This is later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you
hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. Jim Sullivan spent twenty six years writing for
The Boston Globe and then two more decades writing for national publications. He's interviewed
and reviewed countless musicians, some of them multiple times, and we're talking the
A listers. He's put it all together in a book that is called Backstage
and Beyond, Volume one, which includes fascinating, entertaining, and occasionally here
raising profiles. Forty five years Jim has a lot of memories to comb through.
There is a lot of memories to comb through. When I was thinking
about doing this book, the word legacy was kind of dangled in front of
me, and you know, I thought, well, it's legacy is something
that you have kind of when you're dead, and I'm not so sure about
that. But on the other hand, YEA, I will be dead at
some point, so I guess it's good to have a legacy. Again.
There's there's a lot of good stuff in here. There's a lot of good
stories. They they flow sequentially to a degree, but they're also broken up
in chapters, and I like to think of them as good toilet reading as
well. By and large, did you talk to these guys in person,
backstage, over the phone, total mix from dressing rooms to bars, to
hotel rooms to phone interviews, limousines, you know, the full range of
wherever one could talk to someone. All of them done in the in the
pre cell phonner era, none of that stuff. And actually I'm trying to
think probably pretty much in the pre internet there this book anyway, there's there's
a second volume coming in October. This one deals with artists who started in
the fifties and it goes pretty much up to artists who started in the early
mid seventies. The next book kicks off after that, which is sort of
a punk and post punk onward era. Did you focus on just one job,
one music style or is it everything now? Not at all? The
idea? Yeah, as I said, we broke it up more by time
frame. And in this book, you've got the Kinks, Ray and Dave
Davies, You've got Pete Townsend, You've got lou Reid, You've got rock
Tea music, Brian Ferry and Brian Eno. You've got Mary and Faithful,
Tina Turner, Darlene Love, Roy Orbison, Richard Thompson. It's a wide
range of musicians. I mean, the only key in the thread, I
suppose, if you will, is that I had to like them and I
had to have a rapport with them that went just sort of beyond the obligatory
rock in a twenty minute rock interview, we've gotten with newspaper guy, and
for the most part, I think we did that. I mean, there's
some depth to these stories. I don't pretend they are complete stories of the
artist's life, but they're sort of extended moments in time that I spent with
them. You had to like them, Did they have to like you?
Not necessary seraily, but I think with a few exceptions. Ginger Baker didn't
like me much, but he doesn't like anybody, and I didn't take that
personally. That was sort of a contractual interview he had to do, and
it was pulling teeth. I put it in the book almost as a humor
piece, because he is pretty funny. My attempts to get him to talk
and his basically not even hearing what I'm saying and yelling walk most of the
time. So that was one where no, no, there was no close
relationship there that was just you know, we're both looking at our watches.
I was going to end. But by and large, yeah, I mean
there were pretty deep relationships with both of the Davy's brothers from the Kinks with
moren Zevon, certainly with Richard Thompson with Nico, and yeah, I think
one of my strengths is getting on the wavelength that the artist is on in
trying to match that or understand that, and use humor when possible. That's
always a good icebreaker and sort of a good bond. If you share a
similar sense of humor, chances are you are going to get on pretty well.
And you know, I didn't shine away from tough questions either, but
it was, you know, it was I did my research. I went
in knowing things and it wasn't just a case of blindly stepping into the backstage
area and what can you tell me about your life? You know, I
had some points I wanted to make, and I think the other key thing
about doing these interviews was that you listen to what they're saying and if they're
going off on the tangent you didn't expect, but it's really interesting follow that
tangent and go with it. Get some great stuff that way, and I
think I did. Backstage and Beyond Volume one is the book forty five Years
of Classic Rock Chats and Rants from Jim Sullivan, who ranted the most.
I'm going to go go to Ginger again on that. It was sort of
a desultory rant, but he did. Jerry Lee Lewis also at times he
did threaten to killing. It was but I'm not going to flatter myself to
say that I'm the only person he threatened to kill. And also I believe
he said he said it in a joking manner. I really do believe that
his idea was after a show, he said, you better give me a
damn good review, and if you don't, you did, huh. And
I kind of smiled and said, I don't think he's going to kill and
fluss ay good review. But yeah, yeah, he was. He was
a ranter, and he was you know, at times he was very reflective
and was wondering about whether you go to heaven or hell and you know all
that, and at other times he was just wild and said things I can't
tell you on the radio, of course, not I imagine there's a lot
that you can't tell on the radio. But that's why it's good. That's
all written down in Jim Sullivan's book forty five Years of Classic Rock Chats and
Rants. It's beyond Backstage and beyond volume one. Yes, there's a volume
two coming up, Jim. I've had my share of this, certainly not
to the degree that you have. But have you ever been interviewing an artist
and you realize, Wow, this person is probably not gonna be around another
couple of years. I'll give you an example. I interviewed Benny Mardonas who
had a hit single back in the late seventies called Into the Night, and
when I interviewed him, I was like, this guy is so coked up,
he can't last. He's going to burn out, and he did.
Not long after that. I thought Nico would perhaps die in the not distant
future. When I first interviewed her, she was still on heroin. As
it turned out, no, the second time I taught to her as she
had kicked She looked a lot at her she was healthy and somewhat ironically,
I suppose she died bicycle accident or possibly having a heart as attacking a bicycle.
Some years later, so no, she didn't end the way many of
us thought she was going to end. Now, a lot of them damage
their hearts early in their careers and then later suffered from, you know,
damage that they had done to their heart. There is that, yeah,
of course, right right, certainly backstage and beyond Volume one forty five years
of classic rock chats and rants, Jim Sullivan has written about it. He's
been a rock critic and journalist for a long time, Boston Globe and many
other national publications. It's also getting back to the drugs thing. It seems
like it was more prevalent later, like the Roy Orbison's of the World and
the Jerry Lee Lewis is the World. I'm sure it was there, but
it doesn't seem to have affected them as much as it did later artists.
I think you're right. Jerry Lee's main vice I think was the laker.
Yeah, Roy don't think he had any vices. And yeah, well,
the indulgences of the sixties and seventies kind of played out and there was the
idea. Alice Cooper told me this that he sort of opawned entering the rock
world as he did. He sort of thought drinking becoming becoming a drunk and
just partying all the time was sort of like the entry level requirement of being
a rocca and the heat he learned before. That took some time, but
he learned that wasn't really what you wanted to do, and also what you
wanted to do is separate the on stage alice from the off stage alice,
which he managed to do quite well. Actually, Yeah, a lot of
the artists that I've talked to that are still going strong, I think realized
that although they try to create this image of sex, drugs and rock and
roll, you'd go backstage and they'd be drinking hot tea and warming up.
You know. Yeah, yeah, there is uh and I think yeah,
I mean, I think honestly, the the sex, drogs and rock and
roll thing, I mean it's it looks good on paper, and it's kind
of a good fantasy. And yeah, some of them lived it out and
some of them died by it. But yeah, by and large, if
you're planning on having any kind of career, that's more of a short lived
part of all the drugs part of the way, it's a short lived part
of your career, or else He's just not going to have one as you
as you will know, read all about the careers of many of your favorites
Beyond and Backstage and Beyond, Volume one, forty five years of classic rock
chats and rants from Jim Sullivan. Thank you for sharing them. The reason
for joining us today, Hey, thank you, I appreciate him. Thanks
for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember
to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation