Jerry Yester - Part Two

Q: Did you have any other friends living in and around Greenwich Village or L.A. who were involved in the music scene back in the mid-sixties?

A: Sure. There was Barry McGuire and Roger McGuinn in the Village and in L.A. there was Erik Jacobsen, The Clancy Brothers whenever they were in town, Stuart Scharf who was playing with Leon Bibb, Felix Pappalardi, Cass Elliott, Denny Doherty… a lot of people.

John Sebastian and I sang on a couple of Eric Jacobsen's things when he was first trying to get a hit as a producer. Sebastian and I did one with Felix Pappalardi and Henry Diltz called Lady Godiva, which was a surf record. Everybody in the Village at that time was kind of into surf music because Felix discovered I Get Around by the Beach Boys. We loved it because it was like rock and roll mixed with Bach.

I don't think that Brian was really that aware of Bach, but he had it in his musical genes. It became a big thing to make a rock and roll record with a madrigal somewhere in the song. Everyone loved that idea and Lady Godiva was written in that vein. Then, Sebastian did a solo record, and Jesse Colin Young and

I played on it. There was a lot of stuff like that happening in the Village. Everybody was into folk and then slowly into folk/rock.

The MFQ moved to California and we started working out there. The Byrds were getting together and my brother Jim and I already knew David Crosby from our folk days at the Unicorn. Everybody seemed to know everybody because there was a great camaraderie back then. There was this incredible thing going on with musicians on every coast. Everybody was in the same game, kind of like being in the same family. The MFQ worked as a rock band in '65 and '66, and then we broke up.

I wanted to be an arranger, and I was also a big fan of Jack Nitsche's, and when we moved to California I became a real good friend of Jack's .The MFQ had a little bit of a successful single called Nighttime Girl which Jack Nitsche produced for us.

For what it's worth, my favorite songs that were arranged by Jack Nitsche are: Expecting To Fly by the Buffalo Springfield; A Man Needs A Maid and There's A World which appeared on Neil Young's Harvest album; and String Quartet From Whiskey Boot Hill, The Old Laughing Lady and I’ve Loved Her So Long from Neil Young's first solo album.

I've always loved his work. As a matter of fact, Elusive Butterfly by Bob Lind was oft times used as a theme song for the Scott Muni afternoon radio show here in New York when WNEW FM ruled the airwaves. I always thought that the string arrangement on the Tim Buckley Wings composition was a little reminiscent of Elusive Butterfly.

Jack Nitsche was one of the most popular arrangers in the sixties and seventies. Aside from Elusive Butterfly, Jack worked alone (The Lonely Surfer); with Phil Spector (all of the band and orchestral arrangements on the Ronettes' album; a lot of the Righteous Brothers; Bobby Soxx and the Blue Jeans); Jackie DeShannon (with whom he co-wrote Needles And Pins); he also produced a ton of other songs.

Now he’s a prodigious movie scorer. He did the Exorcist, Starman and lots of others. In the mid-sixties, Judy and I hung out with him a lot. We stayed at his house, and we often rented movies, I mean real 16-millimeter movies. We had some good times.

The MFQ actually signed with Phil Spector when we moved back to L.A. He only produced one record for us and Brian Wilson was at the session. It was called This Could Be the Night. It's still played every week and it has for the last twenty years as the theme to the Rodney Bingenheimer Show in L.A.

It was an experience working with Phil. I was a big fan of his also. Brian Wilson is quoted as saying that This Could Be The Night is his favorite record. He later recorded it himself on his last solo album.

Henry and I ended up playing on a lot of other sessions for Phil, because he loved Henry's electric banjo. He said it was a great sound. We played on Ronettes' recordings and we played on the Righteous Brothers' single Ebb Tide. You can't really hear us; we're just part of the background. He basically wanted Henry, but I went along as Henry's interpreter, so I could tell Henry what chords to play. I was able to describe them to him because I was a banjo player too. I played electric twelve-string and so we became a small unit in Phil Spector's bands for a little while. And speaking of Elusive Butterfly, we played on that single also.

Q: And then along came Buckley?

A: I met Tim in either late '65 or early '66 over at Herbie's house and he was the shyest kid you ever want to meet. He was wearing like a white shirt and a string tie and Jim Fielder was playing stand-up bass and wearing a blue suit, with his hair combed with Brylcream in it like it was Prom Night.

Judy and I were over there for dinner and Fred Neil was there. It had to be the first time that Tim met Fred Neil. Fred was like a huge influence on Tim. He was Tim's idol. Well anyway, Tim sang three or four songs for us and Herbie wanted to know what we thought. ‘Very good‘, we said. ‘Very good!’

"There was a lot of humor in everything we did. Beckett and Buckley themselves were just so comical. They were such a rag-tag pair. I always mention them together because they really were a team..."

Q: How did you come to produce Goodbye and Hello?

A: Goodbye And Hello is one of my favorite albums that I've ever done or that I've ever owned. Six or eight months after first meeting Tim at Herbie's house and after Tim's first album, I was back in New York finishing up the last two things that I would produce for the Association when Herbie called.

He said, ‘Tim's in town, I want you to talk to him‘. I was staying at Eric Jacobsen's house while he was out of town, Tim came over, and we talked. Tim said, ‘You know, I'm not really a big fan of the Association‘. And I said, ‘Well, you don't have to be. It doesn't have anything to do with what you do‘. I told him that when I got back to California, we could talk again and when we did, we decided to work together.

Q: Had you ever heard his first album before that?

I was given a copy of it, I listened to it, and I thought it was okay. I liked Tim. So Tim, Herbie, and Jac Holzman got together and decided that he should do a rock and roll single. Larry Beckett and Buckley kind of said okay, we're gonna sell-out and write us a hit. So, they wrote these two songs called Lady Give Me Your Key and Once Upon A Time.

We recorded it with Jim Fielder on bass and Eddie Hoh on drums. A real hot band but playing these lighter-weight songs. John Forsha played an incredibly hot lead guitar on both those tracks. When Jac Holzman heard them, he wanted to meet with us and so we met at my house. It was Tim, Larry Beckett, Herbie, Jac and myself. So, Holzman said, ‘These are good recordings Tim, but I don't really feel this is your strong stuff. So, let's forget about these and let's start on the album‘.

We started recording basic tracks at Whitney Studios in Glendale because they were cheap there - about fifteen bucks an hour - for a good studio. We then went to Western Studio Three, which is where Pet Sounds was done and most of the Mamas & The Papas' stuff was done. It was like the most popular little studio in town.

We lucked into a nice big fat piece of time that was open. We did 95% of it there. Western is now called Oceanway. There's a lot of good karma there. It has every ancient state of the art piece of gear that you could ever want to use in that place. I remember working down the hall with the Association when the Beach Boys were recording Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson was standing by the doorway listening to the playbacks and I was hearing Wouldn't It Be Nice, wondering what he was doing with the tympanis and all that other stuff. Those were neat days.

Well anyway, all but a couple of basic tracks were done with Tim singing. Generally, Tim worked with the drummer right there and he would just sing. Some of the stuff he did in just one or two takes, and some it took like 21 or 22 takes. Always going flat out, never compromising his performance on any of the 22 takes.

That was on I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain and it was Tim who wanted to do it. I'd say, ‘That's pretty good, Tim’ and he'd say, ‘No, not there yet‘. Then he'd do another one. Balls out every time, you know. When he was happy with it, we'd go with it.

Q: On the album credits, you are described as the recording director, but you were actually the producer were you not?

A: Jac Holzman wanted to change the term producer to recording director. He thought it made more sense because the producer of an album is like the director of a movie. It was the same kind of function. He wanted to change the term for the whole industry starting with that album. It caught on like a fart in a spacesuit. That was the only album on which that term was used.

Q: You were responsible for the album in total, weren’t you? Jac Holzman just oversaw the project?

A: ctually, Jac tried to stop part of it. It's that famous story during the actual recording of the song Goodbye and Hello. I hired a fourteen-piece orchestra and it was my first three-section orchestra so I was really excited about it. It was Tim and Larry's idea. They wanted an orchestra on that song.

Right before we began to do the first take, someone came in and said, ’ You’ve got a call from New York in the office‘. It was Jac and he says, ‘So, you've hired fourteen musicians and you didn't tell me‘. I said, ‘Jeez, Jac, it's part of the album. I didn't think I had to‘.

Jac says, ‘You've got to check everything with me. If I could, I'd cancel that session‘. I said, ‘Well, it's a little late now Jac, They're all sitting in there now just waiting for the downbeat‘. He just huffed and slammed the phone down. So, I went back to the studio and we did Goodbye and Hello and the last part of Morning Glory, which has the orchestra on it.

Anyway, Holzman was there for the mix and he says, ‘This is the greatest thing I've ever heard‘.

Q: Was that all the apology you got?

A: No mention at all that he almost canceled the thing. But, Jac and I had that kind of a relationship.

Q: Were there any new recording innovations or techniques born with that album?

I'm sure there were, but I can't think of any off hand right now, except maybe that it was the first time that a kalimba was used. It was that strange instrument that Dave Guard played on Hallucinations. It was the first recording that I ever did with Dave Guard on it. He was my hero. Don Randi played that Elizabethanly altered piano on Knight Errant.

Q: On the liner notes it says that you played the organ, piano, and harmonium on the album. On which songs did you play?

A: On Pleasant Street, I played the pipe organ. We took the tape over to Whitney and we over-dubbed it there. The harmonium was played on Knight Errant, and I played the piano on Morning Glory.

Q: I always thought that Pleasant Street was a song about heroin. A couple of people in our forum thought it was about LSD. What do you think it was about?

A: I know what it was about. It was about heroin. They told me it was. You wouldn’t know what to call a song about LSD. Pleasant Street or Horror Street…it was up for grabs

Q: Was that you playing harmonica on Once I Was?

A: No, that was Henry Diltz.

Q: I don't think he got any credit for that on the liner notes.

A: Well, he should have.

Q: I apologize for not doing my homework, but I can't say that I'm familiar with the work of the Modern Folk Quartet. I didn't even know that Henry was a musician. I've always loved his album cover photography and I enjoy the photos on his web site called ‘Henry's Gallery‘, but I wasn't aware that he was a musician.

A: Oh yeah. If you ever get a chance to see the movie Palm Springs Weekend - which is one of those Connie Stevens/Troy Donohue/Robert Conrad /Warner Brothers' movies in the early sixties - you can see the MFQ playing a song in a nightclub in the desert in Palm Springs.

We were all acting our way out of wet paper bags, doing this real angry version of the Ox Driver Song, with Henry Diltz in the biggest paper bag doing the lead vocal. The movie plays quite often on the AMC cable station.

We were all there when Henry bought his first camera. The whole group bought cameras that day in a second-hand store in East Lansing Michigan. I've got this great picture of Henry trying to figure out his first camera. It's a classic shot.

Q: Any other contributions from you on Goodbye and Hello?

A: Well yes. Not too many people know that the choir voices on Morning Glory were done by Tim and me. It’s four-part, with us singing each part unison to make it sound more like a choir.

Q: How personal was this whole experience for you. Did you take it home with you every night ? Was it something that you were really into?

A: Absolutely. To this day, anything that I do is part of my life at the time. I don't know how to work any other way. A lot of times I wish I could do six or eight hours a day, or ten or whatever, and say that's it, and not have it be a part of my life. But it is. Tim's album was definitely a part of my life, and I was into it like I was a part of the group. Sometimes after a session, we would drive down to the Canyon Store after a session and just sit in the parking lot and drink a few beers and talk about the sessions, and other music and stuff.

There was a lot of humor in everything we did. Beckett and Buckley themselves were just so comical. They were such a rag-tag pair. I always mention them together because they really were a team. Even though Beckett didn't write all the lyrics on Goodbye and Hello, they talked about the direction of them as if he did.

All of the decisions on that album, as far as the sequencing of the songs and everything, was done by the two of them. Beckett and Buckley decided who would play on what song. Except where John Forsha was concerned. That was usually my idea. I really like the way that John plays.

Tim and Lar were a team. Inseparable. They looked like a couple of the Eastside Kids. They drove this ’37 Chevy that weighed nineteen tons and they were just a riot. It was a delightful humor. They weren't a joke by any means. It was just whimsical and coupled with Tim's talent and his magnificent voice, it was a terrific experience.

After the sessions, we would sometimes go out to the Topanga Corral, or we'd hang out, have dinner at our house and Judy would cook. She was real tight with them too. She loved Tim and she loved Beckett, because she was a writer as well. She loved Beckett's poetry. He's incredibly gifted. Beckett's stuff is gonna be around in 200 years. I'm convinced of it. He's one of the great American poets. There's no doubt about it in my mind.

So, when that album was done, it was like the end of an era. A very small one, but a little piece of time that was absolutely wonderful. I expected it to continue. But the next time I saw Tim, he was like another person.