Speaker 1: Hey, it's Bob Pickett. We are on our way to
Speaker 1: the legendary Broken Spoke. Come on, let's get out the
Speaker 1: truck and head inside.
Speaker 2: And damn you're proud of it.
Speaker 1: Come on, it's going side, getting ready for another Tale
Speaker 1: from the Broken Spoke mony. And I had such a
Speaker 1: great time visit with Bob Livingsteen. Let's get back to
Speaker 1: part two of our conversation. And we're also going to
Speaker 1: find out how the name the Lost Gun So Bad
Speaker 1: came about more with the conversation Bob Livingston on Tails
Speaker 1: from the Broken.
Speaker 2: Spoke, you know, and then you just talk about you know,
Speaker 2: Stephen Fromholt, one of the greatest songwriters ever, you know,
Speaker 2: and just all y'all passing songs back and forth and
Speaker 2: inspiring each other, and you know, and and B. W.
Speaker 3: Stevenson was right right of course, right man.
Speaker 2: And then you just became a bass player because the
Speaker 2: gig didn't have a bass player. And then that's what
Speaker 2: you wound up doing.
Speaker 3: It was like base with me.
Speaker 4: I just remember that I was so my record deal
Speaker 4: fell through. They'd given me money. You know, I had
Speaker 4: the good girlfriend, right, I'm living up in the mount
Speaker 4: till you don't thing is rolling, you know, and and
Speaker 4: then it's off.
Speaker 3: And I just remember, I had no Plan B. That's
Speaker 3: the name.
Speaker 4: That's one of the working tiles for my book. It's
Speaker 4: on Texas Tech Press, Fixing come Out. And uh, there
Speaker 4: was no Plan B. And there wasn't all of a
Speaker 4: sudden that what you said, those gifts, those synergistic happenings
Speaker 4: were just.
Speaker 2: You know, because then you look back when you're writing
Speaker 2: the book and go, it's a straight line, but you're
Speaker 2: doing it, you know. But it's like, I remember one
Speaker 2: of those great stories that Texas pickers is when when
Speaker 2: Buddy Holly hired Whalen to play bass on that last tour.
Speaker 2: But Whalen never held held the base before Bud. He said,
Speaker 2: here's a bass, here's my two albums. We lead in
Speaker 2: three weeks weeks, you know, and so you know what
Speaker 2: it's like. He's twenty, he'd never been outside of Texas
Speaker 2: before in the biggest star in the world, and so
Speaker 2: he just hunkers down and he does this and he's
Speaker 2: and after the second gig, Whaling told me and Brent
Speaker 2: Brent Wilson with Wagoneers waiting, came up to Buddy. It's
Speaker 2: all excited because Buddy, this is just the first four
Speaker 2: strings of the guitar. After two gigs, he said, Holly
Speaker 2: goes how you could have gone off in day without
Speaker 2: telling me that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're bringing up You're bringing up Buddy Holly and
Speaker 1: whaling the love of connection. You spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in Lubock.
Speaker 4: Well, I was when I was ten years old. My
Speaker 4: parents were in the church business. They were at a
Speaker 4: church in San Antonia, Laura Heights Methodists, and so I
Speaker 4: was living in barn until I was ten. Then we
Speaker 4: moved to Lobbock so they could get the job the
Speaker 4: first Methodist church in lobook and Uh, I made friends.
Speaker 4: I went to Lubbock High School. I found out that
Speaker 4: the beginning of her career, Miss Honey taught Buddy Holly
Speaker 4: senior English.
Speaker 3: I got to sit in his desk. Wow.
Speaker 4: And you know, I tell people, you know a lot
Speaker 4: of some of this is not true. I just want
Speaker 4: to say that, but he she did teach him, and
Speaker 4: it was just, you know, Buddy was on my mind
Speaker 4: because he was only you know, just a little bit gone,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden you learn who he is.
Speaker 4: It's like when one of your friends you should have pad,
Speaker 4: you know, you should hung out more and you learn
Speaker 4: more about him.
Speaker 3: And uh so, yeah, it was. It was kind of
Speaker 3: a but you.
