Neverland, Music & Thumbnails | Bart Stevens

Show Notes

Step inside the control room with Bart Stevens, the recording engineer who worked alongside music legends like Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac, Boz Scaggs, Toto, Mick Jagger, and Joe Satriani. In this episode of Your Dark Companion, host Mike Rhyner uncovers the untold stories of LA’s legendary studios—where Bart went from a kid fresh out of Texas to helping shape the sound of some of the biggest records in history.

From five years at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch to unforgettable sessions with Stevie Nicks, Slash, and Jeff Porcaro, Bart shares an insider’s view of the golden age of recording. Along the way, he reveals the friendships, near-misses, and wild tales that defined his career.

Bart also opens up about his book, The Miller Grill, a unique blend of music and racing history. Inspired by his fascination with legendary bluesman Robert Johnson and racer Sam Nunes, the novel explores a fictional friendship between these icons set against the backdrop of real historical events. It’s a creative reflection of Bart’s lifelong passions and storytelling flair, showing that his artistry extends far beyond the mixing board.

If you love behind-the-scenes music history, studio lore, or just want to hear how the magic was made, this episode is a must-listen.

⏱️ Chapters

0:03 – Exploring Music Passion and Recording with Bart Stevens
5:41 – From Texas to LA: Starting Out in the Studio World
10:25 – Behind the Scenes with Music Legends & Michael Jackson
20:16 – Michael Jackson’s Lifestyle & Generosity at Neverland Ranch
27:39 – Studio Encounters, Near Misses & Music Industry Lessons
33:26 – Sponsor Break: CBD House of Healing
36:25 – Boz Scaggs’ Album Journey & Industry Challenges
44:10 – Guitar Picks, Studio Life, & Unexpected Stories
50:15 – The Miller Grill: Music Meets Racing History
53:51 – Stevie Nicks, Olivia Newton John & Fleetwood Mac Sessions
57:31 – Missed Opportunities & Concert Mishaps
1:03:50 – Slash Stories & Lifelong Studio Friendships

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mike Rhyner

Mike Rhyner… "a little on the bumpy side, but rather likable"…so stated famously by a grade school teacher in Oak Cliff, where Mike grew up. A complicated guy, yet a guy who can do long division and remember call strike three to A Rod. Probably best left unattended. Don't expect assistance from him if a medical situation arises.

What is Your Dark Companion Podcast?

"Whatever I want it to be about on a given day; is what it is." Your Dark Companion couples your familiar friends from radio, Mike and Grubes! Mike brings his classic interviews that draw you in, and Grubes—The Devil—drops…well the drops, and throws the occasional grenade. Mike likes to draw on his fascinating acquaintances and friends allowing them to tell their stories as you've never heard them. But he also goes outside his network, sharing Grubes' network, and often outside of both, to bring you those they don't know, but believe have a story that will make you laugh, make you think, think differently, or just entertain you…"that's what we are trying to do here."

0:00:03 - (Mike Reiner): Hello, it's Mike Reiner of your Dark Companion here wanting to thank you all for joining us on patreon.com throughout the year or that portion of the year that we've been doing this. Also, don't forget to check out the Sunset Lounge. There you can find podcasts such as the Clubhouse. The Clubhouse is your one stop shop for all things sports, pop culture, entertainment, pro wrestling. Who knows what else these guys might get into. I love these guys. They're great.
0:00:34 - (Mike Reiner): Since 2010, they brought their knowledge and passion for these subjects and so much more to the Internet in a way that is entertaining and engaging. Their show is family friendly, so it's okay to sit down with grandma and be a part of all their shenanigans. They are the clubhouse. They're at the Sunset Lounge. Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Reiner, Sports talk. Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball.
0:01:04 - (Mike Reiner): Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, okay, now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego?
0:01:15 - (Bart Stevens): We had a little lightning strike right outside the window.
0:01:19 - (Mike Reiner): The Texas Rangers win the World Series. All right, all right. Here's a tip for all these Americano league teams.
0:01:27 - (Bart Stevens): Don't. Wait, you said tip?
0:01:28 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, tip with a P. I would keep jamming the ticket colon. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off set. This is a cool night or what? Although somebody would hear that. Go. I'm back. And good day one and all. Welcome into another episode of your dark companion. We're delighted to have you with us today. Even more delighted that the mosquitoes, which are the urban blight of our homely little abode here, are being taken care of outside.
0:02:15 - (Mike Reiner): So if you're hearing something that sounds like yard stuff going on. It's not yard stuff. It's bug stuff. It's mosquito stuff. And it'll be done quickly here, so it won't be a perennial thing throughout the presentation, I don't think. Anyway, good to have you in here with us inside the nurturing biosphere of the mothership. This is episode number, what,142?
0:02:40 - (Bart Stevens): 143.
0:02:41 - (Mike Reiner): 143, yeah.
0:02:43 - (Bart Stevens): Wow. Don't shortchange this.
0:02:45 - (Mike Reiner): I can never keep up with it.
0:02:47 - (Bart Stevens): There's so many.
0:02:48 - (Mike Reiner): It's awful. And this is the all. This is the 18th of August. So we've got all that squared away. And today we're going to visit with Bart Stevens. Bart Stevens is an Irving guy. He is involved and has been involved in the recording business. We're going to get him to tell you why but they funneled some of his stuff over to me and a lot of it had to do with the guys that he has worked with or been around or been somewhere involved in the process.
0:03:27 - (Mike Reiner): And that list, I must say, will stun a mastodon. How you doing today?
0:03:35 - (Bart Stevens): I'm doing well, thank you. Glad to be here.
0:03:38 - (Mike Reiner): Well, we're glad to have you. Looking forward to talking to you and finding out just how it is that you do this thing you do. That's what we like to do in here.
0:03:47 - (Bart Stevens): Good.
0:03:48 - (Mike Reiner): Now, you are a local guy here, right?
0:03:50 - (Bart Stevens): Yes. Born in Wichita Falls, raised in Irving, Texas.
0:03:54 - (Mike Reiner): Did you go to an Irving High school?
0:03:56 - (Bart Stevens): I graduated from Irving High, yes.
0:03:58 - (Mike Reiner): Ah, one of the Fighting Tigers.
0:04:01 - (Bart Stevens): That's what they tell me. I wasn't really up on all the social side of the world, but yes.
0:04:08 - (Mike Reiner): And something along the lines somewhere, probably, I suspect, when you were pretty young, because that seems if. If the music bug is gonna hit you, it seems like it starts when you're really young. That's the way it was with me.
0:04:23 - (Bart Stevens): Right.
0:04:24 - (Mike Reiner): And it's the way it was with just about everything everybody else I know. Is that. Is that how it was with you too?
0:04:31 - (Bart Stevens): Yes, but I'm not a musician. I just love the storytelling and the music itself. And as a kid, spent a lot of time with my dad, driving around his Chevy Truck 8 track tape, listening to Dean Martin or Charley Pride. And so that was my early influence in music. And so carrying on through middle school and high school, I developed my own taste and then just loved music, wanted.
0:04:55 - (Mike Reiner): To be part of it, but never had the urge to play yourself or anything like that.
0:05:02 - (Bart Stevens): Not officially. I own a couple guitars, I've played a couple Christmas songs, and that's about it. Oh, so.
0:05:10 - (Mike Reiner): So if you. All right, if you're not going to play it and. But you want to be in music, that means you got to start looking at the other sides of it.
0:05:19 - (Bart Stevens): Right.
0:05:20 - (Mike Reiner): And the side that you started looking at, if I understand this right, was the recording side correct. And the way music is recorded, the way it's. It's packaged and produced and gotten out there to the masses. But you're mainly a studio guy, right? Is that what first infatuated you?
0:05:41 - (Bart Stevens): Yes, I wanted to be on the technical side. And so back then there was no schools for that sort of a thing. So I ended up with a degree in radio and television broadcasting. Went to East Texas State out in Commerce, worked at the school radio station, hung out with the technicians and absorbed as much as I could about the final product and then how. How things worked on. On technology, electronics for that day, which would have been tubes and transistors and stuff, not chips.
0:06:12 - (Mike Reiner): And somewhere along the line, something made you say, screw it all. I'm moving to Los Angeles.
0:06:20 - (Bart Stevens): Six weeks after college, I was headed west in an MG midget with three grocery bags of clothes and a bicycle to work in music.
0:06:32 - (Mike Reiner): Did you know anybody? Did you have any connections out there?
0:06:37 - (Bart Stevens): I did. I had one. I had a couple things going for me. One guy that I had, he was a year or two older than me. He had gone to North Texas State. He was a drum major, musician. He had moved to Los Angeles and he was working at a studio called Bill Cheney Studio over on Lankershim. And the year before I graduated. No, the year I graduated, I went to Los Angeles for a music. No, for a broadcasting convention. And I went by to see David at Schnee Studio. So that was my first inside there.
0:07:09 - (Bart Stevens): During college, I worked at Chili's, of all places. And I worked at the Arlington one, right by the ballpark. And so my manager at that time, this was when Chili's was starting to expand the menu and the locations. My manager moved to Los Angeles to start open stores. So guess who I lived with the week I moved to Los Angeles?
0:07:28 - (Mike Reiner): Your Chili's manager.
0:07:29 - (Bart Stevens): I just moved in with John, my Chili's manager. And he wanted to put me, hey, whatever works, you know, he wanted me to work the day after I arrived. I said, I gotta find a place to live. But. But, yeah, Chili's was good for me. That's where my. Ended up meeting my wife later as well. Well, so Chili's has been good. I think we need more of that story. Yeah.
0:07:49 - (Mike Reiner): So what was the first thing you did once you got out of the. Out there and got settled enough to start down the path that you would eventually wind up on?
0:08:01 - (Bart Stevens): You know, it's about who you know, unfortunately, 100% in that business.
0:08:04 - (Mike Reiner): Oh, yeah.
0:08:05 - (Bart Stevens): And so David couldn't get me a job, but he said, hey, I heard Mama Joe's is hiring. I heard so and so's hiring. And, and, and at this point, at this stage in the career, you're a gopher, you're a runner, you know, you're making coffee, you're picking up dry clean.
0:08:21 - (Mike Reiner): You'Re doing whatever, anything for anybody at any time, day or night.
0:08:25 - (Bart Stevens): Yes. And so don't know exactly how I ended up where I ended up, who sent me there, but I went to a place called Martin Sound. We were off the beaten path. We were in Alhambra of all places, on Valley Boulevard and a beautiful two rooms there. And because of all the technical stuff that I had learned through working on electronics and we had the largest tube microphone in Los Angeles and we had tape machines.
0:08:54 - (Bart Stevens): So they hired me right away to be an assistant. There was no runner. I was the runner and the assistant. So I already got a promotion out of the box, you know, is how I looked at it. Because first sessions I was assisting and learning, but to get to that point, I was networking, reaching out to people I knew, following on leads, looking for work at one of the different places that it was hiring.
0:09:18 - (Mike Reiner): You know, I've known a lot of people who did the whole move to LA thing and a good number of those hightailed it back here pretty quickly. They said it was just too intimidating for them out there. Did you find it that way?
0:09:35 - (Bart Stevens): No, I don't think so. I, I, you know, right place, right time, it's nothing. I'm not miraculously talented in any way, but I knew some people. I proved myself and I spent a few years at Martin Sound. Then I got an opportunity to go to work at Bill Schnee Studio, the same one I had visited a few years prior. It was great for me because it was on Lankershim, it was between Universal Studios, George Barris Custom Shop and if you know the name George Barris, he was a car builder, built a Batmobile, little things like that.
0:10:08 - (Bart Stevens): So I'm a car guy. So that was really great for me, that was my second studio job is right, right down the street.
0:10:15 - (Mike Reiner): So let's get into the Bill Schnee scene because that is a name that I know and that is a studio that I know. And there is a lot that's going on in that place over the years.
0:10:25 - (Bart Stevens): Really, really. Was Bill still alive? He's in Nashville now. His, he's got a book out. I think it's called the Producer. I forget exactly what it is, but it's a pretty good book. You'll learn about his career with Ringo Starr and Richard Perry and all the different amazing projects he worked on. Steely Dan, Dire Straits, all these different things. But, but yeah, it was a, it was a great time and I got. There were, there was a staff of us at that point. We had so much work going through the place because Bill was a world renowned man mixer, he was known worldwide for mixing. So taking all your individual stems, if you will, combining those down to stereo with the special touch.
0:11:07 - (Bart Stevens): And really when I started there, we had no automation. So your faders were manually moved. And Bill was a showman for everybody in the control room. He was swinging his arms and doing all this sort of stuff. So we had these manual consoles and then we had a little return section. And as the assistant, I sat behind that. And sometimes on mixes, my job was to. On, you know, on this bridge or this course, I was supposed to raise this fader and do this and change this reverb and this. We were manually doing all that.
0:11:37 - (Bart Stevens): And then while working at bills, we got what's called GML faders. George Massingberg labs. So this is 1986 computer based software on a console, an analog console. So that changed the world, you know, because then you could hit a button and it would remember your moves.
0:11:56 - (Mike Reiner): That was revolutionary stuff, wasn't it?
0:11:58 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah, so, so. But Bill was known for his talent. The studio itself was known for the room. People just love the room. For example, the Toto guys if. If they were in and out of there all the time, either as Toto or a session players. So it was an opportunity for me to get to know people like Jeff Picaro and people like that on a first name basis and see him over and over and over. It was really fun.
0:12:25 - (Bart Stevens): But we worked on a lot of Warner Brothers jazz and pop music. So Kenny Loggins, Klaus Olgerman, Yellowjackets, James Newton Howard.
0:12:35 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:12:36 - (Bart Stevens): And Bill had already done some Natalie Wood and other great things that I wasn't part of, but, you know, all the way down to boss gags.
0:12:45 - (Mike Reiner): And I've got a list here of some of the stuff that you've been involved with. And number one, this list will stun a mastodon. And number two, it's. It seems to be largely filled out by artists such as that. I mean, a lot of those people that, you know that you just ran across and a whole lot more. So I want to just throw some out at you and you tell us what you remember about working with these guys.
0:13:17 - (Bart Stevens): Can I make up some stuff if I forgot?
0:13:18 - (Mike Reiner): If you want to.
0:13:19 - (Bart Stevens): Okay.
0:13:19 - (Mike Reiner): I mean, what are we going to do? Fact check.
0:13:21 - (Bart Stevens): You. Here's my disclaimer. Some projects I worked on for two hours and some I worked on for two years. So some of them I didn't meet the artists. Like on the. I worked on a George Strait soundtrack. Okay. Eight seconds. That movie, when you open the CD up to the soundtrack, you got all the producers on the left hand side and my name's at the top. Right. All I did was tape transfers for two hours. So people were like, oh, yeah. And then I Worked on Beaches with the Bette Midler deal, but I never saw her. I never. We were just doing menial stuff. So all these things I ended up on, I didn't.
0:13:53 - (Bart Stevens): I was no big player on some of those, but then again, I spent two years with Boz and two years with Michael Jackson. So there's all these things that some. I have more stories than others.
0:14:03 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, well, I'm a big boss guy and I will be interested in what you have to say about him. But you just mentioned Jeff Picaro a minute ago. And for those who don't know, Jeff Porcaro is no longer with us. But there was a time when if you were going to lay something down that was pretty serious, he was the guy you wanted on drums in Los Angeles.
0:14:26 - (Bart Stevens): He was the A call. He was. He was. You know, if you've listened to Jackson Brown, you've listened to Steely Dan. You've listened to so many. You know the term yacht rock. You know, a lot of that was Picaro.
0:14:37 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:14:37 - (Bart Stevens): And his dad Joe was a percussionist, so we know where he learned that. And Steve Picaro played the keyboard and then Michael played bass. So a powerful family. Jeff was such a great guy and he loved schnees. This is the 80s and he. He was making an instructional VHS on how to drum. So guess where he chose to do it. Schnees. Because that was where he was most comfortable. He was so nervous. He was a nervous wreck. He was.
0:15:04 - (Bart Stevens): His mouth was all dry, he couldn't. He kept messing up his lines. His dad was off to the side trying to encourage him. He was a nervous wreck. But we were at Shanae's, he was in his comfort zone and once we got him comfortable, then he did his. You know, here's how you do these and how to do those things. So.
0:15:21 - (Mike Reiner): And legend has it that he was. I never have been able to get anybody to drill down on his age, for sure. But he was very young at this time, wasn't he?
0:15:32 - (Bart Stevens): Yes. I don't know. You know, he and Lucather and all those guys. I think some of them went to school together, so I don't know exactly their age, but I would. I would guess they were born in the late mid to late 50s.
0:15:42 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, I've. I don't know. I always heard that by the time he was in his late teens, he was doing sessions with Steely Dan. He's playing on Katy Light and stuff like that.
0:15:52 - (Bart Stevens): Well, that would have been 70. Yeah. So that could have been. Wow. Yeah, he was just masterful and he was, you know, so you'll appreciate this. So he was a drummer's drummer. You know, he was good at what he did. He could play the kit. There was one Boss song he played on. I'll tell you a whole buzz story later, but there was this one Boss song, Heart of Mine. And it was a ballad, power ballad deal. It was a beautiful song that Jeff had done.
0:16:19 - (Bart Stevens): And the record was turned in, wasn't approved at all. They had to redo. The whole thing, got replaced by a drum machine. And I had a copy of it of Jeff on that song. And I shared it with people at one point and it was just a beautiful song. But later, further down the career, you know, Jeff's a session player, he's got to pay his bills. So when he's called in to do sessions, he shows up. Well, one day we're working on Michael Jackson and this is so sad, but he was called in to play hi Hat.
0:16:50 - (Mike Reiner): Just hi Hat.
0:16:51 - (Bart Stevens): Just hi Hat with the machines.
0:16:53 - (Mike Reiner): Wow.
0:16:53 - (Bart Stevens): And we were in studio two at record one and everybody left the room except Jeff and I. And he looked at me and he's brother Bart, and he just unloaded. He was cussing. He was so mad that they had called him in to play hi Hat. Why don't they bring me in to play the real stuff, you know? He was fucking furious. And he was a cool cat. He drove his T Bird. He had a like a 62, 63T bird. At that point. I was driving a 55 Chevy, so we would talk cars.
0:17:23 - (Bart Stevens): He was a great guy. He went way too early. His funeral was incredible. They were playing Hendrix through the PA system all. All through the. And Rick Rubin was there in his. His flip flops. I mean, it was just a. It was a really great event of life. What do you call celebration of life?
0:17:43 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, Shoopy My funeral. I want you in flip flops.
0:17:48 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, no doubt about it.
0:17:49 - (Mike Reiner): Okay. All right.
0:17:50 - (Bart Stevens): Flip flops and shorts. I promise.
0:17:52 - (Mike Reiner): Now, probably the biggest name that I see you connected with here is that of Michael Jackson.
0:17:58 - (Bart Stevens): Yes.
0:17:59 - (Mike Reiner): Now, Michael Jackson has been talked about inside out out there, but I don't know if I've ever run into anybody that had any real, you know, like person to person connection with him. What's he like?
0:18:19 - (Bart Stevens): I'll preface it by saying I was not a fan of his music. I didn't know a whole lot about him. And I was working for Oceanway and I'd been there about a month. And they said, we're going to transfer you out to record one we need you to work on the Michael section session. So I show up, it's lockout, which means Michael paid for 12 hours and no one else could come in the other 12 hours.
0:18:42 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:18:43 - (Bart Stevens): So we was. The studio would stay set up and they had already been working. They. The crew had been working on the album about six months already. So I come in, I'm the new guy because this is Bruce Sweden and all these other guys who had worked on Bad and Thriller with Quincy.
0:18:56 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:18:56 - (Bart Stevens): And this was Michael's first production producer role. So he wore many hats. He was producer, singer, songwriter. So I come into the session not knowing a whole lot about him and not a fan of his music. Okay. So the first day we're in Studio two, it's a small API console. I'm sitting at the back behind the tape machine. And Richard Cottrell was the engineer, Brian Loren was the producer. Michael comes in the front door and he comes up the steps and he comes by the console. And I get up and I walk straight over.
0:19:29 - (Bart Stevens): I'm six three, 200 pounds, my hair down to my shoulders. Stick my hand out, I'm bart. He told me later, he goes, you scared me so bad that day. I thought you were going to hurt me when you came out. But he. So I tell you all that to set the preface, that I didn't know the guy. So I just treat him like another schmo, because that's the way that I am. And it seemed to work because we bonded. I can truly say Michael and I were friends.
0:19:59 - (Bart Stevens): I worked on the album 22 months. I ended up working five years, over five years at Neverland Valley, building out with another guy. The sound system throughout the house, the lake, the train, the amusement park, all that stuff.
0:20:14 - (Mike Reiner): So the sound system on the train.
0:20:16 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, which train? So there was the small scale train, you know, like you got at the Fort Worth Zoo. And that one had a little sound system on it. But that one, on Family Day, he had like about 90 gardeners at that point at the ranch. It couldn't handle the load of all the people on it. So he wanted a full scale train. So he bought a full scale train that was being converted from coal to liquid propane or something like that.
0:20:49 - (Bart Stevens): So myself and Brad, the guy that we worked on all this together, we were hired to go to Mount Pleasant, Iowa in November to install the sound system. So when it was delivered in November, off the flatbed, they had a full sound system. Holy crap.
0:21:06 - (Mike Reiner): And you had to go to Mount Pleasant, Iowa to do this? I didn't even know Iowa had a Mount Pleasant.
0:21:12 - (Bart Stevens): It's over by Illinois. How many cars was this train? It was called Elizabeth, after his mother. So it had the. The. The engine portion and the. The back where the coal used to be. That's where we converted that. That's where our rack equipment was. I think there were two. You could probably fit your pictures online. And there's train station. You know, if you got a train, you got to have train stations, right?
0:21:38 - (Mike Reiner): Sure.
0:21:38 - (Bart Stevens): So. So yeah, just some interesting things along the way.
0:21:44 - (Mike Reiner): Everybody thought that he was just so incredibly, incredibly bizarre. And I guess, you know, growing up the way he did and being thrust into the spotlight and the cult of personality of very, very young age, that will do stuff like that to you.
0:22:04 - (Bart Stevens): Absolutely. He had no childhood. I. I talked with Shnee after I worked with him. I talked with Bill Schnee one time, and Bill. Bill worked with him when he was a kid. Yeah, he said that he came in and he was sitting in the chair. His feet were swinging, and he was the only one in the band. It was the Jacksons at that point that cared about what was going on. You know, he was a professional as a kid, and so being around him all the time that I was talking to him about family and life, you know, he wasn't married at this point.
0:22:34 - (Bart Stevens): We talked about all the different things that some friends would talk about, and he. He just missed out on his childhood. You know, we go to the ranch, and it's 2,500 acres, and he'd take us around on the golf carts and show us this and show us that, and, you know, I've got stories about water balloon fights and, I mean, all sorts of stuff at the ranch.
0:22:55 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:22:56 - (Bart Stevens): But, yeah, he was just a big kid who never had a childhood. And the house, the ranch was set up for kids. The. The main guest there was like, Make a Wish foundation and some other groups. So every time we were designing or building or inst. You know, when you walk up to the graphs, giraffes, you had to go up these steps so you could be the right height so you could pet them. And in the elephant area, we had to have symphony music, because if they didn't have their symphony music at night, they started picking up their poop and throwing it all over the place. So he does that too. Yeah.
0:23:28 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:23:28 - (Bart Stevens): So. And then there was a barn, an old red barn that was truly a working barn. We converted that to what was called the. The reptile barn. And There was about eight or 10. There was a hall down the middle and eight or 10 rooms on each side with glass on them. And it was Madonna, the. The albino bat. What's the snake search of the. Be the boa constrictor. Boa constrictor, yeah. And then there was rattlesnakes and there was this and. And all those sort of things. And, you know, this was back in a period where we didn't have MP3 players. We didn't have all this. So each.
0:24:09 - (Bart Stevens): Each animal had a story, so a voiceover was recorded. And when you came in, you grabbed a set of headphones and you went to in front of the display where there was a little information. You plugged your headphones in, you hit a button, and we had a loop where you would hear, this is the so and so. It's 33 foot long. This is this. And the craziest thing about the reptile barn for me was in the rattlesnake area.
0:24:32 - (Bart Stevens): You know, the lighting was dim in there. And along the lower portion, it was kind of painted where it was supposed to look like brush and lighter blue, I think, on the ceiling. So it's supposed to be the sky. And at one point when people would come in, you know the term PZM microphone, the flat microphone, like you might put in a piano or something like that? Yeah, we had one of those on the ceiling, and we had a speaker by your feet.
0:24:56 - (Bart Stevens): So the people that would come in, the guests did not know when the rattlesnake went like that. They would hear it by their feet and scream and back up. At one time, we had an issue with one of the. The microphone deals, and I had to climb about 40ft on my back underneath all these snakes to go work on the rattlesnake section. That was probably the scariest thing out there. Other one lion would roar at us. But that's.
0:25:22 - (Bart Stevens): That's a different story. Golly. No.
0:25:26 - (Mike Reiner): Crazy.
0:25:27 - (Bart Stevens): So back to your original question. He was a really nice guy. He was really generous with his time with presence, and he wasn't trying to buy friendship. You know, it was just. He just loved to give gifts. And so he was a neat guy.
0:25:43 - (Mike Reiner): You know, it had to. Like you said a minute ago, it just. Way he grew up and everything, it had to just be impossible being him and trying to satisfy expectations of everybody and everything that went along with that.
0:25:59 - (Bart Stevens): He tried really hard to get out. Like, he. At this point, he was still driving. He drove a GMC Jimmy, and he would put on fake sideburns and a mustache and a hat. He'd go to Tower Records. I mean, he would go out and do stuff and he would always wear these just really tacky disguises. And one time we were at the ranch and me and him and my nephew went into solving, which is a little. I almost a Dutch city or something very close and all sorts of artisan craft work and stuff like that. Michael's a large doll collector. European dolls, like high end dolls.
0:26:33 - (Bart Stevens): And so we would go visit some of those shops. And one time we were walking the streets of Solvang and this guy comes up with a camera in his face and starting a video camera. Back then, VHS camera required a small truck to move around. This guy had it on his shoulder and I had to play bodyguard. And, you know, it was difficult watching him not be able to just be a regular person.
0:26:57 - (Mike Reiner): You know, you mentioned a minute ago about you did a lot of work back in the day in the. In the realm of smooth jazz, I guess. And I was having a conversation just a couple days ago with somebody about that whole scene. And I kind of got into it a little bit for a little while myself and there was a lot of. Of good tracks that got laid down back in those days. But I was, I was telling him, you know, there used to be radio stations who. Their whole format was built around that. And they just went, no, no, that can't be. No, no, it's true.
0:27:39 - (Bart Stevens): You know, we had a station in Los Angeles called the Oasis.
0:27:42 - (Mike Reiner): We did too.
0:27:43 - (Bart Stevens): Did you? Yeah, I just got in. Doyle worked there. I just. Oh, was it Oasis? I don't know. I just got in an Uber the other day and. And the guy was. It was smooth jazz stuff. I go, what is this? Because I thought I heard Dave Cause or Richard Elliott or. Yeah, Joe Sample or one of the guys that I'd worked with. Right away, I mean, I recognized some of the stuff and I'm like, what are you listening to? And it was a pay service he was listening to. It wasn't terrestrial stuff.
0:28:12 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, well, Crusaders were big players in this for me. And Joe Sample is on your list here?
0:28:19 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah, big old hands Joe Sample.
0:28:23 - (Mike Reiner): I loved him. I mean, for me, he was one of the. One of the guy. He and Larry Carlton were the guys that really made the Crusaders great. What was he like to work with?
0:28:34 - (Bart Stevens): I didn't get a lot of personal time with him, but he was just extremely talented. And I remember that. I do remember the size of his hands. Man, he could master that keyboard and soulfully play the keyboard. You know, stuff like being around guys like him or George Benton Benson and guys like that, they're just. They're just cool. Just cool. You know, just to be around them. You get people like Little Richard, you know.
0:29:00 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:29:00 - (Bart Stevens): We did a thing with Philip Bailey and him for the twins end credits song. And that was a. That was a Little Richard as a character. I'll just say it that way.
0:29:11 - (Mike Reiner): What about Miles Davis?
0:29:14 - (Bart Stevens): I worked on one of his projects, but he was not there. I forgot who the producer was on that one. That was it. Back at Ocean Way, I think, where we did some stuff, probably just overdubs. A lot of times the main artist is not always around. If they've got a producer that's taking care of that. Like Anita Baker, like I said, Bette Midler, some of those different ones. Dolly Parton. I think she showed up. Yeah, she showed up. We were working on A Straight Talk or one of the movie soundtracks for that, so. But not everybody comes around.
0:29:43 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah. So what about Mick?
0:29:48 - (Bart Stevens): I do have a funny mix story. So a real quick history. Are we on time restraints? No, sir. So Oceanway had two rooms, right at Sunset and Gower. And then about two doors down they had another building that was the old United Western. And that's where Sinatra and all the big heavy players recorded in the 50s and 60s. Oceanway purchased that. So it became Ocean Way 1, 2 and 3. Ocean Ray A and B, for example. Ocean Way 2, which is a smaller room.
0:30:21 - (Bart Stevens): Pet Sounds, you know, Beach Boy stuff. That's the kind of stuff that was done there.
0:30:25 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:30:25 - (Bart Stevens): One was the big room. That's where Satriani did some of his stuff, live stuff. I worked on a Diane Warwick thing in there. But two was the medium sized room at the end of the hall. And Jagger was doing solo stuff with Rick Rubin and Flea was playing bass and Billy Preston was playing keyboard. And on that particular deal, somebody else was assisting that. I was doing Satriani in three and for some reason somebody couldn't show and so I ended up just doing one day session.
0:30:57 - (Bart Stevens): Mick wasn't there, but everybody else was tracking and doing stuff. But that was incredible to be in the room with Billy Preston, just, you know, because he was in the control room. Because in that days, you know, we're talking about direct inputs from some keyboards so they didn't have to be out being banged with the drums. But, but, but the, the mix session and the regrouping session lasted for quite a while.
0:31:18 - (Bart Stevens): And one day. So when you come in the front entrance of Oceanway 123, you make a quick. Right and then a quick Left and there's a long hallway. So Studio 3 is off to your right. The hallway dumps into Studio 2 and you make a left back into one, which is the large room with the Neve 8108 and just a big, big string date. Like if you. I've seen pictures on albums and different things where it's like, well, that's Ocean Way. You can tell by the room.
0:31:43 - (Bart Stevens): Jagger. And then we're working in two, so I'm in three with Satriani and Andy Johns, who was my hero. And the room, the entrance, this, the control room had an entrance and the studio had an entrance into that hallway. And our walls were about 18 inches thick. So straight across from Studio 3 was the tape vault. So I've got a load of two inch tapes which probably weighed 10 pounds apiece, and I've got about four or five of them.
0:32:10 - (Bart Stevens): I'm 200 pounds, and I'm going straight from the studio into the tape vault. And this little British guy comes walking down and I nearly flattened Mick Jagger. I would have been the guy on the headlines, kill Jagger. We had a. We had a brush up in the hall there, but. But neither one of us fell and he didn't get hurt. But I'm just so thankful. That's my, that's my encounter with Mick, but I didn't hurt him.
0:32:37 - (Mike Reiner): So did he give you a sorry bait or anything like that?
0:32:39 - (Bart Stevens): It was truly my fault. I'm the. I'm the peon. So giving a scare to Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good.
0:32:47 - (Mike Reiner): That is pretty good. All right, this is Bart Stevens with us today here on your dark companion. And right now, we'll get back to Bart in just a second. Have a little water over there if you want, because I got to do this. You may be asking yourself, exactly what is this? This would be the dreaded and feared mid show read. What if you could free yourself of pain and sleepless nights and anxiety and stuff like that?
