Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 402] Who Really Wrote “Morning Dew”? John Einarson on Bonnie Dobson’s Fight to Reclaim Her Song

Transcript

[EP 402] Who Really Wrote “Morning Dew”? John Einarson on Bonnie Dobson’s Fight to Reclaim Her Song · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: For a plan to recognize the injustice of what had
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: happened to Bonnie was quite amazing, really, and this is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: not going to start this. This diminutive woman with the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: flaming red hair say you're singing by song, and he
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: was taken aback by it, and he did the right thing.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: He helped her, he used his influence and he got
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: recognition for her that the song is actually all her
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and nobody else.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: We're totally booming rock and roll.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hands says
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it's time to rock and roll, roll out.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Book Down Rock conversations
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: with authors, musicians and insiders revealing the stories behind classic
• 0:43
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• 0:47
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• 0:49
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• 0:52
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• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the show notes or visit bookd on Rock doc Now
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: onto our guest. A key figure in the folk music
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: boom of the late nineteen fifties, Canadian born singer songwriter
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Bonnie Dobson wrote the folk classic Morning Do in nineteen
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: sixty one, but after another artist wrongly claimed co writing credit,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: she spent decades fighting to reclaim the song that became
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: a standard for everyone from The Grateful Dead to Robert Plant.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Author John Aynerson joins me to discuss take Me for
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a Walk in the Morning Dew, the remarkable story of
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Dobson's career, her influence on folk music, and her long
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: battle for rightful recognition. John, Welcome to the podcast.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks Eric, nice to be here.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: The introduction opens with Bonnie's triumphant return alongside Robert Plant
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, then works backward, making it feel almost
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: like the final scene of a film, a great movie,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: before revealing how she got there. And a great moment
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: in the introduction is Plant admitting that he had no
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: idea Bonnie had actually written Morning Do until she literally
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: knocked on his door. Can you talk about this story? Yeah?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I just absolutely love that story, and Bonnie enjoys telling
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it as well, because he lives She lives in Primrose
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Hill in kind of a bit of North London, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: he has a house, he has many and he's spending
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in North America nowadays. But he
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: has a house, you know, just about two streets over
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: from her Primrose Hill, and yeah, he had in interviews
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: with him, he talked about how he was very much
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: aware of the song, you know, going back to going
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: back to the late sixties, and how John Bonham played
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: in a bandon that backed up Tim Rose, who's the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: guy that we're going to be talking about, and how
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: much he loved the song and he said he did
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it in other bands on his own as well, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: then he covered it on an album of covers and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I credited to tim Rose. And that's the crux of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: really the whole story is how tim Rose was able
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to get his name on the song and it went
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: from being Bonnie Dobson to Bonnie Dobson and tim Rose
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to tim Rose, Bonnie Dobson to tim Rose period. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: so she kind of lost control of it that way,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and it was her battle to get it back. But
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: what's what's funny, and I didn't really play this out
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: in the book, is let Zeppelin have a terrible record
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: for stealing other people's music. You know, they said, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: always think of Babe, I'm going to leave you off.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: The first led Zeppelin album, which was written by Ann
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Breddon who was a folk singer. Joan Bayez recorded it
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: on a live album and that's where that's where Jimmy
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Page learned the song, and it was credited to Ann Breddon.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But then a few years later let Zeppelin do it,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and there is credited to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and Anne Bretton had to fight for years to get
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to get her name back on. And so what happens
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is it now, says Anne Bredon, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is if they were all sitting in a room together
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: writing the song, you know, and also stealing Willie Dixon
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: songs and Howling Wolf and that sort of thing. So
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: for for Plants to recognize the injustice of what had
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: happened to Bonnie was quite amazing, really, and it's not
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: going to store this. This diminutive woman with the flaming
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: bread hair at you say you're singing my song. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: he was taken aback by it, and he did the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: right thing. He helped her, he used his influence and
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: he got recognition for her that the song is actually
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: all her and nobody else.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It's a great story and the title of the introduction
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: is thank you for helping me get my song back.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And that isn't really about so much royalties. It's about identity, right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, as you researched Bonnie's life, did you come
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: to feel that reclaiming authorship was ultimately more important emotionally
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: to her than it was financially.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's exactly right. It was for her it was,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you know, this is my property. I wrote this, and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I just want to be recognized that I am the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: writer of it. It wasn't financially motivated. But you also
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that that Tim Rose was
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: taking a percentage of the royalties on that song song credits,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: so that that was important but always secondary Bonnie. Bonnie
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: lives comfortably. I mean she still gets wrowthies from morning
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: dew and other things that she has done. It was
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: recognition that this is my song and not anybody else's,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and that he had no right to put his name
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: on it and take credit for it. And it's the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: credit for it that really is the crux.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Of it all for her. And she worked with you
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: to tell the story for the book. What was your
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: first conversation with Bonnie, Like, did she immediately embrace the
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: idea of telling her life story and the story of
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: the song. Where did it take time to earn her trust?
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of history that goes into this book.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I mean I was first aware of Bonnie Dobson thinking
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: about sixty five, you know, and seeing her on television
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: performing with folk music in Canada, folk music songs, Oscar
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Brand kind of shows and that sort of thing, and
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: hearing Morning Dew, which I think came out about sixty
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: three or so on her third album. But I was
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: aware of the story around it and aware of the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: fact that it was a controversy involved. I mean, I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: became more aware of the controversy when as a hard
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: rock guitar player in sixty eight playing in a band
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that did the Jeff Beck Rod Stewart version of Morning
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Dew off hit the Beck Truth album and it said
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Tim Rose on it, and I knew it wasn't just
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Tim Rose or it was Bonnie Dobson, and so that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the whole story of it kind of started for me
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: from there. And even though The Grateful Dead had recorded
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: it a year before, I didn't come to their album
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: until sixty eight, after the Jeff Beck group one and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: there again you see tim Rose in there as well.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So I knew about her and I knew about her career.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But when I was writing a book on Ian and Sylvia,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: who were very much a part of the folk boom
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of the late fifties into the mid sixties and of
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: course four strong wins of like Canada's unofficial national anthem,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I interviewed Bonnie. I got a phone. I got a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: phone number for her in England from a friend. I
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: called her, upset him doing the book in eaton Sylvia.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You were contemporary, you knew them back in the day.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And she was lovely to talk to, very open, very insightful,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and we kept in touch over the years. That was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: about two thousand and nine, and every few years I'd
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: give her a call and say, hey, how about a book.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: You know you have a story to tell, And I said,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: morning do. It is a song that's never going away.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: It's going to outlive you, it's going to outlive me.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: People are still going to be covering it. But you
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: need to set the record straight on all of that
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and talk about your life. And she was, I mean,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't know at the time. When I would talk
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: with her, you know those in those intervening years that
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: she was I mean, her son took his own life,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: her third husband died, and so she was dealing with
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: all of these things and you know, and issues raising
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: your children. So she kept saying, no, I'm not ready,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not ready, but I I guess what are we?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Twenty twenty six, twenty twenty five. It was late twenty
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: twenty four, probably December. I think I gave her another
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: call and she was more open to it because she
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: had gone through all of this and she felt it
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was kind of time. And it worked out well because
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I made arrangements to go and spend a week with
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: her in London, and her album with the Hanging Stars
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: called Dreams had just come out and it was getting
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: tremendous attention. I mean, it didn't sell a lot because
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it was a small label that didn't have distribution great distribution,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but it was really getting great reviews and articles on Bonnie.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So she was going through a bit of a career renaissance.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of like the planets aligned and everything
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: came together and it was the time to do it.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And it was also important to her that the book
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: not be all about Morning dew because there's more to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: her as a traditional folk artists and then as the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: singer songwriter. I mean, she really developed into a very
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: gifted songwriter. But a lot of that stuff nobody knows about,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and it's it's a fascinating life. And whenever I'm doing books,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for the human interest story in it and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the ups and downs that you know, in someone's life.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: It's more than just a music story. I mean, that's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: why I write. Yeah, I wrote a book about Arthur Lee,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and I wrote a book about Gene Clark because these
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: people have had fascinating lives, you know, Ian and Sylvia,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Randy Backman in there too, So that's what that's what
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: really drew me to want to tell tell her story.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And the timing was right, as they say, for her
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to want to do it. And she was a little
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: trepidacious at first sitting down with me, and I'm you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to take her through her life and asking
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you know, pointed questions and insightful that sometimes deep questions,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: of course, but she gradually warmed up to it. And
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you know, after the four or five days that we
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: had spent in her kind of kitchen slash living room.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Going through this, she said at the end, you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: this was a marvelous experience. Thank you so much for
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: doing this. It really brought a lot out of me
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that I'd kept inside. But it also kind of rejuvenated
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: me too. So I mean it everything came out well,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The book came out well. Body is very happy with
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the book. I'm very happy with the book, and I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: think it tells more than just a music story. It's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a life story.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: That Arthur Lee story. Boy, I love to talk to
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you about that book. Yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: One of the one of the things about the Arthur
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Lee book was I first he was passed away, of course,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and I approached his widow through a friend and she
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: was she she was kind of okay to do it,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: she said, you know, it's time. But when we met
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: in California to do interviews with her and all the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: other guys from Love and Other and other associates, she
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: said to me, you know, Arthur tried writing a memoir.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: No one's there read it. So she posts this thing
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: out of a drawer and it's Arthur talking about his
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: life and his career in love and all of that.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The no one's ever seen. So it wasn't principle as
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it was. I mean, Arthur kind of defamed a few
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: people in it. It allowed me as Arthur would. It
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: allowed me to have his voice in the book in
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: ways that I wasn't just picking old interviews. It allowed
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: me to every other interview was new, but this now
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: was new Arthur. And I think that's a real strength
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in the book, is having Arthur's voice talking about things
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in a way he never talked about them before in interviews.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And Robert planned a big fan.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely a bit.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: The first time I've realized that was when they did
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: a tribute concert to Arthur Lee, like twenty years ago, right,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I think right after he passed or oh.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it was around the time that he was
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: sick and going to be passed for sick medical bills,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and Robert platt Ian Hunter and a number of other
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: artists flew over in their own dime rehearse band and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: played the show and all the money went to the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Arthur to help defray his medical expense. He had no healthcare.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Musicians don't have health benefits.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Well, let people know where they can go to find
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: all of your books, but for this one, it includes
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: not only Bonnie's recollections, but perspectives from people like Robert
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Plant and lifelong friends. How much detective work was involved
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: in tracking down those voices and was there any interview
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: that surprised you the most.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I always like to paint a broader picture, you know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: cast a wider net and a broader story. It's kind
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of like, I know how I feel about myself and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the things that I've done, but how do others? How
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: am I perceived by others and the things decisions that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I have made, And it really paints a broader picture,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a wider picture, more insightful picture of the subject, the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: topic or whatever. So I would like to I always
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: like to do that in all of my books, and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it helps if you have the cooperation of the subject.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Of course, with Arthur Leave with dead and with Jean Clark,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: he was dead too at the time.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: He hasn't come back.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But Bonnie then had people so that she should see.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: She suggested, I contact.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: How many seashells by the seashell I know, don't get
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: me started.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So she had a list of people and they were
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: all very open to talking about Bonnie. She I mean,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: she's got a million friends all over the world. So
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that helped a bit, and you know, there are some
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: people you've got to chase after. But the other realization
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: is that Bonnie's eighty five. She started her career in
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. Many of her contemporaries, other than say
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, they passed away, so that made it a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: little more difficult to do that. But again, if if
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you approach people right and you tell them that this
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: is a this is a book that's really looking at
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the life of this wonderful person that you the interview
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: person knew and knew well then that they were open
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. But you know, it's I really
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Bob Weird from The Grateful Dead.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to have talk to Jerry Garcia.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I mean he's obviously been dead for a number of years,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but sadly Bob passed away before I got the chance
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to do that, and we were kind of going through
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: various channels. I mean, it's not the kind of guy
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that you say, hey, Bob, I want to talk about money.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: You know, he has These guys at a certain level
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of rock star fame have a lot of a lot
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of walls around them. And and a lot of people
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: who filter all of this out. But I was. I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: was getting closer to him, and we were about to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: set something up through one of their emissaries when he
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: sadly passed away. But I was fortunate to get Dennis McNally,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: who is the grateful dead archivist and writer of books,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and he, you know, he is involved very much in
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: all the archival albums come out and again, as they say,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the book, and he was wonderful. He had tremendous insights
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: about what Morning Dew meant to Jerry, he said, and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I have it in the book too from Dennis. There
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: was some kind of a tribute to Jerry being put on,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if it was bands or just
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: playing music or whatever. Not long after Jerry died in
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: San Francisco and the organizers came to Dennis and said,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you know, what do we do for a closing song?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: We don't know what to do, and Dennis said, don't
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: be silly. It's Morning Dew is Jerry's favorite song. And
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: so they closed with that, whether a game, whether someone
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: played it or whatever. But it would have loved to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: gotten Jerry or Bob. But unfortunately things happened that way.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: That's how I discovered the song, the Dead version Europe
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: seventy two, then heard the Beck version, which is phenomenal,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: but there's some great versions.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Devoy well Bunnie doesn't like the divo.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's quite interesting. I mean I didn't hear it
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: until just literally literally today, just going through a playlist
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: of all the different versions. But yeah, a lot of
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: different ones. One of the biggest surprises in the book
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: is her childhood, which she lived in government housing behind
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: a chain link fence. How important was it for you
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: to established that she wasn't simply a folk singer, but
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: somebody who had actually experienced poverty and social inequality firsthand.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Y That was actually a revelation to me too, because
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: various short form biographies of her over the decades have
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: placed her growing up in Scarborough. Scarborough in Toronto is
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a I know, it's an England too, Scarborough and Toronto.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It's a nice suburb and it's nice homes and middle
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: class and all of that. And so I went in
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: with that, and she said, oh no, no, I was
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: born in an old army barracks just on the outskirts
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of Toronto, surrounded by chain link fence. They were former
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: barrackses during the war where soldiers were you know, lived,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and they were mostly made of cardboard, and they were
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: bug infested, you know, sharing shower facilities and all of that.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: That was a revelation to me because I didn't know
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that she'd never talked about it before either, And I
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: think it did inform her in many ways, informed the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: character that she is because she came to she came
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: to understand what poverty was really like, you know, and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: what doing without was really like. And there's lots of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: people who are very wealthy and they said, well, I'm
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: for the poor people. I understand that, but no, you
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: don't unless you lived. And she did live it, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: more importantly, she got out of it. She managed to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: escape that poverty cycle that exists and a couple with
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that too. Her parents were together in a part together,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a very dysfunctional family. Her mother was an alcoholic, her
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: father was an avowed communist. So it presented a lot
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of problems that she overcame. I mean, she was class
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: valedictorian when she graduated school, and she got she couldn't
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: afford to pay for university, nor could her family, so
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: she got a scholarship to go to the University of Toronto,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and now she didn't stay after her first year. Serendipitously,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a music career, you know, sprung up in front of
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: her and she took it. But you know, one of
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the questions I asked her, I think it's the answers
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in the book. I said to her, you know, how
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: did it feel standing on the inside of that chain
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: link fence and looking out the broader world out there?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And she said, it was like we didn't belong there.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And when we take the bus home and the bus
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: would stop by the army barracks places in the chain
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: link fence and all that, the other people on the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: bus judged us. We were poor, we were trash. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that obviously had an impact upon her to improve her life,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: you know, and and good for her that she did.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: And her father introduced her to protest music Pete Seeger
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Paul Robeson. She ultimately developed her own worldview rather than
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: simply adopting his. How did you see the tension between
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: influence and independence that shape her as both an artist
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: and a person.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: She's she's very, very stubborn. She is ther own person.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: She makes up her own mind about everything, and her
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: dad was Her dad was smart enough to say to her,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to be a communist, you
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: don't have to be religious, you don't have to be this,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you don't have to be that. Just choose what you
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: want to be. And she grew up around communism and
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: he believed strongly in it and was devastated years later.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I guess, you know, when when we started to learn
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the real you know, the reality of communist Russia and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: communist China, and was quite devastated by that because he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: grew up to bel it was like it was utopia's idea,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that was Paradiser's perfection. And she questioned all those things.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And she credits one of her elementary school teachers who said,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: don't accept everything, question it, ask go to the sources,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: find out what this is all about. But what's fascinating
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: too is when she went to get an American green card,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: they had a dossier on her dad and obviously from
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the RCMP, and so the Americans had information about her
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: dad and they and they had information about her being
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with her dad at rallies and things, and she had
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to really explain herself to American authorities in order to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: get that green card, and having that green card was
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: so important to her she never wanted to lose it
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: because she'd never have a chance to have a career
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: with without it. But she's what fast fascinating. Was scared
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: her was just that the RCPP had been following her
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: dad for years and her and her sister probably too,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: because her sister was involved even more so in communism
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and rallies and all that sort of thing. But she
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: developed her own perspective on life, and that's that's the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: way she is. She's she's very she's extremely well read.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: She's a news junkie, and she reads and watches and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: takes everything in and then forms her own opinions on everything.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: She could have been a journalist, she could have she
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: could have been as investigative. Mind.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have also been in prison for being a communist.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: One of the things that's interesting about her story too
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: is maybe the younger people that are watching this or
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: listening right now, they may not know about this, but
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: in the early folk revival, writing your own songs was
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: almost frowned upon. You know, folk artists are expected to
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: preserve tradition, not add to it. How difficult is it
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: for young readers to appreciate just how revolutionary somebody like
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Bob Dylan and eventually Bonnie herself really were.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right, You're correct with the word revolutionary,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: because folk music was. It started out as music of
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the people, because that's kind of a broader definition of
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: folk music. But it was based on traditional music and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: music that told stories from the past, from history, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it was education, educational and it also inculcated
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: some some some of the ideals and ideals of you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the way things used to be in society and all
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of that. But you, yeah, you didn't write, you you
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: research folk music. You dug it up. And even Bonnie
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: went to Ottawa to study at the National Archives to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: find all these old songs that had been there and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and song books that were passed around. She even got
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the People's Song Book, which was you know, kind of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: marching and rallying songs and union songs and all of that.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And that's how she started her career. And as you say,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: nobody was writing songs then, or at least not not
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in any kind of a a big way. I mean,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: she wrote a song called Ben's Lullaby I think on
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: her second album it was just it was a little,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: sweet little song for a little boy who was the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: child of a friend of hers. But she was not
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: immune to what was happening in the world. And she
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was very much influenced by the movie On the Beach,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And that's a movie I think from fifty nine or
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: fifty eight, and it's about, you know, what is the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: world like after a nuclear holocaust? How do people deal
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: with it? And you know, the key scene in the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: movie is a husband and wife and they're about to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: have a baby, and it's like, well, do we want
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to raise the baby in this environment? What do we do?
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And all of this impacted on her, and you know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: again a woman who didn't grow who had been following
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a career of traditional music, ended up writing a song
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that really brought together all of the themes of her
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: life to that point, whether it's a about government, whether
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: it's about society, whether it's about war, and the whole
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: band the bomb thing was happening at that time too,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and just the idea of you know, what is the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: nuclear winter going to be like? So out of that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: one night, out of a discussion with it with a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: number of other folkies. When she was in La playing
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: at the Golden Bearer. The ash grob that all of
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: this came to a head when she went back to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: her where she was staying and wrote the song, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: being a game, being someone who grew up with folk
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: music that was traditional and not written, she phoned up
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: a friend and said, I've written a song, you know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: like like puzzlingly. I can't believe it, and she said,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: do you want to hear it? And so she sang
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: it over to the phone to her friend Janie and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: said to Jennie, well, what do I do with it?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And she said, oh, you're going to have to record it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: The song is great. But she went back. She recorded
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that song, of course, and it showed up. She played it,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you know, from sixty one on in her live shows.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It was published in Broadside magazine, which was a mistake
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: on her part, and it was recorded on her third album.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: But she continued the traditional folk route of traditional folk music.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: She always would record at least one or two French
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Canadian songs under albums, and the folk songs that she
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: researched and performed and recorded were songs that nobody else
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: really knew about and that's what made her interesting. It
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: was her choice of material, and she would arrange the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: songs herself too, so it's not like it was a
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: revelation for her, Oh I'm now going to be a songwriter.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Because even then, like you say, no one was writing songs.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, Dylan changed the game for everybody. Woody Guthrie
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: could write songs, Pete Sieger could write folk songs because
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: they had gravitus and they had history. But you, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: folky playing at the bitter End this week on the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: acoustic guitar did not have the right the right write
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: r I A. G HD to write r I T. E. W.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Wright to write folk music. And again when Dylan started that,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I mean that it took some convincing for people to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: accept that because you had the traditionalists versus this this
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: new folk artist writing his own material. And once Bob
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Dylan gained acceptance, I mean even even take his first album,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan wrote two songs on that album.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: The other song, yeah, yeah, that A lot of people say.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: The second album is really his.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: First it's absolutely for him. For a number of reasons.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: He met Susie Rotelo, who's the girl on the front
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: cover of the picture and she became as mused. She
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: got him reading books, she got him reading newspapers. I
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was fortunate to interview her before she shortly before she died,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: for the Ian and Sylvia book, and she was an
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: absolute delight. But she said Bob didn't have any social
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: conscience or awareness. But once he started reading the news
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: papers and reading books and educating himself, that's where the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan we know, blowing in the wind, the times
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they are changing, all your masters of war, all of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that came out and the trajectory of original folk music
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just went up.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Bonnie had some memories of Bob Dylan. She's got some
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: great stories in there. One is where where he's typing
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: what may have become boots of Spanish leather. He would
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: tag along and go to an alehouse, pulled out his guitar.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Bartender tells him you can stay, but the guitar has
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: to go. And he's an unknown, you know, so that
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: they don't know who he's about to become. But also
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: she remembered a different Dylan from what was depicted, particularly
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: in the recent film, Like he was more he was
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: almost like a stand up comic on stage back in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: those days.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he had apparently a lot more personality. I mean,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: it's too bad we don't have any of the live
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: performance as a recorded of him. She said he was
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: more fun and he was more on off stage too. Again,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: he was just like everybody else then. He was just
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: a guy who loved folk music. Who was you know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: we're scrambling to get gigs like everybody else was. And
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: he found he found his voice as you and I
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: both second album. But the story about him in the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: restaurant and the guy saying you can stay, but you
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: can stay with the guitar has to go. I mean
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: we were sitting around we've been done an interview and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Bonnie said, talked about something. Well, I remember the time
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: we were and she just told the story matter of fact,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and I said, money, that's gold. He also complimented her
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: on morning Do in passing.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: The lyrics are walked me out the morning dew, my honey,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: walked me out in the morning dew. Today I can't
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: walk you out in the morning do my honey. Also
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: talks about hearing a baby cry. I heard a young
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: man mourn this morning. So it's somebody that's waking up
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: in the morning after a nuclear bomb devastation.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nuclear bomb. And it's it's a dialogue, yes, you know,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I assume it's the woman talking first and then the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: man replies, I can't take you out in the morning.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Do your babies cry? It's it's a dialogue between the
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: two the couple in the movie. That I mean, she
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: invented that. Of burse, that dialogue didn't exist in the movie,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: but she took the context of it and wrote it
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in that way of discussing, well, what do we do?
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: We can't?
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: You know, everything's changed. There is no morning anymore, right
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: because they want to They want to go on as
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: if life is normal, but it's not anymore. Now. It
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: ends with I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. So
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: what do you make of the ending there?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: It's very fatalistic. I mean, there is no world left.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: We're never going to have We're never going to have
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the life we had before, So what does it matter now? What?
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like saying what future do we have now?
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Anti nuclear war songs didn't really exist in sixty one
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: when Bonnie wrote it. Uh. Protest folk music was really
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: drawn around the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War thing.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Wasn't on anybody's radar yet at the time, So Bonnie
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was taking a topic that not many other folk singers
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: had had addressed in any way at all. That kind
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: of separated her from from everybody else. It is definitely
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a protest song, for sure, without a doubt. But it's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: it's protest. Its protest is on a theme that remains.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it still resonates today. You know why
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: why the United States in Iran it, you know, ostensibly
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: to end their ability to make nuclear bombs and blow
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: everybody on Earth up. So the song has remained timely,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you know above some above Dyllan songs aren't as timely anymore.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I think the times they are changing and blowing in
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the wind have stood the test of time, but many
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: of the others have not. And you take a song
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: like the Buffalo Springfield for what it's worth. You know,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: there's something happening here stapay, what's that sound? That's a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: song that's tied to the nineteen sixties. And it's not
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: a song you I mean, if you hear it, it's
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it's intended whether it's a movie or a documentary on radio,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: it's intended to harken back to a period of particularly
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a period of time of protests and anti Vietnam war
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and student protests and riots and that sort of thing.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: So it's hardwired to a period of time. Morning Dew isn't.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Morning Dew has been able to remain important, significant, relevant
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: ever since, and that in many ways is very sad that,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: but the truth is still there that we still live
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in fear of all of this.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: What is it about the song that makes it so
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: endlessly reinterpreted?
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Too?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Because you have versions by the dead Jeff Beck, Nazareth
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: and Devo as we mentioned, all found something different in it.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: What is it about the songwriting that makes it so
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: endlessly reinterpret it?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the nature of the song in that the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: lyrics appeal. I mean, the lyrics and the theme generally
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: have remained. I mean, we can talk about how tim
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Rose changed the one line in it, but the message remains.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: The message resonates, but it's so much so open to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: interpretation because it's a very simple folk song. It's just
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Bonnie on guitar and she's just fingerpicking chords. But the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: message is strong. So the message appeals to artists. But
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the arrangement that she has allows them to be able
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to arrange the song and the music the way they
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: see it, the way they want it, the way they
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: envision it. And of the almost ninety different cover versions
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: of that song, they're so different everyone. I mean, Nazareth,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I like their version. I also like their German version.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I don't speak German. That it's you know, to do
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But when you look at the
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: breadth of all these cover versions, the interpretations all change,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: but really only one of them goes back to the original,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and that Serena Ryder. She went back to the original
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: opening lyric take Me for a Walk in the morning do.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Everybody else And even going back to The Grateful Dead
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: has it as walk me out in the Morning do.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And that goes back to Fred Neil in sixty four,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and he was one of the first to cover the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: song and he felt that take Me for a Walk
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in the Morning dew was was too wordy and he felt,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you know, to get you know, kind of the lilts
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and flow of the song, walk Me out in the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Morning do fit better. And every cover since then, Devo,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: there's a heavy metal version from France somewhere, and all
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: these different versions all use that. What that says is
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: all these artists heard the song from probably The Grateful Dead,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: possibly Jeff Beck, and probably Tim Rose. They didn't hear
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Bonnie's version. They don't know Bonnie's version, they just know
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the cover versions. I mean, that doesn't take away that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: she wrote the song. She still wrote the song, okay,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: but it shows that The Grateful Dead and I'm gonna
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: say Tim Rose, they're the ones that really spread that song,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: even that even that four note introu that that first
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: appeared on the tim Rose version. I mean, you hear
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: it everywhere. Almost every one of those cover versions that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you were kind of trolling through, they all
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: have that that dumbu which body never invented. I interviewed
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: David Robinson, who produced it for tim Rose, and he said, oh,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: his mine, I came up with that idea of those
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: four notes. Okay, yeah, that's I'm sure Jim Rose would
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: say he did it, but that's that's universal.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: There's one I heard of by Lulu, which I thought
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: was great and I never heard it before. It's got
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: xylophone on there, he's got marimba's it's got a horn
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: section or is it xylophone? That I'm hearing no remembers
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: the Lulu.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's bizarre, It's really bizarre. And you know what
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a hand in that arrangement was John Paul Jones.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Oh really is that when he was a studio musician.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: He arranged Lulo's records. What year would this be, sixty seven?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: It's sixty seven. Wow. Why do you think the Dead
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: version has become the definitive one? Is just something about
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Jerry's interpretation.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Of it, Yeah, I think so. But also the fact
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: too that there were Dead fans all over the world, sure,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you know, everywhere, and they would have picked up on
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: that song from the first album. But as you say,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you got it off of the live album seventy two.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: The Dead recorded that song either live or in a
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: studio four times, so it's never gone away. So you
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: can have young people picking up on the Dead now
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: from some live albums from even the seventies or eighties,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: where they'll hear Morning Do and that's that way. So
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: they have and Bonnie very much acknowledges just this too.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: They have allowed the song to continue to be heard
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: generation after generation, whereas not Bonnie's version has that Bonnie's
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: version hasn't gone as widespread. But the Dead took that
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: song and made it, I guess popularized it, made it
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: more relevant. And you know, again because of their their
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: spread of influence all over.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Thankful for that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: No, she's very o. She credits a Grateful Dead absolutely
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: for what they did to to bring that song to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a much wider world and keep it, keep it resonating
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and relevant or absolutely, and she likes that. She went
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to see the Grateful Dead when she was living in Toronto.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Back in Toronto in around sixty seven or so, they
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: came and played, but that night they didn't play Morning Dew,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: but she did Tom Constant Constantine I think his name is.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: He played keyboards. It was a second keyboard player at a
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: pig pen in the Grateful Dead and in the mid
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: to late sixties, and he played live, did that song
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: live with them, you know, a gazillion times. But a
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: few years ago we put together I had a Dead
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: kind of a tribute band, and Slick Aguilera from Jefferson
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Starship and a few others are all in this band
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and they came and played in I think it was
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: called the Other Dead or whatever they called them, and
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: they came and played in London at a club and
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Bonnie went and they got her up to sing it, no.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Rehearsal, It's great, just do it.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And Okay, there's another guy who I wanted to get
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: ahold of, but he's very very sick and I'm not
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: sure how well he is now, but he was very
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: very sick at the time. You know, you have to
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: when you're doing this books, you have to live with
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Well, I'm not going to get
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to so and so, you know, so let's try somebody else.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: John Innerson is the author of Take Me for a
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Walk in the Morning. Do do you think Bonnie had
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: any idea when she finished that song that she had
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: created something that would outlive the folk revival itself, become
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: part of the rock cannon or was it just another
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: song in her repertoire.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: She absolutely had no idea. I mean, she knew, she
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: knew it was a good song, she felt, she felt
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: strongly about and felt confident about it, But no idea
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that she'ss like, what sixty some odd years later, you
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and I are talking about it, Yeah, that that song
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: is still around and guaranteed that sometime in the next
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: few years someone else is going to record it and
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: they're going to stumble across it, maybe the Devil version
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: or maybe even the Lulu version, and that.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: We haven't mentioned the Almonds Gregan and Dwayne. I think
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: it was the Almond Joys at the time, if I'm
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: not mistaken. That's my brother was introduced to the song
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: through that version.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: It's interesting version, and that was that was the recorded
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: uh tracks that they recorded before they became the Almond Brothers.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: All Right, it's like on their box set, I think,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: is where you can find it.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I have just keeps the song, just keeps rolling along.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: She had no idea, and when she thinks about her
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: career in perspective, a lot of it is serendipity. A
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: lot of it is not. She never really had a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: master plan. She never schemed to do this and do that.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Things just happened. And with Morning Dew, things just happen. Now,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: if The Grateful Dead we thought was Fred Neil, Fred
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Neil and the Grateful Dead and then tim Rose had
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: never covered it, we wouldn't be talking about Morning two.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: You just would have been a song, a song on
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a folk singer's album. Have sitted on her live at
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: folks City, guris Folks City in nineteen sixty three. It
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: just would have been there and lost there and gone,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Oh it's a great song, maybe if you happen to
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: have the album, but you'd be hard pressed to find
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: someone today who does have that album any long.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: The book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: podcasting Network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Boneless down Lovable dot app, or just go to bookdown
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Rock dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is what
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: you want to be Listen with confidence. The tim Rose
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: story and let's get to it now, because this is
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: where it gets interesting. She never met, never met tim Rose,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: yet he receives co writing credit on one of the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: most famous songs of the year. How walk us through
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: exactly what happened? How did that happen that he ended
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: up being known as the guy who wrote it?
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Well, she never met him face to face, but she
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: did interact from a crowd.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, confront him, but I don't know.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Well she did kind of confront him. Yeah, tim Rose
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: had been in a folk group with Mama Cass. They
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: were called the Big Three. And after Mama Cass floated
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: around and then ended up in The Mamas and the Papas.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Tim Rose put together a group called the Thorns and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: they were a folk group and they were actually touring
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Canada in sixty five when Neil Young saw them. Neil
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Young and his band the Squires, were playing in thunder Bay,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: which at the time was Fort William and Neil met
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Tim Rose then and the Thorns, and he thought that
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: they were with the good folk act. He then got
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a solo contract to record an album maybe with Columbia,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and David Robinson was the things. Rubinson was the guy
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: assigned to produce it, and it's Tim that brought the
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: song to the recording sessions. As David said, I'd never
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: heard this song before Tim brought it in and they
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: worked together on the arrangement for it. So David knew
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: nothing of the history of it. But when Bonnie wrote
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the song, she knew nothing about song publishing, so she
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: didn't establish a copyright on that song. She made the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: mistake of having Broadside Magazine, which was like a mimeographed
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: folk music newspaper, you know, handed out in the village
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: at folk clubs. She allowed them to print it. The
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: music someone transcribed it. She can't read music and the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: lyrics before she copyrighted the song, so she left that
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: door open.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: And then she didn't have management at the time, you know, and.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: She knew nothing. She didn't have any financial advice or anything.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Remember she did traditional folk music, so she didn't know
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: anything about the publishing your own songs, and you know.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Then Fred Neil then recorded it in sixty four. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: when Fred Neil was going to recorded, Jack Holtsman, who
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: owned Electra Records, phoned out Bonnie and said, uh, friend's
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: going to play record the song up. Bonnie knew Fred
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: from the village, and Jack Holtsman said, friends can record
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the song. Who publishes it? She said, I don't have
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: it published with anybody, and so he said, okay, then
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: we'll publish it under our old elector's own publishing company
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: called Nina Music. And Nina was was Jack Holtzman's wife.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: But at that point it had already been made public
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: on broadside.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: So it's obvious that Tim Rose heard the Fred Neil
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: version because he sings the walk Me Out in the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Morning do line not take me for a walk in
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the morning do. And Fred was the first to do that,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: so he heard that version, but he didn't look at
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the credit because Fred Neil credited it to Bonnie Dobson.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: But this whole issue of between sixty one or so
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: or sixty two and sixty four, when Fred Neil did it,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the copyright was nebulous. It wasn't published at all, and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: so tim Rose was smart enough regular to realize, there's
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: a loophole here, and I changed a line in this song,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: and I changed a bit of the arrangement, so I'm
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: going to claim co credit. And Barney didn't even know
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: about that, you know, for several years later when she
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: started seeing the song being covered by other artists and
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: seeing this other guy's name, someone she didn't even know.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: She had no idea who tim Rose was. And by
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: that point he had published it as tim Rose with
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: another publishing company. So you've got these two publishing companies
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: with this song. But before that song was ever published,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: she had made it public. So she left herself open
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: for that, and she certainly admits her naivety cost her
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in the end, but that started the battle of her
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: trying to regain control of that song. And as you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: and I know, on the Truth album, Jeff Beck, it
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: just said tim Rose. Even the liner notes, I remember
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: it's Jeff says, but we know Timmy does this better.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: But we think we do pretty good too. You know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: there was no bond, and as more and more covers,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: you know, came up, more and more, you'd see tim
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Rose's name, and then you started to see just tim
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Rose and that you know, I would probably venture to
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: say that close to half or more of the cover
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: versions that we've been talking about credited just to tim Rose.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Well there's a story behind him. And hey, Joe, I
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: mean that's the version Jimmy Hendricks heard and said, hey,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I want to record that. It's a very similar story,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: isn't it.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: It is? But he got shut down quickly on that,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: and he probably got shut down by publishers of of
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the song.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: And then Roberts wrote that, yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: And there was another song too, and I can't remember that,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: something about come to Me Belinda or something like that.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: He also tried to claim credit on that one too,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: So he was he was fast and loose with copyright laws,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and he knew what he was doing, but he as
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: as more and more people covered the song and claimed
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: it for him. You know, there was a big ad
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: in actually the ad for Lulu's Song in nineteen sixty
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: seven and one of the British you know, new Musical
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Express or Melody Maker full page ad that said Tim
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Roses recording Tim Roses Morning Dew. And increasingly, and as
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I said, probably more than half of the artists that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: covered the song over the decades saw it as a
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: tim Rose song and saw it credited as a tim
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Row song and credited himself to Tim Rose. So he
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: was getting half the royalties on that song because he
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: claimed as a songwriter. So it was the fact that
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, because I mean they were getting they were
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Bonnie was still getting royalties, but she wasn't getting her
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: full royalties because it's her song. She was giving half
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the royalties to some guy she never met, who did
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: not write the song. So it was really a battle
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: for a number of years to get that settled, and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: she finally really within the last ten years or so,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: found a lawyer, a copyright lawyer in London who took
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: on the case and again at the prompting of Robert
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Plant and God it straightened out that tim Rose's name
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: does not appear on it anymore. But tim Rose died
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: decades ago, and someone in his family and Bonnie doesn't
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: know who, and Barnie's lawyer doesn't know who. Someone in
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the tim Rose estate is still getting money off that song,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: but he's not getting.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Half right seventy she gets Okay, Yeah, you know, I
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: wonder about Tim Rose. I mean, was this something in
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: his defense? It's it's a fantastic version that he that
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: he yes does right, I mean, was this something like
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: nefarious you know? Or can we can we speak in
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: defense of tim Rows like I don't know? Was it
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: just one of those things like, hey, you know, I
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: was just smart enough to know let me take publishing
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: credit for it. Or should he have said non, no,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: this isn't my song.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Well he should have, Yes, he should have done that,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And was he nefarious in some way and said, ah haha,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I can do this. Yeah. But but tim Rose apologists
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and I have some of them quoted in the book.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: They follow Tim's line and he says, well, I didn't
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: know who published it. I didn't know who wrote it.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I just saw the song somewhere or heard it and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I just decided to do it. No, if he did
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: this with other songs, especially with Hey Joe, you know once,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you can say if he did it once, well, okay,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: maybe it's an error. Twice three times, it was calculated
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to do that. Got to the point of defending himself
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: all the time when asked about the song. Oh no,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Bonnie and I are friends and we share the copyrights
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: There's a version on Spotify, not his original version, but
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: one that he played live, and I thought it was interesting.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: In the beginning, he says, this is dedicated to Jerry Garcia.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it was recorded right after Jerry passed,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: but it's just funny, like he's not even acknowledging her
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: in that recording. He's dedicating it to Jerry Garcia. Wow.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: That leads to the confrontation that she had with him
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: in at the half Moon or something club in Putney
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: in London where Big Ads Tim Rose famous for Morningdoe
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: playing at this such a club, and she went with
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: some of her friends and stood at the back. And
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: it's interesting too. I didn't know this until I started
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: interviewing some people who were there. They said there was
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a German documentary company there and they had cameras, so
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: they were filming Tim's show for whatever, and all of
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: a sudden, this lady at the back says, stop playing
