You gotta understand, ABC at the time was offering me the kind of a contract that, believe me, in those days, in 1959, was unheard of. I don’t even think that they figured that I would do as well. What they were after was the name and to stimulate other names.
To sign with ABC.
Right. And so I was like a pawn, but as it turned out we were so lucky, because right after I went with ABC, we came up with “Georgia,” and then the country-western stuff, see? But I did a country-western song with Atlantic before I went to ABC, but the other side of it sold, the song “I Believe to My Soul.” Well, on the back of that was a song called “I’m Movin’ On.”
Hank Snow.
That’s right. There’s where I first get the idea. But it just turned out that once I changed contracts, I followed that idea. Now, with ABC we had people saying, “Hey, man, gee whiz, Ray, you got all these fans, you can’t do no country-western things. Your fans—you gonna lose all your fans.” Well, I said, “For Christ’s sake, I’ll do it anyway.” I didn’t want to be a country-western singer. I just wanted to take country-western songs. When I sing “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” I’m not singin’ it country-western. I’m singin’ it like me. But I think the words to country songs are very earthy like the blues, see, very down. They’re not as dressed up, and the people are very honest and say, “Look, I miss you, darlin’, so I went out and I got drunk in this bar.” That’s the way you say it. Wherein Tin Pan Alley will say, “Oh, I missed you, darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and I had dinner for one.” That’s cleaned up now, you see? But country songs and the blues is like it is.
I did two albums of country-western, you gotta remember I did volume one, and hell, if you get an album to sell well over a million, you almost gotta do—that’s almost forcing you to do one more. But that’s all I did with country-western was two albums.
Atlantic gave you musical independence and built a reputation for R&B and jazz. ABC, on the other hand, wasn’t known for a sound. Did you have a feeling of trepidation about moving from one to the other?
No, ’cause my thing was that it was a record company, and I thought I could sell records for ABC as well as I could sell records for Atlantic or anybody else. Plus, after all, you gotta understand, man, I had been workin’ a long time, strugglin’ a mighty long time with nothin’, and this was a helluva chance for me to really better myself; if I really had any kind of luck, I really was gonna wind up bein’ all right. I made an awful lot of money fast, real fast.
What was the production deal?
I was producin’ myself, you see? In other words, it was a contract within a contract. I got paid the regular top artist scale as an artist, but also the producin’ end of it was where the extra money came from. That was where, out of every dime I got seven and a half cents, and that’s pretty damn good, man. That’s besides the artist contract, you know.
Did your involvement in drugs almost knock you out in music?
No. No. No. Nope. I can’t say that.
Heights in music were reached during that stage?
Exactly. So I mean, obviously, I couldn’t say that, could I? You know, like I say, I ain’t never gonna lie to you. It didn’t knock me out or wasn’t about to knock me out. My thing was that when my kids started growin’ up—I remember one day my oldest son, he was one of the baseball players, they were havin’ a little reception Thursday night and they were giving out these little trophies, and I was supposed to go, and what happened, I had a recordin’ session that night. I was doing the sound track for The Cincinnati Kid, and I did the singin’ on that, as you remember, but what I did, I went by there with him to this banquet, and I had to leave before the thing was over, and he cried. And that hurt me. I started thinkin’, here’s a child. It means so much to him for his father to be at this banquet. And I started thinkin’ that suppose that somethin’ happened, I get put in jail and somebody comes along and says, “Oh, your daddy’s a jailbird.” Remember now, he’s gettin’ up there in age, now. He’s a little man, you know, and he gonna cry about that. I figure the next thing he’ll do is haul up and knock hell out of ’em, and now he’s gonna be in trouble all over me. And I said, okay, I’ve had enough—it’s a risky business, it’s a dangerous business, anybody knockin’ on your door, you gotta double-check to see who it is.
That all came to a head right around ’65 [when Charles was arrested for heroin possession]?
That’s right. Right then. I just felt that it was a bad scene, and really it just was a bad scene. I got involved in it—my situation is, I was young. I was about maybe seventeen, eighteen years old or somethin’ like that, it was a thing where I wanted to be among the big fellas, like cats in the band, and these guys would always go and leave the kid “till we come back,” you know. And I wanted to be a part, so I begged and pleaded until somebody said, “Okay, man, goddamn it, come on, all right.” And they took me, and there I was, so they were doin’ it and I wanted to belong, you know. I mean, this is really how it started, and once it started, there it was, you know. But I never got so involved in it to the point where I was out of my mind or didn’t know what the hell I was doin’, you know. Like, I heard of people havin’ habits of sixty dollars a day or one hundred dollars a day. I never had nothin’ like that.
How much did you take per day?
Oh, I probably spent about twenty dollars. Never got above that.
What did you learn through the Viennese psychoanalyst?
Who?
The psychoanalyst that you were supposed to have seen for a couple of years?
What did we talk about? Nothin’. Like, and he’s not a psychoanalyst. I mean, what he was, was a psychiatrist. He had no influence, say, as far as my doing or not doing anything. I went there and said, “First of all we’re gonna get one thing straight. You don’t have to convince me not to do anything. I’ve already made up my mind, I ain’t gonna do it, and it’s finished.” And so, when we saw each other we just talked in general about just whatever popped up, and hell, I think I probably talked to him more about his practice, what the hell he was doin’, than about myself.
Was that year off hard for you?
I’m basically a lazy person. It’s never hard for me to relax. But I do enjoy doin’ things. The work I’m doin’ is not work to me. It’s fun. See, it’s like a hobby that I’m gettin’ paid for and truly is part of my relaxation. This is really it for me.
Then why did you take a year off?
Well, I felt that I should do it just because I wanted to. Now, it was necessary, of course. I hired a psychiatrist so that when we went into court, I thought it might be beneficial. You tell a judge somethin’ like a cat been usin’ somethin’ for fifteen years, and he, all of a sudden the man say he ain’t gonna do it no more, and the cat gonna say, “Sure, come on now, let’s get down to the facts.” But if a psychiatrist says it, for some reason, at least the judge will kinda lean towards believin’ the cat. So that was the whole purpose of the whole thing. Because, let’s face it, man, if a guy doesn’t want to stop doin’ somethin’, the judge, the psychiatrist, the jailer, ain’t nobody gonna—the people stay in jail five years and come out on the street one day right back at it.
I believe—I’ll tell you somethin’, now, I had the psychiatrist, and the man had a legal right to what you call trim me down a little less each day until I got down to nothin’. I didn’t do that. The doctor didn’t believe this himself, that I have never in all my years, I’ve never seen nothin’ like this in my life. They even tested me, man. They thought somebody must be slippin’ me somethin’. So they cut my visitation off, just to make sure, and I still was the same way, so they said, no, it can’t be that. Not only was I not doing anything, but they try to say do you want anything to help you sleep? You want any sleepin’ pills? I said, well, I ain’t been takin’ sleepin’ pills. I don’t figure I need to take ’em now. So and that was kind of a shocker. Because the hospital didn’t believe it, the doctor didn’t believe it. And man,
they tested me two or three times, the usual testin’ that they do on you. They sent me up here to McLean Hospital in Boston, because this was ordered by the court. Like, they called me up one day and I’m workin’ like hell, you know? Doin’ my concerts, and they called me up one day and said, “Hey, we want you to go to McLean’s Hospital and check in tomorrow.” Not only did they send me there, but what they did, they waited until the weather got kinda cool. Now, they know if you usin’ any kinda drugs, you can’t stand that cold. You just can’t take it. So, man, they cut off the heat on me. Made me mad as hell. I went up and told the nurse I’m gonna sue the goddamn hospital if I catch cold. I know what y’all been doin’. I want some heat put back in my room. I mean, I’m not stupid. But, I’m literally freezin’. So you put the heat back in there. I guess the woman must have said they can’t be nothin’ wrong with this man, after all the testin’ we done and everything else, and all he can do is get mad, you know. So after a while they got to believe me, but it took an awful lot of doin’, because it was unusual, quite unusual.
This came after your stay at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California?
Yeah, well, this was somethin’ ordered by the court. This was part of my thing. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t work or nothin’, they just said, look, any day we might call you, you know, and say this to you. What they did, they watched my schedule and knew I was workin’, so they knew of a day when I wasn’t workin’. They knew my schedule better than me, and all of a sudden they just, bam—you just got to go, man. So they did test me a couple of times just to make sure.
I didn’t have a wind-down program. I just stopped, period. You hear about people who bite the sheets and eat up the pillow, and I didn’t do none of that. So that worried people. They took all my clothes. They searched them. And they came in my room one day, they looked under the mattress, shit. I said, “I don’t know what the hell you all lookin’ for, but they ain’t any way in the world I can get anything. Nobody’s comin’ here, and I don’t know where I could find it.” And you know, they watched me like a hawk.
You were once asked about the messages in your songs; or, rather, the lack of messages.
No, it was a matter of getting material I could handle. Remember, I got to first feel the music, do somethin’ with the song. And that’s why you have a song like “America.” I wasn’t tryin’ to just say the country is all bad because it ain’t all bad. I love this country, man. And I wouldn’t live in no place else. You understand. My family was born here. My great-grandparents were born here. I think I got as much roots in this country as anybody else. So I think when somethin’s wrong, it’s up to me to try to change it. I was sayin’ that America is a beautiful country. It’s just some of our policies that people don’t dig.
You said onstage that “I Gotta Do Wrong” is “the story of my life,” that “I gotta do wrong before they notice me.”
Well, I kind of think that what I meant was is that it seems that out of all the pleading that a people can do, all the crying out and all the conversations, you know, we’ve had that for years and years and years, and nothin’ really happened. They said, well, those people are happy, and they’re smiling and dancing, and so they must be cool. And nobody paid them the mind, until the people began to do wrong things. And, of course, what I was really saying is not that this was anything to be proud about. I was saying that it’s something to be ashamed of, that you got to do wrong before a country as rich as we are—we’re the richest country in the world. We got more money and we got more of everything. I don’t care what any other country’s got for the most part, we got that, and the chances are, nine times out of ten, we got more of it on top of it. And it’s a shame that in order for our leaders to really pay us some attention, we gotta go and burn this down, and we gotta go and break into this, and we gotta go and picket this, and we gotta go and stand on this lawn—that’s pitiful.
Everybody who’s in power—unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like they want to do anything unless they’re forced to it, unless they are made to feel shame about it. And when I sing this song—I gotta do wrong before people notice me—I’m not braggin’ about that. I’m saying that that’s a pity. It is, it’s sad, man.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
by Andy Warhol
April 12, 1973
In 1972, Rolling Stone asked Truman Capote to cover the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. tour. But months later, Capote was unable to produce a story. The magazine asked Andy Warhol to interview Capote, and the resulting cover story was billed as “an audio documentary,” with small talk and numbers from the tape recorder’s counter included.
631
[Leaving the Oak Room. Outside—Central Park South]
000
Truman: Why don’t we go for a walk in the park? We’ll go visit the yak. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s that’s all Holly Golightly ever used to do, every time she got what she used to call “the mean reds.” She used to go to visit the yak in the zoo. . . .
060
[They pass the horse-drawn carriages lined up on the periphery of the park.]
Truman: Somehow, I could never bring myself to ride in one of those because I identify with the horse . . . Do you identify with animals, Andy? I know you identify with cats, because you used to keep twenty. . . .
[Truman sees a newspaper.]
Tim Leary’s going to Vacaville. Vacaville is maximum security, but it’s the best-run prison and the nicest —
Andy: Do you know that I just saw him in St. Moritz? The zoo’s that way. I saw Leary Christmas Eve. Isn’t that nutty? . . . The zoo’s over there. Isn’t that the zoo right over there?
Truman: No, no.
Andy: No, no. The zoo’s over there . . . But it was so strange to go to somebody’s house and there’s Timothy Leary.
Truman: I thought he was on his way to Afghanistan.
Andy: Dig. No. He was with a pretty beautiful girl who’s really in love with him.
Truman: He was just like Meyer Lansky without money. The man did escape from prison in California, rightfully or wrongfully for whatever his offense may have been. But the point is, he really did have a marvelous run for his money. He went through Algeria, he fell out with Eldridge Cleaver . . . Didn’t Eldridge Cleaver put him in prison? It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they finally catch Eldridge Cleaver. He’s going to have to come back because Algeria is absolutely fed up with him. Where can he go?
Bob [Colacello, editor of Interview]: He can go to any African country or any Communist country. Cuba would be delighted to have him.
Andy: Well, then why wouldn’t Cuba take Tim Leary?
Truman: Well, he applied there. The Algerian government very much wants Cleaver out of there, I understand. They consider him a terrific troublemaker. On top of which—you know that plane they hijacked and sent to Algeria, and they got the $750,000 ransom. It was all done for Eldridge Cleaver.
Andy: Oh.
133
Andy: You’re going to the gorilla? Oh, we’re going to the deer.
Truman: The yak’s right along in here—somewhere . . .
Andy: The hippie look is really gone. Everybody’s gone back to beautiful clothes. Isn’t it great? . . . Did you ever want someone to call you Daddy?
Truman: Call me Daddy?
Andy: Yes.
Truman: No. Nor the other way around, either.
Andy: You mean you don’t want to call somebody Daddy.
Truman: Oh, no.
Andy: But isn’t “Daddy” nice? “Daddy” . . . “Dad” . . . It sounds so nice . . .
Truman: I’ve always been a highly independent person. Strictly on my own.
154
Truman: You said something to me that really startled me when you came to the house today.
Andy: What?
Truman: You said that my mother telephoned you. I was absolutely startled. Really startled.
Andy: You were? Why?
Truman: Because my mother really was an
alcoholic —
Andy: But I met your mother.
Truman: I know you met my mother. But my mother was very ill woman, and a total alcoholic.
Andy: Really? When I met her, she wasn’t —
Truman: Yes, she was an alcoholic when you met her. She had been an alcoholic since I was sixteen, so she was an alcoholic when you met her . . .
Andy: I never knew that.
Truman: You didn’t realize it?
Andy: No. She was really sweet.
Truman: Well, she had this sort of sweet thing, and then suddenly she’d—Well, you know, she committed suicide.
The Rolling Stone interviews Page 9