BBC Radio One (1989)

HOST:

I'm Richard Skinner for Roger Scott and I'm glad to say that we have been joined in the studio now by a man and a guitar.  It's Leo Kottke.  Welcome to Radio One, Leo.

LEO:

Hi.  Thanks for having me.

RICHARD:

You've been running through the UK doing some gigs.  When are you coming back for a real tour of Britain?

LEO:

Probably in the fall, it's a little --

RICHARD:

The autumn, as we say.

LEO:

I think that's almost inevitable, if inevitable can be almost.

RICHARD:

This must be your 15th time through Britain, I mean's you're a regular visitor here.

LEO:

I certainly am.  The first time I inflicted myself on your shores here was with Procul Harum who really are responsible for my ever having jobs available over here.

RICHARD:

How did that happen?

LEO:

They used to use one of my records to back up runs of the movies they took while they were ontour.  And I guess one night at [Gary] Brooker's house they decided -- surrounded by the stoats that he likes to raise --  they decided that maybe it would be appropriate to get me to open up for them.  So I met them in Boston at a place called Paul's Mall where the owner was armed and had false walls and two-way mirrors and all that kind of stuff.  Very dramatic kind of guy.

RICHARD:

And from there?

LEO:

And from there --

RICHARD:

-- came a lot of tours.

LEO:

Yeah.

RICHARD:

I was amazed to discover on the new album, the latest album, My Father's Face, that your voice is back.

LEO:

Yes.

RICHARD:

What prompted the vocalizing?

LEO:

More than anything else I think the fact that I can't resist singing on stage.  And it gests to be a little unrepresentative if all I do on record is guitar.    Also, when I was in high school I heard Kenny Burrell at the Showboat Lounge -- which happened to be a place where you could sneak in if your were underage cause the guy who checked you ID could only stare at his feet for reasons we won't go into, so anything would do.  At any rate, Kenny sung that night and I have never heard that done on record and I enjoyed it.  So maybe that's in operation also.

RICHARD:

All right, no singing today, though.

LEO:

Not a bit.  I have a sneeze that's lurking behind practically every vowel that's happening here.

RICHARD:

Control the sneeze but play us some guitar.  What are you going to do now?

LEO:

This is called "William Powell."

[Leo plays "William Powell"]

RICHARD:

Leo Kottke performing live on Radio One with "William Powell."  When you get an instrumental like that, why do you call it "William Powell"?

LEO:

Well..why do I call it "William Powell"?

RICHARD:

This is the actor, the man who was The Thin Man.

LEO:

Yeah, it is the actor.  The tune was originally called "Lana Turner."  She's really the inspiration for the thing.  She was out night clubbing according to an observer, that was nearby -- T. Bone Burnett.  She was at a club that was supposedly offering a live band, but the band proved to be something less than alive and whatever they played just sort of  oozed off the front of the stage. And no-one was having a good time but she, I guess, determined that she would have a good time, approached the stage and terrified these guys into the best set of  their lives.  

I kinda wished I had been there to see it and I would also like to be able to say that I wrote the song as a result of hearing the story but it was already there so maybe -- it had already been written -- so maybe the title was so tenuous that William Powell just happened by accident, I don't really know how it came about.

RICHARD:

That is the maddest answer I have ever heard in my life I must say [Leo laughs].  You mentioned T-Bone Burnett there.  Amazing man

LEO:

Oh yeah.

RICHARD:

Worked very successfully too with Elvis Costello who thinks that he is really God's gift to recording.   What is the magic of the chap?  Because he's a bit of an unusual character to say the least.

LEO:

I met T-Bone 20 years ago when he was producing a Dilbert & Glenn record --

RICHARD:

We ought to say that he's produced yours as well.  You worked together on that.

LEO:

Yeah, this [one] and one we did one eight years ago [Time Step -- BH].  We've been friends for a long time.  What he's good at -- his great gift, I think -- is an ability to bring that into the studio and make it work for everybody.  You really do forget that you're recording, that there's a clock, that there's tape.  And that enables him to remember what the tune meant in the first place which is easily forgotten after you've heard it for the millionth time, trying to wonder, trying to figure what to do with it. He doesn't lose track, and that's worth its weight in gold.

RICHARD:

He's also a lot of fun

LEO:

Absolutely,  He's a hilarious guy.

RICHARD:

You called the album My Father's Face.  We may be able to investigate this.  It has your face on the front.

LEO:

That's right.  Which is uncannily similar to my father's face.  It's a line out of one of the tunes, "Jack Gets Up," and it was suggested by my manager, who I think has tried to insinuate himself into every enterprise, into any act he's got, [or] has developed.  So I thought I'd give him a break and let him be an artist for a change.

RICHARD:

Your father sounds like he was one heck of a character actually.  They hand out these press releases [shuffles papers].  You say he slept well.

LEO:

That was -- that is -- the bulk of his character...is somnolence.  He sleeps -- he can sleep standing up.  He fell asleep once in Persimmon Circle, a suburb of Virginia, in the afternoon.  He work up thinking that it was morning.  he went into the kitchen and asked his wife -- who was also my mother -- to make breakfast.  She's used to that kind of thing so she made a couple of eggs and didn't say a word.  The window there was just behind where she stood at the stove, and he could see it was getting darker outside instead of brighter.  And what he told her over two weeks later was that he thought the world was coming to an end.

RICHARD:

But he ate his eggs...

LEO:

And he got up and he went out to the car and he drove around the neighbourhood to see what everybody was doing now that the world was coming to an end.  And it was a Sunday evening so people were lining up, going into church.   Which only reinforced his error.

He does stuff like that all the time.  He takes himself, as you might guess, awfully seriously.  If he didn't he wouldn't come to such dramatic conclusions, I think.

RICHARD:

You have, in this next tune, another family reference

LEO:

That's right, this is "My Aunt Francis."  She sort of saved my skin when I was starting out and starving in Pasadena of all places.

RICHARD:

All right.

[Leo plays "My Aunt Francis"]

RICHARD:

On the Saturday Sequence, we're enjoying the live guitar work of Leo Kottke.  And that was a tune called "My Aunt Francis."  There's  a bit of retuning occurring even now.  Have a little strum while we talk if  you can do the two things together.

LEO:

All right.

RICHARD:

You're a dad as well of course, aren't you?

LEO:

Yeah, I am.

RICHARD:

We're talking family still.  Does the music run through to the next generation?

LEO:

It ran there in the beginning.  To my son, who picked up a bugle one day.

RICHARD:

That's a hideous idea!

LEO:

This was a horrifying moment.  It was god awful.  He gets up a lot earlier -- still does -- than I do. It was touch and go for a while but finally the bugle failed to hold any interest for him.  At the moment he's a bass player.

RICHARD:

That's a lot more manageable I feel.

LEO:

It is.  He can find more employment as a bassist than as a bugle-ist.

RICHARD:

Do you think his future is going to be musical?

LEO:

I don't think so.  I have a hunch he'll be doing something else.  I haven't figured out what that is yet but philosophy might have some part of it.

RICHARD:

A bit like you really.

LEO:

[laughs]  You're very kind [coughs]

RICHARD:

Thank you for coming in today.  The cold is coming through, I can hear.

LEO:

Yeah, excuse me.

RICHARD:

We haven't decided what last tune you're going to do.  Obviously, you have now as you're tuning for something.

LEO:

Yeah.  I though I'd play an old -- I've played a couple of recent things, this is an old one called "June Bug," which is a slide piece that I wrote something like twenty-two, three, years ago and it's something I'm still very fond of.

RICHARD:

So this is really getting back to the sort of music that Procul Harum picked up on back at the start.

LEO:

That's right, that's right.

RICHARD:

OK, let's do it.

[Leo plays "June Bug"]

[At end of tune, he hits the guitar on the console]

RICHARD:

Crack!  Proves it's live.  Leo Kottke, thank you so much for being here  today.

LEO:

Thank you.

RICHARD:

The album is called My Father's Face, it's out now and the tour is in the autumn.

LEO:

It is.

RICHARD:

See you then.  This is Radio One FM.