On Tamarini, Hustle the Jazz Beat podcast at New England Public Media, and here in part two of my conversation with Peter Gerounich about his book Looking to Get Lost Adventures in Music and Writing, we discussed Ray Charles, Dick Curless, and Johnny Cash, who was a label mate of Howlin' Wolf at Sun Records in Memphis. Like Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Cash is another artist who made his first recordings with Sam Phillips at Sun Records. You say that Cash had a perspective that alludes many people. What do you mean by that?
I'm trying, I actually, I focused on a particular thing. He did have a perspective that alludes many people, and he had a breadth of perspective. And this was something that made him a unique artist in terms of Sam Phillips' many discoveries, of, you know, including Elvis Darryl Lewis-Coughport and Johnny Cash, Howlin' Wolf be King. And he always would say that Howlin' Wolf and Charlie Rich were the most profound.
But the thing about Johnny Cash was he probably had the broadest perspective of any of the people, the broadest intellectual perspective. And by that I don't mean he was more educated or he was a writer, it was something that enabled him to grow over the years, where at the end of his life, I mean he was recording a song like her. And feeling it and hearing it and understanding it and presenting it in a manner that became uniquely personal. And that's something that as great as Darryl Lewis is who could do things that Johnny Cash couldn't.
I don't think he could sing, he could even woke me up to say goodbye, which is an amazing, amazing song by Mickey Newbury. And he could put that across maybe better than Johnny Cash, but Johnny Cash continued to evolve. And he had a breadth of understanding of American history in general. And he saw it almost as his mission to grow with his music, but also to present a story of American, you know, music and sign.
And he continued to do it. I heard myself today to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real. The needle tears the hole, the old familiar snake.
Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything. What have I become my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the air. And you could have it all after.
With me, I wear this crown of thorns. Upon my life chair, full of broken thoughts. I cannot repair beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear. You are someone else.
I am still right here. What have I become my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the air. And you could have it all.
My environment after will let you down. I will make you burn. If I could start again a million miles away, I would find a way. Johnny Cash said Sam Phillips was a genius, who could see me as I was and I couldn't.
Could see Elvis as he was and Elvis couldn't. Do you regard Phillips as being unique in this way among record producers? I think Sam was unique in that regard. Jack Clement was the first person to go to work for Sam on the musical land.
He was a third employee at the Sun. Jack Clement said Elvis and Jerry Lewis and all of them were all stars. The reason he was a superstar was incredible. He was a intellect and also feeling for what he considered himself almost a psychologist.
Maybe that's what he considered himself primarily a psychologist and a teacher. He had a feeling for what the artist was trying to do and for how the artist could best express him or herself. He was determined to bring that out of the artist, not in a dictatorial way or in a way that dictated where the artist should go, but in a way that was focused on listening to what the artist was attempting to do and seeing not shortcuts to get in there, but ways that might enable the artist best to do it even if the artist himself was not aware of it. He had somebody like Kyle Pregans who sings blues way to shoes.
He finishes a take. I don't remember which take it was. Kyle Pregans says that's it. Kyle Pregans says, Mr.
Phillips, there were all these mistakes in it. Let me do it again. There were all these mistakes. Sam says, nobody's ever going to notice the mistakes.
There's a feeling. Kyle goes on about mistakes and says, that's what we are. That's what Sun Records is. We're just one big mistake.
His ability to embrace that was something that Johnny Cash, but I was thinking as I was talking about Johnny Cash's mission to encompass this vast territory. In a way, it's kind of like what Jacob Lawrence did with his paintings. It was telling this in a very, he researched, Jacob Lawrence researched his paintings, the text that goes along with those panels of each of the pieces of the story. The Great Migration.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but also the whole thing about American history. He didn't just toss these off. He studied it.
Johnny Cash, all of these albums of the West and his bitter tears, the story about the Native Americans. Oh, and then there's this album about trains. Yeah. Any research that he researched, the blues he researched, he heard these things and he heard them growing up, but he didn't just leave it at that.
He was such a great reader. I mean, that was my way in in the sense, was when I went to interview him, everybody had asked him everything. I didn't want to have to establish you were born in this state. You married this person, you did this and that.
That was all accessible to me and it was accessible to everybody. One of the things I thought about was what a great reader he was. I asked him about that and he started talking about James Fennemore Cooper and drums along the Mohawk and Walter Scott, Ivanhoe and stuff. Then he started talking about the day that Eleanor Roosevelt had come to town to open the library and dias.
And dias was a kind of social experiment. It's not the centerpiece of the story. It's not that that was intended to be the subject of the story, but it opened up a whole area and gave, in a sense, a glimpse into a different kind of person than the public person. I think it also enabled us to go to some other places.
That's what I try to do and why I try to know as much as I can going in, although many of the people I've written about, either I'd never been written about before or not written about enough to be able to glean very much and then you just have to go on the field. In terms of record producers, how about the way that Ahmed Erdigan and Jerry Wexler may have helped Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin discover their genuine voices and styles? Not really, no. I think each of them spoke about with Ray Charles what all they had to do was to turn the tape machine on.
I mean, once Ray had his vision of what he wanted to do and that the first time that he did was when he called up Jerry and said, and that's what this chapter in looking to get lost is about his discovery of his own voice with I got a woman. And he called up Jerry and he said, I'm ready to record with my own band and Jerry and Ahmed and Amanda and Atlanta and they recorded him, but they recorded him exactly as he dictated or that's a bad word. But as I mean, he had the arrangement, he had the musicians, he had exactly the way he wanted to present it. And the same with the reason, Jerry Wexler's genius was to recognize that he said I had to put her back at the piano and also to look to her to do the kind of more gospel based material that she was so she was not with and was so comfortable with.
But again, he himself spoke extensively about how it was a Reese's genius that carried the day and it was not the same Phillips that it was me that carried the day. He didn't at all, but he brought people to a place that they hadn't intended or expected to go. I think that's quite the same thing. I'll tell you who listens and I don't know enough.
I know him, but I don't know enough about his work to make the judgment. But someone like T-bone Bernat who was producing Willie Dixon in the chapter and looking at last, he, you take an album like King of America that he made with Elvis Costello and it just, there's a level of, it reaches a place that is entirely different from what Elvis had been before and they've worked together since then and I think that they're in too much the same effect. And the last time I saw T-bone he was producing Jerry Lewis gospel session, it was in February this year or last year and I realized at the time it was probably the last time I was going to be traveling for a long time. But again, his patience, his attentiveness, his willingness to listen to the artist but at the same time so gently guide the artist towards a place that he could hear in his head.
I don't think it's the same level of, well I don't know I can't say because I haven't been in the studio with him enough to know, but it's the same type of thing that Sam was doing and it's the same sensitivity to the artist that Sam would show and the same sense of potential that maybe had not been fully realized up to that time or direction maybe that hadn't been taken up till that time. Ray Charles, I love the way you recount how Ray and Rental Richard arrive at I Got a Woman after hearing the Southern Tones, it must be Jesus and I have a kind of a composite of it must be Jesus and I got a woman that will weave into this conversation. They definitely fit together. Oh yeah, oh it's amazing.
Tell me a little bit about your experience with Ray Charles. Well this was this chapter on the discovery of his own voice and of finding composing, re-composing it must be Jesus as I got a woman and the effect that this had on his career and on the impact it had on not just rhythm and blues at the time but on all the music to come. In a sense it was a re-contextualization of a long interview I had done with Ray and it had been the basis for a profile at the time way back in the 80s. But I wanted to look at how the source of Ray's inspiration, the manner in which he had been able to invent himself you could say.
His desperate need to reinvent himself in order to be able to go out and play his own music, not be just recapitulating music backed up by musicians in each town that he played. And so for me it was really fun to write in the sense that it allowed me to go back into conversations. You may not have noticed but I'm a curious fellow. And I pursue a lot of things that have nothing to do with what I'm going to write about.
