More Than the Music: Michael Omartian on Faith, Creativity & a Legendary Career

0:02 Well, hi, and thank you for joining me again for the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed the episodes so far. Today, I think you're really going to enjoy this. This is a dear old friend of mine. He is, sometimes you start off saying the man, the myth, the legend. There's nothing mythical. mythical about Michael O'Marty. Michael has so many awards and accomplishments that it would take an hour or more to go, even just to read them off. It's kind of like visiting the Smithsonian. It would take a while to go. Michael is an American singer, songwriter, producer, artist, arranger, composer.

0:44 He has had number one records worldwide in three different decades. In 1980, he won Best Arrangement for a vocal performance for the song Sailing for Christopher Cross. He won the Grammy for that. They also won the Grammy for Record of the Year for Sailing. They won Album of the Year for Sailing, the Grammy, three Grammys in 1980 for those. He's won multiple, countless Dove Awards and other things. Some of the artists he's produced are Clint Black, Clint Black, Michael Bolton, Debbie Boone, Peter Cetera, Christopher Cross, Amy Grant, Whitney Houston, the Imperials, the Jacksons, Billy Joel.

1:27 We talk about this, I think, but he played the accordion on the song Piano Man on Billy Joel. Great big hit. Reba McIntyre, Dolly. Do I need to say Dolly? Dolly, kind of like Cher. Cliff Richard, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer, and down at the bottom of the alphabetical list, yours truly. I'm honored and have wonderful memories of working with him. He's married to an incredibly successful Christian author, Stormy Omarion, who's sold in the neighborhood of 50 million books and books. We had a great time talking today about a lot of things, and I hope you'll enjoy this time with Michael.

2:12 You're doing good? Yeah. You look good, man. Oh, I'm working on it, man. You look good. I'm working on it. You know, I go. I know, man. I got this little belly that just my little boy calls it Marcy, Marshmallow. Hey, Marcy, how you doing, Marcy? Hey, dude. Yeah. What are you going to do? Okay, you're doing good. Okay, we're going to start like we did last time. Okay. I did an intro of you that we'll put into this, but we're going to recap some of the same things we talked about. Well, all the stories have changed. Okay.

2:55 I decided I'm going to give you another version. Okay. Another version of you. Well, uh, what I wanted to do before we started today, I wanted to, to text some of our mutual friends. We have many, uh, and just say, what comes to mind when you think of Michael Amartian? And I, I would, I'm going to do that probably. Uh, I'm taking my son to school this morning and, um, Christopher cross comes on the whatever radio satellite I was listening to and never be the same came on. And I wondered if you invented that progression. Did you invent that?

3:35 Where did that come from? I don't know. That yacht rock, uh, progression. Yes, yes, yes. Did you invent that? That was around. That was around. I don't remember ever hearing that in a rock pop setting. I know. Because normally it would just be. Yes. But then you add the. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Everything I ever played. It just messes with it a little bit. Well, everything I played after I heard that, like, yes, I like that.

4:16 Yep. I like that. We've been friends for a long time. Uh, thinking about how many years have gone by. It's a little scary. I remember us cutting, um, a song that sounded like chickens. Um, um, you dancing around the studio. I remember playing, uh, you were playing accordion in a couple of things. And the. Wouldn't that be something? Yes. Wouldn't that be something? Exactly. And we had like the beach boys and it goes into this weird thing. Yeah. We had background vocals kind of doing that thing. And, yeah, we have lots of- The flute thing, like the old Beatles kind of- Yeah.

4:57 Yeah. Yeah. That was a cool record. Yeah. Oh, man. And this last week, I've just listened to all that, and I tell you, it just holds up. I don't know what it is. I don't know. Was that the record that we decided we were not going to use any- electric guitars on the tracks, right? Isn't that how we did the whole record or did we not? I don't think so. I don't know. Okay. I was thinking that there was something about it that was unique to the way we recorded it. And we took a little different tack to it and added... the more aggressive stuff as an overdue. Yeah. I think track kind of like, I don't know. I don't know. For some reason I have this in my mind and I don't know why.

5:40 There were some things like that. And I remember the parade of, uh, musicians that came through and, and, uh, the places we recorded, uh, You said Sound Kitchen is no longer a building? It's leveled. Leveled ground. It is leveled to the ground. I go past there once a week on the way to Costco, and I'm always amazed to just look over and see it's just completely leveled. And the story on that is that Rush Limbaugh's wife bought that property to put up a mega studio. Okay. She spent $22 million and got taken. Oh, no. Because whoever was the contractor saw an opportunity, and the thing was so messed up.

6:26 It was supposed to be like a nine-room studio. Why would you need a nine-room studio today? Today. For any reason. What did it used to be? What was Sound Kitchen when we worked there? Seven. Seven? Seven. Seven. Yeah, because there were a couple of dedicated mixing room, and then there was like an overdub room for doing edits and all that kind of stuff. But there were... And then remember the big... The big room. What's the name of the big room? Oh, yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that was... The big room was wonderful. Yeah, it was... Those were fun times, man. Yeah, it was fun times. It was fun to get... you know, four or five, six guys in a room and bounce ideas and laugh. And, you know, we had a little leeway financially and we had great times doing that.

7:09 Well, there was also experimentation. There wasn't something that where you sat in front of a computer and And it all came out of one person's head. And then you laid it out and go, isn't that wonderful? And you go, after a while, it's all your own, that one idea is coming forward. I'm serious. That's the problem with so much music today is that you're not accessing multiple brains and multiple creative sources to come up with something really special. Yeah. Because of economics and convenience. Right. It's very convenient. I think I've got these programs and I can just sit here on my own and do this entire thing. And then you realize after a while, wouldn't it be nice if I had a guitar player's mojo on this thing from the beginning?

7:55 You know, so it's just a different time. Are you still creating from the ground up? Yeah, well, my whole thing has changed because the commitment to produce a project is, is such, and I'm going to be 81. And, and I realized that a lot of the, the exercises of being a producer is to make the artist feel secure, right? Happy. Oh, content. Creatively fulfilled. That's part of the job. You want to make sure the artist is getting the best out of whatever they're doing. Right. And I got to tell you, at 80, I just don't have the six months to invest or the three months to invest.

