Elliott Murphy

I just had a two week break and this is literally my first flight out of France and since the COVID started, and I had a two week break, and my wife as well, so we decided to come here and see friends and family. And we're in Brooklyn, where my father grew up, and I'm staying a block away from a thing called the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is where my father worked during World War Two. So everything has become full full circle here. Okay, why did you move to Paris? To begin with? In what year did

you move? I moved France permanently in UH nineteen nine, but it was kind of a transitional event. I played my first show in Paris in nineteen seventy nine, and by that time, my career in America was kind of on the down Sling and uh, I did this show in Paris, my first show ever. I thought it was going to be in a little club with a couple hundred people. Have turned out to be like a fifteen hundred people. I did six encourse. They knew all the words to my songs, and I said, WHOA, I might

have a second act in this business. And in the ten years between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty nine, my career totally shifted to Europe. When I was touring in Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, not so much the UK. I'm that rare example of American artists who didn't enter into Europe through the u K. And by nine it was just time to move. Is your wife of American? Her Parisian? My wife is a hundred percent she's French. I mean,

I don't know if she'd call herself Parisian. She calls me Parisian now because she said, all I do is complained about Paris, like all the rest of the Parisians. So how did you meet your wife? Well, you're gonna hear my side of the story. Sometimes you'll hear her I was on tour bomb in three in France, in a city called Cone, which is in Normandy, very near the Normandy beaches there where they where d date took place.

And my wife is an actress and she was touring with a little acting troop and I was on tour there, and of course in a town like that, there's one restaurant that's open late, and I ended up in there and she was in there with her with her acting colleagues, and we started talking and we had we did a couple of dates. Then I went back to America and I did not see her, are communicating with her for

six years. And when I moved back to France. When I moved to France in nineteen eighty nine, I looked for and I found her through France at that time had an amazing little thing in every house with a telephone called the minitel, where you could find phone numbers and even book flights and things like that was right way ahead of its time, and I found her on that and we've been together ever since. And we have a son, gas Bar who's thirty one years old. So

moving to France had nothing to do with her. You moved completely independently. I certainly did like French women that was but you know, that was not a problem. But you know, the European I my first trip to Europe, just to go back a little further, was Ine and I came to Europe, you know, a long haired hippie. Uh. San Francisco was kind of over, but Amsterdam was still in its heyday, and uh I played on the streets.

I started to write a lot of songs. Whatever creative juices I had in me just on froze and started flowing. And that was I wrote a lot of the songs during that trip that I actually used on my first album, Acquid Show, a few years later. So I liked Europe right away. I liked the lifestyle. I like the sense of history all around me. Uh I came from, you know, a very difficult family situation. My father had passed away

when on sixteen on Long Island. So I was happy to get away from all that, and Europe was it was the new world for me. Okay, let's focus in a little bit. Certainly, France recently had an election. Lapine is the right wing candidate. Her father was a candidate before her, and it was always a fringe thing. Even though McCrone won handily. What is going on with the politics in France. Well, first you gotta understanding it. The election shin system is totally different from America. They don't

have this electoral college. It's a very centralized government. It's not a federal system with different states. And they have two runs. They have the first run. Almost anyone who can get five mayors in France to sign their sign

off on them can run for presidents. So you go for your first vote and there might be twelve candidates running all over the spectrum, all over the political spectrum, and then the two win if none of them get the two winners from that runoff, and the two winners were Macron, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Penn, who was the daughter of the her father ran against had also run for president for many years. So I mean, just speaking personally, I am just so happy Macron one because

we're big supporters of him. He's a forward looking president. He's he seems to be neither left nor right. He just and he's young and it's great to see a young face there. But to what degree is their right wing incursion in France? Because her percentage of the vote has been going up, it has been going up and when her father, Jean Lepin ran, he ran against Jacques Sharek and he only got twenty of the boat, but

she got much more than that. You know, Bob, It's a lot of the same issues as here, fear of immigration. You know, there's a lot of immigration coming into France from from Africa and from and from the East of Europe, and it's the same fear factor that uh that is going on in America, you know. And and I think when things change as fast as society is changing, people are looking for simple answers, and unfortunately they get those answers from people like Leapin. Over the years, there's been

a lot of anti Semitic attacks Muslim issues. To what degree is that something that penetrate society or we just reading about that from a distance In the US, well, the major event was, of course the terrorist attack Batta Clone, which is a a concert venue there that an American band was playing. I forgot their name, we're playing, and you know, over a hundred people were killed and were shut down during that attack. So that was that really

galvanized France in a lot of ways. And there has been some anti Semitic attacks as well, uh not, Uh, I mean I think I think it's really France is Mike is, this is a reflection of what's happening in America at the at the same level, it's a little more educated of a country. I could say higher education is free in France. If you want to go to the university, you can go. I I also, I always think the problem in America's higher education just became too expensive.

A lot of people can't afford to go to college, so they get their education from reality TV. But it's a little commer in France, and it is here. Um, I don't know. I think and on the talk shows is much different than in America. You know, there it tends to be less headline news, breaking news. It tends to be more you get five different people talking about what's going on. So what's the difference between France and America? Those are some specifics, but generally tell us some more

what the differences. It's a very very old country, you know, they've been around forever France. There was France before there was an Italy, before there was a Germany, before there was in Spain. I mean, they've just been around forever. They are the cultural epicenter of Europe, you know, for centuries, and I think that sense of history. You know, every French person walks a little bit of pride, I guess

about that. And there's this fear that this new wave of immigration, they're losing their identity as as French people. A lot of Americans go to France and they think that they're rude, you know, but I think it's more they're very polite and you have to say, you know, when you walk into buy bread, you have to say

bonjeur before you ask for the bread. And you know, the first time I came to New York with my wife, I think I walked into a gap to buy some clothes and the sales girl come over to me and she says, hey, how you guys doing today, Great to see you. And my wife turns me and just do you know her? God? So they're they're different in that way. Uh, they are more Uh, their lifestyle is more regimented. You know, they eat meals at a certain time. They don't eat

between meals very much. U. Even though they're not a religious country, there's supposed to be a separation of state and religion. They have more religious holidays than you could count about. All I can say is they have certainly been very good to me and recognizing me. And they actually have a history of recognizing a lot of American uh talent that is not as recognized in their own country.

I mean, for example, a director like John Cassavetti's He's huge in France, you know, And there was a point you could watch a John Cassavetti's movie in some theater in Paris and the unit of the week, you know, uh. And in my case, you know, they really have supported that. That was the beginning of me kind of being able to work as a as a musician, as a singer and a songwriter. But if I remember correctly, you yourself

do not speak French fluently. Now I speak French. I mean I can hold a conversation, I can go to dinner conversations. If I have to write in French and there's a lot of accents and things you got to do like that, I need my wife's help, but I can certainly my French has described as almost fluently. Okay, pretty good. So let's just broaden the conversation a little bit.

What is the view of France and the EU. I was talking to Bob Geldoff, and he said that the UK was the buffer between France and Germany, and as a result of Brexit, you know, the whole issue was in question. What's the French viewpoint on Brexit, the EU, etcetera. Or is it just calm and this is just hogwash? We'll all due respect to Bucks or who I love. Uh, I would say the UK was more the thorn in the side of the EU than the buffer between you know,

the EU began between Germany and France. I think it was a treaty for Cole or something like that. That was the first step in creating the EU. Energy between France and England didn't join until much later. Uh, I think, and it is it is. I don't know why England left. All my English friends don't know why they left. They don't know what's gonna happening with the Northern Ireland, you know, is part of England the UK. Southern Ireland is still in the EU and there's a border there. They don't

know how they're going to handle that. I don't know. I just think the English, you know, they wanted to keep driving on the right, whatever side of the road they drive on. They were never gonna give up their pound for the euro uh, you know, and they were a little there an island. They're an island, Okay, needless just say there's a war going on in Ukraine. To

what degree is that a major issue in France. Anybody's been to Europe knows that these countries are not that far away, So to what do we use it impacting? And in part of conversation in France to put it in context, the distance between Paris and Kiev, Kiev is the same as the distance between New York and Dallas, Texas. So it's it's very close. Uh. We have a lot of refugees coming in from the Ukraine into France, and you know, I think I think it's a big Everyone's

very fearful. They don't know quite what to do, you know, how to how to keep a lid on this without it just turning into something, you know, monumental. Ah. I'm not sure what's going to happen at this point, but it is a major issue in France and in Germany especially,

they're very close. Is there any fear that this will I mean the fear on an individual level that while this could spread and effect us directly, I think the fear is that if either by mistake are on purpose, any NATO country was attacked in any way, you know, a drone gone off course into Poland or something like that, that I think by the agreement, the NATO agreement, if one members attacked, the others have to defend it. I

think that's a big fear. Uh. And I think they don't really well of course I don't know, but they don't really know what Putin's motives are, how far does he want to go? You know? But I think what the reason the Ukraine has really hit home is because they look like Europeans. When you watch those scenes, they look like they're dressed like the rest of the Europeans.

Those cities look like European cities. I mean, there were a few countries within the old USSR, which I think Chechna and a couple of others which but they didn't really have They didn't identify with them as much as with the Ukraine. And you know who knows they certainly you know, as I said in my last show, which I did in Paris a couple of months ago, I said, you know, I really enjoyed the five minutes between the pandemic and World War three. Okay, one more political question.

You know, we read about strikes in France. Unions have been busted in the United States are making a little bit of a comeback. Is this ultimately good for workers or is this just something that is constantly putting a stop in regular society both. I would say the syndicates, which is what they call the unions in France, are powerful. Uh.

France never went through the violent labor movement that America did. Uh. You know in those early days of when they were really when they bring in the Pinkerton's I mean and shoot down the strikers. France never really went through that. It evolved, and I think it's evolved in a good way where there's a power sharing between the two. Uh. But if you're a touring musician like me and that the strikes there's a trained strike, it's really a pain in the ass, let me tell you. But they do

protect the workers. Sometimes. You feel in France that when you go into a store, you're more into that store to help the worker work than to buy something. You know, it's a different mentality, but you know, the motto of France is egality, fraternity and I think they take that to heart in a certain way. And of course, if you're in Europe France, supposedly everybody's on vacation in August, and they say they observe. It's unlike America, where they

work seven days a week and everybody's available. What is it really like you're there. It's changed. The American work life has really changed. People don't take a month off in August anymore. I mean they take more than in America, and that's for sure. They don't take two hour lunches with two bottles of wine anymore either, you know. Uh to this to the shame of the French, the second biggest market from McDonald's outside of America is France. So you can see, uh no, it's very it's very much.

You know, there's Paris and there's France, and that's important to remember. Those are two different things. You know. It's kind of like New York and a lot of the rest of America. You know, Paris is a very international city and it changes as the world changes. The rest of France is a little slower. Oh yeah, let's switch to your music career. At this point, do you have an age and do you have a manager or do you do it all yourself or what do you do

or not do personally? I do some of it myself, but I do have an agent in usually each country who manages, who finds the shows and organizes them. In France, I went in Spain, Italy, Germany. Uh. So I don't do it all myself in terms of touring. Uh. And that's possible. You can really, you can't do that. You know, when I started out, how far you want to go back? But go back to the beginning. It's a long winding road.

You know. I did my first album in nineteen seventy three on on Polydor, which I've heard you talk about what Polydor was like in the seventies, And of course I owned that album and I bought it because you know, the press was unbelievable. It was unbelievable, and it kind of shot me out of the counton in a way that I've been able to stay up, stay up in

the air ever since. But that album, Acqua Show, which came out on Polydor, got tremendous critical acclaim and you know, Rolling Stone proclaimed me and Bruce Springsteen the new Bob Dylan's. Our albums were reviewed together and Uh, and it was tremendous. You know, I really went overnight from you know, kind of living on food stamps to uh staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Ah, but it was an interesting time, as you know. You know, I feel very fortunate that

I came about in this golden age of music. I mean, we really did showcases in New York with my band, knocked on doors of record companies. Half the time you were ludden, you could give someone your demo. That's what we did at Polydor. In fact, we walked into Polydor, we had just come from w Warner Brothers, and we were we got a kind of positive reaction there, but we were told they had to send it out to

the West Coast and see what they thought. But we knocked on the Lord Polydor and we asked their receptions as that's what we wanted us with my brother Matthew Uh, who's had an amazing career as a tour manager. He works for Steve Martin now and the Seven says how can I help you? And I said, is there anyone who can listen to our demo? And she calls someone and someone from A and R KM out brought us back, listened to our demo, said listen, can you guys do

an audition at Bill's Musical Instrument Rental. If there's anyone listening here from the old days, they will remember that name. Two days later we did that audition in front of Peter Siegel, who was the head of A and R there. He said, you got a deal, We got a lawyer. Uh, we got a contract. And to show you how innocent we were, Bob, when I got the check for the advance, I had no bank account. I had to go to

Polydor's bank and cash the check. And it wasn't that much anyway, but well, do you remember how much it was? It was ten thou and you took that in cash. That's a lot of cash. Would you do with it? Ten tho much? It's only about this thick actually, well we don't have video, but he showing about this about an inch. Well. I gave some of it to the guys in the band who helped me get to that point. But Polydori didn't want to sign the rest of the guys in the band. They just wanted me and my

brother Matthew, because I thought we had the hair. They thought we looked like the new Allman Brothers or something. And then they sent us out to l A to record our album and I recorded started to do an album with producer named Thomas Jefferson Kay, who was no longer with us, but me and him did not see eye to eye. How did that even happen? Which part? How did you get hooked up with Thomas and Jefferson Kay.

Thomas and Jefferson Ka had just had a hit with loud and Wainwright called Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road, and Louden was also in that new Bob Dylan category. So I think Peter Siegel, who was the head of A and R, he thought it was It

was an obvious move. And Thomas Tommy Kay heard us play in New York and he liked it, and he brought us out to l A. And we did one day in the studio, but he was heading much too much in a country direction for me and I wanted to sound like Blonde Blonde Our Highway sixty one or something like that, our exile on Main Street. So something happened that trip. It was after the first day in the studio we were sitting in was it the Rainbow I think the Rainbow was that still exists absolutely, and

it's not much different. And we're sitting there and I'm saying, what am I gonna do. I'm gonna call the record company and tell them this is not working out. I'm a nobody, you know. I just got signed. And I put my arm up like this. It was like those banquet kind of seating. Maybe those are still there, absolutely, and I bumped into someone behind me. It was Bob Dillan Okay, I swear I bumped into his shoulder. I

turned for out an excuse me. He was sitting at a star studded table with Joni Mitchell and Jack Nicholson, and and that just I don't know, it was like an epiphany, you know. I said, wow, okay, I'm gonna call them. We did. When Bob left, we did try and follow him in his car, but he lost us pretty pretty I think he might have been with Bobby Neworth that I can't stay for say for sure. And I called up Polydor and I said, listen, this is not working. We came back to New York and Peter

Siegel himself decided he would produce the album. Put together a great team of musicians. Gene Parsons from The Birds was the drummer. We had Frank Owens on the keyboards, who played on Highway sixty one on that album. Uh. We recorded at the record Plant. And this was also at the time the New York glam scene was happening, you know, so the New York Dolls were also recording at the record Plan. You know. They were down on the first floor and it was like a Mardi Gras.

I mean it was just wild, you know, them all their girlfriends and boy, it was just packed with people. We were up on the tenth floor in the other studio B and it was like a church, you know, I mean, totally quiet and serious. But we made Acquisher.

Peter Siegel produced it. It came out and bam. Polydor didn't know what it hit them, really because they had never had an album like this that got so much pressed so quickly, and they try their best, but before you get there, were you ultimately happy with the album that came out. I was very happy with the album came out with Acquisher. Pollin Or puts it up. They don't know what hit them. Keep going, they don't know

what hit them. You know, I'm in before I know it, I'm in Rolling Stone, I'm in Newsweek because you know, there were two or three angles the press picked up. One was the new Bob Dylan thing. The other was the literary as Scott Fitzgerald thing. But the other was the suburban rock. You know that I was complaining about the suburbs and songs like white metal, class blues, hometown. And there was an article in Newsweek with me and Billy Joel called a pain in the Suburbs, you know

about our music. I got my picture, not Billy. So I went on on tour, open for the Kinks, open for Jefferson Starship, but Polydor just could not bring it home. At this time, I lou Reid came into the picture. Now I got to go back a little. Uh. When I was first knocking on doors in New York to get a deal at Mercury, there was a man named Paul Nelson. He was head of A and R at Mercury, also a rock writer, the same Paul Nelson, Right, that's the rock he's passed away in unfortunately, but he signed

the New York Dolls. He had gone to school with Bob Dylan in Minneapolis. In the short time Bob was at university there and him and he became kind of a mentor to me. Although Mercury offered me a deal for five thousand dollars, so even less than Polydor's terrible deal. So uh, Paul Nelson at that time that Mercury was putting out an album of live, a live Velvet Underground album. It was called Live nineteen nine. I owned that record double album absolutely well. If you open it up, I

wrote the liner notes. Haven't looked at it for a while, but I'm sure I knew that when I looked at it. Paul asked me if I would write liner notes for that, and I love the Velvet Underground Loaded. It was one of my all time favorite albums still is. And I was riding home on the Long Expressway and I wrote those liner notes. And the next time I came into the city, my mother who lived in the city, and that was the number that Paul Nelson had. I guess he had asked lou Read if these notes were okay

with him, and lou Reid called my mother. I showed up at her apartment and she said, it is very nice. Little Read called you. We had a long conversation because He's from Freeport, Long Island and I was from Baldwin, right next to each other anyway, And I'll never forget. My mother passed away a few years ago at ninety too, but she still remembered that conversation because the last word she said to Lou, she said, Lou, my son will

be very happy you called. And LU said why and she said, because he's a big admirer of yours, and LU said, isn't everybody. So then I got to know Lou a little bit, and every time I do a show in New York, Lou would come down. We got to be friends, and he said, Elliott, you gotta get off Polydor, you gotta get on our c A, because he was on our CIA at the time. And I started working with Lose manager Dennis Katz. Did you have

a manager? Before that? I was with Leeber and Cribs, Steve Leeb and David Cribs because they had the Dolls and they were very involved in that that New York glam scene which came out of the Mercer Arts Center, which was eventually fell down by the way to find that whole scene of the New York bands, the Dolls me Patty's Smith. The biggest group that came out of it was Kiss. They came out of that. So I left liber and Crebs. At that point, I went with

Dennis Katz. He got our c A to pay Polydora a hundred and fifty thousand just for my contract, plus some money for me a four album deal. Now at this time Clive Davis, who had also come to some of my shows in New York and Uh, I was very friendly with a guy named Bob Phiden who has passed away, but he worked with Clive and Clive was just starting Arista and Clive also order UH. He also offered me a deal, but Lucid, no, you gotta go

with our CIA. Lady. When I'm gonna produce you, you're gonna go to our c A. They love me there, So I went with our CIA. I've always wondered if that was you know, in anyone's career, you have these crossroads. You wonder if you took the right move. But I followed loose advice of course. Us Two years later, Lou left our c A and went with Arista himself, but Lou didn't lu Didn ended up not producing that album

because he had some problems with the law. In fact, I think fake prescriptions or something out in Long Island. Uh So I went out to l A and I worked with Paul Rothschild, who was the Doors producer, and I did my my second album with him in l A. That's when I really got to know the Beverly Hills. I mean, I knew Paul Rothschild. He was a man who believed in his opinion. I wouldn't quite call him easy going. How was that experience and were you happy

with the results. I love Paul's musical side. You know, he really didn't know his music. He came out of that New York folks scene. Uh. You know, he produced the first Paul Butterfield blues Man album, not to mention Janice Joplin and of course all those classic Doors. Um. He was a bit of a diva as a producer. And the head of ann R for r C at

that time was a guy named Mike Bernerker. Now, Mike had been a staff producer at Colombia and produced people by Barbara Streisand and he was convinced any solo act had to have a strong ballot. And you know, they got into a screaming argument about that and at Electra Studios where I was, where we recorded that album. But I was happy with that album. Has a Man. We had Jim Gordon on the drums. Did you know at the time that he was insane? We didn't not know.

He was the sweetest. He was a teddy bear of a guy. I'm in a big teddy bear, but he was the sweetest guy. And he went on, I mean, everybody knows the story, schizophrenic, he killed his mother. I think he's still in a psyche metric hospital. But for me, two years before that, I had seen him playing with Eric Clapton and Derek and the Dominoes, and I thought this drummer had the most swing of any drummer I had ever seen in my heard in my life. We had him, We had Richard t who had come from

Paul Simon. We had sunny Land with a great slide player. We had Steve brou Paul Roch had just brought up a bunch of musicians from New Orleans who went on to be in Toto. The lead singer was Bobby Kimball. Bobby Kimball. Bobby Kimball sang background on that album with me. But yes, I am happy with that. I wish our cia had not interfered as much with the order of the songs, and we kind of have to remix some things that they thought were too rock and roll for them.

But take a sip of water here. And I loved l A and I loved l A. And I got to hang out with Glenn Fry for a while, who was a very guy. Well, just slow down a little bit. How did you meet Glenn Fry? I met Glenn Fry. My wife was friends with a woman named Sandy Gibson, publicist. Yeah, and Sandy knew everybody, and she took us to some parties and Glenn was there. And that Ned Doheny was the guitar player on that album, and that was involved in that credit. I loved you know that the music

coming out of l A at the time. Jackson Brown of course, and uh. And I was a big fan of the Eagles, although the East Coast rock establishment did not give them an easy time. But I love the Eagles, So that was that was the experience there. But that that album UH again got great critical reception, not quite as great as Zach was show. I had a big supporter and Robert Hillburn, big critic for the Los Angeles Times, arguably the most in the country, arguably, yes, most important,

most powerful. I mean he would rate a couple of songs as his best on that album, as the best singles of the year. Uh. And then for the next time, I went back to New York and worked with Dennis Katzs brother, Steve Katz, who came from Blood, Sweat and Tears, because Steve had produced Lou Reed as well Sally Can't Dance, which till his dying day, Lou hated that album, but I can tell you when he made it, he loved that album. But I don't know why he disowned it

almost but he loved it well when I know. Uh. So we worked with Steve Katz, recorded an Electric Ladies Studios. Billy Joel played on a couple of cuts, but still it just didn't break. It just didn't break. It's the same question, were you happy with the end broducts. There's a couple of songs on that album, Diamonds by the Yard Isadora's Dancers. I would not change the thing. I was very happy with the end result and the song Billy Joel played on called Deco dance still one of

my all time favorites. Uh, but I was. I was not happy with Our c A at that point with my career. Then, in a complete reversal, Libra Cribs started barking at my door again and told me that if I came back to them, maybe they could get me on Columbia where they had Errol Smith, who was the person who was interested in you. Because they were quite different characters. Although they're still with us Libre or Cribs and what was their pitch, they were quite different characters.

I started out with Cribs in the early days. The first time I was with Libring Cribs, but he seemed to be more involved with Errol Smith. That was really his baby. He really discovered them Steve. Then I got more involved with Steven. Steve was a long Island guy like me, and Steve talked Colombia into paying Our c A another hundred and fifty thousand dollars to buy that contract, plus some money from me. And I was also very close with Arma Anden. I don't know if that name

rings a bell. He was the vice president up there at the time, working with Bruce lun Voll. The guys I worked with at Colombia. You know Bill Freston. I don't know if you know Bill. Bill first Tom's brother, Tom Freston's brother. They sent me to England to do Just a Story from America, which was my fourth major label album there, and I worked with an engineer named Jeffrey Robin Cable, Robin Jeffrey Cable, who would came from

Trident Studios. That was a family worked with. He had been the engineer in a lot of Elton John albums and things. And I had Phil Collins on the drums and I'm I never forget wing Phil. In between sessions he Genesis. Peter Gabriel had just left Genesis, and I said, what are you guys gonna do now? And he said, you know, we've had auditioned so many singers. I'm so discussed. Stood I might just sing myself and that's what he

did and the rest is history. So that album came out, Just a Story from America, and of course for the fourth time. Were you happy with that? I was very happy with that album. Like okay, you know, Bob, I made a lot of bad business decisions back then, and I had some personal problems, you know, I had some demons I had to deal with, like almost everybody in

the seventies. But musically I feel I made the right decisions, you know, and the fact that all those albums are still almost available, still have lived on they're all still not Spotify and everywhere else, you know. So I was happy with that result. But I was really happy about when there was one track on just a Story from America called Anastasia, which became kind of a minor hit

in France. Uh. And that's what brought me to France the first time to do like a promo tour, and I realized there was interest there and that kind of started lit the fires the reason I am there today. So I'm very happy in terms of that. What I'm not happy about it is it's very difficult to get royalty statements out of these companies. Okay, one step at one time, the album comes out, it's a regional hit

in France. What is your experience with Columbia, what happens going forward with the label and the manager the liber Crebs philosophy in my opinion back then, and they were both former agents. I think Steve was the head of the music department, William Morris, uh, you know, to give them credit, they did a thing called Beatlemania, right, they got sued after they lost a lot of the profits. But yeah, but they were really ahead of their times

with that. I mean now they're attribute Broadway type shows all over the world. You know. Everybody put down Beatlemania, including the clash in the song, you know. But they were both agents, and their philosophy was to break baby acts like me. It's to call me a baby act.

Was to open for bigger acts. And I did a long tour with E. L. O open for Elo, a lot of dates, opening for Hall and Oates, Billy Joe, and you know, when you're opening for someone like Electric Light Orchestra who I Love Loved Uh, and you're dinner in an arena and you've got thirty minutes and the people are still walking in and you get half the lights and half the sound, I don't think you make

much of an impact. Now. My buddy Bruce Springsteen, he was smarter than me, and I think at a very early point he said, I don't want to do these opening acts anymore. He was opening for Chicago, I think for a while. I saw him just yesterday and we were talking about all the acts we had opened for back in the day. I think he said he had opened for Black Oak, Arkansas. And I saw Bruce the first time when he is at Maxis Kansas City. I

think he was opening for Bob Marley or something like that. Anyway, he made a decision he was not doing that. He would rather play the small clubs on his own. But I went along with the liber Creb's philosophy. But it was very disheartening, you know, you just really never felt you were making an impact. I should have gone out

probably on a solo acoustic tour, you know. Uh. So that kind of all ended, and then there was a lot of internal struggle going on at Columbia, my feeling Walter yet Nikoff and Bruce Lonvoll and Lieber and Crebs, and you know, I was kind of a collateral damage of that. And in ninety eight I found myself without a label. Really I left Liebre Crebs. Uh. I thought I was gonna do it all on my own, and that was literally impossible. And it was really one of

the lowest points in my life. My brother at the time was working at as the tour manager for Talking Heads, and I was broke. I was broke and they needed to move some equipment gear and I was driving a truck, you know, to make a hundred bucks to move on amplifier, and I remember I fell asleep at the wheel. I almost on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I just pulled off to the side of the road. Tears came out of my eyes. You know, how did I get to this

point in my career? And then I kind of slowly but surely picked myself up, uh you know, stopped all my bad habits. Okay, wait, wait, let's not paper over that. You talk about your demons which were the hindrance to the success of your career, Go a little deeper. What were those demons? I mean, you're a very calm on the ball guy. What were you like back then and

what were the demons? Well? I think, like you know, I hate to come off as one of those uh sobriety changed my life kind of artists, but you know it was the old story of cocaine and alcohol. Really that was it. And that the way that really impact in my career was I think that came more of my priority than then the music, you know, the the lifestyle, rather than the making them making the music my priority.

Although I did manage to make albums that have stood the test of time, and I'm very great for that, you know. But I dropped those demons, and I I really started from the bottom again. Wait, wait, just a couple of things really slow. How did you drop those demons? Well, I went to the usual twelve step programs. Usually there's like, you know you're at the bottom, there's a moment of awakening. Tell me about that moment of awakening before you went

to the twelve step program. Okay, uh, you can't read about this in my memoir. Just to start from America, if I can put in a pitch that is available on Amazon, both in an audiobook and in a paperback. It has also been published in Spanish and French versions. Okay, Bob, this is what happened. It was five, I guess, and and I was. It was about ten o'clock in the morning. I had been up all the night before. You know,

I was stoned. I was chugging vodka. I was dropping value m I was looking for anything on the shag carpet that resembled cocaine. And I was just basically saying, God, don't let me die. At this moment, you know, and this voice, it wasn't a voice in any other worldly sense, but I just got this message that this is what you do, and this is what you'll continue to do. And uh. And I had to catch a flight that afternoon to go out to Milwaukee to work with Jerry

Harrison from the Talking Heads. And Jerry had been in my band and he had recorded night Lights with many of the tracks on that and he had taken an interest in my career and he wanted me to record out in Milwaukee with them. And I caught a plane that afternoon. I got to Milwaukee. I discovered some people you know who who were recovering from drugs and alcohol and I hooked up with them. And that was thirty seven years ago. Okay, part of the twelve step processes,

you have to make amends. What was your experience there going back to all these people to make amends that you can remember. I didn't have to make any amends to any labels that I remember. I was hoping I might receive some, but you know, maybe maybe I think with some of the musicians I worked with, I had a band and when I left to go to London to do just Store of America. I really didn't even let the band know what I was doing. You know.

There were some things like that, uh, family, family things. But you know they say the biggest a men, you have to make it to yourself. And I guess that for me that was the most important. You know. I really had an incredible opportunity in the for my music, and I did not respect it enough in those days. I remember once I was having in my heyday with Eric Anderson. You know Eric, I've met him, I seen him. Yeah, famous folk singer, still alive living in another expatriate America,

right right, Scandinavia. And uh we were sitting there with with Bob finding a couple of people, and Eric said to me, you know, Elliott, you gotta pay your dues. And I said, Eric, I'd rather collect the dudes, you know. So that was my attitude. I've changed, Bob. Okay, just a couple of clean up things. Do you still go to meetings? Oh? I do? Yeah, yeah, I do? How frequently? Well, there's there's lots of them in Paris, I mean since the COVID you know, it's all on zoom right well

as we are today. But yeah, I gotta have a lot of friends there. And when I used to go to meetings in New York, the great thing was that all the people I used to get high with were in the meetings. You know, that's funny. Okay, you mentioned a couple of times royalties. Let's drill down there right for a second. So there's record royalties and publishing royalties. Let's start with record royalties. Needless to say, one would

think you were in the whole at these labels. Did they charge your royalty account these hundred and fifty k that the other labels paid to get you off? What's going on? There's what's going on and what was supposed to go on. I mean, as I understood the situation when r c A paid Polydor hunt thousand, that was supposed to leave me with a clean slate at Polydor, and I was supposed to start getting paid royalties from Record one because that basically what Polydor was saying they

had invested. Same with our CIA. Uh with Colombia. It was more complicated because I was signed to Columbia through a production company that Libra Crepsa and I think it's called Contemporary Communications. Now, after many years of struggle and with the help of my dear friend Kenny my Salue. You know Kenny my Salue, No I know the name. I don't know, but he is an attorney's with Alan Groupman firm and he is if we got a minute,

so Kenny buy Salas. When I was playing in St. Louis opening for E l O. Uh, he was in a punk band and he liked my music and he came to my hotel room to meet me. And my brother was the tour manager and he said, no, you can't disturb Elliott. But I came to the door, saw him. I liked him, and we chatted for a while. And he has gone on to be just a real mover and a shaker, and I mean his clients are Lady Gaga,

Puff Daddy. I mean, just incredible guy. And so he has helped me try to get some royalty statements out of them. But it's complicated because now our c A is part of Sony, So those two r c A albums and uh so that's the situation of that publishing side. It's easy. Before we leave that A, do you even get statements irrelevant of getting paid? And if you ever got opinion royalties, I get statements. Now I got a statement from Sony. Uh. I used to get statements from Polydor.

