Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Booker T of the MG's: Time Is Tight

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Booker T of the MG's: Time Is Tight · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
0:14
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
0:17
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
0:19
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
0:23
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right,
0:28
Speaker 1: enjoy the episode. A few songs hit quite like this.
0:34
Speaker 1: Green Onions was recorded in two takes in nineteen sixty
0:37
Speaker 1: two by book Or T and the MG's. They were
0:39
Speaker 1: the house band for Stax Records in Memphis. This song
0:43
Speaker 1: was originally the B side, but once it started making
0:46
Speaker 1: the rounds on radio, it was quickly re released as
0:48
Speaker 1: the A side, going down as one of the most
0:50
Speaker 1: recognizable instrumentals ever. Book Or T, along with the guitar
0:55
Speaker 1: Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson Junior, and bassist Louis Steinberg
0:59
Speaker 1: or depending on the y, Donald Duck Dunne, went on
1:01
Speaker 1: to record hits like Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,
1:04
Speaker 1: Hold On Him Coming, and soul Man, and then the
1:06
Speaker 1: process defined the sound of Southern soul, which was way
1:10
Speaker 1: more gritty than the polished sound coming out of Motown.
1:13
Speaker 1: Over the last sixty years, Booker T has been writing, producing,
1:16
Speaker 1: arranging and playing with some of your favorite artists like
1:19
Speaker 1: Otis Reading, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Bill Withers, and of
1:23
Speaker 1: course has been sampled in hip hop like a James
1:25
Speaker 1: Brown drummer, songs by the Roots, Fou Tang Clan and others.
1:29
Speaker 1: He wrote about it in his memoir Time Is Tight
1:31
Speaker 1: My Life. Note by note, Booker T sat with Bruce
1:34
Speaker 1: Hadlim in front of a ham and C three organ
1:36
Speaker 1: so he could talk and play us through his career.
1:42
Speaker 1: This is Broken Record season three Liner notes for the
1:45
Speaker 1: digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce Hadlim speaking with
1:52
Speaker 1: Booker T from Bridge Studio in Brooklyn. I do want
1:56
Speaker 1: to start today talking about your new book, Time Is Tight, Yeah,
2:00
Speaker 1: which is fabulous for many many reasons, and I think
2:06
Speaker 1: everyone should read. Thank you. What interested me particularly was,
2:12
Speaker 1: you know, there's this perception people have of I think,
2:16
Speaker 1: particularly Southern musicians, soul musicians, that you guys learned everything
2:22
Speaker 1: in the church or singing on street corners. You were
2:28
Speaker 1: a serious music academic, You studied very hard from an
2:34
Speaker 1: early age. How did that? Why did that happen? Well,
2:39
Speaker 1: I think your first two elements of the formula are
2:44
Speaker 1: exactly correct the church I was. I remember singing Jesus
2:50
Speaker 1: Loves Me as a little boy in Sunday School and
2:53
Speaker 1: my first solo was in church. And then as I
2:56
Speaker 1: grew up a little earlier some of my friends. I
2:58
Speaker 1: met Maurice White and sixth grade and David Porter in
3:02
Speaker 1: ninth grade and they were singing and do up groups
3:06
Speaker 1: on the street corner. And I came from a background
3:11
Speaker 1: where my grandfather built a school down in Holly Springs, Mississippi,
3:15
Speaker 1: and he mandated that his children go to school, first
3:18
Speaker 1: his school, and then that they go to high school
3:21
Speaker 1: and that they go to college. So all his kids,
3:22
Speaker 1: including my father, went father graduated m I and became
3:27
Speaker 1: a math teacher, and he wanted all his grandkids to
3:30
Speaker 1: do the same thing. So I was one of those.
3:32
Speaker 1: So it was predetermined that I was going to study
3:35
Speaker 1: and go to college. And I saved up nine hundred
3:38
Speaker 1: dollars on my paper out to that effect. Studied Latin
3:41
Speaker 1: in the ninth grade, so you know. And the music
3:45
Speaker 1: was came from my mother's side, the classical music. My
3:49
Speaker 1: grandmother was a piano teacher. She had a piano taught
3:52
Speaker 1: my mother. My mother played Let's WC. Chopin in the
3:56
Speaker 1: house and that that music affected me. So I got
4:00
Speaker 1: it from a lot of different angles, including those first
4:03
Speaker 1: ones you mentioned. When did you realize you're studying music?
4:07
Speaker 1: You started, I think with a clarinet. The clarinet was
4:11
Speaker 1: the first one I owned. The first one I started
4:13
Speaker 1: with was oboe, the first formal instrument. But before that,
4:18
Speaker 1: as a little boy, had a ukulele that got me
4:21
Speaker 1: into guitar. So kind I kind of see myself as
4:23
Speaker 1: a guitar player. You see yourself as a guitar player.
4:26
Speaker 1: Now I pick it up first more usually when I'm
4:28
Speaker 1: writing a song. When did you know music was going
4:31
Speaker 1: to be your life? As a young boy, started hearing
4:36
Speaker 1: music in my mind since I can remember various sounds
4:42
Speaker 1: and melodies and and I didn't know what to call them,
4:46
Speaker 1: you know, And that I think was the challenges I
4:50
Speaker 1: grew older, what to call everything. So that's where the
4:53
Speaker 1: formal education came in, you know, taking piano lessons, organ lessons,
4:58
Speaker 1: theory lessons. In high schoo I had to put a
5:01
Speaker 1: name to everything, you know, so I could communicate with
5:03
Speaker 1: the outside world, you know. Yeah, and these are you know,
5:07
Speaker 1: this is pre integration your school. You went to an
5:10
Speaker 1: all black school, went to an African American school, saying
5:13
Speaker 1: in the choir in the first grade at port of
5:18
Speaker 1: Junior High School, which was all blacks, no whites, and
5:23
Speaker 1: you but the music education was really intense, and you
5:26
Speaker 1: took theory lessons after school. That was in nineteenth grade,
5:30
Speaker 1: starting in about nineteenth fifty nine. And then there's this
5:34
Speaker 1: amazing passage in your book where you are as is
5:40
Speaker 1: years later, you're working at stacks. I think you're doing
5:43
Speaker 1: the arrangement for when something is wrong with my Baby,
5:47
Speaker 1: the great Sam and Dave song. And I think the
5:51
Speaker 1: next thing that happens is you're trying to figure out
5:54
Speaker 1: your your college at that point in Indiana, you're trying
5:57
Speaker 1: to figure out what you're going to play for your
5:59
Speaker 1: trombone recite. Yeah. Yeah, those were coincide or incidental. So
6:03
Speaker 1: you were flying back and forth stack sessions from and
6:07
Speaker 1: you were getting an education at one of the great
6:09
Speaker 1: music colleges in the country. I think you mentioned a
6:12
Speaker 1: great instance. I'll play you know that's a great you know,
6:17
Speaker 1: combination of a church feeling, you know, the way that
6:21
Speaker 1: the way the notes move in the base and in
6:25
Speaker 1: the classical combination of those influences in my life, but
6:30
Speaker 1: the church I think was the main, the strongest influence
6:33
Speaker 1: in my musical makeup. One of the other influences you mentioned,
6:38
Speaker 1: and this is fascinating to me, and I'd love you
6:40
Speaker 1: to walk me through. It was when you wrote Green
6:42
Speaker 1: Onions and I think you were probably nineteen or something
6:46
Speaker 1: seen seventeen, but you said it's because you'd studied back counterpoint.
