“I’ve been telling that in many ways, I’ve been writing this book since I was 9 years old,” the University of Southern California professor says. “Before I knew I was writing it, I was writing it.”

Boyd turned 9 in 1973, the year generally accepted as the birth of rap, and that’s where “Rapper’s Deluxe” begins, at an apartment party in the Bronx, where a DJ named Kool Herc showed a new way of spinning records.

The book ends, neatly, if not entirely by intent, 50 years later, when hip-hop culture had reached a peak far from its underground origins, a handful of its biggest stars playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl, a sign of the music’s dominance of the culture.

“The fact that coincides with the anniversary is one thing,” says Boyd, the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture, and a professor at its School of Cinema and Media Studies. “But I think it’s a story that unfolded from the ’70s to the present. I needed all that time in order to tell the story.

“Ten years ago, 20 years ago, this book couldn’t have been written,” he says. “It could only have been written now. One of the main reasons is because you needed all that time for this to kind of fully unfold and reveal itself. And that’s where I came along.

“As I was watching that Super Bowl halftime performance that I ended the book with – at SoFi Stadium with Dr. Dre and Snoop and Kendrick Lamar and that group – I realized, you know, this is it,” Boyd says. “This is the most mainstream stage in American culture. And, you know, 30 years ago, there’s no way possible that Dre and Snoop would have been performing at the halftime show of the Super Bowl.

“When you get to that Super Bowl stage, it’s a strong indication that you’ve reached the sort of center of mainstream society. And you can talk about things happening afterward, but the sort of larger point has been made.”

‘Root to the fruit’

“Rapper’s Deluxe” traces the evolution of rap music and hip-hop culture with chapters organized by decades, each packed with photos around Boyd’s essays on artists, trends, history and pop culture.

Its name is a play on “Rapper’s Delight,” the 1979 Sugar Hill Gang track that’s credited as the first rap single. But Boyd makes clear that while its success put rap on the radio and exposed its new sounds to listeners far from its birthplace in New York City, there was a whole lot more going on that decade behind the music.

“The point I was trying to make in that ’70s chapter was we’ve had examples of, if not rap specifically, hop-hop culture for a long time before a lot of people even knew it,” he says. “The seeds for what we would later call rap music were being planted. And if you use that metaphor, you know, you plant seeds, they don’t grow right away. That takes time.

“So listening to Muhammad Ali rhyme before his fights to me is part of what would later be identified as hop-hop culture,” Boyd says. “Listening to Richard Pryor on his comedy albums. Watching blaxploitation movies.”

“Rapper’s Delight” is a historical marker, he says. But the groundwork was laid in communities where Ali and Pryor and “Super Fly” and “Shaft” were popular, neighborhoods where Black veterans came home changed by Vietnam and Black Panthers and activists such as Angela Davis had support.

“I like to say we go from the root to the fruit,” Boyd says. “The seeds were planted and eventually those seeds bore fruit. All of those things were happening in the ’70s. Later, they’re very visible in hip-hop.

“I start the ’70s chapter with that story about the week that DJ Kool Herc threw the sort of legendary party,” he says. “The No. 1 movie at the box office that week is Pam Grier’s film ‘Coffy.’

“Twenty years later, there’s a rapper named Foxy Brown” – after the Pam Grier title role in the 1974 blaxploitation film of the same name – “and Quentin Tarantino is making ‘Jackie Brown’ starring Pam Grier,” Boyd says. “There’s a connection there that nobody anticipated in 1973, but you can see the influence of that by the time you get to the ’90s.”

‘Suburbs to the hood’

Rap, like many musical genres before it, experienced growing pains on its way to its worldwide popularity. But throughout the ’80s, Boyd writes that a combination of factors, including the rise of hip-hop-themed movies, fashion, and art, as well as rap’s appeal to celebrities and sports figures and their fans, helped it burst into the mainstream in unprecedented ways.

Unlike earlier Black American music such as blues and jazz, rap had freer access, and an unlikely ally, as it reached young listeners in every corner of the country, Boyd says. Rap emerged from the Black community, and soon spread far and wide.

“Historically, there were barriers to the expression of some of those older genres of music,” he says. “In spite of that, they still found loyal White fan bases who would be influenced by that music. But it didn’t have the same sort of free form of expression and access that would be available for rap music by the 1980s.

“Which is why I talk about the role of MTV,” Boyd says. “Which, of course, originally was hostile in terms of playing Black music, but by the late ’80s, ‘Yo MTV Raps,’ a hugely popular show, is what allows the music to spread throughout the country, whether or not the people listening to it had any direct connection to that experience or not.

“It didn’t matter,” he says. “Everybody was watching MTV whether you’re in an urban area, a suburban area, a rural area. If you had cable and you got MTV you could look at ‘Yo MTV Raps.’”

Rap music, like many genres before it, was a way for younger listeners to rebel against the tastes of their parents’ generation, he writes. Where early rock and roll saw White performers co-opt Black artists and find huge commercial success, rap was largely impervious to that kind of appropriation.

“When you get to rap music, so much of this is about lived experience,” Boyd says. “So as the music becomes more personal, a White person can’t come and claim that this is their own. They can listen to it and appreciate it and celebrate it. But it becomes kind of a minstrel show if you’re saying this is my life.”

A White rap star such as Eminem succeeded because he didn’t appropriate hip-hop culture as much as become part of it, something recognized by his early mentor Dr. Dre, which gave him credibility that a rapper like Vanilla Ice couldn’t touch.

“Eminem is the anti-Vanilla Ice,” Boyd says. “I think it speaks to just how things changed from, say, the time that Elvis was popular as someone appropriating Black music, and Eminem, who came along and said, ‘I want to be part of this culture. I want to be in it.’

“So when Jay-Z says we didn’t crossover, I think it’s important,” he says, referencing the line “I ain’t crossover I brought the suburbs to the hood’ in 1999’s “Come and Get Me.” “When you think about the ’80s, it’s the era of crossover, from Michael Jackson, Prince and Tina Turner. Whitney Houston.

“Hip-hop didn’t cross over. Instead, people outside the culture came to hip-hop.”

‘Evolution of the culture’

The latter chapters in “Rapper’s Deluxe” move through the ways in which rap and hip-hop sent deeper roots into every aspect of American and global culture.

The ’90s trace the rise of influential artists such as NWA, Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur, and the Notorious B.I.G., as well as chapters on offshoots of rap such as the Dirty South and trap music. It looks at artists such as Outkast and Three 6 Mafia – the latter of whom became the first rappers to win an Oscar – T.I. and Lil Wayne.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the book doesn’t focus so much on artists as impacts: the election of President Barack Obama, the shift of rappers into other businesses such as fashion and art, and finally, that landmark Super Bowl halftime show, produced for the NFL by Jay-Z’s entertainment company.

“I was not trying to write hip-hop’s greatest hits,” Boyd says. “I was not trying to write, ‘These are the new important rappers.’ Honestly, to me, once Obama gets elected? I mean, you want to talk about cultural influence? What is a better demonstration of hip-hop’s influence than the election of a president?”

In the final chapter, Boyd says he was more interested in spotlighting the unexpected ways in which rap and hip-hop have fully joined the larger culture.

“So, you know, the National Symphony with Nas performing ‘Illmatic,’” he says. “Or Kendrick Lamar winning a Pulitzer Prize. Or Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys’ art collection, the Dean Collection. Jay-Z’s connection to Basquiat and more broadly contemporary art. “Rappers talking about their art collection the way they used to talk about their cars and their sneakers? To me that’s major.

“People can decide for themselves who the hot new artists are; we’ve covered that,” Boyd says. “That’s almost not as significant. What is significant, however, we can talk about hip-hop going into these previously elite White cultural spaces, and dominating in those spaces, because it speaks to the full evolution of the culture in ways that maybe pointing out who the hot new rapper is doesn’t address as significantly.”

Todd Boyd in conversation with Chuck D

What: Author Todd Boyd will be in conversation with Chuck D of Public Enemy, as well as signing his new book, “Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip Hop Made The World.”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7

Where: Oculus Hall at The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

How much: Tickets are with reservation.

For more: See Thebroad.org/events for information and to reserve tickets

So why not do one more tour, says guitarist Peter DiStefano, a founding member of the band in 1993 with singer Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins, both of Jane’s Addiction. He says the band agreed: Let’s do another.

“These songs are like, it’s almost like doing extreme sports,” says DiStefano, of the group that now includes Mike Watt of Minutemen and Firehose in place of founding bassist Martyn LeNoble who sat this tour out.

Add to that the days and nights on a tour bus and hotel rooms in who knows what city, and DiStefano says the band decided this Horns, Thorns En Halos tour would be it for this kind of performance.

“It’s almost like one last hurrah of touring on a tour bus,” he says. “We can still make music. Like, maybe Perry will do something with me and in film. It’s just in terms of putting the whole thing together on a bus like a traveling circus. I think this is the last traveling circus.

“We’re going to do this tour,” DiStefano says. “Then Perry and Stephen can do Jane’s Addiction. l like doing dance DJ/guitar stuff and film stuff. And then who knows? Maybe we’ll do one-offs, you know?”

Porno For Pyros has released three new singles in recent months, its first new music in 26 years. The tour kicks off  Tuesday, Feb. 13 at the Observatory in Santa Ana. It plays the Observatory in San Diego on Thursday, Feb. 15, before spending the weekend at the Ventura Theater in Ventura on Saturday, Feb. 17 and the Belasco in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 18.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, DiStefano talked about the origins of Porno For Pyros, why he says it’s his fault the band broke up, how it got back together, and what it’s been like to prep for this tour.

Q: Take me back to the early ’90s when Perry and Stephen and Martyn and you got together for this. How’d it begin?

A: I was born and raised in Santa Monica, and Eric Avery, the founding bass player for Jane’s Addiction, and I went to school together. We were in a band. We never played out; we played in the garage. Then he met Perry and they started Jane’s Addiction, and I would go to Jane’s Addiction shows through Eric.

Then I went on a surfing trip to Puerto Escondido (in Oaxaca, Mexico). Perry’s roommate, this guy Greg Lampkin, who passed on now, was like, ‘Pete, I  want to manage your solo stuff.’ And he played Perry a demo tape and Perry really liked it.

(On a second trip there) Perry and I shared the room with Greg, so we became like surf buddies. We came back, and he said, ‘I’m starting a thing called Porno For Pyros,’ and he wanted me to be the guitar player.

Q: Perry also asked you at one point to join Jane’s Addiction around the time Dave Navarro left, and you said no.

A: I said I’d rather just play Lollapalooza on the side stage with my brother. I’ll just do my own stuff because I don’t want the whole world to hate me, because they were at the peak, peak, peak, peak. I was like, ‘I’m going to be so judged and looked at,’ and I just didn’t think I could handle the pressure.

Q: So when Jane’s Addiction broke up, how did you and Perry reconnect for Porno For Pyros? And what was the goal musically with it?

A: We were friends before we did music. We went to Skatemaster Tate’s house. He was DJing records and I was playing over them and Perry was singing. I think that first night with him in his apartment in Hollywood, off Melrose and Martel, we wrote ‘Orgasm,’ ‘Cursed Female,’ and ‘Meija’ (which appeared on the band’s 1993 self-titled debut).

“This is different than Jane’s Addiction. We were doing more jazz because (Skatemaster Tate) was DJing like Coltrane and stuff, and we were making music over it. It’ll be more jazz chords as opposed to rock chords. And instead of blues scales, we’ll use Middle Eastern, we’ll use jazz vocabulary, and it’ll be different.

By then, I could handle the beating because I wasn’t trying to be the next Slash or Dave Navarro, you know what I mean? Somebody that does pentatonic riffs really fast and does a blues-based vocabulary, which I love, and it’s great, but I just felt like we had to do something different.

Q: Let’s jump ahead to 1998 and the last tour until this current one. What caused it to end then?

A: Stopping was my fault. I went through eight drug rehabs, cancer, you know; it was just over for me. It was me. It was the needle and the spoon. So they moved on (to reunite) Jane’s Addiction. But then, miraculously, I recovered from the cancer and I got sober. Now I’m 26-and-a-half years sober, and that’s the deal.

They said (years ago), when you get better come and join on guitar with Dave (Navarro). We’ll do Jane’s and Porno together. And I just, you know, I had to go down a different path. I needed years of work on myself. But I’m ready now.

Q: So how did it happen that Porno For Pyros actually got back together for a few shows a couple of years ago.

A: We did Lollapalooza virtual (in 2020), but it wasn’t for a crowd. It was just in a backyard with Mike Watt on bass, me, Stephen Perkins. And we filmed some songs acoustically and they put that out.

But then Jane’s Addiction was supposed to play Welcome to Rockville (in Daytona Beach, Florida in 2022) but Dave got long COVID. So they said, ‘We’ll honor the deal if you get Porno back together. They asked me and I said, ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’

Q: What did it feel like? To play those songs with these guys again?

A: It felt incredible. It felt great. And recording the new songs feels great. Everything feels really good, you know.

Q: The band has recorded and released three new songs so far. Is that something you think Porno For Pyros might continue to do even if you don’t tour again? How do you see you and the others working together in the future?

A: You know, it’s funny. Porno For Pyros works great because Perry is the bandleader. So it’s whatever Perry wants to do. It keeps it really simple. If he wants to cancel a tour and make new songs and then do this (we’ll do it).

And the whole time (the band was on hiatus), I played every single Lollapalooza with Perry. I played on every single one of his solo albums. When It’s Porno For Pyros, it is a certain way. But when it’s Perry’s stuff it’s his way.

So Perry and I will definitely continue. And Stephen, Stephen and I have been in Hellride (a Stooges tribute band) for 20 years, 25 years. That’s me and Watt and Perk. So yeah, I plan to work with everybody.

Q: You said earlier you’ve also got film music and your own EDM/guitar project that’s been going for a number of years now.

A: I got really lucky. I met this guy named Harry Gregson-Williams right when I got sober and he gave me a huge IMDb of music credits. So I played guitar on all the Shrek films. Every Tony Scott film, like ‘Man on Fire,’ Spy Game,’ all those. I was able to buy a house and pay my bills through Harry doing film stuff.

Then I did 10 solo albums, singer-songwriter albums. I just put them up on Bandcamp. And I did a thing from 2010 to 2020 called Lance Herbstrong with two DJs and me on guitar. And it was hugely successful. We played all over the world and all the festivals. I lived off that and it was just a total blast.

I’ve been able to survive as a guitar player since the 30 years that (Porno For Pyros) started. So I’m grateful.

The writing? Not so much.

“The Vietnam War was such a shadow across my childhood,” Hannah says of her earliest inspiration for her new novel, “The Women.” “My friends’ fathers were serving, and in fact, my best friend’s father was shot down and lost.

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“I didn’t understand all of the complexities, but I knew that the country was angry and divided,” she says. “You know, we were watching the aftermath and what was happening in the war on a nightly basis. So it just made a really big impact on me.”

So around 1996, after half a dozen or so novels, Hannah decided to base her next book on women who served in the war.

And then: “The truth was, I just wasn’t a good enough writer at that point,” she says. “Because I knew this story was really important, or at least I felt it was important. and I really wanted to be able to write it to the best of my ability.”

She was a new mother at the time, too, so when her editor urged her to set it aside until she felt ready to write it, she did. And there it sat, surfacing occasionally for new beginnings, only to be put aside again until 2020 when the pandemic arrived.

“I had turned in ‘The Four Winds,’ actually the week that Seattle went on lockdown,” says Hannah, who lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington, referring to her previous novel. “Here we are, trapped in our homes for quite some period of time. And I was watching the nurses and the doctors in the medical community, and the price that was being exacted on them by this pandemic.

“Somehow this confluence of being trapped and being reliant on the medical community, and seeing the cost that they were paying to help us, led me back to the Vietnam female nurses,” she says. “I thought, ‘OK, I can’t go anywhere. There is no excuse for me not to write this book now, because it feels even more relevant. Our country is divided once again, and so it all felt very familiar.”

“The Women,” which has already been optioned by Warner Bros. for development as a movie, arrives in bookstores on Tuesday, Feb. 6, one day after Hannah appears at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa.

They also served

The protagonist of “The Women” is Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a 20-year-old Southern California nurse who in 1966 decides to follow her older brother Finley to Vietnam.

She arrives naively thinking she’ll be safely stationed far from the front only to be thrown into the visceral reality of the 36th Evacuation Hospital where wounded troops and civilians flood the operating rooms during frequent mass casualty events. She’s mentored by her bunkmates Barb and Ethel, nurses who’ve been there a few months longer.

Frankie comes to flourish despite the hard work and heartache she experiences in Vietnam. After signing up for a second tour of duty, and a transfer to the 71st Evacuation Hospital closer to the fighting, she comes home and finds that her reintroduction into civilian life is anything but easy.

“It wasn’t solely nurses in the beginning,” Hannah says of her earliest idea for the novel. “Then, once I read the memoirs of these women and understood what they had lived through, and how heroic and tragic their stories are, I just thought, I cannot believe that this story hasn’t really been told.”

The decision to focus on Frankie, a daughter of privilege from Coronado Island off San Diego, rather than Ethel, a farm girl from Virginia, or Barb, a young Black woman from the South, came partly because the Southern California background matched the early life of Hannah, who was born in Garden Grove.

“I felt comfortable with that world, Southern California,” she says. “I sort of understood it, and I understood the naivete that comes from a bubble world like Coronado. You know, I live on an island in Washington. And I wanted this nurse to go over as starry-eyed and naive as possible.

