Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Greetings, troubled listeners. Welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Oh, thank you for being.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Always a pleasure to be here.
Most of the time.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Sometimes.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Well, not all the time.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Sure, occasionally.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Pretty occasionally. Maybe once in a while, I don't know. But it's a special night here because the Clempire is celebrating his birthday.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Dave Clemens.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: David Clemens is celebrating his birthday. And you can see every loser in town has showed up.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Well, we're here, so.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Well, we're here every Tuesday. Right, right, right.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Every other.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: But you know, my birthday's in two weeks.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: I know.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: And we're gonna have a show and a party for. Here for my birthday.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Nice, nice.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: You know, I don't know. I don't even know if we need a guest.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Well, we have. We have a guest booked.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Oh, really? Who's that?
[00:01:16] Speaker A: I'd have to look it up.
Let it be a surprise.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: All right.
Yeah. So it's a special night here. There's some people I haven't seen in a long time.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: And there's a reason for that. So what else is happening?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: We're here.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: How old is Dave, you think?
[00:01:33] Speaker A: He just told me how old. He's 74.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: 74.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Doesn't look a day over.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: He's a vampire, man. He's a vampire.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: He's holding tough, man. The hairs. The hair's solid.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: I think he dyes it.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: It's got a full head of hair.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, but I think he dyes it, though.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: He says he doesn't. He has gray mixed in. You know, it'd be hard to get that. That. That naturalistic effect that he has, but who knows?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I don't know. He seems like a good.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Just for me. He's a great guy. He's a great guy.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: So send him Bosco, people. He loves Bosco too.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Well, speaking of the Bosco. So I got to the bottom of the Bosco. So that was not sent by. Just to catch our listeners up.
You received a box of six bottles of Bosco, Tommy. Right, Eddie V. We thought Eddie V.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Had sent me a couple bottles earlier.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Thank you again, Eddie V. And I
[00:02:31] Speaker A: love Eddie V. And he has supported the show for many years. He buys us cocktails occasionally.
Eddie's a guy who. He won't use the PayPal and Venmo links. He sends his cash in the mail.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's right.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Folding money. But anyway, so, you know, we mentioned this on the show last week, and Eddie texted me or messaged me this week and said, I actually didn't send you the Bosco. He said, but I did email the Bosco company and tell them what a big fan man he was of Bosco. And it was on his prompting that the Bosco company sent that box directly from. From the. The factory.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Wow. So we got kind of like a sponsor.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: A little bit.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit of a sponsor. So the boss. And they're based, like, in New Jersey.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Jersey, yeah.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And what else does that come. They make all sorts of stuff. Do they?
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: I don't know. They must do more than just sure.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: They must be diversified.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Do we. I don't even have that box anymore. There was no name. There was no nothing.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: It's just Bosco Company bottles of Bosco. And it had the Bosco stamp on the box, Right?
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it came straight from the factory, man. So shout out to Bosco. Thank you. And also Eddie V. For spearheading that initiative.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Eddie V. Listen, if you know any
[00:03:54] Speaker A: pharmaceutical companies, like Eli Lilly or something.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Eli Lilly.
I got this chronic habit.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Those guys that made the OxyContin, I can't think of who that was, but got a little sideways with that. But you could probably use the public relations man.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Thank you again. That's amazing. Wow.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: We're moving on up after all these years. I tell you, man, for me, bitching and complaining after all these years, something finally happened. Right, right, right.
Maybe they'll send a lifetime supply of Bosco. Well, you like Bosco?
[00:04:28] Speaker D: I'm more of a Hershey's guy.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: You're a Hershey's guy.
[00:04:31] Speaker D: Hershey's syrup.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: We.
[00:04:36] Speaker D: We.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: We like the Bosco. It's. I like Hershey's syrup fine, but the Bosco is a little grittier and it has a little bit more body to. It really stands up to the milk.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: And it takes a lot. Yeah.
[00:04:47] Speaker D: More.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: You got to stir it a lot more than regular Hershey. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You really got to stir it with the watery. Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:54] Speaker D: I think it's been a long time since I've had either one.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Oh, right, right, right.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Well, what else? Well, we have the first hurricane of the season, which is really coming. Yeah.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: It's.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: It's down in the, you know, right next to Mexico and the Gulf Forming down there, and it's projected to make landfall possibly as early as this Friday afternoon. Now, it looks like it's. It's aiming for mobile.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Mobile.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: But we are in the. The cone of uncertainty, so it could. It could veer slightly more west and. And come here.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: It's good.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Supposed to make landfall as a Category 2.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Oh, I could use a day off.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Well, you might get one maybe. Currently, Tropical depression number nine.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Number nine. Now, if.
What it'll be the name if it becomes.
[00:05:48] Speaker D: It's.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: It's. It's a weird name. That's. It's not a. Like a typical American name. It's some other kind of. It's not a name I'd ever heard before.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Well, what is he.
[00:05:57] Speaker D: Remember.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: What is it? I don't.
[00:05:58] Speaker D: I don't.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I would have had to write it down.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Is it Jomani.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: It's not that, but it.
[00:06:02] Speaker D: It.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: It's cl. It's not far from that.
[00:06:04] Speaker D: It has some.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: A lot of con. A lot of vowels in it. Maybe an I, an A.
It doesn't have a J, but many of those other letters.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Oh, all right. Well, I'm looking forward to that.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: You know what? So when are they going to tell us to leave?
Well, will they tell us?
[00:06:25] Speaker A: I don't know. It's only a Category 2, but depending on how it. How it. Well, that's what they're predicting. Who knows if the Gulf is very hot. The Gulf is like 87 degrees, the water temperature, so depending on what the.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Now, are they calling it the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America?
[00:06:42] Speaker A: You know, I wasn't really paying attention to. To. To.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: To, you know. You know, just instead of naming it after a country, they should just name it after, like, an object.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: You know, like the Gulf of Candle.
[00:06:55] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: You know, the Gulf of Notebook.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: You know, so everyone will be happy.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: You know, and a lot of people aren't happy.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: No.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: You know, did you hear about this guy on an airplane like a week or so ago, they had the duct tape tape him to his seat because he was so obnoxious.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. People been going crazy on the planes
[00:07:16] Speaker B: recently, and apparently, you know, gorilla tape or duct tape, it all works to keep these people in place. And I saw a photo of it. They had him. Duct tape. And he was sitting in first class, too.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: He was sitting in first class.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Can't please some people. Even first class, he was acting.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing, though. He still had, like, a glass of Champagne there.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Well, and a warm towel and all that.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: All right.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: He had everything going in first class, but he just couldn't get to it because he was duct taped.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Right.
He was asking for it.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Well, yeah, people, they're crazy.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Well, you know, now you brought up the. The people on planes thing.
I saw a couple of weeks ago that there was a woman riding a United Airlines flight, and she's. It's an early morning flight from, like, Rochester to. To, I don't know, D.C. or something.
And.
And the guy sitting next to her is jerking off.
Like, staring right at her while he's doing it. She's like, holy moly. So she gets up and she goes and tells the flight crew, you know, and she's saying, this guy's jerking off right over there. And she's. And they're like, well, just stand here for a while. You know, you can stand here.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, let him get it off.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: And then after a while they said, well, okay, now we're preparing to land, so you gotta go sit down again. She's like, I don't want to go sit down next to this guy. And they're like, I'm sorry, it's a full flight that you have to. So she had to go sit down next to this guy who I think was still jerking up.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: He was jerking up the whole flight.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's a short flight, you know, Rochester to where? To like DC or something or somewhere up there in that Northeastern.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: How old was this guy?
[00:08:57] Speaker A: I don't know that because when I
[00:08:59] Speaker B: jerk off, it takes, you know, a little while.
Before, when I was a younger, it was like instant, Right.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Well, but the thing is. So the woman has to go sit there, and then the flight's over, he gets up and leaves. They don't detain him. They don't call the cops ahead of time. And she's going, this is crazy. This is unacceptable. I said, well, how about a hundred dollar travel voucher?
I'm not even kidding. $100 travel voucher. Now, I saw today. Apparently it's the whole rash of stuff I saw today. There was a woman, like in the last couple of days that was masturbating female. Yeah. Who got on the plane. She was real loaded. She took her pants off and started trying to rub one out, you know.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Well, I wouldn't move for that. I would stick around.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: And I don't know, I think another passenger got up and complained and they came back and they.
