You may not recognize the name, but you know the work. In the late 1970s, Richard “T Bear” Gerstein played with giants such as Gene Simmons, Cher, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and many others. After becoming sober, T Bear took an extended hiatus from music before returning in 2021. He has a new record out now called The Way of The World and will be touring as part of Walter Trout’s band. T Bear joined me to talk about the record and his incredible history.
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On how the record came together – Well, the band on the record is two of my really, really, really close LA friends. Tony Braunagel, who produced my first album for Quarto Valley Records called Fresh Bear Tracks. So this was the first one called Fresh Bear Tracks because I hadn’t made a record in 25 years. I kind of took a hiatus. This is the one we’re talking about now, The Way of the World. So Tony Braunagel was the producer of Fresh Bear Tracks, a great drummer. He played with Bonnie Raitt, did Nick of Time with her, Taj Mahal, Little Feet, and Robert Cray, Ricky Lee Jones. That’s where I met him when he was playing Ricky Lee Jones. I’d been hanging out with her. So Tony and I went back a long time. I got him to produce Fresh Bear Tracks and then we had such a really rich, rewarding time recording together that I said, “Let’s do another one”, and we brought in Laurence Juber, who I have known for 40 years, the guitar player from Wings. One of the great, great guitar players with one of the best acoustic guitar players I’ve ever seen. He’s up there with Tommy Emanuel as far as acoustic playing and the both of them co-produced The Way of the World album.
Then we brought in some friends that played on Fresh Bear Tracks. How we did it is I went over to Laurence’s house about twice a week and would record over at his place during the COVID and end of the COVID pandemic world. I was writing songs daily. I was writing a song a day during COVID. I swear to you I had my most productive writing experience during COVID. I was writing screenplays, short stories, and songs. I always start with the lyrics and then put the music to it. I’d go into Laurence’s house. I’d send him a little piano demo, voice demo that I do in my house. I sent it over to him in an email and he and Tony, and then they listened to it and they’d go, “Yeah, that’s, that’s the way we should go on this”. Or, “Yeah, it still needs a little massaging”, and we’d find out which one we wanted to work on. Then I’d go to Laurence’s house and I’d sit down at a piano. I bring my Nord piano. I had a Nord at that time, still do I got the new one, but it was a Nord 3. I’d sit down there and we put a click track on and just a mic to put a pilot vocal down. I would play the song, sing it live then go home. Then Laurence would put a guitar on it with the click track, and then we’d send it over to Tony Braunagel’s house because it was the COVID days and Tony would put the drums on, he had the drums set up in his living room. He had all the mics and everything. We’d send the stems over there in Pro Tools, he’d play it to the track. Then we’d send it off to Hutch Hutchinson, who was with Bonnie Raitt and he’d be in Maui where he lives or on the road or whatever, and he’d just put the bass down. That’s the way we did it with everybody on this record.
I mean, this record was homemade, as homemade as you can get. What we tried to do, and Laurence was really, really, really smart about this. He said, “We’re going to make this really retro, but we’re going to make this really modern”. So I think we accomplished that. When you say Leon Russell, my heart sings, my mind goes, out of my body.
Leon Russell was one of the main reasons I do this today. Leon Russell, John Prine, and Bob Dylan are the kind of influences that I’ve had. Along with, Mack Rebennack, Dr. John, and Nicky Hopkins over in England. Those are my influences. So that’s kind of the way I play. I play like Leon and Nicky Hopkins. If they had a baby, it would be me.
On if he is led by genre or the song itself – The song, it’s the song. I love every kind of music there is. This record again, shameless promotion, this record, if you look at the songs and we go through them little by little, “The Way of the World” is an homage to Bob Dylan. I was thinking to myself as I wrote it, because I was listening to “The Times They Are A-Changin'”, and I was listening to those songs from that era and I was listening to the way he crafted the lyrics. Like I said, the lyrics come first to me and I was thinking about the world as it is and all the horseshit that’s going on and the way that people behave and I decided to write “The Way of the World” and had nothing to do with Earth, Wind, & Fire’s, “The Way of The World. So that’s an homage to Bob Dylan. Because I thought to myself, “What would Bob write if he was going to write this?” So if you listen to the lyrics, they’re very much in his wheelhouse.
You said something about “Before The Fall”. That is an homage to Brian Wilson, Mozart, and Amy Winehouse. If you mash the three together, it’s got a little bit of soul, it’s got a little bit of classical, and it’s got a little bit of Brian Wilson, who I think was the modern-day Mozart. That’s the way I look at him. You hear Pet Sounds and some of the records that he made and you’re flabbergasted by it, by the beauty it. It’s funny because back in those days when he was making those records, Leon Russell was in the Wrecking Crew. On Fresh Bear Tracks, Chuck Berghofer, who plays upright bass on “Woe Is Me”, which is a really good blues song. He was the upright bass on “These Boots are Made for Walking”. Do do do do do do do, he came out and came in with his upright bass and played on that track. I have homage to the really, really crafty guys and gals that made records in those days. “Before The Fall” is one of my three favorites on the record. You nailed it.
“Jewell”, you mentioned. That’s my homage to Leon Russell. How that came about, I’ll first say I have a Leon Russell songbook. I have everything that Leon’s ever done. In that songbook, one day I was looking at the chords that he came up with to for certain songs, just things that he would place. All of a sudden this chord would come out of left field on the song, just, where did that come from? So I was writing “Jewel” and I looked at the corner of my, my piano area and there was a Leon Russell songbook there and I opened it up and I said, “What would Leon do here right here?” I tried a chord that I found in his book and I put it right there and I went, “Oh, wow, that works great”. Then I put another chord of his in that bridge and I said, “Oh, that works good too”. Then I sprinkled it with T Bear.
I’ll tell you how I got that song. It’s not about Jewel the singer. It’s about Julie. I won’t say her last name, but she works with Lou Adler in Los Angeles. Lou Adler for all your listeners is a man that produced “California Dreamin'” and “Sunday, Sunday”, did all the Mamas and Papas hits. He did Carole King’s Tapestry and her hits and her records. He did Cheech and Chong’s movies. He made those. He has a nightclub, a live venue called the Roxy in LA where a lot of stuff goes on. He is really known as well as a huge Laker fan and he sits courtside in the front row, right next to Jack Nicholson. They’re best friends. Julie, ever since she was a teenager worked for Lou Adler. I mean 39 or 40 years So I went out on a date with her and during the date, we’re having a little something to eat and I said, “Julie, do you have any nicknames?” She said, “Yeah, I just got a nickname not long ago and it’s Jewel”, I said, “Okay, Julie-Jewel. I see that. How’d you get that? What does it mean to you?” I’m trying to be interested on the first date or whatever, and she says, “Oh, well, Lou, sits at the Laker games with Jack Nicholson and he wasn’t going to be at the games for a couple of weeks and they were at home. So he said, would I bring the tickets over to Jack’s house and bring them over there and leave them over there so that Jack could have somebody sit with him at the game that he wanted to bring. So I drove all the way over there. It was rush hour. It was really hard to get there. It took me like 2 and a half hours because I live in Malibu and he’s all the way over by Cold Water Canyon and blah, blah, blah”. She says, “I went into the house and Jack was there and I gave him the tickets. He says, Julie, I’ve known you a long time, but now I’m changing your name to Jewel. You’re a Jewel for doing this. That’s all I’m going to call you from now on. You are a Jewel”. So I said, “Well, that’s a great way to get that name. That’s amazing. You know what, Julie? I’m going to write you a song”. She looks at me right in my eyes and she says, “You wouldn’t be the first”.
She threw down, man. I said, “Oh shit”. In your mind, I’m like, where do I take this now? I said, “Oh, okay. Who wrote you a song? “She said “J. D. Souther”. And I went, “Oh, shit. The bar is raised”. The bar is really raised high. He writes with the Eagles and Jackson Brown and he’s wrote a lot of hits. So I call her the next day and I said, “I’ve started writing your song. The only difference between my song and JD Souther’s is going to be, you’re going to know it’s about you. It’s going to have you from jump street, you’ll know it’s your song”.
So, it starts with, “Are you a diamond, or a precious gem, you got your nickname Jewel from your famous friend”. So right away, from jump street. Then later on in the bridge, I said, “Take a peek Jewel”, that’s the way it is. I sent her the song when it was done and she was blown away by it. It was great, but it was great inspiration and it was kind of a challenge to do it, but I took up the challenge.
On how he ended up playing with Kiss, Cher, and CSN – What happened was I was playing on tour and I was playing a lot of really big shows as the opening act you. Playing places like the Garden and places like Cobo Hall in Detroit and Richfield Coliseum and playing a lot of little shitholes too, but a lot of opening acts. I was the opening act for for J Giles for a long time and at the time that band was way up there. They had a lot of hits at the time and I was lucky to be the opening act and people were getting to see me. I was also opening for the Doobie Brothers, and for the Outlaws and for Johnny Winter and a lot of bands. I was opening for somebody, oh, I’ll tell you who it was. It was the Doobie Brothers in New York City. At the Palladium and there were a couple of people at that show from the KISS camp, I believe.
Then someone said to me, “This guy wants to talk to you”, and it turned out to be Sean Delaney. Sean Delaney was huge in the KISS management company. He produced their live shows and he was a creative director for their kabuki makeup and for lasers and smoke and fire and brimstone and everything that they had. He said, “I heard about you from Billy Squire because we manage Billy in a band called Piper”. I said, “Well, that’s great. I love Billy”, and he said, “Come into the office and talk to us”. So I went in the office and met Bill Aucoin who said, “Well, my name’s not Bill for you. It’s Ghee, call me Ghee”. Alan Miller was another guy there at the time and Sean Delaney. They all said to me, “Look, we really like your record. We really like what you do. What’s the chance of you writing with some of our artists?” I said, “Yeah, that’d be great”. “What’s the chance of you playing on some of the records?” I said, “I’d love to”.
So they set me up a meeting with Gene and with Peter and with Paul and Ace and everybody. I met everybody. I went to some of their shows. I went on tour with them. I got the vibe. I felt everything and started ghostwriting with those guys. Gene said, “I’m going to England and I want you to bring this”, I had this kind of section, this kind of little New York City studio studio musician mafia section. “I want you to bring your guys with you.” So he flew us in a Concorde all the way over there with him and Cher, at the time he was dating Cher. Ao we went to England and made his record and it turned out really, really nice.
I’m looking for a funny picture to show you. Let me see if I can find it. I have it handy. Oh, here it is. So let’s see. At the time, they wouldn’t let anybody see their faces. So yeah, and I got to be really good friends with him and really good friends with Cher. They loved the way I wrote. In fact, he said, “You got to write something for Cher”. So I wrote her a ballad on her Take Me Home album (“Love & Pain”). To this day, she says it’s her favorite ballad. It’s the best ballad she ever sang. She did it on her specials. She did it on tour. She did it on her music videos. Then Gene and I became good friends.
Oddly enough, when you mentioned Kiss, I was with Paul Stanley 3 days ago, 4 days ago, I ran into him at a Starbucks up in Beverly Glen and we sat and we hadn’t talked for 100 years. We sat there for a good hour and talked and talked tales of the trenches and tales of the Kiss history. It was a Kisstory and he’s he’s wonderful. He’s got a great soul band that he’s that he’s put together and they’re really good. We exchanged numbers and we’re going to hang. Then Peter Criss said, “Look, man, I love the way you play. Would you play on my record?” I was glad to do it and Sean Delaney was involved and we did that.
I did another band for them. They didn’t happen like Kiss or any of the other bands. It was called Toby Beau and they had one mega-hit called “My Angel Baby”. It went to number one and I played on that one as well. So I got really fortunate that people recognize my style and what I could bring to a record.
I was that kind of stuff that made me involved with Stephen Stills. I joined his band. I played in his band for a while. I would write with him and then he said, “Oh, CSN is getting back together to make a record and I want you to come in the studio with me. I’ve got this idea for a song called “Southern Cross.” So, we worked on that together. We went in the studio, recorded that. It was a huge, huge hit for them. It’s a great song. It started out as a song called “Seven-League Boots” and it ended up as “Southern Cross”.
On playing with Walter Trout – Here’s exactly how Walter and I came together. We met at a musician’s picnic 30 years ago, and the musician’s picnic was a clean and sober celebration that was sponsored by MAP the Musician’s Assistance Program. I was on their board of directors. I was involved with the musician’s picnic for 25 years. Like I said, it was a clean and sober celebration. A lot of us had to clean up our acts which I have, and I’m proud to say that I have 41 years of sobriety. At the picnic, Canned Heat was playing and Walter was playing with Canned Heat. I was playing with my band. I had a SuperSession band and we got along great. We were just smiles at each other and exchange numbers and started to kind of hang a little bit.
I think maybe beepers in those days. I don’t think we had cell phones yet, but I really liked the way he played. He had played with the great John Mayall and if you’re playing in the Blues Breakers, you’re good, He had so many great stories to tell me. Then he said, “You should come down to my house at Huntington Beach and we should maybe write something together”. So I went down there, I gave him some ideas and little by little he’d say, “I’m in the studio for the next week, and I’m short a song or two. Have you got anything for me?” For example on the duets album, We’re All in this Together. I came up with one for him called “The Other Side of the Pillow” that Charlie Musslewhite and him play, do the duet on.
Then he said, “I’m doing another album”, just last year. And “Any ideas?” I said, “I don’t know”. He says, “Well, play me what you’re, what you’re writing right now”. I said, “I’m writing a song a day here. I just wrote this one called “Breathe”” and he goes, “Let me hear it”. And he went, “Oh, that’s mine”. The minute he heard it, he went, “No, that goes on my record because this record is all about being broken and “Breathe” is kind of a therapy song”. So he recorded it and then he said, “Hey, would you come and play an overdub Hammond on it? I want you on the record”. So I came in and did that. And then out of the blue, I got a phone call from him. He said. “Hey I need a keyboard player to go to Europe with me”. So something happened to his keyboard player or something. He said, “Would you go for the next 6 weeks with me?” I said, “Sure”. He says, “You’re going to be a side man”. And I said, “Of course, it says Walter Trout on the marquee, it doesn’t have my name”. I know how to do that. So I went over with him and we just knocked it out of the park and we got along great together and had a lot of fun. It was hard work, but I got to see another side of Walter. I never really knew the touring side, the artist, the consummate performer, the great songwriter, singer, amazing guitar player. Fabulous storyteller.
When we got back to the United States, he says, “I want to do more of this with you”. So we did the United States tour. I went to Australia with him. I just got back about 2 months ago. He’s over in Europe right now, and I’m home in the States, not doing the European tour, basically, because I’ve got to launch this new record, but he’ll be back in July, August, September, October, I’m going to go back on the road with him. He’s really generous. In the middle of the show, the band will go off the stage and leave me to it with a piano and, and we’ll do something together, something blues and something together. He talks about me being Joe Pesci’s favorite whorehouse piano player. I had asked Joe, “Why do you keep coming in there into the bar?” when I was young and playing a piano bar in New York City, and he says, because you’re the best whorehouse piano player ever heard”.
On upcoming solo plans – I’m actually going to play some shows with Mike Zito out on the West Coast, I’m going to open for him just with a piano. I’m just going to do piano songs kind of thing, almost like a little master class on songwriting and serving up my songs from the Fresh Bear Tracks and The Way of the World. Then I’ve got some dates in California coming up with my band, which is Tony Braunagel, Laurence Juber, and Ricky Cortez. Ricky Cortez was a bass player in John Mayall’s band. So we got a great quartet and we’re going to play some dates there. Then I’m looking towards playing the East Coast and the Midwest in 25 and supporting this record.
In the meantime, I’m writing again right now for the next album. I’ve got a title for the next album. It’s going to be called the Book of Secrets and each song’s a chapter in the book, and I’ve got a chapter on Salinger, JD Salinger who wrote Catcher in the Rye. It’ll be the title song of the Book of Secrets. Then I’m writing one about a guy from your area or Massachusetts, a song is called “No Reservations”, and it’s Anthony Bourdain’s song. I’m writing one about him.
I just finished writing an 11-page lyrics, 18-minute song called “Henry, the Greatest Show on Earth”, and it’s all about a kid that runs away, he’s 11 years old. He runs away from home in 1951 in Homestead, Florida and joins the circus and he gets off a train and it’s the winter home of the greatest show on earth. He gets off the train and because that’s where they put them off, he doesn’t have enough money to go any further. It’s dark, the train leaves and some just massive shape goes by him and another one, and then another one and the sun starts to come up and he looks and it’s elephants in a line that go past him and it looks across the street and he sees a banner. It says “Winter home of the greatest show on earth. Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus”. He’s landed there and a woman in a tent sees him and she goes, “Come here, kid”. And he comes over and she says, “I’m the cook for the circus. You hungry?”. He says, “Yes, ma’am”. And she says “Okay, I’ll feed you, but you got to help me clean up”. He says, “Yes, ma’am”. She says, “What’s your name? “His real name is Travis Dupree. He says, “well, I can’t tell you”. And she says “All right, then we’re going to call you Henry”. And he says, “Well, how’d you come up with the name Henry?” She says, “Because in the circus, us circus folks, we talk in code and Henry is code for runaway”. So from that moment on, he’s Henry in the circus and we follow his life till 2017, the last show of Ringling Brothers, Barnum, & Bailey Circus. It’s true. That’s when they closed the circus, but it’s really great. There’s all kinds of characters in this and I want to make an animation out of it. It’s going to be my Tommy. That’s what I’m working on right now is part of the Book of Secrets.
