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PS: I am thrilled to meet you. I was blown away by the whole production, from beginning to end. From the second it began, I was up dancing in the aisles! I was so glad Stephen was able to talk you into making the documentary. I understand why you were reluctant at the beginning. Tell me more about your role – you are currently the executive director of the Northampton Arts Council. And you’ve held that position for how long?

BC: Well, less time then Young@Heart actually. 1989. I think it’s probably because of Young@Heart that I got that position, because it was a real phenomenon in our community pretty early on. And one of things that really made us connect with the community was that we used to do these great productions with other arts organizations. And I was kinda well-placed because I worked in the arts before I took this job. I got Young@Heart going and I was able to connect the group with a lot of different things. We did shows with break-dancers and with Cambodian performers, some with experimental theatre companies, a gay men’s chorus – a really popular show in our town called Flaming Saddles, but Northampton is the kind of community that really looks for that sort of stuff. Because I made all these connections and I wasn’t making much money doing it, they gave me the job as the head of the arts council to do more of that sort of thing. It was great! It’s been great!

PS: Obviously you travel with the group – how does that impact your other responsibilities?

BC: Well, I’ve taken a leave of absence for a month. It becomes tricky! We travel a lot and the arts council, our major thing is in February, which is good timing, because in January and February, the seniors sort of don’t want to deal with the weather. Some of them even go south. So I was nervous about this year’s February series because I had been in Ireland with them for two weeks in October and France for three weeks in December. And then I had to go to Sundance for a week with the film stuff in January and I was thinking – Oy! How am I going to put together something people want to see? But we had a great February – some really interesting stuff!

PS: When you travel with the group – who else travels with you?

BC: Diane’s the tour manager – have you met her? She travels with the group and is with them right now. And we bring other members of the entourage – people who help with stuff. They are pretty good at it – they’ve been doing it for so long now. They really look forward to traveling and handle it very well. Even the least hardy of them.

PS: So you went to my IPod and picked out all my favorite songs.

BC: (Hearty laugh) That can’t be true! Nobody can have all those songs on their IPod.

PS: I do I do! And more! Want some suggestions? I even loved learning the words to songs that I thought I already knew! You can hear the words more clearly when sung by Young@Heart.

BC: Everybody says that! That’s interesting. Just think about that. How you really listen to the lyrics with those guys….

PS: Except for Stan, who sometimes does his own thing.

BC: You may listen to the lyric, but you don’t necessarily get them, that’s the problem. It certainly commands your attention on some level.

PS: How do you make your musical selections?

BC: Well, different ways. Ya know, it could be just listening to songs on the radio, it can be friends, Diane is part of a more hipper, younger generation then me. I’m still stuck in the 60’s. I have my little Bar Mitzvah band called The Torrance Souls. We were horrible, but we played all this music, so I make them sings all this stuff that we tortured. But, you get it from everybody. I have kids sixteen and thirteen - I get stuff from them. It’s weird how music comes to us, it’s all not coming out of my brain – that’s for sure.

PS: I loved your selections – they were great. How about your gigs? Who selects where you go. For instance, the prison?

BC: Well, that was one of the ones that I wanted to do for awhile. It just seemed like a perfect time to do it with this film. It seemed interesting to me. I always wanted to do the prison because I thought of all these guys who are there, they’re maybe there for a long time! Fifteen to twenty. They go in young people and they come out old people and they missed most their life and they re probably thinking there’s nothing left – I’ve destroyed, ruined my life, nothing for them to look forward to and then they see these people who are really old, because the great thing about Young@Heart is they’re really old – there’s nothing young about Young@Heart and I think that inspires people to believe that there is something to look forward to. I can’t think that of a more important population to make that point across to, the prison population. So, I was always really looking forward to doing it and boy, it surpassed my expectations by about tenfold. That was the most amazing concert ever for the group. You get a touch of it and it’s done really well in the film, but boy, it was all of that and it was an hour of just watching these guys go from “What am I here for?” to just being drawn in. It was really an amazing thing.

PS: You can see it on their faces. He really captured that.

BC: Yeah. There’s nothing about that scene that’s the least bit contrived or dishonest. It’s my favorite scene in the movie maybe.

PS: When they sang Forever Young, I got goosebumps.

BC: Yeah, that was a big song for them. They had been doing it for awhile and they know how to sing that one.

PS: When they raised their arms, my tissues came out.

BC: Yes! Great! It’s so funny for me because I’ve seen it so many times, that I forget that some people are seeing it for the first time. It’s hard for me to remember what that’s like.

PS: So, David Byrne, I’m impressed! How did you contact him – how did that all come about?

BC: He contacted us. We never contact anybody! We just don’t do it. And David Byrne heard about us from somebody who came to see the show that was filmed for the movie. She was friends with the two people who we do theatre with. And she went back and she had been working with David Byrne and said, there are these people, and he had already heard about us, because of when we were in London. People had called and talked to him, so he had this idea that he wanted to do this thing about how New Yorkers ride their bicycles and he got the New Yorker to pay for it and he wanted us to sing Queen’s Bicycle Race, which when I first got it I said, ya know, all the time we do these songs that have lyrics that sort of mean something because these people are singing it. That’s just not what this song is about. And then I realized, that’s the only thing we can do and what this song was for them was this great opera. Some of these people come from light opera and they like to belt out a song and that doesn’t always work with rock and roll, but with Queen it works perfectly. So they had this perfect vehicle for them. They can really show their chops. It was great! And then he wrote a song recently that he wanted us to work on, so we sang it with him and then he showed up the next day at a gig that we were doing. He was just very nice and a really good way for us to sort of break into New York cause we’ve not done much of America at all. Then it was on our way to going to Ireland for 10 days so it worked out perfectly, because we have to go to New York anyway to fly out. It was all very convenient and also quiet exciting.

PS: It’s obvious the love and respect you have for them and it works both ways. As tough as you are on them, they occasionally called you a taskmaster, there might be other things they call you that I’m not aware of…….(behind your back)

BC: It’s so weird. It’s not that I’m tough, we’re making art – we’re not making social service. We’re not there to make people feel good, we’re there to make people work on something that will make other people feel like – Wow! I’ve been inspired by what you do, that’s a whole different process.

PS: Absolutely, it’s a discipline. And it should be.

BC: I never feel bad about getting upset about work that’s not going where it should be going because … I think that’s perfectly acceptable.

PS: There are times in the film, you made a point and they appreciated that. They are professionals, in a sense.

BC: The work they do is professional, they’re not professionals, but what’s great about them is that they’re really not professionals – that’s why it works on some levels. They’re real - more then they are anything else. But they do work on this in a professional way.

PS: Bob, that’s all the time we have. It was a pleasure meeting you.

BC: A pleasure meeting you too.

PS: Keep up the good work and good luck with the film!

BC: We’ll see you in Western Mass – come to a rehearsal or something.

PS: Maybe we’ll come to one of the Williams football games, perhaps the Williams versus Amherst game.

BC: My favorite game of the year!

PS: Mine too – because we almost always win! (Williams, I mean).

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