Joe Boyd on Global Music's Timeless Power; From Pink Floyd to World Music Revolution-Music History

Summary

Takin' A Walk – Joe Boyd on Global Music’s Timeless Power

Podcast: Takin’ A Walk – Music History with Buzz Knight
Episode Title: Joe Boyd on Global Music's Timeless Power: From Pink Floyd to World Music Revolution
Release Date: December 9, 2025
Host: Buzz Knight
Guest: Joe Boyd
Book Featured: And the Roots and Rhythm Remain

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the career and worldview of legendary producer, writer, and musicologist Joe Boyd—whose new book "And the Roots and Rhythm Remain" explores the often forgotten roots and lasting influence of global music traditions. Host Buzz Knight and Boyd discuss the intricate interplay of politics, culture, and music, touching on stories from jazz’s birth in New Orleans, to the backstories of world music phenomena like Paul Simon’s Graceland, Ry Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club, and the haunting harmonies of the Bulgarian Women's Choirs. Joe offers insight drawn from his unique six-decade career producing artists from Pink Floyd to Nick Drake, and shares his ongoing fascination with music’s unbreakable threads across time and geography.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Joe Boyd’s Dream “Walks” – With Jelly Roll Morton and Chris Blackwell

[04:10 - 06:14]

• Joe’s fantasy walk would be with jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton in New Orleans, to witness firsthand “the moment in American music history when ragtime, Spanish, Cuban music met the blues and jazz emerged.”
• For a living companion, he picks Chris Blackwell (Island Records founder), acknowledging Blackwell's key role in his early career and the birth of Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and Sandy Denny’s careers.
  • “He always knows all the street guys, you know, he doesn’t live in a bubble, Chris.” – Joe Boyd [06:15]

2. Why This Book, and Why These Musical Traditions?

[06:25 - 11:13]

• Boyd’s motivation for writing And the Roots and Rhythm Remain draws on his love of writing, “telling people things they think they know but don’t,” and unpacking the social and political context of global hits.
• The Graceland phenomenon is cited as an example of Western audiences missing complex realities:
  • “They didn’t realize that in South Africa, Ladysmith Black Mambazo…represented the enemies of the ANC. It was very complicated.” – Joe Boyd [07:42]
• Examples extend to musical crossovers in Cuba and New Orleans—Boyd’s experience producing a record with Cuban and New Orleans musicians reveals “such a different concept of rhythm,” sparking his long exploration of how African-American and Afro-Cuban cultures diverged musically.
  • “Hits that everybody knows, but they don’t really know where it comes from and…what are the stories behind it?” – Joe Boyd [10:00]

3. Deeper Dive: Buena Vista Social Club & Ry Cooder

[11:22 - 16:08]

• Boyd traces previous cycles of Western interest in “world music,” arguing major moments like mambo and early ‘30s Cuban hits had a broader, deeper impact than ’90s Western releases.
• Buena Vista Social Club was ironically disliked by Cuban audiences as too old-fashioned and sanitized:
  • “It’s as if…the world said to Britain, we’re not interested in Massive Attack or Radiohead…We’re falling in love with a group of banjo and accordion players who do music hall songs from the ‘30s. That was the Cuban view.” – Joe Boyd [13:11]
• He reveals the album was born from accident: “the Malians didn’t get on the plane,” so Ry Cooder and Nick Gold, “stuck in Havana,” decided to record something spontaneous instead.
  • “Hats off to them…they just didn’t blink.” – Joe Boyd [15:09]

4. The Meaning Behind The Title

[16:08 - 19:47]

• The book title is a lyric from Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies.” Boyd recounts a revealing interview with Simon about the making of Graceland:
  • Simon created the music first without lyrics, which he found intimidatingly strong, delaying his lyric writing for months.
  • “He felt they were probably the best lyrics he ever wrote. And I think they are.” – Joe Boyd [17:40]
• Rhythm is everything:
  • “To me, music lives in rhythm…if you start with the rhythm…that’s what Paul Simon did. He takes the music on its rhythmic basis and pays it that respect.” – Joe Boyd [19:25]

5. Healing Power of Music

[22:57 - 24:24]

• Boyd attests to music’s unique ability to create elation, joy, “lifting you out of yourself,” if not actual medicine:
  • “If there is sort of holy realm, that’s the closest I get…listening to great music.” – Joe Boyd [24:06]

