Ep 20 | Pat Boone | The Glenn Beck Podcast
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 28 minutes
Words per Minute
165.10364
Summary
Pat Boone is a man of many talents. He is a singer, songwriter, TV host, producer, screenwriter, director, producer and songwriter. He s worked with some of Hollywood s greatest stars, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and many more. He also had a love affair with his high school sweetheart.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
pat i don't i i have been so excited to talk to you because you have spanned so many decades
00:00:23.840
you've seen it all you've been there you you've worked with and been around legends um your whole
00:00:33.380
life yeah you're 22 years old it's in the 1950s you have your own abc television show the youngest
00:00:42.460
ever to have his own musical variety and that's when there were only three channels yeah three
00:00:46.920
right um and here you are in 1955 and your opening act is elvis presley yeah nobody knew him so it's
00:01:00.240
not that he was already a big star but but uh he was on his way but you had more number one hits in
00:01:06.720
the 50s than he did yeah one more one one more still one more still one more um you are they
00:01:15.740
believe the most recorded voice of all time uh that is in terms of the number of records songs
00:01:24.820
i mean the most i mean of course you know many have been played more times that's the that's the
00:01:29.720
the catch in it is that i have recorded more songs over 2 000 songs in many genres like six different
00:01:37.580
genres at least at least yeah six that you've charted on charted actually made had chart records in jazz
00:01:43.760
pop rhythm and blues rock and roll movie themes uh patriotic how many movies were you in
00:01:53.220
i've lost count but about 15 16 i haven't been counting them so i don't know i might miss one
00:01:58.680
or two i'm always forgetting something that i did do you're in one of my favorite childhood
00:02:04.200
movies journey to the center of the earth that was uh i loved that that was so good
00:02:09.160
uh and you are a man of deep deep profound faith yep yep so so um i want to try to just kind of
00:02:24.000
go over as much as all that stuff doesn't really come together logically does it it doesn't it does
00:02:30.900
i think i think it's why you spanned and lasted and are as whole as you are i mean what before we went
00:02:39.520
on we were in the dressing room and you know you talked about um kissing shirley and your wife and
00:02:48.700
you teared up and yeah your love affair with that one woman we've just had our 65th wedding anniversary
00:02:56.840
we've begun our 66th and um she was my high school sweetheart same old story this we were holding
00:03:05.620
hands at 16 married at 19 when i graduated from columbia university magna cum laude we had four
00:03:12.560
kids already at 23 and i was in the cover of tv guide in my cap and gown because of the tv show
00:03:19.740
and i'd made like four movies and had six number one hit records and all of this was happening at once
00:03:26.040
and somehow we found time to have four children at 23 and graduated magna cum laude at the same time
00:03:35.080
so it's been that kind of life life of being so occupied and in so many directions
00:03:44.060
i'm too eclectic for my own good really but really never seemingly never um misplacing a foot
00:03:55.800
uh in a in a bad way the trouble you would get into is shirley jones you wouldn't right you wouldn't
00:04:06.420
kiss her yeah it's not that you wouldn't kiss her in the movie just that day you said i can't
00:04:11.160
kiss you for the movie until i go home and tell my wife yeah and say can i kiss shirley jones it wasn't
00:04:15.780
in the script and the first movie had no kisses and right i was 21 or two and and uh and henry
00:04:22.460
levin the director said now we get to the end of this music scene and you lean in and tentatively
00:04:27.780
kiss shirley and i said on the mouth i said he said yes i said wait a minute henry i haven't asked my
00:04:36.140
wife shirley about how she feels about me doing kissing scenes and i know this sounds terribly naive
00:04:42.260
but i wasn't planning to make movies i all of a sudden i was but but we hadn't even discussed it
00:04:49.440
we were having these babies and we had a serious marriage going and i didn't want to disrupt it by
00:04:55.480
coming home by the way i spent half the day kissing our friend shirley jones so he put it off
00:05:01.560
for later in the movie and it never happened but the word got out in the in the hollywood reporter
00:05:09.820
the daily variety the you know the media that pat boone had refused to kiss his leading lady and they
00:05:15.900
assumed for religious reasons and it wasn't i just wanted to stay married that's all so was that
00:05:23.080
were you unusual then too oh yeah yeah well certainly by hollywood standards i never i mean even back
00:05:31.380
then yeah yeah oh yeah i mean goodness um you know ingrid bergman was they barred for movies for a
00:05:38.300
while because she had an affair with uh with the the director i forget his name right now rossellini
00:05:45.180
yeah rossellini um but then of course now the you make the front pages in a much bigger box office if
00:05:53.680
you're having an affair and and back then no when i even by the time i happened on the scene
00:06:00.180
it was unthinkable that a guy going to make movies might not kiss his leading lady well it wasn't my
00:06:07.500
decision then as you said it was just in that one moment took me by surprise and surely i did talk to
00:06:14.080
her that night i said honey they want me to kiss shirley jones and she said look i'm ahead of you
00:06:19.880
this is shirley for you she said i've been thinking about it and i know if you're going to make movies
00:06:25.480
there's going to be kissing scenes i just want you to promise me one thing i said anything what
00:06:30.980
you won't enjoy it i said okay i promise i won't enjoy it and even when i kissed ann margaret
00:06:38.940
and debbie reynolds and diane baker and some of the and barbara eden and some of the others i did
00:06:44.580
kiss i didn't enjoy it and then at least i don't remember enjoying it um you won't remember this
00:06:54.820
but we met on your heavy metal tour oh yeah and um and i remember you came walking in
00:07:04.420
and you had the lollipop and the the chains and the jacket the leather jacket and everything
00:07:11.200
and tattoos yeah and people here you had been this clean cut guy yeah for your whole life april love
00:07:19.620
no kiss and you lost you lost jobs oh yeah because kicked right off christian television instantly
00:07:27.640
it would it went hit hit the news the next day the furor about my appearance with alice cooper on
00:07:35.640
the american music awards giving the award for hard rock heavy metal and me he introduced me as the
00:07:42.100
future of heavy metal so and metallica i had done their song enter sandman and they were bowing to me as
00:07:48.940
they came up to receive the award from cooper and me for hard rock heavy metal and they were bowing to
00:07:56.100
me as their new lead singer which hetfield even he was just joking about but um who is the lead singer
00:08:02.900
but uh christian television you know tbn cbn it looked to them as if i had just sold out and gone
00:08:12.060
over to the dark side and was lost how could you how could you have been working with people
00:08:19.820
they know you yeah and them think that oh i'll tell you i'll tell you how because i had notified
00:08:28.240
them in advance that i had done an album of heavy metal classics but don't worry i've gone over every
00:08:34.740
lyric including stairway to heaven uh which you know jim page uh of uh what's his first name of jim
00:08:41.620
jim page was supposedly into witchcraft and he was but i didn't hear any witchcraft uh words in
00:08:50.580
stairway to heaven it was a lot of oblique um references to hedgerows and stairways and but
00:08:57.620
they didn't say anything about drugs and so i've gone over the lyrics with a fine tooth comb nothing
00:09:03.280
to worry about these are okay songs they knew but they were deluged the next day with telegrams and
00:09:11.540
letters from viewers saying to paul crouch at tbn if pat boone comes back on tbn again i'll never give
00:09:21.480
you another dime he's he's gone over to the dark side he's lost and so it was that it was that reaction
00:09:27.980
from the donors that made them had to take until a couple of months later i went on tbn with about 70
00:09:35.700
christian bikers and there were more hogs and motorcycles out in front of the tbn studios than
00:09:41.940
ever in their history and never were again even but we talked about how quick we had been to
00:09:48.000
and i myself i said look i got a little what's coming to me for judging people by their appearance i had
00:09:55.040
no use for my fellow singers who were into heavy metal and all the screaming and cacophony and
00:10:00.880
i didn't care for the songs or the lifestyle i never looked into it but but and i had no regard
00:10:07.760
for them but then i met some like dave mustaine of megadeth and and alice cooper and these guys
00:10:16.680
and they read the bible and they have many bible references in the heavy metal songs about dancing
00:10:22.420
too close to the fire and uh doom is coming and you better be ready and uh and so i found out that
00:10:31.540
that they were good guys and good musicians and they were even ozzy osbourne you lived next door
00:10:37.940
lived next to him and his song crazy train i found to be a very valid social commentary
00:10:44.760
because he was talking about how hard it is for young people to to tell what's true from false
00:10:51.700
hypocrisy double standards and we're going off the rail on a crazy train and i i did what he considered
00:11:00.620
