Mailbag

From: John Stamos
Re: Lunch With Joe Smith

great article on joe -
i'd never met him- but jimmy fallon and i crashed that breakfast with dick wolf. he told great stories. he seemed to be a very sweet man. (then fallon spilled a beer on dick and we high-tailed it out of there)
really enjoying your news letters!!

stamos

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Subject: Re: The Muscle Shoals Movie

Bob-

First let me introduce myself as the guy who has the distinction of having worked with Rick Hall for 17 years, which is longer than anyone else other than one of his family members. My duties ran the gamut from engineering, managing his studios, managing his writers, playing, singing and writing for most of the projects he did from the late 70s to mid 90s. I probably have more Rick Hall stories than anyone but particularly wanted to share a meaningful one:

Rick's version of "When A Man Loves A Woman" is that his writer and confidant, Dan Penn, came to him and told him he had heard something recorded at the local radio station that he thought was a hit. Dan and Spooner Oldham wrote such classics as "Dark End of The Street" and "I'm Your Puppet" and Rick relied heavily on Dan's input. Dan went on to say that the producers of the track he'd heard didn't really have any clout to make a deal on it and were willing to give Rick a point for helping them place it. When Dan played it, Rick's response was "I don't know Dan- you really think it's a hit?" Dan said "I think it's a number one record, Rick!"

So, Rick called Wexler and sent it to him and upon hearing it Wex said "I don't know, Rick- you really think it's a hit?" Rick says he replied "I think it's a number one record, Jerry!"

This story has always illustrated to me how important perception and messengers are in our industry. Would the classic Percy Sledge song have found its way anyway? Maybe, but probably not. SOMEBODY had to be passionate enough to convince an unbeliever. Two of them, actually. And that's how close the world came to not ever hearing it.

Best,

Walt Aldridge

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Subject: Re: Lunch With Joe Smith

Bob

One of the most important pieces of advice I ever received was from a speech that Joe gave at a conference connected to the Juno awards in 1991.

Joe was the keynote speaker and he began his talk by dropping this pearl of wisdom: "If you can equate the human brain to a computer, when God made musicians he left out the gratitude chips".

With a few remarkable exceptions, I have found this to be quite true, and recalling these words has saved me from being disappointed by keeping expectations in check.


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