Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to
Speaker 1: our are nominated our N double A CP nominated Team Supreme. Yeah, Hello,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm feeling good? An Image Award nominated, Sir,
Speaker 1: I have made it. Yes, that's fine. And uh Suger Steve,
Speaker 1: how how are you this evening? I'm good. My image
Speaker 1: had been nominated as well. A graduated, That's how I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. And uh, you know, the keeper of
Speaker 1: Rocco and Elmo, how you doing? Uh? Unpaid Bill. I
Speaker 1: can't say that I ever thought in all the awards
Speaker 1: that I'd ever been nominated for an N double A
Speaker 1: CP Award. So feels good to put it like that.
Speaker 1: There you go. How's it going. I'm good, brother, I'm
Speaker 1: good man glad if you know? Mainated and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I never thought this would happen over for years right
Speaker 1: straight back here here he went to get cigarettes for
Speaker 1: a long time. Okay, So I know for the longest,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been talking to our listeners at QLs,
Speaker 1: especially in the last year, about you know, the direction
Speaker 1: of transformation in my life is going and how it's
Speaker 1: important to often get out of your comfort zone, you know,
Speaker 1: stretching out the different territories. So I will be the
Speaker 1: first to be very transparent with our longtime listeners of
Speaker 1: q LS that this episode should be notable for Unlike
Speaker 1: previous Quest of Supreme episodes, this will probably the first
Speaker 1: time that and it's not like I have a PhD
Speaker 1: in every guest that ever comes on the show, but
Speaker 1: this will probably more the first time that I don't
Speaker 1: know the entire can in the history of a particular
Speaker 1: guest of the show, like the back of my hands.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I'm not familiar with our guest today.
Speaker 1: So that said, I would actually like to say and injact,
Speaker 1: that we have to special guests today. So joining the
Speaker 1: Team Supreme is uh my brother in soul or soul
Speaker 1: quarian James alowitious poiser, producer, songwriter fellow Randy Watson or
Speaker 1: extraordinari and gospel of for Sionado and Me and world
Speaker 1: famous meme one Twitter. Yeah, James is definitely like a meme.
Speaker 1: I'm not even a meme, Like that's a life do
Speaker 1: means get nominated for c p A Woods back up
Speaker 1: Sir back upon Gray. Yes, you have grammed and you know,
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry. That's fame. In the Meme Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: you will make it. That said. I I brought brother
Speaker 1: James here to help me pick up the pieces on
Speaker 1: things that I otherwise wouldn't know, because for me, I
Speaker 1: don't want to leave any stone unturned. Our our guest today,
Speaker 1: I will say, is one of the most legendary and
Speaker 1: influential musicians that I know in Black music. That's not
Speaker 1: hyperbolick or anything. I say this literally because I have
Speaker 1: not met a musician post five that has not made
Speaker 1: our guests their north star as far as their musicianship
Speaker 1: is concerned. We'll get with that in the show today.
Speaker 1: But without further ado, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to
Speaker 1: Quest of Supreme be legendary Brother Fred Hammond. Yes, do appreciated,
Speaker 1: appreciate it and congratulations everybody, but we're in your nomination.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know,
Speaker 1: it was weird. I didn't even know that you were
Speaker 1: active on social social media and you had left a
Speaker 1: comment and one of my things, and I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: Fred Hammond knows who I am. Like I had zero
Speaker 1: clue that you even knew that I was alive or anything. So, UM,
Speaker 1: this this conversation is long long overdue because, as as
Speaker 1: I said at the top, back when I was really
Speaker 1: honing my skills as a musician, UM, there was like
Speaker 1: one of three routes you can go. Now we all
Speaker 1: know that I chose the hip hop route. Most musicians
Speaker 1: in eight three, eight four eighty five they chose the
Speaker 1: purple route. And then there's a sect of black musicianship
Speaker 1: in which you might have a household that might not
Speaker 1: allow secular music in the household. And that said, I
Speaker 1: will say that you were probably there are main choice.
Speaker 1: And when I see you, I'm talking about you, and
Speaker 1: you're very influential group commissioned. UM, So I thank you.
Speaker 1: I've been dying to have this conversation with you because
Speaker 1: I need the agentication. So where where are you right
Speaker 1: now as we speak. I'm at my studio here in Dallas,
Speaker 1: have warehouse in the studio here that I do everything
Speaker 1: out of me and my family, my brothers, and I
Speaker 1: was actually just finishing up a vocal that I'm working
Speaker 1: on for the New Addition tour, just to kind of
Speaker 1: give them some stuff to go through some transitions, you know,
Speaker 1: give some suggestions and stuff. So I was just finishing
Speaker 1: up uh that, you know, and then we'll send it
Speaker 1: out to him and see, you know, give some ideas
Speaker 1: of what can happen. My brother Ray is the production
Speaker 1: manager for the tours. So when you see BBD a
Speaker 1: new addition each front of house and the guy that
Speaker 1: runs the you know, gets everything together production line. So
Speaker 1: so you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m
Speaker 1: D or co m D of this reunions or that's
Speaker 1: about it's just uh right now, we're just seeing some stuff.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to show them like a lot of
Speaker 1: the transitions that they want to do from songs, songs
Speaker 1: song that they could do some vocal right here, that's simple,
Speaker 1: that's what they do because it's not normal for them
Speaker 1: to do that. And so I just went in there
Speaker 1: and just did some old commissioned new edition type stuff,
Speaker 1: simple just to get them to the next song, you know,
Speaker 1: so to give them another just to give my idea
Speaker 1: of what can happen. So you know, it's up to them.
Speaker 1: You know that sounds like yeah, quasi okay, Well it's
Speaker 1: it's funny you say that because I think maybe like
Speaker 1: a month ago, I was listening to Heartbreak and I
Speaker 1: was just talking to Jimmy jam about the intro song
Speaker 1: of that album, which is called uh, That's the Way
Speaker 1: We're Living, which, as far as its executions concerned, I
Speaker 1: feel like that definitely falls from the treat of what
Speaker 1: Commission was about. You know, when a lot of these
Speaker 1: cats that have what we call gospel chops, they're basically
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, they're sons of Commission. So I
Speaker 1: always wanted to know how you felt about your influence
Speaker 1: as far as the black musicianship we have now with
Speaker 1: gospel chops. Like you know, do you watch acts often
Speaker 1: in R and B say like, well, that's our link,
Speaker 1: and that's our link, and that's our like well, you
Speaker 1: know the thing about it is back then a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't notice. But I was close with a
Speaker 1: lot of those guys back then. You know. You know,
Speaker 1: it was funny because you know DeVante his father is
Speaker 1: a pastor, and one day we did a concert at
Speaker 1: their church and DeVante said, yo, man, you know, he
Speaker 1: came up I style. He was a young fella. He said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you guys have been influenced
Speaker 1: to us. And I just got signed to m c A.