“In terms of the research, the lion’s share of the memoirs I read were very much young women who had just finished their nursing degree and went over for adventure or patriotism. Or following someone,” Hannah says. “Because they volunteered. They couldn’t be made to go and so they chose to go.

“And so I wanted the kind of woman where it made sense that she would be, I guess, naive enough to think, Oh, I’ll go to the war. That’ll be OK. I’ll be far from the front. I’ll be fine.’”

Those real-life accounts, whether written or told directly to Hannah by former nurses she met along the way, also included key details of the difficulties of returning home from the war.

In addition to the PTSD the women experienced from their time face-to-face with the horrific damage the machines of war could do to a human body, many back home discounted their service, saying to their faces, as Frankie experiences in the book, that there were no women in Vietnam.

“She’s constantly told, ‘No, there were no women. No, we don’t have help for you; you don’t belong here,’” Hannah says of the resistance Frankie faces whether seeking services at a VA hospital or attending a Vietnam veteran’s march. “I thought to myself, that really can’t be true. It can’t be true with the VA. It can’t be true among Vietnam vets – male Vietnam vets.

“Yet when I began speaking to the women who had been there, they all had memories of being told by people who ought to know better, that there were no women there,” she says. “And their response was very much, ‘Well, if you didn’t [come into contact with the nurses serving there] then you were lucky.’ Meaning you weren’t in one of these hospitals, you weren’t in these places.”

Bringing them home

In the novel, after a march by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Washington D.C., Frankie comes across two volunteers for the League of POW/MIA Families, and ends up buying a silver cuff bracelet on which the name of a missing soldier and the date of his disappearance are engraved: “Maj. Robert Welch 1-16-1967.”

If you were alive during the Vietnam War, you might remember these. They were sold to keep alive the memories of the missing and to raise money to advocate to find and bring them home.

For Hannah, this part is personal.

“I think I got (mine) when I was probably about 10 or 11 years old,” she says. “It was Robert Welch, and he was my good friend’s father. The idea was we wear these until he comes home. Of course, as a young girl, it never occurred to me that he wasn’t going to be coming home.

“Here’s this silver bracelet that I wore all through high school, through college,” Hannah says. “At some point, it disappeared. I don’t know what happened. I was able to order another one years ago.”

In “The Women,” the bracelet, and eventually going to work as an advocate for POW/MIA families, and later, for women who served in Vietnam and are struggling at home, helps Frankie regain her balance in life.

For Hannah, the bracelet served as a constant reminder of the war she remembered from childhood, as well as a way to reconnect years later with the story its simple inscription suggested.

“The minute the internet came to being and suddenly we all were connected, interestingly, one of the first things I did was go online to see if he ever came back,” Hannah says. “And he didn’t.

“In the writing of this book, I wanted to find out about him specifically, so that I could put it in the afterword because his story and his family’s story was very much also inspirational in the writing of this,” she says. “So through the internet, I reconnected with my old childhood girlfriend, who it turns out lives five miles from my house.

“We were able to get together and have a cup of coffee and talk about this,” Hannah says. “In fact, this year she went to Vietnam for the first time, just trying to look for and reconnect with her missing father.”

A generation of men was devastated by the war in Vietnam. A smaller number of women who served came home with their own traumas. All of them, as Hannah writes in “The Women” and underscores in conversation, deserved all the help they needed, and often didn’t get, once home.

“That is something that I just want to be front and center on people’s minds all the time,” she says. “Because I think if we ask our military people to go to war, we have to care for them when they get home.”

Kristin Hannah book event

What: Hannah will be in conversation with Julia Whelan, who reads the audiobook of her new book ‘The Women.’

When: 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 5

Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa.

How much: $39 to $99 which includes a signed copy of ‘The Women’ for the first 1,000 people. Additional books will be available for purchase on site.

For more: See scfta.org/events/2024/kristin-hannah for tickets and more information.

“I said I’d like to write about Miles Davis,” Troupe, 83, says on a recent phone call from his home in New York City. “Because he’s from East St. Louis, I’m from St. Louis. He played in my cousin’s band in St. Louis. So I would really like to write about him.”

Soon after, Troupe found himself on the legendary jazz trumpeter’s doorstep.

“When I walked in, he looked at me and he said in that voice he had, ‘You know, you’re a strange-looking (fellow). Boy, you’re weird,’” Troupe says in an excellent impression of Davis’s hoarse whisper.

“I said, ‘You’re weird-lookin’ yourself.’ I told him just like that.

“He said … ‘Man, you better shut up. I’ll hit you in your mouth,’” Troupe continues. “And I said, ‘Miles, you look at yourself recently? I’m 6’2″ I weigh 200 pounds. You’re 5’7″, 5’8” and you weigh 150 pounds. I’ll hurt you. I’ll hit you in your mouth; you’ll never play again.’

“I said, ‘Don’t threaten me, man. I’m from St. Louis, you’re from East St. Louis. You should know better.’”

(For the record, this is neither standard nor recommended interview practice in journalism.)

Once Davis learned that Troupe was the cousin of a former bandmate, all was well, Troupe says. “He kind of smiled and said, ‘Don’t sit there like a knot on a log. Ask me a question.’

“I had all these questions mapped out, including about his style and his clothes,” Troupe says. “He liked my shoes. I had these great shoes. He said, ‘Them’s some great shoes you got on.’ And that’s how it started, just like that.”

Troupe asked a lot of questions, first for an in-depth, two-part Spin article, and a few years later, as co-writer of “Miles: The Autobiography,” which won an American Book Award after its publication in 1989.

Troupe was a member of the Watts Writers Workshop in the mid-’60s, and taught at the University of California, San Diego for a dozen years in the ’80s and early ’00s. He was appointed California’s first official poet laureate in 2002, resigning when it came to light he had attended, but not graduated, from Grambling College. In 2006, he collaborated with Chris Gardner on “The Pursuit of Happyness,” which was turned into a Will Smith film.

Now Troupe is taking a break from work on a memoir to return to Southern California as one of three 2024 recipients of the LA Review of Books – UCR Department of Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award.

“I’ve had many awards in the past, but this has made me really happy because it’s a lifetime achievement award,” Troupe says. “I used to live in California, so coming back out there, it’s very good.”

He and fellow honorees Dave Eggers and Rigoberto González will be honored during the 47th annual UCR Writers Week Festival, held Feb. 10 and Feb. 12-16 at the University of California, Riverside.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Troupe talked about how he embraced poetry while playing basketball in France, befriended Miles Davis, joined the Watts Writers Workshop in the ’60s, and more.

Q: I want to ask you about when you started taking your first steps toward becoming a writer.

A: My mother always had books around the house because she was a big reader. My father was a great baseball player, so I wasn’t thinking about being a writer at first because I was an athlete. I went to Grambling College on an athletic scholarship, a baseball and basketball scholarship. Then I went into the Army and played basketball in Europe on the Army team until I wrecked my knee.

I started writing poems. I went to France and I met this young woman over there. She was at the Sorbonne. Then I started to write these poems. I don’t know why I started, because I never thought about writing poetry. It just happened. It’s hard to explain.

Q: What kinds of poems were they? Do you remember the first poems you wrote?

A: Somehow when I was over there I got a book by Pablo Neruda and (also Federico) Garcia Lorca. They really, really influenced me a lot. I didn’t know anything about Chile and I had been to Spain when I was playing basketball. I just loved the way the Latin poets wrote, and so I started to imitate them when I was over there. And T.S. Eliot because I found out he was from St. Louis.

Q: Talk about the influence of music, jazz and Miles Davis in particular, had on you as a writer.

A: My mother really liked jazz. She was married to a musician and she always had music around the house. And so I started listening to Miles Davis’s music, and I really loved the music. I had no idea he was going to influence me as a poet. I also didn’t know I was ever going to meet him. I just loved his music,

At one time, I wanted to learn how to play trumpet. My brother was a drummer, played drums for Lou Rawls. So I was in kind of a musical situation, being with my brother and listening to music all the time.

Q: Let’s jump ahead to the late ’80s: How did the Spin magazine articles lead you to writing ‘Miles: The Autobiography’?

A: You know, he picked me. Everybody thought he’s gonna pick Leonard Feather or some other jazz writer he knew. So when they asked him who he wanted to write his book, he said, ‘I want Quincy Troupe.’ They said, ‘But he’s a poet.’ He said, ‘You didn’t ask me what he was. You asked me who I wanted to write my book,’ and the guy says, ‘Oh, yeah, OK, OK.

I was sitting in my apartment, phone call came in. I can’t think of his name now, because I’m getting older and I’m forgetting names. He said, ‘Miles Davis just gave you first’ – he was from Simon & Schuster, the editor – ‘first right of refusal to write his life story.’

