Louisiana Legends; Doug Kershaw

Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of LPB. [music] [No sound] We're in the LSU Assembly Center where in about an hour, all 5,000 people will jam

this place to hear a phenomenon. Now, not a New York phenomenon, not not a Washington, D.C., phenomenon, even one from L.A. They've come to hear a Louisiana man. His name's Doug Kershaw, this is Legends, and I'm Gus Weill. Doug, how does it feel to be back? Well, Gus, I tell you, it feels good, man, it feels good. It's home, you know. What do you miss the most about it? The people. The people? The people. I miss the way people have fun. You know, I've been living with Cajuns for 49 years. And I think that, probably after George Rodrigue, the artist, Jimmy Domengeaux whose the head of CODOFIL, you're the proudest man of being a Cajun I think I've ever met. Oh, hey, you better know that. Doug, let me ask you something: How did you get started in this business? In the music business? Well, it was sort of like push-and-shoved into it because I come from a musical family. When my dad died, uh, I was seven and we were all playing to

survive, you know, during World War II. We just started playing clubs, honky-tonks, and stuff and I was nine years old then, and I'm still doing it. You turned pro at nine? Nine years old, if making money is pro. How old were you when you started talking English? Seven. Seven? Yeah. Did that affect you to get to school and, and, and, and not speak English, did that... Oh sure, I was scared -- Scared to death? -- Yeah. And today you know what. After a while I understood why Cajun people that didn't speak English were ashamed of being Cajun and afraid of, actually, almost, being Cajun. So that's how come we lost so much of our French, the Cajun people. You know, you told me the most interesting thing before we started this program. You said that, at a certain point in your career you could have gone to rock n roll, which must have had a tremendous audience. Certainly. And you decided not to. Tell us why. Well, you know, uh once, you know, Rusty and my brother and I, Rusty and Doug, you know, we had Louisiana Man and all. We had big records and decided not to work as a team any more. I wrote songs for awhile and

I decided, okay I'm going to record again. I want to perform again. Well, at that point, you know I've got enough talent. I coulda been a rock n roller, or I coulda been any, I coulda gone for. Let me put it that way. Anything I wanted, but I'm more comfortable and I had worked up to that point of being proud of being a Cajun. I said why not take the culture, take the fiddle and what I like to do and sing and write and go for it? And it worked. Now, you've had no formal musical training. None. Do you read music? No. So how do you write music? Well, I write the lyrics down and I remember in my head and put it on tape. Put it on tape? Yeah. And record them quick. Tell me, when you were a boy y'all played in a place called The Bucket of Blood. Yeah, in Lake Arthur. Tell me about the Bucket of Blood. It was just that. It was a Bucket of Blood. Fights, you know, you know, man, back there the dance wasn't complete without a few fights. And that's what it was, a bucket of blood. Surrounded by chicken wire? The bandstand was, yeah. That's why we went in through the back and I have some bottles with me here. You got those beer bottles.

Doug, when you were a little boy there's an amusing story. I want to know if it's true. Before you played the fiddle for somebody there was a little business transaction. Oh you mean to survive? To make a living? Sure. Shoe shining in Lake Arthur. First the shoe shining and then the fiddle playing. I was playing a fiddle. I picked it up at five. It was laying around, my mom played fiddle and my brother, my dad and when he died we moved to Lake Arthur from [inaudible]. The city? Yeah, it was big. So the Red and White Cafe I use to on Saturdays my brother had a shoe shine box so I'd go and try to shine shoes, but there was two little black boys and man, I'm telling you they were tough and they'd been there before. I didn't get much business. 'Til one day I said, wait a minute. I got up before daylight and I went and I brought my fiddle. I sat on the steps, you know, playing my fiddle and pretty soon, man, come daylight, I had an audience and then I put the fiddle away. And they said, come on and play here. I played a song for anybody who wants me to and get their shoes shined for ten cents.

