1993 INTERVIEW

S = Standifer
C = Calloway

S Cab, first of all, it's a delight to have you speak with us today, and I'd like to talk a little about your experiences with Minnie the Moocher. Who is Minnie the Moocher?
CWell, Minnie the Moocher's an unknown character. I don't know, we chose her, and made something out of her. And we just sort of idolized her after that.

S I saw a cartoon 'Bettie Boop' with you singing 'Hidy - Hidy - Ho.' How did that come about?
C Well, I did quite a few of those short subjects with Bettie Boop. And she was a delight to work with, she was a wonderful...

S Did you do any other cartoons?
C Yes, I did the 'Old Man in the Mountain' and 'Saint James Infirmary.' [cut for camera direction]

S Did you ever meet George Gershwin?
C I met him in the Cotton Club back in I think it was 1929, 1930. I met him. He was a frequent visitor of the Cotton Club, and that's when I met him. Quite a wonderful man.

S Ok. Could we do that once again. I want to ask you just to repeat the name Gershwin for me in your answer. Did you ever meet George Gershwin and what are some of things that he said to you when he first saw you when you met him?
C [laughs] That's pretty hard to recollect. When I met George Gershwin at the Cotton Club in the '20s, he was quite a patron of the Cotton Club. He was coming up there [mumbles] to the role of 'Sporting Life.' But then I went - I had my first trip to Europe. That was in 1935. And I didn't do it.

S Did he try to pressure you at all?
C Oh yes, he tried to get me but I just couldn't do it. I wasn't available.

S When he visited, did you hear about him visiting Harlem just to get some idea about the characters in Porgy and Bess.
C No, no. He was at the Club, I think, to enjoy those wonderful shows we had.

[battery change]

S I know in Denver was the place that you were asked to do the role of Sporting Life. Could you tell us about who came to talk to you and how you ultimately got involved in the role of Sportin Life.
C Well, I was playing a night club in Denver. ______ Davis came out to see me, came out to the club, and we had a meeting. And he asked me if I was still interested in doing the role of Sporting Life. Through the conversation, I said, 'Well, consult my manager and see if I'm available.' So he did and I think it was there that I started studying the role.

S What were your actions when you first saw this character. I know you knew about it earlier, but what were some of your feelings and reactions about Sporting Life and doing it?
C I felt I could do it. I felt it was patterned after me. And I consented to do it. And I did it for years.

S Now I read in Dallas that that first performance wasn't to your liking, and the reviewers didn't like you very much. Could you tell us something about that - after that, when you first went on stage and things happened.
C Well, I was like any other performer, I mean it was all new to me, and I did the best I could. And the character fitted and I did it. I may not have been as he wanted me to be the first show, but nobody does a first show that's perfect.

S Did you feel depressed or dejected after a while?
C No, I don't feel depressed about nothing - no time about anything. So it didn't worry me.

S Did you change the role? Did you do any - what did you bring to this Sporting Life that maybe some others Sporting Lifes like Bubbles and Long and others didn't bring to the role?
C Well I'm the first one that ever sang the role. The rest of them danced it, talked it, and I'm the first one to sing it. I sang all of the arias, all of them. And I was the first Sportin Life that did that.

S Now that was quite a pleasure, because - well, if it was patterned after you, the music was written for your range and all of that.
C That's what I said. I mean, it's a tough role. But I did it. I did it for years and enjoyed it.

S Did you - did the role grow? I understand that ______ was always changing things? Did he bother you at all about, or permit you to improvise?
C He gave me a whole lot of advice, and I used it. I did the role the way he wanted it. I did the role the way it should have been done.

S When you say 'it should have been done,' what do you mean by that?
C I mean Sportin Life was known to do things [words indiscernible] - and I did it the way it should be.

S What about Leontine Price? She was young also and just getting started and you were an experienced performer. Could you give us just some impressions about Leontine Price in that role as Bess, both in America and in Europe?
C Leontine was remarkable. She was young, inexperienced, but the voice got her by [mumbles] Everything fit. That's all.

S How would you compare Leontine to any other Bess's? Were there any other Bess's in the performances that you did?
C They had maybe four Bess's, three or four Bess's. They changed every other show. Leontine was the best of all of them. She's the best Bess I've ever seen.

S Singing? Acting?
C The whole role. In everything. Perfect. We had a great show. It was a great show. Everybody in that show did their parts remarkably well. That's why the show was such a big hit. That why we stayed open so long. Could still be going.