I said, ‘Are you kidding? He asked for me to write his life story?’ and they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Of course, I’d like to write his life story. How much money is it, man? I have kids.’ And he laughed, he laughed. He said, ‘That’s funny.’ I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’

Q: That must have taken a lot of conversations to get all the stories for the autobiography.

A: At the time, Miles was living in Malibu. So I flew out there, got a car, and drove out to his house. He was sitting – I’ll never forget it – he was sitting on his veranda, and his house was looking right at the ocean. His butler let me in and I walked out there. I remember when I walked in, he looked at me, and he says, ‘Yeah, yeah, I got you a gig, (mister). A real good gig.’

I said, ‘Yeah, well, thanks, man; thank you very much. He said, ‘Sit down, sit down. What you wanna know? I had all these questions ready. He said, ‘Why’d you ask me that?’ I said, ‘Because you picked me to write the book. I gotta know all this stuff.’ And he just laughed.

And so we just hit off. I guess it was that I was from St. Louis and he was from East St. Louis and he trusted me. He liked the way I wrote, and I didn’t take anything off of him. As much as I loved him, I wasn’t gonna let him mess me over. He knew that I was gonna tell him the truth about everything.

Q: I want to ask about the Watts Writers Workshop, which must have been a fertile creative community of writers in L.A. in the ’60s. 

A: Well, it was a remarkable thing. When I moved to California, I was with this lady from St. Louis. We broke up at a certain point and I joined the Watts Writers Workshop because I wanted to get in with a group of writers. And they all lived out there in this house called the House of Respect. When I went out there, there was Ojenke, Cleveland Sims, and this woman I was going with at the time, Pamela Donegan.

So I asked Ojenke, ‘You think I can move out here,’ and they said, ‘Yeah.’ I lived in this one room, right behind the driveway. Cleveland Sims had the biggest room. Ojenke had a room, but he also stayed with his parents. Leumas Sirrah came by, whose name was Samuel Harris spelled backwards. He would sit up on the roof and write poems and I just thought he was the weirdest person I had ever seen.

It was really interesting to walk around Watts and run into everybody there and just hang out. Then we would have these conversations at night, and everybody would critique everybody’s poetry. My friend Cleveland Sims, I read this poem, and he said, ‘Let me see it.’ So I gave it to him, and Cleveland – he was a tall, dark guy, crazy as hell – he threw my poem out the window.

I said, ‘What? What did you do?’ He said, ‘This is a ridiculous poem.’ And I jumped up. I said, ‘Man, hey, don’t mess me with like that.’ He said, ‘What are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘We can go down, I don’t be taking no stupid stuff of nobody, man.’ He just laughed. He said, ‘Aw, sit down, man, we don’t have to fight over the thing.’ I said, “I wasn’t thinking about fighting. I was thinking about hurting you, man.’

He just laughed. Ojenke started laughing, everybody was laughing.

“We both liked what one another does,” says Copson, referring to the sensibilities they share. “It definitely felt like there was something.”

Brought together by a mutual friend, they talked about their passions and the pieces of art that had thrilled them over the years. They discovered that they both love director Gus Van Zant‘s 2005 cult film “Last Days,” the fictionalized story of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain at the end of his life.

“It wasn’t necessarily the Kurt Cobain aspect,” Copson says of their common interest. “We both like Nirvana, but that wasn’t where we were approaching this from. It was really the tone of that film that felt like a shared interest in what we both made.”

Copson, who divides his time between London and Los Angeles, describes their appreciation for the “banality and magic” of the film, which creates a transcendence through its artful shots of dirty coffee cups and doomed central character.

“We just kept coming back to the idea, and after a while, we said, ‘Well, why would we not just take ‘Last Days’ itself and work with that?’”

So they did, adapting Van Sant’s film into an opera that earned rave reviews in its world premiere at the Royal Opera House in London before coming to Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 6 for its United States premiere.

The opera stars French actress Agathe Rousselle, best known for “Titane,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, as Blake, the Cobain-like rock star. Art rock singer-songwriter Caroline Polachek, for whom Copson has directed music videos, contributes an aria that Blake plays on a turntable in his home during the performance. Costumes are by the Balenciaga fashion house.

“Last Days” will only be performed once in the United States for now, though Copson, who is also adapting the opera as a feature film, says it likely will return to Los Angeles and other cities in 2025.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Copson talks about the decision to create an opera, the challenges of doing so as co-director, art director and librettist, the reaction of Van Sant and more.

Q: Kurt Cobain’s death remains a significant moment in pop culture and music history. Describe the transition from the film to the opera stage.

A: For me, the idea of adapting it became this interesting thing with the Blake/Kurt figure, because of the way the film, and then (the opera) even more so, renders the character into this archetype for us to kind of grapple with as a total mystery. Like, ‘How do we know anyone, really?’ becomes the ultimate question. It gives us the lie of psychologizing: ‘Oh, yes, we understand this person. We understand him through his lyrics.’

The real-life Kurt is fascinating on this level because he does appear to give us massive glimpses into that. This is somebody who was going to call (the album) ‘In Utero,’ ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die,’ which is the most on-the-nose title imaginable for someone who’s suicidal. But he also appears to be mocking it at the same time, so the kind of unknowability of this seemed really interesting.

Q: Was it always going to be an opera or were there other ideas for the adaptation?

A: It was a more traditional understanding of that, that maybe I’d make a kind of visual work alongside Oliver’s music, probably like the laser pieces I’ve done, or something like that. The works I make have characters that move or sing or whatever. They exist across space and narratively. I also do lots of stuff working with musicians in the past, and so for me it all sort of started to make sense, the more ambitious idea of, like, ‘Well, we should commit to making an opera.’ Also, ‘What is an opera?’ was more alluring. There was more to play with, the theater and the music of the piece.

Q: You have three credits in the program: librettist, art director and co-director. How did that work?

A: Firstly, it’s somewhat embarrassing that it’s called librettist. It’s also very unusual, obviously, to have someone who would be doing all three of those things. Oliver and I naturally wanted to take a holistic approach to it, where things could shift and we could be more experimental. We could explore more territory, back and forth, with each other. Which means there was a nice flexibility there. I wasn’t answering to anyone.

But yeah, I hadn’t written anything quite like that, even though a lot of my own work does often use writing. Writing and drawings tend to be the basis of it. But writing for people singing is quite specific and unusual. And that was a lot of fun for me, because it’s like poetry then.

Q: That collaboration, between you and Oliver, between both of you and the cast and crew, must have been difficult at times given how new this form was to you.

A: We remained in the rehearsal room for the whole time, which is very unusual. So it meant we could have conversations about tempo or adding anything or taking away things. Or adding silences, which was something that I wanted to do. I found in the rehearsal room it needed these moments to kind of just sit there for a second. And so we were able to kind of shift things around a little bit. It’s chiseling away at a block of marble to create something else out of it.

The thing about opera compared to anything else – like an artwork is the loosest anything could be. There’s no kind of framework there. And when you’re editing a piece of video you can always shift things around. Opera is like a jigsaw puzzle because you’ve got these singers, you’ve got an orchestra, you’ve got the blocking on stage, you’ve got the lighting. It’s a mini-miracle when it comes together.

Q: Gus Van Sant’s film doesn’t have a lot of dialogue or even plot. Did you pull from his film or are the lyrics and plot largely your invention?

A: We had to get permission from Gus, and he said, ‘Yeah, great, do it.’ He’s no stranger to adaptations as well. I think he loves the kind of conceptual approach to these things. I remember emailing him, saying, ‘Do you have a script? Could I take a look at it?’ He said maybe, and he sent me a kind of 2005 Microsoft Word document I had to find a way of opening up. I think it was two pages, 10 sentences or phrases.

That was the approach for him. Like, there was a Yellow Pages salesman that comes through – it’s one of the best scenes in the film – and he was a guy who just turned up on set and tried to sell them Yellow Pages, and Gus said, ‘Can we film you doing this?’ It was so freeing for me. The fact that this is very much a product of its improvisation gave me permission to do what he was doing on a tonal level and symbolic level.

Q: Did Gus see the opera when it played at the Royal Opera House last year?

A: He did. He texted me something like, ‘It sounds really good.’ When the first night was on, he said, ‘I’m coming over tomorrow; can I have a seat?’ It was obviously quite nerve-racking, because what have we done to your baby? And he actually loved it, which was really, really nice.

‘Last Days’

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

For more: Laphil.com/events/performances

“I didn’t make out or intend to do a Western,” Arcel said at a Q&A with Mikkelsen after an American Cinematheque screening in Los Feliz in January. “I was intending to do a historical epic. But, of course, it’s so obvious when you look at it, it’s totally a Western, so now I totally get it.”

Mikkelsen, one of the biggest stars in Danish cinema, who in Hollywood often appears as villains opposite heroes such as James Bond, Dr. Strange, and Indiana Jones, teased his longtime friend and director for overlooking the obvious.

“I’m surprised you didn’t see it,” he said. “Because you got landscape. You got horses. You got guns.

“‘Nah, it’s not a Western’?” Mikkelsen continued as Arcel and the audience laughed. “It’s kind of a Western. But there’s nothing wrong with a Western. It’s pioneers, stepping on ground that nobody’s stepped on before.”

In “The Promised Land,” which opens in theaters on Friday, Feb. 2, Mikkelsen plays a real historical figure: Ludvig Kahlen, a proud but poor military captain. In the 1750s, Kahlen convinced the Danish king to grant him the right to farm the remote heathlands of Jutland, an uninhabited, inhospitable region where no one before had succeeded.

The screenplay, adapted from Ida Jessen’s novel, “The Captain and Ann Barbara,” portrays Kahlen as a man so stubbornly driven by his dream that at times he becomes his own worst enemy.

In his fight to keep his land from a cruel nobleman who seeks to seize it, Kahlen risks harming the few people who care for him – the runaway servant Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin) and the outcast orphan girl Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg) – whom he realizes too late he cares for, too.

“We wanted him to be an obstacle himself,” Mikkelson said. “Because you can always make a film about some bad people doing something to good people. We wanted him to be in the gray zone, and also, for that reason, we wanted him to be not necessarily super-likable until page 68.

“It was difficult,” he said of his and Arcel’s intention to let him make mistakes until deep into the screenplay. “Because we’d get fed up being him and watching him, and we’d just look at each other and say, ‘Page 68.’”

Arcel, who said he only thought of Mikkelsen, his star in the 2012 Oscar-nominated film “A Royal Affair,” for the part, knowing that the actor could pull off the transformation the story required.

“One of the amazing things about your performance, in most films where a character changes profoundly, there’s always that one dramatic sequence or moment that changes him and he suddenly realizes,” Arcel said. “There’s really none of that here. It’s very subtle. But if you look at him, the beginning of the film and the end of the film, he’s a completely different man.”

A few days after the screening, Mikkelsen and Arcel hopped on a video call to talk more about “The Promised Land,” which was shortlisted for the Oscar for best international feature, and its characters and story, the challenges and joys of working with child actors, and more.

Q: Mads, when Nikolaj called and said I’ve got this part for you, how did he pitch it? ‘You’re gonna go out and farm potatoes on the heath’ or something else?

Mads Mikkelsen: Well, actually, he did start with the potato part. And there was a long pause. He didn’t add anything. I did ask him, ‘Is there anything else happening, Nik?’ And there were a lot of things happening.

It’s not only this character trying to survive in the 1750s with his ambition. You have Ann Barbara trying to survive. You have the little girl trying to survive. And then, of course, this character being so stubborn that he is about to ruin everybody’s lives because of his own dream. I thought it was recognizable and very human to watch somebody who wanted to desperately be part of something (the landowner class) that he hates.

Q: How well-known is the real Ludvig Kahlen in modern-day Denmark? Someone you were aware of or kind of a minor figure?

MM: Minor.

Nikolaj Arcel: Completely unknown, actually. There’s a plaque on the heath, but up until the moment that the film came out, I mean, obviously he’s now known. But before the film came out, it would only have been the locals in the area.

And really, you have to credit the author. She kind of found him from the annals of history, and she wrote this book about him, and that was sort of her genius, to find somebody, the first person to ever go out on the heath and succeed in planting something.

MM: I think one of the reasons he’s also not known today is that he succeeded with his Sisyphus job, which is the insane ambition of going out there, but then he abandoned it, and it was left like that for 20, 30 years. Had he kept going and built, let’s say, a phenomenal castle there, it would have been a different thing.

Q: What had to happen to turn the novel into a film?

NA: I have had a lot of experience adapting books – I think I’ve done it five or six times, or maybe more. (Among them are the original Danish-Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower,” with which Arcel made his Hollywood directing debut.) You have to be a little tough with the book, because usually novels, especially big epic novels like this, they have a multitude of characters and a timespan in years and years.

I very quickly excised two or three or four or five characters that don’t really matter that much to the main character’s story. And when I figured that out, it was more about creating a story around (Ludvig, Ann Barbara and Anmai Mus).

The author was also very interested in nature. She’s almost Tolkein-esque in her way of describing chapter after chapter about the way that heath grows and the wind, how it feels, and things. And it’s all beautiful to read, but it wouldn’t have been very interesting in a film unless you’re Terrence Malick, which I’m not.

Q: Mads, talk a little about how you approached this character, and the subtlety with which he changed.

MM: It was in the screenplay, and that’s what Nick wanted to do as well. So we have to trust each other. That we can make that little crack happen on page 68. Meaning that before that, we will see the version that we have decided on, and we should not get desperate, while we’re shooting the film, that he doesn’t become more like a man from 2023. We cannot force our 2023 morals into the character.

Q: The scene where he has to make a hard decision about Anmai Mus is one of the toughest in the film.

NA: That day for me was a very moving day. It came kind of late in the shoot. That was the first scene where Ludvig truly sort of cracks. And then Mads’ performance, and the work that you did. I think it was three takes, really, and it made everybody cry. We were all just weeping. Not just for the brilliance of Mads, but also for what we saw was happening with Ludvig in that moment.

Q: What did you feel, shooting on the remote heath in the same location that the real Ludvig had lived and farmed?

NA: For me, it was very poignant. It was emotional. There were days where we would stand together and just look out over the heath and see the sun come up or the sun come down. That’s so rare. Anybody who’s making movies can tell you that you never shoot anything where the stuff actually happened. But this was such a rarity, and so important.

MM: I agree. It’s a magical situation to be there, like, to get a little whiff of the winds of time. Every though Denmark is a very small country, surprisingly, standing on the heath, you felt very small, very alone. If you took the crew away, you could not see the end of it. It just kept going and kept going.

Q: At the screening, Mads, you talked about how much fun you had working with Melina, who was only 6 or 7 when she played Anmai Mus.

MM: I’ve done it quite a few times, playing with kids, and I really thoroughly enjoy it. Some people don’t so much. Like, ‘Don’t ever work with animals or children.’ But I disagree. She was wonderful. If she would forget a line, and it would happen, she would come up with something completely different that would be perfect for the film sometimes. Sometimes not.

But you just have to hang in there. Because the more naturally she goes down the path, if you follow her, there’s actually a chance that you will become more natural than you normally are. And so I enjoyed her tremendously.

“I was quite surprised to get the standing O,” says Collins, who was there with actress Taraji P. Henson to present the Emmy for best limited series. “In fact, Taraji said, when we walked on, ‘Oh, this is for you.’

“I said, ‘No, it’s not,’” she says. “And she said, ‘Yes.’ And then I realized they were playing the ‘Dynasty’ theme. So you know I was very honored and happy. It’s been exciting.”

And why wouldn’t the Emmy audience cheer for Collins, whose career spans more than seven decades?

She’s a star unlike almost any other around today, and that old-school glamour – a bejeweled blue gown matched with baby blue satin gloves? Please! – and her radiant beauty had viewers gaga for Dame Joan during the ceremony and the following days.

“Did the #Emmys teleport the 80s Joan Collins because that woman has not changed at all,” one wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Ageless. Timeless. Gorgeous,” wrote another. “Joan Collins is that pop culture icon who never grows old.”

Last fall, Collins published her 19th book, another memoir, this one titled “Behind the Shoulder Pads: Tales I Tell My Friends.” We’d reached out to chat with her even before her Emmy appearance, and this week found her at home in Los Angeles, where she and her husband Percy Gibson spend time away from London each winter.

“We usually come out here for the first three months of the year because the weather in Europe is pretty bad,” Collins says on a stormy Monday. “But it’s exactly the same as this now.”

“Behind the Shoulder Pads” is an entertaining, eye-opening, funny and at times heartwarming story of an old-fashioned star with an eternally youthful spirit. At 90, Collins says her goal is to find the joy in life each day, even when life knocks you down.

“I don’t think there’s anything I’m ashamed of,” she says, speaking of the new book in particular, but her whole life in general. “I think I make fun of myself a lot of the time. I mean, when you get swept out to sea in a Chinese junk in the middle of a storm” – as she describes in one chapter – “I think that’s quite funny.

“I have a kind of mantra, which is that every day I want to achieve something, writing or whatever it is. I want to enjoy it, whether it’s just my first cup of coffee And I want to learn something.

“I try to do that every day, and I really try to live life as fully as possible.”

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Collins talked about her life in Hollywood, both good and bad, the misogyny and sexual harassment she experienced, a personal trauma she’s seldom discussed until now, and more.

Q: If these are ‘Tales I Tell My Friends,’ why did you decide to share them with strangers now?

A: The thing is, I’m always writing. In England, I write a lot for the Spectator. And for Harper’s Bazaar and the Daily Mail. And I write diaries. The one that came before this (‘My Unapologetic Diaries”) did very well. So my agent said, ‘Why don’t you try to do another book?’