Flight crew, you know, confronted her. No, no, confronted her. And she said, she put her pants back on, then fell asleep.
Cuz she was real loaded.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: It was pretty good then I guess,
[00:10:06] Speaker A: I guess it worked.
But then, then when the plane arrived, the police had been called and they, they took her off and she said, I don't remember that happening at all.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Well, you know, there's a lot of things I don't remember after being after two. Two too many, you know.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Sure, sure, sure.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: But apparently so apparently though, the, the guy who was doing jacking, if they never did anything.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: No, they don't even know who he is because they just let him get
[00:10:31] Speaker B: up and I heard that they found out who he was.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Well, I guess they could have from the manifest. They know who, who was in the plane?
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Baron Trump.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay.
That's the super. You think he'd be flying private, but
[00:10:43] Speaker B: you know, who knows?
[00:10:44] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Maybe it gets off. I don't know.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: But I, I, I, you know, I've done like, I've snorted coke on a plane.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: I've done that. You know, I just put the table, the tray down.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Oh, right there in the seat. Yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: And just cut lines. I've done that.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: But my friends were, you know, to the right and left of me.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, you had some cover.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah, we had some cover and we all just did it. And I've done that.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Right. Well, the evidence is gone, you know, no harm, no foul. It's not hurting anybody else, you know.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: So this guy never got off though, I guess.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know the, the, the gritty details of the.
Any more than I.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: What airline was this?
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Well, the guy fly them. The guy was on United.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: And then the woman was on American Airlines. So I do know the, the more than I was letting on.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Was there a movie he was watching or something?
[00:11:35] Speaker A: I, I didn't hear about that.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Or was he jerking off because she was attractive? I wonder?
[00:11:39] Speaker A: I don't know. Well, she said he was staring right at her.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
Tough man. It's tough. You know, you think, you think the Greyhound is bad. Holy moly.
[00:11:50] Speaker D: I didn't realize this is what we were going to be talking about when you invited me on this podcast.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Well, we're troubled.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: We never.
[00:11:56] Speaker D: Troubled men.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: We never know what we're going to talk about. You know, it's just whatever comes up, you know?
But you got anything else, Manny?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard that. You know, I was in, in LA a couple months back, just for a weekend celebration kind of thing.
And I noticed the amount of just driverless cars. I think we talked about that. But then just recently, because, you know, La's got like 9 million people probably, and then there's like 18 million cars. Right. You know, so.
But apparently now the dmv, because driving is out of control there. You know, people, the road rage and. And just the driverless cars and the amount of cars and the amount of Ubers and cabs and all. So now the DMV in LA is adding a new thing to their test, their driving test.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: And what it is, it's kind of crazy, going nuts is that it adds. You have to do a highway chase.
Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: So you have to learn how to, you know, be chased by the highway patrol.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Ah, okay.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: So you drive, like, way over the speed limit.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: And you cause accidents.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: And you cause, you know, whatever. And the helicopter follows you and stuff like that.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: But so apparently if you get in, it's a 10 is the highest you can get. If you get a seven, you pass.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: So that's crazy.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: I love it, though.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Evasive maneuvers there.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah, all that. So. And they don't. It's not like. It's like a closed course, you know, it's just out.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: It's just out there.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: You know, they pick the 405 or they'll pick the 5 or the 10 and they. That chase begins.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Brother Juan walking in. All right. Back from his honeymoon.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Look at that. He's all right. Look at one.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: He's crazy.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Anyway, that's. Oh, yeah. You know, we have an election in about a month. The midterms. Yes, midterms are going on, and over the weekend I was looking at some of the local races and the statewide races and seeing to myself what the hell is going on and stuff. And there's this woman, she's here from New Orleans and she's running for some office, and she's got the worst last name to try to win in this state.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: What's that?
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Her last name is Jewett.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Huh. Okay.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: J E W. Okay. And it's just like, with a name like that, you're not going to win here.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Ah, yeah.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Maybe you might live in Orleans Parish. Maybe you might have a chance, but with a name like that.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah. You think it's. It's.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: As soon as you leave this parish, it's Duck Dynasty.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Part of darkness out there.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So I. I think someone, you know, polling in central Louisiana, voting in there, is going to look at that. Name and go.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: No way, huh? Okay, we'll have to see. We'll have to say.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Well, yeah, she's not going to.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: All right.
[00:14:50] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Well, we had some sad news today. Good news.
Great actress, Eva Marie Saint.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Passed away.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Was she a friend of yours?
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, she was good. She's an Academy Award.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I think she won for on the Waterfront.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: No, she won for north by north
[00:15:08] Speaker A: by Northwest, but she wasn't on. On the Water.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah, there's that great scene between her and Brando where they're walking through the park or whatever and they're getting to know each other again and they went to parochial school together. And he says, he says to her, he says, I remember you.
Yeah, you had like. Your hair was like rope. Like rope. It was tied up in rope. You know, like ponytails. And Brandon goes, yeah, your hair was like a rope and you had all this metal on your teeth and you had these glasses.
You were a mess.
It's the best scene ever. And Brando does it so well. Yeah, you were a mess.
Yeah, she died. She was good. I don't know how much she worked in her later years. I don't think she worked that much at all. I don't know.
[00:16:00] Speaker D: No.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Well, she was 101 when she passed away.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
Where did she pass away?
[00:16:06] Speaker A: I'm not sure about that.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: She, like, retired to Switzerland or something.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: I missed all the. Those details. I'm not, Not. Not certain.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: And you know what she died of?
Apparently she was masturbating.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:16:18] Speaker D: All right.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: At that age, she got off, had a heart attack and died. All right, well, that's the way to go, baby. Sure.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Why not? Why not? Why not?
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, let's introduce our guest. Cuz he's exciting to.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's been. Been waiting patiently here. So we have a terrific guest.
He's been around for a long time, but I just kind of started to get to know him the last couple of years. He's a terrific, longtime harmonica player with Little Freddie King Blues Band.
Starting with Little Freddie way back in 1996.
He's celebrating his 30th year with the band. His first, first record he recorded Swamp Boogie with little Freddy there. He's also a veteran bartender at another dive bar across town, BJ's Bywater Bar.
He's been. Been working there for decades.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: And he's a. He's a man of mystery. But we're gonna. We're gonna delve into all that and much more, but without further ado, the great Mr. Bobby Lewis DiTullio. Welcome, Bobby.
[00:17:20] Speaker D: Thank you, Renee. Thank you for having me, Manny. Thank you.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: BJ's. But what does BJ stand for?
[00:17:26] Speaker C: That.
[00:17:27] Speaker D: You know, I don't. I was told a long time ago, around 1990, the man that owned the bar at the time, he told me that the former owner had a couple of children, like, named Billy and Julie.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Oh, I see.
[00:17:42] Speaker D: And that's where the B and J comes from. But who knows?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, right. All right, now where is this? Is in the Marini.
[00:17:49] Speaker D: No, it's in the.
In Bywater. Burgundian Lesseps. I just went. I just started working there again. I took about.
I've taken. I've worked there on and off for about 35 years, but I hadn't been working there for about the last five or six years, and I just went back doing.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Now, what's your specialty? Cocktail.
[00:18:10] Speaker D: You know what I tell people, you get three ingredients in your drink, and one of them is ice.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: That's our kind of bar.
[00:18:18] Speaker D: And you can call it whatever you want. It's going to look like a bottle of beer or a shot of tequila, but you can call it whatever you want.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Sure, sure. I like that. Because, you know, these. These people that come in and order drinks that have three and four ingredients and you have to do some muddling of something else. Fuck that. It takes too long. It's everybody. Nobody else wants to watch the bartender make that for you. They want their drinks, too. So, yeah, that.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:18:42] Speaker D: Those are the places that take all the joy out of drinking.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: I agree.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a bar in San Francisco, the Ob Zam Zam Room, where if you ordered anything except like a martini or gin and tonic or whiskey and. And coke, they would. He would say, there's a bar down the street. You should go there.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Oh, that's.
[00:19:02] Speaker D: That's what I tell them. I say, hey, the French court is 40 blocks.
And then.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Then the people would go, oh, no, I'll have something else. He goes, no, it's too late.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Go, get out.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Didn't even give you a second chance. Yeah, well. So, Bobby, I know you're not from New Orleans, so let's go back a little bit, a little ways. To where? Where do you hail from?
[00:19:20] Speaker D: I was born in Boston City Hospital, and I. And I grew up in the suburbs of Boston on the South Shore.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:27] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: And so mom and dad, whole family there. And.
[00:19:33] Speaker D: Yeah, I got a twin sister and I had a mom and dad. Yeah.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: You're a Southie?
[00:19:38] Speaker D: No, the South Shore in the suburbs. Like halfway between Boston and the Cape Cod Canal.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. You don't have much of an accent.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: I, No, I don't. I've lived here, I've lived in New Orleans since 1989.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:50] Speaker D: And I moved to South Florida when I was 20.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:55] Speaker D: I didn't, I didn't really care for it up there too much.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:58] Speaker D: I didn't want to live in the suburbs.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker D: And, and so I, you know, my home is here. I've lived in the Same neighborhood since 1989.
In the, in Bywater.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:10] Speaker D: But they didn't really call it Bywater back then.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Right. The Ninth Water.
[00:20:14] Speaker D: The Upper Ninth Ward.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Right, right. Upper Ninth Ward, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: I think that's a problem. Everybody has. Every little neighborhood now has to have a certain clicky name.
[00:20:23] Speaker D: Now, I think that's done by the real estate agents.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: You think so?
[00:20:26] Speaker A: I mean, by water, I mean, it
[00:20:28] Speaker D: was called that neighborhood a long time ago.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: But nobody knew it.
[00:20:32] Speaker D: You didn't really hear it referred to as that. And, and when I moved there, nobody wanted to live in that neighborhood. You could buy those houses for 10, 20 grand all day and night.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, because I, I, I live in Mid City, but apparently now my neighborhood's called Bayou St. John something.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Because I'm near the bayou, whatever, that kind of stuff.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: But Esplanade Ridge.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, Esplanade Ridge.
[00:20:54] Speaker D: Yeah. And it seems like Bywater gets bigger all the time.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Sure.
Keep trying to include the other. The homicide of St. Claude.
[00:21:02] Speaker D: Well, you know, like I said, I think it's all done by the real estate agents.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: It's branding. Yes, absolutely. Well, so growing up in Boston, did you come from a musical family or how did you get involved with playing music?
[00:21:14] Speaker D: No, I didn't come from. Well, music was, My folks listened to music, but certainly not any blues music.
I had a second cousin that was like an older brother to me, and he came home from the war in Southeast Asia. I don't think they let those fellows out of the war in Vietnam until they bought the stereo and the suit from the South Korean tailors. I don't think they let them out.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's a requirement.
[00:21:40] Speaker D: He, he came from the west coast and he stayed at our house for a few months until he was on his feet. And he had the big reel to reel and, and the cans with a big long cord. And he would put the cans on my ears. I was like, I don't know, 12 or 13.
And, and he's the one that turned me on to the rock music and the blues music and.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:01] Speaker D: And so I, I really kind of let Lean to liking the blue stuff more than the hippie stuff.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:11] Speaker D: And of course, I had a babysitter growing up every weekend, and she was a Beatles freak. In fact, she saved all of her babysitting money to go visit her pen pal in London.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: Oh.
[00:22:21] Speaker D: So my earliest memories was watching those yellow and orange capital swirls go around on the 45, you know, on the turntable.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:30] Speaker D: And that's how I got into the music. And then I found a harmonica in my grandma's house. I think I was about 13.
And, and I just picked it up,
[00:22:39] Speaker A: start playing along with records.
[00:22:41] Speaker D: Well, first I started figuring out the simplest songs, you know, like everybody, you know, Mary had a little limb, all that stuff, Right? Yes. And then I started picking up the needle on the records. That's how I learned to play, was picking up the needle.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Did your cousin come back troubled?
No. Affected?
[00:22:59] Speaker D: No, he didn't see combat. He was a, he was a, he was a airplane mechanic for the Air Force.
Huh. So, no, he, he, he was, I, I'm sure he had snakes in the head like everybody, but they didn't come from the war. Yeah, I'm sure he was troubled like the rest of the men.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker D: As I say here, sure.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: No, it was funny that you bring that up because I was just, I, I, I talked to an old friend of mine in LA whose brother just passed away, and I remember that they had an older brother who came back from Vietnam. Just totally fucked up. Yeah, totally. He came back a heroin addict.
[00:23:37] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I, I think cousin Larry, I think he dabbled in some narcotics when he was over there.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: It's hard not to, man. I mean, there's so much of it there. It's a miserable.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: So good, too.
[00:23:49] Speaker D: But he, he was, I think he was the first adult I smoked some reefer with when I was about 13.
[00:23:54] Speaker C: Huh.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:55] Speaker D: Yeah. Huh.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: All right.
[00:23:57] Speaker D: Yeah, he was a very cool guy, man.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: All right.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: And what, what year would have that been? Like 1970 or something?
[00:24:02] Speaker D: 1974.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:05] Speaker D: I'll be 66 next month.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: All right, well, just very close to our age.
[00:24:09] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Right on.
Well, Manny has a birthday next week. Yeah, I just turned, I turned 63 about two weeks ago, and now Manny's turning 60. We were all the same age here. So you starting to play harmonica? 13 or so. Did you find other people in your area? To play with?
[00:24:28] Speaker D: Not really.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: I had a couple of.
[00:24:30] Speaker D: Couple of fellas in high school that I played with, you know, in the basement.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:34] Speaker D: But growing up in the suburbs, I didn't know anybody that was into blues music. And of course back then you had to buy. You had to pay for your music, you know, you had to buy the music.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Right, yeah.
[00:24:45] Speaker D: It wasn't.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: There was no Internet. Sure.
[00:24:46] Speaker D: Right. So there was only like a couple of hours of blues on the radio, on public broadcasting on a. On a Saturday night. And the rest you had to go seek it out, you know, and.
And so you had to buy those records. People say to me, you don't have a very good, big record collection, Bobby. And I said, no, I don't. Those records were really expensive when I was young.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:09] Speaker D: You know, and I didn't.
I didn't get up on stage. I think I was about 20 when I first got on stage. And it was a little biker bar at the Public beach, and I would sit in with that band down there.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: What did your parents do?
[00:25:26] Speaker D: My.
My dad. My family had a small business, a home improvement business. Roofing and siding and windows. And then my dad, when I was young, was an equities analyst at one time, and my mom worked in a courthouse, which was really helpful when. When you were getting in trouble back then. Before the computers.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Right.
Make things disappear.
[00:25:51] Speaker D: Right, sure.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Speaker D: Uhhuh. And my dad's still alive. In fact, he's still working. He does. I haven't. I. I was. I was just trying to call him and I wasn't getting an answer. And then I realized, oh, October 15th is coming up. It's time for him to finish the tax season on the extensions, so. But he still works.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: I'm one of those people. We always do the extension.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: I am.
[00:26:12] Speaker D: Oh, I. Me too. Because I've been self employed my whole adult life and I want to wait till the last minute to have to write that check.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Right, right.
You don't need to.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: It's just me and my wife are. Just. Can't get it done by April 15th. We just.
[00:26:24] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I've not. I've always filed an extension.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:28] Speaker D: Yeah. So, yeah, my pop still works. He just made 94.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: Oh, man. It's terrific. It's fantastic. That's wonderful, man.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Did they encourage you to music? I mean, when you started playing the harp and doing gigs?
[00:26:40] Speaker D: Oh, my folks were like, so cool. Like, they were like, do it, whatever you want to do.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Now they were smoking pot with your cousin?
[00:26:47] Speaker D: No, my folks. My folks Never had a hitter reefer in their life. My pops, you know, they were the martini generator.
But my, my pops to this day thinks that all the drugs should be legal.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah?
[00:27:00] Speaker D: Yeah. My folks were very, very cool for their time. You know, I'm half Gaelic and half garlic, Italian and Irish and, and so, like I have a twin sister. There were no double standards for us. And my folks were very, very cool about teaching us about birth control, about letting our boyfriends and girlfriends spend the weekends, about drinking in the house.
They, they did not dig us. I didn't smoke till. I didn't smoke nicotine Till I was 21. But that was, that would not fly in the house. Yeah, but, but the drinking and the smoking weed, they were hip to all that.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:27:36] Speaker D: You know, you get a little older, you know, and you folks say, oh, don't think we didn't know when you were 14 that you were down to the liquor store getting a buyer and that you were smoking weed when you came home and ate all the cereal.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:47] Speaker D: We knew what you were do. And, but there comes a point where we have to let you all live your own life and figure it out on your own.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: That's, that's, yeah, that is very open minded of them, man.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: So does your dad do your taxes?
[00:27:59] Speaker D: Yes, he does.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: All right.
[00:28:01] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: So that's a free thing right there.
Yes, yes.
[00:28:05] Speaker D: I don't have to pay for an accountant right now.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: There you go. That's nice. Nice.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: You said you, you left Boston when, and went down to Florida when you were young.
[00:28:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Why was that?
[00:28:16] Speaker D: I went down there for a vacation and I had a little bit of a narcotics habit.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:23] Speaker D: And so I moved to Fort Lauderdale beach in 1980 to give up the narcotics.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: So trying the, the geographic cure, as they say in the program.
[00:28:34] Speaker D: Yeah. And I did pretty good for a couple of years.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: And Florida, what, in the 70s or 80s?
[00:28:39] Speaker D: 1980.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a bad time to try to quit in Florida.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Speaker D: Well, I did, I did real well for a couple of years.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: And then every year Montana moved into your neighborhood.
[00:28:48] Speaker D: Well, every year the detail police would throw a big party at the end of the season, invite all the bartenders and waitresses and of course the cops had the really good stuff. Sure. So that's when I fell off the wagon.
And then I, I moved back up to Massachusetts, I don't know, around 1983 or so, and I did the food for the Fenway park for a couple of years for their sky boxes or the luxury suites or whatever you Want to call them?
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Speaker D: I did that for two years now.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Were you playing music down in Florida?
[00:29:25] Speaker D: No.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Were you just bartending down there or something? How did you get into bartending?
[00:29:30] Speaker D: I was.
I was working for some wise guys out of New York that owned a pizza joint.
The only pizza joint on the strip at the time. They were wonderful folks to work for because we fed every hustler, every little bit, two bit criminal, every prostitute, every bounty hunter, all the cops.
So the criminals didn't dare mess with you because you worked for these folks, and the cops knew that you worked really, really hard. And then when you got a night off, would, you know, roll. Just rolling.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:04] Speaker D: So they didn't mess with you.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:06] Speaker D: It was really a nice place. It was a nice place to work.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Cool, man.
[00:30:10] Speaker D: And then I worked for a catering company. I worked in restaurants. You know, I started working when I was, like, 14, because we wanted money in our pocket.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: And to buy some records.
[00:30:23] Speaker D: Right. To buy the records. And so, like, I started working in restaurants when I was younger, and. And people say, how. When did you start bartending? And I said, when I was old enough to drag the kitchen chair to the countertop. And your mom would say, go mix your dad and I a drink, you know?
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Sounds like my wife, when she. When her parents would have little cocktail parties.
[00:30:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: 12 years old. She was the one making the martinis. Absolutely.
[00:30:49] Speaker D: We had a bar in our house, and whenever there was a party, they stuck you behind the bar, you made the drinks, and they knew you at taking a few sips off of those.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. And she, you know, the guests would give her a few bucks as a tip.
[00:31:00] Speaker D: Sure. Yeah.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: You know, here's five bucks.
[00:31:03] Speaker D: You know, that's right.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Make it nice and dry.
[00:31:05] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: You know how I like it.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:31:11] Speaker D: But I started attending bar at BJ's, and I. I moved here in 1989. I. I used to be Ronnie Earl's road manager.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Really?
[00:31:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
I found out that Jerry Portnoy was living in Massachusetts, and I tracked down his phone number and asked him if he'd give me some money. Harmonica lessons.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:28] Speaker D: And he was like, I don't really do that, but okay, come over the house.
And by about my third lesson, I was getting loaded with Jerry.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:37] Speaker D: Sleeping on his sofa, you know. And then he said, I'm putting a new band together with Ronnie Earl. If you want to find out if this is what you want to do, come with us. Because Jerry was like, oh, you can really play. You. You know, you. You know what you're doing.
So that was a big thrill. So that's how I wound up in New Orleans. I was. Because they were on Blacktop Records at that time. Nomin and Ham in Scott's Lady.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:01] Speaker D: And like everybody else, you know, you come to New Orleans and I'm totally infatuated and intoxicated by this place. And I went. I've never seen any place like this, not in the United States.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:12] Speaker D: I knew right away that I was gonna move to New Orleans.
That's how I wound up here.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Huh. Okay. So you were on tour with those guys and played New Orleans?
[00:32:21] Speaker D: Yeah, they would come down and do the jazz festival.
And Blacktop Records used to do a big thing at Tipitinas. They called it bluesarama.
They would feature all their bands and they would make a live record out of it.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:36] Speaker D: And then Ronnie was doing a lot of shows with Earl King then. So they would back up Earl on the. At that time, it was the Ray Bands stage.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:47] Speaker D: The big stage.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: So you were playing on all those gigs with, with, with.
[00:32:51] Speaker D: I wasn't playing. I was their road manager.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Sorry.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:54] Speaker D: You know, once in a while. Not in New Orleans, though. Once in a while they'd say, hey, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to show you how talented our. Our band is. We're going to get our road manager up to play a song tonight, you know, but I learned a lot from those fellas. But that's how I wound up here.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Oh, very cool. You know Hammond, it was a guest on the. On the podcast here.
[00:33:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I saw him a couple of years ago. It'd been a while since I saw him.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: I saw him down at the Bunny Matthews Day that they had just a couple of weeks ago at New Orleans. Anyway, he's still around now. You must have known Kelly Keller from Blacktop. You know her? She worked in the office there. Maybe not.
[00:33:31] Speaker D: I didn't know Kelly very well. I knew her from when she worked in the office and then for a short period of time she lived across the street. Street from BJ's.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:33:40] Speaker D: But I didn't really know her very well. And I didn't. What was the name of the joint that she had? Was it the Circle Circle Bar. Right.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Which Dave Clements was the co owner with. She was the manager, but she was the, the. The operating partner. Yeah, managing partner.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:54] Speaker D: But I didn't. I didn't get up that. I didn't come up that way.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Right. You stayed out in the Ninth Ward.
[00:33:59] Speaker D: I know.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: We were talking about that before. Before the show.
[00:34:02] Speaker D: Well, when I was younger, certainly back when you could legally drink and drive here.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:07] Speaker D: Sure.
I would think nothing of coming up to the Irish Channel and getting drunk or putting the car on the. On the ferry and going to the West Bank.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Speaker D: But for the most part, yeah, I stay downtown.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Okay. So you move here in 1989.
So you start meeting New Orleans musicians and.
[00:34:28] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: At what point do you start playing? A lot of. A lot of harmonica or a lot of gigs.
[00:34:33] Speaker D: Anyway, there was a fellow named Butch Trevette.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:36] Speaker D: And I had met Butch in Atlanta. Butch moved to New Orleans.
Butch was from Lafourche Parish originally, and then he moved back to this area shortly after I moved here.
And Butch was playing on the streets with Augie and Washboard Lisa.
And I started playing out in the streets.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:58] Speaker D: About 92, I think that was.
And I did my first jazz festival with Augie on the Banana Boat Gazebo stage. You remember that little tiny stage under the oak tree?
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:11] Speaker D: And we were about. We just played on the streets in them days. And then I had another band with Butch, and we would play in the clubs, and that's when I really started playing. Like I said, sometimes I'd work at the bar, and then sometimes I would quit or I would get fired or I would take a sabbatical because I was make. I was doing fine with the music.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Right. Now, what bars were you working at when you first got here?
[00:35:34] Speaker D: I only worked at one bar, at BJ's.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: So that was your.
You started working at BJ's in the early 90s.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: I started working there in 1990. I moved here at the end of
[00:35:47] Speaker B: 89. Who owns the bar now?
[00:35:51] Speaker D: Scully Ryan owns it now.
I'm so used to calling him Scully.
[00:35:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And he was a guest on the. On the podcast as well.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: I don't remember.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: That's all right.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: And then.
And then little Freddy used to listen to us on the streets. You know, he'd come by and listen to the street band.
I also used to sell harmonicas for Smokey Greenwell out in the flea market.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:16] Speaker D: And Freddie's harmonica player at the time, Percy Randolph, would come by.
I knew Percy, but I didn't know who Freddie was. And make a long story short, Percy passed away, and Freddie asked if I would play with him.
And jazz festival was coming up, and that's how I started playing with Freddie.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: So I guess I forget exactly when that was, but, like. Like 30 years ago, 31 years Freddie be able to tell you exactly? Because he has a memory like an elephant.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: Does he?
[00:36:50] Speaker D: Well, Freddie doesn't drink and smoke weed.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:54] Speaker D: But Freddie remembers everything. He could tell you the exact day. You know, everything.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: No, kid.
[00:36:58] Speaker D: Yeah, he. He remembers everything.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Man, that's wild. So, like 95 or so somewhere around there.
[00:37:04] Speaker D: Yeah, someplace around there.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Because the first record that you were. Record I mentioned as 1996. So the first record that you make with. With. With Little Freddy.
[00:37:14] Speaker D: Right, that. So we recorded that in 95. And of course, in those days, Freddie was only doing one gig a year.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Just jazz festival.
[00:37:21] Speaker D: Just the jazz festival, yeah.
And.
And then shortly after that record came out, that was for Carlo. Did his label.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:31] Speaker D: Shortly after that came out.
That's about when Wacko Wade hooked up with Freddie.
And that's when Freddie started playing more than one gig a year.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Because Wacko does everything. He plays drums, he books all the jobs.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:47] Speaker D: He's a control freak.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: He was on this show.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wacko was a guest on the show.
[00:37:54] Speaker D: But I gotta give him credit.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: He did.
[00:37:56] Speaker D: He really. He really did do all the legwork. And he did it for nothing, too. He never took a piece of the action or anything, man.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Really revitalized Freddie's career.
[00:38:05] Speaker D: I think he totally put Freddie on the map. Absolutely, man. Yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: He said Freddy had felt like he'd gotten burned by his earlier musical business experience.
[00:38:15] Speaker D: He had gotten burned, yes, of course.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: And so. But. And. And I guess Wade said, look, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take care of everything. I'm gonna get back whatever publishing we can get, and I'm gonna register everything. I'm gonna do everything above board. And.
[00:38:32] Speaker D: Yes. And Wade booked all the shows. He hired all the musicians. He paid everybody. He issued the 1099. He did all of the work.
And then what did we do? I think we did two albums for Orleans Records. And then Wade was gonna start his own label.
And we had made a record. It was all done. It was all mixed, mastered, everything. It was ready to be manufactured. And I said, wade, why don't you send this to Fat Possum just for the heck of it.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:39:06] Speaker D: And that's when we got. That's when Freddie got the deal with Fat Possum.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Fat Possum is a label out of North Mississippi. Memphis.
[00:39:15] Speaker D: Out of Oxford. Mississippi.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Oxford, sure.
Bruce Watson, Right. He had, like, R.L. burnside on the label at one time.
[00:39:24] Speaker D: The Black Keys.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Well, sure, yeah. Later on.
[00:39:27] Speaker D: But that really helped us.
You know, those guys were great guys. I have no idea what they paid Freddie for that album. It's not my business.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:36] Speaker D: But I know what they paid me. And it was like, at that time, it was like more for that album than all the other records that ever made combined, you know.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: That's nice.
[00:39:44] Speaker D: They were really good guys. And that.
That record really put Freddie on the map. And that record came out either right before or right after Katrina.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it was like 2005. Right, so. And those records had great distribution, worldwide distribution. And that. That I'm. I'm guessing that you. You guys must have been able to go and tour all around behind that record.
[00:40:08] Speaker D: Yeah, we went all over when that record came out.
We were going. We were. We were on the airplanes all the time.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: You know, that record was.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: You don't masturbating, though, were you?
[00:40:18] Speaker D: No, I was a young fella back then. I. I had no problem getting a date back then. I was young and pretty then.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Right on.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Stewardesses, man.
But Icelandic Air, man, me and some stewardess from Icelandic Air hooked up.
[00:40:33] Speaker D: But in that time, we were. We were flying to Canada. We were doing the Montreal Jazz Festival. We were flying to Brazil. We were flying to Europe. We were flying all over the place, man. That. That record really helped us out a lot, man.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: And, well, going all these places with. With little Freddy, like, you know, when you. When you go to some far flung European country, it must have been like they. They thought y' all came from outer space or something, huh? Yeah, it was.
[00:41:03] Speaker D: I really dug it. You know, I'll never be that guy that says, I'm so cool that I didn't get a thrill off of walking off an airplane and somebody's holding up a sign that says little Freddie King and, you know, getting in a car and they're driving you to a beautiful hotel that I could never afford to stay in.
And then they're taking me to a restaurant in a private room and whining and dining me and paying me what takes a lot of days to 10 to make sure I loved it, man. And. And it was one of my favorite things about playing music is I got to go all over the world to places that I could never afford to go to. And so I'll never be that person that goes, oh, no, you know, it's just my job. No, I don't get a kick out of it. No, I get a huge kick out of it. I miss it terrible now.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: What a. What a thrill, man. You know, the things that you see as a. As a touring musician at that level.
It's, you know, if somebody that goes to a job every day and works the same job and compared to, like, what you were doing, there's no comparison, man.
[00:42:02] Speaker D: Yeah, no, it was a ball. And I met so many nice people, you know, people that I still stay in touch with to this day, you know.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You have any particular memories of either something that went great or something went terrible?
[00:42:18] Speaker D: I really, really can't remember anything that went terrible. I mean, maybe that's good. Maybe miss a flight or something, but.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Well, you know, actually, I'm going to give you a minute to think because it's about that time, Manny.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we, we always take a break.
[00:42:31] Speaker D: All right.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: So if you need a libation or if you need to go use the.
[00:42:37] Speaker D: I'm gonna go have a little smoky treat.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: There you go. All right.
The troubled nation knows the drill. We'll be right back.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: I used to be down but I ain't down no more.
I used to be down w burying down on no more.
Down and down Whoa, my baby pick me up.
I used to be down but I ain't down no more.
I used to be down whoa but ain't down no more.
Down and out Whoa, my baby pick me up.
Get up in the morning Feed you something to eat Tell me, baby that you're not gonna eat I used to
[00:44:09] Speaker B: be down
[00:44:12] Speaker C: whoa but ain't down no more.
Down and down Whoa, my baby.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: And we're back.
Back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Komen, back with our guest, Mr. Bobby Lewis DiTullio. Now, Bobby, I know you're, you're new to the podcast, but our listeners understand this is a. It's a listener supported operation here. We have a Venmo and PayPal link that in the show notes of every show. And people use those to buy us cocktails, underwrite our operating costs here, you know, our hosting podcast hosting costs and haven't, haven't. Well, I guess we had a couple of weeks ago guy, Randy Barton from last week. We haven't had anybody else, but I did have some correspondence. You know, we, we've talked about how we were number one in, in music podcasts in Serbia.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: And so we talked about that a couple of times. So I actually had one of our Serbia Serbian listeners reach out to me and say thanks for the shout out to Serbia.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:45:26] Speaker A: And that was. So I want to give a shout out to Igor Mittic, or however he says it. But Igor, you know, Igor, it might be Igor like, like Young Frankenstein.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: But He's a, he's a musician, He's a guitar player, I believe and he's been a long time listener.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: And so it is true, it's true.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: We're very popular in Serbia.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: He said thank you for giving a shout out to all of your Serbian listeners. So.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Wow.
Well Igor, man.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: You know, we gotta get you on the show somehow.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Maybe so. Maybe so.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Yeah. He seems like a good guy.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Oh, he see, he looks cool too. You see his pictures? He's cool looking guy.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Now I heard Serbia there's a big of part porno industry in Serbia.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: I don't know anything about that.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Oh really?
[00:46:16] Speaker A: Okay.
I just heard, you know, eastern Europeans, you know, well, no place is bigger
[00:46:21] Speaker D: than the United States. I, I just watched a documentary on pornography the other night.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:26] Speaker D: And something like 85 of all the pornography that's out there on the Internet is created here in the United States.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Van Nuys, California.
[00:46:36] Speaker D: California.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: But a lot of it, a lot
[00:46:38] Speaker D: of it, it went to South Florida now.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's where the California bang brothers are there.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Razors.
[00:46:45] Speaker D: I didn't realize it and I didn't realize this. The pornography business is bigger than the NFL, the baseball, the basketball and the hockey.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah, wow.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: It's a multi billion dollar business.
[00:47:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: You know the Russians are big in pornography now. Know they're part of the industry now, the Russian mobs.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: But obviously not. Oh, in the U. S. Yeah, I would imagine so. Yeah, sure, that makes sense. That makes sense.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: But anyone can do porn now.
[00:47:14] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: You don't need to be production just an iPhone.
[00:47:17] Speaker D: Well, I don't think I can do it anymore. Too long in the tooth, you know.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Well, you know there's specialty items, you know. Don't count yourself out, Bobby.
[00:47:25] Speaker D: Well, they say there's a lid for every car.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: That's exactly right.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: And speaking of porno, there's porno on airplanes now. People are jerking off.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of, I don't know. Speaking of what? But let me give you a couple of troublemen podcast.
[00:47:40] Speaker D: Oh, thanks. And I'll try to hip my friends that are wealthy to your podcast and maybe you can get some sponsorship.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Please do. Yeah, yeah, we can definitely use the listeners and support. Also the links, we have the links for the troublemen podcast T shirts as well as the Patreon page.
We have a handful of sponsors that are.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: The holidays are right around the corner,
[00:48:03] Speaker A: week in and week out. And follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook and rate review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Helps us a lot. Costs you nothing. And you know, the Iguanas are back to doing our regular Sunday night residency at the world famous Carousel Bar at the Hotel Motley on right there on Royal Street, 7 to 10 every Sunday.
And I'll be in and out of town with a number of bands, but that's enough of that. Back to our guest, Mr. Bobby Lewis DiTullio.
And so, Bobby, we were. You were talking about how you were out there on international tour behind the Fat Possum record.
So this is like 2005 Katrina. It didn't affect you, huh?
I mean, it didn't affect your. Your house. You were there close to the river.
[00:48:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: High ground.
[00:48:59] Speaker D: It's funny because I didn't really have anything to lose.
[00:49:03] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Well, that's a. What, what did.
I would say Janice Joplin, but it's really so Chris. Thank you, Manny.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, Right?
[00:49:16] Speaker D: No, my house didn't flood, and that was the only hurricane that I ever. I had ever left for. But. But I did leave for that one.
But when I came home, I had some cleaning to do, but I got to. I got to sleep in my bed that night when I came home right on the. And the water came up just high enough to buckle the floors.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but they went back down.
[00:49:39] Speaker D: Yeah, they did go back, right?
[00:49:40] Speaker A: Yes. You know, houses in New Orleans in the old days were bent. Were built with this bubble construction where the bottom of the. The sill in the wall was open. And it was for that purpose because when the water would go back down, you had a way for it to drain out.
[00:49:56] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: And they used that heart pine tongue and groove heart pine flooring with no subflooring.
[00:50:03] Speaker D: And that's exactly what I had in that house. I was renting that place at the time. I rented that place for 20 years and I moved out of that place shortly after Katrina.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:50:13] Speaker D: Yeah, but you.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: But you stayed right there in the neighborhood.
[00:50:15] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. I live on Clewett Street.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:50:19] Speaker D: I've been there for up 10 years.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:50:24] Speaker D: And that's a good street.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: Malcolm Byrne studio was there for a good long time. So you're living down there. Are you bartending at. At BJ's at this time?
[00:50:33] Speaker D: I'm bartending one day a week. I'm doing Thursdays one from one till eight now.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: You ever play at BJ's?
[00:50:40] Speaker D: Yeah, we used to play at BJ's. Monthly.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:50:43] Speaker D: That's. That's how the music started playing at B. When I met Freddie, Freddie was rebuilding alternators at an electric.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Auto.
[00:50:51] Speaker D: Electric shop.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Really.
[00:50:52] Speaker D: And he wanted me to. He wanted me to play the jazz festival with him. His one gig a year at the time.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:59] Speaker D: And he wanted me to practice at the shop.
And I said, freddy, I ten bar in this neighborhood joint, we can do it there. We can put a tip jar out and maybe if we bring some folks in, the boss will throw us some money.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: But they didn't have bands there.
[00:51:13] Speaker D: There were no bands at BJ's there.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Just a regular neighborhood bar. Now I want to. You can get back to your story, but at that time, the clientele, it was just like regular neighborhood old timers.
[00:51:23] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. It was mostly old time by then.
There was starting to be some younger folks, some hipsters moving into the new neighborhood.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:33] Speaker D: Yeah. You know, first the gay guys move in, and then you get some single white women. And then, you know, by the time the yoga studios go up, it's all over. It's totally gentrified, you know, But.
But yes, with. That's. That's. That's when Freddie started playing more than one gig a year. So we did a monthly thing at BJ's for a long, long time.
Yeah.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: And. And did they.
People came to. Showed up to see the band.
[00:52:02] Speaker D: Yeah, people would come and. Yeah, showed up to see the band and, you know, the boss gave us a guarantee the man that owned the place at the time. And yeah, it was fine, man.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Now, was that the beginning of them having other music accents there, or was this just y'?
[00:52:18] Speaker B: All?
[00:52:19] Speaker D: It was just us, really.
And the man that owned the bar at the time, his name was Carlos Kibido.
Cajun dude.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:52:31] Speaker D: And he sold the bar shortly.
He begged me to buy the bar. He wanted me to buy the bar. He wanted to own a. Finance it to me, and I didn't want to be married to a bar.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:43] Speaker D: And so he sold the bar shortly after Katrina. And even then, for, I don't know, 15 years, there was only really just us playing there. Oh, they had the Special Men playing on Monday night, right?
[00:52:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:52:57] Speaker D: They were a great band.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: James and the Special, that was a whole scene down, right?
[00:53:02] Speaker D: Yes. And that. That was basically the only music that they had down and they would.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: They would bring. Now we had King James on. On the podcast right after the. The Pandemic was opening up again. He came and he. We did a podcast with him right here.
[00:53:17] Speaker D: Yeah. I remember when. I remember when Jimmy first moved to town.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:21] Speaker D: Yeah. And he would want to sit in with the street band, and Auggie would never let him sit in.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:53:25] Speaker D: Augie was a gruff guy, you know. Get away from me, kid. You're bothering me.
[00:53:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:30] Speaker D: And Jimmy come right off the farm. He had his high water pants on back then, you know? Know. Yeah. But I always liked Jimmy. I thought he was a good front man, too.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:38] Speaker D: I love that band. And, you know, to do that New Orleans R and B, you got to have the horn section, and then you have to. And then you have to have the keyboard. You know, you have to have the piano player. And now you're talking about a big band. And that's a lot of mouths to feed. That's a labor. That really is a labor of love to have a band of that size. And I loved them. I thought they were great.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: But it came. It became a real thing, like.
[00:54:00] Speaker D: Oh, it became a scene with the hipsters and the ipsters and the upstairs.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: It's something I missed out on because I live over here, and like, we were talking about crossing Canal street, you know, if you. You live way down there. I live way up here.
[00:54:15] Speaker D: Yeah. I haven't been up here in a long time. To.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: To. To go from one to the other. It's like going from one of those to Slidell. Yes.
[00:54:22] Speaker D: We don't like to leave our neighborhoods if we don't have to, and certainly don't come across Canal Street.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Yeah. If you don't have to. If you're not getting paid or something, you know.
[00:54:30] Speaker D: Well, I'm an old guy now, so where do I go? I go to the grocery store, and I go to the Doctors. That's. And. And the neighborhood bar, and that's about it.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:54:38] Speaker D: All the important places, the places that keep me alive.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: Right, right, right. Well, you know, BJ's now has music, like, six, seven nights a week.
[00:54:49] Speaker D: Yeah, they have music too much for my. Like.
Yeah. Sometimes I want to be able to just sit in my neighborhood bar and. And not have a band playing and not like here. Exactly.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:59] Speaker D: But, yeah, they do music there now, like, five or six nights a week.
[00:55:03] Speaker A: Now, this is something I wanted to ask you about. So you're a bartender in a. In a bar like this where there's not music going on. You can hear yourself think, you can talk, and people like to talk a lot of shit at the bars, right?
[00:55:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:17] Speaker D: Well, you know, it's.
When I tend Bar, I tend to get a little bit of an older crowd.
Most of them still pay with cash.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: What are the hours at BJ's?
[00:55:29] Speaker D: 1 till 1 in the afternoon until, you know, 1 o', clock, 2 o'.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: Clock.
[00:55:35] Speaker D: But the folks that come and see me, a lot of them are a little bit older.
They still carry cash with them, they buy drinks for each other.
They're gray tippers. And nobody's sitting there looking at their phone.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:50] Speaker D: They're talking to each other. And yes, if those fellows ain't busting your chops, man, then something's wrong.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: Well, I mean, just telling stories, busting chops and just talking general bar shit. Yeah.
[00:56:03] Speaker D: In fact, I don't even turn the TV on when I'm working unless somebody asks me to. Unless there's some sports events going on. Nobody asked me to.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: Because. Because people are interested in the, the fellowship.
[00:56:15] Speaker D: Right. They still. Yeah, they come, they come to the bar to be social. Yeah. You know, which is, you don't see so much with young folks. Young folks sit there and they stare at their telephone.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: They don't know how to do it, man. They're missing out on a bet.
[00:56:29] Speaker D: Yeah. And then, you know, common courtesy. If I'm ordering a drink and there's somebody next to me, can I, may I get you a drink? And they, they think you're trying to get over on them or if it's a, you know, you hit on them or. And it's like. No, it's just proper bar etiquette to me.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Right. So. So now as the bartender, you know, if somebody's like there by themselves and they start talking to you.
Right. I mean, yeah. So you must, obviously you're an easy conversationalist, but you enjoy that. You must enjoy that.
[00:57:02] Speaker D: Of course I do. Yeah. And I've met, you know, I've a lot of my meaningful relationships. I've met people in bar. My partner I met in the bar room.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:11] Speaker D: You know, but.
Yeah, I meet a lot of nice folks in the bar room. And it's funny, I worked last Thursday, October 1st, right on schedule. Because, you know, what a change is, you know, September is no good here. September is just as dead as August.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:57:27] Speaker D: You know, okay. But I went into the bar one o' clock and at two o' clock I had like 10 people at the bar and six of them were from out of town, you know, and just very, very pleasant people and having a ball, you know, for a couple of them, it was their first time to visiting the city in Fact, there was a couple of guys from England that had a YouTube show about food and they would, you know, hear dudes doing a thing on New Orleans. But I met a lot of nice folks in the neighborhood bar.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: Yeah, man. And, and you know, I was explaining to someone the other day how it's like very easy for me to go and, you know, because I travel around still and play a lot of dates out on the road and I'll, you know, find a night off or a night after an early gig and go into a bar and a lot of times the other guys in the band don't go with me and I'll sit at the bar by myself and within 15 minutes I'm talking to like five different people. And a friend was going, how do you do that? It's like, I don't know, don't pull your phone out, you know. Yeah, it's.
[00:58:37] Speaker D: I. I find it a shame that everybody's so addicted to the telephone. And then.
And don't get me wrong, because I meet plenty of young people, people that do have social skills, but a lot of folks don't have any social skills anymore because they're addicted to that. We're all addicted to some point, sure. But they spend so much time looking at that telephone instead of meeting the person next to them.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: And if you just sit there and you're.
[00:59:01] Speaker B: Sometimes the person next to you is a jerk.
[00:59:03] Speaker D: Well, sometimes they are, you know, but
[00:59:06] Speaker B: I don't really care for people too much. Yeah, I never have.
[00:59:10] Speaker D: Well, then don't be of a part. Bartender?
[00:59:11] Speaker B: No, no, I, No, I could never be a bartender.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: But you like hanging out at bars talking?
[00:59:17] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes. I used to. Not so much anymore.
[00:59:20] Speaker A: Well, now you're home.
[00:59:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I just stay at home.
[00:59:24] Speaker A: But you come here and, and, and,
[00:59:25] Speaker B: well, I do this.
[00:59:26] Speaker A: Talk. Talk.
[00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Cuz I do this show.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: This is kind of the. This is kind of the genesis of this show in. In many respects it's like it. Because I love talking at. At bars. So does Manny.
[00:59:36] Speaker D: And.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: And it's some point I realized there's not enough time on the timeline left for me to do all the shit talking that I want to do. So.
[00:59:45] Speaker D: So you came up with this podcast so you could talk shit?
[00:59:47] Speaker A: If we do the podcast, I can. It's there forever. You can listen to me from now till the end of time.
But anyway, back to little Freddie King. So. So you guys have made so many records. You did several live records recorded at the. The Dream Palace.
[01:00:09] Speaker D: Yeah, that was. Yeah, that was a live Record for Carlo, did his label. And then after we did the Fat Possum album, that's when brother Wade started his record label.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:00:20] Speaker D: And I don't know how. We've done quite a few records since then.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: Right.
[01:00:25] Speaker D: That Wade has put. Put out. Oh. And then we did.
We did a record last year for a little boutique label, label Newell Records. I think they're out of New York.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:00:36] Speaker D: We did two.
We did two of them. The last one was just Freddy and myself and a bass player.
Very, very stripped down. And then. Right.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: That was Things I used to do.
[01:00:50] Speaker D: Right.
[01:00:50] Speaker A: That was kind of a front. Front porch.
[01:00:52] Speaker D: Right, right, right. I like that one, actually.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's beautiful.
[01:00:55] Speaker D: And then the last one we did was a live one from BJ's, and that was on Wade's label.
[01:01:02] Speaker A: And that was. I used to be down. Right.
[01:01:04] Speaker D: I. I don't really remember. No, it's called live at BJ's.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: All right. I think our former. One of our former guests photographed Steve Pike.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: The photograph for the last record.
[01:01:17] Speaker A: Oh, is that right?
[01:01:19] Speaker D: To be honest with you, I haven't listened to it. I have a copy of it, but I haven't opened it. And I. I'm not. I'm not really one that likes to listen to myself too much.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: I hear you, man. I was explaining to someone the other day about how. And they were talking about, I don't know, some artwork or something, and they were saying how, you know, I work on it so long, you know, I. I don't want to look at this thing anymore. I was like, that's what every musician does. You work on a record, you. You listen to it while you're making it, and then you. You lock it and it's. It's done. And you never listen to it again. Yeah, I hear it accidentally.
[01:01:55] Speaker D: I'll listen to it once, usually. And then back when they had the jukebox at BJ's, I'd be forced to have to listen to it because it was on the jukebox.
[01:02:04] Speaker B: But what happened to the jukebox?
[01:02:07] Speaker D: You know, they took it out.
[01:02:10] Speaker A: Now it's all Spotify now it's all streamed.
[01:02:13] Speaker D: Yeah, they took. Not only did they take that out, they took the cigarette machine out, too.
And I went, oh, Scully, do you know how many of those location scouts filmed here because of that cigarette machine?
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:24] Speaker D: Yeah, that was a big draw for those folks, man.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: Now you still smoke cigarettes. Manny and I used to smoke cigarettes. We smoked for many, many years.
You're a couple of years Older than us. Do you remember how. What, what cigarettes cost when you first started smoking cigarettes?
[01:02:40] Speaker D: No, I didn't. I. Cigarettes were the last drug I got into. I didn't start doing cigarettes till I was 21. I didn't. I didn't like them when I was a kid.
[01:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:02:49] Speaker D: And in the last 20 years, I think I've quit three times. You know, like I'll quit for two or three years and then go back to them and I'm going to try to put them down.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: See, I found quitting cigarettes really easy.
[01:03:05] Speaker D: Quitting is easy.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: It's staying quit because I smoke for 30 years.
[01:03:08] Speaker D: Well, quitting is easy, but staying quit is difficult.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: I stayed quit, you know, as soon as the week before my daughter was born, I quit.
[01:03:19] Speaker D: And how long ago was that?
[01:03:20] Speaker B: 22 years ago.
[01:03:21] Speaker D: Oh, good for you, man.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: And I haven't had a cigarette.
[01:03:24] Speaker D: Good for you. Now, I had no problem when I gave up the narcotics. That was 30.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: The only problem, 36 years ago. That was easy too, for me.
[01:03:33] Speaker D: Yeah, that was very. Yeah, that was easy.
[01:03:35] Speaker B: I just, you know, cigarettes, because when they also. My daughter was born everywhere.
[01:03:39] Speaker A: That's the thing. It's hard.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: And then it's like, you go, here it's $15 a pack, $12 here a pack.
[01:03:45] Speaker D: I just bought a pack. And by the way, that's a good price.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:48] Speaker D: Because BJ's is also 12 a pack too. But most of the stores, it's 13. And, you know, an expensive habit. Well, you know, most of the folks that smoke are on the low end of the economic ladder, so they got to tax the. Out of the poor people, man.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, stick it to them.
[01:04:06] Speaker D: Always, Always got to stick it to. Always got to stick it to the poor people. Because the whole system designed so that the people with the biggest piece of the pie hold on to the biggest piece of the pie.
[01:04:16] Speaker A: Of course, you know, that's who makes the laws, you know.
[01:04:18] Speaker D: Of course. Yep. Like I said to people, I said, those cops are only doing what the powers to be want them to do.
[01:04:24] Speaker C: Right.
[01:04:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:04:25] Speaker A: Now, so I left out this part that you and I met each other when in the last few years that. That Little Freddy was playing at at dba had a regular recurring Friday night gig there. I got called in as a sub a number of times. That's right. To play bass.
[01:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:44] Speaker A: And. And you know, Little Freddy is a guy who plays that, that old school school like Mississippi style, where, where you can drop a beat, you can add a beat.
[01:04:55] Speaker D: That's Right.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: He. He does it the same time, the same way every time. But. But mostly.
[01:05:02] Speaker D: Mostly. But not always.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: Not always.
[01:05:04] Speaker D: And it doesn't. Not necessarily going to be 12 bars. It might be 13 and a half bars.
[01:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It could be 11 and a half.
[01:05:10] Speaker D: That's right.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: And guys that go to music school or something, you know, they. They can't play, play that. But I, I grew up.
My first. One of my first gigs was playing with Tav Falco's Panther Burns. And Tav had that same thing where, like, every beat is one, so if you drop one or two of them, it doesn't make any difference. It's all 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 or 1, 1, you know?
[01:05:32] Speaker D: Well, I don't know anything about music. I, I can't read it, I can't write it. I don't know anything about theory. I do everything by ear.
[01:05:40] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:05:42] Speaker D: But yes, with Freddie, you just have to listen and follow him. He's not going to follow you. You have to follow him.
[01:05:50] Speaker B: What does he play?
[01:05:51] Speaker A: He's a guitar player.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: And. And so it goes by the phrasing of, of where the vocal phrasing goes and, and where the, the electric guitar phrasing goes.
[01:06:03] Speaker D: That's right.
[01:06:04] Speaker A: And the first time I, I played with the band, you know, I didn't have a chance to list like, you know, I mean, you can't really prepare for that. It's, you know, you can kind of get an idea of the songs, but. And I, I said to you, I was like. Or I talked to you before the gig and you said, yeah, just follow Freddie. I said, that's what I figured.
[01:06:25] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, that's. That's it. He's not going to follow you. You know, when I was a road manager, the bass player that came to the band had done a long stint with John Lee Hooker.
And I said, steve, that must have been hard playing with John Lee, huh? Because John Lee plays like that. And he said, you know, here's the thing about playing with John. You just listen and you follow. When he changes, you change.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:45] Speaker D: You know, same thing.
[01:06:46] Speaker A: Wait for him. Don't, don't try to anticipate and don't.
[01:06:49] Speaker D: And don't even. I never counted anyways. But don't even bother counting.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: No, it's no point to it.
[01:06:56] Speaker D: And then, you know, Wade is really good on those drums of Being. If Freddie turns the, the beat around, Freddy's right there.
[01:07:04] Speaker A: You can turn it around without, you know, and that's, that's the beauty. When you have a band that can play like that. The listeners who are used to, like, a. A strict, you know, metric thing where it's four beats to. To every bar and, you know, four. You know, it's a square.
[01:07:23] Speaker D: You'll never get bored playing with Freddie because you have to pay attention and change when he changes. And I think that if I worked with a band that did it all by the book, I think I'd be a little bored with it.
[01:07:34] Speaker A: And the listener is. They're always, like, on the edge of their seat for the same reason. There's drama in that.
[01:07:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:44] Speaker D: And it's so. I mean, Freddie's one of the most honest players. Freddie. Freddie can't. Freddie couldn't act if he had to. Freddie is totally himself.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: Right.
[01:07:52] Speaker D: You know, and one of the nicest, humblest, just nicest fellows you'll ever meet. But Freddie's just gonna do it his way, man. You know, but it's totally honest.
[01:08:03] Speaker A: And, man, being in the dressing room with Freddie, like. Like before the gig or between sets, he's sitting back there, he has the sunglasses on. He's just smoking his cigarette, just looking in middle distance, you know, He's. He doesn't need anybody to do anything. Doesn't need anybody to talk to him. He's just smoking his cigarettes.
[01:08:24] Speaker D: Cigarette, nobody. He does have amazing stories, like hanging out with Freddy. Freddy's got great stories, and like I said, he's got a memory like an elephant, you know?
[01:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I, you know, way. Was saying he could get Freddie on the show, and I. I still want to do that.
[01:08:37] Speaker D: Oh, you should definitely have him on the show. He's got some wonderful. I used to. When I first started, you know, playing with Freddy and traveling with them, I used to spend a lot of time in the hotel with them and listening to his stories. He's a great storyteller.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
Well, we're kind of on the down slope of the podcast here, Bobby, but, man, what a treat to have you here, man. It's.
[01:09:00] Speaker D: It's been a pleasure to. It's been a pleasure to be here, and nice to meet, man.
[01:09:04] Speaker B: Huge hands, man.
[01:09:05] Speaker D: I have. I have.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: I have long, really long fingers.
[01:09:08] Speaker D: Yeah. People said that I would be a good piano or guitar player, but.
[01:09:12] Speaker B: But I'm a. I mean, I'm looking at your hands.
[01:09:14] Speaker D: Yeah, I have long fingers. Supple. Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:17] Speaker B: Very huge hands, man.
[01:09:20] Speaker D: Uhhuh. Well, the. The listener can't see them.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: No, no, no, we can take a picture of them.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to take some pictures on your hands. Well, we'll compare hands. I have big hands, too. Look at that. Uhhuh.
[01:09:31] Speaker D: Well, you know what they say about men with big hands.
[01:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:34] Speaker D: They wear big gloves.
[01:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
[01:09:36] Speaker C: Exactly.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: Well, and they have big nostrils.
[01:09:40] Speaker A: Right.
No, it makes sense. Makes all the sense in the world. Well, thank you so much, Bobby. And as always on Troublemen podcast, we say trouble never ends.
[01:09:51] Speaker B: But you know what? The struggle continues. Good night.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: Good night.
[01:09:56] Speaker D: Good night.
[01:09:58] Speaker C: You don't know what I know?
You don't know what I know?
You the cracking you.
Let wake up go.
[01:10:48] Speaker A: Know when to eat
[01:10:51] Speaker C: leaving out his breath on a cardboard bop don't know
[01:10:59] Speaker A: what he
[01:11:02] Speaker C: cracking you.
Get your money.
Let me get a dope man.
Hey cracking you you got to go.
Got nobody eat sleeping out is free.
Flaming outside on a cardboard box?
Don't know when when it's time to eat right get you it's time to wake up?
Rock at you time to wake up.
Sam.
Sa.
