Front Porch Soul & Backstage Stories with Steve Bassett

From front porch soul to backstage stories with music legends, this episode of The Hook with Johni & Jess takes listeners deep into the extraordinary life and career of Virginia music icon Steve Bassett.

Steve joins Johni and Jess for a candid, funny, and deeply personal conversation about the moments that shaped his journey—from Richmond clubs and The Hazards to the legendary rooms of New York, Muscle Shoals, and beyond. Along the way, he shares unforgettable stories about crossing paths with names like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, B.B. King, Dr. John, Paul Shaffer, Doc Pomus, Jerry Wexler, and Delbert McClinton—and what it was really like being there while music history was unfolding around him.

The episode dives into Steve’s memoir Sing Loud, the life-changing moment John Hammond Sr. told him, “I’ve never heard a white man sing like that,” and the winding road that eventually led to co-writing Sweet Virginia Breeze—the official state song of Virginia.

But more than anything, this episode is about soul. About music as identity. About the unexpected pivots, wild stories, love, longevity, and learning how to build a life inside an industry that rarely slows down.

Raw, reflective, hilarious, and packed with incredible behind-the-scenes stories, this is one of those conversations that reminds you why longform interviews matter. Once you’re hooked… there’s no going back.

To learn more about Steve, visit Steve Bassett Music and follow him on Facebook.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to The Hook, where music and art come together with the people that created it. I'm Johnny. I'm Jess. You're on the hook.

SPEAKER_04 0:10

When you're singing a song to people around you, don't get locked up on that wailing you do.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

There are artists who learn music. And then there are artists who live inside it.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Steve Bassett's musical style is a synthesis of America's root music: blues, RB, gospel, and rock and roll.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Steve doesn't just understand the blues, he's also a master of gospel music. That rare combination makes him truly unique.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

It'll block out the sunshine from your soul to theirs.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Like you gave them a model and left out the glue. He's been called a singer's singer and someone who communicates in a soulful, front porch kind of way that crosses and connects with all generations. And leaves you feeling like he sang directly to you. And beyond that, Steve is an entertainer, musician, songwriter, producer, jingle singer, and co-author of our beloved sweet Virginia Breeze, the official state song of Virginia. But what really got us was the story.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Because Steve wasn't just around music, he was in the rooms where it was happening. Steve Bassett, you're on the hook.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

You've got something good to give to your neighbors. Just go on. It don't matter how loud your ears ring. Because if they get the feeling inside what you're doing, it'll hear sweeter music than your voice can bring. The love of the universe, it waits for that instant when you start taking your mind off yourself. Then it enhances the talents you're given. So sing loud and leave the listener to somebody else. Sing loud and leave the listener to somebody else. You remember the times when you sang to Jesus? Felt like an angel and walked in the room. Well, I doubt that he paid any attention to whether or not you were singing in tune. The words are important and telling the story. The rhythm is conducive to the whole and the groove. Music's a path to a whole invention. Only your spirit can send forth the truth. Above the universe, waits what happens. You start taking your mind.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Your memoir. As I told you, I read that in one sitting. The very first line I've never heard a white man sing like that. And that was John Hammond, Sr., the record producer, civil rights activist, helped artists like Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin. So take us into that moment. That moment in time when he said that to you.

SPEAKER_09 3:38

I was flattered. Um I grew up listening to soul music, blues, you know. Um all music, really, here in Richmond, we got to hear everything. Blues, country, R and B. But, you know, being in on 95, we also got to see a lot of the artists that were out at the time, the the reviews, the soul reviews. And I leaned toward that music, the rhythm of it, the soulfulness of it, the gospel nature of it all. And I grew up in church singing a lot of gospel songs. That he would say that to me was flattering because you know, I'm you know, I'm a kid from the West End of Richmond. You know, went to Douglas Freeman High School, and all of a sudden a few years later I'm sitting there with him, and his r response to my singing was that. And uh so I was really honored, you know, that he would feel that way about what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

And I'm assuming at that point you understood the magnitude of him.

SPEAKER_09 4:36

Well, yeah. I I was a student of records. You know, back when you had a uh record that you could look at and read the credits and see and you know who was doing what in the business. You know, I was very aware of him. So it meant a lot, you know, that he would say that to me. He had just retired from Columbia Records and was in the process of setting up his own record label, John Hammond Records. After that meeting, let me know that he wanted to sign me to that label.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

His first, right?

SPEAKER_09 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

That's huge.

SPEAKER_09 5:10

But that didn't come together, but that's when he took me to Columbia. And he and I went down there to the Black Rock, I guess it was, and had a meeting with somebody there, and he pitched me to them and and got a deal for me to go make a record. And decided that the best producer for that record would be his friend Jerry Wexler, who was a producer who had produced a lot of the acts that I had grown up listening to. You know, I knew his name from reading the the you know the record credits and also from you know press that was out that and other things that let you know who was behind all the music we were hearing. They had been competitors before because Jerry Wexler was was with Atlantic. So, you know, all of a sudden I'm surrounded, I got these guys on you know that are on in my corner. And I went to lunch with them at the Friars Club, I think it was in New York City. Jerry Wexler looked at me and said, Well, Steve, if you were going to produce this record, how would you do it? I said, Well, man, I'd I'd grab Elliot Randall, who's a guitar player friend of mine in New York, and go to Muscle Shoals and do it with the Swampers. And he said, Well, let's do that. That's what we did.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

And the Swampers are the ones that kind of broke away from fame.

SPEAKER_09 6:29

Yeah. Yeah, eventually they did. Uh-huh. The original Swampers were Roger Hawkins on drums, David Hood on bass, Jimmy Johnson on guitar, and Spooner Oldham on keyboard. Spooner then moved, I think, to Memphis. He and Dan Penn started did some th started doing some things over there. And Barry Beckett came up from Florida to fill the keyboard chair. And that's who the Swampers were when I got down there, which was early 80s, maybe 80.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That's so crazy to go from just sitting there with Hammond and then you're like at muscle shoals. Right? The whole thing was crazy. What?

SPEAKER_09 7:08

The whole thing was crazy. I was transported, you know, into all of a sudden I'm in the presence of the my heroes. You know, mu because I was you know, I was always into who who was the musicians were on the record that I was listening to that was playing behind Otis Redden or Wilson Pickett or those guys, you know. And uh so all of a sudden I was there with them. It was a a funny time in the business because they were all doing something new at the time. You know, like the uh Mr. Hammond and and Jerry had just left the record labels that they were working for, and the Swampers were in a new studio that they had purchased.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Muscle Shoals Sound.

SPEAKER_09 7:46

Muscle Shoal Sound. Yeah. The original one was over on Jackson Highway and it was just a little stone building. And I had been there before and met them once there, where they were after Fame. When they were at Fame with working with Rick Hall, it was it was after that that they went on their own to create Muscle Show Sound at the original studio. And then sometime later they bought this big it used to be an armory down on the Tennessee River and converted it into a studio, a couple great studios there in that building. Wow. That's where I went to make the record that I made.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

I'll tell you one thing. You you brought up Spooner. Your story about him trying to get up on the stage had me crying laughing.

SPEAKER_09 8:39

I'm still humiliated by the the way I acted.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

What I can't believe is that you never had a moment of saying Spooner. I got to confess something to you right now.

SPEAKER_09 8:48

I did years later.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay, hold on, hold on. I don't know the story. Still Johnny. Can you still Johnny tell me the story?

SPEAKER_09 8:54

Well, I was I was playing with Delbert, and we were I think at Antones, maybe. And it was the same day as a big festival down on the river in Austin called Riverfest. And we were playing after the Riverfest show was over. It was like a daytime festival, and we were playing that night in a bar. So a lot of the artists from that show had come to see Delbert. And there was a bunch of guys, you know, coming to sit in with his band. And uh I was on organ and I could see these other guys. I think Richie Hayward, I think Little Feet was playing, and Richie Hayward came up to play, and there's some different guys that came up to the stage. Delbert was the one who was bringing them up, you know, so I could recognize them as being guest artists. All of a sudden, this guy kind of walks out of the crowd and comes over and sits next to me on the organ bench. And I kind of bumped him a little bit because I was in the middle of playing a song, you know. I was just trying to make room for myself to continue on with this tune we were playing. And I didn't know he was who he was. So, and you know, in the party spirit that we may have been in at the time, I finally got tired of him sitting there doing nothing, and I bumped him again. He fell off the river stick. Double turned and looked at me and gave me a look, you know, and looked like get off of the organ come all over the book. Oh no. I went okay, and Spooner got got up there on the bench and he started playing, and then somebody hit me who I just sat on the floor.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

That's the Scorpio in him.

SPEAKER_09 10:31

Years later, Spooner was playing with Peggy Young. Neil Peggy, I think it is, Neil Young's wife. Okay. And she was out touring, and he was playing with her, as well as another buddy from Muscle Shoals guy named Kelvin Hawley, guitar player. And I went to see him, and they they came and to my house and you know to visit. And I think that's when I told him. But he hey, he didn't remember it. It didn't he didn't? Well, no, he didn't remember that like I did.

unknown 11:02

Right.

SPEAKER_09 11:03

You know, it was just another thing to happen to him, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

But another thing that happened to him.

SPEAKER_09 11:09

But I remember the the other thing that came up that day is he wrote a song called I'm Your Puppet. And you know, back in the day when you're learning words to songs that you're covering, the only thing you had available to you was the record to listen to and decipher what the singer was saying to learn the lyrics for the song. And in a lot of cases, it got misinterpreted. You couldn't just Google the song title and put lyric after it and get the lyrics. And I've been singing that song, I'm your puppet, for many years. And there was a line in it that said, and I asked Spooner, I said, There's something about that song I don't understand. He said, What? I said, Well, there's one line that says I'll be wonderful, do just what I'm told. He said, Well, that's not the lyric. I said, Well, what is it? He said, I'll be warm or cold. Do just what I'm told. So I went, Oh, like he just did. And so ever since then, now I sing the correct lyrics, but that's the only way I would have known the difference.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

You should have gone back to the old ones just my big one was I took a pill and ate pizza. Or I took a pill and Ibiza. Which I thought it was I took a pill and ate pizza for years. Which, you know, I mean, why not? I took a pill and I had some pizza.

SPEAKER_09 12:32

I thought the dirty deeds and the dunder chief. And I didn't even know what that meant. And it was later I heard it done dirt cheap, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Oh no, let's throw in blinded by the light. Does anybody know what that song says? I mean, we all have words for that one. I love that. The what chief?

SPEAKER_09 12:54

Dunder chief.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

That's exactly what I'm saying all the time.

SPEAKER_09 12:59

That's the best I could get from it.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

That's great.

SPEAKER_09 13:02

There's been a lot of songs that I've found out uh later that I've been singing the wrong lyrics, but now I change lyrics myself. Yeah, it's fun to do that. You know, make stuff up. Or if you can't remember them, then just you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

When you play, do you do that?

SPEAKER_09 13:16

Oh, yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Talk to the crowd and they don't know it.

SPEAKER_09 13:20

I'll change lyrics, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I love it.

SPEAKER_09 13:22

Nothing I want to talk about here.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I don't know. It's pretty free here. You were told to come hear a band from Austin, Texas. You'll hear the rhythm section of a freight train.

SPEAKER_09 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Did that moment change how you thought about music?

SPEAKER_09 13:42

You know, I've always been about the rhythm section, you know, because I've always been in the rhythm section. And it's the rhythm and blues music, the you know, the first word's rhythm. So the way that came about was that I was with Mr. Hammond and I said, There's this band I gotta go listen to. Come with me, and you hear the the rhythm section of a freight train, or whatever the the actual thing he said. And he and I walked through the city down a few blocks to some basement club and went down in the basement and there was nobody there. But there was a band set up on stage, or I could see the amps and stuff, and a little two-top in the middle of the dance floor. And he and I sat down at this two-top, and all of a sudden these guys come out. Stevie Ravon in double trouble.

SPEAKER_08 14:28

So crazy.

SPEAKER_09 14:29

You know, those guys laid it down, Tommy, and they were all about rhythm, you know, and it was a strong rhythm section. They were auditioning, you know, to Mr. Hammond. And I mean I remember Stevie's lady at the time came up to the table and gave some flowers to Mr. Hammond. And we sat there and I think they played three or four songs. And then we left.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 14:52

And he signed them.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 14:54

He got them signed. And then shortly after that I went out on the road and opened for them a bunch of shows that they did their first promotional tour and got to know him and the guys.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah, what was that like?

SPEAKER_09 15:07

Great guys, Texans, Road Warriors, living in a bus, you know, living that on the exit ramps of America, living from one gig to the next, and getting up there and throwing it down. And there was nobody like Stevie before or after, you know, with the way that he did what he did. And they were very nice to us, you know, as an opening band.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

I was gonna ask, like, because Stevie seems like he's a very deep, really of course, into the music or whatever. Was he a very chill guy, cool, mellow?

SPEAKER_09 15:39

Super all of that. Yeah. You know, but you know, to himself. You know, the kind of guy stuck to himself a lot. Well, a lot of those guys that I met did. I I remember, you know, I used to go downtown and listen to this band called Child. They used to play Asparagus Farm. And then there's not down there in the van, you know. That's a great name. Laurel, right? Corner of Laurel and Broad. After that it became known as something else. And then that band Well it was Bruce Springsteen.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_09 16:10

And then the band became something had another name after that. Steel Mill, I guess it was. Anyway. Richmond was like an alternate market from Asbury Park. And that where he was always where he was from and played. And he used to come to Richmond and play, he had a fan base here, and everybody loved him. And he used to come here and play all the time. And I saw him down there with his band. And then I left Richmond, graduated from Freeman, and ended up down in Wilson, North Carolina. And somehow I got called on to become involved in booking entertainment there. You know, and there was a show coming up, and I said, Well, I've seen this band called Steel Mill that you guys need to see. And they're well, who's that? You know, we don't you know we want to get the TAMS, you know, or some kind of beast music thing. And I I kind of stuck with what I was trying to do and got they agreed. Of course I I was gonna open the show with my band at the time and called up there to tinker and they came down and played the show. I put 'em up at this house that a professor there had that l some of us students used to hang there, you know, the hippies of the bunch. And they crashed there at the house that night, and everybody's off partying in one room, and in another room, there's Bruce laying on the floor with a couple speakers on each side of his head, like listening to Neil Young, I think, at the time. Wow. He kind of, you know, at that time, like he kinda's off to himself, you know, kind of cat. And a lot of artists are that way. You wouldn't imagine that they'd get up on stage and do that. And I'm kind of that way in a way. You know, it's being on stage when I was in high school and finding out that I could go up there and be comfortable there. Even more comfortable than if I was out there looking around. In the crowd. Yeah, you know. That's part of what got me into being in the entertainment business was that that was a comfortable place for me, although when the show wasn't going on, I was kind of MIA.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

A homebody.

SPEAKER_09 18:10

Well, yeah, you know, in a way.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

A little more introverted. It's everybody we've talked to.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Everybody. Everybody, all the the creative people they respect their home space. Like silence. And I guess it's because they all like silence. Yes, yes. They don't listen to a bunch of you were just saying when when you came in, you don't listen to a bunch of talking or whatever.

SPEAKER_08 18:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Because I feel like you guys put so much out when you're on the stage, yeah that when you come home you just want to restore energy. Yeah, just bring it back.

SPEAKER_09 18:42

Yeah, that's what took me to the country. You know, when I when I moved from Richmond um out to Car Cartersville, was it's real peaceful out there, real quiet, and get to hear birds and things like that that you don't like to have.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

You can't uh jump past Bruce Springsteen without telling Johnny about ending up with his tank top. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_09 19:05

Well, he that night that he stayed there in Wilson with us, they left. They'd come down all of them together in like a Chevy station wagon, and Tinker had all the gear in a hay truck. And they left, and there was this blue and gray striped tank top that I had seen him wear several times when I'd seen him play. And I nabbed it. So they were they were gone. But I grabbed it and put it in in my knapsack with, you know, a couple other t-shirts I had at the time.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Are there any pictures anywhere of him in that tank top?

SPEAKER_09 19:43

Because it's hysterical. But that's back before the E Street ban. That's I'm going back pretty far with you.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Oh, yeah, yeah. That would have been like He's probably like, where is that tank top?

SPEAKER_09 19:50

It would have been 19 Well, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

It c he it circles back.

SPEAKER_09 19:55

I kept it wore it, you know, a few times, and then came home, you know, was back in Richmond, and they were playing a show on the top of a parking deck downtown. And I went down there to that show with that tank top and worked my way to the stage and ran into him and said, Man, you left this in Wilson. Thought you might like it.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Oh, you weren't wearing it.

SPEAKER_09 20:19

No, I wasn't wearing it. I took it with me. I had, you know, I took my mother washed it uh, you know, for me and I folded it up and smelled really good. Yeah. I took it down there to him and he reacted, you know, he was grateful that I had returned it to him. He recognized it as his. Yeah. That that was you know an interchange that we had back then.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Did you ever encounter him in later years?

SPEAKER_09 20:40

Yeah. Mm-hmm. A couple times. Early 80s. Okay. And I ended up out in California, I think I was. A band, a local band from Richmond, was opening for the pretenders there. And I went to that show because they were there. A Silv uh Single Bullet Theory was the name of the band. And because I was their guest of the opening act, I was backstage. And backstage I saw him standing in in the hallway, kind of leaning up against the wall. And I walked up to him and I said, I didn't expect him to recognize me, and he didn't. But I looked at him and said, What are you doing, man? He said, Well, I'm standing here, my manager's in there talking to Chrissy Hyde about whether or not I'm going to sit in here on this show tonight. And he looked like he was pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. But we didn't get to chat long other than to I let him know that I'd met Mr. Hamm, and that got his attention. But we didn't chat for long. He was looked like he had other things on his mind, and I walked away. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Did he play?

SPEAKER_09 21:41

Yeah, he ended up on stage. And Robin Thompson, my old my partner, he was close with Bruce. As a matter of fact, back then Bruce Hired didn't come sing with the band. I think uh he was one to not have to sing or something like that, and um pulled Robin in to work with them and be the lead singer. in the group for a while. Oh wow. They got to be pals and stayed in touch all the way through the rest of Robin's life. Of course, the boss was big at the time of this story. And he had come back through Richmond and invited Robin to sit in. And I think also Bruce Hornsby.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Just met his sound man.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah. He retired since, but Wayne. Wayne. Yeah. Yes, you're a great guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 22:26

Terrific guy. He was one of the engineers down at Alpha Audio. But I remember that he invited that Bruce invited Robin, I think Bruce Hornsby up to sing at the same time and played an old song. I don't remember which rock and roll song it was, but he called an old rock and roll classic. And threw a verse to Robin. And Robin wasn't that familiar with the song but like being intuitive as he was just made up some some lyrics about Bruce being in Richmond and stuff like that, you know, and sang them. And was bemoaning the fact that he had done that after the performance back in the dressing room to Bruce Hornsby. And Bruce said well man you evidently didn't see the teleprompter that was down there at your feet. Wow. But that only spoke to Robin's ability to rise to the occasion in a in a situation like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

True musician on the spot. Okay before all of this the Hammond moment, New York, Bruce Springsteen, you were part of a band here in Richmond, The Hazards. Oh wow. You're going back to the beginning for people who may not know that wasn't just a casual thing. That was a real band, a real scene, real momentum. What was that time like?

SPEAKER_09 23:45

Well I'll tell you how I got into that band. I was the it was that the keyboard player that they had was leaving. And he mentioned me to them. Of course this is back uh we're talking mid-60s I think early sixties possibly. I think I was maybe fifteen. The Beatles happened in 64. I was 14 then. I was already playing before then music that I was emulating was like the rock and roll then was Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, you know. And most of it, a lot of it was instrumental music, you know? It was the Beatles that and the Beach Boys that all of a sudden brought lyrics and and singing into the pop world I think is one way to put it. He turned to me I had I was in a band at the time called the Reactions. And before that it was a band called the Potentials. How old were you then? Well I started playing when I was twelve trying to play. Wanted to take piano lessons and my folks agreed and my dad found an old rebuilt player piano which was one of those that had a role in it on for sale. My dad being who he was he said tell you what we'll we'll go in it half and half because I was already working as a paper boy and had a pretty big route. So we went and bought this piano for a hundred bucks and then mom found a piano teacher and I went to a few lessons and then I got fired. The teacher called my mother and says we can't I can't teach him anymore. She said why? You know he's well obviously he's not practicing at home and he comes here to his lessons and he he's not even he's trying to play everything by ear. He's not reading the music like I need him to to be able to play the Moonlight sonata or whatever you know it was at the time. So you know I was just jamming on whatever pianos were around you know like I think my first job was how old are you in the seventh grade?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

13.

SPEAKER_09 25:45

Yeah so I you know I remember one of the first jobs I played some of us got together in den of a friend of mine's house who was a drummer and learned some songs and went over there played in the cafeteria for a sock op if it was seventh grade. And that's awesome. That was you know the beginning of my playing jamming. You know I've got a there's a picture I don't know if it's in my memoir or not but a picture survives of us learning the music for that show and I'm standing there at a piano with one hand in my pocket just banging with my right hand. But Stanley Bernstein who was the keyboard player for The Hazards and I had played you know in another band anyway Stanley turned to me and says I'll sell you my keyboard and you can have my slot in the band and I bought from him an ace tone Phoenix combo organ or you know electronic organ. Worst sounding thing you ever heard. It wasn't even far Fisa or Box Continental like you would hear in 96 Tears or Double Shot of My Baby's Love, these little electronic organs that were used in those recordings. It s sounded kind of like that but worse. My mother made a blue corduroy skirt that would go around it and my dad made some blocks that would go under the legs of the piano so that it would raise it up about six inches and with the skirt around it it looked like a bigger organ.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

But it please tell me you have a picture.

SPEAKER_09 27:12

Yeah there's pictures of me playing that organ picture that comes to mind is a picture of when I was with a band called the Reactions. We were it was a four piece band bass drums guitar and me and a lead singer. So that makes five doesn't it bass drum guitar I can't count that fast and I'm sitting behind that organ playing uh standing behind the organ and playing we had all gone downtown to one of the stores that were down on East Broad Street and bought these shark skin suits with a black velvet collar and Beetle boots Beatles time frame but we were playing soul music.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

But that's how I got in the hazards the one thing I want to say is why are piano teachers so damn mean?

SPEAKER_09 27:58

Well you know in the past few years somebody got in touch with me and sent me a recording of my piano recital.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

So evidently I made it to the recital but I'm playing a blues song she gave in I want you to share the story of what you did when you didn't feel like delivering the newspapers one morning.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Oh did I write about that?

SPEAKER_09 28:28

What are you talking about? Well I see you know every morning when you know get up at like five or something like that and make my way on my Schwinn bike with a huge basket on the front down Michael's road to the curve in it where our papers were dropped in bundles. And the different paper boys picked them up from there. And there was a guy that I would meet there, a neighbor every morning and he and I would light a fire with the rappers that came around it. Well before we'd light the fire we'd listen r into the quiet of the neighborhood for the sound of the Richmond dairy truck. Because back then they delivered milk in bottles to the front door of your house. And we would listen for if we could hear where the truck was and if we could hear it we'd get on our bikes and go find it and get some chocolate milk.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

No way.

SPEAKER_09 29:23

And go back to the drop and take the wrappers off the bundles and fold the papers in a way that would fit in our basket so that we could throw them to the front porch of the houses that we were delivering them to. And of course I did it on my bike. He happened to know where that a neighbor of his left the keys to their car. He used to go borrow their car and deliver his papers.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

No way.

SPEAKER_09 29:51

Yeah how old was he well I guess we were what twelve who's up at five nobody nobody nobody's out there at all no except the only thing that's out there is dogs. No and they would chase us every morning. But it was a cold morning and we had we were burning the wrappers and all of a sudden somebody threw a paper in the fire well before you know it we burn up two bundles of papers.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_09 30:24

And went back home and never and never delivered them. And the district manager showed up at our door and we were consistent in the lie that we told him that we'd never received them.

SPEAKER_08 30:38

Oh my goodness I can't believe I wrote about it.

SPEAKER_09 30:41

I can't believe I'm owning up to it now but I've felt bad about it ever since I did that. There's a line in the song that BJ and I wrote on our new record that the line is I regret everything I've done. But so what I'll be the better for it. So good you know I'm sensitive cat.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

You know things were what I've done wrong I remember it forever you know especially if it was to anybody personally intentionally or not so we're going to throw um some names and moments and you give us some of the story behind them. Of course I'm gonna say Stevie Ray Vaughn what made him different in your mind before everyone else saw it?

SPEAKER_09 32:32

His approach how he threw himself into his singing and playing his passion about doing it. You can impress people with talent intellectually they can see that you're really talented playing or singing or whatever. But if you can feel what they're doing you'll never forget 'em. And it's a big difference between recognizing talent and appreciating their ability but actually feeling you know what they're doing has a physical effect on you. The way that he approached that guitar and and the sound that he made. Of course the volume was like ridiculously loud. It was unbelievably loud the way those which you know hey I'm not criticizing that. You know there's there's power to that. But there was just nobody like him. You know, there would I never heard anybody sing like him or play like him. You know there's moments where it was very Hendrix esque. You could catch the roots of where he was coming from, you know the blues, you know you could hear those roots in it. But it was offered in a style like no one else's. And that's what cats like like John Hammond and Jerry Wexler and those people that's what they were looking for. If you look at the artists that they represented and worked with they were all unique and had a style. That impressed me about him more than anything was the style that he had w in his plan and the energy and passion that he had for it. You know in addition to just just how awesome it was to listen to.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Wow I love that how you said how you felt it. Yeah I mean that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah there's some artists that just make the hair stand up.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah yeah you mentioned crossing paths with Paul Schaeffer David Letterman's longtime band leader and one of those guys who's just everywhere in music of course what was that scene like behind the curtain well you know it was uh the New York session scene.

SPEAKER_09 34:37

I I had a manager briefly when I first got started and he took me to New York to make a demo of three or four of my songs and hired a producer to do that. A guy named Elliot Shiner. Worked with Phil Ramon at the time and he hired a band that was an all-star New York session band. The players were Don Gronik, Steve Kahn, Jeff Miranoff, these guys who I knew from album covers you know knew their names and who they were from listening to him play on different people's records. Well Elliot's co-producer was a guy from New York City who family owned some record stores in the city. A friend of his was in the next studio and that friend of his was named Elliot Randall who was a guitar player session guitar player but you know had been on a record that I was familiar with called Randall's Island. And I got to meet him and got to know him and we kind of hit it off and he started calling me because these session guys wanted to play live and they didn't hardly ever play live. They were all just running from s from session to session jingles, record dates, whatever they were doing. But they wanted to get out sometimes and and do a live set and the music that they wanted to play was soul music. And Elliot knew me and that I was conversant in that style of music. So they used to bring me up to New York to be their singer and one of Elliot's closest pals at the time was Paul. So the times that we spent together were at like at Elliot's studio or Elliot's apartment you know or whatever you know partying but also playing these shows one of them was called tracks there were some different clubs and there were always midnight shows. So Paul and I got to be friendly at that time because we were doing some things together. This is before you know all the Letterman stuff. So that's how I got to know him. His his ability as a player was crazy. And he's a great player and musically he was familiar with all kinds of music you know but he got him a good gig there and he did and that was a they were a good band. That's how I got that's how I met Paul was through Elliott. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

All right next one up is Doc Palmouth. So for anyone that may not know he was the legendary songwriter for Save the Last Dance for me Elvis Ray Charles really shaped that era of music. What did you pick up being around him?

SPEAKER_09 37:07

What was that experience like well I was only around him at a couple of gigs that I did with Delbert at the Lone Star Cafe. He was a fan of Delbert's and he would come out to the Lone Star and the the dressing room was upstairs and had a door out to the roof of the club and there was a huge statue of iguana I think I remember that was up there. Anyway I just I you know I chatted with him once one of those nights but I just happened to be in his company because he was there as a fan of Delver's course I was familiar with what he'd done.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

You're so laid back did you ever get like starstruck or like wow did you geek out?

SPEAKER_09 37:52

And if it was the who yeah well not enough to get on anybody's nerves you know and no you know I felt lucky to be in the in the company of people who I admired and situations I've ended up in a lot of situations where there was a lot of people there to to admire just because I had ended up on the date or ended up in the room. And that's you know it's great memories that I have of being around a lot of those folks but I you know I didn't geek out enough to ever piss them off. I don't think you know you'd have to check with them but I'm I'm a little I'm even further back than laid back on into reclusive in a way in those situations. Trevor Burrus You silently geeked Yeah yeah yeah what am I doing here? How did this happen to me? They were all blessings. I mentioned to somebody once you know and I think back to where I've been and what I've done that that's the uh treasure that I have is uh being in the company you know of my heroes. I remember one time I was playing a show with Delbert and we were maybe Texas but we we toured with BB King opened for BB King for a while. And I was in the dressing room and Dr. John was on the show.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I mean you just said in five minutes BB King and Dr. John and and Delbert. I mean it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_09 39:15

Well I was I got to be around all those cats you know life did that you know the universe pulled that off but I you know I don't I don't like to bug anybody but there's there's Dr. John standing in the hallway. I'm a huge fan of Dr. John's I had done a few commercials by then and had heard Dr. John singing on a commercial or two and I walked up to him and said hey man I'm here with Delbert listen I've been hearing you singing these jingles how do you like doing all that and he looked at me said oh it's been mighty good to my family. Wow I can take it so you know that's that was enough and I said man great to hear you out there you know loving it and walked away you know rather than oh well let me I got six more questions for you. You know because I I get that and especially when you're backstage you know and you know and you're in that setting. That's your safe place that's the only that's just their safe place. You know what I mean? And so what am I doing they're in their head yeah you know give give them a break you know they you know they get that all the time from everybody. I don't want to be that you know the thing that wouldn't go away the thing that wouldn't go away.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

That was huge in our household my stepfather mom loved him.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Well let's dive into you keep bringing up Delbert let's dive into Delbert McClinton just a little bit he was one of those artists who just owned the stage what did he teach you about connecting with an audience?

SPEAKER_09 40:45

He was just one of those guys you know that just was what he sounds like you know that threw his self in into his singing 110% went somewhere else in his head to do it. You know what I mean? It was just a natural talent that he had of delivering the style of music that he leaned towards in a soulful rocking way. You know when I met him it was here in Richmond. It was a club called Much More. It was right at the corner of Boulevard in Broad across from People's Drugstore. And it was a Hatton club at the time and Delbert was booked to play there and I got hired to open for him. So my band played first and then I only knew Delbert knew about Delbert before that night from listening to WGOE which was one of the first FM radio stations in town that was alternative and was playing rock and roll and and blues and uh you know stuff that was coming out at that time and had heard that Delbert wrote Two More Bottles of wine that was a hit at that time by Emmy Lou Harris. So I knew his name as a songwriter but not as a really as a performer. I didn't have any of his records or anything like that. But then I was here there I'm opening it for him that night. And we, you know, got along great and partied together after the show and then maybe about a week later I got a phone call from him and said hey man look I've got some dates up in the Northeast that I need to do how about if me and James Pennybaker his guitar player come out and fall in with your band and we'll go do these dates I've got is the Delbert McClinton band.

unknown 42:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 42:38

So man I'm in so they flew out and jumped into my RV with my guys and we went up there and we played Boston yeah played three or four days together with my band. You know we were the pickup band. And uh but he and I got tight got a little some mutual admiration started happening, you know, and he discovered the roots of you know where I was coming from and my way of singing. I got a call from Delvert not too long after that. His keyboard player Reese Wynans was not going to be available to do Austin City Limits with Delvert so he called me to see if I'd come out and play organ and piano in Reese's place and I did. And it's uh it's a video that's out there that you can see. Got me out there a couple days early so that we could rehearse and they were also crazy. I sat in the hotel room for two days and they never rehearsed and I had to leave the hotel and walk down the street to the campus of the college where the studio was for the show and go there and do this show cold. I pulled it off you know we got through it had a great time doing it. Delbert and I became great friends and he always invited me whenever he was in this part of the country to come and open for him or you know to sub you know on keyboards. I just talked to him not too long ago. We just became friends. When I got to the point where I was doing some jingle stuff I was able to turn him on to some cats that I I was working for and get him a couple gigs, you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Make a little side hustle cash. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 44:05

You know, I he did some did some spots. I can't remember who you did them for, but it was up in New York. But um and you know, every now and then I'd go out and play with him. I remember one time he had a new record coming out, and he said, Come on, man. I said, Man, I'm no, I'm good. And I always traveled independent, you know. I had always had an RB and I was able to go places and do things, you know, on my own and not have to be in the bus with twelve other pairs of socks.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

We've heard the stories of the buses. Yeah, well, it's just not all fun and games.

SPEAKER_09 44:36

No, no, it's you know, living it's living on the exit ramps of America. That's pretty much what it is. But I said, well, okay, man, uh I'll come out for just a little while. 'Cause he had a new record coming out and he wanted to freshen the band up a little bit, you know, and I guess he made me think that me joining them would somehow freshen the band up. Two weeks later, when he fired everybody in the band but me, I understood what understood what it was all about. I wasn't able to leave and I had to hang in there until we auditioned a bunch of different players that would go out and do some dates until we found the cats that he jived with uh was gonna keep. And as soon as that gelled together and he had the band that he wanted, I think we were maybe in New Orleans or something like that. I said, Let's go to breakfast in the morning. And I knew that they were getting ready to go to LA to do some dates. And we went to breakfast and I said, Man, I gotta go home. You know, are you cool? He said, Yeah, I'm cool. You know, okay. He was mad about it, you know, but he didn't hold it against me.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Just the story is coming from you're killing me. Well, I think they're killing me too at this point.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

But but I'm hanging in there best I can.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

You're still going, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

You tell the story about Rick Darnell introducing himself to you, basically saying, Yeah, I wrote The Thrill Is Gone.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

By the way. By the way.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

By the way.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

And he's from Farmville.

SPEAKER_09 46:08

Yes. Well, you know, I think Elliot was here and we were working on an album that I did called Standing on the Verge. I had done a gig with my band previous to that out at the airport. And we were in a session, I think. But the phone rang, and I, you know, back then it wasn't it was a phone would ring. I picked it up and you know, you didn't get to see who was calling. Hey man, it's Rick Darnell.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_09 46:35

I heard you all over the airport the other day, man. I really like what you all were doing. And um I used to write songs. I wrote a song called The Thrill Is Gone. I'm saying to myself, yeah, the guy who wrote Thrill is gone is in Farmville. You know. From Farmville. He said, but uh, you know, uh maybe we could get together and I think I could write again. And I so I said, I got nothing to lose, you know. Oh humor the guy. Well, a buddy of mine had a music store over in Farmville, so I got him to meet me there because I knew there'd be a keyboard there. Neutral territory. We wrote three songs that day. I said, man, this this is cool. This guy's for real. And I also did a little investigating to find out that he was in fact for real. And so he was there in Farmville running a little AM radio station called WPAK. It was on Plank Road there right as you enter Farmville along the river. And I went over there, this is this it was like the station was out of the 50s. It's just a you know a tower out front, little cinder block building, control room, had these cart machines, you know, all the old gear with knobs and all that. It was like walking into the past. And there was nobody there but him. And he was managing this radio station. He had a hundred C D carousel player that he ran at random. And he was selling ads to to the businesses around Farmville and making ads and all for them. And well, I got to know him and found out about him. He was from Compton, California. And he was a kid. And he heard that they were s buying up in Hollywood, they were buying songs for ten dollars a piece. And he was from the hood. And so he was writing songs and going up there and coming back with like a little cash in his pocket, doing well, you know. Well he ended up with a cut. I don't remember what his first cuts were. Uh, Maya Angelou did one of his songs on some record she made. He got he had a couple of cuts happen. And he ended up working with a guy named Johnny Otis and went on the road with him for a lot of his shows. But ended up in the studio where an artist named Roy Hawkins, blues artist, was working on a record. And he was in the lounge and they needed a song to cut next. And he in the lounge wrote the thriller's gone. And they cut it and it was released. Roy Hawkins. Well, it was years later when BB King covered it. And that was 1969. And it became the first blues song on the Bob Joyce, on the American Bob Joints. Well, Rick moved from there into the radio business as a dish jockey, and a really great voice, and a distinct pronunciation. And spent his life living in different parts of the United States, working at these black radio stations. Every town he was in, he would always start a free press paper and work that through his till he ended up you know, in his elder years in Farmville, running this little AM radio station. Well, I took my gear that I went to the radio station and saw they had this back room back there that was empty. So I took my RV and a trailer and all of my gear that I had at home that was in my little studio, and moved it into the back room of this radio station and set it up as a little recording studio and pretty much lived there much to my wife's chagrin, and wrote songs with this guy and ran this radio station, you know, helped him run this radio station, which meant every 40 minutes or maybe less, we'd leave the back room where we were writing or demoing songs to go up and push a few carts into the machines and play a few spots. You know, I would make the commercials, you know, he he'd come back to the station and he'd sold somebody a spot and I'd make the spot and we'd run it. But in that year's time we probably wrote 30 songs together. And towards the end of that time, he and I went down to Fame and rented a studio and got a band together, David Hood and some different cats that were there and recorded a dozen of the songs that we had written there at Fame with my friends down in the shoals and released it. All the CDs that I made, I just make them and sell them at the gigs. Uh they were never on a label, they were never promoted, they were never distributed. You know, I made 25 albums and nobody knows about any of them.

SPEAKER_07 51:41

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_09 51:43

My interest was in the making the song, right? Making the music. Once the thing's mixed, got a cover on it. It's done. Next. You know what I mean? But that album was named after a song that we wrote called You Don't Know Me.

SPEAKER_04 52:27

You don't know me. You don't wanna make me mad. You don't know me, baby. You don't wanna make me mad. I'll be the worst nightmare you ever had. You don't know me. So you better stop them foolish game. You don't know me, baby. So you better stop them foolish games. You might get a rude game. Trouble is my little name. I gave you all my money and all my loving two. Thirteen loving children. Tell me what more can I do? I come home every evening, dripping wet with sweat. Think you know me, baby? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet. You don't know me, and you don't wanna make me mad you double cross me, baby. I'll be the worst nightmare you ever had. That you got me figured out. This is you got a good thing, baby, and that's what it's all about. Well, I'm here to tell you, woman, that there's some things that you don't know. If you keep messing with me, baby, you got to pack your bag. Go you don't know me. Oh, you don't wanna make me mad. If you double cross me, baby, I'd be the worst night bad you ever had.

SPEAKER_09 56:14

Anybody out there in Radio Land, I think that you can find that on the streaming platform somewhere. But that that's that's the Rick Darnell story.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

You tell this incredible story about being on a plane, and Elephant's Gerald, here's your demo.

SPEAKER_08 56:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

For anyone who may not realize, we're talking about the Elephant Gerald, one of the greatest voices of all time. And your jingles ended up in her hands, and she actually turns around and says she recognizes your voice.

SPEAKER_09 56:49

Yeah, you gotta tell us this one. Well, I was back in the days when flying was easy, you know. If you want to fly out of Richmond, you get there, you can park about like twenty feet from the door if you get to the right spot. You walk in there and as long as you're there and before they shut the door of the airplane, you're good to go. But I was flying so much back then that I got to know people at the airport that worked behind the counter. I might be going to New York, I think I well was going to New York at that time, that day. There was room up front, so they bumped me to the front. So I got on the plane and sat down. I was like second or third seat back from the front. Sit down next to this guy. Well, we get to chatting, you know. It's probably ten o'clock in the morning. And we I think we ordered a drink.

SPEAKER_08 57:38

You think?

SPEAKER_09 57:39

And we got to we got to chatting. Turns out that he was Allah Fitzgerald's road manager. And that they just played a show in Richmond the night before. And there she is, sitting right up there two seats in front of you, you know. What do you do? I said, Well, man, you know, uh going up here to sing a jingle. You know, oh yeah, you do that stuff? I said, Yeah, I do. And well, have I ever heard, you know, what you've done? I said, There's a good chance of it. And I had a walk man, you know, with a cassette of my reel at the time, which was just excerpts from different commercials that I've been featured on. And he put his headphones on and listened to it. And all of a sudden he got up and he says, She needs to hear this. And he walks up to the front seat and he puts the headphones on her and hits the play button. She gets about halfway through it and turns around and looks at me. She said, I know that voice. You keep singing, boy, and turn back around. And you know, she didn't have to do that. And what a kind thing to say to a cat like me. It it doesn't take but something nice to say to somebody that can reinforce everything they're doing from somebody like that. You know, the g one of the greatest singers in the world tells you to keep on going. What are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 58:58

You're gonna keep on going. I don't guess she makes a habit lying to people much.

