¶ Introduction to Albert Hammond's Legacy
🎵 Music
Has been writing hit songs for over 40 years, and today we hope to find out how. This is Brian O'Connor and I'm here with my co-writer and co-presenter Simon Barber.
Hi folks.
another edition of the Soda Jacker Podcast. So recline in your favourite armchair with your listening medium of choice as we sit down with one of the most brilliant writers of modern times.
It's certainly exciting for us. Albert Hammond has written multiple hit songs in every decade since he started in the game. He scored his first hit with Little Arrows at the age of twenty four, and since then his songs have been responsible for the sale of over three hundred and sixty million records worldwide, including over thirty chart topping hits.
That's right. If you've ever wondered who was behind number one hits like Leo Sayers, Smash When I Need You, Starship's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, which was nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Grammy, Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time, Tina ten is I Don't Wanna Lose You or The Air That I Breathe, which was of course made famous by the Hollies, then stay tuned because Albert is the author or co-author of all of these tunes.
I'm actually offended by the Albert was born in London, but he originates from Gibraltar. He achieved early success as an artist with his song It Never Rains in Southern California, and he's since achieved success as an artist, songwriter and producer around the world.
Anthems like One Moment in Time, which was written as the theme song for the nineteen eighty eight Olympic Games, is just one example of his ability to create songs that just seem to transcend the pop charts, don't they? Absolutely. Not only that, but songs like The Free Electric Band have made him a renowned artist in his own right.
Yeah. He's one of those songwriters whose songs not only have the mass appeal to make them into pop hits, but also have a timelessness and depth that over time turns them into standards. They're robust, aren't they?
Yeah, they they're just great and good.
They have structural integrity.
And they are great and good.
And strong.
And good. Albert and his longtime writing partner Mike Hazelwood co wrote many hits. They wrote Little Arrows for Lee P. Lee and Gimme Dat Ding for the Pipkins. The air that I breathe for Phil Everly, which was recorded by the Hollies, not to mention Make Me an Island and You're Such a Good Looking Woman for Joe Dolan.
It's kind of disturbing how good these songs are. Albert also co wrote multiple hits with Diane Warren, among them Chicago's I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love. The aforementioned, nothing's gonna stop us now. Roy Orbison's Careless Heart and Don't Turn Around, which was a hit for Ace of Bass and Aswad.
Yeah, he's obviously a master collaborator, isn't he? He's written hits with Hal David, such as Ninety Nine Miles from LA and To All the Girls I've Loved Before, which was recorded by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson.
As a tribute to Julio, I am actually recording this podcast with the microphone between my palms with my hands clasped in prayer.
Ha ha.
He isn't doing that. He is doing that. He's not doing that. Um he's also written with John Bettis on One Moment in Time, When You Tell Me That You Love Me for Diana Ross and the Carpenter's Hit I Need to Be in Love.
As we've said, the artists who've recorded Albert's songs include people like Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Elton John, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross, Johnny Cash, Julio, of course, and so on. But it's also great to see him writing and producing for younger artists like Duffy as well.
Yeah, he's still so relevant, which is amazing. And he's recently been touring his songs in a stripped-down format with his songbook show, giving his fans a chance to hear those songs performed by their author, which is cool.
deserved. You can find them at alberthamond.net. He also tweets regularly at twitter.com slash Albert Hammond, so give him a follow there. You can find us at sodajerker.com and we're on facebook.com slash soda jerker and twitter.com slash soda jerker two should you wish to commune with us socially.
To say we feel honoured that Albert's willing to share his time with us would be something of an understatement. So here is our new friend, the master craftsman and artist, Mr. Albert Hammond. Freedom.
🎵 Music
¶ Gibraltar Roots and Early Songwriting
You were born in London, but you grew up in Gibraltar. Did you feel like you were part of a music scene over there growing up?
In Gibraltar?
Yeah.
Um yeah, except the music scene in Gibraltar was more like the Spanish kind of scene. Um the way I started was my uncles had jukeboxes in the pub. And so every time that they um didn't want some of the records because they they got new ones from the US, you know, or from England, wherever they got'em from, I would take'em.
And so I started to learn, you know, all these different songs, you know. But I d I couldn't play the guitar, so I asked my barber, the guy who used to cut my hair, to show me three chords'cause I figured every song seemed to have three three different parts of music, you know, three chords. And he taught me A, D, and E, and from and from there I learnt on my own. You know, I just If you sang a Buddy Holly song and if you played A, you could sing the first part, you know.
Um if you knew Peggy Su change, then you know and so on, you know. That was it, basically. So I think I started the the pop music scene in Gibraltar. Before that, uh there was nothing there.
Right?
And I think your first band was called The Diamond Boys, is that right?
Yeah I I put this band together. We started off as a skiffle group. So we had, you know, the the the T chess with the string and the the broom uh stick. And then um just acoustic guitars and just strummed away, you know, like skiffle, Lonnie Donegan stuff and all that kind of thing. My uncles who h had the jukeboxes also had an electrical shop. So they built me an amplifier. Wow. Um so uh because you couldn't buy these things in Gibraltar.
Plus my father was poor. I mean we were poor so we couldn't afford it, you know. And so he b he built uh me an amplifier and the bass and the two guitars were plugged into the same amplifier. It all came out of one thing.
And were you already writing songs at that point?
I was writing songs from the age of ten or eleven. Yeah. The first song I ever wrote was called Blue Boy. Uh I was asked uh the well the the band was asked to play in one of these ships that would come in with uh British um school children that would come on a tour of Europe, you know, I suppose.
w the school would put it all together, you know. So they came from Scotland and from England and and so I we were asked to play on board this ship and we were playing and there was this red headed girl, you know, she must have been, I don't know, ten or eleven like me, you know.
And um she kept looking at me. And the ship was there for about eight hours. So after we played, I walked around with her and held hands and whatever and then the ship left. And I was heartbroken. So I went home and I wrote this song called Blue Boy, you know.
It's great.
In fact I'm still in touch with her, you know, which is strange.
Wow, that's incredible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we got back in touch and when I became famous she realized that I was the same guy and so she wrote, you know, and uh and that's how we got back in touch. She's married with kids and all that stuff, you know. Uh, and I just played Glasgow and she was gonna come but she was she went on vacation, so she couldn't make it, you know.
So you're not still holding out hope then?
It's just a weird thing, you know, when you think that you met somebody on a boat once when you were singing and you wrote a song for her and then, you know, I don't know, fifty years or fifty something years down the line you you get back in touch again, it's amazing.
¶ The Family Dog and Early Partnerships
Wow. And then in nineteen sixty nine you co-founded the family dog. Right, right. But you had a UK top ten hit with Way of Life.
Way of life, yes, that's correct. Uh written by Roger Cook and Roger Greenway.
Right, right. Okay. Yeah. Um but one of the collaborations that we really want to ask about is um Mike Hazelwood. You two wrote on songs like Little Arrows and Gimme That Ding. Yeah. Did you have a typical way that you worked together?
No, Mike and I uh we met way back in 1964. I was uh working at the Groven House Hotel. I met him and he would come over and and I'd give him free food, you know,'cause when you worked in a in a hotel or a restaurant you'd get that kind of stuff. Uh and that's how we met and we just started writing.
Uh I th we wrote I'm a train then also. Uh we wrote a song called Reservations that Simon Dupree and the Big Sound recorded. Um sometimes we wrote together and other times we wrote on the phone. Right.
Thank you.
Yeah, it was one of those things. You know, we lived quite far apart, like an hour and a half, two hours away from each other. So we'd just be on the phone, I'd be singing a tune and uh giving him s a title idea or something and uh then he'd call back and say, What do you think of this? And you know, we just back and forth until we finish the song. Yeah.
We didn't have Skype back then.
Didn't have any of this crap.
Mm.
¶ Writing 'The Air That I Breathe'
There's so many great songs from that partnership. The Air That I Breathe is a classic by anyone's standards. Yeah. Do you remember the genesis of that song?
Well that song was actually written in uh in the US, in uh in California. We uh we'd written some of the songs that came out later. It never rains, for example, was written in Fulham in nineteen sixty nine. Right. People don't realize the Free Electric Band was written around the same time also. But they just came out later. But the Air That I Breathed was written in California
when we went to Los Angeles we couldn't work'cause we didn't have work permits. So we were stranded, you know, we were like, here we are in Hollywood, but we can't work and we need to um make a living because we couldn't take money out of England. In those days you can only take fifty pounds out. whether you were going on a week's vacation or forever. Your government just wouldn't let you do that. So um there we were, pretty much stranded with fifty pounds each in California. So
We met some people who helped us out, you know. We would sleep on somebody's couch or uh on the floor in a sleeping bag.
Uh and this girl called Linda Cosey, who was the secretary of a couple of promotion guys who really fell in love with the songs and and my singing and stuff, offered me her place and also her Carmen Gear convertible, her Volkswagen Carmen Gear convertible and said, if you take me to work every day, you can have the car, you know, nine to five, as long as you pick me up, you know, and bring me back home. So uh she was so kind that one day I just sat down and started to write this song.
called the air that I breathe and I called Mike and I said, Mike, I've got this tune, you know, and uh this idea. Let's get together. So we wrote that song in in LA. Yeah.
And was it the verse chord sequence that you came up with first?
The whole thing was there. Um well obviously the chorus is a normal sequence. The verse chord sequence was very different, you know. Um and and then the chorus came from anything else we'd written before, you know, though you needed the big chorus so you you chose, you know, these three, four chords that gave you these big choruses. I'm sure millions of songs have been written on those kind of chords, you know.
Uh honestly, it was almost twenty minutes long, you know, when I was doing it. You know, I just just kept going because it was so beautiful. you wanted to go back to it all the time, to these beautiful chords. I don't know what they're called. I mean I don't know if they're major sevenths or whatever they are. I just put my fingers on a guitar and it sounded good and I went, Ah, great, you know. Uh'cause I'm not I never learned music, so uh um I do it by ear, you know, whatever feels good.
Right.
B it was just a long, long song. Obviously we had to cut it to like three and a half, four minutes. And uh it became the air that I breathed.
¶ Launching a Solo Artist Career
And you mentioned It Never Rained in Southern California and the Free Electric Band. Yeah. Did you know right away that you wanted to record those as a solo artist?
No, I w we were writing songs for other people, basically. You know, we weren't writing songs for me. It's just that we couldn't get things happening in California. We gave songs to people and they wouldn't record'em. I said maybe I should go out and perform and see if I can get a record deal and then maybe that would be the uh a way to demonstrate the songs on a record.
So uh I went uh you know, I went around different record companies from Capital to A M to A B C Dunhill, every record company that I could think of. I'd go and audition for them. And they would love it, you know, they'd love everything, but they said, We just signed John Denver or we just signed Jim Crouchy and oh it's just like what you're doing. So luck wasn't there until when I did the audition for A B C Dunhill.
These two promotion guys that were there said, you know, we know of uh of a couple of guys who want to start a label. Um and they came down from Palm Springs and I auditioned for their man for Clive Davis. at the Beverly Hills Hotel'cause they were gonna start a label with uh with C B S, you know. And they were gonna call it Mum's Records, like the champagne, you know, M U M S. Right.
So I auditioned and uh and Clyde loved what I did and he told the guys let's start the label, this sh will be your first artist, you know. And uh obviously uh you know the rest of the story.
¶ Unique Songwriting Philosophy and Titles
Do you always write for your own voice, no matter who might end up recording the song?
I figured if I could sing it, anybody could sing it, you know. But you always you you basically you write it for yourself. I'll write a song and then I'll think Tina Turner, you know, but uh I can't say I'm gonna write a song for Tina Turner. Uh well I can, yes, I can say I'm gonna write a song for Tina Turner, but I'm really writing it for me. Yeah.
And then I'll do it in such a way that Tina would say, It was written for me, which is great also. You know, that's the production end. So first there's the writing and then there's the production and I No, I was interested in both and I learned both. I also learned promotion because I figured if I could learn all these things I could probably be a one man everything, you know. I promoted Little Arrows, for example, when it first came out.
I just learned things as I went along. And now, after all these years of experience, I know what to do and how to do it, you know.
You usually have quite distinctive titles for your songs as well. We're fans of titles like I Don't Wanna Die in an Air Disaster and uh The Girl They Call the Cool Breeze and stuff like that. Um, is it important for songwriters to come up with distinctive titles, you think?
Um, yeah, I don't I never thought of it that way. I just that's the way it was, you know. I mean uh when you tell me that you love me. I mean it i it's at the end of the chorus. It uh I could have said anything but i it was just one of those things that the title seemed to end up at the end of the chorus
But it makes sense, you know. And I never looked at things commercially. I never thought, but it's not commercial and it's too long. People are not gonna remember. I just said, Look, this is the way the song happens to be and I'm not gonna It's like had a kid, you know, say I don't like it snow, so let me change it.
Yeah.
No. I mean that's the way the kid ended up.
Ha ha ha.
You want a different song, let me write a new one.
Yeah.
¶ 'When I Need You' and Collaboration Dynamics
You also recorded When I Need You yourself?
Uh yeah, I mean when I need you, uh Leo heard my record, but he didn't want to do it like the way I did it. And I did it just like he ended up doing it anyways in the end.
Yeah.
Yeah. And um it just wasn't gonna even go on the record, you know. So I said, yeah, I called up Richard Perry and I said to him, Look I just think you should go back and do it again and I think you should do it the way I did it. I know it's a slow song, but I mean the air that I breathed I said was a huge hit and it was a slow song. And so he agreed and they went back in the studio and recut it.
It was just one of those songs that we'll just put it on the album. It's beautiful and he sings it well and people will love it on the album. But uh Adam Faith felt different, you know. He felt it was a hit song. So he uh put on a sax and he released it in England. Mm-hmm. And it became huge, number one, you know, for five weeks or something. And so then they decided, well, we should put it out in the rest of the world and
That's how songs sometimes, you know, I don't know, they find their way, you know. Even with all the obstacles in front, you know, they find their way to become big songs.
You wrote that one with Carol Bear Saga? Yeah. What kind of collaborator was she?
She's uh terrific. I mean all my collaborators uh have been incredible. I just seem to have a knack to be able to collaborate with anybody.
Mm-hmm.
And write hits, you know. But i it was great. I mean, uh When I Need You basically was uh after a long world tour. I arrived in New York and I was staying at the Warwick Hotel and um I called home. and uh spoke to the family, you know, and uh I just said I think I should give up and and stay home and see the children grow up and all that stuff and uh They said, I'm crazy, you know, you y you're so good at what you do, you should carry on.
You know, and uh so when I hung up the phone, the title just came to me, you know, and the whole thing, the whole chorus came to me. It was just one of those things. I picked up the guitar and sang chorus with almost the identical lyric, a little different but almost there, you know. And so when I went the next day to play it for Carol, she wanted to change the title.
And I said you can't. I mean it's so important. This song is written for a reason. It's about missing the people you love, you know, and and not being there, you know. And uh you can talk on a phone or you can write a letter but it's not the same as holding hands or or embracing uh or even looking at each other and seeing each other, you know. So she agreed, you know, and so it ended up being the song it is.
Sometimes you let the other person lead a little bit and other times you're so sure of what you're doing, you go, No, no, no. Gotta be this way. And then the other person gives in. It's a nice you know, it's it's a chemistry when two people write, you know, you have to find that that chemistry between the two of you. And I I seem to have an act to do that, you know, with with anybody.
¶ Demos, Adaptations, and Collaboration Ethics
A few moments ago you were talking about songs as if they were your babies. I was wondering, are you always happy when an artist records one of your songs or can there be sometimes be some apprehension about artists going on to make changes to things as well?
No, I don't I don't mind the changes. I just feel sometimes the changes don't uh help the the song, you know. Um a good example is Don't Turn Around. That was recorded by uh uh Tina Turner first. And it ended up on a B side because the guy who produced it, which was um some Canadian singer, I just can't remember his name now, uh oh gosh he did a song called heaven i had a big head with a song called heaven
Brian Adams?
Brian Adams, yeah. He produced the record and so the B section, he just changed it completely, had nothing to do. Um and also part of the chord sequences and I don't know. It just wasn't the same song, you know. So it ended up on a B side and it ended up not being a hit until until Aswad took it over, you know, and um they did what was right for the song. But I don't mind people changing it.
Because in the end, the demo that I make is the one that I will always play to people. I'm never gonna play somebody else's record to people.
All right.
And and a good example of that is like when somebody actually just copies your demo. They seem to do the right thing. One moment in time, for example, uh the demo and the and the master, if you play them, you know, side by side, they're exactly the same.
Nothing's gonna stop us now, the same thing. You know, if you play the demo and you play the master. And I think Narada Michael Walden was very smart in copying the demo because he heard the hit right there. Um if you would have changed it, it might not have been a hit. I think sometimes a producer makes the right choice by copying the demo.
Mm-hmm.
You also wrote I Need to Be In Love with Richard Carpenter and John Bettis.
Well it was more John Betters and I and uh Richard came in towards the end, you know, and sometimes, you know, you you give things away because it's a big act. And so, you know, for a couple of little minor changes you give a third of the song away, which is fine. You know, I sometimes, you know, you write ninety percent of the song. And you give away fifty percent because without that other ten percent and the the other person being in the room, it might not have been the same.
This is the way I feel about it. Not everybody does, you know. I mean most people are greedy and they go, I wrote ninety and you only wrote ten, so you're only gonna get ten. I'm not that way. In fact I'm not that way because I grew up different. You know, when in in the sixties when we were partners, you know, Mike and I, or Cook and Greenaway, or um Reed and Mason, you know, any of these kind of collaborations, like I wrote a few songs with Roger Cook.
But we shared. I gave Mike half of my end and Roger Cook gave Greenaway half of his end, you know. Because we were partners. That's the way we felt. So it doesn't matter to me, you know. It's not about money for me. It's about the song. It's about the music. As long as I have a plate of food and a roof over my head and a guitar, that's it, you know. I don't need the rest.
¶ The Creation and Meaning of 'One Moment in Time'
Great philosophy. And how is it to hear a Karen Carpenter vocal on one of your songs?
Oh wow. I mean, you know, one of the greatest pop singers I think from I don't know, from the last hundred years, you know. So uh yeah, it was incredible. I mean when I heard any of these artists, I mean, when I heard Whitney Houston, I mean I got tears in my eyes. You know, even though when I was writing one moment in time, in my mind I didn't have Whitney Houston. I had Elvis Presley, even though he had already died.
Rice.
He was the voice that I was hearing that I would say, you know, you could represent America in the Olympics as a voice, you know. uh just as well as any of the athletes would represent America, you know, as an athlete. I thought of Elvis, you know.
