Lisa McDonald is back again, this time with an in-depth interview with singer/songwriter and now author, Dan Hill. Lisa knows what questions to ask, and brokers a lively interview with whoever she has in her sights. Please feel free to add your comments after you read this interview, Lisa will appreciate the feedback. Part 1 of the Dan Hill Interview can be found here.
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Raising your own child, were you consciously trying to be as unlike your own parents as possible? And when your son David reached his teenage years, were you supportive of his decisions?
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I was worried about the rap thing because in rap music there’s so much violence. There isn’t a whole lot of manoeuvrability in rap either. If I didn’t make it as a singer-songwriter, I could be a session player. I could write for other people or produce. There’s a million other ways I could have gone. David doesn’t play any instruments, so if you don’t make it as a rap writer, where do you go? Now, to David’s credit, he did co-write a rap song that got into a movie. David is a really good rapper and he writes brilliantly. But I did coax and cajole him, not unlike what my father did with me, to take his incredible talent and turn it into prose writing. David’s already finished the first draft of his book and he has the same literary agent as me, Michael Levine, who’s a superstar. But there comes a time when you have to stop parenting. You have to let go. David’s had a hard time of it. It’s hard to grow up with a father who’s supposedly well known and extremely disciplined, and a mother who’s a lawyer, driven and successful. And an uncle who’s the writer Larry is. But David has definitely inherited the writing gene. He’s a brilliant writer. I don’t think he has the drive, focus and discipline that I or Larry had at 21. But then, part of that is rebellion.
You wrote an incredible story in MacLeans magazine about David and his teenage friend Eric, a thug and member of a gang who posed a serious threat to your family; enough of a threat that you had to send David away for a while.
Yes, or he would have been killed. David got mixed up with the wrong crowd and his friend Eric didn’t have a chance with a father that beat him. There were guys calling David from jail, threatening him; guys who were convicted of killing Jane Creba, (the young girl shot down on Yonge St on Boxing Day, 2005).
But when I think of the Beaches, I don’t think of gangs, thugs or murderers.
Walking around here at 2 in the morning, you will see these packs of guys who’ll do things in groups that they’d never do as individuals. Lots of times I’d be driving by and hear, “Nigger!†I’d get together with Haydain Neal (pictured here), the great Juno-award winning Canadian R&B singer, who died of cancer a few months ago, and we would talk about this stuff and how to fight back with our gifts instead of our fists. We would write songs to turn it around. That’s what creativity is all about. Taking wounds that we all have and processing them through creativity. Paul McCartney started writing songs when his mother died. Sting started writing songs when he caught his mother fucking his father’s best friend and work partner; which Sting wrote about in his book, so I’m not disclosing anything. John Lennon really started writing when his mother got run over by a car. Writing is a creative way to healing.
It’s where I get some of my healing from.
And I bet it will be one of the paths to your greater sense of well being. I don’t mean to sound like Dr Phil but…
There’s so much heart and so much honesty in the way you write and that’s what draws me to it.
It’s important. People need connections. We all need to connect. How many times have you gone to a movie and said, “God, when you take away the special effects, the gratuitous violence and the sex, what was the story about?†We need connection. Whether you’re talking as a human being, thinking in terms of intimacy, thinking of just having a serious conversation with someone you really care about, reading or listening to music, we’re all looking for a connection.
In your book you say most things in the house were off limits except for the record player. You go on to describe how you would sit between the speakers and sing along to Frank Sinatra. And then you got your own record player on your 6th birthday. Who were some of your earliest influences and what music was heard around the Hill house growing up?
My mom and dad listened to jazz; Sara Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald.
And did you have an appreciation for this music? Because when I was young hearing my dad play Sinatra or Johnny Cash in the house, I couldn’t possibly admit to liking it. Now of course, I have a deeper appreciation.
I loved everything my parents played. I absolutely soaked it up. I sat there and sang along to all of it. It’s how I learned my vocabulary. I mean, Sinatra had that song Makin’ Whoopie. No 4 year old knew what whoopie meant but…
You walked around the house singing it? (laughs)
With all those interesting lyrics; man, could they write great songs back then. I was addicted to it like a morphine drip. I would run home from school because I’d need the fix. It was that physical. I would sing the songs all the time. It drove some people crazy, but not my parents. One thing about my parents, they were really good about it. They understood I had a really good singing voice and never tried to squash it. Of course they thought it would only be a hobby but, I would even sing Sinatra on the school bus.
You weren’t shy, huh? You just let it rip?
I was shy in the normal manner of things but when it came to singing, I wasn’t shy. I’d sit by myself on the school bus, singing away, while the girls rolled their eyes. (laughs) But I didn’t care what they thought. We were confident; my brother and I. We didn’t care if we belonged to a clique. We were in our own little world of books and music. If people thought I was weird, so what? I just wanted to sing. And I kind of knew I could sing better than anybody, and I was very proud of that.
For some, it would take a lifetime to gain that kind of confidence.
It’s the one thing we got from dad. And we were really good with words, so no one could really mess with us. They knew we couldn’t be bullied or dominated. It’s not to say I wasn’t nervous about bullies, but we were never victimized. They knew that my dad was a big strong mother (laughs), and everyone was kind of scared of him being the only black man in Don Mills at the time. Everyone knew they would have to answer to my father. Sometimes a teacher would mess with one of us because back then teachers could smack you around. But my dad would be there so fast, it would be the last time that teacher ever messed with us.
When I was young and saw people walking down Yonge St singing on top of their lungs, I’d think they were loony tunes. But at the same time, I think I admired them for it. Friends of mine who travelled through Africa, noted how natural it is for the African people to walk around singing all the time. But you’re considered crazy if you walk around Toronto doing it.
We’re so cut off from the physical expression. We go to movies to get scared. We go to porn to get turned on. We ride roller coasters to get a thrill. We’re so cut off from experiencing it ourselves. I’d rather run for twelve miles than watch a football game; to feel the physicality of running. I’d rather sing and feel the sheer physical joy of singing. I’d rather write a sex scene… (laughs)… Paul Quarrington wrote the longest erotic sex scene in the history of Canadian literature, did you know that? And it’s brilliantly written. The book is called Galveston, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award.
I’d like to read that.
When Paul was dying I said, “let’s go for a drive, anywhere you want. Where do you want to go Paul?†And he said, “Don Mills.†That’s where we grew up. He said, “Let’s go to the nude book store!†Paul was such a boy. That’s what made him such a genius in that he never lost that boyishness and when we arrived at the nude book store, what does he do? He goes straight for Galveston and opens it at the sex scene. I said, “Paul, this is like being eight years of age and going for the Playboy at the drug store.†(laughs) I’m 55 and he’s 56. I said to the book clerk, who’s about 30, “this guy really knows how to write about sex. In Galveston there’s a woman on top of a guy making love and her head is rotating in one direction and her hips are rotating in another direction.†I said to Paul, “Did you research this? Have you actually done this or has someone done this to you? Or did you just make it up on the fly? Because you know it’s physically impossible.†I was giving him shit but in an affectionate way. The book clerk, now reading it, is clearly aroused. “See Paul, you’re Frank Sinatra and I’m Sammy Davis Jr.†(laughs)
I was thinking Linda Blair when you started talking about revolving heads!
It’s hard to write great sex scenes. And the clerk was flushed because Quarrington was such a great writer. And I’m not talking about smutty bullshit crap. I said, “Paul, why did you write the longest sex scene in the history of Canadian literature?†He said, “I found out through the Erotic Readers Association what the longest erotic sex scene ever written was and set out to beat it! Paul was so crazy. I’d never heard of the Erotic Readers Association.
