Jack Tempchin Interview
Doug Burke:
Jack Tempchin was inducted into the Songwriter Hall of Fame in 2019. He is recognized as a founder of the 1970s Southern California sound. Growing up as a hippie in San Diego, California, he gravitated to the folk coffee houses where the songwriting bug bit him bad. He wrote Peaceful Easy Feeling and Already Gone, which were claimed by Glenn Frey and were two of the first breakthrough singles for The Eagles and were on their bestselling Greatest Hits album. He's had a successful solo career and has released 12 solo albums. His 27 chart-topping hits songs have been recorded by artists like George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits, Glen Campbell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Tanya Tucker, and many others. Jack has a well-deserved spot in the Hall of Fame.
Welcome to Backstory Song. I'm your host, Doug Burke. I am so excited today to have one of my musical heroes on the show, Hall of Fame songwriter, Jack Tempchin. Jack, welcome to Backstory Song.
Jack Tempchin:
Thank you, Doug. I'm happy to be here.
Doug Burke:
Jack, you started your career a long time ago in San Diego. I'd like to explore how you got into songwriting. When and why did you pick up a harmonica, or a guitar, or whatever, or a pad of paper and a pen? How did that start?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, perhaps I was just born with it, because I used to walk down the street when I was a kid whistling and I would whistle every song I could think of. After a couple of years, I rode my bike up to Ozzie's Music on El Cajon Boulevard and I had saved up money and I bought myself a harmonica. Then I would walk down the street, just sounding out every song I could think of on my harmonica. So that didn't really come from anywhere. That was just me. Then in high school, I heard a Bob Dylan record and I loved it. All the other kids said, "Oh, he sounds funny and can't sing." But I was entranced by that. Then there were the folk music clubs that served apple cider. I would go around to those places, even though I was too young, really. But I wasn't a player. I didn't start playing any music till I was around 18. At that point, most of the other musicians had already been in bands and knew how to play and everything.
Doug Burke:
It was 18 when you picked up the guitar? Or, you had a harmonica and you just would fool around with a harmonica up till then, but hadn't written a song. When and why did you write your first song?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I had a friend when I was 18. Joe and I would smoke some pot and go sit on the beach and watch the sun go down. Joe was an amazing guy. He would make up songs, like about the city and the burning clouds. He had a guitar. He would play a D chord and then move it up the neck and move it up the neck a little more and back down. And he would just play and make up a song for half an hour. They were still some of the greatest songs. We used to do this all the time. Then at one point, I said, "Joe, these are incredible songs. Maybe we ought to write them down or something." He looked at me and said, "No, man, that would ruin it." I still think of him as the great artist, the pure artist.
Doug Burke:
He did it for the live performance only, huh?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. He'd just like, "You don't do it to save it, man. You just do it." Then I was hanging around the folk clubs and...
Doug Burke:
Name some of the clubs. This is San Diego, right? You haven't made your way up to LA and the whole-
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, just San Diego. The first clubs were the Land of Odin and it changed its name. It was Occam's Razor. It was out in La Mesa. Later on, there was the Candy Company. And there was a club in Escondido called In The Alley. I was hanging around and I'd get up and try to play a blues song. And my friends in the audience, after I got off, would say, "Hey man, what did you do to that song?" They wouldn't even recognize the song I was trying to play. So I wasn't very good. That's what it came down to. At one point I wrote my own song and then, of course, nobody could criticize that I was doing it wrong.
Doug Burke:
I think that's one of the greatest songwriter lessons ever, is that if you are trying to be a cover band, it is so hard to be precisely, exactly like the original. It's impossible to be exactly like the original. So if you write your own songs, they just have to sound like the way you want them to.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. I didn't have the musical skill to cover other people's songs. Another plus about not being very good musically was I didn't consider myself a musician. I was just doing my songs. Whereas a lot of people got caught up in how well they were playing the guitar. They'd worked on their guitar part. They'd worked on their vocals. I always knew that both my guitar and my vocals sucked and I didn't care. I was just a communicator. So that helped me. I wrote a song and I played it for my dad. And he says, "Well, Jack, I like a song that has a part that repeats, a chorus that repeats." In life, a lot of times people have to tell you things. You don't just pick up anything. And I went, "Oh yeah, a chorus kind of thing that repeats." So I took that to heart. The second song I wrote was a song called Diamond Ring. I guess it's never been recorded, but at one point Linda Ronstadt was considering recording it. Then a guy named Ted Stock in the folk scene asked if he could sing Diamond Ring. He started singing it around town. He was a fabulous guitar player, sounded like three people playing at once, these intricate parts. It was beautiful. People kept coming up to me and saying, "Wow, what a great song." So at one point I asked Ted if he would show me how to play his arrangement on the guitar. He said, "No."
Doug Burke:
No love lost between competing songwriters, I guess sometimes, right? Or I guess he wasn't writing. He was covering your song and he wouldn't even show you his interpretation. Thank you for teaching me the song. I'm not going to teach you how I made it my own version.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, my arrangement. That's how I got into writing songs.
Doug Burke:
People started asking you to play your songs, right? Back then?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, which is not the way it happens now, I don't think. Being a musician was not a real career choice back then.
Doug Burke:
This is the '60s, the late '60s?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, exactly.
Doug Burke:
Unless you were in the Brill Building in New York or in one of the Nashville publishing houses.
Jack Tempchin:
That's right.
Doug Burke:
I guess it was starting in Los Angeles, up in the Laurel Canyon scene with Buffalo Springfield and the-
Jack Tempchin:
But this was before a lot of that, really. People would ask me. I'd play a song at the coffee house and they'd want to do it. Then they'd go start performing it. Only after a few years of that, did I think, "Hey, maybe I can be a songwriter." Then I saw this folk duo perform, Hedge and Donna. They were just absolutely incredible. They were the first people to record my songs. They had a record deal in LA. Then after that, I thought, "Well, maybe this could work."
Doug Burke:
Did you see them perform one of your songs live?
Jack Tempchin:
I did. Yes.
Doug Burke:
And what was that feeling like?
Jack Tempchin:
It was completely magical. It was fantastic.
Doug Burke:
Do you ever get tired of that feeling, of people performing your songs?
Jack Tempchin:
I do not.
Doug Burke:
Is it ever different? I mean, you've written so many classics. We're going to talk about Peaceful Easy Feeling, Already Gone, Smuggler's Blues, I Found Somebody, and all these great Eagles and Glenn Frey classics, Slow Dancing. Great songs that have been covered by many, many artists.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, pretty much. I mean, of course, the first time I ever heard Peaceful Easy Feeling coming out of a radio, that was an astounding thrill. But I still like it every time. And no, it's just always great and it doesn't get old.
Doug Burke:
Have you ever been in a karaoke bar when they were singing one of your songs?
Jack Tempchin:
Actually, no. I don't think I have. I haven't been in karaoke bars very much, so that would explain.
Doug Burke:
I was once in a karaoke bar and Mac Davis got up and sang, Baby, Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me.
Jack Tempchin:
That's so funny.
Doug Burke:
It was magical. I was like, "Oh my God, this is like this special event, the guy singing the song that he wrote, that he charted.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, that's so great.
Doug Burke:
So we're going to have to take you to a karaoke bar, Jack, once we get past this pandemic when I get you up here to Park City to come to our songwriter festival.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, I'd love that.
Doug Burke:
Oh, I hope so. But we're a ways away from that. So you meet JD Souther and Glenn Frey, who were in this band, Longbranch Pennyweight, and they're touring in San Diego.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, they were playing the Candy Company, which is the big folk club in San Diego. I just went and happened to see them and thought they were great. So I asked if they'd like to stay at my house. At the time I'd rented a big house with six bedrooms near Balboa Park. I filled it with friends of mine. My brother and I had a candle shop in the garage where we made a lot of candles, sold them at the Del Mar fair, sand candles. So they stayed with me. And then every time they came to San Diego, they would stay with me. That was Glenn Frey and JD Souther. We remained friends forever.
Doug Burke:
This is kind of like this magical moment, the three of you guys coming together early in your career. Are you in your teens still or in your 20s at this point?
Jack Tempchin:
Early 20s, maybe. I'm not sure.
Doug Burke:
Were you just hanging around playing songs for each other in your free time?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. I graduated from San Diego State. Then for a while I had a job running a big coffee house called the Back Door. They had built a Student Center and they had put in a bowling alley, but they didn't have money to finish it. So we went in and turned it into a giant folk music club, what they called the Hoot Nights at these coffee houses, which were open mic nights. I ran the Hoot Nights at about three different clubs. I got about $12 each time. So that's what I was doing. And then JD and Glenn would come down.
Doug Burke:
And they would play the open mic nights at the Back Door?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. They did play the Back Door. They were up in LA. They had this folk duo, just the two of them. Then they got a record deal, Amos Records, and they made an album. They brought it down and we listened to it. So that was the beginning for them.
Doug Burke:
So Glenn's living in Silver Lake in an apartment above Jackson Browne. And you start going up to Hollywood?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. He asked me to come up and I would stay with him. Then, just like in the movie, we would hear Jackson Browne in the place below. I had met Jackson Browne, because he came also to San Diego and played the Candy Company. I had already heard his songs and was actually performing These Days for Adam. This was before he ever put a record out. These songs were just circulating in the folk scene. Up in LA, he had the apartment down below and we would hear him practicing piano all day and working on his songs. Then at some point, Jackson was introducing people to David Geffen. Geffen was putting together his record company. I remember he took Glenn and JD over to meet Geffen. That was a real interesting time to be up there.
Doug Burke:
You guys, you four, are somewhat credited as being the founders of this thing, the architects, I read of the Southern California sound. I think it's a well-deserved name for this sound that you created. It took what had started in this Laurel Canyon thing in the late '60s, and it took it in a new and different direction. That's where your first hit, Peaceful Easy Feeling, came from and out of that scene.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, let's see. Jackson was from California. Glenn was from Detroit and JD was from Texas. But the Southern California sound, I mean, really, there was some rock and roll, but it was like a lot of folk mixed with country.
Doug Burke:
Kind of Gram Parsons, too.
Jack Tempchin:
Yes, absolutely. And then stir in some rock and roll. Gram Parsons brought a lot of country into it. Then he went and hung out with the Stones. They mixed in a bunch of rock and roll, which actually came from the blues, the electrified blues, from Chicago and stuff and the South. Then it all just merged together like it actually had to, but came this wonderful sound out of it.
Doug Burke:
Glenn and Don Henley are the backing band for Linda Ronstadt. There's some archival footage of them playing at the Troubadour, this legendary place that's still around. And I hope it survives the whole pandemic situation of being shut. I hope all our clubs make it through to the other side of this but, certainly, Doug Weston's The Troubadour, legendary place. You're part of the scene. Have you ever played the Troubadour?
Jack Tempchin:
Yes. Quite a few times. I went up there then stood in line, like everybody did, to play on Monday night, which was the open mic night. Then they said, "Well, you don't have to stand in line anymore. You can just tell us when you want to play on Monday," which was a big deal. So I played a lot on the Hoot Nights. Eventually, Doug Weston offered me a recording contract. He was opening another Troubadour in San Francisco and was going to have a record company. I ended up not signing with him.
Doug Burke:
And the reason you didn't sign that contract?
Jack Tempchin:
I don't know. It was a long contract with a lot of stuff in it. I don't know, just at that time, I don't remember why. But he was an amazing guy and a visionary and put together this incredible club.
Doug Burke:
What was it like playing there?
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, it's a wonderful place to play, the way it's set up, the sound system, the long stage. Then the bar was outside the front of the building. That was an amazing scene, as well. We used to go there virtually every night.
Doug Burke:
Who did you see there?
Jack Tempchin:
I saw Gram Parsons. I saw Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. I was there when Elton John played first time in America. And I saw Steve Martin and just a million other things every night.
Doug Burke:
You're like a regular here. You become friends... These are your best friends, at least, when you're not in San Diego?
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, yeah. Well Glenn and JD were great friends and I developed a lot of other friends from that scene. Then at some point, Jackson and Glenn decided to introduce me to David Geffen. By that time they weren't in Silver Lake anymore. And I went up and stayed with Jackson Browne in his house. That's when I was playing Peaceful Easy Feeling. Glenn came in and heard it and asked if he could put it on cassette tape. So he recorded it on a cassette. He came back the next day. They had already toured with Linda Ronstadt and he said, "I've got a new band, Jack. And we've been together eight days and we worked up your song." And he played a cassette for me of The Eagles doing Peaceful Easy Feeling.
Doug Burke:
That's the first time you're hearing the vocal harmonization of your song?
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, yeah. He took me into a rehearsal. And the room, it was like a tiny, tiny room. And he says, "Yeah, tomorrow we're going to have all these record company guys come in and we're going to put them right there on that couch." They were going to be about eight feet from the band. I'm watching the band and they play You Don't Miss Your Water Til Your Well Runs Dry. Don Henley is singing. I had never met Don and he's playing the drums and he's singing at the same time. He's the most incredible singer I'd ever heard. I'm going, "Who is this guy?" That was me seeing The Eagles. The next thing I knew, they had already gone to London and recorded their first album with Glyn Johns. I was still living in San Diego. Glenn brought the two-track tape down to San Diego. I was the only one with a tape recorder. So we all gathered in my house to listen to it. The first song was Take It Easy. I listened to it and I'm thinking, "Well, that's the best song I ever heard. That's the best record I've ever heard in my life!" Then the next song was Witchy Woman, and I'm going, "Wow, that's the best song I ever heard, too!" Then the third song was Peaceful Easy Feeling. And I just remember thinking, "This is the best album I've ever heard." Then those songs ended up on the biggest selling album of all time.
Doug Burke:
The Eagles Greatest Hits collection from '72 to '76, I think it was?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You had two songs on that. Tell me about writing Peaceful Easy Feeling.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I had a gig out in El Centro at a mini mall. I didn't even remember the name of the club, but recently some people showed up and they reminded me. It was called the Aquarius. I was trying to hook up with the waitress and she said, "Okay, I have to leave, but I'm going to come back and pick you up and you can come and stay with me." So I told the guys I was with, I didn't need to go back to the place we were staying and they left. Then the girl never came back. So I'm stuck on the linoleum floor, in this little place all night trying to sleep. That's when I started writing the song. I still have the piece paper. A lot of times when you write a song, a lot of stuff that comes out at first is no good. That's why people stop writing, but if you don't stop and you just keep going... Then I looked back later at stuff I'd written down and I saw this phrase, peaceful, easy feeling. I went, "Hey, that's cool."
Doug Burke:
Here's what I love about that phrase. Since you coined that, since you put those two words together in front of feeling, peaceful and easy, it has forever changed the way people think about that phrase. People would say, "I have a peaceful feeling." Maybe they'd say, "I have an easy feeling." I'm not quite sure what that means, but that peaceful, easy feeling, everybody understands that differently because of that moment, when you wrote that down. It's almost, I don't know, it's so moving to me. This is the art of Jack Tempchin, that you came up with these two words that, peace is hard to find. We know this in the world. Yet it's something that we've been striving for forever as humans on the planet. You put those two words together of making peace, easy. Think of how hard our life is all the time and how we're seeking peace, where it's like finding peace hard. You created this peaceful, easy feeling. And here's the funniest thing about this story, Jack Tempchin. You were sleeping on a linoleum floor of a mini-mall after you were stood up on a date! How could you have a peaceful, easy feeling in that setting? This is remarkable to me.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I had a friend back there, I'm still friends with, named Teo. He was into Eastern philosophy. In our crowd, we had noted you're always looking for love. And you're looking for things in life. But a lot of times when you stop looking, when you quit looking, that's when you find what you're looking for, because you're not searching so hard. Or, you're not trying for love so hard. It opens you up to actually see it. Maybe it was there all the time. That was in the back of my mind about that song. The girl stood me up, but I was going, "Oh, well, just let that experience go. It's okay. Then maybe something good will drop into your lap."
Doug Burke:
That's remarkable. You're sitting there in the mini-mall and you're coming to terms with being stood up. So she wasn't the girl with the sparkling earrings?
Jack Tempchin:
No, because when I got back to San Diego, I went down to the street fair in Old Town and I saw a beautiful girl. I mean, I was falling in love every 10 minutes. I saw this girl who I never spoke to, who had these long, beautiful earrings. I put her in the song. Then the last verse of the song I wrote waiting for my Polish dog at a place called Der Wiener Schnitzel on Washington Boulevard, because I used to carry my Stella guitar with me at all times.
Doug Burke:
So that's where the last verse was written and they have established a plaque.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, they-
Doug Burke:
So the last verse is, written and they have established a plaque.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. They had a Peaceful Easy Feeling day and they had a plaque in the table. And then the Durwienerschnitzel company, which is now still around, it's called Wienerschnitzel, And they awarded me a solid gold wiener.
Doug Burke:
You got the golden wiener.
Jack Tempchin:
I got the golden wiener. No other songwriter has one.
Doug Burke:
Not quite up there with a Grammy, but close, I guess.
Jack Tempchin:
And then I think to myself, there's so many girls, and they could have been walking by and they could be the girls that I put into that song, and then they would never know it was them.
Jack Tempchin:
This is amazing. There actually isn't one single girl that gave you the peaceful easing feeling. It's a whole montage of women. You actually were lying on linoleum instead of already standing on the ground.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
They tell you to write songs from your personal experience, you kind of took it the exact opposite of what was happening to you and wrote this legendary song.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I was talking to my friend about creativity and basically he says, well, there's a million things coming into your mind and heart all the time, every day. You have a million thoughts. As humans we try to organize them in some kind of pattern to figure out what the heck's going on. And then when you're some kind of an artist you make a little world, like a song or a story or something. And that is your way of organizing all the stuff that's coming in into a little world that has some order in it, because you've put it together, and then you have to do that. So I took all the input of everything that was happening in my life and just ... I don't know. You do it. You have to do it whether anybody's going to hear it or not. And that's still what I do every day. It's a way of making sense out of life I guess.
Doug Burke:
One of the things I love about researching you, Jack, is you are so full of profound statements. They're nonstop. And they're in your songs, and sometimes they're simple things about life and the human experience. And you've written about so many phases of the human experience. And I want to encourage our listeners to listen to the Jack Tempchin songbook on our site, which I've put together, but in particular Jack's albums in the last 20 years are full of a treasure trove of amazing songs about mainly the human experience. You seem to really find writing about humans in different ways that are clever and engaging. And I love your work Jack.
Jack Tempchin:
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Doug Burke:
Let's talk about the second hit that you wrote, Already Gone.
Jack Tempchin:
I was running the coffee house called The Back Door, and I had a gig there with my friend, Rob Strandlund. And I had always wanted to write a country song at that point, because I listened to country radio when I was supposed to be sleeping when I was a kid on the Japanese transistor radio. And I liked country, but I didn't know how to write a country song. So Rob Standlund lived out of town in El Cajone, which is actually only three miles away to me, and he had a horse and a dog and cowboy boots and he was a country singer. So I thought, "Okay, he'll help me write a country song." So we were getting ready to play. And we were in the back room, which was actually the kitchen where the performers warmed up, with these giant refrigerators. And I opened refrigerator and there was a big white jug. So I just took it out and we started drinking out of this jug, which turned out to have hard cider in it. And at that point, I had never been high in any way. I had never had a drink or ...
Doug Burke:
Really?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
How old were you?
Jack Tempchin:
I'm not sure.
Doug Burke:
Okay. So you're a pretty young guy at this point.
Jack Tempchin:
So I'm drinking this hard cider and we wrote Already Gone together in about 20 minutes. We were feeling really good and I got to feeling so good that the last line of the chorus, I just left the ground, and instead of words, I just put in "Woo hoo hoo." It was like, "Woo hoo hoo."
Doug Burke:
And did you sing it exactly that way the first time?
Jack Tempchin:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
That was it? That was the magical moment. You didn't edit it, you just wrote it down, and that line was permanent.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. It was, "Woo hoo hoo," and, "I will sing this victory song, woo hoo hoo." And so Rob I got up on stage. We said, "Well, let's do that song. We didn't even know what to call it or anything. Apparently Glenn Fry must've been there, because I don't think I did the song much after that. There's one other recording when I played it in The Alley, which was a club in Escondido, and I opened for Jackson Browne and I didn't really know Jackson very well at that time, but I just kind of stormed into his dressing room and said, "Hey man, I just wrote this song and I want you to sing it with me." So being very nice, he came out and sang Already Gone with me.
Doug Burke:
Wow.
Jack Tempchin:
And then 30 years later someone came up with a tape of us doing it together.
Doug Burke:
Wow. So this is like a breakup redemption song, which is unusual. It's one of the reasons I think this song resonates with the audience is we've all been through breakups or losses in life and getting beyond that can be hard. There's a lot of songs written about that, that feeling of getting dumped or breaking up. But this is the aftermath and the recovery and the redemption and the victory beyond that.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. I had mentally found a way to deal with it. At some point I finally said, "Look, if you trust somebody and then they betray you in some way, you're just not going to deal with them ever again. But that doesn't mean you're not going to trust the next person." In other words, I decided I'm just going to trust everybody until they prove to be untrustworthy, and then I'll move on.
Doug Burke:
Good advice again from Jack.
Jack Tempchin:
And that's just what I was telling myself about a certain situation. And then that's really what the song was about. It's kind of a freeing ... You don't want to remain bitter toward everybody, but you just go, "Okay, you had chance, you blew it, and you're not getting another chance, and I'm moving on. And I feel good."
Doug Burke:
There's two couplets in this song that I love. "Just remember this my girl, when you look up in the sky, you can see the stars and still not see the light. That's right." That's the one, and then you repeat the melody, "So oftentimes it happens that we live our life in chains and we never even know we have the key."
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, that's that was the one for me.
Doug Burke:
That was the one. But there was no particular girl this was based on?
Jack Tempchin:
Not really. And a lot of times we do that. We make it a romantic situation when really it's just problems of life being solved and ways to manipulate your mental outlook to improve the world that you're in, and we say it through romantic situations. But yeah.
Doug Burke:
So the Eagles released these two songs, and suddenly you're on a roll and you form a band called the Funky Kings with Jules Shear and Richard Stekol.
Jack Tempchin:
Yes. One of the amazing experiences of my life. I went up to LA and I thought, "Okay, I guess I'll make my own record." I really loved this band called Honk that I have met, from Laguna. And they were just fantastic. All five musicians that were completely different genres and played amazingly together. And I always wanted to be part of that band in some way. So one of the guys who was Richard Stekol. Incredible songwriter, singer, and guitar player. So I ran into him in LA and he had gone up there to start a solo career, and we were talking and he took me to see this other guy playing at the ... I think it was the Ice House. Jules Shear, who was an amazing songwriter and solo performer. So we all got together and we're sitting around. Doug Haywood was the bass player for Jackson Browne. I think we were at his house and I think Jackson Browne was there. And so we passed around songs and I had written Slow Dancing. Richard Stekol had written this incredible song called My Old Pals. Jules Shear had written a song called It's So Easy To Begin. And those two songs were just absolute masterpieces of songs. And these guys sang incredible harmony. So it was just the thing where we were just sitting there and we felt that magic happen. And we all had to forgo our plans to make our solo careers. And then we played one gig at a place called Clackingham's, where we opened for Bobby Boris Pickett, the guy that did Monster Mash. And a guy in the crowd said he wanted to manage us. He said, "You shouldn't be playing in clubs. You should be making records and stuff." So after one gig ...
Doug Burke:
Arista records signed you. That was the A&R guy from Arista Records in the audience?
Jack Tempchin:
No, what happened was Glenn had taken me to meet Clive Davis at one point, Glenn Frey had taken me to meet Clive, and I was rehearsing with the Funky Kings and a little rehearsal studio. We didn't have anything going. I got a phone call that night from Clive Davis. He said, "I'm coming to town. Do you have anything going?" I said, "Well, I've been with this band a couple of days and we're rehearsing tomorrow." And he said, "Well, I'll come see you."Well, so that day before we had decided we'd needed a rhythm section, instead of just the three of us. Richard Stekol had called his friends in Laguna, a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard guy. And they all came up and showed up at the rehearsal studio. We'd never even met them before. I said, "Look guys, at two o'clock Clive Davis is going to come to see us." So we rehearsed three songs with this brand new rhythm section. Clive comes in at two with a couple of guys with him from the label. We play the three songs, and Clive Davis says, "I like it." I'm going, "Wow. That's great Clive. Should I get an attorney and have ... Contact your record label or what? Do you want to hear some demos or something?" He goes, "No Jack, I like it. You've got a deal. That's it."
Doug Burke:
Wow.
Jack Tempchin:
I always respected him for that because he didn't need to ask anybody else in order to make up his mind. So we had a deal and he got Paul Rothschild to produce our record who had produced Janis Joplin and The Doors. So it was kind of a whirlwind experience. So we made the record and then we went on tour opening for Hall and Oates. So it was incredible.
Doug Burke:
So you cut Slow Dancing, Swaying The Music and it did okay. But it really did well for Johnny Rivers.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. My version, which was the only time I was on the radio singing, went up to number 60 on the Billboard chart. And then I found out later Johnny Rivers heard it on the radio and he said, "Man, I would cut that song if it wasn't already a hit." And someone said, "Johnny, it's not a hit." So he cut it, and he worked the record. He went all through the south to the radio stations. Plus he made a great, great record of it and he made it into a hit. Then after that I met Johnny Rivers and we became really good friends and did a lot of other work together.
Doug Burke:
Most dance songs are about getting people up out of their seats jumping up and down, rocking and rolling and ... And this is about slow dancing. This is by design the opposite of that. But this song gets people dancing.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I was in a club, my friend was playing, and he had a band called Joe Bummer and Ass Bites From Hell. So they're playing ...
Doug Burke:
A marketable name there.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. He's one of the funniest guys that I ever saw. So they're playing song after song and the audience is just sitting at the tables in the club and they're not getting up and dancing. Finally, they played a slow song and I noticed that everyone got up and danced, and I thought, "Well, the people they're waiting for a chance where they can hold the other person close. So they're waiting for a slow dance." And then I thought, "Gee, there should be a song called Slow Dancing." So that was the genesis of the idea. And also at the time I was falling in love. A girl who later became my wife, and I'm still married to. And so that's where the emotion came from. And I started the song, I just worked on it nonstop for about three or four days until I finally felt I had it.
Doug Burke:
And tell me if I'm getting too personal, Jack, but did you play Slow Dancing at your wedding?
Jack Tempchin:
No.
Doug Burke:
The song.
Jack Tempchin:
No, not at my wedding.
Doug Burke:
You didn't?
Jack Tempchin:
No.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember who the band was at your wedding?
Jack Tempchin:
I didn't have a band. We had ... In the backyard of my parents' house. I shied away from the big wedding. But I have to say, it worked. It stuck us together just like a big wedding.
Doug Burke:
That's a great story. And I saw in one of the YouTube videos that are out there on you, that your parents were married for 72 years. Is that right? That is an amazing story, an amazing love story, and really a role model for us all in some ways. I don't know what the formula is, Jack.
Jack Tempchin:
Such a blessing for me and my brother and sister to have that role model that ... Oh, well this is ... It seems normal. It seemed normal to us. But it's not normal, but that it's possible. I think on their 50th wedding anniversary there was a party and they asked my mom, "Well, what's a secret? How'd you stay together?" She goes, "Well, first of all, we didn't kill each other."
Doug Burke:
That's a good start. Right?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. That's a good start.
Doug Burke:
Oh man, love is work. And I think you write about that a lot in your songs. And in fact, we go from your solo period in the 70s, the Eagles have there rock stardom super stardom globally, and then they break up famously. And somehow you reconnect with your old friend Glenn Frey. How does that happen?
Jack Tempchin:
Well we'd been, of course, really good friends during the time of the Eagles, but I hardly saw Glenn. He was really busy. So he called me and said, "The Eagles are not together. Do you want to come over and write some songs?" So I'd known him for about 10 years, I guess, but we had never written a song together, even though he'd recorded two of my songs. He had a house in the Hills. He was renting a place that used to belong to James Cagney. One big room with an A-frame and a big fireplace. And I went in there and he had two bottles of wine, each costing more than my car, and he had a hundred candles burning in the place. And I said, "Glenn, I don't drink wine." He goes, "Well, this is songwriter wine. You have to have a little of it." And I said, "So what's with the candles. Do you have a date later?" And he points up. He goes, "No Jack. It's the muse. She is up there, and we are not the only two guys trying to write a song tonight. And I want her to come down and hang around with us."
Doug Burke:
So he was seducing, courting the muse. The songwriter muse.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. Then we thought about that and we thought, "Well, the muse comes down." We thought, "Well, what if a girl was here with us and had to choose, say, between two really, really cool guys like me and Glenn. But she had ... So then we started writing the song, The One You Love. So we wrote that song that night. And so the thing is though, Glenn was my great friend. Then when we started writing songs together, it just turns out that your great friend is one of the best songwriters this country has ever had. And I just got to write songs with him basically for 14 years, until the Eagles got back together, and even after that. It's just remarkably lucky. And we just had a fantastic time writing together during all that. It was just- ... Had a fantastic time writing together, during all that, it was the greatest of experiences.
Doug Burke:
Let me list the songs for our listeners; I Found Somebody, Party Town, Smuggler's Blues, The Allnighter, Sexy Girl, True Love, Soul Searchin', Livin' Right, Part of Me, Part of You, I've Got Mine, River of Dreams, You Belong to the City... I'm probably missing some, here. And, I've been listening to these, over the weekend. It's a real metamorphosis of your sound; a lot more saxophone, real blue eyed soul, if that's accurate. I think Glenn is quoted as calling it his Wilson Pickett phase, but a lot of these songs are about girls.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh yeah.
Doug Burke:
You guys had a writing technique, that was a Spanish phrase.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. We would turn on the cassette recorder. And then we would take our two little Martin guitars that I had, and sit there and start strumming. And then we would just make stuff up. And just, make it up and make it up. And then we would listen back to the tape and sometimes there'd just be a song that we have made up. You don't even remember, while you are doing it, because you are in the middle of it. And we called that El Blurto. So, we would just blurt out a bunch of songs and then we would go back and write them down on the yellow pad. And then, the next day, having some coffee and looking at the yellow pad, then we would do a lot of work and edit the songs and put them together. But El Blurto was our technique.
Doug Burke:
Just blurt it out.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. Just blurt out anything. But then Glenn, he said, "Well, I want to do an album," and he'd have an idea of what he wanted it to be. He was from Detroit...
Doug Burke:
Originally started in Bob Seger's band, right? As a backing guitarist?
Jack Tempchin:
He and Bob Seger hung out for years and learned, but Glenn was a student of every type of American music. And he could play it all, he knew it all and how it worked; folk music, soul music, country music. He said, "Yeah, I like the saxophone thing and the soul thing." So he would think of an album, he'd have a good idea of the album and he'd even have titles. So let's think of some titles. He knew what he was doing and putting together. And I would go along and help him, as much as I could to realize the visions.
Doug Burke:
Was it, you collaborating both on lyrics and melodies or everything?
Jack Tempchin:
Everything. He might say, "Well, true love." He was just sitting at a Fender Rhodes or something and, "Out of the blue, Out of the night," and then he'd make up a verse and then maybe I would just sing a bridge. And so, it was really always a collaboration with music and words, just feeling good and getting stuff down.
Doug Burke:
I love true love. It's one of my favorites from this era. In particular, I like the line, "True love; it's got a lifetime guarantee."
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, that's right.
Doug Burke:
And, "True love makes every burden just a little lighter."
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Again, these are like Jack phrases.
Jack Tempchin:
Makes you be a better man. That was a Glenn phrase. And then, the other thing is, when he went to make a record, I had a device called the Linn 9,000. It was a drum machine, the first drum machine that had a sequencer in it. And I had a little box with two, bass guitar sounds, in it. Glenn would tap into the drum part. He would then, on a keyboard, play on the little bass part, he sequenced it. Then he'd play a keyboard part, and that would end up being the record. We would take all those tracks in the studio and use them, because he could just hear the whole record in his head, before he even made it. And then he would sing the sax part to the sax player.
Doug Burke:
The sax players. Was it more than one or was there one primary sax player, in that era?
Jack Tempchin:
I think there was more than one, but I'm a little fuzzy on who played what.
Doug Burke:
It is such a signature sound, of the songs that you wrote with Glenn in the eighties. One song, which is, I think your highest, across the board charting song, from this era is, You Belong to the City, which went to number one on the Rock Chart. And number two on the Billboard and the Adult Contemporary Charts. Tell me about writing this song.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, Glenn had met Michael Mann on a plane and Michael Mann was creating a television show called Miami Vice, which Glenn later acted in one of the episodes. He played the smuggler, who flew the plane. That we have the song Smuggler's Blues. But, they also sent us an episode, where one of the two guys, the detectives goes back to New York City, where he is from and he's walking the streets of New York City. So, we wrote a song for that. And I remember Glenn was just strumming an E minor chord. And all of a sudden, he goes, "You belong to the City." And I just went, "Yeah, that's it, that's it!" What a phrase, You belong to the City. And it's, the guy is going back and he doesn't fit in, but he does fit in. And so we wrote that song directly for that show.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about that, that's it feeling? You and Glenn had that magic of, sometimes it comes right away like that, but sometimes you have to work at it, to get to the that's it feeling. And when do you know it is... In part, this gets to a typical question is, "How do you know when a song is finished? That's it. It can't get any better than that." But that feeling like, "Oh, this is it! We don't need to change it."
Jack Tempchin:
Well, usually we'd start something and get the feeling right away. Like, "Wow, this is a good idea." Even something like Party Town, there was a lot of things we were just laughing, it was just a joke, but while this is going to feel good and there is room in Rock and Roll for a song that just feels good.
Doug Burke:
Party Town is not a Pulitzer prize, nominated song.
Jack Tempchin:
No.
Doug Burke:
It's not designed to be, because it is just a fun song.
Jack Tempchin:
It's just a fun song about having fun. But there is some disc jockey, in Atlanta, who played it for 20 years, every Friday at five o'clock, so people could get ready for the weekend. So, it found its place. But we think of songs and get really excited about the idea and know that it was something we wanted to say, and we could just feel the thrill of things coming together. And then a lot of times, we would use a yellow pad and we get to a certain point in the song, it seemed like it was done. But then, we draw a circle around every line that could be better. And sometimes... Like the song, The One You Love, there was a line we didn't have, for weeks. And, Glenn went to New York and he called me. He said, "Jack, this afternoon, I'm recording the vocal, so we have to get that line." And I already had 27 pages of attempts...
Doug Burke:
Of alternative lines.
Jack Tempchin:
To get that line. I just kept trying to get it. So, finally I got it and I said, "Well, this is it." I sent it back to him. The hardest part of a song, is when you've got almost all of it done, but there's a line in the middle or something that you don't have. And that line, has to connect with everything, that went before and lead in, to everything that's going after. So, we would just keep working on the song until we say, "Well, we can't get it any better."
Doug Burke:
But that's interesting. So, a big part of finding that it, is about identifying what's not it. And working until not it, becomes it.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. And when you sing the song, you feel it going by and you just know. So, there has to be something inside you that goes, "This is working and this other thing is not working." It's almost like you are living the emotion of the song when you do it. And when the song is done, the whole thing just flows correctly. The emotion flows and you know you've got it. And that's the essential thing to be in a songwriter, really. Is knowing when you have and it's working.
Doug Burke:
That's an emotional feeling of that's it. It's not an intellectual feeling or is it some of both?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, it can be intellectual in terms of when you're making the line. You say, "I want it to say this and that, but singing is more of an activity and it's an emotional performance, because it has music. So, sometimes you'll write a line, say, "Yeah, I got it. This is great." But then you'll sing it and you go, "No, it just doesn't feel right." It's like, if I'm talking to the girl and trying to convince her and I get to this line, it's not working. Even though I thought it was going to work, when I was looking at it intellectually, but no. So I have to change it and make it all work.
Doug Burke:
So, Glenn passed away and we miss him. And, you wrote a song about that, more recently called, Never had a Chance to Say Goodbye.
Jack Tempchin:
So for a couple of years, right up until the pandemic, I wasn't seeing Glenn very much anyway, because he was back in the Eagles. And they were touring the world and doing all kinds of stuff. But we talked and he would come over, when he was home and write a song with me, once in a while. And after he died though, I went over to the beach and sat on the cliff and I would make up songs every day and video them. So when I got home, I would work on them. I did that for a couple of years, I didn't know what else to do with myself. Just being there on the cliff looking at the beach, somehow was important to me. Everyone has a different thing they do. But to me, I just like to be sitting there looking at the ocean, playing my guitar, I don't know why. But it had a certain magic. So, one day I just wrote that, about missing Glenn called Never had a Chance to Say Goodbye. And, most of the song just came out.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. I've talked on this show about grief resolution. In particular, talked to Rain Phoenix, whose brother, River passed away and she wrote her album, River about it. Talked to Even Stevens about his songs that moved me that way. It's something that everybody goes through, in life. It's a phase of life. And the fact that you took it on, in a song, really means a lot to us. Everybody has to process it, in their own personal way, but it's a universal experience.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, actually I wrote quite a few songs about my feelings, about that, but most of them I never put down or anything.
Doug Burke:
You never recorded most of them?
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Does that help you feel better?
Jack Tempchin:
Absolutely. I mean, that's one thing about music. It's one of the few things. When emotionally, you get into a loop and you keep thinking about something that's bugging you and you can't get out of it or whatever, you go sit down and start playing some music and it can just take you somewhere else and change your feelings. People that don't have something that can do that, I think it's very difficult. So, it's a wonderful thing to just sit down and play and be able to have your emotions go over to somewhere else.
Doug Burke:
A lot of us lose someone and never have a chance to say goodbye to them. And, nice to write a song as a way of saying goodbye to Glenn, who really died unexpectedly.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
What else went into this song?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I don't know.
Doug Burke:
Well then, that's it.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Nothing more needs to be said.Out of all songs you've written, is there a contemporary voice that you would love to record one of your songs. And, what song would that be and what voice would you like to record it?
Jack Tempchin:
Boy, that's such a difficult question, because a lot of the people that I love and admire the most that make records; they write their own songs. I love Van Morrison. I love Mark Knopfler records. I love Eric Clapton records, he doesn't write all the songs. But I really can't focus in on a particular song, that I'd like somebody to do.
Doug Burke:
Understood. And not everybody has the answer to that impromptu question. And it can be more than one song and more than one voice. I started asking that question around the Nashville writers. And I know you've written in Nashville for certain people like Emmylou Harris, who covered White Shoes.
Jack Tempchin:
Early on, I got to meet Emmylou Harris, because I was the opening act on a tour. And boy, that was incredible, because I'm just in awe of her music. And before, they made their own records that had Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, who were both in her band.
Doug Burke:
Two hall of Famers.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, just incredible. So, many years later, I went to visit my friend in Amsterdam, a songwriter, Robin Lynch. And he took me down to Paris and we saw a concert. And I noticed, in Amsterdam and Paris, the guys were wearing white shoes. Which no guy in America, except for like tennis shoes, nobody had white shoes. And I thought, "Wow, those white shoes are kind of cool." And, so we got back to Amsterdam and I wrote the song. We went next door to Robin Lynch friend, a producer Hans Hollestelle and recorded a demo. We didn't have a drummer and, at that time, there were no drum machines. Drum machines had not been invented yet. So to play drums, I said, "Well?". He said, "You want drums?" I go, "Okay. But how are we going to do that? In your apartment here, there is no drums." He says, "Well, we will have Willie Deloop." Willie Deloop. So he opens a drawer and he has a bunch of little loops of quarter-inch tape, where he's recorded a drummer on a tape and then spliced it into a loop. And you put the loop on the tape recorder and it just goes around and around. It plays over and over.
Doug Burke:
The original drum machine.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. And so he had done that. And, he looks through and he picks out one of the loops and puts it on and he uses that. And then my friend, Robin, played bass and Hans is an incredible guitar player. He played guitar and I recorded a demo of White Shoes.
Jack Tempchin:
Later, it was recorded by Randy Meisner. And a producer called me up and said, "Jack, I got Russ Kunkel in here. I got all kinds of drummers, that have come in here. And they can't seem to lock into that groove, the way your demo did." So… Seemed to lock into that groove the way your demo did. So, who played the drums on your demo? I say -
Doug Burke:
-Let's get Willie in here.
Jack Tempchin:
I had to tell him. So then, he made a loop and he used that. So then, years later I guess, Emmy Lou had a copy of the song and she recorded it and she called her album White Shoes. So, that was just absolutely fantastic.
Doug Burke:
You had another country song by Sammy Kershaw, which is called Your Tattoo, which you wrote with another Hall of Famer, Kostas. I was actually at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which was the last live one.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, I didn't know he was in the Hall of Fame.
Doug Burke:
In the National Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Induction ceremony, not the big Hall of Fame that you're in.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, okay. Right, right.
Doug Burke:
But maybe we got to get you in the national one now that you're in the big one.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, that's fine. I'm satisfied though. Yeah. So, I hadn't met Kostas and he had written about... He's actually a quirky mountain man from Montana or something, but he had gone to Nashville and had written a whole bunch of hits. He was coming to California, so I think we met a hotel in the Valley in LA, and I just saw him that one time. I went out to the hotel room, we were sitting there and we wrote three songs, which is kind of amazing. I was just thinking about tattoos. Everybody was getting tattoos, so the song is about a guy that has a tattoo of his girlfriend, and then she dumps him and then he gets a new girlfriend who hates his tattoo.
Doug Burke:
One of the things about this song is it's really funny and you have a lot of songs with funny joke lines and a handful of even, they're almost like children's songs with hokey, play on words stuff. I mean, I would love it if you would write a kid's album, frankly, or maybe take some of your work that we don't know about, but Ray Stevens started this thing of novelty songs or was part of this writing of novelty songs, and you have a handful of this. I wouldn't call Your Tattoo a novelty song, but it's a funny song.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. The girlfriend, she pounds on my arm until it's black and blue. Trying to pounding on his tattoo.
Doug Burke:
And he wants to get a mustache to cover it up.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. It won't wash off or fade away. I'm stuck with you until my dying day. Just a picture of a girl in her birthday suit with her cowboy hat and their cowboy boots. And I have always had a lot of funny songs because playing live, it breaks things up and feels good. I toured as an opening act for Chicago, they just thought I was a comedian. Well, no, I'm actually a songwriter too. I'm not just a...
Doug Burke:
One day I'm going to be in the Hall of Fame maybe.
Jack Tempchin:
I had a song called Shut Up and Get Me a Beer, and then I had a song called 15 Days Under the Hood.
Doug Burke:
I love that song by New Riders of the Purple Sage and Paladin have recorded it, as well as you, right?
Jack Tempchin:
Yes. And that was about fixing your car. And I've always had a lot of funny songs and I just loved doing that.
Doug Burke:
What do you think of the New Riders version of that? It's really extended play, the way they do it.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, I love it. And I love the Paladins too. The Paladins version because the Paladins, they were in that era. They had the 50s hairstyle, their three piece with a standup bass and a great guitar. But in reality, they all had 50's cars and they worked on them and kept them. So, it was real for them. You know what I mean?
Doug Burke:
They liked the song cause it was their life experience.
Jack Tempchin:
It was their life experience. And then eventually, I stopped doing the song because it has a lot of funny stuff about the carburetor and just skinned my knuckles on the timing chain. And I was playing the song and I realized that times have changed. Nobody works on their cars anymore and nobody knew what I was talking about. They didn't know what a distributor or a timing chain was. So...
Doug Burke:
The computer does that now and now with the Tesla, there is no carburetor anymore.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
So I love your humorous songs. I think we should put out a whole record of them. And I don't know, maybe if that's a kid's record or just assemble them.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, that's a good idea. I'll write that down.
Doug Burke:
Okay. Every once in a while. My wife says I have a lot of ideas, but not all of them are good, but...
Jack Tempchin:
Well, your wife's job is to tell you that they're not good. Funny song album. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
I realized this Jack, when I was listening to your podcast, called Three Jacks, which I really enjoyed and I highly recommend to all my listeners go download Three Jacks and subscribe to Jack Tempchin's podcasts, Three Jacks, where you did the one episode where you had your nieces talking, participating in the song and it was a children's song. And the one about TV and food.
Jack Tempchin:
Yes. Yes. Oh, that was a big hit of mine. I always used to play that and eat some food, watch TV, the story of America. And that was -
Doug Burke:
And it's like, all we do is eat food and watch TV, and it was -
Jack Tempchin:
And then, the other song you're referring to where I had the nieces and nephews sing is called Whoopee Cushion.
Doug Burke:
Whoopee Cushion. That's it. You're the first guys written a song about the whoopee cushion. I think that's...
Jack Tempchin:
People may not know now, but in every comic book, there was a page advertising novelty toys and one of the toys would be the whoopee cushion. And you get this whoopee cushion, which I bought and you stick it under the cushion of a chair and then, when your parents or your aunt or whatever sits on it, it makes a fart sound.
Doug Burke:
And there was the hand buzzer and the x-ray eyeglasses.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah, the X-ray eyeglass. That's right.
Doug Burke:
Which I never understood how those worked. You can see for $1.99.
Jack Tempchin:
Just by looking through this x-ray eyeglass thing. But the whoopee cushion, that was fun.
Doug Burke:
The whoopee cushion was legendary, and that's a good song. And so, tell me about Three Jacks, your podcast. What's the theme there?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, it's three songs by Jack. So, it's Three Jacks. It's only about 10 minutes long each episode, but I'm enjoying it because first of all, I have hundreds of songs that no one's ever heard and I recorded them, but not... I didn't record them well enough to make them on an album. They're just like demos, but they're never going to see the light of day. And yet, the songs are good and I'm approaching it, like if I play live, I always introduce the songs. And I say funny things and I say a bunch of different things, whatever thoughts I've been having about things, and I think that really enhances the song a lot. To have an introduction with some thoughts about it. So, that's what I'm doing in the podcast. So, I introduce each song and talk about life and talk about the song. And then, I play the tape of the song and I do three songs. Maybe it's more meaningful than doing an album. Albums are over now. I mean, maybe they're not, but...
Doug Burke:
They are. It's the algorithm determining what we're going to listen to.
Jack Tempchin:
It's like LPs are over, CDs are over, downloading stuff is over, you know what I mean? A lot of things pass into history and you don't even know it and I'm kind of thinking, "Yeah, if I make a whole album, who's even going to listen to it?" So, I just think these are good little experiences and they're not too long. And so, I'm hoping people will enjoy these. I enjoyed doing them.
Doug Burke:
To close out our episode, I don't know if these are closing songs for you, but I think of them as wrap up. I have in mind two songs, One of the Good Old Days or Always Magic When the Sun Goes Down.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Both seem to me like songs as you could close the show with.
Jack Tempchin:
Yeah. I was swimming in my pool and just looking around. I'm in Southern California and I just thought, "This is a nice day. In years to come, I'm going to look back and say, this was one of the good old days." So, that song is kind of about... Yeah, I had a great day today and this was one of the good old days. Let's appreciate it right now instead of just looking back on it. And the other song, which I really like, both of these songs are on my latest album that I did two years ago in Nashville called One More Time with Feeling. One More Time with Feeling is a song I wrote with Glenn Frey that no one had ever heard, but when I was sitting on the cliff for two years writing songs, I just had this idea, there's always magic when the sun goes down. People gather, they don't know why, they're just looking for a big piece of sky. And they stand around with other people, just like since the beginning of time. You watch the sun go down and it's the essential mystery of life is time. It's time. And when you see the sun go down, you're seeing the motion of time and feeling the essential mystery of life. So, I just wanted to capture that thought and I was happy to be able to get that in the song, There's Always Magic When the Sun Goes Down.
Doug Burke:
One more time with feeling is an amazing record. Gary Nixon produced it, is that right?
Jack Tempchin:
Gary Nicholson produced it.
Doug Burke:
Yes. And so, he's a legendary producer. He assembled an amazing band for you on this album. I was blown away at the session players on it from your video of it. So, tell me about this. This is an album that everybody should give a listen on Spotify. If you are interested in still listening to albums, this is worth the listen.
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I had made a lot of albums, but I'd never had a real producer since the Funky Kings and Gary Nicholson, besides being two-time Grammy winning producer, he's a legend himself. He's had 600 songs recorded. As a songwriter, he's phenomenal. He's got a new song on Willie Nelson's album, a new song on Chris Stapleton's new album. He's had songs by every blues guy, by Fleetwood Mac. He writes four songs on Ringo's last album. So, for him to take time out from his writing and listen to all my songs was amazing. So, he put together the band. We were going to do it in his studio, in his basement in Nashville, but it got flooded at the last minute. So, he calls me the day of and we went into Blackbird studios, the best studio in Nashville, and he had assembled this team with Dan Dugmore on pedal steel, who played with Linda Ronstadt, too. And John Jorgensen on guitar who played with Chris Hillman's Desert Rose band, and all kinds of... And Elton John and all kinds of... I've been doing this all my life and these guys were so good at making records. I just couldn't even believe it. So, I'm in the booth singing. We went in and we didn't even play any song more than three times at the most. Sometime they just played at once and they had a chart, but they'd never even heard the song before. And then, when I'd say something in the lyric, I could hear them musically responding. It was just, these guys have been making records as players for 50 years some of them. It was just a peak experience.
Doug Burke:
And watching the video, it was almost like watching the modern-day wrecking crew, if you're familiar with those guys. And when you listen to the record, it's just really compelling. You wrote great songs. And then, one thing you said at the beginning of this episode that I have to staunchly disagree with you on, Jack, is your vocals and your playing are superb. And I love them. And I love listening to you. I love your work. I am so grateful that you came on our show, Backstory Song. I can't thank you enough. Is there anything you'd like to talk about to wrap up our show?
Jack Tempchin:
Well, I just appreciate the level of effort that you put in to get familiar with everything I've done to do this podcast. It's really extraordinary and I've had a great time. So thank you, Doug.
Doug Burke:
No, thank you, Jack. And thank you to our listeners. Please share the song list. Please share our social media. We're out there on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and I think we're starting Pinterest this week.
Jack Tempchin:
Oh, thanks a lot, Doug. It's been great.
