Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician and performer who sustained success over 35 years, described by Rolling Stone as a giant among entertainers and the greatest showman of his generation.
On the island
Eight records
One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)
Well, you know, he did a batch of albums that were very intimate, very intimate, and this particular track he had nothing on. It was just a singer and the piano on a brilliant song, one for my baby. And here was this guy killing me with just a piano.
Over the RainbowFavourite
Edna, my mom, took me to see her when I was very young. And just even at that young age, I'll just never forget the emotions that were hitting me coming from the stage and coming from the orchestra. ... right there, I could see Judy sitting on the stage singing Over the Rainbow. And it was an epiphany for a young musical guy.
Willie took me to my first jazz concert and it was to Town Hall to see the Jerry Mulligan quartet. And again, it was just like Judy. It was another epiphany to hear that kind of talent coming off the stage from instruments this time.
Original Broadway Cast of Candide
This is the final piece from one of the most brilliant Broadway scores that Leonard Bernstein ever wrote. The musical is called Candide. I mean, the last cut on Candide is Make Our Garden Grow. The end of that one is the one that rips your hair out. It's this gorgeous, gorgeous music.
When I heard Laura's album, I stopped writing songs for a year. It stopped me from writing songs. It was so brilliant. ... I mean, everything about it just killed me. Killed me.
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90: III. Poco allegretto
I chose Brahms because the melody is so g just so gorgeous and I'm a melody guy.
I thought we'd get out of the 50s and 60s finally and go to something more contemporary. And I don't think there's any better that can beat this song and him. I don't think anybody has ever topped Fragile.
This actually meant a lot to me. Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up. I was down, man. I was down during that year. I heard this one. It helped. That's what I always hope my songs do for people. This one really helped me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:06How did it come to be that your face was on the album cover?
I really wanted my songs to get out there. I really believed in them and nobody wanted to record them. And so I would make demos myself. I would sing them only because I knew the words. And I sang in tune. ... I made these demos to show my songs off, and through various channels I got offered a record contract, and I was about to turn it down. But I mean, the idea of getting my songs on a record I couldn't. And so I said yes, and they slapped my photo on the front cover.
Presenter asks
4:59How do you unite the fact that the press loved to give you a really good kicking with the devotion of your fans?
It was confusing. It it was of course it was hurtful. I'm a human being. You know, I would go and like pull the covers off of my head and, you know, feel sorry for myself. And then the next day in the paper there would be like, you know, thousands of letters ... The public has always been very much on my side and they still are.
Presenter asks
5:39What was [Barry Allen Pincus] like when he was a little boy?
Oh, yeah, a mouthful of braces. I wore braces from 11 until I was 16. Can you imagine the worst years of any kid's life, 11 to 16, looking like that? It's one of the reasons that it pushed me in the background. You know, I didn't ever see myself in the foreground. But I was musical. I was a musical kid, and my family knew it. And they all didn't know what to do with me because they had no money.
The keepsakes
The book
Man vs. Wild: Survival Techniques from the Most Dangerous Places on Earth
Bear Grylls
And so I thought, well, that's this is the book for me.
Presenter asks
7:35Was it a happy household?
When there was music there, it was a happy household. When there was no music in the air, I'm not so sure. I think it was a lot of fear and a lot of work. There was never any money. Everybody was always struggling. I'm not sure you can be happy when you're worried like that about putting food on the table and paying the rent ... But when the music happened ... Everything was okay when the musics began.
Presenter asks
18:32Tell me about your "asshole period".
Well, it was some. I think all of us go through it when this hurricane of success hits you. The worst of your personality comes out. That's what happens. And it did. It hit me too. It hit me too after Mandy came out and I had a million people fawning over me and guessing me, and the life I knew just disappeared, and I was thrust into another universe. And I didn't know how to behave.
Presenter asks
25:04How did you learn to accept that your life was never going to be the same again?
It was the people around me that helped me to accept it. I was surrounded with love. My friend Linda, they didn't leave. They just waited for me to land. And I did. I would say about four years later, I landed and I started to make friends with this fame and call everybody that I ever knew and apologize to them for behaving badly. And little by little, I got a life.
“On my passport, it doesn't say entertainer or showman or even singer. On my passport, it says musician.”
“I think all of us that came from Brooklyn, New York, like I come from Barbara, Neil, Mel Brooks, we all seem to be shot out of a cannon and we we go catapulting over the Brooklyn Bridge into a life.”
“I've always known that I was a good musician. Going to this other level has just never never made any sense to me.”
“Listen, my theory is that we all wind up doing what we were safest with when we were about thirteen to fifteen. I was comfortable making music and I was f I felt safe then.”
“I hope that people remember me as somebody who made them feel. That's really all I've wanted to do.”