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0:35:38 - (Mike Reiner): All right, Thursday, Thursday, August 28th. It's Rough Ryders fantasy football draft night. And YDC and the whole Sunset Lounge is going to be out there for this. Going to be holding their draft party. And we would like to invite you to the draft party. You can catch our draft live at 3:30. Then come on out to the game. Use our special code. Let's ride 25 and get a ticket preloaded with $6 good toward your first thirsty Thursday drink or at concessions. And remember, every Thursday, Thursday, the Lazy river is 21 and up. So join us out there this week for Thursday.
0:36:22 - (Mike Reiner): Thursday at writers field.
0:36:25 - (Bart Stevens): Next week.
0:36:26 - (Mike Reiner): Oh, next week. Screw me.
0:36:30 - (Bart Stevens): But just show up to writers field anyway.
0:36:32 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, just show up to writers field anyway and if nothing's going on, it's next week.
0:36:37 - (Bart Stevens): Every Thursday. Yeah, there you go.
0:36:39 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, just show up every Thursday just for the heck of it. See what it's like out there. All right, we got Bart Stephens in here with us today. He has had lots of different recording experiences with lots and lots of big names. Let me give you another favorite of mine and you tell me what Your thoughts on him and what your time with him was like. Okay, Boss Skaggs.
0:37:03 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, Boss. So a local guy, as you know, he was living in San Francisco and this was with Bill Schnee. And he and Bill had had huge success with Silk Degrees.
0:37:13 - (Mike Reiner): Yes.
0:37:14 - (Bart Stevens): And some other stuff. Tons of respect there. Boz hadn't made an album in like eight years or something like that. And he wanted control. And I can't remember who it was, if it was Al Teller or who it was at the record company, but whoever the record executive was hated Bill Schnee. But Boz loved Bill Schnee because they had had a working relationship and success. So Boss and, And. And Bill are producing, I would say, producing this together. I don't know what the liner notes, I don't remember what they say, but I'd say they produced it together.
0:37:47 - (Bart Stevens): Top musicians all the way across the board. All the toto guys.
0:37:51 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:37:51 - (Bart Stevens): And plus other A level session players and, you know, saxophone, all the different things. It was a great album. Acoustic, meaning, you know, real. Real players, real drum kit, real this. And they never shared the album and the progress with the record company. And so Boz was living in San Francisco and he would come down for some of the sessions and we would sometimes do mixes or overdubs. And one of my jobs, this sounds crazy today, but one of my jobs was we would finish something.
0:38:27 - (Bart Stevens): Bill would mix it down to two track, quarter inch or half inch. I can't remember what we were using this for. Reel to reel tape. I would take that over to Burbank Airport and do counter to counter through, I think PSA Airlines or something like that, fly it to Boz. He would get it that night, listen to it, and then give us his feedback. Then we'd work on it again the next day. So pre Pro Tools, pre Internet, pre all these things.
0:38:52 - (Bart Stevens): That's how we did it to keep the project going. Like I said, Boss, it was a.
0:38:56 - (Mike Reiner): Real process back then, wasn't it?
0:38:58 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah. And Boss, like I said, Boss would come down for. For some of it. Sometimes it depends on what we were doing, but they turned the thing in and it was completely rejected by the record company. Just start over.
0:39:11 - (Mike Reiner): Wow.
0:39:12 - (Bart Stevens): And we're talking about Marcus Miller and all these great Nathan east and all these great players had been, you know, the budget had been used up, if you will, and all that sort of stuff. So then going forward, the Snake studio was still the home for Boz, if you will. So Bill was kicked out and about four or five producers came in and each one had like two or three songs. So as you move forward, Boz and I are the only two people on this entire project.
0:39:43 - (Bart Stevens): So people are telling him to do certain stuff. And some of these producers were not the same quality as Boz. And they were telling him, oh, you need to do this, you need to do this. And I.
0:39:53 - (Mike Reiner): What do you think about this?
0:39:55 - (Bart Stevens): Well, he would roll his eyes at me and then afterwards complain about what was going on. But during the session, we couldn't, you know, there was nothing. It was all just, yeah, you gotta be a Pro. Paul Jackson Jr. And these guys are playing and all this sort of stuff. And it was just one of those deals where I felt so sorry for him. And then when the thing was finished, it had no punch. It had. It's called Other Roads.
0:40:17 - (Bart Stevens): It's a picture of him on a motorcycle in the front. But you listen to Heart of Mine and, you know, it's a little drum machine now instead of Picaro banging away with all his passion. So I felt really, really, really bad for that. But Boz was a great guy. He always. He told me he always wanted to do a blues album. Just a solid blues album.
0:40:39 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:40:39 - (Bart Stevens): Which now he has done and he. And I've heard some of it and it's like, really good. It's very soulful. That's. That was Boss.
0:40:46 - (Mike Reiner): You know, I. I kind of feel sorry for guys like him that have one big album that is just so big and so career defining and so all encompassing that it just overshadows everything he does from then on. And. And he had that with Silk Degrees. And it's not like that he stop putting out quality stuff because I would listen to everything he put out after that.
0:41:16 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, yeah.
0:41:17 - (Mike Reiner): And it's good.
0:41:18 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah.
0:41:19 - (Mike Reiner): But it's just tough for guys that, that find themselves in that situation where, you know, and the crazy thing is most of them go through their entire career wanting that. Wanting that one big album that is career defining. And then when, when, when they get it, they find there's a whole nother side to it that they never even thought about.
0:41:40 - (Bart Stevens): Right then they're chasing that next one.
0:41:42 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:41:43 - (Bart Stevens): So, yeah, that's.
0:41:45 - (Mike Reiner): That's just a really unfortunate thing about the career of Boss Gags.
0:41:53 - (Bart Stevens): If they had taken it, was it.
0:41:54 - (Mike Reiner): As big, would it have been the same?
0:41:57 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, it would have probably got more adult contemporary play for sure, because it would have had the names on it and that mattered, you know, from the Lindrum or Jeff Picaro or, you know, you know, all these different things. But it was a Whole new set of players. A whole new set. Songs were arranged different. So it was a. It was a completely different album. I actually. I mean, some of the songs are just great. In fact, when I got married in 1990, we did our first dance to Night of Van Gogh, which is on that album.
0:42:25 - (Bart Stevens): You know, there's some great songs on there.
0:42:26 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:42:27 - (Bart Stevens): But the. The final version of them is not. Not what it could have been or should have been.
0:42:33 - (Mike Reiner): Do real guys play on records anymore? It was all just Lindrums.
0:42:37 - (Bart Stevens): I. You know, I'm not.
0:42:39 - (Mike Reiner): That's not funny.
0:42:41 - (Bart Stevens): I don't claim to know what happens today because I don't really listen to a lot of today's music, sorry to say. Yeah, I don't. I don't know what happens, but the. The music that I like. Yes. There's drummers, and my wife will say that, hey, they're using real musicians. Well, imagine that. So.
0:43:01 - (Mike Reiner): Can you always tell?
0:43:03 - (Bart Stevens): No, no, not today's world. There was a product that came out called Asynclovir. Have you heard of Asynclovir?
0:43:11 - (Mike Reiner): Is that S Y N C L, A V, I, E, R?
0:43:14 - (Bart Stevens): I think so. There may be an I in there as well. But in the early 90s, these were, I don't know, $100,000, hundreds of. They were very expensive, and they were early sampling devices. So you have to realize that when I was at Schnee's, we had no sampling, which means digitizing. So we would take Picaro or somebody, and they go out and go, okay, hit a Tom Tom. And we would have this one device that would record for three seconds.
0:43:39 - (Bart Stevens): That's all we would get. So we would record or sample a kick or a snare or this. But a synclovir had this bank of memory, and it could play back all sorts of stuff. It could create sounds, and it was way, way ahead of its time, and very few people had them. We had one on Michael's project, and Bruce Sweden called it the most expensive sweater warmer he had ever seen because they weren't using it. So Sync LA is a. I don't know.
0:44:10 - (Bart Stevens): I'm sure it's a plug in today. But it was. It was. Knoffler used them. You know, I tell you. Can I tell you a Knoffler story?
0:44:19 - (Mike Reiner): Yes. Yes. I'd love a Knoff.
0:44:21 - (Bart Stevens): So a huge, huge in college, huge Dire Straits fan.
0:44:25 - (Mike Reiner): Me too.
0:44:25 - (Bart Stevens): And to this day. So I go. I graduate from college in 84. I move out to Los Angeles that summer. I end up starting to work at schnee's I think 86 or 87. And I'm telling him about Dire Straits and he just not buying it. And Money for nothing comes out. And all of a sudden, oh, yeah, they're really good. You know, everybody loves Dire Straits now. It's like, well, this is what I've been telling you for a couple years.
0:44:51 - (Bart Stevens): So Schneg, one day he says, hey, guess who called? I never know who's gonna call him. He goes, knopfler called. He wants me to mix. He's working on a movie. He wants me to mix it for him. I'm like, excellent. He goes, I'm going to Paramount. You want to go with me? Sure. So we go to Paramount, we go in the mixing room, and Mark Knophler's right hand guy is Guy Fletcher. He's a keyboard player and sampler at that point and all the things that they used.
0:45:23 - (Bart Stevens): So we. They're mixing this movie and I'm watching it up on the live screen. I'm not working. I'm just a guest at this point. Bill's mixing and watching all this, and I'm watching this movie. It's kind of interesting. A Princess Bride. Good Lord. So. So I get to meet Knopfler, and it's the Princess Bride. It's like, wow. Looking back on that. So he and Bill, Mark and Bill developed a good relationship.
0:45:50 - (Bart Stevens): Mark came to Shnay Studio to check out the room. He liked it. He got a gig on a Randy Newman album. James Newton Howard was producing some of it, and Mark Knopfler was producing some of it, and he decided he wanted to do that at Schnee. So I got to work with Knopfler as the producer and guy on Randy Newman, which he's a case in himself. Just he. He's he's like a Chevy Chase kind of guys way out there. But.
0:46:18 - (Bart Stevens): So all the time I was working in the studios, I collected guitar picks. So I would ask the players, hey, can I have a pick? And most of the time it was yes. And sometimes it was, I don't use a pick or this, that, and the other. Knopfler didn't use a pick.
0:46:31 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:46:32 - (Bart Stevens): Okay. So you will greatly appreciate this. Bill Schnee's studio was completely decked out. I mean, it was a art deco kind of place. 4166 Lankersham. And had glass. Curved glass wall and swirlies on the carpet. The men's room had gold records everywhere. I mean, it was just so you're standing at the urinals and there's gold records. You're standing there reading gold records. So if you can imagine this Knopfler's taking a leak. I'm talking taking a leak. And I go, mark, I know you don't play with a pick, but I collect picks. Can I have your thumbnail?
0:47:10 - (Bart Stevens): He stops peeing. It looks at me, because you can't believe what I've just said. Finishes, washes his hands. We go out. He gets a pick out and he plays with it and he gives it to me. Nice. So in my collection of guitar picks, I always have to tell that story.
0:47:27 - (Mike Reiner): The only way to make that story better would be if he gets fingernail clippers out, gives that to you.
0:47:35 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah. And you're a true fan because you knew he didn't play with a pick. But I think it says Charlie's guitars on it, I think is what his. I've got. I've got like 30 something. I've got Spinal Tap and Kiss and all the different guys. I've got picks from through the year.
0:47:51 - (Mike Reiner): So who's a favorite guy you've ever worked with?
0:47:57 - (Bart Stevens): I. I would probably say. And it's kind of weird that it worked out this way. Guy named Andy Johns, his brother Glenn Johns. The two of them did the most influential music in the 70s and 80s. Yes. I'm talking everything from Bad Company to Zeppelin to little band called the Beatles.
0:48:14 - (Mike Reiner): Liner notes. Those are names, you know.
0:48:16 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah. So Andy Johns did my favorite album, which is Exile on Main Street. Okay. Which is Mick and the Boys. Okay. So that was a wild time during those guys lives. And Andy Johns told me tons of stories when I worked with him. I won't go into detail, but he had a few addictions and he was just a wonderful guy. We would work really late in the night and he would call my wife while I was driving home and tell her how great of a guy I was and all this sort of stuff. So he's the producer engineer on this one project I'm working on. And the artist is Joe Satriani.
0:48:52 - (Bart Stevens): So Andy had just finished doing Van Halen stuff. Joe has already successful on his own, but he wanted this bigger rocking sound that Andy could produce. And the two of them together. The synergy in the room, my respect for Andy. Joe was an incredibly nice guy. Joe and I are still friends to this day. So I've seen Joe probably 30 different times. I just wrote a book, he read it and wrote one of the blurbs for the back of it. So I feel very.
0:49:22 - (Bart Stevens): I have to say that's the most special relationship because it's continued for 30 something years. I worked on the Extremist, which was his most successful commercial album, if you will.
0:49:32 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:49:33 - (Bart Stevens): And so Summer Song was the song that most people know from that I was using the Sony ad and some other things.
0:49:39 - (Mike Reiner): Right.
0:49:39 - (Bart Stevens): So.
0:49:40 - (Mike Reiner): So tell us about the book.
0:49:42 - (Bart Stevens): So I love music history. So I've been studying music history while I was in the studios. I started, you know, when I'm working in a building that Sinatra and all these Pet Sounds and all this sort of stuff happen, you start. I started digging deeper to learn more about the history of recorded music. So I found out that I got to work at some of the most incredible places. I started digging more. I was really fascinated by Stax and Motown and just Otis and Sam Cook and all these guys there.
0:50:13 - (Mike Reiner): You went there to see that?
0:50:15 - (Bart Stevens): To Texas? Yes. Yeah. A friend of mine was the executive director at the museum, so I went pretty regularly. So I studied all that, learned and read as much as I could and, you know, Booker T. And all those guys. And I just loved that side of it, the musician side of it and the how it all interweaved together. That was my. My career that I studied. Well, my hobby was automobile racing, so I have studied that as deep or deeper.
0:50:46 - (Bart Stevens): So I know way too much useless information. In fact, I have a little present for you in the car. I forgot to bring it in. I was running late, so. Thumbnail. So what's that? It's a thumbnail. Yeah, so. So I love music history and I love racing history. So I took two real people, a real musician and a real racing person. And I did tons of research on their lives in chronolog, chronological order, and how things worked. And then I fictionalized that they were best friends.
0:51:19 - (Bart Stevens): So in my story, I've got two real people and a lot of real stories that happen. But I fictionalized the friendship and I chose my guys. His name's Sam Nunes. He's out of reading Penns. A lot of people around here don't know him, but he was influential in the racing industry up until he died.
0:51:35 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:51:35 - (Bart Stevens): In 1980. For his sidekick, if you feel for his best friend, I chose Robert Johnson because He died in 1938. But in my story, he faked his death. So I get to do all these sort of things. They meet. So Robert and Bobby, he goes. I mean, sorry, Robert goes by Bobby now because he's a pastor.
0:51:55 - (Mike Reiner): Right.
0:51:56 - (Bart Stevens): Because. Because you sold the soul or you do whatever, you know, people lay the Bible down And go the other way. So he and Sam meet every year just to reminisce and run down memory lane. So the book takes place on August 16, 1977. Do you know that day?
0:52:09 - (Mike Reiner): Believe I do, yeah.
0:52:10 - (Bart Stevens): So that's the day they meet every August 16th. Because that's the day that Robert Johnson died.
0:52:14 - (Mike Reiner): Yes.
0:52:14 - (Bart Stevens): Or faked his death.
0:52:15 - (Mike Reiner): Yes.
0:52:16 - (Bart Stevens): So they're meeting. This particular day is 1977. So while they're there reminiscing in the morning, telling stories, and then in the afternoon it comes across the tv. Elvis has just died. So I had to tie that whole thing in the faking his death. And Robert faked his death. Michael supposedly faked his death. So I was like, I gotta make this part of the story. So I have true stories, some fictionalized stories. And I interviewed tons of people that knew Sam Nunes.
0:52:42 - (Bart Stevens): And I've read dozens of books about Robert Johnson and where he was and where he wasn't. And some of the different stories. I weaved all that together. So I have this story of these two best friends meeting at the Miller Grill in Maryland every year. Just to run down memory lane. And run every traffic light on memory lane. So that's the book.
0:53:03 - (Mike Reiner): Sounds interesting. Robert Johnson had quite a bit of history here in our Fairburg, did he not?
0:53:08 - (Bart Stevens): He did. Recorded at 508 Park. And in my story, I got to fictionalize that he actually. So that was 1937. So in 1936, he recorded in San Antonio. And so I've studied a lot about the Centennial and Dallas history. So I just made it where Robert Johnson came to the Centennial on his way to San Antonio. So I've got him placed at the state fair during that period as well. Nice.
0:53:36 - (Mike Reiner): And the book's called what?
0:53:37 - (Bart Stevens): The Miller Grill.
0:53:39 - (Mike Reiner): The Miller Grill, yeah.
0:53:41 - (Bart Stevens): And that's a whole play on words because Miller was a car builder and blah, blah, blah. So it tells in the story how the restaurant got its name. So. Wow.
0:53:51 - (Mike Reiner): Hardly realize that about you.
0:53:55 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah.
0:53:57 - (Mike Reiner): Let'S see. I had a couple of others here that I wanted to touch on. What about Fleetwood Mac?
0:54:04 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, boy.
0:54:06 - (Mike Reiner): It seems like Fleetwood Mac always had an interesting scene.
0:54:11 - (Bart Stevens): Well, I have to be careful.
0:54:12 - (Mike Reiner): To greater or lesser degrees.
0:54:13 - (Bart Stevens): Stevie Nicks is still alive. So I have to be careful what I say. So there was a compilation album called Rock Rhythm and Blues. I think it was. Richard Perry was doing it. Richard Perry is who Bill Schnee worked with on Ringo Starr. He was a big time producer. So he reached out. I don't know if he did it or Warner Brothers. I'm assuming it's Warner Brothers had these little guys like Elton John and Manhattan Terrence Fur and all these people doing cover songs of rhythm and blues, stuff from the 50s.
0:54:43 - (Bart Stevens): So Fleetwood Mac was scheduled to do. I forgot the name of the song. Now Accentuate the Positive. You know that song?
0:54:55 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:54:57 - (Bart Stevens): So we were scheduled at Schnees. Fleetwood Mac. Mick comes and sets up his drums. Everyone is there. Christy McVeigh. Everyone's there except Stevie Nicks. The session happened during the day. The rumor was that she couldn't work during the day. She only worked at night. So you do the math on why that was the way it was. So it became Christie McVie and friends. So if you read the liner notes, it's called Christie McVie and Friends. Yeah, but it was.
0:55:33 - (Bart Stevens): It was a. It was a great session because they were playing. Do you know the song? Did you find it Accentuate the Positive?
0:55:40 - (Mike Reiner): I just want to bring up.
0:55:41 - (Bart Stevens): This is the second time we've talked about Stevie Nicks in the last seven days, and both times have.
0:55:48 - (Mike Reiner): Have been ex. We've discussed that she might. There might be some reasons behind why certain things happen. And it makes me chuckle every single time.
0:55:58 - (Bart Stevens): So do Christy McVeigh and friends. Okay. Yeah, you'll find it that way. I want to say like Dr. John Song or something like that. I see the Dr. Johnson. Let me find those. Anyway, so that was the Fleetwood Mac. It was. It was only a couple days. Wasn't big, but it was just. It's doing this one song.
0:56:19 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:56:19 - (Bart Stevens): So, yeah.
0:56:24 - (Mike Reiner): You got it. Shoopy.
0:56:26 - (Bart Stevens): No, that does not want to be found. Rock, Rhythm and Blues, I think, is what it was called.
0:56:33 - (Mike Reiner): What about Olivia Newton John?
0:56:35 - (Bart Stevens): We were just doing overdubs, and I think some mixing took place. Alan Sides, who owned Oceanway, I believe, was producing that one. It was one of those things. I think on that particular one, I had a choice to do Olivia Newton John. Session wise, the guy goes, hey, we've got new sessions coming up. Do you want to do Olivia Newton John or you want to do this Budweiser commercial? I said, well, I'll choose Olivia Newton John.
0:56:58 - (Bart Stevens): And then I was very happy. I did, because I think because of the timing I did that. I think I ended up on Satriani. And had I donned the Budweiser, I would ended up on Neil Young. I mean, not Neil Young, Neil Diamond. And, you know, there's only two kinds of people in this world. Those that like Neil diamond and those who don't. That's a. That's a Bill Murray quote from what About Bob? I think.
0:57:23 - (Mike Reiner): I never heard that. But. But I can say, see it. I mean, there are a lot of people who say the same thing about me. So, you know, I have a question for you.
0:57:31 - (Bart Stevens): I have two questions for you.
0:57:32 - (Mike Reiner): What's that?
0:57:34 - (Bart Stevens): When you were at the zoo, did you do the morning. The. The new news?
0:57:38 - (Mike Reiner): No.
0:57:39 - (Bart Stevens): So there was that. When the music stops on the Rock and Roll Zoo, that's news from Denton to Decatur.
0:57:44 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
0:57:44 - (Bart Stevens): That wasn't you. You weren't part of that?
0:57:46 - (Mike Reiner): No. Okay, but I was there then. Okay, I was there. But by the time that rolled around every day, I was long gone out of there. I did the morning show then.
0:57:57 - (Bart Stevens): All right, Second question for you is, what was your first concert you went to?
0:58:01 - (Mike Reiner): My first concert was Eric Burden and the Animals at the Fair Park Music hall in 1967.
0:58:09 - (Bart Stevens): I figured that's where it was going to be. That's where my brother saw Zeppelin and some other stuff.
0:58:12 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, yeah. Now I had a chance.
0:58:15 - (Bart Stevens): Yes, I was. I was going to bring it up if he weren't. Oh, are we wallowing in. We have a miss.
0:58:23 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, we got a pretty big miss here on our hands.
0:58:27 - (Bart Stevens): Very sad.
0:58:29 - (Mike Reiner): There was a concert that came around in 1964, I believe, had Memorial Auditorium. Memorial Auditorium was the biggest room that we had here.
0:58:43 - (Bart Stevens): Did the artist stay on Stemmons Freeway? I mean, as a matter of fact, they did. In that hotel. You became a jail.
0:58:49 - (Mike Reiner): Yes, yes, as a matter of fact, he did.
0:58:52 - (Bart Stevens): I don't know what that could be.
0:58:55 - (Mike Reiner): And it just so happened that they caused quite a furor. And one of the ones affected by that furor was my sister and a number of her friends. And they really, really wanted to go to this show. But to do this, they were going to have to talk their parents into letting them go, talk their parents into paying the exorbitant sum of $4.50 if that for a ticket. And that did come about all that came about. She talked my peas into letting her go. A number of her friends did, too. And there were five of them that were going down there to sea this show that night.
0:59:46 - (Mike Reiner): At the last minute, one could not go. It just so happened that my mother was the curator of all the tickets, and I have a memory that will haunt me forever of her standing on the kitchen floor holding up that ticket and saying, mike, you want to go to this, don't you? And I went, no, I don't want to go to it. I want to go see. See Kimball and Hillcrest tonight. At Sprague Field.
1:00:21 - (Bart Stevens): High school football.
1:00:23 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah.
1:00:23 - (Bart Stevens): True and true.
1:00:25 - (Mike Reiner): Keep in mind, keep in mind, at this time, I'm in the eighth grade. I had no business there, you know, but I was absolutely convinced that I was gonna go up there and find some chick to mug down with or something like that. Never mind the fact that I was such a nerd, that there was no way that was ever gonna happen. But I went, no, I'm going to the Kimmel Hillcrest game tonight, Mom. She said, you sure you don't want to go?
1:00:56 - (Mike Reiner): And I go, no, I want to go to the game. And it was like, okay. And she took that ticket to the Beatles show at Memorial Auditorium and went on about her business.
1:01:07 - (Bart Stevens): Wow, what a giver you are.
1:01:08 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, I really am.
1:01:11 - (Bart Stevens): What are you gonna take time for yourself? That's what I want to know. I was gonna say that was the last time it was ever generous.
1:01:16 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah, I learned. I learned a valuable lesson that night.
1:01:20 - (Bart Stevens): Look out for number one. Oh, wow.
1:01:23 - (Mike Reiner): Is that the story you wanted?
1:01:24 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah. Good. Well, they were all getting teary eyed, so I was. We were ready for it. Yeah. That's good.
1:01:32 - (Mike Reiner): Yeah. That was not my finest moment.
1:01:34 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah, the best part was, is the.
1:01:37 - (Mike Reiner): High school he was going to lost. Yeah, they did.
1:01:40 - (Bart Stevens): That's right.
1:01:41 - (Mike Reiner): 14 to 7.
1:01:43 - (Bart Stevens): He still remembers the score.
1:01:45 - (Mike Reiner): Oh, yeah, yeah, I do.
1:01:47 - (Bart Stevens): I had nothing to that dramatic, but. But one of my roommates worked for Word Records and he was friends with a keyboard player who was playing organ for Stevie Ray Vaughan. And we went to see him at the Wiltern down in Wilshire area of Los Angeles. And my boss Schnee had a brand new Toyota Mr.2, which was a mid engine sports car. The. The craze in the, in the. This was in the late 80s and he let me borrow it. I don't know why.
1:02:18 - (Bart Stevens): So I drove to the Wiltern. I was running a little bit late because I'd come from a session and you can imagine LA traffic. So I get to the Wiltern and I find parking. Surprisingly, I found parking. I parked, I go inside, I meet Mark concert at Stevie Ray Vaughan. You know, Steve Ray Vaughan is Steve Ray Vaughan. So that's. That was great. And I'd seen him at the Greek and some other places, but this particular show was really good.
1:02:42 - (Bart Stevens): So we go backstage to meet the keyboard player guy. I didn't meet Steve Ray Vaughan, but we meet him. So, you know, it's a late night and I go outside and the car's gone. I had parked in a restaurant parking lot and I Didn't realize it when I pulled up. So my boss's car, his new car had been towed. So that's. That's my painful concert story. I've got a.
1:03:05 - (Mike Reiner): What was that conversation like?
1:03:06 - (Bart Stevens): Oh, it was very difficult with shnee. He was. He was. He was a tough man to be around sometimes, but we had fun. He. He loved. There were times we'd be mixing, he'd be mixing, you know, I'm assisting, doing whatever I do. And then he'd go, okay, close up. Where are you going? He goes, we're going to the laker game. Because he had passes. So we would just stop and go to a laker game and come back. There are times.
1:03:33 - (Bart Stevens): I remember one time we used Glenn Frey's seats and we sat on the floor. I mean, I was just this kid from Texas. I didn't know where I was going. But there were some fun times at the studio, that's for sure. And in the Michael days, man, there were practical jokes constantly. Just constantly.
1:03:50 - (Mike Reiner): Fun times indeed. Sounds like you've had your share.
1:03:53 - (Bart Stevens): Yeah. 1. I want to tell you one quick story about Slash.
1:03:56 - (Mike Reiner): Okay.
1:03:57 - (Bart Stevens): So in the 1990, the Simpsons had just premiered. They had their first season, and they did an album called the simpsons sing the blues. You might want to get a copy of that, because I have vocal credit on it. And it did sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But slash came into play on that. And so you have to realize Bart Simpson was huge. At this point, everybody was talking about Bart Simpson in la.
1:04:24 - (Bart Stevens): So Slash comes in, and before he shows up, we're told, this is what we have to have for slash. Ready? Okay. This is Sunday session. He's supposed to get there at noon, and here's his list. It's really short. It's really sweet. It's truly rock and roll. All we needed to have was whiskey and cigarettes. So he shows.
1:04:45 - (Mike Reiner): Easy enough.
1:04:45 - (Bart Stevens): He shows up. We're doing these overdubs. Bill Betrell was the producer engineer on that particular one. I was the assistant. Once again. So I'm making sure Mike's tape machines, everything's. You know, as a. As an assistant, you came with the studio. You had to make sure the thing worked. You're the liaison. You had to do everything. So in this case, they're doing overdubs and. And Slash finishes this riff deal.
1:05:12 - (Bart Stevens): And then Bill says, you know, they talk back and forth. Oh, you know that. What about this? You know, he goes. Bill says, bart, will you take over the tape machine? I want to concentrate more on listening. What Slash is Doing. So slash stops and he comes over to me and he kind of parts his hair like this because he can't really see his eyes. He got really right up to me. He goes, dude, your mom had no idea when she named you that he was talking about Bart and the fact that Bart Simpson.
1:05:43 - (Bart Stevens): And so it was just this weird interaction. That was pretty much all he said to me the whole session. But here's the cool thing. I have that recorded. I play it back during my presentation when I do my speaking about the book and I have dialogue of Michael and I talking about cooking and all sorts of stuff like that that are fun memories that. Or I. I tell people, I go, you know, some people make up stories.
1:06:07 - (Bart Stevens): I said, but I got. I got video and audio. I got audio to pack these up, so.
1:06:13 - (Mike Reiner): Well, we appreciate you coming in here and regaling us with some of these stories.
1:06:17 - (Bart Stevens): You do have. I do. I. I've been blessed with all that. So when you put the microphone in front of me, you said that I was setting it up. Can I just. When I. When I was in the studios and we would do. We'd set up microphones, I got to work with some of the best tube microphones in the world. So we would always have to test the mic, right? So I've been to hundreds, if not thousands of concerts, and when you hear a guy go up and go, test, test.
1:06:42 - (Bart Stevens): I hate that. I hate that. So 45 years ago this year, a movie came out and I memorized part of that movie. And for 45 years I can still recite that. And that's what I use for my microphone test. Can I do my mic test for you, please? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Universal Amphitheater. Here it is, late 1980s, going on 1975, late 70s, going on 1985. And, you know, so much of the music we hear today is pre programmed electronic music. We never get a chance to hear the master blues men practice their craft anymore.
1:07:13 - (Bart Stevens): By the year 2006, the music known today as the blues will exist only in your public library. So let us welcome tonight, from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues band of Jolly A Jake and Elwood Blues, the Blues Brothers. All right, that was my mic check. And I usually say it about 100 miles an hour, but I try to slow it down so you could. That's pretty strong, some of those words.
1:07:39 - (Mike Reiner): That is a good mic check stick.
1:07:42 - (Bart Stevens): Way better than test test. Yeah, hate that.
1:07:47 - (Mike Reiner): Well, thank you for doing this today. Yes, it's been a delight to meet you to hear Your stories. You got them.
1:07:52 - (Bart Stevens): Thank you. Thank you.
1:07:53 - (Mike Reiner): That's what we like around here is stories.
1:07:55 - (Bart Stevens): I get, I get to say I'm a longtime listener, first time caller. Can I get say that today? Okay, thanks. I always wanted to say that. It's not true, but I wanted to say that.
1:08:05 - (Mike Reiner): Well, I'm glad you did. I haven't heard that in a while. All right, let's see. Do we have any other reads we need to do here? Normal or reminder?
1:08:17 - (Bart Stevens): Everybody shares.
1:08:19 - (Mike Reiner): Okay, yes. That's what we need you to do. If you like what we're doing here, you need to turn others on to us because that is the way in which we, we get a word about this thing out there. Okay. All right. No, I do want to read it. That's the way I get everything in. You can find all of our episodes on our Patreon page. You can also find us on YouTube. It's everything to those of us who swim in the waters of the podcast.
1:09:09 - (Mike Reiner): And while we're at it, if you're feeling what we're doing around here, then how about a nice review? If you're by the channel on Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can help others find us by leaving a review. So you do that for us. We'll keep doing this for you. Thank you, Shupee. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, Becca Bart. Pleasure, man. Enjoyed having you.
1:09:30 - (Bart Stevens): I'll be in Fort Worth, Wednesday, August 20th, Angelo's Barbecue, doing a full Michael Jackson presentation for my book event. All right, so.
1:09:39 - (Mike Reiner): All right, so check that out. All right, that'll do it for YDC for today. Thank you very much for watching. Bye. All right, I'm going to go take my pants off. Your dark companion is a stolen water media presentation.