you know, the way he phrases things is different every time. But I'll never forget the first time I sang with him. I was like, how am I gonna sing with him? He's phrasing all over the place and then he locked in with me.

• 58:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  And he followed me and I followed him and it was like this weird, snaky thing and he's so locked in when he's singing with someone.

• 58:53Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, he he can do it if you want him to. He just doesn't want to, you know?

• 58:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, but when he's singing alone, it's fine.

• 59:00Speaker 07

  It's incredible.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  But when he's singing with someone, he doesn't leave you in the dirt.

• 59:03Speaker 07

  You sung with Bob, right?

• 59:05Speaker 00

  I did. I sang Must Have Been the Roses with him.

• 59:08Speaker 07

  Yeah. No, I mean Dylan.

• 59:10Speaker 00

  Oh, Dylan.

• 59:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 59:12Speaker 00

  I thought you were talking about Bob Weir.

• 59:13Speaker 07

  No.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Actually, I did sing with Bob Dylan one time.

• 59:15Speaker 07

  He doesn't wait around for you, does he?

• 59:16Speaker 00

  Well, I sang, I sang I Shall Be Released and I didn't really know, I hadn't met him yet and I never met him again. And I only met him after the show, after the show. I didn't meet him before I went on stage. Same thing happened to me with Willie Nelson.

• 59:28Speaker 07

  Oh, boy.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  I didn't meet him, I met him on stage.

• 59:30Speaker 07

  Oh, God.

• 59:32Speaker 00

  And I sang I Shall Be Released and I got the words wrong.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  But I know that song like the back of my hand, but I've never looked at the lyrics because I thought I knew it.

• 59:42Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  And I got the words a little wrong, but whatever. It was fun.

• 59:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's really cool.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  It was cool.

• 59:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 00

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• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  If this world were mine, I'd place at your feet.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  All that I own, you've been so good to me. If this world were mine, I'd give you the flowers, the birds and the bees. With your love inside me, that would be all I need.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  If this world were mine, I'd give you everything.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Ain't nothing like the real thing.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Ain't nothing like the real thing. I've got your picture hanging on the wall, but it can't see. Or come to me when I call your name. And I realize it's just a picture in a frame.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  I read your letters when you're not near. But they don't move me, and they don't move me like when I hear your sweet voice whispering in my ear.

• 1:05:25Speaker 00

  Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Ain't nothing like the real thing.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Ain't nothing like the real thing.

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  I almost wanted to hang on the five, but I'll never forget working with Arif Martin. He would have been like, no, no, no, no, no. There's something about resolving that he really wanted it to resolve all the time. Yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 07

  I'd listen to Arif anytime.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have some good Arif stories. He also, when I was doing that Hoagy Carmichael song, The Nearness of You.

• 1:06:43Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  I think I'd sung it a lot at that point. At a lot of restaurants, probably. And I always did the

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  and then at the end, it's just the nearness of you. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta sing the melody there. It's just the nearness of you. Well, now I can't remember it, but he was really intent that I get the melody right there and not kind of phrase it differently. And every time I sing that song, I think of Arif at that point. Every single time, it's been 20, over 20 years.

• 1:07:20Speaker 07

  You know, I told you before, I wanted to call him and be his apprentice. And a couple of years later, I won the Grammy for Producer of the Year. And I didn't know him, but he sent me the most beautiful note. I still have it. I got it framed, you know.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  For the Bonnie record or something else?

• 1:07:38Speaker 07

  Well, there was a Bonnie, I did a bunch of records.

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, so it was the Producer of the Year. You've done so much that.

• 1:07:45Speaker 07

  And he said, he just said, you know, something like, congratulations on your well-deserved award. But it was so moving.

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  How beautiful.

• 1:07:53Speaker 07

  Especially, you know, coming from a master like him.

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  Did you ever get to hang with him?

• 1:07:58Speaker 07

  A little bit.

• 1:08:01Speaker 07

  I met him when he, I guess after your record, he started, he did Manhattan records with Bruce.

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was running Manhattan.

• 1:08:07Speaker 07

  So I think when I produced Amos Lee or something like that, he was still, he still had an office there. And I went in and saw Bruce and it was before I worked there.

• 1:08:17Speaker 00

  So just for a little bit?

• 1:08:18Speaker 07

  Just, yeah, I never really got to.

• 1:08:20Speaker 00

  Just a brief moment?

• 1:08:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. But, and I'd run into him in studios a few times, but I never got to like go to dinner with him. But from all accounts, he was a lovely gentleman and certainly incredibly talented.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  I wish you got to go to dinner with him. And he got to go to dinner with you. He would have loved you.

• 1:08:40Speaker 07

  Thank you. Oh, there's one thing I got to set straight. I did listen to the Glasper episode where we talked, where he talked about, I can't make you love me.