S Could you just describe for us for a few minutes those things that stand out even at this date to you? Talk about any one performer, two performers, three performers. If you just had to reminisce for a while. The things that were really the great moments.
C One of my greater moments in the show was when we went to Vienna, and we went to the Vienna Opera House, and the Vienna Symphony played the show, and it was just infallible. It was fantastic. And that was my biggest thrill. To hear, to work with the Vienna Symphony which was classified at that time as one of the finest orchestras in the world. And to play with them is fantastic. That was the biggest thrill I ever got.

S Were there any other moments in the other performances, during the performances, that were unusual or striking? Not just you, but any other things with the other performers, for example.
C No, we were an established group and there couldn't be anything other than the show that we were interested in or did.

S Alright, I saw the Viennese film - ______ showed me day before yesterday. Now, if you had to describe the setting before, after and during the bar scene - you know, where you performed at the bar, that was just terrific. I mean it was just... goosebumps just came up on my skin. And then also Warfield doing the lead in the recital. But how did that - something led up to that, and what happened during the process and after that you can recall? How did that come about? That's very unusual, I thought.
C No. We were just invited to the _______ . And that's how it all happened. We all went there, and then - it's drinking the beer, that Viennese beer. [both laugh] Having a wonderful time.

S Did you just jump up and begin to sing, or did they orchestrate that, or what?
C Oh, we more or less did that to entertain ourselves. [laughs] Only a few of us did it. So we were entertaining each other.

S Can you tell me, tell the camera, what took place in that particular, those vignettes. In other words, who sang and what did you sing?
C Well, it's a - we were asked, as far as I can remember [mumbles] - it was just a party. It was our night off. And we went to the party. And we partied. And we entertained each other. That's all there is to that.

S How is it that this got on tape? Did they follow you around with the camera or what?
C Oh, I don't know. But that old tape was very good. [laughs]

S Porgy and Bess is still and then and before considered to have stereotyped roles. Can you talk a little while about your opinions about that, especially, let's say, to young children or to many of the young people who want to know, and maybe talk intelligently about the role of Porgy and Bess and its other characters.
C Well, uh, Porgy and Bess to me is always gonna be the greatest thing I've ever done. Now, we're gonna, and matter-of-fact, I am going to record with the Cincinnati Pops, I'm gonna record 'It Ain't Necessarily So' and 'The Boat's Leaving Soon For New York.' Both of those songs I'm recording with them. Now, I've done a lot of recording with the Cincinnati Symphony before, but this is another thing that they wanted to do. And they asked me to do it and I'm gonna do it. Porgy and Bess will always live as long as there's time, because it is actually one of the few American operas that we've ever had. Because there are not too many now, American operas.

S In the '50s in particular it didn't get very many rave reviews from the black press and some of the black organizations, and some of the white press in terms of its characterization of blacks. Cincinnati, incidentally, was one of the - newspapers in Cincinnati was one of the papers that was very critical of the role of Sportin Life and Bess. How did you feel and what do you think now in retrospect about the stereotyped characters, or if they are stereotypes?
C They were not stereotypes to me. You see, to me it made no difference who it was - black, white, green or yellow. It makes no difference to me. I never distinguish one race from another, one color from the other. It's all the same to me, and that's my idea. I don't preach prejudice, segregation. I don't classify Porgy and Bess as a black opera. I classify it as an opera. Why does it got to be a black opera? It's an opera.

S Well would you disagree with George Gershwin when he says 'a negro opera'?
C Yes. Because negro was a term that we ______ at one time. Showed you - you know don't know were you're going or what you want to do. You went from negro and you went black.

S In the '20s and '30s when Porgy was playing, for example, and there was an awful lot of hullabaloo about that opera being very racist in its characterizations, did you hear very much from people like Wilson or Elvin Ellis or Abby Mitchell or any of those?
C No.

S Langston Hughes?
C No. I didn't hear nothing about it. Cause I didn't listen. [mumbles] Everybody is alike to me. I don't care what your color is, I don't know - you're a person, that's all.

S Do you think that Hayward, who wrote the book and the play - he felt that he was interpreting the black as he really was and is. That's what he says in his book; in fact, in Charleston a few days ago he points out that he thought that the unique thing about black people is that we were primitive in those days and we had a sense of something that made us unique from white people - and he wrote the part. And Gershwin was tantalized by that fact. Do you think that Sportin Life is a primitive characterization of blacks?
C No. He wrote the role of the play. You don't want to do it, alright then don't. He didn't write it as 'this has gotta be black.' We had white people in the cast.

S But they did white roles, didn't they?
C [laughs] Come on. White roles. You gonna stop and say his role is this he gotta be that?

S But Gershwin himself said, 'I only want white people to talk. I don't want them to do - ' He didn't want the blackface character, for example. He even went to far as to say, 'If this opera is done, I want it to be done by black people only.'
C Well they had white in there.

S What did you think about Duke Ellington's -

[interruption]

S In the Depression [interruption again] - I know you were in Harlem playing in the Depression. Do you remember one of the clubs that you might have been playing in at that time? And can you describe the atmosphere and jazz in the clubs? Did things die with the big crash?
C During the Depression, I was in the Cotton Club. I played at the Cotton Club, oh, I'd say six years, six or seven years. And it was a great place. It was in the heart of Harlem. We had the greatest shows, nightclub shows, cabaret shows, that were ever produced. And we had the finest music that ever was produced. Ellington was one of the greatest composers America's ever known. He's a very, very outstanding man. And we had beautiful girls with the music, and great talent. We - it was hard to get into the Cotton Club. You had to have a reservation in order to get in there, if you wanted to see a show. If you had a reservation, you had the money to pay for what was being offered, you got in. Now a lot of them have been pointing at the Cotton Club saying it was a very prejudiced place, wouldn't let anybody in unless they were somebody. That's what I'm saying. If you had a reservation, you could get in. The cover charge was two dollars and a half - my gosh, that was a ton of money, that's like $50. And we did our shows religiously. We worked so hard at them. We produced them. And on top of that, the Cotton Club at every holiday - the holiday seasons, Thanksgiving, Christmas - we distributed baskets of food to people in Harlem. Thousands of them packed with turkeys and chickens. [mumbles] You couldn't buy a chicken. You couldn't buy a steak. We gave away 3,000 baskets, all of the entertainers and musicians would come to the Cotton Club and pack these baskets and then distribute them. And we had lines of thousands. Up Lennox Avenue when the baskets were given, you could come up and get a basket. And we delivered thousands. Nobody's ever said that. Nobody ever knew that. They say they didn't know that. They never said anything about it. But that's what we did in Harlem at the Cotton Club. And if it hadn't been for it, a lot of families wouldn't have really made it up there at night in Harlem.

S Were the jazz clubs empty during the Depression and places like the theater where Porgy was being played at the time in '27, '28?
C No.

S Or did the crowd continue to come to Harlem in the Depression?
C They came to Harlem. You see, during the Depression you'll find that the entertainment business gets bigger than it ever was. That's the reason. People want to be entertained. They want to forget about what's going on. That's why our show's so big, and we had all the elite of the world would come and play the Cotton Club. That's how we made it.

S Did any of the performers in Porgy come in during that time in '29, '30? In the play, like Elvin and Ellis, or -
C Not that I know of.

S Did Duke ever talk about Porgy and Bess?
C Duke?

S Duke Ellington, yes.
C No. No. At that time he was writing his own stuff, and it's still great.

S Any other performers like Fletcher Hendersen or Louis Armstrong? I know you at Connie's Inn - tell us something about Connie's Inn and Connie's Hot Chocolates.
C Well, I didn't work in Connie's Inn. I was in Connie's Hot Chocolates. I brought a band from Chicago to New York to play the ________ . And we bombed. We were only there for two weeks. Got our notice on our opening night. The band broke up after that. And I went to Louis Armstrong, who was in Connie's Hot Chocolates and playing at Connie's Inn, to see if he'd give me a job 'cause I'd worked for him in Chicago. He wasn't one to tell me about the roles that were open in Connie's Hot Chocolates. So I went for an audition and I got the role. And I played it for about a year or so. _____ came back, and I took over another band, I took over the Missourians.

[end tape #1]

S I would like to get some more on here about Porgy and Bess. I'm gonna digress to that and then segue back to where we were. In other words, we're going to the '40s and then into Porgy.

[discussion of what to talk about between interviewer and others]

S You have said earlier that you always felt that Porgy and Bess was a great opera, and Gershwin always felt it was going to be a great opera. All kinds of Gershwianas coming out now - what were your feelings about the opera when you first heard about it and then performed in it - its future? Its winning all kinds of - did you feel it was gonna win - take its place in history?
C Well, at the time, I mean, I don't know what kind of feeling I could say I had other than a feeling for it to be a success and stay as a successful vehicle. I admire Porgy and Bess, and I say, and the world continues say, it being one of America's operas, only operas. American opera. That's what it is. And it was done very, very good. Those that have seen it would know it. How long ago after that - I don't know anything other than - I told you I'm recording tunes from the opera. And they are all of my concerts. I do pop concerts from coast to coast and country to country. Porgy and Bess is included. There's not a concert that I've ever done that I don't do, 'It Ain't Necessarily So' and 'There's a Boat Leaving Soon For New York.' So that within itself can prove what Porgy and Bess was.

S Have you heard some of the recordings Billie Holiday or Nina Simone or any of the other black jazz performers, Miles Davis - what do you think about what they do with Porgy and Bess?
C It's still a great opera. They can take the music and do anything they want to do with it. Stylize it way we feel like it. It's still Porgy and Bess. Gershwin's music will live forever.

S In the '40s, the big bands began to wane, of course, and when you got this opportunity to Porgy, did it become a shot in the arm for you and your career?
C Oh, I don't know. It kept my career alive. That's all I know. I probably wouldn't have been around if I hadn't had those _____ years in Porgy and Bess. _______ been going all together 62 years. And I do Porgy and Bess, 'It Ain't Necessarily So,' 'There's a Boat Leaving Soon,' those Sportin Life songs, in every performance that I give.

S Could I hear you do a little 'It Ain't Necessarily So'? I'm a singer, too, now. [laughs] In fact, we're both tenors.
C Well, I wouldn't ask you to do any singing when you just come out of the dentist's chair -

[they laugh]

S No. Well this is history. If you were sitting in a dentist's chair, that would be fine. [laughter] I saw you do a little on your birthday, Cab 75. You did 'Hidy-Hidy-Hidy-Ho' on there. Could you give us a line or two.
C It was 74.

S This is double GBH that did that.
C 84 is up.

S 75.
C 85 is coming up.

S Ah, ok, that's good. Now you just do just that little snitchet so we'll have this documentary of Cab doing a couple of lines of 'It Ain't Necessarily So.' [sings; they laugh]
C [Cab sings]

[interruption]

S You know, I had hold myself to keep from applauding on camera here. Wonderful.
C We're working on the picture.

S Director? How about Debbie Allen?
C Debbie Allen, I'm gonna be my director. Talented girl.

S Who would play the role or Porgy - I mean, who would play the role of Cab?
C I don't know. I've been preaching on, trying to get [knocks on something] - I can't think of the boy's name. He's having a TV show here recently - Holmes! Clinton Holmes. Very talented.

[phone interrupts]

S The movie Porgy and Bess was very controversial. Did you see that movie, Cab.
C I think I did. Yeah, I think I did.

S What are your impressions about the movie and the controversy that surrounded it. And there were some having to do with racial controversies. But what do you think about the movie in general?
C The movie wasn't what it should have been. The movie was fair. It had a lot of good talent in it, but it didn't have the Leontine Prices, the Bill Warfields. It didn't have that. It wasn't there. That's how it was received. It was a sensational picture. It didn't break up the continuity of bad shows. It was fair.

[interruption]

S Sidney Poitier said he regrets to this day having done Porgy and Bess. He says the best thing in it as far as he was concerned was Sammy Davis Jr. How do you feel?
C I think Sammy did a fair job. He didn't do the real Sportin Life. He gave his conception of Sportin Life. The real conception of Sportin Life was right here [points to himself]. I'm the real Sportin Life. Every time I do a show, when I get ready to do 'Ain't Necessarily So,' 'Boat' - I always tell my audience, 'I had the pleasure of being in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. I played the role of Sportin Life. I played the role of Sportin Life so long, that they begin to call me Life's Old Sport. Now there's nothing better than being an old sport, is it? Alright.' That's Porgy and Bess for me.

S So you like what George Gershwin did to the Porgy and Bess characters then.
C Yeah. I thought it was characterized very, very good.

S In your view, who are the characters in Porgy and Bess? Are they the blacks of the '20s or '30s or forever or?
C There out of Catfish Row.

S Talk about that for a while in terms of who they are.
C They are the people who lived in Catfish Row. That's when George Gershwin went down there and met them. Saw them. And that's when he characterized his show. His opera. Crab Man. [pause] The strawberries [sings]. That was something. Those people were actually - that's how he characterized the opera. And I think it was done fantastic. Could come out today or tomorrow. It would be just as big as ever, never die.

S Can we look at those roles as - can I say 'that's the way we are'? That Gershwin was successful in painting the picture of how blacks behaved musically and in culture? And if not, why?
C You see, that's how we are.

S Or were.
C No, he wanted characters. Everybody don't go around singing. He wanted different characters. Look at the African operas that they kept trying to come out with. Characters, that's all. Not you, not him, not me, but characters. Not like with the African things. Now you see how it's all changed. It's been changing and been changing and been changing. It was from the conception of man being put on Earth. They say 'The white man rules. The white man does this, the white man does that.' The black man's does just as much. Not more. And it's all changed now. We were proud to be negroes at one time. Then they say it changes to blacks. Now they want us to go to Africa, back to Africa. Now what's that got to do with you and me. We're human beings. We've been here. So have they. Now all of a sudden they're changing. And who changed them? The white man didn't change them. Right?

S Well but in the white man - Gershwin and Dubois Haywood - they're very powerful to put up over the world, 'here's the way black folks behave.'
C No.

S 'They like drugs. They like sex. They dance and sing and happy.' And that's on stage and on film. Is that a tribute to us?
C That's more than a tribute. It is us!

S Drugs?
C Yeah. It is us! That's us. [long pause] I don't know. I can't go along with that now. The racial thing has been a thorn in my side for all my life, and that's why I don't pay no attention to it.

S But I want you as an older person to tell me how should I really - why do I have these ambivalent feelings in my gut when I look at Porgy and Bess about - especially in light of the ghetto situation in Los Angeles, that idiot Quayle who says the blacks are suffering a moral decadence because of drugs and sex?
C I lay off of that.

S How would you tell anyone, the audience, young people, to look at Porgy and Bess? As entertainment? What would you say to -
C It's nothing but entertainment. That's all it is. What else can it be? It's an opera.

[interruption]

C Alright, let's wind it up now, huh.

S Ok. There'll be three questions. One: If you were doing a movie or segment in your film about Porgy and Bess, what are some of the things that you would tell your producer to focus on? The one that you're planning now.
C Well, I don't know. It all depends on how the scenario's written. If they want to insert part of it, that's all. But, I mean, other than that -

S I remember you saying that there was a lot of tinky-tinky jazz, that word 'tinky-tinky,' I don't know - got going on in Harlem. Could you explain that, Cab? I thought that was great, but I didn't quite understand that 'tinky-tinky' jazz.
C Well, when I left Chicago with the Alabamians, and we were coming to the Savoy in New York, I was trying to teach to them all the time of the fact that the style of music that we were playing wouldn't be accepted at the Savoy Ballroom, because they were playing what I call tinky-tinky jazz. And that is a form of jazz - it's more novelty than it is jazz. It's little things about 'Are you coming out tonight, Marie?'

S I see. [laughter]
C Which would - I tell you wouldn't be accepted at the Savoy. And it wasn't. That was tinky-tinky jazz we were playing. And that's what I called it, tinky-tinky jazz.

S They would not accept it then?
C At the Savoy. They wanted hard jazz. [snaps fingers] Finger - snapping jazz. They didn't want no - [laughter]

S During the Harlem Renaissance, we heard a lot about jazz, but was there a lot of jazz going on during the Harlem Renaissance?
C Sure. Jazz has been going on 90 years. As long as I can remember, jazz has been going on.

S Cab.
C I didn't start out singing jazz.

S Hm?
C I didn't start out singing jazz. I was trained to be a robust tenor. The whole time I was studying, that's what I was studying for seven years. If not, I couldn't be singing like I'm singing now. When you study and you learn, and you're singing proper, you can sing forever. So that was really - that schooling I got, that education I got on voice is was what has made my career.

S And that's part of why Gershwin patterned that role. He knew you could hit those notes.
C Oh, sure. No question. I knew what I was doing.

S To wind this up, what do you like for people to remember about Cab Calloway's life and career? Talk just a little about that, about the kinds of things that you've done and how you'd like to be remembered in those ways.
C Well. I hope they would remember me. I can't stylize any set pattern for them to remember me. But I - I don't know. I guess it will go on go on go on forever. Because I'm not gonna change and they're not gonna change, people are not gonna change.

S Could you run off some of things you performed in, like 'Hello, Dolly'?
C Oh, well. A lot of vehicles. I did the second talking movie, what they call 'talk movie,' in America, with Al _____, 'The Singing Kid.' I went from there, I did 'The International House' with W.C. Fields. Then I did 'Stormy Weather' with Lena Horne and Bill Robinson. Then I did 'St. Louis Blues' with Nat Cole and _______ . Then I did 'The Cincinnati Kid' with Steve McQueen. Hmm. Then I did - I was up to the last one - the last one was 'Blues Brothers.' That was the last one.

S How was it playing 'Hello, Dolly' with Pearl Bailey?
C Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, I did have Hello, Dolly with Pearl. And I did, what's the name of that show - can't think of any more. I did that with ________ and ______. I can't think of any more...

S I just have to ask you this question. Everyone does. What did you say to Lena Horne to make her cry so wonderfully in 'Stormy Weather'? [laughter]
C That's a funny thing. Bill Robinson was hittin on Lena, you know. He was trying to make Lena. That what it was. He was there and - he [mumbles] and that's why she just - it bored her to death. It bored her to death. [mumbles; laughs]

S Well, I understand they kept trying to get her to cry and, I guess, sing the song more emotionally, and you just stepped over and whispered something into her ear and just destroyed her, but she was able to do the role.
C That's what it was, about Bill Robinson.

S I see.

[another person asks question]
I've got one quick question. W.C. Fields, what was he like? [laughter]
C Fabulous character. Fabulous character.

S You're saying W.C. Fields is a fabulous character? Can you repeat W.C. Fields -
C He was a terrific character. We would get a call, get a 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock call, you know -

S Who was this, Cab?
C W.C. Fields. So he'd come in, very astute, with his nurse. Nurse would come in and she's carrying a medicine bag, you know. And in that medicine bag, one end to the other, martinis - martinis! Yeah, we used to have a few shots, you know. Between every line, you know, he'd grab a swig. About noon, this cat's blind. [laughter] That's all the work they got out of him. Took a long time...
C [interruption]

S I've had some wonderful long conversations with Nufee through Etta Moten, and she talks a great deal. Could you say something about this wonderful woman? Just talk about her for a while, would you.
C Well, that's hard to do.

[interruptions]

[end tape #2]

S Did she travel with you during the performances? Did she go to Vienna with you also?
C No.

S I bet she knows ______, doesn't she?
C She did a little traveling. Not much.

S Yeah...Now I'm gonna come back and do Nufee.

[interruptions]

S We're gonna start off with a little about Eva Jesse as one of the central figures with you since she started the Porgy with Gershwin. You know, he went and asked her a lot of advice about the choral pieces. And choruses, you know, are very important in Porgy. So we'll start a little - I want you to say a little about Eva Jesse if you can remember whatever it is you have to say about her in her role, either the choral conductor or contribution to Porgy and Bess. Good or bad. But see, people like you, you older people paved the way, made it easier for all of us. And this is what I want to hear you say, if you think so. And I don't want you to - I know you're not bragging on yourself, but just tell it like it is. And so with Eva -
C I didn't have any connections with her.

S Did you know of her -
C She was there, directing the choir, of course. But other than that... I know she's a fine musician. She's a very, very, very, very fine musician.

S Was she in the Vienna production? Or in Dallas?
C I think so. See, mostly my work was with ______ and Robert Greene.

S I see. Steinerd.
C Hm?

S Smallid and Steinerd and all of those.
C Yeah. Smallid. Yeah.

S Tell us about Nufee, the lady to your side that's so well known by Nufee. Did she travel with you? And did she give you the support?
C Well, she's given not only her support, she's given her entire life. She's devoted her entire life to me. And I'm more than grateful for it. She's been a wonderful wife for a long time. The things she's been through - I don't know. I don't know of another woman that I'd want to go through, but I -

S Does she travel with you, or does she stay at home with the children?
C Occasionally, when she's well enough she does. But she's not a regular traveler. [mumbles] Once a year, every year, I've done it for the last seven years [words indistinct]

S Something about - in the _______ book, you say something about traveling down south, because it was a little different for us than it is for our children. Peter! I talked to Peter the other day

[interruption]

S Anyway, so I talked with Peter the other day and he says this way you talk and use your hand. And he thinks that if you didn't use your hand, you probably couldn't talk as well. [laughter]
C Well, it's more or less when your illustrating something, telling somebody something. Very simple if you have to do it. If you don't, don't.

S Did you use your hands much when you were doing 'Ain't Necessarily So'?
C Oh yeah. I used my hands with every song that I sang. [sings]

[phone rings - interruption]

S Tell me about Peter. He's incredible. He took us back to the train the other day, and he's going out to be with the Native Americans, you know. Well, you probably know about that.
C Well, I don't bother. I let him go.

S You let him go -
C I don't interfere.

S What about _____?
C I don't interfere with none of them.

[end tape #3]

END OF INTERVIEW