QLS Classic: Bruce Hornsby

This week on Questlove Supreme mega talented, multiple award winning singer songwriter, composer and pianist Bruce Hornsby shares his story.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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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. Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. Hello, hello, hello. What's going on, y'all?

• 1:43Speaker 00

  It's Questlove. We've been re-releasing a lot of the QLS episodes that we taped during the pandemic. And today's classic episode with Bruce Hornsby, who has been incredibly cool. When we spoke to him in 2020 is no exception. Bruce is an absolute open book when he talks about the music he loves and finding success in the eighties with The Range and his relationship with that material. And he also gets into his collaborative relationships with The Grateful Dead and fellow QLS guest Bonnie Raitt, and his unexpected connection to a legend from my hometown. Yes, I'm always in Philadelphia, despite what you heard.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, his role in the life of Allen Iverson is an eye-opener. So this year, Bruce released an album, Indigo Park, which features Bob Weir, Ezra from Vampire Weekend, and Bonnie Raitt. So I want you to check it out. And this episode is fun, spirited, packed with some stories. And Bruce Hornsby, me, Fonte Gallow, unpaid bill, and Sugar Steve. Enjoy it. Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? This is another episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm your host, Questlove Jenkins.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  We're with Team Supreme today. Sugar Steve in the house, hello. Hello. Quarantine Steve. Quarantine Bill.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  What's up, man? How you doing?

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Holding it down.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Okay. It asterisk or just definitive it?

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Holding it, semicolon, down. Everything's good. Working on some music for the street, all as well.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Okay. Got to keep the streets happy. And Fonte Gallow?

• 3:38Speaker 04

  I'm good, brother. I'm good, man. Doing the work as well. Can't complain.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Cool, cool. All right. Well, our guest today is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, producer, composer. He has actually come to us in many forms over the past three decades.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  For real, for real.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Either as a soloist or fronting one of his many projects. Sounds like Questlove. Either a member of The Range, The Noisemakers at one point.

• 4:07Speaker 04

  Ambrosia.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  And Ambrosia.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  Not really, but okay.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Hey, we'll take it. We'll take it. Wait a minute. You know what? And I often do this. I'm not interrupting my own intro. Yes or no? All right, I'm a Soul Train collegist. Is that you on Soul Train with Sheena Easton?

• 4:27Speaker 05

  That's hilarious. You've nailed me.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  I just, yo.

• 4:35Speaker 05

  Good night.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  I think, like, I have all the episodes and I keep them on loop. And like, three weeks ago, she was on doing Sugar Walls, and I was like, wait a minute, is that her? And I, that was you. Okay, okay, okay.

• 4:49Speaker 05

  Well, well, look, yeah, there's a funny story about it. Look, I played with her for two years, and sure, we did Soul Train, and I appear looking like a complete clown, most likely.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Nah, you was grooving, man.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  I haven't seen that for years, but I tell you what, as a parent of a Division One basketball player who's now a pro in Germany, I used that to, for a great benefit. My son Keith played at LSU, and he was live on national TV his junior year against Texas A&M on ESPN1, and he had a pretty rough game. And we're back at the hotel, the Cook Hotel on LSU campus, and he's just bumming, he's really down. And I said, you know what? I'm going to change your mood right now. Go to YouTube and look up Sheena Easton Strut and Sheena Easton Sugar Walls, featuring me looking like a complete idiot. And so he looked at his dad, just sort of undulating around with sunglasses on, and

• 5:45Speaker 05

  it just, he just fell out, and his mood changed, just like I predicted. And so you know what? Whatever works to help your kids get through the tough times, my clownish appearances in Sheena videos work.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  I assure you that. Exaggerating, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway.

• 6:03Speaker 05

  You had another song, Bruce.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Can I say who was on the?

• 6:05Speaker 05

  I forgot, we still in the intro.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, who's on the show?

• 6:07Speaker 00

  We didn't even talk about his work with Dijonette, Jack Dijonette, and my high school mate, Kristen McBride.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  Yes, Philadelphia schoolmates, yes.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, not to mention, you know, your musicianship, your DNA is all over our favorites by Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, so many projects. This intro's going to be forever, ladies and gentlemen.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  He played with Squeeze.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  What?

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  When?

• 6:34Speaker 04

  I don't know. I saw it on Wikipedia.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  Just to be accurate, I played on one of their records, a great record, Walk a Straight Line.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  Beautiful, you know that one?

• 6:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  It's a, it's a great, not a hit, but it's a beautiful song.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  What album is it? Squeeze Head.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  What album is it on?

• 6:51Speaker 05

  It's called Play.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:54Speaker 05

  From the early mid 90s, and I played accordion, yeah, on that.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  I'm sorry, all right.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  So let me just say the two words so we can start the episode. Bruce Hornsby, the Questlove Supreme. Thank you. Anyway. Yeah, we often fall in the rabbit holes even before we get the name of the artist out.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  Who cares? It's fine. Bruce Hornsby, Easton veteran.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  So right now, you're celebrating the release of your 22nd record, correct?

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Yes, that's, that's true, sir.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  So, so without my knowledge of your deadhead years, can I, can I assume that the fact that you have about, I believe it is 26 live albums, that's the lesson that you learned from playing with The Grateful Dead?

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Well, okay, people always ask me, what, how did playing with The Dead change your musicianship, change your approach, et cetera? I was always an improvising musician. I went to school, I was one of those music school geeks. I started off at Berkeley for two semesters, but then I went to University of Miami, Sun Ten U, known to a lot of people, four-year paid vacation for rich northern kids, northern white kids. Anyway, I came out with that background, and so the improvisational aspect of The Dead was not anything that was sort of epiphanal for me, epiphanic.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  It was, what I got out of them mostly was inspiration on the songwriting level. People don't realize that they have fully 50 truly great songs. Half of them sound like they could have been written 100 years ago or plus, old folk music. A deep well of, of influence there. So, so I love them. I miss Garcia. He was quite a guy. He was a rock guy.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  And you were there during the Garcia years.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, the last spot. I played with them just for 20 months or so. I played about 100 shows with them from 1990 to 92. We'd opened for them before that.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Okay, oh, so you played to ninety-two, okay.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, but then I stood in with them when they were geographically close to me up through ninety-five, up right up to his death.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, I went to one Garcia show, I think in Houston, when, uh, Branford Marcellus was sitting with them.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  Yes, my guy, yes, Branford, uh, and I played together with the Dead quite often, uh, it's, his birthday's coming up here pretty soon, fellas, so maybe you should shout his ass out.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Are you on, uh, Without a Net, the, the Dead live?

• 9:36Speaker 05

  No, that's Branford's on that, um.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Okay, to, to, uh, respond to the twenty-six live albums to which you're referring, uh, that's albums, I mean, they're just available online, there are no, there's no CDs made of those. But frankly, we're like a lot of bands, I write the songs, we record the songs, and then we learn how to play the songs. So consequently, the live thing expands everything that we started with on the original record. And so, so quite often, live is the best way to hear us, because it's very loose, it's very free. Uh, Branford sits in with us quite often, because he knows that we're winging it like crazy, and because I don't know what I'm gonna do, so if I don't know what I'm gonna do, the band guys definitely do, and it makes it great fun.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  Is it, is there a pressure for you to make a memory each and every night, knowing that some of these fans will follow you? Like, there, there to me is no more loyal fanbase than, you know, anything associated with the Dead, or sixty degrees within it, so.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  How did that affect your actual, the way that you put on shows?

• 10:46Speaker 05

  I think I probably started taking it a little more out than I had been doing, you know, I was always improvising, but I got a lot freer, much to the chagrin of a lot of my fans. You know, when you come out having these big hit radio songs, you acquire an audience that I call sort of a softcore one, people who are only there to hear the songs they know.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  Only for the hit, yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right, and so, I was never that guy, so I've, it's been my self-appointed job to piss those people off for many a year. And, and, and so, the nasty letters abound in my world for, for thirty-two years now.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Wait, you're saying that you've gone shows without playing Modern Rain or, or The Way It Is, or?

• 11:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, not many, I, I've, I've become a lot more kind about it in my senescence here, in my sixties, but I, there have been shows, but the only times that I didn't do that was when I felt the audience was so jacked, so responsive, so deeply involved in what we were doing, without playing those old war horses, that I could get away with it, and it wasn't a problem. Of course, I still get a couple of nasty letters from people who, again, are softcore fans, and they would just come to hear those five or six songs that they know. But, uh, so, yeah, uh, uh, now it's really gotten bad, because my last two records have really gone, I'm, I'm a modern classical music devotee,

• 12:13Speaker 05

  and so that astringent, atonal, chromatic, do-decafonic sound has been filtering into my music, uh, much to many fans' chagrin. I, I apologize to them.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  That is actually the, I guess is the first time we've ever heard the word do-decafonic used on Questlove Supreme. And that is amazing.

• 12:35Speaker 05

  I'm happy to be a first, to give you all a first here, yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  I saw you play once downtown, and, uh, there was a lot of feedback, and it was in the key of F.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  So we played.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Remember this, so they played everything in the key of F.

• 12:47Speaker 05

  We played to the feedback.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  And for that, it was fucking hilarious, because every song was just in F, no matter what, in what range of his voice it was. They took everything into F, and so like, because it kept on feeding back, and so like, so as not to be atonal, they played everything in F, and it was hilarious.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  Well, look, if you're a musician of any worth, you should be able to transpose instantly, you can't, you're not gonna play with me, and so, uh.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  I say nothing, Steve.

• 13:14Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Bruce.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Go ahead, continue.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  We share a guitar player, Doug, Doug Derryberry, who used to be a noisemaker many years ago, is Sesame Street's guitar player, so.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Well, not, not that many years ago, Doug, uh, Doug was with me for fifteen years, and, uh, I made a change about maybe six, five or six years ago, but Doug's a great asset, a great utilitarian, sort of an orchestral guitar player, it's a great, uh, it's a great New York, uh, guitar player named John Leventhal, most well-known for the Sean Colvin great records. And, uh, Leventhal had played on my sixth record, Spirit Trail, in ninety-eight, and I wanted somebody to, to give me a Levin-Falian sound. And so I got Doug, and he did a, a great job for me, I started hearing another sound in my head, so, alas, I, I made a change. But I loved Doug, and he did a great job for us, like I say, for fifteen years.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  So, your musical roots, I know that you started out in Virginia, what, what city were you born in?

