Norah Jones/Don Was

42:21Actually, Arif had just started, either started or revamped, I'm not sure. Maybe you know Manhattan Records, which was a sort of sister label to Blue Note that Bruce oversaw, which was either classical or musical theater kind of. Adult contemporary, I think. Yes, adult contemporary. It would have revamped it because I think that started in the 80s maybe. Maybe it started, so it probably was revamped. That's what it was, Adele Kin-Tikari. He left Atlantic and went to do that. Yeah, so whenever the Craig Street version of the record got sort of rejected, Bruce said that he wanted me to go back in with Arif Martin, and I was a little confused.

43:07I was like, well, you like the demos we did on our own. Should we just do that? And of course I respected everything Arif had done, but I was starting to get a little protective. at this point and like stubborn yeah and i didn't know if he still you know like i didn't know if it was going to be strings and stuff i didn't want on there you know or or what um so i was a little hesitant to be honest even though he was a legend and i'm obsessed with all the stuff he did with donny hathaway and aretha and but then and so bruce said why don't we just set up a meeting we'll go into a rehearsal space and we went to this rehearsal space it was so silly and like he came in and he's this sweet old man and he sits down and i play or something i don't know it was weird and then bruce said well you guys have a four days booked in the studio he'll just come the first day and if it goes well then he can come the rest of the days i don't know if he told Arif that but that's what was my understanding and so because it was still just my band he didn't hire the band it was still my band and I hired the band and and the engineer and so that's what happened he came in for the first day he was super sweet he he had great like ears and he didn't try to impose anything on us I think which was my main thing yeah but he definitely helped guide us into the right directions every time and all right he can stay it was like kind of funny but and he what would he make suggestions about um actually when i did the nearness of you uh which is the old hoagie carmichael ned washington song and i play it solo there's a part on it uh the nearness of you the nearness of you or whatever the melody is i was kind of like i think i had sung that song for a long time and I was kind of phrasing it a little loosely and he said Nora I know I like how you're phrasing it but at least the first time can you just hit the actual melody on the actual the nearness of because it's such a classic song hit that melody every time I sing that song now I think about him but uh yeah stuff like that like he wasn't trying to put me in a box or or change anything it was just the stuff that makes the melodies you know the stuff that we needed to hear picking a take comping vocals you know he had this crazy like contraption he used to comp vocals from the 70s yeah i remember that yeah yeah so you could just compare different different uh takes yeah you could do crossfades yeah he would put it into this yeah it was two faders box it was like very old school yeah he was just so cool and in the end i just grew to love him so much so i was just very i was just afraid in the beginning yeah you know afraid of strings and it's funny because he was a great string arranger and i almost never let him do an arrangement for me actually for the sandra bullock movie um she wanted nearness of you but She wanted it with like strings or something.

46:23And that's when he finally got to do it. We took the album version and he just made a really nice string arrangement. And then we used it and he was so excited. And I remember he came to the shoot. Would you mind showing, demonstrating just the difference between how you were singing it versus how he wanted you to sing it? Sure. Okay. On the piano? On the piano. Yeah, yeah. It's mic'd up and running? Great. Fantastic.

46:55The nearness of you And then he was like, no, go The nearness of you It's like The nearness of you It isn't your sweet conversation That brings this sensation

47:26Oh, I think it's just the, that's what it was. It's just the nearness of you. That's like, I was doing something like that maybe. And he's like, it's just the nearness of you. He's like, no, you got to do, hit that. It's just, it's just the nearness of you. Or whatever. Yeah, it's that little turn in the bottom. So that's good advice. I think it was good advice. Yeah. Yeah. Do the melody at least once before you start messing with it. That makes it sound advice. Yeah. It's good advice. And then for the second record, he was also, he came with us. We just, we all had fun. How did that, did you, this is because you just enjoyed his presence.

48:11And so you asked him, I mean, well, and cause he was helpful and you brought him back. I think we were going to go into the studio and he called me. He's like, well, I mean, I don't want to come in later again. I was like, okay, let's do it. I feel like at that point I was just trying to record and seeing what kind of songs I had. So I wasn't even really making the second album until we were almost done, if that makes sense. Which I like recording like that. You probably were getting a lot of people wanting to come in to make your second record with you too, I'd imagine, right? I don't remember that happening at all, actually.

48:49I think we were pretty insular at that point. And I think Bruce really wanted Arif to do it. And Arif really wanted to do it. And we loved Arif. So there was never any question of changing it up. I think it was more just like, let's just see what happens in the studio and not overthink it. Because I didn't want to make it be a thing. Where we were thinking about it being a follow-up in the studio. so and we kind of didn't we definitely didn't yeah we went up to um upstate to allaire with a reef for like a week or like maybe five days and we had so much fun and oh the the funny part was that when we recorded come away with me the one rule was that a reef leaves at six o 'clock every night and i remember at the time thinking that was ridiculous because we wanted to squeeze every second out of the studio and i was used to recording late and drinking and like you know seeing what happened but we did it his way and it was kind of nice worked out yeah and then um at a lair i didn't think he would go for it because i know he liked to go home he had a wonderful wife and uh dinner and you know um but he wanted to and he came up we had so much fun drinking martinis they called him the mardini he used to make these very lethal martinis and I remember him coming down in his pajamas one night.

50:09We stayed up and he had gone to bed and he came down in his pajamas with his martini glass to get some water from the cooler in his martini glass. And then I remember him in his robe going up the stairs. It was cute. It was such a fun time. So he could hang. Oh, he hung. Yeah. But he just chose. He just didn't want to make the work late. What do you think about that? the older I get I start to think you know nothing good happens after eight hours oh that's how I work now but I'm also on a different schedule yeah but yeah absolutely I just want to eat eat dinner and like turn my brain off after five I don't want to I don't want to no I've ruined records by staying up for 36 hours really oh yeah yeah you know I mean thankfully you you get some sleep and then you catch it the next day i read and say i've ruined records i would say i've wasted a lot of time going down yeah pro tools first came out all the plugins you can go down the plugin of this and the the the tracks unlimited it's not always a good thing yeah i did get some really good late night after a long dinner and a few drinks takes though and sometimes that works out yeah but i never was somebody who did more than three or four takes of a song maybe there There was an occasional like five or six takes, but that was it.

51:33There was never, we never beat anything into the ground, you know. That's good. So that late night kind of thing works if you're just sort of having fun and playing music. Right. We'll be right back with more from Nora Jones 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 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.

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55:24Can I ask you about, we're talking about the second record, I Don't Miss You at All. Oh, yeah. So interesting that that's, you wrote the lyrics over, it's a Duke Ellington composition, and you wrote the lyrics. Yeah. Was that something that you'd done before? How did you find Melancholia by Duke Ellington? I think my boyfriend was playing it. It's such an amazing album. So beautiful. and that song is just, I mean, it was just so good that I think I was just like trying to learn it and I just started singing and it just kind of happened by chance. Wow. And then I was like, maybe I'll try to record this.

56:05And then we did and it was so pretty. And I was like, I don't know if we're gonna get permission to do it like this because I'm not trying to take advantage of this song or anything. I just really loved it and it just happened. Yeah. And luckily we got to do it. It's beautiful too. It's in the spirit of, you know, like how many great compositions, you know, did a songwriter come in later and write, you know, a beautiful set of lyrics to, you know? And so it's totally not at all taken advantage. And it's funny though, it's hard not to hear the Duke Ellington song and not to hear even just the way you play it now, you know, it just, it's kind of sounds like a Nora song.

56:47I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful melody. it's gorgeous yeah dude did you start doing that second album before the grammys no no so this is all after no we were just on tour for non-stop we were and then after the grammys we did like a huge tour of bigger venues right so we were on tour for at least two years i feel like and doing promo and like i was exhausted i was not having fun the whole time it's a whole lot to deal with. I went through it a little bit with Bonnie, but I wasn't the artist. I went from being a pariah as a record producer to being in demand. And I feel sort of like even now, 35, 40 years later, I'm still kind of surfing that wave a little bit.

