Daryl Hall and Danny Bennett - Summer Staff Picks

Published Sep 14, 2021, 4:00 AM

It’s Alec’s turn to feature two of his favorite episodes in the summer archives series. He interviewed Daryl Hall in December 2019 on his home turf: Daryl's House, Hall’s restaurant, and live music venue located about 90 minutes north of New York City. Hall & Oates is the biggest-selling vocal duo in history, with hits like "Maneater," "Rich Girl," "You Make My Dreams Come True," and countless others. Hall talks about his teen years in suburban Pennsylvania singing doo-wop on the streets with his friends -- a far cry from the rock-star life he led 15 years later. Danny Bennett is the son and manager of legendary crooner Tony Bennett, and Alec spoke with him in 2013. This summer, Tony Bennett celebrated his 95th birthday with two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall, performing duets with Lady Gaga. Danny Bennett has been working with his father for several decades and played a key role in introducing Tony Bennett to a multi-generational audience through appearances on SNL and MTV and the duets albums. Danny Bennett describes his job as managing a legacy as much as a career. 

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I'm Carrie Donahue and this is Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. And I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from my Heart Radio. Oh hey, Alec, you're back, back back, Yes, Carrie, summer's over and I have returned. Did you miss me? Of course, well listen. Thanks to you and the rest of the team for hosting our archival episodes over the summer. And now it's your turn to highlight some favorites. Right. Yes, we're going to revisit two conversations I loved Darryl Hall from holl And Oates and Danny Bennett to Tony Bennett's son and longtime manager. Sounds like a great pairing. Glad you're back, Alec. Oh and Kerry before you go, we should tell listeners for the next couple of months we'll be releasing episodes every other week. Good idea and done, take it away, Alec. Now onto two of my favorite conversations from the archives. Tony Bennett has a timeless style. He celebrated his ninety fifth birthday this summer with two sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall, and as always, he brought the house down. He even has a new album coming out this fall, called Love for Sale. Tony Bennett planned to play more live dates, but the legendary showman recently received a devastating warning from his doctor, no more live shows. That's going to be a shift for Tony's son, Danny Bennett as well. Danny has been his father's manager for decades, a job he describes as managing a legacy as much as a career. But first, we're revisiting my two thousand nineteen conversation with Darryl Hall with partner John Oates, Hall and Oates is the best selling vocal duo in history. They have seven platinum albums and another six gold ones. They made the Billboard Hot one thirty four times with mega hits like Man Eater, Rich Girl, You make my dreams come true and I can't go for that. Darryl Hall has had a sort of second career on television with two shows Live from Darryl's House and Darryl's Restoration Overhaul on the d I Y Network. Darryl Hall started singing on the streets in Philadelphia. So I started at a really young age doing doing you know, like busking, more like the doop, you know, the street corn music. There was no instruments involved, acapella and all that, and uh, it was always very racially integrated, you know, is that whole thing? And uh? And then when I went to Philly, I had already been involved in that stuff. And there was this place called Mitton Hall where all everybody hung out. It was like the place where the whole Temple University went, and people used to stand in the corners and sing. It was it was that's that kind of stuff was still going on. So I just walked up one day and started singing along with these strangers. And that's how I got into Philadelphia. And but at a time when in my mind when I think about Philadelphia, then I think about a lot of racial difficulties and move and you know, historically not not for you. I'm saying, the city has always had a kind of a racial stratification. It seems like, what was it about you that these people welcomed you with open arms. I just thing, I grew up in a very racially integrated environment, you know. And in Pottstown there's a big black community, and my my parents best friends lived right in the middle of the black neighborhood. So I as as a kid. I'm talking like a kid kid. For the summer, I would be over there and and all my waking hours, really I would be hanging out with white and black kids together. So the music that I grew up with was that, you know, R and B and soul music. Uh. It was really my baby food, you know, And it just went that way off from my dad was he musically and he was in a vocal group. Sang he sang like gospel vocal group and uh he Uh. I learned a lot about harm me from him. And uh, my mother was a musician. She uh did other cons of music, you know, she like musicals and she was in a band. So it was very musical environment. Let me just put these cards on the table, which is you are one of the ten greatest male vocalists in all of history of rock and roll. I mean you are. And what kills me is like how you've stayed because a lot of these guys have to drop it a key and we interview a lot of my you know, you name it, and only you and Bono pretty much sound the same. Now almost First of all, I do on stage, I do drop it a half a key now I do so I admit it. But but you know what, that's that's cool too. It gives me more room to play around up top. Um. But you know, my voice has changed a lot over the years. You listen to those records that I made, you know, the Rich Girl and all those kind of songs, I'm like a little boy compared to the way I sing now I have, I sort of have the voice now I always wanted to have. It's that bigger, mascular voice I know. And um yeah, so but so I like how my voice has evolved. And I haven't lost any of the stuff that I had. I just it's just sort of got bigger and white. Where did you start singing? When did singing? My mother was, as I said, she was in a band, but she was also a vocal teacher and things like that, and she encouraged you. Yeah, and she it was sort of always there and she taught me how to sing. Did they both play instruments? Yeah, my mother played piano and uh, um, I started taking piano lessons around five and uh took lessons all the way through and then I unfortunately was got into it was I would say I got into I was forced forced to play the trombone for a while, but uh, that didn't last long. But no, it's it. I've been playing piano since five and then I started playing guitar himself taught you took yourself on the guitar. How old were you when you picked up the guitar for the first maybe late teens, early twenties. And when you go then you go to Temple to study music? Why, well, at first I was going to go. I didn't think there was any money and in music at all. It didn't even occur to me. Uh, and to have a career in music, so I was gonna be I was. I wanted to be a psychiatrist. Why because I was really interested in the life of the mind. And I was up against these I didn't realize and might and I have tell you that you had to be a doctor to do at least in a medical degree. I quit that one too, And then I was up against all these kids that were like premed and I failed miserably. It was just horrible. This is not for me. I had the same problem. I was like, I had to have to study chemistry just I just want to talk to people. Yeah, man, what happened was I did that for a year and then I switched to the Temple Music School and they you know, they let me in and you finished and I finished, well, I I quit. I quit five weeks before I graduation because I was a student teacher and I was up, you know, early in