Book of Jude
Book of Jude, Season One, is a series of discussions between myself, singer, songwriter - Jude Johnstone, and my daughter, 29 year old singer, songwriter - Ray Duncan, about the songs, stories, thoughts and experiences from my many years in the music business. We start from the beginning, growing up in Maine, playing in a top forty band, meeting Clarence Clemons on a plane, spending time in NYC and New Jersey under his wing, attending the famous No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden, watching Bruce Springsteen record "The River", and then moving to Los Angeles in 1979. From there we delve into making demos, playing clubs, singing backup vocals, signing my first publishing deal, and getting my first songs covered by well known artists. Ray asks me questions about how each of those early experiences educated and shaped me. We also touch on some of the mistakes I made and what I would have done differently now. We discuss my choice to eventually leave LA for the Central Coast of CA to raise a family, while releasing 8 albums, touring Europe, opening shows for some of my heroes and finally moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 2015.
Book of Jude, Season Two, is myself and Ray interviewing other well known artists that I have worked with or known for many years, and may have talked about
in Season One. We have some very exciting guests to come. Stay tuned.
Book of Jude
Co-writing with Bob Dylan, appreciating Danny O'Keefe, and the many talents of Tim Hockenberry, episode 8
In this episode we talk about my co-write with Bob Dylan, how that came to be, and my deep, ongoing friendship with the multi talented Tim Hockenberry.
You will hear excerpts of Tim’s version of the song I wrote with Bob, "Howlin' At Your Window." You will also hear an excerpt of Danny O’Keefe’s “Well, Well, Well” written with Dylan at that same time. Also my song "So Easy To Forget", sung with Tim from my latest cd Living Room and Tim's stunning version of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" from his Back In Your Arms album.
Available on all streaming platforms.
Please support the show below and become a subscriber.
Hi, everybody. And well, welcome back to book of Jude, uh, welcoming you for episode eight, that went by fast. Okay. So mom picking right back up from where we left off. So this is about what 93? So I was not yet alive. Uh, you had just moved Cambria about a year ago and I kind of want to just ask you a couple questions about this part of your career that you really have surprisingly made not a big deal about, in a way that I find really hilarious.
:That's because everyone always thinks I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:I know. I know. Well, so let's just go ahead and lay this out all out on the table. U m, y our co-write with Bob, which did really happen.
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 1:Let's just get that right outta the way it, we did not make this up. You can look it up online. It's real life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Bob needed me to write the lyrics to a song<laugh>
Speaker 1:I know, I know... You look up the song"Howlin' At Your Window", and it says,"Music composed by Bob Dylan, lyric by Jude Johnstone", which I just find so funny. I mean, I think as a melody writer, he's often really underrated by people. I think he's a great melody writer, but just the fact that he's the one that composes the music and you, the words, I think is really funny. So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Me, too. And actually it was a track, it was a music track. His publishers sent at the time a woman named Tina snow. She was working for him in some capacity and, uh, she called me and said, listen, Bob's got a few tracks that, uh, are just music. And he's asked us to send them to a few writers that he's interested in and see if they can put words to these songs. And we'd like to send one to you. And I said, um, how fast can you do that?<laugh> like now, because I just couldn't help but think it was an absurd joke. So they sent it up to me to Cambria and I heard the track. I kind of was expecting them to send me a ballad, you know, kind of like, uh,"I Believe In You" or something really great like that.
Speaker 1:W ell, well, c ause he h ad heard your song"Hearts In Armor", Right? And that's why they said,"Hey, well, Bob likes what you do." And it was based on, on the song"Hearts In Armor."
