Let’s talk about the show.

I hadn’t known about that and it really introduced me to Brooklyn because all the years I’ve been going to New York, you know, you just go to a mid-town hotel and you really don’t branch out that much. So I had a lot of friends that were from Brooklyn, and they were always talking about it but somehow I never made it that far. I used to go to a restaurant just across the bridge called The Ferry Bank and I remember sitting in there with Eubie Blake, and he was about 98 years old at the time, and that was my only Brooklyn experience.

Cool. So you got to go back and have a big show.

Yeah, it was fun, you know, with people out in the park and stuff. It was just nice, you know? People seemed to come out and enjoy themselves.

So you got back up on stage too, what was that like?

I wasn’t up there long enough to…you know, it was just Cornell Dupree is close to my age so I said, “Well, us old guys should be up there together.” Plus, I wanted to say hi to him, and that’s where he was.

Fair enough. But you did you enjoy the experience? Was it tough?

I don’t do too much stuff that I don’t enjoy. You know what I mean? At least not related to that whole entertainment thing because I’m at the age now where I’m somebody’s father, somebody’s husband. For me, at least, this is not the age of showing off. I guess it depends on how you’re built, because some people are like sharks—if they don’t do it, they die. But I was socialized as a regular old guy until I decided to stick my foot in this in my thirties. I wasn’t bred on this environment.

You summed it up in the documentary when you said, “One thing I’m not gifted with is the gift to want to be noticed.”

Yeah, yeah.

So did you have mixed emotions about getting up on stage in Brooklyn or getting up on stage ever again?

No, I don’t deal with those kind of mixed emotions. If I don’t want to do it, I just don’t do it. I mean, unless it was some dire situation or something. But I don’t think anyone is going to die if they don’t sing, you know?

So what is it about this performance, this collection of people, that encouraged you to get up there? I’m sure you’ve been made offers to sing millions of times in the last 20 - 30 years. 

Well it was Cornell Dupree; it was just that moment. So I wanted to go up and hang out with him for a minute. I mean, if it had been some 20 year old guy up there, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. But Cornell Dupree, he’s one of our…. He’s from my time. So, I just felt a certain bond so I thought, “Let me get up here and hang out with Cornell for a minute.” So it was really just about him.

OK. Why sing “Grandma’s Hands”?

Well there was no decision made. It was just Cornell up there. If had been playing the Star Spangled Banner, it might have been the same difference, you know?

OK. And your daughter Corey certainly stole the show. What was it like seeing her perform your songs and being right there next to her?

Well, you know, there’s that father-daughter bond. It was probably like any parent—if she would’ve been in the 6th grade play, it would’ve been the same difference. It’s your kids, you know?

Yeah. Cool. And a lot of people came out for the show to perform: Nona Hendryx, The Swell Season, Jim James from My Morning Jacket.

Yeah, I really like Jim James. He’s nice. I liked everybody; they were just nice people.

Tell me about Jim James. I assume you hung with him.

Well Jim is from the area that I’m from. Jim is from Louisville, Kentucky and I’m from West Virginia, so it’s that same kind of…we’re from the same environment, for lack of a better word. And he’s just a nice person. We had been talking before that, outside. We were just hanging out and so, I really like him.

If you haven’t checked it out already, you should check out My Morning Jacket, his band.

I am. Well, he gave me a standing invitation to go whenever we’re in the same area so I’m going to do that.

That’s great. Can we talk a little bit about the documentary film, Still Bill?

Yeah.

When did the filming for that begin? And is it something that you set out to do or was the idea brought to you?

No, they had approached me years ago about that. I was a little reluctant at first because I’m not one for bearing my soul in public, you know?  So finally they came out and visited and we got along so I kind of…we kind of wandered into it, you know? It’s been interesting. It’s caused me to go back to where I came from and check it out, which I hadn’t really done since I left.

So what was that experience, going back to West Virgina? I mean, I saw some of the footage from it and it’s amazing. It looks like you run into people you grew up with and old friends.

Yeah, yeah. And just to…well it’s different now then when I grew up there. There’s not a lot left of what I grew up with. Like most places, what used to be the hub of activity is now mostly a college, and they got malls and stuff like that. In those days there were no malls. The road that I grew up on is now called a street. It’s still not paved and people have mailboxes in front of their houses and stuff. When I was growing up there was none of that. You had to go up town to the post office and get your mail out of the box, you know?

What else do you do in the film to reconnect with your musical roots? I noticed that you played with some of the old cats you used to play with?

Yeah, that was fun. You know, I hadn’t…we hadn’t sat down in a long time and then Raul Midon came by the house and we fooled around a little bit because I had always wanted to write something in Spanish so Raul and I kind of collaborated there. Then some old friends like Jim Brown and Bill Russell came by the house. So it was just people that had passed through my life. Howard Bingham, the guy who had been photographer and best friend to Mohammed Ali throughout his career. Just different people that I had known.

Knowing your history, and how you feel about being in the public eye, I think I understand why you do what you do, and why you don’t necessarily go out and perform shows a lot. Do you notice that when you do shows like this thing in Brooklyn that people come up to you, maybe someone like Jim James, and they ask you, “Man, you got to get back out there, you know? You got to do it!”?

Well, I haven’t done enough of them to have had that experience.

Right.

There were a couple of times where I did a couple of songwriters’ workshop kind of things with Hal David, who I adore. But other than that, I haven’t had that kind of exposure. If I run into somebody on the street or something…you know, not many people really know who I am. I think they know the songs more so than anything else. Mostly I’m just some old guy in the checkout line at the Home Depot. Which is fine, I don’t mind that.

The funny thing is, when I was younger and probably would have liked to have done more, it wasn’t available to me. Like the crowd out in Brooklyn, I never played to that many people when I was working.

Really?

No. No. I would play the old Troubadour and the Bitter End and stuff like that. Mostly I opened for somebody. So it just so happened that the way things went I probably got more in demand in my late 60’s—I just turned 70—than I was before. So it was kind of funny. I was like, “Where were all you guys when I was bored?” I sort of wandered slowly into people’s consciousness. During the time when I was supposed to be current, I was just one of those guys that was just kind of around.

That’s a more bad-ass way to do it.

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the reasons was that I wasn’t tied to the boy/girl theme, you know? If you think about it, “Grandma’s Hand,” “Lean on Me,” that stuff didn’t have anything to do with broken romances or stuff like that. It was just kind of people stuff, you know? So, you know, grandmothers and friendship don’t go out of style.

You got it.

And romances burn real hot and fizzle mostly.

Yeah. That’s interesting. Cool. So what’s next? What’s the plan? The film is coming out and there’s a lot of stuff attached to that. That’s coming out this winter, right?

Yeah, they’re trying to get it ready for that Sundance Film Festival. But you’d have to tell where and what Sundance is. I would assume it has something to do with Robert Redford and when he and Paul Newman made that movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, right?

Pretty much.

My immediate plans are to move some chairs and help pack up my son’s stuff that he left behind when he went to law school earlier this month. So I have real simple immediate plans in front of me. You know what I mean?  My wife will find something for me to do. Oh yeah, I got one more show business thing this year. I got to Philadelphia for the R&B Foundation thing. I think they’re honoring Chaka Khan and some folks. I guess I’m on that list, so.

Are you going to sing?

Oh, I don’t know. No, I’m just going to go be honored. See when you get to the age of mortality…

That’s when you get all the awards and honors, right?

…and you get old and your face starts sliding off your skull, and you have to stand up and brush your self off until you can stand up straight. You know what I mean? They want to get you just before you pass away.

Oh, man. Come on!

So all these honors are starting to scare me a little bit. You know what I mean? Because I’m not ready to go yet. I got a couple of more things. I got a couple more chores around the house I’d like to finish.


[SS Note: This interview happened at the height of the Olympics, and this is where the conversation lightened up]


Have you been watching the Olympics?

No.

I thought you might be into it.

Well, you know, what happens, or at least what happened to me, there are some things that you were intently interested in, like the Olympics and Christmas and your birthday and all like that, but then after you’ve had enough of them…

Ha!

You know, it’s like sports. I used to love to watch sports, but then you get to the point where you find yourself sitting there and you say, “Wait a minute, how many ways can you hit a baseball, or dunk a basketball?” You know what I mean? It would be sort of like watching the same movie for like 70 years. So if something jumps off now…the buzz is about some swimmer that’s about to do something super human—that’ll pull you in. But just to watch those girls flip over and do the splits and stuff…guys shooting bow and arrows and stuff. I’ve been looking at that a long time. In fact, I saw that way before the Olympics because when we were kids the big entertainment was Western movies. So they were shooting bows and arrows. So you figure, since sometime in the 30’s I’ve been watching people shoot bows and arrows. And it’s cool. I got to New York on Friday night and I had to make this big decision. I got on this flight that was delayed through Baltimore, so I was sitting on the plane for like, seven hours. And there was this big decision. Either watch one more Olympic opening ceremony, with the parades and stuff, or go to sleep. Now, being sleep deprived at that time, and having seen a whole bunch of Olympic ceremonies, I decided that it was probably in my best interest to get that sleep. See?

I see.

Because had I not gotten that sleep, when I decided to go up there with Cornell Dupree I wouldn’t have made it because I had to climb over this thing. And you know, I don’t do a whole lot of climbing. You know what I mean? So I needed this sudden burst of energy so I could climb over this gate without falling. [Gets phone call. Answers phone] Yeah, that’s Howard Bingham [Ali’s photographer]

OK.

So Howard and I got together because being a lifelong stutterer, chronic until I was 30, there’s an organization in New York founded by this dynamo of a guy and they have a theater group for kids who stutter called “Out Time.” So I was their honoree this year. See? I’ve been a lot of honorees this year. You know what I mean, Austin? They asked who I wanted to introduce me, and Bingham stutters worse than I do, so you figure with the kids being the MC’s, we had a long and wonderful night. You had to be very patient because none of us spoke fluently. So we had a good time. So that was Howard Bingham. I’m sorry about that, Austin.

It’s cool, Thank God you didn’t watch the Olympics on Friday.

But, I don’t care who or what it is, you can’t keep looking at the same thing over and over again. Now there was one Olympics where this guy changed the high-jump style, they used to roll over. And this guy Dick Fosbury did the Fosbury flop. Remember that? And that was cool. Or when Carl Lewis won four gold medals.

So you’ll keep an eye on Michael Phelps, though.

If he gets to seven, it will be interesting. But I can go to a public pool out here and watch some kids splash around for a while and they’re probably more interesting – at least they’ll be jumping off things and splashing around, and making a lot of happy noise.

There’s something to that, right?

Yeah, there’s something to that happy noise. So you got to put all this stuff into perspective or you could wind up not doing yourself right. You know?

So, how’s living in L.A.?

We just bought a house back in West Virginia, you know? It’s great. My wife likes planting. It’s green; you got trees. My kids love it too. So, you know, you have to shift with your perspectives.

Is your new home…is that near where you grew up in Slab Fork?

Yeah…well, I didn’t grow up in…I was born in Slab Fork. And I grew up kind of in between Slap Fork and Beckley. I spent weekends with my father and weekdays with my mother after they had divorced. Yeah, it’s right in that area. It’s like a whole other world. It’s like a resort that has golf courses and lakes. Deer don’t run from you.  They got wild turkeys and ducks and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it’s a whole other thing. Since I don’t play golf, I can really relax. But I think I’ll get me one of those carts. It would seem to be cool to have a cart.

Okay!

I like the cart and the pants. You know what I mean? Maybe one of those hats.

Maybe a cigar?
 
No, I think I could forgo the cigar, but I need the cart, the pants and the hat. I tried playing golf once, and that twisting motion didn’t like me.

[Laughing]

Someone says, “You like golf?” I say, “I don’t know, because golf let me know that it does not like me.” You think about it. You got to twist around. Unless you want to do it anyway and be really bad at it. I’ve seen some guys try it, and they look so bad! You wonder like, why are they doing that? There’s a guy that I love that’s on TV—Charles Barkley.

Oh yeah. He’s a horrible golfer.

I wonder, why would be bother? I mean, he’s no good at it. And it’s ugly. Most people try to do stuff that they’re good at or at least look good doing. You know?

Well it sounds like you’re going to look good driving around in your cart.

Yeah. I’m going to make sure that my cart is nice and since I’m not going to be playing any golf, I won’t even mess up my pants. Now, did those carts have automatic transmissions and stuff?

Yes, automatic for sure.

Because, not only have I never driven a cart, I’ve never ridden on a cart.

Oh, man!

No. I went to the driving range and twisted around a couple of times. After that I was like, “Nope.” Well, I don’t even know if I’m going to drive my cart on the course or not.

Right.

Because, you know, the tires get all dirty and stuff. But where I’m moving you can park your golf cart at your house. So I might drive it up to the sandwich shop or something.

Easy living, man.

Now, I got to ask you one more golf cart question. Have you ever seen one with a radio on it?

Yes. You can get radios; you can get coolers; you can get refrigerators…

Yeah?

Yeah.

Maybe when I get set up I’ll send you a picture of me in the golf cart.

Enter the Smoking Section for the latest on Jack Johnson, Conor Oberst, Kings of Leon and more. 

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