We sat for our first episode with Boch Center CEO, Joe Spaulding. Joe created the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame at The Wang Theater in Boston. He brought his own music passion into an iconic building so others with a love for this music can share that same experience. History, music and physical artifact come together in one special place, for visitors and Bostonians alike, to look and listen to an American musical story.
Welcome to Hallways!
We are excited to talk to artists from all over the world through conversation and live performance. We will bring you the voices and artists that inspire – and continue to inspire generations of artists, musicians and music lovers, like Patti Griffin, Keb Mo, Milk Carton Kids and many more throughout this new year.
But let's start with the genesis of the whole idea of this podcast – and the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame - with Boch Center CEO, Joe Spaulding. American music history has been right below our feet in The Wang Theater in downtown Boston, a nearly 100 year old theater, once known as The Music Hall. Joe Spaulding’s longtime dream of new Hall Of Fame for the music that inspired him ever since his days of touring as a folk artist is finally here. It was Canadian artist Neil Young who pulled Joe aside to ask him - "Why wouldn’t you have the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame right here in this living breathing museum."
And that was all Joe needed to hear.
After touring with his band after college, Joe stayed in the music world, eventually running his own record label, pressing folk and blues into vinyl and recording some of American music’s greats. During the time when Boston raised folk legends and gathered musical styles from the roots of Ireland, Africa and Eastern Europe, Joe was there – at Club 47 - that would eventually become Club Passim. And it wasn’t just the music – It was and continues to be about the places that bring people together like The Wang Theater and The Hall Of Fame that lives inside.
Joe brought his own passion into an iconic building so others with a love for this music can share that same experience. History, music and physical artifact come together in one special place, for visitors and Bostonians alike, to look and listen to an American musical story.
It is fitting to sit with Joe in the heart of The Hall and look around at the music history surrounding us.
Thank you for joining us at the Hall for our first episode of Hallways with Joe Spaulding.
Ronnie 0:07
We are psyched to be here sitting in the middle of the hall has an hour and when I say the hall what does that mean Joe?
Joe Spaulding 2:30
That means this is the incubator space of the folk Americana roots Hall of Fame that we're building out and operating here in the winning theater.
Ronnie 2:39
That's right, the Hall of Fame the FARHOF
Joe Spaulding 2:41
are off as our nickname but right now you got to say everything so you're going to go to the website you got it's a folk Americana roots all of fame.org Exactly. And then go Hallways. Oh,
Ronnie 2:53
this is one of the rare cases and Radio Podcast world that you kind of wish that you could have an eyeball into the scenery here. And I'm going to describe it a little bit behind me is a beautiful fireplace. And then to the left of that is the Baldwin piano. We have multiple artifacts I want to hear Joe talk about and we're going to get into the weeds a little bit about where the hall how it came to be. I'm looking at a picture of Bob Dylan behind me next to Joni Mitchell. I see a Neil Young, I see a lot of amazing guitars that I want to hear more about. Here we are. So thanks for being here.
Joe Spaulding 3:25
Well, it's my pleasure to be here and you're talking about Neil Young. That's interesting that Neil, you're seeing actually three pictures of Neil. They're all taken by a Boston photographer by the name of Ron anala is one of the best rock and roll photographers ever. We've known each other for 40 years, he actually shot a couple album covers for when I used to be a, you know, own my own record company. That's another lifetime. And those three pictures of Neil are actually all here at the center. And Neil's been playing this building for 48 years. So you're looking at all the history that really talks about, you know what folk music and American music and rock music was all about.
Chuck 4:04
Did you read his autobiography that he wrote?
Joe Spaulding 4:07
Well I have not read Neil's but you know what Neil was last year in 2018. He actually was helped be instrumental in deciding for us to do the Hall of Fame here at the wing theater rather than going looking for another building somewhere else in the city. And the reason he said was, you know, we got in front of the audience, two sold out shows and said, just going to understand that Boston truly is the folk capital of North America. And he said it twice without me having to say something. And he said, You know, I really love I only play this theater. I've been coming here since I was 1970. And I'm now here in 2018. And I'm looking forward to coming back and the only place I want to play and I said, Well, geez, that's that's enough for me. I think we should put the Hall of Fame right here. And so no one has ever put a Hall of Fame and a living breathing Performing Arts Center before That's our intention to do and we're getting pretty excited about how this is coming out of the ground, so to speak.
Chuck 5:06
So the fact that he said that would be surprising to almost everybody in Boston, I think that this is where it all kind of began. I mean, they wouldn't they wouldn't associate Boston with folk Americana roots. They put that with Nashville they put away with no, I
Joe Spaulding 5:22
beg to differ. Well, they educate me. I beg to differ. I would say that one I'd like to say that I was a singer songwriter. Okay, I played folk music, and I was from Boston. All right. And I would tell you that many of the larger, most successful folk artists in this country, all came to Boston, they played club 47 they went the past seems as we're getting ready to celebrate the 60th anniversary of pat seems, and they came through Boston and Boston actually had more musicians per square foot than almost anywhere else in the country in those days and And it was true that all those artists came through and played here and had a home here, it also goes back even further than that. Shocking that is if you're going all the way back and you want to describe roots as music that came from Ireland or came from Africa or came from the Jewish territories overseas, they all came through Boston. And it's hard to remember, but we have the first African American meeting house in the United States. So that's a part of another part of what we've talked about in part of the hall here with the cultural heroes.
Ronnie 6:32
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that I'm glad that there is this disconnect history, as you know, needs to be talked about, relearned passed down no matter what type of history and I think this is musical history we're sitting in right here. And what's interesting is that if you have someone in the world or in the US, they need to put down a pin, and they say where's the heart of America? It's probably not going to be Boston, but with education and to know what you just said, the combination of why we're sitting here now, I think we're the heart of this hall, why it should be here. People will come here. And we'll just be like, Oh my gosh, this is one of those. I don't know if it'd be the heart, but it's certainly a tributary, and it's certainly part of the main artery system.
Joe Spaulding 7:19
No, but that's the point. The point was that even the Pete Seeger thing, where's the root said, Well, if you think of a tree, a tree has a root and the tree grows up, and it has lots of tributaries called limbs, right?
And many of those all fall to the same core of the root, right? And all of that music in those days actually did come through here. And the other place in the 60s obviously was Greenwich Village that was a place that people thought was folk as well and that's true. But the fact of the matter that many of them actually made their first starts appear and a person example of that is Joan Baez, right over there. Yeah. Well, she went to Radcliffe. And she was right. She was her roommate was Betsy Siggins. Who was the first thing? Yeah.
Ronnie 8:12
Did john play at Club 47? Back in that? Probably 60
Joe Spaulding 8:16
Yeah, absolutely. Where she started.
Ronnie 8:18
So she was at Harvard, Radcliffe, she got a gig at passim which is so people listening that used to be 40 Club 47. And Betsy Siggins founded it
Joe Spaulding 8:28
While she was the she was the manager there. She was the growing force of the club. 47. Yeah. And in fact, you know, Dylan used to go through with everybody went through there. So it was the place, and most of those artists were all New England artists. So listen, I started getting into music when I went to a small prep school in New Hampshire. And I loved Listen to the music and if you ask me, who was my favorite band at the time, it was the Allman Brothers and I had a good fortune and some people will say that was roots Okay, as well that you know, driving Rock in that way, right? Southern rock in that style. Well anyway, so I went to a small prep school. And I wanted to be any one of the number of these players, right. And I can remember that my first real concert in this field was seeing Tom rush at Plymouth State University, right. And the next concert I went to was Sly and the Family Stone at Dartmouth College and I said, God damn it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a guitar and I'm going to teach myself to play. And I started that way. And I started in at school. And when I graduated and went off to college, I formed a band. And I started playing all over New England and I then recorded an album then I toured as an artist around the United States. And then I went into the record business in the for my own record company and managed a number of other artists and produced a lot of albums and all of those artists were all in the same field. And what was so fascinating was, some of us called ourselves folk artists, and some of them call themselves American artists, and some of them call themselves roots artists, right? But the fact of the matter was all about songwriting. And you know, you're talking about Neil right. So Neil talked about folk music. But Neil was from Canada. So he was really Americana. And you think 50 years ago right now, 50 years ago today, there was a band called The band. And they did an album called music, a big pink, but they refer to themselves as Americana and why they were from Canada. Actually, Americana goes all the way back and back even further, if I asked you both House of the Rising Sun now who made House of the Rising Sun famous and correct, but that's a song that goes back to the 1800s. Right. Again, it's about the song writings. That changed. There was a rumor I have no idea what this is true. And I wish Bob Dylan was sitting right here. We could ask him some people say the reason why he went electric was because he heard the animals doing House of the Rising Sun. I don't know that for Fact, point is great songwriting in any one of these fields is what happens. You know, you're talking about a Hall of Fame and we're obviously going to support and honor and Woody Guthrie. Well, Woody Guthrie took songs that were written by other people use those same melodies, but created his own lyrics. And that just keep translating itself, all the way down through history to today. One of the things I find so incredible that you can support all the artists that you see hanging on the walls here, and they've all played here. And then you've got all the new artists on the next side of the wall. They've all played here. And you could just keep adding layers and layers and layers as it just continues. And so in different Hallways, and that's a perfect tie into that. And so it all stems from a very simple statement. arts and music keep us a civilized society. That simple, right. And that it with music powers of the ability to communicate and to communicate in any way. So that's what we're celebrating here. And that's part of the celebration of how do you make American culture? And how do you support that?
Chuck 12:11
Well, I love how you brought up storytelling because the art of storytelling, and that's how history was told through stories that parents would tell this, that kids and so on and so forth. Right. And I love how you brought up how the pad the fact that Woody Guthrie would take old music and put new words to it. It's continuing the story whether or not you're changing the actual words of the story, but it's a continuation of that story.
Joe Spaulding 12:33
You know, I gotta tell you I've known Pete Seeger said if you can write a song I can't remember whether it was two chords or three chords, then you should get out of the business okay? Because all you needed to know was a see the enemy three chords in the truth, three chords of the truth, right? But many songs like some of my favorite songs really have only three chords, right? But the words say what it means
Chuck 12:54
I wanted I did we asked Chuck McDermott this when we talked to him a couple days ago, and you know, the whole shondra definitions of Americana and roots and folk, it's blurred. I mean, if you look at even, like, if even look like Led Zeppelin, I mean, they're a blues band. Really? Right? They started off with blues.
Joe Spaulding 13:12
Here's an interesting thing. Tidbit on, on why we ended up that way because, obviously I consider myself a folk artist. So the first thing I wanted to do is say we're going to be the Folk Music Hall of Fame. Right? That's the that's the end. By the way. A lot of people have been trying to do that, and it just hasn't been able to get off the ground, right? But the more we got into it, everybody said, Well, no, you got to add America. And I mean, America is the new though it's old. Okay, but it's also new. And then people said, well, geez, you got to get put roots in there because, you know, some people define roots as bluegrass. Some people define roots is as blues, some people's Southern rock, whatever, or go even back to roots is music that wasn't from here from the United States is what Emma came across from Europe. So the interesting thing was when we find we looked at everybody and said, you know, let's just be folk, Americana roots. Let's be all of it. And then we went to trademark that to discover that no one had ever put those three words together. And so it was fascinating to me that now you could really try to define what does all that mean? And I think that's the part that we're trying to do. And I think that's the part that you're beginning to see build itself out here in the wing theater. And if you think about this theater, this theater is a museum in its own right. It's a National Historic Landmark. Millions of people have come through here since 1925. They've lived through all of this stuff, and but
Chuck 14:37
someone can look at Neil Young and say, Where does he fall into this? Where does he fall into folk Americana roots? You're saying he was he was using Connor he was this girl the other day and people would be like cinnamon girl, that's not that's, that's rock and everything, but it also inspired people to do whatever they went up.
Joe Spaulding 14:56
So Chuck, Ron sent me an email and he said like to listen to your album. So I so I went online. Well, I, you know, I have I have I have copies of it. So I'll get you a copy of it vinyl. I have vinyl sweet. Okay, but I went online to look it up, right because I haven't really looked at it in a long, long, long time. And it had on Wikipedia what what I am sorry. And what it called me was folk world and country.
Chuck 15:25
Interesting. I have
Joe Spaulding 15:27
absolutely no idea how I got to that for How cool is that? Right? That's what I said I was you're now seeing it everywhere in terms of how people are now suggesting themselves as to what they are. So, you know, there's an organization and it's run by a guy named Angus Finan, who is on our board here at the Hall of Fame. And he runs an organization called folk Alliance International. It's headquartered in Kansas City, but it's folk, worldwide and it features folk artists America Artists, indigenous artists, European folk artists, and some of the world's biggest folk festivals don't take place in the United States.
Ronnie 16:10
Well, I want to touch on that a little because we, when we were talking about Chuck McDermott, what came up we were saying how there's kind of a triangle of folk Americana. And really, we all think of Boston because we know that's where the roots come in. But certainly one of the largest trees that ever came out of those roots was actually in Nashville. And then if you look across the pond, Belfast, Ireland, Northern Ireland, is another connecting point. I wanted to hear about that, Joe, about that triangle. When we first met with you. We were really intrigued by that.
Joe Spaulding 16:42
It was sort of interesting to me that Boston had a sister city in Belfast, and Nashville had a system a sister city, in Belfast. And so this triangle began to exist and I must admit that our mayor Marty Walsh, has been supporting this. And we went to a theme of music. And so how could we do events together? That would solidify that triangle. And we're actually working on that as we speak. So stream of some actual performances from there to here, right, right us to there and supporting that. So as you know, I have the cultural heroes here. Our cultural heroes should be going to Belfast, and they should be giving me an exhibit of what Irish music was important that came to America, and what the history of Belfast is so that my audience can see that and then we should tie that into natural and tie that in through the American
Ronnie 17:43
piece. So I mean, hat Sorry, but I love the fact that we're tying in and it gets back to that hallway of history, where we tie in the Irish immigration. The roots of the music are connected, but it's spread. It's amazing. It's spread over the ocean. So if we think about Boston as such an Irish predominant, it was an it's an Irish city. Correct. So what I'm getting at too Is it Chuck and I would love to go to Belfast. And we will interview anyone you want. And,
Joe Spaulding 18:15
well, we have a very special relationship. And by the way,
Ronnie 18:18
well, Aer Lingus is running a deal. And by the
Joe Spaulding 18:21
way, they are excited about that. And, you know, the Lord Mayor of Belfast was just here in this room for a meeting, as was whole all of his economic team. And we're planning out events that happened in 2122, with a big cultivation of a huge event in 23. So that is ongoing right now. And so we're very excited about that. You know that a lot of our artists, our newest artists in the folk Americana roots, actually are traveling to Ireland right now. They can actually do more touring over there than they are and can here and you know, I was thinking about it the other day. I had not thought about Mike Peters, actually since 1988. Mike Peters is a Welshman from Wales, who had a band and still has a band. He was the founder of a band called The alarm. Alarm was a big band. They first came to America, and toured with another Irish band called YouTube. Right? And then the alarm went on to do Dylan and the rest is history. And they were huge. Right? And now there's that now, my friend Mike has turned 60. He's a lot younger than me. But the alarm is now on world tours again, and they are back on the British charts. And they played Boston, recently sold out, sold out the paradise right. And Mike called me up and said, Joe, I gotta come back to the wing theater. And I said, Okay, why? He said, Well, don't you remember I was there in 1988. We did a nice sold out concert. And I was the CEO here in 1988. Been here 33 years. So anyway, 1980 And, Joe, did you forget this is the only venue that the alarm ever recorded a live album at a sold out concert here at the wing theater. And it's coming out on its anniversary next April. And they're going to rerelease it. And they're going to come the lines going to come from there and do an acoustic set in our, in our lobby for 250 of their best fans. And so and as a part of always in the part of what we're doing, so, all that has happened, in fact, interesting that we started going back and look, you know, the Bob Dylan recorded here live, the Allman Brothers recorded live, Grateful Dead recorded live, David Bowie recorded live, Bob Marley did an album from here, Neil Young recorded here, the Eagles recorded here. So there are all these recordings of live music that has actually happened on our stage. So as you tour around our Hall of Fame and look at the exhibits and the rest of that kind of stuff, you're actually going to eat music that you may have actually been to, because it's all music that's recorded here. That's great. And
Chuck 21:05
