Cover of the AARP and Other Stuff

Things we discuss in this episode:

My flooded basement apartment. Playing venues in Philadelphia…

There’s a section that got a little garbled, I guess due to a bad connection, Maybe Jay was walking through a dead zone in his house. For whatever reason, you may not be able to understand the audio. Don’t tune out, it gets clear again for the remainder of the show.

He was telling me how he started at the age of two singing on the Horn & Hardart Children’s Hour. Horn and Hardart was a “food service automat”, where all the food came out of vending machines. I remember how my mother would never let us go in. She used to tell us, you won’t like anything in there. I wasn’t crazy about eating baked beans anyway. Or a slice of pie that had been sitting inside of a vending machine of who knows how long?

Anyway, Jay went on to say how he started out banging out drumbeats on the dining room table and annoyed the hell out of people with his incessant drumming on everything. He eventually took  lessons but got bored. So he learned by listening to the records, eventually giving lessons the same way he wanted to learn. Taught drums by having drum students bring him the records with the songs they wanted to learn and just teach them to play those songs. I know some music teachers who hate guys like that.  If you’re not teaching the fundamentals, they look down their noses at you. Personally, I think there’s room for both teaching styles. Hey, what’s wrong with learning to play your favorite songs?

We swapped stories about his mom and Frank Sinatra’s mom

Drum Corp competitions.  Reilly’s Raiders in Willow Grove, PA (Still there!)

Shelter dogs, Carnegie Hall, the Navy, Hospital Corps, Dolly Sinatra, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra. Boots. Dorsey Brothers, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Brenda Lee, The Wagon Wheel, Mercury Records, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, getting signed by Clive Davis

Links to Videos, etc.

The Last Morning by Dr. Hook

Cover of The Rolling Stone by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show

Cover of the AARP – parody by Jay David (music by Shel Silverstein)

Cover of AARP Personnel

Jay David wrote and recorded based on the music of Shel Silverstein

Ooks of Hazzard played, and their drummer, Matt Tecu is the guy with the deep voice singing the 2nd verse

Janiva Magness – blues singer sang harmony. Here’s a little  taste of Janiva singing Make It Rain (and doing a Tom Waits song some serious justice)

Jay’s NEW BOOK IS OUT!
DON’T BLAME THE MUSIC
The Untold Story of Dr. Hook