Playboy, vol. 9, no. 2 (February 1962): 54–61, 132–134.
New York City, early winter, 1961. The apartment is stripped down to the essentials. One chair. A mattress on the floor. A stack of books with bookmarks halfway through. Ronnie Saint Clair has given his landlord a month’s notice. He has also, less formally, given notice to music.
PLAYBOY: You have surprised a lot of people, Ronnie. Over the last year you turned down television appearances, club dates, even a European tour. People assumed you were being difficult. Or tired. Or both. What actually happened?
SAINT CLAIR: Nothing dramatic. That is probably the disappointing part. I just stopped saying yes right away. The offers would come in and I would put them down somewhere and think, I will answer this tomorrow. Then tomorrow would come and I would think, maybe the next day. After a while that told me something.
PLAYBOY: Told you what?
SAINT CLAIR: That my first reaction used to be excitement. Lately it was more like, all right, let me picture this again. Same packing. Same jokes. Same long nights pretending they feel different because the room has a new carpet.
PLAYBOY: The European tour was considered a strong one.
SAINT CLAIR: Oh, it was. I am sure it would have been good. That was part of the trouble. There was nothing wrong with it. It just did not feel necessary.
PLAYBOY: Necessary in what sense?
SAINT CLAIR: In the sense that it would not have taught me anything new. I am not saying that is a noble reason. It is just what it felt like.
PLAYBOY: Most musicians would take that tour without thinking twice.
SAINT CLAIR: I did think about it. I thought about it a lot. That is how I knew I was done.
PLAYBOY: Done with touring or done with music?
SAINT CLAIR: Depends on the day you ask me. Some days I tell myself it is just touring. Other days it feels bigger than that. I do not always trust my own answers yet.
PLAYBOY: You recorded only one album, Wild Nights. It is still talked about as though it were the beginning of something.
SAINT CLAIR: People like beginnings. They are easier to organize in your head. Endings are messier.
PLAYBOY: Do you feel you cut something short?
SAINT CLAIR: No. And yes. I know that sounds like I am avoiding the question, but I am not trying to. I finished what I had to say the way I knew how to say it then. Could I have made more records? Of course. But I am not sure they would have been honest ones.
PLAYBOY: Honest in what way?
SAINT CLAIR: I would have been repeating myself with better arrangements. That can still sound good. It just feels strange when you know it is happening.
PLAYBOY: You continued performing for several years after the album.
SAINT CLAIR: Because stopping is harder than continuing. Once you are moving, momentum does most of the work. People call. You say yes. You tell yourself you will stop after the next run. There is always a next run.
PLAYBOY: Was there a moment when it finally shifted?
SAINT CLAIR: Not a single moment. It was more like noticing I was tired before I went onstage, instead of after. That was new.
PLAYBOY: You were closely tied to the downtown scene. Poets, painters, actors. The whole mid century mix. That life still carries a lot of romance.
SAINT CLAIR: From the outside, sure. Inside it feels like a party you are expected to host every night. You are always supposed to be interesting. I started to feel like if I sat quietly, someone would come over and ask if I was all right.
PLAYBOY: Were you?
SAINT CLAIR: I do not know. Probably not in the way people meant it.
PLAYBOY: You once described jazz as poetry with better timing.
SAINT CLAIR: I still think that is true. Although sometimes poetry knows when to stop talking. Jazz does not always get that memo.
PLAYBOY: That sounds like criticism.
SAINT CLAIR: It is not meant to be. I love it. I am just tired of living inside it all the time. Loving something does not mean you want to sleep in the same room forever.
PLAYBOY: You turned down television offers that would have widened your audience considerably.
SAINT CLAIR: Television fixes you in place. It asks you to be very clear about who you are. I am not clear right now. That felt like a bad match.
PLAYBOY: Records do something similar.
SAINT CLAIR: Records feel private. Television feels contractual. A record lets you disappear. Television keeps asking you to come back and explain yourself.
PLAYBOY: You have given notice on this apartment.
SAINT CLAIR: Yes.
PLAYBOY: That feels symbolic.
SAINT CLAIR: It feels like a lease ending.
PLAYBOY: Where will you go?
SAINT CLAIR: West. Eventually. Not right away.
PLAYBOY: California?
SAINT CLAIR: Maybe Oregon. Somewhere with fewer opinions about what you are supposed to do next.
PLAYBOY: Are you running away from New York?
SAINT CLAIR: No. I like New York. I just do not need it to tell me who I am anymore.
PLAYBOY: What do you plan to do when you leave?
SAINT CLAIR: I have no plan. That is the plan. I know that sounds like something people say to sound brave. Mostly it just feels unfinished.
PLAYBOY: Does that frighten you?
SAINT CLAIR: Sometimes. Other times it feels like relief. Those two feelings live pretty close together.
PLAYBOY: Do you miss the thrill already?
SAINT CLAIR: I miss parts of it. I miss the first chorus when you realize the room is listening. I do not miss the fourth set when you are thinking about breakfast.
PLAYBOY: Will you ever come back to music?
SAINT CLAIR: I am trying not to make promises to my future self. He may not appreciate them.
PLAYBOY: You are only in your mid thirties.
SAINT CLAIR: I know. People keep reminding me of that.
PLAYBOY: And yet you sound older.
SAINT CLAIR: I feel older in the places that matter for this decision. I feel younger in other ways. That probably does not help.
PLAYBOY: If a young singer arrived in New York tomorrow with the same hunger you once had, what would you tell him?
SAINT CLAIR: I would tell him to pay attention to when the hunger changes. Not when it disappears. Just when it starts asking different questions. Most people ignore that part.
PLAYBOY: Would you tell him to leave?
SAINT CLAIR: No. I would tell him to listen. Leaving is something you decide on your own, whether anyone tells you to or not.
Saint Clair lights another cigarette and looks around the nearly empty room, as if noticing it again for the first time. He does not look regretful. He looks occupied with the idea of quiet. Outside, New York keeps moving, unconcerned, already halfway to the next chorus.
Editor’s Note
Interviewing Ronnie Saint Clair was not the sort of experience one expects when sitting down with a man who has just declined success. There was no bitterness, no grand declaration, and none of the theatrical exhaustion that often accompanies a public retreat. He did not seem wounded by the attention he was refusing. If anything, he appeared mildly embarrassed by it.
Saint Clair spoke carefully, but not with calculation. He contradicted himself in small ways, then let the contradiction stand. When pressed for explanations, he often circled the idea rather than naming it outright, as though he were still testing how it sounded in the room. This was not evasiveness so much as honesty in its unfinished state.
What struck us most was his lack of urgency. In an era that rewards ambition, Saint Clair seems almost indifferent to the idea of momentum. He does not speak of plans, reinvention, or return. He speaks instead of noticing when something no longer fits, and having the patience to sit with that knowledge without rushing to replace it.
There is a temptation to frame his decision as a failure of nerve or a fear of aging. After spending time with him, neither explanation seems accurate. Saint Clair is not afraid of obscurity. He is wary of repetition. He has already lived inside the story most people would kill to continue telling.
Whether he will be heard from again is an open question, and one suspects he is content to leave it that way. In a culture built on perpetual motion, there is something quietly subversive about a man who chooses stillness without apology.
One leaves the interview with the sense that Ronnie Saint Clair has not vanished so much as stepped out of the frame. The music continues. He simply no longer feels compelled to narrate it.
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