Smitty: Yeah.
WB: But as I grew older, I found different meanings for it. (Both laugh.) And I think I should leave that alone.
Smitty: (Laughs.) And you know what? I’m gonna leave it alone too! I think everyone knows…mm-hmm, yeah. Well, hey, I’ll have to use that one sometime. (Both laugh.)
WB: Yup.
Smitty: Man oh man. Walter, this is just a great record, man. I mean, you put both feet in this one.
WB: Thank you, man. You know, I worked on it for a year and a half and after For Her, I said you know what, man? You’re in your mid-forties, it’s time for you to just chill for a minute and for the whole summer I did nothing but write. I think I wrote maybe 20, 25 songs and out of those 25 songs, four were really good, and that’s kinda the way I write. I’m not a prolific writer and everything I touch is a great song, but I have to write 20 to get five, and you gotta know yourself, though. So I put my 20 in and I got out about three or four, and I said to myself, “This is going to be a great record.” And even the covers that I chose this time, they have to really mean not only something to you, but mean something to the people who you’re trying to reach.
Smitty: Exactly. You chose the right ones to put out there because these are great and meaningful songs.
WB: Thank you so much. And “Free” by Deniece Williams, It’s a timeless piece and that’s how I opened the record, and it’s different, it’s not the same. John Roberts did that too, John and Phil Davis. And they put their feet in there. You know, when you come out like that….and they set the tone. So when they did that, I was like oh, no, no, no, and I got my songs on there, so I just said okay, and I produced “Be Thankful,” and it’s like I have to come real with “Be Thankful” and the album just kinda took on a life of its own. So like you said, they put in their best work because they felt trusted, and I think, even today, that’s what I learned about this project, is that when you trust people to do their best, usually they do it.
Smitty: Yes, man, and it certainly proved true here. Well, talk to me about your endless and tireless work in the music education field because you’re not only a musician, but you are giving back in such a huge way. I mean, man, how long have you been at Berklee?
WB: Twenty-one years.
Smitty: Twenty-one years…
WB: As a teacher.
Smitty: As an educator, yeah.
WB: Mm-hmm.
Smitty: Talk to me about what sparked you to go into that so heavily because as a musician, the norm is “Hey, I wanna get out there, I wanna play in some clubs, I wanna make a record, I wanna get a record deal,” and of course you’ve accomplished that, but sometimes we get, I won’t say satisfied, but we get caught up in that to the point that we wanna go a step further in that direction of doing everything it takes to get out there even more.
WB: That’s true.
Smitty: And yet you have chosen to go back to where you actually learned your craft, to help others. And you’re still there doing your thing.
WB: I’ll have to say that a brother by the name of Tim Williams and an older saxophonist who kinda groomed us all named Andy McGee, I will give all the credit to them for that because I saw older brothers or older African American instrumentalists who were very, very good at their craft who embraced those of us who were younger coming in, and as I was graduating and as I was leaving, I said to myself, as I looked around, Branford [Marsalis] was gone, Greg Osby was gone, Rachelle Ferrell was gone, and I said to myself, well, who’s here? (Both laugh.) And then I remembered I really don’t like New York that much anyway. (Both laugh.) You know, I mean, there’s an interplay, the people are great, but I know my personality and if I would’ve move to New York, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, let me just put it that way. (Both laugh.)
And so I just decided that for me to stay there and to not only assist as many African American students as I could, but all students, and anybody who wants to come to learn what I’ve learned to be the case, and that the African Americans have responded with some beautiful, beautiful music across the spectrum and this is how you get from Point A to Point B, C, D and E, and that became a goal of mine, to be able to introduce as many people as I could to my experience and my love for the music, and it just grew and grew and grew, and then when I became a recording artist, people said “Well, okay, now it’s time for you to quit and go on the road.” I was like, well, heck, I’ve invested all this time in learning how to be a good teacher. I don’t feel like I should just leave and just go on the road and just say “Okay, well, I’m gonna go on the road.” I mean, you know, I dedicated my life to music, like music is my mistress, so when I got on the road, I did my best, I do my best to do what I can to put on a great performance and then when it’s time to go to the classroom, I put on that hat and I do the same thing there.
Smitty: That’s beautiful and so cool.
WB: Because I just don’t feel that people are taking education seriously enough and for me I see it reflected in the music. We have more one-hit wonders now than we had 10, 20, 30 years ago because they don’t have the foundation to have a successful career long-term.
Smitty: Yes.
WB: That concerns me. I’ve been in the business 25 years as not only a professional musician, but as a teacher. So what was different about me that was different about other people who had more talent than I….and that’s what I wanna give back to….not only at Berklee, the institutional level, but like I said, on the Web site I develop products so that people who don’t have the funds to go to a four-year institution can say “Okay, well, Walter has something out.” He says “Okay, if I can learn how to better my sound this way, it’s only gonna cost $15.” You know? I mean, that’s real.
Smitty: So true, and I love your approach to the realism of education and making it available to those who perhaps would not otherwise have the opportunity.
WB: And that’s the way….that’s what I think, and hopefully my goal is to create a curriculum by which someone can just click on that mouse and follow Walter Beasley’s path to success and just say “Okay, this is what I’m gonna take from, this is what I’m gonna borrow from, and it’s not gonna cost me a whole lotta money, and this is how he maintained his integrity throughout the whole process.” And that’s what I wanna do.
Smitty: Yeah, so you’ve got some instructional DVD’s, that sort of thing, on your Web site that people can click through and get a real nice foundation and understanding of different aspects of the business or at least for instrumentation and that sort of thing.
WB: Exactly. You know, learning how to play. I have interviews by Chuck Loeb that basically we talk about what young folks and older folks just concerned about music need to know about the music. It’s not for everybody. It’s for musicians. It’s for musicians to come and just see, okay, a book came out, it’s called Behind the Notes, and Chuck is on there getting ready to interview James Lloyd, and we’re just gonna talk strictly about what separates us from others so that these young folks who come along can say “Okay, well, look, let me listen to these guys verbally or orally and see exactly what they’re talking about” because this is an oral tradition and that this music is supposed to be passed down by word of mouth and this is not being reflected in the way educational institutions are teaching people how to learn music, and that really concerns me.