And in recent years, One Moment in Time seems to represent the dreams of every hopeful contestant on shows like X Factor and American Idol. And how'd you feel about that?
I think it's the kind of song that represents the the hope of every human being alive. I mean, I don't think it's just about the Olympics. I wish the Olympics would always use that song every year, even if they wrote other songs. But that should be like the main song in the Olympics because it's the one that
says it the best, I think, lyrically and musically. Not to bring any other song down or anything. I think they're all wonderful songs, but this one just says it, you know. I mean, I broke my heart for every game, you know. to taste the sweet, I taste the pain. I mean, I don't know of any other song that, you know, you're a winner for a lifetime. If you seize that one moment in time, make it shine. I just don't know of any other song that says it that way, you know.
that represents uh Olympics or any sport. But I think it goes further. I think it's it's good for a family to think that way, you know. Uh in other words, you know, if I do things well and I sacrifice myself for all these years That song belongs to them too, you know. That makes sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
So funny, you know, I listen to your guys' accents and I I feel like I'm talking to like the Beatles. It's really strange, you know. It's like going back to the sixties, you know. Yeah, the order in which it happened was very simple. I mean I I was asked to to write a song for the Olympics.
And uh I called John. I knew John was into that. He watched all Olympics, you know, even though he doesn't run or do any of that stuff, but he loves it. So I could have called anybody from Hal David to Carol to anyone, you know, even to Mike. But I just felt John was the right person. And I called him up and he said, I'd love to, you know, r write it with you and
And an hour and a half later I was actually sitting having dinner, you know, uh, at home and he calls up and he reads me half a chorus. He goes, I've got this half a chorus or chorus, I don't even know what it is, but let me read you these lines and
And he read me, Give me one moment in time when I'm more than I thought I could be, when all of my dreams are a heartbeat away and the answers are all up to me and I immediately as he was reading them I ha this tune came to my mind, you know. And so I said, Hold on a second
And I went to my piano and put him on speaker and I and I said, Okay read it to me again, I wrote it down and then I started to sing this tune from nowhere, uh this chorus, you know, and I started to sing, give me one moment in time. When I'm more than I thought I could be, When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away, and the answers are all up to me And he says
Wow, did you have that tune? I said, How can I have that tune? I wouldn't have fit the the words. You just gave me the words, you know. The words inspired the tune. That's the way it was. And then uh we got together the next day and finished the song. It took about fifteen minutes, you know.
Wow. Fabulous.
Well, um the best things are done When you're not thinking, you know, when you think too much you don't do much.
¶ Hal David Collaboration and 'To All the Girls'
Was it a similar scenario for um It's all the girls I've loved before, which I think you wrote with Hal David, is that right?
Yeah. Well that was the time when Mike decided he didn't wanna write anymore, you know, that he wanted to write plays or I don't know, write books. I don't know. He just said Um he he just said he didn't wanna write songs, you know, and he didn't like the songs we were writing, he said, you know, so I uh had an opportunity to m you know, talk to Hal David on the phone and as I was speaking to him trying to explain
who I was, you know, he said, I already know who you are and I would love to write with you and I I he just I mean I didn't know what to say, you know, and he said, Can we start tomorrow at ten in the morning? And I'm like uh uh uh uh uh
And I said, Sure, you know. So he said, Come over at ten and uh bring your guitar and we'll start writing. So that night, um I just stayed up all night trying to come up with the tune and the only thing I could come up with was this The song that went, you know, holding you close in my arms it's heaven. Feeling your lips close to mine, it's heaven. Da it's heaven and I love you, it's heaven, whatever, you know, and I had these words and melody and chords, you know, chord sequence.
that I just kept playing all night till late in the morning. I didn't sleep. I had a shower, went down to see Hal and uh I I hadn't met him yet, so I I said hello, shook hands, you know, uh and hugged and and then uh we chatted for uh ten minutes and then I said to him, Listen, I I don't know if this is any good, you know, I just
I have this tune that I've been playing all night and uh these words that you know, I don't I don't know to tell you the words, but I don't know if I can sing it without the words because they just came with a tune, you know. And uh he said, Yeah, play it. So I played it for about a minute and I stopped. And uh he's lying on a couch with a pad and a pencil.
And he says, No, no, no, don't stop. Keep playing And I thought, Oh my God, keep playing. I've been playing it all night, you know. I kept playing for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and he didn't say anything, so I just kept playing it. And then he gave me this pad. you know, with this these words, you know. And I looked at it and and it said, you know, keeping my hands on the wheel, I hold you ninety nine miles from LA, you know, and and I just thought, Wow, unbelievable, you know.
Incredible, you know, but this is not me. But how am I gonna tell this man that it was so different to Mike, you know, that I felt weird, you know? So um but I couldn't tell how David that that it wasn't me. So I just said, this is the best song I've ever heard.
Ha ha ha.
You know?
Yeah.
A month later I uh I grew to
Well, let's become one
We actually wrote a song a day. He stayed there for two weeks and we wrote like fourteen, fifteen songs. The first song we ever wrote was that, Ninety Nine Miles from LA. And then To All the Girls came, I think, two days later. And it was easy then,'cause I knew I knew the pattern, you know. I'd go in with a beautiful tune and he'd lie on a couch and give me great lyrics, you know.
Ha ha ha ha.
If only it was always that easy.
¶ 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now' and Collaboration Essentials
Yeah. And continuing that theme of collaboration, you co wrote Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now with Diane Warren.
Yeah.
It was a number one for Starship. Mm-hmm. Um and it was obviously nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe and a Grammy and accolades like that. Can you talk us through the writing of that? Where was it written and and how does Diane Warren like to work?
Diana and I always worked at my house, you know, in LA. Um I never went to wherever she worked because I don't think anybody ever has, you know, it's like Only producers go in there, not writers or something. I don't know. I love Diane. She's weird though, but uh but I love her, you know. Anyways, uh Diane and I were writing before this song came along. We wrote for a few years actually before, you know. Right. And we were given a script.
for uh for a movie called Mannequin. Right. And at the end of the movie, um I mean it was a silly kind of movie in a way when we were reading it we thought, Wow, a mannequin that comes to life I mean, wow. Dunno, you know. But um w it was an opportunity to actually write a a song for a movie without it being written before, you know. And at the end of the movie they got married. And obviously, you know, everybody was against this guy
falling in love with this mannequin and and all this kind of stuff. So we thought it's almost like, you know, he's fighting the world, you know, he's fighting everybody because he loves her and and when she comes to life and she was so beautiful, Kim Catrell. Mm-hmm. So we just uh you know, we sat down and uh thumped away at the at the rhythm on the piano. You know.
And um this tune came up, you know, and and then suddenly words would j I mean, th you know, it's hard to tell how you write a song because sometimes you finish a song and you go, Where the hell did this come from? you know. So sometimes I say to myself I really do, truthfully, you know, I say to myself, sometimes I don't feel I write the song. I just feel I'm a an object here that
energies from out there come through me, you know, and to give the world these beautiful things, you know. And they just pass through me so I can put'em down and and have the world hear it, you know. And sometimes I finish a song and I go, How did I do it? And why did I play these chords? I don't even know what they're called. I have to actually ask a musician later, what key is it in and what are the chords called, you know.
Mm-hmm.
What would you say makes a good collaborator? Are there particular traits that you can point to?
I think um a very important thing is like I said before is the chemistry that you have between you. To be able to stay in a room for hours or for days, weeks or years with somebody, you know, uh, to to live with a person. I mean, you don't actually live with them, but you're with them a long time in twenty four hours, you know, and to be able to
to wanna be with that person for that long, you know. Those are traits that are necessary.'Cause sometimes you sit with somebody and you go, Can't wait for this to end
Yeah.
You just wanna leave or you want the person to leave, you know, whatever it is, you know. And then, you know, the the giving and taking, for example, the person has to be open. The person has to be open to show me his soul, like I would show him my soul, because it's it's about, you know, getting deep into each other and, you know, to come up with these kind of feelings that one has inside, you know.
Um, it's not I can't write songs mechanically, you know. I can't go nine to five every day and go, I'm gonna write two songs a day or a song a day. I d I don't know, I write when I feel it.
You know, I uh or when somebody gives me something, an idea, or say write something for this, you know, um and little by little uh inside me starts to develop this whatever it is, energy that suddenly I'm so full of it that it needs to come out and explodes, you know, and I suppose that's what happens and that's how I write songs.
Right.
It's inspiration. I mean I c I can't just sit down and go I can. I mean I can write you a song now, but it's not a uh maybe a real song. It's just, you know, I can play three chords and sing you a tune. But the real song comes from inspiration, yeah.
And would you say that there's a certain ratio in terms of the number of hits to the number of songs that you write? Do you have to write hundreds in order to get those three or four that become really huge or
think that is a ratio on anything you do in life, you know. Uh if you wrote one song and you had one hit, you're the luckiest guy in the world. Uh yeah, I I you know, I've written, I don't know, a thousand, over a thousand songs. So yeah, I think the ratio is if if you write a lot of songs, you're gonna have some hits, there's no doubts, you know. Uh otherwise you're really bad.
And you shouldn't have done it anyways in the first place, you know. But um yeah, yeah. I don't know what a hit is. I think I've written more hits than I've had, but that just haven't been hits yet. You know, I think there are songs that I've written like say with Mike Hazelwood, for example, way back in the sixties and and seventies on my first three albums. For example, um I think are hits. There are hits there, I know that. Names, tags, numbers and labels, Rebecca, Smoky Factory Blues, uh
Yeah.
