So we were just talking about Dylan and do you feel like his music was a force that changed the local, LA music scene at all?

Oh yeah, again, he's one of those people you rip off because he's so unique and, ah.

Use his name.

Oh, Bob Dylan, yeah, when, ah, me and Jack Nitzsche used to listen, Jack used to say, hey listen to this guy. And we used to listen to Dylan before he was really, ah, as big as he was. He was coming along but, but, ah, Jack was blown away by him. And then so was I 'cause he kind of sang bluesy and he, he didn't have a bad, he had had a bad voice and I loved it 'cause I thought, oh man, I've got a bad voice, there is a God, you know, there's a chance here. And so I could easily sing like, like Dylan and did on "Laugh At Me" you know, - [singing] Why can't I be like any guy? And it, it was a direct rip off of, of, of Bob but it was still so much fun 'cause you could just slide through and sing. But, ah, but his song writing, ah, when he, when he hit that period it was awesome, I mean just awesome. And it was unique and unto itself, you know, and, and, and it didn't, nobody stole anything. See Phillip, Phil Spector could take pieces of other people and, and I guess everybody does, all artists do but wherever, ah, Bob Dylan got his influence, it, it is hard to identify. I would say it was from folk but it was great.

Did you have him in mind when you wrote "Laugh At Me"?

No, a… again, "Laugh At Me" was because I got thrown out of a restaurant and, ah, they were friends of mine that threw me out and I just went home and wrote the song, recorded it the next day and was on the air the next day and was a hit the day after that.

Why did they throw you out?

The way we dressed.

Tell us the story.

Sure, the story was, we used to go to this restaurant and, ah, every time we'd go to it, as I said, the way we dressed was so outrageous it was, really was like being considered nude or, ah, they would question my, ah, my gender all the time. So somebody would want to, want to punch you in the nose. After, after a while we had to walk around with a bodyguard to dress the way we did. And so, sure enough, we went to, to Martone's and these guys wanted to, to beat us up, beat me up. And, ah, so some friends of mine came and we threw the guys out of the restaurant. Some, some of my friends that could beat up a truck, ah, came over and we threw those people out. So we, we reversed it on them 'cause they thought I was just this, just going to roll over. And so when we threw them out it was quite an incident at the restaurant 'cause I had to ask the owners, I said, - will you move those people? They're bothering me. He said, no, you move. I said, - I don't want to move, I didn't do anything. So these were my buddies. And so, ah, after we threw those guys out we were going to stomp them, ah, but they were smart enough to leave and that was a good choice, ah. Then, ah, the restaurant owner said, don't come back any more. I said, you got to be kidding? He said, no. So me and Cher went home. I had my piano in the garage then because it was a big upright, heavy piano and it couldn't fit, we couldn't get it up into the house so we had it in the lower part of a garage. So I could just drive in, play, write a song and then go to bed. Cher went to bed. I wrote "Laugh At Me". And, ah, I wrote it over that incident. And then it was a hit record.

Can you tell us the story behind "I've Got You Babe", we read in your book, sold three million copies in 21 days. How did you write it?

I always wrote either, either subliminally or intentionally, ah, some phrase I'd hear somewhere or think of somewhere and then, ah, I, I was able to go and just write a song in like an hour or two hours. It would just pretty much come out, you know. And I'd look for a hook lyric, you know, and you go - babe, I got you babe. And again, it was that kind of Dylan had "Babe" all over the airwaves, you know. So I thought, babe, babe, there's got to be something to use with that babe. And, ah, I took that and then just added the - I got you part to it. And then it just rolled out real easy after the hook came and, and, and then it, it was, it was an easy song to write 'cause it was, really was how I felt then. I knew we could do it, you know, and I knew that we could, we could do anything. And so it, I like the lyrics to Babe it really is hope for anybody and, and makes a statement that there's a dream, anybody can achieve a dream. And, and, boom, that's just what it did because we went from kind of obscurity to stardom in one or two days. It was, it was an incredible phenomenon. It just rocketed us. But it was years of work, you know, finally paying off. So to get to that moment. I was always trying to find that song. And it came in the form of "I Want You Babe".

You produced that song, did you bring any of Spector's?

Oh sure, I did, I did, that, when I left Spector, when I left Phil Spector, I felt confident enough that I knew enough about recording now to go ahead and produce on my own. So, ah, I had total confidence in producing but for that sound I used three pianos, I, I, I did all of that and maybe the reason Rolling Stone has me in folk song, then folk came on the scene. So I tried to combine the two; Spector and folk. And it was a combination of the two and, and, and, then a little bit of what we call, what got termed as bubble gum music or dumb music as Phil called it, real, real plain message kind of stuff. So I combined the three. And boom it just, it, it shot out.

How do you think drugs influenced the music scene back then?

Big, drugs influenced music big. And if you weren't a druggie, you weren't hip. There was a period there that drugs came on the scene and, and they were synonymous with pop music. And if you didn't do it you were corny, ah.

Can you think of an example?

An example for, for that time? The example was that, that unless you sat around with a group of people and smoked pot or, or did some kind of drugs you really kind of got moved out. So we, we certainly weren't in. People wouldn't do drugs around us. And we did an anti-drug film at the time. We did a anti-marijuana film for the educational system. And I don't think that was the demise of our career, ah, but I think music got, you could feel drugs in music, the messages were druggy and the sound was druggy and, and psychedelic came on the scene and, and I tried to get into that. I, that's, that's the one time period I'm embarrassed about writing 'cause I, I just totally sold myself out and tried to write in that groove. It wasn't my groove at all, you know. And, and finally it, it, I was aware that I, I just couldn't write that way. But I, I made an attempt to. But every, every song had drugs in it. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", you could always hear the drug message in it and that's what you had to strive for. If you didn't have that in your song, it wasn't hip.

You were actually in an anti-drug film?

Yeah, yeah, we did it for the educational system, yeah.

Talking about the drug influence.

The drug scene was, was interesting, the drug scene in, in the Sixties, I guess it was '66 started coming on the music scene. But it, it was bigger than it appeared because if philosophically you weren't in tune with that approach to music, lifestyle and attitude, it, it was a very discriminating attitude then. And you were out if you weren't in. I don't think that that necessarily was the reason that we sort of went on the wane but I couldn't, I couldn't associate with that groove or hook up with it. And I felt left out. And, and then you kind of don't know whi… which way to go, whether to get in it which we couldn't, not get in and do drugs but to, to, to live in it or not. And when it becomes apparent to the society, to the in society that you're not in it, it kind of moves you out. Then the record companies have an attitude 'cause they're going, oh, they're kind of corny. And the executives have an attitude. You know and, and in that day, it wasn't just the artists, ah, it was the execs were snorting, everybody was snorting. So the whole music scene became very drug oriented and they, that society had a guilty conscience so they were only comfortable in an environment of people who, who, who did it you know. And so they, they made sure that you got out if, if you weren't in. And so it was a weird musical time.

You were talking about ...

How drugs really dominated the musical scene then. It became very exclusive. It became the whole musical environment and you either had to go with that or you weren't in, you were out. And I, I wasn't comfortable, I mean I tried to write in that groove but not, not get involved in the drug portion of it. But it, it, it, it just didn't work and, and everybody was, everybody was doing it, the drugs then, the executives, ever., everybody in the industry so it was just totally dominated then. So you kelt… felt kind of guilty if you didn't or you knew that people wouldn't say certain things in front of you or you knew that, you, you know you were only allowed to socialize to a certain point. So you started, started feeling out, then, then music got weird and I didn't, know I didn't like it but I didn't like it, it was, everything was a message. I mean if I analyzed, in retrospect, there was the Beatle period then, then they got on this huge message kick, you know. And then after a while I didn't know what, I didn't know what songs were about, I mean. I, I don't know "Strawberry Fields" what it means, you know. I, I don't, I started losing the whole meaning of music. I liked the simple dumb, ah, kind of music that was out there. And so music went on in the Sixties having that attitude till, till that burned itself out and then, ah, you popped through this real non-message period in the Seventies where everybody just totally lightened up. And it was kind of fun again. But for a while it got awfully intense, you had to have, you couldn't just write a song, you had to have some significant meaning and some significant message. And writers, I got caught up in it, you try to go, God, I've got to be profound here, you know. If you didn't you, you weren't doing what you should. So you had a bunch of philosophers rather than a bunch of songwriters. And then, then the Seventies kind of was like a breath of fresh air 'cause it just went back to, to music. Granted it was disco, ah, and it went on for a while but it, it certainly is better than rap.

When you went over to England you were on Ready, Steady, Go.

I was on Ready, Steady, we did all the, the TV shows.

We were talking about Ready, Steady, Go, and your trip to England.

Yeah, that was fun, ah, that was, that was interesting because England was, was, had, television had accepted, ah, the current music at, at the time more, English television did more than American music. So we had our disc jockey shows but it seemed like it was, it wasn't, again, ah, the big networks just couldn't accept rock and roll artists as legitimate artists. So if they would get a guest spot or something, you'd have to be huge like the Beatles or the Stones or whatever, ah, because they just, they fought it as long as they could but England did, didn't seem to resist that, English television I should say. So it was much, much less uptight doing it over there. It was fun. As I said, for us it was, ah, instant success over in England. So, ahm, the acceptance was really great. And to have the reverse happen 'cause you had the British invasion and then to have some Americans come over and invade England was something they really enjoyed, you know. It was real., really fun for them so when we got to, we got over there there was this tremendous acception, acc… acceptance from, from the music scene.

Who started rock and roll?

Oh, who started rock and roll? The, the black gospel church started rock and roll.

Look in the camera, say your name.

Sonny Bono.

One more time.

Sonny Bono. Do you want me to tell you a little more about the rock and roll church, the church music, the gospel music?

Sure.

Ah, when you ask…

No, no that's it, that's who started rock and roll. Yeah, no question about it. They, they did it.

One more. Who started rock and roll?

Black gospel music started rock and roll. That's it. No question about it.