Unknown: Mike coming to you from crash studios in Music City,
USA, Nashville. This is the rich Redmond show. Today's guest,
legendary studio drummer,
and now rich Redmond. What's
up, rock and rollers, rich Redman here. This is another
episode of the rich Redmond Show coming to you from Music City,
USA. Jim McCarthy, my co host, my co producer, how you doing?
Buddy? Doing? Well, hey, hey, you play drums. I do every we've
established that you do a little bit of voiceover, just a tiny
bit. Now, when you were learning drums and you were playing along
the records, you for sure, played along the tracks from our
next guest, most likely, yes, and you know what he is. He is
one of the most recorded drummers in history, responsible
for sales over 250
million units. Mr. Paul line,
yeah, right. All right.
Now, Paul, look at some of these artists. Now, this is straight
from your wiki. These are some folks you've played with. John
Williams, Doc severance in the London Symphony, the Boston
Symphony, Tanya Tucker, Tom Jones, Randy Travis, Peter said,
Neil Diamond, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Lionel, Richie shine
Twain. List goes on and on. Is that all? And if you guys look
for you drummers out there, you're interested, you look up
on YouTube. Paul lime, Nashville recording session you did for
Vic Firth. Very informative, where you break down the
national number system and you talk about demo recordings and
all that. And another one that's great is the interview you
recently did with our buddy DOM FAMU laro and look up Paul lime
la Nashville studio on the sessions panel. That's a nice
conversation. Yeah, what a great thing that that they started
back some time ago. Jules follow up and yeah, that's it's pretty
incredible.
And you and I have been able to accomplish we don't get to break
a lot of bread, but every time that you and I get together, we
are breaking bread at like the palm with Jules and her entire
team, the tough life. And I know it's so past the bread, past the
wine, so fun. So you have a background. We have a similar
background, in the sense that I'm originally from Connecticut,
but then I moved to Texas in 1981 I went to El Paso Texas,
and then eventually I ended up in Dallas, Texas, in Dallas,
yeah, now you're did a lot of work in Tyler, Texas, right?
Well, did a lot of work in Tyler growing up, I started working in
Robin Hood, Brian studio, when I was 15 years
old. He said you were a human metronome. Yeah. Well, yeah. We
were playing with our rock and roll band at this this Tyler DJ
would have all the local bands, and we were on stage at Bergfeld
Park, and Robin Hood, as that's his real name, Robin Hood,
Brian's Robin Hood caught me after we came off stage, and he
said, I was 15. He said, kid, you got a metronome in your
head. How would you like to play on records? And I went, I want
to play anywhere I can. And he said, Can you be at my studio
Tuesday at 430 and I said, I'll have to ask my mom to take me.
Yeah, that's great. So that's where that started. And then
that was in, let's see. That was in 66 so then, of course,
graduated from high school in 69 Jeannie and I got married in 68
so Gratz, we're at 51 years.
Hey, that's the same as my parents. They sell her 51 years
together. And I That's great. You know what? I got him, but
I'm the first born son, so I had to really go big. I got him, two
nights, three days at the super, super, like the what's a super
high end hotel chain, the highest like Marriott. It's like
a four seasons
Motel Six
Milo Deering.
So I got them, I got I got my dad a beautiful round of golf,
and my mom the spa package and whatever, one, whatever food
they want to eat for two days. And where was it at? And this is
going to be in Florida. They live in Fort Myers. So there
it's in Naples. Naples.
Have you ever been to burn in Naples when you're on tour? Now,
Rocky Patel has a great club. Go there, and it's called Burn.
It's called Burn. Smoke is all his Rocky Patel cigars? Oh,
yeah. Great cocktails. Great food. Are you a cigar? Great
cigars. Yeah,
no. Now, how? Now? How often is too much? How do you space it
out? Oh,
I only have a cigar, maybe once, two or three times a month.
Okay, that's not bad, yeah? For a while there I was like, I like
this. It was like two or three a night, not a couple days in a
row. And you're like, I probably shouldn't do this,
yeah? Well, at this point of our lives, you know, having a little
cocktail and cigar and makes you feel like somebody What's your
cocktail of choice? An old fashioned
Okay, no. Goes out of style. Yeah,
you steak guy too.
Yeah, yeah. I'm more of a, more of a pork long guy. Oh, nice.
Okay, yeah, I think that's what we had at the comes from the
German background, I guess the palm that time.
Okay, so, so you're working for Robin Hood, you're in Tyler,
Texas. You're getting all this experience, that's right. And
then eventually, life takes you, at 19 years old, to Los Angeles,
in Dallas, into Dallas, yeah.
So I started, of course, Robin Hood. We did all the American
Airlines jangles and Exxon and everything down in Tyler. And
then they knew of me from down there. And Ron tut and who
you're, of course, very familiar with, he was in Dallas, and
Larry hobarrack, who was an arranger in Dallas and moved on
to LA and Larry was doing a lot of things for ABC TV. He was for
the 68 comeback special. He was musical director for Elvis and
and L and Ronnie, and had worked with Larry mahobarak A lot,
yeah, and in Dallas, so Larry. Larry called Ronnie, said,
You've got to come out for this audition. And Ronnie, so I'm
working. But anyway, he went out. Of course, he got the Elvis
gig that was in 68 and so 68 6970 they were kind of hurting
in Dallas for a you know, a lot of the guys there, out of out of
North Texas, jazzers, but jazzers, you know, you know the
you know the drill. And I want to move to New York and starve
type thing. So I don't want to starve. I don't want to starve
So, but anyway, the so there was kind of a hole in, in the in the
in the lineup in Dallas, and when they found out I was
musical, I was band leader for a chick singer there, Vicki
Britton, and we had our own club, and it was doing going
really well. And so anyway, I started working in the studios
in Dallas, then starting in about 70. At 70, I moved to
Dallas and right out of high school and and started working
the studios in 70 and then by 73 I was I was doing 450 sessions a
year in Dallas and and the guys, Doc Severinsen had used the
Dallas rhythm rhythm section, rhythm Dallas rhythm section to
to do Boston Pops and Cincinnati Symphony and stuff like that. So
I went with, started with Doc severance. And when I was 23
fantastic nice. It was, it's been the angels in my life have
been unbelievable. Yeah, yeah.
Happened at the right time, and I heard you mentioned your
angels. Those are some life defining moments for you.
