Chris Rock and Herb Alpert

Published Nov 25, 2013, 5:00 AM

Chris Rock is one of the greatest comic talents in the world, but when he arrived on Broadway to perform his first play, The Motherf***ker in The Hat, he did not yet know how to properly cross a Broadway stage. Rock says that his life has mimicked each role in the play—both the heart-breaker and the heartbroken—and he tells Alec that performing in the show was the hardest thing he has ever done.

When Herb Alpert started playing trumpet with his band Tijuana Brass, Woody Allen and George Carlin were the opening acts. In 1966, The Brass outsold The Beatles. Alpert went on to co-found A&M Records, where he identified and signed some of the industry's greatest talent: The Carpenters, The Police, and Cat Stevens. He and his partner sold A&M in 1989 for half a billion dollars. He says he’s looking for the same thing as everybody else—a life of purpose and meaning. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, My chance to talk with artists and writers, policymakers and performers, to hear their stories, what inspired their creations, what decisions changed their careers, and what relationships influenced their work. Here's the thing. Both of my guests today were successful early in their careers. Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass sold over thirteen million albums in nineteen sixty six, out selling even the Beatles. After leaving Saturday Night Live, Chris Rock created two comedy specials, the second of which one too Emmys. Who's more racist? Black people? Of white people? Black people? You know what? We hate black people too. Now. Usually when an entertainer finds success at something, it guarantees you'll see them do that same thing over and over again. But both Curb Albert and Chris Rock have taken their careers well beyond they expected. Albert started what became the largest independent music label of its time, and recently, Chris Rock starred in his first play ever on Broadway. You want to press if this is something beautiful, come and stay with me and Vicky Man get on a nutritional beverage program man, come out to rock away man. I wanted my acting to grow, So I'm actually figuring out how to add lib every night without saying words, how to work eat, seeing a little different in each line, and try to find laughs and places that I didn't find. One a night before something, the play was The Mothercker with the Hat. I met up with Chris in his attic a dressing room at the Schonefeld Theater after a Wednesday matinee. Broadway is not where you'd expect to find Chris Rock. He sells out stay mediums. His stand up routines are merciless. He leaves no time for recovery. Your sides ache with laughter from both shock and recognition. Married and bad are single and lonely. That's right, that's right. Marriages are boring because once you get married, you gotta hang around other married people, and that's just disgusting. You have a gone to dinner with six newtered adults, a bunch of women talking about diaper genies and hair coloring. You know, if you're leaving in too long, it's staying Shut up. God. You have obviously a huge following black and white in your concerts, and yet when you go out in this audience. How black is the audience? Well, I mean put this way. In the old days, they used to have signs up whites only, whites only. Now they have a new thing. It's called prices. You know, some nights is darker than other nights. I buy tickets every night when this play is a were would spend spent almost a whole weekly paycheck on tickets as gifts for friends otherwise couldn't come see the show, otherwise, could not afford to see this show. I tour and I'm normally you know, at the garden or whatever, like sixty thousand seats to give away what I'm normally on tour, and people have gotten used to this. My man takes care of us, and you know I don't. I can't take that away from friends and family. You haven't done a lot of theater. Correct, This is the first play I've ever done. This is the first play you've ever done. I didn't do a play in high school. I didn't go to high school. So so not only your Broadway debut, but your first play period. You're with a pretty cool group of people, a lot of experience, you know what, and they have held me up. No one ever got frustrated at what I didn't know. You know, this is a bunch of little thing that people take for gret I have no idea. You're never supposed to walk straight at somebody, supposed to loop. Just all these weird little things. And my favorite is that you don't give information to the person. So if you're standing here telling them something, you tell it out. You sit there and go open, open to the audience as much as all that open, open, open, open open stuff. Yes, even today, I'm working on it. The Chris Rock that I know from your live shows, I don't see much of him in this show because that Chris Rock is like marauding the stage and as complete control over the audience. This is a different Chris I see in the play. I'm really trying to act here, you know. Have you enjoyed it? I'm enjoying it a lot, A lot. A lot. Is the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. I always tell people it's like having the Empire State Building shoved up your one brick at a time. And to learn the play. Can't believe there's ever gonna be a day when you know what's been the surprise about doing this for you. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm doing it. I mean, I'm surprised that I'm not bored with it already. Are you afraid of that? I'm really that that's the that's the biggest fear, to actually be stuck doing anything. Well, what I love about this plant by the way, everybody has loved someone, and not too far into the relationship, you say to yourself, not only is this probably wrong, this is definitely wrong, but you can't get out of it. How does this play resonate with you in your personal life? I've been every person in this place, everything, everything, and it's the one who the other person in response to the betrayal, the revenge, every person, every person. It's the kind of play you can't watch without putting yourself in it. When you write your material for stand up, how do the people in your life react to how you fill at them on stage? If you you know what, I'm like a lawyer in a sense. I mean, it's it's almost like a legal document. It's a word. It like it's all our wives and all our you know what I mean. It's like like if you if I gave you the transcript. You'd be like, he hasn't talked about anybody, that's about you, baby, It would all hold up in court, but you do. But you never have anybody in your life. No, No, everybody's uncomfortable. I remember I read a quote Tarantino said, if people in your life aren't uncomfortable, you're not really writing, you're not really hitting it. You know, somebody better be uncomfortable. Did you grow up in a situation that was remotely like this and then emotionally turbulent? My parents place way, My mother cursed a lot, screamed a lot. You know my father, my mother beat us with a curtain rock. Yeah, well we got beatens with curtain row odds and brooms and brushes, niers or whatever. But I mean my father, it's weird. My father, his temper towards my mother was always controlled well else he could lose it. Why do you think it was he wanted to protect that? I don't know. I mean, first of all, I mean, guys from that era did not view women as their equals. They did, and they were loving and blah blah blah blah blah, but they did not view women as their equals. Therefore, they could actually deal with the woman's emotional whatever swings way easier than a guy in my age, because I view a woman as my equal. So if I'm with a woman and she starts crying, I look at her like I'm with you when you start crying, don't go female on me. I'm like something, I look at her life. I would look at a guy that gets emotional. Yeah, I thought, if we were equal, then you can't play that car. Don't play the female. So I'll just say my father and my grandfather's both of them were really delicate with their wives. You know, not a child, but close to a child. That wasn't different for you. My wife's my equal, and you know, you know any budding of heads is because I I want I'm dealing with you the same way I would deal with myself, where I deal with any guy and we're both wrong. What are gonna do when this is over? Do you know? I'm much sure? I think I'm gonna direct a movie. That's what I'm feeling. So this is the time in your life when you do all the things you told yourself you'd never do. Play on Broadway, direct a movie? Why do you want to direct a movie? I don't know. It's your Warren Batty face that Yeah, I don't know. I put this away. If I can get a great director to direct me, I'll do it. But once you yeah, once you get to the sea list, you I still do it yourself. That's what I say. Yeah, how picky are you about the films you do? Because you don't do a lot of films. Um, I don't know. I mean I turned out a lot, but I don't have a list of great films I've turned down. You turned down, regardless of whether they're great or not. Do you turn them down? Because for you, you always have the stand up thing in your pocket and the concert thing in your pocket. You're not in any hurry to go out and make a living. Most movies suck man early suck. See. I'm I'm messed up because I like to see something I haven't seen or haven't seen with a black person. Black people in film is still at its really at its infant stage. And why do you think that? I don't know? You know what, here's the thing. You know, you hand a studio person to script, and sometimes the studio people are good at a time when you hand somebody as script, they pick a person in the movie that they identify I with. So if you hand the woman a script, if the woman's got nine lines in the movie, the first person who gives you notes about is the woman. And if you hand the boss the script, he's gonna give you notes about the main character. And if you hand his assistant the script is gonna give you notes about some other everybody figures out who they are in the movie. Now, when you hand somebody a black script, they don't relate to anybody in this It's a very good point. I'm serious, even when it's you secutive who does relate to a black person's script. What does that mean to you? You You struck gold happen? They just they're making a product all of a sudden, That's what I've experienced. And when you do that, because I mean, there's no black studios or whatever, so you end up you always end up with just a person trying to make a piece of product. They might as well, they might as well be making an iPad business. But you seem to me, because you're so smart and so clever, that you have as much of a white audience as you do with black ondies, don't you think so? In spite of the fact your stand up can be pretty tough on white people. Yeah, but I always say my stand ups like Chinese food and what's Chinese food? Well, Chinese food is one of the most popular foods in all of America, and they don't put Americans on their menus. People really want Chinese food. They don't put friese grilled cheese on the menu of the most popular Chinese food of people. I'm just saying when people see people come to Christ's restaurant, think Christmas menu. They want Christmas menue. It's the guy that tries to cross over that gets less white people I find. Do you think the app to you with a black audience is how much you have fun with white commentary? Do you think your black audience expects you to do that when they come see you, they expect me to do it? Yeah? What am I trying to say? First of all, all the materials run by run through black. It's actually it's run through black. Actually first is run through Jews. I always work out the material in West Palm Beach, get out of here, I go to West Palm Bease and guess what they show up. I play a little club so I figured, I'm in front of these people, they're a little older. If I can get them to laugh at this one. I get in front of the black people, they're gonna go zirk. And then I get in front of the black people, make some adjustments here and there. And this is all before I put like the garden or something on sales. So it's these two very different groups. So work it out in front of how I'm sixty six man, which means and you started, and you started. I started probably five seven years before I got on. But I always I haven't been you know, I haven't been poor day since