such a good version of his record his song that when he went on the air with the osborns family show
00:11:08.680
on tv the first thing you hear is my version of his song hey crazy hey that's how it goes and that
00:11:16.920
they like my version they played my version as their theme song not his version
00:11:22.440
what did that what does that what does that teach you about how eager we are to judge one another it was a
00:11:34.180
big lesson that's what i'm saying it was because i went with the i you know people music critics
00:11:40.940
didn't get it they thought i was trying to be a heavy metal rocker i wasn't i was trying to do songs
00:11:47.600
i found to have quality and doing them with big band jazz really good music arrangements which all the
00:11:54.700
original musicians loved in fact all the rock group scorpion and poison and and all of them wanting
00:12:00.840
me to do their songs uh and treat them with respect as i had these others and uh and i i but mca they
00:12:09.220
thought my record was a total fluke they were happy to get away with it it went to like number three in
00:12:14.360
the hard rock chart it sold out instantly but they didn't want to follow it up i wanted to
00:12:19.360
but i i went up to several uh i bought a harley and uh and the heritage springer top of the line
00:12:27.600
and i had ridden smaller motorcycles my wife shirley had two she was better at it than me
00:12:34.140
but um but i bought a harley and then i went to a couple love rides promoting the album and up in san
00:12:42.480
francisco i i i i brought a jacket and and the choker and uh dark glasses to wear to the love ride
00:12:52.840
but not on the plane so people had seen me walk through the airport in san francisco and oh pat
00:12:58.820
boone i go in the men's room and i change the jacket and i walk out and they're shunning me now just
00:13:05.540
the appearance wow and i realized that's how quick we are to judge people by their appearance and and i
00:13:14.440
the bible says judge not that you be not judged for with the judgment you judge you will be judged
00:13:21.340
so when i put on that apparel i was off christian television i ministers and others who jumped to the
00:13:28.900
conclusion i was just seeking some kind yeah and i i i realized i had learned a valuable lesson that i i was
00:13:38.500
being judged as i had judged and now you know i became really good friends with a lot of those guys
00:13:44.720
including alice cooper i don't call him alice now uh it's coop and he is the son of a minister yeah
00:13:51.860
and he has a foundation called the solid rock foundation and he has been about building inner city
00:13:59.520
afternoon places for kids to go do something productive including record uh so i mean he and i
00:14:07.600
you know we're christian brothers but uh but i had no use for him until i recorded his no more mr nice
00:14:13.740
guy all right let me let's go back for a second do you even remember elvis opening for you do it was
00:14:25.080
that a big deal oh sure it was it was a lot it was a lot bigger deal than i realized at the time
00:14:31.940
because he wasn't widely known but i when i i went to cleveland i had and this is something people
00:14:39.900
just can't believe and i i didn't believe it either until the cold stats were staring me in the face
00:14:45.500
but from march of 55 i made my first record which was a cover of two hearts two kisses
00:14:53.180
a rhythm and blues song by the charms on the due tone label one heart not enough baby two hearts
00:15:02.000
will make you feel crazy one kiss will make you feel so nice two kisses take you to paradise two hearts
00:15:09.800
two kisses make one love okay million seller next record you made me cry ain't that a shame fats
00:15:19.660
domino third record uh crazy little mama come knock knock knock and i had three records by
00:15:25.500
uh october when elvis came up to cleveland from shreveport he was appearing on the louisiana hayride
00:15:34.300
and was considered that moment a rockabilly singer that is he was doing country songs but with
00:15:40.420
kind of a rock flavor and approach because rock and roll only was that phrase was coming into play now
00:15:49.360
yeah did you know ellen freed did you ever i met ellen and and yes he played my record of ain't that a
00:15:55.160
shame in fact uh he wasn't playing the original records yet wow he played my record of ain't that a
00:16:02.140
shame but later he started asking his listeners you want me to play the original record or or the cover
00:16:08.760
record and more and more they were wanting to hear the the original records but but my record of ain't
00:16:15.140
that a shame is what he played and so i was i was coming up so fast that when i i transferred from
00:16:25.420
north texas state to columbia university right then that year 55 and in october 22nd i went to cleveland
00:16:35.460
to appear on a sock hop with the nation's number one dj bill randall he picked me up at the airport
00:16:41.500
himself and he said um i now transferred to columbia he says got a kid coming up from shreveport tonight
00:16:49.100
we want to hear and uh he'll go on ahead of you tonight and i said well who is it and he said uh oh you
00:16:55.780
never heard of him but uh odd name elvis presley that's what i i heard his record on a jukebox in
00:17:02.720
dallas bill he's a hillbilly the blue moon of kentucky you think it's going to go over tonight
00:17:09.020
it's this isn't in this rock and roll time well he grinned he said well we'll see so that night
00:17:15.400
uh backstage in the brooklyn high school i don't know why it was called brooklyn
00:17:19.720
in cleveland but 3 000 kids were dancing and bill playing the records and i'm back there and elvis
00:17:26.960
walked backstage with two or three of his buddies lamar fike i think and i forget who
00:17:31.420
and and uh you know his collar turned up and his hair slicked back and uh you know
00:17:37.380
kind of twitchy nervous and i said hi elvis i'm pat boone nice to meet you and he didn't shake hands he
00:17:44.340
just he nobody taught him how to at that point to shake hands and i said uh bill randall seems to
00:17:52.060
think uh maybe some good things ahead for you i don't know about that but i hope so and he just
00:17:57.700
leaned against the wall and the guys gathered around him again i could tell he was uncomfortable
00:18:02.420
yeah and uh so then bill randall introduced him as a young fella coming up and you don't know him but
00:18:09.880
let's give a nice welcome to elvis presley and he came out and he said blue moon of kentucky keep on
00:18:16.140
shining and uh they liked him the way he looked he looked like the bad boy that the girls are not
00:18:22.840
supposed to to mess with right but but they like but didn't care for the song but he did it and they
00:18:31.120
gave him a polite response and then he says thank you very much i i'd like to do the other side of that
00:18:35.260
record for you and it was that's all right mama that's all right with me and they loved that and
00:18:42.040
they wanted more of it and he wasn't swiveling his hips or anything he was twitchy he was kinetic he was
00:18:48.620
nervous and it came out when he sang and they liked him they wanted more but he didn't have anything else
00:18:55.480
and then i came on with my three hits currently and got all the screams that night and then i had two
00:19:02.700
more three more hits that year so between march of 55 and february of 56 when he hit with heartbreak
00:19:10.800
hotel now this doesn't seem but anybody can check it out i had six million selling singles two of
00:19:18.680
number ones in that 11 month period before elvis hit so he created an avalanche but i was able to
00:19:27.180
to match him record for record during the whole last half of the 50s
00:19:31.920
so when you were when that happens to you let me just talk to you as a
00:19:55.040
as a performer as a guy who is uh a star and a young star okay yeah very young elvis comes on the
00:20:06.360
scene you in 56 you get the abc show yeah it's that 57 i think 57 okay so you get the abc show
00:20:13.940
maybe wrong 56 it's in the it's in the 50s yeah 57 late late 57 um and abc is the the network of disney
00:20:22.420
um and so you're coming on the scene um you've got these hits you have money you have television
00:20:28.780
you have fame you have people screaming at you when you see elvis start coming up did that play
00:20:35.160
with your mind at all yes because because he was the rebel i said i know we had a lot of the same fans
00:20:42.680
they've all let me know in the past and i kind of knew it then because we were both hot
00:20:47.300
i mean we i would my record would be number one and he would knock me out of the number one slot
00:20:53.160
my next record would knock him out we were seesawing up and down the charts together who did you wait
00:20:58.940
hang on just a sec who did you knock out when you started coming up who was the big one well perry
00:21:05.500
como eddie fisher still was singing nat king cole frank vic damone frank wasn't having number one
00:21:12.000
records at that point he he was frank sinatra and he was doing albums but he wasn't having hit singles
00:21:19.480
okay all right um but the the it was the kids time it was rock and roll time it was uh so that's
00:21:27.120
we were the hot newcomers right but i knew that he was exciting i mean he was a bachelor and you know
00:21:34.500
he was he was sort of the bad guy he was there was a moment in front of the press on tv well they said
00:21:41.860
they were asking him about two years into it he said when are you going to get married and have kids
00:21:46.320
like pat boone and he kind of gave it that kind of a little lopsided grin he said well why should i
00:21:52.880
get married when i can i don't know why should i buy a cow and i can get milk through the fence
00:21:57.940
oh my gosh and and of course that sent shockwaves all over the place ministers yeah legislators yeah