I know ERA. I’m on their mailing list. The world of erotic writing and reading is enormous.
I have no doubt. The lesson I learned from Paul is you have to take every moment and just live it. In the Star today, Are You Ready is listed as a great alternative song. It was such a hard song to write obviously. Bearing in mind Paul sang it with an oxygen tank and two tubes up his nose and he still sounds great. It was everything I could do not to cry when I was writing it. Would you like to hear it?
Sure. (Dan plays me the song)
Are Your Ready is currently getting played all over radio, and it’ll be the theme song to a special about Paul, airing on Bravo!
I like the sound of the accordion.
And the guitar playing is phenomenal. The best acoustic guitar player in the world and he wouldn’t even take any money; he was just so moved by Paul’s story. The producer, Fred Mollin, who I grew up with and who’s a seasoned pro having produced everyone from Kris Kristofferson to Willie Nelson, had to leave the room, sobbing. They were all playing to Quarrington’s voice.
And how long after this did Quarrington pass away?
4 weeks.
Well his voice sounds amazing. It makes me think of Elvis Presley. The performance Elvis did two weeks before his death was stunning in that his voice was bang on. I’ll never forget that.
Paul was a tough son of a bitch. On New Year’s Eve he went out to four different parties, dancing with his oxygen tank! He wrote songs, books, and lived like a maniac. He was amazing and incredibly brave. And when the time came and they tried to put the oxygen mask on him, he waved them off and then he was gone. I was supposed to take him to the Walrus (an intellectual Canadian magazine) gala the night he died.
In 1974, I was eleven years old and convinced I would marry Elton John. I understand around this same time, Elton John came to see one of your shows at the University of Guelph. Is this true, and did you meet him?
Actually it was 1976. And back then there was a tax thing in England where if you were a superstar selling millions of records, it was cheaper if you recorded your album outside of England. So artists like Elton John and Rod Stewart would come to Canada. Elton came to Toronto to record but he was also doing some sort of talk in Guelph. My second album was already out and I was doing a show there. The guy who broke me and signed me in the States was Russ Regan who was the same guy that broke Elton and Neil Diamond. In the beginning, people thought I sounded like Elton John and use to call me the Canadian Elton John. Elton knew all my stuff because Russ had played it for him. But Elton John knows everything that everyone’s recording anyway. He’s a consummate listener of music. Elton came back stage and he was really, really nice. He didn’t even want to talk about himself or his career. We talked about my record and Russ Regan.
Was he dressed outrageously?
When I met him he was dressed like a normal guy. He had that song out, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and I just loved it. I studied Paul Buckmaster strings on Elton’s records because they were brilliant arrangements.
And then to find Elton back stage at your gig; were you intimidated?
No, I’m not easily intimidated. It doesn’t mean I didn’t think he was totally amazing but I’m a confident guy who was able to write with someone like Barry Mann, who wrote songs like You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling, On Broadway, and We Got To Get Out of This Place. If I wasn’t a confident guy, I never would have been able to give Mann the lyrics to Sometimes When We Touch. I don’t mean to sound conceded but I was taught to believe in myself and that’s how I could walk out on stage at Carnegie Hall and rock out with Carly Simon, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Chevy Chase from Saturday Night Live.
And as for music, you came up during the best of times.
You have no idea how wild it was. I remember once when I was staying at the Continental Hiatt House on Sunset Blvd. Have you ever stayed there?
No.
Do you remember Rick James?
Sure.
Rick James use to live in Toronto and jam with Neil Young at the Myna Bird. He lived in Toronto for a while and then left behind thousands of dollars of unpaid studio bills. Anyway, in 1978 I’m having breakfast in the outer lounge area of the Hiatt, which we called the Riot because it was so wild back then, and I swear on my mother’s life, Rick James had a line-up of five hundred girls. He’d come down the stairs, pick a girl, sing a line from Sometimes When We Touch, wink at me, and take the girl upstairs for about ten minutes, then bring her back downstairs where she would leave, and then he’d take the next girl in line upstairs. I sat there for 45 minutes watching as he went through something like four and a half girls every ten minutes. I found this stupefying. I could see from Rick James point of view, the male fantasy and how this could be fun but, I couldn’t help wondering what was going on in the girl’s head.
Well, she was probably thinking, “hey, I’m gonna do Rick James!â€
But I was 24 and didn’t know stuff at 24 like I do now. So I went up to the girl that was next in line and said, “I’m not judging you, I’m just curious. And I want to understand… what’s in this for you?†She said, “Oh I just know that when Rick’s with me, he’ll fall in love and I’ll be the one.â€
Oh no! (sigh)
A lot of times people think this. That they’ll be the tipping point…
Of course. There have been times I’ve thought that way too, sure. But I could easily have thought the other way… like, he’s just another notch in my belt.
That’s the point. Women are really no different than men. There’s just this cultural propaganda that makes us think otherwise. I mean, one man is different from another man is different from another man, but I don’t think there’s a huge gender divide when it comes to sexuality, certainly not when you get to a certain age anyway. If anything, women become more sexual because they’re pissed off at all the time they wasted, worried about being judged. They just want to make up for lost time….
Oh is that what it is?
… and they embrace their inner slutdom and it becomes almost like a political statement. And they’ll say, “if you want to judge me, fuck you, that’s your problem.†I’m not saying you think that way, but theoretically I think most women who get to a certain age think this way. It’s like me, when someone calls me a wimpy songwriter, fine, but do you think I’m going to change? That’s one great thing about getting older. But when you’re sixteen and someone calls you a slut or a wimp, you crumble. By the way, Quarrington told me once that he knew a girl who had an orgasm just listening to Elton John; just sitting there in the chair listening to Elton John. I believe women are much more susceptible to outside influences like weather, music, food, and literature. Guys are more impervious.
Well, I wouldn’t argue with that. But I tell ya, seeing Elton John in Central Park singing Your Song in a duck suit certainly didn’t do anything for me.
(laughs) I know. What happens to people? Like Neil Diamond. He was so great. I remember when Solitary Man came out, one of the greatest songs of all time. I was in Grade 6 and I bought the album. And how could I possibly have related to what he was talking about at that age? But I did! The song was so powerful that I got it. But now he has a vibrato so big you can drive a Mac truck through it. What happens to these people? It’s upsetting and sad.
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Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I think I was 12. And I love that record as much now as I did then.
That was a great period for song writing. There were so many great song writers. Elton John had an amazing voice, and still does. And what about that Cat Stevens, man!
I loved Cat Stevens too.
It was an amazing time. I hoovered up all those songs, learning to play them.
When other 8 year olds were throwing rotten eggs at passing cars as a pastime activity, Dan Hill was attending music lessons in an after-school program based on the teachings of Carl Orff. With your 
teacher, Miss Moon completely taken with your singing talents and wanting to take you around town to promote it, I thought for sure this would play out with resistance from your father similarly to David Helfgott and his father in the film Shine. But this wasn’t the case. It was actually you that didn’t want to continue with music lessons. Was it because of Orff?
I haven’t seen that movie Shine. But the thing is Miss Moon was really mean to everybody else in the class except for me. Orff was the one who started the whole program and had all these disciples/teachers across the world. Miss Moon said to my mom, “I’ve never known a kid who could use his voice so naturally. I’ve never seen anything like this.†But I already knew I had a great voice. I know that sounds terrible. But it’s my job to be honest with you, not pretend to be falsely modest. I knew I could sing better than anyone she had come across. But I didn’t like the way Miss Moon treated the other kids. Also, I was never someone who could learn in a formal way. I liked learning simply by listening to records by Ray Charles or the Beatles.
So you learned better by listening to records.
I learned classical guitar formally but yes, I learned better from listening to the records. I would hang out practicing with Paul Quarrington. I never liked the formal classroom setting. Not that we had song writing classes, or lessons on how to produce records. We didn’t have any of that stuff. But how did the Beatles learn? How did Elvis learn? How did Carl Perkins do it? Billy Joel started out as an impersonator. He was known as the guy who could do everybody’s voice. He could do Paul McCartney perfectly. Even now I get asked to teach song writing courses at U of T. But I wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I’d feel like an imposter.
I’m a big fan of David Letterman but one night, the top-ten list was the Worst Records of All Time. And I quote from your book, “Number five thru two fell in the novelty category, consisting of over the hill actors like Leonard Nimoy massacring folk-rock classics like Blowin’ in the Wind. And I had a sinking premonition of what was coming next. There was a drum roll, which echoed the rumbling I felt building in my stomach, followed by Letterman contorting his face into his patented pained expression. “And here it isâ€, he groaned, “the number one worst record of all time, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, live from Carnegie Hall, singing Sometimes When We Touchâ€. I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this and the article you wrote in MacLeans magazine about your love-hate relationship with “that song†was the best read ever. But poor Donny!
Well, it wasn’t my idea to pull a prank on Donny. And I didn’t want to do it at first because Donny Osmond is a really nice guy. I hear Donny’s got his very own radio program now.
In 1977, with the success of Sometimes When We Touch, you made appearances on the Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas shows. I grew up watching these shows. Can you share a story about Mike or Merv and who some of the other guests on the shows were?
At that time, the three big shows were Merv Griffen, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore. And I did all of them in the same year. But back then, I didn’t know how to play piano yet. So David Foster agreed to play piano with me on the Merv Griffin show.
Really?
David Foster was already known in musical circles as a genius, and was already producing Hall and Oates, but he hadn’t become the icon he is now. He agreed to play piano on Sometimes When We Touch for my appearance on the show, but at the last second he back out. He got me another guy who he said was a great piano player but it turned out he couldn’t play my song at all. He was a jazz musician with no pop feel. He tried but he couldn’t get it. And it was ten minutes before we were to go on!
Oh no. So this wouldn’t be a David Foster genius moment.
I don’t know what Foster was thinking. But I had to fire the piano player and go out and do the song on guitar, which I knew how to do but it was really stressful. There were only a few television channels on the dial at the time so millions of people were watching. It was more than a little stressful, to be honest. And I felt bad having to fire the piano player. Thanks a lot Foster. Did you do that on purpose to mess me up? (laughs) David Foster is a great producer. And he would know if the guy could play but I never got around to asking him about this.
And who were the other guests on the show?
Charley Pride, Pearl Bailey, and Dianne Carroll. And they wanted to set me up with their daughters. All the women wanted to set me up because I was single. I also played McCarthy’s Day, which is a song about my parents. My father being black and my mother being white forced them to leave America to come to Canada. It’s a song about that and it’s very moving. Charley came up to me afterward and said, “man, what an amazing song!†So despite having to fire the piano player, it worked out pretty well.
Was it a coincidence that all the guests on the show were black?
I can’t remember specifically who was on which show to be honest.
And what about Merv?
Merv Griffen was really nice; very humble. But when he asked me where it was I had played and I said Regina, Merv said, “Vagina?†(laughs)
You could say vagina on tv back then?
No, this was before the cameras rolled. We were hanging out back stage. But I was like, what the hell? No one said that word from where I came from. And Merv Griffin, Mr. America, as straight as they come, said it! It was hard to keep a straight face as I spelled out, “R-e-g-i-n-aâ€. It was surreal. I’m surprised I didn’t break out in a fit of nervous giggles having just fired the piano player and all. It was almost too much for a Don Mills boy.
In the 80s, within a day or two of getting married , you got a call from Mario Kasser, co-owner and executive producer of Caralco Pictures asking if you’d sing the title song for the new Sylvestor 
Stallone film, First Blood (otherwise known as Rambo). Flying to England to record It’s A Long Road at Abbey Road Studio, it actually only took 90 minutes but…
It was one of those rare instances where I hadn’t written the song or heard the song and no one knew how long it was going to take to cut the vocals. It was for a theme song of a movie I didn’t think would go anywhere but, I was between record deals and it paid $5,000 bucks. After flying all night to get there, they took me right into the studio and expected me to sing after being up all night and I’d only heard the song once. I’m not that kind of singer. I was never trained. I would rather have lived with the song until I found a way to interpret it. But luckily, I nailed it. They flew me back to LA later to re-record the song with the band Toto, so they had my voice and the lead singer of Toto trying to figure out which guy to use. They finally decided on the Toto band but with my vocal. And the movie turned out to be the number two movie of the year, after E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.
I liked Rambo when it came out. But Rocky is one of my all time favourite movies ever.
Rocky is a great movie. But the song It’s a Long Road was so bloody high, it was impossible for any human being to hit those notes. They had to slow the tape down so I could hit them. When I was asked to sing it on Carson, I said “not a chanceâ€. (laughs)
What was it like being in Abbey Road Studio?
It was incredible and it was very inspiring. I really enjoyed the experience. It was high pressure and the lyricist Hal Shaper, who didn’t really know anything about singing kept trying to get me to sing it in this old fashioned over-the-top Broadway musical kind of way, which I hated. Jerry Goldsmith, one of the greatest film composers of all time, would come up and say, “just ignore everything Hal saysâ€. (laughs) It was a little difficult trying to fend of Hal Shafer, but somehow I managed to do it.
In March, the new recording Intimate will be released. I’ve been listening to it and there are two songs that stand out for me. The first is Back Before the War, which is lovely, and is that you playing piano?
No, that’s Grammy award winner, John Jarvis. He’s brilliant.
And the other one is Sixties Child with references to the Kennedys, the Beatles and the moon landing…
I played that in Buffalo last week and found the response in America was even stronger. I didn’t realize when I wrote it that most of the references were American. I guess that’s because of my parents, coming from the United States. Even though I was born in Toronto, most of my cultural references were American due to my parents.
What was the show in Buffalo?
It was a show for autism. One of the big radio stations was sponsoring it so I drove in and played for the radio audience and the money went to autism. I played a lot of songs from the new record as well as Sometimes When We Touch.
On Feb 23, as part of Black History Month, you’ll be performing at the Royal Ontario Museum. Can you tell me a little about this show?
I’ll tell stories, some straight from my book, as well as play jazz songs. I’ll play Are You Ready and another song about Paul Quarrington called Tomorrow I’ll be Missing You. I recorded Intimate over a year ago and since then I’ve written over twenty songs. There’ll be a real hodge podge of music from singer-songwriter to jazz to R&B, dating back to songs I wrote in ’75, right up to what I wrote a week ago. Liz Rodrigues will be joining me as well as Joe Sealy, who was just awarded the Order of Canada. I’ll sing Africville Skies with him, which I originally wrote for the Sealy album that won him a Juno. I really have to say, I’ve been extraordinarily blessed to have worked with some of the most brilliant people in the world. And I’m so lucky that they’ve opened up their hearts, and their talents and their gifts and been so generous with me; brilliant, fascinating, curious people like George Benson and Donna Summer. I’ve had an extraordinarily fortunate life.
The MacLeans’s article: You’ll never Guess What Dan Hill Thinks of His Song
The MacLean’s article: Every Parent’s Nightmare
Sometimes When We Touch, the original 1977 video
About Lisa McDonald: “I’m a city girl. A vegetarian who enjoys yoga, pilates, and cycles to keep active but live music is my real passion. All things music really, and I’ve been known to write about it.. I value a strong work ethic and good manners, but what really turns me on is confidence and experience.â€
