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

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Well, hi, and thank you for joining me again for the podcast.

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I hope you've enjoyed the episodes so far.

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Today, I think you're really going to enjoy this.

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This is a dear old friend of mine.

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He is, sometimes you start off saying the man, the myth, the legend.

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There's nothing mythical.

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mythical about Michael O'Marty.

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Michael has so many awards and accomplishments that it would take an hour or more to go, even just to read them off.

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It's kind of like visiting the Smithsonian.

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It would take a while to go.

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Michael is an American singer, songwriter, producer, artist, arranger, composer.

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He has had number one records worldwide in three different decades.

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In 1980, he won Best Arrangement for a vocal performance for the song Sailing for Christopher Cross.

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He won the Grammy for that.

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They also won the Grammy for Record of the Year for Sailing.

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They won Album of the Year for Sailing, the Grammy, three Grammys in 1980 for those.

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He's won multiple, countless Dove Awards and other things.

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Some of the artists he's produced are Clint Black, Clint Black,

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Michael Bolton, Debbie Boone, Peter Cetera, Christopher Cross, Amy Grant, Whitney Houston, the Imperials, the Jacksons, Billy Joel.

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We talk about this, I think, but he played the accordion on the song Piano Man on Billy Joel.

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Great big hit.

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Reba McIntyre, Dolly.

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Do I need to say Dolly?

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Dolly, kind of like Cher.

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Cliff Richard, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer, and down at the bottom of the alphabetical list, yours truly.

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I'm honored and have wonderful memories of working with him.

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He's married to an incredibly successful Christian author, Stormy Omarion, who's sold in the neighborhood of 50 million books and books.

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We had a great time talking today about a lot of things, and I hope you'll enjoy this time with Michael.

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You're doing good?

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Yeah.

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You look good, man.

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Oh, I'm working on it, man.

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You look good.

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I'm working on it.

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You know, I go.

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I know, man.

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I got this little belly that just my little boy calls it Marcy, Marshmallow.

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Hey, Marcy, how you doing, Marcy?

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Hey, dude.

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Yeah.

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What are you going to do?

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Okay, you're doing good.

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Okay, we're going to start like we did last time.

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Okay.

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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.

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Well, all the stories have changed.

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Okay.

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I decided I'm going to give you another version.

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Okay.

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Another version of you.

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Well, uh, what I wanted to do before we started today, I wanted to, to text some of our mutual friends.

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We have many, uh, and just say, what comes to mind when you think of Michael Amartian?

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And I, I would, I'm going to do that probably.

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Uh, I'm taking my son to school this morning and, um,

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Christopher cross comes on the whatever radio satellite I was listening to and never be the same came on.

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And I wondered if you invented that progression.

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Did you invent that?

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Where did that come from?

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I don't know.

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That yacht rock, uh, progression.

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Yes, yes, yes.

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Did you invent that?

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That was around.

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That was around.

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I don't remember ever hearing that in a rock pop setting.

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I know.

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Because normally it would just be.

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Yes.

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But then you add the.

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I know.

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I know.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Everything I ever played.

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It just messes with it a little bit.

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Well, everything I played after I heard that, like, yes, I like that.

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Yep.

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I like that.

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We've been friends for a long time.

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Uh, thinking about how many years have gone by.

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It's a little scary.

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I remember us cutting, um, a song that sounded like chickens.

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Um, um,

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you dancing around the studio.

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I remember playing, uh, you were playing accordion in a couple of things.

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And the.

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Wouldn't that be something?

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Yes.

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Wouldn't that be something?

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Exactly.

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And we had like the beach boys and it goes into this weird thing.

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Yeah.

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We had background vocals kind of doing that thing.

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And, yeah, we have lots of- The flute thing, like the old Beatles kind of- Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That was a cool record.

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Yeah.

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Oh, man.

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And this last week, I've just listened to all that, and I tell you, it just holds up.

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I don't know what it is.

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I don't know.

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Was that the record that we decided we were not going to use any-

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electric guitars on the tracks, right?

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Isn't that how we did the whole record or did we not?

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I don't think so.

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I don't know.

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Okay.

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I was thinking that there was something about it that was unique to the way we recorded it.

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And we took a little different tack to it and added...

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the more aggressive stuff as an overdue.

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Yeah.

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I think track kind of like, I don't know.

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I don't know.

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For some reason I have this in my mind and I don't know why.

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There were some things like that.

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And I remember the parade of, uh, musicians that came through and, and, uh, the places we recorded, uh,

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You said Sound Kitchen is no longer a building?

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It's leveled.

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Leveled ground.

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It is leveled to the ground.

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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.

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And the story on that is that Rush Limbaugh's wife bought that property to put up a mega studio.

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Okay.

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She spent $22 million and got taken.

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Oh, no.

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Because whoever was the contractor saw an opportunity, and the thing was so messed up.

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It was supposed to be like a nine-room studio.

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Why would you need a nine-room studio today?

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Today.

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For any reason.

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What did it used to be?

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What was Sound Kitchen when we worked there?

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Seven.

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Seven?

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Seven.

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Seven.

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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.

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But there were... And then remember the big...

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The big room.

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What's the name of the big room?

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Oh, yeah.

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You know what I'm talking about.

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Yeah, that was...

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The big room was wonderful.

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Yeah, it was... Those were fun times, man.

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Yeah, it was fun times.

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It was fun to get...

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you know, four or five, six guys in a room and bounce ideas and laugh.

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And, you know, we had a little leeway financially and we had great times doing that.

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Well, there was also experimentation.

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There wasn't something that where you sat in front of a computer and

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And it all came out of one person's head.

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And then you laid it out and go, isn't that wonderful?

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And you go, after a while, it's all your own, that one idea is coming forward.

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I'm serious.

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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.

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Yeah.

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Because of economics and convenience.

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Right.

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It's very convenient.

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I think I've got these programs and I can just sit here on my own and do this entire thing.

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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?

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You know, so it's just a different time.

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Are you still creating from the ground up?

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Yeah, well, my whole thing has changed because the commitment to produce a project is,

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is such, and I'm going to be 81.

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And, and I realized that a lot of the, the exercises of being a producer is to make the artist feel secure, right?

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Happy.

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Oh, content.

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Creatively fulfilled.

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That's part of the job.

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You want to make sure the artist is getting the best out of whatever they're doing.

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Right.

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And I got to tell you, at 80, I just don't have the six months to invest or the three months to invest.

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I can't do it anymore.

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So what I get mostly is someone calls me, say, I need a string chart or I need a piano overdub or whatever.

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Or like I did my...

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I did my second live session in two years recently.

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Two years.

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And this lady, unbelievable, her name is Ella Powell.

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She's from Finland.

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Unbelievable music.

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She's incredible.

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She reminds me of Annie Herring from second chapter.

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But I played on a session with Hemby.

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Bill Maxwell of Koinonia was playing drums.

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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.

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That's the part that I feel like the community of it is gone, and that's such a part, especially as Christians.

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that camaraderie and the, and the, you know, I'm going through this.

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You're on a session and someone says, man, I just found out I have cancer.

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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.

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And that was always something that would be,

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a potential for every single scenario like that where you'd have, you know, my wife just found out she has breast cancer.

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My son or my daughter is going through a really bad time and stuff.

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So it wasn't just music.

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You know, when we were together, there was all, there was all kinds of secondary stories and things that were going on.

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You had some deals that were going on and we would share that, those experiences.

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Right.

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So what's happening to our, our, our friends up there,

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who are being edged out by AI created tracks.

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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.

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Right.

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And I have a good friend of mine in Chicago who's an incredible, his name is Joe Vanna.

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We just, we did an album, but it was done.

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I'll explain it at another time.

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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.

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And he said, I put my lyrics into this thing and it took me to go jolt.

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do you realize that every single thing you send me, it's the same guy singing and it's the same.

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He's inventing a song from your lyrics.

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And the only way he can emote is by singing a five octave thing.

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No man can sing five.

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Right.

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But he's screaming at the top of his lungs in a chorus.

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Right.

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And he's singing down low.

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And I'm going, nobody does that.

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And it's always the same male voice.

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I'm going, where are you going to do this?

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He says, well, I just go to different sites.

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I go, how come it all sounds the same?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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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.

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If it was like 30 years ago, it might take longer for that to get to everybody to go, wait a minute.

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But today, it's like there was a group out of Canada about six or seven months ago named Angine de Potrain,

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And it's two guys.

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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.

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Because it was the rage.

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It was everywhere.

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Everybody, Rick Beato was talking about, everybody was talking about.

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And they were using monochromatic stuff and all this kind of cool stuff.

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It was actually rather cool.

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But I wondered how long would it be before everybody went out next?

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Yeah.

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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.

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And so I think that we're in such a quick world that I think,

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people, even people who access this will get burnt out.

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Yeah, it's so disposable.

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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.

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It's like you say, that can be.

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00:13:15.825 --> 00:13:17.527
disheartening or it can be, you know what?

243
00:13:17.747 --> 00:13:21.730
People that really pour their soul into playing or writing or singing something.

244
00:13:21.750 --> 00:13:22.831
Yeah.

245
00:13:23.272 --> 00:13:24.953
That's more time-tested.

246
00:13:26.154 --> 00:13:29.777
Your stuff has been timeless.

247
00:13:31.058 --> 00:13:42.568
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.

248
00:13:43.560 --> 00:13:44.921
Uh, the Christopher Cross record.

249
00:13:44.941 --> 00:13:46.002
We'll talk about that.

250
00:13:46.062 --> 00:13:47.963
Peter Sotero that was with Chicago.

251
00:13:48.003 --> 00:13:50.845
Did you do his solo stuff after Chicago?

252
00:13:51.325 --> 00:13:51.506
Yeah.

253
00:13:52.026 --> 00:13:54.408
Um, Amy Grant, Billy Joel.

254
00:13:54.528 --> 00:14:00.252
I think we talked about, tell us about the Billy Joel session where you were not playing piano, but you were playing.

255
00:14:00.272 --> 00:14:00.872
Yeah.

256
00:14:00.892 --> 00:14:02.413
Billy, Billy.

257
00:14:02.433 --> 00:14:04.634
The song Piano Man that everybody knows.

258
00:14:04.654 --> 00:14:05.295
Yeah.

259
00:14:05.315 --> 00:14:05.415
Yeah.

260
00:14:06.045 --> 00:14:09.847
Yeah, well, the Piano Man thing, I played accordion on Piano Man.

261
00:14:10.128 --> 00:14:11.248
And everyone goes, oh my.

262
00:14:11.829 --> 00:14:13.310
And I'm thinking, you know what?

263
00:14:13.330 --> 00:14:15.531
That was his first big single.

264
00:14:16.212 --> 00:14:16.992
Okay.

265
00:14:17.192 --> 00:14:19.554
And he was, I really liked him.

266
00:14:19.814 --> 00:14:20.854
I mean, he's a good guy.

267
00:14:20.975 --> 00:14:22.015
I mean, he really is a good guy.

268
00:14:22.035 --> 00:14:24.597
So people think, well, yeah, he's pretty rough.

269
00:14:25.017 --> 00:14:26.818
But he was really a cool dude.

270
00:14:27.078 --> 00:14:31.841
And so this was back in the 70s, of course, because that's when Piano Man came out.

271
00:14:32.322 --> 00:14:33.943
But he was being produced by a guy.

272
00:14:34.753 --> 00:14:36.933
who literally was living out of his car.

273
00:14:37.534 --> 00:14:39.494
And we did the sessions in L.A.

274
00:14:40.254 --> 00:14:44.335
I didn't really know much about him because this was very, very early on in Billy Joel.

275
00:14:44.455 --> 00:14:51.816
I think he was with Liberty Records or some kind of a weird offshoot before Clive Davis got a hold of him in Columbia.

276
00:14:52.736 --> 00:15:01.558
But we did these sessions at a studio on Magnolia Boulevard in Hollywood, North Hollywood.

277
00:15:02.487 --> 00:15:07.648
And I wish I could remember the Devonshire, Devonshire Studios, Devonshire Studios.

278
00:15:08.128 --> 00:15:12.909
And back then, you would book the studio for three or four days and you'd have the rhythm section come in.

279
00:15:13.009 --> 00:15:16.390
And I played B3 organ.

280
00:15:16.570 --> 00:15:17.551
I'd play a Rhodes.

281
00:15:17.791 --> 00:15:18.731
I'd play accordion.

282
00:15:19.131 --> 00:15:22.112
I'd play anything but the piano because that was his instrument.

283
00:15:23.292 --> 00:15:27.953
So I was a session player at the time, so I would be...

284
00:15:28.725 --> 00:15:30.726
jumping from one session to another.

285
00:15:30.806 --> 00:15:42.252
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,

286
00:15:44.115 --> 00:15:47.717
I don't even want to use the word, but you're in demand.

287
00:15:47.757 --> 00:15:48.638
Sure.

288
00:15:48.838 --> 00:15:50.098
You're one of the first call players.

289
00:15:50.138 --> 00:15:52.219
So you're getting called to do this stuff.

290
00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:56.002
So one day you're with Billy Joel, the next day you're with Streisand, you're with somebody else.

291
00:15:57.002 --> 00:15:59.423
And you go jump from studio to studio.

292
00:15:59.744 --> 00:16:03.386
You look at the chart, you play your part, and you move on to the next thing.

293
00:16:03.406 --> 00:16:03.726
Right.

294
00:16:03.746 --> 00:16:03.906
Right.

295
00:16:04.226 --> 00:16:06.247
And that was just the life of a session player.

296
00:16:06.347 --> 00:16:15.132
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.

297
00:16:15.272 --> 00:16:18.874
Otherwise, I wouldn't know any of the other titles on that record.

298
00:16:19.374 --> 00:16:19.854
Wow.

299
00:16:20.115 --> 00:16:20.535
Yeah.

300
00:16:21.075 --> 00:16:25.658
Because that was just a day in the life of a studio player, but for three or four days in a row.

301
00:16:26.278 --> 00:16:30.200
You told me before, you talk about you grew up in Chicago.

302
00:16:31.465 --> 00:16:33.647
And we've talked about what else would you do if not music?

303
00:16:33.687 --> 00:16:34.408
And you said nothing.

304
00:16:35.509 --> 00:16:36.730
You fell in love with music.

305
00:16:37.130 --> 00:16:44.035
But it was interesting because it was almost like, this is the weird part about it because I love sports.

306
00:16:44.256 --> 00:16:46.818
I enjoyed all that kind of stuff.

307
00:16:46.858 --> 00:16:50.520
I enjoyed doing whatever kids would do.

308
00:16:51.201 --> 00:16:57.166
But my aunt had a spinet piano at her house, and I was like four or five years old.

309
00:16:58.247 --> 00:17:01.228
And she would call my mom, my mom, Sophie.

310
00:17:01.248 --> 00:17:13.054
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.

311
00:17:13.074 --> 00:17:15.275
And she said, there's something going on with this kid.

312
00:17:15.615 --> 00:17:20.198
And to me, I didn't think of it as anything other than just something else that I did.

313
00:17:21.278 --> 00:17:23.059
And I played accordion.

314
00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:25.180
That's how I became qualified.

315
00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:25.400
Yeah.

316
00:17:27.087 --> 00:17:28.067
Billy Joel's thing.

317
00:17:28.088 --> 00:17:31.089
That was one of the first, that was one of the first instruments I played.

318
00:17:31.649 --> 00:17:35.610
But, but I was, I, I thought, Oh my gosh, Lawrence Welk.

319
00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:36.231
Are you kidding me?

320
00:17:37.971 --> 00:17:41.093
I did this because my mom loved the song Besame Mucho.

321
00:17:41.233 --> 00:17:44.694
That was her favorite song and she loved it when it was played on the accordion.

322
00:17:44.714 --> 00:17:46.335
So I had to play it on the accordion.

323
00:17:46.355 --> 00:17:55.138
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,

324
00:17:55.774 --> 00:17:58.530
If I improvised, man, she would hit me on the knuckle.

325
00:17:58.711 --> 00:17:59.194
Oh, no.

326
00:18:00.077 --> 00:18:00.297
Yeah.

327
00:18:00.457 --> 00:18:04.040
She would be sitting there with a thing and I'd be looking at Mozart or something like that.

328
00:18:04.060 --> 00:18:08.244
I'd be playing and I'd just go off on a thing and just go, bam!

329
00:18:08.264 --> 00:18:10.045
Because we don't improvise.

330
00:18:10.145 --> 00:18:14.469
And I remember in my little humility, I said, well, I do.

331
00:18:15.530 --> 00:18:18.973
And that didn't sit well.

332
00:18:19.093 --> 00:18:20.574
She's like the Catholic nun.

333
00:18:20.694 --> 00:18:21.175
Exactly.

334
00:18:21.475 --> 00:18:23.056
That didn't sit well.

335
00:18:23.657 --> 00:18:25.118
So that was the earliest thing.

336
00:18:25.298 --> 00:18:27.600
And then as I grew older,

337
00:18:28.340 --> 00:18:35.702
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.

338
00:18:35.762 --> 00:18:43.184
And, and I would literally, with all my savings, I had, I would work, I'd get an allowance, but I worked very young.

339
00:18:43.724 --> 00:18:51.446
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.

340
00:18:52.006 --> 00:18:53.886
I'm hearing left to right, right to left.

341
00:18:53.926 --> 00:18:57.107
It didn't matter, but it was, and I would just listen to records and,

342
00:18:57.477 --> 00:19:00.657
would be jazz, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum,

343
00:19:01.793 --> 00:19:04.235
It would be, I wasn't really a doo-wop guy.

344
00:19:04.575 --> 00:19:07.778
So when it was in the 50s, I was born in 45.

345
00:19:07.878 --> 00:19:19.006
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.

346
00:19:19.246 --> 00:19:27.732
I love, obviously, I love the blues stuff and, you know, some of the early black bands.

347
00:19:28.315 --> 00:19:29.736
Soul stuff.

348
00:19:29.976 --> 00:19:32.617
That would catch my interest because that was soul.

349
00:19:32.997 --> 00:19:33.837
Motown stuff?

350
00:19:34.657 --> 00:19:36.478
Well, even pre-pre, yeah.

351
00:19:36.618 --> 00:19:37.399
Yeah, pre-pre.

352
00:19:37.439 --> 00:19:45.281
Muddy Waters, all these different blues cats and different people, and just the great voices that were out there.

353
00:19:45.342 --> 00:19:53.225
And you can play kind of a quasi-jazz funk thing that wouldn't end up on the normal airwaves until it finally did.

354
00:19:53.525 --> 00:19:54.465
I mean, it became big.

355
00:19:55.162 --> 00:19:59.425
But I remember I had bought a car and I was six.

356
00:19:59.505 --> 00:20:03.747
I forgot how old I was, but I heard good vibrations for the first time.

357
00:20:03.767 --> 00:20:04.428
Oh, boy.

358
00:20:04.668 --> 00:20:06.849
I had to pull off the road.

359
00:20:07.350 --> 00:20:10.552
It was so unbelievable to me that I was listening to.

360
00:20:11.372 --> 00:20:13.894
And then I realized right then, I went, you know what, man?

361
00:20:14.514 --> 00:20:16.055
This is what I like to do.

362
00:20:16.355 --> 00:20:20.458
I played in the orchestra at high school and the band.

363
00:20:21.315 --> 00:20:23.297
And I was very active in that.

364
00:20:23.457 --> 00:20:27.421
But as I would listen to the music, I would read, obviously, all the credits.

365
00:20:27.901 --> 00:20:33.186
And the one thing that I always notice is it never said Chicago, a place where it was recorded.

366
00:20:33.727 --> 00:20:34.627
Never said Chicago.

367
00:20:35.228 --> 00:20:39.072
It was L.A., Liverpool, New York, Nashville.

368
00:20:40.073 --> 00:20:40.853
Never Chicago.

369
00:20:40.913 --> 00:20:41.674
And I went, okay.

370
00:20:42.535 --> 00:20:43.456
I love recordings.

371
00:20:44.277 --> 00:20:45.758
That's what I'm listening to.

372
00:20:47.081 --> 00:20:49.743
I can play what I hear.

373
00:20:50.323 --> 00:20:54.566
So if I heard a Beatles tune, I could just go to the piano and play the Beatles, whatever.

374
00:20:55.326 --> 00:21:00.429
And I realized this isn't going to make my family happy, but I don't think I can stay here.

375
00:21:01.315 --> 00:21:05.600
Now, weren't there some Chicago, I mean, there's Chicago blues, right?

376
00:21:05.901 --> 00:21:09.244
Well, yeah, there were Chicago blues, but it was mostly a jingles town.

377
00:21:09.525 --> 00:21:10.466
Everything was jingles.

378
00:21:10.926 --> 00:21:11.247
Oh, okay.

379
00:21:11.267 --> 00:21:14.610
You know, they come from all over the world to do advertising.

380
00:21:14.671 --> 00:21:15.772
And it had a reputation.

381
00:21:15.792 --> 00:21:19.937
And then Chicago was there, but Chicago recorded in LA.

382
00:21:20.297 --> 00:21:20.998
Okay, yeah.

383
00:21:21.490 --> 00:21:22.410
And Colorado.

384
00:21:22.830 --> 00:21:23.190
Right.

385
00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:25.791
They might have recorded some demos and early records here.

386
00:21:25.811 --> 00:21:27.432
The Buckinghams were from Chicago.

387
00:21:27.592 --> 00:21:32.313
And they probably recorded maybe their first record in Chicago.

388
00:21:32.333 --> 00:21:37.454
But then from that point on, they'd leave because they're going to the places where the record industry.

389
00:21:37.494 --> 00:21:37.774
Right.

390
00:21:37.954 --> 00:21:38.274
Sure.

391
00:21:38.334 --> 00:21:39.215
Not in Chicago.

392
00:21:39.735 --> 00:21:40.955
So you packed up and left.

393
00:21:40.975 --> 00:21:41.115
Yeah.

394
00:21:41.662 --> 00:21:42.623
They packed up and left.

395
00:21:42.683 --> 00:21:47.065
Everybody ended up in LA or New York or wherever, but not in Chicago.

396
00:21:47.845 --> 00:21:54.948
So I made a kind of a rash decision because I didn't really think it through because I had no contacts in LA.

397
00:21:55.889 --> 00:22:00.191
I got a little wisdom as to where things were on a map or whatever.

398
00:22:00.211 --> 00:22:08.915
And I had $3,000 in my savings and I had a 67 Camaro and I got in my car and

399
00:22:10.317 --> 00:22:11.058
I went to LA.

400
00:22:11.258 --> 00:22:19.543
Actually, I went to San Bernardino first and got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, which really helped me.

401
00:22:20.283 --> 00:22:21.404
It really centered me.

402
00:22:22.585 --> 00:22:26.187
I accepted the Lord in 1965, my cousin.

403
00:22:28.795 --> 00:22:33.698
Chuck, who was a year older than me, was involved with Campus Crusade in the Chicago area.

404
00:22:33.998 --> 00:22:34.959
I never heard of it.

405
00:22:34.999 --> 00:22:37.080
He led me to the Lord on Christmas Day.

406
00:22:37.520 --> 00:22:53.430
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.

407
00:22:53.890 --> 00:22:54.531
You said you

408
00:22:55.322 --> 00:22:59.566
And your family, some of them at least were involved in Armenian Orthodox Church.

409
00:22:59.746 --> 00:23:06.552
Talk about that a little bit and how when you were led to Christ by your cousin, what happened in your house?

410
00:23:06.752 --> 00:23:07.153
Yeah.

411
00:23:07.633 --> 00:23:19.183
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.

412
00:23:20.064 --> 00:23:21.065
At the Armenian Church.

413
00:23:21.483 --> 00:23:24.204
It was an Armenian church, but he was not Armenian.

414
00:23:25.324 --> 00:23:31.547
He was a non-Armenian who was hired as the youth pastor, and he got everybody all inspired.

415
00:23:31.667 --> 00:23:32.147
Wow.

416
00:23:32.247 --> 00:23:40.090
But if you went to the church, you would have the kind of service that was very Episcopalian, almost Catholic.

417
00:23:40.150 --> 00:23:40.570
Mm-hmm.

