good evening from los angeles, i am tavis smiley, singer/song writer michael mcdonald is back to talk about his work in nearly 17 years. we are glad you joined us, michael mcdonald, coming up in just a moment. ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like

you. thank you. ♪ i am beyond tickled when singer/writer michael mcdonald. the ferguson native released his first set of all new released materials it is called "wide open." i am honored to have you back on this program. >> thanks tavis, it is great to be back. >> where you been? >> i have seen you in the 17 years period. >> that's a load of question. [ laughter ] >> i have seen you, of course, in that 17 years period but it is hard to believe 17 years of an album of all original stuff. >> that's right. that's the issue that i get and

in fact, most of the stuff was written during the time i did the three motown labels. >> you sold a few of those. >> yeah, it gave me a chance to catch up with my writing. >> does writer's block ever set in for you? >> everyday. [ laughter ] >> it is an ongoing thing for me. i can take four years to write a song. >> yeah, yeah. what's that about with you? is that just your way and takes a little longer? >> yeah. i had people getting mad with me because i wrote with over the years because i take longer than i should. what i found and the reason i do that and some of the songs i did with this record, songs that i started eight years ago, i was changing lines as we. >> reporter: mixing the thing and jumping out and punching vocal lines. >> i mean, not that often and i

do it enough. it seems like -- um, that song just was not written until that moment. >> yeah. >> and the way that i would have liked it to be written. >> now, does it make a difference or anybody knows the difference than me. i am a front believer with songs, you are finished when you are finished. >> i told my team that you took long enough that vital came back. >> yeah, that's the movie. >> don't we love that? >> we do love it. >> what do you make in the fact of your career you see this stuff come and go and come again. >> "vinyl" is back because it is a relevant medium. it still sounds better than, you know, in some way digitals sound better and it comes a long way and it is neck and neck. there is certain things about "

"vinyl." we were used to beautiful historic -- >> yeah. >> and the third dimension of "vinyl" because it is analog. when we mix it, there is two analog tapes and digital medium and the engineer sat me down, now, listen to both mixes, the digital mix was beautiful. when he put on the digital mix, i can hear the drums reflect in the back wall. your brain fills it in but you don't hear it. you get strictly right and left and your brain fills in the left. it puts in the dimension to it. >> talk about the decision that's called it wide open. >> for me, initially what it meant was, i often saw that

there was all kinds of music and i did not normally do. typically that i did not do because of my job, i got to be least familiar to any audience was as a keyboard player with the dubi brothers. >> yeah. >> i always wrote on guitar as much as keyboard. when i was a kid and so i felt that there was an area of my writing that i did not really make a record with. >> and so in this record, i kind of made an effort that hey this could be my last straw. i want to put it all out there. >> what is that arena that you tapped into and you had not written from? >> mostly music that i wrote on guitar that seems to take on

harmonic structure. >> they're all different vehicles for me as a song writer. keyboard allows me to do certain thin things musically that i don't play long enough. guitar allows me to approach a song in a different way that it is hard to do on piano or keyboards. so, you know i am one of those saying, i do it all but none of it that well. >> you are being a little too much. >> obviously, we got this conversation so many times over the years. i was so tickled and it was so cool just to see how much and how people appreciate your work and how the generation appreciate your work. >> i saw you killing it on co h

coachella. >> that must have been cool hanging out with -- >> it was amazing. i knew she was on the bill. my daughter was calling me constantly. i am in rehearsal and have you seen her yet? [ laughter ] >> i don't know if i will. one of the guys that i am in the b band that i am rehearsing with, oh, you should get her up to sing or something. apparently, they went and mentioned it to her and she was sweet enough to come out and we rehearsed it and she killed it. >> yeah. >> i was a hero with my daughter. [ laughter ] >> at least a week. [ laughter ] the things that your kids will go for. you hang out with solan point. >> yeah, that was it for a while. we saw you talking to my assistant, i saw you talking to danny. he's from missouri and you guys were chatting, the both of you

