The Treat: Jeff Daniels

0:00It's The Treat. I'm Elvis Mitchell. Jeff Daniels is a stage star with successes in plays such as God of Carnage and To Kill a Mockingbird. He's a movie star whose roles range from Speed to Dumb and Dumber. And he's an Emmy-winning TV star who we know from such shows as Newsroom, where we saw his love of music on screen. He's also recorded his music with several albums of folk and blues to his credit. For The Treat, he goes back to an album that laid the groundwork for a musician who was maybe a couple records away from huge popularity. If you feel that it's real, I'm on track, and I'm hacking in your presence.

0:42Hi, I'm Jeff Daniels. This is The Treat. Like a coin in your mane, I am dented, and I'm spared with our treason.

0:53I'll tell you something that inspired me was Elton John's album 11-17-70.

1:14It was before he went all glam rock. It was just Elton, Nigel Olson, the drummer, and Dee Murray, the bass player, a threesome. They had played the Troubadour in L.A., and I think they were back across the country in New York. And they blew the place up.

1:49I had been taking piano lessons, you know, playing green sleeves and all this crap. And then I heard that album. And it wasn't just how you could play the piano in a way that was, like, cool. But it was that freedom, that expression, that creative explosion that is on that album with just three musicians. Dojo was a man who thought it wasn't a rock, but he knew it could last. Dojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, fucking California grand. So get back, get back, get back to where you all belong. Get back, get back, get back to where you all belong. Especially the Burn Down the Mission segment where he does a medley of a couple other songs where you can take something small and it blows up bigger than if he had had 17 musicians with him.

2:58You tell me there's an angel in your tree

3:06Did he say he'd come to call on me

3:13For things I can't imagine It was electric, and you hear that, oh, my God, it was electric and all that. And maybe today you're seeing, you know, the Taylor Swifts and the Pinks and the Olivia Rodriguez with the big, huge, those shows that, God, I don't know what the nut is to break even on those things. But here's a guy who went into a studio with two other musicians, and, I mean, it's the album I would take to the desert island if I could only take one album. Thank you, and keep smiling, because that's the most important thing, all right? Just going to do one more thing.

3:51Yeah, it was exciting. It was exciting, and it stayed with me for decades. All right, good night.

4:08The treat from actor-musician Jeff Daniels is 171170, or as is known here in America, 111770, the first album Elton John released in 1971. His second record that year was Mad Men Across the Water. The Treat is produced by Rebecca Moody and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. Take me to the pilot. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treat.

4:43I said, Bernie, ride on, ride on, ride on, ride on, ride on.

5:01We'll be right back.

5:32Thank you.

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