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	Thom Bell
	Interviews with Successful Songwriters DIANE WARREN THOM BELL			< last page \| 1, 2, 3 DK: Now there's an electric sitar thing that you were using. TB: That was, in actuality, the real sitar. Because my folks are from the West Indies, I was into the sitar a long time before the Beatles were. That and the African hairless drum and the African finger piano and things of that nature. I was into all those instruments years ago. My mother used to work at the University of Pennsylvania as the coordinator of exchange students. My grandfather was a teacher of botany and a horticulture at UP. So we would get exchange students all the time, from all over the world. And they would bring instruments. These learned scholars would come to my house and play music. And when you're a little kid, you'd be right there, listening. I was playing a gourd at seven years of age; the kind that wraps around your arm and comes all the way up like this. They were about four feet high. I was into all those instruments so that when it came time to hear that kind of music, it came natural to me. I never had to sit down and wonder what can make that sound. Of course, there were times I would ask "how can I get that sound I want to hear?" And there were instruments that I was not familiar with. I had The Harvard Book of Musical Instruments to find out the characteristics of the instrument and the sound that I wanted. I was lucky because my mother and my grandfather were involved with the University of Pennsylvania, with these exchange students, to hear all these different kinds of instruments. So when you hear all these sort of odd instruments, that's something like breathing out and breathing in for me. Just part of the way I grew up. DK: Are you using samplers now to do those things? TB: No. I have four keyboards. I use them for certain sounds just for myself. Like on "I Don't Have the Heart," that was not a real bass. That was me playing the upright bass on the D50. I don't rely on them totally. I'm rather lucky that I came up in an era where I was able to get knowledge from real instrumentation, the real ambience of the instruments, and also lucky enough to make the transition to the keyboards and sequencers and different things that can give you a reasonable facsimile. I find that going into the studio with a lot of electronics, you waste more time. I've gone into the studio with cats who said, "Play so and so. That's enough." "But I didn't play nothing." "Well, we can sample the rest." "Look man, turn the machine off. By the time you get finished sampling this thing, I could have played the thing 50 times already." I come from another school where you put the music down and you play it. You either play it right or you get out. That's the reason I practiced for years and years, to learn my craft. That's nerve-wracking to me. DK: I hear you're producing Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block TB: They wanted to come back to the sound they love, like "Didn't I Blow Your Mind." I've had cats ask me, "What do you think about that white cat taking your sound?" I stop right there. Why can't he love something that I do as well as a Chinese or German person likes what I do? It's reverse discrimination--the same crock I went through. Now you want to put somebody else through it. Music is music. Look at the music I've done. It had to come from somewhere, from some of the masters of the 17th century and the 1940s and 1950s. I was with Ferlin Huskey and cats like that long before most black cats knew anything about it. DK: Ferlin Huskey? TB: And Roy Clark. Yeah, I love those cats to death! Garth Brooks--my main man! Travis? Love him. I love all kinds of music. And one day, I'm going to do a country tune. DK: Who would you like to work with? TB: One would be Rod Stewart. He did one of my tunes too called "You Are Everything, Everything Is You" which is on his new album. I'd also love to work with Steve Perry. Fantastic voice. He sings exactly like Sam Cooke. Charles Aznavour, I love that cat's voice, man. Another cat I love is a composer and conductor, Ennio Moriconne. Did you ever see the picture, "JFK?" That's some of his newer music. Remember "The Good, Bad And The Ugly"? He scored all that. "Once Upon A Time In America," "The Untouchables." Ennio Moriconne again. One of the world's greatest. I'd love to work with Henry Mancini, the Bergmans. I'd love to work with Julio Iglesias. A lot of great singers out there, man. I'd love to work with Tony Bennett...maybe Sinatra one day. DK: That's a great list of people. Be careful, a lot of people read this magazine. TB: Van Halen's another one. I got a tune for them too, that the world isn't ready for. Have you ever heard a tune called "Rock And Roll Baby?" I've got a rock version of it I wrote ten years ago, man. I can't wait to find a rock band to do it. DK: (sings) "Tootsie roll soul in little white shoes." TB: I did that tune for Van Halen or David Lee Roth. Another cat I think is fantastic is Sting. Paul Simon. There's a lot of great cats out there. And girls. I did well with Deniece Williams. I wouldn't take her until--it's not nice to say, but it's a fact--until she stopped making hit records. Because there would be no need for her to come to me. Don't bring 'em to me unless they've got bombs. That's my job, to keep you from getting bombs. DK: Did you put the Spinners together with Dionne Warwick? Was that your idea? TB: Yeah. Dionne wasn't doing anything at the time and asked if I would record her. I told her I didn't have the time. I don't think she'd ever done a duet, and I'd never done a duet with nobody before. So I wrote this tune. I guessed at their key, neither one heard the song, came out to L.A. and took them to the old Beach Boys studio. That turned out to be a total experience. Yucca and Argyle. I recorded them both for the first time, got one record. That's it. Number one record, man. I had fun. I had a great time. DK: You have eight kids. How old is the youngest? TB: Nine months old. The oldest one is 25. And I've got two grandchildren. My one grandchild is older than my youngest baby. DK: Where do you live now? TB: I live on Snag Island. There are about 30 families up there and it's all surrounded by water and you can see deer walking around and you find some elk and every now and then you might find moose. DK: How did you get to live up there? TB: I wanted to get away. I never liked the city. I always wanted to be away, because I don't like the nonsense most people talk. They always have a game, always some nonsense. < last page \| 1, 2, 3