Roger McGuinn

24:58who all operate under a strict code of conduct. They handle the matching process, you fill out a brief questionnaire, and they find someone who seems like a good fit for what you need. And if it doesn't click, you can switch therapists whenever you want. They've got over 30 ,000 therapists on the platform and have served more than 5 million people with an average live session rating of 4.9 out of 5 across more than 1.7 million reviews. This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. We're back with more from Rick Rubin and Roger McGuinn.

25:34So it's interesting that you're in the village either playing folk songs or Beatles songs. Everyone there playing cover songs. What was the impetus to start writing songs? If you're coming out of a scene that's based on historic music, when did it become obvious we have to write our own songs? Yeah, the singer-songwriter thing. Well, before that, I had a job with Bobby Daron, and I worked at the Brill Building as a songwriter. So, you know, that was the impetus for me to write songs. And I think what happened was the folk thing kind of just started to fade out. It was like the end of it by 64, you know, starting to fade out.

26:17And people started writing more. So I don't know what made Joni Mitchell my clouds. Or, you know, I have no idea. Dillon was very inventive. At first, he was doing kind of Woody Guthrie imitation. And then he developed his own style. I remember I was friends with John and Michelle Phillips. And I showed them some stuff I was doing, you know, the Beatles influence. And they said, oh, that's just bubble gum. That's kid stuff. and I said well it's got something to it cool tell me about Jim Dixon how did you come in contact with him and what was he like okay I first met Jim back in 1963 and he was hanging around the Troubadour and the Ashgrove and all that he was going around kind of scouting talent because he was a producer and he knew David Crosby he had already recorded David and he was looking around for different ideas.

27:11And I remember when Gene Clark and I started writing songs at the Troubadour, David Crosby came in and started singing harmony with us. And he said, I want to be in your band. And I said, well, we don't really have a band here, David. We're just kind of writing some songs. He said, oh, come on, man. If I can be in your band, I know this guy's got a recording studio we could use for free. I said, you're in. That's how we met Jim Dixon. And he took us under his wing. He was still working at World Pacific. he'd recorded Lord Buckley there and he knew some jazz guys and he let us work out on the machines after all the sessions were over and that's where we kind of honed our skill as a singing playing band in I guess 64, 64 by then so we started working out at the studio and became apparent that we needed more musicians and more instruments So we went to see the Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night, and took notes on Ringo had Ludwig drums, and Harrison had a Gretsch guitar.

28:16John Lennon had a Rickenbacker, and Paul McCartney had a Hofner bass, a violin-style bass. And then George Harrison came back out with another Rickenbacker. It looked like a six-string from the front, but when he turned it sideways, you could see six other tuning pegs sticking out the back. And I went, oh man, that's an electric 12-string. I've got to get one of those, because I was already a 12-string player. on acoustic 12. And we traded in, so I traded in a five string banjo and a Gibson acoustic 12 that Bobby Darin had given me and got the Rickenbacker. And that became my main instrument for the rest of the birds.

28:53Was the electric 12 string a new instrument at the time? Yes, it was. It was a brand new invention. George had the very second one ever made. first one went to a woman called Susie who played in Las Vegas and some sort of girl band and George had the second one well when Rickenbacker learned the Beatles were playing one of their instruments FC Hall John Hall's father flew to New York had a meeting with the Beatles and gave George Harrison well it was actually intended for John Lennon but John was out and George had the flu and he was hanging around the hotel so they gave him the 12 string and it became his kind of toy.

29:33He played it really well. And he did this cool thing that I learned from him. He did this thing on, see, the octave strings. He used to play leads up and down the G string pair, like... Had a lot of punch. Much more than if you... If you just want the... Yeah. So I learned that trick from him. Did you incorporate that into any songwriting? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was in quite a few songs. The way I played lead, I'd say turn, turn, turn, and so on. I got other riffs from other musicians like the Seekers and the Searchers, you know.

30:13I stole whatever I could. But the Rickenbacker had this really great sound. And then Ray Gerhard was the studio engineer at Columbia Records in L.A. and he put, I think it was two, no, I'm not sure the designation, LA UAs. It was a tube compressor and he put the Rickenbacker into one and then out of the back of the one into another. So, he had double compression on it and it clamped it down and made it sustain more like a wind instrument because the original sound of the Rickenbacker would fall off rather quickly. It was kind of a thuddy sounding instrument. So that's really what made the 12 string sound so distinctive on Mr.

