Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio YO,
Speaker 1: What Up? Sponsor the Low. Last week we got in
Speaker 1: to part one of our interview with Fred Hammond, and
Speaker 1: y'all heard that one. Get ready for part two. We
Speaker 1: go even deeper and it's even better. Quest Love Supremes
Speaker 1: in the house, y'all. Yep, I asked you initially then
Speaker 1: we got sidetracked, but can you just briefly talk about
Speaker 1: what the gospel circuit is like? And remember I told
Speaker 1: you that the whole thing? Like, okay, you're you're touring
Speaker 1: with the Whinings? What is what is a working musician
Speaker 1: making with the whinings? Ins? Like? And is another one?
Speaker 1: There is there a rider? I just want to know,
Speaker 1: like what are working musician makes in the gospel circuit?
Speaker 1: Like are you playing j churches? Is banquet halls? Is
Speaker 1: the theaters? Like take me through all you get me
Speaker 1: a gig drumming with the with the Whinings. It explained
Speaker 1: to me the whole process. Okay, so the wine is
Speaker 1: when they came out their record, they had a great manager.
Speaker 1: They had a couple of great managers. Direct dirts On
Speaker 1: was one of them, a couple of other people and
Speaker 1: they had writers, you know, down to just like a
Speaker 1: because these managers managed secular acts. So they had writers.
Speaker 1: And we were doing mainly theaters, and back at that
Speaker 1: time they had this thing called the World's Greatest Gospel Show,
Speaker 1: James Cleveland, Mighty Clouds, and they were doing arenas. They
Speaker 1: were doing literal arenas like Cobol Hall or something, and
Speaker 1: so we did a lot of big, big dates. When
Speaker 1: we did a church, we felt like, you know, it
Speaker 1: was beneath us. You know, your church was big because
Speaker 1: we were used to not doing churches. The Wind has
Speaker 1: had a thing that they said, we don't want to
Speaker 1: play churches because we don't want to alienate some people
Speaker 1: don't want to come to church, and we want everybody
Speaker 1: to hear our music. So we did a lot of theaters,
Speaker 1: you know, did a lot of theaters, be compater, We
Speaker 1: did radio City, We did a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of things. So they had a writer. We all stayed
Speaker 1: in the hotel. We traveled by Greyhound bus and van.
Speaker 1: Every now and then we would we would fly um,
Speaker 1: but we we we traveled and we didn't have no
Speaker 1: problem loading up in a sixteen passenger you know and
Speaker 1: hiding down the road. You know, so that was the case.
Speaker 1: But here's let's let's talk about the money. It got strange,
Speaker 1: It got really weird, got weird. I started off making
Speaker 1: because I knew they were charging like three a night.
Speaker 1: Then they were moving up four thousand dollars that they
Speaker 1: were moving up the ranks, and they started off making
Speaker 1: two fifty a night, and it was like, man, this
Speaker 1: is great money. Well, somebody told them, like, you know,
Speaker 1: as you guys make more money, the band is going
Speaker 1: to make less money. And they took that wrong. So
Speaker 1: when they went up to we went down to one seventy.
Speaker 1: When they went up to five thousand, we went down
Speaker 1: to like a hundred. It got down to fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a night because they were like, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: else y'all gonna black? Who else you're gonna play for?
Speaker 1: You know, just we don't we do only kind of
Speaker 1: game in the town, you know. And we literally got
Speaker 1: down to fifty dollars a night. And I was on welfare.
Speaker 1: I was literally collecting unemployment and having to go out
Speaker 1: of town. So I go to Oakland, I have to
Speaker 1: stop off at the unemployment office. I go into I
Speaker 1: go into KFC right next to the unemployment office say hey,
Speaker 1: y'all looking for me about y'all got applications. They said,
Speaker 1: now we ain't hearing and I going in in the
Speaker 1: off and they said, okay, cool, I signed, I go back.
Speaker 1: I beel like, my fifty dollars from the wine is
Speaker 1: three nights. I got to pluck fifty plus. That wasn't
Speaker 1: per dam that your per daym was in your pay
Speaker 1: So I wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, oh wow,
Speaker 1: it was. It was kind of it was it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was a thing. You know,
Speaker 1: how did you let it get that Why did why
Speaker 1: did you guys let it get to that point? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as like you didn't nobody ever said
Speaker 1: anything like okay, now it's a hundred no no. My
Speaker 1: drummer one of my best friends in the group at
Speaker 1: that time, his name was Sandy Lovely. He was a
Speaker 1: great drummer, and he just got two points in, Man,
Speaker 1: I can't go out for this. I got to get
Speaker 1: a job. I'm gonna give me a job at Chrysler.
Speaker 1: And we had meetings like guys, can we get more money?
Speaker 1: And they were they were at a place where they
Speaker 1: were so hot. They were like if you don't want
Speaker 1: to play, you know somebody else. And that was just
Speaker 1: the way it was. And they weren't mean. They would
Speaker 1: just call themselves being business people. And I stayed as
Speaker 1: long as I physically could. I was making I literally
Speaker 1: man was on welfare and playing and I just stuck
Speaker 1: hung in there. I never forget we do. Went to
Speaker 1: California for a month and I had to pay for
Speaker 1: my own food every now and then. They pay for
Speaker 1: our food. You know, come on and sit on down.
Speaker 1: But they only had a few gigs. We probably had
Speaker 1: seven gigs out there, so fifty times seven is what
Speaker 1: it was. And I had to eat. So when I
Speaker 1: went home, I probably went home literally with like bucks
Speaker 1: in my pocket. Yeah, I'm saying. But my thing was,
Speaker 1: I loved it so much and I thought, at being
Speaker 1: young and governable, I'm like, well, this is how it goes.
Speaker 1: I'm not leaving. This is the best place for me.
Speaker 1: So it's not gonna be about money. I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I was learning it's not about money. When you do this,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a passion. So that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Another question I always wanted to know. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in uh, you know, a household with
Speaker 1: the least three thousand records. I'm very, very very familiar
Speaker 1: with the Light label, so I know about the history
Speaker 1: of Ralph Carmichael um Man and whatnot. Could you explain
Speaker 1: it for our listeners and to me too, because I
Speaker 1: know very little, Like was like a Detroit label, and
Speaker 1: like why were why was that the was that the
Speaker 1: go to? Was that the motown of gospel labels? Back then?
Speaker 1: It was Andre Crouch made Light Records. Ralph andre Crouch
Speaker 1: were really good friends, and Ralph invest it in Andre's
Speaker 1: earliest music, you know, and then Andre just blew it up, man,
Speaker 1: and just he just that's what did it. That's what
Speaker 1: did it. Andre Crouch built Light Records, and then the
Speaker 1: Winders went at that same time Andrea had a little
Speaker 1: something and they had to kind of part ways. Andre
Speaker 1: went to Warner Brothers, you know, from there, and so
Speaker 1: the Windings ran Light Records, and Light Records was a major,
Speaker 1: major force. But it was from l A. They lived.
Speaker 1: They were out in Pasadena and somewhere out there, and
Speaker 1: you know out there that's where Light Records was. The
Speaker 1: Hawkins to the Hawks in the Bay Area, and they
Speaker 1: were on Light Yeah, the first record and all of
Speaker 1: their records were on Light Records. Yeah, Light was the
Speaker 1: major lay whatl that for? Word Records hadn't even come
Speaker 1: into play yet, you know, Light was the thing. And
Speaker 1: then Ralph he retired and gave his uh reins over
Speaker 1: to another guy. And that's when Commission came in and
Speaker 1: we salvage because we were making money for Light Records,
Speaker 1: you know, we was, we was really turning some records over. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now that we're there, can you please tell me
Speaker 1: just the average creative at least for the I'm going
Speaker 1: on and that they'll tell us, like your first few records,
Speaker 1: can you tell me what the creative process is for
Speaker 1: making those albums? As and who's the alpha that makes
Speaker 1: the decisions? Who? How do you guys especially, I mean
Speaker 1: six of you or seven of you? Six of you? Like,
Speaker 1: is it really democratic or is it just like what
Speaker 1: you say goes or what? Like? What's the as Fonte
Speaker 1: would say, sort of the division of labor in and
Speaker 1: creating these records? Um Man, I was good and I've
Speaker 1: always been good at delegating, you know, I understood it.
Speaker 1: So I broke the group up into two pieces because
Speaker 1: the singers, Carl Mitchell and Keith They weren't really Mitchell was.
Speaker 1: He was He was kind of key and learning the
Speaker 1: music side. But I had a very funk background, so
Speaker 1: I would divide it up into here the singers, this
Speaker 1: is what we do, and then it was Michael Brooks
Speaker 1: and myself, Me and Mike. Mike was a keyboard player
Speaker 1: and he was the songwriter, so we would take his songs.
Speaker 1: He would say this is this, this, this, this, and
Speaker 1: then we would add the flare to we put the
Speaker 1: swag on it. Mitchell and I would put the swag
Speaker 1: on and I was It was never about me, you know,
Speaker 1: running the show. We were just glad that Mike Brooks
Speaker 1: was such a good songwriter. He was phenomenal. All of
Speaker 1: them songs back then basically came from him. We didn't
Speaker 1: even know anything about song right he was teaching us.
Speaker 1: But we took his songs and we made them as
Speaker 1: good as they could be. So, you know, we just
Speaker 1: we understood that level. So I was really a producer
Speaker 1: from that angle. Mike was the writer, arranger and producers.
Speaker 1: So we worked well together, you know. We we we never
Speaker 1: saw anything different from Timmy Jimmy in Terry or or
Speaker 1: from baby Face in l A. So we just took
Speaker 1: it that. You know, you work together, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you feel, how you feel about that, he said,
Speaker 1: I like that. I say, well, I like what you're doing.
Speaker 1: So we just did that and it worked, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? That was up. What was the in
Speaker 1: terms of stacking recording your background vocals? What was that process? Like? John, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine, great great engineer. He ended
Speaker 1: up getting fired off our first record because a lot
Speaker 1: of firing going on in the commission. Y'all was getting
Speaker 1: people out of that because I never heard the word
Speaker 1: fire so much. So here's what we were doing. We
Speaker 1: heard a different sound from what everybody else heard when
Speaker 1: it comes to background. So we took and we stacked
Speaker 1: you know, each part you know for four and four
Speaker 1: and our backgrounds were more Clark's histories. One of the
Speaker 1: songs that we learned, our first song, we real quick.
Speaker 1: Just so when you say four four four are each
Speaker 1: one of y'all, like four of y'all singing the same
Speaker 1: part and y'all are tracking four of us were sing
Speaker 1: and we've seen two tracks because it was twenty track
Speaker 1: at that time, so we really had to manage your jump.
Speaker 1: So we were singing the bottom, then we've seen the middle.
Speaker 1: Then sometimes Mitchell Carlin I would sing the top, or
Speaker 1: just Mitchell Carlin Mitchell will sing the top. So we
Speaker 1: had six tracks of vocals, but we we had intricates
Speaker 1: parts because we were always concentrating on the Clark Cys.
Speaker 1: Our first song we ever learned in my mother's in
Speaker 1: my mother's living room was look gives the place, bead,
Speaker 1: Praise bead, Blood, help me Dozia. Yeah. When we sang
Speaker 1: that and learned that, man, we ran out like we
Speaker 1: ran a grand We jump got off off the porch.
Speaker 1: We learned it. So we said, this is how our
Speaker 1: vocals are gonna be. So now we're singing this song.
Speaker 1: If we have any lord before, sure they wait and
Speaker 1: and we're singing it and surely we need, surely we need,
Speaker 1: surely we need him na. And when we did that part,
Speaker 1: we were amazed. But the engineer said, no, you can't
Speaker 1: have the vocals up that loud. They need to be
Speaker 1: back here. I said, but they don't sound good back there.
Speaker 1: We want them up loud it because it's like background leads.
Speaker 1: And we had a thing because nobody was doing it
Speaker 1: that way. So finally he put them where he wanted
Speaker 1: them and we just said, okay. Cool. I went into
Speaker 1: the stage managers, I mean the studio manager. I told her.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, we need to get our masters.
Speaker 1: She said you leave it. Yeah, and she said why.
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't want to get him. You know, fired,
Speaker 1: I want you know? He said, well, we think our
Speaker 1: voices sound better up here. He said, who paying for this?
Speaker 1: Is he paying for this? We pa, are you pay?
Speaker 1: And I said we are. She said, you better grew up, pair.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna teach you how to be a man. Next
Speaker 1: week came back, it was a different engineer there, and
Speaker 1: he turned it up where we wanted and the commission
Speaker 1: sound was perked. The very next album though, we went
Speaker 1: back with John and he got it and he was
Speaker 1: the assignment brother brother Hammond. Can you explain the influence
Speaker 1: and what makes the Clark's sisters their sound or they're
Speaker 1: blend like, what makes it so spect than anyone's former
Speaker 1: background blending or whatnot? Winky one word at that time,
Speaker 1: Twinkie Clark. Twinkie was Stevie to us how she played
Speaker 1: when she sat down to how she played, how she
Speaker 1: arranged her heart and niece and what she did it
Speaker 1: was just amazing. And so you have Karen and Derenda
Speaker 1: and you have you have Denise at that time, and
Speaker 1: Jackie and Tweakie was giving out these crazy parts in
Speaker 1: these crazy chords and it was blowing us all the way.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. If you go back and listen to
Speaker 1: the recordings, weren't that great productionalizing sonically, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of mistakes that kept going. But if you
Speaker 1: listen to the heart of Twinkie Clark's arranged, it was
Speaker 1: just with like that prey and spirit. That is an
Speaker 1: amazing song. That was our north star to say, we
Speaker 1: want to make people feel like this about our record
Speaker 1: because at that time we didn't want to sound like
Speaker 1: the Windings because they were kind of straight ahead, you know,
Speaker 1: four Tops Temptations, you know they were they were that
Speaker 1: they were We wanted to be different. They were that
Speaker 1: change to go back to, go back to, go back
Speaker 1: to question is no no no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no, just just just straight so to you, to you.
Speaker 1: That was regular, just regular flat, like a harmony, one
Speaker 1: on one. That was one on one. My my parents
Speaker 1: lived for that record. So I'm growing up thinking that
Speaker 1: the Windings are the epicenter of you know, and the
Speaker 1: absolute force of gospel seeing. But for you that was
Speaker 1: just normalized. And the Clark's sisters were top shelf. It
Speaker 1: was as far as being creative, the Clarks were top shelf.
