From the Archives: New Traditionalist Country Musician Steve Earle.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: OCTOBER 17, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 101701NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Steve Earle
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Steve Earle is a singer-songwriter-guitarist who has made a comeback after kicking addictions to heroin and crack and serving several months in jail on possession charges in 1994. He has a new CD called "El Corazon."

On this archive edition, we have an interview recorded with him last year. Steve Earle's first album, released in 1986, positioned him within country music's new traditionalism. It sent to number one on the country charts, and was later described in Newsweek as helping galvanize Nashville out of its post-rube and cowboy cheese-ball slump.

Since beginning his comeback a couple of years ago, he's had three CDs: "Train A Comin'," "I Feel Alright," and his new one. Let's start with a track from that new CD El Corazon. This is his song "Telephone Road."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "TELEPHONE ROAD")

STEVE EARLE, MUSICIAN, SINGING:
My brother Jim and my other brother Jack
Went off down to Houston and never come back
Mama wasn't gonna let her baby go yet
But there ain't nobody hirin' back in Lafayette

Workin' all week for a Texaco check
The sun beamed down the back of my neck
I try to save my money, but Jimmy says no
Says he got a little honey out on Telephone Road

Come on, come on, come on, let's go
It's in Louisiana, your mama won't know
Come on, come on, come on let's go
Everybody's rockin' down on Telephone Road

GROSS: Steve Earle from his new CD. When I spoke with him last year, I read a paragraph he wrote in 1995 that he used on a liner note. He wrote: "when I was locked up, I was getting ready to go off on this boy who stole my radio. My partner, Paul, asked me where I was going. I said: 'to get my radio, and then to go to the hole for a little while.' He looked at me like I look at my 13-year-old sometimes, and said: 'no you ain't. You're going to sit your little white ass down and do your little time, and then you're going to get out of here and make a nice record.' So I made two."

I asked Steve Earle what that paragraph was about.

EARLE: Just about exactly what it says.

GROSS: Who is Paul?

EARLE: A friend of mine that I knew from the street, and I got into jail and he was there. And he was one of a couple of people that I hung out with when I was locked up that I knew -- two of them I knew from the outside. One of them was a guy I met in there. But the -- one of the safest ways to go in an institution is to belong to as small a clique as possible, because they -- they'll put 50 men in one cell.

And so when stuff happens, it happens a lot faster than the guards can do anything about it, so it's a -- it's a really potentially volatile environment. If you -- if you make -- if you belong to a big clique of people, you know 10 guys, 20 guys, you can't control their actions and they may do something, and because -- to make somebody else mad -- and that person that they've irritated may not have access to them, and then may go off on you in the recreation area or in the gym or someplace else where the situation is not so controlled.

So I sort of stuck in -- we had one little -- one little corner of this 50-man cell that we sort of stayed in and -- except to go and take showers and stuff, and it was just people that I knew.

And they did take care of me, 'cause I was very sick when I got to jail. I was withdrawing from methadone and cocaine, and I was extremely ill. And Paul got me -- I had a an upper bunk and by the third or fourth day, I couldn't even get in my bunk by myself.

And Paul helped me get up there and he also sort of made sure that I secured a bottom bunk when the upper bunk became totally unworkable. He'd been there for about a year and a half when I got there and never had been to trial.

And he's still there, as far as I know.

GROSS: How long were in this prison?

EARLE: I was in 60 days. I was doing a year. I was doing 11 months and 29 days. After much begging and pleading from my lawyer, and 30 days in treatment, they finally decided to probate the rest of my sentence.

GROSS: Now you grew up in San Antonio in a pretty middle class family, right? Your father was an air traffic controller?

EARLE: Yeah,. It was a very middle class. We moved a lot. We were renters, so we lived all over the San Antonio area. I grew up -- what I really call home is a town called Schertz that's right outside of San Antonio, and it's sort of been engulfed by San Antonio now, but it was about 30 miles outside the city limits when I was growing up there.

Randolph Air Force Base is there. There's about five Air Force bases in San Antonio, which is the major industry no matter what anybody thinks.

GROSS: You dropped out of high school in 1971, and really wanted to, you know, right songs and perform. You started hanging out with the songwriter Towns Van Zandt (ph). Why him? What excited you about him? Or was he one of the few songwriters that you actually had access to?

EARLE: Well, he was one of the few song -- I mean, there were a lot of songwriters in Texas that I could have access to. Actually, it was a pretty damn good place to be a songwriter when I first started writing. I mean, there was Towns and Jerry Jeff (ph) and Steve Fromholz (ph) and -- who I saw the other night for the first time in years.

There -- there were just a -- there was a lot going on in Austin and of course, naturally, everybody was tellin' me: hey, this is a -- it's -- you know, you don't need to go to New York to L.A. or Nashville 'cause we got, you know -- the music business is coming to Austin. There's gonna be -- this is gonna be the next music industry center.

Even at 19 years old, I knew that that wasn't true. Austin's too -- the weather's too good, the girls are too pretty, and the ducks too cheap. And you can't get anything done in a place like that. So, I came to Nashville.

GROSS: Well, let's hear a song that you wrote that Travis Tritt (ph) recently had a hit of. And you recorded this on your next-to-last album, "Steve Earle: Train A 'Comin." This is called "Sometimes She Forgets." When did you write this?

EARLE: This is...

GROSS: Yeah, go ahead.

EARLE: It's an old song. It's an old song. It was written during the period when I was getting up and going to the office and writing songs every day. And I wrote what I thought were a lot of really commercial songs, and they told me that they were too country. So none of them ever got recorded until this one did last year.

GROSS: But I like this song a lot. What do you think of it now?

EARLE: I'm real proud of it. It's always been one of my favorite songs I've ever written. The songs that survive to make it on the Train A Comin' were the older songs of mine that I seemed to always dust off when I went out and did a solo acoustic tour. That was the main criteria.

GROSS: Oh, OK. Well, this is Steve Earle.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "SOMETIMES SHE FORGETS")

EARLE SINGING: If you see her out tonight
And she tells you it's just the lights that bring her here
And not her loneliness
That's what she says, but sometimes she forgets

If she tells you she don't need a man
She's had all the comfort she can stand
You'd best believe every word she says
But don't give up, 'cause sometimes she forgets

GROSS: Steve Earle, from his previous record called Train A Comin'.

Now, you've said you first did heroin when you were 13. How did you do it? How did you get it?

EARLE: Well, it's San Antonio, Texas during the Vietnam War. It's 150 miles from the border, so there was a constant supply of real strong, real cheap brown heroin. And then the Vietnam War going on. So there was lots of dope and it was very, very cheap. Dope was cheaper than alcohol in the city I grew up in, much cheaper.

GROSS: Who turned you on?

EARLE: It's -- a lot of people -- people at school; my uncle and -- who also gave me my first guitar, so that was sort of a mixed deal. But...

GROSS: Did your father know?

EARLE: My father -- my father -- I don't think they knew the extent of my drug habit. My music always seemed to intervene enough. Like, I moved to Nashville, and the heroin -- the heroin up here sucked. So, I sort of stopped doing it. And it was -- until I got to where I could afford it and started traveling around to other cities where there was a better -- there were better drugs. And I slowly drifted back into doing it again.

When I stopped doing heroin, I started -- I mean, I replaced it with other drugs. But it -- my parents, they were aware. It became an issue in -- around the house a few times. But you know, I was pretty good. I was an addict.

Addicts are good at getting over, and, you know, I managed to convince the psychiatrist I was sent to that I was cured, and he pronounced me cured. Then -- and that was the end of it as far as my family was concerned.

GROSS: Did you -- did you keep your habit hidden from people in the record company? Or do you think that they knew?

EARLE: They knew. I was nowhere near as good as hiding it as I should have been, in retrospect. I was sort of -- I think I thought I was invisible, and that got worse as my habit became worse.

I think as long as I was performing, as I was making shows -- which I did to the very, very last. As long as I was making shows and making records, there were people that just sort of turned their back on it. It made them uncomfortable, but they turned their back on it.

