Hayes Carll is an award-winning singer-songwriter from Texas. We discuss how he performed virtually during the pandemic, as well as what it’s like to be a touring musician singing his truth today and the tension between needing to have a presence online yet still focus on the work. Hayes also describes what it’s like to pursue songwriting excellence as opposed to fame. This is the other side of the music industry, someone who has a presence in the landscape yet has to work for a living, who is known but is not famous enough to survive on recording income and sponsorships. Hayes is authentic, you’ll enjoy listening to him.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hayes-carll/id1316200737?i=1000556513509

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/6c7551cc-1293-41c4-be69-d4dc622763b0/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-hayes-carll

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/hayes-carll-202144435

Hey Bob,

You may not know it, but I’ve long admired your writing.

So it was that I was quite taken aback when a friend of mine in the States mentioned that you’d written a piece entitled ‘Living In A Fantasy’ – taking inspiration from my 1980 song.

It’s a beautifully written article (as always) and I find it so very humbling that my words and creativity have such an effect on people.

When you’re creating songs you never think of the effect, just putting down emotions as they come to you, trying to describe to yourself how you feel, to let it all out, air your thoughts. It’s a very cathartic exercise, rewarding and satisfying too.

I have had a very long career, which is still going strong even though I’m now I’m in my 74th year.

I’m living these days near Sydney in Australia, still writing songs, making records, still performing gigs and tours with my voice as good as ever – and remarkably I’ve still got all my hair!

I feel blessed by my life as a songwriter, even more than my success as a singer, and articles like yours make it all worthwhile.

So, thank you!

Leo (Gerard Hugh) Sayer.

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Subject: Leo Sayer video from Jack Tempchin

Hi Bob

In the year 2000 I had a birthday party every Monday night at “The Joint” on Pico and Sepulveda.  I had “special guests” drop in and play with my core band.

Here is one night when Leo Sayer played.  He was incredible.

There is backstage footage.  Terry Reid, Waddy Wachtel, Rick Rosas, Bernard Fowler and Phil Jones and I were the band.

There was always a cast of characters backstage.

I had it all filmed and recorded and this year they are being posted.

Leo Sayer blew my mind.  I had no idea from his records how great a singer he was.

thanks

(I read you every day)

Jack Tempchin

It’s all about the personal.

This is a must for skateboarding fans, for everyone else? I don’t know. Felice watched it separately and loved it. But one thing’s for sure, this is a movie about skateboarding, too often docs focus on the penumbra, not the core, like music documentaries that don’t feature the music, but you’ll see Tony skate and you’ll gain insight into who he is.

Which he had no idea of until he went into rehab after three failed marriages. Two of which are essentially skipped here. But I guess that would be a different movie.

So what you’ve got here is a “mistake” whose mother is 43 years old when he is born and whose siblings are twenty years his senior. Who discovers skateboarding and never lets go.

Most people don’t have a passion, something they’ll sacrifice everything for. So they don’t understand the single-mindedness, the dedication of those who do. Furthermore, these people following their desire ultimately do it for themselves, because the accolades ring hollow.

This is very different from the mainstream paradigm, which is all about finding a way to get rich. Tony Hawk and his brethren in this flick just love to skateboard, they do so when no one is paying attention, they do so even though they’re now in their fifties and sixties.

So Tony’s father supports his passion. Like one of the skaters in the film, I can’t imagine my father doing that. His father creates the organization to oversee skateboard competitions but having a father with sharp elbows makes it hard to be one of the group at the competition.

Males… There is rarely an accurate portrayal of them. There’s all this talk about nerds and metrosexuals, but they are the minority. Being a male is being a part of a giant pecking order, with people always trying to push you down. If you’re accepted, you move up the ladder. But to be accepted oftentimes you have to shave off your rough edges, take on the group’s identity as opposed to your own, being different is anathema. But if you go your own way and raise your head it’s going to be chopped off, not only by the obvious bullies but most males, even those who appear to be gentle. And this isn’t only in sports, but in jobs, cars, men compete until they die. As if someone is really paying attention. Ultimately no one cares what car you drive, what house you live in, even about your accomplishments, because they’re focused on themselves and there’s always someone there to replace you. The hordes move on, where does that leave you?

