One Hour To Doors
One Hour To Doors: A podcast about the business and soul of the festivals and events industry. Every episode explores the people, issues, insights and trends impacting the enterprise of bringing people and communities together in common cause.
Your host, renowned PNW event producer and 2023 Washington Festivals and Events Association Hall of Fame inductee Jon Stone offers you a seat at the table in conversations that take you onstage and backstage, from the production office to the board room, and throughout the broad community of participants who come together to create the magic of live events.
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One Hour To Doors
John McEuen - Musicians Perspective
This week we visit with the illustrious John McEuen, whose fingers have danced across banjo strings to the rhythm of a music revolution. Reflecting on his journey, John transports us from his first brush with Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" to the halls of fame with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Our hearts beat to the strumming of nostalgia as we explore the band's early days, their rise through the ranks of bluegrass, folk and country, and the magical intersection of music and childhood memories.
A sprinkle of Disney dust transforms our conversation, taking us from the acoustic corners of Orange County to the poignant notes played at the funeral of Mickey Mouse's voice actor, Wayne Allwine. Music's role in the tapestry of our lives is revealed in heartfelt stories, the hustle of a musician's path, and the whimsical moments that connect us to the greater narrative of Americana. Through John's multifaceted career, we uncover his habit of wearing many hats, from road managing to promoting music festivals like the Deadwood Jam.
Put on your headphones and settle in for a discussion that harmonizes the echo of a life in music with sage advice for those just beginning their journey. John and Jon share a laugh over the quirks of the industry, shared passions, and the simple joy of a well-tied knot trick. Join us for an episode that's not just an interview but a concert, filled with the melodies of life, laughter, and the unexpected chords that make every tune worth listening to.
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Hey, this is John McEuen and you're listening to One Hour to Doors.
Jon Stone:This is One Hour to Doors, a podcast about the business and soul of the festivals and events industry. I am your host, Jon Stone. Every episode of One Hour to Doors explores the people, issues, insights and trends impacting the enterprise of bringing people and communities together in common cause. Our guest today is truly a living legend in the music industry. John McEuen is a multi-instrumentalist and wearer of many hats in Bluegrass, americana, folk and country music. He won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2009. He received the 2016 Independent Music Award for Best Americana Album. He was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2017. He co-founded the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1966. And his 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken was inducted into the Library of Congress as one of America's most important recordings and the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Grammy Hall of Fame. Particularly interesting to me is the fact that John has managed to maintain a career in the music industry for some 60 years and appears to be gaining momentum. Welcome to the show, John.
John McEuen:I'm tired hearing all that yeah About that Okay.
Jon Stone:I'm just going to ask a question right off the bat. What is your earliest memory of music as a child In first grade my aunt had a little restaurant In MacArthur, california.
John McEuen:My aunt Peggy and it was a little it had like 12 seats at the counter and one table and it was right at a junction in the road and she had a jukebox and Hank Williams Jamble Iow was on that jukebox. Oh man, and I must have played that thing enough to make her want to bury me in the backyard. But that was amazing to me and that was it.
John McEuen:Other than that the music was my parents singing Broadway songs as we drove along in the car, you know, and singing the top heart of my heart. I love that melody, love the melody. You know, that kind of music wasn't Jamble Iow. But I didn't pick that up again until I was maybe 15, 16 years old. I started listening, I started playing music until I was 17. Oh wow, and at 17 and a half I heard the Dillards at a club in Orange County. Dillards were the Darling family on the Andy Griffith show and I heard that five string banjo and Rodney Dillard let's say he's a lifelong friend now.
John McEuen:I got to know the Dillards and Rodney mainly, and it changed my life. It was a college student and I became a failing college student. Well, I didn't fail that here. I was a 3.8 high school student. That that my first F was in calculus. Actually it was a D. It wasn't an F, I got it, probably got a D, but that was because I was playing banjo all the time in the music room and music room at the college and copying Doug Dillard as much as I could. It was 18, 19 years old, you know, obsessed with banjo, so it was banjo your first instrument no guitar for six months.
