I’d just like to start this very, very belated follow-up to my piece on Wonderboy’s Napoleon Blown Apart album with a profound and heartfelt apology to the man who sat still for an extremely long time and answered my every question: Robbie Rist. We had a great conversation about his entire career, and I felt like I couldn’t do it justice unless I split it into two parts. The problem, however, was that I kept setting aside the second part of the conversation and intending to transcribe it when I got a free moment. What I forgot was that I never have free moments…and as a testimony to this fact, I am typing this intro while my three-year-old daughter is leaning against my arm, asking, “When are you going to be done, Daddy? Because I want to show you the seashells I got at the beach today.” Clearly, I’m a terrible father.

Okay, wait, she says, “No, you’re not.” So let’s just say I’m a dedicated journalist.

Anyway, I hope everyone who enjoyed the first half of my conversation with Robbie returns to check out this second half, as we discuss various artists he’s worked with during his career in music, and we also finally get around to asking him about his acting…and, yes, that includes Cousin Oliver. So let’s get back to where we left off, having just chatted about Napoleon Blown Apart and starting to ask about some of his other work…

I wanted to run through a couple of other albums that you played on. I hope to do a column about the Barry Holdship Four’s The Jesse Garon Project, because I love that record.

Oh, right on! Yeah, I did some playing on that. He’s an awesome guy. (more…)