Ben E King

0:03Hey man, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good thing. Back up in Canada? Yes I am. They can't chase me out of here. What are you doing in Canada? Is this like a promotional tour? Are you playing shows or? A promotional tour and having a ball. Awesome. For the new record, I assume Heart and Soul. Oh yeah, for sure. Which was also recorded very close to here, just down the street in Calgary. Oh yeah, I've been in Calgary a few times. I've had a ball. I've been in Edmonton too. I'm sure you have. I'm sure you've traveled the world at this point in your career. Yeah, I've been there for like, I'm a home-based person up here now. Exactly, an honorary Canadian. There you are, honorary Canadian, you were right. So let's start there actually. Why did you record this record in Calgary? You know what, Linda Nash came to the Blue Note that I was working in a few,

0:51about a year or so ago, and saw me on stage doing some jazz type songs and was surprised that I could still sing even. She said, wow, look at that old guy. And then she came back stage, you know, and she said, you know, I didn't know you could sing those kind of songs and like I did and I haven't seen you in a long time. And she kind of surprised me by being there. And afterwards she said, my husband had the studio up in Calgary and he would love the studio. He was like doing a little jazz project with us. I thought she was joking, but shortly enough, after I finished the week at the Blue Note, they were calling me. You know, that's been arranging for me to come to Calgary. I've never been to Calgary. That's the way I've had that. I've had that at the end of the world or near. So it's always, so I made a trip to Calgary. It

1:43was great. Beautiful people, beautiful town, beautiful, lovely studio. Yeah, how long did it take you to record the record? How long did it take us to record? That gets me in there with the musicians and do what we were doing. I would say so in the neighborhood about six months. Oh, wow. Yeah. Back and forth or were you in Calgary the whole time? Back and forth. Right. Because I had to go home because my wife thought I was trying to run away. I'm not moving to Canada. Yes, you are. You said many times you're fast. You were trying to get out of this. But I convinced her, no, I'm not trying to move to Calgary. I love it though. And we got at the end. I think the thing that took us a long time, we were selecting a lot of songs to do. And we had, we really have at least a half of CD with the songs left in the can.

2:32Okay. That's how many songs we had selected. So maybe another disc of these old standards coming out. Yeah, yeah. I can safely say there will be. Cool. You're not, I'm surprised. I mean, we know you obviously as a fantastic songwriter as well over the years, and I don't see your name on here anywhere. You know why? Because we decided that when we decided to go with the standards, I didn't try to compete with the guys that have written those bridges. Yeah, fair enough. You know what I mean? Yeah. They were before me. And those are songs that I grew up listening to with my mother playing songs around in the kitchen and stuff like that. Go back to Billy Eckstein and Nat King Cole and all the Pride songs. And Roy Hamilton. I can name these guys forever. But going back to those days and those people, falling in love with the songs before I became

3:24a drifter or anything else was like my first introduction to great music. Would it be safe to say that some of these tunes, and maybe this one in particular, was what kind of influenced you to become a musician? You know, I would say the things in there like the touch of your lips is based like that they've heard many times before. And some of the songs that would not even put on the CD. Well, the touch of your lips is Jerry Lieber's song. Yeah. You know him quite well. Oh, yes, I do. Yeah. I mean, I hear stories obviously from the 60s and the 50s back in the day of Lever Stoller and Holand and all the Motown guys as well. Right, right. Tell me about being in that scene that just must have been something. I mean,

4:12that's when music was music. You know, you know, you can you can send songs over the internet. Guys don't need to be in the same room anymore to play together. But tell me about being in the rooms back then. You know what? That was before he and all together in one room. Not only did Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. I'm actually standing in the studio in my booth. Yeah.

4:59Well, this lie was better than the line. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. It sounds like they're overthinking things now and you guys maybe didn't. Yeah, I totally agree. You mentioned the song still hold up today.

5:58Obviously, Stand By Me is one of those songs that I don't think there's a person alive. I mean, maybe in the third world country here or there, but I mean, I think most people, even small children, are still singing that song. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember writing it or how it all came about? Yeah. What really started, I told the story before. I'm sure you have. When you heard the song, I picked the words from a song that was recorded by Sam Cook in the Little Kitchen at the time. And I was just writing a song, meaning footballing,

6:57toward my family. And I... And then what do Lieber and Stoller do to it? Like, how does that collaboration go together? The arranger. And I could not go without the other. Right. Okay. Everyone has covered that song. It's like yesterday, right? There's a million of them. And I mentioned that I was talking to you on the internet the other day and a friend sent me a message saying, I have a Muhammad Ali version of it. Once Muhammad Ali, it's the only song he's ever done as far as I know. He chose you. You know what? To stay on that subject, I know him somewhat. I knew him when he was

7:46cast in Scratch. And I was invited to do something with him, somewhere like 15 years ago. And I met up with him and all of a sudden he sees me say, you stole my song. And I didn't have the nerve to say, you're lying because you knocked me out. Of course. Of course. So it's okay if you think that, and he starts singing. And someone had recorded us doing that together in some little outside picnic area where we were having lunch. And him and I were singing and somebody taped it up and tried to put it on. Yeah, but he did record it. He's very proud of it. And I wouldn't tell him not to be. No, of course not. For fear of your life, I'm sure. Yeah. I also, on the same topic of that song, I'm sure you've talked about it a gazillion times

8:36over the course of your career. But I found something very interesting. You said it should have been John Lennon's. He did a brilliant reading of that song. He did it as if he had written it himself. He did it at John Lennon with John Lennon. And I have a lot of respect for him because he's one of my favorite writers. Bill Withers and I can go on and on. Oh, yeah, of course. For days with people who I love as writers. And what I heard is, yeah, he's something else. He didn't know trickery. And it goes back to what I was just saying a second ago about somebody who's just saying something's hard and throwing that to the people and see what they think about it. For sure. Tell me about working with Phil Spector. I mean, we all know him now as,

9:23well, I hate to say it, but crazy. I know. Yeah, but he's a different Phil Spector now. But I mean, back then, he was a genius. He was genius. He was very shy, very, very talented, extremely input on that. I don't think the magic of Spanish. Right. We do something on the show called Five Questions. Five Quick Questions, One Word Answers. Right. All right. Okay. On the road or in the studio? Uh, Lenny McCartney.

10:11Most important thing in a song, lyrics, melody or cadence? Uh, lyrics. Song you've written you're most proud of. Stand by me. And one word, Benny King. Uh, loving life.