31:00Tambourine Man and turn, turn, turn, eight miles high. So do you think without the compression, was it more like a harpsichord, would you say? No, it sounded okay, but it didn't sustain as well. It wasn't as good for lead work. It was okay for chording, for strumming and so on, but it wasn't really a good lead instrument at that point. How did you find the other members to make the birds the birds? Gene Clark and I started writing songs. David Crosby came along and turned us on to Jim Dixon, and we got a free studio to work out in. And Dixon recommended we get a drummer and a bass player. And we saw Michael Clark walk in front of the tributary.

31:40It looked like two of the Rolling Stones. And we got him mostly on looks. Yeah. This is like 1965 or 1966? 64. 64. 64. Wow. Wow. Incredible. At 64 into 65, we recorded Mr. Tambourine Man in January of 65. And Columbia didn't release it until, I think, June or May or sometime. They sat on it for a long time. I like to tell a story, but Columbia was very conservative. They had Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet. They had Doris Day. They didn't have any rock and roll. And their attitude toward rock and roll was that they thought it might be distasteful, you know like the mob not wanting to sell heroin but there was a lot of money in it was mr tambourine man the first rock record that came out on columbia i think it might have been might have been something they were they weren't really into it yet you know they were kind of lagging behind the other labels rca and capital but in some ways wasn't the world lagging behind like was it yet the popular form of music or was it still sort of underground or well Well, no, no.

32:50Rock and roll was a craze. And people kept hoping it would go away quickly because it was creating juvenile delinquents. That was the story. Yeah, that was the story. But RCA had Elvis back in, what was it, 56? So it had been around a while. And then we had Chuck Berry and we had Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins and Everly Brothers and Johnny Cash. There was quite a bit of rock and roll out there. All of those artists, though, have more of a country flavor in their rock. It's all coming from the South, and it's more like an extension of the Sun Records sound. Yeah, it was rockabilly. Yeah, more rockabilly than rock and roll.

33:31And it seemed like, I guess Little Richard might have been more rock and roll. And Chuck Berry was rock and roll. Well, Bill Haley and the Comets are credited with starting the craze, and they were kind of like a Holiday Inn band, you know. they weren't really rocking or rolling. Gene Vincent really rocked. So did Elvis and Carl Perkins. The places you'd be playing in those, like Ciro's in those days would hold 50 people, 100, 200 people? How many people would you say? I'm not sure of the capacity of Ciro's. It might've been 100, might've been 150. It was all these like sort of plush booths with tables.

34:08It was almost like a casino. Yeah, I was going to say like Las Vegas. Yeah, like Vegas, yeah. It was something like that. It was old hat. It had been popular in the 40s with all the movie stars, and then it lost its appeal. But when the birds got there, we started attracting Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda and Marlon Brando. And then we had this group of dancers, Vito and his gang, and they were wild. They were just, you know, and they were just a scene by themselves. And so the whole thing really, it changed Hollywood a little bit. How did you meet Vito? Vito Pelikas, yes? Yeah. How did you meet him?

34:50I don't remember. I remember going to a studio and taking acid. That's all I remember. I don't know how we got hooked up with them, but they became our dancing troupe. And they even went with us on the road on our first tour. Took them on a bus tour. I made it to Indiana and, you know, Michigan and places where people were freaking out. They'd never seen anything like it. Did they dance on the stage or in the audience? In the audience. Cool. In front of the stage. Amazing. But did they face the band or did they face the audience? Like, did it feel like they were part of the show? They were totally, no, they weren't facing anybody.

35:32They were totally absorbed in what they were doing. I see. You know, they're just doing it. So it was like a traveling dance party that happened between you and the audience. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's wild to imagine, you know? Yeah, it was wild. The audience were like teenagers. They were pretty square. You know, they're like preppy looking, most of them. And they're maybe 13, 14, 15 year olds. And they're just looking on in amazement at this whole spectacle. We did get screams. We got screaming fans at one point. How long did it take for the audience to go from square fans to starting looking more like people who could have been in bands?

36:17Yeah. Well, I remember I used to wear those little glasses. I remember looking out in the audience and there would be people with those little glasses on. So it was starting to catch on. Maybe not more than a few months. How has your relationship to music changed from the early days to now? Well, it's a labor of love. I do shows. I still do shows, and I do like a one-man show. It's like a play that has a lot of these stories I'm telling you, and I fold in the songs that go with the stories. And I change it up. It's not always the same. We've got all these modules. I can put in different modules of stories and songs.

