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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more What You Here

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weekday Afternoons on the Drive. Best
known as Billy Joel saxophonist and as well

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as musical director for Ringo Starr in
his all star band, Mark Rivera has

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played with a lot of great performers, whether it's John Lennon, Paul McCartney,

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Elton, John Simon and Garfuncle and
many more. He's written all about

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it in his new book Sideman in
pursuit of the next gig, Mark Rivera.

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Great to have you here. Great
to be here, Lee, thanks

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so much. Let's start with what
point in your life did the saxophone land

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in your lap? I was.
It was in a Hope chest when I

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was seven, but my parents didn't
allow me to play until I was about

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eight and a half. My uncle
Vinnie, my godfather, played saxophone in

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a club day kind of wedding band
and I wanted to play that thing.

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I played guitar before that. You
know. My paone had a Spanish started

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around with and by time I was
about and a half, I was able

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to flow into this thing for the
first time in my hands. Beside the

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the alto fit perfectly. My Alpha
gave me about three or four lessons,

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and about two months lad he said, I'm done. He's got to go

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someplace south and it's um. It's
been a journey. So it's my favorite

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instrument because it's so close to the
human voice. Well that it is.

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And did you at that point in
your life did you have some inspiration from

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from you know, the Charlie Parkers
of the world, or or anybody else.

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I was more of a rock and
roll when I was seven, though

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seven and a half. I think
it was I think nineteen sixty I would

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have been sixty when I was seven
or eight years old and my father brought

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me to the Apollo Theater. Oh
yeah, I saw Sonny Rollins play.

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It was his Bridge album, and
I remember that very vividly. I was

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around the time he wore a mohawk, so I was. I wasn't as

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much of a bebop guy by nineteen
sixty four, which was only what three

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two or three years later. In
February ninth, as we all know,

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the Beatles played for the Ed Sullivan
Show and all bets were off. That's

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I wanted to be in that band
that wanted to sing the first time I

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hear the first time I heard well
then yeah, yeah, John's boy.

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Yeah I was. I was all
over it and that voice. Uh,

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and those four guys changed the landscape
completely. And Uh, it's funny because

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you think of the front of that
cover. I stared at the back of

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that cover because it was four guys
who looked like the front of the covers,

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like that dark half shadow. But
the back of the cover has four

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guys like leaning on each other,
and it's like, wow, they were

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like four friends and they and they
had these cool outfits and cool haircuts,

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but they had the coolest boots,
bad bad, and I wanted to be

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the band that was. It changed
everything. Mark Rivera is with us the

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book, his sideman in Pursuit of
the next gig. He's played with a

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lot of the greats like Joe Walsh, Hollow Notes, Peter Gabriel. Anymore,

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What of the performers that you played
And I mean this in a good

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way. I'm not trying to implicate
you or the performer, but because to

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me, a performer who's a perfectionist
is a good performer. But of the

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ones you've worked with, who do
you think was the biggest perfectionist. Ooh

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um perfectionist. Well, I thought, um, I don't. That's a

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very difficult question. Sheila e wanted
her band a certain way, she wanted

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her songs a certain way. And
I'm not believing. I'm not throwing her

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under the bus, but no deeler
myself. John Waite played bass Fall Karak

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Karat played keyboards, and if I
remember, Colin Hay was a guitarist,

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John Waite was not a funky bass
player. He was you know, he

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was in the Babies and corting you. John is one of the greatest thingers

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I've ever worked with. But as
far as playing some funk and she ly

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eaves music, it was hard.
So I had to stin with John.

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I had to talk about the legend
a number of times, and I had

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to show him the page parts.
I go to his room for an hour

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before the rehearsal and two hours after
the rehearsal, partially to show him some

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licks but partially just took some some
just some moral support. Yeah, he

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was And again, it's not difficult. But she knew what she wanted and

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she's she's a tremendous, tremendous musician. Well a tremendous, a tremendous producer

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too. So I mean it's to
me, it's not a bad thing to

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be a perfectionist. You have that
sound that you want and you want to

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coax it out of your band,
correct, correct, And uh So that

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was probably the most challenging because everyone
else came to the games of the rehearsals

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were a preconceived idea of what the
songs were going to be, and it

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was just my job to try to
try to translate what was there. And

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uh as a lot of the people, in fact, now a lot of

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it. All of the people were
front front men from women, and they

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were not used to being a side
person or they weren't used to being in

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another person's band. That's pretty much
it. And I had to teach them

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the art of you know, learning
learning the chords how they go or for

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that matter. The other thing about
Ringo's band was that we were able to

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put a little bit of a twist
to put our own stamp on how the

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songs went, and they gave me
some latitude and it was it's it was

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amazing. Uh The one the one
other person was Greg Lake, who wanted

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to do three songs they were Carnival
line, Ye, lucky Man, and

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he wants to do from the beginning, but I insisted that we did um

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part of the Crimson King, and
he said, well, I said,

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trust me, he's gonna go trust
you, and he's like, I've gotten

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my face. So it turns out
I convinced him to do quarter of the

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Crimson King the first show. After
the first show of the whole tour,

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I said, if it doesn't go
well, well we'll move on. So

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I played bass on a lucky Man
plays uh, keyboards on on on Uh.

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No, I didn't play anything on
Carnival nine because it's just a trio,

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which yeah, he does all the
keyboard work there. Yeah, oh

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Howard Jones and uh. And as
it turns out, the third song we

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picked, I got in my way. We got to do um uh part

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of the Crimson King. So after
ring of three songs, he said,

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now all I to introduce you to
Greg Lake, and we do quart of

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the Crimson King. And when the
chorus comes and he goes, oh so

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uh, the entire audience stood up
and saying oh. And and Greg looked

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over at me from stage left over
the stage right, and I shrugged my

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shoulders said, I told you,
And it's really a matter of knowing,

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you know, knowing the beast you're
writing, knowing, knowing the person everybody.

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Everybody takes the challenge differently as far
as taking direction. Some people take

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it gladly, some people are very
reluctant. Uh. And it's just it's

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it's just knowing who you're who you're
dealing with. And again I'm a sports

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Everything is about reaching the person.
You could tell if you had three kids

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on a on a on a soccer
team or three professional hockey players, they

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will get the same the same outcome
will be reached different ways because you can't

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not everybody could take the heart the
heart beating, or you can't be soft

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on a guy who needs stuff to
and vice versa. If a guy needs

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to be tough and pushed, they'll
respond to that. And as a musical

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director, you have to know your
place and you have to know the people

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that you're directing and their personalities.
So I've been very blessed in the book.

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If you see, you'll see it's
it's I quote my father constantly,

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and the main one was you could
be confident but not arrogant. So if

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you know he's supposed to do.
You can do it as long as it's

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with confidence and love. My admiration
and my admiration has always been with you

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and your type, Mark Rivera,
because of the immense amount of music you

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have to keep in your head.
And I could talk all day. But

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the book is Sideman, and if
you read it you'll get more of these

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great stories that he's talking about.
Sideman in pursuit of the Next gig,

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and Mark Rivera is the author and
also the star of all these shows he's

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talking about. Thank you for joining
us, Thanks for listening to Later with

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Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive

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Live weekday afternoons from five to seven
and I Hearts Media Presentation