Latest / WEHM All Access / WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Raul Midón

Transcript

WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Raul Midón · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's EHM All Access with Raul Madone, who's coming to Bass Street Theater, part of the Sag Harbor Music Festival.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's the uh ticketed show, the headline show, eight o'clock Friday, September 25th.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to SagHarborMusic.org for all the details and uh get tickets that way.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And joining us is Raul Madone.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Raul, how are you?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for uh for doing this.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you sitting down and chatting.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was very excited uh to speak with you because, well, first off, you've been a fan of radio your entire life.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's so cool uh because I kind of grew up that way as well.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: My mother was blind, and I learned the beauty of audio.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's why I'm still doing this.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I love audio and I love the power that it has and uh how how you can really use it as a tool to communicate, and there's just so many great things.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're busy with the hand the ham radio, I believe, and all of that over the years.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just very cool to chat with you, and you've really uh done some really interesting things, and I guess I want to start back when you were a kid.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh first off, uh obviously how did you describe uh radio as kind of a gateway to the world?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's something that you heard like what did you hear that kind of sent you in a in a musical direction?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, the first uh radio I had, I think I was about four or five, and it was a little transistor radio, you know, back in the 70s.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We had those, everybody had them.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um I there was a station that I used to listen to in New Mexico, KDCE, which was supposed to be K dice in Spanish, and it played, you know, Spanish, you know, sort of Mexican music.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really the that was the first thing.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then I also got fascinated with the way at night, you know, on AM, you could get stations from everywhere.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I got fascinated with that.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: At six years old, I got a um Transoceanic, which is a pretty serious radio for a kid to own.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a nine-band shortwave radio made by Zenith.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it opened up and it had a map in the front of the world and all kinds of stuff.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was took 9D batteries, had a huge telescoping antenna on it, and yeah, that was that was it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've forgotten about the Gibe batteries, yes.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it it had a handle, so they called it portable.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the the standard was if it had a handle, it was portable.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind that it was by today's standard pretty big.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, but that really shaped you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and as far as music goes, I know you I believe you listened to a record uh you kind of got into the your father's record collection.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um what was the first record you heard?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I it was it's well that was a story about jazz.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I was about nine.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing, I don't remember if it I could have been ten, I don't remember, but it was around there when we uh we had uh they used to sell these little microphones called Mr.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Microphone.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it was a little FM transmitter.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember actually, yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you could set it up and tune on a frequency that wasn't occupied by a station, and you could, you know, you could get out uh, I don't know, maybe around the house, maybe if it wasn't too big of a house.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, what we did was instead of using the standard little wire that hung off of it, we started to put big antennas on it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We got the thing to go almost a mile.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's awful.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and we would broadcast uh radio.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we had like, I guess, two or three albums.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, our whole thing uh was to broadcast and then walk to see how far it would get.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that that was like we could spend all day doing that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were listening to Hotel California, Finn Lizzie, and I forget what else over and over and over again.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And finally it was like, man, we gotta find something else to play.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is ridiculous.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we got into my dad's record collection, which was sort of forbidden.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And to the break it or yeah, because I remember that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my mom's records were off limits.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, you put your hands on it, get fingerprints all over, whatever.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I got this record, and it was a Charlie Parker record, and it blew my mind.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we were, you know, broadcasting it, and my dad my dad comes home and I say, Oh, here we go, we're gonna get it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he's like, When did you guys get into Miles?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was a Miles Charlie Parker record.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the records where Miles played with Charlie Parker, and that was so it was a a combination of radio and music, basically.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when did you because you were you were born, well, you were blind from birth.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you you kind of this is this is what you know, um, and that you've kind of gotten used to when how did it work as far as learning the guitar?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: When did that kind of come up where you started to play some instruments?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I got lessons uh I was six years old.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and my dad got me less he saw that I was interested, I was very interested in music, of course.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So my dad at the time owned a restaurant in Santa Fe, or just right outside of Santa Fe that featured flamenco uh the whole summer, actually.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he got me lessons with with the guitarist of the show, and he would bring them in from New York, you know.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that was my first uh thing with the guitar, and basically, you know, I would he would sort of show me where to put my fingers, but I did a lot of messing around, you know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like once once I sort of got into it, I figured out a lot of stuff just playing around with it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I got uh training, um and that was you know, from there I anytime somebody would play guitar, I would, you know, pick up something, try to learn a new chord or something like that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that kind of went through when I was about 11 or 12, I started to get uh classical lessons.