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Joe Smith interviewed Stan Getz on August 7, 1986 during the writing of Off the Record–his oral history of rock and roll. Joe interviewed more than 240 music artists and executives from 1986-88.

In 2012, he donated a trove of 238 hours of interviews on cassette tapes to the Library of Congress. Listen to the full interview catalog.

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Joe Smith was a longtime record executive and one-time radio DJ.

Let me tell you what I think is a funny story about drugs. We played at the Holyoke Arena with Woody Herman’s band on an afternoon concert, nine acts of vaudeville and they had on it a trained bear. The trained bear came out. This was a big bear. This guy had to be nine feet or something.

It was afternoon, Holyoke Arena, and the bear came out and the two on each side of Sam Marowitz, the lead alto player who was very straight-laced, no drugs, no drinking, were Serge, Zoot, Al Cohn and I, stoned.

The bear was doing his thing with the trainer, comes around. His arm goes … At one point, the bear came around and his arm went over the saxophone section like this and could’ve killed five guys at once. Only Sam Marowitz had to duck because the rest of us were sitting there reading the music with the bear and so stoned we never knew the bear came over us.

They used to claim that Woody’s band were faggots because we were so stoned we didn’t care to go for the women. There were no faggot on that band. Jazz music is a man’s game. Let’s face it.

Even when you were so much involved with both drugs and alcohol, you played well.

We played well all the time. You can do anything with practice. I’m sure we could’ve played better if we weren’t.

I’m a recovered alcoholic. I don’t do anything anymore, but those things, those things take away … You’re a different personality completely when you take those. For those who are really chemically dependent on anything, it’s not you. Of course, I’ve done some dastardly things, but what can I do except make amends and apologize? Since I stopped drinking, which is almost a year ago, I’ve started to feel like I’m a member of the world. I never was. I was so fucked up all my life.

I had a 10-year heroin habit and kicked that. Then I became an alcoholic. I drank two fifth’s a day.

What finally triggered this [crosstalk]

It’s just like they say at Alcoholics Anonymous. I was either and/or going insane or I was going to die. I was one of those guys who was in constant denial. Look, I work. I do my job. I support my family, boom. I do everything I was supposed to do. If I want a drink, fuck you, I’ll drink.

It’s a disease and it took me that long. It took me 45 years from the time I was 15 until I was now and I just wouldn’t believe it. I could drink. I’d get up there and play and I don’t remember. Most of my records I don’t remember making.

Do you enjoy playing in front of people, concerts, tours?

More and more these days when I’m alcohol-free now and even to see the world around me, I appreciate it, but I never truly enjoy too much of it maybe because I feel like I’m a working musician. There are some joyous moments, but I will not think a joyous moment. Hearing myself so much all the time, I don’t think I sound that special all the time because it’s me.

Do you get tired of being a musician at all or are there times when … ?

The day that I think I’ve got it done maybe I will until then, no. It’s different every night.

He was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 2, 1927

Getz’s family later moved to New York City where his mother originally hoped he would become a doctor or a professor

He got his first saxophone when he was 13 and was playing professionally at 15, soon becoming a star playing with Woody Herman’s band

“Going into this drugstore, I demanded more narcotics. I said I had a gun” – Getz recalling what happened in Seattle in 1954 while addicted to heroin

“Jazz Samba” recorded by Getz and Charlie Byrd sold a half million albums, making it the only jazz album ever to top Billboard’s pop chart

Getz died of liver cancer on June 6, 1991

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio “Pennies From Heaven”

Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz “One Note Samba”

Stan Getz “Lush Life”

Stan Getz and Bill Evans “Night and Day”

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Keith Altham sat down with Jimi Hendrix in London on September 11, 1970. This would turn out to be Hendrix’s final interview.

We discovered this tape in the archives of Rocksbackpages.com

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Keith Altham is a rock music journalist, broadcaster and press agent who has interviewed the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Marvin Gaye and more.

Do you feel personally that you’ve got enough money now to live comfortably?

Ah, I don’t think so. Not the way I’d like to live. Because like I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into an indoor swimming pool. And then swim to the breakfast table, you know, come up for air and get maybe a drink of orange juice or something like that. Then just fold up on from the chair into the swimming pool and swim into the bathroom and, you know, go and shave or whatever…

You don’t want to live just comfortably, you want to live luxuriously?

No, is that luxurious? I was thinking about a tent maybe overhanging a mountain stream. [laughs]

It does appear, doesn’t it, the days of the baubles and bangles and the freaky hairstyle have all disappeared.

