Original subtitles

Man 1: You hear that? Actually, I'm turning down, fuckers.

- Man 2: Holy shit! - Man 3: Wow.

- Man 2: That's a first. - Man 4: He didn't really do it.

Man 1: I didn't really do it. Yeah, I just said it, yeah.

Man 4: He's got that fake knob.

Man 1: I just gave it the eye.

Man 2: Do one of those.

The creative input of these session guys

cannot be overstated. It can't be overstated.

Wait, Waddy's still getting dressed.

I guess so.

I guess he can't get that bracelet on again.

He's not, he's on the phone. I saw him when he went down.

He's probably freaking out.

Eventually, he will reveal himself.

- All will be revealed.

Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of.

Yeah. In the early '70s,

you couldn't pick up an album with the liner notes

without seeing these guys' names.

Where were you? What does it take to put on a shirt?

- Fuck off. - Yeah, fuck you, too.

Everybody face--

There's nobody anywhere, who I would respect

what they have to say about rock and roll,

more than these four guys. Nobody.

This builds up the anticipation.

Announcer 1: And now ladies and gentlemen,

please put your hands together

and welcome to the stage, The Immediate Family.

Have fun, guys, see you later.

One of the things they say, which is hysterical

but true, is they say,

"We're the best cover band alive."

And all the covers they're playing

are all the hit songs that they produced or wrote.

I have over a hundred golden platinum records

and they've probably played on 95 percent of 'em.

Just to give you a number.

♪ And don't you know Don't you know ♪

♪ She's got To be somebody's baby ♪

♪ Poor, poor, pitiful me ♪

♪ All she wants to Do is dance ♪

♪ Ooh, I hear laughter In the rain ♪

♪ Walking hand in hand With the one ♪

♪ Oh, Mexico ♪

♪ It sounds so sweet With the sun sinking low ♪

♪ The moon so bright Like the light ♪

♪ Send lawyers, Guns and money ♪

♪ This shit has hit the fan ♪

♪ I feel the sky tumbling down A-tumbling down ♪

♪ A-tumbling down A-tumbling down ♪

♪ A-tumbling down tumbling down ♪

In the late '50s,

it was all about the face and the image.

Cut a track and put that face and image on a record.

Especially in the first part of the '60s,

not a lot of people were writing their own material.

And you would record material written by other people

and the record companies often had a lot to say

about what songs an artist recorded.

♪ There's a lot Of things I want ♪

1965 was much more a year of the Brill Building.

I think of all the great songs

that came out of all that great writing

from just those writers that didn't go on to be artists.

They would give the songs to the artists

and then they had this group of musicians

who were this mainstay of the time,

called, "The Wrecking Crew."

Very seasoned, well-read musicians.

They would go in and cut three or four songs in a session

and those would go on to become the pop hits of the day.

The only thing that's constant

in art is change.

The Wrecking Crew, it had its time

and its time passed.

In the late '60s and early '70s,

the singer-songwriter began to emerge.

People writing their own material,

recording their own material, having a little more control

over what happened in the studio.

In a way, these new independent players

that were brought in by new artists like Carole King

in those days, in a way, the baton was handed to them.

Russ Kunkel, Lee Sklar,

Danny Kortchmar, Waddy.

And they weren't...

the most famous players in the world.

They were just musicians we knew

and they gradually became legendary session musicians.

I would buy records, just 'cause they were on it.

I didn't know the music until I'd bought the record,

because they were on it and then I heard it.

It was so great. I said, "Okay, I'm done."

"I'm done." - "I'll be in the hotel."

That'll work, that'll work.

"I'll be drinking champagne the rest of the night.

- Thank you very much." Yeah, absolutely.

- That's one of the things

about this is that we got to meet and play

with our heroes.

- Yeah. Can you believe it?

- Yeah. I can't play--

I'm still in shock that I got to play

with some of the people I idolized.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And this is a big part of doing this for me, you know?

Ten, 9, 8, 7...

♪ There's something wrong here ♪

♪ There can be no denying ♪

♪ One of us is changing ♪

♪ Or maybe We've Just stopped trying ♪

♪ And it's too late, baby, now It's too late ♪

I'm born in New York City

and I grew up in the suburbs, Westchester County.

When I was ten years old, my mother bought me

a Stella guitar

and she thought I would look cute with a guitar.

So I took the thing, and I banged on it,

and I took a few lessons, and I struggled with it,

and hated it, and everything like that.

And rock and roll hit around '52.

The first time I heard Elvis Presley,

I couldn't believe my ears.

That was the greatest thing I ever heard in my life.

Elvis, and Little Richard, and Fats Domino,

it just really spoke to me.

My parents hated it, of course,

as a lot of parents did at the time, but I loved it.

And I felt that that was like the direction I was gonna go in.

What really happened was

when I learned the three chords with which you could play

every rock and roll song, that's when the heavens parted

and that's when I realized, "Man, this is it."

At the airport...

I was really into soul music and blues

and the Beatles, they suggested a path

where you could translate R&B and soul music

into a guitar combo.

As opposed to horns, B3 organ, background singers.

Create a band that was all guitars,

but play the same kind of music that I loved.

Every summer my family, right after school was out,

we'd get in the car and drive up to Martha's Vineyard

and spend the whole summer up there.

And that's where I met James, was up there.

And both of us were just kind of lollygagging around

the porch of the Menemsha store.

And he and I started hanging out just as pals.

Kootch and I met there and started hanging out.

I was 13, I think, when we met.

James and I used to get around on Martha's Vineyard

by hitchhiking, like all us kids did, you know?

At one point, we're walking down the street,

trying to get a ride. He just starts singing.

And he starts singing

Ray Charles' "Hallelujah I Love Her So."

♪ Let me tell you about a girl I know ♪

Wow, this guy can sing. I mean, he can really sing.

And I was astonished.

Him and I used to sit around and play folk music and blues,

a lot of blues.

♪ Well, it's something in The way she moves ♪

♪ Or looks my way ♪

And by the time he was 16 or 17,

he was starting to write songs.

♪ That seems to leave This troubled world behind ♪

I always wanted to be a rock and roll star,

but I wanted to be in a band. I didn't want it to be just me.

I wanted to be in a hit band and so did everyone.

I didn't want to be a solo artist.

It's too lonely. Too much work.

Too much responsibility.

Too much responsibility.

It was never even really a concept, really.

You know, you come up playing in bands,

you figure you want your band to be the one that makes it.

- And you're part of this... - That's right.

...you know, machine that works.

♪ We're back in Chicago On a rainy day ♪

Well, the King Bees was first.

That was the first band I started

as soon as I graduated high school.

♪ All day and night this cat Just sat around and blew ♪

When we came to tour America,

somebody would organize a Peter and Gordon backup band.

Somebody supplied us with or introduced us

to the King Bees.

And of course, Danny.

And we also became close personal friends.

The King Bees, shortly after that, kind of sank.

'Cause we couldn't get arrested, we couldn't get anything going.

But I was fortunate enough to continue a relationship

with my pal, Peter Asher.

In 1966,

Kootch encouraged me to come down to New York.

And he stayed with me in my place

and ended up getting his own place.

And we started a band, you know?

And the band was The Flying Machine.

♪ I'm a night owl, honey Sleep all day long ♪

I actually wanted to call it,

"The James Taylor Band."

But he didn't want to stick his neck out that far.

♪ Now most folks they Like the good day time ♪

♪ They like To see the shining sun ♪

We did really well at the Night Owl Cafe

down there in the village.

And we played there for, I don't know, almost a year.

One night, Buffalo Springfield came in.

Our jaws hit the floor.

We couldn't believe what we were hearing.

It was so good.

So much so that our bass player said,

"Well, we're never gonna be that good.

We might as well quit."

And when that band broke up, James decided

that he was gonna go try his luck in London.

So, I gave him Peter Asher's phone number and address.

And as luck would have it,

Peter had just accepted a position

at the Beatles' new label, Apple Records.

It was just perfect timing, you know?

James essentially called me up out of the blue,

played me a demo tape he'd made in London.

I said to him, "I think this is brilliant.

You know, I love your guitar playing.

I love your singing. I love your songs.

Would you like a record deal?"

And he said, "Yes, please, I'd love one."

And that was kind of it.

I'd really run out of gas in New York City.

It was not a friendly environment.

Freezing cold. I remember walking down,

trying to get back to my pad, walking down the street.

It's snowing. I'm carrying an amp and a guitar,

and I can't get a cab, and I'm freezing my ass off.

When I was offered a gig to go out to LA,

I said, "Sure," you know, a band called Clear Light.

They needed a new guitar player right away,

and auditioned for them and got the gig.

And away we went.

When I first moved out there, I lived in Laurel Canyon.

And everyone was dressed wearing fringe jackets

And groovy hats.

And I dug it immediately.

One of the first people I met when I moved out here

was David Crosby.

And then I met Stills after that,

and everyone was coming by.

That's where I met Jackson, and Joni Mitchell came by.

And I realized that I'd walked into

what was a terrific music community.

Now, right down the road on Wonderland Avenue was Carole.

She was living there with her daughters

and with Charlie, Charlie Larkey.

And so I always used to go down there,

'cause I loved Carole so much, and I wanted to work

on her music.

And we all grew together at that point.

I'd like to invite a very good friend of mine

to be on TV with me, Mr. Danny Kootch.

James and I made one album for Apple.

Apple was falling apart. So I sat down with Joe Smith

to make a deal with Warner Brothers.

I moved here in 1970 to Los Angeles

in order to get a band together for those sessions.

We knew we wanted Danny.

I met Carole through Kootch and asked her

if she would consider playing on James' record.

I was looking for a drummer and found Russ.

I was playing with a man named John Stewart.

Peter came and listened to me play and hired me

for the Sweet Baby Jamesalbum.

John Stewart never quite forgave me, to be honest.

He would laughingly, you know,

accuse me of stealing his drummer,

but there was a little edge to it.

And 'cause I sort of did.

And I remember Russ would always like,

at that time, he would show up early,

you know, set up his own drums himself.

And when I got there for the very first session,

he was already all set up and polishing his cymbals

and you know, it was a new experience for all of us.

♪ Flying machines In pieces on the ground ♪

♪ Whoa, I've seen fire And I've seen rain ♪

The first time I saw him play,

I was astonished that he could have this dynamic.

He'd play this really quiet, solid, but quiet,

and then have these big toms happen

and punctuate the song.

♪ I thought I'd see you One more time again ♪

♪ There's just a few Things coming ♪

♪ my way this time around ♪

My older brother, he's the one that got me started.

He had a band that rehearsed in the house.

One day he just sat me on his knee

and put the sticks in my hand and you know,

moved my hands around and I was bit.

I joined the orchestra in the fifth grade.

I would just start riffing on the snare drum, you know,

kind of imitating Gene Krupa.

Poorly. And I was probably told more than once to not do that,

'cause it was disrupting the class,

and I did it one more time, extra loud, and that was it,

you know, I was ejected from the fifth-grade orchestra.

♪ And settled in its ways here ♪

♪ Oh, but California ♪

I was living in Southern California.

I was in various different bands

and we played surf music,

'cause that was really big, you know, in the '60s.

Hugely influenced by The Beatles

because no one had ever heard anything like that before.

But I just had this feeling that,

"Wow, that is so different than anything

that I've ever heard.

That means that if they can do that,

maybe I can be part of something like that, too."

The summer of my 11th grade,

the moment that I decided that I wanted to be a musician

and nothing else.

My mom was very supportive of that.

We didn't have a lot of money.

So, that summer, she said to me, she said,

"You know, Russ, you're gonna have to get a job this summer."

A block away, there was a Signal gas station.

I got a job there for the summer.

And you know, at the end of the workday,

your hands are absolutely black and it's summer

and you've sweated your ass off the whole day.

And at that moment, when I finished my last day,

I said, "That's it.

I'm gonna do this music thing, 'cause I ain't doing that."

I came to Hollywood with a band,

that I was in Long Beach, called Things to Come.

We were the opening act to the Whiskey a Go Go

for 19 weeks.

Somebody told me that I had to hear this kid drummer

from this little band, down on the coast.

And I said, "Sure."

And it was the Things to Come. The band sucked.

And Russell was fucking glorious.

Like most bands do, they have a shelf life.

Musicians are constantly unemployed

until you get your next gig.

My wife, Leah, was gonna have a baby.

And so, I needed to get busy.

That's when I decided I'm gonna try to do this,

be a session musician thing.

Any time I went and did a session,

one of my goals was to find out what's needed

and wanted from the artist or the producer

to create a situation where,

hopefully, they would hire me back.

So, I never had an attitude that I didn't care,

it was my way or the highway. I wanted to please them.

My main goal was to not get fired.

♪ There is a young cowboy who lives on the range ♪

All of us met over at Peter Asher's pad

in his living room.

The first time I met Danny Kortchmar,

I was sitting, playing acoustic guitar.

And I put my drum set up

and we rehearsed the songs for Sweet Baby James.

We rehearsed that in the afternoon

and went in the studio at night and did the songs.

We were relying to some degree

on the creativity of the musicians.

Peter expected all of us to think like producers.

In other words,

we were supposed to play stuff that was gonna help the record.

You know, what Kootch contributes or Russ,

that can take it in its own direction.

And then from there, everything, the dominoes started to fall.

♪ Country road ♪

I was 15 and I was heavily influenced

by James Taylor.

He had impacted me in that I'd learned

everything I could off the record.

And I remember getting the record

and just playing it over, and over, and over again.

I mean, James was like the catalyst

for this new movement in music.

Once he got on the cover ofTime Magazine, yeah.

Yeah, it changed dramatically.

Right, James became this huge star.

I don't think any of us, you know,

we weren't sitting around, going,

"Oh, it's gonna be huge. Oh, it's gonna be-- "

- We didn't think like that. It ain't like that,

You know, "That's a good song.

The next one, that's a good song, too.

That's not such a good song. But that one is a good song."

That's all we thought about at the moment.

You know, we don't sit around thinking

about "We're going to be a star.

This guy's gonna be a huge star."

I think we were just kind of being quiet,

so no one yanked us out of the position

- that we were already in. [chuckles] Good point.

- Good point. Exactly.

- Keep it on the low down. - Shh.

After the record became very successful,

I wanted to get the whole band who played

on the record to come and play the Troubadour.

Right, now I'd like to bring out some other people

to help me out a little bit.

Mr. Russell Kunkel and Mr. Leland Sklar.

I mean, for me, meeting all you guys,

I came in slightly after the fact that, you know,

that album had been cut

and the gig at the Troubadour had been booked to do.

And I met James at our Wolfgang rehearsal.

John Fischbach, he was just a friend of the band.

One of our rehearsals, he brought a friend

of his along with him...

who turned out to be James Taylor.

'Cause I distinctly remember him calling me,

telling me that he found,

you know, the bass player of his dreams.

They tracked me down and they asked me

if I would play this gig with them.

And I said, "Oh, I'd love to."

And that was where I met Kootch for the first time

and I met Russ.

I was playing one show with the guy,

I was still in college, and next thing I know,

it turned into 50 plus years.

♪ I see you smile at me ♪

♪ No one can tell me That I'm doing wrong ♪

Leland who?

♪ Whenever I see Your smiling face my way ♪

And you know, Lee, I mean, the way he plays,

it's like he literally makes love to the bass.

So Leland is one of the greatest examples,

ever, of living in two worlds.

Leland Sklar is a genius bass player.

Listen to "Doctor My Eyes."

Then go listen to all my TV bullshit

and he would come in and read his butt off

and play his butt off.

And then be able to go out on the road and be authentic.

My earliest memories about music

really were The Liberace Show.

My parents, they were big fans of Liberace.

I was about four years old

and I'd sneak around the corner while they were watching it

and I'd lay there and I'd watch it, too.

And I just became enamored with the whole kind of panache

of him sitting there in his tux, and his big rings,

and a candelabra.

For some reason, when I sat down at a piano, I had an affinity.

I was a classical snob when I studied piano.

I didn't know anything about rock and roll,

didn't care. I was really classically trained.

It wasn't until The Beatles

that I really turned my head around

and thought there was something more to look at.

When I went into junior high school

at Birmingham and when I arrived,

I had this kind of moderate arrogance

that I was gonna be your piano player

'cause I had had these awards

from the Hollywood Bowl Association and all this crap.

And I went in and the music teacher, Ted Lynn,

he brought out a bass and I put--

Showed me how to hold it and I plucked a note

and felt that vibration run through

and I just went, "Sold."

And the thing that was hard was,

- I mean, I didn't have a bass.

We had a piano at home, so they would let me, like,

carry the bass home from school.

You know... ...a little kid dragging

a string bass, you know, a couple of miles home.

You know, it was kind of like walking through snow

and bare feet this deep, you know...

...in the dead of winter.

Since I was a little kid, I've dealt with nothing,

a profound low self-esteem.

My flesh crawls when people start complimenting me,

'cause I don't think I deserve it.

Could be, a little hiding.

But the last time I actually was totally clean shaven

was when they gave me my high school diploma.

That's the last time I saw my upper lip, was '65.

Have you ever noticed, ladies and gentlemen,

that every generation has had a particular kind of music

they considered all their very own?

You know, like now it's rock and roll.

I like the responsibility of the bass

and you can be the guy in the back,

you don't have to be the guy up front,

you know, hanging it all out.

I knew I'd always play music, but it never occurred to me

that I would actually be able to have this be my vocation

rather than an avocation.

Being a musician,

it was always-- They'd kind of look at musicians

as like the fringe element.

Everybody would look at what you do

as it's your hobby.

At some point, you got to get serious

and think about a job, you know, be a

doctor or an electrician

or a plumber or a lawyer or something like that.

When all hell breaks loose, you stand on a corner

and be an executive

and I'll stand there and play music

and let's see who gets paid.

Carole, Danny, Lee, and I toured the Sweet Baby Jamesalbum

with James.

And you know, she'd been writing these songs

and he really encouraged her to get out there and do it.

She gets introduced-- Well, I introduced her

to James and Peter and all, and it started to be

this whole circle of people

who were working together. Russ, Lee, of course.

Carole was there as the piano player.

So, one night, I don't know whether it was prepared or not,

but he says, "This is Carole King,

she's written some incredibly great songs.

Carole, sing a few songs

- for the audience." - Yeah.

And she didn't know what to expect

- and was terrified.

But she sang the first song,

whichever it was, and the audience goes nuts.

They start applauding and yelling.

The next thing that happens is Doug Wester gets on the mic,

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry,

we're gonna have to clear the hall.

There's been a bomb scare."

Whether they were freaking out, I couldn't tell,

'cause I remember before they filed out,

the words that popped out of my mouth when he said,

"I think they say there's a bomb in here,"

- "As long as it's not me."

First time. - That was at the Troubadour.

- At the Troubadour, yes.

Lou Adler signed her to A&M.

And the next thing you know, Carole's in the studio

cutting Tapestry.

Tapestry was all new for me.

You know, I wanted as much of Carole as possible.

All we did was take the magic of what we would do

in a living room, take it into the studio.

♪ I feel the earth move Under my feet ♪

♪ I feel the sky Crumbling down ♪

With Kootch, I could really communicate

and could translate that into actual playing.

♪ Ooh, baby ♪

Kootch can play anything from the '40s to the future.

Tapestry, the whole thing was done in three weeks.

Three songs in one day.

And we didn't piece together

- the best. - No, it wasn't overdubbed.

It was live.

♪ Hey, I feel the earth move ♪

♪ Now you look so unhappy ♪

We would know when we had the magic take,

because when we got it, we got it.

It was magic. It was the first time.

It was fresh. It was new. It was unique.

And everybody clicked.

♪ Now it's too late Though we really did ♪

I was playing solos live.

Carole would just say, "Oh, play a solo there."

"Okay."

I wasn't thinking about it too much.

I just played it off the top of my head.

It had to be a sad, kind of melancholy solo.

♪ Oh, no, no ♪

The solos Kootch played on Carole's record,

they were brilliant, 'cause they were a little bit jazzy

in a way and not strictly rock and roll.

I'm glad I didn't have another shot at that solo,

because I would have pissed my pants realizing that,

you know, everyone was gonna hear it.

But I didn't know that I was gonna be listening to it

in every supermarket, every drugstore forever.

Every day for the rest of your life.

- That's right. Yeah.

1971 was a crazy year.

Danny Kortchmar and I were working on Carole King's

Tapestry album.

And at the same time, Leland and Danny and I,

were working on James Taylor's Mud Slide Slimalbum.

♪ All you got to do is call ♪

♪ And I'll be there ♪

It was a busy time. Sure was, yeah.

I was an avid record buyer.

And I bought records by people I liked,

but also by the guys behind.

You'd follow certain people, you know?

I was transfixed by what those guys did

to support the songs.

And that changed the whole way I thought about

what a session guy does, how to support a song,

what a band does, what a bass player does,

- what a drummer does. I remember

seeing Russ Kunkel's name on records.

Of course, you know the James Taylor records.

Of course, back in those days, you didn't always see

those guys, you know?

It wasn't like their pictures were in the fan magazines

all the time.

Peter was the one who instigated

putting musicians' names on albums.

He was the first guy to do it.

It was a subtler view of how this music was made.

You started to learn that different people

played different ways. And what was the difference?

And how did it sound?

And I just remember seeing these three names

on records all the time.

"Who are those punks?"

Well, you drummer, bass player, fine.

"Who's this guy, Kootch?"

"Who are these fucking guys? Who's this guy, Kootch?

Why is he on all these records? How does he get all these gigs?"

Well, I'd been hearing about Waddy,

and he'd been hearing about me.

But we hadn't run into each other.

Lou Adler called both Waddy and I

to play on a Tim Curry album.

As soon as he walked in, I took one look at him.

It was love at first sight.

I was almost like, "I know this guy.

I know this guy."

'Cause I could tell, just his attitude,

the way he walked in.

I just knew what he was all about.

He looked like an adorable Muppet.

So of course, the second we met, we loved each other.

And it was like the beginning of our,

aside from our personal relationship,

our guitar relationship. We instantly knew what to do,

what the other guy wouldn't be doing.

So they were like considered the LA guys.

But there was something that was different about them.

And I was like, "What is so different about...

their playing that doesn't necessarily--

It's not your typical LA kind of thing."

And then I found out they were two Jews from New York.

And I said, "Well, there you have it,

my people. Now I get it."

♪ Where you just have To wish to make it so ♪

♪ Let's go up on the roof ♪

I would turn around and I'd watch him playing,

and just go like, "He's extraordinary.

You know, he's just extraordinary."

♪ At night the stars They put on a show ♪

At five years old, I saw somebody on TV playing a guitar.

My mom was standing there and I said, "What's is that?

What's this guy doing?"

And she goes, "That's a guitar." I went,

"Okay. That's what I want to do."

And she went, "You're five years old.

What are you talking about?" And I said, "That's it.

That's all I want."

Age nine, I got a guitar for Christmas or Hanukkah.

And it was a Les Paul.

Being a rotten kid, I went, "This ain't the one I want."

No, it was the yellow kind, not the black one that I wanted.

Started taking lessons at age nine.

All this really amazing guitar stuff started

slapping me in the head.

And there was Duane Eddy and Carl Perkins.

♪ Hey, honey, don't ♪

I had a band, called Twice Nicely.

I got a phone call from Ahmet Ertegun

with my demo playing in the background

and him telling me, "I love this fucking record.

I love this fucking record. Welcome to Atlantic."

And then a day later, Bud Cowsill tells me,

"Yeah, the Atlantic deal's not happening."

I broke up the band shortly after that.

And I decided at that point, I said,

"I want to be a studio musician. I want to do that.

I'm good enough to do that."

The timing when I moved to California,

right when everything was beginning to happen here,

it was like Liverpool was when Beatles came out.

It was somewhere around in the beginning of '72

when I first met Waddy.

And we started working onBuckingham Nicks.

We were just trying to make this record.

But Waddy was a super-big part of it.

We're sitting in this restaurant.

And there's David Crosby's, like, three tables away from me

and I'm going, "This is, like, incredible, I mean."

Waddy walks up to me and he says,

"How do you do this? How do we do this?

We want to be rock stars. We want to play."

I loved him right away. He was a funny, little guy.

He could play.

I was doing sessions and I got a call

from someone to talk about sessions.

But in that call, he said,

"Oh, by the way, the Everly Brothers are looking

for a guitar player for a tour."

I said, "Well, that's my gig. I mean, I know every song.

I know every vocal part. I know every guitar part."

I went and auditioned.

Door opens and this guy comes in with a fedora hat on

and a seersucker jacket, and shades.

Warren Zevon. That's where I met Warren.

And he goes, "Okay, we're gonna play

the song through and then you'll play it with us."

I said, "You know, you could leave that step out,

really, because, you know, I know these songs

backwards and forwards." He goes,

"No, no, no, we're gonna do it like the way

I'm telling you." "Okay, fine."

But he goes, "Okay, now, it's time for you to do it."

And I went, "Okay, great,

but you're not playing it right."

He goes, "What do you mean I'm not playing?

I'm the musical director of this band."

I said, "Yeah, well, that may be, but...

...it goes like this."

And I played it and the bass player,

who'd been with the Everlys for a long time, goes,

"Hey, yeah, that's right. That's how it goes."

♪ Is dream ♪

Begrudgingly, he goes, "Well, I guess you got the job."

I got a call from Lou Adler's office

and Lou wanted me to come play on a record date.

I'm driving into SIR in my old '57 Chevy

and this other '57 Chevy is coming out of SIR.

And we literally stopped in the middle

of Santa Monica Boulevard, right there at Vine.

And people are honking horns and everything.

- And he goes, "Are you Waddy?"

And I went, "Yeah, are you Russ?"

He goes, "Yeah, man."

He says, "I got to go, but we're gonna be seeing

a lot of each other, man."

And that's when the four of us got together

for the first time.

And we did her Thoroughbred record,

me, Russell, and Leland, and Danny.

When I walked past Carole in the hallway,

she looks at me...

...she goes, "Are we related?"

I go, "I hope so, but I don't think so."

♪ Only love is real ♪

As soon as I played with him, I went,

"This is it, these guys, this is fantastic," you know?

"Who is this fucking guy, Kootch?"

And you still feel that way?

I do, yeah. I know who you are now.

- I know how to spell Kortchmar.

I think

the fact that they put our names

on the album jackets had a profound effect

on our careers,

because looking back to the Wrecking Crew

and the generation of players before us

that didn't get credit, people had no idea

that when they're listening to Mamas and the Papas

and The Association, and Frank Sinatra,

and all these artists, that it was the same bunch

- of musicians... - Right.

...on all these things. But to have

Peter and Lou Adler,

and people like that putting our names on 'em

all of a sudden,

when people were looking to sign their artists

and they would look at, like, a James Taylor record

and see Russ, and me, and Kootch on it,

they would go, "If it worked for him,

it's bound to work for us."

And, man, I mean, to me, I always look at my career,

I went from zero to a hundred overnight where it was like,

went from no studio experience,

basically, to working around the clock.

Yeah. In probably a four or five-year period of time

from like 1970 to 1975.

- It was unbelievable. So much music

that we all did during that period of time.

♪ Little hands, little eyes ♪

♪ And they walk around Tellin' great, big lies ♪

People started listening to them, going,

"God, these guys are great players."

So, people started hiring them on the side

to record stuff on their records.

♪ Well, I don't want No short people ♪

♪ Don't want no short people ♪

My first job of real consequences

was getting to unlock the potential in my own songs

in a studio with great players.

