Could you sing us a little of "Stand By Me" and talk how it's resonated over the years, sort of timeless quality.

I think that the song, the song "Stand By Me" is one of those songs that… and someone asked me, what was you thinking about or what was you feeling about? It's something that, songwriters just write songs. It's like an artist that paints. They paint what they feel. It's not, it's not about how many of these painting I'll sell it's just how they feel at the moment. And that's how I wrote "Stand By Me". And the song to me as I was writing it, it was just a song, it just, personal of course with its moments but it wasn't, I, didn't get it to be s, it's just huge, it's one of the most rewarding things to me as a songwriter, as a singer, it's OK 'cause a singer has got a different attitude, they're they're so whacked out they don't know what they're doing half the time. Singers, they don't, they're spoiled too. I'll tell you another thing about singer but they're mostly spoiled. I'm a songwriter. So I'm OK. But when I wrote "Stand By Me" as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it's great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics. [sings]. "When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see, no I won't be afraid. No, I won't be afraid just as long as you stand, stand by me. So darling, darling, stand by me, oh stand by me, oh stand, stand by me, stand by me." It's just simple lyrics but enough to, enough to connect. And I didn't realize that when I was was writing it, it was just something that I felt like I wanted to say. And during those times like in my early years as a writer I could actually write a song in ten minutes because all of a sudden a song is writing itself, I'm just putting down words. It just seem each line that you put down flows with the other ones. It's like writing a love letter you don't think about it, it's something from the heart. You're writing it is how you feel. And when you're finished you put your signature on it and you mail it off and that's it. And that's how "Stand By Me" was really.

The Drifters had a very distinctive sound, their records. How would you define the Drifters' style?

If there's a way to describe the Drifters' sound especially the Drifters as they was called, when I call Cry Drifters it's like Clyde McFeather, Gayhard Thresh and Bubba and all those guys, Bill Pinkney. They had the gospel set of Drifters and we had the Drifters that had that, that velvet sound because of the way Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced it. It had that touch of elegance, just enough to take it from the level of being extremely R and B up to class and _____ style. I would imagine we were the group that, ah, we would have been behind Nat King Cole if we was up there because we had that kind of good style and class behind the songs.

... going for a broader range?

Yeah, I don't think we, we weren't doing it on purpose. That's, I think that's why, what make the magic happen. It's a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you're marketing yourself for that direction. We did it and, and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller did it because we were enjoying the freedom of expressing ourselves and, and, and it happened like that, we just expressed ourself in a way that no one else had done so. And, and I fell into it because that's what, that's the way they were going, I was just following their lead. So because of that and Atlantic was brave enough to allow them the freedom to play with that game. So we all kind of followed each other and the world picked up on it and says, wow, where are these guys going? And before you know it they had already opened their arms and say, hey, we like you. Come on in here.

Many people attribute your early [INAUDIBLE] ... man on the street soul sound. All the people were coming in the studio and you were a voice among all these instruments. Did you feel something new was happening, that you were establishing a whole new sound?

I would imagine after the first recording session with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and Atlantic Records I began to realize that this is going to be like this for the rest of my life and I knew that what, what they were doing was going to be successful because with each session that we would do, it would get better and better and better, the songs would become better, the, ah, the feeling of success was there and we were all in the middle of that as well. And knowing that they had carte blanche to do what they were doing plus. And it gave me a feeling of confidence because not only were they teaching me things I must have been learning it well 'cause they didn't turn me down.

A feeling of excitement and progress.

Yeah, a complete, a complete newness that everybody knew that they were successful in.

Could you say that in a complete sentence?

I would imagine it was a complete newness that everyone knew they were successful in.

Great. Beatles.

The Beatles.

The Beatles come in 1964. What did you think of when you first saw them? Did you feel threatened by them?

I, when I first saw the Beatles, before they got here to, to America I had a chance to, ah, I was working in Europe a lot especially in, in London. And, ah, I, I got a chance to meet them as kids, quite a few times, they would come to the concerts. And I, I knew their manager Brian. And he was telling me about, I would love to get these kids to the States and da da da da da. So I said, great. And I didn't think at that time they would even be successful when they came to the States. But when I got home and I started hearing all this stuff about the Beatles are coming, the Beatles are coming, then I said, I think I met these kids. The Beatles are coming, the Beatles are coming. I said, I've met these kids. And when I saw them on the plane I said, those are the same kids that was at all the concerts I was doing mostly. They came into this country and changed everything we've ever dreamed of being: artistically and musically, ah, culturally as well. They, all of a sudden, for some reason in this country at that time, we must have felt as if we was missing something or we needed a new something. And whatever that void were, they fell right in the middle of it. They said, you don't know what you want, take this. And, whoever started the campaign to bring them to America was the most brilliant mind that I've, I think I would ever meet because it worked. It was extremely successful. I didn't realize how talented they were until maybe two years later. There was so much hype going on about them and you have to allow for the fact that they came in at a time where the music that was being created by myself and the Drifters and people such as such were not beginning to take a back burner to these, this new British group and all that they were bringing over. And… a bit of jealousy because we was, we were cut off at a time, we was just getting ready to become stronger than strong ourselves. I mean the stro... the song, all the signs were there that the music that was being created right here at home was going to be tremendously big. And then all of a sudden these kids came along and stopped all that. And, ah, it was a strong pill to swallow. I think the only one that survived out of that thing was someone like James Brown because he was so far to the left of what they were doing it didn't affect them. But all the other ones that was using the, the soft touch of music was strongly affected by it. Even now, even to this very day you, you still hear great influences of all the things they've done in the music industry.

James Brown had such an extreme sound that was so opposite from the sound you were delivering, I wonder what it was that made him appealing to such a broad audience too?

Well, it's, I would imagine the thing that made James Brown and survive and, and was appealing because he had, he had what, what all the blacks needed to keep them going. The Beatles had all of what the whites needed to keep them going. The thing that we have created with the Drifters and us was in the middle of all that. There was no separatism there, we, we, we had collected a people to listen to a music. But when they came along there was, airy, because you know blacks can't go to hell long and straight and I forget that. So they came along with long straight hair and that happened, that changed the whole attitude of the music in a racial way. So James covered all of what was going on and what blacks felt that they needed musically to survive through the Beatles thing. And then the whites, they'd say, hey, well, but look what we have. These kids are great. And look at their hair. And it's only four musicians and they're brilliant. And they were screaming, the girls was fainting. So there was no competition in what we were doing in comparison to what they had done when they landed here. We couldn't compare to there if we tried for another 200 years, no way. Maybe if we would have had Michael Jackson, maybe. But we didn't have him at that time so we was stuck. We, we were caught completely off guard. They came over and they scooped us right up and just smoothed right through there.

They were influenced by what you did.

Exactly, sure. But that always happens. That's not new news. People abroad always tend to take what the best of what we have and come back through the back door always, say, and hit us with it. And then we wake up one day and say, I think I've heard that. Yeah, it was done by whoever, you know. So, ah, that's been one of our weaknesses we don't tend to hold on as they do there.