36:58And my wife and I just hit the road together. idea I got from Ramblin' Jack Elliott when I was on the Rolling Thunder review. And Ramblin' said, yeah, one of the most fun things I ever did was throw the guitar in the back of the Land Rover and me and Polly, that was his wife, hit the road and we did all these little gigs and it was so much fun. And I'd been in a band with, you know, had instrument cases and trucks and a lot of logistics and people to deal with. And I thought, man, this would be more fun. So I started doing that. And then gradually it became kind of a scripted one man play. It sounds great.

37:39Tell me about Rolling Thunder. What was that experience like? Rolling Thunder was great. It started off with Bob used to come over to my house in Malibu and he noticed a basketball hoop over the garage and he said, do you have a basketball? I said, no, because when I was 15, I jammed my finger on a basketball and I couldn't play guitar for a few weeks. But I bought a basketball the next day and I called up his house and he was out, but I got Sarah and I said, well, tell Bob I got a basketball. She said, oh, he'll be thrilled. So Bob came over the next day and we're shooting baskets in the backyard.

38:13He said, I want to do something different. And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, I don't know, something like a circus. Okay. So a couple of weeks later, I was on the road with a band and I had some time off and I I went to the village, went to Gertie's Folk City, and I ran into Larry Sloman, who at the time was a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. And Larry said, I think Dylan's over at the other end, or the bitter end, whatever it was called. So I said, let's go see. So we went over there and walked in the back room, and there was Jacques Levy, my writing partner, and Bob Dylan sitting at a table with a couple of brandies.

38:48And I walked in, and they sat up, and the brandies went flying. They said, Roger, we were just talking about you. We were putting this tour together. We'd like you to go on it. So I had a band and I was on tour myself, but I postponed those dates and went on Rolling Thunder. And it was all Bob's friends from the village. You know, it's Bobby Newarth and Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Ellen Ginsberg and Joan Baez came along, Joni Mitchell. And we'd pick up people like Willie Nelson in Texas and Gordon Lightfoot in Toronto and Leonard Cohen in Montreal. You know, it was an amazing, amazing tour. About 100 people on the road in buses and cars.

39:23and it was like a parade. And it was like a circus. It was like a circus. And it wasn't exactly like this Scorsese film portrays it. I think it was even more fun than that. I bet. It sounds incredible. And the recordings from that era are some of my favorite of his. Like, it sounds great. His singing is great. The song sounds so good. He was really on his game at that point. And some of my favorite songs are the ones he wrote with Jacques Levy for Desire. Agreed. tell me about Subud. Okay. Well, when I was in the village, I was hanging out with Bob Carey, who'd been in a group called the Terriers with Eric Darling and Ellen Arkin.

40:05And there was this mime, Lionel Shepard. And we're walking around and Bob and I are sharing a joint. And I offered it to Lionel and he said, no, I got something better. I said, what's that? He said, it's called Subud. I said, what is it? Something you put in your coffee and drink it? He said, come on down next Thursday and see what it is. So I did. And it was a spiritual exercise. It was kind of like the Holy Spirit, but it wasn't Christian or anything. It was just, you know. So I got into it. It was something I did for a while. I had a friend who was in Subud, grew up in Subud, and she followed Ramadan.

40:46Yeah, a lot of people were into Islam. Well, it came out of Indonesia. So the head guy, Bapak, they called him, he was a Muslim. So it was a kind of nonverbal Islam. There was no doctrine or anything. It was just, you go in and do these, it's almost like a dance. You do a spiritual dance and it's supposed to be good for your soul. Yeah, it's great. I didn't realize that there was a physical component. would you say that this was like TM, like a spiritual fad of the time? I think so. I got out of it. I didn't stay in it. And later I accepted Jesus. So that's all I needed. And how did that happen?

41:28It happened in 77 when Elvis Presley died. And he was seven years older than I was. I was 35. and he was doing quaaludes and uppers and downers and I had a doctor in LA who'd give me anything I wanted and I was doing that too plus the illegal drugs that I got my hands on so I thought man Elvis just died and he was seven years older if I only got seven years I better start cleaning up my act and so I started working on that and in the process that's when I ran into this jazz guy named Billy, and he prayed with me about Jesus, and I accepted Jesus. Darrell Bock Beautiful. Darrell Bock Yeah. Darrell Bock So it changed your lifestyle to a healthy lifestyle, and you have this spiritual connection.

