THE INTERVIEW: BEATLES PRODUCER AND AUTHOR KEN MANSFIELD (PART 2 )

Jessi Colter, Ken Mansfield and Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings with Ken Mansfield

The Legendary LP Produced by Ken Mansfield

Manning: You have a wonderful respect for the spirituality of the Native American culture that is evident throughout your new book. How did this come about?

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Mansfield: I grew up in it! I grew up observing it. I grew up in a small town where the Indians were treated even less than second class citizens. They were shoved off a reservation and when the reservation started looking nice, they were shoved off to a reservation that wasn't so nice. Because the White man wanted the land. There was a law, for example, that they weren't allowed fire water--which meant alcohol--and there was this mentality that we had a right to withhold anything from them. They were given just barely enough money to live on by the government who held them in poverty. Here were these people that were so beautiful that they loved the land. Their philosophy is 'We don't own anything; God owns everything'. They never drew property lines. Their property was shared and they were so in tune with nature in terms of how they just lived off the land. They were really into seasons and they had very strict tribal rules about morality and everything. You could take these things and just plug them right into a Christian lifestyle. I don't agonize over 'Well, wait a minute. Why am I so attracted or why do I fee so strong about the Indian spirituality?' When I became a Christian, I'm totally sold on that. I believe everything God said is true. I believe The Bible is the inerrant word of God and so I don't have these two things in conflict. I don't quite understand the difference. But it's not for me to know. I just know where I'm supposed to be. I happen to love the way they live. I just treasure having known that kind of background. It was always surrounded with beautiful rivers and trees and forests and hills and I think I was just very blessed to have been able to grow up with that.

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Manning: During Christmas of 1996, you were diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer and you were told by doctors that you had maybe one to three years left to live. Where were you in your spiritual journey at that time and how do you explain that you are still alive today?

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Mansfield: I was very deep into my spiritual journey at that time and I think that's why I was able to react the way I did. I just trust in God so much that like I said, if that had happened to me when I was in the world, I would have been absolutely freaked out. I don't think I could have even begun to handle it. I just trust Him so much and even when a situation like that comes about, all you just have to do is to give it to Him and it's already been paid for on The Cross--everything about it. In my first book I reprinted a letter I had from God that said, 'Dear Ken: Either you believe or you don't. Love, God'. And that was the strength He gave me. It was a peace that passes all understanding. It was Him saying, 'If you really do believe, then here's my gift to you--this peace. You're into something that is this big deal and you're having peace and that is my gift to you, and that's like your proof to yourself that you really believe. You don't need to question whether you trust or believe in me'. I had experimental treatment and it worked and there was no research on the cancer. It's still incurable. I still have the cancer. But I mean, here I am. I'm way out here. I'm already a miracle in terms that I'm twelve years out now on that cancer--almost thirteen years.

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Manning: I want to go back to your career a little bit because I think my readers will find this fascinating. Your book is written in a fascinating way where you include personalities like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell. Then you reflect on your spiritual path. For somebody reading about you for the very first time, how do you go about reconciling the trappings of being such a successful record company executive and a producer at the top of the world when your life became the exact opposite in Nashville in the 1980s?

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Mansfield: It came about in pieces as a process. I wasn't a Christian. I dealt with it in worldly terms. I freaked out, I got higher, I would do anything to make a buck. I was available. I wanted to get back on top. I was dealing with all that pain and disillusionment and my pride lost and having to go bankrupt, and having my wife leave me, and having my kids end up on drugs and losing my estate and everything. It was one thing after another and it was horrible. But this was all stripping me down to nothing. I went to Nashville to start over with Willie and Waylon and the boys and all my crazy 'Outlaw' friends. I was there to get more drunk, more high, more women, more everything--that how I would react to it all. The third day I was down there, God put Connie in my path and she just turned everything right around right away. So, there I was three cardboard boxes and no work, no money, I owed a lot of money and I was hands-off with a lot of record companies because of my drug rep and all that.

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Manning: You write a lot about your close relationship with Waylon Jennings. He was the Best Man at your wedding and he stated that you were the only producer he trusted who understood him. How would you describe Waylon to my readers? He was a quiet, personal man wasn't he?

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Mansfield: Well, he was the single most off the wall person I ever met. He and I just had an affection for each other and we were so alike and so different at the same time. The things that we were alike were what drew us together and the things that we were different about is what fascinated us with each other. The main thing with Waylon was that he really didn't care what other people thought. And I mean he paid the price for that. It wasn't like he was trying to be a rough cowboy, or a stud or a James Dean. He was Waylon. If you didn't like it then that was fine. He didn't care if it cost him. He was going to do what he did and that was it. That was very liberating in a way. He didn't give a shit. Now, mixed in with that, the single most talented artist I worked with starting with The Beatles and Andy Williams, or Judy Garland or whoever was Waylon Jennings. He was just the single, authentic, truly uniquely talented person I ever worked with and I admired his music so much and I was a giant fan of his.

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Manning: I was too. By 1975, you were firmly established as a major force in what we know today as the "Outlaw" movement in progressive country music and I noticed something you wrote. "Hooking up with the 'Outlaws' was like jumping on a rocket". How did you become attracted to the 'Outlaw' movement?

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Mansfield: Because the producer is the songwriter and the arranger and all that stuff. I never liked to make the standard record. My first great adventure in the music business as a creative person was during the Folk-Rock era. I put together a six-piece group down in San Diego called The Deep Six. First of all it was five guys and a girl--which was unusual. Second of all, we did very involved harmonies and we were also electric instruments and we dressed really wild. We had a hit record on Liberty Records. So that evolved into what became that whole Buffalo Springfield, Byrds,Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young---that whole era that was coming out of Southern California. That was unique, because I grew up on Country, I fell in love with Folk music and yet I loved Classical music and Jazz. I was able to incorporate all these quirky things I do into that. I became a real producer, and I was always trying to make records into two markets. I wanted to make a record that a Pop person and a Country person could buy. Or a record that a Pop person and a a Rock person and an Easy Listening person could buy. That's what (Jessi Colter's) I'm Not Lisa came from. Country, Pop and Easy Listening.

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Manning: Where did Waylon Jennings come in?

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Mansfield: When I heard Waylon, I heard stuff in that first record that I never heard before. There was something that wasn't like George Jones. I was just fascinated with this man. And we met in this ballroom. It was like we were both working our way through this crowd and we ended up face to face. He knew who I was; I knew who he was. And we stood there and it was like this school fight about to begin where everybody backs off, and we're just looking at each other. The thing that put us in a conversation was that I was producing artist Doyle Holly who I took out of The Buck Owens Band and he made his first solo album. The concept I had was that I wanted to have a Waylon-esque track underneath, that beat of Waylon, that feel in there. I just said to him,"So, Waylon, who produces your records?" He just kind of looked at me like I was crazy and he said, 'Well, I guess I do'. I told him I was working on this project and I asked him, 'Would you be interested in arranging a couple of the songs on it?' He just gave me the funniest look, and it turned out that no one had asked him to do that before! Nobody had ever given him credit for anything other than just being this crazy cowboy. We ended up doing this record together and it ended up being a hit for Doyle Holly. It was called The Queen of the Silver Dollar. It was just magic for us in the studio together! Waylon taught me about feel and soul and that the lyric was the dominant thing. But what I brought to Waylon was that I wanted to be like Alan Parsons. I liked this really English production, really technical approach, spending time on stuff, and he loved what I brought to the table in terms of technology. Together we came up with something to where we could do the feel thing, and I would spend time on the technology thing and the record started sounding better. He trusted me and he would start leaving me alone with the tape.

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Manning: You're also a musician and you started out with The Town Crier. You graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing. But can you tell us how you started as a performing musician and how that set the background to the remaining part of your career?

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Mansfield: What it did is it gave me a background so that when the time came around for me to actually be in the business, I had a good background because of it. I was in a fraternity in college and that was during The Kingston Trio and The Limeliters era. I ended up in a folk group and we were singing for beer and pizza. We started playing the small Southern California clubs and some Beverly Hills manager saw us one night and signed us to open for Fred Astaire and opening up for Mitzy Ganor and Steve Allen and Dick Gregory. These were big name for the time. I set up a folk club in San Diego--there was The Troubador in Los Angeles and The Hungry I in San Francisco. My club, Land of Oden was in San Diego. In this process, I met somebody from Capitol (Records) who was the head of Artist Relations and I was always out looking for action for my club and he was out scoping the club scene so he could make sure he was up with what was happening with these artists and we just struck up this friendship. When I interviewed for the job with Capitol, not only did I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing, but I also knew the street . I also knew what was happening for bands on the road. I also knew what it was like in the down and dirty club scene. All my life. it's all been about music. So, I had a great musical library in my head, so I could just talk with anybody about any kind of music. This all led up to the big thing at Capitol Records. Within eight months at Capitol, I ended up working with The Beatles. Pretty soon, they asked me to come run their new record company (Apple) in America.

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Friday: John, Paul, George and Ringo!