And I made ten dollars and 20 cents that day. Brought it home and we ate beans for a week and rice and had a lot of fun. Tell me about how you happened to write Louisiana Man, your great hit. Louisiana Man, well, I'd just gotten out of the army, you know. I was really down and out and really homesick, and I'd written six songs that day and the seventh song I wrote was Louisiana Man. I got to thinking about my life as a kid, you know, I'd never really given it much thought because I was just going forward all the time. And I just one time sat down and got to thinking about how it was when I was a kid and I just put down what I remembered. Is that about your family? Oh, yeah, Daddy Jack and Mama Rita and Brenda and Lynn, the twins. Sure. Tell me about your mother. She's living. Sure, she's still living in Jennings, as a matter of fact. Will you see her on this trip? You bet me. I got to go show off my new bus. How does it feel to go back to Jennings, walking around and so on? It feels great. I walk around a lot just so people invite me in for coffee. You know that's

so important to you, isn't it? It is. That's that's been one of the things I have worked harder to do to achieve, which is to have people at home proud of me. You know, it's important to me. This Cajun music and the Cajun culture. You know that's interesting. Before I knew you, I thought it was a business, but it's almost a crusade with you, isn't it? People in other cultures who don't know about the Cajuns. How did they respond? There are very few who doesn't know now about Cajun music in some form or another. When I first started out with the stuff, you know, very few people knew what the Cajuns were. Even though, you know, I had taken Cajun - the feeling and culture - and brought it into the English-speaking world, you gotta remember. Have y'all played Europe? Oh, yeah. How do they respond? Great! How about France? Great, great, great. How about the French people? What did they think of your French? Well, they laugh a little bit. They laugh a little. I laugh at theirs. And maybe it might be them wrong. Well, it is according to me. Tell me about the reaction in France to Cajun music.

Oh, it was great, well to me you know. They react good to me. Yeah, it's great. They understand you? Sure, sure. And vice versa? You can talk to them okay? Well, it's funny you know. It's a lot of ehs and whats going on. [speaking French] Okay, ee've covered the pleasant part of a young kid growing up on a houseboat, as a matter of fact, and being just a prodigy picking up a violin and and being able to play. You wrote music, Louisiana Man. Success came to Doug Kershaw. How did it affect Doug Kershaw? Success. That first success? The big time all of a sudden? Oh, that was the easy part because I knew how I'd handle being a big artist, and I knew how I would handle the success part. It's very easy. It's a lot harder for me to handle the other part, not being successful. Do you ever have doubts about your talent, about your future?

No, no, no. I'm not where I'm going. I know where I'm going, you know. Where do you think Doug Kershaw is headed? I'm just starting out really. I've made my mark with the Cajun stuff. Now I'm going to take it really take it big in the other avenues like acting, television, and more. You know, you've done a world of TV. Sure. Sure but a lot, a lot has been singing and in music but I want to do it with the acting (mumbles) Doug Kershaw. And leave a mark in those. You performed with Itzhak Perlman, - sure - whose the greatest player. Isn't he great? Tell me, what kind of experience is that. But it's fantastic, you know. I mean. Here we are three people. They contacted me to do the sound stage for Itzhak and Jean-Luc Ponty and I to do and I, at first I didn't, what, you know, this is not a jam session and then he explained a little bit to us and it was interesting. So Itzhak, he come to see Perlman come out to Aspen while I was playing and we talked about it a little bit more, and it's so great

because we are totally, totally uniquely different, you know, in our profession. We're tops, you know. Together, you see, there was no jealousy, no competition. It was just a joy to sit down with such a professional and all of us vice versa. And it was so easy, so easy. We didn't have to read. We just played. That's a remarkable feeling, isn't it? I'm talking about to be able to perform with Itzhak as an equal? Absolutely. Well, I play with symphonies. I do shows with symphony orchestras. You played with the Boston Symphony? I play with the Boston, sure. I do this at the Denver Symphony. I do lots of them. As a matter of fact, I'm going to a lot more symphonies. Now you had, of all the experiences that you've had in your career, and you will have as you say go up, you had one experience that has to be the all-time phenomenon. You along with the rest of the world were watching the Apollo 12 mission to the moon. Pete Conrad was the astronaut. Yeah. You were watching TV. Tell us what happened.