have fun. One of the things that we were kind of talking about as we're kind of thinking out loud about how we're going to do this podcast Hallways. What's the purpose? And what's our mission? And I think one of the things that we've discovered through our other podcast is the youth movement in Boston for music roots. Folk Americana is amazing. And so many of the young musicians that we talked to play homage to a lot of these musicians who kind of set the standard, they're pulling out songs that I've never heard of the end there, they're educated, they know their stuff. And they're using the basis of all those stories that were that were brought down to the generations and putting their own mark on it. And I love the fact that these young musicians like honeysuckle like Chris Dylan, Horace, like session, America, they're all they're all pulling up the songs. I may have gotten missing or Ever heard before or, or just are still popular and just putting a new spin on it. That's what I
Joe Spaulding 22:04
love about it. I think you hit the nail on the head. Alright, so let's let's just use Ken Burns his newest one country. Okay? What's so great about that is that you've got artists that include Roseanne or, or Marty Stewart or whatever they are, or Rodney who plays with us. And you know that we did a concert a part of our folk Americana roots music series. What Ken Burns learned is what some of us who are artists know is that we are in fact, truly music colleges. So we can actually tell those stories, because we believe in those stories, and in many cases, we were those stories. It's really fascinating to me that sometimes we've sort of lost the trait, that there is a history and as something that people wanted to hear and talked about. Now I come from a generation, right that's the difference between my generation and young people that I grew up on music was everywhere it was a piece of my life. I mean, I listened to everything and went to everything today, that's harder said than for the young millennials as to what's going on. So part of our job with Hallways, or what we're doing with the hall is to now find ways to tell that story in a way that also interest the millennials going forward.
Ronnie 23:22
Well, so Joe, and I think that it really reminds me of when we started the conversation about what he Guthrie, putting some of the history to lyrics and teaching without any recording device without any internet without any podcast or radio in front of him. The goal of the hall and hopefully for Hallways, is to be that voice and to actually teach and discover the whole laugh and cry together and figure it all out and be able to tell the next generations about why this is so not just history, but it penetrates us because it's the music that we knew when we were young. We talk about this a lot well above the basement. It's scientific. It's social, but it's also scientific. It's the music that we all knew when we were 13 to 30 years old or so, you know, I disagree slightly that the younger generation and my own kids that are now 11 and 14, their post malone, their Kendrick Lamar, their tailor their edge year in all of that they don't go to enough live shows like we didn't, we lived it. And we've got those LPs, like you said, it was part of our brains in that sense or color part of our culture, but it's just a different way of of getting into their minds now. But you're right in that technologically, there wasn't a way to pass that down. And now I think it's up to this this mix of our generations. I'm a Gen X. We're lucky. I'm glad that you've created this hall
Joe Spaulding 24:49
taking what you just said is really good. So the newest exhibit is our cultural heroes exhibit. They're here in the lower lobby of the wing theater and they are selling Right. And they are big head bus of artists, the sculptor who did these. He was talking about what were his cultural heroes right there. Woody Guthrie? There. Bessie Smith there Billie Holiday there, Leadbelly there Josh white there, Paul Reardon and Marian Anderson, right. And so when you come to see that millennials do understand causes. So the answer was this was civil rights coming up. This was way you talked about making sure that you were protesting the things that were bothering you but also supporting the things that you liked. And that's part of the history. And I think it's sort of interesting that we're tying actual visual, large headbutts of cultural heroes, and then trying to explain that, you know, when you listen to Woody Guthrie saying, This land is your land, and you can actually watch a documentary while you're looking at these things that has Bono, and Dylan, and me, Lou, and Little Richard and john Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, all singing verses of this land is your land, right? And that's what it's about. It puts
Chuck 26:14
it into a tangible, you hear the words, this land is your land, since you're a kid, and it means nothing to you, you don't you just you just repeat the words, when your head it's actually explained to you and why this was written and when this was written, and that these people weren't just making music. They were they had, they had their causes, they had to missions, they were products of their generation of where they grew up in. And that's what you see. It's not just the pictures, it's the it's the instruments, it's the posters. It's tangible, what a lot of kids may think of as, as a myth. I told this to chuck McDermott the other day, when I was in London and I and I looked at and I saw that there was where amberlynn was buried. And it was like seeing a unicorn. It was like, Anvil in this even exists. That's crazy. For the artist kids like bye Dylan, they don't even know if he's alive or dead. He's just like this ephemeral thing like floating around in the air. And by making it real with these artifacts, it's I think that's really important.
