Ever wonder what it's like to share a limo ride with rock royalty or to rub elbows with Hollywood legends? My guest, Jimmy Baron, you may remember him as Jimmy - a revered voice from the past on 99X Radio's Morning X, takes us behind the velvet rope of the entertainment world. As we reminisce about the heyday of alternative rock, he reveals the thrills of auditioning for a film that would become an 80s cult classic, "Risky Business."
The backseat of a limousine can be a treasure trove of tales when you're chauffeuring the icons of music, and Jimmy has a trunkload to share. From Grammy night escapades to chance run-ins with cinema greats, these stories aren't just about star-spotting—they're about the unexpected turns his career took, from the glitz of acting to the spotlight of radio. It's about the moments that chart a course you never planned but wouldn't trade for the world.
But what would a journey through music and memories be without the soundtrack that defines our lives? Jimmy doesn't just tell these stories; we celebrate the magic that happens when music legends share their humanity with us. Great stories about Elton John, Paul McCartney, and John Mellencamp. He talks of his love for Bruce Springsteen—stories of concerts that go beyond mere performances, becoming life-altering experiences intertwined with our personal narratives. Strap in for a ride through the reverberating echoes of our musical adventures.
Jimmy Baron and Associates
Keller Williams Realty, First Atlanta
jimmy@jimmybaron.com
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail.com.
Ever wonder what it's like to share a limo ride with rock royalty or to rub elbows with Hollywood legends? My guest, Jimmy Baron, you may remember him as Jimmy - a revered voice from the past on 99X Radio's Morning X, takes us behind the velvet rope of the entertainment world. As we reminisce about the heyday of alternative rock, he reveals the thrills of auditioning for a film that would become an 80s cult classic, "Risky Business."
The backseat of a limousine can be a treasure trove of tales when you're chauffeuring the icons of music, and Jimmy has a trunkload to share. From Grammy night escapades to chance run-ins with cinema greats, these stories aren't just about star-spotting—they're about the unexpected turns his career took, from the glitz of acting to the spotlight of radio. It's about the moments that chart a course you never planned but wouldn't trade for the world.
But what would a journey through music and memories be without the soundtrack that defines our lives? Jimmy doesn't just tell these stories; we celebrate the magic that happens when music legends share their humanity with us. Great stories about Elton John, Paul McCartney, and John Mellencamp. He talks of his love for Bruce Springsteen—stories of concerts that go beyond mere performances, becoming life-altering experiences intertwined with our personal narratives. Strap in for a ride through the reverberating echoes of our musical adventures.
Jimmy Baron and Associates
Keller Williams Realty, First Atlanta
jimmy@jimmybaron.com
Please Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes.
You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail.com.
Hey, this is Jimmy Baron. You may remember me as Jimmy on the Morning X on 99X Radio and you are listening to Jim Bois and Music in my Shoes.
Speaker 3:He's got the feeling in his toe-toe. He's got the feeling and it's out there growing. Hey everybody, this is Jim Bois and you're listening to Music In my Shoes. That was Vic Thrill kicking off episode 26. As always, I'm thrilled to be here with you. Let's learn something new or remember something old. One of the most influential alternative rock radio stations during the 1990s and mid-2000s was 99X, broadcasting right here from Atlanta, georgia, and for about 10 of those years their highly successful morning show was the Morning X with Barnes, leslie and Jimmy, and joining us in studio today is none other than Jimmy Baron. Jimmy, welcome to Music in my Shoes. It is. It's very cool to be here. So I'm going to try and make this the least confusing that I can for the listeners, with all three of us having similar names. We have me I'm Jim, show producer Jimmy, and our guest is Jimmy Baron, so that we can kind of set the field here for everybody.
Speaker 2:I got to say hats off to you for sticking with the M-Y at the end of the name. You know I'm a Jimmy, I'm not a Jim. No offense to Jim's Jim, but you know it's like sticking with the Jimmy.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. Who calls you Jim? Does anybody call you Jim People?
Speaker 2:from the Northeast. They think that they have to know me better to call me Jimmy.
Speaker 1:It's funny because you would think that when you got to a certain age, Jimmy's would become Jim. Right, Jimmy's kind of a kid name.
Speaker 2:The only people who call me Jim are my immediate family. I do have some close family that calls me Jim, that's it.
Speaker 3:And what's funny is my immediate family calls me Jimmy. They're the only people. Everybody else calls me Jim.
Speaker 1:But that makes sense, because as a kid you're Jimmy right and they still, you know, hang on to that. At some point you grow up to Jim or James if you really want to be Right. If you're not James your whole life, and then one day you decide you want to be James instead of Jimmy, that's kind of that's a little snooty, a little pretentious.
Speaker 3:I would agree with you on that, and I do not want to be James, just for the record there, I'm only James at the DMV. Me too Right.
Speaker 2:And I'm assuming you. Yeah, if somebody calls asking for James, I know it's like a bill collector or something.
Speaker 1:A doctor's office, yeah.
Speaker 3:He's not here, hey. So please tell us about being in risky business with Tom Cruise back in 1983.
Speaker 1:So there was a period of about six or seven years when I was living in LA that I pursued an acting career and I, you know, went out on auditions and I was asked to audition for this movie coming up called Risky Business and I actually had auditioned for the Tom Cruise role. Like I came back and re-read for casting directors and producers for the lead role in that movie, probably two or three times, and then my agent called me and said, hey, listen, I have some bad news. Uh, they were able to get, uh, this guy, tom cruise I don't know if you know him uh, he was just in this other movie called taps. I'm like, of course I know tom cruise and they're gonna and they're going with him for the lead. So I understood that they said but they would still like you to be involved in the movie if you want to at some point. There are other roles, some side roles. They didn't want to make me one of his best friends, I guess, because there were other you know his other group of friends and that was filmed in Chicago and it was actually filmed, I don't know, maybe three miles from my parents' house, really in the District of Niles West, niles East Niles North. That was filmed in the gym at Niles East High School over the summer of 81 or 82. They had built a movie set inside the gym at this high school. So the exterior of the house is somewhere in Highland Park, illinois. You could look it up on the Internet and find out where the Risky Business House was, but none of the interior of the house was filmed in what you know as the exterior of the house. They built the interior in the gym at this high school and so the scene originally.
Speaker 1:So the scene I was in was the scene where he's interviewing for college at the University of Illinois with Richard Masur in the library of his parents' house. This is during the big party scene with all the hookers running around, and that's when he does the famous. You know, sometimes you just got to say you know what the, and then it looks like University of Illinois, what the, and then looks like University of Illinois. Right Side note they had to do a bunch of takes because he kept on saying University of Illinois and the director, paul Brickman, had a cut a few times to say you know, come back and say Illinois, illinois, anyway. So I was the kid in the window, who knocks on the window in the middle of the interview and says, hey, joel, joel, this is my cousin Ruben from Skokie. Do you think you can get him in tonight?
Speaker 1:And I was nameless in the script but he just put my name in as he called me Jimmy in the scene because we had been hanging out for two or three days filming that one scene and we would talk between takes and you know, while they're setting all the lights and everything, I mean we're sitting there right next to each other. So we, you know, just kind of struck up a lot of conversation so he calls me Jimmy. That was just totally ad libbed. Um.
Speaker 1:But what was also kind of cool about that scene was the party scene. The girls that they used for the party scene were all playboy bunnies from the playboy club in downtown chicago and you poor kid right, and I was about 21 to 22 at the time, I think, when we filmed that and they didn't have like really proper dressing rooms at the high school. So it was kind of like, okay, all of you guys, you get dressed in. And they threw me in one of the locker rooms with all the Playboy buddies who would be changing into their costumes into their wardrobe, so it wasn't a bad gig, you didn't stay in film.
Speaker 3:If you could do that, that would be great. Just to be able to do that all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unbelievable. So it was cool and I'll tell you he was a great guy. He was actually my parents at the time owned this boat up in Lake Geneva, wisconsin, and we had a weekend break and he was going to come up there one weekend and hang out. I said hey, because he was in Chicago, he had nothing to do. I'm like, hey, you want to go hang out on our boat? It was like a little nothing boat. He's like, yeah, sure, and then they ended up having to film over the weekend so he couldn't do it. But I've always liked him and many, many years later we had him on the Morning X. This had to be oh, I mean, what was it? 82, 92, 2000? This had to be 30 years later. We had him on the Morning X and I was not there that day. I was on vacation that day and Barnes and Leslie were interviewing him and he totally remembered me Really.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:He totally remembered me it was. So you can say all the crazy things you want about Tom Cruise and the Scientology and the this and the that and the weird stuff, but I've always liked him and I think he's a great actor and I love his movies. He is a good actor.
Speaker 3:He does a good job, yeah, and still does a good job all these years later.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the Mission Impossible movies are awesome.
Speaker 3:They are. So, jimmy, I know that you were in the Sure Thing with John Cusack, right? I don't remember what you did in that movie. I'm going to be honest.
Speaker 1:Again, I had one line. It was at the fraternity. So he travels with his friend or his friend travels all the way across the country to meet this girl at a frat party and she was the sure thing. And he walks in with the guy and says and introduces the guy to me I forgot the character's name and I said um. I said oh yeah, I forgot the guy. Said Such and Such told me about you 2,000 miles just to get laid. Huh, I really respect that, something like that.
Speaker 3:So you actually were in one of my favorite TV shows from back in the day. I loved Quincy.
Speaker 2:I mean I did?
Speaker 3:I loved Facts of Life. I loved Quincy Heart to heart, robert Wagner. I enjoyed a lot of the different things that he's done. Um, and you were in mash. What did you do in mash?
Speaker 1:I had one line in mash. Uh, it was the. That was the first thing I ever did. Uh, I had one line, they wheeled me and the storyline was that, um winchester, I was there during the winchester era not the frank burns era, which was the better era the frank burns era was a better era.
Speaker 2:They'd used up a lot of good storylines after frank frank was great.
Speaker 1:frank burns was great, right, um and uh. So they wheel me into the or and hawkeye is about to operate on me and Winchester um, I'm sorry, winchester's about to operate on me and as he's about to, you know, ask for a scalp or whatever. Hawkeye reaches around and pulls the drawstring on his surgical gown and his pants drop and uh, he yells at Hawkeye. He said he says uh, pierce, are you crazy? I have a wounded man on the table. I was the wounded man. And then I jump up off the table because I'm not really wounded, I'm just in on this joke.
Speaker 1:And Winchester looks at me and he's like what's going on here? And I say I just point to Hawkeye and I say he made me do it Boom.
Speaker 3:Hey, but you know what? I've been in no TV shows and I've been in no movies, so you are way ahead of me.
Speaker 2:I mean, you've worked with some of the best actors around. It's kind of incredible, you know, and later I became yeah, I was very, very lucky.
Speaker 1:Later I became friendly just through happenstance with Alan Alda's daughter, Elizabeth. We were like in an acting class years later and the Aldas used to have an annual family or an annual Easter egg hunt at their house and I got to go to that one time and you know, hang out at the Alda's house.
Speaker 3:That would be pretty cool. I definitely think so. So I know you used to drive a limo back in the day, I'm assuming, when you were an actor and trying to make some men's meat.
Speaker 1:Yeah sure, Today you drive Uber. Back then you drove a taxi or a limo.
Speaker 3:So any good limo stories for us?
Speaker 1:So I had a couple of really cool limo stories. I had a couple of really cool limo stories. The most famous people, well, one time and it was after like the Grammys, I think and in my car at one time I had Ron Wood, eric Clapton, john McEnroe, wow, and it may have been Muddy Waters- Really, it was like insane, it was total insanity.
Speaker 1:And we went up to some house up in the hollywood hills at like. It was one of those deals where I picked them up at 10 o'clock at night and then drove them to some house up in the hollywood hills where they were jamming for three or four hours and I just hung out in the car and waited for them to all come out. But that was a cool but um, probably the was um at the time I was a huge John Mellencamp fan. I mean I still love his music. He's kind of a donkey, but you know, I mean that's always been his reputation. Uh, but I was a huge, huge fan.
Speaker 1:He was my Springsteen before Springsteen was my Springsteen Right and so I had an opportunity to drive him in the limo and um take him around to a bunch of meetings and whatever. So, uh, I picked him up from his hotel one time. He said very little uh, took him to a couple of places and the last place I took him to he was in there for like an hour and his luggage was still in my car and I was waiting for him because after the meeting I was going to just take him to the airport, and so I busted into his suitcase and stole an undershirt.
Speaker 3:No, you did not, I did.
Speaker 1:Oh my lord, I think the statute of limitations may be up on that now because that was like 1987. Wait a minute.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. Yeah, when you say an undershirt like a white T-shirt.
Speaker 1:White T-shirt.
Speaker 3:And what did you do with it?
Speaker 1:You'd think I would have held on to it, because that's what he. He wore the t-shirt with the cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve Right, right. You know the low-cut boots and you know I had a pair of low-cut boots because Mellencamp wore them.
Speaker 3:So what, I don't know what I did with it. So when you're doing this, I can't believe this. I'd never heard this before. But when you're doing it, are you looking all around to make sure he doesn't see you going in his luggage?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, for sure, yeah yeah, yeah, well, I'm sure I drove the car like somewhere around the corner or whatever, for a t-shirt Right, that is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll have to think back to some of the other limo stories, because I get asked radio stories all the time. I don't get asked a lot of limo stories, all right, and uh, those are. Oh, I got to, um, uh, so I used to take people on, uh, on tours of hollywood, of stars homes, like people I pick them up at the beverly, wilshire, and I knew where all the stars homes were and so they would say, hey, can you take us on a little mini tour of the stars homes? And one time I was driving up beverly boulevard or whatever it was and this is here and that's where lucille ball lives over here.
Speaker 1:This is the 80s, so people at that time that was a pretty lucille balls over here. And you know, tom jones lives over here and jimmy stewart lives over here. And oh, there's jimmy stewart. He was taking his garbage out. Jimmy stewart, I was like the best tour guide of all time. Not only am I showing them the homes, but I'm showing them the celebrities taking their garbage out. And he waved to them. But a few months later again crazy coincidence I was assigned to take Jimmy Stewart to some award show, to some award show and I'll never forget. So I knew I was picking him up. So I went out and got an old black and white headshot of Jimmy Stewart so I could get it signed to me later. And as I dropped him off back at his house and I said, mr Stewart, it's been a pleasure, he tipped me $50, and I said, thank you so much, it's been an honor to meet you and an honor to drive with you. And he said to me he said well, you drive pretty well and it's like.
Speaker 1:I'll always remember that and he signed my picture and it's hanging in my basement.
Speaker 2:I thought you were going to say that he said quit bringing people around when I'm trying to take my garbage out, did you?
Speaker 3:mention that at all to him. I don't, I don't think I did. Those are some good stories they. They definitely are. So I know you did some radio work after acting and then somehow, you know, you ended up on 99x. How did you end up there?
Speaker 1:I was in chicago. Um, I had gone there to produce a morning show for a chicago legend, uh, a radio legend, uh named jonathan brandmeier and anybody from the midwest knows who jonathan brandmeier is and that job ended up being terrible. It was an awful job. So I picked up another gig in Chicago working for this other guy whose name is Steve Cochran, who is now another Chicago radio legend in and of himself, on a rock station. And like a month or two later, station management came to us and said you know what? We're actually changing the format of the station and it's going sports talk, so we need you to actually do a sports talk show. And Steve and I are like well, that's a little different, because we're not sports show hosts.
Speaker 2:We're not sports talk hosts.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work that way in radio. You're not just interchangeable with another format like that. A new or an alternative guy can maybe do classic rock or pop or whatever, but you can't just take somebody who doesn't know anything about sports talk and say, here, do sports talk. So it became a big issue whatever. It became a big issue whatever. And Steve was a very good friend of a guy by the name of Brian Phillips who is a legendary radio programmer. Brian Phillips was down here at a news station called 99X and he had. He was interviewing Steve Cochran to do the morning show and when he because Steve couldn't do sports talks, he went down to see his friend Brian. So Brian Phillips wanted to interview Steve, wanted Steve to do the morning show. During the course of their interviews, steve had said well, listen, if I get this gig, just so you know, I have a producer that I want to bring with me and his name is Jimmy Barron, and he talked me up and said a lot of great things about me. Well, steve never ended up getting the gig.
Speaker 1:Okay, they went with Sean Demery and Leslie Fram to do the morning show on 99X, this fledgling station, and they were looking for a producer and they didn't know any. And Brian said I was just talking to this other guy and he was talking about this guy, jimmy Barron, who's up in Chicago, who's a pretty good producer. So they called me and I came down to Atlanta. I didn't really know if I wanted the gig because I didn't really know anything about alternative music. I was still kind of new in the business and I didn't really think I would be able to relate. I wasn't supposed to even be on the air. I just didn't know anything about the format.
Speaker 1:And they convinced me that you don't have to. We're not looking to you for your musical knowledge. You're not going to be a DJ, we just want you to produce our morning show. The morning show is going to be pop culture and interviews and games and fun and jokes. Like you could do that. So I came, they hired me to produce the show for Sean and Leslie. It then later became Barnes and Leslie and I became more a part of the on-air part of the show and it became Barnes and Leslie and I became more a part of the on-air part of the show and it became Barnes, leslie and Jimmy, and we called ourselves the Morning X. That was about 1990. Then it would have been about 1994.
Speaker 2:Right, I didn't realize you hadn't been an on-air part of it from the beginning. That's cool.
Speaker 1:No, I was off air and when I first started interjecting myself on air, at first I think they were a little annoyed. But you know, then I think they appreciated it and they appreciate a way you know, Sean and Leslie and I worked well together.
Speaker 1:Sean didn't have and Sean, you know, may he rest in peace a beautiful guy, you know. We, you know, I mean I owe so much to Sean he had never really done morning radio. He was kind of like a solo act. You know, just doing morning radio is not the same as being a solo DJ. It's about. It's really about like what the three of us are doing right now, although I'm doing most of the talking.
Speaker 3:That's because you're Jimmy Barron and we're not.
Speaker 1:Well, but it's. You know what I'm saying. I am the worst. We used to play my old tapes of me as a solo DJ, so awful. Even today, 40 years later, they are the most embarrassing thing. I'm so bad, so horrible. So, you know, sean's wheelhouse is being a D was being a DJ. So on occasion when Sean would go on vacation, barnes, who was the afternoon guy, would come in just to fill in, and so for a day or two or three it would be, you know, barnes, leslie and Jimmy. And as that happened more and more, we just all kind of came to realize that you know what Sean's strength would really be better in the afternoon, hosting afternoon drive by himself and Barnes when he's down here, the chemistry just seems to it just seems to flow better.
Speaker 1:The chemistry is better and it was kind of a you know. We all looked at ourselves in the room and said, yeah, this is what it needs to be.
Speaker 3:I had the opportunity to meet Sean Demery in the fall of 94 at a radio remote where I was working, so I spent the whole entire time with him. So if he needed something, I was the opportunity to meet Sean Demery in the fall of 94 at a radio remote where I was working, so I spent the whole entire time with him.
Speaker 3:So if he needed something. I was the person he would go to and he was just such a nice guy. He just it didn't seem like he was a radio person, he just seemed like a normal, regular guy.
Speaker 1:Very quiet, very soft-spoken, zero ego. To a fault. I mean to a fault, he had no ego, uh and uh, you know, knew the form. I mean he and leslie fram created 99x, which you know became a not just a legendary station in atlanta, in Atlanta, but was a modern rock station that really carried the torch for that format. You know, in the 90s I mean a lot of when you looked around the country at other stations that started following suit and playing and becoming 89X, 52x, you know, or Xs all over the place and becoming 89X and 52X, you know, or Xs all over the place. And I guess 91X in San Diego was before 99X, but certainly in the Southeast all those stations would look to see what we were doing and then kind of draft off that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, it seemed like every time a celebrity was on the show that they were friendly with all of you and that you were all friendly with them, and it seemed like a real conversation. It didn't seem like an interview and it was very different than any radio that I had listened to before. So are there people that you actually became real friendly with just from multiple interviews? I mean, first person that comes to mind would be Elton John. It seemed like Elton John, who doesn't do any alternative rock, is on 99X a lot, and you all seem to be like the closest of friends. That's the way it came off to me as a listener.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that if you look at any successful interviewer, it always seems that way. I mean, unless it's like a news, you know a news interviewer or something. But I mean, if you look, I mean Howard Stern is one of the great interviewers of all time. Because when you're listening to Howard show, you're listening to a conversation more than you are an interview. At least that's my feeling.
Speaker 1:And the people who, speaking for myself, the people who influenced me that I would listen to and say, yeah, that's how you want to do it, were all people who had conversations with their subjects and there is a little bit of skill and art in knowing how to get the person comfortable. You know you don't sit them down and immediately start asking them the questions that you know are going to be uncomfortable for them. The controversial stuff You're not going there, they don't know you. They, you know they're there to promote their movie Talk. You know you do your research. What are they like? Hey, you know I hear you're the assistant coach on your daughter's basketball team, you know. So that's really the stuff that you use Now.
Speaker 1:Elton, because of course, he lived in Atlanta at the time and Elton everyone who you know knew that Elton was very big into whatever was the newest music people were listening to. So he happened to have been a big fan of the radio station. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I mean he called us, I think, before we called him Really, yeah, and so he came up. I think he was only in the studio once, but was on the show a number of times and so one of my favorite celebrity stories. I mean in my life. I'm playing golf one day and my phone rings and hello, hey, jimmy, it's Elton. And I'm like, hey, hey, elton, how are you? And uh, he said, uh, you had a young man on the show, uh, recently who I really liked his stuff. He was very, very good and I was wondering if you could help me, help put me in touch with him. And I said sure, it was John Mayer.
Speaker 2:Oh, my Lord.
Speaker 1:So, you know, I hooked him up, I gave him his, however, I gave him the number and he thanked me and he said well, listen, I'm going out on tour for a couple weeks, but when I come back, I would love to have you and Leslie up, for I'd love to have you and Leslie for dinner one night. And I said, oh sure, that would be sure that. And I said, oh sure, that would be great. There's this great, in fact, there's a great Mexican restaurant that just opened up right near your condo. And he said, no, no, no, you'll come here for dinner. And I'm like, oh, that would be amazing. So like that's going to really happen. Two weeks later, hey, jimmy, it's Elton, you know, I was wondering if you and Leslie would like to come for dinner next Tuesday night and I said we would love to, that would be wonderful. He said, well, do you want to check with her, make sure it works?
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm pretty sure it works. I'm pretty sure that will work. No Matlock's on that night. I can't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could not imagine what Leslie might have that would preclude her from going up to Elton John's house for dinner. And we met and we went up to Elton's house for dinner and it was this is back. He just sold his condo recently. As you know, he had two whole floors at Park Place Tower on Peachtree. He had two floors that he bought and turned them into one massive two-story condo. And the one thing that I remember from that night more than any was we were going. He showed us around the house and he brought us into his closet and he had this cabinet there and it was a cabinet full of nothing but his glasses because he always had different glasses, really and he opened up the drawer and, like that was from Dodger Stadium, those glasses, those were from Captain Fantastic those glasses.
Speaker 1:There were these glasses sitting there that, like you, remembered seeing him in famous concerts and famous pictures. It was so cool.
Speaker 3:And there they were just in a drawer, I'd have my phone out, I'd be snapping pictures. Oh try it I.
Speaker 1:we have no documentation from that night. Zero documentation from that night.
Speaker 3:Really. No, because you're not going to yeah, hey, elton, do you mind if I take a picture? Jimmy knows me, I'm that guy. Oh, you would do it.
Speaker 2:I would do that, but you also didn't get invited to Elton John's house for dinner. I did not, to be fair, yeah there's just.
Speaker 1:You got to read the room, you got to feel it out and you know so.
Speaker 3:I know you guys interviewed Paul McCartney and Paul McCartney is probably my favorite musician of all time right and again, I heard it not that long ago and you just sounded so comfortable. It just sounded like you were all friends. What? What's it like interviewing a former beetle? And are you a beatles fan? Are you a paul mccartney fan? Oh god, yeah, of course I mean absolutely um, I mean, you're obviously reverential.
Speaker 1:Okay, the trick is to not Chris Farley out right, Like that's what, exactly what you're thinking not to do? You may be doing it in your head, but I think that's what separates the you know, the good from the bad. Now, look, I and I don't mean I don't say this to disparage like Jimmy Fallon, but sometimes the gushing over celebrities, like that's not my favorite thing to see, Right, Like the gushing and the fawning and the bootlicking, Like I don't like hearing that as a listener or watching that as a viewer. He's extraordinarily talented, but that's not my favorite style. So you know, you just try to be cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's you know it definitely came across that way, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:I mean we're, you know, listen Off Mike, I can promise you. I don't remember distinctly, but I'm sure that Off Mike, while he was talking, leslie and I because, well, it was Leslie and I who did the interview Barnes wasn't in on that interview. Leslie and I, off mic, we were probably looking at each other while he's talking, mouthing like it's Paul McCartney. I can't believe it's Paul McCartney. You know we're freaking out, but that's not how you act. During the interview, barnes wasn't on the interview because Barnes would leave the studio 10.02. He had his nap, he had tennis, he had his routine. And I said we're going to interview Paul McCartney tomorrow at 2 o'clock and he's like, eh, you guys do it. It's nap time for me, you guys do it.
Speaker 2:I noticed he wasn't on the invite list to Elms either.
Speaker 1:So you know, that's just who he is. He's like, it just wasn't that interesting to him. All right, it's okay.
Speaker 3:I am giving up anything to be interviewing Paul McCartney, right? Yeah, there's no doubt about it, and we talked about it a few episodes ago. You know people that you know you might want to meet and you know, without me thinking, the first person would be Paul McCartney. Yes, hands down, paul McCartney.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree, and also because of you know in interviews that I've seen with him and read and heard he's a good interview. Like there are some people who are just not great interviews and so it's not a big deal, but he, you know, he's a really good interview.
Speaker 3:He remembers a lot. He does he has a lot of history to tell you.
Speaker 1:Yes, and.
Speaker 3:I really enjoy it and I enjoy all the interviews that he does.
Speaker 2:And he wants it to work. You know he's not being combative, he's like wanting to get this.
Speaker 1:you know conversation flowing, I remember he told us a funny story about how you know, because we were asking him about how about when he meets like real crazy beetle fans like you know, the ones who have every book and have read every subtext and every analysis of every lyric and he's telling us how he was in some shop and some woman came up to him and asked him about the meaning of a lyric or the meaning of a song. And he told her because she said to him I was trying to explain to my husband that what that song means is yada, yada, yada. And my husband said that I was wrong. And so Paul said no, actually it does mean what your husband. It just means this. It's not what you think it is. And she started getting in, she started disagreeing with him.
Speaker 1:And he's telling us this story. He says but ma'am, I wrote the song, I know.
Speaker 3:You know, the one thing I'll say about Paul McCartney is it's one of the bands the Beatles with my kids. Our group texting is called the Beatles with my children and we went in 2022 and we saw Paul McCartney play at Winston-Salem in North Carolina. My oldest flew in from Texas and I told them all when the show was going to be and where we're going to go, and it is such a fun thing being with your family watching an artist. That was super important to me when I was in elementary school all the way up till now and being able to share that. That's how much Paul McCartney kind of means to me.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to argue with him over a lyric and I don't think I'm the biggest Beatle fan, but it's definitely a family thing for us and for Christmas, you know, I got one of my daughters a picture that was taken from backstage at that show we were at and she absolutely loved it. Like those little tiny things mean a ton. Yeah, and you know, I know, that you have a son and wife. Do you have any music or anything that you guys like together?
Speaker 1:uh, no, um, my son, my son, he's 17. His entire universe is sports. He has no musical passion, knowledge, really care at all. Dare I say he doesn't really like music. It's a crazy thing to think. Like who can say how do you really like music? It's a crazy thing to think, how do you not like music? I mean, his knowledge of music extends to major league baseball player walk-up songs. That is his world of music. Now he did go see Travis Scott in concert a few months ago.
Speaker 1:That was like a big deal in our house. That was a big fight, you know, whether to let him go or not. Let him go at first, anyway. But so music and I did take him to a Springsteen concert when he was about 10. There was like a minute when he was growing up, there was a minute that I thought he was going to really be into springsteen. So for those of you know so, I should set it up by saying springsteen is my mccarty, springsteen is where my musical world begins and ends. You know, I've seen him probably 65, 70 times, wow. And so you know, I had an opportunity to take him to a show. I just wanted the experience of seeing Springsteen with my son and we had a great time. But he has no musical knowledge or inclination that I'm aware of. Likes. My wife is a lot younger than I am. She's, uh, 16 years younger than I am, so her music is mostly music from the 90s, which, uh, I mean I like it.
Speaker 1:You know she went to see madonna a few weeks ago um and uh, and she likes Elton and the Rolling Stones, but I don't think she, but she doesn't have, she doesn't have a passionate, an artist that she's that passionate about, like what we're talking about. Do you think, do you guys think that the connection with an artist like you with McCartney, like me with Springsteen I'll go to a Springsteen show and there are songs that will bring me to tears. Okay, jimmy, are there do you have an artist like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the Clash, the Clash Okay.
Speaker 1:And obviously you know it's McCartney for you, right, Jim? Yes, and Springsteen for me. Do you think that that is more of a male thing than a woman thing or a female thing, or do you think that there's no gender bias there?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of Taylor Swift fans and Beyonce fans would say it's not just a male thing.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, right, fair enough.
Speaker 2:Okay, For rock bands it's probably kind of a male thing, right? Yeah, maybe All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point I would agree on that, yeah, but she doesn't have someone like that.
Speaker 3:And it's a shame. I think everybody should, but most people don't. At the end of the day, most people don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't know, I don't know. I I took her to see bruce and um she, because I wanted her to experience what this is. You know, I have a friend here in atlanta, billy planer's his name, and he and I met through our love of springsteen. We've become very close friends since then and um, when my wife akira, when we were engaged, I remember Billy said to me one time um, does she know about Springsteen? Like, does she know about, does she know about your Springsteen side? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like. You know, sweetie, you know, every three or four years when Bruce goes on tour, I will be going away a lot by myself to meet my Springsteen wife, billy. And no, but you know, and like and jump, and and and soak, soak in. And we went one time. She loved the show and she's like great show, don't need to do it again, which was exactly what I wanted to hear.
Speaker 3:So what was the first year that you saw Springsteen?
Speaker 1:I saw Springsteen for the first time at the LA Coliseum in 1985. It was the Born in the USA tour.
Speaker 2:That's later than I would have expected, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it was the first. Now, that's not when I first got into him. I got into him. In the late 70s, my best friend bought me the Born to Run album and it was like nothing, because I grew up in the 70s and I loved disco, I loved pop, I loved everything that was considered not cool at the time, although, now. I look back on it and I was like you know what the Bee Gees are actually great.
Speaker 1:Yeah they are. But he bought me the Born to Run album and that album changed my entire prism of how I saw music. And I saw Bruce at the LA Coliseum with my girlfriend Joan and those were legendary concerts, right, those Coliseum concerts, and it was about three songs in to a three-and-a-half-hour Springsteen show that my girlfriend broke up with me.
Speaker 1:She decided that was the time. Now she was an alcoholic. Okay, that was the time to break up with me. So the rest of the show was spent under the stands in the concourse arguing and fighting and crying. And well, joe, no, why are you doing this? I don't want to, but I'll be better. Whatever you know. And the whole show was, you know, shot. And so I bought a scalp ticket for the next day's show and enjoyed it by myself.
Speaker 3:That's so funny. I've seen Bruce once and it was in, I believe, in 1988. And I only went because my girlfriend at the time was a huge Bruce fan. She loved him.
Speaker 1:Was that Tunnel of Love? Yes, it was the Tunnel of Love tour.
Speaker 3:And you know, you could see the signs of we're kind of breaking up and I'm like I'm going to do this big thing, I'm going to get us tickets, Madison Square Garden, we're going to go and this is going to cement us and we're going to be back together. We go to the show and two rows in front of us, Regis Philbin and his wife I think her name's Joy yes, it was and they sat two rows in front of us and I'm like, look at this. I got a seat. I knew Regis was going to be. I had no idea Regis was going to be there. I ended up loving it because at 11 o'clock back in the day in New York, with the union and everything, lights went on.
Speaker 3:The show is over and Bruce is like I don't care if the lights are on. He played 30 more minutes after the house lights are all on. So I was really impressed with what he did and how he gave everything to his fans and I was like, yeah, it was all right, I didn't become a huge Bruce fan, but I definitely respected him and started to like some of his songs Me and the girl didn't last that much longer.
Speaker 1:It was over.
Speaker 3:It was over. Yeah, it was over. We weren't. We weren't like understands crying and everything right, it was over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, and it's amazing. You know, like uh, I just you know, the rolling stones opened their tour this week in in uh, houston, and I was looking at the set list and, okay, they're a little older, I think they're in their 80s.
Speaker 1:Uh, and I was looking at the set list and and okay, they're a little older, I think they're in their 80s, and I was looking at the set list and Jagger sounds great and he moves around great he does and they published the set list of 18 songs or 19 songs. You know, bruce is in his 70s and his shows are still three hours. They're three hours, they've been shortened to three hours and on average does about 28, 29 songs. Taylor Swift did that on this last tour. I think she was doing like 40 songs a night or something, but beyond that nobody is doing that. Now. Not many people have a catalog that big, but still artists just don't do it. I mean, he is still doing it.
Speaker 2:Well, talk about somebody that loves to play. So when? When? Paul McCartney?
Speaker 1:did the show in Piedmont park about. Oh, that was a great show, Great show.
Speaker 2:I took my kids, which is like they're never going to forget this. They're going to be telling their grandkids in 2080 that they got to see Paul McCartney live. But uh, and and, we got in the back gate, so we were right up front. But the night before my neighbor calls and says you got to come down to the park, paul's just playing, like he's been playing for an hour. We went down there. Paul played for like two hours all these old 50 songs that he loved, like on stage at the park the night before.
Speaker 1:On stage at the park the night before. I never heard that story and you could stand at the fence.
Speaker 2:You couldn't quite get in completely, but you could stand close enough where you could see him. And he just played and played. He could have done a sound check. He could have had his guitar tech do the sound check, wow, but he played for a couple hours.
Speaker 1:I don't remember ever hearing that story and you would think that would have been a huge thing. That's very cool, Not that many people were there.
Speaker 3:That is a very cool story, and for more cool stories, please listen next week on part two of our interview with Jimmy Barron. That's it for episode 26 of Music in my Shoes. I'd like to thank Jimmy Barron, our guest, as well as Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of Arcade 160 Studios located here in Atlanta, Georgia, and Vic Thrill for our podcast music. This is Jim Boge, and I hope you learned something new or remembered something old. We'll meet again on our next episode. Until then, live life and keep the music playing. I'm ready to go.