    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 3, 1997]
    [Pages 693-698]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Sarah Staley and Bill Brand of VH1
    June 3, 1997

    President's Musical Interests

        Q. Starting off with just present day, being President, it comes
    with a lot of ``Pomp and Circumstance'' and ``Hail to the Chief.'' What
    has music meant to you personally and publicly as President?
        The President. First of all, it gives a lot of meaning to being
    President, because the President has the Marine Band, and then whenever
    we have a state visit here a marching band from the Army in colonial
    costumes with old instruments performs. So a lot of being President is
    the reminder of the music here. The Air Force, the Navy, the Army, all
    have dance bands; they play here at the White House for events. So
    that's a good part of it.
        The second thing that I would say is that one of the nice things
    about being President is nearly anybody will come perform for you. So
    I've gotten to be friends with people that I've loved for 20 or 30
    years, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin,
    countless others, and then to bring a lot of other new people in and
    give people a chance to be heard. We've had--working with public
    television here, we've had a country music concert reflecting women in
    country music; we've done jazz music; we've done blues. It's just been
    fascinating. Just last week we had Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark
    O'Malley in here to do their wonderful Appalachian music. So all of that
    has been very, very important.

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        And then, of course, I've gotten to bring some of the most wonderful
    gospel and religious singers in the country in my two Inaugural
    services, and there are other times. So for me, one of the best things
    personally about being President has been the music and the way I could
    just sort of swallow up all my musical interests. It's been great.
        Q. Let's get back to where the musical interests started. Warren
    Moss was here during the Inauguration, and we were talking to him. He
    tells a hysterical story that--was it George Grey was handling out
    instruments in, like, third or fourth grade. And he grabbed the trumpet,
    and you were left with the saxophone. Did you always want to play the
    saxophone?
        The President. Yes, I did. Actually, I started on the clarinet when
    I was 9 with George Grey--who was a friend of mine all his life; we were
    pen pals forever--my grade school band director, and he had a daughter
    who was also a musician. So I played clarinet for a while, and frankly,
    I wasn't very good at it. And they switched me to saxophone when I was 9
    years old. So I've been playing since I was 9.
        Q. Mr. Spurlin said you were made for the saxophone.
        The President. It suited me. It suits me emotionally,
    intellectually. I always liked it.
        Q. There are some great videos that we have--Virginia put home
    videos on tape and gave them to David, and we were looking at them--of
    you dancing in the living room. Virginia's there, and I guess it's Roger
    Clinton, and little Roger is running around. What was the music that
    would have been playing then? I think you might have been 12, 13.
        The President. Oh, when I was 12 or 13, it would have been--gosh,
    that was back in 1958--it would have been Elvis Presley, Bill Haley,
    Fats Domino, all those people.
        Q. What did the music mean for you growing up? I mean, all your
    friendships----
        The President. I loved it. I loved the whole rock and roll thing.
    And I was--a lot of parents in the fifties didn't like it very much.
    They thought there was something vaguely bad about it, you know. And my
    mother thought it was wonderful. She loved Elvis Presley from the first
    day she saw him. She thought rock and roll was great for kids. So music
    was always encouraged in our home, and we had--until I was 15, when I
    lived in a place that actually had a hardwood floor and a big room where
    you could have dances. So we had kids dancing there all the time. It was
    great.
        Q. Was it your mom who got you hooked on the musical bug? I mean,
    with her love for music, or was it----
        The President. I think so. Neither of my parents had a particular
    interest, obsession with music like I did. My mother loved rock and roll
    and loved Elvis Presley in particular. And my father actually had played
    saxophone as a little boy. And I own a soprano saxophone, believe it or
    not, that is playable today--I've had it restored--that was made in
    1915. I also have an old C-Melody saxophone that my father played. That
    was the only family connection, but he didn't play anymore when I
    started. And I just fell in love with it and just kept on doing it.
        Q. Now, you mentioned, when we were talking about the Presidency,
    your love for gospel and spiritual music. And a lot of people--of
    course, I know about it, but a lot of people hadn't known about that
    love. You know, they just always saw you on Arsenio playing saxophone.
    You've mentioned--an interesting sort of reference to that was you all--
    that you've mentioned many times--that we all need to be repairers of
    the breach. What role does music play in that?
        The President. Oh, I think that, for me, there is nothing that's any
    more emotionally healing. When I'm blue or down, I can hear some good
    gospel music; it immediately just lifts me up. And I've always felt that
    way. One of the greatest things about my being Governor of a Southern
    State with a lot of gospel roots is that I heard a phenomenal amount of
    fabulous church music from my childhood all up through my public
    service, both in black churches and in white churches. And that's where
    I got involved with the Pentecostals, who have contributed so much to my
    religious music education and so much to the enrichment not only of me
    but Hillary and Chelsea as well.
        Q. What's it like during those Inaugural prayer services or anytime
    that you hear your friends, such as Janice or Micky or even my mom--
    what's it like to hear them, friends who love you, singing those songs?
        The President. It's different and better. I think it's really nice
    when you get to know people, particularly if you've known them a long
    time--you just take a lot of joy in their talent, and

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    they can touch you in a way when they're singing to you they can't when
    they're talking to you. It's an amazing thing. It's quite wonderful.
        I also feel an immense pride. Whenever I see someone perform now
    that I know, who's a personal friend of mine, anywhere, especially my
    childhood friends or people I've known for a long time, but even people
    I've gotten to be friends with in the last 5 or 10 years, and I know how
    hard it is and I see how good they are, it really makes me proud.
        Q. That's wonderful. You mentioned black artists, black music. Was
    that--you mentioned Virginia loved Elvis, and there was sort of the
    Beatles. Going into black music, was that different, Motown?
        The President. When I was a child, I just--I was elated by all those
    Motown artists. I loved them all. And in the late eighties, I once got
    to play in Michigan, ``Dancing in the Streets'' with the Four Tops,
    Martha and the Vandellas, and Junior Walker. And I never will forget--I
    never will forget playing a saxophone riff with Junior Walker. It was a
    great thing. And I always loved that. I loved Ray Charles, and I loved
    that, and then I loved all the religious music.
        One of the most memorable concerts in my entire life was a concert I
    attended as a young man when I was living in England. I went to the
    Royal Albert Hall, and I heard Mahalia Jackson sing. And all these
    British kids came to hear it. And I thought, you know, most of them had
    never even been exposed to anything like Mahalia Jackson. And when she
    finished singing, they stormed the stage. It was unbelievable. It was
    like she was a young rock star or something. So that's a big part of
    what music is to me, is my whole relationship with African-Americans and
    the roots that we share, and it always has been.
        Q. It sounds like there was a real change not only in what was going
    on in your heart but musically when you went to Georgetown. Of course,
    Tom Campbell says you still came in with your little portable record
    player. But the discussions were longer at dinner about----
        The President. Yes, and the music began to change. And the people
    became more serious. They got involved in the discussions about civil
    rights, and there were riots in the streets, and then there was the war
    in Vietnam. We literally had riots in Washington when Martin Luther King
    was killed. But there was a lot of music around all that.
        I remember--you have these little songs I guess you associate with
    different periods in your life. When I came to Georgetown, on Sunday
    afternoon there was a place called the Cellar Door right down from where
    I lived. And you could go down there on Sunday afternoon, and for a
    dollar you could go in and get a Coke and listen to whoever was playing.
    And one group that played a lot there was a group called the Mugwumps.
    The lead singer of the Mugwumps was Cass Elliot, who later became Mama
    Cass of the Mamas and the Papas. And two other people in the Mugwumps
    became two of the four people in the Lovin' Spoonful. So when the Mamas
    and the Papas came on later in my college career, they always--every
    time I hear the Mamas and Papas, I think about Georgetown, I think about
    college, I think about ``Monday, Monday'' and all those old great songs.
        And I think there is some of that at each stage of my life. The last
    week--last month I was in England, when I lived in England, was June of
    1970, and that's when the Beatles broke up. So every time I hear ``Let
    It Be''--every time I hear ``Let It Be,'' I remember those endless lines
    of people who lined up to see the last movie that the Beatles made right
    when they announced they were breaking up.
        Q. Now, the Beatles landed in America, I guess, the year you went to
    Georgetown.
        The President. '64.
        Q. Yes, yes.
        The President. My senior year in high school.
        Q. Do you remember that?
        The President. Oh, yes.
        Q. I mean, were you really into the Beatles?
        The President. Oh, absolutely. I remember when they came in. I
    remember going over to a friend of mine's house and playing some Beatles
    records. I remember when they went on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember--
    I was interested to see them on the Ed Sullivan Show, because you know
    when Elvis Presley went on the Ed Sullivan Show they could only show him
    from the waist up because they thought he was too lewd for the times.
        Q. What's the difference between--was it a hard transition between
    Elvis and Beatles and Motown?
        The President. Not for me, but I've always had very eclectic
    interests in music. And most people didn't choose, that I knew. I felt a
    real special relationship to Elvis Presley because he

