A Visit From Bruce Blackman of Starbuck

Steve Williams welcomes Bruce Blackman, the lead singer of the band Starbuck, on his show. They discuss Bruce's background, his childhood in Mississippi, and his early music career. Bruce shares his influences, including Burt Bacharach, and how he switched from playing trumpet to keyboards. They talk about Starbuck's record deal with A&M Records and the success of their hit song "Moonlight Feels Right." Bruce also mentions the memorable moment of recording the marimba solo for the song. The recording session took place at Studio One in Doraville, Atlanta, where they had limited time due to other bands recording there. Despite challenges, they managed to finish the album. Hey y'all, this is Steve Williams, and welcome to this episode of Steve Williams and Friends. My guest and I are just going to sit back, relax, and have a talk just like we're in our rocking chairs on our front porch. And y'all are welcome to sit in and listen. Thanks for tuning in, and now, on to the show. Hey y'all, welcome to this latest episode of Steve Williams and Friends. Today's guest and his band, Starbuck, gave us one of the great yacht rock classics of the 70s, Moonlight Feels Right. Please help me welcome Atlanta's own Bruce Blackman. Hey, Bruce, how you doing? Doing well, Steve, glad to be here. Yeah, man, so you still live in the Atlanta area? Yes, yes. If you don't mind, what part of town? North Atlanta, out in the northern suburb. Yeah, well anyway, we appreciate you stopping by, and my kind of thing is, I just kind of like to have us act like we're just kind of sitting on the front porch just having a talk. So I'm just going to ask you some questions, and well, how you doing these days? We'll start out with that. Getting older, but doing very well, considering. Well, Bruce, tell us about where you're originally from, and what your childhood was like. Well, I'm from Gleamville, Mississippi. I grew up two blocks from the Mississippi River, and my childhood was very much similar to a Huckleberry Finn. Wow. My father was a policeman and then a deputy sheriff, and then that's where I first started in bands. We formed a band called Eternity's Children there, and I had a song called Mrs. Bluebird. I was 18, and it was my first Billboard chart record. Wow. It didn't go that high. It hit in the southeast, went to, I think it went to in the mid-40s in Billboard. So mid-40s, that's in the top 100 pop charts? Yes, on Billboard pop charts, yes. Cool, yeah. I remember American Top 40, man. It's like first time I ever heard of Billboard. Remember Casey Campbell? Yeah. Oh, certainly I do, yes. Yeah, it's like, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Yeah, I listened to that when I was a kid. But anyway, what made you decide to become a musician, and who were your influences? Well, when I was in the fourth grade, they issued, we had a music program in elementary school where they issued this little flute. It was made out of Bakelite, the precursor to plastic. Kind of like those little recorders? Yeah, yeah. It was a little B-flat, one octave scale. And so they had a citywide contest in the elementary schools for playing the tonette. And I made the finals, there were six of us in the finals. Five of the people played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and I played Flight of the Bumblebee. Wow. And so I won, got a little plastic, gold-colored plastic treble clef. That was my first music award. Well, the junior high school band director, my music teacher told him about me. The music, the band director in the junior high came over and handed me a trumpet. He said, you're going to be my first year trumpet player when you get into junior high. So through the fourth and fifth grades, he came over a couple times a week. His name was Peyton Crowder, and worked with me playing trumpet. In the sixth grade, when I went to junior high, junior high was sixth, seventh, and eighth. I did make the first year trumpet. Wow. So all of my formal music training was on a trumpet. Later on, I switched over to playing keyboard, playing piano and organ, because I discovered you can't sing and play trumpet at the same time. No. Well, Herb Alpert found that out the same way, I guess. Yeah. In fact, my first record deal with that group, Eternity's Children, which was a precursor to Starbuck. In fact, three people from Eternity's Children were in Starbuck. Yeah. But we got our first record deal with A&M Records, the so-called records that I wrote. Wow. This was in 1967. That was my first major label record deal. Signed the deal with Herb Alpert himself, but it didn't hit. It went to number 107, Bubbling Under the Hot 100. Wow. Wow, that's fantastic. So who were your influences as far as, say, other artists? What kind of music did you grow up listening to? You know, I was always a song guy. And it was years later when I realized that my favorite composer was Burt Bacharach. Yeah. Because I found out that all those songs, especially by female groups, but all those songs that I liked so much and DM Warwick were written and produced by Burt Bacharach. Yeah. But I listened to him, and then because of being in the lab band playing trumpet, I was heavily influenced by big band stuff. And orchestration from John Williams and people like that. So I was more of a song guy than one specific artist. In fact, with Starbuck, what I did with synthesizers was I was just orchestrating using the synthesizers the same way you would have used saxophones, trumpet trombones, and flugelhorns. Wow. The opening riff in Moonlight Feels Like, you can just... Oh, I love it, man. I love it. To play that, yeah. I just did it with synthesizers. It's amazing what you could do. That was like one of the first, you know, before all the computerization and whatnot. Right. We had a problem when Moonlight was like number, I don't know, mid-40s. All of a sudden it stopped. We lost our bullet. And the record company called and said they just couldn't get the major stations to play it because they said it was fake. It was synthesizers. Thank God! Back then, the synthesizers, and the ones I even use today, Minimoogs, they don't play themselves. Every note on there was played by a human being. Right. And so they set us up to play for the Southeastern Radio Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. All these program directors. Casey Kasem was there, as a matter of fact. Wow. All these people sitting on the front row. Man, I was scared to death. They weren't even three feet from me. People from Billboard and all these major radio stations. Anyway, we played the show, and then they realized... In fact, we started the show out with a black pen-like spot on Bo Wagner's hand playing the marimba. But he could play faster. Yeah, oh, yeah. Classic. I mean, literally, it's a blur. And then they knew that it wasn't fake, so the next week we jumped up like 15 points and got our bullet back and went on. Cool. Now, the guy that played the marimba, he passed away not too long ago? Yeah, he passed away in 2017. Yeah, what was his name? I forget. I'm sorry. Bo Wagner. The greatest musician I have ever known in my life. When we recorded Moonlight, just on a lark, I said... When we laid down the track, I said, let's just do a whole other verse and chorus and just see what we can add into that. So we did that, and I did a clavinet solo, and it didn't sound right. Then I did a B-3 solo, and that didn't sound right. Then Bo said, well, let me try it on my marimba. So we set him up, and we mic'd his marimba. Marimba's an acoustic instrument, you know. We set him up and mic'd it with five mics. Bo walked out there, played that marimba solo, totally improv, one take. Wow. When he finished, it was absolute silence in the control room. Then Bo's little squeaky voice said, well, is that all right? And I said, yeah, Bo, come on in. Wow. Yeah, that kind of dovetails into my next couple of questions there, Bruce. First of all, Moonlight feels right. If I recall correctly, it was recorded in Atlanta. Where in Atlanta? Studio One at Doraville. Oh, yeah, we're at Atlanta Rhythm Section. Exactly. We were the red-headed stepchilds in Studio One. Three bands were recording there at the time. Leonard Skinner, the Rhythm Section, and us. So our recording times, we'd get three hours here and there in between their sessions because they obviously had priority over us. Okay. But we managed to get the job done. Yeah, cool. So a couple of things. One, what was your inspiration to write Moonlight Feels Right? Well, it's actually a true story. When I went to college, I saw this girl that was just stunningly gorgeous. She was dating this big-time football player from Ole Miss. But he went to Ole Miss and we were at a different college. So did she come from Baltimore? No, she didn't. I'll tell you how that happened. But anyway, I asked her out. She said no. I asked her out again. She said no rather definitively. And then I thought, well, you know, three strikes and you're out. I'll try one more time. So I asked her out the third time and she said yes. And we started dating and we became an item. Then what happened one evening, I had an old, ragged-out MGB convertible, terrible shape. We went out to a lake in Mississippi. I dropped the top. So you dropped the top of Mississippi instead of Chesapeake Bay. That's correct. And you could see the moon reflecting off of the water. So the whole thing is that story. You winked and gave me your OK was when she said yes and so forth. But I knew I couldn't say drop the top of the lake in Mississippi. Couldn't do that. I went to Mississippi State on a track scholarship. Oh, wow. I couldn't say you came to Baltimore from Mississippi State. And where Baltimore came from, I called a friend of mine who's a doctor, and I said, man, I need the name of a city that's on the bay, that's on the ocean. He said, you idiot, Baltimore, Chesapeake. Wow. So that's part of it. So many people thought we were from Baltimore, but we weren't. You wrote one of the most definitive yacht rock coolest songs ever to be recorded in Atlanta, I'll tell you what. But going back to the recording session, Bruce, other than the story about the marimba that you were telling me about, how you got that marimba just made the recording, what was perhaps another most memorable moment of the recording session of not just the song but the whole album? The most memorable thing was, it sounded negative. When we were recording it, we had 15 minutes left. We had just finished doing the tracks. And I hadn't done a vocal yet. And the recording engineer, Rodney Mills, said, boy, Bill Lowry, my publisher, he said he's going to be mad because he wanted this song done today. And I said, well, let's go ahead and do the vocals. He said, well, the band's tearing down, you can't use the vocal booth. I said, well, just plug me into the board. He said, we've never done that. I said, well, we have now. So they plugged me directly into the board. I put a Shure SM57 mic on the stand between my legs, put on the headphones, and hit record. So the song starts with the right side of my headphones working and the left side were all static-y, making all kinds of noise. So I started singing and I just kept going. I don't know why because it sounded horrible. So at the end of the first verse, it sounded so bad to me, I actually chuckled. I was laughing at myself because it sounded so bad to me. Well, when the record company heard it, they liked the chuckle so much, they made me go back in and overdub the chuckle at the end of the second and third verse. But right after we finished that, Rodney Van Zandt was sitting back on the couch. Wow. Yeah, he walked over to Rodney because they were coming in right behind us. And he walked over to Rodney and he said, are you ready to start doing something good instead of this stupid crap? Oh, no. Oh, man, Rodney Van Zandt dissed you guys? Yeah, he did. Oh, man, you were dissed by a legend. Oh, it was no big deal. Well, we did a halftime thing at a Southern football game and Leonard Skinner was there and I talked to Rodney about that and we laughed about it. No big deal, you know. Wow. What was Rodney like in real life? Oh, he was a nice guy. He said, man, I didn't mean it. I said, oh, that's okay. I've said worse about y'all. Oh, man, that's funny. Going back to the billboard charts, according to my research, Moonlight Feels Right peaked at number three on the billboard pop charts, if I recall. Yeah. And there is a big reason it didn't make number one. Our record company, Proud of Stock, was in a war with RIAA. That's the Recording Industry Association of America. And they're the ones that certified sales. So the basic formula for the chart was the amount of airplay you get plus certified sales equals a number. The biggest number is number one, second biggest number two, and so on. Well, our record company would not deal with RIAA, so our certified sales number was always zero. If we had had our certified sales in there, we would have been number one for a number of weeks. I can even tell that now because the two songs that were above us today that Moonlight Feels Right does. You made out like bandits in the end, I'll tell you what. Yeah, it all worked out. It's not that big a deal. So what was your reaction when you saw the song just go right up the billboard charts and when you found out the song was in the top five? I was just literally stunned. I was walking on clouds. The Lowry group called me and said, well, you got a hit. I had written a song for Tommy Rowe called Drop A Little Rock. Yeah? Tommy Rowe was big dust then. Oh, yeah, Tommy Rowe, man. I mean, he was clouding me. Sheila and Dizzy. Yeah, he was the bubblegum queen. So I'd written this song. Well, I thought they meant Tommy Rowe, Drop A Little Rock was a hit. But he said, no, no, man, it's Moonlight Feels Right. I just was completely stunned. Is this possible? This isn't happening. It's like a dream. Well, it was a dream. Yeah, yeah. Let's get to Bill Lowry real quick because, Bruce, I'm a music geek, okay? I'm going to confess to you. I'm a music geek. I've been there since I was a little boy. But I've always known about Bill Lowry. In fact, one guy I know who's worked with Bill Lowry was a guy named Barry Idris. And he told me about Bill Lowry and how Bill Lowry helped him, basically how Bill Lowry helped him get his royalties for Ruben James, which he's almost screwed out of. But I understand Bill Lowry was just a great guy. Yeah, yeah, he was. You know, he's the one who gave us a shot. I'd already shot Moonlight Feels Right around everybody. Nobody had even, you know, they just dismissed it. All the record companies passed on it. They said it wasn't disco and it wasn't southern rock because that was the two things that were going on at that time. And I went, well, gee, tell me something I don't know. Well, you didn't go in intending to do a disco album. Exactly. Two years later, they're burning disco. Yeah, two years later, they're burning disco records, you know. Well, Bill Lowry. Well, at least they didn't burn your records. I've never heard anybody say Stalvite sucks. Yeah, that's true. Wow. He was a good guy. Yeah, he died I think at least, what, 15 years ago? About that, yeah. Yeah, but, I mean, he's the man that put Atlanta on the music map, let's face it. Oh, no doubt. He had, I think the number was 51 hits. Oh, yeah, I mean, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have y'all. We wouldn't have Ray Stevens, Jerry Reid, Tommy Rowe, Billy Joe Royal. I mean, all those dudes out of Georgia, we wouldn't have. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. Joe South. Oh, yeah, Joe South, yeah. I bought Joe South's house. We live in the house that he bought when he was writing all those hits. I tell you, I mean, Atlanta has just, to me, Atlanta is almost underrated as far as classic music is concerned. I mean, I love Nashville and L.A. and all that, but Atlanta, in my opinion, is just underrated. Yeah, I agree. There's just so many hits that kind of came out of here. My little hometown of Greenville, Mississippi is kind of like that. You had Starbuck with three people from Greenville, Mississippi from Starbuck, then Pablo Cruz. Bud Cockrell was one of the former members of Pablo Cruz. He was in Eternity's Children for a while. Oh, wow. He was in Pablo Cruz out of California? Yeah, he sang most of them. Cool. Hello, Pablo Cruz, man. Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds, another one. Oh, is that Greenville, Mississippi? Yeah. Joe Frank had a band in Greenville called Joe Frank and the Knights. Cool. On a per capita basis. It's hard to believe that tiny little town had that many people come from. Okay, forget Atlanta. We're going to Greenville, Mississippi, man. Wow, I'm getting a music history lesson from you, Bruce. Thanks, buddy. They'll be happy to hear that. I heard a new song of yours called Soft Dog. I saw the YouTube video just the other day, and just like Moonlight Feels Right, it just had that nice, really chill vibe. Tell us about that song and what inspired you to write that one. I've been playing this instrumental. My daughter had a dog. Most of the photos in there are Marilyn. That's my daughter's little King Charles Spaniel. And I had this instrumental, that da-da-da-da, da-da-da, that the piano starts with. I've been playing that little riff for years, and Marilyn loved that riff. She'd come and sit under the piano when I played it. And if I stopped playing it, she'd look at me and go, what are you doing? Keep going, you know. So my wife, one day, she said, you know, Bruce, you ought to – and I also would sing that first verse. She had a soft dog beside her. She got the moon roll for night. She's going to do this for the moment. She can get through the night. And that's all I had. But my wife said, Bruce, you really should make that a full song. She said, because there's so many young women that have their little dogs, and they say, you know, the dog is the best friend they ever had. So that's where the song came from. By the way, that's the opening song on the Starbuck 2022 album. I got the CDs in today. So that's going to be available on the MoonlightFeelsRight.com website. And I will have a link to it. Okay, I appreciate it. I'm going to have a link to it, and I'm also going to have a link to the YouTube video for Soft Dog because I want people to listen to it. Of course, I want people to listen to everything that you guys got, so you can be assured that we're going to have links out there, friend. Well, I appreciate it, man, really. Hey, it's our pleasure. Like they say at Chick-fil-A, it's our pleasure, you know. Yeah. If the music business didn't work out for you, what do you think you'd have done instead? I would imagine I would have been a band director, something involving probably at whatever level, high school, maybe college. It definitely would have been music for sure. Okay. Did you complete your degree? No. I was on a track scholarship, and I wanted to be – in fact, the band director I told you about, the junior high that brought the club to me, when I went to college, he was now the band director at Mississippi State. He got the job because he wrote so many marches that all these colleges all over the United States were using. So he's the best. He wanted me to be in the band, but the athletic director said I couldn't be in the band because it wasn't the right image for the athletes. Cool. And so, you know, and then my track coach was killed in a car wreck between my freshman and sophomore years. The track team collapsed because they had to let the golf coach become the track coach, and he didn't know anything about it. And I was in the Tardis's children's play. I had music full time, so I'm out of here. Wow. Well, is there anything else you'd like to add before we close? Not really. I just appreciate being on the air with you. Everybody come to MoonlightFeelsRight.com and check us out. Well, we do appreciate it, Bruce. Thank you again for the opportunity to interview, taking time out of your day. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for the history lesson. And, folks, we'll have the links out there, but please, for goodness sake, visit his website, MoonlightFeelsRight.com, to see his videos and to buy his merch. Also check out our live 365 Internet radio station, Chillin' with Steve. That's ChillinWithSteve.com to listen to an eclectic variety of classic hits from back in the day, including Moonlight Feels Right. Thank you very much, Bruce. You have a great one. Thanks, Steve. I enjoyed it. All right. Have a good day, sir. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. You have been listening to Steve Williams & Friends, created, hosted, and produced by yours truly, Steve Williams, for Subligna Valley Productions in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit us at SteveWilliamsAndFriends.com. Please direct all inquiries to Steve at SteveWilliamsAndFriends.com. Thank you for listening, and peace out, y'all.