Bassist\/sonic scientist Don Was, whose new band, Don Was & the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, headlines Gates Concert Hall on January 29, isn\u2019t a household name when it comes to the general public. But his connections to some of the biggest names in entertainment make him a stealth superstar.<\/p>\n
Was (born Don Fagenson in the Motor City circa 1952) first came to the attention of brainy music scenesters nationwide by way of Was Not Was<\/a>, a duo with David Weiss, rechristened David Was, that fused clever lyrics to R&B, pop and pretty much every other sonic style that struck their fancy. The combo earned more respect than bankable assets during its prime working years (1979-1992), but the esteem with which he was held launched Don into a production career that brought him into close contact with many of the era\u2019s most popular and\/or esteemed performers. The acts for which he oversaw or otherwise contributed to major recordings include the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Iggy Pop, Bob Seger, Leonard Cohen, Ringo Starr, Garth Brooks and enough additional A-listers to make a publicist faint.<\/p>\n The resultant relationships were built to last. In the broadcast for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>\u2018s latest induction ceremony, Was can be seen<\/a> backing up Elton John during a tribute to the late Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson. And yes, he previously worked with both of them.<\/p>\n As if these accomplishments weren\u2019t enough, Was is also a powerful and influential label executive. In 2011, he was named president of Blue Note Records<\/a>, inarguably the most famous jazz imprint still standing, and in his decade-and-a-half or so of leadership, he\u2019s championed the likes of the brilliant Robert Glasper<\/a> while helping the company survive and thrive in an economic environment that could hardly be more difficult to navigate.<\/p>\n To put it mildly, guiding Blue Note is a full-time job \u2014 yet Was continues to play live in a number of formats. In addition to shows with the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, whose work is documented on Groove in the Face of Adversity<\/a><\/em>, a highly enjoyable Mack Avenue release that arrived last September, he was part of the Wolf Bros<\/a>, a touring outfit fronted by the Grateful Dead\u2019s Bob Weir. <\/p>\n Westword<\/em> spoke to Was prior to Weir\u2019s death on January 10<\/a>, but the man he refers to as Bobby was very much a presence in the conversation. Was speaks at length about the impact working with Weir had upon him \u2014 a fact underscored by the Pan-Detroit Ensemble\u2019s decision to cover the Dead\u2019s 1975 album Blues for Allah<\/a><\/em> as part of its current set.<\/p>\n These stories are only some of the fascinating anecdotes Was shares. He also references seminal moments with Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett to illustrate a creative philosophy that\u2019s proven its value for nearly a half-century, with no end in sight.<\/p>\n Photo by Tristan Williams<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Westword<\/strong>:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been trying to think of other figures who\u2019ve had the kind of music career you\u2019ve had \u2014 a major recording artist becomes a hugely successful producer and then a label executive. And the closest comparisons I came up with are Smokey Robinson and Jay-Z.<\/em><\/p>\n Don Was:<\/strong> That\u2019s heady company, man.<\/p>\n When you were starting out on your particular journey, could you ever have imagined where you\u2019d end up, and the kind of stops you\u2019d make along the way?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ll be honest with you, man. I believe in visualization. I had to imagine the life I wanted in order to get there. But I didn\u2019t see any of this coming. It\u2019s beyond my wildest dreams, the kind of life I\u2019ve been able to lead.<\/p>\n Was there a key to the way it happened?<\/em><\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of good fortune involved. But I will say that it all feels like one big thing. It\u2019s all kind of connected \u2014 and the common thread is the desire to make music that gets under people\u2019s skin, makes them feel something, understand something in their own lives, makes them make sense of chaotic and confusing times like these, and at the very least distracts them from their woes for three-and-a-half minutes. Regardless of whatever capacity I\u2019m in \u2014 whether I\u2019m playing bass or signing an artist at Blue Note \u2014 the methodology for getting there is the same. I don\u2019t see them as separate adventures. They\u2019re just different chapters in the quest to make meaningful music.<\/p>\n I own a vinyl jukebox, and whenever I\u2019m crate-digging for 45s and come across a Was Not Was single, I always pick it up \u2014 and while a lot of the music from the era when you were active feels dated, that\u2019s not really the case with yours. It holds up remarkably well. Do you have a sense of why that might be?<\/em><\/p>\n I wish I could tell you that was by design, but I don\u2019t know if I can (laughs). We just tried to make the best records we could make. We did try to make competitive records, and I think we sort of failed in a good way. I haven\u2019t been in the Top 40 since 1989 [Was Not Was\u2019s \u201cWalk the Dinosaur<\/a>\u201d hit number 7]. That\u2019s the last time I was really interested in that. If you don\u2019t have that in your heart, people can tell, and you generally shouldn\u2019t make pop records. We tried and got it wrong and landed on something else. I think it holds up well because we couldn\u2019t be fashionable if we wanted to. I think in general you do better if you tell a good story rather than try to make the story you\u2019re telling be trendy or fashionable. That usually doesn\u2019t work. There are people who I know who have a real knack for coming up with catchy pop singles, and I\u2019ve envied them at times. But I just don\u2019t know how to do it.<\/p>\n One of the 45s I found is \u201cAnything Can Happen,\u201d which has an R&B version on one side and a pop version on the other. They sound like entirely different songs, but somehow, they\u2019re both great. To pull off something like that, you have to have deep knowledge and love for both genres. Were you trying to demonstrate that with the single? Or was something else going on?<\/em><\/p>\n I wish I could claim a master plan, but we just kind of stumbled from episode to episode. As a recall, they needed a different version of it for a movie: [1989\u2019s] See No Evil, Hear No Evil<\/em><\/a>, with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. They were actually in our video for that<\/a>, which is how I got to meet them. I think we did the other version for the movie. We weren\u2019t toying with anyone\u2019s expectations. We were just trying to make a song that fit the action on the screen. That\u2019s one thing I learned about music and films; you have to make the music fit.<\/p>\n I produced \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend in Me\u201d<\/a> for Toy Story<\/a><\/em> with Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett. Now remember, Toy Story<\/em> was the first Pixar film, and no one knew what Pixar was at the time we were making the music. [Former Pixar chief creative officer] John Lassiter was at the session, and we cut a version that was slow but really loaded with feeling. I said, \u201cThat\u2019s the one. It\u2019s fantastic.\u201d And John, who was very sweet, came up to the board and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but this is coming after a car chase. It\u2019ll seem twice as slow as it does. It\u2019s not going to fit.\u201d<\/p>\n I was indignant. I said, \u201cCan\u2019t you hear the pathos in Randy\u2019s voice?\u201d But when the animation was ready a year later, I realized he was 100 percent right. We had to go back in and speed it up. That was a good lesson. If you\u2019re doing music for film, you have to trust the director and serve the director\u2019s vision. If you\u2019re composing a song or doing a song for a movie, you\u2019re not the artist anymore. The director is the artist and you have to serve their vision. I think that\u2019s what we were doing with \u201cAnything Can Happen.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ve produced an incredibly wide range of artists. Do you have a common approach for all of them? Or do you try to serve their vision in the same way you need to serve the vision of a movie director?<\/em><\/p>\n You tailor your work for every artist and maybe every song. Look, there are all kinds of ways to produce records and any of them can be acceptable and accepted. There are auteur producers who are really the artists. They make the tracks and maybe even do a guide vocal \u2014 and you can make really good records that way. Daniel Lanois<\/a> is an example of that \u2014 a great auteur producer. But that\u2019s never been my strength, or maybe my desire. What\u2019s intriguing to me is sitting down with a really great artist who has a vision and helping them realize that vision \u2014 getting inside their heads and helping them get the thing they\u2019re looking for. That\u2019s going to be different for every artist you\u2019re working for. If you go in with an open mind and try not to force them into something that they\u2019re not into, you\u2019re going to make a better record.<\/p>\n At Blue Note, does that mean putting commercial considerations lower down on the list of priorities?<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s a good start, a reasonable business plan. You can try to second guess anything you want, but if you want to make records that make people feel something, that just don\u2019t leave them cold, that\u2019s not just ephemera \u2014 if you make those, not every record will be a hit record, but it\u2019s a good business plan. You\u2019ll have a successful record if you retain artistic quality. And the way to do that is to sign artists you trust and believe in and enable them to rise to their potential. I think a big mistake that record companies make is signing an artist that they love, that they\u2019re attracted to, and as soon as they have them under contract, they try to make them conform to the fashion of the moment. That\u2019s always a terrible move, because by the time the record comes out, something else is fashionable, so you\u2019re always a step behind and you\u2019re not really nurturing a unique vision.<\/p>\n Taking over a label like Blue Note presents a lot of challenges. It\u2019s got an incredibly rich history that\u2019s important to honor, but at the same time, being afraid to make any changes can turn into an artistic straitjacket. How do you balance that in your role?<\/em><\/p>\n Honest to God\u2019s truth, it\u2019s a work in progress. We\u2019re always trying to figure that out: How far can you stretch the bounds of the Blue Note ethos before you dilute it into nothingness. We try to be careful. We\u2019re pretty conservative, I think. We\u2019ve tried some stuff, and some of it\u2019s worked and some of it didn\u2019t work. But overall, I believe we\u2019ve respected the legacy and the feel of the company. Ethos is the word I keep coming back to. I\u2019m really cognizant of what the founders of the company had in mind, and they left us a manifesto<\/a>. We\u2019ve pretty much dedicated the company to the pursuit of authentic feeling and granting that to the artist. That\u2019s right there in the manifesto they wrote in 1939. We think about that all the time.<\/p>\n I think one of the other hallmarks of Blue Note Records is that my predecessors always signed artists who had mastered the fundamentals of the music that came before them, but subsequently used that knowledge to create something brand new and pushed the boundaries of music. That was Monk in the \u201940s, Horace Silver and Art Blakey in the \u201950s \u2014 and that goes to Robert Glasper in 2011 and 2012. I think we\u2019re always trying to respect that. I wonder about this: Does our A&R strategy look like a series of random events? Because they\u2019re not. We do think about everything we release and how it fits into the legacy of the company.<\/p>\n In regard to your new album, it\u2019s the first you\u2019ve released under your own name. Why did that feel right in this case?<\/em><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a conscious thing, where I went, \u201cLet\u2019s make an album and start a band.\u201d Terence Blanchard<\/a>, an old buddy of mine, was curating a series of concerts with a Detroit theme to it, and he asked if I wanted to do one of the nights. I said I\u2019d be honored. This was about two years before the gig; that\u2019s how far in advance symphony orchestras plan. So I got to six months away from it and I thought, \u201cFuck, I don\u2019t have a band, and I don\u2019t have any songs.\u201d But I remembered something I\u2019ve often preached to other artists.<\/p>\n In the early \u201990s, I got to work with all my heroes in a short period of time: Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and Leonard Cohen and Brian Wilson. I got to watch really great writers close up, and it gave me writer\u2019s block for about five years. Every time I\u2019d sit down at a piano, I\u2019d think, \u201cWhat\u2019s the fucking point of this? Brian Wilson lives about a mile away. Why don\u2019t I just give him the lyric and let him write it?\u201d Then, one day, I was in the studio with Willie Nelson, feeling like shit and thinking I could never be Willie Nelson, when the inverse of the situation occurred to me \u2014 which was, Willie Nelson can\u2019t be you. He didn\u2019t grow up listening to the MC5 and Parliament playing a sock hop at his high school. That\u2019s your superpower: Be the best version of you. That\u2019s really the only prayer you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n So I thought, \u201cWell, if I\u2019m going to put a band together to play this concert, don\u2019t try to be Wayne Shorter or Robert Glasper. Just be you.\u201d That\u2019s when I called the other musicians I knew from Detroit, a couple of whom I\u2019ve played with for 45 years. I could tell in the first ten minutes that we all spoke the same language, because these were people who grew up listening to the same radio stations, playing in the same bars, playing with the same musicians. And the minute we started playing, it felt like we\u2019d been in a band together for at least ten years. I\u2019ve learned enough to know that if you get a group of people like that in one room, don\u2019t let it slip away. We booked a tour, and we\u2019ve now done four or five tours. We\u2019ve even played Japan. And the album was a byproduct of doing that. We thought, \u201cLet\u2019s get some of this down.\u201d There was no master plan beyond just don\u2019t embarrass ourselves with this with Terence, and everything else just sort of happened.<\/p>\n Did you have a sound in mind when you first put the group together? Or did one develop organically?<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s very specifically the sound of these nine people playing together. If any one of us can\u2019t be at a show, we don\u2019t call a sub. We just don\u2019t do the show. It\u2019s very much the sound of these people playing. Another thing that I\u2019ve learned, and it\u2019s a work in progress too \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of refinement left to do \u2014 is that I try not to be self-conscious. I think self-consciousness is the enemy of the people, and certainly the enemy of musicians. Just be yourself when you play, the same way you hopefully are in life. I think it\u2019s easier to bluff in life. You learn certain social graces you can fall back on. If you and me and Charles Manson could have gone to lunch together, it might have been ten minutes before we thought, \u201cSomething\u2019s wrong with this cat.\u201d But you can\u2019t do that in music. You play who you are, and when you play with other people doing the same thing, you get to know them really well. If you play with them for ten minutes, you know a lot about their character and their personalities. You can\u2019t fake it in music.<\/p>\n The idea is to be unself-consciously ourselves. There\u2019s nothing fashionable that sounds anything like our band. I\u2019m aware of that and I\u2019m okay with that. We\u2019re just being who we are \u2014 these nine people from Detroit who play with a certain feel, because there\u2019s a sound in Detroit. And because of that, it really doesn\u2019t matter what kind of songs we play.<\/p>\n On this tour, in the middle of our set, we play Blues for Allah<\/em> in its entirety. I thought a lot of the songs were unplayable, but that was sort of the allure of it. There was this random event: Some hardcore Deadheads were doing a festival of Dead music in Buford, Georgia, and they wanted us to play \u2014 but they wanted us to play Blues for Allah<\/em>. I thought that was an interesting prospect. I didn\u2019t really know how to play \u201cKing Solomon\u2019s Marbles<\/a>,\u201d but when I got into it, I realized there was a real structure to that song. I\u2019d always assumed it was this crazy, random, freeform jazz improvisation, but it\u2019s not \u2014 and it was fun to learn the form, then figure it out. So now we know how the song goes \u2014 but how does this group of nine people play it? We don\u2019t play it doing Grateful Dead karaoke. We\u2019ve got our own version of it. Even the songs you know from the album, like \u201cFranklin\u2019s Tower<\/a>,\u201d still sound like us playing them. There\u2019s no mistaking it for the Dead.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you got to know Bob Weir really well in the Wolf Bros tours.<\/em><\/p>\n I got tuned into a deeper kind of relationship with the audience touring with Bobby, for sure. That\u2019s when you start playing and you let go and stop thinking and let the music carry you where it\u2019s going to take you. The audience picks up on that and can feel like you\u2019re all going on an adventure together. And when it lands on something that starts to take off, you can feel the audiences respond. You get this cyclical exchange going that can blow the roof off a theater. I don\u2019t know anything that\u2019s more exhilarating than that feeling. I\u2019ve kind of become addicted to it. I\u2019m 73, and if you say to me, \u201cYou\u2019ve got limited time: How do you want to spend it?,\u201d that\u2019s how I want to spend it. I like being on a bus. I like being in a band. I like being onstage, locking in with an audience and having a brand new adventure every single night.<\/p>\n Can it be hard to get into that headspace? Or did it used to be?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m getting better at it. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve been working on for years \u2014 to go into something with so little self-consciousness that you just let it happen. When I can feel the music coming through me, I don\u2019t think of the notes. They come from somewhere else and you catch them. When I feel my hands moving on their own, that\u2019s when I know we\u2019re going someplace good. You try to get there every night, and if you want to know the truth, I do get there every night, but it moves around during the ninety minutes of a show. If you meditate, you know that you get off the mantra and pull yourself back and learn to catch it. But I\u2019ve yet to have twenty minutes where I\u2019ve been there the whole time. I started meditating when I got the gig at Blue Note almost fifteen years ago, and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve been focused for the whole twenty minutes.<\/p>\n When I took the gig with Weir, I was thrilled \u2014 but my goal was to learn something about being fearless and open and unselfconscious. I thought, if I can play with Bobby, who\u2019s spent a lifetime going out in front of a stadium full of people and improvising a show, if I can learn that kind of fearlessness, I think I can apply it to other parts of my life, too. You\u2019re always working on it and trying to get better. It\u2019s a practice, but I learned a lot about it in all the time I spent with Bobby.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.westword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/don.was_.with_.bass_.cropped.jpg?w=1024\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.westword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/don.was_.and_.band_.color_.cropped.jpg?w=1024\")