57:42One night can change your whole reality but you had you had a year i had a year of incredible trajectory yeah but then the grammys just like was insane yeah so and then the next day my my picture was on the cover of the new york post next to saddam hussein's picture it said hunt and destroy and then it was like a split screen you know it was like me and saddam and then on the daily news and then then the new york post the next day had a picture of my apartment and it said how much rent i paid and then i couldn't go home again it was just weird how'd you deal with it i drank a lot yeah yeah i did but i also had i had my band we were having fun there was also a weird thing that was happening because my dad and i had been reunited when i was 18 and and we started to really find our relationship and it was great and it was really nice to have that and i got to know my sister finally my half sister um anushka shankar and and i did kind of finally get to know my indian side a little bit you know which was a really beautiful new thing for me and and then all the stuff that happened with the record and the way they talked about my dad or it was never quite right and somebody was always mad you know someone within your family yeah like either my mom felt like it wasn't represented right or my dad did or you know like it was just kind of that was actually a really hard thing for me to be honest you know when people ask me about you i say i'm a lovely person super talented best singer in the world but i also say if they press for more details i think you're the sanest artist I know.

59:31Because I don't think you're trying to fill some huge hole in your soul in a quest for fame. I think you do music for all the right reasons. And if you can't do it for the right reasons, you'd walk away. I don't see you sitting up strategizing about marketing or the brand late at night or anything can you relate to that yeah i don't think i think about it that way but i think also because the first record was so bananas yeah i don't have to and i know that i don't quite want that again yeah i don't like this new record i'm so excited about and i i it's like you know i want people to hear it i don't want it to just go unnoticed but I don't think I would want it to be like my first record ever again that was just too much yeah it was also really nice but it was just like it's kind of crazy it's a lot and it's a lot for a young person to deal with and with social media now it's just like you don't want to you don't want to get all in that you don't want to get too deep in how long did it take for to find a stable ground after all that to think all right this is this is where i land this is who i am this is what i'm willing to do this is what i'm not willing to do i don't know i think i found it quickly in a lot of ways and it took a long time in other ways yeah i think i was very stubborn so i definitely got comfortable with saying no but i also was excited to try everything you know like sample everything that was put in front of me i was i i got to play with all kinds of people and And, you know, it was amazing.

1:01:17Was the stubbornness you having boundaries and knowing your boundaries? Or was your stubbornness, was it more of a youthful? Both. Okay. Probably both. My mom is a very strong woman. And I learned a lot about that and how to be like that in the best way. But I also think I was just young. Because your mom was a concert promoter. That's how she met my dad. She wasn't, when I was born, I don't think she was anymore. But there's been that at any point. To be a woman in that era, doing any amount of concert promoting for any amount of time, I imagine, yeah, she learned how to throw her weight around, you know?

1:01:59I mean, have you met my mom? Yeah, sure. She's a strong woman. I mean, she doesn't, you might be intimidated by her and you're tall. She's tall, you know? I'm sure I would be. She's just like a strong, tall lady. so and i'm short but i i still have some of her spirit i think i was i think i was just very rigid in what i didn't want you know i remember early on the label wanted me to do a remix of don't know why to get it to pop radio or something and i was like that's ridiculous that's not a musical reason and i didn't like the remix that they gave me yeah and so i was like no and guess what it somehow made it on pop radio anyway exactly yeah but like now i'm into that if it's for an artistic reason it just wasn't then it was for the wrong reason i want to go back real quick because you mentioned earlier writing come up come away with me was like the first song you wrote after the crappy ones after your college days no high school yeah yeah high school right in the high school i forgot but it's amazing you had uh a synth orchestra class ensemble class in high school it's crazy um do you do you remember writing it do you remember that night yes remember what inspired it and how you felt and yeah i came home from the living room seeing all my friends play and and i just sat in my tiny little bedroom and i played the five chords i knew and it came out really fast and i didn't have a voice recorder or anything and we didn't have cell phones yet and so i wrote it in my notebook and i wrote the chord changes above it And being the theory nerd, I had taken theory classes since I was in second grade for some reason.

