From: Quincy Jones
Re: Experience

Brother Bob, loved your Experience words….like Ole Blue Eyes used to tell Basie & I after the Vegas gigs:.."Live every day like it’s your last, and one day you’ll be right..!..)….

if we don’t play, we got nothin’ to say….warm brown fuzzies to U & Felice…maybe soon we’ll find some time 2 play…together….((:o))…..xoxo..q

find some time to play

So you think all record companies are backwards…

Anyway, the company with the most antiquated catalog, Rhino, is jumping into Spotify in a big way. They asked me to do a playlist every week. Of course I’m getting paid, would you do it for free?

But to use my ancestral language, it’s bupkes. It’s a bit more than dinner (sans wine!), but if you think I’m doing this for the money, then you overestimate how much it is.

I’m doing it because I’m excited. About new technology. About having the history of recorded music at our fingertips. About being able to turn you on to new music.

The only requirement is that 30% of my recommendations be Warner titles. That’s not a problem, Warner has the best catalog in the business. From Prince to Neil Young to Led Zeppelin (which is not on Spotify, by the way…why do all these old acts resist new technology…history tells us you’re just left behind, like the record companies with Napster and the Beatles with iTunes…you think the digital/online/tech sphere is like the music business, where you win on intimidation, but I’m gonna tell you something, the techies have the leverage, because they have the public on their side, and the public really drives this whole thing, and if you leave yourself off of streaming services you’re just hurting yourself, or to paraphrase that old sage Warren Miller, you’re just gonna be one year older when you do cave and license), Warner’s a hotbed of legendary hits.

But I’m not restricted to old songs. As long as it’s on Spotify, I can feature it.

And rather than just give you a list of songs, I’m gonna try to provide some context. Otherwise recommendations slide right off of us, it’s an endless parade of tracks, we stop listening. So I’m not gonna try and turn you on to everything, but the right thing.

And to tell you the truth, I was gonna start with Joni Mitchell, the "Blue" album. But when you work creatively, you must operate on inspiration. And after the overwhelming response to "New Speedway Boogie" and "Sugaree", I got in a Dead kind of mood, and I thought of the first album I purchased after "Workingman’s Dead", when I needed more, before "American Beauty" came out, before the Dead became an institution.

And that was "Live/Dead".

Of the initial live albums, it was always my favorite.

And I’m not sure it will close those who are uninterested.

But if you want to know what the Dead were like forty years ago, before they became world famous, you should start here.

There were a number of studio albums (one which didn’t get wide release until after "Workingman’s Dead" and "American Beauty") and none of them got traction. So, like Humble Pie and Peter Frampton after them, the Dead tried to capture the essence on wax, and that meant a live recording.

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir here.

But if you want to know what the Dead was truly like, this is it. There is no context. Like going to college in the middle of nowhere, the Dead’s music is isolated, it sounds like nothing else.

So the way this works is every week I send my essay/list to Rhino and they put it up on this page:

Rhinofy – Bob Lefsetz: Welcome To My World

And I’m not the only person making recommendations, peruse others here:

Rhinofy

But I’m also gonna send my essay/list to my e-mail list. Because, as I stated earlier, my goal is to broaden your horizons, take your hand and educate you, turn you on to great new stuff in this world of abundance but indecipherability.

The majors may have missed Napster, but Rhino is not missing Spotify.

So without further ado…

GRATEFUL DEAD

I always thought the first live album was best, "Live/Dead", before the band changed direction, became a country rock act and broke through.

Before that, they were a local favorite, icons in San Francisco, but an enigma elsewhere. Wasn’t a band with the moniker "Grateful Dead" supposed to be loud and offensive, closer to Blue Cheer than something palatable, that you could close your eyes and drift to?

Pigpen was still alive. A picture inside the gatefold cover depicted a monstrous free concert that you winced you missed after getting hooked by the music.

Furthermore, this was the last album with the first of many Grateful Dead keyboardists, Tom Constanten.

You’ll earn your bones by knowing this album.

"Dark Star" is almost impenetrable at first, maybe you’ve got to be high.

"Turn On Your Love Light" is easy, it’s boogie, it’s a groove, it’s fun.

But if you want the full Dead experience, the essence of the band, the imperfect vocals atop the exquisite compositions with the improvisatory excursions, you listen to side two, which begins with "St. Stephen" and segues into "The Eleven".

"St. Stephen" is a harbinger of what’s to come, this is the foundation upon which not only "Workingman’s Dead" and "American Beauty" is built upon, it sounds just like every Dead show you ever went to, if you did. At first you’ll think it’s rough, but imagine yourself on your dorm room floor listening on headphones, you’ll get it, especially after a few times through.

And "St. Stephen" segues into "The Eleven", let your mind go free, let the music take you on a ride.

The Grateful Dead is not for everyone, but it’s for more people than you think it is.

Subsequent albums are easier to get into, easier to digest. But if you want to talk like a pro, know the original "Live/Dead", from ’69, cut at Fillmore West and the Avalon Ballroom. Reference this and people will take you seriously. It sounds nothing quite like what came before. If it’s familiar at all, it’s because just like they say about that first Velvet Underground album, it launched a thousand bands. You can see them on tour today, from Widespread Panic to Phish to moe. Go.

And for a hit of the truth, catch the remnants of the original band on tour as Furthur.

Spotify – Bob Lefsetz – Welcome To My World – "Grateful Dead" by rhino_records

In case you’re confused, this is how this works:
You must have a Spotify account, which is free. You click on the above link or cut and paste it into your browser and you’ll end up in Spotify, where the playlist will appear –you might have to click a few times in between, saying you have Spotify, etc., but you’re a big boy (or girl!), it’s easy, you can figure it out.

You’re gonna need something to write about.

Practice is important, perfecting your skill, but being a really good guitar player or a really good vocalist is kind of like being a really good computer, you’re just a tool, you’re essentially inert, you can’t be believed in.

Or look at professional athletes. As successful as their careers might be on the playing field, very few succeed thereafter. Because they’ve got no skills. And hitting people is not something authorized amongst geriatrics, we’ve yet to have a Legends NFL, hell, a lot of the guys can barely walk.

So you’ve got to be three-dimensional.

If this means it takes you longer to put in your 10,000 hours, so be it. It’s not a race. If you’re not taking time to soak up the sun, you’re not gonna have anything to say.

As for the nitwits who make it in their teens… Most of them end up broken down on the side of the highway, didn’t Michael Jackson regret missing his childhood, wasn’t Screech gonna lose his home?

You don’t want to be successful before puberty, before adulthood, because fame rarely lasts that long, and all those childhood memories and friendships, you just won’t have them.

So I’d stay in school. Not so much for what you learn in the classroom, but the experience of meeting and interacting with others. This is where you learn about humanity, find out who you really are, your biases and your strengths. Take risks. Win and lose. That’s great fodder for a song.

And unless you’re planning on being a businessman, don’t take business courses. You’re learning methodology, you’re not learning how to expand your artistic mind.

And travel. Miles Copeland set the standard for international touring with the Police. He’d lived in all these foreign countries as the son of a CIA agent. Whereas most managers and record company employees, especially Americans, had barely been anywhere. Turned out there was a worldwide market for music with English lyrics, in places so out of the way many U.S. citizens couldn’t place them on a map.

And read.

A lyricist is about words. You can get inspired by movies and TV, but your greatest resource is the printed page, or the Kindle/iPad/computer screen. You’re inhaling words and they’ll end up flowing out of you without you having to think about it. You can learn so much. If you’re willing to put in the effort.

Most people have nothing to say. That’s why they rely on cowriters and producers. Without them, they’ve got nothing.

But great artists possess a plethora of insight which the public craves.

You don’t have to be a great guitarist to sell a song, but a great guitarist can’t sell a shitty song.

Great songs are about creativity. The more you write, the better you get, but you’re mining your life, your experience, and if you’ve got none, no one’s gonna be interested.

P.S. Read the Wikipedia entry on Kris Kristofferson for example. Look at all he did before he was a successful songwriter. These experiences made him who he was, gave him perspective, and we’re still interested in what he has to say, his recent albums have gotten very positive reviews. Is Vanilla Ice still recording?

Kris Kristofferson

I’m a fan.

I found out about it via old media, straight media, the "New York Times".

But it was the "Magazine", proving that long-form media is not dead.

On ‘Radiolab,’ the Sound of Science

Anyway, even though I make them, I’m not a podcast guy. I’d rather listen in real time. Be up to the minute as opposed to off on the sidelines.

But now I’m absolutely hooked.

And I’m not writing this to hook you, although maybe my excitement/passion will cause you to check it out, but to reveal the process, I feel like I’m in high school, following my passion because I have no choice, I now want to listen to each and every Radiolab podcast. That’s my goal. And when they run out I’m gonna be as disappointed as I was coming home from summer camp, how come the good things always end?

I won’t say I hate science, but I didn’t do well in it in school and always avoided it. So it’s kind of odd that I’m hooked by a science podcast.

But it’s more than that.

And when there’s no one grading, you can go at your own speed, follow your interest. I’ve become addicted to the Tuesday "New York Times" Science section too. I guess when it gets practical, how things work, I’m fascinated. There’s that word. I don’t use it often enough. But when I find something I like, when I find something that makes my eyes bug out, I know no limit to the amount of time I’ll spend pursuing it.

I liked Radiolab from the outset. But I wasn’t hooked, I wouldn’t quite say I was a fan. There was one brilliant episode about a brain-damaged long distance runner, but I could live without the podcast, it didn’t call to me.

The next few I listened to were interesting, one I talked about in my real life, but this week I’ve hit a run of superlative episodes, which were not only interesting in their own right, they applied to my own life. Like this one, about lying:

People Who Lie

This podcast not only made my hair stand on end, it had me screaming, even though there was no one around to hear me.

You see Jude started dating Hope.

But Hope did not turn out to be who she said she was. Or maybe it’s that her story kept changing.

The end result, Jude can’t trust anyone new. He’s not made a single friend since his relationship with Hope.

I’ve lived this.

I’ve had a relationship that blew my trust that has made it so I still doubt the connection, the commitment, the truth. It’s nothing intellectual, it’s a feeling, a distance I keep, a reluctance to share certain things, to get close, to rely on people…because you just can’t trust anybody, at any given moment they’re going to do what’s expedient, not concerned about you, that bond you thought you had, you don’t.

Oh, don’t tell me to just get over it.

I can’t.

I thought it was just about getting older, having a series of relationships instead of marrying your first sweetheart.

Now I know it’s about this relationship with this one person.

Like Jude, I’m glad I made it to the other side. But I’m not back completely.

But the reason I’m telling you all this isn’t to reveal my personal story, which I must admit I’m dying to do, but to say this is exactly like it is with a band, a musical act. They create and create until suddenly it flies on someone’s radar screen. Then that person checks it out. Sometimes you fall in love immediately. But oftentimes the quicker the attraction, the sooner the abandonment. It’s the stuff that sneaks up on us that we stick with, that we love.

I didn’t know I was gonna be a Radiolab fanatic. It’s like loving a band, needing to go back and listen to everything they’ve ever done, surf the Web to fill in the history, starting with the band’s site and then on to Wikipedia and then random Googling, you just can’t get enough.

And it works best when there is a body of work. You can see the development, you can relish the feeling of abundance, of so much thrilling material to devour.

Since a body of work is required, a creator has to be at it for years to build this up. Oftentimes playing to few or no one, laboring in obscurity. But when something is great, it gains traction, usually slowly.

I’d go to a live Radiolab show, like the one they did in Minnesota, about "War Of The Worlds".

I need to dig deeper.

Because it fulfills me.

Listen to the above-referenced clip, it’ll wow you.

And if it doesn’t?

I guess you’re going to have to get your tips from someone else!