takin' a walk"Strolling Through Life's Harmony with Musician and Producer Charlie Peacock"
Join @thebuzzknight for this episode with renowned American singer, songwriter, pianist, record producer and author Charlie Peacock. He has just released his memoir titled "Roots and Rhythm: A Life in Music" and Charlie shares the many inside stories of his creative process.
For questions or comments write buzz@buzzKnightmedia.com.
Taking a Walk.
We can look at Prince and we could go, well, where would prins be without that drum machine sound in the beginning, right, it is the sound of a time. But also you go back and you wish, man, I wish I could just listen to the essence of this song without this sort of pounding beat. And so I would say in my mind, that's the way we ruined records a bit, you know in the eighties, was the technology was playing us still at that time.
Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast, where Buzz Night explores the paths that musicians and insiders explore in their musical journey. Today, Buzz is joined by a true innovator in the music world. Charlie Peacock is a renowned musician, producer, and songwriter who's left an indelible mark on the music industry. Charlie has authored a new memoir called Root and Rhythm. We now welcome Charlie Peacock to the Taking a Walk Podcast with Buzz Night.
Hello Charlie Peacock, and welcome to Taking a Walk.
Thank you glad to be here with you guys.
So, since it's called taking a walk, the first question I like to ask of folks is if you could take a walk with somebody living or dead. Doesn't have to be in the music side of things, but it could be. Who would you choose and where would you like to take a walk with them?
Wow? Yeah, I would. I'd probably take a walk with Miles Davis and probably choose Central Park. I guess stay in New York.
Oh man, Yeah, wouldn't that be the best?
Yeah? Yeah, the you know, the the creator of Central Park, Frederick Lahmstead. He knew my third great grandfather and wrote about them in his infamous when he was a kind of a cub reporter for the New York Times, and he would do these horseback rides through the South and report, you know, back on. One of his things was he was an abolitionist and he was reporting on the economic effects of slavery. And our family were free black cattle ranchers, and so he was quite interested in, you know, how they got their freedom and and their mixed race and all of that. So yeah, crazy, Yeah, Central Park, Miles Davis.
It's wild, that'd be wild. Central Park one of the greatest places to take in a walk. I've actually recorded a couple of a couple of episodes there as well with my old boss and friend, Mark Chernoff, who programmed WNWFM in New York when I worked there, and also a DJ by the name of Nick Carter who just started out a new chapter in his career at the legendary KLOS in Los Angeles. So those two folks and I sauntered through Central Park nice.
I like it.
I like it, and I have a feeling with Miles Davis. It would be a saunter for sure.
Oh yeah, yeah, he might even want to sit down for a bit.
As long as he didn't turn his back to you as you were walking. But love Miles amazing. So how did growing up in northern California influence your musical style and what artists inspired you early on?
Well, I mean, I'm pretty confident you know that the history and like other metropolitan areas in New York in particular, but San Francisco, the whole Bay area was a melting pot, and it was had an architect named Bill Graham, and so a concert bill that he would put together might include Miles Davis, Jefferson Airplane, and Albert King. Right, ye, so you got blues and then you got you know, the new rock, rock and roll that was coming out of the Bay Area, and then you got the greatest jazz musician ever all on one bill. So that set the tone for like us as teenagers coming up, that that was our musical destiny, that we eclecticism would be what we did. And so there's a whole generation of us from Northern California that are deeply influenced by that ethos, right. And ultimately what it became, especially with me moving to the South, was that I just became, you know, as a writer or a producer, just someone who could play every form of American music. And so it really started in Northern California a huge influence, and especially the black music influence, either through the blues or funk or soul in R and B. And then that for me mixed with anything that Miles Davis was doing, and then all the casting that he was doing in terms of discovering every great new jazz musician to come, and then the singer songwriters of Southern California like JD. Souther and Jackson Brown and just everything that was coming out of there. I mean that for me, I kept two dreams alive at the same time, one being a singer songwriter and the other being a jazz musician, and then gigging wise, just playing, you know, learning to play every kind of music. And because my father was an academic and it had also been you know, and was a working musician and through into his fifties as far as playing gigs, I just had this background where I was as much keyed into sort of neoclassical music that was being made and that smaller symphonic ensembles would play, so I could hear that music and create that music in addition to the singer songwriter stuff, in addition to the R and B and soul and jazz. So I really think that's what led to me becoming a producer, you know, because it was just that adaptability to be able to contribute to so many different kinds of music. But I didn't dream that up. I mean, that's that happened to me. It just happened.
