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‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ so that was required! And we put in three originals

worked up just for this album.

What is significant is that each of the people
who worked on this album is a resident of
Memphis and it was recorded, mixed, mastered,
and manufactured in Memphis, which was
important to me in putting the album together
because I wanted to be able to say that the
album is, as we say, Memphis as F&#k!

LL: Since you’ve mentioned your 2017
acoustic blues release of Beatles covers titled
“You Can’t Do That!”, tell us about it please.
Did the title tune become a play on words?
Did you feel that a blues approach to the
Beatles catalogue was a no-no?!!

MK: I did the album after meeting Julia Baird,

John Lennon’s sister, at the Rum Boogie café
when I was playing there. Before I found out
who she was I learned that she was from
Liverpool so when I got back on stage, I had the band play a slow blues and I sang the lyrics to ‘You
Can’t Do That’, then did the same with another Beatles song. She loved them and told me who she
was—and we became friends. I toyed with the idea of doing more until while at the BMA my friend
Mark Telesca borrowed my guitar and played a wonderful bluesy version of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’—
and we started swapping ideas. After working through phone and internet to get things together
Mark came to Memphis, and we cut the album.

As a fan it was obvious to me that blues influenced the Beatles—in fact Ringo once said that his
dream had been to play for Lightning Hopkins, and their catalogue includes many songs that are
heavily blues influenced. For the most part, in our song selection we stayed away from those, such
as ‘Come Together’, ‘For You Blue’ and the like, and opted for those that were less obvious (the
exception being ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’, which was too much fun to pass up).

We were careful to be respectful to the music and I believe we did a good job. My favourite is our
version of ‘Lady Madonna’, which we slowed down considerably—it is a classic blues story of a

single mother with no money—that’s blues through and through! That album was fully acoustic, but
I’m about to re-record ‘Lady Madonna’ with a band using electric instruments, because it is so
powerful when done that way.

I never doubted the value of the approach, but we actually had a couple DJs refuse to play the
album.

LL: In addition to your career as a musician, you are a Founding Partner at Medical Marketing
Economics, a consultancy that focuses on value-based marketing of pharmaceuticals. You are a
leading expert on pharmaceutical pricing and value-based strategies, and the author of a book
called “The Strategic Pricing of Pharmaceuticals”. I’m guessing that you must be privy to all

the most current COVID-19 vaccination information. What if anything would you like to convey
to folks about these vaccines?