the morning all day doing all that stuff. And then I had a bar gig, playing playing music in a bar band at night until two o'clock in the morning. So I didn't work out so well. And the teacher said, you know, you have to choose one or the other. And I thought to myself, do I want to be a music teacher or do I want to be a musician for real? And there was no choice in my head. So I said, Okay, see you later when you uh leave Temple. When you leave, when you finished school, what happens after that? During my time in Temple, as I said, the whole thing was sort of simultaneous. I was going to music school, but I was also hanging out with Tommy Bell and uh who was that? For people who don't know, Tommy Bell was was the the producer and writer behind oh a great number of the Philadelphia sound, the stylistics and the delphonics, and people like that. Um, he was very, very influential in the sound of Philadelphia, and he sort of took me under his wing. He was not that much older than me, but but I would just sit around and listen to him, right, and he was an amazing writer, and uh so I was friendly with him. And then I also I had a band that sort of came out of that thing I was talking about and in mitton all and we called ourselves the temp Tones because we're a temple university. Everybody thought it was the Temptation, but it's because we were a temple. And uh. We did a talent show at the Uptown Theater, which was not that far from the university from the campus, and it was on what they used to call the Chipland Circuit, and you know, every soul group on earth came to the Uptown. It was like the Apollo, and uh I used to hang out there and uh, just like the Apollo, the had talent shows and we won the talent show and James Brown band was the house band backing us up. That was I was like eighteen years old. I'm singing, Oh Baby Baby with James Brown's band, and we won the talent show and The prize was you got to record a record with Gamble and Huff, the songwriters songwriter producers who Gamble and Huff and Tommy Bell basically created what the world knows as the sound of Philadelphia. I did a record with Gamble and Huff and it came out and went on the charts and w D A S and Philadelphia the R and B station. And I was doing all this while I was going to school, and so I became part of that whole scene. That's the I started hanging out at Sigma Sound and with studio musicians, and I wanted to be a studio musician, you know, I want to learn things from them. So that's what I was doing during my student years. And and in the meantime, I met this guy, John Oates who was in Temple University. Yeah, we we we were from He's from about fifteen miles from me and North Wales, Pennsylvania, just northwest of northwest of Philadelphia. So um uh. We were both promoting our singles because he had he managed to get a single too on Kenny Gamble's label. He had a group called the Masters, and we were both promoting our single at this place called the Adelphi ballroom and uh, before either one of us went on, Uh, it was a gang fight broke out. This whole thing went down typical Philadelphia and it was on a it was on a second floor, and you know, people started whipping chains out, and you know, the whole you know, typical, Like I said, typical, all too typical of Philadelphia at that time. And uh, we said okay, time to leave timely. So I didn't even know the guy, and we both wound up in this little elevator going downstairs. I said, okay, we just dodged that bullet. And I was looking at and said, hey, so who are you? You know? And I found out right then that he was also at Temple. I said, oh, man, okay, you know because I figured kindred spirits here and we sort of got to know each other that way. Uh and um, then I needed I don't this is a little vague in my mind, but I needed a roommate because I was I wanted to have an apartment Philly, and he volunteered. So we we got this hobby just moving together. Yeah, we we moved in and we started sharing apartments and we did that on and off through school without any idea that we were gonna work together. We were. There was no plan, you know, we just he was your roommate, my roommates, you know, they was done partner or anything. And uh so, after after school was over, I became a full time studio musician at Sigma for the whole sound of Philadelphia people. And John went to Europe for a little while, came back, had no place to live, and moved in again with me and my new I guess she was my wife at the time. And uh we we renovated this eighteenth century house right in the center of Philadelphia, lived in it for a while, and that's when we at the beginning of that bug for you as well. Yeah, we're talking about that. Yeah, and uh we decided, okay, we were in close proximity, so we just started playing together and said, well, maybe we should try doing something. Let's share a stage, let's uh you play your songs, I'll play my songs, and we'll do them together. When does songwriting begin with you? When do you decide you want to write songs around? I think I wrote a song when I was about fourteen and I thought, okay, maybe I can write a song. And I do remember The name of it was called I Broke my Own Heart? That was that a weird title? No? I like it? Actually, haven't we all done that? Yes? At fourteen? What did I know? Yeah, you're a little advanced. That was your first song. That was the first song, I Broke my Own Heart? And when did you write your first song that you recorded? Uh? That was the song girl I Love You with the tempting and that was I don't know how well was I nineteen? I guess the recording country you got from winning the place? So when do you and he start to how do you and he fused to become what you become? We didn't we sorted. It's hard to describe. We were just trying to write. We tried to write songs together, but it was mostly he would write songs that I write songs and we and we do them on stage together. And we played at this place called um World Control Headquarters, which was held about a hundred people, and we became sort of a fixture there. There was another guy. You could do anything you wanted there. I would sit there with my world it's you know, and Mike Mandolin and John would play acoustic guitar and we would just tell stories and play songs. It was. It was sort of in that folky tradition, but it wasn't folk music. It was something else. And uh, we did that, and we got we started getting a following doing it. And I remember one of the first things that happened was it was all kids, right because we were we were kids. But then these older people started coming when I thought were older people like forty fifty, you know, And I'm like, and I remember, and this is the late sixties, and uh, I remember saying to John, you know, this is really strange. Older people like our music too, not just people our own age, that maybe we're doing something different. Because I actually said that to him, I'll never forget it. And now, of course it's the reverse. Younger kids like what I do and the older people have lived with it, right, So it's always been multi generational and multicultural. Something about people. Well, I don't know whatever it is. It's I think some of your songs are pretty good. Well say that people like what's good? The multi generation thing that happens, Yeah, I guess it does for sure. I'm assuming that, um, you meet someone who's a producer, like as your dessert a producer that comes into your life, that takes you to the next level, that helps you make the sound, that becomes your sound. Yeah, who's that? A Reef Martin the producer arranger behind A Wretha Franklin and you name it, Donny Hathaway, Aretha Franklin, uh oh man, on and on and on and on. I can't even tell you his his His label was Atlantic and he found you where. Well that's another long story, but we have time. I'll try and and and truncated. But we were locked in this messed