Speaker 1
0:13
Welcome to a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. Hello, and thanks so much for joining me. Today marks the 100th episode of a breath of fresh air, a show that I created during the pandemic when several radio stations that I worked with found themselves short of presenters and material. I’m really proud of what I’ve built since that time, and I’d like to say thank you to you for supporting me so wholeheartedly through my journey. To celebrate this week, I’m bringing you some of my very favorite interviews. They feature the artists that you’ve asked to hear. We’ll bring back Elvis Costello, who talks about creating his latest album, The boy named Dave. We’ll also hear from one of the nicest superstars on the planet, Mr. Peter Frampton, but first up, let me introduce you to one of my all time favorite singer songwriters. It’s legendary Canadian Gordon Lightfoot, who tells us about his life. His regrets and his third and current wife Kim. How Gordon Lightfoot? US Yes, lovely to chat with you. How are you?
1:44
I’m good.
1:45
Hey, Gordon, are you still writing songs today? No,
1:48
I had an album come out and just after the pandemic started it kind of got got lost a little bit but there’s been a lot of streams on the St. Olaf as a good stream that I don’t know 700,000 times it’s called Oh sweet. It was a solo albums.
Speaker 2
2:06
Tell me just a little bit about that. Oh, so sweet. That was one that you wrote. What did you write about?
2:13
Oh yeah. Oh, sweet. Yeah, I wrote down all of our 20 years ago all that material is there all sidetracks it’s all most of its demos that were never released. Oh yeah. I mean, a lot of times the demos get failure that you never get to see all back and there was enough of it available and I said my fans are gonna love this. It’s so easy to see get to beat
2:58
sometimes you hearing raindrops feeling my love in the long side of the window
Speaker 3
3:22
we put it out as it was, as it stood and I like it. Okay. I would like to ever probably done rewrites, maybe five or six of those tunes. Give it a blast the feel. It was done a long time ago. I discovered it all just by accident. Well, well moving offices. Two years ago, half of it was was lost. Who would ever been seen again and not found it? Really? So the five of them got rescued by cats. Like cats. They don’t rescued. That’s great. Well, I know your fans are very grateful for that. How do you explain how enduring your music is? And how many people just love you? I
Speaker 3
4:07
actually I’ve often wondered that myself, you know why they should actually really, if they really got to know me, they don’t even realize me at all. I think it’s something to do with the material which is how I prepared myself as an entertainer.
4:26
So they say that that some of the popularity of your music is because it’s so simple, and it’s so comfortable. It feels like an old easy chair. Is that why you think that it’s stuck around so long? Yeah,
4:40
I think it actually provides comfort for some people. I can see who said this. Where you do watch some
5:04
Some better round my bags she’s been tweeted sailor’s dream. Say what you think it’s a shame when I feel better when I’m feeling some shame when I get when
5:47
I read about you that you have had a real love hate relationship with the process of creating music.
3
Speaker 3
5:53
No, I don’t feel I don’t feel any hate at all. I only feel love. I don’t I’ve seen some people who, who probably hate me, but I I never hate the back. Now it’s forgive everybody for everything.
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Speaker 2
6:08
Do you have any regrets? Yeah, sure I do. Of course,
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Speaker 3
6:11
I have no regrets. You know, I’ve, let’s just say nobody’s perfect. Okay. Just leave it that way. I regret the way I have treated other people at times. I regret the way I’ve treated Southern women. I was very too. I regret the way I’ve ignored my children at times, sometimes for periods for years. And I was really going big. And I was working seriously and heavy all through from 1970 strobo 1994. But at that 20 years there we are fine. About 90 shows a year, I made about eight albums. And I didn’t pay attention to my kids while I was doing that. So I regret that because I didn’t pay attention at the time of paying for it now.
6:57
Have you made it up to them now, right? I’ve repented I repented and I and I do everything I can to make up for every moment that I steal from people.
7:10
You’ve had an incredible career and an amazing life. I heard you used to throw the most fabulous parties. Do you miss those days? We had parties in Toronto that that you would not believe I was really well located to I lived in an old mansion right downtown. That was Party Central Party Central for a lot of well known people who came through the city band and Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Roger bigwin. You know, the birds, Glen Campbell. They’ve all been through this through my date house. Do you miss those days? Well, sometimes when I reflect on it is so vivid that it does. It almost breaks my heart. When I think about some of the moments that I enjoyed so much. You’re gonna remember the feeling that you had, all of a sudden it comes across your mind, and it makes you start it’s set up, you know, to say, God, you know, how could I possibly have had that much fun?
8:13
You certainly lived life to the max. Oh, yeah. I enjoyed it. I met lots of people. I’ve met lots of girls and I you know, I got married three times.
8:22
Did you like the women? Yeah.
8:25
Well, it was always meet meet and greets. Were you always popular with the girls? I don’t know. I guess it was the territory. I knew it was gonna happen like that. I knew it when I was in high school is no more so than some of the other guys at school, but I got invited to the Sadie Hawkins dance a couple of times after the girl invites the boy of course, I was a gentleman still by that point.
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Speaker 2
8:50
When did you stop becoming a gentleman? Well,
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Speaker 3
8:53
I did. I made it through high school. I actually probably made it through my first year of music school. You know, by that? I mean, I was fairly well behaved. Okay, that’s like that. Because I was very good at time. I was 24
2
Speaker 2
9:08
that very early song you had in 1965 for loving me. That was about the demise of your first marriage, wasn’t it? Yeah.
3
Speaker 3
9:18
I would never write a song like that again. That was brutal. It kind of a way what you would think it would have been insulted the woman I was married to she was a very philosophical lady. She was European. So the song didn’t bother her that much either. It was all towheaded relationship in that which is what I watched and I was embarrassed by it. That’s what you get. That’s what you get
9:49
everything as you can see, that’s words you loving me I hate the guy and do hang around with any new love that I’ve gotten moving in my stock, I’m moving on
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Speaker 3
10:20
for 11 V is one of those tunes that could either be sung by a man or woman. And I never realized that there are songs like that. Go go both ways.
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Speaker 2
10:30
Are you a very different Gordon Lightfoot today than you were in those days? Yeah.
3
Speaker 3
10:35
Because I think I say I’m in a state of repentance. And I had to I had to give up alcohol in 1982. That is a life changing event. I’ll have a drink. Now I was tried for 23 years. During that time, I did my last five albums. Well, I did one for TrueNorth. locally here, too. I was coming out of recovery from some operations from a situation here that almost killed me in 2002. And aortic aneurysm, put me out of business for two and a half years.
2
Speaker 2
11:08
I heard about that. But you recovered well, yeah. And when
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Speaker 3
11:12
I came back, I put together an album and orchestrate got it orchestrated? And then my very last solo album, that would be out number 21. I probably won’t make any more out because I know that Bob Dylan had one too a beautiful album. I love his work.
11:29
Yeah, me too. I think he gets better with age. Do you get better with age? Oh,
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Speaker 3
11:33
you mean as I get as I get older? I as a matter of fact, I can say the same way. As I say the 60 years ago. I say the same way. Should I practice? I don’t practice the vocal. I practice the guitar vocal looks after itself. The vocal always, always comes up last minute as exactly the same things was when I started performing solo and part of the Folk revival. Now I don’t have some of the high notes that I used to be able to have. Can
2
Speaker 2
12:05
I ask you, Gordon, you’ve always loved the women. How did you know that Kim was the right one.
3
Speaker 3
12:12
The first thing I that happened there was I brought her with me. I took her on the road. And she turned out to be one of the best crew members I ever had. Tell me. I could give you a list of things. The stupid about it, but I’ll tell you what, what was the best thing the best things that she does on the road for me? What? Of all a great data she does. She made sure I get fed every night at 6pm She looks after you. She makes sure i get fed is that she makes sure i get fed. That was the first thing she started doing. And then she does all kinds of other stuff. And then she’s great to have and she she loves to travel and she’s a great person.
12:52
Gordon, what is your favorite song?
3
Speaker 3
12:54
Oh gee, I’ve got there are many many songs that I really love to play because they’re easy days or their toe tappers because they’re energetic or they have the forward momentum that I love to have but I would say if you could read my mind that’s my favorite to
4
Speaker 4
13:19
deal with phones go to Jews black no time bout a boost filmer wishin when in a castle or a fortress drone with James a postman you know that goose just
13:47
as long as you can see I could read your words just like the paperback. The drugstores when you reach the pub, were the heart. The hero would be here who have you read that book? Because the name just do ha
14:38
What were you writing about there? Well, I
3
Speaker 3
14:40
was coming to the end of a My whole life has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. And
2
Speaker 2
14:46
so what did the lyrics refer to? Yeah, it was the
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Speaker 3
14:50
end of the first marriage. I don’t even know why I wrote it. I didn’t know I was writing it at the time. I actually never wrote anything about anything. Specifically, if something came into my mind while I was working on a lyric and it found its way in there through some little crack in the doorway, I’d use its poetic license to call it the curse of the songwriter. What does that mean? Well, it comes back to bite you because it gets heard further down the line and people face it they’re written for other people before them. They think that when you do material that you wrote like 30 years ago, if I had now today and find your new your new surroundings, New wife new everything, sometimes resentment occurs that the song was written the ex wife and I’ve gotten myself into that situation this time. And
2
Speaker 2
15:42
golden just final question. What is it that you have for your six o’clock dinner?
3
Speaker 3
15:47
What are you for dinner? Okay, I don’t eat meat because I don’t digest it well, but we have fish and we have fowl and we have very, very regular stuff. I like to eat asparagus. You know, we eat well, we get it done.
2
Speaker 2
16:00
Right, Gordon? Lightfoot, thank you so much for chatting with me. Please stay well and healthy.
3
Speaker 3
16:06
Okay, all well to everybody in Melbourne. Okay, Sandy.
4
Speaker 4
16:11
The legend lives on from the triple wall home down at the big mythical get sugar. Lake in INSEAD never gives up for dead when the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty. That could ship and drew as opposed to be chewed when the gills of November gave earlier. ship was the bread of the American side coming back from some mill in Wisconsin. As the big freighters go it was bigger than most where the crew and the captain were season. Concluding terms with a couple of steel firms when they left fully loaded for clean. Then later on the ship spill could it be the Northwind?
4
Speaker 4
17:32
The wires me the tattletales in the wave
17:41
and everyman you as the captain do. Stealing
2
Speaker 2
17:49
these amazing still isn’t a 83 year old Gordon Lightfoot. Stay tuned. Up next, Elvis Costello walks us through his latest music.
1
Speaker 1
18:01
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kay. It’s a beautiful okay,
2
Speaker 2
18:08
you asked to hear from him. So here he is. Declan Patrick McManus is better known to us as Elvis Costello, the English singer, songwriter and record producer who’s won multiple awards, including Grammys. He’s married to singer Diana Crowl and his dad to three sons. It feels like he’s been around forever with songs like watching the detectives, and this one.
2
Speaker 2
18:53
Is a HMI from Elvis Costello. his more recent offerings are slightly more complicated. And his writing process quite unusual. Thank you so much, Elvis Costello. It’s great to have your company. You’ve been so super busy. Your sixth release since October 2020. Nobody could say the pandemics been bad for you, huh? Well, I
5
Speaker 5
19:15
think it’s, it’s been a lot of things for everybody. You know, you’re worried about your friends and family far away. And sometimes there are difficult things to deal with that I would be grateful for the time that I got to spend with my young sons and my wife. And I am fortunate to have been sort of already underway with making one record, which was became a clockface. And really secretly, we had been working already for nearly two years on a record called Spanish model which the vast increase by producer and CO producer had been putting together with a number of artists from Latin America in Spain singing Spanish adaptations of buy songs from this year’s model record and we had recorded that vocals over the years. Original backing tracks Well, we were just about ready to spring this, you know, admittedly unusual idea on everybody when circumstances you know, meant that it wasn’t really good timing for a release. So, we did put out a clockface. But what people didn’t know was by then we’d already made the boy named Dave
20:27
Good to be with
5
Speaker 5
20:37
you went straight into working in the summer of last year, and I then you know, I had been busy through the spring finishing a clockface and listening to the mixers that Sebastian had been doing several different projects. Steve naive had been busy because he and his partner Ariel to Dory immediately re recorded several songs from a clockface with French language, Iggy Pop being one of them. And Davey Faragher, our bass player, had taught himself to play the double bass the only person who wasn’t very busy was Pete our drummer, he was down in his basement playing his daily routine at his Gretch hit like most drummers, he likes to be ready for the call. He doesn’t want to get rusty.
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Speaker 4
22:02
To measure.
22:24
Sweet
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Speaker 5
22:33
Pete and I were having a kind of conversation, sending the songs back and forth because of the ability to record from anywhere. We weren’t just sending back some little scratchy demo we will make and record then it was a question of really accepting that we were doing something for real, and many ways we all seem to play with more abandon. We were less inhibited for not looking at each other. I don’t know whether it would have been so for every kind of music. But these particular songs which were mostly major key to begin with, and up tempo, or at least they were brighter in tempo than things I’d written most recently, they seem to really suit the way we played, you know. And before we knew where we were, we had this album,
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Speaker 2
23:17
you must have been as surprised as anyone else that you got this together so quickly. And I’ve heard them described as urgent, immediate songs. What was it about you that turned these into urgent, immediate songs? Oh,
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Speaker 5
23:32
I found myself thinking about now 15 year old boys, I have an adult son. When I wrote and recorded this record, my mother was still with us. She you know, I knew that time was an endless for her she had had a major stroke. And she passed in January this year long after we finished the record, that I suppose all of those thoughts, the balance of all of those times in life made me start writing about the different times in life your pass through. And things that you leave behind not always willingly, particularly say initially, the boy named F is talks about imaginary friend, which is a charming invention, to excuse you for various mischief when you’re seven. But when you when you’re still blaming your imaginary friend for your, your expressions, when you’re 37, perhaps less endearing. I said the the records about the transition from being a child to being told to stop acting like a child, which for most men, and some women, I have to say is anytime in the next 50 or 60 years, I wrote portraits or wrote scenes, which became songs of different moments in life that I remembered in in different ways. Some of them real slightly imagined, you know, more romantic, maybe portrait of a teacher that sort of just isn’t so much teaching by the lessons as the example of her own indifference to the job of teaching their mind on a completely different life. I had a teacher like that when I was about my boys age. And I found a very thrilling in a strange sort of way because he was a real person who was evidently going to go somewhere quite exciting
25:20
cloud, red
25:29
jeans
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Speaker 2
25:41
so having both your twin boys and your aging mother at that time really kind of set you in the middle to look at all sides of life and maybe your mortality and
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Speaker 5
25:50
question I can explain why the stories in this record should be the ones they are. I
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Speaker 2
25:54
love how lyric rich, the album is, it’s one of those to sit down and really ponder. And of course, the book that you put out with it that contains the stories enables the listener the reader to do just that, doesn’t it?
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Speaker 5
26:08
Well, I have already devised the the illustration, which is the cover, when the record company told me there was a chance there wouldn’t be an immediate prospect of a vinyl edition for this record. And therefore I was concerned that they that like many records today, that would be a series of individual songs on in a stream and it wouldn’t be heard as a story, or in the way that the songs are supposed to hold together, at least initially. I mean, people will always have their favorite tune. And I have no problem with people listening in any random order they want. Except initially, I’d like to make my case for this group of songs being heard in it, you know, as a piece
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Speaker 2
26:45
in the sequence that you put together because they do tell a story. Yeah.
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Speaker 5
26:49
And I said, Well, why don’t I make that book a reality? Why don’t I make it so you can open it and it’s actual three dimensional object. I had no idea that everybody would take it quite so seriously. I mean, I quickly wrote these short stories, which have the same titles as a song so that I suppose they provide maybe the scene immediately before the lyric begins, or the song begins, or some background detail, or the postscript, whatever you read in them, or take out of them is what’s happening, that I enjoyed writing them. They came to me in about the same amount of time as it took me to write the songs which wasn’t very long. So they seem to kind of all be to want to be together. And I had been working on these illustrations for a number of years now. But this gave me a reason to actually make it have the appearance at least have a children’s storybook even though obviously, the songs are not Songs For Children.