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you about that song because it comes up a lot. When I'm asking people to choose covers, it's going to be on another episode, too.

• 1:08:56Speaker 07

  Oh, that's wild. Good.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 07

  But I really appreciate that Robert remembered us talking about it. I walked into a bar one night and he was, he didn't know I was there and he didn't know I'd produced it and he just broke into it.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 1:09:08Speaker 07

  And I thought he did it for me, but he.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  So did you tell him after? That's hilarious. Yeah.

• 1:09:14Speaker 07

  But I do want to point out that Mike Reed was the guy who wrote the music, Alan Shandor, and Mike wrote the lyrics. And Mike, Robert's correct, he used to be a defensive back for the Cincinnati Bengals. But he's also got like a master's in English Lit and has written incredible songs.

• 1:09:34Speaker 07

  But he really did come up with all those kind of Celtic voicings.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  Really? It wasn't Bruce Hornsby?

• 1:09:40Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:09:41Speaker 07

  It's in Mike's demo, and I've really got to give him the credit for that because without that, you don't have the song.

• 1:09:48Speaker 00

  It's such an interesting, it's a hard song.

• 1:09:51Speaker 07

  It's really hard song.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  It sounds easy. I actually started learning it for another podcast that's coming up. But I, because I had, I thought I played, I think I played piano at my junior prom, but I think I played a really dumbed down version because I could not figure it out. It is so deceptively simple, but hard.

• 1:10:11Speaker 07

  It's really complex.

• 1:10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Speaker 07

  And if you don't get those kind of Celtic passing tones in there, then it takes a lot of the pathos out of it.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're important.

• 1:10:20Speaker 07

  We had a thing with Bruce at the session because Bruce, I love him dearly, man, and he's a genius. He was going through a thing at that time where he did not want to be a session guy.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  Oh, got you.

• 1:10:30Speaker 07

  You know, like, I'm just gonna come in, I'm gonna play. Don't tell me what to play. And with Bonnie, we used to cut demos in my house on every song that we cut with just her either playing guitar and singing or playing keyboards and singing. And if it didn't work like that, we figured there's nothing we're gonna add arrangement wise. There would just be more things that weren't working.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  If the song wasn't working.

• 1:10:53Speaker 07

  So if we could get to, but I Can't Make You Love Me, she didn't want to do it because she was gonna Stanislavski the moment and find she had a moment in her life that she was gonna revisit to deliver that song, and then she never wanted to go back to it again.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  She didn't want to do the demo.

• 1:11:11Speaker 07

  She didn't want to do the demo. She wanted it to happen one time. So we're all set up with Bruce, and Bruce didn't want to listen to the demo. He said, no, I can do this. And he had a basic-

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  You mean the other person singing?

• 1:11:22Speaker 07

  The Mike Reed demo.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  The Mike Reed demo, okay.

• 1:11:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, thank you. And we did it once, and those things were missing. And there's no way he could have known that it was there. And he could tell that Bonnie wasn't totally into it. And he said, all right, play me the fucking demo. And we put Mike Reed's thing on, and he was like, oh, totally, I get it.

• 1:11:46Speaker 00

  He got it, yeah.

• 1:11:47Speaker 07

  And then he did all that and more. I mean, he definitely added to it, and the whole thing on the end was him. But I do want to give Mike some credit.

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, for the actual shell of those weird chords.

• 1:11:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, brilliant. He's just a really soulful guy.

• 1:12:04Speaker 00

  Oh, man, that's beautiful. I love that.

• 1:12:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's quite a session. I mean-

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  I bet.

• 1:12:09Speaker 07

  The next take was it after he listened. And the only thing we had to fix was the couple of lines where Bonnie was crying.

• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 1:12:17Speaker 07

  And we went back and punched those.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Well, it comes through.

• 1:12:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  That's such a heavy song. Such a deep song. That is a real human song.

• 1:12:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Speaker 07

  Yeah. I've heard something, Prince covered it.

• 1:12:31Speaker 00

  Yeah?

• 1:12:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  Oh, I've never heard that version.

• 1:12:34Speaker 07

  Well, he sings it, and then he says something like, come here, baby. I wanna sex you up. And I thought, oh, my God, he's got no idea what this is.

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  He like, put something weird in it. Well, sometimes you, sometimes you get some, sometimes you don't, right? Even if you're friends.

• 1:12:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, that one runs real deep.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Speaker 07

  And, you know, I don't know. You get songs like that if you're lucky, once or twice in a lifetime.

• 1:13:04Speaker 00

  There's another song I used to cover that I had no idea you produced, is that Keith Richards song, The Worst, from Voodoo Lounge.

• 1:13:12Speaker 07

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  How many Stones albums have you produced?

• 1:13:17Speaker 00

  You have to think about it. Isn't that interesting?

• 1:13:19Speaker 07

  I mean, it was like over 30 year period.

• 1:13:21Speaker 00

  I know, it's crazy.

• 1:13:22Speaker 07

  There was Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon, and Bigger Bang, Blue and Lonesome, and then a whole lot, a couple of live albums. Then we went back and did, we found songs that weren't finished from exile on Main Street, finished, and we did that. And there'd be the odd song for like a greatest hits thing that they cut a couple of new things for. So there's a lot. It's been a lot of time.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  That's a lot of, that's a long relationship.

• 1:13:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I learned a lot from that, and-

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  It must be different working with a band than a solo artist.

• 1:13:56Speaker 07

  It's totally different, yeah.

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  That's a whole other book, probably.

• 1:14:00Speaker 07

  That's a whole other book. But here's what I will tell you. You know, people focus a lot on the differences between the two principals. And having been in bands for most of my life, I find the DNA code of a band to be remarkably similar wherever you go. So I understood that. But what I didn't know until I actually got to play with them, which I did a lot, if Darryl Jones couldn't be there, I'd rehearse with them. The musical conversation that goes on inside the Rolling Stones is jocular and relaxed and generous, man. They're throwing, you know, they're lobbing the ball to the other

• 1:14:42Speaker 07

  guy. And Charlie would play something on the hi-hat, and Keith would respond to it. And that would change how Mick phrased the line, which would change what Ronnie played. And there was a conversation that was playful and had absolutely no animosity or, there's no conflict ever in the live playing. They just fall together. And that's how to view their relationship.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Speaker 07

  That they're that close, man, that they've been having this fun, relaxed interplay for 60 some years. The other stuff is nothing.

• 1:15:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't even think about that stuff. I don't pay attention to the other stuff.

• 1:15:28Speaker 07

  I mean, it's awfully public, but it's just ephemera.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  It's just fodder.

• 1:15:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, they're so tightly locked, and there's, it was so much fun to play with the Rolling Stones.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  Well, I can imagine.

• 1:15:40Speaker 07

  I was always like really sad when Darryl came.

• 1:15:44Speaker 00

  Darryl, can you go get some coffee, please?

• 1:15:48Speaker 07

  It was just, it was just a gas.

• 1:15:50Speaker 00

  I bet.

• 1:15:53Speaker 07

  And they're great guys, man. They were wonderful to me. I learned so much from them. You know, all of them. Mick and Keith are radically different, and both of their approaches are good to know about.

• 1:16:07Speaker 00

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• 1:18:07Speaker 07

  The song The Worst, he basically, this is a really good example of how Keith would write, because he had some chords, and he cut it, and he had a "said from the first, I am the worst" kind of guy. But he didn't have the rest of it. So he cut this track, and then we went back, we did the overdubs in my house in LA. So he really wrote it in my living room.

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  Oh, fine.

• 1:18:30Speaker 07

  And he wrote it by, I'd say, every other night, he'd fortify and then step up to the microphone and just sing, stream of consciousness. And he was fearless, man, there are other people listening, and he didn't care if he said the stupidest thing in the world. He was just, just so, man, you know, so powerful and charismatic and-

• 1:19:02Speaker 07

  And unselfconscious. And then we'd go through and you'd say, that line, that's a good, keep that line.

• 1:19:08Speaker 00

  That one.

• 1:19:09Speaker 07

  And over, you'd do it for a month.

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:19:12Speaker 07

  And at the end, he's not one to sit there with a yellow legal pad and a rhyming dictionary.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, but a month. This is, sounds just like a honky tonk, straight from the heart, like quickie.

• 1:19:21Speaker 07

  Well, it, it is because he wouldn't do it for, he'd do it one time.

• 1:19:27Speaker 00

  Do it for like five minutes.

• 1:19:28Speaker 07

  And then walk away from it.

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, I got you.

• 1:19:29Speaker 07

  And he'd just, what he wanted to be was fresh and he didn't want to be thinking.

• 1:19:33Speaker 00

  He would just catch that gold.

• 1:19:34Speaker 07

  He just wanted to feel it. Yeah. So I think that comes through in the songs. One of my favorite things that we did.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  I love that song. Yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 07

  And you used to play it.

• 1:19:41Speaker 00

  Did you know that I used to cover it when you put it on that playlist?

• 1:19:44Speaker 07

  No, I didn't know that. No.

• 1:19:45Speaker 00

  Isn't that funny?

• 1:19:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 1:19:46Speaker 00

  So bringing it all full circle to the beginning of this hang, I heard him do that song, I think at Willie Nelson's 70th birthday, I think.

