Episode 14: Joe's Top Five Musical Guests on The Today Show

On this episode, former Today Show Director Joe Michaels and producer Jim Scott discuss Joe's Top Five musical guests over his 20+ years on the show. From James Taylor to Taylor Swift, you'll discover the very human side of legendary performers- and you'll also discover how the Today Show pioneered live musical performances on the 30 Rock Plaza, before enormous- and often unpredictable- audiences. Oh- and what happened to Tony Bennett's $1500 shoes? Britney "breathlessly" awaits your tuning in!

Joe Michaels is an acclaimed television director with a distinguished career spanning over five decades. An eight-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Directors Guild of America honoree, Michaels is best known for his 22-year tenure directing NBC’s Today Show, where he helmed more than 5,000 episodes and helped shape the landscape of live morning television. His directing credits also include major global broadcasts such as the Olympics (including eight Opening Ceremonies), Network coverage of the 2016 & 2024 Democratic National Convention, and National Geographic’s groundbreaking Brain Surgery Live.

Starting his career at NBC Sports, Michaels contributed to Emmy-winning coverage of the Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon, and the Olympics. He has directed high-profile network specials, live concerts, stage productions, and segments for celebrated shows like Seinfeld, 30 Rock, and The Michael J. Fox Show. His work has been seen by hundreds of millions around the world and thousands live at venues like Rockefeller Plaza.

In addition to his directing work, Michaels serves as the Broadcaster-in-Residence at High Point University, where he mentors the next generation of television professionals through courses in multi-camera production, on-camera performance, and senior production experience. A graduate of Seton Hall University and its 2013 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, Michaels continues to consult on creative media projects, cor...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

What if you can have a conversation with one of America's top TV directors to see the events and the people that have shaped the world through his eyes and his recollections? That's what this show is all about. From today to Monday. Conversations with Joe Michaels.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

That's probably not a tan. I don't know what it is. It's probably a high blood pressure. Gosh, I hope not.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I haven't been much out in the sun yet. You're looking you're looking great. So today I I want to continue our top five thing. Okay. And I want to challenge you out of all the years that you were there and all the different styles of music that I want to challenge you with Joe's top five musical guests from a director's perspective.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

That is hard. That is very hard. Well, I I know I mentioned in one of the other shows that um a band that I had never heard of was on the show uh called The Course. Okay. And not related to the beer. Um they're an Irish rock band. Spelled the same way or just uh C-O-R-E. C-O-S-R-R-S. Okay. And um they were gonna be on the show one day. And when I went to uh New York City, when I when I drove into the city that day and I got onto Thirty Rock, there were easily uh uh uh close to a thousand people there. Of course they were waiting for I knew I knew that was coming. Waiting waiting for this band. And I had listened to the music the night before. Whenever we had a band on the show, I would listen to music the night before to get an idea what they were, you know, what their songs sound like that they were gonna do. And um, God forbid I even thought ahead of them what shots I was gonna take. But I went inside to Jeff Zucker, our executive producer at the time, and I said, you know, there's a ton of people outside, and I think they're gonna be really disappointed that all they're gonna be able to do is see the band through the windows, because they were gonna be inside. So I don't know, I'm assuming it was Jeff's idea. Um, why don't we do it outside? Just like that. And that's where the NBC Today Show summer concert series started.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So the very morning that you were having this band that happened, you were able to adapt that quickly.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, the guy I you know, I've uh on some of these podcasts I've done nothing but tell you how great a crew was we had was. Um even the big union guys, you know, the IaTis and the the big unions in New York City, they were all like the best.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Well, here's the thing. And they made it work. You have so many moving parts with a band, and the band members are very particular about monitors and pickups and all this other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

How do you do that? Okay, so this band wasn't so particular. Okay. They were from Ireland, they um were three sisters and a brother. Um, we did not have fallback, they couldn't hear themselves. I mean, it was down and dirty, and I believe our set designer at the time put a really nice rug out there on the plaza. We had no stage. Um so number one, I became an enormous fan of this band. They were fabulous. Um, I still listen to them. Uh I I call them Irish rock music. In between their first album in between songs, they played traditional rock, uh traditional Irish music. And it was really cool. It was a cool band. So that's where it started. And um, I think within a within a short period of time, I think I mentioned this before. Um, the show got an offer to have somebody sponsor, it was Cotton Incorporated, which is a company that represents cotton manufacturers. Um, they volunteered, volunteered, they offered to sponsor our concerts every Friday. And from there it built up, it built up to the point where we built stages and sound, all kinds of crazy things, and um, and it's still going on today. The proof that it was very successful was uh Good Morning America copied it after a number of years and did a concert series on Fridays as well. So it's a really exciting thing for a morning show.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I'm still amazed that that uh A, you were able to do it, and B that the band agreed to do it because this is their shot in front of America. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

You look back on it and you go, Yeah, that that really uh that really was a big risk, I guess, for all of us. But uh it paid it paid off for the show. And uh I don't know that the cores ever became enormously popular in the United States. Um, I think I I'll tell it very quickly, but I think I told you the story uh when we were in um when we were in Ireland, we were in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day and doing the show outside of Dublin Castle. We had uh promoted that the cores were gonna be on the show. So outside of Dublin Caps Castle, there had to be a couple of thousand people waiting to listen to the cores, and they were actually on the show in New York because we had a split show. Oh, okay. And um, I I laughed about that. I go, here we go. Every time that band was on the show, we had a problem. We we kind of screwed them a little bit. It was it was pretty funny. So how many times? I mean, did they show up regularly, I guess? Um, no, they they were on the show uh uh I th I'd say three or four times over over the length of a number of years. Um then from my remembrances to go back to the early concerts we did, the largest concert at the time, which I believe was probably around 1999, 2000, uh a couple years after we started this, uh, was Ricky Martin. And um I had seen a set design of it. And uh I'm I'm not that I'm uh uh not a fan of Ricky Martin, but I don't listen to his music regularly, but and I really didn't know much about him at the time. But I'm a I'm a big fan of production and production sets and how you how you produce things. Um his concert, number one, was the largest concert we had at the time, and the the the entire plaza was packed with they had to close 48th Street and 49th Street, of which is bus traffic. The police came and really helped us out with this. But um the stage was entirely made up of ice, and it was absolutely incredible. What? It was absolutely so I'll never forget the concert. They brought in blocks of ice. They brought in blocks of ice and built built chairs and and counters and for goodness sakes, why? Uh just for the effect of it, obviously for TV, you know. Wow, okay. Um it was really, really cool. And um he was he was he's an incredible performer. Um one thing that happened that day, which is a very director type thing, was um our cameraman Jim Mott, who is an incredible guy, I mean, and uh and probably one of the best camera guys, um, Jim was told he couldn't get on the stage. And I said, What? Well, he's not allowed to get on the stage because he doesn't want to they don't want him to get in the way of Ricky Martin. I said, Well, some of the best shots are gonna be if Jim can get on the edges of the stage, and say, Well, no, absolutely he cannot get on the stage. So about midway through the show, uh, I'm I'm thinking about it, and we haven't gotten to that segment yet, but I'm thinking about it. I'm going, you know what? Not for nothing. It's our show and it's our stage. So you why would you tell me I can't put a camera on the stage? So I said to Jimmy, Jimmy, I don't want you to cause any trouble, but you know, if you go up the steps to the stage and you get on the edge there, uh, you know, if you feel that you're not going to get in the way, you know, I I'm fine with you hopping on the stage. So he got to the very edge of the top of the little steps, and he got right on the edge, and he was hesitating to get on the stage. And this was um, this was literally in the middle of a song. And Ricky Martin um w looked over at him and pointed, Come on, get up here. Oh, okay. Kind of get up here. And Jimmy got on the stage. And afterwards I said, What was that all about? He said, Well, evidently Ricky Martin had no problem with me being on the stage. It was his management that didn't want somebody on the stage. So, you know, you run into those kind of things uh as camera people and directors when you're doing shows like that. You don't want to get in the way. But there was something special about um I'll get into more people, but there was something special about the um today show concerts. It was not a performance that you would see on TV on a music special. Okay. It was and it was an event. It was an event for the today show. And I'm not very smart. It took me a little bit of time to figure this out. But one day, I don't remember uh if it was a Ricky Martin, but it was early on. Um, I was trying to cut mu I love music. I was trying to cut music the way you would see it in a musical performance. And um Jeff Zucker said to me, Come here, I want to tell you something. I go, what? He goes, There's two things that people at home want to see. They want to see the performer and the crowd enjoying it. And I said, Yeah, that makes sense. So it wasn't so much that we were cutting a musical act as we were cut cutting an event in Rockefeller Center. That makes sense. So I showed more crowd in pretty much and the main singers and maybe a guitar player, drummer, when there's solos. But it was it was a different mindset on how to cover music on an early morning show like that. Let me ask you this. You don't have to get weigh any trade secrets. No, I'm not giving trade secrets. Did did the artist routinely play live or was it like a well we had a um that's an interesting story, and I could tell you one that comes to mind. Sometimes it's a combination. No, it's not a combination, no. Uh the today show is a news show. Okay. So we theoretically um don't make it a practice of having somebody lip sync. Gotcha. Because it's a live show, it's a news show. We don't you know, there's there's a little bit of um uh w we don't want anybody kind of cheating in the morning type type thing. Right. If you're gonna be on the show, you're gonna sing live. And um Which is a big challenge for a lot of these performers. It is, and um, I could tell a few stories. Uh Britney Spears is one of the earlier per people that came and sang on the show uh during the first year or two, and she um there's kind of a fun story about her. She she was I was told that she's gonna dance a lot and move around the stage a lot, and she actually gets out of breath. Sure. And I said, Well, I kind of understand that. Well, can we um can she sing to a track? And I said, Absolutely not. She's gotta sing. Wow. So they said, Um, well, we have a track, uh, there's a click track that her band uses, which our audio guy would play, and she she has a track uh with some of her vocals on it. And it would it be okay if one of her road managers stands next to the audio guy um whose name is Dave Levins, incredible audio guy, uh one of my friends for years. Um and if she seems out of breath, can they tap him on the shoulder so he can sweeten the audio a little bit? And I said, Yeah, I guess that's okay. So I look in the audio booth in the middle of a song. Oh, one of my one of my uh caveats was we are not gonna close her microphone. So her microphone's gonna be live. Okay. We are not closing her microphone. But if Davy can sweeten the audio a little bit, great. Sweeten by putting her recorded voice up. By putting a little bit of a recorded voice up. So I look in the audio booth in the middle of one of the songs, and I see the guy banging on Davy's shoulder, and Davy's got this look on his face, like, oh damn, I've got to do this. And he's trying to mix it in. But on the air, I hear this sweet voice, and in the background I hear her breathing. Oh my gosh. So I went, boy, that wasn't a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Well, yeah, yeah, it brings up a good because look, these days, with very few exceptions, you've got to be a good-looking person before you can get a chance to actually sing.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

You know, that's usually the prerequisite. And if you're a good-looking person, you'll be expected to do, my gosh, the performance arts. Um, pink is up there in a trapeze, for goodness sakes.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

I mean, it is crazy. But I have to tell you, Jim, I've seen so many acts where they're doing that and they still are singing live. So it has to do with the with the performer. Yeah. Some performers refuse to sing to a track. Um, the only other one that I made I laughed about was Mariah Carey, who I've worked with a bunch of times, and she's was a very, very nice lady to me. But she sang, I believe, two or three songs on the Today Show, and I did not realize that the third song was gonna be lip-synced. So I I noticed after the fact that she had the mic literally in her mouth, so you couldn't see that she was lip syncing. Oh, yeah, and what I was gonna say earlier about concerts on 30 Rock is that you can't shoot in one direction. It's completely it's 360. So when I took side side shots, you could see she wasn't singing, and she got destroyed in the in the New York papers the next day for not singing live on the show. I mean, so it was expected, it was expected that these bands would sing live, you know. Um and um I just said I just said a phrase that I'm gonna tell you a band that I didn't know, and it was probably I don't want to say I'm a big fan, but it was a lot of fun. The producer of this show of this segment said to me, Um, we have this new British band that's gonna be on the show tomorrow morning, and I think I have this great idea about how to bring them on the show. And I said, What? We're gonna have them come down 49th Street, um, which is a busy street, obviously, in New York City. Yeah. Uh it's a it's a bus street. We're gonna have them come down on a double decker English bus, and they're gonna be on the top, they're gonna be waving to everybody, and then they're gonna run down the the inside the truck and run up onto the stage. I go, Didn't the Beatles do that back in the day? I'm sure they did. But I said, Great idea, let's do it. Well, what's the name of the band? Oh, it's called One Direction. I said, I've never heard of them. I said, I've never heard of them. Who are they? Are they any good? Well, yeah, yeah, well, they're they're they're really good, but you know, they've got a big fan base. So I get in the morning to rehearse early, and we rehearse this bus coming down the street. But early in the morning, You rehearsed the bus down? Yeah, we had to rehearse it. I had to say it. So we rehearsed it. There was a good sized crowd there at that point. Um, and they run up on the stage and they start playing, and I'm leaning against a fence there, and there's an older older woman standing next to me, and I went, Boy, that guy in the middle there, um, he's got a great voice. And um I I um I Harry Stiles. Yeah, well, yeah, but I looked at the woman and she said, with a British, I can't do a British accent. She goes, Well, that's Harry, my son. And I go, Oh, oh, he's really good. He's very he's very good. He's got a great voice. And about 20 minutes later, somebody said, Oh, you were talking to Harry Styles' mother there? I go, Oh, damn. But thank God I said something nice.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Right, right. Well, one direction has such an enormous following. I I have a friend, Bruce Rand Berman, who you may have met in the past. Uh, he produced iCarly. Right. And when One Direction showed up for iCarly, it was madness there at the gates. I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

So we had a big crowd that day, and it was um it was a big concert. Early on, when you talk when I think about bands that I really enjoyed watching, um I uh really early on, I was thinking the probably '97, '98, we had um Prince. And it was right when Prince changed his name to no name. The symbol. To the symbol. And um I loved Prince's music, but I at that was the first time I'd ever seen him in person, and I just was in awe of his guitar playing more than anything else. Yeah, that was a forgotten element about him. It's just great music. He was incredible, and uh uh not nothing to do with the today's show, but if you go back and look at the um uh uh Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he played with that whole stage tribute to the show. Right, yeah. And everybody just spread out when he started playing guitar. Yeah. So he was he was really incredible. Um I think of I think of Whitney Houston was on really early then too. And I was um I was in awe of the list of things she wanted in her dressing room, including the vents being to cover it up so that no cold air would come. But I was in awe of her voice. She was she was really incredible. And my um my wife and I, when we were uh when she my wife had moved to New York City, we used to go to a um to a place on Sunday down in the in Greenwich Village, actually in Soho called Green Street, and Sissy Houston used to sing gospel there on Sundays when we got down for brunch for brunch. It was her mom. Her mom, okay, okay. And um, and Sissy had a young little girl come in one Sunday and sing with her, and it was her daughter. It was with me when she was very, very young. So I was always a big fan. I didn't know that she was gonna be that big a star. Um but when I go through all the concerts we did, and I I made a little list so I wouldn't forget names, but um so top five would be difficult for you. I'll give you my top five. Okay. My top five are not gonna be any top five that most people would want. My top five, and these are not all concerts that were outside, they were inside as well. Were James Taylor, um, Carol King, um Shakira. Um believe it or not, you're not gonna you're gonna go crazy with this. Jessica Jessica Simpson was incredible. Okay. And that's not I'm not a big like I don't listen to her sing or anything, but she had a sore throat. She, I mean, she came out strong. And this, she's not really one of my top five, but I was really impressed with her. Um, and I'm a big Tony Bennett fan. Oh. So Tony Bennett, we used to call him uh he was a regular on the show. We had two regulars, Tony Bennett and Chicago. Chicago played on the show a lot. We used to call them our house band. Chicago had like 9,000 players. How did you get them all together? The funny part is the last I remember of Chicago on the Today Show before I left, I think the horn section was the only original band, part of the band. Because when I I remember walking outside on the plaza one day when they were going to rehearse, and I went, Oh my god, I'm older than everybody in there except for the horn players. Okay, so here Tony Bennett, New York, New York Russia. I have a funny story I have to tell you about Tony Bennett. We had a series where we would do live weddings on the show every year. We did, I think we did it for about eight or ten years. We had a senior producer who came up with the idea, um, and we we just thought it'd be fun. It did help our ratings, believe it or not, and the audience picked certain things, like the wedding dress and where they're gonna go on their honeymoon, and they would pick things, and we would do a live wedding either on the plaza or on location. Joe, if I'd just known you 11 years ago, I could have saved uh so much. Well, I didn't have anything to do with picking the weddings. Um, but we did a wedding um down in um down in the Caribbean at a resort called Cap Chaluca, which was absolutely gorgeous. And when you go to Cap Chaluca, it's on it's on an island just o off of St. Martin. And when you go there, you fly into St. Martin, and they literally pick you up in a little boat and they boat you over to the island, and you get out of the boat by walking in the water up onto the beach where the resort is. And we were gonna have the wedding right there. So we had been there two or three days setting up, and Tony was gonna be one of the singers, and we are told that Tony's on the boat and he's coming over with his crew. So the boat gets to the beach, and uh Tony's not getting off the boat, and our production managers are going, What's what's what's wrong? Well, Tony just bought a pair of fifteen hundred dollar shoes, and he doesn't want to get them wet. So his so his band literally made a little place for him to sit with their arms, and they get him off the boat. Oh my god, and he's sitting on these guys' arms, and they're walking him along the beach, and one of his shoes fell in the water. Oh gosh. And the entire crew, we're all laughing, and Tony ended up laughing, but he was he was like one of the one of the guys. He was a legend. He was he was with the show a lot, and he sang with lots of different people. Katie Pearr, he sang with a lot of people on the show, a lot of duets. So, how could that not be one of my favorite all time, you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Oh, absolutely. No, let me ask you this, okay? Tony Bennett obviously lived in New York City, okay? He lived in New Jersey. Lived in New Jersey, okay. So close enough to be on the show. But the other bands, how would your bookers Okay, would the band contact the Today Show to try to get on, or did the Today Show try to contact the management of the band?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

So um, somebody like Tony, we would reach out to him. The we had bookers, we had a producer, a senior producer who was in charge of music basically on the show. Okay, and I believe it's set up that way now. Um they would put together like the summer concert series, they would put that together very early. I mean, or be you know, during the winter time, and so we can announce here's our entire summer concert series. Every once in a while. While there would be somebody who would um either be popular or the record company wants them on the show. Um, and I will tell you a great story. There was this day where our executive producer, um Jim Bell, incredible guy, worked in sports, executive producer of the Olympics, just an all-around wonderful, wonderful man. Jim Bell uh announces to us that somebody's gonna be in the office and they're gonna sing a song for us. And we all go over to, you know, we're all in the office, everybody comes out of their offices, and this big red-headed guy grabs his guitar and he's with his record company guy, and he's I guess a manager, and he sings a song, and we all go, Wow, what a great voice! So Jim says, Everybody like him? Yeah, we all applaud him. He's a great guy. Okay, he's gonna be on the show tomorrow. Excuse me. So the next day he's gonna be inside, not outside. And um I go up to the studio for rehearsal, um, and he's standing there and I'm going, All right, let's let's hear what he's got. And I'm noticing that he's playing a three-quarter size guitar, and I've mentioned this guy to you before. And uh he does his song, he does rehearsal audio, does our audio checks, and I walk over to him and I said, You know, you're gonna be a big star. But when you become a big star, you're gonna be able to get a real guitar because he was playing a three-quarter size guitar, which is usually for a younger person who's learning how to play guitar. Beautiful one. It was a Martin, I mean a really great guitar. And he said, My parents gave me this guitar and I will probably always play it. And it was Ed Sheeran who I'll I'll every once in a while I'll see him playing somewhere and I'll notice he's still playing that guitar. He's got a lot of guitars now, but so so that was a pickup, I think, from the record company calling the show, saying we have this guy from England, he's gonna be uh in the United States. We'd love you to hear him. And uh Jim said, Come on over and play in the office for us, and and we put him on the show the next day.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Now I'm a big um fan of the Ipswich Town Blues in Suffolk, England. Yes. And he is one of our team's major sponsors. He's got a number on our roster, and we wear his tour uh uh logo on the front of our and just a marvelous musician. Um he's the kind of guy that could pick up a guitar and play. Uh but a band, you would need them to be able to rehearse and prepare for this opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

But but even even one guitar player, um uh I'm I'm leaving out a story that I'm not gonna tell today, but there was there was a situation um where a young girl came on the show, and I'll I'll tell the story another time. There's uh there was a girl on the show who came and uh to do the audio rehearsal, and the audio people have to be able to hear the voice and the guitar and the the room noise to to to mix a show really well. And as I said, Davy Levins and and Alex were were our main audio guys, they were really precise on how they did things. Um and they were they were very concerned about making sure audio sounded as good as it could ever sound, especially with music. So so the guys uh mic'd uh mic'd this young lady up, and the audio was not very, very good. And I'll I will tell the story from a technical perspective or from a talent perspective? From both. Okay. From both. But I will tell you when even with one person and a guitar, um, you want to do a rehearsal. I am not somebody who rehearsed with cameras because I didn't have enough time in the morning to do that. And the audio guys really needed the time to make the audio sound good. Sure. So I would go up to the studio, or as I said before, our our control room was below the studio and on another floor. Um I would go up to the studio with my AD, Erica, and we'd watch the music and kind of come up with an idea of what we were gonna do. Uh more Erica than me. But, you know, we we we kind of came up with the idea of what we were gonna do with a band. Um, so I was gonna tell a quick story about what somebody else is on my top 10 list there or my top five list, which is James Taylor. I've been a big fan of James Taylor for years. You guys are friends, right? Um I'm friends with uh with his brother and sister, okay. James. Well, there was a time where James was on the show, and he and before rehearsal, when everybody's setting things up, I walked up to the studio and he and I just sat on the sofa and talked. And everybody in the crew was going, Why is it what's he talking about to him? But you know, I I we we're um we've all been pretty good friends for a long time. Actually, James's brother Livingston, who I'm a really big fan of, Livingston Taylor. Who was a great artist in the world? Who's a great artist? Um, I actually met him while I was in college promoting concerts, and I I literally went to the airport to pick him up in my car for him to perform at Seton Hall. And my car was making, I had a little Austin Healy, my car was making a little noise, and he wanted to pull over and and work on it with me. Um so we became friends, but I I do joke about uh James is incredible. He did an outside concert where he built this I don't know what out of wood that actually had different instruments and made different sounds, and he played to it. Um the Today Show? On the Today Show, on a stage live outside. He also did something incredible on Saturday Night Live where he sang to a recording of his music with all the backup singers and the other instruments. He sang and played guitar to a recording. So we talk about lip syncing. Um I do I think the director at the time was Davy Wilson, who was the original director of the reverse of lip syncing. So what they did is they put a real-to-reel tape recorder on a stool in the foreground, and at some point James clicked the soundtrack on there and sang with the recordings. So the audience would know that. So they and the shots were of like the shot was a pullback of James revealing the re real-to-reel recording. So he's always done crazy innovative things like that. Um, so I'm a big I'm a big James fan. I'm a big fan of the family, uh, Kate Taylor friend. Whenever I see her anywhere, I'll uh I'll go and say hi to her and watch her performance. But Livingston, because of college and stuff, um, we became buddies, and he would, whenever he was in New York, and I wouldn't know he was in New York, he would just come to the Today show. He even with his guitar. One morning he was pr he was singing on Good Morning America, and he sang his, he did a segment on Good Morning America, and he came down to the Today show and he walked in the control room with his guitar case, put it down, and sat next to me and watched the show. And he was a good friend of Meredith Vier as well. So he'd come and say hi to Meredith, and he'd sit in the control room with me. Oh, that's so cool. So I always joked he was the one performer I adore who never sang on the show.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

That's that's that's hilarious. Um now, James Taylor, of course, is huge in North Carolina. Yeah, yeah. Went to UNC Chapel Hill. I crossed the James Taylor Bridge occasionally when I go to visit my brother. Um but wow, what a great lyricist and and melodist, if that's what you call it. I mean, just repeating.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

And he's touring again this summer, I believe, with um a few people.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I'm trying to think who, but and I hate to say it because a lot of his music has been kind of transformed into the the the music style of stuff. Right. Right. I think it'd be a great today show bit if he put James Taylor in a seat on an elevator at 30 Rock and actually have him playing for people.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

It'd be very funny. I I am somewhat disappointed nowadays when lots of students, especially uh they don't know who he is. And yeah, you know, the uh I have an old friend uh Tommy James who has his music you hear on commercials all the time. And um, you know, you mention his name in a lot. I mean it's generations, obviously, but it is kind of fun, fun to listen to. But um I do joke, uh, I I I want to go back to Jess Jessica Simpson for a second because I don't listen to her music, but I she came, she was singing on the show outside with a big crowd, and she literally had laryngitis. And we were gonna cancel it, and she said, Don't cancel it. I'm gonna go to my dressing room and I'm gonna take some honey and lemon and I'm gonna really work on myself so that I could do this. And she went out and sang like a trooper. So I always say, I'd never re I'd never forget what a trooper she was, and I didn't think of her that way. I thought of her more as a fluffy TV kind of person, and um I was pretty pretty impressed with her. Um her life is kind of like that. You have all these stories. I don't know a lot about her.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

There's something going on with Nicola Shea for former husband that now saying some things.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I will tell you another funny story about a performer who uh as I said a little while ago, um, this is done when they were outside, it's done in 360. The crowd's all the way around them, front of the stage, sides of the stage, back of the stage. Um when it's inside, I have a lot of control. Uh so if somebody says, Don't shoot me on my right side, inside I could I could almost promise them I could try to not do that. Outside, I can't. So there was a performer on the Today Show who um I know she was incredibly popular, and the stage managers uh kept saying, Um, she's up in her dressing room and she wants to talk to you. And I said, Well, I I don't want to go up and talk to her because I can't promise her anything. Right. I'll see her when we go outside and rehearse. And they said, No, no, she wants to talk to you before she goes outside. So I go, All right, I'll go upstairs to the dressing room and I walk in, and this little five foot two woman is standing there right in front of me, um, with her hands almost like tell saying a prayer. And she said, Um, hi, I said, hi, I'm I'm Joe Michaels, I'm the director. She said, Do you know what I do for a living? And I said, You're a singer. And she said, I am. And I I it's too bad we're audio only, but she framed her face and said, So don't shoot, don't do this, which means the top of her head to her chin. Right, right. Do this. And she went all the way down to her below her waist. And I said, Why? And she said, Because I shake this, and she pointed at her butt. And I went to her, I said to her, Um, where have you been all my life? And she gave me a hug, and it was Shakira. Yeah, and it was really a lot of fun. She's just a great lady. We did another couple more concerts with her. Um, and I just got a kick. So that that little uh that kind of like rapport with somebody like that, it just makes you go, Wow, I just want to do the best for them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Talk about you know, for for a layman like me to to learn these behind-the-scenes stories, and hopefully our listeners are are enjoying it also, to actually get the human side of these celebrities that we just see, you know, from a two-dimensional angle, basically.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, I mean, uh you know what? I've always been a fan, uh, you know, I I I've I've mentioned this before, I think on our podcast. Um, I teach a class in directing and and I usually say, even if it's the biggest actor in your the whole world, uh, when you meet them and you're directing, um, you shake their hand and tell them who you are, happy to work with you. But the one thing you don't say is, I'm your biggest fan, I love every movie you've ever been, because you are no longer the director, you're now a fan. And what I found over the years is these are people and some of them are really down way down to earth people. And you know what? Well even though they have an incredible talent, that doesn't mean that they're they should be put up on a pedestal way up there and you're working with them. So you want to work well with them and be honest with them about what you're doing. Um so it's the way it is, you know, it's the way it is. Um even though you might be a big fan, um you sh you still have to be on the on a good level, a working level with them.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

That's a that's a great point because when you say you're a fan, they're gonna have to live up to what they are and they're gonna change that way. And they're gonna worry about their own.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

I don't know, you know, it's uh it's just I I always joked about it. I watched a stage manager many years ago, 50 years ago, say call the King of Jordan, hey King, come on, let's go. We're on set. And I just laughed and I went, the king gave him a hug, and I I went, you know what, that's it. Just be be a be a good guy to these people who are performers. They're performers, they're great, you know. Um the last thing I'm gonna talk about um is a performance that I'll never forget. And I really it's on YouTube for anybody who wants to see it. Um one day I'd love to do a show just about this particular day. Sure. But it was Bryant Gumble's last day. Actually, maybe I can get talk to Bryant and see if he'll he'll come on with us. Um and the entire show, I've talked about it before, the entire show was a well Bryant didn't know what was gonna be on the show, which probably just destroyed him because he loved to know everything that was going on to a point of ridiculousness. Um he I I don't uh if we could ever get him on the show, I'm gonna do a point of ridiculousness. Well, no, I mean he would he would when when a camera wasn't on him, he would give me hand signals on what he wanted me to do. He just wanted to everything to be perfect. He's a pro. So here was an entire show where he didn't know any of the people that were gonna be on the show. It was his last day on the Today Show. And the musical guest um came in super early before Bryant got there, so that he had no idea who was gonna be the musical guest. And I think I've told the story about what this musical guest did. Yeah, but do it again. Um so he rehearsed with us, and then he his hotel was only two blocks away, and his uh I I don't know if it was his agent or a friend that was with him, they walked by Sachs and they said there's a security guard at the entrance, the back entrance to Sacks. Why don't we go in and get some clothes that would look like Bryant? So he dressed exactly go on YouTube and look at it, he dressed exactly as Bryant, to the point that I didn't recognize him when he came back for the show. Oh, that's good. And he was standing behind stage, and I'll tell the story fully again uh when we do a whole show on this. But it was Prince, and um I had no idea that Prince, uh, because of his religious beliefs, didn't really like being interviewed or didn't like to talk on live television. Um that's interesting. Okay. So the first thing happened was that when I didn't know who he was backstage, I was yelling at the cameraman Bobby Yeager, tell get get me Prince. Right. It was Prince, but he didn't look like him, he looked like Bryant. And Prince came around the corner, and if you saw, well, you hopefully you saw it, hopefully I cut to it, if you saw Bryant's face, because Bryant, this was somebody who Bryant respected and probably his favorite musician of all time, and it was totally a surprise. And Prince came in and sat at the piano, and Bryant asked him a few questions and he answered them and then performed. And Bryant was just glowing. I mean, and Prince is I mean, we've talked about it even earlier in this podcast. It was just an the most incredible performer. The most incredible performer. So when you talked when you asked about my favorite musicians um uh on the show, it had to be Prince. It was just probably one of the greatest performances, you know. Especially in the context of that. In the context, exactly why. Because it was so darn exciting, you know. And again, I I made a little list. We had Fleetwood Mac who I adored, uh Katie Perry, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, who's two feet taller than I am, who was just an incredible woman. Um she was a young lady when she came on the show and knew everything about audio and lighting, and and the crowd loved her. I mean, and polite. So when I go down the list, I made a list of about 30 people that I I that I remember. Um, this was the most one of the most exciting things on the show to do is the music parts like that. I think I'll need to do a part two of this, Joe. There's a lot. I spoke with a good friend of mine, Howie Strawbridge, yesterday, and Howie was our lighting director. Um Howie uh did Saturday Night Live, he did the NFL shows, and Howie who he doesn't laugh, he hoots when he laughs. He he was just thinking up all the music acts we had and um and some of the ones that he loved. And we had a good we had a good uh we tech we were texting a lot last week. Let's get Howie on. Oh you he'll hoot for us. But uh Howie um Howie has much better re remembrances than I do of lots of the little details. Um Howie, you were here by invited to join us. But he uh he he was really kind of bringing me down the memories. And unfortunately, Howie has the same little problem I have. We'll go, remember the guy who came out of the manhole cover. We actually we had I'm and I I I didn't respond to this to him last night. I'm not sure it was a guy that came out of the manhole cover. I think it was either Beyonce or Rihanna that came, they had her come out of a manhole cover. It might have been a guy, I'm not sure. We're gonna have to look into this. But he came out, they came out of a manhole cover. We uncovered on 30 Rock Street for their entrance. And oddly enough, whoever was directing that day, I believe it was me. I think I missed the shot. I think I was late on the shot. But um he he had some funny, funny things he was saying to me yesterday. Um, just about the music. We have got to get him on. Yeah, we all have to be a good one.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

He'll come to the pretty funny stuff. Joe, this is great. Always great to talk to you. Great stories. We're gonna do more of these music uh things because there's so many more stories. Well, we had some good Broadway performances, too.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

We'll break it down into genre musical perform performances that were really, really fun.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

We'll break it down into genre, I think. Okay, cool. All right. Today to 1A, conversations with former Today Show director, Joe Michaels. Thanks for listening to Today to 1A, a podcast produced by yours truly, Jim Scott, with my amazing friend and colleague, Joe Michaels, former director of NBC's Today Show, plus Olympics coverage, political conventions, and more. We'll catch you next time on Today to One A.