Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hi, thanks for your company today. If you’re into music, no matter where you live, you’re sure to know the band that’s the focus of this episode.
They were an R&B group that only played pop to get on the charts and they ranked among the most adept British Invasion acts in both styles. Vocalist Paul Jones lent them his voice and while he was known as one of the strongest and most adaptable singers in rock and blues, it was their keyboardist after whom the band was named, Manfred Mann. Paul Jones went on to have a lengthy career as an actor after the band’s demise.
Here he is to share his story. Thank you for having me. That’s absolutely our pleasure that you’ve been requested by lots of our listeners.
One in particular, Rick, who lives in Ballina, beautiful Ballina in New South Wales here in Australia, has asked to chat with you. So maybe guys just say hi to each other. Hello, Rick.
Hello, Paul. Nice. Paul Jones, we all know you from your Manfred Mann days because of course you were one of the founding members of that band.
But you’ve done so much more and I just want you to tell us all about it. Perhaps we start off with how you came to those heady heights in the 60s with Manfred Mann. What were you doing before that? Well, I hadn’t long dropped out of university actually and I decided to do that because I knew already that what I wanted to do was music and studying English literature wouldn’t do me any good really in that chosen profession.
So I started to sort of hang out with as many musical people as I could, notably Alexis Corner who was the sort of hub of blues in Great Britain in the early 60s. I used to, in common with a whole load of other people including members of the Rolling Stones and the Animals and so on, we used to stand along the front of the stage when Alexis Corner’s band, Blues Incorporated, was doing a gig and we would stand there looking sort of hopeful with eyebrows raised so that Alexis Corner would point at one of us and say, get up on here, and you would get up on stage and do whatever song you could persuade them to do. It was very exciting.
Anyway, I carried on doing that for a while and I got an audition for a dance band and I thought, well, you never know, I might get it. And I did. Around about the same time, Brian Jones, who obviously came with me, in fact, he lived near me, so we joined forces and would go to Alexis Corner’s gigs.
He said, I’m going to form a band and I want you to be my singer. And I said, no, I’m not going to do that, Brian. He said, why not? And I said, well, first of all, you are unduly optimistic.
You think you’re going to become rich and famous. You don’t get rich and famous playing our music. Secondly, I’ve just got an audition with a dance band and they’ve got actual money.
They will pay me. So I went with the dance band and he went with Mick Jagger. I learned a lot from being in that band.
So you obviously regretted your decision not joining Brian in a band, but you also… Never regretted that for one moment in my life. Not for one moment. How come? Well, because by the time they got anywhere, I was getting somewhere as well.
At that stage, we were sort of more or less level pegging with the Stones. And in subsequent years, there was nothing that made me wish I’d got Mick Jagger’s job. First of all, if I had joined Brian’s band, it would never have become the Rolling Stones.
You had to have Mick Jagger and Keith Richard to be the Rolling Stones. And so that was one thing. And the other thing was, I’ve actually enjoyed my career.
I see them doing this and that and more of this and a lot more of that. And I don’t wish I ever was in that situation. The next time somebody said, we’re forming a band, do you want to be the singer? I said, yes.
And that, of course, was Manfred Mann. Just before you get to Manfred Mann, you talk very humbly about attending university, but perhaps not many people know that it was actually Oxford University. Your parents must have been very proud of you.
They must have been really upset with you when you decided to drop out and follow music as a career, were they? My father possibly was. He regarded himself, and I suppose he was, a self-made man. He was until a few years ago.
I don’t know whether his record has ever been equalled or broken, but he was the only man in the history of the Royal Navy who worked at every level in the Navy, starting as the lowest of low, and he became a senior captain. He actually finally failed to become an admiral. But at that point, no one had reached senior captain who had ever started as a… No, some had.
Famously, Lord Nelson did. My father was a little bit disappointed. He said, well, what do you think you’re going to do? And I said, I’m going to make a living as a musician.
And he said, well, here’s five pounds. Good luck. Wow.
In 1962, you joined the Manhattan Blues Brothers. Blues was your first love, wasn’t it? Yes, blues and gospel, actually. So what happened when you joined that band? Well, they were jazz musicians.
There were six jazz musicians, and they said, well, we need a shouter. That was a jazz musician’s expression for a guy who sang in front of a big band, actually. That’s what they called Jimmy Rushing and Big Joe Turner and people like that.
I said, okay, well, I’ll have a crack at it. And I was a big jazz fan, so I was actually very happy and really rather made out. My first job really was to teach them some blues because they didn’t really know much.