I mean, it's maybe a naive assumption,

but I'm thinking I'm going to studio with a guy,

named Jackson Browne.

And I thought he was gonna be black.

When I suddenly see this skinny, little, white guy,

I go, "You're Jackson Browne? Wow. Cool."

As soon as he sat down to play, I just went,

"Oh man, this guy, you know, he's got it."

♪ Doctor, my eyes Have seen the years ♪

♪ And the slow parade Of fears without crying ♪

♪ Now, I want to understand ♪

Now, I'd spend every day with either Danny or Russell

or Leland in some session or one of them here

and then one of them in another one.

♪ Oh, Carey, get out your cane ♪

Being in LA at that time,

we all went a little bit different directions,

because we worked with slightly different artists

on different things, but we always ended up

coming back and playing on specific things together.

♪ Lovely day, lovely day Lovely day, lovely day ♪

While the other guys were off doing

like John Stewart

or somebody like that or Carole or something,

I ended up going off and doing this seminal,

you know, jazz fusion album that everybody looks at.

He's played on so many great things,

but he played on Spectrum, Billy Cobham, Spectrum.

I mean, come on, enough said.

I got spoiled pretty early from working

with these brilliant song writers.

When you're working with, you know,

with James, and Carole, and Jackson Browne,

you get spoiled.

♪ Can you see around the bend ♪

They're not looking at a clock,

they're not thinking about how much they're making

for the three hours. They're just musicianship.

"What's the best that I can do here

to make this record?"

The thing about those guys is they knew

the right thing to play.

They knew how to play with each other,

and they knew how to play with us.

We were really fortunate

that all these things came together

- in such a unique way... Yeah.

- ...for all of us. Yeah.

Also, unlike a lot of session musicians,

we were called to be ourselves.

- In other words... Yeah.

...we weren't called, Waddy and I certainly,

and all of us weren't called to say, "Oh,

could you sound just like so and so?

Could you play a part just like--" Never.

You can get anyone to do that.

You get a lot of guys that'll do that,

and they'll do it amazingly.

We were called to be us. We were like character actors.

We were called to do what we already do.

So I came up in New York City as a session player

about ten years after all these guys.

So, they were all big influences on me.

When they came up, people wanted them to play themselves.

"I need Waddy Wachtel in the session.

I need Danny Kort--"

By the time I got in there, they were telling us,

one day, be like, "Play like Waddy Wachtel.

Play like Danny Kortchmar."

But nobody was saying, "Play like Steve Postell."

Those guys had already cornered that market.

Each song is a different victim, you know,

each one is a separate patient.

You know, you can't just apply one science to it.

I stopped by Roy's house and Warren was there.

He goes, "That's great you're here.

We got to write this song, 'Werewolves of London.'"

And I just got back from being in London.

And I just looked at Warren and I said,

"You mean something like, 'I saw a werewolf

with a Chinese menu in his hand,

walking down the streets of Soho in the rain?'" He goes,

"Yeah, yeah, like that."

And my friend Roy Marinell, he had this lick sitting around

for years, two years worth of this.

Yeah.

And I said, "Roy, play that fucking lick."

So many people tried versions of it and it wasn't working.

And Jorge Calderón, he said,

"What about Mick Fleetwood and John McVie?"

So, I called him and I said, "Hey, would you consider

playing on a song with Warren, and Jackson, and myself?"

They went, "We're honored." I went, "Honored?

We're honored. So why don't you just get down here

and we'll talk about who's honored."

And across the studio, Mick's saying,

"Now, Waddy, we're not Kunkel and Sklar, all right?

Take it easy on us."

When we started, we did take one.

We did take two.

Nine.

Five hours later, you know, "You want to hear it?"

Mick goes, "Nah, nah, let's just keep going, man.

Let's keep going."

We played it until the sun was coming up.

And Mick Fleetwood saying, "Waddy, Waddy,

we're never done, Waddy. We're never done."

And I went, "We're never done, huh?

Oh, okay.

All right, let's keep going. We're never done."

I'm about to count off take 60, 61.

It's like, I don't know what time it is now.

Waddy said, "Like I just think we

- had it in the beginning." - I went to Jackson, I went,

"Jackson, take two was good, right?"

"Play us take two."

♪ I saw a werewolf with A Chinese menu in his hand ♪

♪ Walking through the streets Of Soho in the rain ♪

I looked at Mick and went, "Mick, we're done.

That's it. It's over.

That's the take. Thank you, guys."

♪ Don't you know ♪

♪ Don't you know That it's wrong ♪

What you found is that the best song

wasn't necessarily the hit song.

And so you were trying to make every song the best song.

♪ You could get along If you try to be strong ♪

♪ But you'll never be strong 'Cause ♪

If you, you know, walked into a session

with artists like Randy or James or whoever,

you didn't bring up the word "hit."

That was a no-no.

It was like it was, "We're not selling that."

I always made sure I played exactly

what the producer or the artist wanted.

And then sometimes I'd say, "Could you indulge me

and let me try something else?

Just see what you think. As an alternative."

And there were times where they'd go,

"You just made the song. That's fantastic."

And then there were other times where they'd say,

you know, kind of, "I'm really used to

what we've got." So, I'd say, "Cool."

My kind of mantra is everything I do is etched in mud.

♪ Mr. Bojangles ♪

♪ Mr. Bojangles ♪

Each album became like a, you know,

"What's the next thing they're gonna do?"

And everybody was waiting for it.

There's that fear that if you leave town,

somebody else is gonna take that seat

and you're not gonna get your gig back.

Mm-hmm. - And I mean,

you know, this harkens back to the days

of the Wrecking Crew,

where they didn't go on the road with people.

They made everybody's records.

And if people wanted to go perform,

they would have a road band to go do it.

We were really lucky to have lived both sides

- of that fence... Extremely lucky.

- ...to be able to do that. Yeah.

In the '70s,

touring did become an important record-selling tool

in the eyes of the record company.

Peter would put a band together

and we would rehearse a little bit.

We'd go to make the album.

And then when the album came out,

we'd tour, same band.

I'd like to introduce to a few more players up here.

Russell Kunkel and Lee Sklar.

And the thing that was interesting to me was

there were a lot of players

in town who were like, "So what are you up to?" I said,

"We're heading out for the summer.

We're gonna be working." And they're going,

"How can you do that, man? I mean, you leave town,

somebody else is gonna take all your gigs

and all that." I said, "So be it."

It's Kootch.

Danny Kortchmar.

Why, it's Waddy. Waddy Wachtel.

No, it just seemed like the natural thing

that the people who played the music...

you know, for the record should play it on the road.

This next tune, now, Kootch wrote it.

I didn't write it. Kootch wrote it.

We did these huge, huge shows.

And these were baseball stadiums, full.

I mean, it was pretty impressive.

I played "Fire And Rain" 10,000 times.

It's a simple couple of chords.

I don't think I've ever played it twice the same way.

Standing next to Leland on stage

when we played with James, he would do stuff.

I would just forget where I was.

He would-- "How is this guy doing that?

What is all that?"

Again, I asked him, "Could you not play quite as great?

Could you just maybe, you know play a note?"

When people say, "Don't you get bored?"

I always go look at, somewhere in that audience,

somebody's hearing this for the first time,

and that's who I'm playing to.

When we went on the road,

I was the person who was on the bill.

But it really, to me, felt like I was playing in a band.

I always looked at the road

as one of the greatest gifts one could ask for of travel.

'Cause I never traveled as a kid.

My family, I mean, the most we would do

is maybe go to San Francisco from LA or something like that

or San Diego.

So, when suddenly I found myself flying around the world.

These guys were Carole's band and James' band.

They then became celebrities themself,

because they were seen by millions of people.

I remember playing Merriweather Post Pavilion,

and we walk out on stage and James kind of looked over

at me with this kind of a scowl on his face.

And I looked down, in the front row

was a whole bunch of people that said "Le Sklar Fan Club"

T-shirts on. And he was like...

I went, "Dude, I'm sorry, I'll try to keep

a lower profile."

We were out for so long back then.

End of the tour,

we'd just keep extending and extending.

We're not going home.

Twelve weeks, three months at a time, maybe.

Go to the next town,

I don't care where it is, doesn't matter.

That piece of paper comes under the door saying

what time you got to get up. I'll be up.

You know, I'll get on the bus.

We were on a bus

that had a Continental Trailways driver in a uniform.

We didn't ask anything more about it.

Like did it have bunks?

We didn't think about it till it was time to go to sleep.

There were no bunks.

We had chartered a plane.

It's kind of an older plane, for sure.

We said this, "Is it all ready?"

They said, "We're waiting on a welder."

So he's out there working and we're sitting, you know,

twiddling our thumbs

and the thing finally, he's done.

And we said, "So is everything okay?"

And he goes, "It'll get you there."

Flying to Akron, Ohio.

Heavy weather instantly.

And we were circling Akron when the radio cut out.

See, I'd gotten so drunk the night before,

I was painfully hungover.

With no visibility, the guy took it up.

I think there was some smoke coming out

from under the front cabin door.

We look out the window and there's oil pouring out

- one of the engines.

Suddenly, everybody comes flying back into the back

of the plane and a big scrum of people, you know?

