| Elmore: What are you listening to right now?
Bill Payne: Cholino Sanchez, and Alicia de Larrocha, a Spanish pianist playing Mozart. Glenn Gould, and Howlin’ Wolf.
Marcia Ball: Ray Charles, both early and late. The Neville Brothers, especially for rhythmic inspiration. Fire on the Bayou, Otis Spann’s Walking the Blues, and several on the pile. Robert Lockwood, Jr.
EM: What was the first record you ever bought?
BP: “Big Boy Pete” by the Olympics. Maybe “The Ghost of Maloo Dorsey”
MB: Records that I first had my brother had. Ray Charles, Clifton Chenier, Dinah Washington; I was seriously influenced by her singing.
EM: Where do you buy your music?
BP: El Ritmo, a Spanish store in L.A., and at Borders.
MB: Waterloo Records in Austin.
EM: What’s your favorite album of all time?
BP: Don’t have one.
MB: The Band, by The Band, Dr. John’s Goin’ Back To New Orleans and Doug Sahm’s Jukebox Music.
EM: What was the first instrument you played?
BP: Piano. I played guitar, but upside down and backwards, which makes sense because like piano, the rhythm is in the left hand.
MB: Piano. I have accordions and an acoustic guitar.
EM: What brought you to the instrument you now play?
BP: My mother taught me piano before I was five. And the little girl across the street was taking piano lessons.
MB: Family. My grandmother and aunt played piano, and there was a piano in the house, always.
EM: What musician influenced you most?
BP: For rock ‘n’ roll, Keith Richards, Little Richard, and Elvis’s piano player on “HoundDog.” But it was really my piano teacher from five to 15, Ruth Newman, who allowed me to play by ear as well as reading music.
MB: Cyril Neville and Allan Toussaint
EM: Who would you like to write with that you haven’t?
BP: Well, writing for me is not like playing. I guess I’d love to write with Mac McAnally some time perhaps. And Buffett. I think on other levels . . . it’s hard to say. Like a lot of people treat writing as if we have to sit down and write today. We’re going to do this every day. I’m not that kind of guy. (interruption for phone call) Normally people . . . I’ve written with John Lennon and my thing is I’d rather play music with them.
MB: Cyril Neville.
EM: What was the song or event that made you realize you wanted to be in music?
BP: My first paying gig was at the Eagle’s Hall in Santa Maria, California. It was $5 and all the beer you could drink, and I was sixteen years old. Maybe fifteen. By that time I held on to it like a life raft. My music teacher, Ruth Newman, said, “Hey, there are a couple of boys who play bass and guitar and they want to know if you want to play some piano with them.” That kind of thing. Two to three months later, she died of a heart attack
MB: I always knew it was the way to get out of housework and gather attention. I got in a band in college at LSU, and pretty much from the first, I thought “If I can do this, I just keep doing it.”
EM: Who would you like in your rock and roll heaven band?
BP: Certainly Lowell George. Keith. Drums . . . that’s a good question. Levon Helm. I love Levon. Of course I’d have Hendrix. Sonny Landreth would be another guy I’d love to introduce to Lowell. The ones who are serious players . . . say, Louis Armstrong on trumpet. I would have loved to have worked with Frank Zappa, for example. I’ll think of 20 people that I’d love in a band. Put Frank in there for sure, just to drive everybody crazy. Put him and Miles Davis together. They could drive each other crazy.
MB: Earl Palmer on drums, George Porter, Jr. on bass Albert Collins on guitar, David “Fathead” Newman on sax. I’m kind of pulling some of Ray Charles’ band here. I’d like Ray to be my bandleader and musical director, and he could play keyboards. I’d play keyboards too, we’d have two in my Heaven band. That’s a good start
EM: What’s your desert island CD?
BP: I would probably pick something that was somewhat relaxing I suppose. So maybe some Mozart sonatas by Alicia De La Rocha.
MB: Professor Longhair’s “New Orleans Piano.” It’s a re-issue.
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