00:22:06.200
teachers parents but but the kids i mean they loved him and they loved little richard whose records i was
00:22:13.720
covering in fats domino did you know those guys yeah met them all and we were friends we appeared on
00:22:18.980
shows together so elvis was the bad guy and i realized he was eventually he was pepper i was salt he was
00:22:26.360
pepper and and and people seemed to like some of both seasonings you know we were competitors but
00:22:32.880
friendly we we visited each other in homes in bel air we were both renting we played touch football
00:22:39.540
on sundays sometimes he had his buddies i had mine and we would just play actually not touch football it
00:22:46.720
was flag football so you tackled somebody by put taking the towel out of their belt right but we also
00:22:54.080
blocked and red west his stuntman friend told me once he said elvis back during that time he says
00:23:00.480
you know that boone hits hard well i'm blocking i mean that's what we're supposed to do i mean he was
00:23:07.560
he wasn't into karate yet and um so we we had that kind of uh friendly competitor but we were uh competition
00:23:16.600
but we were two boys from tennessee and uh he was from memphis me nashville and and we were both
00:23:24.240
seesawing up and down the charts who did you let's let's say in the 50s for a second did you see anyone
00:23:31.300
like jerry lee lewis elvis that you saw and you immediately knew holy cow that's huge yeah jerry lee for
00:23:42.500
one and if he if he wasn't for his trip oh to england with his cousin right it would have he would
00:23:49.580
have made it right well he did he he made it undeniably because his records a whole lot of
00:23:55.560
shaking and uh and um great balls of fire balls of fire those records are such classic records of course
00:24:01.240
you know they did a broadway show about um about the four in the sun studio they did a broadway show
00:24:08.920
uh it was carl perkins johnny cash elvis and jerry lee and they'd all recorded at sun studios
00:24:18.400
and um and and elvis on the tape i have at home says you guys heard boone's new record
00:24:24.640
and they and they said no what is it oh it's a good song man he said but uh but the writer charlie
00:24:32.060
singleton sent demos to me at graceland and to boone and he got it and he's already recorded it
00:24:39.440
and it's a big hit and um and they said well what's it sound like and elvis had his guitar and
00:24:46.600
this is in the on the tape i have i don't know if it's in the broadway show but he started uh started
00:24:52.100
don't forbid me to hold you tight darling don't forbid me to hold you tight let me hold you in my
00:24:58.880
loving arms now i had him because i love low notes and i and i could hit the low notes in that song
00:25:06.340
and it went to number one boom in a hurry and um and that was the one chris isaacs can't believe
00:25:12.700
that i did in the in one hour after i heard it in the studio and it was a finished recording
00:25:18.240
was don't forbid me and it just because for me i it was a such a kick to sing it
00:25:24.140
and they have the low notes but elvis uh i tell my audiences when i sing it if i tell any of this
00:25:30.800
story i sure am glad i got it first because he would have had a very big hit with it too
00:25:35.580
um johnny cash did you know him before his conversion yeah and after so tell me about johnny cash
00:25:47.020
when you first meet him and your thoughts well i met him on a plane we were flying from west east i
00:25:55.040
guess he was flying to nashville from california and we stopped you know back then the trans
00:26:01.140
continental flights weren't always direct i mean straight through i think we stopped in oklahoma
00:26:07.820
city or something and he got off but he i knew who he was i i'd heard some of the country records but i
00:26:13.820
also knew that he was getting a reputation of of having some troubles yeah some drinking or drugs
00:26:22.060
or whatever and he looked very haggard he got off the plane and they were trying to hold the plane for
00:26:28.380
him to get back but he never came back to get back on the plane so i divined from that he he did have
00:26:35.580
some some problems but um later when after he'd had his conversion experience and was really an
00:26:44.540
outspoken christian i did his tv show with him and i forget what i think it was will the circle be
00:26:50.100
unbroken or i saw the light or some good song that we sang together and we were we were singing together
00:26:57.780
as christian brothers and and he was a very courageous guy he he came to see me he and his
00:27:05.380
wife june they were being booked into las vegas and his christian friends would say you shouldn't
00:27:11.540
appear out there in las vegas you know that's sin city why are you going there and he knew that i
00:27:17.220
had appeared there and was appearing there and had some records there actually of attendance and uh
00:27:23.540
and he wanted to what was my rationale about it and i said look wherever you appear you're going to do
00:27:31.300
your show aren't you you're going to do whatever the songs are you know yeah and i said the people
00:27:37.380
that are coming to see you are the same people that see you in your concerts or in uh state fairs or
00:27:43.460
wherever you appear wherever i appear i've learned that that that that i don't have to be part of
00:27:49.700
everything else going on there and the people who come there don't have to either either they're
00:27:54.940
looking for just good entertainment and if i can give them good family style entertainment i'll do it
00:28:00.380
so you just go in and you just sing whatever you sing including your gospel songs and they'll love it
00:28:07.460
and he did and they did so i mean we were two two guys trying to work it out how to make it work to be
00:28:16.340
christians and still be successful as entertainers and it's it's not easy yeah um 1960s come and
00:28:25.800
the invasion the british invasion happens and this is the first real bump in your career right
00:28:32.060
yeah big one the beatles yeah big one big um because now the whole room has changed the whole world
00:28:41.040
has changed we did it very drastically for a recording artist right because i was making
00:28:46.200
a lot of my money was from record sales of course right even then right then when they first hit and
00:28:52.660
i had heard them for the first time in england i heard a song of theirs called uh if there's anything
00:28:59.240
that you want yeah with love from me to you one of their very first records i thought i'd like to sing
00:29:05.120
that and i got a copy of their record and brought it home and tried to get randy wood of dot records
00:29:11.180
to let me record he said no it's already been out on a label called vj and the head of that company was
00:29:19.220
also named randy wood i mean it was weird but their record had been released and nothing had happened
00:29:25.460
and so he said but you know they're just english they're just an english group they're not
00:29:29.580
going to be big and uh and so when they hit so big and my record sales fell like everybody else's
00:29:39.100
i got in touch with brian epstein their manager and got the contract i had a guy paint court portraits
00:29:49.240
of the beatles oil port portraits of each one separately and then a group portrait and we and
00:29:55.700
he's a businessman and uh not the painter i had a painter to do that from holland but but the
00:30:01.520
businessman friend of mine went to sears and we packaged beetle pictures and i had the license to
00:30:07.200
sell beetle pictures and i made more money selling beetle pictures for a year or two than i was making
00:30:13.320
from my own record sales unbelievable and then you know who you remind me of i'm sure you know um
00:30:21.560
art link letter oh yeah so art link letter my favorite story is walt disney took him to an orange
00:30:28.540
grove and said this is what i'm going to build you should invest art and art was like he said later
00:30:34.960
i didn't have the courage to say i think you're out of your mind this is going to be a disaster
00:30:40.020
when walt opened the park he asked art and a friend ronald reagan yeah to do the broadcast
00:30:47.620
art said uh because walt had no more money left he said i'll do it for free just give me the receipts
00:30:55.660
for the kodak counters oh i want the i want the license for film yes i'd forgotten that so he had
00:31:03.640
that license through the 70s yeah which had to be worth so much millions millions yeah art was so sharp
00:31:12.220
well i i i was very proud of this business thing that i did and then i that was the reason for my
00:31:19.380
meeting them eventually when they came to the thomas mack and did their first concert tour after the
00:31:25.180
sullivan show and because i had brought 30 people from all over the country we because if you bought
00:31:31.380
those pictures they had tags on them numbered tags and you put your name and address and and send them
00:31:37.680
to us or something or i forget how we collected but then we brought 30 people out of a literal drawing
00:31:44.640
and they attended the concert and i've got pictures of me shirley and our four daughters on the front row
00:31:50.060
there and their concert which was i'd had loud screams and a lot of noise in my concerts too
00:31:56.820
and elvis as well nothing like this though because it was one solid scream from the time they came on
00:32:03.880
stage until they you could you could hardly tell what they were singing if you if it softened just
00:32:09.820
a little bit so you could tell what the new song was then it's picked up again what was it we met
00:32:14.560
afterwards we met between shows and they let me know that they were fully aware of those pictures and
00:32:20.540
and paul said i like these they said you make us look very good and they'd sent out for camera