John McEuen:And then I heard the banjo at 17 and a half, I see, and at 18 years old my father gave me a five string banjo for my birthday that my brother had picked out. My father didn't know anything about it. Go find Johnny a banjo, you know. And he did at a college. He did at a guitar store in Long Beach called McCabe's Guitar Shop, which was where the nitty gritty dirt ban got together in 1966. Oh really, yeah, a few years, everything is. When I read about my life, I go, oh, that's an interesting script, you know, I ended up. I ended up hanging out at McCabe's. I went to Long Beach State College just because it was only seven minutes away from McCabe's.
Jon Stone:Well, you and you and I, we talked on the phone a week or two ago and I shared with you that my earliest memory of music. I know that I was not yet four years old by virtue of understanding where my family lived at the time, right, and in the mornings, my dad, when he'd be getting ready for work, he would shave in the bathroom and he'd have the door open and he'd have a little cassette player in there and he always, every day, listened to dirt band and credence. And those are the first memories in my head of listening to and enjoying music. So I'm sorry, it's a kind of a strange full circle to be sitting here speaking with you some 50 years later.
John McEuen:I'm sorry to have messed up your childhood.
Jon Stone:When was your first public performance and what was that?
John McEuen:like. Well, I did magic tricks for a while. I was a magician at 15, 16 years old and I did about 20, 25 shows. But the first musical performance I don't really remember it was one of the clubs in Orange County. It was either the Golden Bear or the Mona Mee or the Paradox. Oh, that was the same place. They changed names and Sid's Blue Beet was where my brother and I worked as a duo. We had a job for two months. We played every Friday and Saturday, made $100 a piece. That was a lot of money then. Wow, yeah, it was a lot of dough then and it's about the same now actually.
Jon Stone:Yeah, I was going to say that would be a fair rate today yeah.
John McEuen:Yeah, we played Bluegrass. We played Jimmy Martin music and Flatts and Scruggs and Dillard songs. He played guitar and sang. He passed away a few years ago. He was my manager, managed the dirt band. I mean, here's a couple of kids playing kids. I just say because I was 18, 19, 20 and he was five years older Playing at this club or that club Every now and then, like a few times a month, we would play. Then the dirt band got together in 1966 and Did the dirt band take off pretty quickly.
John McEuen:No, we put out our first album. It had a minor hit on it, buy For Me the Rain, which was a pretty good song written by some friends. It was one of the only two of the only songs that we were doing that this producer likes. So he signed us Delivery Records and we made three more albums that did progressively worse and you know they had a cult following to be nice and I loved them. They were really well. I loved parts of them. I was playing banjo guitar, mandolin and lap guitar and anyway.
John McEuen:And then our fifth album was Uncle Charlie and his dog Teddy. That's when we started getting out there. That had some of Shelly's blues and House of Poo Corner and Mr Bojangles and my brother produced that album and it had some bluegrass on it and Earl Scruggs heard that bluegrass and he came to see the band. We played Nashville for the first time at the college there at Vanderbilt. His son Gary brought us and brought the whole Scruggs family with him and that was a big shock to me. You can find information about all of that and you can find the video of Earl meeting me and the rest of the band. My brother had a Sony video camera and he was shooting. It's black and white and it's amazing that this was captured. This is usually something you just talk about, but no Earl sitting there listening watching me play. When he came in, I asked him Earl Scruggs, what are you coming to see us for?
Jon Stone:Yeah, "what are you doing here?".
John McEuen:I mean we'd saw him two years before at the Grand Old Opry when my brother and I made our way out in the pickup truck to go see the Opry. It was sold out that hot August Saturday night. But the back windows were open, the big windows in the north side of the Ryman were up and we went around back and right. When I looked in, Lester Flat went up to the mic and said Earl and I are going to bring out Mama Maybell Carter to do the Wildwood flower, and the place went nuts. And I did too. You can see, can you see the stage from the window? Oh, yeah, yeah, it was like one row back behind the back row. It was a perfect view.