I mean there are songs there that that I know are hits, you know, but They weren't hits. That's okay. For me they are hit songs and maybe one day they'll find a home. I think the song I wrote with uh Diane and Roy Orbison, Careless Heart, I think that's a hit.
And I sing it m myself on my uh my songbook shows, you know, the my little tour I did of England. Yeah. Which I'm gonna develop a little more now and maybe try and do a world tour in two thousand and thirteen, you know. Oh great, great like go way back to how I started and do a little bit more of a of a musical, you know. So that I'm on stage actually talking about me when I was eight, nine, ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, da da da da da until I'm sixty eight, here I am, you know.
Yeah.
you know, and uh that's it. Tell stories and uh sing hits and have people sing with you and I love the challenges when I go, Okay, challenge me. What do you want to hear from everything I've recorded or everything I've written that that you know of, you know? And sometimes they give you obscure things that you haven't played for thirty years and like one person said the other day uh on one of the shows, everything I want to do and I said, Oh shit.
Ha ha ha.
Remember, but I finally did it, you know. So it's great. It's great to feel these challenges, you know. And the people love it because it's like a game, you know, it's like a it's like a real show, you know, it's like it's like fun, you know, it's not, oh I'm here with fifty thousand people. I can't see the guy on stage, but I can see this big screen, you know.
Mm-hmm.
This is for real. This is I I love playing to from three, four hundred to fifteen hundred. No more than that, you know, well sometimes you do, but no more than that. And I love going down to the people, you know, I and shaking hands and all that stuff, you know.
¶ Intuitive Songwriting and Guitar Inspiration
Great, we'll we look forward to that. We'd like to throw a few other song titles at you and get your instinctive responses to them if that's okay. The first one was Freedom Come, Freedom Go.
Да.
It's a very catchy one, that's one we haven't been able to get out of our heads for the last few days.
Basically uh I went to air, you know, George Martin, uh um all the these four guys, these four producers, uh uh formed this company called Air London and uh I knew them all so I I went down to write with Roger Cook, you know, and we actually wrote that song on a on a ukulele. one finger on a on a on a string, you know. And and and all I had was a bee bow bow bow bow bow so when I sang it to Roger, you know, and we were playing it, uh
Fifteen minutes later the song was finished, you know, it was it was done. You know I I d I c I don't know, I don't know how to tell you how
Yeah.
It always happens the same way with me, you know, I have something, I go in and fifteen minutes later it's done and you go, How did it happen? And you go, I don't know. Because you were so involved with wherever it was taking you, it took you on a ride, on a certain road.
And you wanted to stay on the road until you at you ended up at the end of the road. And when you ended up at the end of the road you said, Wow, what a beautiful song, but I I don't remember seeing trees, I don't remember seeing flowers, I don't I just remember having a good time and now I'm at the end and this beautiful thing is here with me.
And how about I don't wanna lose you? We know you wrote that one with Graham Lyle.
That song was a little different. That song, I don't know it was the J two hundred that Graham lent me that day, uh you know, which I'd I'd never played one before. And this was a blonde J two hundred. I ended up buying it, you know. But uh uh I went to see Graham uh w the first time we ever wrote. You know, I went to see him and uh we we had a coffee and chatted and then we went upstairs in his house to this little studio.
and he handed me this J two hundred and he said, I'm gonna go downstairs and get another guitar, I'll be right back, you know. So while he was downstairs I uh I started to play this thing that went, you know, I don't want to Diddle and dad of dee did. You know, with this guitar and he walked up and he said, What is that? And I said, I don't know, you know, just a little thing, I'm just
just came to mind now, you know. He said, put it down, it's great. So I put it on my cassette. And then he said to me, I I have this idea of a verse, you know, um, and he plays me, you know, Something like that, you know. And uh it just got so far, you know, and uh and I said, Yeah.
That's great, but it's in a different key, you know. So we worked on it for like again, fifteen, twenty minutes, you know, and suddenly we had this song. We found the chord change that took you from the verse to the chorus, you know. Once we found that it was really easy. A missing piece, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
¶ Working with Duffy and New Artists
We also think it's great that you continue to collaborate with new artists like Duffy, for example. Do you learn anything from working with young artists? Do you find that their approach to writing is unconventional or challenging in in any way?
Yeah, I learned from my grandkids, you know, they're like six, eight and fifteen months and I learned from them. Everyone and everything. You know, y you're never too old to learn. Duffy was an incredible experience. Um first of all, she's a great person. She's a great gal, you know. and uh my wife actually saw her. I I never seen her. But we were in New York and I wasn't feeling good, so I stayed in the hotel and she went uh
to see uh Albert Jr., you know, and they were gonna watch a late night show or something or the Oscars, I don't know what was on. And uh I got a phone call and she says I just saw this girl and her name is Duffy, you know, and I go, Yeah, but I don't I don't want to watch T V. I don't feel good, you know. And and so when I hung up I YouTube uh Duffy and um and I saw her and I thought, wow.
Terrific. And then I knew that Janet Lee, uh uh Jeanette Lee, you know, was uh one of the owners of uh Rough Trade and I knew her f because of the strokes, you know,'cause they were signed to Rough Trade ten ten years before. I knew she managed Duffy, so I just called her up, you know, and uh said, I'd love to write a song with your artist, you know.
And she says, We're coming over for the Grammys. Why don't you guys meet, you know, for coffee or something? So I when they came over, they called me up. I went down to the hotel. We didn't have coffee, I had a glass of wine, you know, and I just said to Duffy, I have this
titled in this uh idea, you know, um, Don't Forsake Me. You know, and then we chatted for another half an hour and then I said, Well, I better go now and you've got the Grammy, so you you're gonna have to, you know, do your thing and stuff and and she says And you know that title, Don't Forsake Me, you mentioned half an hour ago. I love it. You know, can we write it? And I go, sure. Uh when? And she says
After the Grammys and I go, after the Grammys? You mean like two days later? No, no. When I finish with the Grammys, I'll come to you. And I go, but you got Grammy parties and said, No, no, I'll come to you, you know.
Yeah.
She came to me uh to my place and uh my wife cooked us um something to eat and uh we sat down and that was the first song we wrote, Don't Forsake Me. You know, and then the others we wrote'em all in the south of Spain. She came down for uh seven days one time and five days another time and uh you know in ten, twelve days we wrote twenty-two songs.
Fantastic. And do you usually accompany her on the piano or the guitar or does she play any instruments?
No, she doesn't. She doesn't play instruments. Um the guitar or the piano. It didn't matter to me, you know, it was just uh Finding a groove, finding, you know, what worked for her. Uh I mean one of my favorite songs uh on her album is uh Hard for the Heart. It it just sounds so much like what the Beatles would have done, you know. Um and obviously when you write something like that and you come from that era, you feel good about it, you know?
¶ Developing the Songbook Show and Reflections
So, what's next for you then? Are you going to be focusing on developing the songbook dates?
That's my main thing. I've just uh got together with this this guy called Clive Black, who's Don Black's son. Uh Don Black the the songwrit the the lyricist, you know, who's written nunteen hits and won Oscars and stuff, you know. Um his son who came to see the show and uh and couldn't believe the amount of you know, every song was a hit, you know. And and and the way the audience reacted and how, you know, relaxed I was on stage and
all that kind of stuff. You know, he he came backstage and and said, you know, I'd love to do something with you. So uh we got together he came over here about a week ago and we chatted and discussed and And so yeah, we're gonna we're gonna work together and develop songbook and uh he also feels that uh songs like uh I Need to Be in Love and um other other songs, you know, like Careless Heart and
he feels that those are head songs himself you know and so he feels he could actually work the songs also
Right.
Uh and find artists to do them.
Oh fantastic.
I'm so into this uh songbook idea'cause I really would love to just do this world tour, you know, I mean at my age would be an incredible thing, an achievement.
Definitely.
But but to do it in such a way where I can actually maybe do a month in London in a theatre, you know, and and people would come in. Like I have people come in from Austria, from Germany.
from Mallorca in Spain, from all over the place at my shows, you know. Um and they would come afterwards and say, you know, I flew all the way from this place to see you because I don't know if this is the only time I'm gonna see you and never see you again because the last time you performed was in seventy three or seventy four. Fantastic. I appreciate that. And uh anytime you guys want to get in touch, you know how.
Thank you so much. It was a total thrill.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fantastic. All right. Take care.
You too.
Bye.
Okay, that was our chat with Albert Hammond, a lovely man and also our first shirtless interviewee. He was talking to us from his home in Spain, where obviously the weather is much more clement than it is here in Liverpool at the moment. Perhaps it for being a few degrees warmer we may have stripped to the waste ourselves.
Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny o'r Sada Jerker Towers. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny But then he inadvertently talked a lot about the process and he revealed just as much as anyone else about the way that he goes about collaborating.
Yeah, for instance when he talked about the need for a a collaborator to be someone he feels he can open up to and really be honest and and pour out his feelings to and and how that often produces the best work.
Yeah, and working quickly as well. Mm-hmm. But I certainly felt that Albert was someone that you could sit down with and just open your heart to. He's such a nice guy.
Yeah, very warm and generous with his time and we can't thank him enough.
Great stuff. Okay, so if you'd like to check out all the podcasts we've loved before, go to SodaJerka.com, get in touch with us.
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