Of course, I had just played the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. We were at the airport. I was watching it on television, and I had no knowledge of this, of course. Not with all this stuff secret. All of a sudden, I started hearing Louisiana Man coming from the moon, you know. My song! Wasn't that great? What did you do? I just started screaming and yelling. Did you ever have the opportunity to correspond with Pete Conrad? Oh ure, sure and I know him now. What did he say? Well, I sent him a record and a telegram. So he signed it all for me and we corresponded and then we met after that. It is great. So, you know, out of all of the music he could have chosen. That's, that's great. How about fiddles and bows? How many you use, say, in an average year on the road? I thought you'd never ask that. I don't know and, of course, the sticks I don't up use, but the hair. I'll use in a good, one good show, maybe eight bows worth of hair. How do you keep up, you know, with the supply? Well, I have a man that 's all he does, is just take care of

recycling my bows. I carry maybe 90 or a hundred bows. Recycling them to the people that repairs them at 17 bucks a bow that's a lot of recycling. Now let's take care of a legend right now. Is there any truth that those bows smoke sometimes? Yeah. You want to reconsider. Yeah. No. Not really. It's an illusion of it. It's the rosin actually. I've never, you know, smelt it. Well, it doesn't burn in a nice rosin. He tells as good a story as he plays a fiddle. Tell me about...I'm going to name some artists to you and find out your opinion of them. Hank Williams. Well, what do you want to know? What do you think? Well, what do you think? Oh, I think he's a great genius. Doesn't everybody? I don't know. I want to know what you think. Sure man. Has he has any influence on you? Yes, he did. Oh Lord, yes, as a writer and as a singer. Yeah, yeah. And he actually showed me that you could do something with Cajun music in English. Jambalaya. Yeah. Yeah. Like that song?

I see that a song right there that was married taken from Cajun French to English for the world to hear. You know, I think he's a great American poet and will someday be recognized as such. He really is. Yeah yeah. that "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," is a magnificent piece of music. That makes you sad? Yeah, makes me happy. I like to be sad. Me, too. Laughs. I love it! Being sad is how I write songs. Of course. How about Johnny Cash? He was a great help to me. He was? Sure, when I started again, you know, he had me on his premiere show with him and Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. How you mean started again? Well, when I left, quit working with Rusty, my little brother, then just as Doug Kershaw, that was a first major exposure I had. Let me ask you something. This is kind of difficult to ask, but it's a part, it's a peculiar part of show business. About whiskey and pills and show business and Doug Kershaw. Just like anything else, it's all over the place. It's right there. And I've been through it all. You have? I

don't drink no more. I don't take pills. I'm a bore. I don't smoke. How'd you get off, Doug? What got you off it? Well I guess I not only got tired, I was overdoing it. First of all, I'm, I do everything in excess. You know I have nothing in moderation. I either do it a whole lot or nothing. Like your music. All the way. That's right, all the way. So when it got in the way too much, I quit drinking maybe a year next month, and I was drinking a lot, a lot. I know now how heavy I was drinking. I didn't realize it then. I thought it was cute, but it's not very funny when when it gets in a way of everything, your married life, your business and everything so I said this is it. I've had it. I did it. It's over. Did you ever discuss it with Cash, who had the same problems? Not really. As a matter of fact, when he was starting the TV show, he had just quit pills and stuff like that. And we, you know, we don't have to discuss it because we all been through similar things, you know, everybody. Now I drink coffee. I'm a fanatic about coffee. You know everything's a drug. Why is it though so common and so prevalent in the entertainment business? What do you think? I'll tell you what it

is. It's a false security. But, you see, we have to be on stage all the time. See, I step out of my house, I have to be on stage. Anywhere's there's people, you gotta be on stage. And you have to be on stage at times you don't feel like it. So a couple of times it works, and you get to thinking well, if I do this every time it'll work. But after a while it doesn't work. You can't find your own personality in it. Was there a certain incident that made you know that's it. I've had it. Or was it a slow process? Oh yes, it's always a slow process. But like drinking, I was mad all the time, you know. Angry. Nothing was right. So forget it. You're such an upbeat guy. You know, that's hard to believe. But drinking was one that would keep yourself down. Pull you down. Now another question. A guy like you and your band. You're on the road. How many cities, for example, will you be this year? 1982? How many are you visiting? Goodness, well I so far, for this season, I've got I think 40 fairs, you know, fairs. That's different for 40 cities. I work, I travel

40 weeks a year. Wow. Do you mind traveling? I love it. Do you really? I love it. When you go to a town, let's say, all right you're going from Baton Rouge to San Antonio right. Yeah. Will you get to see much of the town or will you hold up in a, you know, a hotel room? Not really. Well, of course, today is a new experience because I'm not going to fly out there. I'm going to try to the bus I just bought. But usually, no, we don't have to. I just...San Diego the other day we went for three days to play the wild animal park so I got a chance to take the kids and the wife. We spent three days seeing, you know, the Sea World and stuff. But no, very seldom do we get a chance to really look at. What do you do in your spare time, Doug? I don't have very much of it. You don't? No, being an entertainer and a songwriter and being a father and husband, it takes up a lot of time. Here's a very personal question to me personally, but I suspect to you, too, as a creative man. This business of a writer's slump, which I know you have experienced from time to time, what does a guy do with that? [Laughs] Well, you enjoy it for a while.

Yeah. It's not very funny after a bit that you realize you need to survive. I mean, need, it's a part of the means to survive. The worst thing is trying to get back into the habit of it. The way I did it you know when I got married with Pam, you know, at the Astrodome and all that. Everything started going fine. I just didn't write and got out of the habit of it. But after about three years, I wanted to make another record, and it is really hard for me to sing somebody else's written material right off. That's interesting. Unless I take it and work with it for years and adapt it to what I do. I just don't feel comfortable with it. Plus, I'm a little jealous of when it makes a hit. Yeah. Of course, it might work. Of course, it might. [Laughter] But then, so I sat down and wrote myself an album, and I'm writing a song. I've got another album ready. And if you're in a slump, you'll get out of it. But enjoy it while you're not, in a slump, that's a good point. It's a good phase too. Does an audience let an artist experiment? For example, in your concert tonight, would they allow you to play a bunch of new tunes that were not familiar to them? If I wanted to, but I don't like to do that. Maybe I'll do it a little bit sometimes. I don't like to do that.

See, I've got a different kind of a show than a man does who makes a tour every time he does an album or has a single record. They go to hear him sing. But I have taken and built a show. For example, I compared it to like Oklahoma!, the play. Yes. They go to see that. They don't want you to do something else with it. But I can mess around with it a little bit, but they'll call out things they want to hear that they used to see in the show. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's on the record. It's just, just the live show and it's a hit and I don't mess with it too much. Are you are most creative at home, in California, or on the road? No. Strictly when I'm busy on the road. Isn't that something? And you would think that would be the least. No, I get it. I'm very, very, very lazy. When I get home, I just lay back and I don't want to do nothing. You read at all? Yes, sometimes. Doug Kershaw, who did not speak English until age 7 and was born on a houseboat, has a little thing called a master's degree in, of all things, mathematics, so he's a many faceted diamond. Doug, when you hang it up,

and, of course, in your business that will never come, will it ever. Oh no. When you do, what do you do with yourself? You're a young man. What will you do with yourself? What will I do with myself? I haven't even thought about that. Hang it up? I wouldn't know how to do that. If it's not, I'm branching off into, like I said, seriously into the acting stuff. Or I can broaden myself. I would never hang it up. What do we have here in Louisiana that you like the best? What really makes you proud of Louisiana? I know you're very, very proud of it. The people. We're different, huh. You see, I come out of them swamps. And first thing I saw when I got out of them swamps, you know, after I left the alligators and all that was people, and they still fascinate me. The stories. You listen to them. The people. They're good people. They're great people. You drink a little black coffee with them? But you know yeah, they're good folks. But, you know, my dad killed himself, they took us in. And these type people the world needs to know

about good people like them. You're darn right. You know, I think that we are a rare people here. I've never met anybody like us. And I traveled all over the world. Yeah. And the World's Fair that we were considering maybe I might even be the host of that thing. Isn't that great? You know, that would be wonderful. That's the way to represent Louisiana. Bring it to us! What kind of material are you working on now? That interests me. Writing? Songwriting? Right now I, you, you asked me a question earlier, how do you write a hit song. Yes. I'm not quite sure. Right now that's part of my dream job would get more hit songs, hit records. You know, I'm a big artist, but it's an overall thing. And I want, I want to be able to do that. I have some learning. Dispel an illusion of mine, Doug. Tell me that it's not true. What? There's, there's no such thing as groupies, huh? I've heard that that artists are surrounded and followed and they wait back at the door. Is there, is there any truth to that at all? No, and I didn't think so. A few? One or two? Three. Maybe? It's rough on guys who can't say no. Let me ask you this. Now, you're going to play tonight. There'll be about 5,000 people here. Do you experience any

nervousness? Oh, yeah. You do? Yeah. It's always not nervous, being scared. I still have a little fear inside me of somebody not accepting or liking me. I think that's why I still work hard, but I have no fear of what I do. I just want to be happy. I think that's the most important thing in the world to any artist, be it painter or writer, musician is acceptance, and that fear that he'll be rejected because his work is him. Well yeah, but not only that. I don't want to get on stage and lie to people because they come to see something enjoyable. And if they don't enjoy it, then actually I've lied to them because in essence I told them they were going to enjoy it. You burn up so much energy on the stage. How do you come down after? How do you unwind? That's not too easy. Being 46 years old helps a lot. Yeah, welcome to the club. Are you 46? Three years ago, I was. Say, I look good. You gotta be here.

How do you unwind? Are you high when you get off the stage? Sure, sure. Sure, there is no high like that natural music high, whoo. What do you do? I just go about my business. You don't smoke. No. I think a lot. Let me ask you a question. I once knew an artist who if he was invited out socially just resented the heck out of it if he was asked to perform in private. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Very, very rigid and embarrassed actually. Yeah I'm sort of...do you mean at their house? Yeah. I refuse to do it just by myself. That's not at all, you know, if I do something, I'll pull out my guitar and I'll sing some new songs I'm writing. That's all I ever do. I don't sit down and play to hear myself playing anymore. Would you like to live back here in Louisiana? I will. You think you will? I know I will. Right around Jennings again when you come home? Not necessarily around Jennings, but I know I will. Not right now I'm not finished, you know. No, I'm not finished yet. I wrote a song called Mama

"Rita, Put Your Black Shoes On." It says - that's when I was in Tennessee. Tennessee's my house and Louisiana's my home. "Rita, Put Your Black Shoes On." Yeah. Is it a hit? Is it a successful song? Sure. Good song, we'll hear it tonight. But I just might likely not play it. Who knows? Who knows? This, your story, has to be one of the most unusual. Your background and the fame that you've achieved, and your great love of your state. I suspect that you're an interesting combination and I hope that as a result of this program you've not only informed people and entertained them, but boy I hope that you've inspired some kids out there because you started about as far back as a man can start. To take it further than that, I'd have been a Mexican. For the Gulf of Mexico. That's not being funny, I mean that's way back there, you know, in the Gulf of Mexico. Sure, you know, it's, it's, it's out there, it's out there. What would you advise a kid who wanted to go into show business and the entertainment business? Get training. Get as much training because today there's so much competition. How 'bout your kids? Are

they going to be training? I'm sure. They wanted it so badly, they wanted me to teach them and one's five years old. He started taking violin lessons. I want him to learn how it's done proper. I mean proper according to, you know, the symphonies and classical and everything else. I want him to learn before I can teach him what I know. Let me ask this. Had you had some professional training, which heavens knows you don't need, do you think you could have been a classical violinist? Oh, I most definitely would have been a front yet. And that's what you would have done? Itzhak Perlman would have been sitting in with me. Sure, sure. Back up. I would love to have been trained. I would have loved it. Oh yes. Then there's no limit to what I could have done. So you feel somewhat frustrated sometimes? Oh, very much so. Firstly, because I cannot put down what my head hears. I can't put it down on paper. I cannot put it down, and I get so mad. Because you're filled with it? I'm filled with it, sounds, whew! I can imagine that would have to be a ferocious frustration. And I've got a mental block.

And I've never even studied music. I've got a mental block that won't let me learn. Well, Doug, in about 15, 20 minutes, this place will start filling and people will come in to have a look at a legend. And I want to thank you. You are so very kind to us to, - Gus, you're quite welcome - to give us your time right before a concert. You are a legend. I am Gus Weill and this is Legends. [Music] Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of

LPB I.