up relationship with a songwriter producer guy in Philadelphia. We were trying to get an album deal and he was failing us miserably. And uh he was involved with Chapel Music in New York through his catalog. And we went up to New York one time and met this young kid who was only twenty named Tommy Mottola, two years younger than us and and and he said, hey, well he's this guy is not doing anything for you. Let me do something for you. He's twenty years old, right, And uh wait, So he had connections because he had an office the size of this table in Chapel Music. But he did have A contacts, so he sent us out to California to have a chapel rep take us around two various people in California and we sort of we're planning for and went shiitting basically, and uh, we found this guy, Earl McGrath who was a really great guy and was into sort of developing new talent and he wanted to sign us immediately, which was great. And then he was connected with Almedar again and all those people in Atlantic, and he sent us back to Atlantic and we auditioned for Ahmed and I sat there at a piano and half the keys were stuck, they wouldn't work, so well, you know, it was this was like my big, my big day. I'm in front of Atlantic Records. I couldn't play. Yeah, I think I had the flute glasses on the piano. So I played badly and we sang a couple of songs, and uh, I said, okay, we blew that completely. Two days later I found out that they had called Errold said Earl, we want these guys. They're not gonna be on your label, They're gonna be on our label, and and and they signed us to Atlantic Records. So then we were off to a start of some sort. We were immediately thrust into I mean I completely was thrust into a different group of musicians, all those Atlantic studio musicians, uh everybody from Dr John to uh pretty you know, Ralph McDonald to you name it. That that that whole New York R and B scene, And they were all unbelievable musicians. And they're the guys that played on our first records, especially on the abandoned Lunch of Net record. I mean, that's the musicianship when that record is unbelievable. So I was in that world in that scene. I mean a Wreatha was wandering in and out and Bob Dylan was wandering in and out. I mean we're just like that's going on. It's a big machinery, you know. I mean it's it's it's Atlantic Records. Back when people were buying records, they choose you, if they believe in you, and they get their marketing behind you. It's kind of hard to fail, correct if you have some talents. Well, it wasn't quite like that, not in those days. It was. It was still a lot freer and looser. And I remember I'm saying to me and John, he said, just just make just make music. We'll figure out how to sell it. That's what he said. And he said, don't worry about hits or don't worry about it, you know that. That's he said. Don't worry it. Literally said that, don't worry about hits, marriage just do you just do what you'll make it a hits, do what you do. But they didn't. That was the thing. We were a little strange for the world at that time. We're I won't say we're ahead of our time. We were out of our time, but so we I don't know what what what was. First of all, we were doing a hybrid of Philadelphia soul and other kinds of R and B and mixed with this other eclectic kind of thing that John brought in, you know, like country music and all kinds of other stuff, singer songwriter kind of things, and dance music, you name it. It was hybrid eized and and and also in those days, they had no idea how to label us because we were popular on black radio, not even known on white radio. And the whole idea of musical integration was not ready for the world. I mean we were we were pioneers in that Darryl Hall. Did you know that there are more than two d and fifty episodes in the Here's the Thing Archive. If you like these kinds of in depth conversations with other actors, policy makers, and performers, go to here is the Thing dot org and have a look around. After the break, we'll hear more of my conversation with Darryl Hall. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. It was nineteen seventy six. Hall and Oates were signed to Atlantic Records, but they didn't have any big hits to show for it. They soon left for Our c A, which quickly released Sarah's Smile. It became an R and B hit and then a crossover hit. From there, Hall and Notes took off. I enjoyed touring, especially because we became popular all over the world very early, right, I mean England embraced us like from the beginning from seventy I think seventy four seventy five is when we first started playing in England, and so we started doing a lot of touring in Europe and that it just you know, opens up your brain and we're kids, right, We had a lot of fun that changed you and him, sex symbolism, rock stardom. It was fame. If you're in your mid to late twenties and you're running around the world and people are throwing there whatever at you, uh, you indulge that unless you're crazy. You know. I took advantage of whatever was opportunities where I was having fun. Man, I was you know the one thing though, I was never into cocaine. I just didn't have a very sensitive nervous system. It doesn't work for me, so do I But I let that stop? Well, I I did it, just I didn't like it. So you guys were dancing around coke daddy your brains and I was completely home sleeping thinking it. Now, I wasn't sleeping sex, drugs and rock and roll without the drugs. But when you so you go on tour, do you get sick of it? Do you get sick of the attention? Do you get sick of going on the road? You know? I mean then mean when you're resting and everything and you're becoming this huge musical act. At one point you would look at each other and go, I really want to stop for a while. You know, it's funny. I look back at it, and it it feels like I had more time off than I do now. I don't know why. I must have. I felt like I would go out and I would tour, and I would go balls to the wall for whatever a month and we'd work, you know, every day. It was no days off for and and I would take it all in everything, you know, stay up all, stay up late, do you know, do everything you can imagine and uh, then then we'd stop, and then we wouldn't be doing anything other than go into a studio, go into studio or right and prepare to go. You find that you go on the road more now, like most acts go on the road more now, because that's really the only one you can make real money. Yeah, I mean, what's buying any record? I tour all the time, and uh, I I had. I'm busy, man, I'm much busier now than I was. In fact, I don't have time to make a record as that. I've been trying to make a record and I have to do it in little dribs and drabs and starts and stops, and uh, it's it to try and get into a flow is really really hard. Was there was there? And I'm not assuming there was? What there a spot your career where you sprehen you go. This is it, man, we we this is the top. That happens very seldom, but it did happen. There was a period of a very small period of time in where we did we are the world I played, I reopened the Apollo Theater with the Temptations, uh live aid and uh just we'll just use those three things all within a month and a half. And I remember thinking to myself, Okay, I I feel like I'm here. I'm doing something right now that I know is a significant thing and I'm experiencing it. I'm I'm here now, be here now. Yes, that's that's one of the few times that's ever happened. So take me through, just just in a shorthand what the tour is like? Concluded the evening the show. Is there a prep you do? Is there kind of a is there? Is there a vocal thing you do? You know, talk all day and something. What I do is I lay in bed all day, rest, I just read all day, hang out, don't do anything uh about Oh late afternoon, I might power it up. And then I wake up and drink a whole shipload of tea green