00:32:26.200
stores to bring them cameras and they were buying cameras and john lennon and george and the others
00:32:32.120
were saying yeah those pictures we like those said brian has got our names on a lot of stuff we don't
00:32:37.380
like it's crap but but we like those pictures i visited the cave eventually their place where they
00:32:44.800
made their first success and those those paintings are on display at the cave really that i had made of
00:32:53.540
them wow and so we we had that kind of a of a friendship a relationship what did you when you
00:33:03.960
were watching this because you're a performer you're watching this and you had to turn around
00:33:09.000
to look at the crowd a few times because it's a wall of screams oh yeah what was going through your head
00:33:14.900
what were you thinking what was it what what what did they have you had to say to yourself
00:33:21.440
what is happening here what did you think was happening i guess i knew glenn that um that they
00:33:30.420
had struck a chord i didn't know how huge it was going to continue to be that they would get that
00:33:35.700
they would become more famous than jesus as john said yeah eventually but um but but i knew they'd
00:33:43.040
struck a chord that they that they were the real thing i mean they were performing live they sounded
00:33:49.140
just like they did on record that they were very inventive and creative and they were so young
00:33:56.920
that the kids could identify instantly with them i mean i by now i was i was 10 years into my career
00:34:05.400
they knew who i was in fact they told me that they had bought some of my records and this is what
00:34:10.900
bono of you too told me that people like that that they i didn't it occurred to me that when they
00:34:16.880
were kids they were elvis and i were the big ones yeah and uh and they wanted to be like us eventually
00:34:23.600
they became bigger than than me at least when i met bono it was after they got the beautiful day
00:34:30.180
uh record of the year and we're coming into the mca after party and we hadn't met yet i didn't think
00:34:37.780
but but he's about comes up to about here on me bono and and i and i coming in behind i said i think
00:34:43.900
it's time buno met bono he turned around and he said uh hello he said but he said we met before he
00:34:51.680
and edge yeah you don't remember we know you don't remember we were just getting started as a group in
00:34:57.600
england you were on tour wow and you were introduced to us and we we looked up to you and i think i think
00:35:03.700
they called themselves the journeymen i'm not sure they were thought of as a catholic rock group in
00:35:09.700
the beginning i like bono oh yeah me too nice smart solid yeah and a solid citizen he he's walked some
00:35:17.880
planks out there i mean he's done things for poor people in in countries and gone to meet with
00:35:25.960
presidents and congress i mean he he's really been a statesman and he's not your typical
00:35:32.780
guy who's doing that just for the no no let me stop here in the 60s before we finish the 60s i
00:35:41.960
you had project prayer this is the year i was born i hate to tell you that
00:35:46.860
1964 it was at the shrine auditorium in los angeles um and uh you were you were helping lead this movement
00:35:59.160
to flood congress with letters in support of school prayer yeah um it was you among others
00:36:08.560
walter brennan uh gloria swanson dale evans roy rogers john wayne ronald reagan mary pitford jane russell
00:36:18.260
ginger rogers uh you also uh in the early 70s hosted bible studies with doris day glenn ford
00:36:28.480
jaja gabor priscilla presley mickey cohen i mean holy gangster how yeah because
00:36:37.500
i always you know i was going to be a school teacher i thought my shirley and i when we
00:36:45.000
married at 19 i had decided this is what i was going to do just mentioning shirley right now
00:36:52.500
but she thought she was marrying a school teacher preacher because that's and there was a little
00:37:00.780
little headline in the nashville tennesseean because we were both known in nashville
00:37:06.440
for singing she was the daughter of red foley the great country singer hall of fame
00:37:10.860
can you stop for just a second yeah i love how much you love your wife oh
00:37:16.060
oh if you knew her well everybody loves mama shirley we call her but you know we were childhood
00:37:24.620
sweethearts and uh high school sweethearts and we committed our the headline in the nashville paper
00:37:32.460
little squib we have it uh singers wed devote lives to god this was our goal and uh and and i thought
00:37:44.120
she was so happy because you know she had had enough of show business and country music her dad
00:37:49.140
read fully traveling all the time and a lot of drinking and stuff going on and now she's going
00:37:54.100
to be married to a school teacher with a sedate calm life yeah and two or three kids and a picket fence
00:38:01.040
and regular schedule and so on how did that go off the rails no how did that go off the rails
00:38:07.420
well i won the ted mack amateur hour while i was still in in high school well i just graduated from
00:38:14.060
high school but it was the forerunner of american idol ted mack's amateur hour was on saturday nights
00:38:20.460
big show on network television and i entered a contest in nashville the first prize was a trip
00:38:28.860
to new york and an audition with ted mack no guarantee i'd get on
00:38:32.820
but um but i went to new york and audition and i sang i believe for every drop of rain that falls
00:38:41.080
it was a big hit for frankie lane but a song of faith and i and and it was the voters i mean the
00:38:49.520
the winners were declared by votes cards and letters that flowed in from saturday to thursday
00:38:55.920
and i didn't expect to win i was just thrilled i actually got on the show
00:39:01.340
to justify having won the contest in nashville and and i went right from that show which was live
00:39:09.940
into the country where i was singing leading singing and congregational uh gospel meetings in the
00:39:16.500
country it was the summertime and uh i was in a place called beardstown tennessee that it was so far
00:39:24.600
out in the country they didn't have phones now yeah this was what 53 or something no 52
00:39:30.860
and and uh i was having lunch with the preacher and the and the family that was feeding us
00:39:37.900
and a car came rattling up in the driveway scattering pigs and chickens and and a guy stomps up on the
00:39:45.220
porch and knocks on the screen door and says is there a guy named boone in there
00:39:48.560
and said yeah he's he's having his second or third round of food in here come get him
00:39:54.080
they took me to a house a few miles away where a woman had a
00:40:08.080
and uh you can make calls and receive calls there and it was oscar schoonmaker
00:40:12.160
like a switchboard switchboard that was it and um and oscar schoonmaker was calling me from new
00:40:19.080
york where where are you and i told him i'm in in this beardstown tennessee he said well you got to
00:40:25.040
get your back here you've won our show you you're on you're on saturday night again so that's when the
00:40:30.900
nashville tennessean took a picture of me packing to go back to to new york and i i won the second week
00:40:37.080
and the third week the cards and letters kept coming in
00:40:40.160
and surely say anything at this point like oh dear god no well we weren't married yet
00:40:55.380
for a showdown with other three-time winners if and when it would happen it hardly ever happened
00:41:00.560
there are a lot of big stars who appeared on ted mack's show and didn't win
00:41:04.180
um but they went on to big careers but but i surely and i married at 19 i moved to denton texas to go to
00:41:12.700
north texas state big music school but i'm on my way to being a teacher preacher
00:41:17.640
and uh and i get the call from new york hey we've got all enough three-time winners to have
00:41:24.940
to have a showdown and and we want you to come back so i went from denton back to new york
00:41:31.940
sang did well i thought and um i had to wait now for the next saturday so i'm staying in new york to
00:41:39.960
see until thursday staying at a seedy little hotel but arthur godfrey had a big talent show on monday
00:41:48.300
nights and so while i'm there i go over to cbs on my own and ask if i could audition to be on the
00:41:54.340
arthur godfrey show and a woman took me in a cold studio and with an engineer and said sing me
00:42:00.900
something i had no music so i sang i believe for every drop of rain that falls the same song of
00:42:08.540
faith i had won the ted mack show with she said nice can you come back in three weeks i said oh no
00:42:13.860
i'm sorry i i didn't tell her i was waiting to hear if i'd won the ted mack show and i i said no
00:42:19.460
i'm my wife and i are expecting our first child and i have to get home oh well then we'll put you on
00:42:24.040
tonight tonight wow and i had to have a talent scout i had to call a friend who could come and
00:42:30.240
and present me on arthur godfrey show against two other contestants i sang i believe for every
00:42:38.680
that song of faith and won the arthur godfrey show that night was on his show the next few mornings
00:42:45.880
that led to the record contract because around nashville tennessee at the time your local boy
00:42:53.180
yeah ted mack show arthur godfrey show this was all to me just a crazy fluke i mean i was not headed
00:43:00.280
i wasn't thinking of having a career singing i mean that was too iffy i had to have a job
00:43:06.340
if we were already expecting our first baby you know well uh by the time i had the fourth child
00:43:14.220
and on the cover of tv guide you know i was i had movie contracts record contracts amazing uh all of
00:43:24.080
things have changed so much from them the people i don't think have an idea of
00:43:43.700
that kind of fame three networks the entire country knew who you were at that i did a command
00:43:53.020
performance for the queen while i was still in college crazy go to go to go to the palladium
00:43:58.300
and the queen is sitting up in the royal box and i'm there singing you made me cry when you said
00:44:05.040
goodbye ain't that a shame and my rock and roll songs and we were told that uh uh if you don't
00:44:12.980
get much applause it's because the queen didn't applaud they watch her and if she likes something
00:44:17.240
then they'll all applaud and if if she's complacent about it then don't be don't be too concerned
00:44:22.940
but i got nice applause and i'll never forget leaving the theater that night i had rented a tux
00:44:32.340
i i never worn a tux but i this is a command performance tux i didn't know that that if you
00:44:40.020
have a tuxedo you don't put a white handkerchief in it so i i i thought i was supposed to have a
00:44:45.700
white handkerchief i'm in the dorchester hotel and i got some toilet tissue oh my gosh and i did the
00:44:52.260
what the style at the time was if you wore a white handkerchief have it embossed your initials
00:44:58.040
so i got a ballpoint pen and put pb on it oh my gosh and i'm wearing it the command performance now
00:45:04.560
i'm leaving the theater the palladium and the bobbies are trying to help us entertainers get
00:45:09.760
out to the cars they're waiting for us and the crowd's out there screaming and a some fan reached
00:45:15.420
over the bobby's arm and grabbed this handkerchief and ran running up the hall screaming i got it i got
00:45:21.400
it and i thought she thought i was either the cheapest guy in the world or i had embossed
00:45:28.460
toilet paper oh that is so funny uh but that but those things were happening so fast so let me go
00:45:34.720
back to the british invasion they were at least still wearing ties and suits and then the 1960s
00:45:42.260
just goes nuts yeah it just goes nuts what did you think was
00:45:49.660
what do you think was happening then what what what was your take on you know the the king movement
00:45:58.840
was was one thing then you had martin luther then you had malcolm x but then you had this
00:46:06.540
hippie woodstock yeah that was directly in your and already drug related right and drinking related
00:46:14.100
and uh and people's lives being ruined and see the get back to one of the earlier questions about
00:46:21.700
but my perspective my perspective on my whole career and why i was involved in all these other things
00:46:30.280
it didn't seem like logical things for an entertainer to be doing the project prayer and many other christian
00:46:38.280
outreaches and all that was because when shirley and i got married and i our the foundation of our life
00:46:48.120
the way we wanted to live our lives was to be used by god when i was inducted into the gospel music hall
00:46:55.860
of fame i told the audience and again it was a tearful night for me because it was in nashville
00:47:01.540
and i talked about the attic that i took over from my brother my brother and i used to sleep in the
00:47:08.240
same bed a year apart say almost one year to the day we were both born on june 1st but a year apart
00:47:14.460
and i let him have the bed downstairs and i took the attic and i that was my my place but i remembered
00:47:21.640
praying up there as a kid in high school that god would use my life somehow for his purposes
00:47:26.980
i didn't know how that would be but i just wanted to feel that my life was useful in some way to other
00:47:33.700
people and and not just on spent on myself so that was my goal and now to be honored with uh
00:47:41.460
with gospel music hall of fame there in nashville took me back to that attic prayer time but that was
00:47:48.880
that was our the way we were looking at our lives our purposes so whatever happened to me in
00:47:55.840
entertainment i look for ways to try to make it uh have some significance other than just
00:48:03.040
fame or money or whatever i think that's what has kept you on the even keel because i found when i when
00:48:11.180
i left new york uh because i didn't expect any kind of anything um and all of a sudden boom i'm kind of
00:48:20.720
like you just real quick just and you'd had the biggest show in fox yeah yeah and and it was just
00:48:26.300
bizarre how fast everything happened um and i knew it wasn't me and uh the last that was the sense i had
00:48:35.820
see all along yeah and uh uh the last night before i was going to go in and tell roger ales that i was
00:48:42.560
leaving i uh i had gone to spider-man and i they invited me backstage and i was with bono and we
00:48:50.460
were talking about they were struggling with the second half and my wife looks at me as we're walking
00:48:56.760
back and she says if they ask you anything about the show just say you liked it please and i'm like
00:49:00.860
no but i i could help i know yeah so they asked and my wife looked at me like oh dear god and so for
00:49:08.180
you know 30 minutes of backstage hanging out with yeah you know these titans sure and uh i get back
00:49:14.380
to the apartment and it's floor to ceiling glass i i grew up wanting to live in new york city i'm right
00:49:21.200
in the city i i mean for the first time i was with cool kids yeah and uh i said uh how can this be god's
00:49:29.440
plan look at where we're at right now how can this be god's plan to go in and give it up and my wife
00:49:35.780
sounds a lot like shirley she said uh i'm going to bed and i heard pat as clear as a bell if you
00:49:44.480
don't leave now you won't leave with your soul and in pondering that for a few days after i think
00:49:53.480
that's where people that's where fame and fortune destroy you because it's a nice ride yeah yeah but
00:50:02.240
when it starts to go away it plays on you so much that you'll do anything to hold it because you want
00:50:11.620
it yeah yeah how did you avoid that did you you'll sell out you'll you'll yeah whatever and you'll make
00:50:17.720
little teeny compromises and before you know you're yeah way off i see this well i've had moments like
00:50:25.320
the one you just described and a pivotal one would take too long to probably tell you now but
00:50:30.260
uh where i a minister said to me are you willing to die to your career if this is what god wants
00:50:39.400
and we were it was a moment of a prayer up on mulholland where he and i took a walk together
00:50:45.940
harold braveson was his name and i said i didn't want to i never wanted that question to be asked i sure
00:50:52.820
didn't want to have to answer it but he's asked it are you willing to die to your career if this is
00:50:58.160
what god wants and i said well harold i have to be honest if i know my own heart i am
00:51:05.540
i don't know if i know my own heart though when the time comes and the decisions have to be made
00:51:11.720
and maybe the little decisions don't seem like big ones but maybe but if i know my own heart if
00:51:17.940
if i know he wants me to give it up he says praise god brother he's going to let you know your own
00:51:23.020
heart and within days i was put in a position where i felt like i mean i had already recorded
00:51:31.880
an album for a record company owned by bill cosby they put a lot of money into it and they were going
00:51:38.460
to advertise it forgive me but they were going to advertise with ads and billboard pat boone sings
00:51:44.260
his ass off on this record and i thought well i didn't make that up that's their doing i'll just
00:51:51.160
act like i didn't know it that they were going to say that and then but this same minister came to my
00:51:59.020
house the next day and said brother i don't know if you know what this means but god just told me to
00:52:06.280
tell you and it was scripture be not unequally yoked with unbelievers
00:52:11.420
do you know what that means i said no i don't know what that
00:52:16.000
no i have no idea what you're talking about i'm just about to sing my ass off
00:52:23.580
for roy silver ed barsky and the company that own tetragrammaton records oddly enough
00:52:29.760
tetragrammaton is a greek word for the name of god wow uh but why they called it that i've never
00:52:36.900
known but i it was obviously i was going to be recording and a five-year contract with unbelievers
00:52:43.500
and i had to make the decision i was about to go sign the contract i called and postponed signing
00:52:50.540
the contract because now i've been confronted are you willing to die to your career
00:52:54.620
and so i went back up on mulholland and it was a i got out of bed it was midnight
00:53:02.980
shirley said what are you doing i said i gotta go gotta go pray and i went up on mulholland in a
00:53:08.160
misting rain and um asking god what i've signed i've already recorded this album i mean i've already
00:53:15.400
given my word if i'm going to commit my life even more to you does a christian back out of a contract
00:53:22.260
and out of a deal he's already made i didn't i honestly didn't know how to do it so but i felt
00:53:30.800
there was like a hand on my face and the and the impression just tell them your story
00:53:38.180
just tell them what's happened to you so the next day to my manager's great apoplexy we sat there and i
00:53:48.000
told barsky and silver and the others about what i'd made a new commitment i might be an embarrassment
00:53:53.660
to them going forward and that i couldn't go along with that ad campaign and i liked the album it was
00:54:00.520
a good album john stewart's uh july you're a woman i had recorded it was a sharp hit later but they
00:54:07.580
listened to my story and i thought they were going to say well you know that we don't want you if
00:54:11.540
you're going to if you're going to be mr religious joe again yeah and um but instead they said this is
00:54:18.980
really interesting joe silver said uh you know let's just don't have a contract let's put the record
00:54:25.480
out we'll scrap that ad campaign you can you can uh do whatever you want with i mean you can
00:54:31.080
have to say so but about our advertising but let's put the record out and if it's a hit it's a hit
00:54:37.540
and if you want to stay with us you stay with us if you don't or if we don't want you we'll just we'll
00:54:42.280
just walk away and my manager was saying but you got to have a contract and roy said well why we trust
00:54:49.000
pat even more now and so we'll just operate on a handshake and we never had a contract and and i
00:54:57.160
went out and again i got a little teary because standing by the parking meter with my manager i said you
00:55:02.240
know god had just let me know my own heart and he's given me the opportunity to put it on the
00:55:09.500
altar walk away whatever the consequences but giving it back to me but the capper is that six
00:55:17.340
months later tetragrammaton went into bankruptcy if i had signed that contract i'd have been tied down
00:55:23.360
for five years my contract i'd have been on a shelf so it was not just me right you know so
00:55:31.160
those moments and there have been others and with you and i'm sure where we we get some guidance and
00:55:38.180
we we have to make decisions that we hope are the right decisions even if they cost us
00:55:44.600
i um before and i've never talked about this before i don't know fantastic story um
00:55:52.340
before that night that that happened to me uh it was about a week before uh i had had this feeling
00:56:01.460
for a while that i needed to talk to billy graham you know billy graham's not taking my call
00:56:07.800
of course and so uh i'm standing in the hallway and um and i said i just have to talk to billy graham
00:56:18.080
and uh that afternoon billy graham calls me out of the blue doesn't know i've been trying to call
00:56:24.040
him really uh and he said uh can you come down to the house uh this weekend it's been an hour with
00:56:32.000
me i just want to chat with you i'm like all right god get down there and uh he says what's happening
00:56:39.380
with you and uh i said well i'm i'm thinking about leaving fox and he said no no no no no no no no no
00:56:49.880
that can't be right and i said i've been praying on it billy i said but i i just i don't know kind of
00:56:56.360
like i don't yeah yeah no it's insane and uh he said uh tell me how you know that's from christ
00:57:06.120
mm-hmm and he sat there and he held my hand and uh we spoke and we both just wept you know him
00:57:15.440
yeah yeah very well what a great man oh yeah what a great the real thing and um his whole countenance
00:57:23.860
on this issue changed and he said it sounds exactly like the lord and it gave me such strength
00:57:39.180
i have tried my whole life to do right and then he welled up um in tears and he said
00:57:49.660
and i haven't always gotten it right he said but i've tried oh yeah and he said um
00:57:58.160
and i know the lord knows that yeah and then he just changed and his eyes became so bright and he
00:58:06.920
said and i don't fear death yeah i just don't know it's it's such a great yeah such a testimony
00:58:16.500
builder yeah you're gonna have really tough decisions and you know seek his advice the lord's
00:58:23.760
advice and then do it and even if you get it wrong yeah you were trying if you're yes i i've made
00:58:30.160
mistakes and blunders uh that that from a business standpoint and professional standpoint
00:58:37.900
were just unwise and maybe they not what god expected of me that but i was thinking it might
00:58:45.020
be so i would try to do what i thought was right and i later thought boy that was really stupid you
00:58:50.500
could have gone ahead and done whatever that was a role in a movie or something i've i've said
00:58:55.720
in the past i would play judas in a in the story of christ because i know how the story ends and it's
00:59:02.660
it it's i would play the bad guy if i had to and try to do a good job try to make him a human being
00:59:10.000
yeah um because judas went out and hung himself when he realized what he had done right away um
00:59:18.640
so it's it is a great story human really a human story but to try to combine um uh our knowledge and
00:59:28.120
our hope to to do what's right uh with the the demands of a secular world that doesn't know him
00:59:34.620
and thinks we're nuts uh you know i all the uh other performers have made fun of me and i repeat
00:59:41.720
the jokes you know in my shows you know dean martin used to say every show he did for a while
00:59:47.920
oh that baboon is so religious i shook hands of that boy the other day my whole right side sobered up
00:59:55.080
and phil harris with andy williams and andy williams show stopped in the middle of the show it was not
01:00:02.480
part of the script he said uh boone come on now level with me pal you drink don't you i said no
01:00:09.020
you don't drink nothing never i said no he said to andy he says can you imagine waking up in the
01:00:16.060
morning and knowing that's as good as you on a field all day long and then he says come on he says
01:00:21.840
it's a pat he said we love you i said we kid you but we love you and he said if i ever had a son i'd
01:00:27.700
want you to be just like pat boone till he's about three years old
01:00:31.700
and so they kid me but i i just tell the jokes on myself yeah because i know they're funny
01:00:45.960
five i don't remember when your daughter had one of the biggest seven 77 it was that late
01:00:54.900
one of the biggest hits of the 70s yeah you light up of all time it's it's one of the biggest to this
01:01:01.600
day one of the biggest like it was number one like 13 weeks there's one i think two records matched it
01:01:09.260
dina shore's button and bows buttons and bows from the bob hope film i think and uh the mills brothers
01:01:15.920
glowworm wow there were two records that were number one as long as debbie boone's record of you light up my
01:01:24.020
life and the great story this is a terrific my favorite showbiz recording industry story
01:01:32.180
she was still living at home she was 20 uh she and our family had performed together because that was
01:01:39.040
my strategy to keep my four pretty teenage girls in sight at all times yes was i know that i've got
01:01:46.520
my girls all living by me too yeah and so debbie was still at home and mike curb uh a guy named joe
01:01:53.740
brooks had written this song you light up my life for a movie he was the top jingle writer in new york
01:01:58.980
and making a fortune and and his mistress live-in girlfriend was um was uh had recorded the song
01:02:06.300
already for a movie about them it was a real kind of an ego trip thing about them but the song was
01:02:13.140
beautiful but she was holding him up you would not sign a beginner contract for warner brothers
01:02:18.460
because she was uh singing in new york she hadn't had any hit records but but she was a professional
01:02:24.980
singer so her agent didn't want her to sign a beginner contract she was holding everything up
01:02:30.220
mike curb had debbie come in first played it for us do you like it oh it's beautiful
01:02:35.460
to see if we could put her voice on the record so they could put the record out because the woman
01:02:42.340
was holding them up and so debbie on the way into uh new york with shirley had her face to the window
01:02:50.560
and she was singing you light up my life if you give me hope to carry on and she said i could sing
01:02:57.080
this to the lord shirley said we'll do so they go in this cavernous studio in new york joe brooks very
01:03:03.820
cynical guy and just him and an engineer and the tape they had recorded already and they had a
01:03:12.180
a blank portion of the tape and he said well let's just hear you sing this song debbie
01:03:16.900
so they already had all the instrumentation all done the record was finished the other girl finished
01:03:22.340
but they had the tape there so they just uh just softened or deadened one of the tracks and let her
01:03:30.060
sing and she just closed her eyes sat on the stool and sang you light up my life and joe got goosebumps
01:03:37.020
everybody did and he started trying to get her to make some changes in what she was doing and it was
01:03:42.980
making debbie nervous so shirley said excuse me joe can i take shirley and i just want to calm her down
01:03:50.780
a little bit this because she's a little nervous went in the bathroom she said the most messy bathroom
01:03:56.140
she ever saw but in a recording studio and uh so she's uh she said you just go out and pray and do
01:04:03.620
it your way went back the next take was it it instantly they just took the other girl's voice
01:04:11.780
off they didn't redo the music they just put debbie's voice on took the other girls off
01:04:16.540
and the record became the biggest one of the biggest records of all time and people get goose
01:04:23.240
bumps when they hear her sing it and did all along and and uh they just get a feeling because and i know
01:04:31.680
what it is it's the spirit yeah it's the spirit in which she sang it she sang it in front of barbara
01:04:37.160
streisand and and her record matched her record of uh oh paul williams song not easy being green i
01:04:45.020
think it was oh yeah one of those songs no no it was the song she wrote that wasn't it it was the
01:04:50.980
song she wrote i can't think of it but and then on the grammys and the oscars but funny thing the um
01:04:58.940
the grammy she tied with hotel california and hotel california the eagles is about hell uh it on
01:05:11.060
their album right cover there's on the inside is a picture of anton lave on by on purpose in the
01:05:19.280
on the balcony of a hotel in palm springs that represented hotel california but the lyrics say
01:05:26.360
you go in and you never come out right you can have anything you want but right you know you'll
