CM: It surprises me to hear you say that.
BG: I don’t know why it should. I was raised there, man. I played my first notes there. I imbibed that Southern funk as if it were honeyed air. You can take the South—wait, shit, how does that go?
CM: You can take the boy out of the South…
BG: Ok. Yeah. Am I being inconsistent? You left Memphis.
CM: I still have an apartment there.
BG: (laughs) Shit. Right. I still have an apartment there. Me, too. Only it’s not real. You know? Besides, Lor wasn’t from there, you know? So, she doesn’t get all that mojo shit. All that groove. She comes from the Midwest. She comes from nowhere. That’s what she says. I don’t know where she went or she’d tell you, but it was her idea to come out here and it’s worked out great, man. I mean, look at this. Look at the work I’m doing. I’ve never been so content.
CM: Contentment is good.
BG: That’s a question?
CM: Uh…
BG: Listen, contentment, after the tumultuary lifestyle rock’n’roll throws at you, is bliss, man. It’s the fucking pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Not stagnation, if that’s what you’re implying---
CM: I was—
BG: I haven’t been stagnant because I’ve been still. It’s Buddhist, isn’t it? I mean, sitting still while the winds blow. Winds of change, winds of creativity. Lorelei has taught me much, man, many things I can’t even tell you. You’ll get it—you’ll see where it’s all been heading. Anyway, Memphis, yeah, it’s still part of that—the signpost on the road. Memphis still burbles up through even my most contented piece of songwriting, still smolders underneath it all. So many musicians came through Memphis, man, came through, came from. Some never got any recognition, yet they fed the stream, they kept the mojo alive. Bluesmen who played because playing was what they did. Making ruckus. They didn’t have record contracts, they never made money. They played for fifty bucks a night, some beer, a little pussy. Early, early. There are names that aren’t even on the list, yet they made it all happen, for later cats, for B. B., for Furry, for Gatemouth. There’s this cat, Beaureguard somebody, played his whole life, man, his whole fucking life, lived in Midtown Memphis, played all the gigs there were back then—and we’re talking back in the Ur days, the days before electricity. And he lived to be, oh I don’t know, 117 or something ridiculous. Never made it, you know, never cut a record for Chess or whoever. But the music was important, it flowed through him, this cat. I saw him once, in a tent show—Furry was there—and he just blew everybody away, played with a broken bottle for a slide, old shitbox guitar—and he just blew everybody away. He’s in here man, in me, in all the cats who came after. That’s Memphis. That’s what I’m talking about. You wanna talk heritage, Memphis is lousy with heritage, with a lineage like no place else. And it’s so pure, man. It runs like a crystal stream, or like Big Muddy, runs through all of us. I’m proud to be from Memphis, man. Don’t write nothing else. Don’t write that shit about Buddy Gardner sold his soul for California gold. That’s shit, man. And it makes me mad. Who wrote that? Some fucker in Crawdaddy or Creem. I don’t believe the amount of manure that’s been written about me since I left Memphis. You set the record straight, Creole. I’m counting on you, man.
CM: Uh, so you discount all the stuff about you going, uh, soft, cutting your roots---
BG: Naw, naw. It’s all alright. I got no axes to grind. It’ll all be clear in the end. You’ll see. It’s part of a larger thing, you know? Part of a grander scale, if you will. I’m writing like a madman, now, it’s all good, it’s gonna come out alright.
CM: Uh, let’s see. When you write do you just sit down with the guitar? Or do the lyrics come first?
BG: Have we already talked about this? Why does this sound familiar? Maybe I’m deja vuing. Anyway, I do it both ways. Sometimes the lyrics come out, you know, like a poem, when I’m shaving or in the bath. Or first thing in the morning, you have to jump from bed and scribble them down. Like the phrase “Her glances could break arms.” I just woke up with that, you know. Those are gifts. I don’t know where they come from. It’s that old question, whether, you know, writing comes from experience or from, like, some deeper place that you tap into, something mythical, the collective Jung-thing. So, yeah, lyrics sometimes just happen and I have to wrap them up in melody. Other times I just sit and strum, wool-gathering, you know, and strumming and a tune will develop or maybe words with a tune. I like to have my guitars in my hand. A lot of creativity happens because I like to have my guitars in my hand.
