Detroit born, multi Grammy award winning record producer Don Was (Don Fagenson), was back in the D, in July, for the annual Concert of Colors. Don is a legendary record producer, recording with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Al Green, Iggy Pop, Joe Cocker, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, George Clinton, The Black Crowes and Roy Orbison – just to name a few. Don also formed the Detroit based group Was (Not Was) with friend David Weiss, producing four albums and multiple hit records. He has contributed to the world of film as a music director/consultant for numerous motion pictures, as well. MMM had the opportunity to interview Don, during his recent visit to Detroit.

MMM - What was the first concert you attended in your youth that had an impact on you?

DW - The first big concert I went to, I was about three years old. My parents took me to see Dinah Shore at the Masonic Temple. She had the biggest TV show, you know. It was the Glee of her time, and it was sponsored by Chevrolet. So she did one for Detroit, and you could see it at the Masonic Temple. It was a pretty big deal.

But the first rock and roll show that I went to -- I remember seeing the Dick Clark tour with the Beach Boys and Sonny and Cher.

I had tickets to see the Beatles. I was in 6^th grade, in 1964, September 1964. And it turned out that it fell on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana – a very big holiday. So my parents realized it about two days before, and they said ‘you can’t go.’

I was livid - I went crazy. I was relentless nagging them about it. I broke them down to the point where they reached a compromise in their minds. The compromise was, ‘you can’t go see the Beatles, on the high holy day. But we will take you to the Michigan state fair to see the New Christy Minstrals.’ If that was Judaism, I didn’t want any part of it. It caused me to give up the temple membership, and never get it back, and I missed the Beatles .

We used to go to Cobo Hall all the time, you know. I saw the Stones there with Brian Jones, twice. I saw them at Olympia too in 1964. 200 people in Olympia. I don’t know how I ended up there. It was just like -- ‘this is another Beatles.’ No one had heard of them at that point.

MMM - Tell us about your involvement with the Concert of Colors here in Detroit.

DW - “Well it’s a great event. I played it for the first time maybe eight or nine years ago with a guy whose name is Cheb Khaled, an Algerian Rai singer. I just thought it was a beautiful event. They have all kinds of music, from all over the world, and you get this really diverse audience from in the city as well - it opens up to everything.

And you know, in general, I am a believer in oneness . The whole is more valuable than the sum of the parts. Whether its basketball, or music, or just being on the freeway, its best when people cooperate and work together. And here is a festival that promotes that. I think music naturally promotes that. It really crosses the ephemera in which we draw our lines, whether they are racial or economic or whatever. It speaks to everybody, so any festival that promotes that - I’m down with it.

So a couple of years ago, the guy who really started the festival, Ismael Ahmad, who is a great Michigander and a great man, approached me about doing something. It’s a world music festival, but Detroit’s in the world, so let’s do a little feature about the indigenous music of Detroit. So we started doing this festival - this revue. It takes an hour and ½ of the festival and it’s a real cross section of people from 14 year old punk bands to people like Mitch Ryder, Andre Williams, and Kim Weston - really established people and new people . Everybody plays one song. Everybody uses the same amplifier and same drums and it’s got a very casual and informal feel.

It looks a lot like the old shows that I used to go see at Cobo Hall, with a bare stage, no lighting, and a lot of wires. I think it really has a communal sense to the thing. First among the musicians, a lot of whom heard about each other, but the’ve never met. So the green room’s got this great feel to it. But then with the audience as well… now the same people are starting to come back every year and it’s a gathering of the tribe of Detroit kind of. It’s got a real nice feel to it, and it transcends whether we make mistakes - it’s just a fun night. I look forward to it – it’s one of my favorite nights of the year.

MMM - Can you tell us about your experience with The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street reissue? (Don has produced all of The Rolling Stones records since 1993)

DW - That was incredible you know. They sent me 200 hours of multi track masters recorded from 1969 to 1971 on, hard drive, and it was just a wonderful experience to go through it all. You hear what was going on at those sessions.

I think the thing that stands out the most is that we know all of the legends of decadence, but they were taking care of business. Whatever diminished capacity you might think they were in, they were not that way when they were recording. They were on their game.

[On Exile on Mainstreet] They were enamored with Americana. Whether it was blues or country music, I think. Keith [Richards] told me that Graham Parsons -- who is not on the record despite mythology to the contrary …. was turning them on to a lot of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and all of that Bakersfield stuff, so that’s in there too.

There’s gospel music influences - there’s some weird voodoo stuff going on, but I think, you know it’s really their interpretation of roots American music, redesigned to suit their consciousness at that point in time – it’s a pretty amazing record.

MMM - Tell us about your experience with Bob Dylan

DW - I produced an album called Under the Red Sky in 1989. We wrote a song on the last Was (Not Was) album - Dylan, David Was and myself wrote a song together.

He’s a great artist, he’s a great guy and a good friend. The depth of his songwriting output is staggering. Its’ super human- the best songs anyone has ever written. He is the best songwriter ever.

MMM - Given the music talent in Michigan, why didn’t the music business take root in Detroit like it has in other parts of the country?

I believe that the reason that good music comes out of here is because it’s not from the music centers. If you were really to break it down and draw a little flow chart, you would see that most great stuff didn’t come from NY and LA. And I think there is something to being provincial, and being removed from it -- what’s trendy gets transformed before it gets … (pause) it’s kind of like the game of operator, where you whisper something and by the time it comes around its completely different.

I think the Motown guys were probably trying to imitate Atlantic Records R&B sound and got it wrong. And I’m sure the MC5 were imitating some other rock and roll. Iggy was imitating the Doors and the Stones and got it wrong. But getting it wrong it came out right. That’s all anybody does is get it wrong and come up with something new. There is nothing wrong with that. That’s how you change stuff. You aim here and it lands there.

Bob Dylan told me that when he cut John Wesley- Harding he brought the engineer a Gordon Lightfoot album and said ‘make it sound like this.’ It sounds nothing like a Gordon Lightfoot album but it changed the sound of rock and roll. So these things just happen. But you have a better chance of it, if you are not in the fashion center. However you become removed from the business, that’s the downside.

MMM – The Michigan Film Tax Credit was recently implemented to develop a film making industry. Are there any lessons we can learn from the evolution of music in Michigan, and the lack of a music business here that we can apply to the emerging film business?

DW - That’s interesting. I’ll tell you where it is a little bit different. Detroit directors are not necessarily coming in here. The director is the artist. So when you record, when you get local music happening -- that’s a local flavor that you then spread to the rest of the world.

Now it’s curious that no one ever comes to Detroit from somewhere else to make an album. I can’t think of an instance. So, that’s not a good thing for Detroit music because there is no reason not to be coming here to make records except the studios – they are good studios but they are not amazing studios. And it’s a little harder to rent equipment, a little harder to get a string bass delivered at midnight. So those are the kind of things you know.

That ‘s what people want and then, there are elements of lifestyle and comfort - a nice place to stay. Do you feel good? Can you get good food and things like that. If you are gonna be someplace other than where you live – the place can’t offer less than what you have. That’s a very real thing. But, if you want it to take hold here, my guess would be you gotta offer everything. You can’t have a handicap otherwise people won’t do it. It just becomes easier to stay home.

The people running the film business here should really go spend some time in LA and see what’s offered and what people are used to and talk to the producers you know, it can be done.