Interview: Ronee Blakley (Pt. 2)

WARNING: If you haven’t yet read Pt. 1 of this piece, then you’re going to want to do that. I’m not saying you can’t read Pt. 2 first, but you’re only ruining the experience for yourself.

P.S. If you like what you’re reading here, don’t be afraid to upgrade to a paid subscription!

You brought up Hoyt Axton earlier. He's one of those guys whose work I first discovered through his acting rather than his work as a musician, but that served as a gateway drug nonetheless…probably because it was on WKRP in Cincinnati, where he acted and sang and played guitar.

[I couldn’t find the actual clip of him playing the song on the show, so this version will have to do. But if you know the tune, then you’ll still be singing along, anyway, so I reckon the difference won’t matter much.]

Oh, interesting! Hoyt was a larger-than-life type figure. You know, he was a bear of a man: big and tall with a loud, barreling voice. And his mother had written "Heartbreak Hotel" and was a well-known figure on the Nashville scene. Well-known and important. And Hoyt...

You know, Hoyt was a little bit of a bad boy. But he just was a charming guy. And he treated us all very well. We traveled around on his tour in a Clark Cortez, which is the same thing that Bob Dylan drove on his Rolling Thunder Revue. So I can recommend the Clark Cortez.

First-hand, twice over.

Well, I didn't ride in the second one. [Laughs.] But the first one I did! We went all the way to Nashville and Memphis, and then on another tour we were up at Arlo's. We stayed up at Arlo Guthrie's. Can you imagine? A bus-load of people just comes and stays. Isn't that great? There's just something great about that. But at the time, we didn't think there was anything unusual about that. It was just, like, "We're gonna stop at Arlo's!" 

And I'm sure he was more than happy to have you.

Well, he was! And we had fun! I remember climbing the mountain behind Arlo's house by myself and getting lost because... I thought I would be fine. I had my Girl Scouts skills, right? I'm from Idaho! You know, I bent the twigs and I stacked the stones, and yet I was up there going through some pretty deep mud. And at a certain point said, "That's probably enough. I'd better turn around."

So I turned around and went back to where some rivers met up, and...I couldn't find my twigs and my stones! [Laughs.] And I wasn't sure which river went where! And I got mixed up. And it was getting to be sundown, so I said, "Well, this is the top of the mountain, the rivers are going down... I'll just follow one of the rivers down, and I'll get down!" And I did that, and then I ended up in some fields, and out on some road, and somebody picked me up and took me back to Arlo's. 

Wow. Every day an adventure.

[Laughs.] Well, you know, it used to feel like that! Nowadays, things are much quieter.

And yet just as dramatic, in their way.

Well, not in as good a way.

Certainly not. 

Although getting lost in the mountains isn't particularly good, either! It had a fortunate ending, and I'm sure at some point somebody would've come and looked for me, but... Well, what can I say? [Hesitates.] You know, Will, I still wish I was out on the road. I miss the road. I like the road! It's exhausting, it's punishing, you need to be strong in order to do it. How Bob Dylan is able to still do it is a mystery. He's a highly conditioned athlete, and I suppose that's the reason why. He's a very in-condition guy. So in spite of any aches and pains he may have, he's able to keep going. But it is difficult.

Well, speaking of Mr. Dylan, I'm sure you've told the story five thousand times if you've told it once, but I feel obliged to ask for the sake of the readers how you and he came to work together in the first place.

The quick, simple story or the long story? [Laughs.] 

I'm going to leave it up to you, as far as how much time you've got. But I'm fine either way. 

Okay, well, let's see... I had made the film Nashville - this was 1975 - and it was released in July, when I was on the cover of Newsweek and several other magazines and going to film festivals around the world to open the film. I was at the Sherry-Netherland hotel. I had the top floor there, as if I was Elizabeth Taylor or King Farouk, and I had one small suitcase, because that's how I'd learned: if I was going on a short-ish trip, I didn't overpack. If anything, I would underpack. So there I was at the hotel, doing press. I believe I was doing an article for People Magazine. Paramount had powerful publicists, so they would line up people for us to see, and we would see them. Whomever they scheduled for us, that's what we would do. And we were treated very well, we went to the best places, we ate well, and it was all very exciting and very heady. You can imagine. I use the word "forklifted." [Laughs.] I was forklifted from Edie Baskin's loft in Soho up to the Sherry-Netherland. And then while there, I would, like, go out for dinner with Robert Altman at Elaine's.

And then one night I saw Bob Dylan there, and we didn't introduce ourselves, but we saw each other. He was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. And then I was invited for dinner with Woody Allen with Michael Murphy, one of the actors in Nashville, but that night I told Michael that I was scheduled to go downtown to hear David Blue, my close friend, to perform at the Other End in the Village. And Michael Murphy said, "You're gonna say 'no' to dinner with Woody Allen?!" And I said, "Well, I'm committed! I promised I would go!" So I went by myself down to the Other End and went in, and...we used to do things like harmonize from the back of the room or whatever, and I did that. And then afterwards Bobby Neuwirth said, "Ronee, there's somebody I want you to meet: Bob Dylan."

So we met, and then the club closed down to the public, and only we musicians were left. And Bob got up on the stage and just started to play piano and sing. And I got up there on the stage and started to play piano with him. Four-handed piano. And it was great! We just played well together. And I started singing, and we sang well together. And it was very fun, a lot of laughing, and...just fun! And all the musicians... Well, I don't know who all were there, but many musicians were there, and to make a long story short, Bob invited me to go on the tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue tour…and I said I couldn't, because I was going to Muscle Shoals the next morning to begin rehearsals with my band there, to back up my Warner Brothers record, Welcome, with the tour for that.

Then Bobby Neuwirth said, "Nobody says 'no' to Bob Dylan!" [Laughs.] And things like, "Do you know who wants to be on this tour?" and lots of shouting and yelling. And then everybody retired from there back to the Gramercy Hotel hospitality suite, and the party went on. But then I said I had to go, because I had a plane to catch! And Bob wanted me to stay, but I said I couldn't. He was jumping in and out of the elevator, and he said, "You should've caught me in my prime." And I said, "I think I have!" 

So I went down the elevator, and I went up to the Sherry-Netherland, I got my measly suitcase - my one bag! - and went out to JFK, where I called up Jerry Wexler, my producer, from a payphone. I said, "Jerry, you'll never believe it. Guess what?" And I told him, and he said, "Well, you have to go!" I said, "Well, I can't! I'm on my way to meet the boys at Muscle Shoals!" And he said, "Well, you can't go. You have to go with Dylan!" I said, "I... I have to keep my word!" So I got on the plane, I flew to Huntsville, I rented a car, drove to Muscle Shoals, rented a motel room, went to the studio, met with the boys in the band - Tony Russell Gulley and his band, Jackson Highway - and I told them what had happened. And they said, "Well, you've got to go with Dylan!" [Laughs.] And I said, "What about your jobs and all the work you've done?" And they said, "No, it'll be better for us all afterwards. Go with Dylan!"

So I went back to my hotel... [Laughs.] Called up New York Gramercy Hotel, they said, "Oh, this is the wrong hotel. He's at the Gramercy Park Hotel!" Called information. "Can I have the number for the Gramercy Park Hotel?" Called there. "Hello, may I speak to Bob Dylan?" And he got on the phone! And I said, "Well, guess what? The boys said I can come!" And he said, "Okay, somebody'll call you back and get you a plane." So in a minute the phone rang, and it was Louie Kemp, Bob's childhood friend, who was executive-producing the tour. And he said, "Go back to the Huntsville airport, there'll be a ticket there for you. Get on the plane, come to New York, there'll be a car there for you, and it'll bring you to Columbia Studios." So I did that, and when I got to the studios - I suppose it was about midnight or so, I'm not even sure - the whole band was inside there, and as soon as I walked in, Dylan and I started recording "Hurricane."

Wow. 

And I think we finished around 4 a.m. But, anyway, that's what happened. And I still had not been to sleep. 

I'd be recovering from that still.

And I am! [Laughs.] That's what wrong with me now! My body's saying, "Look what you did to me!" But it makes a good story. And it's true! It doesn't sound true. But it is!

I know that when you and I talked for The Dissolve way back when, we talked a fair amount about Renaldo and Clara, but I don't think I ever specifically asked you about Harry Dean Stanton and working with him.

Well, I already knew Harry Dean, because I was a part of that set with Jack Nicholson and that group of people for awhile. You know, we went to the same parties and...people would be dating the same people. [Laughs.] I remember Michelle Phillips went with Jack, but then she went with Warren [Beatty]. 

Actually, I knew that, because she was just talking about that period when she guested on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.

I think I heard about that. But I don't want to say too much more, because I don't want to step on people's privacy right now. I'm not prepared to do that, so I shouldn't really go into any more detail. It's just that we knew each other, whether well or not well, because we were in a similar group of people. So I would see Harry Dean and hear him sing. He'd be at places where people would be singing, jamming, and all that. We'd see him at Tana's. So it was just seeing a friend of mine for him and Helena to show up. They were both friends of mine already. Helena Kallianiotes, who lived at Jack Nicholson's house and took care of it - and took care of Jack - for many years...if you'll permit me to put it like that. I mean, I don't even think she would want me to put it like that! [Laughs.] I've got to mind my P's and Q's here!

But we had lots of fun times, and she was a friend of mine from when she was at Jack's. I remember one day Faye Dunaway coming down the stairs holding a jar of peanut butter. You know, just these images... Jack had a pool that was nice, so there would always be people coming and going and hanging out at the pool, etc. And I went out with Jack once or twice in 1970 or so, when he drove a Volkswagen. I mean, we're talking 50 years ago now!

We are. Time flies, whether you want it to or not.

It does! 

I asked about Harry Dean mostly because I recently looked back at my interview with him for the A.V. Club, which probably contains less words spoken than in any other interview I've ever done. And I have no complaints about that, because it was perfectly Harry Dean. It was everything I could've possibly wanted from an interview with him.

He was profound. But he could be a very big talker. I know what mean - he was on the silent side - but when he got going, he could talk a lot! [Laughs.] 

Oh, I have no doubt. But when he died, I tweeted out a black-and-white photo of him, along with a quote from our conversation that seemed to sum him up perfectly.

And that sounds like him! He was just profound. And everything he did was great. Every performance was great.

It's funny: the only time he got up in arms during our conversation wasn't because of anything I did, it was because they trimmed his scene in the first Avengers film. He said, "They cut part of my scene out of that, which pisses me off. Did you see the whole scene? Where I give [Bruce Banner] my motorcycle? That should’ve been in the film. I don’t know why the fuck they took it out. Best scene in the movie!"

I'm glad to hear that he was human and that he did have an ego, because he was self-effacing, you're right. He really was. He came off quiet. So I know what you're saying, and it's all correct. But he was able to talk, and if he wanted to, he'd talk a lot. And he sang, of course, and was prolific in his singing. He was Hispanic, you know, so he sang a lot of gorgeous Spanish songs. No one else in that crowd did that. He was the only one singing Spanish songs. We all have these funny histories that go back years and years and years. And then, you know, my former husband Wim Wenders put him into Paris, Texas, and made him a star. Even though he already was a star to all of us, that got him his first real leading-man role, one in which he slayed. He did so beautifully on that film.

I think I've told you this, either by phone or message, but my wife and I actually have a poster for one of your ex-husband's films in our living room: Wings of Desire.

I wrote and told him about it! [Laughs.]

The fact that he knows... I mean, that's a present in and of itself. Okay, so I wanted to stick almost entirely to music with this interview, since we focused a great deal on your filmography in our previous conversation, but I'll split the difference and say that, after finding a copy of the soundtrack for Nashville on vinyl recently, it was fun to be able to revisit the music outside of the movie and confirm that it holds up just as well in that fashion.

Isn't that wonderful? I'm so glad it does. I'm so grateful that it does. People seem to remember it, and they keep it alive, like on Facebook and stuff. People re-up it, and they still say they love it and that they've held onto it.

And TCM honored Nashville a couple of years ago and had a screening with me, Lily [Tomlin], Keith Carradine, and Jeff Goldblum do a panel, and we were featured on the red carpet. So every few years it gets rejuvenated with a new print and a new audience...or sometimes it's an old audience! [Laughs.] But it's kept alive, and it's become a classic, I guess you could say, officially. And the Academy gave it a 25th anniversary screening. Of course, every year, the number of people who were actually there diminish in number... [Sighs.]

This is true. I'm so glad that Criterion reissued the film, because... I don't think I've ever told you this, but before I had the opportunity to interview you, I'd never actually seen the film! That was my first exposure to it. 

So your first experience was with the Criterion Edition?

It was. That's one major way how I was able to absorb so much information about it before I got on the phone with you. 

Well, I will say that the documentary that accompanies the Criterion version is unfortunately - regarding me - inaccurate. Because you know how it is with documentaries and interviews and anything else we do: it's unpredictable as to what's actually going to appear in the project. Whether it's a scene like Harry Dean's, where part of it ends up on the floor, or if it's information that you gave in an interview that was important but didn't make it into the article. It can happen in any number of ways, and it's very difficult, if not impossible, to control. And in the documentary about Nashville, they just misrepresented - somewhat by omission - about my music in the film and all that.

Do you want to set that record straight?

Well, uh... I was hired originally as a writer on the film. Susan Anspach was playing my character, Barbara Jean, and I allowed them to use as many of my songs as they wanted, but I wasn't paid for them. It was very complex, because Altman told me I could keep my publishing, yet later, when it came time to sign some contracts, Altman said he wanted half the publishing rights for the songs, so I would give him that or be taken out of the movie, according to my lawyer. Bob threatened to cut me out unless I gave him half. Which I did do.

But I never had anything to do with ABC or then Paramount, who bought the film, or Universal, which bought the music rights. Because it went from ABC to MCA to Universal. None of these people did I ever have anything to do with, nor did I give them any of my music, nor did I write music for them, nor did they hire me, nor did they pay me! So it's complex, and some of it is business-y. And when these interviews are being done, I don't get into that much detail, but I do at least tell how it happened and how it came down.

See, these songs had already been on my first album, and they'd already been in a film called Welcome Home, Soldier Boys, starring Joe Don Baker, Alan Vint, Elliott Street, and Paul Koslo, for Fox in 1970, which was shelved because it was about Green Berets returning from Vietnam and blowing up and slaughtering their town of Hope, New Mexico...and we had not yet entered Cambodia.

So that was shelved, but I did the score for it, my songs were in it, and then Judy Collins' producer saw that film, who recommended me to Jac Holzman at Elektra, and I got signed there. And then I recorded those songs for Elektra. So except for two or three of the songs - and I had seven songs in Nashville, because other people did them, and they were also used for marching band background and for the girls in the bar and for interstitial music when Barbara Jean was on the Opryland stage.

But I was originally hired as a writer, so Altman saw me that way. When they cast me, I was already helping out on production! Anyway, the documentary accompanying the film does not tell this properly! [Laughs.] Not that they should tell every detail, but if things were done, to make the story straight, they shouldn't omit those. 

Agreed.

So it's complicated, but sometimes these stories need to be told...and sometimes they are told! And as long as it's going to become history, it should be correct. So I'll also mention that I wrote my own breakdown scene. 100%. The only thing that wasn't my suggestion was when Barbara Jean breaks down on stage and it's separated. It was Altman's idea to separate it into three sections. And I thought it was brilliant of him to do that. But that morning, when I was in makeup, I said I wanted him to come down, and he came to talk to me. And I said, "I've written the scene for today." And he kind of raised his eyebrows, you know, because he was used to me writing and wanted me to, but...we were on our way out to shoot! And he said, "Well, read it to me!" And I read to him. And he said, "Do you know it?" I said, "Yes!" And he said, "Then we'll shoot it!" And we did. Sometimes things can be just that simple: I wrote it, and we shot it! [Laughs.]

So the only one of my scenes that I didn't write in Nashville was the hospital scene, and that was written by Joan Tewksbury. But, of course, I made some changes. I never spoke to her about it, though. We had no contact. It was directly with me and Altman. Anyway, for whatever reason, I kept quiet, because I thought I should, or was expected to, or that everybody knew and I didn't have to say anything or I'd be considered braggy. But at this point, what am I saving it for? The truth might as well out!

I'm all about the truth.

Yeah, it's the best and the safest thing.

Also, I'm all about stories being told in their entirety. Believe me, I've seen way too many amazing anecdotes fall by the wayside just because an editor said, "Eh, it was running long." And I'm left stammering, "But...why would you cut that?! That was GREAT!" 

Exactly! Or in this case, maybe they didn't want it known what I had to say. Maybe Paramount didn't want it known - or Universal, or somebody - because they were taking what didn't belong to them!

All right, kids, that’s it for Pt. 2. Stay tuned for Pt. 3…but only if you want to hear a story that involves Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector, and a TV series that Phil wanted Ronee to do. If that doesn’t sound like a story you want to hear, though, you’re probably gonna want to cut your losses.

After all, how could a story like that possibly be worth coming back for?

To close things out, I’ll once again offer up a few tracks that feature Ronee, although you may or may not be able to immediately say, “Oh, I hear her!” Still, if the credits of these albums can be trusted, she really is on the songs in question, which makes them worth a spin…

• Paul Williams, “Life Goes On”

• Michael Dinner, “Woman of Aran”

• John Wesley Harding, “Anonymous 1916”