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Speaker 2
27:46
And it refers to the child I think inside each one of us to it certainly provides a much deeper, fuller experience. And I’m so excited that we get back to being able to touch feel smell and and read more about the music just songs just dropped for you. Oh no, I
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Speaker 5
28:02
don’t think of myself as a conduit for some sort of spiritual thing that’s happening there. I think the very highest achievements in writing and performing even sometimes can be in a place like sacraments, but they don’t get there very often. And I will say that there are times when I do go into some sort of, I suppose it’s like a trance, because I’m working I’m aware I’m conscious. I’m not sort of trying to make it sound mysterious, but I won’t be aware of time passing. But I do think when I’m playing the guitar the the possibilities of the harmony are facing away from you. You’re not looking at the fretboard all the time, you’re hearing a tune in your head that rhythm you’re playing on the guitar might carry the words out of you. And before you know it you’ve written some things down and it’s pulling more of the thoughts out that are connected to those that’s the best I can describe it when I right at the piano all of those possibilities of harmony and melody are sort of there and as a diagram on the on the piano something I don’t play very well. So I’m more inclined to go Oh I love that chord and then I’m linger there for one I might end up with quite a lot of music before any literate idea comes to mind any definition I’ve given pieces of music written by other people I’ve had the ponder them a long time to look at hear the words within them. Even though the mood of the music was really clear to me right away and even. So I don’t treat it completely like some sort of elevated spiritual. You know, I hear you.
29:40
Is it always a pleasure though?
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Speaker 5
29:42
Most of the time, it can be frustrating when I’m running with the guitar, particularly that music pulling the words out of you sort of thing happens up to a point and then you have to stop to consider what you have. And the example would be something like mistook me for a friend from about halfway through this record. It’s a song about being a young man in a town where you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know who you’re in love with. All your allegiances have all been turned upside down. And it’s the words are tumbling out trying to describe this in very quick images, that at some point I, I stopped and thought I have to get into the next section. So there’s a guitar figure, which is very composed, you know, I actually thought I need something to stop the flow of the words and start the next part of the story. So that’s craft, isn’t it? That part when I wrote that guitar, figure is craft. The other things are inspiration. So it’s a combination of the two, there’s a certain amount of consideration of how corn is a term that comes after the initial rush of inspiration.
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Speaker 1
30:47
Right? Mr. McMahon firm friend, Sam said follow me, Faber.
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Speaker 2
31:07
You’re obviously still as passionate as you were, when you first set out? Well,
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Speaker 5
31:11
I think if I were not different in some way, there would be something badly wrong, however, anything at all, for that matter, have any sense of a certain degree of the good fortune that’s come my way. And the collaborations that I’ve had most of all I have to say, because it’s the volume of work that we’ve done together. Two of the people that play on this record I’ve played with on and off for 45 years now all those collaborations whether they be for one song or 15 songs or 30 songs, and a couple of those co writers are very, very notable people Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach people remark on that, but, you know, then there’s the other 350 songs that I’ve written on my own, you know, I mean, there’s there’s obviously fortune and there’s there would be a sense of both gratitude that they came to me, and that somebody still wants to hear something that I wrote quite a long time ago.
32:30
is watching.
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Speaker 5
32:55
I didn’t go to college, if I didn’t go to university, I didn’t go to art school. That should be obvious from looking at my illustrations at school either. I probably have learned all the more formal things of music along the way I learned notate music when I was 14. Before that, I used to have to try and communicate my ideas by describing things. And that’s fine. When you’re talking about three chords with a group of musicians, you can play the acoustic guitar. So it kind of goes like this, when you’re trying to communicate with, you know, 60 string players, you can’t do that. So those things that I’ve done, which have been very different to the tools that made the original machine that I started with, those things have sometimes been a little shocking to people that were in love that with those first records. But for me, that was the learning that put me in another place further along. And then the next thing happened put me somewhere else. If I hadn’t made these other really wayward sounding things, I would not tell anyone I wouldn’t have recognized the excitement of these songs. I’m very, very proud of the couple of the ballads on our last record had clockface we had the opportunity to hear them sung back to me in another language then to go through that process with a record from 4344 years ago, this year’s model and meet all these new singers and hearing Spanish model and hearing songs I wrote when I was 23 about a young man’s gaze at a glamorous woman and wondering how much her glamour disguised her real self. Do you hear that same song sung by a 24 year old chalet in pop singer who is the girl on the poster looking out at us? That’s pretty exciting.
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Speaker 5
35:25
Elvis Costello, I just want you all. Can we swell? But I want it. We involve coming to Australia. Very, very pleasure to speak with you. We will be back and we will have all these songs and we will have so much to catch up with the beat Great.
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Speaker 2
35:39
Elvis Costello, thank you so much for your time. All the best. Bye, bye. What do you think of the latest music? Are you a fan? Or do you prefer the older more traditional stuff? Either way, Elvis Costello has a lot to offer as an artist doesn’t eat. Hang in there. Now. We’re about to meet someone that everyone loves Peter Frampton.
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Speaker 1
36:01
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kay.
36:04
It’s a beautiful thing.
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Speaker 2
36:07
Hi, again, if you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that this segment is where you get to choose the guest. I always ask you who you’d like to hear from, and invite you to send me a message through the website, a breath of fresh air.com Today you to let me know who you’d like me to find and invite onto the show? Well, I’m very happy to say I’ve been inundated with requests. And you’ve been asking to hear from Peter Frampton. The English superstar is known for being one of the nicest guys around. But he’s also one of the most talented guitar players in the world. And for many years, his musicianship just wasn’t taken seriously. Hey, Peter Frampton. Hello, how are you?
36:51
I’m fine in yourselves.
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Speaker 2
36:53
I’m very well, thank you for sharing your time. Oh, you’re very welcome. Congratulations, Peter, on what’s been the most amazing musical journey. And one that you’ve detailed in your new book called Do you feel like I do. There are not too many tales of rock and roll where good looks have really stood in your way. Or they’re,
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Speaker 6
37:13
well, good looks can work for you, obviously, as long as you’ve got the talent, otherwise, you don’t last very long. So my looks have got me into trouble was along the way. So it’s something whereby, yes, it might have opened the door in certain situations. But if I couldn’t come through with the talent, I wouldn’t have got anywhere. I read
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Speaker 2
37:36
in the book that you are often upset by the fact that you were considered a teen idol, rather than saying for the brilliant musician that you’ve always been? Yeah,
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Speaker 6
37:46
I think that I use this sort of math that a teenybopper. Korea last as long as the teenyboppers, a teenyboppers, which is about a year and a half. So they grow up and then they grow out here, whereas a musician’s Korea lasts a lifetime.
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Speaker 2
38:04
I have to tell you from one once teenybopper, I never grew out of you.
38:12
Well, thank you.
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Speaker 2
38:13
I know what prompted you to write the book in the first place? Well,
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Speaker 6
38:17
obviously I’ve thought about it over the years, but I think it was we got to a point where I was diagnosed with IBM, mind muscle disease. And at that point, I realized that my live future plane was going to be somewhat limited. I’m still doing fine right now with my hands and everything. But it’s getting a little challenging. But I realized that maybe now was the time to do the book.
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Speaker 2
38:45
It’s recently been the 45th anniversary of Frampton comes alive. What do you think it was about that album that it became such a massive thing sold over 14 million copies, and still just as good today as it was, then obviously,
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Speaker 6
39:02
I don’t really know. Otherwise, I’d be bottling it and selling it, you know,
39:06
I thought that’s what you did.
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Speaker 6
39:10
There’s something I’m a performer, it’s pretty obvious that maybe my library was my biggest one. Because there’s something that happens to me, when I leave the side of the stage and walk on where I become a different animal. And in the studio, it’s not quite the same. There’s the energy that the crowd give you. And the fact that there is no take to you can’t do it again, tonight’s the night every night, but you’re out there and everything that I do on stage just comes at the moment. That’s the thing that’s captured on the record. I think that there’s an enjoyment of what we’re doing that comes across when you play
40:00
How you feel this ringing in
40:03
my ear to relate to say a
40:17
meeting
40:28
stop
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Speaker 6
40:49
lines on my face I think is my favorite song that I’ve written because of the emotion that it brings to me every time I’ve seen it. Does it still bring those emotions? Yes, it does. It’s it takes me back to that time. And yeah, I I’m acting it out basically each time a singer and I go back take myself back to that period, because the words are so obvious what’s going on, you know that I’m losing. I’m losing somebody in a relationship. It’s ending. And I think everybody can identify with that, as well as they can identify with woke up this morning with a wineglass in my hand, you know, there’s there’s one extreme to the other. bands on my head. One thing she said. She spoke out strange that Steve Toobin kept on trying to buy in China. Not waiting, I somehow got the feeling that I am today you came from. But there’s no answers on your doorstep.
2
Speaker 2
42:29
At the books filled with all sorts of stories from horrible ones, where you’ve been ripped off by management, but also to some really terrific ones that really celebrate your career. Yes.
6
Speaker 6
42:40
Which one? Would you like me to talk about the bad or the good? The Good, The Bad or the ugly?
42:46
You couldn’t possibly talk about the ugly?
6
Speaker 6
42:50
Oh, yes, I could, but not here. Let’s see, obviously, everyone says, well, what’s the best thing that happened to you in your career? And all the best things I think that happened to me while playing with my heroes. One
2
Speaker 2
43:03
of Peter Frampton his heroes was David Bowie. And Peter says the highlight of his entire career was playing with David on the glass spider tour. Dave
6
Speaker 6
43:13
could have had anybody on the planet play guitar for him. But he chose me. Dave knew me as the musician. And he saw what had happened because of the looks, which he had. But he kept reinventing himself. He was cleverer than I was. And he saw that there was incredible misrepresentation of what I was by clothes. I was wearing photographs and my good looks at the time, you know, he gave me this gift of reintroducing me around the world in stadiums and arenas. It gave me so much more visibility because of his sanctioning me as a guitar player.
2
Speaker 2
43:53
So that was 1987 when you headed out with him and your next solo album, when all the pieces fit came in 1989 it really turned your career around again at that point, didn’t it?
6
Speaker 6
44:03
Yes, it did. And it gave me the impetus to to get out there and just tour until until and then we did a few albums and then I did an instrumental record called fingerprints and would you believe it? The thing garnered a Grammy for me.
6
Speaker 6
44:45
When I was diagnosed, and we decided to do the this was right after the last tour of 2018 with with Steve Miller Ben I’ve been sitting in with Steve doing some blues with him in his set because we Go on first and then I’d go play with him. And I’d really got the barbecue. I really got the blues bug. So the thing that I knew that I needed to do was to record as much as I could in the shorter space of time, because at that point, I had no idea how quickly my IBM was going to get worse. So I didn’t do any writing. But for these albums, but we did three albums, we did all blues, there’s another blues album there of stuff, more acoustic glues, and then we did an instrumental album or of all covers. We’re down done three albums in three months or less. And then I was getting so inspired. I started writing songs, and we’ve done a new Peter Frampton solo album as well.
6
Speaker 6
46:45
This new instrumental album is called Frampton forgets the words,
46:50
I got to ask why it’s called
46:51
Bob. It’s just an instrumental album.
46:55
So why did you do an instrumental album?
6
Speaker 6
46:57
Well, I think that I did so well with the first one which had obviously, mainly original material on it, but I just had this idea that was time for another one. It’s all covers this time. So there’s Radiohead. There’s David Bowie. There’s George Harrison. There’s Sly and the Family Stone. It just goes on all my favorite artists, Roxy Music I did Avalon and my guitar, I have to say it myself is the closest sounding guitar to his voice. I tried to capture the mood of his voice. And He’s so clever. I so wonderful, and I’ve got pretty close to it.
2
Speaker 2
48:26
Is it less demanding to do an instrumental than to play and sing? Not
6
Speaker 6
48:30
really no, because with a song, you can have a nice instrumental intro. But the words even though you’re singing the same melody, you know, for each verse, and each chorus, you’ve got words, to make a difference, except for the chorus is nearly always the same. So it keeps people’s interest for when you make an instrumental. You don’t have any words, and you’re playing the same melody all the time. So you have to make it more interesting. Because there are no lyrics there. So I that’s what we tried to do.
2
Speaker 2
49:02
Yeah. And in terms of your IBM, I mean, you said that you’re managing okay, you managed to to play guitar at home, it’s actually more manageable than what you thought it was originally.
6
Speaker 6
49:14
It’s a slower progression than I thought it was going to be. So yes, it is starting to affect my playing a little bit but I am so optimistic always that I will be able to do my best
49:31
so long for my hand across the day turns into not following farther away from the city
49:59
today I’m
50:17
gonna tell you
2
Speaker 2
50:48
with the help of some five Peter Frampton, it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. I thank you so much for your time. Thanks
6
Speaker 6
51:00
so much and hope to see you when I do come over there. Bye bye. And
2
Speaker 2
51:05
thank you for giving me your ear this week too. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from my special guests on this 100th episode. If you have, maybe you could tell your friends about a breath of fresh air and ask them to subscribe to the podcast to check out all the back episodes. You’ll also find lots of pretty cool information as well as a heap of uncut zoom interviews on my website. The breath of fresh air.com.au See you next week for show 101 I hope so. I can’t wait to see you then. Because it’s beautiful.
1
Speaker 1
51:43
You’ve been listening to a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye