Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. This is Matt Connorton Unleashed. We are
live from the studios of WM and H on this
Saturday morning. You might be hearing Amnesia by John Possett
Dart and we have him, I believe on the phone
with us.
Speaker 2: John. Is that you, Hey man, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: Good? Good, Welcome to the show. It's great to speak
with you. I kind of went down the rabbit hole
last night with your music. Obviously I've always been aware
of you, but it's been a long time since I
listened to any of your well, first of all, since
any Posset Dart band. So that was fun kind of
going back and listening to a lot of that stuff.
And I also listen to some of your more recent
solo material. And I have to say, I really really
love a lot of what you're doing. And I'm excited
that you're coming to Manchester on the thirteenth to play
at the Rex Theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the Rex is a really nice room. We
love coming back here.
Speaker 1: Have you played there quite a bit over the years
We have played.
Speaker 2: Yes, we have, we have. And the new end it's
kind of you know, it's gone to a couple of
changes and they've really fixed it up nice now and
it's just a really really great listening room. I mean,
people really and the audiences are really good and the
whole staff who run it are really great folks. So's
it's excellent. We yes, we love coming there.
Speaker 1: Outstanding. Now are you doing? How big of a tour
is this? Are you doing quite a few dates?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this September. We're jumping around quite a bit all
through September. It gets quiets down after September, but we're
all over We're doing you know, New Hampshire, Massachusets, Maine, Connecticut.
We're moving around quite a bit this month, so that's good.
And it's myself and Jim Chaplain, who's I've been playing
with now for twenty five years, and we're doing I've
been really focusing on kind of coming back to the
roots of the songs duo, which I really like and
it really brings in people close to the to the
songs and the music. So we're really enjoying working, you know,
in this very kind of intimate environment. So it's really great.
And Jim and I have been playing together for a
long long time, so it's a very we're very tight.
It's like he's a brother, you know.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Now, Jim was not a member of Who's That
Dart Band?
Speaker 2: Correct, not the original band, Okay, but he's been a
member of the band for twenty five years because the band,
original band broke up quite quite a way's back. But
Jim and I've been playing together now for over twenty
five years, and in the band when we were working
with the band. But these days we've been as I mentioned,
we're focusing more on just doing a I've been focusing
on the acoustic aspect of it just because I really
enjoy it. And but Jim has been is well known.
I mean, he's I don't know how if you remember
n RBQ and he old but he plays with Al Anderson,
who's like one of my favorite guitar players and songwriters.
Oh and so we've known each other for a long
long time and he's he's he's he's just great.
Speaker 1: So now on this tour, is it just the two
of you? You're just doing it as a duo? Yeah, okay, okay,
now you said so do you prefer that? I mean,
is he playing with you the entire set?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we do a duo with the whole show.
Is duo. Oh very good, so so, you know, I
and allows me to kind of really open up and
carry down the root of the songs and then and
we we trade off. It's like we're very it's very
seamless how it's kind of worked out together. But but
it's it's just uh, it's just kind of nice feel
and it brings the songs right to the root of
where they are. So it's very uh, you know, you
really get the core of what it brings. And it
also I find, you know, having done both, I like
enjoy the band, but when you're playing with the band,
it kind of pushes it, you know, it puts you, what,
it's a little further away from you, whereas when you're
acoustic in this setting, it really allows an intimacy. It
allows the audience to come up really kind of get
in close and bring the songs up very in a
very kind of warm way. So I really enjoy it. Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you ever play with a full band at this
point or do you always do? I mean, since Poos
that Dart band broke up? How long was that band together?
Not that long?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, we were together in the seventies and into
the early eighties, and the industry really kind of took
a big shift at that point, and that's when we
left Capital and We've done We've got a long tour
and then disbanded after this very long tour across the country,
and the whole nature of radio and record really went
through a shift. It was kind of during the period
when the disco and techno stuff really hit the country, yep.
And and when we were with Capital at that point,
there was a band called the Nac that turned in
my Sharona, and the labels really just changed their whole
emphasis and direction and so a lot of rosters really
shifted around that period of time, and so it was
almost kind of the end of an era. And it
wasn't really until kind of the beginning of the nineties
when when female artists kind of came back into the
picture that I felt like kind of really kind of reconnecting.
And it was because it was it was the hole
that hole here in the eighties was a kind of
a bizarre period of time musically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, A lot of people when they
go through that, I just know from interviewing people when
they go through something like that where they've been on
a major label, and then you know it kind of
like you said, there's a shift, right, and then they
get kind of at the end of it, they're kind
of exhausted by it all, and they and they step
away entirely. And it sounds like, so did you take
a break. It sounds like you took a bit of
a break after that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we did. I mean the whole there was
a big shift in terms of the whole picture. In
other words, I left, we left capital, I left management,
and at that point, I actually I moved. I moved
to a different area, and then I moved from I
lived in Rockport at the end of the seventies. Yeah,
and then I moved to New York and started doing
when the band broke up, and I started doing a
lot of session work, and so I got involved with
singing and doing a lot of session work in the city,
which kind of kept me very active, but in a
kind of a different vein It was more more revolving
around television and different things that were and writing for
different venues rather than just record and so I got
really involved in that through the eighties, which was great
because I worked with a ton of people and I
had a lot of and I actually had a lot
of different bands then, but there were different players. It
was a bunch of guys playing, you know, it was
it was It wasn't the original band, but the original band,
all the original guys, Troy and Curtis and I are
all in touch, like we speak to each other regularly,
and we're all still you know, everybody's kind of gone
off in different directions as happens, you know, because really
when you're with a band like we were, we were
a family. I mean, it's like being married. You know,
it's like a marriage, you know, and when the marriage
breaks up, you know, you everybody kind of goes off
in different directions. But we're still very very close, and
I love those guys yearly, and we stayed very much
in touch.
Speaker 1: That's really good to hear, because, as you know, so
often that's not the outcome, you know, very very often
it's it's, you know, people don't talk to each other anymore.
There's there's some sort of weird grudge between musicians wh've
been in a man.
Speaker 2: That wasn't the case. Yeah, that wasn't the case with us,
because it was more just the business that changed. It,
wasn't it wasn't. It wasn't interpersonal. It was more just, uh,
you know, we had really worked hard and we you know,
we broke the top forty and then it didn't didn't.
You know, it's just for a number of reasons. There
were a lot of decisions that were made that were
kind of speculative that we weren't very happy about, choice
of singles and the directions that the labels, you know,
chose that kind of affected the whole picture, and so
there was a little bit of disenfranchisement with the kind
of what had happened was on that level. Because the
record business is such a wacky business. People have no
idea how crazy the record business was back then. Yeah,
so it was like really a different animal, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still pretty crazy in a lot of ways.
We talk about it a lot on this program. But
so when you got back in so that was during
the nineties when you started really kind of focusing on
your solo career and playing out and all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what yeah, Yes, what happened is I was
actually in New York and we were playing the Loan
Star with the New York band who I was playing with,
John McCurry and Chris Bishop and some really great session players.
John McCurry is one of my favorite guitar players in
New York. And he's been with Julian Lennon, Billy, Joel False.
I mean, he's played with everybody, and he's like he's
a really he's in Cyndi Lauper did all of her
early stuff and he's a really good old friend. And
he was he joined the band for a while and
we were very close and I was playing the Loans
I was I was doing the Loan Star actually one
night with the old Loan Star thirteenth and fifth, which
is a great room, and they run an ad and
there was a record guy in Nashville at that time
with us. At that time, there was a label called Asylum, Uh,
and he was a asilent Nashville and he saw the
ad and he called me up in New York said
what are you doing in New York? And he said,
why didn't you come down to Nashville. And that's where
we originally recorded the early records, all in Nashville, And
he said, why don't come down. I'll set you up
with you know, a whole bunch of great writers for
and we'll get see, you know, let's see what we
can put together. And so he basically contacted me out
of the blue and set me up with all of
the most wonderful writers in Nashville. And so I went
down and wrote for two weeks and then recorded all
that material, and that kind of brought me back into
the Nashville fold. And so then I started working on
solo things from there on, and that's where my original solos,
a lot of the first solo things started getting off
the ground. And it was I so went full circle
because we actually did our first records there in the
early seventies at the Old Quad, which was a notorious
that's where Drift Away by Doobe Gray was cut and
all of the kind of legendary stuff from that era
was cut down at the Old Quad on Grand Avenue
and Film.
Speaker 1: So you probably back there. So you probably didn't have
any trepidation, right, because I know a lot of people,
you know, when they go to Nashville, people we've had
on the show, they'll they'll talk about how scary it
is because that's like, you know, I mean, that's that's
high pressure, right, you know, sitting around writing writing songs
with people in Nashville, Tennessee. But you had already recorded
there with the band and everything, so for you, I
assume it was pretty comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we were very fortunate and that was the
first place we went when we first signed Capitol. They
sent us to Nashville with Norvid Putnam and Normood Putnam
and David Briggs and Kenny Butchery, who we did the
first records with were the last Elvis Presley manns. Oh wow,
they were with Presley. So we were working with the
Presley crew. Wow. Which was really amazing as a green
kid to be in the studio with those guys because
they were just phenomenal. Yeah, and so we I was
very lucky to kind of to bump into like some
of the most veteran players at the very beginning. And
we were and we were in Quad, which is one
of the studios which was had Dylan worked in, Joan Baez,
Dobie Gray, you know, Dan Fogelberg, you name it, Jesse
Winchester was like that studio was the place, yeah, and
so so it was we Yeah, so I was we
were very fortunate to really land in with a really
good crew and nor Butt was an amazing musician, and producer.
So we were very, very fortunate to be in the
good graces of some really wonderful people who you know,
was a world class education for me and in every way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Now the set that you
do now on tour, do you do a lot of
the original material who sat Dart band? Or is it
I imagine you mix in because you've been prolific, You've
recorded a lot both with the band and since then
as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yes, So basically I make a good make
a point of really going back and honoring a lot
of the early material to the early records through the
capital the years, and then we move on through the
newer things. So it's a real you know, it's quite
a wide swath of material, you know, that goes back
to the beginning for the songs that people really like
from that period, and then newer things. And also a
couple of very discreete covers here. I try and pick
songs that I really love to play by, you know,
by really great writers here and there. So it's it's
a real wide array of things. And and Jim is
you know, we both covered a lot of ground guitar
wives and Jim is just an amazing musician. So and
we're very tight, you know, and so it's it's, uh,
you know, we're very close with each other and kind
of it's there's a lot of really nice chemistry involved.
So it's fun. It's just it's just really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Are you by the way, are you from here? Originally?
Where are you from?
Speaker 2: I'm actually from New York. I was. I was. I
was born in New York and raised in New York,
and I moved I went to Boston when I first
met I first. The reason I how I wound up
in Boston is I had my grandparents lived in Nantucket,
and I used to go up there a bit, and
when I in the fifties, in the late fifties and
early sixties, and they One night, I had a friend
who got me to sit down and do an audition
in front of John Hammond, who was playing the Chicken Box,
the club out in Nantucket, and and John asked me
to stay on and play with him for three nights.
And so I opened for John Hammond at the Chicken
Box and one night Don Law, who was a promoter
in Boston, yep, very familiar there because he and John
Hamm's father, John Law's father and John Hammond's father were
both talent scouts who had founded all kinds of you know,
we're legendary and the music business. Yeah, and Don saw
the show and said, what are you doing? Want you
to come to Boston? And I went to Boston and
he started managing me, and that's how the band started.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a hell of a great start, I'll
tell you, that's fantastic. That's that's that's a that's an
amazing start. And then did you get signed to Capitol
pretty quickly?
Speaker 2: We actually did a lot of road work. You know,
Don really threw us out on the road, and I
asked John Troy from California. I went to University of
the Pacific in California. I asked him to come out
and play bass, and he started playing bass as a duo.
And then we found John Curtis through an ad in
a music store and we started playing trio. And Don
really put us out on the college circuit really like
and it led a huge amount of work. We started
doing the NEC conferences and everywhere. We played all the
colleges in New England, and so he really turned us
into like a real road outfit really fast. He just
had us on the road endlessly, and we got a
reputation kind of you know, through just really hard work
before we were ever signed. And then you know, there
was we had a strong reputation going from roadwork, and
then we were started seeking out labels and towards the
early mid seventies and then you know, we went through
the same thing that I'll probably all Dan went that
we were rejected by all kinds of people, you know,
one left or another. It's you know, it's the game
of rejection. Was trying to find labels. And then finally
a uh there was a legendary recordman named Al Corey
was then the head of Capital and he was actually
an old Boston guy and he wanted to come to
Boston and he came to Boston, saw us and signed us,
and so and so we signed with Capital, and uh
and then the rest was you know, a couple of
weeks later, we were Dawn and I were out at
the Brown Derby and Hollywood and Vine and they were
setting us up to uh go and start recording in
Nashville with Norburn.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, that's yeah, that's that's fantastic. That's uh, yeah,
that's a great start. How many records did you do
for Capital?
Speaker 2: We did four, there was an option on five and
then and then then the whole kind of industry. You know,
when at that time when we were making those records,
we were really spending a lot of time and really
you know, putting a lot of effort of the records.
And we were spending you know, the budgets were really
high weed to make some pretty expensive records considering what
was going on at that time. And what happened is
the whole industry was very decament at that point. That
was when you know, Fleetwood Mac turned in Tusk, which
was and that was like during that era, and so
the industry was really wild and crazy at that point.
And and then you know, as I mentioned, they signed
the Knack and the NAC turned in my Sharona for
ten grand, and all the labels went, oh, man, we're
when we're changing gears now. And they realized that they
could get everybody to do these records for nothing, and
so they just clean sweep all Warner and Capital and
a lot of labels just did a clean sweep of
their rosters and just kind of you know, started all
over again. So it was like a real like, you know,
a real rude awakening in a lot of ways at
that period of time. And then also a Saturday night
fever came in from the DG's and the whole scene
just kind of went, you know, just went flipped like
like a one eighty degree in terms of what was
going on in terms of record radio. So it was
it was a very know, it was a very eye
opening period of time to go through, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you had a you had a great start,
and of course that built the foundation for everything that
you've been able to do since. And and I like
I said very much, so yeah, and I really like
a lot of the new material that you're doing as well.
And we should mention, we should remind people. Of course,
you're going to be at the Rex Theater on September thirteenth,
and of course, for anyone who's never been there, it
is a it is a fantastic place. And this is
this is just you. Correct, there's no opener, it's just
it's just you and your partner.
Speaker 2: And last time, no, the last yeah, the last time
we were in it was just us. I don't I
don't recall that we had no better last time. Okay,
but the nice thing about it, there's really a really
great audience there. I mean that the audience was fantastic
the last couple of times we've been in there. I mean,
they're just it's a very enthusiastic and and uh, you know,
people really knew this, knew the songs, and so we
love playing. There's a great room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's that's excellent. That's excellent. And then what
are your plans for after this run of shows is
done on this tour? Are you gonna You're gonna do
another album or what? Do you know what your kind
of long term trajectory is?
Speaker 2: You know what I've been doing this. I've been since
I did a record. The last record I did I
did for Sony Red and we did it. We did
I went back when I first went to Nashville. I
told you I came. We came on the tail end
of the drift Away sessions with Dobe Gray, and I
walked him at the end of their cutting drift Away
and the guys were still in the studio and one
of my heroes, Reggie Young, was one of my really
one of my favorite guitar players, bar None was there
in the studio, and I kind of made a mental
note at that time, which was, this is the seventies,
that I would wanted to do a record with him
so badly all these years, so you know, turned the
clock turns, you know, thirty thirty years forward or so,
and I made a mental note that I wanted to
go back. And I met with a producer named Bill Worndek,
who passed subsequently since, but one of the legendary, absolutely
amazing producers. He's done Alison Krause and you know Bellafleck
and many many of the greats, and you know MARLEH. Stanley.
I mean, it's just a long list. But we got
together and did a record, and we wanted to bring
in these these the Muscle Shows guys and Reggie Young.
So I did a record with a lot of the
Muscle Shows guys, Reggie Young and the Memphis and the
real top bench Nashville players and turn in a record
called Talk, which was I think the best record I've
ever done. Wow, that was the last record I did,
and it didn't it was kind of quiet, kind of
it was didn't really like Sony didn't do much you know,
it was the period of time when everything was changing
from kind of the old record the whole promo routine
to social media. So it's a big switch. And since
then I've started really working wanted to put more effort
and just putting singles out so I don't spend so
much time working on a whole record and just kind
of putting things out immediately. Which you've really noticed from
the site is I put and videos out like one
by one so that they're immediately there and I don't
have to spend a lot of time waiting to ac creue.
You know, the energy that you put into a record,
time it takes to get it out, and the attentions. Man,
there's so much shorter now and a lot of people
don't even have you know, they don't even have CD
players in their cars anymore. So it's it's coming through streaming.
So I'm kind of addressing that the medium has changed
to this to a very much more immediate, you know,
uh format. So that's kind of the way I've been
approaching it, is just putting out singles.
Speaker 1: No, that makes sense, and it's something that we talk
about a lot on the show with our guests. Is
that we live in a time where you have all
these different options in terms of how you want to
release music. You know, you can do an album, you
can do an EP, you can put out just singles.
And some of our guests they'll talk about putting out
a series of singles that eventually they put together into
an album. But you know, kind of the inversion of
you know, instead of putting out an album and then
releasing singles, you release the singles and then it becomes
an album. But yeah, yeah, I mean that's a talk
about a big shift in the industry. Yeah, that's a
that's a really big one.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, I mean people really, you know, our people
are just kind of getting things, you know, I mean,
you know with obviously you know, the advent of Spotify
and Rhapsody and Pandora and Amazon and all the rest
of it. You know, that's really the way people are
are are receiving most of what they're getting. And it's
a you know, it's it's it's it's also very difficult
because there's so much stuff coming through that you really
have to kind of dig down to find a lot
of the things. You know, Like there's there's tons of
music that's just below the surface. It doesn't ever kind
of come on to the yep. So it's you know,
it takes it takes some effort to find the things
that you really love, but it's it's there. It's just
I mean, you know, it's just there's so much more
being released now than ever before. So it's it's definitely
an onslaught of media that's being that people are being
inundated with, no question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely if you are just joining us, John
Poussett Dart is with us, and uh, we've been talking
about he's got to coming up on the thirteenth at
the Rex Theater right here in Manchester. And John, well,
we'll let you go in a moment, but I really
appreciate your time this morning, and it's great to get
to speak with you. And yeah, the Rex Theater is
such a nice venue. Of course, if you're online you
can go to Rextheater dot org or Palace Theater dot
org if you want to get tickets online or call
six O three six six eight five eight eight. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
and you can see John Poussett Dart And I'm sorry,
what's the name of the gentleman who plays with you again?
Speaker 2: Jim Chapter Laine and the people. If people know Al Anderson,
Al Anderson is just a treasure, a musical one of
the great guitar player in Saner Sommers and he plays
also with Al and Al is just a monster. He's
literally he was a guitar both with NRBQ and n
RBQ the original NRBQ is was one of the greatest
bands up their Little Feet and Bonnie Ray and some
of my favorite bands bar None the original band it's
changed now, but Al was part of it, was one of
you original members. And he's so he works with Al
and and myself and so he's just and he's also
we have a lot of similar friends in Nashville and
spread around, so he's he's a he's just a wonderful musician.
Jim Chapter Laine.
Speaker 1: Okay, very cool, very cool. All right, Well, John, we
will let you go, but thank you so much. It
is wonderful to speak with you today. Have a great
show on Friday. I wish I could be there, but
I'm actually on the air Friday nights. But but I
know it's going to be great and we'll keep plugging
it here and spreading the word. And thank you so
much for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Matt. It's wonderful talking to you, and thank you for
having me. Greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, anytime, anytime, all right, Thanks John,
Take care, take care.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: That was John Poussett Dart and we're gonna play to
close out our conversation. I'm gonna play this track Amnesia.
This is one of the hits from back in the
days of the John Poussar, the Poussett Dart Band. Boy,
I do a radio show, can you the Poossett Dart Band?
This track Amnesia? And I decided to play this one
specifically for our friend Tony Petrello, who might be listening,
because last night on Retrospectrum Radio we were talking about
how John was going to be joining us this morning,
and Tony had mentioned that he particularly particularly loves this
song Amnesia. So let's give this a spin. Then we'll
show some love to our amazing sponsors and then our guest.
We have a great guest coming in and plus we'll
remind you about that show and the art show that
Jenny is featured in as well. We'll talk about all
of it, but here it is. This is Amnesia. This
is from the poussett Dart Band, John Poussette Dart