• 14:17Speaker 05

  I was born in Richmond, I, and, uh, I lit, I grew up in Williamsburg, fifty miles down the road, and I still, this is where I am now, I moved back after ten years in, in LA. I moved back, back in, uh, nineteen ninety, so I've been here for, back here for thirty years, and we're in my studio. Yeah, you can have that shit.

• 14:40Speaker 04

  I went there once, they took us on a trip there in like, third grade one time, and like, that was it.

• 14:44Speaker 05

  No, I've not feeling.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Dreaded root show there. Our, our, our, get this, Fonte, the, the one, we did like, one oh six in part live.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Uh-oh.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  So how did, how did you go over, how did they, they?

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Well, see, our, our song, Break You Off With Nice, were about four minutes, and then the rest of the show was like, uh, okay.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  They're just, they're just out there looking at you.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  They were like, where's Mr. Cheeks at, uh, we're done, so, yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 05

  I, I can relate, I've been there.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  What about Colonial Williams, uh, Williamsburg, they still?

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Well, we made it our self-appointed job as local townies to pelt tourists and local College of Women Mary students with water balloons. And, uh, so we would ride through town and just wear an ass out.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Jesus Christ, man.

• 15:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, our karma was probably not so good then, hopefully improved, but, uh, we actually got stopped by the cops and taken to the cop, the police station in our senior year in high school, uh, some young, well-appointed, young College of Women Mary grad student, uh, we just pelted him, and he flagged the cops down, and we were through, so that's, but, yeah, that was as exciting as it got in the little ass town of Williamsburg, which I love, obviously, I moved back here. But, uh, yes, Williamsburg is my town.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  The, yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Bruce Hornsby got Karen, okay.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  I'm right down the street, yeah, I'm, I'm in North, North Carolina, uh, born and raised, so.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  Where?

• 16:24Speaker 04

  Familiar, I'm in Raleigh, and I saw your son, he went to Asheville, right, he went to?

• 16:28Speaker 05

  Yes, you did, yes.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was in the mountains.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  Yes, you saw him play NC State.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, man.

• 16:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, he, he, he put twenty-three on NC State, and then they recruited him, Mark Gottfried recruited him, but he picked LSU, and it worked out great for him. But, yeah, Raleigh's a, a good old town, we like playing that museum, the outdoor.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the one, yeah, the art museum, uh-huh.

• 16:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's nice, it's really nice, and you know Branford lives in Durham.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, man, Branford, so Branford, he actually, I'm, I graduated from North Carolina Central, and Branford taught there, he was there like, the artist in residence for years, and, uh, he's just a super cool dude, man.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, the best, he's, he, he's also a fellow prankster with me, so I could talk about that, but I'll, I, I won't do it, because he may not approve, we'll see.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  What was your first musical memory?

• 17:21Speaker 05

  Well, it's not a memory, when someone's recorded you at a, at age three or four, you know, you don't, at least I don't remember that, but since the tapes are around, then you feel like you remembered it. There's a tape of me singing Hound Dog at age about three and a half or four, uh, yeah, crocking all the time, you know, all that business, uh, and some other songs too, With The Wind And The Rain In Her Hair by Pat Boone, our parents were turning us on to this stuff, so, yeah. Sadly, alas, I probably heard Pat Boone's, uh, Tooty Fruity and Not Little Richard. As sad as that sounds, I, that's, that's, that was what was happening in my house, but, yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Did you have other siblings, or was it just you?

• 18:07Speaker 05

  Yes, I'm the emotionally disturbed middle child.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  So, uh, yes, I have an older brother and a younger brother and, uh, I, it's, it's interesting. Since I was in the middle, I was really close with each of them and they were friendly a- always, but not like, not, not like a relationship that I had with each of them. My older brother was the original deadhead in our family, Bobby Hornsby. And I used, in my freshman year of college, I was little Brucey playing Fender Rhodes and singing lead in a dead cover band called Bobby Hightest and the Octane Kids. So, that was Bobby Hornsby. And my younger brother ended up writing a lot of songs with me later in. The aforementioned Mandolin Rain is a co-write with my younger brother, John.

• 18:53Speaker 05

  Valley Road, school about, uh, a song about a young girl who gets knocked up, as they used to say, put in the family way, and they send her away to the school for unwed mothers. A, a, a wild, a strange way to have a, a hit, a top five song, that one. So he, yeah, so he wrote that with me. He wrote songs for several years, but now he's out of it. But yeah, they're, uh, I was, I was, I'm the middle guy, the middle, little student. I was a jock as a kid, though. I was, uh, into music a little bit, but I mostly wanted to hoop.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say, your, your relationship with basketball. I'm, I'm a Philadelphian, so.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Um, it has been noted how your involvement, uh, in the life of Allen Iverson, uh, some could say literally saved his life. At the time, I'm just curious, like, what was it about him? Good, cause the thing is, is that I'm not, one, I'm not a sports guy, but I'm still trying to understand the mentality of college sports fans and how they see that just as important as professional sports and, but what was it at the time that made you wanna get involved in his situation?

• 20:05Speaker 05

  Well, I think addressing first the college versus pro thing, you've got a whole lot of people, for instance, in the southern part of the United States where, say, in basketball, they're only made, they're only, outside of Florida, there's only the Atlanta Hawks and the New Orleans Pelicans. So, for mostly, for this vast area, college sports is king. That's one reason why the SEC, I think, is so huge, because they're the only game in, and the ACC too. They're the, so those are the only games in town. Uh, and that, having said that, what, what did you just ask me other than that?

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Well, and what made you personally get involved, uh, with Allen Iverson's situation?

• 20:43Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, okay. So, well, Chuck, as we call him, Bubba Chuck, that was his local. Chuck was his name, uh, in, locally, at least in the hood of Hampton. When they, when he got sent to jail, graffiti all over Hampton said, "Free Chuck." I just got chills thinking of going down and seeing all this, cause he was a beloved figure, even as a kid. People just knew he was special. There's an AAU program in our area, legendary program called the Boo Williams League, Boo Williams Summer League. And, uh, Chuck was a star in that. And then he played at Bethel High School and he led his team. He was a fantastic football player too. He was just a special athlete. He got, he got over 200 offers, uh, in football as well. And so.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  So he was just as good at football as he was in basketball?

• 21:30Speaker 05

  Well, it's arguable. Who can say? He was just fantastic at both, so, you know, what do you say? Greater, greater. He was just great in both.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  What was his position in football?

• 21:38Speaker 05

  He was a quarterback.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, and he was so fast and he had all that juke, all those, all those changes in direction, you know, he'd go this way and gonna go the, you know, just, he was crossing people over on, on the football field. So, the, the story goes that I, I went to see him play at Fort Eustis. We have a, it's a very great military presence, huge military presence in our area. And one of the bases is Fort Eustis. They had a Christmas tournament. Chuck was playing, Bethel High School was playing, so I went to see the game. And Ann Iverson, his mom, came up to me and, oh, I don't know, asked me to sign something and so I told him, "Yeah, yeah, we loved, we loved Chuck," et cetera. And, uh, so then after his junior year where he led his team to the state championship

• 22:23Speaker 05

  in football and then in basketball, he was in a bowling alley in Pecosin, Virginia, a little, an area of Newport News, or Hampton, I guess. And, uh, well, a brawl broke out and he and a bunch of others, uh, were arrested for brawling in a bowling alley and also maiming by mob. So he, he and three or four of his friends were, were convicted and sent to jail. And I thought it was a travesty, miscarriage of justice. So, we're, I'm proud to say that we in Virginia elected the first black governor in America, Doug Wilder. And he was, and he was, uh, the governor then. And I had done some work for him, some of, uh, events for him.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  So I started lobbying him through his chief of staff, who's a friend of mine. And, I don't know, I was just one of many probably, uh, to do this. But, but, but Wilder, around Christmas time of, say, 92, uh, Wilder, Doug Wilder, uh, pardoned Allen. Now, he should have pardoned everybody and about two weeks later, the hubbub was so intense that finally he did let everybody go, so as not to show favoritism to the local favorite son, Killer Hooper, you know, Killer Jock. So, about two months later, I get a call out of the blue from his high school coach, a guy named Mike Bailey, and he says, "Hey Bruce, uh, Allen knows about what you did for..."

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Oh, and also, I had just become friends with our mutual guy, Spike Lee.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Spike, yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  A- a- and so Spike and I, the first thing I did with Spike in 92, he made a video for, for me, Bradford was in it, cause he played on the record, uh, a song about the first interracial romance in my town of Williamsburg and all the consternation it caused with the local sort of conservative government crowd. Uh, anyway, we're in, we're in editing and I told him about Chuck and, uh, oh, that's right, I had told him earlier about, anyway, I forget the exact timeline, but, uh, this guy calls me and so, so I, I had gotten Spike when, when, when Chuck was in jail. I said, "Spike, you know, you know this kid I told you about, well, now he's in jail." And Spike said, "Yes, I've seen it on ESPN, I know all about it."

• 24:36Speaker 05

  I said, "Well, you do me a favor and send him just some care package from Spike Lee, it might pick him up when he's at the city farm in Newport News." And so Spike did that. Anyway, this guy calls and says, "Well, Allen knows what you've done, what you've done and, and he'd like to thank you." I said, "Well, you guys come up and we'll play some ball." And he said, "Well, that's what he would like to do." So, we ended up doing that and, uh, becoming friends through that, uh, for, for, uh, for forever.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Wow. Now, is there any truth to the rumor that you?

• 25:10Speaker 05

  Oh, no. Okay.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  That you beat Allen Iverson and came up 101?