1:03:39That's the kind of piano lessons I took. So I knew how to notate like the numbers of the chord. Yeah, I was like one, two, three, one, six, five, three, one. You know, like I nerded out. And I did that and I went to sleep. And then the next morning I was like, oh, my God, I hope I remember that. What was that? and then I just was like put it together yeah I think it's a little different it was a little different than what I had originally come up with and I will never know because I didn't record it I don't remember that's amazing one time I saw Keith Richards he uh he was trying to do the same thing but he didn't have the theory background yeah so he was staying at the sunset marquee and had a piano in his room.

1:04:26I came to his room the next morning and he had taped, put a piece of masking tape down with numbers like the order that you play the notes in. That's so funny. It's brilliant, yeah. It's the same thing. Whatever method works for you, right? It worked, yeah. He was able to pick it out. You can't forget it because he won't remember. That's a good segue too to the new, because I was thinking about McCartney writing yesterday in his sleep, Keith Richards writing Satisfaction, in his sleep and thinking about you know your new album i don't know if it's written in your sleep but you you maybe it was you or some the point between you said dreaming and sleeping and being awake yeah that moment right when you're falling asleep i had all these ideas and i would just get up and like do a little quiet i try not to wake up my husband or go to the bathroom and do a quiet little voice memo of it was that uncommon before this occurrence like it wasn't uncommon but it wasn't as much i think this was a lot maybe it was also kind of pandemic-y times and there was a lot of being awake in the middle of the night at that time and looking at the news and getting you know feeling weird and i don't know yeah but that was like this new album Did you feel it's time for me to make a new album?

1:05:48Because you didn't have songs really, right? Not really. I think it really came from working with Leon Michaels. I did a song with him, Can You Believe, this song. Because we had worked together. He played saxophone on a few of my albums. And then we did the song together because I knew he's a producer and I wanted to put out singles. That's what I've been trying to do the last few years, just sort of not overthink things and try to work with people, low commitment, just one song. And it was fun. And then we ended up making a Christmas album together. And that was really fun. You guys did a lot of tracks for that too.

1:06:25Yeah. And then when it was done, I said, I miss working together. Should we try to make a real album where there's no rules and no Christmas parameters? And so that's what we decided to do. We just got together whenever we could. this album was different for me in that it was sort of pieced together whenever we were around so it wasn't um like when i made the album with danger mouse i didn't have any material but we went into the studio for two months together to do it and come up with it this was just here and there and dribs and drabs and and always short days because our kids were in school and just you know 11 to 2 and all right cool i'll try to come up with some lyrics for that you know and it was so fun he would play drums and i would play piano and we would just play and it just felt so good yeah so a reef might have thrived in this 11 to 2 recording window talk about a work day it was kind of great i kind of loved it because he has his own studio there was no like booking it was just like hey what day next week works for you tuesday can we squeeze in two days Tuesday and Thursday okay cool yeah it's still fun to make records it was so fun and and I think from the minute we played I remember when we did Can You Believe it was just one of the funnest times I've had playing because it was sort of that time after the pandemic where I hadn't played with anyone in a year and a half and I don't think he had either and it was just like that feeling when you're playing something and then you stop and it's like oh yes that feels so good you know it's just like it's like you're back in college or high school or something so do you get that when you're playing live yeah i mean you try to you don't always but i think that's the goal and i think playing with people who make you feel that way is the best way i definitely feel like that when i play with brian blade on drums oh let's talk about brian yeah i mean he was on those first sessions with Craig.

1:08:29And he's a Blue Note artist. And he's a Blue Note artist. And he's on a bunch of great Blue Note records too. He's on Charles Lloyd's new album. He did those records with Wayne. We've got another one coming this year. Nice. No one plays like him. No, nobody. But I've never played with him. What's that like? It's heaven. He doesn't play anything just to play it. He's always listening and he listens more than anyone I've ever played with. And he's always reacting in the moment to it in a way where you know the music just feels so alive, but he's never reacting in like a bullshit way. It's never wrong.

