Dan was saying when he talked to you earlier you said that you, either you or some of the people in the group didn't like "Searching" when you first heard it.

"Searching." Now there's a tune that, uh, it wasn't that we didn't like "Searching," we thought it was funny country song that black people shouldn't be singing, you know? And Billy Guy of course had that country voice. Now as he got along into "Searching" around that part where it says, "'cause I've been searching," you can hear a little laughing in it. If you play that song today, you hear him say, "because I've been searching," he was smiling because it was so funny to us and to him. And in our hearts, I thought it would never make it. But it was a surprise. It was better than "Youngblood." They turned it over and it went crazy selling, man. But they both sold a million even. But it was funny. It was a funny song because, uh, Bulldog Drummond, in that era we had Bulldog Drummond on the radio and all that, there wasn't much television then, so uh, it was radio listening. And Bulldog Drummond and Sam Spade was all on the radio. So it was, uh, a funny song.

Were the rehearsals fun? Did you have fun at those rehearsals or was it really hard work?

Oh no, we would cut a song. First we would start rehearsing and we'd take a break and everybody'd order corned beef sandwiches from the deli, mostly in New York here, right down on Broadway there. And we'd sit and have our sandwiches. And that's why I have cholesterol today from eating so many of them. And Leiber and Stoller was eating them too, you know. And uh, uh, rehearsal, we would do a song, we would sit and rehearse a song for three or four hours, and the next day we're cutting it, just that fast. It didn't last long. And uh, uh, the Coasters were doing takes like, five or six takes. We didn't go over it too long, we could do it so fast. But everybody took care of business. There was no joking around -- we did a lot of joking around. But I was the serious one. I'd say, c'mon, let's do this thing, let's get it over with. But sometimes we'd come in at 9 o'clock and we'd be there all night on some of those things. Some of them were pretty rough. But most of the songs were, were cut pretty fast.

There's quite a few of the Leiber and Stoller songs that he did, going back to the Robins that really in certain kind of funny indirect ways kind of approach the whole racial situation in the '50s and early '60s in a very subtle way. I can think of "Riot in Cell Block Number 9" and "Framed," and then it goes up to "Shopping For Clothes" and "Run Red Run," "What About Us." It's an interesting thing because you've got these two young white writers writing about what's going on for black voices. Did you discuss that with Leiber and Stoller? Did you discuss the message in the music with them?

That's, you know, Leiber and Stoller were writing black music. Did I question it? I questioned it alone in my head. Because there were these two Jewish kids knew my culture better than I knew my culture. And I said, how do they do that? You know. And I wondered, I thought about it, I said, how do they know what we do? Because every song they wrote was in our culture. We were, with the ladies the same way they wrote about. "Run Red Run" all that kind of stuff, was the company of black people, the, the situation of black people. And they amazed me with how they could take my culture and, and, and put it on paper like that and knowing what they're doing. And yet they went to college, some white college and came back and knew my culture. It amazed me, you know. And Leiber and Stoller used to, you know, especially Jerry, he was the funny one. Jerry was the comical guy with, and he loved Billy Guy's action, because they were two alike. And they're "Searching." They were two alike and they got along very well. But, but uh, Jerry was a Taurus born, and so was I, so I understood where he was coming from. Mike was the serious one on piano. Very, very serious guy. And uh, Jerry was the go around, I don't care thing. And he would cool Mike down. Oh man, c'mon, we're going to get the song together. And finally they'd get together. And uh, but it knocked me out how they knew my culture. And I still don't know how.

Did you have a sense at the time with the Coasters that the music that you were doing on records and in person was breaking down those barriers of segregation?

Breaking down the barrier, barriers of segregation. No, uh, I didn't think it had anything to do with, uh, breaking down segregation. I was just hoping, I, I was taught in Texas not to, uh, uh, I was taught that I was just as good as a white man was. I'm part Indian and black, although I consider myself black. My mother's mother is full blooded. So she taught us nothing about hate and all that mess. So I was as good as you walked, and I walked in your shoes as good as you would walk in your shoes, and had no sense of uh, uh, of powered things over me. I was as good as you. So I had no problem with racial problems. You know, uh, I was the kind of person if I wanted a white girl I'd get her anyway whether you'd shoot me or not. But I didn't care about that. I was going to save my race. That was the kind of person I was. So therefore, I did not think that music had anything to do with breaking down racial prejudice.

Do you think now looking back at it that you think it did?

No, it still had nothing to do with it. Martin Luther King is the answer to those dreams, and still not together today but it's better than when I was coming up. We couldn't even stay at a motel. I was staying with black people in their roach infested houses as the Coasters, and singing for whites all over the South. So we were very angry about that. And eating on buses at supermarkets, cheese and coldcuts. We'd stop in a place in Alabama and ask for food, and they said, we're not going to feed you. We had to go somewhere and buy coldcuts in supermarkets. Ruth Brown, all of us was together, Chuck Berry, all of us. Uh, we did the best we could. And uh, came up with a lot of experience, and this brought me a lot of experience together.

What did you want to say about that whole thing about touring in the South? Was that difficult to do?

Well, we went all over the South except Mississippi. I was very, very afraid to go down there because of all of the things they were doing to black people in that era. When Martin Luther King was marching I could not have been one of the marchers because I couldn't take that kind of stuff. I would shoot you if dog, uh, bite me, I'd kill your dog and shoot you. I was not the good person. I was on Malcolm X's side. Don't do me this way. Fight for what you believe in. And uh, I was that type of person, a rebel without a, with a cause. So I would say that, uh, uh, where am I -- da-da-da-da. I lost my train of thought here.

We were talking about touring in the South and the whole racial situation. Was it the same as when you toured Texas earlier before you came out there when you were doing those gigs or was it a very different kind of situation?

No, it was the same in Texas in racial matters. Uh, the same in Texas as in traveling. We encountered a lot of racial prejudice in Alabama and places like that. And we had the same sort of audience that had a board running down the auditorium, blacks were on this side, whites were on this side, and you had to turn to the whites and sing and then turn back to the blacks and sing and all that kind of mess. And uh, we went through a lot of mess. Uh, we walked into a place in South Carolina and announced that we were the Coasters to work there on the beach, and I went upstairs and said I'm recording with the Coasters. She said, you're not the Coasters. I said, here's a picture, yes, we were. She said, no, you're not, the Coasters are white. And he spits, spat at one of my guys' feet. And I said, let's get out of here man. We got out and went to the next gig. They saw, they thought the Coast-, to show you how ignorant people were about life, they thought the Coasters were a white act, you see. Because we had no television, just radio. They didn't know who we were.

What are your favorite Coasters records?

What is my favorite Coasters records. That's a, that's a good, uh, that's a good question. Uh, I can tell you we cut a thing called "The Coasters One By One", a pop album. Maybe I shouldn't go back that far to say this. But I must because I was in the pop field, I loved it. We cut a pop album called "The Coasters One By One". On that album I did a thing called, uh, "Moonlight in Vermont," "Satin Doll," "Willow Weep For Me," and one more song I cannot recall right now. But that was my favorite album. But my favorite song in the million seller class was "Yakety Yak".

Was the Apollo Theater a place that you particularly liked to perform?

The Apollo Theater. That was the most magnificent theater on earth. If they didn't like you, you don't nothing in theater, in that theater. In that era the Coasters was the Apollo Theater. Ray Charles -- no act could follow us. We did skits, we did our hits, and we had skits that we talked about and went out there and did them without rehearsing. The Coasters never rehearsed in their lives. They were so talented, we would discuss a skit. Like a thing called "Taint Nothing To Me" and "The Secret of Your Success." Those sort of things in skits. "Shopping For Clothes." I would dress us up as a dummy. Billy Guy would come in as an old man with tattered clothes. And you know, I was shopping for some suits the other day, and walked in the department store. This man walks up to me and says, uh, second floor, or something like that. And he says, uh, show me that suit, you know. And he would say, man that suit is pure herringbone. And I would stand there like a statue. And this was at the Apollo. And as I stand there, I would never bat an eye. I would look straight ahead at all the audience, and never, this eye would never bat, I almost cried because I had to stand there five minutes like that, and didn't bat an eye. And to them I was dead. And all of a sudden, Billy got to singing the song, he would touch me like that. And that statue would come alive, so this would go ... and never batting an eye. And the audience would go, oooooo, wow, they'd get cold. And when we got through with those audiences in the Apollo Theater, no one could go. And one day, working the theater, one of the guys got shot on one of my skits. And he laid his head besides the stage. And a guy who was into drugs perhaps started dragging him off, because we were using 38 bullets without the shell in it, uh, what do you call those things?

-- story again.

Blanks. Yeah, we was using blanks for that particular show.

Start the story over about the guy getting shot on the stage.

Yeah, now, at the Apollo Theater we were doing, uh, a show, and we did one of the songs in a skit called "Taint Nothing To Me," and he gets, the bass player gets shot. One of the guys shoots him, and he dies on stage. And one of the guys in the audience, the place was always packed, one of the guys in the audience, the guns were blank 38 you know pistol bullets, uh, bullets. And uh, they were very loud. So this guy actually thought this man was shot. He came up and started dragging him off the stage, and Ronnie came alive and said, where you taking me, man? He said, I'm taking you to the funeral home, I get 50 dollars for the body, I thought you was dead. He actually thought the man was dead, because he wanted his dough. So he was going to take him to the hospital. And the people went crazy in there. We couldn't get back on stage for 15 minutes. It took 15 minutes to stop the audience from laughing. And Ray Charles was there with us and all these people. And they just couldn't get on. Ray used to join us on some of the skits on organ and piano and play with us. It was so great. Those skits were just out of sight. And it made it up in less than five minutes and went out and did it, in comedy, in novelty. And uh, we thought at the end, and like I said, the Apollo Theater was the greatest place to start what you have to do to see if the whole world like you. If they like you, the world will accept you. And that's what we had to do and we proved it to that theater that we were doing a great job.

How do you react to the terms rhythm and blues and rock and roll? Is there any difference between the two?

Uh, not really. Uh, rhythm and blues is the mother of all of it. You know, rhythm and blues is the key and the mother and the offspring of all things, you know. Rock and roll is the offshoot of rhythm and blues. It's still soulful and rhythm and blues is still soulful. The beat was only changed in one sense, and yet it was not changed. You know, rock and roll to me has the same beat as the day I was doing rhythm and blues with the Robins. And it has that same backbeat, and uh, rock and roll has the same sort of backbeat, but a more screaming fashion and guitars wailing, you know. And uh, Chuck Berry is one who can prove that through the guitar playing of his, you know, playing his guitar on the songs that he recorded. So everything, uh, came from rhythm and blues, and all the things has to go back to its mother, and that's rhythm and blues. I would class it that way.

They wanted to go back to one thing which is talking about _______. [interruption] So any stories about "Youngblood." Tell us what you liked about that song.

"Youngblood." There was a song that I thought had a lot of good beats to it. The beats were just magnificent and uh, I was glad that I was leading that song and singing that song. Uh, the parts, when it got to "lookee there, lookee there," and talking about ladies in the audience, it was a magnificent song, even, uh, even on tour it was better than the recording because you were looking at the audience and saying, "lookee there, lookee there," and the bass saying, "lookee there." You know. And uh, I thought "Youngblood" was one of the, uh, the greatest songs that Leiber-Stoller wrote for me, you know. But uh, it was a hit. But like I said before, it, uh, "Yakety Yak" was the mother of their songs. But "Youngblood" to me was the great song for me to be singing because that was the kind of voice I had to deliver for that type of song. So I enjoyed it very, very much.