Speaker 1: And the name of my group is called Jotasi. I say, really,
Speaker 1: he said, you know Casey and I knew Little Casey
Speaker 1: from Little Cedric. I used to so Little Cedric and
Speaker 1: the Hayley Singers. We would do concerts together and pass
Speaker 1: on the road and do interviews or whatnot. So I
Speaker 1: was I kept up with all of those guys. And
Speaker 1: you know a lot of the catch Chucky Booker and
Speaker 1: d o A and people bring me backstage. They would
Speaker 1: bring me backstage and whether they were doing the Budwise
Speaker 1: a Superfest. And I'm a student. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know a lot of church people, they
Speaker 1: don't go places and learn because they can't control themselves
Speaker 1: when they get inside or behind the curtain, you know.
Speaker 1: But I would go, you know, I would go to
Speaker 1: Al Hayman bud Wise is Superfest, and I would meet
Speaker 1: the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd be a
Speaker 1: student of production of how they were playing, and I
Speaker 1: would take it back to Commission, you know. Uh. Commission
Speaker 1: is a amalgam of the Clark's Sister Number one, the
Speaker 1: vocal of the Clark's sisters. Then the US is the
Speaker 1: time Earth winning fire, Um Genesis, you know Chicago, we
Speaker 1: did just a different thing, and we noticed that a
Speaker 1: lot of the guys that were coming around at that time,
Speaker 1: we're coming up to us and they were starting to
Speaker 1: get the get put on, like boys and men, and
Speaker 1: we just kept in touch and we were just cool
Speaker 1: and friendly. Uh little Joe and uh Buddy from the
Speaker 1: Rude Boys. Yeah, we're always doing something. We're always together
Speaker 1: at some point doing something, letting them hear music, They're
Speaker 1: letting us here ours and here there's you know, so
Speaker 1: we we kept connected with our R and B family.
Speaker 1: You know, did he just say Genesis? Yeah? But if
Speaker 1: you if you really look at it, yo, I mean
Speaker 1: there's really not that much difference between prog rock and dude.
Speaker 1: We just saw like we just literally, Um, I forget
Speaker 1: the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think
Speaker 1: you remember this you this? Do you remember when, um,
Speaker 1: who's who's the group that who more? They were formerly
Speaker 1: known as at the drive in? And then when one
Speaker 1: of their members, So do you remember when Mars Volta
Speaker 1: auditioned a drummer at our studio like behind literally next
Speaker 1: to your studio he was a gospel chops drummer, Thomas Pridgeon,
Speaker 1: I think, yes, yeah, and it was it was the
Speaker 1: match made it. At first, I was like, that's weird
Speaker 1: that they got a gospel chop drummer to do it,
Speaker 1: But because of the intricacies of what Mars Volta is,
Speaker 1: it was like a marriage made in heaven. And that's
Speaker 1: when I realized that gospel chops and prog rock are
Speaker 1: almost neck and neck with each other. I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: gospel chop has more soul to it, but every every
Speaker 1: cop group now has a gospel drummer on a grande
Speaker 1: and all those guys they all have. It's all like
Speaker 1: big fills from three and four and one every every bar.
Speaker 1: I think, like everything's like at the end of the
Speaker 1: four of our phrases. What the notable thing about my
Speaker 1: entry and music is that I'm the opposite of that?
Speaker 1: But literally, which is funny, yeah, which I'm saying that basically.
Speaker 1: I feel as though Commissioned really is probably the most
Speaker 1: influential black group in at least the last forty years
Speaker 1: of music, second to two Prints, you know, as far
Speaker 1: as the as far as the ripple effect of absolutely
Speaker 1: their contribution because you look at a song like I'm Learning,
Speaker 1: I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.
Speaker 1: I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a
Speaker 1: Jodacy album or you know what I'm saying. Like it
Speaker 1: was they always liked about y'all. Y'all stuff was that
Speaker 1: it was I could tell when you say, you know,
Speaker 1: you were a student and you would go and meet
Speaker 1: the other groups and stuff. The songs always sounded current,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying a lot of times gospel
Speaker 1: because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel
Speaker 1: stuff would always be behind, like if he came out
Speaker 1: in ninety two, it would sound like something from like seven,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But but but commission record,
Speaker 1: y'all was always like right on time and it was
Speaker 1: never dated. I always appreciated that man that right there
Speaker 1: was it was just our DNA. It was like we
Speaker 1: listened to everybody. I give you a story. One of
Speaker 1: the guys wrote a song called It's so Good to
Speaker 1: Know the Savior and that he was a tempo guy,
Speaker 1: so it was like a church tempo. Then then it's
Speaker 1: so good, let's say, And the record company didn't pick
Speaker 1: it it was. It had all the pile and the
Speaker 1: bustle and everything. And the guy he came to me
Speaker 1: and said, hey, man, listen, I think we need to
Speaker 1: change the drummer out and which is our drummer. I
Speaker 1: was like, no, man, it's not that. I say basically,
Speaker 1: it's man, it's it's kind of dated. And I said tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we just need to casting over the month. And they
Speaker 1: didn't know because they hadn't heard. They hadn't heard LeVert.
Speaker 1: I was cool with with Gerald, and so when casting
Speaker 1: Ova came out, they hadn't heard it yet. So I said,
Speaker 1: let's just get in the studio and let me flip
Speaker 1: it a little bit. And I had r a drum
Speaker 1: machine and some stuff and I just boom boom cocka
Speaker 1: boom boom cacka boom boom bocka booch and then it
Speaker 1: changed into you can see it vamp into that and
Speaker 1: then the song had life. Well that was because we
Speaker 1: stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and
Speaker 1: our counterparts. You know, we paid attention to everybody from
Speaker 1: the old school, whether it's luth uh Al Green, you know,
Speaker 1: earth Wind all the way up to the firt to
Speaker 1: a baby Face to the deal. You know, like we
Speaker 1: were talking which song we like? We like Sweet November
Speaker 1: or do we like this? Because our vocals we're off
Speaker 1: of the whispers and the dramatics. Those are our mail
Speaker 1: vote counterproducts that we we love. Do wat. So if
Speaker 1: you hear a lot of our our harmonies we sing
Speaker 1: like Ron Banks and Scotty and Walter, you will hear
Speaker 1: a lot of that in a but then if we
Speaker 1: add what we are. But it's because we paid attention
Speaker 1: to musicology. We just paid attention to everything, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was funny too. You said something about Jimmy.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Terry is like my hero Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim
Speaker 1: baby Face in l A. So one time we were
Speaker 1: going to do this thing in Minnesota called um Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a Methodist church and they were the Soul Liberation
Speaker 1: Outreach and they said where you want to go to?
Speaker 1: My said, can we go see flight Time? Because we
Speaker 1: were just you know, we didn't have no studios, So
Speaker 1: I said, can we go see flight time? We want
Speaker 1: to see some black guys who were owning something. And
Speaker 1: I walked in the flight Time and I was just
Speaker 1: blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily
Speaker 1: by you know, these two guys, and they were just
Speaker 1: finishing the controls starting on We're about to start on
Speaker 1: this new record called Rhythm Nation and recording now and
Speaker 1: we just had those moments. Then they said, well where
Speaker 1: you want to go next? Now we were church boys,
Speaker 1: now remember this, this is this is what we church board.
