Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Karla Bonoff
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. For
- 0:12Speaker 1: those of you new to the show, I interview musicians,
- 0:15Speaker 1: tech stars, business people and hope to give you some
- 0:18Speaker 1: entertainment and some education at the same time. For those
- 0:22Speaker 1: who've been listening for a year already, you know the drill.
- 0:26Speaker 1: My guest today is songwriter and performer extraordinary Carla Bonoff.
- 0:31Speaker 1: I normally don't give a huge intro, but I'm going
- 0:33Speaker 1: to it this case. How did we know the name
- 0:36Speaker 1: Carla Bonoff? She wrote songs on the Linda Ronstad album
- 0:42Speaker 1: Hastened Down the Wind, and I moved to l a permanently.
- 0:47Speaker 1: I was here a little bit before that, but permanently
- 0:50Speaker 1: in the summer of seventy six, and I used to
- 0:51Speaker 1: go to this record store which no longer exists, called
- 0:54Speaker 1: Grammy and Granny Records in Westwood and one of the
- 0:58Speaker 1: benefits of living in Los Angeles as you could buy
- 1:01Speaker 1: promo records people cash them in. This is what it was,
- 1:05Speaker 1: still vinyl before CD. I get a few tales about
- 1:08Speaker 1: selling my promo c d s. But in the bin
- 1:14Speaker 1: I saw Carla's debut album. Okay, I still have it
- 1:17Speaker 1: with the price stick around it because I kept all
- 1:19Speaker 1: my vinyl. It could have been it was either a
- 1:21Speaker 1: dollar ninety nine or two forty seven. And I came
- 1:24Speaker 1: home and I played it. I loved it so much.
- 1:26Speaker 1: I literally went back and bought all the copies and
- 1:29Speaker 1: gave them to my friends. And I can tell you
- 1:31Speaker 1: story after story about turning people on to the first album.
- 1:35Speaker 1: In any event, Carla, glad to have you on the show.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Thank you. It's a privilege to be here. So how
- 1:41Speaker 1: did you get those tracks on the ron Stad album? Oh? Wow,
- 1:47Speaker 1: there's a lot of history. I mean, that's what the
- 1:50Speaker 1: shows about. Well, it really goes back to Kenny Edwards. Okay,
- 1:54Speaker 1: tell my audience who Kenny Edwards was an incredible musician
- 1:58Speaker 1: and songwriter. But he began in the Stone Ponies with
- 2:02Speaker 1: Linda Ronstep. So when Linda came out from Tucson with
- 2:05Speaker 1: Bobby Kimmel and they got together with Kenny and they
- 2:08Speaker 1: formed that band. So I met Kenny right after the
- 2:12Speaker 1: Stone Ponies broke up and we started our own band
- 2:17Speaker 1: with Wendy Waldman and myself and Andrew gold Um called Brindle.
- 2:22Speaker 1: So we got signed to A and M. We made
- 2:24Speaker 1: a record they dropped us, which fell apart, and Kenny
- 2:29Speaker 1: and Andrew went back and started playing in Linda's band.
- 2:31Speaker 1: Right about the time she was really hitting it big
- 2:34Speaker 1: with that heart like a will. So Kenny would go
- 2:38Speaker 1: off on these tours and I would I was writing,
- 2:41Speaker 1: and I would give him cassettes and you know, hey,
- 2:44Speaker 1: maybe just put this in Linda's person Um, nothing would
- 2:48Speaker 1: ever happened really with it. And then when one day
- 2:50Speaker 1: called me up, he goes. You know, I decided maybe
- 2:52Speaker 1: if I just picked up a guitar and played the
- 2:55Speaker 1: song for her myself, um, and she would hear it,
- 2:59Speaker 1: and he did, added a sound check, he played her
- 3:01Speaker 1: Lose Again and she totally loved it, and they learned
- 3:05Speaker 1: it right there and it was in the show. And
- 3:09Speaker 1: so they came back to play the universal lamphitheater. She
- 3:11Speaker 1: was playing like twelve nights. That was the day before.
- 3:15Speaker 1: There was a roof before they down, and yeah, that
- 3:19Speaker 1: was a fun that was a fun run. But that's
- 3:22Speaker 1: when she started doing them. So that's lose Again, did three?
- 3:27Speaker 1: She did if He's Ever? So she was getting ready
- 3:31Speaker 1: to make the next record. I guess um hastened down
- 3:35Speaker 1: the wind. So then then she asked me if I
- 3:38Speaker 1: had more so. Then I just started, well, how about
- 3:40Speaker 1: this one? How about this one? So that's how it
- 3:42Speaker 1: ended up being three once I think her mind kind
- 3:46Speaker 1: of opened up to the idea. Then she then all
- 3:49Speaker 1: of a sudden it was three. And it was kind
- 3:53Speaker 1: of weird for me because I was getting ready to
- 3:54Speaker 1: make my own record too. I didn't have a whole
- 3:56Speaker 1: lot of other songs. Those are my good songs, so
- 4:00Speaker 1: we can talk about that. But I ended up recording
- 4:01Speaker 1: them all those same three songs, right right, And I
- 4:04Speaker 1: think your versions are much better. Usually the person who
- 4:07Speaker 1: wrote the song add something extra that someone does not.
- 4:11Speaker 1: But without making it about Ronstad, how did you feel,
- 4:15Speaker 1: I mean, this is a totally different era. There are
- 4:17Speaker 1: many fewer records out. Linda Ronstadt one of the biggest
- 4:20Speaker 1: acts in the country, and she's going to record your tracks.
- 4:23Speaker 1: In an addition, you're gonna get paid. So what was
- 4:27Speaker 1: going on in your brain? Well, I mean it was
- 4:29Speaker 1: huge for me because I'd been, you know, playing with
- 4:32Speaker 1: my sister and playing in Brindle and playing the troubadour,
- 4:35Speaker 1: and I mean I've been out there for ten years really,
- 4:38Speaker 1: from the time I was fifteen till maybe twenty five.
- 4:42Speaker 1: When this happened just you know, not going to college,
- 4:46Speaker 1: trying to make a living. So it was like an
- 4:48Speaker 1: overnight for me, like three songs on that album. You're right,
- 4:52Speaker 1: I mean not only the recognition, but the fact that
- 4:55Speaker 1: I would suddenly probably make like a serious amount of
- 4:58Speaker 1: money from Okay, So how long did it take to
- 5:01Speaker 1: see a check after the album came out? Trying to
- 5:05Speaker 1: remember it takes a while, I know, That's why I'm
- 5:08Speaker 1: asked you. Yeah, probably a year. Okay. So when the
- 5:11Speaker 1: money came in, did you treat yourself to anything? Well,
- 5:16Speaker 1: I actually had a business manager who was also Linda's
- 5:18Speaker 1: business manager, and he said to me, you you need
- 5:21Speaker 1: to either buy a house or invest your money or
- 5:24Speaker 1: do something because otherwise Uncle Sam's just gonna take it.
- 5:28Speaker 1: And he was a great business manager. And so I
- 5:30Speaker 1: bought my first house, which I lived in for twenty
- 5:33Speaker 1: one years. So where was that house in the Hollywood Hills? Okay?
- 5:38Speaker 1: And now you live in Santa Barbara. I think that's
- 5:40Speaker 1: a well known fact. We're not going to give the street. Um,
- 5:43Speaker 1: did you move from Hollywood Santa Barbara? Was there some
- 5:45Speaker 1: place in between? Now? I moved straight from twenty one
- 5:48Speaker 1: years in the Hollywood Hills to Santa Barbara. What was
- 5:51Speaker 1: the decision there? The decision, I think was the fact
- 5:55Speaker 1: that A the music business was not really you know,
- 5:58Speaker 1: centered here, and I was touring mostly, and I realized
- 6:02Speaker 1: I can't fly from anywhere. I don't have to live
- 6:05Speaker 1: here to go on the road. And I think also
- 6:08Speaker 1: the traffic had gotten so bad that I wasn't leaving
- 6:12Speaker 1: my house. I was stuck in my house except for
- 6:15Speaker 1: maybe these these hours between eleven and one where you
- 6:18Speaker 1: could go out. And and I just went, why am
- 6:21Speaker 1: I doing this? I don't need to live here. I
- 6:23Speaker 1: don't have a job here. Um, And I was tired.
- 6:28Speaker 1: You know, I'm born and raised here. I wanted to
- 6:30Speaker 1: live somewhere different, never lived. So how many years ago
- 6:33Speaker 1: did you move to bar Twenty years ago? Now? Okay,
- 6:36Speaker 1: and that worked for you. You were glad about the position.
- 6:39Speaker 1: I wish I'd done it sooner. Okay, let's go back
- 6:42Speaker 1: to the beginning. You're born and raised here where West
- 6:45Speaker 1: l A West? I mean for those of us, I
- 6:47Speaker 1: literally live in West l A. So we're in West
- 6:50Speaker 1: l A right New u c. L A. On a
- 6:52Speaker 1: street called Warner Avenue. Okay, I don't I can't I
- 6:56Speaker 1: know the street. Where is that? You know, we're a
- 6:57Speaker 1: Hillgard Avenue of course, so it's Hillgard comes down to Wilshire,
- 7:01Speaker 1: it turns kind of into Warner exactly for those people
- 7:07Speaker 1: don't know. It just really right up beside U C.
- 7:10Speaker 1: L A. So in Westwood, which, of course, in the
- 7:13Speaker 1: seventies was the hippest place in l A. And I
- 7:16Speaker 1: was a ghost top really well. When my parents bought
- 7:19Speaker 1: this house in the you know, in the fifties or forties. Um,
- 7:25Speaker 1: you know, it was a little college town. It was
- 7:26Speaker 1: a sleeping college town. You know, they wanted to live
- 7:30Speaker 1: there because it was quiet. Okay, let's stay there. Your
- 7:34Speaker 1: parents or your father did what for a living? My
- 7:36Speaker 1: father was a radiologist, okay, and so was my grandfather.
- 7:42Speaker 1: My grandfather, Um, was the first radiologist in Los Angeles,
- 7:46Speaker 1: actually first radio has doctors didn't specialize then, they were
- 7:51Speaker 1: general practitioners. So he went to USC and and actually
- 7:55Speaker 1: specialized in being a radiologist. This is your grandfather, my grandfather,
- 7:59Speaker 1: and and your father followed in his footsteps. And okay,
- 8:04Speaker 1: so it's married to your mother. Did your parents stay married? Yeah? Okay?
- 8:07Speaker 1: And how many kids too? I have an older sister,
- 8:10Speaker 1: an older sister, what's she up to or what it
- 8:12Speaker 1: was her life about? Um? She and I played music
- 8:14Speaker 1: together a lot and starting as teenagers. Um. And then
- 8:19Speaker 1: she decided she didn't really like it that much, so
- 8:21Speaker 1: she went back to school and got a PhD at
- 8:24Speaker 1: U c l A. And what in history of religions?
- 8:28Speaker 1: And what was your career if if there was one
- 8:30Speaker 1: after the PPD ended up teaching college. Okay, so you're there.
- 8:35Speaker 1: And did your parents make you take piano lessons? And yeah, yeah,
- 8:40Speaker 1: every young Jewish kid has certainly did. So what age
- 8:44Speaker 1: did you start at? Young? Like five six seven? We
- 8:48Speaker 1: had a very strict Russian piano teacher and that was
- 8:53Speaker 1: your parents idea, not your idea, okay? And did you practice? Yeah?