6. The Story of the Bulgarian Women’s Choirs

[24:24 - 30:49]

• Boyd’s first exposure came via American record labels—origin stories involving Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, and a chance Parisian encounter.
• The Bulgarian sound stood out for its raw village singer authenticity and “open throat” harmonies, unlike the artificiality of Soviet “folkloric” ensembles:
  • “In Russia, Stalin…wanted to destroy peasant music. So no peasants were ever in Moiseyev’s choir…It was just all invented.” – Joe Boyd [29:15]
  • By contrast, Bulgarian choirs featured real villagers, preserving folk traditions.

7. Witnessing the Jamaican Reggae Explosion

[30:49 - 34:35]

• In the ‘60s, most British audiences rejected reggae as “music for skinheads.”
• Boyd’s conversion came during a transformative night listening to Toots and the Maytals with Paul Rodgers and Blackwell:
  • “We just sat there shaking our heads – this music is unbelievable…so cool. We never imagined Jamaican music was that good.” – Joe Boyd [32:25]
• He later produced Reggae Got Soul, a rare album he’s perfectly satisfied with:
  • “There’s probably two records that I made that I can listen to from beginning to end…And Reggae Got Soul is one, and [Nick Drake's] ‘Rider Later’ is the other.” – Joe Boyd [34:35]

8. Unexplored Musical Traditions

[34:40 - 36:54]

• Boyd expresses lingering curiosity about South Pacific music, recalling a breathtaking encounter with Tahitian tourists singing in a San Francisco hotel:
  • “It was just the most glorious sound I’ve ever heard. I couldn’t believe it.” – Joe Boyd [35:14]
  • He dreams of recording the best musicians throughout Tahiti, reflecting wistfully on the world’s “so much music…I could spend another lifetime…making records.”_ [36:41]

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Notable Quotes

• On music’s political complexity:
  “Here’s music, which is wonderful…but also tell people something they don’t know about the political context.” – Joe Boyd [08:04]
• On cross-cultural rhythm:
  “Havana and New Orleans are next door, but yet the sensibility is so different.” – Joe Boyd [09:24]
• On the inside story of Buena Vista:
  “Latin radio [in American]…How many radio plays did it get? Zero. Big zilch.” – Joe Boyd [14:12]
• On the mystique of the Bulgarian sound:
  “It’s like a shout. There’s no vibrato…if you had these adjacent notes and were singing bel canto, it would sound like a train wreck. Because the note is straight and doesn’t wobble, it works.” – Joe Boyd [27:41]
• On why he keeps exploring:
  “There’s so much music in the world…I could spend another lifetime, you know, travelling around, making records.” – Joe Boyd [36:41]

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Important Timestamps

• Opening and Introduction to Joe Boyd: [04:03 - 04:08]
• Favorite ‘Walking’ Companions: [04:10 - 06:14]
• Book Inspiration and Early Stories: [06:25 - 11:13]
• Buena Vista Social Club Backstory: [11:22 - 16:08]
• Title Meaning & Paul Simon Interview: [16:08 - 19:47]
• Music as Healing: [22:57 - 24:24]
• Bulgarian Women’s Choirs: [24:24 - 30:49]
• Jamaica and Reggae Explosion: [30:49 - 34:35]
• The World Unexplored: [34:40 - 36:54]
• Closing Thoughts: [36:54 - End]

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Memorable Moments & Episode Tone

The episode pulses with Joe Boyd’s warm storytelling, humility, and enduring curiosity. He weaves canonical music history with firsthand production tales, political nuance, and sly humor—a tone matched by Buzz Knight’s enthusiasm and curiosity. Their back-and-forth celebrates both world music’s mysteries and the deeply personal sense of discovery at its heart.

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Summary Takeaway

This is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the unseen forces shaping world music. Boyd’s stories will leave you hearing classic records with fresh ears and appreciating the global weave of rhythm, politics, and passion behind every note. If you love music history, And the Roots and Rhythm Remain—and this conversation—are essential.

Transcript

[A]

Taking a Walk I'm Buzz Knight, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast. Now, what do Pink Floyd, a Bulgarian women's choir and a Kingston recording studio have in common? The answer is going to be our next guest here on Taking A Walk. His name is Joe Boyd. He didn't just produce some of the most influential albums in rock history. He has spent six decades chasing sounds that most of us will never hear. From village squares in Hungary to underground clubs in Havana. Always asking the same question, what happens to music when the world tries to forget it? He's got a new book and the roots and rhythm remain. It's part memoir, part musical archeology, and part love letter to the rhythms that refuse to die. Joe Boyd is next on the Taking a Walk podcast.

[B]

This is an I Heart podcast, guaranteed.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.

[B]

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line, but first.

There, the last one.

Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.

Taking a Walk.

[A]

Joe Boyd, welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. It's so nice to be with you.

[B]

Well, it's great to be here.

[A]

We're going to talk about in the Roots in Rhythm Remain, your amazing book. But first, we like to start the podcast with a hypothetical question. The question is, since the podcast is called Taking a Walk and we're not walking in person, is there somebody, Joe, you would like to take a walk with? Living deceased?

Who would that be? Where would you take the walk?

[B]

Wow.

Gosh, there's so many people. I mean, you know, you give me such a huge scope to take a walk. Well, you know, I guess my. Of all the deceased people that I would most like to talk to on a walk, I'd like to take a walk around New Orleans with Jelly Roll Morton. That would be a kind of dream.

Because he was such an incredible storyteller. And to find out that sort of moment in American musical history when ragtime and Latin, Spanish music and Cuban music all met the blues in New Orleans and jazz emerged, you know, it's such a seminal moment. And to get firsthand reports would be. Would be great if it was a living person. You know, I, I have in mind, I'm, I have in, in my plans for the coming year, I'm definitely going to try and spend a little time with Chris Blackwell, who was, you know, a very important person in my life. And, you know, he really sort of believed in me and gave me the financial support to make the Nick Drake records, the Fairport Records, Sandy Denny records, all that stuff very early in my career. And, and he's, he's, you know, I'm 83. He's five years or six years older than me. And I just, like, would. To be sure I got to spend some time talking with him. Walking around Jamaica.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Talking to the local, talking to the local Rastas. He, he always knows all the street guys. You know, he knows everybody. He doesn't, he doesn't live in a bubble, Chris.

[A]

Oh, that's great. I Love it. Well, Joe, you've had one of the most remarkable careers in music history, from producing Pink Floyd to Nick Drake to discovering Fairport Convention. What drew you to this particular book Now? I mean, it took you a while. This book is a monster. So it didn't just happen and appear on your desk, but why focus on these specific musical traditions?

[B]

I guess a combination of reasons. I always liked writing. I mean, I used to write outraged letters to the editor. And they got published. You know, I got published in the New York Times and the Guardian sometimes, you know, Mr. Angry of Princeton, New Jersey.

But then I wrote White Bicycles. And I really enjoyed the process. And I really liked, you know, going out and talking about the book and traveling around and kind of being my own guy. You know, I was. I had been looking after musicians all my life, and all of a sudden I was looking after this writer guy who did everything I told him to. You know, it was so I knew I wanted to write another book. It didn't take me very long to figure out that I would write this book because I guess I was very aware of. I don't know, I like telling people things that they don't know. They think they know, but they don't know. And one of the things that had been sort of intriguing me was the way when Paul Simon released Graceland, people were upset about breaking the boycott. You know, there was the clash with the anc, There was all of that. But at the same time, people then discovered Ladysmith Black Mombazo and they discovered Matini and the Ma Hotel of Queens. And I felt this audience, this Western middle class, white audience in Britain and America and Europe, whenever they bought a Ladysmith Blackbone Basel record, they felt virtuous. It was sort of like showing their support from Mandela and black South African culture. And they didn't realize that in South Africa, Ladysmith Black Mombazo and Mahotini represented the enemies of the anc. And Mandela, they represented the Zulus. And the Zulus were being armed by the apartheid government to fight the anc. And it was very complicated. And I just thought, well, here's a classic example. Here's music, which is wonderful, which could. I could explain a lot more about the roots of that music, but also tell people something they don't know about the political context and the social context and the stories here. And then when I realized that Malcolm McLaren in his duck Rock Project went to Johannesburg and used basically the same musicians that Paul Simon used three years later on Graceland, that's another little twist to the tale. And, and so I thought, yeah, this would be fun to dig into some of these stories of music that people know, but they don't know the backstory. And I'd also.

I tried to work with. I've done a record where I brought Cuban musicians to New Orleans. And the record didn't make a big impact. It was sort of semi successful artistically. But it was fascinating to watch the Cuban and the New Orleans musicians in the studio together because they had such a different concept of rhythm. And I was intrigued by that. Like Havana and New Orleans are like next door to each other, but yet the sensibility is so different. And I started digging into the history of that. How come African American culture is so different from Afro Cuban culture? And that turned out to be a fascinating story. And so I decided there was a book in the hits, the sort of global music hits. Samba, mambo tango, Eastern European gypsy music, Indian ragas, reggae, you know, the ones that everybody knows, but they don't really know where it comes from and who are the story, what are the stories behind it. So I said, that's going to be a fun project. I didn't think it was going to take me 17 years, but that's how I came to do it.

[A]

17 years. All right. Well, that is resilience in the writing world for sure.

How important was somebody like, as far as the Cuban part of the story, how important was somebody like Ry Cooter and Buena Vista Social Club, what he put together in sort of taking that to a foreground in America?

[B]

One of the themes in my book is that.

The explosion of interest in the late 80s and the 90s in the so called west, in what we called world music, it was great. I mean, I was right in the middle of it. It was very exciting. I heard some fantastic concerts, there were some great music released on record. It was a wonderful thing. But it was only the most recent manifestation of something that's been going on forever. And so I would say that in terms of broad impact, Erez Prado and the Mambo and the Afro Cuban all stars in the 40s playing at the Palladium and the Peanut Vendor being a worldwide hit in the early 30s, these were much more impactful across the breadth of Western culture than Buena Vista Social Club and Buena Vista Social Club. One of the fascinating things about it is that the Cubans hated it. You know, they really didn't like it at all. They thought, and as I say, I say in the book that it's a bit as if, you know, the rest of the world said to Britain, we're not interested in Massive Attack or Radiohead, we don't like those people.

We're falling in love with this group of banjo and accordion players who do, you know, music hall songs from the 30s. And that was the Cuban view, was this was yesterday's music, this was old fashioned music. And not only that, but the way that Ry Cooter and Nick Gold was his co producer, the way they recorded those musicians, they didn't have much drums, they only had a little bit of bongo, they didn't have a conga drum. So it was very emasculated from a Cuban point of view. And so. And you know, they just thought it was tourist music. And one of the statistics that I cite in the book, which is I found so interesting was, you know, sold 10 million copies, it won a Grammy, Latin Radio in America. How many radio plays did it get? Zero.

[A]

Big zilch.

[B]

Yeah, big zilch. Latin radio had no interest in it. So it was a phenomenon, but it was kind of a strange Corner Pocket phenomenon, you know, and it's a lovely record. I mean, you know, and it's also. I love telling the story in the book about the way it came to be, which was an accident because, you know, Ry and Nick Gold had this idea of exploring the commonalities between Cuban music and Mali. The music of Mali from, you know, North Africa. From Africa. And they booked the studio with that project for that project. And the Malians didn't get on the plane because some big guy who was giving away Mercedes arrived in Bamako and he loves musicians and he wanted a big concert. He was lashing out huge amounts of money to musicians right and left and they didn't want to leave town and miss that. And so Ry and Nick were stuck in Havana with the studio booked and all these Cuban musicians there. What are we going to do? Well, let's record something, you know. And so they just started and it's a great example of, I mean, God, hats off to them because I think they just didn't blink. They just moved forward and immediately found things that they loved and got very excited by. And I love the image of Ry. Ry had a little pocket recorder and he would wander around the studio listening to the musicians. He told them to figure out tunes that they really liked and he'd go around recording little bits of it and then he'd go home to his hotel and stay up all night listening to this and trying to decide what they record the next day. So, you know, God bless Him, you.

[A]

Know, the title of the book, and the Roots and Rhythm Remain. It suggests, obviously, you know, permanence and continuity. What does the phrase mean to you personally, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

[B]

Well, it's a. It's a quote from a lyric. It's. Paul Simon wrote that phrase. And from Under African skies on Graceland. And this is how we begin to remember this is the coursing of love in the vein, you know, calling your name out and the roots of the rhythm. These are the roots of the rhythm and the roots of rhythm remain. It's a very beautiful stanza, and it's. You know, it's poetry. So I. You can't pin it down to a literal meaning. Exactly. You know, I had a wonderful interview with Paul for the book. And he originally said, listen, I'm tired of talking about Graceland. You know, that was a long time ago. I've done so many interviews. But, you know, I've known you for a long time. I'll give you 15 minutes.

And we ended up talking for two and a half hours. He told me that he recorded these tracks in Johannesburg with no lyrics. He was just fascinated by the music. And he would try different chord changes, chord progressions, and, you know, try it with these great South African musicians. And then he took these tapes back to New York and he listened to them. And he said they were so good, they were so strong, that he was intimidated. He couldn't even start to write lyrics. And finally, after about four or five, six months, he started writing lyrics. And he felt they're probably the best lyrics he ever wrote. And I think they are. They're wonderful lyrics. They're extraordinary, some of them. The bomb and the baby carriage. I mean, prescient stuff. And that line. I love that. I just always loved that line, you know, this is how we begin to remember. This is the coursing of love in the vein and the roots of rhythm remain. And I think that's, you know, to me, music lives in rhythm. That's why I've always struggled a bit with a lot of records that people call fusion. You know, when you combine Western, you know, Western music musicians with music from Africa or Latin America or Eastern Europe or the Middle East. Very often, to me, they turn it around. They kind of lay down a kind of track of Western dance music or pop music or guitar strum, and then they overdub the exotic stuff on it. To me, that's a waste. Because the most interesting thing about other cultures is the rhythms. And if you start with the rhythm. And that's why Paul Simon, I have so much respect for him. That's what he did with Mother and Child Reunion. He went to Jamaica and he recorded a track, pure reggae, and then he wrote a song on top of that, he put the west.

On top of the rhythm of the other culture. And he did the same in Graceland. He did the same with Alcaldor Passa. He takes the music on its rhythmic basis and pays it that respect. And I think that's, that's what I like anyway. And so.

It'S, it's a totemic phrase as far as I'm concerned. We'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk podcast.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts.

[B]

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Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.

[A]

So we're produced this other podcast. My friend Lynn Hoffman hosts it. It's called Music Save Me. And it's really about the. I think we believe that there's healing power to music and the rhythms. And your book explores music from obviously Cuba, Bulgaria, Hungary, West Africa, Jamaica and beyond. So when you examine it across all cultures, do you think music has, with the rhythms, a healing power?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to go into like actual curing of diseases, you know, but, you know, those are some peak experiences for me in my life, you know, is being in a room with great music being performed live. And there's a feeling that you get from it, which is pretty irreplaceable. I mean, here, you know, it's, it's not comparable to anything else. It's. It's a kind of elation and a kind of joy and a kind of lifting you out of yourself.

Into a kind of realm which, you know, I don't know about spiritual, but it's definitely, if there is sort of holy realm, that's the closest I get is, is listening to, to great music.

[A]

Your chapter on the Bulgarian Women's Choirs is incredible. How did you first encounter that, that sound? And what was it about those harmonies that captivated you and you fell in love with.

[B]

I in 1965, I'd had a lot of. I was good friends with a guy called Paul Rothschild who was worked for Electra Records. He produced the Butterfield Band and the Doors.

And he worked with he and I. I was the production manager at Newport in 65 and he, I brought Paul up and he was the guy at the sound controls when Dylan went electric. I was on stage, he was at the sound controls. And, you know, we were both under attack from Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. Turn it down, turn it down. And anyway, we had a Bond. And he felt he wanted to get me into Electron, so he persuaded Jack Holtzman, the owner of the label, to hire me to go to England, where I'd spent quite a bit of time, and open an Electra office there and try and promote Elektra's records there. And the week that I went to England, Elektra released a record on their Non Such Explorer series called the Music of Bulgaria by the Philip Kuta Ensemble. I later discovered how that came to be, which was that Albert Grossman, who was Dylan's manager. It's all very small worlds now in this time of, in this time of musical history. Albert Grossman had been in Paris and gone to a dinner at somebody's friend's flat and somebody had played a record in the flat of the Kutchev Ensemble. And Grossman went berserk. And he said, what is this record? You know, and he looked at the COVID and he saw that the address of the label was in Paris. It was the Chant Dumont, the label. It was a kind of side project of the Communist Party of France. And so he went there the next day and pulled out 2,000 bucks and bought the American rights and took the tape back to America. And when he was negotiating the deal for Paul Butterfield with Jack Holtzman, eventually they got to a deal and Grossman said, okay, I'll accept the deal on condition that you release this record.

And he handed Gross handed Holtzman the tape. And Holtzman listened to the tape and said, wow, this is great. I'd love to release it. And that was the Music of Bulgaria, I later discovered. I mean, I, I, when I first heard it, I just said, wow, this is great. And, you know, around that time, a lot of hippies bought that record. It was a thing, you know, to put on your headphones, light up a joint and trip out on the Kutov Ensemble, the Bulgarian Women's Choir. It's an incredible sound and.

You couldn't imagine.

Where it came from. I mean, where does this come from? You couldn't imagine it. And then 20 years later, I ended up going to Bulgaria and going to this huge festival up on the side of a mountain and, and hearing village women singing with this kind of open throat voice, which is so interesting because it's, it's like a, it's like a shout. There's no vibrato. It's a straight note, which is why they can have such close harmonies. If you had these seconds and one, you know, adjacent notes to each other in a harmony the way they do, and you were Singing in a bel canto vibrato voice, it would sound like a train wreck because the note is very straight and doesn't wobble. It actually works.

And what I later discovered, which is what I wrote about, which inspired my writing about it, was that I was always puzzled. I said, wow, this stuff is so great. And every time I heard another Eastern European folk ensemble, like the Czech, you know, people's choir, or the Polish people's choir or whatever, it was always kitsch, boring kind of stuff. And when I heard the Russian one, Moiseyev Choir, I thought that, well, that's really stupid. It's very acrobatic, these dancing. But the music is really silly. How is it that Bulgaria has this great music and nobody else in the Soviet bloc does? And I discovered it was so fascinating that Kut loved the music of the villages and the voices of the villagers, the women in the villages. And he recruited them from the village into the choir and taught them how to read music. In Russia, Stalin had hired Moiseyev to start the ensemble because he wanted to destroy peasant music. He wanted to invent a new peasant music. And so no peasants were ever in Moiseyev's choir. You know, the choir was all like, the second stringers from the Bolshoi.

You know, they were classically trained singers from the cities, and the whole thing was fake lore. It was just all invented. And so I love that whole thing about Bulgaria being the outlier in the Eastern blocs, that they really loved their own folk music and they beat it up, you know, Whereas the Soviets were trying to suppress peasant culture because the peasants didn't like collectivization. They rebelled against Stalin, and he wanted to destroy them. So it's a story where music and politics overlaps, which was, of course, meat and drink for me when I was looking for writing my book, you had.

[A]

A front row seat to the ska and the reggae explosion in Jamaica. And I wonder if you look back and you realize that, or did you realize at that time that you were witnessing something that was pretty revolutionary?

[B]

Well, I don't know if I had. I mean, I. You know, I was producing records for island for Chris Blackwell, and Chris. I knew. I mean, he was a Jamaican. He loved Jamaica, loved Jamaica culture. And I knew that he had a dream of making Jamaican music go worldwide. And he'd had a little taste of it with my boy Lollipop back in the mid 64. You know, he had this big hit with Millie. But I. You know, I was like most people in the 60s. There was a lot of Jamaican music around Britain, but most people didn't listen to it. You know, it was considered. You know, the people who liked it were the skinheads. They liked ska, and they would have these. And they were like war. You know, they shaved their heads and had tattoos on their skulls and were very unpleasant people. And we sort of thought, if they like this music, why should we?

And it wasn't until I had a weekend in 1971 when I visited Chris Blackwell in Bahamas. Paul Rogers, who was the lead singer of Free Then and. And Bad Company, he was there, and we had this great weekend. And then Sunday night, we were sitting there. Chris had fed us beautifully. We'd had a wonderful day. And we're passing the joint around, and he said, have you guys ever heard Toots in the Maytals? And we said, no. Who's that? And he said, okay. He dropped the record on the turntable, put it on the needle, and Rogers and I just sat there shaking our heads like, this music is unbelievable. It's so cool. It's so good. We never imagined that Jamaican music was that good. And then, like, six months later, Chris signed.

Bob Marley and the Wailers and started work with them on their first record. And. And then around the same time, the Harder They Come came out the film.

And so suddenly there was, like. From different angles, there was all these revelations about how amazing Jamaican culture was and how amazing this music was. And I never really had any kind of key role in disseminating it or making it popular. But in 1976, Chris wanted to work with Bob, with Toots, the way he worked with Bob Marley. But Marley got jealous and said, no, come on, Chris, let's. We gotta. We got work to do. Come to Nassau. And Toots was already in London with his tapes. So Chris asked me to finish working on this record, SLP called Reggae Got Soul. One of the greatest experiences of my life in the studio. It was just such a amazing experience. And the record is the one. You know, I say, there's probably two records that I made that I can listen to from beginning to end. And I frequently do and never think to myself, ooh, I wish I'd brought that up just a little bit more. Or, ooh, I wish I'd edited that a little differently. Or, oh, you know, why didn't I do that a little better? And that Reggae Got Soul is one, and.

Writer later by Nick Drake is the other.

[A]

So, in closing, after all of your travels and all of the music that you've experienced, is there still a sound or A tradition out there that you're fascinated and just desperate to explore.

[B]

Well, you know, I'm realistic about, first of all, the music industry. There are very few labels out there who have the budget to send me and an engineer out to record. I mean, I am fascinated. I've always loved little. I don't have very. My collection is not very big, but I do have a few records of the music of the South Pacific, you know, from Tahiti and places like that. And I would love to go, really record, find the best musicians. I. I stumbled onto a. Into a lobby of a hotel in San Francisco in the mid-70s, and there was a group of Tahitian tourists who were staying at the hotel, and they were having a party in the lobby and they were singing. It was just the most glorious sound I've ever heard. I couldn't believe it. And I started talking in French to this girl that was singing there, and she said, oh, we're not any good. You know, we're just people. We're just tourists. And then she also said, she. I never forgot this. She said. I said, how are you enjoying your trip? She said, well, we've been to Detroit, we've been to Chicago. Now we're in San Francisco. I said, well, how do you like that, America? She said, well, it's fascinating. We've met lots of great people, but. And she looked around, she waved her hand around San Francisco, and she said, but it's so ugly. And I said, I want to go to Tahiti.

If you think San Francisco is ugly, I want to go to Tahiti.

Because that must be fantastic.

So, yeah, that would be. That would. I guess that would be one of the things on my. But there's so many. There's so much music in the world. You know, I could spend another lifetime, you know, traveling around, making records.

[A]

Never say never, Joe Boyd, My God. You know, if you love music, this is. This is something you've got to pick up. In the roots and rhythm remain, Joe Boyd takes us through a fascinating piece of music history in the world that continues to unfold. And Joe, thank you for it and.

[B]

Thank you for being on. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Thanks for listening to this episode of.

[B]

The Taking a Walk podcast.

[A]

Share this and other episodes with your.

[B]

Friends and follow us so you never miss an episode.

[A]

Taking a Walk is available on the.

[B]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

This episode of Taking a Walk is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Whether I'm booking my next vacation or going to a concert. Chase Sapphire Reserve is my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. When I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I get eight times points on all the purchases I make through Chase Travel and and even access to one of a kind experiences like music festivals and sports events. And that's not even mentioning how the card gets me into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide. No matter where I'm walking, travel is more rewarding with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Discover [e-mail] Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank Naomi Member FDIC, subject to credit approval terms apply.

[B]

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first.

There the last one. 1.

Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.

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[A]

Excludes Massachusetts.

[B]

This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers from the very same podcast. And guess what? It's the holiday season. And you know what that means. Holiday parties, Beau. Holiday parties. They're the best. But there's always the stress of what to wear, what to bring. Easy solution. Okay, bring a bottle of Casamigos. Casamigos. Wow. That is the move you can make. Casamigos mules or Casamigos Espresso martinis or Casamigos cram. And don't forget about Casamigos margaritas. A Casamigos margarita is the perfect cocktail all year round. Casamigos is just the perfect gift that keeps on giving. And as the saying goes, anything goes with my Casamigos on. Thought a holiday party might be in order. That's a great idea. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila. 40% alcohol by volume. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.