There were other people that I think actually thought it was kind of cool, as long as it wasn't them. And you know, and I probably fed off that to a certain extent. It's just one of those deals. It's not that -- it's really -- your tendency when you're in active addiction is to think that you're special. The way I look at -- looking back at it now, I was doing the same thing that all addicts do -- it's just -- it's called "permission to use."

And I didn't need a reason to take drugs. I was an addict. I always -- I could always tell you one if you asked me, but I didn't really need a reason, because being an addict was reason enough.

GROSS: At the periods when you were most addicted, were you able to perform? Were you able to write? Was there music in your head? I mean, had music remained a part of your world?

EARLE: No, it go to the point where it wasn't at all. The last two years especially. I didn't -- I hung out in south Nashville for a lot of reasons. It's where the drugs were, but I could have beeped people and they'd a bought me drugs. And the one time I did it that way, I didn't have to hang out there.

One of the reasons I hung out there is black people do not listen to my music, and so I was fairly anonymous there, and people just left me alone as long as I had money to pay for drugs.

And it's not -- I got to a point that it was a full-time job just to get up in the morning and get my hands on enough money to support my habit. Whether I had money or not, I still had to go get it, and I used it up at such a furious rate that I was always a little bit ahead of, you know, of my royalty checks.

I didn't have to do some of the things other people have to do, but I would have. You know, there's no doubt in my mind if the bottom had just fallen out, I couldn't get any more money, you know, I would have been stealing stuff to support my habit. It was just a matter of time.

GROSS: So, the habit just drove music out of your head?

EARLE: It drove it out of my life. I didn't -- there wasn't any time. I didn't even have a guitar. You know, I'd traded them all for dope in the middle of the night or pawned them. And it -- I lost a lot of nice guitars. But it really was -- even if I'd a had a guitar, I wouldn't a had time to play it. It just -- I woke up in the morning and I was on the trail from the time I woke up until I went to sleep, which was usually three or four days later.

GROSS: Did the degradation aspect of it ever get to you? Of being so enslaved...

EARLE: Sure it did.

GROSS: ... to the habit...

EARLE: Sure it did.

GROSS: ... and having lost something that was so special for you -- your music.

EARLE: Yeah. I mean, it -- I know when I started to die and that was when it got to the point that I couldn't write anymore. And I knew I was dying, but I just didn't think that there was anything I could do about it.

GROSS: Now, when you were in prison, you ended up in rehab during the prison stay. So you were addicted when you got into prison. Were you able to kick during that rehab stay?

EARLE: Well, they -- I went to a hospital. They finally realized that they didn't want to be responsible for me at age -- I was 39. And I wasn't in the best physical condition. And my blood pressure got pretty high, which is a withdrawal symptom, and they decided they didn't want to be responsible for me being in the metro jail any more.

So they -- they got from -- my lawyer worked it out for me to go to -- into treatment. I was still an inmate, but I went to Lincoln Regional Hospital, which is down in Fayetteville, Tennessee, and I did my medical detox there. And that means that they basically give you medication to control your blood pressure and monitor you. And the food was a lot better there than it was in jail.

It was just a matter of once I got there, I don't know what happened, but something -- I guess the fog cleared 'cause I actually had been physically restrained from taking drugs for several weeks. And that hadn't happened to me in years. The -- I just -- I probably wouldn't have gotten clean if I hadn't gotten locked up. I mean, well, I know I wouldn't have. I would have just died.

GROSS: My guest is Steve Earle. He has a new CD called El Corazon. We'll hear more of our 1996 interview after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

Back to our 1996 interview with Steve Earle.

When did music start coming back into your head?

EARLE: As soon as I got to Buffalo Valley. In jail, there aren't any guitars...

GROSS: The treatment center.

EARLE: Yeah, there aren't any guitars in jail. That's just in the movies. But in Buffalo Valley, I was allowed to have a guitar an hour a day. And I wrote "Good-bye" which is on Train A Comin'. It was the first thing I'd written in four years. And I wrote "Hardcore Troubadour," which is actually a melody that I'd started three or four years before, but I wrote all the lyrics in treatment.

GROSS: Why don't we hear Hardcore Troubadours -- the second track on your new CD?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "HARDCORE TROUBADOUR")

EARLE SINGING: Girl, don't bother him, lock your door
Sat there hollerin'
Darling, don't you love me no more?
You always loved me before, now didn't you?

He's just singing the same old song
That he always sang before
He's the last of the hardcore troubadours

Now, girl better figure out which is which
(Unintelligible) son of a bitch
'Cause you just slip out his sheets now, wouldn't you?
He come and make love on your satin sheets
Wake up on your living room floor
He's the last of the hardcore troubadours.

And now, he's the last of the all night do rights
(Unintelligible) beneath your window today
He's the last of the hardcore troubadours
Baby, what you need him for?

GROSS: That's Steve Earle from his new CD I Feel Alright.

How do you think your voice changed after a long period of not singing, and after a long period of doing drugs, which can be very hard on the voice? I mean, I think your voice sounds really great and really strong. And I'll confess, I'm really surprised at how strong it sounds.

EARLE: Well, my voice got a rest. One thing about sitting around, you know, like shootin' up and smoking crack for a few years, is I wasn't singing. And I really had gotten to the point that I toured so much. And heroin's very hard on your voice. Actively using and singing, heroin relaxes your vocal chords. You could always tell when I was high 'cause my voice would drop about an octave.

And you go out and try to sing; you try to bring, you know, try to hit a high notes and bring your vocal chords up to tension, and there's a certain amount of thickening that happens. And that had happened to me.

Plus, I was -- I had a pretty traumatic injury to my vocal chords while I was -- I was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Dallas. I assaulted his night stick with my neck, is what I did. And it just got into a big thing. They tried to send me to the penitentiary for that. And that was one situation where I was absolutely innocent, but I did -- one of my vocal chords bled really badly.

So there's a big difference between my voice if you listen to like "Exit Zero" and "Copperhead Road," it became a lot gravel -- there was a lot more gravel in it from that point on. And that's still there. But I got a rest and I think I'm singing the best on this record. And these are all track vocals on this record. Every vocal on I Feel Alright is the straight track, you know, vocal performance. There aren't any overdubs on it.

GROSS: I have spoken to some performers who are really surprised at what it feels like to perform when they're straight, because they'd never really experienced it before.

EARLE: Yeah.

GROSS: Is that the position you're in? Is it a different experience to perform straight?

EARLE: No, it's basically there. I mean, I did -- I didn't think that I went out and performed -- I would have told you that I'd never performed when I was high, but I obviously had to at the end 'cause if I hadn't been high, I would have been sick.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

EARLE: And -- you know, and I performed sick a lot, you know, that ended up happening. You know, something -- drug dealers aren't necessarily dependable people. It -- it's just -- I think I'm a better performer than I've ever been. I'm definitely a better writer than I've ever been. I'm really, really proud of this record. The band right now is smokin'. This whole tour's been a lot of fun.

And I was very relieved to find out that I genuinely enjoy my job, because it had gotten sort of miserable for me 'cause everything's miserable for a junkie.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

EARLE: You just -- you get to the point -- it's really nice to go out on the road and not wake up sick in the morning and not have to worry about where I'm going to get dope in a town I've never been to before. And it's -- it's put a lot of the fun back in it for me.

And so I'm -- I'm back to some sort of mid-life crisis that's taking place in a bus, but I'm really, really enjoying being out there.

GROSS: What's the mid-life crisis about?

EARLE: Well, it's just, you know, I'm 41 years old and I actually am probably more road-worthy than I was when I was 31.

GROSS: But -- but you don't want to be on the road that much, or...

EARLE: No, I love being on the road. That's the whole point. I feel like maybe I'm not supposed to...

GROSS: Oh, I see. OK.

EARLE: ... like it as much as I do now. It's not a, you know, it's like -- it's -- buses are rolling locker rooms. It really gets to you after a while. It's a bunch of people living at fairly close quarters. We had our air conditioner break down on the bus one time in '87. We were going across a desert, and we made a little videotape we called "Das Bus" because it got down there, everybody's sitting around in their underwear playing cards, you know, 'cause the air conditioning did not work.

And it's -- it's -- at the -- in 1990, which was the last full-blown tour that I did, I was thinking at the end of it: boy, I guess I'm just burnt out and I'm tired of doing this. And the truth of the matter, all I was tired of was trying to deal with my drug habit and perform. I'm having more fun making records than I ever have, and more fun than I've had touring in a long, long time.

GROSS: Steve Earle, recorded last year. He'll tour Europe in November and December. He has a new CD called El Corazon. Here's another song from it called "Somewhere Out There."

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "SOMEWHERE OUT THERE")

EARLE SINGING: Somewhere out there in the world tonight
Just out of my reach
I hear your heartbeat
It's coming in loud and clear tonight
Poundin' in my brain
It's coming at you now

In the darkness, something 'bout you
Tuned me so
That I can find you...

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Steve Earle
High: A July 1996 interview with country rocker Steve Earle. His new CD is called "El Corazon." Earlier albums include "I feel Alright," "Guitar Town," "Early Tracks," "Exit O," "Copperhead Road," "The Hard Way," "Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator," and "Train A Comin'."
Spec: Music Industry; Steve Earle; El Corazon; Copperhead Road
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1997 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1997 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Steve Earle
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: OCTOBER 17, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 101702NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Mouse and the Traps
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:55

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

In the mid-'60s, rock music was a lot more regional than it is now. A band could make a good living releasing records that only sold in three or four cities. Once such band, "Mouse and the Traps," wound up making history by releasing the Bob Dylan record that never was.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, ROCK BAND "MOUSE AND THE TRAPS" PREFORMING)

RONNIE WEISS (PH), SINGER, SINGING: You don't love me
You don't care
You don't want me
Hangin' 'round here
Hangin' 'round here
Hangin' 'round here
Hangin' 'round here

Well, I love you
Yes, I do
I...

ED WARD, FRESH AIR COMMENTATOR: There's not a whole lot to do in Tyler, Texas. I know. I've spent time there. As in any small town, gossip gets around quickly, as Ronnie Weiss found out one day in 1966.

Ronnie was sort of a local star, a session musician at Robin Hood Brians' (ph) local recording studio, and leader of a band called Mouse and the Traps. But he couldn't have been prepared for what happened when he took his pretty cousin, visiting from West Texas, for a spin on his motorcycle. Someone called his fiance in Houston, and told her Mouse was running around on her, and she mailed her engagement ring back to him.

Devastated, he turned his hurt to anger and wrote her a vicious poem. Somehow, Robin Hood Brians found out about the poem and convinced Mouse it was a song. It took them three hard days to get it recorded, but the result had repercussions that went way beyond Tyler.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MOUSE AND THE TRAPS PERFORMING "A PUBLIC EXECUTION")

WEISS SINGING: Some words is best not spoken
Some things are best not said
That says this is your public execution
I think I'm gonna go right on ahead

Mail man brought your letter babe
Where you told me how you feeling
About the things you said he told you
And that is I'm such a heel

How I could never be honest
That to you I'd always lie
They saw me take some other hide
For a two-wheel pony ride

You at least might have asked me
If the scene was really what it seemed
But like a queen ruled by her jester
Your conclusions was his scheme

You said I disappointed you
Where by all the things I'd done,
That you had to convince yourself
I was the only one
Really make you happy
Satisfy your soul
Now you say I've failed you
Since we spent up all my dough

Have you ever seen the truth before
Have you ever made a try?
Such a thing for you, so impossible
With them things all in your eyes

Well, I....

WARD: Both Mouse and Robin Hood denied that they were trying to copy Bob Dylan. Robin Hood had a standing invitation from Fraternity Records in Cincinnati to send them anything he thought was good, and they jumped on "A Public Execution" and put it out. Although it never charted nationally, it got lots of air play in various parts of the country, and rumors started circulating that this was Dylan recording under another name.

Where he got the Texas accent nobody bothered to explain, and the song's lyrics are hardly as opaque as Dylan's. But that didn't matter -- a legend had been born.

The problem was, Mouse and the Traps really didn't sound much like that. They toured the East Texas oil patch playing rock and soul hits of the day, but the success of A Public Execution emboldened Ronnie to try his hand at another song.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "MADE OF SUGAR, MADE OF SPICE")

WEISS SINGING: You see my new angel come walkin' down the street
You better keep your (unintelligible)
Stuck on the bottom of your feet
She looks just like a model from a Cavalier magazine
She give me all her lovin' and she never treats me mean
She don't drop names
(Unintelligible) now 'bout things that she don't know
She's always ready to make it to her (unintelligible)
She's just like refreshing meadow, sugar made of spice
I call my baby (unintelligible), I'll have you know she --
She treats me nice, treats me nice
Blow your mind

WARD: "Made of Sugar, Made of Space" was what Mouse and the Traps really sounded like -- the Yard Birds, filtered through Texas, with a mad solo from future guitar legend Bugs Henderson, who was in and out of the group.

This is the record that should have made them stars, but I bet the reference to Cavalier, a men's magazine, was what killed it. So they tried again.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "LIKE I KNOW YOU DO")

WEISS SINGING: I cannot undo what's been done, no, no, no
But sometimes, (unintelligible) easily one, yeah
I have never felt so small as I'm standing here
Feeling all alone
Like I know you do

WARD: Like I Know You Do was Dylanesque again, although the guitar here was Bruce Langhorne (ph) from "Bringing It All Back Home," instead of Mike Bloomfield from "Highway 61 Revisited."

Again, nothing. The lack of hits wasn't hurting the band. They had the run of Robin Hood's studio, and although Fraternity Records was getting a bit testy, they were able to make a good living touring the South and Southwest. But it had been over a year since A Public Execution, and nothing had happened.

Oddly, one of their records was released in Germany, where it had a cult following.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "BEG, BORROW AND STEAL")

WEISS SINGING: All right. All right
There are kids that I know
(Unintelligible)
Where I (unintelligible)

There are kids, I know
That (unintelligible)
Where I (unintelligible)

(unintelligible) beg, borrow and steal
Until I do, give me some
Give me some

And I beg, borrow and steal
'Cause It's the only way I know
And I beg, borrow and steal
If one don't work, then the other one will

All right.

WARD: Beg, Borrow and Steal went a long way towards establishing Texas as the home of U.S. garage rock with the Europeans -- a fact that still amazes Texans.

They almost made it again with a song called "Sometimes You Just Can't Win."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MOUSE AND THE TRAPS PERFORMING "SOMETIMES YOU JUST CAN'T WIN")

WEISS SINGING: I've never known many sunshiny days
And things seldom work out
They just don't come my way
But I can be happy
Just to say have no news
And to see you each morning
Makes my day seem less blue

For a false-hearted lover...

WARD: It was gathering speed around the country when "John Fred and the Playboy Band" (ph), friends of Mouse and Robin Hood, put out their own version. Things fell apart. By 1970, the band saw the handwriting on the wall and called it quits. Mouse continues to perform and the band gets together occasionally for reunions, but America has largely forgotten the band that for one shining moment out-Dylaned Dylan.

GROSS: Ed Ward lives and writes in Berlin. Coming up, the art world's most famous dogs. This is FRESH AIR.

Dateline: Ed Ward, Berlin; Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Rock historian Ed Ward on the 1960s Texas band, "Mouse and the Traps."
Spec: Music Industry; States; Texas; Mouse and the Traps
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1997 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1997 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Mouse and the Traps
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: OCTOBER 17, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 101703NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Stop the Music
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:55

TERRY GROSS, HOST: I'm often asked about Joel Forrester, who co-founded the late, great, Microscopic Septet, and composed the FRESH AIR theme. On Monday, I'm going to answer some of those questions about Joel Forrester by presenting an interview and concert with him.

The occasion is the release of his first solo piano CD, "Stop the Music." It's a co-production of FRESH and Koch Records. Let's hear something from it. This is "Fate," inspired by a recording by the boogie woogie Mead Lucks Louis (ph).

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "FATE")

Joel Forrester, from his new CD, Stop the Music. Listen for his concert and interview Monday on FRESH AIR.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Joel Forrester from his new CD Stop the Music.
Spec: Music Industry; Joel Forrester; Stop the Music
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1997 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1997 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Stop the Music
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.