- Content pulled from conversations with: Pee Wee Murray, David Aiken, Brian Hulse, Robert Nelson, Henrik Bothe, Woodhead, Dave Rave, Fritz Brehm, Dave Altman, Linsey Lindberg.
- Original Recording Dates:
- Peewee Murray and David Aiken: August 28, 2012
- Brian Hulse with Robert Nelson: November 25, 2011
- David Aiken, Henrik Bothe and Woodhead with Robert Nelson: October 28, 2011
- Dave Rave and Fritz Brehm with Robert Nelson: November 1, 2011
- Dave Altman with Robert Nelson: December 2, 2011
- Linsey Lindberg conversations: February 16 & 17, 2012
- Date: Aired: April 1, 2013
- Locations:
- Robert Nelson: Butterfly Acres, Pahoa, Hi, USA
- Peewee Murray: Bristol, England
- David Aiken: Toronto, ON, Canada
- Brian Hulse: Ashiya, Japan
- David Aiken/Henrik Bothe/Woodhead: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Dave Rave and Fritz Brehm: Butterfly Acres, Pahoa, HI, USA
- Dave Altman: Atlanta, GA, USA
- Linsey Lindberg: Austin, TX, USA
- Music used in this Podcast:
- Robert’s Intro Theme Music: “Pendulum” Royalty Free Jingle available in Apple Computers’ GarageBand.
- Additional Music: “Organordion Waltz” & “When You And I Were Young Maggie Blues” as played by Hokum W Jeebs on his Piano ala Cart CD.
- Mixed and edited by: Linsey Lindberg and David Aiken for the Busker Hall of Fame
Comments: On August 27, 2012, the Busking World lost one of it’s GREATS when Robert Nelson, the legendary ‘Butterfly Man,’ passed away in his home in Pahoa, Hawaii. Whether you knew him or not, whether you loved him or hated him, whether you got to see him live or only on video, his personality, his performances and his legendary stories have become intrinsically woven into the rich tapestry that is the world of Street Theatre.
The Stories from the Pitch podcast was in part conceived as a way to get Robert Nelson to record some of his amazing stories while he was still with us. Though we didn’t really know what we were doing, we set out on this journey at the end of October 2011 and captured hours of conversations in which Robert ‘interviewed’ people via Skype and in person. The wonderful thing about most of these ‘interviews’ is that Robert was inevitably reminded about stories from his own life which he was more than happy to share with the person he was interviewing.
Over the past few weeks, the staff of the Busker Hall of Fame have been going back to the original recordings piecing together these moments when Robert shared the story of his life. We have far too much to include in a single episode, but we wanted to start paying tribute to this iconic jester on April Fools Day by getting the story started with a collection of conversations that tell the story of Robert’s early years as The Musical Juggler, Butterfly the Clown and his eventual metamorphosis into a fledgling Butterfly Man in Jackson Square, New Orleans.
We also wanted to recognize his contributions to our world and immortalize the very best of what he represented by making him the Inaugural Inductee into the Busker Hall of Fame. Robert, you’ll be missed!
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It was a really collaborative process building this particular episode. I originally connected with co-producer Linsey Lindberg back in February and we hashed out the idea of creating a few tribute episodes by going back to the original recordings and having Robert tell his own story… Greg Frisbee, Magic Brian, Todd Strong, Glenn Singer, Linsey and I listened and logged and listened and logged and collected the moments from the interviews that Robert conducted between October 2011 and February 2012 for the podcast where he talked about himself to grab the building blocks for this episode. I handed these blocks to Linsey who discovered we had WAY too much material for a single episode, so we opted to break things up into multiple episodes. Linsey created the initial mix for “The Early Years” episode then handed it to me to clean up and tweak levels and the like… The audio quality is a bit all over the map, but given how little we knew when we started this project I’m just grateful to have captured so much of Robert before he died. Stay tuned for more…
Just wanted to say thanks for doing this. I really miss robert and it was fun to laugh along with him once again as I listened to his great stories – if only I could have edited him like this in real life. I think the first words he ever said to me (after standing at the back of my crowd at Venice beach) were: “you do my show very well”.
Thanks guys great job,
Chad