I met Laura Michaels, and I never been broke. A lot of his stuff sticks with me. What thing he said to me is like everybody loses their first money. Yeah, now if you're talented, you'll make some. You're sure he's start right. He knows more about Let's take a moment to talk about the wisdom of Laurd Michaels. He's always there to remind you how you can lose perspective about this business, at least in my case. He's very good. But how much of things changed in your mind? And not just for you, but for you specifically. But in the business, I don't know about you. I find a business a lot smaller, less movies, less, I mean less stuff that relates to me, you know what, less stuff that relates to me. I'll say that for the young people. You know, this whole reality thing, I'm not gonna dismiss it. You know, sound like I'm some old person talking about rap Music's not gonna last, you know what I mean? But do you the same time? I don't get it. Do you think you'd make it today if you came in today. Yeah, me and Sana, Well that's our little tests with each other, we kinda we assessed. The stand ups were, Yeah, you still got it. I still got it. Yeah, I keep the weight off a little bit. You know. That's what I'm trying to do. Dude, bon Jovi, doing it, still doing it, still doing it. Man. Just look hot. Just try to look hot to somebody. How many kids you have done? I got to what are you worried about raising your kids in this world? I care that they're good with money. I don't even care for When I say good with money, I just mean you've got two dollars and you spend one and you put a dollar. But I don't mean that they run Microsoft or they flip money and buy a house. I just mean, does that come from your childhood? Yes, it comes from my childhood. I just mean can they handle their own That's it. Because it's a tough hole to get out of, and it's a weird hole for a pretty woman to get out of, and they end up in relationships with guys they wouldn't have relationship with. There's a great line that Anthony Quinn has in Lawrence of Arabia where he says, I am a river to my people, and I'm getting a lot of that. Now. Well, here's the thing. You can only help, Like, I got some family right now, guy would ever losing his house whatever, I'm gonna help him move in to wherever he's gonna move into. I'm not buying his house because he's never gonna be able to afford the house. So yeah, I my I'm a river. But it's a little river. It's a little river because when you turn down somebody and they know you have the money, this is one thing to go. These kids are kicking or whatever and you don't have the money. They know you have the money. So it's almost like a woman. It's like, I know you have vagina and you have sex, you just don't want to have it with me. I remember I used to do a movie and they'd say to me in whatever way, what would come back was, Uh, we don't have the money for that. And what they really were saying was, we don't have the money for that for you, For you, we don't we have the exactly for Leo, we're gonna sell our houses. Remember, for you, we don't have the money. And that's what you're saying to people in your life is I don't have the money for you. I don't have the money for you. You're not going to be the reason I'm doing some bad kung fu movie. I got one last question for you. When you're home and you really want to relax, what do you like to watch? Like? What's entertainment to you? You know, it's probably just about any woody? What gets me? Like? Yeah, me too, any woody? Just about man? I mean, what is this way the average great filmmaker great has about four good movies. What he has about twelves like great, and then he probably has about ten more really good finger. So that's the dream, is to be a Woody. That is really really I love the guy. It's not too late, and of course it's not to us. Woody Allen is now in pre production for his next movie. No word yet if Chris Rock will be joining the cast. Dude, I just want to hang on a set. I just want to like what happens coming up. Legendary musician and record producer herb Aubert in the sixties the Tijuana Brass We played some college affairs in Upper California. Woody Allen opened the show for us as a stand up comic. Hey, Chris. Eventually everyone ends up working with Woody. So don't give up, Hope. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. If you were listening to the radio in nine six, it was a true hodgepodge of what was then considered popular music. And right up there with the Supremes and Simon and Garf Uncle and Frank Sinatra and even the Beatles, was this guy. Yes, that's ignature Tijuana Brass sound. Herb Albert had no Latin roots, but wanted to recreate the sound he'd heard at the bullfights in Tijuana when he overdubbed his trumpet on two different tape machines. He captured it, and he captured more than that. Whipped Cream and Other Delights was the number one album in the country in nineteen, remaining on the charts for three years. I started playing when I was eight, and I was earning a living on weekends playing. I love playing. What happened when you were eight? Well, what had you seen or heard that made you say I want to pick up a trumpets? Plan? Well? Yeah, I was really fortunate. In my elementary school they had a band appreciation class and they had this table filled with various instruments, and I was able to just pick one up. And where were you going to school then? Melrose Elementary School in Los Angeles. And what did your dad do? Ladies coats and suits? Yeah, yeah, that was he's a clothing business. He was in the clothing business. He was a schneider. You know. My brother was a professional drummer. My sister played the piano, mother violin, and my dad played the mandolin by ear. So your parents were musical, very musical. It wasn't their professional no, not at all. What did your parents think about when you were so devoted to music? Were they discouraging you of doing that, or they encouraged Your dad wasn't so crazy about it. He thought, what do you want to play and sawdust pits the rest of your life? That was his image of it everybody at the time. He didn't know it, but Albert was only just beginning an extraordinary career as a musician, eventually earning five number one hits, eight Grammys, fourteen platinum albums, and fifteen gold However, those achievements might be seen as a prelude to his later career as a music producer. We've only just speak up. In nineteen sixty two, with his friend Jerry Moss, Albert founded what would become the world's largest independent record label, A and M Records. They signed such artists as The Carpenters, Cheryl Crow, Janet Jackson, and the Police. You don't have to night those. Albert and Moss started the whole thing with two hundred bucks and a handshake, ultimately selling A and M to PolyGram Records in nineteen ninety for half a billion dollars. Herb Albert is seventy eight now and he's still as handsome as ever. But although he's always had Matt May idol looks. He never took up acting. Let me tell you something. When I was in high school, I was working at a gym. This agent came up to me and said, man, you look like he should be in the movies. So I said, well, what can you do for me? He set me up with the people at Paramount. I auditioned. They said I was a little green, so I started taking lessons. I studied with Jeff Corey and also Leonard Nimoy, and I realized I didn't have it. I'm passionate about playing the horn. What's the music scene like in Los Angeles? Then? For a young guy who wants to play, well, it was quite different. It was Shah Boom, Shah boom, sixty minute Man, and those type of songs that were kind of popular at the time. I had a great experience, though. I was partners with Lou Adler at the time. How did you become partners with him? Well, he was dating my ex wife. Oh Hollywood, yeah, I forgot. We're talking about l A. Lou was writing poetry and I started writing some some you know, music to his poetry. And he's kind of a knock on every door type of guy and I'm on the shy one. So we got this job at Keen Records in Los Angeles and started working for Bumps Blackwell, who was the producer for Sam Cook and Lou and I became really close friends with Sam Cooke. We wrote Wonderful World together with him. He was really special. He had something very unusual. He's very unpretentious guy, but very elegant. What did he teach you? Sam had this number one records you sent me and his follow up was I love you for sentimental reasons. And so the owner of this company that I was working for was like an amateur piano player. So Sam was recording, goes into the control room and starts listening to a playback. I was there with this owner, and the owner walks up to Sam and says, Sam, you know, in bar twelve you can put in a whoa, whoa, and in bar thirty five you can put in another who You know. He had the sheet music, and Sam looked at the guy and says, it's Jack, just put in a man. You gotta feel it. Yeah, he says, man, you're listening to a cold piece of wax, and it either makes it or it, don't you know? He broke it right down to the nab. For me, what's interesting about your career is not just virtuosic musicianship, and you go on to become a very serious and like incredibly successful producer. Did you feel when you met those people did you have that skill as well? Oh? No, I didn't have any skills. Didn't no in producing wise, I didn't even think about it. I had an experience at a place, uh called the Annex in Los Angeles, a recording studio, and I was watching a reasonably famous producer producer record. So the musicians rehearsing. Plas Johnson was a saxophone player. He was a saxophone player that played on the Pink Panther. Yeah, they rehearsed. Plas played this incredible solo. Producer gets on the horn and said, okay, Plass, beautiful, just play the same thing again. Plus what do you mean? He said, just play that solo again. I love that. He says, did you record it? He says no, But you know what, you know what you did? Just play it again? I said, well I can do this. This is always be rolling. Oh well, I always do that. No. Great success for you with Tawana Brass and great success for you recording albums, And when does producing become something, if ever, that was as important to you. I mean A and M is not some mom and pop shop. You and Moss set up a huge company that you sold to PolyGram for an enormous amount of money. Becauld you strike me as a guy that's as a real artist. You're painting and you're sculpting, and you're playing music. When when does it start to really take over the business side and A and M? Well, you let Jerry do that well exactly. And I surround myself with really quality people that people that can do things that I can't. And I'm a right brain guy, you know, I'm on the right side of my brain. So businesses, uh, was always a little funny for me. You know. Jerry and I always discussed the big broad stroke of n M, but you know, the little incidental things that happened on daily basis. I wasn't interested in front of the house, back of the house. Yeah, exactly what was it about Jerry that you think it lasted so long? It was so successful. He's just a really good guy. He's an honest he has a lot of integrity, he doesn't lie It sounds strange, but we never had a contract. Jerry and I had a n M on a handshake and the only time we ever signed a contract was when we sold to PolyGram. Now, during that period when you're producing, I know nothing about how records are made, which must be just completely unrecognizable now from what it was back in technically completely I did an album called Whip We Ripped, we whipped, you know, re whipped. Yeah, thank you very much, I'm your pr man. Thank you. The guy who got the concept for this album. You know, got a bunch of young producers together to redo the Whip prim and Other Delights album. So they sent me music files on a c D or on a DVD or through the net. I would put my trumpet on, put the trumpet on a CD because it's all time coded, send the c D back to them. They would slip it right into their master recordings. And I never met these guys. I spoke to one, but ultimate Internet dating. These guys could have been in Afghanistan and it wasn't worked the same way. My first recorder was a wire recorder. I had a Whip Corps wire recorders. If you wanted to, you know, inter cut somethings. You need a soldering irony. Do you feel that all this technology and all of the power that comes with that, has it made people lazy, Like people can't get in a room and they just can't play a song a little way through anymore. I don' think it makes them lazy. I think it gives them too many options. I think it takes some of the hardaway. I mean, I also wonder people say, what's the difference between you know, theater and film and more and more the technical cost of these highly technical fields, whether it's filmmaking, television, recorded music. It's expensive, and so they want everybody. It's almost to the point now where they don't care how you feel about the experience, because I'll stand there and I'll say, well, I want to do another take, man, and I want to feel it, you know, I want to do this whole speech on page two all the way to the bottom of page four. It's like a ski run. I want to ski that hill all the way to the bottom without falling. And everybody looks goes, we don't have time for that, man, we gotta get out of here. That's the way the music businesses now. No I don't think so. I mean it depends on you know what artists you're talking about. Who's someone that you recorded. You sat there and you were like, wow, man, this is really a thrill for me as an artist to watch this man or woman. Well, there are a lot of incredible artist name a couple that you dug with the most cast. Stevens was unusually special. Now I've been happy, lazy, thinking about the good things to come, and believes it could be something good had begun, gotta something magical. You guys signed him? Oh yeah, But I mean he was so passionate and so you know, the lyrics and so unusual. He had his own interpretation of all these songs that it was. He was beautiful. I remember those records, and of course you know the police, Sting just writes a great song. And when we saw them, you know, Sting was bouncing around the stage like he was on a pogo stick. Yeah, they were great to watch. And of course I had an unusual experience with the carpenters. I signed the carpenters, and um on my iPod, I have the carpenters, I have Sting, and then I have a home. On a second I have Cat Stevens on my iPhone. You got a lot of my money, man. Well, you know, in nineteen sixty this is an interesting story if you want to hear this. Joy. In nineteen sixty uh six seven, I was doing a special for NBC. Jack Hayley Jr. Was directing. He said, why don't you sing a song? I said, well, if if I can find the right song, I'll give it a go. So, you know, I go through my barrolla decks and I called Bert backrack. I said, Bert, is there a song that you have that do you think I could handle that? You have tucked away in your drawer someplace where you find yourself whistling in the morning, or you know a tune that haunts you. Well. Three days later he sent me this girl's in love with you? You see this guy? This guy love with you? Yes? Uh love? Who looks at you the way? When I watched the video this morning, what have you singing the song? When he saw my ex wife? Then that's your ex wife. Cute? Yeah, I record the song. I go to I fly to New York. So how David hell, David would change you know, the lyric to suit me? As I'm marking out of Hall's door. I said, how is there a song that do you think I might be able to handle? Or the song that you have talked away in the door In the same yarn I gave Bert. Two days later, he sent me close to You. I recorded it in the studio. I'm listening to the playback and my engineer friend Larry Levine rested so looked at me, says, man, you sound terrible singing this. I don't forget it. I lost my confidence. I put that thing in the drawer. When I signed the Carpenters in nine, they had an album that didn't sell. I mean, the first album was zero and people have described the first album to rely on Richard Carpenter. No, no, it has had Karen. But it was very soft. It was very delicate and very it wasn't really radio friendly. Uh So a year later I gave him close to You. They recorded it and it was really light. Again. I said this, we need we need a little bit more energy on this one. Because because Karen thought she was a drummer, I mean she and she played drums and she was good, but she wanted to record. And when I listened to the recording, I said, no, it's a little too too light. You know, we need some more umph. They recorded again and it still wasn't quite there, and so finally we got the Wrecking Crew. I don't know if you know that name those these guys that did most of the sessions in l A that held held Blaine on drums and Tommy Tedesco on guitar and Carol Kaye. The third recording was The Charm Why from every time you want just like me? What's the difference? How do they get there? For you? As a person who has this ear, this gift, something happens for you like an alchemy where you just go that's it. They got it? Well, yeah, how do they get there? How do you help them get there? Or do you you try to flag them down to the runway? You know, That's what we did with most of our artists. You know, we didn't try to sign the beat of the week. We tried to get you know, the like saying the Cat Stevens and the artists we we chose were artists that just had their own little identity which we loved, and the carpenters had that. I mean I signed them because it wasn't a type of music that I normally listened to. But they were so sincere about it, and they were so passionate about the music. Apologetic, oh beautiful, one of the most clarion voices. Well, when I heard the original tape, you know they are, And the original tape was presented to me like studied one. Here a tape, you know. And that's when he handed me a tape through the gates at A and M. And I sat down in my couch at in my office at A M. And I did what I usually do, put on the tape. The speakers were on the floor about ten feet in front of me, closed my eyes and it felt like Karen's voice was sitting right next to me on the on the couch. So I was just really intrigued to meet them. And when I did, I just realized this is the real deal. So you build this big company, you know, you gotta, you gotta, You've got a great record company, you and Cherry, and then the time comes and aside from uh deal making and aside from you know, PolyGram making it well worth your while, what was it like in terms of the decision to let it go and to sell the company? Well, I felt something coming. I felt the music file sharing, and something just just felt like the time is right. It was well in most of these companies were run by these big corporations, and you know, they were throwing millions and millions and dollars around for new artists, and we felt that, you know, you you make one mistake at our size and then you your your ship is sinking. So we just thought it was it was time. And originally we were just going to sell for which we held on too for a long time. And then they said, well, we'd like to gobble the whole thing. And I thought, what can I do to throw in a little something. I'd like my catalog back, her Bopera, Tijuana Brass and her Popera single catalog plus Lonnie Hall's catalog. And I got it. I mean, that's what all artists crave, right, is to control their own music. I wanted it back, and they agreed to it, and we signed the contract and you made the deal and sold the company to them. Here what Herb Alpert did next after this break. There's something about being an artist, being a musician, being a band, of being a sculpture. When you're doing it, you're in the exact moment of your life. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Real conversations with artists, writers, policymakers and performers. That's where I find out why people do what they do. Welcome to confession. I'm father al I sign your mind, Kristen. I've done a lot of things. Where would a person hear this? If a person wanted to hear this, you can listen to other episodes that Here's the Thing, dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Back with her Balbert. Having sold A and M records for a staggering some Herbalpert can pretty much do whatever he wants. You might think this is the point of the story where this former record producer takes his cut, finds a nice corner of the world to build his castle, and relaxes with some headphones on. Not her Albert. I started painting in nine. I'm not a Sunday painter. I'm not a Sunday artist. I do it every day, you know. Traveling in the sixties with the two Wanter Brass around the world, I used to go to museums and I go to the modern arts section. For whatever reason, that just appealed to me. And you know, I see these paintings, like a black painting with a purple dot or something hanging on the wall, and I think, let me try something like that. I wasn't doing it to think some thing would come of it. I'll tell you what's great. And I know, Alec you know about this. It's just there's something about being an artist, being a musician, being a paint or being a sculptor. When you're doing it, you're in the exact moment of your life, and that's rare. You know. When you're not in that mode, you're you're thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or some other house a rye. That really doesn't make any sense. But when you're doing it, man, it just feels so right on the moment. I feel that way. Would I'm on my boat. Well, the I don't paint, and I don't I wish I could take Well, I should try it. I mean when I started painting, I painted like a monkey, you know, I was just I squeezed some paint on a canvas and moved it around with Yeah, you have no training, no training. I didn't know what I was doing. But I think there's an advantage to that. I think when you're an amateur and you're just fooling around, you have infinite possibilities. You know, if you go to a professional, they'll tell you what not to do and what to do and how to do it and blah blah blah. And I didn't know about that. I just did whatever. I'm always going for a feel, you know. It's it's I do that in music and sculpting and painting. It's like, I'm not looking for something that's going to, you know, excite my eyes. I wanted to something that's excites my soul, you know, it's something that really resonates. I'm assuming there's no preference between paint and canvas and sculpture for you. You enjoy them both equally. I got a copy from your office of the Black Totem's exhibit in the work you've done, and these are obviously immense pieces in bronze, and these exclusively for people who have cliff side homes in Malibu with not really I'm not interested in really selling, you know. I know, I'm just saying they're big. They're big, Yeah, they're huge. I think of my homes in New York and on Long Island. I would be interested in buying the lower four feet of this one. If we could cut this into sections. Actually, that would be kind of that would work quite well for me. I don't have eighteen feet in Manhattan, I'm but they're absolutely stunning. What is music for you? Now, I know that's the ultimate cliche question, but how do you how do you view the music world now beyond zeros and ones in the digital and everything. You must be sitting home and sometimes you sit there and go, wow, that sounds great. I really did that. Well, you know, I have really varied taste. So I love classical music. I love you know, listening to your favorite composer. Well, yeah, I love Revel. I mean actually Ravel taught me the lesson. Actually, I was going to sc for a few moments. I was in the orchestra there and they were playing um Pictures at an exhibition, you know. I was in the Yorkshire playing that. Yeah, Massoursky wrote it, Bravel arranged arranged it. Good for you, And they were playing the last month of Great Gate of Kiev, you know, And I was like so intrigued with the sound of the orchestra I was leaning forward listening to everybody and sounded like wow, it's like natural stereo, and I forgot to come in. I've had to come in my parry that moment, I thought, Hey, you know, this isn't for me. What I really want to do is just close my eyes and play. I love Miles Davis, I love Louis Armstrong. I love those guys that just, you know, create. I want to try doing that. And so I started, you know, working on jazz, which is a very specific language. I mean, just because you want to play jazz doesn't mean you can play jazz. Had you've been asked to score a lot of film? Did you pass up? And you must have been asked to score? I did. I did the title song of y Out with Bert Backreck, but that was about it. No, I don't think that's my thing. I don't I don't think I didn't feel it. I didn't feel it. You would have been great that. Maybe my wife thinks I should still pursue that, but you know, I had an experienced this is like a little different aside. But I was in the studio recording the Going Places album and the brass was already going crazy. I mean we were selling. You know, it was going well. Yeah, it was going well. And I get a call from my partner, I said, and the album wasn't finished yet. I get a call from Chair and he says, we just have advanced orders of a million, four hundred thousand, and I got depressed. I felt like tea. You know, if people love the album by it, if you don't, you know this. I just it was a strange feeling. I I know it sounds a little I just didn't want to be prejudged. I mean, I wanted people to listen to the album here and if they liked it by it, purity is what you seem to be after I don't, but I mean, yeah, I was looking for that real ride. Until we find a better word, we'll say purity. Okay, you know I was looking for that ride. You like it? By it? Where did you meet your second wife? Okay, you're obviously madly in love with Yeah, so you don't know that story, right, let's hear it. This is good, So you know, musicians in love is always a good ninety six I auditioned Brazil sixty six. Brazil sixty six. Lonnie was the lead singer, Jerry and I signed them to a long term contract. This was when the Brass was really cooking, and we hired them to open the show for us, so they were playing for eighteen thousand people at a time. Lonnie and I became friends. We were just really good friends. She's very unusual. She's from Chicago. She can sing in Portuguese like a like a native, beautiful voice. And she loves music. Oh she have you have a similar kind of I don't want to say passion for music, but you have a similar ethic for music, is she? Oh? Completely? She loves jazz, she loves you know, all kinds of music. But we are really the opposite. You know, She's well, I'm really quiet. I'm really kind of like a low key type of guy. She's more, you know, has more energy and more zip zap, Yeah, more outgoing. Who makes the dinner reser faction is out there in California for you? Who's who's picking the restaurants? Your wife? No, she does not do that, do you really? Yeah? I just want to look at my wife and I want to go whatever you say, baby, what do you what do you want to have? You want Indian food? You got it? Baby? I don't want to have to make those decisions. I got of this stuff. I gotta take about it now. It's it's kind of mutual with us. I mean, she's um. You know. I met her at a time and we became friendly and she was able to identify my neurosis, which is what well, you know, at the time, I was going through a divorce and I couldn't play the horn. How did that manifest itself? Well, I took a trip to Europe. We had a little time off. When I got back, we had some obligations to go back to Europe and do some concerts. And I had like two or three weeks to get back in shape, and I just couldn't do it. My tongue wouldn't go in the right place. I was all bottled up. I was stiff, my neck was tight. I couldn't make a sound out of the horn. It was really painful, you know. I was really upset about the divorce and I had, you know, a bottle of Melanta at my side. There you were unhappy. There was a hole in the stomach. You know, I wasn't happening and I just couldn't execute. I couldn't play that did that last? I lasted for years. Really, yeah, it did it? I mean it finally wanted down well nineteen sixty seventy. So right after you have this huge crest of the greatest score as a as a performer of your life, you kind of crashing and you know, did you literally didn't play well? I played, but it was painful. I had an experience in Germany. I did you know I had this obligation to play these concerts in Europe. I was in Germany in Frankfort, and I was on the stage, painfully playing, and all of a sudden I had this out of body experience. All of a sudden, I was in the third row looking at me. You know, I was thinking to myself, well, gee, this guy is usually pretty comfortable on the stage. But when he's you know, off the stage, and he's in a in a room of you know, at a part already whatever, he's totally out of control, which I felt I was at the time. I said, when I get back to Los Angeles after this series of concerts, I'm gonna either throw this horn away, sell a and m do whatever. I just want to find out who I am and why I'm here. I mean, everybody's looking for the same thing. I think a life of purpose and meaning without that, what else is there? Luckily I met a teacher in New York here. His name was Carmine Caruso. He played violin, he played saxophone. He didn't play trumpet, but he taught a lot of trumpet players. He likened the musician to an athlete, and you had to sink your body muscles to rhythm. And over a period of time, I just kind of unwildness, terrible problem I had. How long did it take? It took before I was really comfortable? Probably eight years? Yeah, did you that when you started painting? Well, that's interesting question. You know you said you started painting it and you and you started to lose your mojo horn wise and sixty nine? Did you did painting and sculpting come into your life as you found you didn't want to play the horn, Well, sculpting came in later. Painting was a big relief you didn't have somewhere to put that energy exactly. Um, it was a rough period for me. I've been there, man, I've been not and mine as a result of a divorce too, you know, and not like I thought I needed to be to stay in that marriage, but it was the way that those things ends. Some time. You just sit there and go, you know, like, this is not planned. It not what I bargained for. Like we can let's hit rewind here and go back and try to figure this out man and hit delete. Yeah, let's we gotta, we gotta, we gotta do this again. When did you marry your current wife? What year? Seventy four? So during this time as years have you not feeling great and then you meet her and you meet this woman who's obviously the love of your life. Right, but at the same time I was still playing. I was I was forcing yourself, well, forcing myself. And seventy four we had a command performance for the Queen of England. We played, we played there and the bands, yeah, the band sounded great. And then meet Prince Charles who said, oh, heav a you records in the in the den. You know, I couldn't picture the den. Met the Queen, very lovely, nice smile. Uh. This was in nineteen seventy four. I was feeling pretty puffed up. I felt good about that. So go out the back door and there were hundreds and hundreds of people that are just waiting for the various artists that were on this show. And this as I'm walking through the crowd that I hear these two ladies Tarry, I don't know that Chap, who was that Chap? And for friends? And I think that Sergio Mendez after feeling so good, I gotta get over here more often, man, I gotta get these people straightened up. They don't know me from Sergio. Well, well, I think that's a great thing that you are someone who you weren't feeling all that great at that time in your life, but you fooled the King and the Queen of England. Man with the band sounded no what I'm saying that you got you got it done. Yeah, But you know there's something about you know, when you're you good at something, you can you can fake it and and nobody really knows no Now for you, who's a horn player that you take your head up? Whose one just giving one? You just just really dug Listening to Miles Davis, I love Miles. You know Miles was the real thing. Miles Why well, because he was completely authentic. He was just playing the music that was coming out of him, no compromise. He understood space. You know that the the silence that happens between the notes. You know, he understood that, and I think he was sir, look key, you know, you know jazz musician at the twentieth century. I've met some really incredible jazz musicians in my day, and each one has their own little take on how to do it. Stan Guests was like a brother to me. I produced two albums with Stan and he played this one song that was just men. Goose bumps were flying up my back. I said, man, what are you thinking when you're playing? And he says, oh, I think it like I'm in front of the whaling wall in Jerusalem and I'm dobvining. Oh. He was great, man. I love the sky. He wore his stuff right close to this if I had an experience with gifts where you know, I did these ms and he said, can I do anything for you? I said, yeah, man, give me. How about giving me some bebop lessons? He says sure. He says, how how honest you want me to be? I said, just because I'm just trying to get up to my own water level. I didn't play with Charlie Parker like he did. I just wanted to see how far I can take this thing. This is fine in my studio at home. And he's sitting down. I said, do you think, for one, I should work on the two five one chords in every key, which is page one if they teach at Berkeley. I mean that's how they you know, they start this thing. To five one is an all pop songs. It's just one of those things. I said, do you think I should work on this in every key chords? You know what he said? What's that? He didn't think like that though. I mean, those old timers didn't play off of that that they're teaching at school. You know, who do you think made Sinatra? Sinatra? Oh Man very musical? He really was smart. He was grateful to the songwriters and the musicians, and he knew they made him. He brought what he brought. But he was a kind of man. The guy was. He was magic and plus the sound in his voice was beautiful, his timing. But I learned a great lesson. You know, when things started happening for me. My ex wife was friends with Nancy Sinatra, and I met Frank and I stayed at his house and then we flew to Las Vegas and the way after the show. Frank comes up to me and says, you want to play you some bakra. I said, I don't know how to play, but I'll go with you. He says, down the Barbara. I'm standing behind him, And in twenty minutes he must have went around twenty seven thirty thousand dollars and Nancy was standing right next to me. So every time he won a party, throw off like ten bills to Nancy. So she had this pile looked like a bowling ball in her hands of a hundred dollar bills. And so Frank gets up abruptly and he just leaves, you know, and Nancy looks at me, says, I hear her, wee go take some of this and go gamble. And I looked at this pilot said, what do you mean takes? You want me to take a half a pound you want? What are you talking about? And I realized at that point, man, I'm never going to treat money like that. I'm gonna, you know, honor in a whole different ways. It can be that frivolous. Herb Alpert established the Herbalbert Foundation in the nineteen eighties and he's been getting away money ever since. In two thousand seven, he gave thirty million dollars to form the Herb Alpert's School of Music at U C l A. I love music. I think music needs to survive. I think jazz needs to survive. It's a great American legacy. It's such an important ingredient for a kid's health, you know. And I think through that they learned discipline and which can help him in the academics. So it's just a natural. It should be a core or subject. Do you teach to you over there and us teach and stuff from No? I don't, but I you know, I'm not. That's really not my strongest I think they would be very happy for you to show up, though, wouldn't. Isn't that your great gift that you just have to play? So I think my great gift is that I have my own personality on the horn. A lot of musicians are trying to track Miles Davis or try to check Charlie Parker, try to play like you know. I'm just trying to play like myself, and that's I think what everybody should be going for their only unique voice. It's just it's been a nice ride. I feel thankful. Herb Alpert continues to paint, create sculptures, and of course make music. This is Outpert and his wife singer Lonnie Hall. Just another afternoon on the sidewalks of London. All the grey and rainy days run together in the street. It's of stop. Suddenly, I'm not alone. I feel you. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Botein named Cathy Russo, with support from Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops and Monica Hopkins. Thanks to Trey Kay and Luokowski. Rob yourself around, my heart, let me feed you. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Mm hmm. But I didn't been a minute. The bon

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 421 clip(s)