In short
Notes on Broken Record Podcast Episode: John Leventhal
Podcast Overview
- Title: Broken Record
- Hosts: Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, Justin Richmond
- Episode: John Leventhal
- Description: The episode features John Leventhal, a renowned producer and musician, discussing his career evolution from a session musician to a Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter. The conversation delves into his marriage with Rosanne Cash, their musical collaborations, and his debut album, *Rumble Strip*.
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Key Themes
John Leventhal's Musical Journey
- Early Influences:
- The Beatles were pivotal in inspiring his musical journey, igniting his passion for music in 1964.
- Initially started with an acoustic guitar, eventually transitioning to electric guitar post-college.
- Career Development:
- Started as a session musician in the 1980s, moving into songwriting and producing for artists.
- Produced significant tracks like "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin and "Walk Through the World" by Marc Cohn.
Collaboration with Rosanne Cash
- Personal and Professional Partnership:
- Married for nearly 30 years, John and Rosanne have developed a successful collaborative dynamic.
- Their personal relationship enriches their musical partnership, allowing for growth and creativity.
- Creative Process:
- Early songwriting involved John writing music to Rosanne’s lyrics.
- They evolved to embrace more collaborative songwriting approaches, enhancing their creative output.
Stepping into the Spotlight
- Debut Album - *Rumble Strip*:
- John's first solo album showcases his instrumental prowess and songwriting.
- Embraced the creative process during the pandemic, finding inspiration in the disorienting environment.
- Artistic Expression:
- Focused on creating music that reflects a mix of influences, with an aim to evoke emotional depth and complexity.
- Discussed the importance of improvisation and experimentation in his work.
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Key Takeaways
- Embracing Limitations:
- John emphasizes the idea of turning limitations into strengths, asserting that quirks can form a unique artistic voice.
- The Role of a Producer:
- John's approach as a producer is to focus on the artist's essence, ensuring the emotional core of the music is highlighted.
- Musical Influence and Development:
- Cited influences include minimalists and a wide range of musical styles, from folk to soul, shaping his guitar playing and songwriting.
- Creative Process:
- Discussed the balance between structured songwriting and spontaneous creation, using the pandemic as a catalyst for artistic exploration.
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Notable Quotes
- "The Beatles opened the door for me to all music."
- "You take your limitations and try to nudge them toward being a style and a voice."
- "A good hymn can look sorrow straight in the eye but still leave you with some hope."
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Conclusion This episode of *Broken Record* provides an intimate look into John Leventhal's evolution as an artist and his collaborative journey with Rosanne Cash. It delves into themes of creativity, artistic limitations, and the importance of emotional authenticity in music. With the release of his debut album, *Rumble Strip*, Leventhal takes a courageous step into the limelight, embracing his unique voice and vision.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:06Pushkin. This is an iHeart Podcast. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speedtest. And they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.
0:48where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. Every great music conversation goes beyond the surface. The influence that shaped an artist's sound. The moment that changed their creative direction. The story behind the story that fans never hear. Claude helps you discover those deeper connections. Upload interviews, liner notes, or music journalism, and Claude reveals patterns across an artist's entire journey, showing how influences become innovations. Whether you're a music journalist, passionate fan, or someone who loves understanding creative processes, Claude matches your curiosity about what really drives great artists.
1:29Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash brokenrecord. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah, with Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you will earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. And the card gets you into Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences. Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next weekend escape, Discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve.
2:11Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval, terms apply. John Leventhal is a bit of a secret weapon in music. Though he started out as a session musician in the 80s, he quickly found writing and producing music for other artists was actually his true calling. That gift has led to six Grammy Award wins and songs like Sonny Came Home by Sean Colvin, Mark Cohn's Walk Through the World, and Crossing to Jerusalem by his wife, Roseanne Cash. John and Roseanne have been married for almost 30 years and over the course of their union have become great collaborators.
2:49Bruce Edlam talks to John Leventhal on today's episode about the beginnings of both his musical and romantic relationship with Roseanne and also about stepping out from behind the curtains to release his very first debut album, a beautiful instrumental project called Rumble Strip. This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richman. Here's Bruce Hedlum's conversation with John Leventhal. So I want to start with your guitar playing. When did it start? It's a little bit of a mystery to me how this whole thing is unraveled. um uh i mean like a lot of guys my age you know the big bang for me on the deepest level was the beatles right so whatever 1964 that year whenever they're doing everything they're doing there's hits on the radio there's ed sullivan there's hard days night there's you know this deluge of and you know i was i was primed you know i was ground zero on a lot of levels do you remember the first song of theirs you heard or the first one you made an impression well uh love me do oddly enough was the one i would take my little you know nine volt transistor radio and put it under my pillow i grew up just north of the city uh and uh you know at night you could get like stations from buffalo and detroit and stuff and you know i would like just keep going through all the stations see if any of them were playing it you know why did it hit me it is a deep, mysterious, profound, existential, spiritual journey.
4:28Like, what was it? Why was I primed? I mean, obviously I was not alone, but there was something deeper. It's clearly the reason I'm sitting here talking to you now. I mean, I love the Beatles. I don't think I've ever been a Beatle obsessive like a lot of people are. I mean, I've taken the time as a professional to sort of learn what I need to learn, right, on a lot of levels, songwriting-wise, musician-wise, record-making-wise. But they hit me hot and heavy, and they just kind of opened the door. It's like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, you know, it literally felt like my world went from black and white to color.
5:02And they provided something. They provided a visceral energy. They provided a focus, like I wanted to hear Beatle tunes before school, after school. And then, of course, they opened the door to all music for me, really. but I didn't have there was zero template to be a professional musician particularly professional popular musician let alone a rock and roll like roots music musician of which that term obviously didn't exist we would have called it folk music or something right so I slowly started playing guitar and honestly and truly this is kind of makes me kind of a weirdo, but I graduated from college and I bought an electric guitar my senior year of college.