• 25:15Speaker 05

  It's not just one game, it was three.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Uh-oh. Oh, great.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  But you know, but, but, I'm just setting the record straight. I don't need to talk shit. I, I don't care about living, about making that some moment. I never bring it up, I never talk about it, but look, it's out.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  But you won't deny it though, will you?

• 25:35Speaker 05

  Well, cause it, it, it, look, it just happened. Maybe I caught him rusty, cause he had, obviously not been playing a whole lot of ball for the past four months, but I had one of those days where I just couldn't miss, you know, I just was, uh, just, uh, just net, just netting my ass off and, and, and we were playing a game, maybe he was not aware of this game. It's perfect for him, really. It helps the, the, the smaller guy, and he's a little small, shorter than me.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Uh, it's, uh, it's the way the pros play. You start at the top of the key and you can either pick a two dribble or three dribble maximum, which basically means the big guy can't just back in, back in, back into the racket, throw some little last land, a pitiful land hook and, and do that all the time. So you gotta make a move, you gotta, you know, you gotta commit and shoot the ball. So that's, that's what we played. Of course, he dunked on my head about five times. I mean, you know, he's a freak, he was a freaky athlete. Anyway, there are lots of witnesses and I could name them all for you, so, including, including his high school coach. But you know, what, hell with it. I, I don't care. I love, I love Chuck and, uh, you know, but maybe, maybe he let me. I, you'd have to ask him.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Okay. Yeah, there's, um, there's, uh, there's a friend of Pharrell's who, um, I guess went to high school with Allen and, um, like, one night they were at a party for the Neptunes and, you know, it was like they were in a nightclub and, you know, the guy was trying to bring up like old high school times and, you know, Allen was like, "Oh, yeah, way back in the day." Like, really not trying to talk basketball when you're in a nightclub situation. Well, this guy like insists, like, whatever high school game they played, like.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  He had walked or something or like he, he, there's some violation. I don't know what happened, but the next thing I know, Pharrell told me, tells me that this guy grabs his basketball and he's outside in the parking lot and it's pouring down rain.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  And he's playing against Allen Iverson's Rolls Royce. Like, he's just in front of the Rolls Royce, like, trying to cross, as if that Rolls Royce is Allen Iverson. Like, for no reason at all, just.

• 27:50Speaker 05

  Oh, he was out there alone, playing a car?

• 27:51Speaker 00

  He was out there alone, just like.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Playing a car.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Playing a car.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Trying to cross the Rolls Royce, like.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Crossing over a car.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  It was parked, like, Allen was nowhere, you know, it was just.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  That is.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  One of those moments.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  That's sad, really.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was. So, for you, what was the moment that really drew you into your music career right now? Like?

• 28:15Speaker 05

  Well, what, what was the moment that made me say?

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, as, as younger.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It made me say, okay, to hell with the standard, uh, routine, I'm casting my light with the musos. That moment, you're saying, you're asking about? Okay, well, I went to one year of real college. I was a bit of a school hopper. I went to three colleges. University of Richmond, the one sort of lost year that made, and then Berkeley and Miami. So, that was a year that made me realize, okay, this, this is what I need to do. But I was such a late starter, because I had been a jock as a kid, and that's what I cared about. But I started playing piano in 11th grade, and, uh, so kind of late, age seventeen.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Wait, you started playing piano in 11th grade?

• 28:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I had a lot of catching up to do, and.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Started?

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Yes, started.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  How? I'm, that's just freakish.

• 29:06Speaker 05

  Well, okay, so how?

• 29:08Speaker 00

  Because, I mean, you're really good, so I would just think that.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, to be have started that late, yeah, that's crazy.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  Well, look, it's all about, it's all about putting in the time, as anyone knows, as you know. Uh, I, when I, once I got into it, I got deeply involved, and when I went to college, I practiced for several years for, from five to eight hours every day. So, if you're willing to do that every day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, then you're gonna catch up a little bit. Although, I do feel, like, I love classical music, but my technique, because I was such a late starter, it, it's, it's commonly said that if you want to be a classical virtuoso or a concert pianist, you have to start at age three, four, five, six, you know, no late, no later than that, because the demands are so intense.

• 29:56Speaker 05

  And I really feel that, to be honest. I'm always going, man, bitch, you sorry ass, you know, to myself. And, and, and so, so that's, that's a regret, but hey, everyone's life path is different. I was just a guy who liked, liked playing sports first, and so got into this later. So, yes, but I got deeply into it and went to music school and, and got a lot out of that, too. So, that, so that's my story. Just started, started late, but couldn't stop, I just, I just had to do it at all times.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Why'd you leave Berkeley?

• 30:29Speaker 05

  I went to Berkeley because I wanted to practice four hours a day, and they had a limited number of practice rooms. So, if you wanted to practice four hours a day, you had to wait about six and a half hours to do that, because they'd kick you out, there was a quick, there's a line, a sign up sheet in the line, they'd kick you out after two hours. For, you know, for good reason, I guess, because there's got a lot of people waiting. Yeah, that's right. So, and I also, since I was late to start, I felt I needed to, I, I'd amassed all this information, you know, this theoretical knowledge at Berkeley, taking Harmony, et cetera. And I thought I needed some time to really, really assimilate and deal with this, and really ingest it.

• 31:08Speaker 05

  So, I lived in a farmhouse outside of Williamsburg, and that was when I started my eight hours, hours day regimen. I played this little cocktail piano bar and, at night, to make a buck and shed on this old upright. And then I went to Miami from there.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  Were you learning just by ear, or were you reading at that time?

• 31:29Speaker 05

  Well, I started playing by ear, because it came fairly naturally to me. I started because of two, two guys. My older brother, uh, went to New England Prep School, and we were just local Virginia hoopoes who listened to the top forty station, the soul station. We didn't get the underground stuff, you know, the, the stations where back then you could hear Miles Davis next to Hendrix, next to Joni Mitchell, you know, whatever, and, uh, and, and so, so he turned me on, too. I know this sounds crazy to think that this could be sort of underground, but Elton John's second record, Tumblewee Connection, is least, most, the, the one record he probably almost ever made that had no hit on it. It's one of the best ones. It's a deep, beautiful record, and it got me into playing.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  And then he turned me on to Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, with the great Leon Russell playing piano. So, Leon and Elton, Leon's a soul man. He came straight out, have, you guys familiar with Kojic, Church of God in Christ?

• 32:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, I'm very much.

• 32:30Speaker 05

  Deep, deep gospel music, uh, roots. I mean, it's just, the, the music that comes out of there, like, you hear those old Sam's Cooking the Soul Stirrers records, all that stuff that Leon played, that.

• 32:47Speaker 05

  All that stuff, you're hearing that in the background with Sam's Cooking the Soul Stirrers are singing that killer gospel. That's where that came, yeah, that's right, gospel, that's right, gospel quartets. And so, between Elton and Leon, I, I was hooked, and so I was, I was learning those by ear. But my mom, see, my grandfather was a musician for a living in Richmond, and he was the supervisor of music in the public schools, the public school system. And then, uh, he, uh, was also the, uh, the, the theater organist at the local mosque. If you went to the state JC's convention, you'd, you'd be the guy over in the corner playing LS, Turkey in the Straw,

• 33:28Speaker 05

  or some old freaking minstrel shit, but, uh, so, anyway. She, my mom looked at me, and she thought my hands just looked terrible. I was probably playing like this, and she said, you know what? You, you may be sounding okay, but you look rough. You gotta start taking lessons. And so, then I started to learn to read and learn sort of the, the jazz language, the two fives, et cetera, all the, uh, the color tones and all that. So, that, my mom was good for me, and so, uh, that's how that happened.

• 34:04Speaker 06

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• 34:49Speaker 06

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• 36:00Speaker 00

  Real quick, what year were you at Berkeley? And were there any other notable students that were there at the time that was in the year that you went?

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I've always heard it's a, it's a badge of dishonor to actually graduate from Berkeley, because.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  You only go for a little bit.

• 36:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, does that mean you? Getting a gig.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, now you don't have a gig.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  That's right. That means you're sad.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 05

  You know, uh, so, okay, I went to for summer and fall of seventy-four. But I was in the accelerated program, so I crammed two years into two semesters. Uh, and let me see, anybody who was there who really emerged. Pat Metheny was there, but he had come from Miami. He had been a student at Miami. But he was so bad, he became a teacher like instantly. And, but he was playing with Gary Burton when I was at Berkeley. And so I saw an amazing concert at Sanders Theater in Harvard. With Keith Jarrett opening on solo piano. Imagine that. And then Gary Burton's great quartet with Pat and Mick Goodrick and maybe Bob Moses.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  So it was a fertile scene in Boston. You know, they had the jazz workshop in Paul's Ball. You could go, I would go, I had enough money to go see, hearsay. Bill Evans or Horace Silver one of the weeknights. But I would go and listen through the, the, the wall. On Boylston Avenue, Boylston Street. Uh, just to hear more. So it was amazing to be able to hear all these people. Uh, all, all these legends, Cannonball, Adderley, Miles, on and on and on.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  How heavy was the competition there? Cause I know. Especially now, like if we're anywhere near that campus in Boston, like. Or at least this, the musicians I see now looking on YouTube or whatever, I feel like there's such a. Not a cut through, but a need to. Out floss each other in, in, in terms of like overplay and.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, play everything is, I really wasn't good enough to be perfectly honest with you. I really wasn't good enough to really emerge into the scene where I was hearing the great guys. I was fairly mid-level and, uh. So I don't remember, and I also don't remember anyone emerging. It to have a great career. Now, when I went to Miami, that's different. Okay. When I was at Miami, it was sort of the latter stages of the golden era of University of Miami. Right when I hit, when I, when I got there. Pat, uh, you know, Pat had been there, Jaco had been teaching there, Jaco Vastorius.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Uh, oh, he held the job. Wow.

• 38:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't know that.

• 38:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, it was personal, it was private lessons. I'm sure it was loose. Hey, I can't, hey, I can't make it today. Listen, you know, that, that's kind of thing. But the Dixie dregs, you guys know they, those guys were. Uh, Steve Morse, sort of like, I don't know, like, uh, virtuosic. Rock and roll, bluegrass or something. Steve Morse was crazy. That, that the virtuosity level was high. Uh, but then. Uh, Carmen Lundey, Rob Watson, but he's known as Bobby Watson now. Uh, and, uh, and, and Carmen's, uh, little brother Kurt Lundey. I played in Carmen's band. That was sort of a rite of passage. If you were emerging as one of the better players in the hierarchy of the school.

• 39:24Speaker 05

  You got to play in Carmen Lundey's band. You guys know Carmen, right? You guys know?

• 39:28Speaker 00

  I know Carmen Lundey.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. Okay. So she's had a nice career as a jazz singer. Uh, and, uh. Yeah. Bo- Bobby Watson, Carmen, Pat, well, Pat Metheny, of course, uh.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  So you were looking at a more serious jazz sort of road or just.

• 39:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  You were going for the road, whatever it took you.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  Well, I was just going with the inspiration, but it was pretty telltale at that time. I would go to the record store and I'd buy an Ornette Coleman record and a Joni Mitchell record. And I'd always find myself listening to the Joni Mitchell record more, you know, I'd, I get a Roberta Flack record. And a Hubert Laws record, say, and, uh, the, the flute player.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 05

  And so, so.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Family, that's my record.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. It's, it's fantastic. And so, but I always, I, I thought to myself, well, I think my, I really like this jazz music. It's a, it's a great intellectual pursuit. But I, I think my heart was in, in, in songs, in songs with words. And so when I got out of Miami, we put together a band up in Virginia and started down the long road. Eight years later, I got signed to RCA Records at age thirty. So it was.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 40:43Speaker 05

  Overnight success.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Let's back that up six years.

• 40:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  Eighty-two, you, you, you, uh, joined Ambrosia.

• 40:50Speaker 05

  Um, no, but I didn't. That's a, that's a fallacy on Wikipedia, whatever.

• 40:56Speaker 00

  Oh, so you had nothing to do with Ambrosia?

• 40:58Speaker 05

  No, no, uh, they, they were great friends of mine. Okay. I was discovered. Uh, the, the aforementioned band we put together in Virginia after Miami, after I graduated. We were playing around the local area and we, where we're playing bars and lounges where you're, you know, you're expected to play Shake Your Booty and Brick House and. And, and all that stuff. So we gradually acquired. An audience who would come to these lounges to hear my songs. So we were big fans of Mike McDonald of the Doobie Brothers. And so, so they were coming through town. And, uh, so we knew where they were staying, cause the same people that booked the big concerts at Hampton Coliseum booked our little shit-ass gigs at the, at the Steak and Ale.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  So we walked in, my drummer and I were both sort of big guys. I'm a big bony ass guy, but my drummer's a big, strong guy. And we walked in and found Mike McDonald in the lobby. We went up to him and said. Hey, Mike, we're the baddest motherfuckers in this town and we're, we're playing right over here and you should come here. So. He says, well, I will if I can. I'm going to the movies. But so sure enough, he came.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  We're going to the movies right now.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Everyone could do a Mike McDonald impression. No one could not do it.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. We've had him on the show. We, we actually had him, uh.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  He was doing an impression of himself. That was what was happening.

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Well, he's a beautiful guy, as you know. He's just the sweetest person, so self-effacing, humble. Uh, anyway, he came and we were just raging at it. And he invited us over to the, long story short, he kind of, he sort of discovered us and helped us meet some people in LA. And that's what got me out to LA. Uh, about a year and a half later, we, a lot of us moved to California.

• 42:46Speaker 07

  Did you ever end up working with Michael McDonald after that on projects or anything?

• 42:50Speaker 05

  No, but our claim to fame was that Mike McDonald and the, well, the Doobie Brothers were playing some PBS special and, uh, live thing. And he was wearing a Bruce Hornsby Band T-shirt. And so that was, of course, that was a huge thing for us. We thought that was beautiful. We, we slept on his floor for ten nights, my drummer, John Molo and I. And at that time he was singing on everybody's record under the LA sun. And, uh, so he would take our admittedly ve- very mediocre demo tape around and try to turn people on to it. And that, but to no avail. Again, years later I got signed. Oh, but yeah, so right.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  This is from moving to LA. What year did you move to LA?

• 43:33Speaker 05

  Uh, nineteen eighty. Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 43:35Speaker 05

  Graduated seventy-seven from UM and then two and a half years around the local scene from Virginia Beach to Richmond. With Weinsberg in the middle and then moved to, uh, to LA.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Well, obviously I know what prompted the move to LA.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  Oh, but you know, well, well, we, you, you, you got, we got on this because you asked me about Ambrosia. So, okay. So the opening act for the Doobie Brothers in the, on that tour was Ambrosia. And so they came to the gig too, and we became friends with them. And when we, we went to LA. Later that summer, we slept on some of those guys' floors. And so they became friends with us. And then about eighty-three, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four. They had made a record called Rhode Island and it was very adventurous sort of prog rock record. Cause a lot of, everyone knows the hits, Make A Wish Baby.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, Biggest Part Of Me, How Much I Feel.

• 44:31Speaker 05

  How Much I Feel, yeah. But really their, their heart lay in, in the, uh, the more progressive.

• 44:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, that, that kind of thing.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Their feeling, yes, they do.

• 44:43Speaker 05

  And, and I, I liked that too. So they made a record called Rhode Island and, uh, I wasn't on it. But I wasn't doing much then and they said, hey, why don't you come be in a video? So now I'm outing myself again. I know that, I know what you're up to here. Cause now you're, you're making me admit to another laughable performance on a video that is, is unfortunately out in the world. But you know, what do I care? I, I look hilarious again. So.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  You start off as a video extra. I see now. Okay.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  I start, I started off as a video pitiful. And so that's all I did with him. I was just in that video. The Rhode Island record didn't really do much commercially. And so they kind of broke up the band. And but right around that time, I was starting to get my own thing going. And soon enough, I finally got my chance.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  So what was what was pounding the pavement like in Los Angeles? Between nineteen eighty and eighty six, when you finally got your deal? Like, what was what was the the steps of? Not the steps of heartbreak, but. I mean, what was it like back then?

• 45:55Speaker 05

  Well, you you'll have you'll I'll have to set the scene by remembering. The pop music trend of the time, the early eighties. Were just chock a block with new wave music. Guys in skinny ties and the kind of haircut buzz, whatever they had. Groups like.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  You had a piano tie, didn't you?

• 46:16Speaker 05

  Well, I didn't have I didn't have any of that. I I looked just like some schmendrick. Who, you know, sold sold coffee somewhere. I mean, I I just was totally not this. The pictures of me are pretty funny. Well, my good pictures of me now are probably pretty funny, too. But anyway. Uh, that that's, uh. So I was really, I'm trying to take the picture that I was really a fish out of water. Stylistically, you know, for the I was wrong for the times. But then. Maybe I kind of caught a wave in this way. Maybe that's why I got signed. I don't think about it much. But in eighty five. The the pop trends tended to were were starting to move away from from this sort of Brit pop. New wave thing.

• 47:00Speaker 05

  And LA had its own new wave, uh, uh. Groups like X and the Blasters. But it started moving into more of an Americana. You know, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty thing. So my music was sort of tangentially related to that stylistically. And so. Maybe that, but I was playing all this piano. And so it was a little different. And I don't know. I got that. I'm I'm proud to say the guy who signed me. Was the rhythm guitar player for the Zombies back in the sixties. So.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  Just the the best British man, Paul Atkinson. With that great resume. And he just. And I tell this to people all the time. The least as far as sort of a a cautionary tale of what not to do. The the least commercial tape I ever made was the one that got me signed. And and the the one that was true is to my sort of artistic heart. At the time, I'm just soloing on piano, just stuff that's not done. And Paul Atkinson basically couldn't take the the tape out of his car. So. You're just trying to move somebody in a deep way, and that's what this tape did. It was my sort of screw you to the mainstream record business. I thought it was going to come out in some small label like Wyndham Hill or something, but.

• 48:20Speaker 05

  You laugh. Okay. I I get it.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  It's kind of interesting that Paul Atkinson signed you haven't. He's from the Zombies, which was a keyboard centric band.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, Rod Argen, exactly.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he he might have had a have a taste for that.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  An affinity for keyboard or dominated pop. Yeah. So anyway, that's what happened. And then. All right, we made our first record. And it was a total fluke. The way it is was thought to be a B side. There's lots of stories like this. This is not rare. Uh, Rod Stewart's Maggie May, for instance, one of the iconic songs. That was thought to be a B side as well.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  So you're saying the way it is was kind of an afterthought like here?

• 49:00Speaker 05

  Well, was the title I titled the record that the record, our first record was called The Way It Is. But again, a song about racism with two, not one, but two improvised piano solos. Is not the formula for pop radio, you know, and so at all. But it broke on the BBC, BBC Radio One, broken England, then throughout. Europe, then throughout the rest of the world, and then here. And so I was really lucky, man. I I broke on a song. That at least for me felt like it had a little more gravitas than the standard. Uh, record that you were hearing on hit radio then. And so, yeah, I was good. It's I call it a wonderful accident, a great fluke.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  I'm I I want to ask you before we even get to the that the actual crafting of the way it is. I just got to know. How did you avoid? Like eighty six would have been a very tempting year. Patchwise for you. To fall into Yamaha DX seven itis. With those like fake road sounds and whatnot.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  And you're known as such a strong piano player. Like, how did you? Avoid falling into that because literally every other hit was just peppered with. The DX seven. Fake road bell sound. How did you avoid that?

• 50:21Speaker 05

  I thought it was the horror. I thought it was horrible. I was not. I just. I didn't want to make that sound. And and look, it's what I do. It's what I did. And so. Again, I I made this tape. With no regard to that. That's why I said it's the least commercial attempted tape that I ever that I made. And so. So it was again, it was it was honest and it was maybe fresh. And so. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback. To me, it was just a wonderful accident.