Yeah, but see everybody goes through those stages… The first time around when you wear all these different things, you know. I just did that because I felt like I was being too loud or something. because my nature just changes, you know. Well I don’t want it to be only hyped up on all the visual thing, you know. I wanted people to like listen, too. I don’t know if they were or not though. It started to bring me down a little bit so I started cutting my hair. And started… rings disappearing one by one. [laughs]

One time I said: maybe I should burn a guitar tonight. You know [laughs] smash a guitar or something like that. And they said: yeah, yeah! I said: you really think I should? They said: yeah, that’d be cool. I said: well, ok. So like I just worked up enough anger where I could do it, you know. But like I didn’t know it was anger until they told me that it was, like with destruction and all that. But I believe everybody should have like a room where they can get rid of all their releases, where they can do their releases at. So my room is a stage. [laughs]

I mean, it has been said of you that you invented psychedelic music.

[chuckles] A mad scientist approach. The way I write things, I just write them with a clash between reality and fantasy mostly. You have to use fantasy to show different sides of reality; it’s how it can bend. As a word reality is nothing, but each individual’s own way of thinking. Then the establishment grabs a big piece of that.

You know all I write is what I feel that’s all. I don’t really round it off too good. I just keep it naked almost, you know. And like when we go to play, you know, you’re flipping around and flashing around and everything. They’re not going to see nothing but what their eyes see, you know. Forget about their ears. So like well I was trying to do too many things at the same time, which is my nature, you know. I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player or only as a songwriter. Or only as a music tap dancer. Something like this. [chuckles]

I think certain people think of your music as essentially as “angry music.” As raging against perhaps the establishment principles.

Oh it’s not raging against it. If it was up to me there’d be no such thing as the establishment, you know. It’s the blues that’s all I’m singing about. Today’s blues.

Do you have any politics in fact yourself?

Not really. I was getting ready to get into all that, but like everybody goes through that stage, too. I just… it all comes out in the music most of the time. We have this one song called “Straight Ahead.” And it just says, like, power to the people, freedom to the soul. Pass it on to the young and old. We don’t give a damn if your hair is short or long. Communication is coming on strong. And all this kind of stuff, you know.

What are the things that you would like to see change?

Oh, I don’t know. More color in the streets probably. I mean [chuckles] I really don’t know. If there’s a new idea, a new invention, or a new gas, or a new whatever you know, It should be brought at least into the open instead of carrying these same old burdens around with you. You have to be a freak in order to be different. And freaks they are very prejudiced. you have to have your hair long and talk in a certain way in order to be with them.

In order to be the other way you have to have your hair short and wear ties. So we’re trying to make a third world happen, you know what I mean? There are too many heavy songs out nowadays. music has been getting too heavy, almost to the state of unbearable. I have this one little saying: when things get too heavy just call me helium–the lightest known gas to man. [laughs]

You talk quite a bit about audio visual importance, too. The importance of a having a film with your music. Now are you thinking in terms of the days when we can fit a cassette into the side of our television and play music and a film together or, I mean…

Yeah, a lot of people are making more money than they ever had nowadays. So when they get their flat they can…. they always find themselves with an extra room. So like this extra room could be a whole audio-visual environment. They could go in there, you know, just lay back, and the whole thing blossoms out with this color and sound type of scene. You can go in here and jingle out your nerves or something, you know.

Keith Altham interviewed Hendrix a total of eight times over the years. According to Altham, Hendrix was “rambling” and showing signs of ill health during this their final interview together. Hendrix drank Mateus Rosé during the interview. More from Altham:

“He wasn’t in the best physical shape five days before his death. He had been going through a difficult period with drugs and stress and tension and the (new group) Band of Gypsys, which he had brought together, hadn’t quite come off as he’d hoped it would.”

Hear the full interview at Rock’s Backpages 

Hendrix’s birth name was Johnny Allen Hendrix. He was born November 27, 1942 in Seattle while his father, Al, was away fighting in World War II. When Al returned home three years later, the couple changed Johnny’s name to James Marshall Hendrix.

The reason for the name change is unknown, but it is speculated that Lucille, Hendrix’s mother, had an affair with a man named John Williams and when Al found out, he had the boy’s name changed. The boy may not have noticed, since everyone called him ‘Buster’ anyway.

In 1961, Hendrix enlisted in the United States Army and earned the right to wear the “Screaming Eagles” patch for the paratroop division.

While stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Jimmy formed The King Casuals.

Paul Allen, the billionaire who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, is a massive Jimi Hendrix fan. Such a big fan, in fact, that he wanted to build a museum dedicated to the musician in their mutual hometown of Seattle.

That idea latter blossomed into the Experience Music Project, a museum dedicated to pop culture that is housed in a controversial (some folks think it’s ugly) Frank Gehry-designed building that opened in 2000.

Allen also has a massive collection of Hendrix memorabilia. It’s rumored that he shelled out $2 million the 1968 Stratocaster that Hendrix played at Woodstock.

Here are some gems from the museum:

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Jimi Hendrix

“Trash Man”

“Hush Now”

“Message of Love”

“Straight Ahead”

“Come on (Let The Good Times Roll)”

Keith Altham

AP

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Joe interviewed Barry White in Los Angeles on April 3, 1987 during the writing of Off the Record–his oral history of rock and roll. Joe interviewed more than 240 music artists and executives from 1986-88.

In 2012, he donated a trove of 238 hours of interviews on cassette tapes to the Library of Congress. Listen to Joe’s full interview catalog.

Joe Smith was a longtime record executive and one-time radio DJ.

I didn’t mind working in the clubs, but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out. Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that. It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives… everybody.

I laid my clothes out the night before school started. And my birthday’s Sept. 12th, so school happened to hit this year on my birthday. This was my 18th birthday. I was getting ready to graduate. I was at an all-boys school. Bad boys. Called Jacob A Riis.

This was in L.A.?

Yeah. Southeast Los Angeles. But when I got up the next morning, I wasn’t going to school, Joe. Something said, “you’re going to Hollywood today.” I was standing there combing my hair in the mirror and I said: “mama, i’m not going to school today.” She went crazy: “baby, you gotta go to school. This is your last semester. You’re going to graduate.“ “I got to go to Hollywood. Today.”

I walked all the way up to Hollywood and Vine and I stood on the left corner facing Capitol, before you cross over. Capitol Records always represented Hollywood to me. I stood there about 3.5 – 4 hours. Just looking.

Just looking.

Looking at the cars. Looking at the people moving, people with briefcases. It really inspired me. I knew that’s where I wanted to be.

What was it like around Hollywood for a young guy trying to make it?

Very tough. If you were a young kid, 19, 20 years old who has two children and a third one on the way and refuses to leave them. A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody’s property or take anybody’s money. You found life a lot tougher.

I came into it knowing what I had to offer. All I had was the will and the love for music. I couldn’t read music or write it. No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll, no clothes, no nothing. But what I loved about it was, you were always able to meet somebody interesting that was doing something.

See, I’m the boy with the flapping shoes. I’m the one who was not embarrassed to walk up in front of you with his flapping shoes and ask you did you have anything for me to do. I knew I didn’t know. I never came into this industry with an ego, ever in my life. I knew I had to learn. I knew I had to earn that car. I knew I had to earn those shoes. I had to earn that coat to wear in Hollywood and I wanted to earn it in Hollywood.

Everyone to me has to pick a subject to talk about in music if you’re going to be a writer. Mine is love, because I know when a man’s making love the last thing he thinks about is war.

I guess so…

Ok, the last thing he thinks about is how he can blow up a nation. Fleas fuck. Flies, snakes, everybody’s into love-making, Joe.

Besides that, it’s the most powerful element that men and women possess. Most of us don’t know what… how to use it, but we all possess it. The women used the music to get their men to relate to them better: “talk to me, tell me what’s on your mind.” Men used the music to get the girls in the mood to make love. So either way you had it, Barry White is the one artist who actually was in your bedroom with you at your most sacred, sensuous moment of your life.

Alot of baby’s have been named Barry. The Barry-Boom that was the baby boom in the ‘74 that they wrote about. One of the greatest highlights of my career then was Ted Kennedy when he printed in print that the only music he listens to in his yacht and in his home is Barry White’s music

My philosophy is you have to be loyal to something. You can’t be a whore all your life, man. I think that there’s a time when people give their words to each other it has to mean something. I’m a street cat. See I’ve belonged in gangs and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Barry White

“It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me”

“You’re The First, The Last, My Everything”

“Playing Your Game, Baby”

“Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe”

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John interviewed John Updike in New York City in spring 2002. He recorded the conversation on microcassette.

Read John’s profile of Updike in his book How to Read a Novelist.

John Freeman is an award-winning writer and book critic who has written for numerous publications.

I was trying to get away from the hassle and the expense of the city. And if I was going to be a New York culture vulture, I shouldn’t have gotten married and had children. Basically children are very… They pin you down. And if I was going to be pinned down, if we were going to be pinned down, why not be pinned down at least somewhere where we could park the car for free and get some free air, grass and sunshine and so on. [laughter]

I didn’t know (coughs) when we moved (coughs) that I‘d be up there for the rest of my life. I thought to become a serious american writer, one ought to write a novel or two. I was a New Yorker contributor and I hadn’t written a novel, so I gave myself this sabbatical which stretched then into a lifestyle that lasted all my life.

I sat in this rented house in this north shore town and after writing a couple of short stories, which they took so I knew I wouldn’t starve… Yet… meanwhile we were getting used to the town and to country-suburban living. And bought a house. I actually begged the Guggenheim grant so I could feel I could take a break from trying to write and sell short stories. It was a mere thousand dollars in those days, but a thousand dollars went a much longer way than it does now. And, I felt, too… I’d said I was a Pennsylvanian Dutch, Dutchman and I thought if I’d taken the money I oughta write the book. So I wrote Rabbit Run. In… for much of ‘59, much of 1959… so that is how I wrote Rabbit Run.

As somebody who’s had a family of your own and has been producing an innumerable amount of work every year over 50 years, how did you strike that balance?

In those days, you know the man worked and earned the bread. And the wife took care of the children, whether it was one, or, as in my case four. After the children got to be, ah, four in number and all very young. Pretty noisy. They couldn’t help it. My wife suggested I get out of the house. For her too in a way. There is something very nice about having children in a home. They bring into it all the new things. The new gadgets. The new words. So that it’s a plus for a writer up to a point to have children around. But after awhile they do get to be distracting. So I rented a room and tried to go to work.

But I was seeing it as a job and as a livelihood. I think I was maybe the last generation that could actually try to enter the literary profession, as if it was a trade and something you did and you produced a product that was useful enough that you’d get paid for it. And now I think it’s harder. There were a lot more magazines that paid for short stories and a dollar went a long way. Well I have been re-reading my old short stories and of course the sums of money that people dealing with is laughable. Two men eating lunch in a New York restaurant for less than five dollars [laughs] I could hardly believe these figures, but there they were.

What brings you to your writing desk every morning?

To put the more fearful anxiety ridden spin on this, there is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say. You neglected somehow that the key thing. It’s not likely. I’ve written a lot. I must have somewhere touched on almost every aspect of my life and experience. Nevertheless there’s this haunting fear that maybe the thing you left out is finally going to be captured. [laughs]

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Latche Swing

“Hungaria”

“Rhythme Gitane”

Jackson F. Smith

“Cantina Rag”

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Benjamin interviewed Tupac in a restaurant in Hollywood in March 1994. He was writing a profile that ran in Entertainment Weekly. Read Benjamin’s book Leading Man.

Benjamin Svetkey is an author and former writer and editor at Entertainment Weekly.

May I have the vegetable spring roll and dungeness crab cake.

What do you think is going to happen in 15 years for you? 10 years. Where do you see yourself?

Best case: in a cemetery. Not in a cemetery. Sprinkled in ashes, smoked up by my homies. Worst case… I mean that’s the worst case. That’s the worst case. That’s the worst case. Best case: multimillionaire. Owning all of this shit. You know what I’m saying? Because anywhere else, if I was white I would have been like John Wayne. You know what I’m saying? Somebody who pulled himself up from their bootstraps. From poverty. From welfare. Now I am kissing Janet Jackson. I’m doing movies. I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play, you know what i’m saying?

I’m not really that educated. You know. And I’m not really a religious person. But I believe that God wants me to do something and it has to do with Thug Life. You know I want there to be a life for the street element. Instead of we always getting shut out. You know. Instead of defenseless, having power.

Well my mother was a woman. A black woman. A single mother. Raising two kids on her own. So she was dark skinned. Had short hair. Got no love from nobody except for a group called the Black Panthers. So that’s why she was a Black Panther. Because I don’t consider myself to be straight, you know, militant. You know what i’m saying? I’m a thug. I’m a thug. And my thug comes from… my definition of thug comes from half of the street element. Straight street hustling. And half of the Panther element. Half of the independence movement. Saying we want self-determination. We want to do it by self-defense and by any means necessary. That came from my family and that’ s what thug life is. It’s a mixture.

How do people treat you differently? The people that you grew up with. Now that you’re famous.

They believe in the machine, not Tupac. They don’t even know me no more. They just know about the machine.

You mean the press machine.

Yeah.

Is that painful for you?

Uh-huh. Everybody wants to use me. Everybody. From this level to the street level. I mean I’m used on every level. I have no friends. I have no resting place. I never sleep. I can never close my eyes. It’s horrible. Can you imagine what it’s like for you to be who I am, who I was, and for them to say that I raped a woman? And for the whole world to actually be entertaining the thought that you raped a woman. That’s hell.

You’re feeling ripped off by the press.

I am being ripped off, because I’ve never lied to the press. Just as much truth I bring to my work, a journalist should bring that much truth to their work. Why do I have honor and you guys don’t have honor? I’m not a fucking journalist? I’m a thug.

Do you think you’ll prevail in court?

I have to see. I believe in God. Whatever supposed to happen supposed to happen. But I can not live in a jail cell. That’s why I don’t rob people and stick up people. But for you to put me there and I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t go that route. I would die in jail. And that’s what they want. They want me to go through that. Then come out. I’m already dead. No creativity. I’m finished.

There’s a machine that I have nothing to do with. It’s called the ”Tupac Machine.“ And the media in this country has just fueled it and made me a monster that people just… They say I’m a criminal. They say I spit hateful, vicious, violent lyrics. You know I’m ready to be the bad guy. They gave me that job. I’m ready to have it.

When Dan Quayle was suggesting that your album should be pulled off the racks and stuff like that, in a way that could have been the best publicity you could have gotten for the album.

I don’t see that as being the “best publicity you could’ve gotten.” Who wants the Vice President of the country that you live in. The country that you are ready to defend to say that your music is not fit without him even having listened to your album. Without him having known you or to meet you. For him to just make that. To say it out loud over the air.

So you were hurt by that?

I was crushed. Crushed.

Do you have some great respect for Dan Quayle?

No, I just have respect for government. A little respect for government to say, you know, how could you do that? You know what I’m saying?

Do you see yourself as a role model?

No. I see myself as real. Like I mean if I was the President I would have a responsibility, because people put me there. Nobody put me here. They just buy my records. They wouldn’t buy my records if my records wasn’t good. I’m being who i am in the record.

Is there anything that’s giving you comfort these days?

Recently Madonna came to me. Madonna, um… I met Madonna. She is a supporter.

What was that like? Tell me about that.

She told me: “they treat you like the Antichrist and I’ve been through that before and I just want to be a friend.”

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Jane Marie

Meet our team

Tupac

“I Get Around”

“Shorty Want to Be A Thug”

“Hail Mary”

“Changes”

“So Many Tears”

AP

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Paul interviewed Princess Grace on June 19, 1965 at the Palace of the Principality in Monaco.

The interview was part of the Oral History Program conducted on behalf of the John F. Kennedy Library with the purpose to collect and preserve interviews with people who had recollections of events and/or were associated with John F. Kennedy.

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Paul Gallico was a novelist, short story and sports writer.

Another side of him I remember… well he turned to me suddenly and asked: “Is that a Givenchy you’re wearing?” And I said, “Why how clever of you, Mr. President! However did you know?” “Oh,” he replied, “I’m getting pretty good at it—now that fashion is becoming more important than politics and the press is paying more attention to Jackie’s clothes than to my speeches.

Was this the first time that you had met the President?

Well actually, no. The first time was before he became President, during that year that he was in the hospital in New York with his back. I had been to a dinner party where I had met Mrs. Kennedy and her sister [Lee Bouvier Kennedy] for the first time. They asked me to go to the hospital with them to pay a visit to help cheer him up. They wanted me to go into his room and say I was the new night nurse.

Did you?

Well I hesitated. I was terribly embarrassed. Eventually I was sort of pushed into the room by the two girls. I introduced myself, but he had recognized me at once and couldn’t have been sweeter or more quick to put me at ease.

When today you think of the late President Kennedy [John F. Kennedy], what is it that comes to your mind most vividly—or, shall we say, to your heart?

His youth. He was one of my own generation, so that for the first time in my life I became deeply involved, spiritually, and sympathetically, with the presidency—the office as well as the man. I felt personally involved.

Speaking as an American?

Oh, yes, as a born American but also as the wife of the head of an independent European country. We felt somehow that at last the United States had a leader who, from the point of view of age, appearance, and dynamic personality, genuinely reflected his era. My husband often remarked what a pity it was that a great country like America, which in Europe is still regarded as such a young nation, should be represented seemingly only by old or infirm men.

From the moment he became President, it seemed as though a wave of excitement ran through all of the young painters, poets, writers and musicians of the United States. Now that someone of their own age was in the White House, there was somehow a better chance for them to be seen or heard.

I remember the luncheon that we were privileged to have at the White House. I kept the menu. I’m one of those people who keep everything. We had soft-shelled crabs and spring lamb and strawberries Romanov. Mrs. Kennedy and I fell into woman talk with a discussion of our children of course—our two Carolines [Caroline Bouvier Kennedy; Princess Caroline]—and our special problems connected with bringing them up. I remember Jacqueline was very upset about that time at the photographers who were hounding the children. She was determined that Caroline and John [John F. Kennedy, Jr.] should be able to get in and out of the White House without being pestered by photographers, or being made constantly aware of their position.

Do you feel that his life—and death, will have any lasting effect upon international relationships?

Are you asking me whether I think that President Kennedy died in vain?

In a sense, yes.

Well, it might not seem so today, but I, for one, cannot believe that a man of Mr. Kennedy’s stature and achievements was put upon this earth for no other purpose than to stop an assassin’s bullet. I believe that God allows these certain tragedies to happen in order to emphasize the man and his achievements and to inspire those who follow to have the strength and the will to accomplish his unfulfilled dreams.

We discovered this rare interview thanks to independent producer Steve Atlas who stumbled, quite by chance, across this extraordinary collection of audio recordings deep in the stacks of the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Hear more reflections on JFK in the hourlong public radio special, We Knew JFK, from First Person Productions and PRX.

Today the collection numbers over 1200 interviews, and constitutes perhaps the most extensive oral history collection ever amassed on a single individual. Learn more at JFK Archives and listen to the full interview with Grace Kelly here.

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Frances Gall “Pense a Moi”

Johnny Ripper “Loading…”

Julius Hemphill “Sextet The Hard Blues”

Advent Chamber Orchestra “Concerto for 2 Oboes in Fmajor op9 No3 Allegro”

Xpurm Brple

Cecil Stoughton

Robert L. Knudsen

White House Photographs

JFK Library

UPI

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Jerry Garcia was interviewed by phone on May 23, 1988. At the time, Joe was writing Off the Record–his oral history of rock and roll. Joe interviewed more than 240 music artists and executives from 1986-88.

In 2012, Joe donated a trove of 238 hours of interviews on cassette tapes to the Library of Congress. Listen to the Joe’s full interview catalog here.

Read More

Joe Smith was a longtime record executive and one-time radio DJ.

So when the band finally fell into place as The Warlocks it was basically what was the Grateful Dead.

Absolutely. Kreutzmann. Me, Phil…

Pig and Bobby, huh?

That’s right.

And what did it sound like?

It sounded like hell. It sounded really awful for the first few gigs [LAUGHS].

Was it The Warlocks very long before you became the Dead?

About a year.

And what triggered the new identity?

Well we finally discovered that there was a band that was recording using the name Warlocks. We thought: “oh, shit, we can’t have that kind of confusion.” So we went on the band hunt, you know, looking for a name.

The name came from whom? Who dug it up?

Well I found it in an old dictionary at Phil’s house. I just opened it up and there I saw “the Grateful Dead.”

Jesus. You could have been… could you imagine what would have happened: the Warlockheads. The dictionary changed society.

It absolutely did. Yes, it did.

That was about the time we fell in with the acid tests with Kesey and those guys. We had starting taking acid ourselves while we were still The Warlocks. We didn’t do it at shows. At the time we were playing the divorcees’ bars up and down the peninsula. You know. Our booking agent was this guy who used to book strippers and dog acts and magicians and everybody else. It was the standard gig: six nights a week, five sets a night. Standard bar stuff. We were doing that for about a year. And, you know, after that you’re ready for anything.

We knew a lot of the people in Kesey’s scene, because it was all part of the Palo Alto scene, which we were a part of. And they knew of us. The one guy, named Paige, who was one of the Pranksters, came to one of our late night sets at one of the bar’s we were playing at.

He said: “Hey, you guys, we’re having these parties up at Kesey’s place in La Honda [California] every Saturday night, why don’t you guys come?” I said: “well, we’re working all the time.”

Luckily the following week we got fired. And we had nothing to do. So Saturday night came around. We went to the first one of those parties, which later became the Acid Tests.

What did you do there? It was just experimenting?

No. We just set up the equipment. Everybody got high. And stuff would happen. Now Kesey and his Pranksters have been doing this for a long time, so they had instruments and they played weird music. But mostly it was completely free. There was no real performance of any kind involved. Everybody there was as much performer as audience. You know.

These guys had never been confronted with a regular rock and roll band, you know. And we plugged our gear in which looked like space age, military nightmare stuff. Compared to all their stuff, which was all hand painted and real funky you know.

And WHAM, we played for about five minutes. Then we all freaked out. You know. We played for about five minutes, but it completely devastated everyone. So they begged us to come back to the next one. And that’s how it happened essentially.

When you guys now you’re doing some acid, you were playing around. What did you expect to be? Were you going to be a Beatles? Were you going to be a great rock n roll… what were you going to do?

We didn’t really care whether we went somewhere specifically. We mostly wanted to have fun. And when we fell in with the acid tests we a started having the most fun we’d ever had ever. More than than we could have ever….. I mean it was just incredible.

And how long did that go on?

For about six months. But that was probably the most important six months in terms of directionality. Because the neat thing about the acid tests was we could play if we wanted to. But if it was too weird, we could always not play. So that was the only time we ever had the option of not playing.

I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large. You know what I mean? You can go out and follow the Grateful Dead around. And you have your war stories. Something like hopping railroads. Something like that. Or being on the road like Cassidy and Kerouac.

That’s interesting.

But you can’t do those types of things anymore. But you can be a Deadhead. You can get in your van and go with the other Deadheads across the States and meet it on your own terms. Sort of a niche for it, in a way.

Joe Smith signed the Dead in 1967 while at Warner Brothers. He recalled a conversation he had with the band about an upcoming album:

“[The band] came up with the artwork and brought it down to a big meeting with all of our people. And the title was ‘Skull Fuck. I said, ‘I think we’re going to have a little problem with that … You worked all this time. You’ll sell 20 records in head shops, and they won’t pay you.’ So they said, ‘OK, what do you want to call it?’ I said, ‘Live/Dead.’ And that one sold about 600,000 double albums.”

Smith worked with the band during their first six albums with Warner Bros. and even sent them to New York to record after they were barred from the LA studios.

“It was a trip for eight, nine years with the Grateful Dead … They did so much acid that it was very hard to separate reality from make-believe with them.”

Jerry Garcia was always trying to get Smith to join in.

“Jerry said, ‘You’ll never understand the music until you turn on with us.’ I wouldn’t breathe around them. Wouldn’t drink anything. Wouldn’t eat anything,” Smith remembers, laughing.

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Grateful Dead

“Franklin’s Tower”

“Cream Puff War”

“Golden Road”

“Friend of the Devil”

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Jon interviewed Kurt Cobain in a hotel room in New York City on July 22, 1993. He recorded the interview on cassette tape. We uncovered this interview RocksBackPages.com.

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Jon Savage is a writer, broadcaster, and music journalist.

Did you have problems in high school?

Yeah. You know I felt so different and so crazy that people just left me alone. I always felt that they would vote me “Most likely to kill everyone at a high school dance.” You know?

My mother has always tried to keep a little bit of English culture in our family. Like we’d drink tea all the time. You know? Although I’ve never really known my ancestry. I didn’t even know until this year that the name Cobain was Irish. I found out through different phone books throughout America, I couldn’t find any Cobains at all. So I started calling Coburns and I found this one lady in San Francisco and she had been researching our family history. And it came from County Cork, which is a weird coincidence, because when we toured we played in Cork and the entire day I walked around in a daze. I’d never felt more spiritual in my life. I was almost in tears the whole day. It was the weirdest thing.

I had a really good childhood until the divorce. Then all of a sudden my whole world changed. I couldn’t face some of my friends at school.I desperately wanted to have the classic, typical family. Mother, father.

Because I couldn’t find any friends, male friends that I felt compatible with, I ended up hanging out with the girls a lot. And I just always felt that they weren’t treated with respect. Especially because women are just totally oppressed. I mean the words bitch and cunt were totally common. Although I listened to Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, and I really did enjoy some of the melodies they’d written, it took me so many years to realize that a lot of it had to do with sexism.

The way that they just wrote about their dicks and having sex. I was just starting to understand what really was pissing me off so much, those last couple of years of high school. And then punk rock was exposed and then it all came together. It just fit together like a puzzle. It expressed the way I felt socially and politically. Just everything. You know. It was the anger that I felt. The alienation.

Did you have problems with people thinking that you were gay?

Yeah. I even thought that I was gay. I thought that might be the solution to my problem. Although I never experimented with it, I had a gay friend and then my mother wouldn’t allow me to be friends with him anymore because, well, she’s homophobic. It was real devastating because finally I’d found a male friend who I actually hugged and was affectionate to and we talked about a lot of things.

So did you stop?

Yeah, I couldn’t hang out with him anymore.

Tell me how do you sing?

Most of the time I sing right from my stomach. Right from where my stomach pain is. Every time I’ve had an endoscope, they find a red irritation in my stomach. But it’s all from anger. And screaming. I mean not only is my stomach has inflamed irritation, but I have scoliosis. And the weight of the guitar has made my back grow in this curvature. So it gives me a back pain all the time. You know? I’m always in pain, too, and that really adds to the anger in our music. It really does. I’m kind of grateful for it in a way.

Maybe you’re feeling a bit better now…

Yeah. Especially since I’ve been married and I’ve had a child. You know within the last year, my whole mental state and my physical state has almost improved one hundred percent. I haven’t felt this optimistic since right before the divorce. You know? [laughs]

Upon hearing of Cobain’s death, his mother, Wendy O’Connor, said, “Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club.”

She was referring to joining rock stars like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison who died at an early age.

“Mad? Ya think?! If he came back right now I’d have to kill him, for what he did to us. I’d fucking kill him. I’d fuck him, and then I’d kill him.”

– Courtney Love when asked if she was angry with Cobain for killing himself

Nearly two decades after Kurt Cobain’s death, the Seattle Police Department released 35 never-before-seen pictures from their investigation when Cobain was found dead in his Seattle-area home in April 1994.

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter, Frances Bean, was just 20 months old when her dad died. Now she’s the executive producer behind the new documentary, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck. Watch the trailer

Cobain kept journals throughout his life – here are a few from the archives, courtesy of Brainpickings

How many people were introduced to legendary bluesman Leadbelly through Nirvana’s unplugged performance of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night“?

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Jane Marie

Nirvana

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

“Pennyroyal Tea”

“Love Buzz”

“Lithium (Acoustic)”

Crass “Bata Motel”

AP

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Joe interviewed Ray Charles on June 3, 1987 during the writing of Off the Record–his oral history of rock and roll. Joe interviewed more than 240 music artists and executives from 1986-88.

In 2012, he donated a trove of 238 hours of interviews on cassette tapes to the Library of Congress. Listen to Joe’s full interview catalog.

Joe Smith was a longtime record executive and one-time radio DJ.

This is America. I don’t give a damn what anybody tell you, this is America. And I love it. So if somebody don’t like something that I do, that’s his or her prerogative. Just like it’s mine.

See my mom taught me a lot, man. A lot about minding your own business and leaving other people’s business alone. And let them think what they want. I mean I can’t help what I sound like. What I sound like is what i am. You know? I cannot be anything other that what I am.

I don’t sing “Georgia” like the record. I sing “Georgia” true. I sing “Hit The Road Jack” true. I sing what I sing true. Each night I sing it the way I feel that night.

Ain’t no way in the fuck I can sing “Georgia” the same way I played it on the day. Because I’d have to go and study myself and learn. I mean it really would be a chore. That’s why I can’t lip-sync.

Somebody asked me one time how I feel about being called a genius. Do I feel I have to live up to something? You know it ain’t that kind of ballgame. I feel that whatever people say about me or call me… You know I mean all the little adjectives and different things that people have put on me and things said about… I had nothing to do with that. I never said I was a genius. I never said I was a cornerstone. I’ve never said I’m a legend in my own time. You never heard me say nothing like that. You know, what I got to live up to is being myself. If I do that the rest will take care of itself.

I think that most great artists who are extremely known, as I am, would intimidate a lot of people. I don’t want to do that to people, but I know I do. yes. When I’m having a rehearsal and there are new guys who come in to try out for the job, I always let my conductor rehearse them. Because I don’t want the guy to get bent out of shape, because I walk in. I always stay out of the rehearsal room you know when they first come in. Then once they had chance to play a little bit, then I walk in. Because I’ve seen guys fall apart, man.

I remember the first time I went to Carnegie Hall and normally you would think that you’d be scared stiff. At least that’s what you’re supposed to be according to what everybody… Wherein for me, as opposed to being scared I was so glad… something I always wanted all my …. If i ever got to Carnegie… You ever have something in your mind and you say “oh, lord, this is ultimate of my goal.” I couldn’t wait to get out on stage. So I never was nervous. I was so happy to be able to play Carnegie Hall and be there. I guess I didn’t take time to say: “look fool, you better get nervous about this first.” [laughter]

The public has supported me, man. Do you know that? Even when I was nobody. Even through all the trials and tribulations and suffering and stuff i went through. They still stuck by me. And that’s why I believe in giving the public the best I got every night. I never go out there and half do. I don’t care how big the audience is. If we got 500 or 5,000, I work the sam, because I want those 500 to go back and say: “man, there wasn’t too many of us there, but boy they put on a hell of a show.”

I am still not quite used to it. I’m still sort of at awe when I go places in the world where they speak very little english and yet they know me on sight. They know my music. You know I really marvel at that. I still can’t quite grasp that. But isn’t it wonderful?

Still gives you a kick.

Yes indeed. It still gives me a kick.

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Ray Charles

“What’d I Say”

“Georgia On My Mind”

“Rockhouse”

“I Believe To My Soul”

National Archives

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Howard interviewed Janis Joplin by phone on September 30, 1970. This turned out to be the last interview Janis ever did. She died on October 4, 1970. Howard was writing for the Village Voice.

Howard Smith was an Oscar winning film director, broadcaster and journalist.

We were supposed to do an interview, do you remember, you know, a long time ago. And some article putting you down in Rolling Stone had just come out.

Yeah

And you got very upset about that. Are you still that upset when you are put down in any articles?

You know I should be able to get past that, you know. But I mean girls want to be reassured. Which is not to say that all people don’t. But I think women especially … I mean even though I know that those are just assholes that don’t know what they’re talking about and I should just continue with my music, you know. And let them either come into the show and listen, or go home and beat off. I don’t care what they do. I should be able to beat through that. But in my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn’t like me. You know, it’s silly. [laughs]

Because I remember that time you were very upset.

Well that was a pretty heavy time for me. It was really important, you know, whether people were going to accept me or not.

A lot of women have been saying that the whole field of rock music is nothing more than just a big, male, chauvinist rip-off. How do you…

Yeah?

Yeah. And when I say: “well what about Janis Joplin, she made it?” And they say: “oh, her.” And it seems to bother a lot of women’s lib people that you’re kind of so upfront sexually.

Well then that’s their problem. Not mine.I haven’t ever hardly talked with anyone in women’s lib. I haven’t been attacked by anyone yet. How can they attack me? I’m representing everything they said they want. You know what i mean? Well I have an opinion about this. It’s sort of like: you are what you settle for. Do you know what I mean? You’re only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody’s dishwasher that’s their own fucking problem. If you don’t settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you’ll end up anything you want to be. How can they attack me? I’m just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit and it worked. How can they be mad at that?

One girl I know said: well how come she doesn’t have any women in any of her groups?

[Laughs] You show me a good drummer and I’ll hire one. Show me a good chick… Besides I don’t want any chicks on the road with me.

You don’t?

I’ve got enough competition, man. [Laughs] No, I like to be around men. [Laughs]

Did all that shit I said about chicks sound bad?

No, you said what you wanted to say. Don’t be silly.

Well I don’t want to offend people. It’s just that like, you know, I have a certain set of circumstances I live under. Like you know all this repressive upbringing and things. I had that, too. You don’t think I had a repressive upbringing in Port Arthur, Texas? It’s just that it drove me crazy and I kept fighting against it. I don’t think you can talk anybody into fighting against it. If they don’t have it in themselves to need more. You know what I mean? Just plain need more. Then that’s that. If they do need more, they’ll get more. They’ll demand more. You know what i mean?

Okay. thanks a lot.

Sure enough.

Okay. Goodbye.

Bye

David Gerlach

Patrick Smith

Amy Drozdowska

Janis Joplin

“Cry Baby”

“Kozmic Blues”

“I Need A Man To Love”

“Summertime”

AP

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