Interview Eddie Rabbitt. Jeff Bridges joins in

Eddie began his career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as “Kentucky Rain” for Elvis Presley in 1970 and “Pure Love” for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as “Suspicions” and “Every Which Way but Loose.” His duets “Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)” and “You and I”, with Juice Newton and Crystal Gayle respectively, later appeared on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and All My Children.
Eddie died in May of 1998 after a battle with lung cancer

well good morning New England happy
Monday to all of you and I’m really
delighted to say that Janet Lang heart
will be here all this week and does this
feel funny to you it really does but
it’s again it’s like deja vu when I took
the wrong turn off 128 I knew I was on
my way you know exactly all the state
troopers know me they’ll get
reacquainted this week I’m afraid this
is this is this is so wonderful to be
here because mostly everybody that was
here when I was here still here
except daddy rabbit with honey rabbit
wasn’t here should we just get cooking
right oranges in a big show and it is a
delight to welcome a man who has had so
many hits songs driving my life away
step by step Kentucky rain on and on and
on and he was at the centrum last night
delighting the audience with some
terrific music and it’s a delight to
have you here with us a pleasure to be
here thank you is it early morning for
you Caillou
is it morning we got to bed about 2:00
in the morning and got up about 6:30
this morning and and drove up here from
Worcester Vista how’d you do stuff yeah
well when I first came to town I was
looking at I was going for Chester yeah
again we’re just a Shire you know us but
Eddy said an interesting thing in the
hallway I said well tell me tell me
about the centrum and what’s it like and
you tell everyone what you said well
it’s a real nice building from what I
saw of it but you know when you’re doing
the one almost one every night somewhere
else in a Civic Auditorium a lot of them
start to look alike because they’re all
made to house ten or fifteen thousand
people so they all basically look the
same way on the inside to me especially
when I go there at night I don’t see the
building from the outside really because
it’s pitch black out you know and I
walked through the back door of the
place back door man and and then they
call my name and I walk out into the
darkness until I until the light goes on
a spotlight I can’t see anything so it’s
really hard to to really scope out a
place that you’re in because they start
to all have the same type of feel
you know the centrum is supposedly what
I’ve been hearing about it a great
facility and like I say but from where
my vantage point of slipping in the back
door and going down a dark aisle you
know to the light hits the stage it’s
hard
really tell what the inside of a place
looks like what are you thinking about
any nervous now
no well now it’s well pitiable before
you are it’s not really nerves the
there’s an anticipation that everything
will go right when you walk up there you
know that you won’t fall over the
microphone and land in the third row all
these years well on this particular
stage that we’re using it’s like a
doughnut shaped thing it’s a round stage
that doesn’t go around we go around it
and the band is in the pit so when it
goes to black up there after the finish
of a song you don’t want to move a whole
lot because you take two steps and you
might be in somebody’s lap yeah so
there’s those kind of things to think
about and then we have we have thumb
during the show when we do love a rainy
night and every night I’m jumping all
over somebody for a while I wasn’t under
loud enough those things that the
producer part of you then comes out yeah
yeah it’s it’s that part that makes you
maybe not nervous but a bit anxious you
know you have an interesting life though
and an ability now after I know a lots
of hard work and I think that’s
something people really often forget but
you only do seven months of concert work
and then you’re off for five you do your
really is it your first love the writing
and the album work well it’s it’s all
kind of tied together I write the songs
and I record them and I go out and
perform them so I love the whole the
whole thing of it the reason I take five
months off every years because I write
all the songs and we put out one album a
year and what I do is to come up with
ten songs in an album once a year I
write about 30 or 40 songs and then I
cut about 15 songs and then we call 10
ahead of that so it takes a while to
write 30 40 songs I want to put the best
that I can do in the album that I do
once a year so it takes every day of
five months to put it together because
I’m there from day one to the day we
deliver to the record company that’s
gonna guarantee a little bit of quality
control as well yeah well I learned in
the beginning that you don’t want to
leave your project halfway through and
let other people mess with it too much
because they start putting their own
ideas of your music into it which isn’t
that bad but sometimes their own ideas
there’s not the ideas that that you have
would you mind if I share with everyone
what I read and I just hope this is true
that when you left New York City went
down to Nashville found yourself in a
downtown hotel sitting in a bathtub you
wrote your first song you were there
it is true and I working my way up to
the bottom I had just got to nice where
I’ve been driving on a Greyhound bus for
18 hours literally and I heard someone
on the bus say something about the
bottom dropping out of everything so I
got to thinking in my clever little mind
that she’s when the bottom drops out
everything you’ve got to work your way
up to the bottom that fell out before he
can get to the top and with that clever
idea I sat in this bathtub in this
little fleabag hotel Washington 18 hours
a greyhound by a bus off my body and I
wrote this song work my lip to bottom in
the in the bathtub
I took it around a couple of days later
to some knocking on doors I started
knocking on the doors and someone like
the song anyway about a week later was
cut by Roy drusky a well-known country
artist that was it I just sit in the tub
every day write songs and uh and drive
home six months later with a truck full
of gold but that’s not the way it
happened Nashville is yeah well any
place that’s dealing in the in a any
marketplace of any kind he’s gonna be a
busy place it’s just you got to stick it
out and stay and persist you know you
were talking about Nashville I know you
must have spent a lot of time down there
with the likes of burkas Kristofferson
you come from the east I was born in
Brooklyn how’d he get country well my
mom and dad came from Ireland in 1924
I’m from Irish stock and they settled in
Brooklyn and I was born in the Brooklyn
Hospital when I was six months old they
moved out of Brooklyn to East Orange New
Jersey so I don’t know a whole lot about
Brooklyn except that I was born there
but you know you’re about to do a song
for us and I wonder if people will
recognize this I think that when you put
the fiddle the violin and in music
there’s such a there’s an amazing
similarity between Irish music and
country music at least I hear it what’s
your instant it’s true there’s a lot of
Irish settled in the south and brought
brought the music to the south so along
with the rhythm and blues of the south
the blues of the Louisiana air
and the Irish and everything it mixed
together into a really fine music I know
you’re gonna take your mic off and cross
over so maybe while you do that I’ll
tell people about the song maybe I’ll
just set it up a little bit for you this
is a song that my dad and I my dad
always played the fiddle around the
house I grew up with a lot of Irish
music in my house and so when I started
playing the guitar about 12 years old I
started playing with my dad and it was
always a dream of mine once I get into
recording to bring my dad into the
studio and do something with him because
he always he was always pushing me into
music and he was always encouraging me
to do it and I thought one beautiful
thing that I could do if the son could
ever do anything for his father to pay
him back then I said one day I’m gonna
put one his tunes in one of my albums so
I wrote a little song to bring my dad in
the studio and I hadn’t played this
Irish jig at the end of the song and we
were all very proud and happy about it
it’s called siren song of Ireland proof
for this area up here I think be
appropriate this letter you know how to
do pretty well that’s over right behind
that camera there and my lady’s going to
me tell you that rabbit we just found
this morning means counselor counselor
to the Chiefs that’s what them give you
a gaelic yeah an irish alright Eddie
Rabbitt who entertained a lot of you I’m
sure who are watching now at the centrum
last night and right now it’s something
very special to him song of Ireland
I can hear my daddy playing on the
violin jigs and reels Patti bromine
and I’m the firstborn in America my
friend
[Music]
I have never been there but someday I
will take a trip cross the ocean on a
big long silver ship
hear them sing those songs I learned
from my mother
[Music]
those shamrock healed and those forty
shades of green
Oh
[Music]
I’m calling minnow
[Music]
Oh calling me home
[Music]
[Applause]
my road manager a fiddle player and he
learned that tune for my day that is so
great you play it so well on a green
fiddle you’ve never been to Ireland not
yet no I plan to go soon it’s just that
by the time I could afford to go to
Ireland they had me so busy I couldn’t
go the way the world would you do us a
favor would you stay we have to take a
break we have a little surprise for you
would you stay with us sure I’ll be
right back with Eddie Rabbitt we have
many rabbits joining the rack here Jeff
you know Jeff I will not do this but but
right below your knees there’s a bigger
phone I’m gonna put it on anything maybe
you did the whole interview and
okay guys got you’re gonna fit mic on
you we have a little surprise for you is
it all right this is tomorrow’s Eddie’s
birthday and anniversaries already
[Music]
[Applause]
okay they really should have had me
bring it because I understand it was
stuck in a cab you know you would have
been taking the wrong turn over 20 it
would never have gotten here thank you
though you can’t be home for your
anniversary
right no this is the first year actually
that I haven’t been home what we did is
we took 23 of these dates that were
doing with Kenny along with the old my
own and they were routed so well and we
have a new album out that I asked my
wife I said can we just push the
anniversary of two days so I can just
take it be nice not to say all right how
she was nice enough to say okay and I’m
gonna make it really worth our while
when I go home we have this storm in
here we do yes thank you Jeff very much
for being with us thank you Eddie