• 50:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was a record, man, The Way It Is. And I don't know, you know, you said it was a B side, and it was kind of a thing that kind of went off. That was one of the first records I remember it kind of being marketed. As like a serious song, so to speak. And just as a kid, like, I just remember this kind of. The bookends of my elementary school education, like The Way It Is, and We Didn't Start the Fire. Like, I remember.

• 51:17Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  My teacher, like, making us write about those songs like.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  Oh, interesting. Wow. Okay.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  The way it is like, okay, so what do you think this is about? What do you think? You know, and.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:27Speaker 04

  And and it just always resonated with me. And I think even the nearest one about, you know, the DX seven, that kind of plastic keyboard kind of sound that was hot at the time. One of the things that always stuck out to me that you were actually playing a real piano. And I mean, I was, I mean, God, I was probably like seven, eight, whatever when this came.

• 51:42Speaker 05

  Is that right? Wow.

• 51:44Speaker 04

  But I but I remember it vividly, and that was just always one of my favorite songs. And, you know, all the time sampled and everything. I mean. It was just I just always thought that was just a gorgeous song.

• 51:53Speaker 05

  How about Fast Car by Tracy Chapman? Did you like that one at that time?

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  That's beautiful. I love that, too.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  But do you? Do you think growing up in Richmond? Sort of prompted you to craft the song in the way that you did? Because. Again, I mean, people really weren't. Especially with, uh. I mean, barely with. With hip hop. I mean, hip hop really wouldn't. Wasn't starting to get in your face for real, for real, until eighty seven, eighty eight.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  Right, yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 00

  So I mean, to even bring up something as topical. Or whatnot, uh. Do you think that's just experience experiences in Richmond, Virginia, or?

• 52:40Speaker 00

  Or like, what prompted that?

• 52:42Speaker 05

  Well, I think it's just growing up in a small town. Yes, Williamsburg, which is fifty miles from Richmond. So I have small, more of a small town feeling. In Williamsburg and. Look, it's just, uh, it's just based on my upbringing. Uh, I was. The only white dude on the basketball team in high school. And that was just the best experience for me. My old teammates are still. My hanging pals in town here. We we go out and talk shit and have a laugh and get something to eat. All for years now. It's just beautiful. And so I'll shout out Lawrence Jones, Keith Drewitt. PB Martin, Alonso Dandridge, Al Jackson. I could keep naming them.

• 53:24Speaker 05

  So those are my guys. And so it was a very intense time. I came in. Just after integration, just after the first couple of years. But there was it was still sort of. Uh, fraught scene. It was definitely a tension in the air. And but I I don't know, I embrace it. They embraced me. My my teammates, my teammates embraced me and. And and Spin Ever Thus. So, uh, so I I just wrote that song based on my my upbringing in in Williamsburg.

• 54:03Speaker 04

  I was curious to know what was it like working with Huey Lewis as a producer? Like, what was? I mean, we knew him as an artist, but.

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  What was he like kind of behind the boards and in working in that capacity?

• 54:13Speaker 05

  Well, he he produced three songs on the record, one of which I changed completely after the record. The original version of the record has a band version of this song, The River Runs Low. I. I just thought it wasn't doing the song justice. So I stripped it all down and made it made it a keyboard. Uh, vocal, uh, record. Huey is one of the great guys. And he was he was a big cheerleader for me, kind of like Mike McDonald had been. We were making a demo for Epic Records in eighty four, and Huey had sports at the time, which was just.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was huge.

• 54:46Speaker 05

  It was all everything around the world. And he called up and said. Hi, this is Huey Lewis, signed The Range. I was hiding behind the name The Range. We were just The Range then. Uh, RCA asked me to just be Bruce Hornsby, so I compromised on Bruce Hornsby and The Range. But. Uh, it it didn't help us. We didn't get signed by Epic, but that just shows you Huey's. Uh, real intense feeling for what I was doing. And. Uh, as a producer, we just had a great time in the studio. And we did a song about this old whorehouse, this old whorehouse in the countryside in Williamsburg. Uh, called Down the Road Tonight. And he he produced, he produced that song. He should have cut it himself. He'd have had a hit with it, I think.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I could imagine Huey Lewis singing about whorehouses. That's totally on brand. That totally fits.

• 55:36Speaker 05

  It it it better than I. Yes, I think you're right. More more better suited.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  You with with with the shock of or, you know, I don't know if it shocks you to have your first single. Totally come out the out the box, um, as a across the board hit. Pressure wise, what was that like? Uh, to be like, how did your life change as far as?

• 56:01Speaker 00

  The results in, you know, of having that hit single and then suddenly being ubiquitous. Cause it's not like you had a hit single. I mean, this song is, you know.

• 56:12Speaker 05

  It's lasting. Yeah. When you said shock, I thought you were gonna ask me about my shocker song.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  I didn't get there yet.

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  I didn't get there yet. We about to get there.

• 56:23Speaker 05

  Every time I come to and play with you guys, your keyboard player, somebody in your band says, can we play Love Me Still? So I'll get, which I love. Yeah. I have a good, a good story about you and that song on Fallon, but that's, that's about, about nine years later. Uh, so obviously this is a full dose of pop stardom that's smacking me in the head. And to be honest, I was pretty bad at it. Mostly because when you're, when you're making, when you're having success at top forty, at least in America, oh, and absolutely in Europe, it's sometimes even sillier over there with all the lip syncing shows you have to be on.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Top of the pops.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Right. You said it. Top of the pops and the, the like, uh, in your, in Holland, uh, Germany. Uh, all around. So I would be saying I was in Cleveland. Cause the, the, the record company would send me there to sit at a, in a, at a table signing autographs. So here I am and next to me is Tiffany. And next to me is Debbie Gibson on the other side. And then there's new kids, kids on the block and I'm going, man, what's wrong with this picture? It's me. And so it just didn't fit. I, I just, I didn't know how to handle it. I should have just taken the piss out of it. As the Brits would say, and just made it into a big joke.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  But then people that got mad at me and I'd, you know, be drawing stupid things, signing different names. I, I started, I just did that.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Everyone does that.

• 57:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I did that for a little while, but I got tired of suffering the slings and arrows of disgruntled fans. Who would, uh, oh, go, oh, come on, man. Take it seriously. We really like you. You know, and so then you go, you know what? I'm the dick here. And so sorry, you're right. You're right. But, but basically it was, I was not a good fit for that thing. And, and so the second record we made was very much of a piece with the first record stylistically. I wanted to cement this sound, which was basically a Lind drum machine, piano, uh, an OBX or Juno pad.

• 58:39Speaker 05

  But, but, uh, vocals boom. And so I did this again for that reason. And then I instantly started getting letters from fans. Well, how dare you change? And I thought to myself, well, you know what, motherfucker? You haven't seen anything yet, you know? You just, just wait. And so then I started taking it out and my third record, I had Wayne Shorter on the record and, and Bela Fleck. And, uh, oh, Charlie Hayden. Wow. Way to go. Uh, and so then the letters really started coming. Uh, but, but I, so I just never looked back because I never, I never trusted hit radio anyway.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  I knew it was sort of ephemeral and not going to be around for me. Cause I, uh, again, my, the hit off the second record was the song, this aforementioned song Valley Road. And I'm really, I'm really blowing, I'm playing like McCoy Tyner, Chordal Harmory in the left hand. Seven, you know, just emphatic demonstrative stuff. And it's on the radio. My, my musician friends could not believe what I was getting away with. And I didn't get away with it for long, just those two times. And then that was it.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  It's kind of weird for me because, all right, so I'm slightly older than Fonte. So in my mind though, I think, e- even to this day, if I ask myself, I still consider Henley's End of the Innocence. Kind of like your fourth single.

• 1:00:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, it's the Lind drum and the Juno all over again.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like I still feel like it's, it's, I, I never considered that a Don Henley song. Like to me, that's like your song and it's your.

• 1:00:24Speaker 05

  And you're not wrong.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  DNA print. Yeah. I just, I don't want to sound like a suit, like the, the suit by the A and R guy, but, you know, you could have, you could have just served them up like, you could have served at least nineteen of them. Like hotcakes. Like, why did you put the brakes on it? Like.

• 1:00:45Speaker 05

  Well, you asked me, uh, if I felt pressure to come up with hits or something like that. You asked, and I didn't really answer it, but I can do it now.

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  Because I had this big hit with a song that no one thought was anything. I, I really felt that no one at the record company felt they knew what a Bruce Hornsby hit was supposed to sound like. So I took that as total license to be free and, uh, and, and write, write songs about interracial romances. And, and, uh, the girl who got pregnant and, uh, uh, on and on. So, uh, so, and, and then I never got pressured. Uh, from, but from RCA, they were really good to me. I think I, I was helped by the fact that the record company was really struggling. And I was the only artist that at the time did much for them. So they pretty much left me alone and I ran with that like crazy.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  So Pat Metheny started playing on my records. That was really special. Cause he was, he played so amazingly on my, fourth and fifth records, Harbor Lights and Hot House. Man, he just turned it out. Uh, it was so beautiful. Branford played on those. Just great. So by then the record company was just throwing up their hands. Look, I, I, I was trying to, uh, sort of be a purist about it and, and just follow my, my musical instinct and, and the rest be damned. And the aggress was kind of damned for me. I stopped, stopped having hits, but it was okay.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Back in the eighties, when the myth of winning best new artist was an actual like.

• 1:02:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  Curse thing.

• 1:02:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  So how did you feel when your name was called?

• 1:02:28Speaker 05

  I, I frankly was so clueless at the time that I, I didn't start hearing about that curse until after we'd won it. And so, uh, so how did I feel? I've thought that's, well, this is great, but you know, I'm a three time winner, but I'm a 10 time loser. Just so you, just set the record straight. It's a pretty, it's a pretty, uh, pretty sorry batting average. Uh, three for 13. Uh, but yeah, it's, uh, how did I feel? I didn't know about it. When I've heard about it later, I thought, well, whatever happens. I, I'm certainly, it, it seems to me, looking back on my career, that I, I had this success. And then I've been trying to rid myself of that audience ever since because.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Well, wait, I'll, I'll ask this question then. Is, is your best new artist, is it on the mantelpiece or is it a doorstopper?

• 1:03:17Speaker 05

  It's neither. It's, it's down the bottom shelf of a, uh, a little, a little, little case that, that, that houses old scrapbooks and the three Grammys, you know? They, they grew with the, through the years. My second win was the best bluegrass record. And the third win was, uh, with Branford, a song we did for the Olympics, Barcelona Mona back then. And, uh, I think people just voted for us because Kenny G had won for a hundred years and they wanted somebody else to win.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Bruce Hornsby problems. I love it.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  Exactly. Exactly.

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  Not a problem.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  Can you talk about working also with, uh, with Bonnie Raitt as well? Because that's your, your DNA, I can't make you love me.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. Look, uh, she's my big sister in music. Uh, we, we became tight. She was a big fan of my early records and subsequent records. Uh, and, uh, so, she, I would see her at parties in LA. Now, after I had hits, of course, now I'm invited to these slickster parties, which was, yeah, it was fun. It was fun.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  Debbie, with Debbie Gibson.

• 1:04:32Speaker 05

  She's a lovely person. She sent me a fan letter one time. It was so sweet. So I, I'm all for Debbie Gibson. She's a talented person too. So.

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  Oh, she's great. She's a good friend.

• 1:04:41Speaker 05

  Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. So, so anyway, Bonnie, uh, asked me to play on her, her record, uh, her, I guess it was second record she made with Don Was and, uh, producing. And all of a sudden I, for a little, a little time there, I was sort of Don Was, Was his boy. I played on a Seeger record and a Bob Dylan record and a Bonnie Raitt record. All in, all in, when a, just a few months period in, when I still lived in LA, my latter days in LA. But that record was just one of those, uh, kismet moments. You had this fantastic song. And I, I give Don credit because he didn't dress it up a lot. Uh, we cut the track, just a trio. I was playing some little keyboard,

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  Rosie, not the X seven, mind you, but something, some sort of Rosie sound. And then they had me over.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Where's it worked?

• 1:05:34Speaker 05

  Well, yeah. Then they have you, have you over the piano. And he told me later, he kept trying to dress it up. Maybe strings. I don't know. Maybe a little haunted. And finally he just, he realized he took all the faders down in the mix. And just put on those original four elements, drums, bass, electric piano, acoustic piano and vocal. And it just resonated. So it was very, we might've cut two or three tracks so fast. And look, I consider that to be Bonnie's iconic hit record, the one that will be around forever. So, look, how could I not be proud of being a part of that? It was just, and, and, and she's the greatest anyway. She's, she's sent me some crazy, lewd, uh,

• 1:06:20Speaker 05

  Twitter thing today. So, you know, so we're, uh, she's, she's a hilarious, great fan, just beautiful woman.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  Do you think there was something with you guys kind of understand each other because, uh, or I guess kind of the creative kinship that you guys had? Uh, cause Bonnie was also someone that didn't really hit pay dirt in her career until much later, you know?

• 1:06:41Speaker 05

  Even later than me. Yes.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know what I mean? Do you think that kind of played a role with you guys understanding each other?

• 1:06:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it, it could. Uh, I think basically we have similar musical interests and, uh, uh, she's one of the great singers, one of the great soulful singers. And, uh, uh, I, I like soul music. I'm not one of the great soul singers, but I, I, I, I love it. And so, uh, so look, I think we just connect personally. She likes to have a laugh and I do too.

• 1:07:17Speaker 05

  But so anyway, I, it's, it's just, like I say, she's my big sister. That says it all to me.

• 1:07:25Speaker 06

  Hey, I'm Nile Rodgers, producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of the group Chic. A great song has a way of defining a moment, a moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hitmakers like Miguel... That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life, regardless of how everyone else buys into this.

• 1:08:08Speaker 06

  I believe in this and I'm gonna push. To rising stars like Alex Warren. You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me, at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience, whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know, my parents and I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story. It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:08:44Speaker 07

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• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  Bruce, how does your mindset change when you're going from like sidemaning Bonnie Raitt to like playing your own shit? Or is it just the same approach? Because like, "I Can't Make You Love Me" is like a fairly simple harmonic situation at the end of the day.

• 1:09:30Speaker 05

  But I changed it though.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  I know, I'm sure that you did.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  You made that song, so I almost feel like you produced it even though you didn't.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  I'd love to hear it before you sat down to play it, but I'm sure that's a whole other situation, but I don't know.

• 1:09:40Speaker 05

  Well, the chords were more standard, you know? I'm a Bill Evans fanatic, you know? I love all that. I love that French Impressionism harmony, Ravel, whatever. And so I'm always interested in maybe finding a place for that. I had to find, figure out a facile way to describe my style, because people are always asking me, they always say, "Well, we can always tell it's you and why do you think that is?" And I say, "Well, I think it's a sort of a harmonic aesthetic, a way of playing chords." And I call it Bill Evans meets the hymnbook, because I love the movement in the left hand of hymn music, church music, but then I love those beautiful sexy chords that Bill Evans played too.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  So, uh, so I don't know. That's, I don't know if I answered your question.

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  Nah, that makes total sense, because even when I hear something, you play something, like I really love your take on Nola's thing for "She's Gotta Have It." And just the way you play it, it's like, "Oh my God, that shit is gorgeous, man."

• 1:10:46Speaker 05

  I love it. I got chills hearing you say that, because, yeah, right. You know, that's my thing, if you're gonna do that, do a cover. And in that case, Spike's dad's great original theme, "Bill Lee," and I wanted to, you know, make it my own. That's why, why do a cover if you're not gonna try to spin it and do it and not replicate what's come before? What's the point of that? So, yeah, thanks, man. I was proud of that. And I did it pretty fast. I gave him three takes and Spike used the right one to me. He used the one I liked the most. And so, yeah, that's good. But that's, but we've, see, since we seem to be going chronologically, then we can

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  go back to 1995, where we were talking about Pat Metheny.

• 1:11:33Speaker 00

  Wait, just one more thing, one important part you missed.

• 1:11:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  You disbanded the group and then went to the Grateful Dead. So how, how was that like, "Hey, guys, I'm going over here, you guys take care"? Like, what was the...

• 1:11:50Speaker 05

  Well, it wasn't exactly like that. I joined the Dead in 1990 and The Range was split apart in 92. But, so probably by joining the Dead, played a part in that, but mostly I wanted to move on. The first record without that band, and I always loved it when people would say, "Oh, I just miss the old band sound." And I would say to myself, "Well, what you're referring to as the old band sound is me playing on, along with the drum machine and with the synth bass." It's basically a virtual one-man show, all those hits that say The Range. I mean, the band was great. And just like I've said before, The Range live, we'd beat the dog shit out of those records, you know, just on an impact and intensity and groove level.

• 1:12:35Speaker 05

  The guys were great, Molo, Joe Puerta, George Marinelli, On and On, Pete Harris, David Mansfield. So, uh, so they disbanded. But, okay, so I, we got asked to open for the Dead in 1987, out of the blue. And as I said before, my older brother was a big Deadhead and all his hippie friends up in, up in University of Virginia, they used to drop acid, paint their faces, and go play intramural volleyball.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  Sounds like high school. I like it. Good time. Life was easier then.

• 1:13:09Speaker 05

  I think they just exalted if they ever just hit the ball, made contact, you know? So, so I had my, my training with them, so I knew a lot of Dead music. And so we played a Dead song, well, an old traditional song in the Dead manner called "I Know You Ride" or "In Our Gigs." I don't know, maybe they heard about that, or they were just fans of the first record. And we got a call to open for them in Monterey, California. We did that twice, two days in 87, 88. They asked us again, 89, some more, 90, some more. Every year, they'd ask us to play a couple of times. And then sadly, their keyboard player Brett Midland died of an overdose in the summer of 1990, right after we had played with them.

• 1:13:52Speaker 05

  And it was so strange, because it was this growing relationship. Garcia had, before that, played on our third record, played fantastically on two songs. And I'm in, I'm Seattle, and it's seven, eight in the morning. I'd just heard that Garcia, that Brett died in the middle of the night. I'm walking down the street and some young guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, Bruce, you gonna join the Dead?" It was so wild. I mean, the rumor mill was already out that I was gonna replace. And I told them, so, yes, sure enough, they came out to a gig that we did in Concord, California, just a few days after this, and asked me to join. Garcia and Phil Lesh came out. And, uh, and I said, "Look, guys, if you'd have caught me four years ago before I had

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  this thing going on, I would've said yes and lived happily ever after as your keyboard player, but I've got this thing going on pretty solidly now, and, but I will help you if you need me to." So they asked me to help them through the adjustment period. Their new keyboard player, Vince Wellnick, who didn't have a long history with the music, he learned it pretty quickly. He gropped it fairly rapidly. And so I played with them for about two years, 20 months, about 100 shows. And I wouldn't trade that, I wouldn't trade that time with them for anything.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  And how happy was RCA with you doing this?

• 1:15:08Speaker 05

  Look, as I said before, these execs were really nice, that they allowed me major latitude, major leeway, you know? They gave me long rope with which to hang myself. On a career level, you know? But again, it wasn't about career, I wasn't trying to build this, I was just trying to be moved by music and just, it just sounded like great fun. And it really was, I mean, where else could you play one song for an hour?

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say, what was the longest, what was the longest show you did?

• 1:15:46Speaker 05

  Longest show was probably four, four and a half hours, but there's an asterisk, asterisk there because there's some long-ass breaks, you know? Maybe you take an hour between the first set and the second set, sometimes. It was very loose. I couldn't believe it. They have the most amazing audience anywhere. You know, this 2015 Fare the Well concerts, they could've played, they had a million, over a million ticket requests.

