Interview with JD Souther

Photo credit: Erick Anderson

Even if you don't know JD Souther, you've heard his songs.

One of the most gifted songwriters to emerge out of the Southern California country rock movement of the early 1970s, he co-wrote many of the Eagles' best-known songs, including "Heartache Tonight," "Victim of Love," "New Kid In Town" and "Best of My Love."
And when the re-formed Eagles went into the studio to record the band's first album in 28 years, they released their version of Souther's "How Long" as the debut single in August 2007.

In addition to his work with the Eagles, Souther wrote classics for Linda Ronstadt ("Faithless Love," "Simple Man, Simple Dream" and "Prisoner in Disguise") and scored hits of his own including 1979's "You're Only Lonely" and his 1981 duet with James Taylor, "Her Town Too."
However, after the release of his acclaimed 1984 album "Home By Dawn," fans of the talented singer-songwriter would have to wait a generation to hear a full-length collection of new songs from Souther.
But the long wait is over. Souther made a rare appearance in Orange County on Thursday night, June 11 in support of his latest album, 2008's "If The World Was You," an outstanding 11-track disc featuring his masterful lyrics positioned in a lush musical landscape of rock, jazz, soul and Latin styles that defies easy categorization.

"Its been since then (1984) that I made a studio album of all new stuff but I've done a few of these tours," Souther explained in a June 2, 2009 interview from his rural home outside of Nashville, Tenn. This writer then asked Souther if it took 24 years to release a new album because he had "finally" penned enough new songs to fill an album.
"Well, 'finally' might be a mistake because I wasn't writing them (songs) all of the time," said Souther, 63.
"The simplest answer to 'Why now?' is yes, the material. I went to Cuba in 1998; I had a really powerful musical experience a weekend I was there and I started this batch of songs and I was itching to get out and play something but I wasn't exactly sure what but I had really been missing music I grew up with which was small group jazz. … I was just lonesome to hear this really."

Although John David Souther was born in Detroit, and lived briefly in Cleveland, he spent most of his childhood and early teens living in Amarillo, Texas. Although he fell in love with rock 'n' roll in his teens, his earliest musical memories include listening to everything from Puccini operas and Beethoven symphonies to jazz recordings by Nat King Cole and Miles Davis and country pioneer George Jones.

Souther headlined at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on June 11, and was scheduled to feature many of the songs from "If The World Was You," as well as songs he has written and recorded throughout his acclaimed career.

"The fact that I'm playing alone means I don't have a set list," Souther explained.
"I can change keys; I can wander around and play anything I want. If I'm in the mood to play 'New Kid In Town' one night, I'll do that. If I'm in the mood to play 'Faithless Love,' 'How Long' or 'Best of My Love,' I do that. It's very unrestrictive."
Souther said he was looking forward to his solo appearance at the Coach House, with some of his fondest memories including appearances from San Diego to Los Angeles as a member of the folk duo Longbranch Pennywhistle that he formed with Glenn Frey shortly after moving to Southern California in the late 1960s.

"Well, you know, I've been playing music since I was nine," Souther recalled.
"The Texas Panhandle in 1968 or so when I migrated west did not have what existed along the beaches of Southern California. And that was beautiful weather, the most fabulous ocean in the world and the prettiest girls in the world, and an easy place to be poor. I didn't have any money; I had a Triumph motorcycle and a guitar."

Nils Lofgren: Road to Recovery

Nils Lofgren, seen here in an updated photo, got his start as a teenager, playing guitar with Neil Young. Last year he recorded an album of Young cover songs.

Photo credit: JAN LUNDAHL

The following story was posted on the Orange County Register Web site on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009.

Nils Lofgren is one of the most celebrated guitar players in rock, having played on Neil Young's seminal 1970 album "After the Gold Rush" while he was still in his teens.
Then after a brief stint with Young's hard-rocking Crazy Horse, Lofgren fronted Grin, which released four critically-acclaimed albums in the early 1970s.