And obviously, they knew the blues chord sequences because jazz musicians have to. But they didn’t really know much, and I went in there and I taught them Muddy Waters songs and Howling Wolf and T-Bone Walker and people like that. They call it Stormy Monday But Tuesday’s just as bad Yes, they call it Stormy Monday But Tuesday’s just as bad Wednesday’s worse And Thursday’s also sad And Thursday’s also sad So you were with the Manhug Blues Brothers.
How did the renaming come about to be called Manford Man? Well, actually, sometime in early 63, the Manhug part was dropped and we were called the Blues Brothers. I found it hard to convince people that that was the case, but somebody did actually send me some facsimile photographs of some tickets that he had in his collection from gigs he’d come to. And sure enough, we were called the Blues Brothers, featuring Paul Jones.
So that was how we auditioned for EMI Records in 1963. It was mostly songs of my composition that we did on that audition. But the guy from EMI Records, who was to become our producer for the next three plus years, he said, well, we like the band, but you’re going to have to change the name because no one will ever get anywhere with a stupid name like the Blues Brothers.
And of course, we did. And we said, well, we’ll think up a name. And he said, no, you don’t need to think anything up.
You’re called Manford Man from now on. And we said, hang on a minute, you can’t call the band by one member of it. And they said, yeah, we can.
It’s the best name for a band we’ve heard for years. So we had no choice. We said, OK.
And you went with it. It wasn’t long after that that you scored your first British hit. That’s right.
There she was, just walking down the street singing. Do what diddy, diddy, dum, diddy, dum. Tapping her fingers and shuffling her feet singing.
Do what diddy, diddy, dum, diddy, dum. She looked good. Looked good.
She looked fine. Looked fine. She looked good.
She looked fine. And I nearly lost my mind before I knew it. She was walking next to me singing.
Do what diddy, diddy, dum, diddy, dum. Holding my hand just as natural as can be singing. Do what diddy, diddy, dum, diddy, dum.
We walked on to my door. My door. We walked on to my door.
Then we kissed a little more. We had a couple of things that didn’t make the charts. But as a result of Ready Steady Go liking the band, it suddenly became a really roller coaster thing.
The second single that we put out, which wasn’t a success, was a song of mine called Cock a Hoop. And Ready Steady Go invited us to come on the program and perform Cock a Hoop live on TV. And we did that towards the end of November 1963.
While we were there, they said, would you guys be interested in writing us a signature tune for the program? Because they were using an ordinary, already released record as their sig tune. And they said, we really would like to have one, you know, specially written for the program. So we said, yes, okay, we’ll do that for you.
We went away and within a few days, we had written a song called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. They said they wanted a countdown. They said they wanted the rhythm that we used on the song Cock a Hoop, which was a Bo Diddley rhythm, you know, bam, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, that one. And we used that and the countdown that they insisted on.
And one or two other things that they told us, it was a bit like doing a commercial, actually, a jingle. Anyway, we did it. And we went in and recorded that.
A couple of weeks after that, they had us on the program, opening the program with that piece of music. And a couple of weeks after that, it was in the charts. Six weeks from sort of being absolutely nobody to having a top five record.
Describe the time that that was, because that was obviously the time when the British Invasion was really gearing up. So music was just central to every young person’s life at the time, wasn’t it? Yes, but Very Steady Go wasn’t just about music. It was about, you know, clothes, make-up, dance moves and anything else that might be of interest to a teenager.
Ah, popular culture generally. So life changed for you, as you say, in a matter of just a few weeks. What did that change mean to you as part of that band? Well, I do remember that I used to go to our regular Monday night gig at the Marquee Club in the centre of London, Soho, and I used to go by bus from Hampstead, where I lived, and on that particular Monday, our manager rang round the band and said, it’s coming to the charts.
It’s coming to the top 30 at number 29. And I said, great, I’m a star. And I rang a taxi to take me to the gig.
After that, I don’t really remember anything much else. Obviously, things change, yes, but as far as what we were doing, it didn’t really change at all. We just turned up at the gig and played.
But you must have had more people turning up to adore you. Well, yes, but actually, we’d built up a few residences, several towns on the south coast of England, where most of us came from, except for Manfred, who was from South Africa, but we had those residences and we had the residency at the Marquee Club, and those places were packed every time we played. So it wasn’t a sort of major change in our working life.
You just kept on playing. Of course. Except we got more television programmes as well, recognition.
And you’d have to think more money. Yes. It wasn’t a great sort of mountain of money in those days, but anyway.
Yes, of course. More girls chasing you down the street? Some of that. Did you like that? Why not? Yes.
Actually, it could get a bit dangerous. What do you mean? It actually got a bit dangerous one time. There was a girl trying to cut some of my hair off.
She was brandishing scissors, and all these other girls were sort of fighting her out of the way, and she was sort of going, no, and the scissors were going like this, you know, all over the place. And Tom McGuinness, bless him, grabbed hold of the girl’s wrist and removed the scissors from her hand and said, don’t. You might get his eye instead of a lock of his hair.
So, you know, but I mean, those kind of moments like that made you think, hmm, I’m not quite so sure about this adulation business. When I kissed you and I held you tight Baby, you made me feel all right So this is the song that I sang all night Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la Oh, oh, oh Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la Oh, yeah Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la When you kissed me, I felt so weak I never had so grand a treat Each time I see you walking down the street My heart starts singing to the sha-la beat Singing Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la Oh, yeah Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la Yes, sir Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la Life was good. Back to Paul in a moment.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. So did you have to have protection from then on? We never reached that stage.
We had our own guys, actually. We had a road crew. It was important to have those guys because we never had the paid minders that, say, the Stones and the Beatles and people like that would have.
After 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, which launched Manford Man onto the UK scene, it wasn’t very long until you had Do I Diddy Diddy and also saw you break through to the United States, didn’t it? Yes, I went to number one in the States as well. Cracking the US market must have been the goal. Oh, yes.
It was very exciting and yet somehow it didn’t translate into lots of subsequent hits and masses of touring. We did one tour of the States sharing the bill with Peter and Gordon. Please lock me away And don’t allow the day Here inside where I hide With my loneliness I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love Birds sing out a tune And rain clouds hide at the moon I’m OK Here I’ll stay With my loneliness I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love When we got to New York, the promoters of the tour said, We haven’t sold many tickets.
What we’re going to have to do is to get a local group added to the bill to put more bottoms on seats. So they booked a very good local group called the Exciters. The Exciters were the people who recorded the original version of Do I Diddy.
Oh. So that shows you just how in touch with the scene the promoters of that tour were. And so there were two bands on the bill, both of whom had one really… No, actually, the Exciters had had a much bigger hit with a song called Tell Him than they did Do I Diddy.
And I heard the Exciters version of Do I Diddy. And I said, goodness, that is a roaring, great, big hit. I did have a tame record shop and I went in there and I ordered a copy of the Exciters’ Do I Diddy.
And I played it to the band and I said, this we have to do. I just was so excited about this song. And I just kept saying, we have to do it, we have to do it, guys.
As we all know, Manfred Mann did record the song and it was huge. It got into the tail end of a recording session. I don’t think anyone else in the band was as enthusiastic as I was.
In fact, I know they weren’t. But I just knew that record was a hit. And John Burgess, our producer, said, have you got any other songs? Because we’ve got another 20 minutes left of the session.
So we came out with this one. It must have felt really strange then to be on the same bill with the guys who’d had the original hit. Yeah, it was a little bit sad in a way because they were people that obviously I looked up to them because I wouldn’t have bought their record if I didn’t.
And yet here were we with the hit version of the song, closing the show with it. So it was kind of embarrassing. It was a girl group.
For some reason I got our songs from girl groups or girl singers. So were you writing very much at the time or you were really pulling in stuff from elsewhere that you thought would be hits? I was writing a lot in the early days of the Manfreds. However, after 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, which was actually written by Manfred, me and Mike Hug, the drummer, and then the whole group wrote the next one.
And that one stalled just outside the top 10. So at that point, the record company said, right, we’re not going to put out any more songs that you guys have written as singles. If you want to write songs, we’ll put them on the albums and the B-sides of the singles.
But the singles will have to be written by proper songwriters. So from that point onwards, I was the person who kind of brought the songs out of my record collection and said, why don’t we do this one or try this one? That happened with the follow-up, which was Sha La La, which was by the Shirelles before us. Then we did Come Tomorrow, which was a lady called Marie Knight.
If the song of the sunbird could replace my wrong word, then my dear, that’s the song I would borrow. And tonight, you would hear the saddest song of the year. And you’d be mine once again.
Come tomorrow. We did Oh No, Not My Baby, which was a lovely, wonderful singer. That was a song by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
And wow, you know, for some reason, those were the records I seemed to be getting most excited about. And we put them all out, and they were all hits for us. What about songs like Pretty Flamingo? Where’d that come from? Pretty Flamingo was my last hit with the Manfreds before I left.
And I did not find that song. John Burgess found that song. And I have to tell you, he played it to us in the studio.
I said, oh, John, oh, John, you’re losing your grip, man. I mean, you’re such a great producer, but that song is terrible. That’ll never get anywhere.
And he said, do me a favor, Paul, sing it. So, of course, I did. And it went to number one.
Not in America. On a flood of flamingos, like the sun, the skies. When she walks, she moves so fine, like a flamingo.
When it clings so tight, she’s out of reach and out of sight. When she walks fast, if she just would. And what about Go Now? That was not my idea either.
That was a Bob Dylan song. And I was not a Bob Dylan enthusiast at that point, really. But that one was, you know, the guys convinced me of that one.
And, of course, that went to number two in the charts. It’s still in the repertoire now. I love to sing it now.
So you were sailing really high as part of Man For Man. What happened then that you decided to leave the band in 1966? I know people said, why do you want to leave? You just had a number one. And I said, well, nobody asked me why I wanted to join the band in the first place.
And I left for exactly the same reason, which was, it’s the next thing to do. I just knew I had to be out. And actually, because my songwriting had been sort of suppressed, I thought, I’m going to go out of this band and I’m going to do what I want to do.
I’m not going to be pushed into any. Because they were getting more sort of poppy. All the music that I had brought to the band, apart from what I wrote, was music of black origin, as we call it nowadays.
You know, they were all black singers and vocal groups. And that was my kind of music. I loved that kind of music.
Always had, still do. I thought, well, I’m going to do all that sort of stuff. Instead of having four other people, you know, sort of putting in what they want to do and all that sort of thing.
Well, you know, pretty soon I had four other people. Only in this case, it was the record producer, the agent, the publicist, the musical director. All telling you what to do anyway.
They were all channeling me in the direction they thought I ought to go. Listen to me, baby I’m trying to make you see That I want to be with you, girl If you want to be with me But if you’ve got to go It’s all right But if you’ve got to go Go now Or else you’ve got to stay all night Almost the first thing I did when I left the band was to get a movie called Privilege, which I did with Gene Shrimpton. Well, that altered my career quite extensively.
So you say you got a movie as an actor? Yes, well, I was playing a pop star, so it wasn’t a heavy acting job. I’ve often said in the past that my acting career actually didn’t start until after that film. But nonetheless, it did result in some other stuff.
Certainly for the next 10 years or so after that, I was doing nothing but acting. Well, just the occasional bit of music and quite a lot of sessions because having pushed my harmonica to the fore while I was in the Manfreds, I started to get sessions on harmonica. So I played with any number of people, from David Essex to the London Symphony Orchestra.
Hey dear, rock and roll, rock my soul Hey dear, voodoo, DJ Hey, shout summertime blues Jump up and down in the blue suede shoes Hey dear, rock and roll, rock on And where do we go from here Which is a way that’s clear Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen Prettiest girl I ever seen See you shake on movie screen, Jimmy Bean James Dean Then I was in all kinds of stuff. A couple of films, a fair bit of television, episodes of series with guest villains every week. Mostly, though, theatre.
And your solo career kept going simultaneously, didn’t it? You kept writing songs and putting out albums because you did have a few major hits on your own. Yes, that’s true. Actually, my first hit was a song, which I think was a chuck-out from somebody else’s session.
The second one, actually, both my top ten hits were written by Mike Leander, who was the guy who wrote the music for the film Privilege. Obviously, Patti Smith liked the film Privilege because she did a song called Free Me from it. I think she liked me because she also did a version of 5-4-3-2-1.
But because the song was actually about the Manfreds, she didn’t sing any of the words except 5-4-3-2-1. Hey little girl, I’m in a whirl I’ve been a bad, bad boy I’m on my knees, forgive me please I’ve been a bad, bad boy I’m not the man you think I am I give you warning You wake up and find me gone Some sunny morning Things that I said run through my head I’ve been a bad, bad boy My past is black, I’m coming back I’ve been a bad, bad boy In my time I’ve done a lot of things I’d better not remember But you see such a change in me I’m making you forget your resolution I’ve been a bad, bad boy was probably my most successful song and that came from the film Privilege. But I checked myself there when I said my most successful song.
My most successful song in New Zealand, and I know you don’t care about this, but it was a song called Poor Jenny, which was an Everly Brothers song, which I really liked. I like the Everly Brothers, and I liked that song because it was funny, witty, and well-written by Felice and Boudlow Bryant, another great songwriting team. For some reason in New Zealand, they picked it off the album as a single.
