Gary U.S. Bonds

Uh, one of the...

Me and Bruce produced an album from Gary US Bonds and brought him back.

Yeah.

And, uh, we used Ben E.

Hi, this is Mitch Margot of The Tokens.

Hi, this is Gary U.S. Bonds.

Glad to be here on the Rock and Roll History Show.

[upbeat music] Hello, everyone.

So he's ruthlessly filtering them.

He gave away songs during this time, like Fire to the Pointer Sisters, This Little Girl to Gary U.S. Bonds, Blinded by the Light to Manford Mann.

These are songs, all those songs charted higher than any song he had released up to that point.

But he's saying, no, they're not good enough for my Darkness album.

If you're just joining us, I'm talking to Swamp Dog on World Cafe.

I want to talk about another song, and we're going to hear the song Waka Waka Waka, which features your old songwriting and production partner, Gary U.S. Bonds.

And I know you guys wrote a bunch together back in the 70s when you worked at Atlantic Records.

You guys were good friends.

Yeah.

So, but it was decades that you kind of didn't really talk.

And then the producer, one of the people you worked with on this album, Steve Greenberg, he suggested bringing in Gary U.S. Bonds for a song.

What was your initial reaction when he suggested that? I

He started recording as a kid in the 1950s and in 1970 became the original D-O-double-G.

He co-wrote the song She's All I Got with Gary U.S. Bonds.

If you know country music at all, you've probably heard Johnny Paycheck's hit version of that one.

Well, I said, friend, don't take her, she's all I've got.

Hi, this is Mitch Margo of the Tokens.

Hi, this is Gary U.S. Bonds, right here on the Rock and Roll History Show.

everybody welcome back to the rock and roll history show on hudson river radio i'm brian horowitz we have uh oh an unusual topic tonight and uh we'll place blame when the time comes up but before we do that as always allow me to introduce all the crambones joining us here this evening First and for all...

Okay.

[laughs]

You go, "It's Gary U.S. Bonds."

Is, is that really?

Yes.

Is that, like, uh, related to Barry Bonds?

[laughs] No, that's Bobby, and I have a Bobby Bonds baseball card back there.

But no, uh, Gary U.S. Bonds was on tour with, uh, Bruce Springsteen.

He was a rock singer, is a rock singer.

Hi, this is Mitch Margo of the Tokens.

Hi, this is Gary U.S. Bonds, ready on the Rock and Roll History Show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History Show on Hudson River Radio.

I'm Brian Horowitz.