01:05:31.440
be sorry yeah and and uh and that song and you light up my life interest tied for record of the
01:05:39.060
year interest hotel california about hell and her song to the lord you light up my life so i've lived in
01:05:48.300
this kind of uh i don't know tug of war it seems like yeah oh i've loved it but but it's
01:05:56.060
it's been uh walking a tightrope sometimes i just have to tell you this because he's my friend
01:06:03.220
i have a friend jeremy and uh he uh i walked into his house he lives in sherman oaks and i walk into
01:06:10.960
his house and i said this is like walking into somebody's house from the mid-1970s that was a
01:06:19.720
superstar and nothing's changed he said right he said i bought it because it was debbie boone's house
01:06:28.720
that she bought with you light up my life and we can't change anything oh that's great because
01:06:35.380
it's a lovely home yeah it is it is he hasn't changed a thing and they won't and they won't
01:06:40.620
well good because it was beautiful and they did it
01:06:42.920
let's talk a little bit about um the talent of today let's talk about um
01:07:03.180
do you know michael buble oh no i haven't met him i know who he is of course okay a great admirer of
01:07:11.400
his abilities yeah um who who who is out there that you say wow a lasting talent a lasting voice
01:07:22.440
well you just named him and he is he is um really good i mean he's just got a great native talent and
01:07:31.000
have you ever seen him in concert no i've just seen him on television you need to see him in
01:07:35.200
concert i i think i think he's the and i've seen michael jackson and everybody else yeah i think he's
01:07:42.100
the best performer on stage i've ever seen well i agree with that stage performer as well as vocal
01:07:47.220
because uh he throws himself physically into it but in his own way he's not imitating anybody yeah
01:07:54.400
he sang on the um the voice the other night and uh and he sang a song of a love ballad and um
01:08:08.120
he sang it very slow now i i thought he may have been thinking about tony bennett when he sang
01:08:14.380
the shadow of your smile tony bennett sang it so slow you had to check the speed on your
01:08:24.220
but it but it worked was it my funny valentine no no it was a it was um it doesn't matter a love
01:08:32.300
song but but i thought no no michael that you don't need to stretch that one out because you
01:08:40.400
know what you're going to say and so but i mean that was just a judgment he made i didn't agree with
01:08:45.920
but but his vocal ability is just unmatched i think right now yeah um because he can sing most
01:08:54.160
anything he wants and sing it well yeah i don't i other singers around i'd have to rack my brain
01:09:01.220
have you have you met somebody that was a um a mid charter if you will that you thought
01:09:08.760
if this person would just straighten up their life have you met anybody who could have been huge that
01:09:16.380
was just burned out well some of my good friends i mean glenn campbell you know he went through
01:09:25.200
real tough period yeah went through a rough period i mean not before he had uh the alzheimer's i mean
01:09:31.660
he he got involved with drugs and was messing up his life that's too bad um and there there are others
01:09:38.560
i don't want to yeah yeah i have i've and in fact that's why i didn't want to be plan on being a
01:09:47.500
singer i had early in the going when i was touring for my first record i went into some grill some night
01:09:54.320
one night with a promotion guy for my record to get something to eat and up on behind the bar was a guy
01:10:00.480
who'd had one record and it had been a hit record of sorts but he was building his life around that
01:10:08.180
one record and he's up there singing behind the bar and i thought boy i wow i can't bank on this
01:10:13.700
and when young people have asked me over the many years about how can i get to be
01:10:19.760
a star how can i have the success you've had and i said i can only tell you how i did it i made god
01:10:27.960
my agent right because the agents you know they can open doors for you they in the case of god he
01:10:35.180
gave you whatever ability you have and he can open doors and create opportunities and he can help you
01:10:41.400
make the most of them when the time comes and by the way like all good agents he'll expect a tenth
01:10:46.980
i remember i got an agent and and he said i charged 10 i called him about three weeks into our deal and
01:10:56.840
i said you know i pay god 10 i pay you 10 yeah i am crystal clear on what god has done for me yeah
01:11:05.680
yeah what are you doing yeah you're charging the same uh you're charging the same that's another thing
01:11:12.620
i've been scrupulous about you know uh tithing because when i was making 50 a week in fort worth
01:11:20.960
doing two tv shows and i was in school at north texas on my way to being a teacher
01:11:25.300
and doing two tv shows locally on wbap channel five and um and a radio show only did it about three weeks
01:11:36.320
it was the lowest rating in the history of radio it was called organ moods oh oh that sounds good
01:11:45.120
student reading poetry while a guy droned away on the organ oh wow sunday nights late and people gave
01:11:51.480
their radios away they didn't ever want to ever come across that by accident again but two tv shows
01:11:57.660
driving from denton to fort worth and back fifty dollars uh forty what was 550 taken out withholding
01:12:05.420
so i got 44 50 and that was shirley and i living on that and i tithed it on a in church but within a
01:12:13.740
year i was making more money than i knew what to do with and have continued of course all this time
01:12:20.580
because i don't know if i have similar story um but i think i've learned a better story on tithing and
01:12:30.800
that is uh i just trust him you know it's not like i'm gonna get anything out i might not get out
01:12:42.520
what i'm thinking i'm gonna get out of it right you know yeah but i just i just know it's gonna be
01:12:49.240
okay whatever happens yeah it's gonna be okay i'd like to know what happened to that woman with
01:12:54.020
the two mites you know she just she wasn't doing it for show right she wasn't expecting anybody to
01:13:01.160
see it and she'd have been maybe embarrassed yeah but she put her little two mites in the
01:13:05.540
collection plate and jesus said see that these wealthy guys they give a lot more yeah they do it
01:13:12.540
for show but we'll be talking about her for as long as yeah there's a world yeah talk about that
01:13:19.580
woman and her two mites so you know god sees it he knows it and he knows our heart you know why we're
01:13:26.280
doing it and i think we can tithe to other people and their needs as well as to you know spiritual
01:13:34.320
programs so let me um let me take one one we'll take you one more place because it is the center of
01:13:44.720
things are changing quickly and um boy are they it would not surprise me if you know i pop on tv
01:14:00.460
tonight or you know my my iphone and it just says uh oh jesus came back i mean it's like things are
01:14:08.660
happening and changing so fast so dramatically right but you won't you won't have to read about it
01:14:14.280
yeah i know no we'll we'll see it um um but one of the things that i'm i'm fascinated by is
01:14:23.700
this this lack of connectiveness to god in some way and you're seeing the suicide rates go up you're
01:14:34.880
seeing all these stats go up because people don't have meaning in their life it's what gives us yes
01:14:39.120
for me it gives me meaning um and religion on the wane but you lived through it in the 70s
01:14:49.700
after the 60s there was this jesus movement yeah in the 70s yeah right and it was you know god is dead
01:14:58.300
in the 60s yeah and this jesus revival and it wasn't a church thing it was a jesus in the streets and the
01:15:06.880
beaches and the rivers we were we had 300 baptisms in our swimming pool but people were going to the
01:15:13.760
oceans and the rivers because the kids were saying wow they'd read about what happened on the day of
01:15:19.780
pentecost three thousand were added to the church went on the day that the quote church began
01:15:25.200
and uh and and they were baptized immediately so they they looked around well and many churches in
01:15:33.180
southern california don't baptize at all and if they do it may be a sprinkle right but um but somehow
01:15:39.820
on that first day on the pentecost three thousand were baptized so in the 70s um there were lots of
01:15:47.200
baptisms in the oceans rivers and do you think that there is a uh a revival if you will that's coming
01:15:59.100
that's more it it feels to me that man and i have to be really careful of this but man is responsible
01:16:10.660
for religion god is responsible for the principles yeah and man screws up the principles yeah you know
01:16:19.260
sometimes with doctrine or or greed or whatever yeah and there seems to be this disconnect with the
01:16:26.760
stuff that man has created and a beginning of this bubbling up of i want to do something good i want
01:16:34.980
to do something meaningful yeah i i all of the principles do you see that do you see that at all
01:16:42.580
or is it a little darker in your view no no i do i think i think we're being forced into a
01:16:49.740
a time of choosing i think uh that as the things get worse and worse and and i just i'm i read through
01:16:59.020
the bible every year and this this the day i was reading in revelation now i'm up to the yeah i'm up
01:17:04.480
to the book of revelation the end of all things coming and the horrible things that are in store
01:17:10.120
as as the world gets worse and worse and even those horrible things are god's attempt to bring the last
01:17:18.140
few to himself even in times of of horrible uh travail because as long as things are going okay
01:17:29.140
they just don't feel they need him so he will finally let things get worse and worse and worse
01:17:35.000
till to what sort of backed into corners which is sometimes where we where we make our right choices
01:17:42.060
but um but i think the things are crumbling and and we're losing so many of i've made a couple of
01:17:51.760
speeches had to write them out one's called losing liberty how can we possibly in this country lose
01:17:57.260
liberty we're the greatest nation in the world we can lose it through apathy ignorance those two ways
01:18:04.820
we can lose it it's being taken from us now i mean right now they're changing wanting to change the
01:18:09.820
constitution they're wanting to uh take uh to call some things in the bible hate speech
01:18:15.880
and and and they're not wanting uh people to say under god and the pledge of allegiance
01:18:23.020
and uh these things are happening we're going to have to take stands eventually because
01:18:28.360
uh you you remember the up with people i think a long time ago yeah up up with people there's
01:18:34.580
people wherever you go and freedom isn't free you got to pay the price for your liberty so i think
01:18:42.400
we're coming to that i i'm just hoping that we're gonna that there will be a return i think even show
01:18:49.960
business people are good are giving people and they they go out of their way to do good things
01:18:56.680
just from a human humanitarian standpoint which is good and maybe don't get enough credit
01:19:03.360
but it's it's on their part it's it's trying to answer the call that i think we do feel
01:19:11.260
all of us most of us feel that we'd like to if there is a god you know we'd like
01:19:17.680
to be in his good graces we'd like to please him i i feel sorry for people like bill maher who make fun
01:19:25.800
of anybody who is quote religious and i understand how quote religion which is not what god wanted he
01:19:34.380
wants relationship yeah uh he wants people who want to be like him that's it people it's it's
01:19:41.580
like gandhi said i i love this jesus of yours i just don't like his followers yeah and it's because
01:19:48.760
a lot of the followers are just as judgmental as bill maher right right and and as i say i i found
01:19:55.980
myself guilty of that too so i've been no i've been no saint although technically you can call me saint
01:20:04.240
patrick because you've been around some snakes in your life yeah yeah yeah uh but it's it it's a wonderful
01:20:14.460
life to live believing that that god is in charge and that he he'll excuse you and and even work with
01:20:24.760
your mistakes and errors and judgment and it'll all turn out if turn out well if um if you're trusting
01:20:32.540
him and that as we and what i'm looking at right now and in the case of several good friends
01:20:38.460
who we've said goodbye to temporarily that they didn't die they didn't cease to exist they moved
01:20:46.860
on you don't have to talk about a saint that is somebody who the bible says precious in the in the
01:20:54.600
sight of god is the death of his saints that's in one of the psalms precious in the sight of god
01:21:00.940
why precious because he brings them to himself and that ain't bad yeah it's a good time it's a time
01:21:08.340
to celebrate it is if uh if if you if you've become part of his family that's the thing and we can all
01:21:16.700
every one of us can be part of his family okay kind of rapid fire yeah a couple things just real quick
01:21:22.720
uh greatest experience of your life something that you've done that you're like i cannot believe
01:21:35.140
hmm i just uh i showed uh i know this seems trivial but for me it wasn't um i was in dublin making a movie
01:21:48.060
and um i had a couple days off and uh i had a bike i was renting a bike so i could ride around and
01:21:55.060
because i'm scots irish myself and i wanted to see more of of ireland and around dublin in the spring
01:22:02.420
and there was an aau track meet and um and i on my bike i stood on the wall in the stadium outside the
01:22:10.440
stadium watching the thing happen americans and irish compete and somebody recognized me and had me
01:22:16.960
come over and i was in the infield talking to some of the coaches while all the things were going on
01:22:21.980
around me and he's and i'm in shorts he said you're actually in pretty good shape i said yeah i am and
01:22:27.440
he said uh you ought to come out here tomorrow and run in our 440 relay our dash man is taking sick
01:22:34.020
we're gonna have to cancel and i said really and he said yeah and i said well i i never ran track but
01:22:41.620
i think i'm pretty oh he said no i was just kidding i i mean if you haven't run track but i must have
01:22:47.920
wheedled him or something i he decided hey you know if you want to do it we'll um we'll talk to
01:22:53.660
the irish coach and we'll we'll do the event it won't be official but you know maybe we'll see if
01:22:59.880
we can if you say you're pretty fast maybe we'll yeah build up a lead and you can bring the baton home
01:23:05.060
or at least make a good effort i said yeah i'd love to do it i came back my manager was apoplectic
01:23:11.080
again he thought how can you be setting yourself up like this and i came back and they gave me
01:23:16.420
some shorts and some track shoes i'd never worn and and the baton we practiced passing the baton the
01:23:22.700
safe way with your thumb on the hip and the guy comes running behind you and puts it there and you
01:23:27.420
got to make sure you got it running and now they tell me that there's more people in the stands they've
01:23:33.800
heard the words around i'm going to be running in this uh track me uh against their team and they
01:23:40.060
decide they don't want to get beat by three track men and a singer and so they bring in noel carroll
01:23:47.920
who was in stanford but he was irish and he was running for the irish team he had just set the
01:23:54.020
world record oh my god in the two mile now he's going to run anchor against me now i want out i don't
01:24:00.620
know this is going to be embarrassing but i'm out i can't i'm in it i can't get out and so now the gun
01:24:06.980
goes off and i look down at the and i see the first 110 yards and the american guy builds up
01:24:12.440
about a three yard lead passes the baton and now here comes up to the second guy and it's up to
01:24:17.660
about four or five yard lead and here comes a guy toward me and i put my thumb on my hip and i start
01:24:22.920
running and i feel the baton and i go take it around the and i'm running i said no man alive could
01:24:28.220
catch me but i'm here those are my steps and i hear thump thump thump and this two-miler
01:24:35.240
world record holder is coming behind me and on my phone and i could show you the picture that
01:24:42.380
that somebody sent me recently associated press i crossed i break the tape i half a step ahead of
01:24:50.380
noel carroll wow won the aau of course it wasn't official but it was in sports illustrated
01:24:56.960
but you mentioned a moment in your life that seemed impossible that i would win an aau track meet that
01:25:03.680
is great uh and there's a picture to prove it just as i'm about to break the tape i say it's probably
01:25:10.080
trivial but but then being inducted into the gospel music hall of fame was a very emotional moment and uh
01:25:18.640
and to me you know you hear what i'm about what my life is dedicated on and to that to be in the
01:25:27.260
gospel music hall of fame and now that music that they gave me an award for is what the way we start
01:25:33.520
our day every day shirley and i that album i did called songs from the inner court is it was it's from
01:25:42.300
the 10th chapter of hebrews where it says got jesus took away the curtain into we can now come into the
01:25:50.520
holy of holies and right before the throne and so in my album songs from the inner court which christian
01:25:57.720
bookstores it was too religious for them because it wasn't performance it was worship but we started
01:26:04.680
every day uh to create an atmosphere of worship uh while we're trying to keep shirley with me while
01:26:12.180
longer and uh so that induction into the gospel music hall of fame is is evidence that what i started
01:26:23.420
out to do has been recognized and by people that i really care about and uh and something that is
01:26:30.760
most important to me so that is something that's better than the oscar or i'm not in the rock and
01:26:36.820
roll hall of fame never will be because i didn't just record rock and roll i had more rock hits than
01:26:44.040
some that are there but uh but that doesn't matter to me at all but i like being in the gospel music
01:26:51.340
hall of fame i know that uh i i know that uh how much you miss your wife oh yeah i can't tell you
01:27:01.840
how much it means that you would travel out to take time away from her and sit in a very cold studio
01:27:07.820
with me for a while well this this i've i've wanted to do this for a very long time i mean i first started
01:27:15.900
watching you on fox and i was cheering you on all the time and then dumbstruck when you left but now
01:27:22.980
i know you made the right decision and i'm glad that you're still speaking out about the right things
01:27:29.060
you're like uh you're like um paul revere i'm glad you use paul revere because sometimes people will
01:27:35.800
use people from the bible and everyone they use dies no stop that paul revere is okay yeah yeah
01:27:42.820
yeah paul revere he just kept saying they're coming they're coming and that's the way i always
01:27:47.200
saw you as you're you had the blackboards and you were showing the facts that nobody should be able to
01:27:53.900
to refute but they weren't getting the message you were putting all the facts up a lot of people did
01:27:59.140
yeah they did a lot of people oh yeah yeah sure did so pat thank you thanks for this time it's a