SPEAKER_09 59:02

No. Has no need to, you know what I mean? And uh this was uh probably late late 80s. The way I got into singing jingles was as a result of going up to New York and doing one of these midnight shows with Elliot and Paul Schaefer and the guys, Gene Santini on bass, just the cats, you know, the New York cats. And I got done, and this guy walks up to me and says, You gonna be in town in the morning? I said, Yeah. He said, Why? Well, will you come and sing a demo for Burger King? I said, Was it pay? He was that $100. I said, I'll be there. So I went to the studio and sang this demo for the guy, and then left. And I think maybe went back out with Delbert or something and was away from home for a while. And I got home, I had a post office box up in Cartersville. I went to my post office box and there's a stack of checks in there. It turned out that they had sold the demo, and these were residual checks to me for being the lead singer on the commercial.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:10

Make a special make it burger king. So I said, hey, this would be something to look into. So Elliot and the cats that I were working with, that's how they made their living up there. So I went up to New York and Elliot opened his book and shared with me about 10 or 15 names and numbers of people who hired him to play. Well, at that time I had finished the record I did for Columbia. So I went to each of those places, stayed at Elliot's house, dropped a cassette of this Burger King commercial and a copy of my new record, and told them all that I'd moved to New York and I was wanting to work. Then I went to Nashville and got up with a buddy down there, got a list, dropped my demo reel and my record, and told them I'd moved to Nashville. Then I went to Chicago, did the same thing, all of this on credit cards, and came back home and said, okay, the town that calls, I'll go do that for a while. Well, the timing of it was such that an article came out in the a magazine called Advertising Age, I think it was called, but it was uh it was like the industry trade rag for ad agencies and music producers and stuff. And somebody had written an article in there that said we need to start making our commercials sound more like the music of this time than Tatty Page and you know than the mu the music of yesteryear. And they all started calling me at once. Well, I started going. And I had to show up, like in New York, to the session, like maybe I'd come up from the village rather than had to drive from Cartersville to Richmond to get in the airplane to get in there early enough to be able to get to the studio by nine to you know what I mean, that kind of thing. And then it's as it started rolling, I'm like flying every day from one city to the next. And it turned into a thing. They found me out after a while that I didn't live in their town, but by then I was already getting known for what I was doing to the point where they didn't care, and they started paying for the plane tickets.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Nice. And the residual checks were coming in.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:26

Yeah, it came in came in pretty good there. I I did that, I guess, for about 10 years. I did that stuff. And the coolest part of all of it, I mean, it was nice to be making a little money for once in in the music business.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:39

Put your hands together now. Give a warm barbecue. Welcome to the solar song. If you like your hamburgers 100% all American hot and beefy, there's more for your life upstairs.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:43

What you're seeing girl with babies, cheating so rose in smiles, right? You must be doing something right.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:22

Oh, it's a big Everybody loves the blue box. Everybody loves them. Everybody loves those blue boxes.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:40

It wasn't to be rich and famous. I had a gift that I wanted to be able to share, and my hope was that people would hear my voice and like it. Didn't matter to me whether they knew who the voice belonged to or not at that time. Because everywhere I went, every studio I went to to show up. And sing, I was playing with the very best musicians in that town, Session Cats, you know. By that time, all of a sudden, you know, I'm showing up at a session in New York City and they're Schaefer and the Letterman band. You know what I mean? They're the band for the day. When they use demos, they, you know, back then it was before computers. And if you wanted you wanted the music to sound great, you had to play hire musicians that played great. If you needed a singer to be in pitch, you had to hire a singer who could sing in pitch. You know, you couldn't auto-correct or tune, couldn't do any of that then. But you know what a thrill I got to be able to show up at these studios. And initially, I would show up after the music had been recorded. But after they got to know me and knew me as a live singer, then they started bringing me in to be there when the band was recording to get in a booth and fire them up a little bit. Yeah. You know, but that's cool. Do it rather than the producer singing it just to show how the vocal goes, kind of thing. And the routine of it, and they called us the happy people because you can do the first one and not be in the union. But after that, I had to join two unions, a Scream Actors Guild for TV and film and AFTRA for radio. And these are people that had been people at the ad agency and at the music production house that had been working on this project for months, you know, getting it together how they wanted it to be, getting clearance and approval from the hires up end of it, the singers would walk in and be there for a few minutes, sing and leave. Better than everybody else, because what the unions had done to negotiate a rate of residuals for us. You'd show up, you'd get a cup of coffee, you'd joke with the people there a little for a few minutes, then you'd get into the booth and start singing. And so that they looked like they were doing something to make their money, they'd put you through a lot of different changes and a lot of recommendations and of how you ought to be doing it and make it a little rougher here, or you know, smile while you're singing this line or whatever. Then I'd go to the coffee machine, hang out while they'd have a committee meeting in there to go through the takes that I'd done to choose which one to use. And nine times out of ten, it was like the first, second, or third one. Right. You know, out of however many that there were. Because then you s after that you start thinking about it too much, you know, and they they'd always take the one that had the energy that they were looking for.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

What was your favorite one?

SPEAKER_09 1:08:22

Well, I think the favorite one I did, it wasn't one it one for the air. It was it was for American Airlines, but it was a presentation piece that they were doing for some kind of in-house convention or something that they were having. Not to my knowledge, but I d I sang this song Somewhere over the rainbow. That was my favorite one to do and to listen back to because it was the length of a song. Yeah. You know, we're talking about things that are like 30 seconds or 60 seconds, you know, long. And you know, most of them are just the hooks, you know, make it special, make it burger game. It's more for your life at Sears. Heinz is a thick, rich one. Beautiful begins with beautiful skin begins with noxema.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:05

Wow. You did all those. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:09

Yeah, I've done a bunch of them. I did over a hundred of them.

unknown 1:09:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:12

And um not all of them hit the air, but I did a plenty of them. I think that the thing that they picked up on me was similar to John Hammond's comment to me in that I kind of crossed markets with my voice to where you couldn't really tell who this guy was, you know, or what he looked like. Yeah. I remember they did one for Sun Kissed Orange Juice, and they had the Beach Boys sing it. But for some reason they got through it and it didn't have enough edge for them. So they hired me to come out there and jump in and sing with the tracks that they had already recorded so that they'd had a little gravel in there to, you know, to add to it. You know, it was really interesting work, you know, to do. Uh I really miss it. You know, it was a lot of fun to do. Once the DX7, which was a keyboard that uh came out, and they could hire a guy for a hundred bucks that had a DX7 that would make sounds of every instrument that there is, then all of a sudden that work that kind of went away. And the producers started figuring out that the singers were making more than they were for working on the thing. So they all learned to sing real quick. And then auto-tune came out, and then so all of a sudden the whole business just changed completely with the advent of computer. You know, my my wife has found a couple of them that I did that are videos of the commercial. There was one that I did. I talked the client into coming to Muscle Shoals and doing it with us down there, and it was to craft barbecue sauce. And it was right, it came out right after the movie The Toy Story, and they made a cartoon with the same technology that they used on Toy Story. That was the big selling point of this video that they made. And it was a cartoon of a headless chicken dancing in a wet inside of a Weber grill with three, you know, playing air guitar on a basin brush with three background singers who were hot dogs. Um and I started out by saying, Hey everybody, this is Bobby Q, and and they went on into a rap. And then this chicken broke into singing, you know. It's online. There's a video on YouTube of that commercial.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

Well, we're gonna jump into what we call our speed round. And and and since you were only able to get through five, ten minutes of a podcast because it's hard for you to listen from you might not have gotten to the speed round. But it's not hard questions, I promise. Okay. Yeah. Just a way to get to know you a little bit better. So I'm gonna kick the speed round round off. Uh, first thing that pops into your head if you were gonna go home tonight and they all went out without you and you were at the house by yourself, what would be your go-to throw-it-together dinner that you'd make for yourself?

SPEAKER_09 1:11:58

Make a bird's nest.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

What in the world is that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:02

You take a shot glass and put it down in the middle of a piece of bread and cut a hole in it. And then you put that piece of bread with a hole in it down in a frying pan with some butter, and you crack an egg into the hole. Yeah. And uh you can turn it over or not. That's the easiest, quickest thing that I can tell you to make.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:22

That's funny. I did know that. But you uh it that's an older term, bird's nest.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:28

That's what we used to call it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

Yeah. Song that means the most to you personally.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:34

Someone to watch over me. Linda Ronstadt read that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

And that that's one of my favorites, too.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:40

That's my parents' favorite song. It still resonates in to me in my life now.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

Is there one habit that you have never been able to break?

SPEAKER_09 1:12:50

I've broken one of them to pieces at different times.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

We'll leave it there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Favorite place you've ever been because of music.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:01

That'd be a toss-up between muscle shoals and Austin.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:03

What does freedom mean to you right now?

SPEAKER_09 1:13:07

I've always had it. It means a lot. And I've always been free.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

You know, there's not a lot of people that can say that or fe feel that. That's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:21

Well, that's that's you know freedom to get up in the morning and go, what do I want to do today? There's a lot of freedom in that. It's a real expensive thing for a lot of people to get to do. And the freedom to that I have because I was incarnate here and am free to in this country and have been to pursue my dream of what I want to do with myself while I'm here, in addition to career. You're free to do anything you want here if you work it right, make certain sacrifices and surrender certain things. If you get to that spot and you you know you're free to say whatever you want to say, believe in whatever you want to believe, go try anything that you want to try. It's all right here where I grew up, you know. Being born in Richmond, Virginia, you know, was a blessing for me. I don't know that Richmond has anything that somewhere else doesn't have. Because my interest is music, Richmond has been a crossroads for every style of music that's happened. And the melting pot from all those different styles, country ro rock and roll, rhythm and blues on down the line. 95 had a lot to do with that. Because you know, you leave DC, the next stop's Richmond, Virginia.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:35

All right. I'm gonna toss that to Johnny in a sec. That's my last question. If this chapter right now, where you're at right now, if it had a title, what might that title be?

SPEAKER_09 1:14:46

Fulfillment. Just leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:49

Yeah, that's enough. What what's better than that? I know.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:52

You know. And you know, s surprise that I'm still here after what I've been through. The trav just the amount of traveling that I've done. Yeah. Situations that I've been in that could have gone the wrong way, you know. Yeah. I guess you know, I'm I'm hunting if there's another word that I'd have to, you know, balance fulf that fulfillment out with lucky.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

You are very lucky and blessed.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:20

I'm a lucky man.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

Knowing who you are as an artist, musician, singer, songwriter, and choosing that path knowing, yeah, that that'll work.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:29

Well, I think freedom had a lot to do with that. It avoided situations where I couldn't be free in the middle of it. For instance, I got to know a songwriter in New York, her name was Ellie Greenwich, who with her husband wrote songs like Leader of the Pack and the Do Ron Ron, you know, real building writer. She was best friends with Mr. Hammond's secretary. They were both singing in studios, you know, doing background vocal work, and someone wrote a musical about her and her husband's life as songwriters in New York. It was called Leader of the Pack. And they were auditioning for that show. And she asked me to come and audition. And Paul Schaefer was a musical director for that show. And I went to New York and got there. I was burnt out. I'd been out, you know, doing my thing and playing with Delbert on the road and all. Showed up exhausted. But they asked me to sing Do Why Diddy. And I did. They came up to me, uh, you know, went over big and they came over to me, you know, hey man, this is awesome. You you know, we gotta have you. And I had some experience from theater, you know, from high school days. It's been a while since I'd you know done that. It's a whole different thing, you know. Theater's way different than playing rock and roll in joints. I was faced with I was presented with the opportunity to move to New York and do the same show eight times a week. Live in New York City and go do the same show eight times a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

That's not free.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:10

Well, you know, it was an opportunity now.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:14

But what I was doing at the time was singing these commercials and all these places with these different cats, playing, you know, with Delbert and all these great joints all over the country. Yeah, I believe I played in every state in the union with him. Free to do my own thing, you know, with my songs, you know, and all that, making records and all. And I preferred what I was already doing. That's that that didn't sound like any freedom in what they wanted me to do. It was just opportunity. Right. You know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

All right, so I'm gonna do my speed round.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:50

Easy peasy. Midnight snack.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:53

Got ready to say bird's nest. Ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:58

Favorite song when you need a lift?

SPEAKER_09 1:18:01

I d I don't feel no ways tired. I've come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy, but I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:13

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

I love it.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:16

So that usually bails me out.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:19

Nice.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:19

You know, when I'm wondering, okay, how's this gonna go? You know, what's next?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:24

I love that. Artist you haven't worked with but wish you had.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:29

Dylan.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

Oh. He's coming to Richmond. Coming to Richmond. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:33

I know a buddy of mine's his guitar player.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

Let's put that out into the universe right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

Yes. Steve Bassett is gonna work with Dylan when he comes to Richmond. We did it. We put it out there.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:45

Hey, I you know, I gotta say this. If you're an RB guy and you wanted to play live with somebody that you wanted to play live with, it's hard to beat Deborah McClinton.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:58

I've seen a lot, you know, as far as the fun that you can have in a band. In that world, uh, you know, I was with the king. I said Dylan just because lately I've I've always been a fan. But it's just lately that I've really understood how much I really like and appreciate what he did w when he was on fire with it. You know, when he first came out. The records that he made then, what he had to say, and the way they came together. It's just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:31

True poet.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:32

Mm-hmm. True poet. Yeah. It's magic stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

If you had to pick a live performance or studio recording.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:40

But you left one out. What? Rehearsal. Uh somebody told me the other day they were laughing at me. They'd heard me say that um we were at a rehearsal and I was mentioned preferred rehearsals to a show. And they said, Well, why? I said, There's too many people at a show. But then in the studio, you know, is similar to rehearsal, except the tape's running. I ne I I never watch anything I've ever done. I never listen to anything I've ever done live. And when I'm playing somewhere and there's fifteen phones pointed at me, it makes me so mad because I'm there in a live show for the people who went to the trouble and paid for the ticket to come and see what we have to offer here tonight. That show is for those people in the room, not for the rest of the world or their friends or Facebook or any of that. It just irritates me. But that's just because that's the way I look at it. I also I've recorded many, many of my shows, but I've never listened to them because it never sounds like what it felt like to do it. I'm all about the feeling of what it feels like. Because some people enjoy skiing. Playing a live show is much like skiing in that you go to a lot of you you're excited about how getting to do it. You gotta go to trouble to prepare yourself and get your equipment together and everything, what you're wearing and all, and then you finally get to the edge to where you push yourself off. That's the beginning of the first song. And once you push yourself off, flying downhill, you have certain control over it, and it's the closest thing to being a bird that there can be. And a live show can be that way to where it's just a lot of fun, but you have to not care whether they like it or not. It's more about whether you're entitled to how you feel doing it, you know. And every time I've ever listened to a live performance that I've done, it never sounded like it felt when I did it. You know what I mean? It's never good enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

Well, you have been interrogated today, and we have asked you so many questions. We're gonna give you a chance to flip it, and you get to ask us questions if you have any. We enjoy editing and listening to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's like three different experiences. Being with people that are just fascinating and inspiring to us, and hearing everything for the first time and the energy in the room and all of that is awesome. Editing is is painful, but it is, but it's also really cool. And we laugh a lot too. We do. Oh my, we'll tell I'll start screaming, shut up, Jessica, at myself. We have fun. But then when you hear it all come together, it really is. You've you've created something because our objective is when it's only auditory and there are breaks or nuances or things that are really distracting, it's hard to really hear the essence of the message that you're being told. So we spend a lot of time putting it together in a way that the listener can really hear the story without distractions. Right. And hearing that come together is really good. It's not because we don't talk much. I mean, this is the most we'll talk and then we'll probably cut half of it out. But so it's not even hearing ourselves, it's hearing our guests in a clean way in the car driving it.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:46

Well, it's similar to um, you know, producing records, you know, the there's the make the music thing, but then there's the editing, the mixing and the editing, which is some people love it, some people don't, you know. But I love it, you know, the uh the editing part of things. And um So I I can see you all enjoy it, both of them enjoy all of it. We do. And that's the goal. We really do. If you can just enjoy the whole thing. Yeah. And offer it, you know, that somebody offer it to the to the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:15

I love it. And I also, when we get finished with the product, when I listen to it, I think to myself, going back to what you said about the feeling, is I want it to feel to whoever's listening what we're feeling right now. Yes. I've thoroughly enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:31

Good. Well, I have too.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

Well, what do you have coming up?

SPEAKER_09 1:24:34

Most of what I do is private here lately. But I guess you would say public stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:40

Unless you want us to call crash your private parties.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:44

Well, we we're preparing for a show that we're gonna do with BJ Cooson and Justin Lauder and a band that we put together at the Revillet on September 1st. We're gonna introduce the play the songs from this release that we just have of the The Feel, which is what we call the group.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

Awesome. Yeah, you have an album.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:02

Yep, it's out.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:03

It's out. Look, we're holding it. Yep, we're holding it. You get some of the first copies.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:07

It's out because you got it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:09

So happy.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:10

We're kind of announcing the release on that. That felt that would be a great place to get a band together and present the music, announce that the album is available. I have dates to play. I feel like I'm lucky that I have them. And um, you know, other than play and sing and write songs and produce music, you know, I enjoy, you know, the life that Jenny and I have at home. We have some friends, you know, that we see every now and then. Pretty content with the way things are.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:38

And fulfilled. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:41

I got nothing to prove. It's obvious to me that um music is something that you can share with people to maybe bring a good vibe. It's not much more complicated than that. Even if you end up in a situation where you're the your background to everything else that's going on, you're still setting the tone.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:02

Yeah. Even if the conversation is louder than what you're doing. I played one the other night. Yeah, they were all just talking to one another, nobody paying any attention that I was even there so that you could notice it, unless you looked and saw a foot tapping over here.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:18

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:18

Or a head moving back and forth, or a smile. That means as much as the whole house applauding. That's the magic of music.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

We have to talk about sweet Virginia breeze.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:31

Got another hour.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:34

Well, it did become the official state song of Virginia. Yes, it did. And it didn't happen overnight. There was actually a long road, as you put it, to get there. Did you ever think it would actually happen?

SPEAKER_09 1:26:47

Not really. I wasn't sure. I mean, it didn't happen enough times that it would leave you to believe that it wasn't gonna. The way that I can best way I can explain that, you know, we're talking about a song that took 20 minutes to write. Robin and I were friends because I met him at the counter of the people's drugstore when I showed up for work at the band box. There's a people's drug store next door, and I used to go in there for breakfast and I sat down next to this guy and we got to chatting. And I was looking for a place to live at the time. I had taken the job to work there at the band box, and I was staying at the apartment of uh the guy who owned it in the fan while he was down in Williamsburg opening another band box. I met this guy named Robin Thompson, and mentioned that I was looking for a place to live. And he had a wing of a house for rent where he was living, in this house behind the Carolon on the river. And I rented it from him. Of course, you know, we found out that in our meeting then that he was a singer songwriter, and um that I was, you know, did that too. So we would jam and we got Know one another. Well, sometime later, we decided that we'd do a show together. So I had talked to some of mine. They hadn't had outdoor shows for a long time because something that happened at the city stadium for some outdoor shows and ended with some cop cars being turned over something and outlawed outdoor shows. Well, Robin talked to somebody, and after that they uh approved for us to do an outdoor performance at Schaefer Court in the CU. Both of us had moved from that house by the time the show was about to happen. And Robin was living on Floyd Avenue, and we were having a rehearsal for the show. And I showed up at rehearsal a little early, and Robin was sitting on the porch with a guitar, and he had the hook. Living in the sweet Virginia Breeze. That's what he had. He said, Well don't we finish this? So we stepped inside and in about 20-30 minutes wrote that song. The band showed up, we taught it to them. The next day we went and did the show. The crowd loved it. Suggested to him that we record this song. At that time, I was talking about a 45. Well, he was signed to an agency and to a manager at the time. And he had to go to them and seek approval to do that. Well, they took that idea and expanded on it that they wanted to do it and produce it. And they had another band that they had signed called the Andrew Lewis band. And they proposed that Robin and I do a that we do a whole album and use that band as the musicians for the album. And I agreed to do it that way. So we rehearsed it several times. Two songs of Robin, two songs of mine. Song we'd just written together. And we recorded it in a couple of days at Alpha Audio on Broad Street. Well, they released Virginia Breeze as the single off of that album. And two or three stations here in Richmond picked it up, started playing it, and it spread on out through the state. Rown up down the beach. It was popular. And we went out and did a few shows together to promote the album. And then both. And Robin and I ended up going down there and singing the song for the people in the government. And nothing happened. The bill didn't pass. In the meantime, Bill Bevan started playing it on his morning show. And played it at least once a week. Every week for years. Okay. Well then Carry Me Back to Old Virginia retired as a state song. Doug Wilder had become governor. And some time went by. And then they figured out, hey, we need a state song. So their way of looking for one was they started a contest. And they put together a committee of like music professors from different colleges around the state and some politicians and some different people. And I was on the road, Robin called me. Hey man having a contest. The deadline applies tomorrow. And we haven't submitted our song. Don't you think we ought to? I said, what's the deal? He said, well, you know, they do say in there that the song they're going to pick, they're going to own. I said, we'll put a circle around that and write. We'll talk about that later. I go ahead and submit it. So then they started the process of hundreds of songs that have been applied, narrowing them down until they finally got to the end of it where they were going to pick the eight finalists to choose one from. Well, somebody who didn't make the cut to the eight finalists through the state because they thought that one of the finalists had made some campaign contributions to somebody and that the thing was rigged. So the way they dealt with that, which is just scrap the whole idea and do nothing. So nothing happened for a while. Uncle Bill kept playing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:35

Yeah, it was Bill. Shout out to Bill Bevins and others.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:39

You know, but Bill was the champion of it. But you know, Robin and I had agreed that this was all something that was supposed to happen to us. It wasn't something that we were supposed to go out and secure for ourselves. It was an honor. That's what you'd get out of it. And that's the that's the way it would be an honor, is that if it's something that happened to us? Well, out of the blue, 10, 12 years ago, you know, this that record came out in 1976. Here 10 years ago, 10, 12 years ago, I get a phone call from this buddy of mine who's name is Terry Stroud, and he worked at uh in your air studio. Also was affiliated with the film commission. But you know, had to be had to deal with politicians all the time because of that, I think. But he called me up and said, Hey man, what do you think about popping a song on somebody I know downtown to see if they would want to consider it as a state song? I said, I was just talking about you the other day. He said, What do you mean? I said, Well, if somebody wants that to happen, then somebody's got to bring it up. It's not gonna be me. It's not gonna be Robin, you know? So here you are. So he went to a friend of his that was assistant to Senator Walter Sosh. She had been a fan, her name was Carla. She had been a fan of Robinson when we were playing the pass and that kind of thing. She took it to her boss. He was getting ready to retire. And he liked the song and he thought it was a good idea. So he proposed a bill to make it the state song. He told me a story later that, you know, these delegates and people that go to the national conventions of other states of all the states, and all when they uh at the big convention, they all each delegation from each state would walk down the aisle of the great hall to the front to the sound of their state song. And then every time they went somewhere, they had to walk down there in silence because they didn't have a state song. And he wanted he was getting ready to retire. He'd like to leave the state with a song. Well, I mean there were some other artists down there that were like promoting their song. Somebody else wrote a bill for their song, and they were down there working at Robin was not feeling great, not in shape at the time to go down there and spend time gripping and grinning, so often that bell to me. He was a guy who was good at that. And I was the one that I went down there and whenever they called me to meet whoever they want me to meet. Well, at the same time, another bill had been proposed by uh somebody across the aisle, Senator Starch. The year before they had presented a bill to make Oh Shannando the state song. And that got shot down because they figured out it went about Virginia. Well, hired somebody to rewrite the words to that tune and turn it into a song about Virginia. And he had a bill proposed to make that song the state song. Well, that made it through committees, and our song made it through committees. And then one Sunday Sanders Stotch called me and said, Steve, look, my buddy crossed the aisle, they've got that song, and we've got this one, and neither one of us want to lose this thing. So I proposed a compromise. We write a new bill that would make that song, the re-lyric of Shenandoah, the traditional state song, and would make your song the modern state song. Well, what do you think of that? I said, I got no problem with compromise. I like compromise. I don't have any problem with it. The only thing is the song's 40 years old. It's not modern. I said, but it is popular. He said, that's what we'll call it, the popular state song. So they wrote this new bill so that these two songs would be uh submitted as a state song. It passed unanimously. And so both of those songs became official at that time. It was an honor. We got to go down there and watch the governor sign it. We sang it on the front porch of the governor's mansion, and they announced it to the state on Christmas Day in the newspaper. And since then, uh it's been such a thrill to get to see videos that uh have been sent to me of these little kids at these schools singing that song, you know. And I was really happy also to see it happen while Robin was still here with us. That was a good lick, you know. So that's the story of the sweet Virginia Bree song.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:11

Thank you, Steve. We've sure enjoyed you and your stories. You're all nice people.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:15

I appreciate your hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:17

Thank you, Steve.