Yeah, yeah. Those those people that come into your life and
believe in you more than even you
do. Sure. I think Jim is one of those guys. For me, he's been
like a spirit whisperer for the last decade. Thank you. Yeah,
man, you know you've got to get outside of your shell sometimes
and get that third party perspective. Because you know
what? Sometimes we look in the mirror, we don't always see what
the rest of the world sees. So now again, you were in Los
Angeles during the heyday where you were doing tons of session
for episodic television, your Battlestar galacticas, and even
played on Star Wars The Return of the Jedi. I mean, that would
be way up there for me. Guys, I played on
Star Wars. Yeah, the music said Revenge Of The Jedi. And why I
didn't grab it? I have no idea. Just, it was just another
session, right? But now that I look back, I had completely
forgotten I did it. And we were, we were somewhere out with, I
think, without, with Mike Nesmith from the monkeys and and
this kid came wandered backstage, and he wanted to meet
me backstage. So of course, we had him come backstage and we
talked, man, I learned how to play hi hat from you on Star
Wars. And I'm going, did I do that? Yeah, I remember that with
John. It was kind of a throw together thing. And Jerry hay,
course, and did the horn arrangement on it that he did
all the horn arrangements for Michael Jackson, right? And on.
And I went
to school with Henry hay, his son. Oh, no kidding, yeah. Oh,
great. And then he went to New York to play jazz, and I think
he ended up going on to play with some big folks, like the
stings of the world.
Oh, good. Yeah, that's wonderful, crazy, right? Yeah,
you know, we've really got a pretty small business. We all
know each other. We all love each other, especially the
drumming community. It's, it's really, we all support each
other
more than any other instrument community. I think
probably so, yeah, I don't, I don't know why that is, maybe
because we like beating on things I don't
we do. So now, so you're out in Los Angeles. What? What years
was that I moved to Los Angeles, January the 15th, 1977
I love you have the date, because I don't have the date of
when I moved to Nashville. I just know it was March of 1997
Yeah, I, actually, I prayed a lot about that at the time. I
prayed about, you know, and I got this, I got this kind of
word, you know, you gotta, you gotta be there by January the
15th. And so we drove, I drove, actually. I drove all night long
to get I drove 24 hours to be in the city limits by the 15th.
So Dallas, Los Angeles, Dallas to Los Angeles, and you have
pickup truck
for your drive. I had a 72 Chevy station wagon with the woody,
with the stuff the woody, the. Video, the wood paneling, wood
paneling, yeah, and the roll down back window
and all that stuff. It's like Chevy Chase in Christmas.
Now, were you married at this time? Were you a married man at
this time? Or, yes, okay, yeah. And you've been able to provide
for a family playing the drums. This is the American dream.
Yeah, it's
you and I. Both are one of the, some of the fortunate ones. Yes,
it's like, I say it's one thing is just rolled into another.
Within two weeks, when I got there, the guitar player from
one of our high school rock and roll bands, Doug Rohn, was with
Neil, and when I moved out, I went out first myself, so I
lived with he and another high school buddy. And where
are you crashing? Over there in the Southland, what we're part
of El Malibu and Malibu, it's a tough life. That's not bad.
No, they had a great pad Malibu, yeah? And Frank is, can you
anyway? So, yeah, trencis, yeah. So we saw, I was out there with
them, and within two weeks, I was with Neil Diamond,
beautiful. That just, you know, it's that stuff. You can't make
it up, yeah? Cuz
I'm kind of looking at your just kind of the background here. I
even saw that you play with, I worked with a gentleman named
Tim rush low, and we had a pop country band called rush low,
yeah. And I saw, if you guys want to look up on the YouTube
and attraction, just look up 2017 Trump inaugural, the ball,
Freedom ball. And you're playing some great big band music with
Tim rush. Load, love Big Band always rush, yeah, he's such a
nice guy. He's does it really well. So here's some of the
films you worked on, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi you did for
television, the fall guy, Spencer for hire, growing pains.
You were the staff drummer on a lot of award shows. Did
the American Music Awards for 10 years and the CMAS for off and
on for 25 years. ACMA is for, yeah, 12
years, and you were the eight time ACM drummer of the year.
And also sitting in that chair there, we had two other winners.
We had Mr. Eddie bears and Mr. Lonnie Wilson. Stop all of the
contemporaries. So when I moved here in 97 I was doing my
research, and, you know, researching everybody, so I
listened to a lot of your tracks. Greg Morrow, Eddie
bears, Lonnie Wilson, Chad Cromwell, Kenny had a kit here.
Was working a lot back in the days, and I took a lesson from
him in nine. When did I take a lesson 98 or something like
that? And then he said, You know what? I'm just gonna move,
finally move out of his Indiana house. And he says, I just
grabbed all my drums on the way, and I just went to LA and now he
uses that as his base. Yeah, does a lot of recording just
from a little spot in North Hollywood. I'm just, is Kenny
out there? Now he's out there a good 10 years or so. Is he
really?
Yeah, gosh, I didn't realize he'd he'd moved out there that
long ago, because we do stay in touch. I just didn't ask about
where he was living. There's a great story that I have about
Kenny Aaron off, who's who we're talking about. Now, my son, 20
years ago, was trying to decide he was a senior at UT, and he'd
always wanted to fly jets and but he played drums in his rock
and roll band, and they were the hot band on campus up at
University of Tennessee, so they were having a lot of fun, and he
was trying to decide whether to follow in my footsteps. He was a
big fan of Kenny and and Ronnie Tut. He our families, our family
and Ronnie's family grew up together, and Jacob and Nathan
tut were best of friends, and, and looks like extended family.
And so, so, so, so Kenny called me. Was in town. He said, Hey,
Paul, you want to go get lunch? So, yeah, man, Sure, that'd be
great. I got some time this afternoon. So I said, You mind
if I bring my son? So we met down at the old Houston's,
right? And, and so we're sitting there, and we, you know, kibitz
bit and so he finally says to Jake. He says, So Jacob, so
Jake, what's going on with you? He says, man. He says, I'm a
senior at UT, and I either have to sign for my commission this
week, I have to sign for my commission in the Air Force.
I've been doing ROTC, and I've got a sign for my commission the
Air Force, or turn that down and follow in Ron's and dad's
footsteps and and start my, you know, be get serious about a
music career. And I just, I'm having such a hard time whether
to fly jets or play drums. And Kenny reached over, slapped him
on the arm, said, Oh, man, go fly jets. You can play drums
anytime, just like that. Made up his mind. Yep, Kenny made up his
mind. And now in August, this coming August, in eight months,
he retires. After 20 years, he's retired with full pension, full
good for him, full medical is when and he's gonna wants to
come back to start playing. If you can talk about it, I
actually talked to him about it. I said, Are you going to want to
come back to play? He said, I'm getting so many great offers
with companies coming out of them. Yeah, what he's an expert
at?
Yeah, I got an uncle that drove, flew the planes for air,
American Airlines for years, and when you know they have to
retire. Think at 6065, at 60 and so he and he's just like, I'm
I'm good man, this is gonna be fantastic. We're talking to our
friend Russ Miller one time, and he's like, Rich. Do you realize
that the level of success you've achieved, if it was in any other
industry, you would own a top floor penthouse in Manhattan?
