Peter Asher

26:10So were, was there a big studio musician seen at that point in time? I don't know, but I, yes, I think they were all working a lot. Yeah, I remember my favorite drummer was a guy called Kenny Claire, who was the drummer in the Donnie Danquist band. So he was a Donnie Danquist, a big jazz guy in England. Very important in the British jazz scene, which is a very separate. And as again, a complete copy of the American jazz scene, but some wonderful, wonderful players. And Kenny Claire played on a couple of Peter and Gordon Records, there was a brilliant big band drum and played all that. And we put some of that in there just because he did it so well.

26:50I just learned from, from Graham Nash that skiffle music was based on American music, which I didn't know that because we never had, we didn't have skiffles. Whereas for all of the other, for the blues, for every other genre that was popular in the UK, we had the equivalent here. Yeah, and I guess it's Jug band, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, and people forget about Lonnie Donnie Danquist, it was a deep, big guy. I was talking to Jack White, not long ago, and he turned out to be a huge Lonnie Donnie Danquist fan. He knew all his records and everything. And I kind of was so impressed because Lonnie Danquist fans are rare in America.

27:29And it sort of figures that he would be somebody who got it, you know. And we see a movie star as well? No, just he came out of the jazz scene. I see. He was the banjo player. And when I say banjo, it would be four string, chinkachinko banjo, not five string, bluegrass. In the Chris Boba jazz band, you know, before skiffle was the big, the trad to scene as they called it, which was traditional jazz, Dixieland to you. And Chris Boba was the biggest band. And the band was very big and they do their set with all the haunt section and everything. And then they would have in the middle of the show a section of Lonnie Donnie Danquist doing a couple of folk songs and stuff on his banjo with maybe the bass player and stuff.

28:11And that was the beginning of Lonnie Donnie Danquist. To some degree, I think the beginning of skiffle. And then Lonnie Donnie Danquist had rock out of the line, which was massive, which is a lead belly song. Better alive also was a big one I remember. Yes, that's right. And then there were other skiffle groups like the Viper's who were very good. But Lonnie Donnie Danquist was the king of skiffle, literally described as such. And it began with him, he would do a tiny segment in Chris Boba's jazz band evenings. I used to play in a in a trad jazz band. I played bass very badly, but you could get away with it in a band, mostly notable that the band leader and trumpet player was Adrian Lyne, the film director.

28:51So we'd known each other forever. I mean, it's in. I played the other in a band, which was exciting. What motivated your decision to move to California? James. I had been to California, of course, several times on tour and to do TV shows and do shindig and whatever. And I loved California. It was amazing. I mean, you have to remember what British people are coming from. So I mean, for me, literally the contrast was so stark because one year I was a philosophy student at London University, King's College London, so that on a winter off the noon, I would be basically home from university in the dark, because by four o 'clock in British winter, it's dark and the rain.

29:39And a year later, I was driving down Sunset Boulevard in a Mustang convertible, being recognized by beautiful women in the sunshine. And I kind of went, I think this is better. You call me crazy, but this seems like a lot more fun. So I knew I'd come back and live in America one day. I knew the first, even before Peter and Gordon, I had posters of the New York skyline on my bedroom wall. Interesting. And as I say, copies of Downbeat with Jazz Club Circular, I knew my America was in my future somewhere. And once I'd been here and it lived up to our expectations, because we dreamed of coming to America and then to come and be chased around by teenage girls trying to stay a close off, it gets no better than that.

30:26Yeah, so California, the decision was part of the decision to manage James. And it was producing and managing came to me in entirely different ways. Being a record producer was something I had an ambition to do in and of itself. Once I'd realized the was such a job that you could have a job where you could high -brilliant musicians much better than yourself and tell them what to do. You know, I thought, how cool is that? You know, and as you well know. And it's extremely cool. And that was an ambition regardless of who it was. And so the first record I ever produced was a Paul Jones record. I don't know if you remember Paul Jones, he was the lead singer of Manfred Mann in the dua Didi Iro.

31:10There she was, just to work in that guy, brilliant singer, and one of the best harmonic players in the world. And so I produced his record. And by that time Paul and I were already friends, so I asked Paul if he would play on it, play drums on it. So I pulled McCartney to play drums. Paul Sam Will Smith from The Yardbirds played bass who went on to, of course, to produce Carly Simon and Kat Stevens. Nikki Hopkins played piano and Jeff Beck played guitar. So I was taking no chances on my first record. How great was that band? It was a great band. It was a really good band. It's worth it. The record wasn't the big hit.

31:46It crept into the charts and grabbed out again, but it's good worth hearing. But whereas managing was quite different, I was already producing James. We'd made the Apple album, came out, didn't do particularly well. We were just trying to do that. To do Apple was falling apart. The Beatles were falling apart. We decided to leave and sort of jump ship. And so I decided to move to America because James had a conversation about management, was clear to us that somebody needed to be his manager. We didn't know anyone we trusted to do it. So I said that James will I'll do it. And yes, I was kind of being bold and saying how hard can it be.

32:23But I was also having watched Brian Eppstein realize that one's instincts were correct. That it wasn't that hard if you had an amazing client. And you cared, which is something that's a big difference. And you want to cook, right? It wasn't just a gig. You love this artist. Exactly. If you're going to go around saying my band is going to be bigger than Elvis, you better mean it. So I think if you're reasonably intelligent, love your artist in every sense of the word. And not just trying to make a quick dollar. It becomes a matter of a lot of you have come. And since people do often say to me, what's the secret of being a great manager?

33:07And I do explain that I inducted the first two managers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because I knew them both and admired them both. And they were not surprisingly Brian Eppstein and Andrew Lou Goldham. And I went, duh, what does this tell you? Secret of being a great manager is a great client. It isn't mean that you couldn't screw it up if you tried. But if you're going around telling your woman to genius James Taylor, it's easy because it's true.

33:34My ambition was to convince people that this is not just another long -haired folk even acoustic guitar, which is what you were. If you had long -haired plays with acoustic guitar, you were a folk singer. It didn't matter if you've never sang any folk songs. I mean James did, but you were playing the folk clubs. That was your, you know, the word singer songwriter, oddly enough, had never been used in that context. Interesting. It hadn't been put together that way. Interesting. You could be a songwriter in the singer, but suddenly, oh, I'm a singer songwriter. Now I've got a name for what I do.

34:03And it was a whole movement. And it became a movement. They put James on the cover of Time Magazine. Yeah. You know, so it was Joni, it was Neil, it was James. Then the minute later it was Jackson and so on. And that was the singer songwriter thing. Well, let's go back because he talked about Apple was falling apart. Tell me about Apple from the beginning. Were you at Apple from the beginning? Yes. Tell me about the entire Apple story. Okay. Paul and I were friends. Even after he moved out of our house, you know, he lived with us for a couple of years on the top floor of our house. Then when he moved out to his mansion in Cavendish Avenue, where he still lives, that's when I mostly remember him talking about Apple.

34:45It was a beetle collective idea, but it was mainly him. And the others were falling into place behind him. And he wanted to create a sort of entertainment company. And at that era, you may remember, it was before record company started vying with each other for the title of Artist Friendly. That concept didn't really exist. I mean, the head of EMI was a man called Sir Joseph Lockwood. And when you walked into his office, he felt like you should bow. You know, he was in a suit behind a big desk. He was Sir Joseph and he was the boss. And everybody had that thing which they kind of still have. We don't accept unsolicited material.