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    was from Mississippi; he was a poor white kid; he sang with a lot a
    soul. He was sort of my roots--``Heartbreak Hotel'' and ``Hound Dog''
    and ``Don't Be Cruel'' and ``Love Me Tender,'' that was sort of the
    beginning of the awakening of America to rock and roll.
        And then when the Beatles came, I just thought they were so--they
    were full of energy, but they were also brilliant. I mean, you go back
    and listen to Sergeant Pepper's album today--they were brilliant. I
    still think ``Eleanor Rigby'' is one of the most powerful songs I ever
    heard. They were just brilliant.
        Q. You were talking about your mom, Virginia, and her love for music
    and how she loved rock and roll. Did that have--I mean, it must have
    made a huge difference not only in your life but in Roger's life now
    that he's gone into music.
        The President. Huge. Yes. I mean, we both felt encouraged to like
    music and to be involved in it. And our mother had a lot to do with it.
    But it was something that lifted us up. We had some hard times, and we
    could always get out of them if we had enough good music playing.
        Q. Did you ever consider going into music?
        The President. I did. When I was 15 or 16, I thought about it a lot.
    I even thought about going to Europe to study, because in France you
    could study classical saxophone and actually develop a career that would
    be both classical and jazz and all that. And that's very rare. Wynton
    Marsalis is the only world-class musician in my lifetime, I think, who
    was preeminent in classical and preeminent in jazz music.
        But I made a very--I decided not to do it for two reasons. One is, I
    didn't know if I'd like the lifestyle. I didn't want to get my days and
    nights mixed up. And back then the idea of somebody like Kenny G., who
    has become a good friend of mine--he's a marvelous person--the idea of
    someone like him actually making a living just doing concerts and
    records was--it seemed so remote. And I didn't want to have to just do
    clubs and stay up all night and sleep all day. All the saxophone players
    I knew did that. Even the ones that made a lot of jazz records basically
    had their days and nights mixed up, as far as I was concerned. And I
    just didn't want to do it.
        And the other reason I didn't do it is I didn't think I was--I just
    wasn't sure I was good enough. I didn't think I would be truly great at
    it. And I thought if you're going to sacrifice your life to it and give
    your life to it, then you should know that you could really be great at
    it.
        Q. It's kind of cool that Roger is doing music.
        The President. Yes. Saw him on television last week, singing away.
        Q. What's it like?
        The President. I like it. I'm very happy for him, because it's all I
    think he's ever really wanted to do. He really just--once he started
    doing it and realized he was pretty good at it, he didn't care about
    anything else.
        And one of the things that I want for every young person in this
    country is I want them to be free to be able to do what they want to do
    to live out their dreams. He's had to work hard and make a lot of
    sacrifices, but he's been able to do a lot of that.

    Music Education

        Q. I want to talk about Mr. Spurlin----
        The President. Yes, that's good.
        Q. ----and music education. You were talking about change and how
    when you were 16 you really had to think about it hard. Mr. Spurlin said
    that he realized that because you came back from Boys Nation, and he
    could see a difference, that you were still really committed to music,
    with all the bands you were in.
        The President. When I went to Boys Nation, it sort of crystallized
    for me something that I had been thinking a long time, which is that I
    really--I had always been interested in politics; I had always been
    interested in public service; I had always been consumed with the issues
    that dominated my childhood, which were, in rough order, basically,
    first, the cold war, then the civil rights revolution, then the whole--
    all the social upheavals and the war in Vietnam. And all these things
    were--you couldn't be alive in the fifties and sixties and not be
    concerned about great public issues. And I thought I could make a
    difference, and I thought I could be really good at it. I thought I
    could do better at that than anything else. And it's something I thought
    I'd never get tired of, because you're always learning something new.
    There's always new people coming; there's always things happening.
        And the judgment I made when I was 16, I have to say now that I'm 50
    I feel--I don't know why I knew it then, but I was right. And I'm glad I
    did it. I never stopped loving music,

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    but I just knew I couldn't--that I wouldn't be a musician.
        That's the great thing about music, though. Most--90-some percent of
    the people who do it don't become musicians. But I must say--I know that
    you talked to Virgil Spurlin, my band director, for this show, and he's
    a man who had a profound, positive influence on my life and on so many
    other people. And one of the things that's really disturbed me about
    education in America today is that so many schools have not been able to
    maintain their music programs, their arts programs, even their basic
    physical education programs, because these things are very important to
    human development, to emotional development, and to intellectual
    development. And they complement the academic programs.
        And I must say, even after I decided, well, I'm not going to do this
    for a lifetime, the time I spent with my band directors and with the
    boys and girls that played with me, and then the men and women that have
    played with me since and sung with me and done all these things, they've
    made my life a lot richer. And I wish that--one of the things I hope we
    can do is find a way to give that back to the students, particularly
    students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They ought to have a
    chance to do music and to do art and to do--and to exercise their God-
    given abilities.
        And whenever I think of Virgil Spurlin, for the rest of my life I'll
    always think about what a gift he gave to me and hundreds of other
    people.
        Q. With all due respect, I just have another question. VH1 is
    launching a campaign to save the music in our public schools. Too often
    it's being considered a luxury, yet it does raise the math scores, the
    reading scores, the attendance, and team-building skills. What do you
    want Americans to know--what can they do to help save the music?
        The President. Well, there are several things Americans can do.
    First of all, they can make sure that their school districts, to the
    maximum extent possible, preserve these music programs, because they are
    a lifeline to learning and to life for so many young people.
        Secondly, if it's necessary, they can be willing to vote for local--
    increases necessary to preserve those programs while the academics are
    preserved.
        The third thing they can do is to go around and either donate or get
    others to donate instruments or other things which will make it possible
    for these band programs and these other music programs to go on. I think
    it is very, very important to education. I think all young people should
    be exposed to music and to the arts. And as I said, I think it's even
    wrong to get rid of these physical education programs, to treat physical
    health as if it's just the providence of athletes. That's also wrong.
        But the music, in particular, we know there's so much evidence that
    it has a positive impact on academic performance, on social skills and
    how you relate to other people, on self-confidence, that anything we can
    do in every community in this country to save these programs for the
    schools and for the children should be done.
        Q. Thank you, Mr. President.

    President's Musical Interests

    [At this point, the President looked through some record albums.]

        The President. It's got ``Ruby'' in it, doesn't it? ``She's Funny
    That Way.'' ``I'll Be Seeing You,'' one of my favorite songs. Glenn
    Yarborough was the heartthrob of the early sixties. Nancy Wilson. This
    is the best Judy Collins album ever made, I think, although I also like
    that one. ``Bridge Over Troubled Water''--did you see that in ``The
    Graduate'' in 1967? Joe Cocker--I was--Joe Cocker was on Johnny Carson
    in 1988 when I did Johnny Carson, and I love to hear Joe Cocker sing.
        Q. What were you and the First Lady thinking of when you--was it
    listening to Joni Mitchell, ``Chelsea Morning''?
        The President. I liked the song and--now we--I loved the song. And
    she--Joni Mitchell wrote it, and Judy Collins recorded it. And it was
    great because Judy Collins later became a great friend of ours, which
    was wonderful. And I heard it first when Judy Collins sang it, and then
    I later heard Joni Mitchell's recording of it.
        And then after I was elected Governor in 1978, we went to London,
    Hillary and I did, and spent 10 days around the Christmas holidays. And
    all we did was walk and go to restaurants and go to plays and go to
    museums and galleries. That's all we did. It was a great 10-day
    vacation. And one day we were walking

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    in Chelsea, and then we started singing that song, just walking down the
    street alone in Chelsea. And I looked at her, and I said, ``You know, if
    we have a daughter, we ought to name her Chelsea.'' And that's how we
    decided to do it, walking in the borough of Chelsea in London in 1978 in
    December.
        Q. A wonderful story.
        The President. That's how our child got her name.
        Q. Thank you for sharing it. It really was----
        The President. Thanks.

    Note: The interview was recorded at 3:50 p.m. on March 11 in the Cabinet
    Room at the White House, and it was released by the Office of the Press
    Secretary on June 3. Portions of the President's remarks were broadcast
    during the VH1 special ``Bill Clinton: Rock & Roll President,'' which
    was televised on June 3. The interviewers referred to Warren Moss, David
    Leopoulos, Janice Sjostrand, Micky Manguin, and Carolyn Staley, friends
    of the President; and his Georgetown University roommate Tom Campbell. A
    tape was not available for verification of the content of this
    interview.