guys lived in ferguson. >> i am from ferguson. and danny lived in ferguson but being from st. louis. i have not talked to you since then, so much has happened since then and not to demean all cops, of course, how have you process all of this stuff over the last few years given that you are from ferguson? >> well, it is really and caused me to think so more widely about my experience going up there. >> right. >> you know in this country, people are exposed to so little of what goes on with everyone in this country, you know? when i glow rew up in st. louis this country is apart of the 50s, you know? >> you would not have seen a black person walking down. and then i realize that i

remember being a kid when i was like maybe four or five. some of my earliest recollections were -- god, are they going to drop the bomb. we heard of the bomb and wrestling with the idea. 50/50 as far as i can tell. >> there is no prerequisites, you either or, or ynot. what does a black kid do like a day of today. who would i know or who would speak to me? who would i cross path with? can i walk into the dairy queen? sounds silly but -- >> not silly at all. >> it made me realize that something of the fact that when we are that young, we see the injustice and we understand there is something going on.

it is something that adults should fixed. >> your generation is the pose that does not pass on. >> we really believe that we would be the generation that did not burden the next generation was racism was needless hatred and toxic fear. i don't care how you try to describe it and rationalize it. that's all it is, we are all in this together. this whole thing of america great again. america was not so great for a lot of people. america is on the road to getting great and living up to its own constitution. i have every belief that it will. in times like we are going through right now that are as turbulent as they have ever been. i believe these are the gross spurts that are leading us to

greatness, you know? i like to believe that anyway. i think that it is important that is we stay aware of that and we remember that. we have open discussions. it is like when my wife says to me, mike, i am worried about us. we don't talk much anymore and you get out on the road and we call and we make small talk and you are married and we should stay intimate and stay connected. and i say something like someone got to pay the bills. when i get home, i got to mow the lawn. hey, i am glad you have time to think about all this stuff and i got to work. all that is i am afraid to talk and have that conversation. i don't really want to be that intimate or that serious in our conversation because it is something i am not sure or i

don't know why i am afraid of it. that's how we are as americans when we see and we instantly go to these sound bytes that we have been conditioned to believe and it is like the kids who went down on one knee in the nfl. what more applaudable way to protest peacefully, is there really? you got guys kicking out hotel windows shooting innocent people because they are protesting something. timothy mcvey protesting the government blows up innocent people. people shooting doctors and, you know -- >> health clinics. >> health clinics. i much prefer what these kids are doing. they are not risking anything with their own livelihood because they believe the truth is that important. i admire them and i think we all

should. our flag does not represent the military, it represents freedom for all americans. that's what the people and our services have died for. that's what americans have died on. their generations of their family died on the streets of this country to protect my freedom and your freedom and our civil rights. we should not turn back to the hands of time. we should not fall asleep of the wheel. we should move forward and however uncomfortable to discuss that, we should embrace it. it was brilliant, you kno know -- how much power in the protest that grabs the attention o of the nation without hurting anyone but potentially their own livelihood. they were willing to risk that. it is important that we understand these what these young men are trying to say and aud aud all of a sudden jumping into

conclusion and a guy who has no business criticizing anyone disrespecting military of all things. here is a guy that made fun of john mccain pow's status and a gold star family whose son died in the service of the country. who the hell is he to criticize anyone else's mean to try to bring our attention to what we believe it is an important truth. >> you said a whole lot there that i want to go back and pick up some of that. let me start with this, i am fascinated by -- fascinated is the strong word. what i love about you is you are always open. what i am trying to juxtapose, you call it fears or hesitations that you talk about, whatever that is, i adodon't hear that i your content. what i love about you all these years is you are open and frank

and transparent about your writings. what's the courage come to do that. well, i always wish that i was more that way. i did consciously hope that this record will be a little more honest and songs that i have written in the past because i have always written in the third person. a lot of times it is easier to write those things down than it is to actually have the conversation one on one. i find that it is much easier for me to be honest emotionally in our song writing sense than it is with the people that i love the most and closest to. that's always been a hard thing for me. i think i just grew up in an era or the time and methamphetamifa familiar situations. my family, we did not hear a lot

of "i love you t." we took it for granted and we love each other, sure but it was a different time. in my family, i was a skarcasm sing. >> but, you know, it is always been a thing that's fascinated me about not just myself but old people. it is so hard for us to have the conversation that we need to have the most. >> and it make sense, i am connecting these things in my own mind because you are right about that. if we are afraid to have these conversations in intimate personal spaces then it is not a quantum bleak to understand why. >> yes, there you go.

there are certain areas of hot buttons that all of a sudden we run to our, you know -- whatever it is our go-to arguments about and instead of just listening to each other. you know and that's the funny thing and we all, at the heart of it, we all want the country to be better and great. we want the country to be what the people have died for. like i said, and not just on foreign assurance but on the streets of this nation where people have shed blood and the freedom that the constitution guarantees all fellow americans. >> the thing i want to go back with you and i have my list of the top ten most soulful white guys who ever lived and michael mcdonald, is the top of that

list. don't get me started. you are the top of this list. what was was it like being a white kid growing up in the area and you come out of the most soulful white guy, how did that happen? >> did i just see that? did danny just got a shout out? >> the region of our area of african-american influence of music. we grew up listening to that. that's another thing that i found funny is that. when we talk to italian food, we referred to to it as italian food and it is obviously from italy and it is french food.

it did not come from anywhere. i happens here. >> the food that we eat and the music that we listen to and everything about and the real art that comes from america largely came out of the african-american community that we can actually calm it american. >> how did you feel then of your three more time projects? how did you feel on a nightly basis traveling around the country singing the music of kwo your era. how did it feel doing three motown records? >> it was great fun. >> it was hard for me to do the record. the three motown of record is a great deal of fun. >> some of the workload is not

so heavy on me and i was not producing and some of the tracks. although i had input along the way with preproduction and some keyboard over dose in the end. we are always in touch but i was not in the grunt and trenches when the tracks are being cut. it was easy duty for me. the only thing that's not fun is we really want to keep some of the songs in the original keys. hey dan, this guy was 19 when he sang the song. i am 57. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> or whatever i was at the time. we got through it and it was always fun. >> people is electric and they

love that music. >> lets talk about the content. talk to me about the content on this project. >> what are people going to hear when they put on the song. i have a habit of taking some kind of personal thought or emotional concept and putting it into a framework that people easily relate to and it is typically a man and a woman. it was more of my own inner feelings of that song and so much of the feeling of being this age and you know, i am

surprised that being this age, most of us being 65, you are kind of surprise that who you are at 65, i thought i will be happy in front of a television falling asleep. that's what my life would be and i would be okay with that. you realize that you are still in there some where. you would like to run in the enzone one more time even though it is in your own mind. >> when i was making this record, i still had all the drive and passion to get together with my friends and make music and catch the take on the fly even though i was the guy driving in the left hand lane with 40 miles per hour with my blinker stuck on. >> there is no way of getting around that.

>> but, none the less, i hit the groove. >> i got stuck on the track, "blessing in disguise." >> that was an irish buddy of mind. >> he lives in england now. he lives with garth brooke and people like that. he would always come over and it is funny, my mother and aunt. like a boarding house, guys that i knew from out of state and when i lived in california or ellen degenere tennessee, we stayed at their house because they offered their spare room to everyone. john loved to come in and stay. we rode a lot together. i kind of worked with beth and

neilson and chapman on that song. you know we kind of developed the idea that it seems like the music has a feel to it that the idea of looking at life is a big picture and i think all of us can, at some point you live on and realize that all the worst thing that happens to me is the best thing that ever happens. >> blessing in disguise if you live through it. >> there is always something to be learned and that never stopped. >> so that's marcellus. >> you have been a blessing to all of us. your music has been and not in disguise, out in the wide open. you have been a blessing for all of us. that's the name for the new project from michael mcdonald

fan like i am, you are going to love it. >> michael, it is good to have you back. >> my pleasure, man. >> that's our show tonight, thank you for watching and as always, keep the faith. ♪ for more information on today's show, visit tavissmile tavissmiley @pbs.org. >> join me next time for doctor james goodell, that's next time, we'll see you then. ♪

and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

good evening from los angeles. i've tavis smily. this is 16 years since the start of the u.s. war in afghanistan. we will speak to jerry van dike who covered afghanistan for decades. he was kidnap and held captive. we will talk about his book, the trade, my journey into political kidnapping. and a journalist joins us and the triumph of fear and the end of the american dream. we are glad you joined us. coming up in a moment.