Well, what's so cool about this is the fact that now more frequently you hear musicians artists embrace the notion of crossing multiple genres. Right, that's kind of a cool hip thing that artists really embrace. But you've had that approach, it sounds like your entire life.
Yes, yes, most definitely, Yeah, And the other the other part of that ethos I think that makes the generation that I come from unique is that we respected sort of what your neighbor was creating, but you never wanted to emulate it, which is one of the reasons why the boomer alert here. It's one of the reasons why that generation has so many distinctive sounds and styles, right, that you can have people within an age group of two or three years difference, right, and you get Joni Mitchell, which is completely unique to Led Zeppelin, which is completely unique to Keith Jarrett, you know, and so on and so forth. You could go on forever in terms of these very defined, unique lanes that these people occupy, and so originalism and individualism were also just really important values. I think, you know, you respected your neighbor, and you maybe borrowed a few things from them, you know, like this sort of the era like when the Beach Boys and the Beatles were sort of like trying to one up each other by copying little bits of each other, you know, I mean, there was that, but there was still the overriding dream was to make something that hadn't been heard before.
So does that feed into how you typically approach songwriting and how you work in terms of it? Does creation?
Yeah?
It does. I mean I sort of leave the most purest form for my own shenanigans because they're not bound by economics, you know, because I've been so much more successful in helping others make music right, And although I will say I mean, as far as my own music, I have the biggest audience today at sixty eight years old as I've ever had in my life, you know, But but no, I think I would probably use that more and modern with writing with others and producing others. Where for me it was like, Okay, here's one hundred percent of a song, and if we just have ten percent of it that is highly unique, there's a few elements of it that people haven't heard before. Then we're working with this idea of familiarity where we're and that's the invitation to come in. And then we change history a little bit by having some percentage of it be production elements or intervals that we use that people don't normally use, sounds, et cetera, et cetera, taking a completely different lyric direction from where society is at that time. Whatever it is, but doing it is a smaller percentage so that people can receive it and they're not alienated by something that is just completely foreign to their ears.
So let's go a little deeper there, because you've had this significant success producing for artists such as Amy Grant and the Civil Wars, what do you look for in a project? And then maybe give some examples on how you collaborate with artists.
Yeah, it's different every time. I mean there were if you take even those two, those two artists right there or another, let's also like throw in like someone like Chris Cornell, who has much more on the rock side and has this huge history of music, and so it would be like with with someone like Amy, you're dealing with someone who is who has been a superstar, who has two different audiences as a pop audience as a contemporary Christian audience, and so it's more about asking what kind of record Amy are you hoping to make this time?
You know?
So I've worked with her both on the pop side and both on the contemporary Christian music side, and each one of those sort of asked different questions. But when somebody reaches a certain level and has millions of fans, then you're more apt to say to lean into them and really get your guidance from them and then help them make that record that they want to make. And then still there may be those elements like I said, where you're like, Okay, we are making this record, which is in a sense a record you've made before, So what can we do what little bit of a twist of difference can we make to this? And then when you're looking at someone like Chris, who is you know, was a huge innovator in my mind, one of the greatest voices ever, it's a lot about just capture the essence and getting out of the way, making sure that you don't interfere with greatness. And then you have a new group which were new at the time, just breaking on the scene, like the Civil Wars, and that was very similar in terms of Okay, this is something very very special, so don't screw this up. And part of it is is that some artists have so much essence just in their voice, Like let's take someone from history to someone like an Al Green, another person that I recorded, So it's just like, really you could make a record just with Al's voice, right, I mean, it really could you could like just drop a chord in and then just let him sing for three minutes because the essence is so strong. Well, when I heard the Civil Wars, I realized that's what I was encountering to So for me, it was like, you know, I had to paint like a minimalist painter, you know, from the nineteen fifties, ad Ryan Hard or someone, you know. It just had to be so simple. And whenever we were overdubbing parts on the Civil Wars records, it was like I found this language of just like we just have to touch it. That's what I kept saying. You just touch it, you know, but don't keep your hand there for long, you know, just touch it. And so we would do overdubs with extraordinary musicians, you know here in Nashville, and I literally would erase like seventy percent of it because I would just the music was just telling us like, just touch it, you know, don't get in a way of anything.
That's brilliant advice on so many levels. Yeah, not just in terms of music.
Yeah, I can see what you mean.
Yeah, really, I mean I'm not a golfer, but people have to have often said, you know, let the ball come to you. You know that whole thing.
Yes, yes, yes, And you know what the thing is is that not everyone's music does that, And it doesn't mean that it's not good music. It's there's just more more craft involved, you know where. And in those cases, that's when you would see me like entering into it, more being multifunctional co writing, creating the string chart whatever it might be, programming drum parts, you know, depending on the kind of music it would be. It's just so production. If you are an eclectic like me and someone who's trained in a lot of different kinds of music and production, then you're just you're not bringing it to bear on every project. It's a readiness and like all those gifts and abilities are just they're in the shadows. You can never bring them all to bear upon a project. And that's what you do when you're a young producer, you know. So it's like I could give you a whole list of records that I ruined in the nineteen eighties because I wanted to hear every I wanted to hear on tape, every thought I was having and so much.
Okay, well, now you have me curious, is there one? Is there one you want to call it, well, I don't know.
I would probably like choose my own solo records. I mean, you know, I made one for in the eighties, I made one for Island and one for A and M. And I would say, you know, both of those are in I mean, they're products of their time. But also it's like when you've got a fifteen thousand dollars sampler synthesizer with a soprano sacks sound on it, and you put it on a record, and when you're doing it, you're saying, that sounds just like a soprano sax, and yes, it does, without all the artistry. And so it's kind of like that in the same way when we first started using drum machines in the late seventies and early eighties. You know, we can look at Prince and we can go, well, where would Prince be without that drum machine sound in the beginning, right, and it is the sound of a time. But also could you go back and you wish, man, I wish I could just listen to the essence of this song without this sort of pounding beat, right like where every snare drum beat is exactly the same volume, exactly the same width, and so I would say, in my mind, that's the way we ruined records a bit, you know in the eighties was the technology was playing us still at that time. Now, like I use a lot of the same technology and all of the new technology. But my goal is for you to never hear it unless I intend you to hear it.
Fascinating, fascinating.
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Congrats on your memoir, Thank you, Roots and Rhythm exploring your life in music. What inspired you to write it and what do you want listeners and readers to take away about Roots and Rhythm.
Well, it is the story of the music, and it's also the story of family. It's a story of communities and you know, how we know what we know and how we develop into the people we are, and how our vocations develop and so on one level, it's a book that you know, a long time fan of popular music can read and enjoy. It's also something a young person can read and see like, oh wow, there are thousands of choices, thousands of people, and thousands of places that go into making a sustainable music career. And that you can have a fifty year career and have instances where you flirt with fame, but you can also be kind of a blue collar worker and you can kind of go into the foreground and out of the foreground and have a career. Like the joke from the book where my daughter says, you know, her friend asks your dad famous, and my daughter says, nah, just well known. So but in some ways as a family, you know, because I will be married fifty years in just a couple of months, but as a family who our whole you know, family is in the music business, it's been more about taking care of the music and the music will take care of you, rather than a pursuit of fame or pursuit of celebrity. So being behind the scenes and just functioning in all of these different kinds of roles with people that you've never heard of and people that are very well known are very famous, And that's not the point. The point is the opportunity and privilege of creating, in some small part the music that the whole world sings. And that's really the honor.
Oh. I love how you are carrying it tradition wise and bringing it forward.
Yeah, you know my kids are you know, I don't know if you know my son Sam Ashworth, but a very accomplished Grammy and Oscar nominated songwriter. And you know, my grandkids are artists and musicians too, And I think we're on you know, going back to my great grandfather on my dad's side, I think we're at like six generations of music musicians in Row.
It's amazing.
So it's kind of more like, you know, the corner grocery store, the family farm, you know, and you can be content with that, and you can have a good and beautiful life with that without having to be caught up in a lot of the craziness of a life where every single thing is trying to be monetized and or every every opportunity is an opportunity to publicize and all of that kind of ethos is you know, namemaking that it just destroys your soul. Yeah, it's just not good for people.
Can you talk about some of the issues that are important to you because you've been an advocate for you know, key issues and organizations. Can you can you talk about that?
Yeah, I mean I have a view of what it means to you know, occupy the planet. You know, I'm certainly an American, but my my cares and commitments are to the cosmos in a sense, you know, where like my neighbor is is the person next door, but it's also you know, someone in Rwanda. I think, well, I was fortunate to have a good teacher in Bono from you too, in that he was really the person, you know twenty five years ago that that really began to use his celebrity platform as what he calls currency and so kind of cultural currency to be able to like get people to listen for a moment. And I was fortunate enough to be a part of some of that and getting people to listen to the really pressing emergency needs of HIV and debt and trade and all sorts of issues around the continent of Africa.
But that's just one.
Piece of it. I mean, you know, I do want justice for all, and I do you know, I wake every day and you know I believe in a creator with us and not against us, and so I do wake every day and have a conversation that is about you know, who out there doesn't have water, who out there doesn't have food, who out there doesn't have shelter? All those things. You know, my hope is that there's someone right now thinking about how can I get them that water, how can I get them that food in that shelter. That's a big part of the creative life for me. You know, I don't see any disconnect between that and the making of anything else, you know, because I think we make the world that we want to live in.
How have health challenges in your life impacted your creative process and how do you stay so motivated?
Well, yeah, for your listeners, I have this thing called dysautonomy and central sensitization, which is a central nervous system disorder. And so for the last eight years, I've lived with an intractable kind of migraine level headache. So that literally a headache for eight years. And yeah, it's changed me a lot. It's helped me see myself in the scale of the universe, you know, as this one teeny tiny little dot right that can't be seen from space, right, And yet because of the imagination, I can actually affect things that happen in space. You know, our ability as humans, our imaginations are so extraordinary that in one minute we can dream up imagine enough work, you know, for a thousand people to work for thirty years. That's how powerful the imagination is. And so I'm both this really small, tiny, weak, broken person, but also a kind of glory too, where the imagination is how I contribute to the world that I want to live in, and so I'm busy every day making things. The difference is is that the suffering them of the constant headache has changed me, whereas I don't have no interest in empire building anymore. It's almost like my weakness has allowed me to be more human and less. I guess it's kind of an imagination moderation, if you will, whereas I don't have to make everything I can dream of.
It's beautiful. I know you're working on some other projects. Do you want to highlight maybe one or two or three hundred of them?
Yeah, well I do. I do release music, my own music quite a bit, and do a lot of collaborations, and so one of the ways that I keep up with those, and my assistant, my granddaughter Bridget, helps in that is that we always post new music in a discography that's at Charlie Peacock dot com. And it's sequential, so you can always just go on the website and see, oh, well they've added a new project, and then go to whatever. Either if it's available to purchase on vinyl or CD, or if it's just digital on the DSPs, then you can go and check that out. But yeah, I'm actually getting ready to release several singles and an EP coming up. But right now, I think the main thing I'm going to do probably the rest of this year when I'm working on music is probably go back, you know, to the hard drives and look at several projects that didn't get finished. You know. I have some live performance things that i'd love to put out, and it's just a matter of me sitting and doing a little bit of editing and mixing and then getting them out. But mainly I'm writing. I don't know whether I'm writing another book or what, because it's mostly I'm studying. But I'm very interested in the intersection of modern or contemporary physics, quantum physics, and I think it's like epistemology, like basically like how we know what we know, and the intersection of the arts and also as faith as well. So those four components are things that really interest me right now. And I've been trying to study a lot and then write in that intersection of those things and hopefully a unique way. I like to tell you know, people say, well, you stay in your land, you know, I mean you're a musician. I said, hey, hang on, you know, because my dad was a musician, my mom was a wordsmith. And I like to remind people that my very first paying gig was in sixth grade when I wrote an essay and won a essay contest third place, though, but I was paid five dollars for it. So I've been working writer for a long time.
O man, may I call you Professor Peacock.
You know.
The kids I when I did design the commercial music program at Lipscomb University here in Nashville, and the kids were always like, I wanted to call me Professor Peacock, you know, And I was like, I don't know. It feels like the game Clue a little bit. And it also, you know, I don't know. I don't know how they let me in, you know, like because I'm an autodidact, you know, longtime self learner, bouncing in and out of higher education. But somehow they put me in in control of it. And I ran the school of music for a bit but I did so without the appropriate accreditation. So thankfully, thankfully, every university is allowed to have one crazy character come and and and run the show for a bit. You just can't have too many of them.
I'm going to stick with it. Professor Charlie Peacock, thank you so much. Congratulations on Roots and Rhythm. It's been a joy to speak with you, and thanks for all you continue to give us. It really means so much to the world.
Oh, thank you, buzz I wish you well.
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