Speaker 1: So we didn't do clubs and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and
Speaker 1: he was like, I don't know, so I think people
Speaker 1: like I think something gonna jump on this. But I said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I want to go. I want to see it. So
Speaker 1: we went over there, man, and on the whole ride
Speaker 1: over there because at that point Prince wasn't in his
Speaker 1: last space. He was in that that I want to
Speaker 1: I'm gonna really mess you up with whatever I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And we walked up to the place and people praying
Speaker 1: Jesus help us going you know, we're walking into the
Speaker 1: spot and we're thinking, man, you better pray put some
Speaker 1: annoysing oil on when we When we walked in, it
Speaker 1: was business as usual, people just walking around doing business.
Speaker 1: It wasn't nothing crazy. And I said, man, this is
Speaker 1: the whole thing as a persona, I thought, And the
Speaker 1: rest of the guys, some of the guys said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just staying. I'm gonna stay in the van. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going in. I want to see what's what I mean,
Speaker 1: how far do you get this? How do you get
Speaker 1: this close? And I see this guy had a complex.
Speaker 1: I mean at that time, to think about Paisley, it
Speaker 1: was it was it was like Cowboys Stadium. At that time,
Speaker 1: I said, I gotta go see it. But when I
Speaker 1: walked through, they took us to his personal room and
Speaker 1: they just my mind was blown because it was just business.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, I said, man,
Speaker 1: this is just a persona. And then I learned how
Speaker 1: to be an owner. So now I mean I got
Speaker 1: seven teens spread feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry.
Speaker 1: It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince and Michael Poe who
Speaker 1: lived in Detroit who produced to Anita Baker, and that
Speaker 1: was my close friend. So I had to learn, uh,
Speaker 1: And that's you know, I looked at my big brothers
Speaker 1: to do that for me. You know, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning of your life. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan. I'm born
Speaker 1: in San Antonio. Oh all right. See the one time
Speaker 1: I don't ask the question, I get burnt. Sorry, he
Speaker 1: tell me what your first musical memory was. My first
Speaker 1: musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know. I
Speaker 1: I say this because a lot of people have, uh
Speaker 1: these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks
Speaker 1: that they're perfect. I don't. I was. I was born
Speaker 1: different it, you know, I was. My mother and father
Speaker 1: were married to other people, and uh, he was a
Speaker 1: pastor and my mother was a musician, and the church
Speaker 1: really dogged my mom and protected him, and so they
Speaker 1: kind of put her out as it was basically me
Speaker 1: and her. And before I was born, you know, we
Speaker 1: went through this whole thing about she was. She went
Speaker 1: and had an abortion and it didn't work. You know.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot of stuff that goes with me
Speaker 1: being here. So um yeah. And so she was my
Speaker 1: biggest musical influence. So I followed her everywhere. Two because
Speaker 1: she taught choirs. She was very amazing at teaching choirs
Speaker 1: and playing the piano for churches. And I never forget.
Speaker 1: I'll go back to She came home with this little
Speaker 1: forty five and I had a close and play and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, I bought these boys, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was just a pitch of these five boys
Speaker 1: was Jackson's and she said, you know, listen to this.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even heard him on the radio. And I
Speaker 1: put it on my clothes and play and I want
Speaker 1: you back came on and I just saw Michael as
Speaker 1: my age because they were saying he was younger than
Speaker 1: they said he was my age, and I was probably
Speaker 1: five six, and I was just I was enamored with
Speaker 1: this group, and so I was singing and I found
Speaker 1: myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven years old. And
Speaker 1: my mother said, you know, if you open your mouth,
Speaker 1: you can sing better. You can sing like that little
Speaker 1: boy right there. And I was very shy, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want her to hear me because I thought she
Speaker 1: would make me sing in front of people. So I
Speaker 1: made sure she didn't never hear me again. So I
Speaker 1: took my clothes and play in the closet because you
Speaker 1: ran ther own batteries, and I sang in the closet
Speaker 1: because I didn't want her to hear me saying I
Speaker 1: was afraid she was gonna put me up there in
Speaker 1: front of the church. And so that's my earliest knowledge
Speaker 1: right there. So were you kind of born into skepticism
Speaker 1: of the church, like since ye because of your tuation?
Speaker 1: You know. The beautiful thing is God kept me from
Speaker 1: that from the knowledge of people now thinking I was
Speaker 1: worth it, you know, But when I look back at it,
Speaker 1: a lot of people just thought I was just worthless
Speaker 1: because you you can't do nothing with God because you're
Speaker 1: born out of weather. You who are you? You know
Speaker 1: your mother your mother's it is an adulterer. So they
Speaker 1: just kind of threw us away. But the reality is
Speaker 1: that's why I'm probably effective today now because I sing good,
Speaker 1: not because I play any instruments or not because I
Speaker 1: produced anything or saying on anybody's record. It's because I
Speaker 1: understand what broken people go through. And so my whole
Speaker 1: job is to tell people, hey, man, I've been broken,
Speaker 1: I understand brokenness. Why don't you come with me? I
Speaker 1: believe this, and you know, so there's no heirs, It's
Speaker 1: just it's a forgiveness element in there too, though, that
Speaker 1: you got that you absolutely so when people like question.
Speaker 1: You said, you understand my pain when it comes to
Speaker 1: just you and your mom. You understand that, you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe others do too. But you know my path, man,
Speaker 1: my path. It's just it's been ordained to go through
Speaker 1: a rugged, rugged, feed up path to get to this
Speaker 1: point to tell other people, I understand where you are.
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's mine. Wasn't as drastic as like being
Speaker 1: shun or whatnot, but definitely my parents were sort in
Speaker 1: the same situation where they were part of other unions,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's kind of how you know, I came,
Speaker 1: I came to the world. So for a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners, I don't know if they're fully aware, you know,
Speaker 1: I would explain to people often that you know, we'll
Speaker 1: look at somebody like, you know, Ray Charles now as
Speaker 1: a national treasure. But you know, I would tell, like
Speaker 1: anybody that I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the n
Speaker 1: w A of his day. Like, yeah, the gospel music
Speaker 1: with secular lyrics was highly controversial with the Black church.
Speaker 1: And fast forwarding to where your entry in the gospel
Speaker 1: music is where you can put some funk inside it
Speaker 1: or put some swing inside your music, and it really
Speaker 1: not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just
Speaker 1: the what brought you to Detroit? How did you make
Speaker 1: the transition from San Antonio to Detroit. Well, due to
Speaker 1: the circumstances situation, they sent this up to Detroit. We
Speaker 1: were sitting, oh EXI we we We got a nice
Speaker 1: bus ticket up to a friendly place called Detroit, and
Speaker 1: a beautiful family called the Hope the Hoax family. They
Speaker 1: took us in and they gave us their attic and
Speaker 1: we became a part of their family. Why my mother
Speaker 1: go went through her healing process, you know, um of
Speaker 1: which when she passes seventy four, she was still trying
Speaker 1: to validate herself as you know, forgiven you know, and
Speaker 1: she was a she's a great praise warrior, great, you know.
Speaker 1: She she made a lot of strides, but just she
Speaker 1: couldn't get over some things. And uh so we ended
Speaker 1: up in Detroit, which was a blessing. How big is
Speaker 1: your family at this point as far as your siblings,
Speaker 1: and at that time it was me and my mom.
Speaker 1: At this point is me I got two brothers, Ray
Speaker 1: and Dave, and they have families. Um, I have a family.
Speaker 1: I have kids and uh whatnot. And I have two
Speaker 1: sisters that live in Atlanta from my mother's other union,
Speaker 1: you know. And then then I have a brother and
Speaker 1: four other sisters in the other unit. So I'm right
Speaker 1: there in the middle. I'm the absolute when you count down,
Speaker 1: I'm the middle child of all of that, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's we were. And now we're all kind of
Speaker 1: clue together. My brother from my father's side, he comes
Speaker 1: and he drives our tour bus from time to time.
Speaker 1: And my sisters already, so we're all counted together. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the thing. So Okay, I know
Speaker 1: you were born in I believe. Um, so can you
Speaker 1: describe to me what it is to grow up in Detroit,
Speaker 1: Michigan in the early seventies. I know about you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard people tell me about growing up in Detroit
Speaker 1: in the early sixties. And I know, of course people
Speaker 1: who grew up in Detroit between like the mid eighties
Speaker 1: and the and the early nineties. But I really don't
Speaker 1: know people that have had a period in Detroit in
Speaker 1: the early seventies, like around that period, like United sounds
Speaker 1: there where you know, Motown's leaving. Could you just describe
Speaker 1: to me basically what your life was as a teenager
Speaker 1: in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies. You know, it was
Speaker 1: really just about about school and surviving in the hood,
Speaker 1: you know, just you know one of my good friends
Speaker 1: in the seventies, Yeah, I went to well, my mom
Speaker 1: moved to California to Inglewood when I was in the
Speaker 1: fourth grade, the first part of the fourth grade, and
Speaker 1: she didn't like it, and we came back to Detroit
Speaker 1: around December. But I hadn't been in school, so that
Speaker 1: whole fourth grade year I had to try to catch up.
Speaker 1: So this is like the seventies, you know, this is
Speaker 1: and whatnot. The next year I had to go to
Speaker 1: a parochial school with a seventy at Venis, where I
Speaker 1: was good friends. My best friend was Greg Mathis, Judge
Speaker 1: Greg Mathis. So he and I were in the oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I were in the fifth grade together and everything
Speaker 1: you ever hear that he ever said one hunted because
Speaker 1: I lived in the hood and he lived in the projects.
Speaker 1: He lived in the Herman Gardens, and he had a
Speaker 1: bunch of brothers, and but he was smart as a
Speaker 1: whip in the in the fifth grade, and I was struggling.
Speaker 1: But he and I were just really good friends. So
Speaker 1: growing up there, it was just you know, the seventies
Speaker 1: are almost a blur because I wasn't musical yet. I
Speaker 1: was thinking more sports and whatnot. And uh, I hadn't
Speaker 1: done any real music until I got to about sixteen,
Speaker 1: about fifteen or sixteen years old, and I transitioned from
Speaker 1: drums in my church to bass guitar. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're trying to tell me that. I'm thinking like you
Speaker 1: came out the wound playing base, but this didn't happen
Speaker 1: until you were a teenager. You're right around fourteen, thirteen
Speaker 1: years old. I started transition because my mother. I went
Speaker 1: to a church called Greater Grades Temple, and the line
Speaker 1: to play drums was around the corner and in the
Speaker 1: pastor's son he had it locked Chuckie Yellis, Charles Ellis,
Speaker 1: he's bitch of bellis now, but he was an amazing drummer,
Speaker 1: and I had my sticks. I would go every Sunday
Speaker 1: and I would try to play, and you know, just
Speaker 1: never got a chance. And my mother said, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't like to see you, you know, not
Speaker 1: getting the chances there any other instrument. There was a
Speaker 1: bass guitar laying over the corner, and nobody would come
Speaker 1: and play because the guy was working. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'd like to play bass, maybe I could try that.
Speaker 1: And that's when I moved to bass guitar and I
Speaker 1: never looked back. The reason why it's also important for
Speaker 1: me to know about this specific period in the seventies
Speaker 1: is because I know that once black families migrate to
Speaker 1: the Midwest, especially in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them are escaping the South,
Speaker 1: the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're
Speaker 1: getting these factory jobs, these factory jobs of paying well,
Speaker 1: and they're buying these houses, and the houses have garages
Speaker 1: and of course instruments. You know, this is basically how
Speaker 1: like the first wave of of the funk generation starts.
Speaker 1: And I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration
Speaker 1: seventies seventy one seventy too, you know, budgets started to
Speaker 1: get cut, music education started to wane and whatnot, and
Speaker 1: the idea of the garage band, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: wilted out. So I mean by that time period, even
Speaker 1: though you were late in developing your musicianship, were there
Speaker 1: musicians around like next door and all those things, or
Speaker 1: we're factories closing by then, and then like that dream
Speaker 1: just died. You know, music was still big, even though
Speaker 1: a lot of the porch bands and the garage bands
Speaker 1: from the sixties weren't very popular. But music was still
Speaker 1: a thing, you know. So I hooked up the guy
Speaker 1: uh in my fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and
Speaker 1: he was like my best friend. And this guy could
Speaker 1: play every instrument at that point. He could play bass,
Speaker 1: he could play guitar, you can play drums, and he
Speaker 1: was fluent at it at fifteen years old. So he
Speaker 1: would take every day we would come home to his
Speaker 1: house after school or in the summertime, and we would
Speaker 1: just sd and he would start to show me people.
Speaker 1: He was the person he said, Man, I got this record,
Speaker 1: you really need to hear check it out. This dude
Speaker 1: right here plays all the instruments. His name is Prince
Speaker 1: and it was the four Year Hour, and so we're
Speaker 1: listening in the basement and he's like, man, listen to that.
Speaker 1: Listen to that. You gotta get on your theory, Fred,
Speaker 1: he's teaching me theory. He's like, uh uh uh, what's that?
Speaker 1: And I'd have to kind of come back and name it.
Speaker 1: And uh So every day we would shed and we
Speaker 1: would go places like the Detroit Detroit Music Union and
Speaker 1: bands would play come in and audition, so we it
Speaker 1: was still alive. Uh and then we would play in
Speaker 1: the garage. We played Mr Magic for like four hours,
Speaker 1: you know, in then we graduated. Then we graduated the
Speaker 1: Irbian and you know, a chameleon. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: so once I learned that them two songs and we
Speaker 1: have a little crowd out there and we just played
Speaker 1: and then there was I was so proud when I
Speaker 1: learned the baseline too, that's the way of the world.
Speaker 1: And I learned that that had doom doom doom, doom,
Speaker 1: doom doom do. When I learned that concept that that man,
Speaker 1: it blew me away. So we were still it was
Speaker 1: still a powerful place to learn music. It hadn't died
Speaker 1: that whole seventies. It hadn't died, you know, well living
Speaker 1: in Detroit, was was any of the p funk folklore?
Speaker 1: Like was that an influence on you at all like
Speaker 1: seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or any
Speaker 1: of those things, or was that sort of like after
Speaker 1: you know, they migrated and went to California, Like was
Speaker 1: that even that part of your DNA at all? You know,
Speaker 1: they had an eight mile There was a club called
Speaker 1: Axles Okay, the lead Woods, Lamont Johnson they were, so
Speaker 1: they would all play there. Am Fitler would show up
Speaker 1: and they said, yo, man An Fitler from he played
Speaker 1: with George Clinton, uh, David Chong, which I mean, and
Speaker 1: then the only people and we would try to go
Speaker 1: in there and sitting there and sneak in because it
Speaker 1: was kind of underage. When we'd sneak in and we
Speaker 1: listened to him and these cats. The funk was heavy.
Speaker 1: It was still Brainstorm was just starting to get started. Man,
Speaker 1: it was real, real storm. So Am Fitler, Uh, we
Speaker 1: never got a chance to see George, but we played
Speaker 1: with a lot of the guys that played on his record,
Speaker 1: like Butch Small believe his name is, but yeah, he
Speaker 1: was a big He used to run a studio called
Speaker 1: r m J and so he was the Lynn drum king.
Speaker 1: So he came and did some Lyn drum on the
Speaker 1: first Commission record. You know, but he was just somebody
Speaker 1: we looked up to, you know, Warren Woods, the engineer,
Speaker 1: you know. Man, it was just it was still rich. Man,
Speaker 1: It hadn't died at all. I mean, it was still
Speaker 1: really rich in the seventies, especially going into the eighties.
Speaker 1: So as a musician, who would you say, is is
Speaker 1: your north star? As far as like, that's the musician
Speaker 1: I want to emulate, because it's weird to me Like
Speaker 1: most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies,
Speaker 1: every every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams,
Speaker 1: thank you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you started in seventy eight with
Speaker 1: Prince tells me that you're sort of a later generation.
Speaker 1: So who, as far as like your setting and and
Speaker 1: as far as like who you wanted to emulate? Who
Speaker 1: is the musician that is your north star? Well? Number one? Okay,
Speaker 1: Well let's break it up into two bass players. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: because my total north star is Stevie period, hands down, right.
Speaker 1: But as far as bass players are gone, Okay, So
Speaker 1: my my first bass player influence and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know it, but I would pick his sound out. When
Speaker 1: I heard I want you back, that's James Jamison. James Jamison.
Speaker 1: I would hear his basselines and I just always locked him.
Speaker 1: Now as a bass player, Uh, definitely with Stanley and Jacko,
Speaker 1: and then it was Able Boreal. It was Alfonso Johnson
Speaker 1: who played this, you know, fretless uh situation. I paid
Speaker 1: attention to Anthony Jackson. These are my these are my
Speaker 1: goal toos. And then of course Marcus was younger, so
Speaker 1: he came on the seen a little bit later. But
Speaker 1: those guys were my Jamison Clark, Uh, Anthony Jackson, Jocko,
Speaker 1: Alfonso Johnson, Geno Vannelli's bass player. I don't know who
Speaker 1: it was, but we would listen to him. But so
Speaker 1: anybody that was really killing back then, we would grab
Speaker 1: their record, their music and we would just I would
Speaker 1: share to it. So those are my north stars right there.
Speaker 1: So were you more a team uh thumb plucking or
Speaker 1: were you more a team index middle finger for babies.
Speaker 1: I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these.
Speaker 1: I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely
Speaker 1: a thump. I was definitely team Thump. I get it, okay,
Speaker 1: I love it at what point, are you forming or
Speaker 1: at least bonding with Marcus Montreal like the other members
Speaker 1: of Commission, like how are you guys? How do you
Speaker 1: guys meet? And that was that your first actual band
Speaker 1: or did you have bands before? Well? Mitchell Jones and
Speaker 1: I we gradually we went to school together at Mumford
Speaker 1: High and we were together NonStop all three years. So
Speaker 1: he and I started Commission. You know, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day he and I started Commission, I went
Speaker 1: off to play for the Windings. I was a bass
Speaker 1: player for them from nineteen until I was like twenty
Speaker 1: three years old, and that's when I started. That's when
Speaker 1: I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell, Keith Staton,
Speaker 1: Carl Read, Michael Brooks and Michael Williams the drum and
Speaker 1: right around them, right around are you talking live in
Speaker 1: studio both? I'm sorry what the wine is? I was
Speaker 1: just I was, man, they wouldn't even let me near
Speaker 1: the studio. They wouldn't you could even you couldn't even
Speaker 1: see nobody famous. But here's a here's a joke. Andre
Speaker 1: Crouch came to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man,
Speaker 1: if you don't if you be good I'll let you
Speaker 1: come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh,
Speaker 1: man of the skin, and so they this is no joke.
Speaker 1: They had us come over. He opened the door and
Speaker 1: we had to look through the screen and I've been
Speaker 1: sitting in the chair over and said just look over there,
Speaker 1: right over there, and we were like, wow, that is
Speaker 1: hum Wow, this is that. We never asked if we
Speaker 1: come in and we never went in home. No, that's
Speaker 1: how they protected their relationships, like no, no, So I
Speaker 1: never got a chance to play on any album you know,
Speaker 1: with them or anything. We weren't you know, we weren't
Speaker 1: good enough, but we were good enough to do the road.
Speaker 1: And you know what, we weren't offended. We really weren't offended.
Speaker 1: When we heard their records, we knew it was something
Speaker 1: different between Able, Boreal, Bill Maxwell, Hadley Hockin Smith. You know,
Speaker 1: we knew it was something different. So we weren't tripping,
Speaker 1: you know, we just appreciated the opportunity to just be
Speaker 1: in the number. Now, let me ask you this, were
Speaker 1: you around and I'm gonna nerd boy out on my
Speaker 1: on the Church? Yes, that's why you here? Were you
Speaker 1: back then? On the Church? Vibe with with Thomas Woodfield
Speaker 1: and Rudolf Stansfield and all these guys whoa see that stuff.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know that. As like Thomas Woodfield gave me
Speaker 1: my first chance to play in the studio and my base,
Speaker 1: my base wasn't up to park, it wouldn't stay in tune,
Speaker 1: and I was too young. The first record was Vanessa
Speaker 1: Belle Armstrong peacep still record, Yes, Vanessa bell and there's
Speaker 1: a song called I don't want my living to be
Speaker 1: in Vain and anywhere you bless me and playing those
Speaker 1: two okay, my my, my boy that honestly he called
Speaker 1: in because my base didn't work was Lenar Brandley Kerrn,
Speaker 1: Okay Kerr. Everybody that's okay. So but Kern was the
Speaker 1: king around there, and uh he was another guy that
Speaker 1: kind of scooled me. But that was my first take
Speaker 1: on going in the studio. So then when we did
Speaker 1: our demo as commissioned, we asked we saved him some
Speaker 1: money and we asked Thomas Whitfield, the producers. So, uh,
Speaker 1: when you hear the bed track, when you hear the
Speaker 1: rhythm track, like if you listen to these four songs,
Speaker 1: give him my problem to you? Um, I can see
Speaker 1: Jesus um if you listen to um uh if we
Speaker 1: ever needed the Lord Before those three songs, the rhythm
Speaker 1: track of that was produced by Thomas Whitfield Wow. And
Speaker 1: I was amazed by Thomas, because you know, Thomas had
Speaker 1: an arcolepsy. So Thomas would be where he would be
Speaker 1: straight up like this, get that be flat out of there,
Speaker 1: and everybody stopped and somebody played and they solow it,
Speaker 1: and sure enough get our player played the B flat
Speaker 1: that was kind of hitting up under there, and they said,
Speaker 1: I don't play that. Oh that's a scene, come on,
Speaker 1: and uh, how much? Was my hero? Thomas was really
Speaker 1: my hero. And I was sitting in the corner of
Speaker 1: RMJ Studio and I went out. I remember watching a
Speaker 1: garbage can out. It was like this little great high
Speaker 1: school bought garbage came we have in high school. I
Speaker 1: went and washed it out. I turned it upside down
Speaker 1: and stuck it between the tape machine m c I
Speaker 1: tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat in
Speaker 1: this little cubby hole and I didn't ask, let's the word.
Speaker 1: I said, don't let him kick me out. Don't let
Speaker 1: him kick me out. And I honestly just sat there
Speaker 1: and I listened and I prayed, and I said, Lord,
Speaker 1: showed me how he thinks. And I probably was eighteen
Speaker 1: years old at that time, and said, please show me
Speaker 1: how he thinks, because he was. He was a genius
Speaker 1: when he sat down and played like he sit on
Speaker 1: the piano and played. Man, it was it was magical
Speaker 1: just the way he did it. And so you know
Speaker 1: Thomas Whitfield man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh man, Rudolf was and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you remember this guy because he
Speaker 1: was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J right, you
Speaker 1: know he was, he was, He was a genius. So
Speaker 1: all these cats ran together and I just stood in
Speaker 1: the background. So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're
Speaker 1: not having the right base. What one? What was your
Speaker 1: first base you used? And what is your acts of
Speaker 1: what is sort of your acts of your your your favorite? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So two story. Um uh, my mother, we went to
Speaker 1: kmart and when we're talking about doing to a base,
Speaker 1: we went to Kmart and there was a base on
Speaker 1: sale for thirty five dollars and the headstock was cracked,
Speaker 1: literally cracked, and they said thirty five dollars and the
Speaker 1: guy said if you buy now, I'll give it to
Speaker 1: you now. It couldn't stay in tune. It was impossible
Speaker 1: because between the A and the G you know there
Speaker 1: was it was cracked. So I'm sitting there and I'm going,
Speaker 1: I think we can fix this. So I think we
Speaker 1: can take this the wood shop and put it on
Speaker 1: advice and blue there, and I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make this thing work. So we took it
Speaker 1: up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all
Speaker 1: fix this? And the guy said, no, you can't fix that.
Speaker 1: You need to take that back and buy this one.
Speaker 1: We'll give it to you for the same price if
Speaker 1: you come back and buy. We took it back to
Speaker 1: kmart argue with him because it was no return, but
Speaker 1: they gave us some money back. My mother took the
Speaker 1: twenty five back to Wonderland and uh and uh. We
Speaker 1: bought this Norma for that same amount, and so I
Speaker 1: never forget. My mother said, if you if you put
Speaker 1: this under your bed and you don't use it, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sell it. You gotta promised me. And so I
Speaker 1: promised her, and I played and I went to church
Speaker 1: and we had had a storefront church and I played.
Speaker 1: I had a little bit of ample, and I played
Speaker 1: and I would play so high because you couldn't hear me.
Speaker 1: So I had to play it like a lead because
Speaker 1: Churchill going and I'm like, d that's hear out that
Speaker 1: little amp. And so my mother got really I got discouraged,
Speaker 1: and I put it up. So for four months my
Speaker 1: mother let us sit up under the bed, and then
Speaker 1: one day she was going, we're going to the inquiry
Speaker 1: so and she said, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you.
Speaker 1: You promised me I'm gonna sell that almost suddenly, and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't even look at me. She just drove me.
Speaker 1: She said, I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with
Speaker 1: you wasn't no talking. It was just she talked and
Speaker 1: I just listened, and I felt horrible. And she said,
Speaker 1: why did you disappoint me like that? You told me
Speaker 1: you promised you better keep your word as a man.
Speaker 1: Why did you tell me that? And I said, they
Speaker 1: laugh at me. She said, cool, say everybody on est
Speaker 1: Eddie Charles. Everybody Why, they said, because it don't sound
Speaker 1: like a base And she just said nothing else. That
Speaker 1: next Saturday we ended up going to Oakland mall for
Speaker 1: Neil's music, and we were in there, and so she
Speaker 1: she was on playing the piano like she was playing
Speaker 1: the piano, and she said, which one of them basis
Speaker 1: is better? And I picked up this unifox and I said, well,
Speaker 1: this one is. It's a d eighty dollars because at
Speaker 1: that point you can tell how much your base about
Speaker 1: how much it calls hundred eighty dollars from is a
Speaker 1: nice You got a good base. I was sitting there, man,
Speaker 1: and I was playing it. And then she said, okay,
Speaker 1: wrapped that up. I'm gonna take it for him. And
Speaker 1: the salesman became the salesman. He said, ma'am, this boy
Speaker 1: got talent. If you want him to be the best,
Speaker 1: you gotta give him the best. And I'm telling to
Speaker 1: do shut up. My mother's on the yes. Got this
Speaker 1: thing up and get the hip out of you. He said,
Speaker 1: let me show you what it is. This boy's got talent.
Speaker 1: He rolled. He pulled his fender out of the front,
Speaker 1: the same one that a w B had, the same
Speaker 1: blind fender procedures, and man, that's my dude, that's my dude.
Speaker 1: You're man, Oh god, I'm sitting there. I'm in there,
Speaker 1: and I'm asking can we play? I said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get this one, but can I just leave play it?
Speaker 1: And we went through this rich We said, take off
Speaker 1: your coat, almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from
Speaker 1: on that feet. Take off. He made sure he put
Speaker 1: a towel on me, and he put the base down
Speaker 1: and I plugged it into that amp that the Unifox had.
Speaker 1: He's oh, no, no, no, no, you got to do
Speaker 1: this fright. He pushed this big red custom eight foot
Speaker 1: off there and turned it up. And the first thing
Speaker 1: I did it was done don't don't boom, don don
Speaker 1: don and it was it was so smooth, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm playing everything. I said, I may
Speaker 1: not get a chance to play this no more. So
Speaker 1: I played skin tight, I played I'll take I played fire.
Speaker 1: I played everything I could possibly played. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a crowd in front of Grenelle's brother saying,
Speaker 1: look at that boy, look at that boy, and they're
Speaker 1: playing that basse like that. And my mother looked at
Speaker 1: it and she said, they said, we could do a
Speaker 1: payment playing the thirty dollars a month. He deserves this,
Speaker 1: He'll be good. And she put her head down just
Speaker 1: like this because she didn't have that kind of money. Yeh.
Speaker 1: And she said, wrap it up. I bet not see
Speaker 1: just under the bed, I said, I promise you you'll
Speaker 1: never see it under the bed. Now that base retired.
Speaker 1: My mother. All of this stuff you see here, all
Speaker 1: of this, every time you see me on Soulfia, every
Speaker 1: time you see me anywhere, is because she took a
Speaker 1: chance on a four hundred and thirty dollar fender base.
Speaker 1: But she didn't have the money. She probably ended up
Speaker 1: paying eight hundred dollars, but it paid for everything that
Speaker 1: you see me. But she invested in me. She invested
Speaker 1: in me, and that was what it was. And I
Speaker 1: played that thing in the ground. Being young, I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about. I couldn't afford to take it to
Speaker 1: go and get calibrated. So I just changed the strings.
Speaker 1: And you know how we had the ball of strings
Speaker 1: to get that pop back. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: What boil them? You will put explain that process to
Speaker 1: you know. Here's the thing I ended up. I could
Speaker 1: buy like I could save up enough money to buy strings,
Speaker 1: uh maybe once every five to six months. So I
Speaker 1: bought these dear Dairea lights. So you know, they get
Speaker 1: all trendy and stuff. They start sounding duk. Well, we
Speaker 1: learned that if you take them off the base, ground
Speaker 1: them up, put him in the hot ball and water
Speaker 1: for about seven to ten minutes. You pull them back
Speaker 1: off and they freshen. You get that same bank right
Speaker 1: back again. So we were boiling strings. We were never
Speaker 1: buying enough. That's good style. Hey, Fred, did you play
Speaker 1: that on victory? I played enough By that time I
Speaker 1: was able to buy another base, another fender, because that
Speaker 1: base got me fired. That That was literally after the
Speaker 1: time is whinfield session. He said, man, you're a good player,
Speaker 1: but you gotta keep up with your acts and you
Speaker 1: just gotta I gotta have somebody to play. And at
Speaker 1: that point Lenard Turn had just Gibson and it was
Speaker 1: it was solid. So I lost the gig, but he
Speaker 1: let me play the least those two songs. And you
Speaker 1: know what it was. It was an ibans. I went
Speaker 1: and brother Ibanz and that's the one that's on victory.
Speaker 1: That's the one on ye. Do you still have that
Speaker 1: original base? Just for prosperity sake, Cord, I couldn't, but
Speaker 1: I went and bought one, just like just to remind me,
Speaker 1: I went and brought one just not now. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't play much no more because of my arthritis
Speaker 1: and I'm just older. And so I got a lot
Speaker 1: of young cats to play with me. Now I ended
Speaker 1: up getting my own baseline through base. Mine don't get
Speaker 1: my own seniors year and everything on it. And so
Speaker 1: I got about five of them. And I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: you wait till I I can't play. To give me this.
Speaker 1: Your mother didn't get to see you, but you know
Speaker 1: he's watching the spirit we need. Can you please tell me,
Speaker 1: as as much as you feel comfortable with revealing what's
Speaker 1: under the hood, I want to know what is it
Speaker 1: to tour on the gospel circuit first of all, to
Speaker 1: get to get the pole position of being the go
Speaker 1: to guy to play these gigs. But then let's say
Speaker 1: I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I play
Speaker 1: drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Whiners, but
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,
Speaker 1: Like when do you start? When do they when do
Speaker 1: they really start taking you serious? As in Freds might
Speaker 1: go to, like at what year are you the man?
Speaker 1: You know? It never happened like that for me. Because
Speaker 1: I went straight from the Winders straight to Commission, and
Speaker 1: with Commission, I dedicated every week and momentu I dedicated
Speaker 1: every waking moment to making sure that group did what
Speaker 1: we needed to do. I will tell you this story
Speaker 1: that I got fired off of a Commission off of
Speaker 1: a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that
Speaker 1: I was the go to guy. Man, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think it was. It was probably I was out of school,
Speaker 1: so it could have been like it was coming out
Speaker 1: of the Winders, So it's probably eight three were right,
Speaker 1: her first real solo album, whatever, Look at Me, Crisis
Speaker 1: at Me three albums that first album. I got fired
Speaker 1: off that gig. And it was funny because Michael Wright
Speaker 1: was one of my best friends. Michael Williams is one
Speaker 1: of my best friends. Michael Wins is the drummer. He's
Speaker 1: a drummer for Commission. And Michael Wright was a good
Speaker 1: top player. He was supposed to be the seventh member
Speaker 1: of Commission, and they Jeffrey the Valley was putting together
Speaker 1: a group uh to go out and play for Tremaine.
Speaker 1: So me and Michael bass player lead and then drummer,
Speaker 1: and everything was fine, and we were rehearsed, were shared
Speaker 1: in the basement, and I always sang in the middle
Speaker 1: and Mike sang the top. And that's just the way
Speaker 1: it was. The night we got to Jeff to come
Speaker 1: in and do the audition, like, let's let's start practicing
Speaker 1: my Mike froze and he started singing the middle. Now
Speaker 1: in my head I couldn't make that transition base wise
Speaker 1: and singing, so I had to share. And once I
Speaker 1: learned my part, I'm good. But it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me switch to this partle let me sing this party.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is my part. I can rock this
Speaker 1: and I can sing this part song. Well. He sang
Speaker 1: my part and and he froze, and I never forget,
Speaker 1: I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,
Speaker 1: I seen in the middle, and he looked right back
Speaker 1: at me and said, no, I sing the middle. And
Speaker 1: I I'm like, oh, we have a situation there, And
Speaker 1: Jeff le Valley was looking like this somebody thinking, somebody
Speaker 1: seeing something. And so I said, well, let me salvage
Speaker 1: the situation because he's my boy. I'll try to sing
Speaker 1: this top. I'll just learn it. And as I was
Speaker 1: doing it. I was struggling, and so Jeff said, you
Speaker 1: know what, let's just come back tomorrow. But when I
Speaker 1: came back the next day, they had somebody sitting in
Speaker 1: the car and the manager came and said, we have
Speaker 1: a problem, and we seem to be a problem. That's
Speaker 1: the problem. And they said, well, I said, well, we
Speaker 1: kind of learned the kind of the same part. And
Speaker 1: they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down
Speaker 1: the steps, Jonathan do Bos walking down the stop. He
Speaker 1: come walking down the steps and Mike right who's the
Speaker 1: guitar player, said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally
Speaker 1: he literally started packing up his good time. And they
Speaker 1: said no, no, no, no, no no. They said, Fred,
Speaker 1: can you use your base? And they all they rehearsed
Speaker 1: right in front of me, and they said, Fred, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we're not going be able to use you all
Speaker 1: this time. They couldn't just take three hours so you
Speaker 1: can relearn your harmony parts or whatever. They told me
Speaker 1: to go home and learn it, and they gave me
Speaker 1: a night and I went home and I learned it.
Speaker 1: And when I went back, Gloria Hawkins was there, Jeff
Speaker 1: Loa Valley was there, and that and Jonathan was standing there.
Speaker 1: They were just there and I can't imagine if Jonathan
Speaker 1: came in yet, but I know it was that in
Speaker 1: the pressure hit me so hard. I started playing and
Speaker 1: I was singing a note that I could not sing,
Speaker 1: and I just remember stopping and put my head down
Speaker 1: and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy. This kind
Speaker 1: of the first time I said it was his fault.
Speaker 1: I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal
Speaker 1: while Jonathan Dubos practiced on my base. And I tell everybody.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I probably I am decently
Speaker 1: six sccessful, it's because I never carried bitterness towards anyone.
Speaker 1: Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you've
Speaker 1: see these people every day, like we were still boys,
Speaker 1: still boys. We never you know, you don't wrat your
Speaker 1: boy out. And that's just what it was. And it
Speaker 1: was unspoken at that time that that's what the problem was.
Speaker 1: And I never I never read it him out. And
Speaker 1: I just it was crazy too, because they toured for
Speaker 1: about a year to two years, and I was broken.
Speaker 1: I would broke see James, we would have read each
Speaker 1: other out. Man, My best friend was Michael Williams as well,
Speaker 1: the drummer for commission, and he has no filter, so
Speaker 1: he would come back just telling, yeah, we just came
Speaker 1: from Amsterdam. Man, Man, let me tell you something. Man,
Speaker 1: just that I just bought this, I bought that, and
Speaker 1: we did that, and I just I sat there and
Speaker 1: I just I just took it. You know. So what
Speaker 1: what did you wind up doing? Like? Did you take
Speaker 1: that as like, Okay, I got a jet even harder?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, obviously said I'm never I'm never gonna let
Speaker 1: that happen to me again. But what I did was
Speaker 1: I focused deep on getting commissioned together because we had
Speaker 1: to learn managers. We had to try to find managers.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the easy road. Man. People thought that
Speaker 1: commission was signed and somebody saw us. Man. We spent.
Speaker 1: We raised thirteen thousand dollars from uncle's cousins, skating parties, receptions.
Speaker 1: We would put them in the shoe box under my
Speaker 1: bed and go by studio times. And finally we had
Speaker 1: a finished product and we leased that first record that
Speaker 1: I'm going on. It was a least yep. Our manager.
Speaker 1: We went to tight Scott Records, and Leonard Scott said
Speaker 1: I'll sign you. Guys. We didn't know what to ask for.
Speaker 1: We said, we just have the money back to pay
Speaker 1: our parents and our family back. He said sure. But
Speaker 1: then Derek Dirkson, who was the leader of Chapter eight,
Speaker 1: you know, he was the drummer and the leader of Chapter.
Speaker 1: He said, of me, manage you guys. You just walked
Speaker 1: away from the wine. He said, let me manage you.
Speaker 1: And uh, we said okay. He said, give me two weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take it to Light Records, and if they
Speaker 1: don't come back within two weeks, we'll go over the task.
Speaker 1: Well he called on his relationships. He did at least. Still,
Speaker 1: we put the record out and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Then then we got signed the second record off from
Speaker 1: second record off. Yeah, I was just gonna ask you
Speaker 1: about the business of that. Um, So, how did that
Speaker 1: work in terms of like, do you guys own those
Speaker 1: masters now? Was it a deal that they owned? How
Speaker 1: was business done in the gospel world as compared to
Speaker 1: the kind of secular music? It was done the same, Jack,
Speaker 1: I believe we own the masters now though we do
Speaker 1: the masters now to the first five records. Um. But
Speaker 1: other than that, we just got too So in your mind,
Speaker 1: and you're saying that The Windings was like your first
Speaker 1: gig before you went with with or your biggest gig
Speaker 1: before you went to forming commission in your mind, is
Speaker 1: the Whinings and doing that circuit as good as it gets,
Speaker 1: like as top as it gets. Is there any point
Speaker 1: where you're like, hey, maybe I should go to Lost
Speaker 1: Angeles to become a session musician, or are there any
Speaker 1: secular acts? Like it is Anita Baker in the chapter
Speaker 1: you know, like are you are your eyes looking elsewhere
Speaker 1: or for you? For you? It's like, I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: in the gospel world and The Windings is as good
Speaker 1: as it gets to get out there. I never looked
Speaker 1: to do a secular group or play in the club
Speaker 1: or anything else. I really felt like I was cold.
Speaker 1: And this is before I knew my birth issues or anything.
Speaker 1: I honestly felt like I was called to gospel music.
Speaker 1: So The Windings was as big as it got. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: I thought I'd be paying for their right now at
Speaker 1: sixty years. I never thought I was gonna leave, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave when I left, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: there was a little high coup that happened to in commission.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna give you all something real, a
Speaker 1: little something behind the scene. A couple of members called
Speaker 1: me with our managers at that time, into a basement
Speaker 1: at twelve o'clock at night and they told me, if
Speaker 1: you don't leave the Windings, we're gonna take this group
Speaker 1: from you. You out of traveling, you out of doing that.
Speaker 1: You can't be no group leader. They didn't have a
Speaker 1: record deal, they didn't have anything, but there was some
Speaker 1: scuttle but that was going on between two members and
Speaker 1: the management, and they were literally trying to take the
Speaker 1: group from me. And I said, they said, if you
Speaker 1: don't leave them, we're gonna take this group from me.
Speaker 1: So I had to go back to the Windings. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't be no rat, so I couldn't tell him, Man,
Speaker 1: they make it me do this. I had to tell
Speaker 1: him and then after Chicago, that's my last, that's my
Speaker 1: last gig, I'm going to make commission. And they were
Speaker 1: so mad at really, and they were so mad. They understood.
Speaker 1: They told you no, no, no, no no no, that's
Speaker 1: what they said. But it was because we were family.
Speaker 1: And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson,
Speaker 1: the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Al Green and a bunch
Speaker 1: of people in Chicago, and I never forget. I cried
Speaker 1: like a baby. And in the van they got together
Speaker 1: as brothers and they sang this song, Uh to find
Speaker 1: His Keepers. I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend,
Speaker 1: we love having you. M Uh what up? Y'all find
Speaker 1: selo here. That was part one of our two part
Speaker 1: interviews with the legendary Fred Hammond. Y'all stay tuned. Part
Speaker 1: two is coming up next week, and it gets even
Speaker 1: better right here on QLs. Cous Love Supreme YEP, m R.
Speaker 1: Slave Subprime is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.