And I feel like that's one of the things you have to do. In the book I write prize of digression, I'm talking about writing kind of but I'm also talking about when you're talking to somebody let's say about Elvis. You don't want to treat the person as if the only thing that's important about you is that you met Elvis in a drug store in New Orleans in 1955. People have their own story to tell.
And so you always want to get there. And one of the things I kept coming back to over the years, over the many years until finally I realized where I got a woman came from when I was talking to some of the gospel people in the same cook biography. And up until then nobody had ever located the sun. And it's a footnote in the same cook biography because again like so many things I don't think the story is not about me.
The story is not about how I came to the thing. I wrote it as if it were to give them. But it came about through talking to people who really didn't concern themselves much with pop music but who said oh you know the guitarist for the soul stories, who was the first guitarist pop king who died very soon after he joined them. He was with this gospel group.
And they had a song that was kind of like I got a woman. And that was as much as I got. And then I took a while because the internet wasn't up and running that in the way it is now. And finally I was able to hear it must be Jesus.
I said oh my god that's the song. Oh there's a man. Oh I got a woman. Well the town that's good to me, yeah.
She says I love it early in the morning just for me. Oh yeah. She says I love it early in the morning just for me. Oh yeah.
She says I love it. I love it so tenderly. I got a woman. Peter, there's an Odyssean quality to the lives, so did the stories you tell and the lives that are lived by so many of your subjects.
I think about Bob Dylan beginning his interview with Martin Scorsese for No Direction Home is presenting that very idea, the odyssey that Dylan, like so many others, embark on. And to me, that Odyssean quality is so powerfully present in the story of the musician in this book that I knew the least about. And that is Dick Curless. And I'm eager to tell you that when I got looking to get lost, had it in the car with me, I'd gone over to the Quaub and Reservoir.
It was a beautiful, warm September afternoon several months ago. And I took a good walk, and then I came back, and I found an old bench to sit on over looking at the Quaub and I began reading your book. And right there in the introduction, you make several references to Dick Curless. That drove me to the table of contents.
I found the Dick Curless chapter, and noticed that it's quite long, about 80 pages or so. And I began reading it right there at the Quaub and Reservoir, and of course, within a matter of several paragraphs, I'm learning that Dick Curless spent the formative years of his life around Ware and Gilbertville and Hardwick, Massachusetts. And I was just astonished at the local provincial experience of this. And that's a whole area of Massachusetts.
I know pretty well. And yet I'd never known that Dick Curless had this connection. I knew Duke Levine. I know Mudcat Ward.
I remember Mudcat talking about the thrill he was having doing some playing with Dick Curless, but that kind of went in one ear and out the other one. That mentioned that to me about 30 years ago. And yet there in your book is this beautiful, it's almost the morality tale of the life of this country, singer and guitarist. And speaking of a man who I think knew that he had a voice from very early in his life was Dick Curless.
He did, and yet he lost the voice, and then he regained it. In a certain sense, I mean, he had a true voice. And in some ways, so much of his life was spent reducing that self-expression to a kind of a form of commercial expression and being frustrated, and not being clear on what he wanted at the end of his life, rediscovering that voice, and bringing it home in a way that was so much vaster and more ambitious than anything he'd ever done before. How did you discover Dick Curless for yourself?
Well, let me ask you. Is his a name in country music that you knew all through the years, as it were? I knew him because, among other things, because I would see him in different places. And I think I saw him at Symphony Hall in the country music, Shower of Stars, the WCO people on our Hillbilly Ranch.
I didn't necessarily go to see him in particular, but I was well aware of him. And I don't think it wasn't because of, in the history of country music, that wasn't so much. But it was because he was a local personality. But I met him finally when he played a shared a bell with a sleepy little beef at Alan's Truck Stop and names were he mass.
And sleepy introduced me to him, and sleepy had such great respect for him. And when sleepy had respect for somebody that really meant something to me, he was the most charming performer in the world, and the audience always loved him. And again, this may be my lack of perception, but I never saw him in a way that went beyond that. It was just he had the ability to be, to charm the audience, he had this kind of trick base voice that he would use, you know, drop to, and it was kind of amazing and thrilling and stuff.
And he had his truck driving songs, particularly Tombstone every mile, but other trucks driving songs that he would feature in the act. But it was more of the way I saw it at the time. And I made completely missed the point, it was more of a crowd-pleasing thing. And I didn't see another context where he was doing the kind of music that he had grown up with, music that sort of reached the very depths of his soul.
And I think he did do shows like that, and he sang around the house, he sang with his father, he sang with his brother, he sang with his son-in-law, his daughter Terry's husband Bill Chinick. And he was always singing, but I didn't know that. I didn't see that part of it. So that's how I knew him, but it was my cat.
Jake and my son Jake and I produced a sleeping beef album, Strange Things Happening. And Jake really produced it, I was just having a name on it. I was now on it. But then the musicians were so great.
And my cat said, well, we ought to reassemble, we ought to do a Dick Curls album. And this coincided with Dick Carling Rounder, where Jake worked. And he wanted something like a real Travis video or something. But anyway, he didn't take a start talking.
And he sent Jake a sort of demo tape. And that's how this album came up. And I had nothing to do with any of that, other than when Jake played me the demo tape, I said, oh my god, this is incredible. Because it was a different kind of music than anything I'd ever heard to do.
It was both the roots of his music and the extension of everything that he'd ever done. So I asked Jake, I begged Jake, I said, please, can I write the liner notes? And then I persuaded myself to write the liner notes. I had to go out for the session, which is Longview Farm, which is in the town of North Brookfield.
Yeah, which is where Dick had his first public performance when he was 16 years old. And it was just one of the most amazing experiences I've ever ever had. I've never had anything like that in the studio. It was just exalting.
And it was inspiring. And that's where the chapters started out. But the chapter itself turned in so many different directions. I mean, it's actually like a novella.
It's like a real life novella. And there were so many depths. As Salim Grek said, it was prophesied that I would descend into the depths of hell three times. And I did.
That's what Salim had said. And Dick did too. And he told me the story. And later after he died, not long after he died, his wife, Pauline, told me the same story.
But Dick had said, I want you to tell the truth. I want you to tell the real story. So while I would have liked to have written this beautiful lyrical celebration of one of the most amazing talents and people I've ever met, it ended up being a very painful thing, the talent and very painful thing to write. And I just went in directions that I didn't fully intend.
And I think it's different from anything I've ever written. Because it has a downside to it. If I had written this long piece on Charlie Rich, it might have had the same thing. But I didn't.
And so it was just an extraordinary experience. And I learned so much from Dick in the brief, relatively brief time that I really knew him. But it was a hell of a ride. So Dick expresses a kind of regret about having ever left a little nuclear family.
He left hardware high school only weeks before his graduation, 1948 or 9 or so in there. And yet the story also includes that of Lenny Brose, brother Denny. And I've never encountered such a contrast between the sort of Odissian journey of the Dick Curliss figure, notwithstanding his expression of regret. And yet, Denny Bro, a brilliant guitarist, the brother of a famed guitarist, who didn't make that journey.
Wanted, it seems, recognition beyond what he was ever going to earn if he wasn't willing to, say, make that journey to Nashville. And I was just struck by the presence of both of these figures. And both of them from Maine, by the way, of course, born in Maine. Which has a tradition of country music going back before the Grand Ole Opry.
As do many places in the country. I mean, the Grand Ole Opry is mainly the commercial expression of something that went on all over the country. But here was the thing with Denny, which was so amazing. Dick showed up with Denny Brose.
And first of all, nobody knew who Denny Brose was, which I mean, don't tell Denny. And everybody knew who he was. You know, after the session, but he's such a great player and a storyteller and he's a terrific performer. But in any case, Dick shows up with him.
And my guess would have been when Dick showed up with him that what he was doing was the same thing I've seen many artists, including World Hired, which is just bringing the familiar along with him, bringing a world that he's familiar with into a world that maybe he's not so sure of himself in. And so Denny would be not a security blanket, but somebody who would anchor him. But that wasn't it at all. That was perfectly comfortable.
And he directed the whole session. I mean, he and Jake worked together. They were working towards the common goal. But Dick had no reservations about his place in this world.
And he became an inspiration to every musician who played on the session. The reason he brought Denny was the reason you are talking about it. He wanted to give Denny a taste of something else. And he wanted to be sure that Denny played a subsidiary, a subordinate role.
I mean, Duke Levine is such a not just such a great player, but such a generous player and a generous person, that he was perfectly willing to give Denny all the solos that he wanted. But Dick said, no, Denny's going to play acoustic guitar for the most part. He's playing rhythm guitar. He's playing behind Duke.
And it was to give a sense of not just, it wasn't humility. It wasn't just to say, is this what you're ready to commit yourself to this kind of struggle. And he articulated it to me. Dick did.
Although I'm not sure I fully grasped it. But he did articulate it as and talked about how Denny got in touch with Chad Atkins, who was his brother Lenny Bros. mentor in Nashville. And Denny got in touch and said, you know, I was thinking about coming down.
This may be Denny to service. But in shorthand, Denny got in touch with Chad, said, well, you know, I may come down in Nashville. Could you set something up for me? And Chad, in the way Dick told it, said, you're going to have to do the same as everybody else.
You're going to have to come here. And you're going to have to subordinate yourself to a quest. And it is a quest. I don't think he did.
And this is the choice. And that's what, and Dick wanted to be sure that Denny understood the terms of the choice and whether he wanted to make a choice. In the end, Denny didn't make a choice. He stayed in Maine.
And you can hear him, if not every night of the week, many nights of the week playing in different venues in Maine and playing great. But that's where he stayed. All right. Well, thank you so much, Peter.
We could go on and on. And there's so much more to looking to get lost. But thanks for joining us today for this conversation. And I thought I'd ask you if there's something in the album that Dick Curl has made that your son Jake around that produced that you would like to recommend as a favorite that we might go on here.
Well, since I'm actually Jesus is a great song, the World Travis song, he doesn't do 9-ton hammer. What is the balleric traveling through comes from? Oh, man, I can't think of it. But that's a great song, too, the World Travis song.
Or I never go around mirrors anymore. Or King of the Blues, maybe. That would be the one I would choose. King of the Blues.
And what a title, by the way. I never go around mirrors anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But King of the Blues was a song Jake put together a tape of, I put together a tape, but Jake's tape was the one that prevailed.
But he put together a tape and had the King of the Blues on it. And I'm saying to Jake, man, I don't think he's going to like that. That just doesn't, I mean, it's a terrific song. As it turned out, it was a song that I think he was familiar with.
But from the moment that he listened to it, he said, that's my story. Again, it's not a very up story. I mean, Charlie Rich said to me one time, he says, man, I just don't dig happy songs. Dick did dig happy songs, to some extent.
But there is a lot of the up to feeling and just deep emotion in the songs that he recorded for that album. Well, thank you, Peter. It's been nice talking with you today. Annality of Dick Curles from his final album, Traveling Through, Singing King of the Blues.
I see a man whose face shows the trace of where his life has been. I see the telltale signs of bitterness. Sit me in. And this bar room there reflects no tears when there's nothing left to ruin.
Just a face that's faced the bitter truth. Annality of Dick Curles from his final album, The King of the Blues. Look at him and all of his. The King of the Blues.
And nothing left to ruin. That sits across him. One's happiness. Live there.
Now those are new movies. He wrote down the hall, but he just sits and stares. He's trading lies with memories. He's got nothing left to ruin.
Now this sad and broken palette part. The King of the Blues. Walking through the blue. And I've been left to ruin.