John McEuen:I don't know why that happened. Why was it right? When I walked up to that window and I said to my brother I got to record with those guys or meet them or get their autograph, I wasn't any good. Then there wasn't a nitty gritty, dirt band. It was 1965. And you know I had to get a band together. And oh, let's call me up, let's stop in. The bass player that plays with me now on the road called me up in 1966. He was 17. And hey, we're getting the band together here at the McCabe's Guitar Shop. You want to come play with us? And I went, okay, I'll give you the shot. And that shot lasted 50 years.
Jon Stone:Wow, you know you mentioned the shock of seeing that video footage of Earl Scruggs meeting you. As time goes on, that's something that just fascinates me more and more. How much stuff is turning up on the internet? Yeah, Somebody had a camera, you know it's just amazing.
John McEuen:Well, this somebody was my brother who ended up. Six months later I went to a club Earl was playing and I asked him if he'd record with the nitty gritty dirt band and he said I'd be proud to. And I asked Doc Watson the next night playing the same club Hi, doc, I'm glad to be you. We're doing an album with Earl Scruggs. We weren't doing an album. He said I'd be proud to record with us and Doc said yes. My brother said I'm going to get Merle Travis. On Monday he got Merle Travis, who always wanted to meet Doc Watson.
John McEuen:Tuesday Earl got us Maybelle Carter. But, earl, do you think Maybelle Carter might be interested? I'd love Maybelle Carter for years before the Dirt Band and Flatts and Scruggs in an album called Songs of the Famous Carter Family and I ate it up in 1963. I wanted to do Keep on the Sunny Side with Maybelle as well as a few other songs. But I thought that was important and we asked his wife, Louise, who managed Earl Louise, do you think you could get Jimmy Martin for us? Well, I'll give him a call. So that was really fun. And she got Jimmy Martin and the rest is history.
Jon Stone:And the rest is history.
John McEuen:And the dirt band was on the road making concerts and had doing other albums. We did All the Good Times and Stars and Stripes Forever. Right after the Circle album. We did 21 shows leading up to going to Nashville to record the Circle album, which took six days. Six days to record that To 34 songs, and they were a couple of 12-hour days, a couple of six-hour, seven-hour days.
Jon Stone:That's incredible, that's hard for me to wrap my mind around.
John McEuen:Well, there were a lot of first takes because we just knew that. Roy Acuff, he told us boys, we got to get it right the first time and the hell with the rest of them. And that's what he said and it's on the record.
Jon Stone:You know, in the studio over the years I've watched, true, first take musicians and marveled at them, but I've never been a first take musician.
John McEuen:Well, you know Frank Sinatra. What's his name? The lead singer in Alabama, kenny Rogers A lot of people. If Sinatra didn't get it in that first take, like Kenny Rogers, he would move on. Well, I don't know that one. Listen, I'll come back to it later on. Let's do it some other time. But you know, you do, it is different. It's like playing live, if you think of it that way.
Jon Stone:Do you suppose some of those guys like let's just take Kenny Rogers, is their ability to first take? Is that just like? I mean, they're just naturally gifted that way? Or is it a reflection of they did an enormous amount of work on the front end so that they could come in and get in the first take.
John McEuen:I think it's a reflection of several things that they have a lot of talent and they have a lot of drive and they have a lot of input. All that leads up to them rehearsing and learning the song. Why do you go into a studio when you don't know a song? You?
Jon Stone:yeah.
John McEuen:I mean it's. I understand the point of some groups. I have even done it myself, where you go in and work up a song and you add to it and you've got a dog and you've do it and it takes two days maybe, but there's a dentist. Go, let's see what tooth was that? Was that?
Minnie Mouse:Oh, what's wrong.
John McEuen:You know good point. You know there's a pilot on the plane. Yeah, we'll be getting to Pittsburgh and about it. Oh, no, we're going to Philadelphia, we're going to right point taken, so why not do it? It's a lot cheaper too.
Jon Stone:I'm gonna ask you to humor me for a second. You said something earlier that triggered a thought you had mentioned your first performances were actually a magic show, a magic routine, and I read somewhere that you worked at Disneyland as a teenager, correct?
John McEuen:I wanted to get a job at the magic shop in Disneyland when I was 16. Steve Martin did too. He was working in venture land at the time. We both got the job on the same day.
Jon Stone:It was like at the magic shop.
