Was Norman Lears involvement with the new Fantasy company a major factor in returning to the label?
I would say yes, certainly initially. I have a very positive image, I think, of Norman. As most people who have ever seen a sound bite or a little bit of an interview, he just seems very at peace with the world. It just looks that way. It’s certainly a way I would love to feel about the universe. It’s almost like he knows something that the rest of us don’t know. But he’s not really in the day-to-day running of my involvement at Fantasy. He owns Concord Records, and Concord acquired Fantasy in a really neat irony of the old days. Back in the Bay Area in the early ’70s, Fantasy was the big independent guy, and Concord was an even smaller jazz label. Of course, Fantasy was a big label because they had Creedence Clearwater. But in a neat turn of events, Concord acquired Fantasy. The folks at Concord/Fantasy have turned out to be very delightful people. And that’s really the reason why I’m there. How difficult was it to condense your song catalog to just 25 songs for the new CD? Their scen