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: my song. You didn't write it, And the cameras all
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: swarm over to this red haired, little spark plug of
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: a lady and then tips aga money and he said,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't come up here and sing it with me.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't sing this song with you ever. And the
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: cameras are going back and forth, two people having a
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: fight in public in a crowd. But you know, she's
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: she's stepped and she'd had enough. I guess by that,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: especially too when when by that point Tim was well
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: into saying it was his song alone. He bought that
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: whole I mean, he swallowed the kool aid on that one.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Hm. Yeah, good for her, she stood up for herself. Yeah,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: she made the decision to leave behind a successful North
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: American career and start over in England. Did you come
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: away feeling she was running towards something or a new
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: life or away from the music industry.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Came disillusioned with it, nothing with the music industry at all.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: She met a guy she wanted to marry. Okay, her
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: second husband, and he was from England and she met
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: him in Canada when he was working in Canada, and
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: he went back to England and then she fell in
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: love and followed her heart. So it wasn't it wasn't
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: a case that I just can't do this anymore, because
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: she had just released actually a pretty good album just
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: called Morning de Bonnie Dobson, and the producer was Jack Richardson,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: who produced you know, Bob Seeger and Poko and he
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: meet his fame with the guess who Bay City Rollers,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: on and on. He was a big producer guy, and
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: he always liked Bonnie and he wanted to he wanted
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to make her music a little more contemporary, and so
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: he got her away from the traditional folk kind of songs.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: And she had been writing and she had a few
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: songs that were decent songs, so he encouraged her to right.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: He brought in songs from from other largely Canadian songwriters,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: and the album got good notices, and she then recorded
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: another one called Good Morning Rain, which was her own song,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: literally months before she moved to England. And she kind
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of left left Jack Richardson and RCA because both albums
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: were on RCAA kind of hanging because when the album
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: came out, she wasn't there to promote her to play
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: or do concerts or indiviews or whatever she was she
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: was over in England. But Bonnie is a very romantic
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: person and she follows her heart and that's the decision
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: that she made. My heart is more important than my career.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: She was fortunate to kind of kickstart her career early
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: on when she got to England. But yeah, it wasn't
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: It wasn't in any way motivated by frustration with the
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: music business and all of that, because she really wasn't
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: fully aware of and she said she didn't become aware
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: of it till she moved to England. Of how much
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Morning Dew had been covered and how much tim Rose
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: had been, you know, claiming it and talking it up
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: as if it's her song. So that really starts to
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: happen when she's in England. But but yeah, again, I
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: just can't say it any other way. I think she
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: was really following her heart.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Raised the family, Yeah, that's it.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: She had two kids with this her second husband, and
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: then they split up. So she was then from about
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: seventy two to seventy three onward, raising the kids herself,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and she would still be gigging. She'd have to go out,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you know, in some cases, drive all afternoon, play somewhere,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: and drive all night to be back to make the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: kids breakfast in the morning and get them off to school,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. The BBC was a big help
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: for her too. They brought her in often to make recordings,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: and the BBC paid really well for her to do
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: that too, So she just managed to carry on and
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: go along. She made more albums and developed her songwriting.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the things I'm pleased that I'm
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: pleased to myself, but I'm glad I did, was to
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: include examples of her songwriting in the book, because I
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: suspect there's a lot of people who don't know her
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: other than maybe morning do. And she became a very good,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: very good songwriter, and she wrote from experience, She wrote
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: from the heart, just make up a song. She had
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: to write from experience of things that happened in her life.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: And I wish, and I'd still my wish. I hope
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it happens. But I would love to have seen a
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: compilation CD put together of her songs, of her material
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: because it's it's really evolved and become fabulous, and you
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: get little bits and pieces of it on different albums,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: some some vinyl sms not on CD. That sort of thing.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Be nice to have put something together that that kind
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: of came out around the same time as the book.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe it might happen, you know, in the new year.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: But I would love to see that happen because she
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: deserves to have this material hurt, because she's she's more
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: than morning do.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the book down Rock podcast.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support, and make sure
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: you tell a friend, a family member, share on social
• 54:56
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• 55:00
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• 55:02
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• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Booked on Rock podcast, We're on Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: tune in in on YouTube music. You can check out
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: the full episodes on video along with video highlights from
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: to the show. Days of Reckoning is another that's a
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: great song from ninety six. Now that's she returned to
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: the business on her own terms at that point and
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: writes and records Days of Reckoning, which is like a
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: companion piece to Morning Do. Right.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she worked with Freedom freedoman with Techi who was
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: a German musician and he had a studio in Germany.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: They met me in London and he backed her up
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: for a while, but she went over and recorded there,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it's a brilliant song, and I think she's
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: kind of come to realize how brilliant that song is.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorites. Good Morning Rain, I've since
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: learned from another interview with that I did has been
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: downloaded something like two hundred thousand times. She had no
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: idea about, you know, Spotify and that kind of music streaming,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we know we know that Spotify
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: plays you know, a point zero zero eighty four cents
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: for every download, but she was just completely unaware of that,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: especially a song like Good Morning Rain wasn't a hit,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't a single, but obviously it's connected with people who've
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: discovered it and spread the word. So again, these serendipitous
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: things that happened in her life and who would have.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Thought good morning rained two million streams.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and an eighty five year old woman, you know,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: experiencing this, this career renaissance, certainly in the last few years.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, who knows how long it will go on.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: She still sings like a songbird. She sings every song
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: in the same key. But that beautiful, soaring soprano voice
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that's still there. It's not like she stopped singing. She
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: continues to sing always.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, how about how about a Robert Plant Bonnie Dobson
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: album right like he did with Alison Crouse.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think that he's better off for alison longevity.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Bonnie is known as rootsy as Robert and Alison listen,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I mean I wrote Geene Clark's biography and gene Clark's
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: two sons, one of which has since passed away. They
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: were absolutely thrilled when on that Raising Sand album, which
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: was Allison and Robert, they did two gene Clark songs
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: and they got to meet at a show. They got
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: backstage to be able to meet him, and Robert Plant
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: was thrilled to meet gene Clark's sons.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: That's awesome and body considers now the seventy five percent.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: That's her pinchon and after she's gone, the money goes
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: to her daughter.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: And the book ends with not her past, but the
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: creation of a brand new album. Tell us about that.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Where Bonnie is at today, eighty five, still going strong, Yeah.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: She is, And she's been doing some gigs lately, back
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: with the Hanging Stars. They're kind of a ald country,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: rootsy Americana kind of band. They've been compared to The
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Grateful Dead, they've been compared to the Birds and again serendipitous.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: She had written some songs and she wanted to get
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: them recorded with with a band, and she a friend,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: a friend, Ski Williams, took her to see the Hayy
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Stars playing at the Betsy Trotter, which is a fabulous pub.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I've been there to see music in London and wonderful.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: We're actually going to do a book event there.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Barney's going to perform.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: And she really liked them and she got to know them,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: and so she did. She she hired them to rehearse
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: and to go in the studio. She paid all the
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: studio sessions and costs and pay them a salary because
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: she wanted these songs recorded not for any not for
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: any other purpose but her own. But as it evolved,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the the connections, the chemistry between them and these guys,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean they're in they're in their early thirties,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: she's in her eighties, but the musical chemistry just just
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: was so incredible together that they both realized there's an
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: album here, and so that became, you know, the Dreams album,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: which you know, came out two years ago and as
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I said, got great notices everywhere, and it's it gathered
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: together some some of the songs she'd written previously, like
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Rainy Windows and Winter's Going. Winter's Going with Jarvis Cocker's
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: favorite song, and it's Winter's Going that caused him to
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: look up Bonnie to play at this show he was curating,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: called the Lost Ladies of Folk music to come and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: perform for that. So you never know where these songs
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: are and how they're they're they're touching people. But Winter's
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Going is a very difficult song for her in that
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: it's about the aftermath of her abortion. She never talked
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: about the abortion. Even her son, who since passed away,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and her daughter never knew about it at all until
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: she opened up about it. When she was doing the
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: book with me, doing interviews and and stuff. So some
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: of these songs, some some new songs that she'd written.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: It got a chance to put them together and put
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: an album out and it deserved better represent better distribution
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: than it got because it's a very very good album.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: So the few thousand people who bought it, you know,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: they know what a treasure it is. And here's you know,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: she may record again with the Hanging Stars. Who knows
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: she's been performing live with them again. She's got a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: couple of them who are backing her on some of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: these book events that we're doing in London, including at
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the Betsy Trotter.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: So who else what's going to happen? And one last
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: question before I asked that that there's a quote that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I want to read from Bonnie. She said it was
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: never about the money for me. I just wanted recognition
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: as the sole writer of that song. So do you
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: think that history now has finally corrected the record on
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Bonnie's authorship of Morning Do or is there still work
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: to be done to ensure that she receives that recognition
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: that she deserves.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I think she's now legally established that, yes, But
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: as for getting the word out, I think the book
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: will help because the book is going to be you know,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: distributed worldwide, so it's gonna help with that. But you know,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: all we can do is hope that that that every
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: in everybody's minds it's changed. And certainly anybody today who
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: wants to go and cover Morning de will see that
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: it's just Bonnie Dobson's name on there. So yeah, I mean,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: as as I said earlier, the song's going to live
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: for it's going to outlive you and I. There's somebody
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: thirty years from now who's going to record that song,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: but they will record it and credited to Bonnie Dobson.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, and the book is a huge help to that
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: and artists who are going to perform it live. Just
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: make sure you mentioned that it was written by Bonnie Dobson.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Right Fiery Lady in red hair at the back yelling end.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Might there find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown Rock
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: of the show, the latest episode in and audio links
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: to all of the platforms where you can listen to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: the podcast. Plus all the social media platforms were on
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and x. Also check out
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: the Booked on Rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Find out all the latest hot rockbook releases. And before
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: you go, check out the booked on Rock online store.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Pick up some booked on Rock merch. It's all at
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: booked on Rock dot com. The book's out September tenth, right, okay,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: but people can preorder it now, take me for a
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: walk in the morning. Do September ten release date, but
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: you can pre order now through Amazon. You can also
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: go to jobble onpress dot com. There's a signed copy
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: available from rough Trade as well. Is that still?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Oh? Well, well, I'm going to England at the start
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: of September. Bonnie and I will be will be signing
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: tons of books okay or for distribution but also for
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: sale to the events.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: And Roughtrade dot com people can go to yep.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, obviously won't have the books until September the tenth.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: By then I'll already be there and we'll signed tons
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: of books, all right?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: And John, where can people find you and also your
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: other books? Is Amazon? The best place? Do you have
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: a website? Yeah?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Amazon is there and they have I mean some of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: my books are ound of print, because it's been like
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: thirty years. But what amazes me is the Gene Clark
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: book is still in print. My Desperado is the Roots
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: of Country Rock book still in print. My Buffalo Springfield
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: books still in print. And these books go back like
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: thirty years. I have a Facebook site where I talk
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: about music history every day. It's called John Anderson Remembers, Okay,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and it's open anybody can come.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: But also on Amazon, is your Neil Young book still there?
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: You have a Neil Young book?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, it's it's called Neil Young Don't be Denied
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the Canadian Years, and it's all about his time in Winnipeg.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to start here and then in
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: thunder Bay and in Toronto, and then when it kind
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: of ends when he heads off to California. But it's
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I remember saying to Neil, I said, you know, now,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: how come there's never been anything written about your early years,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: you know, in Winnipeg. And he said, because no one's
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: ever asked me. He said, well, I'm asking. And he
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: invited me down to his ranch and we spent some
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: great deal of time just sitting around, and I had
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: him just in stitches, remembering some of these stories and
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: things about him. You know, it's funny. No one ever
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: thought he would make it. I mean, yeah, you talk
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: to people that he's Oh I knew he was going
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to be big.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: No, you didn't.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: No one ever thought he was going to make He
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: had a weird voice, thin and really kind of a voice.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: He was kind of an awkward looking guy. But he
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: stuck to it. I mean, he really followed that dream.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: And he said to me, you know, I had to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: leave a lot of friends behind because I was so
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: focused on music. That's the only thing that mattered, you know.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And if you weren't supporting of what I'm doing, or
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: if you didn't want to do what I want to do,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: well I'd leave you behind. And that really is what
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: his career is all about. Since playing in his first
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Band's in Winnipeg in nineteen sixty one, Neil has always
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: been the boss. Yes, it's his way or the highway.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: And you know, when he's been in like Christby Stills,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the Ash, he's in, he's out, he's in, he's out,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield, he quit three times because he wanted to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: be the boss. I also wrote the biography of the
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield too, and I wrote it with Richie Fray,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: who was you know, he was kind of the in
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the middle between Stills and young people.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Go to Amazon dot com. I'll put a link to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: your Amazon page so people can check out all of
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: the books that you got there. John Inerson, thank you
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: so much, man. This is awesome to have you on.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: I have a feeling I'm going to have you back
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: on again. You've got quite a few books here. I'd
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: love to talk about.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Eric. This was a treat because it's always lovely to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: talk to someone who knows what they're talking about.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: And loves loves the topic. Because you were saying you
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: weren't sure if this was something that you know, I'd
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: be interested. I'm like, are you kidding me? I love this?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: This is this is right down my alley.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Man, I've got you here. This this this book here.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I know if it's showing it backwards. And this book
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: came out here. It's called From Barnaby Wild to Dased
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and Confused Rock Music Revolution of nineteen sixty eight. The
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: premise of the book is why did rock change in
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: sixty eight to a harder rock sound? And that harder
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: rock sound would become the basis of what today we
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: call classic rock, and how did that happen from psychedelic
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: music before it, and who are the driving forces of
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: creating this hard rock sound that we know today's classic rock.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: That's that's I've been still there.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: Cool, Thanks so much, John, my pleasure, take care.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the books.