AOTA-230922 - BJ Leiderman

This week on Out of the Air, our whole show features the encore presentation of our interview with singer-songwriter and NPR music theme composer, B.J. Lederman, sharing more about his storied career and more of his music. Our spotlight is on Footlight Players' next production of Four Old Broads on the High Seas, running October 6th through the 15th. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, out on the air today. They're in the know with Mary and Esther, out on the air our way. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you are, and show the world your heart. Welcome. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, WVLP 103.1 FM, and WDSO 88.3 FM, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. I'm Larry Breckner of New Perspectives Photography, right alongside here with Esther Golden of The Nest in Michigan City. Aloha, everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, Southshore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP 103.1 FM, streaming live at wvlp.org. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, breck.com, slash A-O-T-A. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air, WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight, and welcome back, actually, from the Footlight Players, who are on Franklin Street there in Michigan City with their next production, and it's kind of a follow-up on a previous production, and this is, of course, their 74th season. We have Joe Blanchard and Laura Meyer, and they're doing their next show, Four Old Broads on the High Sea, by Leslie Kimball. Welcome back to Art on the Air Spotlight. Hi, great to see you both. One of you go ahead and tell us a little bit, you already did the production about a year ago, the original production, and this is a follow-up on it, so tell us a little bit about the show. Correct. It's a sequel to the original Four Old Broads. It basically is taking place directly at the end of the last show and starting right into the new show. Just to catch you off, the Four Old Broads were from a retirement village, and they're quite spunky, all four of them. Best to say the least. And the broad that I play is Beatrice, and she's always wanted to take a cruise, so that's why they're on the high seas now. And so they have new adventures. It seems like that they're out there in one way or another chasing some of the men on the ship, seeing what that part of it is. That looks like part of the storyline. Well, Beatrice is always looking for a man. Yes, and there's also men chasing after a few of the other ladies. We have a few more people. There was only one man in the last Four Old Broads. We have four of them in this one. We have the captain. Sam is returning. Sam is returning. We have a thief, and also a... An older couple that's in it. Yes. By chance, is there another play that's a follow-on to this one? You could have a whole series of this, it sounds like. There is one more, and I'm not real sure just what that one is. But there is one more. Whether we'll do it or not, it depends. So, Joe, tell us a little about directing. You started out as assistant director, and our dear friend Bobby Camandera had to step down. But tell us some of your experience there at Footlight. Well, I've been here going on eight years now, and I've directed a couple shows. This show is pretty easy, because we have a wonderful cast. I don't have to get the whip out and press. So we already have our characters developed from the last show, and that's about that. Yes, definitely. So that made the transition from the first one to this one really easy. So how long have you been in rehearsal? We're going on our third week now. Give me a sketch of what the rehearsal time-wise looks like. How many days a week? How many hours? We're doing four days a week, about two hours a day. Is it the same cast as before, primarily? Yes. Primarily it is, yes. We had this bring two other people in. The one old broad is having health issues, so we have a new old broad for her. And then Sam is also having health issues. You know, when you get up in age, that happens. So we have two new characters. Tell us a little bit more about some of the other things going on at Footlight. I see you have an open mic night or something. How's that going? Well, we haven't had open mic nights through the summer. We're starting it again the first Saturday in September. And that's just a fun evening for everyone. We have enough people. Each person gets to entertain for about 15 minutes, and it goes on for two hours. Five dollars to get in, and it's a fun night. So do you have to sign up ahead, or can you sign up as you arrive? Well, we like to have people sign up ahead. But if there are openings when you arrive, then, of course, you know, we only can take about eight people. So if we have openings and you're just here and you want to perform, that's fine. Otherwise, you have to wait until the next month and sign up. Yes, and then we can always do your reservations for your slot online. So what else do you have coming up in the season? I see that you have a Fred Carmichael play, one of my favorite playwrights who wrote Done the Death, and coming up in December. So tell us a little bit about Murder on the Rerun. It's playing the first two weeks in December. I read the script, but I'm not real familiar with the play. I just know that it's a murder mystery, and it's very fun. Then we have The Unsinkable Molly Brown. That's a musical that's going on in March. And The Lost Boy is going on in May, the first two weekends in May. And that's basically the story of how Peter Pan was set up. And we know the history of Footlight Players. We've had you on before. But tell us a little bit about, like, the locale and, you know, a little bit about how people can find you, tickets, website, all that information. They can make reservations for tickets two ways. They can go to footlightplayers.org, or they can call in to 219-874-4035. 219-874-4035. Tell us just briefly about the seating. Is it general seating or reserved? There are 80 seats. It's general seating, but it is best to make reservations because we do sell out. And it's located on the main street, Franklin Street. It used to be a sub sandwich shop that's now a very intimate theater. Does this play have an intermission? Yes, it will, yes. Play will run about two hours, give or take a couple minutes here and there. Excellent. Well, we appreciate you coming on our In the Air Spotlight from Footlight Players, 1705 Franklin Street. They'll be playing four old broads on the high seas. It's October 6th through the 8th and 12th through the 15th, and you can find them online at footlightplayers.org. Thank you so much, Jo Blanchard and Laura Meyer, for coming on Art in the Air Spotlight. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Art in the Air Spotlight and the complete one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media is brought to you by McAuley Real Estate in Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, Senior Broker. And as a reminder, if you'd like to have your event on Art in the Air Spotlight or have a longer feature interview, email us at aotaatbrek.com. That's aotaatbrek, B-R-E-C-H, dot com. You're listening to Art on the Air with our guest today, B.J. Lederman, on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, and on WVLB, 103.1 FM. Lakeshore Public Media We are pleased to welcome back B.J. Lederman to Art on the Air. We wanted the rest of the story. B.J. is an American composer and songwriter. His best-known works are on his theme music compositions for public radio programs, including NPR's Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Science Friday, and American Public Media's Marketplace. B.J., thank you for joining Larry and I again. Aloha and welcome. I'm so looking forward to hearing about the Midwest Tour. I am happy to be invited back. It's been nice, and I want to tell you guys that I really appreciate you all having Kenny White and myself on your show before. We enjoyed it so much. You know, we just had to talk further with you. Yeah, we really wanted to feature more of your music this time, too, because we seem like we ran out of, we were all talking so much, and between you and Kenny, we didn't get the chance to do everything, so that's why we wanted to have you back. Of course, I was at your concert back in October. You were. You were. It was nice to see your face. And you know what was fun about it? It was like sitting in a, it was a beautiful theater, but it was like sitting in the living room with two guys saying, hey, let's have some fun on these things, and it was just very casual, laid back, and what a fun evening it was. And you could tell that you guys were the first time working together, not as a criticism. It was just kind of like you were feeling out what you were doing. It was our first concert. Right. It was our very first of the three, and that's what we set out to do, is try to find our way in front of the audience. It's a work in progress type of thing, so we're able to be loosey-goosey and funny and jab at each other, and I think that brings the audience closer. Oh, it does. I know, and having worked, that was my career for 40-some years, doing things for theater and things like that. And I'm not a good audience person. I'm used to saying I need to be on a headset commanding the thing that's going on, so it was a very enjoyable evening. So I was glad to get out there and see both of you. Well, we want to continue your story. I mean, you told us a little bit. Maybe give us a thumbnail sketch, and then we're going to explore some things, explore some of your music, basically just tell us a quick version of your origin story. If you want to hear it, by the way, other people that are listening to this broadcast, BJ was on the October 14th and 16th show, so you can hear that on Lakeshore Public Radio or on our website. With Kenny White on that. Yeah, with Kenny White, and so you can hear both of them. This is just an all-BJ, all-hour show. BJ all the time. Anyway, tell us real quick a little bit about your origin story. Yeah, I would like to, and if you can include in that, like the Children's Television Workshop, I would love to know more about that as well. Joan Gascony, a name I will never forget. I was in my teens, I believe, and I was messing around with 8mm film. My dad, I don't know if he gave me this title, but I think I maybe took it on the sly, and was doing a number of animated mini films with friends in the neighborhood where there wasn't a one-frame button on this camera. You actually had to flick the on button with your finger very quickly, and I did one about, well, it featured a ball of Play-Doh with eyes and mouth and nose from a Mr. Potato Head set, and I had my friend's father, who was a professional voiceover artist, narrate it while he was over the house for a cocktail party, and he came into the room. I had my little three-inch reel-to-reel tape recorder ready, and he, with a script that I typed up, he narrated it. I put it to some sort of music, and it's just a regular story about a ball of clay, a person, a thing, who wants to be anything else but what he is. He sees an ashtray. You know this is the attention the ashtray is getting, so he molds himself into an ashtray. And the children's television workshop was doing some sort of competition or something. Anyway, I entered, and I won the darn thing. Later on, I wrote a rock opera. I was doing a rock opera about Watergate, okay? What year was that? I got about four songs in, including, I mean, this is ancient history to a lot of people listening to this, but it had singing Richard Nixon and talking about the 17-minute gap in the tape, who must have done that. It was a really good rock. Anyway, then I started, I switched gears and started writing my rock opera called Rock Carol. It was called A Rock Carol, and it was simply, I imagined young Bruce Springsteen and friends in a recording studio in New York City working for Ebenezer Scrooge, who owned the place. It was called Ebenezer Sound. Okay, so I had been in such a studio where a very Scrooge-ish owner of the studio is kind of a slave driver to these kids who work for free or for little in order to go into the studio during downtime and record their own songs. So I said that. New York has a lot to do with what happened to me, I guess. And it was accepted by the ASCAP Music Theater Workshop. And I had a cousin who lived up there. This was during the day when you could fly from Norfolk, Virginia, where I lived in the Virginia Beach area, to New York for $19 one way. Wow. An airline called People Express. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. And each night, it was two nights a week for a few weeks. Each night, the panel would consist of, I mean, your basic musical theater greats, like Peter Stone, an actor-actress, Patti LuPone. I'm naming the ones who were on the panel when I got to go up and sing a couple of the songs for their comments. I met Stephen Sondheim up there. I just met – it was fabulous. And I met my lyricist partner. He came up to me during the middle of this. He said, look, BJ, his name is Jim Morgan, and he won the Ed Kleban Lyricist Award, which is a very prestigious award. May he rest in peace. He's no longer with us. But Jim Morgan came up and said, I like the concept, what you're doing. But let's make it to a family musical. Let's start from scratch. And he said, oh, by the way, I have a friend, David Nathans, who also was a mover and shaker in the new musical theater idiom. In other words, these people were the folks who would later go on to write and produce Rent in that era. He said, he's got an apartment he wants to settle at. I said, okay, I'm in. I drove my car, pulled my stuff up and moved there. Anyway. You know what, BJ? It also sounds like gold dust floats around you in all these experiences. The gold dust happened with the NPR story that preceded all this, I guess. American University, Washington, D.C., I'm trying to study broadcast journalism under Ed Bliss, who wrote the book on broadcast journalism. A good friend of mine, Skip Peasy, was the chief engineer, engineering department at NPR. And he called me one day and said, hey, they're trying to cook up a new morning news show. Would you like to do a demo for the theme? I said, sure. It was spring break. I went home. That poured out of me in my mother's house on her Baldwin acrosonic piano, a little cheesy upright. And I'd be to death in the previous 10 years learning Beatles songs on it. And I did a four-track demo, put it on a cassette, gave it to Skip. He gave it to the producer, Jim Russell, who recently passed. A lovely man and a fabulous producer. He went on to create and produce Marketplace and some other shows. And he liked it. And just before Morning Edition, I don't know how many months before it was supposed to air, he left NPR. But before he did, he walked my cassette over to the new producer, Jay Kernis, and said, this is Lederman's theme. We like it. When you're in a creative meeting and they're going to say, okay, what do we do about music? You raise your hand, Jay, and give them this cassette. And that's what he did. So did they use it as is or did you have to cut it off? No, no. They used it. I mean, a demo, this was a four-track demo on a really cheesy synthesizer called a Krumar. It had French horn, sort of French horny sound for the lead, keyboard, piano, a bass sound, and a string, cheesy string line. This is the era when the organ-sounding electric pianos were trying to be hybridized with real synthesizers that would come out in the next five years. So, no, they listened to that. And the story I got back was that they would play this tape for their creative meetings. And one of the quotes was, okay, look, we don't have a show yet, but we want it to feel like this music sounds. Okay, Liedermann's captured the feel of how to take a person, you know, not wake him up with Reveille or anything. And I think I would have loved to have been there. So they gave me a small budget, went to work in a small studio, and came up with their very first rendition, which I can also send you to play. Right. And you said lately they retooled it slightly, and you like your original version better. Well, you know, everything has to change. I don't have a problem with the change. Look, I don't have a problem with them not coming to me for the new – I call it an arrangement. They call it a new theme. Words are words. But the folks that did it, Man Made Music, they did a good job with what I know they had to go through in, you know, hours and hours of creative meetings on, oh, my God, how do we change a theme that's been – whose melody has been such an instrumental part of people's lives for 40 years. Right. How do we do that without, you know, I guess making an audience angry or crazy? A lot of them miss, you know, what – it's a no-win situation for a producer or for any show to change a theme music, especially one that – by the way, I need to mention Jim Pugh, because after the first iteration, which was my own arrangement, really, sort of, is at the time when I didn't even know the ranges of the instruments. I figured, okay, I'm playing flute on my synthesizer. It goes way down to here and up to here. And the flute player went, no, you know, the flute doesn't do all that. So they introduced me to Jim Pugh, who was an A-list session player in New York's jingle scene and for Broadway show albums and stuff like that. Right. And he was a – he is – sorry, Jim, you're still very much alive – a fabulous producer. He's a jazzer. So he was able to take my simplistic rock, you know, three- or four-chord thing and simple melody and go to town. And, you know, when I say arranger, he's a writer. Right. So without him, anything that features real instruments, strings, horns, you know, real orchestra sound, that's Jim Pugh's work. So I was – I wouldn't be talking to you now if it weren't for, you know, the two – I skipped easy at the beginning, my friend. And I get to Jim Russell, who left and handed it over to Jay Kurnis, who then, you know, introduced me to Jim Pugh. I'd be – I don't know, you know. I'd be a doctor now. Well, there you go. That's exactly where I was going to go. So what's your mom's feeling during all this time as you're in New York and you're doing this and doing that? You know, I'm sure – I mean, doctor didn't come as a – I mean, that was like – I'm sure they would rather have, you know, been able to boast to their friends that their son was a hotshot lawyer in New York or something. And there was this period around which, during the same period that I got tapped to do the Morning Edition theme, that I was – I had left American – well, wait a minute, first I just joined a band of high school friends, and we toured across country. And my parents figured, well, let's – you know, Sammy, let's let him do that. Maybe it'll get out of his system. And then I joined another band and moved to Georgia. But where was I headed with this? Oh, they lived long enough. I mean, they were extremely proud. It was a thrill to hear my own music with my hands on the keyboard and the first version I was on drums also and vibraphone and some percussion. And eventually the story got back to me that after dad had died, mom was playing bridge with some of her friends, and the ladies were going on and busting about, you know, my son just – real estate just sold this huge, you know, multimillion-dollar house, blah, blah, blah. Another one said my son won this big case over in circuit court. And my mother just put her cards down and looked at them all and said, my son's B.J. Lederman. That's excellent. I love hearing that. So they were very proud. They were very proud of me. In fact, I remember there was this – my father used to write letters to Bob Edwards, and every now and then Bob would say, you know, hello to him or mention some comment from a letter that my dad had sent him. So, you know, he would say our theme music is by Sammy Lederman's son. And now Scott Simon takes great pains to work it in creatively to one of his stories because they know that when – first of all, I'm the only guy that gets credit on NPR produced shows anymore. They stopped giving credits to – they used to give credits to everybody. And they stopped doing that. They needed time. And also, I believe research shows that when people hear credits, they feel the show's coming to an end, and so they tune out. Right. So Scott works it into one of his stories. Yeah, he does. He does a great job every Saturday doing that. Yeah, he's pretty creative. He is. He is. We're thinking of maybe having him on the show sometime to talk about his newest book and everything or even his previous book. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. That would be great. Well, you know, one thing we missed on the last show is featuring some of your music, and we have four selections, but the first one is Money. Why don't you set that up for us and take a look at it? Let me set the album up. The album is – it's my debut album, and it's my last album. One album. It's called BJ, and it can be found on my website, BJLiederman.com, and you just click on the Albums tab if you actually would like to order because it is not, I repeat, it's not on any major streaming service. And it's a – what do you call it? It's a collector's item. It's a numbered collector's item now. So there are only so many of them that exist. I'm not going to print any more of them. How many did you print? I think I have about 500 more, and the price is going to go up, and up, and up as we get down to the last hundred. And I don't know if I'm going to keep the last one or not. So whether or not you have a CD player, it's a nice thing to own because I'm not going to live forever. You'll be able to get at least $9 on eBay for it. It's an investment. So tell us about Money. Before I get to Money, the backup band is the Randall Bramlett Band of Athens, Georgia. Fabulous. They're friends of mine, and we had a great time in the studio here in Asheville, North Carolina, doing it at the Echo Mountain Studio. And Money is – half the songs on this are kind of made-up funny stuff, just funny story stuff. The other half deal with real situations, and some of them are even political in nature, you know, me trying to move the world forward. Money is a cartoony type of song about – it's a little autobiographical about me thinking that that was the goal that I needed to pursue in my life as a youngster in order to get the things I needed and the women – or the woman who would finally love me, you know, and stay with me, as weird a human being as I am. But it takes a turn. And so there's a lesson there. But it's fun. It's just a fun, poppy song to listen to. This is Money by B.J. Lederer from his debut album B.J. I didn't have to set that up. Thank you, B.J. I'll tell you something that I found Money makes the world go round Makes every man a king or clown But never in between It seems that everywhere I go The first thing people want to know Not do I like it fast or slow But if I got that green She'll ask me if I have better situations If I tell her that I'm broke The girl goes off in smoke So I'll just say I had a rich relation Who left it all to me And then suddenly I look like someone with a chance For ecstasy or just romance We'll play the part of hard finance If only for the night When the morning comes She's gonna see me go to my low-rent job And my fortune told She'll wonder why she's too slow And she'll wonder if I'll call I'll think about her once and try to forget her Why would I want to keep A girl who's just in deep But I'm the one who has to lie to get her I put my finger to the phone And then suddenly And then suddenly We're dancing almost every night In the field of freedom for delight Doing prostitution to make it right But never once got caught So I'll tell you something that I found Makes the world go round and round And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around And around and around and around Spoiler alert, let's rewind this I can say, seeing it in live, it turns out excellent It's not as bad as, you know, it comes out with a cute concept I go, what am I doing? Yeah, it's really cute You know, one of your other pieces that we wanted to talk about is Sometimes that we heard Maybe set that up for us so we can hear that because we really want to feature a little bit of your music away from the NPR world Sometimes is another one of these silly little, you know, John would call call it one of Paul's silly little love songs or rock songs and yeah, it's about a guy who's in love with a girl who doesn't pay him any attention doesn't give him the time of day but the mode of a lot of these songs a lot of people don't realize that I'm a rock and roller at heart I'm a drummer, I play in rock bands and you wouldn't know this from just listening to my public radio music So, Sometimes is a chance for me there's a long, pretty decent sized instrumental break in the middle that just starts with percussion It could be a dance thing and at the end, Randall Bramlett himself comes in on saxophone and it builds and it builds It's a good, rocky, you know, piano-based but guitar-filled number and I just love it Sometimes I think of all the times I think about the times I'm thinking about nothing else but you You know, it seems so very hard to go about my busy day but I've got nothing else to do Your face committed to my memory Your face committed Your face committed to my memory My life just isn't what it used to be Oh no Sometimes I go to where you go to work and watch you as you go through all the changes you go through You see me standing there but you don't care and I'd give anything to tell you that I love you You see me standing there but you don't care and I'd give anything to just be standing there with you Your moves are giving me a heart attack I'd turn my insides out You turn your back on me Oh yeah Don't make it happen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .