good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. first, allen alden understands his book. the text chronicle has journey to discover new ways to help people communicate and relate to one another more effectively. then bluesy rocker benjamin booker joins us to discuss his project "witness." we're glad you joined us, all of that coming up in just a moment.

allen alda is an award winning actor on the classic tv series "mash" among many other notable roles. he is also a best-selling author. the latest book is titled "if i understood you, would i have this look on my face." my adventures in the art and science of relation and communicating. allen ald yashgs ia, i'm alwaysg

to see you. >> good to see you. >> can i tell you how excited i got when i saw this book come across my desk? because i think that one of the many things that is wrong with our world is that we don't communicate well and that's pretty obvious these days. there is no empathy. there is no generous or charitable listening. it's one of the real problems. there is no civil exchange. so you got your finger on the pulse of part sf wrong with our democracy. >> much resonated with the cull as happening. i didn't know it was going to be so apt when i was working. i've been working on it for a couple of years. but what it came out of was all these years i spent not only interviewing people on the science program which i did for 11 years, but the decades before that learning to be an actor which really involves the very things you need to communicate,

listening deeply, truly. >> you don't just write this stuff. you didn't just write it. you teach this stuff. >> yeah. and i help start a center that's now called the alda center for communicating science. and we taught over 8,000 scientists and doctors to communicate better around the country and across the world. so we have a lot of experience. i've been doing it for eight years. i have a lot of experience to draw on. >> yeah. other than the fact you do this program, is there a reason you start as scientists and doctors? >> because of the program. i was so -- i was learning so much from this scientists that i talked to and the reason i was learning was because we didn't have the conventional interview. we did it the way you do it which was just a conversation. and i saw the real them coming out. i saw their passion for science. i saw their sense of humor if they had one. but whoever they really were

came out. i thought i want scientists as they lernt science to learn how to do this so they can communicate their passion for science and some of what science is like. because we don't know what science is really like. we think we hear one year red wine is great for you. next year we hear it's not so good for you. and we think they can't make up their mind. >> yeah. >> or it's just another opinion. it's not an opinion. and no research study is the be all andnd all. there is always more of this one that needs to be known. and i wanted that all to come out. i wanted scientists to communicate better. that's why i started working on teaching scientists. >> i suspect that you can get scientists to communicate better, can you make it work with anybody else. >> what my next goal, is i work with a friend who is a mathematician at cornell. woor going to finally collaborate and he's leading to teach mathematicians how to

communicate. that is really going to be good. they don't understand one another. steve told me this story. i'm not running down mathematicians. he said you know how you can tell an introverted mathematician from an xrae verted, the extra vert is stari extrovert is staring at your shoes. >> that's funny. we all have that problem. none of us relate as much as we really could if we really concentrated on it. >> the question is whether or not these tools and these techniques for communicating better can be learned by and employed by every day people. you're trained as an actor. i'm noes trained as a talk show host. but i've been doing it for a while now. so i'm pretty decent at being a generous listener i think. but are the tools and techniques

things that everybody day people with learn? >> i think so. i don't think can you learn it out of a book. but what i suggest in the book is ways you can go through experiences that teach you. you don't go to a gym once and get muscular and never have to go back. going to a gym feels good when you leave. this connecting with other people, getting better at it feels good while you're doing it. so there's at least an impulse to try it, to get better at it. >> you have a lot of great advice in this book. i can't wait to get night and read it. but one thing that i've always believed, allen, is that to be a great communicator, to be a good communicator, you have to be a curious person.

if you're only interested in listening to your talk. being a great communicator starts with being curious which means you learn to be a great listener. >> and focused on something outside yourself. it's hard to be curious about yourself. but if you're curious about what the other person has to say and things that you don't expect them to say. i always loved to hear something come out of somebody that i never expected them to say. and that keeps everything alive. >> there are some things in here that most of us professionals at least have heard at some point or another but tell me more what you learned about the science of body language and conversation. >> yeah. very interesting. >> they validate manufacture the things of what i say. it is common sense. but under that common sense understanding that you need to connect with other people.

there's a suggestion that you can go deeper than common sense suggests you go. and there are some things that have been suggested by scientific research that i find really fascinating. this idea of sinking up with another person. a couple professors at stanford had groups of people walking around the campus, some just walking, and other groups walking in step with one another. at the end of the time they took a test that would determine how concerned they were about the other people, whether they were in tune with the other people, willing to do good for the other people not obstruct them. they rated higher on that. that sounds strange and crazy. but there is the -- when we do things in sink, there is a

common thing of mimicking the other person's body language. we're both sitting forward f one of did this for a while, the other would do it. there is a tend ency to do. that we have a natural tend ency to get in sifrpg with the other person. and if we follow that through, my experience has been that we actually can convey things to the other person that they might -- we might not otherwise be able to convey. sometimes complicated things, thins hard to hear. we find the right words because we're not thinking about what the right words need to be not if the person is getting it. it's so easy to think good communication is me getting the perfect message. what good is the perfect message if it doesn't land on you. >> you have the science to back up this. i don't have the science because

i sit here every night and do this. >> you do it. you see it working. you see it at night. >> exactly. and so much of what i learned about communicating has to do with sitting here every night and talking to people. so what you said resonates with me. it's what i call rhythm. everybody has a rhythm. you have a rhythm of how we talk. >> that's interesting. >> every guest has a rhythm. and i'm trying through the course of the conversation to find that rhythm. >> that's really good. >> it's the way they speak. it's the pace with which they speak, when they pause. everybody has a rhythm. >> do you copy that rhythm? do you get into the rhythm? >> hopeful lit artist -- i mean the audience feels it. but they don't really know it. but the first five minutes of every conversation, i'm trying to find your rhythm. >> this is so interesting. so you look up tha research and see how it applies to that. >> believe me. >> that is page 22 on my book. >> i will. that's why i told you. i already have. that's what i'm saying. the book was -- this book is a

validation of what i know from practicing this. i can't wait to read your book on practically the same subject. leading through -- leading by listening. so, see, i got stuff in there about that. i really find and the few times in the limited ways i have to be a leader, i have -- i'm a boss of other people. i listen as much as i possibly can, try to find out what's going on in there. why am i getting this back from them without saying why am i getting this back from them? >> yeah. >> what did you learn about communicating, listening, and the role that empathy plays in that? >> i think it's essential. i don't think you can communicate very well at least without empathy. but i have -- i use my own version of what i mean by empathy. a lot of people think -- a lot of people have different ideas

of what empathy is. >> sure. >> i think it's important to say what your definition is. my definition of s. that it's just a way of trying to figure out what's going on in the other person's emotional life. i don't think empathy automatically makes you a good person. it doesn't make you sympathetic or compassionate. it doesn't make you do good deeds fuch deeds. if you want to do good deeds, it can help you make progress. i think there is dark empathy which is using people's emotions against them. bullies. >> xbloiting them, yes. >> exploiting they're emotions. finding out how you feel and getting you to do what i want, to sell you things, to make you -- or -- well, there is a whole bunch. bullies are really good at using your feelings against you. they know how badly you feel. >> we had a guest on this program not to make you political, but we had a guest on this program some months ago. professor berkeley. brilliant professor.

and he came on this program and really broke down, really broke down why trump is such an effective communicate nor whior the way he spoke, the words he chose, why he was so effective, i raise on that to ask what chapter do you want me to recommend president trump read first? >> in certain ways, he doesn't have. to he knows how to work a crowd. you can use empathy to work a crowd. you can see -- this is not taking a stand one way or another politically. but i think you can observe and his campaign talks how he would say something and get a response. >> sure. >> in the same moment, the second later say it again with a little twist on it, get a better response until he developed a rallying cry. the thing we're going through now why we really do demonize one another. we hear just a word or two and we already know what the other person thinks. >> that's right. >> we don't bother to find out

if there is any depth to it or some turn on it that they have. and it would really help if we would listen for that thing underneath that we might both have in common. if we had something in common that we both love our country or that we both grew up in the same place, went to the same high school, anything that we have in common. we can at least hang on to that and find out if there are other things we have in common. and if we could see, share with each other how we got to the point of view we have, if i see how you got to that, i might have much more compassion for your holding the opinion. we got to work together somewhere or we're doomed. >> that last point, my friends, is the point. that's why i recommend this book for republicans and democrats. black and white, jus aews and gentiles. >> you have trouble in river city. >> the book is called "if i

understood you, would i have this look on my face." i lot of title. my adventures in the art and science of relating and communicating it perennials. "new york times" best selling author and great actor and great man, allen alda. >> thank you. >> appreciate you. up next, musician benjamin booker. stay with us. pleased to welcome benjamin booker to this program. he was a 20 something working at a coffee shop and taking gigs around new orleans when he was discovered. his debut landed in the top ten two of billboard albums charts. this month he released a followup to that breakout album called "witness." it features a guest appearance by avis staples. who better to have on a track

called "witness"? good to you have on the program. >> thank you so much. >> my great honor. let me start by asking or saying that i don't know that i've ever opened up and read liner notes that thanked james baldwin and john paul sar. i was impressed but a bit taken back by that. tell me about that shoutout. >> i was having a little bit of a crisis. >> sounds like it. >> part of writing this album and taking a trip to mexico and just isolating myself was really good and just the idea of trying to see who i was without the comforts of home and like the people around me and those kinds of things. so i think that a lot of it was me trying to see who i really was. >> yeah. so the time alone in mexico was good for you? >> it was very good for me, yes.

yeah. you just have to -- i had to get away from the 24 hour news cycle i was in at the time. just new orleans also was a little stressed out. >> the violence? >> the violence was stressful, yeah. i got shot at in new orleans right bring left. the city was -- it seemed like it was getting worse and worse. it was getting a little hectic. i needed to get out. it was good. i think you need those types to just think about where you are in your life. >> i get from reading from you that being an entertainer alone isn't enough. so how do you navigate that? >> well, that was a big part of this album, i think. i kept thinking about being older and looking back at my life. i would be happy if i was a song and dance kind of guy you? realize you have this platform to just speak to people.

and so i guess i just wanted to start making music that connected to people on a different level that can maybe help them by showing what i was going through and the things that helped me. i think that's what i was looking to do with this record. >> by your own admission that you want to use to reach out to people. you want to write an album that says something. yet you want to be entertained. >> if you don't focus on it that much, it kind of comes, you know, the best album is my album made by people that are passionate. i'm pass nalt about james baldwin and the people before and this album is really throwing a history of black music into one album. everything from gospel to blues to soul to jazz and all those kinds of things.

if you're passionate, it will come throughout record. >> how do you defy all the boxes and categories? >> i think you have to be honest. that is something i really focused on with this album. you know, i was watching the interview and maybe it was with maia angelou and talking about how when they writes, she writes it's like the last words she was ever going to say. that's how she writes. i was trying to express my feelings like that and like the simplest terms i possibly could. they do try to market you. i think that all i can do is do my best to be honest with people and hope that they'll come. it may not be quick. i couldn't do it any other way. >> it's happening quick enough. that first album got a lot of acclaim on it. it may not be overnight.

but it is happening with some patience, some speed. how you would describe your sound i don't want to categorize it. but how you would? >> yeah. yeah. >> how you would define your sound? >> this time i was focused on -- i listened tie bunch of nigerian funk from the '70s. so i think this time i was taking a lot of gospel music and combining it with folk music. and so i think that's a lot of what you're going to get on this album. >> yeah. so what you just said is here say to some people. ray charles got in trouble for that back in the day. it wasn't really funk in his era. but how -- you're a person of faith. you drew up in that tradition certainly. how do you see the wavieaving o those sounds? >> i'm not a religious person now. i did grow up with that kind

of -- in that environment. i don't have a problem with the weaving of it. the thing i take away most from gospel music even though i don't consider myself a religious person, you can't get the kind of emotion from anything else than somebody who is singing to their god, you know what i you mean? that kind of passion is just like very specific. so i think that was something that always just connected with me. just that kind of like prim tim emotion, that longing for something more. you know? i think that's something i try to translate to the music. that's the gospel element coming in. >> can i go deeper? will you be offend philadelphia i go deeper? >> do what you got to do. >> guii'll go anyway. >> i know from reading about your back story and preparation for this conversation, listening to your music that you did grow up in a pretty strict environment, christian environment. pretty strict. i know something about that having grown unin a pentacostal

church. how have you navigated that journey of putting music out where you're weaving gospel and funk and doing other things where there are folk in your immediate family, folk in your universe, people you grew up with who judge you by the music that you're putting out? >> well, i mean, you can't focus on those people. i mean, like if you're worried about people judging you, i don't think you'd have a very long career in music. for this album i realized when we were talking about james baldwin, he left the church early. it still filtered through the writing. i think i realized that because i hadn't listened to music until i was maybe 16 or so and i only listen to gospel music. i realize that is part of my palette and like i can try to take it away. but it's always going to be

there. i thought i may as well throw it in. >> you say it kind of throws through baldwin's writings. there is no kind of too it. it was deep into his writings. i take your point. tell me about this title track "witness" and how you got mav iflt s stap tolls do that with you. >> yeah. i was lucky enough to write a song for her last album. she did me a favor when we called her up and asked her this time she pe perform on the track. the perfect person. we couldn't have had a better person. it is also just important because it is a track about preventing brutality and those kinds of things. it is important to get somebody that i could point to for maybe listeners, fans that were not familiar with mavis to show this woman that has done so much. and kind of just give them the inspirational perspective. >> yeah. >> you talked about the project earlier in terms of what you

want to do musically. tell me more about the songs and what the take away is for the listener when they listen to it from beginning to end. >> right. well, the album started when i was reading this book by an author named down delilo. it is called white noise. there say quote in the book that says what we're reluctant to touch often seems the fabric of our salvation. and i remember reading that and i knew immediately what i needed to do. i think that i was very confused at the time and scared going into the process. i think that i knew that in order to get to some kind of peace, happiness, i have to go to the dark places, you know? so i think that is what this album was about is just like telling people that life is about growth. it's about a continual process of self reflection and trying to get some. where i think that it's important to address those things in your life that you might be scared of, those demons. you're not going to be at peace.

you're not going to be happy until you do. >> his name is benjamin booker. if you've not heard of him, you now have. i can promise you well into the future you'll be hearing the name benjamin booker. he's a great songwriter and a great artist. and if you have not heard of him, pick up his stuff, add it to your collection. trust me, hohn r benjamin, honored to have you on for the first time, hopefully not the last. >> that's our show for tonight. and as always, keep the faith.

good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight, first up, a conversation with trombone shorty, discussing his album. it is called parking lot symphony. and then adam gibbs joins us for a conversation and performance from the solo album called "freedom highway." that's all coming up in just a moment.