Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter

This programme contains some strong language.

MUSIC: Kick Out The Jams by MC5

# Well I feel pretty good

# And I guess that I could get crazy now baby

# Cos we all got in tune

# And when the dressing room got hazy now baby... #

We can stop world wars before they ever started.

You know who start world wars?

People that are over 40.

# But let me kick out the jams

# Jams kick out the jams

# I done kick 'em out. #

-RADIO:

-'This is KMET 94.7 FM Metro Media Stereo in Los Angeles.

'I'll be back in a bit.'

By 1970,

the heart of '60s rock was going down.

The Beatles were breaking up, the Stones were inactive.

So rock'n'roll was losing its energy.

It needed time to take its breath.

And when it was taking its breath is when the singer songwriter movement was at its most powerful.

# Blossom smile some sunshine down my way

# Lately I've been lonesome

# Blossom, it's been much too long a day

# Seems my dreams have frozen

# Melt my cares away... #

When we sort of were identified as

the singer songwriter movement or genre, or whatever,

we really were just following along

in a line of all of those players

-who wrote their own stuff.

-Right.

When we sprang out of the box

there was all this generational turbulence,

cultural turbulence,

and there was a hunger for the intimacy,

the personal thing that we did.

Maybe what it was was that people wrote their own songs

were in ascendance.

The authenticity of somebody telling their own story

was what people were interested in.

It was an exciting artistic community in those days.

I'm trying to remember what the sequence of events was.

How did we end up at the Troubadour?

REPORTER: 'History has made the folk singer into an image of freedom.

'A minstrel with little need of worldly things.

'But in a relatively short while, folk music has become popular music in America.

'And the itinerant singer is suddenly box office.'

In the late '50s and early '60s there were coffee houses all over the place.

Folk music was the music of the land.

So hundreds of kids went out and bought guitars and banjos.

I guess I started out as a folk musician.

I played a lot of small clubs up and down the east coast

and all across the country.

You could make it work with a guitar and a suitcase.

You'd go on the road that way.

I started hanging around coffee houses, playing and singing

and found that you could get the attention of girls that way!

I went out there to perform in 1964 as a solo,

ran into Gene Clark and David Crosby and we formed the Byrds

at the Troubadour.

And that is what made the '60s sound.

The '60s happened because all kinds of college kids

started getting in their two-seater MGs with their Raybans,

going to the Newport folk festival.

What everybody really wanted to be was "hip".

They wanted to be part of the cutting edge

of social behaviour.

They wanted to be a Beatnik.

People say you're most curious as a teenager. But it's the 20s who are most curious about life

You're not living at home with parents' money

you're on your own with no direction home.

And so the Troubadour became the place to be.

It's like it was a spaceship, this great thing lands in west Hollywood.

The important thing is Doug Weston understood it.

There were other clubs in town that would play folk music.

But it wasn't folk music, it was the singer songwriter, the new discovery

which was as exciting as rock'n'roll was when it began.

What sense is there in talking about the music?

The music is... A large part of the value of it

is that it transcends talking about itself.

It communicates directly without people having to make decisions or analyse it.

I don't remember much about how I wrote those songs.

You just pretended you could play the guitar and then maybe you could.

And you pretended you could write a song and maybe you could.

# Well, there's something in the way she moves

# Or looks my way or calls my name

# And it seems to leave this troubled world behind... #

I get them mixed up a lot, those Troubadour shows.

My memory for places and things has always been lousy.

I complained to my brother Livingston a couple of months ago

that I couldn't remember anything. He says, "James, you could never remember anything.

"You can't remember that you could never remember anything!"

# I feel fine any time she's around me now

# She's around me now

# Almost all the time

# If I'm well you can tell that she's been with me now

# She's been with me now

# Quite a long, long time

# And I feel fine. #

In the old days, he didn't... He wasn't outgoing.

He was very, very shy.

He lived more internally than he does now.

The first thing I thought about James Taylor was "I wish I could do that."

When people like that show up and hit the stream,

they make an eddy, that's for damn sure.

# ..has the power to go where no-one else could find me

# And decidedly remind me of the happiness and good times

# That I know

# And you know that I just got to know that... #

Let's take a look at the old Fire and Rain, Something In The Way She Moves,

Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight, You've Got A Friend...

..Gibson J50.

Still in pretty good shape.

There is no stick involved with James.

On the other hand, to use the expression, he's an interesting bunch of guys.

In other words,

he is very shy but he also can be very outgoing

and he's a fantastic performer even though he doesn't appear to try too hard to be one.

# She's been with me now

# Quite a long

# Quite a long, long time

# Yes and I'll feel fine. #

A singer songwriter was a new animal.

Before then, you were Frank Sinatra

and there was the Brill Building.

The Brill Building was a house where publishers got their writers together

to write songs for specific projects.

They'd crank up the songs and then you would sing them.

"The Coasters need a hit." "Dionne Warwick needs a song."

Singers were only performers.

The people in the Brill Building, until Carole busted her way out of there,

generally did not wind up being singers.

What now?

Now a very pretty legato, very pretty note.

-You like that?

-I like that.

But when we write the lyric to it, it'll be different.

-#

-La-da, la-da, la-da da-dum

-#

-La-da, la-da, la-da, da-da-dum

-#

That's fine.

Music has always been a part of my life

from the time I was exposed to it probably in utero.

And it flows through me.

I don't understand why or how it works.

I do know that it works.

It is a gift. It's an understanding that I have.

If one believes in a higher power

or the gods or God or whatever,

I've been fortunate to be an instrument for that.

The journey of Carole King is a really interesting one.

Carole came from a very different world, the world of the Brill Building cubicle.