This year marks Lofgren's 25th year as a full-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. While that famous outfit was on hiatus in the early 1990s, Lofgren toured with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band (a troupe that also included the Eagles' Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh, as well as Todd Rundgren).
Since his 1975 self-titled debut, Lofgren has issued a number of strong solo works, the most recent being "The Loner – Nils Sings Neil," a 2008 release where Lofgren revisited 15 classic cuts by his long-time friend Young.

"I would have never thought of it; it was my manager Anson Smith," Lofgren said in a Friday, Jan. 23, 2009 phone interview. "He suggested I sing my favorite Neil Young songs acoustically.
"I wasn't sure I liked the idea, but we assembled about 30 songs and I spent a couple weeks just singing them in the mornings mostly, to my dogs and cats – not recording, not arranging, not producing, just singing.
"And I noticed after a couple weeks a handful stopped sounding like decent karaoke (versions) and started feeling something special that was more my own, and it was at that point I decided to do it," Lofgren said.

It took a combination of hard work and creativity for Lofgren to complete the CD during the E Street Band tour last year.
"I'm also such a fan of Neil's that I really felt there was no chance of it being a special record unless each performance was completely live with no (additional) production or overdubbing; just one instrument, one voice," Lofgren said.
"And so with that as the guidelines I went into the studio and in a very short period of time – I was looking for 10 or 12 songs and I got 15 that felt right. Billy Wolf (of Wolf Productions), a great engineer friend of mine, mixed them up with me while I was on the Springsteen tour.
"I flew in on days off and worked into the late hours with him and got it done and felt great about it," he said. "It was all live in the home and a very special project for me, a stroll down memory lane. I used an old piano that belonged to my wife's father, who she never knew – (it) had a lot of history to it
"And the D-18 guitar was what I used on the 'After the Gold Rush' project when I did not own an acoustic guitar," Lofgren said. "Neil Young lent his Martin to me, and gave it to me as a gift at the end of the sessions, which of course is my most treasured guitar and certainly the only one appropriate for this project."

Both the 2008 tour and recording of "The Loner" came while Lofgren was in a tremendous amount of pain. On Sept. 30, 2008, he flew to New York and had double hip replacement surgery. His appearance during the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa on Sunday will be his first public performance since that procedure.
"Forty years on the road, a lot of them doing the back flip with the trampoline and jumping off drum risers; an enormous amount of basketball on city cement courts, I just tore my hips apart," Lofgren explained.
"The last 15 years they went bad, and finally over the last few years they were bone on bone and the doctors said there is nothing we can do for you except a complete replacement," he said. "I put it off a long time. Finally, it got so bad that I found a great surgeon in New York who was willing to do both at the same time and it was very successful.
"Now it's my job to rehab. I hope if I just keep doing my rehab right for the next 8 to 10 months, I'll be back to normal – well as normal as you can be with fake hips – I'm walking around and doing okay."

On Super Bowl Sunday, Lofgren and the rest of the E Street Band will likely be performing a mix of classic cuts, as well as material off Springsteen's newly-released "Working on a Dream." Lofgren said the final set list is something that will be decided by the Boss right before the highly-anticipated appearance.
The highly-publicized concert at the Super Bowl also provided Lofgren the perfect opportunity to reissue his 2001 effort, "Tuff Stuff! The Best of the All-Madden Team Band," which features Lofgren performing a number of blistering instrumental tracks.
Lofgren was born in Chicago in 1951, but it was a move to the Washington, D.C. area as a teenager that ultimately provided him with the inspiration that has served him over the past four decades.
"Actually, I fell in love with the sound of harmonics," said Lofgren, who has lived in Arizona since the mid-1990s. "Roy Buchanan, was a hero of mine in D.C. growing up, and I got to know Roy and went to see him play a lot and got to play with him a bit. He was the first person I heard who made harmonics sound like bells.
"He showed me how to do it with a flat pick and I don't play with a flat pick," he said. "So I figured out my own style with the thumb pick, and created something called bouncing harmonics where they kind of shimmer and bounce.
"And that's really where I was inspired and fell in love with that sound…way back in the mid '60s."

Because I have posted this story on my blog after the Super Bowl performance, I can note here that Nils did a great job and looked in fine form despite his surgery in late 2008. I'm sure he will be firing on all sonic cylinders when the E Street Band is out on tour beginning in April 2009.