CM: You play a number of different guitars---How many do you have?
BG: Oh. Uh, I think fifty-five.
CM: Really?
BG: I have this thing for stringed instruments—I can just about play any of them.
CM: Really?
BG: Sure. Bass, viol, banjo (4 or 5 string), mandolin, even the fucking harp. Though I’m not Harpo I can wring some pretty stuff from it. Dulcimer, of course. Violoncello. Got a beautiful 18th century, Italian one that Lor got me for my birthday. Incredible sound. Got this Jaura Baryton that’s just exquisite. Museum piece really, so I only use it here. Uh…
CM: Don’t you use some dobro on the newer LPs?
BG: Very little. The dobro is like an occupation. I’m still learning. It’s like yoga—you’re always seeking a perfection that stays just beyond your reach, because it’s supposed to. You never conquer it. The dobro is holy. I have a teacher, a guy out here, you’ve never heard of him—he’s done some studio stuff, but mostly he just plays for himself and his students. He lives up in the hills, inherited money from, what was it, adding machines or some office supply. He’s an office supply heir. Anyway, he’s teaching me dobro. It’s a discipline, like any other. I love the dobro but, never, never would I claim to be master of it.
CM: I’ve got a review here of Rain and Other Distractions.
BG: ( laughs, garbled comment)
CM: “Gardner seems content,” it says, “to wallow in the worst kind of self-pitying schmaltz, the kind of thing that Lennon kept McCartney away from, or Simon from Garfunkel. This album represents something sad about 60s rock—the road we thought led to the New Eden, instead led us back to Vegas, with a fat Elvis and a Rat Pack of self-congratulating back-slappers. This is James Taylor instead of St. James Infirmary. James Taylor, as if he’d forgotten how to play “Steamroller.” It’s lounge rock”
BG: Who wrote that crap? Where was that?
CM: In Sum Times. Memphis reviewer.
BG: He should know better.
CM: She.
BG: That’s worse, somehow. Shit. Nah. It’s all good. In the end, it’s all good.
LE: You’re still growing instead of settling, that’s what’s so hard for them to understand. America doesn’t want its artists to grow. We resist change even if it’s leading somewhere positive. Look at Dylan, look at Larry Rivers. Orson Welles..
BG: Lor knows. In the end, Lor knows. It’s all good. What’s this chick’s name?
CM: Well…
BG: Right, right. Forget it. Who needs it? I don’t read that shit anyway, you know? If I wrote what people told me to write I’d still be doing “Open Channel D.”
CM: Great song.
BG: It’s a fucking great song. Of course, it is. But, still, do you say to Larry Rivers, do that Washington thing again? Do you tell Jasper Johns to stop painting flags, or keep painting flags, or whatever? Tell Dylan, write another “Rolling Stone.” I mean, hell, that’s why artists are artists, they’re going places, traveling, leaving the cave to seek the truth, man, not to join other seekers. Like Townshend said. I don’t care, man. I don’t care. Just gimme my money and let me get into the studio with my guitar and let me sing the songs that I sing. Anything else is lagniappe, unnecessary, maya.
CM: Money, you said…
BG
: Yeah, fucking money. What do you think, we live on air out here, man? Gimme my money, I’ve earned it. I’ve been doing this my whole fucking life. Yeah, I deserve some money for that.
CM: And these last two albums have been your biggest sellers.
BG: That’s right. I made money—take away my Hippie merit badge, send me to hell. I know you’re not implying there’s something insidious about that, that they sold because I was dumbing down or whatever. But, dig. They reached hundreds of thousands of people, man. That’s the bottom line. Hundreds of thousands of good folks out there thinking about “Burn my Bridges.”
CM: You’re satisfied with the new work.
BG: Better than satisfied, man. I’m ecstatic. It’s heart-music.
CM: It’s what?
LE: It’s honest. There’s no bullshit.