Boy can he talk.

That’s one thing Canadians and Indians have in common, they’ve got the gift of gab. I think it’s all those cold winter nights in the Great White North, as for Indians…I’m still thinking about it.

We all know Randy, from the days of the Guess Who and BTO. But what I didn’t know was how loquacious he was, that he could really tell a story, that he was open and honest. I guess I grew up in the era when rock stars were removed and cool and had little to say, BUT NOT RANDY!

I could listen to him all day.

And you could too.

The pizza delivery man plays piano on “Takin’ Care Of Business”:

Randy Bachman on this week’s podcast: https://t.co/ffEVgxpTNM Hear him talk about the pizza delivery man who plays piano on “Takin’ Care Of Business”: pic.twitter.com/ZF56IR6bsw

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) August 30, 2018

Randy stutters for you:

Randy Bachman stutters for you. Listen to the podcast on TuneIn: https://t.co/IPgL8VrTRh or Apple: https://t.co/SoYcEZkCKL pic.twitter.com/d0KyvCsOS1

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) August 30, 2018

Listen to the Randy Bachman podcast on…

TuneIn

Apple

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Overcast

Castbox

You should care. Whether you live in London or Dubai, whether you’re old enough to vote or a felon who cannot.

Because the polls were wrong and Gillum won.

But it was more than that. He focused on YouTube instead of television. And he didn’t triangulate, the old Clinton playbook is dead, you speak from the heart, not the head, you don’t try to appeal to everyone, but those who care. You can build it if you’re honest, if you don’t compromise.

Kinda like music.

But we haven’t had that spirit here since the last century.

That’s why pop music died. Check the chart. Instead of speaking their truth from the heart, acts incorporated beats and rap breaks and tried to give a bit of everything to everybody. Meanwhile, hip-hop has become me-too, and not in a feminist way. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where music is antiquated and politics is cutting edge?

One in which labels are the establishment and everybody’s chasing a buck.

Go into a label and try to sell them something non-hip-hop, something that’s not on the radio, IT CAN’T BE DONE! Labels are the new gatekeepers, they’re the Democratic party, taking the temperature of the country and delivering what they think people want, but is not close to what they need.

The reason there are twenty writers, the reason it takes months to build a track, is everybody’s afraid, everybody wants to buy insurance, they want to make sure that what they deliver will be accepted, by the same damn audience. What kind of ridiculous world do we live in where the dominant musical art form is hated by half the people?

Now hip-hop used to be about rebellion and truth. And sometimes it still is. Its power was unrecognized before the internet and Spotify, just like country’s was unrecognized before SoundScan. And maybe hip-hop is the new rock and roll, then again, rock and roll is brain dead, a third party appealing to niches with no traction. Meanwhile, the biggest act in the world is Adele and she sounds like nothing else on the chart. A great singer singing memorable songs with melody, what a concept! Then again, she shot herself in the foot on her last album by refusing to be on streaming services, that’s like refusing to be on the internet. Trump defeated Clinton because he tweeted, he still tweets. Who else is a famous politician who tweets prodigiously? NO ONE! Because they’re all afraid.

But we’re seeing a new wave of politicos who are not afraid. Who are doing it their way.

Kinda like Chance the Rapper. There haven’t been more of him because there’s only one of him, no one else resonates with the public so. And he keeps on giving money away. While most rappers are talking about their riches, he’s giving to charity. Didn’t anybody in the music business realize that millennials have a social conscience, that this stuff resonates with them, they want you to do good?

Now Gillum might lose in November. And then you’ll hear the powers-that-be say he was too far left. Tell that to the Federalist Society, which took decades to reach critical mass and now rules. Hell, you didn’t even know about it until last year. Hell, you still might not know about it. But the joke is on you, no one’s dumb anymore, everyone’s informed, maybe misinformed online, but you still think it’s about TV.

That’s what gave Gillum’s opponent DeSantis traction, he was all over Fox. Check the stats, old people watch that channel. And what happens to old people? THEY DIE!

Kinda like the old people going to classic rock shows. What comes next?

But no one at the labels is concerned with what comes next, they’re all like rappers, focused on short term numbers for their bonus pay. Because they have no ownership interest, and they’re focused on themselves instead of the operation.

Music used to be the most truthful, immediate medium. Hit songs reflected life. Were up-to-date, were comments on what was going on.

Now you find that on television, which takes much longer to produce.

Now everybody can’t win, everybody can’t get nominated. Gillum did not come from nowhere, he was already mayor of Tallahassee. So when you sit at home and wonder why you’re not successful, blame yourself. You have to find a way to get on the playing field, you have to find a way to get noticed, you have to have traction before the big players get involved. And Gillum benefited from money from Soros and Steyer, the latter banging the drum of impeachment almost since Trump was in office.

And what does the mainstream media say?

YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT IMPEACHMENT!

That’s the canard the right wing is spouting, and the newspeople, who missed Trump, are so out of touch with fact, that they believe it.

That’s the world we live in. Where we trust the data until we don’t.

The data said Clinton would beat Trump. So she relaxed and Democrats didn’t vote.

Clinton was so busy appealing to everybody, she appealed to nobody.

Kinda like today’s music business.

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Spotify

I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard “Sweet Home Alabama.”

I’d graduated from college only months before. Talk about a weird experience. What am I gonna do next?

In my case I was gonna be a ski bum in Little Cottonwood Canyon, i.e. Alta & Snowbird. My final year of college was the worst snow year in history, like Depeche Mode, I just couldn’t get enough, but that was years before that track came out.

My father had bought me a new car for graduation. I didn’t want one, I had a ’63 Chevy convertible, although I was a bit anxious about it, it didn’t have a low gear, so going down the canyon… And my father wanted me to get a Capri, which I did not want, he’d gotten screwed by the Lincoln/Mercury dealer, they’d sold him a lemon and he could squeeze out a good deal on the Capri, but I said no. And then one day my mother told me my father really wanted to buy me a car, which is how I ended up with my 2002, which was a demonstrator, even so, 6k was a lot of money back in ’74. And I insisted upon two things inside, a/c, since my father kept testifying about its necessity, and a Blaupunkt AM/FM cassette radio. Morris first balked at the a/c, which cost $600, which brought the price to said 6k, but the radio was included, and I made twenty four Maxell cassettes for my trip to Utah, but whenever I hit a metropolis I tuned in the local FM station, to find something new.

And this morning in St. Louis they were doing construction, and it was raining, and I was reaching to the dial, since that head unit had no push buttons, not that I’d know the stations in St. Louis, and as I passed a gas station on the left, that’s when I heard “Sweet Home Alabama.”

This was just when “Free Bird” was becoming legendary, but before Lynyrd Skynyrd had been inducted into the pantheon, after all, they were working for MCA, the worst label in the business, even worse than RCA.

And the reason I remember hearing “Sweet Home Alabama” that day was because the track was so great, no other band had three lead guitarists, oh, the Outlaws copied them, but this was a new sound, the Allmans might have had two drummers, but three guitarists, what was the point, Cream only had one, but they danced together, entwined each other, came up with a complex sound that was so simple.

One of those guitars, one of the writers of the song, was Ed King.

He’d started out in the Strawberry Alarm Clock, who I’d seen at Fairfield University, but I’m not sure he was in the touring group, but he probably was, this was right after “Incense and Peppermints,” another one listen track that sounded like nothing else, it was the organ and that spacy guitar, as well as vocals sung like the guy was gasping for air, like someone was pulling him somewhere else but he had to get the words out before he moved on. But this was the sixties, when the soundalikes were ignored and we were bombarded by new sounds constantly. Imagine what it was like to hear “Purple Haze” for the first time, nothing prepared you for it, we don’t have breakthroughs like that these days.

But by time Lynyrd Skynyrd came on the scene, times had changed. FM radios were prevalent in cars, and the Allman Brothers were the biggest band in the land, albeit after the passing of Duane, it was “Brothers and Sisters,” if I hear “Ramblin’ Man” one more time I’m gonna shoot somebody, but I cannot get enough of “Come And Go Blues,” with Gregg’s husky, soulful voice, I can’t believe he’s gone, if you survive the maelstrom, you’re supposed to last forever, if you made it out of the seventies, you should still be here, but Gregg is not.

And Lynyrd Skynyrd were perceived as me-too at first, and not in the sexual harassment way, even though that was rampant in rock and roll those days. They fought their way to the top, failed sessions in Muscle Shoals, but then Al Kooper signed them to his Sounds of the South label and they fought it out on the road. But, just after the first LP came out, while Al was still living and cutting in Hot ‘Lanta, he got a call from the band, they had a new song, could they come up and cut it.

That’s right, “Sweet Home Alabama” was cut in the fall of ’73, even though it was not released until a year later, it sat in the can. And I asked Al if he knew, what a monster it was gonna be, and Al looked me in the eye and said…IT WAS SWEET HOME ALABAMA!

Only the amateurs can’t tell a hit. You strive forever, trying to get it right, but when you hit it far over the fence, you know, even though it’s so hard to do. Casual hits may make it via accident, but the legends are inevitable, like “Sweet Home Alabama.”

They made a movie with that title, Kid Rock linked it with “Werewolves Of London” to dominate the charts in 2008, but the truth is the original is the apotheosis, a legend in a bottle, the lightning we’re always waiting to strike us.

Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin

I always thought this was a “Proud Mary” reference, even if unconscious. Those big wheels, on the water, on the interstate, lull you into a state of suspended animation, alternately frustration and bliss.

He heard Neil Young sing about her.

In Birmingham they love the governor.

Watergate does not bother Ronnie Van Zant.

He stood up to the paragon of rock, who entranced both the boys and the girls before Mr. Young alienated them with “Time Fades Away.”

We can analyze all day long whether Van Zant supported the governor or not. As for Watergate, this was written long before resignation, the point is can you let politics distract you from the business you’ve got to do, unfortunately today you do.

But it was the hook, the lyrics, the piano playing, nothing on the band’s debut had prepared us for this.

And Ed King quit before the accident.

And latecomers Steve and Cassie Gaines perished in that plane, as did Ronnie, and for years there was no Lynyrd Skynyrd, there was a Rossington Collins Band, and then the act reunited with bits and pieces until bit by bit, the originals who were left fell by the wayside, to the point the only one now left is Gary Rossington himself.

And Ed King was hiding in plain sight for years, no one ever talked about him, you’ve got to die to get recognition these days. But if you grew up in that era, if you were an avid reader of liner notes, you knew who Ed King was.

And now he’s gone.

But not only him. But an era where everybody wanted to play. Both on and offstage. Music ran the country, everybody was passionate, we judged you on your record collection, and if you made it everybody knew your track and when you went to the show it was clear who were the stars, the people on stage, not you in the audience taking selfies with your smartphone.

Maybe you remember.

Maybe you don’t.

But one thing’s for sure, the power and magic of “Sweet Home Alabama” maintains. From an era where a band from Jacksonville refused to be pigeonholed as dumb rednecks.

They pick me up when I’m feeling blue.

I know you feel the same way too.

Grab your things
I’ve come to take you home

These were not the original lines in “Solsbury Hill,” the words had to do with “taxi” and “tube” and Ezrin said there was no way they were going on the LP. And the lyrics you know, the ones above, weren’t cut until the very end of mixing Gabriel’s initial solo album, when Peter was inspired.

That’s why I’m here in Mumbai, for the conference “All About Music.” You pay me and put me in the front of the airplane and I’ll go just about anywhere, the weirder, the more offbeat, the place people want to go to least, that’s for me!

The best place I’ve been in the last decade is Bogota, because I felt so alive, because everybody had had a relative assassinated, they were living the Grass Roots lifestyle, they were living for today.

And now Mumbai.

Most people won’t go to India. I was out with a friend who is a world traveler and he said no way, two people in his building went and one died and the other was sick for three months. And then I was reminded that Howard Rose’s wife came and passed when she returned. Was there a connection? No one’s sure, but is this the way I want to go? Kinda like on an airplane, you hit the turbulence… I know, I know, that’s got nothing to do with crashing, and sometimes I can enjoy the ride, but when an A380 is being buffeted, I start to wonder, how in hell does this thing fly to begin with. That’s like so much of today’s technology, the fact that it works, if you sit back and think about it, is positively amazing.

So I’m here. And so far I haven’t even gotten sick. Then again, I’m paranoid, I’m obeying the rules, and I’m living in the city, I have not gone to the hinterlands.

But I’d like to.

This is the first place I’ve been to that I haven’t been able to figure out. So many people, so hot, but everybody seems to get along. I grew up when going to Manhattan was dangerous, the fact I could be safe in Mumbai..?

Maybe I’m not, maybe I’m ignorant, but that’s what they tell me and so far it’s true.

But I’ve seen so little!

I think it comes down to upbringing. Not only did my parents live to travel, they were all about the sights, the hotel room was secondary. The concept of lounging around in a great room was anathema. They wanted to go out and eat up the landscape, and now so do I.

After doing my keynote and sitting on a panel I wondered whether I should go out to this museum about the city, I’m into those places, where they tell you how we got from there to here, there’s always a story. And in a world where there’s always something to do or see online, you’ve got to tear yourself away from the computer. Then again, denigrating the smartphone and web is akin to yesterday’s badge of honor of waking up early after little sleep. Now everyone agrees that sleep is the key to creativity and productivity and I do believe tomorrow everybody will be trumpeting the advantages of smartphones, sure, I’m online so much, but I enjoy it, all that knowledge at my fingertips, the only lament I have is they didn’t come up with the internet and the smartphone earlier in my life.

When I sat in my bedroom listening to records and feeling lonely.

Oh, I’d go to the show and find other like-minded people.

But so much of what I was into were not hits, like the first Peter Gabriel album. Sure, “Solsbury Hill” is legendary today, but not yesterday, Atlantic didn’t even want to put out Peter’s third solo album, it came out on Mercury, but now it’s considered his best, it eclipses both “So” and “Us” and if you don’t agree you’re a casual fan, and there we have the era of old, when we used to argue about records, when they were scarce, today there’s an avalanche of product and music means less than ever before. Think about that, tracks have become commonplace, they’re vehicles to sell merch and sponsorship, we’re so far from the garden it’s ridiculous.

So I’m trying to figure out the Indian music business, and I can’t. I’ve learned tons, but it reminds me of entering the music business in L.A. way back when, it took me two years to learn who was real and who was not. This is a lesson they don’t teach in school. As a matter of fact, that’s when you grow up, when you leave school. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go to school, but life begins when you leave, and if you think the world is structured like school, you’re wrong. Oh, you can go to work at Procter & Gamble or the law firm and hope you get recognized and move to the top, but if you’re smart, and few people are, you now have a chance to invent yourself, carve your own path.

But it’s difficult.

I learned that most people are full of shit, they talk a good game but were never going anywhere.

I learned that knowing everything would not get you far, they aren’t looking for that kind of talent on the business side, they reward hustlers first and foremost.

I’m still learning.

And I’d like to come back to Mumbai to learn so much more, to all of India, because it’s very different from the U.S., but the same.

Kinda like the addiction to filmed entertainment. But unlike in the States, they haven’t dumbed down the movies in an effort to appeal to the entire world while satisfying almost no one. Bollywood and Tollywood and Kollywood are all about story. Story wins in this world, it’s what life is based upon, it’s what we love about books and movies and music… Facts are commonplace, you can look them up online, but can you tell a story?

Ezrin wasn’t sure whether to tell stories, or teach production. He started off doing the former, and then spent most of the time giving lessons.

Which I felt were wasted on the audience.

But he asked for a show of hands of those making records…

And almost everybody’s shot up.

This shocked me. But that’s the world we live in, everybody can be a record producer, everybody can be a musician. That does not mean they’ll be a success, but they do get a chance to play.

Oh, how I’d love to have made movies with my smartphone in junior high, To have those tools at my fingertips, to be able to do it for bupkes.

And after an hour, Ezrin asked for questions.

And the first person wanted to know what it was like working with Peter Gabriel.

Ezrin winced and said he was gonna answer this question, but he didn’t want more like it, he wanted to stick to production.

Kinda like the moderator earlier today asked Bob how many drugs were consumed making “The Wall.” NONE! Everybody was straight, they came in from 10-6 every day, they arrived in their BMWs and they worked until late afternoon, when they took tea and discussed the day’s work. Then Pink Floyd went home and Bob worked on into the night.

That’s the story of life, everybody lies, everybody’s got a misconception. Just because you did drugs listening to an album, that does not mean the makers did. The penumbra is overrated, the drugs and the drinking, that’s what the audience does, the innovators, the artists, work really hard, and they fall into drugs when they can’t calm down after overworking.

But I was stunned this guy knew who Peter Gabriel was.

And whenever Bob referenced acts from the past, people would applaud. These twenty and thirtysomethings, halfway around the world.

They knew the songs.

That’s the power of music.

It has influence, it can transcend cultures, it’s more important than any tech or politics, it’s what people live for, respect yourself, dig down deep and try to do your best, because the world depends on it.

Even far away in Mumbai.

Listen to Don Henley. At Glenn Frey’s memorial he told the story of being in the hinterlands, far from running water, he ran into a native who looked at him and said HOTEL CALIFORNIA, even though it appeared there was no electricity to play music.

People know.

It’s got to do with more than money.

Music changes the world. You’ve just got to go somewhere to see it.

I’m here in India and I realize we’re all sustained by the common building blocks. We hear too much about the value of music being respected by businessmen, techies. If only the makers reached higher, respected themselves more, realized the future of our world depends on art. You want to reach someone? SING A SONG!

All About Music