The world of sitting from nine to five at the upright piano

trying to write songs for "the stars".

She arranged a lot of those hits that you still hear on the radio.

She started doing it when she was 16.

# Tonight you're mine completely

# You give your love so sweetly

# Tonight the light of love is in your eyes

# But will you love me tomorrow? #

My mom was a busy working mom.

She didn't really get a chance to be a kid.

She got married at 18.

So she was a child bride, child mother,

and then she had to raise these kids and then she had to find time to grow up in there.

-#

-Can I believe

-#

-The magic of your sighs

-#

-Will you still love me

-#

-Tomorrow?

-#

Will You Love Me Tomorrow was Gerry's and my first hit.

It was the first time that we knew we were going to have a big hit record as songwriters

and that we would have a little bit of income from it.

The thing that Carole could do

was she could change that baby's diaper with one hand and play a bass line with the next.

I've seen her do it at her house. We were writing a song,

and it was slap olive oil on the baby, change that baby and back we went to write the song.

We live in West Orange, New Jersey. I remember sitting with the wallpaper

while listening to them write songs.

She was as much a housewife as a songwriter

and an artist.

-#

-And I won't ask again

-#

-Will you still love me

-#

-Tomorrow?

-#

-Will you still love me

-#

-To-morr-ow?

-#

# There are two sides to this great big world

# And one of them is always night

# If you can take care of business in the sunshine

# I guess you're gonna be all right... #

James and I met at Martha's Vineyard. We used to hitch-hike everywhere.

Once we were hitching and he burst into song.

I looked at him and went, "Oh, my God!"

I'd never heard anybody that could sing. I didn't know anyone that could sing!

It was obvious to me right away that he had it.

Whatever "it" was, he had it!

I left the path that my parents, I assume, expected of me

and went to New York aged 18 and started playing in this band,

Flying Machine, with Danny.

# No, no, I'm a night owl, honey,

# Sleep all day long... #

You needed a break. You needed a record. You needed someone to believe in you and book you.

But the people who gave us our break,

two guys named Chip Taylor and Al Gargoni, just didn't follow through.

They signed us. They took my publishing -

I was 18 years old and strung out and had no idea what I was signing -

a sandwich is what I wanted!

It became obvious that we couldn't get anywhere. James's health was going downhill

based on his drug problems.

# I'm a night owl, honey... #

After The Flying Machine broke up, I went to England to visit friends

and to play my music in the streets if I could.

I was glad to hear he was going to keep playing music.

When I found out he was going, I gave him the phone number of my friend Peter Asher.

I was working for The Beatles, I was head of A&R for Apple Records.

James phoned me at my flat and said, "I'm a friend of Danny's.

"I've got this demo tape. Maybe I should play it to you,

"or maybe you want to hear it?" I said I would.

Peter listened to my little demo tape of songs.

I loved everything about him. Certainly Paul totally loved it.

George really liked it. John didn't care one way or the other.

I can't remember about Ringo.

# In my mind I'm going to Carolina

# Can you see the sunshine... #

When I heard James's Apple record, it was terrible.

Too much production, too much stuff going on, too much gimmicky bullshit.

# Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind. #

It just did not work. It was not the right place and time.

So Peter and James come to LA.

And Peter finds the right home.

When we came back to America, my aim was to get him in front of people singing

wherever and whenever possible.

James played his first solo show ever at the Troubadour in July '69.

A week later, he played at the Newport folk festival.

I'd like to continue with a song I wrote myself

not too long ago.

It's called I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain. It goes like this.

# Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone

# Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you

# I walked out this morning

# And I wrote down this song

# I just can't remember who to send it to

# I've seen fire and I've seen rain

# I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

# I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

# But I always thought that I'd see you again

# Won't you look down upon me, Jesus,

# You gotta help me make a stand

# Just got to see me through another day

# My body's aching and my time is at hand

# And I won't make it any other way

# I've seen fire and I've seen rain

# I've seen sunny skies that I thought would never end

# I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend... #

The rock'n'roll generation was exhausted from the '60s

and they wanted to calm down. Fire and Rain was a perfect song for that.

"I've seen fire and I've seen rain." Enough of drugs and war.

They just wanted to kind of regroup.

# Thought I'd see you one more time again, baby. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

Every once in a while you'd run into somebody that would come up

and show you that there was a lot further for you to all go.

I found Joni in a coffee house in Florida.

# Sitting in a park in Paris, France

# Reading the news and it's all bad

# They won't give peace a chance

# That was just a dream some of us had

# Still a lot of lives to see

# But I wouldn't want to stay here

# It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here

# Oh, but California

# California

# I'm a-coming home... #

Oh, Joni Mitchell!

I thought she was Shakespeare reincarnated!

So many of the people that we consider California music don't come from here.

Neil Young, a perfect example.

People like Joni Mitchell, who was Canadian,

took an outside look at what was going on in America

and took her own particular values and situations

and put them into personal songs.

It really expanded the way people thought about writing.

That was one of the biggest contributions to the music at the time.

# Ooh, California,

# Oh, California,

# I'm a-coming home

# Oh, make me feel good, rock'n'roll band

# I'm your biggest fan, California... #

We were living in Laurel Canyon at her house.

And it was a wonderful time.

It was just great. We travelled a lot,

she sang beautifully on several songs of mine

and I played on that album of hers.

We had a great time. Oh, man, it was terrific.

Too good to last, I guess.

Carole was somebody that was attuned to the zeitgeist and wanted to be part of what was going on.

She and Gerry, as well as the other Brill Building writers,

all realised there was a big sea change.

Bands were writing their own material.

I thought the music was fantastic.