• 1:16:11Speaker 00

  Dude, I almost went to those, yeah.

• 1:16:12Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:16:13Speaker 00

  I almost went. I had a gig that night, the one in San Francisco I wanted to go to. I'll say during this Corona break, there's some video out, I think Lee Oscar Vore is sitting in with them, and also Sly and the Family Stones drummer, Greg Orico, you know, all, like, I'm a studio musician junkie, so I didn't realize how many, like, luminaries that they pull into the fold and, and how they adapt, you know, and then how they just instantly click right in.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  Ornette sat in with them a few times, and, which was always amazing.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  So, opening for the Dead, is it, is it a little bit different than, like, have you ever met an audience that you didn't vibe with right away? Or like, opening for the Dead, how was that?

• 1:17:01Speaker 05

  Well, it could be rough, because the Deadheads can be fairly myopic, fairly tunnel vision, you know? They're really not there to hear you, or me, and so, so, yes.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  So would you do a jammy version of "The Way It Is"?

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. But we were kinda doing that anyway. But, so, yeah, it was tough. It was really tough when I would, we probably opened for them eight times or so, eight, nine times, and probably only twice did we ever really garner a crowd and have them really be interested in what they were doing. And when, so when I started playing in the band, I made it, I was the self-appointed sort of psychologist for these poor opening acts who would go out there and just be roundly ignored, you know? Dwight Yoakam came out there and he's there playing away. And man, I mean, he's a beautiful guy.

• 1:17:57Speaker 05

  I just said to him then, "I feel ya, I've been there," you know? So it can be real tough. Now, some acts like Traffic, Steve Winwood, or Dylan, when he would play with them, or Little Feet, you know, the Dead fans just really embrace certain groups, maybe some reggae groups. If Ziggy Marley was playing, they'd probably love that, sort of related musical styles, I guess.

• 1:18:24Speaker 07

  Since we're on the Dead and that they asked you to join, did, and I'm not trying to be funny, morbid, or disrespectful here, but the three previous keyboard and piano players had died.

• 1:18:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:37Speaker 07

  And I don't know if you're superstitious or what.

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  Spinal tap, yeah, I was gonna say.

• 1:18:40Speaker 07

  Did that cross your mind, like, back away slowly?

• 1:18:44Speaker 05

  No, no. No, I left the Dead because I came home in the middle of...

• 1:18:51Speaker 05

  One of their spring tours, they'd have the spring, the summer and the fall tours around the US. I came home in the middle of the March tour in ninety-two. I just, my wife and I had just had our twin sons, Russell and Keith, named for Keith Jarrett and Leon Russell. And so, I came home and they didn't know me. And I went, you know what? I don't like this. I need, I need to get off the freaking road, at least most of the time, for a while, anyway. So that's when I went back to finish the tour and I said, hey, guys. And Vince really had the gig solid. He was doing a great job by then. He was doing solid

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  the whole time, but he really seemed to be getting in the groove with it and so knowledgeable about the music. So, so that was my, my swan song. Although I would sit in with them when they were geographically close to me, when he was really struggling in his last year, they would actually call me up and say, hey, we're in Charlotte. Would you, would you come down here? We'll fly you down here to play because he was having such a hard time. It was, it was so listless on stage, so low energy. And they thought I could maybe prod and give a little cattle prod and get him going. So I did that in, in Charlotte and then in, at RFK Stadium, two nights in DC. And then a month and a half, month or five weeks later, he was gone.

• 1:20:17Speaker 04

  Damn.

• 1:20:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 04

  I kinda had like a, kind of a two-part question along, along those lines of just your family and your, you know, your kids and everything. At this point in your career, when we first got on the show, you were saying, you know, you're in the studio working on something. Do you think of yourself more primarily as a player or a singer or producer? And like, kinda what is the hierarchy, you know, when you sit down to create?

• 1:20:43Speaker 05

  Well, when I sit down to create, it's all about the songs. It's all about being a songwriter.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  It's the songwriter first, okay.

• 1:20:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. And what frankly, my last two records that are receiving such great, I don't know, sort of acclaim around the world, it's amazing. It's some of the more adventurous, strange music I've ever made. And all of a sudden, I'm being embraced by all these, these vaunted venues. It, I've been taking, I've been writing music to some Spike Lee cues. And, cause I thought through the years, Spike hired me, I'd always do a little bit, little things for him here and there. In fact-

• 1:21:22Speaker 04

  No, man, Shadowlands, I love that song.

• 1:21:24Speaker 05

  Well, I was just gonna say, because Questlove, you, your first acting gig was Bamboozled, right?

• 1:21:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:21:32Speaker 05

  So-

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  And Oscar-worthy a performance.

• 1:21:37Speaker 05

  Is, is that your Sheena Easton moment?

• 1:21:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 00

  It's not, no, it isn't because, you know, I, I knew that it was a satire. It was just, the way that Spike often does these, these social experiments. So I'll say that the only part that was like, hard to do about that movie was the fact that he purposely would put our trailer five blocks, five city blocks away from where we were shooting.

• 1:22:08Speaker 05

  Why?

• 1:22:09Speaker 00

  Cause he wanted us, he, at the end, I was like, you, you, you did a School Days on us. You purposely-

• 1:22:18Speaker 04

  He wanted you to feel the shame of-

• 1:22:20Speaker 00

  Wanted us to walk through the streets of New York.

• 1:22:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  In those clothes and in blackface, like for five blocks.

• 1:22:28Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it was, yeah, like, we knew it's, that this was, and you know, the time in two thousand, I was like, yo, you don't think it's ever gonna get, now it's like, we're, we're past it. Like, you know, it's more like a documentary than-

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  It's, it's like, it's like Idiocracy.

• 1:22:47Speaker 00

  Yes, it is. It is. It is. So.

• 1:22:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that sounds cold, but it sounds like it has a real purpose, what he made y'all do.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  Totally. No, it had an absolute purpose in doing it. I enjoyed it. Yeah. So what was, how did you do, was this your, or you did Clockers first, correct?

• 1:23:04Speaker 05

  Okay, my, my Spike, I guess resume goes like this. We made this video with Branford in New York City. I drove a New York cab. Then in ninety-five, he called and asked me if I would write an end title song for his great movie Clockers. I think it's one of his great ones. And he has so many. And I just had, Shaka Khan had called me right around the same time and said, hey, would you write a song with me? And I said, yes, come to Virginia. Cause I heard Shaka, look, I love her to death, but I heard she was famous for making a, meeting at noon and showing up many hours late.

• 1:23:40Speaker 00

  That's called being Shaka, yes.

• 1:23:42Speaker 05

  So, so I thought to myself, well, if I'm gonna wait on her, I'm gonna wait in my house. So she came and we had the best time. We wrote this, the song Love Me Still. And then Spike, right around the time we were writing it, he calls me and said, hey, I'd like, I'd like an end title, I need an end title song. What do you got? I said, well, Shaka and I are writing this song. And we'll get, and she, okay, well, I claim it. And so that's as simple as that.

• 1:24:06Speaker 04

  Without even having heard the song, he was just like, that's it?

• 1:24:10Speaker 05

  Well, I guess I claim first read a refusal.

• 1:24:12Speaker 04

  Oh, okay, okay, gotcha.

• 1:24:13Speaker 05

  You know, I guess.

• 1:24:14Speaker 00

  So wait, were you initially trying to put that on her, on another album of hers?

• 1:24:19Speaker 05

  It was just, we're just writing a song. It was, it was for her, though. It was for, it was, she, she was writing the words. She was gonna sing it. So, and she's done it great. She's on her greatest hits record. And then six years later, he asked me again for Bamboozled. And this time, though, he wanted it to be specific to the, the script, to the story. I guess it's Damon Wayans' character, right? And so I basically wrote it from his point of view. And, and look, so that was, that ended up being the end title song for that. And then years, so he kept asking me for little, little bits and pieces for movies. But then in two thousand eight, he called me and said, hey, I want

• 1:25:03Speaker 05

  you to score, I'm doing, I'm doing this documentary, ESPN documentary on the late, great Kobe Bryant. It's called Kobe Doing Work, and I'd like you to score. So I think this was my audition. So I, that was my first one. And that was two thousand eight, came out in oh nine, I believe. And then all the way up through last year with the She's Got to Have It, Part Two, second season, I did a bunch of stuff, probably six or seven full scores and some little incidental music. So in that time, eleven years, I wrote probably almost two hundred and forty different pieces of music. And now and then I would think, man, this song, this piece, this instrumental cue, it sounds like it needs to be expanded into a song. So I started doing that three years ago. And I started getting myself chills

• 1:25:48Speaker 05

  while doing this. Because the, the cues themselves were very vibey, cinematic. And that became my record Absolute Zero. And then I came, followed it up with, you know, just last week came out, Non-Secure Connection, also chock full of, of, of score music that became songs. Yeah, Scott, Spike music. Yeah.

• 1:26:07Speaker 04

  And do you, you know, you talk about your songwriting process. I was curious to know, do you think of yourself as a singer? Or is it just kind of, your voice is just the, I guess the vehicle to kinda get it out? Like if someone came to you and was like, yo, I have a song I wrote for you. Is that something that you have explored before?

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  Oh, people writing songs for me to do?

• 1:26:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, for you to sing specifically as a singer.

• 1:26:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I don't, people usually don't do that much, but I, I have had that. Look, if there was ever a book written about me, it should be called Slow Learner. And I feel like as a vocalist, what I do now is far, far exceeds what I did then, just on a soulful level, an expressive level. And so, so yeah, I'm just deep, people ask me, well, do you have any interest in doing this and scoring films, blah, blah, blah, and, or doing this and that? I say, look, I'm just really trying to do what I do better and better. And I also tell them that I'm like Tom Hagen in The Godfather, who has one client as a lawyer,

• 1:27:11Speaker 05

  Don Corleone. I'm, as a film composer, I'm the same. I have one client, Spike Lee. I'm not interested in doing this for other people. We have a special relationship. And so that's-

• 1:27:23Speaker 04

  Nah, y'all have a synergy, man. It definitely is. It's just, you know, when you were describing your, your style, kinda like the Bill Evans meets the him kinda thing.

• 1:27:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  It fits his, I mean, it fits the tone of his movies, like the thing you guys have. It works, man. It, it really does.

• 1:27:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, he, he just likes what I do. He called me up last week about something and said, look, just, I'm gonna keep calling you because I like what you do. So, so that's not, I, I, I love him. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you one great Spike story. Speaking of the Bill Lee, the

• 1:28:01Speaker 05

  we were recording that with Leslie Odom Jr. Singing from Hamilton.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  Hamilton, yeah.

• 1:28:07Speaker 05

  And he was in Harriet Tubman lately. He's had a great post-Hamilton career. Anyway, we're doing, recording in Brooklyn, recording Leslie and with a great jazz group backing us up. And so I said, hey, Spike, I need a ride to my hotel somewhere in the middle of the session. He said, yeah, no problem. We'll get it. So the session ends and he says, hey, it's a nice day. Let's just walk to your hotel. So we go out in the street, just the two of us. And man, it was like walking with, I don't know. I mean, MLK.

• 1:28:46Speaker 00

  He was Spike Lee.

• 1:28:48Speaker 05

  Well, I just, I was just, I just loved it. People are hanging out of cars, hanging out of apartments. Yo, Spike, yo, Spike. And it was, I said to him, is it always like this? Yeah, pretty much. But then later on, you know, Spike, Spike, Spike. He looks at me and says, well, maybe today's a little more intense than usual. But it was, we had the best time. It was a beautiful November afternoon in Brooklyn and we just walked and walked and walked. And it's just, it's one of my great Spike Lee moments is walking with him while he's just getting the love from, you know, he was just getting his king of Brooklyn.

• 1:29:26Speaker 00

  Of Brooklyn.

• 1:29:26Speaker 05

  Exactly right. It was just fantastic.

• 1:29:29Speaker 00

  So let me ask you, so with where we are now today in Corona and the world's slowed down. I know for a lot of musicians, this is the time period in which the portals of a lot of ideas are opening up. And, you know, again, you've done bluegrass work with Ricky Skaggs and, you know, jazz work and all these other things. Like what have you, what have you been trying to cook up as of late? Like how have you, how have you spent the last, or as of this recording, six, seven months?

• 1:30:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, in early, mid-March, when the quarantine shutdown era began, obviously like everyone else, I wasn't going to go anywhere, but I have this great facility, this great studio. So I just decided, okay, well, I'm going to try to take the deep dive and try to really take it to another level. So I wrote six songs in six weeks from mid-March to the end of April. Then I had to go do a few other things, some music for other records, et cetera. But, and I learned how to play these, the songs off this current new record because now we're in the remote era and so you have to perform in your house.

• 1:30:46Speaker 05

  And so I did that. And I was just in LA last week, working with Tony Burr, who says hi to you, Questlove. Tony Burr has a studio in Brentwood on Kenter. And he said, you worked there with a woman named Susan Rogers.

• 1:31:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Speaker 04

  Okay. Wow. Yeah, it's Princeton.

• 1:31:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right. So he says hello. Tony Burr's a great, great producer. He produces, produced Fiona Apple, some of her great records. He produces young girl Phoebe Bridgers, who's sort of all the rage in that world, very strong. So that's what I've been doing, just, just working on new stuff. And that's, I'm lucky, just like I guess all of us, we get to do what we love to do for a living. And so I'm just continuing to try to be creative. At this point in my career, sometimes I'm trying to make a sound that I've never heard before. So it takes me far afield into, again, do-deco phonics stylings.

• 1:31:44Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. There you go.

• 1:31:46Speaker 05

  Full circle.

• 1:31:48Speaker 00

  Were you, were you coming, were you coming up where your kids, like were they aware that, you know, their dad was Bruce Hornsby? Like, how did you navigate being a musician and a parent? And what was that?

• 1:32:00Speaker 05

  I think they gradually, it just, as you grew up as a kid, you sort of gradually become awake, you know? You wake up every year a little bit more. And so they, they knew about it. Say when they were seven or eight, where they'd go see, we did a tour and when they were six, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown, Sean Colvin and I and David Lindley did a tour. The boys came around on this tour and, you know, they're at Red Rocks and seeing a big crowd of 9,000 going crazy for their grizzled old coot of a dad. And so anyway, that's, they've enjoyed it. My boys are fans of what I do. And so that's really, really nice.

• 1:32:43Speaker 00

  So, okay, before we let you go, I do have one question. So obviously you, you got a long, long mileage out of the way it is via Tupac. But did you ever foresee or think that there would be a time in which even 20 years after Tupac, that the way it is would come back again? I know that Polo G.

• 1:33:09Speaker 05

  Polo G, wishing for a hero, man.

• 1:33:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, they wish for a hero. So.

• 1:33:13Speaker 05

  I love it. I really love what Polo G did. We got, out of the blue in maybe February of this year, we got reached out to by his people saying Polo G would like to fly to Virginia to ask your permission. I said, well, just send me the thing. And I heard it. I went, man, save your time and money.

• 1:33:31Speaker 00

  Do that?

• 1:33:33Speaker 05

  Well.

• 1:33:34Speaker 00

  They fly out and ask for permission and put person in. Wait, that's, that's really a thing?

• 1:33:40Speaker 05

  Well, it was in this case. It was in this case. So I said, hey, save your time and money. I love what you did. It's called wishing for a hero. And, and yes, we may work together at some point. Yeah, the odd couple, kind of like Spike and Bruce, another odd couple.

• 1:33:57Speaker 00

  It works though, man. It works.

• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  Well, look, I just, I love what, I love what Tupac did. It's a positive message. And same with Polo G, the, the video is beautiful. This record has this great gospel choir coming in sort of halfway through and taking you home with it. It's, I love it. So I'm, I'm proud and grateful to these great young artists for, for their interest in my music, at least that song, anyway.

• 1:34:27Speaker 00

  I always wondered if that myth is really real. Like on television and movies, you always hear this thing about like, it just takes one song to change your life. And then I think Carl Douglas, creator of what is now the unplayable Kung Fu fighting.

• 1:34:43Speaker 04

  Kung Fu fighting.

• 1:34:45Speaker 00

  Once, no, once Van Wissie said that, you know, just that one song can, you know, can change your life and you don't have to work another day again, like you just, this one song to fall back on, but.

• 1:34:57Speaker 05

  Maybe I'm going to try to get, "Those cats was fast as lightning." Maybe I'm going to try to get that lyric into my mix.

• 1:35:04Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:35:05Speaker 05

  I'm sorry. I cut you off. What'd you say, man?

• 1:35:08Speaker 00

  I mean, I also know that you're not in the game just to monetarily, you know, take off of, you know, burn hundred dollar bills with the cigar or burn cigars with $100 bills. So.

• 1:35:21Speaker 05

  I'd love to see that.

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  Or go to the whole house with Huey Lewis. That's.

• 1:35:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:29Speaker 04

  Huey's there.

• 1:35:30Speaker 05

  Maybe I'll start burning hundreds. No, I don't think so, though. I'll leave that to the Wolf of Wall Street guy, you know? DiCaprio and them.

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good. That's good. Well, we thank you very much, Bruce, for being on the show today. And.

• 1:35:45Speaker 04

  That's amazing. Thank you, man.

• 1:35:46Speaker 00

  Fans. And yes, we are still, I listen to our version of Love Me Still from The Tonight Show.

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  Well, I'm so glad you brought it up. Can I just end with my Questlove story? So.

• 1:35:59Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, please.

• 1:36:01Speaker 05

  We're in that little, that little rehearsal room. It's tiny, right? And so you're a piano player, the bad dude. Yeah. He says, hey, can we play Love Me Still? So I say, sure. So we're playing it in the normal way. And all of a sudden, I guess you had this great idea to play it as a slow shuffle. So we, can we try it this way? So we start playing, we're playing a little bit. And I guess, so you, you made the greatest sort of producer sort of request. You said, hey, play it like you're drunk.

• 1:36:38Speaker 05

  Which was great because, because what I really felt was, I was, what I think you really meant, truly you meant was, hey, man, you're a little on top. We're laying back.

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  Always.

• 1:36:52Speaker 05

  You just need to get back with us. So I, so I started really sitting on it. And what a feel. The next time I came back, we had to do it again. And now my band plays Love Me Still, the Questlove version.

• 1:37:08Speaker 00

  Wow. Okay.

• 1:37:09Speaker 05

  Remix.

• 1:37:11Speaker 00

  Now Questlove's going to have to cover that version before you recover and cover your version.

• 1:37:16Speaker 05

  Be my guest, whatever you want. Yeah, thanks, man. But one of mine.

• 1:37:20Speaker 00

  All right. Well, we got to do it. We got to do it now.

• 1:37:22Speaker 05

  Sounds great.

• 1:37:23Speaker 04

  That room was going crazy that day.

• 1:37:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's probably one of our moments. That's, that's a top 10 moment inside that room.

• 1:37:34Speaker 05

  Well, it was.

• 1:37:35Speaker 00

  You and Weird Al playing accordion with us. Yes, that, I put that up there. Definitely. Definitely up there.

• 1:37:42Speaker 05

  Well, I'll take it. I'll be lumped in with Weird Al anytime. He's a bad dude.

• 1:37:47Speaker 04

  He is a bad dude.

• 1:37:49Speaker 05

  He can go, man. He can go.

• 1:37:50Speaker 00

  You're all bad, dude. This is Questlove. Thank you very much, Bruce Hornsby, for joining us. And we'll see you on the next go round of Questlove Supremo. See you.

• 1:37:59Speaker 05

  It's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  Nah, thank you for your time, Bruce. Thanks for the music.

• 1:38:03Speaker 00

  Thank you, Bruce.

• 1:38:09Speaker 06

  Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:38:15Speaker 06

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