Omaha Rainbow : Issue 27

O'BSESSIONS WITH JOHN STEWART - by Peter O'Brien

Contrary to what you may read on page 9, my interview with Phil Everly actually began in this way.....

I spoke to John Stewart a couple of days ago.  He specially asked me to say 'Hello' to you from him.

I came within maybe an inch of having John produce me.  He's a close friend of a close friend of mine - a guy named Philip Browning - and I've always had tremendous respect for John.  I've met John over the years many times and we came very, very close.  It's still something in the back of my mind because he's such a clever person and you can't buy the knowledge he has.  It's something you can only get through experience.  John has that and that's something you can't get any other way except to live it - it's true.

How did it come about that you recorded 'Wind on the River' with him on his last album?

Through Philip Browning - and John, too.  For me to sing with somebody I have to have a tremendous amount of respect for them and I'll go down and do something.  Or ocassionally a personal friend will ask me to sing with somebody special that they have respect for, but they have to be very close friends and I don't have that many.  I only have about six or seven people that I really trust and like.  I was very happy to go and sing with John.  I enjoyed it, it was great.  I'll sing with John anytime.  Anytime John wants me to sing with him, he's got a singer!

He subsequently said that he started to play the demo and you started to sing along with it.  He couldn't figure how you could do that, never having heard the song before.

It felt right.  When you hear something that feels right, it works.  That's what John's things do.  I imagine we'll see John have a tremendous amount of more hits.  He's just too good.

Well, there's a small matter of getting a new recording contract first!

Following my "No news....." O'Bsessions in OR26, I received quite a few calls and letters from worried and/or disappointed John Stewart fans.  In fact, Sod's Law dictated that no sooner had that issue gone to print than I received a telephone call from John.

The first thing he told me was that he had gone back into the recording studio with Lindsey Buckingham to begin work on a batch of new songs.

This was followed by a request to stir up any interest I could among UK record companies in a bid to secure that elusive recording contract.

So.....I got on the phone to just about everyone I knew in the business, and when I telephoned back to John the following evening I was able to tell him there was positive interest from four companies.

The wheels grind slowly, but just the other day I received a card from John, postmarked Phoenix, Arizona on 15 June 1981. He wrote, "Looks like I've landed ............ worldwide. ............still in running."  As no final contract has been signed, I have deliberately not named the two companies concerned.  How much influence my own efforts had exerted I just don't know, but the two companies are both among the four I had passed on to John.

John was in Phoenix for yet another of the triumphant series of concerts he gives there.  Among the audience was my good friend, Jennie Tomlinson, who had stopped off on a journey from Los Angeles to New York just to be there.....well, wouldn't you have done the same?!?  Jennie has just returned to England and regaled me with an excited, jet-lagged account of the concert.  She even, by chance, found herself staying in the same Phoenix hotel as John!

Anyway, the concert was in a packed concert hall with John and the band performing from a revolving stage in the centre. They played for close on 2 and a half hours with material culled from all John's albums, from "California Bloodlines" on through to "Dream Babies Go Hollywood."  There were also five new songs.  Of these, the one Jennie most liked was called 'Queen of Hollywood High' (or maybe 'Field Where the Angels Dance' - she couldn't be absolutely sure).

After the show, Jennie was invited backstage and got to meet everyone, including the infamous Andy Fergus (see OR20) who seems to have taken up residence in the Stewart household as some sort of au pair.  By wearing his kilt I guess he could just about fake it, but with those legs.....?

Going back to Phoenix, 1974, Liz Heaton has written to tell me "The Phoenix Concerts Songbook" is still currently available. It is published by Six Continents Music Publishing Inc. (BMI), but to order they ask people to write to their printer :- Cherry Lane Music, PO Box 4247, Greenwich, Connecticut 06830, United States of America.  The order number is 4211 and the price per copy is $3.95.  You'll have to add postage to that and at a guess I would imagine that $6.00 in total should get it air mailed to you in Europe.  I really can recommend this songbook very highly.  All the songs on the double album are there, along with a host of excellent photographs.

Also from connecticut comes The Kingston Korner Newsletter, from the pen of Ben Blake who, with Jack Rubeck, writes the regular Kingston Korner column in Goldmine (details in O'Bsessions/OR23).

If you are going to be in America during October, then you could be in for a treat, as the following extract shows :-
The reunion of the original Kingston Trio (Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane), originally rumoured for April and "definitely set" for the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on June 19, has now been pushed back again to Fall. Here is the latest update, directly from Dave Guard's letter of May 25:

"Plans have shifted for the Kingston 25th Anniversary.  Now it's going to be at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles on October 12 or 13.  For details you can check with Bob's manager, Russ Gary, at (702) 732-2405, or write to him c/o Fuji Productions, Inc., 2700 State Street, Suite No.7, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109, USA.  There may be other concerts involved which would be closer to home.  Projected cities: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City.  The television will probably be handled by KCET in Los Angeles, a PBS affiliate.  Otherwise, we had a nice 3-day rehearsal at the Laguna Hotel, 15-17 May - sounds better than ever (if you're a fan).  Aloha."