35:23And no, don't bothers go away. Now it's different. There's no bothers until you got 20 zillion followers. You know, all those numbers. But back then, they said, no, you need to have a lawyer or a manager to talk to us. All that. Very hands off. And Paul was convinced that, you know, if we just took a more Amyable accessible hospitable attitude. And it was going to be records and films and television and all this other stuff. But so he asked me. This also makes sense from Paul after the Beatles were rejected by everyone for a long time. So he, in his mind, it's like, there's more, there's more of us out here.

36:00That's right. That's a very good point. It makes sense, you know, makes sense for that mentality. The sad thing was it was that it didn't happen. It didn't happen. Could it have happened? Well, yes. I mean, I suppose you could have. I mean, the funny part is Apple now would kind of make a bit of sense to start a completely independent label that truly listened. You know, I had four or five people listed because we took ads and send us your music. You know, boy, did they ever? The depressing thing was we really got nothing out of those send -in tapes. I mean, and, you know, a depressing percentage, which people with this stack, the stacks of, for example, you know, a giant stack of lyrics that don't scan and don't rhyme.

36:46And, you know, I know John Lennon wants to write music for this, all my lyrics. It's going to bring about world peace or whatever. And, you know, and it was depressing how nutty some of it was, how bad some of it was. And how, what the percentage of actually let's play this in an Amar or meeting and then say, no, you know, that was a triumph. You know, when there was something, I actually thought I could play to the Beatles and say, what do you think? You know, because we had weekly A and Ametings. I think the King of Fur came out of one of those meetings. Do you know about the King of Fur? An artist called Brute Force, who I believe is still around.

37:25Wow, great. And we play, this is the only thing I think could be wrong. But I think there's the only thing we've played in an Ameting and I actually went, let's sign it. We let sign it because George thought it was hilarious. It was a song, the lyrics of which, Lachigan says, I'm the King of Fur, I'm the fucking.

37:47And we all laughed. George said, we have to put it out. We have to put it out. And of course, EMI and Capital went, no, you don't. And we want you to be doing it. We had to get some other distributor to do it because EMI wouldn't do it. But it did come out. And as a guy called Brute Force, might still be around. It's a funny name. It's a great name. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I think that might be the only thing. Because we signed Mary Hopkin because we saw her on a talent show. I see. Twiggy actually saw her. Twiggy, as I recall, Twiggy was watching this show called Opportunity Knocks, which was kind of like an any star talent show.

38:26If you got through to the next round, you came back next week and so on. Mary Hopkin was singing a John Baez song, that for Fortune, and had such a great song. Great song. Great song. Twiggy called Paul, that good friend still are. And Paul called me. We all watched it. We all went down to Wales and signed her up. And then that went lead to those of the days, which of course was a credible song. And who wrote those of the days? Exactly. Very good question. Paul had been to a nightclub called the Blue Angel some weeks or I think months previously, where a duo called Jean and Francesca, I think, an American duo, had sung those of the days.

39:12And he had made a mental note of it, obviously. Because when he signed Mary Hopkin, he knew what record he was going to make, whether he knew that it was going to be a huge hit. And it turned out we credited them with the song. It turned out it's actually a Russian folk song, that hold da da da da da da da da da da. It's as Russian as it sounds. Yeah. So Paul said, you know, we need to find that song, which we did. And he knew I wanted to do it. And he wanted the instrument, the symbol on. You know, a symbol on, it's, it's, um, you hear it in movie music quite a lot. It's like a big hammered dulcimer.

39:53It's like a hammered dulcimer, but then it looks like a zither with the strings crossover with each other. And you play it with hammers like a dulcimer. So on those of the days that, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, the place the solo and the intro is the symbol on. I defined the, the best symbol on player in London, which I did for Paul. Because in this instance, head of a henarment, help Paul make the record, which is fine with me. We did it at EMI, which we think of as Abbey Road. Which you think of as Abbey Road, because eventually somebody very cleverly changed the name to make it worth more money.

40:28That was when they were in the process of selling it. Yeah, and I suggested the arranger, because what happened was, this is a whole other story, but tell it. When I was doing the James album, as I said, I added different instruments on it, it's quite decorated with string quartet and brass quartet, and this and the other. And I wanted it to not sound too necessarily pop. So I, a friend of mine called Richard Houston, I had played in a jazz group with me. He was a trumpet player, a guitar player, but I knew also that he was a classical musician. So I asked him to write all the charts for that, which he did.

41:07So that was how he came to be involved with Apple. So when Paul wanted strings and everything on those with the days, I said, you met Rick, Richard, who did the stuff on the James album. He went, oh great, he'll do. So he wrote the arrangements on those with the days, and became kind of the in -house Apple arranger guy, which of course ended up unknowingly writing the long and winding road arrangement that Paul hated, only because he didn't want it to be that. Wow. You know, but obviously if you get a call from somebody's name, and Phil Spector wants you to write an arranger, it's for the Beatles longer.

41:45You go, yes, you don't go to the Beatles, no, this is going on. You know, there was one of them didn't, you know, but it's a beautiful arrangement. I still like to want without it, but that's a, but that's all of the story. I think I like it better with it, just because I grew up with it. Yeah, exactly. That's how the song goes to me. And it's good. It's really good. Richard's terrific. How many employees were there at Apple? Don't know. There were Apple publishing, Apple films, Apple, and obviously Apple records, but... Would you say it was like in the neighborhood of 20 people or like 50 people?

42:21I would say it was in between those two numbers. I see. Would be my guess, yes. Because there were quite a few sort of assistance and secretaries and the guy on the door and, you know, so it might be a size 50. And the office was in that whole building? Where we started off in Wigmore Street, I think. Now we started off in Baker Street. Come over why we kept moving, but then we moved to Wigmore Street, and then finally they'd bought this building. I think they bought it, God knows they shouldn't have sold it, but I kind of imagined what it's worth. It was such a great building. I was on the top floor.

42:53It was fun. Do you remember what was on the other floors? Yes. Some of them. I mean, ground floor is the entrance way. And I think Peter Brown's office slash kind of General Beatles office might have been on the ground floor. Might have been on you. Or what we would call the first floor. What did he do? Peter Brown was general sort of assistant kind of sort of manager with Neil Aspenall. You know, I mean, when Brian died. He'd always been that sort of right -hand man, sort of ambassador, you know. And, uh, it's funny because he's legend now, because his name shows up in the song about Peter Brown called to say we can get you get married and whatever, which is Peter Brown arranging.

43:35John and Neil goes wedding. And so his name shows up in the song, and everyone goes, oh, that's the Peter Brown.

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45:18You also mentioned the name of the show that Mary Hopkins was seen on, and I never knew that that was the name of a TV show, but there's an outtake of John Lennon and saying that name in the studio. Oh, really? Yeah, and I just thought it was a clever line. No, it's used referring to a TV show. It was, yes, the opportunity nox was the big TV show. So, you know, that's where the Beatles hadn't got a record deal. Eventually, maybe they would have ended up on opportunity nox. Opportunity nox. And is the, was there a studio in the basement? Not yet. Not yet. No, we moved in. The was or was not depending on how much you judge a studio about whether it works or not.

46:02Yeah, yeah. In the basement later on. So, the basement, yeah, ground floor admission, I think, Beatles office, maybe you have one flight of stairs, which is sort of a big office, which Neil had an office just off of, I think. And that was sort of the really the kind of conference room or whatever Beatles were there. If the band came in, that's where they went. That's where they went. Yes, I see. And then, next floor up with Derri Taylor's office, which is where the fun was, which is where everything was going to happen. And that was the publicity press? Yes, he was pressed. I don't know much you know about Derri Taylor.