What it turned out to mean to us

is that we became as songwriters for artists that didn't write their own songs,

less necessary.

My dad did not want to get left behind in Tin Pan Alley.

He was the one that felt, let's get out there, got to Los Angeles

because the music business isn't here any more, it's out there.

But my mom didn't have a sense that she was going to be left behind.

When the marriage broke up and she came to California, and Laurel Canyon,

that's when she became Carole.

-#

-Looking out on the morning rain

-#

-I used to feel uninspired

-#

-And when I knew I had to face another day

-#

-Lord, it made me feel so tired

-#

-Before the day I met you

-#

-Life was so unkind

-#

-Your love was the key to my peace of mind

-#

-Cos you make me feel

-#

-You make me feel

-#

-You may me feel like

-#

-A natural woman...

-#

She never said anything bad about my father

and she continued to write with him.

I think she did say, "I'm taking charge, I'm not going to be bitter. I'm just moving on."

It's like she can let her hair down

and she can take off that uniform of the songwriter for hire.

She was itching to throw off the trappings of her sort of beehive past.

It was wonderful but it's not something that I knew was happening at the time,

that it was so special then that I realised.

I see lots of areas of my life as exciting, wonderful windows of time and opportunity.

-#

-If I make you happy I don't need to do more

-#

-You make me feel

-#

-You make me feel

-#

-You make me feel

-#

-Like a natural woman.

-#

-Were you a hippy?

-Yeah! Hell, yes!

My kids will tell stories about how they'd buy Coca Cola and potato chips

and all this candy and junk food and I'd toss it out!

No candy. Candy was definitely out of the question.

I would bring them food and make them eat it.

Yeah. Nasty organic foods!

I'd say, "Because it's nutritious!"

She is a natural person.

She's a natural woman!

-#

-..woman

-#

-A natural woman.

-#

APPLAUSE

So here we are after all these years.

I personally think we've missed it. Don't you agree?

It doesn't get any more real than this!

I see you all out there. How are ya?

It's one of the few places where the audience is treated worse than the act!

Hello. Welcome to the Troubadour this evening.

Any of you who don't know me, I'm Doug Weston.

The Troubadour definitely was a scene. Doug Weston's personality

and his insanity was an important part of it.

-#

-Well, I told you pretty baby

-#

-Such a long time ago

-#

-If I find you with another

-#

-Well, I'll walk right out your door

-#

-You might call me crazy

-#

-There's one thing you should know...

-#

He was a character in every sense of the word which fulfilled his role.

He was very tough in business.

He loved music.

And he would encourage situations to happen where music could happen.

I opened the Troubadour motivated, in part, I think,

by the idea that music could be an important medium

for expressing some of the things I learned in college.

Some of the things about mankind and about how we could keep this whole world together.

Doug always wanted to be a performer, I think.

He would always have photographs of himself in poses

on the menus, you know?

Doug, when the Troubadour finally made enough money for him to buy new clothes,

went to a clothing warehouse and bought a green corduroy suit

which he wore for the next three years when he was in public.

We called him the Jolly Green Giant!

Doug Weston was always looking for that songwriter.

He had very few singers there.

He wanted a songwriter.

He was really the purest, as far as I knew, in picking great artists.

He would be so excited when he'd find somebody.

He was the West LA scene of music. He was...

one of the single most eccentric people I ever met.

An extraordinarily tall guy who was absolutely, totally self-absorbed

with his life as the epicentre of music in L.A. Acoustic music.

So it was good for everybody.

Because it drew everybody to the same place.

-RADIO:

-To check out new talent, there's no better place than down at the Monday night Hootenanny,

Doug Weston's world-famous Troubadour happening tonight.

The Hoot Night, an open mic night, was the proving ground.

It was the first place you could step up in front of people

without being booked, without being known already.

There was a hunger for unknown artists in town

and very qualified musicians

who couldn't get arrested when it came to getting a gig were there every Monday.

It wasn't long before Steve Martin showed up.

Let's go.

The Mecca was the Troubadour, even though there was a club called The Mecca!

Hoot Nights, that was short for Hootenanny

which meant anyone could get up and perform.

So that's how a lot of people broke into the business.

The Hoot Nights were fun. The bar was really crowded

cos everybody would come in. You'd see the movers and shakers.

They were looking for the next big thing.

David Geffen was there. He was 25 and he was on the make!

He was listening to all this talent

and feeling like he'd hit the motherload.

Eventually it got popular, so you'd have to sign up. You'd wait in the afternoon.

Actually I signed Cheech and Chong after I saw them on a Hootenanny.

We were trying to determine how you'd describe your brand of humour.

-How would you describe it?

-Funny.

The first guy that signed in got to go on sixth.

-Which was a good spot.

-The best.

-Because everybody was in.

The worst spot would be the first because they're just cleaning up.

There were a lot of us and we wanted to get people's attention.

We all thought we were good and we'd get up there and try.

It gave us a chance to. It was a very important thing.

The essence of the Troubadour was the hanging out in the bar

and the people you hadn't heard of doing a couple of really good songs

and you'd go, "Who's that? That's a good song."

And you'd suddenly discover Jackson Browne!

-#

-Well I've been out walking

-#

-I don't do that much talking

-#

-These days

-#

-These days

-#

-These days I seem to think a lot

-#

-About the things that I forgot to do

-#

I wasn't really into guys that just play the guitar and sing.

But he was obviously so great

and absolutely transfixing

that I immediately thought, "This guy's got it."

And we became friends. Jackson used to hitch-hike to my place so we could play music together.

I was like the most world-weary 16-year-old on the planet!

When Jackson came, he came with a suitcase full of songs.

"She's a flying bird that sings

"with eyes like smoky rings

"and she told me that she'd teach me how to fly."

There's this kid,

this little kid down in Orange County that writes stuff like this!

# ..to live the life that I have made in song... #

Then I was a Bob Dylan fan.

I mean, how do you get like, you know...

-#

-The guilty undertaker sighs

-#

-The lonesome organ grinder cries

-#

-The silver saxophone say I should refuse you

-#

-The cracked bells and washed-out horns

-#

-Blow into my face with scorn

-#

-But it's not that way, I wasn't born to lose you

-#

-I want you

-#

-I want you...

-#

It was part pop song and part intensely personal narrative.

But it was filled with all the information

that our generation was being bombarded with.

Popular music became soulful.

As people started writing their own music,

the singer songwriter became more prevalent on stage.

Nobody ever imagined that any of these acoustic troubadours

were going to sell millions of records.

-RADIO:

-'Did you read in yesterday's LA Times the Robert Hilburn column?

'To do with Vice-President Agnew's remarks with reference to

'drug songs and all that there jazz.

'Jim Dixon is taking umbrage about it.'

-#

-Hi de ho

-#

-Hi de hi

-#

-Gonna get me a piece of the sky

-#

-Gonna find me some of that old sweet roll

-#

-Singing hi de hi de hi

-#

-Hi de hi de ho.

-#

Laurel Canyon was an arts community very much like Greenwich Village.

It was a joy to live there. It was like being in the country.

It was almost a dreamland.

We tended to view Laurel Canyon as the forest.

But it was really, literally, one block

from one of the heaviest traffic streets in Los Angeles.

The way you read the books that people write now about it,

is pretty much nonsense!

There weren't columns of songwriters marching up!

Frank Zappa lived there, Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash I think.

I didn't know one of them!

I saw them in the Canyon all the time. Jackson Browne...

They were a bunch of people that drove around with their mixes

or roughs or recordings or demos and went to each other's house.

There'd be political talk. Some was fun, some romantic, some of it was inspirational creatively.

It was incestuous in the best way.

There was a trifecta going on.

The bedroom was Laurel Canyon, the living room was the Troubadour

and marijuana was church!

-#

-Once I met the devil

-#

-He was mighty slick

-#

-Tempted me with worldly goods

-#

-Said I could have my pick...

-#

Everybody smoked grass.

I mean literally everybody did.

It had a great deal to do with ideas coming out

and excitement about discovering life.

Because when we smoked grass, it wasn't a drug, it was a sacrament!

It was a sacrament!

I don't know why different people did it.

It made me paranoid.

But I was so curious about why I was paranoid,

that I kept doing it!

What it was, when you smoked pot,

you'd get high for the first time

and you're like, "Wow! What else they been lying about?"

We were in a very stratified and nearly dead society

that wasn't willing.

And whatever it took to blow us loose from that and get us into the next thing

we wanted to do.

-#

-Hi de hi de hi

-#

-Hi de hi de ho.

-#

A lot of people who poured into LA and the canyons in the late '60s

came from a folky background.

Sweet Baby James just becomes the sound of the canyons

of Los Angeles

in late 1969.

# There is a young cowboy who lives on the range

# His horse and his cattle are his only companions

# He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons

# Waiting for summer his pastures to change. #

When a singer songwriter shows up,

the first record, the first batch that they play is ten years' work.

The second record is when you find out how good they are!

I wanted to let the songs speak for themselves

and that what I'd done wrong last time

was letting the arrangement get in the way of the essence of the song

which his James and his guitar.

I made sure that they were front and centre at all times.

# Good night, you moonlight ladies

# Rock-a-bye sweet baby James

# Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose

# Won't you let me go down in my dreams

# And rock-a-bye sweet baby James. #

No-one writes lyrics like James.

He's completely unique.

Through the good times and the bad times

and when he was down, he faced those furies. He wrote about them.

They come out in his music.

# So good night, you moonlight ladies

# Rock-a-bye sweet baby James

# Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose

# Won't you let me go down in my dreams

# And rock-a-bye sweet baby James. #

Finding the band was an operation.

I don't remember who introduced James or I first to Carole.

Possibly Kootch. I don't know.

But we met her and loved everything about her. Her songs, her piano playing, her persona.

The feeling was real electric between them.

Carole was obviously excited.

If you can imagine James's subdued nature being electric, it was.

First of all, you can ask me about James any time

because I love him so much.

It's that real... Everybody says, "Were you a couple?" No.

"Did you ever think about it?" No.

The first connection was musical.

It turned out we spoke the same language,

we sat down and slipped back into the mother tongue, really.

It was great. We played on each other's records.

We just had a common mind.

They're very different.

Very different. Carole's the earth mother, Jewish mother kind of babe,

James is a kind of aesthetic Protestant vicar kind of guy.

Although they're both hilarious, in different ways.

It's the contrast that makes it so entertaining, and maybe always has.

James was one of the first artists that my mom met

that wasn't an artist she just wrote for, that she helped make their record.

This was an artist that did something she didn't know how to do

that she was inspired by, that she admired.

I think he was really an inspiration to her.

I've always had confidence in the fact that when I played music,

it touched people in some way.

And the place I didn't have confidence was as a performer.

That's where I had no confidence.

And that's where you came in!

'I felt that Carole really should be singing her own songs.

'With Kootch's help, we encouraged her to sing her own songs in my set.'

This song is for all the people at the Troubadour this week

who've been really fantastic. And for you, who are also fantastic!

Carole debuted in '70, I guess it was.

She opened at the Troubadour, very nervous. I think we went together.

I was excited, because the song sounded really good and I'd never heard my songs performed.

I had my act really carefully worked out and I knew exactly what I was going to do and say.

And at the end of my third number, as the applause died down,

I heard this voice over a speaker saying, "Carole, you're not gonna believe this..."

There's been a bomb scare, bomb threat phoned in. You have to evacuate the club.

And Carole had the wit to say, "As long as it's not me!"

And that kind of broke the ice.

I really felt comfortable up there. I realised I just had to be myself.

-#

-You've got to get up every morning

-#

-With a smile on your face

-#

-And show the world all the love in your heart

-#

-Then people gonna treat you better

-#

-You're gonna find, yes you will

-#

-That you're beautiful,

-#

-As you feel. #

When she finally stepped up to the plate herself,

it was like hitting a major vein,

like a seam of water flowing underground or something.

It just welled up.

And after a while she was opening for me

and then after a while I was opening for her!

-#

-Maybe love can end the madness

-#

-Maybe not, oh, but we can only try

-#

-You've got to get up every morning

-#

-With a smile on your face

-#

-And show the world all the love in your heart...

-#

She was remarkable.

She wasn't barefoot like Linda Ronstadt or have flowers in her hair like Joni.

She wasn't being gutsy like Bonnie Raitt.

She was kinda real.

One of the greatest tributes to a performer there is when the bar would empty out

and everybody would find an excuse to go to the bathroom and then watch the act!

The bar emptied when Carole was on.

ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE

Some time after we got to LA,

a short time after that,

Lou Adler signed my mom

and started putting out records,

first The City, then Writer and then Tapestry.

-#

-I feel the earth move under my feet

-#

-I feel the sky tumblin' down

-#

-I feel my heart start a-tremblin'

-#

-Whenever you're around

-#

-Ooh, baby, when I see your face

-#

-Mellow as the month of May...

-#

Tapestry is just a zeitgeist classic.

It's a world away from Little Eva, let's face it!

-#

-I feel the earth move under my feet

-#

Everything that I ever wanted to accomplish with the album

just fell into place.

You always get the feeling that she's sitting playing piano and singing to you.

It was that kind of experience where we learned from each other.

And hence the joy of playing together.

She would suggest, while playing the song,

give me some little fills here, not too much,

just answering the vocal. Now back to playing rhythm.

INSTRUMENTAL

Carole's voice, which is like the voice of every woman's,

singing these songs about women's issues to a certain extent,

appeal to a lot of people.

You don't have to look like a movie star to get a record deal.

She was one of the first and most earthy of the crossover artists.

I don't think anybody including her expected her to have such success

but her connection with us was so profound.

-#

-Down to my very soul

-#

-I get hot and cold...

-#

I remember these as golden days

because this was when we were just a three-person unit.

It was just good times.

I remember it as almost being like having a babysitter rather than a mom.

Cos she was so cool. It was good times.

-#

-A-tumblin' down

-#

-A-tumblin' down

-#

-A-tumblin' down

-#

-A-tumblin' down

-#

-Tumblin' down.

-#

With James, I'm a cat. I'm a side man.

That's the beauty of this band too.

Everyone's a cat. Everyone's there to make us better.

It's not just musicians.

It's musicians who know they're there to serve the song and the performance.

It's a joy to be a cat.

It's important to talk about the sound of those records.

Just a nice, woody, organic sound

exemplified really by the guys who became known as the section.

We were fortunate enough to come at a time when they were putting names on albums.

People looked at the record, saw our names and went, "Let's call those guys for this record."

-Suddenly we had careers.

-Right.

-Who would have thought?

We were a bunch of kids amazed that we were getting to do this.

Everyone was what, 21, 20 years old.

It was like, "Somebody pinch me!"

Maybe for ten years, half the music made in LA was made by the same group of 20 cats.

What they called the LA studio mafia.

Writers would go, "Oh, they got those LA guys playing again."

But the truth is those LA guys are pretty good.

They played beautifully but not show off-ily.

It wasn't flashy, it was simple. It served the song.

What was very important for the three of us is that we had each other.

Anytime stuff would get nasty, Leland would crack a joke or Russ would pat me on the back.

I realised I wasn't alone. The three of us were there for each other.

-Very important.

-We still are.

-And we still are, absolutely.

Group hug?

-RADIO:

-A singer songwriter has no direction till he's backed up by The Section.

Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Craig Doerge and Danny Kortchmar.

And when they aren't in the studio, they're playing behind one of the top-selling artists

they back up at the world-famous Troubadour.

The Troubadour, of any club in the country, this is where the singer songwriter wanted to be.

It was the Grand Ole Opry of singer songwriters.

I was so excited. I've always wanted to come to America.

I imagined California, Los Angeles, to be exactly like the Beverly Hillbillies.

Which, of course, it was!

Most of the people who played there, you'd heard a bit about before.

But Elton was just totally unknown. What's he doing in this atmosphere?

It's like a guy from the Minors, putting him in Dodger Stadium.

And he started out, playing at the piano and he was kind of nervous.

He wasn't connecting particularly well.

I remember the audience, maybe three-quarters empty.

And thinking, "The guy's really good.

"Too bad he can't draw any people."

The guy next to me was starting to yawn.

He was kind of losing the audience.

All of a sudden, he kicks back the piano.

# If you feel that it's real

# I'm on trial and I'm here in your prison

# Like a coin in your mint

# I am dented and I'm spent with high treason

# Through a glass eye your throne

# Is the one danger zone

# Take me to the pilot for control

# Take me to the pilot of your soul

# Take me to the pilot Lead me through the chamber

# Take me to the pilot I am but a stranger... #

He stunned us, I want to tell you.

Nobody had ever seen anything quite like that before!

I was blown away like everybody else.

Wow! Great songs

great performance, great presence.

And then Elton just took it to an Elton level!

People were talking about it and radio starts playing him more.

There was an enormous explosion of interest in this guy.

And that night is what made him a star.

It was so great. It did so much for my confidence playing there.

Then with Bob Hilburn's review, it sealed the envelope.

They're on their way.

It was August 1970. I said, "Rejoice.

"Rock music, which has been going through an uneventful period lately has a new star.

"His name is Elton John, a 23-year-old Englishman

"whose US debut on Tuesday at the Troubadour was in every way magnificent."

I wasn't one to hold back!

# Take it to the pilot

# Lead me through the chamber

# Take me to the pilot

# I am but a stranger

# Take me to the pilot

# Lead me through the chamber

# Take me to the pilot

# I am but a stranger

# Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah

# Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, na-na-nah. #

When Elton came there, it changed the music scene at that moment

as profoundly as James did when we played there.

His big break is in this little folk club on Santa Monica Boulevard.

It sort of established the club

as the key place where you would hope to become some kind of star.

Doug Weston was very pleased with his success and felt very paternal, very responsible

for the success of a lot of people who were at that point huge successes

because of their original appearance in his club.

Shooey, baby.

The bar was it!

You go in the bar and see everybody in show business at that bar.

Graham Nash and David Crosby and Neil Young and Stephen Stills.

All these people were just around.

The guys that turned out to be The Eagles

used to be sitting over there all the time.

Glenn Frey and Henley was there.

That was the only time I met Janis Joplin. I sat and drank Southern Comfort with her!

-Barbra Steisand.

-Jack Nicholson.

-Jim Morrison.

-John Lennon.

Betty White and her husband Allen Ludden came in.

I'm there and she said, "We think you're funny."

Often when people perceive there to be a scene, sometimes there isn't. In this case, there was.

-It was the hang.

-It was a hang.

Could have been the best acts in the world on stage. We only heard them on our way to the bathroom

because we were part of the scene out front.

-Many times, they never saw the show.

-Never saw it.

-They were at the bar.

You'd come up to the bar and they say, "I hear you were pretty good."

Most people did know each other.

Most people in the end slept with each other!

2.00am rolled round. The girls got prettier and I'm sure the guys got prettier too!

Everybody's beautiful when you're 20!

There was a period of time between the coming of the birth control pill

and the onslaught of AIDs.

During that period of time,

if you were lucky enough to be out and single and running around,

sex was really a lot of fun.

Really a lot!

Let me stress that!

Girls, man.

It was girls.

The waitresses were great. The girls who came were great.

We were the guys with the guitars.

All I was doing was looking for love.

They had beautiful women at the Troubadour.

We had the blue skies.

It was going to go on for ever.

For the great majority of us, when we were doing pot or psychedelics,

things were headed in a fairly interesting direction.

When we started doing coke and heroin, things went to shit.

As they will do.

So, here we are again!

Here we are still and again!

Still and again, yeah.

So long as we don't live here.

To show up every 20 years or so, I guess it's OK.

I'll take it. If we're back here in 20 years,

that would be what you would call "age inappropriate"!

I can't even say it!

-Age inappropriate.

-That's right.

I do not want to be playing the Troubadour at age 88!

-There's Linda, to answer your question.

-Yeah.

Jackson's up there, too.

Everybody looks so young!

At the beginning, I didn't know what was going on. I was naive.

On the Apple record, he'd spend a long time in the bathroom and I thought he wasn't well.

I guess he didn't!

Later on, I became all too aware of exactly what was going on

and occasionally I'd get involved and try and find some methadone

to finish the last two days of the tour in some nightmare scenario.

But at that point my role would switch from manager to friend.

The point wasn't how would it affect his career and music,

the point was how do we keep him alive and have him not be another boring dead junkie.

How old were you when you were fully off it?

I cleaned up in 1983 at the age of 35.

So it's been 27 years now since I've been in recovery.

And I think, um...

You know, the shocking thing was to see that a lot of...

Something like 15% of people who were seriously addicted

get any meaningful recovery at all.

That is to say, 85% of people die from the disease.

I've been a lucky guy.

It really is one of those things where, each day...

It's funny to be sitting in a bar talking about this.

It was one of the occupational hazards of being night folk.

Entertainment people, it's just...

That was my blessing. I was never a night person!

What's your take on how difficult it is for a woman to have a career in the performing arts

and also maintain a family.

Very difficult. Very difficult.

The only time, I guess, when I had really young children that I ever was on tour

was with you.

I remember we were, I think, away for six weeks,

home for two weeks and then away for another six weeks.

That six weeks, it was very difficult.

-#

-So far away

-#

-Doesn't anybody stay in one place any more

-#

-It would be so fine to see your face at my door

-#

-Doesn't help to know

-#

-You're just time away...

-#

I was maybe eight years old, maybe nine.

She was on tour and left me behind with a friend of hers who was a nice lady

but she wasn't my mom.

And So Far Away came on the radio

and it could not have spoken more to me

than anything!

I missed my mother so much and listening to So Far Away

it played on the radio and that cry felt so good.

I put it on again and I cried again.

Then I put it on again on the record.

-#

-One more song about moving along the highway

-#

-Can't say much of anything that's new

-#

-If I could only work this life out my way

-#

-I'd rather spend it

-#

-Being close to you...

-#

The success of Tapestry was astonishing!

I had no idea it would do what it did.

The winner is Carole King, You've Got A Friend.

The winner, Tapestry, Carole King.

It's Carole King with Too Late.

By way of explanation, Carole's recently had a baby

and she's in California, working on becoming the Mother of the Year!

-#

-Travelling around sure gets me down and lonely

-#

-Nothing else to do but close my mind

-#

-I sure hope the road don't come to own me

-#

-There's so many dreams

-#

-I've yet to find

-#

-But you're so far away...

-#

When typical things were expected of someone who was successful.

You were going to go out and do interviews.

I didn't, and I said to Lou Adler, "I don't want to do interviews."

Because I felt like you. I don't want to talk about my music.

I want to let my music speak for itself.

And I'm going home.

People thought, "Who doesn't want to do interviews? Who doesn't want the fame?"

But she wanted to choose the way she lived her life

and not have the machine choose it for her.

I stayed home with Molly. I didn't go to the Grammies to accept my Grammy that year.

That's how I dealt with it.

I sort of pretended it didn't exist

and so I got my wish.

What existed, what lived, what got through to people was the music.

And I got to have my life.

PLAYS INSTRUMENTAL END TO "SO FAR AWAY"

It was a great scene, an inspiring scene to be in.

Because everybody was thinking the same thing.

But it wasn't so much, "I want to be an artist." It was, "I want to make it."

But people knew that to make it, you be an artist!

I remember Glenn Frey. He was in a group called Longbranch-Pennywhistle.

It was a duo, as I recall.

They had just broken up and he was adrift.

And he just said, "I want to be a rock'n'roll star.

"I want to be a rock'n'roll star so bad!"

# Well I'm running down the road

# Trying to loosen my load

# I've got seven women on my mind

# Four that wanna own me

# Two that wanna stone me

# One says she's a friend of mine

# Take it easy

# Take it easy... #

Glenn says, "What do you think about this for a name? Eagles."

And I said, "I like that. The Eagles."

And he said, "No. Eagles."

I said, "Yeah. The Eagles. Sounds good."

He said, "No. Eagles."

Finally I figured it out. "Oh, Eagles." That's the name of the group.

People think it's The Eagles, but it's not. It's Eagles.

I always liked The Eagles better, frankly, but...

# Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

# Such a fine sight to see

# It's a girl, my lord, in a flat-bed Ford

# Slowing down to take a look at me... #

Lighten up while you still can.

Don't even try to understand.

I mean, to me,

there in two lines is so much that is wrong

with this sensibility.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Nixon is president

or that war hasn't ended.

Nothing to do with it at all.

It has to do with the fact that they've been trying very hard to make it

and sometimes they've had to eat burritos, maybe even beans.

And now they don't.

It was really hard and they're exhausted.

Exhausted from this struggle!

# You know we got it easy

# We ought to take it easy... #

LA was the bete noire for so many rock critics

outside of California.

I used the term El Lay...

I just thought it was funny and insulting.

It just represented everything that was somehow self-satisfied.

-Fey.

-Navel-gazing.

-Detached.

-Sun-drenched.

Casual, cool arrogance.

Whereas rock'n'roll was supposed to be about the anger of the streets.

By that time, it had definitely hardened

into a truly irritating and more or less worthless sensibility.

We just thought it was because they were cold and starving

and jealous in New York

and we were in LA with money and beautiful women!

Anybody that starts making money in the rock world is going to get torn down.

If they paid journalists better, maybe it wouldn't happen, but they didn't!

We always hated that, "The California sound. The Mafia."

Fuck you! It ain't no mellow Mafia. We'd kick your arse in five seconds.

The fact that we were playing music that wasn't loud

did not mean we were mellow.

Some rock'n'roll is supposed to be scary.

Some is supposed to be soulful. Some is supposed to make you cry.

James is part of all of that.

# Take to the highway, won't you lend me your name

# Your way and my way, they seem to be one and the same

# Momma don't understand it

# She wants to know where I've been

# I have to be some kind of natural born fool... #

Early on I learned to close a periodical and put it down

if I came to my name in it.

So Lester Bangs writes this piece called "James Taylor marked for death."

In this fabulous piece of writing, he imagines going to North Carolina

and running James Taylor through with a broken off bottle.

It amused me because James Taylor would make mincemeat out of Lester Bangs in about three seconds!

People decide who is successful, not Lester Bangs or any other critic.

# La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

# Would you walk on down

# On down country roads. #

At that time, critics had a lot more clout than they have now.

Nobody remembers Lester Bangs. Everybody remembers James Taylor.

The music always wins. Always.

There was a lot that happened. Had just happened.

I think a lot of my friends and I

had really done a lot by the time we were 21 or 22. Been a lot of places.

How long can free love and pot exist

as a cultural foundation?

It can't, really.

In things like Running On Empty,

Jackson does capture

the true nature of what was going on here.

The Babylonian aspects of LA.

-#

-Looking out at the road rushing under the wheel

-#

-Looking back at the years gone by

-#

-Like so many summer fields

-#

-'65 I was seventeen and running up one-on-one

-#

-I don't know where I'm running now

-#

-I'm just running on...

-#

Rock has not only refused to go away, it's become an institution.

Americans are now spending 2 billion a year on music.

That's 700 million more than the movie industry grosses in one year.

About three times the money taken in by all spectator sports.

The more you have a bunch of people

who are in the business of cranking that stuff out,

the more it obscures what really comes out of people's own experience.

-#

-Running on

-Running on empty

-#

-Running on

-Running round... #

These were guys with too much power, too little taste,

big visions of themselves as king makers.

They built huge buildings,

bought jets.

In the long run, it didn't work out too well.

# It'll be all right

# If I can get you to smile before I leave. #

I think excess has the seeds of destroying anybody.

Whether it's too much money, too much indulgence,

too many choices, too many drugs.

# Won't you come and take me home

# I've been too long at the fair. #

Over the years, Doug became resentful of the fact

that Elton John would go for his club

where he would get all the attention and become a star,

while he was still Doug Weston here. They were saying, "Bye, Doug", and going on to success.

# I just can't stand it any more... #

# I went down to Jason

# Walked till my feet got sore

# But I never knew what laughing was

# Till you walked out the door... #

Doug Weston was a great club owner. That might be an oxymoron, but...

He was a good guy and he gave a lot of great people work.

But he did have a way of sort of tying you up.

Doug had a contract with everybody. Once you made it,

-you had to come back five times...

-Several times.

-For four or five years. Or two years or something.

Forget the Staple Centre or The Forum, everywhere we played.

That contract had me playing The Troubadour for ever!

It's got a special place in my heart,

although I'm glad I'm not still working here!

# I guess that's just my pride

# But I have heard the Prince of Darkness... #

There was bitterness. Guys who could play 4,000-seat halls

had to go back and play The Troubadour.

There was also talk about cocaine and strange ways Doug was operating.

He would take to the stage, scream at the audience,

I think on one occasion he told them all to leave!

Welcome to The Troubadour.

No, you have to do that again. Do it this way.

Yep, yep, yep. Unbelievable.

He would do some pretty crazy outlandish things,

such as buying a Rolls-Royce when there was no money in the bank account.

One time he bought an antiques store!

The people at the club couldn't deal with him,

and the people in the industry couldn't deal with him.

That was responsible for so many people saying, "To hell with Doug Weston."

# I just can't stand it any more... #

I come to The Troubadour right before sound check.

And the guy at the door says, "I don't have your name on the list."

I said, "Can I see the list? I probably made it!"

He said, "Maybe at the back door."

So I go round to the back door.

I swear this is true.

Same guy opens the door!

It was one of the reasons that I opened The Roxy.

The Roxy was opened specifically to out-compete The Troubadour.

They did it very successfully in one blow.

The idea of The Roxy was an old-style cabaret nightclub.

Very different from The Troubadour.

We set out to get people in there that appreciated the fact that

when an artist was coming in, they were treated well.

Then poor Doug said, "Go on, I've got The Troubadour. People will still come here.

"The audiences and artists will still come.

"They're loyal to me."

RADIO: 'Guess what, party people? There's a new club opening on The Strip tonight.

'It's The Roxy. Anticipation is running high for this venue.'

It was a death blow.

It didn't take much because they could pay more.

And there was no great loyalty of those acts towards Doug.

The summer of '75 it closed.

I had to sleep there to sort of guard it.

I remember he was really bitter about the whole thing.

On the marquee, he wanted to people who he blamed, put their names up on the marquee.

We said, "No, don't do that."

I think the sense of self-importance, coupled with cocaine

just destroyed the purity of that room.

It was sad to watch it decline.

-#

-Way over yonder

-#

-Is a place that I know

-#

-Where I can find shelter

-#

-From a hunger and cold...

-#

It was just a community.

Once people got successful and moved their different ways,

and went out to Malibu and the beach

there wasn't as much hang time as there was at that particular moment in time.

Everybody really got busy.

When everybody released their albums and started touring,

they just changed completely.

In my case, I wound up being a parent pretty soon

and there's a definite conflict between partying all night

and being on the job with the baby!

-#

-Then trouble's gonna lose me

-#

-Worry leave me behind

-#

-And I'll stand up proudly

-#

-In true peace of mind.

-#

My mom decided to move to Idaho.

So we moved into these cabins, no running water or electricity.

I think she found that living on that really basic survivalist level

I think this is how she grounded herself for a time.

I really wanted to live some place where there was a vast connection with nature.

When I went there, it was like, "This is good."

-#

-..I'll find my way

-#

-To the land where the honey runs...

-#

James was never a Los Angeles person.

He never lived in LA.

Never made a home as Carole did, and Danny and his wife did.

It's not only Carole and I that sort of drifted apart

or stopped working together.

Things don't last forever.

None of these things are meant to.

-#

-..That's where I'm bound.

-#

# Oh, the sun is surely sinking down

# But the moon is slowly rising

# So this old world must still be spinning round

# And I still love you

# So close your eyes

# You can close your eyes, it's all right

# I don't know no love songs

# And I can't sing the blues any more

# Yeah, but I can sing this song

# And you can sing this song

# When I'm gone... #

In 1972, or '73, I guess, we did our last shows together.

It was an intense period.

That's right, and it resonated with me so strongly

that when I wrote You've Got A Friend

it came through me. That song purely, purely came through me.

And it was because I knew you and I was listening to your music all the time.

You were the trigger for me doing that. So thank you!

Phew!

It was such a symbiotic

and such a mutual love, it defies description.

AUDIENCE: # Winter, spring, summer or fall

# All you've got to do is call... #

I always think about why, when Monet started painting Impressionism,

why were there suddenly six other people doing it too?

It's because it's the moment for it

and I feel like that's... That was the moment for that.

There was almost no barrier between the artist and the art.

These songs are really the fabric of a generation and of a society.

So when people hear them,

it's like smelling a clover that you remember as a child.

Suddenly you're thrown back in time and you're reliving some moment you had.

And it's deep.

RECORDING OF AUDIENCE SINGING "YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND"

This is what we're here for, to get people to feel. That's what James and Carole are here for.

We're not here for ourselves. We're here to get them to remember what it's like to feel.

And to remind them of their own humanity. That's what great music is supposed to do.

Nothing less.

# Whenever I see your smiling face

# I have to smile myself

# Because I know

# And when you give me that pretty little pout

# It turns me inside out

# There's something about you, baby

# I don't know

# Isn't it amazing a man like me

# Can feel this way

# Tell me how much longer

# It can grow stronger every day. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd