Gary James' Interview With
Lobo
(Kent LaVoie)



He is best known for songs like "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo", "I'd Love You To Want Me" and "Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend". We are talking about singer/songwriter Kent LaVoie, but the world knows him simply as Lobo.

Q - Kent, you grew up in Winter Haven, Florida. Isn't that where circus performers go for the Winter?

A - Sarasota.

Q - Winter Haven too.

A - Remember, I graduated from high school in 1961. I went to college in '62. Only for a brief period did I live back in Winter Haven. My parents moved out of Winter Haven, so I have a lot of old friends there. I very rarely go there.

Q - You also spent some time in Clearwater, Florida. That's the place where Jim Morrison grew up. Did you by chance ever cross paths with him?

A - No, I did not. Let me explain something to you, Gary, and it may make things a lot clearer. I probably know fewer people and am less connected or have had less connection with people in the music business than probably anyone you'll ever speak to. I just kind of laid back and got out of the way. Jim Stafford was from Winter Haven too and was playing on Clearwater Beach when I got him his deal. Clearwater Beach has a big significance to me, but not with Jim Morrison. I wish I had. He was probably a lot like Gram Parsons was. The thing I regret about everything to do with the years and not interacting with people that much, to do what I did was just too easy. I fell right into it. I had two huge, world-wide hits which set me for life and I never was required to get any better. (laughs) I kind of wish I had been forced to be a better guitarist and a better singer. But I just did my little schtick and when it wore out I moved on down the road.

Q - You moved on down the road to what? What does that mean?

A - You know, it's funny. I met my wife, this one, in 1975. At the end of 1975. So, we've been together ever since. We've always been semi-retired. I just do what I do. Playing my guitar. I've sort of been a retired person since I was thirty years old.

Q - That's probably the dream of most people.

A - Well, yeah it is. There's good and bad to it. If I had any idea of the depth of the stuff I had done world-wide, I would probably have done a lot more than I did. Years later when I found out about Asia, they knew every song I ever recorded. I do shows over there, everybody sings like I'm John Denver. But I was just so far removed from it that it's hard for people to understand that's the way I really am.

Q - Did you ever ask your management or record company how your songs are doing? Did that information ever come your way?

A - Well, it did via the Billboard charts. Every record I put out showed up in Germany, showed up in Singapore, Hong Kong. South America not so much. I was aware of it. I did a tour of Australia in '74 and it was a very big deal. They thought I was bigger than I thought I was, put it that way. I was very insecure doing material even though they were big hits. I would fall back on old Rock 'n' Roll songs. I was still playing in a club when I was playing in front of 10,000 people. I couldn't get over that hump until years later. I was a very insecure star back then. (laughs) You get 5,000 to 6,000 little girls screaming at you 'cause that was right after The Beatles' era. You know, they screamed at everything. It was unsettling to me and I backed off of it. In the States I probably did a total of fifty dates in fifty or forty-five years. That sort of tells you.

Q - When you were in high school you were in a band with Gram Parsons and Jim Stafford. Did you ever look at those guys and think they would go on to bigger and better things? Or did they look at you and say, "Kent is going to be a star some day."? You really had three talented guys in that band.

A - Well, here's the way that went. That was for a really brief time. We were in opposing bands as it is in a small town. After the advent of the band falling apart and going to college, Jim, Gram and I, we played a total of maybe ten dates. Something like that. What I remember is Jim was always a much better guitar player. I'll explain Graham to you like a female engineer in L.A. did to me years later. She knew Graham. Graham had this aura about him, especially as far as women were concerned. When Graham was fourteen, fifteen years old I was a friend of his cousin. Graham was kind of hanging around in the background. He was the only one I knew who had an acoustic guitar. When we played together I was the leader of the band. He was scared to death of me 'cause he was younger. If you know anything about Parsons' career, like with The Byrds, he didn't go on a tour that was leaving the next day. Graham was like that when he was young. He was very un-committed to a band. I was the other way around. Learn the songs. Play it for him. Go on down the road. So, what was strange about all three of us is that we succeeded in different ways. I mean, Stafford called me to listen to some songs when he was playing on Clearwater Beach. I went over and heard him. He was planning on me to record 'em. This is after I had a couple of hits. He played this song, "Swamp Witch", which was responsible for him getting a deal. It wouldn't have worked for me, but it worked for him. I took him to my producer, Phil Gernhardt and we took him to Mike Curb and Mike Curb to see me when I was recording in Atlanta, and asked me did I really think Jim Stafford could be a star? I said, "Yeah. You need to see him. He's fine." Anyway, that's how that happened. I was the co-producer and co-publisher. We were in the same band for a brief period of time.

Q - I didn't notice, until I started researching your life, that you were associated with Jim Stafford and Gram Parsons and sang background vocals on other people's records. I just thought you had a couple of big hits and disappeared.

A - (laughs)

Q - There isn't a lot of press on you. I'd hear your records on the radio occasionally.

A - That's the way it's always been. Let me throw another name at you, Robert John. He had a buddy named Mike Gately and they wrote songs together.

Q - That's right. You also worked with Robert John on a session.

A - Another singer on that session was Ellie Greenwich. She was real important on "I'd Love You To Want Me", backgrounds. She was around for a couple of weeks. It was the New York connection 'cause that's where I first recorded. You know where I recorded "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo"? In the Electric Lady Studio. I was in Studio B. You know who was in Studio A? Santana. They would come into the studio when we were leaving. We worked the day shift. They worked all night. We'd hear 'em in there mixing. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world when I'd tell people we recorded at Electric Lady. They'd go, "What? That's funny." Those were funny days, man.

Q - Did Santana know you? You certainly knew them.

A - No. Let me explain something to you, Gary. When "I'd Love You To Want Me" was zooming into the Top 10 I was in L.A. with Phil Gernhardt. He was my connection to everything. I let him do everything. I stayed out of the way. He wanted me to go to, I don't know what it was, some sort of convention with all these record people. The next week "I'd Love You To Want Me" was going to number two, right behind "I Can See Clearly Now". I walked through that and met people. Phil kind of knew I didn't want to be pointed out. He introduced me as Kent LaVoie and not one person knew who I was. (laughs) I always thought that was funny. Man, I just didn't do it. I can't tell you why I didn't want to do it.

Q - Actually, you name is Roland Kent LaVoie, right?

A - My whole name is Roland Kent, and they called me Kent. Somebody asked me why I didn't put Kent first, but that's what people who know me call me, among other things. (laughs)

Q - But LaVoie is your last name, right?

A - That's correct.

Q - Where did this name Lobo come from? It means wolf in Spanish.

A - Yeah. What happened was, I had written a song, my first real big recording, and I went to New York. It was a song called "Happy Days In New York City". It was about the Mets winning the pennant in '69. Laurie Records, who ended up being Big Tree, the label I was on, loved it. We recorded it and then waited for the Series to happen. When the Series happened, the Mets actually won and we just knew we had the biggest hit in the world. Nobody would play it! So it was the biggest flop. Well, when "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" came, we were getting ready to do it, everybody who heard the song from the first get-go, including Phil Gernhardt, right up to Doug Morrison at Big Tree, to people he played it for, thought it was a hit. And so here we are contemplating having a hit, which you didn't do back then when you cut a record. With a flop of using my name on that "Happy Days In New York City", maybe we ought to play it safe. So, Phil said work on the names. And I did. I had a whole list of 'em. I'm reading 'em to him. I get down to Lobo and he said, "Wait a minute. What does that mean?" Well, I looked it up. I just liked what it looked like. It's Spanish for wolf, like you said. He said, "I like that." So, when the record came out and was reviewed on the cover of Record World and Cashbox, they were talking about this really cute, little song and this real neat sounding group.

Q - When "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" came out, were you part of a band? It was just you on the cover of the album. Were those studio musicians on the recording?

A - It was studio musicians. I never had a band. It was always just me. The first album, because the record hit so fast, we had to hurry and get this album done. I don't know why they didn't do a photo session. They just used a stock picture they found with a guy and a dog sitting around a camp fire. It's got nothing to do with me. I was always behind this stuff and nobody ever knew, until years later, that it was just one person.

Q - I know you don't like to dissect your songs, but I can't help it. I have to ask you a few questions about "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo".

A - (laughs) There's no problem. Of course. (Ask) anything.

Q - When you sing "You", is that the listener of the song?

A - No.

Q - Would that be a girlfriend or wife of yours?

A - If you really get into the song there's a line that goes Willpower made that old car go. A woman's mind don't mean it's so. That was like a girl, a guy and a dog. I'll tell you how the whole song came about. It's so freaky, but it's true. When I was up in New York City cutting that thing about the Mets, he took me up to the publisher of Famous Music and a guy named Billy Michele, chief song plugger at the time, he went on to do a lot more than that later. Phil sat me down with Billy. We were talking about music in general. This was in 1969. He said, "What's goin' on right now" and this is before Helen Reddy had a song called "Me And You Against The World", and he said, "It's kids going out in the world and doing things, blah, blah, blah." And being somewhat of an educated person, it should have been "You And I". I tried to rhyme it and I couldn't come up with a rhyme. I flipped it around. I had this idea about a guy and a dog going around. I flipped it around to you and me, I mean, me and you, and I was sitting in a room with a sliding door and I had a dog named Boo and he came around the corner and looked through the window at me. That's true. I did not make that crap up. (laughs) It's absolutely true. I was in a file yesterday and it had a baby book and it's got the original draft of that song when I first played it for Phil. I had to go back and re-write parts of it. The gist of the song is still there. It was refined a lot. I re-wrote it to get all the rhymes right and the meter in the songs. Things were different back then. I was basically an AM radio, singles artist. That's what I was. That was my schtick.

