Author: rokritr

Steven P. Wheeler is an award-winning journalist who wrote about the music industry for a variety of publications–both in the offline and online worlds–from 1985 to 2003. After a few years of full-time freelance writing, he found a home at the bi-weekly Hollywood-based Music Connection Magazine; serving as Columnist, Associate Editor and Senior Editor from 1989 through 1998. In 2000, after starting his own short-lived political/entertainment magazine, L.A. Vision, he expanded his creative role as a writer to include video production and entered the online world as Vice President of Content Programing & Marketing for Tonos Entertainment (founded by legendary music figures David Foster, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Carole Bayer Sager, and former Warner Bros. Chairman Bob Daly) until the company closed its doors at the end of 2003. Throughout his music industry career, Wheeler was an in-demand moderator for industry event panels and he was also the producer of the "American Rock Connection" concert showcase; a monthly live event held at the legendary Palomino Club in Hollywood, which resulted in publishing deals and recording contracts for some of the handpicked talent that performed at his shows. He joined the online division of Warner Brothers in 2004, and is now the Senior Content Producer for that division where he is responsible for creating and programming all content for WarnerBros.com, and an endless stream of other related WB sites, applications and initiatives. Born in 1963, Wheeler maintains his residence in Southern California, where he lives with his wife, Maggie, and a seemingly endless series of feline adoptees.
50 Years Gone: Behind the Morrison Myths

50 Years Gone: Behind the Morrison Myths

By Steven P. Wheeler

One of the earliest photograph of Jim Morrison’s grave, taken by his close friend Frank Lisciandro, only days after Jim’s untimely passing on July 3, 1971.

What follows are excerpts and tidbits from my upcoming book, Searching for Jim Morrison: Shattering the Morrison Myths, slated for release in December 2023. Still included are pieces of my previous interviews with the two surviving Doors Robby Krieger and John Densmore, former Doors manager Bill Siddons, Jim’s close friend Frank Lisciandro, and those who are no longer with us (Doors producer Paul Rothchild, industry legend Bill Graham and originator of the myths Danny Sugerman), but now revealed here for the first time are a couple of additional brand spanking new interviews from this past week. There are refreshing memories about the band’s Sunset Strip days from former Whisky employee and band friend Vicki Cavaleri, as well as previously unknown information from my lengthy conversation with Jim’s Miami Trial attorney Bob Josefsberg. RIP Jim. We miss you…

A few years ago I appeared in a documentary about Jim Morrison and his influence on fans from around the world. In discussing who he really was, I said that Jim Morrison is the ultimate Rorschach Test, in that people only see what they want to see and it is often through a personal myopic view. A singular vision intent on bringing the “Jim” of their choosing closer to themselves.

To some he is forever the leather-clad rebel rock star challenging society and the powers-that-be. To others he is the quiet, introspective poet, and to many raised on the cinematic travesty from Oliver Stone, he is a drug-addled narcissist with no redeeming qualities. You see this dichotomy all over online forums and elsewhere to this very day. There is seemingly no end to the Morrison maze.

Media enhanced myths and long since dispelled rumors are repeated ad naseum from generation to generation giving them never-ending life; the truth be damned. Sadly, through it all, Jim Morrison the Man has all but disappeared behind the veil of a one-dimensional shell reserved for icons in today’s popular culture where sensationalism and click-bait headlines drown out the calmer voices of reason.

As Jim’s close friend Frank Lisciandro once told me: “The fact is that 90 percent of what I hear about Jim Morrison strikes me as being totally wrong; absolutely and totally wrong. The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t even know where to begin to remend the fabric of truth because its been so torn apart.”

In 2014, I collaborated with Jim’s friend, film collaborator and photographer Frank Lisciandro on the book, Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together. Also containing 50+ photos from Lisciandro’s personal archives, this unique oral history—as told through the words of Jim’s friends, lovers, and business associates—has gone a long way in helping to bring Jim Morrison the Man out of the mythical shadows. Frank and I are humbled and honored that this Labor of Love remains the #1 Rated Morrison book on Amazon to this day.

The labyrinth of information is indeed difficult to navigate and today with the Internet, falsehoods continue to torch the truth like a raging brush fire: impossible to extinguish. So things have only gotten more difficult for those seeking to find the REAL Jim Morrison. Instead of journalistic accuracy, we more often see the ongoing drumbeat of misinformation dispersed with impunity from new authors and filmmakers. Those who continue to subtly choose actual quotes, take them out-of-context and thrust them into inaccurate timelines, do so as a way to bolster a false Morrison narrative of their own creation to unsuspecting readers and viewers.

And now as we commemorate the life of Jim Morrison 50 years after his untimely death at the age of 27, I’ve put together this article after pulling out numerous taped conversations with Morrison’s friends, band mates, and other key associates that I’ve conducted over the past 30 years (as well as a few brand new ones in recent days, including with Jim’s Miami Trial attorney Bob Josefsberg). Hopefully this tribute may help shed a keener light on Jim Morrison, along with some history of The Doors, while putting to rest just a few myths that have been told and re-told over the years by a litany of authors and other members of the media bent on selling half-truths and outright lies.

Jim and The Doors having some fun in the studio with their final hit “Riders On the Storm.” Not only was this the last song Morrison would ever record, but listen closely and hear Jim’s off-the-cuff remark about adding thunder effects to the song, which they later did. RIP Jim.

A Rite of Passage

Since the 1980 release of the bestselling Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, more and more books continue to up the ante of distortions and outlandish stories. How else would you get that elusive publishing deal? The situation is endless and the only thing that suffers is the truth.

The life and times of Jim Morrison has become a rite of passage for generations of teenagers around the globe since the release of No One Here Gets Out Alive, written by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, nearly 40 years ago. Perfectly targeted at a readership in the midst of those awkward teenage blues as that is the first cycle of life in which we begin questioning authority, while looking for direction, often with a rock & roll soundtrack as our guide.

Kathy Lisciandro, recording engineer John Haeny, Jim and Frank Lisciandro celebrating what sadly turned out to be Jim’s 27th and final birthday on December 8, 1970.

NOHGOA set the tone that captured those of us coming of age in the early Eighties and continues to capture the hearts and minds of a significant percentage of each successive generation. Many will stop there and have that one-dimensional version of Morrison forever frozen in their minds. Others will continue to search for that elusive “truth,” like a quest for some sort of Holy Grail. Yet never questioning the continued onslaught of more biographical houses of cards whose foundations are built upon the shaky myth-making of the original Hopkins/Sugerman tome.

Prior to his death in 2005, Sugerman told me: “I may be flattering myself, but I like to think that our book played some role in attracting people to the Jim Morrison legend. His story does have all the elements of a classic Greek drama.”

“Look I don’t try and paint a halo on the guy, but the truth is that Jim’s closest friends find that book very objectionable. I call it ‘Nothing Here But Lots of Lies,’ because it’s full of bullshit.”

(Frank Lisciandro interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

But the book also angered the very people who were Jim’s closest friends and confidantes. Lisciandro, who attended the UCLA Film School with Morrison and Doors’ keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and later worked on two films with Morrison—Feast of Friends and HWY—and also compiled the only published posthumous books of Jim’s poetry on behalf of the copyright holders, said during one of our interviews: “Look I don’t try and paint a halo on the guy, but the truth is that Jim’s closest friends find that book very objectionable. I call it ‘Nothing Here But Lots of Lies,’ because it’s full of bullshit.

“A lot of the scenes in that book in which I was a participant are blown way out of proportion and simply not true,” Lisciandro continued. “Danny was a teenager when Jim was alive. He wasn’t hanging out with Jim. I know for a fact that Jim did not like Danny and told me on numerous occasions that Danny was a nuisance. But because Jim was a nice guy, he was kind enough to give Danny a few minutes of his time. Danny was always pestering Jim for attention.”

Likewise, the Doors’ late producer Paul Rothchild told me during an interview at the time of the Oliver Stone debacle: “That book really pissed me off. I spoke with Jerry Hopkins at one point, but he turned the book over to Sugerman who took my quotes out of context or attributed them to invented characters. That book was disgusting and treated Jim horribly.”

“Jim is Alive” Myth

One of the most outrageous claims in NOHGOA, which amazingly still has believers, is that Jim Morrison faked his own death to live a life of anonymity.

Bill Siddons, who was the Doors’ manager from 1967-1972, was blunt when the issue was brought up during our conversation, saying, “I buried the man, so those ‘Jim may be alive’ rumors never held any water with me. It was all hype for a book. Those were rumors started by people out to make a buck, like Danny Sugerman.”

Jim Morrison and Doors manager Bill Siddons share a laugh as they get ready to board a private plane bound for some East Coast gigs in 1968.

Ten years after writing that headline-grabbing nugget of sensationalism, which helped sell millions of books worldwide, Sugerman claimed in our talk that he had no idea that readers would take him seriously. “I never believed that Jim was alive,” he said. “With the book, the idea was not to provoke the reaction that Jim was still alive. The idea was to end the book in a way that Jim would have appreciated. Jim always appreciated an ironic ending, like in ‘Moonlight Drive’: ‘Going down, down, down… gonna drown tonight,’ or in ‘Love Street’ when he wrote: ‘I guess I like it fine… so far.’”

Sugerman also went so far as to put in the tale of Jim’s now famous anagram of his name (Mr Mojo Risin) from the classic song, “L.A. Woman,” as being some sort of hidden code for him to contact people after he faked his death. “Putting in the ‘Mr Mojo Risin’ part about Jim using that name when he splits for Africa, that was my wink to Jim,” he said. “I never believed that millions of people would read that and honestly think that I was waiting around for a call from Jim.”

Well, as we know now, if you print it, they will come. And, unbelievably, there are still Morrison fans around the globe still waiting for Mr Mojo Risin to return to us all with a new poetic gospel.

When the Movie’s Over

A decade after NOHGOA, the next phase in carving Jim Morrison’s reputation into a deeply dark and morose stone would take place not in print, but on Hollywood’s silver screen. Ironically, it took nearly a decade for producer Sasha Harari to start and complete that cinematic mission, which, funnily enough, lasted nearly twice as long as The Doors brief recording career.

Val Kilmer and Oliver Stone on the set of The Doors. (Photo by Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)

The eight-year odyssey that preceded the actual filming is a story in itself. Beginning in 1983, Harari spent a few years talking with the three surviving Doors and the Morrison copyright holders—consisting of the parents of both Jim and his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson—trying to secure the rights necessary to make the film. In 1985, after finally convincing Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, Harari ran into problems with the Morrisons and the Coursons.

“There was a pretty big rift between all these factions,” Harari told me in 1991. “After a while I got tired of dealing with all of this by myself, and that’s when I hooked up with Bill Graham.”

Sadly the legendary rock entrepreneur Bill Graham would be tragically killed in a helicopter crash less than six months after we spoke about his role in bringing The Doors film to fruition: “I think during the dialogue between the attorneys and the parents, it was brought up that Jim had good feelings toward me in the early days, so it was suggested that I be contacted,” Graham explained.

Rock legend Bill Graham outside his San Francisco club The Fillmore West in July of 1968. The Doors played Graham’s various venues many times in the early part of their career. (Photo Credit: San Francisco Chronicle)

“I was somewhat of a mediator; I was someone who could mend the fences. It was like everyone was speaking English, but no one could understand each other. It was my job to translate,” he recalled in his memorable New York accent. “The families were hesitant because they live in the private sector and were initially very reticent to have part of the history of their children—Jim and Pam—exposed more than it already was. Both sets of parents are very private people.”

However, with Graham’s negotiating prowess, all the rights had been secured by 1985, and a deal was made with Columbia Pictures. Oliver Stone was Harari’s first choice to write the screenplay, having been impressed with Stone’s then-recent Oscar win for his Midnight Express script. However, bolstered by his new Oscar-winner status, Stone’s agent was not as impressed with Harari, and the offer never reached Stone’s desk.

“Instead we got a first script from Randy Johnson, but it wasn’t the script that Bill and I were looking for,” Harari explained. “Meanwhile, Oliver had moved to another agency, so I called again in 1986, but he had just begun work directing and writing Platoon.”

Kathy and Frank Lisciandro, screenwriter J. Randal Johnson and Cheri Siddons at a Morrison Poetry Reading in Hollywood, California during 1991.
(Photo by Steven P. Wheeler)

By this time, Columbia had lost interest in the Morrison project, so Harari and Graham moved over to Imagine for a time where the project once again waned, before finally going to Carolco, an independent production company that was then riding a streak of box office hits, including the Rambo and Terminator franchises.

Coincidentally, Oliver Stone had just signed a deal with Carolco, where he was to begin work on the film version of the musical Evita. But when the Evita project floundered because actress Meryl Streep kept increasing her salary requests (it wouldn’t be released for another six years with Madonna in the starring role), Carolco owner Mario Kassar told Stone about the Morrison film and things finally began to fall into place. This time around Stone agreed to write the script (Randy Johnson also received screen credit for his original script), and after the huge success of Platoon, he was now also asked to direct.

If you’ve ever wondered why Hollywood and politicians make such great bedfellows, this is a prime example. It’s literally impossible for either faction to get anything done in a timely fashion, or, most often, come up with good results in the end.

Cemented in Stone

While many die-hard Morrison fans love the final product known as The Doors, the truth is that the film was a major box office flop. With a budget of $32 million, the movie barely broke even, dying a death with only $34 million in total gross. Like the other Stone films that are based on true stories—JFK and Nixon—his inability to capture the truth of his subjects to go along with his inarguable talent for powerful visuals, The Doors is an inaccurate and cartoonish portrayal of Jim Morrison.

And more than 25 years later, The Doors remains a glossy and lengthy MTV-styled video that not only largely prevented Morrison from gaining millions of new fans, because so many were turned off by the dark and depressing character that Stone chose to create, but it was also a creative decision that shot down any possibility of cinematic success.

“When I saw the script, I knew that it wasn’t about the Jim Morrison that I knew.”

(Bill Siddons interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

While it’s true that some fans were created by this celluloid mistreatment of Morrison, far more turned away and to those once potential fans Jim’s true life can never be redeemed.

From the very beginning of Stone’s involvement, things went awry. Bill Siddons refused to become involved with the movie saying that he knew it would be a cartoon-like joke as soon as he was given a draft of the script. “When I saw the script, I knew that it wasn’t about the Jim Morrison that I knew.”

Even Danny Sugerman, not one to shy away from spewing myths and rumors about Morrison, admitted: “It’s Oliver Stone’s version of Jim’s life. There is some truth within it, but it’s not the truth, and it contains numerous fictionalized accounts and considerable exaggeration.”

Frank Lisciandro captures life on the road with The Doors in 1970. From L-R is Doors press agent Leon Barnard, Jim Morrison, Dorothy and Ray Manzarek, Robby and Lynn Krieger, and Kathy Lisciandro with her back to the camera.

Things got so bad after Stone joined the project that the band’s strongest proponent for the movie, Doors’ keyboardist Ray Manzarek, eventually walked away from it. “There were moments of creative differences at the script stage in 1989,” explained Harari. “But it wasn’t until Oliver walked in as the director that Ray started to freak out. Ray could be very difficult to deal with.”

“Oliver was only interested in the self-destructive, creative, brooding personality—one not unlike his own—so he was focusing on that aspect of Jim. We were always complaining that the script was too dark, and that’s why Ray bailed on the movie.

(John Densmore interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

The other two surviving Doors—John Densmore and Robby Krieger—remained as consultants, working with their actor counterparts to properly mime their musical playing. But even Densmore had issues with the direction that Stone took with the film: “Oliver was only interested in the self-destructive, creative, brooding personality—one not unlike his own—so he was focusing on that aspect of Jim. We were always complaining that the script was too dark, and that’s why Ray bailed on the movie. I let [the truth] go a long time ago during the making of this movie. I mean there’s nudity at our concerts that never happened, but there was nudity at Woodstock in ‘69. Cops beat kids in Chicago outside the Democratic Convention in ’68, so Oliver just took all that unrelated stuff and mixed it all up and made it part of our story. And having a lot of Jim’s dialogue pulled from interviews or poems or lyrics or totally made up, made it all very stilted to me.”

Krieger told me much the same, stating: “Oliver definitely took liberties with the facts and he did make Jim into a caricature. I mean Jim could be a little freaky from time to time, but not all the time like the movie would have you believe.”

As for Frank Lisciandro, who was one of Morrison’s closest friends during the last three years of Jim’s life, the movie is nothing more than stitches of truth interwoven into a blanket of lies: “I found it to be intolerable. Oliver Stone did not know—or maybe he didn’t want to know—who Jim Morrison really was; and he did not come close to capturing the essence of Jim. The quiet, sensitive and extremely intelligent human being that Jim was off and on the stage is never presented in the film.”

Jim Morrison hanging out with friends in his hotel room during the 1970 tour with The Doors.

“Jim loved to laugh and he laughed all the time, and he was not shy about laughing at himself either. He had such humility that he would do that. Out of all the people that were around us, Jim was the most light-hearted of us all. Now, because of this movie, he’s going to be remembered as this dark, morose guy”

(Frank Lisciandro interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“Jim had a sensational sense of humor and that is what is entirely lacking in the Stone film,” Lisciandro continued. “The guy was absolutely hilariously funny and he would make himself the butt of jokes. That’s one of the things that all Jim’s friends remember most. Jim loved to laugh and he laughed all the time, and he was not shy about laughing at himself either. He had such humility that he would do that. Out of all the people that were around us, Jim was the most light-hearted of us all. Now, because of this movie, he’s going to be remembered as this dark, morose guy spouting poetry in everyday conversations. Jim never uttered a line of poetry unless he was in front of a microphone. Yes, he did some crazy things on occasion, but he was also a warm and sensitive person a vast majority of the time. There’s a balance that you don’t find in the movie and that imbalance totally eliminates the real Jim Morrison from the screen.”

Even the film’s co-producer Bill Graham admits: “In many ways I’m pleased with the film, but Oliver definitely leaned on the excessive aspects of Jim and did not show to the same extent the private side of Jim. Unfortunately Oliver’s desire was to show what happens to a man when he lets Frankenstein take over and I was troubled by that if I’m going to be honest with you.”

In my separate interview with The Doors’ drummer, Densmore went on to say: “When you have all the crazy things that Jim did packed into two hours instead of being spread out over six years, you get a very unfair picture of the guy. Jim was really sweet and kind and warm most of the time. He grew up in the South and he had this genuine charm; it wasn’t contrived. A tiny bit of that gentle side comes through in the movie, but not as much as I would have liked.”

Val Kilmer as Jim

The one thing that even the film’s harshest critics agree on is that Val Kilmer did a very good job portraying Morrison, the gloomy script notwithstanding. The late Paul Rothchild, producer of all the Doors’ albums except L.A. Woman, discussed with me his role in working with the actor: “Val showed up with about 80 percent of the character learned, and we then spent the next five months in pre-production with me teaching him the nuances and idiosyncrasies of Jim’s vocals.

Recording engineer Bruce Botnick and Paul Rothchild study Jim’s microphone placement during the the recording of “Wild Child” during The Soft Parade sessions.

“I also spent a great deal of time with Val,” he explained, “just telling him stories about Jim and other times answering Val’s own reporter type questions; just like the ones you’re asking me. I filled him up with information about Morrison’s lifestyle, psyche, and his brilliant sense of humor. It just went on and on and on. I just felt like if he knew more about what Jim was like on the inside, he would be able to capture the vocals even better. I thought Val’s performance was fuckin’ awesome, especially when you consider that when you see Val singing on camera, you are hearing Val’s live vocals 95 percent of the time. It is live before-the-camera vocals. There are only five lines in the entire film where you see Val singing on camera and you’re hearing Jim’s vocals. That’s truly amazing.”

Krieger went so far as to tell me that “if I were Jim, I would have freaked out when I saw Val, because sometimes he really captured him.”

Finding the right actor to somehow play someone as well known and unique as Morrison was a major concern for the producers, especially for Graham who had a professional relationship with the real Jim. “I never thought we would find someone who moved so sensually and panther-like as Jim did. My biggest concern was getting someone with that sinewy, sensual, live snake feeling. You can’t create that. It’s either there or it’s not, but Val really captured it. He did a brilliant job.”

Falsehood Fun for the Nerds

As Densmore stated earlier, Oliver Stone took various events and tied them together to give a narrative to his film, false as those episodes may be. Author upon author of Morrison bios have done the same thing over the past four decades as well. Some call it artistic license, others call it the use of reality to create a false narrative in order to tell a story. Here are just a few examples from the Stone film by those who know the truth:

“People have to remember: the movie is fiction, bad fiction, and a fantasy from the twisted mind of Oliver Stone. Bottom line: the Jim Morrison I knew is nowhere present in the Stone film.”

(Frank Lisciandro interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“Jim would never lock someone in a closet and set the room on fire,” says Lisciandro. “He was never a violent person and this is absolutely not in his nature or personality. Then there’s the famous scene where Jim declares that he’s having a nervous breakdown. Jim did walk into the Doors office one day, sat down, and said, ‘I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.’

“But here’s the thing, Jim used to say that line: ‘I’m having a nervous breakdown’ to get a laugh. It was a comic line he used all the time. It was no different than when he’d get a creative idea and say, ‘Hold on, I think I’m having a cerebral erection.’ Stone took that episode and gave it some deep, dark spin that was totally bullshit.

“And then there’s that scene that shows us all on the roof of the Chateau Marmont where Jim is wildly drunk on the ledge, threatening to kill himself. What really happened is that we were on the roof of the 9000 Building on Sunset Boulevard shooting a sequence for our film, HWY. I was there with the film crew [Paul Ferrara and Babe Hill], but Pamela was not there, Ray and the other Doors weren’t there. Jim didn’t contemplate killing himself by jumping from the roof. We were just shooting a scene for HWY. Oliver Stone’s version of that event is total and complete fiction. And that’s what people have to remember: the movie is fiction, bad fiction, and a fantasy from the twisted mind of Oliver Stone. Bottom line: the Jim Morrison I knew is nowhere present in the Stone film.”

Paul Ferrara and Frank Lisciandro pictured shooting a scene in the Joshua Tree desert for Jim’s movie HWY during the Easter Weekend of 1969.

Paul Rothchild, a believer in artistic license, does admit that the scene where Jim throws a television against a wall as a way of showing his disdain of the other three Doors having licensed the song “Light My Fire” to Buick is not true. “Jim did throw a TV in the studio once,” the producer said. “Our recording engineer Bruce Botnick brought the TV in the studio in an attempt to satisfy Jim’s request to have mixed media going on while he was singing. So we were recording and Jim was holding this little TV in his hands while he was singing—he was also on some acid at the time—and at one point he hurled it at the glass in front of the our control booth.

Oliver Stone’s recreation of Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek meeting on Venice Beach and deciding to start a band together was one of the few highlights of The Doors movie.

“So, no, it had nothing to do with the ‘Light My Fire’ commercial as is shown in the movie, but he did once throw a TV in the recording studio, so Oliver used that as a way to demonstrate Jim’s dissatisfaction with the other three Doors who had licensed the rights of ‘Light My Fire’ to Buick for an ad campaign. I have no problem with this joining together of unrelated events for the sake of a movie.”

The “Light My Fire” Debacle

Following The Doors first and only tour of Europe in September of 1968, Jim Morrison decided to stay in London while the rest of the Doors returned home. While Jim was in England, hanging out with Pamela and poet Michael McClure, and out of communication (remember those pre-cell phone days?), the automotive giant Buick offered the band the equivalent of $500,000 (in 2021 money) to license “Light My Fire” for an ad campaign for their next year’s line of cars, including the Opel.

Jim Morrison’s electrifying performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967.

Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore agreed to the deal and since they were unable to contact Morrison who was still somewhere in Europe, his attorney Max Fink (who had Jim’s power of attorney) signed on his behalf. When Morrison returned to the States and was told about the deal, his usual calm and reserve was gone. He screamed at his bandmates for selling out to corporate America.   

“He said that they had made a deal with the devil,” recalled Rothchild, “and that he would smash a Buick onstage if they didn’t kill the deal. Jim eventually got his way and the brief campaign was over.”

Although a television commercial was never created, it’s not well known that Buick did go on with a print campaign for a brief period, having already paid the money. “It’s true that the commercial was never made,” the late producer told me, “but, for a short time, there was a billboard put up about 100 yards from the recording studio and The Doors’ office, saying, “Come on Buick, Light My Fire.” And Jim had to see that every day for a little while and he was infuriated about it.”

In 1969, “Buick knows how to light your fire” tagline was used in the company’s print brochure to introduce their new cars that were coming out the following year.
Buick also used a “light your fire” slogan for their upcoming Skylark GS series.

Even though the massive advertising campaign with Buick was ultimately scuttled by Morrison’s threats, the trust he once had for the others in the band was gone for good. They would continue on for another two years, recording two of their finest albums—Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman—and touring around the States from time to time through the end of 1970. But things were no longer like they were between the once close band mates.

Opening of The Doors

Back in the beginning, things were different. Art trumped commerce. It was Jim who suggested that the band split any income equally, even though this would be a major financial loss to the band’s chief lyricist, in terms of the publishing income. But Jim was not about money, he was not about squabbles, he was about creating art with like-minded individuals. And for a brief time, all four were of that same mind. But the desire for more financial success from some of the others put them at odds with Morrison, as did his growing problems with alcohol.

The Doors going through customs during their only European Tour in 1968.

“My love/hate relationship with Jim developed over time,” Densmore revealed during our conversation. “The first few years, 1965-66, we were pretty close. I mean I had a sense that he was really strange from the beginning, but as his substance abuse increased, the love/hate increased proportionately. It was a love for the art; I mean I could just read his lyrics and instantly hear drumbeats in my head. Even with the drugs in the early days, his mind was still there. It was the alcohol that killed him.”

As for the unique sound of The Doors, Krieger laughed and replied, “We actually tried to be like everybody else, but we were so bad at what we were doing, it just came out different [laughs]. But in answer to your question, I think the instrumentation had a lot to do with it, because the fact that Ray played keyboard bass and organ meant that he had to play very simple bass lines with his left hand, so that his right hand could do what it wanted playing the organ parts.

“That made it sort of monotonous and hypnotic, and the fact that there was no rhythm guitarist or bass player made me play a certain way where I had to fill in certain holes. I think that’s what helped make us sound like no other band,” the guitarist explained. “But it wasn’t a conscious attempt to be different in those early days.”

Densmore added his thoughts, noting: “I feel like we were one of the few groups where dynamics were important. Sometimes I wouldn’t even play at all and it would just be dead air, and then I’d hit a shot and it would be like an explosion. That’s what I’m really proud of, our dynamics. We could be really quiet and then we could scare the shit out of you.”

Robby Krieger: “I think ‘When the Music’s Over’ captures everything. It’s one of those epic Doors’ pieces that grew out of a smaller song, like ‘The End’ and ‘Light My Fire.’ It’s just the ultimate Doors’ song to me and I still love playing it.” (interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

The Sunset Strip Daze

After a few months wood shedding their songs on the famed Sunset Strip at the bleak hole-in-the-wall known as The London Fog, the group eventually became the house band at the legendary Whisky-A-Go-Go, courtesy of Ronnie Haran, the former child actress who was booking some of the bands at The Whisky. It was a time of change, and, by 1966, the club’s new manager Mario Maglieri was attempting to get away from the previous success of artists like Johnny Rivers to better reflect the new sounds of the burgeoning young generation. Not surprisingly, he got some initial resistance from some of the Whisky’s partners who didn’t want to rock the boat of success, but Mario put all is chips in on the future.

Vicki Cavaleri arrived in Los Angeles from Seattle in early ’66 and along with her best friend Donna Port, the two young women, in one of those magical cases of happenstance, ran into Maglieri on the Sunset Strip. As could only happen in those magical days of the ’60s, Maglieri offered the girls a job at The Whisky on the spot. The club had just reopened at the beginning of 1966 after an extensive internal makeover, as noted in the January 18 edition of the Los Angeles Times: “The bandstand and the dancing cage have been swung 180 degrees to just alongside the front entrance and a new stairway leads to what seems an expanded mezzanine. Overall, the effect is at least slightly less claustrophobic than before, and considerably less scruffy.”

“When I talk about the girls at The Whisky, I’m talking about myself, Donna Port, Enid Karl, Nurit Wilde and Cynthia Webb,” Cavaleri explained to me during our conversation in June of 2021. “We were the ones who became friends with the bands and who all ended up staying in that scene in some way or another. Dickie Davis, who became the Buffalo Springfield’s manager, was doing the lighting and the sound at The Whisky and Nurit was working for him doing those things.”

“At that time, during their days at The Whisky, Robby and Jim were really close. Robby was Jim’s go-to person when he was going through anything emotionally. That’s what I saw. I always felt that Jim was troubled, and I think some of that had to do with the attention he was getting as they became a little more popular among the girls on the Hollywood scene. Because you have John in a relationship with [Donna], Ray was never around because he was always off on his own with Dorothy, Robby doesn’t have any dates, isn’t seeing anyone, nobody is chasing him, and then you have Jim who is being bombarded by women and young girls and I think it really messed with his head.”

Vicki Cavaleri (Interview By Steven P. Wheeler)

The transition at The Whisky from more of the hip Hollywood celebrity crowd to that of the faceless young clientele took some time to find its footing. Robby Krieger recalls the Sunset Strip being a bit dead before the summer of ’66 when slowly the Strip began to become a nightly adventure for this new generation, resulting in community complaints and police action by the end of the year; forever known as The Sunset Strip Riots. But in the spring and early summer, the human electricity had yet to charge the winds of change.

“Ronnie [Haran] didn’t hang out with us; the other girls at The Whisky,” explained Cavaleri. “She was separate from us, but, of course, I knew who she was, but she wasn’t particularly friendly with us. She was there before Mario, so there was some friction between her and Mario sometimes in terms of the direction the club might be going. We were like Mario’s flock and he was taking The Whisky to where it went, and he had a great rapport with the kids—both the musicians and the customers. He was just a great guy and perfect for the job of running the day-to-day at the club. I was the ticket-taker, so I was always right next to Mario whose place was at the door.”

The Doors crammed on the tiny stage of The London Fog, their first stop on The Sunset Strip beginning in March of 1966. You know the stage is small when you have to turn your Gibson amp on its side to fit. (Photo Credit: Nettie Peña)

The Seattle-turned-Los Angeles transplant recalls that fateful day when The Doors made their debut at The Whisky; call it the first day of history in the making: May 23, 1966. “The first time they ever played The Whisky was on a Monday night,” she recalls, “and what happened is that there was another band from outside San Francisco who was to be playing that night as the opening band. I had a previous relationship with one of the guys in that band so I was excited to see them again, but they had car trouble and called to say that they couldn’t make it down.

“So Ronnie called The Doors to come in and fill that spot [opening for Buffalo Springfield and Captain Beefheart]. Ronnie actually had all of us girls tell Mario that we all love The Doors so Ronnie could get them in there. So we all said to Mario, “Yeah, we love The Doors, they’re great.” I don’t even know if any of the other girls had seen them play before, but I had not. But that’s what happened.”

As for their debut performance, Cavaleri says: “What I remember about that first night in particular is that I really loved what Ray was doing, and how could you not like Jim Morrison; he was freakin’ adorable. I mean, you had great bands there like Love, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, but none of those bands had a singer who really had all the earmarks of being a pop idol; just by virtue of his charisma. Jim was really the first one that made you even think about that.”

An early live performance of “Strange Days” that would become the title track of their second album. Recorded at The London Fog in May of 1966, just before they moved over to The Whisky.

The Doors were soon enough working as the house band at The Whisky and opening for everyone from local heroes Love to those hard-drinking Irish lads Them with their charismatic wild-man leader Van Morrison. As for Cavaleri, she casually mentions how it’s difficult to separate the personal interactions from the mythic stories of these now musical legends, especially her close friendship with Buffalo Springfield’s Neil Young, who dedicated his song “Expecting to Fly” to her.

In the Neil Young biography, Shakey, Neil himself said about those days: “With Vicki and Donna, it was a really good friendship that  was happening at a magical time in our lives. We were all living this thing together. I was able to relate to those two girls.”

And that’s the difference between the fans and the instant families that were born out of necessity. “Here’s the thing with The Doors and us,” explains Cavaleri. “Donna [Port] started dating John Densmore almost immediately when they first played The Whisky, and Robby, John and Jim didn’t really have transportation to get back to the beach from Hollywood after the gigs, so they would often stay at our place until they had a break from playing successive nights at The Whisky.

“After that first week at The Whisky, The Doors were a pretty big part of my life,” she explains, “so it’s hard to take your personal feelings out of the equation when you’re asking about what I thought about them as a band. We were friends. It’s hard to separate them from the people you’re having breakfast and dinner with, and then they’re sleeping on the floor of our apartment many nights.

Vicki Cavaleri back in the day, and The Whisky with the marquee of The Doors opening for The Turtles.

“At that time, during their days at The Whisky, Robby and Jim were really close,” Cavaleri says. “Robby was Jim’s go-to person when he was going through anything emotionally. He’d lean on Robby in those moments and Robby was really his friend. That’s what I saw. I mean, John would be in the bedroom with Donna. I slept on a sofa bed and Neil [Young] would sleep with me—we were friends, we were not having sex, we were just kids holding on to each other in those days—and Robby and Jim would sleep on the floor. Jim would usually show up later than the others, and I’d be kind of half-asleep and see Jim and Robby just talking.

“I always felt that Jim was troubled, and I think some of that had to do with the attention he was getting as they became a little more popular among the girls on the Hollywood scene. I always think of him at that time because you have John in a relationship with the waitress at The Whisky, Ray was never around because he was always off on his own with Dorothy, Robby doesn’t have any dates, isn’t seeing anyone, nobody is chasing him, and then you have Jim who is being bombarded by women and young girls and I think it really messed with his head.”

After a while, it wasn’t just the women who were taking notice of Jim, and after Arthur Lee, the frontman of Love, told his record label owner Jac Holzman to check out the band things like business dealings began to happen as well. Still, it took quite a few performances for the Elektra Records founder to be convinced. But when he was he asked for the opinion of producer Paul Rothchild.

Producer Paul Rothchild and Jim taking a break outside the Sunset Sound recording studio during the making of their second album, Strange Days, in 1967.

“Unlike the film, I wasn’t at The Whisky at the time that the band got fired when Jim first threw in the Oedipal section during ‘The End,’” explained Rothchild. “But I was at a show there where I saw them perform ‘The End’ and indeed Jac and I did offer them a recording contract right afterwards.”

But it wasn’t love at first sight for the future Doors producer, who recalled that “they sucked terribly during the first set I saw, but the second set was awesome, and the rest is history.”

The Unsung Door

Throughout the short recording career of The Doors from 1966-71, Morrison got all the press and fan attention, but it was guitarist Robby Krieger who wrote many of the band’s biggest hits. The first song he ever wrote was a little ditty called “Light My Fire,” which topped the charts during the Summer of Love in 1967 and set the band on a rapid ascent to the stars.

“Yeah, it’s true that ‘Light My Fire’ was the first song I ever wrote,” Krieger said. “It didn’t bother me too much when people thought that Jim wrote it. But it did bother me a lot when people thought Jose Feliciano wrote it [laughs].” Feliciano’s version of the song became a massive international hit the following summer though, spreading the band’s name to places yet unseen. At this juncture, everything The Doors touched was turning to gold, and fast.

The Doors topped the American charts with “Light My Fire” in the summer of 1967, and the following year Jose Feliciano’s acoustic version became an international sensation.

The guitarist, who also penned the #3 hit “Touch Me” and the other memorable hits “Love Me Two Times” and “Love Her Madly,” admitted to me, “Yeah, I felt a little unappreciated at times over the years because people thought Jim wrote all the lyrics. But it didn’t bother me at the time it was happening, because it was a band and we were all in it together. All the songs were ‘by The Doors.’ But, after a while, Jim decided that people would want to know who wrote which songs, so starting with the fourth album, The Soft Parade [released in 1969], we started giving individual credits on the songs.”

In terms of hit singles, Morrison did write the band’s second #1 hit “Hello I Love You,” as well as “People Are Strange” and their final chart salvo “Riders on the Storm,” which was released just a few weeks before his death in Paris.

The Doors biggest concert at the time took place at The Hollywood Bowl on July 5, 1968.

Changing the Dynamic

As The Doors first three albums sailed up the charts—their third album, Waiting For the Sun, becoming their first to hit #1 in 1968 (their stellar debut stalled at #2, being held off the top spot by the Beatles’ legendary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)—things within the band were starting to change. Morrison began looking toward other artistic avenues to satisfy his creative spirit, working on poetry and dabbling with two film projects.

In early 1969, Morrison was working with filmmaker Frank Lisciandro on editing the band’s “on the road” documentary Feast of Friends (which was finally released commercially in 2014) and he would soon embark on his personal experimental film HWY (still unreleased) with Lisciandro, Paul Ferrara and Babe Hill. In addition, with the encouragement of poet and friend Michael McClure, Jim would also self-publish his first two books of poetry, The Lords: Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The following year publishing giant Simon & Schuster would compile these into one book entitled The Lords and The New Creatures, which is still in print 50 years later.

“At first we were good buddies, but then when he started drinking a lot I just couldn’t hangout with him anymore. It became much, much more of just a working relationship. We’d really only see each other if we were doing a concert or rehearsing or recording. Our relationship just wasn’t the same by the end of 1968.”

(Robby Krieger interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“By 1969, I think Jim was already thinking about other things he wanted to do with himself,” said Lisciandro. “By the time of the Miami concert in March, he had already self-published two of his poetry books and he had filmmaking on his mind. Not fed up with his music career; but surely Jim wasn’t 100 percent dedicated to the band at that point in time.”

There was still also some bitterness from Jim over the “Light My Fire/Buick” situation, but Krieger says the band’s refusal to partake in Morrison’s drinking sessions put up a wall that turned all-for-one into three-against-one. “At first we were good buddies,” the soft-spoken Krieger said, “but then when he started drinking a lot I just couldn’t hangout with him anymore. It became much, much more of just a working relationship. We’d really only see each other if we were doing a concert or rehearsing or recording, which wasn’t a lot of time. Our relationship just wasn’t the same by the end of 1968.”

Densmore echoed those sentiments: “All of [the media hype] was a conscious and unconscious thing that Jim created. He was smart, so he gave the media wonderful quotes like ‘erotic politicians,’ but then the ball gets rolling and it’s a runaway train and the media keeps it going and it gets bigger than you can handle. I was getting increasingly worried about what I felt was Jim’s self-destruction and it was being glamorized by the media. The other three of us sort of pulled away because you can get caught under that cloud yourself.”

Despite the media onslaught of attention, Sugerman believed that “Jim didn’t see himself as any kind of a leader of any movement. I think he was flattered that critics and fans tried to put him in that role and I think he might have even taken it seriously on one or two occasions with songs like ‘Five to One’ and ‘Unknown Soldier,’ but it wasn’t anything he aspired to be.”

The band’s manager in those halcyon days, Bill Siddons, added a personal perspective: “I knew Jim well in that I spent a lot of time with him, but we weren’t best buddies. We didn’t hangout and drink together. I was always the responsible figure while Jim was out doing whatever he was doing. But we were close and I know that I was a trusted confidante that he could speak to openly.

“He was a pretty intense guy when I first met him in ’67, right before ‘Light My Fire’ exploded,” Siddons recalled. “He was very unpredictable in those days. You couldn’t really tell who he was or what he had going on in his mind. Around 1969, he really got a little bored with the whole shamanism thing that he had created with the help of the media. The problem was that in the beginning, Jim went out to have a specific artistic experience with an audience. But the media created a sensationalism around that and effectively destroyed Jim’s artistic intent, because the audiences were now walking in and expecting to see what they had read about in a magazine. When performances were no longer spontaneous, Jim was no longer interested.”

Bill Siddons and Jim have a seat at John Densmore’s birthday party in 1969, with Robby Krieger in the background.

And once he saw their documentary, Feast of Friends, Sugerman believed that Jim had an artistic awakening. “For a while he never seemed to doubt that he was ideally suited for what he was doing, but after seeing some of the filmed concert footage, he commented: ‘I used to think that I was in control of it, but now I realize that I’m just a puppet of forces that I only vaguely understand.’ That’s a pretty astute observation for someone that the media only considered to be a rock singer.”

Lisciandro also points to the fact that Morrison was woefully unprepared for the sudden stardom that came blasting into his life in such a short span of time; from unknown to superstar in a metaphorical blink-of-the-eye. “The whole success thing did make Jim realize that he really was a vital part of this super-structure and that there were obligations and responsibilities drawing on him. But, then again, Jim Morrison was 25 years old at that time; he wasn’t this mature older guy in his forties.

“Here’s the thing. When you get married, have children, etc., there’s an accumulation of responsibilities that build upon you in a gradual or evolutionary way,” he said. “It’s not a sudden thing that explodes on you in the span of eighteen months or two years as it did with Jim and the success of The Doors. Suddenly there was this organizational structure that he had to carry around and support, and I just don’t think he was old enough or mature enough to handle it and, within that context, it’s not overly surprising that something like Miami would happen.”

The Miami Incident

Ah yes, it seems that one can’t talk about The Doors and not discuss the infamous concert at Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami on March 1, 1969, which eventually resulted in Morrison being arrested and later put on trial for lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent exposure, public profanity and public drunkenness. This was the opening show for the band’s first-ever major tour in the States, but it was also at the time when Morrison was following his other artistic dreams that had little to do with music, and now he was on the hook for a lengthy jaunt across America.

“The Doors never toured extensively,” manager Bill Siddons said. “The only extensive tour they did in their entire career was three weeks in Europe in 1968. Other than that, they basically worked weekends because Jim was too unstable. You could never predict what would happen after the third date. He really couldn’t deal with repetitive days on the road and repeating performances the same as the night before. He literally couldn’t do that. He just wasn’t made up to function that way.”

But by early ’69, the time had come to push the envelope and other members of the band really wanted to do a fully fleshed out tour. The band’s fourth album, The Soft Parade,would be released later during the tour, and, at the time of Miami, “Touch Me” had been released as the album’s first single and shot up the charts to #3. And with the band’s third album having topped the charts only months before, The Doors were at their commercial zenith. The sky was the limit, or so it seemed.

Meanwhile Morrison continued his own personal quest to fuel his artistic soul and he attended the controversial stage performances of Judith Malina and Julian Beck’s The Living Theatre just before the tour would begin in Miami. Morrison was mesmerized by the unique stage show in which the performers directly confronted their audience by yelling at and provoking them into action. The goal was to break down and obliterate the invisible wall that exists between performer and audience.

“Jim went to see The Living Theatre several times at USC a week or so prior to Miami,” Lisciandro recalled. “I went to see one of the performances as well; it was amazing what those people were getting into. This was a strip-you-down-and-build-you-back-up-again kind of theater performance, and it was really groundbreaking stuff in 1969. And you can surmise that Jim’s appreciation of The Living Theatre led to some of his over-the-top behavior that night in Miami.”

Segments from The Living Theatre’s confrontational 1969 performance of “Paradise Now” around the time that Jim Morrison attended multiple performances right before the infamous Miami concert on March 1, 1969.

Add to that mindset, shortly before the concert Morrison had a fight with his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson and missed his flight to the gig. At the last minute, he had to take a series of connecting flights to make it by the starting time of the concert, and he was drinking all the way there.

In the meantime, Bill Siddons discovered that the unscrupulous promoter had ripped out the seats of Dinner Key Auditorium and illegally sold more than double the original amount of tickets and to make matters worse he was refusing to pay the band more than the original contract called for. When the band threatened to leave, the promoters refused to release the band’s equipment that was locked up in their vans.

The backstage chaos continued until Morrison arrived with about a half-hour to spare, and he was clearly drunk. Discovering that the band was not only being ripped off by the promoters, but also being blackmailed into performing, Morrison went onstage and gave his own version of The Living Theatre to the unsuspecting audience.

Densmore who had been fuming backstage waiting to see if Morrison would even show up was not prepared for what Jim had in mind as they took to the sweltering stage, simply saying: “Jim didn’t tell us that he was going to inject confrontational theater at the Miami concert.”

Siddons explained what he saw happening by saying, “The other guys didn’t know what he was about to do, but Jim knew what he was doing that night. True, he was drunk, but he had a very specific purpose in mind and that was to challenge and confront his audience in a way that he had never really done before. It was Jim directly and verbally asking them specific questions. Instead of making enigmatic statements, he put forth a frontal assault on the audience, asking them, ‘What are you here for? Did you come to see this? Or did you come to learn?’ It was totally intentional and powerful.”

Once you watch the above video of The Living Theatre and then listen to this bootleg recording of “Five to One” at the Miami concert, you can see a clear influence that the play had on Jim’s stage behavior that eventually led to his arrest, trial, and ultimate conviction.

The band lumbered through a handful of songs that would be interrupted time and again by Jim’s taunting of the audience. By the end of the hour-long fiasco of a concert, the band was just happy to get off the stage and try and regroup. They all set out for a quick vacation in the Bahamas, along with their wives (with the exception of Pamela), and while they were sunning themselves on the white sand beaches, back home political forces were galvanizing and attempting to close The Doors forever.

The Miami Aftermath

While no arrests were made by any of the 30 police officers who were on duty that night in the Dinner Key Auditorium, once word reached the ears of the local politicians and law enforcement officials over the next few days, politics reared its ugly head. Miami Herald reporter Larry Mahoney kept the event in the news with outraged commentary that whipped residents of the conservative city into a frenzy. It wasn’t until four days later that arrest warrants were issued for James Douglas Morrison.

The very first media account of The Doors’ infamous Miami concert, published two days after the performance occurred. This story, by Larry Mahoney, kickstarted the public outrage and Mahoney continued to write more additional stories until local politicians finally took action and issued warrants for Jim’s arrest nearly a week after the concert.
Disgustingly enough, the same Larry Mahoney admitted nearly 20 years later in this 1986 article that he had doubts that he ever saw Jim expose himself. Despite his original published accusation and constant follow-up articles that not only built his own career, Mahoney’s dubious claims spearheaded the successful campaign to put Jim Morrison on trial. Mahoney himself died in 2003.

“The kids didn’t have a problem with it,” insisted Siddons, “but it was not acceptable to the parents in that part of the South. And once the acting police chief and acting mayor and other ‘dignitaries’ discovered that something may have happened that night that would offend them, they launched a campaign to bury Jim. It was absolutely a political circus.”

As the news of Morrison’s pending arrest hit the national media, every single city on the upcoming tour pulled the plug, and some radio stations began removing The Doors from the airwaves. The impact was an atomic blast on the business of The Doors and a devastating blow to the already fragile relationship between Jim and the other three band members.

“That concert was a major turning point in our career, but the band was splintered before that. After Miami, we weren’t able to tour for a while and I was actually really happy about that. Not being able to go out on the road really cooled things out a bit. Whereas other people within the group were screaming, ‘We’re losing money!’ I mean, how much money do you need?”

(John Densmore interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“Miami did hurt the band,” Krieger explained, “because we had 25 or 30 shows lined up all over the East Coast, which all got cancelled. That was the biggest tour we were ever gonna do. After Miami we couldn’t get a decent hall to play in.”           

“The incident divided the band and it really hurt Morrison personally,” Siddons maintained. “That he could be put through all that while essentially doing what he felt his job was as an artist. The Miami concert was the single most destructive thing in the band’s career and their ability to relate to one another and be responsible to one another.”

One member of The Doors, John Densmore, was actually relieved at the forced break of activity, telling me: “That concert was a major turning point in our career, but the band was splintered before that. After Miami, we weren’t able to tour for a while and I was actually really happy about that. Not being able to go out on the road really cooled things out a bit, so I liked it. Whereas other people within the group were screaming, ‘We’re losing money!’ I mean, how much money do you need?”

Lisciandro spoke to Jim a few times about Miami afterwards, noting: “He was basically telling the audience that ‘I’m not here to entertain you, we’re going to have an experience together.’ He got a little carried away with it, and things got out of hand a bit [laughs]. Jim told me that he didn’t expose himself, and there was never any photographs that showed him doing it and there was conflicting testimony throughout the trial.”

The Miami Trial

The so-called obscenity trial of Jim Morrison would take place in Miami a year and a half after the now infamous concert, from August to October in 1970. Between the concert and the trial, Jim worked on and completed his film HWY, the band recorded and released the very successful Morrison Hotel album, featuring the classic “Roadhouse Blues,” and they began playing live dates sporadically; most of which were recorded and resulted in the Absolutely Live album.

Jim’s two attorney, Max Fink and Bob Josesfsberg, served as Co-Counsel throughout the trial at Jim’s request. In June of 2021, I spoke at length with Josefsberg, who was a young attorney in Miami at the time on his way to an illustrious legal career that has lasted more than 50 years, including representing more than a dozen victims against the notorious Jeffrey Epstein. In short, he’s one of the good guys. Unlike his brash, abrasive, and much older co-counsel Max Fink, who never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and who passed away in 1990, Josefsberg has always let his work and his career do the talking for him.

Much has been made over the years about the relationship between Jim and Max Fink, mostly from Fink himself. As for any tight relationship between the two, Josefsberg didn’t see it, telling me: “I didn’t think they were close as people. Jim was a very sincere and humble person, and Max was neither of those things [laughs]. And because of their ages [Max was 61 at the time of the trial, Jim was 26] and their differences in personality, Jim and I just had a lot more in common. Jim never said that he disliked Max, but it was definitely a business relationship between Jim and Max.

“Originally, I was supposed to be local counsel and be a support to Max,” explained Josefsberg, “but Jim and I got along very, very well, and there was some friction because Max wanted me to be very supportive of him but Jim wanted me to be his Co-Counsel. Max didn’t like that. Max was used to being the Star, and he didn’t like co-stars. There was even disagreements about the Closing Arguments, because Max wanted to do them alone but Jim insisted that I do part of the Closing Argument as well. With Max, there was an ego issue. Max was happy to have me there as his subordinate or whatever, but Jim wanted me to be involved more because he saw some chemistry between the jurors and I and that’s when he said that Max and I were to work as Co-Counsel.”

During a break from the Miami trial, Jim and his closest friends went down to the Bahamas for some fun and sun. Frank Lisciandro took this photo of Babe Hill, Jim, and his attorney Max Fink who came along for the ride.

In addition, during the three decades he had been practicing law prior to Jim’s Miami Trial, Max Fink had made his name largely as a successful litigator involved with celebrity divorces, Estate cases and various lawsuits. He had very little criminal case experience, which the then 31-year-old Josefsberg had spent nearly a decade doing by that time. “I was hired in late October or early November of 1969, and at some time shortly thereafter the decision was made to not go through the process of having Jim extradited [from California to Florida] and that he voluntarily appear. I had criminal law experience. Max really had no expertise in criminal law, but he was a good trial lawyer and a good trial lawyer can handle different types of cases if they have someone with them who has experience in criminal law, and that could very well be another reason of why I was hired.”

“Jim was engaged with everything. He understood the things that were going on. And what he didn’t understand, he asked about. He was very inquisitive, very intelligent, and he wasn’t one of those clients who’s just laying back, saying, ‘You handle the case, Bob. I don’t care about the law.’ Jim was very involved.”

(Jim’s Miami Trial Attorney Bob Josefsberg interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

On Friday, November 7, 1969, it was Josefsberg who informed Judge Murray Goodman, a statement that appeared in the local press, that his client, Jim Morrison, was “ready to face the music.” Jim arrived the following Monday for his arraignment and pleaded ‘Not Guilty’ to all of the charges. The trial was set to begin on April 21 of 1970, but because of issues with the judge’s calendar and massive delays and motions, the actual trial wouldn’t officially begin until August 12 when jury selection began.

Incredibly, the day following his first court appearance at his arraignment, Jim and his friend Tom Baker were arrested for being drunk and disorderly on a flight to Phoenix to attend a Rolling Stones concert, and because of a recent rash of hijacking incidents, Jim’s behavior fell under the hijacking statute and became a federal charge.

When I asked about his reaction to that shocking news about his new client, Josefsberg recalled his subsequent conversation with Jim, saying: “It was very upsetting to me and I told him that if there were any more instances like that I wouldn’t represent him, because I wanted to help him. I said, ‘If you’re going to do things like that and you don’t want to help yourself, then it’s useless for me to try and help you.’ I just told him that it wasn’t acceptable. I said, ‘You want to be self-destructive, I don’t want to be there watching you go down.’

“And after that, during the four weeks of trial that I was intensely with him, he behaved perfectly. There was never alcohol on his breath. He was always clear-eyed and perceptive. And, to that extent, I don’t consider that selling out or being a phony, I see it as behaving appropriately in wanting to win and not doing anything immoral or hypocritical. So he behaved well during the trial, he was never bad. There was never a Monday morning when he was bleary-eyed.”

Eventually, Jim would be acquitted of the Phoenix charges after one of the airline stewardesses admitted that she had mistakenly identified Jim when it was Tom Baker who had did what was alleged [Jim and Tom had sat in each other’s assigned seats when they boarded], so the judge threw out the entire case.

As for his behavior during the Miami Trial, Josefsberg says that contrary to popular belief, Jim was fully part of the legal team during the entire process. “Jim was engaged with everything. He understood the things that were going on. And what he didn’t understand, he asked about. He was very inquisitive, very intelligent, and he wasn’t one of those clients who’s just laying back, saying, ‘You handle the case, Bob. I don’t care about the law.’ Jim was very involved.”

One of the more interesting tactics that had a humorous result was that Jim and his attorneys weren’t going to put on pretensions by portraying him as something that he wasn’t. “This is another interesting thing we did. Usually you want to dress your client in a jacket and a tie for a trial. We decided not to do that with Jim. I’ve had some clients who have looked in such a way that you can’t possibly put them in a jacket and a tie, and we just felt that Jim was not a jacket and tie guy and it would just come across as phony to the jurors. And Jim was not a phony.

“He wore hip clothing; really ‘with it’ stuff. And by the end of the trial, the jurors started dressing more hip,” Josefsberg says with a laugh. “They were much more relaxed after seeing how Jim was dressing. After a while they didn’t think there was anything wrong with coming to court in a shirt and jacket without a tie or even just a sport shirt, because they didn’t find Jim to be disrespectful or inappropriate.”

Jim and his attorney Bob Josefsberg speak with the media in the hallway during a break at the Miami Trial.

Charged with one felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior, and three misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure, public profanity and public drunkenness, Morrison faced up to three years in prison. He was ultimately convicted of two of the misdemeanors—indecent exposure and profanity. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine. “The thing is Jim didn’t know what happened [at the concert] because he was so drunk, so I found it so humorous that the jury acquitted him of the Public Drunkenness charge. It was just so ironic because the one thing that I knew he was guilty of, they found him ‘Not Guilty.’ It was a joke.”

Upon his conviction and sentence, Jim’s lawyers immediately filed an appeal and Morrison was released on $50,000 bond. In terms of the appeal, which was underway while Jim was in Paris, Josefsberg says: “I honestly thought there may have been a chance for jury nullification, where the jury believes the defendant did the crime but they’re going to acquit him anyway. But in order to win that way the jury really has to like your client and they liked Jim, so I thought the jury may just come back and say, ‘Oh the hell with this, this is silly, let’s acquit.’ For whatever reasons, I thought we would win. I wasn’t over confident but I thought we could win.

“I know there was a great delay in getting the record together [the trial records],” he recalls, “and you can’t fulfill an appeal until you have the full record of the trial. But there was some research and drafting done regarding certain issues. I’m not sure of the extent of it but there was work done on his appeal before he died.

“Probably the strongest grounds for appeal, and there were many, was that the judge didn’t allow us to put a bunch of Playboy and Hustler magazines into evidence, which would allow us to show that this stuff was protected by the law. I thought his rulings on obscenity were ridiculous. The appeal would have been based on some rulings the judge made, things he prohibited. The judge was no genius and he really wanted to satisfy the people who gathered in the Orange Bowl for that Decency Rally.”

After the March 1, 1969 concert in Miami, the media, concerned parents and local politicians whipped up public sentiment to a fever pitch and 30,000 people gathered at the Orange Bowl, and the judge was in the midst of a re-election campaign. “The judge made rulings that he thought would be popular with that segment of the community; not based on the law,” maintains Josefsberg. “Therefore there would have been some specific rulings he made, either evidentiary-wise or otherwise, which we felt were grounds for appealing the verdict.”

The trial was led by Judge Murray Goodman, who only a few years later would be charged for accepting a bribe in exchange for reducing the prison sentence of a convicted sex offender to mere probation. In short, he gave a pedophile probation, but sentenced Jim Morrison to six months in prison. Goodman was ultimately acquitted of the bribery charges, but he lost his judgeship in 1974 under the cloud of public suspicion. He died in 1977 at 55 years of age.

While much has been made about Jim Morrison’s estrangement from his father, an Admiral in U.S. Navy, during Morrison’s trial in Miami his father did write a letter in support of his eldest son. Of particular note is that contrary to wide-held beliefs, Jim and his father did speak once on the phone after The Doors first reached fame, describing the conversation as “quite pleasant.” Danny Sugerman had a strong belief that Jim and his parents would have reconciled if he had returned from Paris.

Another thing that I discussed with Josefsberg was the recent release of some of Jim’s Miami Trial Notebooks within the massive new book, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison, which I was thrilled to have worked on and helped put together. Having lived with these notebooks for such a long time before the book was released, I was always struck by Jim’s often humorous takes on what was transpiring before his eyes as he sat at the defendant’s table throughout the trial.

Eagerly I asked if Josefsberg had any recollection of those notebooks during the time of the trial. His response was immediate: “I sat right next to Jim throughout the trial and he would show things to me, and it was the most perceptive and humorous notes that I still remember, and I would write notes back to him. We would very often be laughing at things or questioning things. Now I’ve had some brilliant clients who have sent me notes and it was obvious that they had no idea what was going on. Jim, on the other hand, was so perceptive and so delightful and I enjoyed his notes very, very much. It really showed his character. He really and truly understood everything that was going on during the trial and he’d write me notes, and he also drew little cartoons. He was just fantastic. I’m glad the family has those and has now released them.”

Closing of The Doors

The band wound up the recording of the final album due on their recording contract with Elektra Records, L.A. Woman, at the beginning of 1971. At this point, Jim was done with the band as an obligation. “Our contract was up, so we had some time to think about the future,” explained Densmore, “and Jim did want to write and do some other things, but we had really enjoyed making the L.A. Woman album.”

In this early version of the title track from their final album, you can hear the song developing into one of the band’s most memorable songs with each Door finding their niche.

Krieger also insisted to me that Jim was merely taking a sabbatical: “When Jim left for Paris, it wasn’t the end of The Doors. We had every intention of resuming whenever he came back. There’s no way we wouldn’t have done another album after L.A. Woman because that was a big turnaround for us.”

However, while the other three Doors maintain that Jim did not quit the band, their manager at the time Bill Siddons insisted to me in no uncertain terms that Morrison was done. “Jim did quit the band. That’s not a rumor, that’s a fact. Jim said that he was leaving the band and was going to pursue other avenues for the foreseeable future. In my mind, Jim had left, but because he hadn’t defined his new future as a screenwriter or whatever he wanted to do, he may come back. Either way, I was wise enough to recognize that Jim needed a break. And whenever that break was over, he’d let us know. It might have been a year, it might have been ten years.”

In March of 1971, Morrison went off to Paris, and despite the denials of Densmore and Krieger, Siddons also revealed this shocking news to me: “While Jim was in Paris, the other three Doors auditioned other singers because they knew that Jim might never come back. A friend of mine at A&M Records had recommended this guy that he had heard and I even ended up managing this guy who was going to replace Jim as the lead singer of The Doors. His name was Mike Stull. Jim left for Paris in March and he died in July, so there ended up not being enough time to make it happen.”

Following Jim’s death, the three Doors decided to go it alone and released two post-Morrison albums with Krieger and Manzarek handling vocal duties before eventually closing The Doors for good in 1972. Incidentally, Mike Stull, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 53, did later appear as the singer on Krieger and Densmore’s 1975 Butts Band album, Hear & Now.

Densmore is the only one of the three Doors who spoke with Jim during his time in Paris, and says, “I was the last one in the band to speak with Jim, because he called me from Paris and he expressed interest in making another record. So I wouldn’t say that Jim quit the band.”

Jim’s Move to Paris

Near the end of the final mixing of the L.A. Woman album in early ’71, Morrison began to tell people he was leaving for Paris to spend some time with Pamela, do some traveling, work on his poetry and possibly pursue some film endeavors. Since Jim’s death, various biographers have said that Morrison was deeply depressed at this period of time and fearful of having to serve six months in jail, he secretly fled to Paris to avoid his prison sentence.

All of this makes for a good story by authors trying to sell books, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, those who knew Jim all have the same story: “He actually became a lighter human being at this time, not a darker one,” said Siddons. Danny Sugerman agreed, “My personal experience is that he got more friendly and less driven right by the time he left for Paris.”

Lisciandro added: “I don’t understand all this talk about depression or unhappiness. I don’t know where to locate that Jim Morrison. Sure, he sometimes had an intense quality but that was because he had a deep-seeded need to absorb and create, but he was a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. I spent a lot of time with Jim during the last three years of his life and I never saw Jim depressed. Never. I honestly never did. It just wasn’t part of his character.

“Jim had a very positive experience making the L.A. Woman album,” Lisciandro continued. “In fact when I look at all the photos I took during those sessions I see a happy and content guy. He was really at his friendliest and at his most open during that time.”

In fact, two weeks before Jim left for Paris, Lisciandro, Doors concert promoter Rich Linnell, Jim’s closest friend Babe Hill, a teenage Danny Sugerman, and others got together for a game of football in Manhattan Beach. The photos of that day show a happy and revitalized Jim Morrison really enjoying himself with his friends.

Jim Morrison laces up his Adidas for a game of touch football with his friends in Manhattan Beach, California two weeks before leaving for Paris. By all accounts Morrison had a great time and played hard the whole day.
(Photo Credit: Kathy Lisciandro Poma)

“At that time, Jim just seemed happier,” Lisciandro said. “He seemed lighter about everything. It was like he finally had some freedom to really do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted to do was go off to Paris and be with Pam. He was really enthusiastic about the possibilities of what he could do with the rest of his life. The possibilities could have ended up being music, it could have been films, it could have been poetry, or any combination of those things. The important thing—and the reason he was so relaxed and easy-going—was because he was free from any obligations that may have been keeping him from pursuing his own journey.”

While Jim may have stunned his bandmates when he told them he was moving to Paris, it was something that he had been talking with friends about for quite some time. “We discussed his move to Paris a few times actually,” continued Lisciandro. “He didn’t have to do any kind of sell on me at all. I encouraged him to go, because I had lived in Paris for a time during my wayward youth in Europe and I thought it would be great for him to go. And we planned on me joining him over there at some point, either for a visit or to work together if he was able to put together a film project. He was taking HWY with him to show to some French film people that he had met previously—Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy—to get their feedback and opinions as a way to maybe find some funding to make some films. There were multiple reasons and objectives for his going and it was an obvious solution that I thought, ‘Why did it take you this long to do this?’ [laughs].”

The Missed Flight

When Jim was finally ready to close the book on L.A. and leave for Paris, his closest friends all went to the airport to see him off. Pam was already in Paris waiting for him. Frank, along with his then-wife and Doors secretary Kathy and Babe Hill all took Jim to LAX, where they were also joined by another former UCLA film student Alain Ronay.

“We got to the airport early, so we went to the bar and had some drinks,” Lisciandro recalled during our lengthy conversation. “We talked about what Jim was gonna do in Paris. Alain was giving him suggestions about things to do when he got there, and since Kathy and I had been in Paris a year or two before, we were giving him names of people and places we really enjoyed. You know, all that kind of last minute chatter between friends.

“And then in typical Morrison fashion, Jim missed the plane!,” Lisciandro said with a hearty laugh. “They didn’t announce his flight in the bar or we didn’t hear it because we were all talking or it was a combination of all of that. At one point, we looked at our watches, saw what time it was, and rushed over to the gate, but the plane was already on the runway and wasn’t gonna come back.

“So Jim had to spend another night in L.A. I don’t remember how he got to the airport the next morning; whether he took a taxi or what, but he left that next day and he was gone, and we never got to see him again.”

“He was not escaping the country. Jim was determined to finish the legal process. He fully understood that the judge in the Miami trial had acted improperly dozens of times throughout the proceedings and that the verdict was going to be thrown out on appeal and he told me that on a number of occasions. He wasn’t running away or fleeing the country; that’s just not true.”

(Frank Lisciandro interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

This nonchalant attitude of missing his flight would fly directly in the face of those who claim that Jim was fleeing to Paris because he was frightened by the Miami verdict and was going to become a fugitive of justice. Lisciandro laughs at that notion: “I’ve heard people say that but it’s absolutely not true, and I was with him right up until he left and we were talking about everything that was going on with him and why he wanted to go to Paris.

“Jim acted with the full knowledge of his lawyer, Max Fink. He was not escaping the country,” Lisciandro makes clear. “Jim was determined to finish the legal process. He fully understood that the judge in the Miami trial had acted improperly dozens of times throughout the proceedings and that the verdict was going to be thrown out on appeal. There was little doubt in Jim’s mind that he was going to win on appeal and he told me that on a number of occasions. He wasn’t running away or fleeing the country; that’s just not true.”

Jim’s Miami Trial attorney, Bob Josefsberg whole-heartedly agrees, saying without a hint of hyperbole: “No, Jim was never fearful. He never told me of being fearful, nor was he strutting and arrogant. He was perfect. He was humble. He wasn’t panicked. He didn’t walk around acting like he was above this kind of crap. He was very decent about everything.”

Josefsberg adds that Jim being released on bail after his conviction and sentencing was not at all out of the ordinary. “When someone can be found not guilty on appeal, you’re putting them in jail unnecessarily; and it’s an overcrowded jail. There were federal mandates against the state of Florida for overcrowded jails at the time. And Dade County was way overcrowded. You had too many people in one cell block, there’s violence, so you want to keep people out of jail. That was true in 1970 and it’s true today.

“Jim had voluntarily shown up to face the charges in Florida,” his attorney continued. “He wasn’t fighting coming there for the trial. He showed up for every hearing, and there was nothing violent about the charges against him. So I didn’t find it extraordinary for the judge to grant him his freedom on bail before any appellate decisions. I don’t recall any fight about that decision from the prosecution either.”

On a side note, on what would have been Jim Morrison’s 67th birthday on December 8, 2010, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and the clemency board voted unanimously to posthumously pardon The Doors’ lead singer for his 1970 conviction.

The Mysteries of Paris

When it comes to Jim Morrison’s nearly four months in France, which culminated in his death on July 3, 1971, the narrative that comes from various biographies is that Jim was vastly overweight, was drinking more than ever before, and seriously depressed, which resulted in him overdosing on heroin—accidentally or purposely.

Five days before his death, Jim and Pam went out to do some sightseeing just outside Paris with Alain Ronay, who attended UCLA with Jim. This photo taken by Ronay puts to rest the myth about Jim being vastly overweight near the end of his life.

There are a few events that some biographers have used to bolster this assertion, but what most unsuspecting readers don’t realize is that some of these “facts” are completely untrue. Let’s start with the so-called “Lost Paris Tapes.”

The Lost Paris Tapes

In his over-the-top sensationalistic book, Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend (published in 2004), Stephen Davis devotes three full detailed pages to an incident in a Paris recording studio, in which an out of control drunken Morrison brings two Parisian street musicians in to record some songs with him. This would become known as the “Jomo and the Smoothies” tape, which is the name Morrison wrote on the box of this 12-minute recording.

The first published mention of this story appears to have been put out by Rainer Moddemann in the early Nineties in The Doors Quarterly Magazine. Not coincidentally, it was published when the tapes first began to be bootlegged and sold as The Lost Paris Tapes. The tale of how the tapes came to be discovered as well as the totally bizarre and concocted story about it being recorded in Paris would then be repeated through the years by journalists and authors who never questioned the original story, as bizarre as it was on its face.

The cover of the notorious bootleg that was nothing more than a lie.

Davis’ 2004 account was the most outrageous as he put together a completely fictional account of the incident as a way of showing that Morrison was totally lost—both personally and creatively—and drinking heavily throughout his time in Paris. Davis not only gives an actual date, June 15, for this event, he even describes the actions of the French recording engineers as if he’s in the room with them: “The studio people were unhappy that [Jim] was obviously drunk. They ran a businesslike operation that usually recorded jingles and classical musicians, and told Jim archly that they were very busy and he could have a half hour maximum with the two freaks he had brought along.”

This lengthy scenario in his book perfectly played into the narrative that Davis’ dark and gloomy tome went out of its way to portray, but there’s one simple problem: It’s complete fiction; an utterly complete and total lie.

These are not journalistic errors. These are absolute and total falsehoods created to sell books. And with so many Morrison bios now in the marketplace, the only way you’re going to get a publisher to do another is to raise the stakes. Good marketing, terrible journalism.

Thanks to leading Doors historian Len Sousa, we now know that the infamous Jomo and the Smoothies tape was actually recorded in Los Angeles two full years earlier with Morrison and his good friend and iconic beat poet Michael McClure. While some researchers had questioned the validity of the “Paris recording” story for many years when people began to hear Doors’ producer Paul Rothchild’s voice on the tape, saying, “I got your action, Jim,” which alone proved the truth as Rothchild was never in Paris with Jim. Yet the myth still continued, bolstered by Davis’ 2004 written account.

Fortunately, because of Sousa’s excellent investigation in 2013, we finally received confirmation that it was McClure with Morrison and that the tape was recorded in 1969 in Los Angeles, not in 1971 in Paris. Yes, it’s a rather useless recording, and McClure and Morrison are obviously hammered, but when you see it through the prism of two friends having a good time in Los Angeles, rather than some crazy and insane Jim Morrison struggling to deal with life in Paris less than a month before his death, you have to question everything else that is being said.

True to form in this day of headlines first and facts second, Davis’ completely false story of a drunk-out-of-his-mind Jim Morrison recording in Paris with two street musicians continues to be repeated, including in Classic Rock Magazine’s 2014 “investigation” into Morrison’s time in Paris. The one featuring the grocery story tabloid headline: “Forget what you think you know. How Jim Morrison REALLY died, by the people who found the body, moved the body and buried him…” Probably sold a lot of copies, but the insanity never ends.

The point being that when one contrived story is proven false, readers must seriously begin to question what else an author is telling you. And the stories have continued to get more and more bizarre with slight new twists or new anonymous sources who provocatively claim to be worried about legal jeopardy nearly half-a-century after alleged incidents were said to have occurred. Time to raise those questioning eyebrows, kids.

Letters Back Home

By most published accounts, Jim Morrison spent his days in Paris, lost, lonely, highly intoxicated, depressed and ill at ease. Since he spoke no French and this was a time when English wasn’t spoken as prevalently as it is in today’s Paris, things indeed must have been tough for someone like Morrison who loved to talk with people in all walks of life, exchanging thoughts and ideas and thoughts.

Yet all the correspondence that he shared with friends and associates during his time in Paris don’t reflect any sort of depression at all. A postcard written to his attorney Max Fink in June reflects some typical Morrison humor, imploring the lawyer to “take a vacation!” and noting that in the “City of Love… the women are great & the food is gorgeous.”

The postcard Jim wrote from Paris to his attorney Max Fink.

Additionally, the letter he wrote to his buddy Frank Lisciandro is anything but sullen: “I had written Jim a letter in May of ’71 saying that Kathy and I were coming to Europe in July,” stated Lisciandro. “We were going to visit our friend—Eva Gardonyi in Hungary—and would be touring around France, Italy, and then go to Greece.

“The letter I got back from Jim was very upbeat and optimistic. He said he had been traveling and he was really looking forward to our visit. Kathy and I were to arrive in Paris in mid-July, and Jim told us to stay with him and Pam while we were there. So we had a good feeling from his letter. It was no different than how he normally interacted with Kathy and I—friendly and always positive. I think we got his letter in early June.”

As stated in his letter to the Lisciandros, during his and Pam’s journey to Spain in May, he had lost his credit cards (“money”). This was somewhat typical of Jim’s nature, since his idea of a wallet was usually just two pieces of cardboard sandwiching a credit card and wrapped with rubber bands.

So in late June or early July, Jim wrote to his accountant Bob Greene. This letter in particular shows Jim being clear headed as he was making plans for the future and moving on from the past. He inquired as to the status of new credit cards (“What’s the problem?”) and that house bills were catching up and to send over $3,000 ($20,000 in today’s money). For someone whose estate was worth approximately $500,000 (or $2.5 million in today’s money) at the time of his death, Jim wasn’t living crazy or high on the hog in Paris.

The letter Jim wrote to his accountant Bob Greene shortly before his death in Paris.

He asks Greene to come up with a financial plan and figure out how long they can stay in Paris, living at their current rate. Jim apparently has no plans to return to the States anytime soon, which he says he has already told the band’s manager Bill Siddons. Interestingly enough, he also asks about his Partnership Agreement with the other three Doors. Could this be a request for dissolution?

Then he talks about the clothing store Themis, which he bought for Pam in late 1968 for her to run as her own business. The boutique, which featured expensive imported clothing from Morocco and France, was never really a successful venture, and eventually served as more of a private hangout than an actual functional business. In the letter, Jim is asking Greene to take steps to turn ownership of Themis over to Pam’s sister Judy and her husband Tom, so that they can get a loan against the property, and then he asks his accountant to begin the process of getting him and Pam out of the business entirely. He also wants Greene to send $100 to Pam’s parents for taking care of their dog, Sage, while they’ve been away.

Does this sound like a man who is depressed? Who has given up on life and is suicidal? It just doesn’t add up to the narratives that have been circulating for decades.

“Last Word, Last Words…Out”

Another questionable “fact” has to do with some of Jim’s writings, which were brought back from Paris by Pamela. One page ripped from a book, like many others, is the brief passage of “Last Words, Last Words, Out,” which auctioneers and biographers have turned into a literal statement of Jim’s final written words.

Was this truly Morrison’s final statement?

The fact that this simple statement is something that Morrison wrote in various notebooks a handful of times over the years would put this in a far different perspective; most likely it’s nothing more than a Morrison-esque salutation that he would put at the end of a particular notebook before moving on to a new one. One thing is certain: it was not any sort of self-written epitaph or death statement penned in Paris on his last day. So save your money at that auction.

The Paris Journal

Despite what has been said about the so-called “Paris Journal,” one of Jim’s many notebooks and other writings that he had with him in Paris, there is more evidence that it was not written during his fateful trip in 1971. Rather, it could very well have been written during his Paris trip a year earlier in 1970 or not in Paris at all.

Jim’s controversial Paris Journal.

The fact is that after Jim arrived in Paris in March, he called Kathy Lisciandro at the Doors office and asked her to send him some notebooks and other things he had left behind, which she did. So at the time of his death, Jim had a wide selection of writings and notebooks with him in Paris that had been written as much as years before. However biographers continue to claim that all of these notebooks and loose pages were written during his time in Paris as a way to create a contemporaneous mindset of his final days.

The notebook in question also contains a section of a poem that Jim recited onstage with The Doors in 1970. The writing in the journal reflects other things that Jim was writing during that time frame as well. Frank Lisciandro, who has spent years compiling, categorizing and organizing every page and every notebook of Jim’s writings on behalf of the copyright holders, is firm in his belief that at least some part of what is written in the “Paris Journal” was written prior to Jim’s final visit to Paris. “It could very well have just been a name or a title of that particular notebook. It isn’t what people are making it out to be: Jim’s final words.”

The End

When it comes to the death of Jim Morrison, the never-ending parlor game of how he died rivals events like the JFK assassination in popular culture. Over the years, many fans are now convinced that the late icon died of a heroin overdose. It fits in with the trademark rock & roll narrative of a troubled artist and drugs, but what many people don’t realize is that Jim Morrison was never a user of heroin.

“He did take drugs. I’ve seen him do it; we did it. But the man was definitely not into drugs on a regular basis. We did acid maybe six to eight times total. We did a lot of cocaine for about eight to ten days, when he and Michael McClure were working on that screenplay. Heroin? Never.”

Jim’s closest friend Babe Hill, from our book Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together.

In our book, Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together, Babe Hill, who was Morrison’s closest companion during the last three years of his life, and candidly admits to dabbling in all sorts of substances over the years, states unequivocally: “He did take drugs. I’ve seen him do it; we did it. But the man was definitely not into drugs on a regular basis. He drank more than I did and I smoked pot. We did acid maybe six to eight times total.

“Jim wasn’t too much into marijuana,” Hill explained. “He said, ‘It turned on me. I don’t enjoy it any more.’ We did a lot of cocaine for about eight to ten days, when he and Michael McClure were working on that screenplay about the cocaine dealer: St. Nicholas [based on McClure’s book, The Adept]. Heroin? Never.”

“I never thought Jim would die,” said Doors’ guitarist Robby Krieger. “People had said that Jim was dead before, so we just thought it was another bullshit story. But we sent our manager Bill Siddons to Paris and he called to say it was true, even though he didn’t see the body, which became the root of all the controversy.”

Contrary to another widespread rumor is that Jim was buried in a cheap casket. Siddons recalled seeing the sealed coffin in Jim and Pam’s Paris apartment describing it as a “beautiful white oak casket with big brass bolts that screwed it closed.” Jim would be laid to rest a few days later in the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris on July 7.

For Jim’s closest friends Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro, the fateful call they received from the Doors manager in Paris was a shock. “We got a call at our house from Bill Siddons on the Fourth of July,” said Lisciandro. “It was a Sunday. Babe was over for a barbeque and we were just hanging out, drinking a few beers on the holiday weekend. Bill called us in the afternoon that day.

“The house was pretty empty,” he explained, “because we had boxed up a lot of personal belongs because Kathy and I were leaving for Europe that week, and we would be seeing Jim in Paris at some point during our vacation there.”

Hill, the first one to speak with Siddons, picks up the narrative of that tragic phone call: “I couldn’t even tell [Frank] about it. I put down the phone and walked out. I said, ‘Bill, you tell them.’ Just shock and tremendous sadness, where you just have to go away somewhere and cry about it.”

Lisciandro added: “We sat there in shocked silence for several hours. We cried and we probably cursed him as well. Did we expect it? No. I honestly felt that somehow Jim would survive, that although he drank very heavily he would live on.”

Conspiracies

As noted previously, many people believe that Morrison died as a result of a heroin overdose. There are numerous such tales, from the ridiculous, like Jim overdosing in a nightclub and being secretly whisked away and carried back to his apartment by mysterious people in the dead of night where he is placed in his bathtub.

Then there’s Danny Sugerman, who later wrote in his book Wonderland Avenue that Pamela Courson had told him that Jim snorted some of her heroin, thinking it was cocaine and overdosed. Of course Pamela died 15 years before Sugerman published this particular story; a story, incidentally, which he never bothered to mention in his 1980 Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, even though he had to have known this story by that time since Pamela died in 1974.

More recently, Marianne Faithful came out with a book declaring that her boyfriend (and Pam’s occasional boyfriend) Jean de Breiteuil was the drug dealer who sold the heroin to Pam that killed Jim.

Conversely, Jim’s good friend and poet Michael McClure, who was also close with Pamela stated in our book, Friends Gathered Together: “[Pam] was in a state of ecstatic grief; I’ve never seen anybody in a greater state of grief. I believe most of what Pam told me and nothing about heroin ever came up [in regards to Jim’s death].”

Ockham’s Razor

Ockham’s Razor is a principle that generally recommends that when faced with competing hypothesis that are equal in other respects, you must select the one that makes the fewest assumptions.

With this principle in mind, one of the most ignored facts of what was happening with Jim just prior to leaving for Paris is that he injured himself after falling from a ledge at the Chateau Marmont, while hanging out one last time with his on-again/off-again friend, the late actor Tom Baker.

“Tom was very much unbridled,” explained Frank Lisciandro, who was friends with both men. “He did what he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. When Tom Baker was drunk, he really didn’t know any boundaries. I know there are people who had problems with Tom, but on the other hand, he was a wonderful guy. He was very creative and very talented. But when Jim and Tom were together and they were both drunk, it was a disaster.”

This potent combination of craziness led to the previously mentioned incident at the Chateau Marmont, which very well could have played a role in Jim’s ultimate death a few months later. As Michael McClure described in our book: “Shortly before Jim left for Paris, Jim was doing one of his catwalks along one of those high walls and he fell. He fell flat almost [on the pavement below].

“Then while Jim was in Paris he went to a doctor [for respiratory problems he was having],” McClure went on to say, “and the doctor looked at him in regard to the childhood problems he had with asthma, which almost had an embolism-like quality. It was almost as if something would float around in your lungs.”

Jim was coughing up blood in April, soon after arriving in Paris, and saw a doctor. But things didn’t improve and his respiratory difficulties continued. He was still coughing up blood in June and now also fighting bouts of uncontrollable hiccups throughout the month, resulting in another doctor visit. It was during this appointment that Jim was prescribed the drug Marax.

As we revealed in our book, Friends Gathered Together, upon learning that Morrison was prescribed Marax, we discovered that the drug is no longer available in the United States. The key ingredient in Marax, Ephedra, had long been linked to a high rate of serious side effects and death and was banned by the FDA in 2004. It was also a very dangerous drug to mix with alcohol, Jim’s drug of choice.

JIm and Pam enjoying themselves in France. Jim would die less than a week after this photo was taken by Alain Ronay.

Knowing that Jim never used heroin, despite experimenting with a wide array of drugs during his days in Los Angeles, and that he had a negative view of the drug because of Pamela’s usage of it, one has to question if heroin ever entered the picture in relation to Jim’s death.

What we do know for certain is that Jim had a disastrous fall only days before he left for Paris. He experienced intense respiratory issues throughout his time in France, including the coughing up of blood and being overcome with severe hiccups over his final month. We also know for a fact that Jim was prescribed and taking a now-banned drug that was known to have caused serious side effects including death, whether or not it was even mixed with alcohol.

Welcome to Ockham’s Razor. The choice is up to you.

Steven P. Wheeler is a rock historian and award-winning journalist and former Editor of Music Connection Magazine, Happening Magazine and L.A. Vision Magazine. In 2014, he collaborated with Jim Morrison’s close friend, film partner and photographer Frank Lisciandro on the myth-shattering book Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together.

For more on Jim Morrison, be sure to read my extensive nine-part interview with Frank Lisciandro, The Calm Calculus of Reason.

For a revealing glimpse into Jim Morrison the Man, take a listen to this lengthy and often humorous interview with journalist Howard Smith from November of 1969 that took place in the Doors office. Jim can be heard talking with the Doors secretary Kathy Lisciandro, as well as a couple of his friends like Tom Baker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiQnqA6zRkE

Genesis: Turn It On Again

Genesis: Turn It On Again

By Steven P. Wheeler

With last week’s surprising announcement that Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks were joining forces again for a Genesis reunion concert trek, I was immediately taken back nearly 30 years when I sat down with the trio at the time of what turned out to be their final studio album together, We Can’t Dance.

Has it really been 29 freakin’ years? Fortunately for me, certain events in our lives aren’t swallowed up by the mists of time. That day I spent with the Genesis trio was one such memory, lodged in my mental vault and as crisp as yesterday. But more on that later.

The big news today is that 13 years after their last “reunion,” Collins, Rutherford and Banks are hitting the road for a brief U.K. tour. No stateside trek has been announced or is even expected at this point. And while some early Genesis fans are outraged that this reunion—like the previous one in 2007—will not include original singer Peter Gabriel or guitarist Steve Hackett, the rest of us hold out hope that the most popular and successful lineup of Genesis will come visit us yanks.

Looking back, the success of this Genesis line-up is truly astounding. In little more than a decade, between 1978-1992, Genesis and the solo projects of these three members sold more than 50 million albums in America, and a staggering 300 million internationally.

During those dozen years, they combined for 24 Top Ten Singles (including EIGHT Number Ones). By the mid-80s, you literally couldn’t turn on MTV or listen to any radio station for any length of time without seeing or hear a Genesis song, a Phil Collins smash, or any of the trio of mega-hits from Rutherford’s Mike + The Mechanics. Along with their stadium-sized global tours, this Genesis threesome truly dominated the music world like no other in that era, with the unlikely drummer-turned-superstar Phil Collins as its face.

The astounding string of hits by Genesis and solo efforts of its members. Top Ten and Number One hits are highlighted.

Of course, much has happened since my time with the guys nearly 30 years ago. A time when all three musicians were excited about discussing their new album, We Can’t Dance, which would go on to sell another four million copies. We talked about how they managed to keep their solo careers and Genesis going concurrently as well as the inevitable media backlash that hits all bands when they reach such massive popularity.

At the time, there was no hint that Collins would announce his departure from Genesis five years later in order to focus on his solo career while trying to have a bit more of a personal life. In typical Genesis fashion the announcement was made with humor and civility between the members.

Rutherford and Banks recruited vocalist Ray Wilson for the underrated Calling All Stations album in 1997, which remains the final studio album ever recorded by any lineup of the group.

A decade later, in 2007, Collins returned to his two old bandmates for the Turn It On Again Tour in which they played for more than one million fans over 46 nights. Collins then released a Motown tribute album in 2009, Rutherford would release three more Mike + The Mechanics albums (including last year’s Out of the Blue), while Banks recorded two further solo efforts and last year released a compilation from his eight solo projects.

But let’s first go back to a simpler time. Before viruses and the media sent people into hysteria, before toilet paper became a major commodity and before politics somehow ventured into every single aspect of our lives.

Meeting Genesis

It was a Saturday. December 14, 1991, to be exact, and it was one of those brutal winter days in Los Angeles, where the temperature reached a chilly 80 degrees. I arrived at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Hollywood just before noon to meet and have a chat with pop music’s then-biggest superstar Phil Collins, as well as guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks, collectively known as Genesis, which just happened to be the biggest selling rock group of that era as well.

The band had just released their latest album, We Can’t Dance, which would go on to continue their phenomenal multi-platinum streak that began more than a decade before. Little did anyone know at the time that it would also become the final studio album Genesis would ever release with their longtime drummer-turned-frontman-turned-international superstar, Phil Collins.

After parking down the street and walking into the lobby, I checked in with the desk to get the room number of where the three musicians were gathered. After a quick call, the desk captain said: “They’ll be right out, Mr. Wheeler.”

No sooner had I sat down in one of those heavily flowered upholstered chairs in the corner of the crowded lobby that I saw the band’s instantly recognizable frontman, followed by his much taller bandmates Rutherford and Banks. Slightly confused as to what the location for our interview would be at this point, after shaking hands, it quickly became evident that some cabin fever may have set in with the three guys.

Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks

Collins asked, “Do you mind if we do this outside? This day is too gorgeous.” Telling this to a born and bred SoCal beach boy didn’t even need an affirmation as I grabbed my trusty travel bag with tape recorder and other tools of the trade. As we stepped out to the pool area, it was obvious that the rest of the guests had thought the same as it was filling up fast with out of towners pleasantly surprised by the winter weekend sunshine.

As we stood for a moment surveying the scene, Banks pointing off past the pool area, saying: “Let’s do it in the garden out there.” Without a word, the four of us trudged off through an external little archway and were rewarded with a sweeping garden of zen, complete with a soothing waterfall next to a wrought-iron round table and a handful of chairs surrounding it. We had found our spot.

As we got settled, I asked if they enjoyed doing these promotional interviews or whether it was more of a necessary evil after all their years of fame, to which Collins replied: “People are going to make up their own minds about the new album and the band no matter what, so if we don’t tell them what things are about, they’ll draw their own conclusions.” Then with his impish smile, he added, “and we can’t have that now, can we?”

Combatting the Critics

As birds chirped overhead and the waterfall trickled its tranquility, I asked the guys if they had read the recent review of their album in the Los Angeles Times, which was anything but flattering. Not having seen the article, Collins asked me who the writer of the review was. When I replied, “Chris Willman,” he rolled his eyes and said sarcastically, “Oh yeah, an old friend of mine,” before adding: “I hate him. Maybe I don’t hate him as much as [veteran Times critic] Robert Hilburn, but he’s ridiculous.”

After digging through my bag, I pulled out a copy of the article in question and presented it to the band. Collins seemed surprised but asked to see it, as Banks addressed his own thoughts about critics in general. “I don’t even want to read it,” the band’s keyboardist said. “I tend to not read our reviews because I find it depressing. It always touches me. Phil reads them and writes letters, and Mike reads them and probably gets ulcers [laughs].”

The L.A. Times album review I brought to the interview.

Collins hands the article to Rutherford, shaking his head, before saying: “This is the same guy [Chris Willman] who reviewed my concert last year and I wrote a letter to the Times saying that I thought it was a grossly unfair review because of the things he didn’t mention and because of the things he did mention that he got wrong. And I got a letter back from Charles Champlin, the editor of the entertainment section, who went back and read the review himself and said, ‘I agree with you, Mr. Collins. I think the guy was well off the mark and I do apologize.’

“So that was nice of him to say, but, here again, this guy [Willman], who obviously hates me, is the one writing the review of the new Genesis album. It’s ridiculous. They’re basically assholes in search of some sort of street cred, whatever that is. And quite honestly,” pop’s biggest superstar continued, “we have never ever gotten a good review from the L.A. Times. I think Robert Hilburn may have sort of liked us back in the Pete days [a reference to the early Genesis days when Peter Gabriel was the band’s charismatic frontman], but he has written some crazy things about us since then. It is what it is.”

In that concert review, Willman antagonistically started the “review” by stating that Collins’ songs only lead to “mass narcosis.” Effectively proving Collins’ point as to WHY such a “journalist” would bother attending, much less be allowed to review it. Remember, this was long before social media, which now allows millions of similar haters to chime in with their nasty biases on an hourly basis on any topic. But I digress.

The ridiculous L.A. Times review of a sold-out Phil Collins concert which caused the singer-songwriter to pen a letter himself to the Times editor, who apologized.

Rutherford hands the article back to me while pointing out the obvious as well: “Basically these journalists can make a bit of a reputation for themselves by finding established artists like us and nailing them. It’s a strange thing because you can find journalists who like us and those who don’t, so it’s purely editorial which irritates me more than anything. It has nothing to do with the music or the songs. It’s purely a personal slant and with people like this guy, it’s merely about telling the world that they should hate our record because they do. It’s very strange and not very pleasant to have to deal with.”

Banks echoes my own personal sentiments as a journalist, in which I decided early on in my career to spend my time writing about music I like and hopefully turning people on to it, rather than writing about music I personally detest. What’s the fuckin’ point? But mainstream journalists have always tended to have a fascination with ridiculing bands and artists who have become insanely popular. They act as if the success of certain artists is a personal affront to them.

“I think it would be more fun for a writer to find unknown bands that they love and tell people about them, rather than reviewing an album by a band that you hate,” said Banks. “Don’t even mention us if you don’t like us or we’re not your cup of tea. I’ll never really understand that. It would be like me writing a review of LL Cool J, because I don’t get it. What would be the use of such an article? Find someone who appreciates Rap, and have them do it, right?

“I just don’t understand the point of all this negative reviewing stuff. It doesn’t help anyone. There’s no point of reference,” Banks continued. “I mean, we’ve had so many bad reviews in our career, especially in England.” Rutherford puts it all into perspective when he jokes: “I don’t believe the good reviews either.” And Collins laughs, saying, “Yeah, you start thinking that they got it wrong to.”

Mike Rutherford’s side-project Mike + The Mechanics scored their first hit in 1986.

“The music press in England is especially vicious,” Banks explained. “And we’ve gotten to the stage now in England where we haven’t gotten a good review since maybe 1976. We don’t fit in to any of the categories they like. We don’t fit in with the teenybop crowd and we don’t fit in with any of the so-called ‘street cred’ types, and yet we sell millions of albums and sell out stadium tours, so I really don’t understand any of it.”

“There are a few magazines that have surfaced in England over the past several years that tend to say less-negative things about us,” Collins explained. “But what they do in Melody Maker and New Musical Express is just humorous now. It bothered me a lot for a while, but now I just know that any mention of us is going to be a string of abuse.

“Some of them do have a good sense of humor when they’re slagging us off,” Collins says with a smile. “There’s a guy named Danny Baker who has a radio show now, and he was making fun of me when I was doing a charity thing with Peter Gabriel for WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance), and I was like, ‘I’m even getting verbally abused by this guy for doing charity work.’ So, one day, I rang him up and discovered that he’s a really funny guy. But you tend not to find the humor when you see something nasty in print and it’s about you.”

The Break Between Albums

Moving on to other topics, after mentioning that I played their new album, We Can’t Dance, the night before at a party and people were loving it, they all three exclaimed: “At a party!!” Followed by Rutherford joking, “Drinks. That’s often the best way to get a positive response.”

When I mention that musicians tend to think that their most recent album is their best, Rutherford stated emphatically: “I really do think it’s our best album, but we also accept the fact that we might not feel that way in a year or two, but we’re all really happy with it. I see what you’re saying about musicians not always being genuine when they say they think their new album is their best, but that’s honestly how I feel at this point. I think this one will stand the test of time more than some of our other albums.”

As for the five-year break between We Can’t Dance and the biggest selling album of their career, Invisible Touch, the trio makes clear that it wasn’t intended to be that long of a hiatus. Although the massive international success of their previous album, which contained an incredible FIVE Top Ten hits (“Land of Confusion,” “Throwing It All Away,” “Tonight Tonight Tonight,” “In Too Deep,” and the title track), did allow for a lengthy band sabbatical. Although release dates can make things seem longer than they actually were in terms of working together.

“While it’s been five years between album releases, we actually didn’t finish the Invisible Touch Tour until July of ’87 and we began writing for this new album in March of ’91, so it’s actually been three-and-a-half years,” explained Rutherford. “The writing aspect took about two months, which is pretty good for us.”

The Process

When it comes to that two-month writing process, Collins jumped back in to say: “And, just to be clear, that’s writing from absolutely nothing. Literally getting together with nothing prepared; no lyrical ideas, no musical ideas, nothing. Just coming together and improvising our way around with each other.”

The band’s keyboardist Tony Banks chimes in that this is the modus operandi; coming up with material from scratch. “That’s pretty much how we’ve done it over the last three albums, and now, because of our solo careers, we’ve made that way of working a policy, really,” Banks continued. “It’s important to us to make our band material totally distinguishable from the material in our solo careers. And if we start allowing each other to bring in ideas that we have had before we get together as Genesis, then it tends to allow for that person to lead things and that produces something different.

“We are able to do that in our solo careers,” the keyboardist and founding member told me. “So, we like to keep that out of our work together in Genesis. It works for us and it truly justifies the group’s existence. Otherwise it’s just three solo projects under the Genesis banner, and that’s not what this group has ever been about.”

Phil Collins’ hit from his second solo album Hello, I Must Be Going in 1982.

When it comes to the band’s creative process after having been recording and touring in their own solo projects, Collins notes that the trio’s rekindling of creativity is “like riding a bike.” Part of this has to do with the personal as much as the artistic. “We do see each other during our time away from the band, so it’s not like we haven’t been in contact with each other. We’re all quite close and we have things to talk about. We own our own studio [The Farm], so there’s the running of that, just various things, like in any other business. Our business just happens to be music.

“Don’t get me wrong,” continued the former child actor, “there is a little awkwardness whenever we start work again together. There’s just a general hub-bub of each of us plugging in our equipment and getting things set up and while that’s going on, I might be fooling around in a corner with a drum machine and I’ll play around with different beats; fast, slow, medium, whatever.

“The thing about a drum machine is that you can control the volume, so it’s not like there’s a drummer obnoxiously thrashing about while everyone is trying to think,” Collins explained. “And then the mood of that drum machine starts to infiltrate and then someone will start playing and you know when something good is happening from that. And after a half-hour of that or when boredom sets in, I’ll program something else. Or Mike or Tony will start off playing something, there’s just something ebbing and flowing all the time, and we’re recording everything throughout.”

Rutherford adds, “If Phil is playing around with the drum machine, he’s obviously free to sing something along with it, but the final lyric usually comes later.” Banks agrees, noting that “we’ve virtually never done a song where the lyrics came first. After two months, we had all the music written and if there were any lyrics at that point, they would have been just little lines here and there.”

“We wrote and recorded 14 songs for the album [“Hearts on Fire” and “On the Shoreline” did not make the final album but were released as B-sides],” Collins said, concurring with Banks’ assessment. “When we had finished with the music for all the songs, there were three that had absolutely no lyrical ideas at all; ‘Never A Time,’ ‘Living Forever’ and ‘Fading Lights.’ The other songs had some lyrical ideas or what I call ‘pointers’ as to where to possibly go with the lyrics.”

Oops!

And, as is the case with talking to musical superstars out in public, we have to take a quick break as a gaggle of fans walk by our little huddle in the garden, stop, and yell out: “That’s Phil fuckin’ Collins!” To which Phil quietly jokes to us: “And Mike fuckin’ Rutherford” and “Tony fuckin’ Banks.”

Thankfully a quick-thinking hotel employee who happened to be passing by kindly asks the fans to please continue on to the pool, and we resume our chat.

The Genesis of Genesis

Formed in 1967 by five teenage boarding house students—keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford, vocalist Peter Gabriel, guitarist Anthony Phillips and drummer Chris Stewart—at Surrey’s Charterhouse School, Genesis recorded their first album, From Genesis to Revelation, the following year, with new drummer John Silver finishing the album in place of Stewart. The album died a death at the time and the five focused on their studies for the time being.

In late summer of ’69, Banks, Rutherford, Gabriel, Phillips and Silver began recording demos in search of another record deal that never came. Silver left and was replaced with Genesis drummer number three John Mayhew. The band gigged throughout the rest of ’69 and began to attract some record label attention.

By March of 1970, during a month-and-a-half residency at the now-famous Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Genesis was inked to their second record contract and they began work on their sophomore effort Trespass in June. Following the recording, Phillips quit the band, and Banks was only keen to continue if they also found a more formidable drummer to replace Mayhew.

Enter a former child actor by the name of Phil Collins. “I joined the band on August 4, 1970,” he told me during our interview, something that was a bit of a surprise to his bandmates, who blurted out in unison: “You know the exact date?” Collins just smiled and laughed, “I found it in one of my diaries not too long ago. It was August 4, and I had written, ‘Got the gig today.’”

Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins

Later the band hired guitarist Mick Barnard for a short period before replacing him with Steve Hackett, and that lineup of Gabriel, Hackett, Banks, Rutherford and Collins would remain in place over the next five years, resulting in four albums—Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway—each adding a step up in popularity across England, with the last two releases finally scoring Gold (500,000 albums sold) in America.

Gabriel Departs

But just as Genesis was hitting higher spheres of acceptance, Peter Gabriel, the band’s charismatic lead singer, announced he was quitting the band following the tour of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It was devastating news, but, in retrospect, the remaining four band members had no intention of ending the Genesis journey.

“When Peter left Genesis, we didn’t feel like stopping,” maintained Rutherford, “because we knew that we still had a strong writing team among the four of us. The thing is, on the musical side, the writing involved the three of us and Steve [Hackett], more than Pete. We wanted to tell our fans that Peter was a part of it, but there’s a lot of good stuff left in Genesis.”

“That’s especially true with The Lamb [Lies Down on Broadway] album,” interjected Collins. “We all lived in a house together during the making of that record. Pete was in a room with a piano and writing lyrics, and the four of us were in another room playing. So, by the time he announced that he was leaving, it had become much more pronounced that the four of us were really a group together. And, in some respects, the four of us were much more responsible for the music on The Lamb. Of course, some of them were Pete’s songs, but Mike, Steve, Tony and I were much more responsible for the music on that one than on maybe some of the earlier ones, so we felt much more determined to carry on.”

Banks, on the other hand, did have initial reservations telling me: “When all five people in a group are equally involved with creating the music and what Genesis was, and if one of them leaves, you lose one-fifth, not the whole thing. But there were two problems that arose for me and that was that, number one, Peter was my closest friend. And, number two, he was the lead singer and the face of the group by that time. So, I feared that we were losing the group identity and how is the audience going to react to the fact that we’ve lost the group’s personality, because Peter had obviously created this powerful personality onstage.”

Peter Gabriel, the flamboyant costume-wearing original lead singer of Genesis.

The search for a replacement for their lead singer was quickly underway and hundreds of audition tapes were listened to with no result. In October, the band decided to begin recording the music they had been writing and then start auditioning possible vocalists as they went along with the sessions. At one point, Collins, who had been serving admirably as an excellent backing vocalist during the band’s live shows, was asked to sing their new song, “Squonk,” and the decision was made.

Drummer to Singer

It was quickly decided that their longtime drummer was now also the lead singer of Genesis. “I think we were incredibly lucky that we were able to make the transition from inside the group,” Banks explained. “I think our audience was prepared to give Phil much more time and more of a chance than if we had brought in a new singer from the outside, because they liked Phil as he was already part of the group and they really wanted him to succeed. Obviously, he more than succeeded in that role and things turned out really well.”

In 1976 alone, the revamped Genesis lineup released two albums—A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering—that became their two most successful releases to that point, charting in America at #31 and #26, respectively. Despite the press initially saying that Genesis was dead following Gabriel’s departure, the band would soon hit the stratosphere, but one last lineup change was still to come.

And Then There Were Three: Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and Phil Collins.

Hackett left the group for his own solo career following the band’s successful 1977 tour, which resulted in the live album Seconds Out. Rutherford took on the lead guitarist role left vacant by Hackett’s hasty departure, and the remaining trio would release the aptly titled 1978 album …And Then There Were Three, which featured their very first hit single in America, “Follow You Follow Me,” as the album became their first million-seller and set the course for a journey that would make Genesis one of the most successful rock bands in music history.

Superstardom

“Our success in America, in terms of album sales, didn’t come until our ninth album [1978’s …And Then There Were Three],” explained Rutherford, “which was our first one to ever go platinum here. Up until that point we were a bigger live band than an album band.”

“’Follow You Follow Me’ was our first big hit in America in ‘78,” Collins points out, but Banks believes it wasn’t 1980 that the band felt they had finally made it in the States: “…And Then There Were Three did okay, but the Duke album was the quantum leap for us.”

“There were times when I wish [success] had come sooner,” joked Rutherford, “but, in retrospect, I think it was better the way it happened. There’s something to be said for building a core audience and slowly building and building and building from there.”

“We did have Top Ten albums in England starting in ‘73,” Banks noted, “so it was about six or seven long years before that kind of success happened over here. It wasn’t until we had hit singles that we started to have success in America. And the hit singles did make the album sales go up and up and up over in England as well.”

When it comes to their astonishing string of hits—both with Genesis as well as member solo projects—it can change the dynamic of concert setlists and how the songs are ultimately performed in the live setting. “I think that because we’re playing stadiums this time around that eliminates a certain area of our music,” admits Collins, “because ballads don’t necessarily translate well to that kind of venue. But I think you also have to extend the hit singles onstage. For example, ‘Invisible Touch’ became a good song live after we worked on it a bit. You can’t expect people to applaud three minutes after they just applauded the previous song, ya know. You have to take them somewhere.”

Banks added: “There are artists who go out and play their string of hits, exactly like the record, but there’s nothing to really get your teeth into when they do that…” Although Collins points out there are some exceptions to that rule: “There are some people who can get away with it, like Paul McCartney who can play ‘Yesterday’ for two-and-a-half minutes, because that song is so much a part of all our lives.”

The Balancing Act

I steer the conversation over to the balancing act of three solo careers and one of the world’s biggest bands. Rutherford takes the first crack at it, noting that there is a loose timeframe of “intention” that the three take to heart. “When we finished our last tour in ’87, we knew that we all had solo project obligations and we knew that we would make another Genesis album, but we didn’t sit down and really fix the time of when that would be. I think that’s important to all three of us because you don’t get that feeling that there’s something hanging over you, which makes it difficult to focus on your solo ventures.”

What makes it all work is being adaptive to each other’s solo situations, as Banks explained, saying: “Mike was doing a solo record before this Genesis album [the third album from Mike + The Mechanics] and I was working on my solo album, but Mike’s overran by about six months because he ran into producer problems. So, there are always things that come up and the solo careers can’t ever completely go away. We just adjust and find the block of time we need to do Genesis properly, as it deserves since none of us would even have solo careers if it wasn’t for Genesis.”

Collins, whose solo career eventually eclipsed the commercial success of Genesis, adds: “It’s not like the solo careers are a threat to the group’s existence. We’ve known each other forever, so it’s not like we’re going to be offended about what each of us is doing or start bullshitting each other.”

“Genesis doesn’t suffer from our solo careers,” quips Rutherford. “We, the three of us, suffer by having to work longer days and nights and weekends, but it’s worth it because Genesis is worth it.”

“The first thing that I’d say is that the music that we have always made together pleases us and we get excited about it as musicians,” states Banks. “That’s the most important thing but coupled with the fact that we’ve always gotten along as people. And we have a natural empathy as players, and a respect for each other’s talents and we plug each other’s gaps a bit.”

The group’s chatty keyboardist went on to say: “There’s also a discipline in staying together and probably because the ‘ego’ thing has never been a factor in this group. In some groups, people eventually say, ‘Well, I can do without you guys’ and it ends. I think that by all of us allowing each other room for our solo work helped with that ego thing.”

Of course, Collins was the first member of Genesis to carve out a formidable solo career when he released Face Value in 1980, featuring the iconic “In The Air Tonight,” which still has everyone in the world playing air-drums whenever that legendary drum break comes in.

Rutherford, scratching his beard, explained his own personal feelings about that timeframe by saying: “There wasn’t a fear when Phil had his first solo success. You can’t worry about that kind of thing. It’s like, if it happens, it happens. There’s obviously more of a reason for Phil not to come back to Genesis because he has done so amazingly well in his solo career…”

Picking up on that point, Banks notes that the timing of the band’s follow-up to their 1980 Duke album played a part in alleviating those fears: “When Phil’s first solo album, Face Value, was becoming a big hit, we were actually already working on the Abacab album, so we were busy working as Genesis when Phil’s album was growing in popularity. Perhaps if it had happened during a downtime with Genesis, Mike and I may have felt funny about it. Maybe, I don’t know.”

Collins agreed that the recording of Abacab was a major step forward for Genesis and laid the groundwork for their astounding series of multi-platinum albums: “During that Abacab period, we had Hugh [Padgham] producing us for the first time, we were in our own new studio [The Farm], and we sounded different. So, there was so much excitement within the group with that album that there wasn’t time to for me or the guys to really think about what my solo album was doing.”

Rutherford concurs: “Abacab was really an important album for us because we really sounded like we did in rehearsals. And before that album, you lose a little of that sound when you go into a recording studio. So that album marked a major turning point for Genesis.”

When it comes to The Farm, the one-time dairy farm turned recording studio, owned collectively by the band members, and where the four biggest-selling Genesis albums from Abacab to We Can’t Dance were recorded (as well as some of the solo projects of the remaining Genesis trio), Rutherford said: “Our studio is like an extension of our home, really. There’s not the hustle and bustle of a commercial studio, where you have to worry about when someone’s coming in or whatever. And we can work how we want without the pressure of hourly rates and that kind of thing. It brings us even closer together. It’s our playhouse and laboratory.”

Another factor that has played a behind-the-scenes role in the three musicians staying together all these years, despite their own solo careers, has to do with management, as the band’s guitarist pointed out: “When you asked us about how we’ve managed to stay together for so long,” Rutherford said, “one of the things is that we have one manager for everything. One manager for the group and the same guy for all our solo things. That’s been very important. Imagine if Phil had his own manager aside from Genesis. I just couldn’t see this working very well, because there would be different agendas.”

What could have been a problem is illustrated by Banks, who moved to another record company for his then-current solo effort. “I made a request to do my solo career on a different record label than Atlantic who is our label with Genesis,” explained the keyboardist. “I think when you’re in a successful group with one company that you tend to get defined as one-third of that group, rather than what you’re doing with your solo project. They maybe think of me in a particular role, and I felt that I was never going to rise out of that position. That’s why my new album, Still, is out on Giant Records. This is my fourth solo record as well as a couple of soundtrack albums.”

We Can’t Dance

When I bring the discussion back to the band’s latest album, I ask about the changing of the guard in regards to replacing their longtime producer Hugh Padgham with Nick Davis. Rutherford takes the question and answers: “We just thought it was time for change. There was no dissatisfaction with Hugh, who had produced the previous three Genesis albums [as well as Collins’ four solo albums]. But when you bring in a new guy, suddenly there’s a little edge to the sessions and you end up with a slightly different sound. The thing is with Nick and Hugh, we have more than an engineer but not really a producer per se because we’re all three so involved with the process and the production.

“And because we write by improvising in the studio, we are taking care of the arrangements. So, very often, the sound and the texture of a song is there from Tony and I. We don’t really have a producer then saying: ‘But how are we gonna make it sound?’ Because it’s really all there already.”

Banks agreed with his bandmate, saying: “You get some producers who come in and say, ‘Chop this section out, shorten that, add this,” but that doesn’t happen with us. Or as Collins adds: “We’ve already done that between the three of us.”

“When I’ve produced an artist like Eric [Clapton],” Collins continued, “you accumulate the songs and you might decide to add strings to something or whatever. That’s never something to discuss with us in Genesis because we’ve written it and arranged it all as we go.”

Despite the band’s ginormous success with hit singles, especially with five Top Tens on their previous album, Invisible Touch, the question arises as to whether the band has consciously forgotten their early progressive rock roots.

“We’ve never left our early progressive roots,” Banks argues, “in the sense that even our last album, Invisible Touch, which was our most commercially successful album, had things like ‘Domino’ which is like a 12-minute track, and ‘Tonight Tonight Tonight’ is a fairly ambitious eight-minute song, and there’s a weird instrumental with ‘The Brazilian,’ and that’s 50 percent of the album right there. All those things are traditional Genesis.

“It’s just that some of the other songs got a higher profile,” the keyboardist continued. “So, I think people got a slightly different impression because things like ‘Invisible Touch,’ ‘Throwing It All Away’ and ‘Land of Confusion’ became big hits, and we’re very proud of those songs as well so it doesn’t worry us.”

“You don’t really have any choice,” said Rutherford, in terms of the band’s musical direction. “You can either go back to what you’ve done before or do something totally weird and strange. It’s either one or the other, so there’s no escaping your roots.”

Another factor with the new album is that the changing of the medium itself allowed for a more lengthy and sprawling adventure this time out. “This new album is our first with the new CD length, so we were able to expand things a bit more,” Banks explained. “We were able to include two ten-minute tracks [“Driving the Last Spike” and “Fading Lights”] as well ‘Dreaming While You Sleep’ which is about seven minutes long. Even the single ‘No Son of Mine’ is over six minutes.

“So, we were able to broaden the scope of our writing and the performance because we are not restricted by the time constraints of a vinyl album, which are generally maxed out at 24 minutes per side. So with the new single-CD’s 72-minute length, We Can’t Dance would have been a hefty double-album in the old licorice pizza days.

“I think that the people who liked Invisible Touch will like this album, but I think there’s more material that also harkens back to the earlier Genesis work,” Banks believes, “and hopefully we can drag some of those older fans, who may have preferred us back at the time of the Duke album, back into the fold because we were able to include more material this time around.”

Collins jumped back in to point out that We Can’t Dance was written in the same way that the previous two hugely successful Genesis albums were. “Like I said before, we come back together with nothing written. We just improvise our way around each other and write as we go, so this one is probably closer to the two previous albums because of the way we tend to write with each other, although we did write like that a bit in the earlier days as well.”

Tracking the New Album

“No Son of Mine”

With the album’s first single, “No Son of Mine,” which was another smash hit, despite it’s six-minute length, there was no initial concept of it being a tale of an abusive family relationship, as Rutherford explained: “We had the music completed and Phil was singing something, just making up words.”

“It was just the syllable-phrasing,” Collins answers, “and then Mike said, ‘It sounds like you’re saying, ‘No Son of Mine’.” Rutherford picks up the narrative: “And suddenly you have the idea for a lyric.”

“I Can’t Dance”

The album’s second single was another Top Ten hit for the band, and grew out of a jam with an infectious riff, as Collins explained: “The first verse of that is just the words I improvised over the course of the first two times we ever played it. Mike was playing the riff on guitar and Tony was playing the drums on the synthesizer, so it was a different approach. And I thought it was very bluesy, so I just started singing in a bluesy vocal and we thought it was fun, but we also knew that if we played with it too much, it’d get smothered with ideas.

“So, we decided to just leave it for later and just approach it at some point for a bit of fun during the sessions. And that’s what we did. It was literally the last thing we recorded for the album.”

“When we were recording the track,” the band’s singer continued. “I was writing down some lyrics and we were all bouncing ideas around. We record in our own studio [The Farm], and I think it was the first time where we used the studio like that. Where we really had a very small musical idea and just mucked about.”

Banks agreed: “We really didn’t have the format of the song. I don’t think we even had those little turnarounds in the middle section. We literally worked it out as we went along, like when it takes you away from that guitar riff, that was just a spontaneous thing.” Rutherford added: “And Tony took over during that little break. There was really no laboring of thought going on.”

“Driving the Last Spike”

For those who think Genesis totally abandoned the lengthy musical mosaics that were the essence of their progressive rock early days, the ten-minute epic “Driving the Last Spike” put those thoughts to rest. After the track was completed, Collins put his well-known interest in railways to good use.

“We’ve always like doing the long songs,” says Collins. “because it’s always an interesting avenue to go down. Sometimes you write little musical bits that normally you would take back to a chorus or a verse, but with that song we just kept exploring. Most of the bits were based around one drum machine pattern, and the lyrics came a lot later.

“The working title of that was ‘Irish,’ because of the feel of the music and the instrumental theme of it all, and also because of some of the words I was improvising near the end of it sort of implied having a lot of pride in your work. But the final lyrics came much later for that song.

“I had a book at home about the early railways built in the U.K. during the 19th Century, which someone had sent to me as an idea for a screenplay. And it’s really an interesting subject once you start looking into it and you realize the horrible work conditions these Irish navvies dealt with, and how we totally take that for granted now.

“It’s like the trains in Chicago where it goes around the big loop above the street level,” he continued. “They were built at some point and we all take them for granted. And the song is written from the point of view of someone who was leaving home and going to work on the railways, not knowing if he was ever going to come back.”

When I mention that it’s like the freeways here in Los Angeles, Collins laughs and says: “Exactly. It’s like we think God just put them there one day.”

“Jesus He Knows Me”

Another Top 40 hit from the album was this satirical look at the televangelists who had fallen from grace in the Eighties and the early Nineties. Of course, some reviewers gave the band hell for addressing a topic that they felt had been done to death by others. Fans didn’t care and sent the song up the charts.

“Unfortunately, we apparently did that topic five years after every other rocker did it,” laughs Collins, pointing to the L.A. Times article I had earlier provided him. “It really goes to show that we really don’t have our ears to the ground. I didn’t know that Dire Straits had done it [“Ticket to Heaven” from On Every Street] or that U2 had done it [“Desire” from Rattle and Hum] or anyone else had done it. So, it obviously became a sitting target for critics at the Times, but I had no idea other artists had written about it.

“But that just goes to show that we really don’t have our ear to the ground,” Collins added, “and in some respects that’s why we sound like what we sound like. We’re not really influenced by other people and we’re not so besotten by music that we go out and listen to what all the other artists out there are doing. I haven’t heard the new Dire Straits album yet and I’m equally as interested in hearing the U2 album.”

“Consequently, the lyric of that song came from another improvisation. As the guys were playing, I started singing: ‘Jesus he knows me, he knows I’m right.’ It sounded good and it also sounded like something we had never written before and eventually it implied to me a look at the television evangelists. Ironically, within a few weeks of us writing that song, Jimmy Swaggart was was arrested for being with a hooker three years after the first time he was caught, so it seemed timely even though it wasn’t obviously intended to be about that [incident].

“But it’s funny about someone knocking that song because they say the topic has been done before by other artists,” Collins went on to say. “I mean, when you write a ‘relationship’ song, nobody ever says: ‘Hey, that’s been done before, man.’ Of course, I may not have written the first song about the homeless or the first song about a televangelist or whatever, but what difference does it fuckin’ make, ya know what I mean? You’re just trying to hammer a nail in a bit squarer and trying to get it right, but we’re not trying to jump on some bandwagon of televangelist songs, it’s all so strange.”

Banks added: “It’s a funny thing because we have sort of dealt with [social issues] over the years, but I think why it comes up more these days is that perhaps people didn’t pay as much attention to the lyrics in our early days, so when we had songs like ‘Get ‘Em Out by Friday’ [from 1972’s Foxtrot album], which was about evicting people from their homes, no one said, ‘This is a social comment song.’ And there were other songs with similar ideas that were also dressed up and written in a more poetic way, so people may have not seen them for what they were.

“I think people do pay more attention to lyrics nowadays,” the keyboardist continued, “and our lyrics are much more direct so people know what we’re on about. We don’t dress them up as much and that’s why people take them more seriously perhaps. But, for critics, I think the thing is it’s easier to talk about lyrics than music, but, for us, the lyric is only one side of the song. There’s so much more to a song than just the lyric.”

“Since I Lost You”

Another song of note from the We Can’t Dance sessions is this little known track that was never released as a single. Collins wrote the song for his good friend Eric Clapton after Clapton’s five-year-old son, Conor, tragically died after falling from an apartment window while Genesis was recording the album. Clapton’s heartbreaking ode to his son, “Tears in Heaven,” is an iconic song of course, but Collins created this masterful heartfelt ballad for his friend as well. In fact, some of the lyrics were direct lines that the despondent Clapton said to Collins during a consolidatory conversation the two men had.

Touring

“We’re doing a little less touring for this album,” Collins answered to my questions about life on the road, “because we don’t want it to become a grind and get fed up with it. We want to do it while we’re still enjoying it, but with families and personal stuff your priorities change a bit over the years.”

Mike Rutherford’s solo project Mike + The Mechanics topped the charts with “The Living Years” in 1986.

Banks agreed, “I think you reach a certain age where you think, what have I got, maybe 20 or 30 more years of life, and you wonder, do I want to spend one full year of that traveling around the world playing concerts. And I think the answer becomes ‘no,’ because you’ve had ten years of that, where it’s just been solid touring. Yes, of course, it’s fun, and we’re lucky to be in a position to do that, but you reach a point where you want to have a more varied life.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how this tour goes,” Rutherford said, “because we’ve never had 60 shows over three months. We gave our manager a start and end date, but we had no idea that he was going to fill pretty much every day with a concert [laughs].”

Stadium Concerts

“I think our music in Genesis translates much better to stadiums than my solo music does,” explained Collins. “I did do a few solo stadium shows in Germany and I had a great time, but I don’t know if that would work everywhere. Genesis, on the other hand, translates to ‘bigness’ much easier.

“So, I don’t think there’s any problem with how well our music sounds in stadiums, and we make sure that it sounds good in those bigger venues. Some people say stadium concerts sound like shit, but I honestly think we sound good in a stadium because we take the time to make sure we do. And, with this tour, we’re going to try and make it all look different so that when people walk in to those stadiums and when they come through those doors and come down into the ‘pitch’ they won’t see what they usually see.”

Future Plans, circa 1992

As our time together winds down, I asked what the immediate plans are following the tour. Rutherford answered: “I think we’ll all move back to our solo projects for a while, although Phil has a movie to do…”

Collins points out that it’s more than just one acting assignment: “It’s actually two movie projects. One right before the tour and one right after the tour. These movie things have to be scheduled so far in advance that it blocks off all other projects once you sign on for them.”

The two films in question were both released in 1993; the powerful television docu-drama about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, And the Band Played On, in which he played a San Francisco bathhouse owner, and his starring role in the critically-acclaimed Australian dark comedy Frauds, for which he received rave reviews.

And when it comes to their lengthy career, the veterans point out that thinking about a decades-long career in music when they were teens starting out in the Sixties would have been folly. “No one could have predicted what happened,” Rutherford said. “When the pop music scene or the rock scene started, what, 25-30 years ago, no one saw it going very far…”

“Take Me Home” from Collins’ 1985 blockbuster album No Jacket Required, which has sold more than 12 million copies in the U.S. alone.

“The whole business has changed so radically,” Banks interjects. “It’s extraordinary what a big thing it has become over the years. Like Mike said, no one could have predicted what has happened.”

As for business matters, Collins explained: “We don’t really get involved with the business side of things too much, because we’re not interested in the business side, per se. Of course, we’re very involved with the ultimate and final decisions, but we don’t get bogged down in the minutiae, and I think that’s why it works so well for us.

“There’s a thin line there though,” he clarified, “because anything that involves us, like if it’s merchandising, we want to see the t-shirts, we want to see the new logo or whatever, and we’ll make that final decision amongst ourselves, because it is a representation of us. We don’t want anyone looking at something and saying, ‘Those guys said ‘yes’ to THIS?’ [laughs]. At least, you can say, ‘I’m to blame, right?”

Peering Eyes

As I pack up and hand a copy of their latest CD to them, asking if they’ll sign it for our magazine’s secretary who is a major fan, all three are happy to oblige, and then while the other two decided to stay and get a bit of sun, Collins decided to walk out with me. Little did I know he would walk with me all the way to my car.

And I must say that I have never felt the force of human eyeballs coming from the now-crowded pool area as when I walked alongside one of the biggest and most recognizable music superstars of that or any other era. It was an actual physical reaction and I muttered to Collins, “How do you deal with that?” He just gave me a “whaddya gonna do” grin and then asked about me as we walked, where I live, and just some small talk. Let me just say that I make a much better interviewer than interviewee, but it all made for a most memorable day.

The Aftermath

In the nearly 30 years since our time together, Genesis was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And over the past ten years, Collins has suffered from a variety of physical ailments, the worst following a neck surgery which resulted in him no longer able to play the drums. His 18-year-old son, Nicholas, will be playing drums on the upcoming Last Domino tour. In fact, during last year’s solo Still Not Dead Yet Tour, Collins was seen walking onstage with a cane and having to sit throughout the performance, focusing on his trademark vocals. The sold-out audiences didn’t seem to mind as he sang his iconic hits. And if you’re up for a good read, Collins also published his candid and tell-all autobiography, Not Dead Yet, in 2016.

Bonnie Raitt: Mistress of the Blues

Bonnie Raitt: Mistress of the Blues

By Steven P. Wheeler

Call her the Queen of Interpretation, Madame Grammy or even Mistress of the Blues. Back in 1995, I had a chance to sit down with Bonnie Raitt, the redheaded California native when she was at the very top of her commercial success. She had just released her first live album, Road Tested, a beautifully raucous two-CD collection that covered her stellar early years right on through her Grammy fame.

One of rock’s greatest slide guitarists with a voice from heaven that can switch from gravelly blues to angelic pop perfection, Raitt, who celebrated her 70th birthday just last month, is one of only two females to make it on both Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of All-Time” and “100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time” lists (Joni Mitchell being the other). In fact, only 12 males were even able to make both lists, putting Raitt in rarified historic company.

Beginning with her classic 1989 Nick of Time album for which she won three Grammy Awards, Raitt has garnered ten Grammys in all over the years (along with 16 other nominations), selling millions of albums and topping the Billboard Album Charts twice, not to mention her ongoing success on Billboard’s Blues, Americana and Folk Charts.

Her most recent album, 2016’s Dig in Deep, topped all three of those charts while hitting #11 on the Top 200 Album Chart and #3 on the Rock Chart. In short, Bonnie Raitt is still as much with us today as she ever was, whether on the road or in the studio every few years.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s latest recording, “Everybody’s Crying Mercy,” was just released last week as part of the If You’re Going to the City: Tribute to Mose Allison album. All proceeds from this all-star tribute to Raitt’s late friend benefits the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which helps musicians who need financial assistance to cover medical bills.

Raitt’s live recording of Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Crying Mercy” has just been released for the new charity album, If You’re Going to the City: Tribute to Mose Allison.

As we sat down in 1995, Bonnie was eager to talk about all things, from her new album and her sobriety to her activism on behalf of the aging blues performers who she was so inspired by. As she said, “I’ve been stuck in the studio lately, and I’ve been dying to talk about this new record, so I’m excited to talk to you.”

A Personal Story

But before we started, I just had to share a personal turning point in my life with her. After all, it was a song she had written that hit me in the gut when I was vulnerable and open to the universe. It was one of those personal moments that all of us music fan have had at one time or another. When a song speaks directly to your soul.

I still remember that one spring night in 1989. I was driving home from a part-time job I was doing while trying to get some sort of writing career going. It had been a long day and I was feeling mentally exhausted, spent, and still in the midst of a months-long decision of when to give my notice and pursue a writing career full-time.

I had been writing for various magazines and local papers for a few years by that time, but I had kept side jobs to keep myself housed, fed and off the streets. But I knew deep down that if I was ever going to turn my writing into a career, I had to give myself over to it completely and follow the muse without a net.

In other words, suck it up, bite the bullet, and be content to live on mac & cheese for the foreseeable future.

As this subtle yet bouncy keyboard intro came on my car radio, I began to ease up inside. Then came this angelic voice, beaten with experience and age, singing of making difficult choices before its too late. It was the title track of an album that would soon become a global phenomenon for a down-and-out veteran artist named Bonnie Raitt.

And when I heard these lines from “Nick of Time” that she wrote and sang, my decision was made. It was the power of music coming home to roost. When we are fortunate enough to feel that spiritual guidance through song:

When did the choices get so hard?
With so much more at stake
Life gets mighty precious
When there’s less of it to waste
Scared to run out of time

I remember that moment like yesterday. It was time to put up or shut up, and I gave notice the next day and embarked on a writing career in music that would last a few decades. When I relayed that story to the Southern California resident herself—and definitely not the only such story she has heard over the years. But she seemingly took it to heart, smiled, put her hands to her chest, and said, “Wow, thanks for saying that. You just made my day, Steve. I really appreciate that.”

And with that we were off…

Them Burbank Blues

So just how does a white girl, raised in a Quaker family, in the city of Burbank in Southern California grow up to become one of the most successful blues musicians of all-time, while mixing in folk, rock and pop along the way?

The daughter of noted Broadway star, the late John Raitt, Bonnie grew up with music in the household but it wasn’t until she discovered the blues that her musical light was lit.

“When I was 12 or 13, a lot of it came from folk music and folk/blues,” she explained. “Then the Rolling Stones turned me on to Howlin’ Wolf, my brother turned me on to John Lee Hooker, and once you get a taste for it, you just can’t get enough of the blues. I don’t know about you, but I just went for it and still love it to this day.”

Bonnie and blues legend John Lee Hooker perform in 1991.

A Real Education

It was during the Summer of Love in 1967 that Raitt attended Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts—the women’s liberal arts institution that was the sister university to Harvard. Raitt, who had begun playing guitar and performing for family and friends while at prep school and summer camp, met noted blues historian and promoter Dick Waterman during her first year at Radcliffe.

Following her muse Raitt and other Cambridge musicians moved with Waterman to Philadelphia, where she became ensconced in the world of the blues. It was an education that changed her life forever.

By 1970, she was opening for one of her early mentors Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Gaslight in New York. A reporter from Newsweek saw her perform and soon enough record label talent scouts were coming to hear the talented 20-year-old guitarist and vocalist.

Twenty-year-old Bonnie Raitt with her early influence and mentor Mississippi Fred McDowell at the 1970 Philadelphia Folk Festival.

Warner Bros. Records signed Raitt and her self-titled debut album was released the following year. A critical smash, the blues album was only a modest seller. All in all, Raitt would record nine albums with Warner Bros. over the next 15 years. And while she did score some chart success during that era with hits like her cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” and Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” Raitt was officially dropped by the label in 1983, and would release one final album three years later, Nine Lives, which was one of her worst selling.

“The Warner Bros. situation got a little askew in the ‘80s,” she told me.
Warner Bros. had been behind me, but by the early ‘80s, FM progressive radio had kind of gone off the map, and there wasn’t a lot of things they could do with me.”

Nick of Time

Having been dumped by her record label, Raitt had to stay on the road just trying to keep her name in public view and during that period, she also found herself succumbing to the dark side of the blues: booze.

At the suggestion of her friend Stevie Ray Vaughan, who had recently gotten sober, Raitt followed suit in 1987. “I never jeopardized my work really or anything, but there comes a time where you look in the mirror and you just don’t like what you see; both inside and out. It’s a lifestyle when you’re working nights in clubs and things like that, it was easy to fall into. I had my butt kicked, but I’m just happy that I made it through.

“It’s been eight years now and looking back on it,” she told me in 1995, “I’d say that what I missed is all those hours when I could have just been more awake [laughs].”

“The trick is not to fill whatever void you’re feeling at any given time with something just to shift your mood or bury things. And that’s not just drugs or alcohol. It can be work or sex or exercise or relationships, anything that distracts you from dealing with whatever issue comes up at any given time.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

As for the transition to sobriety, Raitt is candid in pointing out that living the sober life isn’t like some Hollywood movie where you just live happily ever after. “It’s hard to feel things, those emotions and all that stuff,” she said with a laugh. “Nowadays the good times are fantastic, but the bad times can be tougher because I feel things much more intensely now.

“Hey, it’s life and you have to deal with things on a real level,” Raitt continued. “That’s the biggest change. The trick is not to fill whatever void you’re feeling at any given time with something just to shift your mood or bury things. And that’s not just drugs or alcohol. It can be work or sex or exercise or relationships, anything that distracts you from dealing with whatever issue comes up at any given time.”

And while Raitt is best known for covering the songs of others, she is a formidable songwriter herself and has been throughout her lengthy career. One song, “Feeling of Falling,” from her #1 1994 album, Longing in Their Hearts, is a personal favorite of mine and seems to sum up this feeling of missing the darker side of life.

When I bring up that song in our discussion and how it seems to echo exactly what we’re talking about, she is taken aback but happily so: “Wow, thank you so much. I really appreciate the compliment. Yeah, it’s all laid out there specifically in that tune. I don’t write very often, but I try to go deep into myself when I do. With that song, I meant that just because you lay off some bad things doesn’t mean that you’re not nuts about other things. We humans are just nuts,” she concludes with a throaty laugh.

Cult Hero to Superstar

Following her decision to get sober, Raitt teamed up with fledgling producer Don Was of Was (Not Was) fame. They demoed new material in search of a new record deal, but more than a dozen labels turned them down feeling that Raitt’s time had come and gone.

Finally, Capitol Records took a chance on the veteran artist and her new producer, but they hedged their bets by offering up a minuscule recording budget. The resulting album, Nick of Time, was recorded quickly with most of the final tracks never exceeding more than three takes.

The album sold slowly as Bonnie toured relentlessly, and then FM radio started playing her cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and the simmering blues of “Love Letter.” Then she scored two Top Ten A/C hits with “Have a Heart” and the title track. By the following year, the album topped the charts and went on to win three Grammys, including Album of the Year.

Raitt quickly followed up that phenomenal success with two more multi-platinum blockbusters Luck of the Draw in 1991 and Longing in Their Hearts in ’94, and by the time of our meeting it was time to try and encapsulate her past and present with a live album that her fans had wanted to see for years.

Road Tested

Released in 1995, Raitt’s live opus, Road Tested, is a vastly underrated concert collection as it belongs up there with Frampton Comes Alive or Bob Seger’s Live Bullet, two other live albums that effectively bridged the gap between the fans of the artist’s lesser known earlier recordings and new devotees of the new and more commercially successful material.

“I’ve been wanting to put out a live album for a really long time,” Raitt said. “Even though I didn’t really have any greatest hits during those Warner Bros. years, there are songs from that period that are important to me and have been real popular with the fans, like ‘Louise’ and ‘Kokomo’ and ‘Love Me Like A Man’ and ‘Angel From Montgomery,’ and ‘Three Time Loser’ has been kind of a staple in my set for a long time.

“One of the reasons I wanted to make a double album was so I could do a kind of career retrospective,” she said enthusiastically. “I wanted to get around to some of the older folk and blues material I started out with—that my longtime fans have been waiting for—but I also wanted to do some new songs, so there’s even six new songs on this thing.

Bonnie teamed up with Bryan Adams for “Rock Steady,” a song Adams wrote specifically for her. The rockin’ duet is featured on the 1995 live album, Road Tested.

“I also wanted to wait until I had some records that had some commercial success so that I could include some songs that people were familiar with. Otherwise, it would have been a cult bootleg album,” she said with a laugh. “And I think we played a lot of the songs from the last three albums in a way that is substantially different from the way the studio versions are—either the tempo was changed or the arrangements were stretched out and the feel was changed. I mean songs like ‘Nick of Time’ and ‘Not the Only One’ sound very similar to the recorded versions so I didn’t want to just duplicate that, so they weren’t included.

“I’m pretty good at putting set lists together after all these years. I even tend to sequence my studio albums the way that I sequence sets, although on a record you can’t really have a four-song acoustic section because you only have 12 songs to play with. So I really had more to play with because I had 22 songs on this live album, and the only thing that was different than usual was having all the special guests sitting in.”

Ah yes, the special guests. Featured throughout this stellar album is everybody from her longtime friend Jackson Browne to Bruce Hornsby and blues greats Ruth Brown and Charles Brown (no relation).

Bonnie with two of the jewels in her crown performing on the Road Tested album. Charles Brown passed away in 1999 at the age of 76 and Ruth passed in 2006 at the age of 78.

“I love to turn my audience on to other artists,” Raitt explained. “Whether it’s Richard Thompson or Paul Brady or those old great blues artists like Charles Brown and Ruth Brown.”

Burning Down the House

For me, one of the highlights of Road Tested is Raitt’s brilliant cover of the Talking Heads’ classic “Burning Down the House.” She somehow managed to take that quirky ‘80s hit and turn it into a blues-rock powerhouse. When asked about that seemingly bizarre choice, Raitt proved just why she remains one of our greatest song interpreters.

“I just have always loved that song. I thought about doing the song for this tour, but only as a medley with ‘Love’s Sneakin’ Up On You’ for the record. I never expected to do the whole tune. I was just gonna do half of it and then go into ‘Love’s Sneakin’ Up On You,’ but it ended up getting such a good response, that we not only flip-flopped the order, we also ended up doing the whole song.

“It’s just one of many, many songs that I’ve really loved over the years. There’s Rufus tunes and Aretha tunes and Wilson Pickett tunes that we throw in at soundchecks, and that’s what’s cool about concerts is you can do covers that are kind of off-the-wall. I mean if you’ve paid to see me perform, you probably like me at least a little bit so you probably are open to things like that.

Bonnie’s raucous take on the Talking Heads’ classic, featured on Road Tested.

“I think the choice of that song was a surprise to the audience. I mean everybody—including me—loves that tune, and it has a lot of great memories of a certain time in our lives. I think it was a combination of the surprise element and the fact that it was played great by the band that got everybody out of their seat—even those 45-year-olds were dancing around.”

Twenty years later, in 2016, for her massively successful Dig In Deep album, Raitt once again dipped back into the classic ‘80s and put her undeniable spin on an INXS classic.

Bonnie’s cover of the INXS classic “Need You Tonight” from her hit 2016 album, Dig in Deep, which topped Billboard’s Blues, Folk and Americana Charts, hitting #3 on the Rock Chart and rising to #11 on the Top 200.

Interpreter Extraordinaire

Having written her own hits over the years, including “Nick of Time” and “Come to Me” as well as deep album cuts like the simmering “Tangled and Dark,” it begs the question of why she has made a name for herself by interpreting the songs of others throughout her lengthy career. “I’m on the road a lot playing gigs, and I do a lot of political activities, so I just don’t find the time to do much songwriting. And when I’m choosing material for my albums from other writers that’s like a full-time job, so I basically write when I’m inspired to and when I can find the opportunity to, and touring and promotional things keep me from focusing on it as much as I would like.

Raitt penned this hit from 1991’s Luck of the Draw album.

“But I don’t quantify it,” she explained. “I don’t have an ego attachment to whether I have one or two or ten of my own songs on a record, it just comes down to the ones that I think are the best. I’m just not that prolific of a writer.

“During my career before Nick of Time, I was always on the road or making a record in order to make a living. I was just never economically stable enough to sit at home and try and write a bunch of songs, and I’ve never really been able to write songs on the road like some people can. I think it’s just a question of opportunity and time.”

Raitt also wrote the seductive simmering blues of “Tangled and Dark” on her 1991 album, Luck of the Draw.

So what is it that she looks for in songs that chooses to record? “I have to respond to the lyrics and the music obviously, but it’s not really something that I can analyze,” she said, before putting the onus on me. “Somebody like yourself would have to find that thread, because I am the thread [laughs]. It’s like trying to describe why you like one movie over another. It’s one of those intangible things where you just relate to it.

One of Bonnie’s greatest interpretations is this John Prine classic that she made her own.

“And I’m not the only interpreter out there. There are quite a few of us skating on that rock and soul or blues continuum, like Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart or myself, we’re all going to like the same Jerry Williams song.

“So it becomes hard to find an original voice and that’s why when I find a real jewel, like Gary Nicholson’s ‘Shadow of Doubt’ or a song called ‘You’ on the last record that are just really unusual and I appreciate them more obviously. It’s really instinctive. You just know which ones work and which ones don’t.”

Raitt’s Top Five hit, written by songwriter Shirley Eikhard.

With so much competition for songs, Raitt is careful not to tread on the toes of other artists, no matter how much she may love a song. “If someone who is a peer of mine or a similar singer has already cut a song, I wouldn’t do it just out of respect. If Etta James was known for ‘Sugar on the Floor,’ I wouldn’t put it on my record. I think it’s important for us all to give each other space.”

Interestingly enough, many of the songs she has covered come from the male perspective to which she simply replied: “When I’m singing a song that was written and/or recorded by a man, because I also play slide guitar which brings kind of an R&B thing to what I’m doing, I think it will change a song enough that it makes for a valid interpretation. That’s what I used to do with Jackson Browne’s tunes.

Bonnie performing Jackson Browne’s “Under the Falling Sky” in 1976.

“I think that’s one of the things I know how to do,” she said modestly. “I may not be a great songwriter or very prolific, but I do know how to arrange stuff so that it’s sometimes given a new angle. I hear it in my head when I’m gonna do a tune, like with ‘Runaway’ [her cover of the classic Del Shannon song was her first big hit in 1977]. I didn’t know it was gonna be that popular, but I just really loved the song and I heard myself singing it, and I couldn’t wait to play slide on it.

“Any song that I really love a lot usually means that I can do it. It’s like picking a John Hiatt song off one of his records. I can always tell which one is gonna be the one that fits my voice.”

Bonnie & Johnny

The careers of Bonnie Raitt and John Hiatt have been intertwined since Raitt recorded Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” on her breakthrough album Nick of Time in 1989. While the song wasn’t a big chart-burner, it did become a rock radio staple and was a key early single in helping Raitt finally gain the commercial mainstream acceptance she has enjoyed ever since. Raitt also recorded Hiatt’s “No Business” on her multi-platinum follow-up Luck of the Draw and “Lover’s Will on 1998’s Fundamental.

The official video for Bonnie’s 1989 cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love,” featuring actor Dennis Quaid.

As for what makes Hiatt one of her favorite writers, she said: “I think he’s gifted and twisted at the same time. He’s twistedly gifted and giftedly twisted. To me, he’s a lot like Randy Newman, in that he’s got a real skewed view of human emotions, love, and the world.

“I went nuts when I first heard ‘Thing Called Love.’ I mean John’s Bring the Family album is one of my all-time favorite records. Most of the time when I play something, it’s because I just love it so much, I want to sing it every night, and that’s the purest form of inspiration and that’s what happened with that song.

“John’s songs are really very original. They’re wry, biting, hilarious and very moving and touching at the same time. He’s all those things that make great artists unique and original. Plus, he’s one of the baddest singers and guitar players I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Bonnie onstage performing with John Hiatt.

When I spoke with Hiatt a few days before my interview with Bonnie, he related how the two met: “We met in New Orleans at the time she was recording Nick of Time, and she told me that she had just recorded my song, ‘Thing Called Love’. So when I was recording ‘I Can’t Wait’ for this album, I couldn’t even sing the song initially. In fact, I was almost gonna chuck it, and then I figured it out.

“I sang it in a falsetto, and it worked. So when we were figuring out background vocals later on, it became obvious that since I was singing in that Pop Staples mode we felt that Bonnie could do the Mavis Staples thing.”

Bonnie jokingly concurred, telling me, “I was so honored to get to sing on ‘I Can’t Wait’ on his new record. Isn’t that the most interesting track? It’s like a little miniature Marvin Gaye masterpiece or something. It’s really cool. I felt like I was in The Impressions, ya know. It’s funny, because he’s singing the high parts and I’m singing the low parts.”

The sublime “I Can’t Wait” featuring Bonnie on backing vocals, from John Hiatt’s 1995 album, Walk On.

The Selection Process

As she alluded to earlier, the song selection process for Raitt is a lengthy one once she’s ready to go back in the studio and record a new album. “I always call up my favorite songwriters to see if they have anything extra laying around, but since the success of Nick of Time, publishing companies—who stand to make money—have been targeting me. However, it’s still hard to find something that appeals to me. Whatever songwriters are out there, they all seem to find me [laughs].

Written by ex-NFL Pro Bowl defensive lineman Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, this passionate ballad of unrequited love remains one of Raitt’s finest moments. Superstar producer Don Was, who since teaming up with Bonnie for Nick of Time in 1989 has gone on to produce everyone from the Rolling Stones and Elton John to Bob Seger and Iggy Pop, told me in a separate interview that this one-take vocal performance from Bonnie remains his most memorable moment in a recording studio.

“My A&R guy at Capitol Records [Tim Devine] will forward me tapes of songs occasionally, but basically it’s me just listening to tapes that people send me. Nobody knows what my taste is gonna be except me. There’s no way for anyone to tell what I’m feeling at a given time, it’s just too specific of a taste.

“I might change the gender in the song or maybe get the words wrong because I hear it wrong on the tape and I’ll be too lazy to call Jackson [Browne] or whichever writer it is and ask what the words are,” she said, laughing. “It’s kind of like when you’re singing in the car and you think you’re singing the right lyrics. It’s kind of embarrassing actually, but I don’t really tinker much with these songs. I mean I chose them because I love them.”

One of the more unethical things some recording artists might do is make a slight change to a song and then demand a lucrative co-writing credit before they record a song. It’s the age-old cliché of “change a word, get a third.”

Raitt is taken aback by such a dirty scheme, saying with a hint of anger: “I may change the arrangement a bit or accidentally get a word wrong here and there. But I would never try and get a co-writing credit for god sakes, that’s crazy.”

Bonnie and Delbert McClinton perform their Grammy-winning duet from her Luck of the Draw album.

Ironically, with her sudden explosion of fame, Raitt is now receiving songs that are too tailored to her, something that just doesn’t work. “People get close, but a lot of the songs that get sent to me seem to be formulaic, in the sense that somebody’s sitting down and trying to write what they think I want to hear, and that’s really not what I’m about. I’m not criticizing the quality of the writing. It’s just that sometimes I’ll get demos with slide guitar on them, and I’ll be like, ‘Gee, I think I know where to put the slide in’ [laughs].

“But I am flattered that my influence is now showing up in the songs that I am being sent by other songwriters, but when I hear ‘Have a Heart’ or ‘Love Letter,’ I know that Bonnie Hayes didn’t sit around and write those songs for me—she’s an artist herself.”

Bonnie performing the Bonnie Hayes song, “Love Letter,” at the time of its release in 1989.

Once the selection process is completed, Raitt noted: “We only go in the studio when we have enough songs for a record. There might be one or two extras, but there’s usually not even that. There just aren’t a lot of truly great songs floating around that I feel really attached to. And I when I hear about these artists who cut 40 songs in the studio and then choose 16, I think to myself: ‘In my dreams’ [laughs].”

The Blues Revival

As her star reached the stratosphere in the ‘90s, Raitt used this newfound success to promote the blues pioneers who came before her. Many of whom she called friends. In keeping with her humble nature, she thanked me for bringing the blues history to a new audience, but said: “Thank you for that, but I think a person like Eric Clapton has had something to do with that. I think Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan in the late ‘80s had a lot to do with bringing the blues to white audiences again.

“Even before Eric Clapton released his blues album last year [From the Cradle], there was an appreciation with Eric speaking out about people like Buddy Guy, which really helped Buddy’s career. A lot of my favorite blues artists had passed away like ten or 15 years ago, so it’s great to introduce the ones that are still with us to a new generation.

Bonnie performs for blues legend Buddy Guy at the Kennedy Center Honors.

“My generation really appreciated the blues, whether we got it from the Rolling Stones or folk music or Chicago blues from people like Paul Butterfield. It was in our culture in those days, and now it’s come back in a big way to this new audience. I think it swings like a pendulum and I also think you see it on tv commercials [laughs]. I laugh at how many times I hear harmonica or slide guitar on beer and truck commercials now. I even hear slide guitar on taco commercials [laughs].

Bonnie performs one of her early concert staples in 1976.

“It’s part of the culture more than ever before and I just hope people want to see the authentic blues artists, those pioneers who are still with us. It’s great that people like white people like myself are playing blues-influenced things, but let’s pay respect to the people who invented it.”

Rhythm & Blues Foundation

As Bonnie Raitt has always been one to put her money and time where her mouth is, she has used her personal fame to help those who came before her with her outspoken involvement with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.

“I didn’t personally start it, but I was in on the ground floor,” she explained. “The objective of it is to try and get health insurance and medical and financial assistance for the great blues pioneers. But, more importantly, we want to let people know that none of these blues greats got royalties from their record sales before 1970.

“So much for slavery being over. There’s still 40 years of royalties that these people never got. So we’re just trying to blow the whistle on it. I think that my success came at a good time in terms of being able to publicize this.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“So every time you buy one of these reissues or bootlegs, you’re getting great music but you’re also ripping off the people who made that music. We’re trying to lobby the public to tell the record companies that they need to pay these people, either through back-royalties or by readjusting them.

“The standard royalty rate was so miniscule before 1970 when I started recording that I had no idea the artists whose faces were on 75 percent of my record collection had never made a penny from those album sales. And then we went ahead and bought them again on CD, so not only did they not get paid for vinyl, they didn’t get paid for CDs.

“So much for slavery being over,” she said without a hint of hyperbole. “There’s still 40 years of royalties that these people never got. So we’re just trying to blow the whistle on it. I think that my success came at a good time in terms of being able to publicize this.

“We’ve actually gotten five of the major record companies to update the current royalty rate of the records that they’re selling. I’d also like to see the artists who have been influenced by these great blues and R&B artists—which is probably everybody in rock—to make donations so the money can get out to these people while they’re still alive.

A lot of them are in their Sixties and Seventies now, and they don’t have health insurance, and now they’re suffering from some very catastrophic financial and medical problems. The Musicians Unions just haven’t gone to bat for these artists, and it wasn’t common practice to share in the profits back then. It’s really about undoing something that was done wrong a long time ago.”

Bonnie performing The Band’s immortal “The Weight” in 2012 with an all-star group of Americana stars, including John Hiatt, Emmylou Harris and Richard Thompson.

For Raitt, it’s not about throwing money at well-meaning institutions, but actually helping those artist who had such a major influence on music around the world and are still alive. “There’s obviously a tremendous interest in the blues now than there may have been ten years ago. Sadly, a lot of these great blues artists have passed on and weren’t able to enjoy the fruits of this new popularity but I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many Blues Festivals as I see out there today.

“I think that’s great, and I’ve certainly been a huge fan of these older artists that we owe so much to. And for the ones that are still with us, I don’t think we need millions of dollars being spent on museums, we should be spending that money on getting them gigs and health insurance.

“I’m all for honoring our blues pioneers, but let’s get them jobs and not just be white people playing their music or copying their songs for television commercials. These people need the money and they never got their royalties back in the day.”

Dad & Daughter

Besides her own career, at the time of our interview, Bonnie happily spoke about teaming up with her Broadway star father, John Raitt, on his own album [1995’s John Raitt: Broadway Legend, which received a Grammy nomination the following year]. “Next week I’m going on David Letterman to sing with my dad to promote his new record.” Ultimately, Bonnie sang on three of the album’s tracks. John Raitt passed away in 2005 at the age of 88.

Daughter and Dad performing with the Boston Pops in 1992.

Happy Holidays…

And, finally, since we’re in the holiday season now, thought I’d wrap this up with this bluesy rendition of “Merry Christmas Baby” from Bonnie and her spiritual grandfather Charles Brown.

Bob Seger: End Of An Era

Bob Seger: End Of An Era

By Steven P. Wheeler

Last night in Philadelphia, American rock icon Bob Seger and his illustrious Silver Bullet Band gave their final concert performance. After more than 50 years, the 74-year-old father of blue-collar and heartland rock is moving into retirement and hanging up his road shoes.

The epitome of the rock & roll American Dream, the Michigan native, who was a local sensation for a decade before the rest of the country caught up, is rock’s original Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. He will forever remain a shining example of the seemingly forgotten rock & roll ethic of hard work and sticking to one’s vision in the face of trivial trends and cosmetic imagery.

Toiling in national obscurity for ten long years before scoring big with his classic 1976 album Night Moves, the veteran troubadour definitely paid his dues. And today his music remains as American as baseball and apple pie. In short, his musical legacy is that of a survivor who never gave up, never made excuses, worked harder in the face of adversity, and finally achieved the stardom that eluded him for so long.

This is a sad day for me personally because Bob Seger has been the musical heart and soundtrack of my life from the time I was 13 when I first heard the unbridled rock & roll energy of Live Bullet and Night Moves within weeks of each other. I was hooked and I never looked back. His joyous rockers and melancholy ballads have served me well through my youth, my adulthood, and continue to in my graying years.

Like other Seger fans, I have all 18 of his studio albums, his two live albums, and seemingly every stray song that he has ever recorded, right up through his most recent I Knew You When, which arrived in 2017. I’ve seen his concert parties about a dozen times, starting in 1980 with the final one this past February.

A little eye contact between Bob and I during “Come to Poppa” at The Forum in Los Angeles this past February, 25 years after my last interview with him.

I was also fortunate enough to sit down and interview the man himself two times—each time during major personal life developments in Seger’s life, one happy and one sad.

And no matter the circumstance at those times, Bob was always the same personable, witty, modest and open guy; the most unassuming superstar who ever graced a concert stage. Never once did Seger shy away from questions, often pausing to think back across the years, while being candid and thoughtful in his responses.

At the beginning of one of our sit-downs, Seger excused himself to blow his nose as he was fighting a bit of a cold. When he returned, he mumbled, “I gotta quit smoking.” When I mentioned that it was easy to quit, he looked at me quizzically before blurting out: “It is??” When I responded, “Sure it is, I’ve quit hundreds of times,” the trademark and contagious Seger laugh reverberated around the room.

The ultimate rock showman in 1976, just as he began to find stardom with Night Moves.

It wouldn’t be the last time either as the rock & roll legend was always quick with a laugh that punctuated nearly every statement as we covered vastly different topics from his personal tribulations and joys, and, above all, his one-of-a-kind music.

On a personal note, it was nice to hear that he had different priorities than many of his artistic stature, as when he put the brakes on his career at its peak in 1988 to take care of his dying mother. Or when he went on a professional sabbatical for ten years, starting in 1996, because he wanted to be sure to do his best and be a good father and raise his kids. Unlike his own alcoholic father who abandoned Bob, his mother and brother when the future star was a vulnerable ten-year-old kid. Seger is one superstar who has always put family first.

The Segers, pictured in 2017.

Since the mid-Sixties, Bob Seger has seen and done it all but without the reality show dramas or sensationalistic tabloid headlines. Perhaps that’s why you’ve never seen him as the subject of those tawdry Behind the Music tales.

The man is a legend and he will be missed as he rides off into the sunset, but don’t go mistaking this tribute for any kind of sad obituary. No, this is a joyous sendoff to an artist who has given myself—and millions of other fans—so much happiness and good times, while also reminding us that when we take stock in our own lives and reflect on our communal ups-and-downs we are truly never alone.

I have put this lengthy compilation of my lengthy Seger interviews together to celebrate the words and music of one of our greatest musical artists, filled with songs that you know like the back of your hand and some personal favorites that you may not.

I hope you’ll take the time to pore over these words and music as I wish Bob and his family—wife Juanita, son Cole and daughter Samantha—well as he turns the proverbial page and enters his well-deserved place in retirement.  

Kid Rock inducting Bob into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Detroit Made

Born in Detroit in 1945, Bob Seger was the second of two sons to Stewart and Charlotte Seger. His father, who played several instruments and turned his youngest son onto music at a young age, was also an alcoholic who abandoned his family when Bob was only ten. Leaving him, his older brother and mother struggling to make ends meet.

Growing up poor in Ann Arbor, Seger was transfixed by the music of his childhood from Little Richard and Elvis to James Brown and Wilson Pickett. Seger wrote his first song “The Lonely One” when he was young teen and the dye was cast. He formed his first band The Decibels with some high school buddies and while they did record a demo of “The Lonely One,” the band was short-lived.

In ’63, he joined another local band The Town Criers with his future drummer Pep Perrine, before moving on to The Omens, which led to him meeting a young music entrepreneur named Edward “Punch” Edwards, beginning a business/artist relationship that continues to this very day, 54 years later.

“[Punch and I] have been together since the beginning in 1965. I think that’s a world record for an artist and a manager. It’s like a long marriage. There’s a constant ongoing drama with us. We constantly step on each other’s toes.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“We’ve been together since the beginning in 1965,” Seger explained. “I think that’s a world record for an artist and a manager. It’s like a long marriage. We fight a lot and then we get along a lot. The way it works is that I mainly maintain the creative end and when we have problems, it’s usually when he gets too involved in the creative side. And we also have problems when I get too involved in the business end [laughs].

“There’s a constant ongoing drama with us, but I think it works pretty good for me. Although there are times when I really get angry, but we’re trying to really define it a little more lately, where I’m really more on the creative end and he’s really more on the business end. But we constantly step on each other’s toes [laughs].”

By 1965, Seger had started his own band, Bob Seger and the Last Herd. They recorded his very first single “East Side Story,” which became a local hit in Detroit as ’65 turned into ’66, and resulted in him getting a recording contract with Cameo-Parkway Records run by the controversial and future music mogul Neil Bogart.

Twenty-one-year-old Bob Seger performing his first single, “East Side Story.”

Following the burgeoning success of “East Side Story,” Seger and his Last Herd band cut four more singles—“Persecution Smith,” “Vagrant Winter,” the yuletide James Brown tribute “Sock It To Me, Santa” and “Heavy Music.” It was “Heavy Music” that really brought Seger to the top of the Detroit music scene in 1967 and the single was literally on the verge of gaining national attention. But in a precursor to the decade-long struggles that lie ahead, it all came to nothing.

The sensual rocker “Heavy Music,” which almost brought Seger early stardom.

“I recorded ‘East Side Story’ when I was 20 or 21,” Seger told me during our 1991 interview, “and then with ‘Heavy Music’ the next year, we kept calling the record company and they weren’t answering the phone. Finally, we sent a friend over who was in New York City and he got there and the doors were padlocked [laughs].

“It was Cameo Parkway Records. It was Neil Bogart’s company. He was like a boy wonder back then. This was before he started Casablanca Records. He was like 24 years old and he was running Kama Sutra, Cameo Parkway and a few other labels. Basically, he got in a little over his head moneywise, and Chubby Checker sued him, so that didn’t help him keep the doors open.

In an answer to why these early recordings haven’t been officially released over the past six decades, Seger noted that “Neil sold it all to Allen Klein, which was a great thing. I’m being facetious now. I think Klein still owns some of my early stuff like ‘East Side Story,’ ‘Persecution Smith’ and ‘Heavy Music.’ I own the publishing, but he owns the rights to the masters. And I’m not wanting them to make money off my songs.”

While Seger can laugh at the Cameo-Parkway disaster now, this was only the first of a steady stream of disappointments that would mar his early career.

Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man

‘Cause I was born lonely down by the riverside
Learned to spin fortune wheels, and throw dice
And I was just thirteen when I had to leave home
Knew I couldn’t stick around, I had to roam

Ain’t good looking, but you know I ain’t shy
Ain’t afraid to look a girl, hey, in the eye
So if you need some loving, and you need it right away
Take a little time out, and maybe I’ll stay

But I got to ramble (ramblin’ man)
Oh I got to gamble (gamblin’ man)
Got to got to ramble (ramblin’ man)
I was born a ramblin’ gamblin’ man

The following year, after signing with Capitol Records, and changing his band name to The Bob Seger System, Seger finally scored his first big national hit, the infectious soulful rock classic “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” which cracked the Top 20.

Seger’s first national hit featured his close friend Glenn Frey, later of Eagles fame, on backing vocals and guitar. The two remained good friends until Frey’s death in 2016.

Seger’s debut album of the same, released in January of 1969, also included Seger’s cult hit, the angry anti-Vietnam tirade “2+2=?,” which helped propel the album into the Top 100 on the Billboard Album Charts. It was pretty heady stuff for the 23-year-old and he seemed on his way to stardom.

One of Seger’s most political early songs, the anti-Vietnam tirade from 1969, 2+2=?.

The Follow-Up Flop

With the success of his debut album, a bona fide hit single and his career seemingly ready to take off, Seger was instead thrown a major curveball by Capitol and his manager. For the all-important follow-up album, Noah, released in September of that same year, a second singer-songwriter, Tom Neme, was brought into the band and Seger’s bright future was extinguished just as quickly as it came.

In fact, so distressed was Seger that he chucked it all in. “I quit my band when we were doing an album called Noah.” Despite still being called The Bob Seger System, Seger only wrote two of the album’s ten tracks (the title track and “Death Row” which was a holdover from the previous album). He co-write two others (the powerful “Innervenus Eyes” and the ridiculous six-minute vamp “Cat”).

The young Seger flashy his trademark toothy grin.

It was a bizarre follow-up to the promise of the band’s debut album as Seger’s band was now largely being helmed by another vocalist and guitarist. All Seger told me about that time now is: “With that album, Punch and the record label were pushing me to write less and let other people in the band write and sing more. So I left the band after that album, but then the band wanted me back and [Tom Neme] was let go.

“That retirement was for only like six weeks. It was just one of those things. I just didn’t like the guy’s songs. It was like the Eagles hiring Barry Manilow, and then six weeks later they were telling me, ‘I think we made a mistake’ [laughs]. That’s the nuts and bolts of what happened.”

Noah rightfully died a death, and with the dawn of a new decade things returned to normal with The Bob Seger System’s third release, Mongrel. Filled with raucous rockers like “Lucifer,” “Highway Child” and “Leanin’ On My Dream,” Mongrel was the best of the band’s three albums and while it didn’t do as well as their debut, lacking a hit single, it did manage to climb into the bottom of the album charts.

A rare television performance of Lucifer from 1970.

A New Direction

Life is like a big river
It’s sink in or swim, depends on you
You can take or you can be a giver
If you got love
You’re gonna get through

Despite gaining some strong critical response and modest commercial success with Mongrel, Bob Seger the songwriter was wanting to branch out in his musical direction so he broke up the band and decided to try things on his own. A hint towards this more versatile direction was buried on Mongrel in the form of a ballad called “Big River,” in which one could hear a glimpse into the style he would later perfect.

“I also wanted to write ballads,” Seger explained. “The problem was that it was very difficult for my bands to play anything with any kind of ‘sensitivity’ or ‘delicacy’. They were always big bashers and every time I’d write a ballad, they’d just bash it to death.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
One of Seger’s earliest ballads, Big River, from 1970.

“I also wanted to write ballads,” Seger explained. “The problem was that I wanted to start writing some different kind of material and it was very difficult for my bands to play anything with any kind of ‘sensitivity’ or ‘delicacy’ [laughs]. They were always big bashers and every time I’d write a ballad, they’d just bash it to death.

“After the Mongrel album, I wanted to really do my own thing. In 1971, I made an album called Brand New Morning with just myself on piano and guitar and I did some live shows by myself for like six months.

Maybe Today from Seger’s 1971 album Brand New Morning.

“I love to rock, I really do, it’s ultimately my favorite thing to do but I think you also need a balance as a songwriter. I saw that with the Beatles. They could rock really hard and they could also do ballads and cover both ends, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

Just prior to recording Brand New Morning, Seger did release a one-off single with Capitol called “Lookin’ Back,” a pointed critique of the Nixon-era conservative movement and the song did seep its way into the Top 100 on the charts to keep his name out in the public.

Seger’s anti-Nixon song Lookin’ Back was a big hit in his home state in 1971.

Brand New Morning, however, featured no other musicians and was a subdued work that sounded more like songwriter demos than a proper album and following its release, Capitol Records ended its contract with Seger after four albums.

He was now band-less and without a record contract. A lesser artist may have thrown in the towel but for Seger it was back to square one, with more than a few hard-learned lessons under his belt.

Turn the Page

Out there in the spotlight
You’re a million miles away
Every ounce of energy
You try to give away
As the sweat pours out your body
Like the music that you play

Later in the evening
As you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers
Ringin’ in your head
You smoke the day’s last cigarette
Rememberin’ what she said

Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin’ star again
There I go
Turn the page

Over the next several years Seger managed to record three albums—Smokin’ O.P.’s, Back in ’72 and Seven—on his manager’s record label, Palladium. Not settling on any one group of musicians between 1972-73, Seger cut a lot of cover songs on Smokin’ O.P.’s and Back in ’72, mixing in some of his own material.

While the first two albums managed to barely crack the Billboard Album Chart, Seger’s songwriting growth was reaching new heights. There was his immortal road ode “Turn the Page” (featuring an iconic sax intro from Tommy Cartmell, who would later become known to Seger fans as Mr. Alto Reed) and the Chuck Berry machine gun lyrical approach of “Get Out of Denver,” which became a modest hit in 1974.

Bob’s immortal road ode Turn the Page from 1973’s Back in ’72. The song would become a rock radio standard with the live version from 1976’s Live Bullet.

More importantly, during the recording of the Seven album, Seger had put together a collection of top Michigan musicians and dubbed them the Silver Bullet Band. Although they only appeared on a handful of the songs on that vastly underrated gem of a record, he would take them on the road endlessly over the next few years and build up his fan base one city at a time.

Whether opening for the likes of Kiss and Bachman-Turner-Overdrive, Seger and his Silver Bullets were beginning to win over new fans as they bounced from being second or third on the bill in arenas to headlining small clubs across the country.

No audience was too small to the musical field general, and his band was getting tighter and tighter with every performance. This was old-fashioned doggedness and survival. As Seger noted when told me proudly, “I’ve never had to have a day gig.”

Seger’s classic Get Out of Denver, which became a modest hit in 1974.

The Silver Bullet Band

After drifting through the early part of the ‘70s, Seger became a mainstay on the rock & roll highways and biways with his now-famous Silver Bullet Band beginning in 1973.

The original members of this Michigan-based ensemble were bassist Chris Campbell and saxophonist Alto Reed, who have remained with Seger since 1969 and 1971, respectively; guitarist Drew Abbott, who remained until 1982; powerhouse drummer Charlie Allen Martin, who was with the band until 1977 when he was paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a car; and keyboardist Robyn Robbins, who replaced Rick Manasa in 1974, remained until 1980. After Robbins’ departure, former Grand Funk keyboardist Craig Frost joined the fold and is still a Silver Bullet member to this day.

Bob with his original Silver Bullet Band, circa 1976: guitarist Drew Abbott, keyboardist Robyn Robbins, saxophonist Alto Reed, Seger, bassist Chris Campbell and drummer Charlie Allen Martin.

“The Silver Bullet Band got together in October of ’73 and in 1974 we played 265 nights. We were just trying to build a following. We did whatever it took. You have to go out and earn people’s respect, and with respect comes loyalty. And that takes years of road work with very little payoff, let me tell you.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Seger gets downright giddy when he talks about those salad days on the road, when live performances were necessary to feed the machine since record sales were yet to turn the tide. Life on the road was down and dirty; it was survival.

“We played a lot in those early days, and I mean, a lot. The Silver Bullet Band got together in October of ’73 and in 1974 we played 265 nights, right on through the Beautiful Loser album. Even when we were making albums we were playing 265 nights. That’s a lot of shows, let me tell ya,” he said, with a laugh.

The Silver Bullet Band earning respect and loyalty.

“We were just trying to build a following, ya know. We did whatever it took. We did third on the bill, we did second on the bill, we headlined some clubs. Literally whatever it took, and looking back I think it worked.”

He takes a moment and brings up his good friend Don Henley to ram the point home: “Henley is out touring now and I told him, and I’ll tell anybody that will listen, ‘You have to keep coming back and build and solidify that audience.’ If they loved your concert this time, they will love you six months from now. I’ve found that the people love you when you come back to the towns that really enjoy your stuff.

“That, to me, is really important,” he continued, before his philosophy on life and his career seeps in: “I never took anything for granted. Never.”

For Seger, it wasn’t just about financial survival, it was keeping an eye on the bigger picture and that to him was always about improving and getting better. “What we would do is play like a bar gig for three nights and then get a nice concert slot somewhere, then more bar gigs. We would work constantly because you have to get in front of as many people as possible and that’s how you figure out your strengths and weaknesses.

“You have to build and solidify that audience. I’ve found that people love you when you come back to the towns that really enjoy your stuff. That, to me, is really important. I never took anything for granted. Never.”

“You really have to gauge how they’re responding to you and that’s the only way you can get better and within the band you have to be able to criticize each other as a way for everyone to grow as a unit. Honesty, persistence, and doing whatever it takes to continue doing what you love is the answer if you ask me.”

“We used to drive to Florida, play a show, and turn around and drive back to Michigan because we couldn’t afford to stay there. I’m not kidding you. We used to call it ‘soul driving’ and I held the record. I drove us from Miami to Detroit, 25 ½ hours non-stop. Good times.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

In this day and age of instant fame and celebrity, Seger remains adamant that no success is more rewarding than that which comes with hard work and sacrifice. “I’ve seen so many groups that my manager, Punch, tried to get started,” he said. “And he used the same basic formula that he used with us: keep playing, keep playing and keep playing. Because the more you play, the hungrier you get to be accepted by enough people to make some sort of a living at making music.

“But some of the younger bands out there seem to want to go out and wreck hotel rooms and tv sets right away. A majority of new bands today want it too fast and too easy,” he says, matter of factly. “They get a hit record and they make the assumption that everyone knows them now, so they don’t have to work too hard on the road. It’s just not true.

“You have to go out and earn it, and you have to earn people’s respect, and with respect comes loyalty. And that takes years of road work with very little payoff, let me tell you.”

The Beautiful Loser

He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea

Beautiful loser
Where you gonna fall?
When you realize
You just can’t have it all

As Seger slowly and methodically built up a loyal fanbase by tirelessly playing on the road and as his songwriting evolved and improved, Capitol Records decided to take another chance on him in 1975 after dumping him four years before. The resulting album, Beautiful Loser, was a solid step forward towards the Bob Seger we know today.

That assessment became clear when I asked whether he felt he finally was finding his songwriting voice. “Absolutely,” he said, without hesitation. “Beautiful Loser was a turning point for me as a songwriter. I think that was the first album where I really consistently started writing some fairly good songs.

“Part of the problem in those days was that we were on the road so much that there really wasn’t a lot of time for me to really focus on songwriting, so we put our emphasis on being a touring act for many years. We used to play 250 to 275 nights a year, so there really wasn’t much time for songwriting.

“Since the Beautiful Loser album, I think that has slowly started to balance out now where I write and tour about equally now, which has helped me make a dramatic improvement with my songwriting.

Another Seger humorous classic about getting away from it all.

“I’m not a natural writer of songs, like a John Lennon was or like Don Henley is. When Don was making his last record [1990’s The End of the Innocence], I would sometimes watch him write lyrics in the studio and then go sing ‘em. I would never even dream of doing that. I sit and tinker with my songs and the lyrics and finalize them two weeks before I even go in the studio to record them.

“A lot of my growing confidence at that time had to do with the example that my friends Glenn [Frey] and Don [Henley] set when they hit big with the Eagles. Glenn actually came to me when I had finished Beautiful Loser and said, ‘Now you’ve got it, now you’re getting it.’”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“It just comes much more easily to other writers. Producer Jimmy Iovine is a friend of mine and he worked with John Lennon and was telling me how John would just snap off the most incredible lines right in the studio. It’s not that way with me [laughs].”

Seger was also gaining more confidence while being inspired by positive feedback from his friends. It was an interesting case where a one-time student had found massive success before the teacher. “A lot of my growing confidence at that time had to do with the example that my friends Glenn [Frey] and Don [Henley] set when they hit big with the Eagles. Glenn actually came to me when I had finished Beautiful Loser and said, ‘Now you’ve got it, now you’re getting it.’”

He was also finding a lot of inspiration with the wealth of singer-songwriters who had cropped up during that period. “By that time it had become the era of the singer-songwriter, with people like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Kris Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush, people like that. It was about the narrative song and it was a really rich vein to get really inspired by.”

In addition, Seger was becoming much better in the recording studio. “Starting with the Beautiful Loser album, I started using the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on my records. I used them on my albums mainly for expediency. They recorded things really fast and they made things sound like records very quickly. They had their own studios and I’d go down there and sing with them, as did Bob Dylan, the Stones, Stevie Winwood, Joni Mitchell, and just a myriad of people.

“Working with the Muscle Shoals guys was a really fast way of recording three or four songs, whereas the Silver Bullet Band and myself would take a lot longer in the studio because we weren’t studio-wise in those days.

“We stopped using the entire Muscle Shoals band in 1979 after the Against the Wind album. And since then I’ve used the main guys from the Silver Bullet Band—Chris Campbell, Alto, and Craig Frost—as well as a wide array of session musicians.”

Live Bullet

“You are here because you want the real thing.
Let’s bring on Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band NOW!”

After a decade of slugging it out in bars, dives, clubs, or supporting national acts, with the release of Beautiful Loser in April of 1975, Seger began to get some critical praises and more national notice as it became his highest charting effort up to that point, although it still didn’t make it in the Top 100. But, in Detroit, the album took his local stardom to an all-new high, allowing the 30-year-old veteran to headline a large arena for the very first time, at Seger’s dream venue, Cobo Hall, for two nights in September of that year.

While the decision to record the shows was a last-minute idea by his manager Punch Andrews, a thought that Seger only reluctantly went along with it as he was wanting to focus on his performance and showing off his red-hot band to his hometown fans. In retrospect, it was a fateful decision that literally captured a road hungry band at their absolute performance peak.

Bob and his Silver Bullet Band turning Bo Diddley’s Fifties’ rock classic into one of the most blistering medleys ever captured on tape, including the incorporation of Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”. You can literally see the Cobo Hall stage burning beneath their feet. Relentless and tight, this is what six musicians playing 275 nights a year can do.

When I bring up that classic live album, Seger smiles knowingly, saying: “It’s pretty ferocious, yeah. That album was just two nights at Cobo Hall. I have to give credit to my manager, Punch, because our show was becoming so popular and the band had become so ferocious onstage, he just wanted to capture it on tape.

“It seemed like the perfect night to do it because it was the first time we ever really headlined anywhere in a huge arena. That really was the first time we ever headlined anywhere. You had these six guys who were living like road rats. We were more station wagon drivers than musicians in those days.

“It’s pretty ferocious. I think what Live Bullet shows is that we were very hungry musicians, and also maybe a little desperate and I think that shows too on that album. We were a rock & roll band to be reckoned with. I love that record. I really love to listen to it, even to this day.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“We used to drive to Florida, play a show, and turn around and drive back to Michigan because we couldn’t afford to stay there. I’m not kidding you. We used to call it ‘soul driving’ and I held the record,” he said proudly. “I drove us from Miami to Detroit, 25 ½ hours non-stop. We’d get bored so we’d have contests. I remember trying to get out of the car that night and my legs were asleep [laughs]. Good times.”

As for the resulting album, which featured early Seger classics like “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” “Turn the Page,” “Heavy Music,” “Katmandu,” “Get Out of Denver” and the brilliant double-shot of “Travelin’ Man” and “Beautiful Loser.” Seger’s impassioned vocals on the latter sounded almost like a final plea for people to accept him for what he was and not what he could never be.

“I think what Live Bullet shows is that we were very hungry musicians, and also maybe a little desperate and I think that shows too on that album,” he adds. “We were a rock & roll band to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.”

It was the Silver Bullet Band’s powerhouse drummer Charlie Allen Martin who came up with the idea of the now-famous interlude joining “Travelin’ Man” and “Beautiful Loser” together on Live Bullet. Sadly, Martin was permanently paralyzed after being hit by a car from behind while walking on the side of a road in February of 1977. The tragedy happened only ten days before they were to embark on their first-ever headlining tour as Seger and his Silver Bullet Band finally achieved stardom with Live Bullet and Night Moves.

“I love that record. I really love to listen to it, even to this day. I wish we could get that kind of raw energy back. It’s not that easy. I really miss that drummer, Charlie Martin. He was a tremendous driving force in the Silver Bullet Band. He had that accident where he was paralyzed from the waist down not long after that, and that was a real loss to the band.”

Drummer Charlie Allen Martin during the famous Cobo Hall shows that resulted in the monster concert album, Live Bullet.
Paralyzed from the waist down in a 1977 accident, original Silver Bullet Band drummer Charlie Allen Martin joined his former boss onstage to sing “Jody Girl” during a Michigan concert in 1996.
This rough promo video compilation captured Seger’s famous June 26, 1976 headlining concert at Pontiac Stadium in Detroit before 70,000 fans. It remains the ONLY footage of the original Silver Bullet Band featured on Live Bullet that has managed to escape the vaults.

Another thing that the Silver Bullet Band did for Seger is that having a band allowed him to focus on songwriting. He was no longer struggling to be the lead guitarist in his band and that opened up his creative mind with an all-new light.

“Dropping the lead guitarist role was a major factor in my career. It took away from my voice, and it took away from my songwriting, too. I wanted to write everything like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page, everything with great riffs. But that was somewhat of a cop-out because I was building songs around a riff. I began to really work on the craft of songwriting.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“It reached a point around that time where I sat down with my manager and my band and said, ‘Look, I need more time to write songs and to do it well.’ And dropping the lead guitarist role was a major factor in my career, because I was a real prisoner,” he pointed out. “It took away from my voice, and it took away from my songwriting, too. I wanted to write everything like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page, you know, everything with great riffs.

“But, to me, that was somewhat of a cop-out because I was building songs around a riff, and that’s all there was. It was much more difficult for me to write songs that had melody and chordal structure and more interesting structures. I began to really work on the craft of songwriting.

“I couldn’t really do that and also be a player. I’ve never really been a great player of anything,” he said modestly. “I play well enough to write songs. That’s the one thing I’ve been a little sad about, because I do love playing, but I’ve accepted my role in life.”

When I mention his simple yet memorable piano solo in “Still the Same” or his lead guitar solo in “Her Strut,” he laughed and said, “Well, I still love to play guitar and piano onstage, and I’ve still got a Neanderthal rip-and-tear approach that I like to show off once in a while.”

Stardom…Finally

So you’re a little bit older and a lot less bolder than you used to be
So you used to shake ’em down but now you stop and think about your dignity
So now Sweet 16’s turned 31
You get to feelin’ weary when the work days done
Well all you got to do is get up and into your kicks, if you’re in a fix
Come back baby, rock and roll never forgets

This time-honored American philosophy of hard work, dedication, and never say die attitude finally paid off at the end of 1976, when Seger released his tenth album Night Moves. 1975’s Beautiful Loser album had brought him respectability and the stellar concert collection Live Bullet brought him more fans, but Night Moves made him a star.

This sterling collection of soulful rock and introspective ballads came across as one man’s vindication, the musical diary of a survivor. This was followed by six consecutive platinum and multi-platinum albums over the next 15 years when Seger became an elder statesman of heartland rock and a bona fide superstar.

As for whether he knew that Night Moves was going to be the album that forever changed his career, he replied: “I really did think it was going to be something special while I was making it. I did Beautiful Loser at Muscle Shoals [with the illustrious Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section] and I did half of the Night Moves album there as well. And I could tell by the reaction of those musicians that I was onto something.

“When I played them things like ‘Mainstreet’ and ‘Come to Poppa,’ they were going nuts. It was like a major step forward from Beautiful Loser to them and these guys played on some of the greatest albums in history.

One of Seger’s most popular songs, Mainstreet was a Top 20 hit in the U.S. and topped the charts in Canada.

And we felt really strong about the song, “Night Moves.” “We recorded that song in Toronto [with just the Silver Bullet Band rhythm section of Chris Campbell and Charlie Allen Martin, and some local Canadian musicians], and no matter how many times you listened to it you didn’t get tired of it. We discovered that during the mix. I think we did something like five mixes and Punch and I called each other the next day and said, ‘Wow, it doesn’t matter which mix I listen to, it sounds really cool.’ That was a good feeling.

The song that changed Seger’s career forever.

“So, yeah, I had hopes that the Night Moves album would be the one and by god, that was the one. We went from station wagons to jets after that album came out,” he says with a laugh. “We never did a bus tour, we never were in-between.”

Because his massive success happened so late in his career—31 years old in the 1976 rock world was like being a dinosaur—it begs the question as to whether or not, it was a blessing in retrospect. Seger took a moment to think, saying, “That’s a really good question. I never really thought about it like that.

“It’s interesting because the actor Dennis Quaid is a good friend of mine and, a couple of years ago, he was just doing movie after movie after movie, and he looked at me and said: ‘Whaddya do when your reality exceeds your dreams?’

“And I think that’s what happens to these young bands when they get success too young and too fast. They end up taking themselves too seriously. I feel sorry for guys like Axl Rose and these young guys who find success so young where it happens overnight for them.

“I mean I was 31 when Night Moves became a hit and that was considered really old at that time, so I had more than ten years of struggles, of almost hits, and ups-and-downs to help keep me grounded once things took off and I consider myself to be fortunate that it happened when it did.

“Although,” he continued with a knowing grin, “during those ten years I certainly wanted it to happen then, and was really trying to make it just as hard in those days. I don’t know. I guess things happen when they happen for a reason.”

Platinum Paranoia

I take my card and I stand in line
To make a buck I work overtime
Dear Sir letters keep coming in the mail
I work my back till it’s racked with pain
The boss can’t even recall my name
I show up late and I’m docked
It never fails

I feel like just another
Spoke in a great big wheel
Like a tiny blade of grass
In a great big field

With the platinum success of both Live Bullet and Night Moves, both albums surpassing five million in sales, Seger had finally hit the big time, but, with it, came a pressure he had thus far never had to deal with: expectations. For someone who has always been his own harshest critic, Seger now felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as he had to now produce an album for millions of new fans that would not be released under the radar of scrutiny.

It was something called Platinum Paranoia. “A friend of mine, the music journalist Timothy White, came up with that phrase,” Seger admitted, “and I would say that I fell into that after the success of Night Moves.

“I think that’s a natural thing to go through at first, and I did go through that a bit when I was making Stranger in Town, which was the follow-up to Night Moves. And I still had that a bit when I was making Against the Wind. Yeah, I had ‘platinum paranoia.’”

Inspired by seeing model Cheryl Tiegs on a magazine cover and wondering what would happen to an innocent “Midwestern boy on his own” meeting a woman like that in California, Hollywood Nights remains a Seger tour de force.

The resulting album, Stranger in Town, alleviated those worries when it became the biggest selling studio album of his career, chock-full of classic hits, from the driving rock of “Hollywood Nights” and “Feel Like a Number” to the softer gold hits like “Still the Same” and “We’ve Got Tonight.”

A #4 hit single in 1978, Still the Same featured a rare piano solo played by Seger himself.

Not to mention the immortal “Old Time Rock and Roll,” which would crack the Top 40 twice. First in 1979 and again a few years later when it was used for Tom Cruise’s memorable lip-sync performance in his underwear in the 1983 hit comedy, Risky Business.

Against the Wind

Well those drifters days are past me now
I’ve got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out

Against the wind
I’m still runnin’ against the wind
I’m older now but still running
Against the wind

In 1980, Seger’s fame climbed even higher as he scored his first and only Number One album with Against the Wind. Despite the success of the album, there were some fans who scratched their head at the lack of trademark Seger-styled Motor City muscle, with the one exception of the FM rock hit, “Her Strut.”

When pushed on that point, Seger acknowledged the concern that some fans had at the time. “You’re right the edge is gone. I think I was a little tired at that point and it’s a pretty mellow album. I really like that album and I can listen to it all the way through, unlike some of my other albums, but I get what you’re saying.

“At that point though,” he continued, “when it was time to make another album, those ten songs were the best songs I had. I had some other rock stuff for that album, but those songs just didn’t measure up to what ended up on the album. I always feel that I’m in competition with myself.

“That’s something that me and Henley and Frey always talk about. You can’t worry about what Tom Petty or anyone else is doing. You just have to do what you do and try to do your best to the max at any given time.

“There’s probably a little Eagles influence on that album as well because I was hanging out a lot with those guys throughout the time I was making Against the Wind. And I was feeling a little mellower and I really love the Eagles, ya know.”

The Top Ten hit Fire Lake, from his 1980 album Against the Wind, which features Seger’s friends Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles on backing vocals.

Of course, the most famous song on the chart-topping album is the title track, which has certainly stood the test of time and includes one of Seger’s greatest lyrical lines: “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

Ironically, the writer himself questions the memorable line, even asking his friends for feedback. “Oh, yeah, I definitely wasn’t sure about it,” he says now. “The only thing that bothered me about that phrase was the grammar. It sounded grammatically funny to me.

“I kept asking myself, ‘Is that correct grammar?’ I liked the line, and everybody I played it for—like Glenn Frey and Don Henley—were saying, ‘That’s the best line in the song,’ but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t right. But I slowly came around [laughs].

“You have to understand that songwriters can’t punctuate anything they write. I work in such a narrow medium that I tend to second-guess things like that. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen that line in a few other songs since I came up with it. There was a Poison song and there’s a new country song out there too, so I guess it was okay after all.”

The brilliant title track from Against the Wind.

His mention of Frey and Henley is interesting to note as Seger had also completed a very rare collaboration with his Eagle friends at that time, scoring them a hit with “Heartache Tonight.” In a word, everything Seger touched in those days was turning to gold, if not platinum.

“Writing with other people really doesn’t really work for me, no,” he answered to questions about that song and collaborations in general. “Basically what I did for ‘Heartache Tonight’ is I just gave them the chorus: ‘there’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know’.

“Then I walked away from it, because Henley is so good at lyrics, what am I gonna do,” he says, laughing. “I did go back later and helped with one little section with him and Glenn, the ‘you can beat around the bushes, you can get down to the bone’ section.

“The three of us sat down and hammered that section out in six or eight hours, but I’m just not good at that, where you sit together and throw around ideas. They both have very strong personalities and so do I, but we had fun with that one.”

One of Bob’s rare co-writes. This time a mega-hit for the Eagles.

Another interesting Seger involvement with a classic song released during that period had to do with him giving some good advice to another friend, this one from New Jersey, named Bruce Springsteen. At the time, both superstars were mixing their albums at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. Seger was putting the finishing touches on Against the Wind and Springsteen was working on his double-album opus, The River.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he recalled. “To try and save money Bruce would work late at night to get the studio at a cheaper rate, and so he’d be coming in the studio and I’d be leaving for the day.

Bob and his pal known as The Boss backstage at a 1978 Seger show in Detroit.

“We were both staying at the Sunset Marquee in L.A., and the poor guy was so white and so thin back then, this was before he did all the weightlifting. And we’d pass each other saying, ‘Hi, going to work?’ ‘Yeah, going to work. Going to bed?’ ‘Yeah, going to bed.’ ‘Okay, hope the lawn mowers don’t wake you up’ [laughs].”

The point of contention had to do with the song, “Hungry Heart,” which became one of Bruce’s biggest hits. According to Seger, Springsteen seemed to be going through some platinum paranoia of his own. “I think Bruce was frightened that ‘Hungry Heart’ was too commercial. And at that time in his career, he had a tendency to give away all his hits—he gave ‘Because the Night’ to Patti Smith and ‘Fire’ to the Pointer Sisters and so on and so forth.

“So Bruce and his manager Jon Landau would be coming in and I’d be heading out, and one day they invited me to Bruce’s room because he wanted to play me this song called ‘Hungry Heart’ and get my opinion. I could tell that he was thinking it was too commercial and he was worried about people questioning his integrity or whatever.

“It sounded fine to me,” he told me. “I mean it’s obviously a really, really strong song. I just told him, ‘Nobody’s gonna accuse you of selling out, Bruce’ [laughs]. Jeez, now when he plays that song onstage the whole arena sings it for him.”

Avoiding the Trappings of Stardom

She stood there bright as the sun on that California coast
He was a midwestern boy on his own
She looked at him with those soft eyes, so innocent and blue
He knew right then he was too far from home

Despite this period of heady times and mass success, and despite lyrical hints to the contrary, Seger says he managed to not fall into the trappings of stardom. “I don’t think I ever got caught up in a hedonistic lifestyle. I had a real quiet home life in those days, from maybe ’75 to 1980. It was really quite calm and people might even call it boring [laughs].

“I was in a really solid ten-year relationship at the time I was making Night Moves, Stranger in Town and Against the Wind. I remember Bruce Springsteen telling me in 1980 that he admired me for having such a solid relationship because he was having trouble holding one together. Unfortunately, that relationship went down a few years later in ’83.

“I just try to live my life with an open mind and try not to dwell on who I am, because if I do I’m afraid that I’ll become a caricature of who I am and I don’t want that ever to happen. I just really try and take life as it comes. I have a lot of normal people in my life and try and stay as grounded as I can.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“I try not to think about the drawing power I have or whatever you want to call it, in terms of still being able to sell out arenas. I just try to live my life with an open mind and try not to dwell on who I am, because if I do I’m afraid that I’ll become a caricature of who I am and I don’t want that ever to happen.

“I just take life day-to-day and try to balance life and career. I probably work too hard on my records, but all maturity is learning a balance in life. I know there are a lot of people who think that I’m not aware enough of what I can do, but I think if you dwell on the fact that you can do this or do that, it can be harmful.

Seger still belting it out onstage in 2014.

“I just really try and take life as it comes. I have a lot of normal people in my life and try and stay as grounded as I can,” before adding with another laugh, “and those people around me keep me very grounded.”

Nine Tonight

With three massively popular albums under his belt, a trilogy of albums that sold more than 15 million albums in America alone, Seger then released his second live album, Nine Tonight, in 1981.

But the power and ferocity of the previous concert recording, Live Bullet, was nowhere to be found. The Silver Bullet Band had been somewhat neutered on Nine Tonight. Seger agreed with my assessment saying, “I think it is really done well and people really do like it, but if I had to do it over I would have never put that album out.

“The thinking at the time was to put together the songs from the previous three albums, which were so successful—Night Moves, Stranger in Town and Against the Wind—and to kind of wrap up that period in a sense,” he explained. “We were getting some hints from the record company around that time to maybe put out a greatest hits album because of that trilogy of albums where we had like nine or ten straight hit singles. But we decided to just do it with a live album instead.

The party-time soulful #5 hit, Tryin’ to Live My Life Without You, from his second live album, Nine Tonight, released in 1981.

“Looking back, I think it was a mistake, and I wasted five or six months listening to tapes from nine or ten concerts and then mixing them all. But I do like some of the performances on there, like ‘The Fire Down Below’ and ‘Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You’ [which became a #5 hit single], but on the whole I kind of wish I hadn’t done it because as a live album it really pales next to Live Bullet.”

While he may think of Nine Tonight as having been a mistake in retrospect, the double-album did sell more than four million copies. Oddly enough, when it comes to performing now, because of his commercial success, he no longer has the blank canvas he had in the early days when he could play whatever he wanted.

Can’t it be frustrating to be trapped by your hits? “Yeah, a little bit,” the road veteran admits. “The thing is I know what the audience wants, they want the hits, and there’s not as much challenge to it as there was in the early days, I gotta be honest. I would love to recapture those Live Bullet days,” he says before chuckling about that thing called age, “but I don’t know if I’m young enough to pull that off anymore.”

Little Victories

Stood alone on a mountain top,starin’ out at the Great Divide
I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’ and my soul began to rise
And pretty soon my heart was singin’

Roll, roll me away, I’m gonna roll me away tonight
Gotta keep rollin, gotta keep ridin’, keep searchin’ till I find what’s right
And as the sunset faded I spoke to the faintest first starlight
And I said next time, Next time we’ll get it right

With the end of one of the strongest three-album runs in rock music history, Seger returned in 1982 with The Distance, which returned to Seger’s home in the upper reaches of the charts, hitting #5. One of the hardest rocking albums of his career and boasting such standards as “Roll Me Away,” and chart hits “Shame On the Moon” and “Even Now,” it remains one of the strongest efforts of his 50+ year career and also one of his personal favorites.

Following the rather tame acoustic sounds of his previous album, Seger was ready to rock this time around. “After Against the Wind, I consciously wanted to make a real hard record. The Distance was a definite collaboration between [producer] Jimmy Iovine and myself. There’s a lot of stuff that I really like on that album.

“I especially like Side Two,” he proclaims, still speaking in vinyl terms. “I really love ‘Roll Me Away,’ ‘Comin’ Home’ and ‘Little Victories,’ boy, do I love that song. I don’t put ‘House Behind a House’ up there with those three songs, because it’s a little strange, but it’s fun-strange [laughs]. I’m a little sad that I put ‘Little Victories’ at the end of the album because I’m not sure that everyone really heard it, and it’s really a song that I’m really, really proud of.”

One of Seger’s personally favorite songs, 1982’s Little Victories.

Something else happened with The Distance, Seger was no longer solely relying on the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section nor his Silver Bullet Band in the studio, as he had on the previous four albums. He was now wanting to bring in specific musicians any time he wanted. It was a change that led to the departure of longtime Silver Bullet Band guitarist Drew Abbott, although the nucleus of the group remained and Seger kept the band name alive as well.

“I started working with other musicians during that time, but I kept the Silver Bullet Band name because it was something that was very important to those guys who were still in that band, like Chris Campbell who has been with me since 1969 and Alto who has been with me since 1971. That made it important enough for me to keep the name.

“Nowadays the Silver Bullet Band is Chris, Alto, Craig Frost and myself. Craig has been the keyboard player in the band since 1980, so the nucleus is the four of us. It’s really important to those guys and that makes it important to me, because they deserve to be happy.”

With ‘Roll Me Away,’ Seger hit home with one of his best road songs, a tale of riding your Harley in search of peace of mind, something that he likes to do even when he’s off tour. Call it white line therapy. “The whole road thing to me is really romantic,” the lifelong biker says. “I like to drive across the country at least once a year. I just find it very therapeutic to just get away. It clears my head and I think that’s really important for my writing to be able to clear everything out.

The goosebump inducing motorcycle tale of personal freedom and escape, Roll Me Away.

“I don’t write when I’m on the road though. The only two songs that I can think of that I wrote on the road are ‘Turn the Page’ and ‘Night Moves,’ but those were basically cases of getting an outline of verses over three-hour periods. Those songs weren’t totally finished until I had a week or two off the road to really knuckle down on them.

“I’m not like Don Henley who writes down everything in journals and things that he might later use, like little phrases that come to him. I should probably do that actually because if I’m talking to him and he says something, I’ll be like, ‘Can I use that?’ [laughs].”

Like A Rock

Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one

The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn’t have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare

But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light

And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

After The Distance Tour in 1983, it was time for a bit of a break, according to Seger: “After we first hit big in ’76, with both Live Bullet and Night Moves, it was really a full-force gale until 1983. We were thinking to ourselves throughout that time, ‘How far can we take this, people aren’t gonna like us anymore because we’re getting older.’

“We felt that we had to get it in while we could, so we worked like crazy people for eight straight years. The other guys in the band started having kids in ’85, and since then, it’s been more like ‘can we rest for a minute?’”

It would be three years before Seger and his Silver Bullet Band returned with their next album, Like A Rock, in 1986, which contained the classic title track and some lost gems like “The Ring” and the hit “American Storm,” while becoming his eighth consecutive platinum album.

Like A Rock, one of those quintessential Seger songs of personal reflection, featuring a memorable slide guitar solo from Rick Vito.

One of the oddest new stories to come out during this period was when the L.A. Times ran a story about a Chicago radio station, WLUP-FM, that had spliced together Seger’s new single “American Storm” and his previous hit single “Even Now” from The Distance album, mocking them as being “the same song” and that the new song was “ridiculously derivative” of the previous one.

Of course this is the kind of thing that happens when an artist has so much success, there are those who will try to tear you down. When I asked Bob if he had seen the story and what he thought about being accused of stealing from yourself. “Yeah, I didn’t get that at all. It was the same tempo but that was all. When I listened back to it, I guess you could say that it was also like ‘Hollywood Nights’ because there’s a certain tempo for rock & roll.

“I might gravitate towards that tempo, but I certainly didn’t try to rewrite ‘Even Now’ or anything. The thing is you can’t help but repeat yourself a little bit. There’s only so many chords and so many tempos, but you just try to say things a little better.”

Seger’s anti-cocaine song American Storm from 1986’s Like A Rock album.

As for his thoughts on the Like A Rock album, his final album of the ‘80s, he’s obviously proud of the title track and the lengthy narrative story found on “The Ring,” but he was not so happy with some of the other material. “I like parts of the Like A Rock album. But I didn’t really end up liking the synthesizer songs. I hate ‘The Aftermath’ and I thought ‘Sometimes’ was pretty average looking back on it. That shouldn’t have been on the album in retrospect.

‘Tightrope’ was kinda fun, but I don’t think I captured it the way I wanted to. There’s an incredible live version of ‘Tightrope’ that you should hear because it’s really cool and much better than the version on the album. You just don’t hear the things that later bother you at the time or you’re listening to other people’s opinions. That’s something that I’m working on. I’m really trying to get more creative control away from my manager and less outside influence.”

But one song that stands out for Seger on the album details the 1980 Mariel Boatlift when more than 125,000 Cuban refugees fled Havana and arrived in Florida during a six-month period. “I love the song ‘Miami.’ I really love that one, but I don’t think anyone’s really heard that song.”

Another personal favorite of Seger’s is his song Miami, about the 1980 Marial Boatlift.

Seger’s uplifting take on the politically charged event was to see the opportunity of the American Dream through the eyes of the immigrants themselves. The song was even featured in an episode of the hit television series, Miami Vice, which ran from 1984-89.

Another occurrence that brought Seger some grief by rock purists in the early ‘90s was when he allowed “Like A Rock” to be used as a campaign song for Chevrolet. In those days, many in the music industry thought lending songs for use in commercials was akin to selling out. Today, it’s standard to hear classic rock songs promoting cars, beverages, and anything you can think of.

Ironically, Seger had refused other previous offers, including one from the Coors beer company, who wanted to tie their Coors Light product to his band’s name. “Yeah, we got a very lucrative offer from Coors Light with their whole Silver Bullet campaign,” he explained, “but I just didn’t want to push beer. If I ever do any kind of thing like that it will be because I believe in the product. I haven’t done anything yet. I think I was kind of against that kind of thing years ago, but with how things have changed so much with music and corporate America, I think I’m a little more flexible.

“We have been approached and we’ve been toying with the idea of helping out the auto industry here in Detroit. I just don’t want to push things that are going to shorten your life and things like beer and soft drinks are certainly gonna do that. I say, as I sit here smoking [laughs].”

Shortly after our first interview, Seger did agree to allow “Like A Rock” to be used by Chevy as a way to help his hometown’s biggest employer. The campaign was such a massive success that it continued on for another 13 years until 2004.

During our second interview three years later, I broached the subject again, and Seger explained his earlier decision: “They showed us some test marketing research they had done with using my song, and the results were off the charts. And since I always wanted to do something for the people in my community I agreed. It was a pretty simple decision once they showed me how much they thought it could help the workers in Detroit.”

Finally A Number One Song

Despite a staggering fifteen Top 40 hit singles and five straight Top Ten albums, including one chart-topper, Seger had never scored a Number One hit single. That is, until 1987, and it all happened in a very unlikely fashion.

The song, “Shakedown,” was for the Eddie Murphy action-comedy sequel Beverly Hills Cop II. Seger’s buddy Glenn Frey had a #2 hit with “The Heat is On” in the original Beverly Hills Cop film, but when he fell ill, Seger was approached.

Bob’s sole #1 hit single from the Beverly Hills Cop II movie.

“‘Shakedown’ is my only Number One song, but it is kind of an oddity in my career, it was a fluke. My friend, Irving Azoff, who manages the Eagles, came to me with the song for the second Beverly Hills Cop movie. Glenn had done ‘The Heat is On’ for the first film and he was offered ‘Shakedown’ but he was sick at the time and they were down to like ten days before they needed the song finished.

“So Irving asked me if I could try and do it. He sent me the track and told me to write words for it, because it was all ‘blah blah blah, shakedown, breakdown.’ That’s all there was. So I wrote the lyrics in about three days and I sang it one night, and I had Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles come in and sing it with me. And I walked away.

“Then Keith Forsey, who is a really good producer and had done Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell album, and Harold Faltermeyer, who wrote the music to ‘Shakedown,’ then took the song and, lordy-be, it went to Number One.”

Having his songs placed in movies is something that Seger has done quite often over the years, mainly because he has so much unreleased material that his fans have been dying to hear, but the often-promised box set of rare songs has yet to appear. “I write too much actually, that’s what Henley says,” he laughs. “He’ll usually write about 14 songs and use 12 on his albums, and I’ll write 38, record 21, and use 12. That’s my modus operandi [laughs], and some of those spare songs I’ll give to movies and things like that.”

“There’s [a song] from Stranger in Town, called ‘Stranger in Town’ which is very strange, it’s like metal-cowboy. It’s literally a cowboy song done kind of heavy metal. And there’s one from Against the Wind called ‘Can’t Hit the Corners No More’ about a baseball player that’s rather poignant. I’ve got some really strange stuff sitting around that might be kind of fun for people to hear after all these years.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

One of his biggest hits, “Understanding,” was one such song, being used in the 1984 film Teachers. Another beautiful gem, “Living Inside My Heart,” was used in the 1986 rom-com About Last Night.

As for the box set of rarities that he has talked about for 25 years, he puts a little salt in the wound when he talks about some of the songs that fans are clamoring to hear. “The record company talks about it all the time, but it would depend on what they would want to put out. What I’ve got is a lot of outtakes of stuff that I thought were really cool, but things that my manager, Punch, thought were a little too dangerous to put on albums. And some of those are really interesting.

“There’s one from my album Seven, called ‘Gets Ya Pumpin’’ that is just a ferocious rocker. There’s one from Stranger in Town, called ‘Stranger in Town’ which is very strange, it’s like metal-cowboy [laughs]. It’s literally a cowboy song done kind of heavy metal. And there’s one from Against the Wind called ‘Can’t Hit the Corners No More’ about a baseball player that’s rather poignant.

I’ve got some really strange stuff sitting around that might be kind of fun for people to hear after all these years. Maybe if they approached it in that fashion, it might be kind of cool.”

In 2009, Seger did release a brief ten-song CD called Early Seger Vol. 1 that did include “Gets Ya Pumpin’” and four other unreleased songs from the mid-‘80s, as well as five songs from his pre-Beautiful Loser days that had never been released during the CD era. The little known release was possibly a trial balloon to judge fan interest, so hopefully with his new-found retirement he will finally throw open the vaults and release this treasure trove of hidden gems.

Get Ya Pumpin’, an outtake from Seger’s Seven album, is one of the few rare unreleased songs from Seger’s extensive vaults that has been released to date.
The beautiful Days When the Rain Would Come, recorded around the time of the Like A Rock album, is another lost gem from the vaults.

Momma Never Told Me A Lie

Riding the wave of superstardom with another massively successful tour in 1987, a Top Five album and a Number One song, Seger’s career was firing on all cylinders. But his personal life was in a bit of upheaval, and he would put his career on hold for the longest period ever to take care of his mother. He was also picking up the pieces of his divorce from a brief marriage that he simply calls “a mistake.”

“We finished the Like A Rock Tour around May of ’87 after 105 dates. I got married to a girl [Annette Sinclair] that went bad after about a year. I moved to Los Angeles and then had to move all my stuff back [laughs].

“I thought it would be really good for my writing to live in L.A. and be constantly surrounded by the entertainment community but I found it to be the exact opposite. It was more like 24 hours a day of entertainment, but it took me about two years to figure that out.

“Meanwhile my mother got very ill and was ill for a few years. She was in the hospital at one point for 13 months and during that 13-month period I literally saw her every day in the hospital. We’re a small family, it’s just my older brother, my mother, and myself. My brother lives in North Carolina with three kids, so he couldn’t really do much of anything during that time.

“It was tough to keep going sometimes with all the ups and downs, but my mom hammered into me early on: ‘If you’re a pessimist when the good things happen to you, you’ll be that much happier because you won’t be disappointed when they don’t.’ That was a real life lesson and one I always took to heart. Work hard at whatever you do, try to be good to people, and don’t expect anything from anyone.”

(Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“He would relieve me about once a month or every three weeks or maybe a long weekend, so I moved back to Michigan and shared an apartment with my mother’s 85-year-old sister and I kind of needed to watch out for her as well because she was getting a little forgetful.

“It was a horrible time. She had a respiratory ailment and she wasn’t even able to speak after a while, but I would go in there twice a day, every day, and talk to her. Then my aunt would go in there and talk to her for a few hours every day. It was so sad. She was so upset because she just wanted to live. She was on a ventilator where they breathe you, because 50 years ago she had TB.

“Basically, there was no time to do anything but look after her sister and go to the hospital and be with mom. She seemed to be getting better at one point, so I went in to record some Tom Waits’ stuff for what would become The Fire Inside album, and two of them ended up on the album [“Blind Love” and “New Coat of Paint”].

“But then a week later she died. She actually got out of the hospital for one day, while I was in L.A., then she lapsed into a coma right after I recorded the Waits’ stuff. So I jetted home, and now she was in the hospital in a coma. So it was one of those things where you just never feel like it’s safe to leave. You want her to keep fighting and stuff, and she put up a really good fight too. It was a really tough time I have to say.”

Seger pauses and then continues with his own little salute to his mother, smiling about the woman who raised two boys on her own after being abandoned by her husband and receiving no financial help. “My mom prepped me for my career, especially those first ten years. I mean it’s hard to think back to a time when I headlined a show in Detroit at Pontiac Stadium and there were 70,000 people there. A couple nights later I was playing a club in Chicago for a couple hundred.

“It was tough to keep going sometimes with all the ups and downs, but my mom hammered into me early on: ‘If you’re a pessimist when the good things happen to you, you’ll be that much happier because you won’t be disappointed when they don’t.’ That was a real life lesson and one I always took to heart. Work hard at whatever you do, try to be good to people, and don’t expect anything from anyone.”

Momma from 1975’s Beautiful Loser album. Seger’s mother passed away in 1989.

The Fire Inside

Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard and we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside

After nearly five years out of public view, Seger returned with the 1991’s The Fire Inside, which extended his platinum streak to seven consecutive albums. “My mother died in February of ’89 after that long illness,” Seger says in regards to the lengthy break between releases. “I think I got my legs back and got everything settled and squared away in August or September of ’89. That’s when I was finally able to sit down and start writing again. Some things just happen in life that you just can’t avoid having to take care of, ya know.”

Seger’s enthusiasm for the album was palpable when we first met in the late summer of ’91. “I really am pleased with this album, I really am. My least favorite song on it is ‘She Can’t Do Anything Wrong.’ I like the energy and the band really enjoyed playing it and it’s a fun thing, but I’m not particularly proud of it. That’s one that my manager really heard, so including that song was a little bit of a compromise there. But other than that one, I think I like everything on this album. And that’s more than I can say about any of my albums since Night Moves.”

Seger’s first single of the ’90s, The Real Love, continued his chart hit dominance.

Aside from being one of our greatest songwriters, one of Seger’s most underrated qualities is taking the songs of others and turning them into his own. He has done it throughout his career with such classics as “Nutbush City Limits,” “Come to Poppa,” “Old Time Rock and Roll” (although he rewrote most of the verses on that one), and his huge chart hit rendition of Rodney Crowell’s “Shame on the Moon,” and it continued with The Fire Inside when he recorded a few from one of his favorite writers, Tom Waits.

“I love ‘New Coat of Paint.’ I love the song first of all, it’s just a great one from Tom Waits, but I what I really love about it in particular is that it was recorded, totally and utterly, live. There’s not one overdub. It’s Take Five of five takes. That’s exactly how everybody played it.

“[Former Little Feat pianist] Billy Payne is just phenomenal on that cut. I’m a big piano fan as you can tell. I’m a piano player myself, but I know how good I am, so I let guys like Billy and Roy Bittan play for me [laughs].I play a little piano on the album. I’m playing on ‘The Real Love’ and ‘The Long Way Home,’ but these guys are so much fun to listen to. And, to me, with ‘New Coat of Paint,’ the song is good, I love Billy’s piano playing and I loved the idea of the standup bass.”

This Seger cover of Tom Waits’ New Coat of Paint was recorded entirely live. No overdubs.

When talking about other writers, Seger humbly points to the other Waits’ song he covered for the album, “Blind Love.” “I don’t think I’m quite as poetic and graceful as Don Henley or Tom Waits. I think they have an ability that I just don’t possess. When you hear a line from Waits like: ‘the only way to find you is when I close my eyes and find you with my blind love.’ To me, that just speaks volume. And also ‘if you get far enough away, you’ll find your way back home.’ Those are just wonderful lines that I wouldn’t think of.

With Henley, there’s so many amazing lines in his stuff. I wouldn’t even know where to start with him. They just think poetically. I think Paul Simon thinks poetically. I think I’m more of a nuts-and-bolts kind of writer. I come up with some good phrases and stuff but not on a consistent level like they do.”

Another Tom Waits’ cover from 1991. Seger the fans says: “When you hear a line from Waits like, ‘the only way to find you is when I close my eyes and find you with my blind love.’ To me, that just speaks volume.”

All in all, Seger recorded nearly two dozen songs for the album, switching between hit producer and fellow Michigan resident Don Was, Berry Beckett from the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, as well as those that Seger produced alone or with his manager Punch Andrews. “All in all, I recorded 21 songs for this album and we parried it down to 12. Of the 21, Don had five, Beckett got four, and the other three were basically produced by me. I think it’s a nice balance of stuff and there’s a lot of not typical Seger material.”

One such non-typical Seger song is “Sightseeing,” which he was hoping to be a single, but realizes it would be a tough sell to radio. “I really like ‘Sightseeing’ because it’s a very odd structure in that the title is in the bridge, and I really like the lyrics in that one. I think there’s some pretty cool lines in there.

“I’d love for the next single to be ‘Sightseeing,’ but I doubt it will be. I’ve already heard from various radio programmers who tell me that they can’t play it because it doesn’t fit into any format. I would love to put that as a single just because it’s so unique, but I doubt that will happen.”

One of Seger’s personal favs of his own, 1991’s Sightseeing.

As for the album’s centerpiece, the relentless driving title track, Seger says he really struggled with the powerful lyrics of the six-minute epic.

“Lyrically, ‘The Fire Inside’ doesn’t have anything to do with anything I’ve done previously. It’s me talking about relationships again, which is one of my favorite subjects because I think that’s one thing that’s universal and close to a lot of people’s hearts.

“It’s about that thing where you’re trying to maintain your passion and trying to accept the fact that you have passions and trying to be mature enough to not give in to a lot of temptations. So there’s always that balancing going on which delves into the issue of maturity. Where you’re trying to keep the passion alive while stepping away from temptation, and that goes for romantic passion and holding on to a passion for life.

“I worked a long time on that song. Henley really likes that song too. He’s one of the few people I actually listen to when it comes to playing my new songs for people. If he really, really loathes something I’m writing, I won’t do it. And I think he’s the only human being in the world that I would listen to at that point. I’m not afraid to make mistakes, but if Henley says ‘that’s really low-rent,’ then I’ll get rid of it.”

The powerhouse title track from The Fire Inside features some of the best lyrical lines of his long and storied career.

“With that song, I thought the second verse about the club scenes was a killer, and the last verse worked, but I started to realize that the original first verse of that song was not nearly as strong as the others,” says the perfectionist. “So I wracked my brain for a long time on that song. It’s like you’ll work and work and work, and then three weeks later, the answer will just pop into your head.

“It’s funny, I’ve learned to sometimes let my subconscious do the work. I mean you can beat your head against the wall and just come up with nothing. I’ve found that that’s a good way to do it. You just have to be patient. You have to learn to put it aside and work on something else when you hit a brick wall. That’s what happened with that song. I had to keep walking away and coming back to it.”

Marriage & Fatherhood

There was rhythm
And there was order
There was a balance
There was a flow

There was patience
Indulgence
There was a power
I could not know

And I felt it all made sense
The innocence
The permanence

Things had changed dramatically for Bob Seger when we met for the second time, three years after our first interview. In those couple of years, he had married for the third time and was already adjusting to his new life as a dad in his late forties. “It’s really been a shocker for me,” he says with his trademark laugh. “I’m the late bloomer in the band. Alto [Reed] had his kids during the last tour in ’87, Chris [Campbell] had one after that tour, and Craig [Frost] had one in the oven during that tour.

“When my kid came along, it was like, ‘wow,’ what an eye-opener. At first, you’re a little resentful because you’re thinking, ‘Hey, I can’t do all my work,’ but then you quickly realize that this is better than your work. This is my ultimate reward for doing all that work all those years. It’s definitely been a period of adjustment, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

By the River written by Bob Seger, the father and husband.

Seger married Juanita “Nita” Dorricott and his first child Cole was born November 3, 1992 [“Cole is 22 months old now and was born on the day Bill Clinton was elected, so he’s a Bill Clinton baby”]. At the time, his wife was pregnant with their second child and he joked, “My wife’s family is notorious for having twins, and we’re a little nervous because she’s very big for only three months, so she’s been saying, ‘I think this might be twins’ [laughs]. We get the ultrasound in about six weeks, so we’ll know then.

“I think we’re gonna stop at two kids, if my wife gets a girl this time,” he said, with a laugh. “We have a boy now and if this one isn’t a girl, then we’ll have to see.” Their daughter, Samantha, was born in the spring of ’95.

With all the changes in his family life, work on Seger’s 1995 album, It’s A Mystery, took longer than expected. “I have to leave town to record and because I have a young son now, I’d leave for a week and then come home for a week, so that made it twice as long. But if you want to spend as much time with your child as I do, you make allowances with work.

“I spend three hours in the morning with him and two hours at night, and then all day on the weekends. I just want to be there, and I’m almost grandfather age because I started so late.”

It’s A Mystery

I can sit here, in the back half of my life
And wonder when the other shoe will fall
Or I can stand up, point myself home
And see if I’ve learned anything at all
Anything at all

Mediocrity is easy, the good things take time
The great need commitment, right down the line

As we sat down at the time of his first Greatest Hits album in 1994, Seger was eager to get back to finish his next studio release. “The new album is virtually done. Next month, on November 12, I’m going in the studio in Nashville with my engineer David Cole, who has been with me since 1983. We’re gonna do five weeks before Christmas, take two weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s, and then go back in for another two weeks and, hopefully, the album will be done by then.

“The album is written, it’s just a matter of touch-up stuff. I’ve gotta re-record a few, re-sing a few and change a few lyrics and remix a few. Putting together this Greatest Hits album was a great thing because I was really losing my objectivity. Getting away from the new album for a bit was the greatest thing in the world because I got my objectivity back.

I’d like to see this new album out in March [1995], but Punch doesn’t like to release albums before or during summer when everybody goes on vacation and he thinks you lose sales because of that. He might hold it off until the fall, which will drive me crazy because I can’t stand to sit on an album for six months because I’ll start wanting to change it. Gonna have to put it in a safe somewhere to keep it away from me,” he says jokingly. Indeed, It’s a Mystery arrived in October of ‘95.

“Recording is a long process for me. And with this new album, I am the sole producer, without my manager Punch. I’ve decided to really take the bull by the horns this time, so when everybody hates this album, it’ll be all my fault.

“I’m going for a little rawer approach this time out. Is that the right decision? I don’t know, but it’s my decision and I’ll take all the blame or credit this time around.”

Lock and Load from 1995’s It’s A Mystery, Seger’s last album for ten long years.

Filled with some excellent and thoughtful rockers like the first single “Lock and Load,” the anti-tabloid brilliance of “Revisionism Street,” the gorgeous ballad “I Wonder,” and the raucous Tom Waits’ cover “16 Shells From A 30-6” was tailor-made for Seger fans, although it failed to go platinum, stalling at gold.

The roaring Revisionism Street was Seger’s spot-on slam against sensationalistic taboloid journalists.

While It’s A Mystery would be the first Bob Seger album in 20 years not to sell a million copies, its release so close to the phenomenal sales of his Greatest Hits package—at 10 million and still counting—definitely played a role in the lower sales.

The year following the album’s release, Seger and his Silver Bullet Band hit the road for the first time in nine long years, having not toured behind The Fire Inside as the band members began raising families. The sold-out tour was one of Seger’s best, mixing songs from all stages of his career, and when it was over, Seger walked away for ten long years to raise his kids.

Seger Returns

I feel the cold wind blowin’ all over me
I see the dark clouds startin’ to form
The trees are bare; the grass is brown
Another early winter Michigan storm

Everything I do is just a little wrong
Every day for me is the same
Everyone I know is gettin’ in my face
And I only got myself to blame

It’s hard to imagine that it was just a coincidence that his own father had abandoned Seger and his brother when the future star was only ten years old. And he did make clear when he finally returned to the spotlight in 2006 at the age of 61, his lengthy sabbatical was all about raising his own children and breaking the selfish cycle started by his dad. “I just wanted to be with my kids and raise them,” he would say.

And when he did return, Seger did so with a vengeance. Face the Promise was an instant smash, climbing to #4 on the charts and returning him to the platinum status where he belonged. From the powerful rockers “Wreck This Heart” and the title track to the lovely hit single “Wait For Me,” it was as if he had never been away.

Ride On, Bob, Ride On

You were here
Now you’re gone
And we all keep moving on
Like the wind
And the sea
That’s the way it has to be
When I think about you I always smile
Then I go back for a while

You were young
You were bold
And you loved your rockin’ soul
You were strong
You were sharp
But you had the deepest heart
You showed the whole world what we knew:
There was no one quite like you

Since his return in 2006, Seger has released two more studio albums. 2014’s Ride On, which hit #3 on the album charts and 2017’s I Knew You When, which featured his heartfelt tribute to his late “baby brother” Glenn Frey of the Eagles. Simply entitled “Glenn Song,” Seger released the song for free before the album’s release and it became an online sensation.

Seger’s 2014 cover of a Woody Guthrie lyric set to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco.
Bob’s moving tribute to his childhood friend Glenn Frey of Eagles fame.

When it comes to assessing his own work, Seger says, “I like a lot of bits from a lot my albums and that’s kind of the way it goes for me. It’s kind of hit-and-miss. It’s different frames of mind. But I can listen to most of them and really, really like them all the way through, which makes me feel pretty good.

However, still the stickler, he adds: “There’s always one or two songs on every one of my albums that always bother me years later. I don’t see things at the time when I’m making them and then years later I’ll get bothered by a few things.”

Fortunately his fans haven’t been bothered for more than 50 years by anything he’s done. Over the past two years, Seger has been once again playing to sold-out crowds throughout America and Canada on his farewell tour, which wrapped up with his final show last night in Philadelphia. It is truly the end of an era.

In looking back on his career, I think Bob saying this to me was a perfect summation of Bob Seger Rock Star and Bob Seger The Man: “There are certainly a lot of things that I wish I’d have done different here and there, but I did what I did and I think I managed to keep my sanity and a certain level of humanity along the way.” Yes you did. You truly did.

Seger and his Silver Bullet Band give a blazing performance of John Hiatt’s Detroit Made from Bob’s 2014 Ride On album.

Seger On Songwriting

And to sum up this ridiculously long tribute, I’m going to share my lengthy conversations I had with Bob over the years that will take you behind the curtain of his unique and magical songwriting brilliance. Enjoy.

You’re one of rock’s most respected songwriters. What songwriting techniques do you employ?
BS: There really isn’t any set way I write songs. They come all different kinds of ways. I would say that 60 percent of the time, I’ll sit down at a keyboard or pick up a guitar and play for a while, or sometimes I’ll even work out a drum pattern on a drum machine.

When I’m pure writing, usually I’m just wailing into a tape recorder. I’ve got a half-inch, eight-track that runs about 45 minutes and I’ll wail into for a full tape, then rest for a minute, then I’ll wail into another tape.

I’ll just sing stuff off the top of my head and then walk away and have a cup of coffee. After 15 minutes or so, I’ll go back and listen to those two or three things that I did, and if I don’t hear a germ or a flare of an idea, I’ll just keep plugging away. Then, maybe two hours later, I’ll go back to the first tape and see if there’s anything there. It might just be a phrase or a fragment or a set of chords with horrible mutterings over it [laughs]. That’s basically how I write. I just bull-ahead and do it.

Lyrically, what I’ll do a lot of the time is, I’ll try to come up with the refrain or the title section and then back up and write the story through the verses. A lot of the time, the mood of the music that I’m playing—whether it’s high-energy, medium tempo or dead slow—will determine the direction. If it comes together with a lyric line or a chorus line, then I’ll kind of know where I’m going with it.

There have been times though where I’ve written a bunch of verses before I even know what the title is. That’s what happened with “Like A Rock.” I wrote the first three verses of that song before I even knew where I was going. Then, one day, I just fell into the “like a rock” thing, and I thought it worked.

It comes all different ways; there’s no set method I use. Mostly, it’s just kind of like work, but it’s cool work because it’s so exciting. Creating something out of nothing is really an amazing feeling.

Do you ever give up on a song if you feel that it’s going nowhere?
BS: Not really. I try to be a “finisher.” I probably finish way too many songs, because I’ve found that when I don’t finish them, that’s when I lock up. I keep getting all these “starts” piled up, and then I get paranoid and I can’t even start a new song. So I’ll finish songs even though I know they’re barely above-average.

Have you ever taken lines or verses from some of those “below-average” songs and incorporated them into better songs?
BS: Oh yeah, absolutely. You can come up with what my friend Don Henley calls a “rhyme with dignity.” You want to hang on to those phrases. Don does that by writing them in books. I’ll go see him, and he’ll have books and scraps of papers piled up on a table, and he uses those as a resource for ideas.

I don’t do that. If I can remember something in my head for five or six days, then I’ll know that there’s something there. More often than not, it’s usually “close, but no cigar.” Otherwise, we’d all write hits every single time [laughs].

What usually happens is that I’ll walk away from a batch of songs, and usually the one that keeps creeping back into my head after I walk away is the song I’ll pursue.

Do you write continually, or do you set time aside for composing?
BS: I go on a writing jag. I write in streaks. I really found that the best way to be creative is you need large chunks of time and you just have to block out the time to do it. My friends and loved ones have to understand that about me. I can’t write hit-and-miss, I really have to have a lot of concentration.

I’ll do three or four weeks where I’ll try to come up with four or five songs and then I’ll give it a rest. It is hard writing the lyrics, and it’s my experience that only two out of five songs I write are going to make the cut. But you try just as hard with every single one, and you fall in love with all of them, but, ultimately, three out of five songs will disappoint me for a variety of reasons.

Do you bounce songs off other people when you’re not sure of things?
BS: I used to bounce my songs off Glenn [Frey] and Don [Henley] a lot, but now I’m 49 years old, so I’m a little more content to lay my reputation on the line and follow my own instincts. With this new album I’m working on [It’s a Mystery], I’m going to wait until the whole thing’s done, and I’ll probably play it for Glenn and Don, and if they hate anything, I might do something about it. That’s usually how we predicate everything that we play for each other: ‘Do you hate anything?’ [laughs].

The thing about playing rough things to people before you go in the studio is that sometimes those songs just don’t translate to a mix. It’s like when you bring the vocal up, you hear something you didn’t hear when it was lower in the mix. You fall in love with the band track and then when you bring the vocals up, they might not have the same energy or whatever, and you end up ditching the song.

What do you feel are your strengths as a songwriter—melody or lyrics?
BS: I think my lyrics are stronger than my melodies. I wish I was as strong a melodist as Paul Simon; I think he’s remarkable. I’m not a bad melody guy, but I’m not as good as others.

I’m also not as good lyrically as people like Leonard Cohen, who I think is fantastic, and Tom Waits or Don Henley. I wish I had their glibness and offhandedness. There’s also a lot of great cats out there like Tom Petty and Jackson Browne. I think I’m just in-between somewhere.

Some of my melodies are good, and some of them aren’t so good. But I think I’ve been blessed with a voice that can put across certain things when I get into trouble.

You definitely have one of the most identifiable voices in rock history. Have you ever had any problems with it?
BS: No, I’ve never really had any problems with it. As a matter of fact, I did this thing about three years ago where they put this camera down your throat and look at your vocal chords, which are only like six centimeters long. They look like two little railroad tracks.

Knowing my history and after listening to a few of my records, the doctors were very surprised to discover that I’ve still got the vocal chords of an 18-year-old [laughs]. I think I was just very gifted in that I have been able to sing real hard and not damage them.

But you’ve also got to understand that I’ve always taken really good care of my voice, too. I don’t party at all on the road. The vocalist in a band can never do that. You can’t stay out. You’ve got to get a lot of rest and drink a lot of water.

Earlier we talked about your collaboration with Frey and Henley on their hit, “Heartache Tonight.” But that seems to be a rare exception, are collaborations something you just don’t like to engage in?
BS: If I felt that I needed to pursue that avenue I would, but I’ve never really felt that need. Although, recently, I have been writing a little bit with my keyboard player Craig Frost and a guitar player named Tim Mitchell. What they do is write these big powerhouse rock grooves and they send them to me.

We all get together and put chords to those grooves and come up with a song. We’ve done about ten things together for this album [It’s A Mystery]. The first five didn’t go anywhere, but we’ve done five for this next record, and probably one or two will make the album. [Ultimately three of these collaborations made it on It’s a Mystery—the first single “Lock and Load,” “Revisionism Street” and the second single “Hands in the Air.”]

What would you say are the most important elements to sustaining such a long career as a songwriter?
BS: Effort is important, and consistency is important as well, because if you don’t write, you start thinking that you’ll never write again. I guess it’s like being an actor, where if you stop acting, you start thinking that you’ll never work again.

Since you write on both guitar and piano, would it be fair to say that you write all your ballads on piano and the rockers on guitar?
BS: Not all the time, because sometimes I will write a rock song based around a piano. I’ve done it three times in my career I think. I did it with “Brave Strangers,” “The Fire Inside” and “The Fire Down Below,” believe it or not.

It’s pretty rare for me to do that because I just don’t play piano well enough to play rock piano. I play well enough to do ballads. But, to your point, yeah, more often than not the ballads will come from the piano, and more of a rock thing will come from the guitar.

Brave Strangers from 1978’s Stranger in Town is one of only a handful of rockers that Bob has written on the piano.

You mentioned “The Fire Down Below” and I have to ask you about that song because it is incredibly similar to Frankie Miller’s “Ain’t Got No Money,” which you recorded and put on Stranger in Town. Am I crazy?
BS: No, you’re not crazy [laughs]. At the time I was writing ‘Fire Down Below,’ I was certainly listening to Frankie’s records. But I think I paid him back by recording ‘Ain’t Got No Money’ on the next album [laughs].

In fact, Frankie sent me a live tape of him doing both songs together at one of his shows in Scotland, and I gotta admit that they sound an awful lot alike [laughs]. Then again, you can certainly listen to Glenn Frey doing ‘Smuggler’s Blues,’ and if that isn’t ‘Fire Down Below’ in a different tempo [laughs].

We all get affected by one another at various times, but I have to say that I completely missed that whole ‘Fire Down Below’ and ‘Ain’t Got No Money’ thing until a year later when I heard that tape of him doing both songs together. That’s when I decided to do Frankie’s ‘Ain’t Got No Money’ on Stranger in Town, because I realized how much I really loved that song.

You say that you feel your strength is as a lyricist. How do you compose them? Do you ever write them out and put the music to them later?
BS: No, I’ve never written the lyrics and tried to build the music around that. I talked to Bernie Taupin once and how he and Elton John do it is that Bernie will write complete lyrics and send them to Elton and Elton will write the music to his lyrics. I have never done that, not once in my career.

It’s usually a feel or a verse or a chorus, and the lyrics will come after I’ve decided that a certain pattern or groove or rhythm is cool. Then I’ll start singing gibberish over that and just find a lyrical idea that fits the ideas that I started out with.

Other times I’ll just sit down and say, “I wanna write a song called this.” That’s how “Beautiful Loser” happened. I just loved the title, which I got from a book of poetry from Leonard Cohen called Beautiful Losers, plural. I just thought it was a really cool title. Actually, I wrote three or four songs called “Beautiful Loser” until I came up with the one that worked. But that’s pretty rare though.

Using “Beautiful Loser” as an example, many people thought you were singing about yourself in that song. Are your songs autobiographical? They seem so intensely personal…
BS: No, I write about things I see—observations of what’s happening around me. Early on in my career, I found that if I tried to write something very personal, it seemed to me that it became overwrought and melodramatic. So I try to transpose those feelings on a situation and make it a more universal thing.

That was the case with “Beautiful Loser.” It was not an autobiographical song. I was trying to write about a state of mind that I had seen or read about other people being in.

I remember that when I wrote “The Famous Final Scene,” all my friends asked me if I was breaking up with my girlfriend. It just seemed like a rich and dramatic topic, and I just tried to imagine what it would be like when a relationship is really over and how terrible that must feel. I find that when I use my imagination, I don’t get as melodramatic.

The Famous Final Scene from 1978’s Stranger in Town album is a fitting climax to this tribute.

And that seems like the perfect song to end this celebration with, and to give a final thank you to a man who has given us all so much for so long. Ride off into that sunset, Bob, and enjoy your well-deserved golden years, and maybe, just maybe, consider writing that autobiography.

“Writing a book is a cool idea that I’ve thought about, but not just yet,” he told me in 1991. “I mean it took me three years to finish writing ‘The Fire Inside,’ and that’s just one song! If I tried writing a book, it’d take me 20 years. The cool thing about it is that you don’t have to rhyme a book [laughs].”

Thanks for always being there, Bob…

Celebrating John Lennon

Celebrating John Lennon

By Steven P. Wheeler

“’Imagine,’ ‘Love’ and those Plastic Ono Band songs stand up to any song that was written when I was a Beatle. Now, it may take you 20 or 30 years to appreciate that, but the fact is, if you check those songs out, you will see that [they are] as good as any stuff that was ever done [with the Beatles].”

John Lennon (Playboy, 1980)

By the time John Lennon had reached the age of 40 on October 9, 1980, it seemed as if he had finally come to terms with the shadow of the Beatles that plagued and haunted him like some translucent ghost from a distant past. A chain-toting entity that millions of music fans worldwide would continually manifest right up until the time of his death two months later.

And for someone who, between 1963-69, crafted such immortal rock classics as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “All You Need is Love,” “Help!,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Day Tripper,” “Nowhere Man,” “In My Life,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “Norwegian Wood.” “I Am the Walrus,” “Revolution” and “Come Together,” getting people to forget that past and listen to the present while peering into the future became a formidable task throughout his solo career.

Granted, nearly every solo album that John Lennon released from the time of the Beatles demise in 1970 to his own tragic death ten years later would appear in the Top Ten (three of them topping the charts). Still, very few of his solo songs—most notably “Imagine,” the idealistic ode for world peace which would serve as his ironic epitaph—carry as much weight of public recognition as the material he created during the ‘60s. And while some may find Lennon’s above quote to be a sign of bravado, upon closer inspection of his post-Beatles work, one is hard pressed to disagree.

John performing his signature song “Imagine” on guitar on December 17, 1971.

Today, on what would have been John Lennon’s 79th Birthday, I felt this would be a good time to share my thoughts about John Lennon, the artist. Not gonna be digging deeply into the Man behind the Art, but rather just wanting to celebrate Lennon’s artistic legacy through his own words and more than two dozen songs I’ve compiled for your listening pleasure.

“My defenses were so great. The cocky rock & roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn’t know how to cry.”

John Lennon

This is a day to forget the myths, leave behind the legends, and just dive a little deeper into the music and songs he left us. For, quite simply, there has never been a popular songwriter so brutally honest with his personal feelings, so willing to expose his innermost weaknesses, or be so candid in describing his own pain… or joy for that matter.

As he sang in 1971’s “Gimme Some Truth”: “I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites / All I want is the truth / Just gimme some truth”

“Gimme Some Truth” from the 1971 “Imagine” album.

Soul of An Artist

As a songwriter and a recording artist, John Lennon reveled in truth. He was not out to make friends or make believe he was something he wasn’t. He wasn’t afraid to follow his own path and even risk public ridicule during his journey, which he did more than once.

The humorous “Crippled Inside” with a heavy messgae from 1971’s “Imagine” album.

After the Beatles, songwriting for Lennon was more about looking at himself, often turning his emotions inside out for others to see, and not being ashamed of what was ultimately revealed. As he once said, “I want to be loved and accepted by all facets of society, and not be this loudmouth, lunatic poet-musician. But I cannot be what I’m not.”

In the powerful closer to his passionate 1970 debut album, Lennon went off on a litany of things he once believed but had lost faith in over the years, culminating in his powerful statement: “I don’t believe in Beatles!”

Honesty in Song

Throughout his 40 years on this sphere, John Lennon embarked on an individual path in search of self and honesty—both in his art and his life. And he would often find himself alienating many of his fans and the American establishment with his uncensored glimpses of society at large, as well as his own personal frailties. But the true fascination lies beyond the more sensationalistic aspects of this one man’s art, and resides within the many different faces and personalities that surfaced throughout his public life.

 In fact, it is these seeming dichotomies which ultimately serve as the components necessary if one is to solve the complex artistic equation that is John Lennon. From his wretched howls of pain in 1969’s “Cold Turkey,” which horrifically addressed the issue of his own heroin withdrawal, to the fatherly advice he gave his young son, Sean, in 1980’s “Beautiful Boy.”

Written by Lennon in 1969 and rejected by Paul McCartney during the sessions for the Fab Four’s “Abbey Road” album, Lennon recorded it himself instead with Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann and Ringo Starr. The searing tale of heroin withdrawal reached #30 on the charts.
Written for his second son, Sean, and released on the “Double Fantasy” album, his former writing partner Paul McCartney has called it his favorite Lennon song, which features the memorable line: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Lennon held nothing back in his songs, and he never stopped searching for his own personal truth throughout his career. This voyage toward peace of mind and spiritual enlightenment took him through periods of heavy drug use to practicing the ancient art of mediation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late ‘60s.

Following the end of the Beatles, he would attempt to come to grips with his own past—going back to being abandoned by both his father and mother—through Dr. Arthur Janov’s controversial primal scream therapy, which dovetailed into his lengthy political protests for peace, and, finally, to his acceptance of family life and his role as husband and father; after failing miserably at both with his first wife Cynthia and first son Julian.

John’s painful autobiographical recording from his 1970 solo debut album about his parents’ abandonment of him as a child, his reunification with his mother in his teens, who was then killed shortly thereafter. Lennon’s primal scream therapy comes through loud and clear during the aching climax.

And, despite his poetic brilliance, clever wordplay and haunting melodies, it’s this candid approach to his life and his art that remains Lennon’s true legacy.

“Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me,” he said at one point. “It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the bloody night, or when you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away.”

“We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a chance for once?”

John Lennon
On January 27, 1970, following his much-publicized “bed-ins for peace,” Lennon was back in London and was awakened by this song in his head. He wrote it in an hour, called George Harrison and producer Phil Spector and they recorded the song that evening at Abbey Road Studios. It was released ten days later and would climb to #3 on the charts.

Absorption & Observations

Of course, like all great songwriters, Lennon also kept his eyes and ears open to forces outside of himself when he wrote as well. For instance, he told Playboy in 1980: “I was lying on the sofa in our house, listening to Yoko play Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ on the piano. Suddenly, I said, ‘Can you play those chords backwards?’ She did, and I wrote ‘Because’ around them. The song sounds like ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ too. The lyrics are clear, no bullshit, no imagery, no obscure references.”

Lennon’s “Because” was included on the Beatles’ classic “Abbey Road” album, which celebrated its 50th Anniversary just this past month.

Lennon even wrote songs based on television commercials, such as “Good Morning Good Morning” with the Beatles, and “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” which became his first solo #1 hit. As for his songwriting methods, Lennon said, “People often ask how I write: I do it all kinds of ways—with piano, guitar, any combination you can think of, in fact.”

And in another interview, he revealed: “I often sit working at songs with the telly on low in the background. If I’m a bit low and not getting much done then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard ‘Good Morning Good Morning,” it was a Corn Flakes advertisement.” The same happened when he heard the phrase “Whatever gets you through the night” from television evangelist Reverend Ike.

Featuring Elton John on piano and harmonies, this classic track from 1974’s “Walls and Bridges” album was the first solo Lennon song to ever top the charts.

Despite these absorption episodes, Lennon would continue writing from a more personal perspective right up until his final days. As he said during one of his last interviews: “When I was singing and writing [his final album Double Fantasy], I was visualizing all the people of my age group. I’m singing to them. I’m saying, ‘Here I am now. How are you? How’s your relationship going? Did you get through it all? Wasn’t the ‘70s a drag? Here we are, well, let’s try to make the ‘80s good, you know.”

On this opening track of his comeback album, “Double Fantasy,” Lennon adopted a vocal persona that echoed his early rock idols like Elvis and Buddy Holly. Following his tragic death less than two months after its release, this song of renewal and optimism hit #1.

And therein lies the real tragedy of John Lennon. After retiring from music in 1975 in order to raise his newborn son, Sean, and live the life of a househusband while Yoko took care of the family business, this man, who was so often trapped by his inner demons and bogged down by his artistic past, had seemingly found true happiness. Or, at the very least, had come to grips with his past and discovered a comforting way to deal with his life on his own terms.

The haunting single in which Lennon reflected on his five-year sabbatical and listening to people incessantly questioning his life choice (“don’t you miss the big time, boy, you’re no longer on the ball”) as he found happiness as a husband and father. The song cracked the Top Ten when it was released as a single three months after his death.
Released as the opening track on the posthumous album, “Milk and Honey,” Lennon described his need to finally break out of his five-year househusband period and create music again.

“Part of me suspects that I’m a loser and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.”

John Lennon
Released at the height of Beatlemania in 1964, this is one of Lennon’s earliest personal revelations in song, with its classic line: “I’m a loser and I’m not what I appear to be.”

Lyrical Exorcism

Of course, not just any person can sit down and write songs with the power and majestic beauty of a John Lennon, just because they feel that they have something to share with others. All great art evolves over time. And the songwriting of John Lennon was no exception.

He did not base his muse on whether or not he was commercially successful. In fact, in spite of the unparalleled success of the Beatles, Lennon forced himself to grow as a writer and an artist, admitting in countless interviews that it was not until midway through his tenure with the Fab Four that he began looking at the importance of what his songs were actually saying.

“I wasn’t too keen on lyrics in those days. I didn’t think they counted,” he said. “Dylan used to come out with his latest acetate and say, ‘Listen to the words, man.’ And I’d say, “I don’t listen to the words.”

Lennon’s Dylan-esque take on class warfare from his strident solo debut album.

Things slowly began to change as he made clear in a Rolling Stone interview: “I didn’t really enjoy writing third-person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that. I like first-person music.” During another interview, Lennon further pinpointed this writing evolution, stating: “[‘In My Life’] was the first song I wrote that was consciously about my life. Before that we were just writing songs a la the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly—pop songs with no more thought to them than that. The words were almost irrelevant.”

This 1965 song from Lennon (with some melodic help from McCartney) was a major shift in his lyrical advancement as he reflected back on his first 25 years of life.

Over the next few years this musical introspection would grow even more. “The first true songs I ever wrote were [songs] like ‘In My Life,’ ‘Help!’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’” Lennon said. “They were the ones I really wrote from experience, and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it. I always found that phony, but I’d find occasion to do it because I’d have to produce so much work, or because I’d be so hung up, I couldn’t even think about myself.

The title track from the classic 1965 album showed Lennon laying his soul bare despite the upbeat music.

Reflecting on when this transition from writing generic pop tunes to far more personal revelations began, Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “When ‘Help!’ came out in ’65, I was actually crying out for help. The Beatles thing had just gone beyond comprehension. We were smoking marijuana for breakfast… and nobody could communicate with us, because we were just all glazed eyes, giggling all the time. In our own world. That was the song, ‘Help!’ I think everything that comes out of a song shows something about yourself.”

The 1967 single, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” was Lennon writing about his childhood days when he would scale the gate of an orphanage that was near his home and spend hours in the large field surrounding it. His lyrics also began to reflect a more surrealistic poetic imagery, influenced by LSD and marijuana, that would continue through the “Sgt. Pepper…” album later that same year.

One Man’s Journey

 After the Beatles, Lennon found himself on a new artistic road that was built upon his growing desire to construct songs that were akin to musical snapshots of his life. The imagery within his songs could be beautiful and heavenly or dark and hellish as they would mirror both his dreams and nightmares.

From his intake of mind-altering substances and his stint with primal scream therapy to his public political battles and personal failures, Lennon churned out songs like pages from a diary.

“[LSD] wasn’t a miracle,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. “It was more of a visual thing and a therapy, looking at yourself a bit. It did all that. But it didn’t write the music; neither did Janov or Maharishi in the same terms. I write the music in the circumstances in which I’m in.”

One of Lennon’s greatest achievements with the Beatles, which included McCartney’s lyrical addition that made up the “woke up, fell out of bed…” section.

Lennon would immerse himself in various movements and lifestyles throughout the ‘70s, both with and without Yoko. These changing landscapes of the mind were often contradictory, but nonetheless fascinating as they each created new wells of inspiration for Lennon to dip into.

Whereas most songwriters tend to stand still upon discovering a successful formula, Lennon—along with artists like Bob Dylan or David Bowie—refused to plant his artistic feet in one garden. Instead venturing on an endless path of self that would take him through dedicated sessions of controversial therapies to his well-publicized (i.e., over-publicized) enlistment in the revolutionary underground (which resulted in the political ravings of 1972’s much-maligned and poor selling album, Some Time in New York City).

Recorded during the sessions of the “Imagine” album in 1971, this call-to-arms was released as a single six months before the album. It was the first glimpse of Lennon the Revolutionary which would come out in full bloom on 1972’s “Some Time in New York City” album.

Then came his separation from Yoko Ono in 1973, which freed him up to go through a new hedonistic level of bachelorhood bolstered by an endless supply of money, celebrity and alcohol. It would become known as his infamous Lost Weekend, a year-and-a-half period in which Lennon would hit new lows, including being physically tossed out of The Troubadour in Los Angeles for his obnoxious drunken behavior.

John and Harry Nilsson captured being thrown out of The Troubadour during Lennon’s Lost Weekend period in Los Angeles.

Despite that turbulent time in his personal life Lennon managed to turn his bitter loneliness and intoxicated depression into a stellar collection of autobiographical songs on 1974’s chart-topping album, Walls and Bridges. This would be his last album of original material for six long years.

The beautiful “#9 Dream” from 1974’s “Walls and Bridges” album. Magically, the song rose to #9 on the Billboard Charts.

“It was the Lost Weekend that lasted eighteen months,” he told Playboy in 1980. “I’ve never drunk so much in my life. I tried to drown myself in the bottle and I was with the heaviest drinkers in the business [Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and Bobby Keys]. It’s embarrassing for me to think about that period, because I made a big fool of myself.

“I wrote ‘Nobody Loves You [When You’re Down and Out]’ during that time,” he continued. “That’s how I felt. It exactly expresses the whole period.”

An acoustic rendition of 1974’s “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out).”

Starting Over

The seeds of John Lennon’s reconciliation with Yoko Ono were planted at the end of his Lost Weekend period when his good friend Elton John played piano and sang harmony vocals on Lennon’s 1974 song, “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night.” Following the recording session, Elton said that the song was destined to be a #1 hit.

Lennon laughed off the comment, but Elton upped the ante and taunted his friend, saying that if the song did indeed top the charts Lennon would have to appear onstage with him.

John and Elton during the recording of the chart-topping hit “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” in 1974.

Having never had a #1 solo hit before, Lennon accepted the bet. “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” was released on September 23 and, lo and behold, it did indeed top the charts on November 16. Elton called in the bet and less than two weeks later, on Thanksgiving night, November 28, 1974, during Elton’s sold-out concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Lennon would make what sadly turned out to be his very last concert appearance.

Also in the summer of 1974, Lennon (under the moniker Winston O’Boogie) played guitar and sang on Elton’s cover of Lennon’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which would top the charts for Elton in early 1975. The two are pictured during the “Lucy” session at Caribou Studios in the mountains of Colorado.

In the hastily put together rehearsals before the Madison Square Garden appearance, the two superstars knew that they would perform “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and Elton’s latest single, a cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which Lennon had played on. That song would also top the charts two months later. As they were thinking of a third song to do together, Elton had suggested “Imagine,” but Lennon refused, saying, “No, too boring.”

So Elton, being the Beatle freak he was, thought doing the first song on the first Beatle album, “I Saw Her Standing There,” might be interesting. The fact that the Lennon/McCartney rocker was originally sung by Paul McCartney intrigued Lennon and their mini-set was then finalized.

On the night of the concert, Lennon was so nervous before his guest appearance that he got physically ill backstage and Elton’s guitarist Davey Johnstone had to tune the former Beatle’s guitar for him. His anxiety was understandable, since Lennon had only appeared on a concert stage one time since the final Beatle concert eight long years before. He had never toured during his solo career and now he was set to step in front of 20,000 fans in his adopted hometown.

A nervous John Lennon backstage before his concert appearance with Elton and his band (percussionist Ray Cooper, drummer Nigel Olsson, bassist Dee Murray and guitarist Davey Johnstone).
After performing his then-current hit “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and Elton’s hit cover of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” John Lennon introduced the final song of their legendary mini-set and, sadly, his last ever concert performance on November 28, 1974.

Unbeknownst to the former Beatle, Elton had also arranged for Yoko to be at the show and to be waiting backstage when the show was over. It was this meeting in which Yoko finally relented to Lennon’s pleas to give their marriage another chance.

Lennon was shocked and surprised to discover that Elton John had invited his estranged wife to the Thanksgiving performance. Shortly after seeing each other backstage after more than a year apart, the two reconciled and were back together as man-and-wife at the beginning of 1975.

The Househusband is Born

Less than two months after seeing each other backstage at Lennon’s Thanksgiving performance at Madison Square Garden, in January of 1975, Lennon and Yoko were back together at their Dakota apartment overlooking Central Park. That same month, Elton’s recording of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (featuring Lennon on guitar and vocals) hit #1, and then Lennon co-wrote and played on David Bowie’s future #1 hit “Fame.” And in February the former Beatle released Rock ‘n’ Roll, his cover album of early rock hits, which became another Top Ten hit.

David Bowie, Yoko and John, at the time Lennon co-wrote and played on Bowie’s 1975 #1 hit, “Fame.”

On April 18, Lennon taped a live performance, in which he performed “Slippin’ and Slidin’” (from his Rock ‘n’ Roll album) and “Imagine” before a small black tie audience at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the Big Apple. The broadcast was in honor of Britain’s famous showbiz mogul Sir Lew Grade, who at one point owned the Beatles songwriting publishing, which caused acrimonious feelings from both Lennon and McCartney.

Always the rebel, Lennon took a subliminal jab at Grade during this brief performance by having his band wear face masks on the back of their heads in his belief that Grade was two-faced in his business dealings. This brief television appearance would prove to be his last performance in front of any audience anywhere.

John Lennon’s final public performance on April 18, 1975.

In short, Lennon’s career was in full throttle once again by early 1975, but when Yoko became pregnant, he and Yoko agreed that he would give up his music career and raise their son, Sean, who was born on Lennon’s 35th birthday on October 9, 1975. Thus began Lennon’s famous househusband period that would last five very long years.

From 1975 to 1980, Lennon was a ghost to the public; largely forgotten as his former writing partner Paul McCartney reached new heights of popularity with his band, Wings. Simply put, Lennon was nowhere to be seen as he spent his days baking bread and raising his son.

It wasn’t until August of 1980 that John Lennon returned to the recording studio and began working on his comeback album, Double Fantasy. The sessions, which would continue through October, would result in an album that would be split equally between Lennon and Ono songs. But John was on such a creative roll he also recorded a number of other songs for a follow-up album.

A more raucous take of “I’m Losing You,” recorded with Cheap Trick and bassist Tony Levin during the “Double Fantasy” sessions in 1980.

“[Double Fantasy] is about very ordinary things between two people. The lyrics are direct. Simple and straight. I went through my Dylanesque period a long time ago with songs like ‘I Am the Walrus’—the trick of never saying what you mean but giving the impression of something more. Where more or less can be read into it.”

John Lennon
The beautiful “Woman” that would rise to #2 following Lennon’s death.

But his tragic murder only three weeks after Double Fantasy’s release ended the dream. Those additional rough takes of songs would eventually be released posthumously, in 1984, as Milk and Honey, including the Top Ten hit “Nobody Told Me,” which Lennon originally planned on giving to his former band mate Ringo Starr for his own album.

While originally written for Ringo, the former Beatle drummer could not bring himself to record it following John’s death. Lennon’s rough take was released on 1984’s posthumous album, “Milk and Honey” and became Lennon’s final Top Ten hit, rising to #5.

Keeping the Dream Alive

The humor and optimism of those final six Lennon songs found on Milk and Honey made his death an even more bitter pill to swallow, as it became painfully clear that he had so much left to say, and so much more to reveal about the beauty of life and our collective place in the world.

“I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs as honestly as I can. I’m older now. I see the world through different eyes now. But I still believe in peace, love, and understanding.”

John Lennon

During one of his final interviews, Lennon remarked: “I still believe in love, in peace. I still believe in positive thinking. While there’s life, there’s hope… My work won’t be finished until I’m dead and buried, and I hope that’s a long, long time.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Yet, in looking at how much John Lennon gave us during the brief 12 years when he was actually writing and recording music, it was long enough indeed.

Where It All Began: Liverpool

Back in 2016, my lifelong dream of visiting Liverpool came true (yeah, I’m a rock nerd, so it’s akin to visiting the Holy Land. Whatever…). Walking the very streets and inside the family homes and seeing the humble beginnings that gave rise to four lads who would change music forever made for an unforgettable visit.

The seaport city of Liverpool, which also had the first provincial airport in Britain, was a major bombing target of Hitler during WWII, 80 raids in all between 1940-41. When it was all said and done, more than 2,500 Liverpudlians were killed in the blitzkrieg with nearly half of all the homes in Liverpool being destroyed.

Growing up as young children in these dark times, it’s little wonder why the youth of Liverpool in the 1950s began looking for hope and happier times through the import of American rock & roll and blues.

As we celebrate John’s birthday today, I pulled together a few photos and memories of Lennon’s hometown and related stops during that memorable journey, including a private tour of the Casbah Club with Rory Best—brother of the Beatles’ original drummer Pete Best—whose mother ran the Casbah that was in the cellar of the family’s home.

The Casbah is a forgotten piece of Beatle history as the young Lennon, McCartney and Harrison painted and designed the club’s interior as a way for the trio—then known as The Quarrymen—to perform there. The three, along with guitarist Ken Brown (they had no drummer during this period), performed a residency at the Casbah between 1959-60, as well as periodic performances over the next few years.

This is where they built their early Liverpool following and honed their performance chops, which they would take to the more famous Cavern Club—where they would be discovered by their future manager Brian Epstein—and to their well-known performance stints in the bawdy streets of Hamburg, Germany.

After changing their name to The Beatles and having Pete Best join as the band’s drummer, John, Paul, George and Pete played the final night of the Casbah’s existence on June 24, 1962, with 1,500 fans who managed to either squeeze in the tiny venue or listen on the grounds outside.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this quick trip to the land that gave us the Fab Four…

John Lennon’s childhood home where he lived with his Aunt Mimi, after his mother Julia gave him up to her sister. John lived here from the age of five until moving out permanently when Beatlemania began in 1963. The little entry area in front is where John and Paul McCartney would sing the songs they wrote because that entryway had the best acoustics.
Out front of John’s home, this is the intersection where his mother Julia was tragically killed when she was hit by car driving by an off-duty policeman. At the time of her death in July of 1958, there were large hedges blocking the view of pedestrians and drivers. John, who was only 17 when he lost his mother for the second time, had begun rebuilding his relationship with Julia who was instrumental in helping him play guitar. Her death was attributed to much of the emotional issues he would battle throughout the rest of his life. Ironically, her death brought him even closer to McCartney whose own mother had died when he was only 14.
St. Peter’s Church where 15-year-old Paul McCartney and 16-year-old John Lennon would meet for the first time on July 6, 1957. For me, it’s no coincidence that this all happened in a church as the Beatles have always been a spiritual journey and religious experience.
Looking at the exact spot where John Lennon performed with his band The Quarrymen on the grounds of St. Peter’s Church on that fateful day in 1957 where Paul McCartney watched the concert. Paul was impressed with John adeptness at ad-libbing lyrics to the songs.
John’s performance that was witnessed by future collaborator Paul McCartney.
Among the grave sites at St. Peter’s Church is that of one Eleanor Rigby, who died at the age of 44, one year before John Lennon was born and three years before McCartney’s birth. Paul has said that he made the “Eleanor Rigby” name up, but would later admit that the name could have been in his subconscious since he and Lennon would spend time in this area.
My personal tour guide (left) walks me towards the church hall where Lennon and McCartney met for the first time following John’s performance in the church yard. Paul was introduced to Lennon by a mutual friend and McCartney impressed the band leader by showing him how to tune his guitar and then giving a solo performance of Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock.” Within two weeks of that first meeting, Paul was a member of the The Quarrymen and music history would change forever six years later with the release of the Beatles’ first album, “Please Please Me.”
The home of the Best family. Beneath the home, the family matriarch Mona Best opened the Casbah Club in 1959, which would be the performance home of The Quarrymen (now featuring John, Paul and George Harrison) from 1959-60. In order to get their Saturday night residency, John, Paul and George designed and painted the interior of the club.
Rory Best showing the tiny main stage of the Casbah, where the future Beatles got their start.
John’s girlfriend and future wife, Cynthia, painted this silhouette of Lennon on the wall, while John painted the star-laden ceiling.
The hole in the ceiling caused by Liverpool’s first big star, Rory Storm, who jumped a little too high for the low ceiling. A few years later the Beatles would hire Storm’s drummer Ringo Starr and the Fab Four would be complete.
John Lennon’s handwritten bio that was put up at the Casbah. Like many 20 year olds, his ambition was “to be rich,” which he would accomplish in another three years.
George Harrison’s handwritten bio, noting his being kicked out of Germany for being too young to perform in the clubs there.
Just a dork sitting at the very piano that Lennon and McCartney would play throughout their time at the Casbah.
After the Casbah, the Beatles played here at The Cavern Club, where they would reach new levels of local acclaim.
Directly across from The Cavern is The Grapes where the members of the Fab Four were known to have some drinks before and after their Cavern performances.
The tour moves to Penny Lane, where Paul McCartney’s classic song is unveiled.
The very fish and chips shop that Paul wrote about, recalling his Liverpool childhood:
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
A four of fish and finger pies
In summer. Meanwhile back….
In Penny Lane, there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he’s had the pleasure to know
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say, “Hello”
Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
She is anyway

John’s guitar and his famous white piano from “Imagine” on display at the Beatles Museum.
Words to live by…

Happy Birthday, John…

Pat Benatar: From Heartbreaker to True Love

Pat Benatar: From Heartbreaker to True Love

By Steven P. Wheeler

It was 39 years ago this week that Pat Benatar’s iconic rock hit “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was released, as it quickly became an anthem for female empowerment. Just like her platinum-selling debut album, In the Heat of the Night, did a year earlier with the ferocious, in-your-face power of “Heartbreaker” and her perfect gender twisting rendition of John Mellencamp’s “I Need a Lover.”

Pat Benatar’s iconic Top Ten hit was released this week back in 1980.

For ten years, between 1979 and 1988, the former Patricia Andrzejewski from Long Island was rock’s reigning queen, releasing six consecutive platinum and multi-platinum albums (with three others that reached Gold).

Pat Benatar performs (well, lip-synchs) a double-shot of attitude from her debut album. But what’s up with that interview, Dick? “How much do you weigh?”

The fiery vocalist, who turned miniskirts, leotards and headbands into a fashion trend, cracked the Top 40 no less than 15 times (!) and dominated the Grammy’s Rock Female Vocalist category with four straight wins between 1980-83.

Spotlighting the high school trend of Pat Benatar lookalikes, from the classic comedy “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

But Benatar didn’t do all this alone however, as her guitarist, songwriter, producer and musical director, Neil “Spyder” Giraldo, was the creative force behind the curtain all along the way. From their love-at-first-sight meeting in 1978, the two eventually married in 1982 and remain so to this very day.

It is a professional and personal partnership that has never faltered as they continue to perform 40 years after first bursting on the scene in 1979. They remain a refreshing rarity in the world of rock & roll.

From their marriage in 1982 to today, Neil Giraldo and Pat Benatar, along with their two daughters, are a rarity among rock & roll romances: 37 years and counting.

Yet after the release of 1988’s Wide Awake in Dreamland, Benatar took a two-year hiatus to raise their daughter, Haley (Neil and Pat would be blessed a second time in 1994 with daughter, Hana), and finish building their impressive Malibu residence, while also immersing herself in various childrens’ charities dedicated to fighting child abuse.

The song that Benatar says is the most important song that she and Giraldo ever wrote. Dedicated to fighting child abuse, this 2001 performance demonstrates that the fire and anger over the subject is still deeply within her heart.

During that two-year sabbatical Benatar contemplated retirement and for the first time in her life music took a backseat. So what did the influential figure of future female rockers do for an encore when she returned to the public eye in 1991? She shed the rock goddess image, hired a band called Roomful of Blues, and made a genuine blues album.

The resulting gem of an album, True Love, would become another Gold record—despite having no rock or pop radio support—and has continued to grow in stature and acceptance nearly 30 years later. On a personal note, let me just say that it should be part of any record collection. To this day, Benatar still says that the making of True Love was a highpoint in her career.

“I was really thinking of retiring at that point, because I was just so unhappy creatively. And there’s no point in making dead records, because you should be so happy and grateful that you have the opportunity to do this for a living.”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
The title track from Benatar’s brilliant 1991 blues album, True Love.

Visiting the Giraldos

With that in mind, I thought this would be the perfect time to go back to the memorable Saturday in the spring of 1991, when I visited Pat and Neil at the large estate they call home in Malibu, California. With their home studio on one end and their residence on the other, with a basketball court in between—obviously for the sports loving man of the house and not for the five-foot-tall Benatar—I was greeted by the ponytailed Giraldo, who walked me in to the impressive recording studio where they had just recorded their latest album.

In August of 1981, “You Better Run” became the second video ever played on MTV—after “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles—making Benatar the first female to ever appear on the new music channel and Neil Giraldo becoming the first guitarist to appear on screen.

The plan was for Neil and I to do our interview alone, and then Pat would come down to sit with me while her husband went off to play with his local softball team. As we sat down in the studio, the guitarist suddenly had another idea. “It’s a beautiful day out. Do you wanna see my favorite place in the whole world?”

This SoCal guy never minded a little sunshine, so I grabbed my tape recorder, papers and backpack. Little did I know that the backpack was apropos as Giraldo proceeded to lead me on a rather lengthy hike up a trail into the green hills overlooking their home and studio.

We stopped at a small clearing where a large rock and tree trunk served as nature’s furniture and as I dropped my stuff and turned around, I could see why this spot would be someone’s favorite place. Talk about Zen.

As deer scampered below, the Ohio-born musician simply said: “I consider myself very fortunate. I couldn’t be any happier in my life. I love everything about it. I love my family, and I love my music.”

Live performance of the song that resulted in the third of Benatar’s four Grammys.

Hard to imagine anyone feeling differently as I soaked in the tranquil setting, but there are those that would (just check Facebook and you’ll see millions of them). Giraldo isn’t one of those though. The epitome of the laid-back rock star, his personable and optimistic nature is not only cool, but real. Not pollyannish, annoying or fake.

Just another Top 40 hit for Benatar and Giraldo.

The Saga Begins

The Cleveland-born Giraldo was playing keyboards and guitar with Rick “Rock & Roll Hootchie Koo” Derringer in the late ‘70s before his fateful meeting with his future musical partner and wife.

“Chrysalis Records had just signed Pat to her record deal, and she was looking for a musical director, and they heard about me through [Rick] Derringer. It’s funny, because I was writing songs throughout the time I was with Derringer, but they didn’t fit his style. So when Pat and I met, we definitely felt something musically—as well as a personal attraction.”

Grammy win number two.

The petite superstar with the three-and-a-half octave range agreed, saying during our later one-on-one interview in their studio: “When I got my record deal, I told my record company that I wanted a musical partner, not just a guitar player, and they went out and found Neil. Obviously I did get much more than a guitar player.”

For her part, Benatar fell in love when Giraldo first walked in the audition room and when he played his first chord; that was it. But Benatar was still in the middle of a divorce (she married a military man at the young age of 19) and Giraldo was dating actress Linda Blair at the time.

Throw in the fact that the record company execs were fearful of a Fleetwood Mac situation as broken romances within a band don’t always lead to classic works, and it became clear the two would have to wait as they managed to hold back their feelings as their career took off like a skyrocket.

Then as fate would have it, Benatar’s divorce finalized as Giraldo’s other relationship ended. They no longer fought those pent-up emotions and they were wed in 1982.

Burnout & Motherhood

Following their 1988 album, Wide Awake in Dreamland, which included another hit single, “All Fired Up,” the four-time Grammy winner and mother was truly burnt out after a non-stop, ten-year roller coaster of recording studios and endless tours. It was time to take a break, if not call it quits entirely.

Although the raucous “All Fired Up” kept their string of hit singles alive, Benatar and Giraldo were in need of some musical rejuvenation by the dawn of the 1990s.

“I was really thinking of retiring at that point,” Benatar told me in 1991, “because I was just so unhappy creatively. And there’s no point in making dead records, because you should be so happy and grateful that you have the opportunity to do this for a living.

“So when that feeling goes away, it’s just not right. I didn’t get the feeling onstage that I used to have and that really bothered me, because it should feel great.

“The three of us—Myron [Grombacher, drummer], Neil and myself—decided that we really couldn’t do another one of those rock records again. We had been doing it for so long, and it really wasn’t feeling the same.”

Another Top 20 hit, before the fatigue began to set in.

Giraldo, in our separate interview, confirmed his wife’s thoughts, saying: “We were being stylized as something and had become almost like caricatures of ourselves, and we didn’t want to fall into that trap. We had a lot of restraints over the previous 12 years, which was the main factor in making things difficult to deal with at that time.”

“When you have a child, your whole perspective is completely changed forever, and that sense of change encompasses everything that you do. It filters into everything that you think and feel. Motherhood opened up everything in my life, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

And when you throw in that little life-change called motherhood, well, suffice it to say that nothing will ever really be the same, as the singer pointed out: “When you have a child, your whole perspective is completely changed forever, and that sense of change encompasses everything that you do.

“It filters into everything that you think and feel. So I started looking at things from another point of view. The main thing is that I didn’t want to box myself in like I did before. Motherhood opened up everything in my life, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Benatar, then noted with a laugh that she even curtails her career these days when school is in session. Just a regular mom spending a few days a week at her daughter’s school, “I’m just Haley’s mom. Mrs. Giraldo, the school librarian.”

“Love is a Battlefield” was Benatar’s fourth consecutive Grammy win.

One also gets a taste of normalcy when Giraldo enters the studio, donning his softball uniform and carrying a gym bag stuffed with bats and gloves, and says, “Great meeting you, Steven,” with a shuffling of the baggage to shake hands, before turning to his wife and saying, “Okay, hon, I’m heading out.”

Pat says, “Oh, B.C. called, and asked if you could pick him up.” [B.C. being softball teammate and longtime L.A. radio deejay and host of Rockline, Bob Coburn. The radio personality passed away in 2016]. With a quick kiss on the cheek, Giraldo is off. And I just have to say that there is something pretty cool hearing one of rock’s biggest superstars, calling out to her husband as he heads out the door: “Oh, can you pick up some milk on the way home?”

New Contract, New Music

Feeling pigeonholed artistically and looking for a new musical direction, Pat and Neil flexed their muscles when it came time to negotiate a new contract with their longtime label, Crysalis Records. Not only did they secure higher royalty rates for their past and future albums, but they demanded, and received, the freedom to reinvigorate their muse in any fashion they deemed necessary.

“Neil is always coming up with ideas of what to do, and he wanted us to make a blues album, just to do something totally different than anything we had done before. And I told him, ‘No way!’”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“When we re-negotiated for a new album with Chrysalis,” Giraldo said. “They gave us more control to do whatever we wanted to do. They told us to make the record that we wanted to make and to give it to them when it was ready.

“We’ve started over from scratch,” the guitarist continued. “I just hope people accept it for what it is and not hate it because it’s not what we were. We’ll have to wait and see.”

And just what that new direction was would not only stun their longtime fans, but, in fact, Benatar herself wasn’t into Giraldo’s idea at first either. “Neil is always coming up with ideas of what to do,” she said, with a sarcastic eyeroll, “and he wanted us to make a blues album, just to do something totally different than anything we had done before. And I told him, ‘No way!’ [laughs].

Pat and Neil performing with Roomful of Blues on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.

“I mean, just because you listen to and love a particular style of music doesn’t mean that you have any sort of affinity for it as an artist. Rock and blues are obviously connected, but the technique is completely different.

“The blues is much more subtle; the vocals are a lot more control-oriented and the phrasing is really pulled back compared to singing rock & roll. So there was a bit of a process of trying to figure out whether I could sing this material. Suffice it to say that I was not convinced and totally against the idea at first.”

The lovebirds at the time of the True Love album in 1991.

But having full belief in her partner’s instincts, Benatar did agree to at least give it some further thought by doing a little homework. “Neil told me to sit in the room with all this blues stuff and see if anything stirred my mind. So that’s what we did, and it went from 500 to 300 to 250 to 50 songs until we finally got it down to 15. I mean we could do 20 volumes of this stuff.”

“I didn’t consciously look at what Linda [Ronstadt] did and say, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.’ But I certainly saw what she had done and saw that it is possible to make a clean break from everything you had done in the past and try something entirely new.”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

In addition to the cover songs, the album also features four original songs that were written in the style of the bygone era, including the seductive title track. However when it came to the songs by others, Benatar said she was always conscious not to get too enraptured by what she was hearing.

“I tried not to listen too intently to the original versions that we covered,” she said, “because I didn’t want to start coping vocal licks. The thing is that you can’t duplicate what they did originally, and to even presume that you could is stupid, so I tried to sing them as if they were my songs.”

From 1979 through today, Benatar and Giraldo have continued to perform.

Eventually, she came around, and felt a renewed passion for moving forward with her career again. “Once you put away all the fear of trying something new, you get revitalized. If you do something too long, you get locked into it so much until you can’t see anything else anymore. And I don’t think I have the personality that can move gradually from one thing to another. And this project helped wipe the slate clean, and I feel good about making records again.”

When I mentioned another superstar vocalist who had abandoned her own successful pop career in search of an entirely different musical path, Benatar nods in agreement. “I didn’t consciously look at what Linda [Ronstadt] did and say, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.’ But I certainly saw what she had done and saw that it is possible to make a clean break from everything you had done in the past and try something entirely new.”

Jumping Blues

Neil’s idea for a blues album would be a major shift as to what went before for the two artists. This wasn’t to be one of those standard issue blues/rock projects. Not even close. This was to be a big band sound of jumping blues. Where the music swings, rather than plods.

Ripping through the rollicking “Bloodshot Eyes” on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.

“The original idea for the record that I wanted to make was patterned after an album that Roomful of Blues made with Big Joe Turner about ten years ago,” explained the musical mastermind. “So, in my mind, I kept thinking of that sound, and I finally realized that I might as well get the band that I was thinking about.”

Having finally convinced Pat about the concept of his idea, Giraldo then had to do another sell of his brainchild. This time to the band in question. “When I originally talked to the guys in Roomful of Blues, they thought I meant we were making a blues/rock album and they told me in no uncertain terms that they weren’t the right band for us.

“But when I mentioned their album with Big Joe Turner and that I wanted to do some T-Bone Walker songs and things like that, they were convinced.”

Covering B.B. King with a true love of the blues.

Once the material was selected and the vocalist and band were on board, Giraldo now focused on how to best record this huge band and capture them live in their home studio. “I looked at this project more like a producer, because there have been times in the past when I get caught between being the guitarist and the producer and the arranger,” he admitted. “But when we started this project, I wanted to focus the energy around the whole rhythm of the band, as well as the vocals.

“Now I’ve worked with horn sections a little bit in the past, and I had mikes on each individual horn at the outset of this recording. But it only took me 25 minutes to realize that it wasn’t going to work that way. So I moved them around the room and put a couple of tube mikes up, because I wanted all that live energy to be mixed around.”

Pointing to their home studio below from where we sat on the hill, the studio wizard said: “That studio has a very nice room sound to it, and the close miking was choking the overall sound of everything. I wanted that ‘air’ around everybody, but once everybody gets in the studio, the sound gets soaked up a little bit, which in retrospect was good, otherwise it would have been like being in a reverb tent.”

The recording went incredibly quick—only two weeks—and Giraldo captured it all with incredible precision. “It might sound like jive,” he said, “but there’s a real family feeling among the people who played on this album. It’s that family thing that makes great takes and keeps things rolling.

“It was boom, boom, boom, one right after the other, and I think that feeling comes across because I think it has a very happy feeling to it. Even though it’s the blues, I think this album makes you feel good.”

Thoughts & Reactions

“We had no delusions of this style of music being readily accessible to radio, but you can’t let it stand in front of your original motivations. I’m just going to see what happens. Right now, I’m a junkie, and I’m hooked on the blues.”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

When it came time to deliver their new album (and musical direction) to the label folks at Chrysalis, the reaction was shock, as Benatar is happy to point out: “No, the record company definitely wasn’t expecting an album like this. They knew that we wanted to do something different, but they had no idea that we meant this,” she said with a hearty laugh.

“It’s like they passed out, and we gave them some oxygen. But once they heard it, they loved it. The thing is that we had no delusions of this style of music being readily accessible to radio.

“Sure you care about those things,” she continued, “but you can’t let it stand in front of your original motivations. I’m just going to see what happens. Right now, I’m a junkie, and I’m hooked on the blues. It’s just a different attitude and a whole other vibe all together.”

Pat singing the blues.

Giraldo said that although the two of them had always had battles with their record company in the past, the new regime there was onboard once they heard the finished album. “In the past, they didn’t like certain things we did; they wouldn’t like the mix on this song or they thought that song was too fast. But I think they’ve really got some great people in there right now, who understand the concept of artistic freedom.

“They love this album, which feels great because they had no idea what we were doing until we were done.”

“People loved Crimes of Passion. People always say it’s my best album, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Shit, you don’t know how good I could have sung on that record.’ I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever made an album that I’m thrilled with as a whole. That’s just the way it is with me—you’re never satisfied.”

Pat Benatar (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Benatar agreed whole-heartedly with that assessment, noting past struggles with former execs who liked to dip their hands in where they didn’t belong: “It’s a different company now, because there’s been a big personnel change, and the new people don’t pretend to have anything to do with the creative end of things. They’re business people, and they know that, which wasn’t the case there in years gone by.”

Back in the pre-blues days, Benatar and Giraldo had a #5 hit with “We Belong.”

That sentiment becomes clearer when the opera singer turned rock icon surprised me by saying: “I love this whole record, and it’s a rare thing for me to be satisfied with an entire album of mine. I mean, people loved Crimes of Passion [her 1980 album, which won her the first of four consecutive Grammy Awards and remains the biggest selling album of her career].

“But I just want to scream when people say that, because it was just a bunch of material that didn’t work for me, and I wasn’t happy with it because we were so rushed to make it. People always say it’s my best album, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Shit, you don’t know how good I could have sung on that record.’”

But surely the success of that record makes up for any armchair quarterbacking a decade later, no? “Well, yes, the success of an album anesthetizes that feeling,” Benatar admitted, “but it doesn’t make it better. It’s still there for all of time for people to hear.

“I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever made an album that I’m thrilled with as a whole. That’s just the way it is with me—you’re never satisfied, you can’t get it all right, so you just go for as much as you can.”

The haunting bluesy rock of “Girl” from their last studio album “Go!” in 2003.

Final Thoughts

As our time together grew to a close, I asked Pat to summarize her current state of being. Having made a major upheaval to the direction of her music career while balancing the real demands of motherhood.

“I’m 38 years old,” she said at the time in 1991, “and I finally feel like I have a grip on my life, on my ability. I just feel like I’m starting out again. This album has been like a shot that cleans you out and gets your juices flowing again—you’re excited and scared at the same time. It’s given me all the things that you need to have to be creative.

One of the four originals written for the “True Love” album.

“I don’t know if the rock thing is awkward for myself and others my age, but, for me, it needs to be augmented, because it’s not what it was. If I ever do go back and make albums like I did before, this experience can only make it that much better, because what I’ve learned on this project in such a short time is amazing.

“Looking back on everything, I guess this album was a natural step. Every ten years I seem to try a whole different thing.

“And, truthfully, it is out of pure admiration and extreme reverence that I made this record. This album is a personal thing, but the secondary factor involved with this project is hopefully that people who don’t know these incredibly influential musicians are going to check out the rest of their stuff.

“A lot of people don’t know about all these great blues artists who really started it all, which is amazing to me,” she said, before adding with a laugh, “I mean, it didn’t just start with Elvis Presley.”

The Top Ten hit, “Invincible,” from 1985’s “Seven the Hard Way” album.

I couldn’t think of a better way to end my latest time-travel than to pull this quote from Pat’s excellent 2010 autobiography, Between a Heart and a Rock Place. Her outlook in 1991 and what she would write in her book 20 years later clearly shows a woman who had found herself. Invincible, indeed.

“As the producer for VH1’s show Behind the Music once told me—mine is one of the only stories that doesn’t involve at least one trip to rehab. I’m proud to say that like a lot of rock & roll truisms, that whole debate about burning out or fading away is bullshit—the same crap music execs kick up to sell records and make you think that rock music only belongs to people under 30.

“A true rocker is going to do whatever the hell she wants to, whether she’s a school teacher, a CEO of a large corporation, or someone’s mommy. Because that’s what rock & roll is really about: following your passion with no apologies. Following that sound in your head that only you can hear. I believe that every step, good or bad, has been a step forward. People much smarter than I am have long agreed life’s not meant to be perfect.

“Over the past 31 years I have been a singer, a lover, a businesswoman, a daughter, a friend, a wife, a mother, and yes, sometimes even a rock star. In my journey I tried my best to honor all of these things. In the end, I suppose that’s all that’s really required. I am exactly where I want to be. The only clock that I punch is the one that I built myself.”

Here’s to building your own clock and being a rocker no matter what you do in your own life’s journey.

Ode to Neil

And, finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a tribute to the musical brilliance of one, Neil Giraldo. Outside of his work with his wife and musical partner, the vastly unsung guitar hero was spreading his Midas Touch throughout some of the biggest hits in the ‘80s, as well as working with the should-have-been-huge band the Del-Lords. Here’s just a very small sampling of Neil’s non-Benatar work:

The chart-topping 1981 hit featured Neil Giraldo on bass and guitar.
Giraldo produced the solo debut of former Babys’ vocalist John Waite, featuing this hit single.
Another ’80s hit featuring the six-string prowess of Neil Giraldo. This time it was on this Kenny Loggins duet with Journey frontman Steve Perry.
Giraldo also produced two albums for the critically acclaimed Del-Lords.
Ric Ocasek: In Memory Of…

Ric Ocasek: In Memory Of…

By Steven P. Wheeler

Fans of ‘80s rock have had a tough time the past few days. First, we lost the everyman of rock Eddie Money, and yesterday the head mechanic of The Cars—Ric Ocasek—passed away at the age of 75. The similarities between these two is as interesting as their public personas were different.

Both were from the East Coast—Eddie from NY and Ric from Boston, where he moved from Ohio in the early ‘70s. Both found their initial taste of stardom relatively late in life, both in their Thirties, and both with classic debut albums; Eddie in 1977 and Ric with The Cars in 1978. But where Eddie was brash, outspoken, and clearly loved the stage, Ric was the quiet, quirky artist who never seemed overly comfortable under the concert lights.

First track, first side, first album, and the rest was musical history.

Although The Cars were not flashy onstage, they were consummate professionals, sticking to Ocasek’s brilliant songs as recorded and not getting self-indulgent along the way. But they showcased, without pretension, the vastly underrated six-string prowess of Elliot Easton, the keyboard hopping of Greg Hawkes, and the versatile rhythm section of the late bassist and co-lead singer Benjamin Orr and drummer David Robinson.

And while neither Eddie Money nor The Cars were perhaps anyone’s #1 favorite artist, they were very likely in the Top 20 of favorite artists for millions of rock fans of that particular era. And that is what made them so successful, along with their genuine gift of creating infectious music and memorable lyrical hooks.

They were harmless in that sense, both focusing on creating irresistibly melodic works without offending anyone. You won’t find any annoying political screeds in their work that pit us against each other. And maybe that’s why their music transcended beyond their careers during their lifetimes and will continue to do so now that they are gone.

“I don’t write political songs. I can watch the news on TV or read it in the newspapers and it’s already distorted enough. I certainly don’t need my news from some rock star who believes they are also an authority on the news.”

Ric Ocasek (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Today, I’m reminiscing about my meeting with Ric Ocasek, not long after The Cars had disbanded and he had released his third solo effort, Fireball Zone. While we can all mourn the loss of this unique and hugely successful music artist, who let his music do most of his talking, it’s also a good time to revisit some of his timeless work that will far surpass his 75 years in this mortal sphere.

Ocasek’s pop sensibilities and his sometimes dark and humorously sarcastic lyrical tones (often masked behind upbeat music and poetic imagery) are not surprising when Ocasek revealed, “I love the Carpenters and I love the Velvet Underground.”

This seemingly bizarre blending of tip-top pop craft with haunting tones riding a driving beat is what made Ric Ocasek such a unique songwriter, one like no other. This was minimalist rock at its finest, with otherworldly textures thrown on like the most delectable of frostings. Thankfully, Ocasek was around long enough to see The Cars inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just last year.

The members of The Cars give their acceptance speeches at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one year ago. Sadly, the band’s bassist and co-lead singer Benjamin Orr passed away from cancer in 2000. Ocasek, who gives his speech last, chokes up a bit when talking about his longtime friend and band mate.

Unlike his perceived public image, when we sat down back in 1991, I found Ocasek to be extremely personable, candid, talkative, and quick with a laugh. Just a regular guy, who just so happened to have created some of the most timeless music to have arisen from the ashes of the ‘70s as his band would go on to reach even further heights of success throughout the ‘80s.

In an MTV-enhanced era where countless one-hit artists shot up the charts and quickly disappeared, Ocasek and The Cars were a welcome mainstay for a dozen years spitting out hits so quickly that it was hard to keep track of them all, and still is all these years later.

As many of the bands (insert “image” here) who gained a little success through MTV failed to capture audiences outside the core viewing audience, Ocasek’s tasty song craft managed to bypass that limitation. His songs pleased not only the teens of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with their fresh new sound, but Ocasek’s mastery of melody and a unique lyrical approach also bridged the gap with the older classic rock fans who could also appreciate the engaging riffs that were the foundation of their “New Wave” sound.

In a polarizing musical decade, Ocasek and The Cars were arguably the only band that found success across all musical camps. No easy feat, and a legacy that lives on today with even this era’s teens.

Born in Maryland, the Ocasek family moved to Ohio when Ric was in his teens. After graduating high school in 1963 and spending a couple of years in college, he dropped out and met his future musical brother, Benjamin Orr, in 1965.

Unlike how The Cars would burst on the national music scene in 1978, seemingly out of nowhere, Ocasek definitely paid his dues for more than a decade in and out of bands as often as most people change their socks. “I was probably in 15 bands before forming The Cars,” he said, “and some of the guys in The Cars were in some of my earlier bands. Elliot [Easton, guitarist] was in one of them, [keyboardist] Greg Hawkes was in one of them, and Ben was probably in ten of them [laughs].

“I thought that maybe we’d get a little record deal, be a cult band and put out a record. That was what I was envisioning at the time.”

Ric Ocasek (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“So with The Cars, it was Ben and I, and then we brought Elliot back and we brought Greg back, and then we just had to find a drummer and David [Robinson] was the one we wanted. And what was good about this band when we started was that it was about the songs; it wasn’t about musician egos.”

But it still wasn’t any overnight success, as The Cars played around the East Coast for a year-and-a-half before they landed their record deal with Elektra Records. “I think my songs were just getting better,” Ocasek said modestly, “and the band itself really spurred a lot of that writing inspiration for me. With that band, compared to all the other ones, we were getting fans and it was clicking along and going pretty well.”

The Cars, pictured (L-R): guitarist Elliot Easton, drummer David Robinson, bassist/vocalist Benjamin Orr, songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Ric Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes.

Ironically, Ocasek never thought that his band would find mega-stardom. “I thought we might get a record deal, but since all those other bands I was in didn’t achieve that, I really didn’t know. I thought that maybe we’d get a little record deal, be a cult band, and put out a record. That was what I was envisioning at the time.”

Riding the New Wave

“I’m sure that timing was a part of what happened with us getting signed because radio was much more open in those days,” Ocasek explained. “We were just a local band in Boston and we were getting our songs played on local radio, which was pretty unheard of at the time. So there was a rebellious scene going on in music, and we happened to be there at the same time.”

But they were also being lumped in with bands and artist who were much younger than they were. Ocasek was already in his mid-Thirties when the band signed their first record deal. “We never considered ourselves to be New Wave or part of a movement or anything like that,” he told me. “We were around before that term ever came into being. But I think because we were a new band that played rock with some different colors and the lyrics were a bit obscure that the press started putting us in that New Wave bucket.”

Debut Stardom

With the release of their self-titled debut The Cars were instant stars, shocking the band members themselves. The album has gone on to sell more than six million copies in the U.S. alone. With three infectious hit singles—”Just What I Needed,” “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Times Roll—along with a slew of more adventurous FM rock radio standards like “Bye Bye Love,” “Moving in Stereo” (cue Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight,” The Cars were soon everywhere.

With a little help from famed producer Roy Thomas Baker, who was the studio captain behind Queen’s layered epic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” The Cars took their already unique sound and turned it into perfection in the studio. “The first Cars’ album is a totally live record. We literally went from the clubs into the studio. We finished recording that album in 12 days,” Ocasek said with a laugh. “That really was a live album with quite a bit of overdubbed harmonies, which was [producer] Roy Thomas Baker’s idea.

“[Those harmonies] actually shocked all of us, but we really liked it. We liked how harmonically thick it was even though we were never a band that sat around and sang in harmony with each other. But when Roy came up with that layered harmony sound, we liked it so much that we stuck with that kind of harmony vocal sound throughout our recording career.”

When I spoke with the legendary Baker a year earlier we had discussed how he had made a name for himself with bands like Queen, but how his work with The Cars was as sparse as Queen’s kitchen sink productions.

“That first Cars’ record is still selling,” Baker told me over some afternoon martinis. “I knew it was a good album when we were making it, but I really had no idea it would be as big as it was, and still is.

“With that record, because I was being put down in the press for over-producing everything,” the blonde producer told me, with a laugh, “I made a conscious effort to over-produce under-producing.

“With The Cars, if there was a hole in the music, I made it bigger rather than filling it up with textures and things. That’s where you get that magical feeling of ‘air’ on that album.”

Ocasek agreed, saying, “That’s interesting that you talked to Roy about that. What Roy brought to that first record, besides his craziness and enthusiasm, was that he knew a lot about ambient mic’ing because he had done a lot of work with orchestras in his past, and that helped us get the sound of that record that a lot of people still talk about.”

Interestingly enough, the Bean Town band recorded the album at AIR Studios in London, which was then owned by the biggest producer in the world, George Martin of Beatles fame, who showed up to compliment the band during the sessions, as Ocasek recalled: “More than once George Martin would poke his head in the studio and listen to what we were doing and he’d say, ‘You know, you guys got a hit record there.’ We would just laugh, because we never dreamed along those lines. We always thought of ourselves as a cult band making a record for 30 people.”

The success was immediate and Ocasek kept cranking out the hits for the next ten years. In all, The Cars would release five consecutive platinum and multi-platinum albums (their sixth and final album Door to Door went Gold in 1987) and an endless string of such hits as “Let’s Go,” “It’s All I Can Do,” “Double Life,” “Touch and Go,” “Don’t Tell Me No,” “Gimme Some Slack,” “Shake It Up,” “Cruiser,” “Since You’re Gone,” “You Might Think,” “Magic,” “Drive,” “Hello Again,” “Tonight She Comes,” among others.

Staying Grounded

Despite the incredible success of The Cars, Ocasek managed to keep his wits about him. His advanced age in terms of finding his first taste of success and the monumental global stardom that was still to come played a big part in not falling into the pitfalls that fame can bring.

“I think all of us in the band tried to ignore what was happening, because you can get hung-up on your own press and even start believing it, which is worse,” he explained. “I think I tended to get more jaded about it all as the success continued to grow with each album. Maybe it was my fear of getting sucked up into the star trip, which wasn’t anything I was really interested in.

“If you’re able to sit back and really take a hard look at your own reality, you can avoid it. It’s a matter of saying to yourself: ‘Am I really as great as these people say I am?’ or ‘Am I just the same person who is working really hard at this and always focused on trying to get better?’ You also realize and say to yourself that I was doing this same thing before anyone accepted it, so this isn’t about me.”

The melancholy ballad “Drive” was not only the band’s biggest hit (hitting #3 in the Orwellian year of 1984), but the memorable video shoot also had a lasting impact on Ocasek’s personal life. The star of this memorable video—model Paulina Porizkova—became Ocasek’s third wife five years later and they remained married for 28 years before they separated amicably last year. Ocasek had six children, all boys, two with each of his wives.

Ocasek didn’t forget the years and years of struggle, which helped him keep his feet on the ground when the band’s fortunes were rising higher and higher. “As a struggling writer or musician, you are always thinking your stuff sucks because no one is paying attention,” he said. “And then all the sudden people start saying it is good, and you sit and wonder, ‘Why was this not so good yesterday and now it’s amazing?’

“It’s really hard to wrap your head around it if you think too much about all of that outside stuff,” he continued, before adding with a laugh, “I just started telling myself that I’m just that same person who just has to keep getting better, and that inner challenge goes a long way in getting all that other nonsense out of your head.”

On an even more personal level, being married to one of the world’s most famous models didn’t exactly keep the tabloid wolves at bay. Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova met when she was the actress in the band’s hit video for “Drive.” They married five years later, although their 28-year marriage ended amicably last year. But at the time of our talk they were newly married and the singer-songwriter discussed dealing with the tabloids.

“Well, it happens from time to time,” he said calmly about media stalkers, noting that other celebs welcome and seek out the attention. “Some of these other couples go out a lot to get the attention and even let the paparazzi know where they’re going to be and things like that.

“I’m just a guy who likes to work rather than spending my time out in the public eye trying to get attention. Then again, I get attention just walking down the street because of the weird way I look [laughs] and Paulina obviously gets noticed because of the great way she looks [laughs].

“But, yeah, when we go out together it can be hard. Although we do live in New York now where you are a little bit more anonymous, but we don’t go to the big rock & roll events or things like that. We’re just not out promoting that we’re together, you know. I try to keep the family separate from other parts of the business, like the so-called glamour and all of that stuff.”

Technology Cars’ Style

What always made the music of The Cars so unique is their ability to incorporate basic rock riffs and driving rhythms with a slice of techno pop. Something for everyone within a single song, and no band did it better than Ocasek’s crew.

“The thing about The Cars is that we weren’t afraid to incorporate technology into our music. That goes back to when I was writing my first songs. I would be sitting on the floor with my guitar, a pen and paper, and an old Univox drum machine, that only had two beats, but it kept that tempo for me to write along with it.

“Then Greg Hawkes, our keyboard player, really got into programming and that stuff. I kind of stayed out of it. To this day, I don’t really know how to program a sequencer, but I’ve always been the kind of person who writes things up in longhand rather than typing them [laughs].”

As successful as their sound was, it was also the beginning of the end for Ocasek, even though it led to one of their most memorable albums, Heartbeat City.

“The mixture of the band and the songs and those various forms of technology we would incorporate in the studio was fun, but on the other side of it, it did become too relied upon later on in the band’s career,” he admits. “It probably peaked around the time of Heartbeat City [their massively popular fifth album in 1984].

“We made that album with [producer] Mutt Lange, who had just gotten a new Fairlight sampler, and he was really involved with learning how to use it during those sessions, pretty much at our expense,” he says with a laugh. “I expected that record to be much more live, like we did on the first album, because Mutt had just produced things like AC/DC’s Back in Black album, but it really became our most textured and layered album, but, all that aside, I really do love the record we came out with.”

The Break-Up

However after the band’s sixth album, Door to Door, in 1987, Ocasek decided that The Cars had run its course. “Basically, it did get too technological for me, and some members were just too disinterested in forward motion. I didn’t want to get too redundant and rely too heavily on the sound we always had.

“It was pretty much by mutual agreement,” he maintains. “It was twelve years together and I think our spark plugs just kind of burned out, you could say. I still love all the guys in the band.”

Ode to Orr

The band’s other lead vocalist Benjamin Orr passed away in 2000, and in 2005, on Ocasek’s final solo album Nexterday, he recorded a musical tribute to his longtime friend with the song, “Silver.”

Ric discusses Benjamin Orr on Sirius Radio in 2016.

MTV and Music Videos

The Cars were one of the most popular bands during MTV’s heyday in the ’80s with some of the most innovative videos ever produced, from the silly to the sublime. However Ocasek says he was never looking to translate his songs and their meanings into the video side of the band’s career.

“It’s funny, because I actually try to do something entirely opposite of what the lyrics are,” he said. “I’ve done some videos that completely suck that I’m totally embarrassed about, but I’ve also done some that I really love.

“On the one side, I love videos because of the imagery that’s being created. I find all that very artistically inspiring. But as far as it being related to music, I think the video revolution has hurt the mystique of music.

“I always thought it was fun to use your imagination with music. There was something cool about not knowing exactly what your favorite band looked like until you went to their concert. Or to listen to a song on the radio and imagine what the lyrics were about rather than to have it visually shoved down your throat.

“I like the visual medium but I do think it is also stifling the imagination of the bands, who are also now forced to not only write and create music, but they also now have to think about this entirely other medium. But. more importantly, I worry about the viewers because I think it detracts from using your imagination and that potentially could lead to a loss of long-term creativity.”

Legal Problems

At the time of our meeting, Ocasek had just released his third solo album Fireball Zone, his first since the break-up of The Cars. It had been three years between albums, which was an eternity in the music biz at the time. “I was changing record labels at the time, moving from Geffen to Warner Bros., and that took quite a bit of time, legally.

“I was also spending a lot of time with visual arts; my photography, collages and paintings. I also moved to New York and was moving into a new house. So there was a lot of non-musical things going on and that helped me in looking for inspiration. It’s funny,” he said, smiling, “because when people point out that it’s been three years, those years seem like months to me.”

The hit single from Ric’s first post-Cars solo album, Fireball Zone, in 1991.

But the real delay had to do with leaving his record label. Lawyers. Can’t live with them and unfortunately in the music business you can’t leave without them. “I had a lot of success obviously with The Cars at Elektra,” Ocasek explained, “but I moved to Geffen for my first two solo albums [1982’s Beatitude and 1986’s This Side of Paradise]. But by the time of this record, I started to feel stalemated at Geffen. Suffice it to say that I just didn’t feel like I had a good artist rapport with them at that point.

“They just wanted me to make Cars’ albums, but without The Cars [laughs]. I always felt that about them and I really didn’t want to stay under those conditions. I did two albums with them, but was contracted to do five, so it took a little while to work out all the legal stuff to get out of the deal. I just think that Warner Bros. is more of an artist-oriented company.”

Solo Albums vs. The Cars

One of the big questions had to do with the fact that since Ocasek literally wrote every song that The Cars recorded, how does one differentiate between The Cars and a Ric Ocasek solo album. “Of course, I wrote all the songs for The Cars, so some of my solo stuff is obviously going to be similar because it’s difficult to stay away from what you do artistically,” he said. “But I will say that, for my solo albums, I did try and choose the things that were more un-Cars-like because I wanted to establish myself as a solo artist. Of course what my perception of what Cars’ music is may be different than what fans or critics think it is. I’m in my own little bubble here.

Ocasek’s haunting hit from his 1986 solo album, This Side of Paradise.

“But in answer to your question, one of the differences is that when I would present all my songs to The Cars, the band together would choose the songs for whatever album we were working on. And while I’m certainly happy with all the songs that the band did choose, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all those were the songs that I would have chosen, left to my own devices. That’s probably the main difference is the actual selection of the material that made them Cars’ songs versus my solo material.”

Songwriting with Ric

“As far as my lyrics, I never co-write. I have co-written on a few Cars’ songs with Greg Hawkes [‘Moving in Stereo,’ ‘This Could Be Love,’ ‘It’s Not the Night’ and ‘Go Away’] and I co-wrote one of the songs, ‘Touch Down Easy,’ on this album with Rick Nowels. Those few instances are with parts of the music, because lyrically I want to be single-minded about it.”

When it comes to the lyrics of Ric Ocasek, they are often thought of differently by the audience than by the writer himself. “I think people will always dance around to a beat, no matter if the lyrics are morose or not. It’s like ‘Good Times Roll,’ which is not about letting the good times roll at all.

“Because I’m so inspired by the poetry of Voltaire and E.E. Cummings as well as new poets, I like to paint images with my lyrics. I like to create an open mood, with no beginning or end. It’s a mood enhancing element for my songs, using some surrealism to conjure up little cinematic word images.

“With radio, we all used to use our own imagination as to what the lyrics convey to us personally. And I always felt that once the song is put out there, it belongs to everyone’s own imagination. Anyone can think whatever they want as to what they think my songs mean; that’s perfectly fine with me.

“The thing is, I’m not trying to teach anyone anything. I think people are already taught enough about what to think about everything, and I don’t think that’s really healthy in the grand scheme of things. I’m just trying to say things in an interesting way; sometimes I think they’re funny and sometimes I think they’re serious. But I’m not one to preach ideas.

“In the Chinese theatre they have done the same plays for 2,000 years. They have the same costumes and the same presentations but they bring them up to date. By the same token, the major theme of pop songs has always been relationships and that won’t ever change because we live in a world of human relationships. That’s what I thrive on as a writer.”

Behind the Scenes

Lost amidst his overwhelming success with The Cars is Ocasek’s outside work as a producer throughout the past four decades. Here’s just a few of the notable hits and wide array of bands and artists he produced…

Romeo Void

Little known fact is that Ric produced this controversial 1982 classic by Romeo Void.

Weezer

Ocasek also helmed Weezer’s multi-platinum debut album in 1993, featuring one of MTV’s most popular videos of the ‘90s.

Nada Surf

Ocasek produced the debut album from Nada Surf in 1996, including their hit video “Popular.”

Bad Religion

Ocasek also was the studio captain behind Bad Religion’s 1996 album The Gray Race, including their only chart hit, “A Walk.”

No Doubt

Ocasek produced this gem of a track on No Doubt’s 2001 Top Ten album, Rock Steady.

The Cars Reunion

In the years following my interview, I kept tabs on Ric’s career as he would release four more solo albums, produce countless bands, and then in the biggest surprise of all he reformed The Cars in 2011 and released the Top Ten hit album, Move Like This.

In 2012, Ocasek published the book he had discussed with me 20 years earlier. Lyrics and Prose brought together all of his lyrics recorded with The Cars and on his solo efforts, as well as his own prose, poetry, photographs and artwork. https://www.amazon.com/Lyrics-Prose-Ric-Ocasek/dp/0399163700.

Most recently Ocasek had once again produced Weezer, as well as The Cribs, and now he has left the music world an emptier place. His name is not often mentioned with the greats in rock history, although few have matched his success or have been as uniquely original. Hopefully one day rock fans and critics will soon realize that he belongs in the uppermost echelon of our most prized musical artists. Thanks Ric for everything.

Eddie Money: In Memory Of..

Eddie Money: In Memory Of..

By Steven P. Wheeler

With yesterday’s death of Eddie Money at the age of 70, only three weeks after publicly announcing that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer, I fondly recall my handful of visits with the rocker over the past 30 years.

From his flawless self-titled debut album in 1977 featuring two classic rock standards—“Two Tickets to Paradise” and “Baby Hold On”—Money managed to sustain a career that lasted more than 40 years. His plans for this year’s annual summer tour ended with what turned out to be his fatal diagnosis.

His string of hits serves as an impressive link between the eras of FM rock radio and the video world of MTV, and for more than ten years he managed to dominate both. He would ultimately sell more than 30 million albums and score an incessant number of hit singles and memorable album tracks, which is quite staggering: “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” “Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” “Think I’m in Love,” “Shakin’,” “Take Me Home Tonight,” “I Wanna Go Back,” “The Big Crash,” “Maybe I’m a Fool,” “Gimme Some Water,” “Rock and Roll the Place,” “Get a Move On,” “Trinidad,” “We Should Be Sleeping,” “Walk on Water,” “The Love in Your Eyes,” “Peace in Our Time,” “I’ll Get By,” “She Takes My Breath Away,” “Running Back” and “Endless Nights,” to name just a select few. He moved effortlessly between hard driving rock and synth-based pop, anchored by his soulful and instantly recognizable voice.

1977’s “Two Tickets to Paradise” is arguably Eddie Money’s most recognized song, featuring one of the tastiest guitar solos ever captured on a hit single, courtesy of Jimmy Lyon.

Despite critics seemingly lambasting his every artistic move, his massive popularity amongst fans never waned. The New York born Eddie Mahoney was just one of them. This was a blue-collar rocker who happened to scratch his way to the top by just being himself.

Still remembered as one of the most approachable celebs in a world often divided by security walls and bodyguards, Money was also the funniest guy you would ever meet in the world of rock.

“I really don’t consider myself a star,” he told me during our first meeting in 1989. “Michael Jackson’s a star. George Michael’s a star. They’re prisoners of their own careers. I don’t need bodyguards. I’ll take a cab instead of a limo. Limousines are for funerals and weddings, not for rock singers.”

With a colorful mixture of East Coast swagger and West Coast bravado, the former NYC cop turned Berkeley hippie more than paid his dues as he followed his own path to rock stardom. While he would fight his addictions with multiple stops and starts, before achieving lasting sobriety for the last 18 years of his life, what made hanging with Eddie so much fun was that he was real.

The man didn’t put on airs. He was what he was without reservations or apologies. When he fucked up, he talked about it candidly and with a heavy dose of sarcasm and humor. And no topic or person was ever off limits, including comic stabs at himself. Calling him the Rodney Dangerfield of Rock sums up both his success and the lack of respect he most often received from uppity critics.

Talking with Eddie was like strapping yourself into a roller coaster shot out of a cannon. You knew there would be a lot of twists and turns, but it was always gonna be a fun ride and would always exceed your expectations. His outspokenness and anti-PC humor was a welcome relief in a world gone mad.

At one point during our lengthy conversation in a large conference room at Sony Music headquarters in 1991, a time when you could light up inside a building, Money leaned over and asked what kind of cigs I had and if he could bum a smoke from me. When I told him they were Salem Lights, he shrugged, grabbed one from the pack, held it in his fingers like a paper airplane and said: “You know why they call them Salems, right? Because you can sail ‘em,” as he proceeded to throw it across the room.

In short, while Eddie Money may have been a publicist’s nightmare, he was always an interviewer’s dream. He had the gift of gab as they say, and he will be missed. What follows are snippets from various conversations I had with the Money Man between 1989 and 1991.

“When I first changed my name to Eddie Money,” says the former Mr. Mahoney, “I was so broke I was thinking of also changing my first name to Owen. Owen Money. That summed it up for me in those early days.”

The Journey Begins

Born Edward Joseph Mahoney on March 21, 1949, the future Mr. Money grew up on Long Island and followed in the steps of his grandfather, father and brother into a life in the New York City Police Department. But he turned in his badge for a microphone after a couple years and headed to San Francisco in search of rock & roll stardom in the heady days of 1968.

Immersing himself in the Bay Area music scene for the next ten long years, his first big break was winning one of those proverbial Battle of the Bands contests. “I won out of 110 bands. And I said, ‘What’s the prize?’ And they said, ‘You get to play at Winterland [the now legendary club that was run by rock entrepreneur Bill Graham, who would become Money’s manager].’ I said, ‘Have you ever seen that dump with the lights on. What kinda prize is that? I need a record contract.’

“So I went home and wrote ‘Baby Hold On,’ ‘Two Tickets to Paradise’ and ‘Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star’ and I got signed to a management deal with Bill Graham in 1976 and I’ve been with CBS Records, which is now Sony, for 15 years. I’ve been through seven label presidents and the furniture in this conference room has changed five times, but I’m still here. It’s been an amazing ride.”

“I was really surprised that ‘Baby Hold On’ became a hit. I really was, because I wrote that song in a day-and-a-half. Whereas it took me six months to write ‘Two Tickets to Paradise.’ I cranked that song out and it shot up the charts. At one point, I flew into Los Angeles from one of my tour stops, and the red carpet was out. I had no idea, I thought Paul McCartney was standing behind me or something. All the sudden I was this big rock & roll sensation because of that song. I still play ‘Baby Hold On’ in concert, because I love it.”

Eddie doing the old lip-synch on Top of the Pops in 1977.

Stardom Pitfalls

With the double-platinum success of his brilliant debut album that was quickly followed up by the equal success of his excellent sophomore effort, Life for the Taking, the fame and fortune brought along the proverbial sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle.

“When I got started in the late ‘70s, there was plenty of women, plenty of vodka, plenty of pot and a little bit of cocaine. Everything was fun. But I never really drank before my shows because when people pay to see me, I don’t want them paying to see some guy falling all over the stage drunk. But after work, forget it, I was a nightmare.

“Let’s put it this way, I came to rock, and what happens when you have some success in this business is you end up drinking for free, you get high for free, you snort for free, and there’s women throwing themselves at you. And when you’re playing all the time for big money and everyone is drinking and doing drugs, and you enjoy doing that, it’s easy to fall into. At one point, I did two shows in Ohio on a weekend and came home with $50,000. That’s a good weekend, right?

“It was a crazy time. I was staying at the Chateau Marmont and hanging out with [John] Belushi and Rickie Lee Jones, spending money like it was coming out of my asshole.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“But things changed around the time of my third album, Playing For Keeps, in 1980,” he said. “That album cost me half-a-million dollars to make with [producer] Ron Nevison. It was lights out during that period of time because the guy was out of his fuckin’ mind. And so was I. And after that album I became very despondent and disappointed with everything.

“So I did blow and then I did more blow, and then more booze to come down. So then I’d be drunk, so I’d do more blow to get back up, and the whole thing got to be a nightmare. And sometimes my voice would start going out onstage and I’d tell the guys in the band  to ‘tune it down to D’ and the guys would be playing rubber bands.

“It was a crazy time. I was staying at the Chateau Marmont and hanging out with [John] Belushi and Rickie Lee Jones, spending money like it was coming out of my asshole.”

Eddie wrote this ode to his good friend and partying pal John Belushi, shortly after Belushi’s death in 1982.

The Big Crash

Things came crashing down within a year as Money had an accidental overdose that nearly took his life. “I had a really bad drug overdose,” he explained. “I was drinking a lot one night and thought I was doing cocaine, but it ended up being synthetic barbiturate. So that knocked me unconscious and I was lying there in an awkward position and that blew out the sciatic nerve in my leg and they said I’d never walk again. But I worked my ass off in physical therapy for a long time and I hardly have a limp anymore.

“That’s what the No Control album is about and after that I didn’t get as high as I was before that, but I didn’t learn my lesson of course,” he said, candidly, about his fall from the wagon not too long after recovering from his near fatal OD.

“That album, No Control [released in 1982], was a huge success and I started making a ton of money again and I started up with the drugs again. But for the past four years [1987-91], I don’t drink anymore, I don’t smoke pot, I don’t take pills, I don’t do cocaine. I got three kids now and a wife who will kill me if I do. My focus is trying to stay straight these days.

“I used to get so high that I’d be in the dressing room, hunched over my wardrobe cabinet doing lines of coke, and I’d feel someone behind me saying, ‘Eddie, come on, you’re late for the show’ and I’d turn around and it’s the fuckin’ coat rack!”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“Things got so bad that I was afraid to answer the telephone, ya know. It was just nuts. Now I’m just as crazy, but I’m not getting high. It reaches a point where you ask yourself, ‘How many times am I gonna get away with this?’”

The Roller Coaster

Throughout his 20 year recording career, Money was on a roller coaster of major platinum successes often followed by less successful album sales despite keeping the hit singles coming. “Every time I make a great album, I go out on the road for a year-and-a-half and right when I get off the road, the record company will say, ‘It’s time to make another record,’ and I never have enough time to write, pick the musicians, and I’m really not prepared.

“My first two records went platinum, and then I made Playing For Keeps but that record didn’t really happen. Then I made the No Control record, which was a dynamite record, then I came back and made Where’s the Party? at a time when I didn’t have enough good material.

“Then I made the Can’t Hold Back album in 1986, which is going on double-platinum, then I did the Nothing to Lose album which had ‘Walk On Water’ [another Top Ten hit], but that one just didn’t sell as much. It’s been a cycle like that throughout my career. For the past 15 years, I think I’ve been broke during seven of those years and rich for eight of them.

Eddie scored his biggest hit with “Take Me Home Tonight,” in which he brought back ’60s star Ronnie Spector to sing the words of her most famous song “Be My Baby,” which were part of the lyrics within this hit that has stood the test of time. The two appear here on the David Letterman Show in 1986.

“When the Nothing to Lose album was done I had just gotten sober for the second time and I wasn’t really used to myself and I was using a lot of outside material. And I remember saying, ‘Look, this is my ass. If I’m gonna lose my record deal, let me lose it with my own material rather than with stuff from outside writers.’

“[Producer] Richie Zito wanted me to record a lot of outside material on that record. I didn’t start recording a lot of outside material until I started working with Richie Zito, beginning with the Can’t Hold Back album, which was very successful. But then they wanted to try and do the same thing with the next album Nothing to Lose. That happens sometimes when producers or the record company get too involved. It’s corporate rock. These people at the label love me and I love the label but they don’t want to take any fuckin’ chances. 

“Anyway, so although Nothing to Lose went Gold, I just got tired of the Richie Zitos in the world and all those producers. I didn’t want to use session musicians, I wanted to use my drummer, my bass player, my keyboard player, ya know. When these guys in my band have been touring all over with me, playing every night, and then I go to make a record and I’m surrounded by studio musicians, that fucks up the cha-cha. I just didn’t want to fuck with the cha-cha anymore.”

A New Home

It was around this time that Money finally left his beloved Bay Area for Tinseltown, looking for a change of scenary and a new direction. “Around the time of the Nothing to Lose album in ‘87 I started getting back into the toot and started drinking again. I wasn’t getting along with my wife, and she got pregnant, so I knew I was gonna have a baby. One day I picked up my wife, left the Bay Area, moved to Los Angeles, joined AA and I’ve been sober since then. Knock on wood.

“I started over by coming here. I love the Bay Area, but it’s better for me here in L.A. If I have an interview, like with you today, I just jump in the car and I’m here. I don’t have to make flights and all of that nonsense. It’s just better now.

“Then again, I’ve sold like ten million albums and I’m lucky I still own my saxophone,” he said about his financial situation in 1991. “I’ve been through a divorce with my first wife when I had a house up north with dobermans, rottweilers, a pool, a tennis court; that’s all gone, along with the ex. Now I’m holding my ass down in a 5,000 square foot house in Westlake, California. The neighbor across the street went to Harvard, the next door neighbor went to Princeton, and they’re like, ‘What the fuck is this guy doing here?’”

Fighting the Power

Still, he has had to deal with record company demands that don’t always sit well with the veteran performer, like when his first greatest hits album came out in 1989, [Greatest Hits: The Sound of Money], and he was forced to record a handful of new songs as a way to try and bolster sales.

“Instead, I had to put this other [Diane Warren] song on there that I didn’t even like, and so Diane Warren made like $60,000 off my greatest hits album because that song is on there.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“The record company wanted a couple of new songs to be included and one of them was a Diane Warren song that they force-fed me called ‘Stop Steppin’ on My Heart,’ which I call ‘Stop Steppin’ on My Balls.’ I was forced to do that song by both my management company and the record company. Hey, I’ve got nothing against Diane Warren, I was jus force-fed the song because she was having so many hits at that time.

“This is my greatest hits album, so I wanted to have my song, ‘Trinidad,’ on there. My fans love that song and I play it at pretty much every concert. Or I could have put ‘Can’t Keep a Good Man Down’ on there, which was one of my hits. But instead, I had to put this other song on there that I didn’t even like, and so Diane Warren made like $60,000 off my greatest hits album because that song is on there.

“If it were up to me, I would have put out my own greatest hits that would have included ‘Trinidad,’ ‘Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,’ ‘The Big Crash,’ ‘Call on Me,’ or ‘Save a Little Room in Your Heart for Me,’ which is one of the best songs I ever wrote.”

A live unplugged version of the gorgeous “Save a Little Room In Your Heart for Me,” originally recorded on his hit debut album in 1977. Money calls this ballad one of the best songs he ever wrote.

Stepping Up

For his then-current album, Right Here, Money had relocated to Los Angeles and he also began to put his foot down and began demanding much more control of his own artistic journey. “I just got tired of all this corporate rock thing and I had just gotten off the road and had another million-dollar year on touring. Not that I actually see a million dollars from that, but I was just tired of my management company and my record label telling me what I had to do on my records. But they came around this time and let me make this record the way I wanted it to; at least more so than on the previous couple of records.

“It was nice to be in the driver’s seat this time around. I mean I’ve worked with amazing producers in my career. I worked with Bruce Botnick, who worked with The Doors. I worked with Tom Dowd, who worked with everybody from the Allman Brothers to Otis Redding to Aretha Franklin. I worked with Ron Nevison and I worked with Richie Zito. I mean, I learned a lot from working with these guys and I took it and applied it to my own material. I did work with a few other producers on this record, like Marc Tanner, Keith Olsen and Monty Byrom, but I was hands-on.

This beautiful ballad from 1992’s Right Here album would ultimately prove to be Eddie’s final Top 40 hit.

When discussing Right Here, Money sounds totally revitalized as we run through the track list. “The first single was ‘Heaven in a Back Seat’ and the record company wanted me to do that one. Keith Olson produced it and it’s all machines. It’s really hard to play live with a band. I think it got to #58 on the charts and now that single is over and I’m glad because I don’t have to play it live anymore,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a sexy tune though and it was a cool video, but it didn’t take off.

“‘Fire and Water’ is about fighting with the old lady. ‘Prove It Every Night’ is about us. ‘I’ll Get By’ is a lonely blues song and ‘Fall in Love Again’ is a great tune. ‘She Takes My Breath Away’ is about my wife because she’s so beautiful. I mean, I get tired just looking at her.

An acoustic version of “She Takes My Breath Away,” a fan favorite from the Right Here album.

“And I love ‘Another Nice Day in L.A.’ because I live in L.A. and L.A. is a lot like New York, you love it and hate it. I wrote that Monty and Stan Lynch and John Corey. John Corey brought me the track with no melody line, just the chords. And we were sitting in the car outside Cherokee Studios, and it was burning hot out and I said, ‘Well, here it is, another nice day in L.A.’ And I thought that’s a great title, so Monty and I put the lyrics together and we had the song. That would make a great video.”

Unfortunately, the chance of this infectious track becoming a summertime hit in 1992 were dashed when the infamous L.A. riots tore the city apart in the wake of the Rodney King incident at the end of April that year. Not exactly the opportune time to be singing about sunshine and L.A. dreams. But it still holds up some 28 years later.

One of those shoulda-been hits from 1992.

Winds of Change

Having been through decades of the rock & roll wars, the changes and trends continue to shift like the wind. Once a darling of MTV and mainstream radio, Money understands the reality of having to figure out ways to reach his loyal audience in the changing music landscape.

“Making records is like a fuckin’ crap shoot. Based on all the records I’ve made, this one should go triple-platinum, but will it? I have no idea. Nobody does. You put it out and promote it and hope for the best.

“I’m proud of the fact that I think it’s a great album and if radio doesn’t give me a shot, then I’ll go out on the road and I’ll put seven or eight songs from this record in the set, and I’ll visit radio stations and try and get some of the AOR [Album-Oriented Rock] stations to play some of it, and if people like what they hear, they’ll hopefully go out and buy the record.

“The best way to sell the new record is to do the Traveling Medicine Show and play some of these new songs to let the fans know that there’s a new album out. I’m playing 4-5,000 seaters lately, so if 2,000 of those people buy the new record in each city, that adds up to a lot of sales, and that’s how I have to do it these days.

“I’m getting older and radio may not want me anymore, so I may not sell as many records anymore. But I’m going out on the road, I’ve got my fans out there, I’ve got a strong base, and I’ll sell records that way. I do what I can. Hell, that’s what I did when I was a kid. I’d go see Quicksilver Messenger Service at the Carousel Ballroom and I’d go out and buy the record. I’d see Santana and, boom, I’d buy the record. I’d see Jimi Hendrix and, bang, I’d buy the record.”

“With MTV, I understand that I’m older now and it’s all about these skin-and-bones kids with their hair extensions. I mean, the only reason I picked up a copy of Rolling Stone two weeks ago with the guy from Skid Row on it is I thought it was a chick. I thought it had a centerfold in it.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

And while he has made videos for the album, he knows that MTV is most likely not going to be supporting him much this time around because of their changing demographic. “Just a few years ago MTV loved ‘Take Me Home Tonight’ with Ronnie Spector and they loved ‘Walk on Water.’ Now I’m just trying to get on VH1. At least Perry Como’s not on VH1 yet,” he said with a laugh. “Now if Kenny Rogers’ shows up on VH1 with ‘Gambler,’ then I might be a little afraid, but it’s okay, I’ll take what I can get.

“With MTV, I understand that I’m older now and it’s all about these skin-and-bones kids with their hair extensions. I mean, who the fuck is Firehouse? I mean, the only reason I picked up a copy of Rolling Stone two weeks ago with the guy from Skid Row on it is I thought it was a chick. I thought it had a centerfold in it.

“But, seriously, I have nothing against these young acts because at one point I was I was like them. I was Eddie Fuckin’ Money; out of my mind, drinking like a fish, high as a big dog. But times change and shit happens, man. I’m just rolling with the punches.”

The Graying of Rock & Roll

The question about age in rock & roll was a big topic of discussion in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s as veteran artists moved past the once unheard of rock age of 40, and even 50. I presented that topic to Eddie and just let him run with it.

What would Jimi Hendrix be doing right now if he didn’t die a legend? Would he be selling millions of albums still? I mean George Harrison and Paul McCartney aren’t making albums as big as what they did with The Beatles. I mean, Guns N’ Roses is a good band, there’s a place for them, but I still like the Steve Miller Band, ya know. I’m lost in the late ‘60s and the early ‘70s when it comes to my tastes and what I enjoy listening to.

I’m not gonna go out and get a ton of tattoos and wear zebra skin pants to compete, ya know. That just ain’t me. I don’t begrudge any musician who can make money in this insane rat race that is the music business.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“It’s happening to a lot of us. John Cougar Mellencamp is having trouble getting airplay, he can’t get arrested with that new tune he’s got. Bryan Adams after that huge, huge hit is having trouble with his new puppy. Bob Seger has a great new album and he’s not getting the airplay he used to get. I love Bob Seger. I mean, what are you gonna do? The market has changed on radio. It’s either classic rock stations playing all our old songs or it’s the young new bands. It’s tough, man.

“Here’s the thing, Guns N’ Roses is a real rock & roll band. I’m not saying they’re the most talented band in the world and I’m not saying they’re the least talented band in the world. They have their moments, they’re controversial and all of that. It’s like Motley Crue, they’re making money hand over fist right now and I don’t begrudge them that.

“They found their little pocket and they do it well. But I’m not gonna go out and get a ton of tattoos and wear zebra skin pants to compete, ya know. That just ain’t me. I don’t begrudge any musician who can make money in this insane rat race that is the music business.

“But there’s the guys like Bob Seger and myself and Bryan Adams and John Cougar. The times are changing and maybe we’re all just the dinosaurs. I’ll tell you in five years. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if my rock & roll career is over, but I’m going for as long as people want to see me perform or make records.

“I mean, it’s not like a job. I don’t punch a time clock. I don’t have to check out the traffic report in the morning. I’ve been doing this since high school. If someone rings the bell and says the party’s over, I’m gonna be in trouble. I’ve got three kids and a wife, I don’t know what would happen. What kind of resume could I put together? The last job I had was in the police department and that was in 1968!

“I don’t know I think I have a lot of life left in me, and I think this album is really good and I really hope it does well.”

Working for a Living

Ultimately, Right Here received a modicum of airplay and included what ultimately became his final Top 40 hit, “I’ll Get By,” which charted to #21. The following year, he released his first live album, the criminally underrated Unplug It In, while Love and Money came and went in 1995. A second live album (and DVD), Shakin’ with the Money Man, arrived in ’97, and his final studio album of original material, Ready Eddie, was released in 1999.

Since that time, a slew of greatest hits compilations have been flooding the market, with the two-disc, 35-song The Essential Eddie Money being the best encapsulation of his lengthy and varied career.

“You couldn’t sell me as a hostage in Europe. If you want to really break in Europe you have to break through in England and I just haven’t made it there. They wined me and dined me there and I had a wonderful time, but I just never sold a lick of shit there.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler

Ironically, for all his stardom in America, Money jokingly points out that he never was able to crack the international market. “You couldn’t sell me as a hostage in Europe,” he cracked. “I don’t know, I do pretty good in Germany and sell some records in Italy and Sweden, but I couldn’t get arrested in the U.K. I sell pretty well in Australia and Japan, but if you want to really break in Europe you have to break through in England and I just haven’t made it there. They wined me and dined me there and I had a wonderful time, but I just never sold a lick of shit there.”

Since the dawn of the new millennium, Money’s career has centered on the concert stage, something that he’s incredibly grateful for. “I have to pay the bills, ya know,” he said, “and touring around the country and playing my music to great fans certainly beats mowing lawns or digging ditches. I love playing live for people, but let’s face it I’m not crazy about the cauliflower and dip in the dressing rooms. I’m not in it for the cold cuts, ya know.

“I go out on the road because it keeps the money coming in and the money keeps going out, and people seem to still want to see me perform, so this is my job and how I make a buck. No different than anyone else who works for a living.

“I can pretty much play what I want in concert, as long as I include things like ‘Two Tickets to Paradise’ and ‘Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star’ and things like that. But I don’t do things like ‘The Big Crash’ or ‘Club Michelle’ anymore, but I can always bring them back if I want to. I’d love to do three-hour shows like Springsteen, but that’s not really what people want from me.”

“Touring around the country and playing my music to great fans certainly beats mowing lawns or digging ditches. I love playing live for people, but let’s face it I’m not crazy about the cauliflower and dip in the dressing rooms.”

Eddie Money (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

At the time of our last meeting in ’91, I asked Eddie about the possibility of him moving into the world of acting, as his personality would seem to be a tailor-made fit. “I’ve met a lot of big-time movie directors, like Francis Ford Coppola, who tell me that I should get into movies and that I’d be a natural actor,” he admitted. “But fuck that shit, what am I gonna do, be like Sting in Dune, and spend six months in a scorching hot tin can trailer in the desert to appear for six minutes in my underwear for one of the biggest flops in the century? Nah, I’m not interested in that at this point.”

And while it’s not acting, per se, Money did make a few appearances on the telly, like the memorable 2002 one on the hit sit-com King of Queens, starring his friend Kevin James. In the episode, James’ character lands a financial windfall and spends his money crazily in one day before his wife finds out, including hiring Eddie to give a private performance at his house.

Final Thoughts

Last year, Eddie and his family—second wife Laurie, whom he married in 1989, and his five kids—moved into the world of reality television with their series Real Money on AXS-TV. Sadly, an episode discussing his cancer diagnosis aired just one day before he succumbed to his illness yesterday. That’s a bit too much reality.

Enjoy your ticket to paradise, Eddie. Thanks for all the laughs and music. You will be missed. So let’s end this little tribute in a way that the Money Man would appreciate: Everybody Rock ‘n’ Roll the Place this weekend.

Nicky Hopkins: The Legendary Ivory-Tickler

Nicky Hopkins: The Legendary Ivory-Tickler

By Steven P. Wheeler

On the 25th anniversary of his tragic passing at the age of 50 due to complications from intestinal surgery, I’ve pulled out my old tapes from two interviews with this member of rock royalty. Nicky Hopkins was a true legend whose remarkable and unmistakable piano work graced some of the greatest songs in music history, and that is not hyperbole.

Always humble and unassuming, when I pointed out during one of our interviews that he was the only musician to have worked with British rock’s three most famous bands—The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who—he simply paused for a moment and said, “I guess that’s true. Interesting thought. Wave the flags, boys.”

Nicky with the Stones in the studio working on the soon-to-be classic “Sympathy For the Devil” in 1968.

Nicky’s credits and career are unparalleled among session musicians. The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Jeff Beck Group, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, the list is endless. Hell, the guy even played Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane. But his immortal legacy also included work outside the rock world, including playing with seemingly everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Willie Nelson. He even played with Spinal Tap bringing a reality to their parodies, not surprising given Nicky’s wit and his well-known love of Monty Python.

While I can only scratch the surface of his illustrious career, I’ve also included some personal anecdotes of spending some personal time with the quiet man from Middlesex, England, both in the recording studio and out.

A brief snippet of Nicky’s haunting work on John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy,” of which Yoko Ono says: “Nicky Hopkins’ playing on ‘Jealous Guy’ is so melodic and beautiful that it still makes everyone cry, even now.”

The Early Days

The son of an accountant, Nicky received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 1955, where he was ingrained with classical music for five years, from the age of 11 to 16. But rock & roll snagged his attention at the age 15 and by the following year, in 1960, the prodigy was on the road with Screaming Lord Sutch, Britain’s original “shock rocker” before that term ever existed.

“In 1960, I started with Screaming Lord Sutch,” Hopkins told me, “and what happened was that the drummer, Carlo Little, and I who were with Sutch, later joined the Cyril Davies All-Stars, which was quite a big band. Cyril was the foremost blues artist in England and I got quite a reputation playing in that band.

“In fact, the Stones were our support act back in ’62 and ’63 and that’s how I first got to know them. But we didn’t run into each other much in those days because they were on the road a lot and they were also recording at RCA/Victor Studios in Hollywood, and that was long before I ever came over here to America. Their first album was recorded in England, but after that they were recording in the States.”

Just as his reputation was growing throughout the London music industry, Hopkins early career came to a life-threatening halt. Always suffering from illness during his childhood, he was hospitalized for more than a year, ultimately losing his gall bladder, a kidney, and suffering a collapsed lung as well.

“Nobody in the world ever played piano like Nicky Hopkins—the way he played chords. A piano is a piano, and the keys are the keys, and the chords are chords, but one individual can make that same piano sound so different from another person and Nicky embodied that whole thing, man. Nicky played like nobody else. Nicky always sounded like he was in a cloud somewhere. His playing was astonishingly beautiful. He always elevated everybody.”

Legendary session drummer Jim Keltner

The Sessions Begin

After two years, his career was kick-started again in 1965 when his former Sutch mate, drummer Carlo Little offered him a session gig after the scheduled pianist had called in sick right before the recording session. Eager to get working again, Hopkins stepped up and when he walked in the studio there was future legendary producer Glyn Johns handling the recording engineer duties, future Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page was producing the session, and some guy named Jeff Beck was playing guitar. “It was quite a session,” Hopkins recalled with a laugh.

“It was for some song that never saw the light of day, but what happened at the end of the session was that Jimmy Page said, ‘Do you guys want to do a jam? I’ll give all of you an acetate of it.’ And we thought, ‘Great, we’ll play and get a copy of whatever we do.’

“So we jammed for about half-an-hour but we never got an acetate, and then about three years later the thing came out on some anthology called The Best of the British Blues, which came out on RCA/Victor. That was quite interesting to see that go down. No royalties on that one,” he noted. Something that the future session superstar would grow used to, reluctantly.

Future Faces and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and Nicky during their time together in the Jeff Beck Group.

“But what happened is that from that session,” Hopkins explained, “Glyn was responsible for putting me in touch with Shel Talmy, who was producing The Kinks and The Who, and that’s how I started working with them, and things just sort of snowballed from there. I became the most sought after keyboard player in England.”

Nicky recorded loads of sessions with The Kinks, with “Sunny Afternoon” being a #1 hit.

Kinks’ singer-songwriter Ray Davies said of Nicky shortly after his death in 1994: “Nicky, unlike lesser musicians, didn’t try to show off; he would only play when necessary. But he had the ability to turn an ordinary track into a gem–slotting in the right chord at the right time or dropping a set of triplets around the back beat, just enough to make you want to dance. On a ballad, he could sense which notes to wrap around the song without being obtrusive. He managed to give ‘Days,’ for instance, a mysterious religious quality without being sentimental or pious.”

For his part, when I asked about how he became such an in-demand talent, he would only say: “There were a few piano players in England at the time who could play rock & roll, but they didn’t have the music theory background that I had and they couldn’t read charts and they had no formal musical training like I had. So I was able to take on all sorts of work. Bands in those days could never write down chord charts, and I was able to come up with things very quickly. I got a name for doing that within a few years.”

Enter the Stones

So in demand was Hopkins by 1966 that he was inked to his own record deal and released his first solo album The Revolutionary Piano of Nicky Hopkins, featuring his twist on hit songs from all over the musical map.

In 1967, Olympic Studios in London became the first eight-track studio in England and the Rolling Stones began recording in their homeland after so many years making records in America. Soon enough, Hopkins got the call from the Stones as they were recording Their Satanic Majesties Request. These first sessions would lead to Hopkins becoming a vital musical force as part of the Rolling Stones for more than a decade, including three tours and countless albums and sessions.

“The first thing I ever recorded with them was a song called ‘We Love You,’ recalled Hopkins. “There’s a piano riff that starts the song off and goes all the way through it, and I had that riff going around in my head for about three weeks before I started working with them. And, at one point, in the studio, I was just sitting at the piano and I started playing that riff and Mick and Keith came over and said, ‘Hey, that’s great. Keep playing that. Now take it up to B and back down to A and up to E,’ and so on.

Nicky’s driving piano riff that became the Stones’ “We Love You.”

“So we got the chord structure that way and then later on they added a top melody and words. So my input with the Stones happened all different ways.”

Another Nicky Hopkins classic piano work during that first session with the Stones can be found on “She’s a Rainbow.”

“Revolution”

Ironically, “We Love You” also included some backing vocals from Paul McCartney and John Lennon from that other band. And within a year, the Fab Four called on Hopkins to play some electric piano on their next single, the electrifying “Revolution.” Hopkins’ solo in the blistering rocker is one for the books.

Nicky’s fiendishly crazy solo in “Revolution” remains a classic. He would also record with each of the individual Beatle’s solo albums following the breakup of the Fab Four.

“That’s what was so great about those days is that the musicians would all hangout together in the studios,” Hopkins maintains. “You never knew who would be around from day to day. And as a result of that Stones session, John called me the following year in ‘68 to play on the fast, electric version of ‘Revolution,’ which they were going to release as a single.

And they were all pleased with what I did on that song, and then John said, ‘We have lots more work. Do you fancy doing some?’ Of course I said, ‘Yeah, that’d be great.’ But he never called [laughs].” More on that later.

Nicky’s memorable keyboard work during this Let It Bleed recording remains timeless.

Having worked with both the Stones and the Beatles, I asked about whether the rumors of a serious competition between the two bands was true. “No, not at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite,” he said. “They hung out quite a lot and supported each other. A lot of people think that after the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper that the Stones tried to do the same thing with Satanic Majesties, and that they were trying to outdo each other.

“It wasn’t that,” he continued. “I think people were just moving in various new directions because of the particular drugs they were taking. I mean, there was a lot of LSD flying around at that time [laughs].”

Nicky can be seen playing live with the Stones on the Rock & Roll Circus TV special in 1968.

Coming to America

While working on the Stones’ two most legendary albums of the ’60s—Beggar’s Banquet (including the “We are deeply indebted to Nicky Hopkins” message on the sleeve) and Let It Bleed—Hopkins also turned down Jimmy Page’s offer to join his new band Led Zeppelin and after working with the Jeff Beck Group on the immortal Truth album, Hopkins briefly joined that band instead in early ’69 recording the epic Beck-Ola featuring his beautiful instrumental “Girl From Mill  Valley.”

Nicky’s sublime composition from his days as a member of the Jeff Beck Group in 1969.

Following a few months of touring the U.S., Beck abruptly disbanded the group. Vocalist Rod Stewart and bassist Ronnie Wood would join The Faces, and Hopkins would relocate to the Bay Area of California amidst the remnants of the Summer of Love, which took place a few years previous.

“I came here to do some work with Steve Miller in the middle of ’69, who was working with Glyn Johns at the time. I was only supposed to be there for two or three weeks and then I was supposed to join back up with the Stones, but I told them I just couldn’t leave San Francisco,” Nicky said with a laugh. “That little stay lasted about seven-and-a-half years.”

Woodstock

At that time, Hopkins also hooked up with the quintessential Bay Area band of that era, Jefferson Airplane, on their hit album Volunteers. Then in August of that year, he joined the Airplane onstage for a little gig known as Woodstock.

Nicky onstage at Woodstock playing with the Jefferson Airplane.

“Oh yeah, that was amazing,” he recalled. “It was incredible. I didn’t know what it was before we went, I just heard that it was gonna be some big concert on the East Coast. There had been other big concerts, but this was to be the biggest. What none of us knew was that it was still going to be talked about all these years later.

A little over three months later, the positive vibes of Woodstock would be wiped out by the insanity and murder that occurred at Altamont where the Stones and the Airplane performed. “Interestingly enough, I was going to play at Altamont a couple of months later because I didn’t live too far from there,” Hopkins explained, “but something held me back; very strange.”

Much in demand, Hopkins then joined another Northern California psychedelic band. This time it was with Quicksilver Messenger Service for two albums, which were often dominated by Hopkins’ keyboards, most prominently on the epic, “Edward, the Mad Shirt Grinder.”

Of his three solo albums, Hopkins said: “The Revolutionary Piano album did quite well in England in ‘66. The second one, The Tin Man Was a Dreamer, did even better in ‘72, but the next one No More Changes wasn’t a great record. It was a dreadful record that came out in ’75. It was not a good time for me and it was made under the effect of too many drugs.”

John Lennon

Then in ’71, I went back to England, and John Lennon called me to come work on the Imagine album. John came out and met me because we recorded it at his house, Tittenhurst Park, out in the country. And I said, ‘What ever happened back in ’68? You said you guys had a lot more work, but you never called.’ And he said, ‘We all figured you were just too busy with the Stones to bother’ [laughs].”

“John was a great guy. I mean, he was fallible, he was human and he had his problems but he was a great dreamer. He had great visions of how he would ideally conceive the world to be and I considered him to be a spokesman for me and, of course, millions of other people.”

Nicky Hopkins (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

After having arrived after not seeing each other since the “Revolution” sessions three years previously, Hopkins makes clear that he didn’t see any major changes in the former Beatle. “I can’t say that I saw any real changes in John between the time of the Beatles and when we hooked up again for the Imagine album.

“To me, John was a great guy. I mean, he was fallible, he was human and he had his problems but he was a great dreamer. He had great visions of how he would ideally conceive the world to be and I considered him to be a spokesman for me and, of course, millions of other people. He was the one who got up there and said what we were all feeling and it was great.

“The author L. Ron Hubbard once said: ‘A culture is only as great as its dreams and those dreams are dreamed by artists.’ And I thought that really summed up John Lennon because he really did dream for all of us.

“I have very, very fond memories of John. He worked very quickly in the studio, which is how I like to work, and he did it with no sacrifice to the quality of the work. He was just able to get things done properly in a record amount of time.

“When he moved to New York at the end of 1971, I came over to play on his ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over)’ single and I said to him, ‘Why did you move to New York?’ because, to me, it was always such an intense and fast city. I always found it difficult to be there for more than a couple of weeks. And he just said, ‘It’s the only place that I’ve found that can keep up with me.’ And he was not joking, he was serious, and it all made sense to me. Working with John was definitely a highlight of my career.”

“Who’s Next”

In between the Imagine sessions and the ‘Happy Xmas’ single, Hopkins also worked on one of the greatest rock albums in history, The Who’s Who’s Next. “The thing about The Who was that Pete Townshend would come in the studio with a finished acetate of whatever song that he had done at his home studio. And the version done by The Who would turn out either slightly better or slightly worse than what Pete had done in his home studio by himself.”

“Getting in Tune” is a great example of Nicky’s keyboard versatility as he moves from the tender melodic beauty of the intro to the piano-pounding jam that closes this Who classic.

Having played on so many classic albums, the question I had for Nicky was whether or not, he knew these sessions were truly that special at the time. “There are times when I do realize just how magical an album is going to be during the sessions,” he said. ” There are times when I do realize just how magical an album is going to be during the sessions. I certainly felt that with Beggar’s Banquet and Let It Bleed, and on ‘Revolution’ and on John’s albums Imagine and Walls & Bridges and ‘Happy Xmas,’ and also with Who’s Next. It really was obvious that they were going to be huge albums. How could that not? [laughs].

Rolling Stoned

In 1971, Nicky was back with the Stones for a few cuts on Sticky Fingers, and the following year he was living with the band during the famous Exile on Main Street sessions and he would become a sixth member of the group by joining them on three tours from 1971-73.

Nicky Hopkins (second from left), the sixth Stone, during the band’s 1973 tour in Australia.

His longtime health issues brought his touring with the Stones to an end, but he would continue to record with them throughout the rest of the ‘70s adding his unmistakable majestic talents to such hits as “Angie,” “Time Waits for No One,” “Fool to Cry” and “Waiting on a Friend.”

During those infamous tours with the Stones, the question arises as to how accurate those tales of debaunchery truly are: “At that time, it really was like being an official member of the band. I was either in the studio or on tour with them, so it really was like that.

“I wouldn’t say that all those stories have been blown out of proportion, although it’s bound to get exaggerated somewhat,” he revealed. “But there was a lot of strange people that would always be around the band and come on the road and that was a hard element to deal with. Posers, lots of posers were around in those days.

“You Are So Beautiful”

Throughout his work with the Stones, Hopkins was still playing sessions constantly with other artists and his magic touch helped create hit after hit after hit. Probably most memorable is the stunning duet between Nicky and Joe Cocker on the classic ballad, “You Are So Beautiful.”

“Every time I hear Joe Cocker’s ‘You Are So Beautiful’ I want to cry before Joe’s vocals even come in. People try to emulate that piano piece, but there’s only one person could have played that… Nicky Hopkins.”  

Peter Frampton

“That was a memorable session,” Hopkins said in a massive understatement. “My work with Joe Cocker would have to be at the top of my list, because he’s such a wonderful guy and we had so great times together. It’s great to see him today because he looks so great and he sounded great, and it’s great to see him having so much success all these years later.

“I would love to do something with Joe again, but I don’t see how that’s possible because he’s had Chris Stainton with him for the past 15 years and they work well together.”

Although their collaboration brought Cocker back into the spotlight with that classic track, when Nicky joined Cocker on his 1977 tour, their boozing reached new heights as the pianist explained: “Joe wasn’t do good at that time and quite honestly neither was I. Some people thought we were having some sort of competition [laughs], it’s just that we were both so out of it in those days we used to hang out all the time.

Nicky and Joe Cocker relaxing with friends during their wild and crazy 1977 tour.
(Photo by Scott Whitehair/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

“Plus, [notorious partier and Stones’ sax player] Bobby Keys was with us too. Apparently we toured Australia and New Zealand and South America for like six weeks I think. At least, people told us we did [laughs]. It was a good time actually. I do remember some of it.”

The List Goes On

Here are just a few of some more memorable Nicky performances from the ’70s…

Nicky would not only play on this #1 U.K. hit in 1975, but he would also tour the world as Garfunkel’s musical director into the late ’80s and early ’90s.
This epic live performance of the Dylan classic features some stunning work from the nimble fingers of both Jerry Garcia and Nicky Hopkins during their 1975 tour.

The Final Years

In the years before his untimely death in 1994, Nicky continued session work with the likes of Paul McCartney, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, Gary Moore, Jack Bruce, Graham Parker and also took part in the Jefferson Airplane’s reunion album. In addition, shortly before his death, he broke into the world of scoring for television with three soundtrack albums released in Japan.

“Nicky played on a couple of my albums and we became friends and often hung out with each other in both Los Angeles and London for some years. As well as his beautiful piano work, he was a lovely guy who could do a pitch-perfect Monty Python sketch like nobody’s business. Oh, how we laughed!  I miss him so much.” – Graham Parker
“Nicky Hopkins was probably the greatest piano player I ever performed with, both for his many years working with the Rolling Stones, and recording with him later for the Rhythm Kings and at charity concerts. He was a genius. I visited his home in San Francisco, and during ‘Exile On Main Street’ sessions in the South of France, he would stay at my house. Once in Olympic Studios, [Stones original pianist] Ian Stewart played Nicky and I the first track of the new Delaney & Bonnie album, and Nicky went into the studio and played the entire thing perfectly after just one hearing. Ian Stewart turned to me and said, ‘That’s what I don’t like about Nicky Hopkins.’” – Bill Wyman

My Nicky Memories

I had the good fortune of getting to know Nicky quite well in the last year or so of his abbreviated life. Interviewed him twice and also invited him to be a judge with me at a “Battle of the Bands” type contest in Hermosa Beach. That was a good day as it was cool for him to get some face-to-face feedback from fans after his introduction, which I scribbled down quickly for the emcee.

When they realized that a member of rock royalty was in their midst, with his incredible and endless credits, the bands (who weren’t all that great, by the way) wanted to talk with him after the show.

NIcky and Keith work out some musical passages while Mick and saxophonist Bobby Keys look on during the Exile on Main Street sessions in France.

Then, and this is my GREATEST memory of Nicky. I hesitantly asked him to play on a session for a band that I was managing who were signed to SRC Records (an affiliate label through Zoo/BMG) at the time in the early 90s.

I remember him in the studio listening to the six-minute track, “Desolation Unknown,” an Allman Brothers-ish rock ballad, for the first time. We had planned on him adding some simple organ textures. After hearing the tune for the first time, he said in his English lilt, “Do you mind if I try something on piano instead?”

We were like, “Um, sure, whatever you think.”

Nicky left the booth went out behind the glass and sat at the piano, gave a nod, and as the tape rolled, he began playing on the first take. It didn’t take long until we were staring at each other, going, “Oh my god!” His piano parts LITERALLY made it sound as if we had added an orchestra to the track.

After that first take, we were all clapping and saying, “Wow, that’s amazing, Nicky, thanks.” But he didn’t get up from the piano, and just said, “Let me try it again.”

The producer said, “Let me save that one, give me a second.” To our disbelief, Nicky quietly replied, “No need, erase it. Just let me do it again.”

We were mumbling to ourselves in the booth, “Damn, that was perfect, we should really save it.”

Nicky playing the keyboards for Joe Cocker during their 1977 tour.
(Photo by Scott Whitehair/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

Meanwhile the producer had already started the playback for the second take, and this time Nicky brought in his amazing goosebump-inducing “ivory teardrop fills” in just the right places and it was truly a 1,000 percent improvement over the previous take which we had already felt was incredible.

Our singer-songwriter then pressed the talk-back button and asked him to do a piano solo that might replace the current guitar solo. Nicky listened to the guitar solo again and said, “Why would you want to remove that? That’s a brilliant solo. Really, don’t mess with it.”

I’ll never forget the smile on our guitarist’s face when he heard that. He was beaming up on Cloud 9, courtesy of the greatest compliment a musician can ever hear coming as it did from the man who had played with the greatest guitarists in rock music history.

I still remember to this very day the musical nirvana that made the hair on my arms stand on end as I witnessed Nicky play that second take. And I am getting them again as I listen to that song while writing this. The greatest 15 musical minutes I ever experienced in a recording studio, and outside as well.

Nicky and John Lennon during the Imagine recordings sessions in 1971.

Then, from the piano bench, Nicky humbly asked: “Got anything else?” We played him a barroom, tongue-in-cheek rocker called, “Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet,” and Nicky loved the lyrics and said, “Let it roll.”

Nicky brought out his other artistic side with some rollicking rock piano, and one-and-a-half takes later, we were once again humbled by his brilliance. A great memory that I shall never ever forget.

Nicky moved to Nashville the following year, and we had one conversation during that time, when I pitched him on helping put together a book detailing his life and amazing career. He had openly shared so many stories, so many sessions, so many tours, so much history, that I knew his story needed to be documented properly.

I sent him a proposal of what it would look like, however he then explained that he had already entered the beginning phases of working with the late music biographer Ray Coleman. However Nicky passed away within a year, in 1994, and Coleman himself died two years later, nearly to the day of Nicky’s death.

Fortunately, in 2011, British singer-songwriter Julian Dawson, who had done some recording with Nicky right before his passing, published the biography, And on Piano…Nicky Hopkins.

He will always be classic rock’s greatest keyboardist in my humble opinion. And one thing I will say, in either an interview situation or more importantly in regular shooting-the-shit situations, Nicky NEVER had a bad word to say about anyone; at least to me.

He laughed easily, talked openly and candidly about his experiences—the great memories and even the “blurry” ones. He was just one of those men who didn’t seem to bother wasting energy on bad-mouthing anybody; and despite his amazing history, he was extremely humble even a bit shy at times.

A true gentleman and a spectacular talent (that I was fortunate enough to witness first-hand in the studio) is how I will always remember him.

Memorialized in 2018

Last year, Nicky’s former manager Gray Levett and stalwart fan John Wood created a crowdfunding campaign to erect a permanent memorial to this musician’s musician, in the form of a park bench designed like a piano in the area where Nicky spent his childhood.

The campaign offered the opportunity for pledgers to have their name inscribed on the bench and contribute towards funding a music scholarship at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where Nicky Hopkins himself won a scholarship in the 1950s.

Among the names who pledged to the campaign included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Yoko Ono Lennon, Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Page, Johnnie Walker, Bob Harris and Kenney Jones.

“It’s unbelievable to think that Nicky won no awards for his stellar contribution to the music industry,” Gray Levett said in a statement. “Many fans feel, as do I, that he is the ultimate unsung rock hero and that he definitely deserves to be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We hope this memorial will go some way towards acknowledging Nicky for his extraordinary talent. We’re hoping that his bench will find its way onto London’s rock tourist circuit, attracting fans from all over the world.”

The bench was officially dedicated in a ceremony last September. An online campaign to try and get Nicky into his rightful place within the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ended last week on September 1st. We can only hope that the Hall does the proper thing and inducts Nicky Hopkins soon.

Nicky’s widow Moira and his sister Dee at the memorial event in September 2018.
Bernie Taupin: Elton’s “Write” Hand Man

Bernie Taupin: Elton’s “Write” Hand Man

By Steven P. Wheeler

It is the summer of 1989. Six months of phone calls and patience has finally paid off. Bernie Taupin, the man who has been placing words into the mouth of Elton John since 1967, sits behind the desk in a cluttered office high atop Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, willing to discuss all aspects of his illustrious career.

As one half of the most prolific and enduring songwriting team in pop music history, Taupin, like his more famous partner, is a musical legend.

The English-born lyricist arrived a few minutes late after flying in from Denver, Colorado, where Elton’s Sleeping With the Past Tour had made a stop. Taupin noted that he is accompanying Elton on the entire tour for the first time in more than a decade because “I’m really into this project and I want to be with him for this album [Sleeping With the Past]. I also wanted to do one more tour before I hang up my road shoes.”

With a long ponytail falling from underneath a baseball cap and earrings dangling from each ear, the then-39-year-old lyricist/poet/novelist has maintained his “bohemic” image after 20 years in the fickle business of music, and steadfastly believes that the John-Taupin partnership is producing some of its finest material to date.

Now that the scene has been set, I’ll also be adding in more dialogue that I had with Taupin when we sat down again in 1996 to discus his own band, Farm Dogs, as well as some current details of Bernie’s career as a visual artist to bring it all home.

The magical bio-pic Rocketman is also available now for home viewing this week, so check it out if you missed it in theaters.

Elton’s memorable induction speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

The Ad That Changed Music History

Born May 22, 1950, the second of three sons, Bernie Taupin always dreamed of being a writer, but schooling wasn’t something that the future songwriting legend put a lot of stock in. Leaving school at 15, the closest he came to a writing career in those days was working in the printing room of the local newspaper.

Like many kids his age growing up in Lincolnshire, England, the dreamer with a fascination for America was a bit directionless and sought more than what his small town upbringing had to offer. “I was living in the north of England. I was basically a farm hand. It was either sink or swim for me at that time,” Taupin explained. “I was either going to break out of the area, because the area I was living in was sort of akin to living in Indiana or Nebraska, where you have two opportunities after you leave school: you either work on the land and drive a tractor or you go and work in the steel towns.

“Living in Lincolnshire, I did both of those things: I worked on the land and I worked in a factory. I did have a certain literary background on my mother’s side of the family. My mother was very instrumental in making me read good literature and she was always encouraging me to write. And my grandfather was a college professor, so I always had aspirations of writing. Obviously, it was very youthful writing at that time, but, again, it was an early time.”

Always a music fan, one day in 1967, Taupin was thumbing through his latest copy of the New Musical Express and happened upon an ad. Little did he know that his life was just about to change forever.

The actual ad that a teenage poet named Bernie Taupin and a pianist named Reginald Dwight would both answer, and soon would discover that fate had brought them together.

“I answered that ad out of desperation, really,” Taupin told me in 1989. “Elton and I did meet through an ad in the New Musical Express in 1967. It’s not that complicated really. We both answered the same ad, and just through the ingenuity of Ray Williams, one of the people involved in placing the ad—which was actually for Liberty Records when they broke away from EMI—we were put together.

“They were just starting a new company, and they needed everybody—they needed somebody to clean the floors, they needed somebody to write songs, they needed artists, they needed promo men.”

Reginald Dwight (aka Elton John) with Ray Williams, who gave the unknown pianist a batch of lyrics sent in by Bernie Taupin. Elton would actually write music to quite a few of Taupin’s lyrics before the two would actually meet face-to-face.
The very first song ever written by Reg Dwight and Bernie Taupin in 1967.

As for his part, Taupin says that his early attempt at writing song lyrics were heavily influenced by the era, which, in America, would become known as the Summer of Love.

“When we first met, the object was basically to write songs. There was no notion in our minds that Elton was to be a performer. It was just Bernie Taupin and Reg Dwight then, and we were signed to Dick James Music, and we were writing songs.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“It was the late ‘60s, and it was the era of tremendous pretention,” he stated with a laugh. “So the things that I was writing when I first attempted to write lyrics, which I didn’t really know what I was supposed to write, were appalling rip-offs of John Lennon material or Procol Harum or things like that.

“I was writing things like ‘The Chocolate Lakes of Your Mind,’ ‘The Year of the Teddy Bear’ and ‘Swan Queen of the Laughing Lake.’ They were all these sort of acid-trip things, which I had no justification in writing because I didn’t even know what acid looked like at the time.”

Another early attempt from the Dwight/Taupin partnership.

The Tin Pan Alley Twins

Eventually the two budding songwriters would meet and they were signed to Dick James Music. Contrary to his portrayal in the Rocketman movie, Dick James was a major player in the industry who owned The Beatles publishing.

“When we first met, the object was basically to write songs. There was no notion in our minds that Elton was to be a performer,” explained Taupin. “It was just Bernie Taupin and Reg Dwight then, and we were signed to Dick James Music, and we were writing songs.

Bernie Taupin and Reginald Dwight, the songwriting team signed to Dick James Music.

“Now, this was still in the days of Tin Pan Alley and Denmark Street in London, when most singers who were making records were not writing their own songs. It was really the days of Tom Jones and Lulu. Even the groups that were out there were recording a lot of outside material. So there was a great demand for songs, and we weren’t nurtured and we weren’t encouraged to write what we wanted to write.

An example of the “big-time ballads” that Dwight and Taupin were writing for artists like Tom Jones. Not surprisingly, they were not being recorded by the artists in question.

“We were sort of forced to write big-time ballads for people like Engelbert Humperdink and Tom Jones—not that they ever recorded any of our material because it really wasn’t any good.”

The Turning Point

Just as the unsung Ray Williams put the two songwriters together, another person lost to history who played a vital role in the evolution of the Dwight/Taupin team was a maverick within the Dick James company, as Bernie explained: “In order to make money we had to write that kind of material. But on the side, we started tinkering with a little bit more experimental songs.

“And sometime later on, a guy named Steve Brown came into the Dick James organization and heard some of the songs we were trying to write for other people, and he said, ‘Listen, don’t be writing this shit. Concentrate on writing exactly what you want to write. Don’t worry about Dick, I’ll pacify him,’ because Dick was still paying our way.”

Reginald Dwight (now Elton John), Bernie, drummer Nigel Olsson, Steve Brown and Dick James. The long-haired and bearded Brown was the maverick executive who told the young songwriters to stop trying to write songs for other people and to write for themselves.

“We were writing these kinds of songs, and it was at that point that we realized that the only people who could really record them was ourselves. And Elton had been singing on all the demos, so I just said, ‘Well, I guess it has to be you because you have the better voice and you play the piano.’ It could have been anybody, I guess, it could have been me.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
“Lady Samantha” was the first single released by the newly christened artist Elton John to get any radio airplay and notice, as limited as the recognition was in early 1969. The duo got a boost when the American group, Three Dog Night recorded “Lady Samantha” on their album.

“So we sort of went home and start writing what we felt like writing, and those were the nucleus of the early songs like ‘Lady Samantha’ that would eventually lead up to the Empty Sky album. We were writing these kinds of songs, and it was at that point that we realized that the only people who could really record them was ourselves. And Elton had been singing on all the demos, so I just said, ‘Well, I guess it has to be you because you have the better voice and you play the piano.’ It could have been anybody, I guess, it could have been me [laughs].”

Two Rooms

The most interesting aspect of the John/Taupin partnership is how they work. Taupin starts the process by writing or typing out his lyrics, passes them on to Elton and leaves the ivory-tickler to come up with the music. This bizarre working relationship is the same today as it was when they began in 1967.

“Over the years, the actual style of our writing has not changed,” Taupin states. “I’ve always written the lyrics first and given them to Elton and he writes the music. We’ve always worked totally separate, but it’s a 50-50 deal.

“In the early days, when we were writing those first initial songs, we were living at Elton’s mother’s apartment in Northwood Hills just outside of London, and it was very much like two young songwriters honing their craft.  I mean, we were discovering the way each other worked. It’s about honing your craft, about discovering each other’s working patterns.”

Elton demonstrates the writing process with a new song called “Tiny Dancer.”

“It was funny, I’d be in the bedroom writing lyrics and he’d be in the living room at the stand-up piano,” Taupin continued, “and I’d bring him some lyrics and go back to the bedroom and write some more. It was very childish.

“There’s a song on the Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy album [the autobiographical classic released in 1975] called ‘Writing,’ which I think does a very good job about summing up that period of time.”

Taupin’s brilliant lyric detailing the early days when the two songwriters were writing songs day and night while living with Elton’s mother in the late ’60s.

“Even to this day people find it very strange that that’s how we work. I mean, I don’t know any other songwriting team that’s ever done it this way. So we really broke the mold. And, for me, it was a dream come true because I didn’t have to conform to any restrictions. I could just write what I wanted.

“In those early days, I had no real sense of form. I was just writing very, very long pieces and Elton was honing them into songs. For historical note, a lot of those early songs probably had several more verses.”

This “honing’ process even happened as late as 1972 and resulted in one of pop music’s classic hits. “It’s like the famous story of ‘Daniel.’ The original lyric of ‘Daniel’ had another verse, which basically explained what the song was about. But because it was too long, we left it out and, of course, to this day people are still wondering what that song is about.

“It’s basically about a young boy whose older brother is a Vietnam vet who comes home to the farm, and he can’t find any peace, so he flies off to Spain where he can hopefully find some. It’s written from the boy’s point of view as he watches him fly away.”

“Empty Sky” Album

With the encouragement of Steve Brown at Dick James Music, it was time to try and push the newly christened Elton John to do an album after the less than successful singles. With a very small budget and Brown helming the sessions as producer, the result was the album Empty Sky, which was only released in England. America would have to wait.

Looking back on that debut album, one can’t help but feel Taupin’s fondness for that first big moment in their career. Still in his teens at the time, and Elton only 22, this was an early dream come true for the pair, even if there was no sign that stardom was on the horizon.

“[Empty Sky] got a modicum of good reaction. It got just as much bad reaction,” the lyricist says with a laugh. “It was a slightly sort of pretentious album. I think we were still finding our way. It was a very naïve album.

“Lyrically, it was steeped in Norse mythology and sort of based on what I was reading at the time, which was a lot of science fiction by writers like H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft. So it came across like that.”

Despite being recorded in a primitive two-track studio, some of the magic of the John/Taupin partnership could be seen. When pushed, Taupin does agree that this first effort did include some worthy material.

“It did have its moments,” he agreed. “The title track was quite interesting. I actually wouldn’t mind re-recording that song because it was done in a two-track studio at the time [laughs]. We were basically trying to do ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ with that introduction [Bernie drums on the desk like the conga intro of the song].

The overlooked title track of the Empty Sky album.

“But that one track really stands out for me, and, in fact, until sometime in the mid-‘70s Elton used to do that song on stage. It would be interesting to do that song again, I think.”

When Taupin is reminded of another song from the album, he readily agrees: “There’s a couple of other decent songs on that album. ‘Skyline Pigeon’ is on there, which is a fairly naïve lyric, but it’s actually a good song, a good melody.”

‘Skyline Pigeon’ & Ryan White

Elton has said that 1969’s “Skyline Pigeon” was the first song that he and Bernie had felt truly excited about; that they had found their voice for the first time.

Bu twenty years later, the significance of the song would take on an entirely new meaning as Elton would perform this song at the funeral for teenage AIDS victim Ryan White. White made national news after he had contracted the deadly virus through a blood transfusion in 1984 at the age of 13. He died in 1990 at 18, with a quote from Bernie’s lyric gracing his headstone.

Bernie, Ryan White and Elton not longer before White’s tragic death in 1990.

During the final week of Ryan’s life in Indiana, Elton spent a lot of time with Ryan and his family. The pampered superstar was humbled by the family who bore no ill will towards the bigotry and indignation they suffered during those early days of the AIDS crisis: protests to keep White from returning to his high school, gunshots fired at their home, which forced them to leave their hometown.

It was Ryan’s forgiveness and grace and his mother’s humility in the face of losing her child that impacted Elton and made him look at his own life. At that point in time, Elton was a major drug addict who lived a life of privilege and wealth with no sense of reality; even to the point of calling his management company to have them do something about the strong wind that was blowing outside his hotel room and keeping him awake.

Within six months of Ryan’s death, Elton would get sober and has remained so ever since. He also started his own AIDS Foundation in 1992 that has raised nearly half-a-billion dollars over the past 27 years.

Elton performing “Skyline Pigeon” at Ryan White’s funeral in 1990.

The Beginning of Fame

Although Empty Sky barely made a ripple of an impact in England, Dick James did put his money where his mouth was and spent a lot of money on the next album. The self-titled album would be the first to be released in America and it was the first major step in what has become a 50-year journey of fame and fortune for the two songwriters.

“I don’t know what we expected from that record,” Taupin recalls, “but I think it gave Dick James some confidence in us. At the time of the Empty Sky album, I think Dick realized that he had something going because at that time in England there was nobody of that ilk. America had its Van Morrisons, its Joni Mitchells, its Carole Kings and James Taylors, but there was nobody like that in England. So I guess we were the Great English Hope.

“And Dick, to all his credit, poured a lot of money into the Elton John album. And Steve Brown, who had produced the Empty Sky album only because he happened to be there at the time, said, ‘For this next album, we’ve got to get the right producer, we’ve got to get the right arranger, and we’ve got to build the right team around us.’ And that’s what we did with [producer] Gus Dudgeon and [arranger] Paul Buckmaster.”

The “team” that would turn Elton John into a household name within two years.
The innovative rocker that meshed rock & roll with an orchestra and choir from 1970’s self-titled album. Elton still plays “Take Me to the Pilot” in his concerts to this very day.

In a bold move, Dick James sent Elton and Bernie to America, along with drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray. The legendary concert engagement at The Troubadour in Los Angeles resulted in massive media coverage and word about the piano-playing madman spread across the U.S. like wildfire.

Bernie recalled those heady days when his childhood dream of coming to America was soon realized. “Luckily, the Elton John album was the one that took off. Funny enough, it actually took off in America first, and sort of boomeranged back to England. By the time we actually came to America to promote the Elton John album, we had already gotten the Tumbleweed Connection album in the bag too, which was to be the follow-up.

“When we first came to the States, we brought the tapes of the Tumbleweed album with us. I remember playing it for Robbie Robertson [chief songwriter and guitarist for The Band] in a hotel in New York. And from there, as they say, the rest is history.”

The American Dream

The mention of the Tumbleweed Connection classic instantly brings to mind visions of America in the days of simple pioneering days and the gunslinging Wild West. Ironically these vivid scenes and scenarios came from the pen of a teenage English kid who had never set foot on Yankee soil.

“Coming to the States was something that every kid in England wanted to do at that time,” Taupin says with a childlike enthusiasm. “When we got the opportunity at the time of the Elton John album in 1970, I think the real reason that Elton and I wanted to come here was so that we could see the record stores, because we were vinyl junkies back then. As a matter of fact, we still are.

“Plus, as a kid I kind of fed on Americana—American television, American literature—and I was obsessed with the American West. Like I said, we even did the Tumbleweed Connection album even before we came here, because I was so influenced by a mixture of things from The Band to Dylan, but definitely The Band because The Band to me epitomized Americana and that timeless quality. I loved The Band. I mean, The Band is probably still my all-time favorite rock and roll band. I think they encompass everything that is good in that art form.”

The classic track from 1970’s Tumbleweed Connection album was also covered by Rod Stewart on his own 1970 album, Gasoline Alley.

“A lot of the stuff we were listening to was coming out of the West Coast of America—people like Love, The Doors and Buffalo Springfield. It was that nucleus time. So we had this sort of preconceived notion of the Promised Land being California.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

While he had a dream of what America was really like, I asked Bernie if the States lived up to his expectations. His answer came swift and strong: “Oh yeah, absolutely, and even more probably. I don’t think anybody in Europe can understand America until they’ve actually been here. And when we first came here, the last thing on our mind was actually thinking about playing shows or performing. We just wanted to come and see it! It was phenomenal.

“As soon as I got here, I said that America is where I wanted to be. It was everything that I ever dreamed it was going to be and more. Before I knew it I had sold up shop and I was here, and I’ve never wanted to go back, and now I’m an American citizen.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

The question is whether he still feels the same nearly 50 years later? “Obviously a bit of the shine has worn off over the years,” he answers, “but as soon as I got here, after a couple of days, I said that America is where I wanted to be. It was everything that I ever dreamed it was going to be and more.

“In the next year or so, I got to discover America more by touring, which we did a lot of, and you see the expanse of the country and you see how different people live in different walks of life in America—from the shine here in L.A. to the blue-collar areas to the East Coast—and all those variables just appealed to me. Before I knew it I had sold up shop and I was here, and I’ve never wanted to go back, and now I’m an American citizen.”

American Music

“You see, the thing was that Elton and I fed on American imports while we were growing up in England,” the lifelong music lover explains, “and we just fed on American music. There used to be a place on Berwick Street in London, called One Stop Records, and it was really the only place in London that used to get all the American imports.

“On Fridays, we used to go down there and just wait for these shipments to come in. In those days, in England, they didn’t shrink-wrap records like they shrink-wrap records here, and there was just a difference in the materials that the album covers and the records were made with. It was really exciting to get the new Hendrix album or whatever, because every thing would usually come out in America first.”

By 1972, Bernie’s lyrics reflected his love for America in tone and style and with their Honky Chateau album they finally hit the top of the charts and would have a total of seven consecutive albums hit the #1 spot on the Billboard Charts over the next three years.

Despite their overwhelming success, Taupin notes that it is their undying love for music that keeps them moving creatively. “Elton and I love all kinds of music,” he notes. “I don’t care if it’s jazz, blues, rock & roll, metal or folk; if it’s good, I like it. There are certain things that Elton listens to more than me. Elton likes dance music. I don’t particularly listen to it. Most of the stuff I listen to now is country music. That’s really all I listen to.”

In 2002, Bernie wrote the lyrics for this song that was recorded by country icon Willie Nelson and Lee Ann Womack. The song hit #22 on the Country Charts and won a Grammy.

“We’re still vinyl junkies,” Taupin continues, “and I think that’s what still makes us viable because we train each other on what we’ve been listening to. Whenever we talk after we’ve been away from each other for a while, the first thing we say is, ‘Have you heard this? Have you heard that?’ We’re still the biggest music fans in the world.”

Their love of all music styles has kept the John/Taupin team churning out hundreds of songs covering an unparalleled amount of genres. This lost gem from the 2003 film Mona Lisa Smiles is just one of many examples of how many excellent songs have been pushed to the shadows by their incredible amount of hit singles.
The staggering amount of hit singles from the pen of Bernie Taupin, with and without Elton.

Looking Back

While there are countless John/Taupin songs over the past half-century destined to outlive their creators in the hearts and minds of music fans, Taupin still has to deal with critics who have not always been kind to the Tin Pan Alley Twins.

“The thing that people tend to forget is that we were very young when we started. Elton and I met in mid-1967, and I was only 17. So it’s interesting to me when I see reviews of Elton’s concerts today. It’s like when the New York Times did a review of a show on last year’s tour when Elton played some of our older material like ‘Sixty Years On’ and ‘The King Must Die,’ and this guy pointed out how pretentious the lyrics to ‘Sixty Years On’ and ‘The King Must Die’ are, and I felt like writing a letter saying, ‘Excuse me, I was 17 years old when I wrote that.’ They don’t seem to realize that.”

The epic finale from their 1970 American debut, written when Taupin was still a teen.

This topic comes up again when I ask about their first major hit, which has become an unquestionable pop standard. “It’s like the perennial ballad ‘Your Song,’ which has got to be one of the most naïve and childish lyrics in the entire repertoire of music, but I think the reason it still stands up is because it was real at the time. That was exactly what I was feeling. I was 17 or 18 years old and it was coming from someone whose outlook on love or experience with love was totally new and naïve.

“Now I could never write that song again or emulate it because the songs I write now that talk about love coming from people my age usually deal with broken marriages and where the children go [laughs]. You have to write from where you are at a particular point in time, and ‘Your Song’ is exactly where I was coming from back then.”

The original demo of “Your Song,” which Elton put music to on October 27, 1969. It would become a Top Ten hit in January of 1971.

Working Backwards

Since they have been writing together for more than 50 years, I was curious if they had ever switched their Modus Operandi where Bernie wrote lyrics to Elton’s melody. Surprisingly it did happen at one point during the early ’80s.

“We did do it the other way around at one point, and it wasn’t that we tried to do it that way. It just ended up that way. Elton was staying in Paris, and our time schedule was very off. He had been locked in this studio writing all these melodies and he asked me to write some lyrics to a handful of them. I did, and those songs were on an album called Jump Up! [released in 1982], which for me is probably the worst album we’ve ever made.

“It’s a very messy album. The songs are awful. I only wrote five songs on that album, so I’m not going to pass comment on some of the other songs. But it’s a messy album, very inconsistent. We’ve made some bum albums, believe me. There are albums like The Fox, too, which I thought was a complete disaster, even though it had a couple of good songs on it.”

“There is one song where [Elton] did come up with the melody line before I came up with a lyric, and it’s the only time that method worked for us. That was on a song called ‘Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.’”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

However the Jump Up! did include one John/Taupin classic, which was written about their dear friend John Lennon after his tragic murder in 1980. “In fact, the only song that’s any good is ‘Empty Garden,’ which is the only one where I wrote the lyrics first on. It’s really the only song on that album that’s any good.”

Before moving on to the next topic, Bernie stops me in mid-sentence to point out that there was one instance where writing a lyric to Elton’s melody did result in a great song. “Wait a minute, I lied,” he says with a laugh. “There is one other song where he did come up with the melody line before I came up with a lyric, and it’s the only time that method worked for us. That was on a song called ‘Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.’

“I don’t think he was intending on writing a song but we were sitting around an apartment in Los Angeles, and he was playing around on the piano and he came up with this melody line, and I said, ‘Hey, that’s really nice.’ For some reason this lyrical line ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’ ran through my head, and it fit perfectly with what he was playing. So I said, ‘Don’t do anything more to that, let me go write something,’ so I wrote it out in a few minutes and we had the song.”

The only hit song where Bernie wrote a lyric to one of Elton’s melodies, instead of the lyrics coming first like their normal process.

Tuneful Telepathy

Since Elton writes the music to Bernie’s lyrics, another burning question is whether or not the lyricist has ever been disappointed in the music that has been applied to his words. “Well, we’ve been writing together so long that it’s almost telepathic now,” he says matter of factly. “There’s also much more communication in our writing now. At one time, I would just give him a stack of stuff and he’d pick out what appealed to him. Nowadays, I’m more confident and he’s more confident, and we’re more confident with each other, so we talk about things more.

“I also don’t give him as much material to play with as I once did. I’m not afraid to give him a lyric and say: ‘Elton, I think this one is really good. I see it in this light.’ But I don’t like to tread on his toes too much because he’s so inventive and he’s so brilliant that it’s really not necessary to complicate matters and get in his way.

“I’m sure it has happened occasionally in the past where I’ve been not necessarily disappointed with what he’s done, but surprised. The last episode I can remember was with the last track on the Reg Strikes Back album [released in 1987], a song called ‘Since God Invented Girls.’ I had written it more as an up-tempo Beach Boys’ salute, and he turned it into more of a Brian Wilson opus than I had imagined it. Then again, I preferred it the way he did it, and we used the Beach Boys on it.

“So, yeah, it usually can be said that it turns out the way I want it to, but like I said I explain things to him much more than I ever did. Then again, you’ve also got to remember that by the subject matter of a lyric you can kind of tell which direction a song should go. I mean if you write ‘Saturday night’s alright for fighting,’ you’re really not going to write a ballad.”

Quality AND Quantity

Another amazing aspect of the John/Taupin partnership is not only the quality of the songs but also the seemingly endless quantity. How in the world were they able to fulfill a backbreaking contract that called for two albums per year for nearly ten years?

Taupin shrugs and says, “We’re just very prolific writers, who enjoy writing. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that if it takes you a long time to write a song it’s going to be any better than if you write it in ten minutes. Certain people like Don Henley or Robbie Robertson are great writers, but they slave over the songs and it takes them three years to make an album because they’re meticulous in the sense that they go over and over and over things.

“I’m the sort of writer to where if it’s not working for me in like ten minutes, I know it’s going nowhere. My best stuff comes straight out and pours out, and the same with Elton. We just happen to write very quickly, and while some of our material might suffer for it, we’re just those kind of writers.”

Obviously, over the years, they have slowed down that ridiculous pace. “We don’t write as much as we used to,” he revealed to me in 1989. “I mean in the early ‘70s that’s all we did was write songs continually. We had huge backlogs of material.

“Now I certainly have other outside interests, and songwriting takes up a very, very small percentage of my time. But I probably enjoy doing it more now than I ever did because when I sit down to write now, I think my ideas are much more concentrated and I think my ideas are probably better. Maybe they’re just more adult. That’s why I don’t really consider myself to be a songwriter, I think of myself as a writer.”

Poetry vs. Lyrics

When it comes to the topic of poetry and lyrics, Bernie takes a firm stance about the difference. “People, who are being very sweet and well meaning, are always telling me that my lyrics are poetry, which absolutely makes me barf,” he says. “My lyrics are nothing like poetry. They’re supposed to be heard with a melody. I don’t like people taking my lyrics out of context and reading it as poetry. They were written to be sung; they were not written to be recited.”

“People, who are being very sweet and well meaning, are always telling me that my lyrics are poetry, which absolutely makes me barf. My lyrics are nothing like poetry. They’re supposed to be heard with a melody. They were written to be sung; they were not written to be recited.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“I’m very adamant about that because nobody’s ever seen my poetry. Poetry is one of my first loves, and I think of myself as a poet but I also think of myself as a lyricist and a writer. So that’s why I’d rather be known as a writer instead of a songwriter, because songwriting is such a small part of my life. I love writing, that is my life.

“My poetry is very dear to me, and I’ve worked very hard on it. What I did recently is I went through all my old notebooks and I put all of my poetry in the word processor [Ed. Note: Kids, computers in the ’80s were often referred to as “word processors” ;)], re-evaluated it, edited it, and added to it, and came up with my first volume of poetry, which I hope will be out next year.”

In 1988, Bernie’s memoir about his pre-fame days called A Cradle of Haloes: Sketches of a Childhood was published and, in 1991, his first book of poetry entitled The Devil at High Noon was also published.

“As long as I’m doing something in any field of writing I’m happy. I’ve got to have something feeding me all the time. My dream of the future is to be able to retire to my wherever and just write. That’s all I want to do. There’s just not enough hours in the day for me to do that.”

“Disposable Pop”

Over the years, Elton has dubbed many of their songs as “disposable pop,” so I asked Bernie if he agreed. “We’ve made an incredible amount of ‘disposable pop,’ especially in the early-to-mid ‘70s with things like ‘Crocodile Rock,’ ‘Honky Cat’ and ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.’ Yeah, it’s very disposable. It’s music for the moment.

“I don’t want people to remember me for ‘Crocodile Rock.’ I’d much rather they remember me for songs like ‘Candle in the Wind’ and ‘Empty Garden,’ songs that convey a message. Well, they don’t really have to convey a message, as long as they convey a feeling. There are certain love songs or ballads that we’ve written that have an intensity and an integrity that I think will remain intact for a very long time. With things like ‘Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word’ and ‘Daniel,’ I can honestly say that I’m pretty proud of our output as far as commercial singles are concerned.

Elton, producer Gus Dudgeon, and Bernie in the studio during the Caribou recording sessions in 1974. The album would become their fifth of seven consecutive #1s.

“But there are other things that are probably very ‘surface,’ where the feeling is not really that realistic, things like ‘Crocodile Rock,’ which was fun at the time, but it was ‘pop fluff.’ It was like, ‘Okay, that was fun for now, throw it away and here’s the next one.’ So there’s a certain element of our music that is disposable, but I think you’ll find that in anybody’s catalog.”

“Unfortunately, today, people think that ‘pop’ is a dirty word. It’s got to be rock & roll or post-modern,” he continued. “Fuck, it’s all pop. As much as I love John Cougar Mellencamp, ‘never wanted to be a pop singer,’ yes he did! [laughs]. Pop singer means popular singer; to be popular.

“Frank Sinatra was a pop singer. Bruce Springsteen is a pop singer. I’m sorry, if anyone says otherwise, they’re full of shit because that’s what it means. Rock & roll is a much earthier term to use—yeah, rock & roll singer—but they’re all pop singers. U2 is a pop group, I’m sorry. I’ve got as much social conscience as anybody, believe me, but we are all pop singers.”

Bernie wrote this powerful socially relevant ballad about a young man dying of AIDS, which was included on their acclaimed 2001 album Songs From the West Coast.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

In 1973, their legendary double-album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road thrust Bernie and Elton into the stratosphere of superstardom. It was still a time of innocence, when fame was new and wealth was starting to build up incredibly fast. It was also a time when they began merging into the proverbial hedonistic fastlane of sex, drugs and rock & roll, with no detours yet in the distance.

Elton John and Bernie in front of their private jet on a runway in California, during the 1974 U.S. tour. Behind them are the 35 musicians, roadies and others who accompanied the tour.
(Photo by Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images/Getty Images)

I asked Bernie to recount that album and he revealed his own personal thoughts on the classic album that has become synonymous with the career of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

“I think the reason that Yellow Brick Road stands out is because it’s that sort of album that everybody claims to be a classic,” he stated, “which I don’t necessarily agree with. If people were to ask me to name my favorite Elton John album, I don’t necessarily think that it would be Yellow Brick Road, although it’s a very good album.

“I wrote most of the lyrics for that album within about a week, and while the band would be eating breakfast, Elton would take a lyric and write the song and they’d go in and record it. As soon as they finished, Elton would find another one, and that’s the way we did it.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“What happened with that album was that it was our intention to record it in Jamica, in Kingston, at Byron Lee’s studio, because the Rolling Stones had just been there and done Goat’s Head Soup. And they said, ‘Go down there, go down there and do it,’ not telling us the nightmares they had making the record over there, and that they had just managed to make it there.

“So we went down there thinking that it was going to be a great atmosphere, and the thing turned into an absolute nightmare. The studio was a joke. We couldn’t make anything work, and it was surrounded by guards with machine guns keeping people out, which is not the best atmosphere to work in. And the locals for some reason just didn’t like outsiders, and it was just a very intense experience and not a good working environment.

“In the end, we said, ‘We cannot work here,’ because our original intention was to do the writing for the album there, but we didn’t get anything done. So Elton and I basically fled, and we went back to New York and reassessed the situation, and we decided to go back to the Chateau in France, where we had done the previous couple of albums.”

Once they were back in France, they were under the gun to get some material together after the Jamaica debacle. “So we went back there and that’s when we realized that we had no songs,” he said, with a laugh. “So we sat down and started writing and the band came over. I wrote a few things, and for some reason it all just fell out.

“I wrote most of the lyrics for that album within about a week, and while the band would be eating breakfast, Elton would take a lyric and write the song and they’d go in and record it. As soon as they finished, Elton would find another one, and that’s the way we did it.

“I don’t remember how long it took us to write the songs for that album. It’s probably all been lost in myth and fable,” he jokes. “Over the years, I probably said that we wrote all those songs in a day or something. I really don’t remember how long it took us, but it went really fast.”

With their little Motown hit factory cranking out songs at a feverish pace, they began to think about the possibility of making it a double-album. “We just kept recording,” Taupin recalled, “and then suddenly we realized, ‘Shit we’ve got like 20 songs here, and they’re all pretty strong.’ [Producer] Gus Dudgeon did a great job putting that album together, threading all the songs and making that running order work the way it does.”

Fantastic the Feedback

Looking in the rearview mirror today, it’s difficult to really explain the mass popularity of Elton John between 1973-75. While free-form radio on the FM side of the dial was playing the progressive rock of “Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting,” “Grey Seal” and others, the AM fans were pushing songs like “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Bennie and the Jets” to the top of the charts.

Sure-fire hit singles like “Candle in the Wind” and “Harmony” from their double-album extravaganza never even got a chance to be released since Elton and Bernie had already finished the follow-up album Caribou within six months. And just like that, two more EJ/BT classics “The Bitch is Back” and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” were shooting up the charts.

And then in January 1975, Elton’s cover of The Beatles’ classic “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” (featuring John Lennon on guitar and backing vocals) topped the charts, only to be replaced at Number One by Bernie and Elton’s single “Philadelphia Freedom” weeks later.

You literally could not listen to a radio in America for more than 30 minutes without hearing an Elton John song. And after Caribou topped the charts, in May of 1975 came Bernie and Elton’s autobiographical masterpiece Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The album was promoted for months prior to its release, including a television commercial which was unheard of at the time.

The buzz was so big that the album became the first one in history to enter the charts at Number One, selling 500,000 copies in pre-orders alone. Elton and Bernie were at their zenith of popularity. It was something that only four lads from Liverpool could relate to. In fact, Bernie and Elton’s friend John Lennon was so amazed at how much airplay their songs were getting at the time that he joked: “If you die, I’m throwing my fuckin’ radio out the window.”

The sterling autobiographical album showed Bernie’s lyricism at its finest as he detailed the lives of the two songwriters from their early childhood to before they recorded their first album in 1969. Bernie and Elton still speak fondly of the album to this day. (In 2006, Bernie and Elton wrote the long-awaited sequel The Captain and the Kid, which begins right where Captain Fantastic left off. It is a brilliant musical journey thru their incredible career from the ’70s thru the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. Read my detailed analysis of the album here https://rokritr.com/2019/06/07/the-captain-and-the-kid-the-real-rocketman/)

The opening title track that introduces Elton as Captain Fantastic and Bernie, the country boy, as The Brown Dirt Cowboy, and their love of music and drive to succeed.

“I love the Captain Fantastic album,” Bernie says warmly. “I think, lyrically, the Captain Fantastic album is one of our finest. I mean those songs were written all about us from the time we first met up until our first album together. It was written from my standpoint and from his, although I was putting the words in his mouth.”

All the songs illustrate their lonely childhoods, their early musical failures, survival, and their love for one another. The classic single from the album “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” was about Elton’s first suicide attempt after he broke off an early wedding engagement to a domineering woman.

“Rock of the Westies”

Riding high, figuratively and literally, in April of 1975, longtime drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray were unceremoniously fired. It was caviler treatment to the two musicians who had been with Elton since his legendary shows at The Troubadour in 1970.

Their replacements—drummer Roger Pope, who had worked with Elton going back to his Empty Sky album, and bassist Kenny Passarelli—were joined by keyboardist James Newton-Howard and another longtime Elton ally, guitarist Caleb Quaye. Previous band members guitarist Davey Johnstone and percussionist Ray Cooper remained.

The new outfit would record the Rock of the Westies album in the summer of that year, resulting in one more chart-topping album and single in “Island Girl.” It would prove to be the hardest rockin’ album of the songwriting duo’s career.

Bernie recalled that period of time in the mountains of Colorado at the Caribou Studios where they had recorded the previous two Number One albums: Rock of the Westies is one of my favorite albums. I just love that record,” Bernie said without hesitation. “I think we really achieved what we wanted to do at the time. It was an interesting period of time because Nigel and Dee had exited. I don’t think there was any animosity. Well, there might have been at the time. Unfortunately that period of time is a little foggy,” he continued with a laugh, “because we were going through a period where we were not really on the ball.”

“We wanted to put a rock & roll band together, and it was basically a fucked-up band. We were all at the highpoint there of abusing ourselves to the max. It was Jack Daniels and lines on the console.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

It would also prove to be a time when the booze and drugs had become part of the recording process, as Bernie candidly explained: “We wanted to put a rock & roll band together, and that’s what we did. We went to Caribou Studios in the Rockies [Colorado]. It was a good place, it was a funky place, and it was basically a fucked-up band. We were all at the highpoint there of abusing ourselves to the max. It was Jack Daniels and lines on the console, and somehow we got it done.

“I don’t remember anything about the sessions, and I don’t think anybody in that band will remember them either, but for some reason it paid off. Luckily, we’re all still alive to tell the tale. It wasn’t glamorous by any means; it was a rough period.”

Top of the World

In three-and-a-half years between May of 1972 and October of 1975, Elton and Bernie had a record-breaking SEVEN consecutive Number One albums; a feat only matched by The Beatles, who did it between 1964-67. To put this into proper perspective, it took the Rolling Stones TEN YEARS to pull off seven straight chart-topping albums.

As for more recent artists who have managed to hit that plateau, it would take Jay-Z nine years to accomplish it, Kanye West took 13 Years and the Dave Matthews Band would take 20.

Add to the fact that Elton’s 1975 tour included his career-cementing two concerts at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and it was clear beneath all the drugs and drink that something would have to give.

“At that point in time, Elton John farting would have sold, and that’s intense pressure to be under because you suddenly realize that there’s no other place to go but down.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Bernie explained his frame of mind during that heady era by saying that the realization that their unmatched success would have to end at some point led to him finding comfort in the drug abusing whirlpool that had become their life. “We had seven consecutive Number One albums. In fact, the last two albums—Captain Fantastic and Rock of the Westies—had entered the charts at Number One, which no one had ever done before. And, again, you can’t go straight to anywhere else, except down.

Bernie sharing drinks with Queen’s Freddie Mercury at a post-concert party in Las Vegas.
(Photo by Brad Elterman/FilmMagic)

“At that point in time, Elton John farting would have sold, and that’s intense pressure to be under because you suddenly realize that there’s no other place to go but down. You know that every album you do from now on is not going to go to Number One. And I think that’s why the Blue Moves album was so introspective.”

“Blues Moves”

[It wasn’t just the professional pressure that was impacting Bernie at the time of the Blue Moves album in 1976. His marriage to Maxine—the L.A. Lady and seamstress for the band that he wrote about in ‘Tiny Dancer’ only five years before—was coming to an end. Infidelities on both sides played a part in their impending divorce, including her affair with Bernie’s closest friend in the band, bassist Kenny Passarelli.

The song, “Between Seventeen and Twenty,” which was the age of Maxine and Bernie when they first met is an honest portrait about a young married couple who had grown apart. As well as a reference to her affair with Bernie’s close friend, bassist Kenny Passarelli.
Bernie and his first wife, Maxine, at their wedding in 1971. Elton, dressed in his modest way, served as Bernie’s best man. By 1976, the marriage was coming to an end.

The duo’s second double-album in three years did manage to get to #3, and included their Top Ten hit, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” but it broke their streak of seven Number One albums in a row. Bernie’s lyrics, which had always touched on darker themes, this time around were even more morose than usual and filled with disillusionment and regret, not to mention a few songs about suicide.

“I think the Blue Moves album is really one of our most underrated albums, because it was really an exercise in saying, ‘Here it is, this is us, and this could be it,’ and it could have been it. After the Blue Moves album, I had to get away because I think we were all killing ourselves.”

An outtake from the Blue Moves material. This is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to Bernie’s lyrics. A powerful testament to the end of a relationship.

The Split

It was at this time that Bernie found himself crawling out of the “Crazy Water” that was engulfing him. “After the Blue Moves album, I went and lived in Mexico for like six months, and went through some changes,” he said. “I’m not going to go into that because it’s boring to hear ‘drying out’ stories. But after that album, I said, ‘That’s it, I’ve got to get away from this for a while.’ And, at that point, I really didn’t know if I’d be able to do it again.

“That’s where the separation between Elton and I came for a little while,” he continued. “But everybody seems to think that we fell out and we weren’t going to ever work together again. It wasn’t that. We never fell out. I think we just needed to get away from it for a while.”

On 2006’s autobiographical album The Captain and the Kid, Bernie looked back at the time in 1976 when he and Elton needed to take a break after unparalleled fame took over their lives.

Alice Cooper

Following the professional split between Elton and Bernie, Elton would work with lyricist Gary Osborne on his rather bland album A Single Man, while Bernie would surprisingly team up with shock-rocker Alice Cooper on 1978’s concept album about getting clean and sober, From the Inside. But what seemed surprising at first glance wasn’t since the Cooper and Taupin team were close friends outside their professional careers.

“Alice had always been a friend of mine,” Bernie explained. “I think that when you’re in a situation like I was in, you have to find a crutch who’s in the same sort of condition or the same state that you are. Everybody’s familiar with Alice’s problems and I guess I didn’t help him [laughs].

“During that period Alice and I were inseparable. Alice was my best friend. After the Elton thing, Alice and I were basically living together up in his house. It was a messed up, fucked up time.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
Bernie and Alice Cooper during the recording of From the Inside in 1978 and still friends pictured at a 2006 charity event.

“During that period Alice and I were inseparable. Alice was my best friend. After the Elton thing, Alice and I were basically living together up in his house. It was a messed up, fucked up time. We just figured that we’d try to do this thing together and we had always threatened to do a project together. It was just one of those things that fell together at the time.

“Like I said, I needed a crutch. Alice had sort of dried out at the time, and I think I was sort of going through the motions, not very well. But we spent so much time together that making that album was just a natural extension of our relationship.”

The album did include the hit single, “How You Gonna See Me Now” and a treasure trove of rockers. When prompted because of my love for the album, Bernie said: “Looking back on it, it was an interesting album. Yeah, there’s some good stuff on it. It was an interesting process, because it was two lyricists working together, which is very odd. But it’s interesting now, looking back, because I can see my lines and I can see his.

“There were things where I had complete lyrics and he would take little pieces out and put pieces of his own in there, but, yeah, it was an interesting project. And aside from my own personal projects and a few songs that I’ve written here and there with other people, as a collaboration in its entirety that album is the only thing I’ve done outside of Elton’s stuff.”

In this rare video, Bernie and Alice are working with composer Bruce Roberts on the darkly comedic and twisted ballad of two killers in love “Millie and Billie,” which Bernie quips is the result of “the meeting of three sick minds.”

First Steps Back Together

While Elton would continue to work with other lyricists for the next several years, following 1978’s A Single Man and his disastrous 1979 disco album Victim of Love, he did reach out to Bernie while writing for his next album 21 at 33, which would be his first album of the ’80s and the first hint at recapturing a bit of the ’70s magic.

“The first song we wrote again together was a song called ‘Two Rooms At the End of the World,’ which was about coming back together. There’s another song on there called ‘White Lady, White Powder,’ which speaks for itself.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

The three songs that Bernie would write for that album were also three autobiographical songs detailing where they’d been and a feeling that they would be there again. “The first song we wrote again together was a song called ‘Two Rooms At the End of the World,’ which was about coming back together. There’s another song on there called ‘White Lady, White Powder,’ which speaks for itself,” he says with a laugh. “They were all exorcism songs, like ‘Chasing the Crown.’

“They were songs saying, ‘Yeah, we’ve been there, now let’s get it back together.’ I think those three songs were all about getting back together. Unfortunately, with that album which was 21 at 33, those three songs were mixed in with a lot of substandard material and because of that I think a lot of people haven’t gotten to hear those songs, and they’ve gotten lost.

“It bothers me that people have become so obsessed with the Yellow Brick Road period. I know it was a good period and a lot of those early songs were good, but there’s a lot of really great songs and interesting songs that have gotten lost in the rebirth. Things like ‘Two Rooms,’ which is a really good song. It’s an interesting song. A lot of the material of the later period, which are some of the best songs we’ve ever written, are songs that a lot of people haven’t heard.”

The Full Reunion

While Elton and Bernie would collaborate on a handful of songs over the next few albums, including the previously mentioned hit ode to the memory of John Lennon, “Empty Garden,” it wasn’t until the late summer of 1982 that the two songwriters would be working together as they did in the beginning… and have been the only songwriters on all of Elton’s 14 studio albums from 1983’s Too Low For Zero through their most recent one, Wonderful Crazy Night in 2016.

“Looking Up” from Elton and Bernie’s most recent album, 2016’s Wonderful Crazy Night.

Their first full reunion, which took place for 1983’s Too Low For Zero also featured the return of the original band of Nigel Olsson, Dee Murray and Davey Johnstone. The classic Elton John sound was back and the impact was immediate. Their new anthem “I’m Still Standing” and Bernie’s beautiful ode to his second wife, Toni Russo, sister of actress Rene Russo, “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” were monster hits on both radio and the new video world of MTV. Elton and Bernie were back!

Asked if this was a conscious attempt to recapture the glory days, Taupin replied: “I guess so. Too Low For Zero was the first album since Blue Moves where we wrote everything together. Before that, it had been a couple of songs here and there. Prior to that, we were both in the wasteland playing with other projects, and neither of us too successfully.

“We both knew that we wanted to work together again but we had to wait until it just fell into place. We knew that when the time was right it would just happen. Like everything else in our careers, we don’t pressure it. We just allow time to elapse until things fall into place, and that’s how it happened with the Too Low For Zero album. And it worked. It was a very successful album. I like that album.”

The magical reunion of Bernie and the original band continued the following year with the release of Breaking Hearts, featuring further hits “Sad Songs (Say So Much),” “In Neon” and “Who Wears These Shoes.”

“Actually, Breaking Hearts, the album after that, is really one of my favorite albums,” Taupin notes. “I think it’s my favorite album of that particular period, though Too Low’s got some very good songs on it.”

More Chart-Toppers

What’s little known by many fans of ’80s music is that two of that decade’s biggest hits were penned by Taupin, and they had nothing to do with Elton. Taupin had also begun working with composer/singer-songwriter Martin Page during this era.

Two of their songs went to Number One in a span of only four months! First came the Starship’s “We Built This City,” a song Bernie had written about the clubs in Los Angeles no longer supporting live bands and becoming dance clubs instead. It was a dark-edge look at how corporations were destroying the live music scene in the early ’80s. Martin Page wrote the music and recorded a demo.

The demo made its way to Starship, and their producer Peter Wolf (not the J. Geils Band lead singer), who played up the “we built this city” line with repetition. The cheesy video helped propel the song to the top of the charts.

Taupin and Page also wrote a song, “These Dreams,” specifically for Stevie Nicks who was enjoying her solo stardom, but the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman turned the song down. Bernie’s lyrics perfectly captured the aura of Stevie, but it was not to be so the song was shopped elsewhere and eventually recorded by the rock band Heart. The result was Bernie’s second chart-topping hit in less than four months.

Bernie with Nancy and Ann Wilson of Heart. Ironically it was guitarist Nancy who sang the 1985 Number One hit, “These Dreams,” which Bernie had originally written for Stevie Nicks.

In spite of all his successes, Bernie still doesn’t think of himself as a songwriter per se, saying, “There have been periods of time where I’ve been here and Elton’s been in England, and I’ve mailed him lyrics or we get together and I hand him things and go away. We have never, ever sat down side-by-side.

“That’s what songwriters do, and the last thing I ever consider myself to be is a songwriter. I know that sounds totally ridiculous, but I’m not really a songwriter in the textbook sense.

“Songwriters are people out there who sit in their little studios and crank out songs. I can’t do that; it bores the shit out of me. That’s why I don’t write much with other people. I do what I do in a very bizarre way, and I have my own terms and rules.”

New Directions

After the huge successes of Too Low For Zero and Breaking Hearts, as well as a massively successful world tour, Elton once again dropped his rhythm section of Olsson and Murray and moved into a soul and synth direction with his next two albums. Along for the ride was original producer Gus Dudgeon. The results were a mixed bag.

“Well, Ice on Fire was a slicker album because that was produced by Gus Dudgeon,” Bernie said, “while Too Low For Zero and Breaking Hearts were produced by Chris Thomas, who is far more of an edge-producer. Not to put Gus Dudgeon down, but I think Gus Dudgeon worked for his time. I think Ice on Fire was a little overly produced and a little too slick for my liking.”

Although the 1985 album did include another Top Ten hit, “Nikita,” and the Top 20 dance smash, “Wrap Her Up.”

The follow-up album in 1986, Leather Jackets, however would become one of Elton and Bernie’s worst-selling albums, even though it contains one of Bernie’s personally favorite songs.

“There’s a song on that album called ‘Hoop of Fire’ that is one of my favorite songs. I tried to get Roy Orbison to record it because I think he would have killed that song. We’ve also tried to get Eric Clapton to do it. I’d love to see somebody else do that songs because I honestly think it’s one of the best songs we’ve ever written.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“And the next album, Leather Jackets, absolutely died a death, even though I think there are a couple of tremendous songs on it that have been lost. I must admit that I think Gus just produced that album into the ground and just spent way too much time with it. It should have been a much edgier album, and it’s a shame that album has gotten lost because it has some very good songs on it.

“There’s a song on that album called ‘Hoop of Fire’ that is one of my favorite songs. I tried to get Roy Orbison to record it because I think he would have killed that song. We’ve also tried to get Eric Clapton to do it. I’d love to see somebody else do that songs because I honestly think it’s one of the best songs we’ve ever written.”

“Sleeping With the Past”

At the time of our interview in 1989, Elton and Bernie had just released their excellent album, Sleeping With the Past. Bernie’s love for their latest effort was understandable because it has gone on to become, arguably, the best album of the decade and one of the finest of their storied career. In fact, it is the best-selling album of their career in the U.K., and featured their first Number One single in their home country.

“My lyrics have had much more structure over the past ten years, and I think that has helped to make the songs better,” Taupin maintained. “People get trapped in nostalgia and will argue that the old songs are our best, but I think as songwriters we’re better than we’ve ever been, and I think this new album [1989’s Sleeping With the Past] proves that. I think these are the strongest, most uniform songs we’ve ever written.”

“The one thing I won’t do is live in the past. We’re not out to peddle nostalgia. I refuse to do that. If I honestly don’t feel that what I’m doing today isn’t the best work I’ve ever done, then I’m out of here. I wouldn’t want to do it anymore.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Oddly enough, much of this change has to do with the fact that Bernie has taken to writing his lyrics with a guitar at hand. “Now when I write, I usually write with a guitar and just find chords. I don’t play guitar very well, I just know three chords but that’s enough to write a great song, just ask Leonard Cohen. But using a guitar just gives me a formula or a meter or a basis for a structure, so I don’t ramble on anymore.

“I’m sure some people will argue with that and say, ‘Yeah, but I like Yellow Brick Road and all those old songs,’ but I can’t do that. The one thing I won’t do is live in the past. We’re not out to peddle nostalgia. I refuse to do that. If I honestly don’t feel that what I’m doing today isn’t the best work I’ve ever done, then I’m out of here. I wouldn’t want to do it anymore.

“A lot of our recent albums have been fairly inconsistent,” he says candidly. “I wasn’t particularly happy with the last album [1988’s Reg Strikes Back], although it had its moments.”

The monster hit from 1988’s inconsistent album, Reg Strikes Back.

“I just feel that over the last few years, our albums haven’t really had a cohesiveness; they’ve tended to confuse people because the musical styles and song structures have been so conflicting that they go up and down, up and down. I know that’s a salute to our diversity but I also think it confuses people.”

An R&B Salute

“Before we went into the studio to make this album, I said to Elton, ‘Listen, we can’t make another album where people are going to say it’s just another Elton John album.’ I mean, we’re up to like 30 albums now, and I said that we had to get a theme or a springboard of what we’re going to do.

“I said that we have to sit down and decide what we want to make, and make a cohesive album with a collection of songs that sound like they all fit together. So we came up with the idea of going back and listening to the songs that inspired us when we first started writing songs, the time when R&B records were really great—the Chess days, the Stax records, and when Motown was at its peak.

“You know, the real glory days with people like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, the Four Tops, the Supremes, Jackie Wilson, Lee Dorsey and Ray Charles. Those were the records that really got us off. So we decided to make an album that was a salute to those people and those songs. So I started dragging out all these old records and listening to them to get a feel, and we decided to basically make a white-soul album for the late ‘80s, and I think that’s what we’ve done.”

Club at the End of the Street

“What I would do is I’d take a song like a Drifters’ song and I’d try to write a Drifters’ type of lyric. There’s a song on the album called ‘Club at the End of the Street,’ which is probably the straightest emulation of the one of those songs.

“When you hear it, it has the feel of a song like ‘Under the Boardwalk.’ It’s a real Drifters-style song, and it might be the second single. So what I would do is I’d make notes at the bottom of the lyric sheet, like, ‘Think Drifters, think this or think that.’”

Healing Hands

“They’re not a pinch of a song though,” the lyricist makes clear. “If you hear the first single, ‘Healing Hands,’ it could be the Four Tops because it’s kind of got a ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’ feel to it lyrically. They’re a pat-on-the-back; they’re not rip-offs. Whether it’s the best choice as the first single, I don’t know, but it seemed to be the most anthemic.”

“I think when Billy Joel did it with the music of that particular era that he did [1983’s An Innocent Man], and he did it well, too, I think, but his was a more direct emulation of the sound. Our album is a salute. It’s all inspired, and it says that on the album, there’s a little thing on there that says, ‘These songs were inspired by the soul pioneers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, whose music meant so much to us.’

“Due to that it’s really given the album a cohesiveness. It’s not a concept album, but there’s a concept in the ideas. More than any other record we’ve made, like with Tumbleweed Connection, this sounds like an album. It sounds like it all belongs together and I’m really, really proud of that.

“We worked really hard on this record, and we worked hand-in-hand on this one, and I think it shows our songwriting at our very best. I think it’s the strongest album we’ve ever made. I won’t say it’s the best, because people will argue with that, but I certainly think it’s the strongest.”

Sacrifice

“My favorite song at the moment is a song on the new album called ‘Sacrifice,’ which has a simple lyric. But it’s an intelligent adult lyric. It’s basically about the rigors of adult love, and it’s a million miles away from ‘Your Song.’

“Elton came up with a brilliant melody, and his performance on it gives it a lot of integrity and meaning. It’s not a surface song, and I think you’ll probably see that one in the coming months become a big, big hit.”

Sure enough, “Sacrifice” would became a Top 20 hit in America and would also become Elton and Bernie’s first ever Number One single in England, after nine chart-toppers in the U.S.

Trapped By Their Past

When it comes to creating new material, veteran artists would find it tough to get their latest songs on the radio in the late ’80s as Corporate America was creating more classic rock stations and focusing on promoting nostalgia versus new music.

“Who wants to hear ‘Funeral For a Friend’ every fucking day of their life. More than anything, I want the songs I’m writing now to be on the radio. If there’s a spot there, I’m much rather have it be one of my new ones, not because I’m trying to sell my new material but because I think it’s equally viable.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

Bernie agreed with my assessment, saying: “I never ever listen to the radio. It’s just not something I do, because I figure why listen to the radio when I can play what I want to hear. And, quite honestly, radio today sucks. Radio needs a real good shake-up.

“Until they stop playing fucking ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ nothing’s going to change. And we’re just as much to blame. I mean who wants to hear ‘Funeral For a Friend’ every fucking day of their life [laughs].

“More than anything, I want the songs I’m writing now to be on the radio. If there’s a spot there, I’m much rather have it be one of my new ones, not because I’m trying to sell my new material but because I think it’s equally viable.

“The title of the new album is Sleeping With the Past, and the chorus is ‘don’t go sleeping with the past.’ In the context of the song, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, but I think it’s got a lot of connotations. It could be thought of as the album being based on old songs, and it could mean don’t go sleeping with the past.

“My motto has always been improve or die. I want to maintain my integrity and write the best material I’ve ever written, and I believe that I’m doing that. If I didn’t believe that, I’d just pack it up and write books.”

As for his hopes for their latest effort, the industry veteran is optimistic but knows that, ultimately, it’s all out of his hands. “I’m hoping that this album’s got legs because I think there are a lot of singles on this record. It’s tailor-made for radio without losing its integrity. Hopefully this album will be like a two-year album because I’d like to be in a situation where Elton and I don’t have to make another record for a few years.

“I think that would be great for us. So maybe this album will do that, and maybe it’ll fucking die overnight,” he says with knowing laughter. “Who knows? You can never tell in this business.”

“Dinosaurs”

Although at the time of our lengthy conversation in 1989 Taupin was still only 39 years old, in those days that was considered ancient in the music world. Of course today the legends are now touring in their Sixties and Seventies. Times have changed, but 30 years ago, ageism did exist in the music business.

“Music’s a healthy scene right now and sure I’d like to see some of the newer bands getting a chance on the radio,” Taupin concedes, “but, at the same time, it bothers me when younger groups say, ‘These old guys shouldn’t be out there, all these dinosaurs on the road.’ Hey, that’s their gig, that’s what they do.

“I don’t want some jerk from The Cure saying, ‘All these fucking dinosaurs should get out of the way. We’re out to change the world.’ Bullshit. There’s room for everybody.”

Bernie Taupin (Interview by Steven P. Wheeler)

“All these bands [reunite] and go out there. What are they supposed to do? That’s their job. It’s like being a carpenter or a plumber. If you play guitar, it shouldn’t be that you reach a certain age and you’re not allowed to do it anymore. There should be room for everybody. I mean, that’s their job.”

When I mention that I’d love to hear them tell the blues legend John Lee Hooker to hang it up, Taupin lets out a big laugh and says, “Exactly! I wouldn’t want to see these guys try and tell John Lee Hooker that. I mean whether you agree with the Doobie Brothers or The Who or Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Doodleflick getting back together, whether you like it or loathe it, there should be room for them to be allowed to do it.

“And if there are people that want to buy tickets to see them, good luck to them. But I don’t want some jerk from The Cure saying, ‘All these fucking dinosaurs should get out of the way. We’re out to change the world.’ Bullshit. There’s room for everybody. I think that’s just a case of sour grapes.”

Other Fav Songs

“Levon”

“It’s interesting, because I’m out on the road with Elton right now. It’s interesting when you hear some of those old songs onstage, because a lot of them sound much better, and I find myself re-evaluating them.

“Like the other night I was listening to Elton singing ‘Levon’ and I thought ‘God, that’s a really good song.’ It’s got that timeless quality to it. They sound much more powerful onstage now, because I guess technology has improved them. So every once in a while, I re-evaluate songs that I may have forgotten about.”

“Candle in the Wind”

“There are songs like ‘Candle in the Wind,’ which I think was a great marriage of a good lyric and a great melody. I mean, Elton’s probably the finest—his turn with a melodic phrase is unbeatable. When Elton’s on the ball, man, nobody writes melodies like Elton, and I’m proud to be the one who sticks the lyrics in there.”

Of course, the original version of “Candle in the Wind” on 1973’s classic double-album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was Bernie’s tribute to Marilyn Monroe and the downside of fame. In 1987, the song became a Top Ten hit in America with the concert recording from the album Live in Australia.

Then in 1997, following the death of Princess Diana, Elton asked Bernie to rewrite the song for his late friend. The result was a solemn event seen around the globe and Bernie’s new lyrics turned “Candle in the Wind 1997” into the biggest selling single of all-time. A record that still stands today.

The John/Taupin Legacy

When it comes to incredible creative partnership of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the wordsmith merely said: “I think the reason it’s worked so well so long is probably the old theory that opposites attract. I don’t think you can get two people who are more different than Elton and I. We don’t live in each other’s pockets. We’re like brothers, but we’re not best friends.

“It’s not a business relationship. We love each other dearly, but we have our own sets of friends and we’re both just very, very different people. I think the music is the thread that binds us together, and our love for it.

“We give each other enough space to conduct our lives, and we come together for the pure enjoyment of writing songs. I think if we were more intensely involved as people, and were the same kind of people, we’d drive each other nuts.

“I think that’s why it works, and we still enjoy what we do. We still get a buzz when we write a song. It’s never been a business. It’s always been a partnership that came together just for the love of creating good music.”

After Sting’s lengthy introduction at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, it’s nice to hear Elton and Bernie discuss their love of music and, more importantly, their love for each other.

Solo Projects

Over the years, Bernie has recorded a handful of his own albums. In 1971, he recorded a spoken word album, simply titled Taupin, with musical accompaniment from people like Elton’s guitarists Davey Johnstone and Caleb Quaye.

Bernie’s spoken word rendition of “The Greatest Discovery” that Elton recorded on his self-titled American debut a year earlier.

In 1980, Bernie made his singing debut on his album He Who Rides the Tiger. While the record didn’t find commercial success, there are some fantastic songs, such as the autobiographical epic “Approaching Armageddon” with the lines: Married young and with my guns / I blew her out of my life / It’s easy to hold on to time / But it’s hard to keep a wife

In 1987, Taupin returned with his third solo effort Tribe, which was definitely of the era of polished pop and videos, such as this one for “Friend of the Flag,” featuring his then-sister-in-law Rene Russo.

Also from the album was this suave video for “Citizen Jane.”

Farm Dogs

In 1996, I sat down with Bernie again to discuss his latest solo project, Farm Dogs, a roots-rock band that he formed with Rod Stewart’s former collaborators Jim Cregan and Robin LeMesurier, and Dennis Tufano, the former leader of the ’60s band The Buckinghams.

Farm Dogs rehearse in a dressing room before a television performance in 1996.
Pictured (L-R): Jim Cregan, Bernie Taupin and Robin LeMesurier.
(Photo By JOEY MCLEISTER/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Their brilliant debut album, Last Stand in Open Country, echoes the rootsy vibe of Tumbleweed Connection and the best of The Band. From the haunting allure of “Barstool” and the shimmering sexuality of “Burn This Bed” to the anti-Hollywood acidic rant of “Ballad of Dennis Hopper and Harry Dean” and the title track that would later be recorded by Willie Nelson, the album made my published Top Ten Albums of 1996 list and continues to be a go-to listen nearly 25 years later.

The simmering heat of “Burn This Bed,” featuring Sheryl Crow on backing vocals.

The album was recorded at Taupin’s spacious ranch in Santa Ynez, California, amidst the lush green fields and rolling hills surrounding the home studio. The resulting album is a no-frills acoustic-based approach with illuminating songwriting at its best.

Sitting with Bernie and Cregan in an office in Beverly Hills, the quick wit and sarcasm that flew around the room non-stop perfectly dove-tails with the down-home, unpretentious vibe of their work. With his dog (and band mascot) sitting in his lap, Bernie explained: “The great thing about this band is that it’s a great leveler, because there’s no room for arrogance in this band.”

As Cregan nodded in silent agreement, Bernie continued “There are four fierce bullshit monitors in that room, and each of them has no fear of administering it. This band is notorious for massacring each other unmercifully, and for that reason it’s very healthy because it keeps everybody focused on a realistic path.”

Cregan chimes in: “If there were two harsh words spoken throughout the time we were making this album, that would be it.” Before pausing and adding with a laugh: “One of them would be ‘fuck’ and the other would be ‘you.'”

A brilliant Taupin lyric married to a haunting melody is a beautiful lost gem.

Recording at home helped the creativity flow without having to abide by time restrictions. “It really was like a summer boys’ camp,” Bernie explained. “Our wives or girlfriends were out in the city, so we all fended for ourselves, like Farm Dogs. The sessions were only regimented by our hangovers. It’s interesting what a couple of shots of tequila will inspire in one’s soul. I guess we’re the difference between the thinking man’s band and the drinking man’s band.”

The process of the writing was different for Taupin, who not only penned the lyrics but was also involved in the creation of the music. “It was four guys sitting in a circle; playing, singing and coming up with ideas. For me, the most exciting part of this project was being able to take my songwriting worth a step further. Aside from just being a man of words who has melodies in the back of his head, I was able to propel those melodies forward.”

A look at racial divides in this gripping tale of a mixed-race relationship.

Taupin takes a good-natured poke at his most famous songwriting partner when he says: “Not mentioning any names, but certain parties in my alternative career don’t tend to read the lyric before they write the melody, and we both laugh about that.”

His excitement at being involved throughout the evolution of the Farm Dogs material is infectious, as he continued: “Don’t get me wrong, because I’m fiercely proud of everything I’ve done in my career, outside of the ‘clinkers’ we all write at one time or another. It’s just that this project was a very special experience for me. It was one of the pleasures of my life to really see the melodic marriage of what I envisioned when I came up with the lyrics.”

The subtle power of “Pretty Bombs” featuring a harmony lead vocal by Cregan and Taupin.

In describing the band, Bernie says, “The special thing is to have four people working together who not only enjoy each other’s company, but who also admire each other musically and artistically. I think it’s something that all bands start out professing wanting to do, but it all seems to go to shit over the course of time.” He laughs and adds, “And it probably will with us, too.”

The title track that would later be recorded by Willie Nelson and Kid Rock in 2002.

The philosophy behind this special album is summed up by Taupin, who points to the epic title track and smiles confidently when he says: “The best part about artistic survival is using your talent to keep creating. That’s the whole gunfighter analogy of the story in ‘Last Stand,’ where when you get older there’s always someone coming up behind you to take your place, but you’ve still got bullets in your gun and you’re still dangerous. And I think we still have bullets in our guns, and believe me, we’re still dangerous.”

Farm Dogs did a small club tour in support of the album, including a memorable gig at The Troubadour where Elton launched his and Bernie’s career. Though acclaimed by critics, the album never scored big with mainstream radio although it did receive some solid rotation in smaller market Triple-A stations.

The band returned with a second album, Immigrant Sons, in 1998, which was a slightly more polished and more electric effort. Featuring more strong material, it didn’t quite capture the earlier magic of their debut. With a lack of airplay, the band dissolved after a brief tour.

I humbly recommend you pick up these two masterful Taupin albums.

Taupin the Visual Artist

At the dawn of the millennium, Bernie began his current career as a visual artist and his original artwork has been shown in galleries throughout North America over the past decade. Much of his work is of a patriotic nature for his adopted homeland of America through the use of the Stars & Stripes.

Thanks for more than 50 years of stories, Bernie.