Felix Cavaliere started The Rascals in 1965. Felix began playing piano at age six and listened exclusively to classical music until junior high when he first heard Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. Rock and roll changed his life. In The Rascals, Felix sang and played organ on some of the group’s biggest hits, including It’s a Beautiful Morning, Groovin’, Good Lovin’, and People Got to Be Free. The band signed with Atlantic and, with the legendary producer Arif Mardin, The Rascals had nine hits between 1965-1968, making it big as a crossover hit on Black R&B stations and white stations. Felix took a stand in favor of civil rights, insisting The Rascals would play only if Black acts were also on the ticket, a decision that eliminated parts of the country from their touring schedule. Today, Felix lives in Nashville, and he’s still playing and producing music.
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I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart Radio. It's the Beautiful. Just back in the early days of rock and roll, men and women wrote songs, played instruments and sang vocals, supported only by recording technology that is primitive compared to today. In other words, you actually had to have talent. My guest today is one of those legendary earlier rock and rollers, Felix Cavalieri of the Rascals. That's Felix singing and playing his Hammond B three organ on this track. The Rascals Felix, Eddie Brigatti, Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish formed in nine and produced nine hit songs over the next three years, songs everybody knows, grooving, good, loving people, got to be Free, and It's a Beautiful Morning. Felix Cavalieri's mother started him on piano at age six, but his world was turned upside down in junior high when he first heard the music of Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. It changed his world and hours forever. Felix is originally from the New York City area, but he's lived in Nashville for decades. What happened to me basically is is I had these gentlemen approached me that they were starting at management company. They invited me down to Nashville to meet with them. I came down here. All of a sudden, I started to see people I knew, like, for example, John k Steppenwolf, Bobby Glaudio was down here for four seasons. We had two of springsteense guys. We still have one. Gary Tallant is still down here. I said, what is this? He said, oh, man, this is the place. I said, you sure, is it? Yeah, this is the place. You should come down here. And it was so interesting because now it's very different because the word is out. But it was so nice and quaint. You could actually walk into a place and you didn't have to make an appointment. And here's my best story. When I first got here, they said, oh, there's a bank in town that you know, it really helps out musicians songwriters. I said, you're kidding. He said, yeah. They got a special department for publishing and writing and song ring as. It's just like New York. The department in New York was called the Exit. They rocked him. You here, I said, and it's true. How long you been down there? You said twenty years? Now about thirty years, thirty years, thirty years. I've been here and I've watched it lose a lot of that quaintness and a lot of that jeez, just walking any time you want, what would you say? I mean your voice, your songs, which you know seem from such a different error because they're so pure. Your music is so pure. It's pretty music sung with great passion, beautiful songs, beautiful armrangements, beautiful singing, great writing. It's in that category of music that just puts people in a happy mood the minute they hear it. It relaxes them. And when I'm wondering, is there anything about the business now that's better than it used to be? Or was it all better back then? Now? Just the technology is better, we can do this. For example, recently, before all this pandemic started, I was doing an album and then all of a sudden everything got locked down. I was able to continue doing the album at home. See that, that's the difference the technology. So it's good and it's bad. What's good about it is that, man, it's just so much fun to make music in your house now. Of course you really missed the guys in the studio and all that. But we can do it online now. But would you prefer when the COVID's over it to be back face to face with people, because I'm shooting a TV show right now, and I gotta say that a little bit of the joy the camaraderie of working with people that you admire, working with people you like, and being able to relax not every day but some days and just shoot the ship with them and have a good conversation with some actor or actress or writer director that you really perspect. The joy for me of acting has been who I met. Of course, we've done only five shows this year, but we did one in California in October. There was an outdoor venue as a casino. Normally, the guys go on stage and they sound check. They start about three o'clock and then the show is at eight. We couldn't get them off the stage to stop rehearsing. They just missed each other so much. One of the things that I realized when we're doing this, I I just did this thing for Hello TV, which is a new kind of idea that what they're doing is they're filming a live show and then they're going to broadcast it. I'll tell you now, you do this all the time. You work in front of a camera, and you don't necessarily have an audience. I'll tell you, man, there was no audience that I was exhausted. I'm playing to the camera and there's nobody out there going yeah, yo, you know this. I was so tired at the end of that the ace. You grew up in New York correct, pretty close to the part of New York. Tell um, New York right out? And what did your dad do? My family was all in medicine. I was the only one that decided to jump out to this crazy world. Yeah, they were all in medicine. My dad was a dentist, my mom was a pharmacist. And basically they just saw some talent in me. So they started when I was about five classical music lessons playing my piano, paying piano. And then one day I went to junior high and this guy who was sitting in front of me was to become one of my dearest friends, and he said to me, said, do you like rock and roll? I didn't know what he was talking about. Really, I've never heard it classical music. They keep you pretty strict. How old were you at the time. I was junior high. So it was no Elvis, no Bill Haley, none of that fifties music. It's kind of like being Catholic. You know what I'm saying, You're not allowed to go to the other You know what I'm saying. Classical people, they don't want you to go and listen to anything. So I said yes, I said, yeah, I like it. But I went home. And the good luck was that Alan Freed was in New York. He brought it from Cleveland to New York. Rock and roll. Sure, remember we did it, man. So I heard all those things those guys from the beginning, the piano players like Fats Domino, Jerry Lewis flipped me out. Man, I said, man, this is so cool. It was the only word I could say. And then that started me. But when you're playing classical piano and you're sequestered in this classical music bubble as a young boy, and you start to appreciate and want to put your toe in the water there in terms of popular music and rock music, you're one of the most famous singers in the history of music. When did the singing. Start just joy, man, just joy. Wow, I'd love to try that, man, how cool would that be. It's just when you start out you start doing other people's songs. I get these phenomenal singers to copy, like Benny King and and Margot Gay. So you do their songs and all of a sudden you say, man, I'm singing these songs man. And then and then if you're lucky, you get a style if you're lucky interesting, But it's just the joy of playing and singing and that music. So Benny King and and and Marvin Gay and any of those people that were your earliest exposure. Radio was your gateway. I'm hearing I'm on the radio, and I'm saying, like, wow, in those days, you didn't have like the computer to tune your voice, right, you know what I'm saying. That's why we wanted you on the show because you could actually sing. Those guys that names I've mentioned, and there's so many more, they were phenomenal. Are you kidding me? I mean that these guys singing, you go like ho. And you know, I've had the honor of meeting a lot of these guys, you know, and I just love it so I did it, tried it. Who was the first person that you regarded that you respected their opinion? Who told you you could sing? Who's the person that said to you keep going in that direction? As of vocalists, well, you know, I started off the cat Skills. I had took a band from Syracuse University to the Catskical Mountains. So now you're in college. Yeah, I'm in college. I took a summer off and I literally never went back. And it's a great story because Joey D's band came there and they saw me, and they were in Europe and their organ player quit. So they called me up to join them in Germany, and so I flew and play the organ, play the organ. Yeah, I went over there. And the way the story goes, I'm changing the such a little bit. But they were working with this group called the Beatles, and nobody, nobody had heard of them yet. Now I'm a college kid deciding whether I should stay in school or look at all these girls screaming and hollering and what is this? You know? And I remember it vividly here in their music. I'm saying, wow, they were singing group. They weren't that good on the at least I didn't really get their music yet. And then when they did arm music, being American music, they were okay. Well, when they did their music, it was like outstanding. So I said, I think I do this. But it was in the Royal Hotel that people started paying attention to me, you know, they said, hey, man, you're pretty good. You're pretty good. You're pretty good. Half of them trying to impress their dates. So when you go to Europe to play the organ for these guys, they asked you to start singing. No, they just asked me to start playing. When when did the singing begin? When do you become the front man? Has a good question. Well, I got a little depressed being a side man, and I met this young lady. Uh we came back to the States, and she said, what's the matter. I said, man, you know, I've always been the front man. I've always been the singer, and uh, you know, I'm sitting way in the back of the group. And she said to me, she said, feel it. You don't think this guy's gonna let you sing, do you? And I said, oh, I get it. So basically, it was just a matter of time before I had to start a band, and there's a long story behind that. We had this wonderful thing called the draft. In those days, they said to me, if aliens attack, we'll call you. Other than that, go back home, because they were a little select off in the beginning. And that's when I started the band because I could. The name of the first band was what Well, I've a number of bands. I had Felix of the Escorts, I had all this kind of thing. But you know, when we got the guys together, that was my plan. Let let me see if I can get the best guys that I can find in the New York area. And I found some really talented guys. Of course, Eddie Briggotti. I was working with his brother, and here's this little guy man sing his tail off, unbelievable dance and singing. Cornish came from Rochester, Gene Cornish, and he was also with Joey d for a while there. And then that same young lady introduced me to Dino Danelli, the drummer, and I saw him play one song at the Metropol in New York. I saw him play one song, I who Have Nothing, and he did it such a show. I said, Man, I gotta ask this cat to join us, and that's how we stuck. Who's the one that sang that song? Tom Jones, who made a hit out of I who have nothing? Jeez, I don't know I who have no song? Great song? So which collection of musicians that you put together? Do you get your first record deal with? Your first record contract comes and who's a board? Well? I got a record contract up to Syracuse, but it was jive. It was just this guy trying to make money off me. And then years later came out they called up the Rascals. This business is something else, man, but the Rascals really was the first major contract. Atlantic Records came out to this place we were working on the island called the Barge in the Hampton's. That was the place we got to offer it to do this job out there. There was this a major discotheque in New York on Dean's and the gentleman who owned that place invited us to do the Barge in the Hampton's for the summer. And I knew growing up near Long Island that the Hamptons was a place where a lot of people who are really important people going to summer. Bettie Davis used to summer out there. It was wild. So I knew that if we were going to get discovered, we were going to get discovered there. And we did. And that's the group that you mentioned in before, the guys you put together, and this would be so now you have the Rascals together, and the Rascals make their first record deal win. Right. Then this gentleman saw us and he knew Sid Bernstein, the promoter who brought the Beatles to the US, and so Sid came out and wanted to manage us. He really helped us. He introduced us to all the right people, and Atlantic was the only label that would allow us to produce ourselves. I wanted to produce ourselves. I didn't I didn't want somebody that I didn't know taking over. Why. Well, I had an idea, you know, I had a musical idea, you know. And I kept saying, too, director, look you like what you heard. That's why you're signing us, give us a shot. Well, here's where the fantastic luck comes in. So Atlantic signs us up and they put us in the studio with two geniuses, Arife Mardin and Tom Dowd. So it was like thank you, as all you can say, because now we had our George Martin. You respected them giants, just absolute giants. And what do they do for a guy like you who you yourself said that you wanted to mention to Atlantic I want to do. I want you to trust me and do my own thing. What do those guys give you? A good producer does what for you? A good producer should bring out what you want to put on in those days tape. You know the words, You've got an idea for a song, right, well, let me help you. Know this guy, Arief Martin, was a Turk. He came over here because what happened was Quincy Jones went to Turkey and on the way to the airport the way I hear it, Aliff somehow got him a cassette. Before Quincy landed back in the United States, he contacted him and asked him to come and join and be a professor at Berkeley. That's how good this guy was. So he ended up producing like Bett Middler. He ended up a Shaka Khan b G's. When you got somebody like that on your team, it's like an encyclopedia of music standing right over here. You know, I like to do a French song. I like to do a song sounds like how can I be sure? Oh, no problem, and he could orchestrate it for your right on this. I mean, it was just magic. That's what the Beatles had with George Bournon. So the first album you release with those guys is what year I was about? And how did that album do? It? Did? Okay? Okay? So right away there was some appetite for your recorded sound. Is where the good luck came in. Because see, uh, in those days when you worked in the club, everybody was twenty one or over. So the proprietors that they wanted you to do covers, they didn't. They were not interested in the least in anything that you had to say. Originally, I found these songs that people didn't know. I would find them, like, for example, I found Bustanks Sally and I heard this thing on the radio and then I heard this song called good Love. It from the first time we paid Good Loving. Everybody got up and danced, So the first album contained Good Loving. So what they did Atlantic is they put that out as the second signal. It was number one. So all of a sudden, this little obscure bunch of guys coming into the studio guess and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. We were stars, we were big, so the table turned a little bit and now we got a chance to do our things unproven, totally unproven, and we got lucky. This is how can I Be Sure? Sung by The Rascal's other lead vocalist, Eddie Brigatti. Felix Cavalieri is not the only guest on our show who mentions an individual producer for the success of his recording career. Go to our archives and listen to my conversation with Darryl Hall, who credits the same producer for developing Hall and notes sound. Is there 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, a Reef Morten, the producer arranger behind Donny Hathaway, Aretha Franklin. His his label was in Atlantic, So I was in that world in that scene. I mean, I remember I'm saying to me and John, he said, just make music, We'll figure out how to sell it. Here the rest of my conversation with Darryl Hall at Here's the Thing dot Org after the break Felix Cavalieri talks about the Rascals appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the moment when Eddie Brigotti decided to leave the band. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In nineteen seventy, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed The Rascals the Blackest white group. The Rascals were considered a crossover rock and soul act, popular on both black R and B and white stations. Felix felt a strong connection to black musicians and civil rights, eventually insisting the Rascals would only perform if black acts were on the ticket, a choice that eliminated parts of the country from the Rascals tour schedule. Felix and Eddie Burgotti wrote most of the group's songs, and they were eager to reflect the politics of the time through their music. The industry changed thanks to Bob Dylan and the Beatles and the Stones, and all of a sudden people were writing. Prior to that, we would go to publishers and they would give you songs. Let's tell how Neil Diamond and Carol King started off. But when those guys came out, Now all of a sudden you could write. At least that was the theory. So you have to have a lot of good luck to be able to write and get hit records with the bar up that high. Because those Beatles they had some pretty good songs, you know what I'm saying. So you want to survive. That's the level of dude, that's where you gotta be. Now, we're in the band as everybody, or are people in pairs or whatever the dynamics are they co writing together or you're all writing your own songs on your own. Did you co write with anybody in the band or outside the band? Yeah? I I co wrote with Eddie because I thought of Lennon McCartney team would be really cool. And I always felt that he was a little better than I was with the lyrics because I was too serious. I put some serious words down there, you know, especially when I got into my political life or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I was a pretty serious guy. Keyboard players have a tendency to be a little less nuts than some of the other guys in the band. Well, let's talk about the political aspect. When when you say he became political, what are you referring to. I started working for Robert Kennedy's campaign, the sixty eight campaign. Yeah, I think a lot of us in those days were involved. We gave a damn about our world. So I got involved. And I was dating this woman at the time who was there at these fascination and man, she was never the same. She wigged out. That's how People Got to Be Free came out. I said, Man, I gotta say something. I don't know why people think that musicians and actors and people are really not allowed to have an opinion. And I say this in my show because you have a right to say something. Now you don't get everybody mad. Oh my god. Nowadays you got the Dixie Chicks that come out and all of a sudden, everybody blackballs and it's nonsense. So we wrote, I wrote People got to Be Free. And they didn't want to put it at the label. We had control, and you got it out there. That was in our contract. And and so me and Jerry, who actually went head to head. You know, it was a great relationship, man, when I said, we gotta put this out. Man, this is it's just it means something that people know where we're coming from. But at the same time. And you mentioned the Beatles because the Beatles had this happen I think in Florida where they wouldn't play because it was a whites only audience. We had that What was the venue? Where where did all that play out? What happened was Baltimore, I think, and there was this group I think it's called a Young Whole Trio. It was a black group, but they were really black music. They were crossover music. So we were crossed over when we had a hit. We had the R and B stations and the white stations. So these guys came up to the backstage and said, Mr Cavalery Felix, we really like to play for white what it says sometimes? And I says, you know, man, I love to play for black audiences sometimes because they rock. And it hit me, why not let's have a black act opening up for us. I had no idea the trouble because little that I know when we went down South where I'm living now, it's so stupid, you know, I mean, really, you love the music, but you can't come to the shows. I mean, wait a second, did you have any were their protests with them that I got to know stokely car Micha and all those guys. Because they came out to some of the gigs, their promoters wouldn't let us play sometimes, you know, they wouldn't they wouldn't have the shows I went to school with. I don't know if you know who Mickey Schwarner was. He was one of those guys that went down to Mississippi got killed, Jeney Schwarner and Goodman. Yeah, he was in my school. So I got really in the beginning of my life for a number of reasons, mostly because of our Italian heritage. I got pretty rebelized. I didn't like the way people cheated. Were your parents or grandparents victimized by prejudice as immigrants? Absolutely, So you carried that with you. I really carried that with me. A long story short. You know, my mom was a very educated person, and you know, when we moved to Westchester County, there weren't too many of us around in those days, and they really insulted her. It was a long story, but very simply, she wanted to join this club, this flower club whatever it was. They said, oh, certainly we could use somebody to serve lunch. And I said, what did you say, come back here. So I hit this cord a long time ago, and I don't like it, and I don't like it today because I I don't understand, you know, I think that you know, as you know, our nation right now, it's pretty divided. I don't understand that. Somebody's gonna explain to me. To me, it's like people are either going to embrace the change or the change is gonna come down on top of them. But when you say that your girlfriend at the time, she worked on the Kennedy campaign, right around the time you're starting to really make it in the business, they refer to you as a very black white band, the black sounding white band. Correct. I start to hear a bit of that. Absolutely. We were the first white act on the Red and Black Atlantic label. And you know, the best story I have his otis reading Man because in those days they didn't quite especially in Atlantic, they didn't have the barriers up like recording do not enter. So he came knocking on the door one day, looks and he goes, oh my god, they are white. They didn't know. There was no videos per se in those days. They didn't know. And of course to me that was like very cool thing because we're walking around the whole with guys that guy I have every record they ever made, Sam and Dave and Benny King and some of these jazz greats. They're all walking the halls of Atlantic Records, and so am I. So I felt it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed it. And you do Sullivan? What year you guys were on Sullivan twice? We were about five or six times. You really I had to tell said, you know enough because we're over exposing. Yeah, that was a real interesting let me tell you right, I'll never forget. One of the best books I ever read to appreciate these seems to the timeline and the seems in the timeline of the business was Nick Tosh's biography of Dean Martin. Yes, and man, you can't believe how you see that line where Elvis comes along and Dean Martin says, I'm doing what Bing Crosby did, and now Elvis is doing what. It's like a line Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Elvis. The style is a little different, the lyrics are different, songs are different, but crooning is crooning, and it's hard to believe for people to understand that the guy of Sullivan's background, who was really the staple of the vaudeville era. Well, he was a journalist. He was a columnist, columnist, and he wrote an entertainment column like a you know, army archer. And he's this unlikely gate keeper. He's such an unlikely figure. He's the skinny little guy who's you know, this weird style of talking for people who were obviously talking to people who don't know Sullivan, which I'm sure most people do. And yet these emerging acts, including the Beatles, of course, use that show as the platform to becoming really famous in the United States. The show and you guys did that show five times? Yes, what was that? Like? This is an experience because we had to be there six actually seven days a week. We started on Monday at seven am, and you know, we we kind of run through, run through, run through. One through was very strictly run Saturday night we did a live show with no TV, but there was an audience, and then Sunday we do the real thing, and the real thing. He screwed it up every time because he would see someone in the audience that he knew, and as he was getting older, he'd lose his place and there you go. Now you just lost fifteen twenty seconds. Where we're going to get it from. We're going to get it from. Oh yeah, and Jackie Mason, you can tell you that story. It was really exciting because it was live, not taped live. He didn't know how to deal with us, our generations of you know, I could tell that he really wasn't too fond a lot of them. He really because I got into this thing with his staff because after a while, the rock bands became like the draw for the show. You know, you want to do the kids want to see the beginning. In the end, he created a monster. However, the dressing rooms did not show that. I said, no, wait a second. Now, this guy over here, he's about you know what I mean, he's got a whole floor, you know, and we're over here in this closet. I said, that's not gonna work. It was too much. It was too much. Man Like. I remember my dad. You know, my dad was a dentist. You could not be any more conservative than my dad. It was impossible. Do you remember show that was? The week that was? It was just lovely blonde. I think her name was Nancy. My dad really liked her. He liked her. She was on the show with us. So I said, Dad, come on into the come on into the green room, and here he is, right standard. It was so much fun, his dream, so much fun. Man Like, I said, that's the shame of where our group broke up, because we we had a lot of fun, you know, a bunch of crazy kids. And when you say the shame of the way the group broke up described that if you will to the extent that you can. Well, it was really a sad situation because here we are, we were free agents. We were going from Atlantic to Colombia, and Colombia in those days was an international label. Atlantic had just become an international label when Zeppelin got there. They signed up with Warner Brothers. Now they were an international label, but prior to that it was a little difficult for us in Europe and other countries because we had a different record company. Is that why you went to Columbia? Yes, And at the signing Eddie Briggott he just decided that he doesn't want to do this anymore. That's nice. There's a contract on the table. What should I tell them? And that started like this kind of like real negativity that happened. It actually started before that. What do you think it was? Why was he unhapped? What did he want to do? What direction did he want to go in? I don't think it had anything to do with any of that. I think that some people can live like a gypsy and some people can't. Eddie was extremely attached to his family. Where did he live? Where was his home? He's a Joysey guy, he's New Jersey, lived in Jersey guy. We had two jerseys. He just didn't want it. He just didn't want to travel anymore. He was an unhappy camper. And it's so funny because he had more fun than all of us put together on the road. He was a wild man. So I don't know. I was really saddened by it because the car we lost a wheel, you know, and it was really tough to keep spinning. And he left right then left at the signing and he didn't come back. He did not come back. And you've never done reunions with him, nothing, Well, we did a reunion. We did a reunion, so he so he would come back and and do and stick his toe in there. Wow, he came back forty years five years later. Really, yeah, Steve van Zand had this idea to to do something with us, and so he contacted us. All actually was, it was an interesting situation. We started off with that cancer program that Kristen Carr I think it is that Bruce and he does, and unfortunately one of my one of my girls, had that and so I said when he asked us if we would do a reunion, we did it. And then from there I was able to get some real good help for my kid. And after that that he wanted to do this Broadway show kind of ideas, so we did. That was goal Once upon a Dream. That was the last time we worked together as proxy two thirteen. What's interesting to me is when you see people have this good thing and they have a good chemistry, and not all of them, but some of them move on to other acts which don't replicate that success. Yeah, it's it's tough. Sound is not the same, and so you replace him with who We tried to put together something else. I I did a complete, you know, turn, and I found some really talented guys. We did two albums on Columbia that were pretty good albums. They were more jazz oriented, a little bit more open because at that time we were jumping into the FM world rather than the A M with the hits hits hits. It just wasn't the same, you know, because you know, a group is a group. But I mean it's just so silly. I mean, you know that you don't break up a winning team. Now, you notice a lot of the groups, especially the English groups, they stay together. They may not really get along that well, but they stayed together. That's something that I've always kind of been I'm sorry about, you know, I wish we could have remained friends. So the year that you're at the signing and Eddie splits, what year is a nineteen sevent you proxibly? Yeah, nineteen seventy fifty years ago, A long time ago, man, what I'm saying. But when you have a contract on the table, you have a contract in front of you. In order to fulfill that contract, who takes at the's place? Well, we I brought a fellow in that I thought it could help, and then we changed the group entirely, you know, And and Clive Davis, he gave us the benefit of the dot. He said, well let's keep going. You know. Actually, you know, it's just a shame, you know, because so we had a good thing going. We had a good team, and the team was good, you know, but you know, things happened. I'm sure it's happened to many people in many businesses. They have these partnerships and these situations and and all of a sudden, you know, it just doesn't work out. For what reason. I can't answer that. I mean, we had no embezzling, Nobody took anybody's wife. You know, there was nothing, you know, really, I don't think we really had any drug problems that I was aware of. Just the stupidity when you're coming up and you're performing in the sixties, when you guys really break out. Everything is radio. When I bought a Sony transistor radio with the old earpiece, the individual earpiece you'd plug in so I could play music under the covers of my bed at night, when I'm like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, and I'm listening to Build Me Up, Buttercup and all together, a m hits of the sixties. When did you begin to sense that the music business was changing in terms of content? Right after wood Stock? Wood Stock was the beginning of the end, because the big guys came in the corporations. Ah ha, there's an audience here, let's go get them. And they did. See and then what was a you know, mon pop business, you know, turned into a conglomerate business, which is you know where we are today. You know, Let's see now, now, who put this group together? I think God put this group together. How about if I try it, we could put together a super group. Will just match them up, that's all. It doesn't work like that, you know. And then you know, little things like you know, you know, we used to have illegal payola, Well how about legal commercials. I can buy fifteen minutes of your time, can't I? And I can do what I want. It's progressed to the point of where we have that what do you call, I hate to say, a Patriot Act? And you know, we can now buy our way into whatever we want. That's what happens to the music business. However, I always feel the talent such as Prince Elton John there's gonna be a lot more people like that coming around, and and they will buck this system, you know, and they will they will be known and famous because they're so darned good. That's that's how I believe. So it's not that I'm all, you know, coming from a negative point of view, but I think the corporations really took the charm, you know. I mean like for example, when we used to travel around the US. We go to New Orleans, we hear New Orleans music. We go to l A, we hear Beach music. It's all the same. Everybody's get the same play lists. It's like driving down the interstate and all the restaurants are the same and every where. Am I Yeah, we've lost the indigenous flavor because you know what what you were saying about, you know, with your transistor radio. You see the people who are around in those days, they all have that joy of listening to the music, just like you did. We all have that, you know what I mean. It's like Ringo, like when he gets on stage, you gotta pull him off the stage. He doesn't need to be on stage for God, He's just it's in his soul, you know. And and that's that's the type of people. Like we go around with the zombies and people like that. They want to play and man, I'm missing I'll tell you, you know, I'm really looking forward to getting back out there to You should see the Rascals singer and keyboard player Felix Cavalieri. If you're enjoying this episode, please follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there, we'd love for you to leave us a review. When we return from the break, Felix Cavalieri talks about producing artists like Laura Nero and why he always ends up back out on the road. Simple a man understanding. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Since we were both raised on rock and roll, I want to to know if Felix remembers the first time he heard the Rascals on his transistor radio. First smash it was good loving, But the first time we heard ourselves on the radio was we were in New York. We're all living together in this hotel in New York, and cousin Brucie played I Ain't going out in my heart anymore seventies seven w ABC, and you know he's back there now, he's he's back a yeah, yeah, he's in his eighties. He's still rocking. Man, he's still gone. You believe God, bless you know what, that's the real deal there, man. So shout out to him, man, because he's a good man to the first time you hear it. I mean we were walking on the street with that same little transistor radio. Oh my god, it was so cool. What song it was? I ain't going to addit my heart anymore. But you know, sometimes I'm walking in like you know, Publix or one of the supermarkets, and and I hear one of my songs and I go, that's cool. They don't know, man, that's me up there. Bro, that's so beautiful. It's it's thrill. When you would record or when you would perform live, was there a ritual for you? What did you do? Wait? Did you Did you wake up and you were ready? You know, man, you wake up when you're ready, you know. I mean, like I said, we we had a ritual. But the ritual also included, you know, the writing of this song, that the recording of the song, the producing of the song, and the playing of the song. Because we played our own instruments, you know, we we only had one extra guy, which because we didn't have a bass player. You know, I had a bass player on my foot, you know, in the organ so when we went in, yeah, you had to be ready. You are you producing now? Are you writing songs down there and producing down there? Well? I was trying to before all this happened. I you know, we got some really really talented people around here. This is really cool. It's a great place for for musicians, you know, and and up and coming people. The problem is that, you know, I don't want to tune anybody up. I want them to be able to sing. I mean computer enhance. Yeah, and so that that limits a lot of it, so lest of them can really deliver the goods absolutely. That's why you got that big doing not enter side recording. You don't want to hear this, and it's just as too bad. What are some of the other acts over these past several years? Have you've been down there? Thirty years? Down there? You did produce people like Laura Nero? Correct, yes, out did that association give made who brought you together? Her manager was a gentleman by her name of David Geffen. He also managed Janie and I think he managed Crosby Stills in Dares and and let me tell you something, he was really a good manager. And he invited me, he says how would you like to meet the most difficult person you've ever met? I said, Wow, I can hardly wait. He says, Laura has mentioned you many times. She really enjoys your work. Would would you like to produce Laura? Near? It was life changing event. She was the coolest lady I've remember my life. Ah man. She was so talented, complete opposite of what we're talking about, Like she could care less if she sold a record. She just wanted to make art. That was her thing. For example, I called up our reef, I said, a Reef, I I got this great opportunity to produced this. Jim, would you like to join me? Would you like to help me? And he said yeah. Because you know, it's interesting in those days, he was working for almad Organ and those guys over Atlantic, and they didn't realize that they had a complete, absolute diamond in the rough with this guy. So when he when I took him out of there and and we went over to Columbia to produce Laura, they immediately made him a vice president. But you know, immediately they put him on the big time payroll. But anyway, what happened basically is that she just had a kind of almost like another century outlook on things like if she was born a hundred years ago, would have made a lot of sense where she was at. You know, how much did you work with her? You did one album with her, I worked as I did. I did two albums with her, Uh, the second one. I was kind of brought in as a relief mechanism because she was kind of getting a little bit too far out or too far in really, because she didn't even want to go to the studios anymore. She wanted to work out of her home. So I was called into kind of finish a couple of projects her. But what a talent. But did you sense then or did you a sense later on that you could have had a career just producing people like that. Yeah, yeah, I think I could have done that as well. But you know, as I say, you didn't want that. You didn't want to pass it on, so to speak. I love getting on stage and singing and playing. Man. You know, it's it's hard to get that out of your system, especially when people want to hear you. You know, if you work and nobody comes out to see it, okay, but you know they were, they were coming out, and I decided let me keep doing that and producing also became something again. Now it's a huge industry now as a matter of fact, it's taken precedence over the actual song and in some cases the singer because the production could be so maddening good that it's a hit, you know, And and a lot of it is done in the box in a computer. Who's the cream that's rising to the top? Now in the music business, is there anybody you like? Oh, they're coming there, They're come up there. There's so much talent out There's ridiculous thing, is it's just this, so much out there? How do you try to tune into what's going on? Too much? It's impossible. There's good things, like I'm talking about streaming, but there's good things about streaming. I mean, like, for example, I had a phenomenal record collection. You know, I used to not have lunch, man. I would go up and buy you know, like the music, and you know, it all burnt. I had a big fire. It all it's all gone, So so did Orbison. That's so funny. Yeah, we were Royce House in Malibu burned and he lost all his archive and I had like classical stuff, man, I mean, I had phenomenal. Where did that happen? Where was the house I was in? I was in Tennessee, you know, down here to Tennessee. My kids, your house, their court fire. Yeah, like my kids left the fluorescent light on and but anyway, thank god, nobody got hurt. My granddaughter was there and you know, we were okay. Everything was good except for the house. How many kids do you have? I had five. I already lost one of my kids, and I don't want to ever do that again. You know, it's a it's a tough thing. You lost one of your kids. My daughter, yeah, she uh as the reason we did that cancer foundation. She she had it. She had cancer Long Island. You know how old was she passed away? She was how I'm so sorry. That's horrible, or any of them in the business at all. Thank god. No, now they got the idea. They get it. You know. I've got a couple of my daughters. I mean, they're really excellent singers, but you know, they she tried, she wanted to New York and got beat up immediately and said, you know, I'm gonna go and raise a family, you know, but but go back if you wouldn't tell me so so the house catches fire, horrible tragedy, and you lost your record collection, and I lost my Hall of Fame trophy. They won't even give me another one in the rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I lost all that stuff. They wouldn't give you another rock and Roll Hall of Fame trump. No, no no, no, because so many people seldom I'm not asking you to choose one, but among the many, you would choose. If you could take an album out of that old vinyl collection, if we could restore that vinyl collection, and you could put an album on a turntable and laid back and play some music that would transport you, what would you put on the turn? Well, you know, seriously, as as I learned to appreciate, you know, the music comes out of, you know, the classical world, i'd have to say, somebody from the from that world, you know, like you would play classical music. Yeah, because first of all, I want to stay alive for that forty five minutes an already hear it, none of these three minutes songs. Who was among your favorite classical composers? Oh, the pianists, the Chopin's and Schubert's and oh man, As I say that there's something about the lack of lyric that transports you to a different place. I'll tell you, man, I did a symphony with my music here down in Nashville. We've got an excellent symphon extra here. And it was really really an honor, a treat for me to do that. You put you performed with them. I performed with the seventy piece orchestra. Where did you play? I paid my whole repertoire everything, or you played your music with that? I did all my music. It was fantastic. It's just something after all these years to bring that back. Those guys been around a long time. Man. That's good music, really good music. But you know what you're saying, and I see the joy when you're speaking about that little transistor radio. That's how it is when I'm playing for my audiences out there. That's what we had, was that connection, that musical connection. People really loved that music. It's part of your soul, It's part oh yeah, oh yeah. Man. So I try to connect everybody like that, make them sing, you make them feel together, like when you do it to Billy Jones, Madison is going, I know every word, every word. Come on many that that's magic. I wish I could come see your shows because a lot of your songs I know every where too. There you go, we'll get there, yeah, exactly when this is over. Thanks for doing this with us, Matt, thank you, thank you with you on a Sunda afternoon. Felix Cavalieri of the Rascals. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart radio. I can't imagine anything that the world as ours whenever went to in a place I like to be, it stead a bood, she's down, a crowded halling you to it, and a thing we likes to do. It's only lots of things that we can see. We can't be anywhere. We're elected, all the happy people we did me to do that. I'm a Sunday afternoon feah. I couldn't get away too soon. No no, no no