Speaker 1: As far as the blend the Winding brothers, there was
Speaker 1: a blend like no other because they were family. So
Speaker 1: we took the we took the polished of the Windings,
Speaker 1: and we took the creativity of the Clark sisters. And
Speaker 1: that's what commissioned was. So if the Windings commissioned and
Speaker 1: Clark sisters got together, did they produced us? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So, um, that's what you hear, you know.
Speaker 1: But it was about Twinkie. Twinkie was beast. She was
Speaker 1: a beast. She was she was amazing, and that's where
Speaker 1: we got it from. So okay, actually, I want to
Speaker 1: direct this to James, because here's the deal. Again, we're
Speaker 1: not you know, at the top of the show, I
Speaker 1: explained that when I was in high school, it was
Speaker 1: almost like a gang experience, and I'm at performing art
Speaker 1: school and you got like one cat like Kurt Rosen
Speaker 1: winkles into Frank Zappa, so you gotta learn his language.
Speaker 1: But then like christ McBride and Joey Di Francisco are
Speaker 1: a heavy jazz cats you gotta listen to like anything
Speaker 1: on Blue Note. And then of course, you know my
Speaker 1: partner Toriguez is hip hop and whatnot. And so there
Speaker 1: was the fourth category of cats who only lived for
Speaker 1: a commission. And so you know, like I, even though
Speaker 1: we didn't go to the same school together, like little
Speaker 1: John Roberts as a drummer, was how I knew commission
Speaker 1: Because the thing is, you know, like I'm thinking, like
Speaker 1: with my legacy of who my dad was and whatnot,
Speaker 1: I'm finally like in a high school situation which I
Speaker 1: could play like all City jazz band all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, like the red carpet is just ready
Speaker 1: for me and like, you know, for me to get
Speaker 1: my thing on. And little John Roberts, who's way younger
Speaker 1: than I was, Like he's like three or four years younger.
Speaker 1: You know this, this little you know, eighth grade runt
Speaker 1: is playing like an adult and I'm like, wait what
Speaker 1: and he's little John's let me know, like like what
Speaker 1: you don't know about commission. And I'm realizing, you know,
Speaker 1: because again I was I was team Prince. That's that's why,
Speaker 1: that's who I chose that you know, prints the time
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. I wasn't him to commission. And
Speaker 1: yet all my peers, like all those first generations monster
Speaker 1: cats were that's like taking every word as like bond
Speaker 1: so for you, for you, James, like how how much
Speaker 1: of their work, like was influential to you coming up
Speaker 1: in your dad's church and whatnot? Oh my see, I
Speaker 1: grew up and my father is a bishop and a
Speaker 1: Jamaican bishop, which means that we ain't We couldn't do nothing.
Speaker 1: As my dad said, you can't do this, you can't
Speaker 1: do that. He had to sneak to listen to the commission.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no no. That was the only thing.
Speaker 1: Are those are the only records that I could listen to,
Speaker 1: you know, we I grew up, you know, the records
Speaker 1: that were in the house where the Andre Croucher and
Speaker 1: the Hawkins and so forth and um so listen to that.
Speaker 1: But when commission came, it was like this is something new.
Speaker 1: All my musician buddies at the time that grew up
Speaker 1: in a church were like yo, if you check the
Speaker 1: sound at the very beginning of it was like what
Speaker 1: is that? So it was like we had something, we
Speaker 1: had something cool to listen to, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something that was explained to me. What year did gospel
Speaker 1: stop really let itself go of? Like the Gospel quartet
Speaker 1: ding ding ding ding dinging, Like when did gospel really
Speaker 1: let go? Because even now I collect like I love
Speaker 1: collecting gospel records that will take that one secular song
Speaker 1: and turn into a gospel song like Shalimar's Second time Around,
Speaker 1: or you know, there's a whispers and the beat goes
Speaker 1: on gospel version, there's a Lovely Day that's gospelized. You know,
Speaker 1: there's always that one Tilken song where they like take
Speaker 1: a secular song and do it, but the rest of
Speaker 1: the stuff is like old time gospel. At what point
Speaker 1: in the gospel world do you not have to feel
Speaker 1: shame that you're making people dance and not playing the
Speaker 1: regular gospel time old time you brought the sunshine maybe, right,
Speaker 1: yeah Clark Sisters, Yeah the Sunshine, Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: was a massive. Yeah. So that's the first time in which,
Speaker 1: like I mean, if you go back to Edwin Hawker
Speaker 1: Edwin Hawk is the old Happy Day too, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So even then, like that's still gospel
Speaker 1: to me. But like, what's the point where, like you know,
Speaker 1: where you if you take the vocals away, it could
Speaker 1: be a secular song, Like, at what point does that happen?
Speaker 1: It really took hold with bbs CCS first. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: I got it right. I was thinking that, but I
Speaker 1: didn't want to say it out loud. Thank you for it.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that's when it really took hold because they
Speaker 1: people didn't know if there was a love song album,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's when they got popular to actually
Speaker 1: seeing music. Steve Thomas was the was the producer at
Speaker 1: that time. He's a white with a lot of in heaven.
Speaker 1: He did a lot of Vanessa Williams stuff too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's when it really kicked in. So when you're
Speaker 1: playing in church, are there any elders ever giving you
Speaker 1: side eye? Like because even even mind like I'm not
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't come from the church per se,
Speaker 1: but I played drumps in my church occasionally. So like
Speaker 1: you know, in eight six, eighties seven, you know, I
Speaker 1: might put a little bit of top Villain into whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing, or play like a run d NC break
Speaker 1: beat or whatever, and occasionally, like an older uncle would
Speaker 1: give me that look like I know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You know how people didn't know when the kids start
Speaker 1: doing the then they're like, oh, you're playing Secondly, you
Speaker 1: don't do that like uplifted. So are you at all
Speaker 1: ever getting like side eyes if you start referencing a
Speaker 1: popular baseline, if you start doing not just need deep
Speaker 1: or something like in your music. Man, we caught the
Speaker 1: blues with that. Man we called the blues with that
Speaker 1: we were getting. Man, we got picketed, We got picked
Speaker 1: at it show. I wasn't expecting that the mission we
Speaker 1: were doing a we were doing a convention in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: at least Cincinnato, Kentucky, and man, there was they said, Man,
Speaker 1: we don't want to we don't want to bump you out.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole bunch of people, about twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty people out in the front, and they got picket
Speaker 1: signs saying this music is gonna send you to hell.
Speaker 1: I never forgot. I never forgot. It was like I've
Speaker 1: seen out of the movie driving up all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we in slow motion you hear some strings playing and
Speaker 1: you see these people god Devil's music, Devil's really and
Speaker 1: we're just sitting there there, like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: But it was still a line of young people waiting
Speaker 1: to get in. And when we got inside, we played
Speaker 1: like never before. We weren't really rebellious. We were kind
Speaker 1: of hurt because we didn't see that like that, but
Speaker 1: we played anyway, and the kids came in there and
Speaker 1: they had a great time, and we did have a
Speaker 1: lot of elders. And people say, I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: Like one pastor was totally against us, and the only
Speaker 1: reason he stopped being totally against us is that another
Speaker 1: pastor had a son that was on drugs that was
Speaker 1: getting clean because he was listening to our music. He
Speaker 1: would come to church. He said, I don't know what
Speaker 1: them boys is doing, but I tell you this, if
Speaker 1: they can get him to do his job, I ain't
Speaker 1: mad at it. And it started changing some people around,
Speaker 1: but it took a long time, and people was picking
Speaker 1: at us because we had on blue jeans. We were
Speaker 1: the first group to ever wear blue jeans on a record,
Speaker 1: so we were like new additions and people just thought
Speaker 1: people wouldn't buy a record just because of we had
Speaker 1: on that first album. They wudn't even back what Yeah,
Speaker 1: y'all think the church is keeping is catching up yet
Speaker 1: they everybody and everybody ain't in No, That's why I
Speaker 1: was asking churches's house, Jakes in the Podder's house, we
Speaker 1: have we have dance ministries, we have youth ministries, and
Speaker 1: they could do whatever it is long, it's it's not
Speaker 1: sexual looking. They can do any dance. They can whoa,
Speaker 1: they can do whatever they want to do to anything
Speaker 1: because he encourages. Man, this is current, this is what
Speaker 1: we're doing. This nothing wrong with this. We we better
Speaker 1: offer them something. Somebody else is gonna offer him something.
Speaker 1: I want to give her something because they're gonna the
Speaker 1: poll is gonna offer or something. So you know, let's
Speaker 1: be smart about young people. And they're they're with it now,
Speaker 1: but coming up. Man. Eric Robinson is one of my
Speaker 1: best friends. About that, Yeah, Jed Tenners, yes, so he
Speaker 1: I never forget. They told me they said they they
Speaker 1: brought him down to Popados and they said they had
Speaker 1: a special guest for his birthday and they brought me
Speaker 1: in the room. He literally started crying and we started
Speaker 1: we stayed friends every since. But he told the story
Speaker 1: that really blessed me. He said he hated gospel music
Speaker 1: because it was he didn't like it, and his mother said,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen to it, but she was praying for something.
Speaker 1: So one day he was downstairs iron in his clothes
Speaker 1: and his mother put our record on the on the
Speaker 1: earning board and he saw that we had clothes with
Speaker 1: like he did, and he listen, looked at it, and
Speaker 1: he played it. He said, I literally started crying. He said,
Speaker 1: because you guys, you said it. You guys made it
Speaker 1: cool to do gospel. And that's when the cliff he
Speaker 1: and I talked about to this day. That's my guy,
Speaker 1: that's that's I'm I'm mind blow. And I wasn't expecting
Speaker 1: the picketting. I thought, like, you guys broke through the
Speaker 1: other side and everyone was with it. So it's basically
Speaker 1: like the black foot loose, Like it's always a chick
Speaker 1: with a skirt underneath the knees ready to pick up,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, black foot loose. Well, I
Speaker 1: also want to know has there ever been musically speaking,
Speaker 1: how how long would you guys rehearse and you know,
Speaker 1: was there ever a pressure to top yourselves as far
Speaker 1: as your musicality because you know, again some of these
Speaker 1: songs are are straight and hit funk songs. But then
Speaker 1: like you guys will get on your return to forever,
Speaker 1: you know, crazy arrangements at the end thing and you know,
Speaker 1: so how how how what's the what's the regiment for
Speaker 1: like practicing and coming up with new ideas and whatnot.
Speaker 1: There was a point in time where we're doing the
Speaker 1: first several set of records, when our budgets were really,
Speaker 1: really small. What we would do is put twenty hours
Speaker 1: of practice time in a basement to every four hours
Speaker 1: of studio time because we didn't have much money in
Speaker 1: the studio. You can knock it out. We're knocking it out.
Speaker 1: And then we was putting fines in place. We had
Speaker 1: no money, but we was putting fines in place. You know,
Speaker 1: if you miss, if you because you had to do
Speaker 1: a take, you got one take because we was like, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be do this in one take. If you
Speaker 1: mess it up, man, that's five out of fine, you know,
Speaker 1: and so the next one we would honestly, but we
Speaker 1: were on it man, because we would and we loved rehearsing.
Speaker 1: We didn't really have no jobs, so we loved rehearsing. Man,
Speaker 1: we we just saw ourselves in a bit of better place.
Speaker 1: So we were either be in Michael Brooks's basement and
Speaker 1: we were we were learning. That's where I brought in
Speaker 1: Field College. You know, if you go listen to Hide
Speaker 1: the word on the second album, Okay, but the drummer,
Speaker 1: I listened to the level forty two and I listened
Speaker 1: to Phil Collins and them, and uh my drummer was
Speaker 1: crazy about Phil Collins. So we said, we're gonna put
Speaker 1: this one part in there that Phil does his thoms
Speaker 1: all right. So it said when it looks think the thing,
Speaker 1: you bob boom, And he didn't think that instant and
Speaker 1: then he would go past the one. So he go
Speaker 1: bro broom instead of broken, broken bock, instead of going
Speaker 1: to the one people go. Pe said watch, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this. Boo boo boo boo, spot the boom, and
Speaker 1: and we went into a thing. But we he would
Speaker 1: do something, then I would do something, or Mark King
Speaker 1: would do this right here boom boom boom, and this
Speaker 1: will never do well, Let's do this right here. We
Speaker 1: were blessed to experiment with music and still keep a pocket.
Speaker 1: That was the beauty of commission. Man, that's what I loved. Wow, Wow,
Speaker 1: you mentioned level forty two. I was about to say, Um,
Speaker 1: what's his name is bass playing? Yes? Yes, I definitely
Speaker 1: see that. Yeah Arrow. He wanted to Uh, he wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you you. I wanted to tell the story
Speaker 1: of recording, writing and recording running back to you. Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was funny because that's actually just came up about
Speaker 1: three years ago as a sore spot. It just came up. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be in a little movie thing
Speaker 1: we just talking about doing. And I won't blow people's cover,
Speaker 1: but I'll just tell you what happened. Um, we were
Speaker 1: in there and this record we had a we had
Speaker 1: an artist named Derek Brinkley, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: gonna give this song to him, and they said, well, no,
Speaker 1: why don't you keep it? So I said to Keith,
Speaker 1: I said, because it's my personal testimony. And I said,
Speaker 1: Keith Man, why don't you sing this song? Because we
Speaker 1: always want to make sure everybody felt more comfortable, you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to seem like I'm doing everything.
Speaker 1: So I wrote this song, you know, and I said, Keith,
Speaker 1: would you do it? Keith is more straight laced of
Speaker 1: all of us. He was very much the straight laced guy,
Speaker 1: you know, very cool. But he went out there in
Speaker 1: these streets like we was. We was out there and um,
Speaker 1: he said, man, I'm not real comfortable with doing that song.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'll go do the demo of it.
Speaker 1: And you guys kind of listened to it. So what
Speaker 1: we would do is out the person would sing the
Speaker 1: lead and then we go start making a background parts.
Speaker 1: So I went in there and I sang the song
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at the guys in there, and they're
Speaker 1: just kind of sitting like this, you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: and so I'm singing the parts. I'm singing the parts,
Speaker 1: and finally I put a look in there after I finished,
Speaker 1: and I put the headphones down, and nobody's you know,
Speaker 1: not saying, man, great songs that they're just sitting there.
Speaker 1: And so I walked from the microphone two the studio
Speaker 1: ten ft, going past double doors, and when I got
Speaker 1: in there, everybody was looking at me like this, and
Speaker 1: I was I didn't know what to expect. So I
Speaker 1: just sat down and when the guys said the good job, man,
Speaker 1: good job. And I said, okay, cool. So I'm listening
Speaker 1: to the playback and I turned around to the guys
Speaker 1: and said, so, guys, let's start putting some backgrounds to it.
Speaker 1: Let's put some backgrounds to it. And the guy said,
Speaker 1: I don't think you should put no backgrounds. Here's the
Speaker 1: here's the here's the dirt, here's a little dirt. One
Speaker 1: of the guys, when I was coming from the vocal
Speaker 1: booth to the room, said so, y'all gonna just let
Speaker 1: him do a solo on this record, ah man. And
Speaker 1: when I got in there, everybody was off guard. So
Speaker 1: that was the look. That was the look. And so
Speaker 1: the rest of the guys told me this literally three
Speaker 1: years ago. Wow. I always say what they just told
Speaker 1: me this three years ago. Wow. And so when I
Speaker 1: walked in the room, I walked in and the person said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you should just go ahead and do it yourself. And
Speaker 1: I said, no, man, I don't want nobody thinking I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do no no solo or nothing like that.
Speaker 1: They said, man, now you're good. The guys were trying
Speaker 1: to process what they just dealt with. So they sat
Speaker 1: there and what you hear is the demo is the
Speaker 1: actual song itself today? Wow? Wow. We were still Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, we were still regular dudes. We were still
Speaker 1: people with insecurities. We were people. We were guys, boys
Speaker 1: trying to be raising, trying to turn into men. We
Speaker 1: had idiosyncrasies, we had group issues. So when I see
Speaker 1: something like The Temptation Story was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: movies of all time. You know, I feel that pain
Speaker 1: when I see that five heart beach, I feel that
Speaker 1: pain when I see the Jackson's I see a new addition. Man,
Speaker 1: we all went through that. It's nothing different in gospel.
Speaker 1: People have desires and this that another. We just didn't
Speaker 1: cut each other a fight, but man, it was still
Speaker 1: the same drama, you know what I mean. And that
Speaker 1: was one of their moments. Well, James and I are
Speaker 1: from the Trash State area, so the gospel station I
Speaker 1: always listened to my parents went full Christian on me,
Speaker 1: like around mid eighties, and there was a station called
Speaker 1: w zz D, of which you know, you can hear
Speaker 1: some wine In's, but then it would be like the
Speaker 1: People of the Day, Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith or
Speaker 1: or you know less. Yeah, all all those groups Twilight Paris, Like,
Speaker 1: were you guys ever accepted in the sort of white
Speaker 1: mainstream contemporary Christians set or were you guys strictly just
Speaker 1: like on your side of the fence, or you know,
Speaker 1: was there mixing you know what they have not on
Speaker 1: festivals or churches would invite you guys or like a
Speaker 1: brilliant question. We did have a few churches. So if
Speaker 1: we did thirty gigs a year, you know, two of
Speaker 1: them would be a white church or a big white festival,
Speaker 1: you know, a big white festival. The guy that brought
Speaker 1: Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith to town, his name is Art.
Speaker 1: He would try to get us in events because he
Speaker 1: was just a really good friend in him and Derek Dirkson,
Speaker 1: where Derek was trying to cross us over to let
Speaker 1: people see what we did. But we didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of them, but we had enough. You know, festival
Speaker 1: festivals were big back there. So we were going to
Speaker 1: stage you know, right before Petra or right before you know,
Speaker 1: uh striper. You know, would you try to kill him?
Speaker 1: Would you try to kill him? Yeah, we was doing
Speaker 1: our same I saw I saw a picture the other day.
Speaker 1: Somebody sent me something I'm gonna probably posted in a
Speaker 1: day or so where we were doing the the monument
Speaker 1: watching it's called I forgot what it was called, but
Speaker 1: it was a big freedom fest and it's one of
Speaker 1: the largest white festivals around and they brought us there.
Speaker 1: It looks like the crowd is sitting on us because
Speaker 1: we were saying that's when Marvin stat was in the group.
Speaker 1: He had just got in the group, and but the
Speaker 1: reality was it was a hundred and eighteen degrees and
Speaker 1: people were falling out. They told everybody sit down for
Speaker 1: every group. It don't matter who it was, because people
Speaker 1: were falling out and it was taking people away and
Speaker 1: it had to be like the mall was filled. So
Speaker 1: it probably was about thirty thou people on the lawn,
Speaker 1: you know. So you know, I just saw that the
Speaker 1: other day and I'm probably posted in a day or so.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that we had a decent fair, but we
Speaker 1: basically stayed on outside defense. I want to get to
Speaker 1: his last down with Commission at least to see what
Speaker 1: the difference is and starting the band ten years ago
Speaker 1: in in and what prompted to the initial split from
Speaker 1: the group in in ninety four with Matters of the Heart,
Speaker 1: Could you just talk about that time parent. The first
Speaker 1: record after the split was Number seven. That was that
Speaker 1: was the the first record. Okay, what ended up happening
Speaker 1: was Michael Brooks ended up getting a really good deal
Speaker 1: with PolyGram Rain of Bundy and PolyGram in New York,
Speaker 1: and she made him his staff, her staff producer, and
Speaker 1: you know, he was kind of a and R director
Speaker 1: and he was still with us, but he was really
Speaker 1: really busy doing that, and he reached out to Keith
Speaker 1: and say, hey man, we'll do a solo record on you.
Speaker 1: And Benson Records passed on Keith's solo deal. They gave
Speaker 1: him an option to do it. They said, no, we
Speaker 1: invested in commission. We don't think you should be doing that. Well,
Speaker 1: we had something in our contract to say first right
Speaker 1: of refusal if you pass it's head. Well, Keith went
Speaker 1: on the head and signed with Brooks and this production
Speaker 1: company with the Rain of PolyGram and uh, it's called
Speaker 1: Election Records was the name of the record company they
Speaker 1: ended up. Benson got really mad. Benson Records got really mad.
Speaker 1: So then they came to me and said, he can't
Speaker 1: stand in this group. If this is gonna happen, y'all
Speaker 1: need to get him out and this, and so the
Speaker 1: record company basically made us split and said, well, man,
Speaker 1: you can't be a part of us if you're gonna
Speaker 1: do that, And so him and Mike went their way.
Speaker 1: So now the whole record from number seven and then
Speaker 1: Matters of the Heart is all in my hands to produce.
Speaker 1: And I brought Mitchell on because that was my boy,
Speaker 1: and he had Mitchell had an amazing sound. He understood,
Speaker 1: you know, flavor, he understood, he had a flavor to it.
Speaker 1: So that I'm learning that's Mitchell and Parks. But that's
Speaker 1: our groove behind it. But that's their pin, you know.
Speaker 1: Ordinary just want to do Mitchell and Parks some of
Speaker 1: the greatest songs they had. They just had that that thing.
Speaker 1: But we had the music at so number seven, you know,
Speaker 1: I brought him up, boy Banar, right, we did King
Speaker 1: of Flory, We did I Can't Live Without You, and yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he stayed with me, hung out with me, and me
Speaker 1: and him was like that and he so if you
Speaker 1: listen to King of Glory, you will hear me and Bernar,
Speaker 1: you know. And then you listen to I Can't Live
Speaker 1: Without You, you hear me and Banar. My first solo record.
Speaker 1: I came to Jesus with the FLA band, me and Banar,
Speaker 1: Grace for me every day, Me and Banar, and then
Speaker 1: Bernard went and got his record deal from another record
Speaker 1: company and he moved on. So that was what that was,
Speaker 1: so our sound. I was able to take the funk
Speaker 1: that was always in me and drive it and said
Speaker 1: this is what we're gonna do. And then we got
Speaker 1: to h we got a little bit more polished because
Speaker 1: we were we got two matters of the heart and
Speaker 1: we wanted to sound a little older. So then I
Speaker 1: got my boy, Chucky Booker, and we did you know,
Speaker 1: love is the way we did. You can always come
Speaker 1: home with run DMC, and we just we experimented with
Speaker 1: great music. So we had CCM sound, we had that
Speaker 1: funk Chucky Booker sound, and then we had that commissioned
Speaker 1: funk in the middle of there something. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of how that was birthed. Yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: my last record. That was my last record. But and
Speaker 1: then after that, that that was when you did Radicals for
Speaker 1: Christ for Christ my last record, and we had another
Speaker 1: split at that point in time, and and I thought
Speaker 1: I was I was gonna get rid of other guys,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be me. You know, I'm I mean
Speaker 1: good with the record coming. You know it is what
Speaker 1: it is that which one of you was going, I'm
Speaker 1: not leaving. Ye know that I've already proved myself. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not going to y'all. They loved the record, so
Speaker 1: it's selling. And and we had a meeting one time
Speaker 1: and they said this. They brought a lot of different
Speaker 1: things that wasn't true. And we sat down with a
Speaker 1: pastor and I'm like, okay, what are you some of
Speaker 1: somebody's leaving. It ain't gonna be me. We were here. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not moving. As somebody read, I won't say which
Speaker 1: what it was. He said, read the bottom line. And
Speaker 1: he said, because the pastor said, I don't see anything
Speaker 1: wrong here. There's nothing out of order to receiat her
Speaker 1: in place. Everything that you guys are saying, I don't
Speaker 1: see it. What's the bottom line? And he said, we
Speaker 1: do not believe God called Fred to be the leader
Speaker 1: of our group. And it took all the air out
Speaker 1: of me because I picked, I hand picked the guy
Speaker 1: that was reading it. And I sat back in my
Speaker 1: chair and I went through all the emotions right there.
Speaker 1: And then I told I said, give me a week,
Speaker 1: and I went back to my little spot, my little studio,
Speaker 1: and I went to everywhere in the Bible in the
Speaker 1: New Testament that talked about belief, and the main script
Speaker 1: you was Jesus was in his own town preaching to
Speaker 1: his own people, and they said, who does this guy
Speaker 1: think he is? Don't we know his sisters and them
Speaker 1: who we think wait to get all this knowledge from?
Speaker 1: And he said he marveled at their unbelief. And then
Speaker 1: this was the thing that made me give it up.
Speaker 1: He said, many mighty miracles he could not do because
Speaker 1: of their unbelief. And I closed the Bible. I said,
Speaker 1: I can get these guys ten grammys. They all have
Speaker 1: Rose Royce's Mentley's and they won't believe it's me. So
Speaker 1: I'm out. And I just handed everything. Oh, I said,
Speaker 1: y'all can have it. And I went into a wilderness.
Speaker 1: I did not know what I was gonna do. I
Speaker 1: went into a depression. We sang one more year, and
Speaker 1: then I had to figure out what I was gonna
Speaker 1: do and this and that's when I heard started acquiring
Speaker 1: and I was like, now I'm gonna keep it one hunted,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't, you know, only I gotta
Speaker 1: keep it careful because I don't want to get canceled.
Speaker 1: You know. I didn't care for choirs for the persona
Speaker 1: that he carried at the time, and that's what's all
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you, just dude, you know, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't care for it, you know. I didn't care
Speaker 1: for what people looked at quires. And I saw Kirk
Speaker 1: on a show and I saw David Man, I saw
Speaker 1: a big day daln uh my boy, Daln I saw
Speaker 1: and it was with it. And so then I knew
Speaker 1: John p Key. So I started listening to John, and
Speaker 1: John was Stuggorn. I knew John me. I helped him
Speaker 1: get his first deal, and so I started listening. I
Speaker 1: started listening to show up, like for four months straight,
Speaker 1: and I'm hearing this hard driving thing, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can do this. I can do this. So I
Speaker 1: was friends with Billy Steele, so I paid attention to
Speaker 1: sound the blackness because at that point in time, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Terry just killed the game, which sounds of black. So
Speaker 1: I'm seeing this transformation and I'm going into it, and
Speaker 1: I finally I've come up with RFC. I said, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be our flavor. We're gonna do this. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do praise and worship. And nobody knew what praising
Speaker 1: worship was at that time. Praising worship is just how
Speaker 1: you say the lyrics you're saying. So when people are saying,
Speaker 1: I've been down, boom and I'm gonna get back up,
Speaker 1: they were singing where they were in life. They were singing, baby,
Speaker 1: getting need a pair of shoes, even got a life
Speaker 1: build Because this is my problem. I'm gonna turn over
Speaker 1: the Lord. He'll working it out. But I started lifting
Speaker 1: the Lord up. So I I'm doing this beat, and
Speaker 1: I got my MPC and I got all my cards,
Speaker 1: and I'm loading samples up and I'm doing this one
Speaker 1: beat boom, top boom, boomtop boom boom, and I stopped
Speaker 1: the sample. And you know how an NPC, the sample
Speaker 1: would go over to shop to do, did you hit
Speaker 1: it again? Shot to do be glory, to gold bead
Speaker 1: too glow, And that's how it started. It changed into
Speaker 1: a full thing, you know. So I just took praise
Speaker 1: and worship that white people were doing, brought it over
Speaker 1: to the Black church and I told I tell white
Speaker 1: people and says, you guys cook string beans and it
Speaker 1: still has snapped in it. We don't like that. I
Speaker 1: got stuff to be all this. It needs to be
Speaker 1: wilted turkey leg and it needs to have not a
Speaker 1: nutrient around a rival. I don't want to I'll see
Speaker 1: none of that fiber. This this shouldn't be no good.
Speaker 1: So that's what my praise of worship was. It was
Speaker 1: we just took their stuff that was neat and we
Speaker 1: just put some turkey leg in there. It was such
Speaker 1: an education, especially in Watchington with with you and Kirk
Speaker 1: doing verses together, Yeah, and going through you know, going
Speaker 1: through your history. How how does it feel when now
Speaker 1: like contemporary second acts be a Diddy Snoop Dogg did
Speaker 1: a gospel record, Like, how does it feel to be
Speaker 1: embraced by that community to whom that you know? Maybe
Speaker 1: ten twenty years ago, I think maybe the most radical
Speaker 1: thing I saw thirty forty years ago was maybe like
Speaker 1: Maurice White singing with a gospel act. But you know,
Speaker 1: now it's it's very commonplace. Like, how does it feel
Speaker 1: to get embraced by the world? Respect feels good? Respect
Speaker 1: just feel is good. And that's all we ever wanted
Speaker 1: was respect, you know, to be treated like we're real musicians.
Speaker 1: We're not church musicians. We're real musicians who made a
Speaker 1: choice to sing church stuff. And now that's what it is.
Speaker 1: So I can look at you, I can look at
Speaker 1: the roots. I can pay attention. I paid I've watched
Speaker 1: you know, you guys. I remember when you guys went
Speaker 1: on and got the gig we all talked about. That
Speaker 1: was stuff about that we talked about. I paid attention
Speaker 1: to the sound that came out of Philadelphia music. So child,
Speaker 1: now we just embraced each other because you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, each every one of us
Speaker 1: on here, our brothers and sisters, were a family of music.
Speaker 1: First what we talked about. But this hip hop gospel,
Speaker 1: that's just something we choose to have a conversation about.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost, we all have the passion of
Speaker 1: the beat, the drum, the base, the keys, the sound,
Speaker 1: the lyric. And now we can have those conversations with
Speaker 1: each other and we respect them. Like I said, my brother,
Speaker 1: we're in here right now preparing for Ricky, Bobby, Rod,
Speaker 1: Johnny and Mike. We're preparing for them right now. All
Speaker 1: of our gears getting ready to go out. And when
Speaker 1: I go and see him, I love them and we
Speaker 1: just we hug up, we dap up, and we just
Speaker 1: respect each other, you know what I mean. I really
Speaker 1: can't wait for this. For me, This education is important
Speaker 1: because you know, James, James Canna attest to this. Especially
Speaker 1: in the last two years, I've been like really catching
Speaker 1: up on a lot of things that I've missed and
Speaker 1: wasn't able. You know, the like the quarantine period that
Speaker 1: we're now, it's a slow down period where you know,
Speaker 1: we get time to ourselves and really I get to
Speaker 1: catch up on books and things and music that I
Speaker 1: otherwise wouldn't have caught up on because I'm working so much.
Speaker 1: And I was you know when when La said that
Speaker 1: you wanted to do Quest up Supreme, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, think God, because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be the only person in life who listened to Crash
Speaker 1: Cuts more than I've listened. You know, cut happened to
Speaker 1: do today my birthday. So I thank you for this, man,
Speaker 1: you know, I truly thank you. Almost In closing, I
Speaker 1: just want to know, well, in the aftermath of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: how has your life changed, and how has the circuit
Speaker 1: at least your life and music changed since March Because
Speaker 1: he about to go on tour allegedly, Yeah, we're about
Speaker 1: to do has a car who was one of my
Speaker 1: best but good friends. We're hitting the road, has a
Speaker 1: Kyle Marvin's app. Myself is reel holding hitting the Role
Speaker 1: Up festival to praise to it. But you know what, man,
Speaker 1: it's weird because US streaming has killed us streaming. Really,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing. Are are people are just
Speaker 1: starting to get on streaming this year. They're just starting
Speaker 1: Oh no no no, he's saying the with you. So
Speaker 1: they couldn't go nowhere, So on their refrigerators, on their
Speaker 1: computers listening. They discovered Pandora, they discovered Spotify, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So they're they're listening. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a cruel joke, and it's not God's fault,
Speaker 1: but it feels like a cruel joke because I still
Speaker 1: have so much music in me to create, but there's
Speaker 1: no real outlet. Like I just did a record, Man,
Speaker 1: I just did a record with this was this coming
Speaker 1: called Thinness and I put it out. It's called Sunday
Speaker 1: Morning Fred, and it's on so on Apple Music right now.
Speaker 1: But and it's one of the leading black streaming records
Speaker 1: out there. And I'm not on a major label. But
Speaker 1: it's not saying nothing because I'm streaming like seven thousand,
Speaker 1: like thirty six thousand, uh copies of week streams of
Speaker 1: week on this new record. And that's not really that good.
Speaker 1: It's not really like it's it's like, man, I put
Speaker 1: a lot of money into it to make it happen.
Speaker 1: And so on my Facebook page, I got a whole
Speaker 1: I got the whole concert, I got the whole contract.
Speaker 1: I did it in my warehouse, and it's a throwback
Speaker 1: of old Fred. It's pages of life for it. It's
Speaker 1: that vibe and a man gospel is in a tunnel
Speaker 1: because R and B died, And I tell everybody that
Speaker 1: when R and B die, I'm talking about LTD, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about time, I'm talking about Anita and Luther, and
Speaker 1: we could listen to them. We were What made commission
Speaker 1: happen is because you can listen to something like like
Speaker 1: you said, man, your father said, you can listen to them,
Speaker 1: And we gave you the time. We gave you some
Speaker 1: prints we gave you these these people because we had
Speaker 1: something to lean on. Well, now those people are gone,
Speaker 1: that that music is gone. It's nothing new coming out.
Speaker 1: And therefore and and gospel has gone back to traditional
Speaker 1: or to Maverick. Maverick is the white version of Black gospel,
Speaker 1: and Marbrick City, Maverick City is the new praise of
Speaker 1: worship is the hot It's the hottest praise and worship
Speaker 1: company out their lives. And when I tell you, they
Speaker 1: got some amazing artists. But what it is is a
Speaker 1: lot of the young people now have gone over there
Speaker 1: and they've taken the sound of black music and they've
Speaker 1: made it less black. Okay, you to go research it.
Speaker 1: It's people like chand of more Man. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this guy is amazing. But what they're doing is they're
Speaker 1: creating a new space for these guys to write and
Speaker 1: to do their things. So I can't be mad at
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be mad at somebody doing their thing.
Speaker 1: Maverick is the hottest thing going Maverick City. But I
Speaker 1: can do Maverick because I'm too too, sof I don't
Speaker 1: have that thing, and man, check it out, check it out.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, right now, there's really not there's really
Speaker 1: not a space for you to be creative and release
Speaker 1: products and have it be monetarily worth it. So would
Speaker 1: you frante this order where you were in like two
Speaker 1: thousand three, like trying to figure out are you saying
Speaker 1: this is where you were in two thousand three, like
Speaker 1: when you start a little brother and try to figure
Speaker 1: out I mean now, I would assume now in twenty
Speaker 1: years later, the lame that you're in is is rather lucrative. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: now it makes sense. But at the time, the beauty
Speaker 1: of what I did that a lot of my counterparts
Speaker 1: didn't do back in the commission days is I really
Speaker 1: felt God told me to just keep putting music out,
Speaker 1: even though I wasn't in the best record company position,
Speaker 1: even though they were making the money and I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I kept hearing him saying, just keep putting music out,
Speaker 1: keep putting it out, and my guys were saying, rightfully,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let them pip me. I'm I'm out
Speaker 1: of the game before you pip me, I'm gonna leave.
Speaker 1: But I kept making the music. Now my catalog is
Speaker 1: what is is Spotify. I did twenty two million streams
Speaker 1: this year that Spotify alone, Pandora plus this plus that,
Speaker 1: and my catalog is burning through like crazy. So people
Speaker 1: want to keep me where they met me though. That's
Speaker 1: what I don't want you to evolve, like I've reached
Speaker 1: that Freakie Beverly status I reach. I'm gonna make you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make I would make a suggestion. I'm putting
Speaker 1: this out this on CLS. I'm saying this, This needs
Speaker 1: to happen because I think I think I see e
Speaker 1: lane for you, brother, Fred, if I make if I
Speaker 1: may offer, Okay, listen, this is the same thing that
Speaker 1: you know that Rick James did. Like when you have
Speaker 1: the veteran act being produced by the younger producer. So
Speaker 1: Rick James when he produced The Temptations a mirror when
Speaker 1: he produced Al Green. I think your next do not
Speaker 1: absolutely Jack, Yeah, both of y'all y'all did Al Green.
Speaker 1: I think your next project, Fred, I think you should
Speaker 1: be produced by David Morrison. Oh like when I'm talking
Speaker 1: about I don't know if you know him. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know him, but Devil Morrison is a singer,
Speaker 1: He's a singer producer out of He's from out of Florida,
Speaker 1: but he's based in I think l A. Now, Devin is,
Speaker 1: when I tell you, a student of commission. When I
Speaker 1: when I found out you were put on the show,
Speaker 1: I reached out to him. I was like, Devon, like,
Speaker 1: I know commission, but like I'm not I'm not a
Speaker 1: church dude, so I need to know you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. He made me a playlist of like his
Speaker 1: favorite jobs. He was like, all right, this is what
Speaker 1: you need. These are the joints, these are the producers
Speaker 1: that are like he knows your whole thing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: said I've seen you the playlist. And when I listened
Speaker 1: to the playlist, I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is Devin's like this is he is a student and
Speaker 1: a student of your music and loves you, bro like
Speaker 1: I think y'all can kill something like for real food.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it. To work with my my newest,
Speaker 1: these young cats. I love working with him, you know,
Speaker 1: I love working with him. So I'm down, man. I
Speaker 1: would link you' all up, straight up and down like that. Sometimes. Wait, James,
Speaker 1: there anything right? We the heathens over here, So you know, man,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's just so much music. I just got
Speaker 1: to tell you how much of an influence you've had
Speaker 1: all my life musically, and I just want to thank
Speaker 1: you for that. I don't know if you remember we
Speaker 1: met my brother Marvin mcquittye introduced us when you came
Speaker 1: into Philly. This is this is your back rest in peace,
Speaker 1: my brother. Yeah. But just I just I just gotta
Speaker 1: say thank you man for thank you for the music,
Speaker 1: thank you for for who you are. That's all. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you all, and I uh, this night was special
Speaker 1: to me. I have not done a zoom this loan listen.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been checked out the whole long time
Speaker 1: ago because I'm there. Okay, we just talked about everything else.
Speaker 1: But when you get you get into the history and
Speaker 1: you get into the music college of it all. Man,
Speaker 1: you guys are amazing. Tonight was amazing. Quest Man, you
Speaker 1: don't understand. I really am a fan and I am
Speaker 1: a fan. I really thank you and I received that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for for doing this for us. Um,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it, and thank you for YO. Real quick, Fred,
Speaker 1: do I have do I have permission? Can I get
Speaker 1: your number from errow? And I'll think you'll okay, I'll
Speaker 1: do that. I don't mess with people when I go
Speaker 1: places if they don't really recognize me. I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of person that are staying with my family. And I'm cool,
Speaker 1: you know, because sometimes you need to start. And they
Speaker 1: don't know you today, they know you tomorrow, they know
Speaker 1: you when you when you ain't friend of people and
Speaker 1: I don't know other people. You and I met one time.
Speaker 1: Oh no we were no no, no that it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: It was good Grammys. He was at the Grammys and
Speaker 1: I was behind you. Was in l A and I
Speaker 1: was behind you, and somebody was kind of they were
Speaker 1: they were like messing with your tickets or something, you know,
Speaker 1: and you was you and your mom. You are together.
Speaker 1: And so I said, hey, hey, bro, you're good. And
Speaker 1: you turned around and said hold on a second, man,
Speaker 1: And and so the girl I was with is like,
Speaker 1: don't bother, don't buy said I think he's having some
Speaker 1: problems up there. And I said, I'm believe in him
Speaker 1: enough to try one more time. You got free and
Speaker 1: I got free. I walked up to you and I said,
Speaker 1: hey man, I just want to tell you I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: My name is Fred Hammond and Man, you embraced me
Speaker 1: with the biggest hull. You said, Oh look he went
Speaker 1: to It was always like snap, oh yeah, okay, I
Speaker 1: was scared. I was scared, he said, and he said,
Speaker 1: this is my mom and we hugged and this is
Speaker 1: another we talked to that. Yeah, didn't produce you to
Speaker 1: the person I was with. And man, that that made
Speaker 1: my day because I didn't really walk up to a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people that night. I'm not that dude
Speaker 1: to walk up there. So yo, ho, what's up? You
Speaker 1: don't know me? I don't know you, but man, you
Speaker 1: were too close. We were in the tunnel on our way.
Speaker 1: You were too close for me not to say something.
Speaker 1: His quest love. Man, I'm like, man, let me just
Speaker 1: talk to him. Man for a minute. It was nervous
Speaker 1: that first of all, it was like like the little
Speaker 1: tree was growing up because Shane was come. I didn't
Speaker 1: get you on site, but definitely your name holds holy
Speaker 1: because if there's anyone who made me go on the
Speaker 1: basement and rehearse endlessly to keep up with the cats
Speaker 1: that I was listening to commission, it was you. You.
Speaker 1: Thank you you, and you know I give credit to
Speaker 1: my dad, like my dad made me go on the
Speaker 1: basement rehearse, but you know that was from like eight
Speaker 1: to thirteen, But definitely once I got to high school,
Speaker 1: you were definitely the spark that really really brought my
Speaker 1: musicianship out. Brother, and I think for that, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'll say this and I'll be done. You. You guys,
Speaker 1: when you do stuff like this, you add validity to
Speaker 1: who we are as God spartists. You guys did something
Speaker 1: and y'all mentioned my name in the middle of one
Speaker 1: of these two or three hour shows, and my people
Speaker 1: listened to it and they my God sent me by
Speaker 1: five people said yo, man, Chris Love said your name,
Speaker 1: but they talked about you, and they marked the spot,
Speaker 1: go to this spot and you get here. And I
Speaker 1: did it and I said it there and man, it
Speaker 1: brought a smile to my face. It's not like somebody
Speaker 1: sent me something. They said, I said, oh yeah, when
Speaker 1: they sent it to me, I wanted to just know
Speaker 1: because of how I feel about you, I feel about
Speaker 1: your proof, how I feel about your publishmith and everything
Speaker 1: that you guys are doing. I just wanted to hear that,
Speaker 1: and it was it was validation to me. It's a
Speaker 1: respect and you guys had such nice things to say,
Speaker 1: and whoever the guest was on that time, they were
Speaker 1: talking nice about it as well. So I just want
Speaker 1: to tell you, man, when you guys do this us,
Speaker 1: it's a blessing. Man. Trust me, we're listening. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you, Vaya, Sugar, Steve about to win
Speaker 1: that and and they come on, come are important man,
Speaker 1: and I'm paid Bill and our special guest James James
Speaker 1: the episode soon. Yeah, yeah, you thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing it for us and we appreciate it. This
Speaker 1: is Puss Love, Puss Love Supreme. We will see you
Speaker 1: on the next go round. Thank you. M. Werslap. Supreme
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
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