• 1:19:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, that could be.

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  I think, maybe.

• 1:19:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, that could be.

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  He also did, they did Dead Flowers together, which was really fun.

• 1:20:05Speaker 07

  That was good. I saw you do-

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  And I had just come out and I was pretty new and nobody knew me. And I got to meet Keith.

• 1:20:10Speaker 07

  Oh, so that's-

• 1:20:11Speaker 00

  At the Ryman. It was at the Ryman.

• 1:20:12Speaker 07

  At the Ryman.

• 1:20:13Speaker 00

  And it was Willie's 70th birthday.

• 1:20:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, I did his 60th and his 90th.

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:20:18Speaker 07

  But I wasn't there at the 70th.

• 1:20:19Speaker 00

  Okay, that's so cool.

• 1:20:21Speaker 07

  But I saw you play with Keith at Universal Amphitheater when you did Love Hurts.

• 1:20:25Speaker 00

  Really? You were there?

• 1:20:26Speaker 07

  Yeah, I went with him, yeah.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was my, that was my, one of my favorite things that's ever happened. Yeah.

• 1:20:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I remember-

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  Keith wants to do Love Hurts with you.

• 1:20:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  At the Grant Parsons Tribute. I was like, what?

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  And then I think we, there was a moment at soundcheck, because we did rehearse it, but there was a moment where it was like, let's, let's sing it on one mic. And I loved that. I had so much fun. But when I looked at, when I look at the video later, I looked terrified, but I was so like in it and trying to just praise with him.

• 1:20:55Speaker 07

  That was beautiful. But, but one thing, I didn't know you then.

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Speaker 07

  So we didn't talk, but I remember you coming offstage and saying to Jane Rose, you said, "He smells like amber and cigarettes. It's so great."

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  He smells so good. No, I asked Jane. I said, I said, "God, he smells good." She goes, "I know, right? It's amber." And I was like, "Oh, it's amber and cigarettes. I love it." It was my favorite smell.

• 1:21:19Speaker 07

  It was beautiful. That was a really, I think it's the first time I was ever in the same room as you.

• 1:21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, I loved that show too.

• 1:21:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Speaker 07

  That was pretty cool.

• 1:23:56Speaker 00

  That was great. That was so fun.

• 1:23:58Speaker 07

  He'll love that too. That's pretty cool.

• 1:24:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I hope so.

• 1:24:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:24:01Speaker 00

  Thanks, Don.

• 1:24:02Speaker 07

  Hey, Nora.

• 1:24:03Speaker 00

  I love you.

• 1:24:04Speaker 07

  I love you too. This is really fun.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm glad we got to do this.

• 1:24:07Speaker 00

  Me too. I really love you. Thanks.

• 1:24:11Speaker 06

  Aww, Don. He's so chill.

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:24:17Speaker 06

  You can't, you have to be relaxed when he's in the room.

• 1:24:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's calming.

• 1:24:21Speaker 06

  He's a calming energy.

• 1:24:22Speaker 00

  I imagine being a producer.

• 1:24:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 00

  That really, really works for him.

• 1:24:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Speaker 00

  Because artists can be kind of all over the place.

• 1:24:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:24:30Speaker 00

  It must be a nice presence to make a record with him.

• 1:24:33Speaker 06

  Grounded energy, yeah.

• 1:24:35Speaker 00

  Love you, Don. Thank you for joining us. If you'd like to know the songs we did on this episode, the first song we did was "This Old Road," which was written by Kris Kristofferson from his album, Produced by Don Was. And he also played bass on the album. The album is called "This Old Road," from 2006. The second thing we did was a medley of a couple of songs that were originally performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. It's a copy of a medley that Marvin Gaye did that's on YouTube. It's a pretty great thing if you want to check it out. The first song was "If This World Were Mine" from 1967, from their album, United. The second song was "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" from "You're All I Need," which was released in 1968.

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  The third song we did was called "The Worst," and it's a Rolling Stone song written by Keith Richards and also sung by Keith on a record that Don produced called Voodoo Lounge, which was released in 1994. Special thanks to Don Was for joining us today, and we'll be back next week with Linda Perry. Norah Jones is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Norah Jones. This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry, photography by Sherwin Lanaz, produced by Norah Jones and Sarah Oda, executive producers Erin Wong Kaufman and Jordan Runtog, marketing lead Allison Cantor-Graeber. Thanks, y'all.

• 1:26:05Speaker 05

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• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  If you love music and great artist interviews, check out Before the Moment, hosted by Nile Rodgers. This new series follows Nile as he travels across the country, talking with some of today's most fascinating artists about the moments that shaped their lives and careers. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the point where everything changed, and this podcast tells the stories that came before it. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 1:27:44Speaker 00

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