Out of Hibernation: T. Bear on Relationships That Last a Lifetime (Episode 78)

Work begets work.

Richard T. Bear has emerged. This legendary career musician has worked with the Blues Brothers, Billy Squier, Cher, Kiss, Stephen Stills, Miami Vice and Pat Benatar. In Episode 78 of The Career Musician, he tells Nomad about coming out of hibernation with his single "One Day at a Time," featuring a cast of fellow legends: Stephen Stills, Edgar Winter, Benmont Tench, Robby Krieger, Laurence Juber, Denny Seiwell of Wings, Mark Foster of Foster the People and Mike Minell of John Fogerty's band.

This is a conversation full of rock and roll stories, and every one of them carries a lesson about how a music career really works: relationships, generosity and showing up.

Ask for help, and people show up

About three years before this conversation, T. Bear's wife, Nina, told him it was time to come back. She went back to college in her fifties, and she would write her papers at her desk while he wrote songs at the piano three feet away. A flood of songs came out. When he asked what to do with them, she had the answer.

"You're going to go in the studio, you're going to call everybody that you know, you're going to tell them that you're coming back and you need help, and they're going to help you."

T. Bear, recalling his wife Nina, 4:22

That's exactly what happened. Robby Krieger offered his studio, and so many friends asked to play that T. Bear says he was turning people down. Nina passed away a year before this conversation, and the album is dedicated to her. In a note two weeks before she passed, she told him to tour, never cancel another gig, have fun and put the record out.

One day at a time

When the pandemic canceled his gigs, a therapist friend told him what she was telling her patients: we'll all get through this together, one day at a time. T. Bear, who has been clean and sober for 37 years, had heard that phrase many times, but never in that context. He wrote the song the next day and posted a piano-and-vocal version for Throwback Thursday. It spread to well over 100,000 people, and his label asked him to record it as a single. He called friends from his band, Mark Foster and his producer, and they cut it in three takes.

For T. Bear, the title is a mantra. It's how he has stayed sober, how he showed up at his wife's bedside, and how he believes we get through hard seasons.

The favor that came back 40 years later

His producer on the album, drummer Tony Braunagel, goes back decades. Early in Tony's career, a Warner Bros. artist's tour was about to be canceled because the label couldn't find the artist the day before it started. T. Bear tracked her down, got her on a plane, and the tour went on. Tony was the drummer, and he credits that tour with launching his career. Forty years later, when T. Bear asked for help, Tony said he owed him.

The story with mix engineer Ed Cherney is even more moving. When Ed heard T. Bear had a record, he insisted on mixing it, money or not. When Ed started out, he was the assistant to the assistant, only allowed to press stop and play, and T. Bear had been kind to him. It turned out to be one of the last albums Ed worked on. Later, Ed reminded him of a day the band ordered sandwiches and Ed was the only one without one, so T. Bear gave Ed his.

"You meet people coming up, and they may come back in your life. And you always appreciate, and you always try to be a good soul."

T. Bear, 49:07

That is Everything you do is an audition in its purest form. You never know who's watching how you treat people.

Say yes, and follow the songs

T. Bear grew up in Manhattan, Yonkers, Miami, Puerto Rico and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, soaking up Latin, Caribbean and soul music. He had a band at 12. Working at a famous New York music store, he met touring bands, and one night at the Fillmore East he was waved on stage to play a Wurlitzer during a jam with the Grateful Dead. He was so scared he still doesn't know what key he played in.

At open mic nights he caught the ear of Richie Havens, who invited him to play on a record the next night. Then he heard John Prine sing, and he decided he wanted to be a songwriter.

That shift from side player to songwriter is what got him a record deal. He co-wrote with a coat check girl at the club where he played piano, Allee Willis, who went on to a Songwriters Hall of Fame career. He wrote jingles. He ghostwrote lines on records he still can't name. And when Cher asked him for a heartbreaking ballad, he gave her a song from his first album that became "Love and Pain." His philosophy: give me a word, you get a third. Collaboration is key.

Even his name came from saying yes. When RCA signed him, the label asked him to change his last name. People called him Bear, so he became Richard T. Bear. The T, he joked, stands for trustworthy. Nomad, who knows a thing or two about one-name branding, loved it.

You can't keep what you have unless you give it away

T. Bear also talked about helping musicians who had no insurance get into detox and sober living through benefit picnics, which grew into a musicians assistance program that he says became part of MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charity arm. The ripple effect of starting something small can be huge.

"You can't keep what you have unless you give it away."

T. Bear, 51:43

Nomad asked to borrow that one. It fits right alongside Work begets work: generosity is not a side effect of a long career. It is one of the reasons for it.

The takeaway

T. Bear's advice for the next generation: listen to as much music as you can get your hands on. Don't resent the past, don't regret it, live in the now. Nobody in this world agrees on anything, he says, but music is the universal language that brings us together. Be kind to the assistant, say yes to the open door, collaborate and give it away. If you want to be ready when your own Fillmore moment comes, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.