Willie Nile

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Set podcast.
My guest today is singer, songwriter musician Willie Nile. Willie,
you had an adventure at the end of the year
your home town of Buffalo. Tell us the story. Hello, Bob,
thanks for having me. I was born in Buffalo, raised there,

(00:29):
and I live in New York. I've lived in New
York off and on for about fifty years. And my dad,
I have a father's one hundred and five years old,
lives at home outside of Buffalo. One of my brothers
lives with him. In the last four years and he's
one hundred and five. But he's doing great. He goes
to church every day. He's like he just takes no medication.
You'd think that he was in early eighties. So I
went up to Buffalo for Christmas and staying at his home.

(00:53):
He's a great storyteller and funny guy. And after a
couple of days, we saw this big storm was coming in,
you know, the Buffalo blizzard, and I read about it
ahead of time about how high winds, really high winds
and cold weather it can cause frostbite. Anyway, So I
wake up on Friday morning, two days before Christmas twenty

(01:13):
third of December, and I, you know, eleven fifteen, I
wake up. My brother says we're on a power no heat,
and I thought, you're kidding me, right. Apparently someone in
a truck ran into a utility pol and with a
driving band on. I wanted them to put that person's
picture on the front of the Buffalo newspaper so that
everyone know who ran into the pole. They caused eight

(01:34):
hundred and fifty some homes to be without power. So
there was no power, Okay. I got up, got dressed,
and Dad was doing Crossford puzzles like all this. You know,
he doesn't complain, it's really great. So we were without
power for three days and three nights. It was eighty
mile in our winds. It was eight degrees outside and

(01:56):
it was freezing. It was so cool. I grew up
in Buffalo, you know, I know the winner there's eighty
five words for snow, and buff there's not. But it
was so cold. I had we had a fireplace, but
no wood, had you know, gas fireplace. We turned it on,
lit it all the way up, but it doesn't emanate
much heat. I would put my hands at the top

(02:17):
of the you know, the fireplace just to hole. You know,
the stones had warmth that it didn't emanate heat. Long
story short, there was a neighbor next door who was
really great x marine. In the middle of this blizzard.
There was four feet of snow in the driveway. It
was beautiful. Everything was going sideways because the wind was
so hard, and so I thought, my phone's dying, you know,

(02:40):
like later in the day on Friday, and we had
no contact. We were we were everyone was stranded in
the neighborhood. Everywhere there was so much snow. So I
made me It took about ten minutes to go just
right next door. I used to shovel as an anchor
to get through the snow. Was I just to pull
myself up. Knocked on their door and they that they
hesitated to open the door. There was some figure in

(03:02):
black outside their door. They didn't know who it was.
The guy answered and said, Hi, you know I lived
next door. My dad's one hundred and five and my
phone is dying. Can I use your car, you know,
to charge the phone. He goes, oh, we'll do it inside.
So I took my phone. He charged my phone like
six or seven times over the course of three days.
Sunday morning. The third day, they couldn't do it anymore.

(03:24):
And the second when I went back Saturday morning to
get my phone one time, I said what's your phone number?
And he said, I'll give it to you later. Go No,
I'll take it. I'll take it now. I took my
glove off for thirty seconds. How long does this take?
The type of number the phone? I typed it in
and you know, my hands were really cold, put it
back on, went home and my fingers, my three fingers

(03:47):
on my right hand are still a little numb. It's
gotten better, but it's not one hundred percent. And this
was well whatever. It was a twenty fourth of December.
Long story short, we had We were freezing. Getting in
bed on Friday night was brutal. Dressed we might have
been going skiing in the Alps. We were dressed that
that much on multiple coats, hat, socks, all kinds of clothes,

(04:09):
and it didn't help much. Woke up early early six
o'clock because it was so cold you couldn't sleep. And
Dad was great. My brother he took the grill off
his grill and put it on the fireplace and on
the great and he made some eggs and some coffee
for Dad, but it was still so cold, and Dad
never complained. Once I had we had wine, you know.

(04:31):
So I opened up bottle of wine. We were drinking
and I made a couple of video clips and put
them on Facebook. Next thing I know, on Tuesday night,
Inside Edition goes meanwhile in Buffalo, this guy cuts to me,
this guy, So I'm changing my name officially to this guy.
And they did edits my clip of Dad, and the
thing about the clip was and so many people responded, oh,

(04:53):
your father. I love your dad. You know, he's a
really good guy. But people, here's one hundred and five.
And I said, I'm looking at my phone, you know, selfie, Hey, Dad,
say hello everybody, Hi, everybody. We're having a blast. He
holds up his glass of red wine. And it was
really cold, and I did another clip where I said,
just so you know how cold it is, and I
would just breathe out and you could see my breath

(05:13):
three feet away, you know. And it was pretty rough
and brutal. On the third day, in the morning, I
woke up with chills and low fever, and I thought,
this is going downhill, you know, So I called there's
a plow service we have for my dad. And I
called the guy and say, I'll give you five hundred
dollars if you can get my dad out of here.
You know, Max's wife lived a mile and a half away,

(05:35):
and he says, I'm trying to get there. I hope
you in two hours. He called me up. Two hours later,
he goes, I'm at the six houses away and I'm
stuck in ten feet of snow. But i can get out,
and I'm gonna go to the local fire hall. Because
I called nine one one, I called the National Guard.
I got put on lists. I called the fire hall. Anyway,
he went to the fire hall and said there's one

(05:56):
hundred and five year old man in a house that
they're stranded. We weren't the only one stranded, but you know,
it wasn't eighty five, he wasn't ninety five. He was
one hundred and five. And he didn't say a word. Occasionally,
it's say, you know that born name is Robert Bob. Bob,
turn on the Christmas tree lights. I go, dad, there's
no power, Oh yeah, yeah right, you know, God bless him.

(06:18):
He never complained once I did. I complained. My brother says,
it's not going to help the complain. I go, well,
it's helping me. The police and fire rescued us on
the third day at three o'clock and there was a
I didn't know what you call him, a snow cat
or something, one of those a snow removal thing with
not wheels, but like a tank, snow cat, I don't know.

(06:40):
It went over everything, got down our street, went in
a driveway, backed out and took snow out enough for
another emergency vehicle to back end and we got in
the car. That was the first heat we had in
three days, and I thought, wow, And I was thinking
about the people in Ukraine during that I thought, you
know what we have. At least we have gas, we
could cook, you know, whatever we have. I could put

(07:03):
my hands on the stones. You know, my hands are
really you know, I'm extra sensitive now to the cold,
and there's still numb in these fingers in the tree.
But I thought about the poor people in Ukraine. They're
getting bombed to hell, you know, just absolute savagery, and
they don't have gas, fireplaces I can turn on. So
I just really my heart went out to them. And

(07:25):
they took us to a warming center and it was
a junior high school. And you know when one hundred
and five years old, sitting on a little stool, dad
said I need something at my back, and someone heard
them and went and got a real chair. And I
must say this, there's a silver lining to us, the
way that neighbors treated neighbors, like I believe in this country.

(07:45):
I mean, it's obviously a lot of a lot wrong,
a lot wrong in the history, there's so much wrong.
But when you know people are shoveling each other's driveways out.
I saw a neighbor across the street go into the
next two houses checking on people. The guy next door
on Saturday morning, he comes over and brings a bag
of handwarmers. Those handwarmers saved our butts, they really did.

(08:06):
I carry one of my in my pocket now, just because.
And the volunteers, the cops, the firemen, the people volunteering
in the vehicle that rescue. We were in a car.
We were five different cars that day, and because we
went to two warming centers, went to a hotel, whatever,
three hotels, finally got in. But the way people pitched

(08:28):
in to help each other, it was really I thought,
this is really encouraging to me. People are there is
good in a lot of people. So it was really
a brutal experience. Dad was fine. I mean he I've
heard of going to bed Saturday night. Second night. I
wasn't going to go back in that bed. I moved
the couch in front of the fireplace. Even though it
didn't give much heat, it was light the illusion of heat,

(08:49):
and I heard Dad get into the bed. Oh he's
a hundred and five, were crying out loud. Anyway, the
silver lining was that I'm with his man. There's some
really good people. People pitched him to help each other,
and it was heartening to see. Anyway, that was my Christmas. Okay,
you say your father called out to Bob. Your real
name is Bob Noonan. Yes, how did you become Willie dile?

(09:13):
So I moved. I graduated from the University of Buffalo
in seventy two, and I know I was. I was
writing poetry in high school and college. I started writing songs.
I played to classical piano lessons. My grandfather ran an
orchestra for twenty plus years in Vaudeville when he died
in fifty three. Eddie Cantor had a nationwide TV show,

(09:34):
and does It Come up Camaradie with musicians, and my
dad has talked about it for years. And when he died,
figured Eddie Cantor's got a live TV show across the
nation half an hour. He's probably on the air for
twenty minutes or twenty two minutes. And he took time
out to say, my good friend Dick Noonan passed away
this week, and Condole insisted the family that he would
do that from New York City. I thought, man, those

(09:56):
guys must have been close. Both Angles. Robinson used to
send him Christmas car every year and he also carried
a gun, you know, a black man with money. And uh,
it's just fascinating stories growing up. So I'm in high
school as we started studying the poets, and I become
I think maybe I'm a poet because I stare at
sunlight when it's coming into classroom and blah blah blah.

(10:17):
So I started writing songs. So in my college years,
I was writing songs, and then when I graduated, I
went to New York City to try to make a living,
you know, making trying to get my songs recorded. You know,
I was never I didn't. I don't care about fame.
It's not stinking rich. I'll take that. Give me on
the minute, I'll be stinking. I could be stinking rich.
But fame didn't do a lot for Michael Jackson. That's

(10:39):
not why I do what I do. And anyway, So
I used to play open mics. I'm writing rock and
roll songs, and but I couldn't afford a band. I
was broke, did not want to join a group, no
curiosity whatsoever for that. I just wanted to sing the
songs I wrote. So just acoustic guitar open mics, and

(10:59):
I used to the Bitter End, had one every week
on Bleaker Street, Folks City, whatever, a few different ones.
So one night, when I was at the Cafe a
Go Go, I went on stage. This is why I
changed my name. Let's to answer your question. I'm on
stage at the Cafe Go Go, and I played three songs,
you know, and I would very expressive when I play.
They were rock and roll songs. And I jumped off

(11:21):
the stage when I was done or whatever. So I'm
clouding around and introducing imaginary characters playing behind me. There's
little bit event Beethoven on bass. Whatever. Anyway, So when
I was done with my three songs, set. I'm walking
off the stage. The guy announcing goes, we'll have some
more gorilla music for you in because it was suddenly two.
It was like sensitive singer song at a time. You know,

(11:41):
no offense to James Taylor, but he was like a
successful guy at the time, and there were all these sensitive,
oh so sensitive people, and this guy said, we'll have
some moret guerrilla music. I wanted to take my guitar
and smash him over the head, and my wife said, no,
no, no no, we can't afford a new one. Don't and
I didn't. The following week, I'm in line at the
Bitter End. I put my name on a list, stand

(12:03):
in line for forty five minutes because back then there
were long lines. I'm in line and I can in line.
And the comedian who was taking the names it just
didn't care anything about music. And I put my name
down and he didn't get until three or three in
the morning. He would put his friends on ahead of
the people on the list. Very disrespectful. Whatever. I take

(12:25):
it as it comes. Next week, I go there and
I'm in line waiting in the rain. I said, I go, hey,
my name is Bob Noonan. He goes, I'm sorry what
I couldn't hear you? What? I go, It doesn't matter,
you can make one up. He goes, Oh no, no,
he goes, it's very important. It gives me the thirty
second lecture about how important is what your name is?
Oh no, it makes a big difference. Oh really, says I. Well,

(12:46):
in that case, my name is Huey Rosenbag and he
goes Rosenberg. No, no, Rosenberg like the pictures mound. You know,
I refused. I refused to play that game. To this day,
I do not. I will not. So the next week
I I was I was uh. First week I was
Huey Rosenback. Next week I was osgod pe Quad. I

(13:08):
gave the guy different every name Modown's umberto snorts. I
just gave this guy a different name every week. He
didn't know the difference. He did not care. So my
wife and I would sit in the back waiting for
this clown to say this ridiculous name. And I was
watching Uh, It's great PBS documentary documentary but series search

(13:29):
for the Nile Terrific Series. And one night I woke
up Willie Nile. I'm a philosophy major to say something's
nihilistic made me laugh to say, Willie Nilly is kind
of selfie facing, which I thought, you know, if they're
going to praise me, they can use their name I
made up. If they're going to slam me in the press,
go ahead, use my made up name. So it's and

(13:49):
it's I thought it was a good rock and roll
name and it served me well. So yeah, that's that's
how I changed my name and why it did it. Okay,
In your private life, people call your boss, how do
they call you? Willie? Everybody since seventy two, it's Willie.
When I'm back with family, cousins, you know, or brothers
and sisters on one of a it's a very large family,

(14:10):
and we have one hundred and five. When we all
go on vacation every year, it's Bob or Bobby. But
everybody else on the planet's Willie. Okay. So you grew
up in Buffalo. How many generations was your fabily at Buffalo?
My father was born in Buffalo in nineteen seventeen. His
father was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and his mother in
eighteen eighty four. Their parents were born in Ireland, and

(14:38):
so and my mom's parents something similar. Her parents were
born in eighteen eighty nine and eighteen I'm sorry, eighteen
ninety nineteen hundred, and her father's grandfather was born in
French Indian Territory. I remember seeing, you know, I thought,
and I looked at a picture of him when he

(14:59):
was I used to work at Showtime TV Networks as
a proofreader when I got broke. I was a proof
reader for not a bunch of years, and I was
running my little record label out of my little cubicle,
and I put I would print out these old family
portraits and put them all over the queue, at least,
you know, old school stuff. One day, I'm looking at
my grandfather's picture when he was three, my mother's father,

(15:20):
and I'm going to wait a minute. He was from
Attica in New York and his great great his great grandfather,
now his grandfather was born in French Indian Territory. I
look at his face, and he was He died at
sixty from smoking since he was twelve. Check black hair,
really dark skin. I go, there's Indian blood in this guy.
You know, you could see the photograph. So anyway, that's

(15:41):
where they go back, mid mid three generations, something like that,
mid eighteen hundreds of all came over here. The Irish famine,
you know, kicked a lot of people out of Ireland.
Why Buffalo, So? Why Buffalo? So in the mills and
a low Massachusett started closing, you know, and there was
no work. So my father, my grandfather, Dick Noonan, and

(16:03):
his brother John Noonan were musicians. You know. Dad tells
the story of at one point the local pastor of
the priest, the priest from the local church, came to
the house to talk to my mother, my grandmother's father
this waiting, saying, your daughters shouldn't be going out with
a musician. That's not a good thing. You know. I

(16:25):
can't disagree. He was a sweetheart, but they were. John
noon and the older brother son, I'm gonna go to Buffalo,
see if there's worked there. So he moved to Buffalo,
was there a few months, called his brother and said
there's tons of work here. Because Buffalo was like the
gateway to the west, you know, to northern Canada and

(16:45):
the west. If you left New yorkle outs that you
went Buffalo as a main And I often wonder because
my brother, my uncle, my great uncle, John Noonan, was
the orchestra leader for Cha's Buffalo great, great old theater.
I saw in excess there. That's an amazing place, and
I'm sure that the Marx brothers passed through there. I'd
love to talk to both those guys. Go tell me

(17:07):
about the Marx brothers, you know whatever. So, yeah, that's
how that's how they got to Buffalo. So what did
your one hundred and five year old father do for
a living. My father, when he got out of the
army in h forty five, my father was an accountant.
He was a CPA, took the CPA exam, had a

(17:28):
couple of kids, and so he was a certified public
accountant for some years and early fifties fifty three or four,
he had a beer distributorship, which was awesome for us
kids because in nineteen sixty one, Elston Howard, the Yankees
catcher MVP that year, of course, I mean, came to

(17:48):
our house. We were like, if you're back then the
only TV was two stations. There was Channel two and
Channel four. This is before Channel seven. Think where we
are now and think what my father has seen since
nineteen seventeen. So Elston Howard during the day weren't making
much money. So in the wintertime. They had other jobs
and he was a pr whatever for I don't know,

(18:10):
I was Lobat's Beer or Valentine Ale or what paps
blue Ribbon, one of those. And my dad was the
distributor in Buffalo. We weren't rich, you know, we weren't poor,
but we were, you know, somewhere in the middle. And
Elston Howard came to our house. We were on the moon.
What was I in nineteen sixty one, I was born
or forty eight, so you know, I was like, you know,
I was just a kid, thirteen years old or whatever.

(18:32):
Elston Howard come on, you know, and yeah, it was
it was priceless and he was really nice. His hands
were huge and I couldn't believe my eyes. Yeah, okay,
he went back. My father went back to be in
a CPA and we had no money. He lost the business.
It was it was bad. Business was bad. He lost it,
and really, you know, he had to say. He took
a job teaching accounting, so he was fine. He was

(18:55):
an accountant, taught for a few years, paid back his debts,
and then he worked till he was seventy eight as
an accountant. Hard working guy to this day, he wakes up,
goes to church, comes home, has breakfast, hits the crossword puzzles,
gets his pencil out, has got his e racers, got
his pencil sharpener. He has crossor puzzles for a couple
of hours. Then you'll read for an hour or two

(19:15):
and read books. He loves history. Then you go back
to doing more crossword puzzles. So the accountant in him
is still there. When Mom died seventeen years ago at
the age of eighty seven, he just he says, you
got to just get up. I said, how do you
How are you doing it? How are you feeling? You know?
Like some months later he goes, I'm all right. He says,
you got to pick yourself up. Life will hit you hard,

(19:37):
it'll hit all of us. Hit don't getting around at
And he said, you gotta just pick yourself up and
get on with it, you know. And he he sure
did it. So accounting in him I still see at
the kitchen table when he's doing his crossword puzzles. A
dear guy. He went to the doctor this week. My
sister took him for a check up. Doctor looks at
his hands. He's got a lot of bruises. Doctor says,
what happened to your hands? I was checked by a chicken. Anyway,

(20:01):
I've been writing down things he's been saying. I've got
like thirty pages, and I have hours of him. When
he starts telling stories when I was a boy, I
get out my phone and hit voice memo. I got hours.
I love the guy. We're all lucky having still So

(20:22):
your parents stayed married all that time? Oh did they ever?
They would wake up in the morning, you know they
were They went there very devout Catholics, and they would
wake up in the morning, you know, get cleaned up,
get dressed, and go to church. Before the church, Good morning, Bob,
Good morning Joe. And they kiss each other on the
lips and they go, what planet are you people from?
They're like eighty five years old. They just loved each other.

(20:45):
It was so beautiful to see. We're a lucky bunch
of kids having parents like that. How many kids in
the family. There were eight children in the family, six boys,
two girls, and we had nineteen fifty six. We always
saw that dad was the center of the family until
mom died and we realized, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's just
sweet woman, gentle kind. Never had a bad word about anybody.

(21:08):
I remember in nineteen seventy two, I'm watching TV and
Richard Nixons on I'm sitting there with Magoon and point,
this is a bad guy. This is a bad Oh, Bobby,
there's good and everyone. And I went, yeah, I'm not
so sure about this guy. And she she wouldn't hear it.
She was a sweet woman, and they had the greatest relationship.
But in fifty six Mom decides they were part of

(21:30):
this thing called the Christian family movement. We said more
prayers growing up than I don't know. And she said,
I think we should get a foreign exchange student to
my father. Okay, Joe, And so we got eight kids.
A cousin who was a lost sheet, you know. He
joined a Trappist monastery and he was suicidal and the

(21:54):
head of the monastery called my dad. He was like nineteen.
He called my dad, he goes, this guy's in really
bad shape. You should come and get him. So that
one and got him, took him back home, and I
thought he lived with us for two or three years.
It turns out it was ten. And mother, with her
love and her kindness, you know, the guy did great.
Graduated from Kinesius College, got a master's you know. And anyway,

(22:17):
so with nine people in the house and two parents,
my mom thinks it's a great idea to get a
foreign exchange student. So Elena Segatti from Bueno Cyres, sixteen
year old comes to our house. Boy did we love her.
She stayed a year. When she left, we cried for
two days, every one of us, balling our eyes out
like a little baby. I'm serious. And the next year

(22:38):
we had Francis Kuggenheim from Dunkirk, France, and again we
just all hit it off. Was so a year. And
the year after that was Ronado zenenga banker's son from Milan, Italy.
And you know, they came and went. My parents eventually
start every year we had some foreign exchange student. And
because we lived in Buffalo near and I Falls, where

(23:02):
foreign visitors would come all the time, they would go
to this Christian family we want to go to a
normal American family came to our house and we knew
it was not a normal American family. There was no
house around our neighborhood that was going All this stuff
was going on. We had a governor from India, we
had the head of the education thing in Vietnam. Who
or red robes, who my mother couldn't speak to because

(23:24):
she was female, or wait on, my father had to
I didn't dig that anyway. There was so much name
a country in this world. They came to our house.
So it was us kids from what was I eight
years old? Seven eight years old? Had foreign visitors, priests
was priest was in jail for twenty years in China.
Taught people our family how to use chopsticks. We had

(23:46):
a guy from Hungry in fifty seven or eight whenever
they had the revolution fifty six without a thumb. They
tortured him, cut his thumb off. Nice guy. We just
name So growing up with different people, different language, is,
different dress, different smells, and it was fascinating experience. It
was not normal. So we had eight kids in the family,

(24:07):
Long West cousin and everybody from around the world. Okay,
so if the eight kids, where are you in the
hierarchy of what kind of kid were you growing up? Well,
in the hierarchy, I was fourth, and my brother Richard,
Tom Nancy, then myself Teresa, Joey friend and John and
I was fourth. So they were ahead of me, three
of them and behind me. So I saw him coming

(24:28):
and going, and I was kind of like, I wouldn't
say the wise guy the group, but like, you know,
with that many kids, you could you could run wild,
which we did, and I had a lot of fun.
I love my brothers and sisters very much, and we're
all really close to this day. And I was inquisitive.

(24:49):
I would walk into a room like at two or
three years old. I remember, I remember seeing a two
years old I'm what, I was just about to go
to bed. And my grandfather, the piano player, boy he played.
He would throw at a white sheet over the piano,
play the sheet. That was a parlor trick, I was told.
And he would play a song like in the Shade
of the Old Apple Tree. Well hit the word tree.

(25:11):
He was the most the wrongest note you could hit
in the piano in the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.
And the women he had him laughing and crying. I
saw that, and I saw and I heard all kinds
of stories about the early part of the last century.
So I really my grandparents on my mom's I lived upstairs,
so there was a lot of neighborliness. And you know,

(25:31):
my grandma, Grandma said, if everybody pitches in the job,
will get done quicker. Just really good people, shirt off
your back kind of people, you know. So we were
really blessed because not everybody gets so lucky. Oh okay,
so did you have a lot of friends. Did you
do well in school? Yeah, I had a fair amount
of friend I had so many brothers and sisters, but
I had friends at school. School was easy for me.

(25:54):
I just would clown around. I didn't have to study,
you know. And I was very small. I'm small now,
but I was really small. I have I'm celiac now
fifty eight years old. All of a sudden, couldn't eat gluten.
But I ate everything up to then. But I must
not have digested everything because I just didn't grow much

(26:14):
in high school. I grow a little bit. One of
my five four now a towering five four, I might say,
and I would. I had a great time in school,
I mean with it was friends. It was boring as hell,
like great school is. But my older brothers brought home
rock and roll records. They would have the radio on.
I saw Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan because they had

(26:36):
the TV on. So I was exposed. At the very beginning.
We went to camp. I'll never forget this. Camp Turner
was one of those summer camps for kids, and I
went one year, and my brothers would go, and you know,
it's a bunch of kids in the wild, animals in
the country, in the woods, whatever. And on the way home,
on the bus, they had a radio and Rock around

(27:01):
the Clock came on and the kids on the bus
started going crazy. And that beat. I went, oh, I
like this. It was rock and roll, you know, And
that was and Elvis, a little Richard, Chuck Barry, give
me a break, you know, and Buddy Holly Everly brothers.
So that stuff hit me a red square and I went.
It changed my life. And I met some years ago.
I think it was two thousand and nine. I was.

(27:24):
I went to south By Southwest. I went there about
four to five times, and this lawyer friend I played
at like twelve thirty in the morning or towel thirty
in the afternoon some gigs, Willy came here as somebody
I want you to meet. And the way he said,
I thought this sounds interesting. He takes me over near
the merchship because Willy, this is Marie Elena Holly and
I almost fell off the floor. I went no, Marie

(27:46):
Elena Holly, Buddy Holly. The first record I ever bought
was Peggy Sue. I had two quarters. I went to Cabbage,
just walked by myself. I've never been in a record store.
I walked in. Uh, hi, sir, I want to can
I buy? I want to buy get Peggy sup By.
Buddy Holley gives me the forty five. I gave him
my quarter, two quarters, and I had a little plastic

(28:07):
white record player and I played a thousand times then
didn't didn't, didn't pay. Suit changed my life. And here
I am meeting Marie Helena Holley, who lived a fleet
blocks for me. They lived with a six months before
Buddy died on Fifth Avenue in ninth Street in the village.
And I said, I mean, I love her. She's such

(28:28):
a sweetheart. She's in Dallas now and uh it was
an honor to meet her. And she said she want
me to sign a CD. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, No, no,
no, no no, how about I get your autograph? She was
so nice. I remember I saw her a couple of
years later in then I played. She signed with us,
you know, south By Southwest, so I'm there two years
later and they have a had a Buddy Holly Educational

(28:50):
Foundation party. I am an official ambassador to the Buddy
Holly Educational Fund Foundation, which I still can't believe. You know.
It's like a who's who a rock and role, you know,
like this Mick and Keith, you know, everybody you know.
And I got to get what's wrong with this picture?
Who's this little guy at the end of the line.
And Marie Lena said, I want willing to be an ambassador,

(29:11):
you know, And so I got a Buddy Holly guitar
with one of his frats on the inside for a
two year loan. Dion's got it now, I think, permanently.
And they gave me a really nice people. And I
said to Maria Elena we were having dinner in Nashville once.
I said, Marie Lena, you live a couple of blocks
some where I live now I've lived for fifty years.
What did you do for dinner? Where did you go?

(29:33):
What did you and Buddy do? And she said, Buddy
loved New York. Buddy, would they live in the fourth
floor of this you know, I don't know how many
fifteenth floor apartment building? Right on Fifth Avenue in Ninth Street.
I walked back many a time. I give people tours
in my neighborhood and say, you know, Buddy Holly lived there.

(29:54):
She said. He used to stand on the balcony all
the time and just in wonder, watching New York Goodbye.
She said he would take his acoustic guitar into Washington
Square Park one block away and play it. He just
loved to play it. Kids would come up to him,
not knowing his Buddy Holly, and asked him about chords,
and he would show him stuff. And so they said,
when we get older, let's have an educational foundation for

(30:14):
teenagers kids who want to learn music. And so to
this day there's a Buddy Hall Educational Foundation, and I'm
I'm an ambassador anyway, asking Marie, oh, I said to
Marie Lena, I go, Marie Lena, did Buddy like Elvis?
Because like this, you're talking to the horse's mouth here.
You know, I love history and I love right and
you know I can ask her things that nobody else knows.

(30:37):
Marie did he like Elvis? She goes, oh, he loved Elvis.
Elvis came to Let's you're talking love at Texas. You know,
and she said, one day Alvis came to town. They
went to a movie together. He loved Elvis and they're
both kids basically. And I said, what about Little Richard?
Did Buddy like I got a story for you? Did?
But did Buddy like little Richard? She was, Oh, boy,

(30:58):
he loved little Richard. One day he brought out. He
brought little Richard back to the house. This is Lumpock, Texas,
the Deep South. And he comes to the front door
with little Richard, this little tall black guy and his
father comes to the door and he says, this, so
and so is nut coming in this house. So Buddy
took himround in the backyard and they did they had

(31:18):
a cook out or whatever. But he couldn't go in
the house. So Buddy Holly had this is, I don't
know what you're Buddy died about fifty eight, so I
figured fifty seven eight he you know, and he married
a Puerto Rican woman. You know, Buddy Holly. I really
wonder what Buddy would have done like James Dean, you know,
people gone too soon. But Buddy Holly, yeah, I forget

(31:38):
how I got on that story about Buddy Holly. But uh,
oh okay, But let's go back. So you're talking about
all the music and buying the record, etc. Were the
Beatles that they broke a big impact upon you? Oh
my god. Yeah. So I used to listen to the radio.
Gary Gary Us Bonds is a friend of mine. I
used to listen to the radio waiting to hear quarter
to three. I transistor. I had a green, I'm kind

(32:00):
of puke green transistor radio under my pillow and I
go to bed at night and I turn it on.
I just put it to my ear and listen. I mean,
and it was magic. You heard these songs. I got
to sing it with him with Springsteen at Chase Stadium
years later. I mean, it's so funny. I tell these stories.
You can't make this stuff up. So much of this
stuff is like that that really happened. Well yeah, and

(32:21):
it goes on and on. So I listened to the
radio all the time. I loved rock and roll. And
you know I heard at school I saw I think
it was I'm and Steve Allen. One night there was
a clip about this sensation in the in England called
the Beatles. And I saw the clip and I went, wow,
that looks like fun So, yeah, I saw him out

(32:42):
as Sullivan and just changed my life, like so many
people of our generation to see. And the thing about
it was four guys like a gang, clearly drusted the same,
the way, the way they interacted each other. They they
were a little club, a little gang they had. They
were self sustainable. They were the joy. That's what amazes me.

(33:03):
You know. You and I could go to fifty fifty
different venues and see people play music and that could
be good, bad and ugly, yeah, like always, and then
if you walk in this other club and there's this
guy's having the time of their life, just emanating joy,
emanating like you know, irony, sarcasm, passion. You know, it
was just to this day watch those clips that are

(33:24):
like the energy. That was something beautiful. I've been to
their boy I went to John Lennon's boyhood and Paul
McCartney's boyhood. Holme my private tours of those places, you know,
the curator and his wife, this great guy, Colin Hall.
I saw a National Geographic Hours show about the fixing
up of Mendips John Lennon's boyhood home and how they

(33:47):
tried to find a curator and Colin got it and
I get there this. A friend of mine was taking
us for a private tour, a few of us in
my band, and Colin comes to the gate and he's
holding my first Vinyl LP. I thought, oh, we're in.
He's a fan, and we had to I mean, I
don't know if you've been there, Bob, but to go
to John's because like that. He took us for a
walking tour around what's it called Woolton, which is like

(34:10):
seven houses down the little village where John they showed
the movie theater John used to go to where they
show John Wayne movies, the graveyard where they got eleanor
Rigby's name on it. Wherever that came from, who knows,
But we just it's like history coming to life. Fascinating
and I forgot what question by the Beatles I mean
changed my life and to see them grow and to

(34:33):
see it was the same time like Dylan hit you know,
I think the first song on Dylan's I heard was
I Shall Be Free number ten. I'm just average, common too,
just like him, the same as you. I'm every buddy's
brother and son. I ain't different than anyone. And they
used to talk to me it's just the same as
talking to you. And the next song was Chimes of
Freedom and the dichotomy. The contrast was not lost on me.

(34:56):
I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, something's going
on here. And at the same time you had these
four guys from Liverpool starting a real revolution, the combany
and everybody and the Stones give me a break. The
whole British invasion hit me like a wave. And as
a kid back then, as you know, Motown, Hello, Memphis,
Stacks come on the wide Range. You had like Walter Brennan.

(35:19):
You had Jimmy Deane singing about whatever, and you had
rock and roll, you had Little Richard, you had all
this great stuff, you know, a surf music. So the Beatles,
absolutely it was a major force that helped change my life.
And I think a lot of reasons why, but the energy,
the purity. It was something wild, something innocent, something play

(35:43):
so much playful. I mean, look at the movie, look
at Hard Day's Night. What a riot? Is there anybody
around at all making music now with that kind of vibe? Maybe,
but it's it's that was pretty special and I loved it.
And then the Stones come, these the Stones, the rolling
up these whatever the us to call them, and they
were so gray. I'm not gonna smile. You know, watch
them on TV carrying on, Come my Satisfaction. Best song ever,

(36:06):
you know, I saw television and we'll talk about it
in a minute. CBGB's I Got Stories and I'm so
sad about Tom Verlaine's passing. And one night I'm on
the side of the stage I went every time they played.
They would open for Patti Smith, and one night, all
of a sudden, at his encore, Tom was Dad, Dad,
got what they're playing to it? Anyway? I love the Beatles.

(36:27):
To answer question, yeah, changed my life. Okay, what point
did you pick up a guitar and become a wannabe
rock star? Um? I played eight years old. I took
classical piano, and my older brothers played. We always had
a piano in the house. We had a you know,
stereo like a you know, a piece of furniture. Mom

(36:49):
played classical music, big band music. My brothers play. My
uncle's one of my uncles, Uncle Ray, was an incredible
ragtime player. Incredible. I mean, I've seen you know, the
clips of famous ragtime players, and this guy played the
lightside of the piano. His father, my grandfather, took him
to a piano the best piano teacher in Buffalo. And

(37:10):
the guy said, to Ray, my uncle is. The teacher
said to Ray, Ray play something. And Ray we started
playing boogie woogie and Ray think, okay, that's enough, and
he said to his father, he said, you're wasting your money.
He already knows too much. He played by side and
the guy, you know, so he didn't teach him. He
taught his other brother, Rich, who was a fantastic piano player.
But that was always music. So when I was eight

(37:31):
years old and I loved music, I took piano, classical piano,
but I also wanted to play the drums. I remember
having a real angsty one fall. I go, I don't
want to play the piano. I'll play the drums, and
they said, no, you got you can take both, but
you can't. You know, you gotta play the piano, which
was I'm so grateful they did that. And I took
piano lessons until I was about sixteen. And uh, you

(37:55):
know when you begin in high school and you're looking
to party and chase girls and you know, play sports,
listen to rock and roll, sitting out the piano for
half an hour practice and nah, so I played the
piano and I quit. And when I went away to college, um,
I didn't play any guitar then. I never even thought
about being a musician. I was writing poetry in high school,

(38:16):
went to college and my room. I went one year
in Canton, Ohio, to Walsh College. I clowned around in
high school, and when I tried to apply to colleges,
I couldn't get in. I was I was, you know,
I had like eighty six average or something, and it
was like, oh, this is not looking good. And so
one day the guidance counselor said, well, there's a school
in Ohio that just built a dorm and they need

(38:38):
out of state students. You might want to apply there.
So me and all the other losers from the northeast whatever.
And so that dormitory was full of wise guys, losers,
you name it, crazy's And my roommate, one of my roommates,
Denny Wentz from Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh, had a guitar. And
it was boring. I mean, you're you're in three miles

(39:00):
north of Canton. It's flat, there's nothing, there's cows. There's
a Hoover factory three miles down we're talking nothing. So
I said, well, can you teach me? And he goes, yeah, sure.
The funny thing but he was a writing and I
threw things with both hands. But I was a lefty
guitar player, and I played pool left handed at bow
and arrow. If I shot a gun, it's left handed.

(39:21):
And I suspect when I was a kid, and I said,
put the pen in your right hand and start writing.
At first grade, I can do things with both hands.
I'm a little bit of both. So I washed myself
to learn to play the guitar right handed. And so
I learned to play the guitar, just simple chords. My
first song I learned was Love and Spoonful. God, I
love Love and Spoonful. It was darling be home soon,

(39:43):
d G A easy and even an idiot like me
could do that. And I met John John Sebastian years
later and told him, hey, I learned. He goes, my
wife plays your records at our dinner table. I go,
what get out of here? You know? Anyway? So I
learned to play guitar at school. And what that did
for me because I was still writing poems. I just

(40:04):
stream of consciousness. I love the beat poets, just whatever
comes to mind. You know, there's no right and wrong,
there's no nobody looking over your shoulder. Oh that's not right. No,
it's like you can write whatever you want. So I did.
So I started putting songs together, and then all my
writing went into writing songs and just simple stuff. My
stuff is quite simple. And I came home from Buffalo

(40:25):
that Chris that that you know, that bread semester break.
I sat at the piano, which I hadn't played in
a while, and I started playing chords on the piano,
g E minor ce, the just chords, and I started
playing songs, and I stride like the left hand when
you like this, the left hand back and forth. My

(40:47):
uncles did all that, so I taught my I re
taught myself to play the piano. And I could teach
a kid now in ten minutes to play Twinkle Twinkle,
Little Star or jingle bells. Real simple, you know, it's
easy chords. There's a guy anybody listening and wants to
learn the piano for real. His name is Scott Houston,
and he's the PBS piano guy. I was in Sweden

(41:09):
one time. I landed in Sweden and it was four
in the morning and I was wide awake. I'm watching
television and this guy comes on TV, you know, pitching
his videos and stuff. And I watched him and I go,
that's what I do. I just play chords so he
can teach adults. There's no end to when you can learn,
doesn't matter how old you are. My uncle John broad
RECUISO sergeant and the police force in Low Massachusetts, after

(41:32):
watching me play for half an hour one summer, said, oh,
I give anything to be able to play the piano. Well,
now had I known that back then? I go, you know, Juny,
this guy you don't need to read music. It's chords,
you know, and you can learn your favorite songs. And
it's easy. I'm telling you. If you google the piano
guy PBS Scott Houston, look at some of his videos,

(41:53):
and it's you can learn by the piano in no time.
And I did that. I thought myself that style. Okay.
So you're going to school in Ohio. Then what happens
you end up switching from there to Buffalo. Yeah. I
went to school in Ohio, and you know, it was

(42:15):
a time of experimentation. You know, drugs made their way
into our into our circle, you know, smoking weed took
LSD a few times, but it was not it was
just no, it was nothing. You know, I go, I'm
not feeling nothing, what about you now? Nothing? And it
was it was just beyond boring. Although I will say
the silver lining there it was there were two great professors.

(42:36):
That was a great philosophy professor and a great English teacher.
You know, you get a great teacher who can open
up things to you, whether it's history or language. So
I transferred. I got. You know, the night before final exams,
we were growing our hair and it was a Catholic college,
and so the night before final exams we were called

(42:56):
the Haystack Crew because of our hair, and we were
getting in trouble a lot. If you got to the
dorm after midnight, you had to do fifty push ups.
I mean, really, why don't we babies here? We basically
were babies anyway, So the night before exams, the Prefective
Discipline calls us into his office. He goes, you can't
take exams unless you get a haircut. And I said
to him, you're kidney right, this is united serious. Oh

(43:18):
I'm serious, brother, James, brother. We had to get our
hair cut. I mean really, it wasn't even nearly as
long as this, and uh so I got, I got,
you know, Dean's list, you know, and uh I did
good grades, and so I transferred University Buffalo Night School.
What a difference. People smoking in class, dressed the way
you want hair growing. Timothy Leary walking through that, it

(43:41):
was so fast. The University of Buffalo was a great
place in nineteen sixty seven, sixty eight, nine, seventy it
was really seven. I think I went there from sixty
seven to seventy one, something like that. Ginsburg, Gregory Carso
came to read. Oh was he good? I met him,
I met, I've been did a couple of gigs with
with Alan Ginsburg. Always fascinating. I saw all the great

(44:04):
poets come through you University of Buffalo. It was inspiring.
Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin came. Many times. Abby would
go on stage, do a handstand, walking around on his hands,
and then talk revolution. It was just like fascinating times.
Remember seeing Timothy Leary walking through the student center out
of his mind. He was just looking up at the
going oh oh yeah, staring at the ceiling. He spoke

(44:26):
that night, but he didn't say two words. It was
just a fascinating time of change. And there were marches,
there was protests. I got gassed one day. They were
marching on one side of the campus and they tear
gassed everybody. And these poor people across the campus waiting
for bus home from work. You know, they weren't doing
nothing and they're getting gassed, you know. And anyway, I thought, Wow,

(44:50):
crazy world. So I went to University of Buffalo, graduated
with a philosophy degree. I just took classes that I liked.
So how did you end up moving to the city,
and what was the plan I graduated? I went in
my senior year, I went to see my guidance counselor
for the first time. I had no plan. Now, when
kids go to school smartly, so they go, well, I'm
going to become an engineer, I'm gonna be a doctor,

(45:10):
I'm gonna be a whatever, and you take courses. I
just took what I liked. Philosophy of art and beauty.
I took that. It was lousy, you know, Walt Whitman,
you know, the beat poets. So in my senior year,
I went to my I got good grades. It was
easy for me you know. I just came easily four
point er a couple of times, and classical quik mythology fascinating.

(45:35):
And I thought, well, I had all these songs, and
I thought, well, these songs aren't bad. They're not much
worse than anything i'm hear on the radio. I'm gonna
go to New York. So I said to George Boger,
my philosophy teacher, my guidance counselor how am I doing?
He goes, You're doing really good. You got a three
point five average and you're a philosophy major. And I thought, oh, philosophy.
Well that sounds heavy. What can I do with the

(45:56):
philosophy degree? He goes, you can go to graduate school.
I went, no, no, no, no, I'm out. I'm going
to New York City to make records, thanks George. Which
I graduated, you know, And I went down to New York,
got an apartment, got married, moved to New York and
got a little apartment. When the village just stopped, stopped
for a second. How many times have you been married?

(46:20):
I've been married twice. I got married in seventy two,
moved to New York the day after we got married,
and lived in New York. I've been there fifty years
right now, and same apartment. And I got married two
years ago October in Italy and the Italian Alps. I metam.
I got divorced the ninety one and while touring, I've

(46:43):
been to Italy a lot. I've been to Europe a
lot over the year's touring. And one time, the promoter
in Italy was almost thirteen years ago. Hired a photographer
to come shoot me Christina, and we started. We hit
it off right away, you know, And it was the
year that the volcano in Iceland was stopping all flights,
so we did some shows. All of a sudden volcano

(47:06):
happens and I couldn't get me or my band back
to the States. So they're on my dime and I'm
not making big money. I'm not a big rock star.
I never was this then, it was never my plan anyway.
So I ended up my UH road manager called Christina.
We met, we had we just met that night. We
just really hit it off, and she wonder why I
went mine. But a few days later my road manager

(47:28):
calls her up and said, you know, we're trying to
find places for Willie and his band can wham state
at your place. She goes, yeah, I'll take Willie. I
went there and it's spend ever since, you know, or
just really I got really lucky, you know, and we
we got married. We were apart for six months in Covid,
you know, we couldn't get in each other's country, and

(47:48):
we finally met in Edinburgh, Scotland at a friends because
we a friend's house, dear friend Jonas, so we could
see each other. And she said, you know, they just
changed the laws in Italy for long term relationship can
get in. And she said, if we were married, we
could get in each other. Like, let's do it. I'm
not I'm not moving, I'm in love with you. Let's
do it. So we got married in a small town

(48:09):
in the Italian Alps, at this little city hall, it's
like a medieval building, fifty yards from a waterfall. Da
Vinci drew in the fifteen hundreds. She decided she wants
to ride a horse. It's a beautiful fall to day
as fifteen people. This is twenty twenty October, the middle
of Covid, you know, and like fifteen people, her male person,

(48:30):
the male woman came. It was just she was our
one of our witnesses in front of the the a
notary public. It's just you can't make this up. So
she so she gets she's had a horse. She rides
a horse onto the property and I said to her, after,
why did you want to? Why did you ride a horse?
When was the last time you rode a horse? He
goes that was five? I got, well, why did you
want to? She's a very independent woman and one of

(48:52):
the great photographers in the world. Jackson Brown fleor to
uh Scotland to shoot him. You know, he hasn't let
photogot photographer is on stage. But she's great, all the
album covers since twenty thirteen American Ride. She shot. Just
a brilliant photographer. And we've been We've had a great
thing going. I'm very lucky. Okay, So why did the

(49:12):
first marriage break up? I think in the long run
it was the hardship. You know, we were married for
eighteen years together, twenty three. We were like sixteen and fourteen.
We were childhood sweethearts, great woman, you know, dear dear woman,
love he her pieces, you know, and I think that
I would say over the years, you know, like I

(49:34):
got mono nucleosis, and I think seventy four whatever something. Now,
Luke was born in seventy three. We moved on seventy two,
and I was writing songs at night, working in a
mail room during the day, and I was, you know,
working too hard. And I got a really wicked case
of hYP pneumonia that winter, and I had to go
back to New York get a job because my son

(49:56):
was about to be born. Love story short. I got
a really bad case of mono, like eight months in bed.
It's probably upstein Bar back then. And it was a
struggle for years, you know. And I think that the
struggle and she was she stuck with me all those years.
I would say to her, No, woman would be staying
with me all these years? Are you crazy? You know,

(50:17):
I go, she goes, No. She hung in there so long,
and I think it just took its toll, you know.
And and there was medical issues at her end where
she thought she might be on the way out, you know,
and that caused like a fight and flight whatever. But
we had a great run, you know, And it was
a difficult break up. But I love her dearly, you know,
and she's a great grandmother, dear friend, and and you know,

(50:40):
I met Christina and Italy and I basically married Italy.
How how many kids do you have? I have four children,
four great children, you know, Luke, Josephine, Mary and Bob.
They're great. We're all close, you know, given my parents
close relationship, and they're always encouraging family. It's about family,

(51:01):
you know, take care of each other. You know. We
grew up with that, and to this date, the whole
family goes on vacation on the coast of New Hampshire.
One hundred and five, we ran a bunch of beach houses,
you know, and one hundred and five people. We used
to all go to one house for dinner. But once
it got over it eighty five people couldn't do one house.
So the last few years it's been it's glorious. It's
just a really close family. And yeah, and I have

(51:26):
four children, have four grandchildren who I'm crazy about. My
sister and Nancy said to me when Jason was born,
he's no Lilian. Lilian's fourteen now, she said, that's a secret.
Witting down the road, you know, grandchildren now, granted, kids
can be a nightmare, you know. It's the people who
don't have children. It's some people have a rough time.
Sometimes it's not always easy, you know, And when it's

(51:48):
when it's good, it's really good. And I've been blessed,
four kids, four grandchildren. I'm on the moon. I'm lucky.
To dude, I've been. I must be still dreaming, Bob.
It must be that I must have taken some at
the LSD must have kicked in in nineteen sixties. I'm
still dreaming. Okay. You talk about the struggle. Did the
struggle ever stop or you still struggle? You what kept

(52:09):
you going? Well? I think I don't. I didn't didn't
know what else to do. But I'm so driven. I
so love what I do. I get to express myself
in words and music. At still, the fire still burns
in me big time when I play the original songs
back from nineteen eighty. I still plan with the same

(52:30):
passion and vigor. I think I'm too dumb to know better.
That's probably the first answer to I don't know what
what else would I do? You know, I could be
a delivery man, I could you know, Liverpool point A
to point B. But I kept writing songs that I
believed in. I thought this doesn't suck, you know. I
remember I was in Buffalo. I walked away my music business.
I made two records on ariston. I got signed. That's

(52:52):
another story about getting signed by Robert Palmer saw me
play at Kenny's Castaways on Bleaker Street nineteen seven eight
July twenty ninth, and he wrote an incredible review. I
was the opening act, you know. And Don Hill, who
was a manager at the time, great club owner for years.
It's gone now and miss him. Robert Palmer, great New

(53:15):
York Times reviewer, was coming called and some I'm a
coming to see the headliner. And Don said to him,
I didn't know about any of this till later. You
might want to come early to see the opening act.
He's real good. So Robert came early and wrote this
incredible review. You know, it's like if if my mom
sat down to write a review about how Sweller Kid was.

(53:35):
It just was a really great review, you know, compared
me to Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, whatever, and it was
really and that guy means I'll tell you what. I
learned a major lesson with that because I knew people
in the village for years, you know, and I was
opening shows. It was six nights a week, you'd played
Kenny's Castaways in two sets, and I get written up
in New York Times, and you know, this guy's declaring me,

(53:57):
you know something special. And I liked what I did.
But I never never went to my head, not a minute.
All that great press that first record got. I knew
that it was just whatever. Anyway, that night when I
when a paper came out that day, when I walked
into Kenny's Castaways, you could barely get in. People hanging
off the balcony areas areas. You know, people that knew

(54:20):
me for years looked at me completely different. Something about
being in writing gives it a certain kind of validation
that the music on that song might not. And so
I was on stage and I did my set. I
didn't know Robert was in the audience at night, and
I was introduced to him later. And I'm on stage
doing my thing, planning my song, was introducing the maginary

(54:40):
on drums tonight We've got William Shakespeare whatever. And I'm
jumping off the stage, telling stories, carrying on, having a
good time, having fun with it, you know. And before
I got off the stage that night, this guy comes up,
steps up because Hi, I'm Paul Rothschild, I managed the
doors or whatever. I want to talk. I want to
work with you. And it was that Clive Davis came

(55:01):
out different record labels. The coolest thing for me that
night was that Clive Davis wasn't like the fourth table
and behind him was Luck sin Terrior and Ivy Roorschok
at the Cramps who who I knew? The Cramps at
Clive Dave are like, oh this, you can't make this up.
It was so cool. And four days later on Clive's
office doing a show and tell in his office in
front of forty five whenever the top people on the label,

(55:24):
and you know that that was terrible. The sound in
the room was dead. But I did it and I
got signed that day. Okay, you know Clive, he's got
his self promotion machine going, but a lot of artists
complained that he meddles with the music. How was your experience?
I was very lucky. Um well I was. You know

(55:47):
when I when I told him what eleven songs I
wanted to put on the record, you know, he so
this is great. I played when I played Across the
River on the piano, a song I wrote about the
people starving in Ethiopian Chad and seventy eight. He thought
that was our hit, you know, so I went in.
I made the record, no interference whatsoever. The next year

(56:10):
I made and that year I was at the label
in this early spring, and my A and R guys said,
product manager said, oh, I hear Pete Townsen loves your record.
I mean, well, these great reviews were coming in, you know,
like that's great, you know, I mean I was insulated
enough as a guy who wrote poetry and libraries and

(56:31):
college and just wrote his heart out. I was writing
for that. I was just trying to express myself, not
trying to prove anything, convince anybody, how swallow. It was
none of that. I was just expressing myself. And I
can call up by the chorus, make a song out
of it, you know, entertain So all the great press,
I was grateful because I was just hoping after such
a struggle, and I was you know, I was broke

(56:54):
for years, and I thought, well, maybe this could help
change things, you know, And when I heard Pete towns
and loves your record, I just thought, oh yeah, I
didn't believe it. I thought, yeah, sure he does. And
then we took the last tour. We did that that
uh for that. The last show we did was in La,
Los Angeles at the Roxy in nineteen eighty and uh,

(57:15):
we just they just did it. Look the records over,
but we're going to have you go out and play
in LA just because you know, it's for the it's
for the cameras. I didn't care. I'll go. Let's go.
I'd like to go. I've never played in LA and
went there played the Roxy. Freddie Mercury came to the show.
Graham Parker came out and unbeknownst to me, Bill Kurbishly
from the Who in a bunch of the whose management

(57:38):
were there, came backstage and you know, he came up
to me and said, how well much you liked the performance?
And he said, you know, we're on tour and out
turn across the US, and we'd love to have you
opened the tour. I mean, I think the Pretty Things
were already opening. They did eight shows in the West Coast.
And I thought he was kid and I just laughed,
oh yeah, And then I thought, well, wait a minute,

(57:59):
he means it. You know, I go. I'd love to assure.
Let me call Clive, you know, And so I got
word from the label that they weren't going to support it,
the reason being I was driven around LA in a
fancy car and fancy streets, explaining, look, when Bruce Springsteen
played opened up for Chicago at the Garden, they booed.

(58:20):
They didn't know he was and it left a bead
taste in his mouth. We didn't want that to happen
to you. I figured, well, whatever, you're not going to
support it, I can't. What am I going to do?
So I went backed up Bill Kurbishly and this is Bill,
they won't I can't do it, and he says, what
do you need? Have your tour manager make up a budget,
and you know that's seven. Got five guys in the band,
a roady and a road manager. Flights, pay, hotels, cars, meals,

(58:44):
They paid the WHO paid for everything, you know, and
I toured. I went across the United States. It was
time of you know, you couldn't make that up. And
I'm friends with the WHO to this day, you know.
So we toured across the US. I made another album
next year, and we've gotten a legal problems former manager lawyer,
and I thought when it became more about business than music,

(59:07):
I just came home one day, I was I was
going to arbitration in the morning, playing at night. It
was such a bad taste in my mouth. You know,
I got in this for I wanted to have to
be a joyful thing. And obviously I'm not. I'm a
bit of an idiot. But they're killing my buzz. I
said to my wife, let's get out of here. They're
killing my buzz for music. I didn't want that, so

(59:28):
we moved back to Buffalo. Not the smartest thing to
do a little a little bit slower. What was the
legal issue specifically, Well, uh, there was complaints coming from
the number two guy at Arista call me on the

(59:49):
phone and said, you know, this record not going to
come out at the moment because your representation is not
to par. And so it was problems with the management
and a lawyer, and uh, you know, I tried to settle.

(01:00:09):
I said, look, you know, I don't want to hurt you.
You know, Uh, you could stay part of the team,
but let's let's bring in somebody who could help make
the most of this. You know, I love you. You're
trying to help me, but you're I'm I'm getting told
that you're you know that I might not put the
record out. So long story short. Um, I had to

(01:00:31):
fire a couple of people, you know, and it wasn't
any fun. I didn't get in this business to fire people.
That's that's hurtful to me, you know. I don't want
to do that anyway. And I back at a family,
had two I had three kids at the time and
another one to come in, you know. And and the money,
whatever money we got, was twinland. And so we walked

(01:00:53):
away from the I walked back from a business and
lived in the you know, Siberia Buffalo snow. But I
kept writing songs, you know, just that's what I do.
I write the right songs. I'd expressed myself. Wait wait, wait,
wait a little bit slower. The second record does come out. Sure,
Golden Down came out right. And then after the second
record comes out, what is Darris to say? Are they

(01:01:14):
willing to make another record or they're saying, hey, we
don't like this or we don't like that. Well, no,
they were, they were willing. But um, let me think,
scratch my memory. Um, it wasn't. It wasn't them that
I had. Clive was always good to me, I must say,

(01:01:36):
you know, two albums. Second album, same thing, by the way,
to answer your question, never meddled. I played that whatever
how many songs are on that rec panim for Clive?
He goes, great, good. You know Mark Knopfler back then,
God bless him. Jimmy Ivin called me one day, Hey, Willie, Yeah,
I'm in a power station with Mark Knaffler. It must
to meet you. Come on down. So, you know, up,

(01:01:59):
I go to the power the power station in New York.
Mark's in the back of the studio barefeet doing the
solo for Tunnel of Love. You know, just a magical moment.
And Mark we hung out talking. He said, what do
you what are you doing? I'm looking for a producer,
He said, I'd love to do that, you know, and
I go, oh, I'll tough live. You know. But the

(01:02:20):
time when I told Clive, he said, well, what's he done?
You know, he had produced. He didn't have a name
then as a producer. Who was the nineteen eighty eighty
I made that album. I was in the studio and
night John Lennon was killed in the same studio, and
that's another story. But so you know, Mark had not
enough credibility, so I ended up Tompizi and I co

(01:02:41):
produced it with Jimmy Iveen executive producing it. You know,
I love the way because the night sounded, you know.
I mean, who didn't like that record? So you put
the second? Second record comes out? Yeah, told me about
going back to Buffalo because you have to earn a

(01:03:03):
living too. I had some money saved up. I just
was like impulsive, and I said, they're killing my buzz.
I'm getting out of here. And oh you know, Um
I had new management who a really good guy, Fret

(01:03:24):
Kuley's going now and UH and Bert Block who started ICM,
and Uh, I got out of my record company. I went,
I have a filed bankruptcy, you know, and got out
of my ars to contract. You know, it's a long story.
And UH signed with Geffen for ten minutes. I made

(01:03:50):
some demos from Buffalo. They didn't like him, drop me.
You know. So I had some money saved and uh,
it just I thought I was already I had already.
It was a on that I forget the timing. I
walked away somewhere and then I got you know what
I didn't this is this is turning into a business nightmare.
What fun is that? That's not. That's not like listening
to the Beatles on that sold. And that's not like

(01:04:11):
hearing Bob Dylan saying like a rolling stone, driving around
with your buddies, hanging out the window, yelling at people.
I mean, it wasn't any fun. So I thought, to
hell with this business. And then two years later, living
up in Buffalo, I had all these songs, so trying
I couldn't get arrested. I made phone calls calling people up, Hey,
I got some songs, couldn't get couldn't get a phone
called answered. You know, you know it better than I do.

(01:04:32):
You've seen them much more of the business, and it's like, well,
you know, they dropped it like a hot potato, and
I don't. I never had. When I first moved to
New York, I saw so many musicians with chips on
their shoulder. Another reason I changed my name. I don't
want to be like that. You know, to this day,
I don't have any hard feelings none. You know, nothing's
handed to you on a platter. Oh yeah, you're good,

(01:04:54):
we like your hair. Here's a lot of money. Don't
worry about the rest of your life. It doesn't work
that way, you know. And so I was realistic enough
to know, you know that dozen things don't always work out.
And there was a lot of good people who tried
to help me for real, tried hard, believed in it,
but I couldn't get arrested, and I stopped touring. I

(01:05:15):
think the last show I did was in eighty one,
and uh then tour again and eighty seven. So anyway,
during that period, I read out of money, brought a
bunch of money and worked in a post office briefly.
I was too inept, couldn't cut it. You know, it
was a lousy postman. You know. I'd be delivered mail

(01:05:35):
at four or thirty, people coming up to me and
I under rote, where's my mail? Where's my check? And
I didn't last and I got a publishing deal in
eighty seven that really helped a few years. And then
in eighty seven I went to maybe it was eighty
five I went to I got a phone call one

(01:05:55):
day from a promoter in Oslo who said Greg Trooper
was touring here, and he said he knows you, and
there was a famous writer there. His name might come
to me in a minute. He was like the godfather
of writers in Norway. I hope it comes to me anyway.

(01:06:19):
He died in some kind of a car accident coming
back from on a Sunday visiting of the magazine Whatever.
Really good guy championed me big time. So I get
this phone call. They're doing a benefit for his wife
and kids. Would I come over and play? And I
hadn't played since you know eighty one The Greg Trooper's
Band will back You. Larry Campbell, a Bob Dylan's guitarist,
was in the band. I knew all those guys. God

(01:06:41):
bless Gregg. He's gone now. Great guy, a little talented cat.
So I went to Oslo and did a twenty five
minute set that was filmed, and I carried on like
I usually do, had a good time, and I got that.
I took that film to Rick Chardoff at Columbia Records
in eighty seven and eighty eight. Eighty seven, I guess

(01:07:02):
at the end of the year, and I had just
written a song called Renegades, and I played it for
him and he didn't tell me at the time, but
that's all he needed to hear, and then he saw it.
He was at arrist in nineteen seventy eight and wanted
to produce my first record, but he had not he
didn't have enough credibility. I didn't know what he could do.

(01:07:24):
And by then he had had a lot of hits.
And a good guy, good dear friend, signed me to
Columbia for peanuts. You have no idea how a little
bunch of money I got. I got a family of
four with a wife, you know, and anyway, they took
a chance on me, which I'm very grateful for. And
I made a record. I love like places places I've
never been. You know, Roger mcgwins on that record. Richard
Thompson's on that record. Tebone Woke co produced it. You know.

(01:07:48):
Two guys from McCartney's band, Wicks, the keyboard player Robbie
McIntosh Stewart Smith. I mean he's with the Eagles, but
he played. I was so blessed with some of the musicians.
I've always been lucky that way, and made that record
and that you know, it turned out to be a
wrong time, wrong place. You know, the business, Sometimes it's

(01:08:08):
right time, sometimes it's a wrong time. Won that record fight.
It took two years to get it made because Rick
was appointed head of an R and they didn't want
it in the studio. We were looking for a producer. Now,
I waited for two years while I finished a Patty
Smith Smith's record and our Hooters record Tommy Conwell, And
when it came time, no, We've done six months searching
for a producer. By the time it came out, he

(01:08:30):
was on the way out of Columbia. So it was
just my champion there was was not able to help.
Had it been a year earlier, he could have pushed
the buttons. I could have opened up for Tom Petty
and blah blah. But at the time, I was just
genuinely grateful that I got to make that record. You know,
it's the music that I care about. You know, I'm
not the smartest cat on the planet. I loved the
record and I go, well, too bad, bad luck, bad

(01:08:53):
timing for me, and so I was back out again,
you know, out of the you know done. You know,
Ron Fierstein was managing me at the time. Time, and
you know, there's right time and right place. But I
kept writing. I've always been written. I'll do that. If
I was a plumber new in Alaska, I would still
write songs. That's what I do. You know, it's meaningful
to me. You know, what do you do in your life.

(01:09:14):
It's meaningful. Some people coming to watch the sun and
chant home. Some people shoot guns at a gun range
and imagine them in their teachers. I don't know, but
I like the right songs. And I've been blessed looking back,
and there's more than a million stars I can tell
you, you you know. The first day I went to see
BGBS before television, played before it became the punk me
Guy played there, and through the hard times in the seventies,

(01:09:38):
the hard times, because you earlier it asked about the struggle.
The hard times in the eighties, very hard, you know,
trying to kids go to go to school in September,
needing to new shoes, they need new clothes, they need books,
you know, and the money's like running out. A lot
of a lot of a lot of years like that.
But got through it, you know, and persisted. I was

(01:10:01):
never very good at making a living, and just stayed
with it, you know, made the Columbia Record. A year
later there was an election and I had a song
called hard Times in America. So I put a little
ep out because I wanted to get the song out,
you know, and small label didn't didn't make a ripple,
and you know, remember Friday Morning Quarterback. I don't know

(01:10:21):
if it's still around, but on ninety one, yeah, I
was on the cover of that in the February of
ninety one. You know, God bless Paul Hine. And you know,
sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. I'm not feeling
that I'm old or anything, you know, but I must
say my father said this when I first started out,

(01:10:42):
when I moved to New York struggling. He said, you know,
enjoy these Enjoy this hard climb, which says, because if
you become successful, it'll just taste all the sweeter. Well,
I never gave up. You know, there's a there's a
guy making a documentary about me now, and I met
him to say, no, I didn't know it was guy
wants to make a movie about you. We've been doing
it five years now, on and off. So I spent

(01:11:05):
forty five years, you know, struggling, trying to have quality,
the highest quality, trying to make masterpieces, you know, and
somebody come along make a lousy movie about all that. No,
thank you. So he flew from Vienna, Austria. I met
him as a courtesy because he flew over. I got
a bunch of letters, I'll meet you, but I meant

(01:11:25):
I want to say no, you know. We so we
met at Cafe Reggio on McDougall Street, and how nice
to meet you. Thanks for coming, thanks for wanting to
do it. But why do you want to make a
movie about me? I'm not a rock star. I don't
have its songs, you know. And he says, because he
says right away, you never gave up. You're doing your
best work now and with New York City as a backdrop,

(01:11:49):
it's the story of inspiration and okay, because I love
New York City, madhouse that it is. And we talked
for two hours and every single thing picked up on.
We were just you know, talking about our lives, telling
the stories, you know. Being in Paris, I did an
interview tour with JD Doherty, my drummer. We just drank

(01:12:09):
our way across Europe, you know, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Munich.
We drove through the Italian We drove through the Alps,
throwing stop every half an hour to throw snowballs. In
June and the Alps, it was like talking to God.
End up in Hamburg, you know where the Beatles played.
We went to the Reaper Bomb, fascinating, the red the

(01:12:31):
Red Light District, the most unsexty place you'll ever see,
and it was. It was magical. But everything he picked
up on this director Lucas was like really smart. Like
if we talked a few things, everything he picked up
and I go, this guy's pretty smart, you know. And anyway,
I thought, you know what, maybe I'm wrong about this. No,
you know, Okay, well let's try it. And so that

(01:12:53):
was like five years ago. So Phil, we filmed in Italy,
in London at the BBC with the great Johnny Walker,
around London, around I was Buffalo, in the northeast New
York City, a ton of New York. You know, it's
pretty fun. You should do it sometime. Put has somebody
put a microphone on you in a camera and follow
you walking the streets in New York. Within ten minutes,

(01:13:15):
something's going to happen. That's peculiar. It's happened time and
time again, and it's really fun and interesting. You know.
I like character, whether it's you know, a medieval city
hall and the Italian Alps, or whether it's you know,
some grungy club in Lower Manhattan on a Bowerie. You know,

(01:13:36):
things with meaning a character. I love that. That inspires me.
That's why I keep doing it. Anyway, this thing's coming
along pretty good, this film. You know, we did a
show so I tore it to who in nineteen eighty
across the US, right, And I've kept good, great relations
with Bill Kurbish, Lee and Roger Daltrey and Pete Towns
and they've been really good to me. You know, I

(01:13:58):
played a few years ago, five years or so, the
Music Cares was honoring Pete Townsend and Bill Kurbishly. I
get a call one day early May and it's my
book an agent and he says it a few years ago, Hey,
what are you doing May twenty eighth? I remember that date.
I go, i'mre in New York because we just got

(01:14:19):
a call from the Grammys. They want they're honoring Bill
Kurbishly and Pete Townsend. They want to get five artists
to sing two Pete Townsend songs, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Daltrey
joint you at Billy Idol and you I'm thinking, what's
wrong with this picture? What's wrong with this picture? Wait
a minute, there's anyway. That's that's how nice these guys

(01:14:40):
have been to me, and sure enough whatever the Danocchia
Theater or whatever it was called, what a blast. You know.
I got to play with the Who, I mean, give
me a break again. It can't make it up. And
I sang substitute and the kids are all right, two
of the best songs ever. And and then so we're
sound checking. Here you go, you can't make this. We're

(01:15:00):
sound checking. And I did my sound check electric guitar,
signed my songs, you know, with the Who band. I mean,
Pete wasn't playing when I played so great. And then
Bruce sound checked, and then we all went out to
do the encore run through. I won't get fooled again.
And I'm at the very end of the stage microphone,
says Willie Nile. At the bottom of it. I go

(01:15:21):
so proud to be here. Won't get fooled again. I
never played on guitar, but I know I tip my
hat to the new constitute. I'll send the chorus. So
Pete comes with this acoustic guitar and he's looking down
to all the people that goes, we need another electric guitar,
and he's looking at me. I'm going, we need another

(01:15:41):
electric guitar. He's looking right up and go ah, I'll
get bye. So I turned around. I walked back again.
I'm thinking, what are you doing, you idiot. I'm not
Richard Thompson. I cannot I don't know where how to
play it. So get my guitar. I'm thinking, jeez, now
you did it. And I get back to this front
of the stage and then moved my microphone right next
to Pete and uh and Roger and Bruce. I'm going,
this is this is not work. This is gonna be trouble.

(01:16:03):
And so I'm so they started playing the song. I'm going, oh,
this is fun, but I'm petrified. I knew two of
the chords I hit him and then the rest. I'm
just going I was just chinking away. I didn't know
the chords. You know, if I was Richard Thompson, I
could have pulled it off. So Pete goes, oh, that
was pretty bad. Looks around him. He goes, will he
loosen up? It's like right out of a Bill Murray movie,

(01:16:26):
right and and uh. So we did it again, and
I did the same thing, you know, and I thought, well,
Bruce will be really allowed, you know, he'll cover it.
He was you couldn't hear him. And he goes, ah,
well we'll be okay. Pete left, you know, and and
Bill Bill Kurbers and God blessed him goes, well if
there's not even if there's no mistakes, it won't be
a who show, you know. So so we go in

(01:16:48):
the dressing room. I'm walking by Bruce. I go, I'm
taking this to the dressing room. I don't know how
this song goes. So I get in the dressing room
sitting down. Bruce comes back with his guitar and the
lyrics are spread out in front of us by Kevin
dear guitar tech. And so Bruce and I picture this
fifteen minutes on a couch like like teenagers, like high

(01:17:09):
school kids, learn it. Won't get fooled again. He didn't
know it either, and I go, I think that's a
being minor. He goes, I don't know, like yeah, yeah. Anyway,
After about ten minutes, he goes, I got it. I go,
I don't. So I took the lyrics, went in the
corner for other twenty minutes and learned it, and we
played it that night and it was so much fun.
You know, this clip of the clips of it on
if you Google, Won't can Fool Again? With a Who

(01:17:30):
and Bruce and me. It was just glorious. You know,
when you've got nothing to lose and you go on
stage and you're not trying to show off, and you're
there because you love the music. I mean, that's why
you like it, you know, you you you you persist
because you love it, you know, and because you care.
Obviously it's mostly crap, but there's some great stuff. And

(01:17:51):
growing up the way we did with all that music,
that's so much inspiring music, Soul music, Won't R and B, Blues,
British and Fade Dylan, you know, the whole revolution that happened.
You know, it's meaningful, you know, and music still means
something to me, it really does. You can tell. I'm
I mean it, you know, and I make these I

(01:18:11):
made nine albums in the last twelve years on my
own label, you know, House of a Thousand Guitars, The
Innocent Ones, American Ride ten years ago. I made an
American Ride. Last week we did a tenth out of
anniversary and played a top to bottom. I hadn't heard
half of those songs and years that was so much fun,

(01:18:32):
you know, and I'm gonna do Streets in New York
next month at the City Winery in March. Nine albums
in the twelve years and two thousand and six, when
I put out Here's the sixth, Here's the positive side
of this story. In two thousand and six, I put
out an album called Streets of New York Again. You know,
I waited for Andy York, the great guitarist who helped
co produce the records Rich Pogano and my band and

(01:18:56):
made this. I waited for Andy. He's worth waiting for
his melancamp's lead guitar play, and he was busy. Finally
had some time. We made this record and I love it.
It's about the streets in New York. It's a picture
on the back of my feet, you know, on the
stones my son took and a great photographer, and it
came out and it put men, put me back in

(01:19:16):
the map. You know. It made the charts in Billboard whatever.
It didn't make me rich. You know, nothing's made me
rich that's coming anyway. I thought, then, you know what,
I can't control the business. I can't control radio. All
I can control is the songs I write and the
records I make and the shows I put on live.

(01:19:37):
You know, I want to try to make a masterpiece
every time out. I'm just gonna try to make the
best records I can make. Why wouldn't I. You know,
when I make a record, I don't make them in
the studio. I got the songs written, you know, and
I have it picked out. I sometimes sequenced before we
record them, and I won't go in. I won't record
a song if I don't think it's special. I don't
want anybody to subject anybody to that. There's enough crap

(01:20:00):
out there with I me ed to it. So I've
made these records and I try to make everyone and
there's a now that I said I'm gonna build a catalog.
I didn't care about fame anyway. Money, Yeah, I'm open
to that. But now I have, you know, fourteen records
I put out and our thirteen whatever, and I'm proud
of them, and you know, I feel really good about that.

(01:20:22):
So the journey, the struggle which continues. You know, I'm
still working hard. I'm not rich. I still live five
flights up. You know, we got it in the documentary.
There's film footage to me walking up. You know, you
shoot somebody's feet from the back walking up five flights
carrying a guitar in a bag at two in the morning,
with wet socks, damp underwear, wet pants. You know, you're

(01:20:45):
still close from the show. And over the years I
used to hate those stairs. Now I thank you, thank you,
thank you, because it's kept me fit, you know, three
times a day walking up five floods, you know, and
it's been fascinating. The characters I've seen that I've met,
but many of gone now, you know, George Girty's many people.

(01:21:08):
And I wouldn't trade it for anything, you know, I mean,
it was hard on my family. All They will say
this if in nineteen eighty when I made that first
record and there was a double page spread in Billboard,
page seven and eight Willie Nile's first album, Isn't He Swell? Whatever?
Whatever it said, you know, New York Times, La Times,
Terry Review, glowing reviews. I was deeply grateful for I

(01:21:33):
really was, for the people who wrote those for Aris
to try and for me, you know. And from then,
if I'd become really, really rich and really famous, who
knows what destruction that could have wrought. Would my four
kids be as good people as they are now being
able to have anything they want. I need a new
car dead, oh you know what I need. You know,

(01:21:54):
my kids are really good people, you know, and we
all love each other, and my grandchildren because there's a
sense of family. Had fame and riches entered into that equation,
might it be the same, I don't know. It was
certainly a hard road and it continues. I'm seventy four
years old now, you know. And there's a gig at

(01:22:14):
this June Willie and Ail's seventy fifth birthday. That's funny.
I don't feel it, you know, And I'm enjoying it.
And I got one of the best bands in the world,
and it's never been better, actually, so I live to
tell the tale to this point. Okay, if you go back,
those of us were there when the first Erast album
came out, which I certainly bought. There was a huge buzz.

(01:22:36):
So from the outside it looks like it didn't happen.
So from the inside all of this, you're, you know,
your very level, but I have to believe you were
really distraught or maybe temporarily bitter when you have these
setbacks before you equalized. Oh my god, Yes, it was

(01:23:01):
so hardn't I don't know if bitter is the word.
Distraught absolutely, you know, just terrified, absolutely, and it didn't happen,
you know. I mean it was a lot of hype.
It was overhyped, but they were trying. You know, it's
a work. Sometimes it doesn't. But it was really difficult.
The strain on my family was really immense. So it
was a very difficult times. I mean mostly really hard years.

(01:23:24):
You know, I'm not not trying to put a rosy
picture on it. You know, it was tough and you know,
trying to make a living as a musician not the
easiest thing, you know, and sometimes you can be deserving
of it and doesn't happen. You know, there's no deserves
in this world. It is what it is. But I
was I absolutely brewed blue and distraught and dismayed and heartbroken.

(01:23:47):
Oh absolutely absolutely. But like my dad says, you got
to pick yourself up and get on with it, you know.
You know it's funny. This is a pretty good example.
Last December a year ago, I was in Buffalo for
the holidays, stand at the dad's house and it was
four degrees out and it's the morning Dad's waking up.

(01:24:10):
He's going to go to church. My brother's gonna take
him to church. And I'm waking up to you know,
wash my face and you know, hit the men's room
and go back to bed. And I'm coming out of
the bathroom and Dad's about, you know, in the shirt,
you're getting ready. I go, it's like four degrees out there.
It's pretty cold. And he goes outside the door to
get the newspaper, comes back and he goes, yeah, he says,

(01:24:33):
that's cold, and he goes he pauses for a minute.
He said, bring it on. The guy's one hundred and three,
one hundred and three years old, and he goes, bring
it on. I mean that kind of spit that, you
know what. Yeah, I'm knocked down, but I'm getting back up.
What's that great band movie where Levan says New York City,
He'll kick you, kick your ass, you know, and you

(01:24:54):
run out of you leave town with the tail between
your legs, and you get back up again, you go
head back into the fight. I ain't never given up.
I'll drop before that. But was I blew? Was I
just maye? Was I broken hearted? Absolutely? Oh my god? Yeah,
trying to support a family and there's no you know,
there's no ways. Everybody's got a tough story to tell.
Mine's no different than anybody else. Everybody's got it hard.

(01:25:16):
That's why that's what music offers us. Okay, Gay, go back.
You said it earlier that you were a proof feeder
for showtime. When was that? Yeah, it was a proof
feeder for showtime. So in nineteen ninety nine, I had
a ninety seven eighty nine, I had a band in

(01:25:39):
New York, Willie All and the Worried Dolls and New
York Rich Bergano Bread I'll Better great, scrappy little band,
My god. We made a We went in to cut
some demos and came out with I thought, this is
an album called beautiful record the world, you know, and
it holds up to this day and I love it.
And at ninety nine, I'm running out of money again

(01:26:00):
and I go and yeah, I'm getting broken. He goes, yeah,
it kind of sucks, but you can always proof read.
I go, what's that and he goes, well, that's pretty bad.
It's probably boring, but like you know, you can survive.
So I found this place. He gave me this number
you could call, and this guy gave a three day,
two hour class what it was about, and he brought
up a fake resume, and so I take this fake resume,

(01:26:25):
you know, and I would go into a you know,
employee places, and I guess they sent me out for
a job. I go to a law firm I didn't
even know. I remember the first I get that showtime.
I had a job I was doing legal proof reading.
And it was easy because on the left side you
had a pile of paper, on the right side had
a pile of paper. He said, to make sure that

(01:26:45):
they were they were the changes were correctly made. So
so I did that and a financial proof reading midnight
to eight. Oh my god, I'm drinking coffee all night.
I get home at eight in the morning. I laid
down to go to sleep, and my eyes are wide open.
I couldn't sleep anyway. I got to offer part time
job at showtime. A dear friend said, they're looking for

(01:27:06):
a part time proof reader. This is like June or
July of two thousand, I think it was something like that.
And I went up and I applied. Yeah, sure, you know,
it was easy. The boss there at Paul was so great.
I get this part time job and I'm there in
the summer and it was easy worked. It wasn't much work.
And one day I hear my boss playing beautiful reck

(01:27:27):
of the World in his office and he calls me in. Willie,
get in here, Yeah, he goes, He holds on my record.
He goes, this is really good. I got thanks. No, no, no, no,
this is really good. He says, I know music. I
used to play saxon a band. This is really good.
And I was, well, thank you, and he says, you
know what, I'm looking for, a full time proof read
you want the job. Just like that, I went, yeah,

(01:27:50):
So I got a day job at Showtime in the
creative department. Great, great people. The CEO of Showtime, Matt Blank,
huge fan, the president less mmm wait less, Oh, come on,
might come to me Les Moonves, who's not not Moonves?

(01:28:11):
It was I'll come to me, great guy, he was
a president. They'd stopped me in the hall. How are
you doing you making another record? Meanwhile, I'm in my
little cubicle running my little label, river House Records, and
doing the work or here comes the work, no problem,
ba ba blah booh, okay, okay, next what about you know?
And uh we filmed it for the for the documentary,

(01:28:32):
we got footage of me in that cubicle. And one
day I leave the cubicle. You know, I got a
call from Terry who was somebody called me a Springsteen people.
Bruce wants you to come to Giant Stadium when they
were closing the last five shows at Giant Stadium. Bruce
has been really good to me. I mean, he's invited
me on stage many times. He's joined my band on
stage many times. You know, he's just he's been really

(01:28:54):
good to me. And so I'm it's I'm a cubicle
doing this, you know, this job. And it was I was,
it's steadied my boat after all those years of wolf
at the door, you know, fear and worry and stuff,
and that was clowning around in there, of course. But

(01:29:14):
so next thing, and so I got out of work,
I get a boss. I go to Giant Stadium. I'm
in Bruce's dressing room and he goes, We're gonna play
American Land. It goes like this, it plays me and
I got it. So I'm on seventy thousand people going
nuts at Giant Stadium. It's loud, and I'm laughing at
because I know the Eastreet band, I'll play with him
before they got it covered. So I figured this is easy.

(01:29:37):
So I go up and I'll play with Bruce. And
because I'd played with him at schae Stadium in two
thousand and three, and this was the last five shows
at Giant Stadium. And uh, I go from my cubicle,
you know, and near Time Square too, you know, in
front of seventy thousand people going nuts. And I finished
the song, left the stage and next time you here,

(01:29:58):
they're going, well, he wants it back. He's going get well,
I'll back up here. I go back up. We do
two more songs and do you know how at the
end this shows Bruce so the band will all go
to the front of the stage. Well it was that
moment when they all went to the front of the stage,
you know, the very front. So I go, well, I'm
going too, So I followed him at the front of
the stage. I remember looking down. This woman's looking up, going,
who the hell is that guy? I just looked at

(01:30:19):
I went I looked like, I don't know, I'm just here,
you know. And God bless him. Generosity is that spirit
of He's got that spirit of loving the play, you know,
loving the music. That makes a difference. Anyway, I forget
where I started off on that tale. But how many years?
How long did you work for Showtime? Twelve years? I

(01:30:43):
worked at twelve years, and they were so good to me.
It was interesting. I never minded going, you know, And
because it was not hard work, I wasn't thinking ditches,
you know. And I had I had. I had healthcare.
My brother, my youngest brother, John, had a heart attack
at fifty years old because he had no healthcare. For
four years, he managed a club restaurant of our restaurant

(01:31:05):
that went that he had that went under, and for
four years he was doing the apartment fix ups. So
I didn't go to a doctor. I asked a woman
to do the autopsy. I found his body an apartment
right next to mine. Then I have two days. I
found his body and it was just dreadful, and I
asked a woman to do the autopsy. I said, hey,
if he went to a doctor, she goes, oh, yeah,
he'd still be here, you know. But he couldn't afford it.

(01:31:27):
So Showtime I got. I had a regular salary, I
could pay my bills, I had healthcare, and I could
run my record label, make records, and Showtime was nice
enough to let me get unpaid leave to go to
Europe to tour two weeks here, two weeks there, until
one time they said to me, a boss, Paul, I said,
you know, we can't do that anymore. This people are saying, well,

(01:31:48):
why can't If will he can do it, why can't
I get unpaid leave? And I understand that, and so
I really had to make a decision. It was a
real fork in the road for me. Do I quit?
You know, I was doing gigs? Do I really take
that jump off the deep end? Well? The deep end
must be my home. Because I took the leap. I figured,
all right, I'm leaving this job and I'm gonna try
to get gigs on my own and no book an agent,

(01:32:08):
no manager, and buddy my always managing me. No, I
think it stopped at that point. Anyway, I worked a
show down twelve years and met Christina around that time,
and then I've been making records and touring as much

(01:32:30):
as I can since then. You know, Oh, okay, so
let's start with that. How many gigs a year do
you do? What are the economics? You have a band?
How does this all work over there. It varies. Before COVID,
I was doing maybe fifty sixty shows a year or
something like that. You know, i didn't have a book

(01:32:51):
an agent for a while, but I've had one for
some years now. So sometimes i play solo, sometimes duo,
sometimes full band, depends on my I'm getting paid, you know,
and I've been blessed with a great great players who
if you see the band play every single song, they
give everything they got every night. Nobody phones it in like, yeah,

(01:33:12):
pay me, none of that. They are passionate about it
as as I'm i and economically I'm going to the
UK for some shows in April. Four shows Edinburgh, Leicester,
Chichester and London. We're playing one hundred Club. I'll played
there before, The Who played there in the sixties, The

(01:33:34):
Sex Pistols played there, a great venue. The great Johnny
Walker is going to come to the show that night,
you know, the great legendary DJ from the UK. And
I was going to get a couple of guys from
the two there's a guitar player, drummer. I'm taking my
bass player. That was original plan. There's two guys would
join us in Edinburgh and Joe Strummer's old drummer in

(01:33:57):
the mescal Aros Smiley, Bernard Barnard and James Stevenson from
The Alarm the Cult. We're going to join me in
two of the gigs, and all of a sudden they
couldn't do one of the gigs because they had to
rehearsal all day with the Alarm. And I wasn't bringing
my band because it didn't pay for itself. You know,
I couldn't afford to bring them flights, pay band, pay hotels,

(01:34:21):
van rental backline. So taking going to Europe having instruments
or not instruments, but amplifiers, drums, and transportation. That adds up.
If you were in a group, you could split it three,
four ways, five ways. But when you're a solo artist,
you pay. You have to pay people. So I've done
play tour with a Spanish band in Spain, and I'm

(01:34:42):
gonna spands great players there in Italy. I got I'm
doing dates in Italy the February duo show with a
great blues guitarist. So it depends where I go, how
much money is being paid, if I could take the
full band or not. A great friend and fan has
come up with some money to allow me now to
bring my New York City band to the UK. So
uh for three shows. Three of those four shows, I'll

(01:35:05):
so in London. I'll have my guys, my New York
City bad Boys. It's gonna be fun. So it varies, Bob,
from from how much you're making but you can't afford.
And I've been, I mean I've I've been. I've played
oh my goodness, uh arenas, I've played dentist's office. I've
played no Kid in south By, Southwest. It was a

(01:35:28):
dentist's office. You know, this guy did gigs for He
would do work for musicians who couldn't afford it. So
they were doing a concert in his dentist office. We've
done everything. We've played, closets, played, uh you know, arenas, whatever, it's,
it's all of the above. And I find that pretty
looking back fascinating. You know, it hasn't. It hasn't. There's

(01:35:48):
no chip on my shoulder and hasn't knocked me down yet. Okay,
So if you stop today, do you have any money?
Not enough to live on? Nope, Nope, not no nest egg.
It was doing all right before COVID hit. You know
when Covid hit. There was a lot of gigs and
I was doing all right, you know, starting to save money,

(01:36:10):
you know, and but COVID came in. The gigs went
in two thousand and twenty. After I had a gig
with the band February twenty ninth, and then we had
one gig the rest of the year. One gig. I
did a series of online once a month online shows,
you know, through veeps dot com, and they're fascinating. One

(01:36:32):
of them we went, I went with my bass player
on the streets of New York and we went to
the Bowery Mission through a song we went to outside
the the Dakota where John Lennon was murdered, you know,
and just did songs around New York, told stories about
the city. I had my band in Bowery Electric Great Club,
in the Manhattan Punk Club, Jesse Mallen's Club. So I

(01:36:52):
got through that year by doing online shows. Well after
that year that people don't care about seeing online shows anymore,
and there's gigs enough to survive. But it's the last year.
It's been thinner, you know, it's been thin. So COVID
has been thin, and this year we'll probably finished the
movie this year. I've got gigs lined up, you know,

(01:37:12):
different parts of North America and Italy, UK, you know, England, Scotland.
So I'm working away. I'm a working musician, you know,
and I'm grateful to be. You know, I never thought
I would. I mean, the Kidney, I never dreamed. I
never dreamed, you know, this kid in college writing poems
in a library, that I would be, you know, standing

(01:37:35):
on a giant statium with Bruce Briegstein, that I would be,
you know, playing with Lucin to Williams, you know, Richard
Thompson singing. The last time I opened for Richard. He's
a dear guy. And I said, he said, what do
you want to do for a cover? Let's do the
last time by the Stones listen to what do you
want to do for a cover? I go, let's do.
I want to be sedated? So lousten to this, this
great show, and I got to do it. I want
to be sedated. That's fun. And so it has up

(01:37:59):
been hard? Hell yeah, oh my god. Would I advise
anybody else to do it? No? But having been through
it and survived it so far, you know, and I
must say it tastes sweet. I got to places I
never thought I would get ever never. I mean, my god,
I mean the who I played with, the who I

(01:38:19):
played with, Springsteen, Ringo start two. I put an EP out.
I get a phone call. I met Ringo on Friday night.
Somebody I was just a friend of sometimes took me there.
I shook his hand at Radio City. I get a
call the next day the person opening up and Monday
night at Jones Beach is sick. Can you and your
band play the show? And we did and it was amazing.

(01:38:42):
I'm backstage. Check it out. You asked me about the Beatles.
I'm a beatle freak. Love the Beatles, love the Stones.
So Ringo star. So we get Monday, a June hot night,
Jones Beach, outside of New York City on Long Island.
We get there and me and the guys are standing
back behind the stage, and incomes this bus was Ringo,

(01:39:03):
Dave Edmunds, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmidt, Zack's Darky Um,
Dave Edmonds, Uh, Todd what's his name? Todd Rundgren. I
mean it was a pretty pretty rocking band. And Um
Ringo walcome back stage, sees me, comes right over to

(01:39:23):
us and I mean old school too. Here's two great stories.
Ringo comes over to me, Are you willie? Then I'll
go yeah. He goes, thank you for doing it. We're
happy to have you. You know. He looks, right, are
these the lads? Then? You know we were all just dying,
you know? So he goes, so we're sound checking. He
walks on stage standing like right, you know, ten feet

(01:39:44):
looking like what's what's He cared about what the audience
was gonna hear. And so my bass player wasn't there,
so I had my roadie who didn't play bass. Anyway,
he probably goes, we'll see we did great. We rocked
at night, and they said they want us to do
another half a dozen show. So these are like out
indoor outdoors, six twenty thousand and sixteen thousand capacity places

(01:40:07):
and it's it's Ringo for crying out loud. And so
the last night of the tour, and this just goes
to show you this is old school. I went out there,
did my half an hour set, you know, twenty two
thousand people what twenty thousand, and ring goes up planning.
I saw him before I went downstairs. Two of my
kids were there, and I said, Ring you know. I

(01:40:27):
got a couple of photographs with Ringo and he's on stage.
He finishes a set with photograph. But all I've got
is a photograph, and I really, you know, I'm tears
of my eyes. He comes off before the encores and
he sees me, and I'm about thirty feet away. I'm
not near him. Does a bee line, walks right over

(01:40:48):
to me. He shakes my hand, he goes he's thank you, Willie,
big hug. He says, I want to thank you did
a great job. I want to thank you. He hugged.
I get a big hug, and he's all wet and
I'm thinking beetles sweat. I'm covered in beetles web sweat.
I'm not washing it for another of a month. And
he says, do you want to you want to come
and sing? I get by with the help of my friends.
This all happened, Bob. I'm telling you this happened. I mean,

(01:41:11):
I must be still dreaming. So wake me up. When no,
don't wake me. So I go. Let me get my coat.
So I run backstage get some ridiculous polka dot jacket
that I was wearing. I walk on stage and Rick
Danko's on stage, who's Rick was a friend? And Ricos Willie,
how are you nice? You know? And I'm on mike
with Nils Lofgren again like I had been with Bruce,

(01:41:32):
and Ringo goes and you all know who this is
and he gives me one of these hand gestures alluding
to me, and we sang. I get by with little
help from my friends, which was really bitter sweet for
me because this was nineteen ninety two and in nineteen
eighty I was making my second album for arist at
the Record Plant. Started the album on December fifth. John

(01:41:53):
Lennon and Yoko were. I was in Studio B and
they were in the mix room upstairs doing Walking up
Walking on thin Ice and on a Sunday night. We
started on a Friday and Tom Ponenzio, my co producer,
new John, and he said, when do you want to
meet John? I said, well, let's you know, Monday was
being spent fast, so I said, let's let's do a

(01:42:14):
couple of days and maybe you have some tracks and
who knows, maybe playing something, or let's let's get some
work done first Tuesday night. I'll meet him Tuesday. So
we record Friday night Saturday, Sunday night. It's midnight. Phone
rings and it's John Lennon's engineer, and he said, John's
out of strings. Does any you have any guitar strings?

(01:42:36):
He's tell him my tomponenzio and we go, yeah, we
got strings. So I got some strings, my lead guitar
games and strings. And I was going to put a
note to John thanks for the music. I love you.
That's too corny. Just send him up. I'll tell him
when I see him. And this is Sunday night. When
I see him Tuesday. So we come in the studio
Monday to work, which is December eighth, nineteen eighty, and

(01:42:58):
we started a fourth third and we were recording a
song called I Can't Get You Off of My Mind.
And I'm playing the piano that John played often in
the record plant. And seven thirty John came in with Joko.
I didn't see him. We didn't know anyway. Ten twenty

(01:43:19):
the phone, right PM, the phone rings. Tom Panunzo answers
the phone. Tom's a great guy. I love him to death,
and he goes, all right, I'll be right out, hangs
up and he says I'll be right back. We were
all listening to a playback because we did a couple
of takes. We were listening back making tweaks talking about
the arrangement. Tom leaves he didn't say that he was
going out to meet John by the elevator to get

(01:43:39):
an autograph for whoever, the guy that gave him the strings,
Tom Panuz, who had a buddy in Jersey, Ken was
his first name, who had bugging him all week to
get an autograph from John. And so Tom figured, well,
Tom knew John, he'd worked with them before, you know,
they were friends, and so he called and says, Hey,
the guy who gave you the strings, whose name is Ken,
last night, would to get an autograph of John? Could

(01:44:01):
John give an autograph? So the phone call was the engineer,
Saint John's coming down in five minutes. He'll give you
the autograph. Then, so Tom goes out to meet him.
He didn't tell us because we would have all wanted
to go out to the elevator. He goes out to
the elevator, sees John a big hug. John signs an
autograph and says, to Ken, who strung me along? Love piece,

(01:44:23):
piece and love John. John Lennon drew a picture of
his face and Tom. He walked out into it to
his car, and five minutes later he was murdered. The
last autograph, the last thing he played was on guitar
strung strings that we sent up, and all last autograph
was to the guy who's sent up the strings. And
we get a phone call and Tom comes walking back

(01:44:44):
in the studio fifteen minutes after he walked out, and
he's goes, somebody just shot John. And the band and
I were listening to a playback and I said, John,
John who, Because you know, I didn't know what that
meant is John Lennon? I go, what what do he
means somebody? And I thought, well, maybe he got shot
in the and you know, and sure enough the phone
rings front desk and David Geffen and he said, John

(01:45:07):
Lennon's all right. I just got a call from Yoko's
best friend who said John's on his way to the hospital.
And now no he left ten minutes ago or whatever,
you know. In the phone running off the hook, we
couldn't record. You know, I heard my dear drummer J
D Dorry. I heard crying in a corner behind the doors,
crying his eyes out. You know, I'll cry, I I
gotta stop first, I cry thinking about it. So we

(01:45:29):
went we went out to the bar and went to
a bar and we drank the night away. And the
next day we'll get to the studio and the record
Plan had hired uh a bodyguard for John when he
was there. His name was Bobby, six feet six, three
hundred pounds, big guy, very nice guy. I would I'm

(01:45:51):
a little guy, and I would like challenge him to
a fight, you know, just clown around. We were friends
even just after a few days, and he was broke
and hearted. He said what happened was that they had
just mixed Walking on Thin Ice. He said, John was
in the greatest mood. I mean, I choked up. You've

(01:46:11):
been thinking about this, but he said, John was in
the greatest mood. You said, they just mixed a song
him that he thought was going to be a hit
for Yoko Walking on Thin Ice. And if you listen
to the guitar plan on that it's the most searing,
gut ripping guitar and Double Fantasy was number one. The
press were finally given us and John was getting some

(01:46:32):
respect from the press. He was in great spirits, so
he says to Bobby, Bobby told us the next day, Hey, Bobby,
let's he put his arm around him. No, he said, Bobby,
let's go to dinner and celebrate, you know. And Bobby said,
I'm sick to my stomach. So John put his arm
around him and says, oh, you go home. Don't worry,
you go home. We'll go celebrate another night. So instead
of an agat came downstairs, John got in the car,

(01:46:55):
you know, Uh, signed the autograph Componenzio down stairs on
the main floor, walked out in the car, went home,
got shot, and had he not been sick, they had
gone to dinner, the car would have taken them to
the Dakota where Bobby would have gotten out of the
car with John. Who knows it's it's moot now, but

(01:47:17):
that happened. So it's yeah, it makes me choke up.
It's like, yeah, if John Lennon was alive, could you imagine? No?
I can't. But just stopping for one second, you're are
you died? Intelligent, very verbal person. How come you don't
do a one man show where you tell all these

(01:47:37):
stories starting off Broadway? Well, you know what I'm thinking.
There's this documentary and I've seen a bit of it.
It could be good. I mean, it could be good.
There's a lot of well long people in it. But
that's not enough. You know, you know what my dad
steals and shot my father. Isn't it us talking telling?

(01:47:59):
He's telling stories. We're going to finish it this year,
and I'm hoping that that can make enough noise. You
know where you can raise you know, uh, raise the
level of the kind of places I can play, raise interest,
you know, let me sell a catalog or whatever. And
but that's an idea. I didn't think about that. I

(01:48:19):
don't know if I could do that night after night.
I don't think the same I do. I do solo
shows more often now. You know, it's like Springsteen. It's
not exactly the same every night. You don't have to
tell the exactly the same stories. But you know, you're
you're there. You talk about Buffalo, and you strum a
few of the songs that you that you heard growing up.

(01:48:41):
You do a little satisfaction, do a little last time
you tell your stories. I could listen to you talk
all night. Oh well, you know, seriously, a lot of
people are boring or do self congratulatory. I mean, you've survived,
I've really struggled myself. I know what this struggle is.
My ex wife left while I was struggling too. I mean,

(01:49:04):
you know that was a big part. There's no fucking money. Yeah,
you know, most people give up. Everybody told you to
give up. That's the weirdest thing. I'm too done to
know better to give up, right, you know, it's basically
an inner strength. So you know, you have all this stuff,

(01:49:25):
and you know, maybe just rejuggle it into a different form,
and I think it would be a success. Listen, you
started in one of those hotels like Robuster Point extra plays,
you get a review, you do it. Maybe you do
it once a week for you know, six months. I
think the word of mouth and the reviews would be
it would start to take off. I really do That's interesting.

(01:49:46):
I like that idea. That's actually I'm going to think
about that because I like to play up at a
piano that main instrument. I could play the piano for
two hours. I played the guitar. The stories to tell
I've done thing and seeing things, you know, whether it's
walking to CBGB's on a summer night, seeing a guy
on Mulberry and bleaker, homeless guy with his head actually

(01:50:09):
on a concrete cinder block as a pillow, and that
inspired the song Old Men Sleeping on the Bowery on
my first record, I've seen that. I've seen you Chase Stadium.
I sung with Little Stephen on Mike singing Twist and
Shout where the Beatles sang it. You know. I've been
on Mike at one of Bruce's Christmas shows with Sam

(01:50:30):
Moore singing Santa Claus is coming to town. I mean,
I must be still dreaming from an lst trip in
the sixties and I just haven't woken up yet, because
you can't make that stuff up. But I like your idea.
I'm going to give some thought to that, because I
love telling stories. You know. I'm not full of myself.
I love the journey, you know, and I've survived it.
I'm stronger because of it. How about that? How about that? Absolutely,

(01:50:54):
you survived that stuff. Absolutely I have a better person
having been through these things. And I'm too either too
dumb to know any better, or there's some serious spit
and grit in my bones. But I want to say
one thing. I think that my divorce was triggered by
not by the hardships didn't help, but she had some
medical issues and thought she was on the way out

(01:51:15):
and had they called fight and flight, and just thought
she was going to die. And you know, she's a doll.
But she hung in longer than I thought anybody ever would.
So there was a struggle. Sometimes it's worth it, and
I wouldn't if I had to do it again, would
I go through? You know how many years? I moved
in seventy two to New York, signed a record deal

(01:51:35):
in seventy eight, record out in eighty eighty one, walked
away from the business like an idiot, you know, and
put a record, got signed to Columbia Records, put a
record out in ninety one, Wrong Time, Wrong place, put
an EP out the next year. Another few years with nothing,
and then a buddy of mine convinced me, you should
make your own put it on your own record. People

(01:51:56):
are starting to do on your own label. People are
starting to do that. So I ray some money, borrowed
some money from a friend, made beautiful Record of the World,
paid him back, you know, And I've been making records
on that little label ever since, you know, and it's
kept me afloat, and I'm I've got stories to tell.
That's for sure. And you know, my dad has a

(01:52:18):
real gift of storytelling, you know. And and the movie
you'll see some of it. It's like, I mean, I
didn't even more to begin. I was kicked by a chicken.
That guy, he's something else. How is your health? I'm
knocking on wood. You know, I've been really lucky because
like when the seventy fifth birthday business this summer, it's like,

(01:52:38):
I don't feel my age. I don't feel seventy five.
You know. I've been very lucky. You know. I had
some melanoma on my face like about fourteen years ago,
so I go checked my skin checked everybody's six months
but buying large. I've been lucky, you know. And you
know I've never had problems with drugs. I like whine
with my dinner, you know, but I've never I managed

(01:53:00):
to stay afloat from being sidetracked by that's that nonsense,
you know. And I'm small enough and close enough to
the ground, and I was always pretty well. I was
always an athlete, you know. So I feel fit. I
feel still I'm still sharp, you know, well you could
call it sharp, but I still feel like I'm engaged,

(01:53:23):
way engaged to life. And I write these songs because
they inspire me. They made me I can make sense
out of something. I put a record out in a
fall called Wake Up America Steve Earle to do it
with Steve. You know, I wrote it just I follow
the news really closely and I care about the world,

(01:53:44):
you know, and it's it's like what a place, my God,
And there's the good, the bad, and the ugly, and
my songs inspire me when I plan with the band.
I gave a show in nineteen ninety one and Providence,
Rhode Island, and it's big, huge hall. That capacity was
twelve hundred. There were twelve people. I'm on Columbia Records.

(01:54:06):
There's twelve people. I invited them all on stage at
the end of It's the same with us. Hey, so
I've seen the good, bad and ugly, and I must
say the song's inspire me. And when I play, and
you could see it on my band, they're inspired. And
if the audience people leave happier than when they came in.
How many can't tell you how many times people have
come up and said, you know, you've signed CDs for

(01:54:27):
some people after a show, and oh, somebody my mother
died six months ago and I've been down. I haven't
been out. My friends said, oh, you should go to
a Willie show. You'll feel better. And you know, when
people that makes me feel good. If I can, if
my music can inspire me and my guys to feel better,
be able to pay some bills, and an audience could
come out and feel better. The experience in Buffalo with

(01:54:48):
the blizzard, I must say the silver lining was to
see the good side of neighbors, how people can be
good to each other, you know, look out for each other.
I saw that right in the face because this life threatening.
You know. My dad's one hundred and five, you know,
and I'm seventy four and my brother's seventy and we're
a freezing We made it. And anyway, I'm still a believer.

(01:55:11):
I guess should say I believe in I always say
I believe in people. I mean, I know there's some
nasty customers out there, let's be you know, there's a
lot of them, but there's also a lot of really
good people. You know. My politics start like if there's
a cul de sac and it's a little seven year
old kid riding his bike in the cul de sac
and Tucker Carlson's got a house on one side and

(01:55:32):
Stephen Colbert on the other side, and the little kid
gets it back. It's the bike and down he goes.
I would think that those two guys would come out
and see what they could do to help. That's where
my politics start. You know. Call me naive and clearly am,
but I do believe. I believe in music. I believe
in the redemptive quality. I really do. I'm on my
soapbox now, but I do in rock and roll. In music,

(01:55:54):
whether it's classical, jazz, blues, swamp boogie woogie, they're salvation
in it. There can be, you know. So I that's
the that's the way I've been riding, you know, and
it's not has been easy. Hell no, oh my god. No.
You know. When I leave here, I'm gonna go up
walk up my five flights of stairs. I don't know
if a gig tonight, so I don't have to carry

(01:56:15):
my I have you electric in my bag. But it's
kept me, it's kept me healthy. Knock on wood anyway, Well,
hopefully you'll be around here for many more years. Willy.
I want to thank you for taking this time to
talk to my audience. You've really been a riveting listen.
It's been my pleasure. Really, I appreciate you taking the

(01:56:36):
time to have me on Bob. You know, I'm I'm
grateful for the journey that I've had, happy to share it.
And I believe, and I think people listening, keep the faith,
do your best. My dad's advice while going through my
divorce best device I've ever heard, because I didn't need
for a month. I was really in bad shape back then.

(01:56:56):
And he said, look, you can't control with anybody else
does in this world. The one thing you can't control
is what you do. Walk a straight line, treat people good,
you know, right from wrong. And you know he would
say leave the rest in God's hands because he's a
very a man of faith and it served him well,
I must say. But like you know, do the best

(01:57:17):
you can really in this world. Just turn pick you
if your neighbor's down, pick him up if you can.
But hang in there, do your best and have some
faith in that. You know, I'm a believer and I'm
you know, someday I'll drop, you know, And we all
got what a clinist would say, we all got it coming.
In that great film unforgiven. Well, I'm alive and i

(01:57:37):
want to celebrate it, and that's what I'm I'm trying
to do my best at so I'm very grateful for
you to have me on. Thank you for taking the time, Bob. Well,
you've been great. Till next time. This is Bob left
sensed

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Bob Lefsetz

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