46:34Not much, tell me. He was brilliant. I mean, amazing, fantastic, interesting man. Worth reading his book. It's called This Time Goes By. He's a wonderful writer, so it's gripping read. And the sum chat was where you go, this is all weird. And he's finished reading the chapter and find out, you know, he was on acid the whole time. That's why the chapter was, but he still wrote beautifully. Yes. He was a truly exceptional man. The Beatles loved him, Dealy. As did I. How did he come into the Beatles world, do you know? Did Brian find him? Brian, early. And then he went to America and had a PR sort of company.

47:11But not like any other PR company. He was much cooler than anybody else. He worked for the birds, I think, and some other people. And then was asked to come back. For Apple. And was the Beatles Brian's first act? Yes. Because he owned record stores before this. Yes. As far as I know, I don't think he had any ambitions to be a manager anymore than I did. When he heard the Beatles and just one, this is too good to ignore. I mean, he was only in the music business in the sense that he ran a record shop. Yes. And I think Peter Brown may have worked in the shop with him. Maybe that's how Peter came on board.

47:45I think he knew Brian. Tell me more about Derek and Derek's office. Well, Derek's office was the office where the bar was, for example. And Derek's top drawer, he had all kinds of wonders as well. So everyone would end up in there. So when the, you know, so my office was in the very top floor. Next to these people who worked with me listening to tapes. And I think Apple publishing was a guy called Michael Connor, who had a random Apple publishing, might have been on the next floor down the road. About five floors, I think, on a basement. But yeah, so Derek's office was where you went later in the day, you know, to see what was going on and have a drink or a smoke or whatever was going.

48:28And so when the hell's angels all arrived or Ken Keezy arrived, or, you know, and no one knew what to do with them, they'll put him in Derek's office. Derek will know what to do. And he did, you know. Derek was brilliant. He was also responsible for the close relationship with Harry Nielsen. He was a huge Nielsen fan. He produced the, well, I didn't know that. Harry Nielsen. And, uh, Harry and the Beatles caused, became very close. And would you say everybody in the offices around 25 years old or less? I suppose so. Yeah. So it's a young, again, we think back and it's this business. And I just want to really picture on the side.

49:04Because we had, we thought we need a real record guy to run the label. And we had this guy, Ron Cass, who was head of Liberty Records, had been head of Liberty. We also knew he was cool because he was married to Joan Collins. Now, but you not be cool. And if you're a mayor. I think Lady Monakres, dad owned Liberty Records. I think that's right. So, uh, Ron Cass might have been a little bit older, I think. That's how I got to produce the music. He was like the adult. He was the adult, yes, exactly. But everyone else was kids. I think so. It's cool. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there were lawyers and accountants after we were there to be grownups.

49:41Yeah. But, um, yeah, it was exciting. Yeah, Derek, there's all kinds of Derek adventures you should read up on. There's a, there's the trip we all took to record the Black Dyke Mills Band, you know, about them. I don't know about them. If you do get Derek's book, read that chapter. If you read nothing else, because it's, I'll read the whole thing. It sounds great. It's fantastic. The Black Dyke Mills Band, Paul was invited to write a theme tune for a show called Thing -A -Me -Bob, a television show called And he wrote this melody, which was really good and catchy. And he decided he wanted to down by a brass band.

50:17Brass bands are quite a big thing in England. It's a very traditional English business. All the factories up north used to have their own brass band. And they have brass band competitions and all that stuff. All just, you know, trumpets and new phonemes and some of those instruments there were in the show up in marching bands and brass bands. So he wanted to down by a brass band. So we found the best brass band. They would won the competition that last year, called the Black Dyke Mills Band, which was their factory. And they were terrific. And we had the arrangement written out. They for them.

50:52But we did the recording up near where they all were up in New Yorkshire. So we drove up and did the recording and stuff. And it was on the ride back that we had all kinds of these adventures. We stopped in some town. There's a whole bit in it where Paul says he gave me the map to choose the village. He couldn't decide where we were going to look for to have lunch on the road, dinner or whatever on the way back. So I picked this town called Harold because I liked it. There was an unusual name for a town as two hours. So we stopped in Harold and we were in this huge rolls, dame -low or something.

51:33So it was only a matter of seconds before the entire town of Harold. And you who had just arrived because we'd stopped and drove to one guy who was trimming his head. And we were looking for somewhere to eat. Then he ended up inviting us all in as a wife made us food. It's all adventure. We ended up back in the pub. Paul ended up on the piano. There's all these people still. If you look at all of this, as people still reminiscing about, when I was a kid. Paul Mugani stopped in our town and sat in the pub and played us a bunch of new songs, including Hey Jude, which he'd just written. And you can see kids would go, no, but it's in black and white and it's all true.

52:16And so on. Derek says, that's an example of one of the ones where Derek says, Paul gave the book to Peter Asher. Peter Asher looked at it from what seemed like three hours. It was probably 30 seconds. Okay, that's right. I remember that now. How many years was that Apple experiment? How long were you guys in that building? I don't know. I'm very bad at dates and times. But guessing, guessing. Just give me a feeling. Two years maybe. Yeah, so short. It was a short short. It went bad quickly. Yes, there were big rows going on. And it was mostly about Alan. I mean, yes, the yoga thing was a contributor factor.

52:55But did it add, did having Apple add to the pressure of the Beatles? Like had the Apple idea not happened and had the Beatles just been the Beatles? Would there have been more of a chance that they would have found a way to do that? I think the Apple idea had happened, but I and Brian hadn't died. The Apple thing wouldn't have made that much difference. But I think because Brian died and then there's a whole, and there's nobody to go, let's think about how to make this make more sense. I see. The account is telling us, are telling us it's out of control. Because that was all those discussions that led to John going, we need somebody to be in charge of all this.

53:37I know the right guy. I'm Paul said, no, you don't. I know about that guy. He's a crook, whatever the conversation was. Because I knew he was a crook. I was already warned off him by people. And I believe John was too. Wasn't he warned off on him by the rolling stones? Yes, I think so. Which you think would be enough. But Alan was very clever. Alan's whole line was, everyone's going to tell you not to do business with me. That's because they're all scared of me. They're going to say, I'm a complete content. And I am. That may be true. But I'm on your side. You are. And that's what you need. And John liked that.

54:17You can see John going for the idea that someone who's really tough and unpleasant is going to be beneficial to them. Which is, you know, maybe the sum truth to it. But he also was a bit crooked and would sign stuff that he wasn't supposed to be signing and transfer things. He wasn't a resource to transfer and be a creep. And so having a creep on your side is risky, you know, because he's still a creep. Do you ever get to meet Alan? Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. I met him and I'd heard about him already from some friends who worked for the rolling stones. And how long did he work? We didn't talk about much.

54:51James had a meeting with him. How long did he work with the stones, do you know? No, I don't. I know that he had Sam Coco already when he was doing it. Which also goes, we'd impress the stones. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. He had Sam Coco, it's publishing. So what was the feeling when you met him? He was out to impress. He wanted to be the tough guy, you know. And it was clearly, you know, that I expected him to fire everybody. I quit and one of the people he didn't get fired. Because once I decided to leave, I wrote a letter of resignation, which is the only thing I haven't found. It must be somewhere in the Apple vaults because they've kept a lot of stuff.

55:29I'd be curious to see whether I gave any reasons for resigning. But I definitely left. And of course, he did fire everybody. He carried on for a very short length of time. And John, as you know, admired that kind of toughness. He just kind of went, oh, he's, you know, he's going to show them. And he did, but he showed everybody, including the Beatles. That's the problem. So before this, we were talking about coming to California and how different it was. And what was the music scene like here versus there? Trying to remember who I went to see. I saw the doors once, the whiskey, who I liked the keyboard player.

56:06I wasn't sure about the band. Well, Linda, Linda runs her, as she says, you know, she said, the band's great. The singer's no good. How do you mean Linda? I was in New York. And I can't remember still who it was who said, there's a girl playing the bitter end. Who you should go and see. She's completely amazing. She's an extraordinary singer. You got an amazing voice. And she's ridiculously hot. And so I went, okay, and I went to see her and it was all true. Was she still in the band? What were they called? No, the ponies. Her solo after the stone ponies. And she'd had one hit single on her own that long, long time.

56:48And I went and I talked to her then. I met her then. And he got a little bit complicated because John Boylan, who was, might have been her boyfriend at the time, although then might have been also JD Souther. But anyway, John Boylan had helped to put this band together, which consisted of Don Hanley and Glenn Fry. And John David had had to help with that too. And that was the band I saw her with, I think. And everyone, it was great, she's saying amazingly. Silver threads and golden needles was the song that I remember specifically. And at the time, there was talk of me. I was initially came in.

57:28Linda asked if I would help a produce finish, sort out the album she was in the middle of, which was the solo album called Don't Cry Now. With some of which she'd been produced by John Boylan, some by John David Salah. And it was all in a bit of a muddle. And so I did that because I loved her voice and was happy to do it. And some of it, I forget two or three tracks on that album were officially credited to me. And in the meantime, we did have a discussion about management because John recommended that I might be a candidate. But actually, the time I'd said no because I was managing Kate Taylor at the time, who'd made an album, who I really believe in in love.

58:08And I still do. But Kate Taylor then retired. She decided the road was not for her. And the album stayed out and did reasonably okay. We made an album for Atlantic. I'm a Atlantic, I was a big fan of hers. And she actually called Linda and said, by the way, I'm not working anymore. So, you know, you should talk to Peter again because he loved you. And I think Linda called me because Kate told her to. So as I recall, and Linda told me that story. Anyway, so we decided that yes, I would be a manager. And so that's when the relationship began. The next album was the one I produced from scratch. And that was hot like a wheel where everything changed.

58:49Was her voice just astounding? I still remember that you just couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. And then, she's one of the great singers. She's one of the great singers. Yeah. Her, her, if you haven't seen the documentary about Linda, I've seen it, I love it. It's so great. And that's when you discover, as you do when you watch the documentary, boy, you know, she's so smart and so well read and so articulate and extraordinary. And I freely admit, the prejudice at the time, I was probably guilty of sevens, everyone else, you think, if someone's that good and that incredibly good looking and attractive, they couldn't also be brilliant.

59:25Yeah, it's too much. It's too much. And I ran into that, of course, the very traditional way that people would assume that I was the one choosing the songs, I was the one in charge of everything, you know, whereas in fact, every decision I made, every song I chose, quote, chose, was in conjunction with Linda. And in terms of choosing songs, it's probably 70, 30 years. In terms of production, it's definitely 50, 50, you know. But that's good production. I thought. Whatever's necessary. Exactly. And then the boss isn't the job. No. It's the best result. Exactly so. Exactly. And Linda freely admits that she's not a producer.

1:00:07I mean, she's done it, done it well for some other people, but she gets distracted easily. You know, but once we would decide the mission, and then I would execute it. You know, but she's, she's musically, of course, so brilliant. And the fact that she could turn her genius to so many different musical genres, you know, that she would do, you know, the rock and roll and the traditional standards and the Mexican rancheras and and beautiful ballots and nail all of them and put so much work into it. And suddenly decide you want to see. Very interesting too. Like it was very interesting seeing all the changes she went through.

1:00:45Because her the instrument there, her voice is so spectacular. Yes. And then to put on a whole new. To teach it opera, right? Yeah. To teach that voice. How does thing opera? You know, and she worked, I mean, even the film does a great job. How hard she worked. She would have vocal coaching every day. Wow. And listen to every version of Laba Wemme, which was doing that in New York and so on. So she could, you know, explain how to do that. Amazing to have such a natural talent and still the work ethic. Yep. To do even better. You know, or learn something new. Exactly. And her talent is so specific in the sense that it's singing.

1:01:25Full of stuff. You know, she can barely be persuaded to move when she's singing a song. You know, by today's standards where everyone has to be able to dance and leap around. She, you know, she can do, she does none of that. And she likes the idea of production is appealing to her. When we did the Nelson Ridley stuff and she got to put on those great clothes and fancy hairdos and all that. She liked that. But generally, you know, directors will always go, okay, on this bit, you know, walk across her. Come down the steps. And she goes, no, you know, I'm busy. I'm up here. I'm singing. You know, how many, how many arms did you get to do with her?

1:02:00Gosh. I suppose about five, rock and roll ones. Great. And then three Nelson ones, two Marriachi ones. Great. I love the Marriachi ones. Yeah. Sing the, she sings the shit out of that. That's so good. So brilliant.

1:02:33I did those with this guy, Ruben Fuentes, who was the sort of Nelson Ridley Marriachi, who was amazing. And these great musicians. A great idea. My respect. Great idea. Completely. And of course, people would go, why are you diverging into all this other kinds of music? She went, no, no, not diverging. I'm being retroactive, you know, because they were literally the songs she grew up listening to one of her father's knee. They were the father's songs. And that's how she learned them. And the weird part is that it was the political aspect is that when sociological aspect, that back in America in the 50s, you were instructed, forced to not speak Spanish in front of your children.

1:03:19You were told it's really bad. You're being a bad mother. If you speak Spanish in front of your children, they must only learn English to be proper Americans, which is completely insane. I mean, now everyone, they realize that of course, you speak Spanish at home, English at school, you translate via granny. It's all that's the way immigration works perfectly instead of which she learned all the songs. So, we'd run into situations where we took the show on the road where she's up there singing, you know, in perfect Spanish, you know, a Mexican Spanish accent is apparently perfect. So that she sings so brilliant, people would come up at the end of the show and start talking fast in Spanish.

1:04:00And she'd have to go, I'm really sorry, you know, I only sing it, you know, which just seems so weird until you understand this. That's how she learned it. With Linda said in the playground, if two of you started speaking Spanish, you know, you had to slap. Wow. Physically slapped. Wow. Because it was like, that's on American. Yeah. And no, it's not. That's extremely American. That's the point of American. Amazing. But even now, as you know, the people who don't get it, you know, tell me, how did you come across Tony Joe White? I was a huge fan. Yeah. I loved the boat's out of the alley, saw that Annie.

1:04:34I don't remember who suggested maybe I should do a record with them. Might have been the label. And I met him, loved him. What a cool artist. He was one of those. Nobody else like that. I know. Very one of a kind. And a great songwriter. People get, he wrote, was it Rainy Night in Georgia as well. I didn't know he wrote that. Yeah. I loved that song. Exactly. One of the things I was excited about with Tony Joe, of course, is I got to use some, you know, them musicians down there. Where did you record? Maybe Audent. And Mike Utley played bass. I can't remember who the rest of the band was. Was it, were the band incredible?