It was never a single anywhere else in the world, and it was actually the biggest hit I had in New Zealand. I took my little Jenny to a party last night After a rocket ended in a hell of a fight When someone hit my Jenny she went out like a light Poor Jenny And then some joker went and called the cops on the phone So everybody scattered out to places unknown I couldn’t carry Jenny so I left her alone Oh, poor Jenny Well, Jenny had a picture in the paper this morning She made it with a bang According to the story in the paper this morning Jenny is the leader of a teenage gang Jenny has a brother and he’s hot on my trail Her daddy wants to ride me out of town on a rail I hope I’m still around when Jenny gets out of jail Oh, my poor Jenny I went downtown to see her She was locked in her cell She wasn’t very glad to see that I could tell In fact, to tell the truth She wasn’t looking too well Oh, my poor Jenny Her eye was black, her face was red, her hair was a fright She looked as though she’d been a-crying half of the night I told her I was sorry She said, get out of sight Oh, poor Jenny It seems a shame that Jenny had to go get apprehended That’s a heck of a fate With Mike Darbo replacing him in Manford Man Paul concentrated on acting and on his solo work In 1978, he cut a novelty single produced by Tim Rice in which he sang covers of the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant and the Ramones’ Sheena Is A Punk Rocker Why would he do such a crazy thing? Keep listening to find out
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. You may remember Norman Greenbaum’s single Canned Ham from 1970.
I think it was the solo guitar and the smiling whimsy in the voices that left a lasting impression. My ex-wife and I were shopping at the grocery store and the person in front of us in line had one of those big five-pound canned hams. And in May, there was all kinds of crazies in my head.
I just looked at it and I said, when are you going to buy me a canned ham? And I went, oh my God, I’ve got a song going here. When you’re gonna buy me a can, waitin’ so long. When you’re gonna buy it, when you’re gonna satisfy me.
I’ve been waitin’ so long. When you’re gonna buy it, when you’re gonna satisfy me. Ask for me.
When you think about it, see me in ecstasy. It wasn’t especially a follow-up to Spirit in the Sky. It was another song.
A lot of people liked it. It didn’t do as well as Spirit in the Sky, but we still play it. Nothing could have done as well as Spirit in the Sky.
They just exploded. And actually, we do quite a, we do a little funny thing with us. It’s not so funny.
It’s kind of cool. When we do that song, we bring a bunch of one-pound canned hams with us and I autograph them and give them to a few people. Oh, that’s cool.
When you said it didn’t do as well as Spirit in the Sky, nothing could have done as well as Spirit in the Sky. It just exploded. How well exactly did that song do? Well, back then, they usually measured things by singles and it sold over two million.
And it was number one or in the top five all over the world. Name a country. It was a big hit.
Interestingly enough, in the 80s, a band from England called Dr. West and the Medics, I mean, Doctor and the Medics. His wife’s last name was West. We correspond.
So it was Doctor and the Medics did a version of it in England and he got to be number one in England and all over Europe. Doctor and the Medics are a British glam rock band formed in London in 1981. The group was most successful during the 80s and is best known for their cover hit of Spirit in the Sky.
Today, the band still performs with founder and lead singer Clive Jackson and they’ve kept that look inspired by both 60s psychedelia and kabuki makeup, similar to that of Kiss. So it was number one again and a few years after that, a singer named Gareth Gates decided to record it. He got to number one in England.
So it’s been number one in England three times, which is a pretty good accomplishment for the song. Wembley, you idiot. He means Harvard.
I thought we got reincarnated. I want to come back as Gareth’s surgeon. Oh, Krishna.
Would you be more specific? Is it driving distance? I’m going to need a gun for a break. There better not be stairs, whatever it is. Now shut up, this is my big sitar solo.
Fast forward to 1972 and Norman kept trying to come up with something that would match the success of Spirit. The task seemed impossible, although he did manage to release an album called Petaluma, named after the city in California where he lived. Norman was constantly disappointed that people seemed to want only the same thing from him again.
Absolutely. They wanted something as powerful as that. And the bottom line is how it was so unique, such a different type of recording, where do you go? It was difficult.
But my third album was called Petaluma. I had gone back to an acoustic album, and there I was on the cover holding a chicken wearing overalls, and so people go, oh, yeah, man, that’s the goat farmer. Got chickens in the houses.
We got chickens in the trees. Chicken in the pots, the martyr walked up. Petaluma’s out in Petaluma.
Spending my days. Oh, I’m out in Petaluma. Spending my days.
Tell me, how many eggs will a chicken lay? Now Marvin got me started, sold me my first hen. Now I got four and 20, and 24 more again. I’m out in Petaluma.
Spending my days. Oh, I’m out in Petaluma. Spending my days.
Tell me, how many eggs will a chicken lay? I was from a whole different crowd, even in Hollywood. And when I moved north, when I moved to Northern California, I kind of got into it more. More healthful foods and more organic.
And wanting to not live in the city, wanting to have some acreage and do all that stuff. And we loved animals, so we started collecting them. But there was a time when After Spirit in the Sky went out, when I wasn’t with Warner Brothers anymore.
And I made a bunch of demos, and we were shopping them. They go, well, you know, we like them a lot, and that song was great, and we like this new stuff. But, you know, we hear that he won’t leave the farm.
Now at that time, I had moved back to L.A. a little bit. But that was devastating. It kind of threw my career down the toilet, as they say.
She twirled baton in high school She was a Dairy Queen Her boyfriend played football Drove a 56 Chevy that was cream And they hung out at the alleys On a weekend night Dairy Queen Norman Greenbaum left the music business at that point and returned to his dairy farm, but emerged again as a manager and promoter in the mid-80s. Today, at 82 years of age, he resides in Santa Rosa, California, where he continues to engage with fans through his website, spiritinthesky.com. Although he doesn’t maintain a regular touring schedule, he does still perform occasionally when he takes time away from tending his garden. When music is happening and has happened, we like to give back, so we do work and raise money for different causes.
I like to do that. But, you know, I’m into the culture of the county where I live, and I used to go to the fairs and I would enter a flowers plant, and I’ve got about 20 blue ribbons for that. So that’s been a good hobby for me.
I like horse racing, so I sponsor a race. I’ve been doing that for over 20 years, and I like to do a little gambling. I enjoy that.
I’ve always liked that. When I was going to school one year in the summer, I had a job at a racetrack near Boston. I always had a liking for it.
In the morning at 6 o’clock The rooster’s crowing Since I’ve been gone Baby’s learning to talk She don’t need showing Back home again When everything is all right Back home again When I’m feeling so good Back home again Dog is chasing the neighborhood cat Cats are hissing Mary Lou and her favorite snack With the button missing Back home again When everything is all right Back home again When I’m feeling so good Cause I’m back home again Despite writing and releasing so many songs, Norman does embrace his one-hit-wonder status with good humor and continues to celebrate the enduring popularity of Spirit in the Sky. But when he reflects back on his life, what is it that he’s most grateful for? I would say acceptance at a high level. If I just make a surprise appearance, like I did on the last Rock and Roll Cruise, nobody knew I was going to be there.
And it was a setup, and I came out and people recognized me. Oh my God, it’s Norman Greenbaum. Everybody get their phone out.
It’s the gratitude and just to see the smiles. There’s love, and it’s very touching, and I’m very grateful for that moment. It’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because the term one-hit-wonder is often perceived negatively, but most musicians would actually give anything to have just one hit.
Are you still writing today? Are you still trying to match it? I have an acoustic album that I did, two albums after Spirit in the Sky, that I’m working on to redo with a bluegrass band. I still have a lot of acoustic songs and songs that I’ve rearranged a bunch for country music and do the Rock and Roll ones. Of all the songs you’ve done, do you have one that’s your personal favorite, that’s closest to your heart? One called Lucille Got Stealed.
We do it now when we play. It’s my favorite. Went down to the station to meet the train Bringing my Lucille back to me Went to the conductor, I said, Have you seen Lucille? He said, We got robbed and Lucille got stealed By bad people Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa There’s a way And I got the will Gonna go and find her On my horse And I rode east Heading for the seven hills All I got to do is Find the right path And I’ll hide out of that bad man’s bill Lucille got, Lucille got stealed Lucille got stealed By bad people The will Well, congratulations.
Everyone, of course, knows Norman Greenbaum for Spirit in the Sky and I’m really happy that you’re happy about that. If everybody got a chance to have as big a hit as you have, it’d be a very happy world. It would, and I’m gonna definitely ask my people to send me to Australia.
Because we’ve never been there. I’d love to go anyways. Thank you so much for your time today.
It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed talking to you, and you take care.
Thank you so much. Bye now. Cause it’s a beautiful day You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye Beautiful day Oh, I bet any day that you’re going away It’s a beautiful day