Speaker 2: Know, you think about it, that era of love of Hi,
Speaker 2: whatever was going on, whatever they were inspiring y'all, somebody
Speaker 2: at that school, English teacher, music teacher, was inspiring kids
Speaker 2: to dream. Yeah, you had you come out of that era,
Speaker 2: you know, within five years, a buddy, you had Bob
Speaker 2: Montgomery come out of there, Buddy Holly came out of there,
Speaker 2: Jerry Allison came out of there, Davis mac Davis, Job Malden,
Speaker 2: Glenn Harden.
Speaker 1: You know something about.
Speaker 2: High school that was something about that. You know, what
Speaker 2: is it? Tom s love of Kai that made y'all
Speaker 2: dream about things that that people in rural areas don't
Speaker 2: really do. That's amazing.
Speaker 4: And you know joe Ely and Butch and Jimmy, they
Speaker 4: they went to Monterey High School and they're a couple
Speaker 4: of years older than me. I didn't really know him
Speaker 4: that well because you know, two years is everything. And
Speaker 4: then but I did end up going to see Joey.
Speaker 4: He was Joey then. Yeah, and uh he was playing
Speaker 4: this place in Altura Towers. It was like apartment. They
Speaker 4: had a club at the top. So I go see
Speaker 4: him and he's sitting on a on a showman amp
Speaker 4: with his that guitar with seashells glim you know, that
Speaker 4: funky Gibson, and that was plugged Barcus Berry plugged into
Speaker 4: the amp. And then he has a high hat and
Speaker 4: he's playing the high hat with his left foot and
Speaker 4: he's playing and it's like he's a one man band,
Speaker 4: and this is the coolest thing I'd ever seen. He
Speaker 4: was so nonchalant. He was just like he's not trying
Speaker 4: to do any kind of show. He is just do
Speaker 4: a song after song and every once in a while say
Speaker 4: something off the wall. But I just thought this is
Speaker 4: he was like my first big influence, and you know,
Speaker 4: my brother was, but but this guy was like, oh wow,
Speaker 4: that's real. And so the next day I was down
Speaker 4: at the pawn shop. I got a pawn I got
Speaker 4: a high hat, and my brother loaned me his amp
Speaker 4: and I had this lectric guitar and I plugged it
Speaker 4: in and I became you know, for a.
Speaker 2: While, it's so cool. But you know the thing about
Speaker 2: Elie is, you know, the music is so great. The
Speaker 2: songs are so great. But if you're ever you know,
Speaker 2: he got like the charisma of like ten movie stars.
Speaker 2: You know, it really is a commanding presence where you really,
Speaker 2: to this day you have to be in the room
Speaker 2: about it. I wanted to ask you something when I
Speaker 2: was doing, you know, because it's so you know, I
Speaker 2: grew up listening to y'all's records. Of course, then I
Speaker 2: got to see it be around y'all a little bit,
Speaker 2: particularly like from Holts. He was always real good to
Speaker 2: me when I was coming up. He was the first
Speaker 2: like professional songwriter I ever met. I was twelve. I
Speaker 2: somehow wound up into Craig Hillis's house on Sharon Lane,
Speaker 2: and I walked in there and I saw Stephen Fromholtz.
Speaker 2: It was just like, you know, I couldn't like seeing
Speaker 2: Davy Crockett or something. I'd never seen a professional songwriter before.
Speaker 2: When I was twelve, for some reason, I blurted out,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a songwriter, you know, And he
Speaker 2: laughed so hard, not at me, but he just thought
Speaker 2: it was great. And he said, man, don't let anybody
Speaker 2: talk you out of it. It was just so great, like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, not finished school, don't let anybody talk you out.
Speaker 2: But for years after he would go, I'm so sorry
Speaker 2: I said that, but now tell me about it if
Speaker 2: you and you know, I got this all flying, so
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's bullshit, but I'd never I'd never known
Speaker 2: about this mountain music farm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 4: Well, so I pick up a hitchhiker. Murphy calls me,
Speaker 4: a we need to meet. I drive up to Rightwood, California.
Speaker 4: He's living in the it's in the foothills of the
Speaker 4: San Gabriels, but it's in the mountains right Wood, across
Speaker 4: the Highway four five or.
Speaker 3: Whatever it is from.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's ten from Lake Haarrawhead and Barstow and San
Speaker 4: Bernardino are down below in the desert. And you know,
Speaker 4: I was sitting in my cabin looking down at the
Speaker 4: desert and I'm you know, five feet snowed in for
Speaker 4: ten days and it was just a you know, fantastic time.
Speaker 4: And we started writing, you know, a song or two together.
Speaker 4: And Murphy, of course, anything that happens, he has a
Speaker 4: song about he finds a bird that with a broken
Speaker 4: wing and he picks it up and he and he
Speaker 4: takes it home and he feeds it and stuff.
Speaker 3: Like that, and we're looking at it.
Speaker 4: Like two days later, I come back and I hear
Speaker 4: this banjo playing and I look in this his little
Speaker 4: music room, and his back is to me. He's playing
Speaker 4: the banjo and this bird is on his shoulder and
Speaker 4: he's singing.
Speaker 2: Wild bird, I have men did your.
Speaker 4: Wings, and I'm wondering if my cold white hands can
Speaker 4: let go this hold on your fluttering heart. It's this beautiful,
Speaker 4: you know, and he he get right and the moment okay,
Speaker 4: So at that moment, I had gone down to the
Speaker 4: to the desert and met this guy named Calvin Black,
Speaker 4: and he was just he had a roadside attraction. I
Speaker 4: took you know, it's just dolls and weird. You know,
Speaker 4: he's a desert rat. And he wrote a song about him.
Speaker 4: And took him down there and he started. And he
Speaker 4: went further down and went to Knotsbury Farm, which the
Speaker 4: is it was the not it was owned by Knotsberry's form,
Speaker 4: but it was the Calico's Ghost Town, and it was
Speaker 4: it had been a silver mining town.
Speaker 3: And Murphy wrote.
Speaker 4: This piece, this beautiful piece called Calico Silver, and he
Speaker 4: had written he got with Larry Cancelor they wrote this
Speaker 4: whole thing and they pitched it to somehow or another.
Speaker 4: They had a manager named Marty Muschatt and they pitched
Speaker 4: it to Kenny Rodgers in the first edition and they
Speaker 4: did it. It was a double album, uh, the first
Speaker 4: country rock opera, The Ballad of Calico.
Speaker 3: Willie Matthews did the cover. It was just incredible.
Speaker 4: But it was a total flop and it was just
Speaker 4: too you know. They were used to just jopped in
Speaker 4: to see what my condition was, and and uh, it
Speaker 4: was just too I don't know. It didn't ever go
Speaker 4: very well. And that's when Murphy started thinking of going.
Speaker 4: But in the meantime, this guy, Marty Michhadd had introduced
Speaker 4: us to Roger Miller and somehow talked him into maybe
Speaker 4: he would bankroll a publishing concern and it was going
Speaker 4: to be called the Mountain Music Farm. And Guy Clark
Speaker 4: was there, Murphy and I was there, you know, and
Speaker 4: so just the.
Speaker 2: Four y'all, Guy Murphy, you and Roger Miller.
Speaker 4: Roger Miller but I don't know if he was going
Speaker 4: to be part, but we met him a few times
Speaker 4: and what a character that and uh, but so that's
Speaker 4: what that was. Wow, it was and it never We
Speaker 4: made some demos, some of which I might have somewhere,
Speaker 4: but for the most part and nothing ever came of it.
Speaker 2: I remember reading in uh Kenny Rogers book or a
Speaker 2: book about him. He interviewed for it, and it was
Speaker 2: talking about Calico. They were coming off these enormous records
Speaker 2: and were they on was it? Were they on CBS?
Speaker 2: It was a capital anyway. Rogers said that they did
Speaker 2: a million pressings, they pressed a million records to meet demand.
Speaker 2: And Roger said in his record and they missed it
Speaker 2: by nine hundred thousand units.
Speaker 1: Totally different styles when it comes to Murphy and Jerry Jeff.
Speaker 1: Totally different styles, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, in a way, yes, Uh, you know, you have
Speaker 4: to deal with someone, you know, when you play with them,
Speaker 4: especially when you're on the road a long time, you
Speaker 4: have to deal so that it's hard to It was
Speaker 4: hard for me to in private and in public to
Speaker 4: not have a you know, to make them the same.
