Gary Burden: Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive

Gary Burden - November 12, 2012 Inventing David Geffen |  PBS | American Masters

As noted recently, a rather significant announcement, PBS American Masters Archive Releases 1,000+ Hours of Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interviews: Patti Smith, David Bowie, Neil Young & More. 

 

 

 

In December 2012, PBS | American Masters broadcast the documentary film "Inventing David Geffen. American Masters: Inventing David Geffen is "an unflinching portrait of Geffen, who narrates his unorthodox rise from working class Brooklyn boy to billionaire entertainment power broker in extensive interviews." 

Interviewees include Neil Young, Elliot Roberts, David Crosby, Henry Diltz, Gary Burden and many others.

David Geffen, Elliot Roberts, & Neil Young
Frame from  'Inventing David Geffen': American Masters

(See So What Makes Neil Young's Muse Tick?) 

 

Gary Burden, music album designer, was a long time collaborator and "friend for life" of Neil Young.  (See more on Gary Burden: 1933 - 2018.)

 

Gary Burden --- who is best known for designing some of rock’s most iconic album covers, including Young’s On the Beach and Joni Mitchell’s Blue -- has known and worked closely with Young for decades. In 2010, Neil Young won his first Grammy Award for best art direction on a boxed or special limited edition package by Gary Burden and Jenice Heo for the boxed set “Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972).” 

 

"Best Art Direction on a Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"
Jenice Heo, Gary Burden and Neil Young
Grammy Award Pre-telecast Ceremony, Los Angeles, Jan 31, 2010


From the unaired interview with Gary Burden on working with Geffen and his clients, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: (Ed. note, unedited raw transcript)

 

Gary Burden: Yeah, he [Geffen] was very much like someone on the outside who really wanted to be in on the inside.  

And  there were there were incidences of a dark manifestation of the people who thought of him in a certain way, you know, but for the most part, it was like sort of good natured, you know, the photograph of David with the rose in his mouth and his shirt is all wet and he's all wet.  

That illustrates how he he wanted to hang out all the time, not all the time, but he wanted to hang out with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and one day and he would come and he would sort of maybe pontificate or he would he would be very opinionated. And sometimes that would rattle people or would piss them off. And one time he was on like a rant of some kind. And he was at Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young House where they were recording and they picked him up and threw him and just threw him in and nobody said a word.

They just tossed him in the pool and he made something out of it. In the end, he came out. He had put the rose in his mouth, you know, so it all worked out.

Interviewer:  But that was sort of the spirit that was pretty good natured, you know, doing that. And he had you know, he he would come down on people and things as well, you know? I mean. He was on a path and he would remove obstacles or smooth the road.

Gary Burden: He describes it that he wanted every single one of these artists that believed him to become a star.

Full  Gary Burden: Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

Also, see Neil Young's Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

 Neil Young - November 29, 2011

'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS | American Masters

 

Also, see Elliot Roberts Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

Elliot Roberts - July 22, 2009 'Inventing David Geffen' |  PBS | American Masters 

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