John Hall

But I fall on the optimistic side because I believe when it comes down to it, people, when they understand the stakes, will do the right thing. And especially I believe that parents and grandparents will want to see their kids and grandkids have a livable world to grow up in and to maybe have kids themselves and grandkids themselves. And so that's that's kind of what's to stake in terms of the environment and climate change, which is uh,

maybe the most important thing in my opinion right now. Okay, speaking of climate change, when while we're doing this, it hasn't been that long ago that the U N released their Climate Report. It said we can never get back to where we once were, and we have to take action. Needless to say, there are people who believe this, and there are people who are dragging their feet. How will we literally make progress? Because if we wait long enough for everybody to wake up, might that be squandering too

many years? Well a lot of years have been squandered already. But I think that people are getting their own ox score. That's usually what happens with with anything political or terms of activists and community organizing whatever. I when I first got into politics, it was at the local level. My next do our neighbor started crushing a hundred junk cars on his lawn one Sunday summer morning when I was

having coffee and the windows were open. This is before you needed air conditioning in the Woodstock, New York area. Everybody just had their windows open and got screens and cross ventilation and that was cool enough. But but anyway, you know, when talked to my neighbor, and he was kind of upset that I had an opinion about what he was doing on his property, even though it was in violation of the state Junkyard ordinance. And so I organized a bunch of people to to stop it. And

you know, he had to comply with state law. And that was the beginning of by figuring out that I could exercise that that political muscle that starts out Really it's just a just an individual citizenship muscle, but it's kind of intoxica. And when you figure out you could actually change things in your neighborhood or in your town, and that, what's your appetite for trying to have more

effect on things you care about? So so I think people who are being flooded, people are having their houses burned and losing their life savings that was in their property. People who are look and at you know, hurricanes, and I mean the heat waves that are going on right now, the deaths. UH. Heat is one of the most deadly

UH kinds of extreme weather. I think more people die from extreme heat than any other women weather phenomena already and right now from the northwest United States and British Columbia to New England, across the entire top tier of the States. It's a top tier of the states. It's a heat wave. And you know, not only is UH

is Turkey and our Turkey and Greece burning. Siberia and Russia has UH more acreage burning right now than all the other fires in the world combined, including California and Oregon in Washington, and it's just it's Odd's starting to get obvious even to people who weren't thinking about it. Okay, what do you believe the steps and in what order

we should take to ameliorate this problem. Well, you know, we need to make a transition off of fossil fuels to renewable energy and to storage, but even more so to conservation. Any kill a lot that you save is cheaper and has less environmental impact environmental impact than a new one that you that you generate, whether you're generating with with solar or wind, or or coal or oil, it's it's still it's faster and cheaper and less environmentally

impactful to not use that in the first place. So I'm trying to really make an effort to, like, when I leave home, have everything on a power strip and turn it off so my electronics don't stay on when I'm out of the house or when I'm gone for

the weekend or on the road or whatever. You uh driving the most efficient car that I can drive that meets my needs, and I'm trying to you keep the air conditioning a little warmer in the summer and the heat a little bit cooler in the winter, so that I use personally, I use less energy, and I'm leading eating a lot less meat than I used to because the rainforest in Brazil is being cut down for for grazing cattle for meat for McDonald's and other fast food

restaurants and stores and so on, And so you can vote with your dollars. And that's what way I think about it for things that have less of a carbon emission footprint. Okay, what kind of car do you drive. I'm driving a Honda plug in hybrid, a Clarity plug in gets forty eight miles on all battery. So when I'm driving around town, you know, I can go to the bank, the post office, the supermarket, go to the other side of town, visit, you know, visit friends, come back.

You know. I basically don't use any gastling. I plug it in overnight and it charges up, and when I go out of town I use gastling on the highway and even then it gets forty two miles per gallon. As a hybrid, This car, you know, it was I wouldn't recommend this for anybody in terms of financing. It went up in forty. I think it forty three grant.

I mean, I'm not saying this that brag or whatever about it's just that, what, it's not that much more expensive that a lot of other vehicles nowadays, especially when you consider how much less gasoline you have to buy. Okay, let's talk about finances just for seconds. Since you bring that up. A who owns your publishing catalog? Most of it is UM Well, Johannah, my first wife and co writer,

and I own half of it. UM. The publishing that what they split it in the business center, the writer's share, which is on the publishing share, which is we've had a co publishing deal with Sony was e M I before they were bought by Sony. Every every corporation gets conglomerated and you know, acquired by another one sooner or later.

Same thing in the music business. But but so you know, Sony owns a big good chunk of it, and Johannah know, and the rest of our of our best known songs, and then there are some songs before that that I owned by a different publisher. I want to mention that I never see statements on or you know, uh not not a penny from and then there's some newer songs that I wrote that I still owned the writing and

the publishing on myself. So that's complicated answer. But yeah, but since some of these songs are of a certain age that the reversion rights, have you gotten the total right back? I know trid run when he gets it back and then sells it back. But have you hit the reversion point and tried to get the full rights back? I believe that we felt in between. We didn't. We weren't aware of that and weren't hit to it soon enough to do something about it, given the years that

these songs were written and copyrighted. So uh no, we haven't gotten it back. But I can't complain. You know, I've had a career of writing songs and playing music and and that's really all I ever won, Okay? Is I mean there are people who have only written one hit song who can live off that money for the rest of their lives. Still the one is ubiquitous, and of course dance with me and some of these other Orleans songs, some of which you wrote, some of which

you didn't. Is there enough money to earn a living just from the songwriting? Yeah? I think so. Okay, yeah, I mean Johanna. The first song we ever wrote was called half Moon. We wrote it for Janis jopl She asked us to write it for her. And that's a long story which I don't know if you want to hear it, but I definitely want to hear it. Tell

it well. Johanna was a journalist for the Village Voice before we met and got married and started working together, and she wrote a good review of Janice's Cosmic Blues album, the first record after she left Big Brother in the Holding Company. Most of the critics thought that she had ended her brothers in the commune and she should go

back to San Francisco and be with Big Brothren. And Johanna was one of a few writers who said, this is a great album, and it's it's easy to see why she wanted to move on and have horns in the band and have a different level of musicianship and and production and so on. So so Janice asked for an interview with Johanna, and the publicists set it up

and and she left. Johannah left to go take a bus across town from our place on the Lower East Side to a uh to a Greek restaurant on the west side of Manhattan, and and I was sitting home playing the guitar. And an hour or two later, the door opened and came Johannah with Janis Joplin behind her, and she was already a big star. I the first thing I thought was, I wish I had changed the cat box. But uh, but you know, I I played her some songs. We sat around. It was before Christmas.

We and blues versions of a Little Town of Bethlehem and other Christmas carols and and we're just having fun. And I played a couple of songs that I had written. The music and the lyrics were and she said, I like the music, but the lyrics sound like a young man wrote him. And I said, well, that's me. I was twenty two at the time, I think. And she said to Johanna, you're a woman, you're a writer. Why don't you to write me a song? And so we

wrote this song, half Moon. Johanna gave me the lyric on the back of an envelope, which is something she's prone to doing. Happened was still the one too, but but anyway, it's, uh, you know, it's a good poetic, image laden lyric. And I had a guitar leak that came off of a song I wrote for an off Broadway show that ran in Philadelphia for previews and never

made it to New York. And and so I lifted the guitar leak from that and built the song around it, and half Moon was you know, Janice loved it, rehearsed it with their band, did it on the Pearl album. It was the B side of me and Bobby McGee, and then it was recorded by the Fifth Dimension at Chaka Khan and James Brown did an organistrumental version of it and so on. And that song maybe, you know, could have supported us. I mean it did for years

because that was the first hit we had. So it's a you know, We've been fortunate to have hits by Millie Jackson and The Times and and you know, various other artists as well as as by Rolans. So you know, writing has really been my job for a long time. Okay, prior to Janna's Joblin's uh saying that Johanna should write, did she write? Did you write songs together? It was that the advent of that. That was the first one.

Johanna says. It's like bowling a strike your first time out, and then you have to roll gutter balls while you figure out how to get the ball back up on the on the alley and in the strike zone. And we wrote some lousy songs after that, because you know, it was luck of the draw. But we've gotten a lot better at it. Now. We basically don't finish the song if it's not that good, So you still write songs together. We just wrote a song together for this record. Actually, now,

more than ever, I'm reclaiming my time. This is the first song that Joanne I've written together in a couple of decades. Uh, after we divorced. It was a little difficult. It's just a very intimate thing writing songs with somebody, especially if you do it a lot. It's uh there's a lot of talk and a lot of soul bearing that goes into getting to a place where you can write a soul bearing song. And that's what I'm interested in.

I was a fan of Jackson Browns and and uh Tony Mitchell's and you know, as well as the Beatles and all the Motown people and Beach Boys and so on and so forth. But the songs that really moved me are the ones where somebody talks about what's what they're really feeling. So that's kind of something that you know, when you work with another writer, you you bear your soul a little bit. So how do you get yourself

into that place? I guess trying to be self aware and trying to write with people that make you comfortable enough that you don't have to say this is embarrassing, but what do you think of this? Or this is really stupid. But here's a direction. I mean, a lot of times one has to start with something pretty common

to write a song and then substitute. It's kind of like chord substitutions and music musicians, jazz musicians especially like to play a blues and then substitute for each chord, they'll substitute a whole bunch of other chords that resolved at that chord. Uh. Chord substitutions is a big thing.

And lyrics you can substitute too. I think the most famous one that that I heard of anyways, Paul McCarty said, when he was writing yesterday, the dummy lyric was scrambled eggs today for breakfast, I had scramble then, you know, and he had the verse and the melody written out with that as a placehole there, and then he substituted lyrics until he got the song yesterday. And uh, and so you know, you have to be able to do that. And sometimes when you're writing with someone else, you have

people say this isn't it? But how about this for a starting point? You know? And uh, you know, it's a it's an interesting process. I do write. A couple of songs on my new record are written just by me, and a lot of them basically all the rest of them our collaborations with various people. So which do you prefer? What do you think gives you a better result? It depends on the song. Um, I like writing with other people. But I wrote the song Saved the Monarch on this

record myself, by myself. And I also wrote the song Welcome Home to a veteran Vietnam veteran friend of mine. Um, that's the last song on the record, and I wrote that by myself. But everything else I collaborated with my best my best friend John Paul Daniel uh with a songwriter written with from what Sagritys area in New York. Ted Richards is not just an artist or a sculptor, you know, a poet, but he's a really good lyricist and uh and teach his creative writing at Barrard College.

And and I wrote the first track I think of you was Sharon Vaughan's a Hall of Fame songwriter. You know, I don't know sixty probably sixty I think number one country hits and a bunch of hoppits as well. You know, She's just somebody that I met, you know, asked faster should go out. Let's break it down. If you're gonna do collaboration, one, do you do it in the same room or you do it via email or other technical for doing in the same room. And most writers do.

But with Johannah we wrote now more than ever on this new record. We started out sitting at it Able together and writing, and we had both been really careful. Was right at the beginning of the lockdown from the pandemic, and or maybe it was like a week before we got to start on it. She had the idea of now more than ever, we've got to we've got to get together, and and then it just took on a whole thing about like we have to stand together during

this pandemic. We have to uh, we have to be able to unite enough uh and and communicate well enough to be and it's it's speaking as a couple to the song could be read as somebody talking to their significant other, you know, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, um. But it also could be read as h as people in society and a community, as different political parties talking

to each other, as different countries talking together. That's that's really what's going on now with the climate is you know, countries are gonna have to be able to talk to each other and and listen as well as talk. And Okay, let's go back to the process. If you're writing in the same room, you need to make an appointment to

do that writing alone. So that's two part question. When you write alone, are you waiting for inspiration or you say no, I'm sitting down at noon today and I'm not gonna get up until sixth I have something, or sit down at six and get up at ten or notever. But I don't know what your hours are. I do both.

I do both. I I have made and you know, frequently do make an appointment to right appointment, meaning like hey, John Paul let's uh, let's go for a walk this morning and then go sit with our guitars and see what happens. Uh. Sometimes it's a publisher making a day. You know. I've had dates that my publisher made with you know, with another writer from another publishing company or from their same publishing company. So but most of all,

it's it's people I know who I ask, uh. And in between, I'm always thinking about ideas and and and writing them down or recording, never speaking into a phone or some kind of digital device. I a chordal idea melodic idea, or a lyrical idea, so that the next time I do have an appointment with somebody, I can come in with a start on something. It's much more

fun writing with somebody who has that. So when I work with Sharon vonn Er, you know, or usually with John Paul or or you know, most of the writers that Steve Warner and I wrote. You know, we wrote a couple of songs together number one you Can Dream of Me back in the eighties, and a number of songs since then. And we wrote this song another Sunset together, and it's on this new record, Reclaiming My Time. And you know, I I had the idea for that chorus,

and I had a date to write with. See, we had made plans for me to come down to this house and and I showed up and I had that melodic idea and just the concept of it, and and then he was totally involved in um in a partner and the rest of the song. And okay, let's talk about the new album. What at this late date motivate you to make new music because generally speaking, there's not that much money in it. Well, I didn't start playing

music to make money. When I was twelve years old, I strapped down a guitar and said, in my room, you know, playing a lot. It was an electric guitar, stood up and looked in the mirror while I was playing it. And imagine that that weekend at the high school dance. That maybe you attract some some young ladies. But I'd love the creative process. And uh, and I love music. I started, you know, playing piano and a

score and it was entertainment to me. I just entertained myself by playing the Marines syn with both hands, and my parents sent me for piano lessons, and you know, I studied piano and French horn and taught myself guitar and bass and drums and and it's a you know, so today I write for the same reasons I right, because I love writing and because I love I love music and seeing an idea take shape and become a thing that is external for me that I can play

for people or record and sent to somebody. It's a or now it's post online. So that's the thrill in itself. If it makes money, great, Okay. There's a record company involved, Sunset Boulevard Records, which is not a major record company. How did it come to be that with them? Were you making something you placed it or they looked out? And who paid for the recording of the record? I paid for the recording of the record. Sunset bobar As the record that was founded by Glenfica, who's the manager

of the band or Leans. And in fact, the last Orleans album, doubled CD called No More Than You Can Handle is on his label, and you know, I've gotten to know him and trust him, and he spilt this label. Episode has a lot of the people we work with that we through concerts with, like Firefall Up, Peer, Prairie Ley, Um, Atlanta Rhythm Section, the babies. You know, these are all seventies early eighties and bands. They're kind of in his stable of of management artists and but he's also putting

their records out in US. Is licensing Masters by Fast Domino and by Elmore James, and by Willie Nelson. He just put on Willie Nelson and worked directly with William I mean it's it's it's becoming a label that is not just a vanity label and or a tiny Indian. It's becoming a pretty visible, respected Indian. I think he's doing a real good job. It's you know, I put

out and Orleans has put out self released records. I had a little record LI called Siren Songs Records that released a couple albums of mine, uh Love Doesn't Ask and Recovered, which was an acoustic album of me doing songs that other artists had had covered and I recovered them, uh and Uh. I also put out a couple of Joan l Mostar records on Siren Songs Records, And you know, they they sold a little bit, and they helped I think helped her and and her fans and my fans.

Bottom Uh. They never got really the exposure they would have had if they'd been with a label likes, said Boulevard. I've also been with you know, with Colombia and with Asylum Records is now part of the Warner Brothers Warner Music family. Uh. I've been with MGM Records, have been ABC Records. Uh. You know that all those companies had, especially at the time, they had a lot more money to throw behind and personnel throw behind promoting a record

than what we have now. But the world is different, and the business is different, and and also the listening process that people can find anything now. If you want to find the John Hall of Record in Orleans record, you can find it on YouTube or or Apple or Amazon or Spotify, all the different streamers. So it really is,

it's possible. So many young kids and young bands are doing this, making a record in the closet on a phone or on a laptop or iPad or something and putting it out and and getting almost the same sort of wide band distribute that that Big Are Seven and Big labels. Okay, so you recorded the new record, you've been working dates. How much of the new music do you play? Well, we're not doing any of my reclaiming my Time record yet because the shows that we do.

We usually well, first of all, we've had one rehearsal since the end of you know, since we started working in June after the pandemic let up a little bit. You know, already thought okay, now we're going to be back to business as usual, but unfortunately, thanks to delta variant, it's it's not yet. And but we do. We do shows that range from an hour to maybe an hour fifteen or twenty minutes. And we have a lot of songs we have to do that people know, or Leans

support if they want to hear. That takes time. So the one dance would be let to be music cap moon, Uh, you know various other songs said, there's a list of them and there, uh, there's a show that we've worked up that's pretty pretty high powered. Um, and we're working on a couple of my songs that any any day now, any concert now, we're gonna start doing a couple of them.

But you know, it takes The songs in this record are not and that as simple as as they might sound, at least not alone too long and well, the mean imagine there's a lot of acts, heritage acts as they would say, who uh, make new music and then they play the new music and the audience doesn't pay attention, which is difficult for the act. So that's why I'm bringing it up. Yeah, we do new something, newer songs.

We do a song called Beautiful World that fly and Marrow or the other guitar player and I and my partner Lance happened wrote together. And that song it's not as wasn't on any of our big records that came out in this Sunset Boulevard released uh double CD that came out a couple of years ago. But they loved that. You know, it goes over great. Uh. There's a song called no more Than You Can Handle? What's the title of that package and the song that Lance wrote with

his brother Larry Hoppin before Larry passed away. Unfortunately Larry was one of the original four members of the band died and and but this song has been out for a couple of years now and uh and Lance sings that and people love it and ask for when they come by the merchandise table of her signing autographs or whatever you they they said, which one is that song? And they want to buy that? And they want to buy a beautiful world, So it's a it's not a

total I guess you know. I heard Jackson Brown and James Taylor Chicago a couple of weeks ago, um or maybe it was just last week, and Jackson's got a new record out on Hill from Everywhere, and he did a few songs from that in the early part of his show, and the audience was, Yeah, I think they were happy at Jackson's audience loves him and he can kind of do whatever he wants. But I think they really wanted to hear the old, familiar songs, and he gave them to him, but not until after they listened

to some of the new stuff. And that's that's one way to do it. We kind of mixed them in throughout the show. Okay, let's go back to the beginning you were talking about. So you grew up where elmar in New York, Okay, and your parents did what for a living? My dad is a physicist electrical engineer PhD worked for Westinghouse, mainly on contexts for NASA and the Defense Department. He designed or led the design team that built the camera for the first Moon landing. When Neil

Armstrong walked on the Moon. They couldn't send somebody up there, Uh, to go down and you know, put the tripeout on the ground and then go back up the ladder again and say, now here comes the first man on the moon. So they had to ride on the strut of the lander, so it would already be down there when the armstrong came down the ladder, and it had to withstand the shock of the landing and the the heat of the blast off and the cold of the trip, and still

worked perfectly when somebody pushed her remote button. And so he but he also has his name on patents for lance at satellite cameras and and for a night vision devices and all kinds of imaging namely was his thing. My mom uh and masters in English and creative writing, and also later in divinity. She wanted all three of her sons to be priests. My dad wanted all three

of his sons to be scientists or mathematicians. My older brother was an actuary, my younger brother a priest, and I fell in the middle somewhere writing songs that people said were too preachy. Okay, so you talked about picking up an electric guitar, A how did you acquire that? Literally? And b what inspired you because this is pre beatles right. Well, first I picked up an acoustic it R my parents bought my brother, Jim. My older brother had UH nylon

straining classical guitar from Sears, Roebuck and Uh. And they asked if he wanted lessons and he said, no, I'll just give it to John. He'll figure it out. So I got to play his birthday guitar and Uh, that's funny. I just assumed they sent it to you tuned. It came in a cardboard box. We didn't have a case for it, and so I tuned each string to the note that it was closest to and made up a bunch of fingerings for that tuning. And for a couple of weeks, Jim went to the library and found out

what the real tuning and the guitar was. And I was crushed because none of my fingerings worked anymore. So I had to start over again with the correct tuning. But but you know, I've had enough piano and enough music theory at that point, you know, studying since I was five till I was twelve when this happened, so I knew what notes went together for record and I figured out how to finger them and and what it became an electric guitar. The same same thing worked. So

that was really how I started. My grandmother in Providence, my father's mother, had an old r C a radio, the kind of waste high one that's wood with the grill cloth and carvings on it, in a big fifteen inch speaker. It was wonderful thing. And and she had records. My dad had plugged in a hot wired in the turntable so they could play through that. And she had records by ched Atkins and by the Weavers with Pete Seeger, and so I heard Pete doing this Land as your

Land and little Boxes. And when I was five and I heard Jed Atkins doing glow Worm from that same age. And we went to her house on the way out to Vacation Island off the coast of Massachusetts, Cutey On Island, and uh so the night before in the night after we were on the island for a vacation, I would

always get to listen to these records. And by the time I was able to play guitar, I was able to sit in front of her her radio and turntable and and try to play along, and that's really learned, you know, acoustic guitar uh skills and electric guitar stills, you know from that. So chet Chet Atkins was listened to it by a lot of guitar players, including obviously George Harrison, and you know he influenced many and many other players. You know, when I heard Chuck Barry, I

could figure that out because I had listened to chet Atkins. Okay, so what inspired you get an electric pre Beatles? And once the pre beat Once the Beatles arrived in six four, hun, did that change your vision and playing? Well? Um, my little brother Jerry wanted the guitar, and when he had a birthday that is old enough, my parents gave him an electric guitar. It was also a Sears Ropebuck silver tone electric guitar um, which are actually valuable nowadays. They're

kind of rare. No, it's kind of funny, yeah, but but I borrowed it. It was kind of the same thing. He was always here, John, show me how to do this, and I, okay, did you have the did you have the one with the speaker and amplifier in the case. I didn't have that. You know, Springsteen had one of those, and I always wanted one. But but Brusa, Yeah, I've done a bunch of work with him, and and I

know other people who've had them too. But but but anyway, I was a high school dance was the occasion where you had to play electric guitar. You could sit around doing folk music with an acoustic guitar, and that's all well and good, but you want to play in the band with drums, it's electric guitar through some kind of amplifications. So so I started doing that and uh, you know, probably you know, fourteen fifteen years old in high school

when I first heard a bass guitar. I was playing in a school gymnasium in Olmar, New York, and some kid came up from Sarah, Pennsylvania, across the border and brought his Ampeg B fifteen and a Fender base, and I was like, wow, that's like the the earth is moving. The frequencies are so low. And you know, once you hear that, you never want to be in a band without a bass guitar again. And so that my horazons

horizons broadened. There wasn't a lot of adventurous music in Elmira, New York at the time, so I wound up hearing it. When I went to college, I went up hearing it and playing it there. And when I went to I dropped out of college after a year and a half. I went to Notre Dame University for a year South Bend, Indiana and played in every band I could get into.

A blue grass band, you know, football, pep band, uh, a couple of rock and roll bands, sanging into up you know group, a capella group, and and then went to Loyola for a semester in Baltimore, and and found out that a club called the Pepperint Lounge on M Street and Georgetown was having auditions for a house band, and got a band together, corrupting my big brother by

getting him to play bass in it. And uh and uh, you know, found another guitar player in the drummer audition and got the gig and dropped out of college to play the six nights a week in the club. And Georgetown at a time when Andy Lou Harris was you know, was playing at the Silver Dollar and knows often was playing in town Rugby Cannon was playing a place called the Silver not the Silver Dollar. The remember the name

of the h of the club he played. It was out of town a little bit in Bladensburg, Maryland, and and and so, you know, played in bands there. And then the guitar player was working with Eddie Spilios, and I hopped a Greyhound bust in New York and started playing at the Cafe One in Credits Village with a

couple other players. We picked up played UH. I was playing bass in that band, and there was some of the guitar player and a drummer was Norman Smart, who played with went on to be the drummer and UH Mountain with Leslie West, the original drummer from Mountain and UH playing a bunch of records by other people as well. Barbara Keith played acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar and sang and wrote some songs and and I wrote, you know, collaborating with with other people in the band and and by myself,

you know mainly. But we made an album for MGM Records to spand wound up being called Kangaroo and and made an album for for MGM, and we we had a tour quote unquote that consisted of playing at UH the Mjam Records convention in Las Vegas, uh and then at the Singer Bowl the World's Fairgrounds, opening to the doors and the Who and then going back to the Cafe Wall where we actually were alternating sets at the Cafe Well for quite a while with the various bands,

but the one that people by remembers the Castiles, which was Bruce Stings, Bruce Springsteen's span from New Jersey. It was underage club where that teeny boppers came in for Jersey and from Long Island and could listen to music all day for five bucks or whatever it was admissioned. Maybe it was less than that. Probably was. Each member of each band got six dollars a night and all the potato chips and ice cream they could eat there was.

There was no real food there and there was no alcohol obviously, so so you know, but it was for a guy that was you know, I was a team and I started playing there and it was I could actually live on six dollars a night as long as I found someplace to sleep a friend's couch or sometimes at rooftop or a park bench, you know. And and it's the glamorous side of the music business. But you know, it's a start, okay, going back. If you do your

Wikipedia page, it says you skip two grades. Is that true? Well, I skipped senior in high school. I took fourth and fifth grade in the same year. So yeah, okay, let's go back to your in New York. So you make the Stiff album with MGM. What do you say to yourself? I'm gonna be a performer, I'm gonna be a songwriter. I'm looking for another record deal. How does it play

out from there? Uh, Johanna and I met, Actually, we're introduced by Barbara Keith, uh singer and Crusi guitar player from from Kangaroo And Barbara and she had both worked at Women's Day mag is and and and at the Village Voice and knew each other from that. And they both wear leather miniskirts and had posters of Bob Dylan over their desks and and uh, you know, so they Johanna came to a show and Barbara introduced me to her, and we became friends, and I started, you know, asking

her out. We wound up becoming a couple and uh and living together in apartment on the Lower East Side where Jannis Joplin wound up eventually coming in and asking us to write a song. It was just the right place at the right time. Uh, serendipity, Uh, the higher power, you know it. So it wasn't It was a plan that I couldn't have made up. So okay, So how did it become more leans? It took a while. Johanna and I, you know, we're writing songs. I was playing

guitar with raious other people. I played on sessions in New York City. I was a hired gun for guys like Charlie Collelo who are producing lu Christie and Raus other artists I wand up playing on. Well, we moved to Woodstock. I was asked by John Simon, who I had worked with on a Sales and Crofts album that he was producing in Northern California while the Hyder's studio. Uh, I played. You wind up playing on a couple of a couple of sessions in l A. I made it.

I made a solo record for Columbia after after Kangaroo called action. Harvey Brooks who played with the Electric Flag and played bass on Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album, and you know he worked with Paul Butterfield, less of other great It was the basis on Supersession too. That's correct. Harvey's, you know, very influential and well known great bass players.

So uh. He had been hired by Clive Davis to be a A and R production guy at Columbia Records, and he was looking for people to sign and my manager at the time told me to go Sam and I did and play some songs for Harvey, and he signed me and we wound up going to l A and making part of the record there and making part of it in northern California. And and the drummer on a good part of their record was Wells Kelly, who

went on to be the first drummer in Orleans. Uh. He went to California with us and we were playing gigs out there. Wells asked his astrologer what he should do, and as a strologers said go east. So he quit the band and went to France and played in the band called King Harvest there with his brother, Sherman Kelly, who had written the song Dancing in the Moonlight, which

became a hit for the band King Harvest. Uh. We got another guy, Greg Thomas, playing drums and went on to play in Tash my husband with me and John Simon. Simon had done some work with j and while we were in Northern California, I played on the Seals and Crofts Down Home, Down Home album, their second album that

John Simon produced. So he came back from all that stuff too, New York and John Simon lived in Woodstock, and he asked me and Johannah to come up and stay at his house because he was putting together a

band to play and record at Bearsville Studios. Albert Grossman and the manager who who managed Butterfield the band, Bob Dylan, Dejanis, Joplin, uh Todd Rundgren, Peter Paul and Mary et cetera built this studio, Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, and he needed a band to go in there as guinea pigs so they could test everything out and make sure it all work. They can't charge two or fifty bucks an hour or whatever it was for people to come in

and book a recording session. If the headphones are going to feedback, or you plug the bass drumm into track one, it comes out of track, it has to be somebody has to be the guinea pigs. So John Simon Harvey Brooks, Greg Thomas, the drummer, Paul Harris is wonderful Oregon and keyboard player, and I were the guinea Pigs and we recorded while we're there, recorded a version of Dancy in the Moonlight as a John Hall record that was never released. Uh,

you know, was in the can. I some day I have to get it out and listen to it see see how it is, because at this point, lots of people have done that song, Hooty and the Blowfish and King Harvest. Obviously Orleans did a version of That's the title track of one of our CDs, and so but this was all the process of learning how to be in the studio, learning what you can do in the studio.

It started out with Kangaroo, which was really education and recording, and then my record, the Action Album was another one. I think of it now. I mean John Simon played on that. John Sebastin played harmonica on it, and guitar and and uh, Richard Green, the fiddle player from Sea Train played on it. As you know, a lot of a lot of pretty wonderful musicians are on that record.

And but it was really not until I got into Barsbal Studios with John Simon that I started to really understand what the studio can do as a tool for musicians and for songwriters and producers. And and uh, while we were there, our apartment on the Lowery sykept broken into, and Johanna and I wound up uh driving back down to the city, loading everything into a car that we cared about from our apartment and driving back up north to Woodstock and taking the first rental we could find.

And we lived in Woodstock in rentals for a couple of different places and like a year and a half. And then when Janesis version of Half Moon came out, unfortunately it was posthumous. She had died before the record was released, which is in addition to her popularity was somebody dies. And then that first postumus record comes out of Races to the Top, and we got a first royalty checked from Half Moon, and we bought a house to Socrates and she's still living there today and we

lived there together for almost thirty years. So how do you feel when the Columbia album is not successful? Uh? Well, I was not happy, but you know, I still um it was under contract to them, and and we had an idea about you know, forming a band. I've done this record as a John Hall record, but we cut a bunch of other things with Paul Harrison uh Wells and then Greg Thomas on drums and and with Harvard Brooks on base. We're gonna try to be a band.

And the best name we came up with was thunder Frog, and Columbia didn't care for that idea, so you know, wound up not being signed to them anymore. And and but there's always another song, there's always another gig, there's always hopefully another band to put together. And I want on tour with Taj Mahal, playing all around the country three month on three month long tour. And Uh. After that we recorded a double live album that was Fillmore

East and Fillmore West called The Real Thing. Uh. The guy promoted the original Woodspot Fest, but one of the three promoters at the Woodstock Festival, Michael Lang, had a little record labelist starting called Just Sunshine, and he asked me if I would play on a record vice Karen Dalton, a singer he was it signed to his label. A wonderful combination of sort of jazz Billy Holliday kind of jazz and folk music, contemporary ones and a friend of his and Tim Harden's, and you know, she was a

very quirky, unique singer. I played on her record and then I was asked to go to Europe on tour with her, and so I did. And we had a band with Bill Keith, famous banjo and steel player who unfortunately passed away a year or so ago, he said, ah, but known by every banjo player in the world and played with Ian and Sylvia banjo and Steele guitar with them. And and uh so Bill was playing in that band, and um Denny Sywell, who wanted to play drums with

McCartney and Wings, was playing drums in that band. And we opened to Santana all over the continent. Um, and we're supposed to play in England and after we did the European continent. Uh. Karen never got a soundtrack, although she was told she was going to. And when we played Montro, Switzerland, she refused to go on. It was at the twelfth time in a row, I think, with no sound check, and she just got mad and walked out and took off down the street and didn't come back.

And the promoter came backstage and said Santana's not ready yet. There's a big crowd here. Somebody's got to do a show. And I said, well, I'll do it. And I wanted to play. I would actually like music enough. I wanted to get on stage and play something. And so we

got out there. I was playing my stratocaster through a little Princeton Appen through Santana's big sound system, and Bill Keith, the steel player and get You Eventual Player, played bass, and Danny Hankin, a friend of Karen's, was playing acoustic rhythm, played rhythm, and we did Jimmy Reid songs and and Marvin Gay songs, and we did a Ray Child's song, it feels so good. It feels like a ball game on a rainy day. You know, I feel feel so bad. I feels like a ball game on a rainy day.

And uh. And then we finished with Doom Bargard that joint my friend, which they all knew. The audience knew it from Easy Rider. I didn't realize that. So we finished and I waved goodbye and went down to the dressing room and the promoter came. I said, you have to do an encore and went upstairs and people were stamping and holding up lighters and and I went, wow,

you know it's amazing. I just thought I was going to get away with it, with killing it, you know, forty minutes of time so that Fantana could be ready. But so we did another Jimmy Reids song for an encore and and then what you know went off and Karen got kicked off the tour because no headliner once

an opening act, you won't go on. And uh so I was flying home after that show, and uh and thinking on the plane, I should start a band and do our own sign and Johannah had written so many songs at that point, we had plenty of songs to do.

And uh so I started playing with the different combinations of of musicians in Woodstock and that was the one and U in December seventy when Wells Kelly joined and he came back from King Harvest in Europe, and I been playing with Howie Wyath on drums, and a guy in Buffalo Gelbert Bill nickname was Buffalo Bill Gelbert playing bass, and how we quit, uh and and Buffalo quit for different reasons. And it was me and Wells in our

basement Johanna's my basement and Socrit. He's looking at each other going now what um, and and Well said, uh, I know this guy in Ithaca named Larry Happen. He plays anything, plays guitar, plays keeper, it plays bass, Lay was trumpet, can sing great, And I said, well, why don't you call him? So? So he called Larry, and Larry came down and the three of us made our first did our first performance, our first show as Orleans in January of nine. We shall be fifty years this January,

and why we're leads. We were playing a lot of we didn't have quite enough original songs to do all originals. We would have to do two shows or maybe three touch shows sometimes at clubs to keep people dancing to drink enough that the club owner would be happy and invite his back. And uh, so we were doing covers of R and B songs and reggae songs, and we were doing a lot of New Orleans uh influenced music, a lot of Neville's, Neville Brothers, meters al to st stuff.

And so you know, every band I think sits around and tries to think of names, and um, usually two people hate it and one guy likes it. And so one night, Well said We had a gig that weekend in Oswego, New York, and he said, how about Orleans. We went, okay, we'll use that. So we went up there. We had a really good gig. In fact, our last show, I met somebody who was there at that gig who's on the radio now in Pittsburgh. We were playing in

kitt and in Pennsylvania outside just east of Pittsburgh. But I was at that show in us we Goo where he was going to college, and and uh. For the next few weeks, we kept saying, we're gonna we better change the name if we're going to change it, and and but that guy in us Weego wanted to hire us back, and he had to use Orleans again or people wouldn't know who to come see, you know, And so we did and it wound up taking on the meaning that you know, that became Orleans identity. It's a

you know, it's fine. There was a fad for a while of naming bands after cities like Chicago or after states, you know, Boston and uh, uh, Alabama, Uh, and then it was Continents and uh. So it's funny. I always thought maybe it was Orleans from Cape Cod that on Cape cod That was a lot of a lot of states have in Orleans, just like every state seems to have a woodstock in it. It's just people aren't very original naming towns. Okay, so played out to getting a

record deal with Orleans. Well, we played as a trio

for nine months. Lance Hopping, Larry's younger brother, graduated from high school on Long Island, and the Hopping brothers grew up and their sister also Linda, grew up with parents who were both musicians who had met on a gig and they both taught music, so they all had this incredible knowledge and proficiency and various instruments and and Lance, after nine months of our being a trio came up an auditioned in September seventy two, Uh in Johannes Semi

basement on Base and he played bass really well and sang harmony great, and Uh and Larry got along great because they were brothers. And we just became a quartet like that, and then became a quintet for the fourth album, The Waking and Dreaming out with with Jerry Moratta playing drums, and then you know, went back to quartet after that.

Um and then I left and went solo for a couple of records and John Hall Band for a couple of records, and and the band continued without me and and had another top ten hit with Love Takes Time, which Larry wrote with his wife at the time, Maryland. And so you know, we just we got back together after Wells passed away. I'm really sorry. We all were incredibly sorry. Wells was probably the guy in the band I was closest to in the beginning, and like a

brother to me. I used to say, at his parents house, you know, and and with his brothers and his sister when we played in Ithaca, New York, which was in the beginning, was like once a month we played in Ithaca. We're working New York State and New England. You know. Uh,

in the beginning, we're kind of a regional band. And so Wells passed away in and I uh saying at his memorial with with Larry and Lanson was the first time we had gotten on stage and sung together and in a few years, and we went, wow, that sound, you know it was it took I guess it's a well Stein for us to say, you know, there's something here we should really be doing together, and we were

all too big for that band. It was too big for our bridges and we needed a but we needed a therapist more than a manager, you know, we needed somebody to say, you guys are nuts. You know, you've pushed this rock up the hill and gotten a rolling down the hill to the point where you've got a couple of Time Top ten records in a row and albums that are selling well. You're on the same label with the Eagles and Jackson Brown and Joni Mitchell. What

the hell do you think you're doing? But you know, a lot of bands break up because the personnel, you know, tricks and stuff like that, and then some of them get back together. We're the one of the ones that did. Okay, how do you get the deal with ABC? And how do you go from ABC to Asylum? We got that deal with ABC by auditioning or playing showcases at clubs in New York. We we played first of all at

a place called the Mercer Arts Center. Uh. We actually around a double bill there with Manhattan Transfer and they had no no deal before that, and needed did we. But they were signed and we got signed by ABC coming out of that showcase and shortly after that the building fell down, and we'd like to say we brought the house down right. Also, that's where the New York Dolls started too, they did. It was for a brief time.

It was a very hot place for bands to be discovered. Uh. And then we were actually originally wooed by Cashman and West, who had uh, Tommy West and Paul was a all cash Yeah, I think that's right. So anyway, we wound up deciding we wanted Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins to produce us for ABC drummer and piano player from the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, and we wound up going down to Muscle Shoals and making that first or Leans album

there with Barry and Roger producing. And we had been big fans of their work with the Staples singers and with Wilson Pickett and with you know, a lot of the R and B stuff we were doing wound up being things that they had played on, so uh, they weren't used to not playing on records. They sat in the Barry and Rogers sat in the control room, and we were all a little nervous. Well, Skelly, I think that our drummer was especially nervous because he was such

a fan of Rogers playing. But you know, a lot of people, a lot of our hardcore longtime fans still think that first or Leans album was our best record ever. So they ended up doing a good job even though they weren't playing in your Oh yeah, you know, they know what they're doing, M and H. And we played well enough that that the record worked and they were happy with it. And but you know, ABC put it out and had we kind of a regional hit in the Northeast with it, and it did well in the

Netherlands and battle luxe countries. But um, but they decided with our second album that we released. We recorded for self produced our second album at Bear's Ball Studios in Woodstock, Uh, where I had learned a lot about recording and so uh and that's that record had the song let there Be Music on it and the song danced with me on it in an earlier version. But ABC heard and said we don't hear a hit, and they dropped us.

And we did another showcase after that and in New York at Maxis Kansas City, and there were a couple of a and our people, Mary Martin from Warner Brothers and Chuck clock In from Asylum Records who heard us there, and there was a little bit of a I don't know it was a bidding work, but there was a competition between Warners and and Asylum, which was an indie label at the time, and and we decided to go

with Chuck clock In an Asylum. And we're glad we did because Chuck is the first producer I've ever worked with, and I think for Larry and Lance and Wells was the same thing. Who could really tell us something that we didn't want to hear and and impress us or be knowledgeable enough and able to explain himself enough that we would listen. And and that's invaluable to a developing artist. Do you remember something you might have said that you

didn't want to hear? The song give One Heart, which was on our third album, let the music album The One Would Answer Great cover by Linda Ronstad. Linda recorded it after she heard it on that record, But Johanna and I had written a song that had a whole bridge the song that's not in that record. And you know, Chuck came to us and said, this is a wonderful song, but the bridge belongs to another song, just get rid

of it. And the b section to the verse should be the course, and then the course should be the bridge. So the b section was that was to give one high get back to you. That's the paradox of fin and Chuck said, make that the course, which of course it is, and it should have been all along and I can't stop saying it. I love you used to be the carse when we first wrote it. He said, that's got to be the bridge, and that's what we recorded, and that's what Linda Ross that fell in love with

she recorded it. So you know, Chuck actually was able to listen with objectivity to things that we were too close to and couldn't see it for us. For the trees. Okay, So how does still the One come together? And what's going through your mind when it becomes such an uber success. Well, it came together because Chuck did the same thing with that.

I mean, h Johanna write the lyric Friends of Ours used to live downstairs in the village from us was getting divorced from her husband and asked her had to write a song about people saying together because there's so many songs about people breaking up, and Johanna wrote that lyric and handed it to me on the back of an envelope. I wrote the music to it in about fifteen minutes. And and while we were cutting it, none of us knew how important it was going to be

to us. We were actually thinking and the label was thinking, maybe spring Fever will be the first single, or maybe you know, uh, some other songs say. There were various tunes that were in the running. Check knew that was going to be it, and he said, we cut it three times, the first time with Wells playing Uh. I think we cut the first time with Wells and Jerry

both playing drum kits. We were performing at the time with Jerey m Rad and Wells s Kelly of playing double drums on a lot of stuff and then sometimes one would play percussion and the other would play drums. So first it was two drummers. It didn't work. Then we cut it. Chuck said, you gotta cut it with,

you know, with one drummer and percussion. So we tried it with Welles playing drums and he was playing a shuffle like the old fashioned kind of that that that that that on the high at shuffle and UH and we were both times We're like, Okay, there's a good drag, and Chuck went, Nope, that's not a good track. That's not it, and he asked everybody to leave and go out for lunch except me and Jerry Morada and and Chuck and Jerry and I took it apart with the

beat apart. And Chuck's the kind of guy who was a man in the street listener, and he would drum on his knees. You could tell that he was into it and the music was making him happy as he was drumming it on his knees while we're playing. But we get we started to instill the one with the other two things that he stopped drumming on his knees and held like what just happened? And so so he was going, you just gotta have this doom to you know,

none of this that that that that that shuffle. So so we developed this thing where Jerry's playing straight eight beats on the high head and backbeat on the snare drum and the bass drums going boom baboom boong baboon, boom boom boom baboon. Just it's like a drum machine and Jerry was one of the guys who has worked with Peter Gabriel shows it. You know, before there was a drum machine. Jerry could play like a drum machine. He didn't feel that he had to do fills or

that he had to play something fancy. Was just like slugging it out, you know. And still the one is that the drum part is that. And then I had the idea of playing the upbeat piano. I've done that on a demo of the song, so it's think too but that but that that on the vendor Rhodes and and the guitar was doing Chuck Parry. It just came together like a machine and everybody else came back from lunch and Jerry played the drums and Wells played tamburin on it, and that was the third time and the

version that's on the record. But it's amazing things that can happen in the course of recording a song that most people would never If you weren't there, you wouldn't know what a journey was. That it was a dropout on Larry's lead vocal on that song. We had the whole thing done. We triple track the backup vocals we had done the double league guitar. First I played the melody on the lead, and then Larry harmonized with it, and and and we get to the end, and we're

almost ready to mix. And we've been told the songs too long. It needs to be under four minutes, need to be three and a half minutes for AM radio something somewhere around there. This was back when AM radio was so and so Uh. Val Garande was engineering UH and mixing the record, and we put it on the two inch tape, and he got the spicing tape out. We said, this first course of the fade, we take that out because we've got to make the whole thing shorter and still get to the ending. And so so

Val cuts the chorus out. He's got the tape hanging around his neck. He puts the butt ends of the two inch tape together in the spicy block, takes a piece of splicing tape, tamps it down, and UH takes it back up and rolls it back on the reel and then hits play and it goes over the head. And when Larry's seeing in the end of the bridge. Uh. Even though we grow old, it grows new. Use still the one it goes the ill, the one like Buddy Holly. There's a hiccup in it, and we're going to know

what happened. And Val pulls out the spice and looks at it, you know, in the light, and says, a little piece of ox eyde came off it. We just run it back and forth over the house so many times that is coming apart. We better mix this thing before the whole thing falls apart. And we wait, wait, can't we find that isn't on the floor. And because it's a shag rug, that's a little piece of oxide from the tape, no one will ever hear it. And

we're going, you're kidding. I mean, we all heard him saying still a little one and instead of still, it has the little Buddy Alley thing in it. Nobody has ever mentioned it to me after all these years I heard it. I thought it was it was intentional. Everybody thought it was intentional, you know, I mean I I even did at Facebook contest back a few years ago, and I said, you know, the first person can tell me where the dropout is in Larry's vocal gets a

free pair of tickets to this show. And people guessed everywhere else in the song, but that, you know, and it's just amazing how close you can get to a project that you don't see the big picture. And al Garay was absolutely. I mean, val actually did one mix

of it. And this is before automation. We had you know, Valve was working the lead vocal and the guitars, and I had the tom Tom said, Larry at the backup vocus was behind the console reaching over from the back of the council riding the backup vocals, and you know, everybody had something and we rehearsed it and then we rolled it. And before it even rolled back on the two the two track tapes that we could hear the mix valid his code on and his girlfriend was the door,

and he said, we're going to lunch. I'll see and we'll do the next song in an hour or two and we're going feil that might not be it. Well, you gotta stay here, you know, we're paying you a lot of money to mix this stuff. And he said, my hands were shaken. That was it, and he left, And that's the record. I mean, it's just you know, sometimes you need a professional better at some things than you are to come in and do them, and we just had been you know, we had been running our

own ship for a little too long. Okay, then it becomes a gigantic kit. What's it like riding a gigantic kit and then trying to follow it up? Well, uh, you know the thing is that we the songs on that record, we're you know, we're already recorded. The follow up had to be on the record, and the single that followed it was it was reached and uh, you know, perhaps what we should have done was wait until the until the spring and put out spring Fever or the

lake winter put out spring Fever. You knows, hindsight will will never know what might have happened. But reached it pretty well. It's a top forty record that got into you know, the upper reach of the church in the southeast was. It was a big hit Florida, the Carolina's Virginia, you know, but not as big a national hit as as still the one. And then we did a lot of touring. We went on tour with Jackson Brown and

it was the running on empty tour of Jackson's. We opened to him all over the country three months tour and uh, it was a great package. Uh and great exposure for us. But you know, and then another year of touring after that, before we were getting ready to go in the studio, and some stuff happened between us on the road in the band that that convinced me a combination of things starting to be competition for getting

songs on the album. And you know, when Johanna and I've been making money from writing songs for years, so it was it was not unusual for us to make a living from writing songs. But when still the one came out, well to ask with me first on the third album, and then stroll the one on our fourth album, and uh and Johanna and I were making more money, you know, geometrically, more money from from those songs as writers, in addition to whatever artist royalties were going to come.

