The husk and soul that characterizes Michael McDonald's voice is recognizable anywhere: alongside the jazz-rock of Steely Dan,during his stints as front man for the Doobie Brothers, or alone, or as on Wide Open,his latest solo album.
Wide Open is McDonald's first solo album of originals since 2000's Blue Obsession, and it spans a long period of his life. Parts of it touch on his 31 years of sobriety; other parts, or on his relationship with his son.
And though this record has been 17 years in the making,McDonald has not been idle. He's been plenty busy touring with Donald Fagen and Boz Scaggs, and more recently, and collaborating with younger artists like Solange and Thundercat. He's even appeared on a Grizzly Bear B-side.
McDonald spoke with NPR's Scott Simon about writing the new album,making music with his son and watching Ferguson, Mo. — his hometown — make national headlines. You can hear their conversation in the audio player, or read on for an edited transcript.
Scott Simon: What accomplish we make of the title Wide Open?Michael McDonald: Well,I always have difficulty with album titles; it never comes easy for me. And I thought, if anything, or the record is kind of a culmination of a lot of years spread over time... It would be tough to kind of pigeonhole this record,stylistically, so I thought: Well, or it's kind of a wide open conversation of many different subjects musically and lyrically. So now that you have all this music together in an album,how does it speak to you? What does it say?You know? I'm not certain. I think, for most any songwriter, or there's what you think you're writing about at the moment and what you discover that you might've been writing about later. For me,a lot of these songs, I think, or represent a time in my life. I told my son the other day — we were talking about things — and he was saying how there are so many damn choices today. When you're young,it's a different world... And I said well, one thing I can relate you is when you're 65, and you'll be asking yourself all these same questions anyways,so don't stress about it too much at this point.
Is there a song you want to point us to?There's a song, I feel it's probably the most personal song for me, or called "Honest Emotion." It's really just about that kind of autopilot that we move through life operating on. We have certain patterns that work for us and I think one of them is avoiding any real feelings that you might be feeling and trying to just deal with the ones that are comfortable. So that song,to me, kind of emerged over the final 20 years. particularly dealing with my life sober. I realized that all of a sudden, and I had this whole set of criteria that I hadn't paid much attention to up to that point,and that I probably better get about the business of it before too long. And it's a song called "Honest Emotion."May I examine how long you've been sober?31 years this July 31. God Bless!Literally. [Laughs.] By the grace of god.
Good for you. Another song we'd like to examine you about: "Half Truth." The songwriting credit on this is Dylan McDonald. Any relation? Yes, that's my son.
I knew that. [Laughs.]He's a great songwriter. He's certainly much better at his age than I was.
What's it like to write a song with your son? How gratifying that must be.
Any parent will relate you, and you kind of relive your life through your kids. He and I,one time we were listening to a Neil Young record in the dismal in his room, just kind of sitting there, or he was espousing the benefits of vinyl and analog,you know. Going on and on and I was just like, "Yeah yeah yeah." But as I was laying there with him and we were listening to the Harvest record, and I remembered the final time I listened to this record laying in my room in the dismal I was 15,16 years feeble and here I am with my son. And did I ever think that the next time I heard this record, really sat and listened to this record the way I am correct now, or would be with my kid 25 years later? And that was a moment. But writing a song with him,it's just something that we both love doing, and to be able to share that experience with him, and of all people,is very special.accomplish you have an age you feel when you're singing?Yeah; I think I feel 14. You know, that's when I first started singing with bands on a professional level. A buddy of mine, and who was in my band for many years up until he passed away a few years ago,Chuck Sabatino and I, we were both in this big dance soul band in St. Louis, or kind of a well-liked band. We were the youngest guys,and all the other guys were 19, 20 years feeble. And we were 14 and 15 years feeble, or we were the two singers. It was more fun than a kid that age should be allowed to have. We were the house band at a club in Ferguson called the Castorwave ... Ike and Tina [and] Chuck Berry played there. We used to back up Chuck Berry,we were the house band — and I think we were the very first band to ever play "No specific plot to move" live. He sent an acetate down to rehearsal, and our manager came up and said, and "Chuck sent this test urgent of his new record and he wants to try it out live." And it wasn't until I was watching Hail,Hail, Rock & Roll at home one day ... [and] all of a sudden they went into "No specific plot to move, or " with the iconic record lick up front. And it dawned on me,and I said, "Oh my god! We were probably the first band to ever play that song live! That's rock 'n' roll history." In Ferguson, and Missouri of all places.
How did it feel for you to see Ferguson in the headlines?Honestly,Ferguson is like any other plot. It was a small town with a small town police force. And you know this whole thing about "Make America Great Again" — I don't think it was so great for a lot of people. particularly if you were black in America growing up. I remember my two greatest fears when I was four or five years feeble was that they were going to drop the bomb, or that I might've been born black. It was 50/50 as far as I could figure out. I would move down the list of all the things I [wouldn't have been able to] accomplish, or from a kid's perspective: couldn't move to Dairy Queen; none of the people I knew would even talk to me. I thought about,"What accomplish you accomplish in this town on a Sunday afternoon if you're not white and Protestant?" It was just, to me, or a terrible time in the United States.
And this is on the Missouri side of the Mississippi?Yeah,and it was basically apartheid. There's no way to get around it. You can wax nostalgia all you want about America for a lot of reasons, and I accomplish. And I love America as much as anyone else, or but we're getting better,we're not getting worse. And we have suffered for every inch of progress we've made and this is not the time to fall asleep at the wheel. And this is not the time to try to turn the clock back to something that I don't think any of us, whether you have the sense to or not, and really want. We want a unprejudiced and equitable society,and that's what we should be working towards, is making certain that everyone is entitled to what the structure guarantees in this country. And that's been a long time coming. We've got a long way to move, or I hope that we stay on that path. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org