Interview With Donny Most

I was approached about the possibility of doing an interview with actor/director/singer Donny Most about his newest single, “(I Love The Way) My Baby Sings The Blues”. Are you kidding me with this? This is a man I grew up watching on TV religiously during his time as Ralph on 'Happy Days'. Do I want to do an interview with him? Um, yes please!

Now before I get into the interview, let’s talk about that new jump blues single. To put it simply, “(I Love The Way) My Baby Sings The Blues” is a blast. It kicks off with a captivating boogie-woogie piano that draws you in right away, and once the rest of the band comes in, with the rolling bass line and gleeful blues guitar, it doesn't let up. It brings to my mind the work of The Brian Setzer Orchestra and, strangely, Aerosmith's live "Big Ten Inch Record" or their underrated "Honkin' on Bobo" album.

Of course, the fear with any release from an artist more closely associated with television or film is that the release is a pure vanity project, and not a good one at that. Think Bruce Willis' "The Return of Bruno" album, or Kim Kardashian's disastrous "Jam (Turn It Up)". If "(I Love The Way) My Baby Sings The Blues" is a vanity project (and it's not - see below), well, it's a damn good one. Most has really good pipes, with a voice that suits the genre well, and he is clearly enjoying himself, elevating the tune above expectations. The new single, the second off of his upcoming album, is a slight departure from the big-band tracks on his infectious 2017 album "D Most Mostly Swinging," with Most upping his game with the song's rhythm and blues element.

So, why isn't this a vanity project? Besides the fact that it's actually, you know, decent, the interview with Most reveals just how deep his passion for the craft and the music lies. He confesses that swing is "his first love", and as he talks... Have you ever talked to someone who is doing what they feel called to do, that which they are most passionate about? It's rare, and if you ever see it you never forget the look. Their eyes light up, there's a smile that betrays their joy, there is a lilt in their speech. That's the look I saw upon Most's face as he talked about the music, its rich history, and his own history with it, all with a smile that instantly brought me back to seeing that same youthful, slightly mischievous grin on 'Happy Days'.

As for the man himself, Donny could not have been any kinder and more patient. I don't know if he was aware that this was my very first celebrity interview, but it didn't matter. I felt just as important to him during our time as any polished, Rolling Stone-esque interviewer, and that alone has made me a fan of what Most is doing today. Enough preamble, though. Here is our interview in its entirety.

LF: Hey howdy hey, Llamas. It’s Lloyd here, and it is my absolute honor to introduce my new friend – we’ll see if that is still the case after this – famed actor, director, and singer, Don Most. We’re talking about his new single, "(I Love the Way) My Baby Sings the Blues". Why did you choose to cover this particular song?

DM: When I was listening to a lot of the songs that I’ve always loved and some new ones I’ve been exposed to, I came across this, because I listen to jazz and blues, and there’s a group called Roomful of Blues that I like, and there’s a recording they did with Big Joe Turner, one of the legendary blues singers. I loved the recording, and it’s one of the ones I sent to my producer Tony Mantor in Nashville. You know, I send him a lot of songs and then if we both really like something that would help us decide. And this one made that cut, and I’m so glad that we did it because it is different than any of the ones I’ve previously done on the big band jazz, and it has a whole different kind of feel. It’s like jump blues, which came from swing, it was a variation of swing, so it still has those roots.

LF: I was going to say that the new single sounds a little different from the 2017 album, it has that Brian Setzer Orchestra feel to it. So, why now? Why release the song now?

DM: Well we did a whole album, Tony decided he wanted to go a little old school in releasing a single first. We got some good radio play on it, it was called, I did a cover of “Smoke From a Distant Fire”. That was the first single. Then we decided to release "(I Love The Way) My Baby Sings The Blues" as the second, and then we’ll release the full CD and the third single, which I’m really excited about, and that will probably be towards the end of the summer. So he kind of thought that was a good strategy, to build it.

LF: Yes, and your voice is absolutely perfect for the genre too, it’s amazing. That difference between the 1976 album and today is night and day.

DM: Night and day, that’s perfect. It’s the stuff that I grew up listening to, I was always passionate about and what I always wanted to record. I was doing this first, really first before I got into acting, in a serious way. I did it when I was young, when I was fifteen I was singing in a nightclub act in the Catskill Mountains. I call it my first love. Then I put it aside for a while, when I started going to an acting workshop in New York when I was about 16. But I always knew I’d want to come back to this music at some point. They didn’t want me to record that kind of music in 76. And now, ironically, that kind of music came back into favor again, the standards and swing. Blues has never really gone out, but I’m just happy I decided eight years ago I’m going to do this again. In retrospect, I wish I’d done it sooner, cause I’d have more… the clock is running, and I’d have more good years with the voice still being there. Thank God it’s still here, and hopefully I can still go another 10, 15 years. Who knows, we’ll see.

LF: Why not? Yah, I tell myself I’m not a swing, a jazz guy, but then I listen to it and I think, “Wait a second, yes I am.” I love it, right? It’s always upbeat, it’s always going there.

DM: When people are exposed to it in the right way you can’t help but be affected by it. It’s so infectious and joyous, and it just grabs you. I love it when I’ve done some live shows, and there’d be some young people in the audience, maybe their parents took them or something. And then afterwards they are like so excited because they’ve never really been exposed to it like that, and they say, “hey, I love this”. So I love converting some of the young people over to it.

LF: Well that’s fantastic. Now speaking of your 1976 album.

DM: (laughs)

LF: What did you learn from that experience that you carried forward to the 2017 album, to this single?

DM: Well, we’ll go back to 1976 and I was right in the middle of 'Happy Days', and it was because of that I had the opportunity to record an album through some producer I met, and it was on a big label, United Artists, but they wouldn’t let me sing… I told them the kind of music I really felt was in my wheelhouse, which were the standards, the jazz standards. That’s what I grew up listening to. Although then I later on I became a huge fan when I was in high school, and college, of classic rock, so there was more than just the standards. But at that time, I wanted to sing it, and the label they didn’t want me to do that because that kind of music in the 70s was almost looked upon as passe, or my parent’s music, so they wanted me to do more rock/pop kind of stuff. And we found some good songs, and it was a great experience. It was not what I would have picked, but I learned a lot getting in the… it was the first time in a recording studio, and it was a great, like I said, learning experience. And there were some good things on there. There’s some things that I think hold up pretty good. Some of it feels dated, the style and arrangements and all that, but it was definitely a stepping stone.

LF: Perfect. And the family’s been supportive of the journey all along?

DM: Oh yes. My wife has been incredibly supportive and my biggest supporter and fan. I don’t know if I could have done this without her.

LF: Wonderful. Now what has your experience been with touring? How has that been for you?

DM: Well, you know, it was… I love doing it. We didn’t really have like any official, organized, full-length kind of tour. It was more sort of ad-hoc, you know things coming up, my agent saying we have an offer to do this, what about this one, so it was kind of more, like I said, more organic and spontaneous as opposed to a whole organized thing. But I love performing in front of live audiences and getting great musicians wherever, whatever city it might be. I’m hoping to do more. You know, during COVID it really took a, we had to take a back seat and sort of… there were very few live performances for a good period of time going on. So now I’m hoping after this move that I’ve done, because I haven’t been able to do much for the last couple of months. So I’m looking forward to getting out there again. I hope they call with all kinds of interesting places for me to go sing.

LF: Well if you’re ever up Canada way, you know, drop in Calgary and I’ll be there.

DM: (laugh) All right. Calgary, I was there a long time ago. I was doing the Broadway tour of the show 'Grease' and we spent a week in Calgary doing the show.

LF: Right, so stage work. You’ve got a very varied career, right, so like actor, director, stage. I personally would argue that it’s probably the most varied out of the rest of the 'Happy Days' cast.

DM: Hm. Well possibly, although you look at Ron and what he’s done with directing, but he doesn’t have the stage experience. Henry does have a lot of stage experience, and he’s directed, okay, but he doesn’t sing, so I might have him (laugh).

LF: You’re the only true talent, really. What’s that Ron Howard guy, what’s he done lately?

DM: Yah, I know. Whatever happened to that guy, I don’t know.

LF: You’ve done voiceover work, a number of appearances on shows, one-off appearances, three episode run on 'Glee', and you’ve directed, by my count there was four projects you’ve directed.

DM: Oh really? I wonder what the fourth one is. I know of three…

LF: We-e-e-ll, let me tell you my friend. 'The Last Best Sunday', your first one in 1999, 'Moola', 2007 – that won an award at the Newport Beach Film Festival, 'Harley’s Hill' in 2011, and then an episode of 'Viral Vignettes', “Scrambled”

DM: Oh right, 'Viral Vignettes', right, right. Yes, I actually directed “Scrambled”. Which is now running, people can see the full length. What they did was a whole bunch of vignettes. I acted in three of them and I directed two, actually – “Scrambled” and “Care Package”. But then what happened was the producer put all 11 vignettes together and did some other transitional work, and now its like a film, a full-length feature, and people can see it on Tubi, and I highly recommend it. Great cast, you’re going to recognize a lot of the people. There’s Barry Bostwick, and Renée Taylor, and some besides myself. Gail O'Grady I did one with, Linda Purl, and Susan Ruttan. A lot of great people, it’s a lot of fun. We did it during the pandemic, and it was shot in a way that was very novel. Everyone was on their own computer, and somehow there’s great scripts, great writing, with great performances so people should definitely check it out on Tubi, 'Viral Vignettes'. You were right!

LF: And that was a nominee for Best Comedy Short Film at the Crown Point International Film Festival, so that’s like 50% of your directing work has been recognized by your peers. Do you plan on doing more directing?

DM: Yah, I would love to, I have a bunch of projects that I’m very passionate about, and different people are trying to help get them going, different producers. It’s never easy to get funding for films, so we’re going through things in a more independent way, you know, as opposed to studio. So there’s a lot of interest on two different films, maybe three, and hopefully I’ll be behind the camera again. I miss it, the last one, well 'Viral Vignettes' was more recent, but I can’t wait so hopefully very soon.

LF: Awesome. Now I would be remiss if we didn’t talk about 'Happy Days', so what is one of your fondest memories from off camera of the show?

DM: Wow, you know we had such a great relationship, all of us on the show, it was like a family. You hear that, and it sounds cliché, but it was very accurate in our regard. We did things away from the set, we got together for all kinds of occasions, even to the point where we had Garry Marshall, our leader, and executive producer form a 'Happy Days' softball team and we would go around the country and play in charity games at major league parks before the regular games.

LF: That is very cool.

DM: So I mean, those are some incredible memories. And also, the camaraderie we had, I remember so many great conversations between us in between filming, or before a show. You know I miss, those are the things, one of the things I miss most, that collaboration and those kind of off stage conversations.

LF: Do you still talk to them once in a while?

DM: Oh yah. Anson and I talk all the time, Anson Williams, played Potsie. He just got married, I was his best man – this was about three weeks ago, four weeks ago. We’re like best friends, we still see each other and talk all the time. I stay in touch with Ron, more through e-mail and then I’ll see him once a year because he’s a busy guy, and he’s all over the world, but we stay in touch through e-mail and Messages, the same thing with Henry. So, I’m kind of sad because I just moved and I’m not in California anymore, so it will be tougher to see people but I’m hoping I’ll be in LA periodically and get the chance. And I stay in touch with Marion Ross as well. Marion’s great, she’s doing great.

LF: That’s fantastic. You talked about Anson, Potsie. According to my research there was talk of a spin-off that would have involved both you and Anson. Did that actually go anywhere, were you approached about it?

DM: Oh ya, it came so close to becoming reality. We shot an episode of 'Happy Days' where Potsie and Ralph got an apartment together, and it became like an 'Odd Couple', where we’re just not getting along. It was a funny episode, and that’s what inspired them, the network and the studio to think “this could be a great spinoff”. So they used it sort of as a pilot and we were in stages of casting some of the other characters, they even went as far as to have a theme song, I was there when they were recording a theme song at the sound stage. And then last minute, I don’t know what happened, they decided not to go forward with it. But you know at the time I had mixed feelings about doing the spinoff. I’d been playing Ralph at that point for probably about 4 or 5 years, something like that, and I was already getting, it was very easy to get stereotyped or typecast. Back then when there’s only three networks and 50 million people watching you, so I knew that I was going to be up against that, because the character I played wasn’t even very much like who I was in life, but that’s the joy of acting to me, to play different characters. But yet that’s who people were thinking “that’s who you are”, but that’s not who I was, I’m one actor. It was becoming frustrating; I could see sort of where it was going. So the idea of now doing another series where I was playing the same character just reinforced it even more. I had mixed feelings, I ultimately agreed to do it, but then when we found out that it was not going to go I wasn’t too upset, I was almost relieved. It was a strange time trying to figure out how to navigate that.

LF: I was going to say the weight of that role had you pigeon-holed for a while, I’m sure. How did you come to terms with that?

DM: Just kept persevering and knocking on it. Doing theatre, and sometimes doing theatre there’s a little bit more of an open mind, I think, to what actors can do and they might not play it quite as safe. And then I started proving myself in all kinds of roles in theater, and then I’d start to get one role that was different on television, and maybe not vastly different, but that would lead up to a different kind of role. Then I did 'Star Trek: Voyager' where I played the villain, and then I played a show called 'The Crow' and I played a psychiatrist. And then slowly people start seeing oh, he’s not that guy, and then it would just lead to some nice independent films. I played a retired semi-alcoholic baseball player alienated from his son, and then in this last 5 years it’s gotten much better than it’s been. I think because I’ve finally got to an age where I’m past where people aren’t thinking that, and they’ve seen me in other things, and I fit different kinds of roles now. So I was playing everything from a local pastor to a polygamist. I went from a local pastor to a polygamist, to a prison guard, then to a career criminal, then to a king. Those were 5 films in a row, which I love. And then I did a western, which is the most recent one which will be coming out this year, a film called 'Far Haven'. So I love that, I love the diversity and I keep getting to play all kinds of roles.

LF: That’s very cool. So what’s next? You’re moving, you’ve got another single coming out, what’s next for you?

DM: Beyond the single, and then hopefully lining up a lot more singing, live appearance gigs, I’m waiting to hear about, I know I’m doing a film in September in Michigan with this company that I love, I’ve done two films with them, I did 'Lost Heart' and 'Man’s Best Friend'. They’re called CDI, Collective Development Incorporated. They’re a great production group, and I’m really looking forward to this. It’s based on a true story, in the 1920s about a Jewish mob, and I play the head of the Jewish mob. So that will be really fun, so that’s coming up. There’s a couple of other projects that are sounding good, and I’m just waiting to hear if they, they’re still trying to get all their ducks in a row, so we’ll see.

LF: Well, you know I can’t really express enough about how cool this has been just talking to you, and really appreciate your patience and time.

DM: My pleasure. Thank you Lloyd.

That's it, friends. I encourage you to check out "(I Love The Way) My Baby Sings The Blues" available from the following links:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktajgouGh_0

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/18C1EiuV9ksqjTf8DXSqIq

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/i-love-the-way-my-baby-sings-the-blues-single/1684311306

Many thanks to Donny Most, Don McLean (different Don McLean - no Chevys at levees here), and my Llamas. Happy trails!