Speaker 2:So I kind of figured maybe they w ere gonna send me some really gorgeous, sad thing. But in fact it was, u h, really R&B I mean, k inda like Stevie wonder, you know what I mean? U h, a lot like that. And actually there was no melody on it. It was just a jam, just the changes. It was the changes and t he band c ooking a way on these changes and, and I thought, wow, okay, well, see what I can do with this as fast as I possibly can before they change their mind. And, u h, I did, I wrote it that day. And then I called my friend, Peter White. I went down to north Hollywood where my friend, who often did demos with me, had his studio s et u p and we put it down and he just played everything on it. And he's one of those kind of cats, you know, that plays everything. And, we put this little kind of Stevie Wonder track down. And it's really strange when I look back at it, I only played that song for three people, sent it to Trisha Yearwood's producer, even though it wasn't a country song, but I wanted him to hear it. And he loved that song and he played it for Trisha anyway. And she said, you know,"It's too R&B for me. And then I, for some reason, maybe it was a song plugger or somebody that played it for Amy Grant and she put it on hold right away. That first week I finished it. And then a few days later took it off hold and I gave it to a Nashville song plugger named Antoinette Olson. And she has to be how Tim Hockenberry heard it because I didn't know Tim Hockenberry. So, and, he had just, he was fresh off of that America's Got Talent show. And so, you know, people were probably pitching him songs, thinking he'd be doing a record. And Antoinette liked that song. And she, I believe it was, had to be her that played it for him. Anyway, nobody ever told me that. I found out years later that the song had been recorded by somebody. Now, normally you have to have permission for a song's first license if it hasn't been released yet. And nobody ever came to me and asked me anything. So I didn't know about the cut. And that was really just because Hockenberry kind of recorded it mostly in his apartment or something, but it was really quite an elaborate production. And when I did finally hear it five years later, when my friend Rodney Soares, who always knew everything before I did, called me and said, Hey, do you know that somebody cut your"Howlin' At Your Window" song? And I said,"What? N o, that's not possible." And he says,"Yeah, this guy named Tim Hockenberry."
:And so I'll get back to the Tim Hockberry story.< laugh> in a while. A nd, and just tell you about writing this song.
Speaker 1:So yeah. Backing up, you know, your, how was your correspondence? Did you say anything to Bob at all during this process? I mean, like...
Speaker 2:Nope. I just wrote the thing, demoed it and sent it back down to Tina Snow. And Tina played it for Bob because, you know, I had to get an okay. You know, like, yeah, it's okay. You know, we can call it a co-write. Um, you know, just in case I did such awful job that he had the opportunity to say, I hate this<laugh> but he didn't.
Speaker 1:What was he, what I wanna know is like, why was he hunting for a song? Why was Bob Dylan hunting for a lyricist? Was that something that he did at all?
Speaker 2:No, no. I think that it was just to make a little extra cash, like his people said, you know,"Don't you have any song starts?"
Speaker 1:I can't imagine he'd have to do that..
Speaker 2:Well me either<laugh> Hey Bob, let's get some of, some of those cassettes you've got, you know, that you guys have been jamming on and send them to some other songwriters so that people can be finishing your songs, you know, while you're working on your next ones. And, I think it was just, I think it was just a money thing, to get more songs in the pipeline. Yeah. I really think that's what it was, but I can't really tell you. But I was thrilled at the opportunity. And my friend, Danny O'Keefe, also received one of these and he wrote this fantastic lyric called"Well, Well, Well", and the piece of music he was given, I have to say was just so freaking cool. And I loved what he did with it...
:I went to listen to Danny O'Keefe's song,"Well, Well, Well", to see, you know, I wanted to insert it. So which version, you know, w hat we got out there, you know, so I go on YouTube. And I say, you know,"Well, which, what version do you like Danny?" H e says,"Well, you know, there's a really nice live version with, u h, Bonnie Raitt and Ben Harper." And then, but you know, I like the M aria Muldaur with Mavis Staples version.."
Speaker 1:Oh my God. And I'm
Speaker 2:Like, really? Okay. He goes, but you know, I like my version. So I said,"Okay, I'll use your version in that case." Yeah. But, you know, I just wanna say about O'Keefe that, you know, he gets all these other people to record"Well, Well, Well", his co-write with Bob Dylan and my Bob Dylan co-write, like one person records it...
Speaker 1:And doesn't even tell you, and you don't even find out til 5 years later...
Speaker 2:But I mean like, okay, I admit I didn't, I didn't play it for anybody...
Speaker 1:Literally. You literally don't tell anyone about it ever.
:Okay. Okay. But still, I mean, and I know, and also his is this whole kind of political thing...
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:You know, and I mean, I couldn't do that with like an R&B sort of a groove. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:If anyone out there wants to do"Howlin' At Your Window", Y eah.< laugh>
Speaker 2:Yeah. I got a really nice demo of it by Tim Hockenberry, but yeah. You know, I mean, as if Danny didn't already have it great. I mean, he wrote one of everyone's favorite songs,"Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues"... Uhhuh.<affirmative> right. And so think about, I went to look it up again. I thought now who's recorded that one, right? Mel Torme', L eon R ussell, Charlie Rich, Dwight Yokam, Willie Nelson, Conway T witty, BJ Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman and Elvis Presley! I mean, I'm just saying like, wow, you just only need the one song!
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2:Just the one will, you know, what a deal, man? Wow. I need one of those
Speaker 1:<laugh> I think you're doing fine, but you know, wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt. Why don't you get on that?
Speaker 2:It wouldn't hurt! That's for sure! Yeah. I mean, totally seriously. Yeah, man. I remember, geez. I remember Jim Nabors singing it, you know, like on the Jim Nabors show, like when I was 10 or something<laugh> I was really little, I remember that guy singing the song, too. I notice it's not mentioned on the Wikipedia page but he did a good job. I remember he did a good job on that song. And, anyway, that's not what this podcast is about. I, just talk a bout your, y our triple threats and, and your good fortune. Oh yeah. And g eez, what a piece of writing, just what a piece of writing."Some gotta win some gotta lose... Good time Charlie's got the blues." That's like all you need to know about the song. You don't even need the verses, just that title is just enough to kill y ou. I'm quite certain that they sent, they sent about two or three more out. And I don't recall who the people, they, you know, they sent'em to were, but I never really heard about any of them except mine and Danny O'Keefe's. And in fact, if you read about that time, you know, if you look it up, you know," Howlin' At Your Window, Jude Johnstone, Bob Dylan, if you look it up on the internet, I had no idea until recently when I, when I was trying to remember what year it was that we did this, I looked it up just for fun, and there was all this information on it. And you know, this is a song that only one person ever put on a record. And it wasn't even like on a real label. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You never cut it. And Bob never cut it. And we were talking earlier just how hilarious that is, that you, you co-wrote a song with Bob Dylan and you didn't put it on a project of your own. I just find that kind of funny.
Speaker 2:No, I never, I hardly ever played it for anyone...
Speaker 1:Were you not proud of it?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't like my demo of it and that was the only thing I had until I heard what Tim had done. And now if I want someone to hear the song, I always play his version and I've just never cut it myself. Cause I loved Hockenberry's version so much. It was a really Van Morrison kind of a take. And I loved the horn section and the singers and I mean he did it up. It's quite a full-on production and you know, he's a tremendous singer and the piano playing's pretty fancy. And so if I were to cut it, you know, I'd want the piano playing to be as good as Hockenberry's version. And I'd have to get somebody else to play it. I can play, but not like that. So, you know, after we finished this episode, I emailed it to Hockenberry and wanted to know what he thought of it, you know? And so he straightened me out on a whole bunch of stuff, which was, in case you didn't know, we were talking about the horn section, the amazingly fancy piano... Hockenberry plays EVERYTHING you hear! He plays the nylon string guitar. He plays, okay, talk about your triple threat... So he did everything, but the chick singers. That's it. He did the horn section... all of it himself.
Speaker 1:I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so all I gotta do is get him to play the piano for me and I'm all set.
Speaker 1:Perfect.
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe that. Yeah. I mean, I know he is a good piano player and I've heard him, I know his style and I'm surprised I didn't recognize it. Yeah. But because it was, it's like a solo, you know, it's a solo. I just don't know why I thought it was somebody else.<laugh> go figure
Speaker 1:That's so funny,
Speaker 2:But that is one heck of an arrangement to do in your apartment. I'll tell you that right now.
Speaker 1:Fricking ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was impressed. I was impressed. I really was. Well...
Speaker 1:I guess we know who we're gonna call for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. For the Van Morrison horn section and the whole, you know, shabang...
Speaker 1:Well, I would like to just draw our attention for a moment to the, the funniest part of this story to me is that there was at one time a Rolling Stone article that I guess it was, it wasn't an interview with Bob Dylan because then they wouldn't have gotten these facts all garbled. But it was, it was a piece about him or something.That you were saying how...
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, they were just talking about what Bob was up to, you know, what Dylan was up to in the nineties or whatever. And it said, I remember the Rolling Stone blurb said something about that he had been doing some co-writing and that he had written a song with Jude Johnstone in a hotel room in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1:Right. Which I just love all of, all of what that's implying.
Speaker 2:I loved it so much.
Speaker 1:It's so funny.
Speaker 2:I loved it so much. I couldn't stop laughing when I read it.
Speaker 1:Because like...
Speaker 2:It's so much better than the truth.
Speaker 1:That's so specific. I mean, they had to have known that's not based on any real fact.
Speaker 2:Well, it turns out when I, when I looked this up the other day and I found some website, it calls itself Bob-dylan. org.UK. And this is where I read all this about it. And it said, this guy was, was looking up what was going on in the eighties. He was making a list of all of Dylan's song from the eighties. And it said,"It turns out Dylan was sketching out a couple of songs he couldn't finish,"Well. Well, Well" and"Howlin' At Your Window" and writing a couple songs with Gerry Goffin." He says,"For both,"Well, Well, Well", and"Howlin', Bob used the same trick. He'd dug out the old recordings of songs that had been laid down, but never developed in the mid eighties, at the Church Studio in London. And then out of the the blue, much later,(93, as a matter of fact), he approached singer songwriters whose work he liked and said,"Here's a song...would you like to finish it for me?" Wel l, t hat's almost true. I mean, he didn't say that to either of us, but his publisher did. And in both cases, it says, he had only written the music when he handed them over. And that's all true. So how these people know all this, I cannot tell you. And it goes on to say, to mention Hockenberry, that it ends up Hockenberry did a recording, the only recording of my song. But yeah, it's really fun. It's really humorous to read about it in these different ways. And it's, you know, like I said, other than Hockenberry, nobody even knows about the song.
Speaker 1:I know. That's why I'm, I'm glad that, that there is Tim's version. Like you were saying earlier when we were talking about it, there is no definitive version. So you could go and record a version on one of your next projects, if you were trying to do that.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I have thought of doing that before and I just never have done it because, I love the arrangement that Hockenberry does so much, that I would want to just shoot for that, you know, do my voice, but a very similar arrangement. I love the background vocals and love the piano. So I'd probably really be trying to do something very similar to what he did on it. It was a brilliant arrangement.
Speaker 1:Well, you guys would come to meet and how your friendship would develop...he's made appearances on not one, but is he just on one record? Is he on"Woman's Work" or"Living Room"?
Speaker 2:No, just"Living Room". But you know, my whole intention, I mean, when this friend of mine, Rodney informed me that someone had actually covered that Dylan co-write, I of course looked him up immediately. And so when you Google Tim Hockenberry, all this footage from America's Got Talent is the thing that comes up. Right. So I watched the footage and several episodes of him singing, you know, like they do on that show. It's not even a whole song. It's just sort of like three quarters of a song. Ye ah. It's bizarre.
Speaker 1:That's how it is when they, when they make you audition too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. And so, anyway, I'd never seen the show, but I watched it just to watch Tim. And when I heard his voice, I almost had a heart attack.
:Yeah. I mean, he sounds a little bit like, like Joe Cocker..
Speaker 2:Or Ray Charles
Speaker 1:Only, I don't know, a little bit more, well, I don't wanna say less unhinged cause he definitely does have that element..but yeah..
Speaker 2:But he can also be yeah, super slick. Y eah. He's got tremendous range. Power. What a voice. A nd anyway...
Speaker 1:Yeah. You kind of have to just hear it, you know, to really understand.
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe it when I heard him and I just thought, I'm telling you, I gotta get this guy to sing some more of my songs. And so I looked him up on Facebook and I found him and I sent him a message. I sent him a private message and I said,"Hey, I'm Jude Johnstone. I co-wrote this song with Bob Dylan that you recorded(without telling me), on an album..."
Speaker 1:Um, right, you're like, by the way...
Speaker 2:<laugh> And I said,"Listen, I just watched this stuff on America's Got Talent... You must be getting ready to make a record. Let me send you some songs". And he said,"Oh, go for it. I can't wait!" So I started sending him MP3s, you know, one at a time, and just hitting him with like the best stuff I got, you know, my favorite of my favorite songs. And he was losing it. I mean I could hear him losing it over the e-mail. You know what I mean? He was going,"Oh my God. Oh my God." He said,"You're my favorite songwriter." And I said,"Well, guess what, you're my favorite singer." And we went back and forth a few times. I finally said to him,"Well, you're up in the Bay area and I'm down here in Cambria, four hours away. Maybe we should meet each other. And he said,"I'm in the car now." That's funny.
:He was already driving. And that is who Tim Hockenberry is. He is j ust one of the greatest people I've ever known, fr ankly. And I started vacuuming an d f reaking out and cleaning my house cause I was like, holy crap! And sure enough, four hours later he came walking up my steps and he came in, we played piano together and I felt like I'd known him my whole life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I mean, you guys have been friends ever since. You've, there was a moment where you envisioned a project where he would sing a whole record of your songs. There was a lot of different stuff going on back and forth...
Speaker 2:I wanted that more than anything and I still do. Yeah. And this is eight years later, but we, we had some interest in a couple places and then it just seemed to die. So yeah, it never came to pass. In the meantime, of course, Hockenberry, he's probably made, I know he had one record he put out and you know, he got some new management and then now he's moved to Los Angeles and he's actually doing some good stuff there. He's got Michael Landau on guitar and a couple of other really fabulous, well known musicians that are doing his...they're playing gigs. They're playing The Baked Potato. They're playing at that, uh, that club of Herb Alpert's that I'm forgetting the name of. And I think they're making some noise, you know, I think he's making some noise again. You can't keep Hockenberry down, you know,<laugh> eventually you're gonna notice he's there again.
Speaker 1:Well, and then so in"Living Room", I was just recently, just to get my head around some of this stuff, I recently was listening to that album of yours that, you know, I sing on that album quite a fair bit or and we do a co-write on that album as well
Speaker 2:With Ben Glover.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But he, um, it's before you, and then what's the other one that he's on with you,
Speaker 2:He sings"So Easy To Forget."
Speaker 1:"So Easy To Forget" when he comes in, in that second verse, it just stops you in your tracks. I mean, I forgot. I didn't forget, but it just, when he came in and his voice came in, in that second verse, t hat's incredible. I was just like, God...
:I had several guys singing songs on that record, something I'd never done before.
Speaker 1:And it was really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I had just written the songs from a man's point of view, you know, they just were coming from a certain place and on those particular songs, I got guys to sing them, except I couldn't give Hockenberry a whole lead vocal, cause he's just too good.
Speaker 1:But he plays, he plays on that one as well.<affirmative> right.
:Trombone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He kills it. I know. And I was just like, that's so unfair and also I hate people like that!
Speaker 2:And also, you know, look at him!
:I mean, I'm trying to become like that. Well that's between y'all!... But I'm trying to, I'm trying to become like that as far as being, you know, a triple threat performer, whatever, but it's just the people who can play a horn like that and sing like that. Come on, man. It's a lot
Speaker 2:Insane. I know, I'm amazed he's not a household name already... Like a long time ago.
Speaker 1:It's this industry, man, the ageism in this industry and all that.
:That's true.
Speaker 1:So something that I want to be a part of, um, change, you know, and I think it will change. I think we will see it change because people are just getting, I think people are getting sick of the same old thing. Maybe that's just me being like an idealist. I don't know. Maybe I'm blinded by my own hopes and dreams but I think authenticity is, is much needed now more than ever.
Speaker 2:I think it is. I mean, you know, it's funny cause I've been looking further into these sync placement opportunities and one of the things that, yesterday in this seminar I went to with five or six music supervisors giving advice and talking about what they look for and you know, that sort of thing, the music supervisors were just saying, you know, we don't like the sound of people just trying to do what the last person did or aiming too close. You know, what we want is something that actually is moving. That surprised me because these are pretty young people and I kind of thought they might not really, well, I guess I underestimated them, I would say.
Speaker 1:And there's a reason why they're giving you the seminar.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Right. But it was good, you know, it made me feel hopeful for the future. Because if they're looking for excellence in writing rather than, you know, just cleverness, then I've got'em.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Really. It just depends on depends on the genre. I think mm-hmm<affirmative>
Speaker 2:They said that too.
speaker 1:There's so many kinds of music out there now and what people are looking for is so dependent on that. So I mean, you can find your niche and I know a lot of people who have, I'm really trying to as well, just finding your niche in that, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. They said, you know,"Listen, listen to a lot of things and, and when you find a show that is kind of like your genre that keeps using songs that are similar to your own aesthetic then, those are the shows you want to try to get on."
Speaker 1:I feel so bad cuz I get so stuck in, I get so stuck in one thing, whether it's listening to the same album for like a year or watching the same type of show. So I don't ever get, I have to force myself or people have to force me to like look at new things sometimes, you know?
Speaker 2:I have done the same as you.
Speaker 1:From that perspective of like, no, this is educational. We need to think about this. Like from an industry standpoint like, what are, what are other people doing?
Speaker 2:It's true. And I, I do the same as you. And um, yeah. I just keep wanting to get, you know, my songs on Dexter.
Speaker 1:Right. That'd be nice.
Speaker 2:You know, and I have no idea, really, if that's a good fit or not, I just love the show.
Speaker 1:Well, that's sweet. Yeah. I've had a few friends get placements on, you know, pretty high profile Netflix shows and I, very often, I just don't know if I have anything that's like that, that's for that. But then again, you never know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you do.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know that, I just want to do like actual film scoring, but that's a whole other deal<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well,, I'd love to get songs in film. I've gotten television cuts before. But quite a long time ago, I don't seem to have...
Speaker 1:You had the Nurse Jackie...
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had a bunch of Army Wives. I had four songs with them and that made for a great year at that time. But then I just suddenly didn't, but I also haven't been pushing that, you know? And so that's why I wanna get back into it.
Speaker 1:Well, that seems like a pretty good time to stop. So we'll leave you with a little bit of Tim Hockenberry's version of"Howlin' At Your Window." Join us again for episode nine of Book of Jude.
Speaker 3:How.