8:35 I can't do it anymore. So what I get mostly is someone calls me, say, I need a string chart or I need a piano overdub or whatever. Or like I did my... I did my second live session in two years recently. Two years. And this lady, unbelievable, her name is Ella Powell. She's from Finland. Unbelievable music. She's incredible. She reminds me of Annie Herring from second chapter. But I played on a session with Hemby. Bill Maxwell of Koinonia was playing drums. It was really fun, but it was the second time in two years that I actually was in a studio with a bunch of musicians, and it was so much fun.

9:22 That's the part that I feel like the community of it is gone, and that's such a part, especially as Christians. that camaraderie and the, and the, you know, I'm going through this. You're on a session and someone says, man, I just found out I have cancer. And you, you have an opportunity to not just play music, but to give comfort, you know, the comfort of the Lord to somebody and pray over them and stuff. And that was always something that would be, a potential for every single scenario like that where you'd have, you know, my wife just found out she has breast cancer. My son or my daughter is going through a really bad time and stuff.

10:04 So it wasn't just music. You know, when we were together, there was all, there was all kinds of secondary stories and things that were going on. You had some deals that were going on and we would share that, those experiences. Right. So what's happening to our, our, our friends up there, who are being edged out by AI created tracks. Well, you know, I actually feel rather positive about this because I think what's happening is that a lot of creative people are realizing that when I access AI, it's all one thing. Right.

10:45 And I have a good friend of mine in Chicago who's an incredible, his name is Joe Vanna. We just, we did an album, but it was done. I'll explain it at another time. But anyway, he's a really good writer and he discovered AI recently and said, hey man, Omar, I want you to hear some stuff. And he said, I put my lyrics into this thing and it took me to go jolt. do you realize that every single thing you send me, it's the same guy singing and it's the same. He's inventing a song from your lyrics. And the only way he can emote is by singing a five octave thing. No man can sing five. Right. But he's screaming at the top of his lungs in a chorus.

11:27 Right. And he's singing down low. And I'm going, nobody does that. And it's always the same male voice. I'm going, where are you going to do this? He says, well, I just go to different sites. I go, how come it all sounds the same? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that the positive part I find is that I think in our very quick, reactive world that we live in, it won't take long for people to discover, hey, I'm hearing the same thing over and over again. If it was like 30 years ago, it might take longer for that to get to everybody to go, wait a minute. But today, it's like there was a group out of Canada about six or seven months ago named Angine de Potrain, And it's two guys.

12:10 And they were the top of, I mean, they just, and I watched it on YouTube and I go, these poor guys, these poor guys in six months, no one will be talking about them. Because it was the rage. It was everywhere. Everybody, Rick Beato was talking about, everybody was talking about. And they were using monochromatic stuff and all this kind of cool stuff. It was actually rather cool. But I wondered how long would it be before everybody went out next? Yeah. And I'm sure people still come to their concerts, but it doesn't have that thing where it's in your face every day, every minute of the day, you're hearing it all over the place. And so I think that we're in such a quick world that I think, people, even people who access this will get burnt out.

12:59 Yeah, it's so disposable. I mean, all you have to do is realize you put something up that you think is profound, whether a post or a statement or a video, and it's so quickly disposed of. It's like you say, that can be. disheartening or it can be, you know what? People that really pour their soul into playing or writing or singing something. Yeah. That's more time-tested. Your stuff has been timeless. We're going to rehash some of the things we've talked about before, but you've produced number one records in three decades, and you've worked with some artists that everybody, just about everybody would know.

13:43 Uh, the Christopher Cross record. We'll talk about that. Peter Sotero that was with Chicago. Did you do his solo stuff after Chicago? Yeah. Um, Amy Grant, Billy Joel. I think we talked about, tell us about the Billy Joel session where you were not playing piano, but you were playing. Yeah. Billy, Billy. The song Piano Man that everybody knows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, the Piano Man thing, I played accordion on Piano Man. And everyone goes, oh my. And I'm thinking, you know what? That was his first big single. Okay. And he was, I really liked him. I mean, he's a good guy. I mean, he really is a good guy. So people think, well, yeah, he's pretty rough.

14:25 But he was really a cool dude. And so this was back in the 70s, of course, because that's when Piano Man came out. But he was being produced by a guy. who literally was living out of his car. And we did the sessions in L.A. I didn't really know much about him because this was very, very early on in Billy Joel. I think he was with Liberty Records or some kind of a weird offshoot before Clive Davis got a hold of him in Columbia. But we did these sessions at a studio on Magnolia Boulevard in Hollywood, North Hollywood. And I wish I could remember the Devonshire, Devonshire Studios, Devonshire Studios.

15:08 And back then, you would book the studio for three or four days and you'd have the rhythm section come in. And I played B3 organ. I'd play a Rhodes. I'd play accordion. I'd play anything but the piano because that was his instrument. So I was a session player at the time, so I would be... jumping from one session to another. So I didn't spend a lot of time thinking or reminiscing about what I just did because, because fortunately for, for us who were fortunate enough to become, uh, I don't even want to use the word, but you're in demand. Sure.

15:48 You're one of the first call players. So you're getting called to do this stuff. So one day you're with Billy Joel, the next day you're with Streisand, you're with somebody else. And you go jump from studio to studio. You look at the chart, you play your part, and you move on to the next thing. Right. Right. And that was just the life of a session player. So for me, the only thing I remember from that entire session was Piano Man, because that's the only song that was played for years. Otherwise, I wouldn't know any of the other titles on that record. Wow. Yeah. Because that was just a day in the life of a studio player, but for three or four days in a row. You told me before, you talk about you grew up in Chicago.

16:31 And we've talked about what else would you do if not music? And you said nothing. You fell in love with music. But it was interesting because it was almost like, this is the weird part about it because I love sports. I enjoyed all that kind of stuff. I enjoyed doing whatever kids would do. But my aunt had a spinet piano at her house, and I was like four or five years old. And she would call my mom, my mom, Sophie. She said, Sophie, she said, you need to get your son piano lessons because he sits down and he hears something that I'm playing and he'll sit there and knock the melody out right there.

17:13 And she said, there's something going on with this kid. And to me, I didn't think of it as anything other than just something else that I did. And I played accordion. That's how I became qualified. Yeah. Billy Joel's thing. That was one of the first, that was one of the first instruments I played. But, but I was, I, I thought, Oh my gosh, Lawrence Welk. Are you kidding me? I did this because my mom loved the song Besame Mucho. That was her favorite song and she loved it when it was played on the accordion. So I had to play it on the accordion. So anyway, so that's, that was that, but, but I got into piano lessons pretty young and I had a piano teacher and we talked about this, that just, If I improvised, man, she would hit me on the knuckle.

17:58 Oh, no. Yeah. She would be sitting there with a thing and I'd be looking at Mozart or something like that. I'd be playing and I'd just go off on a thing and just go, bam! Because we don't improvise. And I remember in my little humility, I said, well, I do. And that didn't sit well. She's like the Catholic nun. Exactly. That didn't sit well. So that was the earliest thing. And then as I grew older, of course, I mean, you had one of those consoles where you had a stereo console with the record player and the speakers on either side. And, and I would literally, with all my savings, I had, I would work, I'd get an allowance, but I worked very young.

18:43 I would pick up records from the record store and I would just lay a Saturday would be laying with my head down between the speakers. I'm hearing left to right, right to left. It didn't matter, but it was, and I would just listen to records and, would be jazz, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, It would be, I wasn't really a doo-wop guy. So when it was in the 50s, I was born in 45. So by the time I became a teenager, you know, it was mostly doo-wop bands and stuff like that before the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I love, obviously, I love the blues stuff and, you know, some of the early black bands.

19:28 Soul stuff. That would catch my interest because that was soul. Motown stuff? Well, even pre-pre, yeah. Yeah, pre-pre. Muddy Waters, all these different blues cats and different people, and just the great voices that were out there. And you can play kind of a quasi-jazz funk thing that wouldn't end up on the normal airwaves until it finally did. I mean, it became big. But I remember I had bought a car and I was six. I forgot how old I was, but I heard good vibrations for the first time. Oh, boy. I had to pull off the road. It was so unbelievable to me that I was listening to.

20:11 And then I realized right then, I went, you know what, man? This is what I like to do. I played in the orchestra at high school and the band. And I was very active in that. But as I would listen to the music, I would read, obviously, all the credits. And the one thing that I always notice is it never said Chicago, a place where it was recorded. Never said Chicago. It was L.A., Liverpool, New York, Nashville. Never Chicago. And I went, okay. I love recordings. That's what I'm listening to. I can play what I hear. So if I heard a Beatles tune, I could just go to the piano and play the Beatles, whatever.

20:55 And I realized this isn't going to make my family happy, but I don't think I can stay here. Now, weren't there some Chicago, I mean, there's Chicago blues, right? Well, yeah, there were Chicago blues, but it was mostly a jingles town. Everything was jingles. Oh, okay. You know, they come from all over the world to do advertising. And it had a reputation. And then Chicago was there, but Chicago recorded in LA. Okay, yeah. And Colorado. Right. They might have recorded some demos and early records here. The Buckinghams were from Chicago. And they probably recorded maybe their first record in Chicago. But then from that point on, they'd leave because they're going to the places where the record industry.

21:37 Right. Sure. Not in Chicago. So you packed up and left. Yeah. They packed up and left. Everybody ended up in LA or New York or wherever, but not in Chicago. So I made a kind of a rash decision because I didn't really think it through because I had no contacts in LA. I got a little wisdom as to where things were on a map or whatever. And I had $3,000 in my savings and I had a 67 Camaro and I got in my car and I went to LA. Actually, I went to San Bernardino first and got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, which really helped me.

22:20 It really centered me. I accepted the Lord in 1965, my cousin. Chuck, who was a year older than me, was involved with Campus Crusade in the Chicago area. I never heard of it. He led me to the Lord on Christmas Day. Now, prior to that, your family, obviously Armenian heritage, if people don't know the history of Armenian people, it's fascinating and tragic what was perpetrated upon your people. You said you And your family, some of them at least were involved in Armenian Orthodox Church. Talk about that a little bit and how when you were led to Christ by your cousin, what happened in your house?

23:06 Yeah. Well, I did come up in an Orthodox Church, but the youth pastor, we had a youth pastor when I was a teenager that really was on fire. At the Armenian Church. It was an Armenian church, but he was not Armenian. He was a non-Armenian who was hired as the youth pastor, and he got everybody all inspired. Wow. But if you went to the church, you would have the kind of service that was very Episcopalian, almost Catholic. Mm-hmm. You had the incense. You had the guys with the hats and stuff. and all that kind of stuff, and responsive reading and stuff like that.

23:49 And it was all in Armenian. So you'd go to church, you'd go, okay, I've learned English. I go to English school, all this stuff. So it meant something, but it didn't mean that much. What I was told when I was young, when I was a little child, I spoke fluently because my grandmother and grandfather lived upstairs from our house. And my mom. And my dad was in the Air Force. So I didn't meet my dad until I was a year and a half old. Wow. He was stationed in India. So I was told I spoke a lot of Armenian. Of course, I had English friends. And they know that when you're around people, when you're young, you learn a language a lot easier.

24:34 Sure. But anyway, so my grandmother, who had come through Ellis Island, like a lot of people did, was in 1915, that was when the Ottoman Empire attacked Armenia. And they went in and they killed about 1.5 to 1.9 million, I believe. And my grandmother had her husband beheaded and her daughter run through a spear in front of her. It was pretty bad. And somehow, you know, we talked about this a while back. The French were very instrumental in getting them out of that country.

25:15 Yeah. It was interesting. And when you go to France, there's a lot of Armenians in France. But my grandmother, the day that I came to the Lord, which was 1965, I was 20 years old. And I was upstairs. My cousin was leading me to the ward. My grandmother was downstairs, and she jumped up off the sofa. And my mom was like, what's going on? She says, my grandson just came to Jesus. And she was downstairs when I was upstairs. She didn't hear it upstairs. She didn't hear a word. Oh, my gosh. The Lord revealed to her. And she was that kind of a person. She was— For someone who had gone through that much tragedy, there was not a hateful bone in her body.

26:00 There was not a resentful bone in her body. She was really the example of turning the other cheek. Now, was she in a concentration camp, did you say? Well, she grazed on field grass with thousands of Armenians without trying to escape. Yeah, it was bad. How did your family feel when you picked up and I guess you put everything you could pack into your little Camaro, which doesn't hold a lot. I didn't have much. Yeah. So, so, um. I got to California. My mom was heartbroken, actually.

26:41 She was heartbroken. But there was an understanding a few years later as to what I was doing, because we talked about this. But my mom had some problems. I mean, I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was from just understanding what had happened to her people and all that kind of stuff. And she, she had, um, she had a lot of anxiety and stuff and she would take a lot of her frustrations out on me and my sisters. Hmm. And my mom died very young. She was 49 years old. And she died of cancer. And, of course, back then, and we talked about this, back then they gave you cobalt and that would kill you. Right.

27:22 It was supposed to cure you, but cobalt is radioactive. Right. Very bad. And most people would die of pneumonia from the chemotherapy. So, yeah. But what was cool was Stormy and her, my wife Stormy and her, became really good friends for the year before she passed away. And it was very redemptive. The whole thing was a very redemptive. But yeah. It's nice that you've had a very blessed life. You've had great success. And most people would know that. And I asked you one time, what were the lows? And I think you termed it as PTSD from from your mom's illness and other challenges.

28:06 And I'm sure your faith just supported you through all of that. I mean. Well, you know, I often, what's interesting, faith is an interesting thing because it's, in some ways it's irrational to people who don't have it. But it's so rational for people who have it. And if you think about faith is exercised all day long in various areas, but why is it that a faith in a living God is somehow different than the faith that if I step off a cliff that I know that I'm going to just You know what I'm saying?

28:55 We have faith that someone's not going to rob us today. We have faith that someone's not going to run into us today. And I'm always intrigued by these things where an atheist will be debating a Christian, and he demands all this evidence— And yet the atheist doesn't realize how much time he spends exercising faith every day anyway. Yeah. So it's always a conundrum to me. I'm going, well, first of all, how would you know what a relationship with someone is unless you've lived it for a while? Right. And you've experienced it. So you're going to tell me that my experiences are not valid when I know they are.

29:41 So, I mean, it was just one of those kind of things that as I immersed myself into the teachings and I got to a really good church and great teachings and stuff like that, and I saw what the Lord did for people. Sure, we have tragedy, we have bad times, but we were never promised. great times. Right. Yeah, we talk about faith that nobody will run into you, and then they do. It's like, wait a minute, what happened? Yeah, what happened? Exactly. So that's enough for someone to say, well, I can't believe that because everything's supposed to be perfect. Well, no. As long as we live on this earth, it won't be perfect. One of the things I love about Scripture is it doesn't sugarcoat anything. It tells you the whole story, the dark side of our heroes from the Scripture, and the victories, and the struggles and the mistakes and the redemption of it all.

30:31 How did that affect you working in the studio with people that, again, great celebrity superstars, Whitney Houston, Billy Joel, Reba, Dolly, Steely Dan, all these people. What was your posture in the studio as a Christian man? And was there ever any, confrontation, any conflict, or were you just, because I know people know you and they know what you're about. Yeah. And I would assume that most of them would have just inbuilt respect for you, not only as a musician, as a world class, I was going to say the man, the myth, the legend, there's no myth to you.

31:12 You are legendary in the field of music, but they respected that. Do you think that also carried over to them respecting your faith and your personal conviction? Well, it's interesting because— Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. There were opportunities to be able to talk about it, but I would not—I don't know. This doesn't sound right, but I didn't use the studio as an evangelistic. Yeah, yeah, sure. I felt if we were one-on-one at a lunch or something like that, maybe it's more appropriate, but I felt like I'm there to work. Right. Okay. And that included—I mean, when I worked with Barry Manilow, we had many discussions.

31:57 Oh, yeah. Christian, when I worked with Rod Stewart, the day I walked into the studio with Rod Stewart, he had a Robert Shuler book and a Pat Boone testimony book under his arm. And I went, I walked in and I went, wow. And it was really interesting because after everybody left, we would sit and we'd talk and I could tell there was a struggle. And to me, with Rod and certain people, it really came down to just this thing that, well, I have to give up everything if I – And I'm going – I understand because you have the world at your fingertips. Sure. So that's a big obstacle.

32:38 It's like a rich, young woman. Yeah. Going through the eye of the needle. He came up and said, yeah, and he said, give everything away. And my answer is always, God will show you and give you the grace no matter what it is. And so there were times where as a producer, yeah, we would talk about, the Lord. But if I was just being hired to come in and play piano, I'd play piano. Well, but again, I've known you for a long time, and hopefully all of us who have matured as we walk with the Lord, hopefully the presence of Holy Spirit in our lives comes out of our spiritual pores, that people know that there's something there.

33:18 You know, we shared last time about Someone gave me this new book about the Rolling Stones, and I find it grieving to me that hardcore Christian, I don't know what the word is, but that we're so judgmental and we point fingers like you're going to get what you deserve one day. And I got to say this. I do not want what I deserve. I do not want that. Yeah. I did a festival out on the West Coast one year, and they asked me to close the festival and speak for the final devotional. And I put a devotion together, and the promoter said, look, I need to know what the title of your talk is going to be. And I said, the title of it is, You've Got to Be Kidding Me.

34:02 He said, I need more details. So I walk out on the stage with my Bible and I hold it up and I said, I've read this. You got to be kidding me. Yeah. I can't do this. Yeah. Is along with many other overriding messages from God's word is one of them. Could one of them be? You can't do this. Yeah. Let me make it very clear. Let me make so many specific instructions for use, most of which would make your life better if you'll just do them.

34:42 But I know that you can't do it. And the whole point of it was the spirit of God in me can do it, but I cannot do it. And how come we've gotten so arrogant to think, man, I'm so much better than you. You deserve to blah, blah, blah. And I find myself as I'm reading about some of these people you've worked with, my heart is softened toward them and praying that whatever you seeded into them in that session or at that lunch or that reading that Rod was doing, that, you know, before it's too late, they'll realize how loved they are. Well, you know, I know we've had these discussions and I know I talk to certain people and There's a couple words, grace and mercy, which seem to be something that's very much missing because our discourses are almost political.

35:36 You know what I'm saying? We become political people. And we take sides and we go, you know, unless you do this this way, you can't possibly do this. And I'm not sure because of the fact that I don't think I deserve God's grace and mercy. Who am I to not? give someone else grace and mercy. Right. And that doesn't mean if you identify something that they're self-destructive, you don't say, hey, you got to stop that because you're not doing it. That's instructive. That's mercy. But we've gotten to the point where judgment is becoming so, and it's everywhere.

36:17 I mean, it's kind of like, and I really believe that our churches are starting to get into trouble because they're, taking sides and they're going, we're valid, you're invalid, I'm invalid, whatever it is. Don't get me wrong. There are rules, but those rules are impossible to follow without God's mercy and grace. In fact, it's kind of designed that way. You know, there was how many... rabbinical laws were there 611 things back in Ecclesiastes and stuff like that, where you had to do all these things particularly, or else God wouldn't favor you or whatever.

37:01 Well, Jesus came in to kind of wipe all that crud out. Yeah. I'm the new covenant. I'm the new guy. I'm here. I took the beating that you should have taken the beating for, and I'm here. It's kind of interesting, and I think a lot of people have pushed Christianity into a political system. Absolutely. And nothing further from the truth, Christianity is not a political system. In fact, Jesus said, render under the politics, the politicians, what they got. This is a whole separate thing here. Yeah. So don't mix this junk up, you know?

37:42 And so when you read that book about the Rolling Stones, I'm with you. Instead of going, oh, what a bunch of perverted goofball. I hope they come to know Jesus. Mm-hmm. Experience. Yeah. Well, I'm reading the part right now where they played at Altamont, and anybody that knows music, pop music history knows what happened at Altamont. And just the, again, like the scripture pointing out how many things we cannot accomplish. How many times do you have to go down this road to realize, you know what, this ain't working, man. This is destructive, and this is not working. And so, you know, we try to light the darkness a little bit with what we do.

38:27 You've spent your life doing that. You've accomplished incredible things in the pop world. The one thing that I still hear, I told you, the one thing I still hear at the grocery store, at the gym, everywhere, the Christopher Cross record. We talked about that one time. How did that come to be? I know it took a while to... You talked about being involved with the Warner Brothers people and talk about that because people know that record. Well, I was at ABC Dunhill as a staff producer. This was prior to the Warner Brothers thing. So I was just kind of getting my feet wet as everything but a session player. In fact, I kind of got that job at ABC.

39:09 Yeah. through a guy named Steve Berry, who was the head of A&R, and he liked what I did as a player. So he said, will you become my arranger? And I did that. And will you help me produce? Yeah. And he said, well, why don't you come over here and be part of this? So that was the transition from that. So I was cutting my teeth. Sometimes as a studio musician, you need to learn what a good song is. If you're going to become a producer, you need to know what a hook is. You need to know what'll sell. And those are the kind of things you go, I'm a pure musician, man. I'm above all that kind of stuff. No. If you want to sell records and you want to be successful, you've got to have a little bit of an ear as to what the people want to hear.

39:51 And Steve kept banging that into my head. He said, that's the most important thing. So anyway. Yeah. He goes to Warner's, and part of the deal of him going to Warner Brothers, he says, I want Michael Amartian to come with me. Well, I'm still kind of green, a little bit green. So I end up in the A&R department with Ted Teppelman, who did the Doobie Brothers. Now, wait a minute. How many years – just set the scene for me. How many years from driving the Camaro from Chicago to L.A. with $3,000 – to now, to what you're talking about? How many years? So 1967 is when I got there. The ABC Dunhill is 1972.

40:35 So five years. Five years. So when that all started to bloom, were you at home going, what were you feeling when that all started coming around for you? Well, you know what? The thing is, is that everything is really organic. There's no computers. There's nothing. So really, it's all about. conversations all about sitting in a room it's all about playing for someone and it's not sending a tape to somebody you're in a room with somebody and it took that it took four years of doing that kind of stuff where i was just yeah i'll come over would you like for me to and and and i ended up on a session with with two of the guys from the wrecking crew joe osborne and hal blaine And they're the ones that kind of got me into the studio thing from one session.

41:28 And so that was ABC Dunhill. So that's 1967 to 1972. Now it's 1972. I'm at ABC Dunhill as a staff A&R guy, artist and repertoire. And so I'm cutting my teeth by working with Steve Barry, doing his stuff and all kinds of stuff. So he goes to Warner Brothers around 1976. And so I met Warner Brothers in 1976. And I'm in the A&R department. And it's pretty daunting because you have these producers who were 12. I was one of the 12. Isn't that funny? Of course you were. Yeah.

42:08 Wow. One of the 12. Anyway, so you had Ted Templeman, who was the Doobie Brothers, and Van Halen. You had Gary Katz, Stevie Dan. You had Russ Teitelman, Eric Clapton. You had Lenny Werniker, what was the name of the Canadian guy that died recently? He had a son. Yeah. but Gordon Lightfoot. I mean, just one after I'm looking around, I'm going, this is ridiculous. I mean, so anyway, every Wednesday morning, Part of the thing was we'd sit for three hours and we'd listen to cassettes that would come in from the general public. Warner Brothers was one of the very few companies at the time that would actually take material.

42:49 Unsolicited. Unsolicited. Wow. It was very unusual. It didn't end that way, but it started that way. Sure. Sure. So by the time I got there, it was 76, evidently, I would say that was probably closer to seven. I've been there for a little while, now that I think about it. I've been there for a little while because I didn't go into the studio with Chris until 1978, 79. So it must have been around 1977 when we're in this A&R meeting, which we're doing every week. And they play a cassette, and it's Chris. And I never heard his – nobody even mentioned that. And Lenny says, we got another one from Christopher Cross.

43:30 And you see everybody go, okay, I heard that. They put it in, and someone says, I've heard this before. I've heard that before. And this is the first time I'm hearing it. Sailing, Ride Like the Wind. There were like three or four. And I'm watching everybody, and everybody's kind of looking down at the ground and going like that. And I'm going, hey, this is some pretty cool stuff. And I'm the new kid, so I speak up and I say, does anybody else like this? And Lenny, the head of A&R, says, do you like it? I said, yeah. He says, well, then you do it. Wow. That's exactly what he said. Wow. That's all it took.

44:10 One person in the room goes, I like this. Okay, then produce it. So flew him out from Austin. He's thinking he's going to meet with one of the big guys. I'm tucked up. So he comes into my office, sits down, and I'm noticing a very cold vibe. And he's not asking me a lot of questions. I'm just saying, hey, I really like this song. Thank you. Yeah, I did this. Anyway, to make a long story short, we were there for about a half hour or something. He says, okay, well, thank you. And he gets up and he walks out. And I went, what was that about?

44:51 And I just couldn't figure out what was going on. About an hour later, knock on the door. It's him. He said, hey. Hey. you played on Steely Dan's stuff, didn't you? I said, yeah. He said, could you get Larry Carlton to play on the record? I said, of course. He's a good friend of mine. He says, well, then you're my producer. That's how that happened. And so it's just, it's the nature of the beast. These kinds of things happen all the time. These weird interactions where someone who's not supposed to be doing something gets into something and then it just Bus wide open. And the budget for that record that had, you said, five number one songs on it?

45:32 Yeah, well, it had, I know, at least three and probably two others that were top. Top ten, yeah. Top ten, something like that. And it sold millions. I mean, it sold a lot of records. And the budget you said was 186? Well, we were only supposed to spend about $100,000, but we spent 186. And the lawyer came down and he just read me the riot act. He said, how could you do that? And then to, to put a cherry on that one, the head of, uh, The promotion department calls me and says, Omar, he said, we're going to delay the release of this record for six months. And I just sat there at my desk and I went, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen?

46:15 That means that's usually the death knell. We don't believe in it. And you got to realize that at the time you had the Cars, you had Blondie, you had the punk movement and all that stuff. So we're making a real pop record here. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't have anything to do with what people are playing. Well, anyway, they usually send out a – album to all the radio stations. Here's our new artist that will be coming out. We're going to be sending out a release. Anyway, some guy in Miami plays the record and he hears Ride Like the Wind and he starts playing it. The song Ride Like the Wind and the phones are lighting up. all the Hispanic right there. Love that vibe, that old wild West vibe.

46:57 Yeah. The way it sounds. The bongos and the condos. And it got back, it got back to the Warner's people and they put, they put it out as a single and it was a number one record. Huge. And, uh, and the guy who was the head of, of, uh, promotion called me long after the album had become very popular. He says, I just want you to know that we had nothing to do with this. He said, he said, It was out of our control. He said it just went out and went like nuts. Yeah. He said all we had to do was bring it out. That's awesome. He said we didn't know. And then, of course, what came behind that is something like that, and we did very well at the Grammys. That kind of sets the tone for what you'll hear.

47:39 like Robbie Dupree, Steal Away, and different records and stuff. Right. You hear all these records and you go, they were kind of influenced by... Absolutely. ...some of this stuff. That chord progression. That chord progression. Yeah, absolutely. Or vibes or whatever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 1980, arrangement, best arrangement for vocal performance, Grammy. 1980, record of the year, Grammy. 1980, 1980, Album of the year for sailing Grammy award. Those are big. Those are big. Where did he fall in as the artist?

48:19 Was he, uh, Oh, he was fun. Yeah. He was fun. Yeah. We had a great time. Texas guy. Austin. He's such a good guitar. Yeah. Yeah. Look, MTV, MTV was just starting up. Remember that? Yes. Yeah. MTV was just beginning. Right. Right. Duran Duran was the, because they lived nice. And it became, the videos had to be these beautiful things with beautiful people and stuff. And here comes this guy. He's wearing a Houston Oilers jersey. And he's out there with his beard and stuff like that. He's playing these romantic songs and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. I mean, it was just the anti-everything that you could possibly think.

49:00 Yeah. It was so out of left field that no one could believe it. Yeah. It happened. Yeah. He wasn't a hairdo. That was 1980. Go back a little bit. 1972's when things began to cook for you. How did you meet Stormy, Stormy O'Marty and Michael's wife? huge best-selling author of Christian books over, I think you said, 45 million plus books. Yeah, about 42 to about 45 million. And we think someone in an airport is buying one right now. So 45 million and two. Where did you guys meet? You married in 73. Does the name Jimmy Owens mean anything to you?

49:42 Yeah, sure. Jimmy and Carol Owens were doing a musical. Okay. One of their musicals. And they wanted me to play piano on the date. And back in those days, it wasn't unusual to have the entire thing there. Sound players, background singers. So we showed up at United, I think it was United Western, I believe, which was on Sunset. Big room. And it was probably 17 to 20 people. I was a keyboard player. There were two guitar players. There was a background vocalist. There was the key vocalist. I believe there was maybe some strings or whatever. And Stormy was one of the background vocalists.

50:23 And she used to be on the Glen Campbell show, one of the regulars of the Glen Campbell show. I didn't know that because I didn't watch the Glen Campbell show. I knew Glen Campbell as a musician, but I didn't watch the show. Glen was a session player also, right? Yeah, he sure was. Yeah, sure was. Before he got there. So she was there. I mean, I wasn't doing well. I had a sinus thing going really bad. And she was a health food addict. There was the contractor. I can't remember Terry's last name. I know her married name was Terry Harriton. But Terry was the contractor for the vocalists. And she walks up to me and says, I want you to meet the background singers.

51:04 So I meet all the girls. There was like four or five of them. And Sturmer was one of them. I said, hello. And she was absolutely beautiful. I went down and I said, there's no way. And I just walked back to the piano. So I'm sitting there. And on a break, she comes over because I'm noodling out something. She says, that's really neat what you're doing. What is that? I just told her. And I started wheezing, and I was just having a real – she said, man, you don't sound good. I said, no, I have bad surgery. She says, well, I have a concoction that I can make for you, and it'll really help you. Well, no, I had three days of sessions. So after we were done, she lived very close to where I lived, so I just stopped over, and she mixed this – oh, my gosh.

51:50 It had seeds and weird stuff. But I just looked at her as I was drinking and that took the pain away. Oh, sure. I tell you, it really, it really helped. Oh, my God. So the next day we're back at it again. And it's a complicated story, and it's probably not the time to get into it. But she didn't know the Lord at the time. She was a non-believer. And I knew right away when I walked into her apartment, she had a library of books on the shelves, and everything was New Way. It was the weirdest titles. I'm looking. As it turned out, she had a mentally ill mother, very badly.

52:31 Mm-hmm. And she was grappling with a lot of depression and stuff like that. I didn't know anything about this. So I'm sitting, I'm looking at all these books and stuff like that. And so I go back and Terry on the third day says, you gotta, you gotta ask her out. I mean, I gotta ask her out. She says, no, you gotta take her out. I go, Terry. I said, why are you saying that? I said, she said, I think she likes you. I said, yeah, but. I said, I walked into her apartment, and she had all these. She said, well, maybe you can do something about that. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. Relationship evangelism.

53:11 Romantic evangelism. So what do I do? I ask her out. Well, you know, I mean, come on. We'll go get a pizza. Yeah. We sit and talk about everything, and I realize we're not talking the same language. I mean, I really like her, and it's obvious she likes me. I said, but we're not really talking the same thing because her whole Hollywood sphere of subjects isn't really moving the needle for me because it's all about these weird things that have to do with health food and all this kind of weird stuff. So I thought, well, okay, let's see what happens.

53:52 So I go over to her place, and we start talking. I start talking about Jesus, and I start talking to her. And I realized what the problem was. It was her mother, who severely met the legal, always invoked Bible verses, and browbeat her over the head with all that kind of stuff. And her mother was a complete schizophrenic. So I'm looking at her. I didn't know this. I really did not know this until much later. So this is what's going on. And she's looking at me and says, no, I'm not interested in that. And we were talking for a long time. A knock comes on the door. I said, Sherman, who's knocking on your door at 11 o'clock?

54:35 She says, oh, oh. And she goes and opens up the door. And a guy walks in. Michael, I want you to meet Michael. Hey, man, how you doing? It turns out it's her fiance. Oops. I don't know anything about it. Terry put me up to this to get her to not marry this guy. Now, Terry, with the intention of her ending up with me, it doesn't matter. Don't put me. I was on a mission from Satan, man. Are you kidding me? This is the worst thing in the world. And he looks at me and says, hey, man, how you doing? And I'm looking, I'm going, that's your reaction to a guy in your wife-to-be's apartment at 11 or 11.30 at night?

55:21 Oh, wow. Well, Stormy, tomorrow I'll pick you up at so-and-so. Okay, okay, Michael. And he walks out, and I'm sitting there, and I'm looking, I'm going, what am I dealing with? So the Lord was working on her big time, but it took a while. Yeah. Anyway, so as fate would have it or as the Lord would have it, I lived within a few blocks of her for the entire time that she was with this guy. It was right around the corner. And I would come down a street called Valley Vista that would end up at Ventura Boulevard. And right at the bow where I'd go, there was the house that she was going to be in with this guy. And for an entire year, I never ran into, I never saw her ever.

56:06 Wow. Ever. And I thought about her a lot because I thought to myself, why did this happen? I had to know why did all this happen because it was so unusual. And it even got to the point where I got a phone call from her. I was living with a couple guys at this place. I get a phone call. She says, are you home? I said, yes, I'm home. She said, can I come and see you? I said, no. I said, no. I said, why do you want to see me? She says, because I'm getting married tomorrow and I'm at my rehearsal dinner and I need to talk to you. And I'm going, this is my wife, the author. I'm at the rehearsal dinner and I got to get out of here.

56:49 I need to talk to you. I go, Stormy. I said, what are you talking about? So I felt compassion. She comes over. She's all dressed to the nines and she's sobbing. And I'm looking at her. You're getting married tomorrow and you want out. And I said, tell him you don't want to marry him. She said, I can't. My mom's already, everybody's, it's all been paid for. I said, I can't do it. I said, yes, you can. And she kept looking at me. I said, if you want me to promise you something, I can't do it. And I knew why. We're not on the same page. We just aren't. So anyway, she gets married. I keep going back and forth.

57:32 I see a lady coming out from the side of the garage with the garbage to put it out on the street. It's her. And she was like 25 pounds lighter. And she saw me. And I stopped. And she came up and she was gaunt. And she looked like she was really not doing well. I said, what's going on? She says, oh, I'm having a hard time. I said, I'm really sorry to hear that. Anyway, fast forward. I'm in church, and I'm sitting there, and this is the church on the way. It was a very small church at the beginning. It was a little chapel. And I'm sitting there, and as it would usually be, every week, Jack Hayford would say, row in front of you, turn around, grab hands, and pray about personal needs.

58:21 So I'm just sitting there like this, and I'm looking up ahead, and there's a blonde head about four rows in front of me, but I haven't even put the pieces together. I'm just going, okay. So we stand up. She turns around four rows or three, whatever it is, and I catch her. I go, she's in church. She's here. Anyway, after the service, I said, what happened? She said, I came to know Jesus. I said, what? She said, yeah. She says, and I had to divorce the guy because he was cheating on me. And so I took her out. I said, let's go to lunch. And we were married within the year.

59:02 Wow. Yeah. Is that story widely known? I don't know. Wow. Well, you know it. Beautiful, beautiful, man. I mean, it's an amazing thing. And I had an ache in my heart. And I'm going, I don't know her well enough to have an ache in my heart. I just don't. You know, it's not, we never really established anything. You know what I'm saying? Because we weren't on the same turf. Sure. And I just knew it was one thing if she was just benign, but she was so into the new age thing that it was really troubling to me. It was that kind of, I've astral projected, I've been, I've seen myself, I'm going, I'm And I mean, it sounds like she's loony, but just that she had gotten so into it that she was really devoted to this style of living.

59:55 And I just said, man, I don't relate to it. And I don't want to try to untangle this. And it says not to be unequally yoked. And that was very important to me. Right. My Christianity was very important to me because I knew. It'd be like anything. Like, you know, if you had a tremendous interest in something and you wanted to devote your – and the person you married hates what you're doing, it's just not going to be good. Right. So. What brought about her first – her first book was called? The Power of the Praying Wife? Well, that's not her first book, but that was the first book that went nuts. Yeah. Was that because of you, that she had to become the power of the praying wife?

1:00:38 Probably so. But the interesting thing about that, she had came on to Harvest House Publishers, and she had this idea. She said, you know what? And we were married, and the neat thing about going to this church is that there were small groups. We would break up into small groups. We would go to someone's house, and we would share things. And dealing with couples and stuff like that, she said, oh, my goodness, I think I have an idea for a book. Because we were with so many couples, and there were so many needs. So she presents to her publisher, and he says, nah, that'll never sell. I'm not kidding. And I got to thank God she was very resolute. She said, I'm sorry. She said, I feel passionate about this.

1:01:21 This is what I want to write. And he gave him 11 million, 12 million copies. I mean, and I don't know how many languages. It's kind of like the sailing record. We're going to sit on. Yeah, yeah. You're against the grain. You're being told no. Yeah, yeah. Man, oh, man. Yeah. One of the things I love, I love many things about you, and I'm honored to be, I looked on, you know, the Wikipedia, which can be true or not, but I looked at some of the artists you've worked with, and they're in alphabetical order.

1:02:02 It gave me chills to see my name. Right before the Y, Trisha Yearwood. And so we've made some records together that, I never dreamed I would ever accomplish much less with you. You know, um, I can, I can be melancholy. You, you can be melancholy. I, I have to really fight against going back to, Oh, I wish we, I wish we could do it. Like we used to do it. I wish we could be together and create. I remember you being in my home. Yeah. playing on my piano in the living room one time, you were noodling around, and I said, what is that?

1:02:44 And it became a song called Come Home. It's unbelievable. My oldest son at the time had just started to drive, and I remember we lived out in the country, and very few people came down the road, and I remember standing there at the window, watching for the lights to come down the road, because then I could take a deep breath, but I remember that tune you were playing, and Gosh, man, I just... That's beautiful. I miss that. What you did with it was beautiful. Let me... I know you're always interviewing people and you want to hear their stories, but let me tell you something, man. And I've told you this a million times.

1:03:27 Working with you was unbelievable because you have such talent. I mean, you're such a great keyboard player. You're a great singer, great writer. You have all the components that, would make a pop star. And I told you that a million times. You have a voice that I could see would be just right there with Phil Collins and everybody else out there, and you would have probably had a bunch of top 10 hits, but you devoted your life to the Lord and said, this is where I'm going to put my talent. And I respected that because there's one thing that always happens, and that is that sometimes you divert to this particular form of music a lot of talent to be able to go against the big boys and the girls.

1:04:15 And I don't say that in a smug way at all. It's just that it becomes a holding tank. And today, sadly, there's a lot of that in all music, where there's people that just aren't qualified and they're out there, you know, duking it out. But I told you that I thought you're, especially your pop voice, and doing that one record that we did, Every song, I listened to it a million times. Yeah. The Way Home. The Way Home, yeah. It's such a good record, man. And I talked to John Hammond, the drummer, and he says, man, he said, that was my favorite record. Oh. Well, I'm just going to tell you that it was a treat. And when you came over to my house to do Field of Souls, now, that track is, that song is ridiculous, man.

1:04:57 It's about seven minutes long, and it just... you start levitating for such a great song that you wrote. And it was such a great record. And it was a treat to be able to get back in the studio with you. That's been a long time. It's been a long time. Can you believe how long? I know, man. Field of Souls was. 2000 what? 13, 12, 13? Oh, no, no. Way before that. Are you serious? Yeah. 95 maybe. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. 95? No, no, no, no, no. No, it was later than that.

1:05:37 I guarantee. When I was living in Baton Rouge, things were really, really not good and tight. And I went to a steak and ale restaurant and auditioned to play in their club. Wow. And I went in and played for the manager, and there were two people in the bar. I mean, I didn't know what to do. We needed to have some money. And I went and played in the bar to audition for the manager. And there were two people, a man and a woman who were being secretive and not paying attention to me. And I played and the guy said, sure, we'll give you 50 bucks a night, blah, blah, blah.

1:06:18 And I remember walking out of there going, you know, I came to the Lord when I was nine and 16. I don't know what, but I'm not doing this. And it never, I mean, I'm not just making this up. It never occurred to me to try to be anything other than to give this gift for eternal purposes. And you know me, I can go real sad real quick. And I hope, I don't hope, I know what we've done together has had an impact on people. They don't need to know all the details of the struggles that you and I have been through.

1:07:02 But thank God the stuff that we did. You know, I listen to records back from the 80s and 90s that you did and the sounds, because we talked earlier about the engineers, the brilliant engineers that take stuff and make it sound just incredible. But the stuff we did together really holds up, and I will forever grateful for it. And I'll try not to wish we could do more, but, you know, we've given this to the Lord, and He'll do with it what He will. But, man, I'm just so thankful for your friendship. And you could go on and on about your accomplishments and all this stuff, and you just don't.

1:07:48 And that's a beautiful thing to me. And your heart has just blessed me so much, man. You know, thank you for those words. And I feel the same way about you. I just, those things I've done with you are real highlights to me. Very creative, great songs, just great. But you know, the other thing that really struck me, every single time, and I don't know if you think this way too, but it's amazing to me. It's amazing when you think about how hard certain people, try to leave what they call a legacy. Okay. I want to put my stamp on something and I want to be remembered forever and all, whatever that is.

1:08:30 And every single time a huge pop artist or a rock artist dies, they have about two days where everybody goes, oh, and on the third day, it's never talked about again. Yeah. And when I see that over and over again, I go, you know what? Leaving a legacy on this earth just to leave a legacy, it doesn't mean anything. Legacy is in our kids, our families. Whatever music we did, okay, that's fine. But there's more important things to me as far as legacy. And I feel really sad for someone who works their entire life to hope that they'll be eternally remembered for what they did.

1:09:17 I'd rather be remembered for what I was than what I did. And that means more to me to have someone say he was a good guy. Yeah. Treated people right. Just like you. Yeah. He wasn't arrogant about this. He wasn't this. He always was, you know, was nice. You know, my son is that. I see it in him where people come to me and say, man, you've got a really good kid. He's so polite. He's so nice. And that makes me happy as can be. Yeah. Because that means more to me than the fact that he's brilliant at what he does. Yeah. He's such a nice kid, man. He's so respectful. And to me, that's what it is. Yeah.

1:09:57 People... People can play your song, but they'll remember you if you shook their hand and hugged them and said, can I pray for you? Or what's going on with you? Can I help you? A song is one thing, but much more to me. Well, bro, thank you so much for spending time with me again. We will do it again. Thank you so much. Thank you, Wayne. Love you. Thanks for listening to the Wayne Watson Podcast, where stories of faith, purpose, and everyday life meet and continue to uplift hearts around the world. Be sure to follow, leave us a review, and share this episode with a friend. To learn more about Wayne's music, ministry, and upcoming projects, visit WayneWatson.com.

1:10:42 Every journey of faith begins with a story, and every heart finds its rhythm in the Lord. Until next time, go well, and may you keep walking in step with His song flowing through you.