Welcome to Big Blend Radio where we celebrate variety and how it adds spice to quality of life. Everybody, it is the fourth Sunday of the month. So that means Joey Stucky is back here on our Big Daily Blend Show and today's show we are going to dedicate it to American music. The musicians that created the sounds of the different regions of our country because August is American Artist Appreciation Month and that means painters, poets, musicians, songwriters, you name it, writers, all of them are in this wonderful world of America and creating music and that's what we're celebrating. So we've got Joey Stucky, as you know, he is the music ambassador of Macon, Georgia, which is the southern rock capital of the world. He is an award-winning blind guitarist, songwriter, singer, composer, producer, sound engineer. He can play with a bunch of knobs in a recording studio and he's blind. He knows how to make good music. He's got awesome ears, he's an amazing songwriter, and you've got to go get his live from Macon, Georgia, E.P. out that is out now. So go to joeystucky.com that is STU, C-K-E-Y. Yeah, like those signs you see on the billboards when you travel around the south, when you see those signs you're supposed to pull over and go see the Stucky's roadside attraction. Get some food, get some munchies in. So welcome back, Joey. How are you? I'm well, my friend is good to be with you. Hey, it's good to have you back. Nancy is here back on the show. I'm so excited. Yes. That's so funny. Yeah, well, you know what? It's the only day she's doing shows now. She did some last night and then it's back to work because, you know, I keep her at a cage as we travel. Oh, yeah, you have to. I understand. I mean, it's, you have no choice. Well, you know, I'm like, thank you. It's got to be political. But I'm like, Mitt Romney, you know how Mitt Romney puts dogs on the roof of his car. He dropped. I did not know that. He did. Do you know who lost votes when he ran for president because of that? Because he put his dog in a crate on the roof of his car when he was out running for, you know, Kennedy. I knew that I was going to do today. He made the dog owning population. And I shouldn't say owning pet parent, dog parent population. But still, you bought your dogs, didn't you? Some people still arrested them and paid for them. But yeah, so that's what he did with his dog and he lost votes over that. And I think he should if you did that. But he's not an all bad guy or anything. I'm just saying. But Nancy, no, she doesn't actually sit on the top of the car. She sits beside me and puts up with my very loud, terrible car karaoke singing. I lost my voice over the other day. Yeah, well, listen, if you're going to drive the Texas pan handle and a heatwave, what are you going to do? That's you know, you've got a point. Anything to stay on the road. Yeah, you do what you need to do. And we've had to do a lot of cross country drives recently. And eventually my voice. We've done crazy stuff what we were on tour. We've done some crazy stuff just to stay awake and stay safe, you know, trying to get ready to go. Yeah, we've done some crazy stuff. Yeah. I'm saving it for my book. Oh, come on. All right. Well, listen, we've also got Kathleen walls here. And we've wanted Kathleen on the same show as Joey. Kathleen is a massive music lover. She was born in New Orleans. And we're going to go there in a few like weeks. Seriously, we'll be there soon. Katie, that is going to be epic. So I'm calling you when we get there. But Katie is an author. She's a travel writer, photographer. You can keep up with her on Americanroads.net. And for her books, which she writes, travel books, she got travel guides, ghost stories, mysteries, fiction, nonfiction, mystery, murder, crime, because she does have that funky cool side of her brain about crime and killings. But also her latest book is all about music. It's called American music, born in the USA, a history of American music. You can get on Amazon. That link is in the episode notes. So it's Joey's and everything we talk about with links. I'm going to book the day as soon as we are done with the podcast. I'm going. Yeah, I got it. I got the book. And she writes not only. So when you hear about American music and born in the USA, you think of Bruce being seeing Nancy of Bruce, right? Born in the USA. But what I love about it is that she goes into the indigenous people's music. And I think the indigenous people really inspired a lot of rock and roll, quite frankly, on drumbeats and all kinds of things. And I could go down that rabbit hole for years, but they are left off of the American music scene so much that they had to have their own Grammys, the Nammies, right? And I'm glad they have their own too, because I think they have done so much justice to the landscape, the sound of this country. Like if you drive through certain areas, eyes open or close, Joey, there are feelings where you know, either way, you know when you drive through, or maybe not being the driver, right? Yeah, really? And there's Joey doing his song, "Blindman Driving." But when you go through these areas, you can feel like a present, an ancient presence. And their music, the right music fits it, you know what I mean? And I feel like their music is of the land and the heartbeat of this country, genuinely. And so I think Katie, you did a really good job about that in your book of not ignoring that as so many people have. So welcome back. How are you? Thank you. I'm doing fine. And you know, when I wrote the book, I wanted to include everybody, because so much of it is just one little feel. And our music is our culture. And that was really what drove me to it. Is our culture formed by the music? Or is the music formed by our culture? And I mean, I grew up in the rock and roll, the Chuck Berry, the hotrod Ford. And did we get a hotrod Ford ideas from listening to Chuck Berry? Did he get his song ideas from watching a bunch of crazy teenagers drive like idiots? And I mean, I had to confess, I mean, how I'm still alive when I drove like that? I had a Ford, a Ford convertible, a little old red Ford convertible, and it had a police engine. And I got my share of tickets, but I could resist a drag race. Anybody thought next to me and read their engine? And we were off and this was in the middle of New Orleans. I love your question about what shaped what. So Joey, what about you on this? Like, what do you think? Who created the sound? Was it the culture or the culture created the sound? Like, who was it? I mean, I don't, it's kind of like the question that I asked my students at the beginning of a semester when I'm teaching at a university is what's more important the performance or the songwriting? And I don't think there's a, I'm not sure there's a right answer. It's kind of a chicken and egg problem. But what I will say is that artists are by design people that reflect the time in which they live and work. And part of the thing that we do as artists, like part of our mission is to sort of be able to lead you into new ways of thinking, but also to talk about the past and to preserve stories and histories. So it's an excellent question. I mean, you know, one of the other things that's so fascinating about the ear and we're talking about the Chuck Berry and Little Richard and some of the other, you know, sort of great rock and rollers is how much they affected the rest of the English-speaking world. I'm thinking about Britain here, because the Beatles, the Beatles were directly influenced by Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Bob Dylan and, you know, and then of course we were so enamored with the Beatles that it reversed course again. So it happens. I think it's sort of a moving-a-tide kind of thing. And I think they told each other. It's normal to be fascinated by people from outside where you grew up. Sure. Yeah. With the British invasion, and I love that they called it an invasion. It sounds like a bunch of bugs flying in. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny. They were, you know, kind of there were groups that tried to ban them just like with Elvis. You know, this is terrible. It's really interesting because Lisa and I did live in England and had, you know, for a couple of years, we did get to travel England, Scotland, Wales, and then, you know, then we went to Kenya, then we went to South Africa, then we came home. And so we're all mixed up in different cultures. And we didn't really have any problem getting along with people, but we saw lots of instances where people dug their heels and got stubborn over things that didn't matter. But if you're in a party with music, man, and you're boogin' down, I mean, the music, I think music is it is boundaries. They talk about things like necessities in life. And I really put music and food together. It is like air, water, shelter. Music is part of it. And when you think about the cultures that have come here, you know, we think about blues, right? Blues and jazz. I mean, they say jazz comes from here, but I'm going, whoa, it's an amalgamation of cultures that came here that created it. And off of what was going on with them at the time. So like, you were talking about history, Joey, I think that's what it is, you know. And the blues, you know, it's weird for me because like, I didn't really listen to the blues of America until we got here. Like, I knew some of it, right? I knew some. But I was raised in the bush at the very young age listening to black women