From New Wave to the 'NOW', experience the thrill of NEW WAVE from it's beginnings in the late '70s to the modern bands so obviously influenced by it! So, if you grew up in the '80s and still enjoy discovering new sounds as well as rediscovering old favorites, then read on!
PUNK! POWER POP! SYNTH POP! NEW WAVE! POST-PUNK!
"...enveloping stage presence and palpable charisma."
--Rolling Stone
"JC Brooks looks and performs like a cross between Chuck Berry and H.R. of Bad Brains in their primes, but his skintight R&B and post-punk soul upend expectations of a retro act."
--Washington Post
"Brooks trained as an actor, and even by soul man standards he's an outsized showman (with an equally outsized pompadour), shimmying, swiveling, sliding and jumping around the stage, his singing ranging from Otis Redding raspiness to Curtis Mayfield falsetto sweetness."
--Chicago Tribune
"JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound describe themselves as a post-punk soul band, but their sound is so much more expansive than that. Uptown Sound is on par with soul musicians from the heyday of the genre’s popularity."
--Paste Magazine
With their forthcoming release Howl, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound enters the next chapter of its soul sound evolution. In December 2012, the band holed up at Hotel2Tango Studio in Montreal to work with producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, GodspeedYou! Black Emperor) and dove headfirst into previously unfamiliar sonic territories and tough-yet-transfixing lyrical matter. By approaching the new album with this direct and free outlook, what began with the raw soul of 2011’s Want More advances in new, exciting directions.
Throughout Howl – the Chicago-based quintet’s third full-length album and second for Bloodshot Records – the dark side of love and longing is explored by frontman JC Brooks’s starkly personal lyrics and the Uptown Sound’s willingness to bare all their influences and let the grooves fall where they may. A collective evolution has been made where influence meets experience, and this organic progression results in 11 songs that are more open than ever both in message and vibe.
Howl is soul music by children of the post-punk era. It’s the sound of a band that cut its teeth listening to Purple Rain and In On the Killtaker, is drawn to the theatrical-cum-creative auras of Tina Turner and Otis Redding, and has most recently hustled big festival stages where adventurous listeners come away rejuvenated and undeniably converted.
With a taut minimalist blend of rock and R&B punctuating JC Brooks’s potent delivery and brutally honest words, Howl creates a mystique at the same time it induces sing-alongs and hip-shakes. Tracks like the eponymous “Howl” and “Rouse Yourself” are pleas for snapping out of emotional apathy, as in the latter when Brooks first coos in falsetto and then belts a cautionary chorus in harmony, “If we had forever / I hope we’d just get better / that’s why it’s such a shame / the ways we stay the same.”
Just as it embraces past artistic influences, Howl covers the range of emotion from celebratory pop to crestfallen ballad. “River” is vintage gospel narrative, complete with Brooks’s solo show-stopping, open-throated vocal sear, and a rhythm section that could’ve backed the Memphis greats during the ‘60s. “Before You Die” struts with the carefree, party atmosphere of Tom Tom Club with auxiliary percussion, handclaps, and some Bernie Worrell psychedelic-pop wall of synth.
Formed in Chicago in 2007, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound consists of JC Brooks (lead vocals), Billy Bungeroth (guitar), Kevin Marks (drums, vocals), Andy Rosenstein (keys, vocals), and Ben Taylor (bass). JCBUS has toured North America and Europe, attracting an enthusiastic grassroots following while garnering the support of the likes of NPRand AAA radio with their eyeopening cover of Wilco’s “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” (which they performed with Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in 2011). MOJO Magazine called them “one of the hottest US soul acts right now”. JCBUS spent 2012 on the road supporting their previous Bloodshot release, Want More, with electrifying appearances at Lollapalooza and Bumbershoot, and an incendiary World Cafe Live double bill with Gary Clark Jr.Now armed with Howl, the band is hitting the road for spring East and West Coast tours, and a European leg leading up to Firefly Festival in June.
(An edited version of this interview appears in Discussions Magazine)
Sometimes, reality is the best form of comedy. A comedian can take numerous different routes in order to make an audience laugh, but the monologues and sketches that tends to stand up to the test of time are either those that offers up completely over-the-top absurdist humor or deals with the simple things in life we can all relate to. Steve Martin, Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg were great at making people laugh by reveling in the ridiculous. They all took different approaches to their humor, but made us laugh just the same. On the other hand, we could relate to guys like George Carlin because he seemed to be one of us: he said what we felt. Sometimes, it took days for a joke to sink in, but when it finally made sense, it was a delayed laugh that stuck with us for years. We understood it because it mirrored our reality.
Craig Shoemaker is one of those comedians that takes real-life situations and is able to see the humor in all of it. Shoemaker sidesteps politics and deals with personal issues that everyone has experienced at some point in their lives, directly or indirectly. From growing up without a father to playing video games with his kids, from his mother belly-dancing at his high school graduation to his non-so-pleasant ex-wife, nothing from his personal life is off limits. And while we laugh at the many situations that have shaped his life, in essence, we learn to laugh at ourselves.
On his latest DVD, Daditude, Shoemaker starts on a high and keeps the laughs flowing through his entire set. From the moment he hits the stage, Shoemaker is comfortable, confident and funny as hell. He offers up hilarious true stories that are so funny, you tend to forget that they are true and that this man actually lived through them! In his tale about trying to set his mom up with Paul Lynde, there’s a poignancy that you overlook because you’re laughing too hard. And for you long-time Craig Shoemaker fans, The Lovemaster makes an appearance and drives the audience wild.
On Daditude, Shoemaker is at the top of his game. In fact, his 25 year rise to fame just keeps getting better: he has a popular podcast (visit www.craigshoemakershow.com to subscribe), he just landed a recurring role on the television sitcomParksAnd Recreations and his stand-up shows are sell-outs. It may have taken a while for things to fall into place, but Craig is more deserving of your love and adoration.
Stephen SPAZ Schnee was able to catch up with Shoemaker to discuss Daditude and life in general. They were joined by SPAZ’s cohort Lauren Watt, who just happens to be a personal friend of Craig’s…
SPAZ: How are you feeling about this release, and your career leading up to this?
CRAIG SHOEMAKER: If I were an athlete, I’d say I’ve never been more in the pocket. I feel like… I remember Michael Jordan was sinking threes in, at a playoff game many years ago and he just looked at the opposing players and shrugged his shoulders like – “This is just natural for me. I can’t help it!” Right now, that’s how I feel on stage. Every show is a standing ovation and a connection with the crowd as I’ve never had before, and I have several theories on why it’s happening, but it’s a 25 year overnight success, I guess. Well, I took the stage that night - l have never felt that way in any television performance previous to this. I was that much in the zone, centered. I approached it in a different way than I ever have before. I even greeted the people. It was a sold out 900 seat theater, and I greeted the people. And I’m so Caucasian and ordinary looking that most of them didn’t know it was me. I was their host, and I would say, “Here’s your seats over here,” and they didn’t know it was me. (Laughs) A few of them would go, “Wait a minute, aren’t you the guy who we’re here to see, and we just paid money?” and I’d say, “Yeah, sure.” They got a kick out of it, and I did too because I was connecting with them, you know? I’m not performing for them or talking at them, it’s like we’re in this together, and that’s the way I feel for all the performances now. This is another reason why I ask people to stop texting during the show. It’s like, let’s just take this time for ourselves, and let’s just be here and be present and whatever you’re texting… It’s not that important. And if it is, you can leave, and go do that, and go be present for whatever that is. But, that’s what’s been happening lately, just this transformation took place and it’s all on the stage now. It’s truth, and it’s very much in the now, and people are vibing with it, which makes me very happy.
SPAZ: Well, at the beginning of the show, you do this “mock” introduction of yourself that at first comes off sounding like a joke, but it becomes pretty clear as the show goes on that these were real instances in your life. Being a comedian, do you find it hard to sort of reveal that to the audience?
CRAIG: I don’t find anything hard to reveal. My family does. (Laughs) This is why I hear from lawyers now and then (chuckles) but my mom still cannot get over that I bring up the fact that she belly danced at my high school graduation party. And I try to tell her… First of all, most people don’t believe it and second of all, if they do know that it was true, how great does that make you look? If she is all concerned with her image, I said, that makes you look like a fun loving person. But she has the opposite opinion. She has come from that image-conscious world of what things look like, and when I go on stage, I say here’s what it feels like and it’s not based on appearances, it’s based on reality. And some people don’t like reality. They want you to believe this illusion. I have zero problem with it. My friends have been telling me this for years….they say, “You know Shoe, we can never make fun of you ‘cause you already cleaned the carcass off.” In regards to the beginning of my show, I thought to myself, I’ve been doing comedy for years, and I always find the first few minutes to be the most difficult because I don’t look like a standard comedian. I’m not bleeding from the word go. I mean, some people are even looking at me going, “Ya know, I don’t feel for this guy,” but if I’m like overweight or a minority or something like that, some people immediately have compassion or empathy and there’s an understanding from the second someone walks onstage. With even a handicap, there is an immediate response from the audience going, “Oh we like you already. We understand your pain.” So that summation in the very beginning kind of levels the playing field where people are now saying, “Oh, he’s one of us.” Failed. Lots of failure…you know we’re all capable of being a loser. We’ve all been picked on. We’ve all had difficulties. Oh here, it’s all wrapped up in his 15 second opening here.
SPAZ: Oh yeah, yeah…
CRAIG: He’s one of us. And that’s all comedy is…what it’s boiled down to. It’s telling the truth and people identifying with it on some level, either “Oh I felt that before, I never want to feel that again.” That’s usually the case with me. Or there’s something that happens with people when they resonate with what you’re saying on stage that adds to a deeper laugh. And that’s why I really try to be very candid and honest in my act. I just made that transition years ago of saying that’s what I’m gonna do. You know, I’m not just gonna tell jokes. It’s just gonna be something that people can relate to, one hopes. And not everyone will either.
SPAZ: Well, do you find that real life offers more laughs than people will realize?
CRAIG: Oh yeah. I mean, I’m writing a book right now called Find The Funny. You can find the funny in everything. In my podcast, we talk about it all the time. We do a guided laughidation. Instead of meditating, we laughidate. Really, laughter is just so great for you, and you literally, as you’re laughing, cannot be depressed or feel bad during a laugh. In that very moment you cannot think “Oh my God, I’m depressed right now” or “I’m really down.” It transcends everything when you’re in that laughter moment. I don’t know why more people don’t find more humor in their lives, so I’m trying to encourage them to do that on the podcast. It’s called “Laugh it Off” and that comes from when I was brought up in Philadelphia, you know you get hurt and they go, “Walk it off, walk it off.” We take that a different direction. We have “Laugh it Off with Craig Shoemaker.” It’s a fun show. We’ve had really cool guests like Tom Bergeron and Chris Harrison from the reality world. We’ve had Kevin Cronin from REO Speedwagon, he’s a friend of mine. We have a lot of friends of mine on the show. We always try to talk about the obstacles in our life and how we manage them. We hope that it’s an inspirational show, as well as being silly.
SPAZ: I realized I can go back to a Craig Shoemaker show and laugh at it again… maybe it is because I can relate to it. Like your segment on The Love Master DVD, the machine gun thing. That’s probably one of my favorite comedy bits of all time. I laugh harder at that than Monty Python. I laugh harder at that than Steve Martin, you know, all these people I grew up loving.
CRAIG: That’s my favorite part too because it’s really a way where we can identify with what those guys are going through in the front row. I mean, but yet done in a very, very silly way. You know, you’re not talking about the way they look. You’re not talking about their financial status, their political beliefs. It’s nothing but just their stupid gun sound. (Laughs) The pressure is the best part. You see their faces, I’m laughing – having the best time.
SPAZ: Yeah, for the rest of my life I’ll always sit in the back row at a Craig Shoemaker show.
CRAIG: You don’t have to sit in the back. All you have to do is be two rows back and you’re good to go. I’m not going to come back two rows. But the front row, they know what they’re in for, and what’s funny is they’ll rehearse it. For a year. Their wives tell me this. “Oh my God, he tried for a year, he sounded great. Do it now honey.” This is after the show. And they freak out under pressure. It’s like, “Oh my God.”
SPAZ: Now, do you remember, sort of going back to your childhood, do you remember the exact moment in your life when you decided yeah, that’s what I want to be. I want to be a comedian or was it sort of a series of events?
CRAIG: Well, I do have definitive times that I remember, many epiphanies and decisions that were made that all led to the comedy stage. I mean, certainly, the getting picked on…I was very, very small. I won the shortest in the school award. You know, it’s funny, I won the shortest in the school and this other guy, Paul, he won the funniest. And now I’m 6 foot 2 and he was in the audience one night. He is a teacher in LA. And I said, “Who’s the funniest now?” All these years later, I mean, I grew. I was 5’1” in high school. And I used to get really picked on, and the only defense I ever had was to make them laugh and staying in my house. We weren’t real happy in the house, and yet laughter was the greatest thing for us. To sit around and watch sitcoms together, and that was the one time that we bonded as a family. Either that or we’d laugh at one another and just sort of goof on each other. So, I mean, that was definitely the formation. Those are the seeds that were planted to be a comedian. And then I was actually going to go to law school. I was in college and we didn’t have any money. I was also poor. That was the other thing, I used to think the word “evict” meant move, like it was the same word. And we would get evicted again, and so I didn’t have any money. I had to put myself through college, and I worked at a law firm. I used to do impressions of lawyers and celebrities in the lunchroom, and all that kind of thing, and a guy with a band said, “Would you like to go between sets of the band, to keep the people entertained?” And I said, “Sure.” And I went up, and I didn’t even study standup comedians necessarily. We didn’t have, obviously, DVD/VCR capability or whatever back then and so I was basically on my own. And I went up and did things that I was doing in the lunchroom and I got a couple laughs and like a crack addict, I was done. I still haven’t found rehab for it. (Laughs) I’m still putting that stuff in my veins. It’s a good hit.
SPAZ: I think your Don Knottsimpression is probably the second thing that people remember, apart from The Love Master, because it is pretty dead on.
CRAIG: Well, I actually looped him in the movie Pleasantville, too. He was sick and if you watched the movie Pleasantville, if you listen carefully, it is my voice doing him as an old guy. He played the TV repairman. It’s my voice… And he got a big kick out of me too. We met several times. One time he was signing autographs and he looks up and he goes, (imitating Don Knotts) “Oh, it’s Craig Shoemaker. Can you do my signature too? I gotta go pee.” (Laughs) He wanted me to sign autographs for him so he could take a rest and go pee. He actually used to say to me, (imitating) “Now that I’m old, you do me better than me.” And then, I imitate all the characters in Mayberry. My first comedy act ever was celebrities smoking pot in Mayberry. I mean, I do all the characters… that was part of my roots in comedy. I mean, I didn’t see the first run shows, but it was re-run a lot when I was a kid. I’d come home from school and there it was on channel 17, Philadelphia. And so my first act ever was celebrities smoking pot in Mayberry and Floyd was the dealer.
SPAZ: Do you know anyone who prefers Goober over Gomer?
CRAIG: I think both of them are a wash. I don’t think there is any true Gomer or Goober fans. I used to do a thing in my act, cause I imitate Jim Nabors….of how it was so funny, the writers, they would write in songs so that he could sell Jim Nabors albums. And he came out as this goofball and all of a sudden, (imitating) “Oh my papa…..” Where in the hell did that come from? (Laughs) All these episodes of singing with Gomer. And you know, making some money on the side selling the Jim Nabors albums.
SPAZ: It’s funny because the night before I actually got a copy of Daditude to watch, I was on YouTube watching Paul Lynde clips, and then within five minutes of your set, you’re talking about Paul Lynde!
CRAIG: I was really into Hollywood Squares. One of my dreams was that Paul Lynde would be my father, and we’d be the first father and son team. That was my literal dream. I pictured, “I’d like Craig and Paul Lynde for the win please.” (Laughs)
SPAZ: Is there a comedian or somebody in your life that influenced you the most?
CRAIG: Well, this is hard to believe, but there are two answers to that. It’s not a comedian, it never was. I mean, if anybody, in the beginning it was Rich Little when I did a lot of impressions, and I don’t do them anymore. I used to do like literally 100 impressions. And I cut that down to two or three now, four, whatever it is, and it is only if it is organic to the piece. But the biggest influence was Bruce Springsteen. I’m a young guy and someone turns me on to Bruce Springsteen, and I see him in 1984, Born in the USA tour, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. And I sat there and was moved as I’ve never been, sent to another stratosphere before by the man and his music and what he did. I was just starting in comedy, and I said, “That’s what I want to do on stage. I wanna tell the truth. I want people to identify with me, and I want them to walk out exhausted knowing that I gave them everything that I have. And that’s what I do to this day. Springsteen remains my strongest influence and the greatest artist out there to me, and he also, like me, had a very sustainable long career where people come back time and time again. So that manifested. Even though I was a young guy, that came true, and the Paul Lynde thing came true….I ended up on Hollywood Squares on 75 episodes. So, some of these little dreams do come true. I have another really funny story about that. You know, I do believe in this law of attraction, even though I want to write a book called God’s a Slow Motherfucker….. I always wanted a dad when I was a kid, and I wanted a husband for my mom so she wouldn’t be so miserable, so that’s why Paul Lynde – I wrote to him… But there is another guy that I saw. I used to look at baseball cards of the Phillies. I could care less what they hit. All I cared about was if it said “S,” that they were single. There was “S” and “M,” single/married. If they were single, I would put the card aside, and I’d go, “Mom, look at this guy.” And I picked this guy, Tim McCarver. He was a catcher. I said, “You gotta meet this guy.” And I tried to get through to the Phillies to get the letter through to meet my mother, and I’d never hear back from them. Well, cut to a couple years ago. I get to know Joe Buck, who is his broadcasting partner on FOX. They do all the World Series and everything. Tim McCarver became a huge broadcaster. And I tell Joe Buck the story. Joe Buck is this fan of mine, and I got to know him. And the next time, I get a ball, Joe Buck made this happen, and it says, “Dear Son, time to grow up. Dad AKA Tim McCarver.” Isn’t that great? So all these years later….the only thing that hasn’t happened is I haven’t met Bruce Springsteen yet. It will happen someday. I hope he sees my stuff. I only want to meet him on that level, of him, I know he loves comedy, and Nils is actually a fan of mine, Nils Lofgren. I mean he has come to shows in Arizona. But still, I’ve come so close. I got tickets from Nils to shows, and sat on the drum case once, and I never met Springsteen. That’s the one guy though that I would love to have like a one-on-one, just hang with the guy, cause I so respect what he does as a person and an artist, and you, so that’s my biggest influence.
LAUREN: When you put out a DVD like this, is there any pressure that you have to retire parts of your act because now it’s been recorded?
CRAIG: That’s a good question. There are several answers to it. One is that people like Bruce Springsteen – they have to hear “Born To Run.” But unlike Bruce Springsteen or any musician, I can change my Love Master. I can change the lines. You can’t change “Tramps like us” to “Bitches like us.” I mean, you have to stick with the lyrics and I can change a lot of Love Master lines. So that is one advantage. The other thing is, I do continue to keep writing new material and throw in the best ofs that they are still yelling it out, actually. They bring their friends and say hey, check this guy out and when they say check this guy out, they’re not going, hey come see his new material. They’re saying you gotta see this machine gun bit. You know what I mean?
SPAZ: When you are putting together the show, how much of your material actually continues in the show compared to what you have to cut because maybe it doesn’t go over that well? Maybe it goes over people’s heads.
CRAIG: Um, well first of all, I tend not to write material that goes over anyone’s head. Not that I’m dumb, but… I don’t really come from that space, I really try to connect with them. Usually, if it doesn’t go over, it’s just a matter of something else. There’s another ingredient that needs to go in it to make it go over or drop it. That wouldn’t be the reason: it was over their heads. It would be it just wasn’t what I thought it was when I initially wrote it. Didn’t deliver it properly… I mean, some things just start off as an idea and then it becomes a line then it becomes a bit then it becomes a piece then it becomes a hunk. Every single bit in my act was just one line that started that ends up as a hunk now. The Love Master was one line. The Chris Rock was one line of observation that I had about when I got oohed. You know, it spawned from that.
SPAZ: What’s next for Craig Shoemaker?
CRAIG: Well, I have a book coming out that is more of a self-help book. It’s the journey that I’ve gone through and it helps people manage some of the difficulties in their lives. So there’s the book and then I happen to be getting some TV appearances now, I guess because of Daditude special. I got a (recurring) role on Parks And Recreation and The Bold And The Beautiful, a soap opera.
SPAZ: Wow, that’s a weird…are you playing yourself in The Bold And The Beautiful?
CRAIG: Ah, no…I play a porn producer (laughter)
SPAZ: So it seems to be growing and growing and growing. By the time you’re 70, you’ll have your own sitcom…
CRAIG: Yeah, right, exactly. Everyone’s been asking about my sitcom for my entire career I think. “How come you don’t have a sitcom?” And you know, I can’t manage that. I can just go do what I do. The results are not in my hands. I don’t know what my destiny is or what’s in store. You have different managers and agents that promise you this and that, and it’s all an illusion anyway. So, I just keep showing up and whoever sees it, whoever connects with it or it resonates with them, if it’s somebody in show business, maybe that’s what will happen. But, I will not live in a box of “Oh, he’s a comedian.” This book is really my greatest work and it’s very serious too. It’s dealing with an ex who has, she has run us down a rough road and it’s dealing with that, but finding that inner Shangri-la… That’s the end of the book - is that there’s hope at the end of it, and it continues if we maintain it. But it’s a true story. The book is entirely autobiographical and it’s a story, but my hope is it also becomes a self-help book for people. It’s not telling them how to do it, but it’s showing how I did it or how I do it.
SPAZ: When is that scheduled to come out?
CRAIG: I just finished it, and now it’s a matter of which publisher is going to step up and get behind it so we’ll see. Again, I don’t know. I can’t predict what will happen. Just like even the special. I knew that it was good work when I did it, and I was really into that crowd that night, and I said now it’s up to editors and it’s up to distributors, and things like that and who sees it.
SPAZ: What is currently spinning on your CD, DVD, or record player?
CRAIG: Wow, that’s a tough one because again, like my life, it’s extremely varied. I’m really active with all three children - so my oldest teen turned me on to some of his music and most of it I’m not really into (chuckles) nor am I into The Wiggles for the youngest one or some pop thing for the middle child. I’m not really into it, but I will check it out because they are into it and I get to experience it with them. So, because they’re all varied ages, I find that it’s real diverse and eclectic, what I listen to and watch. And then there is my wife! She is my eco-organic wife and she listens to Indigo Girls. But, my number one is Les Miserables. I looked forward to this Christmas more than my anticipation of getting a Hot Wheels set. Because Les Miserable opened on Christmas morning and I had my tickets way ahead of time and brought a drop cloth for my crying. Even during the Oscars, I watched with my family, and they were cracking up. I was crying – the Les Miserables songs….. I’m just a softy when it comes to that.
SPAZ: Well, what did you think of it?
CRAIG: Well, certainly it was not the play, which I’ve seen a dozen times with a number of different actors. I’d say most of it was great. I thought that Russell Crowe was miscast. He’s great as a character – couldn’t sing. And that was when I was actually saying, “Come on, I wish was more famous so I would be that part because I could definitely nail it.” I talk about it in my act now. He sings like he’s got narcolepsy. Falls asleep in the middle of the song. (Laughs) I mean, that was a little disappointment. I wasn’t crazy about Sacha Baron Cohen. I didn’t think he had the chops, because I really do love musical theater. I love it. I always have, ever since I was a kid, and that’s the one play that stands out as the greatest of all time for me. Going in with the high expectations is never a good thing, but I thought that they met it mostly. It was really well done, and I thought, this Samantha Banks, I think her name is, oh my God, she is amazing. She just blew me away. She could sing the phonebook for me. Is there such a thing as a phonebook anymore?
SPAZ: That’s why I was sort of wondering what you thought because most everyone – the first thing they say is Russell Crowe can’t sing. And he had a Rock band named 30 Odd Foot of Grunts…
CRAIG: I couldn’t sing that style, but I can sing Broadway style. You know, even in comedy, It’s like knowing your race. I’m a marathoner and not a sprinter. I can run a very long race and keep people listening on stage… but I’m not a Tonight Show 4 ½ minute guy. I know that now, and I’m not going to try to force it. They forced this guy (Crowe)… it’s not his genre. And the same with Sacha Baron Cohen. I mean, they are really great. They are at the top of their field in what they do well. But this isn’t it.
Thanks to Craig Shoemaker
Special thanks to Dana House, Lauren Watt and Laura Riforgiato
2012 album from the veteran British Pop band, their 10th studio album overall. On Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da sees the band team up with a number of new producers, the first time in their illustrious career they have decided to do so, to create an album of incredible pop songs. Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da offers up artwork from legendary British artist Sir Peter Blake (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), who has designed the artwork for this album. Features 'Death Of A Rude Boy' and 'My Girl 2'.
While Electro Pop may have dominated the U.S. charts in the early to mid ‘80s, it has been decades since a new band has come along and made an impact on American radio…or any other music platform for that matter. Sure, there have been plenty of Electronic artists who have left their mark in the states including Moby, Skrillex, David Guetta and deadmau5, but nothing Pop-oriented enough to appeal to the greater masses. That may change with the September 25th arrival of Bodyparts, the third album from Canadian trio Dragonette.
Bodyparts is an album so strong that practically every track could be a hit single. The band has released two bona-fide hits from the album already (“Let It Go” and “Live In This City”), but, to be honest, this is a full-length packed with virtual wall-to-wall smashes… and when was the last time that happened? With infectious melodies, playful arrangements and driving beats, this is an album that will be adored by fans of ‘80s Synthpop as well as those who prefer a more modern take on Electronica.
Dragonette was formed in Canada by vocalist/songwriter Martina Sorbara, producer Dan Kurtz and drummer Joel Stouffer. From the very beginning, Dragonette mixed soaring Pop melodies with an assortment of real and Electronic sounds and topped it with Martina’s confident vocals, creating a unique sound that was commercial yet filled with attitude and undeniable charm. With two hit albums behind them (2007’s Galore and Fixin’ To Thrill from ’09), the trio went from strength to strength.
Aside from their own releases, they found themselves collaborating with an assortment of DJs from all over the world. Luckily, Dragonette hit paydirt with French DJ Martin Solveig when they finally broke through American airwaves in 2010 with their collaborative track “Hello”. While Bodyparts may be a tad bit less Techno-heavy than “Hello”, it still manages to be as joyfully dancefloor friendly as that hit. From the opening track, ‘Run Run Run” to the mid-tempo closer “Ghost”, Bodyparts is a feast for the ears and a call to arms for the feet. Stephen SPAZ Schnee was able to catch up with Martina Sorbara and discuss the album and all things Dragonette…
SPAZ: The album Bodyparts is just about to drop. How are you feeling about the album and the reaction you’ve been receiving so far?
MARTINA SORBARA: We love this record…. in fact, Dan thinks it's the best one we've made so far. Our neighbors (who have listened to it a fair amount through our common wall) also really like it.
SPAZ: The album sounds like it’s filled with wall to wall hits. Was this collection of tracks conceived as an album or did you approach each song individually and then create an album from there?
MARTINA: Ha… IF ONLY we could conceive of a whole album in advance! It would probably save us a year of messing around; trying to figure out what kind of songs we're going to end up writing. Every time we've started writing "our next album," we've always felt like we're clutching at straws, clinging to any tiny idea that might turn into a song. We do that about 6 or 7 times in a row until we realize that we have some kind of sound starting to form, and then we relax a little bit into that sound and take some chances. This album ended up feeling like more of a daytime-sounding record vs. a darker, more clubby vibe.
SPAZ: Bodyparts was recorded in three different parts of the world. Did you manage to find different types of inspiration while you spent time in London, Rio De Janeiro and Ontario? Do you find that different environments stimulate your creativity?
MARTINA: The main reason for us writing in all these places is because of where we were touring or living at the time. The one exception is Rio, where Dan's dad lives, and where we wanted to go for longer than just a couple of days. Going there to write was a great excuse to spend some time there. We wrote two songs in an apartment looking out over the water, neither of which sound anything like what you'd expect to come out of being exposed to Rio's sunshine and people.
SPAZ: Some may refer to the band as ‘80s revivalists, but I hear so many more influences including Glam, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Power Pop and modern Electro-Dance. Does it frustrate you to be lumped into one category when you clearly have a lot of other influences?
MARTINA: We never fault people for trying to come up with the most reductive way of defining our music… it happens all the time, and it happens to every band. Probably every band feels that their music is broader than just one genre, but then again, probably every band is happy to spend 5 minutes describing their sound to anyone who will listen. In an effort to keep it short and simple, I'll just say that I agree with all the influences you hear in our music!
SPAZ: How did the recording of Bodyparts compare to your work on the previous two albums? Do you still find yourselves pushing the envelope a little more each time when you are in the studio?
MARTINA: We did very little "in studio" recording for this record…..to begin with, we recorded no live drums, which was a new thing for us. We also kept a lot of the original, poorly-recorded demo vocals because we thought the vibe was better than in any subsequent re-record. We didn't consciously try to push any envelopes, but when we listen to this album vs. our previous records, we can hear that we're still getting better at making records.
SPAZ: What is the normal songwriting process for Dragonette? Do the songs end up going in different directions than you initially envisioned?
MARTINA: They almost always end up sounding different that how they first start out. The process is almost always a "just make it as good as we can" approach, which generally means over-polishing it and then stepping back to the stage just before the vibes started giving way to "perfection".
SPAZ: The album already has spawned two ‘singles’ with “Let It Go” and “Live In This City” and you haven’t even touched what could be the most obvious choice for a single, “Run Run Run”. How do you go about choosing singles from the album? Or do you leave that in other people’s hands?
MARTINA: Luckily we get to have a hand in these decisions, since WE are still the record company in most countries. Our manager/svengali Neil sees all these sorts of things in a Big Picture kind of way, so we generally let him lead the way, and we willingly follow. We thought to keep "Run Run Run" back a bit since it will be a nice change of pace after the more banging "Let it Go" and "Live in this City."
SPAZ: Did you have a lot of material recorded for this album that ended up NOT being used, or did you just focus on this set of songs while you were creating the album?
MARTINA: For the first time ever we have not only a couple of B-sides, but even a couple of songs that are written but not yet fully produced. We're hoping to keep writing through all of the touring we expect to be doing, if only just so when we start on album #4 we won't be starting from Zero.
SPAZ: For being in close proximity to the U.S., Canada sure seems to have a vibrant music scene that unfortunately doesn’t always get caught by our radars. Do you think you had an advantage to musically grow on your own terms and on your own turf before taking Dragonette global?
MARTINA: We actually left Canada for the UK a few years ago, in part because we felt at the time we were making music that had little to no relevance to the Canadian music scene. That has now changed, but for the first few years, it would have been hard to grow just within Canada's borders. We were really lucky to get a really global experience over these past few years, while at the same time beginning to grow our band in Canada as radio moved towards playing pop and dance.
SPAZ: How did you hook up with DJ Martin Solveig? Your collaboration, “Hello”, has become a pretty big deal all round the world? Did you imagine that it would be as popular as it has become?
MARTINA: We met on an airport shuttle bus in Australia, and Martin took our email address. He wrote a little while later to ask about collaborating on the first track we did together ("Boys and Girls"), and it worked out well enough that we did it again with "Hello", and a couple of other songs for Martin's album "Smash". None of us had any idea how big that song was going to become.
SPAZ: What’s next for Dragonette?
MARTINA: Touring. Touring. Touring.
SPAZ: What do you currently have spinning on your CD, DVD and/or record player?
As the music industry constantly evolves and new musical genres come and go, it’s always nice to be reminded that Rock ‘n’ Roll is not a dying art form. While many acts attempt to alter their sound to fit a trend or a fashion, there are bands like The Smithereens who carve out their own niche and stick to it.
For over 30 years, the guitar-fuelled quartet from New Jersey has remained true to their original blueprint and they’ve literally rocked themselves into the music history books. With hit singles and radio staples (“Blood And Roses”, “Yesterday Girl”, “Only A Memory”, “Behind The Wall Of Sleep”, “A Girl Like You”), The Smithereens have embedded their hook-laden Pop tunes into the hearts, minds and souls of music fans around the country (and the world, come to think of it). And they didn’t need a gimmick: just a cache of great songs and plenty of determination.
Although they formed and made a name for themselves during the Punk and New Wave era in the ‘80s, The Smithereens have never aligned themselves with any particular scene and therefore, they’ve avoided being lumped into the dreaded “Former ‘80s Band” category. Their sound is a timeless blend of muscle and melody and they are just as relevant today as they were when they formed three decades ago.
As the band prepares to drop their first album of new original material in 11 years, Spaz was able to chat with vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter Pat DiNizio about the new platter, 2011, and their career to date…
SPAZ:Smithereens 2011 is just about to drop. How are you feeling about the album at this point in time?
PAT DINIZIO: We’re getting a great reaction based upon feedback that I’m getting on my Facebook page and some personal e-mails based on the 90 second segments that are posted online. Everyone seems to think it’s a great return to form. It reminds them of Green Thoughts and Especially For You and the first several albums that apparently meant so much to them when they were in high school and in college. We’re very happy to hear that. It was certainly a labor of love. It’s very challenging, to say the least, to come up with your first complete album of all-new original material in 11 years. I have released solo albums, but a Smithereens album is altogether different. I’m very pleased with the response so far.
SPAZ: It’s been over a decade since the last Smithereens album of original material. Did you have a huge stockpile of songs to choose from when you went into record the album?
PD: No, everything was written specifically for this album. I live in New York City on the lower East Side on Avenue A, what they used to call Alphabet City. There’s a rehearsal studio, which is on Avenue B about a block away from my apartment. We went back to that studio because that’s where we wrote and rehearsed the material, back in 1987, for our second Capitol Records album, Green Thoughts. We really wanted to go right back to the roots. It’s a $12 an hour rehearsal studio. The amps and drums are exactly the same as they were 25 years ago. They were in the same position. I think a can of coke that I crushed up and threw in the corner was still there! (laughs). We went back to those roots to write and rehearse the album. Back to New York, back to the old neighborhood, back to the old studio, which was fortunately still there, and wrote everything from scratch.
SPAZ: Do you think your surroundings effect the way that you write?
PD: I don’t know. I mean, a writer is a writer is a writer. I wrote most of the material for Smithereens 11, which was a fairly aggressive album, looking out the window at the Catskill Mountains in a house my then-wife and I were renting. I think it’s all really what you’re feeling inside more than anything. I felt, in this case, for me to be completely focused, it would be good to go back to the apartment where I wrote most of the Especially For You album and songs like “Blood & Roses” and “Behind The Wall Of Sleep”. I wrote “Only A Memory” there. I felt that I wanted to go back and I was thrilled to go back because those places still existed. I wanted to create a state of mind where I would be able to be at my best.
SPAZ: What inspired the songs?
PD: The way that we did this was that Dennis (Diken), our drummer, and I got together and I had him record a lot of different drum loops and I worked with those. I said I want you to play the drum pattern for every song on the Beatles’ Revolver album! (laughs) And I recorded them on cassette and took it home and I just had the rhythms playing all the time. Then I called the guys in and we worked on all the material together based on that starting point. You always need a starting point… a point of reference. With me it always starts with a rhythm. I come up with riffs and things, then I sing melodies on top of it. The words and titles usually come later. I mean, there’s no ONE way of working. In the case of “Blood And Roses”, it hit me in an instant. I was walking home from work back in 1985. I worked at a nightclub called Folk City. The song just came to me. The real struggle was to get it on tape and sing it into the tape recorder before I forgot it. Other times, the songs take longer. There’s a song on our first album called “Alone At Midnight”. I couldn’t get a handle on it. It literally took three years to write the song but it’s certainly become a favorite amongst the folks who have been nice enough to support us for the past 31 years.
SPAZ: The album is filled with great Smithereens songs. “Sorry”, “One Look At You”, ‘Rings On Her Fingers” and “Bring Back The One I Love”, in particular, are on par with your best. Is it an exhilarating feeling to get these new songs out to your fan base and a whole new generation of listeners who may not be familiar with the old tunes?
PD: Yes, certainly. We see these younger folks coming to the shows. We’ll meet them at the autograph table after the show because we always say “Hi” to everyone when we’re finished with the show. There was an instance recently in Washington DC where we played. There were these three skinny long haired kids who reminded me of how I looked when I was 18. They were standing right in front and were just staring at us like we were four far-out old dudes… and I just couldn’t get a reaction out of ‘em. Afterwards, they were saying “Dude, it was really great. My dad was playing me your records when I was five years old and I never thought I’d actually get to see you play live!” and I said, “But you weren’t reacting.” He said, “No, man, that’s how we enjoy the show.” (laughs). It’s a different thing. But I was probably much the same (at that age). But it’s heartening, indeed, because kids my daughter’s age are listening to us. She’s going to school in Santa Barbara and she says “Dad…”, well, she calls me ‘dude’ now. It’s the California influence. She says “Dude, you are famous!” And I said “What do you mean?”. She goes “All we listen to here is Classic Rock and, dude, you’re on the radio every day!” I said “Thanks, dude!” (laughs). The kids are apparently aware!. Unfortunately for them, there aren’t any new Rock ‘n’ Roll bands that have a ‘classic’ sound. I don’t like the expression ‘Classic Rock’ as much because it says that you ‘were’ rather than you ‘are’ and we ‘are’! We exist and the music that we write is as timely as anything we’ve ever done.
SPAZ: Once again, you roped in producer extraordinaire Don Dixon to helm the album. Because of your history with him, was Don your first choice as producer on this new record?
PD. Yes, absolutely. I worked with Don on my first solo album, which came out in ’98 or ’99. I worked with JJ Burnell, the bass player of The Stranglers, and Tony Smith, who plays with Lou Reed. I saw Tony play with the Jan Hammer Group and then the Jan Hammer-Jeff Beck Group so that was a thrill. And Sonny Fortune, who used to play with Miles Davis, so it was an interesting thing. Don and I worked on that record and we were talking about doing another Smithereens record for many years. So yes, Don was the obvious and only choice for this album. It was like picking up where we left off in ’94, when we did our one and only album for RCA called A Date With The Smithereens. I think Don was consciously setting out, in terms of production of this record, to make an album that has great emotional impact and really capture the excitement and energy of the songs rather than making what we refer to as ‘an audiophile record’. I think his template was Green Thoughts and Especially For You. The album is reminiscent of those Smithereens records in terms of the sonic properties of it but the songs are thoroughly modern.
SPAZ: The Smithereens have carved out their own niche in the music business. In the 30 years you have been around, you’ve lived through dozens, if not hundreds, of new musical movements and hundreds of bands have lived and died in that same amount of time. What keeps The Smithereens going?
PD: I think, basically and most importantly, a love of music. We started the band for the right reasons because we thought there was nothing cooler than being in a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. We grew up on TV shows like Shindig and Hullaballoo. We loved records: we loved buying 45s and looking at cool record labels like Dunwich and Bang. We loved Rock ‘n’ Roll radio and it’s what we wanted to do. I also think it’s the fact that the band is family. We’ve been together so long. My ex-wife used to say to me, “Pat, what is it like being married to four people?”, meaning her and the other three guys in the band. (laughs). And for us, to have done 300 shows a year, lived on a bus 300 days a year together for nearly 10 years during the early days of the band’s success…. That speaks volumes to the solidarity that exists within the band.
SPAZ: You guys are one of the very few bands that emerged during the ‘80s that don’t seem to be weighed down by that “’80s Band” tag hanging over your head. Do you attribute this to the band’s timeless sound? Or perhaps the fact that the band never aligned itself with any particular genre in the first place?
PD: Back in the early days, we would do gigs at the very few local venues that supported original music and we’d hear other bands say “We’re going on hiatus for the summer. We’re taking the summer off.” I knew they were never going to make it because they didn’t have the commitment. You never stop playing! That’s one of the reasons why our sound is still relevant. We’ve never stopped playing and we never lost our edge. We’re a very simple, easily-understood Rock ‘n’ Roll band. We still plug directly into the amplifiers: we don’t use any effects pedals whatsoever so it’s that pure guitar tube-amp driven sound. We’ve preserved the live sound of the band. People come to shows now… some people haven’t seen us in 20 years. Their kids are grown and they are active again and they are going out and they are going to see live music. And they are shocked because while we don’t look the same, we’ve all grown older, they close their eyes and it sounds exactly, if not better, than the way it sounded 20 years ago when they first saw us. It’s a great responsibility and it’s a great trust that we have with our audience. We are intent on never letting them down. The goal was to be unique and have our own sound and not compromise in any way.
SPAZ: What do you think of the current music scene…. And it’s use of auto-tune?
PD. I’m certain that it (auto-tune) serves a purpose… I must say that anybody that hears this record, you should know that the vocals were done live without auto-tuning, without any sort of editing. They were done the old way. You go for a great, emotional, real performance.
SPAZ: Do you feel that the Smithereens have anything to prove?
PD: No, which is a beautiful thing at this point. We’ve done everything that we could possibly do. We’ve got platinum albums, we’ve done things like Saturday Night Live.... We’ve somehow managed to survive a lot of the shows and events we did. Things like the first episode of MTV Unplugged. Well, that show’s no longer around, but we are. Arsenio’s no longer around, but we are. We’re fortunate. We’re just a bunch of guys from New Jersey with guitars, that’s all. We do it our way and people seem to understand it and we’re very appreciative of the fact that they do understand what we’re all about. Many of the folks in the audience could’ve been in a band like The Smithereens. We just had the wherewithal to stick it out for six years and then we got signed for two corned beef sandwiches (laughs) by a label out of El Segundo, California called Enigma. So, we were standing on the right corner at the right time, and we were very lucky lucky. And we feel very lucky that we have this wonderful gift that’s been bestowed upon us and that we’re able to go out and do shows and people still come and the shows all sell out. I can’t explain why. I can just say that I’m very grateful and that I’m very happy that I’m given this opportunity to write songs and make albums and sing and play guitar.
SPAZ: What’s next for the Smithereens?
PD: We’re waiting for the record to come out and we’re looking at various tour opportunities for the Spring and Summer. And it’ll continue until whatever happens happens. I always wanted to go out with my boots on like Ernest Tubb and Johnny Cash and guys like that. We’re lifers in this band: we’ve been doing it for 31 years. I can say with some reasonable authority that if this album does well, it will enable us to do another original album and we certainly won’t wait another 11 years! (laughs)
SPAZ: What do you currently have spinning on your CD, DVD and record players?
PD: Ah, geez. That’s a bit of a loaded question. I tend to listen to records that I liked when I was growing up. I’m more visually-oriented: I watch movies at home, I don’t listen to music. I’m surrounded by music all the time. The last thing I do when I go home is listen to music. I don’t want to hear anything. I watch a lot of movies. I’m more inspired by movies. I did pick up Jeff Beck Live At Ronnie Scotts DVD and I picked up a recent Neil Young DVD. I’m interested in seeing what everyone’s doing. I’m amazed at the old-timers who still have their talent and are just forging ahead. Jeff Beck is playing better than I’ve ever heard him play. People like that are role models for me: they give me the strength to carry on.
“By The Time I Get To Phoenix”. “Up, Up & Away”. “Wichita Lineman”. “McArthur Park”. “Galveston”. “Didn’t We?”. “The Highwayman”. Songwriting doesn’t get much better than this. Say what you will about certain renditions of these songs, but there’s no denying the power and the majestic beauty of the words and melodies themselves. These are songs that will outlive us all. Your great, great, great grandchildren may not know much about you many years down the line, but they most certainly will know all the lyrics to “Wichita Lineman”. And they may even have already deciphered the meaning of the rain-soaked cake in “McArthur Park” by then!
So, when I got a call to interview Jimmy Webb, the man who wrote these classic songs, I had to pinch myself. Me? Interview THE Jimmy Webb? Hell, yeah! The following day, his 2010 album Just Across The River, showed up on my desk and it never left my side for at least a week. This glorious album finds Webb revisiting some of his finest songs, aided and abetted by some of Nashville’s finest players… and some of his famous friends such Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Mark Knopfler, Michael McDonald, Vince Gill and Linda Ronstadt. The album is warm, organic, sincere and uplifting and an absolute must-have for any real music fan.
It was an honor to speak with Jimmy Webb (THE Jimmy Webb) about this new album and much more. Jimmy is one of our nation’s greatest living songwriters yet he remains humble and very personable. That, in itself, is a rarity in this business that tends to add extra helium into the over-inflated egos of less talented mortals.
JIMMY WEBB: My producer, Freddie Mollin, who did a great album with me about 10 years ago called Ten Easy Pieces. We actually did it up in Toronto and it was a real departure for me… away from heavily produced things: orchestrated, sustained guitars… I really came from the L.A. school, you know. He did this nice little album called Ten Easy Pieces and it really became kind of a minor classic. It’s still being manufactured, it’s still being sold. Actually, EMI is re-releasing it in about two weeks. It’s such a special album. He called me up last year and he said “I want you to come to Nashville. I want you to have the most wonderful experience of your life working with the top line of the session musicians, the guys that I’ve been working with here that are all anxious to do an album with you. They’re all calling me and saying when are we going to do a Jimmy Webb record!” Believe it or not, this is really what happened! He said we’ll take two days, we’ll cut a dozen, 13 tracks. Believe me, you’ll be transported. You’ll have an epiphany. You’ll actually have some fun making this record.
And you know, that’s exactly what happened! I went down, we didn’t have much of a budget, it was a low budget album, but some wonderful people that are on that record: Chuck Mitchell, who loved the idea and wanted to help as much as possible within the ‘new’ financial picture in the record business is quite different from the way it was years ago…..they offered us everything they could and believed in us. So, really, that’s the way it got started. We cut 13 tracks in two days and every track, to my ear, was more beautiful than the one before. I kept crying. I kept laughing. I didn’t play a lot of piano on this record. I ended up only doing one piano track on the JD Souther track. I was too busy. I sort of put that one together. Mostly, I just listened to these guys play and marveled at the consistency of the musicianship and they way they listened to each other and they way they related to each other’ playing in a kind of awe. From the first moment of the first note of the first track, there was something special about this project. It just seemed to be a communicable disease that everybody caught who became involved as we moved down the line.
I wouldn’t want anybody to think that we intended to create a celebrity album. That was the last thing on our list. We didn’t think we could afford it and it wasn’t what we set out to do. But celebrity artists began to become involved. Lucinda Williams sort of asked if she could be involved in the song “Galveston” because it meant so much to her personally. Of course, I was honored. I’ve always had an idea that “Galveston” would make a great duet, that it’d be a great dialog between a man and a woman. The man being a soldier, far away from home and the woman at home giving her side of things, waiting to see if this guys gonna come back. So, that worked. That came off so beautifully.
Other people fell into place. Guys like Vince Gill, who I have a long-standing friendship with and we’re both Oklahomans, we wrote the Centennial state song for Oklahoma in 2007. Vince and I wrote that together and we performed quite a few engagements together. We got to know each other. Amy (Grant) and I knew each other for years. She sang the part of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in this cantata I wrote called ‘The Animals’ Christmas’, so I’ve known her for a long time.
It was like bits and pieces of family coming together and saying “Oh, you’re doing this. I wouldn’t mind being asked! I sure love that ‘Oklahoma Nights’!”
There were occasions where actual love affairs where already in place. Jackson Browne loved “P.F. Sloan”. Lucinda loved “Galveston”. Billy Joel has made no secret that he is a special fan of “Wichita Lineman” and I’ve heard him do it a coupla times: one time when they gave me the Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriter’s Hall Of Fame. Bit by bit, in dribs and drabs, these things came together. I’ve worked with Michael McDonald on many many albums and it just wouldn’t have been right to do it without him. He just proved once more that he’s just the greatest background singer in the world, never mind that he’s a superstar! There’s just nobody who can touch him when he does all those parts.
In so much that we were conscious of it, we did not contrive to make a celebrity album. It was something that just kind of evolved as a labor of love and people stopped by the studio.
Willie Nelson stopped by the studio to do the song that had been recorded years ago by Waylon Jennings called “If You See Me Getting Smaller”. It was one of the funniest things in the world. Willie came into the studio and Freddie Molin was there and Willie said “Hi!” and Freddie said “Hi!” And he (Willie) says “Where’s the mic?” then he went in and sang a couple of takes and then he said “What do ya think?”. And Freddie says “I think it’s great!” and Willie says, “If you see me getting smaller, I’m leaving! Tell Jimmie I love him!” and he walks out and his bus was parked outside the studio!
So many cool things happened making this record. It was just a great thing. If nothing ever happened at all to make this album popular or successful, I’d be happy with this whole experience. It’s just been so great.
Q: When sitting down to figure out which songs to choose for the album, what was your criteria?
JW: Well, I wasn’t the one picking. It was really up to Fred. His philosophic picture of this album was very clear. This is, to him, Jimmy Webb comes home. He puts all those high falutin city airs behind him and he’s not singing for crowds at the Regency Hotel. He’s coming home to get back to where he came from, vocally. And I think that’s pretty much right. The first cut on the album says “Put the top down on this ol’ mustang and I’ll buy you a bottle of wine. We’ll head down south to see the old gang, I wanna see some friends of mine”. That was pretty much the philosophy of the album in a phrase. And he followed that line with consummate skill in picking the songs because there’s almost a kind of meandering story that kind of holds this whole thing together. To my mind, and I’ve deliberately made a lot of concept albums, this one seems to hold together in a very nice way right up until the moment when Linda Ronstadt and I sing “I Love You And That’s All I Know”. She was officially retired. She had had a press conference and said “I’m not going to sing anymore”. And this is because of some problems I still don’t feel comfortable talking about because to me, it’s just a tragedy. It’s a modern day tragedy. I can weep over the fact that Linda has had some vocal problems and she feels like she doesn’t want to burden the public with her vocal problems. And so she had officially hung it up, which I think is a tragedy in the history of American Pop music. Yet, when she heard the track that we had prepared with just this simple guitar, I said “Freddie, I can’t ask Linda to do this. I can’t and I won’t because I know how she feels. This is not a good time. “ Freddie said “What would you say to sending her the guitar track?” I said “I think that would be cool. I think that is the only way that you can approach it, frankly” And he MP3’d the file out to her and a couple of days later, she e-mailed back and said “I have to try this. If you’ll come to San Francisco and record me, I’ll try to do this but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to”. I think what we got from her is just as pure and precious as anything Linda ever sang. I’m hoping that that will be an encouragement to her and that in some way, it helps her resume her career. That’s what I’d like to see. It certainly is the capper on the album for me. Its just a moment when you kind of pause and you think about some of the tracks you’ve heard and you think about Michael McDonald. You think about Vince Gill on “Oklahoma Nights”. You think about Mark Knopfler on “The Highwayman”. And it seems like some of those things were meant to be. They don’t sound forced. They don’t sound like someone trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. I think we were lucky but we were also dealing with consummate talent. We weren’t dealing with people who….this wasn’t their first rodeo, you know? There’s something to be said for experience and we had plenty of it on that album.
SPAZ: When an artist goes in and revisits their back catalog, may times it does sound forced, as if the artist is just going through the motions… but I never sensed that on this album. It all sounds so natural. Billy Joel sounds better than he has in decades.
JW: I’m so pleased to hear you say that. When he comes in (on the second verse), I start crying.
SPAZ: The way I got into Jimmy Webb was, as a kid, I was a big Glen Campbell fan. In fact, Glen was my first concert back in 1969 or 1970. In the years since then, I’ve heard some of Glen’s live albums where it just sounds like he was sleepwalking through the songs. But when I heard his voice on “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” on Just Across The River, it blew my mind. I don’t think he’s sounded better. He just sounds amazing!
JW: We had done a concert the night before in Nashville with the Nashville Philharmonic and, to tell you the truth, without sounding like I’m bragging too much, it was just one hell of a concert. I came out and I did about 35 or 40 minutes and then he came out and we did all the hits together and we did “McArthur Park” with the full Philharmonic and, believe me, it’s a closer. So, we were on our little puffy white cloud because we had really scored in Nashville… and Nashville is a place where people are pretty discerning about what they listen to…. And we had really done well. There was really good word of mouth on the street about how Glen and I had performed together. And Freddie, that night, before he went to bed, called me up at the hotel and said “Somehow or other, we have to get Glen in the studio tomorrow. You guys have never recorded together. And I started thinking… oh my God, we’ve never recorded together! In all these years, we never recorded together. And he said “This will be an historic moment. You guys were great last night. We have to get this!” So, he called Glen and Glen was there on time. He came walking in and said “Where’s the booth?”. He walked in and listened to me sing the first verse and came in. It was basically a one-taker… we might have had two takes on it, but Glen is phenomenally strong as a vocalist at 74 years of age. He sings like a kid.
Usually, we resign ourselves to a decline in our vocal prowess as we get older. I think it also depends a lot on the way people sing. Some people are really hard on their voices. Some people would say that’s because they don’t sing correctly. I certainly don’t sing correctly and I’m getting stronger as I get older. I think you reach a certain point where you do begin to fall off but Glen Campbell has, by no means, reached a point where he can’t sing anything he wants to sing. He sings all those songs in the original keys as well. The aging singer’s trick is to just to start dropping things down a half step and then a whole step and then two whole steps, but Glen’s never done that. I know his show forwards and backwards and he does everything in the same key he recorded it in. I just find him to be an American treasure. I hope that there are people out there who appreciate and love him as much as I do. I’ve made no secret that I would like to write another Glen Campbell album and do it with him before it’s too late. I don’t know whether we’ll get a chance to do it or not.
SPAZ: Were there any finished recordings that didn’t make the album?
JW: No, there really weren’t. As it was, we were one over and you always have to go back to the record company and bicker around to get that 13th song on the album. In this case, you get your money’s worth.
SPAZ: How does it feel that you are mentioned in the same breath as other songwriters like Burt Bacharach, Richard Rogers, Lennon & McCartney and other legends?
JW: I feel flattered. The night I got the Johnny Mercer Award, it was such an emotional night for me because Billy (Joel) gave it to me. I think that there’s a disbelief…. But I’m certainly flattered to be mentioned in the same breath as Bacharach and Hal David, who I worshipped as a teenager. To me, it’s gratifying and rewarding to see your music last for so many years. I think it would hurt to be 40-50 years old and look around and have no one playing or listening to your music anymore. I think that wouldn’t feel good. I’ve been blessed to see my music performed right up to the present day. I’ve been blessed to be able to get away with this for so long without anyone saying “He doesn’t really know how to do this!”
SPAZ: What’s next for Jimmy Webb?
JW: Right now, I’m writing my first ground-up Broadway show, which is an idea that I’ve actually been working on in the back of my mind for many many years and I finally just decided that I’m not going to get any younger… and its never going to get any easier to get a Broadway show on. I’ve written several and I’ve had several failed attempts to get these shows on but this is a dream of mine, something I really want to do. I’m doing that…and pecking away at my memoirs. I’ve got an offer to tell these wacky stories, I’ve got thousands of them. The first two chapters of this book, I’ve pretty much devoted to my father and my grandfather because I felt like there’s not point in writing a book about me without telling you where this all comes from. Sometimes you get a little resistance there from the publisher: “Can’t we get into some sex and Rock ‘n’ Roll right away? Maybe on the first page?” (all laugh)
SPAZ: You should just a glossary at the beginning that sez ‘Sex with so-and-so: Page 17!”
JW: (laughing) That’s a good idea!
SPAZ: What is currently spinning in your CD and DVD players?
JW: In my car is Chopin’s Piano Concerto #1. In my house, I have a boombox. I don’t have a big fancy stereo at all. And, believe it or not, Just Across The River is in my boombox (laughs). I haven’t heard it in a few days, but I cannot deny that I like to listen to it. Some of my albums, I just didn’t listen to because I didn’t like ‘em! (laughs).
Thanks to Jimmy Webb
Special thanks to Robin Siegel, Tony Pellegrino and Mike Logan
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