This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more What You Here weekday Afternoons on the Drive. Best known as Billy Joel saxophonist and as well as musical director for Ringo Starr in his all star band, Mark Rivera has played with a lot of great performers, whether it's John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton, John Simon and Garfuncle and many more. He's written all about it in his new book Sideman in pursuit of the next gig, Mark Rivera.
Great to have you here. Great to be here, Lee, thanks so much. Let's start with what point in your life did the saxophone land in your lap? I was. It was in a Hope chest when I was seven, but my parents didn't allow me to play until I was about eight and a half. My uncle Vinnie, my godfather, played saxophone in a club day kind of wedding band and I wanted to play that thing.
I played guitar before that. You know. My paone had a Spanish started around with and by time I was about and a half, I was able to flow into this thing for the first time in my hands. Beside the the alto fit perfectly. My Alpha gave me about three or four lessons, and about two months lad he said, I'm done. He's got to go someplace south and it's um. It's been a journey. So it's my favorite instrument because it's so close to the human voice. Well that it is.
And did you at that point in your life did you have some inspiration from from you know, the Charlie Parkers of the world, or or anybody else. I was more of a rock and roll when I was seven, though seven and a half. I think it was I think nineteen sixty I would have been sixty when I was seven or eight years old and my father brought me to the Apollo Theater. Oh yeah, I saw Sonny Rollins play. It was his Bridge album, and I remember that very vividly. I was
around the time he wore a mohawk, so I was. I wasn't as much of a bebop guy by nineteen sixty four, which was only what three two or three years later. In February ninth, as we all know, the Beatles played for the Ed Sullivan Show and all bets were off. That's I wanted to be in that band that wanted to sing the first time I hear the first time I heard well then yeah, yeah, John's boy. Yeah I was. I was all over it and that voice. Uh,
and those four guys changed the landscape completely. And Uh, it's funny because you think of the front of that cover. I stared at the back of that cover because it was four guys who looked like the front of the covers, like that dark half shadow. But the back of the cover has four guys like leaning on each other, and it's like, wow, they were like four friends and they and they had these cool outfits and cool haircuts, but they had the coolest boots, bad bad, and I wanted to be
the band that was. It changed everything. Mark Rivera is with us the book, his sideman in Pursuit of the next gig. He's played with a lot of the greats like Joe Walsh, Hollow Notes, Peter Gabriel. Anymore, What of the performers that you played And I mean this in a good way. I'm not trying to implicate you or the performer, but because to me, a performer who's a perfectionist is a good performer. But of the ones you've worked with, who do you think was the biggest perfectionist. Ooh
um perfectionist. Well, I thought, um, I don't. That's a very difficult question. Sheila e wanted her band a certain way, she wanted her songs a certain way. And I'm not believing. I'm not throwing her under the bus, but no deeler myself. John Waite played bass Fall Karak Karat played keyboards, and if I remember, Colin Hay was a guitarist, John Waite was not a funky bass player. He was you know, he was in the Babies and corting you. John is one of the greatest thingers
I've ever worked with. But as far as playing some funk and she ly eaves music, it was hard. So I had to stin with John. I had to talk about the legend a number of times, and I had to show him the page parts. I go to his room for an hour before the rehearsal and two hours after the rehearsal, partially to show him some licks but partially just took some some just some moral support. Yeah, he was And again, it's not difficult. But she knew what she wanted and
she's she's a tremendous, tremendous musician. Well a tremendous, a tremendous producer too. So I mean it's to me, it's not a bad thing to be a perfectionist. You have that sound that you want and you want to coax it out of your band, correct, correct, And uh So that was probably the most challenging because everyone else came to the games of the rehearsals were a preconceived idea of what the songs were going to be, and it
was just my job to try to try to translate what was there. And uh as a lot of the people, in fact, now a lot of it. All of the people were front front men from women, and they were not used to being a side person or they weren't used to being in another person's band. That's pretty much it. And I had to teach them the art of you know, learning learning the chords how they go or for
that matter. The other thing about Ringo's band was that we were able to put a little bit of a twist to put our own stamp on how the songs went, and they gave me some latitude and it was it's it was
amazing. Uh The one the one other person was Greg Lake, who wanted to do three songs they were Carnival line, Ye, lucky Man, and he wants to do from the beginning, but I insisted that we did um part of the Crimson King, and he said, well, I said, trust me, he's gonna go trust you, and he's like, I've gotten my face. So it turns out I convinced him to do quarter of the Crimson King the first show. After the first show of the whole tour,
I said, if it doesn't go well, well we'll move on. So I played bass on a lucky Man plays uh, keyboards on on on Uh. No, I didn't play anything on Carnival nine because it's just a trio, which yeah, he does all the keyboard work there. Yeah, oh Howard Jones and uh. And as it turns out, the third song we picked, I got in my way. We got to do um uh part of the Crimson King. So after ring of three songs, he said, now all I to introduce you to Greg Lake, and we do quart of
the Crimson King. And when the chorus comes and he goes, oh so uh, the entire audience stood up and saying oh. And and Greg looked over at me from stage left over the stage right, and I shrugged my shoulders said, I told you, And it's really a matter of knowing, you know, knowing the beast you're writing, knowing, knowing the person everybody. Everybody takes the challenge differently as far as taking direction. Some people take it gladly, some people are very reluctant. Uh. And it's just it's
it's just knowing who you're who you're dealing with. And again I'm a sports Everything is about reaching the person. You could tell if you had three kids on a on a on a soccer team or three professional hockey players, they will get the same the same outcome will be reached different ways because you can't not everybody could take the heart the heart beating, or you can't be soft on a guy who needs stuff to and vice versa. If a guy needs
to be tough and pushed, they'll respond to that. And as a musical director, you have to know your place and you have to know the people that you're directing and their personalities. So I've been very blessed in the book. If you see, you'll see it's it's I quote my father constantly, and the main one was you could be confident but not arrogant. So if you know he's supposed to do. You can do it as long as it's
with confidence and love. My admiration and my admiration has always been with you and your type, Mark Rivera, because of the immense amount of music you have to keep in your head. And I could talk all day. But the book is Sideman, and if you read it you'll get more of these great stories that he's talking about. Sideman in pursuit of the Next gig, and Mark Rivera is the author and also the star of all these shows he's
talking about. Thank you for joining us, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and I Hearts Media Presentation