singing and black men singing and painting. And it was, you know, a friend of ours, Willie Kellogg, I know I've talked about him to you before, Joey. Rest in peace, Willie. He was a drummer for, he toured with Johnny Hooker, he, the Brito brothers, Moby Grape, all of those guys, and did a lot in San Diego. He was a sweet guy. And he could shuffle and he taught me music more than anybody's ever taught me music. We'd sit, he was high all the time, but he would teach me Sufi music and we'd get into African music and all kinds of cultural music, because he was all about like, how it is about levitation. Everything is levitation, because no matter what it is, he says, no matter what it is in music, it's about levitating from the place you are in, you're allowed to go down, but then you must levitate. So everything is levitation. And no matter how I think about it now, it is that, and because cultural music sometimes comes from, it's like the only way you can get through is to have some release. And that's why gospel music is such a huge thing, because you're in church and you gotta find God, you gotta levitate. See, you're levitating and you don't forget to put your quarters in, right? But the reality is, you need to levitate, right? We all don't want to go down the dungeons of hell or whatever, but there is this levitation and even that hell versus heaven thing is about pulling through, moving beyond the barriers, moving beyond what is now, no matter how terrible it is, that sulfon, that levitation can get you out. So when you think for me, when I listen to the blues, I remember like just the singing in Africa of being like really out there, and then how it is transformed here, because it is different from what I heard out there, but it's reminiscent of, like if that makes sense. But I do believe all of our music comes from levitation. We need levitation, and you could smoke weed or not or drink or whatever, but the purest form is the purest form. Like if you can just enjoy music and get levitated by that song, you know, I used to use great language. I've always found art to be about hope. I mean, whether it's music, obviously, I mean, I don't believe paintings and stuff like that as a blind person don't really impact me. I can appreciate the craft and know that it's good, but that isn't attacking. So for me, music is the art for this most accessible, but I think all art is about hope, and it's about the idea of where you've been and where you are, not where you're going. And so I think that's another way to say what you said, Lisa. It is true. And we talked about the melting pot of New Orleans being kind of a journey to the place where a lot of people have called the only true American art form, which is jazz. And I think there's a truth to that. I'm not a musical historian or scholar, but it seems that that is a true American art form that truly, you know, comes from our shores. So it's jazz has been a, I mean, I've started off playing sort of alternative rock and then had had a progressive rock phase, which I still love, and bands like Yes and Alan Farsen's project and King Crimson and all that stuff. And I still love that music. And then I kind of got into jazz really heavily. Farsen was because of my time at university. And, you know, basically you had two choices of what you could study. You could study classical or jazz with no other voice. Yeah. Well, I mean, I love classical music. I was trained classically, but the thing is, like, if you're if you're playing a violin or a pillow or something like that, then classical has a lot of opportunity for you. If you play guitar, classical doesn't really have the same opportunity as much as I love classical guitar play, and there's some remarkable classical guitar players out there. But as much as I love it, the truth is that classical guitar, you really can't make the notes sing and swell. And there's only so much, there's only so much power you can get out of that acoustic instrument. And I wanted to bend strings and really hit some high note fast. And I wanted to play, you know, and I wanted to play phrases that were had a lot more dissonance. And I wanted to play music that had more improvisational content where we were creating spontaneously. And so jazz was, you know, the thing for me. And so I became a little devotee of jazz. I still am. In fact, I was just recently in the studio going through some recorded jazz album in 2019. That's almost finished, but I got sidetracked by some other projects that I had to do for clients. And I haven't finished that record. And as I started up again, working on it and trying to put it, but it's fine, you know, finishing touches on it. And it's a fusion record. So it's jazz, sort of jazz rock funk combination, all of us are mental. So yeah, but I love jazz. And then I got into the blues. And what I found was that when I played blues or Americana, I found that I had a little bit wider audience that wanted to hear what I had to do. And then also the jazz stuff, you know, we were, we've charged at number nine of the CMJ top 40 jazz charts back in 2013. And we're up there with, we written an hour and down a crawl and, you know, Marcus Miller and all these guys. And they, you know, they all had labels. And I just had me. And so we were really, we were really pleased in our progress there. So I think, anyway, my point though is that jazz was a real watershed. I said all this stuff to say, that jazz was a real watershed, you know, moment for me when I discovered it. And I loved the circa 1959 sound of jazz, the best. That's when you had Miles Davis do his similar record, in my opinion, kind of blue. It was around that era that Dave Brubek did his album out of time. I don't know what does it go. It was, I think it was out of time. Anyway, it was, it was the album that had, had take five on it. And that was a, that was a sort of seminal work. I had Blue Rondo all the turk and, you know, all that stuff and take five and all those classic, you know, Brubek tunes. And it was around that same time that you had giant steps from John Coltrane. And again, you know, around that same time that you had Sonny Rollins, a bridge album. And so to me, didn't Herbie come out like kind of around then too, or even a little earlier, Herbie Hancock? I'm not an unreasonable historian, but I think he's a little lighter in the food chain, but I could be wrong about that. I could be wrong about that. He said, he's a badass. Oh, he's great. He's absolutely fantastic. But I believe he was a little later on, a little younger than those guys. But I might be wrong. Okay. I might, I might, don't, don't. No, I don't know. But he, but me, it came in around the same time. Yeah. Well, he certainly, he certainly played with all those guys for sure. But I thought he got into his own a little bit, a little bit later, like maybe, maybe we were talking five years later. So I'm just saying circa 1959, roughly. So 50, 57, 60, you know, just in that little range there. But I know Herbie was huge in like the 70s and late 60s and then beyond. But yeah, he definitely played the miles. And I'm trying to remember, I think, and remember, I can't read the album notes or lighter notes, some a little bit disadvantaged. But I believed that it was Bill Evans that was playing with Miles on the kind of blue record. I'm pretty sure of that I could be wrong, but I think I'm right. But that particular record that was such a watershed moment for me and taught me so much about improvisation, the kind of blue album we're talking about. That record had, I'm pretty sure it was Bill Evans on piano. But I know it was Miles on trumpet. And then he had two of the greatest sex players of all time, John Coltrane and Cannonball at Herbie in that particular incarnation. And of course, the chain, you know, those guys were always forming and reforming and, you know, groups and, you know, Miles would play with Coltrane and Coltrane would play with Miles. And yeah, those guys were always forming and reforming and doing different sort of iterations of the groups they put together. But anyway, yeah, I love jazz as an American art form. I think the '50s rock, you know, was definitely an American art form as well. And, you know, Katie, there's more about that than I do. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've got to go to Katie on this in New Orleans. I mean, Dixie and Jazz. And one of the very first jazz albums, I believe, was a Dixie jazz band. The very first jazz album ever recorded in this country was Dixie Jazz, I believe. I have to go back on history. I don't remember for sure. But there was such a blend. I mean, sometimes it's really hard to say where a musician fits. I mean, Ray Charles, you know, sure, he's saying blues, but then Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. Yeah, Willie Nelson's country. Yeah. When Willie Nelson, that's all that, yeah, tonight it's not the good life, but it's my life. I mean, that's blues. That's not country. I mean, it was just a mix of blues. So, it's a day for Stapleton. I'm so sorry, Chris Stapleton is not a country musician in my book at all. He is old for the R&B, with soul and blues and rock in there. It's really hard to fit on one category. And it's in a turn. Half, where do you put Tina Turner? I mean, that's all she did to rock and roll. Definitely, she said it's blues. She's in a fall, but I mean, the fit here in one category is impossible. She's not just one. And getting back to Willie Nelson, I mean, he wrote some but hits for Patsy Kline. So, you can't categorize. Nashville told Willie Nelson, oh, you can't sing. Just keep writing. I mean, it wasn't until he left and went to Texas and said that the highway music really loved when that came out. That's great. Wayla Jennings. Yeah, it was such a rebellion. I'm not going to do everything by the book. I'm going to do it my way. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of my favorite eras in music and the protest music. What do you got three and those? I mean, that really made an impression on politics at the time. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, that was a whole different era of politics with Vietnam War. And these people were standing up and singing, you know, what? Yeah. That's right. Do what's right, you know? However, on Nancy's side, and she's growing up in the 60s and 70s on the West Coast, California, she beat Bob into Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys and all of that. I had this piano teacher, then it was all classics. And then one day, she turned to me and she says, "You look bored." I'm like, "You think?" Not that I don't like classical music. Classical music. It just was one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and if you got lucky, you could play a waltz, you know, and change the time for change. Well, no, because it would just, it started to kind of sound the same on the piano. And then, so she said, "Well, you watch TV. Pick a theme from a TV show you like and take a long range." No. Peter Gunn, and I took the bass line from that and put it to Beethoven's, one of Beethoven's symphonies. It didn't work out that great, but it was fun. The lyrics are such a big part of the music. Yeah. It's a good, and it's a good exercise to break out of the box you've been put into. That's what high women did. That's what I really liked about. I love that. I'm going to look right at the high women. You know, when you think of the song, "Respect," everybody thinks they're going to read the Franklin, but it wasn't, and it was all just writing that wrote the song. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. You know, the writers don't get the credit that they really should get. Perfect example is Howard Tate has a lot to do with it. Howard Tate, and this is why I love Bonnie Wright because of what she did with musicians, and especially black women musicians, and getting them their place. And Ry Kooter has done so much. Ry Kooter, when we talk about Americana, I think he needs statues everywhere. We put up all these Confederate dudes. Let's put up, you know, Ry Kooter everywhere, because he has really been a champion of American roots music all the way to, you know, Cuba. And what, look what he did with the Buena Vista Social Club, and he is just, he understands, no, he understands blues, he understands Texas style, and he gets it, you know? Uh, Howard Tate was on our show many years ago when we first started, and may he rest in peace. He passed away, I think a year or two years after, not because of our show, but he wrote, get it while you can. Janice Joplin made that song, you know, we've got to think like Janice Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, look at the people we have in music of this country, right? Jim Morrison, you want to take, he, Jim Morrison, you know, he, he was inspired by Native Americans and muddy water, and he put them together, you know? But when you look at, you look at this with Howard Tate, you know, he was a forgotten soul man who did this amazing music, he ended up in the streets and drugs, and then became a preacher and cleaned up and all of that. And, you know, and he came on the show, it was really even difficult, we were alive, and he didn't understand how it all worked, it was just like a whole different world. And, you know, he just, it was just good to, I wish we could even find that archive, it's got to be in our storage unit, have that slice of American history of understanding these, you know, musicians who maybe will make a song famous, but understand those writers like you're talking about, like I don't think even people understand how much Carol King wrote, in his, he wrote a lot, yeah, everything, I mean, good lord, like seriously her, I mean, so we, I think Katie, when you talk about understanding the songwriters behind things, you know, Janice made what, oh my god, now I'm going to forget the song, me and Bobby McGee famous for Chris Chris Thomas. And so many people have recorded Chris Christophis in Rome. Yeah, that's my favorite, right there. Oh, so many, you're not there, but the thing with the music so much of it, and everything has grown out, I mean, the African-American slave people singing out in the fields, and the country music people, you think two different worlds, but yet Hank Williams learned to play his guitar from old young black man, talking about it, and the music blended, and it, and the country music all blended, rock music, and it just grew, and it became, it's still growing any while thing. Is that not a good thing to talk about today's culture of so much? It is, because it shows me all part of it, it's all, you know, the thing I always think about, guys, getting off from music a little bit, but when people talk about immigrants, unless we're Native American, all of us have come from people that have come from other countries. They came here, and they brought their music with them. That's like the Scotch and the Irish brought their fiddles along. They couldn't bring pianos, it was too big. They didn't have the money that came in steerage. They got over there, they found trees, they cut them down, they built them a fiddle. The black people built their banjos out of whatever they could find, and yet all of that, you get into Cajun music, you've got your cardigan from your German immigrants, you know, we've all brought something into them. What about the white people? That's why the Earth is round. We want us to travel. Yes. Yes. Well, yeah, we are nomadic in spirit because, you know, human beings have been nomads for centuries, so we tend to forget that, and animals are nomadic too, but I want to not forget Hawaii because of their instrumentation and slecky guitar and things like that. This is like a whole other sound that adds to the American soundscape, which is Hawaiian music. You know, Alaska's got its own sounds going to its Native American music and also fiddle playing and things like that too, because of the immigrants that went there. We also have a lot of Asian music in our country, if we tune our ears into it, which I think is something to listen to as well. What about rap? You know, the history of rap, and we should be proud of that too. It's poetry and its own form of just, wow, wake up hip hop. You know, we did have hip hop and rap in Africa too, very much so, in different ways. To me, we've thought to look at all of these genres of it, but it's also something interesting. So Joey, you're the ambassador for music from Macon, Georgia, so you're the southern capital of rock, right? The capital of southern rock, excuse me. So we need to look regionally in the music too, because it's where people move too, right? If you look at it that way, and in the indigenous people, the sounds are different according to the tribes, to the trees that they can make fleets of, and the animals that they use for skins, for drums, all of that, right? So their sounds would be different in languages are different, but when you look at rock, southern rock was completely different to the beach boys surf rock, and the ventures, you know, people like that. Look at Neil Young, and Leonard Skinner, and you know, I'm just saying, almond brothers band, you know, that's all part of your backwoods, right? Joey, so when we even look at rock, it was different according to where it came from, wasn't it? With the musicians that made that. Yeah, the south certainly put their own stamp on southern rock, because you had a lot of the country influences, but you wanted to expand beyond those into a little bit more of a danceable music, and Alabama was, it's interesting, a lot of, you know, a lot of the people that we really cherish here in Macon came to Macon from Alabama, and Alabama of course has muscle shoals and all that kind of stuff. Yes, we own Alabama. Yeah. You think of Macon almost as much as you do in Alabama as the shoals with that one. Yeah, well you do, and the thing is, I mean, you think of like Wet Lily, who's, I've been friends with those guys, opened with those guys that played music, done recordings with those guys, and you know, they came to Alabama because they had two making because they felt like that's where they would have their career take off, and they said, look, we're going to give it one more shot. We've been playing, we're talented, but we're not getting anywhere, so we're going to move to Macon, and you know, the Alma brothers had a similar situation, and Duane was a muscle shoal session player, and then they had the almond joys back into Alabama days, and then they moved to Macon as well, and they're not from here, but they lived here for like a decade. The same thing with Wet Lily, and then of course, several other bands like Marshall Tucker and Loose Chainz and Glen Skinner, and you know, many of the other bands. Well, you know, from really from Jacksonville, and you don't have a big music scene, I mean, there's a jazz festival thing, but they couldn't make it the same that they got, they couldn't have made in