I said, ‘I’ve written so many memoirs,’ and he said, ‘Well, why don’t you do a collection of these incidents and funny things that happened to you in your lifetime? Talk about when you arrived in Hollywood.’ I said, ‘But I’ve already done that’ – this is Collins’ 19th book in more than 40 years – ‘everybody knows that.’

He said, ‘Everybody doesn’t know that. Everybody doesn’t know what it was in this 1950s paradise. Write a book.’

And to be perfectly honest with you, it was a paradise. I try to express that in the book. My Alice in Wonderland, little girl, goggly-eyed, ‘Wow, this is like the movies that I really enjoyed.’ So I started writing.

Q: That period of Hollywood in the ’50s is one of the most glamorous times, and you capture that. But there’s also a dark side to that.

A: Oh my gosh, yes. I did go into the things that young women, in all professions, not just in the acting profession, are expected to put up with. The most misogynist crap from men who just expect the girls to take it. This happened a lot to me, first, in my first film in England when I was 17.

I put this story in the book. I went to an older actress, and I told her about it. And she said something like, ‘That’s what this is like. If you don’t like it, you better get out.’ So I found ways to deal with it. Mostly laughing at men. That’s the biggest killer of a man who’s got the hots. It really is.

I would love to see this end, you know. The kind of thing that happened to a lot of women, when it all came up, when the #MeToo movement started a few years back. I certainly sympathize with them.

Q: The misogyny that you describe in the book, with some very well-known studio bosses or even some of your fellow actors, is appalling.

A: But you know, I pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn’t dwell on it. That’s one of my instincts

Q: What were the joys of being a young woman from England in sunny Hollywood in the ’50s and early ’60s?

A: You just said it. I mean, every day the sun shined it seemed like. The studio took care of everything. They found me a car. They found me a financial advisor, who actually ended up ripping me off later, something that’s happened to me many times in my life. They told me what to wear. But I didn’t mind all that because I’d come from England and my father was reasonably strict.

I was at the studio every day, which I was plunged into immediately after I arrived. I did ‘The Virgin Queen’ with Bette Davis, and I did ‘The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing’ two months later. Then I was loaned to MGM for ‘The Opposite Sex.’

And of course, there was fun. I was dating. I was in my 20s; you date, you try out different men and relationships. And you have as much fun as possible. We would go out to dinner, go to nightclubs, go dancing. Go to each other’s houses and play charades and play poker, or learn some new dance step. It was a carefree time, which is what your 20s should be, I might add.

Q: One of the most intense chapters, and one that got a lot of coverage when the book came out, is when you write about having an abortion when you were engaged to Warren Beatty. Is this the first time you’ve talked about that openly?

A: I think so. I’d think about it but I never expressed how I felt at the time. And I’m sure a lot of people will think I’m a heartless bitch. But I was only 26 then. I was so innocent and green. You know, we didn’t know, young girls. I was very protected by my parents, so I was very young for my age.

And I realized – I did confide in some of my girlfriends – and they all said, ‘This is the end of your career,’ you know, which was burgeoning. Whatever you do, it’s a stigma. It’s never a stigma on the man, of course. I mean, look what happened to Ingrid Bergman. So I just went ahead with it.

And he (Beatty) was complicit, he was fine with it. Well, we were both nervous. But we did it. And I got over it. Two days later, I pushed it to the back of my mind, which is how, one of the reasons, I think, that I survived.

Q: Was it difficult to revisit for the book?

A: No, it wasn’t difficult. It was no more difficult than (writing of) fighting off a predatory man who would take you to your hotel room and try to rape you. I’m not pulling punches here. That happened. Several times. You know, you’re making me think about it now, and well, I did when I was writing it.

But after I did, I’m not going to dwell on it. You know the world is in a very sad place today, and I want to try to enjoy it.

Q: Let’s shift to something lighter. When and how did you realize that your role as Alexis Carrington on ‘Dynasty’ was going to be more than another TV job, but in fact, perhaps the one you’re most often remembered for?

A: I think I realized it when I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and a carful of young kids stuck their heads out the windows and said, ‘Alexis! Alexis!’ I said, ‘Oh, hi, how are you? Do you like me?’ And they said, ‘No! We hate you!’ And then they all laughed and said we love you.

It was gradual, but it happened quickly. I think the Daily Mirror in England had it on the front page, with a picture saying something about ‘Sophisticated Joan about to oust JR,’ which was Larry Hagman (in ‘Dallas’). It happened in the first six months or so. It was very flattering.

Q: I saw a picture of you when you were 17 in your first film. When you think back to that how big did you dream that your life would be? And would you tell her anything today?

A: I don’t think back to that girl. She was totally different to the way I am now. And I never had dreams of anything. That’s an American thing. We did not dream.

I remember thinking that, well, at the turn of the century I’ll be an old lady in a wheelchair with a cane. This was in the ’50s, and we’d talk about what was going to happen in 50 years, you know, the millennium. And I said that I might not even be alive.

I never thought really too much about having children or anything. (Collins has three. A daughter and son with her second husband, actor-singer Anthony Newley, and a daughter with her third husband businessman Ron Kass.) Because I lived in the present. I still do.

What is it they say? Yesterday … oh my God, it’s something like, ‘Tomorrow’s a mystery, yesterday’s history, but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.’ Something like that. And it is.

I live in the present.

Four months later, 34 of the 36 Flying Fortresses had been shot down, giving the group its nickname: The Bloody 100th.

If that sounds like a compelling story to you, well, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks thought so, too. Along with their fellow executive producer Gary Goetzman, they grabbed the rights to “Masters of the Air,” a history of the American Eighth Air Force, which included the Bloody 100th, for the limited series of the same name.

“Masters of the Air,” which premieres with two episodes on Apple TV+ on Friday, Jan. 26, completes the trilogy of World War II series that Spielberg, Hanks and Goetzman embarked upon with “Band of Brothers” in 2001 and “The Pacific” in 2010.

It’s a sweeping war story, an impeccably crafted series that captures the drama inherent in the life-and-death stakes, with death the more common outcome. The crews climbed into hulking airplanes, flew dangerous daylight bombing missions over enemy territory and. if they survived the terror of anti-aircraft flak and German Messerschmitt fighters, they headed out a day or two later to do it all again.

“One of the things that makes its impression on me when I go back and watch the series? We really tried to do as much justice as we could to the danger,” says actor Nate Mann, who plays Maj. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal in “Masters of the Air.” “To the precariousness. To just how harrowing these missions were.”

Dream roles

Rosenthal, like the other main characters in the series, was a real person. A young lawyer from Brooklyn, he enlisted after Pearl Harbor and beat the odds of the Bloody 100th to become one of the most decorated bomber pilots of the war.

Mann and actor Anthony Boyle, who plays Maj. Harry Crosby, a B-17 navigator, and later, navigator for the entire bomb group, talked recently about the dream-like feeling of working on the project that completed a trilogy they first encountered as boys.

“I watched ‘Band of Brothers’ as a kid,” Mann says. “I think it was one of the first TV shows I’d watched in its entirety. It made such a big impression on me.”

He also saw “Saving Private Ryan,” the 1997 World War II epic for which Spielberg directed Hanks, and later, “The Pacific,” too.

“This show, it’s the same lineage,” Mann says of Goetzman, Hanks and Spielberg. “It was actually seeing how much this story mattered to them, and why this story was so important to tell, I knew I wanted to be a part of that legacy.”

The Irish Boyle, who as Crosby, also narrates the series, says his experience was similar.

“Yeah, for me, man, it was those three names,” Boyle says, recalling receiving an email about the project that didn’t share too many specifics. “You go, ‘Oh, of course, I want it. I don’t even know what it is, but I want to do it.’

“Then when I found out it was the third installment of ‘Band of Brothers,’ which was one of my favorite series growing up, I just wanted to – you know, I’d have held the boom. I’d have just sat in the room and watched it,” he says. “So to play a role in it was just a really great honor.”

Finest details

Boyle and Mann are part of a quartet of lead actors that includes Austin Butler, an Oscar nominee for “Elvis,” and Callum Turner as best friends Maj. Gale “Buck” Cleven and Maj. John “Bucky” Egan. (And yes, Buck and Bucky were their real nicknames.)

Barry Keoghan, an Oscar nominee for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” plays fellow pilot Lt. Curtis Biddick. And the trio of actors Branden Cook, Josiah Cross and new “Doctor Who” star Ncuti Gatwa arrive in the final episodes of the series as Tuskegee Airmen, Black pilots flying P-51 fighter planes.

With a budget estimated at $250 million to $300 million, the talents of the cast and crew are matched with the amazing verisimilitude in all departments: sets that include a recreation of the Thorpe Abbotts airfield where the Bloody 100th was based, period costumes, hair and makeup, and most impressively, B-17 Flying Fortresses.

Only a few dozen Flying Fortresses still exist, and just a handful are in flying condition. No problem for “Masters of the Air,” which built two full-sized replicas to film on the runways and then created smaller sections of the interiors for close shots of the actors in flight.

Or facsimile of flight, Mann and Boyle say. All of the in-flight scenes were shot on a soundstage with cockpits, navigation and bombardier stations, and gun placements attached to massive gimbals that could tilt and turn the bomber parts and actors inside them to simulate flight, strikes by fighter bullets and flak.

Instead of traditional green screen technology, the production created a huge wall and ceiling of LED screens onto which the flights and dogfights were projected. That allowed actors to react in real-time on set to the same images that viewers see them react to in the series.

“It was very different for me,” Boyle says of filming the airborne scenes. “It felt like we were trying to get as real as possible. As close to what it would have been like.

“We didn’t have a green screen; we had 360-degree screens,” he says. “There was this new technology we were using so we could actually see the planes coming toward us in 3-D. It was like the full thing was coming around you, and we were on these hydraulics 50 feet in the air. They would shake, and when you were shot the plane would fall over.”

It was, both Mann and Boyle say, both immersive and claustrophobic inside the recreated B-17 interiors.

“Yeah, it was claustrophobic,” Boyle says. “Especially when you couldn’t pee when you’re up there for nine hours at a time and you were bursting to go.”

True memories

Both the detail of the mock bombers and the coaching of their military advisors gave Mann and Boyle the sense that they were doing their best possible work recreating the actions large and small of their real-life counterparts Rosenthal and Crosby.

“The level of detail, right down to the knobs and switches and gauges of those machines was something that was really important to Steven and Tom and Gary to try and get right, in order to make it feel as accurate as possible,” Mann says.

“One of our military advisors, Taigh (Ramey), actually has flown some of the remaining B-17s that are around,” he says. “So he would be on the walkie talking with us, and when we would call cut, he would say, ‘OK, this time, you’re going to switch this first in order to do that, because that’s how it would work.’

“So that level of specificity is great on our end because it just brings it to life.”

All of that helped build the confidence that allowed them to find the emotions they imagined the pilots and crews of the Bloody 100th might have felt.

“You know, you’re 25,000 feet up in the air, limited oxygen, it’s 40 below zero for hours at a time,” Mann says. “And in the midst of that, these men had to focus and work together in order to try and find their target.

“There’s some harrowing sequences in there that make a very intensive viewing experience,” he says. “Then in the midst of that, just to put into context the nature of the war, the nature of this specific conflict, which we’re embedding ourselves in.

“They’re stories that we were so interested in telling. Because these men, the men of the 100th, deserve to have their memories shared.”

Singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey headlines both Fridays of the festival held this year April 12-14 and April 19-21 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Originally from the East Coast, her music has long had a hazy Southern California vibe, and she’s been based here for years now.

Rapper-singers Tyler, the Creator, who headlines Saturdays, and Doja Cat, who tops the bill on Sundays, were born and raised in Los Angeles and its surrounding communities.

ALSO SEE: Coachella 2024 lineup: Lana Del Rey, Tyler, The Creator, Doja Cat — and No Doubt

And then there’s No Doubt, the much-loved Orange County band, which announced just before the lineup dropped that it would be reuniting to play for the first time in nearly a decade. When and where No Doubt plays isn’t yet clear – the lineup poster simply lists them in headliner-sized font at the bottom as “… and No Doubt.”

That’s a spot where Coachella often lists a late-night performance that takes place after one of the official headliners is finished, so stay tuned for more on that.

Dozens of other artists fill out the lineup as usual. We quickly scanned the names for highlights and trends for 2024 and soon settled on these 5 themes for 2024.

It’s a little smaller

Among the many hot takes on social media after the lineup dropped was this: The lineup poster didn’t look nearly as robust as it has in past years.

So we did what journalists try to avoid at all costs: Math.

In 2023, there were 166 acts on the Coachella poster. This year, the poster lists 147.

Which, assuming our math is correct, and there isn’t a late rush of additions to the lineup, means Coachella has approximately 11 percent fewer artists performing this year compared to last year.

Maybe more acts get added – Sunday looks particularly light – but performers also drop off the poster, too.

Still a big world

Last year, the booking of K-pop girl group Blackpink and Puerto Rican rapper-singer Bad Bunny as headliners drew, well, headlines. But just because Coachella is back to its Southern California roots for 2024 doesn’t mean the lineup is chockful of artists from around the globe.

Latin artists hold the significant second-billed spots on Friday – Mexican singer Peso Pluma, who’s career has soared over the last year – and Sunday – Colombian superstar J Balvin, who at Coachella in 2019 played the highest profile set of any Latin artist at the festival at the time.

ALSO SEE: The 2024 Coachella lineup has the internet divided

Asian and Asian American artists are also scattered across the lineup. The K-pop boy band Ateez plays Friday, and on Sunday, there’s a listing for 88Rising Futures, which might be a showcase for emerging acts from the 88Risiing label that also puts on the annual Head In The Clouds festival in Pasadena of artists of Asian backgrounds from around the world.

The Japanese duo Yaosobi, who were one of the biggest draws at Head In The Clouds in 2023, play Friday at Coachella. Atarashii Gakko! is on my early must-see list. The Japanese quartet have also played Head In The Clouds a few times, and their highly choreographed and very energetic sets – performed in Japanese school uniforms – are pure fun.

Other corners of the world also slipped into the lineup again this year. The French electronic disco group L’Imperatrice was a delightful surprise at Coachella in 2022. The French DJ Gesaffelstein has a has a prominent spot on the lineup, too, and the deeper you dig, the more the world is revealed.

 Under the rock

Coachella will never again be the rock festival it once was, but if you look closely, there are a good number of bands that fit that genre in 2024, especially if you’re willing to stretch rock’s boundaries a little.

Brittany Howard, lead singer and guitarist of the roots rock band Alabama Shakes, plays Fridays, as does the alternative metal band Deftones. The emo-ish Taking Back Sunday play on – well, c’mon, what other day could they possibly play?

The Brit-pop heroes Blur are back again, holding down the second-billed slot on Saturdays. I’m excited to check out the Scottish group Young Fathers, who opened for Depeche Mode in 2023 and mix together rap, electronic and rock into their work. The English female rock band the Last Dinner Party, which just played ALTer Ego fest is also a rising act worth checking out.

Hermanos Gutiérrez are an Ecuadorian-Swiss instrumental rock duo. And if you want to know what Jimi Hendrix might have sounded like if he’d been raised on the Tuareg guitar music of Northern Africa, well, don’t sleep on Mdou Moctar on Sundays.

Hip-hop, ya don’t stop

At first glance there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much rap in the lineup as in years past.

Sure, Doja Cat and Tyler, the Creator both are headliners, and Ice Spice and Lil Uzi Vert are third-billed on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

ALSO SEE: No Doubt hints at reunion just before Coachella announcement

But after that, well-known hip-hop artists aren’t that easy to find. Kevin Abstract of Brockhampton is back for a solo set on Saturdays, and given how packed the Coachella crowd was for Brockhampton’s farewell shows in 2022, he should draw well.

Then you’ve got Lil Yachty on Sunday,  and … well, there are a few more, here and there, but none of the fame of those already named here.

Strange and beautiful

One of the joys of each Coachella is spending time with performers who don’t fit neatly into boxes. The Houston trio Khruangbin, for instance, play mostly instrumental rock, but it’s transcendent in a floating-in-space kind of way.

New Orleans pianist and singer Jon Batiste is not a particularly expected choice for Coachella, but I’m betting he’ll be fantastic, and you’ll be glad you caught his set.

Hatsune Miku will be equally special, at least as long as there isn’t a power outage. Miku is a 16-year-old Japanese pop star who is – let me check my notes – virtual. As in not a real person, but a simulation.

Pop singer Sabrina Carpenter might be the first Disney Channel star to be booked to play Coachella. Which raises the question why have haven’t Miley Cyrus or Justin Timberlake or, heck, even Britney Spears, made it there yet?

And then there’s Clown Core, two guys who wear bad clown masks, play the drums, keyboards and saxophone, and recorded their music video for “Hell” inside a Port-a-Potty. These are the weirdos I am looking for, and I’ll be there with on Friday afternoon.

A bold prediction

Taylor Swift is gonna be at Coachella this year.

Stop laughing.

The theory works like this: Coachella falls during a break in her Eras Tour. Her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff is playing Coachella on Saturdays with his band Bleachers. She also collaborated with Del Rey on the song “Snow on the Beach” off her 2022 album, “Midnights.”

And Ice Spice, with whom Taylor collaborated on a remix of “Karma” last year, and she also brought out for a guest spot at three Eras shows, too, is also playing Saturdays.

“We talk all the time,” Ice Spice told People magazine last summer.

So, c’mon, it has been foretold. By me, sure, and I ain’t no Nostradamus. But the opportunity is there.

Maybe she doesn’t perform. But she’s gonna be on the grounds. Write it down.

It’s time to leave the road he’s traveled as one of the Righteous Brothers, first with Bobby Hatfield (until his death in 2003) and since 2016 with replacement Bucky Heard.

Time to sit back and – well, Medley’s not quite sure what comes next.

ALSO SEE: OC’s first Hall of Famers will be inducted Friday; Gwen Stefani set to appear in person

“Boy, you know, that’s a great question, and obviously that’s the real thought,” Medley says from his longtime home of Newport Beach. “Because I don’t – I’ve been so busy in the business and traveling and going and doing I don’t know.

“My wife Paula passed away a little over three years ago, and I never realized until she was gone, you know, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” the 83-year-old Orange County native says. “And so I don’t know what I’m going to do.

“I’d like to keep writing and maybe produce,” he says. “I would love to find a younger artist that I could hopefully kind of groom a little bit. Show them some short cuts. Yeah, I’d love to do that.

“But other than that, man, I’ll tell you, I don’t know. You’ll probably see me walking up and down Santa Ana, saying, ‘You want to buy a record?’”

The Righteous Brothers, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, are best known for such hits as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “Unchained Melody,” and “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.”

We first met Medley in 2007 to talk about the 20th anniversary of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” his duet with Jennifer Warnes for the movie “Dirty Dancing,” which not only reached No. 1 on the charts but also won a Grammy, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. And we’ve checked in with him over the years as other news of his career as a solo artist and Righteous Brothers arose.

So when news of the Righteous Brothers’ Thank You, Farewell Tour arrived, and with a pair of Southern California shows on Thursday, Jan. 18 and Friday, Jan. 19, we rang him up again to talk about why he’s leaving the road, the dreams he had as a young artist before stardom arrived, and what comes next.

Q: I’ll start with the title of the tour – Thank You, Farewell – and ask if it means what it sounds like, and how you came to that decision.

A: Yeah, we really haven’t figured it all out. There’s still some contracts and stuff that we have to fulfill. But it’s slowly but surely coming to an end.

Q: Deciding that now is the time, what played into your thought process?

A: Traveling. It’s that simple, man. I love to do the shows. I just love the shows. But the traveling is just getting worse and worse. You know, I’m 83 and when I was a kid, it was pretty exciting. But doing the job, doing the show, well, I’ve always said, ‘You’re paying me to travel. You don’t pay me to do the show. The show’s frosting on the cake.’

Q; I think the last time we talked was when you were about to team up with Bucky Heard and tour again as the Righteous Brothers. What’s that been like to have a duo partner again?

A: It’s just been really exciting. It’s been wonderful. He’s a great singer, and more important, he’s a wonderful, wonderful guy. We have just become the best of friends, and I just love him. If I couldn’t have Bobby, Bucky certainly was the guy to fill in for Bob. It’s just been phenomenal.

Q: Let me ask you a couple of questions about the early days, when you were a teenager or in your early 20s, just starting to write and perform and record. How big did you let yourself dream that music might be a career for you?

A: I was raised in Santa Ana and a friend of mine asked me, he had written a song, and he wanted me to sing it because he heard that I could sing. And I never took my singing serious at all, except for when I was in choir I had to take it serious. But you know, I don’t think I allowed myself to think about being successful as a songwriter or singer.

I was just doing what I loved to. I’d sit in the house there and play the piano for 12 hours. Drive my mom nuts. But yeah, you know I don’t ever remember thinking, boy, this is what I want to do. The dream was just so far away.

You know, when you’re talking about success in this business, it’s just, well, it’s magical. I’ve always said I wish you could just go to college for four years. You graduate and they say, ‘Here’s your first hit record,’ and you’re in. But it ain’t that way.

Q: Did you have a backup plan as a young man? Like, OK, I’m going to write songs until can’t anymore and then go do this or that?

A: I got to tell you, I was one of those 15-, 16-, 17-year-old punks, you know. Santa Ana was ‘Happy Days’ back then. And I, unfortunately, quit school when I was 16, which was stupid. A lot of times I would get four Fs and one A, because I’m with the choir.

But no, I never had a backup plan. I just was headed into a mountain. I was going nowhere, nowhere fast, and God just took me by the hand and said, ‘Listen, man, I think you’d better try singing.’

And then, thank God, John Wimber from Orange County, he was working in Vegas a lot, and he came home and wanted to start a group that could get a lot of work. So he took Bobby and Bobby’s drummer, and myself and my guitar player, and put us all together. And boy, when I started singing with Bobby, first off, it was just so much fun because Bobby and I were absolutely raised on the same music.

It just felt so right, and we felt like we were stealing money. Even though at John’s Black Derby in Santa Ana we were making $100 a week, we thought we had died and went to heaven. Then a good friend of mine, Mike Patterson here from Orange County, was working at the Rende–zvous Ballroom down in Balboa, and convinced Bobby and I to go down there. And that was the start of the Righteous Brothers.

Q: In ’62, the Righteous Brothers released ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu,’ which was a hit at least regionally. But it was still a few years until ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.’ What was that period like, and what was it like when ‘Lovin’ Feeling’ hit No. 1?

A: With ‘Lovin’ Feeling,’ Phil Spector produced ‘Lovin’ Feeling.’ He called our company, Moonglow Records, which was from Garden Grove, and we were signed to them. But Phil wanted to buy the remainder of our contract or lease it. And so we recorded it.

But at the same time, we were doing a TV show, ‘Shindig,’ and it was huge. It was like doing Ed Sullivan every week. So it was like the perfect storm, a song, ‘Lovin’ Feeling’ coming out, and we were starting to become nationally known through the television.

You’re right, ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’ was like a West Coast hit, and it did fine and kind of got us moving. But the truth is when we ‘Lupe Lu’ and that stuff, we used to have conversations about what we were gonna do when the fad fades. Because everybody thought, well, rock and roll, you know, rock and roll is gonna go away.

So our lives really changed. I mean, I can remember we were going to do a show in Chicago, and we were driving from the airport to the hotel. We stopped for gas, and we went into the office of the gas station, and the guy said, ‘Jesus, you’re the Righteous Brothers!’ And we went, ‘How the hell did you know that?’ That was the first time we said, ‘Oh, well, maybe this is something.’

Q: When I was prepping for this call, I realized that in November it had been 20 years since Bobby died. How did you feel when that anniversary came up?

A: My daughter (McKenna Medley) called me right away. I knew, anyway. A lot of people called me and I think I put something on the website.

And I went to the grave, the grave site (in Corona Del Mar) just to tell him I missed him. We were together quite a while, and you come real brothers, you know. I know that sounds stupid, and everybody says it, but you really do become brothers, the good, bad and the ugly. Brothers.

But yeah, I miss him a lot. I thought about him for about a month after that.

Q: So when you do wrap up the farewell tour?

A: I don’t know. I mean, I would like to think I would enjoy and normal life until I’m out of here. Like just maybe go to the show, have some dinners. You know, I’ve met a lady. I have a lady and that’s gonna help a great deal. But I don’t really have any flat-out plans.

Q: I saw on McKenna’s Instagram that you’ve got a new grandchild, so you can be a grandpa for a while, too.

A: I’m a grandpa and I’m a great-grandpa. My son made me a great-grandpa. So yeah, that’s another thing. I would really love to spend more time with the kids, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I didn’t get much of a chance to do that. When we were young, my first wife, Karen, if there was a birthday or an anniversary or something, but we were booked to do the Ed Sullivan show, I would say, ‘Honey, I can’t be here for the birthday. I have to go – or actually, I get to go to Ed Sullivan.’ I said, ‘But the minute it’s more important than that, I will be here.’

She passed away in ’76, and my son was 10 years old and there was nobody but me. So I took time off to go raise my son, because I promised Karen that’s what I would do. It was important to do that. Instead of being Bill Righteous, I was Darrin’s dad. It was very cool.

Q: What’s a Righteous Brothers show like on these final dates?

A: The Righteous Brothers were always, well, certainly old-school now, but we were a little old-school even when we started, because we were a couple of years older than say the Beach Boys and the Beatles. So we would do a lot of humor. And the reason is because the songs that we had hits with were such dramatic ballads that we tried to lighten it up.

So the show is pretty much the same thing. We do all the hits, and a couple of surprises. The thing I love to hear the most is when we go out and sign autographs and they say, ‘Boy, I didn’t expect that.’ I hope they mean it in a good way,

Q: I’m sure they mean it in a good way.

A: I think so. Well, they were smiling.

The Righteous Brothers

Thursday, Jan. 18: Smothers Theatre, Pepperdine University, Malibu. Show is at 8 p.m. Tickets are $47.50-$90.

Friday, Jan. 19: Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, Indio. Show is 8 p.m. Tickets are $39-$59.

For more: Go to Righteousbrothers.com/events for more information including tickets.