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I guess the first thing I want to ask you is are you happy?
Very. Ecstatic.
Are you happy with the way your career has gone?
Delighted.
No regrets? Would you do anything differently?
You could always say you'd do things differently, but there's nothing you can do about it, so you'd better not waste time worrying about it. Of course you would say 'Oh, that was stupid' or 'I shouldn't have done that', but there's nothing you can do about it now. You should hope you learn from it I think is the main thing.
What about your deal with Stiff? Are you happy that you started out on Stiff?
It's funny... I spoke to some guys the other day from a station and they asked me about Stiff and nobody had asked me about it for twenty years. I was only on that label for three months, you know, as a professional musician, so it was pretty hard, after twenty-two years, to measure three months against twenty-two years and even answer the question. You know what I mean? It's like, I was happy I started somewhere, because I wasn't getting great welcome from the record companies and publishers that I was visiting in London. And Stiff was the label based, as you may know, I don't know what you know about the label, but based on sort of oddball misfits, you know, so that was the whole point of it. And in fact, my first three singles were issued while I was still working in an office, so I had an opportunity to sort of observe the process of a record being released without actually having anything... without having to count on it in some way because I was still making my wage doing a day job. And then when I turned professional, within three months, my manager, my producer, and myself had all left the label and we sort of left it behind. So other people sort of remember it more fondly than perhaps we do. [laughs] But honestly the opportunity to record right away is... you've got to be glad you got that opportunity because it's hard to tell. I mean I had no way of knowing if my career was going to last five minutes or, you know, fifty years. Looks likes I'd be betting on the fifty years now. [Laughs]
Yeah, I would say so. Back on that Stiff box set now there's a Burt Bacharach tune that you do.
Oh yeah.
So the collaboration with you and Burt Bacharach, was that in the works for twenty-two years?
Only in the sense of I had an appreciation of him from when I was, even before I was making records myself, a little kid. I grew up... his music, his songs were on the radio alongside all the riches of music that were in the 1960's and I was very lucky to grow up in that time. And I thought of it at least the equal of Motown and Beatles and things. The Beatles were my favorite group but when I heard his songs, they were great, so I never ever had this problem that some people seem to have where they think he's unhip or something to do with easy listening. I think his music's very passionate. And, like you said, the first song I ever covered by any other artist was a Burt Bacharach song. And he wasn't very fashionable then. I mean he's become more fashionable in recent times.
I think some of it has to do because of you.
Well there's always a little bit of that if you say, 'I like this person', and somebody who trusts you checks them out as well. But at the same time, you know, you get plenty of people that are approaching Burt, and I suppose it probably happened to me as well, you know, older artists tend to get approached from a funny angle by younger people because they discovered that they can't possibly be there in the moment that they first appeared. So they come through it through the film and record of what they did, you know, and in Burt's case you can hear his songs in the movies, both old and new movies, and to a lesser extent that's true of me. The records are available and I'm still playing songs from twenty years ago but I'm playing them as I hear them now. It doesn't mean I'm playing them very differently, but I'm twenty years older.
Is there anybody new that's approached you about them doing a cover?
No, not as yet. Well, with the exception of I suppose last week on Saturday Night Live when I played with the Beastie Boys, but that was an old tune.
How did that come about?
Adam Horowitz asked me to do that. They had the idea of doing it because I did this switch on SNL years ago and they thought it would be fun to do that same song, and then they asked if I would sing it with them, so, great, why not? I could never have imagined going back and doing the song under my own steam. It would have been sort of sad to go back and sing it, say if the Attractions still existed, to go back and try and recreate the moment. But doing a different take on it with another bunch of guys who've got a different perspective on that whole thing. It was great.
Yeah, it was totally unexpected. I just happened to be flipping channels and came across the thing...
Well that's the way to see it.
I wanted to ask you about New Orleans and your feelings on New Orleans.
The town or the music?
The town, first of all.
I haven't spent that much time here. I came here in '77 the first time, played a club called Jed's. It was more or less under water when I came. I mean it flooded during the gig. That was tough. The people were really good. They stood there in like a foot of filthy water. Then we came back and we didn't play here too many times after that. I don't know what happened. It didn't seem to click here.
The Warehouse?
We played The Warehouse one time, yeah, and then we played...
Municipal Auditorium in '87...
Yeah, you know them better than I do. I know that we had one show here that was cancelled and we got to spend three days here, which was good because we got to see some music then. And we recorded here on two occasions: one time for a strange record of Yoko Ono's music where I recorded at Southlake with Allan Toussaint producing. We did a cover of "Walking on Thin Ice" which was in the midst of a tour.. I had a horn section and everything at the time. And then I came here about ten years ago to record some of Spike. It was recorded here with the Dirty Dozen. Allan. Toussaint played on that record, and Woody Green, who was playing in the Neville's band at that time, played drums on a couple of things. So they had a really good time there sort of recording. That was out at South...lake or a name like that, I can't remember...
It says something else on the CD cover.
South... field or something. A name like that, I can't remember. It wasn't a Toussaint-related studio. But that was great. I know a lot of the real old New Orleans music. Those records, you know... I remember going into the studio when we did the "Walking on Thin Ice" track with Allan Toussaint and I was trying to get him to talk about these records and he couldn't believe I knew them because I guess they're old records to him and he's forgotten them years ago. I mean, you're talking about records made in the 1960's. And of course in England, you've got these reissue labels that have put them all out. Demon, the label I was involved in, among them, put out really good compilations or records that maybe until a couple of years ago you couldn't even buy here, even right in the town where the music was made.
And the stuff was like cherished on the other side of the world. It's always the way. You know, it's like secret message. We knew all these Betty Levette records and everything and all these names and some of them artists long since forgotten. Maybe some of them aren't even playing anymore. Maybe some of them aren't even alive. And Lee Dorsey and all these people, this is music I grew up with. I had no idea I'd ever come here and meet any of the people. You find some of the people are still around. Like Irma Thomas is still singing great.
Ernie K-doe...
Ernie K-doe's still around, yeah. So we got to see some music, but you know, when you come to town you come to play yourself, so you don't get to see many people play. Mostly still your image of the town is based on records. And I guess old records... there must be new groups coming up that I don't know about. New combinations. It's a rich brew, you know, it's like... I've been waiting for the real... is there a group that comes out of this town that's kind of like got the mixture of... like, there's a great group from Naples called Alma Magretta. I don't know whether you know them. They're on RCA, BMG, or something like that, and they have like a southern Italian hip-hop dub fusion going.
There are a couple here...
That's what I'd expect here because I think New Orleans music is very close to reggae and a kind of bottom end thing and I'd be thinking like, now with all the possibilities, you know, you could take some of the grooves off some of those early records and maybe make them as the foundation and build a whole new thing. But I haven't come across them, though. At least they haven't gone global.
Well, there's a couple of local acts right now... one of them is called All That and they take a mixture of brass band and hip hop. And there's Iris May Tango, Coolbone, so...
I'll have to check them out. Are they nationally available or are they just locally available?
Coolbone is. All That is. They're on Rounder.
On Rounder? I'll have to check that out because I always had this fascination about like the little guitar thing that's going on like in Meters records, early Meters records. It's the same as the rhythm, the little clicky guitar that you get like on like early Wailers records or early Pioneers records. And you know the geographical proximity is pretty close. You can sort of hear in some of those early Dave Bartholomew records and you can sort of hear how ska happened. You know they only have to turn the beat a little bit around. Like you know "The Monkey Speaks His Mind"?
No.
Check that record out.
Will do.
And they sound... and there's a talking thing in them as well, you know in a lot of those early, like some of those late '50s really mysterious sounding records like William Aborn, 'I'm Mad' and you know, they're not that far away from toasting, from the whole reggae thing.
You have just a plethora of information on New Orleans music.
Well, it's underneath a lot of stuff. I don't know it all in great detail, but I think the William Aborn record is a New Orleans record... it's from that same time.
How do you feel about New Orleans piano... James Booker and Professor Longhair?
Ah, love that stuff. Obviously we can't get exposed to it. You've got to give Dr. John all the credit. That Gumbo record came out in England and just that album is like an education in itself. When it came out on Atlantic originally, it had a little fly leaflet that came with it that had notes by Dr. John about who all these people were and he mentioned Professor Longhair, James Booker, and the people that were playing on it were the people that played on the original records. There was obviously a lot of love. That record was unbelievably... I can't say influential because you couldn't play like it, but it just made you fascinated. I found that record much more fascinating than all the Night Tripper records. I had liked that stuff... really loved that record. And then the records he did with Toussaint and the Meters after 'the right time'. That seemed like the best stuff to me. The earlier stuff, it seemed like a lot of Carnival music. It seemed less interesting to me.
Do you have any urge to collaborate with Dr. John?
We did talk about me doing something on that last record that he did some things in England and then it didn't work out. I was always away when he was in town. I had a song that I thought might suit him, but by the time I got back, he had recorded the record, unfortunately. Until another time maybe.
Is there anybody that you plan on collaborating with?
It sort of just happens, you know. That's the thing. If it works out, it's to be. None of the things that I've done, even the really big things in terms of the names like Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney... how could plan something like that? You're not sitting around in your house saying, 'Oh, I think I'll work with Paul McCartney'. I got a call, 'Do you want to come try and write some songs?' and we wrote twelve songs. Burt and I got this call to write for a film and that gave us the introduction and a reason to work together. Then we found that not only did we enjoy it, but the results were good and then it was just obvious that we should take it on from there. It's been a very fortunate thing, like with all of these things. With the people who are not household names, it means just as much in the moment. You say, 'Are you happy with it?' You've got to try to take out of it what you can, do something good and listen to them and learn from what they are. I've learned a lot from all the people that I've worked with. Sometimes the real lesson of it doesn't come out until years later. You get the experience of working with them in the immediate moment and years later you might reflect upon what happened and think, 'Oh, now I understand why they do that'.
Let's change gears a little bit and talk about the movies. You were in 200 Cigarettes and some years ago you were in Straight to Hell. Do you plan on working in any more movies?
Yeah I am right soon. I'm doing a movie during this tour in fact. Believe it or not, on days off, I like to work. [laughs] It's called Prison Song. It's written by Don L. Martin, who's the director, and Q-Tip. He was in that group A Tribe Called Quest. It's a real serious film about a kid who grows up in the educational system and he gets in the juvenile system and then he gets in the penal system. It's quite sad and critical film of where justice is at in this country. You might wonder what I'm doing in it. I play a teacher, so.I suppose I'm an immigrant teacher. I got to play in my own voice; I'm not American in it. I also put this music in it. The little private thoughts of each of the characters is expressed in music, which is a very bold idea, because it's obviously going to make it appealing on one level and potentially could be seen to lighten it, but I don't think that's the intention. Q-Tip's playing the lead in it. Mary J. Blige is in it, and a guy called Fat Joe is in it, another rapper. He plays a sort of a kidder. And I play two roles in it. I play the teacher and I play the public defender, so I get to kind of cross up. That's what I'm doing growing a beard. I've got to grow this beard for the first role then on the second day I'm going to have to shave it off. So I've done that and of course I did the more lighthearted things this year, these two huge movies. A guest appearance in Austin Powers with Burt Bacharach, and sang a song in the Notting Hill movie, which was a big hit in England. It was a very unusual song for me to sing. You've got to have a sense of humor. I've sung a lot of sad love songs; maybe it was time to sing a good, positive, romantic song, once in your, life. I enjoyed doing it, got to sing with a big orchestra. I'm open to, not to anything, but I'm open to a bit of experience. You only live once, as far as I know.
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