Jacksonville. And what's so sad is the way they used to record, which was over here in Clay County, my county, or Hill House, is now it's a gated community, and the place is torn down, and there's nothing really left of it. And one of the favorite restaurants, oh god, my brain went dead all of a sudden, they, yeah, it's Waterfront, you know, Western out on the river. Oh. Well, I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and my dad actually heard Leonard Skinner rehearsing before they got big, you know, in that area. So it was, it was fun. And now that's where the actually in trucks band is. That's where they are based out of Jacksonville. Oh, they're right. And Derek Trucks live out there and record out there, and I mean, that's like a big family band. I mean, I love them. They're like a big jam band too, and yet being tied. And they bring in, I think, a very American musical landscape because they go off in the different cultural styles as well, which I think is fantastic. Yeah, a lot of the Southern rock bands, you know, became sort of jam bands, and you know, there was a sort of blurred line between those two. You know, you had the Grateful Dead, which I think is considered a jam band. Amabos were considered a jam band fish. You know, it's considered a modern jam band along with, you know, that's interesting. So the dead was more of the South because like, always think of them. In California, but they were a jam band. Derek Garcia has his own highway getting into San Diego. Yeah, they were not, they were not Southern, but they, but they influenced a lot of people in the way they, in the way they ran their enterprise. Yeah, but the sound of where musicians are based and the music that came out, I'm like, I understand that there's like this cult. And it goes back to your book, Katie, about like, you know, who influenced who, but I also believe the landscape influenced it. Because when you think of grunge, right, you know, it comes out of Seattle, grunge music, and even alternative rock kind of came out of that area. And alternative rock also from some of our British countries and European countries and pop is different over there too. I mean, if you think dance music kind of, it's interesting, right? Then you go south. Yeah, and then you go to Nancy's side, you know, Southern California. They're like, Hey, we're at the beach, man. We're having a good time. And San Francisco saying, Hey, we're having an uprising. We're going to create, you know, and Nancy was having sit-ins where she was, you know, she would sneak out and go on Sunset Strip at night when she was a teenager and put herself in trouble. My brother and I used to sneak out the window. The walk about 15 blocks end up on Sunset Strip. And we used to peer in restaurant windows to see what famous people were eating what. Did you get the rainbow room? Yeah, you know, we did everything down the strip on both sides. And you saw where it's at, man. And the security guards just used to give us candy. You know, they were nice to us and they weren't, they would just say, now, you know, don't you don't tell your parents what you're doing, because you're going to struggle. And we're like, yeah, what it's about. It was about the music and the fame. And there was actors, actresses and musicians. And we tried to, we just, yeah, because we came from the wrong side of the tracks, basically. So that was our way of seeing something we'd never get to see. Yeah, I mean, it's entertainment, right? It's interesting, too, because we're talking about all these different regional things, which is from a musical history standpoint, you know, we think about ancient music like Greece and how the, we have what's called modal music in jazz. And Greece was the origin of the modal music. And it was very, very different music, depending on what region it's from. I mean, extremely different, not just a little different. It was extremely different. And they believed that, you know, soldiers should listen to one kind of music, and artists should listen to another kind of music, and those things would help them. Yeah, those things would help. It was, yeah. And they believed that those things would help you be a better whatever you were. But one of the things, so that's sort of an extreme regional separation. And then we've been talking today about different regions. But the interesting thing is, since the real proliferation of the internet and social media, the regions are becoming less significant. And I think things are becoming a lot more blended, just some degree, more homogenized. But the influences are really spilling over all over the place. I mean, you can hear a band that's from the UK and think they're from, you know, California or whatever. So there's a lot of that going on now as well. So it's, which I think, you know, I think it's a double-edged sword. It can be a very good thing to have this amazing amalgamation, because music does have no boundaries. That's true. So that's really cool that there's all these different influences that are feeding each other more than they have in the past. But of course, the problem with that is that you sometimes lose your local flavor. Interestingly, that hasn't happened in making as much as one would think, because the majority of bands in town are still southern rock or country. Not all of them, but the vast majority of the bands in town are still making the same use that they made it back in the 70s. And so that's kind of an interesting little, you know, cornucopia of slice of life here. But I mean, there's alternative rock bands and jazz bands and stuff like that, too. I'm not saying it's all southern rock, but there's still a very heavy concentration of southern rock and country here in this middle Georgia area. Yeah, you can hear it on the radio as we travel. For sure. I can tell you who sucks on the radio across the street. I was going to say, you suck radio map of this country of people just buying the same play. I mean, I don't even understand why they're buying a playlist. It's anyway, I don't even, that's a whole rant. Well, no, I haven't been in terrestrial radio for a while. Last time I was in terrestrial radio was 2000. I promote my registered radio all the time. But back when I was back when I was in a terrestrial radio game, which was, I was a DJ and a host and all this stuff from like 96 to 2000. I can tell you that most stations had no local programming control. They were mostly being programmed by somebody, somebody in making, you know, somebody in Chicago was making decisions for music from making. And I always thought that was a, I always thought that was a bad idea. Radio has not gotten better because back in the mid to late 90s, there was a loosening of FCC rules. And so now you have like two or three corporations owning 70% of all the radio. Well, that's what's happening to our internet too. So that's kind of the kind of problem. And it's a shame because the local color and local flavor, I think radio has really, since we have internet radio now, we have satellite radio now, we have Spotify, we have Pandora and all this stuff. I think, I think the only place for terrestrial radio meeting, A&S, the only place for terrestrial radio is to provide that local color. And I'm not sure how much longer than I last. Well, it's always the college. It's like news basis. They're just, yeah, just calling because there's no market that can support the individual. Whoa, it's a scary thing. It's a scary thing that we're doing this balance of, you know, yes, we can have the world at our fingertips, but you should know what's in your backwoods, right? And the people were in Arkansas, I can say backwoods. But this is the, hey, we're in Hot Springs area. And by the way, speaking of American music, Tony Bennett sang here one night. And that's when his San Francisco song came from here, because somebody said, hey, I think you should sing this. And he did and he ended up recording it. And that's what made him famous here in Hot Springs. Moved on from there. Anyway, just a little history. But the reality of this, where when we travel, if you go to a capital city or college city, you will find once in a blue moon some music that somebody is doing locally. Silver City, New Mexico manages to get all the way to Las Cruces, New Mexico. And they play all kinds of stuff, and then they'll put like Britney Spears on the middle, and you're like, why? Or, did I say that? Oh, she's saying, I mean, I think that's another thing. We were seeing power women change up the landscape too. Nine times out at 10, when we put on the radio, I know within two hours, we're going to hear hotel calls. I can't, it happens, but when you go to college town, but enough is enough. But college towns, you will hear stuff. And that, I mean, I will never, ever, ever, and I never tired of telling this. We were going to the Everglades. Is this when we started our tour back in 2012? And I think we weren't even on the tour yet. And we were going to the Everglades. And well, no, we were going to Miami to do a podcast at a garden expo. And then on the way back, we went to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the Southwest, Louisiana. Now, Southwest, Louisiana. That's different. Right? It is. It's cool. It's, you know, Lafayette is, you know, just, you know, east of it. That's a lot of caging country. So you're going to hear different kinds of news that they are for sure. And so we were early to do our media trip thing. And we were supposed to check into this casino on the water, you know. And Nancy and I were like, well, let's take these back roads in. And we went through from a town called Rice, which there's now a rum distillery out near there, by the way, everybody. It's fantastic. Oh, yeah. You've been there. I'm not about to let my cabinet. Well, I'm coming to see you, girl. Nancy had a good time there. And I had to drag her out. But we went running to the casino taking all these back roads. And I, for one, I felt like I came home. Like, I felt like, oh, I'm home now. It was just real back roads. There were people fishing off the canals for dinner, cat fishing. And there were houses like going fry fish on Fridays at this time. Like it was just real backwardsy cool stuff, right? And I looked at Nancy, I'm like, I didn't know America had this anymore. Other than if you go in the Southwest in some areas, you'll find old trading posts and stuff like that, which it's sadly, those are like it's, we've lost our joints, you know, it's the same kind of thing. Then anyway, the college town takes over PBS at times or NPR, excuse me, and has a channel and they were, they found all these swamp pop records, like in the archives that were over like 100 years old. No joke. I'm not hitting these things for 100 on down, like to present time. And they just said, we're just going to start, we're just playing them. We were just going to read them and play them. And that's what they were doing. And it was, we were driving around and I'm like, Nancy, do we really have to go to the casino and check in? Can we just keep, because we were in the landscape of where these records were created. And you know, it wasn't some big fancy recording studio. This was so real. And you could hear the scratches and it was like, so I just, you can't stop the car. You want to keep track. And like, I don't want to do, I don't even want to do the media trip right now. I just want to do this. I couldn't stop all through the media trip. I'm asking people about their music and people are looking at me like, I'm freaking nuts. I'm like, I don't, you know, whatever. I know you want to show us all this, but this is, this is something nobody else has. This, what you have is incredible and it changed me. And I think, Joey, I've talked to you about it and I've always wanted to do a show on this regionality because it is a portion of history. And it's great that we have the internet. It's great that things are blended and global, but we cannot lose our roots. And I think as people move to places, it does change them and their music. So I don't think we'll ever totally lose it. Because wherever you live, rubs off on you. However, as we lose our downtowns and we lose like the integrity of place, we're going to lose the integrity of the arts of where we are. Well, it's one of those things like when I was in my 20s, I was playing on a cruise ship. And I was so excited to go somewhere different to the Bahamas. And when I stepped up to cruise ship, the first thing I saw was a Wendy's and a hard rock cafe. Oh, no, I'm so depressed by that. I was so depressed by it. Because what I wanted was an authentic experience of somewhere different. And then there was this homogenized, when I go to the UK now, like one of the big things in the UK can tuck you fried chicken and McDonald's. It's just like, it's so, it's so distressing. So, but I think, I think you're right. I mean, there is, there is, you know, inevitably, as culture spreads and as we are becoming more interconnected, there's inevitably going to be that sort of smearing, that sort of blurring of lines. But I think it's important for people to protect their roots and protect that sound. And because it does mean something. So that's, I definitely agree with that. Well, I want to go back to the new Iberia. I was in New Berian, New Iberia, Louisiana. Not too long ago. It was a tiny little tent and I'd never been there. But it just really felt like I stepped back into another time. It was just kept a real little town feeling. I love that about Louisiana. I think Louisiana's kept hold on to, to Louisiana is more than a lot of places in this country. It definitely has. Some of your rural Tennessee places. Oh, I'm trying to remember exactly what part of Tennessee the, um, the mean sign part. We were talking about Bristol. Bristol was a huge place for a recording. Well, Bristol is fantastic because of the country music and the cradle of country music. But it's still a big city kind of, you know, and you never know if you're in Tennessee or Virginia. But some great towns that you get on the outskirts of these places. That's where to me, where you feel, you know, you're in a real place. It's not all McDonald's and Wendy's and stuff. I do want to give a shout out to the Midwest. And it's kind of like, I think, we've talked a lot about the South, right? And a little bit of California and stuff. But if you look at the top part of the country. Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, I have some of the weirdest experience places. I never even imagined existed in Kansas, but it was so much fun. But musically, the Midwest has produced some amazing music. And we get musicians on the show all the time. And it's, I go like, what the heck is in the water in the Midwest? Then I go, you guys are all showed in for half the year. And it's the, we go back to the levitation, right? You need music to levitate yourself out of the cold winters, which Nancy and I have experienced now. And you need, and the same as grunge music in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, I love both areas. But in the winter, it's a climb because it's very dark and dreary and cold, wet cold. And so it gets your bones. And so I think music is this levitation. And I don't know about the East Coast. But I know the East Coast, like Florida was like this hotbed of music, but then people would go from, you know, up and down and then punk started happening up in like the Boston area or something, right? I, Joey, do you know about that area? Like there's certain, I mean, there was a, there was a really big clunk scene in New York, I know, you know, or Blondie and a lot of those guys came from in the '70s, New York dolls and there was a big punk scene in the UK. I don't really know. That's not my specialty, but, you know, certainly there were regions for it. And there was, there was some punk going on in LA that became a real big punk scene at one point. Yeah, I've got it. And then you've got like the hard rock and you've got like LA guns coming in and people like that and look at, oh my gosh, Aussie comes over from a different country, right? Here he comes. But at the same time, we had like bang the band who was on our show. Remember Nancy? And all we kept saying to them is like, are you going to bang the band? But anyway, it was a, it was a naughty show. But I mean, those guys were actually our first metal band in this country that, as they know of it, and that did pyrotechnics and all kinds of stuff. They were blowing stuff on stage and they only got into this country, they got into it. They got on stage because they were higher than heck. They got stoned and Daytona Beach at some event. I don't know. They got high saw poster for some concert and said, well, we're just going to go play this concert because they were in Daytona to play a concert. They didn't, for some reason, whatever happened, it didn't work out. So they got stoned in their little tent and saw this side at the grocery store, like a, you know, 7/11 kind of thing saying something about some concert. They were like, well, we need to go and we'll just go play there. So they drove there and they went there and they just took someone's set and they became a band from that. They stole the set. Some story like that, it's a crazy story. But they only did one album and should be far bigger than what they ever became. They were incredibly amazing. And so everyone check out Bang the Band. Just Google that and listen to them. I never heard of them. No, they've been on our way. No, Frank Ferrara, Ferrara, Ferrara. Oh, that's funny. And I mean, they went out with bell bottoms and stiletto heels and they blew stuff up, man. They did. I mean, I think that's crazy because, you know, I think it's fun once in a while to have things, but I do some extra craziness. It's part of like the history of music, right? Like Jimmy Hendrix burning his guitar. I still, I tried to save the guitar. I probably would be one of those weirdos that would jump on stage, trying to save the guitar that he's burning. Yeah, I could not do that too. No, I can't stand that. I hate that. No, don't do it. Well, he claimed that he had a sacrifice, something he loved. But to me, I think it was just more of a publicity stunt than me. Yeah, he was smart. Yeah, he was smart. But, you know, let's also touch on Canadians coming over. So North America, you know, we've got, we've got these two border countries, right? Got Mexico, which has influenced American music as well. And we've got Canadian music. You know, the Mexicans out, the Puerto Rican, the Cuban music, and then Hawaii, like I said, which obviously is still part of this country, but in Puerto Rico is too. But these border areas or outlining, whatever you want to call them, floating islands, they have influenced us as well. So much music that we consider American is from Canadians. Alanis Morissette, we claim her, but she's Canadian. We claim Shania Twain, she's Canadian. I mean, we've claimed so many Canadians, it's not funny. Yeah. And of course, Rush. Oh, that's right. Are they Canadian? They are. Wow. Wow. Yeah. But really, that's America, it's Canada is America. We just sort of claim it, you know, all for ourselves. They can't connect to really all America. I've had Canadian friends out of Canada. They haven't really all argued it, but they said, you know, we're America too, you know. And they all, I mean. Well, and then Mexico, the Mexican music. I mean, listen, there's so many, we have a huge population of Mexican people in our country who do so much for our country. And one of the best things that they brought in is not only themselves, but their music. And I got, oh, got the food. Are you kidding me? Oh, my Robin's music used to bring in so much of that Mexican sound. I love to use Johnny Cash did that too. And I think he got that because of Willie Nelson. I think Willie Nelson kind of nudged him in that direction. I'm just thinking, I don't know. But I mean, that's the one thing about going across Texas. Depending on where you're driving, you can hear Unpapa music. And then you've got the Pennsylvania and the polka and all of that too. All the European music that we bring in. Well, basically you could just do a big musical road trip. Nancy, I think we're going to have to do a musical road map. What do you think? Oh, yeah, for sure. That'd be fun. And all the time you have in your day. Yeah. But we always have these huge projects. And it's fun because you learn so much that, and it always comes as a complete shock. Who was born where? And especially when it comes to the music world where America just, oh, we own it all. Well, you've been doing all the research on that. You've been doing the research on the Jefferson Highway. And I know I've talked about that with both of you. So the Jefferson Highway goes from Winnipeg to New Orleans. And this is our first vacation route. It started in 1915. It predates Route 66. And Nancy and I are tasked with doing the very first actual official visitor guide for this that will come out next year. And Nancy has, this is where she's really not been on top of the car like Mitt Romney's dog. I mean, Romney's dog. She's been down the biggest rabbit hole and I mean, you did like get a list of musicians on the Jefferson Highway, right? Just out of the curiosity. Like, I'm still making it up. I have one and a half more states to finish. So I'm making a list of the towns that are on the, I'm following the list of the towns that are on the Jefferson Highway and looking at what famous people were born where. So it makes me laugh because I find out certain people were born in the same city in the same era, like Ronald Reagan and Tiny Tim. I'm sorry. I was a different combination. I know. So it's like, what the heck was going on over there? You know, that it's interesting. And I mean, Andy Williams and people, really famous singer, songwriter, people. What's the music maker, man, up in Mason City, Iowa? Sondheim, am I going to get? That's, I haven't done all of Iowa. I've got a little bit of Iowa. Two cities left to do and then I have Missouri or no. What's the last one? I don't know. I've got Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota too. Minnesota, you've got Prince. Come on. I know, but I did. I'm getting there. They got Arkansas too. But yeah, in Iowa, Mason City, Iowa, so this is going back to the old rock and roll time. This is where they crashed. Big Bopper, G valance and. Oh yeah, buddy, Holly, they crashed. How are you going? Yeah. And the pilot too, they crashed there. They were, they did a show at the surf ballroom and then they crashed there and you can go there. But you have to trek in. It's a hike to where, because the airplane didn't do it just on the side of the road for you to go to the the crash site. Yeah. Playing crashes aren't convenient like that. No, they're not. But they are there. It's there, but Iowa, I mean, Mason City, Iowa, I mean, that's what I'm saying is like, I think that sometimes we forget. That the off the, like, I don't think the Midwest gets enough coverage and recognition. And I just feel like sometimes we'll always think about music being in the big cities. And we forget about the little places where people come from. And the places where the music is brewed. I mean, Joey, I mean, do you feel that way even about making? Is making always just been known that way? Because it's not like you're like a massive, massive city, right? Makin? I mean, you're a city. No, I mean, there's, I think there's 200,000 people, something like that. And yeah, I mean, we're known fairly well in some of the southern states, you know, like Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, Tennessee. You get past that. They don't necessarily know the city, but they do know the artists from here. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Almond Brothers, Johnny Jenkins, you know, all the Jason Aldings or recent, Mason, Makin Knight. So they certainly know the artists and when you say, "Yeah, now we're south of Atlanta." And, you know, here's some of the music that's come from here. All of a sudden, you know, now you're having a conversation. But it's always, at least since I've been here, I've been here since I was 15 years old. I'm in my late 40s now. So at least since I've been here, it's been known for that. And also, there's been a wonderful organization, the Georgia Almond Brothers Band Association. And they have made sure that people remember the Almond Brothers and of course remember the Almond Brothers stomping ground with Makin' Georgia. They have the big house that they do a lot of projects with. And they have what's called Gabba Fest, where they celebrate southern rock music. And they bring in, it's kind of like, you know, the sci-fi conventions and stuff. People come in and they have memorabilia they sell. They have concerts and every kind of stuff. And so it's, you know, it's always been known for. Show me what like sci-fi to be combined. Thank you very much. I would, I would. But it's like that, it's like, it's pretty cool. So it started off pretty small. It got bigger. It sort of waxed in wind over the years. Some years are bigger, some years are smaller. But yeah, it's pretty great. And we also have another festival here that does really well. There's a little bit more forward thinking. As far as musical sounds, the style is called Bragg Jam. And that's kind of the, you know, kind of bringing a lot of bands that are kind of on their way up a little bit more underground. Along with a lot of local bands as well. And then, you know, there's a couple other festivals here. There's the Blue Sky Festival, which celebrates the, you know, southern rock and blues. There's Joey Sucky in a live day, which typically that is more, not that is actually multi genre because that's how my spirit works. Everything from hip hop to classic country. And it's more about the spirit of the performers wanting to give back to the community and wanting to celebrate the joy of life. But those are, a lot of festivals here. I mean, there's a lot of things that remind people. Now we don't have, we do have the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, still here in Macon, but two of the things that Macon has lost that used to help us stay on the map a little bit more was the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. And we also used to have the Macon Braves, which was the AAA for the team for the Braves. That team is now in Gwynette and has been for quite some time. But anyway, yeah, but it's always been known as a music city since I was, since I was coming up even though the one thing that I'll say, the only thing that separates Macon from Nashville, LA, New York, maybe the music city you want is we don't have the infrastructure. There is not enough music lessons, music studios, music rehearsal spaces, venues. All those things are still not at the strengths they need to be. So for example, if I have something to go wrong in my studio, I have to call a guy from two and a half hours away to come fix it. There's nobody local that has those chops to do what I need to do. Whereas in New York, you probably have a hundred people that could do it. We've been working every since I've been in the music business here. I've been getting paid to play since I was about 18 or 19 years old. Ever since I've been in the business, that's one of the things we've worked on tirelessly, a handful of people, is to try and bring that infrastructure to town. And it's gotten better. I mean, every three or four years, it gets better and better and better. So we're making progress, but it's a very difficult thing to do to bring infrastructure to a location. So anyway, yeah, that's awesome though. But that's it. I think we're going to have to do our show where we do this, where we go around the country and do American music. I think it's going to have to happen. I don't know. We just keep doing new shows, Nancy. I don't know how, but we'll just keep doing it. I just really think so. I think it's so important that-- and I think you've brought up such a good point, Joey, about this, like with the internet and everything. I mean, there's an amazing band out of the redwoods that we love. Oh my god. And they just-- like, you know that having been there that I know, I can literally smell the dirt. I can't explain it because it's not quite this. It's not quite that, but they're in this in-between zones of musical areas and yeah, we're going to have to do this. We're going to have to finally do this. And I think this show is just kind of-- it's somebody pushed a poker on my butt right now, not up my butt, but on my butt and my nudge, nudge. Oh. I know. But in closing, you guys, because we could talk about music in America all day long, right? And we can't leave-- I mean, we've got funk. We've got like, you know, then we've got all the crazy places that held the music, right? There's all-- yeah, we're going to have to do something special. Joey, it's your call. There's a-- there's a great-- oh, I'm glad to be the culprit. There's a great animated series that was created by the guy that created Venus and Butte Head and-- Oh, Nancy, there you go. And it's called-- I think it's called-- I'm pretty sure it's called On the Bus. So look it up. And it has a wonderful, deep dive into some of the major characters when it comes to authentic country music, outlaw type music. And when it comes to funk music, it's in the US. And so it's a wonderful deep dive series. Yeah. Tell me about George Clinton and George Clinton and Macy Gray getting on a-- I don't know why this is funny to me, but I would like to have been there. They got on a horse-drawn carriage. They were in New Orleans, I think it was, or Savannah or somewhere. They were going to some show and they were like, "Well, we're going to do this," or they went on a carriage. Macy Gray, George Clinton, and smoked a big fat joint and went on this carriage ride to the show and just went for-- but a long carriage ride, obviously, and had a good time at the show. I would have loved to have been a fly in that carriage to hear that conversation. I probably guess it's going to be a lot of giggles. That's what I was thinking. But, I mean, those two together, it's kind of an interesting blend for music, right? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's like, come on, the Grammys are so much more funny. It used to be so much more-- like, when you've got the Oscars and everything, so Lottie Dawp at the Grammys, everybody would be like, "Oh, yeah, watch this," you know? I don't know about award shows anymore. I don't have much to say that's positive about them. And I think the rock and roll Hall of Fame needs to step up. You know, Tom Morello, I thought was changing it, then he got an award, and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's going on with the awards. But I would like to say that blues should be televised, and jazz should be televised and not left out of it shouldn't. When we talk about American music and Grammys, and these are, you know, music awards for here, and I know, Joey, you're on the board and all that stuff. But can you fix it? I thought that you're not. I don't like to do it all on your own. Okay, I got my hands full working on accessibility. I know, I've got a good question for each of you to close off, but what do you think about the awards? Do we-- I mean, you do a lot on the Grammys stuff. And what I see is that the Grammys do a lot of good in giving back. I, so I want to acknowledge that. It's a great time, yeah. But how are we now? How are you feeling about the Grammy Awards themselves? Are we getting better of recognition of independence and blues musicians, cultural music, that kind of thing? Yeah, I mean, the Grammy Awards have made a lot of progress, as far as inclusivity is concerned. And that is an ongoing project, no matter who you are. I think that's an ongoing project. And I should say that anything I say is not, I'm not officially representing Norris or the Grammys when I speak about this. But the fact of the matter is I'm a governor on the board, but like I said, these are my opinions and not those of the Grammys. But I'm really pleased. And one of the reasons I think it's so important for people like me or anyone to become involved in their community is so that you can make changes that you want to see from the inside. And so for me, the thing that I'm really working on is educating on accessibility, because if you are not disabled, then it's very difficult to understand the struggle. And so I think that's the same when it comes to any kind of project, whether it's inclusivity or any of that stuff, or getting more airtime for blues and stuff like that. At the end of the night, I think it's an award show, and that the goal is to play the most popular music, get the most eyes on the TV show, and recognize the artists who have done the most visible work. So it's not no surprise to see Taylor Swift on the Grammys. That's the Grammys award show. They do have a lot of awards that are given out during the day in official ceremonies that are not televised. And one of the things I'd like to see, I think, would be really cool, is if we, like with Peacock and the Olympics, there were a lot of things that didn't get primetime viewing or even cable viewing that you could go on the Peacock app and watch if you wanted to. And I think because, like, you know, there are, like, like the facade and the horses and stuff like that, I don't think they got primetime, I could be wrong about this, but I don't believe that the facade and the canoeing got primetime access. It was more things like track and field, volleyball, some of the diving, certainly the Olympics, some soccer, but like the facade, the archery, you know, all that stuff was available for you on the app. So I would love to see, for those of us that are blues and aficionados or jazz aficionados or whatever, I would love to see those other ceremonies be broadcast as well and to have what the other ceremonies don't have, because there's a massive number of awards to get through. It would be great if we could have a weekend of it. But I would love to see some performances happening on some of those smaller genres as well. So I mean, but, you know, I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's a logistics issue. And so, but I would love to see, it would be cool to you. I mean, we have Grammy Week, which is where there's a lot of parties. There's a lot of cool things at the Grammy Museum. There's a lot of things like with music cares or music cares, where they, where they give a lot back to the community and they give a lot to like musicians that are down their luck or having health struggles. So there's a lot of investment in education. So all that's awesome, but it would be way cool. And I don't know that it's, I don't know that reasonably, I don't know that it's possible, but it would be way cool to extend the opportunity to see those broadcasts. For those that love New Age music or loves to love blues, you know, and I mean like, far and far blues fans, you know, world music, it would be really wonderful. And yeah, absolutely classical. It'd be wonderful to get a chance to see not only those awards, but also some performances. And so I always go to the awards show that's not televised as well. So I can see some of my friends and so I can, you know, hear about some of the cool music that's being recognized, but I would love to see a little bit slower pace on those. And I would love to see some performances as well. So you know, but you know, it's nothing's perfect till you work on it long enough. So I think that's a good point. Yeah, I mean, it takes continual work and trial and and conversation. But I do, I do think that, you know, award shows without like looking at the Oscars. And this is just, I'm a blind guy. So, you know, I don't get to look at the dresses or the tuxedos or the beautiful people and look and go, well, I wish I had, you know, I wish I had that figure or whatever. So awards shows without performances to me have, have, have less value. That's why I think what the Grammys are doing is so exciting because there are actual live performances. And one year, and I don't know, I don't know how it translates on television, but when you're in the room and those performances are going on, like, like earlier this year was Stevie Wonder was in the room playing the grand piano and, oh, man, it was, it was, I was in the room and I was, you know, a thousand feet away from him. But, you know, I was in the room with it and it was really magical. And it was really magical to hear, you know, some of the other artists perform and stuff. It was really cool. And there's, there's a spectacle of it as well, which of course, I can't really appreciate you, the visuals, but it's cool. So I think, I think awards shows that have something to offer besides just recognizing the artists have value if there's other content, like you get a chance to hear somebody really speak for a few minutes about the film or what's important to them. I think all that's important. I think, but I think if you have a, if you have like, you know, if you're able to have actual performance during the awards show, that to me makes it really cool. It's always a performance, I think what's hard is that they record it as like, it's set up for the audience and then also TV and you can't do both. Because it is, it is really hard to do both. And I mean, it sucks. Because even SNL, SNL, the musicians on SNL, I mean, there, a lot of them, their careers are like blossom from being on SNL. But the sound always sucks on SNL. I'm sorry, but it does. It sucks, it sucks. I'll tell you that, I don't know if you've been to the SNL studio. I went to it when I took a tour of the NBC building. And we went to the studio because we could see how big that space is. It's small. It is a very small space. And getting the sound right for that space and then getting it right for TV is probably a real challenge. It is. Because it's like you have a live audience and then you have this and it's too different. Sound things to do. You know, it was just channeling it just to record for an album. That's different, you know. Oh, totally different. Yeah. All right, Nancy, you had something to say. I think Katie, you had something to say and then we got to close off. But Nancy, was it? Oh, you asked me to look at California musicians. Yeah. Yeah. So I came up with the ventures. Okay. Okay. Tell me how Drix was Washington, but it's still on the west coast. So I'm including him. The beach boys and Credence Clearwater. Oh, we got to leave. Credence has like, you know, Credence and everything. You know, Henry has a cool tie to make him because he was a guitar player for Little Richard for a while. That's right. I don't know. And hey, Cheryl Crowe was the backup singer for Michael Jackson. How about that? Very true. You know, we forget about that about her. So Katie, did you have something on the Grammys? Otherwise, I'm going to go to our next question to close out. Or I think we've covered so much of everything. I mean, it's crazy, isn't it? We can't even stop. It is. We could keep talking about your music. You were just on our national park show and like, I could just keep going. Because it's the same thing. Yes. So much there. I know, but it's so cool. These things are so cool and to have these conversations are awesome. So closing question from each of you. OK, pick an American musician band, whatever, right? A solo person or their band or an ensemble or orchestra. I don't care what it is that you want to see perform in person live, right? Or here. Do they have to be the thing I did? It doesn't matter. I don't care. I'm going to go to where you're going to go to. Where are you going to actually attend their live performance? Where are you going? In America, right? We're going to keep this in America. So we're going to talk about the venue and the space and where they're from. Because let's think about that. Like, look at the musicians and where they're from and where you want to see them. You know, like Nancy's, you know, the Hollywood Bowl was our backyard too. You know, there's all kinds of places or the Sunset Strip, right? And then there's the cat house, Nancy. We, you know, anyway, that's a whole other story. Ricky Rockman was on our show about a year ago, I think it was. Yeah, he's crazy. The head bangers ball. I don't know if people like metal music. Oh, I remember well, yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so let's start with you, Katie. Who do you want to see perform and where? Well, it's more, I wish I could have seen Johnny Cash perform. Big, big fan of his and loved his music. I've never seen him perform, and I would have sounded for anywhere. The, I think that recently I got to see Willie Nelson. And he was, that was in St. Augustine at the amphitheater. I would go and he put on a great show. Did any of his kids come with him? Michael. Oh, yeah. This is Mike, both the two boys. And the thing I liked the most about him and the young lady who was his opening act, you know how so many musicians just saw a brush off the opening act when she's finished? He didn't. At the end of the show, he brought it by Casey, and I don't remember my last name. Oh, Casey, let's pray. He was very proud. And he invited us back onto the show and did the closing number with her on stage. He, he's been very good about helping musicians rise up. Yeah, I think David Glo has been very good about that as well. You know, and Lucas Nelson was on our show. How many years ago, how many years, I don't know, five years, six, seven years? You think it's. But Lucas Nelson, I think, is someone to watch a guitar-wise. Lucas Nelson, the promise of the reel, they're going on hiatus after this summer as a band, but he's getting so involved in Nashville and writing for people like, he wrote and helped with the, what is the Bradley Cooper thing with Lady Gaga? Fellows. Yeah, he, he, he did that and won a Grammy for it and, or Oscar Grammy or something, but also was the advisor for them. And he got left off of, I watched it just to see if he was going to make it on there on TV. No, you know, it's like, that's what we talk about. All the writers and the people behind you just don't see it as much. And I get it while you can't, but it's up to us, I think, as music lovers, to learn more and try and discover those people. And we'll keep sharing them on our show as much as we can. That's what we can do. So what about you, Joey? Who do you want to experience? It's, it's a tie, actually. I would love to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. That's, that's what, but the other person that I would really love to see is Miles Davis. I would love to just see him. And I'm a big fan of the New York City of Manhattan. And I think there's so many amazing spaces there. But the Lincoln Center is a great place to experience jazz. So I probably want to see Miles at the Lincoln, the jazz at Lincoln Center. Because it's just such a cool, it's just a cool place. Disney's Club is there and it's just a, it's just such a cool, it's just a great area. So those are my two American music that I haven't got, she has to see. And it does, that would be fantastic. Nancy, what about you? That's really hard. I have to say three people. Oh, good word. Now, Chris Kristofferson obviously has to be there. Jimmy Hendrix, okay. And if I just, it's, I have a hard time narrowing down to one person, Dean Martin. Oh, I mean, yeah. Yeah. And I would like it just to happen in my living room, wherever that may be at the top. So she could just have her cocktail and be like, "That's a good idea, sir." Yeah, that is. I think that's cool. Can they all be honest tonight? And it's like, yeah, that's a badass house concert. I'm going to have to go with, yeah, it's really hard. I really, I would do anything to see right, Hooter. I, you know, I'd like to go to the Old Grey Whistle test. He performed when he, when he, it was a band that also helped in the songs of Crossroads, the movie Crossroads with Ralph Machio in there. That's a great movie. It is a fantastic, fantastic album. But what's on the album is not what was on the movie, and was not what is on the Old Grey Whistle test, right? And so I, Terry Evans, is this incredible, amazing singer. And I had this slight opportunity to interview him, and then he died. But he sang down in Mississippi. Like if you Google that on YouTube, it just moves you. It's probably one of the best vocal performances ever, to me, personally. And, and as well as the band. And, but I just would like to see right, Hooter, because he brings the cultures to the forefront. He doesn't let these cultures die off. Their music die off. He brings it to the forefront. What he did with Buena Vista Social Club, I thought, was so incredible. Then other musicians have gone there too. Like, you know, he's done a lot of African, and Paul Simon has done it. But it just, there's something very authentic about right, Hooter, about what he does, and he knows how to play slide. So I would like him anywhere. I would like to go back to that specific show, actually, to be there at the Old Grey Whistle. But I'd also like to see what would happen if we put right, Hooter, Ryan Bingham, and Lucas Nelson in the same room. Oh, interesting. Hell, like, it can all play guitar, right? So I would like that. And then, you know, because it's like, it's like guitar is like a voice. It's a cry. It's a sexually, like, intriguing sound. Um, so yeah, let's just close it with that America. Let's all go have sex now. So anyway, we've forgotten that. It's not just about the fight of the people. People need to have sex. It's interesting. It's interesting you say that because I've done this entire podcast with the pants. Oh, well, that's good. I'm not going to even go there because I'm going to start. No, no, no, no. We're going to behave because I, you know, I have, I know I'm going to be able. You have a dirty mind. I know Katie's blushing. I can see her on video here. Oh, Katie. But she's blushing. Sorry, Katie. Oh, no. I'm trying to learn to make me blush. I know, I know. But listen, thank you so much, Katie, and what you've written. And I want to give everyone the link out again. Go to Amazon or go to Katiewalls.com. Kathleen Walls is the name on the book, the author. We call her Katie. It's American music born in the USA, a history of American music. And you can get on Kindle too. Joey Stucky, keep up with Joey at joeystucky.com. They're both on social media and both part of Big Blend Radio. So if you go to blendradioandtv.com, just type in Kathleen. Type in Joey. You'll find them. And we thank you both for joining us on the show today. I know this is going to grow into a whole other specialty show. I know it is because it just has to. It must, it must, I must. Oh boy. Oh, oh, oh, Hickory Dickory Doc. Okay. I'll behave now. And you know where I was going, Joey. I know you do. I know. You know that, right? From John Cleese, Hickory Dickory Doc. Of course. I know. Okay. I'll behave. Everyone, thank you so much for listening to us here on Big Blend Radio's Big Daily Blend Show. Joey is here every fourth Sunday where we get to close off the month in some kind of shenanigans. So thanks so much, everybody. And thank you for having us. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio. Keep up with our shows at bigblendradio.com.