- 8:59Speaker 1: I did, but it was she expected a lot like
- 9:02Speaker 1: two three hours of practicing reading music, And so I
- 9:06Speaker 1: developed a definite distaste for it, and and finally rebelled
- 9:10Speaker 1: and went, I don't want to do this anymore. After
- 9:12Speaker 1: how many years, after three or four? I think by
- 9:15Speaker 1: the time I was eight or nine, I was no,
- 9:17Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. And did you give
- 9:19Speaker 1: up music completely playing music at that point? No? I
- 9:21Speaker 1: played clarinet in school. Yeah, and like yeah, in sixth
- 9:26Speaker 1: grade orchestra. Do you think you could still play it?
- 9:29Speaker 1: I don't know, okay, sexually. And when you go to
- 9:32Speaker 1: school where? I went to school at University Elementary School,
- 9:36Speaker 1: which was part of u c l A, which was
- 9:38Speaker 1: kind of an experimental grammar school, very liberal arts oriented,
- 9:43Speaker 1: lots of music and art. Um. I love that. Um,
- 9:47Speaker 1: it's on the campus of u c l A. Really,
- 9:49Speaker 1: And then I went into public school, which was horrible
- 9:52Speaker 1: from where where was high school? University High School right
- 9:55Speaker 1: in West l A, where a lot of musicians actually
- 9:58Speaker 1: went both before and after you. Okay, so you're in
- 10:02Speaker 1: your house now. It's hard for me to view this
- 10:05Speaker 1: through the eyes of a woman, But in my era
- 10:08Speaker 1: were very similar ages. Um, you got a transistor radio, okay,
- 10:14Speaker 1: which was a really big deal. And when you were
- 10:18Speaker 1: a boy, you listened to sports first. So were you
- 10:22Speaker 1: a radio listener? Were you addicted in that way? Yeah?
- 10:26Speaker 1: I remember having that transistor radio and listening to kf
- 10:29Speaker 1: W B B Mitchell read. But B Mitchell Read late
- 10:33Speaker 1: at night would play things like the Stone Ponies. That's
- 10:35Speaker 1: where I was hearing music like that. Okay, But what
- 10:38Speaker 1: you're I mean, let's let's go back before when the
- 10:41Speaker 1: Beatles hit in sixty four. Are you listening to the radio.
- 10:45Speaker 1: Are you up on popular music? Or is that a
- 10:47Speaker 1: turning point? Oh? Yeah, I was listening to all of it. Basically,
- 10:51Speaker 1: Beatles and Motown on transistor radio was a k h J.
- 10:55Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember definitely, But before that, because they're
- 11:00Speaker 1: really was Beatlemania where a beat you a big music
- 11:03Speaker 1: popular music fan. Well, I'm trying to place my years,
- 11:07Speaker 1: but I mean, what would what would have been before that?
- 11:10Speaker 1: I think, well, that was like the Four Seasons, the
- 11:12Speaker 1: Beach Boys. Yeah, I mean whatever was on the radio,
- 11:16Speaker 1: we were absorbing. So you were definitely hooked on the radio.
- 11:20Speaker 1: And at what point does it cross your mind, WHOA,
- 11:25Speaker 1: I want to do this for a living? Well, see
- 11:28Speaker 1: that's a guitar lessons and that kind of well a
- 11:32Speaker 1: little bit slower, right. You gave up the piano after throw,
- 11:35Speaker 1: I gave a piano. I played violin and clarinet, and
- 11:38Speaker 1: I finally picked up a nylon string. That's how it
- 11:41Speaker 1: all started, a harmony nylon string from Westwood Music, and um,
- 11:49Speaker 1: you know it just sort of rang about for me.
- 11:51Speaker 1: I got that and so when in this history because
- 11:55Speaker 1: we had a nylon string guitar in the house that
- 11:58Speaker 1: we didn't play during the folk era prior to the Beatles,
- 12:01Speaker 1: and then after the Beatles we started playing that and
- 12:03Speaker 1: then went to electrics whatever. So did you get your
- 12:05Speaker 1: folk guitar to play Beatles songs? Or we were playing
- 12:09Speaker 1: you know, we were playing folk music, folk music, Train
- 12:13Speaker 1: Puff the Magic Dragon right right right. It was Peter
- 12:16Speaker 1: Paul and Mary was sort of early music. Yeah, and
- 12:21Speaker 1: five Miles and all that other stuff. So you got
- 12:24Speaker 1: the guitar from Westwood Music? Howd you learn how to
- 12:27Speaker 1: play it? I ha got guitar lessons, but I taught
- 12:30Speaker 1: myself a lot by ear. I remember just having the
- 12:33Speaker 1: turntable and like putting on the Peter Paul and Mary
- 12:36Speaker 1: record and just you know, learning how to play it.
- 12:39Speaker 1: I just could figure it out. Okay. At this point,
- 12:42Speaker 1: do you feel okay? You said you played music with
- 12:45Speaker 1: your sister. Was she playing the guitar too? We were
- 12:48Speaker 1: both playing Okay. But outside of the house where you
- 12:52Speaker 1: had did you have a lot of friends who were
- 12:54Speaker 1: also into playing music? No? No, this was my I
- 12:58Speaker 1: would just get my school work done and then go
- 13:00Speaker 1: into my own head and that was my escape. So
- 13:05Speaker 1: so you were really dedicated. You would really sit there
- 13:08Speaker 1: with the records, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It was the only
- 13:11Speaker 1: thing that held my attention really, and maybe because public
- 13:14Speaker 1: school was so bad, we didn't have great teachers. But
- 13:19Speaker 1: and then I was fortunate enough I kind of outgrew
- 13:21Speaker 1: this guitar teacher. I had Prayabe when I was thirteen
- 13:24Speaker 1: or fourteen, and she said, I don't think I can
- 13:27Speaker 1: teach you anything else. I think you need to go
- 13:29Speaker 1: to the fellow that taught me. Who was this guy
- 13:32Speaker 1: Frank Hamilton's. It was in the Weavers and taught right
- 13:36Speaker 1: around the corner from here. Were in downtown Hollywood now
- 13:39Speaker 1: Barney Kestle's Music World, which is at the Yucca and
- 13:43Speaker 1: Vine Street I heard about. I've never been there before
- 13:45Speaker 1: my time. L It was a music store and then
- 13:47Speaker 1: little cubicles with guitar teachers. So Frank, of course was
- 13:52Speaker 1: just what an amazing talent. And you talk about learning
- 13:57Speaker 1: the real folk music, you know, he was teaching me
- 14:00Speaker 1: those arrangements from the Weavers. That's where I learned the
- 14:02Speaker 1: waters wide and Okay, so you govern the guitar lesson
- 14:06Speaker 1: traditionally half an hour you call them. You really practice.
- 14:09Speaker 1: This was your thing, okay, and at what point a
- 14:15Speaker 1: do you think, well, this could be a career path.
- 14:18Speaker 1: You know, what happened was I started I don't know why,
- 14:20Speaker 1: I just started writing melodies and music. I wasn't writing lyrics.
- 14:25Speaker 1: My sister was really into poetry, so and we were
- 14:28Speaker 1: both playing acoustic guitar. So we decided, I think this
- 14:31Speaker 1: was right about when Joni Mitchell's first came, right that
- 14:35Speaker 1: we wanted to make music like that. So we started
- 14:38Speaker 1: trying to write songs like that. Okay. For those of
- 14:42Speaker 1: us who grew up outside of Los Angeles, California was
- 14:45Speaker 1: a dream. Okay. We had the Beach Boys, we had
- 14:49Speaker 1: all these other things. We watched all the shows made
- 14:51Speaker 1: in southern California. Now, were you here realizing that you
- 14:55Speaker 1: were at the epicenter of the scene, that the acts
- 14:58Speaker 1: were in Laurel Canyon and you go see in the clubs, etcetera.
- 15:02Speaker 1: You know, when you're in the middle of it, you
- 15:03Speaker 1: don't you don't see that. Of course, looking back now,
- 15:07Speaker 1: it's like insane when I think about all the music
- 15:10Speaker 1: I could go here, and what was happening at the
- 15:13Speaker 1: troubudaor I mean, it's crazy that we could see Joni
- 15:16Speaker 1: Mitchell play for two weeks, two sets at night in
- 15:19Speaker 1: the Tribute or a hundred and fifty people in there.
- 15:22Speaker 1: But I mean it never occurred to me. What's it
- 15:24Speaker 1: like growing up in somewhere in Michigan. I had no idea. Okay,
- 15:28Speaker 1: so you're playing guitar with your sister. At what point
- 15:31Speaker 1: do you start going out to hear in music? Well,
- 15:34Speaker 1: we were already going out to hear music. I mean
- 15:36Speaker 1: we were going to the Tributor every chance we could
- 15:38Speaker 1: get to. Okay, people, this was now you had to
- 15:41Speaker 1: driver's license or how did you get that? She did?
- 15:43Speaker 1: She would drive us. Okay, So you would go to
- 15:45Speaker 1: the Troubadoor. Where else would you go? We went to
- 15:49Speaker 1: the Tribuador God. We would go to the Santa Monica Civic.
- 15:52Speaker 1: They were concerts there. There was this um place called
- 15:56Speaker 1: the Valley Music Theater that turned into a Jehovah's Witnesses
- 16:00Speaker 1: that had like we see the Doors and Jefferson Airplane. There.
- 16:04Speaker 1: There was a place that Cheetah on the Venice Pier
- 16:07Speaker 1: that had like the same kind of acts. Um the
- 16:10Speaker 1: Hullabaloo here in Hollywood. UM had a revolving stage that
- 16:15Speaker 1: would go around and they would switch the band so
- 16:17Speaker 1: it'd be like Neil Diamond and then the stage would turn.
- 16:20Speaker 1: It would be Iron Butterfly, and then the stage would
- 16:23Speaker 1: turn and it would be UM the Sunshine Company. I
- 16:27Speaker 1: mean all those groups. And okay, so you went with
- 16:30Speaker 1: your sister, But was there a whole group of girls
- 16:32Speaker 1: who would go with these shows that you would know
- 16:34Speaker 1: or just the two of you? It was just us,
- 16:37Speaker 1: but we met people. We met other people like in
- 16:40Speaker 1: the Troubadour who were doing the same thing we were doing.
- 16:43Speaker 1: And there were a lot of people on those Monday nights. Okay,
- 16:47Speaker 1: well from my audience talked about Monday night. UM. During
- 16:50Speaker 1: the week the Troubador had national acts like James Taylor,
- 16:53Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell. Earlier than that, we went to see people
- 16:57Speaker 1: like Joe and Eddie and Buffy st re right right right,
- 17:01Speaker 1: you know, Um Joe and Eddio from Toronto. Bob ezbrind
- 17:04Speaker 1: goes on to me all the time I had had
- 17:06Speaker 1: a dial them up on the internet. I've never even
- 17:08Speaker 1: heard of them. Yeah, so there were acts like that.
- 17:11Speaker 1: I remember Tim Buckley was of course one of the
- 17:14Speaker 1: great albums. Yeah, and Robert Klein would open for Tim Buckley.
- 17:18Speaker 1: Really they always would have comedians. So I'm trying to
- 17:22Speaker 1: think of all the people we would go see everything
- 17:24Speaker 1: that was happening there. Um. So you're in terms of money,
- 17:28Speaker 1: you're in my family. If it was had to do
- 17:30Speaker 1: with the arts, there was unlimited money. And in terms
- 17:33Speaker 1: of going to the show, where did the money come from?
- 17:37Speaker 1: Your allowance or your parents? Dug into the roll and
- 17:40Speaker 1: thought about that. I guess it wasn't expensive to go
- 17:43Speaker 1: to the True Door. It probably was like six dollars
- 17:46Speaker 1: or five dollars to get in there. I think we
- 17:49Speaker 1: never had any trouble getting in there. Okay, so it's
- 17:52Speaker 1: Monday night is hoot night. Monday night was whot night. Um.
- 17:56Speaker 1: And maybe there were four or five slots in that
- 18:00Speaker 1: you could get on, just to be clear, because I
- 18:02Speaker 1: was this is before my time, so there were only
- 18:06Speaker 1: four or five acts a night. Well, I think that
- 18:09Speaker 1: the record companies maybe would put acts on for just
- 18:13Speaker 1: those of us who were connected to anything there. The
- 18:17Speaker 1: way you had to do it was you had to
- 18:18Speaker 1: line up at the box office, um, and wait for
- 18:21Speaker 1: them to open the window and then if you were
- 18:23Speaker 1: one of the first four to sign up, you could
- 18:26Speaker 1: get on. So I would literally cut school. I would
- 18:29Speaker 1: climb over the fence at Uni, go to the troubador
- 18:33Speaker 1: and then sit there in that little alcove in the
- 18:35Speaker 1: window and and get my sister and I on to
- 18:39Speaker 1: that thing, you know. And it was terrifying. I was
- 18:42Speaker 1: so afraid doing them. But I mean, Jackson Brown would
- 18:46Speaker 1: be doing them more every now and then somebody like
- 18:49Speaker 1: Neil Young would just come and doing for fun. I mean.
- 18:51Speaker 1: And in those days that the you know, the bar
- 18:53Speaker 1: was on the inside and record company people were there,
- 18:57Speaker 1: and it was scary because a lot of people would
- 19:01Speaker 1: see you. Okay, so do you remember what year you
- 19:03Speaker 1: first appeared? Um? I was sixteen, so probably, um, sixty
- 19:09Speaker 1: nine maybe, Okay, so you're there. Are you any good
- 19:13Speaker 1: the first time? I don't think so. I mean, I
- 19:16Speaker 1: think my sister and I had some promise we could play,
- 19:20Speaker 1: and I think I was writing some interesting music, but um,
- 19:24Speaker 1: I wasn't singing well and we were very young. Really,
- 19:28Speaker 1: you would you bill yourself as the daughters of Chester
- 19:32Speaker 1: p What does that mean? My dad was Chester Paul
- 19:37Speaker 1: bon Off. So we came up with that name for
- 19:40Speaker 1: because Lisa and Carlos seemed stupid. So okay, so how
- 19:44Speaker 1: many times do you do that? At the Troubadoor? We
- 19:48Speaker 1: did them a lot. We also went down to Pasadena
- 19:50Speaker 1: and did the ice House. We did that. There was
- 19:54Speaker 1: a little restaurant in Santa Monica called the Attica. We
- 19:57Speaker 1: would get up and play there. Um. One of our
- 20:00Speaker 1: very first I told the story the other night um
- 20:03Speaker 1: jobs that we got was at this club called Artie
- 20:05Speaker 1: Fat Buckles, which was at Sunset and Gardener, down some
- 20:09Speaker 1: little steps and we got hired. And the people that
- 20:13Speaker 1: hired us said, you'll be opening for these two guys.
- 20:16Speaker 1: Their name is Long Branch Penny was and we were
- 20:20Speaker 1: like who Um, So we walking in there was JD. Southern,
- 20:24Speaker 1: Glenn Fry twenty three and nineteen. Now you're there and
- 20:34Speaker 1: you're having these Are you I hate to use the
- 20:36Speaker 1: modern term, but I will anyway. Are you networking with people?
- 20:39Speaker 1: Are you saying are you just waiting for things to
- 20:41Speaker 1: come to you? I don't think anybody was thinking I wasn't.
- 20:46Speaker 1: We were just excited to be playing there, and I
- 20:50Speaker 1: think to be just in the environment. Um. When Jackson
- 20:54Speaker 1: would get up and play a new song. It would
- 20:56Speaker 1: just be amazing to me. I mean, I don't think
- 20:59Speaker 1: I was really thinking about getting a record del yet.
- 21:01Speaker 1: I was just feeling whether that could be something I
- 21:05Speaker 1: could actually do. Um. We did ultimately make a demo
- 21:10Speaker 1: for Electra. I still have a coffee of it. It's
- 21:14Speaker 1: pretty My sister and I did. We got um. I
- 21:18Speaker 1: went to school with Jim Densmore, who was John Densmore's
- 21:22Speaker 1: younger brother, and some have the Doors of the Doors.
- 21:26Speaker 1: John got us an audition UM with David Andrew Ley. Yes,
- 21:33Speaker 1: so we went in and they had us go in
- 21:35Speaker 1: the studio and play our repertoire live just you know.
- 21:40Speaker 1: So I actually have a tape of us playing that
- 21:42Speaker 1: and laughing and being embarrassed. And we didn't get signed.
- 21:46Speaker 1: But what do you remember what they said to not
- 21:49Speaker 1: make a deal. He said that we needed to remember this,
- 21:52Speaker 1: that we were too young and we needed to go
- 21:54Speaker 1: out and live a little, and we were just we
- 21:57Speaker 1: were horrified. Okay, now what comes to time to go
- 22:00Speaker 1: to college and you come from a family of radiologists,
- 22:04Speaker 1: how does that go down? Not? Well? Not well? Um,
- 22:11Speaker 1: they just said to me, we would like you to
- 22:13Speaker 1: try to at least go. I got into u c
- 22:15Speaker 1: l A. Um, go to college just for one semester, okay,
- 22:19Speaker 1: but when did you decide you weren't going well, I didn't.
- 22:24Speaker 1: I mean at this when we lost a little time here. Actually,
- 22:26Speaker 1: my sister and I broke up because she wanted to
- 22:28Speaker 1: go back to school. So I met Kenny Edwards. How um,
- 22:34Speaker 1: how I had my sister. Oh, here's how it happened.
- 22:37Speaker 1: My sister and I decided we wanted to do transcendental meditation.
- 22:42Speaker 1: So they had a big meeting at Royce Hall at
- 22:44Speaker 1: u c l A. And it was a meeting to
- 22:48Speaker 1: sort of learn about going up to Squaw Valley for
- 22:51Speaker 1: a month with Marishi. So my sister and I went
- 22:54Speaker 1: to this and I remember spotting this really handsome, tall
- 22:58Speaker 1: guy walking up the aisle and I realized it was
- 23:02Speaker 1: that's Kenny Edwards of the Stone Ponies. I mean to me,
- 23:06Speaker 1: he was a rock star of course, of course, and um,
- 23:09Speaker 1: so that's how I met Kenny. Actually I did go
- 23:11Speaker 1: to Squaw Valley and I well a little bit slower, right.
- 23:15Speaker 1: So now you're at Royce, Saul, do you go up
- 23:17Speaker 1: and introduce yourself? Now I didn't there but my sister
- 23:20Speaker 1: and I signed up to go to this month long
- 23:22Speaker 1: course with the Maharishi at Squaw Valley. I was sixteen
- 23:28Speaker 1: or seventeen, she was nineteen. What did your parents say?
- 23:32Speaker 1: They let us go? I'm sure quite why? And so
- 23:36Speaker 1: you were there? How many people were in Squaw Valley
- 23:39Speaker 1: people and Kenny was one of them. And I spotted
- 23:42Speaker 1: Kenny and I had my Martin guitar and I followed
- 23:46Speaker 1: him around and convinced him that I could play the
- 23:48Speaker 1: guitar as well as Joni Mitchell. So was he giving?
- 23:54Speaker 1: Was he giving you the time of day? You know,
- 23:57Speaker 1: he had just gotten out of the Stone Ponies, and
- 23:59Speaker 1: I think he really wanted to focus on his spirituality
- 24:03Speaker 1: and he was not really I don't know. He wasn't
- 24:06Speaker 1: focused on me at least not at that point. But
- 24:08Speaker 1: ultimately there was a romance with Kenny. How much longer
- 24:12Speaker 1: after you meet him? Does? Um? He went off to
- 24:15Speaker 1: India because he was really deep. He was deep into
- 24:17Speaker 1: it and he wanted to become a teacher. So he
- 24:20Speaker 1: went off to India. But when he came back, um,
- 24:24Speaker 1: somehow we got together and he knew Wendy Waldman and
- 24:31Speaker 1: Andrew Gold from another. I can't even remember how he
- 24:34Speaker 1: knew them, but we all got together and decided to
- 24:37Speaker 1: form a group. So our romance began and our group
- 24:41Speaker 1: Brindle began, probably Candle, Oh God, Andrew thought up the
- 24:48Speaker 1: name and he spelled it with a y because he
- 24:51Speaker 1: was such a Birds fan. So we just went, Okay,
- 24:55Speaker 1: that sounds good. So it's got nothing to do with
- 24:57Speaker 1: those dogs that are different colors, striped whatever. Okay, so
- 25:02Speaker 1: you're forming a band because everybody's hanging out or you saying,
- 25:05Speaker 1: we're going to form a band and we're going to
- 25:06Speaker 1: get a deal and we're gonna make it. We were
- 25:09Speaker 1: serious at that point. We wanted to get a deal
- 25:11Speaker 1: and we wanted to make it, and we did get
- 25:14Speaker 1: a deal. Okay, But before that, when did you decide
- 25:18Speaker 1: you didn't want to go to college. I think at
- 25:21Speaker 1: that point, um, it was just becoming obvious to me.
- 25:25Speaker 1: I went for one summer quarter and got seasoned D's
- 25:28Speaker 1: and I was already so deeply in the music business
- 25:32Speaker 1: at that point. Um. No, my parents were not happy
- 25:35Speaker 1: about it, but I think I was lucky I found
- 25:38Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, you know, And Okay, so
- 25:41Speaker 1: you could at what point did you move out of
- 25:43Speaker 1: the house when I was about eighteen, and what we
- 25:46Speaker 1: you know, you're a musician. How you paying the rent?
- 25:49Speaker 1: How did we pay that? I moved in with Kenny
- 25:52Speaker 1: and in a house that Andrew also lived in, and
- 25:55Speaker 1: we rehearsed there and started our band. And so your parents,
- 26:00Speaker 1: I'm down on this totally. In fact, they were like,
- 26:05Speaker 1: if you're going to go do that, then leave your
- 26:06Speaker 1: car here and we're not giving you anything. Um. I
- 26:12Speaker 1: think they thought I would just turn around and come
- 26:13Speaker 1: right back. But I'm not quite sure how we survived.
- 26:17Speaker 1: It was just amazing. We didn't need a lot of
- 26:19Speaker 1: money then, right, that's differently, you can't make it a
- 26:22Speaker 1: minimum wage today, whatever your money. We could ran a
- 26:25Speaker 1: big house for two hundred dollars a month for all
- 26:28Speaker 1: of us. And where was that house? Somewhere in West Ally. Yeah, okay,
- 26:34Speaker 1: so you're living in the house. You form the group,
- 26:36Speaker 1: so everybody in the group is living there. Wendy was
- 26:39Speaker 1: not living there because she was living into Panka Canyon
- 26:42Speaker 1: because she was married. So we three of us were
- 26:46Speaker 1: living there, but Wendy would come there. And how long
- 26:49Speaker 1: after you formed the band did you get your deal
- 26:52Speaker 1: with a and M. Somehow Wendy had met Chuck Plotkin.