Speaker 4: It was kind of hard for me to do because
Speaker 4: I knew how Murphy kind of was, uh in private,
Speaker 4: and then we'd be on stage and I mean he
Speaker 4: was he was demanding. He'd say things like that a
Speaker 4: string is is is a little sharp, and I said,
Speaker 4: I'm right in the middle of the song. You'd stop
Speaker 4: and say that I'm playing bass, And he says, uh,
Speaker 4: at a gig, at a gig on stage, and he says,
Speaker 4: you need to get that.
Speaker 3: And to just pull it, just just pull that, pull it,
Speaker 3: pull it, pull it in, pull it in.
Speaker 4: And in one case when he did that, he jerked
Speaker 4: the string right off the bass by mistake.
Speaker 2: So you something else he could pull right.
Speaker 4: This is gonzo, you know. And so Murphy was like that,
Speaker 4: Jerry Jeff Murphy, though when I think about it, it
Speaker 4: was do He never told me exactly what to play.
Speaker 4: He never told any of us. He relied on whatever
Speaker 4: we did. Herb Steiner's in the band with Murphy, you know,
Speaker 4: Craig Hill. This is a guitar player, Gary Nuns playing
Speaker 4: the piano, Michael McGary and that same band went to
Speaker 4: Jerry Jeff, and Jerry Jeff just looked for us to,
Speaker 4: you know, help with arrangements and throw out things, and
Speaker 4: we would do anything that he wanted to do.
Speaker 3: He might and egg yhim on.
Speaker 4: Like there's some a few tracks where like in that
Speaker 4: first record or not that actually the third album, Collectibles
Speaker 4: that the track completely falls apart, and the song is
Speaker 4: called winging It Home to Texas, and the chorus says,
Speaker 4: winging it Home to Texas. Home on the morning, plane,
Speaker 4: winging it home to Texas, and I lost my bags again,
Speaker 4: and that Daliss Airport sucks.
Speaker 2: That's the cours.
Speaker 1: Were you were you in La that time that Jerry
Speaker 1: Jeff tried to take Rodney Crow's dog back to Texas?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I heard that story.
Speaker 1: You were there when it happened.
Speaker 3: No, No, I wasn't.
Speaker 4: I mean I was on that tour, yeah, and but
Speaker 4: I know I didn't see.
Speaker 1: Rodney told us that story here about that totally unbelievable
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I just for the listener there and everything,
Speaker 2: like when you're in the studio man, one of the
Speaker 2: you're always just looking for a vibe, you know, you
Speaker 2: just want if you got great pickers. You're not worried
Speaker 2: about the sound or the sonics. It's just like, is
Speaker 2: there it does it feel right? He doesn't feel right?
Speaker 2: You know, And the fact that you just y'all just
Speaker 2: did it and didn't hear any playbacks. Like when I
Speaker 2: record one of the quickest ways to just bring a
Speaker 2: session to a screeching halt and said, everybody stop what
Speaker 2: they're doing and go listen to the tape before. I
Speaker 2: do not believe in listening to playback and unless there's
Speaker 2: just something not right. But if it's just you can
Speaker 2: sit there and going, if you have somebody you can trust, producer,
Speaker 2: engineer or something, that was.
Speaker 4: It, guys, and you can listen to it at the
Speaker 4: end of the yeah, and for the rest of your life. Well.
Speaker 4: The one thing I would wonder though, if he says,
Speaker 4: this was it and that's your record, see it, we
Speaker 4: don't need to do anymore.
Speaker 3: I would want to hear it. But maybe at the
Speaker 3: end of the evening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: End of the day, and you just go. But you
Speaker 2: just go because otherwise you when you're listening to a playback, Actually,
Speaker 2: when you're listening to a record, you can't not just
Speaker 2: not focus on yourself. What did you do? Did you
Speaker 2: hit a clam? Is there something there? And it takes
Speaker 2: a while before you can just listen to a record collectively.
Speaker 2: But also something kind of magical happens very quickly you forget.
Speaker 4: Yeah, initially I just thought, you know, wonder if you
Speaker 4: didn't you didn't listen to a playback, and you just
Speaker 4: go to the next song, and you do that a
Speaker 4: couple of times, whatever you need, and then go to
Speaker 4: the next song. You don't ever listen, kind of like
Speaker 4: Jerry Jeff did. We were forced into doing that. But
Speaker 4: it breaks it up, not just it's not so static
Speaker 4: we're gonna bore our hearts into this one song, analyze it,
Speaker 4: listen to it, but rather just go on. And you know,
Speaker 4: both those guys allowed, especially Jerry Jeff allowed clams, I
Speaker 4: mean clams men.
Speaker 2: You know, I like it, right, you know, well it's like, well,
Speaker 2: we you know, think of how many incredible Ray Charles
Speaker 2: and Beatles records would have been ruined by people fixing
Speaker 2: the mistakes because they're not mistakes. They're they're they're a
Speaker 2: little glimpses of humanity. Like if there's a clam that
Speaker 2: ruins a take, but if there's just something that gives
Speaker 2: it character or nobody really knows. And I just think,
Speaker 2: live it the fuck alone.
Speaker 4: The Beatles with this new documentary that came out there
Speaker 4: the great you know, mind blowing just how they did
Speaker 4: it and they're playing live and they record let it
Speaker 4: Be and all those songs get.
Speaker 2: Back right right, and they're asking you, so what about this?
Speaker 2: And no that's not a good lyric. He goes, what
Speaker 2: that's let it be right? But it's so wild because
Speaker 2: they just it's the process and you can get I mean,
Speaker 2: you know in the studio, you can get precious in
Speaker 2: a hurry and ruin a record. And my lord, did
Speaker 2: y'all do the exact opposite with those records and just
Speaker 2: and and just allowing the collective of the whole song
Speaker 2: now that somebody's individual parts. It's uh, I think what
Speaker 2: what a music major would call clams? I just called
Speaker 2: magic especically on Beaver to Linguy, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yes, especially how'd you guys come up with a
Speaker 1: name Los Gonzo band?
Speaker 4: Well, so for that first album, which was Elle Freeway
Speaker 4: on it, we had that album out and so we
Speaker 4: were playing a few gigs. We were still kind of
Speaker 4: with Murphy, but we were playing some Jerry Jeff gigs
Speaker 4: and I would always introduce the band Theadies and Gentlemen's
Speaker 4: Jerry Jeff Walker and the Unborn Calves or one one
Speaker 4: thing that stuck the Rodeo do O d riff Raff.
Speaker 4: And it was always a different name every night and
Speaker 4: I was reading Hunter Thompson, uh so, Fear and Loathing
Speaker 4: in Las Vegas and it was Gonzo this and Gonzo
Speaker 4: that had Gonzo states of band.
Speaker 3: I was reading it to the guys.
Speaker 4: We were in Gary Nunn had a black checker cab
Speaker 4: whatever it was, checker cab sprayed black. He brought it
Speaker 4: down from New York and that was our band vehicle.
Speaker 4: Had the big you know seat in the back. We
Speaker 4: could put our equipment there. In the trunk it held
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the trunk's enormous. It's a trillian to you said,
Speaker 2: as a band.
Speaker 4: Yeah, vehicle, And here we are bumping around and I'm
Speaker 4: reading Fear and Loathing and I said, guys, tonight will
Speaker 4: be the Gonzo band.
Speaker 3: How about the Lost Gonzo Band? And they're going whatever.
Speaker 4: But when we when I introduced it that night, it's
Speaker 4: Castle Creek Jerry, Jeff Walker and Lost Gonzo Band. Jerry
Speaker 4: turned to.
Speaker 3: Me and said, I like that.
Speaker 4: Wow, So that became an and we had already cut,
Speaker 4: so that becomes the name. But we had already recorded
Speaker 4: viavature Lingua, but it was being processed and it hadn't
Speaker 4: the cover had not been finalized, and so he said,
Speaker 4: put that lost Gonzo band Jerry Jeff Walker in the
Speaker 4: Lost gon you were just written yeah wow, And so.
Speaker 3: He put that there.
Speaker 1: Great story.
Speaker 2: Great story.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're going to talk to Bob about the
Speaker 1: making of the album Viva Terror Linguo, which is celebrating
Speaker 1: his fiftieth anniversary this year. That's next week as we
Speaker 1: continue our conversation with Bob Livingston on Tales from the
Speaker 1: Broken Spoke.
Speaker 4: Tales from the Broken Spoke is recorded live at The
Speaker 4: Broken Spoke in Austin, Texas, hosted by Country Radio Hall
Speaker 4: of Fame broadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded mixed
Speaker 4: down and produced by Mike Rivera