418
00:23:41.330 --> 00:23:42.311
You had the incense.

419
00:23:42.331 --> 00:23:45.672
You had the guys with the hats and stuff.

420
00:23:46.116 --> 00:23:49.437
and all that kind of stuff, and responsive reading and stuff like that.

421
00:23:49.457 --> 00:23:51.638
And it was all in Armenian.

422
00:23:51.658 --> 00:23:56.319
So you'd go to church, you'd go, okay, I've learned English.

423
00:23:56.419 --> 00:23:58.460
I go to English school, all this stuff.

424
00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:02.381
So it meant something, but it didn't mean that much.

425
00:24:02.501 --> 00:24:12.884
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.

426
00:24:13.488 --> 00:24:14.149
And my mom.

427
00:24:14.429 --> 00:24:15.870
And my dad was in the Air Force.

428
00:24:15.950 --> 00:24:18.811
So I didn't meet my dad until I was a year and a half old.

429
00:24:19.131 --> 00:24:19.412
Wow.

430
00:24:19.612 --> 00:24:21.393
He was stationed in India.

431
00:24:22.654 --> 00:24:26.816
So I was told I spoke a lot of Armenian.

432
00:24:26.896 --> 00:24:28.217
Of course, I had English friends.

433
00:24:29.277 --> 00:24:34.661
And they know that when you're around people, when you're young, you learn a language a lot easier.

434
00:24:34.921 --> 00:24:35.161
Sure.

435
00:24:35.281 --> 00:24:41.965
But anyway, so my grandmother, who had come through Ellis Island, like a lot of people did,

436
00:24:43.199 --> 00:24:49.923
was in 1915, that was when the Ottoman Empire attacked Armenia.

437
00:24:50.943 --> 00:24:57.867
And they went in and they killed about 1.5 to 1.9 million, I believe.

438
00:24:58.467 --> 00:25:04.971
And my grandmother had her husband beheaded and her daughter run through a spear in front of her.

439
00:25:05.588 --> 00:25:06.729
It was pretty bad.

440
00:25:08.550 --> 00:25:12.093
And somehow, you know, we talked about this a while back.

441
00:25:12.393 --> 00:25:15.476
The French were very instrumental in getting them out of that country.

442
00:25:15.696 --> 00:25:16.617
Yeah.

443
00:25:16.717 --> 00:25:17.477
It was interesting.

444
00:25:17.958 --> 00:25:21.080
And when you go to France, there's a lot of Armenians in France.

445
00:25:22.521 --> 00:25:29.026
But my grandmother, the day that I came to the Lord, which was 1965, I was 20 years old.

446
00:25:31.590 --> 00:25:32.910
And I was upstairs.

447
00:25:32.950 --> 00:25:34.731
My cousin was leading me to the ward.

448
00:25:34.751 --> 00:25:38.912
My grandmother was downstairs, and she jumped up off the sofa.

449
00:25:39.112 --> 00:25:42.652
And my mom was like, what's going on?

450
00:25:42.692 --> 00:25:45.693
She says, my grandson just came to Jesus.

451
00:25:46.173 --> 00:25:47.954
And she was downstairs when I was upstairs.

452
00:25:47.974 --> 00:25:49.134
She didn't hear it upstairs.

453
00:25:49.594 --> 00:25:50.394
She didn't hear a word.

454
00:25:50.534 --> 00:25:51.094
Oh, my gosh.

455
00:25:51.194 --> 00:25:52.194
The Lord revealed to her.

456
00:25:52.294 --> 00:25:53.615
And she was that kind of a person.

457
00:25:53.695 --> 00:25:54.075
She was—

458
00:25:55.825 --> 00:26:00.307
For someone who had gone through that much tragedy, there was not a hateful bone in her body.

459
00:26:00.547 --> 00:26:02.368
There was not a resentful bone in her body.

460
00:26:02.808 --> 00:26:06.550
She was really the example of turning the other cheek.

461
00:26:07.011 --> 00:26:09.252
Now, was she in a concentration camp, did you say?

462
00:26:09.572 --> 00:26:20.357
Well, she grazed on field grass with thousands of Armenians without trying to escape.

463
00:26:20.757 --> 00:26:21.918
Yeah, it was bad.

464
00:26:22.340 --> 00:26:30.105
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.

465
00:26:31.606 --> 00:26:32.227
I didn't have much.

466
00:26:32.787 --> 00:26:32.987
Yeah.

467
00:26:33.728 --> 00:26:35.109
So, so, um.

468
00:26:36.958 --> 00:26:40.000
I got to California.

469
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:41.741
My mom was heartbroken, actually.

470
00:26:41.762 --> 00:26:43.523
She was heartbroken.

471
00:26:44.043 --> 00:26:50.428
But there was an understanding a few years later as to what I was doing, because we talked about this.

472
00:26:50.468 --> 00:26:52.789
But my mom had some problems.

473
00:26:52.970 --> 00:26:54.230
I mean, I don't know what it was.

474
00:26:54.291 --> 00:26:55.311
I don't know if it was from just

475
00:26:58.241 --> 00:27:01.563
understanding what had happened to her people and all that kind of stuff.

476
00:27:01.643 --> 00:27:09.488
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.

477
00:27:09.908 --> 00:27:10.168
Hmm.

478
00:27:10.603 --> 00:27:12.363
And my mom died very young.

479
00:27:12.484 --> 00:27:13.664
She was 49 years old.

480
00:27:14.604 --> 00:27:15.704
And she died of cancer.

481
00:27:15.944 --> 00:27:21.106
And, of course, back then, and we talked about this, back then they gave you cobalt and that would kill you.

482
00:27:21.606 --> 00:27:21.906
Right.

483
00:27:22.366 --> 00:27:25.627
It was supposed to cure you, but cobalt is radioactive.

484
00:27:25.947 --> 00:27:26.247
Right.

485
00:27:26.307 --> 00:27:26.927
Very bad.

486
00:27:27.447 --> 00:27:31.688
And most people would die of pneumonia from the chemotherapy.

487
00:27:32.309 --> 00:27:33.009
So, yeah.

488
00:27:33.729 --> 00:27:42.376
But what was cool was Stormy and her, my wife Stormy and her, became really good friends for the year before she passed away.

489
00:27:42.596 --> 00:27:44.057
And it was very redemptive.

490
00:27:44.537 --> 00:27:46.219
The whole thing was a very redemptive.

491
00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:48.220
But yeah.

492
00:27:48.260 --> 00:27:50.542
It's nice that you've had a very blessed life.

493
00:27:50.562 --> 00:27:52.463
You've had great success.

494
00:27:52.623 --> 00:27:55.325
And most people would know that.

495
00:27:56.086 --> 00:27:58.548
And I asked you one time, what were the lows?

496
00:27:58.568 --> 00:28:01.090
And I think you termed it as PTSD from

497
00:28:01.895 --> 00:28:05.738
from your mom's illness and other challenges.

498
00:28:06.299 --> 00:28:15.206
And I'm sure your faith just supported you through all of that.

499
00:28:15.266 --> 00:28:15.586
I mean.

500
00:28:16.547 --> 00:28:28.076
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.

501
00:28:29.512 --> 00:28:32.854
But it's so rational for people who have it.

502
00:28:33.435 --> 00:28:53.207
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

503
00:28:53.828 --> 00:28:54.888
You know what I'm saying?

504
00:28:55.368 --> 00:28:58.069
We have faith that someone's not going to rob us today.

505
00:28:58.349 --> 00:29:01.170
We have faith that someone's not going to run into us today.

506
00:29:01.670 --> 00:29:12.893
And I'm always intrigued by these things where an atheist will be debating a Christian, and he demands all this evidence—

507
00:29:13.788 --> 00:29:20.613
And yet the atheist doesn't realize how much time he spends exercising faith every day anyway.

508
00:29:21.114 --> 00:29:21.454
Yeah.

509
00:29:21.574 --> 00:29:23.395
So it's always a conundrum to me.

510
00:29:23.435 --> 00:29:32.663
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?

511
00:29:32.683 --> 00:29:33.403
Right.

512
00:29:33.823 --> 00:29:34.824
And you've experienced it.

513
00:29:34.844 --> 00:29:41.049
So you're going to tell me that my experiences are not valid when I know they are.

514
00:29:41.794 --> 00:29:52.625
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.

515
00:29:53.566 --> 00:29:57.270
Sure, we have tragedy, we have bad times, but we were never promised.

516
00:29:57.748 --> 00:29:58.248
great times.

517
00:29:58.368 --> 00:29:59.629
Right.

518
00:29:59.689 --> 00:30:02.951
Yeah, we talk about faith that nobody will run into you, and then they do.

519
00:30:02.971 --> 00:30:05.532
It's like, wait a minute, what happened?

520
00:30:05.552 --> 00:30:06.472
Yeah, what happened?

521
00:30:06.492 --> 00:30:06.753
Exactly.

522
00:30:06.793 --> 00:30:11.715
So that's enough for someone to say, well, I can't believe that because everything's supposed to be perfect.

523
00:30:11.775 --> 00:30:12.195
Well, no.

524
00:30:12.976 --> 00:30:15.257
As long as we live on this earth, it won't be perfect.

525
00:30:15.337 --> 00:30:19.379
One of the things I love about Scripture is it doesn't sugarcoat anything.

526
00:30:20.700 --> 00:30:26.883
It tells you the whole story, the dark side of our heroes from the Scripture, and the victories, and

527
00:30:27.580 --> 00:30:30.763
the struggles and the mistakes and the redemption of it all.

528
00:30:31.223 --> 00:30:44.876
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.

529
00:30:45.237 --> 00:30:48.920
What was your posture in the studio as a Christian man?

530
00:30:48.940 --> 00:30:50.582
And was there ever any,

531
00:30:51.295 --> 00:30:57.380
confrontation, any conflict, or were you just, because I know people know you and they know what you're about.

532
00:30:57.560 --> 00:30:57.780
Yeah.

533
00:30:58.040 --> 00:31:12.111
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.

534
00:31:12.905 --> 00:31:17.872
You are legendary in the field of music, but they respected that.

535
00:31:18.293 --> 00:31:23.741
Do you think that also carried over to them respecting your faith and your personal conviction?

536
00:31:25.102 --> 00:31:27.346
Well, it's interesting because—

537
00:31:31.117 --> 00:31:32.378
Yeah, I don't know.

538
00:31:32.878 --> 00:31:33.439
I don't know.

539
00:31:33.679 --> 00:31:37.601
There were opportunities to be able to talk about it, but I would not—I don't know.

540
00:31:37.821 --> 00:31:42.324
This doesn't sound right, but I didn't use the studio as an evangelistic.

541
00:31:42.364 --> 00:31:44.085
Yeah, yeah, sure.

542
00:31:45.446 --> 00:31:51.550
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.

543
00:31:51.990 --> 00:31:52.191
Right.

544
00:31:52.211 --> 00:31:52.451
Okay.

545
00:31:52.891 --> 00:31:56.814
And that included—I mean, when I worked with Barry Manilow, we had many discussions.

546
00:31:57.114 --> 00:31:57.474
Oh, yeah.

547
00:31:58.280 --> 00:32:09.631
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.

548
00:32:10.592 --> 00:32:13.354
And I went, I walked in and I went, wow.

549
00:32:14.275 --> 00:32:20.381
And it was really interesting because after everybody left, we would sit and we'd talk and I could tell there was a struggle.

550
00:32:21.467 --> 00:32:31.994
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 –

551
00:32:32.700 --> 00:32:35.481
I understand because you have the world at your fingertips.

552
00:32:35.501 --> 00:32:36.221
Sure.

553
00:32:36.362 --> 00:32:37.962
So that's a big obstacle.

554
00:32:38.382 --> 00:32:40.383
It's like a rich, young woman.

555
00:32:40.403 --> 00:32:40.583
Yeah.

556
00:32:40.803 --> 00:32:41.624
Going through the eye of the needle.

557
00:32:41.644 --> 00:32:43.885
He came up and said, yeah, and he said, give everything away.

558
00:32:45.405 --> 00:32:49.607
And my answer is always, God will show you and give you the grace no matter what it is.

559
00:32:49.887 --> 00:32:54.429
And so there were times where as a producer, yeah, we would talk about,

560
00:32:55.425 --> 00:32:55.806
the Lord.

561
00:32:55.846 --> 00:33:00.410
But if I was just being hired to come in and play piano, I'd play piano.

562
00:33:00.630 --> 00:33:18.406
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.

563
00:33:18.586 --> 00:33:20.608
You know, we shared last time about

564
00:33:21.425 --> 00:33:36.250
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.

565
00:33:36.390 --> 00:33:38.790
And I got to say this.

566
00:33:38.990 --> 00:33:40.391
I do not want what I deserve.

567
00:33:42.091 --> 00:33:42.952
I do not want that.

568
00:33:43.252 --> 00:33:44.212
Yeah.

569
00:33:44.824 --> 00:33:52.327
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.

570
00:33:52.507 --> 00:33:58.250
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.

571
00:33:58.290 --> 00:34:00.991
And I said, the title of it is, You've Got to Be Kidding Me.

572
00:34:02.411 --> 00:34:03.872
He said, I need more details.

573
00:34:09.301 --> 00:34:16.468
So I walk out on the stage with my Bible and I hold it up and I said, I've read this.

574
00:34:18.030 --> 00:34:19.171
You got to be kidding me.

575
00:34:20.052 --> 00:34:20.292
Yeah.

576
00:34:20.632 --> 00:34:21.693
I can't do this.

577
00:34:21.713 --> 00:34:22.774
Yeah.

578
00:34:23.295 --> 00:34:29.481
Is along with many other overriding messages from God's word is one of them.

579
00:34:29.521 --> 00:34:30.622
Could one of them be?

580
00:34:31.777 --> 00:34:32.698
You can't do this.

581
00:34:33.258 --> 00:34:33.479
Yeah.

582
00:34:33.799 --> 00:34:35.300
Let me make it very clear.

583
00:34:35.340 --> 00:34:42.867
Let me make so many specific instructions for use, most of which would make your life better if you'll just do them.

584
00:34:42.907 --> 00:34:44.668
But I know that you can't do it.

585
00:34:45.849 --> 00:34:51.314
And the whole point of it was the spirit of God in me can do it, but I cannot do it.

586
00:34:51.474 --> 00:34:56.819
And how come we've gotten so arrogant to think, man, I'm so much better than you.

587
00:34:57.199 --> 00:34:59.161
You deserve to blah, blah, blah.

588
00:34:59.755 --> 00:35:17.762
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.

589
00:35:19.022 --> 00:35:25.385
Well, you know, I know we've had these discussions and I know I talk to certain people and

590
00:35:27.354 --> 00:35:36.556
There's a couple words, grace and mercy, which seem to be something that's very much missing because our discourses are almost political.

591
00:35:36.576 --> 00:35:38.136
You know what I'm saying?

592
00:35:38.196 --> 00:35:39.537
We become political people.

593
00:35:40.297 --> 00:35:46.918
And we take sides and we go, you know, unless you do this this way, you can't possibly do this.

594
00:35:47.158 --> 00:35:53.199
And I'm not sure because of the fact that I don't think I deserve God's grace and mercy.

595
00:35:54.480 --> 00:35:55.480
Who am I to not?

596
00:35:56.355 --> 00:35:59.077
give someone else grace and mercy.

597
00:35:59.277 --> 00:36:00.378
Right.

598
00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:07.944
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.

599
00:36:10.086 --> 00:36:10.967
That's instructive.

600
00:36:10.987 --> 00:36:11.988
That's mercy.

601
00:36:12.588 --> 00:36:17.192
But we've gotten to the point where judgment is becoming so, and it's everywhere.

602
00:36:17.252 --> 00:36:23.076
I mean, it's kind of like, and I really believe that our churches are starting to get into trouble because they're,

603
00:36:24.945 --> 00:36:33.114
taking sides and they're going, we're valid, you're invalid, I'm invalid, whatever it is.

604
00:36:33.334 --> 00:36:34.155
Don't get me wrong.

605
00:36:34.516 --> 00:36:40.863
There are rules, but those rules are impossible to follow without God's mercy and grace.

606
00:36:41.804 --> 00:36:43.706
In fact, it's kind of designed that way.

607
00:36:43.846 --> 00:36:44.927
You know, there was how many...

608
00:36:46.510 --> 00:37:00.994
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.

609
00:37:01.014 --> 00:37:05.915
Well, Jesus came in to kind of wipe all that crud out.

610
00:37:06.135 --> 00:37:06.395
Yeah.

611
00:37:07.016 --> 00:37:07.856
I'm the new covenant.

612
00:37:07.896 --> 00:37:08.736
I'm the new guy.

613
00:37:09.656 --> 00:37:10.056
I'm here.

614
00:37:10.396 --> 00:37:15.218
I took the beating that you should have taken the beating for, and I'm here.

615
00:37:17.132 --> 00:37:24.799
It's kind of interesting, and I think a lot of people have pushed Christianity into a political system.

616
00:37:25.419 --> 00:37:25.900
Absolutely.

617
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:30.884
And nothing further from the truth, Christianity is not a political system.

618
00:37:31.848 --> 00:37:37.789
In fact, Jesus said, render under the politics, the politicians, what they got.

619
00:37:38.069 --> 00:37:39.730
This is a whole separate thing here.

620
00:37:40.050 --> 00:37:40.310
Yeah.

621
00:37:40.630 --> 00:37:42.751
So don't mix this junk up, you know?

622
00:37:42.971 --> 00:37:49.172
And so when you read that book about the Rolling Stones, I'm with you.

623
00:37:49.372 --> 00:37:53.633
Instead of going, oh, what a bunch of perverted goofball.

624
00:37:54.133 --> 00:37:56.414
I hope they come to know Jesus.

625
00:37:56.574 --> 00:37:56.974
Mm-hmm.

626
00:37:57.014 --> 00:37:57.594
Experience.

627
00:37:57.614 --> 00:37:57.734
Yeah.

628
00:37:58.118 --> 00:38:06.742
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.

629
00:38:06.782 --> 00:38:13.365
And just the, again, like the scripture pointing out how many things we cannot accomplish.

630
00:38:13.605 --> 00:38:18.687
How many times do you have to go down this road to realize, you know what, this ain't working, man.

631
00:38:18.907 --> 00:38:21.208
This is destructive, and this is not working.

632
00:38:22.010 --> 00:38:27.734
And so, you know, we try to light the darkness a little bit with what we do.

633
00:38:27.794 --> 00:38:30.076
You've spent your life doing that.

634
00:38:31.076 --> 00:38:36.039
You've accomplished incredible things in the pop world.

635
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:41.183
The one thing that I still hear, I told you, the one thing I still hear at the grocery store, at the gym,

636
00:38:41.901 --> 00:38:43.581
everywhere, the Christopher Cross record.

637
00:38:43.601 --> 00:38:44.922
We talked about that one time.

638
00:38:45.902 --> 00:38:47.482
How did that come to be?

639
00:38:47.823 --> 00:38:55.084
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.

640
00:38:55.504 --> 00:39:00.366
Well, I was at ABC Dunhill as a staff producer.

641
00:39:00.386 --> 00:39:02.306
This was prior to the Warner Brothers thing.

642
00:39:02.366 --> 00:39:06.967
So I was just kind of getting my feet wet as everything but a session player.

643
00:39:06.987 --> 00:39:08.988
In fact, I kind of got that job at ABC.

644
00:39:09.048 --> 00:39:09.348
Yeah.

645
00:39:09.988 --> 00:39:14.950
through a guy named Steve Berry, who was the head of A&R, and he liked what I did as a player.

646
00:39:15.030 --> 00:39:17.551
So he said, will you become my arranger?

647
00:39:17.731 --> 00:39:18.452
And I did that.

648
00:39:18.832 --> 00:39:20.132
And will you help me produce?

649
00:39:20.352 --> 00:39:20.613
Yeah.

650
00:39:20.733 --> 00:39:23.654
And he said, well, why don't you come over here and be part of this?

651
00:39:23.694 --> 00:39:25.755
So that was the transition from that.

652
00:39:26.195 --> 00:39:27.495
So I was cutting my teeth.

653
00:39:28.036 --> 00:39:33.398
Sometimes as a studio musician, you need to learn what a good song is.

654
00:39:34.058 --> 00:39:36.880
If you're going to become a producer, you need to know what a hook is.

655
00:39:37.041 --> 00:39:39.102
You need to know what'll sell.

656
00:39:39.643 --> 00:39:42.385
And those are the kind of things you go, I'm a pure musician, man.

657
00:39:42.465 --> 00:39:43.966
I'm above all that kind of stuff.

658
00:39:43.986 --> 00:39:44.066
No.

659
00:39:44.527 --> 00:39:51.893
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.

660
00:39:51.913 --> 00:39:55.015
And Steve kept banging that into my head.

661
00:39:55.035 --> 00:39:57.237
He said, that's the most important thing.

662
00:39:57.297 --> 00:39:57.718
So anyway.

663
00:39:57.738 --> 00:39:57.838
Yeah.

664
00:39:58.378 --> 00:40:03.722
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.

665
00:40:03.782 --> 00:40:08.626
Well, I'm still kind of green, a little bit green.

666
00:40:09.166 --> 00:40:14.270
So I end up in the A&R department with Ted Teppelman, who did the Doobie Brothers.

667
00:40:14.330 --> 00:40:15.651
Now, wait a minute.

668
00:40:15.851 --> 00:40:18.993
How many years – just set the scene for me.

669
00:40:19.213 --> 00:40:24.417
How many years from driving the Camaro from Chicago to L.A. with $3,000 –

670
00:40:26.013 --> 00:40:27.616
to now, to what you're talking about?

671
00:40:27.836 --> 00:40:28.417
How many years?

672
00:40:28.837 --> 00:40:30.961
So 1967 is when I got there.

673
00:40:30.981 --> 00:40:35.207
The ABC Dunhill is 1972.

674
00:40:35.968 --> 00:40:36.669
So five years.

675
00:40:36.809 --> 00:40:37.190
Five years.

676
00:40:37.969 --> 00:40:47.095
So when that all started to bloom, were you at home going, what were you feeling when that all started coming around for you?

677
00:40:47.555 --> 00:40:48.296
Well, you know what?

678
00:40:48.336 --> 00:40:51.438
The thing is, is that everything is really organic.

679
00:40:51.598 --> 00:40:52.759
There's no computers.

680
00:40:52.799 --> 00:40:53.579
There's nothing.

681
00:40:53.660 --> 00:40:55.421
So really, it's all about.

682
00:40:57.890 --> 00:41:22.449
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

683
00:41:23.253 --> 00:41:27.456
And they're the ones that kind of got me into the studio thing from one session.

684
00:41:28.357 --> 00:41:30.198
And so that was ABC Dunhill.

685
00:41:30.218 --> 00:41:32.080
So that's 1967 to 1972.

686
00:41:32.720 --> 00:41:34.701
Now it's 1972.

687
00:41:35.362 --> 00:41:41.887
I'm at ABC Dunhill as a staff A&R guy, artist and repertoire.

688
00:41:42.707 --> 00:41:47.312
And so I'm cutting my teeth by working with Steve Barry, doing his stuff and all kinds of stuff.

689
00:41:47.332 --> 00:41:51.717
So he goes to Warner Brothers around 1976.

690
00:41:51.877 --> 00:41:54.059
And so I met Warner Brothers in 1976.

691
00:41:54.940 --> 00:41:56.442
And I'm in the A&R department.

692
00:41:56.976 --> 00:42:02.398
And it's pretty daunting because you have these producers who were 12.

693
00:42:03.119 --> 00:42:03.799
I was one of the 12.

694
00:42:03.899 --> 00:42:04.719
Isn't that funny?

695
00:42:05.040 --> 00:42:07.441
Of course you were.

696
00:42:07.501 --> 00:42:08.581
Yeah.

697
00:42:08.761 --> 00:42:09.041
Wow.

698
00:42:09.521 --> 00:42:10.242
One of the 12.

699
00:42:10.262 --> 00:42:14.123
Anyway, so you had Ted Templeman, who was the Doobie Brothers, and Van Halen.

700
00:42:14.143 --> 00:42:15.804
You had Gary Katz, Stevie Dan.

701
00:42:15.824 --> 00:42:18.245
You had Russ Teitelman, Eric Clapton.

702
00:42:18.265 --> 00:42:23.447
You had Lenny Werniker, what was the name of the Canadian guy that died recently?

703
00:42:23.487 --> 00:42:24.548
He had a son.

704
00:42:24.648 --> 00:42:24.848
Yeah.

705
00:42:25.290 --> 00:42:28.695
but Gordon Lightfoot.

706
00:42:29.116 --> 00:42:32.642
I mean, just one after I'm looking around, I'm going, this is ridiculous.

707
00:42:32.902 --> 00:42:35.286
I mean, so anyway, every Wednesday morning,

708
00:42:36.587 --> 00:42:43.470
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.

709
00:42:43.850 --> 00:42:49.472
Warner Brothers was one of the very few companies at the time that would actually take material.

710
00:42:49.852 --> 00:42:50.713
Unsolicited.

711
00:42:50.753 --> 00:42:51.253
Unsolicited.

712
00:42:51.473 --> 00:42:51.973
Wow.

713
00:42:52.173 --> 00:42:53.594
It was very unusual.

714
00:42:53.674 --> 00:42:56.055
It didn't end that way, but it started that way.

715
00:42:56.095 --> 00:42:56.275
Sure.

716
00:42:56.295 --> 00:42:56.395
Sure.

717
00:42:58.501 --> 00:43:05.285
So by the time I got there, it was 76, evidently, I would say that was probably closer to seven.

718
00:43:05.505 --> 00:43:07.867
I've been there for a little while, now that I think about it.

719
00:43:07.887 --> 00:43:14.091
I've been there for a little while because I didn't go into the studio with Chris until 1978, 79.

720
00:43:14.811 --> 00:43:20.755
So it must have been around 1977 when we're in this A&R meeting, which we're doing every week.

721
00:43:21.641 --> 00:43:24.063
And they play a cassette, and it's Chris.

722
00:43:24.484 --> 00:43:27.006
And I never heard his – nobody even mentioned that.

723
00:43:27.346 --> 00:43:29.508
And Lenny says, we got another one from Christopher Cross.

724
00:43:30.028 --> 00:43:31.550
And you see everybody go, okay, I heard that.

725
00:43:33.611 --> 00:43:37.655
They put it in, and someone says, I've heard this before.

726
00:43:37.815 --> 00:43:38.736
I've heard that before.

727
00:43:38.816 --> 00:43:39.997
And this is the first time I'm hearing it.

728
00:43:40.737 --> 00:43:42.079
Sailing, Ride Like the Wind.

729
00:43:42.439 --> 00:43:43.640
There were like three or four.

730
00:43:45.253 --> 00:43:49.276
And I'm watching everybody, and everybody's kind of looking down at the ground and going like that.

731
00:43:49.296 --> 00:43:52.038
And I'm going, hey, this is some pretty cool stuff.

732
00:43:52.439 --> 00:43:58.543
And I'm the new kid, so I speak up and I say, does anybody else like this?

733
00:43:59.104 --> 00:44:02.046
And Lenny, the head of A&R, says, do you like it?

734
00:44:02.106 --> 00:44:02.667
I said, yeah.

735
00:44:02.987 --> 00:44:04.188
He says, well, then you do it.

736
00:44:04.908 --> 00:44:05.089
Wow.

737
00:44:05.109 --> 00:44:06.169
That's exactly what he said.

738
00:44:06.310 --> 00:44:06.730
Wow.

739
00:44:08.531 --> 00:44:10.133
That's all it took.

740
00:44:10.313 --> 00:44:12.935
One person in the room goes, I like this.

741
00:44:13.195 --> 00:44:14.516
Okay, then produce it.

742
00:44:15.598 --> 00:44:18.602
So flew him out from Austin.

743
00:44:19.984 --> 00:44:22.848
He's thinking he's going to meet with one of the big guys.

744
00:44:23.108 --> 00:44:25.791
I'm tucked up.

745
00:44:26.592 --> 00:44:32.420
So he comes into my office, sits down, and I'm noticing a very cold vibe.

746
00:44:33.745 --> 00:44:36.626
And he's not asking me a lot of questions.

747
00:44:37.086 --> 00:44:38.667
I'm just saying, hey, I really like this song.

748
00:44:38.687 --> 00:44:39.047
Thank you.

749
00:44:39.647 --> 00:44:40.748
Yeah, I did this.

750
00:44:41.268 --> 00:44:46.150
Anyway, to make a long story short, we were there for about a half hour or something.

751
00:44:46.170 --> 00:44:47.850
He says, okay, well, thank you.

752
00:44:47.970 --> 00:44:49.211
And he gets up and he walks out.

753
00:44:49.231 --> 00:44:51.052
And I went, what was that about?

754
00:44:51.572 --> 00:44:53.392
And I just couldn't figure out what was going on.

755
00:44:54.033 --> 00:44:56.594
About an hour later, knock on the door.

756
00:44:57.254 --> 00:44:57.654
It's him.

757
00:44:58.534 --> 00:45:00.215
He said, hey.

758
00:45:00.235 --> 00:45:00.315
Hey.

759
00:45:01.320 --> 00:45:03.402
you played on Steely Dan's stuff, didn't you?

760
00:45:03.462 --> 00:45:04.122
I said, yeah.

761
00:45:04.723 --> 00:45:07.285
He said, could you get Larry Carlton to play on the record?

762
00:45:07.445 --> 00:45:08.066
I said, of course.

763
00:45:08.086 --> 00:45:08.846
He's a good friend of mine.

764
00:45:08.866 --> 00:45:11.609
He says, well, then you're my producer.

765
00:45:11.789 --> 00:45:12.990
That's how that happened.

766
00:45:13.070 --> 00:45:16.012
And so it's just, it's the nature of the beast.

767
00:45:16.292 --> 00:45:18.795
These kinds of things happen all the time.

768
00:45:18.815 --> 00:45:25.240
These weird interactions where someone who's not supposed to be doing something gets into something and then it just

769
00:45:26.514 --> 00:45:28.235
Bus wide open.

770
00:45:28.395 --> 00:45:32.457
And the budget for that record that had, you said, five number one songs on it?

771
00:45:32.497 --> 00:45:39.160
Yeah, well, it had, I know, at least three and probably two others that were top.

772
00:45:39.300 --> 00:45:40.481
Top ten, yeah.

773
00:45:40.661 --> 00:45:41.761
Top ten, something like that.

774
00:45:41.962 --> 00:45:43.702
And it sold millions.

775
00:45:43.762 --> 00:45:45.263
I mean, it sold a lot of records.

776
00:45:45.463 --> 00:45:47.224
And the budget you said was 186?

777
00:45:47.904 --> 00:45:51.666
Well, we were only supposed to spend about $100,000, but we spent 186.

778
00:45:53.580 --> 00:45:57.710
And the lawyer came down and he just read me the riot act.

779
00:45:57.730 --> 00:45:59.013
He said, how could you do that?

780
00:45:59.193 --> 00:46:02.882
And then to, to put a cherry on that one, the head of, uh,

781
00:46:03.993 --> 00:46:10.714
The promotion department calls me and says, Omar, he said, we're going to delay the release of this record for six months.

782
00:46:10.754 --> 00:46:15.495
And I just sat there at my desk and I went, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen?

783
00:46:15.535 --> 00:46:17.195
That means that's usually the death knell.

784
00:46:17.475 --> 00:46:18.175
We don't believe in it.

785
00:46:19.356 --> 00:46:24.236
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.

786
00:46:24.256 --> 00:46:26.537
So we're making a real pop record here.

787
00:46:26.617 --> 00:46:26.937
Yeah, yeah.

788
00:46:26.997 --> 00:46:29.117
It doesn't have anything to do with what people are playing.

789
00:46:30.217 --> 00:46:32.538
Well, anyway, they usually send out a –

790
00:46:33.692 --> 00:46:35.713
album to all the radio stations.

791
00:46:35.793 --> 00:46:37.274
Here's our new artist that will be coming out.

792
00:46:37.534 --> 00:46:39.535
We're going to be sending out a release.

793
00:46:40.555 --> 00:46:46.958
Anyway, some guy in Miami plays the record and he hears Ride Like the Wind and he starts playing it.

794
00:46:48.019 --> 00:46:50.600
The song Ride Like the Wind and the phones are lighting up.

795
00:46:51.601 --> 00:46:54.163
all the Hispanic right there.

796
00:46:54.564 --> 00:46:57.246
Love that vibe, that old wild West vibe.

797
00:46:57.266 --> 00:46:57.506
Yeah.

798
00:46:57.526 --> 00:46:58.647
The way it sounds.

799
00:46:58.707 --> 00:47:00.549
The bongos and the condos.

800
00:47:00.629 --> 00:47:07.314
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.

801
00:47:07.395 --> 00:47:07.715
Huge.

802
00:47:08.075 --> 00:47:15.802
And, uh, and the guy who was the head of, of, uh, promotion called me long after the album had become very popular.

803
00:47:15.822 --> 00:47:18.544
He says, I just want you to know that we had nothing to do with this.

804
00:47:18.564 --> 00:47:19.665
He said, he said,

805
00:47:20.623 --> 00:47:21.704
It was out of our control.

806
00:47:21.784 --> 00:47:23.705
He said it just went out and went like nuts.

807
00:47:24.305 --> 00:47:24.465
Yeah.

808
00:47:24.505 --> 00:47:26.046
He said all we had to do was bring it out.

809
00:47:26.966 --> 00:47:27.887
That's awesome.

810
00:47:28.347 --> 00:47:29.227
He said we didn't know.

811
00:47:29.427 --> 00:47:35.550
And then, of course, what came behind that is something like that, and we did very well at the Grammys.

812
00:47:36.271 --> 00:47:38.792
That kind of sets the tone for what you'll hear.

813
00:47:39.664 --> 00:47:43.467
like Robbie Dupree, Steal Away, and different records and stuff.

814
00:47:43.547 --> 00:47:43.947
Right.

815
00:47:44.508 --> 00:47:47.910
You hear all these records and you go, they were kind of influenced by...

816
00:47:48.290 --> 00:47:48.951
Absolutely.

817
00:47:48.971 --> 00:47:49.851
...some of this stuff.

818
00:47:50.112 --> 00:47:51.152
That chord progression.

819
00:47:51.172 --> 00:47:52.093
That chord progression.

820
00:47:52.273 --> 00:47:53.214
Yeah, absolutely.

821
00:47:53.534 --> 00:47:54.815
Or vibes or whatever.

822
00:47:54.875 --> 00:47:56.876
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

823
00:47:56.976 --> 00:48:04.142
1980, arrangement, best arrangement for vocal performance, Grammy.

824
00:48:04.162 --> 00:48:07.264
1980, record of the year, Grammy.

825
00:48:07.284 --> 00:48:07.924
1980, 1980,

826
00:48:09.447 --> 00:48:12.468
Album of the year for sailing Grammy award.

827
00:48:12.908 --> 00:48:13.548
Those are big.

828
00:48:14.708 --> 00:48:15.288
Those are big.

829
00:48:15.668 --> 00:48:17.649
Where did he fall in as the artist?

830
00:48:19.689 --> 00:48:22.390
Was he, uh, Oh, he was fun.

831
00:48:22.990 --> 00:48:23.410
Yeah.

832
00:48:24.030 --> 00:48:24.630
He was fun.

833
00:48:25.050 --> 00:48:25.250
Yeah.

834
00:48:25.270 --> 00:48:25.931
We had a great time.

835
00:48:26.051 --> 00:48:26.711
Texas guy.

836
00:48:27.031 --> 00:48:27.371
Austin.

837
00:48:27.471 --> 00:48:28.891
He's such a good guitar.

838
00:48:29.031 --> 00:48:29.451
Yeah.

839
00:48:29.751 --> 00:48:30.031
Yeah.

840
00:48:30.652 --> 00:48:33.392
Look, MTV, MTV was just starting up.

841
00:48:33.432 --> 00:48:33.972
Remember that?

842
00:48:34.332 --> 00:48:34.572
Yes.

843
00:48:35.113 --> 00:48:35.293
Yeah.

844
00:48:35.373 --> 00:48:36.473
MTV was just beginning.

845
00:48:36.493 --> 00:48:36.973
Right.

846
00:48:36.993 --> 00:48:37.253
Right.

847
00:48:38.568 --> 00:48:41.249
Duran Duran was the, because they lived nice.

848
00:48:41.449 --> 00:48:46.451
And it became, the videos had to be these beautiful things with beautiful people and stuff.

849
00:48:46.491 --> 00:48:47.431
And here comes this guy.

850
00:48:47.491 --> 00:48:49.732
He's wearing a Houston Oilers jersey.

851
00:48:50.232 --> 00:48:52.693
And he's out there with his beard and stuff like that.

852
00:48:52.713 --> 00:48:55.354
He's playing these romantic songs and stuff like that.

853
00:48:55.374 --> 00:48:56.334
Right.

854
00:48:56.354 --> 00:48:56.614
Yeah.

855
00:48:56.674 --> 00:49:00.195
I mean, it was just the anti-everything that you could possibly think.

856
00:49:00.316 --> 00:49:00.656
Yeah.

857
00:49:00.756 --> 00:49:04.157
It was so out of left field that no one could believe it.

858
00:49:04.277 --> 00:49:04.517
Yeah.

859
00:49:04.537 --> 00:49:05.537
It happened.

860
00:49:05.677 --> 00:49:06.158
Yeah.

861
00:49:06.258 --> 00:49:07.198
He wasn't a hairdo.

862
00:49:09.484 --> 00:49:10.565
That was 1980.

863
00:49:11.146 --> 00:49:13.609
Go back a little bit.

864
00:49:13.649 --> 00:49:16.272
1972's when things began to cook for you.

865
00:49:16.312 --> 00:49:19.416
How did you meet Stormy, Stormy O'Marty and Michael's wife?

866
00:49:20.918 --> 00:49:27.559
huge best-selling author of Christian books over, I think you said, 45 million plus books.

867
00:49:27.679 --> 00:49:29.120
Yeah, about 42 to about 45 million.

868
00:49:29.460 --> 00:49:32.520
And we think someone in an airport is buying one right now.

869
00:49:32.560 --> 00:49:35.881
So 45 million and two.

870
00:49:36.221 --> 00:49:37.541
Where did you guys meet?

871
00:49:37.761 --> 00:49:39.542
You married in 73.

872
00:49:39.742 --> 00:49:42.502
Does the name Jimmy Owens mean anything to you?

873
00:49:42.522 --> 00:49:42.982
Yeah, sure.

874
00:49:43.002 --> 00:49:45.143
Jimmy and Carol Owens were doing a musical.

875
00:49:45.523 --> 00:49:45.923
Okay.

876
00:49:46.023 --> 00:49:46.843
One of their musicals.

877
00:49:47.717 --> 00:49:50.459
And they wanted me to play piano on the date.

878
00:49:50.619 --> 00:49:55.882
And back in those days, it wasn't unusual to have the entire thing there.

879
00:49:56.263 --> 00:49:58.824
Sound players, background singers.

880
00:49:59.425 --> 00:50:03.867
So we showed up at United, I think it was United Western, I believe, which was on Sunset.

881
00:50:04.348 --> 00:50:04.828
Big room.

882
00:50:05.845 --> 00:50:09.987
And it was probably 17 to 20 people.

883
00:50:10.267 --> 00:50:11.227
I was a keyboard player.

884
00:50:11.247 --> 00:50:12.328
There were two guitar players.

885
00:50:12.888 --> 00:50:14.809
There was a background vocalist.

886
00:50:15.089 --> 00:50:16.530
There was the key vocalist.

887
00:50:16.610 --> 00:50:19.331
I believe there was maybe some strings or whatever.

888
00:50:19.991 --> 00:50:22.492
And Stormy was one of the background vocalists.

889
00:50:23.287 --> 00:50:28.649
And she used to be on the Glen Campbell show, one of the regulars of the Glen Campbell show.

890
00:50:29.329 --> 00:50:31.910
I didn't know that because I didn't watch the Glen Campbell show.

891
00:50:32.150 --> 00:50:35.371
I knew Glen Campbell as a musician, but I didn't watch the show.

892
00:50:35.591 --> 00:50:37.552
Glen was a session player also, right?

893
00:50:37.672 --> 00:50:38.552
Yeah, he sure was.

894
00:50:38.592 --> 00:50:39.352
Yeah, sure was.

895
00:50:39.392 --> 00:50:40.393
Before he got there.

896
00:50:40.593 --> 00:50:41.473
So she was there.

897
00:50:41.493 --> 00:50:44.174
I mean, I wasn't doing well.

898
00:50:44.254 --> 00:50:46.555
I had a sinus thing going really bad.

899
00:50:46.655 --> 00:50:47.655
And she was a health food addict.

900
00:50:48.935 --> 00:50:50.997
There was the contractor.

901
00:50:51.117 --> 00:50:52.198
I can't remember Terry's last name.

902
00:50:52.218 --> 00:50:54.019
I know her married name was Terry Harriton.

903
00:50:54.039 --> 00:50:57.101
But Terry was the contractor for the vocalists.

904
00:50:57.341 --> 00:51:04.226
And she walks up to me and says, I want you to meet the background singers.

905
00:51:04.367 --> 00:51:05.327
So I meet all the girls.

906
00:51:05.347 --> 00:51:06.608
There was like four or five of them.

907
00:51:06.668 --> 00:51:07.729
And Sturmer was one of them.

908
00:51:07.749 --> 00:51:08.169
I said, hello.

909
00:51:08.189 --> 00:51:09.871
And she was absolutely beautiful.

910
00:51:10.131 --> 00:51:12.593
I went down and I said, there's no way.

911
00:51:12.633 --> 00:51:15.054
And I just walked back to the piano.

912
00:51:15.074 --> 00:51:15.755
So I'm sitting there.

913
00:51:16.683 --> 00:51:20.567
And on a break, she comes over because I'm noodling out something.

914
00:51:21.187 --> 00:51:23.470
She says, that's really neat what you're doing.

915
00:51:23.510 --> 00:51:23.970
What is that?

916
00:51:24.030 --> 00:51:24.631
I just told her.

917
00:51:25.634 --> 00:51:29.757
And I started wheezing, and I was just having a real – she said, man, you don't sound good.

918
00:51:29.777 --> 00:51:31.338
I said, no, I have bad surgery.

919
00:51:31.358 --> 00:51:37.262
She says, well, I have a concoction that I can make for you, and it'll really help you.

920
00:51:37.382 --> 00:51:42.025
Well, no, I had three days of sessions.

921
00:51:42.705 --> 00:51:49.730
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.

922
00:51:50.170 --> 00:51:51.891
It had seeds and weird stuff.

923
00:51:53.717 --> 00:51:57.325
But I just looked at her as I was drinking and that took the pain away.

924
00:51:57.605 --> 00:51:58.046
Oh, sure.

925
00:51:58.066 --> 00:51:59.990
I tell you, it really, it really helped.

926
00:52:00.091 --> 00:52:00.992
Oh, my God.

927
00:52:01.032 --> 00:52:02.636
So the next day we're back at it again.

928
00:52:04.448 --> 00:52:08.831
And it's a complicated story, and it's probably not the time to get into it.

929
00:52:09.212 --> 00:52:11.053
But she didn't know the Lord at the time.

930
00:52:11.113 --> 00:52:13.675
She was a non-believer.

931
00:52:13.695 --> 00:52:22.401
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.

932
00:52:22.841 --> 00:52:25.763
It was the weirdest titles.

933
00:52:25.844 --> 00:52:26.904
I'm looking.

934
00:52:27.765 --> 00:52:31.468
As it turned out, she had a mentally ill mother, very badly.

935
00:52:31.568 --> 00:52:31.868
Mm-hmm.

936
00:52:32.505 --> 00:52:35.327
And she was grappling with a lot of depression and stuff like that.

937
00:52:35.407 --> 00:52:36.547
I didn't know anything about this.

938
00:52:37.468 --> 00:52:39.689
So I'm sitting, I'm looking at all these books and stuff like that.

939
00:52:40.710 --> 00:52:46.973
And so I go back and Terry on the third day says, you gotta, you gotta ask her out.

940
00:52:47.093 --> 00:52:48.474
I mean, I gotta ask her out.

941
00:52:49.614 --> 00:52:50.855
She says, no, you gotta take her out.

942
00:52:50.975 --> 00:52:51.876
I go, Terry.

943
00:52:51.996 --> 00:52:54.197
I said, why are you saying that?

944
00:52:54.297 --> 00:52:56.018
I said, she said, I think she likes you.

945
00:52:56.098 --> 00:52:57.679
I said, yeah, but.

946
00:52:58.517 --> 00:53:01.819
I said, I walked into her apartment, and she had all these.

947
00:53:01.840 --> 00:53:03.821
She said, well, maybe you can do something about that.

948
00:53:04.221 --> 00:53:08.004
No, no, no, no, no.

949
00:53:08.064 --> 00:53:09.705
No, no, no, no, no.

950
00:53:09.905 --> 00:53:11.427
Relationship evangelism.

951
00:53:11.847 --> 00:53:13.048
Romantic evangelism.

952
00:53:15.730 --> 00:53:16.510
So what do I do?

953
00:53:16.971 --> 00:53:17.731
I ask her out.

954
00:53:19.332 --> 00:53:21.274
Well, you know, I mean, come on.

955
00:53:21.754 --> 00:53:22.575
We'll go get a pizza.

956
00:53:22.595 --> 00:53:22.755
Yeah.

957
00:53:23.876 --> 00:53:28.198
We sit and talk about everything, and I realize we're not talking the same language.

958
00:53:28.218 --> 00:53:31.379
I mean, I really like her, and it's obvious she likes me.

959
00:53:31.819 --> 00:53:48.465
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.

960
00:53:49.949 --> 00:53:52.472
So I thought, well, okay, let's see what happens.

961
00:53:52.532 --> 00:53:54.734
So I go over to her place, and we start talking.

962
00:53:54.934 --> 00:53:57.937
I start talking about Jesus, and I start talking to her.

963
00:53:58.137 --> 00:54:00.059
And I realized what the problem was.

964
00:54:00.099 --> 00:54:09.308
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.

965
00:54:09.589 --> 00:54:11.911
And her mother was a complete schizophrenic.

966
00:54:12.818 --> 00:54:14.118
So I'm looking at her.

967
00:54:14.618 --> 00:54:15.239
I didn't know this.

968
00:54:15.799 --> 00:54:17.939
I really did not know this until much later.

969
00:54:18.640 --> 00:54:20.120
So this is what's going on.

970
00:54:20.740 --> 00:54:22.981
And she's looking at me and says, no, I'm not interested in that.

971
00:54:24.381 --> 00:54:26.902
And we were talking for a long time.

972
00:54:28.462 --> 00:54:29.522
A knock comes on the door.

973
00:54:31.523 --> 00:54:35.164
I said, Sherman, who's knocking on your door at 11 o'clock?

974
00:54:35.184 --> 00:54:36.204
She says, oh, oh.

975
00:54:36.544 --> 00:54:37.985
And she goes and opens up the door.

976
00:54:38.545 --> 00:54:39.405
And a guy walks in.

977
00:54:40.384 --> 00:54:41.925
Michael, I want you to meet Michael.

978
00:54:42.665 --> 00:54:44.046
Hey, man, how you doing?

979
00:54:44.066 --> 00:54:45.646
It turns out it's her fiance.

980
00:54:46.527 --> 00:54:46.867
Oops.

981
00:54:50.468 --> 00:54:51.729
I don't know anything about it.

982
00:54:52.069 --> 00:54:56.290
Terry put me up to this to get her to not marry this guy.

983
00:54:57.911 --> 00:55:02.733
Now, Terry, with the intention of her ending up with me, it doesn't matter.

984
00:55:02.773 --> 00:55:03.313
Don't put me.

985
00:55:03.673 --> 00:55:07.015
I was on a mission from Satan, man.

986
00:55:07.135 --> 00:55:07.875
Are you kidding me?

987
00:55:08.075 --> 00:55:09.456
This is the worst thing in the world.

988
00:55:10.460 --> 00:55:12.081
And he looks at me and says, hey, man, how you doing?

989
00:55:12.161 --> 00:55:21.444
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?

990
00:55:21.804 --> 00:55:22.304
Oh, wow.

991
00:55:22.404 --> 00:55:24.865
Well, Stormy, tomorrow I'll pick you up at so-and-so.

992
00:55:24.965 --> 00:55:26.325
Okay, okay, Michael.

993
00:55:26.345 --> 00:55:33.007
And he walks out, and I'm sitting there, and I'm looking, I'm going, what am I dealing with?

994
00:55:33.448 --> 00:55:37.289
So the Lord was working on her big time, but it took a while.

995
00:55:37.449 --> 00:55:37.609
Yeah.

996
00:55:38.172 --> 00:55:48.356
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.

997
00:55:48.376 --> 00:55:49.777
It was right around the corner.

998
00:55:50.237 --> 00:55:55.680
And I would come down a street called Valley Vista that would end up at Ventura Boulevard.

999
00:55:55.960 --> 00:56:00.182
And right at the bow where I'd go, there was the house that she was going to be in with this guy.

1000
00:56:00.902 --> 00:56:06.064
And for an entire year, I never ran into, I never saw her ever.

1001
00:56:06.084 --> 00:56:06.404
Wow.

1002
00:56:07.645 --> 00:56:07.825
Ever.

1003
00:56:09.748 --> 00:56:15.853
And I thought about her a lot because I thought to myself, why did this happen?

1004
00:56:16.113 --> 00:56:20.797
I had to know why did all this happen because it was so unusual.

1005
00:56:21.277 --> 00:56:24.280
And it even got to the point where I got a phone call from her.

1006
00:56:24.720 --> 00:56:27.362
I was living with a couple guys at this place.

1007
00:56:27.803 --> 00:56:28.563
I get a phone call.

1008
00:56:29.144 --> 00:56:30.225
She says, are you home?

1009
00:56:30.365 --> 00:56:31.145
I said, yes, I'm home.

1010
00:56:31.165 --> 00:56:32.186
She said, can I come and see you?

1011
00:56:32.206 --> 00:56:32.707
I said, no.

1012
00:56:33.527 --> 00:56:33.928
I said, no.

1013
00:56:35.478 --> 00:56:36.739
I said, why do you want to see me?

1014
00:56:36.759 --> 00:56:41.203
She says, because I'm getting married tomorrow and I'm at my rehearsal dinner and I need to talk to you.

1015
00:56:41.263 --> 00:56:44.326
And I'm going, this is my wife, the author.

1016
00:56:45.707 --> 00:56:49.010
I'm at the rehearsal dinner and I got to get out of here.

1017
00:56:49.050 --> 00:56:49.811
I need to talk to you.

1018
00:56:49.831 --> 00:56:50.552
I go, Stormy.

1019
00:56:50.592 --> 00:56:51.652
I said, what are you talking about?

1020
00:56:52.954 --> 00:56:53.995
So I felt compassion.

1021
00:56:54.015 --> 00:56:54.515
She comes over.

1022
00:56:54.555 --> 00:56:57.057
She's all dressed to the nines and she's sobbing.

1023
00:56:57.858 --> 00:56:58.739
And I'm looking at her.

1024
00:56:59.099 --> 00:57:02.282
You're getting married tomorrow and you want out.

1025
00:57:02.881 --> 00:57:06.484
And I said, tell him you don't want to marry him.

1026
00:57:06.884 --> 00:57:07.484
She said, I can't.

1027
00:57:07.544 --> 00:57:09.926
My mom's already, everybody's, it's all been paid for.

1028
00:57:09.966 --> 00:57:10.907
I said, I can't do it.

1029
00:57:11.407 --> 00:57:12.468
I said, yes, you can.

1030
00:57:13.829 --> 00:57:15.030
And she kept looking at me.

1031
00:57:15.210 --> 00:57:20.073
I said, if you want me to promise you something, I can't do it.

1032
00:57:21.034 --> 00:57:21.895
And I knew why.

1033
00:57:22.435 --> 00:57:23.716
We're not on the same page.

1034
00:57:24.296 --> 00:57:24.957
We just aren't.

1035
00:57:25.797 --> 00:57:26.958
So anyway, she gets married.

1036
00:57:27.459 --> 00:57:28.760
I keep going back and forth.

1037
00:57:32.888 --> 00:57:38.192
I see a lady coming out from the side of the garage with the garbage to put it out on the street.

1038
00:57:38.332 --> 00:57:38.732
It's her.

1039
00:57:39.212 --> 00:57:41.554
And she was like 25 pounds lighter.

1040
00:57:42.294 --> 00:57:43.155
And she saw me.

1041
00:57:44.256 --> 00:57:44.936
And I stopped.

1042
00:57:44.996 --> 00:57:46.417
And she came up and she was gaunt.

1043
00:57:46.497 --> 00:57:49.239
And she looked like she was really not doing well.

1044
00:57:50.100 --> 00:57:51.040
I said, what's going on?

1045
00:57:51.080 --> 00:57:54.423
She says, oh, I'm having a hard time.

1046
00:57:55.103 --> 00:57:57.145
I said, I'm really sorry to hear that.

1047
00:57:57.885 --> 00:58:00.667
Anyway, fast forward.

1048
00:58:01.822 --> 00:58:06.426
I'm in church, and I'm sitting there, and this is the church on the way.

1049
00:58:06.446 --> 00:58:08.088
It was a very small church at the beginning.

1050
00:58:08.128 --> 00:58:09.289
It was a little chapel.

1051
00:58:09.809 --> 00:58:20.739
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.

1052
00:58:21.059 --> 00:58:25.523
So I'm just sitting there like this, and I'm looking up ahead, and there's a blonde head

1053
00:58:26.770 --> 00:58:30.691
about four rows in front of me, but I haven't even put the pieces together.

1054
00:58:30.711 --> 00:58:31.731
I'm just going, okay.

1055
00:58:31.771 --> 00:58:32.491
So we stand up.

1056
00:58:33.391 --> 00:58:37.872
She turns around four rows or three, whatever it is, and I catch her.

1057
00:58:37.972 --> 00:58:39.732
I go, she's in church.

1058
00:58:40.372 --> 00:58:40.933
She's here.

1059
00:58:42.193 --> 00:58:47.354
Anyway, after the service, I said, what happened?

1060
00:58:47.374 --> 00:58:49.014
She said, I came to know Jesus.

1061
00:58:49.694 --> 00:58:50.334
I said, what?

1062
00:58:51.214 --> 00:58:51.894
She said, yeah.

1063
00:58:51.914 --> 00:58:54.875
She says, and I had to divorce the guy because he was cheating on me.

1064
00:58:56.821 --> 00:58:57.842
And so I took her out.

1065
00:58:57.862 --> 00:58:58.702
I said, let's go to lunch.

1066
00:58:59.042 --> 00:59:00.743
And we were married within the year.

1067
00:59:02.484 --> 00:59:02.924
Wow.

1068
00:59:03.525 --> 00:59:03.745
Yeah.

1069
00:59:04.125 --> 00:59:05.886
Is that story widely known?

1070
00:59:06.446 --> 00:59:08.027
I don't know.

1071
00:59:08.047 --> 00:59:08.207
Wow.

1072
00:59:08.527 --> 00:59:09.087
Well, you know it.

1073
00:59:09.147 --> 00:59:10.508
Beautiful, beautiful, man.

1074
00:59:11.529 --> 00:59:13.270
I mean, it's an amazing thing.

1075
00:59:13.310 --> 00:59:14.830
And I had an ache in my heart.

1076
00:59:15.331 --> 00:59:20.613
And I'm going, I don't know her well enough to have an ache in my heart.

1077
00:59:21.054 --> 00:59:21.594
I just don't.

1078
00:59:22.447 --> 00:59:25.929
You know, it's not, we never really established anything.

1079
00:59:25.949 --> 00:59:27.289
You know what I'm saying?

1080
00:59:27.309 --> 00:59:29.150
Because we weren't on the same turf.

1081
00:59:29.490 --> 00:59:30.010
Sure.

1082
00:59:30.130 --> 00:59:39.874
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.

1083
00:59:40.074 --> 00:59:44.296
It was that kind of, I've astral projected, I've been, I've seen myself, I'm going, I'm

1084
00:59:47.469 --> 00:59:55.135
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.

1085
00:59:55.395 --> 00:59:57.416
And I just said, man, I don't relate to it.

1086
00:59:57.536 --> 01:00:01.779
And I don't want to try to untangle this.

1087
01:00:01.980 --> 01:00:04.741
And it says not to be unequally yoked.

1088
01:00:05.302 --> 01:00:07.664
And that was very important to me.

1089
01:00:08.044 --> 01:00:08.264
Right.

1090
01:00:08.344 --> 01:00:10.866
My Christianity was very important to me because I knew.

1091
01:00:11.645 --> 01:00:12.465
It'd be like anything.

1092
01:00:12.485 --> 01:00:22.948
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.

1093
01:00:23.209 --> 01:00:23.569
Right.

1094
01:00:24.469 --> 01:00:24.709
So.

1095
01:00:25.269 --> 01:00:28.070
What brought about her first – her first book was called?

1096
01:00:29.003 --> 01:00:30.303
The Power of the Praying Wife?

1097
01:00:31.044 --> 01:00:33.845
Well, that's not her first book, but that was the first book that went nuts.

1098
01:00:34.345 --> 01:00:34.625
Yeah.

1099
01:00:34.985 --> 01:00:38.406
Was that because of you, that she had to become the power of the praying wife?

1100
01:00:38.446 --> 01:00:39.206
Probably so.

1101
01:00:40.027 --> 01:00:47.089
But the interesting thing about that, she had came on to Harvest House Publishers, and she had this idea.

1102
01:00:47.109 --> 01:00:47.829
She said, you know what?

1103
01:00:48.317 --> 01:00:52.980
And we were married, and the neat thing about going to this church is that there were small groups.

1104
01:00:53.200 --> 01:00:54.661
We would break up into small groups.

1105
01:00:55.241 --> 01:00:57.923
We would go to someone's house, and we would share things.

1106
01:00:58.083 --> 01:01:03.527
And dealing with couples and stuff like that, she said, oh, my goodness, I think I have an idea for a book.

1107
01:01:03.727 --> 01:01:06.789
Because we were with so many couples, and there were so many needs.

1108
01:01:07.829 --> 01:01:11.952
So she presents to her publisher, and he says, nah, that'll never sell.

1109
01:01:12.536 --> 01:01:13.197
I'm not kidding.

1110
01:01:13.617 --> 01:01:17.159
And I got to thank God she was very resolute.

1111
01:01:17.499 --> 01:01:18.300
She said, I'm sorry.

1112
01:01:18.400 --> 01:01:21.282
She said, I feel passionate about this.

1113
01:01:21.502 --> 01:01:22.883
This is what I want to write.

1114
01:01:23.683 --> 01:01:27.346
And he gave him 11 million, 12 million copies.

1115
01:01:27.526 --> 01:01:30.808
I mean, and I don't know how many languages.

1116
01:01:30.988 --> 01:01:32.369
It's kind of like the sailing record.

1117
01:01:32.569 --> 01:01:33.190
We're going to sit on.

1118
01:01:33.210 --> 01:01:34.190
Yeah, yeah.

1119
01:01:34.471 --> 01:01:35.491
You're against the grain.

1120
01:01:35.511 --> 01:01:36.592
You're being told no.

1121
01:01:38.413 --> 01:01:39.114
Yeah, yeah.

1122
01:01:39.694 --> 01:01:40.555
Man, oh, man.

1123
01:01:40.575 --> 01:01:41.275
Yeah.

1124
01:01:43.330 --> 01:01:58.574
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.

1125
01:02:02.035 --> 01:02:04.056
It gave me chills to see my name.

1126
01:02:05.696 --> 01:02:07.336
Right before the Y, Trisha Yearwood.

1127
01:02:08.217 --> 01:02:12.938
And so we've made some records together that,

1128
01:02:13.917 --> 01:02:19.079
I never dreamed I would ever accomplish much less with you.

1129
01:02:19.339 --> 01:02:24.881
You know, um, I can, I can be melancholy.

1130
01:02:25.081 --> 01:02:26.662
You, you can be melancholy.

1131
01:02:26.882 --> 01:02:32.184
I, I have to really fight against going back to, Oh, I wish we, I wish we could do it.

1132
01:02:32.224 --> 01:02:33.484
Like we used to do it.

1133
01:02:33.544 --> 01:02:36.005
I wish we could be together and create.

1134
01:02:36.025 --> 01:02:37.366
I remember you being in my home.

1135
01:02:37.386 --> 01:02:38.506
Yeah.

1136
01:02:39.312 --> 01:02:44.075
playing on my piano in the living room one time, you were noodling around, and I said, what is that?

1137
01:02:44.135 --> 01:02:46.677
And it became a song called Come Home.

1138
01:02:46.997 --> 01:02:48.438
It's unbelievable.

1139
01:02:49.039 --> 01:03:08.872
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

1140
01:03:09.568 --> 01:03:12.630
Gosh, man, I just... That's beautiful.

1141
01:03:12.930 --> 01:03:13.710
I miss that.

1142
01:03:13.730 --> 01:03:16.191
What you did with it was beautiful.

1143
01:03:16.712 --> 01:03:17.112
Let me...

1144
01:03:17.432 --> 01:03:22.675
I know you're always interviewing people and you want to hear their stories, but let me tell you something, man.

1145
01:03:23.075 --> 01:03:26.437
And I've told you this a million times.

1146
01:03:27.417 --> 01:03:33.280
Working with you was unbelievable because you have such talent.

1147
01:03:33.400 --> 01:03:35.061
I mean, you're such a great keyboard player.

1148
01:03:35.101 --> 01:03:36.762
You're a great singer, great writer.

1149
01:03:37.342 --> 01:03:39.043
You have all the components that,

1150
01:03:39.778 --> 01:03:41.399
would make a pop star.

1151
01:03:42.179 --> 01:03:43.520
And I told you that a million times.

1152
01:03:43.540 --> 01:03:55.566
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.

1153
01:03:56.166 --> 01:04:08.132
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

1154
01:04:10.325 --> 01:04:14.747
a lot of talent to be able to go against the big boys and the girls.

1155
01:04:15.087 --> 01:04:17.668
And I don't say that in a smug way at all.

1156
01:04:18.368 --> 01:04:20.269
It's just that it becomes a holding tank.

1157
01:04:20.429 --> 01:04:28.973
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.

1158
01:04:29.573 --> 01:04:34.755
But I told you that I thought you're, especially your pop voice, and doing that one record that we did,

1159
01:04:35.508 --> 01:04:37.809
Every song, I listened to it a million times.

1160
01:04:38.169 --> 01:04:38.349
Yeah.

1161
01:04:38.369 --> 01:04:38.889
The Way Home.

1162
01:04:39.129 --> 01:04:40.010
The Way Home, yeah.

1163
01:04:40.250 --> 01:04:41.990
It's such a good record, man.

1164
01:04:42.150 --> 01:04:46.172
And I talked to John Hammond, the drummer, and he says, man, he said, that was my favorite record.

1165
01:04:46.332 --> 01:04:46.452
Oh.

1166
01:04:46.592 --> 01:04:50.734
Well, I'm just going to tell you that it was a treat.

1167
01:04:50.754 --> 01:04:56.936
And when you came over to my house to do Field of Souls, now, that track is, that song is ridiculous, man.

1168
01:04:57.296 --> 01:04:59.397
It's about seven minutes long, and it just...

1169
01:05:00.120 --> 01:05:04.982
you start levitating for such a great song that you wrote.

1170
01:05:05.142 --> 01:05:06.483
And it was such a great record.

1171
01:05:06.823 --> 01:05:09.184
And it was a treat to be able to get back in the studio with you.

1172
01:05:09.204 --> 01:05:09.824
That's been a long time.

1173
01:05:09.864 --> 01:05:11.325
It's been a long time.

1174
01:05:12.386 --> 01:05:13.346
Can you believe how long?

1175
01:05:13.786 --> 01:05:14.907
I know, man.

1176
01:05:15.007 --> 01:05:18.428
Field of Souls was.

1177
01:05:18.608 --> 01:05:19.249
2000 what?

1178
01:05:19.849 --> 01:05:20.909
13, 12, 13?

1179
01:05:20.969 --> 01:05:22.430
Oh, no, no.

1180
01:05:22.550 --> 01:05:23.310
Way before that.

1181
01:05:23.571 --> 01:05:24.291
Are you serious?

1182
01:05:24.431 --> 01:05:24.651
Yeah.

1183
01:05:24.671 --> 01:05:24.851
95 maybe.

1184
01:05:24.971 --> 01:05:25.652
Yeah.

1185
01:05:29.378 --> 01:05:30.898
Yeah, it's amazing.

1186
01:05:30.958 --> 01:05:31.278
95?

1187
01:05:31.699 --> 01:05:34.899
No, no, no, no, no.

1188
01:05:35.139 --> 01:05:37.440
No, it was later than that.

1189
01:05:37.520 --> 01:05:38.140
I guarantee.

1190
01:05:38.520 --> 01:05:43.441
When I was living in Baton Rouge, things were really, really not good and tight.

1191
01:05:43.801 --> 01:05:52.464
And I went to a steak and ale restaurant and auditioned to play in their club.

1192
01:05:53.364 --> 01:05:53.724
Wow.

1193
01:05:54.144 --> 01:05:58.365
And I went in and played for the manager, and there were two people in the bar.

1194
01:05:59.597 --> 01:06:00.618
I mean, I didn't know what to do.

1195
01:06:01.078 --> 01:06:02.219
We needed to have some money.

1196
01:06:02.559 --> 01:06:06.261
And I went and played in the bar to audition for the manager.

1197
01:06:06.281 --> 01:06:13.706
And there were two people, a man and a woman who were being secretive and not paying attention to me.

1198
01:06:13.746 --> 01:06:18.709
And I played and the guy said, sure, we'll give you 50 bucks a night, blah, blah, blah.

1199
01:06:18.910 --> 01:06:25.374
And I remember walking out of there going, you know, I came to the Lord when I was nine and 16.

1200
01:06:30.553 --> 01:06:32.094
I don't know what, but I'm not doing this.

1201
01:06:33.695 --> 01:06:38.118
And it never, I mean, I'm not just making this up.

1202
01:06:38.238 --> 01:06:46.543
It never occurred to me to try to be anything other than to give this gift for eternal purposes.

1203
01:06:46.983 --> 01:06:51.146
And you know me, I can go real sad real quick.

1204
01:06:51.386 --> 01:06:57.150
And I hope, I don't hope, I know what we've done together has had an impact on people.

1205
01:06:57.812 --> 01:07:01.713
They don't need to know all the details of the struggles that you and I have been through.

1206
01:07:02.854 --> 01:07:07.315
But thank God the stuff that we did.

1207
01:07:07.335 --> 01:07:20.260
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.

1208
01:07:20.871 --> 01:07:26.533
But the stuff we did together really holds up, and I will forever grateful for it.

1209
01:07:26.953 --> 01:07:35.917
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.

1210
01:07:35.977 --> 01:07:40.158
But, man, I'm just so thankful for your friendship.

1211
01:07:40.178 --> 01:07:47.701
And you could go on and on about your accomplishments and all this stuff, and you just don't.

1212
01:07:48.641 --> 01:07:50.022
And that's a beautiful thing to me.

1213
01:07:50.508 --> 01:07:53.729
And your heart has just blessed me so much, man.

1214
01:07:54.250 --> 01:07:57.651
You know, thank you for those words.

1215
01:07:57.871 --> 01:07:59.192
And I feel the same way about you.

1216
01:07:59.552 --> 01:08:02.413
I just, those things I've done with you are real highlights to me.

1217
01:08:02.973 --> 01:08:06.615
Very creative, great songs, just great.

1218
01:08:07.095 --> 01:08:13.557
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.

1219
01:08:14.618 --> 01:08:19.680
It's amazing when you think about how hard certain people,

1220
01:08:20.442 --> 01:08:22.703
try to leave what they call a legacy.

1221
01:08:23.304 --> 01:08:23.604
Okay.

1222
01:08:24.544 --> 01:08:29.747
I want to put my stamp on something and I want to be remembered forever and all, whatever that is.

1223
01:08:30.788 --> 01:08:45.637
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.

1224
01:08:46.117 --> 01:08:46.337
Yeah.

1225
01:08:47.101 --> 01:08:51.144
And when I see that over and over again, I go, you know what?

1226
01:08:52.104 --> 01:08:57.568
Leaving a legacy on this earth just to leave a legacy, it doesn't mean anything.

1227
01:08:58.369 --> 01:09:00.930
Legacy is in our kids, our families.

1228
01:09:01.931 --> 01:09:04.233
Whatever music we did, okay, that's fine.

1229
01:09:04.613 --> 01:09:07.295
But there's more important things to me as far as legacy.

1230
01:09:07.955 --> 01:09:14.940
And I feel really sad for someone who works their entire life to hope that they'll be eternally remembered for what they did.

1231
01:09:17.585 --> 01:09:21.272
I'd rather be remembered for what I was than what I did.

1232
01:09:22.154 --> 01:09:26.262
And that means more to me to have someone say he was a good guy.

1233
01:09:26.983 --> 01:09:27.504
Yeah.

1234
01:09:27.544 --> 01:09:28.566
Treated people right.

1235
01:09:28.807 --> 01:09:29.368
Just like you.

1236
01:09:29.388 --> 01:09:29.949
Yeah.

1237
01:09:30.184 --> 01:09:31.604
He wasn't arrogant about this.

1238
01:09:31.765 --> 01:09:32.505
He wasn't this.

1239
01:09:32.745 --> 01:09:36.226
He always was, you know, was nice.

1240
01:09:37.026 --> 01:09:38.327
You know, my son is that.

1241
01:09:38.367 --> 01:09:42.228
I see it in him where people come to me and say, man, you've got a really good kid.

1242
01:09:42.308 --> 01:09:43.448
He's so polite.

1243
01:09:43.508 --> 01:09:44.228
He's so nice.

1244
01:09:44.849 --> 01:09:47.430
And that makes me happy as can be.

1245
01:09:47.870 --> 01:09:47.990
Yeah.

1246
01:09:48.030 --> 01:09:51.531
Because that means more to me than the fact that he's brilliant at what he does.

1247
01:09:51.591 --> 01:09:51.851
Yeah.

1248
01:09:51.971 --> 01:09:53.471
He's such a nice kid, man.

1249
01:09:53.511 --> 01:09:54.512
He's so respectful.

1250
01:09:55.172 --> 01:09:57.113
And to me, that's what it is.

1251
01:09:57.453 --> 01:09:57.893
Yeah.

1252
01:09:57.913 --> 01:09:58.213
People...

1253
01:09:58.726 --> 01:10:04.749
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?

1254
01:10:05.209 --> 01:10:06.370
Or what's going on with you?

1255
01:10:06.390 --> 01:10:07.391
Can I help you?

1256
01:10:09.011 --> 01:10:11.713
A song is one thing, but much more to me.

1257
01:10:12.693 --> 01:10:15.475
Well, bro, thank you so much for spending time with me again.

1258
01:10:16.856 --> 01:10:17.716
We will do it again.

1259
01:10:17.896 --> 01:10:18.677
Thank you so much.

1260
01:10:19.397 --> 01:10:20.117
Thank you, Wayne.

1261
01:10:20.818 --> 01:10:21.178
Love you.

1262
01:10:22.412 --> 01:10:31.620
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.

1263
01:10:31.921 --> 01:10:35.784
Be sure to follow, leave us a review, and share this episode with a friend.

1264
01:10:36.025 --> 01:10:41.450
To learn more about Wayne's music, ministry, and upcoming projects, visit WayneWatson.com.

1265
01:10:42.110 --> 01:10:47.159
Every journey of faith begins with a story, and every heart finds its rhythm in the Lord.

1266
01:10:47.600 --> 01:10:53.871
Until next time, go well, and may you keep walking in step with His song flowing through you.