Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton

Transcript

Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: With lockdowns in tense elections and seemingly bad news everywhere,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: we thought we'd lighten things up over here in the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Broken Record universe and brings some Christmas cheer early with
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: none other than Leslie Odom Junior, whose new release is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the Christmas Album. This is actually Leslie's second Christmas album,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: plus He's released several vocal jazz albums over the last
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: few years, but he's best known for his Grammy and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Tony Award winning performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Leslie
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: spoke to Bruce Headlum about his career on stage and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in music, about his all time favorite Christmas album, which
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is a touchstone of nineties R and B. He also
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: talks about how playing a founding and father as a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: black man was an exercise in empathy, and he shares
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a lesson he learned thanks to the incomparable talents of
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Natkin Coole and Sammy Davis Jr. This is Broken Record
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mischian. Here's
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Bruce Dlam with Leslie Odom Junior. So you're in a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: strange point in your career because you've had a long career.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: People might know you from Rent. People might know you
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: from television, but people really got to know you as
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Yeah, but now you have this
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: music career. And I've had this twice recently where people said,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm listening to this guy, Leslie Odom Junior,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and did you know he was also in Hamilton. Yeah,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you're like you know when people used to say, you know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings, you know
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that's you now? Oh man, Thank goodness, no complaints. Because
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I came out to Los Angeles almost twenty years ago
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: after graduating from college, and I was doing television and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: my goal really was simple. I I was trying to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: make a living as an artist, and that meant taking
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: almost any job on television that people would offer me,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: which I was auditioning for lots and lots of very
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: silly sitcoms, very you know, dubious dramas, and I could
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: have gotten one of those. I didn't. I didn't get
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: any of the one that I really really wanted. But
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I could have gotten one of those, and I could
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: have been known for some ridiculous catchphrase or for you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: pulling some stupid face to make people laugh. But the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: worst of what I get having been a part of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: the original company of Hamilton is like people saying, pardon me,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: are you Aaron Burrser? You know so I'll take that,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and I'll also yes, it is. It is my job,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it is my mission now to continue to make sure
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that that is not the peak, that it's a peak
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in my career. But that but that, Yeah, we continue
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to I continue to push myself and surprise people, surprise
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: myself and just keep digging. Will you actually turned down
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a TV show for Hamilton? I did. In fact, I
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: think you'd signed the contract and you would right to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the head of the network and say, please, please, I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: have to do this other thing. Yeah. And they were
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: really nice about it. They were his name was his
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: name out, I'll give him credit forever. His name is
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Bob Greenblatt. He runs HBO. Now, But I did. I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: went to Bob and I said, I know, thank you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: very much. You guys have given me a contract for
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: guaranteed half a million dollars, and man, that's nice, but
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I really want to do this off Broadway show, this
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: hip hop musical about the founding fathers. Will you let
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: me out of this contract, and he looked at me
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: like I was out of my mind, and he said, sure,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I'll let you out of Are you that's what you
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: want to do? Really? And I said yes, and he
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: let me out. But it wasn't a point that you
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: were feeling a little too comfortable doing TV. You felt
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it was it was safe and you wanted you wanted
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to take a risk. I did. While I didn't know
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: what America would feel. I didn't know if the show
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: would find an audio, but I knew what I felt
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: about Hamilton. You know, it was it was undeniable to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: me how it was changing me from the inside because
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: at that point I had been involved in development for
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a few years and this, this little show was not
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: only making me a better actor and a better performer,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you know, it was making me a better husband. It
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was making me a better friend. It was making me
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a better citizen, like you know, it was making me
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a better human being. And listen, the TV show was nice,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't doing that. You know, when I'm talking
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to young people, I say this, it's really important that
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you know what you're in it for. You really have
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to know what you're in it for. Whatever, whatever game
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you're playing, whether it's finance, so whether it's medicine or
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: your nurse, whatever, whatever, you know, what are you in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it for? Because when the thing shows up, you want
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to recognize it. Don't miss it when it comes, you know.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And so if you're in it for the dough, if
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you're in it for the promotion, if you're in it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: for validation or chicks or a great car, whatever it
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: is that you at the end of the day, like
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I got in it for this reason, know it so
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: that you don't miss it when it comes. And Hamilton,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you know, a piece of art like that, That is
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: why I got in it. Rent was the show that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: brought me to the theater. And you know, my favorite
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: quote about art and artists is that an artist spends
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: their entire life trying to get back to the place
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: where their heart was first opened up. And that's what
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Hamilton did for me. It made me feel like that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: thirteen year old kid again. That's what I was in
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: it for. So it didn't matter if it was half
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a million dollars or a million dollars or eight million dollars.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I was not walking away from the reason why I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: started on the path in the first place. Was there
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a moment with Hamilton where you thought, Okay, this actually
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is going to succeed. It is I don't mean artistically,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: that this is going to be bigger? Like, was there
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a point you're like, oh, this this is going to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: work now. I don't remember the exact day, but it
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was pretty soon after we opened on Broadway, and you know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: we had the confirmation of those box office receipts, you know,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you had you had the confirmation of the of the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: record breaking advanced sales. Because that that's what that's what
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: matters in the commercial theater and the commercial theater, commercial
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: success is what matters. And once we were confirmed that
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it was going going to be that, I had to
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: wait until then because the business is littered with great
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: art and artists that were not appreciated or celebrated in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: their time. You know, Stephen Sondheim is known, you know,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: um revered as one of the great may possibly the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: greatest songwriter for the American theater. You know, he's brilliant.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And most to Sondheim shows, including shows like West Hide
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Story and these shows were not successful in their original run.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: They ran a year, a year and a half some
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of them, you know, a lot of them. They just
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: people just didn't they weren't feeling them in their time.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: So I didn't know if Hamilton would fall into that
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: category even once we went to Broadway, so I had
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to wait with my fingers crossed. Now, I'm sure you've
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: heard this many times. I saw Hamilton's first at the Public,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and then I saw it several times because Lynn Manuel
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Miranda actually wrote for me when I was at the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: New York Times. But I remember being there at the Public.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You came out and there was a ripple in the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: audience and people said, oh my god, that guy is
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a star. I don't mean you're out shining the production,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: but there's just something about when you came out. I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: think people just kind of felt, I don't know, there's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a kind of electricity that you don't often feel at
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the theater for you. Was there that kind of personal
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: validation right away? Well, I mean, thank you for saying that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I think that as a young person, the only way
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you really build self esteem is you got to prove
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: certain things to yourself. You know, we all have an
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: idea about what we're capable of, what we might be
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: capable of if someone just gave us the opportunity. If
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: we just had the chance to show, to prove, I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: think I could be a contender, you know. And it's
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: all theory until you make something, or until someone invites
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: you to make something, you know, it's it's all conjecture.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And what Lynn did for a room of people, for
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a room of mostly black and brown people, was he
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: gave us the evidence of what was of what we
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: suspected about ourselves. He let us prove it firstly to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: ourselves that we are capable of more than we are
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: being asked to do most of the time. And yes,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and then we got to stand on stage and show
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: little black and brown children who looked like us, that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: same thing. And we got to show a little you know,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: not for nothing, we got to show little white kids too,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: what you know that that you know? I say, of course,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I was very lucky to have the education that I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: had at Carnegie Mellon University, for instance, you know, where
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: where the majority of my classmates were white. But you
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: know who also benefited from my presence at Carnegie Mellon University.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: My white classmates also benefited from a diverse environment, from
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: from sharing across you know, cultural boundaries, and having friends
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and collaborators that don't only look like them. So it
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was it's a really it's a gift that Lynn has
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: given the world this show. So we want to talk
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: about Christmas albums, let's do it. And I want to
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: know first what Christmas music did you have growing up? Yeah,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I grew up in the album era, so I remember
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the Christmas albums we had that got pulled to the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: front of the stack. What what was your Christmas music
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: growing up? The one that left the biggest impression on me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I hope your audience is aware
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of it because it's a it is a classic. I
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: grew up in Philadelphia at the time where you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in Philly you couldn't get bigger than Boys to Men.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I went to the same high school as Boys to Men.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: They were older than me, but Boys to Men was huge.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: You know. They they dressed like us, they talked like us,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: They they wore us, you know, on the national stage.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: And at one of their peaks that you know, peak
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: power for them, they put out this beautiful Christmas record.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: If you have not heard it, go listen to it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It is it is like it's a shining example of
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: R and B. Yes, that's rhythm and blues, but there's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that joke and dream Girls, you know, rough and black.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I mean like it is, it is, you know, the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: black contribution. Part of our contribution to American culture in
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: this and music is R and B. It's one of
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: our contributions. And yeah, this is it's just a beautiful record, man.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So the Boys to Men album was like the first
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Christmas album that was mine, that wasn't my parents, you know,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: because my parents were listening to the Jackson five and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: they were listening and that King Cole of course, and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: they were listening to you know, the classics in that way.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: But if you were coming of age at any point
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, it's nostalgic too, and the same way
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: that Mariah's is nostalgic. You know, it reminds you of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of pure R and B. You know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that was not over sexualized, and it's like there's like
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a wholesome quality to it. Who knew that the nineties
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: had had a wholesome patina, but you listen to that,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that album and you'll hear it. Well, I'm older than you,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: So for us, it was I think Ray Charles, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: don't know if you know his Christmas album, I don't
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: know the Ray Charles Christmas album. Oh you gotta get
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the Ray Charles Christmas House is what is um? Baby
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: It's cold outside? Is that? Or was that a single?
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: That was a single? But usually when you buy it now,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I think with Betty Carter, that's right. They tack it
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: on the end, and that's a great version. It's the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: only version I know. Baby. It's people, you know, for
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: good reason, they are trying to get that song canceled.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: But but you can't cancel Betty Carter and Ray Charles,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: give me a break. No. No. Part of the problem though,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: is these you know, you've done your own albums, You've
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: written a lot of your own songs, you've taken on
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: some classics. But when you do Christmas songs, they're so
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: locked in people's memories. It's just so much attached to it.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I just want to talk a bit about how do
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you sit down and say what am I going to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: bring to this that people are gonna remember? Are they
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: just gonna have Andy Williams going through their head? How
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: did you do that with both albums, but mainly this album, Well,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: we had the practice of having done it once before,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and that that first Christmas album was very challenging number one,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: because we were so limited in our resources at that time.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: That was the first album I made post hand. So
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I made it I think the summer that I left
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Hamilton and me and my manager we just really didn't
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: We didn't know anybody. We were not really in the
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: music industry yet, you know, so we we were very
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: limited in our budget and in our resources. And so
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: when you're limited in that way, of course, parameters are
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: always great for art. Intention is important. Intention becomes very important.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And I was I was like, okay, well, what we
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: don't have in bells and whistles, you know, we have
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to come from a sincere place, which is harder than
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: it sounds, because you think, you know, I'll just I'll
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: sing Silent Night and I'll sing these Oh Holy I'll
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: sing these songs that I've known them my whole life.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But you go, when I go to listen back, nobody's
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: more critical on on my voice than I and it
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: just didn't sound honest. It took it. I recorded that
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: first album probably at least two full times, you know,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: just top to bottom, because it it I had to
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: hear the sincerity, and when it goes Christmas, it can
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: go Sacharin. It can go corny real quick. You know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: there's something about I don't know, the lights and the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: trees and the presence that you know, we yeah, it
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: just it just goes corny. And I just didn't want that.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So anyway, we built on that with this record. Having
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: recorded that album and then performing those songs live for
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: a few years now, we didn't have that that same challenge.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I can hear it right away, you know. When I
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: go to start these songs. Always what I do when
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I'm covering any song, if it's a jazz song or
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a pop song, I started that original melody. I try
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: not to start at one of the covers that I've heard.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I try to find the original version and let me,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: let me learn that original melody, let me hear what
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: those initial instincts were from the writer and from the composer,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and then we take it from there. We you know, im,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it's always a collaboration. I may have idea is but
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Tommy King as a brilliant pianist who was instrumental in
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that first album, that first album. People talk all the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: time about the piano solo on my favorite things. That's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: all Tommy King. That's just his beautiful mind and talent.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But he we worked with Tommy again on this and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: then also we took the now, all these years later,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the resources and the and the budget we've we've been
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: able to wrestle from the record company, and we were
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: able to make something that sounded a little fuller, a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: little more joy a lot more joyful. Actually, we took
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: all the things we'd learned making mister m that that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: original album that I have outu and we you know
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: call got the band back together as it were, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: made this one on the new album you do uh
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and you
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: do it in a very different way. Now people know
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that song from Bing Crosby, they know it from Perry
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Como I think did a big version of Michael Boublet
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of course. So yeah, so when you sat down to
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: do it, what were you what were you thinking? Were
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you thinking I can't do it like them? Or just
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: like get them out of my head? Somehow we went
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: we went back to that original arrangement and we and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: we recorded it that way. And then this one I
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: have to give you know, hats off to Joey. Joseph
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Abat my producer. He heard that bassa, he just heard it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: He was like, Leslie, you know, can we try it
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in a bassa? And I'm sure you know, I'll try
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: it anyway. And so the band we had a trio
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in the studio that day, all COVID safe, we'd all
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: taken our taken our tests, and we were all you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: separated in the studio. We you know, we never got
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: within six feet of one another. But something locked in
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: with the bassa and we know enough now to trust
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: those Quincy calls goose bumps. You know, God's lightning rod,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know, when you when you
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of that goes a long way. Man.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: If you get if you there's that's something to follow.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you when we when we recorded the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Perry Como version, it wasn't no goosebumps. It sounded fine,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: it sounded nice, but yeah, you're like, uh, do we
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: need another version? And it had we had Joseph not
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: had the bossa idea, the song probably wouldn't have made
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the cut to the record. But once we locked into
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that bossa, you get the goosebumps, and you know, we
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: found the right key, and you study, it's beginning to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: look a lot like Christmas and everywhere you go ain't
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: gonna look at the five and ten listening once again,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: candy canes and silver lanes or glow. It's speaking and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to look a lot, you know, like when once that
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: bossa rhythm kicked in, and just different instincts. You know,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I get different instincts as a singer, as an artist,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and um, I don't judge those things, you know, I don't.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I don't judge those I think art, when it's working,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: it exists on a conscious and a subconscious level. So
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: there's things when when you're in flow, there's things you're doing.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: You're bringing up childhood stuff, your childhood inspirations and instincts.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It's you know, we're made up of so much stuff.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So it flows down in the bassa and we do it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know not much. Three or four times,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you know, with the musician's top to bottom it works,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and then I do come back and record the vocal
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a few more time until I like it. And that
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: once it went into the bassa field. The next thing
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: was just to really figure out the phrasing of each
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: one of it because it's the different time signature, So
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the phrasing has to change in a way that feels natural,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't ever take you out of it.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Because people have a version of that tune that that
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that sits really well with them. If you're going to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: take them out of that groove, if you're going to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: take them out of that zone, you to make sure
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: it goes down just as easy. We'll be back with
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Leslie right after this break. Here's more of Bruce Hedlum's
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: conversation with Leslie Odom Jr. The other song I want
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: to ask you about, and it was on your first
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Christmas album before we come back to your second one,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: was the Christmas Song because I can't think of a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: song that has a more authoritative version than the Nat
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: King Cole. Yeah, and that's a high, high bar. How
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: do you tackle something that Nat King cold it? Well,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: we when we went in to get our record deal
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and went into ask Curve to meet with Stephen Greenberg,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: we said we wanted to make the kind of music
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that Nat King Cole might make today, and we didn't
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: we didn't really know what that meant. But we knew
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it sounded good and we knew you know, it got
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a to give you money. Yeah, that's all it needed
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to be. I think really we once we made mister,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you know, that album of all original music, I looked
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: at Joseph and I was like, we That's why intentions
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: are important. The intention. That was our intention from the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: very beginning. Even we did, you know, we didn't know
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: how we were going to get there. We didn't quite
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: know what that meant. But that's what we've been after,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and so I learned a lot. It was challenging, you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: but I've learned a lot trying to be Nat King Cole.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Kind of the first thing you learned is that I'm
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: never going to be Nat King Cole. You know, he
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: was everything he was in He synthesized his time, everything
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: about his time made him. Do you know? There was
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a something radical about Nat because to be that unflappable,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to be that cool in the midst of the climate
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of this country, to come in that package beautiful yes,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: handsome yes, but a dark skin brother, you know, because
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: there's racism and then there's colorism too in America that
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you know, even within the spectrum the evil spectrum of racism,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that if you were light you were treated better than
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: if you were dark. You know, that's that's sort of
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: built into the horror show of our history. And for
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Nat to find his cool, to find his his footing
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and his confidence in the midst of all that, you
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: know that that's radical. He was a unicorn, and he was,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in his own way an iconoclassed, you know, an activist
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: just by existing, you know, you let us know what
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: was what was possible if you dared to be excellent anyway.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So but for me, I live in a different time,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a different country, has formed me, the same thing does
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: not apply. I had a really astute coach tell me
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: once about sort of my this cool affect that I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was putting on at one point, because we try to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: later our heroes, you know, I was so I was
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: trying to early on in my career, trying to be
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: some version of Sammy Davis Junior Slash and at King
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Cole Slash, you know, these guys. And he said, it's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: not gonna work on you. He said, because it is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: very clear to me, it's very apparent to me that
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you've been loved your whole life, Your parents loved you,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: didn't they I said, yes they did. He said, yeah,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it shows you got you gotta work harder, you have
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to pull from a different place. He said, what those
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: guys were up against for them to find their cool
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was the tension. That was the tension you stepping on
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: stage and showing me how easy it is for you.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I'm bored, find something else, dig deeper, and it really
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: it changed things for me. You know. Ron Coleman was
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: his name, brilliant cat. How old were you when he
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: gave you that speech? I was not. I want that young.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I was in my mid twenties, you know, twenty five,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: twenty six. He was like, you know, cut the cool
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: shit out, like it's not enough. How did you feel after?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: He I mean, in retrospective, of course it's brilliant, but
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at the time that had to be a little tough
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to hear. Oh, I've always loved that man. A great coach.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Olympic athletes have coaches, the NBA All Stars have coaches.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: The best of us. You need somebody on the outside
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: telling you what it looks like, telling you what they see,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and telling you how to get better. If you have
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a desire to get better. I've always loved that tell
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: me the truth. And here's the thing. A friend of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: mine says, her name is Lacy, Lacy C. Clark. The
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: best thing she's ever told me, dear friends, she said,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the truth without love is brutality. So there was so
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: much love. And what he was telling me, he really
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: cared about me when he was he was telling me
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the baseline truth. You know, he really wanted me to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: understand something. But there was so much love in it.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: He was not trying to to destroy me. He was
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: not trying to kill me. He was trying to help me.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And I could feel it, and it made me better.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Effort effort he was. You know, you're you're living in
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a different time. You come from a different experience. Do
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: not repeat those same moves. You can glean something from
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: their lives, You can take something from what they built.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: You know, you are you can be a link in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the chain, you know, but you must understand what you're
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: here to say and how to say it for a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: new generation. Okay, I want to talk a little bit
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: about your background, because you're talking a lot about coaching
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and experiences you had. You grew up in Philly, you
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: were born in New York. Your parents sounded strict but loving. Yeah, strict,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: strict but but indulgent. Yes, what was the music in
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: your house growing up? My dad was a music is
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a music lover he had and he had an extensive
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: record collection. You know. One of the things he on
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the low never forgave his mom for was he went
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: away to college and she threw away his record collection.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: She just got rid of it. She was tired of
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: like tripping over it in the house, and she threw
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: away his record collection. So he never forgave her, but
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: he did his best to like to get his records back,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and they were probably ten literal crates, you know, just
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: like plastic crates, some records in our basement. My dad
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: had me very young, twenty three when he had me, so,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you know, no judgment on the guy. But like weekends
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was when my dad would, you know, he'd get a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: little lite, you know what I mean, he'd have some
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: beers and he put his records on, you know, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: he'd be dancing with my mom and singing at the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: top of his lungs badly. What was the music he
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: was listening to? It was soul. It was mostly soul
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and R and B music. It was like Marvin Gay,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the Ohio Players, the tempt James Brown is my dad's
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: all time favorite artists. Some Motown in there too, but yeah,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: it was the music of his He came of age
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: in the in the seventies, so it was luck. Yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I was hearing lots of sixties and seventies and then eighties.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: They loved the modern stuff of the time too, which
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: was what like Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson. Of course MJ
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was huge. Was there a song or an album or
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a moment where you thought, well, maybe I can do
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: music too, Like I like this, I want this for myself.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: It was late when I when I'm talking the kids,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I really try to keep it simple for them because
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: it was simple for me. There was no grand ambition involved. Bruce,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I have to be you know. I was not thinking
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that I was gonna be some you know, recording artists.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I was just following my curiosity. I was doing what
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was fun. I was doing what I loved to do.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So when I'm talking to them, I'm saying, love something,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: love it with your whole heart. I bet I want
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to know. You tell me too, if this is true,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You tell me if it's good advice, because what I
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: say is love is a verb. If there's something that
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you're interested in, read about it, talk about it, find
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: other people that love it too, dream about it, write
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: about it, and eventually you will find your way to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the world that you love and it will love you back,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: not always in the way that you expect it to,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: but in the way that you need. Yeah. Absolutely. Now,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: you did see Rent when you were thirteen, and that
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: left a big impression. It did. Rent brought a generation
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: of people to the theater. Lyn Manuel included. Really, you know,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Rent was like it was like the bat signal. It
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: let us all know there's a place for you. It's
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: sort of controversial for me to say, but Michael Jackson
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: was big. It's complicated with these people as we learn
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: more about them over time, and we have to sort
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: of reckon with the art and the human you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: we have to reckon with the totality of who they were,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and then we you know, we hold the art up
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and am I still allowed to love this? You know?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But Michael had a big effect on me, and Michael
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Michael made worlds. You know, there was no art that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: had a bigger effect on me as a as a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: young person than Thriller. It was really it was that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: that movie, the John Landis short film that he made,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and then the making of Thriller. That's short about the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: making of Thriller where where they let us in on process,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: where they let us in on the making of it.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And I was like, and what a what a generous thing,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: what a fascinating thing to see them in rehearsal, to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: see Michael Peters teaching the dancers, and they're in there,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: you know, perfect their eighties get up, you know what
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, the crop tops and the headbands and the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and and they're laughing, and Michael and Ola
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Ray are finding their chemistry, you know, before they're in costume.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You're just watching them sort of dance around each other
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and get to know each other. I mean, my god,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I was more interest sit in that than I was
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: in the Monster movie that they made, which I loved
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a lot. But the thing that I wanted to watch
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: again and again was I wanted to watch Michael put
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the plaster on his face and then and put the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: teeth in and all that stuff. So when I got
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: to Broadway, when Rent sort of was that bat signal
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that I talked about I was like, oh, man, they
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: make worlds here. They build worlds here. When I got
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to the Nederlander Theater, I was seventeen years old when
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I went into rent On Broadway and I got there
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and they had the metal scaffolding and the and the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: fog machine was going before the audience walked in, and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: there's a there's just that that kind that certain perfect
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: chill in the air in a New York Broadway the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: house that you feel it felt like as close to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I was going to be a part of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: thrillers as I could get before you made it to Broadway.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: You studied at Freedom Theater in Philadelphia, and also you
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: studied dance in Philadelphia. Yeah. Um, they were both at
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: black institutions. That's right. And I just think it's an
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: interesting moment because particularly with Kamala Harris who went to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Howard Tonahasi Coates, whom I know a little and admire
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a lot, went to Howard and really encourages a lot
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of people to go to historically black universities. Yeah, because
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: he thinks it's you need a kind of safe place
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to find yourself. What was it like for you or
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: what did I what do you think that brought you
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: going to black institutions to study at that point rather
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: than integrated institutions. Probably the same thing that you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I have dear sweet friends out here in la that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: send their their children to Jewish day school, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: or or the people that send their kids to to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Christian academies and Christian schools. It's just like really making
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: friends with your with your identity and with your you know,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: your your history, making friends with that and so so
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that no one so that no one can take that
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: away from you or ever make you ashamed of it,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: or probably a little bit of that. And then I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: think cities have a character. I've learned now as I've
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: traveled around post Hamilton with all these concerts and speaking
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: engagements and stuff, the touring that I've that I've been
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: able to do since leaving the show, you really get
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: a sense of it's a it's a strange thing, or
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe not so strange at all, but you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: you get to Boston and you're like, oh, oh, yeah,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: these are the people that would take that tea and
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: dump it into the harbor. The Boston's the place that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: would do that, you know what I mean. It's it's
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: unlike any other places they've got They've got a character.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: There's a character to the people of that city and Philadelphia.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: It does not surprise me one bit that this election,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you know that that Philadelphia has has, you know, played
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: its role in earning this thing around for America. Whatever
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you believe, whatever side you were on, Philadelphia mattered, and Philadelphia,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a character to to my town. There
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: was a wonderful thing training at that that those formative
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: years of my life, I took it for granted. Every
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: single one of my friends was young, gifted, and black,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: like I was not. I was not special. I was
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: not the most talented person in any of those classes.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I was far. I was not you know when I
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: was in when I was in my dance classes, I
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: was not the best student or the best speaker or
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: any of that stuff. All of my friends were brilliant
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and we and that was like, that was the that
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: was the minimum, like, you know, to hang in this set,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you were supposed to be, you know, all of these things.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And that's I think that that is what you hear
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Ton of high See talking about Howard, and you hear
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Kamala talking about her experience at Howard on our elementary
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: school level. That's what I was experiencing, I think at
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Freedom Theater, at Philadenko and so Yes, I took. I
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: carried that with me wherever I went, you know, in
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the rooms that followed. If you know, if you didn't
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: think I was good enough, if you didn't think that
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I was worthy of the air in my lungs or
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the space that I was taking up, something was wrong
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: with you. I never ever thought that it was something
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that I should fix about myself, you know, beyond beyond
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: character flaw. You know, there's, of course that I've worked
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: on myself as a human being. But you know what
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, like that there was that there was anything
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: intrinsically wrong with me because of the color of my skin.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I mean not in Philadelphia. No, you then went to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Carnegie Mellon after you were in rent and Broadway, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: then became a working actor in Los Angeles. But you
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: gave up singing for a while. Yeah, had you not
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: been encouraged as a singer before that, I just didn't know.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it was possible, And there were a
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: lot of It's hard enough. It's like pick one, you know,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: it's hard enough trying to make it as one thing.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I just decided to focus on being an actor,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and that that just took up all my energy, took
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: up all my time. I was auditioning for shows and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: getting them sometimes, but I didn't know that, you know,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that making records and stuff like that was possible. I met,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I met Joseph, this guy that I've take
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: talked about several times. I didn't meet Joseph until you know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Leap of Faith on Broadway, and Joseph is the guy
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that turned it all around. Joseph was the guy that
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: said I want to make records with you, and people
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: had said that to me over the years, but nobody
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: followed through. You know. Yeah, I don't understand how you
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: needed to raise money for a record after you and Rent.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: I just assumed, like when you left the stage during Rent,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: somebody just just jumped a big bucket of money on
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: your head and just sing into the mic and we'll
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: make it a record. Where Wow about the music business,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you know, greater identifying talent. You wrote a terrific book, which,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: by the way, I've got little little kids, but both
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: of them are going to read this book. They're all
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: enough too. It's called Failing Up, and it is it's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a short book, but it's just about your experiences and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it's fantastic and it's full of great thoughts, but it's
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a very painful passage in which you are in a show,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a TV show, and Vulture, which was from New York magazine,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: was doing recaps of the show and they referred to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: you only as token. Yeah, you talk about it in
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the book because he could you tell me about how
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that felt? It was not unlike Ron Coleman's advice to me.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it was sobering and you know, yeah, a little,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a little hurtful or a little you know, a little
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: not hurtful. What happens? What is the thing that happens
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: when you hear a truth that you that that is
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: hard to hear? And did you think there was truth?
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And absolutely there was truth in it because they were
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: responding to how the show was treating me, and that
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: show marginalized me at every turn. That's just the truth.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I felt it when I was in it. That was
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that made that show so challenging
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to beyond one of the reasons. But yeah, I was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I was I was a token and I knew it,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and that that is reductive and painful, you know, to
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: live through. And Vulture exposed it and exposed them and me.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: And the part that I guess, I guess the most
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: hurtful part I've never really thought about this is like
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: when Vulture put sit in the in a weekly column,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I have to ask myself, well, what are you going
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to do about it? Now it's been called out, It's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: not it's not being hidden. You are a token. You're
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: being treated like a token. You're allowing yourself to be
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: treated like a token. What are you going to do
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: about it? And I, yeah, I had to make somebody
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to make some changes turning that around. You then went
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: to Broadway and you know, it was one of the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: great It was what felt so revolutionary about Hamilton was
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that these historical white characters were being played by African Americans,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: people of different races. What was that like. You'd had
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the security of going to sort of you know, you
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: studied in an all black theater. You then did a
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: lot of different work. What was it like to get
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: up on stage and say, I'm a black guy, I'm
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: playing a famous white guy, also a bad guy. But
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: what was that like, Well, I think I actually, you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I know, my degree says I got what I think?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I get a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Carnegie Million University.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: You know, majored in drama. But I actually think, you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you could also to synonym for empathy. I'm majored in empathy.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And this was the greatest empathetic challenge that I've ever
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: been given. I've been taught a lot about the Founding Fathers,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: we all have, but no one's ever ever before lin
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Manuel tried to get me to empathize with the Founding Fathers.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And there's a curious thing that happens as a young
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: thirty something year old black man when you try to
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: empathize with you know, these men, these complicated these complicated men.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: There's there's parts of them that you understand, parts of
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: them that you'll never understand, and that tension, that dissonance
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: that it's actually the spaces in which it doesn't quite
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: fit that is really interesting for an audience to watch.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: It's the places that it is incongruous, the places that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense, that make us keep watching. When
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you watch Davi Digs at the top of Act two,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: step out on that stage as Thomas Jefferson. It is
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the weirdest and he's talking to his slaves, and it
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't there's something, especially in a country with a history
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of black face in vaudeville. You know that is a
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: part of us two that you know that as a
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: part of our DNA too. And we've and you and
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I both we've we've both grown up. It was in
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: our cartoons it was you know that that also is
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: not and the hateful, mean, reductive caricature that is drawn
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: from black face. We feel that too. We feel that
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: an aunt Jemima and uncle Ben, we felt that you
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and I we grew up in this country. You know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: they've changed these images slightly, of course to try to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: be more politically correct. But we know what they were
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: when we were children, and my and my parents know
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: what they or when they were children. So that's a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: part of us too. And so now to have men
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and women, so now it's going the other way right
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: on some level, this is the this is the same thing,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: but we're not being It is with a with an
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: entirely different spirit. It is with an entirely different spirit,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: an entirely different intention. There's reverence, there is judgment, there
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: is a point of view. So anyway, it was just
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: a powerful exercise, a powerful experience that made good on
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: my training. You know, I went and got all these
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: great tools at Carnegie Mellon University, and I come out
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of school and for the most part, I'm a part
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of shows that want me to be, you know, the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: best friend of the best friend of the best friend
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: of the white lead. You know, and and continuously tell
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: me and affirm for me. You're welcome here. But as
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: long as you stay on the outskirts, as long as
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you stay on the margins, you are not the center.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: You're not You're not interesting enough, You're not worthy enough
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: to be the center of a narrative. Your story isn't
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: quite doesn't just doesn't quite matter as much. It's waited
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: differently as this other story. You know. It was just
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a message that I was being told again and again,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and Lynn decided to do something different, to do something radical,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that he did. You know, it
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: makes me think for the first time that had you
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: been the only black member of the cast and you'd
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: been Aaron Byrd, the villain, how differently, Oh yeah, it
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: would feel. That's what I was disarming, was was the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: whole cast. It makes me think of the old you know.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: They made a movie of Jesus Christ Superstars, right, and
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the only black performer played Judas, and that always upset me. Yeah,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: you bring you bring him up. Carl Anderson is his name,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and he is top five most influential performers for me.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Top five Carl Anderson. Really, Oh are you kidding me?
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It's you know, it's a strange thing that happens. I
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: was listening to a podcast and it was even about
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Muslim Americans and how there are children that grew up,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you know, identifying with and sort of sometimes rooting for
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the bad guy in the way stories were told because
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: that was their only representation. It was the only time
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: they were seeing themselves and so not that they're rooting for.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: But you know what I'm saying, like, oh my god,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: there I am, you know, And so later on you
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: unpack that and you go, God, why did I only
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: ever see myself as the represented as the bad guy,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: as the villain, So Carl, at the time that I
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: was seeing Jesus Christ Superstar, all I saw was just this,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Oh man, just if somebody put my Aaron Burr in
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the same cannons as Carl Anderson. Man, I'd be done.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I just thought he the work is so nuanced and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: beautiful and human and gorgeous. My god, he's so good
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: in that part. Yeah, I want to talk a little
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: bit about you're singing, but I'm interested in because you're
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a jazz singer, or you're described as a jazz singer,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: you've done jazz albums, But I don't. It's a little
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: hard for me to understand what the state of jazz
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: singing is because I think it's something most people still
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: associate with, you know, a previous you know, a previous
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: generation at least you know they think of like the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yellow Fitzgerald songbooks. She also did a fabulous Christmas album
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: by the way. Yeah, Or you know Peggy Lee, maybe
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Diane Reeves, you know the Seravan who's a big favorite
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of mine. You know, I could tell you what sort
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: of modern jazz is for a saxophone player, for a
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: piano player, what is it for a singer where How
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: do you feel you fit in too? Sort of what
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: jazz is today? Oh, I feel like I've fit in again.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: It is not unlike those rooms that I was training
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. I am far from the best in any
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: room of jazz singers that you'll meet. Yeah, jazz ain't
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: going anywhere, you know, They jazz survives, and so I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: just I just think it. It looks a little different,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: but it's still out here. I'm in, I hope in
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the tradition of a Frank of a Gnat, of a
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Billy x Stein, even Chet, you know, once Chet started singing.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm a certain kind of of jazz singer.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: But you know, when you really talk about the exceptional improvisers,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, the people that are out there pushing
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the form, synthesizing all that was and all that is
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and making a making a stab at what it's going
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to be in the future, those people are out there.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Even you look at you listen to you listen to
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: um Kendrick, Kendrick Lamars, Kendrick Lamars to Pimp a Butterfly
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: or you know, Kendrick is is making jazz. Maybe not
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: jazz albums, but they are. There is heavy jazz in
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: fluences on these Kedrick Lamar records, Commons another one always
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: jazz on a common record. So yeah, I just think
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: it's you know, for its survival. It is finding pockets
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: in the popular culture to exist and feed itself. But
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you seem to be in a different category. So for example,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: when you do you do a great version of you
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: mentioned it favorite Things, Yeah on your previous album. Anybody
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: who grew up in the twentieth century thinks of Julie Andrews.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: But you can't listen to years without thinking of like Coltrane. Hey,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: it's there, isn't it. Yeah? God, I hope so the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: or the inspiration anyway, Yeah, I hope. I'm in a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: laying on That's That's what you're trying to do, which
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: is what any artist is trying to do. And it
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: takes a while. Some people get it, get to it
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: quicker than others. Look at Little Billie Eilish and you
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: know Amy what Amy Winehouse was able to give us
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: before she left us far too soon. Some some artists
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: are able to get to it sooner. I can get
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to it. Until I got to you know, I was
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: in my early thirties when I really started to come
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: into my own thanks to Ron Coleman, thanks to Lynn
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Manuel and some other people who really helped me figure
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: out what it is that I could offer that no
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: one else was offering, because that's what you gotta do.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: You gotta figure out what are you gonna say that's
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: not already being said better by someone else? You know
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: what ground are you gonna hope? There is something? There's
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: something you can offer, but it takes experimentation and a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: little bit of courage to find what that thing is.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: What are the albums I'm gonna make that nobody's already making.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Leslie Odom Junior. We're back
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: with the rest of Bruce Helem's conversation with Leslie Odom Junior.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: When did you start recording the This Christmas Album? June?
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: So it was full pandemic when you were doing Yeah,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: we did it relatively quickly, it was, and it was
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a part of the pivot. COVID caught us all in
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the middle of something, right. Everybody ever, shit is never convenient.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, now is the perfect time for
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: me to deal with a quarantine. Everybody was like, fuck man,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I just got started on something. So two or three
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: months into the pandemic, I think there was something about
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I was reminded of the holidays, because as Americans, the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: only time we really allow ourselves the time to push
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the pause button. Are those three weeks between Christmas and
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: New Year's right? Every everything about it we are about
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the grind, the hustle, the like. We don't pause except
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: for those And we were on pause. And so there
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was Almas like, this feels like I'm a weird it's
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: a weird Christmas, but this feels this is the only
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: time we do. This is Christmas time. So we took
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: our COVID tests and you know, we got the band
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: back together and tried to I tried to imagine what
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: people might be in need of at the end of
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: this really challenging year. You make some really interesting choices.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: You're talking your book about making always trying to make
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: very informed, until actual choices. You know, in this case,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a great version of Little Drummer Boy
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: with the South African choir. How did that come about?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: How Joseph did he came up with the arrangement idea?
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: He did He wanted it to the drums of Little
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Drummer Boy to be set somewhere in Africa, you know,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: he didn't Is it gonna be West Africa? Is it
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: gonna be South Africa. You know, we were gonna be
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: specific about it, not just you know, generic Africa. But
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: he that was his inspiration, that was his little idea.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, man, you know, try it, let
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: me let me hear it when it's done. And yeah,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: he came up with the very the rudiments, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and I got in there and I recorded a version
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: of it, and this, you know, the process was not
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: unlike what I described to you. Kind of start just
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: at that basic what are the what are the words?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: You know, what is the melody? And then we sent
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: it to this this chorus, this youth chorus in South Africa,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: and they sent us back something that was so far
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: beyond anything we antissipated. And so then we had to
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: then make the arrangement match what they'd sent us back.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I had to re record the vocal and Farren Nephew Feamster,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: who's my other major collaborator on this record, he just
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: made the arrangement as big and as bright and beautiful
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: as the vocals they sent us back. Was it tough
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: for you to come in with a vocal that worked
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: with what they were doing? No, they were so beautiful.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I mean they God, I'm so I could cry, I'm
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: so moved by people that you call them and you
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: ask them if they want to collaborate, and you know,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: people give you the best of them. Know, when we
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: sent them our version, they built their version around what
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: we sent them, So it was always taking me into consideration.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: You know, they they they were building their thing around
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the little humble thing we sent them. It sounds a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: lot like Paul Simon's experience with grace Land, going and saying,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: here's a little idea, and then you know, the guitar
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: player comes back with like a killer riff. And we
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: thought a lot about Graceland when they sent it back
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: to us. What was missing was what we realized is
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: that the way we could serve them actually was to
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: bring more America, was to bring more pop. That was
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: what it was. Because we sent them, we sent them
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: something pretty rock and stick. I mean it was like
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: it was it was drum and bass maybe, you know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and we we thought we were it was going to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: be pretty acapella, like a pretty acapella arrangement. So so
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: then they send us back that you know, they just
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: they filled out the vocal spectrum and it was just
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: this choir coming back and it was like, we're failing them.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: We have to match them, and what do we add
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: in there? We add the cultural exchange is the mix
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: of the two. So now let's what pop sounds. What
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: what can we add to the spectrum that is, you know,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the mel holding of our two cultures. You read it
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Winter song, Yeah, with your co star from Harriet. Yes,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: tell me how that came about. Cynthia did a big
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: holiday concert at the Apollo a few years ago, her
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and Shoshana Bean and we sang this lot the only
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: time we've ever sang it. We sang it live at
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: this concert and it felt good. Man. It was just
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like, oh, yeah, why wasn't this
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: song a duet to begin with? Because yeah, that song
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: started as a duets. It's an Ingrid Michaelson Sarah Barella's
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: song that I turned into a solo version. Cynthia and
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I turned it back into a duet, and so I
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: just I couldn't miss the opportunity to get that on record,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: and we should mention this is Cynthia a Rivo Arivo
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Academy Award nominees the Arivo who I think and I
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the People's initial reaction to seeing you in Hamilton.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I think she's another one of those people. If you
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: don't know her and you see her on TV or something,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: she comes out and starts singing, You're just like what
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: she queened the world? How come I've never heard this before?
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: This is so incredible. She's just that kind of talent. Yeah,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: this this thing was our labor of love. At the
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: end of the day, I hope we decorated the studio
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: to feel like Christmas, you know, but there there's a
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: there's a reverence and a somber quality to my first
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Christmas record that that just that's you know, that was
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: honestly where I was for whatever the reasons were at
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: that time, and I'm not in that same place even
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: in the middle of everything we're going through. I'm generally,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I've gone on a search, a hunt for
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: my joy the last couple of years, and I wanted
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: that present on this record. So I remember I was
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: jumping around the studio when Cynthia was in the booth
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: recording her vocals, just jumping for joy because she sounded
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: so good and it was happy. It was, you know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: coming to life. And she just said on the mic
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: She was like, you're really happy, aren't you, And I
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: said I, but I loved that my friend could see it.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Another song, I wanted to mention a duet with your wife.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: You do it in Hebrew. Yes, we had a We
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: had a brilliant rabbi as our coach on that day
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: because we wanted to. We wanted to our pronunciation to
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: be accurate and respectful. Um so I'm gonna barely attempt
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: to say it now, but it's my old seward. I
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: think it's how you say it, but I need the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: rabbi here to coach me again. I was very keen
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: on expanding that table, you know, expanding that the really
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: I think of the holiday time, I said that that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that three weeks between Christmas and New Year's that is
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: that is America's high holy time. And some people are
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: celebrating Hanaka, some people are celebrating Quanta, some people are
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: celebrating Christmas. Some people are just celebrating family, and they're
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: just celebrating rest. I want to celebrate it all, you know.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I want to. I want to. I want people to
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: feel seen, and let's make that holiday family portrait a
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: little bigger. You know what I mean? When you told
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: your wife you wanted to do a duet. Was she thinking,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you know, baby, it's cold outside or something? You said, well, no,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: it's like that, except it's a thirteenth century Rabbinical song.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you you, I don't know if
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: you does it. But my wife is half Jewish. I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: mean I didn't know that. Now. Yeah, technically she would
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: be considered her mother is Jewish and her father's African American,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: and so mixed race, mixed faith upbringing. And so I've
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: spent we've been together twelve years, and so I have
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: spent twelve years observing, in addition to all my High
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Holy Days, observing the High Holy Days on the Jewish
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: calendar as well. And it has just God has gotten
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: larger for me. You know, I want to ask you
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: just about one more song, because it probably hit me
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the hardest, maybe because it's the simplest. It's your version
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: of old Langsyne. How did that come about? It's just
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you and a guitar. Yeah, it hits me too, that melody,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: that sentiment before we go into a new year, let's
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: honor who isn't going with us? Should old acquaintance be forgot?
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: And brought to mind, should old acquaintance be forgot and
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: old landsign? It's just like I've been singing it for
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: years now in my concerts. It always works. It always
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: makes me feel something, And if it makes you feel something,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: chances are it's going to make somebody else feel something too.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's a perfect place to stop. But I
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: have one favor. Could you sing the next two lines?
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Four Lansine, my dear for Lansine. We'll take a couple
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of kindness yet for Lansine. Thank you so much for
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: doing this. Thank you, guys, appreciate you. Thanks to Leslie
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Adam Junior for talking us through his beautiful new Christmas
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: album and for lifting our spirits. You can hear Leslie's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Christmas album, along with some of our other favorite Christmas
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: songs at a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken record Podcast. There you can find
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: extended cuts of new and old episodes. Broken Record is
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and his executive Produced by Miola Bell. Broken
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. And if you
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: our show on your podcast appen our theme musics by
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond bass