tea to really wake myself up. It's all this preparation towards this crescendo. And then I get to a gig, never more than an hour before the show, put on my meg up, talk to the band, laugh with the band, have a couple of drinks, hit the stage, and uh, that's that's the sand all the time, same band. Much rehearsals involved with you guys, not much. We've been together a long time. We know, we really seldom were Most of the work you do touring now was with John or uh no, most of us with Johnson. John. I do do the occasional solo stuff, but no, it's mostly with John these days right now anyway, And is scheduling between the two of you, is it easy? You both through in the same kind of groop, you know, when you want to go out, time of year you want to go. We worked this out. We both like the same kind of touring schedule. We're very still, very much the same when it comes to that. Yeah, yeah, we we have a good relationship. John and I do my TV show. That's that's something else. How the hell do you get people to come to a house and upstate New York? You tell me, man, it's the people you've had. It's one of the most gratifying things every in my life that I could get Smokey Robinson to come to a MENI in New York up there, which is twenty miles north of here, take time off his schedule art to come and do it. He was one of the first ones whose idea was it to do this thing mine? And how did it start? I just thought, let's just turn everything upside down, you know, instead of me and studio there, yeah, and every everything is opposite. Instead of me going around the world, I bring the world to me. There is no audience, and all these people would just come and I only had this internet show. It was. It was very small, nobody knew about it, but these people were coming from all over the world to do this. Then it caught on and then it became a little easier to book. But still, do you release the recordings of the can be or it only lives because because otherwise you'd do would pay them and pay rights to them. Well, one thing people don't realize is how expensive the show is because of clearances. We had such a hard time with that over the years, especially in the beginning. Once we established it. Then it was sort of okay, but it was really really difficult because I was in there, you know, totally innocent. I said, Okay, this is promotion for the record companies, promotion for the artists. Why should they not want this? But they were looking at it like we were napster, you know, like we were taking money out of their pockets. And I was like, what money am I taking out of your pocket? I'm helping you. I'm giving you free promotion. But forget about it. We had to deal with lawyers, we had to deal with record people, we had to deal with managers, and everybody wanted their thing, and the clearances. It became so high cost. It's a very it's a very hard show to put. You haven't kind of record of it. You haven't kind God, that would be so hard to do. It would be almost impossible because so many people would have to get things. But everybody's publisher would have to get something, every artist, every label, and oh my god, but guess my idea that I have for you? I have an idea I want I want to produce with you. I guess my idea for you wasn't gonna fly? What would that be my one having seen the Springsteen thing, what a phenomenon that was. And my idea for you was to do at Darryll's house on Broadway. You're on the Broadway and for one week, each artist comes on and plays a whole week of shows with you, and every week it changes it's another group, and you do one on broad Well. That would be doable. Okay, here here's our Broadway story. We we've been spending five years. We got to the point where this guy uh was was writing a book, the guy that did Rock of Ages, Chris Derenzo. Somebody's thrown down a shipload of money. And we read Chris's book and everybody thinks it sucks. So we're back to square one after five years. So I'm ready for I'm ready for new ideas. You're welcome, Thank you. That is a good idea. You're you're making a fuck with a lot of work for me, though I know you don't want to work as you want to flip houses. I hate Broadway, man, that you gotta play all those days and two days and one is there? Eh. Well, let's see. Let's say about the public over on that show. There's some people I see who come there and they really kind of rise to the occasion. Yes, you almost. Somebody who I know a little bit I worked with them years ago is Kevin Bacon. And I've always had Kevin peg to somebody who's as cool as a cucumber. And yet even Kevin, when he's singing with his brother When the Morning Comes, you can almost see a piece of Kevin, there's a little glint of it. Was like, I can't believe I'm singing When the Morning Comes with Darryl Hall. That was a fun show. I mean, Kevin lives near here, and uh, I've known Kevin outside of this stuff. But there's two different kinds of people. There's brand new people who are looking at me like they have to get over that, you know, and and you know what I mean, some of these people just had their first record and they can't believe they have to like do this stuff on their feet. They're not used to it, and to see them rise to the occasion blows me away. I just I feel very uh but hurdle about him, I guess that's the right word. And then there's the veterans who are used to doing things their own way and used to do in these arrangements they've been doing for thirty years and forty years. Kenyans, well, there's there's a perfect one. In fact, I had to call him out on the show about him, you can see that because he was trying to make it into the like his live show, and I said, no, no, this is Darryl Sas, this is forget it, Kenny, let's do it this, let's not do it. You know what you've been doing. Change is a good thing. Change is good. Change is good, And it's funny to see the veteran artists adapt to this, Like on the spot, there are brains are going like this. It's fun Talk to me about flipping houses or what's your term for restoration? Uh, losing a whole lot of money on houses? Tax WRITEX no, I wish no. My other personality is totally immersed in history, and I grew up in old houses. I grew up with a family of people who worked on old houses and lived in old houses. You know, outside of Philadelphia it's you know, stark, I lived in a valley forge for dad's sake, you know. I grew up in those kind of houses, seventeen hundred houses and everything. I used to go on job sites with my grandfather, who used was a stonemason and a brick person, used to restore old chimneys and do all that kind of thing and actually build houses too, And so I would watch the construction of these things, and I was very I don't know, I really really liked that world because it's it's not that dissimilar to music in some strange way. It's making something out of nothing. It's you know that that whole old saw about architectures frozen music. What's the first project you did in that regard other than the apartment with John Well? Now, yeah, that was a whole house. That was the first one. This house was was taken over by people who I guess just I don't even know what it was. They ruined, they basically gutted the house. But it was a house from about eighteen hundred and uh. It was one of those small Philadelphia houses that they call them Father's Son Holy Ghost houses because there's three rooms on three floors. It's a very typical small house in Philly. We were faced with the shell of this house, so I basically got in there and started renovating it, and we did. We renovated it. I don't know how much John had to do with it, although he like he likes this kind of thing as well. He actually became a general contractor when he built his house. He went to school for it. But he doesn't do historic houses. My thing is is historic houses and how many have you done? I've done that when I've done too in England. So if you're restoring houses in England, you're living over there. Oh yeah, Why I live in England as much as love in America? Do you really outside of London? I live in Why? I don't know. I have something. I have family there. Well, my family is partly from England, but also I had a British wife and British kids. Now, how many kids do you have? I have to And they were in England once in London, and one was just it wasn't in Charleston's, South Carolina with me for a while, and she's now moved to l a anybody in the music business. The two kids, both of them, they're both they the one of them work with you. Yeah, March my daughter. She's a really good musician. We wrote a song a week ago. You're not married now, but wasn't one of your wives your partners in the restoration of the houses. Amanda, she's unfortunately gone. She died almost a year ago. But I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, well, yeah, she was. I did a lot of interior design things like that, so we we worked on. There was a good partner for that. She was really good about that. Yeah. We there's a house about three miles from here that that we worked on. Now I'm finishing it. So do you own all your publishing? You have all your publishing? No. I I was very stupid, like many people are over the years. But I let's just say at the end, I own my publishy, right. That's a tough reality for some people, wasn't I I was so stupid. I can't believe it. I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know that it meant everything right, right? And when you would write songs, you told me that you and he it was it was more he'd do his thing, you do your thing. I mean, truthfully, I've written the bulk of the songs. I mean I noticed him when I read this. Yeah, but also a lot of the stuff, A lot of the if you look at songwriting credits, a lot of the were very haphazardly attributed, you know, but we did. I mean, and that's not to denigrate what we've done together for sure. Do you have any connection now currently to Philadelphia and then in that area back there? I have a familial connection my most of my family got there in the early sevent undreds have never left. There's no Darryl Hall scholarship, but there there's I do have. I do have a star on Broad Street. I got that and every year John and I do a festival. It's the like called Ogi Nation. It's literally good when is that? What time of year? Memorial Day weekend. It's a region that's defined by it's a fast food It's New York without the ego. It's so elegant, and there's so much to do and see there. I love. Philadelphia is a very special place. Yeah, let me just finish with this, which is why do you think it is that you can sing the way that you can. It has to do with how your brain works. You know. I'm a very spontaneous singer. I'm a very free singer. And you don't know where you're gonna go. Man. Once It's it's not intellectual, it's there is no thought involved. It's total spontaneity. I'm just a bird. It's opening my mouth and sharpen away. And I've been lucky enough to be blessed with the physiology to pull that off. Singer and songwriter Darryl Hall. To hear the full episode of this conversation, go to Here's the Thing dot org. Danny Bennett has spent the past thirty years managing the career of his father, Tony Pennett. Danny helped introduce his father to a younger generation of fans through appearances on MTV, sn Now and The Simpsons. He also hatched the idea for a series of best selling duets albums, which feature Tony Bennett with the likes of Lady Gaga, Billy Joe, arbra streisand at Amy Winehouse. Danny produced a documentary called The Zen of Bennett, which follows his dad throughout the recording of the Duets to album. I was born in the Bronx, raised in Englewood, New Jersey, and you grew up in the Bronx to you were how old? No, just like you know, like two weeks quickly and then you guys went to Englewood Englewood, New Jersey. Englewood was an amazing place. It's it's literally fifteen minutes from midtown, right across the George Washington Bridge. And I was born in Ninette now, and it was a very exciting time. You had um a lot of artists from kind of the show biz thing. There was Tony, there was Dick Shawn, Joey Bishop, Buddy Brackett. They were just right there because they would just Tony would come and do his sessions in the city at Columbia Studios, and then the jam session would continue in my house. Uh So they were just like, hey, let's go back to the house. He had like a little studio. And when I say the basement, it was you know, above round basement kind of thing. You know. As a little kid, I'd wake up to the streams of like you know, you know, count basing and just amazing stuff. So when you were a kid, I suppose most people would assume all those your childhood memories of being a wash in music of that period, well, you know it's I often say now, like I feel like Forrest Gump. I mean, I don't know why I had an appreciation for the moment as a kid, I just did. It wasn't just music. Besides being able to sit on the piano stool with Duke Ellington. I mean, that's crazy. But I remember sitting on my dad's lap at a political rally with JFK running for president, you know, at the Teaneck Armory. He's sitting in back, there's Jack Kennedy giving a speech, and I'm seeing all the placards, you know. So it's like I'm always seeing the backside of things, which is an interesting perspective because that it's it's just that image burned in my brain. What was like eight or nine years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so it's those kind of things, or Lewis Armstrong and Carol Channing at the White House. You know, it's like, what's that? Or so people who sang standards and sang whether they were Broadway tunes or there were standards by the Harold Arlens of the world and so forth. But music for you, your personal music was dad going to the studio with Count Basie and you had an electric guitar nam and you were singing Strawberry Fields. Oh yeah. I mean when I was ten years old, the Beatles hit and that was it. For me and my brother, who plays drums. Immediately, I found an old guitar in my dad's closet and he's been trying to learn guitar for a long time, so I grabbed He's gonna get event No, he's gonna get it eventually, I'm telling you. Anyway, it was like a guy nylon string guitar, and he had a book of chords, one of those things, and I just I was so obsest. I had to meet were introducing the Beatles record and I put the needle down and then like like go through the book and just match the chord with the sound of the record. Oh, it's a jeep chord, you know, It's like And that's how I learned, you know, by year how to play what was the name of your band, um Quacky Duck, right, and so Cracky you and your brother and you have Cracky Duck and you're how old? Um, well, were like sixteen, okay, so you're teenagers like old garage bands or teenagers. And then but at that same time, do you still have like this kind of bicameral relationship with music. There's your dad and his music, and that's the presence in your life. And you have and you have a fondnest for it of course and an appreciation for it. And then you're playing Europe. Yeah, I mean some people don't if it's Gerald that can cole Um, Lewis Armstrong. I mean, these are royalty and huge influences on us. And then obviously, you know, we all have our icons. You know, Tony has got has his icons and and rightfully, so we're gonna get to that. Yeah. Yeah, but but but you're there, and what happens as you finished high school? Is there a time that you put down your own musical? When was well, I mean we were extremely serious about it, you know, when it was like we you rehearsed on the week. You know, it's like to school. We did it. And then it's interesting because we were never kind of into sports, and that's what we did at a very early age. You know, we were doing