Steve Martin and Edie Bickell, “Love Has Come For You”

If you can’t be moved by the emotion Edie Brickell is able to convey in the lyrics in collaboration with Steve Martin, you must be a Vulcan. I fully admit to not being a firstie on this single, but it came up the other day on a playlist and I was quickly reminded of the brilliance of this unlikely duo. Being a Steve Martin fan from when I was in junior high (and memorizing the routines on his comedy albums), I knew “Mr. Steve Martin” played banjo, but this new phase of his career that’s taken off since 2010 is much more mediative and serious at times. I know, you can argue that the 1981 album, The Steve Martin Brothers, was the first instance of his banjo playing to be released in recorded form, but that was just a instance of bad timing. The timing is right on this album, and when you hear how wonderful Brickell and Martin sound on this record, you’ll agree.

The Bora, “Only You”

The Bora are coming out of the shadow of being a support band, and are ready for prime time with “Only You” — which is getting exposure on British radio in their native UK. It’s a taut and melodic power pop song that showcases Will Tierney’s vulnerable vocal delivery nestled in the thunderous drumming from Thierry Sequeira and solid bass work from Alex Roberts. Give this one a few spins and you’ll be a fan in short order.

Abigail Washburn & Shanghai Restoration Project, “Sala”

“Sala” is taken from the Afterquake EP that Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang put together to aid in the relief of those who were affected by the Sichuan province earthquakes in 2008 and 2013 that displaced millions and killed around 90,000 people in China. Washburn and Liang feature the voices of some of the survivors of the quake singing more traditional songs within a kind of a electronica framework. It may sound like an odd combination of styles, but the result is a very powerful work that highlights the intersection of modern and traditional in an original way.

Smallpools, “Dreaming”

Based in L.A., Smallpools has an incredibly catchy song on their hands with “Dreaming.” All the instruments sing in the key of pop, but just below the surface are the lyrics that tell another story of a kind of dystopian world. Heavy stuff for a pop song, but I suppose it’s not that different from singing along to some of those nuclear war nightmare lyrics that peppered a number of New Wave songs of the ‘80s.

As always, if you have suggestions of songs you think I should listen to, you can send submissions to: ted at Popdose dot com. I can’t guarantee the song(s) you send will make the cut, but I do make every effort to listen to whatever comes my way.

Driven

They’re at a big party and then the race car goes by through the city! And then the man gets in the other race car and chases the first racer and they go really fast and then there’s all this stuff blowing away!

Stroker Ace

He has a mustache and he’s really nice and he races on the racetrack and smashes the car. VROOOOOOOM!

The Cannonball Run

I liked this movie because Stroker Ace is in it, but he’s not on the race track he’s on the highway and he drives fast like my dad! GRRRRR! VROOOOOOOM! ZOOOOOOM!

Talladega Nights

Mommy says I’m not allowed to watch this but I don’t know why.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

It’s like regular Faster Furious, but the cars so sideways and go screeeeeeech and they’re in the street and I like Pokemons, too but cars mostly.

Herbie Fully Loaded

It’s funny when Herbie sneezes and hits the guy in the fanny! There’s a girl in it, but girls are gross, but the girl in this movie makes me feel weird.

Speed Racer

The race cars were really fast, but all of the lights blinked a lot and it made my brain so all WURRTZ WURRTZ ZZZZIZZZIIZLZLELLEE and I had to go to bed for an hour and Mommy didn’t let me finish the movie but I have a Speed Racer car!

Days of Thunder

VROOM! SCREECH! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. CRASH! BANG! WHIIZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Cars

This is the best movie EVER MADE AND IT IS MY FAVORITE!

Cars 2

This is my favorite movie of ever made and it’s the best movie ever, too!

It’s become something of a pejorative term, but smooth jazz was huge in the ’80s. Sax player David Sanborn and keyboardist Bob James were two of the genre’s biggest names — so when they teamed up as a duo for 1986′s Double Vision, the result was naturally a platinum-selling, Grammy-winning hit. But it was more than a commercial success; as other albums from the era have faded into a stale-smelling haze of velour, ferns, and white wine spritzers, Double Vision remains eminently listenable, with songs and performances that continue to breathe in spite of their era-appropriate production.

Now, nearly 30 years after their last outing, James and Sanborn have reunited for another album, Quartette Humaine (out May 21). Far from a Double Vision sequel, it recaptures their chemistry while recasting it in a very different light. As Sanborn explained during a recent interview with Popdose, that decision — like everything else about Quartette Humaine — was only natural.

In the EPK for the record, you and Bob talk about how you wanted to make this a “New York record,” which I love, because as much as you still tend to be identified with the smooth, slickly produced sound that overwhelmed the ’80s, you were instrumental in helping shape the East Coast session scene of the ’70s.

Well, I think Bob and I both felt that we got somehow identified with a certain area of instrumental music, or jazz, if you will, that’s one small part of what we do. I think if there was any frustration over the years, it was just the fact that it became our identity, for better or for worse — people either loved it or they hated it, and they said, “That’s who those guys are.” It’s not about necessarily trying to please other people, but at a certain point, it got to be a little irritating. We thought we were pigeonholed in that area, so we got on with our lives and we did what we did.

Both Bob and I wanted to make a record that reflected another side of who we are and where we came from; one that paid tribute to some of the influences we’ve had over the years. I think it ended up being a much more accurate reflection of where we are right now. Both of us are interested in playing music that’s exciting to us and telling the truth about where we are at this point in our lives, and once you get a couple of tunes down that reflect the general tone of where you’re trying to go, that kind of ends up defining where the rest of the record goes.

There were one or two songs when we started out that helped us focus in on the nature of what the album was going to be — that gave us a point of view. You follow it from there. More than anything else, it felt like this is just who we are right now. Double Vision was who we were then, but life goes on; things change, things move. Albums are just frozen moments in time — they never tell the whole story. It’s just a snapshot of one moment, and that’s what this is.

They’re snapshots, but their permanence can sometimes be a double-edged sword. And as much as that period in jazz is maligned, Double Vision is one of the records that shows how that sound can really work — it’s like the acme of the smooth jazz genre in a way. Everything fits.

I think if you’re going to survive as a musician, you have to develop a thick skin and realize that what someone else says is their own business. You don’t have any control over it. You just go on about your business, and every once in awhile you check in and say, “Oh, really? That’s interesting.” I guess what I really want to say is that this record wasn’t made in reaction to anything — it’s really not that pointed or deliberate. It’s just that this is who we are, and if people want to interpret it as something else, there’s nothing either of us can do about it.

You make the music that feels right to you at the time, and that’s what this does. I also believe that albums need to have a point of view, and as this one unfolded, it became clear that the acoustic quartet setting was going to sort of define its character.

It’s interesting to hear you say all this, because it would certainly be easy to interpret it as a reaction — much the same way someone could have heard your early ’90s solo records Another Hand and Upfront as a refutation of the slick ’80s albums that preceded them. It felt like a deliberate look at who you really were, coming on the heels of a period when it seemed like you got locked into doing essentially one thing.

For better or for worse, I’ve always been a little bit restless that way. There’s a lot of music that really excites me, and in an effort to kind of get to it all, I’ll make these records that certainly on the face of it seem to be very different, but in reality, they’re just reflections of who I am. All my influences, and my musical character.

The last couple of records I’ve made have been tributes to a period that was very fundamental to me in terms of inspiration — the Ray Charles band of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Hank Crawford, David “Fathead” Newman. People like that. That’s always been there, right from the beginning. So you could look at an album like Taking Off and then compare it to Another Hand and say “These are two different people,” when in fact, they’re not. I’m the same guy — I’m playing the same way. You have to be contextual and play music that’s appropriate to where you are, but I’m not a different player; I’m not assuming a different personality. When I do those things, they’re all part of who I am. And that’s true not just of me, but of a lot of different players.

The trappings change, but you don’t.

Exactly.

You’re talking about influences, so it seems like now would be a good time to address Quartette Humaine‘s inspiration as a sort of tribute to the music of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond. You and Bob both obviously work with a broad palette, so what was it that called to you about those particular sides at this point in time?

I always loved that group. I was, and am, a huge Paul Desmond fan — he was just so lyrical. He always reminded me of Lester Young with the way he played — that light, airy sound. The way he and Dave interacted was also fundamental to me during my early playing experience, and I think it was the spirit of those guys, and that music, that really kind of inspired the genesis of this record, because Bob felt the same way. The interplay between them, the way they reacted to each other, informed us making this record.

Bob, in a more overt way, wrote a couple of songs that were tributes to that quartet: “Follow Me” and “You Better Not Go to College” are very Brubeck-like. But overall, we just tried to stay true to the spirit of those records, which rested on the communication and the interplay between Dave and Paul. And for that matter, any working quartet.

You develop a language and a chemistry that’s either compelling to you as a player and an audience, or it isn’t. I’ve always admired the way Bob’s played in that way — he’s a great accompanist, as well as a great solo player and arranger. For years, he worked as Sarah Vaughn’s accompanist; he knows that role and how to do that, and he’s also very comfortable there. All these aspects help to shape what this record is.

You mention the art of playing in a quartet, and clearly there were two other guys — Steve Gadd and James Genus — who influenced the sound of this record. How did this particular group come together?

Both Bob and I have been fans of Steve and James, and we’ve both played with them in different iterations over the years, so it was pretty much a no-brainer for us to call those guys. Not only had we had a lot of experience playing with them and we knew we spoke a common language, but they were just simply the best guys for the job. We just kind of went from there.

The music business has been in a state of extreme flux for the last decade or so, and digital distribution has evolved to the point where anytime artists of your stature release an album through a major label, it’s kind of comforting — “Ah, at least those guys are still in the system.” Plenty of artists are questioning the need to release albums at all anymore.

Just in very crass terms, records become calling cards, and advertisements for live gigs; what they do is kind of announce music and format — the sound of what you want to go out and play live. And also just to have it as a kind of permanent record, if you will, of a kind of music you wanted to make. I’m still of the opinion that records have a certain personality and a certain point of view, and they’re moments in time; you try to make them as well-crafted and representative as you can. Things that will stand the test of time. Ultimately I just want to be as honest as I possibly can.

And now once you take that snapshot, the question is whether you release it yourself or sign a contract with a label — and the answer isn’t as clear as it used to be.

Well, that’s always a good question. I mean, Sony has been very accommodating for us, and I think the advantage you gain by doing something with a larger label is their distribution and promotion muscle; everything’s kind of consolidated in one place. Certainly, it’s always been the way I’ve operated, so it’s familiar, and I’ve been very lucky over the years to have good partners at the company — people who leave you alone and let you make the music that feels good to you, then go out and sell the result. If you’re dealing with people who have that attitude, you’re in pretty good shape. I’ve known people who’ve had to deal with a lot of label interference, but that’s mostly on the pop side, anyway.

You and Bob weren’t able to tour behind Double Vision, and your plans to play out in support of Quartette Humaine are one of the big draws for this reunion. Given that you’re playing in such a different context this time around, are you finding that it’s necessary to heavily rearrange those older songs?

It’ll be interesting to do those songs in an acoustic context — it’ll be a different kind of challenge. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

To what extent are the songs from that album still a part of your vocabulary?

Well, I always play “Maputo.” That’s become kind of a calling card from that CD. In that sense, that music is always kind of with me. There’s a lot of great music on that album, and we’re starting to get into that area where we’re figuring out what we want to do from that album, so we’ll have to see what ends up in the set.

You’ve covered a lot of territory. Do you ever feel like you’re getting close to mastering your craft?

I never feel that way. I always feel like I’m a student; I’m always learning. I’m always hearing something that’s interesting and new — something I want to learn how to try and do. I never feel like I’ve mastered anything, you know? I’m just trying to catch up.

I used to practice every day, but over the last year or so, I find myself doing that less. I got so obsessive about it for awhile that I started to feel like being away from my instrument for awhile occasionally would be a positive thing — that it would free me of physical patterns, patterns of thought, that I was caught in before. Especially when I’m on the road, I don’t practice much. Not as much as I used to.

But as I discovered the first time that I got the chance to speak with Kenny, he’s an awesome dude. Mellow, humble and down to earth. Which is why when we started sketching out our wishlist of folks that we wanted to talk to here on the Radio Hour, I put Kenny on my short list. It didn’t take much more than sending an email his way to nail something down. From there, it was just a matter of finding a day that would work with the nerve center of constant activity that is Kenny’s schedule of sessions, gigs and more recently, producing.

The veteran drummer has been working with Matt Gold, an Indiana-based singer/songwriter who had been making some well received music on his own and decided he was ready to take things to the next level. Aronoff was waiting with open ears and a few opinions and what began as an idea to work on a few tracks together would grow into a full album’s worth of material. Drawing upon his own decades of experience in the music industry, Aronoff built the farm team of musicians (and we’re talkin’ about some well known folks here, too) who would help to put the material down on tape in the proper way that it needed to be done.

Aronoff shares the skinny behind this project and quite a few other things with us on today’s edition of the Radio Hour, which we should mention is 93% Jeff Giles-free.

We should explain. While Mr. Giles certainly shares my love for the work of Mr. Aronoff, the scheduling of this episode regrettably didn’t allow for his participation. But he did have questions for Kenny, which he faxed over from the backroom of the neighborhood Taco Bell.

The Matt ‘N’ Jeff Radio Hour, Episode 19: Kenny Aronoff

Our thanks to Kenny Aronoff for spending time with us here on the Radio Hour. Check out his website for all of the latest information including contact details if you’d like to get in touch and find out how you could possibly enlist Kenny’s talents for your next musical project!

No offense to the fellas and your multi-platinum rock bands, chart-topping hip hop and country albums and ill-advised racist anti-racist collaborations; but when it comes to innovation, envelope pushing and flat out excitement, the ladies have you beat. And it’s about time Chris Brown got beat by the opposite sex.

Now the lame stream media would have you believe that the only ladies on the planet who are musically relevant are Taylor Swift (TayTay), Rihanna (RiRi), Selena Gomez (SeeGee), Demi Lovato (the DL) and Adele (Ms. Adkins if you’re nasty). Enough! Let’s broaden our minds.

These 13 ladies lead a new parade of talent, each moving popular culture into fabulous new places. Our only criteria:

1. No over-earnest coffee shop singer/songwriters (like Lili Taylor’s “Joe Lies (When He Cries)” warbler from Say Anything)
2. No age-inappropriate teen vixens or wannabe pole dancers (this knocks out 40% of the submissions)
3. Vocals must only contain 30% of the recommended daily allowance of AutoTune (this knocks out most of the rest)
4. No Real Housewives vanity projects

#1: Charli XCX

London • Back to the Future of Pop

The other half of Icona Pop’s megasmash, “I Love It,” steps into the spotlight on the utterly fantastic debut album, True Romance. As I stated in my globally adored track-by-track review, “Finally, an album the goths and the cheerleaders can agree on.”

Demi and Selena probably don’t have musical influences older than the High School Musical soundtrack, but Charli’s teenage dreams were scored by dusty Nina Hagen, Siouxsie Sioux, Danielle Dax, Book of Love and Lene Lovich 12-inch singles. After releasing a dozen or so deliciously weird and captivating demos, Charli brings all of her influences together on the gothic new wave dance pop equivalent of Michael Jackson’s Triller. True Romance is a near perfect platter of 12 jaw-dropping monster singles — fat wet beats, lush synths, giant hooks and unlike her predecessors — shockingly intimate lyrics and a vulnerable vocal performance. Charli XCX may exude detached cool in her videos, but her heart is clearly tattooed under her sleeve.

And even though Romance’s impeccable 80′s soundscape is a large part of the appeal, any doubts that Charli is the product of studio trickery is rested here:

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

She’s not dating Bieber; Brown and Drake don’t get into bar fights over her; Kanye didn’t pre-ordain her as the “future of pop” before she set foot in a recording studio; and she never starred on a Disney Channel series. The idea of a young woman making it on her own artistic merit in America is utterly ridiculous.

Connect with Charli XCX online and on facebook. Sign up for her mail list — she regularly treats fans with mixtapes, free tracks, the works. True Romance is on sale this week for only $6.99 at Amazon.

Get her new single — a collaboration with Marina + The Diamonds, for FREE here:

#2: Florrie

London • Supermodel drummer busts a Dave Grohl/Phil Collins move

Something wicked this way comes — or at least that’s what Florrie has been promising fans for more than a year. Like fellow-Brit Charli XCX, Florrie has steadily built a fanbase by self-releasing songs — in her case, a trio incredibly polished pop EPs (many of the tracks are still free on her website). Ms. Arnold first burst onto the scene as the Xenomania house drummer — dropping the beats on some of Girls Aloud’s biggest hits. During her tenure, she took good notes from Xenomania’s Brian Higgins (one of the best producer/songwriters in the business); her catalog is packed with great songs and she promises that the best has yet to come. Florrie’s major-label debut is expected later this year.

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Despite critical raves and 22 chart-topping singles, Girls Aloud’s catalog was never released in the States. Record companies have proven that female British singers just don’t appeal to US audiences. Adele, Cher Lloyd, Ellie Goulding, Lily Allen and the Spice Girls were all flukes. Flukes I tell ya.

#3: Fallulah

Denmark • Lykke Li’s Twisted Sister

Beautiful singer makes beautifully weird pop music. What’s not to love?

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Fallulah must be a Danish word for “frustrating” because that’s what it’s been like for anyone outside of Denmark to (legally) get their hands on her intoxicating music. Sure I can see hesitating to press physical CDs until the fanbase swells, but it’s quite illogical to not make digital copies available worldwide. In the olden days of the early 2000’s, it made sense to stage releases by country so that you can negotiate plum real estate on the end cap displays of Tower Records, Best Buy and Target. In the modern world, a blogger in Sweden can discover an artist and within days, the track is blowing up on the Hype Machine. Why an industry that is so desperate to sell music refuses to sell that music when it’s hot truly escapes me.

Which brings us back to Escapism, Fallulah’s follow-up to 2010’s excellent The Black Cat Neighborhood — a disc I had to buy from Amazon.co.uk. Fallulah marries the cool hipster swagger of Lykke Li with the otherworldly dreaminess of early Kate Bush.

Not that this will do you any good — there is no release date set for Europe or the US. Hopefully some intern at Sony Music will read this and get that company on the ball.

“I Lay My Head” still deserves to be a major hit in the US.

#4: Alana Sweetwater & The Satisfaction

Los Angeles • Hail Hail Rock and Roll

There’s a reason Los Angeles has so many earthquakes — a whole lotta shakin’ is going on when Alana Sweetwater & The Satisfaction take the stage. Sweetwater and co-writer/co-conspirator Scott Feldman lead one of the tightest rhythm sections this side of the pearly gates from James Brown. Sweetwater is Joan Jett, Amy Winehouse, Suzi Quatro and Diana Ross shaken, stirred and poured into a hot strappy dress. Feldman and the Satisfaction give the Dap-Kings a run for their money (holy crap, that would be a great double bill — paging Sharon Jones).

Alana Sweetwater & the Satisfaction – Love More Than Anything

In the spirit of this round-up, here’s a bonus slab of hell yeah Aaaahlana amazeballs, “Dealin’ With a Woman”:

Ready to get sweaty? Buy the self-titled album on Bandcamp. See Alana light up LA’s legendary Hotel Cafe on June 21 at 11:00 PM. This gig’s not even on the calendar yet — you heard it here first.

Why She’s Destined For Failure:

Timeless, soulful music from a badass bombshell may sound good on paper, and even better in your ear holes, but these days the kids won’t dance to anything without a Skrillex-esque, seizure-inducing bass drop.

#5: Volita Bioletti of the Neo-Kalashnikovs

Auckland, New Zealand • Hot Chick and Her Brothers Blow the Roof Off Garage Rock

The Neo-Kalashnikovs’ music has been described as Lana Del Rey fighting the Black Keys in a smoky bar. Who am I to argue that? Led by the alluring Volita Bioletti, her band of brothers, Moss and Gabriel, ride a smoldering groove that carries the torch for the Pretenders and countless kindred CBGB’s bands.

Download their entire debut LP, She’s On Heat, for free right here. By the time you can devour that platter, their second album, “Gorgeous Baby,” drops this Saturday — also for free right there. But wait, there’s more. Pulling a total Green Day (minus the rehab), their third album, “Urban Warfare” drops July 23rd — also for FREE. How do they stay in business? Volume.

So play this one loud:

The Neo-Kalashnikovs – I Don’t Wanna be Your Friend

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Volita is way too confident and self-assured to play in America. We like our pop stars to be primarily defined by what men do to them: SeeGee (Bieber), RiRi (Chris Brown), TayTay (too many to list), the DL (one of the Jonas brothers), etc. Now if she changed her name to Lolita…

#6: Laurence Giroux-Do of Le Couleur

Montreal • French Electropop

Le Couleur had me with the first line in their new song, “Vacances de 87,” a collaboration with French Horn Rebellion: “Do You Like Hall and Oates was the first thing she said to me.” It only gets better from there. Patrick Gosselin, Steeven Chouinard and Felix Lafrance slather on the guitars, drums, bass, synths and plenty of cowbell. Their new EP, Voyage Love, follows up on the critically adored full-length, Origami (on sale for $5.99 here) to feed the hunger of fans of Saint Etienne, Royksopp, Brazilian Girls, Enon and OMD.

Le Couleur – Vacances de 87 Radio Mix

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

America doesn’t need another beautiful, talented, Canadian pop star. We already have Robin Sparkles.

7: Jessie Ware

OK, I’ve already vented plenty about the airport delays in getting Europe’s hottest music to be released stateside. Her lovely Adele, Massive Attack with a shade of Sade album, Devotion, finally came out Stateside in April. It’s good — but if you need to dip your toes in the water, begin with the absolutely essential singles, “Wildest Moments” and “If You’re Never Gonna Move.”

Relaxed? Now prepare yourselves for this slab of godlike genius: a breathtaking cover of Prince vault rarity and Martika deep album cut: “Love Thy Will Be Done” — masterful.

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Prince will probably sue her into the next century for doing that cover.

8: Paloma Faith

Fall to Grace is another album that came out in 2012 and was EPIC all over the planet — everywhere but here in the States. Fuck it, this is an album full of soulful, bombastic Brit Pop. It will be just as great 10 years from now as it was 8 months ago. Wake up. Catch up. Whatcha waiting for?

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

93% of the people who read this will accidentally buy the equally excellent Palma Violets album by mistake.

#9: Amilia K Spicer

For more than a decade, Amilia K Spicer has been a touring dynamo, making the rounds of LA’s best singer/songwriter clubs, the Kerrville Folk Festival, the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and ravenous fan enclaves back East. Not bad for someone who hasn’t released a new album in 10 years. Not that she hasn’t been busy. In addition to film work and throwing banjo, mando, lap steel into her signature mix of piano and guitar stylings, she’s contributed tracks to a stack of critically adored compilations including A Case For Case: A Tribute to Peter Case (grab all 48 songs for only $9.49 here — including Dave Alvin, Victoria Williams, Steve Wynn — oh my!) and Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young (alongside Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly, Louise Post and the Watson Twins).

POPDOSE has taken a spin of her new, as yet untitled CD, and let’s just say, it was worth the wait — set pleasers such as the spellbinding “Windchill,” the lovely “Wild Horses” (not a Stones cover) and the edgy “Harlan” share the big sky country patio with the waltzy “Medicine” and chilling “Down to the Bone.”

Hopefully you will also be hearing it soon. If Guns & Roses release TWO albums before this one comes out, Spicer will have to add “Sweet Child of Mine” to her set as penance. Then again, that would be freaking fantastic.

Til then, here’s one of my favorite songs in the history of the planet, “I Knew a Man”:

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

There is absolutely no market for folky Americana in America. Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, The Head & The Heart, the Civil Wars, the Lone Bellow were all flukes I tell ya. Flukes.

#10: Stephanie Cupo of Souvenir Stand

Stephanie Cupo is the type of girl whose enchanting beauty and timeless style inspired the Beach Boys to harmonize and Phil Spector to build a wall of sound… before he went batshit crazy of course. Cupo’s winsome debut, under the band name Souvenir Stand, recalls the golden age of Motown girl groups and endless summers on California beaches. Three-track EP, still available for free at Bandcamp, was recently expanded for a very-limited run of orange cassettes courtesy of British boutique label, Beautiful Strange.

Souvenir Stand – Days I’ve Spent With You

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Cupo also plays a mean saxophone but has yet to take a cue from Candy Dulfer by releasing a sax-punned album like “Sax Appeal”, “Goldman Sax” or “It Sax To Be You.”

#11: Elley Duhe aka: L.E.D.

When Elley Duhe took the main stage on NBC’s The Voice — none of the judges’ chairs turned in her favor. While heartbreaking in the moment, it was definitely more of a blessing than a curse. The Voice has yet to launch a certified pop star. Jessica Sanchez, who finished 2^nd on American Idol, could only translate her “millions and millions” of votes into a few thousand units sold. Meanwhile, two-time Idol reject, Hillary Scott, will yet again debut atop the Billboard 200 with the new Lady Antebellum record.

Like Charli XCX and Florrie before her, L.E.D. is finding her voice while releasing demos via her soundcloud page. Her voice is equally suited for EDM, Pop and Country so it will be interesting to see which direction she goes. Why not all three?

Download This: LE.D. “Hello Nice To Meet You”:

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

L.E.D. is a terrific stage name — unless you’re trying to Google her.

#12: Vicci Martinez

Speaking of The Voice — 2011’s third place finisher, Vicci Martinez, has the best chance of any alumni from the show at securing a bankable career. Here, she gets a boost from her mentor Cee-Lo Green on her debut single.

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Martinez’s success is totally ruining my argument that nothing good ever happens to truly talented reality show contestants. Seriously, buy her awesome album, Vicci, here.

And finally, welcome to the club…

#13: Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!

Despite all the attention on the ladies — two of my favorite albums of the decade were by dudes: the self-titled 2012 masterpiece by the Delta Spirit and the 2010 album White Crosses/Black Crosses (28 songs for $10, go get it) by Against Me! Not too long ago, Against Me’s lead singer, Tom Gabel, outraged the underground hipster indie label DIY punk rock community when he made the very brave revelation that he would be… recording an album with super producer Butch Vig — on a major label nonetheless. His fanbase was much more supportive years later when she told the world via Rolling Stone (what! Not Alternative Press?) that she would be transitioning from male to female and assuming the name Laura Jane Grace.

2013 sees Grace in the third act of her inevitable “VH1: Behind The Music” story arc — the major label deal is gone. Recent drummer Jay Weinberg and longtime bassist Andrew Seward left the band. The high profile opening slot on the Bad Religion tour has been scrapped. The follow-up album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, remains unfinished.

It remains unclear whether Grace and guitarist James Bowman will carry on as Against Me! or something else. When the music comes, it promises to be epic. The band previewed a few songs when I saw them play Seattle last fall. Rumors swirl that TD Blues is a concept album about a transgender prostitute — and while I know it will be a powerful story, the gender fluid/gender liberated community deserves some art that doesn’t portray them as trick turners, serial killers and walking punch lines. Femininity, when embraced by someone born female or born male, is something that should be cherished, celebrated, respected and supported. In real life, Grace has already shown us all of this and more — here’s hoping a few of the characters in her songs can follow suit.

Why She’s Destined for Failure:

Grace is happily married to  beautiful, powerful and supportive wife — together, they are raising a lovely daughter. This means there is absolutely zero chance Grace will reap mountains of free press by hooking up with Lindsay Lohan.

He feels…young

There’s an old man on a spaceship. He’s cheated death, tricked his way out of death, and patted himself on the back for his ingenuity. He never loses. He’s facing down a madman with a vendetta against him, and he’s literally racing against time. He wins, of course, and just as he settles into his default air of smug self-satisfaction, he looks to his right. An empty chair. A missing friend.

“Jim, you’d better get down here.”

At first glance, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan doesn’t feel much like a Trek movie. It feels more like one of the original series’ “bottle shows” where all the action had to take place on standing sets so that they could afford to build Vulcan in a sound stage for next week. There’s not much exploration of strange new worlds, and no new life forms or civilizations.

The proceedings feel epic anyway, because like all great Trek, Wrath isn’t really about sci-fi mumbo jumbo at all; it’s about theme and character. Beyond William Shatner’s nascent paunch and Ricardo Montalban’s perfectly-feathered hairdo, there’s an elegant plot suffused with tension and meaning, brought to life by terrific acting.

Let’s just come right out and say it: This is Shatner’s finest performance. (Sorry, T.J. Hooker fans. Your time will come.) This is not the cocky, conquering Kirk of the original series. Instead, we view the portrait of a man slowly inching past his prime who must decide whether to burn out as a starship captain or fade away behind a desk at Starfleet Command.

Throughout the film, Shatner uses his swagger as a mask to cover a frightening realization: He will die, and there’s nothing he can do about it. In contrast, Kirk’s old adversary Khan chooses to defy death in a megalomanaical frenzy brought on by the demise of his wife. Khan is hundreds of years old, and yet he mocks death in his quest for revenge. He blames Kirk , and Kirk knows what he blames him for.

The film is basically the Kirk and Khan show, with their furious battle at center stage—one to wreak vengeance, the other to prevent its path of destruction. There are big ideas here, and yet they play on an almost microscopic level within the vastness of outer space. The characters aren’t boldly going anywhere but deep within themselves. It’s a sci-fi story that chooses to stay small, a battle where the stakes may be high but the observations are intimate.

The initial starship battle between Kirk and Khan is a good example. It plays out like a WWII submarine battle, a tense duel of wits over communications channels and an electric scene for Shatner and Montalban. The day is won not through furious fighting and dazzling FX, but through Kirk outsmarting Khan. And even in the victory lies regret…the regret of a once-great starship captain second-guessing his own abilities and losing crewmembers in the process.

Wrath is structured so tightly around Kirk and Khan that when Spock nobly sacrifices his own life to save the Enterprise, the emotional blow is unexpected and powerful. The Enterprise’s science officer slips down a ladder, knocks Bones out cold with a quick Vulcan nerve pinch, and saves the day…but not himself.

Spock is a mirror of sorts to Kirk as well; stoic and certain, he’s the stable center around which Kirk spins. There are moments when we see that Spock has picked up some of Kirk’s best qualities, but until Spock demonstrates how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one), we don’t see Kirk reciprocating. In the end, Kirk is left behind to learn the difficult lesson of his friend’s noble task. James Tiberius spends the film avoiding death; in the end, death is shoved into his face. His friend’s demise somehow pushes him forward, and in spite of his age and his inevitable end, he feels…young.

The original Enterprise crew appeared in four more films following Star Trek II. But the Trek films have never again found that perfect mix of tone, characterization and action they achieved in Wrath of Khan. It’s a meditation on mortality, a taut battle against insurmountable odds, and an adventure with a brain as well as a pulse—in short, Trek’s finest voyage.

photo credit: Mick Rock

Richard Barone has been many things over the course of his now-thirty year music career: singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, arranger, concert director, teacher, author and frontman, both with Hoboken legends the Bongos and as a solo performer. Yet his enthusiasm and unabashed love of music in all forms is as youthful, energetic and joyful as any teen being exposed to new sounds for the first time; a man who counts and shares his blessings at being able to do what he loves most (and have it sustain him for his livelihood).

When we met up for lunch at the Village Inn in the west Village on a rainy Saturday, it was no less than a pleasure and an education to speak at length with someone whose music has been a part of me for as long as he’s been releasing records. Here’s some of what we talked about that afternoon…

Let’s talk about old and new. What are you currently working on?

Well, I’m always thinking about what my next album is – I’ve always been that way. The minute that this album – the Cool Blue Halo 25^th Anniversary concert came out – the second it was mixed – I was thinking about my next studio album; you know, what I’m going to do. So that’s always going.

If I have a multi-track life – I think I do – I think everybody does – but I know I do (laughing) – one of the tracks is always the next album. That’s always rolling; that’s always on maybe track 1 or maybe track 24; I don’t know which one – but on one of the tracks is the next album project and the next studio album project. But then I do work with a lot of other artists and have done many which, I’m sure you know – like Fred Schneider, Quincy Jones’ daughter Jolie Jones, Rolan Bolan, Johnny Rodgers, Deni Bonet… And right now I’ve got a couple of albums in the works.

They’re each complex in a different way. One is an artist named Tracy Stark; she’s a songwriter and she’s also a musical director for a lot of different artists who are not necessarily musical artists or if they are, don’t play an instrument – Tracy does their musical direction. Like for example, she does Lesley Gore; she works with the actress Karen Black; those are two artists she works with. Another one is Randy Jones of the Village People; she works with him. Now these are awesome artists in their own way, but they need a musical director, and she’s theirs. And because of that, she has access to a lot of interesting, eclectic artists that she works with, so… I produced an album for her in 2005 called A Feast For The Heart. It’s sort of in the cabaret vein; it’s that kind of style of music – a slight hint of jazz, but it’s not really a rock album, per se. It’s that singer-songwriter – it’s Carole King meets Liza or something; Carole King meets someone on the Broadway stage. To me, it’s really fun.

On the second album we’re doing now, she didn’t want to sing much – at all. She wanted other artists to interpret her songs, which is unusual for a singer-songwriter, you know? She said, “I don’t really want to sing on this one.” So we’ve been putting together a sort-of cast of characters to sing her songs and so far it’s been, I think, a really impressive roster – Nona Hendryx, Lesley Gore, Ann Hampton Callaway who I love from the cabaret world and Jane Monheit, a jazz singer; again, Randy Jones and the list kind of goes on and it’s quite an eclectic array of singers doing a Tracy song. Each one requires a whole different kind of production style because it’s a different kind of singer. So I’m right in the middle of producing her album and we’re almost done now; we were just in the studio last night until maybe 4 a.m. working on a couple of tracks for that, including Karen Black’s track, which is called “My Greatest Nightmare.” See – in other words, the singers on this album are cast as actors to portray the songs. So that’s one of my projects right now; it’s orchestrated – beautiful musicians – strings where needed and you know, of course I love all that stuff so… It’s a real production.

The other project I have in the studio is one of my former NYU students who just graduated from the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and his name is Chris Duggan. Even though the album may have a band name, the primary artist is Chris. As we know, sometimes there are bands that are really driven by the one lead songwriter, you know, so Chris’ album is his album, really, but it may have a band name. But it’s great; he’s 22 or so and it’s a really nice mix of – he’s very, very well versed in pop rock of all the ages; of all the decades, but it’s very modern sounding, too, which is what I love is when you can combine all the modern elements that we like; the right synths, the right crunchy guitars, the right crunchy snare, but in a structure that’s really classic pop-rock. Classic Badfinger but also with Ke$ha’s snare drum; it’s modern and it really snaps. But it’s cool songs; good hooks.

Do see yourself now more as a producer more than you did before?

No, I’ve always considered myself as much as a producer as an artist. Remember that when I still lived in Tampa, I was mostly producing with my band. You know, there were no clubs to really play at that were cool. We had a band called the Snails. We were doing a combination of Velvet Underground songs, Sparks, occasional Captain Beefheart, believe it or not, in Tampa. Early Beatles, you know – this was our repertoire and where would we play in Tampa where the dominant sound was country rock. Where the Allman Brothers and The Outlaws were the bands that we were dealing with down there – where were we going to play? So I did a lot of production work.

That’s why when I produced Tiny Tim at age 16, I was in the studio all the time, trying to make recordings with my band the Snails, so when Tiny Tim came through town it was like “hey, we’ll make an album; we’re in the studio tomorrow- why don’t you come?” and he said yes; he liked us and I was able to bring him into the studio and we recorded the album that finally came out in 2009 on Collector’s Choice called I’ve Never Seen A Straight Banana. But that’s because I was producing a lot. I’ve always seen myself as a producer.

The only times I haven’t done more was if I was on the road 300 shows a year with the Bongos. When I lived in Hoboken, I produced Beat Rodeo; a group called the Phosphenes for the Coyote label at that time; a group called In Color, with Nick Celeste, who is still singing with me… Natalie McDonald who was the awesome president of the T. Rex fan club and had the “T. Rex Electric Warrior Free Press” fanzine – then ran the Bongos’ fan club; I met when we were like 14 years old and I used to write to her; she lived in Hackensack, New Jersey. I always was with someone in the studio in varying degrees of fame. Now I happen to producing people who are well known – like Pete Seeger’s current single I produced, or I worked recently with Liza Minnelli. Lately, it’s been a lot; as you know, I’m in the studio almost every night with someone.

So would it be a fair thing to say then it’s a very nice and healthy balance between the performer and the producer?

I like to say it’s 50 – 50. When Pete Seeger asked me to produce this single for him – I did it with Matthew Billy – we collaborate a lot on these recordings – Pete said, “how much of a percentage of your work is production and how much is performance?” and he was very interested in that; Pete is very interested in everything about everybody he works with. And I said, “Pete, it’s about 50 – 50.” And I think that’s about fair to say. And I see myself as 50% a producer and 50% a performer. And it’s not just producing recordings; I like producing concerts…

Talk about that, then. You have something coming up…

I’ll be able to tell you more about that once it’s been announced, but it will be similar to the tributes I produced to Peggy Lee in 2004, 2005, at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and in Chicago at the Ravinia Festival. Those were quite big shows. With eighteen different singers, ranging from Rita Moreno and Bea Arthur to Debbie Harry and Nancy Sinatra; a crazy variety of singers and different styles. And I would do something similar with this project.

Let’s go over to your teaching at NYU. Talk about that for a minute, if you don’t mind.

I don’t mind at all.

It would seem that you’re able to go from one skin to the other: from performer to producer to arranger and concert director to teacher.

Yes. You know, it’s all the same to me. That’s why it’s hard for me to say “am I a producer or am I a performer” and then adding to that “am I a teacher, or am I a concert director” – I think about it as producer, but yeah, it really is directing. I think of it as basically the same thing. It’s not different for me when I’m working in one aspect of this work or another; it’s really the same. When I’m in the studio, it’s very much like my class; we discuss things the same way in the studio, you know, “how about we try this?” It’s about experimenting with music; about seeing what works – it’s all a thinking process. I see it as the same process, really.

With the students, I just have to sometimes have to remember that they don’t have the same history that I do, so sometimes I have to elaborate a little more. That’s the only difference. I might have to explain Ziggy Stardust, if we talk about alter egos; I might have to explain a little bit about David Bowie. I may have to send them a video clip or two so they can understand that you can have, as a performer, a persona. And you can play with that persona and you can change that persona because you’re on stage and that’s what a stage is. And my class is called “Stage Presence,” so that’s the class. Right now we’re doing alter egos; I no longer call them by their real names for two weeks! I’m using only their alter ego names. The conversations are very similar – when I’m talking to the class, it’s like talking to my collaborators in the studio. It’s just that the only thing added to that is knowing that I have to add a little history to it. So my class has a good amount of history. But otherwise I see it as the same process. When I stage a show like the Peggy Lee tribute or hopefully the “other project” later this year, it’s really similar to me putting my own show together, just specifically, it’s not about me; it’s about them. That’s all; that’s the only shift. But it’s still about putting the show together – a good show – where it all connects and that it pops.

Speaking of your class, Frontman is the required text.

The only textbook I use is Frontman, that’s correct, yeah.

…which to me is one of the finest – and I say this in absolute seriousness – autobiographies written by anyone. Talk about being honest and heartfelt, very warm and very positive, which you don’t frequently get in autobiographies because everyone is always out to strip away the myths and so on and so forth…

Thank you!

… but have you gone back and read it just as a “reader”?

No! No, I have not.

Do you see yourself writing another book?

Yes, I do! It’s been suggested to me to add a couple of chapters to Frontman, because I was going to write a new book. I have a title – but someone suggested – I may do this – is to have an addendum to Frontman, which brings it a little more – ‘cause that came out in 2007 and since then, I’ve done a lot of different things. I mean there’s a whole chapter that could be about the Pete Seeger project for me. And the teaching. So someone has recommended to me instead of doing a whole new book, why not add two chapters to Frontman, so I’m thinking about that, but I do have another book in me and I would like to write a true textbook for my class and call it “Stage Presence.” I would still like to use Frontman in the class, but I think there could be a textbook that takes it week by week – it’s a 14 week course and I think there could be a 14 chapter book called “Stage Presence.”

If somebody else had the idea to do this kind of class in other universities, it seems to me that Frontman would have to be used as part of that quintessential reading because it is – as someone who is older – wishes he had that kind of guidebook, you know?

Thank you. It’s written for someone in their 20’s; it’s really written as a sort-of help; like “okay, look, this is what happened to me” (laughing). “And if I can help you, let me.”

But the beauty of your book is – I have to say (laughing) – there are no violent deaths or lawsuits… (both laugh) It’s a wonderful, positive story and it shows you can maintain your sanity and your dignity and your musical integrity all rolled into one, so having said that…

Thank you for saying that.

…let’s talk about Cool Blue Halo 25, which was a momentous occasion. It was a great night of music; it was a celebration on every possible level… Where was the seed planted to revisit it and have everybody come back and re-do this…

It was a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t my idea. There’s a gentleman, who at the time that he asked me to do this, was the head of the Country Music Network, CMT, and he had also been the president, I believe, if that was the right title, at Yahoo Music – he was the head of Yahoo Music. His name is Jay Frank. I love Jay. Now he’s a fan of the Cool Blue Halo album and loved it. And he’d been in touch with me, I think via Facebook, a few years ago, about the album – asking me about it. And of course I was happy to talk about it with him.

Then fast forward – a little bit – to SXSW in 2010, where I was performing, promoting the Glow album. And I was performing there with Alejandro Escovedo, who I perform with a lot; I love working with Alejandro. And when I got backstage, Jay Frank was there to introduce himself to me. He asked me what I was doing for the 25^th anniversary of Cool Blue Halo, which was coming up in 2012. And I absolutely was – for one thing – stunned that it had been 25 years because I don’t really keep track of time; I don’t really look at my watch that much (both burst into laughter); let me put it that way. And as you know from Frontman, one of my favorite quotes from that book is “time is a myth.” So I don’t really say “well, that was 20 years ago or 25 years ago” – I don’t really think about it that way. If I did, it would be – it sometimes would scare me how much time passes because time does pass quickly.

So I hadn’t dwelled on that it was 25 years and I hadn’t really thought about celebrating the birthday of an album. But it was a beautiful question. “So what are you going to do to celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of Cool Blue Halo?” – that’s exactly what he said to me. And I was silent for a moment – which is unlike me – and I thought, “I don’t know. What do you have in mind?” and he says he had the idea and told me about recreating it now, in a venue in New York, with the original players. That was the genesis of it. I loved the idea; I love the players. I still work with Nick Celeste and I always have; and Jane Scarpantoni on cello – after the original album – we toured for at least two years together on just that album… And then we toured when Primal Dream came out; my next album in 1990.

But after that, so many people wanted her to play with them, mostly – to be honest – contacting me to get her phone number and it was quite okay, I gave them her phone number. But because of that – because of my generosity of giving her phone number out (laughing) – I hardly worked with her anymore because she was always out on the road. She was on the road with Lou Reed, Bob Mould, with the Indigo Girls, with – you name it, she was on the road with them. Really – literally – you name it. She wasn’t around, so I worked with different players; other cello players. I hadn’t really been reunited with her until I played Carnegie Hall in 2008 with the Frontman show. So I thought well, that’ll be cool to get Jane back and Valerie, who’s been a percussionist on SNL on television every Saturday night for the last 18 years and was the musical director or one of the musical directors of The Lion King on Broadway; she got really locked into that world and I couldn’t tour much with her, either. So how cool to bring those two girls back with Nick and me and do the show. And then I thought, well what about Tony Visconti who’d just produced my new album, on bass on “The Man Who Sold The World,” because he played on the original Bowie version and produced it. And what about some great improvisational keyboard player? Because we really didn’t have many keyboards on Cool Blue Halo. And I thought “what about Garth Hudson? Would he do it?”

photo credit: Mick Rock

That’s an inspired choice.

It’s like “Garth Hudson – how awesome.” You know, I remember watching – I always loved the Band; they transcended everything and I remember watching him in The Last Waltz and thinking “gee, it would be so cool – he uses all every single key on the keyboard.” So I thought that would be cool. I called Garth; I mean everyone said “yes” – we had that huge band together. And then Rob Norris from the Bongos on bass on the songs Tony did not play on, and Richard Kerris on the drumkit which we never used on Cool Blue Halo. But by expanding the show to the additional songs after I’d done Cool Blue Halo – we had a lot of material to work with. And Richard Kerris has been an interesting character; he’s a genius – he was at Apple Computers and almost every technology company you can think of in the last 20 years but also I played at his high school; the earliest Bongos show I think was played at Richard Kerris’ high school and we’ve been friends ever since and to have him come down and play drums on this was a real cool thing.

You know, it just all came together and it was a thrill – it wasn’t really my idea but I did roll with it and run with it. I brought Matthew Billy, who I’ve been working with a lot to produce the album. I didn’t want to produce it – I just wanted to play; I just wanted to play and sing. And I think it’s my best album. In many ways, I think this 25^th Anniversary of Cool Blue Halo – a lot of it comes together for me on this album. Material-wise it covers pretty much my whole life of music because we added those extra songs; and then performance-wise – I think – I sing them with more meaning. When I wrote the original Cool Blue Halo songs, I hadn’t really experienced half the stuff I was singing about. I mean the kind of love affairs that are alluded to on Cool Blue Halo had not really occurred for me yet. The “Tangled in Your Web” character had not happened yet. “I Belong to Me,” when I first sang it, was really about my independence from the Bongos. When I sing it now, it’s about independence from…everything.

photo credit: Mick Rock

It’s a recurring theme; it’s a great, personal theme song.

Thank you – and you see how the theme changes. At the time “I Belong to Me” was “I love you but I’ve got to go on my own” and now “I love you but I’ve got to go on my own” is not necessarily about leaving the band. So now, every song now has a different and more layered meaning. Because of that – it’s my favorite album I’ve ever made.

Having been at that show – and coming from the audience perspective – I can tell you that it was one of the most passionate performances I’ve ever seen anybody – and I’m talking about anybody – ever do. And I think that showed right there the sheer beauty of the songs and the way you deliver them to the audience. You made a room that’s fairly sizeable very small and very intimate…

Thank you – thank you…

…Cool Blue Halo itself is a very warm album – the original version. This one’s even warmer.

It is warmer.

You know, there is such a sense of personal – and anyone who was there – I am more than sure – or who has since gotten the album version of it – has realized that these songs definitely speak to us as individuals; it’s not just the performer to the audience. That these songs all do have a great deal of meaning and if we had them when they first came out and now we’ve lived a life since it first came out, there’s even greater meaning and depth. And that I think that’s one of the greatest strengths of this record – plus, it’s a hell of a lot of fun! (both laughing)

It is fun! It’s a really fun record. As serious as it gets, it’s a real fun album, I think.

And of course, you had to be there to see the look on everyone’s faces…

But it’s on the concert film!…

…which of course, people have to get this; you have to add this to the collection!

Thank you.

And that’s not just a plug, mind you; that’s coming from somebody who’s been there. You see the joy in everyone’s faces and there’s really no way to put that into words properly, you know? The connection is there; the band is having fun – the audience is having fun and everybody’s enjoying it. And that is the power of not only a great performance but great, timeless music.

Thank you.

To go back and hear Cool Blue Halo - the original, which sounds just indescribable now; it sounds so – there’s just such a greater power to it.

Thank you! We worked really hard on the re-mastering. It was a major re-mastering process.

Talk about that for a bit because the original version that I have on CD, and it was hard to get those Passport CD’s since they were out very briefly – it’s very thin sounding, unfortunately.

Yeah, that was the analog-to-digital converters we had back in 1987, which were inferior. And that was mastered by a great mastering engineer, Greg Calbi, originally. So there’s no discredit to him – we did the best we could with what we were able to do but that was a fairly early CD. That album was mixed for vinyl, really. There are album copies and there are cassette copies – that came out on three formats. When you mixed for vinyl, there are certain things that you did; knowing that there was surface noise; there was potential for skips… There were things that we did for vinyl mixing that are much different than we do for digital reproduction.

I had to restrain some of the drums – we didn’t; I mean the engineer, Greg Calbi, had to restrain some of the tympani hits on the original because he was afraid that sound would cause a skip; that her drums were so loud at certain spots on the original recording; that’s one thing. Secondly, the cello was the bass on that record. I was never able to really get it to have the low end I wanted on the original on the vinyl or early CD versions for some reason. Thirdly, when it was transferred from tape to digital code to make a CD, the converters that converted that from one to the other were not as refined as we have now.

There were major shifts in the late ‘90’s and early 2000’s – major, major, major shifts where they captured more sound quality elements than the early CD converters did. Early CD’s in general don’t sound that good. Listen to the early – the first Beatles CDs – they’re very thin; they sound nothing like the vinyl and it gave people a bad feeling – “okay, a CD is not as good as vinyl” because the conversion process was not very good. Well – since then, whatever company that – I keep thinking it was Apogee, started creating very high end converters where you could transfer analog to digital and it didn’t lose anything – or very little. Or less – much less, let’s say. And now we have those.

So now of course when we transfer – for one thing, I got the original tapes back; they were in my house anyway so it was no big deal – I have all my master tapes. So in my library of tapes, I pulled out the original tape of Cool Blue Halo, the ½ inch analog tape, which I put in my backpack in 1987, when I left the studio, okay; I always take my tapes home. We found that the tapes didn’t play. This is in the documentary, though – you can watch this happen in real time in the documentary that comes with the album – we put the tape on; we tested it – we put “Numbers With Wings” on and as soon as we put it on, it went “rrrrrrrrrrr” (slowing down noise) and stops because the tape becomes gummy – I’ll explain why in a second – the tape had become gummy and would not play against the tape heads – it just slowed it down into this complete grinding stop. The reason – and I promised you I would tell you (both laughing) – is because in the ’80’s, the tape company we used, Ampex, was using a tapestock that was environmentally-friendly but didn’t have certain elements in it, because of that, which preserved it. This was only a certain little window of time in the ‘80’s when this was made. It was like environmentally-correct audio tape that destroyed within seven years.

So… we didn’t know what to do – nobody knew what to do at first when this was happening – when they were trying to re-master whatever ‘80’s artists – when they would try to re-master 400 albums to make CDs, they found that none of them played. So they wrote to Ampex and said “what do we do? Your tapes are shit; they don’t work.” and Ampex had to scamper to come up with an idea like “how do we save these tapes” and they found that putting them in a convection oven at 180 degrees for a certain number of hours, they would dry enough so the gumminess would go away and you could play the tapes for a short window of time. And so we had to do that with these tapes. Following that instruction, we baked them in a convection oven; they were removed from the oven – it looks like – they’re on a cookie tray; looks like a cookie tray – you pull them out and put them on the machine when they cool – and they played perfectly. Not only perfectly, but sounding fantastic.

How long was your window of time to get them transferred?

You’re supposed to do it within 12 hours of doing that, you’re supposed to play it within 12 hours; they tell me that it lasts longer than that. But we were pretty quick; the next day – we let it cool and the next day we mastered and transferred everything to digital and it sounded fantastic; I mean really fat. ‘Cause that’s how that record was originally meant to sound. Like the cello is meant to be boomingly fat. And the drums – all the stuff that we wanted – now we could do.

Case and point – “Cry Baby Cry” – the cello comes in – you get shivers…

Oh yeah…

…it goes right into you.

It’s beautiful; it’s really beautiful. That’s how I heard it in the studio – we used Unique Studios in Times Square in ’87 on a weekend – on the 4^th of July weekend in 1987, when we were mixing Cool Blue Halo. I only had two days to mix it; side one one day and side two the next day. This was on an indie label called Passport; they didn’t have the budget for me to go in for my usual months (laughing) to the studio. So they gave us – we recorded the album in one night and I had two days to go mix it. It was the 4^th of July weekend and Madonna was in the other room, cranking out some hit and I was in the other room doing Cool Blue Halo. And this is how it sounded to me there and I had not heard that since then, so it was a real thrill to get the same sound – and now to be able to share that with the people who buy the album to hear it the way I heard it in the studio, you know?

Well, congratulations on both.

Thank you.

The first one was a masterpiece. It’s an absolute – what you could consider a modern classic…

Thank you.

…but the new one is such a wonderful counterpiece to it. You know, it’s the perfect pair of bookends.

Thanks – I feel that. I feel that they are kind of like my bookends. I love that it’s the same material; I didn’t think I would like that – it’s like a study in a person, in a way. You know – somewhere in the middle is me as a person. Somewhere between Cool Blue Halo 1 and 2 is a life.

And quite a storied musical career with some amazing, amazing pieces of music. It’s always struck me that the way you’ve always approached it is you might look back a little bit to see where you had just been to get to that next point. But it’s always been a progression, going up and up and up. Do you see it that way at all? You look back from Clouds Over Eden, you look over your shoulder at Primal Dream – you know, “okay, I was there so now I’m going here”…

Yeah, that’s exactly how – I always thought of Cool Blue Halo, Primal Dream and Clouds Over Eden as definitely three steps. It’s almost like Cool Blue Halo is an adolescence; a post-teenage exploration of emotions (laughs)…

The journey starts there.

And then Primal Dream – the key word is not “primal” but “prime”; and I thought of it as a boy or man – reaching his mid-20s, kind of what’s considered a prime. I don’t believe in that now because I think a prime could be at any time of your life. But at the time I was thinking something like reaching a maturity. Let’s put it that way – reaching a maturity on Primal Dream.

And on Clouds Over Eden, it was a look at what had been lost. That album was really, truly about the loss of two men in my life; my father and my best friend, Nicholas Schaffner, who had just recently died and was a real shock to me. And that album is about loss; it’s about dealing with loss. And it’s about growing up. If you look back on those songs; even “Miss Jean” is a real person and somebody who I grew up with… “Within These Walls” – that was written on the walls of the hospital, when I’d go visit Nicholas in the hospital. There was a cornerstone at the hospital that said, “within these walls are the helpers of mankind”; it was from a phrase at the hospital when I’d visit him everyday. You know, that’s a “real” album; that’s like the real deal. And there was no denying the growth that was happening to me because I had to realize my losses on Clouds Over Eden.

The trick about that album is that I didn’t want it to be a sad album. I wanted to accept that; I wanted to be able to accept all those changes. But yeah, in answer to your question; I’m sorry to be long-winded on that one but the answer is yes, Cool Blue Halo, Primal Dream and Clouds Over Eden were a trilogy that I couldn’t really follow up for many years. I couldn’t continue; I had to stop after that one. The only thing that came out for a long time was the Between Heaven and Cello CD, only Europe, which was just Jane Scarpantoni and me performing mostly at Fez in New York, which was a club at the time. And that album was made – it’s a live album – and it was really made for the Germany/Austria/Switzerland market because I was doing a tour there. But I didn’t do a studio album after Clouds Over Eden until 2010, when I made Glow.

But I had made a mini-full circle on my trilogy that I just described. It was very hard for me to say anything after Clouds Over Eden. Also, it was an emotional process to make that album because my losses were happening as I was recording. Those two main losses and the looking back was all happening in real time. So that album took a lot out of me to make and I couldn’t go back in the studio for a while. That’s when I really started producing again. I was really happy to get in the studio and work with other people’s torture (laughing). I’d had enough torture for the moment; I was really happy to go in and make an album with Johnny Rogers; I love working with him – we made an album called Box of Photographs; you know, very different types of albums; each different. I made an album with Jenni Muldaur; she’s great – she’s the daughter of Geoff and Maria Muldaur – we did a great little album called Angry Elves; that was her punk band at the time. It was a sort-of under the radar kind of indie record but I loved it. I worked with this guy called Lach, who sort-of created the anti-folk scene. We did three albums with Lach; really rough acoustic punk; I love it. You know, one after the other. I worked with so many artists during that period but not my own music until 2010.

And then Glow comes out and it’s an unbelievably upbeat, light…

Right, well, that’s the exact…

It almost continues the theme even though there’s this span of time…

Yes, I know, I know…

Suddenly it’s a case of “I’ve been through the sadness; I’ve seen the darker side of things and I’m here to say it’s alright.”

…there’s a glow.

“Glow” is a theme song.

Thank you. “Glow” is one of my favorites that I’ve ever done. The whole album. For one thing, I’ve always wanted to work with Tony Visconti ever since I was about 13 years old, maybe 12, when I would see his name on the T. Rex records that I loved. And his name sounded Italian to me and had me thinking “you don’t have to be English to be a producer” (laughing). “You don’t have to be from England! You can be Italian from Brooklyn!” And I loved Tony’s work so much – from Badfinger on – he worked with all the artists I loved, so what a thrill to meet him, work with him, write songs with him – we’ve worked together for many years. Glow came out in 2010 but we really started it before. We were collecting those songs one by one over a period of five years or so. Four years, maybe? A long time. And we put them all together to make Glow.

And, again, yes, the theme is about light. You know, its glow. You know, it’s “hey, if you let the darkness go, everything glows.” That came to me when I was walking to the studio one day – not working myself but with Johnny Rogers, I think – I was walking to the studio and that whole song wrote itself while I was walking. I’d gotten to the studio and I’d just gotten my new Les Paul digital guitar and I was at Shelter Island Sound where I do a lot of recording and I told Steve “before Johnny gets here, I gotta record this song really fast!” and I wasn’t with Tony that day because I was just going to do another session. So we laid down just the guitar for “Glow” and I sang it. And that was the basic track we used for “Glow.” I’d just written it; I didn’t even have a bridge – I made up the bridge on the spot – the “you’re not alone, you’re not alone” – that just came to me when we were doing the track. I was trying to hurry and get a song down before my artist got there!

That seems to happen with you a lot, though. You have that wonderful luck that the songs write themselves.

You know what – because they usually simmer for a little while before I record; they usually simmer in different ways. Like that song was simmering while I was walking and then I got in there and I had the pressure of the red light coming on to record; I wrote the bridge on the spot; I remember Steve – the engineer, Steve Addabo – said “where did that come from” and I said “I have no idea.” But we kept it – and I think I kept that vocal. It was the main vocal on that song. And that was done just walking in off the street. In fact, I called him while I was walking, on my iPhone – I said “Steve, I’ve got a song. Get the mikes set up; I wanna walk in and record it. I wanna just record it really fast because then Johnny’s gonna get here and we’ve gotta start making this album so I gotta get this done before I start the next thing.” (laughs) And that’s how quickly I wrote “Glow.” And I plugged in my guitar – and that’s the guitar track – where every string goes to its own channel. And then I doubled it. So there are 12 tracks of guitars and each string was on its own track. I finished that at Skywalker Sound.

I had the original Skywalker mix…

Yeah, yeah, yeah! We refined it a little bit because I did it so quickly. So on the album version, I may have refined it a little bit or done an alternate mix. But it’s basically what I just described to you. It came out of the guitar to a click track and then we went to Skywalker and did the rest.

Again, it starts with the whole youthful theme, too. It’s one set album about growing up – it starts with “Gravity’s Pull”…

Yeah! That’s right! Yes!

“I can fly”… And then comes “Glow” and…

I know! Yes!

…okay, here’s the peace; here’s the joy – I can go forward…

Yes! That’s what that album’s about. I’m so glad; I’m really happy you’re saying that, because that’s exactly what it’s about.

I saw enough of the shows between, I guess, 2004 up until the release, and I could see the progression of the album happening, and it was beautiful.

You could see it because I didn’t just do it all in one day; because I was working with other artists and producing in 2003, 2004 and 2005 I was doing those big shows – the Peggy Lee tributes; those were huge. So I kind of had to squeeze in and record and it really wasn’t every day. And then Tony really got so hot again as a producer; when we first started working together, he had a little more time. You know, I’d go to his house; we’d hang out and write songs – it was so leisurely. But then for both of us, it got super-busy. I started producing that show at the Hollywood Bowl, which was so huge and then he was doing Morrissey’s album – you know, he was still secretly working with Bowie whenever they could. And he did one album after the other. Two albums for Alejandro; Tony is so prolific. Tony Visconti’s a miracle man – I can’t think of any other producer who’s been so prolific and so relevant with such current artists for so long. ‘Cause you know he started in 1968! Or ’67. Or before that, even! Because he produced the Badfinger stuff in ’68…

Did he produce them when they were The Iveys?

Yeah! And some of those tracks are on the first Badfinger album. And he worked with Joe Cocker on “With A Little Help From My Friends” – what year was that? I think he mixed that!

’69? Did he produce the first Tyrannosaurus Rex albums?

All the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums; all those until – through Zinc Alloy. He co-produced Zinc Alloy with Marc. So yeah, all the Tyrannosaurus Rex. He discovered them; he signed them. And of course, almost all the Bowie records, really. So I can’t think of any other producer. I mean, I want to say George Martin is the one who’s noted and I really think is the greatest pop producer in some ways. I think Tony has – I don’t want to ever say surpassed because I know what high regard Tony holds George Martin. So I won’t compare the two. But I will say that Tony has remained relevant for far longer than anyone I could think of as a producer.

George Martin is now retired, Arif Mardin is now deceased…

They’re all retired. Retired or gone. Tony’s still cranking amazing music out – he’s in the studio today in London. He does not stop and it’s such an inspiration to me. He’s so great and he’s so cool… Anyway – what a thrill to write the songs on Glow with him, as well as have him produce them. All the songs he produced on that, except “Girl,” which was a T. Rex song, which I insisted we do because I was at his house one day when the master tapes of Electric Warrior arrived for him to do a 5.1 surround mix. We put the tapes on; I said “Tony – this sounds amazing – we have to record one of these songs” and the one that we picked was “Girl” because on the original, it was just Marc and an acoustic guitar and a flugelhorn. So we wanted to make one – we said “what about if we put drums on it?” and we did our own version with the beat.

I hope you don’t mind my saying this but when I heard your version, I said “this has a very E.L.O. kind of production.”

Oh, that’s interesting! On “Girl”?

Yeah, when it kind of stops and the effects come in…

That was done – we had mellotrons – and it’s funny you mentioned of E.L.O.; that’s not who we were thinking of (laughing). We were thinking of – the track we were listening to that day was the band Air – do you know them, the French group?

Indeed.

We were listening to Air and some of the beats are from that feel… that chill kind of feel. (imitates laid back drum sound). It was a very chill kind of beat we were listening to. It wasn’t E.L.O. But I did love E.L.O. Tony and I both did songs on the E.L.O. tribute album.

You did that great version of “Showdown”…

Thank you! I love that – I love the way that came out. It was a real cool combination of players on that… Lisa Haney on cello; that was really thick harmonies on that one. And then I sang on his – “Mr. Blue Sky”; Tony’s track and I sang the backing vocals.

If I may take a step back into your previous life as a member of a band…

Ah! Oh sure… I forgot about that, yeah.

There are two unreleased albums by the Bongos. Is there any chance of them ever seeing the light of day?

Yeah, there are two of them. Yes, yes. Yeah, I think we’ll do that. The only thing is – is to get back into the… (laughs) all of these journeys are psychological. And it’s getting back into the… head… or the frame of mind we would have been in when those were made to really finish them properly. ‘Cause one of them is not really finished, you know? The record we were making in the Bahamas would require us to go back into the studio and really finish the mixes and finish it. To do it properly – it wouldn’t be just me.

Okay…

It would probably be “okay guys, let’s go back into the studio and let’s finish that album that we started in 1985.” You see what I mean? There’s a psychological aspect to it that I’m not sure we want to face yet. Because it came at the time when the band was really in a very disruptive kind of… path of… breaking up. A path of destruction, you know? And for me, personally, Cool Blue Halo was the healing from that album; the unreleased album. Healing was making Cool Blue Halo for me. So to go back to the actual injury is a psychological trip that none of us have been willing to take yet. However, I think we will.

It was called Phantom Train, which was a very symbolic title. A lot of the lyrics discuss and talk about the idea of things sort of in a state of disarray and disruption. With all that said, I think it was some of our best work. The first song on the new Cool Blue Halo 25^th Anniversary, “My Wildest Dreams” is from that album. I just had to do it somewhere; I mean, I had this song, you know, and I had never played it anywhere! And I notably do it all by myself on that album because I didn’t want to have any of the musicians because I just wanted to go out there and sing that by myself for a particular reason. But I think we will visit it; I just don’t know exactly when; maybe within the year – maybe in ten years! But I think we will do it.

Then there’s a live album – I can’t even tell you the title; it’s so good! It was made for RCA Records but we never put it out because we left RCA. And we ended up owning the tapes and it’s brilliant and I absolutely love it. The band owns the rights to both albums so we can put them out. It’s just a matter of when. The live album captures the Bongos at a, I think, live peak. Even though we play everything so hard and fast, I do think it captures us at a peak in 1985 – same year – both albums were made in the same year – we were performing live at the Jersey Shore, which was one of our wildest audiences you could ever imagine. On Memorial Day weekend, 1985, I’m telling you – this was a legendary night. And I… promise you that. And we captured it on a great 24 track analog recording; same truck that was used to record Cool Blue Halo two years later, which was the Effanel truck, which was fantastic – a rolling recording studio. Everything you could ever want in a recording studio in a truck. And we had it outside the venue, recording this live album.

Someday that will come out. I love it. It’s really – it’s the Bongos’ extreme album, I would say; it’s the most extreme. It’s Bongo to the nth degree; Bongo to the max. It’s like you really get the whole Bongos experience on that live album. Steve Scales – we loved Talking Heads at the time when they did their “Stop Making Sense” movie and Steve Scales who was the conga player from that album – we asked him to play with us on that whole tour so we have so many drums going on – on the live album because it was Steve and Frank on drums. He had congas but he also had all these tom-toms… It was like a wall of drums… The audience went nuts; I’m telling you… I think there was a girl ripping my boots off; like in the front row – I was wearing combat boots – she was actually attacking me; she was ripping them apart while I was wearing them – while I was singing. All of us were being attacked during the making of that album. (both laughing) That’s how rowdy – talk about “Jersey Shore”? Need I say more? I mean really, it was Jersey Shore mania. And I loved it. But that’s the unreleased Bongos albums.

It was a great era for us to have the opportunity to be the Bongos. We were very fortunate; we were signed within a few months of being together – we were signed to the British label, Fetish Records. And I love the records we made with them. And then that label was so gracious to let us move to RCA when we had an offer from them. They didn’t say – you know those nightmare stories – “we own The Bongos” – we had no such restrictions. And we were able to sign to a major label and we took criticism for it but that was idiotic because – just because the “indie” thing was happening – we had done “indie”; we took it as far as we possibly could.

Now some bands, like R.E.M., took it further and I think they did brilliantly with it. But Rob and I had our fill of trying to take care of all the business, put out the records, to take it to the stores, to get it on the radio – we had had our fill of being indie at that moment. We were like pioneers of that. We had started a local scene in Hoboken – I’m sorry to tell you – we started a local scene with Glenn Morrow who now runs Bar/None Records, who then put out Glow. But I mean – another full circle. We did start a scene and we had to keep it going with our own music and it was really hard doing 300 shows a year and trying to do our own marketing and stuff… So when RCA wanted to help us and sign us and pay us – how could we say no? When we were on Fetish Records, we had to run the American division of that label. Rob and I were the ones making sure it worked; that we had the pressings done, that we had the artwork printed at the right place and time – we couldn’t really do it anymore; we weren’t even here, we were on the road. So when a label wanted to do it, we went with that label. Plus, we liked the RCA logo. We wanted to be on a classic label. So I don’t deny it and any “indie” person who criticized us is out of line.

Everyone’s a critic.

Everyone is a critic (laughing). And we were thrilled to be on RCA. We were on the same label as Bowie and Elvis and Lou Reed. It was a great time for us as kids to be signed to a big label like that.

Hey, RCA distributed Colgems and Michael Nesmith’s first solo albums, so…

That’s right! RCA was a cool label – and we knew it wasn’t the hippest label, like Warmer Brothers might have been hipper since they’d signed the B-52’s and they had more New Wave acts than RCA. We still liked RCA; you know in my book I talk about how we had offers from Warner Brothers and RCA. We asked our lawyer at the time and maybe his answer wasn’t correct – we said “which one should we sign with?” and he said “really guys, just flip a coin.” And we flipped a coin and Warner Brothers won, so we signed with RCA.

I’m going to ask you a very pedestrian question…

Ah!

What does Richard Barone, the person, listen to nowadays – just for the sake of listening?

I listen to a lot of things – and it covers – I don’t really listen to one era. I really do like to jump around a lot. The other night I was up until – I don’t have to tell you – I stay up at night a lot and Matthew and I listen to a lot of music together – he’s an engineer – and we like to listen to how records are made. It’s like stream-of-consciousness listening. He’s at Sony Records now and he gets everything before it comes out. And then we might switch on the top-40 radio station or search randomly on Spotify. Then we’ll be jumping back to the Traveling Wilburys. And I just posted that on my Facebook page today because I listened to it and thought “what a beautiful Jeff Lynne production on “Handle With Care.” What a beautiful sound that is.” At the time, I liked and appreciate who was in it – and I loved Roy Orbison – and that led to an entire evening of listening to Roy Orbison records. Or songs that were covered – you know, “let’s listen to the other versions of “Love Hurts.” And then it’s the Everly Brothers. So I like stream-of-consciousness listening.

I do this for a few reasons – one is because I enjoy it. I like to listen for enjoyment, still. But also, it’s educational for me. It’s easier for me if I listen in this way because if you ask me what I listen to, for me to say one thing would be a lie because I listen to everything and secondly, by listening in this sort of way, one listen leads to another. I was up until 11 in the morning listening to records, by the way, non-stop – without the aid of drugs (grinning and trying not to laugh, but failing) – and went into the studio that day to record something… later that day. I like to listen to music that way to find a way for my own music and productions to not be beholden to any one particular era or style.

So I tend to balance my listening – like I’ll listen to the Elvis “Sun Sessions” and then I’ll listen to Pink. I like to make the connections in pop music between old and new. And maybe have a laugh at some of the ones if they don’t quite nail it. But often, I like what people are doing. Like Lady Gaga. I like “Poker Face” by her. I heard that one in a cab – the guy was going 100 miles an hour – I thought “why are you killing me?” – and “Poker Face” came on; it was like a magical New York night for some reason. We’re plowing through the city, hitting every green light and the guy’s going really fast and I was thinking “how did they get that drum sound and why is it so dry and how is this so crunchy?” I’d heard something new and I thought “whoever this is is going to be huge” and again, I was with Matthew that night and I was said “I don’t know who this artist is; I’ve never heard this before, but this is the next big thing.”

So it’s your fault, in other words.

Yeah. But she’s a student from NYU so of course, I support her. But I will say I’m not necessarily a big fan; I do like certain things – I do like that record, I thought that’s a really crunchy record. And I like pop music that can grab me in that way. I like to be surprised by pop; I like to have some surprises in it.

I really love a great hook; I’m truly a sucker for a great hook on a record – I just love it. I don’t know what style it’s gonna be; when it has a chorus that grabs me, I’m just down with it. So when I listen to music, I usually jump around decades – I really have respect for the classics. I have a deep, maybe overriding, maybe a more than necessary respect for classic power pop. But… I try to be open so that I can blend some other things in there so that whatever I do now doesn’t try to sound imitative.

So like with artists I’m producing – as I was saying with Chris Duggan – as much as I will play “No Matter What” for him, I make sure the drum sounds are really pretty cutting edge/contemporary because I want it to be able to be on the radio. And I want radio stations, when they get this track, when we put it out – he’s that kind of artist; he’s a contemporary artist – I want to make sure he has every chance to get on the radio. But with that said, we do it in ways which are unique and classic and I’m very happy with that. That’s why I listen to such a variety of music all the time. I rarely get too stuck in one era. Even though lately I’ve been listening to Sinatra, you may know from my Facebook post, I got a new turntable last week that has an iPhone dock on it (both start laughing)… I know – the turntable has an iPhone dock on it – I can rip vinyl right to my phone – without any…

Wooooooooow…

Yeah, you slam it on there and you can put it on your phone. So because of that, I’ve been digging up some old vinyl – I have at least 3000 albums in my apartment – vinyl albums – not to mention singles. And one of the albums I pulled out was Sinatra doing the songs of Jobim – he does “The Girl From Ipanema” and on vinyl it’s so beautiful, really great. And I love getting into that kind of stuff, where you had really amazing arrangers like Nelson Riddle – I love records with symphonic string arrangements – I love symphonic pop, let’s put it that way. So I love hearing on vinyl, especially, records with a full string section. Whenever I can; whenever I have the budget for a record, I love to have a nice, big string section on there, you know what I mean? So that’s what I like to listen to. In a nutshell – by my standards – that’s what I listen to: everything.

Apart from my incredible gratitude for everything, my last question will be another pedestrian one… what next? For your next studio album…

I’m really excited about my next studio album. It’s been on my mind ever since we wrapped up the final mixes of the Cool Blue Halo 25^th Anniversary. I think I’m going to do a little bit of traveling; I may do some recording in Europe – I don’t think I’m going to do the whole album in the United States. I’d like to do some things in Sweden; maybe go back to England – I haven’t recorded in England in a long time. In fact, one of the unreleased tracks from Clouds Over Eden was mixed in London – that ended up on my Collection – An Embarrassment Of Richard album – “Don’t Open ‘Til Doomsday” – I don’t know if you know that track.

You very kindly gave me a copy of the CD at Joe’s Pub, yes. (both laughing)

Oh, good, good. That track was the last time I mixed in London. I’d like to go back and do some work there because there’s a different mentality in different countries in how you mix and how the studios sound; even though I already have some tracks recorded. Three tracks I did with Tony Visconti that were outtakes from Glow that I’d like to include on my next album because they were not really outtakes; they were just not in the theme of Glow.

Would “Guru” be one of them?

“Guru” was with Steve Rosenthal. And I love that one, so that could also be on the album. I have some great tracks. And again – because the way I listen to music and the way I see it, they don’t sound like they’d been done at any particular time. I’d like to add them as bonus tracks on my next album. There’s at least three or four that didn’t make it to Glow that should make it somewhere and I want to put those on the next album.

Maybe do a Glow Deluxe…

I thought about the Glow Deluxe but the theme of Glow is so self-contained.

Mmmmm, that makes sense.

They were Glenn Morrow’s suggestions – this was not just me, this was the label – Glenn picked the songs for Glow. And the reason is exactly what you talked about – those were the theme; the reason they hold together – we picked those. The ones that were a little off the beaten path of that theme did not make it on the album. Not because they weren’t hot tracks.

They didn’t fit the chapters of the story.

RB: They didn’t fit the chapters and Glenn went through them and said “You know, this one is cool but it doesn’t really fit.” This makes me feel good because I feel like I’ve got a starting point already for my next album. These tracks – I think there’s a good diversity; I think the next album will have a wider range of moods, recorded in a wider range of studios. So one track done in Sweden, one track in Holland – I plan to spend some time in Amsterdam in the summer, after this semester at NYU ends – so I think I’ll travel a bit and record as I travel.

It’s going to be a musical travelogue.

It is. And I haven’t really done that before. You know Electric Warrior was done when T. Rex was on the road; it was done in New York, London, L.A…

The Stones did a lot of that with those early records – Hollywood, at Chess, in London…

Yeah and I’ve never really done that before, so I’d like to explore that – moving around. Collecting the songs as I travel. So I think that’s going to be part of the next album process. And I think it’ll be pretty soon. The bonus tracks are already recorded so now it’s about recording the body of the album itself and I think I’m going to start in the summer. I debuted “God Understands” on Sirius XM during the show that I did for “The Loft” and that’ll be on the next album; I’d like to record that as a duet with someone – I have someone in mind for that. I have quite a nice batch of new songs. Based on relationship issues; things that have happened over the last couple years that I think are important for me to express.

Babyface turns 30 this year. Sure, the Man Who Would Be Babyface — Kenneth Edmonds — was born in 1959, but the singer, songwriter, producer, and all-around hit maker extraordinaire began taking baby steps up the Billboard charts the year Michael Jackson’s Thriller dominated every chart. Join Robert Cass, Jeff Giles, and Mike Heyliger as they take a look back at the first three decades of Babyface’s career, with various detours along the stream of consciousness.

“(Always Be My) Sunshine” by Jay-Z featuring Babyface and Foxy Brown [Amazon / iTunes]
(written by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Daven Vanderpool, Darryl Barksdale, Bobby Robinson, James Harris III, and Terry Lewis; produced by Vanderpool; from In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, 1997)

Robert: It’s hard not to bring up James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III and Terry Lewis each week in ‘Face Time, and this week it’s impossible: the chorus that Babyface sings in this track from Jay-Z’s second album comes from Alexander O’Neal’s “Sunshine,” a 1987 ballad written and produced by Jam & Lewis. The Fearless Four’s “Rockin’ It” (1982) provides the main sample, which is why the song’s producer, Bobby Robinson, receives a writing credit on “(Always Be My) Sunshine,” as does Fearless Four member Darryl “DLB” Barksdale, but the group’s other MCs — Michael “Mighty Mike C” Clee, Wilfredo “Devastating Tito” Dones, and Mitchell “The Great Peso” Graham — were also credited as writers on the original vinyl release of “Rockin’ It,” so I’m mentioning them here. And they all owe a debt of gratitude to Kraftwerk and its 1978 song “The Man-Machine,” without which “Rockin’ It” wouldn’t have that killer hook.

“(Always Be My) Sunshine” was produced by Daven Vanderpool, a.k.a. Prestige, one of Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’s house producers at Bad Boy Entertainment in the late ’90s and early aughts. As I watched the video, I thought, Why does this remind me of Missy Elliott and Mase videos from the same time period? Because Hype Williams directed videos for them as well in ’97, that’s why.

Mike: Not Jay-Z’s, or Babyface’s, finest moment. It’s indicative of Puffy-era pop-rap. Thankfully, Jay figured out a way to make pop radio come to him, as opposed to vice versa.

Jeff: I slept on this song until DJ Jazzy Jeff included it on one of his Summertime mixtapes, but it hasn’t left my iPod since. Say what you will about the cannibalistic production/songwriting techniques of modern pop and R&B, but this is one instance where it really works: “(Always Be My) Sunshine” mixes up familiar elements, drops new melodies and rhymes on top, and creates something irresistible in the process. My favorite bit is where Foxy Brown swears she’d give Jay-Z one of her kidneys but says she wouldn’t forgive him if she caught him cheating. Oh, and Babyface sounds great on the hook. Fits perfectly.

Mike: Jeff and I obviously have a difference of opinion.

Jeff: That’s fine. I’m okay with you being wrong!

Mike: Oh, hardly, my friend. Also, here’s O’Neal’s “Sunshine”:

Robert: Mike, are you suggesting that I forgot to link to it when I mentioned it at the start of this conversation? I’m insulted.

Jeff: I have love for Alexander O’Neal’s music. But I love this “Sunshine” too.

Mike: I didn’t know you liked to get jiggy with it.

Jeff: Well, let’s not get crazy. And honestly, this is probably the only time Foxy Brown’s voice hasn’t given me hives. But even if it’s nothing more than a trifle of a footnote in Jay-Z and Babyface’s careers, it’s a perfectly pleasant one.

Mike: I’m a hip-hop snob. I just can’t like this.

Jeff: Let us not forget that it was you who defended Bobby Brown’s rapping skills. I’M JUST SAYING, MIKE.

Mike: I didn’t say he was great. I merely said he was adequate. Better Bobby Brown than Foxy Brown, Jeff.

Jeff: That is an excellent motto.

Robert: Have you seen Baz Luhrmann’s 3-D adaptation of The Great Gatsby, Mike? Or heard the soundtrack? Jay-Z is executive producer of both. I’m curious to see and hear the results, though Luhrmann’s more-is-more approach to filmmaking drove me up the wall in Romeo + Juliet (1996) and the first 30 minutes of Moulin Rouge (2001).

Wow, Foxy Brown was just 18 when “(Always Be My) Sunshine” was recorded. And I didn’t know until now that her rap sheet is considerably longer than the number of rap albums she’s recorded since ’96.

Mike: Yeah, she’s out of her fucking mind.

Robert: Maybe she and DMX can be put under house arrest in a recording studio so they can both make up for lost time.

Wikipedia says that Brown was dropped from Def Jam in ’03 but re-signed by Jay-Z once he became president of the label two years later. Guess who hired him for that position? L.A. Reid, who was CEO of Island Def Jam Music Group from 2004 to 2011.

“(Always Be My) Sunshine” is fine for what it is, but I think the “Rockin’ It” sample overpowers everything else. That was Puff Daddy’s style in the late ’90s, though – “Mo Money Mo Problems” may be a posthumous single by the Notorious B.I.G. (featuring Puffy, a.k.a. P. Diddy or just Diddy, and Mase), but to me it’s just “I’m Coming Out ’97″ sans Diana Ross’s vocals. The same goes for Puffy’s “Been Around the World” (featuring Mase and B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls or just Biggie), which is a Bowie-free “Let’s Dance ’97″ b/w “Somebody Who Can’t Sing Trying to Sing Lisa Stansfield’s ‘Been Around the World.’”

Then again, the third single from In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, following “Sunshine,” was “The City Is Mine,” for which producer Teddy Riley had his R&B group du jour, Blackstreet, “interpolate” the chorus of Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City” (1985). In that case, all is forgiven, Puffy Cheeto.

I like Babyface’s “Sunshine” walk-on more than the one he did for the Swift C remix of OutKast’s “Jazzy Belle” the same year, but when you add up the cameos and all the songs he was writing and producing in ’97, plus the Soul Food soundtrack and the singles that were still being churned out from his fall ’96 solo release The Day, it’s hard not to think that some sort of backlash was inevitable.

Mike: Or burnout, at the very least. Also, I love “The City Is Mine,” hate “(Always Be My) Sunshine.” Go figure.

Jeff: Dammit, Mike, now you’re defending something derived from Glenn Frey at the expense of Alexander O’Neal? You’re clearly still high from our DMB digression last (Jheri Curl) Friday.

Mike: Alexander O’ Neal > Glenn Frey, but “The City is Mine” > “Sunshine.” One of those things that can’t quite be explained, maybe because Teddy Riley > Puff Daddy’s underlings, production-wise.

Jeff: Burnout and backlash are absolutely inevitable. I think it’s worth pausing to note, however, that R&B artists are particularly susceptible to being victimized by changing trends, and it’s a small miracle that Babyface is still working as steadily as he is; his commercial heyday was relatively brief, after all. I suppose this all has something to do with why we’re spending the year celebrating his legacy.

Robert: Well, his “sound” is a heck of a sound, and he made his mark as a performer, producer, and songwriter, which is rare. He’s the Rita Moreno of R&B. (You’re welcome, Mr. Edmonds.)

Mike: Was his heyday brief, though? I’d say he was ubiquitous for a solid decade, from ’88 to ’98.

Jeff: Ubiquitous? I don’t know. Definitely from ’88 to ’93, but I feel like his presence dimmed quite a bit after For the Cool in You. At least we can agree that Teddy Riley is great.

Mike: Oh, no way — I actually feel like Babyface’s presence ramped up tenfold after that album. He was everywhere from, say, ’94 to ’98: Whitney, TLC, Madonna, Clapton, Usher, Toni Braxton’s peak years, Boyz II Men. Plus, The Day, which I believe is his only top-ten album, came out during that period.

Jeff: He was everywhere behind the scenes, sure. The Day is his only top-ten album? For serious?

Mike: Actually, it peaked at #6 on the Billboard 200, and 2005′s Grown & Sexy peaked at #10. (As for his other non-covers, non-Christmas albums, 1989′s Tender Lover reached #14, 1993′s For the Cool in You climbed to #16, and 2001′s Face2Face topped out at #25.)

Jeff: I kind of feel like chart peaks after, say, 2002 don’t mean much. Let’s ask Amos Lee what he thinks.

But point taken! Let me rephrase my earlier point: I feel like the Babyface “sound” that was everywhere between ’88 and ’90 kind of disappeared and was replaced by ‘Face savvily negotiating the changing sounds of post-new jack R&B, but because his name is so identified with that short window, it’s easier for him to fit in as a producer 25 years later. Does that make more sense?

Mike: Yeah, that makes more sense. After “End of the Road,” Babyface basically turned into David Foster with melanin.

Jeff: [bursts into long, helpless cackle]

Robert: We have yet to discuss the songs he wrote and/or produced for Celine Dion, Kenny G, and Michael Bolton in ’96 and ’97. Brace yourselves.

Mike: I don’t think I ever heard the ‘Face/Celine track, but I have heard — and like — the ‘Face/Bolton cut, “The Best of Love.”

Robert: Excellent discussion! Just give me a second to cross that one off the list … (Written by ‘Face and Bolton, the single’s B-side, at least in Europe, was “When There Are No Words,” written and produced by Bolton and Tony Rich. Do you think Bolton heard “Nobody Knows” and thought he’d be getting two tracks from the same person?)

Do you think ‘Face was hurt when Jay-Z and Prestige didn’t ask him to sing the chorus from his own song called “Sunshine”? Incidentally, a year earlier Jay-Z sampled Nas’s “The World Is Yours” (1994) for the chorus of “Dead Presidents,” the lead single off his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, after Nas reportedly didn’t accept Jay-Z’s invitation to rerecord the lyrics, thus beginning a decade-long “feud.” Thank goodness Babyface and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis aren’t as insecure as most rappers seem to be.

I’m not trying to slam Glenn Frey, but “You Belong to the City” just makes me laugh now. I thought it was a cool song when I was in fourth grade, so much so that I wanted to learn how to play saxophone for about five minutes, because in 1986 it seemed like every Top 40 hit had a sax solo. (I don’t have any data to back up my claim, but I’m pretty sure this guy single-handedly killed that trend.) But if Teddy Riley could make it hip for the hip-hop crowd in the late ’90s, more power to Glenn Frey. After all, it’s still better than “Smuggler’s Blues,” which sounds like a retread of “Life in the Fast Lane” fueled by cheaper cocaine.

Mike: I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to “You Belong to the City” on its own. Hell, if it showed up on shuffle I’d probably skip it. That said, the interpolation on the Jay-Z tune is nice, one of the better instances of the “sample a pop song from the ’80s and make it a hit again” style of hip-pop that was so popular for a few years.

Robert: The “Puffy’s Face to Face Mix” of Babyface’s “This Is for the Lover in You” (1996) features Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah. If the two ‘Faces were to sit down with a Ouija board in front of them, would they be able to summon the ghost of infamous gangster Baby Face Nelson? Discuss.

Mike: I wonder if Ghostface would do a record with Glenn Frey.

Robert: He should at least sample the sax solo from “The Heat Is On.” Better yet, he can rap over Frey’s song as is, like he mostly did in 2004 on “Save Me Dear,” which samples a huge chunk of Freddie Scott’s 1968 single “(You) Got What I Need.” And now I’m seeing that Scott’s song was written by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, which must be why I liked “Save Me Dear” so much on first listen nine years ago, though I didn’t realize then that it’s also the source of the hook in Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend.”

And because I can leave no trivial stone unturned, here’s another fascinating factoid: Chad Hugo of the Neptunes plays saxophone on “The City Is Mine.”

Mike: No surprise there. The Neptunes were Teddy Riley’s proteges; Pharrell wrote Riley’s verses for Wreckx-N-Effect’s “Rump Shaker” (1992).

Robert: Okay, maybe not so fascinating after all …

Mike: Man, Babyface’s “Sunshine” vs. Alexander O’ Neal’s “Sunshine” — I think I’d have to call it a draw.

Robert: In 2005 Mariah Carey name-checked Babyface in her song “We Belong Together” (from The Emancipation of Mimi, executive-produced by L.A. Reid during his tenure at Island Def Jam) before quoting half a line from the Deele’s 1988 hit “Two Occasions” — “I only think of you” — but that was enough to earn ‘Face, Deele bandmate Darnell Bristol, and Sid Johnson, a.k.a. Sidney DeWayne, a.k.a. Uncle Jamz, a.k.a. ex-manager of Manchild, songwriting credits and subsequent royalties from the track. Nice work if you can get it.

Jeff: Holy shit, are you kidding? That’s ridiculous. I’ve heard stories about superproducers like David Foster taking publishing just for showing up, but this is another level.

Robert: I’m not saying Babyface demanded that credit or the royalties. But “We Belong Together” also quotes from Bobby Womack’s “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” (1981), so Womack and his cowriters, Patrick Moten and Sandra Sully, received credits as well.

Jeff: But usually when you say one song quotes from another, you’re talking about a musical hook, not half a line of lyrics.

Robert: True. I didn’t even realize Carey was quoting from “Two Occasions” at first.

Mike: I guess the same law that applies to sampling applies to quoting lyrics. Rappers have been sued for less.

Jeff: Ricockulous.

For an in-depth look at Kenneth Edmonds’s discography as a solo artist, see Mike and Jeff’s Popdose Guide to Babyface.

Learn more about I Am Secretly an Important Man at the film’s official site.

I Am Secretly An Important Man : Trailer from Dashboard Dog Pictures on Vimeo.