They stopped with Polydor. I was always like, you know, twenty five dollars in the red or something. You know, it never seemed to increase that. Uh So I've never received any record royalties from either of those companies in uh forty years now, Kenny been working with you. Is there any income in the future or you in arrears? What do you project going forward? Well, what I hope is that there always this movement on artists being able

to reclaim their albums after a certain number of years. Unfortunately, the one Copyright Act which which impacts that, it was for albums recorded after and all my four major label albums were recorded before that, so they're kind of in limbo. But I'm hoping you know, it's not really for me, Bob, It's for my my son just at some point to

establish who owns those albums. And you know, when you know, when Chevrolet decides to use drive All Night as their theme song for the new commercial, that somebody will be there to collect some royalties. So tell me about the publishing song. Publishing side is much easier because from the very beginning. Everyone used to tell me, hold onto your publishing, Hold onto your publishing, and I did for the most part. I mean, I have my two R C A albums.

I had to give half to their publishing company, which then turned into Warner Chapel, but they I get royalty statements from them and and all the rest. I own all my publishing. So and I'm in France, the equivalent of of as Captain b M I is called Sassam. Maybe you've heard of that. And uh, they're they're really very good society. And I have healthcare through them. I have a lot of things through them. So the publishing

side has been pretty pretty good, okay. And is their income in addition to the benefits is their income from from publishing? You get your health care, you get other benefits, oh yeah, and I get yeah. And also in Europe, when you play shows, a portion of the ticket sales goes to the to the publisher of the songs that are played, and after each show you got to fill out a form to say what shows, what songs you performed. That's not the same in America. America, it is much

more a winner take all. You know, it's uh, it's a feaster famine situation. But in Europe they tend to take more care with with the artists in the middle and songwriters in the middle. So I do get. I do get. For many years, Sasam has treated me very well. You mentioned your son when we talked previously. You said your son, although raised in France, went to college in America. Tell me a little bit more about him and what's he's what he's up to today. Gas Bar Murphy is

my son. He's thirty one years old and he went to He grew up in France. He speaks English like me, speaks French like his mother. Uh. He got a guitar when he was twelve years old and just fell in love with a kind of similar same story with me. And he got into production very early, you know, like it was using pro tools when I first came out. He went to soon he purchased which is a State University of New York school in Purchase in Westchester County

where they have a marvelous UH studio production program. So he came to the US. He went to four years that got his degree. UH. During that time he did some amazing things. Uh. He had to do like an apprentice thing during one summer. So I asked Bruce if he knew a studio he could work at or something like that, and Bruce Sprinstein said, well, he can come on the road with me. So gas Bar went on the road with Bruce Springsteen and the Eastreet Band for

a couple of months. That was wonderful. My brother at the time was working for a bank called Incubus. He went on the road with Incubus for a little while as well, and he did a long internship with a very well known mixer named Tony Maserati. You may have heard of him. Wonderful guy. You know, he's from Beyonce

on down. He's done everybody and gaspar worked with him for for quite a while and now he's back in Paris and he's got his own studio and he's he's he's been pretty successful, you know, as a as a producer and a mixer. When he has time, he will work with me. He produced my last you know, five albums, and we have a new single coming out on May twenty which is called Hope in Your Eyes that will be out on all the Spotify and all the platforms. Okay,

a couple of questions there you're from New York. Well you're living in Paris. He goes to Sunny Purchase. Did you get in state rates? He did not. Okay, so you paid through those good taxpayer good Night's left wing not working yet? Yeah? Yeah. The second thing for an artist like you who has never gotten record royalties anyway, what's your view on streaming helping? Hurting? Agnostic? You know,

for me, bum it's been a godsend. You know, I'm the not just streating, but the whole Internet has teared down the wall between me and my fans that I used to have to go through a major label to get to. But for digital distribution, I'm with a company called Believe. If you've heard of them. They started in France, US, but now they're they're a major player all over the world.

They get my albums out everywhere. Uh. I'm pretty active on social media and those who A lot of people are upset about the money from streaming, but I have to remind them, you know, back in the day, radio didn't play pay anything, nothing, just just to the publishers, but nothing to the Uh So I'm okay with streaming. Okay, let's go back to the moment. We're falling asleep at the wheel and you're at your low thing. You thought about doing yourself? How do you rebuild your career at

that point? What do you actually do? What I had to do was learn how to record albums on a very smaller budget than I was used to. Let's start before that. Did you ever contemplate giving up and going straight? I did in the mid eighties, Well, going straight, I don't know. In the mid eighties, it was really a tough time and I was just getting sober, and I got a job at a law firm, a music law firm called Prior, Cashman, Sherman and Flynn. They were on Park Avenue in New York, and I worked for a

litigator named Don Zacharin, great guy. In his famous case was about the song Feelings and Feelings, and that there was a French writer, interestingly enough, who said he had written the song and sent it so anyway, so I'm sitting there in this office and there was another music business attorney and after a couple of weeks there, he

came over me. He said, listen, a lot of people are coming here into my office and they're saying that this legal secretary looks like this singer songwriterer Elliott Murphy, is that you? And I said, yeah, it is. And he said, well, what are you doing here? And I said, well, you know, it's kind of tough times in the music business. I needed a job. And I I said, I'm you know, I'm actually thinking of becoming a lawyer, because during this time I went back to college, I got my degree,

and I was really thinking about becoming a lawyer. And he just looked at me and said, don't do it now, Bob. I think you're you got some legal background there. I got a similar story. But this is about you. You know. My father always said, you know, get a law degree. It's good background. Never was good background until Napster hit. But I certainly never wanted to practice law and didn't

practice that much. That experience working at the law from I worked there for two years was marvelous because, as I said, the week I got there, if anyone can remember, they switched from typewriters to computers. So I was sent to for two weeks. I was learned how to use a computer and word processing. I did all my work there to get my degree. I went back to a school called Empire State University, which is turning mostly adult educational.

I got my AM bachelor's degree there. They had a telex remember telex, of course I used to arrange all They'd let me go to Europe every once in a while a couple of weeks on a tour. I did all my touring through telex. So and what was most important I learned that, you know, two lawyers can be fighting about something and creating reams and reams of paper, but at the end of the day, a judge is going to write two lines and say who wins. So it was really an eye opening experience. How did you do?

The music kept pulling me back. It was just too much was going on. I had an album that came out that was nominated for New York Music Award. I don't think those exist anymore. I was getting more and more offers to come to Europe to play. Um uh. I was you know people today called at least over there, they called me a pioneer in terms of independent artists.