1:05:09Incredible. Yeah. And I knew, I met Mike before because Gordon and I many years earlier, when we were on the road, when we got to Memphis, we made a big point saying, can we go to the stacks studios, you know, would they let us in? And our mind is, you know, the promotions guys from Capitol, can I go no, no, no, you know, they're, you know, it's not the bad part of town or whatever. And we said, no, no, please, you know, that's all we want to see in Memphis. And they finally agreed to make the call. And they made the call and they didn't know we weren't. It's great, you know, come over. It was a fantastic day.

1:05:52We sat in the studio. We met Steve Kropper, who remains a friend. Incredible. Mike, Utley, the bass player, Al Jackson, the drummer, and Bokerti, of course. And they were all coming in and out. And then they played us some tracks. But I didn't realize, they would have some tracks where they just weren't sure whether this might be Rufus, it might be Collar, it might be Otis, you know, they hadn't necessarily decided who was who, but they played us just, he's incredible grooves and stuff. Which is probably how Green onions and all that, you know, Bokerti stuff happened. And we were so impressed.

1:06:31And Jim Stewart, of course, who was the genius behind the whole thing, you know, who was the white guy, alongside Steve Kropper. And, you know, they'd, they'd establish themselves in this largely black part of town, making completely black music. And it's such a, I mean, there must be a stack of documentary there if there was, I haven't seen it. I don't know if there is. I've never seen one. What a story, you know, I don't know much about Jim Stewart. Somebody said he might still be alive, but he's kind of a recluse. But I mean, that's an amazing story that all that music came out of that, that group of musicians and the number of hits they had, both for other people and for themselves, you know, as the MGs was pretty colossal.

1:07:12Anyway, so I was excited to do Tony Giowa. I still think I could have made a better record. I remember doing things that I don't think I should have done. Like I may have not spent enough time listening to the way they wanted to do it. I'm like, is my instinct, the time was mono drums, I don't think so, you know, let's move on. So I was kind of going, no, no, I'd rather have the drums spread out like I'm used to, whatever. But I should have done it. And well, they made a whole bunch of set records. It was so great. Yeah. That, you know, I should have started off saying, just make me a stacks record.

1:07:48And then I'll interview if needed, you know.

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1:09:14You'd ever see the Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll movie, the... Yeah, I was there, of course. I had no idea. Well, I was naked as Linda's in it. And, you know, the one Taylor Acven did. That's why I got to know Taylor Acven, who is a friend. And, yes, I was there managing Linda, because she had to be fed and made it clear from the beginning that she wouldn't stay for the second show if it was like after midnight, because she had to write firm and such things, and she said, I promise I'll get it right first time. And, you know, so not that you can tell from the performance, but Linda's... They only had one take to work from them, even anyone.

1:09:49And then, of course, Chuck, as you probably know, pulled a similar thing, different grounds, but he went in and said, it's after midnight, second shows another day, double life, double my feet. And then, it kept going, but Chuck, you know, all these people living for nothing, Taylor Acven, Keith Richards being the band leader of you, you know, and taking conscientious. Keith was doing great. You know, he was really being a band leader and wearing the jacket and the whole thing. And, Chuck went, that's very nice of them, you know. And they paid him. But, in the end, but yes, it's a great movie.

1:10:24I remember when I first saw it, I remember thinking, wow, Chuck is just a jerk. Yeah, Keith has read about everything. Yes. And then I saw it probably 20 years later. And it's the same story you just told them watching. It's like, oh, Keith Richards is telling Chuck Berry how to be Chuck Berry. Yes. This is not right. Right. It's like, I had it, but it only came, the wisdom comes with time and experience. Yes. But when we're younger, we think we know the right way. Yes. And then over time, we learn, oh, there's a lot of ways to do this and trust the masters. Yes, exactly. And things, and clearly, the only instruction Chuck needs is B -Chuck, you know.

1:11:03That's it. It's just like, I saw him rehearse. Might have been the Red Rock show, it was something else. And of course, it was a local band who were backing him up. And on one occasion, it was happened two or three times, he worked on stage, taught to the guys that, you know, Megalene, I went, yeah, he said, you know, my show, left left. And because every song starts the same, every song is mostly in the same key. So, you know, the band, you still don't know what song you start without knowing what song it is. It's just figuring, it will make itself clear. And it does. Amazing. And it's sloppy, but it works.

1:11:37Yeah, yeah. I think that some degree Dylan does a similar thing where he'll just start playing songs, maybe even a different key. And Dylan, you may never find out what's happening. Yeah. No, but Tom Heady would talk about when they were the band for Dylan, you just had to try to figure out what was happening. You never knew. You never knew. It was nothing was planned. And he would start a song and a different rhythm and a different key. And you just have to listen for some clue. Usually someone in the band would like, everybody would be looking at each other. And one guy in the band would like, say what it was.

1:12:07You know, and they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's really funny. It makes sense. Yeah. Tell me about being an artist on Capitol Records. Your first trip to the Capitol Records building. It was exciting. But the first time we came into New York, America was New York. I see. So, you know, we were thrilled. Capital centers, you know, a proper limo and whatever year that would have been a 64 Cadillac limo. Yeah. To pick us up, you know, so. Was 64 the first year you came? That's when the first hit was. Yes. First hit, 64. We played the world's fair. We played that the the globy thing incredible. Hemisphere.

1:12:47Hemisphere. Hemisphere. Hemisphere. I can't remember the name. I think it's the universe. We used to picture that in the gatefold of the Beastie Boys, that first Beastie Boys album. Oh, right. We did a photo session there. Oh, right. Now, there's still a water in the moat. No. Because when we played there, it's got this sort of not very deep, sort of little canal around it, which is filled with water. And it was just things, the police at that time, they had to have the Beatles all the time. The police would go, no, there's nothing worry about we can handle it. You know, it's just bunch of girls and don't worry.

1:13:21And it would be wrong. You know, we completely wrong. They'd be overwhelmed in like 10 seconds. And I remember saying, oh, that's cool. There's, you know, there's a moat in the police. In the least one. Yeah, the girls won't come across that. Of course. As soon as we went out there, you know, the boys jumped in the moat and swim across. It's like an early wet t -shirt contest. It was brilliant. And we were counting, this is so cool. And these soaking wet girls coming out, not me. And, you know, and it was great. I mean, that, that mania thing was bizarre. The strangest thing I ever saw, and I've told the story before, but, you know, we, we play, I say, we play a lot of places where the police would say, don't worry.

1:14:02And then instant, you come out, which we were part of only in the sense that the Beatles were, again, leading the way, you know, but especially when they'd seen Hard Day's night, the girls knew how they were supposed to behave. They were supposed to scream and go crazy and rush, rush us, you know, us collectively. And they did. And the weirdest one was we were playing out of doors in like one corner of a baseball thing or something. And at that time, those outdoor stages of it used to be just a couple of trucks pulled out next to each other, truck beds. And so, as soon as we came out, the girls jumped off the, down from the baseball seats and running, running across the diamond, which I probably were freaking out about the bloody baseball thing anyway.

1:14:48So they were all running and we have the police said, go, go, as we jumped off, we're running to some car or whatever. And I looked back, my glasses fell off on the grass. So I let, picked up my glasses and ran on. And the girls were jumping down. And I saw some girl find the place where my glasses had fallen, pulled the grass up and eat it. And I went, that is so cool. That's commitment. That's commitment. So she was eating the grass. The power of music. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And of the Beatles, particularly. Because they, you know, the whole British invasion madness was, people related. So was that, was Beelmania as wild before the movie or did, or did the movie?

1:15:31I think the movie showed people their moves. Yeah. So before it might have been screaming, it would have been screaming, but in their seats. I think so, yes. Yeah. Exactly. And they did catch you there. Nobody knew what to do. Yeah. I mean, there'd be occasions when four girls actually make it and sort of catch you and they kind of stop screaming and kind of go, no, what do we do? You know, like, what happens? You know, because they were all 14. This is a good question. This is related to something Mick Jagger said a long time ago. So because the stones are from London and he said in the early days, they didn't take the Beatles so seriously because of where they were from.

1:16:11He's like, never pull. It's like, it's like, it's nothing good comes from Liverpool. Exactly. Tell me about that. Is that a real like, oh, yes. Yes. I mean, I don't think we thought less of them, but, you know, the weird bar for us. Like what would be the US equivalent? Like, where would that be? I suppose, I don't know. Is it Pittsburgh and something like that? Like just the middle of nowhere. Yeah. I think so. And, you know, so we would, and we didn't realize that until we get to America and people would go, what's Liverpool really like? You know, and I go, hardly ever been there. We've done a couple of gigs there, but, but, you know, I don't know.

1:16:51And everyone we knew from Liverpool, the minute they made any money, the first thing they bought was a train ticket to London. You know, that's where you wanted to go. That's where it was going to happen. So the fact that there would be livable scene, which there was, I guess, I mean, there was the cabin and some other places, and, you know, but, yeah, we were puzzled and surprised by the respect and adulation that was bestowed upon Liverpool. We were even Liverpool. And they'd go, what's it like? We go, I don't know. It's kind of a grim port town, you know. Did the Beatles have a different, or the people from Liverpool have a different accent than the people in London?

1:17:29Oh, yes. You could tell where they were from? Oh, yes, absolutely. Or just a northern accent. No, you know Liverpool. Yeah. Some of those accents are quite specific. I mean, when Liverpool compared to Newcastle, which is Jordy, or let alone compared to Scottish, yeah, there's other towns. We would their own accents and Liverpool is very distinctive. Did you ever get to see the animals play? Yes. I did. And I can't remember where it was, but I saw them and they were terrific. Thought Eric was great. Thought Alan Price was great. And Eric's another one, just the voice is just so cool. Yeah, he's so different than everybody else.

1:18:09He's a really nice guy. Yeah. Yeah, Eric and I. They're from Newcastles, right? Yes. They are Jordies, which is a ninja from Newcastle. Eric and I ended up in New York together at the same time. We went to see Sam Cook at the Apollo. How was that? It was amazing, unbelievable. He was great and Billy Stewart, who was great. Yeah, and of course, everyone told us, don't go, you know, and we would, you know, although we can't go to Harlem, you know, and we kind of went, yeah, we can. We're English. It's different. And we found a taxi that would take us and went to the upper of Hollywood. Or just went there and bought us to get them, went in.

1:18:48And it's interesting. Sam Cook was completely fantastic. Although it's interesting, because the only, I asked Chris Blackwell once of all those performance who were so legendary, you know, who was the best in his eyes. And it was Jackie Wilson. Wow. He said that, you know, he asked James Brown, yes, Sam Cook, but Jackie Wilson was just so riveting with the microphone stuff and the great singing and everything. I never saw him live, but I always thought that was interesting. Yeah. I got to see James Brown several times and there's always unbelievable. Yeah, see, here I saw in America and in England, you know, with, I found some pictures there that had me in the audience that ready said he go.

1:19:32Wow. Because it was James Brown was on ready said he go. And it was me and somebody, or Barry Miles, the writer. We were in the audience and I had completely forgotten. How radical did James Brown seem when you were in London? What was that like? We were in awe, you know, again, it was just part of this overall miracle of American music. We just couldn't believe what these people could do. Who else we talk about? You got to work with Elton at one point? Yes. I will, yeah, I've been a fan of Elton's for ages. I went to the famous Trubidor show. Really? Yeah. How was it? It was great. It was amazing because I knew about him and I think we'd already met, we'd already met.

1:20:15But somehow we ended up coming over to our house, the same one, Longwood Avenue, I was still in. He came over the next day and that's when he met James Taylor. James was staying with me and Elton came over with the band. And he made his first album, he had a no? Yes. Yeah, this was when, yes, he was promoting that album. First album. He did that Trubidor show. And it was a legendary place. We had James in there. And Linda famously played there. Yeah, Linda played there a bunch. And the bar was where everybody hung out and swapped songs and all that stuff. And that's where James and I heard you've got a friend for the first time.

1:20:55Because Carol, what happened was after I'd asked Carol to be in the band for the album, then asked her if she would come on the road for some of those dates. Because up till now, James had only played the Trubidor folk style completely by himself. But I wanted to do a week at the Trubidor and now the record was out and doing well with the band. The people who played on the record. So I got Russ Kunkle and Kooch and so on. And asked Carol, she'd do it. She said, yes, and it was James's idea that she should maybe do a little opening set. Because he knew she was about to make her own record and said, look, you know, she was terrified of being on her own.

1:21:32She said, maybe it's a way to get your feet wet kind of thing. So would you like to do 20 minutes off and I would have you on in front of my show just on piano? She said, all you have to do is play the songs and tell people you wrote them. Because no one's going to believe it. Because she looked like a 16 year old school girl. Yeah. And that's what she did. But when on the day of the opening day of the sound check, James and I were in the little balcony of the Trubidor, we stayed stuck around just to give Carol moral support. And in order to just make sure she could hear the piano and do her sound check, she played the song.

1:22:05She just finished writing the night before and that was you've got a friend. And that's when James and I kind of went, shit, you know, what was that? And James said, and Phil says it's one of the best pop songs ever written. And that's when he asked her if he could learn it and sing it. And so that of course, within three baby James was already out as a hit, but tapestry hadn't been made yet. So Carol and recorded and Carol said, yes, you can do it. But I'm going to do it on my record as well. So at the same time, basically, Lou was in the studio at A &M doing her album and did a version of you've got a friend and we were in the studio at a place called Crystal Sound doing our version.

1:22:47And the only secret weapon I had was the only Mitchell sang all the background parts. Incredible. And the miracle was that it worked for everybody. Because you've got to, James is big hit single. And on Carol's case, it was one of the key tracks on tapestry, which sold the gazillion billion records. So it seemed like the fact that both versions existed seemed to help each other. I think so. Because they were kind of different. And because I had, as I said, no piano. It was just James and Kooch on acoustics, which was a great sound. And I actually happened again on handyman when we did that. That was kind of an accident.

1:23:22Great. Kooch started playing the song in the studio. We were working on some other song. And Kooch just started playing handyman very slowly. And James joined in and started playing and singing. And I went, just a minute. So we actually recorded it. Just the two of them and Russ playing a cardboard box or something. And then added the other instruments. I got to see James and Carol play at the Trubidor together. I remember five, six years ago. Yeah, exactly. Unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah, it was fun doing that. Because James was sort of worried about it. Didn't know he wanted to record it.

1:24:00But you know, I said, we have to record it. Of course. History. They filmed it with only like two cameras, but it made it work. Yeah. We were up in the little booth thing. The Daniel Kunkel on me. I mean, I might have been in that same booth. Probably, though, that was something. Probably. Yes, exactly. Right, exactly. So we were getting to Elton John. Yes. So yeah, I saw Elton, the original Trubidor show. And yeah, as I said, he came over to our house afterwards. And I've known him and liked him so much for a long time. We haven't worked together that much. I did some tracks on a Randy Newman album that Elton was on, where Elton played an angel.

1:24:40It was a brilliant album. You know, Randy wrote a version of Faust. And we did this recorded version, which was really extraordinary. James Taylor played God. Randy played the devil. Donna Henley played Faust. Linda Rons that played the good girl. Bonnie Raid played the bad girl. And Elton John played an English angel. It was an insane cast. I said to Randy afterwards, you're the only person in the whole world, I think, they could actually make an album with all those people on it. And have it not be a hit. It's extraordinary. Because Randy is such a genius. One of the great geniuses of pop music.

1:25:20But somehow people don't get it always. And this musical is so good. And the cast was so insane. But the public didn't quite catch on. It seems like there's a line between the way Elton plays piano and the way Carol King plays piano. They both have a real soulful, almost gospel influence in their styles. It's true. Yes, I think that's actually right. Elton's a bit more rock and roll, you know, in the sense of the hammering right hand. But yeah, that's true. I think the thing that I love. That's an imutual fan. The thing that I like about both of their music, I feel like there's some line that works.

1:26:03They both have that thing. And it's not a thing that most piano players have. I think you're right. And they're also both not jazzy, you know. And I mean, God knows I love jazz piano. I mean, I can't beat Bill Evans. But they have very little of that in their playing. It tends to be simple, not full of like little extra jazzy notes or jazzy noodles at any point. And I think they have that in common. And they both are brilliant accompanists, you know, for themselves. They both play exactly the right part to fit their singing. Yeah. And I guess both wrote the music for other people's lyrics. That's right.

1:26:47I guess I don't actually know for a fact. Did Jerry Goffin write the lyrics first? I don't know if he wrote them first. I don't know, but he certainly wrote the lyrics and she wrote the music. Because what's unusual about Elton, of course, is that it's absolutely lyrics first. Yeah. He can take, you know, a piece of paper that just arrived from Bernie Tobin, and stick it up on the... And you'd swear he had to look at music. You'd swear he was looking at a piece of music. Because he just plays it. He just plays it. And, you know, he's written with other people, brilliantly, of course, too Tim Rice and others.

1:27:19But there's something magic about him at Bernie Web. It's as if Elton knows the song. So he's the lyrics. Tell me about, I never got to meet Diana Ross, but I know you got to work with her. Tell me about her. It was amazing. She... I mean, you know, I was nervous because you hear these stories, you know, they call me Miss Ross and all that stuff. And my impression, first of all, she was charming, you know. I'd met her years before. I'd met her for the first time when Peter and Gordon were on Hullabaloo. Wow. And the Supremes were on. You know, to get to meet them was, you know, an immense thrill.

1:28:00Because, you know, we board every record that came out on Motown, and they were so charming and so beautiful and so extraordinary. So that was exciting. And then when Diana and I worked together, I was, as I said, a little bit nervous because of the stories one had heard. But she was helpful and charming and ran... I had no issues or problems at all far from it. The opposite, in fact. I remember the engineer and I at one point were sitting down, sorting out a vocal or doing something. On the board and we felt her stand up behind us. She'd been sitting in the back of the room and we were kind of going, oh, this is it.

1:28:42You know, here we go. And she said, you guys have been at this for a while. Can I get to use some coffee or something? We went, oh my God. That was memorable. But even more memorable was the very beginning of this session. Because I think I'd cut the track without her, as far as I can remember. But anyway, first time she goes out on Mike and we're sitting in the control room. And she's not singing on the mic. The only reaction is, holy shit, it sounds exactly like Diana Rossi. It's amazing. That's super distinct voice that's sang in a stop in the name of love and stuff. Which you know so well.

1:29:18She's right there. It's, you know, and I could hardly contain myself. You know, and that's the kind of thing where you don't know whether to communicate any of that to the artist, whether it's just too silly. But, you know, you don't say, I couldn't believe it, but you do say something, you know. Yeah, it's almost like when you get to work with the people who you've spent so much time listening to, it's hard to believe it's happening. Right, you know, it's hard to believe it's actually happening. Right, right, exactly. They walk the earth. That's why you and I have both so extraordinary, lucky.

1:29:49Yeah. Whatever status. I remember the first time I got to see Paul McCartney play live was in a stadium, you know, 80 ,000 people, something like that. I'm somewhere in the middle of 80 ,000 people, nosebleed area, and he starts singing, and I just start crying. It's like, right, exactly. It's like that person wrote these songs I've been hearing my whole life. Yeah, he walks the earth. Yes, it's unbelievable. Well, that's right. I mean, I do feel bad for Paul because, you know, yes, being famous can be annoying on many levels, I suppose. But I see, I've personally seen Paul deal with the situation where he's introduced to somebody or meet someone and they cannot speak.

1:30:31Literally, it's too much to speak. It's too much. And he ends up going, it's okay. Or they cry. They can't speak and they cry. And that would be disconterting. When that's a given risk of anyone you're meeting that they may not speak and they may cry. I think that must be, I guess you must be weird. Must be used to it by now. I know, you obviously figure out a policy, you know, and I've seen him pat people on the shoulder and go, it's okay, you know. But it's sort of odd. But that, and there's very few people in that situation. Maybe Mick, I don't know, but Paul is a one -off case, you know, that you actually, and wrinkle, but wrinkle, there's something more light -hearted about it.

1:31:15And everyone's admiration is massive. Everyone loves him because he's, you know, he's still the cute one, the one everyone loves. But it's not quite the same thing. But as you say with Paul, there's that realization that legend occasionally is reality, you know, he's a real person. Incredible. How important every member of that band was. It just fit perfectly. I've always said it was just like, it's just like it was a spice girls thing where someone had put them together, only much better and nobody did. God did, if that's the thing. You know, fate put them together. Yes. And, and, I've said that too.

1:31:57It's like the Beatles' proof of the existence of God. It's like, it's too much. It's too much to be that good. And to be that much better than everybody. Yeah. No, no, there's no metric for it. Exactly. No, you're absolutely right, yes. What did you get to work on with Cher? Some great songs, Hodgestone. I did, after all, that duet with Peter Satera, that was a big hit for a movie, the movie sucked, but the record was good. But she's great. I mean, she's working with her, there's extraordinary. She's so hard working. I remember we were working on that version of it in his kiss that I did with her for a mermaid, which ended up being a hit everywhere, except America for some bizarre reason.

1:32:45And, you know, she was great. She'd done her homework, knew the song, everything. And she, at that time, she used to like, the track completely done as much as possible. So everything was finished. And there's that first moment when you play it, and you go, oh, this is okay. But it was. And so she went out there and sang it, did like four takes or something. And I said, I think we have it. That was all great. Let me piece it together. You know, give me a few minutes, or come back, whatever you want. She's an all -way. And she goes out and in the lounge, there's like the guy designing the perfume bottle, the costume fitting for the next movie, the guy writing a book about her or something.

1:33:25And, you know, and you suddenly realize, I'm a mere aspect of the miracle that is shared, because she'll become really successful as a movie star, and then go, now I want to make another record. And then we'll go, no, that won't work. So she wins a Grammy. So she has a number one record. Now I'm going to make a movie. It's like, nobody else has done that. Yeah. And she does it really well. I love her voice, too. I tend to love her voice. I love singers where you know in a bar who it is. Yeah. You know, 10 seconds of music. And you're absolutely certain that's Diana Ross, that's here, that's Linda Ross, that's Natalie Merchant.

1:34:02Yeah. We both got to work with Neil Diamond. Was your experience like, tell me? It was great. I was always a Neil fan. I always thought he was an underrated songwriter, because you know the whole, this Neil, you know, would distract people from Neil, the solitary man, genius. Yeah. And I love the record. You did it with him. I think of him as like Bruce Springsteen before Bruce Springsteen many ways in the early days. Yes. Yeah, there's people now that we realize, definitely when the singer's songwriter category, in the same way going back further, Buddy Holly is, who had a vision of what their songs could be, and Neil's written so many, so great songs.

1:34:42And as they say, being a showbiz phenomenon, as well as a musical phenomenon, something Dylan was dutously avoided, you know, to the point where they'd almost as showbiz that he sings every song differently, you know, you don't know what song you're doing. No, I had my Neil enormously charming and, great singer too. And a great singer. I mean, no, I insisted as you did with getting him playing and singing, you know, on the track, because that's the essence of the great Neil Diamond stuff, you know, and the songs are so odd, you know, they're not shaped normally. No. And they, Even when you hear like the monkey songs that he wrote, that you could tell it's a Neil Diamond song.

1:35:26So specific. Exactly. And the hooks are all over the place. It's not. I mean, who would you, who would think that in Sweet Caroline, the hook turned it out to be the instrumental ba, ba, between the lines, you know, that's the. Part of the hook. Everybody sings it, you know, every, that's the one with the song. Everybody knows. It's full of hooks, you know, the chorus itself is incredibly catchy and brilliant chorus. But he, you never get the impression he's trying to write a hit, you know, but it's not that kind of hook. It's not constructed that way, but it's genuinely brilliant songwriting, you know, and some interesting lyric twists and stuff.

1:36:04Again, a bit like Buddy Hollywood, who would put weird words in a weird order. I mean, true love ways. What kind of a sentence is that, you know, but it works as a song. Yeah. Was Buddy Hollywood a big inspiration as well? Yes. Yes, we were huge Buddy Hollywood fans in England. And one of my regrets is that I was 14 when he toured England. And I can't remember why I didn't go. You know, maybe I couldn't afford it. Maybe it was exam time. My parents wouldn't let me go. It was got to be some mundane reason. And I remember thinking, well, I'll see him next time. Yeah. No next time. Because that would have been exciting.

1:36:43I'd like to be able to say so Elvis in Vegas when he first Vegas come back. That was great. But I missed Buddy. Yeah, he's particularly big. Tell me about the experience of going to see Elvis in Vegas. That sounds great. I never got to see Elvis. It was great. Yeah, it was really good. He was already doing all the karate stuff with no like. But I mean, it wasn't quite like mystery train Elvis, who's probably my favorite Elvis of all. But it was young and handsome and fit Elvis. And he was terrific. Sang great. Everything was fast. At that particular era, the live versions were like cranking it in terms of BPM, no question.

1:37:23Ronnie Tutt, the great drummer, but they were racing through everything. I suppose it was just like the exciting live version. Yeah. I remember thinking, that's a lot faster than the record. And he played all the hits. He played all the hits. Talked to the audience much in between songs. Little joky aside and stuff as I recall. And sounded just like an Elvis imitation. But I don't remember him saying much. Maybe just mentioning the song or who rogues or something like that. Making fun with the band members. I mean, I remember Ronnie Tutt telling me, because he was subsequently on one of those tours, when they started doing the 3D hologram thing, not 3D, it wasn't really a hologram, even.

1:38:06This was the first time they used Elvis on film and playing with the band, because they separated the vocals. And Ronnie Tutt said that the weirdest part was that it was exactly like being on the road with Elvis. There was hardly any difference, because they didn't see much of him on the road. He hung with his friends. And they even included the thing where he introduces the band, by name. So he'd go on drums, Ronnie Tutt, and Ronnie would stand on bow. He said it was really spooky. Amazing. Oh, tell me about Steve Martin, because we didn't talk about Steve. How did it happen? I've known Steve Martin often on for a long time.

1:38:41And we kept running into each other and gradually became closer friends in the last few years. But I remember, I mean, he, for example, opened for Linda in the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. I think I found an ad just doing stand -up. And so I'd go up to know him kind of gradually. And he's always been a band -ger player, much admired. I love Blue Cross band -ger, and he's really good at it. So I was having dinner at his house in New York, and he was telling me that he played me these band -ger tunes before, actually, that he'd written, because he writes the little instrumental pieces just for the fun of it.

1:39:21And he'd done the instrumental music for the New York Shakespeare Festival and things like that. But anyway, he'd played me some stuff and I'd told him how good it was. And then he said, well, I've actually been playing some of it to Edie Brickell, who he didn't know particularly well, even though he and Paul Simon are close friends. But he said that he'd run into Edie and played us some of these bits and pieces. And she said, oh, I love that. Can I write some songs on it? And he said, yes, of course. And what she did was brilliant. We expected it to kind of essentially put lyrics and melody why necessary to the existing piece of music.

1:39:58But what she did was write a whole other melody that made the existing piece of music sound like the perfect accompaniment. So suddenly there was the band -ger part being the accompaniment to this melody that Edie had written. And at a subsequent dinner, he played me that and said, what do you think? I said, I think it's great. And you should make an album, because Edie said to you, terrific singer. And he said, you know, we should turn this into an album. So he said, oh, and I was on the plane home the next day when he emailed me and said, we're going to do it. Do you want to produce it? I went, yes, yes, yes.

1:40:34So essentially we did it pretty much banjo and click. It was very much assembled. So I'd get the perfect banjo bit and line things up a bit. And then work on the vocal and add instruments as needed. So it's essentially like a bluegrass record. But I did things like, I had Esperanza's folding play bass on something that's great, because I loved the idea of getting some jazz baselicks under a bluegrass banjo, which she loved as well. Because there's some odd notes in there with the drone and things which the bass has to account for. And then I put some percussion on it, some strings and some instances in it.

1:41:11So it's not like a full -on bluegrass record. And Stephen A .D. was doing a lot of my own. They were happy. And Paul was happy, which counts a lot. As E .D.'s, if your client's husband is one of the best songwriters and record producers of all time, you do go, you know, has them, have you played it? The Gidgett. And the answer is yes. And I haven't heard his new album yet. I hear it's great. I bet it is. I hear it's great. They're always amazing. Yeah. His last one was great. Yeah. So that was exciting. And E .D.'s breath -taking, incredibly in tune, brilliant phrasing, very original. Again, totally idiosyncratic and delivery.

1:41:54You know, right away it is. So you know, she has this little band with Steve Gad, the Gad about the... Oh, it's great. That is how that is. That is so good. They made an album or two just for the fun of it, I think. And I forget about this. Oh, peanut paladino. Oh, he's incredible. He was killer bass band. Incredible. And Steve Gad and... Have you heard Pino Solo album? It's ridiculously beautiful. I haven't. You'll love it. It's out. Beautiful. I will listen. It's him and Blake Mills together. It's so good. Oh, great. It's so good. I'll listen to that for sure. Really adventurous, really jazzy.

1:42:32Great. He's extraordinary. I love that D 'Angelo Voodoo album. And he's the bass player on that. Oh, right. D 'Angelo is incredible. Yeah, great album. Cool. Cool, man. Well, thank you so much for doing this. A pleasure. No, it's a pleasure. No, anytime you want more of it. Grambla on the level. Farming. That's it. It's good. Thank you for your pleasure.

1:43:10Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.