1:09:12And it's never distracting or busy. It's never to assert himself. No. I'm here. No, it's never for the wrong reasons. And his pocket is also super deep. Like his groove is so good. Yeah. And his dynamics are incredible. Yeah, he can play real quiet. Yeah. And then explodes. Yeah. Yeah, he's like a sound person's nightmare, but also it's a dream to watch him, so. When I saw you play with Wayne and Brian, it was Patitucci and it was Jason Moran playing, right? Oh, yeah, at the Blue Note anniversary, right? That was, I was sitting on the side of the stage and I just remembered like I felt like I was experiencing some kind of cosmic truth and I wasn't tripping.

1:10:07This is like I got a little scared because it was it was like hyper real the things you guys were doing. Yeah. And how'd you feel about that? That was amazing. I also it was the first time I played with Brian in a long time. I hadn't actually seen him in a while. He played on my first two records, but we sort of drifted, and he's hard to pin down. He's always so busy. I definitely hadn't talked to him and hadn't seen him in a long, long time, like years, and I hadn't played with him. And so to play with Wayne again, I think I had already played with Wayne and Herbie on a Joanie thing, but to play with Wayne and Brian together and then Patitucci and then Jason Moran, and Jason I think organized it yeah it was so fun I did feel a little naked because I wasn't playing but I also didn't feel like I could play with those guys like hang with them and it was just so fun but you could because you did well shortly thereafter I have to credit Jason Moran for that he emailed me after that he's like you know you should make a record with Wayne or you should like record with Wayne and it was so like a little push that I I needed yeah I wouldn't have probably asked wayne to play on that record if he jason hadn't encouraged me and then to have brian and play with him again was so special and yeah it was sweet yes good night what was recording with wayne like it was it my friend sarah and i were talking about it the other day actually um i was so nervous for it and a little underprepared i didn't have that many songs we had two days in the studio and i knew we weren't gonna like do something a million times with wayne but i wasn't really sure of what was gonna happen and we did um we did a song we did a horace silver song that i've recorded before but i just loved and i knew he played with horace at some point and peace right yeah the song peace which is just a such a heavy song and um I don't remember if it was the first one we did, but...

1:12:18Well, first I went to Wayne's house in LA for an afternoon. And he just played me a bunch of stuff and talked about his... He showed me his comic books that he made when he was a kid. Did you see those? Yeah, yeah. That was an incredible day. Wow. Yeah. He showed me the action figures. Yep. He showed me the action figures and he told me about watching Fox News and playing soprano sax just angrily and like writing while he was watching Fox News. And like, I mean, that was crazy. It was an amazing afternoon. He was one of a kind. Yeah, he was really one of a kind. And so we had had that afternoon, which was really nice.

1:12:56And we were playing this song, Peace. And I play an intro and it's, you know, Patitucci on bass, Brian on drums, me and then Wayne. And we're all in the same room playing the intro to Peace. and then I sing and he still hasn't come in. I'm like singing. I'm like, well, he hasn't come in, but I'm just gonna enjoy this verse and not worry about that. Come around in the second verse. He still didn't come in. I'm like, I wonder if he's enjoying this. But I wasn't like over ruminating on it because it would have taken me out of it. And then as soon as we get to like the solo, I'm like, I guess maybe I'll solo.

1:13:30I wasn't sure. And then he just, like he came in. And I think the thing I've learned, and I've noticed that Brian is like, this as well they don't really play until they have something to say you know there's times where brian has sat out on half a tune i'm like i guess he's not gonna play but then he comes in and it's like perfect entrance you know it's like it's right yeah so that's the incredible thing about wayne is playing can be like i was being down we're talking but before i didn't realize it took me a long time before i realized wayne was playing on that record i mean yeah i knew the sax sounded gorgeous and then when you see the cry oh fuck that make that make that makes sense of course it's wayne but you know he doesn't he doesn't impose he's not it's it's like a really it's gorgeous and it's amazing but it's humble and it's and hey there's no reason for it to be humble it's just spiritual i think it was just such a spiritual practice probably to him i mean that's how he went about it spiritual is the right word for it yeah he's not coming in in the intro just because he's supposed to he was listening he wasn't i don't even think he wasn't coming in because he didn't like it.

1:14:36I think he was just listening to see what was happening. I don't know. It was cool. That was one of the cooler things I've got to do. It's awesome. And it's wonderful too. It really, really holds up. Are you ever tempted to do a larger project that's more in the jazz idiom, like more squarely in your jazz snob roots? I'm not. And I feel like that album sort of was that for me, but it also wasn't completely all the way there either. But it was more than my first record, I'll say. I still don't think my first record sounds like a jazz album to me completely. And so I think if I were bored and thinking about what can I do, maybe I would decide to do something like that.

1:15:30but I'm always finding other stuff that's inspiring and if that's inspiring it's because I'll find something that inspires it I think not not thinking let's do a jazz album let's do a country album let's do you know I just I guess I don't think that way when you're touring do you have room to approach a song with beginner's mind every night yeah especially when I started it without without the band and i'm just piano and drink it i i do especially playing with brian because i know we'll just go to wherever it goes and there's some arrangements we've found that way that we stick to a little more and then some that are different sometimes the song is really dynamic in the set and then i'll put it in the set the next night thinking like okay this is where the set will get big and it's like tiny the song is tiny i'm like well that set was a little sleepy in that section but i prefer it that way not knowing it's the i think it's the best thing and i love so much well it's it's where it's where you get that feeling that from high school where you're just like oh my god music is so fun you know are you still finding new things like just a different way to move your finger to a different angle or something that that will open up a whole new universe of notes yeah sometimes and sometimes like i'll use the whole piano which I never used to do I wouldn't think to go way low or way high and and I actually back to your question though I would I would say about doing like a jazz album I think I think even though I started out interpreting songs and I love doing it and I I think I found a lot more inspiration from writing in the last few years and so it's more based on what I'm writing and what's inspiring me in that way than trying to make something sound a certain way, I think.

1:17:24On your new album, which we were talking about before, I really love it. And the joy you were explaining and making it, I feel like you can really hear it. When you were writing the songs, thinking of maybe like a staring at the wall or something, how it sounds on the record, is that how you heard it, writing it? That one in particular, there's nothing to it. It's just him on drums and me on guitar, just like having the time of our lives, going as fast as we can. He's like, we need something fast. Let's try something fast. I was like, okay. And then I just started playing. He started playing. And we were just like going, trying to keep up with it.

1:17:59And then it was so fun. And then we just added words and like harmonies. And that was it. Sounds like nothing I've heard before. Yeah, I like that one a lot. That's one of my favorites. And it's not like anything else on the record. It's not. It's not like anything really at all. I don't know. That's a hard thing to achieve, to do something that works on a basic level that makes people respond emotionally but doesn't sound like anything else. I think that's the highest thing you can aspire to. Is there anything from the new album you could play? Sure, what do you want? Could you do Paradise? Oh, yeah, I could try that one.

1:18:38I mean, we'll miss the drums, but you can imagine a backbeat. Yeah. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Take me back to paradise. I could make the sacrifice. I'm trying to save you. What else is there left to learn? Watching all these fires burn. I'm waiting. It's true. I watch you fall. I try to stop waiting for the pain to drop. I know I've got to let you go again. Although I never wanted this to end. I know it's time to let you go Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Find a place to calm your mind I'll take yours and you take mine I'm begging you please Conversations bleeding Hearts always beating I'm down on my knees I watch you fall I try to stop Waiting for the pain to drop I know I've got to let you go again Although I never wanted this to end I know it's time to let you go

1:20:55Ooh, ooh, ooh Oooh Ooh, ooh, ooh La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la My love I watch you fall I try to stop Waiting for the pain to drop I know I've got to let you go again Although I never wanted this to end I know it's time to let you go Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh This is so high. That's great. I didn't imagine singing that high today. wow you sound cool and it lends a whole new reference point for the song a whole different perspective on it when you sing it like that thanks i didn't know how that was gonna go you're all over the piano keyboard that's a loud piano yeah but it's wild how it's it's a great example of how it's one connected thing the piano plane and yeah and i forgot there's some harmonies in there i try to catch it with the piano but i i forgot some of them but it was cool some of them worked out really reminds me of aretha you know when she played piano well she's one of my favorite piano players yeah i think i didn't even before i even knew that was her on the piano and all those recordings she's always been my favorite you know one of the best feels out there you know we came this close to having her signed to blue note really yeah and i went to detroit a couple times I'd known her, you know, and I said, but you got to play piano.

1:23:20We were just going to do a thing like maybe have Jerry Jermatt playing bass and Narada playing drums and maybe someone playing organ or guitar. So we're keeping it real basic and everything would stem from her piano playing. We're going to do it in Detroit so she didn't have to travel. And she got sick. oh so she was into it yeah she was totally into it you know i was texting i still have my text chain i couldn't believe i was texting with aries to frank that's amazing oh i wish that could happen but god i'm glad you at least try i'm glad someone was thinking of that about that with her yeah i i find that you know some of your favorite artists you see them grow and do all these amazing things and then as they get older it gets there it's like she He didn't play piano and everything anymore.

1:24:13And you miss that. That basic core of what you loved. Her playing reminds me of when I hear, I can always tell, like Stevie on drums, when Stevie plays drums, it's so unique. And it matches almost his voice, the way he sings. Oh, man. And Aretha's saying, just the rhythm in her playing matches perfectly the way she sings. Yeah, it's the pocket. It's the pocket. You can't imitate that if you're somebody else. And the church thing, too. You can hear it's so churchy and it's so soulful. What do you think is the best written song that you've ever heard? I don't know. A million of them. Yeah. I mean, what comes to mind?

1:24:57Okay, what comes to mind, a song I always have loved is that song Heartache by Lowell George. And there's a version of it on Thanks, Sally, to Hear, which is fine. but there's a version of it floating around there with Linda Ronstadt, like a demo of it. That is the version I'm thinking. And it's just a great song. And the way the chord structure is, it kind of turns around and the key center changes and it's weird. And it's just one of those songs. Can you play it? Let's see if I know it.

1:25:32Oh, run key.

1:25:36Will I... Oh, no, I don't want to do that.

1:25:41Well I'm here out of love And I'm feeling no pain But I know you heartache You're standing my way There's no use in wishing Cause I ain't satisfied I'm fit to be a misfit When you're at my side Heartache, find another place to be I'm tired of being your best friend Look to another for your companion And when you do my pain Where there's nowhere at all Where I'm feeling no pain My body is sickly My mind is insane I'll call on you heartache To come show me how Cause I can't get no lower Than the hole I'm in now Heartache finding another place to be I'm tired of being your best friend Look to another for your companion And when you do my pain will end

1:28:06You're right. This is a great song. I usually play it on guitar. Oh, that's beautiful. That's really nice. It's a sweet one, right? Yeah, yeah. Beautiful song. But do you see how it changes keys? Yeah. It's weird. I wasn't paying attention to that. I didn't even notice that. Well, that's what's cool about it. It doesn't seem like something that was overthought, but it goes... It starts there. and then goes to the minor five and then to the and then it kind of stays there and then that becomes the center and then it goes back to the sort of bridgey chorus and it goes back to e flat anyway nerd when did you discover that song nerd town um i discovered it maybe probably around this time i was making my second record i think um kevin bright who played on my guitar my first record turn me on to lowell george yeah that album thanks i'll eat it here and um and then somehow we found a bootleg of that linda so in the in the demo that i love it's lowell and linda singing harmony on the whole chorus and it's just the prettiest thing ever yeah i just love linda thank you so much for cool thank you yeah yeah thank you so much that's it that was a lot of and you're very forthcoming.

1:29:18It was beautiful. Thanks to Noah Jones for sharing her incredible story with us. You can hear her new album Visions along with our other favorite Noah tracks on a playlist at brokenrecordpodcast.com. I also want to thank Don Wuzz for going on this excursion with me. We have four more episodes coming, so stay tuned for those. You can also watch the full video of this interview and other recent episodes at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. 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.

1:29:57Our 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's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman.

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1:31:46Learn more. Visit BoschHomeUS.com. I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQED's Snap Judgment podcast. And at Snap, we don't just tell stories. We live them. Every week, a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna. A racetrack in Tijuana. A year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.