Podcast Transcript
Buzz Knight:
On this edition of the Takin a Walk Podcast, I’m here in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to meet up with one of the greatest keyboard players of our generation. Billy Payne is a founding member of the amazing band, Little Feat. Simply put, they changed my life when I saw them many years ago at the University of Cincinnati Field House.
Buzz Knight:
Boz Scaggs was on the bill, but the deal was Little Feat at that show. It was possibly the greatest performance that I ever saw. Let’s go take a walk with Billy Payne.
Speaker 2:
Takin a Walk, with Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Billy Payne, it is so great to be with you, taking a walk. How are you, my friend?
Billy Payne:
I feel good. It’s been an intense month or so. Last night we played, which you were there, at the Beacon Theater in New York. The audience, not only there, but every place we’ve played, they’ve been ecstatic.
Billy Payne:
I think they’re coming with this expectation that we’ll be good, but they don’t know. Although, the word is out now. The drumbeat is that we’re doing okay, but in the beginning we’d hit the stage. I’d be looking at people. They’re like, “Please make this work.”
Billy Payne:
When they hear it, from the opening salvos of the concert, they relax. And then, it’s just pure joy. I feel so proud to be a part of that.
Buzz Knight:
It is pure joy. The audience loves it. It’s the anniversary Waiting for Columbus tour, sort of, right?
Billy Payne:
Yeah, it’s 45 years, which is an interesting … Usually, you’ll wait till 50 years, but I think choosing 45 years is a good thing. I just turned 73 in March. I play like I’m a 20-year-old, but facts are facts.
Buzz Knight:
I love it. I love how you’re playing. I love how the band is playing. When did you first realize that you were hooked on being a musician?
Billy Payne:
I think that that’s an excellent question. I’ll twist it just a little bit, and say that I realized I was a musician first, when my wood shop teacher, Mr. O’Connell said, “I’ll give you a passing grade, Bill, but stay away from the saws.”
Buzz Knight:
It stuck with you.
Billy Payne:
It was in 7th grade. I went, “Really? He knows that I play?” I’ve been playing for a while. I started playing piano when I was five, taking lessons from Ruth Newman in Ventura.
Billy Payne:
When I was 15, and started playing in a band, I think I solidified the comraderie of what it is to be in a band. It’s odd, because so many things in life, you think … I’m from the Groucho Marx school of thought, which is I would never accept an invitation to a club that would bring me as a member. And yet, I’ve got to say that being a musician and being in a band is the ultimate club, other than maybe being a President, or something like that.
Billy Payne:
Keith Richards, when I was in Amsterdam in ’74, or maybe ’75, we were in the basement. The Stones had come en masse to hear Little Feat play. Jaap Edenhal, I think it was called. I’m down there. I’m going, “Oh, Keith, oh, my gosh.”
Billy Payne:
He grabbed me around the shoulder, pulled me in tight and says, “Oh, mate, we’re all part of the same cloth.” It was like, “Welcome to the club, Bill.” And then, when I was reading his biography … I can’t remember this other fellow that wrote it with him, but he had a similar thing when he was in the dressing room with Muddy Waters and Little Richard.
Billy Payne:
He’s like, “Well, if those are the cats, I must be one of the cats, too.” That was what he was sharing with me, and I’ve done that since with a lot of musicians, because we are a part of something. Not super special, but it’s nice to be in that crowd.
Buzz Knight:
And, the energy that comes from playing for an audience is so special.
Billy Payne:
Yeah, especially now, Buzz. Not that it wasn’t before, but I think music has taken on a larger role, and for this reason. I’ll tie it into Richard Goodwin’ book, which I’ve just started. That book, I’ll say it again, it’s called Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties.
Buzz Knight:
Fabulous book.
Billy Payne:
Yeah, this man wrote speeches for John Kennedy, for his brother, Robert, later, Eugene McCarthy. And, for Lyndon Johnson, I believe. He looked at the ’60s as a failure, which indeed it was, in many respects. We find ourselves now, 2022, and when the pandemic happened in 2020.
Billy Payne:
We’re in that precipice again of what is America? Is it a failure? The way I’ve compartmentalized it is we are an aspirational country. Our ideals are aspirational. I wrote a song called When All Boats Rise. Somebody wrote back to me in that combative, “Well, I don’t have a boat.” I said, “Well, it’s not about you having a boat. It’s aspirational. We ought to all have boats that will rise together when the tidings are good, and when the tides are in. But, we don’t have liberty and justice for all either, which is aspirational.”
Billy Payne:
For me, what is happening is music is now binding people together. In that nobody was discussing politics last night. They were digging Fat Man in a Bathtub. They were singing along with Willin’. We can get in a fight soon enough, but it’s nice to have something where we can relieve the pressure a little bit. And thus, music is more important now than it’s ever been.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, I got chills when you’re talking about it, because really, I talk about this in the Takin a Walk Podcast. Why is music so important? Why is it so special?
Buzz Knight:
Why does it do the things, in such a wonderful way to us, that it does? It touches us. It lifts us up. It brings us down in certain times.
Billy Payne:
Yes.
Buzz Knight:
But, it’s such an amazing thing, so I’m so glad you touched on the emotion of it, and in a way, the neuroscience of it too, right?
Billy Payne:
Yeah, I think that it is not a benign art. Hitler used it to great effect. Trump used it to great effect with however he put it together to stir people’s souls in a certain way. It’s not benign, but it ultimately, can be uplifting.
Billy Payne:
And again, bind us rather than pull us apart. We just need those areas where … It’s like when you get sick. Your body’s fighting something that it can’t control, and what doctors try to provide, and oftentimes, they can, but most stuff has got to come through your head, through your brain. That part of it is allowing a pressure release, so your body can begin to function again.
Billy Payne:
It just doesn’t do it if things are tight and fighting against each other. It never works, so there’s that analogy, too. And, the religious component, which is crazy, which we don’t have to get into.
Billy Payne:
I would suggest it was Abraham Lincoln who said … Well, I don’t remember the quote, but it was about which God is on our side? Is he on our side, or is he on the Confederacy’s? We’ve always got that thing going on, so we pick and choose. It’s like a Chinese menu with people on our values, and beliefs, and core systems that we operate from.
Buzz Knight:
So, on this day that we’re taking a walk, coincidentally, it also happens to be the birthday of Lowell George.
Billy Payne:
Oh, yeah, man.
Buzz Knight:
Which, is pretty remarkable. Tell me what you remember about the first time you met Lowell George.
Billy Payne:
I was driving from Santa Barbara, actually Isla Vista, I think, is where I was sleeping in people’s apartments. I was sleeping on the beach. I was scared to death of driving on the freeways in LA, so I hugged the right-hand lane almost the entire way down.
Buzz Knight:
By the way, I still am scared to death when I drive there.
Billy Payne:
I don’t blame you. It’s like Gene Hackman in the French Connection. You just have to put the gas on the pedal-
Buzz Knight:
That’s right.
Billy Payne:
… and hope nobody hits you.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, close your eyes.
Billy Payne:
Close your eyes, and pretend it’s a dream. Anyway, I drove in Lowell’s house. He was near … Gosh, it was on Rowena, near Silver Lake, but it was just west of Silver Lake. I can’t remember the name of the town. There was a little rustic home just off the street. The door was open.
Billy Payne:
I heard some Eric Satie floating out of the front door. I walked up. There’s this beautiful blonde girl, short, pixie haircut, cross-legged on the floor. She goes, “Oh, you must be Bill. Lowell’s expecting you. He’ll be back in five hours.” I said, “Well, what does he do when he’s not expecting you?” So, I went in there-
Buzz Knight:
Five hours, she said?
Billy Payne:
Yeah, what’s he do when he’s not expecting you? I get in there, and I started … First thing I see, other than her listening to this beautiful music, is on the back wall there was a samurai sword. To the right of that, in the corner, was a sitar. Adjacent to the sitar was a library that had books by Carl Sandburg, Allen Ginsburg, Howl, I think. Last Exit to Brooklyn, which is a brutal book. Don’t look it up, everybody.
Billy Payne:
Let’s see. And then, he had this record collection, which was John Coltrane, He had a couple of albums by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, Chester Burnett. He also had this record that had Join the Band on it. It was a Smithsonian recording of chain gang music.
Buzz Knight:
Oh.
Billy Payne:
(singing), which we opened Waiting for Columbus with, so all that stuff was there. There’s this famous story of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. The first time they met, they talked about everything under the sun, and that’s the way Lowell and I hit it off.
Billy Payne:
By the time he got there, I actually felt I knew him, but I didn’t know him. We just discussed everything, and I didn’t join the band that evening. I had come to Los Angeles simply to meet Frank Zappa. Well, Frank’s over in Europe, so the record company, after many, many calls, which I did with a phony credit card, much like Steve Jobs and his partners.
Billy Payne:
Everyone was using these cards to make calls. I’m, “Well, I’m Bill Payne.” And, “Who? What?” “I play keyboards, I think,” you know? That kind of thing.
Buzz Knight:
Yes.
Billy Payne:
I was nervous as hell. I didn’t know how to start, and then he finally hooked me up with Lowell. The guy was just such an engaging, warm human being. I just felt like, “Well, this is cool.”
Billy Payne:
He said, “Well, come back in a couple weeks, and let’s try and write something.” So, I did and I think one of the … We were writing all these crazy songs that we presented Ahmet Ertegun, from Dancing to New Bio Version Slaves was one of them. It’s an instrumental.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Billy Payne:
I don’t know what else we had, but Ahmet heard the stuff. He looks at us. He goes, “Boys, it’s too diverse.” We went back to the drawing room.
Billy Payne:
I think we started writing Truck Stop Girl, Brides of Jesus, Captain Gunboat Willie, Strawberry Flats, Hamburger Midnight. So, all these songs that the titles alone suggested there’s some real eclectic thought going on, and it was. You can only imagine what we played for Ahmet, to have him say it was too diverse.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Billy Payne:
I think that’s the essence of Little Feat, the essence of where Lowell and I saw the vision for this band was its eclectism. It as an open proposition. Do we need horns?
Billy Payne:
Do we need another guitar player? Do we want somebody else to fill in on keyboards every now and then? What are we going to do? Let’s leave it open. Let’s bring in what we need when we need it. It set the tone of where we are now, which is how can we call this band Little Feat?
Billy Payne:
We don’t have Lowell. We don’t have Richie Hayward, our drummer. We don’t have Paul Barrere, who passed away in 2019. We do it because we have the music, the catalog, and we’re still writing. I’ve written 20 songs with Robert Hunter.
Billy Payne:
I’ve written nine songs, I think, with Paul Muldoon, who just did the editing for Paul McCartney’s book of lyrics. He wrote the foreword as well. It boils down to music, and for a guy that was brought up playing classical music, I think, “Well, all right, Beethoven’s not around. We still play his music.”
Billy Payne:
One guy years ago, Buzz, was saying, not to me personally, but I was talking to a friend of his. He goes, “Well, why is Bill playing New Orleans music? He’s not from there.” Well, my parents were married there, so that’s okay. But, I told the guy. I said, “Well, tell him I’m not from Vienna, and I play Mozart. I’m not Hamburg, and I play Beethoven. Is that okay with him?”
Buzz Knight:
I love it, and I love how you brought it full circle to the present, in terms of where Little Feat is today. And, where that foundation that you and Lowell laid out, really to this day, is the backbone of what Feat is all about. You’ve stayed true to that.
Billy Payne:
Yeah, I think very few bands have a North Star, very few people do. It’s not anything you contemplate. Even when Lowell and I were sorting that out, I didn’t project 50 years in the future plus, to say this is what I’d be doing. I knew I’d be playing music.
Billy Payne:
The only legitimate gig I’ve ever had was a paperboy. I’ve played music all my life. It’s an extraordinary thing to be able to converse with people in many different creative ways, whether it’s through my photography, through my writing, through my music, through songwriting.
Billy Payne:
There’s a lot of subsets to everything. To have this conversation with you, Buzz, these are the things you hope will happen in the beginning, that you’ll be connected to inquisitive people. And, the curse of the Chinese, live in interesting times, which we definitely do. But, have people that you can lean on during those times, that don’t necessarily hold the same beliefs, but hold the deeper belief in that there’s a path we have in front of us.
Billy Payne:
They’re divergent paths. How do we ultimately connect through all of that? That, to me, is the thing that really works, so I’m not a purist. If I want to play some jazz, and throw in some stuff … That’s what we took the audience on last night.
Billy Payne:
Rock and Roll with Old Atlanta, with Fat Man in the Bathtub, with Paul’s tune, Old Folks Boogie. And, you pop in a Day or Night, Mercenary Territory, and it just takes you to another world. It’s like that’s what that formative of transportation of music is the most fun kind of play.
Billy Payne:
We’re listening while we play, obviously, but I, every now and then, will look out at the audience. You’re like, “Yeah, this is a time to sit down and let this music wash over me. Now, we get up and dance, or whatever we want to do.” You can’t make anybody do anything. There’s not cue cards saying, “Get up and dance, everyone.”
Billy Payne:
They either do it, or they don’t. It’s the old adage of the gig itself. I think it was Goldwyn who said, “If they’re not going to show up, you can’t stop them.”
Buzz Knight:
When I first went to that show that I referenced, at the University of Cincinnati Field House, the show that I believe changed my life, in terms of the magic of a major performance, I remember some of my buddies from the University of Dayton, where I went to school, saying, “You got to check this band out. You’ve never heard anything like this band.” That’s what we did then, right?
Billy Payne:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
We were guys who were starting out at the radio station back there, and we just shared experiences before there was social networks and everything. They said, “You got to listen to this band. It’s nothing like you’ve ever heard before. You can’t compare them to anybody,” which is so true. And then, they were like, “You got to go see this band.”
Buzz Knight:
I’m so grateful for them turning me on to you guys, and I’ll never forget it, really. What led to the period with Lowell deciding he had had enough? I know he had put out a solo album and everything. There were differences, right?
Billy Payne:
Yeah, he and I were at loggerheads. I had actually quit the band. I said, “I can’t take this, man. We take two steps forward, three steps back, one step forward, et cetera. I got to do something else. If you want to continue Little Feat, please do. What I would suggest you do, however, is you love producing albums. Produce a couple more records. Do your solo thing. You’ve been working on that for a long time. Get out there and play your music, and then test the waters and see. You need to make yourself happy. That is not happening right now, and when you’re unhappy it just … ”
Billy Payne:
I’m not easy to get along with sometimes, and so we just let it go. But, it was under that guise that he went on that last tour. I got the call that he passed away in Washington DC, following by all accounts, a brilliant performance of his solo endeavors.
Buzz Knight:
Yes.
Billy Payne:
And, Fred Tackett was out on that tour.
Buzz Knight:
You had been doing so much session work also, right? You had-
Billy Payne:
Oh, yeah.
Buzz Knight:
… worked with so many people from, obviously, Jackson Browne to Bob Seger, and the Doobie Brothers. You had some side action going on always, right?
Billy Payne:
Always, even when I was in Santa Maria, I was with a group called the Debonairs, which was a group called the Chevrons. I’d sit in with them, and I was always sitting with people, because I had the acumen to play just about anything, not everything. When Lowell passed, I wound up playing with Linda Ronstadt.
Billy Payne:
And then, I played with Jackson. Well, Jackson later, but James Taylor for about six years. He was, obviously, a wonderful artist to have connected with. Lowell was 34 years old. Mozart was 34. And so, another way to look at what we’re doing now, which I point out to people is, if you want to you want Lowell or Little Feat, and every member of this band into a worship area, that’s cool.
Billy Payne:
Do so, but keep in mind what we’re doing is keeping his music alive. And thus, we’re keeping his memory alive. Because, whatever travails were going on with him, with a lot of people back then, he was a creative soul, a brilliant musician.
Billy Payne:
I think his phrasing was impeccable, honestly, both as a singer and as a player. And so, the guys that are in the band now, Scott Sharrard, who was the musical director for Greg Allman when I met him six, seven years ago, when I was playing with the Doobie Brothers. He had been studying Little Feat since 12 years old.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Billy Payne:
Same thing with Tony Leone, who’s on drums. He had been studying Richie Hayward. Also, he’s studying other people, but these are guys that come into this thing with a wide swath of music and influences, which is another area Lowell and I discussed a lot.
Billy Payne:
What are the influences? As I said at the outset of our conversation, when I went into his house, I wasn’t doing it on purpose, but that is, in effect, what I was doing was viewing what had influenced him. And so, if you get a chance, there’s an album that Zappa put out of Lenny Bruce, so there’s that aspect of it.
Billy Payne:
Lowell and I loved the Marx brothers, which I mentioned Groucho earlier. There was a song called Alone. I think it was Jack Jones and Kitty Carlisle, I believe.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, wow.
Billy Payne:
Jack Jones did Dixie Chicken on the Tonight Show, when Johnny Carson was onboard.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, my God.
Billy Payne:
It’s like a Dickens tale, honestly.
Buzz Knight:
That’s amazing. Now, there’s a lot of stories around why Lowell left playing with Frank Zappa. What’s the one that you believe is the reason why?
Billy Payne:
Well, Frank asked him to leave. He asked him to form his own band. He did so upon hearing a song called Willin’, which had drug references, “Weed, whites, and wine.” And, Frank was not into the weed aspects of it, but he also knew Lowell had a … This is an untapped resource. . Frank was helpful, so was Herb Cohen, his manager.
Billy Payne:
That’s the story I have. I’ll only say that when we first went into sign the record deal, I think Herbie was there, or in the vicinity. When we went and signed the record deal for Let it Roll, gosh, ’87, ’88, somewhere in there, Herbie was the first guy walking out of the new Warner building. I reminded him of that, so there was this bookends going on.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, wow. You guys, during that period when I was at QFM96 in Columbus, you, and Paul, and Richie came into the studio. And, did a scaled down version of a few songs, which was pretty amazing, pretty special radio, really, for that time. It sounded so awesome.
Billy Payne:
Cool.
Buzz Knight:
Lowell was somebody who had a lot of great lines, right?
Billy Payne:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
He was quick to throw out some funny stuff. Any, in particular, that come to mind that are Lowell-isms on this day, on his birthday?
Billy Payne:
Well, happy birthday, Lowell. I hope you’re hanging out with whomever you love up there wherever you are. His soul is someplace. That’s for sure.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Billy Payne:
I don’t remember so much witticisms from him. I remember a lot more from Richie Hayward, who was from Iowa. But Lowell, he had that sense of humor where we’d be sitting around a table at Richie’s house. This is in West LA, just off of Sunset Boulevard, right next to the Cock ‘N Bull restaurant.
Billy Payne:
There were Spanish apartments that were there. These apartments were filled with writers, drug dealers, musicians, et cetera. But, Lowell, would get up on the window and put his face there, and scare the hell out of us. He was just one of those pranksters, man.
Buzz Knight:
He liked having a good time?
Billy Payne:
He did. He really did, and I think that’s the essence of when people are having fun, which we did during the making of Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. His daughter, Inara, was born. I think that was a great time in his life, and for us, as a result of it.
Billy Payne:
In many ways, he was like Jerry Garcia. During the times that were not exemplary of fun and joy, he’d disappear for periods of time. As did Jerry, of what I’ve read and heard. Oh, he’ll be back. Don’t worry about it, that kind of stuff.
Billy Payne:
Fred Tackett, who’s been with us for … He was one of the first people I met in LA. Fred told me, “You remember when he was running for office for the Musicians Union?” I go, “No.” “Really?” I go, “Well, wait a minute. I guess that rings a vague bell.”
Billy Payne:
Well, Fred got us our first gig with Jimmy Webb. A paying gig, I should say, for Little Feat at Jimmy’s birthday party in Encino, California. Fred came from that world of … He knew Lowell a few years before I met him.
Billy Payne:
He was playing with Sonny and Cher, Jimmy Webb. When you look at Fred’s discography, it’s like mine. It’s like, well, when did you guys have time to go to bathroom?
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Billy Payne:
It was nuts.
Buzz Knight:
I love it, so there’s a documentary in the works?
Billy Payne:
There is. Jessie Lotter is the director. There is a documentary he just has out now with Susan Tedeschi, and Derek Trucks, and Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Billy Payne:
And so, the survivors of that confluence all got together later, and they were reminiscing about Joe. It’s some great footage of Cocker when he was around, and what that tour was about. He knows how to tell a story, and ultimately, that’s who I wanted was somebody that not only could tell a story, but listen to the story that’s there.
Billy Payne:
We don’t need to promulgate the bridge. It’s like a Monty Python skit. The castle was built. It sunk into the swamp. The bridge was built. It was blown up by the … That happens to everybody. You can always allude to something without hammering into the ground, I guess.
Buzz Knight:
Sure.
Billy Payne:
I think the better story is the creative aspects of what we were doing, and how it ties into what we’re doing now, all these years later. That’s what Little Feat is. It’s bigger than any of us, and I figured that out quite a few years ago.
Buzz Knight:
It’s gone through so many generations, incarnations, creative processes, and still cranking it out, for sure. How do you use taking a walk, yourself? Probably, I’m assuming, out in Montana, to help you creatively, or inspire you? How were you able to do that in the wide expanse of Montana?
Billy Payne:
Well, I think anywhere, so much of what we do is compartmentalized. It’s between the ears, and so if you can find a place … I found it just walking in New York City the other day. You’re just looking. You’re able to think. You can settle down a little bit if you’re not looking for buses that might hit you.
Billy Payne:
The reflective mode is really what you’re involved in, wherever you can find it. Duke Ellington used to get into those reflective modes sitting in a cab. Taking a shower you go, “Oh, my gosh, I got to retain these thoughts where I can write it down when I get out of the shower,” that kind of thing. The mind has a mind of its own.
Buzz Knight:
And, photography is relatively new for you?
Billy Payne:
Yeah, listen, like I said, I turned 73 in March, the same day as … Well, James Taylor is a year older than me, but our birthdays are March 12th.
Buzz Knight:
Happy, happy.
Billy Payne:
Thanks. I told James, “You’re like the canary in the coalmine. As long as you’re doing good, I think I’ll do good.” But, the photography, I began in my 50s. I don’t know if Lowell said this, now that I think about it, but it is a truism that we talk ourselves out of far more things than we talk ourselves into.
Billy Payne:
Oh, I can’t do this because of that. I play piano, but how many people in the world play piano? Should I be playing guitar? That kind of thing. The inquisitiveness is what pulls us out of that, pulls us out of ourselves, which are either wildly ambitious, or are completely in denial of what is in front of us. It’s an odd mixture.
Billy Payne:
But, the steps to jumping in that pool and taking the dive … Before you take that dive, there’s a lot that goes into your head, the temperature of the water. Can I swim? How close is the side of the pool? Am I going to hit my head on the side of the pool when I … All those things that you just build up and they stall the process. What you want to do when you can, as a creative person, is to open that up to where the creativity will come out. In other words, stop editing yourself.
Buzz Knight:
Mm-hmm, what beautiful advice for a creative process.
Billy Payne:
Well, I’m just glad I’ve lived long enough to be able to articulate it, because that was another thing. Remember the Tom Wolfe book, The Right Stuff? Those astronauts, it wasn’t manly, I guess, to question what they were doing. They just did it, right?
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Billy Payne:
We adapted that attitude as well, in the 70s, of not looking or analyzing what we did. Why did we make that a 2/4 bar instead of a 4/4 bar? I don’t know. We just did it. Later, I went, “You know what? I want to know why I’m doing this.”
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Billy Payne:
I was talking to a guy, a driver in a car. He was taking me someplace. He was a musician. I said, “Do you ever play scales or any of that stuff?” He says, “No, no.”
Billy Payne:
I say, “Is that because study music because you think it will take away from your creativity?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Okay, I’m going to share something with you. When you add learning about a subject, in this case music, and the notion of playing scales, which John Coltrane did ad nauseum, they add to your vocabulary. They don’t take anything away.” He went, “I never thought of it like that.”
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Billy Payne:
I said, “No, I didn’t either. That’s why I’m sharing it with you. You want to broaden your vocabulary, not restrict it.”
Buzz Knight:
Wow, have you seen Chasing Trane, the documentary on Hulu?
Billy Payne:
I did, and we were talking about this last night. Also, the documentary on Bill Evans, Blue Note Records.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, I haven’t seen those.
Billy Payne:
And lastly, Birth of the Cool, on Miles Davis. That was the one documentary I forgot was the John Coltrane documentary.
Buzz Knight:
Lovely documentary
Billy Payne:
Oh, I’d see those-
Buzz Knight:
Going back to the photography … Oh, I’m sorry.
Billy Payne:
No, go ahead.
Buzz Knight:
Going back to the photography, do you know Henry Diltz?
Billy Payne:
Yes.
Buzz Knight:
Henry Diltz and I took a walk a couple weeks back in LA.
Billy Payne:
Oh, cool.
Buzz Knight:
There was a beautiful moment. We’re walking, and it describes him really beautifully, where we’re talking a walk and he had to stop at a very moment, and whip out his little portable camera, or whatever it was.
Billy Payne:
Sure.
Buzz Knight:
Because, he saw something in the window that was an image that just made him curious. I was like, wow, at 83 years old, this guy is still loving his view of the world that he can capture, you know?
Billy Payne:
That’s right. That way you see things, and Henry is a wonderful photographer. He’s taken photos of everybody, including Little Feat, but I never … What he brings to it, any photographer brings to it, it’s like a musician.
Billy Payne:
We go through the auditory sources. I would bet that he watched a lot of films growing up. What you’re doing is you’re educating your eye to the best cinematographers in the world, John Houston, or David Lean, Kubrick, on up and down.
Billy Payne:
And so, when you see something, you have a chance to A, talk yourself out of it. And say, “Well, everybody’s done it before.” Or, you figure out that what’s unique about human beings is we all have that little bit in us that shares our view of what that is. Maybe, Kubrick’s view, or David Lean’s has got a bigger picture to it.
Billy Payne:
I don’t mean literally. Well, actually, it is literal, where you’ve got expanses in Lawrence of Arabia, where capturing one of the mounds, or the flow of the sand. It’s all there. Where does your vision, literally and figuratively, take you?
Billy Payne:
When I figured that out with photography for myself, when I hit that shutter, it’s like hitting middle C on the keyboard. As a child I went, “Oh, no, now I’m off and running.” My wife Polly is a wonderful photographer, too. There’s an image of Richie Hayward that we showed last night in Time Loves a Hero.
Billy Payne:
It looks, the photo, like this. It’s raked up, and he’s got this pontific smile on his face. He’s playing the drums. It’s in a sepia tone. She took that photo, and he died two weeks later.
Billy Payne:
I told her. I said, “What that photo exemplifies is this is where Richie lived, literally.” He had so much fun. When he got off stage he was shaking. We threw towels on him. He only played two or three songs that night. It was up in Vancouver Island, I think.
Billy Payne:
Paul went to Japan a few weeks before he passed. I know Coltrane, one of the last things he did was he went to Japan. Paul was versed in that stuff. I got him a Charles Mingus book one year for his birthday, but that’s where we gain inspiration from others. That’s where the connectiveness of things … It doesn’t always have to be music.
Billy Payne:
It can be food. It can be politics. It can be, obviously, relationships, which are the most important. They all inform everything else of who we are as human beings. I think that’s the thing that’s the most dramatically upsetting to me, this day and age. And conversely, where I get the most excited about things are the fact there are so many people that just … They don’t want to intellectualize anything.
Billy Payne:
To intellectualize is taboo. They’re shutting themselves off from the world. That’s how people like Hitler, any type of dictatorship … They want that father figure. They’ll go, “Yeah, he’s a bastard, but he made the decision, not me.”
Billy Payne:
Well, hey, we need to make decisions, too. John Lewis, God bless him. You know what I mean? I’m not a religious person, but I’ve got to say that that man had some soul. He might have been more of the godfather of soul than even James Brown, where it counts.
Buzz Knight:
You got some soul, Billy.
Billy Payne:
Thank you.
Buzz Knight:
Thanks for joy that you bring me, still to this day, and to many fans over the years, and to this day. I’m so grateful that we were able to take a walk.
Billy Payne:
Me, too. I enjoyed the walk very much, Buzz. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Takin a Walk, with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