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I started to to learn classical guitar, but I learned it by rote, you know.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I learned it by like uh tabs, you know, like put your first finger on the second fret and you know this.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was about 16 or 17 I met this guy, Bruce Dunlap, who is still there.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I just saw him again uh this July.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he was about 25 at the time, and he was like kind of a a guitar prodigy.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he started to teach me about scales and chords and voicings, and uh but when I got to the University of Miami, um there were people there that had gone to these magnetic schools, like uh there's a school in Houston, there's a uh there's a school called Interlock and in Michigan that a lot of really talented people go to.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I was still kind of behind uh in terms of what the other people were doing, in terms of what what I knew about music, theoretically speaking.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, then I then I got really serious about it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: You were right, you were down in Miami, and then uh you decided to we were working down in Miami, doing a lot of different things.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what precipitated the move to New York?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like you you wanted some some new challenges, it sounded like well, so I was uh dividing my time between uh doing sessions, you know, singing sessions.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing commercials and all kinds of stuff.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was singing on tons of people's records in Miami.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was a a pretty big recording scene um in Miami uh in the 90s.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was uh all the Latin people recorded there if they wanted to record everything.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did guide tracks for Placido Domingo and uh I uh um uh Johnny Mathis.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I did all kinds of crazy stuff.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but uh but but I I I divided my time between that and doing shows in in restaurants, you know, like just background music.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I started to write my own songs and and uh slowly at the at the gigs, you know, I would get the gig by you know doing covers, you know, doing Georgia or whatever, and then slowly I would end up starting to put my my own tunes in there and getting the band to learn them.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh probably the last thing that really made me want to move to New York was going to uh I was in Shakira's band.
• 8:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I just realized I I don't want to be uh a background singer for my whole life.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to, you know, try my and and then by that time I had gotten a lot of confidence.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I had been playing shows and I sort of had started developing sort of my own way of playing, and uh some of my friends that I went to school with had moved to New York and I just thought if I don't do it, I'm gonna I'm gonna regret never having tried it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so that after right after I've played with Shakira, I moved to to to Manhattan.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well, I didn't know I thought actually I wasn't I didn't know that you had already uh hadn't moved to New York yet.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you were Shakira.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, I wasn't in New York, I was in Miami.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the got people that were playing with Shakira lived in New York, and some of them lived in Miami.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them lived in LA, I guess, too.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious from that experience, uh, what did you learn by working with Shakira at that time and those group that group of musicians?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the challenge was uh that you played the same show every night, and for me, the thing was let me see if I can play this show perfectly.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was doing uh I was playing an ovation acoustic guitar and I was singing backgrounds and I was playing percussion, so I had a lot of responsibility.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um But it was it was the first time I had ever traveled, I'd ever gone on tour.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I learned about oh my goodness, I have to have my clothes, you know.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I had just met my wife, and so she started to to try to help me make sure I was dressed properly, you know, for these gigs.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I learned that uh instead of six or seven different outfits, that every time I would get them cleaned, they would never come back uh the way that I put them on the hangar, you know.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I uh I we learned, hey, let's get six of the same damn outfit, you know.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's a system, and uh, I know this from my mother.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's this there was a system for everything.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you had to make sure that you didn't as a kid, I was pretty good at messing up her systems.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but she had those systems, and that I have such great respect for that um because you really learn how to do certain things, and it it truly is amazing.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd imagine your your wife is an incredible woman.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um what how old were you when you met her?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I was in my thirties.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow you know.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was in my thirties.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we were um you know, we had been we had both kind of been around for a while.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: We just really fell in love and she totally went in with both feet and started helping me.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, I I think I even got into the Shakira band because I started to to play all over the place.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because she, you know, I started to play all over South Beach and you know, everywhere.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I you know, besides I was doing sessions as well with you know with all kinds of I did sessions with Shakira actually before I played with her.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: So now you came to New York and I know that you you really went it sounds like from what everything I've read and heard, you're kind of on a mission um to see if you could do this by yourself.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't want to be a session musician, you wanted your own thing.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um what was what was the big breakout?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'd imagine with with a reef that was kind of the big um break for you.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean I look at the big break, there was there was a few things.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: One, there was uh I was doing shows at Joe's pub, which was at the I did not realize how cool that was.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bill Bragan at the time was was booking Joe's pub and and he he saw me at uh I can't remember the I there was a place on the on the lower east side that I was playing, I can't remember the name of it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but he saw me there and and he started to book me at Carnegie Hall.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Carnegie Hall, at uh Joe's pub, and I got this uh producer, but he uh he came up to me after a show at Joe's pub and he said, How would you like to play Carnegie Hall?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, uh, well, at some point I'd love to.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, How about next month?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Really?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like with an orchestra?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, No, by yourself.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this show, the movie music of Spike Lee.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I read about that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I want you to uh you know to participate in it.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So so that was kind of a break.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I got written up in the New York Times.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: They hated the show, but they said I stole the show and blah, blah, blah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of a a break.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was before I met Arif, actually.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it it's interesting you mentioned that you stole the show.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm not mistaken, that was because of kind of your your trumpet improv a little bit.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Where did that come from, out of curiosity?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where did you kind of discover that you were good at doing that?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was a trumpet player lived in Miami who uh apparently was um uh uh in the bassie band at one point.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Pete Minger, and I just loved the way he played.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: He played the flugelhorn, actually.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and he had this really wonderful articulation.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I just started to but but before that I was listening to Miles and stuff like that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that but but listening to Pete and being at the University of Miami and being really deeply into jazz uh really sort of m made me hone that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and I was learning, it was very intense time, so I was learning scales and changes, and I was applying it to the guitar as well as as singing.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's interesting.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You really have decided that it forge your own path.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I love the fact that you were like, no, we're going to New York and we're for better or for worse.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's it's scary to do that, I'd imagine.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was there something that like that you were advised, I guess, that you ignored that turned out to be the right decision?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: That you look back and go, I'm glad I didn't listen to that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: People would come up to me when I was playing on South Beach and saying, you know, if you want more people, you should do Sinatra covers or something, you know.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's like, you know, and I I I I gotta say I was listening to Sinatra the other day.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: My God, you know, I mean uh what a what an amaz uh at at the top of his game, there was nobody better.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow really.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at a certain kind of thing, of course.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but uh yeah, so I I I said, well, you know, I don't I I really don't want to do that, and I ignored that.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So No, it's it's it's I I think it's really interesting because you really have forged a kind of an independent uh career.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You want to do it your own way, and you actually engineer now your your own records, um, which is with and you've created this this entire studio, I believe it's down in in Maryland.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's I'm I'm in it right now.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you've you've built this.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um how did you how did you kind of start?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously you knew what you wanted, but uh how long did it take to kind of get it perfect and kind of say, all right, I want this is my my plan for this.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: My this is how I don't I don't know if it's perfect, but um Pretty good.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: First thing is when I when I started working on State of Mind with a Reef in 2004, um I was just fascinated by the whole thing.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I wouldn't just sing and then uh get the mixes, you know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was there, I wanted to be there for everything.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd ask questions, oh, what kind of microphone is that?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how are you micing this?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how are you doing that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What oh, how is you know, so I got into understanding at least the some of the things that had to happen at you when you record, you know.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was doing sessions, that never happened because I was just a a hired gun.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't go in and start asking questions.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But on my own record, you know, when it was all about me, I could do whatever the hell I wanted.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I started asking questions and oh, could we try this, could we try that, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got into all kinds of, you know, what gear and what compressors and this and that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I didn't do any of it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was just learning.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did have a a DAT machine in my living room in New York.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I sort of used that to record demos.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was nothing fancy, it was just a DAT machine with a microphone plugged in.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think I had a compressor uh in line, an old um non-rack mounted compressor.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh when I got here, uh I learned about a company called Dancing Dots that was creating uh software for blind people to use to do pro recordings, and that's when I really got into it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they had uh a tech person that I could call five days a week.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I would be doing something and I'd be like, oh hell, how do you do this?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do you edit this audio?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do you change the pitch of this note?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do this?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um that unfortunately d doesn't exist anymore.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm using a program called Samplitude.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and all of these programs are the same Pro Tools, and any any of these programs will do, you know, will give you a really good result once you learn how to use them.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you know, and I just continue.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was just working on something, that's why I was a tiny bit late.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh right now I was just working on on a on a on an album.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well that's what I've I've heard about you is that you're always in the studio and you're always working.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want time off.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You want to work on ideas.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: How how do you um when you're not in the studio, are you are you writing then and kind of just thinking about different ways to to put a song together?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I don't I write I journal on the road, but I don't write on the road.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It it's hard, at least for me, uh I need the time nice and quiet.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go somewhere nice and quiet, and a lot of the time on the road, even though you're traveling, uh it's just it it it's a different mode that I get into.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um where everything is centered around getting there and doing the performance, you know.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you flying, you're flying maybe two or three flights, sometimes you're flying, getting on a train, you know, whatever.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything revolves around touring when you're touring.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I got to do it.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: At least for me.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Stay unfocused on that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're coming Friday, September 25th to the Sag Harbor Music Festival.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: The headline concerts happening at Bay Street Theater.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can grab tickets at Sag Harbor Music.org.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when you plan out a show, uh how how how do you uh look at a kind of an event like this where you're performing at Bay Streets?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: How do you kind of design this set list?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot to choose from, yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I try, I try to uh I always um there are certain tunes that I always play because they're my little you know mini hits, if you want to call them that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I always play like Sunshine I Can Fly, I always play State of Mind.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then I try to to to put some new things.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've been into kind of telling people these days on stage.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a lot more talkative than I used to be, uh telling stories and things like that.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it helps people to to understand, you know, where you're coming from.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, that's that's it's kind of a mixture of old and new stuff.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes uh if I try something new or a new song, I tell people, okay, this is a premiere.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, hopefully I remember the words, you know, that kind of thing.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm looking forward to it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Bay Street Theater for the opening or the headline concert for this year's Sand Harbor Music Festival, Sand Harbor Music.org.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Are you working on it sounds like you're working on a record?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Any plans soon to put something out?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, um, in the next few months, I think.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm I'm working on a couple of records actually.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: One one kind of a winter, uh not exactly Christmas, but Christmas tinged winter record where I'll do a couple of covers that I really love, Christmas covers, and then everything else is gonna be original music.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm working on an album of songs, so it's kind of two things going on at the same time.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and finally, I just want to kind of wrap up with this.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we've talked a lot about um overcoming different obstacles uh with sight and other things, and you talk about learning to see clearly without sight.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm curious if you could just kind of expand on that a little bit.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: How how has that mindset influenced the way you approach not just music but outside of music as well?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've realized that being blind gives me a different perspective, and I'm sort of trying to lean into that um as a songwriter, trying to come up with some images that are very related to the way that I actually experience the world.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so for instance, uh I wrote a song called uh When You Call My Name, and what some of the lyrics are I don't know why, but I hear music in the rain, see the sun, feel the sunlight in my brain, uh as the clouds are lifting, why it is I wake up every day uh knowing everything's okay, just as long as I can hear you call my name.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh beautiful, yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so I'm I'm trying to just it sometimes it works better than others.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, try not to, you know, there's a a certain amount of cliche that has to go into a song, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's rhyming and so forth, but then you know you can always add something a little um I'm a huge Steely Dan freak, obviously.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I grew up, you know, at that time and you know, it was an example of something kind of freaky that got on the radio, you know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did they get those weird songs on the radio?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they figured out a way to sort of make it accessible and also make it interesting for those of us who, you know, are musicians or whatever.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you still and it was it was that time too.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you could do it today.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't think it would work.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: But do you still do the transistor radio and all that?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I'm sitting right next to my my radio right now.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: What's a matter of fact?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that I what uh what is the uh that's such a great way to to communicate with with people and in the power of the human connection via voice.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I imagine you met a lot of friends over over those channels.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I meet them all over the world.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I meet I've met people in New Caledonia, I've met people in Australia, I've met people in Japan.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're talking directly to somebody else without the billions of dollars of infrastructure that is uh part of the cell phone system, you know.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is straight up you use the ionosphere to go directly into somebody else's house and talk to them.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's I've been in it for 48 years and I absolutely still love it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's magical.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what's gonna happen when you turn the radio on because it's all about the sun and and the ionization of the uh of the ionosphere and you know how how the waves are bouncing that day.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a beautiful thing, and uh it's really nice to meet you, Raul.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to Bay Street.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your time.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh really interesting and just an amazing career.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um looking forward to seeing you Friday, September twenty fifth, eight o'clock, Bay Street Theater, uh sadharbor music.org.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much for your time.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.