42:17Darrell Bock Right. Darrell Bock It's beautiful. Darrell Bock Inspiring. Darrell Bock And my wife and I, well, I turned my wife on to it. I met her in an acting class. We were both starting the same night, and we had to do method acting, and the assignment was to get her to do something she didn't want to do. And I had talked to her before and found out she'd been a Baptist when she was a kid, but got away from it. So I knew something she didn't want to do. So I started singing the... My buddy shunned me since I turned to Jesus. They say I'm missing a whole world of fun. And I said, what do you think of that?

42:52She said, it sounds kind of country. I said, yeah, what do you think of the words? She said, oh, man, you're trying to tell me about Jesus. And she stomped off the stage and all the kids in the class clapped and said, wow, what was that? That sounded like, you know, a real play. And then a couple of weeks later, she accepted Jesus. And now we've been together for 44 years and we read the Bible every morning. Beautiful. Congratulations. Can you play that song for us now? Let's see. Let's see.

43:30They say I'm missing a whole world of fun But I still love them, walking like a life, a life, a Christian life Oh, I won't lose a friend I hate in God's call For what is a friend who won't give to fall Others climb pleasures in things I despise I like the Christian life I like the Christian life

44:19That's beautiful. I never heard that song before. Really? No. It's a Lovin' Brothers song. It's a written song in the 20th century. Not a gospel song, but the Lovin' Brothers did it. It's beautiful. Hearing that makes me want to hear a whole album of you doing acoustic devotional material. Just sharing that. Could do that. That's what I want to hear. You wanted to hear something else. The Kane Blues, he said. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So this is my favorite of the Folk Den songs that I'm aware of is this one. That's interesting. The story goes, it's an old prison song. And I recorded it back when there was a website called mp3.com.

45:04Michael Robertson is an entrepreneur. He put together this website. And he would take MP3s and make little CDs of them. And he'd give you 50%, which is unheard of in the record business. So I signed up for that, and I did Cane Blues. First it was called Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos, and nobody was clicking on it. I changed the title to Cane Blues, and it shot up the charts.

45:56Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

46:00Well, what's the matter? Something must be wrong

46:10We're still here rolling, shorty George Duncombe

46:20Go down, old Hannah, don't you rise no more Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh You rise anymore, bring judgment show Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Look at my old fella, she's a turning red Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Look at my partner, he's almost dead Well,

47:02you should've been helped round 19-4

47:10There was a dead man at every turn row

47:20ain't no more keen on this prize

47:29round it all into molasses

47:42I love that song. I love that song. It's a cool song. I heard it from Bob Gibson the first time. He did it a little different. I think I changed the chords on it, but I like the chord pattern. It's unusual in that it's got a lot of passing chords. You know, instead of just a C, A minor to D, and then it goes to B minor. So it's got some interesting passing chords. There's so much emotion in it. And I've played that song for many artists that I work with just to talk about the amount of emotion that can be held in a song, even when you don't necessarily know what all the words are about. and it's what's also interesting about it is it's so repetitive you know it's it's a very simple structure that just keeps repeating it's a loop yeah there's no chorus or anything but it doesn't it doesn't get old you know it doesn't get old that loop can go on for a long time and it does feel like this the emotion and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper with the story it's beautiful beautiful song okay well old hannah is a son sunrise i didn't know that uh-huh Old Hannah is the sun rising.

48:58What are the other? Yeah, decode as much as you can for me. It'd be great for me. Okay, well, Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos. It was a sugar cane, like a work farm for a prison. And they cut all the cane down and turned it into molasses. Brazos is the river? Brazos River, yeah, down in Texas. What's the matter? Something must be wrong. We're still rolling. That's being still in prison. And Shorty George done gone, he got out. I see. Shorty George got out somehow. There's something wrong. We're still here, and he's gone. Oh, I see. Yeah. Look at my old Hannah. She's a turn in red. So a sunset.

49:37That's a sunrise. Or sunrise. Or it could be sunset, yeah. Look at my partner. He's almost dead. They just worked at people to death there. Go down, old Hannah. Don't you rise no more. Okay, that's a sunset. And if you rise anymore, you bring judgment. Sure. We're going to get in trouble tomorrow, you know, because we get in trouble every day. Every day is trouble. Should have been here around 1904. It's a dead man on every turn row. So people are, you know, getting worked to death. There was one that should have been here in 1910, working women just like the men. So it's a prison song about harsh, labor-intensive, you know, work you to death kind of stuff.

