Tony Scott: 0:13

Welcome to The Jay Franze Show, a behind-the-curtain look at the entertainment industry, with insights you can't pay for and stories you've never heard. Now here's your host, Jay Franze.

Jay Franze: 0:42

Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the show. I am Jay Franze and this is your backstage pass to the entertainment industry. This week we get to talk with a songwriter. We get to talk with Bruce Tarletsky. We'll talk to him about the inspiration behind Forming the High Mountain Breezes, a Nashville supergroup, the team that makes up this group, and we'll discuss his producer, Bob Bullock. Now, bruce, he is just an all-around great guy and I can't wait to talk with him tonight. So if you would like to join in, comment or fire off any questions, please head over to jfranze. com. Now let's get started. Bruce sir, how are you?

Bruce Tarletsky: 1:24

I'm doing fine, jay. How are you sir?

Jay Franze: 1:26

I am fantastic. Why don't we jump in? Let's just go ahead and talk about it a little bit. You've decided to form what we call a super group. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Bruce Tarletsky: 1:35

You bet you know we refer to ourselves as the High Mountain Breezes and when you want to start something, I started wanting to be a songwriter very late in my life. We've been doing this now for about 15 years and you know I kind of knew when I started that the chances of becoming a famous songwriter with commercial hits and things like that were two slim and none. But I enjoyed the process and as we started it, like I said 15 years ago, the typical session path you would go down and we did a lot of demos and the players were always the same. And the reason they were always the same was because whenever they came into the studio, the electricity was amazing. And, being a novice and not being familiar with Nashville, I thought the players would see each other play together all the time. And they don't. And every time we got together the magic was there. We created it. We kept developing friendships over the years and just kept doing it. And I used to have people tell me you know there are a lot of great session players in Nashville. You ought to think about working with more. No, I'm good, I'm really good with this, and this went on until about 2015.

Bruce Tarletsky: 2:41

And I met this guy by the name of Bob Bullock Through a good friend of mine, chris Lucinger. Chris was on all our sessions and Chris called me one day when I was coming to Nashville. And he was on all our sessions. And Chris called me one day when I was coming to Nashville and he said hey, why don't you come on down to a third? And, linsnick, I got an extra ticket and you know, come on down.

Bruce Tarletsky: 2:57

So the plane landed, went to my hotel, dropped my stuff off, went down there, met Chris and he sat down. We sat down. I said I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, bob, bob Bullock, and I'm trying to be impressive to Bob and stuff. And I lean over to Bob and say, hey, I think this guy's got a great shot, I really think this guy's going to make it. And Bob looked over at Chris and he said where'd you find this guy? Because it turned out the guy was John Oates from Hall Oates and we've been best friends ever since. But you know, around 2015 got to the point where I said you know what? I'm really getting tired of writing demos and being told not, no, but heck, no. And we were sitting around and we were talking and you know.

Bruce Tarletsky: 3:44

If you're from franklin, you know that starbucks out there on cool springs oh yeah, yep we're sitting out there having coffee one day and I told chris Bob, I leaned over and said you know, you used to always come here for my music. And they said well, why do you come now? And I said seriously, I said to be with my friends. And that's when they said welcome to Nashville.

Jay Franze: 4:05

That's awesome. What did you learn during that time?

Bruce Tarletsky: 4:10

I learned so much about not just the do's and don'ts, but what it takes. Don't let your expectations be high and don't come without a job, so to speak. But what I learned during the path, by paying attention to the signs as I was going through all of this over the years, is my role was different and I was learning more and I was appreciating and valuing more by bringing people together, you know, bringing these players together on a regular basis, where they were able to bond with each other, and I think that's when I realized you know what this is why I'm here. So in 2015, we decided that we would shift gears a little bit.

Bruce Tarletsky: 4:53

You know, I had a publishing company, so we started the High Mountain Breezes as a place where session players and tour players and these folks, these main folks that I've been do something for their bosses you know, whether major recording artists or they're doing it for a songwriter demo and then they get up, they move, they go to the next session and session. When they come into the studio for what we're doing, they're really being called on to be themselves and they come in and they play for themselves, and we wanted a place in the high mountain breezes is a place where they can leave their music, kind of leave their own legacy, so to speak who they are not necessarily who they work for.

Bruce Tarletsky: 5:42

You know, we have a thing on our website called why Do we Love Music and in there we talk about the fact that everybody probably knows all their music they've heard it but they don't know who they are and we're trying to change that. And that's kind of how this has progressed and over the years it really has kind of morphed itself into something unique and different. You know, we're not a band, we're really not. We're just a collection.

Bruce Tarletsky: 6:09

When we first started we called ourselves the Highmount Breezes and the HMB Players, but we learned very quickly that that's kind of like trying to herd cats when you've got all these superstar talented players doing their thing all over the place. So what we did is we kind of shifted a little bit. We said contributing artists and contributing players and contributing songwriters, artists and contributing players and contributing songwriters. So we kind of take that route. In fact, we're working on our new album right now that will be coming out in the fall and it's titled Contributions. That's what it's all about. You know, we have, I think, there's about 24 folks involved with us and it grows all the time.

Jay Franze: 6:48

Well, speaking of that, let's do a little bit of the rundown. I know you met Bob through Chris and we'll get back to Bob in a minute here, but Chris, a session player, also goes out on the road with Garth Brooks After meeting Chris.

Bruce Tarletsky: 7:04

What was the next piece of the puzzle? Well, you know, the piece of the puzzle actually grew before that, in the early years when we first started. Chris Luesinger was part of it. He's been there from day one. Duncan Mullins he was one of the best bass players around. You know Duncan cut his teeth with Jerry Reed and Crystal Gale. You know we tease Duncan because if you Google Duncan Mullins, you will see a video clip we actually have it, I think, on our website or our Instagram page of him doing a duet with Crystal. It was a duet that she did, I think, with Eddie Rabbit, but Eddie couldn't perform at that time, so we teased him about that, but Duncan Mullins was there. Michael Spriggs who's?

Bruce Tarletsky: 7:44

another amazing player. At that time our first drummer was Tommy Harden. Awesome guy. Bruce Boughton was on there there. So you can see, you know, we just had these folks that were just amazing katherine marks, carrie marks that was the initial group and then, as we grew, then we get into where we are as the high mountain breezes. That's where we currently have. The players all include, uh, chris and duncan and mark beckett, who, who is an amazing drummer. You know Mark has some great stories to tell when he was growing up because of his dad, barry Beckett, down at Muscle Shoals. So great stories. Michael Spriggs is still with us. We have Catherine Marks. Jimmy Mattingly has been a part of this for a long time and then just recently with our new album, we welcomed some more folks Blair Masters. Blair is a great keyboard player.

Jay Franze: 8:36

So it's safe to say that the musicians came first.

Bruce Tarletsky: 8:40

Definitely the musicians and the vocals. The artists also came first. We've had the vocalists that have been with us from day one Dave Gibson you know Dave was from. Dave wrote Jukebox In my Mind for Alabama. We've had a gentleman by the name of Darryl Lee O'Donnell. Melissa Duvall has been with us, gail Sebastian, but one of my dearest friends, my first mentor in this group, monty Lane Allen, and I don't know if you know Monty, but Monty is just an amazing person and a great songwriter, christian songwriter. He spent most of his career with Alan Jackson but Monty has been with me forever. In fact, our latest single that we released, stars in the High Night he co-wrote that with Monty and Monty's doing the vocals on that. So everybody came along together.

