John Benjamin Hickey, actor and director

Tony Award-winning actor and director John Benjamin Hickey joins me on Tracks of Our Queers.

From his breakout role in Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! to his devastating turn in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, John has been at the heart of some of theatre's most important queer work. Far from being typecast, John has appeared in hundreds of roles across TV, film, and theatre (I loved him in The Big C, and of course, the dad in Pitch Perfect).

Outside of acting and directing, John once presented his own music interview series on SiriusXM, My Favorite Song. It's a thrill to turn the interviewing tables on him and hear about some of his most cherished music, through a queer lense. 

The other bits:

• Tracks of Our Queers is recorded and edited between Gadigal and Ngarigo land in Australia, by me, Andy Gott
• Listen to all of the music discussed in the pod with the Selections from Tracks of Our Queers playlist
• You can email me your own queer tracks or guest recommendations at tracksofourqueers@gmail.com
• Our beautiful artwork is illustrated by Luke Tribe.

Transcript

John Benjamin Hickey
===

Andy Gott: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to tracks of our Quiz. My name is Andy Gott, and each episode I chat to a fascinating queer person about one song, one album, and one artist. They have soundtrack their life. ~This episode's guest, this episode's guest came passionately recommended by a previous guest, the Broadway producer and author Eric Schnall, the Broadway producer and author.~

~This episode's guest. ~This episode's guest came passionately recommended by a previous guest, the Broadway producer and author Eric Schnall. ~Almost immediately after talking to, ~almost immediately after talking to Eric, he insisted that he connect me with one of the biggest music heads in his life. the actor John Benjamin Hickey. I knew the name was familiar and a quick glance at IMDB affirmed just how many films and TV shows I'd seen John in before. Laura Lenny's co-star in the Big C, massively under wrote it. If you ask me, Clint Eastwood Flags of Our Father's countless episodes of Law and Order Modern Family.

Importantly, the dad, ~imperfect, importantly, the dad ~imp pitch perfect. You get the gist, ~but it's John's work on stage which continues to channel his greatest efforts,~

but it's John's contributions to the stage which continue to channel his greatest work From originating a role in Terence McNally's Love [00:01:00] the Law, compassion In 1995 ~through to the infamous revival in nine ~through to the infamous 1998 revival of Cabaret ~all the way up to recently directing Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick in all the way up to directing all the way up to directing Sarah Jessica Parker, all the way up to directing Sarah.~

~Just mm, all the way up to directing all the way up. ~All the way up to directing Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick in Plaza Suite on the West end. ~He's a noted brought, ~he's a noted board Treader, not to mention the very first Tony Award winner on tracks of our quiz after receiving the best actor award in 2011 for the normal heart.

Now that we've got that exhausting resume out of the way, it's critical to mention that John once had his very own tracks of our Queers esque radio show on Sirius XM called My favorite song more than anything else. This sealed the deal on his over qualification as a guest ~and I get, ~and I get to turn the tables on him with some of his own questions in this episode.

Track of our queers is firmly and proudly a one queer band. No studio, no production team, no sound engineer. Although I pray to the Madonna that one day I might meet one. So if you enjoy this episode, you can buy me a coffee at [00:02:00] the link in the episode. Show notes. All donations cover the costs of making this show, which I absolutely love Doing.

Alright, over to John.

~Okay. And I'm obviously gonna introduce you with your full name. I understand your friends don't call you John Benjamin Hick the time. I can't think why, but your friends call you? Hickey, Don't you? Don't they? Or does anyone just call you John?~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~Hickey, nobody ever really calls me. John, Sarah, Jessica Parker calls me John, and I call her Sarah, and she only likes people calling her Sarah Jessica. So I got her back by calling her Sarah. But my hickey, most everybody calls me~

Andy Gott: ~Okay. Brilliant. Wow. For now,~ John Benjamin Hickey, welcome to Tracks of our Quiz.

John Benjamin Hickey: I'm so happy to be here, Andy. I'm thrilled. ~I. ~You've got the best name for a show. I mean, even I didn't know anything about it. You had me at hello tracks of our

Andy Gott: great. I love it. Look, ~it was, ~it was a risk 'cause it's not a perfect pun, but it's 80% of the way there.

John Benjamin Hickey: And it works. It it works.~ it works. It ~I get it. You know?

Andy Gott: Tell me about your earliest musical memory.

John Benjamin Hickey: You know, ~I, is it, ~is it a spoiler to say, ~you, ~you let me know some of these questions beforehand so I could ponder it. I wouldn't be completely caught off guard. So I've been thinking about it so much and as much as. Sometimes I had wished it were different as I was growing up. I grew up in a small town in Texas, so my [00:03:00] earliest memories were ~19, ~late sixties, early seventies AM radio in my dad's pickup truck of country music, and we called it Country and Western music back then and, ~and, and a, ~a brilliant, brilliant artist and a great time in country.

Western music. There was, ~you know, ~George Jones and Tammy Wynette. There was Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, these great couples. There was Johnny Cash there was Porter Wagner and Dolly Parton who I had a massive crush on, which should have been the first track of my queerness that ~I, ~I recognized Something special about Dolly.

You know, you'd have to be gay to do that, but ~that there was an extra, or~ there was an extra thing there for me. But ~it was, ~it was [00:04:00] very scratchy, fuzzy am country and western music. My brother who's four years older than I am, would always try to switch it over to the rock and roll stations and later on, his musical taste greatly influenced me because he introduced me to.

Some of the great rock bands of the sixties and seventies, but ~the earliest, ~the earliest memories ~were, ~were country Western. And I loved the gals, man. ~I loved, and ~I loved Loretta, and I loved Dolly ~and I, ~and I think I just recognized very early on a good breakup song. ~ ~

Andy Gott: The best breakup songs. Now we have got some selections further down the track that we're gonna get to, and I don't wanna talk about them too early, but there's a crossover going on here. There's a bit of a theme, but I'm gonna zero in on Dolly here. The way you just spoke about Dolly there, I'm a huge Dolly fan, but for a really young.

Possibly doesn't know that they're queer yet. Child. Coming across an angel like Dolly, could that have [00:05:00] been perhaps your first meeting with a drag queen in a way? Just that kind of like larger than life character?

John Benjamin Hickey: ~Ab ~Absolutely. I mean, you could say that about a lot of those country ladies. You know, you could say that about Loretta. ~You could say it. I mean, ~but nobody had the kind of~ the, the, the, the. You know, ~the outsized carriage that Dolly did in every manner, the big breasts, ~the, the, ~the hair, the makeup, and like any great drag queen, an unbelievable sense of humor and sense of humor about themselves.

Like she was the first person I understood who was. In on the joke, like that's, that's the first time I understood what that meant. Like they were in on the joke. So ~you, ~she was gonna make fun of herself way before you were gonna make fun of her. And then, you know, next to that was the fact that she was a songwriter on the same level as Bob Dylan ~and, ~and the great songwriters of that period.

I mean, ~she's. ~She will go down in ~the books and ~the history books [00:06:00] as one of our truly great songwriters. So yes, she had it all. ~She was the, ~she was the real

deal.~ ~

Andy Gott: ~in part two and just talk about Dolly for an hour because there's so~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~Oh God, we sure could~

Andy Gott: ~So you are ~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~sure. And ~

Andy Gott: ~you.~

John Benjamin Hickey: I just wanna also just in say quickly about her, you know, I came of age with her long before she. Was iconic. She was only a country girl singer, you know, and she was on the Porter Wagner hour and she left that Porter Wagner show. And you know, she wrote, I will Always Love You for him as a way to say goodbye, because she had clearly bigger.

Fields, bigger pastures. ~And, and, ~and so, you know, the dolly that came later in her movie stardom and her pop hits, ~I, ~I was there long before that. I recognized something kindred. ~So I just~

Andy Gott: ~you you are, ~you are, you are a Vanguard Dolly fan. You were there. ~So when do you, ~so when do you think the switch ~beca ~happened? When did she become the icon that we know now? ~Was it when she hit the~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~well, I. Yeah, I think, I think it was, ~you know, I [00:07:00] think she'd had several pop hits or a couple of pop hits. Here you come again, which is her probably single and one of my all time favorite songs. And oddly enough, you know, she, and she talks about this, it's one of the only ones she didn't write.

It's a Jerry Coffin. It's the guy, you know, it's, it's who wrote all the songs with Carol King one of the great Brill building writers and, but, but you know, it really just blew your head off when she did the movie of nine to five because she went from being this. Country pop star to becoming a full blown movie star who was so self-possessed that she could fucking steal a movie from Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

[00:08:00] And she did. I mean, they were all three equals, but that was 1980. So I was, you know, I was 17, 18, really starting to figure out. That something was really different about me, but really trying to suppress all of that. But, but geez, I, I, I don't, if I saw that movie once in the movie theater, I saw it 10 times.

So it was, I was doomed. Yeah. But that's, I think that's when Dolly became you know, something bigger than just a music

Andy Gott: sure. sure.~ I'm gonna, ~I'm gonna pick it up thread a little bit, but keep it attached to music. So you're 17, 18, you've just seen nine to five, 10 times in the cinema. What's going on with your music taste at that time? Because for me, those late teens are when I'm kind of~ it, you are ~beginning to formulate.

Your own taste levels that will then go and evolve through your twenties and thirties and later. But that's a really critical time. So what were you listening to then?

John Benjamin Hickey: You know, ~I, ~I've thought a lot about [00:09:00] this because, ~and, and I've, so, ~I've thought about it, of course, in the context of my queerness ~and, and I, I. I can go back to, ~I can go back much earlier than 17 and 18 to those country artists that I was talking about. And my dad had a lot of Johnny Cash records and Hank Williams, Bob Wills, these very, very old fashioned country stars.

Johnny Cash was more of cutting edge, but he had this singer songwriter named Chris Christofferson. ~Who would, ~who was gonna figure ~in ~in a very, very major way later in life when I was 16, 17. But ~I, I loved, ~I loved his records, ~a ~because I loved what he looked like. But I loved his storytelling. I was really drawn to storytellers and I don't know why, but there was something barely haunting about his songs.

And I liked songs and music that kind of scared me in a weird way. We~ We can go to that later. ~The other thing I think about is, you know, I came of age very, very happily and I'm so fortunate to have been young when I was, because it's still the time. This was even [00:10:00] before eight tracks or cassettes. So everything was a disc, everything was a record album.

And I loved double albums. I loved playing the record and listening to it. I think Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John. The major queer moment in my life. Not that I had any notion, I mean, I had a notion of his outlandishness in the same way I did of Dolly Parton's outlandishness. I did not think of him as gay in the same way that you didn't, one didn't think of Bowie as gay.

~They were, ~they were just other, they were other. There wasn't that kind of, ~we did, ~we didn't have the context we have now and he wasn't out. That record was huge. ~The, the, ~weirdly enough, there was ~a, ~a movie out in 1973 when I was 10, 11 years old called American Graffiti. and it was all fifties music, ~fifties~ 

Andy Gott: Was that George Lucas before Star Wars? Yeah. 

John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah. [00:11:00] So it's the movie before Star Wars and it, you know, starred ~ev ~every single person who was in it became a huge movie star for Harrison Ford. Suzanne Summers Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard. Everybody in it, it's, it's a masterpiece of a movie. It's one of my favorite movies. I was weirdly addicted to that record and that music.

So there was something about the nostalgia of it that I think touched. A queer part of me. These are the records I listened to all the time. ~ And then, and then came 1977, so I'm like 14, 15 at this point. A movie called a SARS Born and the the Sound accompanied it and it was Chris Christofferson again and Barbara Streisand and that.~

Andy Gott: ~Sorry, John, just to be rude with me, do you mind if I pause you there? I'd love to come back to that later. Sorry.~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~I think I got off a~

Andy Gott: ~No, I really hate cutting people off flow, but I'm like,~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~No, do it. You have to With me. You have to with me.~

Andy Gott: ~Okay, so we talked about your late teens. Okay. So, alright, you, so where, ~ where exactly in Texas were you born or from, like what's home to you?

John Benjamin Hickey: Um, I was born and raised outside of Dallas in a town called Plano. ~That's a sort of a very famous suburb now Oz Scaggs was from there who was one of my art artists from the seventies. My mom taught him in~

~high school, so that was. It was something I was so proud of. And we, I grew up ~and we also had a farm ~outside of Dallas, even ~outside of the suburbs of Dallas.

So I spent a lot of time in the country in the pasture with horses and cattle. And so I had a real kind of. Idyllic, [00:12:00] Texas Farm Boy childhood. And that's where all the country music, that's all we really listened

to. 

Andy Gott: And I heard you say on an interview recently~ about ~that ~you, you know, you, ~you and your family had this passion for ~like ~western wear, like, ~you know, the whole, is that true? Like the whole, ~the whole deal?

John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah.~ I grew, I mean, I, you know, I, I mean, I, ~I wore tennis shoes when I was a little kid, but as soon as I. Started to have like a say in what I wore. I wanted to be like my brother who was a rodeo

cowboy.~ ~

~And, and, ~and by that I also mean I wanted to be straight. So, you know, a straight guy wore cowboy boots to school, wore wranglers.

Now you know, of course the irony of that is nothing is hotter to a gay guy than a guy in Wrangler jeans. Do you? Nothing. So you guys have a con, 

Andy Gott: Ah, Western wear is huge in Australia, so any time, as soon as you leave the city, it's all country. Cowboy hats, cowboy boots, Wranglers. 

Yeah.~ Yeah.~ 

John Benjamin Hickey: I think I actually kind of knew that. Yeah. But there's actually a great Instagram, two or three Instagram accounts called like Wrangler Butts, 

and it's got, [00:13:00] oh, they're really good. ~You should, ~you should do a little research into that. Yeah. So I, as soon as I knew how to dress myself ~and got ~and got to pick out my own clothes, I went through a pretty significant period of trying to dress and be like my brother, like a cowboy.

~And that, that ~

Andy Gott: ~sorry, ~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~after a while,~

Andy Gott: ~I, ~

I'm completely with you on how. Attractive cowboy boots and wranglers are, but also and this kind of links back to maybe the idea of like Dolly and Loretta ~or ~as our first experiences with drag queens is that western wear can often be fabulously camp. And like glittery and sparkly and ~the, ~the tassels and the colors, ~and ~even with men, even with like straight men, the full Western wear ghetto can be very camp.

John Benjamin Hickey: Absolutely. I've gone to a gay rodeo and I've been to plenty of straight rodeos. ~The, the difference in how they, they're, they're not, ~the gay guys aren't turning it up, you know, those. Cowboys they're doing, you know, they're [00:14:00] dressing like Jack and Ennis who dress like my brother. ~Like I, ~I mean, I have such memories of, my brother was a real, a professional rodeo cowboy.

He was a world champ. ~I. ~And he would come back on from the road and he'd show up at like two o'clock in the morning at my mom and dad's house where I was still living with like four or five cowboys with him. And she would cook breakfast for them, and ~I would, ~I would just be sitting at the kitchen table just like, hello boys.

You know? ~Yeah. So, ~so it's a very fine line between a real cowboy ~and, ~and our dream of a

Andy Gott: Of course, because here I am thinking, oh my gosh, I hope you had like your own Brokeback Mountain experience. But life isn't often like the movies, is it?

John Benjamin Hickey: No. No, ~it isn't. ~It isn't. Yeah. ~No, I, you know, I, ~I spent a lot of time, you know, kind of. Running ~from ~from that. If I had met a gay cowboy when I was 15 or 16 years old, I don't know what I would've done with myself. ~I, I, ~I dunno what would've happened, but ~I ~I certainly was immersed in that world and loved it and still do, ~and, ~and you're so right about those, especially those [00:15:00] women from that time were larger than life in the way a drag queen

is. 

Andy Gott: So one of my favorite questions to ask anyone wherever they are in the world who has built their life in a major city, is how did you move from that small town to the big smoke? Tell me about your journey to New York.

John Benjamin Hickey: I went to New York on a school trip in 1983 ~and ~and there was ~a, ~an older woman in my arts class who went with US on this trip. She was about probably six or seven years older than me, and we were kind of having a thing

Andy Gott: Hmm.

John Benjamin Hickey: and she was very~ I.~

Formative for me. First of all, ~I ~in a big music way she's the person who turned me on to Joni Mitchell, who was the next great sort of artist in my life. 

And she was also the one who was like, you know what, ~you ~really seems like you belong here in New York City, which is probably her way of saying like, I think you're gay and you need to ~come in and~ come out.

So ~I came with, with, you know, ~I came in 1983 to New York. I transferred from a college in Texas to [00:16:00] Fordham University, which is a great school in the city and was only planning on being there for two years. And then auditioned for the Julliard School, which is our great school of drama there on a whim.

Never in a million years thinking I would get in and I got accepted, which is like really like winning the golden ticket. I mean, it's like ~you, ~you get in there and you're suddenly a New Yorker. So ~I had my, you know, ~I never looked back. ~I never, I never, ~I've been there 40 plus years now. God, I can't believe it.

Yeah.

Andy Gott: Yeah, I, and I've gotta say, the career that you've had since is, it's overwhelming for anyone to scan your IMDB, your Wikipedia page. You've done it all. You've seen it all. You've worked with everyone. ~You've worked and, ~and ~keeping this to like queerness, like~ your career spans far beyond your queerness.

You've done so many different roles of. Tremendous diversity, but I'm here to ask you about some of the queer icons you've worked with yourself. Just on this very small list. I've got Sarah, Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Paulson, Alan Cumming, of course, your bestie, Andy Cohen. That actually, as I say that out loud, sounds like an incredible dinner party to me 

John Benjamin Hickey: It [00:17:00] really does. I would love to be a party because I never get to see that group of people together, and they're such incredible people. ~Yeah, I mean, you know, ~so many of whom you just mentioned, ~I've, ~I've never had the chance to work with Sarah Paulson. I've just known her

forever and~ such ~

~a, I.~

Huge fan, ~but, ~but Sarah Jessica Parker ~and, ~and Alan Cumming are two people I've worked with and known.

And Sarah Jessica, I count as one of my dearest friends~ and ~and have watched her, knew her way pres sex in the city, which real considered herself a real journeyman actor. And she still does. I mean, I think it's, she's. ~On, ~on record saying her greatest fear of sex in the city and it becoming the success she, I don't think anybody ever dreamed of it becoming, the thing that it has become was that she would use her kind of journeyman status.

So she and I really have that in common. I think we both consider ourselves people who. Job ourselves out to hopefully great directors and great writers. And [00:18:00] I think that's the way you sustain a career as long, frankly, as long as I've been doing it, you know, is you kind of, you know, you go where the work is instead of trying to figure out what the work is or figure out a strategy.

I don't think there is such a thing as a strategy. I mean, ~may some, ~maybe some people have it, but most people just, you know. Go where the work is.

And these people who I think I admire, all of those people you mentioned so much because they do that. And the one person who was my bestie, who I never thought would ever be able to, you know, usurp me as far as status or celebrity or anything like that.

Andy Cohen because he worked in morning news, like he, he wasn't gonna become famous, and now of course he's the most famous of all. I have been with him on the street where somebody asks Sarah Jessica to take a picture of them ~with, ~with Andy, like, oh, okay.

Andy Gott: ~It is hysterical.~ And ~you are, ~you are a regular, are you not on his TV show ~you~

John Benjamin Hickey: Watch what happens live. Yes, he has been very [00:19:00] kind. ~Anything, ~anytime I have something to promote, he has me front and center, and we have such a good time together. ~He's, ~he's just the most warmest, most gracious friend and host of his 

Andy Gott: Of course now, I can't go past having my first ever Tony Award winner on tracks of our queries without asking you just a question about your incredible performance in the normal heart in 2011 for your role of Felix Turner. But to keep it relevant to the topic of this podcast, the Normal heart, of course, set through seventies, eighties, that.

that time that we all know a lot about, you know, the hiv aids crisis, especially in New York, where does music show up, if at all, in your practice when preparing for a new role? Because I guess what I'm getting at is, was music relevant to you at all in preparing for a play like the normal heart, where that time period is so evocative of the music that people were listening to?

~I don't know.~

John Benjamin Hickey: I, it's such ~a, a, ~an amazing question. And the reason is it's amazing, and I really mean this. I think if you had [00:20:00] asked me about any other job I have done, successful or otherwise, and you'd ask me about what music I listened to, to either help myself or calm myself down, I would either not remember at all or remember maybe one or two songs that I would work out.

This particular play, the Normal Heart, which takes place in 19 83, 84, as the Crisis was born, ~you know, ~unfolding in New York. It's just the most amazing, harrowing horror show of a play. ~That's, ~and that's what our great director George Wolf said. Think of it as a horror movie. You guys are all in a cap woods and there's something scratching at the door and you don't know what it is.

'cause you know, these people didn't know what it was at the time. We. All of us backstage, the extraordinary company of actors, Jim Parsons, Lee Pace, Joe Mantello, Ellen Bark, and Patrick Breen. We listened to the best disco

music from the time I. Like really [00:21:00] obscure. ~And and we'd, we'd also would we, and we'd finish with the band.~

We'd want something really greasy at the end of the night. 'cause we were, you know, we'd walk off stage and just have a huge drink waiting for us. You know, when, when you're doing a play like that, dealing with such a horrible thing. Such a terrible calamity. The Gallos humor offstage and the music offstage has to be a, has to run contra.

you know, you have to be able not to laugh at the thing, but to laugh at each other and to laugh at the pain that you're going through, and that you're palpably experiencing with an audience every night.

So you have to come off stage and blow off steam. The greatest song from that time that we would listen to Tommy Mottola Lives on the Road. She lafe. She lafe. Oh my God, anybody listening who wants to build a listen to [00:22:00] that song? ~Oh geez. It's a great disco song and we're gonna keep talking and I'm gonna think of it, but it's a very disco song. Is it okay if if I text Joe Mantella, who was this, or Jim ~

Andy Gott: ~Yes, ~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~ask that while we're ~

Andy Gott: ~it's, yes, you should do that, but I've got, I've got the song as well,~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~You do. What is the, what is the song? She lafe. It's not, ~it's not like an on the nose disco song, but it was very much of that period, and it was just our weird little go-to warmup 

song. We love that song 

so much and we danced. We would dance before the show to that song or to, you know, anything that Chic and Nile Rogers had done or Donna~ and, and, and, ~and wind down to it too. But, you know, to get your engines going for something like that, ~you need, ~need music,

Andy Gott: absolutely. And I love that disco in all of its forms was there for you because it can lift you up and power you through. But ~there's, ~there's darkness and melancholy in disco too, and a lot of emotion. And maybe that points to the time period that it was made in. I'm not sure. Yeah.

John Benjamin Hickey: And I mean, aren't you, I'm sure you've talked about this on the show before. disco's had the last laugh, hasn't it? Because disco is dead and disco is this, and they all burned the records at that. ~You know, there's that great documentary about it when all the rock and rollers were like, and disco is rock and roll.~

~Disco is punk rock and punk. Rock is disco. I, it ~it's just an unbelievable genre of music that has not just stood the test of time. It now [00:23:00] transcends time. ~It's, it, ~it's very much about that time and place, but ~it anybody can, ~anybody can feel that, 

Andy Gott: Blissful. We better talk about your selections 'cause they're big ones and you've referenced a few of them already. And I've got so many questions about them. We're gonna talk about a track, an album, and an artist that have separately in some way soundtrack your queerness, your queer journey. And yeah, we better dive in.

So I'd love to hear what was the track that you picked and why

John Benjamin Hickey: Well, it, it's a, it's an odd one, isn't it? ~It, it's a, ~it's a song by Bobby Gentry great singer songwriter from 1967 or 68. ~So ~when I first heard this, I was probably 8, 9, 10 years old. It's called OO de Billy Joe. And, if you know this song you know what a story it tells and what a mystery is at the center of it.

It does not [00:24:00] reveal what it's about, but only through innuendo and something really terrible happens to these young people in this song. And I'm, I don't know Andy, ~I, ~why it came to mind. I mean, there were other songs from my childhood that we've talked about that ~meant, ~meant a lot to me, but ~it, ~it checked all the boxes of a song that a kid like me was supposed to like because it was a country.

And it was so, it was safe, but there was something queer about that song. I don't know what it is. There was something other, there was something you don't tell your fucking parents about. That's what that song's about. ~And, ~and weirdly enough, ~I. ~A movie got made based on the song some five or six years after it was released.

A movie called Ode to Billy Joe, starring Robbie [00:25:00] Benson and The Greatly O'Connor, and ~the, ~the story they fleshed out for the song was that Billy Joe had had a, ~an ~homosexual experience with somebody and that's why he killed himself, which is a terribly homophobic movie, I'm sure has not aged well at all, but it was deeply sensitive about its subject.

The movie was, but the song is an absolute masterpiece ~of, of, ~of storytelling and songwriting. You know, Bobby Gentry went on to write one of the great queer iconic songs of all time called Fancy that 

Reba did a cover of.~ ~

~of. ~ Woman who pimps her daughter out into like, her mom was a hooker and she ~pips ~her daughter out.

Here's your one chance Fancy, don't let me down. Yeah. But Bobby Ry was, is legendary. ~And ~and this song, O de Billy Joe, I. For those who don't know, it just is about a family [00:26:00] sitting around a dinner table and they just are talking about the town gossip and it's revealed that somebody, this kid has killed himself.

Oh, it's, and it's, to this day, ~it's ~sends chills up my spine just to, just to talk about it. So Andy, be my doctor. You tell me why that was a queer song.

Andy Gott: It is a marvelous song and the way that it unfolds. So there's this scene around the dinner table is so masterful to put in the form of a pop song. So what we're listening to here is a song that you could have heard on the radio, but it's talking about suicide. ~It's ~it's quite gothic, I'd say ~It's a bit of a goth. ~Dark and gothic and mysterious, but this was being played on the radio and I believe it sold millions of records. ~It was quite~ 

John Benjamin Hickey: Well, it was [00:27:00] a massive,

~massive hit, ~massive hit. ~And, and, and, ~and as you described the song, we were ~talk, ~talking about a family who was describing this boy who has killed himself. And halfway through the song, ~somebody, ~the mother or something says, oh, and by the way, somebody saw you last week with that boy up on that bridge.

So suddenly. The kid who's narrating the song becomes the center of the song. ~Oh,~

Andy Gott: And in that, like that sentence in itself is, is that not something that a lot of queer kids can relate to in terms of being spotted with someone Perhaps

John Benjamin Hickey: absolutely. I, I,~ I, ~I, yeah. It worked on me on an unconscious 

Andy Gott: Yes. Interesting. And

John Benjamin Hickey: so much so that it's choking, choking me up. Let me call. Okay. It's really bad pollen season here in New York, so forgive my allergies. Yeah, it, it scared me that 

Andy Gott: how might you say your relationship has perhaps changed with it over time? ~Is there, ~is there a way that you viewed it when you first heard it? Is that different to [00:28:00] how you view it now?

John Benjamin Hickey: No, I think I feel exactly the same way. There are some things so elemental ~and, and, and, ~and touch you so deeply. I feel the same way I felt when I was a kid and heard it. ~It it, ~and it's not just nostalgia, it's something deep, deep inside of me. Like, you know, my relationship to Bruce Springsteen, who's one of my favorite artists, has changed over the years.

My relationship to Joni Mitchell has probably changed over the years to Stevie Wonder to. But there's something, and that's why I picked the song when I was thinking about it. I was like, that song still makes me feel the exact way ~it felt, ~it made me feel when I was a kid.

Andy Gott: I think that's magical.

John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah, it is. It's a, it's a magical song.

~It it really it.~

Andy Gott: I love that. Thank you very much for sharing,

The album that you picked, I'm very excited for this one.

John Benjamin Hickey: Okay. Now we talked a little bit about the country artists who were, you know. Who were in my dad's record cabinet that I was not allowed to touch. And weirdly enough, in that record cabinet was the soundtrack of [00:29:00] Mary Poppins. My mom and dad loved that 

movie. There was Judy Garland's, A Star is Born.

There was plenty of ~queer of on the Nose ~queer content in that record cabinet that maybe I was, I dunno, on some unconscious level, like it felt like slightly radioactive to me ~that. ~That seems a little 2020 hindsight. But Chris Christofferson was a singer songwriter who I loved, and I loved his music and his storytelling.

He wrote some weird sort of slightly scary songs too. I was drawn to those. But he was also Andy. He was just so fucking beautiful. I mean physically. So beautiful. So 1977, I think it was same year, two movies came out, Rocky and a Star Born. My dad saw Rocky, like I saw nine to five later saw it like eight times in the movie theater.

I saw [00:30:00] Stars born with my, I think I saw it with my parents. They both loved it. My dad the next week was going to see Rocky for like the fourth, fifth

time. And he wanted me to go back with him 'cause I loved that movie too, and still do. And I was like, dad, ~when you go see a star ~when you go see Rocky, can I go see a star as born again?

And I don't think my dad had any notion of Barbara Streisand as being somebody who can make a boy gay. You know? ~But, or, ~or that if your boy likes Barbara Streisand, ~you better. ~You better be careful. 'cause that might mean he's queer. It absolutely meant I was queer. But my thing was ~she ~not the both of them.

~Their, their, ~their relationship. Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Streisand, the soundtrack to ~I. ~Her version of A Star is Born uh, with a ~cover a double al an ~double album. The cover art photo was by Francesco Skeo, the great photographer. They were both, you know, shirtless Christofferson was at the height of his [00:31:00] beauty.

And there was just something about him in this movie that I fell in love with Andy. It's the equivalent of, I don't know ~if you, if your dad had them, but~ when I was a kid, most kids', dads ~Red, Playboy and Penthouse ~bought, there were, there were two magazines glossies that were, you know, naked women were in them. Playboy, of course, being the most famous, but Penthouse was the one I always went to because they always had one pictorial thing of, of guy and a girl. Fucking they were, it was staged, you know, but soft core porn. And I didn't know. Well, I know, I know now, but I always wanted to see that 'cause I wanted to look at the boy. Uh, okay. ~So, ~so, but this, this soundtrack just. Opened me up to a world of singing and songwriting and Streisand producing. And, and she was playing a fledgling singer and he made her a star and he had been a big rock star, a la like, you know, Greg Allman just, there was just so much for [00:32:00] my early queer sensibility to be turned on by, ~and, ~and there was a rock and roll sensibility that ~was sa It ~was safe enough to like that movie.

It was safe enough. It wasn't like Funny girl, which was like, well, if you like funny girl, you're just as gay as you can possibly be. and funny girl came much later to me, but going to be 16 years old, 15, 16 years old, and to experience Christofferson and Streisand in a Stars Born, ~I played that record.~

~I mean, and you know, look, there are other records. There's songs in the Key of Life. There's Sergeant Pepper, the Brother turned me onto. ~There are more important pieces of music in my life, but none as important as what I.

How it made me feel and looking back was like, oh, I was queer and this spoke to my queerness. I was, 'cause I was so in love with him and I was in love with her.

Andy Gott: ~I'm so, ~ [00:33:00] I'm so thrilled to hear that the brief of this podcast, which can be quite strenuous and painful for guests to draw out their selections for, it's resonated with you because this, like you said, you've got a million albums, which is so important to you, but you've zeroed in on why ~this, ~this spoke to that.

Young, queer teenager on that journey. I, I'm gonna tell you that last night I watched A Star is Born for the first time with a friend.

John Benjamin Hickey: ~You, you, the, you, ~you did

Andy Gott: We

John Benjamin Hickey: and ~you and you, ~you got up early and came to, oh God, Andy, please tell me that you liked it.

Andy Gott: Wow. We had ~a, ~a fantastic Friday evening, I'll tell you that. We ordered pizzas, we had a bottle of wine. ~It was, ~it was marvelous. So my only experience with the. A Star is Born Universe, of course, is the most recent Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper reinvention. [00:34:00] But I know that the law stretches back very far and I've been fascinated how the first one was from like the thirties, and then of course Judy

John Benjamin Hickey: Oh God,

Andy Gott: And you have your own very special relationship to Judy Garland, which I'd love to talk about if we have time. And then there was this moment in the seventies where the storyline switched from being a Hollywood actress to this musician on Nu, which then. Gaga took and evolved again. So I was fascinated about the Barbara version.

I would say with these fresh eyes, I, not to yuck your yums at all, but I, I was frustrated with how for two hours this amazingly fabulously talented woman is chasing. Quite a pathetic shell of a man who needs to get his act together because the title of the film is A Star Is Born, and I'm like, it's not about the star being born.

It's about this person who could [00:35:00] be a star chasing this.

John Benjamin Hickey: that's interesting.

Andy Gott: But I to hear you, imagine you in that cinema and going with your dad and being opened up to this entire world of rock and roll and sex and he is a gorgeous man. Of course. He's gorgeous and I'm so

John Benjamin Hickey: kind my idea because he was a bit of a ~cowboy, you know? And I liked to ~cowboy, you know? Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I don't know if I, I mean, I loved what Bradley Cooper did with it, but I don't know if they, if they fixed that problem because that, that's essential to the story, is that I. As she is rising, he is.

And what does that do to a man and what does that do to a woman who loves a man and what does that do to that woman's career? The thing I, I, I, to this day admire about the Streisand version. You know, she took a lot of, of, of heat for that, for that. Terribly reviewed, and they called it a narcissistic, you know, ego trip.

And it was a mass biggest hit of her career. A massive success, biggest box office hit of the year, I think just [00:36:00] after Rocky. So the, you know, she laughed all the way to the bank or, or cried all the way to the bank because they really gave it to her. But what she did do was take the iconic Judy Garland framework of a movie star and put it into the world of rock and roll.

And I thought did so now effectively in the sense that I think str Christofferson made a very effective rock star, like a Greg Alman type because he was a musician. You believed he was a musical kind of, you know, I mean, her becoming a rock star, it was a little like, you know, that was a little hard to buy even at the time when, you know, she, she comes out and sings those two songs at his rock concert.

there was a really mean review I think by Pauline Kale, who's one of our great critics had said, you know, it was a little bit like if Kate Smith took over Woodstock and Kate Smith was this old [00:37:00] lady who sang the national anthem. Oh, bless America. It was a little hard to buy her being.

Andy Gott: Yeah.

John Benjamin Hickey: You know, rock and Roll Lady, but man, ~she, she, those, ~some of those songs kill.

And, you know, you asked me about has my relationship changed to Ode, to Billy Joe? My relationship has changed to A Star is Born. I mean, I don't, you know, I get that it might be a bit of a guilty pleasure for me or

Andy Gott: ~We, ~we don't do guilty pleasures on this podcast, and I'm sure you sign off with that. ~Yeah.~

John Benjamin Hickey: Good. ~Good, ~good, good. Yeah, that ~I, ~I hold it very dear to my heart for what it meant to me at the time and would defend it to the very, you know, ends of the earth.

But I get what you say, it's, it should be all about her being, you know, on the rocket to the moon, and she's being dragged down by this. They go to Santa Fe and they build that beautiful house like in three days.

Andy Gott: Oh my gosh. That house for God's sake, the house. 

John Benjamin Hickey: And she's

wearing ~her, ~her, you know, ponchos and her like New Mexico chic.

Andy Gott: Yeah. [00:38:00] And all of a sudden the record labels turn up and they're like, you know, she's like the most famous woman in the world and we haven't seen any of this rise or whatever anyway, but that is a part of each A Star is born film. So it's interesting. And my last point on this really is I, I'm not.

Completely new to Barbara Streisand. I love many of her albums and I, I'm not sure I can tackle her enormous autobiography just yet, but I think she's really funny and very smart and her career is fascinating and I love that she is one of those kind of vanguard gay icons. Like before Madonna and Cher, there was Barbara Streisand.

And so she intrigues me. And with this film specifically, it is textbook treatment of a bold. Hardworking direct woman with a vision because the way that she was spoken about in the press is of course the stereotypical bitch. Difficult awful to work with all these horrible female associated adjectives, but with a man, it's pioneer, [00:39:00] visionary, perfectionist.

John Benjamin Hickey: ~yeah, yeah. Like Maverick. Yeah. ~Yeah. But when it's her, she's, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Andy Gott: while we, 'cause we're on her side, we can acknowledge those imperfections and flaws. It's kind of like if anyone else criticizes her, I'll defend her. 

John Benjamin Hickey: I will absolutely defend her. Yes. And I will defend ~that, ~that moving. And nobody, ~I, ~I completely get what there is to kind of poke at. But boy, you know, I mean, I thought long and hard ~about, ~about that question. and I think one of the things that's great about your show, Andy, not to go off on too much of a tangent, ~but, ~but is that it's contextualized in a person's queerness or their relationship to queerness.

I don't know if ~you ~everybody's queer on your show,

Andy Gott: I hope so.

John Benjamin Hickey: You know, I,~ I, I, I, ~I hosted, we talked a little bit about this I hosted a radio show for Andy Cohen, for his Sirius XM network called My Favorite Song. I hosted it for a couple of years.

Very hard to find it now, and they should put it back in their archives. I think Andy's mad at me for not doing it anymore 'cause I kind of got busy doing other things, but~ I wanted to, and it, ~it was ~a, ~a show where you'd come on and you would say, [00:40:00] what was your. You know, what was your wedding song? What ~was ~your mom, what's your favorite sad song?

What's your favorite Beatles song? ~What's your favorite? You know, Ella Fitzgerald's recording. Just~ very specific to the person who was coming on, but I wanted to call it my favorite blank because you, I'm sure you've run into this, when somebody asks you What's your favorite movie?

What's your favorite book, what's your favorite song? I immediately draw a blank. And, and also it fucking depends on what day you ask me what my favorite song is. You know, that can, that can change. I mean, it can. So I'm making a point with this by saying it, it really helped being able to contextualize it.

You know, in relationship to my, to who I was as a young gay boy, scared of being that and didn't wanna be that, but was drawn to that and, you know, so I, it, it gave me something to think about other than just reaching into the black hole of what is my favorite record? I don't know. I don't know.

Andy Gott: I am 

so glad. I'm really glad to hear that. And maybe my favorite song will make a comeback one day. Who knows? 

John Benjamin Hickey: will you be a [00:41:00] guest?

Andy Gott: I'd love to. It would be a dream. Yes. ~I.~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~I would do it, ~I would do it for that reason

Andy Gott: Your artist. Your artist. Who and why?

John Benjamin Hickey: Who the hell did I

pick? Linda Ronstadt.

Oh my God. Ronstadt. Yeah. I mean I, because the reason I, I got distracted for a minute there because I've mentioned several of my favorite artists that I.

You know, I went through ~a fa, ~a huge Bruce Springsteen phase once I became a, like a college, maybe just out of college.

And I was so proud of my fandom because it was such a. Straight guy, you know, ~that, that, that, ~that homophobic, scared, ~gave, ~loved that ~I was, that I, and I, and I, and I did. ~I, and I still just worship the guy, Billy Joel. Huge, Stevie Wonder. ~And, and, and, ~and as a, ~a, you know, ~gay guy. Through the nineties ~and ts in, ~in New York.

Whitney, I was a massive Whitney fan, a massive Madonna fan. Gone to [00:42:00] see Madonna with Andy Cohen so many times. So there's a lot of people I could have picked. Why did I pick Linda Ronstadt? Because she is been my most consistent friend and 

ally. 

Andy Gott: Oh. 

John Benjamin Hickey: And, ~and, and, and she is, ~she is a dream to me. She's the ultimate girl singer.

and she was underestimated a bit because she didn't write her own stuff the way, of course, Joanie a genius did. But then Linda went on and just defied every genre expectation of her by saying, I wanna make a record of old standards, forties and fifties standards. ~The, the, the, ~ [00:43:00] the record company said Over our no fucking way, we're not gonna do it.

We're not paying for a dime of this. She did it, it became the biggest selling album of that year. She did the same thing with Mexican music, ~her. Her heritage, ~her Mexican heritage, ~and, ~ and absolutely slave. So ~she, ~she has, she's a profound artist to me because she, she's got such extraordinary technique.

She's got the technique ~of a, ~of a Broadway star. You know, like somebody who would do it eight times a week, like a Patty Lone or a Bernadette Peters, or an Audrey McDonald. But ~she's a, ~she was a pop star and from very early on I bought her records. And I loved how eclectic they were. ~And I, ~and I just, I always go to her.

~She is. ~You asked earlier, you know, what music do you listen to before or after to get yourself up or down something? [00:44:00] She's my best friend that way. She's my closest companion. I have all of her records. I have all the Beatles too, ~and I have all the, you know, and, ~and I'm obsessed with the Stevie Wonder Cannon.

But there's something about Linda's records that just, ~that just I feel very, very, they ~feel very close to my heart.

Andy Gott: ~I nearly, ~I nearly teared up myself when you first said that she's my best friend who's always been there because I don't think I've ever, we might. Talked about it in a roundabout way, but no one has ever explicitly talked about their artist on this show. At least in. Those terms and it means everything just to hear that I know exactly what she means to you, to hear that phrase in a musical context because she's been there for most of your life.

You've got these albums that you can go back to and dive into whenever you want. And each of those individual albums, I'm sure remind you of different memories or make you feel different emotions. And her ~eclectic Is eclecticness a word? ~Eclecticness. ~It's such a, a shining. ~It's such a part ~of her, ~of who she is, and I've heard her talk about how all the different genres she's [00:45:00] touched from mariachi to opera, to gospel to r and b or what she was listening to when she grew up, which is fine.

You know, A lot of us listened to ~electric music, ~eclectic music when we grew up, but she then turned that into a career and was so successful in it for ~I ~I love that she's, she's your best friend.

John Benjamin Hickey: and she, she, you know, ~she, she ~took a lot of flack for doing, she did ~a, like ~a kind of ~pa ~new wave record, I think it's called Mad Love in the eighties ~and a lot. ~She did a couple of Elvis Costello songs, and I think maybe even Elvis was like, she has no business singing my music. I'm a punk. Of course that hasn't aged well.

Whereas her music, what she did with it has aged very well. And also I will say too, Andy, she was weirdly kind of safe, you know, because you could love, I went to see her two or three times in concert when I was a kid. I could tell my buddies in [00:46:00] high school who wanted to see the Eagles or ~who, ~WHO, or Boston or Journey.

I was like, can we go see Linda Ronstadt? And they were like, fucking, Hey man. Yeah, we'll go see that. ~But. ~She was like hot, you know? She was like, you could be into her 'cause she was hot. But to me, she touched my queerness, I think in a bit. I mean, just like gay kids love ladies who sing. She was mine. She was mine.

And, but, but you, you know, you, it could be cut slightly coded,

Andy Gott: ~Isn't, ~isn't that a funny part of any kind of like female singer or pop stars career where when they begin, because they're often a lot younger and very sexy, ~it's all, ~all the straight guys love them and then as their career goes on, the straight guys kind of fall off. But the gays stick around 

John Benjamin Hickey: the 

gay stick around. 

The gay stick around and, and, and it's so funny you bring that up because ~the, ~the opposite of that. Or the, just the other side of that coin, when we were talking about Elton and Captain Fantastic. And the brown door cowboy. Elton John has been a huge figure in my musical [00:47:00] personal, I mean, I don't know him personally, but he's just meant so much to me.

I went to see him in concert probably, it's been about 10 years ago now.

Andy Gott: Mm.

John Benjamin Hickey: And a friend of mine had worked for him, so I got really good seats. I paid for them, got really great seats, and I was surrounded. This was in New York and I was surrounded by a crowd of guys his age. And they were all straight guys from New Jersey.

~And, ~and I realized like, oh, long before there was queer Elton, before there was out of the closet, gay icon Elton, leader of our, you know, cause and a great, our great advocate and star, he belonged to them. And he still does the same way Bobby did. You know, like those guys loved his queerness. It was not talked about and that's not a good thing.

But that did not, nothing could ever stop them from him being theirs he belonged And that was a beautiful thing to see like, oh, he's Elton man. ~He's so much bigger than than his platform shoes, which are really big, ~

~you ~

Andy Gott: ~course. I ~

~love that. ~My first major introduction [00:48:00] to Linda Ronstadt was actually through the Trio album, which she did with. Dolly Parton and Emmi Lou Harris. And we're gonna keep this firmly about Linda, but I couldn't go past this because you've already talked about your own love for Dolly and the Trio album is such a magical masterpiece of ~the pair, the, the, ~the bringing together of these three quite different voices and that joyous harmony that nothing else could replicate.

But specifically the song. Wild Flowers to me. Now, ~this is a, ~this is written by Dolly, so it's not a Linda song, but the three of them sing together on that track so wonderfully, and that is, that's a queer anthem to me. They weren't singing it for queer people, but it's a song about, I guess, Dolly.

Breaking out herself and realizing that where she's from, she might love the place, but she's not like the other people and she needs to go away and thrive elsewhere. Where they accept people who are more [00:49:00] strange and weird like her. And to Imagine Dolly feeling weird is just fascinating and so special for queer fans ~to, ~to lock into.

So to hear Dolly and Linda and Emmi Lou sing on that song, ~I, ~I had to get that in there. ~Even though this is, we're~ 

John Benjamin Hickey: I'm so happy you, 'cause you know the records I'm talking about that kind of formed my bond with Linda were much earlier, so much so I was thinking about those prisoner in disguise. Simple man, simple dream. Um,~ Born in the USA not born in the USA, oh shit. I'm, that was the, that's the spring season song anyway.~

I did, I did not even think about Trio. But I wore that record out. Boy did I love that record. ~And what, ~and that was one of those things that Linda did throughout her career. ~Like, you're ~like, you're doing this now and you are doing this with [00:50:00] those two, and it's such an improbable little group of people, and yet you sound so it's just all about the music for her.

I'm gonna be listening to Trio

Tonight Me too. 

And Wild Flowers would be my, there's another great song in that first record called lies, 

which is, oh my 

there harmonies in that.~ ~

Andy Gott: ~What would you, ~ what would you list out as your top three Linda Ronstadt songs? For someone who's listening, who wants to go away and begin their Linda journey?

John Benjamin Hickey: I'm gonna say a Warren Zeon song off of simple Man, simple Dream, which is my favorite Leonard Tack record. And it's called Carmelita. Uh, So Carmelita from that~ while I'm there, I could pick one other song from from that record and I might, but~ there's a song from I think it's [00:51:00] on prisoner in disguise.~ I should have done my. There's a song that the songwriter singer I think it's Carla Bonoff, wrote called Lose Again, ~lose Again, it's one of my favorite Linda Ronstadt songs And then, you know, i'm gonna have to just go with Blue Bayou. I mean, I know it's a big, but it's just such a haunting, gorgeous piece of music.

It's a Roy Orbison song and the fact that she could take and make it hers in ~the most the, ~the deepest, warmest way. I'm gonna have four. You're gonna have to give me one more. So we've got ~Oli ~Lose Again and Blue Bayou, and then you, everyone should go on YouTube and and Google her and Kermit the Frog on the Muppet

Show doing a duet uh, when I Grow Too Old to Dream, [00:52:00] which is a song, one of her records.

~And. Watch. ~Watch the way Linda looks at Kermit and sings to Kermit. And if you're not crying by the end of it, it's called When I Grow Too Old To Dream. And you can hear her recording of it, which is masterful, of course. But go to the Muppet Show YouTube and watch that, and you will find my address and you will send me flowers.

You'll be so happy that you saw this. That might be my favorite Linda moment ever is her duet with.

Andy Gott: I love that so much. John Benjamin Hickey, you've already ~reference ~referenced your own radio show, my favorite song. Now, it's not totally uncommon for me on this podcast to ask people a bit of a quick fire.

~You did just hint that you don't love being caught on the spot. So I'm just gonna go with this 'cause I.~ I'm taking ownership here and I'm turning the, my favorite song tables on you. your favorite love song.

John Benjamin Hickey: Why don't I say just came to my mind the, the [00:53:00] duet between Diana Ross and Lionel 

Richie. endless love,

~of that.~ 

Andy and I watch it and they're, they sing it at the Oscars together. And when Andy and I we go to Fire Island for a couple of days of the summer and usually get a little, you know, we party a little bit and we end up just watching YouTube videos of things that we love and we always watch Lionel and Diana.

So for right now, just off the top of my head, endless 

Andy Gott: I love,

it. Your favorite sad song?

John Benjamin Hickey: my favorite sad song. ~I, ~an Elton John song just came to my mind. I guess that's why they call it the

Blues. 

Andy Gott: I love that song so much.

John Benjamin Hickey: adore that song. 'cause it's so, when you're sad, it holds you, 

Andy Gott: I'd really love if you don't already know it, ~there's a song, ~there's a version he does of that live at Madison Square Garden about 25 years ago with Mary j Blige. He duets 

on 

John Benjamin Hickey: my god. 

Andy Gott: Mary j Blige. It's amazing. ~Yeah. Alright.~

John Benjamin Hickey: ~I didn't know that. I will. I will look for it. That's great.~ [00:54:00] 

You know I'm gonna be mad at you after this 'cause I'm gonna hang up and I'm gonna be like, no, that's my favorite session. But these are just, this is free association 

Andy Gott: It's free association and I've just got one more and it's a question that I heard you ask Sarah Paulson, and I love this question, your favorite song that you've ever seen performed live.

John Benjamin Hickey: Oh my God. Okay, well, I mean, you could take anything off of the Born to Run album that Bruce Springsteen, you know, Bruce Springsteen is just the greatest live performer I've ever seen. So I'm gonna say thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen. I saw him in the eighties. Tina Turner opened 

for him.~ ~

~So, and we can, yeah, and, and, and, and, ~ and so that, that is probably the greatest live song I, I've ever heard seen. But one of the greatest live performances I believe I've ever seen, and this is what came to mind is several years ago Stevie Wonder did a tour and he did songs in the Key of [00:55:00] Life cover to cover.

~And, ~and he just did the whole album. And it was like you were in his backyard with him. It was so funky and free ~and, and, ~and trading musicians back and forth. ~And him wa ~him changing instruments in the middle of the song ~and he ~waving to somebody, somebody coming to get him to go play something else. It was like a jam.

~And it, you know, it is the single greatest record maybe of all time next to Pet Sound. ~So that's my favorite live performance. My favorite song I've heard Sung Live ~is ~is Thunder

Andy Gott: ~Good work.~ Good work. Squeezing that in. 

This has been an absolute joy, like a sincere pleasure to spe, to speak to someone who has lived a life full of this passion for music has been fantastic. So thank you very much for your

John Benjamin Hickey: ~I, ~I gotta tell you, ~I, ~I'm gonna, ~I am going to ~have, ~you know, ~esprit scalier after this of like, oh, I should have said this. I should have said that. But I'm also probably gonna be slightly embarrassed by just how passionate you've made me. This is such a great idea for a show, Andy, and such a great interview or so~ or ~I now leave it in your surgical hands to cut this thing together where it makes some sense for your listeners.[00:56:00] 

Andy Gott: can't wait. John Benjamin Hickey, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.

John Benjamin Hickey: you so much, Andy.

Andy Gott: You can follow John online at at j Ben Hickey. ~I'll be back in a month or two with more episodes, but in the meantime, please check out my, ~I'll be back in a month or two with more episodes.~ I'll be back in a month or two with more episodes.~ But in the meantime, please check out my Spotify playlist, including my favorite songs from different episodes linked in this episode.

Show notes. ~You can email me gay ramblings at any time at TR of our oh. ~You can email me gay ramblings at any time at tr of our quiz@gmail.com. See you next time.