5:46I'm 20 years old. It's my first electric guitar. I had an acoustic guitar. Do you remember what the acoustic was? Yeah. It was a, my dad, we shared the cost of a Gibson J50. So it would have been like a 1968 J50, which was then stolen like my sophomore year in college. So then I didn't have any guitar for a year. And then I bought a Gibson 335 my senior year in college. And the thought there was I met a couple of guys who played. I was not a good musician or anything. And I started playing with these guys. Graduated from college, literally clues as to what to do. Oh, what am I going to do with my life?
6:27You know, should I go to law school because that's some kind of vague expectation of a profession or anyway i decided to take a year off and play music with these guys and as i say that year is now literally turned into a half century so it was a good year off it really was like the best year off anybody could take and then you know man i just got really lucky i fell in with some older really good seasoned musicians i must have had a kind of an intuitive feel for the thing a certain innate musicality, which I believe I did have. It took a while to figure out how to get it out and how to use it and how to use it in professional situations and in sideman situations and guitar solos and songwriting and then ultimately playing on recordings.
7:15You know, it's a process. And then, you know, lucky me in the New York area, there were a lot of musicians and I had always written songs. And basically by the early 80s, I had fallen in with Sean Colvin and Jim Lauderdale. And we wrote songs, not the three of us together, wrote songs with Sean Colvin, I wrote songs with Jim Lauderdale. And seven years later, I ended up producing both their debut records. And all of a sudden I was a record producer. There had been one little moment in there so I was making my living so oh let's get back to your guitar thing like oh how did you you know start playing guitar I was making my living as a guitar player I would say from 1977 to 1987 till I produced these records so for 10 years I did the sideman thing and it was starting to move into the session player thing and what was what was that like was it a union card uh at that point you had to yeah you definitely had to be in the union because all record dates reunion dates, right?
8:21And then there was a very, very thriving jingle scene here in New York in the 70s and 80s. And that was a lot of bread and butter for a lot of people, including myself. Okay. You have to say, any famous jingles you play on? God, I can't. I just, I'm sure I have on my mind. I mean, all your major brands, I think at one point or another, I played something on. I can't pull up any. You can't recall the Frosted Flakes ad. I can't. I don't think I want to. But, you know, I was never really happy doing that you know I was never really happy being the side man session man thing I mean I have total respect for cats who can do it I think it's a real art form and some guys do it now that I hire session guys I mean there are guys who really do it well and it's way beyond their abilities as a instrumentalist it has so much more to do with taste and refinement and self-editing and awareness of everything going on around you.
9:17But at some point I had a little epiphany when I was writing with Sean Colvin, which was, it's interesting you should point out, so you're hearing me play guitar and you're like, God, I can't pigeonhole this guy, right? There's all these things going on. That didn't quite work for the session guy thing. You had to kind of hone in on contemporary guitar styles. And I was never really interested in doing that. So what did they want to hear? Well, you know, you had to sound like all the hit records, basically, right? For the most part. I'm talking about the 80s primarily here, because by the 90s, I was sort of out of it, even though I did start playing on records, but that was through my record production.
9:59You know, other people, whatever, Jackson Brown, Bruce Hornsby, Willie Nelson. I mean, I started playing on other people's records, but that was after I had become a producer. the epiphany i had was with colvin because we had tried to write songs for quite a while and they were okay they were like well done but there was something missing and the thing that was really missing was the two of us just being the two of us and part of that was this kind of tacit understanding of letting go of being commercial and sort of embracing your eccentricities embracing what makes you different and weird and embracing and being aware of your limitations and a kind of a way in which you take your limitations and try to nudge it toward being a style and a voice and hopefully that's compelling and different and filled with emotion and soul and stuff.
10:55I can't say that it happened quickly like that but it definitely did for both Colvin and I and then we started writing much more interesting tunes. It's interesting you say you you push your limitations to come up with a style. Most people would think you push your strengths to come up with a style. No, no, it's interesting. Well, I mean, it's, I think, so maybe to articulate it clearly, it's making your limitations your strengths. It's taking the things that make you different, that are quirky, that are stylistic, but you like and you feel are expressive and they're saying something that feels totally connected to you.
11:32and then you turn them into the hand that you play right instead of trying to sound like these four guys or write songs like these 20 guys or produce records like these guys you kind of try it's a process very few people get it on the first thing but there are elements of it in the first sean colvin record i put it's called steady on which is a record i noticed a lot of musicians like. Like Sarah Gerose, who we were talking about before we started, you know, has said that that record hit her hot and heavy. And she's not alone. I've heard this from a lot of younger people. So there was something weird and quirky about it.
12:07It didn't sound like everything else. And so I think that was sort of the liberating moment for me, where I could let go of self-imposed expectations, stylistic musical expectations that I had thought were around, because New York is also a really competitive town a lot of good musicians a lot of people making records a lot of people with big egos and big opinions let alone record companies and you know and so i just nudge toward this quirkier really eclectic thing where i feel like everything i do is informed by lots of different things and really my guitar playing it's informed by so much i mean it's kind of endless Can you tell me a few of the things that were really formative for your guitar playing?
12:57It's, I knew you were going to ask me this. It's so vast that I don't think I can really comprehend it. And there are times where I try, I recognize, like I'll play a little solo guitar for you at some point. And I recognize that for me, part of that piece is coming from Rye Cooter, who left a big imprint on me. I mean, there are so many musicians, and not necessarily guitar players, who just had, who left an imprint on me. I mean, there was just, there are endless number of guitar players. I mean, all the guys who play it on records, the Beatles. I had two particular session players that I really looked up to who made lots of records in the 60s and 70s and I was looking up to become friendly with both of them.
13:48One was Reggie Young, the great Reggie Young, who played the incredible guitar intro on Drift Away by Dobie Gray. If you haven't heard that in a while, listen to that. The other one was Hugh McCracken, who played on Aretha Records, played on Brown Eyed Girl. He played on Ram by Paul McCartney. He played on Double Fantasy by John Lennon. So those guys sort of showed me a way to eclecticism. And they were also minimalists. So I was, oh, so this will be a good conversation. I was always drawn to minimalists. I mean, I loved Hendrix and I like big, powerful, lots of big note, big sound guitar players.
14:29I always liked it, but I was never that interested in playing like that. I always sort of zeroed in more on what I would call minimalist players, players who like fell in between the cracks and would make, would come up with one, like a little, you know, half bar pattern that was perfect in that you would wait to hear it in the second verse. Or it come up with a little segue that would take you from the chorus to the thing. I was always drawn to that, even on Beatle records, which are in some ways masterclasses of these kind of ideas. um i mean it's kind of endless ched atkins uh uh curtis mayfield like god i loved curtis mayfield it's really really endless i mean like it lists you know 500 guitar players there's a little bit of uh soul playing on your new record yeah you can tell there's a there's some uh a lot of uh used a lot of triads yeah yeah and a lot of it feels very uh like cropper or yeah curtis mayfield yeah well i for me that would be reggie young and and uh and curtis a little more than cropper although who doesn't love cropper um but yeah i love bobby womack there's another guy i really loved though he played guitar in some of those wilson picket records just just got me why would it get me you know so all right so then there's all that and then i have this kind of bubbling up folky celtic thing underneath all this kind of pop soul rock thing right is any of that family?
15:56Well, my grandmother was Irish. So did she sing me Irish lullabies? No, she didn't. But yet, can't help but wonder, right? So I think that I am your classic American
16:14melting pot player where I really feel this clash of Appalachia and Africa, of Ireland and you know, Ghana. And it really swims in me in a big way. You helped us with the project we did with Paul Simon. And when we were, by the way, I hope they sent you a copy of that. They were supposed to. I remember talking to him and saying, you know, it wasn't put this bluntly, but, you know, what comes first, the words or the music? and he said the most important thing to him was the sound. The sound, he believed, of particularly a single, is what allowed people to hear the music, what allowed them to hear.
16:59And that was always his aim, which I thought was fascinating and God knows he's produced some amazing albums. When you are suddenly in the control booth, you're the producer, what do you want to hear? What are you reacting to? Right. So my thing, although it is interesting, I played on a record once that Paul was a producer, so that's interesting. But I was going to say that, so my thing, obviously, I think the world of Paul. I mean, he had another guy who had a massive impact on me on all levels. Also, unbelievably great guitar player in his A-day, really great. I mean, so he's making records for himself.
17:43And so he's working it on all levels. So when I'm a producer for somebody, I'm really trying to focus on what makes the artist I'm producing great. What makes her, him, her compelling, interesting. What makes the feel, is there a feeling? For me, as much as I love the sound of the record, and don't get me wrong, I do. the first thing is what is there a real feeling here and what are we going to do to get it out or are we just doing this because we have the skill set and we know how to do it we know how to put chords together we know how to play and we know how to record them and put a little compression and reverb on it and delay and we know how to do it and we can make it sound like a record and that's cool and that's fine and that's a that's professional and that's to be admired but I'm always thinking a little past that particularly as I've gone along because now I've been producing for getting close to 40 years.
18:38So this more esoteric thing has become more important to me in the latter half of my career. How did you learn to be a producer? Were you that guy watching? It took me a long time. Yeah, like in the booth saying, what are you doing? What's that? Lots of musicians wouldn't have a clue how to produce a record. Yeah. No, I always, man, that was always the thing. I, you know, I can't, I don't know why. I was always the guy in the band who was interested in what everybody was playing even before I was a producer even before I knew exactly what a producer was I was the guy in the band who was listening to the bass player and the drummer and the keyboard player I'd be the guy who go to the bass player like hey what if you don't play the root note here what if you play the third when I'm playing the one chord like you know I was always the guy doing it probably to an annoying degree in fact I think if you would interview Sean Colvin because I was in a band with her way before we got it you know I was always doing that driving everybody crazy but it was like i couldn't stop it it was like uh you know my little spectrum thing was like i would hear arrangements and a lot of my favorite record producers are so you can come at record look record production is a completely amorphous title i mean it can mean anything it can start from one spectrum of like you really don't know anything about music you know you have a vibe you You know how to keep everybody focused and excited and creative.
20:00And you know the right time to order a bottle of wine. And you know to make the right comment, you know, six hours into a song. You can go like, you know, fellas, I think we had it on the second take. It was a little more purple. I think that's what we need. We know, you know, you can talk in the most esoteric terms. And it can work. It can also be ungodly bullshit, right? I mean, I've seen that too. and then the other spectrum moves toward a guy like me who's always been interested in the nuts and bolts of arranging like the actual music by far the most interesting thing to me and when i first started producing uh i didn't know much about engineering or the studio so i was sort of at the mercy of engineers which was both frustrating and good because i ended up working with a lot of good engineers and I started paying attention so that about 10 years into me producing, I decided to try to be my own engineer and then eventually try to be my own mixer.
20:57And be only because I just felt it was all another tool. It's just like another instrument. It was like learning to play another instrument. You know, I play a few instruments and this was another instrument. Oh, because it dramatically affects the sound. And also I like to move fast. So it helped me. it's better for me to move fast when I'm working with people. I feel like I can get better results if I kind of keep my internal editor, who's a lively fellow or a lively woman. I can't sometimes it's one or the other. I have to keep that lively person at bay sometimes. And because I can be way too analytical.
21:30Do you mean you can be far too critical? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To an annoying degree. Yeah. Self-critical in particular. How do you keep that voice at bay? Oh, Bruce. That's a question that's universally, if you have the answer. I haven't figured it out. The way I do it is just sort of, I tell him or shut up for the first 90 minutes and then we'll check in with you. Give me 90 minutes, right, to work on this idea. Anyway, the bottom line is I eventually learned how to engineer, which was helpful for me. I think I started making better records, not only better sounding records. I think they're more focused.
22:10But, I mean, I had to learn all this. This did not happen overnight. Like I say, I feel like by the time I made this record with Sean Cole and it was called A Few Small Repairs in like 97, it felt like I was starting to get it. And then the final sort of phase for me was when I realized I didn't need to and I probably shouldn't listen to anybody at any record company anywhere about anything having to do with music. So I just stopped listening to everybody and just sort of did what I wanted to do and all of a sudden felt like I was making better records and I was producing better. Tell me about that record because you had produced, I think, two or three of her records previously.
22:50I had produced one previously. Okay. And then we sort of went our own way for various reasons. And then she asked me to come back. That was a great record. That was, it's a landmark record. People really know that record. They know the same. Well, musicians seem to really, yeah, they really has a thing. So I'm grateful. What happened going into that record? If you could think about what made the magic on that record? Well, I think it's always hard to understand exactly where magic comes from, and perhaps it's best that we don't know, right? Because once you start boxing it up, it'll instantly become less magical, right?
23:29That's sort of the other sort of deep thing about creativity is like you can't tell when it's always coming. You can try to lasso it and corral it and put it in a room. And sometimes that works. And I think you need the skill set to be able to do that. But it won't always work. And it won't always lead to magical results. You just have to have a relatively in-tune antenna to recognize the magic when it's happening and do your best to frigging catch it. and just do your best to catch it and grab it. On that record, I knew it was good. I don't always know that. Sometimes they're laborious. Why was it?
24:11I hadn't really done anything with her. I mean, this is a complicated story. She and I were a couple in the 80s. We broke up after we made this record steady on. It was not a particularly pleasant breakup. She was not happy with me. We didn't talk for like five years. and then she said do you want to try to write some tunes and the tunes were completely different than anything we had done before I think she had tried this is back to this conversation about having to this would be so early 90s having to come up with hits otherwise the record company doesn't really put anything behind your record I think they she had tried to play this game at Columbia where she She was trying to fulfill their expectations.
24:54And, you know, I don't think it went well artistically. Well, I can't say that. I think she made some okay records. But I think she felt like there was something deeper and better that she could be doing. And so we basically ignored the record company and just went off and did our thing. And this coincided with one technical innovation, which I do think had something to do with it. One was, A, I think I was just really confident. By 97, I started to feel more confident, particularly in the sort of songwriting part of it. Thought the music ideas I had were different and good. And then there was a thing called ADATS.
25:34I don't know if you remember ADATS. It was sort of the first digital recording platform in which you could essentially have world-class releasable digital audio in your own space, right? It was affordable and modular. Well, for me, that was the ticket I needed because I was wanting to starting to engineer. This gave me a very safe way to learn how to engineer. I had a little studio in my apartment in the East Village, and I worked out a lot of the songwriting ideas there. We went and cut the record with a small rhythm section at seer sound which is still there and uh and then i took it all back to my little apartment on the east village and that's really where i made the record and uh so i was able to take my time i was able to experiment um it was completely relaxed so that i'm sure had something to do with the magic there were a few musical things too i think that lent it to it i was starting to write different kind uh i put my guitar in this tuning that sort of changed some of the harmonic structures that we were writing which sounds highfalutin but basically the chords just got more interesting no a lot of people particularly if they're stuck guitarists will change tuning just to yeah i mean i'll give you an example like um this guitar is in a tuning now so there's a lot of uh
27:14And that's a song off this record that a lot of guitar players I notice like. It's called Get Out of This House. And it's in this tuning so that these voicings are more open and sort of unresolved sounding.
27:33So... What is the tuning on your guitar? It's, I call it drop C tuning. Just basically you take the low E string down to a C, the A string down to a G, and you leave the rest the same. But anyway, I started using that and that's become over the years, a bit of my voice as a songwriter and a guitar player as well. So there you go. Was there, how did you learn that tuning? Was there a song? Random, totally random. I mean, I was always sort of into guitar tunings and just started experimenting with it. Wrote a couple of music ideas and she seemed to like them. And I was like, oh, okay, this is good.
28:08This is going to be good for songwriting. And it's proven to be very good, actually. Yeah. Have you gone full Joni Mitchell and just... No. No, I'm not interested in having 20 different tunings. No. No, I like having command of this tuning. I feel like I have real command over it. Like I can do a lot of different things. The tuning isn't dictating what I have to play. I'm still dictating it. Like a lot of those Joni tunings, like the tuning sort of dictating what's possible. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Right. But no, I don't like that. I don't like it. I like having, I like dictating what's going on musically.
28:44Well, if we get her in the studio, I'm sure she'll have an opinion on that, by the way. You think? Yeah. She might have one or two. Yeah. We'll be right back with more from John Leventhal after the break. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at an Oocla speed test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.
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30:02where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ukla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. The greatest music stories aren't always in the songs themselves. They're in the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you.
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32:21Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. We're back with more from Bruce Hedlum and John Leventhal. Tell me about the single for that album, Sonny Came Home. I can't believe that that was something the record company was, so yeah, the lead single. It's about a person burning their life down. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't make sense. It actually wasn't the first single. I mean, I think it was basically a fluke. I do. I think it just started getting traction at, I think it was like the very beginning of AAA radio. I don't know if you're a listener's, you know, what is that adult album?
33:07I can't even remember what AAA stands for. I have no idea. But you know what I'm talking about, right? I thought you meant the Automobile Association. I don't know. No, no. There's a longtime radio format that sort of came in the early 90s. Adult album alternative or something like that. I don't know. They started playing it, and then I guess Sony took a flyer. I mean, it doesn't happen. The record company has got to get involved, right? So I think they sort of stepped up and started promoting it at Top 40 Radio. And it clicked. Who knows why it clicked? I mean, was there sociologically something about, you know, people sort of see it as this kind of feminist statement?
33:52And I suppose it is. Or was it my little guitar hook? I don't know. Was that your guitar hook? Yeah. Oh, that's a great guitar hook. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I basically had that entire track before we even started. That was just an idea that I had. I had the whole track. And she heard it and wrote lyrics to it. She actually wrote two sets of lyrics. First one we sort of intuitively knew was not going to work. When she came in with those lyrics, did you know it? Did you go, yeah, that's it? The second lyric, then you came home? Yeah. I wasn't totally, if I'm totally honest, I wasn't totally sure.
34:27I thought it was pretty obscure. But she felt pretty good about it. She could be strong-willed, as I can. and uh and you know and i mean that's the other thing about a good collaboration is that you gotta you gotta have a leap of faith you know if you're if your collaborator is passionate about the thing they're bringing you gotta give it room to happen you know you can't always be saying no you know i wanted to ask you too about producing uh kind of a favorite of mine william bell oh how that That came about years, what, 35 years after his first big hit, which was You Don't Miss Your Water. Yeah.
35:04So tell me how that came about. Well, first of all, I'm happy to talk about it. If somebody really pressed me, and this would be to take nothing away from any other record I've ever made, but I think in some ways Williams' record is my personal favorite. Let's put it this way. it's the only record I've ever made where if I hear it it's like I'm not even thinking that I had anything to do with it it just sounds like a good soul record to me which I love I love soul music and I love I mean I listen to a lot of soul music particularly that subtle nexus of you know country soul that kind of earthy kind of soul thing um and you can make a case that William had the first record had you know sort of created country soul with you don't miss your water it you know uh how did it come about um uh it just kind of a fluke the a and r guy at stacks which at that time i think it still is is owned by concord which is now i think owned by universal um asked me if I'd be interested in doing it.
36:13And, uh, I got to tell you, it's one of the few times I've been normally, particularly as I've gone on, you know, I'm like, Oh, I might be interested. Well, you know, let me hear a bunch of stuff. And, you know, maybe the artist, you know, my basic rep is, Hey, the artist and I should get together for a day and we'll know whether there's, you know, something there. There's no point in getting locked up in a studio for six months with somebody if, until, you know, um, you can tell pretty quickly, or at least I can, but I knew right away. So I were like, yeah, I would love to do it. Yeah, the only slight strangeness was that they said, well, you know, they've collected a bunch of songs.
36:49I was like, okay, because the first thing I was thinking was, yeah, I want to write the songs. They sent me the songs and I really didn't like them. They were the thing that I intuitively knew in the first phone call that I shouldn't do, which were they were overt pastiches and regurgitations of cliches that you had heard way too many times. It's the thing that people do when they want to go back and make those records. They basically try to copy what was done. Now, it's understandable. It's all very seductive language, right? It's like, I love that language, and particularly of musicians and writers of a certain age, it has a deep, strong, nostalgic pull.
37:30But I knew that that wouldn't work, that there had to be it had to feel both modern and rooted in the 50s and 60s and the 70s in that lyrically it had to have some depth it had to come from i mean william at that time was like in his late 70s and uh it had to come from the stance of he's a guy in his late 70s singing songs as opposed to the lyrics that they sent me which were lyrics that he should have been singing at 29 or 30. So, but everybody was cool. I just said like, okay, I'm gonna try to write some songs and send William to New York. And William came to New York and we had a phenomenal day.
38:12I had started three songs and I'd started them with my buddy, Mark Cohn. If your viewers don't know who had that great record, Walking in Memphis, Mark and I are buddies and we've written songs together for Mark and for other people as well. I said, hey, let's try to start some songs. But I knew I couldn't finish the songs because William's a songwriter. So I wrote just enough. I said, hey, what do you think of this fragment of the song where he was interested in finishing it with me? And by the end of the day, I was like, we've got it. By the end of the first day, I had three really good songs.
38:49And I just said, this is it. It was a breeze. I love William. I still do talk to him all the time. he's what was were you sitting at a piano do you have guitars how did how did you write yeah so this is interesting so i built my own studio in 2015 and uh it's uh it's a small but very functional space and uh i have a very small console and by the console i have a telecaster and an acoustic guitar and percussion instruments and my bass um in the next room i have drum set and a B3 and a piano and a Wurlitzer. And William and I just sat next to each other and I have a great vocal mic, literally closer than you and I are right now.
39:30Bruce and I, I would say, are like 10 feet apart. William and I are probably like four feet apart. And we just keep it incredibly casual. And I'll just start playing something on a guitar and he'll sing and there's enough separation that I can get relatively good stuff. And then I would say like, oh, that's good. Let me throw some drums on this. I go play the drums and I put a bass on it. And like by the end of the day, I had this song called The Three of Me. And we both really liked that. I said, well, the only thing we need is horns. Let's just put horns on it and we'll get some background singers and we're done.
40:01So that's how, that's pretty much how that whole record went. And that was the first song on the record. That was the first song on the record. Right. Wow. I wanted to ask you too, I think it was just one song, but you produced Willie Nelson. I don't think I ever produced Willie. I played on one record. Oh, I thought he did a duet with Kimi Rhodes on a record you produced. Maybe I've got that wrong. That'll be sad if I can't remember that. I don't remember. Let's put it this way. If I did, he wasn't anywhere near the recording studio when I was there. Okay, it was one of those. He phoned it in.
40:36All right. No, no, I don't know. Oh, this is embarrassing. I don't know. I did play on a Willie record, which was interesting. What was that like? That was fascinating. that was also early 90s unbelievably great band um don was was producing it um you know it was very sweet of him to hire me he certainly didn't need me and they were doing it in new york and i was the only new york everybody else was from nashville or la killer band reggie young who's like really one of my heroes it's actually where i met reggie so i'm so thankful about that the Great Paul Franklin on pedal steel, Jim Keltner on drums, Mark O 'Connor on, you know, Mando and fiddle.
41:17I mean, it was a really Mickey Raphael. I mean, it was, and I'm even leaving out some people. It was great. And it was, most of the record, or most of the tracks I worked on were these duets. So it was pretty interesting. And my job was, so the whole band's there. So it's a big band, big setup, live. And each day a guest would come in, like one day would be Sinead O 'Connor, right? And I didn't know what we were doing. And Don would go like, okay, well, Sinead's here. I think they're going to do Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel. John, do you want to go in the vocal booth with them and with your acoustic guitar and kind of work it out?
42:01now now it's not like going in there and working out like a harlan howard song like a three you know above and beyond like with three chords where you can kind of like work it out pretty quick you know i mean don't give up is a pretty deep intense musical experience it's some subtle chord movement and dynamics and it's like so i'm like okay so it was pretty wacky to go in the a vocal booth with those two guys and also there was this it was like literally a perfect cartoon version of it where if you open willie's the door you know the airlock door to the vocal booth it would be like smoke would come out it was great but it was a great experience i think paul came in one day uh speaking to paul simon he did an american tune another tune it's like oh my god i got to figure out an american tune so i was probably just nerve-wracked about just you know stay and keep my head above water but you must feel like your old sideman days which you just like play this you're like okay i was out of shape yeah now i remember on that record i was out of shape yeah i was that i was not prepared do you have to practice every day to keep in shape uh well i should have practiced today how are you doing this i play guitar all the time do i practice sometimes well when i when for me practicing is um learning something i don't know I don't sit there and play fiddle tunes or work out bits.
43:25I'll just try to learn something I don't know. Or I'll just noodle. I mean, honestly and truly, well over half of my songwriting is me noodling on piano or guitar and then making a mistake and going, wow, what is that mistake? I love that. And then trying to run with the mistake. Speaking of trying to capture the magic, quite often the magic is a mistake. Mm-hmm. So tell me about your longest running collaboration when you first started working with Roseanne Cash. Yeah. Yeah, kind of amazing, right? We're 32 years in. Kind of incredible. I know it's a miracle. I look at my career, my family, it's a small miracle.
44:08How did this happen? But as David Byrne said, and you might ask yourself, how did I get here? I do all the time. Lennon and McCartney only lasted 10 years. Yeah. Well, that's been a learning process for Roseanne and I as well. It's like it doesn't always work. And we can get on each other's nerves. But basically, we make each other laugh. and so uh you know once in a marriage you get over the you know you have to kind of get over that hump where you're trying to force your partner to be the person you need them to be right like I think that we all do that it's like god damn it just can't you just be more like me and it just all feels like life and death and it's like ah you know once you get over that and you realize uh you're gonna be fine you know you let them go be crazy and whatever um so you do get over that that's uh we did i'm good to know this is my takeaway from the whole interview no oh i could talk about yeah i've had to think about how did our marriage sort of survive because believe me there were moments there but how did uh she'd written pretty much i think on her own yeah before she may have written some with rod rodney right her first husband who you know i jokingly say my husband-in-law who We're still friends with him.
45:29We collaborated not too long ago, so we'll occasionally write a tune. I have to ask you because I've interviewed two other Johnny Cash son-in-laws. You're the only one that's still going strong. Marty Stewart and Nick Lowe. Yeah. Oh, that's right. I forgot about Nick Lowe. Yeah. Well, those are two eminently talented. human beings. I think the world of Marty and I don't know Nick, but yeah, he's extraordinary. So I want to get back to the musical collaboration, but what was it like the first time you met her father? You know, it was fine. I don't, I don't have a, you know, I think they were sussing me out.
46:16So I felt a little, I think they were trying to see what the, what the deal was. I, I think in their world, well, Nick must have been the same way or maybe less so. I was sort of exotic. I was really coming from the... I mean, this is... I don't know how deep I want to go here. I mean, John and June had a very structured world that revolved around them, more or less, right? Yeah. I'll say no more, but that revolved around them.
46:48And, you know, for the most part, Nashville-based. And then here comes this kind of New Yorker out of the blue. And then their daughter starts talking about wanting to move to New York and leave her husband, who they were friends with and stuff. So there was a certain, it was fraught with a certain uncertainty. They were never anything other than gracious and welcoming to me, though, I will say at the end of the day. And it's fine. Totally fine. That's all I have to say on that subject. For now, anyway. Until my book comes out. Well, I want to hear how you started writing with Roseanne because she was...
47:26She invited me. She invited me. She liked that Colvin record, that first one. And I think, what else had been out? Well, you know, the funny thing is, I guess I owe it all to Jim Lauderdale because he and I had written an album's worth of material, made a demo. this would be like 89, 90 around there. Somehow Rodney heard it, liked it and helped get Jim a record deal at Warner Brothers in Nashville and invited me to co-produce it with him. So Jim at that time was living in New York. So we flew down to Nashville. We went to their house and there was Roseanne. Now she says she knew the day she met me.
48:15I'm not wired that way. I'm a troglodyte, you know, on a lot of levels. So it takes, you know, it takes like a sledgehammer of love to like whack me in the head to make me sort of see what's going on. That's the day she started the song, You Big Dope. Well, and then plus, you know, they were, you know, they were quite the couple, right? They were really riding high. Roseanne had a lot of hits. Rodney was starting to have hits. They were, they were a very compelling couple. I was, I, that was very taken by them. His first hits were songwriting, right? Like. yeah great unbelievable songwriter great for emmy yeah most before yeah yeah really and but he's he started having hits as an artist too yeah i forget the name of his hits they were good anyway so we met um i was in a relationship and then rodney asked me to produce a record right after that um their marriage was flailing apparently it's been flailing for a bit i did not know that uh and i went back to new york and like a few months later roseanne called me said you know i'm thinking i'm moving and rodney and i are separating i'm moving to new york okay whatever and then uh you know she asked me if i'd be interested in writing with her uh i think i think there was probably more than one motive behind that i think there was a pure musical creative impulse, but I think there was a personal impulse too.
49:41Okay. Well, we'll stay with the professional. What was the first song you worked on together? I think she would say it was the song Seventh Avenue, where she had written these lyrics and she asked me if I would write music to it, which I was happy to do. Does that come easily to you? Yes. Someone gives you lyrics? Yeah. How do you walk me through that? It seems the simplest thing in the world. Well, I say easy. I can't guarantee that it's always going to be good, but there's nothing daunting about the process. I actually like it. The reason I like it is, so I do it, okay, I'm going to come back to this, but there's a little bit of a journey, which is I've collaborated with a ton of people now, and I've done it every conceivable way.
50:21I've done it this way, hand me a sheet of lyrics, I'll try, I'll write music to it. I've done it like with Sean Colvin in the beginning, I would write almost complete pieces of music. Like there's a song called Steady On. I had the whole track. She went off and wrote words to it. She likes that. In fact, she likes that a lot more than the other thing. She likes living and listening to the tracks. And I've sat in a room with people with a notebook and an acoustic guitar and just thrashed it out. Like with Sarah, we did a bunch of that. I also gave her a track or two. I mean, I still do it all different ways.
50:57so with Roseanne we've done it both ways uh it has turned out over the years I do think we write better if she writes a lyric and then I try to set it to music sometimes she has to go back and revise the lyric because whatever reason to scan I may have an idea of how it should scan or you know you know we should develop this more as a chorus or whatever the the music the songwriting bit would be but um it's it's just i don't know it's wired in me you know it's it's funny i saw elton do this once um terrible name dropping thing but elton once called rosanna and said i'm gonna be in new york for two days can i just come hang out john's studio so okay yeah great i'm all excited thinking like oh my god elton's gonna be here and maybe i want to write a song with him and da-da-da-da-da.
51:47But no, he came in, he just wanted to ask Roseanne, do you have any lyrics? And she had some lyrics. And Bruce, he sat down, he took the lyrics, and I think the moment of weakness was the title, I can't remember. And he wrote a goddamn Elton John song in like eight minutes. It just poured out of him. The piano riffs, the hooks, he wrote a bridge, he hummed the melody to the bridge it was brilliant and exciting i was just i recorded i have the whole thing we court up i'll send you it oh and then like he left and i and i was like i went i played drums i played bass i played electric guitar i kind of did it and i sent it to him and he kept saying he wanted roseanne to do it but it was an elton john record it had nothing to do with roseanne musically she couldn't have sung it um but it's great so i don't know just some people are wired to do it.
52:43I love doing it. And all right, here's the roundabout way. What it does for me is that you can't rely on your preconceived patterns. Like everybody, I have certain things that I kind of move toward. If I'm just playing guitar by myself, there are certain chord sequences or rhythms. There are certain things that are just become part of my DNA and they kind of pour out of me. And I'm not saying they're bad, but sometimes, like anybody, you can get tired of your own stuff. When you have to write somebody's lyric, for me anyway, it just forces you out of your box. You can't rely on your patterns and your cliches.
53:23You have to make it work to somebody else's lyric, to somebody else's scan. So to me, that's fun. That's creative. I actually love doing it. Love it, to be honest. And you sit there with the lyrics and a guitar? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it comes super easy. Sometimes it doesn't come super easy. Sometimes it'll come super easy and I'll listen to it the next day and I'll go like, oh, that's not that good. And then I'll try to write it, throw it out and try to write another one until it feels right to me. And is that how your writing has developed over the years? Yeah. Yeah. I try not to, I put some effort in trying not to repeat or get bogged down in any particular way to approach it.
54:03I try to like keep the canvas wide open and all the brushes and all the paints, like all different scattered all over. I don't like the feeling of doing it the same way every time. For me, that doesn't work. I need to have different ways in. Do you also change where you record, how you record? Do you give yourself those kinds of challenges? I don't consciously, although it doesn't sound like a bad idea. I have a very comfortable setup, so I have my own recording studio. So very comfortable there. Yeah. No reason to wander out. Yeah. And what, for you guys now, what's the signal between you or the phone call?
54:46What is it that says, we got to make a new record?
54:52That's a good question. Well, quite often, the contract. like rosanne is still on a major label so she actually owes them a record and we talk about it all the time but we're not on the same page uh you know i'm in the position of oddly enough as a session player i never wanted to be the guy i had to wait for the phone call but in some ways as a producer as a producer i have to wait for the phone call you know for artists coming sometimes i'll call an artist and say hey you know what are you doing you want to try to write a song as a kind of first step. Like we don't even have to think about making a record.
55:31Let's see if we can write a song. Like I say, or the phone call or somebody calls you and says, hey, do you want to produce William Bell? And you can't wait to get started. After this last break, we'll be back with more of Bruce's conversation with John Leventhal. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Oocla Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.
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58:51Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. We're back with Bruce Hedlum and John Leventhal, who are going to talk about John's new album, Rumble Strip. Well, we should talk about your new record. Yeah, let's do that. I want to know, first of all, how did you end up writing a lot of these songs? It's so, when I was listening to it, I thought, well, it's been so long since, you know, there have been records out with just great guitar playing, like a Leo, you know, Cocky record or, you know, Burjance or any of those guys. I love Burjance. I really did love Burjance. Yeah. Oh, that's so cool that you picked up on that.
59:34Yeah. Well, I think particularly Leo, a lot of your playing reminded me of Leo Kocki in this record. I like Leo Kocki. I can't say he influenced me, but Merchants definitely did. Yeah. Interesting. You know, Bruce, it's just somewhere like 2016 or so. You know, so I write a lot all the time. I'm always writing, you know. And how do you, do you always record what you're doing? I record a lot of it. Yeah, I do. I record a lot of it. You know, not, I don't always like flesh it out into like full productions or anything, but I'll record what I feel inspired to record. Sometimes it's super minimal.
1:00:12Sometimes it is more fleshed out. It's whatever the inspiration leads me to. and i mean that's basically how i do it and so then a lot of times when i make records with people i have this sort of you know catalog of ideas and i can play the artist like you know i'll try to be thoughtful about it i'll go through it and well you know maybe maybe this would be good for sarah whatever um and and invariably at least one or two are you know it's great but then And I have all these ideas and occasionally I'll listen to them and I go, God, you know, I kind of like them. They're weird, but I kind of like them and they're, you know, whatever.
1:00:52They're my orphans. They've never found a home. I don't know, about 2016. So at that point, I'm well over 30 years into producing and doing all this. You know, I just think like Leventhal, do you have the courage to make your own record? You know, I'm very comfortable being a producer. I felt a kind of pull to do it but I felt a kind of stress about it too like being the artist with a capital A and having the attention beyond I mean one Is that not something you wanted when you were younger? When you never had it That's interesting You didn't want to be the star I never had the need to be in the spotlight Never No it was always I just wanted to be the guy who played good guitar wrote good songs and then ultimately the guy who got to make the records i.e.
1:01:38a record producer you know um people like brian wilson and burt backrack and george martin and i mean i liked musical record producers but i didn't i didn't have the thing to be in spotlight now why didn't i one is in the typical way that our kind of music is presented i've never felt super comfortable being this the singer totally comfortable singing background parts and harmony parts and all that but I've never felt, I feel like I've developed a voice on the guitar, but I've never really developed a voice on my voice. And as I said, you know, I have a strong internal critic. It's like, ah, yeah, it's not good enough.
1:02:19It's not good enough. So, and then if it wasn't going to be a vocal record, well, what would it be? You know, it's like, I'm not enamored of guitar records per se. You know, the idea of me trying to go play some flashy guitar isn't, I mean, there's templates for this kind of record i don't really play flashy rocking guitar and you know i'm a compositional musician basically in which i use the guitars as an instrument to express these compositional ideas um i mean i could be a pianist but i i i'm more expressive on the guitar um so the bottom line is it was daunting to try to figure out what it was going to be, but this catalog of ideas kept growing, but I would keep avoiding it.
1:03:04I would go out on the road, I'd produce a record, I'd go to the grocery store, raise children, anything other than confront making my record. And then the pandemic came and I didn't have any excuses. And in a way it was perfect because I also threw out any preconceived notion I had of what it was I was supposed to or should or was going to do. And I just started writing and it was a disorienting time. And I'm sure the time, I live in New York City, everything around me was affecting me. So there was a kind of haunted, you know, uncertain feeling to a lot of stuff and I can hear it in a lot of the music I wrote.
1:03:48And I just started going down to the studio every day, mostly at night, generally with a glass of amber fluid and just starting to play and trying to break up my patterns. Again, I was like, some things I composed as I normally would, some things I tried not to. I would just turn on the tape machine, start playing and improvising and try to just navigate my way through creating a record. What was a good example of that? The title track, Rumble Strip. That was something I just went down. I started playing an incredibly simple riff, you know.
1:04:28Something along those lines. And, you know, five hours later, I had a track. And it sort of led itself. I didn't really control it. You know, other things, I'll play a solo guitar piece that feels composed, right, that I organized and it felt like that. And then, you know, there were some vocal tunes. I felt compelled to like step up to the plate and try singing and see how it went um so I wrote a tune with my wife Roseanne I wrote a tune with Marcon that interestingly enough we had uh I don't want to get too sidetracked here I had mixed Dr. John's last record and sadly he passed away right after I finished and uh so I had an idea of writing a song for him but it wasn't meant to be for various reasons uh but i was left with a lyric about an aging musician well you know when i started thinking about my record i thought well you qualify levinthal so uh i kind of repurposed it for myself i wrote a tune with matt berninger from the national a band that we like we also actually just worked a little on their newest record and then uh finally i've always loved orchestral music and uh you know we during that year first year the pandemic i had a lot of time and i did a lot of listening so i would put on a piece by aaron copeland and i go oh that's beautiful like what what's what are the strings doing there and then i realized i could play it on guitar and then i also realized boy if i played this little clarinet melody on kind of a twangy guitar with a bigsby it'll sound like duane eddy but it won't be duane eddy because it'll just be a completely different context.
1:06:07So that's the way my weird mind works. And that's how that all happened. Do you want to play something? Sure. Let me play something. What do you want to play? I wrote a series of hymns. And they just came out. I wasn't intending to do it. And I recognized them as hymns a little bit after the fact. I've always liked hymns, particularly Anglican hymns. although really the hymn tradition in Southern Baptist Church boasts a black and white church I like too it's it's it's part of the roots of I think everything we like about roots foundational music certainly R &B and um and all that you know my my uh my standard line now is like you know a good hymn you know can look sorrow straight in the eye but still leave you with some hope and uh I mean I think in some larger esoteric way that's what I've been navigating my whole career is like, I know I have this tendency toward the bittersweet.
1:07:05I like bittersweet, but I like that bittersweet where there's that little ray of light at the end. You don't want to slit your wrist when it's over. You just, you're trying to wear it lightly. Anyway, I'll play what I'm calling hymn number two.
1:07:31Thank you.
1:08:04Thank you.
1:08:39guitar solo
1:09:01Thank you.
1:09:37That's the one. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in. It's been fabulous. Bruce, pleasure, man. Just a treat. Thanks to Jon Leventhal for playing some of his new album, Rumble Strip, for us. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite Jon Leventhal written, produced, or arranged songs at brokenrecordpodcast.com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
1:10:13Our engineer is Ben Toleroy. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.
1:10:46The more you learn about your favorite artists, the more you want to know. Claude helps you keep digging, finding new threads and rabbit holes to explore. Whether it's discovering deeper meaning behind a detail in an interview or figuring out the influence behind an artist's particular era, Claude thinks with you to find the next clue. If you can't get enough of the stories behind your favorite music and artists, Claude will help you discover new layers you didn't know existed. Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash brokenrecord. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve.
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1:12:34This is an iHeart Podcast.
From the publisher
John Leventhal is a bit of a secret weapon in music. Though he started out as a session musician in the '80s, he quickly found writing and producing music for other artists was his true calling. That gift has led to six Grammy Award wins and songs like “Sunny Came Home” by Shawn Colvin, Marc Cohn’s “Walk Through the World” and “Crossing to Jerusalem” by his wife Rosanne Cash. John and Rosanne have been married for almost 30 years and over the course of their union have become great collaborators.
Bruce Headlam talks to John Leventhal on today’s episode about the beginnings of both his musical and romantic relationship with Rosanne, and also about stepping out from behind the scenes to release his very first debut album. A beautiful instrumental project called Rumble Strip.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite John Leventhal songs HERE.
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