I was just lying on a bench or something

in the plane just going, "Oh, God."

We're in free fall forward.

I was, like, hoping we would crash.

When the pilot dipped below the cloud level,

there happened to be a field below it.

And we landed in that field.

♪ Thank you, baby Oh, yes ♪

♪ How sweet it is To be loved by you ♪

It was just dumb luck.

The pilot, I'm sure, thought we were gonna die, too.

When that plane hit the ground,

pilot and co-pilot quit

at that point. They got off the plane, gone.

♪ I learned my lesson It left a scar ♪

♪ Now I see how you really are ♪

♪ You're no good You're no good ♪

♪ You're no good Baby, you're no good ♪

Making an album and the rest of the time

we'd be on the road. We'd come do the album tour,

album tour, album tour.

♪ You're no good You're no good ♪

♪ You're no good Baby, you're no good ♪

But it was really album, tour, tour, tour, tour,

album, tour, tour, tour, tour.

Well, Linda, you know, she--

First of all, she'd been on the road forever

at that point and I was new to it.

But, you know, she taught me

the gourmet eating on a tour bus is a one-minute hotdog

in the microwave. And I said, "Oh, that's great."

I'd never worked a microwave, not even seen one.

My father for years was saying,

"No, you don't want that."

Always wanted me to be a doctor or something.

And I remember, when I got my gig with Linda,

he was being helped out by a friend of his,

this builder in New York, real successful builder guy

that he grew up with.

And Harry came to the show

and I'm standing there with my dad,

and I have make up all over my face,

and... ...you know, I'm sweating out.

And I told him, I said, "You can tell Harry Waxman

to go kiss my ass now.

I'm going to take care of you for the rest

of your fucking life. We don't need him anymore."

And he was just so happy.

And from then on, he was going, "Yeah, Bobby's a guitar player,

like Glen Campbell."

That's all he could say, "Like Glen Campbell.

He's like doing the same thing Glen Campbell is."

I went, "No, I'm not really, but kind of, you know?"

So, from then on, he was proud and happy.

- ♪ No good ♪ - ♪ No good ♪

♪ No good, you're no good You're no good ♪

♪ Baby, you're no ♪

♪ Good ♪

The road's arduous, because it really--

They show us to play such a gift, to get up

in front of people and play music...

- Yes. - ...and see that response.

And that moment you're on stage is so magic.

And then suddenly, you're on an eight-hour bus ride going,

going, "What do you want to watch?"

Well, it's been said a lot of times

by a lot of people that you don't get paid

for the hour and a half, two hours you're on stage.

You get paid for the other 22 hours.

Yeah. - At least, an eight-hour drive

from one town to the next. So, there'd be a poker game.

I stopped playing, 'cause I lost all the time.

- Terrible poker player.

But Peter Asher would win like mad.

He's a great poker player.

And Linda would sometimes win,

because she was the soberest one playing.

My secret with winning a lot was that I wasn't stoned.

I was sober.

You play stoned too fucking bad.

You misread your hand. Tough shit.

Linda got in the game one night.

And she was playing along, playing away.

And she called her hand incorrectly.

But nobody knew that.

I get confused whether a straight beat a flush.

You know, I had kept a little list that I have

to keep what would be what.

I said, "I've got, you know, two pairs," something like that.

And she says, "Oh, I fold."

Then she goes, "Oh, wait, wait, wait.

No, I've got three of a kind."

I'd be-- I said, "Too late."

She goes, "No, no, no, come on, Waddy. That's not fair."

I said, "Yes, it is.

You blew it."

And after, she goes, "You know, I would have lost

all respect for you if you'd given me that money."

"You would have, huh? You actually respect me?"

She goes, "Well, I don't know about that, but..."

That was real family time on that bus.

We did a lot of touring for a lot of weeks together,

miles and miles in the buses.

Being on the road for a significant period of time

gives you an opportunity to become closer

with the members that you're out on the road with,

that become your road family.

You know, I have to say that there's a period of time,

back in those days, that it's a little foggy.

You can't take it.

And I'm gonna blame it on Waddy.

- It's Waddy's fault.

It's always funny, you know, the things

that become important parts of your touring life.

And so much of it is-- Is the things that don't have

that don't have anything to do with the gig.

'Cause everybody kind of goes, "I don't remember that venue,

but God, there was that great barbecue.

Oh, we're in Indianapolis. Yeah, St. Elmo's Steak House.

Oh man, let's make-- Let's finish up sound check,

so we can go grab dinner there."

We were on the road in Wheeling, West Virginia,

not a real cosmopolitan town.

I got a call from one of the guys in the band

saying, "Hey, man, there's this strip club

right across the freeway.

And we're going over. You want to go?"

I went, "Nah, I don't want to go."

Then Linda called me, said, "Anybody doing anything?"

"Well, yeah, the guys went over to the strip club."

She goes, "Oh, I want to go." I went, "You do?"

She goes, "Yeah, I want to go. Will you take me there?"

I went, "Sure, I'll take you, yeah."

So, we go there.

You got to run across the freeway.

We walk in, and there's the lady that wants to check

your IDs and stuff. So, I just give her my ID.

And she looks at Linda, and she goes, "I need your ID."

And Linda, she goes, "Oh, I don't have any ID.

I don't have anything on me. I don't have anything."

And I'm looking at the lady behind the-- In the booth

and I went, "That's Linda Ronstadt."

And she goes, "I still need some ID."

And I looked at Linda. I went, "Sing something."

And she goes...

♪ I'm going back someday ♪

The lady goes, "All right, you can go in."

♪ To Blue Bayou ♪

♪ Where the folks are fun ♪

I just love the road. I love walking out on the stage.

And I also love the idea of playing a note live

and that note's done.

It's over with. It's gone out. They've heard it.

You go in the studio, you can hit that note,

and they can scrutinize the hell out of that for a week.

Playing, "Oh, got to move it here,

got to move it there, let's tune it."

I like the immediacy of live.

- So... Yeah.

...you know, I would do that any time.

Carole left James' touring band.

She wanted to stay home. She had young kids.

I was at A&M working on a project.

When I arrived to do this thing, they had hired

a keyboard player for it and his name was Craig Doerge.

And I hit it off with Craig immediately

and I contacted Peter Asher.

And I said, "I think I found the guy

to replace Carole."

So, the four of us now are backing up James.

After we do the sound check at whatever venue we were at,

James would come out and he'd make sure it's right.

He could hear himself, guitar.

And James wasn't that enthusiastic

about doing long sound checks or anything.

So, he'd come in, do a line check,

play a couple of tunes, split.

And we were just horny as hell to play.

So, we just were jamming all the time.

So, at one point, Peter said, "Listen to this."

And he plays us a cassette from the board

of our jams.

And we said, "Wow, this is pretty good."

And the next thing that happens, James came up

with a name for it, "The Section."

This is The Section,

and they're gonna open up the show.

And next thing you know, Peter went and got us

a record deal with Warner Brothers.

And then he got us a tour with the Mahavishnu Orchestra,

opening a Canadian tour for them.

I think Warner Brothers kind of signed us,

just because of our pedigree

and thought they were probably gonna get Poco

or the Burrito Brothers or the Eagles or something.

Next thing you know, we handed them a band,

and they had no idea what the hell to do with us.

We were playing pretty much rock fusion instrumental music,

but we ended up with an underground cult following.

It was wonderful. But like everything,

you know, we get to a point

where everyone's musical interests

were going in separate directions.

And we did three records and that was the course.

So, we did like a month, month and a half of that.

We got back to LA and then we had two weeks off.

In that two weeks, we started rehearsing

with Jackson to do Running on Empty.

Running on Empty, and it was gonna be

like the live album, but it's really you putting

all your best songs together and some new songs.

I had been using Russ and Lee on records in the studio.

So, to do a record on the road, I wanted to have these guys,

'cause that was my guarantee that it would sound good.

I was friends and tight with Jackson.

I never toured with him.

And I think at some point, listening to some

of the new songs, I mentioned to him,

"Why don't you make this album just all the new songs?"

"Oh, that's a good idea. That's a really good idea."

We learned the tunes really quickly and off we went.

♪ Looking out on the road ♪

♪ Rushing under my wheels ♪

I wanted to try to give a feeling

for what it was like on the road.

♪ Looking back at the years Going by ♪

♪ Like so many summer fields ♪

WithRunning on Empty, it was like guerrilla touring.

♪ In '65 I was 17♪

Jackson had it in his head that he wanted to record

on the bus with bus sounds.

So, we got on there, set up two mics,

so Jackson and I were facing each other.

Russ was playing rushes on a cardboard box

or something like that.

♪ Running on empty ♪

But we were all in our twenties. Yeah, there was no sleeping.

Checking into a Holiday Inn

and taking the mattress

and the box spring apart, and leaning them

up against the wall, and setting the drums up

in between them.

Jackson would be, like, singing in the bathroom.

Jackson went back out on another bus tour

to record bus sounds.

So, just him and Ladanyi drove around for a while

to get... ...bus sounds.

That's how nuts everyone was, you know?

We did it in a sound check,

just like it was a recording session.

We figured out what we would play,

and that night...

You know, when you listen to most of that record now,

everybody's at the top of their game.

Running on Empty sounded like a train...

for night, after night, after night.

Announcer 2: I'm sure you can sense

the almost massive power of that cry.

Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year!

Early '80s, we were all working like crazy.

Yeah, that's what the days were then.

It was either two or three sessions a day.

Yeah.

So, the '80s were really plentiful music working.

But the music changed into the '80s.

Yeah.

It just started to change.

And I think we all kind of changed

a little bit, too. I know for myself,

I started getting into songwriting more

and started to produce some records.

And it was a time for me

- of reinventing yourself. Yeah.

You know, because maybe you do a couple tours,

but not as much as we did in the '70s.

It was a transitional time for all of us.

Yeah. - Yeah.

A lot of things were changing in the '80s.

You know, styles were changing.

The rock and the country rock that had dominated the charts

in the '70s, the whole West Coast sound,

there was a pushback starting to happen.

When the '80s hit and it became digital,

and the DX7 and all that hit,

and suddenly, guys weren't getting hired for work,

because somebody was doing it on synth.

They were calling me, going,

"If you hear of any tours, man."

And I would go, "You know, those seats are covered."

I saw studios closing down in LA

and I just saw things shifting. Drum machines came out.

A lot of things were changing.

And at one point, I said,

"Is this the end of rock and roll?

Is this the end?"

That's one small step for man...

one giant leap for mankind.

The next thing that happened was MTV.

And as soon as it came on, we had it on all day

and all night, all of us, everyone,

and not just people I knew, everyone had it on, 24-7.

And it brought excitement, it brought interest

and excitement back to popular music.

Kootch decided to go in the direction of writing

and production. He was not the studio guy.

He had his thing that he did.

And when they wanted that thing, there was nobody better.

In 1981, I was adrift. The Eagles had broken up.

I was never expecting to have a solo career.

And I didn't really know what I was gonna do next.

Peter and his then-wife, Betsy,

had thrown this Fourth of July party.

I think it was the Fourth of July, 1981.

And Danny was there. And that's when he and I bonded.

And he started encouraging me to make a record.

Don calls. He says, "Come on up."

I went up there and started, you know,

ran some ideas past him. And he ran some ideas past me.

After a couple of hours, he says, "So,

you want to work on this album with me?"

"Absolutely." I think that he realized he wanted to go

a total different direction than the Eagles,

which is why he called me,

'cause I don't have any Eagles stuff in me.

I just don't do that.

And at that point, that's when I stopped touring

and stopped doing sessions.

Danny started bringing me pieces of music

that he had worked on.

One of the great things about working with Henley

was that any time a new piece of gear came out,

Don would turn to his aide-de-camp, Tony Tavy,

and say, "Tony, get one."

A day later, two days later, it shows up.

So, one night, I'm banging away on my Farfisa organ.

I think we had the first one in the country.

And one of the sounds was something called

"sample and hold."

You press the key.

So, I took that, and I went, "Hmm, that's interesting.

What's happens if you slow it down?"

I took that, ran it through a fuzz tone.

I ran it through an Echoplex.

And I went, "Oh, wow, this is fun."

♪ I make my living Off the evening news ♪

♪ Just give me something Something I can use ♪

I knew he wanted to write a song called "Dirty Laundry."

That was one of the first things he talked about with me.

I started playing the music that you hear on record.

There's a knock on the door.

It's like 1:00, 1:30 in the morning.

And it's Jackson.

I said, "Take this, man."

I started playing him,

you know, the music to "Dirty Laundry."

He goes, "Well, that's it? Just that over and over again?"

I said, "Yes."

It's a combination of an ass-shaker

with a message on top of it.

♪ Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up ♪

♪ Kick 'em when they're down ♪

When I was working with Henley,

I used to realize, that if I come up

with a good idea, we're gonna record it.

If he likes it and can sing to it,

bang, we're in the studio and we're starting to do it.

Whereas in the old days, you would go into the studio

with a song that was completely finished,

we just sort of made it up as we went along.

And we did some songs that he wrote by himself.

I mean, I didn't write "All She Wants to Do Is Dance."

He wrote that whole song.

♪ They mix 'em up Right in the kitchen sink ♪

♪ All she wants to do is dance ♪

Started writing the words very quickly.

I wrote all the lyrics in about ten, 15 minutes.

So, then of course, we were in the studio,

I went down and played it for Don

and sang what I had on it.

He said, "Oh, that's great, we got to record it."

♪ Ain't afraid to die ♪

♪ All she wants to do is All she wants to do is dance ♪

When you listen to the Don Henley records,

The Boys of Summer and The End of the Innocence,

and all that stuff, those horn sounds

that he did with that synth guitar,

just, like, mind boggling.

One day, I'm on the 101

and I'm kind of stuck in traffic.

This kid next to me, he's got the windows open

and "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" is blasting

out of the radio.

And this kid is banging his head to it.

And that was one of the highlights

of my life, really, is watching somebody else

groove to something I did.

The thing with technology...

is until you learn it, it's terrifying

and it's threatening.

The musicians either embraced going forward

with new technologies or didn't work as much.

The sounds that got created from the technology

influenced both the writing and the production.

And so, you were either part of it

or you weren't working.

Neil had heard the Don Henley stuff

that I was working on and a lot of synthesizers

and different stuff.

I knew him and I saw him with his band at Farm Aid.

It's a big band sound with a lot of synthesizers.

You know, it impressed me.

So, he wanted to call me in, because he felt

I knew about that stuff, which I kind of did.

The other guy I called was the great Steve Jordan.

Steve and I, and Neil, bashed along

with this synth parts, his little Synclavier parts

that he'd already put together.

And we made this album, Landing on Water.

And then we'd get something going on a Synclavier

and I'd, you know, program a bunch of shit into it.

It was both like they were showing off

their bag of toys.

You know, it's like, "Look what I've been doing."

And "Oh, well, check this out. I got this and I got this."

And then we put that on and then Kootch and Steve

would play with that and I might sing with it.

♪ Weight of the world ♪

That record is a really memorable record for me.

He's not here, right? We don't want to talk about him.

No, you can talk all you want about him.

I'm telling you, I think it's great.

That's one of the absolute greatest albums

that I ever worked on as a musician or a producer.

Loved every minute of it.

In 1980, I signed a record contract with Atlantic.

And so, then Waddy came back into my life.

The guitar part on "Edge of Seventeen,"

when I first heard it in the studio

in the demo that we learned the song from,

the guitar part was being done with an echo.

"I'm not doing that. It's punk shit."

Jimmy Iovine went,

"What do you mean you're not gonna do that?"

And I said, "Well, I'm gonna do it like, you know, this."

♪ And the days go by Like a strand in the wind ♪

♪ In the web that is my own ♪

When we heard it back,

it was like this kind of more physical animal version

of the thing that Stevie had going.

♪ Everything stopped Nothing else matters ♪

And it was cut, it was done. It was finished.

And everybody was like, "Well, that was great."

♪ He was no more Than a baby then ♪

So, I didn't think about

how physically demanding it was going to become.

When we got out on the road, it would go for like

14, 15 minutes long.

I mean, I would do it five minutes before

she'd even come out on stage.

And we get to rehearsals and we'd start doing the song.

And I'm going, "Ow."

So, now whenever we go on the road,

I'm in my room for about a week and a half, just doing that.

I got to be looking good.

I can't be crying like a baby going,

"We got to stop now."

♪ Her lips A sweet surprise ♪

♪ Her hands are never cold ♪

♪ She's got Bette Davis eyes ♪

Waddy, for example, as a guitar player,

is one of the most solid rhythm

guitar players I've ever worked with.

I mean, you want an eighth note guitar

or something, there is nobody that plays eighth notes

better than Waddy Wachtel.

♪ She got Bette Davis eyes ♪

Niko called me to come out

and play on this song called, "Oh Sherrie" by Steve Perry.

I said, "Sure, yeah."

So, I went out to Record One and laid down the eighth notes

for the basic rhythm track.

♪ Oh, Sherrie Oh, oh, hold on ♪

So, I did that.

And they said, "Okay, that's great, man.

Thanks a lot." I went,

"What do you mean, 'Thanks'? Wait a minute, what?

What do you mean? What are you talking about?

What about the section? What about the solo section?"

And Niko goes, "No, he's gonna, like, put a saxophone there."

I went, "No, he's not."

He goes, "What?"

I said, "He's not putting a saxophone there."

I said, "Play the fucking tape. I know what should go there."

And Steve came in and just went out of his mind.

He went, "What? What's that?"

I said, "That's your solo." He goes, "Oh man, that's great."

You want a solo that you'll never forget?

The solo in, "Oh Sherrie," the solo in "Only the Lonely,"

all these solos that he plays are, like, memorable.

♪ But that time I saw you ♪

♪ I knew with you To light my nights ♪

And then we went on tour in Europe.

And we got to England

And played the Old Vic, the theater.

And after the show, we go downstairs

where the dressing rooms were.

And there's Keith Richards standing there.

And I was just like, "Whoa."

And I walked up to him

and I went, "Wow, a Rolling Stone."

I said, "And we're the same height. I like that."

And he goes, "Hey, man, good to meet you."

We got on right away.

We spent a bunch of days together.

The next thing that cropped up was,

"Hey, Keith, you know, the Stones are not gonna be

doing much for a year or two." I realized that,

"Hey, now, I ain't gonna

fucking sit around doing nothing while

Mick decides what to do.

Okay...

I'm gonna put a band together now."

When Keith and I were putting the band together,

the first person we thought of was Waddy.

Waddy Wachtel.

I mean, that's who I want to play with.

Living down in Venice,

and I get this phone call one day,

British lawyer. "Hello, Waddy?" "Yeah."

And he goes, "I'm such and such.

I represent Keith Richards and...

he's trying to find you."

I said, "Oh, really?

Well, you found me.

Why don't you give him my phone number?"

As soon as I found out

that Waddy, like, jumped at the idea,

and so, suddenly, we had...

you know, the Winos.

- ♪ Shouldn't take it so hard ♪ - ♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Shouldn't take it Shouldn't take it so hard ♪

- ♪ Shouldn't take it so hard ♪ - ♪ Yeah ♪

Keith loves what he calls, "the scrub."

So, basically, like, he had the scrub with Brian Jones.

He had the weave with Mick Taylor.

They didn't have to talk about anything.

The scrub and the weave

were there instantly, just add water.

You know, it was crazy.

I mean, the thing is, when guys working together,

the wonder of it was when you're looking at each other

as the take ends, you know, and you're going, like...

You get that dopey look on your face, and you go,

"Yeah."

And like, Waddy and I are kind of like that.

"Yeah."

You know, and that's the shit, as we call it.

- ♪ Shouldn't take it so hard ♪ - ♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Shouldn't take it so hard ♪

Waddy's a brilliant producer,

a brilliant player and a producer.

Got to produce several good albums.

Gilby Clarke is one.

And then The Church came along with Greg,

my partner Greg Ladanyi.

I watched enough producers and been involved

in enough sessions that I felt that I could do that.

I had the great opportunity to produce six albums

with Jimmy Buffett and play live with him,

co-write songs with him.

The first album that I produced for Jimmy

was an album called Fruitcakes.

And we recorded it at Compass Point Studios

in Nassau in the Bahamas.

And Jimmy asked me to go to lunch with him.

And we had a lunch of conch chowder

and conch fritters.

And we went for a walk on the beach.

And we're walking down the beach.

And he said, "Russi, I only have one rule."

And I said, "Bubba, what's that?"

And he said, "If it ain't fun, I ain't doing it."

♪ Now, I don't know ♪

♪ I don't know ♪

♪ I don't know Where I'm a-gonna go ♪

♪ When the volcano blow ♪

He would be there,

and he would sing a guide vocal while we were tracking it.

And then once we got the track, I would have him go

in the vocal booth and just have him sing the song

three times through, straight through

without stopping him.

And he would go fishing.

So, you know, he loved the process.

♪ If you do anything wrong It's gonna get worse ♪

♪ If he waits too long ♪

♪ Billy ♪

♪ Billy, don't you lose my number ♪

By the time it came around to about '84...

I was doing what was to become No Jacket Required.

So, I wanted to make more of a dancy album.

And you know, he was the guy I called.

♪ 'Cause you're not anywhere ♪

♪ That I can find you ♪

Unbeknownst to myself, and with no premeditation,

I ended up with a style and a sound that work.

When recording it, I've never been afraid of the red light.

I kind of look at that as like a bull

looking at a red cave.

Some guys choke when that red light comes on.

They're playing their butts off and doing it.

And as soon as that light comes on, man,

they're, like, stumbling 'cause it's intimidating.

You've got to get the goods, right at that moment.

♪ Now, Billy, Billy Don't you lose my number ♪

♪ 'Cause you're not anywhere ♪

When he was playing for Phil Collins,

he was the best bass player there was.

He is. He's that good.

♪ Billy, Billy Don't you lose my number ♪

♪ 'Cause you're not anywhere ♪

I was signed to MCA Records.

I worked with a wonderful group of musicians from Phoenix.

And Bowen called me in his office, and he said,

"I know you want to use your guys

on this recording, but if you had a chance

to work with Leland Sklar,

why wouldn't you?"

And wow, you know, what an education it was

to work with Leland Sklar for the first time.

And to play with Russ and Leland together,

you know, I felt I was--

You know, that took me back to those days in high school

when I was telling my friends, you know, who played bass

and who played drums on those James Taylor records.

I learned a lot about how to start producing

from Danny in a lot of ways.

And so just doing kind of what I learned

from Danny by matching a song,

coming up with a new arrangement of it.

And connecting it with an artist,

- but that's all your fault. Yeah.

Ego goes out the window, 'cause if you come in

with an ego, you're not doing what you're supposed to be.

Well, I'm not sure that's true. I have a huge ego,

as well you know.

We would have our differences.

You know, we would get into disagreements sometimes.

I got fired three or four times...

...over the course of the three hours we made.

And he would occasionally do

one of his little rants and then, you know,

you'd let him get it out and get it over with.

After a week or a month or something,

he'd call up and go, "Well, let's get back to work."

So, that's what we would do.

You had to be careful with Danny.

Oh, Kootch was opinionated.

One of the most opinionated persons I ever met.

And it suits him, you know, that he never has

a moment's doubt... ...you know?

Even if he did play a wrong note,

you'd never know it, because it would be

completed with a gesture of bravado.

There are guys more opinionated,

but not as right about what they think.

And I think that makes Kootch what he is.

And is-- That same confidence comes across

in his playing, you know?

No, he just wanted it to be good.

You know, he was like the rest of those guys.

They were there for the song and for the music.

And the finished product is what they wanted it to be the best

it could be.

I started producing Don Henley and that changed my entire life.

Leland had experiences working with Phil Collins

and Danny had experiences of working with Don Henley.

You know, Waddy had experiences working with Warren

on the road and stuff.

So, we split up sometimes, but we would always

get back together for certain projects.

♪ I'm so proud of my name ♪

♪ And you know where I am ♪

The Troubadour reunion tour, James and Carole.

And now, for a long time,

I hadn't played with Russ and Lee.

And then I was astonished that this thing

actually came together.

We went and started playing this music

and it was like we had played it last week.

♪ Really All you gotta do is call ♪

♪ And I will be there Yeah, yes, I'll be there ♪

"You've Got a Friend."

I turned around, I looked out at the audience,

and I'd never seen anything like that in my life.

These are mothers and daughters embracing each other,

couples embracing each other.

They're in tears, man.

And then I realized what this meant to people,

what this music that we did meant to people.

When I went and saw you guys with James...

was the first time when I sort of,

the light bulb went off on what the rhythm section

could do, 'cause I always thought

I was gonna focus on James.

And I ended up listening to three of you all night.

And the light bulb went off on, "That's what they're doing."

Like, that's why you need a good rhythm section.

- Love you, Steve.

But now, I know that I was wrong.

That stuck with you.

Now, I know I was just mistaken.

[chuckles] Yeah, right.

It was the moment when I was like,

"I want to write songs,

but I also wanna be able to do that

and understand that."

So, then I started learning

all of Danny's parts instead of James' parts.

Skip ahead 30 years or whatever,

I met Danny at the Troubadour, introduced myself,

and we stayed in touch.

And I think it was a year later, maybe two, when he came out

for this New Year's Eve party with mutual friends.

The friends said, "Hey, you guys both play the guitar.

You should play for us."

So, we grabbed a couple of guitars

and we played for everybody.

Danny said, "Man, that's like we've been playing

together forever." And I said, "We have."

"I've been playing with you forever."

My pal Fred Mullen was contacted by Vivid Records,

they said, "Would Danny Kortchmar be interested

in making a solo record?"

I realized I had a lot of old songs,

songs that I'd co-written with James Taylor

and Don Henley, et cetera, et cetera.

And I thought about it. I said, "Well, you know,

my boys aren't gonna be anywhere around there.

They never are.

Russ and Lee, they're always gone."

And amazingly, I started calling them

and they were there. They were in town.

Wad was out on the road with Stevie and--

- Making real money. Yeah,

and didn't come in until it was three days.

We recorded the thing in three days.

Wad came in on the last day.

And it took, you know, like 15 minutes.

- And then... - We were playing.

It sounded like us, yeah.

Our fingers were bleeding and things were hurting.

But we kind of got right back on the saddle.

It just evolved into what it is. We all love each other.

And you know, we were having so much fun playing this stuff

that we realized, "Yeah,

what the fuck? Let's make it a band."

♪ Wanna shine tonight Make her mine tonight ♪

It's pretty amazing to me to be in the band with them,

with all four of these guys,

because I followed their careers from the start.

Steve Postell is a great addition

to that lineup,

'cause he's a great producer and a great player.

It's really kind of a miracle that these guys are playing

in a band and doing these gigs, and if you go see them live,

you know, you see that not only did they give birth

to this music that they're playing.

They're as much the author of these songs

and of this music as the artists that they did it with.

Playing in this band has led us to all really listen

to each other and find a way

of playing, that's gonna help the band.

I think one of the things I appreciate so much

about this band, there's this camaraderie...

Yeah. - ...and mutual respect

and mutual love, and understanding, musically,

that's just so magical to me,

that just, I've never been in a situation

that had this kind of a feeling.

This is the hardest band to get away with a mistake in.

Oh.

'Cause as soon as somebody hits a blooper...

Busted! - ...it's--

They stick out.

They stick out, don't they?

- Yeah. - There's one more

- wise guy move coming now.

Very difficult sometimes,

three guitar players to come to an agreement,

you know, and these guys can do that.

My whole deal is about collaborating

and working with other people

and creating something with my pals especially.

To me, being a musician is a way of life,

it's like a religion, it's a way of being.

I never saw it as work.

To me it was a joy and a delight, every minute.

And I still feel that way.

My goal was to play with my heroes,

that was one of my major goals.

To meet and play with my heroes.

And I was amazingly lucky that I got to do that a lot.

You know, I'm stunningly proud

to have played with James, Carole,

stunningly proud to have played with Jackson, Linda,

you know, I can't believe I got

to play with all these incredible people.

♪ Just to be secure You're never sure ♪

♪ If it's worth it at all ♪

I'm 73.

I think I have pretty much the same feeling I did

when I was a kid, in the love of it

and the joy of it.

Thirsty, boys?

Well, we lived in an apartment, so we could never have a dog.

It's kind of like having bacon in the house,

couldn't have that either.

We found this place, 'cause our horses

need some room, our dogs need some room,

and we got two of everything here.

We got two dogs, two horses, and two chickens.

Rhoda, Arya...

We got the best eggs in town.

...you've earned another night's stay.

I'd like to make it very clear that I'm a man

of the great indoors.

I could stay in the studio all day.

It's all about learning.

I mean, every day, I'll hear something

and finally, I'll figure out the way a chord

is supposed to sound

you know, or something on a record

that I've been doing wrong for 40 years.

And I'll go to sleep that night going,

"I got it right finally," you know?

Have a wife who loves me.

I've got animals. I've got a pretty cool house.

I can pay rent. I can pay my monthly bills.

I've got a band full of brothers that love me.

And I'm proud of all of it.

The thing I think is wonderful is, you know,

I've been doing it now, 51 years

and I never tire of it.

You know, when that phone rings,

I'm like a kid in a candy store.

I can't wait to go to work, either in the studio

Or on tour.

It just-- There's an exhilaration

and an excitement that happens

when you're in that environment that it's impossible to explain

to people if they haven't experienced it.

I'd love to be some just old relic up there,

just, tur-- you know, making people happy.

♪ Just a song before I go ♪

♪ To whom it may concern ♪

If I have one regret from everything,

all the opportunity that I've had in my career,

it's that I didn't get to spend enough time at home,

with any of my kids.

♪ When the shows were over ♪

♪ We had to get back home ♪

And you pay for it.

You know, you do your best to make up the time,

but you don't get those moments back.

My goals now are just to be consistent

and to spend as much time at home as I spend away.

That's one of the great things about having this band,

The Immediate Family, right now,

is that we have an opportunity

kind of just to do that.

Most of our careers were being on the back line

supporting other artists.

This was an opportunity for us to do something that was ours.

I love the shit out of that now.

- Yeah. It's fucking cool.

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world

that I'm still able to play,

not just play, but play with these,

you know, with my best friends.

So, that's what motivates me to keep going,

is the idea that I can express myself

in The Immediate Family, in that band.

When you look back in hindsight,

people ask me that a lot.

"Did you know that those songs were gonna be so important

or those records were gonna be so big?"

And I didn't know then.

You know, I was just happy to be there.

I can look at a song I played in 1973,

today and go,

"I wouldn't play that song that way today."

But in 1973, that was exactly how I was playing.

And that's what I did.

I would just move on to what's now.

I had no idea that we'd be in a band at this point.

I had no idea that I'd still be able to play

at 72 or would even want to.

I don't think you retire from this business.

I just don't know anybody who's happily retired

from music business.

I didn't think too much about the first hurrah,

so I definitely don't think too much about the last hurrah.

To me, it's all hurrah.

All the way down the line.

You should strive to do something

that makes you happy.

That's so important to the human psyche,

that what your work is, it inspires you

and makes you happy.

But this is our band,

and we're doing now, what we wanted to do forever.

Russ said to me at one point,

just as a friend, he said, like,

"Whenever you do make your record, you know,

don't forget, I want to play with you."

And that meant the world.

Our musical life, and he does every album

he's ever done with me, so it's like, you know,

we collaborate,

and I can't really imagine, you know,

I can't imagine my life without him.

And all I can express is admiration for these guys.

I feel really lucky

that they've played with me at all, over the years.

All I know is as soon as I encountered 'em, I wanted 'em.

They were better players than everybody else.

That's the way it happened.

I can't overemphasize the importance

of the role that Danny played in my solo career.

I mean, again, I'd never planned on having a solo career.

I didn't...

feel like a solo act.

And he coaxed me, and encouraged me, and pushed me

in that direction and gathered

all these great musicians around me who were supportive.

And...

...you know, as the years go by,

I look back on it, and I'm more and more appreciative

of the contribution that he made.

And so...

that's why so many people wanted to work with him.

Well... ...that's a tricky question.

I mean, my mom died when I was six years old,

right after the guitar incident.

She pretty much was out of commission

for about a year and she died when I was six.

And so, family to me, means my dad and my brother

and the three of us arguing our way through life, you know,

and that was family until I met these guys, really.

The word "family" means commitment,

it means priority,

you know and of course, all the other things, love.

♪ How I wish I could But you were so far away ♪

You know, there is something, you know,

you can't get, you know, any other way

than just playing together

and enjoying each other's company.

♪ Can't say much Of anything that's new ♪

We were each other's only resource.

We had to be friends with each other.

These were the only people we knew.

♪ I'd rather spend it Being close to you ♪

I'm basically looking at three other guys

that I've been on a stage with for 50 years,

and loving every moment of being with them.

I could get a hipper, younger people.

- In this hotel. - Yeah.

To play this stuff, you know--

But these are the people that play it best,

and these are my best friends and...

and so, I don't need anybody else.

Hey, dude.

♪ Nothing else to do But close my mind ♪

Announcer 3: Put your hands together

and welcome to the stage, The Immediate Family!

- Once in a lifetime. - Yeah, it truly is.

A golden age.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's a wrap.

You're on speaker.

Thanks so much.

♪ So take, take me home ♪

♪ 'Cause I don't remember Take, take me home ♪

♪ 'Cause I don't remember Take, take me home ♪

♪ Oh, Lord ♪

♪ Well I've been a prisoner All my life ♪

♪ And I can say to you ♪

♪ In the middle of the night ♪

♪ Middle of the might ♪

- ♪ I go walking in my sleep ♪ - ♪ I go walking in my sleep ♪

♪ From the mountains of faith ♪

♪ Mountains of faith ♪

- ♪ To the river so deep ♪ - ♪ River so deep ♪

♪ I must be looking for something ♪

♪ Looking for something ♪

- ♪ Something sacred I lost ♪ - ♪ Sacred I lost ♪

- ♪ But the river is wide ♪ - ♪ Oh, it's wide ♪

♪ And it's too hard to cross ♪

♪ Too hard to cross ♪

♪ Even though I know The river is wide ♪

♪ I walk down every evening And I stand on the shore ♪

♪ I try to cross To the opposite side ♪

♪ So I can finally find What I've been looking for ♪

♪ In the middle of the night ♪

♪ Middle of the night ♪

- ♪ I go walking in my sleep ♪ - ♪ I go walking in my sleep ♪

♪ Through the valley of fear ♪

♪ Valley of fear ♪

- Look, it's me. It's me!

Santa, I am begging of you this year,

please would you get three guitar tuners?

I know you're gonna do the good thing,

because I've been a good boy.

You've got your helpers here like I do.

I see Postale, I see Kootch. I see Waddy.

There's Russell up there. It's fantastic.

Watch the diet there. You're getting a little funky.

Okay, too much pizza.

♪ Oh, what a lonely boy Oh, what a lonely boy ♪

♪ Goodbye Mama ♪

♪ Even roses got excited ♪

♪ When he saw the promise land ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

♪ But Texas wants you anyway ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

- ♪ That's right ♪ - ♪ You're not from Texas ♪

♪ But Texas wants you anyway ♪

♪ I was, I was born And raised in Texas ♪

♪ And it means so much to me ♪

♪ Though my girl comes From down in Georgia ♪

♪ We were up, up in Tennessee ♪

♪ And as we were driving Down the highway ♪

♪ She asked me, baby ♪

♪ What's so great How come you're always... ♪

♪ As I bask in the glow Of a just-lit fire ♪

♪ Feeling the warmth As the flame grows higher ♪

♪ I think it's true That nothing is really new ♪

♪ Under the sun ♪

♪ Watching a new love grow From old love's embers ♪

♪ Yesterday's gone But today remembers ♪

♪ Doesn't it seem To come down the same ♪

♪ For everyone ♪

♪ Only love is real ♪

♪ Everything else illusion ♪

♪ Adding to the confusion ♪

♪ Of the way we connive At being alive ♪

♪ You can walk across The water ♪

♪ You can swim across the sea ♪

♪ But there ain't no Buried treasures ♪

♪ And there's no plan B ♪

♪ And you're gonna climb A mountain ♪

♪ If you're not afraid to fall ♪

♪ It's about sticking it out It's about giving your all ♪

♪ You gotta have Skin in the game ♪

♪ Gotta have skin in the game ♪

♪ You got some ice In your veins ♪

♪ You gotta have Skin in the game ♪

♪ It's more than the money ♪

♪ It's more than the fame ♪

♪ You gotta stay close To the flame ♪

♪ You gotta have Skin in the game ♪