POP MUSIC : Harry Dean Never Left His Kentucky Home

“My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk,” says Harry Dean Stanton, the venerable character actor who graduated to leading-man status as star of “Paris, Texas” in 1984. “My first performance was of a song called ‘My Blue Heaven,’ which I began singing when I was a year and a half.”

With appearances in more than 50 films, Stanton’s acting career is firmly established; less known, however, and of equal importance as far as he’s concerned, is his work as a musician.

An accomplished drummer and guitarist with the brokenhearted voice of a vagabond balladeer, Stanton is currently writing songs with Billy Swan and Michael Bean, and he performed a series of shows last year at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. Fans who missed those shows might recall his rendition of “Midnight Special” in “Cool Hand Luke” or “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane” in “Straight Time.” He also sang a duet with Joan Baez in Bob Dylan’s “Renaldo and Clara.”

A visit with Stanton at his modest home in the Hollywood Hills proves that fame and fortune have made little impression on this Kentucky poor boy who made good.

In the process of waking up for a noon interview, he answers the door in his robe and proceeds to shuffle into the kitchen, figuring he’ll wash the dishes while he answers questions. “Aw hell,” he mutters midway through his chore. “I been rinsing these dishes in dirty water! You ever do that?” he inquires with a laugh.

Dishes done, coffee and cigarette in hand, he sits down to talk about his relationship with music and the artists he admires.

“The first music I remember hearing was the traditional songs of Kentucky--things like ‘Roll Along Kentucky Moon,’ ” the 60-year-old Stanton recalls.

“I don’t recall what the first record I bought was,” he continues, “but I definitely remember hearing Creedence’s ‘Born on the Bayou’ and going out and buying it. The guitar and drums in that band were really good. I loved the words to the title track, and Fogerty’s voice sounded just great. I’ve loved almost everything he’s done and thought his comeback album was fantastic.”

Perusing Stanton’s record collection, one notes that his taste in music is in keeping with the sort of character he’s known for portraying on screen; there’s a preponderance of albums by artists best described as lonesome troubadours--Hoyt Axton, Harry Chapin, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Kris Kristofferson, J.J. Cale, Mickey Newbury, John Hammond and Glen Campbell. His respectable selection of blues LPs includes works by Leadbelly, B.B. King and Ray Charles.

“For a musician to be good, he has to have humanity and care about the other guy,” says Stanton, regarding his populist taste. “And as for blues--in a sense, black people have kept this country alive and given us our entire musical heritage. For instance, country is thought of as white music, but good country blues has the feeling of black blues--the difference being that black blues has a bigger emotionality to it.

“I guess when you get screwed around the way they’ve been, you get bluer and meaner. Many black musicians never got the recognition they deserved, and the same is true of black athletes. Satchel Paige was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball and he never got what he deserved because he was black.”

Speaking of sports, our conversation is abruptly cut short when Stanton’s pal Jack Nicholson calls with tickets to that afternoon’s Laker game. I return the following afternoon to conclude the interview and find Stanton with his head in the fireplace. He wants his hair to dry before the photographer takes his picture and figures the fireplace will do the job.

Hair dry and picture taken, we return to Stanton’s record collection. Over the course of his career, Stanton befriended numerous pop culture heavyweights and counts many of the artists in his record collection as personal friends. (He’s appeared in films with Dylan, John Doe, John Lurie, Adam Ant and Joan Baez, among others.)

“Dylan’s never put out an album without a few good songs on it, and I’ve always liked Joan Baez’s voice,” he comments. “Madonna’s a friend of mine--I met her through Sean (Penn)--and I know the guys in U2, who have a song called ‘No Exit’ based on a monologue I did in ‘Paris, Texas.’

“I like U2, but even the best big rock bands over-amp themselves when they perform live, to the point that the music becomes an ugly din. When music is that loud, your psyche can’t receive it, and I can’t understand why musicians choose to present their music that way.”

Fleshing out Stanton’s collection is some music of the ‘60s counterculture--the Doors, the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas--some classic country by Willie Nelson and Flatt & Scruggs, Elvis Presley’s “Sun Sessions,” spoken-word records by Krishnamurti, and an intriguingly mysterious record by the Ralph Hunter Choir titled “The Wild, Wild West.” A few styles of music are noticeably absent, and Stanton explains why in no uncertain terms.

“I detest disco and heavy metal,” he declares. “I’d like to kill all of them! I refer to that stuff as cocaine music because it has no heart, and the fact that it’s popular is a reflection of the lack of humanity so prevalent in this country right now.”

A big fan of gospel, Stanton responds to a question about rap with a puzzled “What’s that?” and describes punk as “more a social phenomenon than a style of music.” While he finds the beat in most reggae too repetitive, he does like UB40, and though not keen on progressive jazz, is a fan of blues jazz and the traditional music of Mexico.

“I prefer hearing music as part of a group rather than by myself, because music is something to be shared,” he summarizes. “It really can bring people together, although it can also have the opposite effect. Music truly can drive you insane and it affects us in many different ways. Speaking for myself, I primarily use it to put myself in a state of harmony. The most important thing music does is make us feel connected--to ourselves, to other people, to the cosmos.”