Bruce Tarletsky: 9:29

We're really organic. You know, if you ask what kind of music we are, we're not a country group, we're not a rock group, we just kind of very generic and we just kind of go across the spectrum. But you know we just finished, as you know, we went in the studio during CMA Fest and cut a new album and we're excited about it. It's all across the board. I mean we had Sam Levine join us on saxophone for two songs, bobby Darin songs we're doing Somewhere Beyond the Sea and I'm Beginning to See the Light and those songs are 60 years old and they still have that appeal. But you know, when you do these you really want to make sure you're not trying to copy the cover song. You want to make it your own, which Chris on the arrangements did with that. But we brought a very talented vocal artist in. Her name is Minnie Murphy, and Minnie came in and brought the jazz side to that equation. It was very, very cool.

Bruce Tarletsky: 10:21

Then we've also we also did Drift Away. We like to do songs that our players, our contributing folks, can relate to. They have stories to tell you know. So we're doing Drift Away by Dobie Gray and Chris. Actually that was his first gig back in the 70s with Dobie when he went and did the Merv Griffin show. So Chris was definitely into making sure that this is going to sound right. You know he came in. We started on a Monday, he came back in on Tuesday and Wednesday, didn't leave for like nine o'clock at night on Wednesday till he got done with all his overdubs, which is a great story. But another great part of this story is Robert Bailey and I don't know Robert, but Robert story. He does backgrounds for a lot of folks, including Garth, but Robert, you know he has a, he has a side story that he likes he likes to tell. Remember the movie Animal, animal House.

Jay Franze: 11:12

Oh yeah. He was one of.

Bruce Tarletsky: 11:14

Otis Day's knights in the movie and he came in to do him and Vicki Hampton came in to do their background vocals and while they were listening to the song he was telling his story about this song Drift Away. He said when I was a little kid my mama would only let us listen to gospel music and country music. Now that's all we could listen to until that 45, that song came out. She said my mom made me go buy that 45 and we flat wore it out. And here he is 30, 40 years later singing on that song. Very, very cool.

Bruce Tarletsky: 11:51

And you know we've done some. We did some other great things. You know we've got Ron Wallace, who's been with us from almost day one, who is just an amazing singer and performer. Him and Melissa came in and they did Meet Me in Montana, which is another number one hit song that I don't think anybody's recorded since Marie and Dan Seals did it. And then Melissa also did Heaven, a Brian Adams song. And then we did one of my favorites I always have to get one thrown in that I want and I had them do Circle by Harry Chapin and you know great song. We had some great folks on that. So as you can see, we're just all across the board.

Jay Franze: 12:30

Well, let's talk about that a little bit more, because you also did bridge over trouble water.

Bruce Tarletsky: 12:34

We did.

Jay Franze: 12:35

So what would make you choose a song like that?

Bruce Tarletsky: 12:38

Well, you know, when we, when we sat back to pick our songs for that album a couple of years ago, what I do is we do a couple of things. We ask the players and the singers what songs would you like to do in this particular example, you know, and the singers, what songs would you like to do in this particular example, you know, went to ron and said, ron, if you had one song that you could do, what would it be? And he came up with good time. Charlie's got the blues, oh yeah yeah.

Bruce Tarletsky: 13:01

And bridge over troubled water has always been a favorite of mine and I knew we were stepping out to do it, you know, because it's such a great song. But I had this idea, this vision to do it uniquely and differently. And we went and got had three of our female artists do it. I don't think it's ever been done before, you know, a trio of women artists doing this song. And it was just. It's just amazing if you had a chance to listen to it. But we have Melissa Duvall, we have Gwen Sebastian and Heather Beckett did that song and as you listen to it, you can just imagine they're on stage and they're just coming together as that song comes together, and when we released it in Europe, it actually went to number one.

Jay Franze: 13:45

Oh, wow.

Bruce Tarletsky: 13:47

So pretty, pretty cool.

Jay Franze: 13:48

That is very cool. They did a great job on the song. I mean the whole song as a whole. It just has a different feel than the original. It feels like a more modern twist on it as well. So I mean, I really like the way it came out.

Bruce Tarletsky: 14:01

Appreciate that and it really is interesting because you know Chris did the arrangement on it and you know he wanted to pay respects to the piano part in that song, which he but definitely.

