But you know, we went all the way from “Breakfast in Bed” which is the one song that really took us a long time to write because it was more of a sophisticated-type song for Dusty Springfield - we were writing it for her… Thank God she cut it, you know.
Oh yeah. Really. Well, the next person I want to ask about is another good friend of yours, Dan Penn. Dan, oh God, Dan and I’ve been together for… from the first day he come to town when he was about 17 years old and there’s another one who is just a brilliant writer. We all know that. He’s like a brother to me and we’re still very close. He came through town just about a week ago and me and him and our wives had dinner here in Muscle Shoals. But he ain’t easy, you know what I’m sayin’? (laughs)
When I talk about Eddie, I talk about when he first moved to town, he and I hit it off and got together and we had a lot of success writing and we wrote a ton of songs together. Eddie was his own person, you know, and he was hard-headed and obviously we, a lot of us, in- cluding me, had a lot of problems. But he was one of the most talented people that I’ve ever been around. I mean, I could name you so many different instances when it was just he and I in the studio. After we wrote a song, we recorded a demo for it and I just loved to watch him. I’d wind up playing some little something on there but he would play the drums, bass, whatever - he could play any- thing and play it great, you know. He was a great drummer and obviously could sing. so… He had that great “Otis” voice and was great guitar player. I just remember him being one of my favorite people, one of my favorite peo- ple to work with and we wrote some of my very favorite songs together. “Breakfast in Bed” and “Three Hundred Pounds of Hun- gry.”
That’s one of my favorites, man, I tell ya, I love that. (he’s laughing)
Yeah. He’s tough to deal with sometimes but you know you gotta be sometimes...
Oh yeah. But he’s a brilliant writer and I love working with him, but he’s his own man. He doesn’t go by anybody’s rules but his own, you know. He’s a very special person to me. Very special. Yeah. No doubt.
I got two more. One of ‘em is one of my favorite, favorite songwriters and performers, John Prine. Oh, John. Man, I love John Prine. I’ve been getting to see him some lately and I don’t know if you’ve seen my documentary yet... that they did… John is in it. John is just one of my closest, again, another really close friend that we met through Steve Goodman. Stevie was opening for us at a club in Chicago and of course, that’s where they came out of. John either was still a mail man or had just quit being a mailman. This was when he was like 21 or 22 years old. And he had already written “Sam Stone” and “Hello in There” at
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79