July 27, 2021 • 43 mins
When he was just out of high school, Jackson Browne moved to NYC and wrote songs for some of the biggest names of the 1960’s folk scene. Then, when he returned home to Los Angeles two years later, he began singing his own material and set his course to become one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation. Today, Jackson Browne’s voice is still strong and political. He talks with Alec about his new album, Downhill From Everywhere, reflections on a life of activism, and the artists he’d still love to sing with.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from My Heart. Radio must have some thought it's gonna
pull them through somehow. Why the Hotter than Hotter but
(00:20):
the sisters of the Sister Fever. Jackson Brown released his
self titled debut album, and This Song Rocked Me on
the Water in early two when he was just twenty
(00:44):
three years old. At that point, he'd already been writing
songs professionally for seven years. Part of that time he
spent in the heyday of New York City's folk scene.
He'd written songs for the likes of Joan Bayez, Linda Ronstadt,
The Birds, Greg Allman, and Nico. In nine, Brown moved
(01:07):
back to Los Angeles and set his course to become
one of the greatest singer songwriters of his generation, known
for his political activism and his honest, self reflective lyrics.
Jackson Brown's fourteen studio albums have sold over eighteen million copies.
(01:29):
Bruce Springsteen inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in two thousand four. Jackson Brown comes from
a family of musicians, journalists, and dreamers. His grandfather spent
a decade building a stone house in Highland Park, Los Angeles,
complete with a huge pipe organ in the basement. My
(01:50):
father played organ in silent movies. Actually no, yeah, And
there was a pipe organ in the house that I
grew up in. It was in the chapel and it
was built by the Angels Organ Company. I mean I
personally broke the organ when I was a kid, because
you could go behind the pipes and play around. It
was like a secret passageway. But I must have put
(02:10):
my foot through something, a bellows or something. Your grandfather
and your father playing the organ, you broke the organ. YEA,
be very clear about now. You know I was reading
about you. I mean, obviously I knew something about you,
and I knew a lot about the songs you've written,
but I didn't know about your earliest life where when
you were very young you left to go to New
(02:31):
York where you were right out of high school. Is
that correct? Yeah? Pretty much? Yeah, now we know why?
What was what was the calling to go to New York?
You know the music I was listening to was all
coming from Cambridge and Greenwich Village, you know, the folk
meccas where those two places on the East Coast, and
even though folk music was from all over the country,
(02:51):
the people who were doing it, we're coming out of
New York. And I would meet players that were playing
in say, Huntington's Beach, you know, and they were from
New York. And I just wanted to go, but my
friends invited me to go to drive with him to
New York. It took us three and a quarter days.
We just drove straight from l A to New York
with three guys sharing the gas. And there I was
(03:13):
in New York in the snow with my Penny loafers
and my T shirt. You know. It's like you're a
California by birth. Not really, I was born in Germany,
but my but yeah, my my grandfather came to California
and when he was young, and so my family is
from California. You went from Germany to California when you
were how old three. Who were some of the people
(03:35):
that were influences you in terms of folk music, Well,
Joan Bayez and then Bob Dylan, of course he played
a lot of folk music as well as you know,
writing songs. And Kurnel Ray and Glover and they made
a record called Blues reckon Hollers and I like the blues.
I listened to a lot of blues records, and that's
what I mean. Also, when I say folk music, I
mean folk, you know, country blues and Mississippi John Hurt,
(03:57):
you know Doc Watson and all these, you know, both
white and black country musicians. And when you went to
New York, what was that like? Where did it start
for you? There? You we're writing music with who? And where?
I was writing my own songs. But I wasn't really
writing with anybody there. I was there for I wasn't
there for very long. Three or four months, Tim Buckley
(04:19):
was playing at this club in the village and he
was sort of sharing the bill with artists named Nko
was and it was Andy Warhol's sort of barring that
he's set up to, you know, do installations. And anyway,
Tim Tommy Niko was looking for a new company. So
I got the job doing that, except Andy didn't want
it to seem like folk music, and they wanted her
(04:40):
to sing from inside of a plexiglass box. She didn't
want to do that. She was not really trying to
be a spectacle. She was trying to be a musician.
So anyway, that's really all that happened. I lived on
the Lower East Side with a friend of mine that
was doing his conscious objector or alternate service by working
in a head start. And uh we lived down like
(05:01):
Clinton and de Lancey and but uh, you know, I
was only there for a few months. Why it was
New York. Note for you, I got kind of homesick. Yeah,
I've thought many times about what I might have done
had I stayed there. You know. One of the things
that happened was I got robbed buying clothes. I had
like been paid and I had a bunch of money
(05:22):
and I wanted to Actually it was a close store
that famously Bob Dylan had bought a lot of clothes
there and stuff. I went in this place, I left
my jacket hanging on a hook and the dressing room,
and I went to go pay for the clothes. I
bought him that my wallet was gone, and so I
didn't buy the clothes, and I sort of went home penniless.
But about New York, it was interesting to me because
(05:43):
people were friendly. I've been living in Orange County, where
people were more less hostile to people that looked like me.
And if you were a freaking Orange County you had.
It was hardcore. You had to be you know, committed, Yeah,
committed exactly. We're we're in Orange County. What town were you? Fuller?
But I lived all over Orange County because friends of
mine would get a house at the beach and they'd
(06:03):
be living in Huntington's or they'd be living in Newport.
There were a lot of freaks. Now, when you leave
New York, you go back to l a driven by work, music, opportunity, songwriting,
or you just want to go home. Well, I always
wanted to record my songs. As a matter of fact,
one of the first things that happened when I got
back was I was asked by a friend of mine
(06:25):
who was in a band. There was a band that
I hung around with a lot called the Gentle Soul,
and I hung around on their house and everything was
so communal in those days. People just lived together a lot.
So anyway, I was invited to audition for that band,
and that's where I met Jesse Ed Davis, the great
guitar player who played on my first single, Doctor My Eyes.
(06:46):
The audition didn't come to anything, and I didn't see
how it could because I didn't really know how to
be in a band. I wasn't in bands in high school.
I just you know, I was just a songwriter. The
other guy I met in that audition was Leroy Marinell,
who co wrote Where ofs of London Good and Want
to Tell Later? So it is an interesting group of people,
but in the end none of us joined that band.
(07:09):
Dctor my Eyes as your first single you record, and
what's the path to writing songs? Because I'm assuming that
this a period of your young life before you become
the Jackson Brown. We all know you weren't performing and
you were only writing songs or you were doing both.
Oh No, I sang in clubs. Yeah, I sang my songs,
(07:31):
and I really I didn't sing so well. Even though
I knew a lot of folks songs, I'm out of
sang them all the time. I sang blues and folks
songs and traditional songs, and especially learning guitar things like
Mississippi John Heard or Dave Van Rock guitar pieces or
Doc Watson. I mean, it was part a group of
people who were crazy about music, and that was the
thing that drove everything for me. But as far as playing,
(07:55):
I guess I felt that I had the right to
sing these songs since I wrote them. Otherwise, who would
listen to me singing? As a man of fact, I
remember sitting up singing songs at a party and this
friend of mine, a good friend of mine, sort of
gently tried to tell me, Look, you know you play
really well, but you know you shouldn't. You shouldn't try
to sing. The record of the woman who told Jackson
(08:20):
Brown I'd cool it on the singing front of the atwork.
Who wasn't that said that to Jackson Brown? Well, her
name was Ruth and Kendall ruth An. If you're out there,
we wanted to introduce you to Jackson Brown, who sold
eighteen million records singing. But anyway, Um, when you get
back from New York, what's the gap between arriving back
in California wherever you are and dr my eyes gets pressed?
(08:45):
You go? You you make a record? Years? It was years? Yeah?
Was it really four or five years? Yeah? At the
time it was, I was eighteen. So I made my
first record when I was about twenty two, I guess.
So it was about four years before I got anything going.
But I I'd go to the true Buddoor and I'd
sing on Monday nights in the open mic there, and
I would play in little clubs and the beach towns
(09:07):
and I had so much time. It was fantastic. And
also I didn't even have a car for most of that.
I finally got a car when I was about twenty
or something, I don't know. I was living in Echo
Park for a long time without a car, and my
best friend just finally got sick of driving there to
get me and bring me back to Hollywood. All I
did was play, and I kind of longed for that.
(09:28):
And how did Doctor my Eyes get made into a record? Well,
that was the one song I had written that was
probably up tempo enough and short enough and simple enough
to make it on the radio. And it was understood.
I mean, at least I understood that it might not
be your best song that guts on the radio, but
(09:49):
if it was your shortest, fastest song, it might. Actually
they're really serious about that. Records had to be not
more than three minutes long better fact to fifty two
was ideal, and how you say anything in two minutes?
But most of my songs were really long, five or
six minutes, and dr minus could be made into that
kind of a song, and it was you know, you
(10:09):
were kind of obligated to try, but it never occurred
to me that it would actually work, that we'd get
on I'd get on the radio. So you took that
song to someone or someone heard you playing in the club.