Jay Franze: 14:12

I mean the vocals on that song are just amazing you mentioned chris again and just for note, he is the guitar player and he's typically the session leader. Yeah, he's amazing.

Bruce Tarletsky: 14:25

Yeah, he really is and he's. He's just an amazing uh mind, when it comes to sitting down and doing the arrangements on these songs. One thing I remember when we got done doing the first run of the song Michael Spriggs, everybody goes into the control room after the song and Michael Spriggs was standing there listening to it. Michael played on Leon Grimes' version of Bridge Over Troubled Water and when he got done listening he goes. That's even better than what we did with Leanne. So you know it's fun, but it's just seeing the artistic creativeness and the love that these folks have for each other. It comes out in the sound.

Jay Franze: 15:01

Oh yeah, I mean it's amazing and I mean you mentioned Good Time, charlie earlier. I mean that has just a different feel to it as well. It's got that violin in there, but it also has a B3 pad in the back there and it just adds a whole different level of depth to it. So, I like the twist that you guys are putting on it. I like the work that Chris is doing and, of course, the production that Bob does, and it just ties it all together, yeah.

Bruce Tarletsky: 15:27

It was interesting. I mean, like I said, I kind of just I'm kind of like the curator for this deal and I do write some of the songs, but you know we had a. It was kind of interesting when we released the album back in December of 2021. You know, when you go on your iTunes app and I'll show you all the listing of all their preferred recommended albums, we actually made it Wow. We've had songs that we've released in Europe that have gone. We've had three number one songs off that album in Europe, which country music in Europe is huge. They're just loving it and we think the album has itself overall has had about 700,000 streams since we introduced it.

Jay Franze: 16:09

Oh yeah, it's got hundreds of thousands of streams I've seen so far. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. I mean it's impressive for a group that has come together just for the fun of it. It's just a group of people that have gotten together to play music that they enjoy together and it seems to be doing well. But you mentioned something in there I want to circle back to, because your part in this as well, as you're a songwriter, and we've talked about a lot of cover tunes so far, let's talk more about the originals. So how does the songwriting process work?

Bruce Tarletsky: 16:42

You know, for me I'll never use AI, so I'll just say that right now. You know the songwriting process for me is experiences in life, feelings you want to get out, but I also do do not very rarely will I write by myself. One of the things that I stress to myself is to collaborate and co-write with folks, because you know I can write, you can write a song and it's like this you collaborate and it goes off like this and we've had a lot of great experiences we have. You know I've co-written with jan buckingham. You know jan is a co-written with Jan Buckingham. You know Jan is a very renowned, famous, one of the best songwriters that music was ever known and she's a part of our group written a course with Monty Lane Allen on life's experience.

Bruce Tarletsky: 17:23

What you learn as you write is and I've learned, is that you leave your ego on the curb, can't be afraid to hear somebody say no Right. Your ego on the curve can't be afraid to hear somebody say no right. You know that type of thing and you know there's a lot of good songs out there, but I was always told you need to write the next great song. A songwriter is just starting out may have the tendency to say I want to tell you how the song, how I got inspired to write this song. I don't care what inspired you to write your song, because this song is going to have to relate to other people where you have to take your step out of your shoes and write something that you think is going to be more universal.

Bruce Tarletsky: 18:00

But you know, we did have a couple experiences. We co-wrote a song that off our first album, which was called daddy's margarita rose, and that's a song that I co-wrote with jimmy mattingly and chris lucinger. But it was a song that my wife's father passed away. She wasn't there, he passed away alone, so we wrote a song about his life. You know, trying to put somebody's life in three minutes is not the easiest thing to do. But we also wanted it to be a song that women and daughters who never got to say goodbye to their daddies during the pandemic could relate to, and that song just rips at your heart. It does you know, I mean it's a reflection song for sure

Bruce Tarletsky: 18:47

so we've done that, and more than some. And we did another song where we had a had a friend who, uh, recently told me the story about when she married her college sweetheart. Just before the Vietnam War. They were in Iowa and he got shipped off to Vietnam and she had never been out of Iowa but at that time the military would send their troops for a retreat, r&r while they were on tour. And he got sent to Maui and she met him there. She was only 19 years old and they had this great time. But she didn't realize as we all do when we experience things in life, we don't really stop to think sometimes how special that is until you get to the end of the line. So she was telling the story that she met him in Maui and they had a great time, came back he came back 30 days later because his mom was not doing well, he had to run the family business. So that became their life. They got divorced and then got back together again, got remarried and about five years ago he passed away.

Bruce Tarletsky: 19:53

She told me this story, so we sat down and we were reflecting on this and we wrote the song called Stars in Lahaina tonight, if you get a chance to listen to it. It tells a story, but it tells a story about lost love and coming back and regaining that love even though that person in your life is gone. Those are the types of things that we write about. I mean, I learned very quickly not to try to be too cute, just write from your heart.

Bruce Tarletsky: 20:23

We have a dear friend who's part of the High Mountain Breezes. Her name is Conrad Reeder, and Connie actually is singing on a song called Songwriter's Heart, which I'd like to talk about in a minute, which is another one that I wrote with Heather Beckett. But Connie was John Denver's backup singer for 15 years and John has always been an inspiration and one of my favorites. In fact, one day I don't know how Connie and I connected, but we did and one day we were going back and forth and I asked her I said when was your first concert at Red Rocks in Colorado with John? And she goes 1983, I think she said, or something like that, and I said that was my first concert at Red Rocks with John Denver. So Connie was married to Roger Nichols and Roger found Steely Dan and worked with John Worked with Bob.

Bruce Tarletsky: 21:13

Yeah, with Bob. So she sends me this picture of John on stage at Red Rocks that Roger had taken from backstage. So we took that picture. I put Connie's photo up in the upper left and my photo up in the upper right and we titled it.

Bruce Tarletsky: 21:28

39 Years Later didn't know each other were in the same venue, were now collaborating on a song, a tribute to john. But anyway, the point I wanted to make was john would tell connie if you want to say something in a song, say it. If you're mad, let him know. You're mad, you know. And then he used to also say if you see an opportunity, you better grab it or somebody else will.

Bruce Tarletsky: 21:59

So I'm going back and forth with Connie on this song, trying to get her to do the background vocals, and we're going back and forth and finally I pick up the phone and I call her. I said Connie, do you remember what John used to tell you? She goes yeah, so that's why I'm calling. And the rest is history. You know that song is just an amazing song. Her and Daryl do a great job on it.

Bruce Tarletsky: 22:19

But those are the kind of experiences that this whole process is all about. Songwriting is all about. You know. I want to talk about the song where it's hard. If I can't Sure, it is probably my favorite song that I've written, and the reason being is I have a dear friend, becky Hobbs, and as you know, becky wrote Angels Among Us, among other songs, and I called her one day and I said, becky, I said what if you had decided when you were young that you wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor and not a songwriter? And Angels Among Us would have never been written? Imagine the hundreds of millions of people who would never have experienced it, never been able to relate to that song.

Bruce Tarletsky: 23:03

And I would tell her I'd say you know, when I'm gone, nobody's going to remember who I am, but you're going to live forever in the words of your songs. So what I did was I wanted to take the songwriter's heart and make it a living entity. So when you listen to that song, that's exactly what we're doing. Heather and I made tributes to nine different artists in that song. We always ask people see if you can count them all. Maybe a hit. First one was John Denver, but that's probably one of the most inspiring songs I've ever. Had idea for a song I've ever had.

Jay Franze: 23:36

Well, let's also touch on one more of these, because I just think it's fascinating to idea for a song I've ever had. Well, let's also touch on one more of these, because I just think it's fascinating to hear the stories behind them. Let's talk about Holding them Back, because I like the way it has the horn intro instead. So you mentioned earlier not taking any clear paths, so this is one of those examples where we take an instrument that you wouldn't typically find in music like this and we start the song off with it. So what inspired the horn intro?

Bruce Tarletsky: 24:00

Well, me Me being a little difficult with the guys, that song was one of the first songs I ever wrote and I actually wrote it with Mark Mosley, who, back in the day is when we first started. We've done different versions of it. Monty Lane Allen. I remember one day I was talking to Monty. I said, monty, can you fix this song for me? And so he actually sat down and, as any co-writer will do, they'll pull out their guitar and they'll start playing it and singing it. And he sends it to me and I go man, that's good, wow, so let's run with this. So he good friends with Chris Latham, so he goes over to Chris's place at the Gorilla Studio and Chris works with Bob we collaborate on stuff all the time and so they laid that song out and we've got it as a demo and all that good stuff.

Bruce Tarletsky: 24:51

And then I'm thinking, you know, I've always wanted to have a saxophone on a song and we had to change it up a little bit. So I called Jermaine Mondine. Jermaine is a Hall of Fame saxophone player. He lives in Tulsa. I said, jermaine, we sent him a song and see what you could do with this. And he did, and we changed the whole complexion of the song because when you listen to the original song they're in a field here we had. We want to transition it more to a beach scene, more of a love scene, and the saxophone just brought that vibe out. We released that song on the album and it, too, went to like number three in Europe. But that's why I went with the saxophone. That was the first starting point for us to transition and add more non-traditional thing on the songs that we're getting ready to release. I mentioned the Bobby Darin songs We've actually got saxophones on. We also are adding trumpet brass. I'm going wow, this is really, really cool.

Jay Franze: 25:44

Who did the arrangement on that song, chris. So was it his idea then to start the song off with drums as well, because that's one of the few songs where drums come in from the beginning?

Bruce Tarletsky: 25:57

Definitely. And what happens is, once we've got the song done, okay, then we sit back and say, okay, now we want to add saxes to this and all that type of stuff. But yeah, chris, definitely does all of the arrangements of how that comes in. And you're right, that's absolutely unique to have the drums start out on that song.

Jay Franze: 26:16

Chris is an amazing guitar player, amazing session leader and obviously an amazing arranger. So this team of people that you've arranged it spreads wider than just the musicians. So I know we've mentioned Bob, but can you tell me a little bit more about the spread of people that are involved?

Bruce Tarletsky: 26:34

You bet. I mean we talked about on the player side. We'll talk on the vocal side. We have, I mentioned, melissa Duvall, dave Gibson, ron Wallace, a gal by the name of Amanda Ray. Amanda is a very talented artist. She lives in Nashville and she joined us on a song that we had done previously, called Slow Drift, and we put her on that and it sounds very, very cool. Monty Lane Allen, of course, as I mentioned, minnie Murphy, and then we have Tanya. Tanya just joined us. I can't pronounce her last name, but she sings with Amy Grant Singing with us, also the Conrad Reeder.

Bruce Tarletsky: 27:09

Our songwriters include Jan Buckingham, myself, heather Beckett, monty Lane Allen, janie West. Janie is probably one of the best ARs that the music industry has ever seen and known. Janie is a part of the group. You know Janie provides.

Bruce Tarletsky: 27:26

One of the things we do besides our music is we provide mentoring services. You know, whether it's songwriting, whether it's how to pitch your songs, which Janie does for us, or doing demos, whatever. So we're expanding the knowledge and experience of all these players. Then we have an engineer by the name of Kyle Hirschman, and Kyle is probably the single most talented engineer in all of Nashville. This guy is not only good, but he is quick and you'll laugh if you go to our Instagram page. I caught him on video while we were doing I think we were doing beyond the sea or I don't know what song it was, but you could tell your engineer likes it when he's tapping his pencil while he's doing it. You know very, very cool. But kyle does our engineering work.

Bruce Tarletsky: 28:12

We have a, a gentleman who handles our distribution, electronic distribution, and his name is edgar, and Ed is a seasoned veteran from Sony Music. One time before I think before he retired handled all the country music for Sony distribution and sales. So we have such a wide variety. And of course, dustin Soper is our marketing guy. He's the guy who comes up with most of our creative work and he also keeps us grounded because you know we're all been doing this such a long time. We know who our audience is, but at the same time you don't want to sound outdated or whatever. Dustin kind of keeps us looking good, sounding good and that type of thing. So there's about. And then we have some friends that join us. Deborah Allen is a longtime friend and mentor. She sang on Will the Circle Be Unbroken with us, along with Benita Hill. You know. You might not know of her, but Benita was the one. 2p Nicoladas.

Jay Franze: 29:11

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Bruce Tarletsky: 29:13

And then I mentioned briefly in passing Vicki Hampton and Robert Bailey. They do our background vocals for us. So there's about 22, 23 of us and it's growing. Oh, and I should mention we also have Tim Crouch. Tim is a great fiddle player and he's the one who's playing fiddle on Stars in the High Night. Catherine Marks you can't forget Catherine. She's been with us from day one, so they all have their A game. They're all just tremendous, all-star talents.

Jay Franze: 29:43

Oh, absolutely. It's amazing to me how you're assembling such a large team of people that all have a specific specialty and are able to contribute to a much bigger picture like this. But you just mentioned, will the circle be unbroken? I wanted to just touch on that for a minute because you mentioned her singing on that, but that kind of has a choir feel to the back of it as well. Again, how did that come about?

Bruce Tarletsky: 30:09

It did. That was another one that I always wanted to do, but we again wanted to do it very unique and different.

Bruce Tarletsky: 30:16

We wanted to get as many different vocals list on the song and we didn't want it to be more of a gospel thing. We did not want it, you know, try to match the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's version of it. But what inspired me for that song was that, if you remember, recall back in the day when they had that group sing Well, that was kind of the basis for wanting to do this and we wanted to do a song. We wanted to do a song that we would stick at the end of the album. That would get everybody very inspired to want to listen to more. But you know, I think it may have come out to be a gospel, more gospel version of it, simply because how the art the vocalist sang it and basically Ron Wallace sang the whole song first and then everybody else came in and did their parts and Deborah really put the the gospel sound to it.

Bruce Tarletsky: 31:07

I mean, she just rocked it. You know completely. And it was so funny too because Melissa was getting ready to do her part. And then you know part of the songs that we learned, the old church songs, and she said what do I say? Well, just say the old church songs that Mama taught us. That's how that one came through.

Jay Franze: 31:26

Can you talk a little bit more about Dustin's part in the marketing?

Bruce Tarletsky: 31:31

You bet Dustin talking about the marketing piece of this program, which is very important to us because you know, a lot of times you can do a project and then it just sits on the desk.

Bruce Tarletsky: 31:44

It has to be marketed. But what Dustin does for us Dustin actually, he's a young guy who does a great job. He's got a great music background, he's in the hospitality business, but he's done a lot of work with folks like Reba doing her website and stuff like that. So Dustin is my sounding board. The one thing I've learned when you do things, when you have somebody market something for you, you just dot I's and cross T's. You don't tell them what to do. You trust what they do and the results speak for themselves. So he handles the website, he handles the design of our albums. He definitely gives us critiques and values what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing, and many times he said, bruce, you don't want to do that, ok, that's fine. But Dustin also has his own network of folks.

Bruce Tarletsky: 32:34

You know he introduced us to a guy about another component of ours, mark Nicolosi, and Mark is one of the leading videographers in the music world and Mark actually him and a gentleman by the name of Sherman Halsey, who was Jim Halsey's son, who passed away a few years ago basically started music videos back in the early 80s. So we had Mark come in to our studio session and videotape it for us because we're going to try to kick some ideas around, what we can do to get the word out more about what we are and what we're not. And I asked Mark. I said, mark, you've done a lot of these. What's your take, you know, on your day here. He said Bruce, the vibe and the magic, the love and respect is off the trucks. He said I cannot believe that these guys are playing, these folks are playing this music for the very first time. And I remember we did, you know, and they were doing things that were new and unique and different. We got done doing I think it was Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea, done doing I think it was bobby darren's beyond the sea.

Bruce Tarletsky: 33:32

And mark beckett comes to this control room and he goes. I have never done anything like that. And here's a guy who's played for everybody. He's played at the grand alabre. He was olivia newton, john's drummer, and you're going like, wow, this is really really cool, just a lot of family fun, you know, and we say on our website we are a family. We really are, we're a music family and I think the thing about it is, and you and I have talked about this is that we have to have respect, mutual respect for everybody and for what they do when they're not doing stuff in the high mountain breezes. We respect that. We have to be very you know, we're very cautious about what we do and what we don't do. Again, it's all about us, and I think what happened this past studio session was the light went on in everybody. Now we get it. Now I get what this is all about.

Bruce Tarletsky: 34:23

I'm just honored and blessed to be a part of it. You know, and bringing these people together. I would have never thought this was going to be the case. I know that when Deborah Allen and I first met gosh about 10 years ago I don't know how we did, but we did and she told me. She said, bruce, she said I'll give you the greatest piece of advice that someone had gave me when I first started. And she said I had just signed my first record deal with Capitol Records in LA, first record deal with Capital Records in LA. And the president of Capital Records told me he said I'm going to tell you right now this is the biggest, greatest piece of advice you're ever going to get. And he said to her you help people get what they want and reaching their goals, and you will get what you want.

Bruce Tarletsky: 35:06

And absolutely right. Here we are today. I never thought 10 years ago you and I would be sitting here talking about this experience, right?

Jay Franze: 35:15

Well, let's tie it together with one last piece of your puzzle.

Bruce Tarletsky: 35:18

You bet.

Jay Franze: 35:18

And that's Mr Bob Bullock. What kind of trash can we talk about, bob?

Bruce Tarletsky: 35:24

Oh boy, I can well, let's tell you. You know, bob can tell you. I mean, he has so many great stories. You know his days with Steely Dan, mike Rich and George Strait, shania Twain. You know he is so down to earth that I wish I had some trash about him, but I don't. So just great stories and great experiences, and our music reflects it. And he'll always come back and say this thing is not really done. I think we need to add this here and add that there, but he does tell some great stories about the folks that he's worked with in the past.

Bruce Tarletsky: 36:05

There isn't anybody better at doing what he does when it comes to producing and engineering and seeing and hearing the sights. He loves his music. You know you go into his house. He's as humble as can be about his experiences.

Jay Franze: 36:18

Right, all right, sir. Well, we do this thing here we call Unsung Heroes, where we take a moment to shine the light on somebody who works behind the scenes or somebody who may have supported you along the way. Do you have anybody you'd like to shine a little light on?

Bruce Tarletsky: 36:29

Boy. There's so many of them. There's so many of them. Deborah Allen, for sure, for certain. Becky Hobbs, you know, chris Lucinger, all of them behind the scenes have supported Jimmy Mattingly. These folks, deborah especially, support me. They prop you up, they don't hand you anything, they encourage you and they support you when you think you've not had it. So shine the light. I shine on all of them.

Jay Franze: 36:57

A big thanks to Bruce for taking the time to share his stories with us and, as always, thank you for taking the time to hang with me here. I really do appreciate it. If you know anyone that would enjoy hearing Bruce's story, please be sure to pass this episode along. You can do that and find the links to everything mentioned over at jfranze. com/ episode 81. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.

Tony Scott: 37:25

Thanks for listening to The Jay Franze Show. Make sure you visit us at jayfranze. com Follow, connect and say hello.