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Bang - Music shot from a gun - An conversation with Frank Ferrara - "I really believe that if you work hard enough for something, you can inflict your will and make things happen."

 Frank Ferrara Interview

Bang is a rock band from the Philadelphia area that produced three albums on Capitol Records in the early 1970's. In that time, Frank Ferrara, Frank Gilcken, and Tony Diorio rehearsed for approximately 18 months and decided to take a trip to Florida with their equipment and check out the music scene. While stopping in a record store for necessities, they found out that Rod Stewart and Deep Purple were performing very soon in Orlando. They headed to the show and drove right through the gates and talked their way into opening the concert. The concert promoter was very impressed and had them play other major shows. Before you know it, they were signed to Capitol records. After various music business issues, "Bang" eventually called it quits. On 1/6/2014 the band reunited. The two Franks and current drummer Jake Legar, will be performing at The Shop in Brooklyn, New York on May 10th 2015. I recently caught up with Bassman Frank Ferrara.

R.V.B. - Hello Frank

F.F. - Yes this is Frank, how are you?

R.V.B. - I'm doing pretty good. How are you?

F.F. - I am really good. I'm soaking up the sunshine from my picture window, so I'm doing good.

R.V.B. - Well I wish I could say the same because it's cold as heck up here.

F.F. - Where are you?

R.V.B. - I'm by Port Jefferson.

F.F. - Oh, that sounds cold. (Hahaha)

R.V.B. - I know that you're from the Philly area... where do you live now?

F.F. - Actually Rob, I'm still in my family home. I came here from Italy when I was a young boy, when I was about five. I live about fifteen miles south of Philly on the Pa/Delaware line.

R.V.B. - Oh I see, so you got a warmer day than we do, I guess.

F.F. - A little bit yeah. It's all good. Our guitar player Frankie moved to Virginia and our drummer Jake is from Pittsburgh. It's weird that we're separated. I remember as a kid, we all lived on the same block basically. It was pretty cool back then.

R.V.B. - After reading your bio, one thing that I admire is the go-gettiveness' of you guys. You guys set out for a dream, with not really a major plan other than practicing, and you went out and made it happen.

F.F. - You know Rob, I think back... the Bang story is so unique, in just what happened. The fact that it was in 1971... six years after The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, when I think back on how far back it was... basically you're right, I think rehearsing every night for eighteen months got us so tight... not just musically, but as people and friends. I really believe that if you work hard enough for something, you can inflict your will and make things happen. The fact that we just decided on a whim to go to Florida and walk into a music at five minutes to nine because we needed rolling papers, and ended opening up for Rod Stewart and Deep Purple. Think about that... five minutes in either direction, the store would have been closed, we would of never heard about the show, we would have never went to Florida. I believe that break came to us because of the hard work and the eighteen months that we put into it.

R.V.B. - That, and the fact that you didn't wait around for things to happen. You made things happen. You went into the music store, albeit it was for rolling papers.

F.F. - (Hahaha)

R.V.B. - . I share a common thing with you... I'm a huge Sabbath fan myself. When you were rehearsing did they have an influence on you?

F.F. - Oh yeah, I think so. They were our favorite group back then too. You know what Robbie??? there's only eight notes in the scale. There's only so many ways you can bend strings. Yeah, we were fans of Black Sabbath and we were playing that genre pretty much with the "Death of a Country" album... which as our demo. It was never released by Capitol. That's when we just started. We were influenced by everybody, it wasn't just them. It was Led Zeppelin, it was Grand Funk. We got cluttered in the heavy metal genre but we were a rock band more than anything. We were a grove band. We were a boogie band. We were more rock than anything else. Everybody that you like influences you to a point. We couldn't sound like Black Sabbath, simply because we weren't. We sounded like Bang. People tell me all the time that I sound like Ozzy. I think I sound like Frank Ferrara. It's just my voice. Frankie's guitar playing... I think he should of been one of the top ten of all time. That's just my opinion. Today seems to be all about speed. How fast can I put 10,000 notes in three seconds. I would rather hear three notes that are bent the right way and say something melodic. Frankie was able to do that with his playing.

R.V.B. - I totally agree with you. There's such a thing as over playing.

F.F. - Oh big time. It's about a song... your setting a mood... your telling a story. Now it's "How fast can I get through this." To me there's no heart in it anymore. We found this out on the Pentagram tour... there was twenty and thirty year olds who came out to see us. That was our first tour in forty-some years. To twenty and thirty year olds with our Bang album... singing with me... knowing the words... I tell you what buddy, "I'm hung like a peanut but I felt like I had a ten foot dick." (Hahaha)

R.V.B. - (Hahaha) Well you know, I listen to your music and I like it myself. I'm a semi-professional low level musician myself. Now you guys were really young when this Florida trip happened right?

F.F. - Yeah, we were seventeen... just turning eighteen. We decided not to finish high school. It was either go back to twelfth grade or sign with Capitol Records. We made a hard choice.

R.V.B. - Now you say you were hung like a peanut but you sure had a lot of balls to go into that stadium and talking your way into opening up.

F.F. - Hey Rob. They don't call me the elephant man because of my trunk, ok.

R.V.B. - (Hahaha)

F.F. - The peanut was an exaggeration. You know Rob, when that guy pretty much challenged us in that music store... he was putting it in our face. We saw the sign and it said "Concert in the part on Saturday." It was kind of a battle of the bands. That was in Daytona. When we saw that poster we asked "Is that show tomorrow?" He said "No, that's an old poster." We told him where we were staying and that we were from Philly... "We have our equipment in the U-Haul to play for people in Florida." He goes "Oh, you got a band? Rod Stewart and Deep Purple are playing in Orlando. Why don't you go there, maybe they'll let you play?" He was being a smart ass.

F.F. - We got the papers and went back to our tent in the campground. We were drinking a little bit and we were smoking joints... the good Florida pot that we had back them. We just started talking "WTF, we're just going to Florida on a whim... we're just taking a vacation... let's just go there and see what happens." Robbie check this out, when we got there, there was nobody there. we pulled the fucking U-Haul and station wagon right backstage. Right through the metal fences, and there was nobody there. We got out of the car and we were a little nervous. We could have got arrested... we were crashing a show. We walked in and they were setting up the PA... we kept walking until we saw a door and knocked. That's when we saw a guy and we said "We're Bang and we're from Philly and we're the best fucking band in the world and we want to play." We were expecting to be arrested but we couldn't have found a better guy. We ran into Rick Bowen, who happened to be the promoter of the show. He was the right guy to see. After that, we set up our equipment and played a couple of songs he said "You guys have balls the size of boulders. I have to let you play. You guys sound really good." Seventy two hours after we left Claymont Delaware with no idea where we were going, we're playing to 8,000 people, opening up for Rod Stewart and Deep Purple in Orlando.

R.V.B. - That's an amazing story. It obviously didn't stop there. How did you eventually get hooked up with Capitol?

F.F. - What happened was, East Coast Concerts was part of a company out of Dallas called Concerts West. They were the ones who did all the shows back then, Robbie... Zeppelin, The Who and everybody and their brother. Rick had the southeast portion of that. When we got our publishing deal... Jimmy Ienner had a publishing company in New York. He was the guy who put The Raspberries together. He had connections with Capitol. In fact, it was between Capitol and Atlantic. When we went into Criteria and did what turned out to be our demo "Death of a Country", Capitol was one of the labels that was interested.

R.V.B. - So you went in and did a demo of eight or ten songs?

F.F. - No Robbie, we actually had a concept album called "Death of a Country." It was about eight songs and it was a psychedelic metal record. Frankie was taking jazz lessons at the time. He would come to rehearsal with the augmented 19th chords. We were just having fun, and we came up with a style. We're talking about all this music Robbie, but Tony's lyrics were A+. The songs were written around the lyrics more than anything. To make a long story short we went with Capitol because The Beatles were on Capitol... The Band was on Capitol... Grand Funk was on Capitol, but in hindsight... From the minute we signed with them Robbie... I think they signed us because we were in front of 50,000 people and not for the music. We didn't do tours. We didn't go on the road for a month with one band. We'll do a gig with Three Dog Night one night and jump over to Cactus... or do Mountain. Our manager was basically guaranteeing Capitol that we could be in front of 50,000 people a week. That was a lot of money that Capitol was saving as far as promoting the band. It was a bad label for us the minute they decided not to release "Death of a Country" and their reasoning was, we were a groove band and people wouldn't understand a concept album. They're idiots of course. In my mind they challenged us when they sent a producer down and said "You got two weeks to write a record." In nine days we wrote the Bang album... which was technically just inducted into the heavy metal hall of fame. That was really nice... Forty three years after it's release. I don't care if it's the "Tom and Jerry Hall of Fame". The fact that people remember it after all these years and that it inspired a bunch of people, is a pretty humbling thing for us.

R.V.B. - I could imagine. When you had to come up with those songs in two weeks, did you have any in the can or did you write them all in that period?

F.F. - You know what Robbie? We had bits and pieces of riffs. None of the songs were complete. Me and Frankie just sat in a room and put on a cassette player every riff we could. We said alright, this one is in the key of E... this one's in the key of A... let's put these two together. It was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. We wrote the full album in two weeks. Me and Frankie were in one room and Tony was in the other room writing "The Last Will and Testament" and "Questions" and "Future Shock".

R.V.B. - He did most of the lyrics right?

F.F. - 99% of the lyrics were written from Tony Diorio, our original drummer. He still does lyrics to this day. To me, I always go back to the lyrics, because you know what? I've lived through the disco era, I'm living through the rap era, where it's how many words can you rhyme with bitch. Back in the day songs were about something, they told us a story... there was a chorus...  there was a solo. Good music stopped in 1979. then we got into the big hair syndrome. Before 1979 everybody had their own style and brand. There was The Who, The Stones.

R.V.B. - But you also had to go out there and make it... kinda through the underground. You had to build your audience. It's not like today where you put a video on Youtube and you see how many hits you get.

F.F. - Yeah Robbie, you hit it right on the head. That's what happened with the whole Capitol thing. They didn't know how to promote us. Atlantic was a more aggressive rock label. In hindsight, I feel we should of went with Atlantic but coulda', woulda', shoulda'. Capitol records is... believe it or not, one of the few record labels still standing to this day. There might be three of them. Atlantic doesn't exist anymore. They got soaked in by Sony or somebody. Back then everything was so commercial. FM was so deep underground. Helen Ready was number one "I Am Woman." It's about timing, and we were on the cusp. We would show up at gigs and there would be no records in the stores... no promotion and I blame that on Capitol. Within six months after we signed our deal, everyone that was involved at Capitol after signing us, moved on to another label. The president went to Motown. The producer took off and went to Epic. Everyone was gone within six months. You realize at that point, it's not the music business, it's the business of music. It's like selling shoes. In a business like music where it's all about heart and emotion, it's a hard lesson to learn.

R.V.B. - It also must have been disconcerting for them to tell you to use a different drummer.

F.F. - That happened after the first album. Tony had only been playing for four or five years at that point. He was ten years older than me and Frankie. He was the guy that had the wife and the kids and the job and the money. Frankie was sixteen years old when we met Tony.

Was it an issue with Tony leaving his family to go to Florida?

F.F. - No, it was never a problem with his family. We were just taking a week to go down there. We didn't know what would happen. We had rehearsed for eighteen months and we had played at this local club in Kennett Square... this local town. We did our "Death of a Country" set. A guy from the other band said "Look, I know some people in Miami who are looking for bands." Tony got the itch, and at the time Frankie - our guitar player was deeply into drugs. He was doing some bad drugs and fighting a demon back then. We thought getting away... getting out of town was a chance for him to clean up and chill out. There was a combination of reasons why we went down. Tony had the station wagon and a friend had the U-Haul van and it was June. It was just time to go somewhere. Tony wasn't actually forced out of the band or asked to leave until we did the Mother sessions, which was our second album. Back then Rob, you did two albums a year. One every six months. Now they have one every five years maybe.

R.V.B. - I found something kind of funny. Was it true that you got jaywalking tickets the day before your big party?

F.F. - Yes it's true. That's the thing about this whole Bang story Rob...

R.V.B. - It's kinda Spinal Tapish'.

F.F. - It is Spinal Tapish', but it's true.

R.V.B. (Hahaha)

F.F. - It's not fiction. I got lucky because we recorded the Bang album in Miami at Criteria. We wanted to do some vocal tracks over, so I got to fly to LA... I was eighteen years old. Michael Sunday... our producer who did the Blue Cheer album right before our record... picked me up at the airport on a fucking motorcycle. I don't know if you've been to LA but it's like freeway city. He took me to his place in Hollywood Hills and then I went and re-recorded the vocals. The second time we went to Hollywood, Frankie stayed back at the room for some reason, and me and Tony wanted to go to Hollywood Boulevard. So we went out... it was late in the evening, and we're walking down Hollywood Boulevard for about six or seven blocks and we turned around to go back to the Holiday Inn, and we cross over the street, and about halfway across it turned red. The next thing you know, this cop car came up. He asked for our ID's and we said "We're from Delaware." They said "It doesn't matter." So they put handcuffs on us and put us in the back seat and took us to Hollywood's police station. Tony, the poor guy was in the cell, (hahaha) I was outside the cell and I was talking to everybody. In about two or three hours our manager bailed us out. Later that morning Robbie, was "Bang Day" at Capitol Records. That was our day to meet and greet everybody at Capitol. So the night before we get busted for jaywalking... we get bailed out at five... and at 10 o'clock we're at the Capitol. and they're playing Bang music in the elevator and showing porno films.

R.V.B. - That's funny         

F.F. - These stories, I'll tell you what... I hooked up with a friend who has a publishing company and he's a writer. We had been thinking about the Bang story, and as much as we love the music and the fact that it still stands up after all this time. The Bang story itself is just an incredible assortment of shit that happened to us. It's Spinal Tapish', but it's real. This writer emailed me "Is this Frank Ferrara from Bang?" and I said "Yeah". He said "Man, I bought your fucking record when I was fourteen years old." He was ecstatic about doing a book. This could be a movie... this could be a lot of things. The story itself is fascinating... it's documented. With the book, we've touched base with our producers and engineers. They're gonna be a part of the book obviously. Criteria studio was Atlantic records home studio. They all went to vacation in Key West so they needed a studio down there. Criteria became one of the biggest studios in the 70's. The Allman Brothers, Hotel California...

R.V.B. - I think even Sabbath recorded an album there.

F.F. - Oh Yeah, Sabbath did. Our engineer Karl Richardson went on to be the producer for the Bee Gees, that ushered in the entire disco phase. We've crossed paths with people who were involved with the whole evolution of music. Having these talks with old producers really enforces the fact... you know every band has a story. I'm not gonna say that our story is better than anyone else's story, but to talk our way into opening for Deep Purple, you just can't make it up. The biggest thing I'm excited about is after all this time, at age 62 after doing this when I was twenty. I feel like I'm the most blessed man in the world.

R.V.B. - Well it's a good feeling when people appreciate your music. That's why you're in the business. When somebody says "That was great man", it's a whole lot better than someone saying "Here's fifty bucks."

F.F. - Oh stop it. If it wasn't for the sheer joy... 99.9% of the business is about dealing with bullshit. For that hour and a half when you get on stage... the things that you have to go through to get there. They're soul crushers... it's negative shit. It's hard to stay enthused but you know what, when you get up on stage and make a connection with somebody... I always tell people, it's better than sex... it's better than any drug I've ever had. It's mental, it's physical, it's psychological, you feel like a lava lamp... you're just undulating. People know the fucking words to my songs better than I do... that's sobering.

R.V.B. - How did you guys get back together after the long break? Who's idea was it?

F.F. - We kicked it around for a long time. I stayed single... I never had any kids. My guitar player had three kids from three different women. He had like forty years of paying alimony and hanging up his guitar. After things calmed down, now it was his time. I've tried to have other bands and do other things over the years. I had always thought putting a band together would be easy...music would be hard....music is easy finding the right musicians is what's hard. It's just finding the right people with the same chemistry. Over the fifty years that I've been playing, he's one of the only players that I've spiritually connected with. It's a very easy thing for me and him to sit down and write, and put Bang music to Tony's words. No matter how much time goes by Rob... if you make magic with somebody, it never goes away.

R.V.B. - Is Tony still involved?

F.F. - Yes, Tony's still involved. He still writes lyrics. He maintains the website and does some graphics for us. He stopped physically playing drums, right at the beginning of the Mother sessions... right after the "Bang" album. All he played on was "The Death of a Country" demo and the original "Bang" album. Later in the year, we went in to do "Mother" and they decided to make a change. That's water under the bridge. He's still an integral part of the band. That's why I admire bands like Aerosmith, the Stones, all the same guys stayed together.

R.V.B. - It's not easy either.

F.F. - No it's not, but if you make the effort... we just love to play and we have fun with each other... it's natural. To me, I think that we can be more valid than before. Because at eighteen, you think that it's never going to end. Not having it in our lives for forty years makes this whole experience genuine. This is God's way of saying "Hey guys, finish your legacy." That's inspiring.

R.V.B. - I got a quick question. Why did you go with the bass?

F.F. - Frankie was the guitar player, and I met him when he was about ten or eleven years old. He said he needed a bass player. I didn't even know what it was, but I went and bought a bass. I became the bass player.  When I was sixteen we had a band, and we were lucky enough to open up for The Young Rascals at The Spectrum in Philadelphia in 1968. The bass was a need. We needed a bass player and I just decided to play it. I never played the guitar or anything else. That was my first instrument. We were having problems. We were only three piece because we couldn't find a fourth member. We couldn't find anyone else who could sacrifice and do what it took to be in a band. Frankie, our guitar player was the singer, and when we signed with Capitol, Michael Sunday came down and he looked at me and said "You're the singer."

R.V.B. - In the early songs, did you guys share the singing?

F.F. - We always did a lot of two part harmony on most of the songs. Later on, I started doing them all by myself. When we did the "Bang" album, we had the harmonies which was part of our signature.

R.V.B. - Was it a pain in the neck to get a copy of "Death of a Country" after they shelved it for so long?

F.F. - We had to do it ourselves. When Tony first put up the website, we were thinking that it would be great to have our records on CD. All we had was vinyl. We contacted Capitol and said "We're "Bang" and we used to be on your label." and they had no record of us. They had no idea who the fuck we were. (Hahaha) "You were never on Capitol Records." I've got newspaper articles, and I have pictures of us standing on your roof with helicopters going overhead. If you pull up Wikipedia, we're in there. Frankie's brother Bobby is attached with Brian Setzer from The Stray Cats. He was in Frisco and he was able to find the "Bang" record, the "Mother" album and the "Music" record, still hermetically sealed. The promotional copies of vinyl. We had them re-mastered and put them on CD's. .

R.V.B. - That's kink of what they did with the old 78's

F.F. - Yeah exactly. People all over the world have been bootlegging Bang albums for thirty years. As a musician, selling records is your pension. You count on your royalty checks. Since the internet took over, everything is stolen. The minute one song is out once, it's all over the world. You can't control it. These days you have to sell merchandise, sell some CD's or vinyl...

R.V.B. - And do a lot of touring.

F.F. - And do a lot of touring. We're hoping to do a lot of that real soon. We're looking forward to the New York show on the 10th on May. Then we're flying out to LA to do Psycho shows, which I'm excited about. This will be the first time that we're "Bangin' Cali." There will be a lot of music business people that will hopefully open up some other opportunities.

R.V.B. - I'm really happy for you that you're back together and doing what you love to do. I'm glad you're coming to New York. I understand you had an Experience with Hendrix. No. one, just seeing him must have been awesome.

F.F. - In 1968 before we hooked up with Tony, Temple University did a show with Steve Miller, The Grateful Dead, The Ides of March and Jimi Hendrix. We were part of the crew. We had to go to the airport and pick up the Dead. What was happening with Hendrix was, He had to have guys help him to walk to the stage. Whatever he was doing... it looked like heroin. He couldn't physically stand up and I'll never forget when he got on stage, he was playing with his right and while on his knees, fucking with his pedals, to try and get the sound that he wanted. It was really hurtful to see him that fucked up. I also saw him at the original Electric Factory in Philly. I also saw Cream there. When Three Dog Night first came out they weren't top 40. They were considered a pretty heavy rock band. To see those bands in their prime in a great venue... I really think I lived in the best generation of music. The 60's and the 70's. I'm still grateful to do at whatever age to do today that I love, and for it to be as real today as it ever was. I couldn't be happier. Knock on wood... I could die tomorrow a happy man. If you follow your passion and do what your heart tells you... that's all you can expect out of life.

R.V.B. - You have a great attitude. Like I said "You have drive and you're a go getter, and you make things happen." With that combination, things are going to happen.

F.F. - I always tell people "Just step outside the box. Take a chance. Do something different." Friends that I grew up from her were like: going to Atlantic City, going away, running on the beach... there's so much to see in this world. Give yourself a chance and go places and experience other lifestyles. You can be gone a week, two months, two years, but when you come back home, it's still the same. It's "Groundhog day" all the time. You have to do something different and you have to give yourself a chance. I believe in a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. The other thing is to be humble. A lot of people come up to me and say "Frank, it's an honor to meet you." It's like wait a minute "Time out." You honor the Lord and you honor your parents. I'm just a musician who writes some music. Honor is too strong of a word. You can say "It's real nice to meet you" but there's a fine line between full of yourself and being humble. No matter how good you are, you need to stay humble. People don't like egotists.

R.V.B. - One more question. How come the Phillies stink so bad.

F.F. - Because they're from Philly (Hahaha) New York isn't much fucking better are they?

R.V.B. - The Mets are kicking ass but it's still early.