And there were wives and girlfriends on the bus who would actually kind of egg the men on, the male members of the band on and there were a lot of yokos in the band at that point. But I wound up deciding I wanted to make a record of

my solo records so that I could put Johanna. I had more songs than we could possibly put on a single record anyway, and on an album anyway, And and the discussion about what songs really should be on our next record was taking a turn that in my opinion and Chuck Platkin's opinion also didn't necessarily have to do with what's the best song. Uh, but you know that's a matter of opinion. It's always subjective. How did No Nukes come together? And how hard was it to pull together? Well?

I made the first sol my first solo record for Asylum. I was still under contract to them, you know when you talk about when I was talking about actually needing a therapist instead of a manager or a record label or a producer, I mean the Asylum Records. When I told him that I was gonna quit Orleans and go solo, they went great. Now we've got two bands instead of one, you know, two acts. And you know they should have said wait a second, you know. But anyway, so I

made a record for them. It was just called John Holland, Uh, Steve god Wilton, Wilton Felder, Joe Sample, Dave Sandborn, Michael Brucker, you know playing on it. All kinds of wonderful musicians contributing, and and then I could have made another record for them, I was signed for another Asylum album. But Cavallo and Ruffalo, who managed me and Orleans, we're saying uh uh. They also, by the way, said great now we've got two bands instead of but but they were saying, you know, we

got earth Wind and Fires new label. This juryed by Columbia. It's called a r C American Recording company. Uh. And they talked me to leaving Asylum and making a record for a r C UM. There was a picture in billboard of me and Maurice White from Earthmen and Fire with the signing White inks Hall was the caption, you know, signing the contract with with a ARC to make a

record for them through Columbia. And that record was called Power and the song Power was the title track obviously, and the song Plutoniums whoever was on there also both written about nuclear power and about various kinds of pollution,

especially radioactive pollution, and there are plenty of others. The song called Cocaine Drain, which was about a couple of friends of mine and later became that guy who were was doing too many chemicals, too many street drugs too to be able to function very well at that point. And I, you know, was playing rack up all everybody, and I was in the straight and narrow. But but that's another long story. Um. So the Power album comes out, and I'd already been doing I've been gotten involved with

uh the anti nuclear movement. When the New York State Power Authority decides to build a nuclear station UH about UH six miles north of where Johanna and our daughter Sophie and I were sleeping, and I decided I didn't want it as a neighbor, and I went to hearings and you know, wound up getting the impression that they were that they were going to put it in by hell or high water, and they had to be stopped.

And so I I UH started organizing people, and you know the same kind of community organizing thing as the Junkyards wound up joining and or helping to start a group called Mid Hudson Nuclear Opponents and doing fundraisers for them. H. Bonnie Ray came up and did a fundraiser with me for that and UH in Pockepsie, New York at the Theater and and we wound up doing a show in Manhattan, Jackson Brown and James Taylor and I think Kylie Simon

was there. And Jesse Colin Young and it was a benefit for the Karen Silkwood Fund and a lot of people No Karen or you certainly learned about it from the movie Silk Would And uh So my album Power was getting ready to come out, and I was singing Power had some Power at the Seprit Nuclear Reactor big demonstration to the clamshow. Alliance organized their twenty five thousand people, you know, state troopers and guard drugs on the other

side of the fence and helicopters buzzing overhead. It was me and Pete Seeger and Jackson Brown with Pete's singing you know his songs and and this Land is Your Land whatever else he was doing in Jackson singing before the Luchon and me singing Power. We sang that the debut in public of the song Power was Pete and Me and Jackson singing the Course because there were no verses yet. This was before I recorded it and before

Johanna and I finished a verse to that song. So so the Power album came out two weeks before Three Mile Island happened in March of nine, and uh and it went up the charts and every radio station was playing this song power coming out of the news about the partial meltdown in Pennsylvania at three Mile Ound and and so we were doing this fundraiser for the Karen Silquin funded Afterwards there was the Palladium in New York where backstage afterwards and everybody's going to what do we

do now? And I said, let's just call everybody we know it go to the Medicine Square Garden, you know. And it's like, I know how we'll save the school. We'll put on a show. And so we did. And it started out as one night at the garden, went up being five, you know, wound up being a record in a Warner Brothers movie and having a ton of incredible musicians, you know, many of them I didn't know before we worked together on that Jackson and Bonnie I did.

And but that's basically how it started. And you know, I I brought in a couple of people who everybody was assigned to ask certain people, and you know, I I asked Chaka Khan and and Ray Parker and Radio who were on the record, who were managed by my manager's Coval and Muffalo and and also uh Peter tosh Uh you know, Jackson as Springsteen and Tom Petty and uh, you know, Bonnie was asking different people and James was asking different people, and it was just we all just

pulled together and the words started to get around and wound up becoming crowsby Sils and Nash and the Dubie Brothers, and uh, you know, it was we had people dropping in even without being announced, like like you know, Paul Simon getting up and doing meal and Julio you know, unannounced with just him and an electric guitar and twenty people singing along, and and it's just took on a life of its own, and it's it's something that, uh, some people say it was sort of the beginning or

one of the first of the sort of giant benefits for a cause. Um so. And also you know it was it was it raised enough money actually for over a million dollars was given away in grants. Bonnie and I were the only two musicians said on the foundation board as well as the production board of MUSE Musicians United for Safe Energy, and and I went up reading hundreds of grant proposals and voting on who to give that million dollars away too, and grants that range from

a thousand bucks to maybe ten bucks. UH, local and regional groups that we're working on education about renewable energy and UH efficiency and the drawbacks of power that was generated by splitting the atom and creating radioactive waste. And so it's a it was successful on that point of view. Um, I'm proud today the fact that the song power has give me the warm power of the sun, restless power of the wind, and you know a lot of renewables

mentioned in it. UH. But it's a shame that it's taken this long for us to get as aware of the of the limitless potential of solar and wind and the other renewable sources of energy as it has. So how do you end up getting into skiing and being a ski instructor? I'm a very avid skier. I followed this.

I want to know the story from the source. I Well, my daughter Sophie was six or seven years old, I think always seven, and her school group was gonna she went to a a little the Woodstock children sent a little private grade school in Woodstock, and they were sending a group to to Cortina Valley, which is right near a hundred mountain. Little feeder area learner area and uh,

but they said they needed chaperones. And Sophie came home from school saying, Dad, if you go as a chaperone, I'll go otherwise I don't know, you know, And I said I can't deprive her. I had one experienced scheme when I was playing with Taj. We played it some college in New England where they had it's probably uh maybe Middlebury was someplace where they had a total I went to I went to Middlebury. Believe me, I know the Middlebury snowble. My daughter went to Middlebury. I didn't

know that. Yeah, well here did you graduate? Oh jeez, I should know this right. Uh, she's graduated from high school and I think it was eighty nine, okay, and she was a double major and uh English creative writing and double minor in Spanish and political science. So why didn't you go to Middlebury? Did she ski when she was there? And she considered the whole thing to be a good She was a ski instructor before she went there. Um,

she learned to ski with me. I started getting after we went to Katina Valley for these six Thursday nights in a row, and I had had a bad skiing experience on a ski toe up Vermont when I was playing with Taj and his road manager was some guy from the Sierras who was a good skiered We're we're in a locker room for the dressing room playing in the gymnasium at this college, and there was a pair of skis there were taller than I was, you know, and and some lace up boots and boot you know,

bear trap bindings. And the guy was going to come on, John, I'll teach you to ski. And I fell down, you know, twenty times going up the rope toe and had a hard time getting up again, and then fell down thirty times coming down the hill, and I just never did a second run. I thought, I'm too uncoordinated, I can't ski, and uh, you know, a bad experience. I'll put you

off like that. But but when I went with my daughter uh as part of the school dress a chaperone, I put on the little short skis with their parabolic side cut, and the kids all had balloons and those bright colored vests on so people wouldn't run into him. And they were sneaking down they can wedge turns behind the instructor and I just did what they were all doing. Yeah, he said, now make a pizza. You know, pretty shot

your right ski. Pretend you're spreading peanut butter and bread with the tail of your ski, like you know, and I was. I got down to the lift and I said, I can do this. I actually can ski. And so I just six weeks of that, and then we started going to two Hunter Mountain and UH, which is a bigger mountain and you know, actually has black diamonds and double black diamonds on it, although west they might not

be double blacks. But so I I took so many lessons there that I had friends in the ski school they said, why don't you give it up and just come out for the ski school. You get to ski

free and you get the clinic with the best. And so I did it, and I wound up, you know, getting first of all, UH, passing the mountains test, and then passing the p s a test for level one, and then passing level two, which was yeah, I had to take a level two twice that because I learned late at my my body wasn't used to and my joints weren't used to the kind of flexibility and the kind of rotation they need to do. Uh, I could. I had the body mechanics down. I could analyze somebody

else's skiing. I understood the theory of it, and and I could ski a lot of terrain, you know. But I uh, but for a while I was I was only able to really teach beginners and sort of lower intermediates. But but I got to the point where I was teaching everybody from the top of the mountain and U and skiing pretty much anywhere I wanted to. Okay, So how much did you ski? How much did you teach? And when your daughter leaves the nest, did you were

still a skier and he's still skiing? Structor? Yeah, um, I wound up giving up skiing when I went into Congress. It's one of the terrible things about politics. But I actually uh, probably on snow ninety or ninety a hundred days a year, and uh, and I taught a ninety seven. I was instructor of the year a hundred mountain. I know't if that means I taught better lessons or just more or lessons than anybody else, because I would take lessons when nobody else would. Swading no problem, you know,

A bus group from New York on a rainy day. Hey, I'll take it. And you learn a lot doing that. And there's nothing like teaching anything to help you understand how to do it yourself. Well, the mountains are still there. Yeah, my knees are waiting for some surgery. Take us through

the arc of your political career to ultimately getting into Congress. Well, in the county was trying to start to stick a giant landfill and incinerator on the last undeveloped town, undeveloped farm in the town of Segrids that was on the National Historic Register, and it was on it had it was named the Winston Farm. M James Winston, who built the reservoirs and aqueducts that bring Catskill Mountain drinking water to New York City, owned that farm and it's named

after him. And UH and the county legislature decided that was the best place to put two d two hundred thousand tons of garbage a year for twenty years. Uh and built two incinerators with smokestacks three feet tall, which by far would have been the highest structure in the county. And I just once again, I said, I don't want

to have to drive past this. I don't. I was driving my daughter to high school past every day, passed this site, and uh, and I just said, it's me or it and organized a group kind of grew out of the Junkyard anti Junkyard group called the Winston Farm Alliance. And we had everybody in the town including you know, both Republican and Democratic, town can Midias, the Little Garden Society, that the Knights of Columbus, the you know church groups, uh,

the Police Benevolent Association. Everybody in the town was did not want this, and and we stopped. At about the same time I got elected. People in the midst of all this came to me and said, the current representative representing Saugers and the county legislature voted for this. He voted for the consultant who recommended this site, and then he voted for another five million bucks to them again

after they recommended it in his hometown. You know. At the first day, said we gotta find somebody to run, and I said, well, good luck, I got a career, you know, and and uh, in a family, I just didn't really want to do it. And then that month or two later they came back and said, we can't find anybody else. If you don't run, he's gonna have tested walk over election. And I said, well, I can't have that, So I ran and everybody voted for me. Was mad at him, and you know, God bless me.

He's a good guy. He's not. You know, it was just he wasn't up to the task of understanding what this was really going to go to the town, because no, no good kinds of development wouldn't come in. No no artistic development, no nice housing, no recreational stuff, it would say, once you put that kind of well, they are expanded the the toll booth, the right side of the toll booth, so that oversized trucks could get there right across, come out of the through way right across from this bark,

easy and easy off. You know. New York City garbment. That's what we were sure what's happening, because Fresh Kills was being closed, the big landfill and fresh Kills, and they were, you know, New York City was shipping garbage as far as the Midwest. You know, they were shipping to Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, you know, out of state, and we just saw it coming our way and so I ran, I got elected. I served one term in the county legislature. I had no desire for a career politics at that point.

I was just you know, well, okay, so we stopped the dump. I actually was on its Community Affairs committee that that wrote the first recycling law for the County of Ulster, and uh, you know, I was oversaw. Was on the committee that oversaw the method of Maintenance program. And I had an interest in UM trying to wean people not just off of drugs, but off of method which can be done as long as you have the resources to have real treatment and talk therapy, uh, and

not just say okay, we're cutting you off. And so I did some good things there and then I decided not to run for re election. A couple of years later, my daughter had gone through freshman, sophomore, and junior year of high school on an austerity budget because the school board couldn't come up with a budget the taxpayers would pass. Uh, and so you know, you wind up with larger class sizes, with the computers being old, with tennis balls that are dead.

She was playing on the tennis team and they were practicing with dead ball. So when they got into a match and open account of real tennis balls. They would bounce over her racket and and you know, just but every you know, like advanced placement languages, all these kinds of things. Uh, you lose when you go on a stairity. And so I decided to run for school board. And I was determined to get a budget that would pass her senior year of high school would not be in

a stait. And I ran and I won, and I was there for four years. And every year was there, we passed a budget and the first year we cut taxes by two percent. At the same time, I mean, you can really do this stuff if you if you dig into it. And we had a good superintendent. I knew where the bodies were buried and where money was hidden, and and we were able to, you know, to get the educational job done and actually lower property texas for people in the town. Okay, you do that for four years.

Next step back to playing music. And Johanna and I separated and divorced, and I wound up living on a boat for a couple of years, sailing money. At the time thirty eight foot sail boat from the Hudson River to Key West and over to Havana and humanitarian aid mission. Uh knew enough to get a permit from the Treasury Department as a humanitarian need. But we were able to deliver medical supplies and musical supplies from Key West to Havana and be exempt from the embargo because both of

those things are exempt from the Apartment. So and then sailed back across the Gulf Stream to Florida, back up to Martha's Vineyard and uh Johnny Oak Island, where I grew up having vacations with my family and still have relatives today, and then down at Long Island and the coast of Jersey and up to Delaware Bay and across the canal to just Beat Bay and down to Annapolis.

Has sold the boat in Annapolis. And meanwhile I had met my second wife, Melanie, who uh I met her in Nashville, and we're living in Nashville for a while. And uh but um, let's see, what was the question, how did you end up running for Congress? Okay, so

we decided to move back. Her dad passed away, her mom was moving back to New York, her siblings were in New York, and nieces and nephews and everything, and and my daughter was coming to visit Johanna and Insaugrity's pretty frequently, and I thought, well, New York is a better place. So we moved to New York, but to the east side of the hus and in Dutchess County town UH called go over plans. And so I got there and we were unpacking boxes and steadily, and I

went out, Yeah, I wonder who my congressperson is. And it turned out was a twelve year incumbent and Sue Kelly, who had voted for the Republican member of the the gang Rich class, the Contract with America or Contract on America as I called it, class of Congress. She had voted for the war in Iraq and she voted for drilling for oil in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, both of which I thought were mistakes. And and once again I thought,

I'm gonna help somebody else win. You know, I don't don't really want to run myself, but I knew there were other people running. So I started having coffee or lunch with with candidates. Were already four members for a Democratic candidates in a primary to run against the incumbent

congress Swimming Kelly. So I wound up thinking, after talking with each of these Canada IT said I would be probably a better candidate and maybe a better congressman too, because I just kept running into blind spots in their knowledge of the issues. And a d Triple C that Democratic Congressional campaign community out of Washington at the time being shared by Romamanuel, who wanted being President Obama's chief of staff and then went on to be to be

mayor of Chicago. Rom had already endorsed in the Triple C IT endorsed to candidate and started training her and sending money her way and everything. And so when I decided that I met with her too, and I said, you know, I told her we were talking about health here. She said, how are you gonna pay for it? And I said, well, we're starters by not building that anti missile system we're building in Alaska that doesn't work and

it's failed, all of it says. She said, we're building it and I said, yeah, we started under George w in his first term. And I had billion, said, ollar, is they going to that we can pay for healthcare with? At least the healthcare would probably work? And so I met, I went to d C and I met with Round Emmanuel and and he said, what's the matter with Judy? And I said, she doesn't know. We're building an outide

missile system in Alaska, you know, among other things. And he said, well, just try not to have a primary. And I said, well, I'm happy to not have a primary if everybody else drops out at the prime. But but if I run, I'm not running to loose, you know. I mean, I learned to ski, I become instructor of the year. I you know, write songs. I write good songs that become hits. I I don't like not doing things right. And I said, I'm just gonna really and he said, okay, well, if you can raise fifty grand

by January one of two thousand six. This was October five when I was talking to him. He said, if you could raise fifty grand by the first of the year, I'll take you seriously. So I go home and I start trying raise money. And you know, they say you have to start with your own Rolodex or your own phone book, your own you know context. Now it would be in my phone because if you can't ask family and friends to give you money, who are you going

to get to do it. You know, you have to convince them to practice and be able to convince other people. So I did that, and you know it started started raising money, but was having a tough go of it. Uh. And on December thirty one, New Year's Eve two thousand five, a couple hours before Ram's deadline, I had thirty five thousand dollars ranged raised and I went on to Act Blue and they had at the time it was like

a two thou limit money. It was the the uh the campaign law at the time was, I think you were limited to for both the primary and the general should put together. So I UH, I got them to lift the computer cap on that. Because I was donating to myself, I could go over that limit. And I put fifteen thousand dollars donations to myself on my American Express card at ten o'clock in the evening. So when Ron came in the office in January first day, he would see I get the fifty grand. And I still

had a hard time. And I got a really good fundraiser after that who helped me a lot. But we're still kind of struggling and things didn't clear up until Jackson Brown called. You know, I had told my friends that I was going to do this, and and late late May, I get a call from Jackson. He says, how's it going? And I said, honestly, I don't know if I can do this. I've I've already got to the point where I've written a speech to withdraw from the race. I'm thinking I might have to do that

because I can't. And I told us to a couple of people. I told it to Congressman RECENTI rest his soul. He was kind of my mentor, and all this political stuff and uh and I and I told Jackson this and he said, what can I do? And I said, I don't know. Uh. He said, are there any venues I could come in and do a fundraiser for you? And I said, We've been thinking about doing some fundraisers and converted barns. There's a number of people have offered. Did they have a barn that you know has been

converted to have a wooden floor now? And it's not it's not straw on on mud, you know? So? And he said, well, I get the weekend of I think it was June and sixte I forget what the dates were in June of two thousand and six, and I'm gonna come there for two days. Set up whatever you

can set up. And we set up four barn concerts and uh we sold the tickets for as much as we could get for him, and UH and they sold out, and UH, Jackson and Pete Seeger came and we had a kind of in the round except what was sent the line. It was Darr Williams and Jackson and John Pou said dark and Pete and me and you know, and a couple of hundred people in each barn and uh, and the first one, we're in Orange County, in a

barn somewhere in Warwick, New York or something. And we finished and take a bow after everybody's played their songs and and people are standing up and cheering as somebody in the back goes, take it easy, and Jackson says

how much and the guy says, what's the max? And Mone of my staff goes, the guy says, I passed in a check up, and he writes a check for so Jackson goes, I'm running down the road trying to listen, my lord, and everybody's singing along and the check gets passed up, and then somebody else goes the pretender a just and says how much and they say how about? And they passed the check up and he sings that,

and everybody sings lying, stands up and cheers. He's auctioning songs of And then it happened for like four shows in two days, and I had like a couple on grand in a weekend, and all of a sudden, people started giving me money. Because people won't give money if they don't think you can raise money. It's really the chicken and the egg. You have to have a demonstrable ability to raise money or the people with a really big bucks won't open up their checkbook. And Jackson opened

the door. And that's just an amazing thing. I just I would never could have done it, uh, you know, And that's you know, it's a little help, my friends. It's true in life, of so many things, you really need to have people you can count on. And Jackson and Bonnie and you know, Graham Nash and David Crosby and and James, you know other people just came through and uh, and so that's that's really what made it possible. You know, I said I didn't have accident and mobile,

but I had Jackson and Bonnie. It's an amazing thing, which are more powerful. They touched your soul and heart. Okay, so you get elected, you're in there for two terms. Hey, what's the learning curve and what do you learn there? In terms of the process. I mean, since you've been there, we get these bozos. So what's it like being in the belly of the beast? Well, they call it drinking from a fire os. I mean, campaigning is the easiest thing.

I think Donald Trump found that out. You know, if you're used to being on stage, which I was, and which he was used to being on camera, you know, it's like it doesn't bother me to have to improvise. I'm used to being heckled. I've played bars with through tomatoes at the stage or beer bottles at the stage, and I know how to dodge him. So standing up and debating somebody doesn't bother me. But once I won, you had like an incredible volume of stuff to learn

and about. You know, well two months you know, I was the auction was November second, I think, and and I got swear in a January second, so uh, you know, and then you learn from your staff, each member of Congress is only good to such staff. And I was fortunate enough to get a sheep of staff who had worked as the New York State Office coordinated for Chuck Schumer UH Senator Schumer, and and she UH moved to Washington and ran my Washington office for a couple of years.

And I had a UH she found she helped me to find when we had resume submitted. Everybody who gets elected the Congress have like an avalanche of resumes from young people, mostly fresh out of college, who want a job somewhere in in government. And they start out as interns and they got a lot experience and then they get to be paid staffers. And so I had a really wonderful staff and and UH in particular, my legislative

directors were really good. And also UH, I had a woman who worked on veterans affairs for me who was just had the Midas touch. She knew when to stamp on somebody's desk at the v A and went to sweet talking, and she got mountains moved at the v A and h Speaker Pelosi when her first time around a Speaker UM asked me to chair a subcommittee on Veteran's Disabilities, which was under the full Veterans Affairs Committee, and that's really where I did, by probably my most

important work. I mean, yes, I contributed to the Affordable Character and I voted for it. Yes, I worked on the Waxman Marquis Environment and Climate you know, an energy bill. But uh, the Veterans Claims Modernization Act of two thousand eight, which I was the prime author of, came out of my subcommittee, passed unanimously in the House and the Senate. Every Republican, every every Democrat voted yes, and President George W. Bush sign it into law and called it good government.

And I was like, wow, blow me over with a feather because I kind of ran against George W. And But the fact is there is common ground, and there are things that make sense, and you just have to be able to cut through the noise and find a way to talk to people about them and disarmed them. It's uh, you know, it's something that I wish more people were able to do now, although I would say that Joe Biden's seems to be doing pretty well with it. Okay,

you're elected. Classic question, do you do what is right in your heart? Do you worry about what you're obviously were about both. But when they're not in the same place, do you do what's right? You're already do what your constituents want. I believe you do what's right in your heart. And uh, most of the time it's the same thing, because people elected me because I told them what I would do if I got in. So most of the

time my constituents, most of them agreed with me. UM. For example, where it was not the case was the bailout of GM and Chrysler and the banks. Uh and the Great Recession when yeah, Nancy Polosi called an emergency caucus. We were getting ready to leave for a weekend, and you know late was it was after President Obama had won the election, I believe, if I recall correctly, And but George W. Bush was still president. So it was

the end of two thousand seven. And Uh, she said that she had gotten a call from uh Larry Summers and it wasn't there somebody it was, It was it was George ws uh Paul Vulker, and it was like the head of the Fed and the treasure Secretary and saying that they need to have an immediate meeting with her about urgently needed legislation and she said, well, let's have a meeting on Monday were every We're sending everybody home for the weekend, and and then we'll talk about

it money. She said. They said to her matter speaker, we may not have an economy by monday, and and she said, uh, come over now. And they came over and they told her what was going on in terms of the collapse of the banks and Lemon Brothers going under, and how the rest of there was like a bunch of dominoes getting ready to fall, and GM and Chrysler getting ready to go bankrupt. And and uh so we stayed through the weekend, and everybody in the house stayed

through the weekend, and we pushed put together this. What started as a two page bill that the Treasury and the bed brought to Nancy became like a hundred pages with various caveats and all the loans being paid back, you know, all GM and Chrysler and the banks, everybody paid back their loans with interest to the treasury. But still it was not something that a lot of people

wanted to do. But people, you know, people don't feel that great about about banks making gazillions of dollars when times are good, and charging everybody in armor a leg, and and not paying enough interest, and and charging too much interest, and then all of a sudden coming with their hand out when things are bad, and uh. And people felt kind of the same way about GM and Chrysler. Ford didn't ask for Baila, GM and Chrysler, and so we wound up putting those things together. And I voted

for them. But my friend Congress Memory Sinshi from Ulster County, New York, he um, he was against it. He voted no both of those bills. And I said why And he said, because if we spent all these billions of dollars to bail out the banks and bail out g M and Chrysler, we will have no money left for healthcare. And I said, yeah, but I didn't come here to watch a train wreck, you know. And the way it's explained to me, if the banks go down, nobody's credit

card wild work or defit card would work. The banks will close the lobby. Because you want people to make withdrawals. What's the average person going to do? You know, everybody's going to If we could say let the bankers go to hell in a hand basket, that people might agree with that. But if everybody's going to hell in a handbasket with them, that's not what I came here for. And so, you know, I had people yelling at me

in my district. I had a restaurant omer and tort Jervis all the way up by the Delaware River and the western part of my district saying to me, where's my bailout? How could you vote to bail them out? I've had this restaurant my whole life and struggled and where's my bail you know? And people were upset, but I think they would have been as much or more upset if the other thing had happened. So in that case, I had to do what was my conscious was telling

me to do. Okay, so you've had hit records, Ski Instructor of the Year elected to Congress. Muse, what are you most proud of? Oh boy, Chuck Pluckin said, when Johanna and I had our daughter. Uh, now you can say you really produce something. And I guess I'm really

most proud of my daughter and my granddaughter. But but I think you know, writing songs that people sing on the other side of the world in other languages, that you know, Johannes thought that when we toured Japan and the whole audience would be singing along fonetically to every song. Some of them they understood I think probably some. You know, a lot of the people and especially in the cities like Tokyo, understand English as well, but as singing it phonetically.

But but that means you've reached beyond your your family and your friends. There's no relation between me, at least UH and UH and these audiences in Japan. So that's incredibly gratifying. Okay, this has been wonderful. I know you have to hit the road imminently, so I'm gonna let you go. John, thanks so much for doing this. You're welcome. Bath thanks for asking me, and I'll I will look forward to talking. Maybe we just finished our first Orleans

Christmas album and it will be out in October. Maybe Lance, my partner, Lance Hopping, and I can speak to you about that if you have time in the fall. Well, we'll see what happens. We'll certainly look for you on the road until next time. This is Bob left Sex