Joe Spaulding 27:10
Well, so I always love to do when I, when I get into the musical and we're sort of, you know, I have the chance to walk people around and talk about certain of the stuff that's here. There are two titles that I always go to. And they're here in the hall and one is as an album cover. And it's a colorful album cover, and it has no name of the group on it. And it has no name of the album on it. And I say, Do you know what this is? And they all look at it. And they, they say No, I don't. And I say okay, well, just let's see if we can figure out the painting part of it. You see over there on the wall. There's a painting a self portrait of a particular person. So why don't you look at who drew that, and they go over and they look and they go, Bob Dylan drew that and then you turn around you Say yes. And he drew that album cover there. And the reason is, there's no name on it because it's a true piece of art. And it's the band. And it's 50 years ago this year, and it's called the music of big pink. What's fascinating about that most of my young people go, Well, what was the name of the band? No, it was called the bed, you know, again, but if you name the song upon Cripple Creek, everybody knows the song.
Chuck 28:24
Sure. Right. And that's what I also love. We're big on the actual physical artifact album covers the art of it. The art the posters, I mean, you have some beautiful looking guitars here are the recent guitars and some of them may be older guitars, but some of their ran into works of art.
Joe Spaulding 28:41
They these are works of art and they're from a friend of ours by the name of aiza bread them and he was a great guitarist. He was in the modern lovers. He was in Robin lane and the chart busters. He's been around for a while and he decided to get into doing these guitars in this way. God bless him. He don't him to us. And then unfortunately, a couple months ago, he died of a heart attack. Right. And so we are truly honored to have several of his guitars on display here. And we're going to have lots of other instruments from around the world that made statements. So unlike my sisters or brothers, our Hall of Fame is going to have less is more as a title. Right. So instead of 2500 guitars, we're going to have a smaller amount. That means something to what we're trying to trying to talk about.
Ronnie 29:34
Chuck mentioned looking at these pictures and you see different areas. There's a lot of younger folks there some older artists that are on the back wall when we toss around this new show and Hallways. I want to hear from you, Joe, and we want to hear from others the connection to the hall that goes back to that year. What about these artifacts connect with the non musical aspects of life. You mentioned the bust out there. So what about these artifacts in the hall that connect to American culture in the non musical way? Well, what strikes you when you look around this room,
Joe Spaulding 30:10
what I see around this room is a total connection, that everything that you're looking at, they connect to something else, it becomes pretty darn obvious as most people come in here and start to go around this room using the little app that we have that talks about what you're looking at and what you're thinking about. It causes you to think about that and and what it causes you to do in my mind, is to realize what you're seeing is American culture, how it has grown all the way through the years and is continuing today. And the power of the communication. You know, there was somebody that called me I'm known as Peter gold who's on my staff and he said, You know, I just read about Elvis Presley was America again, you they put a define on that. But you think about when you're looking at Nolan Stookey over here and from Peter, Paul and Mary at a comic photo sitting next to Joni Mitchell and you think about the history of Joni Mitchell. Here's an example. Tom rushes. First out most of the songs on that album were written by Joni Mitchell, you look at the style of which it came through, and what all those revolved around, and they were all about life. And they were all about love. And they were all about, you know what those things did. And so for me, what it does for me is it shows that we should be a civilized society, and we should be talking to each other. Right? And when you do a show here at the Wang theatre, where there's a relationship between the audience and that artist, it's like magic. It's really totally magic. And that's what makes me smile.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai