AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Imagine Los Angeles in the late '70s. in a smoke-filled room, old friends plug in some amps and turn up the volume.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF BRIDGES SONG, "THIS IS THE ONE")
JEFF BRIDGES: Every Wednesday night, we'd go over there, and we would jam.
CHANG: That is Jeff Bridges. Back then, he was in his late 20s. He was already a movie star with a couple Oscar nominations, but he was always playing music, including at those weekly jam sessions with old high school friends.
BRIDGES: There were rules to the jam, the main one being that no songs were allowed. Even songs that we were writing weren't allowed. It was just a free-form jam, playing instruments that you don't know how to play - a saxophone, just hanging from the rafters by a piano string - and anybody could go just, (vocalizing), you know, wail on it.
CHANG: Eventually, the crew did work on some proper songs - songs that Bridges had been writing - and they got them down on tape.
BRIDGES: We got a little space and, you know, got a funky - one of those TEAC four-track tape recorders, and we went to town.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OBNOXIOUS")
BRIDGES: (Singing) Oh, I was sitting around being obnoxious, I was drinking a little too much.
CHANG: Decades later, Bridges found a cassette tape of those recordings, and now he's releasing it as an album called "Slow Magic." When we chatted earlier this week, I asked him to take me back in time to those late-'70s jam sessions.
There is kind of, like, a haze to this music. Like, at one point, you're singing about Quaaludes. There's definitely a vibe - right? - to these jam sessions. So may I ask, what helped create that vibe?
BRIDGES: Oh, well, you know, this was the age of experimentation.
(LAUGHTER)
BRIDGES: You know...
CHANG: So to speak.
BRIDGES: LSD, Quaalude, cocaine, pot - all of the things. It was kind of an innocent time. We hadn't seen the dark side of those substances.
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: We learned about that, you know, years later, thank God.
CHANG: (Laughter).
BRIDGES: But...
CHANG: Good.
BRIDGES: ...It was a wild time. You know, two of the tunes on the album, "Kong" and "Here On This Island," talking about experimentation - Burgess Meredith...
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: ...Was included in both of those songs. And people, you know, my age probably remember Burgess from the old "Batman" series...
CHANG: Yeah, he's a legend.
BRIDGES: ...With Adam West. And prior to that, he was a big star on Broadway, you know, back in the '40s. So we did this song, "Kong." Burgess sang on that song, and then he said, say, I've got a poem. Do you guys want to back me on this poem? And he recited this poem, "Here On This Island."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE ON THIS ISLAND")
BURGESS MEREDITH: Here on this island, which we sought and found, the only problem we have on so finding is the awareness night and day that you've brought a fiddle.
CHANG: I understand that all of the music we hear on this album came from a single cassette tape. Can you tell me about that tape?
BRIDGES: Yeah, it was a cassette. On the cassette, it was marked - what? - '77 to '78. But I think some of those tunes go back earlier than that.
CHANG: And what did you think you were going to do with that tape? Like, why not release that music years ago? What was stopping you?
BRIDGES: Yeah, it's funny. Every once in a while, we'd say, yeah, let's make a band and take this further. But we were all into other stuff, and that fantasy never really materialized. It's funny. My parents loved showbiz, particularly acting, and they both encouraged all of their kids to go into acting. And when I was a teen, you know, who wants to do what their parents want them to do?
CHANG: (Laughter).
BRIDGES: And I said, I got music. Maybe...
CHANG: Oh.
BRIDGES: ...You think of music.
CHANG: Music made you different from your parents.
BRIDGES: Well, Dad - you know, Dad would say, now, Jeff, you're going to be called upon as an actor to do all of these things you're interested in.
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: So, you know, that's a great path, and I'm glad I followed his advice. But the seed of music has always been in me. And thank God, it blooms from time to time. You know, it's almost kind of a seasonal thing, you know, and it'll come out. It wants to be expressed.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF BRIDGES SONG, "ATTITUDE")
BRIDGES: There's a thing that I did when I was sick and had some downtime. I...
CHANG: Right. You battled cancer for...
BRIDGES: Yeah, cancer and COVID at the same time.
CHANG: And COVID while you were....
BRIDGES: Oh.
CHANG: Yes, you were being treated for cancer.
BRIDGES: The COVID made the cancer...
CHANG: Yes.
BRIDGES: ...Look like nothing. But, you know, I'm 75. To think - I don't know if I've got the energy to get a band together...
CHANG: (Laughter).
BRIDGES: ...To rehearse all the songs, go into a studio, record. I said, I'm just going to go into my music mine, M-I-N-E, and see if there are any tunes in there just to put out, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ATTITUDE")
BRIDGES: (Singing) Now, you can pass it on, or you can expose the plan, or you could smile and nod.
CHANG: When you listen back to this music and hear yourself from almost half a century ago, what do you hear? Like, what are you noticing about yourself back then?
BRIDGES: You know, I don't feel I've changed much since I was a little kid, you know? I'm basically the same guy just doing the same thing. The big plus for me was it was wonderful getting the music out and having people listen.
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: But it also brought together all these old friends, you know, that we hadn't seen each other like you said, in a...
CHANG: Awesome (ph).
BRIDGES: ...Some of them in a half a century.
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: And we got to, you know, kind of rekindle these relationships. And that was wonderful.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF BRIDGES SONG, "YOU COULD BE READY")
CHANG: Well, you are now, like, most well-known as a performer on the screen, but playing music itself is also a performance, right? So I was wondering, is there something that's special about performing music that you can't tap into when you're performing for film or TV? What's different about performing music?
BRIDGES: Well, music, in my case - I'm writing these songs, you know, so the - I'm not writing the movies. You know, I - sometimes I will do improvisations in film, and that'll be, you know, captured.
CHANG: Sure.
BRIDGES: But when it gets down to it, all of my creative endeavors are coming from the same place. And it's just the task is basically getting out of the way and let the thing do you, you know...
CHANG: Yeah.
BRIDGES: ...Whether it's a part or - you know, you prepare, certainly. But then, at - you know, at the moment, you let it all go and, you know, you pray, please take me where you want me to go (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU COULD BE READY")
BRIDGES: (Singing) You could be ready, but oh, wait, then, it's waiting for your chance wherever it is (ph). Oh, did you really think you would stay down? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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