Because when I went to Europe for the first time in seventy nine, I saw that people licensed their albums two smaller labels all that you know, you'd have one in France when in Spain one in Scat and everyone. Uh. I had never heard of that concept before, and they said, all you gotta do is gather for me to make the product and then you can license it. And so we started licensing, you know, and I started to get a really good relation with about five or six companies

over there. When you say we who's week, it was with my brother. My brother and I had a girlfriend at the time named Kathleen Smith, and she was also involved a little bit. Just to be clear, your brother was originally in your band before he was a road manager. Yes, my brother Matthew. He played bass on Acqua Show. Uh and then uh, right before the second album he had a car accident. Really couldn't play the bass anymore. I had to keep moving forward. Uh. It was kind of

a heartbreaking time. He has gone on to be he He started work with all those New York bands like Robert Gordon Talking Heads B fifty two has worked with the Rhythmics for a long time now. He has the dream to our manager job because he's worked for Steve Martin for the last twelve years. Steve Martin and Martin short and just great guys and he loves working with them. I think he's done better than he might have done as my base. Okay, so you're done with Columbia, You're

done with libre cribs. You're picking up a hundred dollars here and there. You decide you want to go independent? How do you actually do it? How do you actually make your next record? How does it come together? Well? I was also playing. I was doing kind of a house band at a club Quilled Tramps in New York with David Johansson was there from the New York Dolls, and I would play there every wednes Day night. Every

Wednesday night. It rained. Anyway, I kept writing songs. I got some time at the Record Plan because I've done two albums there and they let me. They gave me a little time. We recorded six tracks to make an EP. Got the mastered by my friend Greg Calbayo, was a mastering engineer in New York who you know, really gave me a great deal. And then we had to figure out, well, then what do you do? How do you make the records? So there was actually a pressing plant in Midtown Manhattan,

and we I finally saw how records are made. You know, it's amazing. You go in there. They'd have these machines that look like they're making pancakes or wildfles. They take this little round piece of plastic, put it in the middle, two labels on either side. Next thing you know, it was all run by Eastern European ladies. And so we started pressing albums. Affairs was the name of that albums, my first independent release. Now, although my brother was working with me, he was also on tour a lot with

the bands. I had mentioned what year are we in? Were in about? And crazy Eddie does that ring about? Of course, the electronics prices are insane, right as I say, well, they were all They also sold vinyl, they sold records. They were big and they were they were so they had sold like a hundred of my albums and they had ordered more. But my brother was out of town. So I took the phone call and I brought the albums down there myself, and I walked in Southern manager

and I said, you ordered the Elliott Murphy albums. He said yes, he said, aren't you Elliot Murphy. He said yes, he said, and you delivered the albums yourself. I said yes, He said why, I said, well, you know, after four albums with the majors. Now I like total artistic control. So so that was my experience and I just really learned the whole business, you know, making little publishing deals, making licensing deals all over. It was. It was really

an education. I don't think that business model exists anymore. So it's these businesses all require money. Where did you get the money to pay for the records and the little like paying the reduced rate to Calby, etcetera. Touring? That was all from touring. So it was all your money. Yeah, that was all our money. Yeah, I think it was all my money. Yeah. I think my brother contributed as well. We would go off on tour for a couple of months in Europe, our month because I didn't start working

at the law firm until a little later. When you say to go on the road, it was you alone playing acoustic or other band members or what. No, we would have a band. I had a band with Ernie Brooks who was from the Modern Lovers, Jonathan Richmond's ban m. My piano player was Richard Soul who then was in the Patty Smooth Smith group. But I pretty much always had a and and at that time in Europe, if you were really willing to do the travel and it

wasn't easy, you know, but festivals paid well. Uh it wasn't uh saturated with American acts you know over there like it is now. And Uh, okay, so that record comes out, how many copies can you sell? We could sell. I don't know how many of that record, but I think between what we sold and between what the licensees sold, you know, it might have sold fifty thousand. That's a lot of records. That's a lot of records hip, but

it's a lot of territories. So if you're selling ten thousand in France and then you're selling you know, seven thousand in Italy and seven you know, and I think in America we sold about that. So when it's all said and done, because collecting is a whole another different thing from selling, did you make any money selling the records and then collecting from your distributors? That is a

whole different thing, you know. I remember we had one distributor in Texas a word us money and man, I just used to have to call them every day and try and shame them into you know, I need the money to make the next album, and uh yeah, that's it. So that cycle ns. Tell me about what goes on before you start to work for the law from you make another record. We made a couple of records there I made as Steve Katz was working at Mercury. I think by that time he gave me some studio time.

We made another album out called Murph the Surf, which did very well in Italy of all places. UH had a song called The Full of Saigon did very well over in Europe. But it was tough, you know, it was tough. Touring was tough. It was long driving and a lot of vans, and I was discouraged. And I think that's what I kind of thought, Well, maybe I should kind of quite well on my head here and head to the law firm. Let's go back to the

very beginning. Let's start with something awkwad show. When the press came out that was the name of the album. Was the whole story about your relative running the Akway show? Was that your idea? Who were they saying, well, this is an angle, let's work this well. Going back even further, my father, who was Elliott Murphy Sor, I'm a junior UH, and he was the son of an Irish immigrant who

was a Blacksmith in Brooklyn. My father he started a show called The Aqua Show on the site of the ninety nine World's Fair, although it was in the fifties when he had it, and it was like with a certain kind of spectacle doesn't even exist today. It was eight thousand seats outdoor theater. There was a huge Olympic sized pool. There were clown divers jumping off everything. There was a revolving stage, and there were some credible bands. There was Duke Ellington play there for while. There was

Cap Halloway who played there. Some iconic comedians like Jackie Mason, you know, performed there. And and my father was the producer. He owned the show. You know. I learned the greatest lesson from him about show business. He said, no matter how good the show is, if it rains, nobody comes. And that's really true. Now, my father, we lost him. He died young. I was sixteen, and by that time he had he had gone from the Aqua Show. He had a restaurant called the Sky Club out in Garden City.

It was very politically connected. Bobby Kennedy came there, Nelson Rockefeller, I mean, all the the the big names of that political era and he had that restaurant and then he had a heart attack at the age of Uh. It just traumatized me and the whole family. You know, it was really a bad time to go. There was not much to fall back on. Uh any thoughts of going on to college or anything. At that point, we're squashed. Luckily,

you know that I still held onto the music. I started playing the guitar since twelve, and that really got me through. Well, since we're mentioning this, So you grew up on the island or in the city. No. I grew up in Garden City, Long Island, which is right in the middle. It's where Charles Lindbergh took off from to go to Paris, although his reputation has been heard amished in recent years. Okay, you go to school, good student,

bad student, terrible student, terrible student. You know, when I was twelve, they couldn't understand why I was not doing well at school, and they told my mother he needs something to channel his energies. I guess I was kind of a hyperactive kid, and they suggested I learned a musical instrument. So with my mother, I went to a Quickly's music center and knew Park, and we started playing studying the guitar together. And by when I picked up that guitar, my school work out worse, let me tell you.

And I I just fell in love with the guitar and it's an instrument, and I I witnessed all those life changing events for musicians of my group. In my generation. I saw Elvis Presley and Ed Sullivan, you know. And my grandfather was from Tupelo, Mississippi, the same town as Elvis, so I really had a connection there. So the Beatles on TV. At my father's restaurant, he sometimes would have college mixers and there'd be the Rondettes singing. I think

the Loving Spoonful played there. So yeah, that's I was a terrible student, you know. It wasn't until I went back to school to college in the eighties, you know. I'm luckily I made it out of high school. Actually, And was your brother older or younger? My brother was younger. And were you a popular kid outsider? What were you like? Well? I was voted best dressed? Whoa you know, but that was I was maybe the first of my class to

start wearing bell bottoms and Tom Jones shirts. If you remember what those man I also have an older sister, Michelle. Uh she's the one who gave me In nineteen sixty year sixteen one, she went to see Bob Dylan play at Princeton and the next Christmas she gave me his first album as a Christmas present. And I love that album.

And my favorite song was Housel Rising Sun. So when a few years later the Animals had a hit with it, I already knew it, uh so, but it was really you know, if it wasn't for the guitar, I don't know what would have happened to me. Really, it's really kept me afloat. And did you play in bands in high school? Bob? Not only did I play in bands? I won the nineteen six the six New York State Battle of the Bands in high school? Tell us that story? Okay?

Well that was I had a band called the Rapscallions, and we used to do There was a studio recording studio in Hempstead which was right next to Garden City, and that's where the Shangri Laws recorded Walking in the Sand. There was a producer named Shadow Morton, remember him? Of course? I think the d Fudge too, did Genesee and Society's child, great track, great track, and we'd go over there and

kind of listen and stuff. Anyway, I had this band called the Rep skuy Ands, and we had a very talented and pretty girl who was our lead singer, and we would do songs like that walking in the sand, remember, walking in the same all that stuff, and and we won the Long Island Battle of the Bands in Eisenhower Park out there, and then we went up to west Chester and when the New York State Battle of the Bands, we got Blazers and a hundred dollars savings certificate, and

we were supposed to march in the Thanksgiving Day parade. But none of the parents of anyone, all the other kids wanted their kids to go on into music. You know, Garden City was a very conservative, upper middle class kind of town, and you know, that was not the route that their parents were looking for him, whereas me, it was always the road I wanted to take. So your father dies, how is your family paying the bills? We're not, We're not. He at the restaurant was in a bad

state that it went bankrupt. My mother, who was really at I mean she was only thirty nine when he passed away. She had her that generation she had and my sister I think when she was nineteen. You know, they started families early. Uh. With my father, she had gone to the White House and danced with Eisenhower. You know, my father was My father was that old style Republicans if you remember them, Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. Rockefeller who was

the senator from Connecticut. Uh, began with the douvil Anyway, my father was that kind of Republican, you know. I mean I never heard him say a racist or Marcus whole life. He just didn't like the Union's telling him what to do in his restaurant. He didn't like paying a lot of taxes. But aside from that, Uh so my mother who had gone from you know, my father used to organize a lot of charity shows and people like Perry Como would saying or Mike Todd was that

one with Liz Taylor when they were married. And uh, my mother went from that lifestyle to really starting over again, and she ended up working at Tiffany in New York. Okay, you win the Battle of the bands? Were you also playing bar Mitzvah's Sweet sixteens and making a living as a musician, making a living, making some money, making some money. I mean, we mostly played at the bar joints that we're on Hempstead Turnpike. There's a couple of colleges that

were there. There's Hofstra University, there's a Delphi, the CW Post, so that were there were college mixers we would play at. But you know, it was tough, but it was a great education. You do five or success a night. You had to just know hundreds of songs. Uh, And that's what basically I did until a and then I took this trip which I mentioned before, to Europe in n Okay. But how do you become one thing about your songs to this day? Is there very literate? Where did that?

What was the generation of that couple of things come into play with that? First of all in the sixties, in the late sixties, It's hard to imagine, but it seemed like all the different cultural elements were coming together. There was cinema and there was music. I mean, you look on the cover of Sergeant Sergeant Pepper there, it's full of writers, you know, it's that that collage of all those faces. It's Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde

and everybody else. So I was very influenced by those writers. I always was attracted to the writers in the nineteen twenties, especially if Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby took place on Long Island. You know, we used to get stoned and drive up past those mansions which still existed on the North Shore and Long Island and dream and uh uh. And then there was the beat generation. You know, there was Jack Carolak. I mean, if you wanted to be in in the right place culturally in the late sixties,

you had to have an awareness of all that. You know, you had to know who Allen Ginsburg was and Howell is his poem and uh And at the same time there were incredible films happening. So I think I came out of that, but I don't know. I'm a reader. I still am a reader, you know, I like fiction today. I tend to read more biography than fiction because you just want to see how other people got through this life.

And I have written a few books. Yeah, I was going to get to that, but let's continue the narrative. So you go to Europe, and what is your intention that was? When you know, going to Europe you could get a flight very cheap, you could live very cheap. But what was your theoretical agenda or was there nothing like I'm just gonna go and see what happened, or we're going for inspiration. My sister was a pan Am

stewardess legendary. I think there's been TV shows made about so because because of that, she got a family discount, and I think I got a flight to answer to them for pennies, you know, just for nothing. And uh, I just really wanted to get away from Long Island. And I had a friend who had gotten there earlier and just said, you've got to come to Europe. Everything's

happened there in Amsterdam. And and so I went over with him and a couple of other guys and we went to Amsterdam, and we went to Paris, and then we went to Rome, which is really where I spent most of my time in and I was He had a guitar and I was playing in front of restaurants and we passed the hat. And his brother, if you follow this, was living with an American actor named Farley Granger.

Now Farley Granger was in Strangers on a Train, the Alfred Hetchcock movie, and he had become quite a big star in Europe, kind of in the Clint Eastwood Mold, you know before. And Farley Granger said to me, listen, if you want to make some money, you should get yourself out to Chinni Chita, which is a big studio, because Felini is making a film and he's he's hiring extras, and you gotta look, you know, maybe he'd hire you.

So my brother and I went out to Chinnichita and I don't know how we talked away in there, but we did. And we went into a room. The door opened, and Federico Folini looked in that, you know, by Benny shut the door, and we got hired to work for Felini. He was filming Roma, his film Roma. And although I was really just an extra, you know, but everybody was

an extra in that film. And and at one point Felini stood right next to me because they did the clapper on my face and he said, young boy, stand here. I was a young boy then. So it was an amazing And if you watch Roma today, you can see me in it, you know, I mean it not too long, but you can see me in that. So to fast forward, Bob,

and this is amazing. I was telling this story about working with Felini when I was playing at a gig in a little club in trust Savery in Rome, and after the show someone said, listen, I have Leny's address if you want to write to him. So I wrote to him and I wrote said how that experience was just, you know, life changing, and I've told talked about it all the time, and I sent him a c D. And when I got back to Paris, I'm fast forwarding

now well into the nineties. When I got back to Paris, there was a letter in my mailbox from Federico Fley. I still have it. It's on my wall, written in English, many mistakes, words crossed, and he said, thank you so much for your music and kind words. Elliott. He said, unfortunately ages weaken my memory and I don't remember exactly what you did in my film, but all the critics tell me it was marvelous and that he wished me good luck. And really just a few months after that

he passed away. How long did you actually work on I think it was like a week. So all this time you're writing music and then tell me the evolution of coming back and starting in the band world. Yeah, I'm starting to write songs. I'm starting to write a

white middle class blues. I think that was a song I wrote over there, Last of the rock Stars, because when we came, when I came to Europan nine, I think that it was Janis Joplin had died and Jimmy Hendricks had died, and Jim Morrison, and it was like, you know, who was going to be left to play? Which is a line of rock and roll is here to stay, but who will be left to play? And I started writing that and then I came back and I, uh, we started to put a band together with my brother

and started to play that. It was, as I said, a business model which doesn't exist anymore. You could play all over New York. There was Max's Kansas City, there was the mercer Artis and It's Kenny's Cast the Ways, and they were all kind of bands, especially the New York Dolls that were Patti Smith. And it was before CBGBs. I was never a CBGBs guy. Uh, that was a different thing. And we started to play, put the band together. I kept writing until I had, you know, ten of

twelve songs, and then we knocked on Polydorus door. And here I am a little point of information. How did you record those songs for the demo? And where and who paid for it? I think my mother. I don't remember exactly, but I know there was some point with my father's life insurance. Maybe we got a couple of

thousand dollars each each kid or something. And when I think, with that money, me and my brother bought some musical equipment and we went to a demo studio in Port Washington, Long Island, and that's where we recorded those songs the demo. Now you mentioned and a number of artists from Mooie to David, Joe Hansen to Springsteen. And from previous conversation, I know that when Springsteen came to Paris he invited

you up on stage. To what degree do you still have contact with anybody from that seventies scene and how much and what are they up to. I saw Bruce yesterday, so I have pretty close contact with him. We had my wife and I had lunch at dinner with him out of his house in New Jersey. And so Bruce says, uh,

And he is just the most generous. I mean, as you mentioned, he's brought me up on stage many times, and the last time he was playing the stad de France, which is an eighty thousand seat uh you know, stadium in Paris, and he he brought me and my son gaspar up on stage with him. We were backstage and Bruce said, you want to come up and play? I said, yeah, what do you want me to play? Said? How about Born to Run? And I said, whoa. I said that is a difficult song and it is. It's like a

symphony that song. And my son was there and he said I know it, Dad, and Bruce said you know it? He said yeah. He said, okay, then you come up to So there we were in front of eighty thousand people, my son, gas Bar and Bruce Springsteen the Street Band, and what can I say? It was magic? It was who else from that era? A little bit? David Johansson stay in touch with him a little bit. Uh. I'm trying to think many of them are. I was. Sometimes I tell my son about the people I met back

then and he can't believe it. You know, It's like I I met Shakespeare. My second album, I asked David Bowie to produce it. He was on our c A as well, and he invited me down to Electric Ladies studios and he couldn't produce it because he was going out on her. But when I told my son I've met I mean, but who from the seventies? Wow, there's been a lot of a lot of them are not still with us? Okay, well, let's change the question. Because you've met all these people, you know, as Letterman used

to call brush with greatness. Tell me you know you have the experience with Bowie, any other experiences where they were very memorable, either the person delivered or if you want to the person disappointed you. I'm trying to think. I think I've I've been very, very fortunate in that most of the people I met uh icons, rock icons. You know, I had enough of an end that I wasn't bothering them. Let's say, I mean I met Mick Jagger a couple of times, and you know he's always

charming and smart and that. Who have I had a bad experience? I don't, I don't know. I can't lea say. Okay, somewhere along this line, you become a writer, You write record reviews, the other stuff. What was the inspiration? How did that happen? After I was dropped by Columbia seventy eight or so. So I was right seventy nine or something. I was walking down fifty seventh Street and I ran

into Yon Winner from Rolling Stone. I had known John because we had done a couple of TV shows together at some point because Rolling Rolling Stone and me kind of started at the same time. And he asked me what I was up to, and I told him I was writing some short stories and he said he'd like to read them. So, uh, he liked it and he said you should expand this and were published in Rolling Stone.

So that was really my first published work. It was a short story in Rolling Stone that was published in called Cold and Electric, and Jan said, you know, you should expand this story into a novel because there's never really been a novel written. It was a story of a rock star who would climb the rock mountain and falling off the other side. You know. It was not autobiographical, but it certainly about a world I knew. So he encouraged me to write that as a novel, which I did.

Then Rolling Stone tried to find a co publisher, and at this time there were no books about rock and roll. I mean, there were no biographies. There was nothing, and they kept getting back the same feedback from from publishers, which was, you know, the people who like this music, they don't read books. That was really, you know, the common wisdom. That's changed now, thank god. But I did turn it into a novel and I found a publisher in France. It was published in French, it was published

in UH, in Spanish and in German. So since that time, I've written I think five novels, a couple of collections of short stories, and then last year I wrote my memoir, Just a Story from America. Okay, let's get to today. How far in advance do you plan? I mean, are you booked for four or is it six months in advance? To what degree is your life and career planned out in advance? Well, there's pre COVID and post before covid um, I would be planned out pretty much a year in advance.

I say. There's a club in Paris I play called the New Morning, which is very similar to like what the bottom Line was in New York or the Roxy in l A. I played there two nights every March, which is my birthday. For twenty five years, uh I did a tour of Spain. Every January ten to fifteen shows for twenty five years as well. And there are other places that I went back to regularly. Now we're just picking up the pieces again and trying to figure out, you know, where to go. I think my my agent

in Spain went out of business because of COVID. There was not much France. They really supported the culture and help keep companies going on a bigger Looking at that bigger, Bob, I have to tell you, like most of us, we go through life. We make it's chaos. We make the best decision we can based upon the information we have. But when I was writing my memoir and I got through with it, it seemed like this had all been a perfectly perfectly planned out from A to B, and

this is where I end up. Finally, after nearly a fifty year career talking to Bob left, it's okay, let's talk pre COVID, because everything you know, as you say, has been changed. How many gigs a year do you want to do? How many did you do, and how many you want to I used to do close to a hundred hundred gigs a year, and now maybe three or four years ago I cut down a little, maybe sixty shows here, so that that's what I feel comfortable with, you know, and you work both with him without a band.

How do you decide that? Well, nowadays I work always with my guitarists. Olivier to Rome was a French guitarist and we've been together for twenty six years. I also worked with an Australian violinist named Melissa Cox. Uh. They both played on my last couple of albums, and sometimes with a drummer and sometimes if it's a festival and we expand. But now the basic format is a trio. How and when do you decide to make an album?

That's interesting because Bruce and I were talking about that because some of my generation they just stopped making albums.

Most Billy Joel has stopped making albums, you know, for decades, decades. Uh, Bruce keeps making albums, and I keep making albums because that was really the art form that we came into this with an album, you know, and it's hard to remember now, but there was really a point in music history where an album became an art form, you know, before that was all singles and everything else, as you know, and so that for me, the I mean the road has always been. You write the songs, then you want

to record the songs. Then you want to make an album that in some way those group of songs fits together. Then you want to take those songs on the road and play them for people, and that usually sparks new songs, and then it just begins over and over again. Well do you sit down and say I need to write songs or you just inspired in the shower? How do the songs get written? I have to tell you hotel

rooms are very good for writing songs. I think I've written some of my best material in hotel rooms on the road. When you're really you know, you're so connected to the music through sound checks and through the shows I write. I used to write the words of music together they seem to come together very quickly. But now I often will write the words and then the music will come. Okay, you're running your business yourself. Let's just

talk pre COVID because everything has been screwed up. Do you need to go on the road to earn a living? Is it lucrative or you're just keeping your head above water? What are the numbers looking? Well, I've been fortunate in that for an artist, and my dimension, France and Europe is a very good place to live. Number One, you don't have to worry about healthcare. You have healthcare. Everybody I know in New York is paying a thousand dollars

a month or something for healthcare. You have healthcare there. I recently had a cataract operation. I paid zero for that. You know, all kinds of things. So you have that, you have benefits. I get a pension now because I am officially retired, you know, from the French government, and also some from from social security here. So I think I've done better than keep my head above water. I have a nice apartment in Paris that I own. Uh. You know, managed to put my son through college. That

was really my perhaps my greatest achievement. Uh. I was talking about that with Bruce yesterday, and he's in a whole other world, but I'm talking about my career. And he said to me, You've managed to make a living music and that's incredible. And I gotta agree with them, you know, I gotta agree with or is my pal Billy Joel why my note? He inducted me into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame a couple of years ago. He once said to me, He said, you know, we

picked a good job. Okay, how long do you plan to do this? Do you drop or you see sunset? Nobody quits? I think nobody quits. Who can doing that? I mean, there's there are physical things you have to deal with. I have pretty bad tonight. It's in my ears, ears ringing, which is just almost every musician I know my age gets hearing problems of some sort or another. Uh. I try to stay in good shape. You've got to be in good shape if you want to go out

there on the road. Ah. I remember just a few years ago, my brother was working with Blondie and I went up to see him in Brussels and I went down to work out in the gym in the hotel in the morning, and there were three or three members of and they said to me, you know, twenty years ago we'd all still be up in the room getting loaded, and now we're down at the gym. So you know, nobody quits. I don't plan on quitting, you know. And just to be clear, you are or not a fringe citizen.

I am you are, I am both. So if we look back at this story, certainly other people who were in the scene in the seventies with you had higher profiles in you know, I don't want to define success, but their reach was further. They might have made more money that might have been through it. How do you feel how they made it to such elevated heights and you didn't make it to those elevated heights. Tough question

sometimes can be a painful question. Uh. When I listened back to the music I created in those years, sometimes I don't know why it didn't reach a wider public. I think every artist wants to reach as a wider public as possible. Ah. Jumping from label to label, it's not the best career move. Not having continuous management as I as I have never had, it's not the best career move either. H. But as you know, in this business,

we tend to look up. We tend to look at all those who are doing better than us, but everyone's well, I gotta look down, and I got to think of all those really great musicians I know who had to stop, who can't make a living, can't make music, have to do another job or something like that. So in that way, I'm probably in that same as Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel. You know someone who's been able to make a living from my music from for nearly fifty years, and uh,

I have to be grateful. Okay, we've been talking with Elliott Murphy. I got a lot more questions, but I'm that very insightful note. I think we're gonna call it to a close for today. Elliott, thanks so much for taking the time and telling you. Scot my pleasure. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex