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[00:00:12] I was getting ready to go back to Spain. I was living over in Spain. So I came down here to see my people. And I think they needed me to stay around. So I stayed on here. It's been all right, though. Nashville has always been all right with me. In what sense?
[00:00:35] Well, you know, this is where I was born. And so I know a lot of people around here. So it was all it was easy for me to readjust because I've been in. I mean, and as far as home hometowns go as a musician, like Nashville seems to be a pretty, pretty good place to be.
[00:00:55] Yeah, it is. Although I didn't, I didn't know what it was going to be like when I got back here. But, you know, it's kind of a when I left, it was It was okay. But, you know, I had to go, I had to go up north to try to do what I could do. Where did you move up north? New York. You were in the city for a while. Yeah, quite a while. How long about? Well, I got there in 1962 and I left in 95.
[00:01:25] It was a music business that brought you out here? Yeah, no doubt about it. I was pretty popular around here in Nashville. But I knew it wasn't going to be
[00:01:37] wasn't going far. Just staying here, I had to get out of here to go. And at the same time, I had already met a lot of bigger acts. And I met James here, James Brown. And so he told me if I ever got to, if I get to New York, look him up. And I did. Brought you on tour for a bit there.
[00:02:00] Yeah, I went on tour with him right away. A couple of years. And then I just went, you know, went with other acts. Like, I went with Jackie Wilson right after that. And then Ella James. And, you know, just different acts. That's a pretty incredible string of musicians to be singing along with.
[00:02:28] It was the best for me. I mean, I learned a lot, you know. Learned how to do real shows and, you know, the whole nine yards above the music business, really. Specifically, what did you learn from the hardest working man in the show business?
[00:02:46] Really, I learned how to do a show. You know, I had been doing shows down here in Nashville, but it was mainly in one club. And every once in a while, I'd go out somewhere. But it's a big, it's a whole different thing when you get out there on tour.
[00:03:04] You really have to know the ins and outs and really how to handle the stage, too. Because my thing was really that much, how to handle the stage and anything else I could find to handle. But that was the main thing, just stage. When you say handle the stage, what do you mean by that?
[00:03:25] Well, how to do an act, how to put an act together, how to perform it and to the best possible thing that you can do on stage. It's a lot of little tricks and, you know, controlling the crowd and identifying what's going on in the crowd.
[00:03:50] But, you know, when I started with James, I was only doing like maybe three songs. So I had to really put it all together within those three songs. And I couldn't go over that. So I tried it a couple of times, but it didn't work. How so?
[00:04:15] Well, James would fire you, you know. He would fire you. He would fire you first. And then if it happened again, he would fire you. He fired me a couple of times and just left me in town and then called me back and sent for me, you know. That's his way. That was his way. And I understood it. He would kick you off the tour bus and he'd just be left in whatever town he played in last. Yep.
[00:04:41] I was watching you talk about him in an interview before and he had a hand signal that he gave you. Yeah. Yeah. The $5 hand. It's right here. Every time he did that, that was $5. And so, you know, I wasn't making all that much money anyhow. So I think I was only making about $25, $30 a night. You only had, what, five, six opportunities to get one of those and you were out of money.
[00:05:11] I owe him. What was he fighting you for specifically? Well, you know, like going over time or, you know, I tried to, like, I used to try to make a medley out of a few songs and I would go over time. And sometimes it wasn't even that. He'd be standing on the side of the stage when I was out there, you know.
[00:05:37] So he would signal some time for me to get off, you know. So I tried to act like I didn't see him. I don't want to say difficult, but a tricky position to be in where obviously you want to play the best that you can inside of those three songs. But he's, not that he would ever get upstaged, but he's, he's, it sounds like he was a bit worried of getting upstaged.
[00:06:03] Yeah, they are. All of the, a lot of the top acts are like that. You know, there's, you know, opening an act and that's what you're supposed to do. Just kind of warm it up for them, you know. And after a while I understood that. So I got myself together. And then I finally just, uh, well, every time I would go in, I'd see other musicians and I finally put, got names of all these musicians.
[00:06:30] And I call them, put my own thing together when I got, when I left James. What was that process like? I mean, I assume to a certain extent, obviously you moved to New York. You've got some of those connections, you know, your name's getting out there because you're playing with these bigger acts. But was it, was it difficult to get momentum with your own act?
[00:06:52] Well, it wasn't so hard. I, what I did was I called the musicians and, and, uh, the ones that I got, I got a whole band together. And I, I had a, uh, a job that I could do in Columbus, Ohio. I, while I was putting the band together and I could do, I still could work at this club. And, uh, so it worked out fine. You know, I stayed there a couple of years putting the sidewinders together.
[00:07:21] Columbus was the home base for the group? Yeah. At that, at that time. Yeah. Because I had already been, I had already did a, a thing in New York at Smalls, Smalls Paradise. And, uh, I got fired there too because I was doing, well, I was doing sort of like a James Brown act and falling out and all that stuff.
[00:07:47] And, uh, they didn't understand what was going on. They thought I had hurt myself and they took me downstairs on the shoulder and they said, you all right? I said, man, put me down. That's part of the show. He said, well, it ain't a part of the show in here no more. So it's just, you know, things that happen to you out there and you just learn to deal with it.
[00:08:12] You know, I still got a chance to come back to Smalls because, uh, King Curtis was playing there. And King and I, we, he was there when I first got there. And, uh, he told me to go, you know, get your act together and come on back. And when I called him, I called him when I got the sidewinders together and we were working in Ohio. And, uh, I called him, told him I'm ready to come back to New York. And he got me a gig back at Smalls.
[00:08:39] That's interesting. So in a way, Columbus was perfect because you were, you were away from that scene for a little while. And you were able to sort of workshop things in a way that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do in a bigger city like New York. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't. I don't think you'd be able to do that in New York. You know, everybody's trying to, all the musicians are trying to work with somebody else, trying to get, get work, not put a band together.
[00:09:05] They wouldn't, just want to go to work, you know, but I, I knew what it took for a band and I knew what it, what, what type of music was going to be good for me to do. And, uh, so I called all these musicians and they were gung ho about coming there. I'd send them tickets and they came to Ohio. And, uh, I had a place for them to make some little money too while we was putting it all together.
[00:09:32] There had to have been a lot of trust in you for these musicians to actually get on a plane and fly out to Ohio to be in your band. I guess so. I guess, I guess so. But, uh, you know, uh, those are, it was a tough times back in those days and you, and all musicians was trying to find something to do. And I was talking to them when I was out on the road, talking to musicians and talking about putting a band together.
[00:10:00] And, uh, they had seen me on stage and they figured, well, he's working with James. He can do, he can do, he'll do all right, which, you know, so I, I was lucky enough to have that place to work in Columbus. I had talked to the owner there cause he had seen me before. And he said, well, I told him I was putting the band together and I need the place to rehearse. And I rehearsed right there in the club every day.
[00:10:28] And, uh, put a, put a good band together. I had, sidewires was a very good band. And, you know. It sounds like coming off of, specifically coming off of that tour with James, that there was maybe a little bit of, of imitation happening on your end. That you were, you maybe copped a little bit of his act. Is that fair to say? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh, I had to put that in there cause he'd already been proven.
[00:10:58] So I have to, I figured that was a good, good part of the act I could put in there. Plus I, I had my little act when I, you know, before I left Nashville, I used to do all that stuff before I left Nashville. It was, uh, I had worked in this club in Nashville for a few years and had a big audience every night. So, um, I had an act, you know, but I put some of James in there too.
[00:11:27] And, uh, they do nothing but help it, you know? So. Very famously had an extremely, uh, athletic act. Is that part of what you're talking about there is, is some of the dance moves? Yeah. Well, I was a very good dancer and I knew all those, I could do all that stuff. I could do all the mics tricks. And I, I was, even I could do it before James was doing it. Cause Joe Tex taught me how to do it back in the day.
[00:11:56] And, uh, so I was doing all that mic stuff and kicking the mic around and turning flips and everything. Could you do the splits back then? Oh yeah. Yeah. I could do it all. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:13] Obviously I talk to artists all the time for the show and it's a pretty, I think most, if not all artists go through a similar trajectory where you start by imitating the things that you love. And then you start to kind of develop your own identity from there. Yeah. Finding the identity.
[00:12:35] And, uh, as it went on, I mean, I, I still moved around a lot on stage even when I, you know, I cut that James Brown stuff out, you know, cause that was gruesome stuff. That was really hard. It wasn't easy. It was tough on your body. Yeah. But, you know, all through the years, even before I got up to an age, I can't do all that stuff anymore.
[00:13:02] I still could do a lot of it, but not much, uh, not as much as I was when I was younger. Yeah. And I didn't think I had to do all that anyhow. After a while, I just used my voice mainly. In a certain way, when you're not using dancing, then your voice has to become stronger, right? I mean, cause you're relying on that entirely.
[00:13:31] Well, my voice was always strong. The thing is you have to cultivate your voice and, and pick different kinds of material to, to present a rounded show instead of, uh, just hollering and screaming all night. You know, so that's what I did. I started picking out songs that would be suitable for me just to stand up there and sing and people enjoyed the, uh, the range that I have.
[00:14:00] And, uh, so that's what happened. What makes a good wig song? Well, I kind of like, uh, or ballads. I like ballads. Uh, and, uh, I like those, uh, uh, you know, three quarter timing and 12, eight timing.
[00:14:26] And, you know, I like, I like those kinds of songs, but, uh, I'm not so much of, I can do the blues, but I, I'm not what you call a blues singer. That's what happened in Nashville. The first record I put out was a blues, it's a blues song. And, uh, I mean, I can sing the blues. I can sing that, but, uh, that's really why I left now. It's one of the reasons why I left now.
[00:14:56] I didn't want to become a blues singer. I wanted to be a, uh, more of a R and B soul singer. So I went, everybody was going to Mo, everybody was going to Motown and everything. Going out to Detroit. Right. Yeah. But I didn't, I didn't think that was so much my thing.
[00:15:21] I, I went, I got, uh, put on with chess records in Chicago. So I thought that was my style, more of my style. You know, so I wish I had one to Motown. When I think of chess, I think a bit of the blues. I mean, there's definitely a lot of that in there. It's, it's a lot of blues, but, uh, I think, uh, when I was with, when I was with chess,
[00:15:50] they put me into a, like what I was looking for, a small R and B kind of thing, you know, because none of them feel chess. They were pretty up on the music stuff, you know, and then it could hear you sing and tell you what, and tell what you could do. Yeah. So I went there with, uh, well, me and, uh, J.C. Davis, who was a band leader. He was a band leader with James too. Yeah.
[00:16:21] And so we hooked up after that. And when, when I went to chess with him and with J.C. Davis and, and, uh, little Charles. And, uh, so we did a couple of things with chess and it didn't pan out to well either. If the goal was to do R and B or soul music, how do you end up, how does your first record end up being the blues?
[00:16:48] Because that's, I had, uh, you know, it was a guy down here named Ted Jarrett who wrote songs and produced songs for, for, uh, Gene Allison, you know, remember Gene Allison, uh, You Can Make It If You Try. Oh, sure. And, uh, Earl Gaines and, you know, all the acts he had was blues acts. So he, and I was a young kid.
[00:17:17] I was only about this, I think I was about 16 or 17, you know, when he first recorded me. So, but I tried to, I mean, I did the song, it was, it was bluesy. All right. But to me, I wanted to do something else. Yeah. I didn't want to do that. As a singer, how is the blues different than doing a soul record or an R&B record?
[00:17:45] Well, the blues is a little bit more gut bucket kind of stuff. You know, like, I mean, I was, I was more into like, uh, I had met Lil Willie John and, uh, he used to come to the club all the time and perform. Um, you could, it had a different thing to it. It was just not only blues. He sung a lot of standards, jazz standards and stuff.
[00:18:14] Fell into that a little while and, because he could sing all kinds of stuff. But he had, he had this blues overtones to his voice. And, uh, but, uh, I figured I could do into that, get into that bag a little bit and, and add my own kind of thing to it, you know, instead of, uh, just singing blues.
[00:18:40] Uh, I mean, I wished I had had a big hit, like you could make it as you try. But, uh, I mean, the guy, Ted Jarrett, he wrote a lot of big, a lot of hits for a lot of the people around here in Nashville. Yeah. But I was a young kid and I was only about 16 when he recorded me. Yeah. And I had been singing, I had a, I had a singing group when I first started off, you know, called the Bel Airs.
[00:19:09] And we were singing like, uh, you know, the doo-wop kind of things. Doo-wop, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, and, uh, you know, we had different guys that could sing different stuff. I had, when I was the main, I was a lead singer and I had another lead singer that was doing, uh, more like Johnny Mathis. He even looked like Johnny Mathis. So we had a, around it, we're around the kind of a group.
[00:19:37] And, but after a while, you know, being in a group is, it's a difficult thing. You know, there's always arguments and this and that, disagreements about everything. So I just cut that loose and went on my own. I didn't realize how young you were when he started. Oh yeah. I had been singing around and kicking around. I always did it. Even when I was six, seven years old, I always would go down and sing a little bit.
[00:20:04] If I could find any place that I get on the street or anywhere, I always did it. And so I knew I wanted to be a, I knew I wanted to be a singer. And even though when I was in high school and, uh, I was, my, my homeroom was auto mechanics and I was learning how to do that. And I got a job when I got out of school and shit.
[00:20:33] I said, no, I mean, I got up under the car and the, and the oil got in my face. I left a job that day. The worst night with James Brown is nowhere near as bad as being under that car. Oh no, no. I could take James stuff anytime. No, but, uh, and mainly, like I said, from the beginning and I was out with James, it,
[00:21:01] it was very important for me to learn how to do show shows, you know, and, uh, what it was all about, you know, I was still a young, I was still only about 20 years old. You know, I talked to a lot of artists who are around your age and, and are from, you know, the, the general area from the South. And a lot of them came up through the church, but it sounds like that wasn't really part of your experience in the same way. I did church.
[00:21:30] I did the church thing too, but, uh, not, not as extended like a lot of other people, most people, you're right. Most, most singers run and come out through the church. Well, I sing in the church too, but I don't know something about when I was out there with the singing with a gospel group, I found there was more of stuff going on out there with gospel
[00:21:56] singers than it was with, you know, you mean in terms of like what they're doing when they're not on stage? No, I mean, you know, the socializing and all that kind of stuff, you know. I mean, and whoa, what was it? The stuff that you have to go to confession for. Yeah, you're right. I've been there a couple of times. You know, what point did you get the idea that this, this was something that, I mean,
[00:22:26] obviously, you know, you were being pragmatic or realistic in that you also learned how to fix cars. But when, when, when did it become clear to you that you could actually do this professionally? Well, it really came to me when I was singing with the singing group because, I mean, I was what they called, I brought, I was the house, brought the house down with, and I was singing James Brown stuff then.
[00:22:54] And, like, please, please, please, I was doing that. That was my, one that I got the house with. And, you know, then a lot of, a lot of those fair songs, I would do a lot of dancing and stuff. But it always, always had a knack about how to, how to get over to the audience.
[00:23:20] You know, for some reason or other, I don't know, I guess it was, I guess it was the church. People talk a lot about the church, but, you know, that's a captive audience. But if you're actually going out, it sounds like you're going out even, like, on the street. Like, that is a hard group of people to win over. Oh, yeah. But, you know, when you're a young guy and they see you out there doing something,
[00:23:49] if you do it pretty well, you can get over to them, you know. I didn't do that long. I just, they had, like, a couple of movie theaters around in Nashville where I used to go down. They have talent shows and stuff like that, and I did that. But it didn't take me long to realize, I knew all the time I wanted to be a singer. Yeah.
[00:24:14] It didn't take me long to, because I had to go to school, so I had to have something to do. So I thought all the mechanics was the thing to do, but it wasn't. I mean, no. There have been points when you've had to have other jobs. Oh, yeah. I've done a lot of things. I've had to live in New York. You have to hustle, you know.
[00:24:42] And if there was a time in the sadness when disco was in, it was kind of a, I kind of took a little break from singing. So I had to hustle, you know, and I did driving people back and forth, uptown and downtown. You know, I had a couple of vans.
[00:25:12] I had two vans when I was with the Sidewinders. So I just took my vans, and me and my wife at that time, we just took people. We was making pretty good money just doing that. So I've done a lot of odd jobs. You know, you can't live in New York unless you got to hustle. Oh, I know. I know. I spent the last 20 years in Queens.
[00:25:42] I'm very familiar. Yeah, I lived in Queens at one time. Whereabouts? I lived in Jamaica, Queens. As a matter of fact, I lived right down the street from James Brown. Really? Mm-hmm. My house was down on, he lived on, I forget the name of this avenue now, but he had like a little castle out there, and Count Basie lived right next door to him, Brook Benton.
[00:26:11] You know, so when I got the house out there, I didn't know all of that. I just happened to be there at the time. So, but me and James, we wasn't hooked up anymore. I was still working in Smalls. I worked in Smalls for a long time until I started traveling overseas and stuff like that.
[00:26:40] But I lived in, I worked in Smalls about 10 years. And finally, I got out and did some stuff, did like Las Vegas and started doing Puerto Rico and stuff like that. And it just moved on from there. Count Basie must have been what, in his 70s at that point? I don't know. He's pretty old.
[00:27:09] I guess he was about that, you know. Yeah, because that was, well, I was in the 70s. I had that house out there in like 71 or something like that. You know. Yeah, Count was, because I had seen Count here in Nashville. He played here in Nashville a couple, it was a lot of jazz going on here in Nashville at one time. You know. I had seen Count Basie, Miles and Diz, Gillespie and all of them.
[00:27:41] You know, they used to come by and see me when I, because they would come to the clubs after they did their stuff. Yeah. So, I got to meet a lot of people, a lot of good musicians. And you just, you just fall into the thing. You try to learn what you can. You know. I was always trying to learn something. I wasn't just hanging around with them, just be hanging around. So, I used to play in Atlantic City.
[00:28:10] And it was like that. It was all of the big time jazz acts. And they used to have this place. It was one club called the Club Harlem. And they used to have like a, it was a horseshoe bar. And after, once, I think it was once a week, all the acts would come there. I mean, you had to be pretty good to be in there, though. And I used to be sitting up there next to Miles and them.
[00:28:39] And they'd always call me up and do a, I'd do a song, you know. So, I was, I was in the in crowd, I guess. What did you learn from Miles and the jazz guys? Well, interesting, essentially, of course, you do learn something. Because you learn really how to, phrasing and, you know.
[00:29:08] That's what I like now. Like, in the later years of my life, I'm pretty good at phrasing and voice control. That kind of stuff. Yeah, so. I used to hang out with Miles a lot in New York. But he was a strange guy. He hardly ever said anything. I've heard stories that maybe he wasn't the easiest guy to get along with.
[00:29:37] Oh, he didn't mess around with too many people, you know. Sometimes we would just be sitting up at the bar drinking. Just sit there, you know. But he didn't like to be around a lot of people for some reason or another. I don't know. You couldn't get into Miles' head, so. Probably wouldn't want to, even if he could. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:02] But, you know, like when I said, like I said, King Curtis was a big deal around New York. And so he was instrumental in helping me get my thing together. And he got me back into Smalls. And that was a big deal because Smalls is the biggest club in New York. I mean, for us, uh, soul acts and jazz acts. Because when I got to New York, it was mainly only jazz.
[00:30:32] Jazz trios and quartets. But after a while, I was the first actor that went in there to start doing, like, R&B soul. And it caught on. I guess people were ready for it, you know. I got the impression that, but there was, there were things going on in, like, Harlem, for example, right? Yeah, that's Harlem. That's what I'm talking about. Smalls is right down on 135th and 7th Avenue.
[00:31:00] You talked a little bit about sort of the difficulty during that time period. What was it specifically that happened once disco really took over that made it maybe hard for you to make a living? Well, I guess I could have kept going on, but I didn't want to. Disco was taking over, really. Everybody in advance was trying to change their thing over to disco. I wasn't going to do that, you know. So I just took a break.
[00:31:28] It just so happened that I came back in the, I came back in the, I was still doing, I was still doing shows around New York. But I had just taken a break because I had been doing that for a long time. I mean, I had been in smalls for a long time. And so when I took a break, me and the side runners, we broke up at that point, you know.
[00:31:56] We broke up in, actually in 1972. So I put a little trio and stuff together and then just doing smaller clubs and just kept my hand in the business. So until I, then I finally just, I don't know, I came on back to Nashville. I needed to get out of New York. New York was driving me crazy.
[00:32:27] I just left myself. I get that. Yeah. It's, it's a hustle and bustle. You have to always hustle to make, you have to make money in there. You can't just be there. Yeah. Messing around. Yeah. So, uh, I was ready to go. I had been over to Europe and I had been, I had lived in Spain and I lived in France for a while.
[00:32:51] So, uh, so I had seen a different side of, uh, the business and, uh, I was pretty popular over there in, in Europe. So I could do, I could go back over there and just put me some together and go on and keep on working. But, uh, when I, when I came home, when I came back to New York to bury my, I buried my, uh, my second wife.
[00:33:18] And, uh, cause she was playing, she was playing with, she was a keyboardist and she was a classical keyboardist really. But we did like, we did like a duo and, and sometimes we would add, uh, a lot of Latin percussionists and stuff like that. And, uh, we did all right. We did all right. We was making pretty good money down in, down in Spain.
[00:33:46] I was working down at, uh, oh, what's that guy named? Uh, the guy that got the airline and, and, uh, Richard Branson. Branson. Yeah. I was working at his hotel down in, in, uh, Mallorca. And I was doing okay. So, and just chilling out at the beach. So. It must've been wild the first time you're halfway across the world.
[00:34:15] And, you know, it sounds like you were even bigger there than you were here. That must've been such a strange experience the first time. Yeah, it was a strange experience. And, and you're right. And, and I got homesick, you know? So I, but I still came out, took, I often came back to New York. To get some more New York in me, didn't take it back to Spain.
[00:34:42] But, uh, but, uh, when my wife got sick and had cancer and she passed away, I brought her back to New York. And then I was going to go back and still do my thing over in Spain. But I had to come see my people here. And my mother wasn't up to par either. So I just stayed around here and started putting something together here again.
[00:35:08] And I know you lost your wife recently. And I'm very sorry for that. Um, thank you. How do you keep going when something that big upends your life like that? I don't know. I don't know how you keep going. You don't think too much about it. You know, it's always on your mind. And that's the third wife. Uh, that's the third wife I had that passed away.
[00:35:38] And, uh, but, uh, it's a hard thing to go through. And, uh, I'm still going through it right now. But I still get out there on the stage. I know I got to do what I have to do. And I think my guys in the band, they helped me out a lot. You know, helped me kind of stay human.
[00:36:03] Because I found myself now, I found myself sitting around, just staring out in space. But the guys keep in touch with me and we go out and have dinners and stuff. And so I'm pulling myself together. I'm ready to come out here behind this new album. If things work out with this album, well, we're getting ready.
[00:36:28] We're getting it all ready and trying to put some sort of act together with that, you know. You're still ready? Your body's still ready to tour? Yeah, I think I'm, I think I still can do it, you know. I don't know. I haven't been on tour in a long time. So I don't know. But I think I, I know how to tour, you know. So that's part of being in this business so long.
[00:36:57] You learn a lot of stuff and you have to use it sometimes, you know. If I went on tour now, I know I wouldn't be out there partying and drinking and all that kind of stuff. I would just do my shows and try to get some sleep every night. It sounds like this album, and it's your first in about 10 years, that this album was actually an important part of the grieving process for you. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:24] A bunch of the songs about, has something to do with my, me and my wife. But, you know, you don't think about that. You just think about, when you're writing a song or something, you just think about an experience you've been through. And you're trying to straighten it out some kind of way.
[00:37:49] Like that one, a matter of trust, the one, the ballad on the last one, I think is the last one on the, that was, we had, we was having an argument, just regular arguments and stuff. So I sit in the bathroom, wrote the song. I told Charles that I was going to write something about trust. He said, all you got to do is trust me.
[00:38:19] I ain't that crazy. But, so it come out to be, I really liked that song, you know. And the first time I tried to sing it, after she passed away, I broke down, you know, because it was a hard thing. I shouldn't have even tried it, but I did. I mean, you write the song, you've got to perform it eventually. But I sang it right after she passed away.
[00:38:46] I did it that day at the club and just broke me down, you know. So I had to leave the stage in a hurry. But I'm better now, you know. I get out there every week and I do my shows and everything is coming together. Everything is coming together now. Particularly those songs that are about your wife.
[00:39:13] How is your, what's your relationship like with them now and how has that evolved? I think I'm up to it now. I haven't, we haven't really performed these songs. Well, since we first started doing them. And I think, I think it'll be okay. I mean, it's going to be an experience. I have to just go and do it, you know. I don't know.
[00:39:43] I don't know what's going to happen. I might faint. It's another James Brown move. Yeah. You know. If I understand your history correctly, you actually, you did some writing for Motown as well. When did you actually start writing your own songs?
[00:40:11] Well, I often own, I just kind of dibble and dabble. I never considered myself a songwriter. I never, I never, it was something in that, in that, that biography that I never was a step writer. I got to get that out of there. I don't want anything, I don't want anything in that, that going to come back on me because I never was a step writer. But I wrote songs, I wrote it with my second wife.
[00:40:38] I wrote a few songs and was shipped out to Motown. But, I mean, I wasn't on the staff. So, and I never got any, I never, I haven't heard any of them. So I guess they never did. Yeah. We talked a little bit early on about, you know, and you kind of jokingly said, you know, you wish you had had a hit that was that big. And obviously, you know, great songs stand the test of time.
[00:41:07] But it, but it strikes me that there's always, there's always some luck involved. You know, you can be the most talented person in the world and there's still some luck involved in terms of getting that hit. That's true. That's true. I mean, yes, I recorded a few albums and a few singles and everything else, but haven't been that lucky with them. And some of the songs I thought were pretty good, you know.
[00:41:35] But like I was saying about, if I, I think if I'd went to Motown, I probably would have had a, probably would have had a hit. But that's the choices you make and you, you have to deal with that, you know. I thought my thing was better off with, with chess records. But then, you never know. It's not healthy to dwell on that too much. Yeah, I don't, and I don't, really.
[00:42:06] I just go, live, just keep on pushing on, you know. Hope that this new album does something well, you know. This, this new album is the, I really, I really enjoy doing it. It's, it's good. I think it's a very good album, but, you know, if it stands the test of time, we'll see. Nobody never knows. What is it that keeps you pushing on? I just love singing.
[00:42:35] I just love entertaining and, and I really never, ever did anything else. You tried to fix a car once and that didn't work out. But one day, that, that wasn't going to be, and I pretty much knew that all along. You know, I knew when I was in school and doing auto mechanics, I just like messing around with cars, I guess. But when it came to fixing them, I don't even think about all that.
[00:43:03] But, man, when I got home, when I, when I got that job, I left, I left with about two hours. That oil fell in my face. And my, when I, when my mother got home from work, I was sitting on the porch. She said, well, what are you doing at home? I said, I quit. Yeah. Yeah. It's just one of those things, you know.
[00:43:32] I think I made the best move because I wasn't going to be an auto mechanic. After all those years, though, even, you know, and you played some really big stages, even those nights when it's a sort of a small club in Nashville, you still get that, that same feeling? I still do. I still do. I think that's what keeps me going. You know, I, I still get the feeling of a strong, a strong feeling of, of being performing.
[00:43:58] You know, although I don't jump around and do all that stuff anymore. But I let my voice do, do the job now. I don't have to do all them splits and turning flips. Because I've been sitting on the stool for quite a little while now. And the people don't seem to bother the people at all. So far, we'll see.
[00:44:26] I was, that was the first thing from my mind. It had to be.