F.F. - Don't rub it in. We had 60 years of nothing but I'll tell you what... I've always been a Philly fan and on 07 and 08 when we had that great team and we were just kicking everybody's ass. It's amazing everyone becomes your friend when the team wins. When you're getting coffee in the morning... depending on whether you won or lost your either slapping everybody's hand and if they lose it's like the world just ended. I don't like the GM. They just handed out monster contracts to guys who had their glory years. The Mets always had the money and they always spend it. The first baseball game I saw was at Shea Stadium in 1965 with Tony Taylor and Cookie Rojas.

R.V.B. - Those names are Philly royalty. I had their baseball cards. Don't forget about Richie Allen. Smoking cigarettes in the dugout

F.F. - Yeah Richie Allen. I remember him hitting a ball out of Connie Mack Stadium off the scoreboard. When we were kids everything was a lot more exciting. These days when you go to a stadium where a team doesn't have a lot of talent. I'd rather watch grass grow. (Hahaha) Hey Rob, now that we broke bread, we gotta stay in touch. Look me up on facebook.

R.V.B. - I will. We'll friend each other on Facebook. How many Frank Ferrara's are there?

F.F. - Just look for the Italian guy who looks like Carmine Appice. I'm from Italy and there are a lot of Ferrara's. I'm the last one in our blood line. When I went to Italy to visit my old hometown... if you die, they put a big poster up on the street. I must have passed about ten death notices of Frank Ferrara.

R.V.B. - (Hahaha) That's hilarious.

F.F. - Thank you you're interest in doing this story, I appreciate it.

R.V.B. - No problem. It's my pleasure and we'll talk soon.

Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz 4/24/15

No part of this interview may be reproduced in any part or form without permission.

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Bobby Kimmel - An interview with the founder of the Stone Poneys. The band that started Linda Ronstadt's career..

Bobby Kimmel

Interview

 Bobby Kimmel is a very important musician in American music history. While he was growing up in Tucson, he would ask his father to bring home jazz records from the family music retail store that catered to University of Arizona students. His father played the double bass and these events would lead him to learn the guitar and bass. The folk revival era was in full swing when Bobby used to play around the local clubs - and that's where he ran into a young singer named Linda Ronstadt. They would play together here and there. Bobby decided to take a chance and move to Los Angeles where the music scene was flourishing. In a few months, he was gradually working his way into the L.A. scene and called Linda back in Tucson to encouraged her to join him there. When Linda finished school, she did just that. They formed an acoustic trio and went to perform at the Troubadour. Within a couple of performances, they were signed to a major record label and the Stone Poneys were on their way. After enjoying a nice run and a national hit with the song "Different Drum", the Stone Poneys disbanded and Bobby went on to other adventures. Bobby hooked up with a very popular music store in L.A. and promoted concerts in the store with artists such as: Bill Monroe, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Little Feat, Doc Watson and many more. At one of the shows there, he befriended legendary guitar player Doc Watson and eventually went on tour with him as their bass player. Bobby continued to work as a promoter by organizing tours to Japan for bluegrass artists such as: David Grisman, Bill Keith, Geoff Muldaur and many more. He played bass on a few of the tours. Today, Bobby is still going strong as he fronts his current vocal group,  I Hear Voices! . They perform regularly in the Tucson area.

R.V.B. - Hi Bobby, how are you today?

B.K. - Hey, I'm alright... how are you?

R.V.B. - I'm doing pretty good. Are you having a hot day over there?

B.K. - Not too bad yet, but yeah - it's the summer in the desert - so it's hot.

R.V.B. - A buddy of mine lived in Tucson for quite a while and he had brought me back a cactus from the desert - and I still have it.

B.K. - You know, when you talk about Tucson, everybody talks about the heat but the fact is that it's really quite pleasant here a lot of the time. Even in the summer on the worst days, the very early morning is really beautiful. My buddy and I were out hiking early this morning at 6. If you get home by eight it's alright.

R.V.B. - Did you see any wildlife on your hike?

B.K. - Not really. Every once in a while you'll see lizards and an occasional snake but you don't see much. They tend to stay away from us.

R.V.B. - My wife and I take our dogs hiking in trails quite often. Our dogs see more trails then most humans do.

B.K. - Where do you live exactly?

R.V.B. - I'm right in the center on Long Island cheating towards the north shore... the Connecticut side.

B.K. - Ok, I know a little bit about where you are.

R.V.B. - Did you ever make it over here?

B.K. - I did spend a little time in New York but most of the time it was in Manhattan.

R.V.B. - Right - you played a couple of clubs in the village back in the day?

B.K. - Well, WAY back in the day. I hung out in the village and played in a number of the basket houses there.

R.V.B. - That was a very happening scene back then, the whole folk scene.

B.K. - Yeah, but it didn't exactly feel like it at the time - but we realize now that it really was. I mean, all those clubs where people could play.

R.V.B. - Did you run into anybody?

B.K. - Yeah - I remember a friend telling me a story. He said, "Don't you remember that time when you and I and Tom Paxton were on stage together?" and I went, "Really??? I don't remember that".

R.V.B. - (hehehe)

B.K. - I saw Bob Dylan at that famous show that he had at one of the village clubs right before he became Bob Dylan. When nobody knew who he was.

R.V.B. - Oh really?

B.K. - Yeah, I was just hanging out and I wanted to see who this guy was. He wasn't playing any original songs - and the songs he was playing. There were a lot of other guys around who played them better.

R.V.B. - Right, I guess he was still trying to find himself - so to speak?

B.K. - Yeah, and then a year later he was Bob Dylan.

R.V.B. - So what sparked you into playing music? I understand that your father was a double bass player, correct?

B.K. - Correct. A symphony bass player.

R.V.B. - Did you toy with the bass?

B.K. - Only later after he passed away and I inherited it. I had played a couple of things as a kid. I played the accordion and the clarinet. I was terrible at both of them. I didn't like them and I didn't practice. My dad died in my senior year in high school and when I inherited the double bass, I started going out and playing dance band jobs. Much as he had done, little casuals with a little pickup band and you would play for the Elks club dance on Friday night or something. That was really my first musical experience and then I found the guitar and that was kind of it.

R.V.B. - So you must have been fairly decent at the bass if you were sitting in for dances?

B.K. - I was adequate. I was just a kid... I didn't really know the songs as well as I should have, but I had a really good year and I could fake it pretty well.

R.V.B. - I understand your dad sold records?

B.K. - It wasn't a record store. He owned a retail music store and we largely catered to the University of Arizona music students.

R.V.B. - Like renting instruments and things?

B.K. - No, mostly selling printed music. He could sell records and we had a little record bin but it wasn't a big part of our business. When I got interested in jazz, he bought me pretty much every jazz record I had asked him for.

R.V.B. - Give me an example of some that you asked for?

B.K. - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Mingus, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet. I really liked  The Dave Brubeck Quartet. I really preferred west coast jazz at the time, to the harder more aggressive east coast jazz stuff, but I listened to it all.

R.V.B. - Right. Obviously you probably loved "Time Out".

B.K. - Oh yeah

R.V.B. - That album still stands up today. It's fantastic.

B.K. - Yeah, I mean it was really unique when it came out. Nobody played in those time signatures.

R.V.B. - The college kids really seemed to grasp on to it.

B.K. - That really surprised me actually - that it was so popular.

R.V.B. - Now with the Miles Davis stuff - did you like the smoother stuff or the "Bitches Brew" stuff - or both?

B.K. - I liked the smooth stuff. I liked "Sketches of Spain",  ''Round Midnight", you know the less crazy stuff.

R.V.B. - So you bought a lot of jazz records - how did you get exposed to the folk scene?

B.K. - You know, I think like a whole lot of people, it was probably the emergence of the Kingston Trio.

R.V.B. - Yeah, they really set off the scene with the "Tom Dooley" song.

B.K. - Yeah, and Harry Belafonte - but he didn't play anything- but the Kingston Trio did and it looked way easier than playing "April in Paris" or "Moonlight in Vermont". It just looked like fun and once I got hold of a guitar and started getting into folk music and into the blues - the great guitar players from the earlier days - I was hooked!

R.V.B. - I see that you named your early band after a Charlie Patton song.

B.K. - Yeah... although that was just a freak accident.

R.V.B. - Did you like Charlie Patton?

B.K. - I did. I mean, he wasn't a favorite - and frankly I never heard that tune. The way we actually got that name... we were under pressure from the record company to pick a name and we didn't have one. We had some goofy names that our manager had suggested. We knew this guy who was a musicologist back in the day. He was a folk music collector and he had a huge catalog of old blues and "old timey" records. We were just looking through the card catalog - just flipping through and looking for ideas and somebody saw that song and said, " What about that ?". It sounded like a name that people would have because every band had names like "The Grateful Dead" and the "Iron Butterfly".

R.V.B. - That's an interesting way to come up with a name. So this guy - this musicologist - was that a card catalog of the 78's that he owned? Did you go to his house?

B.K. - Yeah, his house was somewhere near where we lived in that sort of student section of Santa Monica. I don't remember his name and I don't actually remember the event. He was a friend of a friend and he said, "Yeah, you can come over and look through it".

R.V.B - So when you started out playing the guitar, did you start out as a solo artist? Did you start playing anywhere as a solo artist or did you start with your buddies?

B.K. - I started out by myself and eventually after a few years in Tucson, I started out playing with one group or another. For one thing, I played bass behind a trio with Linda Ronstadt and her older brother and sister. That was memorable - they could really sing well.

R.V.B. - How did you find them?

B.K. - It was a small community... it was a small town and a small folk music community within that town, so it was hard for us to miss each other. The answer to your question is, I never really liked playing alone. Occasionally, I would do it at the very beginning just to get on stage experience. There were a couple of pretty active folk music clubs here and one of them. We formed a little group - the four of us - and we used to sing there regularly. We were kind of like the house group. They also brought in some traveling people - some good people came through.

R.V.B. - When you started there, did you play standards of the time or traditional songs of the past?

B.K. - Yeah, we learned all the sort of folk music... if you were  fingerpicker, then you learned Mississippi John Hurt songs and "Freight Train" that Elizabeth Cotton played. We learned all those songs and some things from Doc Watson if you could play them.

R.V.B. - Yeah, well that's some good fingerpickers.

B.K - Yeah we played the standard folk music repertoire.

R.V.B. - So when you met up with Linda, were they doing the same thing?

B.K. - They played different songs from the ones that I knew, but they were still kind of folk music standards.

R.V.B. - Now after you played around Tucson you moved to California - was that a big move for you?

B.K. - Oh yeah, absolutely.

R.V.B. - Did you have a place to go? How did you go about it? You just picked up and left?

B.K. - Pretty much. I just picked up and left. I really had no plan. A good buddy of mine and I went together. He had just graduated the university of Arizona with a degree in journalism and had a job at the L.A. Times. That was our anchor really - that he had a place to go. So we went. We found a place to live.

R.V.B. - Now did he play also?

B.K. - No. He was just my friend - and so because he had a salary - we could guarantee the rent. So we got a place and he worked at the L.A. Times and I didn't do much of anything. I just started checking out the local clubs and the local scene.

R.V.B. - What did you find when you first got there?

B.K. - Well, there was a lot going on. There were coffee houses... what I found was that there were a lot of really talented people out there.

R.V.B. - So I guess you just started networking yourself around and joining in on the open jams?

B.K. - There were a lot of open mike nights and places where you could go and play. I just started going around and meeting people - and like I said at that time - I played by myself just to be able to play on stage. It was at that point that I started going to the Troubadour in West Los Angeles. That club at that point was pretty much the epicenter - I think - of the whole music business at the time.

R.V.B. - Yeah, everybody and their brother played there.

B.K. - Everybody and their brother played there, and "all" of the L.A. people hung out there. I was just reading a book about Linda Ronstadt about that. Long before any of us had careers, this whole body of L.A. singer/songwriter, folk musicians - whatever you wanted to call us - but I mean Jackson Browne, David Crosby and Michael Nesmith from the Monkees, and all of the guys from the Nitty Gritty Dirt band and most of the guys from the Association... everybody was at the Troubadour on Monday night for the open mike night. When I began to see what was going on was when I began recruiting Linda Ronstadt.

R.V.B. - Now did it take a little bit of talking in to, to get her to go there?

B.K. - Not that much. I think in her book and I didn't remember all of this... I think in her book it says she actually enrolled one semester at the University of Arizona. I didn't remember that. I thought she came straight out of high school. Basically what I said was, "If you come to L.A., we will get a record deal". I found this guitar player named Kenny Edwards in one of the clubs and he was just a kid like Linda. He was probably her age - seventeen. I was three years older than Linda I think - which seemed like a lot in those days. You know, I was twenty and she was seventeen. I said, "I found this guitar player and I guarantee you if you come, we would get a record deal because people with way less talent than you are getting record deals". It turned out to be true.

R.V.B. - How long did it take?

B.K. - (Hahaha) I'm only laughing at that question because when young musicians now ask me "What did it take"? I'm almost embarrassed to tell them. It took one appearance at the Monday night open night at the Troubadour.

R.V.B. - (Hahaha)

B.K. - We were there actually twice I think - but the first night when we came off stage guys were handing us business cards saying, "I'm from A&M Records, I'm from Columbia Records, I'm a manager, I'd be interested in talking to you guys".

R.V.B. - That's a pretty quick way of hitting it.

B.K. - Yeah, I mean it was - but that was the nature of things in those days.

R.V.B. - Do you remember what songs you tackled that first night that caught everybody's attention?

B.K. - I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was a song called "2:10 Train" which was on the first Stone Poneys album.

R.V.B. - So you were already playing some originals?

B.K. - Yes. We were playing some of my songs and "2:10 Train" was written by a friend of ours. I mean, that was part of the package. When I wrote to Linda I said, "I've got original songs - which is what everybody wants. You've got the greatest voice that I've ever heard and Kenny's a great guitar player. We have enough to get a record deal" - and I was right.

R.V.B. - So were you primarily a rhythm player and Kenny was the lead player?

B.K. - Yes. I was primarily the songwriter, so I wrote interesting finger style guitar parts for myself but Kenny played all of the lead guitar solos.

R.V.B. - When you went out there, did you bring the double bass along or did you leave it at home?

B.K. - Actually, I didn't travel with it. I left my father's bass here in Arizona and I traded it for the one I actually ended up playing for my whole career. I traded a guy in L.A., I had an amp I didn't need, and he had this bass that he wanted to trade, and it was the best deal I ever made. So I had a bass in L.A., but I really hardly ever played it except at parties or something.

R.V.B. - So when you got signed so quickly did you go to the studio real fast also?

B.K. - Yep. I was gonna tell you an interesting story about getting discovered. We were in a laundromat one day near where we lived in Santa Monica doing our laundry and I said, "Well it has great sound in here" - because it was just this concrete block building - "We should all go over together and if nobody is in there we can practice singing". So we did - and these two guys were walking by and heard us sing and walked in and said, "Hey - we're managers and we want to manage you guys". That was even pre going to the Troubadour. So we played the Troubadour and a few people made contact with us. We went back maybe a month or so later and did it again. That's the one, I think we connected with Herb Cohen and that was it.

R.V.B. - Well connecting with Capitol Records is a major event.

B.K. - Yes. As I said, Herb Cohen was a manager. At the time, I think he managed Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and a couple of other artists. He was a real manager and not a hope-to-be and he - in turn - connected us with Nick Venet at Capitol. We went in and cut a little three or four song demo and Capitol went for it and we were in the studio about a month later.

R.V.B. - So after that, when the album came out, did it get radio play?

B.K. - Nothing really came of the first record. We went out and did a national tour behind that record, but really nothing came of it. I think that the record company's philosophy in the day - and I believe Nick Venet basically told us this - I think our first record cost about five thousand dollars or something which is chump change by today's standards. The record company's idea was: It didn't cost that much to make a record, so they would just make cheap first records of all these different bands. Everybody saw Linda Ronstadt's potential, so Capitol decided to make a second record. The second one they put some money into. They hired a guy named Jimmy Bond who became my lifelong friend. He was a Julliard graduate, a double bass player who had played with Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie - I mean he had a fabulous career. He wrote charts for several tunes on the second record including "Different Drum" which was our hit.

R.V.B. - Right. Now that song... I understand was recorded already - right?

B.K. - Yeah, we learned it from the first really city bluegrass group who came out of New York City. I think they were called "The Greenbrier Boys". John Herald became a friend of mine who was the guitar player. It's a trio, a banjo, and Ralph Rinzler - the great folk musicologist who had done tons of collecting of early music was in that band. They had recorded "Different Drum". That's where we learned it. We never heard Michael Nesmith's version until much later.

R.V.B. - So obviously that one got radio play. Now , were you expecting it to be on the radio, or did you casually hear it somewhere?

B.K. - It was interesting what happened back then - especially given the situation now. If you remember, it was the days of FM radio and everything was wide open. Every radio station had their own music director and their own program manager and you could play pretty much everything you wanted. So records were able to be broken that way. There was a guy in northern California who heard and liked "Different Drum" and he started playing it. It was like the wild west. Everybody had a chance and this guy just started playing "Different Drum" in like - San Jose somewhere - and it became a hit on that station. Another station picked it up and then a San Francisco station picked it up. The next thing we knew it was national.

R.V.B. - Now you mentioned that you toured on the first album... I presume you had to do it again.

B.K. - Yeah, the problem after the second album was made, Kenny Edwards had gotten restless. As I said, when I first met Kenny Edwards he was sitting in the back of one of the little coffee houses in L.A. playing the guitar and he sounded really good. I said to him, "Hey, I'm gonna play a few songs in a little while - do you want to come and back me up?" and he said, "Well, I've never played on stage before". So I sort of recruited him and Linda came out and I said, " I want you to meet this guitar player" and we started playing together. One day, we were singing something - Linda and I started out a lot of things in two parts. One day, we wanted a third part and we said to Kenny, "Can you sing this third part?" and Kenny said, "I don't know, I've never sang anything before". So we made the first record together and we made the second record and at that point Kenny Edwards is now not a seventeen year old high school kid anymore. He's got a record out, now he's got a second record out, and he really did not want to play acoustic music. He really wanted to plug in and play rock and roll.

R.V.B. - Well, that scene was also emerging also over there.

B.K. - Absolutely - bands like the Buffalo Springfield. There were a lot of great electric bands. Kenny wanted to play electric music. That folky style was not his style, so he quit the band to go off and be a rocker.

R.V.B. - How did it work out for him?

B.K. - Well, (hahaha) it worked out pretty well. About six years later I guess, when "Heart Like a Wheel" came out, I really believed to this day that... well, let me back up. For years before that, Kenny and our friend Andrew Gold had teamed up and were trying to put a band together. I don't know if they were roommates but they were inseparable. I mean, they woke up in the morning and turned on the record player and were listening to music and that's all they did. They played music, they listened to music, they learned music, and they put this band together. Six years later when a number of different forces come together at just the right time - Linda switched managers and went with Peter Asher. Best move she ever made and Peter Asher chose this band to back Linda up on her next record. Kenny Edwards and Andrew Gold were the core of that band. That whole string of hits that began with Blue Bayou and through those early hits of hers, Kenny Edwards is singing the vocal parts on Blue Bayou. He was in her touring band for years so that combination of the three of us in the beginning was a good combination because he ended up having a long career with her.

R.V.B. -  I see that you toured briefly with The Doors and The Association - was that from the first tour?

B.K. - I don't even remember The Association show, but I absolutely remember The Doors. I think it was from the first tour.

R.V.B. - Did you just play one show with them or were there others?

B.K. - Two - one was in Rochester New York and the other was in Cleveland - I think. We were on tour and we played two dates opening for them. It's a horrible double bill if you think about it. It's like Beauty and the Beast.

R.V.B. - Who else did you get teamed up with?

B.K. - I remember one time where they put together four or five acts on a show in New York, and I think it might have been The Yardbirds.

R.V.B. - Now, does that club in New Jersey - The Stone Pony - have any relation to you?

B.K. - They picked that name - I guess - based on our band, but the club didn't open until years after us.

R.V.B. - Well, I guess things change and you came out with one final album.

B.K. - Well - as I said - Kenny had already quit right around the time that "Different Drum" became a hit and we had already committed to one more tour. So it was kind of thrown together. We picked up a friend of ours from here in Tucson to be the other guitar player. We got a bass player and a drummer which we never had before. When that group went out, it didn't look like The Stone Poneys at all. The Stone Poneys was an acoustic trio with a lot of tight three part singing. That group was a foreshadowing of what was gonna come which was Linda Ronstadt with a backup band. We played that tour and at the end of it... I remember our manager at the time coming to my hotel room in New York which was our next to last stop saying, "When we get back home to California the band is breaking up". I said "Herbie, I'm the leader of this band - how is it that I don't know this?" But in fact, the die was cast.

R.V.B. - It was beyond your control I guess

B.K. - Yeah, I mean when you look back on it, it was what needed to happen. Linda needed to be out on her own.

R.V.B. - I see that you got involved with McCabe's Guitar shop.

B.K. - Right

R.V.B. - Now that was a music store that didn't have anything going on until you started arranging things?

B.K. - Essentially - yes. Once the Stone Poneys broke up I spent seven, eight, or nine months in northern California deciding what to do, and I had such a bad time on both of the Stone Poney tours. I was so disappointed about the clubs that we played and they way we were treated.

R.V.B. - Why you weren't treated very well?

B.K. - Well, they were not really acoustic venues. They were venues for rock bands. It wasn't that we were abused, it's you know, clubs with no dressing rooms and very loud and just not the kind of listening rooms that we wanted to play in. By the time I got back I thought, "Wow - if this is what you get when you're traveling behind a number one record?". It's not that appealing and I decided that what I would do - because I didn't have a band - and I didn't have the kind of talent where I could create one around myself - I decided to open a club that musicians would really like. The people at McCabe's were friends of mine and they approached me. It was just serendipitous really. The owner of McCabe's came up to visit because I was living in this ideal spot in Big Sur and he said, "What are you gonna do now?" and I said, "Well I'm gonna try to open a club in L.A. " and he said, " You know we've always wanted to have concerts at McCabe's" and that was it. We started to talk and it was a natural.

R.V.B. - What kind of room did they have there?

B.K. - Well, in the original building, they just had one big front room.

R.V.B. - So these shows were right out where the instruments were?

B.K. - The instruments were all hanging on the wall. That was all part of the charm.

R.V.B. - Did you build a little stage or something?

B.K. - Yeah, exactly. We built a small stage and after about two years in the original store, we kind of outgrew it because the concerts were growing - everything was growing. So we moved a few doors away into a much bigger building and built the room that still exists today. It's still open - we're going to play there in November. The walls are still lined with guitars. I remember the first time Doc Watson played there.  When he walked on stage the first time, he said to his son... I'll never forget it, I was there and he said, "Son, what's that sound?" because all of the guitars were vibrating.

R.V.B. -  What a tremendous talent he was. It must have been a thrill to tour with him.

B.K. - Oh yeah, he was my hero. I mean he was an idol of mine as he was of everybody's. He was one of my teachers growing up. That's how I started playing the guitar. I listened to Doc Watson. We all listened to him, so yeah, he was a living legend. It was a huge thrill and a real honor and really big time fun.

R.V.B. - Where did you meet him?

B.K. - I met him at McCabe's the first time and then he came back. He subsequently played the club a number of times. My partner at the time, Nancy Cubby, was partners in the concert production event. We arranged a tour one year where we took Doc and Merle up and down the California coast. We did seven or eight shows with him and the "New Grass Revival" in seven different cities and it was big time fun.

R.V.B. - So you supported him with the double bass. I know you were primarily a guitar player - were you practicing the instrument? How did you wind up playing double bass for him?

B.K. - It's a great story actually. It's a great story about be careful what you ask for. I had gotten re-interested in the double bass and it was right around the time that I quit McCabe's after seven years. I had been practicing a lot. I had been practicing to Doc Watson records because most of his songs were fairly easy. They were simple songs to learn and I had been playing several hours a day for a while. So I finally quit McCabe's - and I'm so burned out, and just need a break, and I got in my car, and take off for New York just to go visit friends and just get away. On the way, I stopped in Colorado because Doc Watson and Merle were playing there. I stopped in to see them and I told them that I had been practicing the double bass a lot so if you ever need a replacement bass player - if Michael your regular guy ever needs a break or is ever sick or something -call me up. About two or three months later, I got a call from his manager and he said, "Doc's coming out to do a west coast tour and Michael doesn't want to come and he wants some time off. Doc wants to know if you want to play?". Fortunately I had about six months to really get in shape. After that,I toured with him several different times. They were short tours - usually two to three weeks at a time but I did enough to get very close to him and close to Merle.

R.V.B. - Now, approximately how many songs did you play? Did he switch up the set list?

B.K. - Uh, I don't know - 30? What I learned after touring with him for a while was they sort of had a template for what their shows looked like. So we had one or two openers that he would choose from and then one or two second songs that he would choose from. Then he would have a banjo song. There would be a few of those so there wouldn't be that many to learn.

R.V.B. - What did the act consist of?

B.K. - Well it was just Doc and Merle on guitars and me on double bass.

R.V.B. - That's it, back to your normal trio.

B.K. - Yeah. Doc sang and that was it. Merle never opened his mouth on stage.

R.V.B. - So was there any memorable shows with that act that stick out in your mind?

B.K. - Oh yeah. We played the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival when it was maybe the best musical event in the country. That's what Bonnie Raitt said one day. She was talking to me and she said, " You gotta go" and when we played it, it really was fabulous. It was on this huge fairgrounds but it was all grassy - a huge lawn. There were about five different stages. It was easy to get around. You could just get a schedule and go "Oh, at one o'clock, I'm gonna go see Bobby "Blue" Bland and his band" and have crawfish etouffee. Later on, I'll get shrimp jambalaya. So I remember playing the Jazz and Heritage festival.

R.V.B. - That sounds awesome.

B.K. - We played Royce Hall at UCLA. I grew up basically -  musically in L.A. - and that's where all the great players played - classical and otherwise. So that was a pretty big thrill for me to play what was then the best auditorium in L.A.. It's an absolute highlight of my career.

R.V.B. - So I sampled some of your new band - the "I Hear Voices Band". Why did you go back to Tuscon?

B.K. - Well I hated L.A. by the time I moved. L.A. was really fun when I got there and not very much fun when I left. It's gotten too crowded, too congested, too much traffic, too much crime, too much smog. Although more than anything else, I came back to Tucson because I had a house here - my family home. My mom had passed away. My dad had passed away when I was like seventeen. When my mom passed away, the house passed to my sister and I. She had no interest in it and I had a big time interest in it, so I bought out her interest. I was married at the time, and when my wife hit retirement age, we got out of L.A.. I loved it here and we had a house that was already paid for so...

R.V.B. - Yeah, I guess that's a no brainer. There's one thing I forgot to ask you about and that's the promoting of the Japanese tours. Now how did you go about setting something like that up? Isn't that a big undertaking?

B.K. - Well it's a huge undertaking - but again - it's just a right combination of people. There was a kid who had worked at McCabe's who had come from Japan. He was an apprentice as a guitar repairman. He ended up spending years and years here and finally ended up getting a green card and just lived in America for a very long time. Through him, I met his friend named Heroshi OSada. Hiroshi was a concert promoter and music businessman, small time in Japan. It was Heroshi's idea and what we did that was so unique... before us, if an American artist went to Japan... let's say they took Linda Ronstadt. They would typically do one show in Tokyo at the Budokan. The big huge auditorium and that might be the whole tour. A larger tour might have been one show in Tokyo and one in Osaka. Then the bands would go home. What we did is brought much lesser acts. We brought like a bluegrass all star band that really was the best that you could assemble. They were all the bright stars of bluegrass at the time. David Grisman, Tony Rice, Richard Green and Bill Keith, Peter Rowan  - and it was truly an all star band. There was a big market for that in Japan. What we did was instead of playing one show in one city, we would play seven or eight different shows in seven or eight cities. They got to travel around and see the country. It was great for the musicians. They were treated like royalty and it worked for the most part.

R.V.B. - and you got to go along also, right?

B.K. - I got to go on some of them. I went as a player my friends Geoff Muldaur, Amos Garrett and the other time I just went as kind of like a baby sitter. To make sure that everybody didn't get lost and got on the bus in time, because if you missed the bus to the auditorium it was like a real big deal. I got to go five different times, twice as a player and three other tours. I went on a tour with David Grisman and Tony Rice who was probably one of the greatest flat picking guitar players of all time.

R.V.B. - You played with them?

B.K. - No I was the road manager.

R.V.B. He's very active, I know he did a lot of work with Jerry Garcia. He is still going strong.

B.K. - He's still going strong. I see him every once in a while. He played here in Tucson not too long ago. So that was really, really fun. It was always paycheck to paycheck in those days. We survived and we had a wonderful reputation. My partner would occasionally book shows himself. He booked this English rock and roll band and the night they were supposed to play Tokyo there was a typhoon and nobody could come to the show. We had to pay the band anyway and that pretty much broke our backs and put us out of business.

R.V.B. - Well, it sounded like it was fun while it lasted.

B.K. - Oh, it was great fun while it lasted.

R.V.B. - So you're back in the saddle. You got yourself a good little group. I sampled some of your music on your website. The singing is wonderful.

B.K. - Thanks. We're pretty excited about this band.

R.V.B. - I see you brought in some string players on the album. Do they play with you or were they just for the album?

B.K. - Well, both. They don't play with us all the time because the fiddle player and the guitar player both have their own live and their own groups here in town. So they play all the time. We have a couple of shows lined up together.

R.V.B. - Yeah, I saw that you're playing at a church or something?

B.K. - Yeah, we play at a local church and do you know who Laurie Lewis is?

R.V.B. - Not really

B.K. - Laurie Lewis is now a bluegrass icon. She's been around forever. She's one of my favorite musicians of all time. We're bringing her to town in September and we'll be playing with her and the strings will be playing with us on that show.

R.V.B. - So, is that Linda's cousin in the band? Bobby Ronstadt?

B.K. -Yes, that's Linda's cousin and soon to be ex-wife. They were married for many years.  They both are still in the band together.

R.V.B. - Is she the one with the curly hair?

B.K. - Yes - the blonde

R.V.B. The other woman in the band is Kathy Harris - where did you find her?

B.K. - We started playing together largely because her husband had died in a tragic accident. He was not only her husband, but her life partner, her musical partner and they did everything together. It was a while after Roger had passed away and I knew they played together all the time. They just loved to play. We got together a couple of times socially just to play some tunes together because I was sad that she had lost her partner. We played a couple of things and she plays the autoharp. She was not a great autoharp player, we tried to figure out ways to play together. It really wasn't working out, but I said ,"You know what? I wrote this song and really wrote it as a duet. Let me record the duet part for you. See if you could learn it and lets see if we could sing it together". It was not an easy part and she came back a week later and just had it down. I thought to myself "Wow, she is a much better musician than I thought she was". So that was the beginning of it. We sang that song a couple of times and I said," Boy, there's this part here in the middle where I really wish we had a couple more voices". Like a string section. I love to have these ooh parts in the backround and she said, "You know, my friends Bobby and Suzy are great backup singers" I knew who they were but we weren't really friends. We got together once and heard the four part vocal sounds...

R.V.B. - It was like magic?

B.K. - Yes, and I knew that we were on to something.  We continue to grow as musicians and we are singing better than we ever have... doing more interesting music. We're starting to play better shows. It's sort of a culmination of my career.

R.V.B. - Do any of the other members play instruments also?

B.K. - Yeah, as I said, Kathy plays the autoharp, Bobby Ronstadt plays several instruments, but they're not skilled players and my theory in the beginning was I wasn't all that skilled myself, but I was the best of the three of us. My theory was : If you're not a very good guitar player and you try to compensate for it by getting a friend who is not a very good mandolin player to play with you, you also get a bass player who also is not very good, the end result is not very good. So what I decided right at the very beginning, was in order for us to really focus on our vocals, I wanted to be just a vocal group. We're just gonna sing and I'll play rhythm guitar and that's it. I thought it would change over time, but it turned out to be the right move. Because there were no other instruments, everything had to be done vocally. Then when we finally went out to get other players, we got two of the best players around. It's a better formula.

R.V.B. - Well, it sure sounds like you set yourself up for some more fun. Is there anything that you like to do other than music? Do you have any hobbies? I know you hike.

B.K. - I hike a lot. I have a beautiful garden. I'm a lifelong meditator. I'm deep into my spiritual practice and that's my life here. My singing group really is the centerpiece of my life now.

R.V.B. - That sounds awesome. I'm glad it's working out for you.

B.K. - I'm really thrilled with this group - that we get along so well because of the combination of our voices and because we're all so much older - we've been around the block - we know all the pitfalls of why bands don't stay together.

R.V.B. - So you're healthy and you're feeling ok?

B.K. - I have no serious complaints. A lot of little minor nagging things but nothing serious. I did want to say one last thing about Linda before we get off this subject. A fellow called me up from Detroit, I think his name was Mark Watson and he's writing a book about Linda and he asked me if I'd write the introduction to it. I'm thrilled to do that and I said in the book that what we did in the Stone Poneys is that we launched one of the most impressive careers that came out of popular music. Linda, over the course of her career sang pop hits, she sang Pirates of Penzance on Broadway, she sang the American songbook with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, she made a couple of best selling Mariachi CD's.

R.V.B. - Yeah, she covered a lot of genres.

B.K. - She covered a lot of genres and she did them all really, really well... That's the thing. The stuff she sang with Nelson Riddle is the stuff that I grew up with. I thought she sang those songs great. Really beautifully.

R.V.B - I saw Linda here in a theater called Westbury and I got to shake her hand. The theater has a rotating stage and I happened to be sitting on the aisle seat where she walked down. She did start some stuff there. I guess she made a political statement and people started yelling things. She had a tendency to rile people up.

BK. - She did - and I've always admired her for that. When I wrote in this introduction - when I think back, there was no other artist whom I can think of who came out of our generation and covered that kind of musical ground. She was brave because I know her management didn't want her to do those songs from the 40's and 50's with Nelson Riddle. They thought she would lose her rock and roll audience and it had just the opposite effect. They didn't want her to do the Mariachi records and it had the opposite effect. She never compromised artistically. Everything that she did she did with remarkable artistry.

R.V.B. - She did the country route and did that very well.

B.K. - Yeah exactly. I was happy to be able to put that in print.

R.V.B. - That's very nice. Well you're a big part of her career. You started out with her and talked her into going to L.A.

B.K. - Well I certainly didn't know what we were starting and neither did she. I'm honored to be part of a career that just got her in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and won her the National Metal of the Arts at the White House.

R.V.B. - She was just inducted this year.

B.K. - Yeah, and President Obama place the National Medal of the Arts around her neck.

R.V.B. - Right, now I heard that she came to meet you and she and actually sang on one of your tracks not too long ago.

B.K. - It's probably one of the last vocal things she ever did. Several years ago... probably four or five years ago there was a song I wrote. She had come to visit Tucson and I had mentioned that we had some takes on our new CD and she wanted to hear them and so I was all excited. I was playing the song and she was humming along in the backround. I said,"Linda that's beautiful, would you sing on the record with us?". She said, "I won't do a solo, but I'll sing in the chorus with you". It was real gracious for her to do that so late in her career. As I said, "It probably turned out to be one of the last things that she ever recorded".

R.V.B. - It's very sad what is going on now. Do you stay in touch with her?

B.K. - We are still close... we talk regularly if not frequently. Once a month I'll call her or she'll send an email or I will. When I go to L.A. in November to play McCabe's, I'll probably go up to San Francisco and visit her while she's still in some kind of physically decent shape.

R.V.B. - I'm very sorry to hear what she's going through.

B.K. - Yeah, It's pretty sad. The Parkinson's is really progressing. She can hardly walk. It was a big deal that she was able to get out of a wheelchair at the White House and be on her feet for the President to give her the medal. I think she walked about ten yards and sat back down. Is there anything else I can tell you?

R.V.B. - Thank you very much. It was an honor to speak with you. I really appreciate you taking this time to speak with me. I learned a whole lot. Have a nice day.

B.K. - Thanks - Bye now.

 

Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz

This interview may not be reproduced in any matter or form without permission

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