The
Time To Live Is Now!
an interview with BUZZY LINHART
by Robert Silverstein
Music fans who lived in New York City in early 1971 knew about Buzzy
Linhart. One of the all time greatest singer-songwriters, a guitarist
and vibraphone master, Buzzy came to live in New York City at the
start of the historic folk-rock explosion in the early 1960’s.
Backing up Fred Neil and Tim Hardin down in the Village, Buzzy soon
gained the respect of giants such as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan before
recording his debut album, buzzy in London in 1968. Buzzy’s
most incredible album, 1970’s Buzzy Linhart Is Music was
the first big production to be recorded at Electric Lady studios in
New York’s fabled downtown East 8th street area, one block east
of the Avenue of the Americas. Engineered by Jimi Hendrix producer
Eddie Kramer, the Buzzy Linhart Is Music Lp was instantly
proclaimed as a rock studio masterpiece when it came out. The years
flew by and Buzzy left the limelight of the rock world and is now
settled in the Berkeley area. In a twist of fate, late in 2005 film
director Shelly Toscano arrived with Famous: The Buzzy Linhart
Story.
An amazing overview of the life and times of Buzzy, that movie,
distressingly has never come out. That’s a real shame because
Famous is clearly one of the most historically significant
and most musically entertaining rock biopics ever made. Attention
big movie production houses: Let’s get Buzzy’s movie out!
Coming full circle in ‘08 Buzzy and Art Berggren have done a
great job—reissuing Buzzy’s 1968 buzzy album along
with an essential 2006 Linhart CD retrospective entitled Studio—on
their joint-owned Buzz Art label and they promise more to come. Anyone
still unfamiliar with Buzzy should go right over to his web site,
www.BuzzyLinhart.com and take the time to rediscover one of America’s
living musical heroes. For licensing and more info check out the Buzzart
web site at www.buzzartinc.com In October 2008 Buzzy Linhart spoke
to Robert Silverstein of mwe3.com about his great musical legacy.
{editor - The following interview is the long version of what
turned out to be the last interview I had completed for 20th Century
Guitar magazine. After publishing for 17 years, TCG became the latest
casualty in an economy that takes no prisoners and has ceased publishing.
Anyway, the mag interview was set for 3000 words and thanks to the
miracle of the internet, Love you Albert Arnold Gore!...here's the
original, complete version with 13,000+ words.}
RS: I’m recording...
BL: Cool. Can you hear me all right?
RS: I’ve been wanting to do this interview for a long time.
BL: Well that’s very exciting. I love to talk to anybody who
enjoyed any of our shows or music back in the old days.
RS: You're the best. Did you ever get the feeling no one’s done
it better?
BL: Well, remember everybody’s not rooting for everybody else
when you’re struggling for the top. You know what I’m saying?
It’s like being a republican or democrat. You’re going to
get support from your own side only and maybe you’ll stretch
into other areas. But your own team, is the one.. I’m convinced
you gotta get some backing or something. And I think maybe ‘cause
I started to surface in the ‘60s, that some labels, they might
have thought that I was old school or something. But what I was really
doing was honing together my understanding of jazz, not that it’s
my specialty of course. I guess I’m a folk-rocker or folk-jazz
rocker. Once you’ve been connected to a certain era, unless you’re
a giant like James Taylor or Paul Simon, its pretty hard to interest
people who never heard of you. (laughter) I’m from a decade before
or something. And Fred Neil and Tim Hardin... Tim was my age but Fred
Neil was from ten years ahead of any of us. The older guy but without
him to hand it over to us and explain some of it, and show us how
to be a good band leader... And you know all these guys right?
RS: If my memory serves me well Fred Neil wrote the first song on
your great Music album, “The Bag I’m In.”
BL: Yes sir, that’s absolutely true, although we electrified
it a bit from there. To me, folk-rock didn’t mean that you had
to have folk instruments but you might take something that could be
done on acoustics and beef it up some. Because it became tiresome
in the old days having to hold an acoustic guitar, and maybe not a
really great one at that, into a microphone that nobody should be
putting through a cheap sound system. (laughter) And it was really
hard to have to hold that guitar into the hole every time. And sing
and do a show and sing. And Fred and Timmy were intent upon having
the music be first. Same with Richie Havens and John Sebastian. They
weren’t up there to do tricks and stuff. They were serious musicians.
I took it as a form of folk-jazz myself. That’s “The Bag
I’m In.” Fred Neil wrote it in 1958 and when I got out of
the navy school of music, injured, fighting a fire during the Cuban
missile crises Stateside, I ran down to see my high school chum who
had a little house in Coral Gables, Florida. And three blocks away
was the Unicorn coffee house, where I first saw David Crosby and Fred
Neil (laughter) and Buffy Saint Marie. How about that? I mean we were
all like 19 and 20 except Fred who was ten years older. I guess now
that he’s passed on, it’s okay to tell the truth. One night
when he was fixing a broken string and I was playing vibes behind
him, we were actually a duo at the time in Coconut Grove in Coral
Gables Florida in 1961. The spring there of. So he says, ‘Say
something Buzzy.’ In that big bass voice he had. And (laughter)
I said, ‘A lot of your people might not realize that Fred Neil
actually used to play with and tour with Buddy Holly.’ And man
did he get upset with me. Not because he didn’t want anybody
to know but he was never the kind of guy to toot his own horn. He
was there to make music and if you could get hired... He’d already
proven himself in hip parts of the country. He’s the guitar player
on Bobby Darin’s demo of “Dream Lover.” Astounding
secrets of Fred Neil. But a wonderful guy.
RS: You live in Berkeley now. Do you ever miss New York?
BL: New York is never going to be the same as it used to be. Looks
like Tokyo or something to me. My eyes aren’t that good and and
I just see these big flashing lights and everywhere you go kind of
looks like Times Square. I lived there for 17 years. I guess during
the golden years. Of course I miss it. But there’s only a couple
of clubs there who hire me. So, I need a little hit or something.
Interject this backwards friends. We recorded “The Bag I’m
In” in 1969 with the great Eddie Kramer co-producing. And then
we’ll talk about the guys in that band later to tie off that
part of the story.
RS: Getting back to New York. I live in the Little Neck / Great Neck
area of Long Island.
BL: That’s where we rehearsed for the Music album half
of the time.
RS: I spoke with Doug Rodrigues a few years back. He’s one of
the great guitarists from that era.
BL: And god bless his parents. I mean, they let us crank it in the
basement. He said, ‘You're going to practice it right.’
Not that it was giant amps or anything. But to get the sounds that
Doug Rauch got on his bass and Doug Rodrigues got....these were kid
geniuses! Doug Rauch was nineteen. Doug Rodrigues was twenty two and
Siomas on drums was twenty four. And I was the old guy I guess. I
was twenty six or something.
RS: The Music album you made with those guys was among the
most influential albums from that era. It hasn’t lost any of
its significance and greatness.
BL: Thank you. Did you buy it in 1971?
RS: Yeah. It was on that Eleuthra label. It was one of my lifelines
back when I was in high school.
BL: Wow. That’s terrific. Well it sure was a great sounding...it
was a headphone album for sure. But Doug Rauch was the genius...the
19 year old bass player who later became famous playing with Santana
and Buddy Miles and John McLaughlin. I mean you gotta be good to play
with John McLaughlin! And Jan Hammer. I mean Jan Hammer is the jazz-rock
genius of, I guess the past two decades. Wouldn’t you think?
My secret has been all along, if there was great music coming out,
was that I hired the most incredible guys I could find. Sometimes
they came from one town and another town. But Doug Rodridgues and
I had played together in a band, the Seventh Sons, when he was 16!
We went and met his parents on Long Island and convinced them that
it was okay for him to move into the city and live in our band loft!
(laughter) And if they had any idea what was going on. Oh man! And
then I had John Siomas and Doug who played together for Mitch Ryder
in the band right after the Detroit Wheels. And they were set to tour
through England and Germany. And they were looking for an opening
act. And John Siomas and Doug Rodrigues brought Mitch Ryder to see
me open solo with acoustic guitar opening solo for B.B. King up at
Johnny Winter’s manager’s club, called The Scene. Steve
Paul’s The Scene.
I opened up for fifteen famous acts there. Could have been Ten Years
After. Could have been Buddy Guy. At any rate Mitch came and watched
me open for whoever it was that night and said, ‘Yeah, lets take
him to Europe with us and he can open the show.’ The deal was
I could have the bass player and the drummer and the lead guitarist
and then when Mitch came all the horns and organ player would be added.
At any rate we had a quick couple nights live rehearsal in front of
an audience in Texas. Flew to London and when we landed... oh it’s
such a long story, but there was no work permits for us in London.
So, we went from going there like champions, ‘cause we were the
first act to play the Beatles’ new club, The Revolution in London,
the biggest thing that had ever happened...and right in mid air they
said right out at the airport, ‘Well, your work permits were
taken care of by the agent so you can come in and you can play, but
you can’t get paid.’ I had known how great that John and
Dougie Rodrigues were. So they were from one band. Doug Rauch, the
genius, laconic bass player was nineteen and when was eighteen he
was in band called Bunky & Jake, a great, great lost folk-rock
band from the Village. And they were playing at the Bitter End, where
all of us did one time or another. Jimi Hendrix came in to watch them
play. He said, ‘Man, you guys are great. Do you ever have jam
sessions?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we love to jam.’ And
he said, ‘Well why don’t we do that?’ They said, ‘Well
we got a loft to play in but these are borrowed instruments. We don’t
own our own stuff! And this is our last gig. We tried to hold the
band together and we got two albums out on Mercury but they didn’t
push them right. So the band is wrapping.’ And Jimi said, ‘Can
I meet with you guys, all of you together at noon on Wednesday at
your loft?’ And they said absolutely ‘cause they were living
on the floor in the loft. Half hour before Jimi got there a big truck
pulls up from Mannys Music. New guitar, new amp, new bass, new amp,
drum set, amp for Jimi, little sound system. Then Jimi comes in like
a gunslinger as usual ready to play. I saw him fall asleep, practicing,
without being plugged in. He would do that till he fell asleep. (laughter)
So he showed up with all the instruments, they played for five or
six hours. I wasn’t there. I wish I had been. He said, ‘You
guys are great man. Don’t give it up.’ And as he left he
said, ‘Oh, the equipment is yours guys.’ And he gave it
all to them. He was a great, great generous cat.
RS: Did Jimi get to hear the Buzzy Linhart Is Music album that
you made with those guys?
BL: That’s one of my favorite moments, is Jimi listening to “Talk
About A Morning” from the Music album, which, thanks to
Eddie Kramer and Rauch’s creative brain and Rodrigues’ creative
playing, which I like to feel changed the sound of guitar from then
on. ‘Cause you had your Hendrix and you had your Jeff Beck and
you had your Clapton. But Doug did this strange... he was adding ninths
and twelfths. He’d like to form chords. We’d form chords
where I had six notes and he had six totally different notes and he
would know how to fit ‘em together. But because it was a new
industry, the FM radio, everybody hadn’t locked into it yet.
The idea was that it was going to be quality music all the time. FM
was to be, whether it was Ravi Shankar or a novelty record by Paul
McCartney’s brother, Michael McCartney, his brilliant band, Scaffold.
They played the Bitter End. What a scene it was! You weren’t
allowed to get onstage and practice. You had to have an act. It had
be together. That’s why folk was so successful. Cause somebody
could come in and not have their band together yet but be able to
just knock ‘em dead, all alone, acoustically, like Richie Havens.
In the basket houses. If you were a big act, on that little tour through
the village every night, if you were one of the hot acts, you could
maybe get a seven minute shot in a basket house. Then they passed
the basket and asked you to buy some more tea for two dollars or something,
which ws like five dollars back then. All these people. Everybody
you ever heard of was zooming back and forth doing three minute sets,
nine minute sets if they’re lucky. John Sebastian, Stephen Stills,
David Crosby when he was in town at least would join somebody. But
you were not allowed to be up there if you didn’t have something
to offer. I was lucky to have had symphony training as a young child,
to have picked vibraphone as my main instrument. I thought when I
was young there’s drummers much better than me and when it came
down to it, there weren’t many vibes players around! Good or
bad. So I was so glad that I was a vibes player when I came into New
York ‘cause there was 177 people standing with the guitar who
were really great singer songwriters who were hoping the person right
in front of them would not come in that night and somehow they’d
get chance to do a song. And I was Tim Hardin’s vibes players.
And if he would get lost and not come in for a show...that’s
the way I did my first gig in New York City at 19. The owner of the
club said, ‘Buzzy, Timmy’s not going to show up. You gotta
perform.’ (laughter) He hadn’t even heard me do my own thing
in particular at that point. I was nervous but it was really, really
great. It worked just as good as it did at the folk clubs in Cleveland,
in Chicago and Philadelphia. You just know what you’re doing
and you prepare. And the important thing is that you didn’t steal
from other people. You had to sound like yourself. Have your own sound.
I wish you guys could have seen this. ‘Cause there’s a period
of time where...Dino Valente, Fred Neil...all playing as soloists.
You want more names? Simon & Garfunkel, but they were named Tom
& Jerry and then changed to their real names. Did you know that?
RS: I spoke with Shelly Toscano back in 2005 after she had just made
this great movie about you...
BL: Amazing...and we can’t put it out yet. This is something
Lawrence Acunto, the editor of 20th Century Guitar magazine mentioned
a couple years ago or so, saying if anybody would like to back a really
worthwhile project, the thing was all ready to roll...but I guess
nobody has called him as of yet. If anyone called Lawrence I’m
sure he would let us know. But he was very kind and thoughtful to
write that little thing on the movie. I was so excited because, when
somebody really knows a lot about your records and your songs, then
it makes it all worthwhile. And I gotta tell ya, I have chills right
now just knowing that someone else listened to it too because I hired
the best guys for every album that were possible. They had to read
music or have an innate knowledge of it, if that’s a proper use
of term. Some people can play and they don’t even know the names
of the notes but they always know what to play. That’s what we
want to hear I think. Always hire the best musicians you can find.
Hire someone better than you so you’ll be getting free lessons
from these giants. Even if they’re 19 and don’t have a degree
in music. First time I saw Jimi Hendrix, it was just rehearsing. I
just knew that was it. He played just like such a mature adult and
he wasn’t throwing things around. He was so polite when he backed
other singers. Even his own show, it was more musical than it was
flash. The problem was, when he played, it was like seeing somebody
sinking 27 foul shots in a row...or hitting home runs over and over.
Walking on their hands around the room...there was just something
about him that was so astounding! He was like a panther or something,
he could just really move. What a showman. We were hoping for the
best for him. And here it was...he had found Eddie Kramer, thanks
to Chas Chandler I believe and Linda Keith. He used to walk around
the Village with the guitar just slung over his shoulder in a soft
case and anywhere he walked in, they’d want him to play. So he
played ten or fifteen places a night. He was phenomenal. But... I
personally put him in the car to the airport a couple days before
he died, as he left to London for the last time. I was recording in
the studio, he would listen to “Talk About A Morning,” Eddie
Kramer said, up to ten times in a row sometimes. He’d say, ‘Play
it again.’ It was his first thing produced at his own studio,
eight million dollars. He bought the building that the club (Steve
Paul’s Generation) had been in. And that’s Electric Lady
to this day. Studio A is down in the basement, where they square danced
40 years ago! (laughter)
RS: So the song “Friends”, they don’t want to let you
use that in Shelly’s movie?
BL: Yes. I feel awful because this lady put eight years basic and
now now nine, ten years into the movie... Agghh! It’s just strange
to have a movie that great made of me and with beautiful directing
and her timing, her cutting from song to song and picture to picture...she’s
like a musician. Her timing is amazing. So... Famous: The Buzzy
Linhart Story, the thing that we can’t put out. But anything
else guys!
RS: You should have been in the rock and roll hall of fame ten years
ago.
BL: The records got millions of airplay. Every time some would come
out I would get up in the top two, three most played albums in the
country. FM airplay report in Billboard and Cashbox and Record World.
There were three magazines polling and trying to see who was ahead.
And when ever I released a record, I would get the top album pick
in Billboard magazine. Every record ever. And I made sure by hiring
the right guys, getting the right studio, the right engineer. You
don’t leave till it sounds right. You talk it through. And I
got to use Aretha Franklin’s band, they produced me, down in
Muscle Scholes, Alabama. You can’t miss if you get the right
combination of people. You can never miss. It just depends on whether
the record company promotes it. The story I always heard was that
‘We ran out of records Buzz. We didn’t know it would sell
so fast. And it just ran out too fast and it’s going to be four
weeks until we can start pressing again. Why don’t you do the
next one?’ I went through that four times with Neil Bogart, god
bless him, at Buddah Records. A great guy who believed who believed
in me so much that I cry just thinking about it now. But he would
always underpress. This happened to me five major times. But, I was
very fortunate to be in a time when FM needed a brand new sound. It
had to be rocky and it had to be folky and it couldn’t be too
loud. So, I got to slide right into a slot there because great producers
at these record companies and directors gave me nice size budgets
to do it. But like a said, you’re five percent goes to pay back
the royalties so you’re never going to see a royalty unless you
sell eighty thousand records or something like that. That wasn’t
my point for playing in the first place. I just can’t believe
the great experiences I had. Then when my style got supposedly too
old to be current in New York City, I moved out to L.A. and I did
movies and I did TV and I wrote for Bill Cosby. I was on Bill Cosby’s
amazing 1976 variety show on ABC. Hour long every Sunday night called
Cos. Did you know about that?
RS: No, you were on every week?
BL: Every week. I was his sidekick. I was assistant to the musical
director, I was the head songwriter, I was a regular on the show acting
comedy. I got almost two thousand dollars a week from ABC, which sounded
like good money at that time. Till I realized after paying taxes to
five unions it would go down to $850 a week. From paying all the different
unions and taxes.
RS: Are the Cos shows coming out on DVD?
BL: I don’t think that one in particular is scheduled to come
out. I always hoped to someday have a meeting with Cosby ‘cause
he’s a really great guy. Because, so many famous people were
on that show. Betty White, Artie Johnson, Shirley Jones, Florence
Henderson. I mean these are people who were good for an adult audience
at that period of time. And it was specifically made for... the Supreme
Court had ruled that starting the Fall in 1976, from seven to nine,
do you remember this, every night would be deemed ‘Family Hour.’
You could only have stuff that the family could watch together. So
the idea was could you at least come up with something that you could
watch with a two year old. And Cosby of course was famous for doing
all this work on Sesame Street. Eventually, as the show started to
really catch on, ABC, CBS and NBC joined together for the first time
ever probably and I guess you call it a class action suit and they
brought it to the Supreme Court and they said we don’t want to
do this anymore, we’re losing all our money! And the Supreme
Court said okay and they reversed it. And now people don’t even
remember it, but this show was made for a time that was supposed to
be called ‘family hour.’ I know that in a certain way, it’s
not hip but I think its starting to get to become camp at this point.
We’re in a day and age when they can sell garbage on every channel
you can turn to. Why should they spend money on big budgets, when
they can show... the Magic Bullet again! But I love the Magic Bullet.
Have you tried it? Do you know what I’m talking about? It's soooo
great! I’m about to make salad dressing with my magic bullet.
(laughter)
RS: Can you tell me something about starting the new Buzzart Records
label with Art Berggren?
BL: It was really cool. I met him in a cafe in Venice Beach and we
starting talking. I used to go down with a bunch of people and jam
at sundown every day on Venice Beach. Actually had my vibes there
in a shop. I’d push ‘em out in the afternoon and play a
little. And we’d just played to the sunset everyday. At any rate
I met Art Berggren and we became closer and closer and he’d bring
his flute down and sit in and dance. He’s a professional dancer,
you probably don’t know. He doesn’t toot his own horn as
well as I do mine, even when I try not to. Ya gotta have friends.
It’s as much work as you’d put in a Broadway show, to do
all of these albums. And without the proper people it would just sound
silly. Art and I are older guys. We wrote the greatest musical together
called Nobodaddy. Parts one and two combined has seven new
Buzzy Linhart songs in there plus a great story about the uprising
of the ‘60s. And I just wish we could get people to consider
recording my songs. So anybody who’s reading this who’s
looking for songs for their group or for their album or their production...
I was trained to compose and I’m getting near 70 so I think its
okay if I have now two or three hundred songs now. Some songs work
for some people and some work for others. I have never felt hurt when
somebody didn’t even care for my music at all. I’m just
fortunate to have thousands of people who say they love it.
RS: Your music has a healing effect on people...
BL: I’m entertaining myself too and I’m getting to hear
these great guys play along. I have very strict rules when we’re
having a band. We have to woodshed until some people would think it
was maybe too long. For the kind of planned stuff that I want to do...and
yet I want to use the same guys, and I often do, that Dylan would
use who could do it in one take so that they don’t beleaguer
to death. You don’t want to kill a song. In my opinion, Dylan
should have the cover of Time magazine at least one month every year.
Or whatever magazine is supposed to remind us where we came from.
It’s outrageous that he could have given us so many answers and
we just didn’t follow them. He’s a genius and we gotta remember
that. Maybe its not for you but any Dylan at all will make me immediately
cry. I guess I told him that the day I met him too. That was funny.
I was playing with Tim Hardin or Fred Neil at the Night Owl Cafe and
Bob came over and said, ‘What’s your story?’ As you
can tell, after I talked for twenty minutes for that one question,
two weeks later he came back and said he had written a song about
me for me to play vibes on. And my other band members at the time,
who were not perhaps the proper band members were not happy
for me at all and said that if I played on Dylan’s album and
he didn’t use them that they wouldn’t play with me any more.
I just was always brought up to try to be nice and I told Bob I was
sorry I couldn’t play on his album. And that song was “Like
A Rolling Stone.” And Al Kooper did a magical thing on there
with the organ. What a magical session that was. To know that I was
missing it. Watching the clock go past nine o’ clock and knowing
they were starting to record the new album of Highway 61 or
the song I was supposed to be on, which of course I hadn’t heard
at the point in time.
RS: Is there any chance you could ask Bob to appear on his next album
or in concert?
BL: I wasn’t that incredibly close with him. It’s hard for
me. A true, one of a kind genius like him. And I never knew what to
say for sure. I do know that I recommended he go to Muscle Scholes
and try that studio and I could guarantee him that he would really
love it. And he cut three records there! The same guys who did Pussycats
Can Go Far with me. Aretha’s band! He used ‘em too.
So I know we’re close. I knew we were close before I met him
just from hearing his songs. I knew it the first time I heard “Don’t
Think Twice” down in Florida when they called him Bob Dialin
‘cause nobody knew for sure how to pronounce his name yet and
his first record hadn’t come out. I was there waiting when the
first record came out. So... but I never got that close. But he was
magical, like Hendrix and Andy Warhol would show up at magical moments.
One day, after I told him that he should go to Muscle Scholes he said,
‘So what are you doing now?’ I said, ‘I’m going
to go shop at Lampstons which was the 5 & 10 at 4th street and
6th Avenue. A tenth of a block from where he wrote “Positively
4th Street” I assume or close enough. And (laughter) I went in
and shopped to get things for my new apartment. And god bless him,
he just walked with me and watched me shop (laughter) for forty minutes.
I felt like Scorcese was watching it (from a ) deep point of view.
He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy and I think we were both kind
of too shy to know what to say to each other or maybe we didn’t
have to. I told him how I felt the first time I met him and he offered
me a spot to play on his albums. So...as Dr. John says, ‘Sometimes,
it’s not time yet.’ Dr. John told me, ‘Buzz, the gypsy
told me when I was six man that if the stars aren’t right, it
ain’t gonna happen.’ He says, ‘So don’t let it
get you down. You can do it. The stars ain’t been right.’
Besides, I do it for the enjoyment of playing the music and really
entertaining people. Dylan at Newport that they’ve been playing
on PBS...did you get to see any of that?
RS: I was always amazed how some of the folk legends of the ‘60s
went rock. I guess ‘cause I was younger. I grew up in the Beatles
era.
BL: It wasn’t a big deal to you. It made sense that they would
develop from there. Richie Havens, and Fred Neil and Tim Hardin could
just spellbind a bunch of people who never, ever heard them before.
People used to walk into the Night Owl thinking it was a coffee house.
And they’d come back from bowling or they’d come out of
square dancing down on 8th street in the basement and come back up
the street looking for a coffee house. And Joe Mara would have to
tell everybody ‘Now we're going to hear one of the finest singers
and songwriters in the world so we want you to please be quiet and
allow him a chance to perform.’ And that was the nice thing about
the Night Owl. He wouldn’t allow anybody to...
RS: Just to jump around, I heard that the Music album is going
to be officially rereleased with a bonus track that Eddie Kramer found
called “The Birds.”
BL: “The Birds” was one of the missing tracks. When you
buy a CD nowadays you’ve got eighty minutes to work with. So
if a band is prolific or egocentric (laughter) they can put everything
they ever wrote on there on a couple of sides. When you’re working
in vinyl, like the old days, you could not go over eighteen minutes,
nineteen minutes tops per side period. Every record we heard, Satanic
Majesty’s Request, Let It Bleed, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band, Madman Across The Water...Elton John...These
albums would take you away! Are You Experienced? Jimi Hendrix.
The weren’t over eighteen minutes per side guys! That’s
how great the music was. You know? It would take you away! I remember
saying, "psychedelic music" to a Teen Beat magazine type
person and it showed up in an article on me as Tim Hardin’s vibes
player and then everybody was using it. But it didn’t have to
do with getting high. It had to do with the audience trusting the
act enough and the act has to show them they know what they’re
doing back then. To close their eyes and let them take you way out
there somewhere, high or not high. Music is the strongest drug we
ever had. Just try to imagine life without music. Did you know John
Sebastian was my first benefactor, room mate in New York City? I came
to town and Fred Neil had said, ‘If you can get to New York City
next summer, I’m not sure when it’ll be, you can be the
vibes player in the band.’ And I said, ‘I was thinking of
being there anyhow.’ I lied. (laughter) I went home to Cleveland,
saw my parents for a while, played at the local club in Cleveland,
and then went off to New York City. I don’t even remember how
I got the vibes there. But I pulled into town and Fred wasn’t
in town yet. And the owner of the Night Owl, Joe Mara said, ‘We
never for sure when he’ll be here but it’ll be sometime
this summer.’ And I said, ‘We’ll Fred said I should
look up this guy Mr. Sebastian or Mr. Pappalardi.’ And Joe kind
of laughed. I didn’t know John was 17 or 18 years old. I just
knew him from being on Fred Neil’s records and Pappalardi was
the bass player, so I figured he must be 35 or 40 years old. These
guys were 19 and 18. So he said, ‘Felix is playing bouzouki on
a union gig in the basement of St. John cafe in the middle of Bleecker
Street and McDougle. Catch him on a break and ask him what you should
do.’ And I met Felix and we went across the street up to his
apartment and I said, ‘Fred said he’d like me to be in the
band but I don’t have any place to stay till he gets to town.’
And Felix said, ‘Well you could stay here but I just got engaged.
She’s moving in with me she said. But I know that Sebastian stays
almost every night at his girlfriend’s house and I bet you could
stay in his loft bed over there with Peter Childs, the great guitarist
who backed Odetta across Africa!' As a solo artist. Her lead guitarist,
that was Fred Neil’s lead guitarist also. Do you know him?
RS: What was the name of the guitar player?
BL: Peter Childs. All of the electric guitar on all the Fred Neil
records, Peter Childs... He was such a wonderful brother. I heard
that he turned out to be a mayor up in Mendocino, a little town up
there, several years back. He was so much of the great Odetta’s
sound. And she of course is like royalty in Africa. And back then
he would come back and tell us how twenty thousand people had showed
up out of nowhere just to hear her, see her, kiss her hand and hug
her. And she was so important. Pete Seeger and Odetta. That’s
the people that we listened to when we were 12 and 13 learning our
folk music. So we had the Kingston Trio but we knew there was earthier
stuff.
RS: There’s a great chapter on Shelly’s so far unreleased
DVD about you, Famous when John Sebastian played at the Bottom
Line with you back in 2002.
BL: I know! What an incredibly great guy, that he would do that. That
was wonderful. And let us publicize it too. And same with John Hammond
and Phoebe Snow. These are like kids from my neighborhood. I love
them so much. It’s just so sad when we lose another. Yeah...
pick band members who can help you improve your music rather then
thinking that you got every idea you could have. Unless you happen
to Ray Charles or James Taylor! (laughter) Did you see James Taylor’s
shot on the Colbert Report the other night? He sang “Roadrunner.”
Sang and played harmonica against a very funky track. Sounded like
probably Danny Kootch again. I don’t know. Kortchmar. What a
guy. He was a whole other band in the the village in the old days.
I can’t remember which one. He was in... I think he was in a
band the band originally that Leslie West was in. The Vagrants. And
Moogy was in the Vagrants. And Joe, the drummer, Joe O’Brien.
And I think Kootch played some in that band. I’m not sure. One
of my favorite stories, as usual, I don’t know how I did it,
but I got a message to James Taylor, who as usual... One night he
had ten seats. Everybody in my band and their dates at a very fancy
hall for nine thousand people in Cleveland. But on this other particular
time, James was only playing the Hollywood Bowl and I don’t know
how I got word from him but the apartment I lived in was just twelve
blocks away. Anyhow and sure enough the phone rang and I think it
was the office calling. It was just an hour and a half before show
time and they were bringing the audience in over there already. The
sun was still up. They gave me two tickets to the set. James Taylor
at the Hollywood Bowl. And when I went back stage that’s where
I met Jack Nicholson. Can you imagine being introduced to Jack Nicholson
by James Taylor. I’m bragging about my co-producers and my band
and all that stuff on all of these records but Danny Kootch came over
and said, ‘Buzzy, I would just like you to know that whenever
I go over to James and Carly’s house, if there’s not a record
of yours playing at that time, a record or a cassette, it’s on
the turntable or right next to it and ready to go.’ James told
me that he gave away as gifts more copies of Pussycats Can Go Far
than any other record in his history. And I know how much he loved
Ray Charles, so that’s hard for me to believe. But James told
me, he claimed that he gave away more copies and played through copies,
and played through copies of Pussycats Can Go Far than any
other record in his life and he wanted me to know that, contrary to
Rolling Stone’s opinion, or at least the writer in Rolling Stone...
he thought it was the greatest rock album ever recorded. And James
told me that twice ‘cause he knew I was depressed. Because that
Rolling Stone review kind of put me out of commission there. I mean,
who wants to sign a guy who Rolling Stone’s gonna say is really,
really bad. Rolling Stone said it was the worst album ever recorded.
So that’s hard to live down. So I went out to L.A. and wrote
for Cosby and did a movie soundtrack. Wow! I did fourteen songs for
a movie. Got to act in it. One of Tom Beringer’s first movies,
man. What could be more fun. I did two movies with Chevy Chase. I
just wouldn’t change anything at all. Besides I think for me
to have had a lot of money, twenty years ago or certainly fifty years
ago, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I’m just more interested
in the music and communicating with people, being honest with each
other. Looking for the ways to improve health. I have a little company
of my own called the Buzzy Linhart medical foundation. And I like
to help people get their SSI insurance and other things. So if you’re
feeling down, just help a bunch of people and you’ll have friends.
Somebody’s sitting there, hoping that somebody will come out
of nowhere and give ‘em a hand. Don’t forget. It’s
always a good exercise, a good hobby. And that’s why we play
music! Right guys and gals? Because people come up and say, ‘That
was so good! I’m going to buy your record. Now what’s your
record?’ And people said this to me when I was 12. And I had
to say, ‘I’m sorry sir I don’t have a record.’
Well you let me know when you have a record. And this would at a wedding
reception in somebody’s back yard with two and three year olds
toddling around. That was one of the nice things about the folk music
scene, is that you could do it in someone’s living room so you
didn’t have to worry about alcohol. My parent’s rule was,
‘If we’re going to buy you music lessons, one, you can’t
get full of yourself over it, two, you had to practice a minimum of
one hour a day and three is, once you can play a song or two, you
have to go to hospitals and to old folks homes and play at Christmas
time and other special times too.’ And so, I guess I got a lot
of my early training by playing in old folk’s home and playing
in hospital wards. It’s hard to get too full of yourself when
somebody there is in great pain. We gotta remember this is our one
life, I believe you only get one life. So that means absolutely everything
that you do or think is blessed and important. And were so lucky to
be here now, I think. Can you imagine before telephones? We used to
have two or three party lines when I was a kid. You couldn’t
get just one phone line. I remember when before everybody had phones,
they used to holler messages down the back yards. And they would shout
important messages down through the backyards in the neighborhood
I lived in in the ‘40s. Can you imagine that? There would be
a certain time of day when they would transfer messages from one part
of town to the other. It was just something that happened. I never
knew what it was till recently. And we threw away all that old furniture
to make new, better stuff. Crazy.
RS: Well I always say, if it ain’t as good as the Music album...
BL: You brought me back to one of the other points I didn’t finish.
It was wide open! I got more play than anybody else ‘cause I
was one of the first further out rock bands. It’s hard to explain.
The adults were listening to FM radio. They didn’t want to go
crazy with butt-shakin’ music and little 12 year old celebrities.
The older folks who liked jazz, who liked classical, they wanted to
listen to something on FM that was different from what was on AM.
And it’s because of that Doug Rodrigues got played in so many
cities and countries for a year there. And back then once your record
was over it didn’t mean you don’t ever get to play that
record anymore. You could still play songs from the Music album
after The Time To Live Is Now came out. But Music got
such a big exposure in Germany and France and Italy. And the guys
playing on this first Buzzy album, which is one I’m talking
about at this moment, the one that was just released by BuzzArt Records...there
was this wonderful band from Swansea Wales, that was very successful
at the time called Eyes Of Blue. And then the Beatles’ tabla
player, the hand drummer for Indian Raga, and Big Jim Sullivan on
honest to God, sitar, you know? An 18 minute improvised raga. I knew
what I was thinking of maybe doing guys, but these people had never
met me before. (laughter) We had six minutes to tune and the tape
was rollin’ and I’m telling you, if they hadn’t of
had great big ears and great big hearts, and if the engineer hadn’t
been proper, we never would have gotten it. But to think that they
never heard that song “Sing Joy” from buzzy’s Buzzy
in ‘68 in London... On the same 4 track machine, the exact
same one that they had recorded Sgt. Pepper. We had very little
to mix with and we had tape loops of droning. And the last chord from
Sgt. Pepper, from Lou Reizner, the producer’s production
of Instrumental Sgt. Pepper with the London Symphony Orchestra.
That’s the first note before “Sing Joy” starts. That’s
the last note from Sgt. Pepper that we were able to use from
his record.
RS: Was that done earlier? I thought that was from the ‘70s...
BL: Oh no, it would have been probably the year after or so that Sgt.
Pepper came out. So maybe ‘67, ‘68...I’m not really
sure. Lou Reizner’s claim to fame was a gigantic instrumental
hit. He was trained to record symphonies and stuff. From a very well
to do family. He knew The Beatles. He bought one of John Lennon’s
Rolls Royce’s... And it was really fun to hang out. Everybody
knew him. He had been courting me, trying to sign me in New York City.
And when I got stranded he said, ‘Come on, you know I love your
music! C’mon I got a big band here, I’ve got Graham Bond.
We can do a series of records.’ And he had this giant hit with
Paul Mauriat Strings which was called “Love Is Blue.” (Buzzy
sings the song) It was a real Mantovani, too many strings type thing.
But it was a giant hit and very beautiful. So he was connected with
people across town. So he convinced me to stay. He said, ‘I got
the sitar player, I’ve got a tabla, we can do the raga.’
This whole album was done, was recorded, mixed and completed in twenty
two hours over parts of three days. So when you hear this raga, a
song called “Sing Joy” that we’re coming full circle
again, which if you look close you can see magic everywhere. But guess
what, the lady who co-wrote “Sing Joy” with me actually
started the song in a tuning I spent a couple of hours teaching her.
Doña Calles. Doña Calles was the owner of the Unicorn
coffee house in Coral Gables Florida. The same lady who owned that
coffee house. Just a very young lady. I stayed overnight with her
when I performed in Kent, Ohio. Two years later I taught her the tuning
to “Sing Joy” and some licks, went to bed and when I woke
up she had started this wonderful raga that got played around the
world over and over. And its 18 and a half minutes long. It’s
very creative and its like that idea of free flow, like Kerouac could
get into, but it’s musical. You can get ideas for other parts
of songs to throw in where you let your mind open. I really hope you
hear it soon.
RS: The Buzzy’s buzzy album has so much history...
BL: Only two days rehearsal man...It was like magic. It was the right
people and everybody shared. I mean the company only offered me fifteen
hundred dollar advance and they wanted one record a year for five,
six years. Do you believe that? And I was being offered ten, twenty
thousand back in New York. I had a big following. I had The Seventh
Sons. We opened two nights for Jeff Beck and the Grateful Dead at
the Fillmore East. We hadn’t released a record yet but we had
a following of a few thousand people. playing all the be-ins with
Abby Hoffman and Professor Leary and County Joe & The Fish. The
Seventh Sons was one of the main acts at the first be-ins in Tompkins
Sq. Park in ‘66 or something like that. It was so funny ‘cause
we were the biggest band that no one had ever heard of before. We
were just waiting and playing one big giant thing every couple of
months. At any rate, that band fell apart but here I was with this
song that Doña had written, the whole beginning of it while
I slept that night. I got up in the morning and she showed it to me
and I wrote the bridge. And I’m actually quoting a Ravi Shankar
raga, a famous thing called Improvisations From Pather Panchali.
It came out in 1959, with Bud Shank on flute, a famous blues / jazz
great. And the Ravi did this...I’ve never seen the movie, but
it is just mysterious. (laughter) It’s just so magical and I
really always wanted to get something that would sound more Indian
than the normal guitar tuning. And a guy from Brown & Dana, a
traveling folk duo from Boston, they played in Cleveland and I opened
for them. And the one guy said, ‘It sounds like you’re trying
to get like a raga sound,’ and I said, ‘Yeah I would love
to but I don’t know anything more than these open fifths, but
I wouldn’t know how to go about it.’ He said, ‘Well
there’s a guy in New York called Sandy Bull. Do you know who
Sandy Bull is Robert?
RS: He had a bunch of albums, I think on Vanguard.
BL: Oh yeah, Billy Higgins on drums. He’s considered in the top
ten of all times. So he said 'there’s a guy called Sandy Bull,
he plays in the open tuning, I’m going to change your life and
teach it to you tonight.' So he taught it to me, I went down to Kent,
I showed in to Doña, she started (singing). It was really folky.
Then I (sings) I’m actually duplicating the scale from the “Theme
From Pather Panchali” by Ravi Shankar in the bridge there. It’s
like homage or something. In jazz, when you improvise, you often throw
in other songs. It’s just not that common a thing in rock because
people don’t want to worry just because they said one phrase
from somebody else’s song. But I think there’s near 20 different
songs that I shove into that 18 minute and 45 seconds...version of
“Sing Joy”.
RS: It’s almost 19 minutes.
BL: Yes...and the tabla player could not speak English! (laughter)
This is the Beatles’ tabla player...(laughter) could not speak
English. I don’t know which works of theirs that he played on.
And I couldn’t even tell him what key I was going to be in. I
had to show it to him musically.
RS: Side two of Buzzy’s buzzy was one of the first side
long studio tracks of the first rock era.
BL: Yes sir. I would get letters from DJ’s who would say, ‘Thank
you so much. I’m on at three in the morning, I’m all alone,
if I put on “Sing Joy” the second side of the record and
let it go into “End Song,” which sounds like another group...
And that was the point of getting FM airplay, is you could have songs
on your same album sound different enough that it just didn’t
sound like you again. On the Pussycats Can Go Far album, they
would play the whole side one or the whole side two. And I just kept
kind of changing up styles in there. So I would get letters from people
who say ‘I’m here all alone. I gotta go down to the bathroom
at 3 in the morning after I have my coffee and I want to smoke one
so I gotta have something that’ll play long enough that I can
go down the hall and relieve myself.’ And I got more then ten
letters like that from around the world from people who said I was
a dream for them on FM programming. Of course, it’s all kind
of dated, but I don’t think it is. I don’t think the Music
album is dated at all. I don’t think anyone else has played
like Rodrigues yet , and yet he influenced thousands of guitarists.
‘Cause that Music album and that Buzzy’s buzzy
album with the raga and the “End Song” with the tympani
and strings... I mean that played around the world for a long time.
Had a real good start, it’s just you don’t get paid for
your first album. And then you change to another company and no one
even cares about their first anymore. So, very exciting that it’s
back, back from the dead. It was pirated, almost a year ago now, by
a company that refuses to answer e-mails. They released a copy called
buzzy, with small lower case letters. Seventeen dollars they
want, it’s just a recording of a scratchy vinyl. And that’s
why Art and I of Buzzart, with our genius engineer Bill Black, decided
we had to put out this buzzy thing whether we liked it or not.
‘Cause they’re selling hundreds of copies from a record
company that doesn’t seem to even exist. If they wanted to do
what was right, they’d only owe me about a dollar and a half
for each record, so they’re just going for the money. So I want
people to hear this record properly. I had a different idea for the
order of the songs originally so now we have my favorite order of
the songs and brand new... we could do things with computers now that
you couldn’t do on a 4 track machine back then. So, Bill Black
was just able to get an incredibly good sound out of it. And I’m
hoping the people who liked it back then will find out about it and
enjoy it again. But always buy from the artist, please. Buy art from
the artist. (BAFTA) You’d be shocked how many people aren’t
getting a penny for these records that we love folks, honestly.
RS: I always remember you as a great guitar player especially the
way you recorded your guitars.
BL: Thank you. I studied as a drummer remember? So when I was seven,
I learned to read symphony music on drums. And when I was ten, the
drum teacher asked my parents if he could start teaching me xylophone
and they said yes and my dad bought a tiny little xylophone with big
long legs for an adult and he had to saw the legs down and put rubber
pumps the bottom. So I started xylophone and at 12 I got a set of
vibes. Then I taught myself guitar throughout the thing. The point
is I know where the rhythm is because I studied drums. A lot of folks
are thinking musical notes. It’s very easy for a lead guitarist
to just, as we called used to call it, just skate over the chords.
Let everybody else take care of the beat. Just skate over it. I don’t
know if that’s a real valid solo if your BS-ing too much....If
you learn the rhythms first... My mom used to play Christian hymns
on the piano and real old boogie woogie songs and God knows what for
me to be able to practice my rubber drum pad. It wasn’t very
exciting. Do you know she should spend hours with me just playing
John Phillips Sousa march, if it was a march style I was supposed
to be playing. She just was there every second of the day. I just
wish kids could be learning music ‘cause the ones who get to,
have a very wonderful life and the money doesn’t matter if you
know how to make music. But knowing my rhythm means that I’m
always tight with the drummer in the band and I’m always tight
with the bass player ‘cause I had been a drummer. So I think
of my right hand as being a drum rhythm. And I change left hand more
like a piano sliding up through different chord inversions. Dan Armstrong
taught me how to play up and down the neck in the key of A and E.
Danny Armstrong put out the very first pedals in the old days. Do
you remember them? And he developed the Traynor amps for the Rolling
Stones tour. He designed those. A really, really genius guitarist
and he taught me a trick to play up and down the neck of the guitar
and how to lock my strings so they never stretch out of tune. And
it just changed my life. Every time I take a student on and teach
this simple walk up and down the neck in A and E, all of a sudden
you have hundreds of different patterns to play behind what anybody
else is doing or singing. And I hope some day I can teach a little
course, maybe make a tape of it. I kind of hold my hand backwards
sometimes from what a lot of guitarists do. I don’t know if that
makes sense. But one of the reason for me being able to get different
sounds is from using open tunings. Don’t be afraid to use an
open tuning. And a wonderful band in Great Britain called Man, the
Man band, which had the drummer and keyboardist from Eyes Of Blue,
they did a song of mine...they did “Talk About A Morning”
but they didn’t realize the rhythm guitar was in open tuning
so nobody can ever get those chord patterns that I’m getting
‘cause it was me playing the acoustic rhythm with Doug Rodrigues
adding six more notes on top of it and you just couldn’t do that
in a normal tuning. And the same with my song “The Love’s
Still Growing” which is in the Sandy Bull raga tuning. B Mountain
modal I was told it was called and maybe someday I can make a little
page of tablature showing everybody how to get to that very nice open
tuning that has fifths only. It doesn’t commit itself to a third
guys. You can be major or minor in a second when you’re playing
in modal. Once again, that’s one of the great reasons for my
having a lot of different sounds...learning open tunings from Buffy
St. Marie. And I’ve still never met Sandy Bull but he absolutely
saved my life. How important can I feel when this guy saved my life?
I guess we could all be important if we try hard enough. So open tunings,
I like chorus pedals just ‘cause they add a dimension. And there’s
so many pedal things and stuff. We just didn’t have any of that
in the old days. Often I’d be playing a two hundred dollar guitar,
an acoustic and trying to hold it up to the mic. But when you go into
the studio, into Electric Lady studio with Jimi Hendrix producer Eddie
Kramer, you’d be shocked what you really sound like on the right
instrument, and with the right help. Does that answer anything? Oh...on
open tunings...originally with the Seventh Sons...and there’s
a terrible bootleg called Frame Franks For Raga by The Seventh
Sons. Please guys call me, I’ve got a good version for ya. And
edited back together so its not in two sides like that one is. And
re-digitized. It was us warming up in the dressing room to perform
“Sing Joy.” It was very interesting as a improvisational
piece. But please call BuzzArt, call me at BuzzArt north. Send me
an e-mail. I’d be glad to hand make you any of my records you
want and hand sign ‘em almost any way you would like me to. It
would be a lot of fun. I miss being on radio shows, getting interviewed
on radio shows, having the phone ring and then getting to talk to
twenty, thirty fans. There’s nothing like it in the world. Telephones
aren’t expensive now guys, let’s do some communicating here
and maybe you’ve got a story to add onto the web site about where
you saw me the first time or something like that. Also, in the Seventh
Sons, what I wanted to mention, on this raga that was released without
our permission...I’m playing a famous guitar called The Gibson,
from about 1910. It’s a Gibson harp guitar, have you ever heard
of one? It has a six string neck and then you can see what I believe
is probably the same actual guitar. Because when our band, The Seventh
Sons went belly up, a lot of our equipment wound up in Woodstock and
I’m sure a lot of people paid good bucks for it. I believe its
the harp guitar that Robbie Robertson is playing in The Last Waltz.
We were close in the old days, the Band and us. So there’s
a 1910 Gibson harp guitar. The reason I’m talking about this
is so I can discuss a little guitar with you guys. A very, very famous
guitar. And there’s sixteen strings and six strings I believe
for a total of twenty I think, all together. And they don’t ring
sympathetically, you’ve got to actually strike the ones that
are on the harp part, but it’s just great. You put big old fat
piano strings on the low and you get a real low note. And string it
any way you want it to and of course we put it together to play in
this B mountain modal tuning and during that particular Seventh Sons
raga that we’ll be releasing officially soon, but you can get
one if you give me a call, that’s part of how we get the sound
in there. Actually, James Rock and I pass it back and forth a couple
times. One is playing a six string and the other is playing the twenty
string and we pass them back and forth. But a wonderful instrument
that unfortunately I had to let go when the band broke up.
Actually I had to let... I lost seven guitars, seven guitar amps,
a whole bunch of stuff that I’d been given by Baldwin to outfit
the band. Originally I had to choose between my guitar and a set of
vibes when I left the band. See, I could have played on Bob’s
album. The band was going to break up anyhow and he knew that! He
tried to warn me in that song, to tell you the truth. There’s
a whole message to me in “Like A Rolling Stone,” the first
two verses. You’ll find it incredible if you listen from that
point of view. The finest school all right but you know Mr. Lonely
(he said “Miss Lonely” so that people wouldn’t
know it was about me) you only used to get juiced in it. That’s
when I got alcoholic in the Navy school of music ‘cause I got
so bored because I had taken their courses when I was 12 years old.
I didn’t realize that I’d already been to music conservatory.
I went there when I was I guess 13, 14, 15 (laughter). That’s
why if I can play well at all its because I learned my chords and
I learned my scales! Aside from that guys, I’m just faking it!
(laughter) If you want to hear a vibes player, catch Gary Burton and
Mike Manieri and certainly Bags....you know Milt Jackson. But its
‘cause of these geniuses that I can play at all, having these
guys as teachers and an audience who enjoys my stuff who encouraged
me. I would have never kept playing but the audience always says it
was great, so why should I stop? I think I have thirty really incredible
new hit songs that I’ve written, many of them co-authored. I
gotta talk about my records because they sound great. Did you hear
the Studio album yet?
RS: Hearing the new Studio CD was a great listening experience.
There’s so many great songs of yours that I’d never heard
before.
BL: A lot of famous guys on there! There’s Nicky Hopkins, the
Stones keyboardist. And Denny Seiwell...and there’s a guy, Laurence
Juber, from Wings, Paul McCartney’s guitarist. When The Beatles
broke up, Paul McCartney could pick anybody in the whole world that
he wanted to. Well, the first album he used Hugh McCracken and David
Spinoza, two of my best pals. And the next album, they did Wings,
and the second guitarist in Wings for the last two and half years,
was Laurence Juber. The drummer for the first three and half years
was Denny Seiwell. He and I played snare drum and marched and stood
at attention for JFK in 1962, man, in the U.S. navy symphony orchestra.
So when my friend showed up in Wings, I was going to call him and
see if he’d play on my records. So I did and so here we are with
The Chambers Brothers, Nicky Hopkins, first session in nine years...
I got him back in the studio for the first time in nine years. Laurence
Juber...Tim Bogart on bass, from Vanilla Fudge you know? And Beck,
Bogart, Appice... I love those guys (laughter). Now Camine has fronted
a jam session... He and I, when ever we’re talking we’re
dripping sweat ‘cause we’re playing in a jam session (laughter)
in one of the canyons in L.A. What a work horse man. Miracle guys.
But we used to record to best, best, best, best, back then. And people
are trying to just sound like it. I would still say, in this day and
age, that studio musicians really helped save these great records
that are coming out nowadays. There’s always some George Martin
producer like behind the Beatles, hiding behind someone, hopefully.
‘Cause you want to hire a producer who knows more than you do.
Who will watch for special things that you do, rather then just being
a yes man and telling you everything you do is great, you’re
the greatest and that doesn’t get far.
RS: What about Steve Hunter? He was also on the Studio CD.
BL: Steve Hunter, do you know who that is? He was in a famous band
from Toronto in Bob Ezrin’s Nimbus 9 studios. They were a famous
band. Prakash John was actually a Pakistani prince, played bass. A
super great guy. Steve and Danny Weis on guitars. They were the band
on The Rose with Bette Midler. They were the band on the tour,
Welcome To My Nightmare with Alice Cooper. They were the band
in Lou Reed Rock And Roll Animal live. If you listen to Lou
Reed’s Rock And Roll Animal live, my friend was recording
it that night, Steve Katz. The first album recorded on dolby. Steve
Katz was doing it. And I wanted the audience to be cheering and he
told me to goose that audience up so we’d have a great sound
on it. So that’s me doing the incessant whistle, maybe my police
whistle. I do a really great taxi cab catcher and it’s a famous
whistle on a couple albums. It was on the Blues Project Live At
Cafe Au-Go-Go and... you gotta learn how to whistle guys. (Buzzy
whistles) Children will love you if you can whistle like a bird....
Man, you know they played on all these records. But...I’m thinking
of a Steve Turner, the drummer who I was going to use because John
Lennon had introduced me to the wonderful, famous Jim Keltner. And
I called Jim Keltner ‘cause I was in L.A. and I had a budget
and I was on TV with Cosby every week. I got Ralph Hammer who toured
with Stevie Wonder on lead guitar for three years. We had two lead
guitarists in the band on Cos, was the name of the show. That
was Ralph Hammer on lead and the second lead guitar was Ray Parker
Jr. who later became famous for the “Ghostbusters” theme.
And that was our band on Cosby! And then I got Ralph Hammer to come
into a private session with me and we put Steve Turner on drums, he
was a replacement for Keltner. With the Chambers Brothers singing
background. (laughter) Chris Huston engineering and co-producing on
“Hurt So Bad That It Must Be Love.” He was from Liverpool.
The Beatles used to open for his band, The Undertakers. That’s
a whole other story. We met because I was willing to talk to a guy
who came up with a knapsack on his back in 1969 and took him home
to sleep on my couch. He was actually one of the Beatles’ friends
and he pawned his guitar to ride over a tramp steamer and never had
enough money to put the band back together. But his first hit in the
U.S. was “Groovin’” He was the first engineer ever
given engineering credit on a label of a record, which means they
weren’t paying him enough but he would settle for that. Yeah,
he produced the Rascals, all their hits, and then he produced War.
He produced Blood, Sweat & Tears. He produced Who’s Next.
On and on and on. Chris Huston. A real hero. Produced War like
I told you. Everything War did, he was the engineer behind it. And
if you don’t have guys like this, you’re not going to have
a special sounding record. You’ve got to keep your individuality
separated from what’s influencing you maybe.
RS: Tell me some more stories about your guitars.
BL: So guitars...I never was able to have any big guitar collection.
But the Gibson 1910 was marvelous. And they used to have an old guitar
called the Harmony Sovereign. The Harmony company made a thing called
The Sovereign. For years and years it was fifty five dollars in the
pawn shop. It’d be hanging in the plastic bag, brand new. If
somebody stole your guitar or stepped on it or it broke apart, you
could run to the pawn shop and catch ‘em before they closed and
get a brand new Harmony Sovereign, put better strings on it and you
could be playing at nine O’clock at night. I’ve seen it
done three or four times. Peter Childs would always recommend that
Harmony Sovereign... Fred Neil’s guitarist. He played a Gibson
guitar through through just a little bit of tremolo. It wasn’t
real fancy in those days. We were just glad that your guitar part
could finally be heard. The important thing is, when you’re in
a band, you really need someone to come up and tell you when somebody’s
out or not. The audience doesn’t always know. They think it sounds
fine. If they can’t hear the vocals out front, chances are somebody’s
playing a little too loud. Maybe everybody. It doesn’t gain anything
to play too loud. And you’ve gotta have somebody who you will
trust. Make them walk around the house, the club... People gotta understand,
for a professional musician, that a major, major part of your life,
is people coming up, not understanding how much you’ve gotta
concentrate. I’m lucky to have played music and I think the life
of the secret happy person is the one’s who get to be in bands.
RS: So the election’s almost here...
BL: I got Al Gore a CD of one of my records. We already have it and
couldn’t afford to print any more CDs of it. The Buzz Art publishing
catalog volume one has fifteen songs in it man...it’s just amazing.
And yet we got enough to put out two and now we’re going to put
out a third one. So we hope the third one should be Buzzy Linhart
Live 1971 and the next one should be (sings) The Time To Live
Is Now...I think. What I’m thinking about is a thing called
Buzzy Then & Now, then we put the very best-est cuts from
the Music album. But I like “Searchin’”, “Searchin’”
is just...whew! I sang and played electric rhythm. We played that
live in one take. You’ve heard “Searchin’” from
the Music album?
RS: That’s the last cut from the Music album, cut 9.
BL: Can you believe how tough my voice that note? With the big (yelps).
RS: Music is like a freight train...
BL: (laughter) We rehearsed those songs for a year! We did an audition
for Columbia, we did a audition for Atlantic. We used to carry the
demos around because they were so incredible. And of course they got
lost over the years. Oh, the demo for the Music album...was
just ridiculous. Some day part of it will show up somewhere. We do
a song called “Let’s Go Steady” by the Pearls. It’s
a real old, very, very Deep Purple, rhythm and blues song from like
1954 that I changed. Anything Rodrigues plays on, it’s miraculous!
Did you ever know that the guitar solo on “Mother’s Red
Light” is Doug Rauch.
RS: Oh, he plays the guitar on the instrumental with the vibes right?
BL: Yes, exactly. And there actually words but they were mixed too
low. Can you understand the words?
RS: They sounded a little Hendrix-y...
BL: Yeah, he added a little too much. I guess he didn’t think
the words were important. But they’re quite psychedelic and I
don’t even know what that mean but they take you somewhere else.
It’s really good lyrics. I was sad that they weren’t more
audible.
RS: I have the Canadian CD pressing of the Music album.
BL: The one from Canada? They leased it from Buddah Records before
Buddah went bankrupt.
RS: I can't wait to see and hear the planned remaster of the Music
CD on Buzzart with the bonus cuts and in depth liner notes. Well,
it's been a long interview... I’m really thrilled to have finally
been able to talk to you Buzzy...
BL: And I feel the same way. Honest to God. If you like that song,
we did it for you. You know what I’m saying? If that’s your
song, we did it for you. And it’s so exciting. I have three more
albums all mixed and ready to come out. And all I need is a couple
thousand dollars for each one. But I don’t have that much money,
between you and me, or we wouldn’t be putting out Buzzy’s
buzzy, we would be putting out Buzzy Linhart Live 1971 NYC
At The Cafe Au-Go-Go. It’s so great! It’s got “Talk
About A Morning” and it’s got “The Time To Live Is
Now,” and its’ got “Friends” and it’s got
“The Love’s Still Growing,” all live man! And “God
Bless The Child,” the great Billy Holiday tune. I mean I sang
this opening for Blood, Sweat & Tears. They recorded it before
me and put it out. It was an old song from the ‘40s that no one
was doing. But now it’s time for me to put it out, you know?
I have my own version and like I say, I swear, I don’t want to
sound like I’m grumpy because I can’t think of anything
that I would have wanted to change ‘cause it would keep me from
being where I am right now, which is very, very enjoyable to me right
now. And I help a lot of other people.
Thanks to Buzzy Linhart, Bill Black and Art Berggren @ www.BuzzyLinhart.com
and www.Buzzartinc.com
Also thank you to Lenny Kolleeny and Shelly Toscano @ www.SameChick.com