Q - Then there's this line, Travelin' and livin' off the land. What type of work would you have been doing? Farming?

A - Anything that could get you movin' on down the road. Old McDonald made us work, but then he paid us for what it was worth. And the morning we got caught, robbing from an old hen. He was a nice guy, a middle American farmer. He said, "Listen, you guys work and we won't call the Sheriff," and then he paid them even though he had caught 'em, he paid 'em for what it was worth. They got twenty bucks and went on down the road. Nowadays they'd been working at McDonald's, whatever. "Can I sweep the parking lot for you?" There's only one goal in this. They got to L.A. but that wasn't their goal because when they got to L.A., at the end of the verse they talked about getting away again. I've got to get out of here. This is too serious. If you weren't alive back those days, it was just a wonderful, free time. There were no dangers like there are now. It's just like the world opened up to young people. It was just fabulous.

Q - In the song you sing How I love being a free man.

A - Yup.

Q - If you're traveling with someone else and a dog, how free are you?

A - Well, you're free that you, the wife and dog can pull up the anchor and move to the next spot. It had nothing to do with being tied down.

Q - How long did it take you to write that song?

A - Basically, if you get the idea for the song and you get a musical groove going, words just seem to flow out of it. In my case if I liked it well enough, I'd go back and re-write it. I'm gonna guess if you put it into hourly labor, less than a week's normal work. That's about it. It's funny about being a songwriter, and even today if I tried to write a song and you said to me, write a song about blah, blah, blah, I could call you back in two or three hours and have a completed song, but it wouldn't be as good if you were actually using it for something 'cause I'd go back and re-write a line in the thing. Back in those days I wrote so many songs it was very easy to do.

Q - What did you do with all those songs? Did you demo them or are they on a sheet of paper?

A - Back in those days you really didn't demo them. If you had somebody to play 'em for, that's about as far as they got. Phil Gernhardt had a lot of problems. He ended up killing himself about fifteen years ago (2003). He worked for Mike Curb. He was the best song picker. If Phil said it was a hit, 90% of the time it would be. So, he was in St. Petersburg where I was and I could just take him song after song after song. Now, some of the songs he would just say, "Yeah, that's good, but it's not a hit." Then when we would do an album we would go back and take some of the songs and fix 'em and do that sort of thing. I never played songs to people. The only songs that were ever played of mine were the hits. Back in those days I had Liza Minnelli and Perry Como and people like that put 'em on albums, which is very rewarding to me, having these big stars, even though they were a different kind of deal. But I was never a writer putting stuff on the market like that until years later in Nashville.

Q - What songs did Perry Como and Liza Minnelli cover?

A - "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" Perry Como did. The Perry Como version got quite a bit of airplay. Liza Minnelli did "I'd Love You To Want Me" and she did it like it was a sensual, Broadway show. She did it real slow. It was creepy. It was her highest charting album. I don't know that she ever sold a lot of records. The only Gold records I have are the ones they sent me. I figured if it was good enough, they'd call and tell me. (laughs). I didn't realize the way it works. I didn't understand that. I was so away from everything.

Q - Is it possible you got cheated out of royalties?

A - Oh, every day. Everybody does. There was a thing called Artist Rights Enforcement in New York. I didn't ask for royalties for almost ten years. I just didn't want to deal with it. I didn't care. My writing supported me. I finally signed a deal with R.E. or I.R.E.T. or something, and I signed a deal with them that they'd take 50% of the royalties to collect them. Well, that was fine. I thought they'd find a hundred grand and take fifty grand. We'd split it and that was it. Well, apparently the contract called for them to collect 50% of my royalties forever. Once again I never want to take it to court. I never even asked them to reduce it, the percentage. It's not a lot of money anyway. With Phil Gernhardt we got into it 'cause he had my publishing. He signed me to a new distributor and got back then a quarter of a million dollars for signing me, which I got zero. My only way to collect it would have been in a royalty basis, records that sold after that.

Q - Did you ever bring Boo onstage when you'd sing "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo"?

A - No. I never gave too much thought into 'live' performances 'cause I knew I wasn't going to do it very long. I couldn't differentiate between going out and people wanting to hear the songs on the albums and me being in a club singing "Proud Mary". In those days I made a big error doing that. My goal when I started was just to have an annuity that would help me for the rest of my life. I had no idea that it would blossom into "a career". Then all of a sudden, twenty years had gone by. Then all of a sudden, thirty years had gone by.

Q - You had what, three hit songs? Could you have had three more or six more had you wanted to?

A - I have no idea. The term I used to hear when were playing clubs was "elevator music". That was funny. I actually got into an elevator and heard "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo". It was an instrumental. I started to realize when I started doing shows that even though I was on the Pop charts, I was much higher on the Adult Contemporary (chart). That's where I had, I don't know, ten Top Tens and I think four number ones. Well, that's generally not the kind of music people go to concerts to hear. Nowadays they would. It would be like James Taylor. James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg. These people were so much better than me. And I had that feeling. That was one of the reasons I couldn't go onstage. I felt very inferior to most of the people doing it. But could I have written more songs? Anybody can get lucky and write one hit. You don't write two world-wides that they're that big and still being played, at least there's some talent in being a songwriter.

Q - You're very big in Asia. You've done some tours over there. What accounts for your popularity in Asia?

A - I believe it's really a melody and it's the simplicity of the song. When they're translated, the basic thoughts are so in your face there's no hidden, secret line. Here's the way I found out how big I was in Asia: The first show I did was in Hong Kong. I got an e-mail about this the day before yesterday. This guy couldn't afford to go to the concert. It was an outside show and he climbed up a building to a balcony and was looking at me and it was one of the biggest things in his life. You get this stuff. I'm doing this outside show, okay? And everybody is singing the songs with me and that didn't happen in the States. And they kept yelling this song, they kept yelling this word. I finally turned around to the drummer. I said, "What's the yelling?" He said, "They're yelling 'Stoney'." "Stoney" was an album cut I had on one of the albums. What I should have done right then is walk up to the microphone, 'cause the drummer knew it, and told the rest of the band, "Listen, is in B flat." It was the first album I had out and a lot of 'em knew all the songs. I could've played it and it wouldn't have been great, but the audience would have been thrilled. Well, I did two nights, same venue, 5,000, 20,000 hang out at the building. When I started to play "Stoney" it was like John Denver singing "Take Me Home Country Roads", except John Denver didn't want the audience to sing. He would stop the song and say, "Don't sing. Just listen." I'm the other way around. They started singing the song and there's nowhere in that part of the world, including Australia, if I picked up a guitar as a random deal and started singing that song, people in there would sing the chorus with you. I had no idea that it had any influence whatsoever. I had another song, "How Can I Tell Her About You", which except for some screw-up on the record company's part, would have been a Top Ten ballad too 'cause it's real strong. When I'd play that in Asia they'd cry like they were at their mother's funeral. It's weird man. They get so emotional. I saw all this emotion and I saw every song that I played, they sang. That tour gave me confidence in going out there and doing what I am. So, for thirty years we'd go every couple years and do five or six shows, but you'd get treated like a king. It was all these five star hotels, first class airplanes and everything you could possibly imagine. The shows were just wonderful because they are so involved with the music that it convinced me that, yeah, I had some merit to sing my own songs. That's how Asia came about.

Q - Do you have any plans to go on tour in the States and play your catalog?

A - No. You'll think I'm feeding you crap, but I only had a manager for about two years. I never had a publicist except for what the record company provided. I never had an agency deal. I'd love to be part of a tour if there were three acts, if they paid us for what we were worth and you did a half hour. I would always want to be the opening act. So, along those lines and if I could drive to it 'cause I'm not flying anymore. I think I used up my passes. I'm against flying now. I've done a few of those shows. The last show I did was in Toronto. I think it was 2013 and that was just me and another guitar player that plays acoustic. Under those circumstances, yeah. But you're not going to hear Lobo playing at the local theatre. Money has never been the reason for doing things, but when you can make ten times the amount overseas being treated ten times better, everything here (U.S.) pales. The United States has too much going on. There's too many acts you can go see. If I can go out and do a half hour with just me and my guitar, I feel comfortable doing that. But I've been very happy staying behind the scenes. When I die if it ever gets in any paper it will just be an afterthought. Most people don't put the name with the music. It's just the music and that's the important thing.

Q - Although you won't be around to read it, I feel your name will be remembered.

A - I was 75 yesterday. If you told me when I was 27 years old that I'm going to be talking to someone about a career I had in music when I'm 75 years old... I was a child of the '50s. Back then they were a flash in the pan and you didn't hear from 'em 'cause there was no media for them to get out there and do it. They just played shows.

Q - That's true.

A - I was at the very start of the kind of music that James Taylor, Jim Croce, The Eagles (played). I probably would've paid more attention if I thought it was going to last this long. It's been a fun life. Real different. I have found that most of the people that still perform fall into two categories: they have to because they need to make a living or they have to because it's important to them. I don't fall into either one of those categories. But, it's been a good ride.

Official Website: www.FansOfLobo.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.