A Conversation with Russ Titelman – HuffPost 8.8.12

Mike Ragogna: Russ, it’s an honor. How are you?

Russ Titelman: I’m doing well, nice to talk to you, Mike.

MR: Nice to talk to you too, sir. Your work in the studio influenced many people, including me, and I want to thank you for that.

RT: That’s very kind of you.

MR: I recently posted an interview with Jerry Douglas, and you produced his new album Traveler. What was it like working with the world’s greatest dobro player and what was it like setting up that album?

RT: Well, it was a challenge in a way. Jerry and I go back quite a ways, just knowing each other from me being on the road, at shows. Every time we bumped into each other, we said we ought to do something together. I guess the way this happened was that Chuck Mitchell at Jerry’s label, eOne, suggested to me to produce his next record. Jerry said that’d be great so we got together and started talking, throwing ideas around. One of the ideas that I thought would be a good idea was, pretty much, to take Jerry out of his comfort zone, out of Nashville, and go to New Orleans, and put together a little band. We got Shannon Powell on drums, Matt Perinne on bass, and Mac Rebennack, Dr. John, played piano on a couple of things. John Cleary, who lives down there and was in Bonnie Raitt’s band for twenty years or so, played guitars on one song and a Rhodes part, and played piano on “On A Monday,” which is the song that opens the record. Jerry and I threw around ideas and chose a few songs, “On A Monday” being one of them. It’s his debut as a vocalist. I don’t think he’s ever sung as a solo vocalist on a record before. That’s the song that opens the record and it opens up with a long solo dobro part, so it’s a real statement of “here I am.”

MR: What was the session for “The Boxer” with Paul Simon and Mumford & Sons like and Mumford & Sons loves Jerry, don’t they!

RT: As you said, Mumford & Sons love Jerry, they idolize him. They were talking and I think what happened was he asked if they would be interested in participating on the record and they said sure. They were talking on the phone, Jerry said to Marcus, “What song should we do?” Jerry said that Marcus loves “The Boxer” and he often plays it when he’s sitting backstage, at home…he love’s that song. So Marcus said, “Why don’t we do ‘The Boxer,'” and we thought, “Great, let’s do it.” So I flew over to England and Jerry was playing with Alison at Festival Hall. I flew over, went to the last show, we got on a train, got out in the country to this converted farm house. It was an absolutely beautiful place. They showed up some that night and some in the morning. We just went in and hit it, did the session. The thing that impressed me the most about them was their incredible professionalism and their incredible musicianship. Marcus, every take of that song when we were rehearsing it, he gave everything. There was never a run-through, never a take where he was phoning it in. He was just incredibly giving and fully there the whole time. Every performance was great, and from all the guys, when we figured out the arrangement on the floor. Every performance by Marcus was a great performance, all in tune, all from the heart, and all great. We pretty much did it live and then we overdubbed stuff, the background parts and the box at the end, the “boom boom boom” thing. When we came back to the States, I’d already spoken to Paul about doing something on this record and he said, “Look, anything I can do, I’ll do background parts, play guitar, anything you want.” So once we’d done “The Boxer,” we called him and he offered to work on that cut. He did some background parts and he did some great guitar stuff. In fact, for the ending bit on that record where it’s just the two guitars, that’s Paul doing the finger picking guitar, so coming out of Mumford & Sons coming into Paul Simon and Jerry Douglas is a great moment.

MR: Speaking of Paul Simon, you co-produced his album Hearts And Bones. Now, I have to ask you because I’ve gotten several different stories from people I’ve interview on the subject, but Hearts And Bones was once slated as Think Too Much, a Simon & Garfunkel reunion album as well. What was the story on that album?

RT: Actually, it started out as Hearts And Bones, it started out as a Paul Simon record. Lenny (Waronker) and I started working with Paul in Los Angeles and did “Song About The Moon,” “The Late Great Johnny Ace,” and “Train In The Distance.” Those were the first three things we did on that record. As time went on, Paul went back to New York and he was writing. It’s a process, the writing process, with Paul. So in the interim, when Lenny became president of Warner Brothers records, I went back to New York and worked with Paul on the rest of the record. That’s kind of how that happened. As we were working, I guess Paul invited Artie to come and sing some stuff on there and then it was going to become the Simon & Garfunkel record, and it just didn’t work out.

