[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.