Donnie Clinton Thompsonon his fameswerving peripatetic pal: “He’s one of a kind”
Can you remember the first time you met Jonathan?
Sure. Lou Whitney and I were playing with Steve Forbert in San Francisco. Jonathan was there too. He came back to the hotel a erwards. We befriended him and he ended up sleeping on the oor of the hotel room. We got along with him from the get-go.
If Jonathan Goes Country is anything to go by, you seemed to click immediately in the studio.
Well, pretty much – although, if you’re too thin-skinned, don’t ask Jonathan what he thinks about something. Because he will tell you exactly. The album was done in two separate week-long sessions, and during the rst one Jonathan said he wanted to do a record that sounded like Nashville. So we did an instrumental of “Your
Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” and afer Jonathan had left the first session, I added a solo on the song that was kind of a cross between Chet Atkins and Hank Garland. It sounded kind of a little bit jazz, because there’s always been a little bit of jazz in country since the 1930s. Anyway, Jonathan came back to town, we’re sitting there listening, and he goes, “That’s the worst guitar solo I ever heard you play!” I was kind of hurt and oended at the same time, but I didn’t get mad. I explained to him that he wanted Nashville so I was just trying to do a something which honours that part of country that’s a bit jazz – I mean, most of the big-name singers’ back-up bands would make instrumental records and they were really jazz. He kind of accepted that. That’s the only time things got crossed.
How did the average day together pan out?
I don’t have too many specic memories of things that happened, because everything pretty much went according to plan. You remember the unusual things, though. For “The Neighbors”, our friend Jody Ross came in to do the girl part. Jonathan went home and played it to his wife, who said, “Whoever you’ve used for the girl part, she sounds too sexy. You gotta change that.” So we brought Jody back in and he asked her to cool it down. I thought that was really funny.
“Corner Store” is an incredibly prescient song. The dominance of shopping malls and retail chains – it’s all predicted by a song that was written in the mid-’80s, when Starbucks still only had six stores.
Sure, he saw it all coming down the line. We were working on that song and I was really trying hard to get the solo right. Lou says, “Let’s go eat and we’ll try again later.” We went to a Mexican restaurant and I ordered a margarita that turned out to be so big I had to use both hands to pick it up. Long story short, I got a little buzzed. I went back to the studio, picked up the guitar and nailed it on the rst take.
You all sound like you’re having a blast on “You’re Crazy For Taking The Bus”.
We were! And every word of that song is true. It’s what he would do. Jonathan took the bus from California to Missouri. We’re right in the middle of the country. Once he was here, he came with us in our van. He’s always moving around. The section of my little black book with Jonathan in it is a mess – with lots of addresses scratched out because he’s moving all the time.
How would you describe Jonathan to someone who doesn’t know him?
He’s one of a kind, he really is. I’ve never met anybody like him. He’s not a conventional performer or singer, or a conventional thinker. He surprises me all the time. He takes stands on certain things and you don’t initially understand and then over time you nd he’s usually right. And he’s always been like that, at least in the 40-something years I’ve known him. I remember one time we were talking about [ Richman’s former Beserkley labelmates] The Rubinoos – and I said that, in a just world, he and The Rubinoos should be really big. He said, “No, I don’t want to be big. I like what I’m doing.” I remember once going to a grocery store with him and he just started singing and dancing going down the aisle – that’s just the way he is. Are we still in touch? Sure! Jonathan doesn’t do email. You gotta write letters to him. I get a postcard or a letter from him every now and then. You know, I’ve got a lot of musical heroes, but Jonathan is the only one I actually get to call a friend. INTERVIEW: PETE PAPHIDES
Jonathan goes, ‘That’s the worst guitar solo I ever heard you play!’ I was kind of hurt”