MR: I know Graceland has been credited as Paul’s classic, but Hearts And Bones was another great moment in his recorded history. Every single song on that album is phenomenal and certainly memorable.

RT: Yeah, it’s tremendous.

MR: Another act you’ve produced, Eric Clapton, also appears on Jerry’s album on “Something You’ve Got.” What was the session like?

RT: To be honest, the vocals were done separately, but the track was cut live. Then the guitars, Jerry’s guitar part, was put on in New York before Eric sang and played on the record. So we had that part and then months later, Eric was working in New York on his own record and called me up and said, “I have a couple of hours, why don’t you come down to the studio. I’m working at Electric Lady, and I’ll sing.” I went down with a little drive and he sang a few vocals and played a few solos and then I left, then we went and made composites in this other studio. He was extremely pleased with the results, and he actually said to me, “I like the way I’m playing on this record.” When he heard Jerry’s solo, he commented, “Man, who’s he been listening to? It sounds like Derek Trucks or Ali Akbar Khan playing,” so I think it was a successful idea, the New Orleans thing, because he’s playing in a different style than he ever played before–slow, greasy and soulful, you know?

MR: You are not really credited often as being a musician, but you certainly are one as well as a songwriter. You even co-wrote with Brian Wilson, although over the years, you have earned this reputation as being a super-producer. How often do you whip out the guitar and get creative?

RT: I don’t do it very often. With people like that around, what’s the point?

MR: (laughs) I know it’s intimidating, isn’t it.

RT: My job is to help great artists do their best work. I stay out of the way in that area.

MR: Russ, let’s play a little game here. I’ll mention an artist you’ve produced and I’d love a story on each of them, cool?

RT: Okay.

MR: Randy Newman. Do you have a story you can go into about Randy? By the way, what an incredible run of records you did together.

RT: Yeah, they’re very, very unusual and special records, in my opinion. They are off the beaten track and unique and beautiful… Randy is a great orchestrator, so most of the string arrangements and orchestral arrangements are his, with the exception of “Marie” “Rollin'” on Good Old Boys; he just couldn’t get started, just couldn’t start arranging, so we suggested calling Nick DeCaro to write those two, and he did. Then Randy got going and it was easy for him.

MR: Prior to Good Old Boys, Sail Away was considered one of the great albums of the singer-songwriter genre. But when Good Old Boys came along, I remember distinctly how my music business friends universally felt that it was the album of the year. Everybody had it, everybody was playing it, and yet where was the Grammy love?

RT: Don’t ask me. It’s a great, great record. Those songs… “Rednecks” is inflammatory, it’s so passionate. Randy writes a lot about hypocrisy and that maybe is the ultimate song about hypocrisy and, of course, racism. But it’s so chilling when he runs the list of the ghettos in the North in that song.

MR: Yeah, “Free to be put in a cage in…” and then came the list.

RT: In Harlem in New York City, in Hough in Cleveland. The Eagles are singing on there, they are doing the backgrounds.

MR: And, of course, you had them back other Randy Newman tracks including those on the Little Criminals album.

RT: “Rider In The Rain.” In fact, I heard from J.D. Souther that “Rider In The Rain” was the best singing he ever did.

MR: Did those guys often pal around together?

RT: Who, Randy and those guys?

MR: Yeah, the whole California Cabal–Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther, The Eagles and Randy.

RT: Aboslutely.

MR: Another group you worked with that I wanted to get to is Little Feat. You were more than instrumental with their success and sound early on, but you were pals with Lowell George. Can you tell the story of how you got involved with Little Feat?

RT: Lowell and I were very good friends, writing songs together and just hanging quite a bit in LA. When Jack Nitzche got the gig to do the Performance soundtrack, I suggested Lowell come in and work on it. He does some interesting things, mainly the band, on that record. I was the rhythm guitar player, Ry Cooder played all the great slide and lead stuff, and Randy played the keyboards and the organ on “Memo From Turner,” and then Jack wrote all these interesting things on there. Anyway, Lowell and I were close buddies and he was putting together a band, Little Feat. He was going to sign to a small label; I said to Lowell, why don’t we see Lenny Waronker over at Warner Bros., it could be good for you. So Lowell, Billy (Payne) and I went over to see Lenny, went to his tiny office with a little tiny spinet piano, a miserable little piano. Billy played the piano and Lowell played guitar and I think they played “Willin’,” “Truck Stop Girl,” “Brides of Jesus,” and others. And Lenny said, “Go upstairs and make a deal, go talk to Mo and make a deal. This is great.”

MR: Mo Ostin.

RT: Yeah, and when does that ever happen? He didn’t even see them playing!

MR: Warner’s had an identity associated with so many great singer-songwriters. It probably was the most important label of that era for developing that kind of act.

RT: Yeah, I think so. They had Bill Young. By the way, the Little Feat album was the first I ever produced. We made that deal, went in, and then cut that record.

MR: That was your first album, and from there, so many classics.

RT: It was the first album. I had done singles and was a session musician, etc. But yes, absolutely, that’s true about Warner’s. It was a Golden Age. We did those first two Rickie Lee (Jones) records, but before that, James Taylor called me and Lenny when Lenny and I had done those Sail Away and Good Old Boys albums. Also, a friend of mine sent me a text message and told me he heard Brian Wilson on the radio being interviewed. He said Brian said he thought Sail Away was the greatest record ever made. I thought that was nice. But that’s just an aside). But anyway, we’d done Sail Away and Good Old Boys, and Lenny and I also produced Paradise and Lunch. Lenny was Ry’s brother-in-law. But Lenny had done the earlier, cruder records, the first one, and Into The Purple Valley, and then we did Paradise and Lunch.

MR: Paradise and Lunch was the breakthrough album for him too?

RT: Yeah, kind of. I met Bobby King and brought him in on that record and that become a long creative relationship. Bobby and Terry Evans…sort of like having The Drifters in some of those songs.

MR: Of course “The Tattler” being such a classic.

RT: Ry and I wrote that song off of an old blues song.

MR: And there was James Taylor and his amazing Gorilla.

RT: Apparently, James loved Cooder and loved that record, and he loved the Randy’s record. So he was a Warner artist and we were Warner producers, so he called us and asked us to work with him. Lenny went to New York first to meet him, then I went around Christmas time in 1974. I went back and I met James. It was like love at first sight, the guy is so wonderful, sweet, funny, and great. We got together in February of 1975 and it took two and a half months to make that record. It was like going to work in a factory in a way–Warner Bros. engineers, studio, producers, artists. We’d go in every day around 11 o’clock and work for eight hours, and then I’d drive James home and go back to Santa Monica. That record is a really perfect record, in a way.

MR: Yes, everything about every song, every background vocal, every solo… What a record. One of the things that annoys me when I think of the album is that “You Make It Easy To Me” seems like it could have been one of the great pop classics had it been made a single.

RT: It’s a great song!

MR: And I think a perfect recording.

RT: Yeah, Danny Kootch played a great guitar part on that record.

MR: And David Sandborn played an over-the-top sax.

RT: David Sandborn on sax, and how sweet it is! That was Dave’s first appearance on a pop record. It’s a great story, in fact. David was in The Paul Butterfield Band. James and I left the studio, which was in North Hollywood. We were driving home and I said, “Why don’t we go visit Tommy LiPuma?” He lived in Toluca Lake on the way from North Hollywood to Cold Water Canyon where James was staying. So we stopped at Tommy’s house and John Court, Albert Grossman’s partner, was there. Look on a lot of those old records where it says “A Gross-Court Production.”

MR: Oh, right.

RT: So John was there and we were hanging and he had this cassette and he said, “Listen to this.” He put it on and we heard this saxophone player and he said, “This is a guy in this band and he’s really great–David Sanborn.” We heard it and we said, “Let’s get him to play on ‘How Sweet It Is.'” So we called him and flew him out. We went to the studio, he came the day before, we walk in the front door of Amigo–the Warner Bros. studio–and there’s the little overdub room on the right as you walk in. It had a little tiny room where you could sing or play a sax, but it wasn’t big enough for drums. So we open the door and hear a melody on the saxophone and he’s playing these TV tunes. He’s this funny character, a really sweet, wonderful guy. Anyway, we came in, he put the stuff up and played a few versions of it, and went in the other room. We made a composite of it. Mostly, it’s one performance, but we said, “It’s better here, better there.” So he comes back and we play it for him and he goes, “Well, that’s good…I wouldn’t have played it that way, but that’s okay.”

MR: (laughs) When I interviewed Carly Simon about “You Make It Easy,” she–and their son Ben–said that “You Belong To Me” was her answer to “You Make It Easy,” because of all the interesting family dynamics going on. You know, there’s this rogue video clip on YouTube of Carly and James singing “You Can Close Your Eyes.”

RT: Oh? I don’t know that.

MR: Yeah, it’s really beautiful. Russ, are there any other tracks that Carly and James recorded together as duets that never came out?

RT: My memory is a little vague on that, but she came in and sang on “How Sweet It Is.”

MR: As far as James, you also produced his October Road album.

RT: Yes, I did, that was in 2001. That took a long time too. There are stories about that record that are interesting that he’s told before. He had written most of the songs he was working on and it was a slow process for some reason. It took him a long time and he had a notebook of the lyrics of most of the songs. He wrote more while we were working. In any case, he was staying at the Trump Hotel in Columbus Circle, New York, went downstairs to breakfast, came back up and someone had gotten into the room, God only knows how. They stole a few things including his notebook with the lyrics, thinking maybe it was a wallet; they took that and I don’t know what else. He never got it back and he didn’t have it backed up. He had to try to remember what he had done and he had to re-write stuff, then he wrote more for the record, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but it was close. Tim White thought that this record was maybe his best record. He used to think that In The Pocket was maybe the best record he’d ever made.

MR: In The Pocket, wow. That has “Slow Burning Love,” “Money Machine”…

RT: …”Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream”…

MR: …”Woman’s Gotta Have It”…

RT: The Womack song.

MR: And it starts off with one of the anthems he’s most remembered for, “Shower The People.”

RT: When he started writing that song, I think he was staying at Beverly. He called me to come over and hear this thing, and he had a cassette, which I think I still have, with just the chorus harmony parts. Carly sang on that record with him, but it was just the chorus, “Shower the people you love with love,” over and over and over again. Just that alone was enough to make your hair stand on end, it was so beautiful. Then he wrote the song. That’s how he started, he had the chorus.

MR: Beautiful. Speaking of anthems, let’s talk about Steve Winwood, another artist who contributed great recordings to the culture. Russ, you really have to look at your career and what you’ve been behind. We haven’t even talked about a lot of the later stuff, but you’ve had your hands in such classic recordings. How do you feel about that?

RT: Well, it’s extremely rewarding. The job is a collaborative job. You have to have an open mind and an open heart and you have to create an atmosphere of trust, camaraderie, a place where it’s okay to come with ideas and you can fail, where you can try things and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If you go into a project with an artist of that caliber and you’re more or less of the same mind, some magical thing happens. I don’t know how else to explain it.

MR: See, I believe the chemistry you had with these artists elevated a lot of the creativity that went into the process. Maybe it was because of your hands-off approach, maybe it’s your mentorship, but I can see the results. And with “Higher Love,” it becoming one of the big anthems of the ’80s, didn’t you think to yourself, “Wow I didn’t realize that could be THAT big a record.”

RT: Quite the contrary. I was called to do that record. I had worked with Steve before because he played on the George Harrison album. George said, “Why don’t we get Win to come and play some stuff on this record,” so he called him and he drove down from Gloucestershire with a keyboard in the back of the car. He came into the studio and played the string/synth parts on “Blow Away,” he played the solo on “Love Comes To Everyone.” They sang together on “Here Comes The Moon” and I don’t know what else, and so that’s when I met Winwood. That’s 1978. Then I made a record with Christine McVie in 1982 and we went to Montreaux, Switzerland, at Mountain Studios. Christine loves Winwood. While we were working, there was a song called “Too Much Is Not Enough,” and while we were doing the record, she said, “I’d love for Steve to sing on this.” So we called him and the whole group of us went to England, went to his studio in Gloucestershire in his house, and he sang a duet with her. He put in his part of the song. I remember Christine and I were standing there and he sang this glorious phrase and she says, “Oh, you ass!” She couldn’t take it. Then they wrote something together in the studio and we cut a track really quickly and made the record right there, in a day. So we have two Winwood things on Christine’s record. Actually, Eric came and played on that record when we were in London.

MR: We sidestepped George Harrison and we can’t sidestep him. How did your working with him come about?

RT: We’re going back there now, and we’ll get back to “Higher Love.” So I had a very good experience with Steve in the studio. Every time we got together, it was a really good experience, because the last record I made before I moved East when I was in Los Angeles, was the Rufus/Chaka Khan record and there’s the studio side to that record. “Ain’t Nobody” is on the studio side, which is another record that was kind of an anthem in New York City that year in ’83.

MR: Right, you also produced that.

RT: Yeah. So this leads us to “Higher Love.” Steve’s managers thought that because I made “Ain’t Nobody,” I would be the person to produce Back In The High Life album because they had demos of most of the songs, but not all. “High Life…” was the first one on the demo and you could hear that it was a hit song; you could hear it, but it wasn’t the record that we wound up making, it was a little snapshot. I spoke to the managers and they asked if I was interested in doing it, and I said absolutely. So I get a call from Winwood and he said, “Hi it’s Steve, I think I’m going to be needing your services.” (laughs) He sent me the demo of all those songs and I listened to them and got back to him. I said, “These are great but I think we need to do some editing on them.” So I went to England and spent days cutting songs and moving bits around so they had different shapes, the most radical one was “My Love’s Leavin.'” We moved bits of the song around so the shape of the song that you hear now wasn’t the way it began. Then I suppose that maybe my casting director chops worked out quite well on that record, I asked Chaka to come in and John Robinson who was the drummer from Rufus and Steve Ferrone played on some of those.

Steve worked with me on Christine McVie’s record, and since JR was Rufus’s drummer and I worked with them, obviously. I asked James (Taylor) to come in and he sang “Back In The High Life,” the harmony part, and it’s a very moving, touching thing. All those things worked out, and we asked Nile Rodgers to come in and play a rhythm guitar on “Higher Love.” So it has this personality, and it’s not all Winwood. In the earlier records, it was all Winwood playing everything. And I wanted him to do the record in New York City, I thought that would be a good idea.

MR: And we forgot to talk about Rickie Lee Jones!

RT: Well, I was in England producing George Harrison’s record. So I get a call from Lenny saying, “There’s a buzz on this girl in Los Angeles, her name is Rickie Lee Jones. Lowell knows her and he’s cutting “Easy Money” or something, and there’s a buzz on her. She’s been playing around a little bit. I’m going to send you a cassette and this is someone I think we should work together on.” He sent me this cassette that had “Chuck E.’s In Love,” “The Moon Is Made Of Gold,” “Young Blood,” “Danny’s All-Star Joint,” and “Company.” The demo of “Company” is just beautiful, she sounds like Roberta Flack. I heard that song and then listened to it over and over and over again. I called Lenny and said, “Man, this girl is just the greatest singer.” He says, “You know, I was focusing on the songs.” So between the two of us, it was perfect. He says, “As soon as you come back from George’s record, we’ll get together with her and see what happens.” So right off the boat, I went into the office and had a meeting with her and said, “Okay, let’s do it!”

MR: I have to throw out there that one of my favorite recordings ever is “Weasel And The White Boy’s Cool” from the debut album. There are so many magic moments on that track, especially when the keys change…oh my God! That couldn’t have been arranged, that had to be magic.

RT: Yeah, she had the form, but there’s another example. Steve Gadd and Willie Weeks played bass and drums on that, and it’s just a deep groove. Buzzy Feiten on guitar, Neil Larsen on keyboard, and then Chuck Findlay played the horn solos stuck in the end. Everything just grew. Neil played the piano on that thing as well.

MR: It’s killer. With all those key changes and inversions everybody was playing, there were things striking against each other that were brilliant, sensual and random.

RT: Yeah, absolutely.

MR: Also Pirates was an amazing follow-up. I find “We Belong Together” popping into my head every once in a while.

RT: To this day, if I ever hear “We Belong Together,” it just makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

MR: I’ve interviewed Barry Mann, another one of my music heroes. Can you go into one of your Barry Mann stories?

RT: He’s one of mine too! It was because of him that I went to New York. I had made a demo of a few songs that I had written–girls group type things, in 1963. I brought the acetates to Lester Sill at a little office on Sunset Boulevard. Lester listened to it and he said, “This is good, why don’t we go upstairs and play this for Lou Adler,” who was working for Donny Kirshner at Columbia Music. He was running that office for Los Angeles. Lou loved the records and loved the songs and sent them back East for Donny to hear, and I got signed as a writer to Screen Gems of Columbia. So basically, I would go every day to the office and just tinkle on the piano and try to write something. But one day, I walk in and the door to Lou’s office was open and I see him and he goes, “Oh come in, Barry and Cynthia are here.” I think my hands started to shake and I went all white.

MR: Cynthia Weil.

RT: Right. To me, it was like meeting George and Ira Gershwin. So I walk in there and both of them were so nice and sweet. Barry said, “Man I love the thing that you did, why don’t you come to New York and we’ll get together.” This was in the Summer of that year, maybe the early Fall. So some time went by and I kept talking to Lou to send me to New York and he kept saying, “Okay, okay,” but nothing would happen. Finally, around Christmas time, I said, “I’m going to buy a ticket, I’m going to New York,” and he said, “Oh all right, we’ll buy the ticket.” I went around Christmas and started going to the office. I called Barry and Cynthia right away and started going to their house. I was like their little brother, and I just loved them. Cynthia and I wrote some songs. Barry and I produced a little single, it was Margaret Ross from The Cookies who sang the lead on these two things that we wrote. We went into Mira Sound to cut the tracks and Brooks Arthur was the engineer. Mira Sound was in the Hotel America on 44th Street. The place is still there; I found out later that James Dean lived in that hotel. We went in and made these records that were really pretty cool. Barry played piano, we cut one thing at Mira Sound and one thing at Dick Charles’. It was like two-to-two or ping-ponging on two tracks back and forth. Gary Kelvin was the engineer on that. It was called “Baby, Baby I Still Love You” and the thing we did at Mira Sound was called “Please Don’t Wake Me.” I loved that record. That was like the first real record that I was co-producer on with Barry.

MR: You also worked with Carole King.

RT: Then, because I was at Screen Gems, I met Gerry Goffin and Carole through Donny, through the office. I met them and I guess Barry must have talked me up some and I started writing with Gerry Goffin. We wrote a song called “I Never Dreamed” and we cut it with The Cookies. It’s one of my favorite records that I’ve ever made, to this day. Carole did the arrangement on it. She wrote the horns, she did the background parts and she’s singing on it…it’s just this glorious girl’s group record. The lyric is happy, but you listen to the record and it catches you in the throat. So it’s got this sadness to it, but it’s anthem-like, happy lyrics. That was a really amazing experience for me working with those people.

MR: We should also point out that Phil Spector is in your history as in you debuted on The Paris Sisters’ recording “Be My Boy.”

RT: That’s right, that’s the first real record in which I participated. I played the guitar and sang background parts with the girls. “Be My Boy” was cut at Radio Recorders or Conway, I can’t remember, Michael Spencer playing the piano. I got my chops from hanging with Phil. After that record, which was a minor hit and came out on Gray Mark Records, which was Lester Sill and Lee Hazelwood. Phil went back and went to see Donny Kirshner. “I Love How You Love Me” came back and we cut “I Love How You Love Me” and did the whole album at Gold Star, so I was on that whole record and played guitar and sang with the girls. I was the other Paris Sister.

MR: You also were part of The Spectors Three vocal trio.

RT: Exactly right, and that was around the same time, I think. “I Really Do” and “I Know Why.” I sang the harmony parts with Phil and this girl Ricki Page.

MR: And you’re on the Laurel Canyon album by Jackie DeShannon.

RT: Yes, absolutely. I was living on a house on North Orange Grove Avenue, north of Hollywood Boulevard, about a block and a half up on the hill. It went straight up, up pretty high. Somebody came over with The Band album, their first album, and that was one of the most mind-blowing experiences, like hearing “Sgt. Pepper…,” one of the greatest records ever made, produced by John Simon. The first two records, two of the greatest records ever made. I heard “The Weight” and I ran down to Green and Stone’s office, which was just a couple of blocks away and played the “The Weight.” It was like a Mickey Rooney movie. He went, “Get Jackie on the phone, we’re cutting this thing tomorrow. Get Mac, get Dr. John.” I played guitar, and Eddie somebody was the drummer. I don’t remember who played bass. We went in and cut “The Weight” at some studio in Sunset Boulevard.

MR: Since we’ve gone all the way back, Russ Titelman now versus Russ Titelman then. What are your thoughts and reflections, the main differences from that kid until now?

RT: That’s a hard thing to articulate. To me, it’s all the same; I just have more experience and more knowledge. I suppose I was very fortunate in that I worked with the best people, the greatest artists in the world, and I don’t know how to answer how that happened, but it happened. I had a long, great run with Randy Newman and a great run with Eric Clapton. We made Journeyman and the Rush soundtrack where the original “Tears In Heaven” is, the Unplugged record, From the Cradle to Blues record, the Live record, and we have an ongoing, great relationship. We haven’t worked together since then until Jerry Douglas’ record. Once Jerry and I chose those songs, we started to cast it, and I said, “Why don’t we ask Eric to sing “Something You Got.” Jerry said, “Of course,” so I called Eric and he said, “Sure.” It’s as simple as that. Later, I found out that Eric cut that song in the ’60s–not the original, original record because that’s Chris Kenner, but the record that most people know who know that song is by Alvin “Shine” Robinson and it’s produced by Lieber & Stoller. It was a record that was cut in New York with New Orleans musicians.

MR: Russ, what is your advice for new artists?

RT: It’s the old advice, work hard, be diligent. Know your craft, know your history. Be original. Be professional and work really hard. I don’t know what else to say.

MR: You have been so influential and one of my heroes. If you have any other words of wisdom, spit them out, man!

RT: I don’t know if I do. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve lived my entire life making music, doing the thing that I love the most. It’s the old thing you hear, find something you love and make that your life’s work if you can, the kind of thing that you’d do for nothing, almost. I’d often thought if I wasn’t making money, I wouldn’t care. I want to be making records. Of course, the money is good. It’s nice, nothing wrong with it.

MR: When you have your heart in it and it’s your life, the cosmic term for that would be “dharma.”

RT: Yeah.

MR: Any more thoughts about Jerry Douglas’ Traveler, anything else you can fill us in on?

RT: That was a really amazing experience for me. He’s a master musician and we stumbled upon what we finally came up with. Going to New Orleans, Jerry came up with the idea of calling it Traveler because half the record is Nashville and there’s bluegrass stuff, fresh stuff, that he wrote, the trio stuff, which is really groundbreaking stuff. One of them sounds a little like The Allman Brothers. The other is completely fresh; I don’t know where that came from, but it’s a beautiful recording–backwards dobro, kind of George Harrison-like. We have Mumford & Sons and we have Eric and a beautiful song by Al Anderson called “Right On Time” that sounds like a Curtis Mayfield/Mussel Shoals record and Marc Cohn sang it. To me, Mark is one of the greatest soul singers ever. Keb’ Mo’ sings on “High Blood Pressure.” Part of the reason that I had suggested New Orleans is because those two songs are two of my favorite songs and they’re early ’60s, New Orleans songs–“High Blood Pressure” and “Something You Got”; “On A Monday” is a Leadbelly song, and Jerry and I kicked around these ideas and chose those songs. Like I said earlier, he plays in a different way and he goes to a different place. He is such a master, he can do anything. It was fun to be a part of bringing something out of him that he hasn’t done before, then he does what he does better than anybody else in his comfort zone, the Nashville stuff; and we were lucky to have Mumford & Sons.

MR: I have a strong emotional connection with New Orleans, it having gone through the hell it did, and it still isn’t 100%. That’s just a crime.

RT: Many places aren’t even near 100%, and it’s a disgrace. The 9th Ward debacle is manmade. It wasn’t just the hurricane, it was the Army Corp of Engineer that made this crazy thing; they built some levies on sand and it was like a funnel. There were scientists who said this is going to happen, you shouldn’t be doing this, and they did it anyway. It’s arrogance.

MR: Yeah, but it also seemed to be the arrogance of our administration at that time. “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heckuva job.” I think that’s when this country finally woke up and said, “Oh my God, what’s going on here?”

RT: Yeah, I’m with you 100%.

MR: What an awful, horrible thing to have happened. Anyway, Russ, I love that you spent all of this time with us. It has been so fulfilling…the amount of information, especially on your good works, can be overwhelming!

RT: It was very nice and a pleasure to talk to you.

MR: Whenever you have a project, please, let’s pick it up where we left off.

RT: That sounds great. Thanks a lot and I hope it wasn’t boring.

MR: (laughs) Not one moment. I really appreciate it, Russ.

Transcribed by Narayana Windenberger