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This interview happened in the last week of March in 1994 at WMMR, once the number one FM rock radio station in Philly. Al Kooper, a Nashville resident was in town to promote a new album ReKooperation , an instrumental album that was a tribute to the organ masters of the '50s and '60s who'd inspired him from Jimmy Smith to Bill Doggett to Booker T.
The album on an indie company, MusicMasters came and went pretty quickly and so did the label. As this interview will show, Kooper didn't expect more than that.
Kooper was great to interview because not only does he answer questions in a totally direct manner, he's also hysterically funny. At times it was hard to ask the next question because he kept me cracked up and also quite at ease from the minute I walked in the door. I was his last interview that day and at the time the music industry seemed dominated by people wearing vinyl baseball warm-up jackets that usually had the name of a company on the latest promotion on them so when I walked in wearing a beat-up leather jacket and cowboy boots, Kooper said, “You're the most refreshing sight I've seen all day,” and he meant it.
Parts of this interview were originally published in a long-gone weekly paper in Philadelphia on April 6, 1994 . Sometime after that, a friend of mine posted parts of it as part of a discussion on the Usenet group, Rec.Music.Dylan. Those parts later found their way much to my astonishment into the English Dylan magazine, Isis .
Keep in mind this was done more than eleven years ago. Kooper no longer lives in Nashville, recently released a new album, and some of the people mentioned here are no longer around and even Warner Brothers Records isn't really Warner Brothers Records anymore.
Why did you move to Nashville ?
So I could semi-retire. I thought there was no danger of me getting involved in country music. I thought I'd be relatively safe there, no danger of them even wanting to be involved with me, even though myself and Bill Szymczyk made the two records that all country music is modeled after in the '90s, and we were doing them at the same time at the same studio. He was in studio A, I was in studio B at the record plant, he was doing (the Eagles') Hotel California, and I was doing (Skynyrd's) Second Helping.
What changes have you seen in Nashville in the almost 30 years since you first went there to do Blonde on Blonde?
Not much. It's a little more cosmopolitan, but it's still a great place to live. I love living there.
I was at SXSW in Austin …
That's not Nashville . I've lived in Austin ,. That's a great place to live also, but you can't make a f*****g penny there. It's just hopeless.
…and they were talking about the music business may be shifting out of L.A.
It has to. I won't go back to L.A. Forget about it. I was in the earthquake. That was the start of my bad winter.
Well, it wasn't a great winter here either.
I went to a bunch of places. Every place I went to, I had a f*****g disaster.
Are you planning to tour behind this new album?
I'm trying to figure out how to do it. It always ends up costing me money which is why I don't do it more often. I gotta figure out a way to do it 'cause I really want to go out and play. The kind of show I wanna put on, I gotta take six other musicians with me, and it's like... you can't make any money. You can't even break even. I'll break even, okay. So if I could figure out how to do that, I'd do that for a living because I love to play. And the business is so fucked up that I can't go out and play. I can't do what it is that I do.
What led you to make an all instrumental album?
It's just something I always wanted to do. I just had to find the right moment for. And this is the right moment. I really had nothing at stake 'cause I hadn't made a record in so long.
The album has a more of a sense of history to than some of your other albums, like when you talk in the notes about going to see the jazz guys at Birdland. I always figured you to be more of a rock ' n' roll guy, goin' back to “This Diamond Ring” and the Royal Teens.
I am. But I had a jazz period, from '60 to '64 and on Act Like Nothing's Wrong, I dedicated the album to its influences, and listed all the people who influenced, so people knew what it was that I listened to. I'm never trying to hide. This was an opportunity, I try and make the packages, see I'm a fan. I'm a fan of King's X, I like the new Sound Garden , I go out and I buy CDs. So being a fan, when I make a record, I try and make it like what do I want to see in this record if I'm buying an Al Kooper record. So I put those things in there because I thought people would be sincerely interested in it if they were fans.
I sense a kind of disgust with the music industry.
I hate the music industry. The fact that I found a place where I can do what I do without going through all the f*****g idiocy of the music business is really nice at this point in my life, because I just turned 50 and I just reached that stage where nothing is worth anything to me, where it's like if I gotta go through this, then f**k it, I'll stay home and play with my computer. I'm not gonna go and put up with anything any more. I don't have to. And so I won't. So, I do just what I wanna do, and that's all.
Do you think the music business has dramatically changed?
No. The major companies, they all have a policy of getting away with as much murder as they can. And it's always been that way. It's just that as time goes by they can get away with less and less murder. But for guys like me who have product on their label, but they don't deal with me anymore, they still f**k with me. They still don't pay me and stuff like this. So that goes on, that still exists. That never changes and it never will. Now that CDs are out and there's so much catalog stuff selling, these guys are making so much f*****g money you wouldn't believe it. And none of these people (the musicians) are getting paid. They just don't pay you.
It seems the major record companies are more in the hands of accountants and lawyers
Not Warner Brothers. That's second generation record business. Lenny Waronker, his father ran Liberty Records in the '50s, so what better guy to run a record company than a guy whose father did? So the next generation is more honest than the last one, so that's a good thing. Have you ever seen this guy Al Teller that runs MCA? Have you ever seen a picture of him? Would you put your career in the hands of a guy that combs his hair like that? I mean, get outta here.
He did that album Rhythm Country and Blues.
I like the Al Green/Lyle Lovett track.
The originals are obviously better.
Well of course, but I'd have to say that about my album too. You do what you can. They didn't do it ‘cause they loved it. They did it 'cause it was a f*****g scam.
What I mean is that there aren't any producers around like John Hammond. He may have been one of a kind...
He definitely was one of a kind. I knew him very well. I liked him a lot.
He was obviously into if for the music.
I hate to say this. I think Don Was is. But he produced that record, so I don't know.
I go up and down on Don Was' productions.
So does Don Was.
You played organ on the album he produced for Dylan, what were those sessions like.
They were nice. I liked the sessions because I was really in an ‘I could give a f**k' mood. At that point in my life, it was no big deal to play with Bob, and so I sat back and kind of watched all the other people get that buzz. I enjoyed it for that reason. I was very comfortable. Bob and I had become like really good friends, we understand each other perfectly well. And so it was less than no pressure. I was just looking at my watch to make sure I could see the basketball game. But I like my playing on it. I'm very happy with my playing on it. I think he phoned the lyrics on that album. But I think that's the only thing really wrong with that record is the words are like really silly and the rest of the record's good. I think Don did a great job on that record, myself, but Bob didn't. So, you can't win.
What's really interesting is they're putting out the stuff from England from the '66 tour with the Hawks, and that's some of the greatest rock and roll ever made in the history of rock and roll and that will vindicate probably Dylan to this generation that has no idea why people think he's great. It's scary how good that stuff is.
You decided you didn't want to do that tour?
I decided I didn't want to do that tour, but I was gonna get kicked out anyway because they were bringing the rest of the Band in. Levon and Robbie wanted to bring the rest of their guys in. Me and Harvey Brooks didn't have other guys to bring in. We were just partners.
What's Harvey Brooks been up do all these years?
Beats me, but he and I grew up together. We went to public school together, so any chance I can play with him, I wanna do that, and he's like a monstrously good player now, not that he wasn't then. He's so good it's scary. I love playing with him because it's a treat musically. Plus he's a year younger than me and he looks twice as old as I do.
A couple of years ago you did a Blues Project reunion, do you foresee any more of them?
You can only play a few places with them. You can play San Francisco, New York and Cleveland. I'm serious. That's where Blues Project fans were. We were big in those three cities. All the people that liked us that are still alive will come see us in those three cities. But to go to Los Angeles, you would just bomb!
I always thought they just should've been a folk rock band, doing stuff like “Fly Away.” Did you have any problems along those lines?
No, they played whatever I wrote or whatever anybody brought in. We didn't fight over it. At the end, I brought songs in and said, I want to add horns. They said, ‘No, we don't want to do that. We'll do the songs, but we don't want to do them with horns. We don't want to bring more people into the band.' So that's why I put together Blood Sweat & Tears, ‘cause I had this bunch of songs that needed horns. But they would've done the songs.
It just seemed to be it wasn't a blues band like in the same sense as Butterfield.
No, definitely, but that's good, because there was a Butterfield Band, so there didn't need to be, and Butterfield certainly couldn't have done “Fly Away.” We always got compared with them, but that's just 'cause it was the closest place. We were all good friends and we played this great week in New York at the Cafe Au Go Go and that was really something.
What was it like playing with Mike Bloomfield?
It was great. We were good pals. We knew what we wanted to do, we could do it and we'd have great fun. We never really went over our heads, and just did what we knew how to do.
I remember hearing Bloomfield on Murray the K's show around the time Electric Flag came out, and he was raving about the production on Blood Sweat & Tears first album. He really thought you caught the sound.
Those bands weren't in competition either. He was doing pretty much a Stax/Volt copy band. I was all over the place as usual. Chicago on the other hand, was doing what I was trying to do, and they were doing it better than I was doing it. So I was glad when I left the band, I was glad somebody was doing what I was trying to do. I didn't feel so bad that I wasn't doing it anymore.
Chicago never did anything like “I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know.”
That's just a blues song. The bridge to that song, Chicago could've done that. The bridge was a little more ambitious. The thrill for me with that was when Donny Hathaway cut it. That was very rewarding.
Did you play organ on “Sooner or Later”? That was cut in New York right?
That was the only song on the album cut in New York. It was a hybrid of Highway 61 and the Hawks.
Was that a scary thing for you when you went in to do Highway 61 and Paul Griffin was there?
The first session, yeah. But after that I felt comfortable because they asked me to be there. The first one I wasn't really asked to be there, I had to do some b******t to be on it. Blonde on Blonde, I was very comfortable.
At the time, did you know those albums would have the impact they ended up having?
I knew Blonde on Blonde did. I didn't understand about Highway 61 till after it came out. But when we were making Blonde on Blonde, I knew because of what happened with Highway 61 that it was music that was gonna live forever.
The trouble with Blonde on Blonde is it lists the musicians but not what they play. On “Memphis Blues Again,” there's at least three guitars.
The cool guitar on “Memphis Blues Again,” the Curtis Mayfield kind of licks, that's Joe South. Some of the really cool stuff, like that fast guitar lick on “I Want You,” that's Wayne Moss. He played some of the really cool stuff. On “You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine,” Charlie McCoy played bass and trumpet at the same time 'cause Bob didn't want to overdub the instruments. I don't know if you've ever seen anybody play bass and trumpet at the same time -- I never have since then, but it's pretty interesting.
They did most of those songs in one take, like “Sad Eyed Lady.”
That was done very late at night. So was “Just Like a Woman,” like three, four, five in the morning. Sometimes we'd go to the studio and he'd just sit out there and write for five hours, and we'd play ping pong or go eat or something.
Has he changed his recording style over the years?
He might overdub his vocals, but that's good. I don't think that's bad.
Are you surprised he's putting out records of old folk songs?
I'm not surprised at all. I don't think he feels like writing, so that would be the logical thing to do. I like those records better than some of the other stuff he's done. They're like his version of Unplugged. The music that influenced him, it's a good look at his past. Like, where does this guy come from. This is where he came from.
You also worked on New Morning which gets overlooked.
I actually produced that, but didn't get credit for that.
I thought it was his piano album.
Some of them did. He played on “Sign on the Window.” I love his piano playing. I'm a big big fan of his piano playing. Some of his piano playing influenced me. I wish he'd play more piano.
Are you into the changes in keyboard technology? On the album you're mostly playing a Hammond B3?
That's cause I'm playing old music. If I was playing new music I'd use new keyboards.
Do you have any plans to record new music?
What's the point? I'm into doing what I do best, or doing what people will pay money to see me do.
If you toured, would you just do the stuff that's on your album?
I'd do songs from my past. I think people would be really pissed off if I didn't sing. I think people will probably be pissed off I didn't sing on this record. I once went to see Allen Toussaint, and he didn't sing, I wanted to break his f*****g head. He's a great piano player and stuff, but he's also a great singer, not that I'm a great singer. So if somebody comes to see me, I'm sure they expect me to sing. If I don't sing, I'll do them and me a disservice. That's why I sang one song on this album. I shouldn't have.
The song that hit me right off is the Richard Thompson song (“When the Spell is Broken”) because it wasn't something that you'd necessarily think of as an instrumental song.
Richard Thompson would be giant if people could get used to his voice. That's what's held him back. He sings with I don't know what kind of accent that is, English, Celtic, Scottish, it's something that ain't normal, and he won't compromise, and his voice is like Dylan's in that it's an acquired taste. You wouldn't just hear it and go that guys great. You really gotta warm up to his voice. Once you do, you're there. I'm there. Personally, I like his first three major label records, and then he's starting to lose me with the other ones. I find it really hard to find something to hang my hat on this record.
I'm not a big Mitchell Froom fan.
Nor am I. He's discounting the fact that this guy's a brilliant f*****g guitar player. I say let the guy play. You wrote a song? Good. Sing it. But play a long f*****g guitar solo and kill me because you're the best guitar player walking the f*****g earth. That's what I object to on the Mitchell Froom records. But, I can get my fix when I go see him live. Because he's the greatest f*****g guitar player, he shreds. I'm like a groupie. Since Hendrix, he's the guy for me. He does things that no one else can do. And he's got a brilliant f*****g mind musically speaking. He just kills me. It's right up my alley. I love it.
Is there anybody else around that you feel that way about?
I like the guy in King's X too. He's a great player. That band's a killer. Did you like the first Living Colour album? That's what these guys are doing and Living Colour dropped the ball. They can do what Living Colour does and wipe them f*****g out, plus they have this other side where they can sound like the f*****g Beatles which is great.
You view rock ' n' roll as a whole?
It's all rock 'n' roll. It's a big umbrella. That's why it's great. I don't call Billy Joel rock 'n' roll. I'll tell you that. Just give me a good f*****g song. You can be as an anti professional as you want. Nirvana is a good example of that. That guy writes some f*****g songs. So he can do whatever he wants. And the guy's got an interesting voice, you can tell who it is right away, even if you can't sing. If I can turn on the radio, hear your voice and know that's you, that's a good thing. He's got that. He's got an identifiable sound and he's a good songwriter. You can go to the bank with that every time. It worked for Ronnie Van Zandt, it worked for Kurt Cobain. The Sound Garden record, the new one, to me it sounds like Led Zep sideways. I really like it. I think it's a very retro record, and I'm gonna like that ‘cause that's the music I came up with. My favorite band of all time is Free. I like that better than the Beatles, Stones, King's X, Sound Garden, anything that there ever was. Find me somebody that can play better than that and it'll be a f*****g miracle.
Are you doing any work in Nashville?
Once in a while somebody will call me to play on a record. I played on a bunch of Trisha Yearwood records. Last week I did Tracy Nelson's new album. That was thrilling for me because I'm a very big fan of hers and I see her around town all the time, and we'll sit in a bar and talk all night because we come from the same era. I was just delighted that she called me. I did three nights with her and guys that I know from town. It was just like a Highway 61 record. Wham bam, thank you, next song. She's a great f*****g singer, she's very special. There's nobody that can do what she does. She don't need a f*****g microphone. She can sing louder than anybody I know can play. She can singer louder than Hendrix could play. A great f*****g voice.
You did a session with Hendrix.
We did a lot of jamming, after-hours stuff, tons of that. But I only played on “Long Hot Summer Nights” on Electric Ladyland, which is not one of the highlights of my career, or his. I'm just not ambitious. When I started out I was like 90% ambition and 10% talent, and now it's completely reversed itself.
Judging by this album, it's had a positive effect on your music.
What does?
Not being as ambitious.
This record knows the day it comes out that it doesn't have a f*****g chance commercially. I wish that more people would hear this record because I think they would enjoy it, but it's set up in such a way -- the politics of music today -- that they won't hear it. But at least it's out there. I did it. I'm very happy with it, and it that respect it's a successful record for me.
What do you see as the politics of music today?
The fact that you have to have a format or a category. You can't just put a record out, because if it doesn't fall into their little cubby holes, then they don't know what to do with it. Some really good records could get fucked like that. What's this band, Beautiful People? I don't know if it's good or not. It should be played more. It tracks interesting. But they don't know what to do because of their categories and cubby holes. There's a few bastions of old time radio around. This guy, Ed Sciacki, he's got a show where they'll play f*****g anything, Vince Scelsa's got one in New York, and Bonnie Simmon's has one in San Francisco. When I first moved to Nashville, there was a great radio station, RLT, but now they're playing classic rock in addition to the s**t that they were playing. So it's lost it for me. They were doing great stuff. They were playing Triple A before there was a triple A. They were playing new music that I enjoyed hearing and would never have heard if they weren't playing. So I was learning about new bands that I would never have listened to, because I didn't know that they sounded like that which is a great format.
I bought the Sound Garden album because I'd read about it. Usually if I do that, I end up selling it. I didn't even like In Utero, I was disappointed in that. But the most important thing of all is that I'm worried that I like the Sound Garden thing. For them, not for me. Because they're gig is to piss me off is to piss me off because I'm a parent. I'm 50 years old. If they make music that I like, then they're f*****g up . They have to aggravate me to be really doing their job right. If I like it, there's something wrong. If my parents had liked Dylan, I would've fainted. And I probably wouldn't have liked it. If I call up my son and say, ‘That Sound Garden album is just killer , man,” he'd go, “well, I don't like it so much, and tell me how great Blind Melon is and Widespread Panic, and I'll puke.
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This interview took place backstage at the Bijou Café right before Carl Perkins was to do his first show in Philadelphia in years with a band that included two of his sons. It was a rare occasion and I don’t believe he ever returned. At the time he had a new album out that pretty much ended up going nowhere and I’m not sure if the album he talks about at the end of the interview ever was released.
For whatever strange twist of fate, that’s the way it was for Carl Perkins, a man who was recognized by musicians more than anyone else, though in many ways he was easily as talented as the rest of the artists on Sun. For Perkins, it was bad luck -- a car crash on the way to his Ed Sullivan appearance and that crash seemed to set the tone career-wise for the rest of his life. If Perkins had any bitterness it wasn’t apparent. He was one of the friendliest and nicest people I’ve ever met.
PSB: When did you first start playing?
Perkins: I started playing back about as far as I can remember. I was about 5 or 6 years old when I got my first guitar. Of course, I liked country music. I grew up on a cotton plantation in West Tennessee . But I also liked the black blues and I liked the southern gospel spiritual music. So, what I did was try to play country music with a black man’s rhythm and it came out as rockabilly music. But I loved guitars all my life. Ever since I can remember, I wanted me as guitar as a little kid, and finally got me a little cheap one and I just lived with it in my arms. I loved it.
Can you talk a little about Memphis and the scene around Sun studios? I saw a picture of you and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash standin’ around a piano.
It was a great era, it was a great time. There was no jealousy at Sun record company between say Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich and myself. We were all poor boys. By poor I mean, poor! We didn’t have nothin’ you know and everybody was really wantin’ everybody else to do good and there was no jealousy. When one recorded it was nothin’ to look around and see Johnny Cash or Charlie Rich sittin’ in the studio wishin’ you well. It was that type of thing. It was one of the greatest labels, greatest atmosphere at 706 Union Avenue . It was a very small place, but there was a lot of devotion to what we were doing, individually plus collectively. Everybody was for Sun Record Company. It was kind a little tight package down there for a couple of years.
Was there ever any jamming?
Oh yeah. That was done quite a bit. In fact, you mention this picture of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee and myself. There has now in the last year surfaced an hour and fifteen minutes tape of us singing and picking together. It’s in court in Tennessee right now as to who actually owns that piece of tape. This happened at a session of mine. The session that I recorded “Matchbox” and “Your True Love.” And my lawyers think because I paid for it that it might be mine. Of course some other people, Shelby Singleton who bought the Sun tapes feel like it’s his. So I don’t really know. I do know that this album will be out pretty soon. I’ve got a copy of it and it’s not that bad at all. It’s better quality than I ever thought it was. I really didn’t know, or did any of the guys know that it was being recorded. But it’s a strange thing, an hour and fifteen minutes and there’s not a dirty word on it. But it’s a jammin, talkin’ stompin’ songs, that say “Hey man, let’s do it this way.” But it’s Elvis as I have really never heard Elvis on record. He’s happy. You can hear the dialogue in between the songs. We talk about different things. But it’s a great collectors item. My guitar playing is horrible on it ’cause we were playing songs I never heard or songs I that I’d never tried to play. But that’s beside the point. It does exist. It will be out. I’d say sometime early next year.
What were the early rock and roll tours like?
They were very exciting. The music was new, the kids were just eatin’ it up. They were claiming it as their own music. But I really think when the kids were comin’ to the sock hops and to the rock and roll shows, I really sincerely believe that mom and dad was home tryin’ to learn how to jitterbug to those same records. I never really thought that the kids were buyin’ all of those millions of records back then and I think time has proven that the older folks like it too. They just kind of rebelled against it a little bit because they first said it was bad music, they said it would entice our teenagers wrong, but it really wasn’t. It was music that made you feel good. They danced to it and I think time has proven that it was worth recording because it’s still around and never did leave.
You had considerable influence on The Beatles. They did quite a few covers of your songs. Did you ever meet them?
Yeah I did. I met the Beatles in ’63 just prior to them comin’ to America . In fact, they invited me to the recording session that they recorded three of my songs that night. I was settin’ in the studio when they recorded it. In fact, I wasn’t playin’ on any of the things that was released, but we did jam around and play a lot in the studio that night. Of course, I didn’t know, but they knew all of my old songs. I must say I was very impressed with The Beatles before America really knew about The Beatles. I was surprised that they did as well as they did, but not entirely surprised. I knew they were very talented guys, individually and as a group too. Paul McCartney and John Lennon, no question, history has to say they were the couple of best songwriters that ever came down the pike. I think songs like “Yesterday” and “Michelle” are masterpieces among many. Those two happen to be my favorite Beatles songs, plus I like the way they did “Matchbox,” “Honey Don’t” and “Everybody’s Tryin’ To Be My Baby.”
Then you were part of the Johnny Cash Show for a while and when you were with him you wrote one of his biggest hits, “Daddy Sang Bass.” What was touring with Johnny Cash like?
Well, it was a great experience. I did work with Cash for ten years. Johnny Cash and I back in the early days at Sun, I’d say was probably, we were the best of buddies there. I think I was closer to say, John, than I was Elvis, or Jerry Lee, Charlie Rich and the boys. Johnny Cash and I, and my background kind of was paralleled. He grew up the son of a sharecropper, picked that cotton in the fields. The Mississippi River divided us but our lives were so much alike that when I got to know John in ’55 I really liked the dude. He was real quiet, but he would talk if he was talked to and I like that kind of man. I like everybody at Sun. But probably, no question, Johnny Cash and I even back then were the best of friends and it kind of came by accident that I stayed with him for 10 years. I had a shotgun accident. I almost blew my left foot away and John came by to see in my home in Jackson , Tennessee and I’d been settin’ around the cast for four or five weeks, and I was kind of irritable. I’d broken a few crutches against the wall and he said, “Man, come go with me. I’m goin’ to Chattanooga , Tennessee and Atlanta , Georgia , we’ll come back through here and I’ll bring you home.” So I thought about it a few minutes and said all right, I’ll go. So with my crutches and my cast, I climbed on Johnny Cash’s bus. He called me out on the stage which I told him not to do, but that’s John, he introduced me and I did a couple of songs, standin’ out there with the cast on. On the way back from Atlanta after the second day, he asked me would I join his show. He said, “I’d love to have you man.” So that I did and it lasted ten years. And it was ten great years. I played before literally millions of people that I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to play before plus I was in the company of what I consider one of the greatest men in the music business. Johnny Cash is a humanitarian, a very charitable man. He’s concerned about the poor, the down-trodded people of this country and does a lot more than is printed. He’s a fine dude. We need a lot more like him. I love the man, I really do.
Could you talk about why so many of the original Sun artists seem to wind up recording in Nashville and do you think the Memphis sound has had an effect on the Nashville sound and vice versa?
I think one of the main reasons that the Memphis boys left the Sun stable was because of better contracts, better deals. We started there, we loved it and it was the first place we recorded, but bigger labels paid better money. So, all of the big labels recorded in Nashville , Tennessee and that’s why everybody wound up recording there. But yeah, I think the Memphis sound definitely has eased into Nashville and vice versa.
On your new record you get back to both sounds. It’s definitely back to straight-ahead rock and roll than some of the stuff you put on Columbia .
I appreciate you noticing that, I do, because that’s what I want to be, that’s what I’ve always been. I was recorded, I always felt on a lot of labels who really didn’t know what to do, or how to record me. I think now, with Felton Jarvis producing me, Felton knows my limitations or my capabilities and I think the combination if I’m ever gonna sell any records again, I think it’s gonna have to be Carl Perkins with his guitar and his rockabilly beat. And I couldn’t be happier about it because I’m gettin’ to do what I wanna do now and the deal I have with Jet Records is I make the albums and send ’em the tapes. They don’t take from or add to. An artist couldn’t ask for a better deal than that ’cause it gives me a chance to write my songs and do what I want to do. That’s what I’m gonna do in the future. It’s gonna be rockabilly music.
There seems to be a great resurgence of interest in that at the moment.
This is the last night of a five-and-a-half-weeks tour for me. This tour started in San Francisco , California the 21st of last month and I’ve been to Palo Alto , Los Angeles , Atlanta , Cleveland , Detroit , Washington , New York and now Philadelphia . I have noticed in all of the cites a definite feel, not only from the audiences that I’ve played to, but from just talking to people, d.j.’s in all of these cities, everybody’s sayin’ that this kind of music is gettin’ played again and it’s being recorded again more simple. Because as I said earlier it really has never left. They dressed it up a lot in the last ten years, put a lot of sounds on it, but the beat’s always basically been there and I think maybe it’s simplifying itself back to the point where if a young man wants to get in the business, he don’t have to fifty-thousand dollars worth of electrical switches and amplifiers to be able to play like Carl Perkins. I hope that maybe it will simplify itself. It will be good for the business because more kids will want to learn how to play because if he wants to buy him a little simple guitar, he can definitely learn how to play as good as I play. And I don’t think it’s been hardly fair for him to try and duplicate what he’s heard on some of the records when the cat that put it on the record couldn’t do it if he didn’t have twenty-five-thousand dollars worth of electronics. So maybe it’s simplifying itself back to the basics. I hope it is. Maybe if for no other reason than it will help our business. There’s not question that there’s gonna be some youngsters come on who say I can learn to do that too, and that’s good.
Have you heard this local group around here called George Thorogood & The Destroyers?
I have and they play the old basic rock and roll. That says it is easing back a little bit. I see it happening all over the country. It’s very very big in England , it’s big in Europe all over. I just was over there back in April and I was there for two months and I was all over Sweden , Norway , crowd’s tremendous, reception just couldn’t have been better, and it’s happenin’ in America . I really feel it may be easing back and I hope so.
On your new record you do a lot of covers and new versions of your hits and now that it seems you have a good recording deal, do you plan to take it from here and get into your own stuff?
Oh yes. Before I left on this tour, I cut a new album. This is album will be released in England next month and there’s six brand new songs on there, and there’s three songs that Elvis Presley would have done had he lived. Felton Jarvis was holdin’ ’em for Elvis and gave ’em to me and theyre three really great songs. A couple of ’em are really good rockers and one of ’em is a thing called “Miss Misunderstood” that I’ll do it tonight on the show.
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PSB: How did you first start out?
Well that’s a long story that goes back to kind of a long line of playin’ at talent shows, theaters and what-have-you, and comin’ from a very poor family havin’ to dance for the soldiers and make money to the pay money to pay the rent. Kind of built my talent up to necessity for survival and when we started talent shows, it was kind of easy for me to win. I won so many talent shows I guess they just they just got tired of me and decided to let me make it.
Other person: I was listening to your new record and it seems like a new direction for James Brown that’s moving into an area of sort of sophisticated production away from that raw funk sound that we kind of associate with you. What do you feel about your musical direction now?
No. That was just change. It’s kind of hard to have a direction because of the fact that my past has caught up with all of the kids, the rock clubs and everything, they’re so crazy about my older stuff. We just recorded a live album. Went to Japan where they have the best facilities in the world. It’ll be out next of the original James Brown sound with new arrangements. We had a band, you’ll see what I’m talkin’ about, all the excitement that the entertainment needs today. But by the same token, I like the studio recordings, which produced by Brad Shapiro was fantastic and I’m one who kinda wanna do it all. I don’t wanna have this one direction. I think the main direction that I’m goin’ in today is what the country has ceased to go in, in the direction of entertainment. I decided to come back out and entertain the people. They need some entertainment, that’s all.
Other person: Do you feel that as opposed to the disco thing which is strictly a sort of recorded dance....
Well, disco gave people a chance to dance. They’d been sittin’ down for about 15 years, so they wanted to dance. I think what’ll happen today is you’ll have dance concerts, you’ll be playin’ live and then they’ll dance and the ones that want to sit, they’ll sit. If you’re hot enough, you’ll keep ’em standin’, if you’re not, then they’ll sit down. It’s be kind of bad for ’em to sit down.
Other person: James, I interviewed a few people outside in the bar and a number of ’em told me that, a number of black people told me that you as an individual meant quite a bit to their life and that you were an inspiration and the whole soul drive really kept ’em goin’ for awhile. Did you ever have that as an intent?
Well it was my intent to contribute to humanity and I didn’t want it to be just black people. But however I wanted to do what I could for people ’cause people made me what I am today. I think that’s everyone’s duty. However, I think God give me a talent to entertain people to try to make them forget their problems and whatever and kind of help them to get themself goin’ and reorganize themself or what have you. So that’s really where I’m at about entertainin’ and tryin’ to give back and keep the energy goin’.
Matthew Berg: A lot of people came through your band like Bootsie and Fred Wesley and the horns. What do you think about the kind of music they’re making now, the younger people or even someone like James Chance. Have you heard him?
No I haven’t, but what it is, you fellas, youngsters just kind of come along a little late. We were talkin’ about it earlier with the owner of this club who I’ve known for quite awhile. Naturally, being young at heart or bein’ people at heart, human, if you see me around the house, you’d see how I feel because I would probably come with my boots on and western hat my denims and things. I know I’m in a lot of bags, so sometimes I put my suit on, bust the collar open and sometimes I’ll take you inside, I’ll take you up in how I look my most sophisticated but what Bootsy and them is doin’ is just some of the things they learned from me. And they went in a direction that they wanted to go into. I talked to Fred a while back, he would like to come back and rejoin the group because he sees some things he’d like to do he don’t get a chance to do ’em out there because he went out, he took something out there to do his own thing, but he also wanted to find something when he went out there and he wasn’t able to find anything because what he took out there he was the only one at it, comin’ from this group and all so he kind of wanted to get back to the street. He had a little bit more energy.
Other person: Your heyday, when you were as big as you’ve ever been was during the time of Motown music, Diana Ross and the Supremes and music like that. A lot of the people in the industry at that time, Little Anthony and people like that have sort of fallen off as far as giving performances and cutting albums, but you’re still cookin’. What do you attribute that to?
Well I don’t believe in heydays.
Other person: Everything’s a heyday.
No it’s not. Every day is a heyday. It’s according to how you feel. What I did, I curved myself to the movie industry because then that’s the next step. It’s like being a district leader, then you’re a city councilman, from there to state representative, from there to governor or what have you, you just wanna graduate. And I just keep tryin’ to graduate from different things. I’m goin’ heavy into films.
Other person: You have film projects cooking?
A lot of ’em. Like I’m like a guarantee for a major film conglomerate like 20th Century, Warner Brothers, or Columbia, what have you who are diversified in the recordings of the world. If you put me in a film. what you have right away is a multi-million dollar soundtrack. So the picture can’t be a flop because if I do the soundtrack, (laughs) then you got the records goin’ for you. See? So what you have, you have the audio, visual and video at the same time. And this is more for you. I think all entertainers should try to develop themselves and organize themselves into a point where they can graduate from just bein’.... what I did 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, five years ago, and some of the promotion things that I’m doin’ now is just like buildin’ myself. It’s kind of a training ground for where I’m going ’cause when you walk on a set, you gotta be able to memorize and sight-read and (snaps fingers) keep it flowin’ and still be able to maintain your rhythm and some of the other things involved. See if you just get into business, can you imagine a disco person tryin’ to be an actor? They never get a chance to learn how to perform on-stage. That’s what I was tellin’ you guys. You see, you missed the best part of it you know ’cause when people perform and really do it, like when you see this band out there tonight, you’ll see what I’m talkin’ about. When you see us perform, you see a production. You gonna see James Brown. You gonna see James Brown period.
Other person: So there isn’t a fundamental change in the kind of energy you put out in as much as I might hear a slicker sound on the records, I’m not gonna necessarily see a more soft-pedaled version of what you used to do at the Uptown Theater.
No. You’re gonna see the James Brown that you remember and you may see one that be a little bit more... I may have a little bit better idea of what I’m gonna do. You see me do bit pieces in films today and a year from now you’ll see me doin’ leads. It just takes time. And I don’t mind. I just thank God we got a country that we can do that in, that gives you that opportunity ’cause it could be the other way around.
Another person: I just understand you did a film with the Blues Brothers, Ackroyd and Belushi.
Fantastic man. I’m fortunate. I thank God. I’m probably, they figure it’s gonna be an all-time thing. They believe they’re gonna have, and I think so too, but one thing it is it’s gonna be a world film and that’s good you know. That’s what I was talkin’ about myself. It was good for me, the fact that I’m known all over the world. When I walk out on-stage here, it’s about ten percent of the reception that I get in Italy or Israel or Africa or Germany, France, Australia, like I’m 100 percent bigger there than I am here.
Another person: Is that because you haven’t been there that much and people are so much more accustomed to you here?
Uh, they are taught music appreciation in depth.
PSB: Could you talk about the routine you have in closing your shows, how that came out?
We ran into it by luck. Strictly from the soul it came and then after that it become a documented part that always went over real good. It came by accident. I was doin’ real well and a fellow through a towel around my shoulder and I threw it off and ran back and it kind of got to the people, so then we decided we’d get robes and it kept gettin’ better and better and it become a legendary part of the act and it’s kind of hard to quit. At one point I got kind of tired and wouldn’t do it, like at one point I quite doin’ “Please Please.” That was kind of a mistake. But you livin’ your life, it’s a trainin’ ground. And you find out the strong things that you need to do, so you keep on doin’ it.
How many weeks of the year have you been working?
The past couple of years I’ve been averaging five, six months out of the year. But I work all the time, just a different approach. It’s more or less with the mind, other than just the physical end of it because I find myself doin’ a lot of plannin’, more or less rehearsin’ myself, discipline myself, gettin’ myself ready for films. For films takes a lot of discipline. I studied so hard till my sight is blacked out, doin’ the lines I was doin’.
Other person: Where do you make your home now?
In the South. I live in the South.
Other person: In the South?
Yes.
Other person: Any particular area?
I live Georgia, South Carolina. It’s kind of a borderline thing there. I’m on both sides of the line, short of Augusta.
Other person: You still get as much fan harassment as you used to?
I can’t eat. If I go to eat someplace, we’ll have some fun. I finished doin’ some of the soundtrack and I just left Belushi and we watched some of the screenin’ and I thought I’d go to some of the old places. I went on 42nd and Sixth Avenue and I thought I was gonna get out and get some hot-dogs ’cause I like that. I got out and stayed out about five minutes and that was the end of it for me. I kind of get the same thing that Elvis got all his life. We come from that area where we kind of penetrate on the people and work very hard and we made ourselves real stars and thank God that every time they see me, it rings bells and people want to think about it and ask me about some song or other or some performance I did.
Other person: You still enjoy it, don’t you?
You always enjoy it. When I quit enjoyin’ it, I quite bein’ human.
Matt Berg: James, you could have been a star some other ways. You were almost a, you were a baseball player.
Yeah I could’ve been a big star playin’ baseball. I wouldn’t have lasted long I don’t think. I had three professional fights. I know I wouldn’t have lasted in that. (laughter) If I had to fight somebody like Sugar Ray Leonard.
Matt Damsker: What is it about Belushi and Ackroyd There as white as white can be and they come from up in Canada, Belushi’s an Albanian.
They know every arrangement that I got on my bandstand.
MD: They know everyone?
Them cats are super-talented. They are talented. (Getting a little angry at Damsker who kept interrupting): Those cats are talented man. I’m out there doin’ my, okay, my part of the Blues Brothers, I was a minister. Okay? Totally aware of from where I’m at in the music world ’cause I started in the church. But I’m out there tryin’ to get my sermon together and these cats hummin’ the arrangement to “Papa Got A Brand New Bag” or “Ain’t That A Groove,” or “I Feel Good.” They know it all man.
MD: They’re not pretenders?
No. Dan Ackroyd plays harmonica man as good as Muddy Waters. And Belushi plays drums and he knows all the songs and knows the original keys and sang ’em. They’re real talented people. A lot of nervous energy there ’cause they’re doin’ everything, but they’re very successful and they should be.
MD: Is it a funny movie? Is it more musical than it is funny?
It’s funny. It’s entertainment number one. But it has a beautiful story. They’re savin’ an orphanage. And that’s kind of the thing that made me feel very good because I feel that I was a distant orphan myself. When I say distant, I come from a very poor family. The only thing I had to do was go to the orphan because I was doin’ the same thing. My habits were the same. I was dependent upon the people who happened to come along. My family kind of separated and we were very poor and very uneducated and we couldn’t get jobs, kind of rough. So I have a deep feelin’ for that and comin’ out of that kind of area. They were little kids that grew up in an orphanage and they got grown and kind of got straight and went and got themself in trouble and they got out of trouble they find the orphanage was up for sale so they wanna save the orphanage, so they kind of want to go out and rob some more banks, but you can’t do it that way. Got to do it another way. So they say, well, let the entertainer do it. So, someone talked them into comin’ by my church and I save their soul like I’m gonna do y’all tonight. (laughter)
PSB: Did you work with Junior Wells in that movie?
He was in another part. It’ll all come together.
PSB: ’Cause there was a period back in the ’60s where I felt that your music at one point was having an incredible effect on what Junior Wells was doing. Did his music affect you at all? Were you affected by Chicago blues or did your music come out of something totally different?
I think it’s a little different. There’s a lot of earth in mine and in the major cities you didn’t have as much earth goin’ for you. You don’t get a chance to see the skyscrapers and all those things, so your mind goes in different directions. Mine comes a lot from nature and there’s a lot of earth in there. If I was raised up in Philly or New York, I think my approach would have been a lot different, because I would’ve been goin’ from hearsay for a lot of things. But I had a chance to actually experience a lot of things you know. Even my kids, they think totally different from the way I think as far as music’s concerned. They have their own soul but they don’t get it as earthy as I get it.
Matt Damsker: Are they lookin’ forward to a career in music as well?
Not havin’ to try as hard. The smaller kids may do it. They seem to be a little bit more concerned, but the older kids, I don’t think they’re gonna get into music.
Matt Damsker: Would you care if they did? Would you advise them against it?
I’d advise them to do anything they can do, as long as it’s legal.
Other person: James, you don’t like the expression heyday, but back to the day where your albums sold more than I ever did before, do you think you had any....
That’s where you’re confused. They sell more now.
Other person: They sell more now?
In the old days I was not a world act. See, every time I bring a record out, being with Polydor Records, when I bring a record out, can you imagine kids in Africa got an armful of James Brown records under their arm and don’t have the current to play ’em, got to walk maybe 20 miles to get their records played. See, they didn’t have that then. That’s why I tell ya if I step off a plane in Athens, Greece, nobody would know who I was, today they’d have to get security to get me off. Again I say, in this country we are not taught enough about worldly things you know. And we should know how they’re doin’ throughout the world. Like I say I went to Italy and hadn’t played there in ten years and wind up playing 29 one-nighters in that country. Now Italy’s about the size of Georgia, right? And I found myself playing 29 one-nighters. You almost can’t play 29 one-nighters in the United States, as big as the United States is. There’s a lot of things not available to us music-wise because we got into disco and I know about this because I was doin’ disco for 12 to 14 years ago and they started the discos in Europe and they discontinued them and we’re still into ’em. This country and Japan, discos. They want to see entertainment in Europe. They’re into what we used to be into. Like you go and do a show man, people yellin’ and screamin’ and the energy’s high you know.
Matt Berg: You like that kind of audience?
That’s what it’s about man. Show business is show business. When you go to church, you should go to church. When you go to see a theater to see show you should go to see a show. If you be in mournin’, you shouldn’t go to see a show.
PSB: You have total control of your recorded product including your old records. Are there any plans to re-release any of those albums which are now considered classics of rock and roll history?
We’ll re-release “Sex Machine,” the “Good Foot” is re-released, Live At The Apollo will probably have a release date, both volumes, and the Soul Classics. I got a lot of ’em. But we just finished doin’ 16 tunes on an album. Can’t give out the title now, but we had 91 mics on the band and that’s the most extraordinary sound I ever heard in my life. All the things I was tryin’ to captivate years ago and argued with the engineers about, they got it now. Okay? Just like tonight. We got the band amplified and miked, but you won’t hear 60 percent of the stuff that should be comin’ out, you won’t hear. There’s no way to catch it, ’cause if you isolate everything then you’ll miss some of the overtones you know. But they got it all man. They got everything. To hear that sound, I can’t even wait til’ it come out. I’m listenin’ to the stuff I got now. Brad Shapiro done a fantastic job on that. Beautiful studio sound. Got a thing on there called, “Let The Funk Flow,” I think it’s fantastic. A lot of engineering work that’s really head-shrinking to hear it, take it to an all-time high. But to hear that live stuff and let you feel life again comin’ through a record. I just can’t wait till that live album comes out.
Other person: Can you work up the kind of soul in the studio that you can work up in front of an audience that is going crazy?
No way. But what I can do, I can come out of a rehearsal, we can have a regular rehearsal, then I can record, and then I’ll get the feeling because I’ll even get it from our own members. We had just finished a recordin’ session when I recorded “Get On The Good Foot.” And then, I had just finished doin’ a show when I recorded “Sex Machine,” like just finished doin’ an engagement and then two-o’clock in the morning we go in the studio. I wrote the lyrics on the back of a placard. So this is what real life is about. We just finished having a rap session and I walk in and cut “Hot Pants” and “Escapism.” This is what it’s about.
MD: This new recording technology everybody’s talking about, digital, with the digital mastering and the digital recording. Do you think this is gonna make a big difference in your music?
It’s nice to have an artist that knows. I made it a point to know because I invented most of the stuff, the sounds that you’re tryin’ to get now, I started most of ’em. They thought I was crazy then. I remember we recorded “Let Yourself Go” live on the stage one day before rehearsal and part of a live album. It was supposed to be live in the Royal Theater and we cut a lot of it on the stage in the daytime during rehearsal before the show that night. But the digital recordin’ is very good if you got an engineer that understands it. I prefer a cat ridin’ the dials. Other than tryin’ to build it up, I prefer cuttin’ it extemporaneous right off the top, so you can grab fire.
MD: So you’re not lookin’ to sterilize, make it so pure and so clean that it’s...
Not real. It’s like havin’ a substitute for sweat.
PSB: Do you still play the drums and the organ?
I play ’em sometimes. Sometimes I play the organ. I do it all. Thank God.
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Interview with Peter Stone Brown talking about the life and work of Bob Dylan recorded in 2018.
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