Oh no, no, no, no, it was one of my
songs like early on, like for instance, like in New York,
I was making demo. I had been signed to a
publishing company in high school, so I was given five
advanced I was signed, well, I signed away half of
(10:33):
the songs to a record company, Elector of Records had
a publishing company called Nina Music. And my best friend
not only got signed to that publishing company but made
a record for Electra. So it was I was sort
of in line to maybe get recorded eventually, you know,
if I things shaped up. So it's a long and
winding road. But there was a record that got made
at the Elector, but it it didn't wasn't any good
(10:53):
and didn't get released. So okay, so back to singing
out the Monday Night hoots at the True Boodoor. And uh,
eventually I did start being managed by David Geffin, And
you want to know how that happened? And simply sent
him a recording and a photograph, and the recording was
of my song Jamaica Say you Will, and it was
(11:15):
it was recording made in a kind of a publisher's
demo with Glenn Fry singing and playing guitar and me
playing piano and John David South there playing the drums
and singing, and those guys sang really great and that
it sounded pretty good. And then eventually I called in
to see what was going on and I was invited
to come in and talk with David geffin And for
(11:36):
those who don't know, David Geffen managed Laura Niro, he
managed christ By Sills and Nash, and his partner in
his management company managed Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. He's
really responsible for making songwriters sort of the focus of
music and those at that time it was already happening,
but he was the one in the music business that said, look,
(11:58):
I think you know this is what really matters. So anyway,
so yeah, I met with him and he said, okay,
I'll manage you, and I was like, you will, so good.
Then he then really the next thing he said was
you don't We're not in her, you know, well, you're
gonna work on your singing, and which I was, you know,
I mean, it was pretty much. It was obvious that
(12:18):
I needed to get better, so I spent time doing that.
And also he he took me around to a lot
of record companies. He took me to Elector, where I
had already been. It's hilarious because then I am sitting
in the office of Jack Holsman, whom I know, who
had already signed me to his label then and I had,
like you know, asked to be released after they didn't
(12:39):
release the album. But I mean Jack Holsman, he owned
the publishing company that owned my music Mina Nina Nina music. Well,
Geffen asked him too, and he did give me back
my publishing. Have you ever heard of such a thing?
It was wild And to this day, I mean, I'm
indebted to him. And he he was a kind of
(13:00):
as exceptional record man. Well, while he built that record
company on the back of a vespa, he literally recorded
the artist, he mastered the records, he pressed them, he
put him in a box on the back of his
vesp and he took him to the record stores all
over Manhattan and he built elected records that way, and
he was very opinionated about everything music and especially but
(13:21):
he was kind of a hero to me. And there
I was in his office and he didn't sign me.
Then he Geffen walks in with me and he didn't
he didn't think I was there yet. But he also
took me to see Clive Davis. He took me to
you know, he asked Ahmed Ard again to sign me,
and none of these people couldn't. He decided to open
his own record company. And when you throughout your career,
(13:43):
when you're writing music, is there a kind of a
a sense that there's a Jackson Brown sound now? If anything,
I thought I had some good songs and I was
really just trying to learn to sing. And also I
had the great, great good fortune to make friends with
a drummer named Russell Kunkle. Russ was really cool and
(14:05):
he was people were nice to me. I mean, I
one time I ran into Jim Kelton, who was also
very cool, and he was a drummer on a session
that they were doing, Johnny Rivers was recording one of
my songs, and they befriended me. They were very very kind.
So Russ said, just so you know, if when you
get ready to make your record whenever that is, I
want to I want you to call me. I want
to play on your record. So I did. I called
(14:27):
the people that I knew and who had been friendly
to me. And that's that's the amount. That's the degree
at which I strategized about anything. It's just like, call
up some of you knows a good drummer, and you know,
call a friend. I don't. I still don't know how
to call up somebody I don't know and asked if
we can make music together. I still don't. I don't
know how to do that. Who's Who's someone you wanted
to call? I'm happy to call them for you. By
(14:48):
the way, Hello, it's Alec Jackson's feeling a little uptight,
you said. Russ Kunkle. Russ Kunkle and lees Clara played
on that record and they made sound really. I mean,
I listened to it the other day, and you know,
I said, I spent years think it was kind of
rudimentary and that I was not much of a singer yet,
(15:09):
and I was. But really they really imbuted it with
a kind of confidence and a kind of they brought
the best out of the songs and when I hear
it now, I think this is okay, this is pretty good.
A matter of fact, Dr Myers comes down, I think, well,
this is really good, and by standards that I didn't
even have at the time. I mean, there's this piano
part that starts the song that goes did und and
(15:31):
and and well when I wrote it, I just did
that through the whole song, and you it's like something
give me a bouncy seat. It was like that, kind
of just trying to give you the impression that they
were drums, you know. So when we got in the
studio with the drummer and we said, well, we can't
do that, and which shall I do? And I just said, well,
I'll do like the Beatles, you know, bump bump, bump,
(15:51):
bump bump, and you know, magically, the great musicians I had,
Russ and Lee just made it sound incredible. So did
the interesting and thinking about that song as it was
recorded with based in conga's not drums, and that the
drums were over dubbed. And I don't know if anybody
listening knows what the difference would be, because mostly congas
(16:11):
get added to something in American music, sort of an
added element. Of percussion. But in fact, when there's a
conga player in the band and things are based on
that groove, when it's like taking it to the streets
or little feats, incredible songs, you know, like it makes
a huge difference. It's built into the DNA of the
song that there's a swing. You know, Russell was playing
(16:32):
this gang to get them to take it to doom boom,
and it gives it this balance and this swing that
I think now is like I really value it. At
the time, I thought, well, we're doing the best we
can making this song. This a little bit, it's short.
I mean, I didn't I didn't think it was my
best song. Where do you think is your best song?
(16:54):
I'm sure it's impossible to pick one. Oh, well, what's
one that comes to mind? What's the song when you
wrote the song? Well, we're gonna get back to I'm
gonna I'm gonna go to another place, which is that
because you do downplay you were singing early on, and
was there a period where I mean, and you're a
famous singer, so if you're if you're insecure about your
singing in the early days, were there songs you wrote
(17:16):
where you said to yourself. I'm not gonna sing this,
I'm gonna hand it to somebody else. Did you pass
it on to somebody else? Well, lots of people still
recorded my song before I did. But it wasn't that
I had passed them to him that they did me
a favorite by recording my songs. I mean, like Tom
Rush recorded a song of mine that I still haven't played.
I I was a songwriter, and I wouldn't say I
was insecure. I just knew very well that I didn't
(17:38):
sing well. Where there were some there were their songs
you wrote that you thought were better sung by someone else. Yeah,
that's always been the case, actually, you know, like Greg
Allman's version of These Days. I mean I recorded that
I didn't put on my first album, and I've almost
forgotten about the song, and he recorded it. But also
I gotta say, like that song was recorded by Nico
(17:58):
before anybody else recorded it. And I played the guitar
part on her record, and she it was so unique,
the sound of her voice and her accent, and the
fact that in order her to sing the song and
for me to play how I played, I mean when
I wrote it, I had to play it way up
the neck and put a cape book on the guitar
so that it sounded very shiny, and the combination of
that chiny guitar part and her wonderful deep voice and
(18:23):
her German accent, you know, it's a very iconic performance.
And I think it's more famous, you know, for her,
because of her than it is for me. And I've
a lot of people recorded, though, I mean Tom rushed,
lots of people recorded these days, Glenn Campbell. And funny,
when Glenn Campbell recorded, he basically recorded her version of it.
So you wanted other people to record your songs until
(18:46):
you were similar to Carol King in that way. Yeah,
if I hear myself saying that I was similar to
Carol Kake, Carol King some of the greatest songs of
all time when she was a housewife, you know. Yeah,
the songwriters wrote at home, you know. And when when
I met Carol, she told me, I get the kids
after school by nine o'clock and then I've got a
few hours to work because we're talking about work habits,
(19:08):
you know, because I didn't have any, you know, at
that time. Her daughter was about sixteen, and she came
in the room and you know, she's just dealing with
life the way everybody I mean, but that's that's what's
great about her music. It's about the fundamentals of life.
You know. She was really a big deal to me.
But then when she wanted to become a singer songwriter,
I think it's because James Taylor had really kind of
(19:30):
shown everyone and they were friends, you know, just she
really saw that you could you could actually be the
person who wrote the song singing this song, and that
was there was an added interest there. And I really
believe that people should sing their own songs. I used
to sing Warren Zevon's songs before I got him recorded,
because I wanted people to hear the song. So I
would sing a Mohammed's radio. I would sing Warolves of
(19:52):
London and my record come and saying well, Warolvers Londen,
you're gonna record that right, like no, no, no no, I
want Warren to record that. You know the real do
Jackson Brown this song my Cleveland Heart is on his
new album Downhill from Everywhere. I'm gonna make a future
change we really were. I need somebody else who says
(20:22):
to see me, we need I expect changes. Star well
fun to get clean if you love conversations with pioneering
(20:44):
singer songwriters, be sure to check out my interview with
Carly Simon. A little over fifty years ago, a show
at the Troubadour changed her life. Three of us rehearsed
in New York for three days, and then we went
out to l a And by that time, I'm hoped
for Cats open for Cat six April six, and that
(21:05):
changed things for you. That was that. That was a
convincing night. We played two shows every night and four
shows on the weekend. I met all all kinds of people.
It was like the lights you were shining. I couldn't
say no at that point. And I and even though
I was suffering tremendous stage fright, I had various things
(21:28):
that tricked me out of being afraid. Here the rest
of my talk with Carly Simon at Here's the Thing
dot Org. After the break, Jackson Brown talks about collaborating
with a new generation of singer songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers.
(21:54):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the
Thing The singer steps from the beginning and to the
vanished into the air, trying to understand how our lives head,
(22:15):
let us look at hard. There was nobody at every
such an empty surprise long. This song, Late for the Sky,
(22:46):
is from Jackson Brown's third studio album of the same name,
released in nineteen seventy four. Jackson Brown is on tour
with James Taylor this summer. The pandemic delayed the release
of his eightist album and tour. Jackson Brown contracted COVID
in March of I got it at a show that
(23:07):
was being done. We're being very careful, trying to distance
and elbow bump and sanitized. And you got it and
I got it. How did you feel? What was it like?
It wasn't a very bad case. You know, I didn't
have any problem breathing and I was I felt well
again in a couple of weeks, so, and I could
tell I was going to get better. I just didn't
get that sick. And your son got it too, correct. Yeah.
(23:30):
I came back from New York and we got together,
and of course my son and I hugged, and you know,
I can't be helped. But that's when everything everything shut down,
and here we are still trying to get get it
back up and running it. It It looks it looks good now.
One of the songs on your new album, it's called
My Cleveland Heart, and I wanted you to talk about that,
(23:51):
about what what was the genesis of that song. Well,
I happened to be in Cleveland and driving by a
Billings and what's that and they said that's Cleveland Heart
And I said, what's Cleveland Heart? And he said, well,
that's where they make the artificial hearts. And I thought, oh,
I could use one of those. Why do you feel
this this one heart? Yeah, just like one that doesn't break,
(24:16):
They don't ache, you know, they don't make mistakes, and um,
it's not they're not that much to the song. But
it was really fun to make a video of me
getting this artificial heart. And it's enormous too. It looks
made out of motorcycle parts and sort of put this
thing in my chest. It's like, oh I but it's
(24:36):
satirical and surreal to and it was. It sort of
made a fun video because the doctors that are operating
on me, the actual players in my band I mean,
and then begin to play. The metaphors are are really
abundant there, you know, I mean, they saved my life
every night. They saved my life on stage and in
a way they do like do a sort of heart transplant.
(24:57):
How did Phoebe Bridgers get to become person that's going
to eat your heart? Well, that was just that was
very spontaneous. We didn't we didn't plan the video for
her eat my heart. It's just the way that happened
with I know Phoebe and I'm a huge fan of hers,
And as a matter of fact, one of the reasons
I picked that director was that she had worked with
Phoebe and I liked the video that they made. And
(25:19):
I had just been working with her because she invited
me to sing on her song Kyoto, an acoustic version
of that, and she invited me to sing on it.
So I think somebody said, oh, you know, Phoebe could
be one of the nurses in this video and your surgery.
And I said, oh, yeah, great, let let's asked her
and she's that she was game. So once I knew
that she was going to be a nurse, I thought,
(25:39):
you know, maybe, yeah, when they take my heart out,
maybe they can glory this, you know, maybe they can
hand it to her and she could receive my heart.
And then it was somebody else who knows her quite well,
who said yeah, and she eats it. It was her
producer Tony Bergh said, they're gonna handle the heart and
then she's off screen, but then they're gonna go back
(25:59):
to showing or just standing off to one side with
my heart. And I thought, that's not real. That's what
they wouldn't do that, right. I was discussing with Tony
and he said, yeah, she eats it or she takes
a bite, you know. And apparently it's like, you know,
everybody thinks it's really kind of apropos of who Phoebe is.
She Phoebe is very Her songs are so dark. One
(26:20):
of the things I love about it about her music,
you know. And so that's how that happened. And of
course that director is so great, her her use of
light and location. What is that director's name. Her name
is Alyssa torvin In. She also did a great video
with Pink But the album, the song is called Cleveland.
(26:42):
Heart of the album itself is called Downhill from Everywhere?
And what was the genesis of that? Are we downhill
now from everywhere? Well, the ocean is downhill from everywhere?
And everything in the song is something that winds up
in the ocean. Plastic. It's actually about plastic that song.
I remember when I lived in l A. And of
course you'd see all the storm drains that said, you know,
(27:03):
drains to the ocean, And I remember, forget the l
A Weekly talked about how twenty year veteran lifeguards in
the beach department there in Venice were contracting kidney cancer
from all of the pollutants in the bay. I worked
with heel the bay, the Bologna wet lands. They were
constantly breaching and having these blowouts and during storms and
(27:24):
all kinds of untreated sewage going into the bay. And yeah,
and when it rains in l A, you gotta stay
out of the water because the runoff into the harbor
water marks it absolutely toxic. What I wanted to get
to is your activism. I just recently they closed the
Indian Point reactor here, and I've worked to shut down
utility reactors for probably run around twenty five years now
(27:47):
with disparate groups. And you, of course had a very
very serious relationship with the anti nuclear movement. I believe
that three Mile Island happened in March of seventy nine.
You helped form Muse that same are, correct, Yeah, and
then you perform at the No Nukes concert in September
of that same year. Correct, Yeah, we we had formed
Muse and we're planning the concert before Three Miles melted
(28:10):
down and before the release of that pivotal movie China Syndrome, right,
really sort of went into the problems and in a
feature film. So all that happened all at once, and
that gave a lot of currency and a lot of emphasis.
At what point in your life did you decide to
take that on. You're writing songs, things start to go well,
David Geffen's representing it. When do you decide you wanted
(28:31):
to get active publicly? You know, I was raised in
the sixties, and so I was a member of Cores
of the Congress of Racial Equality, and I would i'd
take part in, you know, demonstrations. I didn't really have
songs about these things. You know, there was plenty of
movement songs. Actually, a lot of the songs that I
knew in the civil rights era were actually from the
(28:51):
labor movement in the thirties. So there's a lot in
the folk music that has a kind of activism component,
or it has a social consciousness component, and particularly the
early songs of Bob Dylan did so there was a
strong call to be involved, to do things that would
move society in the right direction. And I think that we,
like so many people, we assume that that was always happening,
(29:15):
and it was always going to happen, and that the
arc of justice and so on and all that was.
It was just an assured thing that we were moving forward.
Until you know, about five years ago, you didn't worry
it was going to hurt your career. No, no, And
I didn't really believe that it did. Although I think
when you start writing songs about it, that's the question
whether or not people want to hear anti war songs
(29:36):
or they want to hear songs about nuclear power. It's like,
if people are averse to hearing, you know, about society's problems,
that they're not going to want to hear it in
a song. I'm a songwriter, I talk about life. You know,
you want to talk about what's happening in the real world.
You can't just barricade yourself off in this entertainment land.
Like what's going on was like a huge surprise to everybody.
(30:00):
The height of the Vietnam War, that like a singer
like Marvin Gay would come out with a song that
was considered a protest song. Berry Goorey didn't want to
release it, but it was it was too good, it
was too true to be denied. And I think that
for that matter. John Lennon also, you know the height
of the Beatles, you know, as they broke up, he
ban singing songs about his personal development. I mean, you know,
(30:24):
he famously went through the primal screen therapy and stuff,
but he began writing songs like mother, you had me,
but I didn't have you. You know, Father, you left me,
but I never left you. That was so powerful. That's
what songwriting was about from me. And I mean Bob
Dylan was you know, right at that sort of crux.
(30:46):
If every one of these moments when things doubled down
and people were singing about what was really going on
in the life and what was really going on in
the world, and all these people remind you is that
this music has been made all along. I mean there's
songs Woody got three songs, and Bob Dylan songs and
Pete Seegers songs, Joan Bias. This is a big part
of what music has always been. And it was only
(31:06):
in Hollywood that you were sort of told, don't try
to make any political points here. Maybe it's New York
to maybe simply the hierarchy, the financial hierarchy of the country,
you know, doesn't want anybody waking up. Singer, songwriter and
activist Jackson Brown. When we Return, Jackson Brown talks about
(31:27):
the songs that still move him to tears. Follow here's
the thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave
(31:48):
us a review. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening
to hear the things. Running on Empty is the title
(32:26):
track to Jackson Brown's seven live album, recorded at the
Merryweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. Brown was part of
l A's Laurel Canyon music scene in the nineteen seventies.
Musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Rait, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young,
and the Eagles often dropped by each other's houses to
(32:48):
play music together. Brown still marvels at how he was
able to meet some of his heroes from the beginning.
I met people that I really had a huge admiration
for like David Crosby, you know, sang on my first album.
I mean he's sort of it's almost like being knighted
or something, you know, Like he like he gave me
(33:10):
the accolade of being of singing Army down four or
five of my songs. And I really learned so much
of how to work, how to get what I get
in the studio from him. And there was a concert
I did one time where Crosby, Sils and Nash wear there,
but Neil wasn't there, and I was on stage that
there's a picture of me with Crossil, Nash and Brown.
It's like like I thought, well, that's wild, you know.
(33:30):
And it was a long time ago. But I gotta
say the people that I admire the most are people
I'm still very shy about and don't even know how
to overcome that my admiration enough to be really really
good friends with. I mean, I can't quite get over it,
you know, what they mean to me and what the
music meant to me. Springsteen inducted you into the Rock
(33:51):
and Roll Hall of Fame. M Is he a friend
of yours? And when you admire yeah yeah, yeah, And
he and we met We met at a gig that
we were both doing at Villanova, and he actually he
was opening from me, and I've never seen him. I
had met him. We already knew each other because he
(34:13):
came into a guest set when I was playing acoustically
at this club called the Main Point in Philadelphia, and
so we knew each other, and I knew his music
and saw me that I was doing this gig with
Bruce and that he was you know that, I he said,
you're what you were, you were gonna follow Bruce. I
don't know, I don't think you should do that. It
it really bothered me, pissed me off of it. What
do you mean, I'm like, But then I saw this
(34:35):
show and it was really I mean, I saw what
he was doing and it was just astounding. He's a
thing unto himself, and he amplified so much of what
he saw in rock and roll to a degree to
almost make it into another art form. But I gotta
say I feel quite apart from all of that. I mean,
I try to learn from everything that I that I love.
(34:56):
I try to take it in and learn part of
it or something how how to applies to what I
want to do. But I feel like what I do
is quite different. I mean, I'm always put together with
the Eagles, but when I think about it, we really
wrote about very different things. And for that matter, like
take it easy as a very you know, it's a
song that I wrote with Glenn Fry, and so I'm
linked in that way forever and I'm very happy about it.
(35:17):
But it wouldn't have been that song if Glenn Fry
had not done what he did. He wrote about what
he writes about. I write about what I write about,
and like standing on the corner in Windsory, Arizona, I
see an Indian guy. I see it, A tall Indian
guy with a white cowboy hat, you know, took hoise shirt,
standing on the corner, and I probably would have written
about him. Of course, Glenn said, you wrote about this
(35:39):
a girl, my lord in a flatbed forward. Yeah, slowing
down to look at men, take a look at me.
That's pure Glenn Fry. That's like, well, I've always said,
you musicians have this beautiful reality. Music is so much
more powerful than film and television because you can consume
it anywhere in the shower, while you're having sex, while
(36:01):
you're jogging, while you're in the car. Music is in
our lives in a way that you don't have to
make that kind of appointment visually with movies and TV.
And how beautiful for you. You can just sit down
and write, and you can just sit down and play,
and it's all self generated. It's you. It comes from you,
and the and and and and the film business that's
so collaborative. But who's one example or more of someone
(36:22):
you always dreamed of working with and you wish you've
been able to work with them, that you just love
their music for many generations, Oh god, there are so many.
Singing with Phoebe Bridges was was a big deal for
me because I love somebody's I mean, maybe I'd like
to do something with Lucinda Williams. You know, she's one
of my favorites, and I don't know how she does
what she does. It's just so mysterious to me that
(36:44):
I can't figure out how I bring that to. You know,
bring that about, I guess you'd have to write a
song together or something. So being invited, you know, it's
almost the necessary component for me. So who do I
want to call me up and invite to sing with them?
Where write a song with Lucinda would be great. Uh.
You know, I love women writers, songwriters. I Sean Colvin,
(37:09):
but I don't think of it like that. I got
to play with some wonderful musicians this last weekend we
did a live stream event for organization called Plastic Pollution Coalition,
and the lineup it was everybody's sang one song by
themselves in one song with somebody else, but it was
Ben Harper, keV mo Mandy Moore, Taylor Goldsmith and and
(37:31):
are A George who's my god daughter, but it's also
who is like the singer and the great group The
Bird and the Bee, and she's been in a bunch
of bands and as an artist in her own right.
But also a group called the Watkins Family Hour, which
are Sarah and Shawn Watkins, who I've played with before.
So I can't write name them, but I just to
show you, I mean, when stuff happens, it happens by accident.
(37:53):
It's almost got to be an accident. Like I told you,
I can't call people to say I want to write
a song with you. A matter of fact, some of
those people have invited me to write a song with him,
and I don't know how to even I don't even
know why that I can accept that offer, you know,
like I guess I want to give that phone call.
I want to see you at your house and someone
you love it in my own calls because you know something, man,
(38:13):
it's just time has come. The time has come for
you went. How to just do this? Man? We gotta
do this song. We you know, we talked about it
in London, we talked about it in Rio. I saw
you get at the airport in Miami and we talked
about it. And now the time has come for us
to do that song. And you're like, yeah, I'm gonna
call you back. I'll call you back tomorrow. I have
(38:35):
tremendous performance anxiety. You still do. Look Carol King and
asked me to let's write, get together, write a song.
And she came over my house and we spent afternoon.
I made a tape of the thing, you know, and
we we started hitting an idea there and I'm that
was like thirty years ago. I'm still working on that song.
I always tell them, Look, I'm the slowest writer you ever.
(38:57):
You know, we're gonna say that. Thank you for listening
to interview with Jackson Brown The slowest writer in rock
and roll history. Is there a song because your songs
are so emotional, some of them, they're very powerful emotionally,
And is there a song where when you play it
it still moves you. Well, honestly, this sound like bragging,
(39:18):
but they that's what they do to me. Not every
song is that kind of a song, but I mean,
there are a number of songs that do that to me.
And that's what I learned going out solo acoustic, was
that that's the only business I have being there is
that those This song still moved me. And it's real
because you're pretty much naked when you're up there, just
by yourself. But I would say that there was a
(39:38):
song on my recent record that I was faving trouble
finishing because I kept crying as I was trying to.
I mean, there weren't even my lines. I was collaborating
with a guy on this song called Love is Love.
It's a song that I wrote in Haiti, and we
were talking about this guy who is a priest that
has built schools and hospitals in Haiti and he rides
(39:59):
around on recycle and he's in this song and I
said that, I say, Rick writes a motorbike through the
worst slums of the city, and I and my friend
I said, well, how what would you say about Father Rick?
And he says, well, the father and the doctor to
the poorest of the poor. And for some reason that
just messed me up, because I've seen the work that
(40:19):
he's done, and I've seen the people that he helps
and ministers too, and it does now it gives me
chills to say those words, and I why wouldn't I
didn't write them that My my collaborator, David Bell, wrote
those words. But every time I'd sing that, I mean,
it had and I began laughing about it. But I'm
trying to finish the song. But this song has like
a very big SOB factor in it. I mean, he's
like messing me up to say these lines. There was
(40:42):
a line and Late for the Sky that did that
same thing when I wrote it. But by the time
it's a song, it doesn't make me cry. But you
know who does that? Like Bonnie Rate sings Love has
No Pride, and she would cry real tears all through
the song she liked. Just everybody cried. I mean it's
like that she was ding through. It was kind of
a miracle. But that just happens to her when she
(41:03):
sings that song. And I don't know how she can
sing a cry, but but she did. Also when we
were at the Hall of Fame Anniversary show and the
Cross Bustles and Nash hosted Bonnie and hosted me and
hosted James Taylor, She's sang Love has No Pride with
David and Graham and she she did it again. She
just brings it to that place where that song she inhabits.
That song. It's so it's so real that, I mean,
(41:25):
she just comes to tears and brings so many of
the people to tears too. Are you know what song
you sing is so moving to me? I mean the
most I'm not gonna see it the most beautiful song.
And you have a lot of beautiful songs, but I
love Linda Paloma. That's a beautiful song. Wonderful, thank you.
What was the inspiration for that song? Well, I wrote
that from my wife and my first wife, and we
(41:47):
we spent the whole first month we knew each other
in Mexican restaurants, listening to mariachi music and drinking. They
would always play her this song Kuokoko La Paloma. So
I wanted to write her a Paloma song, you know,
and they would really sing to her. She was really
beautiful and she knew that song. But when I when
I wrote it, of course it was some time after that,
(42:09):
but it was a tribute to her. Really, that's how
the song came about. Well listen, I'm glad you're healthy.
Best of luck on the tour with James Taylor. Although
you don't need luck when it's the two of you,
it sounds like a lock to me. It would be great.
And thank you so much for doing this with us.
Thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Jackson Brown. This is Linda Paloma from his fourth album
(42:32):
The Pretender. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing has brought
to you by my Heart Radio. At the moment you
think you're darklas started, you were filled with man being love.
(43:08):
Scenes from the songs of Love. I was the Less
Sky and you were my Man down. And the music
(43:28):
that played in your years goes a little bit fair
to each day. Can you find yourself looking se
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from My Heart. Radio must have some thought it's gonna
pull them through somehow. Why the Hotter than Hotter but
(00:20):
the sisters of the Sister Fever. Jackson Brown released his
self titled debut album, and This Song Rocked Me on
the Water in early two when he was just twenty
(00:44):
three years old. At that point, he'd already been writing
songs professionally for seven years. Part of that time he
spent in the heyday of New York City's folk scene.
He'd written songs for the likes of Joan Bayez, Linda Ronstadt,
The Birds, Greg Allman, and Nico. In nine, Brown moved
(01:07):
back to Los Angeles and set his course to become
one of the greatest singer songwriters of his generation, known
for his political activism and his honest, self reflective lyrics.
Jackson Brown's fourteen studio albums have sold over eighteen million copies.
(01:29):
Bruce Springsteen inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in two thousand four. Jackson Brown comes from
a family of musicians, journalists, and dreamers. His grandfather spent
a decade building a stone house in Highland Park, Los Angeles,
complete with a huge pipe organ in the basement. My
(01:50):
father played organ in silent movies. Actually no, yeah, And
there was a pipe organ in the house that I
grew up in. It was in the chapel and it
was built by the Angels Organ Company. I mean I
personally broke the organ when I was a kid, because
you could go behind the pipes and play around. It
was like a secret passageway. But I must have put
(02:10):
my foot through something, a bellows or something. Your grandfather
and your father playing the organ, you broke the organ. YEA,
be very clear about now. You know I was reading
about you. I mean, obviously I knew something about you,
and I knew a lot about the songs you've written,
but I didn't know about your earliest life where when
you were very young you left to go to New
(02:31):
York where you were right out of high school. Is
that correct? Yeah? Pretty much? Yeah, now we know why?
What was what was the calling to go to New York?
You know the music I was listening to was all
coming from Cambridge and Greenwich Village, you know, the folk
meccas where those two places on the East Coast, and
even though folk music was from all over the country,
(02:51):
the people who were doing it, we're coming out of
New York. And I would meet players that were playing
in say, Huntington's Beach, you know, and they were from
New York. And I just wanted to go, but my
friends invited me to go to drive with him to
New York. It took us three and a quarter days.
We just drove straight from l A to New York
with three guys sharing the gas. And there I was
(03:13):
in New York in the snow with my Penny loafers
and my T shirt. You know. It's like you're a
California by birth. Not really, I was born in Germany,
but my but yeah, my my grandfather came to California
and when he was young, and so my family is
from California. You went from Germany to California when you
were how old three. Who were some of the people
(03:35):
that were influences you in terms of folk music, Well,
Joan Bayez and then Bob Dylan, of course he played
a lot of folk music as well as you know,
writing songs. And Kurnel Ray and Glover and they made
a record called Blues reckon Hollers and I like the blues.
I listened to a lot of blues records, and that's
what I mean. Also, when I say folk music, I
mean folk, you know, country blues and Mississippi John Hurt,
(03:57):
you know Doc Watson and all these, you know, both
white and black country musicians. And when you went to
New York, what was that like? Where did it start
for you? There? You we're writing music with who? And where?
I was writing my own songs. But I wasn't really
writing with anybody there. I was there for I wasn't
there for very long. Three or four months, Tim Buckley
(04:19):
was playing at this club in the village and he
was sort of sharing the bill with artists named Nko
was and it was Andy Warhol's sort of barring that
he's set up to, you know, do installations. And anyway,
Tim Tommy Niko was looking for a new company. So
I got the job doing that, except Andy didn't want
it to seem like folk music, and they wanted her
(04:40):
to sing from inside of a plexiglass box. She didn't
want to do that. She was not really trying to
be a spectacle. She was trying to be a musician.
So anyway, that's really all that happened. I lived on
the Lower East Side with a friend of mine that
was doing his conscious objector or alternate service by working
in a head start. And uh we lived down like
(05:01):
Clinton and de Lancey and but uh, you know, I
was only there for a few months. Why it was
New York. Note for you, I got kind of homesick. Yeah,
I've thought many times about what I might have done
had I stayed there. You know. One of the things
that happened was I got robbed buying clothes. I had
like been paid and I had a bunch of money
(05:22):
and I wanted to Actually it was a close store
that famously Bob Dylan had bought a lot of clothes
there and stuff. I went in this place, I left
my jacket hanging on a hook and the dressing room,
and I went to go pay for the clothes. I
bought him that my wallet was gone, and so I
didn't buy the clothes, and I sort of went home penniless.
But about New York, it was interesting to me because
(05:43):
people were friendly. I've been living in Orange County, where
people were more less hostile to people that looked like me.
And if you were a freaking Orange County you had.
It was hardcore. You had to be you know, committed, Yeah,
committed exactly. We're we're in Orange County. What town were you? Fuller?
But I lived all over Orange County because friends of
mine would get a house at the beach and they'd
(06:03):
be living in Huntington's or they'd be living in Newport.
There were a lot of freaks. Now, when you leave
New York, you go back to l a driven by work, music, opportunity, songwriting,
or you just want to go home. Well, I always
wanted to record my songs. As a matter of fact,
one of the first things that happened when I got
back was I was asked by a friend of mine
(06:25):
who was in a band. There was a band that
I hung around with a lot called the Gentle Soul,
and I hung around on their house and everything was
so communal in those days. People just lived together a lot.
So anyway, I was invited to audition for that band,
and that's where I met Jesse Ed Davis, the great
guitar player who played on my first single, Doctor My Eyes.
(06:46):
The audition didn't come to anything, and I didn't see
how it could because I didn't really know how to
be in a band. I wasn't in bands in high school.
I just you know, I was just a songwriter. The
other guy I met in that audition was Leroy Marinell,
who co wrote Where ofs of London Good and Want
to Tell Later? So it is an interesting group of people,
but in the end none of us joined that band.
(07:09):
Dctor my Eyes as your first single you record, and
what's the path to writing songs? Because I'm assuming that
this a period of your young life before you become
the Jackson Brown. We all know you weren't performing and
you were only writing songs or you were doing both.
Oh No, I sang in clubs. Yeah, I sang my songs,
(07:31):
and I really I didn't sing so well. Even though
I knew a lot of folks songs, I'm out of
sang them all the time. I sang blues and folks
songs and traditional songs, and especially learning guitar things like
Mississippi John Heard or Dave Van Rock guitar pieces or
Doc Watson. I mean, it was part a group of
people who were crazy about music, and that was the
thing that drove everything for me. But as far as playing,
(07:55):
I guess I felt that I had the right to
sing these songs since I wrote them. Otherwise, who would
listen to me singing? As a man of fact, I
remember sitting up singing songs at a party and this
friend of mine, a good friend of mine, sort of
gently tried to tell me, Look, you know you play
really well, but you know you shouldn't. You shouldn't try
to sing. The record of the woman who told Jackson
(08:20):
Brown I'd cool it on the singing front of the atwork.
Who wasn't that said that to Jackson Brown? Well, her
name was Ruth and Kendall ruth An. If you're out there,
we wanted to introduce you to Jackson Brown, who sold
eighteen million records singing. But anyway, Um, when you get
back from New York, what's the gap between arriving back
in California wherever you are and dr my eyes gets pressed?
(08:45):
You go? You you make a record? Years? It was years? Yeah?
Was it really four or five years? Yeah? At the
time it was, I was eighteen. So I made my
first record when I was about twenty two, I guess.
So it was about four years before I got anything going.
But I I'd go to the true Buddoor and I'd
sing on Monday nights in the open mic there, and
I would play in little clubs and the beach towns
(09:07):
and I had so much time. It was fantastic. And
also I didn't even have a car for most of that.
I finally got a car when I was about twenty
or something, I don't know. I was living in Echo
Park for a long time without a car, and my
best friend just finally got sick of driving there to
get me and bring me back to Hollywood. All I
did was play, and I kind of longed for that.
(09:28):
And how did Doctor my Eyes get made into a record? Well,
that was the one song I had written that was
probably up tempo enough and short enough and simple enough
to make it on the radio. And it was understood.
I mean, at least I understood that it might not
be your best song that guts on the radio, but
(09:49):
if it was your shortest, fastest song, it might. Actually
they're really serious about that. Records had to be not
more than three minutes long better fact to fifty two
was ideal, and how you say anything in two minutes?
But most of my songs were really long, five or
six minutes, and dr minus could be made into that
kind of a song, and it was you know, you
(10:09):
were kind of obligated to try, but it never occurred
to me that it would actually work, that we'd get
on I'd get on the radio. So you took that
song to someone or someone heard you playing in the club.
Oh no, no, no, no, it was one of my
songs like early on, like for instance, like in New York,
I was making demo. I had been signed to a
publishing company in high school, so I was given five
advanced I was signed, well, I signed away half of
(10:33):
the songs to a record company, Elector of Records had
a publishing company called Nina Music. And my best friend
not only got signed to that publishing company but made
a record for Electra. So it was I was sort
of in line to maybe get recorded eventually, you know,
if I things shaped up. So it's a long and
winding road. But there was a record that got made
at the Elector, but it it didn't wasn't any good
(10:53):
and didn't get released. So okay, so back to singing
out the Monday Night hoots at the True Boodoor. And uh,
eventually I did start being managed by David Geffin, And
you want to know how that happened? And simply sent
him a recording and a photograph, and the recording was
of my song Jamaica Say you Will, and it was
(11:15):
it was recording made in a kind of a publisher's
demo with Glenn Fry singing and playing guitar and me
playing piano and John David South there playing the drums
and singing, and those guys sang really great and that
it sounded pretty good. And then eventually I called in
to see what was going on and I was invited
to come in and talk with David geffin And for
(11:36):
those who don't know, David Geffen managed Laura Niro, he
managed christ By Sills and Nash, and his partner in
his management company managed Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. He's
really responsible for making songwriters sort of the focus of
music and those at that time it was already happening,
but he was the one in the music business that said, look,
(11:58):
I think you know this is what really matters. So anyway,
so yeah, I met with him and he said, okay,
I'll manage you, and I was like, you will, so good.
Then he then really the next thing he said was
you don't We're not in her, you know, well, you're
gonna work on your singing, and which I was, you know,
I mean, it was pretty much. It was obvious that
(12:18):
I needed to get better, so I spent time doing that.
And also he he took me around to a lot
of record companies. He took me to Elector, where I
had already been. It's hilarious because then I am sitting
in the office of Jack Holsman, whom I know, who
had already signed me to his label then and I had,
like you know, asked to be released after they didn't
(12:39):
release the album. But I mean Jack Holsman, he owned
the publishing company that owned my music Mina Nina Nina music. Well,
Geffen asked him too, and he did give me back
my publishing. Have you ever heard of such a thing?
It was wild And to this day, I mean, I'm
indebted to him. And he he was a kind of
(13:00):
as exceptional record man. Well, while he built that record
company on the back of a vespa, he literally recorded
the artist, he mastered the records, he pressed them, he
put him in a box on the back of his
vesp and he took him to the record stores all
over Manhattan and he built elected records that way, and
he was very opinionated about everything music and especially but
(13:21):
he was kind of a hero to me. And there
I was in his office and he didn't sign me.
Then he Geffen walks in with me and he didn't
he didn't think I was there yet. But he also
took me to see Clive Davis. He took me to
you know, he asked Ahmed Ard again to sign me,
and none of these people couldn't. He decided to open
his own record company. And when you throughout your career,
(13:43):
when you're writing music, is there a kind of a
a sense that there's a Jackson Brown sound now? If anything,
I thought I had some good songs and I was
really just trying to learn to sing. And also I
had the great, great good fortune to make friends with
a drummer named Russell Kunkle. Russ was really cool and
(14:05):
he was people were nice to me. I mean, I
one time I ran into Jim Kelton, who was also
very cool, and he was a drummer on a session
that they were doing, Johnny Rivers was recording one of
my songs, and they befriended me. They were very very kind.
So Russ said, just so you know, if when you
get ready to make your record whenever that is, I
want to I want you to call me. I want
to play on your record. So I did. I called
(14:27):
the people that I knew and who had been friendly
to me. And that's that's the amount. That's the degree
at which I strategized about anything. It's just like, call
up some of you knows a good drummer, and you know,
call a friend. I don't. I still don't know how
to call up somebody I don't know and asked if
we can make music together. I still don't. I don't
know how to do that. Who's Who's someone you wanted
to call? I'm happy to call them for you. By
(14:48):
the way, Hello, it's Alec Jackson's feeling a little uptight,
you said. Russ Kunkle. Russ Kunkle and lees Clara played
on that record and they made sound really. I mean,
I listened to it the other day, and you know,
I said, I spent years think it was kind of
rudimentary and that I was not much of a singer yet,
(15:09):
and I was. But really they really imbuted it with
a kind of confidence and a kind of they brought
the best out of the songs and when I hear
it now, I think this is okay, this is pretty good.
A matter of fact, Dr Myers comes down, I think, well,
this is really good, and by standards that I didn't
even have at the time. I mean, there's this piano
part that starts the song that goes did und and
(15:31):
and and well when I wrote it, I just did
that through the whole song, and you it's like something
give me a bouncy seat. It was like that, kind
of just trying to give you the impression that they
were drums, you know. So when we got in the
studio with the drummer and we said, well, we can't
do that, and which shall I do? And I just said, well,
I'll do like the Beatles, you know, bump bump, bump,
(15:51):
bump bump, and you know, magically, the great musicians I had,
Russ and Lee just made it sound incredible. So did
the interesting and thinking about that song as it was
recorded with based in conga's not drums, and that the
drums were over dubbed. And I don't know if anybody
listening knows what the difference would be, because mostly congas
(16:11):
get added to something in American music, sort of an
added element. Of percussion. But in fact, when there's a
conga player in the band and things are based on
that groove, when it's like taking it to the streets
or little feats, incredible songs, you know, like it makes
a huge difference. It's built into the DNA of the
song that there's a swing. You know, Russell was playing
(16:32):
this gang to get them to take it to doom boom,
and it gives it this balance and this swing that
I think now is like I really value it. At
the time, I thought, well, we're doing the best we
can making this song. This a little bit, it's short.
I mean, I didn't I didn't think it was my
best song. Where do you think is your best song?
(16:54):
I'm sure it's impossible to pick one. Oh, well, what's
one that comes to mind? What's the song when you
wrote the song? Well, we're gonna get back to I'm
gonna I'm gonna go to another place, which is that
because you do downplay you were singing early on, and
was there a period where I mean, and you're a
famous singer, so if you're if you're insecure about your
singing in the early days, were there songs you wrote
(17:16):
where you said to yourself. I'm not gonna sing this,
I'm gonna hand it to somebody else. Did you pass
it on to somebody else? Well, lots of people still
recorded my song before I did. But it wasn't that
I had passed them to him that they did me
a favorite by recording my songs. I mean, like Tom
Rush recorded a song of mine that I still haven't played.
I I was a songwriter, and I wouldn't say I
was insecure. I just knew very well that I didn't
(17:38):
sing well. Where there were some there were their songs
you wrote that you thought were better sung by someone else. Yeah,
that's always been the case, actually, you know, like Greg
Allman's version of These Days. I mean I recorded that
I didn't put on my first album, and I've almost
forgotten about the song, and he recorded it. But also
I gotta say, like that song was recorded by Nico
(17:58):
before anybody else recorded it. And I played the guitar
part on her record, and she it was so unique,
the sound of her voice and her accent, and the
fact that in order her to sing the song and
for me to play how I played, I mean when
I wrote it, I had to play it way up
the neck and put a cape book on the guitar
so that it sounded very shiny, and the combination of
that chiny guitar part and her wonderful deep voice and
(18:23):
her German accent, you know, it's a very iconic performance.
And I think it's more famous, you know, for her,
because of her than it is for me. And I've
a lot of people recorded, though, I mean Tom rushed,
lots of people recorded these days, Glenn Campbell. And funny,
when Glenn Campbell recorded, he basically recorded her version of it.
So you wanted other people to record your songs until
(18:46):
you were similar to Carol King in that way. Yeah,
if I hear myself saying that I was similar to
Carol Kake, Carol King some of the greatest songs of
all time when she was a housewife, you know. Yeah,
the songwriters wrote at home, you know. And when when
I met Carol, she told me, I get the kids
after school by nine o'clock and then I've got a
few hours to work because we're talking about work habits,
(19:08):
you know, because I didn't have any, you know, at
that time. Her daughter was about sixteen, and she came
in the room and you know, she's just dealing with
life the way everybody I mean, but that's that's what's
great about her music. It's about the fundamentals of life.
You know. She was really a big deal to me.
But then when she wanted to become a singer songwriter,
I think it's because James Taylor had really kind of
(19:30):
shown everyone and they were friends, you know, just she
really saw that you could you could actually be the
person who wrote the song singing this song, and that
was there was an added interest there. And I really
believe that people should sing their own songs. I used
to sing Warren Zevon's songs before I got him recorded,
because I wanted people to hear the song. So I
would sing a Mohammed's radio. I would sing Warolves of
(19:52):
London and my record come and saying well, Warolvers Londen,
you're gonna record that right, like no, no, no no, I
want Warren to record that. You know the real do
Jackson Brown this song my Cleveland Heart is on his
new album Downhill from Everywhere. I'm gonna make a future
change we really were. I need somebody else who says
(20:22):
to see me, we need I expect changes. Star well
fun to get clean if you love conversations with pioneering
(20:44):
singer songwriters, be sure to check out my interview with
Carly Simon. A little over fifty years ago, a show
at the Troubadour changed her life. Three of us rehearsed
in New York for three days, and then we went
out to l a And by that time, I'm hoped
for Cats open for Cat six April six, and that
(21:05):
changed things for you. That was that. That was a
convincing night. We played two shows every night and four
shows on the weekend. I met all all kinds of people.
It was like the lights you were shining. I couldn't
say no at that point. And I and even though
I was suffering tremendous stage fright, I had various things
(21:28):
that tricked me out of being afraid. Here the rest
of my talk with Carly Simon at Here's the Thing
dot Org. After the break, Jackson Brown talks about collaborating
with a new generation of singer songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers.
(21:54):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the
Thing The singer steps from the beginning and to the
vanished into the air, trying to understand how our lives head,
(22:15):
let us look at hard. There was nobody at every
such an empty surprise long. This song, Late for the Sky,
(22:46):
is from Jackson Brown's third studio album of the same name,
released in nineteen seventy four. Jackson Brown is on tour
with James Taylor this summer. The pandemic delayed the release
of his eightist album and tour. Jackson Brown contracted COVID
in March of I got it at a show that
(23:07):
was being done. We're being very careful, trying to distance
and elbow bump and sanitized. And you got it and
I got it. How did you feel? What was it like?
It wasn't a very bad case. You know, I didn't
have any problem breathing and I was I felt well
again in a couple of weeks, so, and I could
tell I was going to get better. I just didn't
get that sick. And your son got it too, correct. Yeah.
(23:30):
I came back from New York and we got together,
and of course my son and I hugged, and you know,
I can't be helped. But that's when everything everything shut down,
and here we are still trying to get get it
back up and running it. It It looks it looks good now.
One of the songs on your new album, it's called
My Cleveland Heart, and I wanted you to talk about that,
(23:51):
about what what was the genesis of that song. Well,
I happened to be in Cleveland and driving by a
Billings and what's that and they said that's Cleveland Heart
And I said, what's Cleveland Heart? And he said, well,
that's where they make the artificial hearts. And I thought, oh,
I could use one of those. Why do you feel
this this one heart? Yeah, just like one that doesn't break,
(24:16):
They don't ache, you know, they don't make mistakes, and um,
it's not they're not that much to the song. But
it was really fun to make a video of me
getting this artificial heart. And it's enormous too. It looks
made out of motorcycle parts and sort of put this
thing in my chest. It's like, oh I but it's
(24:36):
satirical and surreal to and it was. It sort of
made a fun video because the doctors that are operating
on me, the actual players in my band I mean,
and then begin to play. The metaphors are are really
abundant there, you know, I mean, they saved my life
every night. They saved my life on stage and in
a way they do like do a sort of heart transplant.
(24:57):
How did Phoebe Bridgers get to become person that's going
to eat your heart? Well, that was just that was
very spontaneous. We didn't we didn't plan the video for
her eat my heart. It's just the way that happened
with I know Phoebe and I'm a huge fan of hers,
And as a matter of fact, one of the reasons
I picked that director was that she had worked with
Phoebe and I liked the video that they made. And
(25:19):
I had just been working with her because she invited
me to sing on her song Kyoto, an acoustic version
of that, and she invited me to sing on it.
So I think somebody said, oh, you know, Phoebe could
be one of the nurses in this video and your surgery.
And I said, oh, yeah, great, let let's asked her
and she's that she was game. So once I knew
that she was going to be a nurse, I thought,
(25:39):
you know, maybe, yeah, when they take my heart out,
maybe they can glory this, you know, maybe they can
hand it to her and she could receive my heart.
And then it was somebody else who knows her quite well,
who said yeah, and she eats it. It was her
producer Tony Bergh said, they're gonna handle the heart and
then she's off screen, but then they're gonna go back
(25:59):
to showing or just standing off to one side with
my heart. And I thought, that's not real. That's what
they wouldn't do that, right. I was discussing with Tony
and he said, yeah, she eats it or she takes
a bite, you know. And apparently it's like, you know,
everybody thinks it's really kind of apropos of who Phoebe is.
She Phoebe is very Her songs are so dark. One
(26:20):
of the things I love about it about her music,
you know. And so that's how that happened. And of
course that director is so great, her her use of
light and location. What is that director's name. Her name
is Alyssa torvin In. She also did a great video
with Pink But the album, the song is called Cleveland.
(26:42):
Heart of the album itself is called Downhill from Everywhere?
And what was the genesis of that? Are we downhill
now from everywhere? Well, the ocean is downhill from everywhere?
And everything in the song is something that winds up
in the ocean. Plastic. It's actually about plastic that song.
I remember when I lived in l A. And of
course you'd see all the storm drains that said, you know,
(27:03):
drains to the ocean, And I remember, forget the l
A Weekly talked about how twenty year veteran lifeguards in
the beach department there in Venice were contracting kidney cancer
from all of the pollutants in the bay. I worked
with heel the bay, the Bologna wet lands. They were
constantly breaching and having these blowouts and during storms and
(27:24):
all kinds of untreated sewage going into the bay. And yeah,
and when it rains in l A, you gotta stay
out of the water because the runoff into the harbor
water marks it absolutely toxic. What I wanted to get
to is your activism. I just recently they closed the
Indian Point reactor here, and I've worked to shut down
utility reactors for probably run around twenty five years now
(27:47):
with disparate groups. And you, of course had a very
very serious relationship with the anti nuclear movement. I believe
that three Mile Island happened in March of seventy nine.
You helped form Muse that same are, correct, Yeah, and
then you perform at the No Nukes concert in September
of that same year. Correct, Yeah, we we had formed
Muse and we're planning the concert before Three Miles melted
(28:10):
down and before the release of that pivotal movie China Syndrome, right,
really sort of went into the problems and in a
feature film. So all that happened all at once, and
that gave a lot of currency and a lot of emphasis.
At what point in your life did you decide to
take that on. You're writing songs, things start to go well,
David Geffen's representing it. When do you decide you wanted
(28:31):
to get active publicly? You know, I was raised in
the sixties, and so I was a member of Cores
of the Congress of Racial Equality, and I would i'd
take part in, you know, demonstrations. I didn't really have
songs about these things. You know, there was plenty of
movement songs. Actually, a lot of the songs that I
knew in the civil rights era were actually from the
(28:51):
labor movement in the thirties. So there's a lot in
the folk music that has a kind of activism component,
or it has a social consciousness component, and particularly the
early songs of Bob Dylan did so there was a
strong call to be involved, to do things that would
move society in the right direction. And I think that we,
like so many people, we assume that that was always happening,
(29:15):
and it was always going to happen, and that the
arc of justice and so on and all that was.
It was just an assured thing that we were moving forward.
Until you know, about five years ago, you didn't worry
it was going to hurt your career. No, no, And
I didn't really believe that it did. Although I think
when you start writing songs about it, that's the question
whether or not people want to hear anti war songs
(29:36):
or they want to hear songs about nuclear power. It's like,
if people are averse to hearing, you know, about society's problems,
that they're not going to want to hear it in
a song. I'm a songwriter, I talk about life. You know,
you want to talk about what's happening in the real world.
You can't just barricade yourself off in this entertainment land.
Like what's going on was like a huge surprise to everybody.
(30:00):
The height of the Vietnam War, that like a singer
like Marvin Gay would come out with a song that
was considered a protest song. Berry Goorey didn't want to
release it, but it was it was too good, it
was too true to be denied. And I think that
for that matter. John Lennon also, you know the height
of the Beatles, you know, as they broke up, he
ban singing songs about his personal development. I mean, you know,
(30:24):
he famously went through the primal screen therapy and stuff,
but he began writing songs like mother, you had me,
but I didn't have you. You know, Father, you left me,
but I never left you. That was so powerful. That's
what songwriting was about from me. And I mean Bob
Dylan was you know, right at that sort of crux.
(30:46):
If every one of these moments when things doubled down
and people were singing about what was really going on
in the life and what was really going on in
the world, and all these people remind you is that
this music has been made all along. I mean there's
songs Woody got three songs, and Bob Dylan songs and
Pete Seegers songs, Joan Bias. This is a big part
of what music has always been. And it was only
(31:06):
in Hollywood that you were sort of told, don't try
to make any political points here. Maybe it's New York
to maybe simply the hierarchy, the financial hierarchy of the country,
you know, doesn't want anybody waking up. Singer, songwriter and
activist Jackson Brown. When we Return, Jackson Brown talks about
(31:27):
the songs that still move him to tears. Follow here's
the thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave
(31:48):
us a review. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening
to hear the things. Running on Empty is the title
(32:26):
track to Jackson Brown's seven live album, recorded at the
Merryweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. Brown was part of
l A's Laurel Canyon music scene in the nineteen seventies.
Musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Rait, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young,
and the Eagles often dropped by each other's houses to
(32:48):
play music together. Brown still marvels at how he was
able to meet some of his heroes from the beginning.
I met people that I really had a huge admiration
for like David Crosby, you know, sang on my first album.
I mean he's sort of it's almost like being knighted
or something, you know, Like he like he gave me
(33:10):
the accolade of being of singing Army down four or
five of my songs. And I really learned so much
of how to work, how to get what I get
in the studio from him. And there was a concert
I did one time where Crosby, Sils and Nash wear there,
but Neil wasn't there, and I was on stage that
there's a picture of me with Crossil, Nash and Brown.
It's like like I thought, well, that's wild, you know.
(33:30):
And it was a long time ago. But I gotta
say the people that I admire the most are people
I'm still very shy about and don't even know how
to overcome that my admiration enough to be really really
good friends with. I mean, I can't quite get over it,
you know, what they mean to me and what the
music meant to me. Springsteen inducted you into the Rock
(33:51):
and Roll Hall of Fame. M Is he a friend
of yours? And when you admire yeah yeah, yeah, And
he and we met We met at a gig that
we were both doing at Villanova, and he actually he
was opening from me, and I've never seen him. I
had met him. We already knew each other because he
(34:13):
came into a guest set when I was playing acoustically
at this club called the Main Point in Philadelphia, and
so we knew each other, and I knew his music
and saw me that I was doing this gig with
Bruce and that he was you know that, I he said,
you're what you were, you were gonna follow Bruce. I
don't know, I don't think you should do that. It
it really bothered me, pissed me off of it. What
do you mean, I'm like, But then I saw this
(34:35):
show and it was really I mean, I saw what
he was doing and it was just astounding. He's a
thing unto himself, and he amplified so much of what
he saw in rock and roll to a degree to
almost make it into another art form. But I gotta
say I feel quite apart from all of that. I mean,
I try to learn from everything that I that I love.
(34:56):
I try to take it in and learn part of
it or something how how to applies to what I
want to do. But I feel like what I do
is quite different. I mean, I'm always put together with
the Eagles, but when I think about it, we really
wrote about very different things. And for that matter, like
take it easy as a very you know, it's a
song that I wrote with Glenn Fry, and so I'm
linked in that way forever and I'm very happy about it.
(35:17):
But it wouldn't have been that song if Glenn Fry
had not done what he did. He wrote about what
he writes about. I write about what I write about,
and like standing on the corner in Windsory, Arizona, I
see an Indian guy. I see it, A tall Indian
guy with a white cowboy hat, you know, took hoise shirt,
standing on the corner, and I probably would have written
about him. Of course, Glenn said, you wrote about this
(35:39):
a girl, my lord in a flatbed forward. Yeah, slowing
down to look at men, take a look at me.
That's pure Glenn Fry. That's like, well, I've always said,
you musicians have this beautiful reality. Music is so much
more powerful than film and television because you can consume
it anywhere in the shower, while you're having sex, while
(36:01):
you're jogging, while you're in the car. Music is in
our lives in a way that you don't have to
make that kind of appointment visually with movies and TV.
And how beautiful for you. You can just sit down
and write, and you can just sit down and play,
and it's all self generated. It's you. It comes from you,
and the and and and and the film business that's
so collaborative. But who's one example or more of someone
(36:22):
you always dreamed of working with and you wish you've
been able to work with them, that you just love
their music for many generations, Oh god, there are so many.
Singing with Phoebe Bridges was was a big deal for
me because I love somebody's I mean, maybe I'd like
to do something with Lucinda Williams. You know, she's one
of my favorites, and I don't know how she does
what she does. It's just so mysterious to me that
(36:44):
I can't figure out how I bring that to. You know,
bring that about, I guess you'd have to write a
song together or something. So being invited, you know, it's
almost the necessary component for me. So who do I
want to call me up and invite to sing with them?
Where write a song with Lucinda would be great. Uh.
You know, I love women writers, songwriters. I Sean Colvin,
(37:09):
but I don't think of it like that. I got
to play with some wonderful musicians this last weekend we
did a live stream event for organization called Plastic Pollution Coalition,
and the lineup it was everybody's sang one song by
themselves in one song with somebody else, but it was
Ben Harper, keV mo Mandy Moore, Taylor Goldsmith and and
(37:31):
are A George who's my god daughter, but it's also
who is like the singer and the great group The
Bird and the Bee, and she's been in a bunch
of bands and as an artist in her own right.
But also a group called the Watkins Family Hour, which
are Sarah and Shawn Watkins, who I've played with before.
So I can't write name them, but I just to
show you, I mean, when stuff happens, it happens by accident.
(37:53):
It's almost got to be an accident. Like I told you,
I can't call people to say I want to write
a song with you. A matter of fact, some of
those people have invited me to write a song with him,
and I don't know how to even I don't even
know why that I can accept that offer, you know,
like I guess I want to give that phone call.
I want to see you at your house and someone
you love it in my own calls because you know something, man,
(38:13):
it's just time has come. The time has come for
you went. How to just do this? Man? We gotta
do this song. We you know, we talked about it
in London, we talked about it in Rio. I saw
you get at the airport in Miami and we talked
about it. And now the time has come for us
to do that song. And you're like, yeah, I'm gonna
call you back. I'll call you back tomorrow. I have
(38:35):
tremendous performance anxiety. You still do. Look Carol King and
asked me to let's write, get together, write a song.
And she came over my house and we spent afternoon.
I made a tape of the thing, you know, and
we we started hitting an idea there and I'm that
was like thirty years ago. I'm still working on that song.
I always tell them, Look, I'm the slowest writer you ever.
(38:57):
You know, we're gonna say that. Thank you for listening
to interview with Jackson Brown The slowest writer in rock
and roll history. Is there a song because your songs
are so emotional, some of them, they're very powerful emotionally,
And is there a song where when you play it
it still moves you. Well, honestly, this sound like bragging,
(39:18):
but they that's what they do to me. Not every
song is that kind of a song, but I mean,
there are a number of songs that do that to me.
And that's what I learned going out solo acoustic, was
that that's the only business I have being there is
that those This song still moved me. And it's real
because you're pretty much naked when you're up there, just
by yourself. But I would say that there was a
(39:38):
song on my recent record that I was faving trouble
finishing because I kept crying as I was trying to.
I mean, there weren't even my lines. I was collaborating
with a guy on this song called Love is Love.
It's a song that I wrote in Haiti, and we
were talking about this guy who is a priest that
has built schools and hospitals in Haiti and he rides
(39:59):
around on recycle and he's in this song and I
said that, I say, Rick writes a motorbike through the
worst slums of the city, and I and my friend
I said, well, how what would you say about Father Rick?
And he says, well, the father and the doctor to
the poorest of the poor. And for some reason that
just messed me up, because I've seen the work that
(40:19):
he's done, and I've seen the people that he helps
and ministers too, and it does now it gives me
chills to say those words, and I why wouldn't I
didn't write them that My my collaborator, David Bell, wrote
those words. But every time I'd sing that, I mean,
it had and I began laughing about it. But I'm
trying to finish the song. But this song has like
a very big SOB factor in it. I mean, he's
like messing me up to say these lines. There was
(40:42):
a line and Late for the Sky that did that
same thing when I wrote it. But by the time
it's a song, it doesn't make me cry. But you
know who does that? Like Bonnie Rate sings Love has
No Pride, and she would cry real tears all through
the song she liked. Just everybody cried. I mean it's
like that she was ding through. It was kind of
a miracle. But that just happens to her when she
(41:03):
sings that song. And I don't know how she can
sing a cry, but but she did. Also when we
were at the Hall of Fame Anniversary show and the
Cross Bustles and Nash hosted Bonnie and hosted me and
hosted James Taylor, She's sang Love has No Pride with
David and Graham and she she did it again. She
just brings it to that place where that song she inhabits.
That song. It's so it's so real that, I mean,
(41:25):
she just comes to tears and brings so many of
the people to tears too. Are you know what song
you sing is so moving to me? I mean the
most I'm not gonna see it the most beautiful song.
And you have a lot of beautiful songs, but I
love Linda Paloma. That's a beautiful song. Wonderful, thank you.
What was the inspiration for that song? Well, I wrote
that from my wife and my first wife, and we
(41:47):
we spent the whole first month we knew each other
in Mexican restaurants, listening to mariachi music and drinking. They
would always play her this song Kuokoko La Paloma. So
I wanted to write her a Paloma song, you know,
and they would really sing to her. She was really
beautiful and she knew that song. But when I when
I wrote it, of course it was some time after that,
(42:09):
but it was a tribute to her. Really, that's how
the song came about. Well listen, I'm glad you're healthy.
Best of luck on the tour with James Taylor. Although
you don't need luck when it's the two of you,
it sounds like a lock to me. It would be great.
And thank you so much for doing this with us.
Thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Jackson Brown. This is Linda Paloma from his fourth album
(42:32):
The Pretender. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing has brought
to you by my Heart Radio. At the moment you
think you're darklas started, you were filled with man being love.
(43:08):
Scenes from the songs of Love. I was the Less
Sky and you were my Man down. And the music
(43:28):
that played in your years goes a little bit fair
to each day. Can you find yourself looking se
Host
Alec Baldwin
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