That's right, but it doesn't work like that. No one doesn't,
not in the creative
arts. No, yeah, we do. Well, I mean, we do. We're very
comfortable. And I can retire if I want to, but I still love it,
you know, I still enjoy it, and we stay busy, yeah,
speaking of staying busy and having a great skill set, the
School of Rock, School of Rock, right here in Nashville,
Tennessee. I remember when I was, you know, learning the
drums. It was 1976 1977 I had super supportive parents, and
Too bad we didn't have something like the School of Rock. The
School of Rock is a great thing. There's 250 locations in the
world, and right here in Nashville and Franklin, we have
two of the best locations, Kelly and Angie McCarthy. You know
him. You love him. You met him. We interviewed him. They run the
best school of rocks. And so if you got a kid out there that
wants to learn the drums, bass guitar, keyboards, they want to
sing, they can take lessons at the School of Rock. And even if
your kids never become a full time musician, they're going to
learn about persistence, determination, time management,
working well with others, taking direction. And those are great
skills to have in life. So I got two emails addresses for you,
Nashville at School of Rock calm, or Franklin at School of
Rock calm, tell him I sent you. And thank you so much School of
Rock for sponsoring the rich Redmond show. Yes. Thank you
very much. We're so good at that. Oh, dude, thanks. I got a
future in radio. I better get on it. You know,
that's another industry that if you really do well in it's
seemingly you should own a penthouse, but exactly doesn't
happen.
Should become like, you know, Howard Stern, or Don Imus or
something like that. Yeah, it's lightning in a bottle. I love
listening. I listened to that interview you did with Dom
family Laura last night, and you were talking about your first
drum hero, Louis Bellson Louie bells, you know, mine was, it
was a gateway drug. I really enjoyed Carmine apathy. And we,
you know, we kind of become friends over the years, and then
looking back, you find out, Oh, Carmine was really into Gene
Krupa and everyone's like, buddy, rich man all the way, no
Krupa all the way. It's like, you got your chocolate and my
peanut butter. You got my peanut butter and your chocolate,
that's right. I thought that that gene had such a great
showmanship. And he was the people's
drummer, yeah, he was the people's drummer. And he was,
yeah, right, that's it, yes. That's the best way I can think
of to put him Yeah, people's drummer. Technically, Buddy.
Buddy had him. Oh yeah, yeah. But he had everybody. But you
know, his talking to Ron one time. You know the opener for,
for the opener that
Ron used, Elvis wanted the drums to start the whole show, sure.
And so the opener that Ron used on CC Ryder, it's a straightened
out version of Sing, sing, sing, sing. And Ron is right, yeah,
there's even there triple it in the whole thing. And he actually
doesn't use the, he actually doesn't use the two bass drums
on the open when I do the show I I do. I had him in the second
two bars, just make it thunder a little more. Oh,
so you're on the toms, and then on bar three and four, you had
the feet. Add the feet, yeah,
yeah. It's fun showing we do it. But yeah, Ron, when Ron was had
conflict, because Ron, after, after the 80s, I wanted to stay
in the studios with Neil. I want to stay in the studios in LA and
kind of work with everybody. Now, when
you move to Lawson, and when you moved to Nashville in 19 in 1988
was that, let's go to a something like a little bit more
of a slower, a softer pace to raise children? Was that the
thing?
Well, Lee had called me to to go out with James Taylor, nice. And
I'd always wanted to play with James and and one night, I told
my two little boys, Jacob and Josh, one that's now retiring
from the Air Force, that's crazy. I said, you know, Daddy's
gonna take a, you know, I really want to play with this artist.
And I'd already, I'd already turned down Neil full time and
and we were, I was in the middle of doing a Lionel Richie there
should have been around 81 and we 81 and we were still, we
started doing all the Lionel Richie records and and Lee Sklar
called to do, to do James. And, man, I'd love to do that. That'd
be awesome. So I told the kids one night, and they were, let's
see 81 Jacob would have been about four. They boys are about
three and four. And I said, you know, I'm, I want to, I'm gonna
go on tour. I'm gonna do a little traveling. You know, I've
been home, just in the studio, and being home every night.
Well, Daddy, how long you gonna be gone? I said, Well, it's a
year. Well, Daddy, how long is a year? Well, it's Christmas to
Christmas. You know, how long Christmas to Christmas is to a
four year old? Long time. Forever. Yeah, yeah. And they
start crying, and I'll go, Well, I'm not leaving tomorrow. It's
okay. So, you know, you go back and put Jeannie. Should I do? I
really want to, but I don't want to leave the kids. And so first
day of rehearsal, I was walking out the door, and they started
crying, and Jeannie started crying, then I started crying,
and I called Lee, and I said, Lee, I can't do this. I can't go
and he said, and I thought he was gonna lie. Said, I
understand. I thought he was gonna light into you. He said,
he said, Paul, man, thank Thanks for telling me now. He said,
Thanks for he said, because, man, you know, sometimes guys
can't take the road and have families. They get out for a
month and they and they say, I gotta go home. Yeah. And I've
had, I've had guys do that to me before as a band leader. But
here's, here's the end of that story that happened 30 years
later at the White House. We're in the we're in the East Wing of
the White House, and we're doing the the country at the White
House TV special for Obama, and James is on stage, and we're
we'd already rehearsed and everything I gave him the very
last I gave James Taylor very last of my last serial number of
my signature snares. Yeah, but anyway, because he came back
said, was that snare drum? And I said, That's my signature snare
what's, what's different about this drum? Anyway, I'm getting
off
track. That's one of the best selling signature snare drums.
Yeah, they're
going up on the on the eBay, on eBay.
But anyway, so we're in the East Wing of the White House, and
James is standing there. We have a little bit of a break. And so
I told him the story that, of course, he didn't even know
about. He don't you know, Lee was the band leader, putting the
band together and, and I don't think James knew about it. And I
told him the story, and he went really and then 15 minutes
later, he came back and he said, I didn't get all that. He said,
Paul, tell me that. Tell me that story again. And I told him what
had happened. He said, You made the right choice.
Ah, it seems like a super, kind soul. Oh, James,
a great deal. Diamonds, great guy. Some of them are not.
Who were some of the other folks that you had a touring
relationship with over the years, Linda, Linda Hamilton,
no. Linda Carter. Most recently, she thinking of Terminator. My
very first, my very first episodic TV series was Wonder
Woman, nice and and we had, you can go online and see that Linda
Carter CBS specials, you can see all that stuff and some great
shots on that. But that was we had. We did five CBS specials,
and she actually started as a singer, and so we hooked back.