So Tony makes it to the top and then the bottom falls out of skateboarding. A dance music promoter told me the music peaked every few years and then faded away, only to return once again. The Prodigy is big and everybody’s into the music. Then it goes back to the hard core and waits for ignition again.

They thought skateboarding was forever, but it turned out it wasn’t. That’s what’s hard to understand, you’re making bank, people are cheering for you and then nobody cares, you’re a has-been, Tony became a video editor, still skated while his then wife supported the family as a manicurist. And there’s so much pressure to give up and go straight. Your significant other is usually only supportive to a point. Girls talk and consensus is you’re a loser. But skating touches Tony’s soul, it keeps him centered, it makes his life worth living, so he refuses to give it up. You can only survive if the public acknowledges your work, but that isn’t always the case, or as with Tony, your job disappears.

And then years later it’s resuscitated by the X Games.

I don’t think young people today understand the power of television, the power of mass media. That was the goal, to get airtime, so everyone could see you. To a great degree that paradigm is dead, because nothing reaches everybody, except maybe the Super Bowl, which is why ad time is so expensive. Now being on TV is no big deal, there are too many outlets and you’re competing with YouTube and social media, which are infinite. Same deal with radio, the younger generations don’t listen to it, and the younger generations are the ones who move the needle on music.

Now if you go back to the early nineties it was a big deal that there was even a second ESPN. The X Games blew up extreme sports, supported the culture, which got very little promotion in the straight media but had huge impact amongst the demo. Which is always the case, those in charge can’t see, never mind feel, the change.

Tony’s father articulates something that stunned me in this world. That unlike the boomers, these competitors actually root for each other. It’s oftentimes more important to have a good time than to win.

And skating could be done anywhere. You didn’t need an ocean or mountains and snow. And with skating there was a culture, with apparel, the right shoes, shorts and t-shirts. And an attitude. This culture was supported by magazines and videos, back when information used to be scarce, outsiders found a world where they could be accepted. And it grew and grew. However ultimately Gen-X’s kids rebelled against snowboarding, an outgrowth of skate culture, and went back to skiing. Everybody focused on money, screw your passion. So once again, the progenitors, the lifers, are left alone, doing their own thing, which they continue to do whether anybody is paying attention or not.

Maybe they know something the rest of us do not. But you see the skaters in this movie decades later and you wonder how they make a living. There’s enough money for Tony, but a lot look bedraggled, only a few people can triumph financially in niche sports, maybe only one, and that’s Tony.

Who has it all, takes advantage and realizes it’s not fulfilling. I know, it sounds like a “Behind the Music” episode, but musicians are different, they take the stage, it’s about performance, being larger than life, whereas Tony is so normal and nice.

That’s what shocks you when you meet him. I’ve met a ton of celebrities, and they carry their charisma or send a message you should treat them differently. Tony is like your next door neighbor, home from spending time doing something you’re unfamiliar with. He never boasts. He doesn’t raise his voice. He’ll treat you like an equal, which is shocking. He’s not the usual celebrity.

But he is the usual star inside. That one-minded focus, that dedication, leaves blind spots. Tony goes on record that he has an intimacy problem. Most people won’t even admit that. You’re surrounded by people but you don’t know how to deal with people. This is something you’ll find if you meet your musician heroes, at least the aged ones. They did this because it was their only way out, their only way to meet people who wanted to be with them romantically, the only way they could have friends. But usually they only get the surface, the adoration, being put on a pedestal, people don’t know them and oftentimes the performers don’t know themselves.

So today it’s all about showing your trappings, trying to get clicks, accolades. There are so many more opportunities than there were in the pre-internet era, but success is on a smaller scale than it ever was, at least in terms of reach, you might still be able to make money.

But the image you present is not real. Scroll through Instagram, you’ll instantly feel inadequate, everybody’s toned and beautiful. Then again, every once in a while one of the posters will put up a picture without makeup and they’ll look completely normal, not special, not beautiful.

And why spend time making TikTok videos if people aren’t going to see them? Everybody believes they’re one click away from going viral. And if they go viral people will know them, they’ll get paid and their life will work out. But this is not the case. It’s the carrot dangled before you, but if you think being famous solves all your problems, you’re dead wrong, you probably don’t even know anyone truly famous.

No, in the end you have to become a fully developed person, engage the world just like everybody else, do your best to be real, to reveal your truth, which is scarce in today’s society but is what we’re all looking for.

So on the surface, “Until the Wheels Fall Off” is a skateboarding movie. But underneath the rolling wheels it’s a human story, about society, the individual.

Now on a skateboarding level, nothing is left on the cutting room floor. It’s all there. For you to learn and salivate over.

But on a human level…you’ve got to watch and connect the dots, figure out how the pieces fit together, try to figure out who these people are, what truly motivates them.

And Tony Hawk has suffered for his sport, his success. His body is bruised and broken, hell, he broke his femur just before this flick’s release. But he will not stop. These people will not stop. They keep skating. As Rodney Mullen says near the end it’s the intangibles that keep them going, pushing the envelope, he wishes the average person could see them, but they can’t. This is the nirvana. You pay a huge price for it, but it’s rare and elusive and most people don’t get there. It’s an inner feeling, not something you wear, an amount in your bank account. It’s about being alive, self-satisfaction, happiness, a structure to your life. It’s available to everybody but few want to pay their dues and carry the costs of achieving this heightened state.

But one thing is for sure, you can see it in this documentary. You can feel it. Tony Hawk is just the spearhead of a cultural movement. It’s more of an attitude than a performance. Skateboarding was outside. Tony’s told me he’s thrilled it’s in the Olympics, and I can see that it makes it more permanent, so the sport has staying power. But you can never buy back your outsider status. There is a cost to being co-opted, there is a cost for everybody being in on the joke and the story. Freestyle skiing was an outlaw sport. Now bump skiing is in the Olympics with man-made moguls and everybody replicating the same turns and tricks. It’s become what the original freestylers hated, it’s no longer free.

But those there in the beginning, they still remember. And what’s stunning about the skaters in this movie is they’re still the same people doing the same thing. Usually sports or arts activities are a whim, something you do for a while before you go straight. But not these guys, this is who they are. Watching them will have you pondering who you are. And that’s the most important question in life.

On HBO: https://bit.ly/3uepEGA 

Is everything disposable? Does everything have a lifespan?

Seemingly every day a song gets stuck in my head, I wake up singing it to myself. And usually I can’t figure out what started it. Two days ago it was the Hollies’ “Carrie Anne.” Today it’s Leo Sayer’s “Living in a Fantasy.” You probably know the former. Although when it was a hit you probably couldn’t name a single member of the group and could not have foreseen that Graham Nash would exit, move to California, and become one third of a supergroup whose music is still resonating. As for “Living in a Fantasy,” I doubt you know it. And if you’re under thirty, you probably don’t know either.

I wish I’d written an article in today’s “New York Times” entitled:

“Baseball Is Dying. The Government Should Take It Over.”: https://nyti.ms/3LHkhpi

Before you libertarians get your knickers in a twist, I don’t agree baseball should be nationalized, and I don’t really think the writer does either, but the statistics he delineates make it clear, like the Grammys, baseball is in a death spiral.

First there’s the TV ratings:

“Attendance at games has declined steadily since 2008 and viewership figures are almost hilariously bleak. An ordinary national prime-time M.L.B. broadcast, such as ESPN’s ‘Sunday Night Baseball,’ attracts some 1.5 million pairs of eyes each week, which is to say, roughly the number that are likely to be watching a heavily censored version of ‘Goodfellas’ on a basic cable movie channel in the same time slot.

Even the World Series attracts smaller audiences than the average ‘Thursday Night Football’ broadcast, the dregs of the National Football League’s weekly schedule. In 1975, the World Series had an average of 36 million viewers per game; in 2021, it barely attracted 12 million per game.”

And then there’s the economics:

“Casual observers may assume that despite this lack of popularity, baseball is still somehow insanely valuable. This is an illusion. Major League Baseball generated around $11 billion in revenue in 2019, but this figure does not accurately reflect the demand for its product. The astronomical salaries that continue to be enjoyed by the sport’s stars (if that is the mot juste) are a result not of the game’s nonexistent popularity but of the economics of cable television providers, who bundle regional sports networks alongside dozens of other channels so that anyone with cable TV is buying baseball whether he likes it or not.”

Yes, baseball is being propped up by a dying television paradigm that is not only on its way to being superseded, it is being superseded as I write this.

Basic cable is in its death throes. The old bundle model is history. Paying for so much you don’t want. Today you pay for what you do want, subscriptions to the streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+, and if you really care about the rearguard you get an antenna for network TV or buy an ever-increasingly expensive skinny internet bundle from the likes of Google and Sling. And the younger generation sees no need for either, just like they see no need for a landline.

Things change, and those dedicated to them refuse to acknowledge this.

Both the Grammys and the MLB are going to be SOL when the TV payments crash. But both luxuriate in the present glory, as if it is forever. And believe me, they’ll bitch when the cheese is moved, just like all the musicians when the old label paradigm collapsed with the advent of the internet. Players are still mourning the days of the major label keeping scores of acts alive, whether they were successful or not. Those days are through, the economics have changed.

Now the amount of ink about the MLB lockout was voluminous, as it was for the Grammy telecast. This publicity makes it seem like these are universal attractions everyone follows with bated breath.

“Culturally, too, the game is increasingly irrelevant. The average age of a person watching a baseball game on television is 57, and one shudders to think what the comparable figure is for radio broadcasts. Typical American 10-year-olds are as likely to recognize Jorge Soler, who was named the most valuable player of last year’s World Series, as they are their local congressional representative.”

And: 

“In some parts of the country, participation in Little League has decreased by nearly 50 percent in the past decade and a half.”

In other words, everything the boomers hold dear is fading in the rearview mirror. Everything that looked to be forever, bedrock, turns out not to be.

There’s a generation gap. Which is hard for boomers to fathom, since they were the original ones who separated from their parents, and they insist they’ll be hip until they die. They think since their kids call them every day on the cellphone, or text them, that they know what is going on. But they don’t. Ask a boomer about the metaverse, crypto and NFTs and if they know what they are, they’ll say how they’re irrelevant junk, doomed to failure. But they are not. They may not look like they do today, just like Facebook eclipsed MySpace, but the underlying concept is valid, just like concerts in virtual worlds like Roblox are burgeoning.

Which brings us back to the music. Turns out very little of the classic rock canon is going to last. The Beatles, yes. But maybe not even the Rolling Stones. The work of the great songwriters, like Carole King…she, herself, may not be remembered, but her songs will.

Which brings us to today’s music. Today there is a tsunami of product in every category. That’s one of the things hurting mass, the concept is passé, everybody is in their own niche. Last night I heard Loverboy’s “Workin’ for the Weekend” over the grocery store PA. What are the odds today’s music will play that role. “Working for the Weekend” is classic, it’s forty years old, which of today’s tracks will be universal in forty years? Almost none.

But institutions keep acting like the paradigm of the past is forever, while they continue to drop, one by one, just like the musicians of yore.

Did you see that Bobby Rydell died? That was a different era, music was entertainment, disposable, made for kids. Then the Beatles came along and wiped all those old acts from the map, suddenly music was taken seriously. If you’re taking today’s music seriously you have no sense of history and no sense of context. There are a lot of things more primary than music, like the war in Ukraine and politics, things that everybody has heard of and has an opinion on, whereas most of today’s hit music has been heard by only a minority of the population.

There is revenue in small, but the money is always in big, in scale. But don’t expect the people promoted through the ranks at record labels to understand this, and it’s such an insider club that outsiders are reluctant to participate, they can make more money much easier in other fields.

Which brings us back to Leo Sayer.

Roger Daltrey’s first solo album was comprised of covers of his tunes, written with David Courtney, who almost no readers know. But there were two tracks that Courtney wrote with Adam Faith. That was a selling point, Adam Faith’s involvement in “Daltrey.” I bet you boomers on this side of the pond might still recognize the name, but the credits have been lost to history.

It took a while for Leo Sayer to break in America. And it only happened when he broadened his sound, added humor, connected with the dance craze taking over the country. “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)” was all over AM radio in 1974. Then again, anybody who truly loved music was listening to FM, almost exclusively. Ditto with 1976’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” Nobody listening to FM rock wanted to dance, at least not in platform shoes and a leisure suit, but that track went to number one in 1976. It was a moment in time, that quickly faded. But I remembered “One Man Band” and “Giving it all Away,” so when I saw 1980’s “Living in a Fantasy” in the promo bin, for either $1.99 or $2.49, I’d have to find the record, the sticker is still on it, promos weren’t shrink-wrapped, I bought it. There was actually a hit on the record, a cover of Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison’s “More Than I Can Say,” but it didn’t drive album sales, because AM was about singles, FM was about albums, and AM play didn’t sell albums.

But that’s not what I remember about the “Living in a Fantasy” album. No, it’s two songs, “Where Did we Go Wrong,” and the title tune.

“You, you are my reason to live

You make me shine with all the love that you give

And when I think of you I keep driftin’ away

Little by little I love you more every day”

And those might sound like bland, relatively predictable lyrics, but the acoustic guitar and emotional delivery add gravitas. But then comes the magic bridge:

“I lay in bed but I just can’t sleep

I close my eyes and you’re all that I see

I can’t believe that it’s happening to me”

Bridge? Some of today’s hit records only have one chord, and believe me, they’re not “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

But Leo Sayer was not only a songwriter, in this case with the lost to the sands of time Alan Tarney, he was also a singer.

A singer is not someone with perfect pipes, although they might possess them, no, a singer is someone who can sell a song, someone who can wring the emotion in the lyrics, convince you that they mean what they’re singing.

And the piece-de-resistance of “Living in a Fantasy” is the final section, a whole new melody, a heightened emotion, you can feel the desire in the words:

“Oh, you’re too much, too soon, too strong

But I want drown in your touch

Don’t keep me floating too long”

We’ve all felt this, it’s the essence of being in love. A magic feeling that cannot be replicated anywhere else, something you live for. It fades, but the memory keeps the relationship going, however there are those addicted to it and keep bouncing from person to person, in love with being in love.

It’s all there, in one song.

And I’ve spent much of my life living in a fantasy. Less now, today I’m much more integrated in society, credit the internet and a ton of psychotherapy. But I have not lost the ability to slip back into that old mode, all it takes is a song, not any song, only specific ones. They take me away, to a better place.

That’s the essence of music, any music. And it’s the upbeat songs that get us moving, but it’s the contemplative serious ones that change our lives, that help us keep going.

I could square this with today’s world, what’s been gained and lost in the years. But to a degree it’s a fool’s errand, it makes oldsters feel good but youngsters don’t care, and it’s their world now.

And as we age will these stars of yore tour our condo communities?

Probably, at least those still alive. We boomers are fading into the sunset, you age and you realize it, and if you’re fighting it you’re delusional, it’s the nature of life. Aging is freedom, you let go of so much b.s., and you also gain perspective, not that anybody wants to hear what you have to say, you’re just moving down the conveyor belt of life and to those just beginning everything is brand new, they don’t care about history, and then they slip down the line themselves.

But we didn’t think this would happen.

We lived through something, that is being lost to the sands of time. Everybody says it’s still the same, that the music is just as good, means the same to listeners, but that is patently untrue, that’s just a way to rationalize their continued existence in this business. They’re living in a fantasy.

But so am I.

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3DLKTmm

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3LM4JAy