- 26:56Speaker 1: I'm not sure how she met Chuck, but Chuck got
- 26:59Speaker 1: interested in us, and then he got us to deal
- 27:01Speaker 1: at Day and M. And you made a complete record
- 27:04Speaker 1: that didn't come out. We did. We made a record
- 27:06Speaker 1: with Chuck and UM Chad Stuart producing, And what was
- 27:13Speaker 1: the rationale for not releasing it? You know, I don't
- 27:17Speaker 1: think they got us. We were two girls and two
- 27:20Speaker 1: guys writing songs. This is before Fleetwood Mac. It's just maybe,
- 27:25Speaker 1: I mean, it really wasn't anything like that. I think
- 27:27Speaker 1: we're on the wrong label. They had the Carpenters, they
- 27:31Speaker 1: had UM, but they had Joe Cocker and Peter Frampton. Yeah.
- 27:36Speaker 1: I think it was two things. I think they didn't
- 27:38Speaker 1: understand what we were trying to do and we weren't
- 27:40Speaker 1: really that great yet. I think we needed to make
- 27:42Speaker 1: another record. Okay, so the record, even you would own
- 27:45Speaker 1: that the record was not I think Wendy was the
- 27:48Speaker 1: closest to being ready to make the record. Um. I
- 27:51Speaker 1: think that it was a little disjointed. Um okay, so
- 27:55Speaker 1: now the records rejected. Does the band girl really break up?
- 28:00Speaker 1: Not right away. We ended up going and playing a
- 28:02Speaker 1: Top forty bar out by the airport called the Carolina Lanes,
- 28:06Speaker 1: which was a nude room, a bowling alley, a rock
- 28:10Speaker 1: and roll basically a biker bar, rock and roll club.
- 28:14Speaker 1: Five sets a night like Top forty, and then we
- 28:17Speaker 1: would intersperse our Brindle songs in there. Wednesday night was
- 28:20Speaker 1: hot pants night. Okay, so what you do on Wendy
- 28:24Speaker 1: were hot pants? How about you? I don't think I
- 28:28Speaker 1: could do it. But the cool thing about that was
- 28:33Speaker 1: I had to play a lot. I learned to get
- 28:36Speaker 1: strong as a player because we had to play all
- 28:38Speaker 1: these Rolling Stones tunes and Carol King tunes, and so
- 28:41Speaker 1: I had to learn all this stuff and play all
- 28:43Speaker 1: the keyboard parts. And I mean it really actually was
- 28:46Speaker 1: good for all of us. I think, um just getting
- 28:50Speaker 1: strong as a musician, being able to play that much.
- 28:52Speaker 1: So how long does that gig last? It didn't last
- 28:57Speaker 1: very long because I think ultimately Linda had guys go
- 29:00Speaker 1: and play out in her band, and for us that
- 29:03Speaker 1: was like, you know, and Wendy got signed to Warner Brothers,
- 29:05Speaker 1: so it kind of fell apart. They went and worked
- 29:08Speaker 1: for Linda. I mean, Kenny was making nine dollars a week,
- 29:11Speaker 1: which was like, oh my god, we started saving money. Okay,
- 29:17Speaker 1: but you were suddenly the odd person out. You didn't
- 29:20Speaker 1: have a solo deal and you weren't with Linda. I
- 29:23Speaker 1: would think that was would be depressing. Well I was.
- 29:26Speaker 1: I was Kenny's girlfriend. So for me, what was interesting
- 29:31Speaker 1: about that time when I got to go out on
- 29:33Speaker 1: the road a lot and kind of watch Linda and
- 29:36Speaker 1: learn from Linda, see what it was like to be
- 29:39Speaker 1: on the road beyond the bus. And you know, she
- 29:44Speaker 1: really taught me a lot just watching what she had
- 29:46Speaker 1: to go through, just watching her do her makeup, watching
- 29:50Speaker 1: her figure out what to wear. So you're on the
- 29:53Speaker 1: road with your boyfriend and Linda and you're learning all
- 29:55Speaker 1: these lessons from Linda. Yeah, and how long does that
- 29:59Speaker 1: go on? I mean I didn't do it all the time,
- 30:01Speaker 1: but I you know, I would do it on and off.
- 30:03Speaker 1: And I mean it was really exciting. She was really
- 30:07Speaker 1: gigantic star. Yeah and so and it was I remember
- 30:10Speaker 1: when they when Kenyan Andrews first started going out with her,
- 30:14Speaker 1: they were sharing a room. I mean, so they really
- 30:17Speaker 1: started right at that base of things. And when they
- 30:21Speaker 1: came back and made the record that had You're No
- 30:23Speaker 1: Good and all that stuff on it. That was really
- 30:25Speaker 1: the big record for her. But they had learned all
- 30:27Speaker 1: that stuff on the road and then I mean, I
- 30:30Speaker 1: remember when they were flying on the Concorde and I think,
- 30:34Speaker 1: caviare you know? So it changed changed, right, It's almost
- 30:38Speaker 1: hard to comprehend. But okay, you're on the road some
- 30:41Speaker 1: now you're at home, you're writing songs. Yeah. At that
- 30:45Speaker 1: point I really just had, you know, to figure out
- 30:48Speaker 1: what I was going to do. So I just kept
- 30:51Speaker 1: trying to get better as a writer. And how did
- 30:54Speaker 1: you get your deal with Columbia. I actually got my
- 30:57Speaker 1: deal playing a Monday night at the Troube door. Um
- 31:00Speaker 1: I started doing those alone. UM Norman Epstein was managing
- 31:05Speaker 1: me and trying to get me gigs wherever we could,
- 31:08Speaker 1: but we would still do those Monday nights and UM
- 31:11Speaker 1: I played one of those. I think Linda had already
- 31:14Speaker 1: decided to do a couple of songs and I was
- 31:16Speaker 1: at the Tributor and this fellow, Peter Philbin came up
- 31:20Speaker 1: to the dressing room and said, I just want to
- 31:23Speaker 1: congratulate you. I love your music. I'm sure you're signed
- 31:25Speaker 1: to Asylum or whatever, and and we was like, no,
- 31:29Speaker 1: we're not signed. So he had just come out to
- 31:34Speaker 1: be an an or guy. He had not signed anybody.
- 31:36Speaker 1: He was brand new. So he brought me to Columbia.
- 31:40Speaker 1: But it was a long road because, um, I don't
- 31:44Speaker 1: think they trusted him a because he was new. So
- 31:47Speaker 1: they made me go to New York to the big
- 31:49Speaker 1: black Rock building and actually audition and for all of
- 31:56Speaker 1: the all of the people, like in one of those rooms,
- 32:00Speaker 1: one of those conference rooms with an upright piano. And
- 32:03Speaker 1: I've never been to New York, and I mean it
- 32:05Speaker 1: was terrifying. I remember I was staying in this hotel
- 32:08Speaker 1: and I woke up. We got there at night and
- 32:10Speaker 1: I looked back to the window and I went, why
- 32:12Speaker 1: is it so dark out there? There's nothing out there.
- 32:15Speaker 1: I didn't have any idea. I was looking at Central Park.
- 32:20Speaker 1: So yeah, in the morning, I had to go his
- 32:23Speaker 1: conference room with I was like Bruce lun Ball and
- 32:26Speaker 1: all those people, Yeah, and just play like on the
- 32:31Speaker 1: stupid piano and played the guitar, had a little dressed on,
- 32:35Speaker 1: and I remember they just thanked me and we left.
- 32:39Speaker 1: And then that night Peter took us to dinner and
- 32:42Speaker 1: I said, well, have you heard anythings like no, and
- 32:46Speaker 1: still nothing. Nothing. The next morning, nothing and I went, okay,
- 32:48Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here, and I just I think
- 32:51Speaker 1: I met up with Kenny on the road and it
- 32:53Speaker 1: was like a couple of days and then finally my
- 32:57Speaker 1: manager call and they said, well, they've decided to saw you.
- 33:01Speaker 1: You must have been elated. I was. And we were
- 33:04Speaker 1: also talking to Clive Davis too, so I can't remember
- 33:09Speaker 1: the time frame of that. But I also had to
- 33:11Speaker 1: go to the Beverly Hills Hotel to the bungalow and
- 33:14Speaker 1: play for Clive on the piano, and I think we
- 33:17Speaker 1: were balancing both of those. Thank God, you didn't sign
- 33:20Speaker 1: with Clive. Well, you know, I didn't sign with Clive
- 33:22Speaker 1: because I remember I played him someone to lay down
- 33:24Speaker 1: beside me, which was something I knew even then I
- 33:27Speaker 1: was really proud of. And he started trying to rewrite
- 33:30Speaker 1: it exactly and I said to Norman, I said, you
- 33:34Speaker 1: know what, I can't do that, you know, because that's
- 33:37Speaker 1: what's going to happen, like with everything. Um, so that's
- 33:42Speaker 1: why we didn't do that. Okay. So one of the
- 33:46Speaker 1: amazing things is about about your music is the insightful lyrics.
- 33:50Speaker 1: Let's start with someone to lay down beside me even
- 33:54Speaker 1: though it's not real, okay, which is the line? How
- 33:58Speaker 1: did you come up with that? I don't know, I
- 34:02Speaker 1: really don't know. I wrote the music first, and I
- 34:05Speaker 1: had the music for a long time, and I knew
- 34:07Speaker 1: that was that it was good, and I just couldn't
- 34:11Speaker 1: come up with any lyrics. And one night, I don't know,
- 34:13Speaker 1: I watched a TV show and I was just walking
- 34:15Speaker 1: around and I just sat down and it came out.
- 34:18Speaker 1: So it was one of the things very fast once
- 34:19Speaker 1: you were in the mood right, and of the tracks
- 34:22Speaker 1: on the first album where they all done that fast
- 34:25Speaker 1: when the time came, or were some eatd out over time.
- 34:30Speaker 1: The you know the way what would happen for me
- 34:32Speaker 1: is I wouldn't write very much, but when I would write,
- 34:34Speaker 1: it would happen fast. Um, so you were waiting for
- 34:37Speaker 1: inspiration to hit you. Yeah, And lyrics were always hard
- 34:41Speaker 1: for me. I could write are so phenomenal. I mean,
- 34:44Speaker 1: you know, if he's ever near, they say just once
- 34:46Speaker 1: in life you find someone right that's right, but love
- 34:49Speaker 1: so hard to find in this state of mind. I
- 34:52Speaker 1: hope I'll know if he's ever hear there's so much wisdom.
- 34:55Speaker 1: I mean, I'm quoting off the top of my head
- 34:57Speaker 1: forty year old lyrics and becau as they mean that
- 35:00Speaker 1: much to me. So I'm wondering, you know, the process
- 35:04Speaker 1: of coming up with that. Maybe it's quick, but what
- 35:07Speaker 1: kind of space are you in to have so much insight?
- 35:11Speaker 1: You know? It's mischief. You know when I look back
- 35:13Speaker 1: on being twenty three or four or however old I
- 35:17Speaker 1: was when I wrote those things, and I don't think
- 35:19Speaker 1: I was all that. I think it was very subconscious
- 35:24Speaker 1: and just stream of conscious. I wasn't really thinking about it.
- 35:28Speaker 1: It was just I think I was accessing just some
- 35:31Speaker 1: part of my brain that was pure and insightful. Well
- 35:36Speaker 1: that's one of the fascinating things about all these musicians.
- 35:40Speaker 1: You know, we laugh at teenager musicians at this point,
- 35:44Speaker 1: but a lot of the people were very young, certainly
- 35:46Speaker 1: Jackson Brown when he started writing whatever. And I can
- 35:49Speaker 1: listen to some of those records now in my sixties
- 35:53Speaker 1: and they finally understand them, okay, having lived all this time,
- 35:57Speaker 1: and I say, how did these people come up with
- 35:59Speaker 1: this in sight? Like at that age? He wrote these
- 36:02Speaker 1: days when he was sixteen, So how does that happen?
- 36:05Speaker 1: I mean, that's mysterious to me because obviously it's sixteen.
- 36:10Speaker 1: What could he know right exactly? But even you, I mean,
- 36:13Speaker 1: you're talking about in terms of relationships. Um, you know
- 36:19Speaker 1: Rose in the garden. You know, about having a relationship
- 36:23Speaker 1: and sometimes you have to let them go that you
- 36:27Speaker 1: know that didn't come from something in your life or
- 36:29Speaker 1: something I was trying to remember that, you know, I
- 36:37Speaker 1: think so, I mean, I think, Um, I don't know,
- 36:41Speaker 1: you know, that first batch of songs for me just came.
- 36:44Speaker 1: I felt like they were a gift. It just kind
- 36:47Speaker 1: of came to me from, you know, some other wonderful place.
- 36:52Speaker 1: You know. I still feel like that. I don't know,
- 36:54Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I was never able to go
- 36:56Speaker 1: I think I'm going to write a song about this,
- 36:58Speaker 1: or come up with a title like some people will
- 37:01Speaker 1: come up with a title and write a song. I
- 37:03Speaker 1: could never intellectualize about writing like that. And that's why
- 37:07Speaker 1: I think I'm not prolific, because I don't really know
- 37:10Speaker 1: how to. Yeah, but a couple of things, I mean,
- 37:13Speaker 1: you know, isn't it always love that you know makes
- 37:17Speaker 1: you cry, breaks your heart, but you wouldn't have it
- 37:19Speaker 1: any other way. I mean, these are songs that really
- 37:21Speaker 1: helped me through things. I mean, you know there's some
- 37:23Speaker 1: Jackson Brown lines to like, uh, you know, well without
- 37:28Speaker 1: quoting those things at this particular point, this is not
- 37:33Speaker 1: the kind of wisdom you find on a Kelly Clarkson
- 37:35Speaker 1: are justin Bieber record. In addition, it's not the kind
- 37:38Speaker 1: of wisdom you found back then, which I believe is
- 37:41Speaker 1: one of the I mean, I remember, you know, I've
- 37:44Speaker 1: told people about that album. You know, in the nineties,
- 37:46Speaker 1: back in the days of a O. L Chat, people
- 37:48Speaker 1: said they're in the music as you gotta get this
- 37:50Speaker 1: record and I'm not doing it. The both smoke up
- 37:52Speaker 1: your ask. That's how much the record meant to me.
- 37:55Speaker 1: So I have to believe you may not be revealing it,
- 37:59Speaker 1: but beneath the surface you must be a study of humanity.
- 38:04Speaker 1: You must be a student of humanity or have insight
- 38:06Speaker 1: that the average person probably does not. Maybe, Okay, let's
- 38:12Speaker 1: let's stay with writing songs. Okay, your first album comes out. Okay,
- 38:16Speaker 1: you're riding the coattails of Linda having covered your songs.
- 38:20Speaker 1: So what's it like when your album finally comes out? Well,
- 38:24Speaker 1: it was interesting. Um, there was some confusion obviously, because
- 38:28Speaker 1: Linda's album had come out like six months before mine,
- 38:32Speaker 1: and there were some similar musicians on the tracks too,
- 38:36Speaker 1: So um, I got a tour opening for Jackson. I
- 38:43Speaker 1: did a short club tour, and then I got a
- 38:44Speaker 1: tour opening for Jackson, and um, I had this moment
- 38:48Speaker 1: where I was playing the songs and realizing these people
- 38:52Speaker 1: think that I'm covering, of course, and it took me
- 38:57Speaker 1: about three or four nights to go, oh my god,
- 38:59Speaker 1: I'm going to have to how people I wrote these
- 39:02Speaker 1: They don't know. UM. So that was kind of horrifying
- 39:06Speaker 1: in a way. So there was some of that confusion.
- 39:08Speaker 1: But once I once I talked a little and explained
- 39:12Speaker 1: to people, and they were really on my side and
- 39:14Speaker 1: it was actually pretty wonderful. UM. And people often asked
- 39:18Speaker 1: me like, are you sorry? You gave Linda your best songs?
- 39:21Speaker 1: But if I hadn't, I don't know, you know what,
- 39:24Speaker 1: people have noticed me as much. I mean, would my
- 39:27Speaker 1: have first album done as well? Would people have paid
- 39:30Speaker 1: attention to it? Maybe not? You know, so when you
- 39:33Speaker 1: went out on the road, you go out alone. No,
- 39:35Speaker 1: I had a band on that first tour. Yeah, okay,
- 39:38Speaker 1: so you okay, you do that with Jackson, what's the
- 39:40Speaker 1: next step. Well, I did a couple of tours with Jackson,
- 39:44Speaker 1: and then of course you're in that Columbia Records time
- 39:47Speaker 1: thing where it's like, well, you gotta make another record,
- 39:49Speaker 1: so you come back. It took me ten years to
- 39:52Speaker 1: make that first one. I'm on the road for the
- 39:55Speaker 1: first time, and then you come home and you want
- 39:57Speaker 1: to breathe, and they want you to make another record.
- 39:59Speaker 1: And I really had maybe one or two songs, and
- 40:03Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you know, now I
- 40:06Speaker 1: have what six months to do this, So it was
- 40:09Speaker 1: pretty terrifying trying to you know, really then trying to
- 40:13Speaker 1: crank stuff out. I mean I did it, um, and
- 40:18Speaker 1: I had some help. Actually at the time, I was
- 40:20Speaker 1: dating Cameron Crowe and he was so young. He was
- 40:24Speaker 1: so much because I certainly know Cameron, I certainly know
- 40:28Speaker 1: Nancy Wilson and I don't, but I didn't know that
- 40:31Speaker 1: was part of your history. Well it was brief. But
- 40:34Speaker 1: he was so disciplined and so good about writing every day, um,
- 40:40Speaker 1: because I think he was working on fast times. Then
- 40:42Speaker 1: it was before that when that was becoming a book.
- 40:45Speaker 1: Um that he was such a good influence on me
- 40:47Speaker 1: because I was trying to write Restless Nights, and he
- 40:49Speaker 1: would write every day, and so I would write every day,
- 40:51Speaker 1: and um, I lived like a mile down the road
- 40:54Speaker 1: from him, and it really helped me focus and get
- 40:57Speaker 1: that record room. But let's stop just for one second.
- 41:00Speaker 1: How does it end with Kenny? Oh? How did it
- 41:04Speaker 1: end with Kenny? I don't know. It just kind of
- 41:07Speaker 1: fell apart, you know, the days of those days of
- 41:10Speaker 1: Hollywood and craziness and drugs and you know, it's just,
- 41:14Speaker 1: you know, we were together for nine years and it
- 41:17Speaker 1: just kind of we were great friends, but we just are.
- 41:21Speaker 1: Romance kind of disappeared. So we stayed friends for up
- 41:24Speaker 1: until a day. Okay, So how do you meet Cameron Crowe?
- 41:30Speaker 1: I met Cameron Crowe at the Universal Amphitheater at probably
- 41:34Speaker 1: at one of Linda's shows. Outside um, I think he
- 41:37Speaker 1: introduced himself. He was still writing for Rolling Stone, right, Yeah,
- 41:41Speaker 1: So okay, you know these are the perks of being famous.
- 41:45Speaker 1: Any other perks of being famous? Oh god, I don't know.
- 41:51Speaker 1: You mean meeting people like that? Meeting people opportunities, you know,
- 41:55Speaker 1: once you're a known quantity, not that I don't know.
- 42:00Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you get into first class occasionally on
- 42:03Speaker 1: an airplane. That doesn't even happen anymore. Okay, So Cameron
- 42:07Speaker 1: is very disciplined. So your disciplined and you crank out
- 42:10Speaker 1: the album. Are you happy with the album? I was
- 42:14Speaker 1: happy with most of it. I mean some of it.
- 42:17Speaker 1: That album to me has the water is wide, it
- 42:19Speaker 1: has um only a fool it had. I'm trying to
- 42:24Speaker 1: think one of their songs were on that, But I
- 42:26Speaker 1: thought that was a pretty good album. It had trouble again,
- 42:30Speaker 1: um when you walk in the room the letter, So
- 42:35Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't you know. I think my first
- 42:37Speaker 1: album is still probably my best album. But for how
- 42:41Speaker 1: fast I had to crank that one out, I think
- 42:42Speaker 1: it was okay. Okay, Now being on the inside of
- 42:45Speaker 1: the belly of the beast, Um, what was the label's
- 42:49Speaker 1: reaction into what degree was that record successful in their
- 42:53Speaker 1: eyes and your eyes commercially? You know, it was always
- 42:57Speaker 1: so hard for me to tell what they thought. It
- 42:59Speaker 1: was such a big record company and there were so
- 43:01Speaker 1: many big artists Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson and other
- 43:05Speaker 1: things that they were focused on. I don't really ever
- 43:08Speaker 1: think that that I got the shot. Maybe that I
- 43:11Speaker 1: should have had. I think they tried. Um, it's hard
- 43:17Speaker 1: to say, you know. I mean I think the production maybe,
- 43:19Speaker 1: you know, I don't know why there weren't more hits
- 43:21Speaker 1: on some of those things. I think, oh, baby don't
- 43:23Speaker 1: go with on that too. I think there were hit
- 43:25Speaker 1: songs on that album. Maybe we didn't produce them as hits.
- 43:29Speaker 1: I feel like there should have been hits. Um, And
- 43:32Speaker 1: is that record promotion? Is that the record itself? I
- 43:35Speaker 1: mean it's hard to hindsight when you try to look
- 43:38Speaker 1: at that and go, well, why couldn't they make Trouble
- 43:40Speaker 1: again it or Baby Don't go it? I mean, did
- 43:42Speaker 1: we not make the right record? I don't know. You
- 43:51Speaker 1: got to deliver a third album it was even harder. Yeah,
- 43:55Speaker 1: and then you they the so called work track was
- 43:58Speaker 1: a cover first, right. Um. Glenn Fry is the one
- 44:02Speaker 1: that played me personally. Um. I was at his house
- 44:05Speaker 1: and I don't know if you know, Glenn had a
- 44:07Speaker 1: great collection of obscure R and B stuff, so um,
- 44:12Speaker 1: he played me the Jackie Moore version of that from
- 44:15Speaker 1: seventy seven or something, and I remember saying to him, Wow,
- 44:18Speaker 1: what a cool song. I'm surprised nobody's made that a hit.
- 44:21Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, I was thinking I should send
- 44:23Speaker 1: that to Bonnie Rate. I was like, wait just a
- 44:28Speaker 1: minute there. So, um, that's how that came about. Glenn
- 44:32Speaker 1: produced part of that album, and then he and I
- 44:34Speaker 1: had a falling out. Well that's good, he's just he's
- 44:37Speaker 1: so we could talk. What was the falling out about?
- 44:40Speaker 1: I never could quite figure it out. Um, Glenn was
- 44:43Speaker 1: an interesting person and volatile and um, you know, once
- 44:48Speaker 1: Glenn decided he was not into something, then he was done. Um.
- 44:52Speaker 1: I don't really think it was anything that you could
- 44:54Speaker 1: point to specific. But so Kenny Cannon came in and
- 44:59Speaker 1: took up the the last half of that and help
- 45:01Speaker 1: me make the rest of that record. So it was
- 45:04Speaker 1: it was a tough album for me, Okay, and then
- 45:08Speaker 1: that album comes out and you're back on the road
- 45:12Speaker 1: and what is it like? It was pretty fun actually,
- 45:15Speaker 1: because I had a really good band. I had Kenny
- 45:18Speaker 1: and Andrew in my band and Mike Bots on drums
- 45:22Speaker 1: and a young keyboard player, Michael Rouff on keyboards. So
- 45:26Speaker 1: we had a great band and did a lot of
- 45:28Speaker 1: fun shows. So and I had a hit record of
- 45:31Speaker 1: some sort. Um. I also got to go out and
- 45:34Speaker 1: open for James Taylor on a summer tour, which you know,
- 45:37Speaker 1: James is my hero. So being able to watch James
- 45:41Speaker 1: every night and open for James was that was a
- 45:44Speaker 1: treat for me. And okay, that's cycle Lens. Then you
- 45:47Speaker 1: don't make a record. What happens? What does Columbia say? Well,
- 45:51Speaker 1: that's when the ship kind of hit the fan for me,
- 45:53Speaker 1: because I think I came home from that and that
- 45:56Speaker 1: album and all the things that kind of happened, and
- 46:00Speaker 1: I just got really depressed. Um and actually, looking back now,
- 46:04Speaker 1: clinically depressed at that point in my life, I, Um,
- 46:09Speaker 1: I just didn't want to make any more records. I
- 46:11Speaker 1: didn't want to do it. I didn't want to write, UM,
- 46:14Speaker 1: I didn't. I think I was confusing my personal happiness
- 46:18Speaker 1: with my professional happiness, Like why aren't I happy in
- 46:22Speaker 1: my personal life with you know, this success? And so
- 46:26Speaker 1: I kind of just rebelled against everything and I basically stopped,
- 46:31Speaker 1: you know, doing anything. So ultimately I got dropped by Columbia.
- 46:35Speaker 1: My manager left and went to work for a record label. UM,
- 46:39Speaker 1: so I had no record label, UM and I just
- 46:44Speaker 1: it took me a couple of years. I was in
- 46:46Speaker 1: a lot of therapy trying to get my life together. Um,
- 46:53Speaker 1: I learned that it takes medication to get out of
- 46:59Speaker 1: depression and really didn't exist then. Um. So, no matter
- 47:03Speaker 1: how much therapy I had, I couldn't seem to pull
- 47:05Speaker 1: myself out of that. And I didn't really come out
- 47:08Speaker 1: with prose Act till about eighty eight or nine, and
- 47:13Speaker 1: I finally I was at a therapist and she said
- 47:15Speaker 1: to me, you know, I said, look, I'm good. When
- 47:17Speaker 1: I leave here, I'm good for thirty minutes and then
- 47:20Speaker 1: I get home and it's just I'm right back there.
- 47:23Speaker 1: And she goes, you know, I think maybe you need
- 47:26Speaker 1: to be evaluator. And I went to somebody and they said,
- 47:29Speaker 1: I'm interested who you went to? Remember? Well, I went
- 47:32Speaker 1: towards psycho. Yeah yeah, but was he U c l A.
- 47:36Speaker 1: I went to somebody U c l A. We ultimately
- 47:41Speaker 1: got medical trouble. That's why his interest was the same.
- 47:43Speaker 1: They ask you all those questions, are you hopeless? Do
- 47:46Speaker 1: you know? Do you lose interest in things? And there
- 47:49Speaker 1: was a checklist then, um, and she said, well, I
- 47:53Speaker 1: think you need to be on some medication. I was like, fine,
- 47:56Speaker 1: just something and it was mind blowing to me. Within
- 47:59Speaker 1: three days of taking medication. I woke up and I went, oh,
- 48:03Speaker 1: my god, is this how normal people feel? Do you
- 48:06Speaker 1: remember what the medication was? It was prozac. I didn't
- 48:10Speaker 1: wake up with this feeling of like dread and hopelessness. Um,
- 48:16Speaker 1: when you wake up like that, you can't work, you
- 48:18Speaker 1: can't write, you can't create. Okay, so let's go back.
- 48:21Speaker 1: So do you still take prozac? No? Not anymore? How
- 48:25Speaker 1: long did you take it? For quite a while? I
- 48:29Speaker 1: mean I had, you know, probably ten fifteen years. And
- 48:32Speaker 1: how you decided to go off? I just started weaning
- 48:35Speaker 1: myself off of it, as it wasn't with a professional Yeah.
- 48:40Speaker 1: I think that once my life got back together and
- 48:43Speaker 1: things started to turn around again and I felt pretty
- 48:46Speaker 1: good and just I just experimented with it and I
- 48:49Speaker 1: was able to to stay off of it. Other people
- 48:52Speaker 1: my family and not the case. I think it's very genetic.
- 48:56Speaker 1: My mother was very depressed. My grandmother apparently couldn't get
- 49:00Speaker 1: out of bed and dress herself. I hear those things
- 49:03Speaker 1: about my great grandmother, So I think it's passed down
- 49:05Speaker 1: through the maternal side of my family. Um, I watched
- 49:11Speaker 1: my mother, I mean, as a kid, certainly going through it.
- 49:15Speaker 1: So I'm lucky that there was something for me and
- 49:18Speaker 1: I was able to kind of get what about your sister,
- 49:21Speaker 1: same thing for her? And so, but if you look
- 49:26Speaker 1: at it externally, if you live in Santa Barbara and
- 49:32Speaker 1: you live alone, Yeah, you live alone, that sounds like
- 49:36Speaker 1: it could be depressing. Yeah. Well, but I mean I stopped.
- 49:42Speaker 1: I stopped taking medication along before I moved up there. Okay,
- 49:47Speaker 1: but I'm just talking about what I guess I should
- 49:49Speaker 1: ask a question. Since you stopped taking the medication, do
- 49:52Speaker 1: you have episodes of depression. I've had one or two,
- 49:56Speaker 1: but they're really more about something specific, which is man
- 50:00Speaker 1: to Jamal, not this other kind of low grade thing
- 50:03Speaker 1: that you have no reason for having. Let's do not functional,
- 50:07Speaker 1: let's go back. Okay. So, but at the time you've
- 50:12Speaker 1: been on the road, everything was not perfect when you
- 50:17Speaker 1: started to sink into this depression. So do you think
- 50:20Speaker 1: the triggers were there? Yeah? I think that I wanted
- 50:26Speaker 1: a personal life too. I want to be happy, I
- 50:28Speaker 1: want to be in a relationship. I wanted all this
- 50:31Speaker 1: other stuff and I didn't have any of that. It
- 50:34Speaker 1: seemed like I had this music thing, and maybe I
- 50:37Speaker 1: was confused about what I thought that would bring to me,
- 50:40Speaker 1: and I think that was the ugly realization, which is
- 50:43Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in that. I mean, you know yours,
- 50:45Speaker 1: but generally speaking, I find that a lot of acts,
- 50:49Speaker 1: you know, are not whole emotionally, and they ultimately believe that,
- 50:55Speaker 1: you know, music will save them, and when the music
- 50:57Speaker 1: can't save him anymore, they can't write it other hit record.
- 51:01Speaker 1: Now that is not your case. You ultimately wrote great
- 51:04Speaker 1: stuff off that, But I find that a lot of
- 51:06Speaker 1: time people say, well, how come they can't write anywhere
- 51:08Speaker 1: they were in a different space. Yeah, I think, I
- 51:11Speaker 1: don't know. I think when I was younger, I was
- 51:13Speaker 1: hungry to get away from my family growing up and
- 51:19Speaker 1: to be a different kind of a person and to
- 51:21Speaker 1: prove that. There was a lot of proving I can
- 51:24Speaker 1: do this. And then once you've proven it in a
- 51:26Speaker 1: way and you've had some success, um, then you kind
- 51:30Speaker 1: of go, okay, well now what you know? So I
- 51:32Speaker 1: did that? Okay? So you say, now what, you've made
- 51:36Speaker 1: enough money that you didn't have to worry about money temporarily?
- 51:40Speaker 1: Not really okay, but you know that to duality, you're depressed,
- 51:44Speaker 1: and then you get depressed because you're not working and
- 51:46Speaker 1: it gets worse, and then you get to press because
- 51:48Speaker 1: you don't have any money, right, so then you have
- 51:50Speaker 1: to do something. Just basically what happened to me was
- 51:54Speaker 1: it got so bad I was going to lose my house.
- 51:56Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I gotta pull this out somehow,
- 51:58Speaker 1: I gotta do something. So what did you do? I
- 52:02Speaker 1: think I just did whatever I could. I tried to
- 52:05Speaker 1: write songs for movies. Um, I got lucky on I
- 52:10Speaker 1: met a fan who was writing, who was a music
- 52:12Speaker 1: supervisor for Miami Vice, and I got to write a
- 52:16Speaker 1: song for one of those shows, and that led to
- 52:20Speaker 1: making some demos for a record label, and just stuff
- 52:24Speaker 1: started happening again. Okay, so then ultimately you make a
- 52:27Speaker 1: record for Danny Goldberg. How does that come together? Um?
- 52:32Speaker 1: Jeff Hyman, who was a big fan of mine, UM,
- 52:35Speaker 1: was a and R for Danny Goldberg, and I think
- 52:38Speaker 1: he sought me out, and Um, I had a bunch
- 52:42Speaker 1: of songs at that point, I'd put a few together
- 52:44Speaker 1: and that's how I got signed there. Okay, ultimately, when
- 52:48Speaker 1: it's all said, because the album label ultimately went to
- 52:50Speaker 1: Funked and before you were on Columbia Good experience or
- 52:54Speaker 1: bad experience on gold Castle. It was good, really. I mean,
- 52:58Speaker 1: I think that was kind of a weird time the
- 53:00Speaker 1: early eighties a singer songwriters. The music was changing, and
- 53:04Speaker 1: so I don't think it was as easy of a
- 53:06Speaker 1: time for me or for a label like that. But
- 53:09Speaker 1: there was this whole um radio format, the Wave, which
- 53:13Speaker 1: saved me because they would play all this jazz stuff
- 53:17Speaker 1: and then they would play a few vocal things. So
- 53:19Speaker 1: they played two songs from that album a lot, and
- 53:23Speaker 1: that really kind of remember what two songs they were. Yes,
- 53:26Speaker 1: it was New World and Way of the Heart. Okay,
- 53:29Speaker 1: because this album is a real return to form, obviously
- 53:33Speaker 1: made on a budget as opposed to you know, working
- 53:36Speaker 1: for Columbia. But you know, goodbye my friend. I remember
- 53:40Speaker 1: writing about that on nine eleven. Okay, that's certainly a
- 53:44Speaker 1: great song and the best part of you. That's got
- 53:47Speaker 1: a great sound on it. Okay, still be getting over you. Wow.
- 53:52Speaker 1: I'm someone takes a really long time to get over people,
- 53:56Speaker 1: if I ever get over them. So that was there,
- 54:00Speaker 1: and you know, it's just one great track after another,
- 54:03Speaker 1: the one you mentioned, New World and all my Life
- 54:06Speaker 1: and tell me why. I mean, it's a surprise because
- 54:09Speaker 1: most people have been away cannot recapture the heights. But
- 54:13Speaker 1: this was something you said, Well, I it was on
- 54:15Speaker 1: a major label, maybe it would have been promoted to
- 54:17Speaker 1: the point would be as successful as the previous albums. Well,
- 54:21Speaker 1: I feel like if I hadn't lost those years and
- 54:23Speaker 1: I had made that album for Columbia, maybe, um, it
- 54:27Speaker 1: would have been different. Um. You know, Mark Oldenberg produced
- 54:31Speaker 1: that and he did a beautiful job. Unfortunately, that was
- 54:33Speaker 1: the time of the drum machine. So, um, you know,
- 54:37Speaker 1: we would like to go back and read something. Well,
- 54:40Speaker 1: you know that's one of the other things. Is even
- 54:43Speaker 1: there somebody you know the new Hosier track, it's got
- 54:45Speaker 1: a drum machine on and go. That's I mean, can
- 54:48Speaker 1: we can we get rid of that? Okay? So you
- 54:51Speaker 1: put out that album, okay, and that's kind of the
- 54:55Speaker 1: end of the new material, right, So what does that
- 54:59Speaker 1: sell us? I don't know. You know, um, I have
- 55:04Speaker 1: a couple of new songs, but you know, I've just
- 55:06Speaker 1: kind of I don't know. It's hard for me. It's
- 55:08Speaker 1: hard for me to be motivated to do it, I think,
- 55:11Speaker 1: especially in this climate. Well that's my question. You know,
- 55:15Speaker 1: now you can spend all the time and make the
- 55:17Speaker 1: record and ultimately fine, it's it's over in a day.
- 55:21Speaker 1: You put it out and get the bank and that's it.
- 55:23Speaker 1: So is that the motivating it is for me? I
- 55:26Speaker 1: mean I think what CITs now are something to sell
- 55:29Speaker 1: on the road, right, and maybe someone will play it
- 55:32Speaker 1: somewhere on a folk show or something. But so that
- 55:36Speaker 1: because I don't just do it because I gotta do
- 55:39Speaker 1: it and I gotta right and I'm not one of
- 55:40Speaker 1: those people. It's hard for me. I mean, it's hard
- 55:43Speaker 1: to make a record. It's a lot of work. Um
- 55:46Speaker 1: what about the concept of getting a publisher because you
- 55:49Speaker 1: know your skill level is at the A level and
- 55:52Speaker 1: theoretically writing a song that could be covered by somebody else.
- 55:56Speaker 1: Maybe I don't really know how that works these days. Um, well,
- 56:00Speaker 1: you publish your own songs, who administers them? I do, okay?
- 56:05Speaker 1: So you do everything yourself. You're not with you know,
- 56:08Speaker 1: because they have these administrators like Cobalt. I mean there's
- 56:12Speaker 1: different sides of publishing, but they have you know, Cobalt
- 56:15Speaker 1: in downtown based on technology where they say they can
- 56:20Speaker 1: find all this money overseas, etcetera. You haven't explored that, well,
- 56:25Speaker 1: I have a great business manager who they administer that
- 56:28Speaker 1: and they take care of that stuff for me. So
- 56:30Speaker 1: I don't know if to find out, I think you
- 56:32Speaker 1: should explore that. Not that the business manager shouldn't get paid, okay,
- 56:36Speaker 1: but it's not like the old days with one guy
- 56:38Speaker 1: can go to meet him and you know, collect all
- 56:40Speaker 1: the money, etcetera to have those meetings. And it's of
- 56:43Speaker 1: course there's certain publishers who work you know, who worked
- 56:47Speaker 1: tracks to what degreeed people are open to that you'd
- 56:49Speaker 1: have to meet with people. Okay. So if you're not
- 56:51Speaker 1: the type of person who needs to write music, what
- 56:54Speaker 1: is your life about today? Well, I'm on the road
- 56:57Speaker 1: a lot um with Nina Gerber, my great guitar player.
- 57:01Speaker 1: So we've been touring a lot um. So I do that.
- 57:04Speaker 1: Um usually weekends we do weekend wyor Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. UM.
- 57:10Speaker 1: I do have this new CD, right, we'll get to that.
- 57:13Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a minutum. And I live
- 57:15Speaker 1: in a beautiful place. I you know, I live on
- 57:18Speaker 1: an acre and I have gardens, and I have lots
- 57:21Speaker 1: of friends, and I don't deal with traffic, and um,
- 57:24Speaker 1: you know it's good. I don't know, you know, if
- 57:26Speaker 1: I made a record, what like you say, what it's
- 57:29Speaker 1: over in a day, right, right, it's hard. So let's
- 57:32Speaker 1: go back. So now you've reached the pitnacle. You've had
- 57:36Speaker 1: a hit record, you had lit a rod stack cover
- 57:38Speaker 1: your records, you had a major label deal, and you
- 57:41Speaker 1: also say you woke up one day and your personal
- 57:45Speaker 1: life was not living up to snuff. In your mind
- 57:49Speaker 1: all these years later, any regrets anything you would have
- 57:53Speaker 1: done differently knowing we can't. But as we're talking about well,
- 57:58Speaker 1: I think, you know we were talking about this. I
- 58:01Speaker 1: think if I were I wish that I had had
- 58:03Speaker 1: someone smart enough around me to say, you know, this
- 58:06Speaker 1: time in the in the music business, it's like being
- 58:08Speaker 1: an athlete. You probably got about ten years where you
- 58:13Speaker 1: really have your opportunity and don't worry about anything else,
- 58:16Speaker 1: just to go for it because you can do all
- 58:18Speaker 1: this other stuff later. And I wish that I hadn't
- 58:21Speaker 1: been so naive about that. I realized that I had
- 58:24Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity, and obviously the mental stuff made
- 58:28Speaker 1: it harder because I was not feeling good. But I
- 58:31Speaker 1: regret that I didn't really you know, when I kind
- 58:33Speaker 1: of had it in the palm of my hand. I
- 58:35Speaker 1: didn't really go for it. And then what about I
- 58:38Speaker 1: mean this is, you know, I've dedicated my life to
- 58:41Speaker 1: a certain path and as a result, I got married.
- 58:45Speaker 1: My ex wife said she tricked me into it, which
- 58:47Speaker 1: is a whole separate story. And I don't have any children,
- 58:51Speaker 1: and it's a very different path from everybody else, and
- 58:55Speaker 1: I'm willing to own that, although that forces career issues
- 58:58Speaker 1: to be much more important than if you have children.
- 59:02Speaker 1: So do you have any regrets you didn't go the
- 59:04Speaker 1: other way get married to have children. Yeah, a little bit,
- 59:08Speaker 1: But I think I probably did the right thing. I
- 59:10Speaker 1: think I probably wasn't going to be a great mother.
- 59:13Speaker 1: I wouldn't be I would have had to change everything.
- 59:15Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been able to be on the road.
- 59:17Speaker 1: I think if I had a kid, I wouldn't have
- 59:19Speaker 1: been able to leave my kid. So I think I
- 59:21Speaker 1: would have ended up quitting anyway. I don't think that
- 59:24Speaker 1: I was someone that could do both. And did Lisa
- 59:26Speaker 1: have kids? I have two beautiful nieces. Okay, so let's
- 59:31Speaker 1: go back to the new album. The album is very
- 59:33Speaker 1: interesting because there covers of your own songs. There's cover
- 59:38Speaker 1: of Jackson Brown song, why don't you tell the audience
- 59:40Speaker 1: about your new album? Well, actually, the reason this I
- 59:44Speaker 1: even started at all was I was thinking, you know,
- 59:48Speaker 1: I have all these songs, but I don't own the
- 59:50Speaker 1: masters to them, so in order to license something, I
- 59:53Speaker 1: don't really have any control. So it seemed like it
- 59:56Speaker 1: would make a lot of sense for me to rerecord
- 59:58Speaker 1: these things so I could own the masters, own them,
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: I own all the publishing, and then I could control it.
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: So it really was done initially kind of as a
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: business move. I thought it was because that's usually what
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: people It was not meant to be a c D,
- 1:00:10Speaker 1: so I just thought, I'm just going to go in
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: cut these songs. Nina and I play them beautifully, and
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: I think, actually, I think I'm singing better than I
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: did a long time ago. So I thought we'd just
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: take a weekend and just we'll just blow them all out.
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: And it started to come out really good. So then
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: I thought, well, I have all these tracks, maybe I
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: should do something with it. So it kind of became
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: a CD. And then the Jackson Brown tune, I'm not
- 1:00:36Speaker 1: sure a lot of people heard because it was on
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: this other obscure tribute album. So I put that on there,
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: and then I went in and cut a song of
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: Kenny's as well. Um, and that's so you know, at
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: least it's something okay. But if you read the credits,
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: the producer engineer his memories thanks, so I googled and
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: he died at some point. It was a pretty crazy time.
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: I was just getting going on this. We had cut
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: the tracks and he had a heart attack fort nine
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: and died. It took us a while to get back
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: into the studio to do this. Then we had a
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: huge wildfire and a mud slide. So all this stuff happened,
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: but the CD did get finished with a great friend
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: of Robinson, I Canbury, who's the one who passed away,
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: Shaan mckugh, another great musician up in Santa Barbara. Because
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: it's hard to drive down to l A and work
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: on a record, let's just go back for a second.
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: Was your house affected by the fires and the floods?
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: Mine was okay? But all around me not good. Okay.
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: So the project, if you look at some of the
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: recording dates, were done a couple of years ago, right,
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: So when did you decide you were going to actually
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: release it? As soon as I finished it. Yeah, so
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: it just took us a while because of all those
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: disasters to get it done. Really are the recording dates
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: on there? I didn't even notice that. Well, there was
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: something in there that indicated to me, maybe the fact
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: he got credits and he died a couple of years ago,
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: which is what tipped me off. Okay, yeah, I think
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: it's just by the time we gotta beything finished. Okay.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: So are you playing some of these tracks that are
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: you have not previously recorded live? Yeah? Yeah, you mean
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: like the Jackson song we play and karre Me Home,
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: which is a new song we're playing that. We haven't
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: played Kenny song yet. We need to do that. We
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: have played it in the past. We play all of
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: those and other ones too. So I mean I'm mostly
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: I'm touring, okay. But and then you sit there after
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: the gig at the merch table and you signed the
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: c ds, etcetera, and you find your way. It still
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: wants the CDs. They do, they really do. And they
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: want vinyl too. I'm gonna have to get some vinyl.
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: They definitely want vinyl. It's an interesting thing though. I
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: hear from acts that go on the road and so
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: other things. You know, the stand the CD can't die.
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: That's what I'm selling. Although I think a lot of
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: times when it's autographed, even vinyl, the people just want it.
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: They don't even play it, but as long as they
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: buy it. Now, going back to being on the road,
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: a lot of people just stop. Okay, So at what
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: point did you decide that you wanted to work? I mean,
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: I don't think you've been working in the whole last
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: twenty five years, have you. I've been working a lot.
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: Actually maybe there were sometimes I didn't in the eighties,
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: but no, starting in the nineties, I've had agents and
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: been on the road. Who's your agent now? My agent
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: is s R O Artists and Madison, Wisconsin. Yes, okay.
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: And you do you enjoy playing on the road or
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: do you find that it's a you know, a drudge drudge.
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: Once I'm up there, I enjoy it um obviously the
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: traveling and flying and driving not so much. That's hard.
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: So in a typical year, how many gigs do you play?
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: Probably thirty or forty, not a ton. Okay. Well, as
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: I say, I've seen you a few times in the
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: last couple of years, and I agree with you. You know,
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: your voice is spectacular, which is not the case with
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: most people as their careers have gone on. You know,
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: there are a lot of people and I won't even mention.
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: We just have to go see them, even selling tickets
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: and you're there and you go, wow, this is bad.
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: I know. I don't know. I guess it's just I'm lucky.
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: It must be a genetic thing or something. I haven't
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: had to tune. You know, a lot of people tune
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: their guitars down. I have to step. I haven't had
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: to do that yet, which is good. Okay, we're all
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: getting older by the minute. With the time you have left.
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: Any specific goals, I don't know. You know, I'd like
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: to figure out how to write some more songs, you know,
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: without it being uh something that's difficult. You know. I
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: don't know. I know people really want them for me,
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: and I feel bad about that because people ask me
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: or please make a new record, please make a new record,
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: and I don't know. I gotta get motivated, okay, the
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: people who ask you to make new record, or fans
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: or business people or other musicians. No, it's always fans.
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: Like I put this out and we look on Facebook
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: and people are complimentary and they love it, but they
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: do go please, can we have a whole new CD
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: of new songs? Okay, the audience wants it. You find
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: it difficult? But how much of that is what we
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: talked earlier? Even if I make it, it's not like
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: the old days. You know, we get all this promotion
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: and you get all this uh you know mind share?
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: Is it that? Or you find it difficult to write?
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: I think it's said it's difficult for me to write.
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: I think if I wrote easily and easy enough to record,
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: and um, it's just not that easy for me. But
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: I'm also not very disciplined. I don't sit down and
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: try well. It seems to me, is I'm analyzing you
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: here that you're somewhat of a perfectionist and if the
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: song is not going to be at the level of
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: your other songs, you don't want to do it. Well,
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: why would I want to do that? I don't want
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: to make a shifty out. No, no, just hanging in
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: there with to begin with, it's talking about my own
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: expert my experience totally different. When I was in high school,
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: Mr Harrity in the English class, he'd taken a sabbatical
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: which in public school. I don't know how that happened,
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: but he took a year off and he came back
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: and every morning, for five minutes, we had to write,
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: and if you didn't have anything to say, you had
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: to repeat the last three words. So I am a
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: writer completely different from everybody else. Everybody is. The picture
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: of a writer is well, I make a cup of coffee,
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: I sharpened my pencils, and my goal is to get
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: a page done a day. I could not be doing
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: it completely different. I got a record blasting arm standing
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: the tar. I got inspiration. It's exactly how you say
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: you wrote those earlier songs. Okay, it hit, and I
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: got to be near the computer fast enough to do that.
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: But I do know. I mean, I've done it long enough.
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: I'm not gonna write anything terrible, just like you're not
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: gonna run anything terrible. But you you're right it and
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: you say, okay, this is not going to be at ten.
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: You know you can see it veering as you do.
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: But two things happen. One, you never know what will
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: resonate with the audience. You know, when you hit in eleven,
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: you're done, and you go, this is just great, and
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: you'll hear it from people. But even if you have
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: a seven or eight using you know this one to
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: ten scale, somebody resonates. And the point is, I hate
- 1:07:19Speaker 1: to admit it. You know a lot of times you
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: get warmed up or I had a couple of times.
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: I haven't been in such great space myself the last
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and I said, well, I want to
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: write to make myself feel better. And I was out skiing,
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: and by time I'm done skiing, I'm not in the mood. Okay.
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: Finally I said, I'm just gonna start writing because I'm
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: in a bad mood. And all this stuff for the
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: last four days came out that I didn't even know
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: it was going to come out. Okay, Now you have
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: to want to do it. I mean, I think the
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: nature of being creative person is to be to a
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: degree ill adjusted, and the creativity is a way of
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: connect thing with people. And you know two things. One,
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: when you connect with people feels really good. But this
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: is analogous to your point about being at the therapist,
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: which I know totally. You're at the therapist, you're talking
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: up a storm, even though you can't talk outside the office.
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: You leave, you're on the top of the world in
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: thirty or forty five minutes, Bang, you're at the bottom, okay,
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: and being That's one thing I envy in a musician.
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: If you happen to write a hit song. On one level,
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: it's a sentence. You got to play it for the
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: rest of your life. But on another level, you can
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: perform it, whereas if you're writing prose, you're right at
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: once that's it. Okay. So you know, I think there
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: has to be a raw motivation. You know. The other
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: thing is we all get older and we ask, well,
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: you know I did this, Should I be doing something
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: completely different? You know I'm not gonna live forever. But
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: the question becomes as I somewhat, I mean, someone of
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: your caliber. I have no doubt that if you applied yourself,
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: you could get very major covers. Because we have the
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: hip hop world. That's not your world, okay, then only
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: we have the pop world. They don't write most of
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: these songs, and if you listen to the lyrics, they're
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: not that good. Okay. Sure, when you write a song,
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: you have assuming you say yes, you know, you have
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: no control over what they're gonna do with it. But
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: you know, most people can't do it, you can do it. Yeah,
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: I guess I'm intimidated by that world of getting your
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: songs covered out there. It just seems like all those
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: young artists were writing with the producers and they want
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: the writing, the publishing and the credit. And I mean,
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: I know some great writers that aren't getting covers people
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: in Nashville. So I don't know. I guess I'm skeptical.
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: I was too skeptical. And this is one of the problems.
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: If you're ignorant, you're better off because all the things
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: you're bringing up are totally reel by the same token.
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: If you write a hit song, okay, that will help
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: your mood. In an addition, I can certainly say you
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: can't change a certain word. I'm totally with that. And
- 1:10:15Speaker 1: you also say, well, I'm not giving up, but maybe
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: even though it's a scam, you give up and then
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: as you gain you know, it's like anything else with leverage.
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: The question, you know, as I say, question, is whether
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: you would get off on it. I mean, only you
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: can answer that. I think it's just getting back in
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: the game, you know. I think I'm disconnected from all
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: of the you know, the outlets for that. So i'd
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: have to well, I would say that you know, there
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: are not some publishers are better at collection, some better
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: or better at covers, And I think having a couple
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: of meetings with these people would show you opportunities. For
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: you can have a meeting enough to sign anything, and
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: you can also write a track and then say this
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: is the track. You don't have to give up anything
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: to do it. Because I'm here giving advice because I'm
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: a big believer. I mean, I find the same motivation
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: of the internet. You know, there's so much stuff out there.
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: You write something and you go, well, you know, who
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: am I going to reach than my core audience? And
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: it's somewhat somewhat depressing for especially for those of us
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: who lived through an era what it was different. Well, yeah,
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: I just have to get off my butt and be
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: a little more disciplined. I think I know it's in there.
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: I mean, I went to a writing coach when I
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: had writer's block during that whole period, and somebody sent
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: me to a writing coach and he said, Okay, I
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: just want you to wake up every morning and just
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: write a page, just stream of consciousness. Don't It doesn't
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: matter what you say. You don't kind of read it
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: later or anything, just right. So every morning, before coffee
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: or anything, just do the writing. And he goes and
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: then bring it back into me um, and he goes,
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: just somewhere in there, there's going to be something, find
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: a line. There's got to be something in that you
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: can is as a song title. And I was like,
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: oh God, he's going to give me an assignment. And
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: so I had had a dream about my dad or something,
- 1:12:08Speaker 1: and I wrote this thing about I always just want
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: to stay Daddy's a little girl. And because that's what
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: I want you to, Okay, here's this. I know you
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: to write a song called Daddy's Little Girl. That's a
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: great fool And I was just like, oh, I don't
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: want to do this is awful. It's assignment. I don't
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: write that way. It'll come out bad, and I don't
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: want to end. I went and forced this song out
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: and it's a great song. So it just proved to
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: me that I was full of it thinking that I
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: couldn't write that way. So I think you're right. I mean, basically,
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: if you're talented, you're not going to write something horrible.
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: You might write not write the best thing you wrote
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: but if you have those skills, you're probably gonna write. Okay,
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: so you're right, I have I have no. Well, the
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: other thing about my writing is different. You always want
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: to write in eleven and you're disappointed once you've been
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: doing a long time throughout eleven. But one thing is
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: for sure. You cannot hit the eleven each time. Nobody can.
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: But if you stay at it, all of a sudden,
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: it's always like you know, for me, it's like what
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: you say, either as a raw stimulation or I'm in
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: the shower, something just comes to me and then it does.
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: But you know, also as your point with your depression,
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: you get older, you've seen the game, so it's you know,
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: it's it's not as exciting. It's hard to get motivated. Again.
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. I'm probably too much,
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: too negative about that, but right I just wish I
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: was one of those people that just I've no people
- 1:13:37Speaker 1: that just go, I just have to write because I'm
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: not happy if I'm not writing songs, and I'm like,
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: can you give me an injection of some of that? Okay,
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: when you do write a song, let's say you're writing
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: the lyrics, you say, it's more difficult. When you finally
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: do you talk about the earlier songs coming all at once?
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: How fast? How long has it taken write the lyrics
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: for a song. Maybe you dare too so very quickly. Yeah,
- 1:14:02Speaker 1: and not all day long. I mean either kind of
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: have it or I don't. It either sort of happens
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: or a pieces of music that just sit there for
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: years that never gets well. You know, the only thing
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: about it is when your music, generally speaking, certainly not personally,
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: it resonates with people who are square pigs in a
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: round hole, okay, in that they use the music to
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: feel good about These are not I'm not saying a
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: cheerleader or football captain can't enjoy your music, but people
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: who you're when your fans say they want more, they
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: want more insight, that's what you know. We Joni Mitchell,
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: we wanted more and then she lost the plot and
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: she's kind of crazy anyway. But I don't know, you know,
- 1:14:51Speaker 1: I'll I'll let you get up off the couch. But
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: those are some of my thoughts. Now it's inspiring. I
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: think those are good thoughts. Okay, But let's it to
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: Carla Bonoff. You can where are you playing? Yolk? For
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: the next six months. Oh, it's on our website. We're
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: going to the Northwest. Um, then we're going back east.
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: We're going everywhere, go everywhere. And these tend to be
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: solo dates or you I know you played with j
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: D in Minneapolis, but these other gigs mostly just yeah
- 1:15:21Speaker 1: for an evening with Carla bonof Right, So how many
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: songs might someone expect to hear? Um? We play almost
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: two hours actually, So if you go, you're gonna hear
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: the song you want, and you can buy the new album.
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: And you can also, because I know I did it,
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: you can stream it on Spotify another streaming services. Carla,
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: it has been wonderful to have you here. Thank you
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: so much.