6:52
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to UCLA or Indiana University, so
6:56
Speaker 1: I had to pass a theory I had to pass.
6:58
Speaker 1: As you're to go to India University. They were going
7:02
Speaker 1: to ask questions about the basics of music. I was
7:05
Speaker 1: music put together. So that's where my theory class started.
7:10
Speaker 1: You know, the scale, twelve notes in the scale, and
7:13
Speaker 1: what are they the third? And what are the poor changes? Those?
7:22
Speaker 1: The way I moved those notes were basically dictated by J. S.
7:27
Speaker 1: Bo contrepurnal movement. You know, it makes sense if we
7:30
Speaker 1: didn't think about it, but it's it's it's ingrained in
7:33
Speaker 1: our Western society. What I just played, that's the way
7:35
Speaker 1: the notes moved other countries or whatever. So in figuring
7:46
Speaker 1: that out, I m this, what if a note went,
7:53
Speaker 1: That's where the Blues came in, changing this from a
7:57
Speaker 1: major third to a minor third. That that third one,
8:02
Speaker 1: two three, what about the minor three? So that's when
8:06
Speaker 1: Greenlandians came from instead of And I thought, what if
8:14
Speaker 1: the third was a minor and what if the top
8:18
Speaker 1: moved down like a bat because back can counterpoint the
8:21
Speaker 1: top exactly, it moves, it moves in the opposite the
8:25
Speaker 1: bottom moves up. I mean the bottom moves up while
8:28
Speaker 1: the top moves down. Wow. So I kind of played
8:37
Speaker 1: that on the piano. I thought that sounds kind of cool,
8:39
Speaker 1: you know. And then the changes, of course, are just
8:41
Speaker 1: regular blues changes that we played all the time. You
8:43
Speaker 1: go from that to the B flat and then back
8:48
Speaker 1: to the one. So it's the twelve bar blues basically,
8:51
Speaker 1: but it has this for its second chord instead of
8:56
Speaker 1: I think it would feel different if I played it
8:57
Speaker 1: like that. So that's basically the history of Health Queens
9:00
Speaker 1: came about. And was there a particular box song that
9:03
Speaker 1: inspired that or just it was just generally it's just
9:05
Speaker 1: contrapuntal rules, just the rules that we learned, you know.
9:08
Speaker 1: And that's the major scale. Um, and I want to
9:11
Speaker 1: go back to your education and more about Memphis. But
9:15
Speaker 1: there's one other great example you mentioned in the book.
9:17
Speaker 1: There's many great examples, but you wrote the great Albert
9:21
Speaker 1: King's song Born under a Bad Sign, and you said
9:25
Speaker 1: you picked a particular key for that. Yeah, yeah, I
9:29
Speaker 1: don't know where that came from. That you know that
9:31
Speaker 1: that door opened that we gotta call. We being myself
9:34
Speaker 1: and my partner William Bell, that we were We were
9:37
Speaker 1: staff producers at the time and we were responsible for
9:41
Speaker 1: recording Albert King, and he was coming down the next day.
9:43
Speaker 1: So we went into my den the other night before
9:46
Speaker 1: Friday night to write something him and uh, that came
9:54
Speaker 1: into my mind. And William has been working on the
9:57
Speaker 1: lyrics content born under a Bad Sign. They've been working
10:01
Speaker 1: on that for himself. So the two came together that
10:03
Speaker 1: night before. But then, you know, at Indiana, I had
10:08
Speaker 1: learned about, you know, the urgency that you could put
10:10
Speaker 1: into certain keys, that that we're we're not inherent in
10:15
Speaker 1: some keys. Music is a just say music music. Music,
10:19
Speaker 1: music is parties out for our atmosphere and some some
10:24
Speaker 1: some keys have more emotional content for uh than others.
10:29
Speaker 1: So I went to C flat minor for Albert you know,
10:32
Speaker 1: a D flat D flat the same key, so that's yeah, yeah,
10:37
Speaker 1: so this this is different. That's the Albert's key yea.
10:42
Speaker 1: And the way he played his guy, so he pulled
10:44
Speaker 1: his strings, you know on those keys, and we got
10:46
Speaker 1: this tension, you know, and this this emotional necessity out
10:51
Speaker 1: of this song, and it just makes it just playing
10:53
Speaker 1: it right here now makes you feel kind of differently.
10:55
Speaker 1: It's like something ominous is is is you know, and
10:58
Speaker 1: you think of it, and that came from the key
11:00
Speaker 1: that came from that game, from going from here to here. Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: and you mentioned that you like C sharp Wagner, Yeah, Chopin,
11:15
Speaker 1: you know, they were they played in those keys. They
11:17
Speaker 1: didn't mind writing six sharps, you know, they made the
11:20
Speaker 1: musicians playing those keys. And but it had this this uh,
11:24
Speaker 1: this feeling, you know, this emotion you know, and and
11:27
Speaker 1: the blues and that key it's just unbelievable, you know.
11:31
Speaker 1: To me, it's not a common it's not a common
11:34
Speaker 1: key for for blues though well, I don't know. It
11:37
Speaker 1: was perfect for this and for Albert. I think a
11:40
Speaker 1: lot of blues musicians when I was in Memphis played
11:43
Speaker 1: in the in the simpler keys, you know, F and
11:46
Speaker 1: and maybe C or g minor. But but when you
11:49
Speaker 1: go to the monar keys like that a flat uh
11:54
Speaker 1: G sharp manner, there's a certain there's another element that
11:59
Speaker 1: comes in. It's I guess it's the way that universe
12:01
Speaker 1: is put together, the makeup of the Adams or something
12:05
Speaker 1: as something it is, so it's more more emphatic. Yeah,
12:09
Speaker 1: and so the born on her bad sides and C
12:11
Speaker 1: sharp minor. Wow, the same way as so Pen's concertos.
12:15
Speaker 1: And it was very great, good key for Albert. He
12:19
Speaker 1: just killed it. Now he was a guitar player, so
12:21
Speaker 1: it's a little easier to move. And he's also a
12:23
Speaker 1: right handed guitar player, kind of like Jimi Hendrix, so
12:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't such an issue. You know, left hand and
12:28
Speaker 1: guitar players have to push the strings, but a right
12:31
Speaker 1: hand and guitar player like Albert can pull the strings.
12:33
Speaker 1: So he had more strength, more physical strength over there
12:37
Speaker 1: right on the upper strings. So he just he just
12:39
Speaker 1: killed it. It was it was. It was a great experience.
12:42
Speaker 1: Oh amazing. Yeah, I want to go back to We
12:45
Speaker 1: talked about severe academic background, but then you started playing
12:50
Speaker 1: along Beal Street. Now people now know Beal Street because
12:54
Speaker 1: of the of the Baldwin book and they just made
12:58
Speaker 1: it into a movie. But it was this famous street
13:03
Speaker 1: in Memphis where you're from. Can you tell me what
13:05
Speaker 1: it was like playing in those clubs back then you
13:07
Speaker 1: were just a kid. Yeah, I was right off of
13:09
Speaker 1: Beal Street on Hernando, just about a couple of doors
13:12
Speaker 1: down at the Flamingo Room upstairs on the second floor
13:17
Speaker 1: was where they were the only ones that actually let
13:20
Speaker 1: me in. Cliff Miller was the owner of the place
13:23
Speaker 1: and it was his place, so he brought me in.
13:25
Speaker 1: And I couldn't get into the club Handy, which was
13:30
Speaker 1: on the other side of Bell that was Sunbeam Mitchell's club.
13:34
Speaker 1: I was too young, and he I guess, I guess
13:37
Speaker 1: he could have broken the rules that had me in,
13:38
Speaker 1: But but Cliff was the one that was interested in me.
13:41
Speaker 1: He brought me in to play bass, and I played
13:44
Speaker 1: bass and Jane Bowles Miller's ban and William Mitchell's ban.
13:48
Speaker 1: How how long had you played the bass at that point?
13:51
Speaker 1: I picked up the string bass at Book of Washington
13:54
Speaker 1: Junior High School. They had a bass and I played
13:56
Speaker 1: some bass and in the combo there. Yeah, by the way,
13:59
Speaker 1: this is probably be a good time to pause and say,
14:01
Speaker 1: your name really is Booker T. My name is. My
14:04
Speaker 1: name is Booker T. Jones. I was named after my father,
14:07
Speaker 1: Booker T. Jones Senior, who was named after Booker T. Washington,
14:10
Speaker 1: who was an educator and uh built built a college Tuskegee.
14:15
Speaker 1: I was a Tuskegee. Uh. Yeah, So and you attended
14:19
Speaker 1: Booker T. Washington High Schooker T. Washington High School? Yes,
14:22
Speaker 1: I did. Okay. So while you're so, you were playing
14:25
Speaker 1: in these clubs? Were they rough clubs? Was it was
14:27
Speaker 1: it strange for a kid to be in there? Yes?
14:29
Speaker 1: It was unsafe. Uh. I mean there was a lot
14:32
Speaker 1: going on on Bill Street, you know, Bille Street was
14:36
Speaker 1: everything from you know, prostitution and whiskey running and there's
14:42
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff going on down there. And my parents,
14:44
Speaker 1: but my parents picked out a couple of musicians they
14:47
Speaker 1: trusted to watch over me. They picked out Floyd Newman
14:50
Speaker 1: to take me home at night and take me over
14:52
Speaker 1: to the club. He hated it, but my dad had
14:55
Speaker 1: been as algebra teacher, but he did it anyway. So
14:58
Speaker 1: your dad had been his age. He had listen to
15:00
Speaker 1: your dad. Yeah. Uh, your dad is uh, you know,
15:04
Speaker 1: he's a high school teacher. Yeah, he's always in a
15:06
Speaker 1: white shirt and tie. Yeah, and he'd been he thinks
15:09
Speaker 1: it's okay for you to play these clubs. Well, you
15:11
Speaker 1: know my dad, I appreciated. My dad supported my musical
15:15
Speaker 1: passion and if I wanted to do it, he sat out.
15:18
Speaker 1: He sat out in club side on so many clubs
15:20
Speaker 1: out on the countryside while I played, and he just
15:23
Speaker 1: supported and brought me the instruments, and he was my benefactor.
15:27
Speaker 1: You know, is there there may be a picture in
15:29
Speaker 1: the book of him and his algebra class with his
15:31
Speaker 1: white shirt and tie and his and his pointer, you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: teaching kids to to uh, to calculate. Yeah, he seems
15:38
Speaker 1: like just an amazing character. He was. I don't know
15:41
Speaker 1: if I wouldn't be here without him. I mean, he
15:43
Speaker 1: bought the first clarinet, and he just he just you know,
15:46
Speaker 1: took me and put Maurice White's drums in the back
15:49
Speaker 1: of his car and Frank Easley's based fit all that
15:51
Speaker 1: stuff in his car and took us to the clubs.
15:53
Speaker 1: And yeah, maybe he may be the nicest algebra teacher
15:58
Speaker 1: who ever lived. He was, he was grade. A lot
16:00
Speaker 1: of people loved him. Yeah, And then at sixteen, you started.
16:04
Speaker 1: It wasn't called stacks then it was called satellite. But
16:07
Speaker 1: you did your first session. Yeah, I was fifteen. I
16:10
Speaker 1: was in tenth grade and the guy Floyd Newman I
16:13
Speaker 1: was telling you about was there baritone sax player, but
16:15
Speaker 1: he was also a high school teacher, so he couldn't
16:17
Speaker 1: make this particular session because he was in school. And
16:20
Speaker 1: David Porter came and got me out of school my
16:23
Speaker 1: Alzebrath class or tenth grade Alzabra class to play for
16:27
Speaker 1: Rufus and Carlin Thomas played baritone sacks on their calls
16:30
Speaker 1: I Love You. Their first record its stacks and yeah,
16:34
Speaker 1: and that's got a lot of baritone sacks that record.
16:36
Speaker 1: It does I play through the whole song? How many
16:39
Speaker 1: tanks did you do? Oh? I don't know. That was
16:41
Speaker 1: a pretty We didn't I take too much time to
16:44
Speaker 1: record that. That was closer being a first take, I
16:46
Speaker 1: think something like that. And then did you get more
16:49
Speaker 1: sessions after that? I did? I did. I took the
16:51
Speaker 1: opportunity to tell them that I could play piano, because
16:54
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was Floyd Newman's job to
16:56
Speaker 1: play saxophone over baritone sacks. I couldn't take it. Yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: I like how you cut school to do it. Yeah,
17:03
Speaker 1: he's a teacher. He can't cut, he can't cut glass. Yeah.
17:06
Speaker 1: So I was there and I told him I could
17:08
Speaker 1: play piano, and I got the job working after school
17:11
Speaker 1: as a session player right after that, when they found
17:13
Speaker 1: out I could play piano. Do you remember some of
17:15
Speaker 1: your other early sessions. Yeah. The first one I remember
17:18
Speaker 1: was Prince Comedy. Oh my goodness, what was that song? Yeah,
17:22
Speaker 1: it was a great blue song. I'm coming home, I'm
17:25
Speaker 1: going home, Prince Comedy. Yeah, yeah, that was the first.
17:28
Speaker 1: And I played the oil and solo on that one.
17:31
Speaker 1: That was a blue song. Now you you are sitting
17:34
Speaker 1: in front of a B three Hammond B three, and
17:37
Speaker 1: we've got the speaker in the other room. I think
17:39
Speaker 1: this is a C three. This is a C three
17:41
Speaker 1: because it's got the wooden sides over here. Okay, now
17:44
Speaker 1: I was I was just told this. The C three
17:46
Speaker 1: was the church version. Yeah, so that you couldn't see
17:49
Speaker 1: you couldn't see the organist legs. Yeah and that Yeah, yeah,
17:54
Speaker 1: it was heavier. It looks better. Yeah. Now you you
17:58
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the B three year the C
18:00
Speaker 1: three Hammond, that it could make any sound you imagined.
18:05
Speaker 1: What what did you mean by that? Well, you have
18:35
Speaker 1: drawbars you can pull out and mix the tones. And no,
18:39
Speaker 1: I don't know of any other instrument that you can
18:40
Speaker 1: do that. Onse, I don't can't think of any other
18:44
Speaker 1: instrument that you can change like that. You can't do
18:46
Speaker 1: that with the old boy. He can't do it. Maybe
18:49
Speaker 1: guitarists can do it, but I don't know if they
18:50
Speaker 1: can do it as quickly. Right, and the middle you
18:53
Speaker 1: just heard that was that was about five different sounds
18:56
Speaker 1: there from from one note. There was there one particular
19:00
Speaker 1: sound that grabbed you? Or was it the variety that
19:02
Speaker 1: got you? The variety? I mean, that's what my teacher
19:04
Speaker 1: told me when I when I saw the thing. Her
19:06
Speaker 1: name was missus Cole, and I tried to get the
19:08
Speaker 1: lessons on and she said, you know, you can make
19:10
Speaker 1: any sound you want. This sentiment, you can make it
19:12
Speaker 1: sound like a big full orchestra or clarinet or you know.
19:16
Speaker 1: So it was what she told me. It was the
19:18
Speaker 1: opening up of those possibilities. I think that sucked me in.
19:21
Speaker 1: And was she did she teach you gospel style or
19:24
Speaker 1: did she teach you know? She started with this at
19:29
Speaker 1: my first lesson with her well tempered clavier. Yes, Bob,
20:02
Speaker 1: if he lived long enough, he might have written green onions.
20:04
Speaker 1: He would have. He was on inspired, dude. Man. We'll
20:08
Speaker 1: be back with more of a conversation with Booker T.
20:10
Speaker 1: After the break. We're back with more from Booker T.
20:17
Speaker 1: When did you start arranging and writing at stacks? That
20:23
Speaker 1: started with working on David Porter and Isaac Hayes's song
20:29
Speaker 1: Salmon Dave songs Oldis reading songs. They gave me the
20:34
Speaker 1: freedom to change their songs around the way I heard them.
20:39
Speaker 1: I worked on Baby, they had written in a different way,
20:43
Speaker 1: and I gave it kind of a motown field. I
20:45
Speaker 1: changed the bassline. They let me change when something is
20:49
Speaker 1: wrong with My Baby and some of the well. When
20:54
Speaker 1: we were working on Try a Little Tenderness, Oldis gave
20:56
Speaker 1: me the freedom to work with the bass parts and
20:59
Speaker 1: the quartal quotal changes in that and yeah, they were
21:02
Speaker 1: all open to my changes. Can you show me what
21:05
Speaker 1: you did on a song like um you mentioned Carla
21:08
Speaker 1: Thomas Baby, which was a song she didn't like, and
21:11
Speaker 1: then you finally made it work. What did you do?
21:15
Speaker 1: I gave it a little motown feel like that. I
21:18
Speaker 1: changed the baseline, and I changed the tempo and the melody,
21:21
Speaker 1: but on the melody is the same as they wrote
21:23
Speaker 1: the words. They wrote the words and lyrics same as
21:25
Speaker 1: they wrote. Did you change any of the chords underneath? No, No,
21:28
Speaker 1: it's the same chord as they wrote. Yeah, it's just
21:31
Speaker 1: the way it feels. Now. Were you guys, I mean,
21:34
Speaker 1: Stax was this incredible factory of hits. Were you competitive
21:40
Speaker 1: with Motown? Were you looking at what they were doing
21:42
Speaker 1: and saying we're going to beat them? Not at all.
21:44
Speaker 1: I think we were. We used Motown as as an
21:48
Speaker 1: instructive element because they were so great, so knowledgeable, They
21:53
Speaker 1: made so many good, good decisions with their music, and
21:57
Speaker 1: it was so so much fun to listen to it.
21:59
Speaker 1: But we were we didn't consider ourselves in competition because
22:05
Speaker 1: we were so different. You know, we were simplistic. We
22:08
Speaker 1: talked about not making the music too complicated and keeping
22:15
Speaker 1: it accessible, you know, with the baselines and the drum beats.
22:21
Speaker 1: So to me, it wasn't competitive at all. I don't
22:25
Speaker 1: think we could have competed with them. Really. Can you
22:28
Speaker 1: tell me about meeting Otis reading for the first time? Yeah,
22:33
Speaker 1: Otis was um um, an humble guy, he was, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: he was really excited about making music all the time.
22:42
Speaker 1: He was willing to do everything, carry the instruments and
22:45
Speaker 1: go get the food. And he was the driver for
22:47
Speaker 1: Johnny Jenkins and the pan topers. And the first time
22:50
Speaker 1: I met him, he was out on the street loading
22:51
Speaker 1: the suitcases onto the sidewalk. You know, how do you
22:54
Speaker 1: need anything? And you know, what can I do? And
22:57
Speaker 1: then can I sing a song? Now? He can't sing
22:59
Speaker 1: us sing a song? He never had somebody a Roady
23:03
Speaker 1: wanted to sing before. Yeah, no, roadies didn't do that.
23:06
Speaker 1: And we let him sing, and then he wasn't a
23:08
Speaker 1: roady anymore. After he sang the first two lines of
23:11
Speaker 1: these Arms of Mine, he was sitting right here next
23:13
Speaker 1: to me. And of course then by that time we
23:15
Speaker 1: wanted to get the tape roll and record this guy.
23:17
Speaker 1: So did he say play this quarter? Did he just
23:20
Speaker 1: start singing his own? No, it was all intuitive. He didn't.
23:23
Speaker 1: He didn't. He didn't mention any course, but he started
23:25
Speaker 1: right in on key, you know, so either he had
23:28
Speaker 1: perfect pitch or something. But he I didn't have to
23:32
Speaker 1: play any notes for him before he started. He knew
23:33
Speaker 1: exactly what he was singing. And it was his song.
23:36
Speaker 1: So he was just in an instant. I don't know,
23:40
Speaker 1: maybe he was the easiest in that way, actually, m
23:43
Speaker 1: And then you added a lot of different things to
23:45
Speaker 1: his songs as time grew on. He would look over,
23:49
Speaker 1: he would he would look over to me, and he
23:51
Speaker 1: dictated a lot with his mouth. He would harm you
23:53
Speaker 1: know that, he would saying, you know, bla blah blah.
23:56
Speaker 1: He would sing the lines to the horns. But a
23:58
Speaker 1: lot of the intricate stuff that I did under neath
24:00
Speaker 1: he allowed me to do. You know, well you just
24:04
Speaker 1: mentioned sad song. That song I can't sing it, but
24:09
Speaker 1: you just sang a little bit of it, and that's
24:11
Speaker 1: the song. You would do a beautiful company too. What
24:13
Speaker 1: a better example would be, so you know the walk
24:17
Speaker 1: up to that those those are the freedoms that that
24:19
Speaker 1: I had to with him was to to to um,
24:24
Speaker 1: to insert musical elements to help build there. And he
24:29
Speaker 1: would wait for things like that. Oh yeah, he was.
24:33
Speaker 1: He was dictatorial, but he also gave a lot of
24:35
Speaker 1: freedoms with him. Okay, I'm just gonna wait for a
24:38
Speaker 1: minute for the hair in the back of my neck
24:39
Speaker 1: to go back down because I was just so fantastic. Yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: and then there was so much the way you describe it, Uh,
24:50
Speaker 1: he was in San Francisco for a while and he
24:51
Speaker 1: wrote Doc in the Bay, and then there was so
24:53
Speaker 1: much excitement around what became his last album. U just
25:00
Speaker 1: the making of it. You sort of you described the
25:02
Speaker 1: place being almost kind of in a not a frenzy,
25:06
Speaker 1: but almost a kind of it was a state of siege.
25:09
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, he sneaked it on us.
25:15
Speaker 1: We knew that Steve had kind of prepared us. Steve
25:17
Speaker 1: was kind of the four Minutes stacks. He was the
25:20
Speaker 1: the A and R guy, and he told us we're
25:22
Speaker 1: going to be recording some new sessions with Oldist, but
25:24
Speaker 1: we didn't know they were going to be non stop sessions,
25:27
Speaker 1: and we didn't know that they were going to be
25:28
Speaker 1: song after song after song. And that would you know,
25:31
Speaker 1: include not going home and staying in the studio and
25:34
Speaker 1: ordering food and we never did that before. That was
25:36
Speaker 1: the only time we ever did that, stayed in the
25:38
Speaker 1: studio day after day after day. And I think it
25:41
Speaker 1: culminated with that song um sitting on Doc with the Bay.
25:45
Speaker 1: But there were so many great ones and it just
25:47
Speaker 1: went one one to the other. So yeah, so that
25:51
Speaker 1: was a there was a middle attitude that maybe Oldest
25:57
Speaker 1: had a premonition that he needed to record those songs
26:00
Speaker 1: immediately without any you know, any delay of taking a
26:04
Speaker 1: night off for a day off for that type of thing.
26:08
Speaker 1: And you played piano on I did. I played piano
26:11
Speaker 1: almost almost everything during that those sessions, And was try
26:15
Speaker 1: little tenderness part of those sessions as well? Was that earlier? No,
26:20
Speaker 1: that was earlier, okay, because that arrangement, I mean, it's
26:22
Speaker 1: an old song is so unusual even now when you
26:26
Speaker 1: hear it, it's sort of disarming. What how did you
26:29
Speaker 1: put that song together? That was a trip that I
26:32
Speaker 1: made down from Indiana to play on that. Think that
26:35
Speaker 1: my contribution was to um to raise the keys rather
26:42
Speaker 1: than playing it in one key, so it moves up
26:45
Speaker 1: during the course of the song. Yeah. I think this
26:49
Speaker 1: was one of his kind of foot stomping masterpieces that
26:52
Speaker 1: he came up with indict and sang the lines to
26:54
Speaker 1: the horns and and had this interaction with Al Jackson Junior,
27:01
Speaker 1: the drummer. Yeah. Now when you were arranging, were you
27:03
Speaker 1: writing out charts for the horns or was it more it?
27:06
Speaker 1: Was it more informal than that. This one was informal.
27:09
Speaker 1: This one's a head chart. I didn't put anything on paper.
27:12
Speaker 1: I don't think we had strings on this song. But
27:14
Speaker 1: when we had strings, and we could always tell the
27:17
Speaker 1: horn players to play by ear and just hum the
27:20
Speaker 1: list of them. But when we had strings and we
27:22
Speaker 1: had had to write it down, Yeah, string players can't
27:25
Speaker 1: do that. Let's yeah, well they can, some of them,
27:27
Speaker 1: but but usually I would just you know, write a
27:29
Speaker 1: chart for them. Is it sort of incredible scene in
27:35
Speaker 1: your book at Oldis Readings Funeral when you were supposed
27:43
Speaker 1: to perform and you couldn't. Yeah, that was tough. That
27:48
Speaker 1: was tough. Um that was there in this big auditorium
27:51
Speaker 1: for Oldis Readings Funeral and making Georgie And oh it
27:56
Speaker 1: was a song that I played in church a thousand times,
27:59
Speaker 1: and I think I had brought the music just in
28:02
Speaker 1: case I got in trouble, and I think, who was it,
28:06
Speaker 1: Joe Simon was gonna sing? And I heard the children
28:10
Speaker 1: walked in and then what I walked in and I
28:13
Speaker 1: just I just my professionalism left me. And it was
28:17
Speaker 1: it was a song that near the cross, Near the Cross.
28:21
Speaker 1: I had played that so many times that's what I
28:26
Speaker 1: was supposed to play. I couldn't think of that, to
28:28
Speaker 1: save my life. Well, you just played for him, so
28:31
Speaker 1: that's but I couldn't think of it that history. I
28:33
Speaker 1: just you know, did you finally get it out? Or
28:37
Speaker 1: I think I think I finally got the music out.
28:38
Speaker 1: I had to and put it and I actually had
28:40
Speaker 1: to put it on the new organ and played it.
28:43
Speaker 1: And once I saw the notes on the page and
28:45
Speaker 1: I remembered it. Now, I want to talk to them
28:51
Speaker 1: about a couple of the songs you did. You did
28:54
Speaker 1: a lot of those songs as mgs, but soul Dressing
28:58
Speaker 1: was one of them. How did that come up? That was?
29:00
Speaker 1: That was? I would call that an Indiana song. I
29:03
Speaker 1: drove so many hours down Highway thirty seven from Indiana.
29:07
Speaker 1: That's me driving down looking around at the houses, the farmhouses,
29:11
Speaker 1: and that's when a lot of the melodies came to me.
29:13
Speaker 1: When I was driving, you know, north and south on
29:17
Speaker 1: Highway thirty seven through Kentucky and Indiana, northern tennessee the scenes,
29:22
Speaker 1: you know, the pastoral scenes and those kind of peaceful scenes.
29:27
Speaker 1: Would you pull over and write them down? No, I
29:29
Speaker 1: just try to remember it, Just try to remember it okay.
29:33
Speaker 1: And I want to ask about Slim Jenkins joint. That
29:38
Speaker 1: was New York City. I came up with that in
29:40
Speaker 1: Memphis on piano. I think it ended up playing piano
29:42
Speaker 1: on it. That's the story about that song. That seems
29:47
Speaker 1: like every song has a story. But when you mentioned
29:50
Speaker 1: that we were trying to record that song in New
29:54
Speaker 1: York and it was at Atlantic Studios on where we
29:59
Speaker 1: and Cream had I guess it was Cream had just
30:02
Speaker 1: become a big act there. And I just if somebody,
30:08
Speaker 1: you know, if we were working in here right now
30:09
Speaker 1: and someone came in and sat there and I was
30:13
Speaker 1: coming up with something new, it would just totally distract me.
30:16
Speaker 1: I would lose my concentration. So I would say, if
30:20
Speaker 1: anybody else in the studio that's not actually working on
30:23
Speaker 1: the record, would you just please, you know, just step
30:25
Speaker 1: outside or just don't be here now, because I got distracted.
30:28
Speaker 1: We're working on this song, about to track down and everything.
30:32
Speaker 1: Time came to put the organ in and this fella
30:35
Speaker 1: comes in and he just he just walks in there,
30:37
Speaker 1: Nobody says, and he sits down like right over here
30:41
Speaker 1: by the wall and crosses his legs and doesn't look
30:43
Speaker 1: at me. He just sits there and I'm supposed to
30:45
Speaker 1: do the organ part, right, I'm totally distracted. All I
30:48
Speaker 1: can do is look at this guy and uh, And
30:51
Speaker 1: I found out it was Eric Clapton and he basically
30:56
Speaker 1: owned the place. At that point, I walked over Tom
30:59
Speaker 1: dowllis fella right there. Well it's just Eric just don't matter.
31:05
Speaker 1: It's just it wasn't a big deal to Tom. They
31:08
Speaker 1: weren't distracted at all. Oh your engineer was Tom down? Yeah?
31:11
Speaker 1: Tom hung Yeah, he says, I was just just going.
31:14
Speaker 1: So I walked back out there and I played that,
31:16
Speaker 1: but I could not get in my mind off who
31:18
Speaker 1: the hell is this sitting in here like that? And
31:22
Speaker 1: I asked him a few years later when we were
31:24
Speaker 1: down in Texas and I came to play there, Eric clapping,
31:29
Speaker 1: he had a guitar festival down and down was that you? Yeah?
31:35
Speaker 1: That was me. He just he just wanted to check
31:38
Speaker 1: out the session. Well people did that normally, you know,
31:41
Speaker 1: other people did that. They had other people come in
31:43
Speaker 1: and said But I was always so private and so
31:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, so focused. It kind of distracted me
31:51
Speaker 1: to have somebody unless they were working on the music anyway,
31:57
Speaker 1: there's another great scene in your book where you play
32:00
Speaker 1: the Monterrey hot festive. Is that in the book that
32:03
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that? Yeah, where you you know, you guys,
32:07
Speaker 1: you're there with Otis Redding. Yeah, you're wearing I'm not
32:10
Speaker 1: sure they were matching suits, but we were in beautiful
32:12
Speaker 1: suits and you're incredibly professional and you go back to
32:15
Speaker 1: your hotel. There's just like hippies hanging around everywhere. You're looking,
32:18
Speaker 1: what the who are these people? We stuck out like
32:21
Speaker 1: a sore thomb. It was amazing, but it became this
32:24
Speaker 1: legendary performance. It was, uh, yeah, we wish we had
32:28
Speaker 1: some other clothes because it was we had these suits
32:30
Speaker 1: made of Landscape Brothers, you know, and Memphis. Everybody went
32:33
Speaker 1: there because that's where Elvis had this stuff done and
32:36
Speaker 1: they were great. They could get just suited up quickly
32:38
Speaker 1: and yeah, and they made nice stuff. Yeah, but you
32:41
Speaker 1: but you looked like algebra teachers compared to everybody. Absolutely. Yeah,
32:44
Speaker 1: they were. They were green silk suits, you know, conservative suits,
32:49
Speaker 1: and that's what we wanted stage. That's what we thought
32:50
Speaker 1: we were supposed to wear. Al Jackson, you know, that
32:53
Speaker 1: was his idea, and that's what we did uh. You know,
32:58
Speaker 1: in Memphis in the time you were, the MGS were
33:02
Speaker 1: sort of held up. I don't know if they were
33:03
Speaker 1: held up at the time, but they are now as
33:05
Speaker 1: an integrated band. There weren't many integrated bands in the country,
33:09
Speaker 1: and you were probably the most famous at that point.
33:14
Speaker 1: Were you conscious of what was going on in Memphis
33:18
Speaker 1: at the time before, for example, Martin Luther King came
33:23
Speaker 1: and he was killed there, but for the Garbageman strike?
33:26
Speaker 1: Was that stuff? Not so much conscious of the fact
33:29
Speaker 1: that we were integrated. That was that was a subtext.
33:36
Speaker 1: It was not important. You didn't think much of it.
33:38
Speaker 1: Didn't think much of it that the bass player was
33:41
Speaker 1: white and the guitar player was white. It was not
33:43
Speaker 1: a big deal. M But you know, like I said,
33:46
Speaker 1: we were a family, so we were close, you know, um,
33:50
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a big surprise to me
33:54
Speaker 1: later when I would you do interviews, and that would
33:56
Speaker 1: be the first question that people ask. My God, they're
33:59
Speaker 1: more interested in in our different in races than they
34:02
Speaker 1: are in the in the music, you know. I would
34:04
Speaker 1: get questions like that from overseas. But no, we were aware,
34:08
Speaker 1: of course that we were different races. But it was
34:11
Speaker 1: not a pervasive issue. We liked the way those guys played,
34:16
Speaker 1: and they were they were we were together. They were
34:19
Speaker 1: part of us, you know, we were part of them.
34:22
Speaker 1: It became an issue after Martin Luther King was killed
34:26
Speaker 1: and Steve Cropper became a bigger issue. He said some
34:29
Speaker 1: things that seemed to blame Martin Luther King for stirring
34:32
Speaker 1: things up in Memphis. What was that like for you?
34:37
Speaker 1: At different times? It was a different difficulties. Later years,
34:41
Speaker 1: it was more difficult than it was at the time.
34:44
Speaker 1: I was unaware of that um in nineteen sixty eight.
34:48
Speaker 1: It was a very pervasive, multi headed octahedron working in
34:55
Speaker 1: Memphis against exactly what we were doing. There was a
34:59
Speaker 1: huge establishment that was dedicated to separate people like us
35:07
Speaker 1: and not have what was going on at nine twenty
35:10
Speaker 1: six Maclamore going on. There were there were people in
35:14
Speaker 1: Memphis who didn't want freedom writers to come into town
35:20
Speaker 1: and work towards that. But I was unaware of it
35:23
Speaker 1: at the time, which is a good thing, I think,
35:26
Speaker 1: because you know it would I think it would have
35:28
Speaker 1: hindered the music making had I been aware of how
35:31
Speaker 1: strong the opposition was to racist working together. When we
35:35
Speaker 1: come back. We'll pick back up with Booker T and
35:37
Speaker 1: more on the complications of playing soul music in the South.
35:44
Speaker 1: We're back with more of Bruce's conversation with Booker T.
35:47
Speaker 1: There's an incredible scene in your book when you decide
35:53
Speaker 1: you're going to leave Stacks, which at that point is
35:56
Speaker 1: run by Al Bell, and you write a song and
36:02
Speaker 1: play it for him. Can you tell me that story? Yeah?
36:08
Speaker 1: I think you know. It was the beginning of my
36:11
Speaker 1: trying to increase my awareness in general and kind of
36:15
Speaker 1: realizing that I could maybe think on a different level.
36:20
Speaker 1: And I became aware of this huge i'll have to
36:25
Speaker 1: call it a monster, multi headed monster that was moving
36:29
Speaker 1: about Memphis where I was, that was effectively dictating to
36:38
Speaker 1: two races of people, dictating the whites dictating the blacks,
36:43
Speaker 1: and it was it was undetectable to most people. But
36:46
Speaker 1: I think I became aware of this and I wrote
36:48
Speaker 1: the song about it and called old Man Trouble about
36:54
Speaker 1: defeating this unknown force that you couldn't see and doing
36:58
Speaker 1: it in your own mind and getting getting your mind free.
37:01
Speaker 1: Do you remember any of the song now, Yeah, there's
37:03
Speaker 1: a man called Trouble and he follows me everywhere I
37:09
Speaker 1: go now, old man trouble. You can't get me now,
37:12
Speaker 1: I know. So, Yeah, it was a song that I did,
37:16
Speaker 1: and I've spent a lot of money on did a
37:17
Speaker 1: big horn rangement, string section. Now Al Jackson, Ronnie Campone
37:21
Speaker 1: and those those guys were it actually got. Stephen Stills
37:24
Speaker 1: recorded a few league few years later on one of
37:27
Speaker 1: his soul albums. And so you played this for Al
37:29
Speaker 1: Bell and Al Bell was African American. Yeah, and he
37:32
Speaker 1: had become the president, he was the leader of the company. Yeah,
37:37
Speaker 1: it was reminiscent for me. If Sam cooks the change
37:40
Speaker 1: is gonna come. You know, it was nineteen sixty eight.
37:42
Speaker 1: You could feel it in the air in nineteen sixty eight,
37:44
Speaker 1: you know, the um it was a pivotal year for
37:47
Speaker 1: a lot of things. And but this this was this
37:50
Speaker 1: was a real thing. This was a dynasty that was
37:53
Speaker 1: at work in Memphis. It was a it was an
37:55
Speaker 1: oppressive force that was that was working man there. But
37:59
Speaker 1: it blought up at the surface, you know. But he
38:03
Speaker 1: he didn't have a good reaction to the song. It
38:06
Speaker 1: upset him. He had the same reaction I think that
38:10
Speaker 1: he would have. I think he even mentioned Sam Cook's song.
38:14
Speaker 1: He was the president of a of a record company
38:17
Speaker 1: that was about to really break open, and and it
38:22
Speaker 1: had to make a statement that the company eventually did
38:25
Speaker 1: make the statement as as a voice of Black America,
38:30
Speaker 1: but he wanted to be. He wanted to be I
38:32
Speaker 1: think a little more gradual than the song would have dictated.
38:37
Speaker 1: M And it was an interacial company at the time,
38:41
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just a Black America, black record company.
38:45
Speaker 1: I think he was. I think, as I said in
38:48
Speaker 1: the book, I think we had the same goal. You know,
38:50
Speaker 1: Al actually had been part of a Dr King's team
38:54
Speaker 1: at one point. We had the same goal, but I
38:56
Speaker 1: think we were taking to different directions toward it. And
39:00
Speaker 1: after you played it for him, you went back into
39:04
Speaker 1: the studio. Yeah, and can you tell me what you did? Yeah,
39:09
Speaker 1: we didn't. We didn't make a deal that night, which
39:12
Speaker 1: is what I had wanted. I went to his house
39:14
Speaker 1: looking for a deal, and I became a parent. I
39:18
Speaker 1: looked at the space. We weren't going to make a deal.
39:21
Speaker 1: I realized that it was just time. It was time
39:23
Speaker 1: to go, So I wanted to um. I wanted to
39:28
Speaker 1: sever all my links with the company. So I walked
39:31
Speaker 1: into the control room and I am. You know, I
39:33
Speaker 1: raised anything new that I had done at that point,
39:37
Speaker 1: including that song, including that song, and you couldn't what
39:40
Speaker 1: was it? You had to tape over it. You couldn't
39:42
Speaker 1: reverse the tape right, No, And I'm sort of glad
39:44
Speaker 1: I did because they had the freeing, they owned all
39:46
Speaker 1: the masters, and they could put out anything they wanted
39:48
Speaker 1: after I left. So if I was going to make
39:51
Speaker 1: any decisions, that had to be that night. And so yes,
39:54
Speaker 1: I put I raised multiple, multiple machines by pressing the
39:58
Speaker 1: record button and then just went home and packed and
40:02
Speaker 1: went to California. It's it's like a scene from a novel,
40:05
Speaker 1: just these machines running and you're then you just leave.
40:08
Speaker 1: It's incredible, and I'm glad I did. It turned out
40:11
Speaker 1: they put out many outtakes of the MG, stuff that
40:14
Speaker 1: we weren't finished with, that we hadn't even named, and
40:17
Speaker 1: I've heard of stuff, well we're not finished with that one.
40:19
Speaker 1: And they they other companies bought the masters from Stacks.
40:23
Speaker 1: A Fantasy bought Stacks, and then they just put out
40:26
Speaker 1: what they wanted to without permission. They owned it. So
40:29
Speaker 1: if you know, if you're leaving a record company, you
40:30
Speaker 1: gotta you can't leave anything there, you know, And then
40:35
Speaker 1: you went to California. Yeah, you didn't have a lot
40:38
Speaker 1: of money, didn't have a lot of money. You didn't.
40:40
Speaker 1: I can't remember what you're making at that point at stacks,
40:42
Speaker 1: like one hundred and twenty five a week or something,
40:44
Speaker 1: when my first deal with Herb Alpert was more than
40:46
Speaker 1: I had made in a Memphis in a year. My
40:49
Speaker 1: first Yeah, yeah, they gave me. They made me very comfortable.
40:54
Speaker 1: But you you describe yourself as almost being a little
40:58
Speaker 1: at sea after after your time at Stacks, trying to
41:01
Speaker 1: figure out what was next. But then you almost immediately
41:05
Speaker 1: discover Bill Withers and tell me about that story. It
41:10
Speaker 1: was another almost two years before Bill was brought to me.
41:17
Speaker 1: I got a phone call from Clarence Avan, a friend
41:19
Speaker 1: of Al Bell's. Clarence had sold stacks for Al Bell.
41:24
Speaker 1: He had sold stacks to Paramount, and so Al was
41:28
Speaker 1: crazy about Clarence Avan. It's Clarence, This Clarence that for
41:30
Speaker 1: a long time. We kept our relationship, although I didn't
41:33
Speaker 1: stay there. And Clarence called and he was very excited
41:37
Speaker 1: about this guy in Inglewood that was building airplane toilets
41:40
Speaker 1: and he was a carpenter and he wanted me to
41:43
Speaker 1: listen to his songs. He described him as a songwriter.
41:46
Speaker 1: And Bill came out to my ranch in Malibu with
41:50
Speaker 1: a big, thick notebook full of songs. And what kind
41:52
Speaker 1: of guy wasn't a friend of guy? You know, very
41:55
Speaker 1: just like he was very happy, jokes, joking, making a
41:58
Speaker 1: lot of jokes and kind of assuming, kind of a
42:01
Speaker 1: little a little like Otis was. But basically U Bill's.
42:05
Speaker 1: Bill's mentality is that of a carpenter. He's you know,
42:08
Speaker 1: he's always looking to build something. He's always done something
42:10
Speaker 1: in some of his kids houses or changed to something
42:13
Speaker 1: apartment And secondarily as a songwriter, that's the kind of person.
42:18
Speaker 1: When we walked into the studio, he asked me, I
42:22
Speaker 1: had everything and like to set up. I had drums, baseball,
42:25
Speaker 1: people out from Memphis and Readier recorded the songs and
42:27
Speaker 1: he says, who's going to sing these songs? And he
42:30
Speaker 1: just wanted to be songwriter? No, he saw he saw
42:32
Speaker 1: himself as a songwriter and a carpenter and saw it
42:34
Speaker 1: as a side project. And what was the first song
42:37
Speaker 1: he sang, ain't know sunshine? Whence he's gone? So how long?
42:41
Speaker 1: Did that. How long did it take you to say, Oh,
42:43
Speaker 1: I think you're really good. I never said that, but
42:48
Speaker 1: I did. I know that? And now, um, in that
42:51
Speaker 1: book he had songs. I didn't get the best. Well,
42:53
Speaker 1: I got some great ones, but I didn't get lean
42:55
Speaker 1: on Me. I didn't get he had all those in
42:58
Speaker 1: the book. Yeah, and then you produced one of the
43:03
Speaker 1: biggest albums of I think all time, which is Willie
43:07
Speaker 1: Nelson Stardust. How did that come about? That was when
43:11
Speaker 1: I was living in Maliboe, had of an apartment and
43:13
Speaker 1: Willie had rented apartment underneath me, which I had thought
43:15
Speaker 1: was empty because I never saw anybody down there. But
43:19
Speaker 1: one day I saw him running up the beach. The
43:21
Speaker 1: red headed guys looks just like Willie Nelson. What it
43:23
Speaker 1: was Willie Nelson, he weighed because he's just a friendly guy.
43:26
Speaker 1: Did you know his work by that point, Oh of course, yeah,
43:29
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh yeah, I knew It's read Stranger and everything. Yeah,
43:32
Speaker 1: And I was so surprised when he turned in and
43:34
Speaker 1: came into the gate to my unit and he saw me.
43:39
Speaker 1: I stayed out there and we realized that we were neighbors,
43:42
Speaker 1: and that's when we started jamming. At night. You'd come
43:45
Speaker 1: up to my deck because I had electric piano right
43:47
Speaker 1: by the window, and we jammed there, and the songs
43:50
Speaker 1: we jammed on, just messing around with each other were
43:53
Speaker 1: the ones that ended up on the Stardust Down. And
43:56
Speaker 1: then you, I mean you did you played bass on
44:00
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan for Knocking on Heaven's Door. Yeah, I was
44:02
Speaker 1: a bass player. That was my first real gig in Memphis.
44:05
Speaker 1: That was how I got most of my gigs was
44:07
Speaker 1: on bass. But you you said earlier you still regard
44:10
Speaker 1: yourself as a guitar player. I did. Yeah, I still, Yeah,
44:14
Speaker 1: I have. I have guitars all over the house and
44:16
Speaker 1: all of my studio. So that's the first thing you
44:19
Speaker 1: kind of think of when you're when you're writing. That's it.
44:22
Speaker 1: I had a Sarah silvertone. That's me playing a Sarah
44:25
Speaker 1: silvertone on William Bell's Forgot to Be Your LoVa. Oh really.
44:30
Speaker 1: You also wrote a great guitar lick which I don't
44:33
Speaker 1: think enough people know about, which is the opening to
44:37
Speaker 1: Eddie Floyd's Big Bird, Big Bird. Yeah, that's a fabulous lick.
44:43
Speaker 1: You sort of hint in the book that, like the
44:45
Speaker 1: guitarists were why don't you stick to the organ like
44:47
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't want the competition. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
44:52
Speaker 1: that's me on the silvertone. Yeah play that was a
44:54
Speaker 1: Sears guitar. Yeah. Wow. And then you ended up working
44:58
Speaker 1: with Neil Young Shanado O'Connor drive by Truckers. He drive
45:03
Speaker 1: by Truckers. You did a m you did you read
45:08
Speaker 1: it a Jackie Wilson song that became a big hit
45:10
Speaker 1: for Rita Coolie, for Rita Coolidge, who was your sister
45:13
Speaker 1: in law at the point at that point, but you
45:16
Speaker 1: totally changed that song and it became a big, big hit. Yeah. Yeah,
45:19
Speaker 1: I had worked at Jackie Ribinson, Jackie at the Regal
45:23
Speaker 1: Theater in Chicago. Oh, what an entertainer. He was dynamic
45:26
Speaker 1: and that song just but but I often sometimes hear
45:29
Speaker 1: a song and a new a different arrangement will come
45:31
Speaker 1: to me. That's what that was. I had recorded that
45:34
Speaker 1: on myself and readA heard it and did it okay.
45:38
Speaker 1: And then you got a new album which is called Time.
45:41
Speaker 1: Well it's not called Time's Type, but it's a by
45:43
Speaker 1: note and it's a companion to the book. Yeah, and
45:47
Speaker 1: what inspired you to do that? Well, the chapters are
45:49
Speaker 1: the same as the chapter chapter titles of the book.
45:52
Speaker 1: The songs on the note by note uh because I
45:56
Speaker 1: Love You, which is the first chapter of the book.
45:58
Speaker 1: And it's the first song I ever played on in
46:00
Speaker 1: the studio, played baritone sax on that in the first chapter.
46:03
Speaker 1: So it's the first and the last. We made a
46:06
Speaker 1: new recording of calls I Love You with Evye McKenney
46:09
Speaker 1: from the Stax Museum. You know, they have some great
46:11
Speaker 1: talent there, this young talents the at Stax Museum and
46:15
Speaker 1: Joshua Ladette Ladette and you know some of the American
46:19
Speaker 1: Idol winners and some of the New Voice winners. Uh.
46:23
Speaker 1: And Ty Taylor is on it singing these albums of mine.
46:27
Speaker 1: And my son ted who is my new accomplice, has
46:31
Speaker 1: two two songs on there. He's a he's a he's
46:34
Speaker 1: my go to guitarist now and and and songwriter and
46:38
Speaker 1: um yeah, it's it's um. It's a composite of of
46:42
Speaker 1: of of a lot of the chapters of the book.
46:46
Speaker 1: Is there more new stuff? Are the people you want
46:48
Speaker 1: to work with now? Oh? Yeah, there's a new album
46:50
Speaker 1: coming with Ted Teddy Jones, my son kind of like uh, well,
46:55
Speaker 1: every song is different. But on the new album, note
46:57
Speaker 1: by note, there's um, maybe I need saying that we
47:00
Speaker 1: wrote together and then that's paralyzed. That's getting a lot
47:03
Speaker 1: of good airplane now that we moved together. And there's
47:07
Speaker 1: a there's a Matt Berninger of the National sent me
47:10
Speaker 1: twenty songs a few months ago and we've recorded that
47:14
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited about that. A new album for
47:16
Speaker 1: him called The Serpent Team Prison and He's which is
47:20
Speaker 1: out now, isn't it. I know it's not out yet.
47:22
Speaker 1: We just finished the production on it. But he's just
47:26
Speaker 1: done a lot of work and written some really great music.
47:30
Speaker 1: And he's the one that I've worked with on representing
47:33
Speaker 1: Memphis here in New York with the Roots with Sharon
47:35
Speaker 1: Jones that they did that duet together, right, That's where
47:39
Speaker 1: we met a good while ago, and we become friends.
47:42
Speaker 1: And you mentioned this in the book. You know, people
47:44
Speaker 1: expect to hear green onions and they expect to hear
47:47
Speaker 1: the hits when you see them, and I don't know
47:49
Speaker 1: what it's like for you to play them. But there
47:51
Speaker 1: is a great story about President Obama when you met him.
47:55
Speaker 1: Tell that, Yeah, we were doing uh, especially of the
47:59
Speaker 1: Why House, and the president was at the back of
48:02
Speaker 1: the house waiting to walk in, and usually bands are
48:05
Speaker 1: expected to play Hail to the Chief, and happened to
48:08
Speaker 1: be playing green Onions, and he and his wife here
48:11
Speaker 1: and the first ladies started walking in, well actually kind
48:14
Speaker 1: of bopping in to green Onions, and that got film,
48:17
Speaker 1: that got on tape, and he expressed the preference for
48:22
Speaker 1: whenever I was around, to walking into the green onions, right,
48:25
Speaker 1: rather than Hail to the Chief's beautiful Yeah, that's all.
48:33
Speaker 1: Booker T's memoirs out down and be sure to check
48:35
Speaker 1: out bookert dot com to see when you can catch
48:38
Speaker 1: him and his band on the road. You can check
48:40
Speaker 1: out some more of his music by visiting broken record
48:43
Speaker 1: podcast dot com, where we have a playlist available for
48:45
Speaker 1: you to listen to, and while you're there, sign up
48:47
Speaker 1: for a behind the scenes newsletter. Broken Record is produced
48:50
Speaker 1: with help from Jason Gambrell, Meal Bell, and Leo Rose
48:53
Speaker 1: for Pushkin Industries. A theme music is by Kenny Beats.
48:56
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for next week's episode with Richard Russell Xcel
48:59
Speaker 1: Record Audience. I'm just richly thanks for listening. M