We hadn't talked for, like, 28 years, and back in oh eight, she
called and said she wanted to come back. She'd raised her kids
want to come back to working. So I've been MD for Linda now for
this will be our going on our 13th year. Great. So, yeah, so
it's a lot of but we only do about 1515, 20 dates a year, and
just just enough to get out and have some good food. And that's
nice. You hear the crowd? Yeah? That kind of stuff. It's fun
stuff. Yeah. I remember
in 9097, when I moved to town, it was very it was very there
was very much a line in the sand where you were an artist or a
songwriter, or you were a session drummer, or you were a
live drummer, and there wasn't a lot of commingling. And then
that's right. And then now that things have changed, you're
really smart to I know all of our colleagues are jumping in a
bunk on the weekends and riding on a bus doing sessions Monday
through Thursday, and like, Yeah, I'll go play with Amy
Grant, yeah, I'll go play with Bob Seger, yeah, go play with,
you know, that's it's become the norm now, yeah, as as the, as
our, the business as we know it. And, you know, yeah, has turned
into what it's turned into with, with so much the business model
having pretty much been destroyed. Yeah, you know,
thanks a lot for the mp three guys, yeah, really destroyed it.
And they have the thing. They could
have stopped it, and they didn't, but, but, yeah, touring
relationships Tom Jones was just an absolute ball. I did that in
77 when I first after working with Neil, and before the kids
came, I went out with Tom Jones and nice. So much fun. Yeah,
yeah, it's that's about as much fun as you can have, right? With
that, with
your clothes on,
he's just, he's such a rocker, you know, we do his show, and
then he'd get on the on the plane, he'd have private chat.
We he and hopefully hitting the back of the seats as he walked
to the back of the jet gun come along a baby. Whole lot of shake
and go. He's still ready to go. Yeah, yeah. So all fired up. All
Fired up, yeah, we would, but each both of us would lose five
pounds. Have you ever weighed yourself before you go on? Weigh
yourself when you
come off. Now, I had a girl I can probably get you connected
with. She weighed, you know, she put these elect she put some
electrodes on me. She's actually doing a scientific study over
five years. That's a good one too. And so I burn 1000 calories
a show. Oh, yeah, 90 minute show. So 1000 calories and my
heart's up there. Yeah?
Now, so it's good. We're getting paid to work out. Oh, that's
right, yeah, that's easy to keep we lose
that water weight for sure, though, because I. When I come
off, it's like, my shirts, like, wring it out, yeah, I should
turn it into, like, a perfume or a cologne. Yep, I
have a question. You talked about the every man's drummer
being Gene Krupa. I've always taught. I always thought of Neil
Peart like that. Yeah, you know, kind of like everybody knew who
he was. Thought he was one of the best drummers. But of
course, technical prowess, you've got guys that could, you
know, drum circles around him, but to the every man, he was an
amazing drum household, amazing.
You know, Rush. Rush was like a religion. It's, it's like,
you're either a huge rush fan, right? Or you're not. But
certainly, anybody who was a huge rush fan, obviously, you
know, Neil. So there was
a documentary recently that I watched, and I want to say it's
on one of the streaming channels that you can you can download,
and it's about them leading up to their very last show, and
they documented. It was very well done. That's great. And the
attitudes within the band, because Getty and Alex, they
weren't ready to hang it up. But Neil was like, Guys, I'm gonna
be 64 years old. I'm getting tired. He's like, I can't play.
That was, that was big of him
to admit that, you know, yeah, he wanted
to go out on top. You know, it was, it was one of those things
that I kind of appreciated about him, that it's just that he's
like, it's a workout.
Do you feel like you're gonna die with the sticks in your
hand. Is that a goal? One, two?
You know what I mean? That's probably what
I'll do. I want to play as long as I still love it. Yeah, I want
to play as long as I still love it and and I still love it. So
I'm only taking what I really want to do if it's really fun. I
we got a call today, this morning that Tanya, Tanya Tucker
and I great buds, and she wants to, we're going to do a remake
of Delta dawn, and they're trying to find as many originals
as possible. And so we're a couple weeks we're going to
recut Delta Dawn and and Miss Brenda is going to come in.
Brenda Lee is going to come in and be part of it, so that'll be
a lot of fun. And, you know, talking about everyday drummer
and every man's drummer, Louis fit to me, Louis was technically
beyond. He was, he was kind of in the middle between buddy and
Gene, yeah, and so. But he was he, he did the double bass drums
for the first time and and when I heard that, it just at 12
years old. I was just because I was beating, like every other
drummer that I was beating on everything in the house. I knew
how sharp to sharpen the pencils, but where the tips
wouldn't break, but they'd still bounce well in school, right?
Yeah. And so it just, I mean, I've always heard rhythms in
everything and and I think that's, I think that's
exceptionally important to young players, to know the lineage.
Know, who did Louis Bellson listen to? Well, he gene was
older than he was, so he had listened to Gene, you know, and
and, and then, and then I told you the story about Ronnie. He
was a gene fan, right? So Ronnie kind of he. Ronnie had his own
style, but Ronnie was one of the first ones to meld rock and roll
and orchestra. And that's, that's my favorite thing to do,
is play with a a rock and roll rhythm section, with a full
orchestra, kicking a full orchestra, a big band is that's,
that's my favorite thing to do, although, in Nashville, you
know, when we moved here in 88 there, there was not that much
of that to do until when we started to do the CMA Christmas
specials. All of that's big band. Well, most of it's big
band. And we've been doing, we just had our 10th, finished our
10th year of the CMA Christmas specials. I'm at 10 years with
that now.
So it's like, we have this calendar every year the things
we can look forward to, there's like, CRS, CMA Music Fest, and
then there's the CMAS and the ACMs, and then you get into all
your Christmas specials, and then all the sessions in
between, it's like, we got the NAM show, we got pas we get this
whole thing that kind of we can look forward to.
Yeah, I'm pretty much booked for the rest of year as much as I
want to be as four trips to Europe. And it's, it's gonna be
a lot. Who's the
gentleman you're playing? Is he an Elvis impersonator? He's not
an
impersonator. Those are the guys who wear the the jumpsuits.
Yeah? And we won't work with them. The TCB guys won't work
with them. It just that. It's just awkward, didn't Yeah, but,
but guys that do a great job and really honor Elvis and the fan
clubs in Europe are still ravenous for his music, right?
And because he was such a tremendous artist, such a great
singer. He did a lot of covers. I mean, he covered a lot of
stuff, especially later on in life, when he wasn't getting the
top shelf stuff anymore because of the way the colonel handled
his business. But, but
who played on all the soundtracks for the Elvis
movies? It was
buddy Harmon and DJ Fontana. Wow. We lost the. J That's
almost a year ago now. I stay in touch with pre Hal Blaine. Halb
played pretty on the on the stuff in LA and he played on the
on the TV specials. DJ was on all the movies and but when they
would do the movies, they would also Elvis would fly buddy out
buddy Harmon. So it'd be buddy and DJ, and sometimes be three
drummers on a lot of them, like the Beach Boys records, there's,
there's, there's two drummers and two percussionists. And, I
mean, it's just yeah, as a matter of fact, if, if you were
able, if you were able, to see a credits sheet on Viva Las Vegas.
It's, it's buddy Harmon, DJ Fontana, Louie Bellson, wow, and
gosh, who was the other drummer that was on it? And it might
been hell as well. Yeah, yeah. Four full on drummers. Yeah. So
when you listen to it, like, see,
yeah, to our coffee, to our non drummers out there. Buddy Harmon
was a national session drummer that played on, I believe,
18,000 recording sessions. And when I was starting to play the
Grand Ole Opry in the in the 9798 99 he'd be hanging out. He
was always at the opry hanging out. Like just that was his
life, yeah. And Hal Blaine was probably the first and perhaps
last session drummer to own Rolls Royce's mansions and
yachts. But he liked the ladies
when they were still cheating. He was married six times,
but the yachts and the Rolls Royce, he
was married six times. God, rest his soul.
Take a piece of paper. Cut it in half, yeah, cut it in half
again. Cut it in half again, right?
Yeah, in half. And he ended up having to sell half again
records. He had to sell his gold records
to a limb. Yeah, it's, it was, it was terrible. I stayed in
touch with him at the at the end, yeah?
Hal Blaine, yes. He was always quick with a joke. So friendly.
That's, that's really part of the equation is, yeah. Your
reading shops together, and you got to know your electronics,
and you got to be able to play with a click and tune your drum
and take direction, but at the same time, really, it's like
that those your personality and your people skills in in the
room, and how you can deal with people and and how was probably
the first one to show up and had his coffee and a cigarette, and
he had the new joke of the day, and people loved being around
the guy and
represent Have you seen the movie Love and Mercy? No. Would
you see that movie? It's about Jim's always good for tuning us
on the good movies. Well, I mean, it's a movie all about
man. What's his name? Brian Wilson, yeah. And Hal Blaine,
there's a, you know, actor in that movie that plays Hal blame.
Yeah, we're
friends on Facebook, that me and that actor, and we've been
trying to get together for four years for coffee. Yeah, but
there's a lot of urban sprawl, sprawl in Los Angeles, so I
split my time. I live with my girlfriend in West Hollywood,
and when I'm not here, and it is so fun. Did you find that when
you moved from Los Angeles, you missed the Thai Lebanese and
Greek food on every street corner, sushi, you're here.
Like, wow, where's barbecue?
We miss shondara, yeah, Shonda, the Thai food there at kawanga
in the sunset. Yes, I love shandar. We used to eat there
almost everything. I think it's a, it's a, it was right beside
group four
things like a Katsuya. Now, no, Chandra still, still there.
Okay, I'm gonna go
when we go out, we, when we go out with Linda, we play the
Catalina club out there to get her ready for Kennedy Center and
Lincoln Center. And did he Catalina close Catalina club on
Sunset? Yeah, still there. Catalina Bar and Grill still
there. Okay, yeah, but that's a it's a fun little venue
to play so many jazz clubs closed, man, but the baked
potato is still rocking. The potatoes
still going. There's a place out in West Lake where our kids were
born, bogeys.
Is it bogeys? Bogeys, bar I think it's bogeys, bogeys,
bogeys, yeah. And then there's the write off room that our
buddy. Do you know, Tony bronickle, I don't know the
session drummer. He played with Ken Moe for years. He played
with Bonnie. Great. He's actually the guy that recorded,
I can't make you love me with the brushes on the Bonnie Raitt
song. They could, they couldn't get a take for whatever reason
he heard the song. He came in one passer like, that's it.
Boom. That's great. Yeah. I love those stories. So what are you
most excited about? What have you learned along the way?
What's your next five years look like?
Oh gosh,
because, you know, there's going to be musicians that, not even
drummers, but other instrumentalists, people that
want to get record deals. You know, you've survived and
thrived in four decades of the music business, five decades of
the music business. What are the commonalities? What are some
things that, some advice that you could give to these
dreamers? Drum roll,
I had to do that was good. It was effective.
The comedy is, tell. Timing, anticipate,
yeah, once again, if you want to be a if you when, when
technology started coming into drum, drum world in in the 80s,
late 70s and early 80s. A lot of the guys, Hal and Ronnie, did
not embrace it. They did not want to really take the trouble
to learn that. And what we had to do is we had to figure out
how to use a lindron. We had to figure out how to trigger an SDS
five and an SDS seven. And why didn't the SDS seven sound like
the SDS five? And when the SDS five was so popular at the time,
but we all knew that was going to move on to something else.
That's one thing I learned when we did the Amy Grant Christmas
record with Tennessee, Tennessee Christmas and all those things
on it that we cut it caribou actually in July, as most of the
Christmas records you've got, I'm sure, yes, as with me, you
do them in July, bells in July, sleigh bells in July. So, so.
But I used the Simmons drums on that. And I'll never use
electronics on a Christmas record. What year was that? 82
so, because they go on Christmas, records play for
everything. And you, yeah, you hear that, you go, so you have,
like, 1982 I sound so freaking
old. So you had the you had the Lynn, you had the octopad, you
had the the Simmons. And then there's, we're
doing splitters coming we'd do double splitters coming out of
the back of the lindrum, and you'd get that sound. And just
that, then that would run through a a, basically a limiter
that would just pull the spike off the top of the sound, where
you could go into a four out of 16 or or some other thing. Maybe
you double and trick, you know, up triggering more drums and
that kind of stuff. All my drums. I put piezos on all the
drums so you just plug into the shell. Still to this day, no,
no, no anymore. Now you know all the engineers want to run the
world, so let them do the let them do everything. It's so easy
to show up. Hell yeah, so, but what? What that created was a
playing situation where you had to in order to know you were
firing everything. The dynamics went out of the kit, which I
really miss. But then I get used to just slamming all the time.
And then I realized when I quit triggering, that you don't have
to play that way all the time, right? And if you play you're
playing through the heads. It's it's too far totally. So, so
yeah, but looking forward to the next five years. Gosh, I I'm
enjoying life. I've got, I've got, my three kids are very
successful. I've got seven great grandkids. We're, we're trying
to spend more time with them. And are they all here in this
area, Middle Tennessee? Actually, my first son's in
Vegas. He's still at Nellis. He'll be getting out of the Air
Force, and he's trying to decide whether to move back here.
Second son is a professor of theology and at Whitworth
University in Spokane, and our daughter does live here, just
about three minutes from us, and we have the grandkids over at
the house all the time. They love being in Opus house. That
is awesome. It's a great life. We've gene are still together
and and very thankful. That's
a great victory, right there. Marriage is tough, especially
when you're in the arts and you're traveling, and you keep
your schedule like you
keep Yeah, so it's but a lot of times I fly southwest, so much,
she flies with me companion, so she fries for free. So she loves
that. She goes.
I know there's less there's less bells and whistles on Southwest,
but I'm a Southwest man because they I just I find that they're
the kindest, funniest, happiest employees,
yeah, and you know our schedules? I know yours does
too. Your schedules change all the time, and they don't, they
don't bust your
chops for changing the schedule, and they don't charge you for
the luggage.
And if anybody knows somebody who is in the executive ranks at
Southwest, we could really they'd make a great sponsor.
Are you kidding me? Speaking of sponsors, we got to pay some
bills. We'll be right back
the rich Redman show. We'll be right back.
Learn by Doing, I definitely think resonates with what we're
about here at the School of Rock. I'm Angie McCarthy, and
I'm the owner of the School of Rock in Franklin and Nashville.
I would say that the majority of kids that come in have either
been sitting in their bedrooms watching YouTube, learning how
to play, or they've taken music lessons at some point in their
life. We do have a lot of beginners. It doesn't matter
what level you're at, you can participate in our programs,
whether you're a beginner or you're advanced. We don't teach
music to put on shows. We put on shows to teach
music. Connect with School of Rock today. Search School of
Rock Franklin. Four Nashville.
This is the rich Redmond show.
You know, I used to have my drums parked right across from
you, over at SSU, and Jim Handley was your guy forever?
Was your drum tech? Is he still working with you? He's been with
me over 25 years. And so I would always look, and I would see you
would have old Yamaha electronic drums and octopads and things.
You were just like, I better not get rid of this. Maybe it'll
come back. I was like, it was like, almost like a museum of
electronic percussion.
I wish I could find the syndromes. Yeah, I don't know
what happened to him. Just somewhere along the way, right?
Yeah. They disappeared.
Disco right. Then, did you ever meet Yogi Horton? Yogi Horton,
he was like, the he played on the hustle. He was like, Oh, the
disco guy.
I didn't know who would have played on that, yeah. I didn't
know if it would have been ed or someone. Yeah,
Ed green, he died, and Ed is here. Is he not? Ed's here,
yeah,
I did a thing for see him fantasy weekend. Did you did? I
was thinking you did that last, last year, fantasy weekend that
they put on rock and roll fantasy weekend. Oh, I saw him
there. They put it
on a couple of them in Los Angeles. I thought you had,
yeah. David fish, off.
David Fisher, yeah, used to manage. This is a great Do we
have time? Sure. So talking to David. And David used to manage,
road manager, Ringo, right, right? And so, so we were
talking with David. David's a great guy. And he said, you know
when? When I said, Well, you know, with that expensive band
that Ringo takes out and he's playing the Ryman, do you make
any money? And and David said, Nah, he doesn't make any money.
Spends it all on private jets, and, yeah, and, and paying the
band, you know, he's got, I mean, he's
Luke or therapist, yeah, he's got expensive, incredibly
expensive band, right? Yeah, he didn't make any money, but he
stays home. And he's a schmuck, taking out the trash. He goes on
the road. He's a beetle
Ringo takes out his own trash. Wow.
You know what? If you guys go to Paul lime.com it's L, E, I m,
there's a lot of information about Paul. You can see pictures
of all the celebrities worked with over the year. His gear,
there's videos, there's a full discography, and he's got this
thing called Paul's hit snippets. And so when you've
worked with everyone from Linda Carter to Shinya Twain and
everybody in between, Reba McIntyre, Rogers, every you
played on, I've had the time of my life, the Grammy Award
winning song that I played at weddings. There's, there's a
little
that's a good pair. I get paid from that all over the
there's a little medley you have of just some of your hits. And
so we're gonna fire up a little bit of this right now. Okay,
take it down memory lane.
Yeah. Got this
feeling. This is normally where I come in when I'm doing a
clinic. I'll play.
I'll come in and start playing there, and then, then I'll play
the rest of this whole thing through. It lasts about 25
minutes. Nice?
Is it me? I love you. Take me right
back to the
if I'm not
in love, I'm
on the first I'm not in
love, I'm on the verge
over the water,
everything gets hotter when the sun goes down. That's just
incredible, incredible. Now
you're talking about a changing industry of the 250 million
records you play on Chennai was responsible for 75
Of them, at least, yeah.
And then you were saying, you know, Taylor Swift's just as big
as Shania Twain. She only sold 15 million. Now, that's the
difference. That's
what's happened to our business, yeah. And obviously, she's ever
been as successful as she now ever was, but it just it. You
know, she's probably got as many, if not more, spin. What do
we call them? Any more spin, spins on spot. Yeah. What do
they call it? Spotify, or the columns plays, yeah, events, or
whatever it is. But yeah, that's where, that's how much the
business has changed. It's just, I don't think, from a CD
standpoint, it is not possible for that to happen again. And
I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, unfortunately for guys
coming up, can you say, what, what you have? What can you
recommend for guys and and there's the difficult part is
that we all know is you used to good, go and play a club gig for
100 bucks a month, and you could get a great apartment for 200
bucks a month. I mean, yeah, hello, play for 100 bucks a
month. Yeah, that was really and no go and play for 50 or 100
bucks a night, right? Five nights a week at a club
somewhere, you may 500 bucks a week, make couple $1,000 a
month. This back in the 70s, make a couple $1,000 a month,
and your and your rent was 200 bucks a month at an apartment.
That's a 10 to one ratio, yeah, and it's a Gosh, and it's just
money went so much further. You know, they say there's not
inflation now, it's absolute crap. Inflation is so bad. It's
unbelievable. Yeah, they do it on purpose. But anyway, you
remember
when I told you about the one of the episodes we talked about
this, when tool released their last album, they did something
very interesting, actually, to encourage a full CD buyout. They
included a digital screen, like a little LCD screen, that you
could actually play videos on and download content to, and
encourage people to download the entire album, as opposed to just
buying a single. That's good, yeah, it's very innovative, and
it's almost like the pendulum shift, kind of going back down.
That'd be nice.
That was a business model invented by the by the New York
attorneys, by the way. But when Elvis was having hits, it was a
singles business. You never saw a single from James Taylor,
right, right. Even Neil Diamond, early 7375 still had some
singles, but you know, after 70, after 75 there were no singles
anymore, and what they forced you to do is buy 10 Songs.
Instead of about to get one. You had to buy 10, right? That was
also a planned thing by very smart attorneys, right? People
still wanted to just to hear the hit, and they'd hear the hit on
the radio, but you had to buy the record, right? So they
basically could force people in the corner. So from a standpoint
of liking songs or having your favorite song, our business was
inflated, kind of artificially for for 2025, years, just from
that business model. As you know, most things in life are
business model and the so it's when it left that that's where
the difficulty came in. We're back to a singles business now.
But now what you're talking about now if, if, if they are
incentivizing piece people to buy the entire album. That's
That's beautiful. You remember
when you bought albums, they still, they told a story. You
know, my first album I listened to, and I always heart, I get
made fun of online, inflamed by our fans that I bring up Van
Halen so much. But that was the first album I listened to, front
to back.
Sunset Sound, right there. They recorded that whole searcher.
Yeah, man.
But I mean, that was it. You could read. You remember the
sonic qualities going from song to song to song, and it told
somewhat of a story. You know, they're kind of put together. I
mean, that isn't really done anymore. It's that's got to come
back.
Yeah, talking about sunset. Sound ever worked there? Yeah.
You know the courtyard in the middle? Yeah, we were doing
Kenny and Dolly Christmas record. This little tune called
I believe in Santa Claus, and I'll be, you know, Christmas
without you. Just anyway, every Christmas it plays, and Foster's
producing it. So we're out there on a break, and John Hobbs and
Billy Walker and Joe Schmee were outside. We're shooting bass,
yeah, shooting hoops. Walker, Walker, Foster, David Foster,
comes out. And he worked there so much he came out and he said,
Throw me the ball. And there was a hoop was on the right side of
the courtyard, and there was a straight wall on the left,
straight wall on the right, behind the
behind the hoops on the right, on the
basketball goal. On the right, he comes out and he hauls the
ball as hard as he can toward the wall on the left, it hits,
goes over the top, hits the wall on the far side and goes through
the net. Nothing but
net. Damn. He just got a golden touch like. With everything he
does about somebody
can't do anything wrong, he can't and it was we all just
went
and he has actually, David Foster has actually fostered
generations of celebrities like his fit now he's married to
Catherine McCarthy, but then he's like, his children are all
like, massive influencers in fashion and cosmetics. So
yeah, we're great friends with Linda Thompson. He was married
to Linda had kids with Linda Thompson. They would come to our
house. When they come to town, they would come to our house,
the golden touch. So speaking of that, looking back, do you have
favorite producers, musicians, songwriters, studios, I mean,
because I'm sure kids, unless you journal or keep a diary,
even me, you know, 2324 years in a Nashville, it's very blurry.
Someone has to remind you, yeah, you remember? I don't remember
that, but thank you for reminding me something like come
to mind,
favorite rooms, favorite producers. Yeah,
I really enjoyed a lot of guys didn't enjoy working with mutt,
but I really enjoyed working with Mutt Lange. He was, when it
comes to music, I'm pretty much of a perfectionist. I'm a little
bit of a music snob, right? Because I've done so many
different things
or so, for those that don't know, he produced Shania, but he
also produced AC, DC and DEF, Leppard
and Brian Adams and yeah, you can, you can hear a mutt song in
a second when it comes on. You know it's mine, but he was great
to work with David Malloy. Working with David Malloy, I
enjoyed that. Kyle Lenning, for sure. All the Randy Travis
records, beautiful buddy cannon, all the Kenny Chesney records.
I've did Kenny Kenny's records for over 20 years. Nice Guy and
buddy's great guy. Used to be a bass player on the road with I
can't think of it right now, but anyway, yeah, the what? I'm so
thankful that that I've had the opportunity to work in so many
different situations. I'm not good at doing the same thing.
I'm not sure. I would not probably have been able to do
what Ronnie tut did and be with Neil for 35 years. 3540
years, I'm already at 20 and I play the same 24 songs every
night. Yeah, that's why I got to go do some
other things. You got to do something else to keep your
fresh. And because in LA, you know, in the morning, you'd be
doing an American Airlines commercial, then that night,
you'd be doing a lot of Richie. Then the next morning, you'd be
doing Battlestar galactic. And then that afternoon, you'd be on
a jet flying over to Vegas to do two shows with Doc Severinsen.
Get on the jet, fly back home, you'd end up in Universal Studio
The next morning doing Buck Rogers in the 21st Century.
Yeah, I watched the little shows. And then you get back on
the jet, and you fly to Vegas, you do two shows with jock, and
you fly back, and the next morning, you're at bell sound,
doing American Airlines again. Then you get, you know, just it
was always something different. It was so healthy
though. I mean, you were, you were primed for it, and you were
trained for it, and you were called for it. You know, when I
was in college, the seven years that I went to higher education,
studying everything from playing, you know, Night on Bald
Mountain, you know, mountain on the symbols to learning crotali
parts and sure over training myself and really working on my
reading playing in the one o'clock lab and with charts 20
pages long. Sure, then the music business dies. And I don't have
an outlet for this stuff. You know what I mean. But I come and
so when I have to play a three chord, rock, country song, all
the training makes it super easy.
Yeah, what, what you trained for is what I was, I'm not once
again, I'm not bragging. What I'm saying is, we had an
industry and out in Los Angeles where you had to go in and sight
read on the drums. And then when, what? When there wasn't a
cue, like with John Williams, there wasn't a cue, then you'd
go over and be with Joe Picardo or Jeff's dad, Joe picaro, or
Emil Richards, or Larry bunker, or bunk or or or any of the
guys. You'd go over there and they would put you on a temp
part, or they put you on and I'm not, I'm not a mallets guy. You
you actually, with your training, you're you're more
qualified to have done what I was doing. The problem is, by
the time you it got to the point where you'd have been very
successful doing movies and television in Los Angeles with
your experience and knowledge and education. Seinfeld had come
out, yeah. And instead of a Q being a full orchestra at
$20,000 a week, it was brown burpee. And the cat was out of
the bag that you didn't have to spend that much money every week
on a big on a big orchestra.
Yeah, King of Queens. The music is like a cash register opening
and closing and finger snaps.
It's insane. It turned into it turned into Dollar General
Walmart, instead of being Neiman Marcus music for for every,
every TV show.
God, I missed the Golden Age and talked to Alex Acuna recently,
who is still in his mid 70s, is still crushing it playing on all
the Marvel movies and stuff. And I guess then the new hot guy is
Bernie Dressel. So between. Cunha and Bernie Dressel.
They're doing all the Marvel movies and all right, you know?
And that's like the elite, you know, big budget stuff, and then
everything else for like independent films and stuff. Is
a laptop composer, so it's really affected everyone.
And it's the stuff really sounds good, you know, when I don't,
when I'm producing a record, and I don't have the budget to hire,
to hire Chris, to do strings and stuff like that, and do a real
orchestra, you know, you get somebody like Larry Hall, and it
just sounds fantastic, but there's a, there's a guilt
factor in there, yeah, because I'm a, I'm a lifetime musician,
my I'm, I am musicians, I'm your biggest fan. You know what I'm
saying? I'm, I'm lifetime musicians. I'm the, I'm the, I'm
their biggest fan.
Well, you're the guy that's always at the union meetings and
stuff, right?
Not anymore, I know, after being a trustee and putting so much
time into that, yeah,
I backed away from am I gonna have
my retirement? Is it gonna be around?
Yes,
let me ask you. Buy more rental condos. Yes, that's what I'm
doing. Yes,
you mentioned, like, you know, you know, I'm a huge Marvel fan,
and part of that, that experience, is the music. Are
you telling me that it's not? I mean, the the orchestration of
that music, is it not what I think it is? It's not a big room
of music. No, that, that is, that is, yes, but that is, like,
big budget. That is, I mean, because the music is just
incredible. I mean, the
last and then they did that Superman music movie where they
had, you know, like 20 drummers with drum sets. Hans Zimmer
brought in, like, anybody who owned a drum set at the highest
level in Los Angeles, and everybody played at the same
time. And I'm
speaking of a layman here, from a layman standpoint. Give me an
example of the opposite of that, of what you're talking about.
The
opposite of that would be a laptop composer who basically
has all sorts of plugins for, like, right, somebody who's
sampled the Vienna or symphony, and they have those sounds in
their laptop, and they go, I really want to have some real
drums and percussion. So then you come over and you can do
everything at the guy's crib, or you're set up like this, and you
could do it yourself and send files to the guy.
But I mean, what? What are like? You know, the big band example
is Marvel. What's an example of that where they kind of scale it
down, and they do it off a laptop, and they come to mind, I
don't
know. I have to look at the union
contract. A lot of horror films are like a laptop composers, and
then they may bring sprinkle in some real instruments here.
Okay, so some of the percussion sounds you hear now in movies
went to the new Star Wars The other night, and some of those
sounds you hear those, yeah, those big sound design. It's
bigger than you can it's bigger than you can physically make it.
You just can't do that. But an acoustic instruments, acoustic
instrument insurance instruments just don't sound like so what?
What a lot of the orchestrators do, they almost always nowadays,
do a mock up. And if you have an older guy, say, anybody older
than 45 this is a generalization, but you take
somebody like Johnny Harris, who arranged all the Tom Jones
records, and we did all the Wonder Woman series, and all
like that, with Johnny, when he does it a mock up, it's, it's
whatever he can get to to get close and it's, you know, it's,
he'll say, he'll say, this is cheesy. This is not what it's
going to sound like. Put drums on this. I'm going to overdub
the orchestra, right? But you take somebody like on Zimmer,
he's fabulous at doing real orchestra stuff, and then
they'll overdub the orchestra on the orchestra stuff he's already
got. So then he's already got his, he's already got his parts,
parts marked and and spots picked out through where that
were, the big booms and the big in, the big sounds that are
bigger than life, yeah. And that's Michael Bay sounds. Yeah.
That's, that's part of having the work print ahead of time.
And, yeah, did you ever do, did you ever do movies and stuff?
I so want to now. I'm now, I'm just like, you know, I want to
be on the screen, so I started studying acting, got my sad
card, and I have my voice over demo. I have a hosting reel.
It's fun just to kind of explore that other stuff, you know,
yeah, it's icing on the cake. Yeah, sure. So this has been so
fun. Jim, Yeah, buddy, what did you learn from our guest? You
know, I've learned the differences between a real
orchestra and a laptop. I mean, it's, I had no idea, you know,
I, like I said, if, if you were to pull up a song, I
could play you one right now, you would not believe I filled
the conductor of the National Symphony. Is that on Spotify
track? Look, see if you can go to go to Amazon music, okay, and
I think it's on Amazon. See, did I just type in amazon.com
amazon.com and go to Jesse Lee Jones, who owns Roberts western
world here in town. He's a Brazil, while you're looking for
that, he's a Brazilian immigrant that came over and 30 years
after he listened to Tom Jones and Elvis Presley growing up,
and 30 years after he was here, he wanted to do this all the
songs that he grew up listening to that he loved, and he just,
he's a great singer. You know? He's got the band downtown with
Robert's western world called Brazil Billy. So they do real
traditional country music. But he's, he's, he does,
it's funny, but they're
great. They are. They've been around a long time. Would you?
Jesse Lee. Jones and see if you can find that, and then see if
that'll show up there. And then
I've been in love so many a selection of sacred songs. I
wonder
if I'll never see if you can find I'll never fall in love. I
wonder if
he's on Spotify. Jesse Lee Jones, because I don't, I don't
know how Amazon Music Works.
Jesse Lee Jones, justice, right there. Jesse Lee Jones, I'll
never fall in love again.
See if you can find it. And
that looks like dude.
So this is an example of this is listen to the opening of this.
And the way I the way I
call samples harp,
I've been in love so many times.
Thought I knew the score,
but now you've treated me so wrong.
I can take anymore.
Yeah, you can kind
of, kind of sort of tell
so, no, you can't. I wanted this. I wanted this to feel like
an orchestra, Joe gershio Elvis' conductor, and Mr. Las Vegas, he
would have seven orchestras going at once in the 70s in
Vegas, he introduced me to to Jesse Lee and but by that time
with Graceland, I was pretty much helping Joe all the time
with with coordination and projects and stuff like that. So
but I wanted this to feel like it was conducted. And matter of
fact, Joe sat out in the studio and was conducting while we were
playing. I love him. I miss him so much. But anyway, so I had, I
had Larry build the orchestra part first, and we overdubbed
the rhythm section to it. And I said, Give me a click. Give me a
moving click. I want the click to move. I don't want it to be I
want it to feel like I want it to move and flow with the
orchestra first, and then we're going to, we're going to overdub
the rhythm section to it. He said, you want to do this
backwards, don't you? And I said, Yeah, that's what I want
to do. So that's on several tracks on that record, we were
able to make it feel and it's not only a rhythm thing.
Orchestras don't play perfect time, you know, play organic
time. They'll play organic time. That's a good way to put it. And
so we were able to, when I brought in Jim Gray, we had to
do the homeless shelter concerts that we do every year with the
Nashville Symphony had Jim come in and and do take downs on this
so we could do so we could do it live with the orchestra. And
when he listened to it, he was said on that trumpet, he said
that that's a high F. He said, I know Steve's got a high E. I
didn't, I didn't think he had high a triple I knew he had a
triple E. I know I have a triple F. I mean, that's really high.
Yeah. Then he said, Oh, that French horn players. That's,
that's perfect. That's been perfect, too. And that must be
Helen. It must be Helen. He's, he's telling me who my band is,
right, right?
Did you say anything? Not for a
while, I didn't. And of course, his his copyist was there too.
And when I finally said, guys, it's all faux in copies. Oh, no,
I knew. I knew it.
I knew that was all Yeah, I could tell,
oh, my god, so Jim, what I learned is that to survive and
thrive in five decades of the music business, you have to
grow, evolve and change. Stay Ahead of things, embrace things,
be a knowledgeable, likable person, and show up with your
big boy pants ready to rock. 30 minutes early. 30 minutes early
is the way to go get your cup of coffee. Guys. There's a lot of
podcasts out there. Our one ask of you is, if you love what's
happening here, tell a friend about it. Give us a rating.
Leave us a review School of Rock. Thank you so much for
being a sponsor of the show. Guys, be sure to check out Paul
lime.com if you're a drummer, make sure you get a hold of the
recordings. Transcribe them, play along with them, soak up
this guy's DNA. If you're a non musician, just reach out to Paul
and say thank you for five decades of American music
making. Thanks for being my guest, my friend. Thank you for
having real pleasure. Happy New Year everyone. Thank you coming
back for the good stuff. We'll see you next time.
See. This has been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate
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