50:16Wow. I had no idea it even was prison-related. You know, again, without knowing the context, There's nothing in the lyric if you don't know what it means. It was clearly a sad song, and it was clearly a work song, but I didn't understand that it was a prison song. Yeah, and that's the kind of thing that gets lost with the singer-songwriter genre. People aren't doing those old songs anymore. Yeah, I'm so thankful that you're doing the Folk Den and that these songs live on. And if people want to hear them, they go to the website. Is that the best way? McGuinn.com, the Folk Den section. Great. We have to pause for another quick break, but we'll be back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Roger McGuinn in just a sec.

51:02I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps, someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music. There's something about a voice you love singing that familiar opening phrase, maybe it's Donny Hathaway, maybe it's Mariah Carey, that just flips a switch and you're instantly back into that warm and cozy headspace only the holidays can bring. For me, that feeling pairs perfectly with a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte. That's their signature espresso with steamed milk and a rich caramel brulee flavor topped with whipped cream and a crunchy caramel brulee topping.

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53:13Every December, we start singing. At church, around the fire, in our cars, with the radio turned up. But have we ever stopped to ask, where did our favorite Christmas carols come from? And what makes them so magical? I think it's probably one of the most perfect tunes to play and to sing. The voices are converging. They're adding this more complex and chromatic harmony. and it gives us that climactic arrival point. Hark is a podcast about the meaning and the making of Christmas carols. Get into the spirit of the season and listen to Hark, the stories behind our favorite Christmas carols. Available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at americamagazine.org.

54:04We're back with Rick Rubin and Roger McGuinn. How has recording changed over the course of your life? So it started, you said it was tape in the beginning, but really more specifically, technologically, from the early days of recording until now, what are all the changes that you've seen? The first recording I did was on a Ampex 3-track. And we recorded beach ball on that. Bobby Dern played drums, and Frank Carey played piano, and I played guitar, and we all sang and clapped our hands. and we got a record deal on Capitol, called herself The City Surfers. And that was a three track. You couldn't really overdub very well.

54:42And then when it got in the birds, they had a four track at Columbia Studios in LA. And they had an eight track. It was over against the wall. And somebody had written with a Sharpie or, you know, like felt pen, big bastard on this eight track. And they didn't want to hook it up because it was too new, too much trouble. They finally did. But they finally got the 8-track going. So I went from 3-track to 4-track to 8-track to 16-track to 32-track, 64-track, and digital. And then I told you about the digital audio workstations and got into – couldn't afford Pro Tools when I first ran into it. It was like$10 ,000 for a rudimentary setup.

55:23So I got something called Digital Orchestrator Plus. It was like a$90 program. And it did the same thing. It recorded in 44.1 waveforms, you know, 16-bit. It sounded pretty good. I recorded the treasures from the folk den on that system. And then gradually I got Pro Tools, and I've had Pro Tools for years and years now. And, you know, I find it very easy to work with and fun. I love being able to pop things in and move them around like a word processor. And I imagine the advantage of being able to record at home versus in a, you know, in a big studio with all this equipment is a good change in terms of being able to make whatever you want whenever you want.

56:06Absolutely. I mean, I tell kids, I say, you don't need to go to a recording studio and spend thousands of dollars. You can just get a Mac and Pro Tools and do it at home. All you need is a good microphone, maybe some editing skills. Yeah. You said you went into the earliest version, the three-man version of the birds. I don't know what you were called at that time. It was the Jet Set, called the Jet Set. The Jet Set. Do you remember what you recorded in that first session when you decided we need more players? I think it was some stuff that Gene Clark and I had written, like The Only Girl That I Adore or whatever.

56:41You Showed Me, which the Turtles later picked up, was one of the songs that Gene and I wrote. And it was rejected for the birds. We didn't get to do it. But the Turtles got a hit with it. Cool. Do you remember it at all? You Showed Me? Yeah. Can you play me a little of it? Yeah. Well, first, the original version was down here. You showed me how to do exactly what you do. I'm in love with you. Such a great song. It's an incredible song. You know it's true, I'm in love with you.

57:24And when I tried it I could see you fall And I've decided It's not a trick at all You taught it to me too Exactly what you do And now you love me too Oh, oh, oh, it's true We're in love with you too And I always love that relative minor thing To the G to E minor like And when we tried I could see you fall And I'll decide It's not a trick at all

58:21Are the chord changes rooted in classical music? It feels like it is. Well, if it was, it was subliminally rooted in classical. Gene Clark and I wrote it. We were standing in Jim Dixon's driveway, and we both had a crush on the same girl. We wrote it about this girl that we both had a crush on. And I remember something interesting. There's something like spiritual in it, because as I was playing it, my guitar, it was almost like a divining rod. It was moving around in like, you know, figure eights, like an infinity sign. It was kind of unusual for that to happen. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, like a dowsing rod or divining rod.

59:04Yeah, something like that, like a divining water. Amazing. I've got a BMI award for one million plays. It's probably had more than that by now, but it's been covered by Salt-N-Pepa and, let's see, U2, Kanye West. Wow. It's such a beautiful song. I love that song. Thank you. Have you had any other mystical experiences? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Tell me. Well, you know, sometimes I see stuff through the walls, you know, like little dots of light and things like that. You could call it hallucinating, whatever. And also, I've always had this tactile thing where I could feel something in the air, something that isn't there.

59:51I used to do that, I remember, in the Columbia studio. I'd be waving my hand around while I was singing. And when I sang Mr. Tambourine Man, Jim Dixon had made us read an actor preparer by Stanislavski. Jim had a little experience in the Hollywood area. He was married to Diane Varsie for a short time, and he helped her with her career until she decided she didn't want to live in Hollywood and do that. So he made us read in Actor Prepares, which is about method acting. So when I got the lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man, I wanted to do a parallel meaning. And I was singing, hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.

1:00:34I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. I wasn't singing to an abstract tambourine man. I was singing to God. So that was a mystical experience, too. I think the reason that song was as popular as it was is because it had some real heartfelt truth in it. Absolutely. And there's something about the, like, lyrically, there's nothing obviously devotional in Tambourine Man. But when you're connected in a devotional way, there's an energy that can come through that you can just feel it. I never knew that. It's a beautiful story. I love hearing that story. Yeah. Do you feel things in space in general or just in certain places?

1:01:19Well, it's not all the time. I wouldn't say it's dependent on the place so much as the time and the mental, spiritual attitude I have, whatever. I remember they asked Tom Petty about how he writes songs. He said, well, you know, they come down from, I don't want to know. He said, it might go away. Tom was a great friend and a wonderful inspiration to me. I know I inspired him somewhat, but, you know, he was just an incredible performer and songwriter and a really sweet guy. He was just the sweetest guy. He was the best. You inspired him a lot, and he talked about you all the time. This is the first time we're meeting, but he talked about you all of the time.

1:02:00Oh, well, we had a good friendship. He was such a great, he was a great songwriter. He was such a great musician and had such a beautiful voice. But he knew everything about making records. Like in the studio, he was a total craftsman. He could do anything. And it was just fun to be around him. I learned so much being around him. Yeah. Wow. Wow, we miss him. Absolutely. Have you heard other versions of songs you've written that made you hear them in a new way? Yeah, well, Eight Miles High got covered by Husker Du, Husker Du. Yeah, yeah, Husker Du. And they did sort of a real headbanger version of it, like loud and raucous.

1:02:43It was good. And So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star got covered a lot. Yeah. By Patti Smith and Tom Petty. When you hear other people do your songs, does it feel like that's my song? Or does it feel like, oh, I like what they're doing with this thing? Like, what's the experience like hearing someone else sing a song you've written? It's a nice feeling. You know, even if you don't appreciate the whole way they did it, it's a nice feeling to know that they did do it. Yeah, they picked you. They picked your song. They picked your work. Yeah. Yeah. And they could have picked anything and they picked yours.

1:03:17So tell me about Terry Melcher. Okay. When we got signed to Columbia Records, Jim Dixon assumed that he would be our producer because he was a record producer. And Columbia had a strict policy. They were a union house, and they only used their staff producers. So they assigned us the 23-year-old son of one of their biggest artists, Doris Day. It was Terry. Had he already produced a lot of stuff at 23? Well, he knew what he was doing. He was friends with Brian Wilson. And he knew Brian had used the wrecking crew on some Beach Boys stuff. And he also knew that Michael Clark couldn't play the drums.

1:03:57And we were a fledgling band, just kind of learning how to play together. So he got the wrecking crew to come and do the band track of Mr. Tambourine Man. And the flip side, I knew I'd want you. And I was allowed to play on it because I'd been a studio musician in New York. And I also had the Rickenbacker and the... The Helix. So I got to play on it. And then the band went nuts. It said, no, we want to be like the Beatles. We want to play on our own stuff. And OK, so they got to ever after that. We just only did two tracks with the Wrecking Crew. But with the Wrecking Crew, we knocked out two songs in a three-hour session.

1:04:35And when we got the whole band playing, it took us 77 takes to get turn, turn, turn. What was it like playing with the Wrecking Crew? It was really fun. And, you know, they were so polished and professional. You know, they didn't do a strict beat. I analyzed some of their stuff, and they're like a school of fish. You know, they'd go around together. You know, they'd maybe go up tempo, down tempo, sideways, you know. But they were always together. They were tight. And I was a little nervous. Hal Blaine said, you ought to go out and have a couple of beers, kid. You know? But I didn't. But we got the session done, and it came out good.

1:05:13Were they older than you guys at that time? Yeah, they were maybe like seven years older, like Elvis' age. I see. It was Hal Blaine, Leon Russell on electric piano, Jerry Cole on a six-string guitar. And Jerry was playing chinks like... And that was something they got from Don't Worry Baby, because they played on Don't Worry Baby for the Beach Boys. And there were chinks in that. And then Bill Pittman played on it. Bill Pittman was guitar, Jerry Cole guitar. And Larry Nectal, who usually did keyboards, played bass. Wow, he's great. Yeah, he was great. It was a fun experience. A little nerve-wracking, but fun.

1:05:53For sure. But I think that some people know the story of the Wrecking Crew, but they're one of the greatest bands of all time, really. Absolutely. And I didn't know they were the band that played on Phil Spector's Wall of Sound stuff. I used to love to do Ron Ron and My Boyfriend's Back or whatever, all those. All those songs that... And then when Hal passed away, the story came out... See, I always thought this was a Beatle beat, like... Let's see.

1:06:25Okay, so the story goes that Hal dropped a stick. He was on one of the sessions. And so he couldn't play boom, boom, boom, boom. He could go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's incredible. As a musician, when you make a mistake, you want to continue it so it sounds like you did it on purpose. And that's what he did. So he invented that bump, bump, bump beat because he dropped a stick. That's unbelievable. Yeah. That's the sound of all the Phil Spector records. It is. That's the sound. And then the Beatles picked it up. Yeah. And I used to call it a Beatle beat because I didn't realize that Hal had come up with it for Phil Spector.

1:07:02That's amazing. And came up with it by mistake. This is a great thing to talk about. how much do mistakes play into the process of writing something? Well, that one sure did. Yeah. I don't know. But I love the...

1:07:30Oh, yeah. At the Brill Building, Kenny Young and I used to analyze Phil Spector records, And he used to scribble little stuff on the vinyl. It's like Audio Matrix, he wrote, with a little stylus. The wall of sound. Wow. Why did Gene Clark leave the band? Well, there's two stories about that. The first one goes, we were ready to fly from L.A. to New York to do a TV special with Murray the K. And back in those days, you could kind of get on a plane whenever you wanted. They didn't have the screening and all the stuff they got now. So I used to show up late. I'd get there just before they closed the door.

1:08:10And so I got on the plane, and everybody's on the plane, and Gene Clark is standing up in the aisle in a cold sweat. He's going, man, I can't do this, man. And we thought, wow, maybe he's psychic. Maybe he knows something. Anyway, he got off the plane. And I remember saying, well, if you can't fly, you can't be a bird. that's really funny so you said there are two versions of the story that's one okay well that was one he had a nervous breakdown on the plane and left yeah and it was and you think it was he's just afraid of flying he was afraid of flying and he and it just got warped by that time the pressure yeah well he was doing some heavy lsd and stuff you know i don't think he was on acid at that point, but something had damaged his nervous system.

1:08:58He was not a well man. But Jim Dixon, in his later years, developed some kind of illness where he had to go to the hospital, and we didn't know if he was going to make it. So, I went to the hospital with my guitar to cheer him up and played some songs for him. And that's when he gave me what I think might have been a deathbed confession, although he didn't die then. But he said, well, you know, Gene left the band, but Eddie Tickner and I, that was his co-manager, were thinking about spinning him off to be a new Elvis Presley. So he was going to go solo. Yeah. And he did. Wow. And he did. And he didn't become Elvis Presley, but yeah.

1:09:41Interesting. He did some good stuff. He did some really pretty, Like no other, it's really a fine album. When did Ticket to Ride come out in relation to Bird's time? It came out after the Bird's. So guitar-wise, it must be inspired by, because it's so much of the Bird's sound. Yeah, I think so. I know we did influence George, because he sent Derek Taylor back from London with a tape of If I Needed Someone. And he got the riff from my Bells of Rumney.

1:10:16So, and he asked Derek to tell me that, and I was, wow, man, the Beatles inspired us, and we've inspired the Beatles back. It's really a cool thing. It's the best. It's the best to make something you love, and also to be recognized by someone that you respect their work. There's no better feeling. I know. It's great. And we became friends. The Beatles and the birds became friends, and we hung out together and took acid with them. This is a weird thing I was thinking about right before we started talking. I looked at your discography and started thinking that we tend to think of musicians' lives through their discography.

1:10:55And I was feeling like it doesn't make sense. And I feel like it's not fair. I don't think the discography is a true reflection of you. It doesn't do justice. Yeah, I don't think so. I never thought about it before, but for some reason it hit me today that the discography, it's just another detail. Well, it's just the gig. It's just what we do for a living. And then there's a life that goes on beyond that. But it's an exciting gig. I've enjoyed it. I've been very blessed that I could make money as a musician my whole life and never really had to do a day job except the Braille building. Yeah, which is not bad.

1:11:34And it's a good story. That was a good experience. and then being a studio musician was a good experience. Do you write songs all the time? No, not anymore. There's no market for me doing that at this point. I don't really feel inspired to do that. I'm happy just doing the folk den, keeping the traditional stuff alive. Great. And it keeps my chops up and keeps my recording chops up and my playing chops up and vocal. So it's really fulfilling. I'm working on a project. It's slow going. labor of love kind of thing. But Jack Levy and I collaborated on a musical back in 1968 called Trip, T-R-Y-P. Gene Trip was an anagram of Pierre Gantt.

1:12:19And he got the idea for the story from Ipsen's Pierre Gantt, but he wanted to move it to the Western United States. And 1968 is when The Bird's Sweetheart of the Rodeo came out. So he thought I'd be a good guy to co-write the music with him. And we wrote about 26 songs, and the thing never got mounted on Broadway. It did finally get played when Jacques became the theatrical instructor at Colgate College in Hamilton, New York, and the kids there did a version of it. But I'm re-recording some of the songs, and some of the songs were on the Byrds records, like Chestnut Mare, and I'm a little conflicted because I've re-recorded Chestnut Mare, but you're never going to get it to sound like the Clarence White version that came out on the Untitled album.

1:13:06I was thinking, man, do I want to license this stuff from Sony, or what do I want to do? But anyway, I've re-recorded it. It sounds pretty good. I got Marty Stewart to play the Clarence White parts on Chestnut Mare. He's great. And they're spot on. He got that part right. So I was going to do a narration between the songs, kind of like Peter and the Wolf. Nice. And some of the songs have never been recorded before, like the robin of the stage the robin of the stage you got to be proficient at the robin of the stage with the coldest Smith and Wesson and a Remington and Gage so Pierre Gant went around, he had to the Borg, it's like this supernatural force that kept him going from job to job and so that's what happens in the Gene trip thing.

1:13:58He goes, he's a preacher, he's a riverboat gambler, and he becomes a stagecoach robber at one point, and a politician. And that's where the song, I Want to Grow Up to Be Politician came from. That sounds great. I can't wait to hear the whole thing. I have one thought when you talk about doing covers of songs you've already been involved with. Think about it like you're doing a cover of a song that you had no part in, and you want to reinterpret it in your own voice, making believe that the other one was not you. Like what would be the new, do you know what I'm saying? Instead of trying to remake - Yeah, it's a mental adjustment.

1:14:36It's a mental adjustment of just think of like - Don't get intimidated by the original. No, let go of the original completely and make the most interesting version to you today, forgetting what the old one was. Just look at the chords and the melody and rethink the approach. That's good advice. Yeah, it's great because you can also, there's a chance you'll make one that's better than the original. You're never going to make one better than the original trying to do the original. No. But, you know, it happens sometimes where a cover song transcends the original because you find a new way in and it's really interesting.

1:15:13Okay. Thank you. My pleasure. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today. This is great. I love it. I had fun. I had fun. It was great. Thanks again to the great Roger McGuinn. You can hear a playlist of our favorite Roger McGuinn and Bird songs at brokenrecordpodcast.com. You can 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 with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Ben Taladay, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.

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