AADL Talks To: Dick Siegel, Singer-Songwriter and Musician

Wed, 12/18/2024 - 9:28pm

When: September 26, 2024

Dick Siegel is an Ann Arbor singer-songwriter and musician who has written and performed regionally and nationally for over 40 years. In this episode, Dick talks with us about his musical influences and how a cross-country road trip and open mic nights at the Ark inspired him to start writing his own songs. Dick also sings some of his favorite lyrics for us and discusses how they were inspired by friends, family, neighbors, or -- as in the song “Angelo’s” -- a beloved local restaurant. 

Check out Dick’s records at AADL. You can also watch his 2006 discussion on The Fine Art of Songwriting.

Transcript

• [00:00:09] AMY CANTU: [MUSIC] Hi. This is Amy.
• [00:00:10] KATRINA ANBENDER: This is Katrina. In this episode, AADL talks to Dick Siegel. Singer-songwriter Dick Siegel came to Ann Arbor in 1971 to attend the University of Michigan and never left. He's been writing and performing regionally and nationally for over 40 years. He talks with us about his music, including insight into his lyrics and musical partners over the years. Thank you so much for being here today. We understand that you came to Ann Arbor to attend U of M and you graduated in 1971. What did you study?
• [00:00:46] DICK SIEGEL: I wound up studying literature.
• [00:00:49] AMY CANTU: Can you talk about some of your musical influences growing up?
• [00:00:52] DICK SIEGEL: I grew up in a family that really was into music. My dad was a doctor, but he was also a musician, and he had a lot of experience going across the Atlantic on the boat that takes you across the Atlantic Ocean with the band. But anyway, so it was great like that, and we all had piano lessons and trumpet lessons. Then there would be like, it was not unusual that my dad would have a string quartet in the house, of his friends, and they'd be playing music there. There was one thing that happened -- oh, and there was this piano teacher and his name, he had the unfortunate name Dr. Bazala. [LAUGHTER] We found that was very funny. But there was a record that came out on Columbia Records and was called Olatungi, and it was this drum record, African drums. I'd never heard drums like that, and it blew my mind. I loved it, I love the sound of boom, boom. All of a sudden, I heard something that I really loved, and that got me into music. That was the big thing, and then I also had parents that were into having me and my friends play music in the basement. We created a group that we formed, and we played in the basement, and we played like English invasion music. So the Beatles, on their bass drum they had "The Beatles" written on the bass drum. On my bass drum, I had something else that I had like...
• [00:02:46] AMY CANTU: What was the name of your group?
• [00:02:48] DICK SIEGEL: The Inmates. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:02:51] AMY CANTU: Good one.
• [00:02:51] DICK SIEGEL: That's right. I wasn't going to remember, but The Inmates. It was great. I remember we'd be driving around in our little neighborhood, and I just remember these girls would see us sitting and they'd go, "Oh, it's the The Inmates! " They clap. This also was something that was a lure for me -- playing music for my friends, girlfriends' friends.
• [00:03:19] KATRINA ANBENDER: Were you writing songs for the band at that point, or were you mostly doing covers?
• [00:03:23] DICK SIEGEL: We were doing covers.
• [00:03:26] AMY CANTU: I've heard your music described as folk rock, roots, blues, jazz, and that you have called it Americana music. How else would you describe the music that you have written and have played?
• [00:03:42] DICK SIEGEL: Well, Americana was a name that people who didn't really know music... They sorta go, "Well, it's Americana music." To put it in just sort of a bag, so they don't have to really think about what the music really was about and all. It's just Americana music. But I don't konw. I can tell you my... Like Bob Dylan. When I heard Bob Dylan, it was an incredible experience just to hear that music so good, that voice, his poetry, all of that stuff. That was a huge impression on me, and, in fact, in my music, because it was so beautiful and poetic, and powerful, and cool, and good-looking. It was great music.
• [00:04:34] AMY CANTU: He was a big influence.
• [00:04:36] KATRINA ANBENDER: When did you start writing your own music then?
• [00:04:40] DICK SIEGEL: One year, I decided to take a trip across the country in a VW bus. The perfect thing going out to California. [LAUGHTER]. I drove out there, and on the way I got to I think the California boundary line, and there was a guy who just happened to be waving me down as I was driving the car, so I stopped. This was the hippie era, and so he said, I don't know, we stopped, he was hitching a ride. I invited him, "Oh yeah, come on in." We're sitting there in the in the VW bus, and we're going down the road. Right in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, he said, "Here's my stop." It was like -- I was in the middle of the desert or something -- and so he got out, and I looked over at his seat, and his sock was sitting on the seat next to my seat. This is a dirty sock. [LAUGHTER] I said, "Man, you left your sock." He said, "No, dude, you can keep it." [LAUGHTER] I thought that was just so funny. Then I went to California. Then in California, all of these weird groups, people who believed in different things and were very serious about it or gooney or play or LSD. It was the whole era of, "Wow, this is amazing and wonderful." But it also has its problems. I went out West, and then I came back. On the way back, I started making up this song, driving back from California, and it went something like, "The morals you live are your own manufacture, and then you got a friend in Jesus who won't let you down. You'll be wearing a smile, and the world's got a frown. I think because you just sun down when you're palling around with Jesus." If I had some time, I would remember all of the verses of that song, but they were all like "a friend in Jesus" -- and that was the funny thing, that was the joke, the line after each verse of the song. I got back to The Ark, and this was Wednesday night, which was a night that people could come with a song, and so I performed, You Got a Friend in Jesus. It was the first song that I had written ever, and people really liked that song. They liked it more than any song I had played at the Ark. I wrote this song, I made it up, so it was like, it clicked in me. "Oh, I can write songs! " They mean more to me than a song that I heard from somebody else or something like that.
• [00:08:02] KATRINA ANBENDER: It sounds like that song just came to you. What is the process normally like for you writing a song?
• [00:08:10] DICK SIEGEL: Well, it's words and music. That's, they're just woven together.
• [00:08:15] AMY CANTU: One doesn't come before the other?
• [00:08:17] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah.
• [00:08:17] AMY CANTU: They come right at the same time?
• [00:08:19] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah, because that's what is intriguing about it.
• [00:08:23] AMY CANTU: You have played solo, and you have played with a lot of different groups -- duos, bands. I know about Dick Siegel and the Ministers of Melody, Tracy Lee and the Leonards, Dick Siegel and the Brandos. Can you talk about your evolution from that solo at the Ark to the bands? The various different incarnations of musical groups that you've been with?
• [00:08:50] DICK SIEGEL: My first serious band, The Ministers of Melody, that was the first really serious one, and this is something that, because I had lived with music for so long, I really knew what was good, and I really wanted to play with people that really knew how to play. It was just something that I automatically did -- work with really good people. And part of that, is that, everybody who works with people who are really good, people in the band are enjoying the fact that the person next to them is really good, and they are good, too. So the Ministers Melody, it was really cool. A lot of very interesting horn music, drums, of course, lyrics.
• [00:09:41] AMY CANTU: Where did you play in Ann Arbor?
• [00:09:43] DICK SIEGEL: We played at -- you had to be good to be playing in the Blind Pig. It was really good band and the players were really good, but there was also something maybe lacking in terms of originality to me. I began having these ideas about making up a song. I made them up, and it started to turn out that those songs I made up were really good and people wanted to hear more of them, and I wanted to play more. It was a real halcyon time.
• [00:10:20] KATRINA ANBENDER: When you first started at the Ark, when you got your start, do you remember what the music scene was like in Ann Arbor? Was that how you met people who you ended up working with?
• [00:10:30] DICK SIEGEL: Well, the Ark was really a folk music club. It was great. Me and a lot of friends of mine would go religiously to the Ark on Wednesday, and hear great people. A lot of people from different areas of the country, from the south traditional music, all different things that were really interesting to hear. I think right there, you'd hear someone singing a song if it was a traditional song for them from South Carolina or something, and you'd hear it, and wow, that's really cool, and it sort of became a song because it was useful and it was inspiring.
• [00:11:14] AMY CANTU: You were talking about the folk venue, the Ark. But there were also venues where bands were playing.
• [00:11:21] DICK SIEGEL: The Blind Pig.
• [00:11:21] KATRINA ANBENDER: Yeah, the Blind Pig and I'm trying to think I don't know what other... Rick's? Was Rick's a place?
• [00:11:26] DICK SIEGEL: Rick's was a place. Yeah.
• [00:11:28] KATRINA ANBENDER: What are some other places?
• [00:11:30] KATRINA ANBENDER: Was Joe Star Lounge? [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:11:33] KATRINA ANBENDER: Did you play at the... Oh, and Mr. Flood's Party?
• [00:11:35] DICK SIEGEL: Mr. Floods, yeah. Joe Star Lounge, too. Joe Star Lounge was really.
• [00:11:41] AMY CANTU: So did you play at those places?
• [00:11:42] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah. All of them. My great guitar hero George Bedard. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:11:51] AMY CANTU: George Bedard and the King Pins?
• [00:11:53] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah. For a while, George Bedard was in our band. Then we had Tracy Lee and the Leonards. George was in that band.
• [00:12:03] AMY CANTU: I'd like to ask you about some of your specific songs, and maybe you can read some lyrics to us, too. I'd like to ask you about the famous song that you wrote for Angelo's. You know "Eggs over easy..." And how you came upon the idea, and your relationship with that song over many years now.
• [00:12:25] DICK SIEGEL: That's a good question. I don't know, I think it was a lot from going to Angelo's. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:12:32] AMY CANTU: You went there a lot.
• [00:12:33] DICK SIEGEL: Right, and there was a guy named Angelo! He was a very friendly guy. It was Angelo's restaurant. There's something about I think the Vangelotos family had another restaurant in town, another Greek restaurant. Somehow, there was just some. Angelo's: "Eggs over easy a plate of hash browns" -- food songs [MUSIC] It was just this perfect little radio thing.... Oh, this this interesting. I have something that says, "Eggs Over Easy" and it says "Writing Angelo's." What was happening then for me that I was living out in Delhi. Do you know where Delhi was? Yeah, that place was a magical castle to me. With the river and everything. I had this room upstairs and trains went by every night -- whoof! The trains would wake you up, and you'd get up after a while, you got used to it. There was something about being there. I was upstairs. That was my room. Well, I'll just read a little of this. I think maybe it'll shift...
• [00:14:15] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
• [00:14:16] DICK SIEGEL: It was the late 70s, a spring day. I was free, happy, and hungry. I smelled breakfast. My younger sister had come to visit. It was great. She's really a great girl, and we had a lot of fun. But I smelled breakfast, and I was thinking of my sweetie and me. Then in a flash, there was "Angelo's" shimmering and fully formed, hovering before me a simple, happy, transporting song, just born, a singing gift from the universe, a shiny apple, a hip-swinging paeon to love, food and the music of Louis Jordan, one of my favorite heroes, a man who appreciated, among other things, the confluence of jump blues and good food. In those days, Ann Arbor was brimming with live music venues and already iconic hometown bands. The scene was rich and intense, great music, great musicians. I had emerged into it from my college days at U of M. I discovered I could write my own songs, and I dove in. I was hitting my songwriting stride by the time I moved to Delhi, a tiny community tucked into a bend of the Huron River, about 5 miles upstream from Ann Arbor. Delhi was the prettiest place I ever lived. Right now, it makes me cry. Delhi was the prettiest place I ever lived. I rented a small house there with some friends, and had a large bedroom upstairs. From the south window, I could see the railroad tracks no more than 40 feet away, and beyond them a field of high grass. The grass merged with the sumac bushes (my song). The grass merged with sumac bushes and fall trees as they followed the river. I sat at that window and -- not to take away from anything else -- but it was just so wonderful, filled being there and being in me and hearing music and seeing the river. I sat at that window for hours and hours playing my guitar, practicing, listening, inventing. I was always on the lookout for something new. Then it happened, a spring day, a train rushing by, the aroma of breakfast cooking downstairs. I was at the window playing through some swing chords, changes in G, relieved that a song I'd been trying to wrestle into existence for the past three days had finally let go of me and out of the ethos pops "eggs over easy hash browns and you." What a delicious proposition. What a perfect lyric. Not only did it immediately rhyme itself with, "what a wonderful thing to do" but in less than half an hour, it pulled an entire song into being. "Angelo's. The place really hops. Angelo's. The services stops. Angelo's, we'll be licking our chops. Mama, we'll pull out the stops." Angelos quickly became a crowd favorite. When Snap, my first album, came out in 1980, Angelo's was the second song side one. Carrie Carlson heard it a few years later and chose it to be the theme song for her Over Easy show on WCSX. Carrie played Angelo's twice a weekend for the next 13 years. [LAUGHTER] When Pam Rossi became the new Over Easy host, she kept the Angelo's right where it was. You can still hear it on her show every Sunday morning. One evening I was coming back from a gig in Canada and the US customs guy wanted to know about the box of new CDs in my suitcase. I said, Well, that's my CD. I'm selling them. See? It's got me on the cover. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:17:58] DICK SIEGEL: I could tell he was not convinced. Then he took one out of the box, and he looked at the song list on the back. He said, Angelo's? Is that that song about the Eggs over easy? [LAUGHTER] I said, sensing a turn in my favor, It certainly is. That song? To my amazement, he started singing it. [LAUGHTER] That's how it's been. Angelo's gathers good feelings around it. It gathers a lot of stories, too, good stories, happy stories, silver-lining stories like from my friend Steve, who told me [LAUGHTER]. He's listening to the song when he got into a car accident. Good thing was, it made him realize that cars come and go, but people who love you hope you'll stick around for a while. I guess that goes for songs, too. Happy anniversary, Angelo's, 35 years and still making new friends. Under that, it says, "Siegel performs at the Ark on December 5, See nightspots. He promises to play Angelo's"
• [00:19:09] AMY CANTU: I have to ask, so Angelo's has closed. I understand you played there right at the end, and then you all went to the Ark, is that right? because Steve told us about that.
• [00:19:21] DICK SIEGEL: Oh, we did a show at the Ark.
• [00:19:24] AMY CANTU: How do you feel about Angelo's being closed?
• [00:19:27] DICK SIEGEL: Well, I accepted it. At the end, there was nothing bad about it or anything. There was just good things and seeing people. But there was a song that I wrote called the Waitress Song. Have you ever heard that song? I love that song.
• [00:19:49] AMY CANTU: Was that inspired by the staff there, too?
• [00:19:52] DICK SIEGEL: It was exactly from that. It was because I had a girlfriend at the time, and she was a waitress, and I really felt bad for her. "So those four ladies were mean to you. I know it's true. The hungry mouths are so don't appreciate you. I know it's true but we're going to show them all because I'm bringing you another red roses to the restaurant, to the restaurant." It was just building on that thing and it turned into a really, really difficult song, just to put it together, but it really worked. I loved that song, and I still do love
• [00:20:32] AMY CANTU: You have some other songs there. Can you read the lyrics from some of the other songs and tell us?
• [00:20:38] DICK SIEGEL: Yes, I can do that. This is a song called it's called Friends Duet. "I watch as the sun sing slow in the West. The Earth is rolling, and I need a rest. I lay my head down and I sing to the wind. That rips at my shutters, a song of my friend." [MUSIC]
• [00:22:38] AMY CANTU: That's really nice. Who inspired that?
• [00:22:41] DICK SIEGEL: He a really beloved.
• [00:22:45] AMY CANTU: Jay Stielstra?
• [00:22:46] DICK SIEGEL: Jay Stielstra.
• [00:22:47] AMY CANTU: You wrote that for Jay? Makes me sad.
• [00:22:50] DICK SIEGEL: I know. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:22:54] AMY CANTU: He was something, he was a really great guy.
• [00:22:56] DICK SIEGEL: A great guy.
• [00:22:57] AMY CANTU: We interviewed him, too. But a while ago.
• [00:22:59] DICK SIEGEL: Another one is, this was called Little Things. [MUSIC] "Sometimes I struggle with the morning. Looking at another day worries crowding up the picture, pushing hopeful dreams away. Then I have a cup of coffee. Enjoy the pleasure it brings. Then I read the morning paper, and I thank God for the little things. This house is modest. We did most of it ourselves. Took a lot to make it pretty. We worked hard, you can tell. We don't drive the latest models. You don't wear big diamond rings. But what we need, honey, we got it. Thank God for the little things. Thank God for the little things like having heat, enough to eat, friends we like to share our time with. They help us. We help them. Our family, the garden, the sun, the moon, the stars above. We're still in love. Thank God for the little things. Both of us are much too busy. Sometimes work is such a drain. But then I think we got it easy. I shake my head, and I don't complain. Much trouble in this big world. Who knows what's waiting in the wings? With all I've got to make me happy, I say thank God for the little things. Thank God for the little things like having heat, enough to eat, friends we like to share our time with. They help us. We help them, our family, the garden, the sun, the moon, the stars above we're still in love. Thank God for the little things. Thank God for the little things like having heat..." And it gets repeated.
• [00:25:16] KATRINA ANBENDER: All three songs that you just did, they all have gratitude in them. Is that a theme that you've come back to?
• [00:25:24] DICK SIEGEL: [LAUGHTER] I think... Just that I'm able to have that catharsis. I think that's really what it is that makes me cry or makes me appreciate life, just this thing that's so important in my life. There's nothing more important except, you know, obvious things -- a death in the family, someone that you're related to who you lose. Anyway, but... This is a very different flavor. This is my instrument thing. Since I started playing guitar, I wanted to have a good guitar. I just was going back and forth. I'd sell a guitar here, I'd buy that one back, I'd buy another one over here, I'd sell this one. This is just part of being hooked on guitars. People are real junkies and I really am and was. This song is about a Martin guitar. It's called Old Wood Steel Strings. Circa 2008, Dick Siegel. "Grandpa got a Martin guitar when he was just a kid. He played it when he could. He got mighty good for a while. That's all he did. Then grandpa gave it to my daddy. Now the guitar lives with me. Oh, man. You got to hear this thing, the sound of old wood. Steel string. It's a model they call the D20 ain't got the fancy herringbone trim. Got a crack on the back and the split in the side and the place in the front warmth and half a decal of a Hula girl just about rubbed away. Oh, yeah. It's a pretty thing. Sound of old wood, and steel strings. I can hardly understand what makes a guitar sound so fun. Must be one of those things. Old wood, steel strings. Old wood, steel strings. Sometimes I think it ought to sell it. It's worth big money these days. I won't say how much more than enough. Take your breath away. But my little girl's been playing guitar and starting to play pretty good. She says, Daddy, I sure love this thing. Sound of old wood, steel strings. I can hardly understand what makes the guitar sound so fine. Must be one of those things. Old woods, steel strings. Old woods, steel string." Instrumental. [NOISE] "Some folks got a fancy house. They drive a brand new car. My [NOISE]. Get out of my way. Get out of my way. Me, I got what I got plus grandpa's Martin guitar. There's a little bit of grandpa in it. I guess I'm going to keep it around. Oh, yeah. You got to hear this thing sound of old wood. Steel strings. [NOISE] I hardly understand what makes the guitar sound so fun. Must be one of those things. Old wood, steel strings. Old wood, steel strings. Old wood, steel strings." Bump, bump, bump.
• [00:29:04] KATRINA ANBENDER: Is this still a guitar that you have?
• [00:29:06] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah.
• [00:29:09] KATRINA ANBENDER: You said you would sometimes you like guitars, and you would trade in one and maybe get another. Do you know how many guitars you have at this point currently?
• [00:29:18] DICK SIEGEL: Well, unfortunately, I only have two.
• [00:29:22] AMY CANTU: The two best ones, right?
• [00:29:23] DICK SIEGEL: Well, yeah. No, there's four.
• [00:29:26] AMY CANTU: Four?
• [00:29:27] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah. I just remembered. But the two really good ones. We're talking about a OOO28. That was a OOO28?
• [00:29:34] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
• [00:29:34] DICK SIEGEL: I have a OOO18. Which is a mahogany guitar. That's the one. That was a sound that I liked. That was a guitar that I bought. And I've had it ever since.
• [00:29:53] AMY CANTU: Dick, you have lived in Ann Arbor a long time. You've seen a lot of changes in the town. Can you just talk a little bit about what you love about Ann Arbor and how it's changed over the years, for better or worse?
• [00:30:08] DICK SIEGEL: Well, the fact that it's growing like it is and everything's -- big buildings are being knocked down, all that stuff. Did you ever hear of Water Hill?
• [00:30:20] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
• [00:30:21] DICK SIEGEL: You've heard -- that whole event.
• [00:30:24] AMY CANTU: Yeah, the music festival.
• [00:30:26] DICK SIEGEL: Music festival, yeah. That was one of the really amazing... It was the neighborhood. That's what made that and still makes me happy to be there, because it's that particular neighborhood. Its background was not so great, like, Black people weren't able to buy houses there. Those things happen. But beyond that, I got to make Black friends in my neighborhood which... there are people in my life. Black people for different reasons, they've been in my life. I've just felt so connected, so warm to them. The fact that I'm Jewish, I think, has something to do with feeling that, you know, that you can be feeling like you're not accepted somewhere. So what I realize that I'm appreciating about the neighborhood, aside from that, is that my neighborhood is friendly. People drive by in the cars, and, you know "Hey, Dick, how you doing?" From across the street. It's a great walking neighborhood.
• [00:31:44] KATRINA ANBENDER: It sounds like despite Ann Arbor growing, you've still found that small town or community feel in Water Hill too.
• [00:31:52] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah, there are some really nice things about living in that city, the great food and hanging out at the Old Town.
• [00:32:04] AMY CANTU: Yeah, the Old Town's one of the few places that looks exactly the same as it did 40 years ago.
• [00:32:10] DICK SIEGEL: Right, and it was, you know somebody that made a decision that was really unusual -- that they decided that they were going to keep it the way it was. And you can't buy this restaurant.
• [00:32:22] AMY CANTU: Nope.
• [00:32:22] DICK SIEGEL: Because it's everybody, you know...
• [00:32:24] AMY CANTU: Yeah that really is nice. What are you most proud of in your life?
• [00:32:32] DICK SIEGEL: That I have spent so much of my life doing something really beautiful and important for other people. When people move because of a song that I've written and it's moving me at the same time, it's the best thing in the world.
• [00:32:51] AMY CANTU: Thank you so much for talking with us today.
• [00:32:53] DICK SIEGEL: Yeah, it's been really great. Great catharsis. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:32:58] AMY CANTU: Thank you so much.
• [00:32:59] KATRINA ANBENDER: Thank you so much.
• [00:33:00] DICK SIEGEL: Thank you.
• [00:33:06] AMY CANTU: AADL Talks To is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.