John McEuen:Yeah, hooray, we were. I mean, steve was a 16 year old and so was I. Neither one of us played music. We worked there for three years and it was a wonderful time.
Jon Stone:So here's my question for you Did you ever see Walt Disney like in the flesh?
John McEuen:Three times Disney came to the park while I was working there. One time he was walked over to the wishing well with the entourage. The wishing well was right outside of the fantasy land castle, on the right side right and they're trying to solve a problem.
John McEuen:He'd had a bunch of statues made of snow white and the seven dwarfs in Italy and had them shipped to Disneyland. They all came. They were all the same size. So snow white and the seven dwarfs were all the same size, which didn't quite make sense. Yeah, and Disney's, he didn't want to ship them back. Okay, he didn't want to make new seven dwarfs and keep the snow white. And he didn't want to make a snow white that was in scale, because she'd be like 25 feet tall, you know. So he goes here's what we do and make a waterfall. He said make a waterfall with the perspective of it going up the hill to the top of the waterfall and put snow white up there and and put the dwarfs down here in the foreground.
Jon Stone:It will force perspective.
John McEuen:It will force perspective and it looks right. Wow, what a great memory. And the other memory was one of them he was. They didn't let him out of the firehouse. Firehouse the firehouse on Main Street is where he had an apartment, and one time he was just a little too tipsy. That's what the word was and.
John McEuen:I'm gonna. And then the other time we was walking around the park and it was like Wow, you know it's really cool. But he certainly had the vision. My daughter I started taking her to Disneyland when she was four years old and when she was in high school she did a term paper on Walt Disney and and the years went by and my strange career led to me playing at the funeral of Mickey Mouse. What I got? A call one morning. My wife said it's some lady with a high voice.
Minnie Mouse:Yeah, well, my husband just died and he was your biggest fan and I would just love it if you'd play in his funeral.
John McEuen:And I? What did he do?
Minnie Mouse:for 35 years he was a voice of Mickey Mouse, really the yes, his name was Wayne all-white and he played trumpet and piano and banjo and guitar. Anyway, he was a.
John McEuen:He was a big fan he had my solo albums and I think he had a couple dirt band albums. I said what do you do, ma'am? I do the voice of Minnie and Excuse me, you do Minnie Mouse and your husband does Mickey. Yeah.
Jon Stone:So was he actually the fellow that did Mickey after Walt passed?
John McEuen:No, Walt only did it a little bit, but he did Mickey for 35 years and she tried out for many. He approved her and so they got married the next year and I'm out there at Forest Law and a couple of days later, standing next to Wayne Allwine's coffin, Mickey's coffin, playing to a bunch of people. Well, they weren't people, they were like Pluto, Goofy, the fairy, godmother and all those kinds of voice actors. Kermit was even there and I did about 100 people, I did about a 20 minute little set and she hands me his banjo and goes it's time for the song. I start playing the Vicky Mouse song Ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding and everybody starts singing M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E. And it got really weird. Wow, it got really weird because when it got to the part Mickey Mouse, it gets to the part M-I-C. She walks up to the coffin, M-I-C.
Minnie Mouse:She goes see you real soon.
John McEuen:It was really.
Jon Stone:That is surreal.
John McEuen:I never did acid. I never did any drugs I didn't need to. I had things like this going on.
Jon Stone:That is probably the most surreal thing I've ever heard, but it's also kind of beautiful.
John McEuen:Yes, it was and K-E-Y why? Because I love you. And it was like really strange when they had the dozen doves that they let go two at a time and they flew around the little grass area and they flew out over one area and that one area where Walt Disney was buried his crypt was right, they flew right over it. The hair stand on my arm right now just thinking about that Me too.
John McEuen:I was just like wow, anyway, that's a strange career of mine. I've played with Roy Ac uff, I've played with Williw Nelson, leon Russell. You know Steve Vai, you know who that is, of course, and I and I we did doing banjos and a benefit for dogs.
Jon Stone:Really, is that on? Can I find that on YouTube?
John McEuen:No, no, I don't think so. I'm going to try. It was in somebody's backyard. It was in somebody's backyard. Nobody had video cameras.
Jon Stone:Again. When we were talking a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that, at least on the early part of your career with the dirt band, you're actually wearing more than one hat in addition to playing in the band. You said you were road managing as well while you guys were on tour.
John McEuen:Well, when we started, I was 21. I was 20, but by the time we had our first hit, I was 21 and we would go on the road. I was the only one old enough to rent a car, and so I had to go rent the car and I had to drive it. You had to drive it and I had to know where it was going, and you can't expect the 18-year-old that's having not their first beer, but anyway, there's a bunch of goofballs out on the road.
Jon Stone:Well, that had to have been tough for you, or was it I?
John McEuen:thought it was fun. It was part of the deal, part of the challenge, part of the thing. Everybody had their own. Some people pulled different weights. It was a good thing. I also promoted concerts Over the years. I had six children and I don't care who you are If you're playing in a country, rock or whatever band it was. It takes a lot of money to raise six kids in the Rocky Mountains, and I mean it takes to raise them nice to pay for the heating and the gas. Our house was here and the high school was over there 14 miles and the grade school was over here 13 miles. So if you had to take the kids to school, you take the sports, though, or if they missed a bus, or if there was a play or if there was whatever.
Jon Stone:So the cost of raising the large family was part of what was driving you to work so hard for so long.
John McEuen:I don't know, I think it was for sure. It made me do other things. It made me play solo. I did my first solo gig within the Dirt Band in 1977. I had been playing solo before the band started Our playing with other people, like Michael Martin Murphy. I did six months with him in 1965. I ended up playing on five of his albums. That was nice. I played with other people and so I started promoting concerts or doing concerts in Deadwood, South Dakota. I was playing up there once and the women running the show three different ladies what if we do a concert up here?
Minnie Mouse:You think we could do a concert or a show.
John McEuen:Anyway, would you help us In 1990, they didn't know anything about music promotion or whatever I said. Well, I think we should do a show and call it the Deadwood Jam. It ended up being a two day show, friday and Saturday, from noon to 10 o'clock every day. Each day I booked a lot of people like Leon Russell, fabulous Thunderbirds, ramblin, jack Kelly, art, ligothry, america a broad variety of mid-range acts, a couple of well, some people would think of them as more than mid-range, but in the realities of showbiz it was a gig, it was a show. It was in the middle of nowhere in Deadwood, south Dakota. It was a two day concert. It was really fun. Then I booked some promotions for corporate shows Jansport you're familiar with Jansport Company. I'm very familiar with Jansport. I worked with Skip Yal, one of the guys that created it. I learned a lot from him.
Jon Stone:So another small universe example For a few years, skip was my next door neighbor when I was a child. Oh wow.
John McEuen:Small world Did he sell?
Jon Stone:popcorn, then I have no recollection of popcorn. I was just a little kid.
John McEuen:He loved popcorn. We marketed it on the side. I didn't know that. Yeah, he passed away several years ago.
Jon Stone:So most musicians do not manage to extend their career across a lifetime. How have you managed to do that?
John McEuen:Still trying to make it. I guess you know when you have friends like John Denver, who I met when he was John Duchen-Dorf playing in the Chad Mitchell trio, then he left and became John Denver and handed me an album one night in Houston and said hey, john, I think this got a hit on it. The record company says they really like it here, take it home. Well, you better sign it. Anyway, it was Country Roads and it was a hit. It was a giant. It started his career for real.
John McEuen:When you have people like Jose Feliciano, who I met when he was 17 and drove him around we played clubs in Southern California. I remember once, after a couple of years, he goes hey, john, can you take me to the Irvine College? I've got a gig up there. Oh sure, I figured he's playing a coffee house or something you know. Yeah, I get there and the gymnasium is full of people waiting to see Jose Feliciano. I ended up playing a couple songs with him but he did the show and he killed Like my fire had been out for about two months the Jose version which I was proud of, instead of that weirdo Jim Morrison. Jose did a lot better with that song.
Jon Stone:You know, when I look through your full discography, your full story. If I had to use one word to summarize it, it would be collaboration. You appear to have collaborated in one form or another with just about everybody.
John McEuen:As far as I can, tell Well, quite a few people. Yeah, I've been very lucky.
Jon Stone:Yeah, that's remarkable.
John McEuen:You know, it's very. You say you studied Walt Disney.
Jon Stone:Yeah, I've become kind of fascinated with him over the last 10 or 15 years.
John McEuen:Well, he was a good example of somebody that did it a little strange. Walt Disney presents Well, what about all the people that made this thing? What about the artist? What about the guy that created Goofy? What about Walt Disney presents? Now, I understand that that is the way some people work, but I like collaboration and I try to give people credit and then they end up making it, Steve Martin being one of the early ones. My brother started managing him. That was really a wonderful thing. Bill, you got to come see Steve. He's really being funny. He's really cracking me up and some other people and some of the audience. I got tapes of Steve with people who are laughing like and people is like 20 or 30 people in a club, you know, and he's doing these silly bits. I was there, you know the excuse me, routine.
Jon Stone:Well, excuse me, you familiar with that. I'm very familiar with that one.
John McEuen:I was there the night he did that the first time. Wow, in San Francisco he was either opening for the dirt band or I was opening for him. He said look, I'm going to do this thing next in my set, where I'm going to say I want the lights changed and I've told the light man do not change the lights, no matter what I say, do not change the lights. Would you go up in the light booth and make sure he doesn't change the lights? I went, okay, sure, I'm going to do a little bit of a mellow thing. I could use some light, blue light, and I'm getting a da, da, da, da, da. I could use some light, some blue light, blue Lights don't change, they're all bright. I you know it gets into that thing. What's?
Minnie Mouse:up. I figure you know more about show business than I do. I'm down here, it's my ass, and da, da, da da.
John McEuen:If you don't think it well, excuse me. And the place was worried. They were this guy's going crazy. Yeah, and nobody's ever seen a comedian like that right yeah, on stage. He's assaulting the light man, calling him an idiot, and when he went, excuse me, he starts playing the banjo. The place just exploded, I'm telling you. You couldn't hear anything but laughter for two minutes.
Jon Stone:No, I mean, that was when he became a cultural phenomenon. I can remember that time, I can remember those shows, I can remember those routines, but I was still pretty young so I didn't necessarily like actually understand all of the humor. It was his physicality is what was cracking me.
John McEuen:Yeah he was really good as a child.
Jon Stone:But what Steve Martin means to me from that time is I can remember my father. My dad is an electrician, a commercial industrial electrician. My dad has literally worked his butt off his entire life hard physical labor, and so when he was home he'd usually be exhausted. But I can remember when he'd watched those Steve Martin specials he would laugh hard I think the hardest I've ever seen my old man laugh in his life and that made me as a child. It just made me feel so good to see my father enjoying himself for that half hour special or whatever it was so.
Jon Stone:you produced Steve's album. Say more about that.
John McEuen:My brother produced his first four albums, the comedy albums. That was in the 70s and 1980. And then he started getting to where he wanted them. I moved to New York City for a period of five, six years because I needed to make some new things happen. I had exhausted LA and one of the things that happened was Steve called one day and said hey, can you come over to my place? And well, sure, and I went over to his place and listened to five banjo tunes, or maybe six, just the banjo recorded on his computer, and you think he's already good. I said, steve, those are real good. You got to make an album. Then I got to produce it. Why do you have to produce it? Because I know you, you love music. You love Music, man.
John McEuen:Appalachian Spring is one of your favorite albums and you like Flatts and Scruggs of 1948, 1952 era. And I know you and I know all that. You got to trouble my friend right here in Music City. Well, I'm sure I'm a billiard player, I like the same things and you appreciate Disneyland. We both did and I got the job.
John McEuen:You didn't think that music was. You think this music is any good, steve? You're going to have to go on the road and play it. No, I can't, I can't go out, I can't, I'm done performing. No, you aren't. And here's the thing when you go out with a successful album which this one will be successful, I'm not sure how much, but it'll do some good for you you stand there for three or four minutes playing the song and you can think about what is the next thing you're going to say, and then you stand there for three or four minutes playing the song. In other words, you're only going to have to be funny or do what Steve Martin does for 20 minutes out of 75. Right, right. He started performing and then he found a band in North Carolina and they went out.
John McEuen:And anyway, it worked really well for him.
Jon Stone:A couple of questions just for fun, for all of the travels around the world that you've done as a musician. Two questions First approximately how many countries do you think you've visited 15. Okay, so of those, if you had to live somewhere other than the United States, would it be one of those countries or would it be one of? So which one?
John McEuen:Oh, that's a hard one to guess. France, why? That's just pretty, it's nice and they have good food. There's no artificial ingredients. There's no artificial flavors and colors and there's great crops France or Italy. It's a toss up, maybe because they're close to Ireland. Both of them and Ireland's always fun.
Jon Stone:I would like to visit Ireland a lot. It's been on my list for a long time.
Minnie Mouse:You're old enough, just over yeah.
John McEuen:Yeah, what do you mean by that? You're old enough to go.
Jon Stone:Yeah, you think they'd let me in? Yeah.
John McEuen:I mean you save up a certain amount of money, buy a cheap ticket. You can get there for five, six hundred dollars. I'd like to visit Galway. Yeah, You're old enough.
Jon Stone:Second question, just for fun. So we've talked about this extraordinary amount of collaboration that you have accomplished over the years. Have you ever been, or do you ever still get, starstruck?
John McEuen:Starstruck by somebody.
Jon Stone:Yeah.
John McEuen:I opened for Celine Dion one time at a benefit thing. Wow really. And if I was going to get starstruck it seemed like that would be it. But she was just a regular person. It's funny how that works. She was really nice. We took a picture together of an album I'd produced of a bunch of guys in Africa. Anyway, she was very sweet, very nice. And Dolly Parton, I don't know, she's just. I'm going to open a makeup line, cost a lot of money to look this cheap. She's very funny.
Jon Stone:She is a comedian in her own right yeah.
John McEuen:And Johnny Cash. Now there was a character. There was a real complicated recorded with him, played with him a dozen times, hung out where he was and starstruck the ones that act like stars. I can do without.
Jon Stone:You know nice to meet him.
John McEuen:Nice to meet you. You got lucky with those three chords, is what I'd like to say to him. But one of my new friends is a man named even Stevens. You ever heard his name? I have not. He wrote a great book called Someday I'm Gonna Rent this Town, about Nashville. He came here absolutely dirt poor and anyway he's written songs like when You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman, ooh, I'm Driving my Life Away, rainy Days.
John McEuen:He wrote half of Eddie Rabbit's hits and he wrote a bunch of songs, Even Stevens, yeah and he is one of the most mellow, nicest guys. I mean, when I met him I'd never heard of him really. We became friends starting about a year ago and we're going to do something together. I don't know what, but there's a collaboration. But he's like a non-star, you know Right that. A well-known anyway.
Jon Stone:You know who I have met. That kind of strikes me in that same way is Brian Setzer. You know Brian Setzer. Yes, he was a very nice guy.
Jon Stone:I've produced a couple of his shows Brian Setzer Orchestra and the way he stood out he really surprised me because he shows up with the crew call in the morning and he would push boxes and he would hump cable. And I remember mid-afternoon of setup he came to my production office and say, hey, Jon, you got a second, can you come out here and check something out? And we'd go out into like the bleachers, out into the seats, and we would sit at different like the back row or far left, far right, and he'd ask me questions about like what do I think about the sight lines or what do I think about this. My point being, he is singular of focus. He wants to put on the best possible show experience for his audience. He's just obsessed with it. He'd take all of his meals with the crew. He'd only take about, as I recall, 15, 20 minutes for himself just before the show to change and get ready to go. But absolutely upstanding character that Brian Setzer.
John McEuen:Yeah, I did a birthday party for him one time. It was really fun. I mean that was years ago. That was Stray Cats Day in Nashville. Yeah, he's an exceptional guy.
Jon Stone:For all of the collaboration that you've done. Is there anybody that you still want to collaborate with but you have not had the opportunity? John Fogarty and.
John McEuen:Paul McCartney. I'd like to play a banjo part on a Paul McCartney song.
Jon Stone:Well, you answered that question pretty fast Well.
John McEuen:I've wanted to for 30 years, 40 years. And John Fogarty is somebody that I just love. His music, it's his voice, his attitude, his non-starship, stardom.
Jon Stone:Well, not to turn your own words around on you, but you're old enough to do that, you know.
John McEuen:Yeah, but they have to want it, yeah. Oh, paul McCartney, you're going to really need me to play the banjo in your record.
Jon Stone:Oh, you never know, you're right. I'm imagining that right now. It sounds great in my head.
John McEuen:Well, I play guitar too, and mandolin, and I might end up playing something else.
Jon Stone:What's up next? You're working on an album. Right now I have an album.
John McEuen:I have an album coming out April 12th that I think is, oh, I think it's the best work I've done. It's called the Newsman and it's a spoken word but with music behind it. I've done about 14 film scores. It's like an album that's a soundtrack for a movie that hasn't been made. Now there's been a lot of spoken word from Hank Williams Sr and there's one of his cuts on there that I did and to Music Band. You got Trouble, my friends right here in River City. That's what got me into spoken word. Before I played music I was learning the River City thing.
John McEuen:Oh, two stories, one that I wrote, you know, I mean there was even a recent spoken word the devil went down to Georgia. You know, nobody thinks of that, but that was like a talking blues song, right, and that little part where he played like this and firing them out and run, boys run. There's little singing sections. But anyway, the Newsman. There's a piece on there written by a guy in Vietnam at a battle, talking about the battle, and that was really tough to read. We were just boys when we got on that helicopter to the flight, to the fight, you know, expected to act like men. We got off that chopper and they handed us a gun and said you don't have to win. If you want to live, just keep your head low. And it goes on, it's anyway.
Jon Stone:Is this an idea, this album, is this concept an idea that you've been kicking around in your head for some time? Or is it something that's come to you recently?
John McEuen:It's been about 10 years, yeah, but I also have a couple of these pieces that I learned 20 years ago and one of them from the 70s. I'm not going to get an award for being a singer. I know that although I sing big deal. You know there's a lot of singers out there and the instrumental section there's so many great instrumentalists out there but there's spoken word category is pretty wide open. I think I can get some tension for that.
Jon Stone:John, what's a piece of advice that you would give to musicians who are just starting out in their career and can envision a life in music such as you have experienced?
John McEuen:Try to create something new. Being a band that has the best version oh, you ought to hear this band. They do a great version of Rocky Top. Try and create something new. It's very, very difficult, it's not easy. Yeah, it's a good advice. Find something that you can call your own and that way, if you're not successful financially, you'll be proud of your work. And there you go. Also, don't keep borrowing money. Figure out how to make some money. Point taken, I met Mac Davis in a mail room at United Artists. He was working in the mail room. You know he worked his way up. You might say Mac Davis wrote tons of hits, but he had to find out how the record business worked.
Jon Stone:Sage advice. A couple of quick random questions for you, John. What's your favorite sound?
John McEuen:Backwards echo or that's where you record it and then you turn it around backwards and put it back in. And harmonics when you take out the pick noise, you know if you're recording on Pro Tools and the line is going by. If you take out the pluck and you just get the harmonic, it makes a wonderful sound that you can put in. Or if you just do, you know you get the, but you don't get the. You don't get the, you just get. How do I Just get the? That's one of my favorite sounds.
Jon Stone:You walk into an ice cream shop and you're going to get an ice cream cone with two flavors. What are the two flavors?
John McEuen:The one the same cone. Yes, oh, the same cone. That's tough, we're sure of it. As one and vanilla is another, I put those together, but I'd keep them apart.
Jon Stone:Which flavor goes on top?
John McEuen:Well, I'd say the vanilla.
Jon Stone:Okay, fair enough. John, I want to thank you for making the time to be with us today. It's been a pleasure, thank you, Thank you.
John McEuen:I was just wondering if you can tie a knot in the middle of a rope without letting go of either end, I'll bet you can. Something from the old days Do it like that, do it like that, do it like this, and then, when you drop it over your hands, you have a knot.
Jon Stone:Awesome.
John McEuen:All call one hour to doors.