like high school dances and and and really, I gotta be honest with you, I haven't learned much since then. You know, we learned how to like, oh wait a minute, you know what we're selling tickets? You know, I remember going you know, the student union. You'd get paid two hundred bucks, which was great in the sixties and there's a lot of money. So we we we kind of made it on our own. And the student unions go, um two and in Boxton, and I'm like, understand, we're selling the tickets like to this show. So I would go to the student unions and go, hey, look, I'll tell you what. You know what you guys are always on the line. You don't know if you're gonna make any money. No, no guarantee, we'll take a cut of the door. We'll take a to you take twenty. And this is the high school. And so they're going like, oh, you know that's cool, great, Yeah, we don't have to worry when you get her ask kicked. At the end of the night, I'm making bucks and they're going win a minute, you know. So then I just kind of like went from one school to another. UM and he finished high school and where'd you go? Um? We had to deal with Warner Brothers Records and used to play Max's Kansas City and you know with I mean Graham Parsons. I don't know if you know. He was a good friend of ours. We toured with him, and you know, we were like those who are our heroes um at the time, and that's where I met Bonnie and John Prine, and you know, I had this kind of really extraordinary wealth because also his original tour manager was a guy named d Anthony. He ended up being the penultimate like rock manager and invented the Triumph and of promoter Bill Graham, d Anthony and the agent uh Frank Barcelona, and they brought all these artists in from England and we spent I was raised at Fillmore. We were kind of an art band. We played at Max's with the Modern Lovers and the New York Dolls and and we just said, let's come up with the most ridiculous name we can possibly come up with, because we thought the Beatles was kind of a ridiculous name, right, so we were kind of making fun of that. So we were serious about that, working built studios and did that kind of thing, and it just got to a point where you know, you know when you got it and you know when you don't. I was always so enamored by especially the people I worked with in other writers in my band. I'd go like I was kind of really good at like saying, wow, that's a great song. And I found that that that was my real talent. You know that's interesting. Yeah, and then when does one day someone say, Danny, it's you. You're going to start becoming involved in this ton inc Well, you know, it's interesting, and it's happened in a day. Happens well kind of And I can PenPoint when Tony kind of got on, like, I wait a minute, he may know what's going on. The Beatles for me was you know, I was obsessed not only the art of it, but the you know, the social aspect of it, the marking of it. Marketing was fun. It wasn't a bad word, the balance between art and commerce. It was very much about what this n and Bennett is about. It's always been interesting to me. The Beatles always thought the two minutes and forty seconds that they had that was their canvas and how best to make that work. I love that concept. I love the constraints. Well, Tony always says there's free form. You gotta learn form before you can be free, and there's there's a lot to that. You know, they couldn't have done Hey Jude without doing all those great songs that boom there they are, don't for us get to the chorus. But but still maintain the art. So moving into a time when Tony was um again, we grew up around the you know, it was just immersed. So you know, the dinner table, the conversations were about what was happening at Columbia Records. Oh my god, Clive Davis, he was, you know, became president of Columbia, the first attorney. It was a freaky thing. It was very tuned into that. You know, Um Sinatra didn't make you there, any of his daughters or his son, the his right hand men. Well, that would have never happened. We don't wanta have to go there, but your dad did. Yeah. Well he was at a point where the thing at Columbia they tried to you know, this happened to everyone, Sir Natra, Barbara st You know, it was like, oh, you're gotta wing the beetle speeds and sing Barbara Strice. And they tried to get Barbara to sing Bob Dylan tunes. I mean in nineteen sixty nine. I mean she's listening to Dylan going like, what's this, you know, slowing in the winds. The answer is belowing in the wind you know, brilliant idea. That's a great one. Let's go again, Barbara. So anyway, so Tony actually, you know, worked with Climb and he did an album that was kind of like that thing and it got physically sick. He said, he was like regurgitating between takes. And so, well, that's a great story that he tells about Clive Davis right um, where Duke Yellington went in and said, you know, he thought he was going in to get a raise and Clive Davis said, well, I have some bad news for you. And he goes, uh, what is it? And Clive said, well, we're gonna have to drop you from the label. Ellington goes, well, why, says well, you're not selling enough records, and Ellington goes, oh, I guess I hadn't. I was mistaken. I thought I was supposed to make the records and you were supposed to sell them. It's great, that's my edict. Like, and I've heard that story. That's every artist anxiety. That was said to me, why do I hate making movies? And I said, and I said, do you really hate making movies? I said, well, maybe hates a strong word, but I said, I'm very uncomfortable. They say why, I say, because you just feel the hand of commerce at your throat every day, every day. It's never free. It's really fun. It could be challenging, but you just feel like every dime is bascunt. So they wanted your dad to do what he couldn't do, and he rebels against that, and he just kind of like they gave him a big contract and he was like, no, I don't do this. I want to start my own label. Now. This is at a time when people weren't doing that. I mean, you know, I mean, you know, Sinatra did it with more Austin, but it was done more on a you know, Warner Brothers thing um. And he found Jack rawlins Um what the Allen's manager, and you know a number of other people, great people to work with him on on a label called Improv. This is where he made the bell Evans records, you know, voice and piano. Those records weren't being made at the time. And so he came to me and talked to me about the label and I said, oh, that's a great idea. I said, you know, it's it's risky. And he said, well, what's risky about it? And I said, well, it doesn't seem like they have major distribution in this day and age, independent distribution is great. You can do it internet. But then it was a real challenge. I said, Columbia is offering you to do a distribution deal, which is a great you know, which is great that it's kind of like, you know, they leave you alone. You can do what you want to do. He had me go talk to the guy who's running a company Buffalo. He said, we'll go talk to him. Now, you know, I get the long hair in a fringe jacket and I and I go to this you know this got this hotel owner in Buffalo. And I'm sitting there and he's like, what is this about? And I started talking about the distributions. It's great, da boom, And there's some other things about the contract that I didn't like that I told him about, you know, in terms of him kind of getting roped into it. And this guy just rejected that whole notion. So I went back to Tony and I just said, look, I wouldn't do this. I think there's you know, no improv records. Well no, he did it. And how long did that last? It lasted like three years and they failed because of the distribution. So he does improv records and then because he can't get the records distributed exactly, and so that's what I told him. He remembered that, and then the label folded and then he was without a contract. M Let's see, Alex, I would say three years. Was that like four years? Um? Well, it's tough because remember at the time, this is like around seventy eight. Okay, Sinatra retired, BGS are number one, and streisand's doing duets with the BGS. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. So like there's that he didn't want to do it, and then he was in Vegas and in those days, you were doing Vegas like you know, the thirty two week thing and all that time stuff. You know. He just called me up one day and it was just like, I don't you know, I need some help here. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go getting that a manager. Um. He wanted to be able to do his art on his terms. Um, And what was Vegas like for him? What? What? What? What is that like for someone? Because I mean, you always figure I remember reading Nick Tosh's book Dino about Dean Martin. One of the one of the best biographies I've ever and they talked about how Martin at one point in the sixties I believe was the highest paid entertainer in the world because he had the he touched every base, he touched all four bay Is, he had a television show, he had a recording contract, he started in films, and he appeared live in Vegas in another concerts, and he was making millions and millions of dollars back then. And I was wondering for someone like your dad where I'm not going to say that I actually I don't know what Vegas exemplified back then, like for an actor. Was that like being on a game show or no, no, no no, But I mean the idea that you know, this is where they cut their teeth, the lounges, you know, Louis Prima in the lounge, you had Fredis Stare and Carry Grant going to see Sinatra and then going to the lounge, you know, and this is where the audience was like, you know, and Tony makes a good point. These people, we didn't have access to these people except the big screen, and all of a sudden, there they are sitting there watching Louis Prima rubbing shoulders with with Sinatra and Jerry Grant and whatever. This was magic and for for again, for Tony. You gotta remember, Tony ten years younger than all these guys. These are his idols, you know, Sonatra calling him the kid, you know um, And there he is with them all spread a stair. I mean, like I was, it was a salon so so, and nobody messed around for the very you know, for the obvious reasons. And then you got into kind of this this evolution where you know, the Suma Corporation and Howard Hughes took over, and like I had to negotiate with like Howard Hughes and these cowboys. It was really interesting. It was amazing, you know. I mean, like and this is where I like telling when I first started working, and like you know Howard uses on the top of the desert end. I mean, I know he's up there. And so there was like, you know this guy named Lenny, you know that he'd go in with me to negotiate the contract. And Lenny get on his hands and knees. I'm going seriously, and I'm going, what are you doing? And like get off your knees, I'm not gonna get on my knees and big for a contract. I'm just not going to do it, you know. And the guy, it's just sad. Down. You get down on your knee. This is how it works here in Vegas. We get on a niece for Mr Hughes. Yeah, and he's got the big the guys behind the desk with a big cowboy hat. And I'm like, oh my god. So I go to Tony and and here's a very interesting thing. I'm sitting outside the desert and just like you know, I'm in a bench. Some dude comes and sits next to me, an older guy, and he's grumbling. And I turned around and he's like, I'm never coming back to Vegas again. Right, he's doing that kind of thing. I'm like, what's up. I don't know. You know. They used to fly me out here. And he's a bad he's a drop fifty grand of pop. But but man, did they make me feel good about losing my money? The shows. The girls like that he's doing this. He goes, they take it all away. Now, they don't want to know me. He say, says, I'm never coming back again. And I had an epiphany. I was like, we gotta get out of this town. It's going down. So I went to Tony and I said to him, here's the gig. You gotta get out of this town. I know this is like this is what you go where? And I said, you go to the people. We're gonna go to colleges. What year. This is the point in which you kind of climb into the cockpit with this guy who's this legend, and you're twenty five years old. I wonder what you're teaching me. And the conversation is that from the beginning you were just saturated and inundated and interested naturally, not just in on a creative level, but on a business level as well, and on a technical level. Growing up, as you know, in that environment where kids were befriending me because the parents knew that if they befriended me, maybe they could have dinner with Tony at the thing, I developed an early sense of like cutting through the crap. You know. It's like I knew who my friends were and who they weren't. I could tell right away. So I had this epiphany and I said, you know what, I'm going to run him for president. I'm gonna treat his campaign, and I love history too, so I do love and I'm like, I'm gonna run. I'm gonna do this like I'm running for president. And I went to him and I said, you know, residence would not go to Iowa if they didn't have to go to Iowa. And and and you know, shake the hands, I go instead of having people come to you in Vegas. I said, your music transcends, right, and you can't do this with everybody. And and I have an appreciation. You know, I watched Tony when you know how many times have seen this show. He's reinventing himself. He's really kicking ass. I mean in terms of like taking chances. That's really rock and roll. He's taking chances. You know, the Rolling Stones are getting older, not really taking chance anyway. And there's Tony what he calls moving the furniture around, and unlike people just got to see this. There's a transcendent quality in great art that, like he says, defies demographics. Danny Bennett on his father Tony Bennett. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the thing on the I Heart radio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts when he come back. Danny Bennett talks about Tony bennett MTV Unplugged album. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. When you have a career as long lasting and successful as Tony Bennett's, it's helpful to have people around who you can trust. And Danny Bennett says his father respected his opinion from a very young age. It's interesting because we never related that way, so he kind of always related to me as an adult, Danny, I want to talk to you, son. I don't want you to be my son anymore. I want you to be my account. He treated you like you were It was kind of like you were a business. And so he would produce a partner. At the age of twelve. He would come to me and go like, I don't know, I got this thing about the dog. What do you think he didn't delineate and you know what I mean. You know, it's like I guess, you know, at the turn of the century, kids at twelve and thirteen, we're working the fields, you know what I mean, And like they were doing off rebility. Yeah, and and I think a lot of that this was working in the fields for here. This is working in the fields. You know. It wasn't like go throw a baseball in the track and you know, celebrity. We couldn't go to the zoo. It was impossible. I mean, he took me to one movie, Planet of the Apes. I remember one movie, and that's okay. Danny would never go to the movies together again. I'm sorry. I love his son, but I'm gonna build a theater out there in Englewood exactly, and I wanna watch the movies with Count Basie every Friday night. And then that's that's that, you know. But I always dug the fact that, like I got to go to the Copa comanda. You know. So the eighties go by and you're in this phase where you're gonna build our PM, you're gonna build his your company, You're gonna do what you want to do your way. But when did you know it was gonna work? We I mean, I don't mean to be corny and cinematic about it, but are you standing there one night in the wings and he's out there and you go, it's working. No, I'll tell you what it was. Bob Guccioni Jr. I was the editor of Spin magazine and I was reading it. They were interviewing him in his own magazine and asked him what he thought was the most influential thing about rock and roll. People in rock and roll. He said two people, James Brown and Tony Bennett. And I was like, that's wow, man, James Brown and Tony Bennett. And this is Spin magazine, you know, it's like the pick season of it. And then I went on to read the guys like, well, why oh you understand James Brown? Why Tony Bennett? He said, because he's always taking chances. It's like what I said, and this is what I was thinking about Tony. I'm picking up he's picking up this vibe and Tony, you know, it's like you know, I I say, Tony never sings the same thing once he's he doesn't. He calls it moving to furniture around. He doesn't know. There's no such thing as complacency. And now we're watching are you know the big Idols kind of good corporate, you know, with stones and doing that thing, and they're they're like cookies cutter and and uh, Bob Gucciani is talking about this being like, you know, the guy's an innovator. So I called him up. It led to kind of the you know, they would do these these fashion spreads, and I said, why don't we do something with the Chili Peppers and Tony and we could have fun with it. So we did a show at the hard Rock Cafe in l A with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tony. The Chili Peppers were punk at that time, right before Rick ruming Um. And I said that in a compliment, an observational, in a musicological but they went. They did a good job. From there, it was just kind of like, wait a minute. You know it was a snob because your father is a snob, but you're a father a snob a snob that was um. So then I'm like, well, you know what, um. I was managing some other bands at that time in Boston. Uh. And then so like I kind of got into this notion like they were the alternative rock stations and they did these college rock radio shows like RFK stadiums with nine inch Nails and Da Dada. So I was like, gee, I wonder if, like I pitched them, you know about Tony being on the bill, if this would be novel enough for them, And I pitched it or down at Washington d C RFK Stadium and there's Tony where RFK six kids, it's p J Harvey. He's going on between p J Harvey and nine inch Snails Trent Res and what happened? Well, Tony st you're looking at He goes, can I see something? And he goes, would Frank do this? And I said nope, and that's why you're doing it? And he goes, Okay, I get it, and he goes out kills kills. I mean, and we were all you gotta take answers, you know, like we don't take chances anymore. And he kills. They're gonna dig it and they wouldn't let him off the stage, just this trio. Look, I consider myself a dragon slayer for Tony. He calls me up once a month. I swear to God, says, you know what, I just want to thank you once again that I never have to talk to another record executive in my entire life. I helped him unblocked the artistic channel. So I consider myself a you know, a dragon slayer as far as that's concerned. And and I think that that that's my That's what I'm proudest of as far as that's concerned, you know. So you go through this period the eighties and the nineties, and then we did them, but then like out of because those concerts I said, I'm doing, I'm doing L A. K. Rock, I'm doing So I did like five of these things. Then he comes into me and he goes, you know, and now I'll do Tony. You know, I was watching um MTV. I think I can do really well on TV, and then just walks out of my office and I'm like, okay, I'll get well, you know another you know, but that's Tony Man. Why not? I got it? Well Tony spelled backwards, is what? Why not? That's what I say. Anyway, So then it was kind of like, well, how am I gonna do this? You know, Jon Stewart had a new show. They didn't really have artists. I said, put Tony on this on Stewart Show, and I kind of sold that idea and Doug Her talk now as a comedy Central um at the time, and it was like, you know, that could be interesting, and this is around eighty eight now. They dug it, so they put him on then and then it was like then I'm kind of how did he feel he's cool. Here, here's your father, who, like any artist with a career that last decades, technological advance and change becomes another mountain for him to climb. And now he's on a television music channel. Here's the thing, it's the audience. His audiences were getting older, and when we were in front of that young audience, it's up here. And then he became twenty years sols a gun. I watched him. You know, he just rises to the occasion from that audience. Since we doesn't like to do arenas and things that he feeds off of that. And here's the deal. So it was like they came and it was like, you know, we got unplugged. Um, i'd be interesting to do unhugged. So I was like, yeah, fantastic. So seriously, man, got all the MTV people, all the record people, and they started going great, you know, we got this is gonna be fantastic. Tony's gonna sing Within and Without You Abano song and like Runaway Train and and I was like whoa. I said, you know what, guys, I really appreciate this, but this is this is a train wreck, never gonna happen. And I walked up and then they said, well, come back, and what are you talking about. I said, listen, you guys are MTV. This was in the day of MTV. I said, you guys got balls. That's that. You know, there's no what's gonna take balls is to do Tony's music and have them sing Tony's music. And I said, that's balls. That's MTV. Whose idea was the duets album? I mean, you know it's not It wasn't an original idea what I'm saying, but I thought that those are very complicated things to do. The point pain in the as. Yeah, you know, you had Sinatra and then you had um Ray Charles. I mean, he's so fifteen million records. Um pretty good idea, you know. So I'm like, you know, how do I go and reinvent Tony? You know? And then we went on with MTV to win Album of the Year with the Grammy's got a lot of people upset, and I was like, what's going on with that? But when you look at it, you know, Alec, it's like he herald it. In the iPod generation, you can listen to Tony and Billie Holliday and also listen to Pearl jam and you know it didn't matter, so kids started opening up to that. He's you know, I give him a lot of credit for that. Your father has you in his corner obviously for many many years now. His own son is flesh and blood. He has a wife, your stepmother, who is obviously is omnipresent and around all the time with him. He's got two people who are taking good care of him, and he's getting on in years. And then my and my brother has been producing his records, and your brothers and I'm assuming that a lot of it is you've got to take as much stress of him as possible because because because he's working a full schedule. Yeah, well and he's eighty what years old, he's gonna be eighty seven, he's still going well. I mean a lot of people don't look at me and go like, what are you doing? You leave him? Leave him be? And then they do, oh yeah, and I'm like, it's not me. I mean, seriously, I'm very you know, conscientious of his a. The guy doesn't like to take elevators. He takes he doesn't like to take escalators. We go to airports, he's up the stairs. He's the first one keeping up with him is a challenge and out in the time. My thanks to Darryl Hall and Danny Bennett. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart radioh

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
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