Garland Jeffreys Interview

Opening Notes

DON FLEMING: It's May 31st, 2019. We're here at 530 Canal Street talking to Garland Jeffreys. So, if you could, Garland, tell us about some of the early days of you and Lou at Syracuse University.

GARLAND JEFFREYS: I think I recall we were on a line for getting some food, but the friendship just blossomed quickly. He was from I guess Long Island back then, and I was from Brooklyn, I was from Sheepshead Bay. I don't live there 00:02:00anymore. I have mixed memories for that. When Lou and I met each other, we were like brothers. We were speaking the same language. We liked rock and roll, we liked ... you know, what I want to say, is that I loved the guy. We were very close.

FLEMING: It's interesting that you were both really not pursuing being musicians 00:03:00at the time. You were an art student.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: And Lou was interested in poetry and writing, but you bonded, even though you weren't bonding as musicians.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: So can you tell us a little bit about Delmore Schwartz and hanging out at the Orange Bar?

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

LAURIE ANDERSON: When did you first meet Delmore? Do you remember that day or that time?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, I remember the time. At the time, it was outdoors. Outdoors and indoors periods, but this is outdoors. Remember the woman named (Liz) Annas? She was part of the crew too, and she was ... there was something about her that was terrific, something about her that was terrific. She was a wild woman in a 00:04:00certain way, you know.

ANDERSON: She was another student?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, she was a student. And I think she lived in Syracuse.

ANDERSON: So did all of Delmore's students get together then in class and then after class you'd all meet at the bar? How did that work?

JEFFREYS: See, I didn't go to (those) classes. I wasn't in Delmore's class. I met Delmore outside of the class because I was an art history major. That was my interest.

ANDERSON: What were you studying then?

JEFFREYS: History of Art in the Renaissance eventually is what I got to.

ANDERSON: Whoa.

JEFFREYS: I liked all the, Giotto, Cimabue, all the great artists, I loved that. I was just crazy about that stuff.

ANDERSON: Were you singing then?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, I was singing even before that.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: In Brooklyn, in Sheepshead Bay [singing] "I'm not a know-it-all." All that stuff, still there, you know. I love that stuff. And Lou would have his mouth open when I would sing like that. He just loved it. That's one of our bonds. He couldn't do that, but that was cool. And I could sing. He'd go like, "Huh?"

ANDERSON: Was he shy or what? What did you think when you first met him? So you'd sing that, and he loved that style, and he loved you, and he loved ... And he was a poet.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, he was really a poet.

ANDERSON: What do you remember about what he was writing around then?

JEFFREYS: Well, Delmore was a huge influence on him. Thank God, thank God because ... but he was throwing down the booze, Delmore.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: And then, of course, there was the ... what's the place on the West Side that he would hang out all the time?

ANDERSON: The White Horse.

JEFFREYS: The White Horse.

ANDERSON: That just closed.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And Lou and Delmore really liked the booze. It's interesting to talk about it, there's a certain sadness about it.

ANDERSON: What was that Orange bar?

JEFFREYS: The bar was ...ANDERSON: Was that a campus bar?

JEFFREYS: It was a ... yeah, it was a place nearby you could go, you could get a drink.

ANDERSON: It's kind of wild, if a student and a teacher go off drinking, right?

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

ANDERSON: Was that usual then or just a ...JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah.

ANDERSON: It was usual?

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah.

ANDERSON: Oh, okay, okay.

JEFFREYS: Very unusual.

ANDERSON: Very unusual?

JEFFREYS: Yes.

ANDERSON: Okay. So you met Lou, and then you came along on those things.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: I think around that time a lot of high school kids, guys were reading ... Faulkner's a big high school book, you know, and you had to read a lot of Shakespeare too.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: So I can imagine that Lou came into Syracuse kind of having read some of that stuff. What were you guys? Were you sophomores at that time? Do you 00:08:00remember was it your second year or were you the same class as Lou? Was he a little bit ahead or behind you?

JEFFREYS: Claire, do you know when I ...CLAIRE JEFFREYS: You were a year below him.

JEFFREYS: Hmm?

ANDERSON: So you were '65.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: You were a year below him.

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah, '65.

ANDERSON: You graduated in '65 then.

JEFFREYS: Okay.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, I think I resented that.

ANDERSON: Well, he was kind of ... did he feel like a big brother in a way to you?

JEFFREYS: Did he feel like a big brother?

ANDERSON: Yeah. Or were you just brothers, straight-up brothers?

JEFFREYS: We just loved each other.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: We dug each other.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: You see, he could never ... as I've said in the past, he could never sing like me.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: He just didn't have it, and he was jealous of it. But in a sweet way.ANDERSON: I think he was in awe of it.

JEFFREYS: Hey, listen, I love the guy. The guy was just fantastic.

ANDERSON: So did you play together then at that time or do any kind of music 00:09:00together that you recall? Or what did you notice of what he was doing in music? Because he wasn't a singer, but he was doing some music.JEFFREYS: Yeah, he was definitely doing some music.

ANDERSON: Yeah. What do you remember about that?

FLEMING: He had a band that played a couple of times there called LA and the El Dorados.

JEFFREYS: And the El Dorados.

FLEMING: Did you ever see them?

ANDERSON: You remember those guys?

JEFFREYS: That's a catchy name, LA and the El Dorados. I remember that band.

FLEMING: Did you see them play?

JEFFREYS: No.

FLEMING: Do you remember?

JEFFREYS: No, I don't recall.

FLEMING: Yeah, but you knew about that. You knew he had that. Yeah.

JEFFREYS: I did. It makes me laugh though. Lou has great names for things. He loved to put names on things.

ANDERSON: Did he have a name for you, a nickname?

JEFFREYS: Not really. I may have said to him, "Just call me by my name, will you 00:10:00please?" I don't remember exactly what it was. I can't emphasize enough that it was a lot of love between us, and there was a lot of understanding.

JEFFREYS: My recollection was that he was not getting along with his father. I certainly was not getting along with mine.

ANDERSON: So did you guys talk about that?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, he knew. He knew everything pretty much. He was ... we were confidantes on some level. I recall he was -- he had problems with his father 00:11:00because of his effeminate side, so to speak. That's my recollection.

ANDERSON: Did you see Lou change through the years? You're the person who knows him for the longest period of time. Was he the same guy that you met at Syracuse?

JEFFREYS: He was a rock 'n' roll -- He just loved music, loved rock 'n' roll.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: His life was saved by rock 'n' roll. And I was very drawn to that myself. I was drawn to him in that way. We had a connection. And again, it goes 00:12:00back to the vocalizing. I had a voice. He didn't exactly have that kind of a voice, we know that.

ANDERSON: Did you ever give him a singing lesson?

JEFFREYS: I'm sorry?

ANDERSON: Did you ever give him a singing lesson?

JEFFREYS: No, no.

ANDERSON: Did he ever ask you?

JEFFREYS: No, he never asked me.

ANDERSON: Because he asked Jimmy Scott how to do vibrato.

JEFFREYS: He what?

ANDERSON: He asked Jimmy Scott, Little Jimmy Scott.

JEFFREYS: Oh, Jimmy Scott, yeah.

ANDERSON: He said, "Can you teach me how to do vibrato?"

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: And Jimmy taught him how to do that. He said, "Just go [singing- ah, ah, ah, --] and then do it faster and faster." And Lou was like, "Really? That's it?" And Jimmy said, "That's it, that's the whole thing."

JEFFREYS: He loved all that doo-wop and street corner music, and I grew up in 00:13:00Sheepshead Bay with guys who ... Davy Nichols, Stetson Nichols, these guys that I grew up with were right on the corner and [singing "I'm Not a Know It All"]. All that sort of stuff, you know. Really beautiful music. It's beautiful sound. I know that Lou didn't have that kind of voice, but he tried. He wanted to have that. He really wanted that. And for that, I loved the guy, what he was interested in, in that way.

ANDERSON: So Don has a couple more things ...FLEMING: Yeah, a couple more 00:14:00questions about Syracuse.

JEFFREYS: Absolutely, ask me anything.

FLEMING: Lou had his own radio show for a little while on WAER called 'Excursions on a Wobbly Rail.' Did you know about that show at all?

JEFFREYS: No, no. He didn't tell me about that. I think it was wobbly at that time.

FLEMING: Yeah, it didn't last for long. I think they ended it kind of quickly. And he also put out a poetry periodical called the Lonely Woman Quarterly.

JEFFREYS: I never heard that. I never knew that. He didn't share that with me.

FLEMING: Yeah.

ANDERSON: What did they do in the Lonely Woman Quarterly?

FLEMING: Well, it was poetry. It was a poetry zine.

ANDERSON: And did he have his poetry in that?

FLEMING: Yeah, oh, yeah.

ANDERSON: Which poems did he have in there?

FLEMING: Oh, gosh, I don't know. We need copies of them actually.

ANDERSON: Oh, okay.

FLEMING: Because I don't know what's in there. They're really hard to find.

ANDERSON: Whoa, let's work on that. That sounds good.

JEFFREYS: Lou was a man of many interests, as you know. He liked to try on -- he was looking for this, looking for that. Very interesting guy, to say the 00:15:00least.00:15:04 Delmore Swartz influence

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: You've always said that Delmore taught you how to drink, Dubonnet on the rocks with a twist.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: Which ... can you talk about the whole ... how Delmore was this figure of sophistication?

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: You also said, and maybe you can talk about this, that when you first got to the bar and Lou was there with this older guy, you didn't know who that guy was.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, yeah.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: You were like, "Who is this? It's kind of weird that this old guy is here with Lou." So just talk a little bit about that.

JEFFREYS: I still feel the same way (laughs).

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: Talk about that, how you've described Delmore as a figure of great ... you were all a bit in awe of him as you sat around in his orbit? Talk about that.JEFFREYS: I specifically remember time of when we were outdoors, so 00:16:00we could drink outside. I guess it's spring, something like that. And we have drinks and wine and probably more wine, and then there was ... eventually heroin came into the picture, the big H. I was very, very fortunate about that. It's not something I ... I knew it was dangerous. I knew it was dangerous. And then my experience was different in the sense that I eventually got off of drugs. I didn't take anything. It's been years since I've had anything.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: Can you talk a little bit about how you felt that Delmore was protective of Lou?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, I remember when ... it's very good. Delmore was concerned with Lou, concerned that he would do something bad to himself. My experience with him was that I liked Delmore very much.

ANDERSON: Was he a kind of father figure to Lou, would you say?

JEFFREYS: I think he was more of a ... not a father. He was a figure of intelligence.

ANDERSON: You both looked up to Delmore and liked him as well, right?

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

ANDERSON: It was a complicated relationship, right?

JEFFREYS: It was very likable.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: It was very fun.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: He would always ... he looked to me, he says, "I'm worried about that guy." That's what he would say.

ANDERSON: What did you say?

JEFFREYS: I may have said, "I'm worried about him too." Lou was a lovable person. A lot of people have other opinions about the guy, but he was a wonderful person as far as I'm concerned.

FLEMING: Before he joined the Velvet Underground ...JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: Do you recall if he was active as a musician at all?

JEFFREYS: I don't think so. I think he came with the Velvet Underground, and that was a monumental thing.

FLEMING: Yeah, yeah. Did you see them play?

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: And what did you think of Lou and his band the Velvet Underground?

JEFFREYS: I was envious (laughs).

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: I liked both Lou and John (Cale). I could see the rivalry in front of me.

FLEMING: I think they saw something in each other that they kind of wanted to be, and so that's what helped them to come together to achieve what they did together, but like you said, there was a rivalry.

JEFFREYS: Yeah. There definitely was.

FLEMING: John saw Lou as more of like a rock-n-roller, and a rock 'n' roll star.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: And he felt like he was a studied musician.

JEFFREYS: That's right.

FLEMING: And I think they appreciated what each other brought to it.

JEFFREYS: Yes.

FLEMING: And wanted a little bit of what each other had.

JEFFREYS: I think you're right on the money there.

FLEMING: Yeah, but it helped them achieve what they did together. Did you see them in the early days with like the whole light show?

JEFFREYS: With Nico and all that?

FLEMING: Nico, yeah.JEFFREYS: Yeah, I saw that.

FLEMING: Yeah. And what would you tell Lou? When you first saw Velvet Underground, what was your feeling? What did you tell Lou?

JEFFREYS: I was blown away by it. It was very exciting. I wasn't quite there.

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: But it was very exciting. To go on to Max's (Kansas City). That, I liked. I enjoyed going into Max's. A lot of the people have gone from that period.

FLEMING: Was there ever any talk of you joining the band? Like when John left the band or when it changed and Doug Yule came in.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: Did you guys ever think about playing together?

JEFFREYS: Who, John and I? I mean Lou and I?

FLEMING: You and Lou.

JEFFREYS: I don't think so.

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: No, I don't think so. We had our different things. Rock 'n' roll ... 00:21:00my life was saved by rock 'n' roll (laughs). I kind of agree with that. My own life was saved by rock 'n' roll with the background that I had and my own things I had with my father and stuff.

FLEMING: Well, about the time that he was leaving the Velvet Underground, you were putting together Grinder's Switch.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: And so, again, did he come see Grinder's Switch? Do you remember if he was really aware of what you were up to?

JEFFREYS: No, we were in our separate worlds at that time. But the guys that I worked with, John knew the guys with Grinder's Switch. Stan Szelest, fantastic 00:22:00piano player, alcoholic, who is not alive. But Stan was amazing. Stan was an amazing player. And that's when I met Levon Helm around that time, and Levon said to me, quoted-- "Garland Jeffreys, you better save your money. Don't be like me. I ain't got none." I'll never forget that as long as I live.

FLEMING: Did you ever open for them, for Velvet Underground? Or was that later?

JEFFREYS: I opened for Lou Reed.

FLEMING: For Lou, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's get to that.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: The first time that he came back to New York, after he had left the Velvet Underground for his first solo show, was at Alice Tully Hall.

JEFFREYS: Right.

FLEMING: And you opened the show.

JEFFREYS: That's right.

FLEMING: And he had a band called The Tots.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, The Tots, yeah.

FLEMING: Can you tell us anything about The Tots?

JEFFREYS: The Tots were a band that were amateurs, in a sense. They weren't like a great rock band. They were tots. It lasted three days, not really, but you know what I mean? It didn't go for a long time. Lou was the kind of guy who wanted to play. That's all he wanted to do. He wanted to play. That's all he wanted.

ANDERSON: So what do you remember about Alice Tully and that band that night, that moment in time?

JEFFREYS: Yeah, back in the day of 1973 at Alice Tully Hall. Lou had a manager, 00:24:00Fred Heller, and I was glad to be chosen as Lou's backup band, that I would be playing on the same bill with him. It was a big thrill, and I felt like ... it was because of Lou that I was there. He was just ... he included me in as many things as he could. He wasn't selfish in that way. He wasn't that way at all. We were really pals. We were really close.

ANDERSON: So you had a band as well?

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: There were two bands in that show?

JEFFREYS: I had a band, and I was building up my own situation. I thought it was a tremendous opportunity for me and that Lou had taken me, had brought me into it. I appreciated it.

FLEMING: Yeah, kind of unusual even for Lou to play a place like that. He was used to playing Max's.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: That was a big step up to do a show like that.

JEFFREYS: Yeah, well, I played in Max's a number of times, Mickey Ruskin's place. Unfortunately, he's not alive. Unfortunately, Max's is not there. What a great, great, great place that was. There are no places like that anymore.

FLEMING: Would you hang out there with Lou at Max's?

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah.

FLEMING: In the back room, everybody eating the chickpeas.

JEFFREYS: In the back. "Everybody Else's Darling," that was one of his songs, right?

FLEMING: Yeah, yeah.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: Can you tell us anything? Describe what that would be like to hang out with Lou and other people there during that time?

JEFFREYS: Well, you sit in the back, at the back table, all the way back, and you hang. Nico would be around. Lou was amazing. He had an entourage back in those days. He was the man by far. What are you looking up?

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: This is from a book by someone named Aidan Levy: "To stoke the 00:27:00flames of defiance, Lou recruited Garland Jeffreys as his opening act."

JEFFREYS: The where?

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: Lou recruited you "to stoke the flames of defiance." "A half Puerto Rican, half African-American singer/songwriter from Sheepshead Bay, Jeffreys had just released his debut solo album on Atlantic. The two iconoclasts had met at Syracuse University where they honed a distinctive brand of anti-authoritarian urban poetry."

JEFFREYS: That's for sure.

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: "That gave voice to the marginalized and translated the beat generation into the percussive language of noirish rock. So the yin and yang formula for the Transformer tour was set. With your racial ambiguity and Lou's sexual ambiguity, the evening was sure to blur boundaries and break down barriers."

FLEMING: Do you remember what it was like being on the road with Lou? Did you 00:28:00guys travel together? Do you know? Do you travel separately?

ANDERSON: Did you have a big tour bus or how did that work?

JEFFREYS: We probably drove.

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: Nobody had any tour buses back in those days.

FLEMING: And then after that, you guys just kept reconnecting and sort of playing on each other's records throughout the years.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: On 'Rock 'n' Roll Heart,' you sing backing vocals on "You Wear It So Well."

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: You guys recorded at the Record Plant.

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah, Roy Cicala's studio. That was ...FLEMING: And Lou produced that record.

JEFFREYS: "You Wear It So Well"?

FLEMING: Yeah, the "Rock 'n' Roll Heart" album. He was the producer.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: Can you tell us anything about Lou in the studio and how he worked or what you remember about that?

JEFFREYS: In the Record Plant?

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: I have a feeling that Lou, in his early days, was recording a whole 00:29:00song. We weren't that sophisticated. We just wanted a good take. Pardon?

ANDERSON: You weren't doing it track by track.

JEFFREYS: No.

ANDERSON: You were just playing the song as a band.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Yeah. At first, you were playing as a band, and it wasn't a good take or a bad take. What else did you record with Lou in the studio?

00:29:30 Lou Reed singing on Garland Jeffreys' song "The Contortionist"

JEFFREYS: Lou did my background vocals on my song "The Contortionist."

ANDERSON: What's that song about?

JEFFREYS: "I used to be a contortionist, doing that and doing this, swallowing rings and swords and things. Life was bent, and I was twisted. Hanging in the playgrounds of the rich, which is what, and which is which? Time goes by, still got the itch. Can't stop the music, can't stop the music."

ANDERSON: That's a beautiful line. And he sang on that?

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

ANDERSON: What'd he do on that?

CLAIRE JEFFREYS: Just sing what he did, just the part.

JEFFREYS: (sings - "Do, do, do, do --. ") Then into the bridge, you might say. (sings- "Everybody needs somebody to love --") And on and on. Well, you know, 00:31:00bottom line is Lou was a big influence on me and my music, and I think I was an influence on his music.

FLEMING: One of the things I've read about is that Lou used to like going to arcades in Times Square and playing pinball.

JEFFREYS: Absolutely.

FLEMING: Did you go with him to do that?

JEFFREYS: No, I didn't.

FLEMING: You didn't want to do that?

JEFFREYS: It wasn't my thing.

FLEMING: But you remember that that's something he liked?

JEFFREYS: Oh, yeah, he loved it.

FLEMING: Yeah.

JEFFREYS: He loved it. I knew that he was the pinball wizard. I knew he loved it. A great way to pass the day, pass the night. He'd be up all night and play 00:32:00on these machines back in those days. It was funky, it was dirty, it was sloppy, and it was good to be in that world.

FLEMING: That sort of Times Square thing that was happening at the time.

JEFFREYS: Yeah.

FLEMING: Yeah. Did you guys talk much about guitars or equipment? Lou always kind of went with the most cutting-edge type stuff.

JEFFREYS: Absolutely. He did, not me. I was never that. When I was playing guitar, a decent guitar was all I needed.

JEFFREYS: My favorite Lou Reed record is "Waiting for the Man." I really identify with that. I was waiting for the man myself. I would sing that song. I 00:33:00would perform that song. (sings - "I'm Waiting for my man, --") You know, like that.

ANDERSON: Garland, thank you so much.

JEFFREYS: Anytime.

Closing Credits