Speaker 1: Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 1: What's up, y'all, This is Quest Love and this is
Speaker 1: QLs classic which we hear at Quest Love Supreme. Taken
Speaker 1: to our archives to bring you some amazing stories from
Speaker 1: past episodes. Uh. This was a really great episode with
Speaker 1: Ray Parker Jr. Talking about his life as a musician,
Speaker 1: working with Barry White, with Stevie Wonder, with Shaka Khan,
Speaker 1: hanging with Prince, giving Quincy Jones stories, even and even
Speaker 1: Huey Lewis. Uh. This is one for the music fans.
Speaker 1: We really hope you enjoyed this Quest Love Supreme episode
Speaker 1: with Ray Parker Jr. Sokrema so Suremo role call, soul
Speaker 1: Prima suf Frema, role called Suprema Sulfmo roll call, so
Speaker 1: a prima Frema roll call. My name is Questo. Yeah
Speaker 1: that understood. Yeah. Let me tell you something, Yeah that
Speaker 1: makes me feel good something sub prima roll call, subprima
Speaker 1: su frema roll call. My name is Fonte. Yeah. My
Speaker 1: favorite album is Voodoo. Yeah, because that woman needs love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like you do. Su Frema roll call, subrima something
Speaker 1: So Frema roll call. My name is Sugar. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love to ball. Yeah, you know my number? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: who you're gonna call? Surema roll call su Prima sub
Speaker 1: Frema roll call. I'm on pay bill. Yeah, there's something strange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you stole my ship. Yeah, and I've been brave Suprema
Speaker 1: roll call, Suprima, Supremo roll call. Yeah, current crass. Yeah
Speaker 1: you've been taking him. Yeah, roll call Frema call. My
Speaker 1: name is like yeah, No, I'm not Jill. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if I would Mr Parker, Yeah, I'll go up any
Speaker 1: Hill Road. Suprema roll call, Suprima, su Prema roll call.
Speaker 1: My name is Ray Yeah, Torres born in May. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm my love is strong. Yeah, I grab my guts.
Speaker 1: I played with it. Roll call su Prima, Road called Suprema, Suprema,
Speaker 1: roll call suprem We have an amazing show for you today.
Speaker 1: Our guests is someone I really wanted to get it
Speaker 1: on the show since we launched it. Uh. He's an
Speaker 1: incredible talented singer, songwriter, kdars and producer. He's working with
Speaker 1: some trude legends of soul including Mr Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye,
Speaker 1: Berry White, so many more ladies and gentlemen. Mr Ray
Speaker 1: Parker Jr. Is on the show today. Now, before we
Speaker 1: bring him on, let's check in quickly with Team Supreme.
Speaker 1: Um ma'am. I'm doing okay. I'm kind of tired. I
Speaker 1: think I have decision for like, I'm tired of making
Speaker 1: that THEMN decisions. I'm mentally exhausted. So now me and
Speaker 1: my me and my lady are finally moving into our house.
Speaker 1: And so now you were moving this house for the longest, dude,
Speaker 1: It's like because it's just been a lot, man, it's
Speaker 1: been like, well, hell, I ain't been home. I've been
Speaker 1: running around with you all all be but but no,
Speaker 1: but no, it's just that. And then it's like changing bills,
Speaker 1: like getting stuff from your old place to your new place,
Speaker 1: and like I'm working, my ladies working, the kids is working,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's just a lot. Man. Wait, the
Speaker 1: kids are working, well, I mean they're in school and
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And like, well, this is
Speaker 1: a question from a person that's not a father. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So how what's the report card system? Like? Now, do
Speaker 1: they just email you the report? Man? Yo? The report cars?
Speaker 1: Do they bring it home to you? Na? It comes
Speaker 1: straight to your hands and no more. I can't. I can't,
Speaker 1: Uh Ferris building my way out of there, Na bro
Speaker 1: like this, everything is electronic. You can log on um.
Speaker 1: You can see they skipping class. You can see like absence. Guys,
Speaker 1: do you live in a police state? I think we
Speaker 1: all live right Yeah? Serious helicopter parenting right there? All right.
Speaker 1: I just want to play one Ray Parker Junior song
Speaker 1: and Radio before he comes in, because we need to
Speaker 1: relax so he's gonna have all these crazy stories to
Speaker 1: tell us. I want to play one of my favorite
Speaker 1: joints off of the two places at the same time.
Speaker 1: Record It's uh Tonight Tonight by Ray Parker Jr. And
Speaker 1: Radio This quest Love Supreme only door Come on, baby,
Speaker 1: it's right. If it won't, let get down to nice
Speaker 1: to night. Tell Thomas add a sun. We don't need
Speaker 1: his LFE. That's right. Every mind dr bell not to
Speaker 1: ring this phone not singing sing We got live bols
Speaker 1: right here, Ray Parker Jr. This question love, lay down
Speaker 1: nights right, come down like that was too nice to night?
Speaker 1: Ray Parker Junior in Radio a conditioning here or request love? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is there's some story behind that song this you
Speaker 1: should not let that just dress. I'm I'm never We
Speaker 1: want to ask all the stories. Um, every episode is
Speaker 1: a blessing, but this one in particular, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: this man is the consummate musician, session player, producer, uh
Speaker 1: songwriter personality. I mean, he's one of the coolest people alive.
Speaker 1: You don't understand not serious cool Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
Speaker 1: the greatest Ray Parker Jr. Thank you pretty good to
Speaker 1: be here. Thank you man. This is this is a dream,
Speaker 1: a dream. Thank you, Thank you for coming to do
Speaker 1: our show. We are going to ask every question ever
Speaker 1: want to ask you right now. Um to Night, the
Speaker 1: kid is not it's a nice okay tell me. Usually
Speaker 1: I start at the beginning, but what was the story
Speaker 1: behind tonight to night? Tonight? It's an interesting song because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you recalled, but I used to
Speaker 1: play on all the Herbie Hancock and I wrote a
Speaker 1: lot of songs with Hervey. So I was over his
Speaker 1: house one day and we were kicking it. And if
Speaker 1: you know anything about her but he never plays the
Speaker 1: same thing twice. He just doesn't, you know. And his
Speaker 1: chords changed like every half a beat. That's a different
Speaker 1: chord and it's like going on forever. And he ran
Speaker 1: across these three chords and I was like, whoa, that works,
Speaker 1: but you just gotta slow it down. He's like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Said slow that down? He said,
Speaker 1: that ain't working on my song, said I ain't talking
Speaker 1: about your song. No, that already slow it down. And
Speaker 1: I had to get him to play the chords in
Speaker 1: segments where it would just hold for two bars. He says,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? He says, what am I doing
Speaker 1: for too? I says, you're not doing anything. Just hit
Speaker 1: the sustained pell, just hold it, let it drift. And
Speaker 1: I end up talking and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: could write a whole song for that. So what I
Speaker 1: did is I took his synthesizer in his move, unplugged
Speaker 1: it from right where we were at his house, which
Speaker 1: is off a Doheny, put it in my car, put
Speaker 1: him in the car front, drove him to my house
Speaker 1: in my studio, right plugged it back up, and said,
Speaker 1: now I want you to do exactly what you're doing
Speaker 1: at your house. I just want you to do it
Speaker 1: like him one twelfth a time. So everything last two
Speaker 1: bars and he had one hell of a time done.
Speaker 1: We spent a long time because he just couldn't hold
Speaker 1: those chords. And one he says, man, this is stupid,
Speaker 1: said don't worry about the stupidity of it, just do
Speaker 1: it and let that hang. And then he played the
Speaker 1: bass on it, then put the bass on second. He
Speaker 1: was playing way too many notes for us, and slow
Speaker 1: that down to just do doo doo doo do you know?
Speaker 1: Which still is a lot for me, but he's that's
Speaker 1: his version of slowed down. Then we took the sentersides
Speaker 1: back to his house and finished his song. What's wrong
Speaker 1: was it? I don't know. I just remember tonight. Tonight
Speaker 1: I was soon throwing with my song. I forgot what
Speaker 1: we were doing for him? Is that it hard for
Speaker 1: you to do? Like I'm often frustrated because obviously jazz
Speaker 1: cats have a bigger, wider, expansive vocabulary than the average musicians.
Speaker 1: So to get them to just simplify, I think it's
Speaker 1: a pride thing. Like they feel like every think has
Speaker 1: tould be this elaborate, big productmatic and they don't understand
Speaker 1: the beauty of simplicity. Do you think that's because like
Speaker 1: they just think they're above pop music or Yeah, in
Speaker 1: a sense, they're like in more notes is more something?
Speaker 1: You know, I've I've learned that the less notes you play,
Speaker 1: more money you get for the space, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But you know, it's like, you know, most
Speaker 1: of my friends and I started off like this too.
Speaker 1: I used to play jazz and and and all the
Speaker 1: stuff when I was younger. You want to play something
Speaker 1: that the musicians sitting next to you cannot play. So
Speaker 1: it's that kind of a thing like watch me do
Speaker 1: this run and you can't do this run. When actually,
Speaker 1: when you're making music, you want to play something that
Speaker 1: the person, even if they play it bad, they want
Speaker 1: to make them try to play it, so they think
Speaker 1: I got it, I got it, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: it's actually the opposite thing. So what you feel is
Speaker 1: that resistance from people when they locked into jazz and
Speaker 1: they said I got it. This is it. They're locked
Speaker 1: into their world and they just can't see anything else,
Speaker 1: so they're just over there. Yeah. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if they think they're better than anybody. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's better. I just think they think they're different and
Speaker 1: they think that the difference is correct. I also think
Speaker 1: it's easier for jazz guys to do the more difficult
Speaker 1: composition stuff, but it's literally impossible for them to play
Speaker 1: something simple. Yeah. Um, so I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. You were You're from the d right,
Speaker 1: are from Detroit, well part of what part of the
Speaker 1: west side, west side, Grand Boulevard, Dexter, actually Virginia Park
Speaker 1: and Dexter. But I was born halfway between the Grandy
Speaker 1: Ballroom and Motown. Really yeah, right in the middle. I
Speaker 1: could walk either way. If I walked northwest, I was
Speaker 1: going to the Grandy Ballroom, and which I was a kid,
Speaker 1: not old enough to go in. You could hear Jimi
Speaker 1: Hendricks playing upstairs, you know, coming out the window. And
Speaker 1: for those of y'all who don't know, the Grandy ball
Speaker 1: Room was like a white rock club in the heart
Speaker 1: of the ghetto. Black people everywhere, and it was almost
Speaker 1: like um off demilitarized zone. They could go to from
Speaker 1: their cars to the club and back without being harmed.
Speaker 1: If they went another block either way, that was it,
Speaker 1: you know, or half a block either way, and it
Speaker 1: was like holy sacred ground. But it was right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the ghetto and all of the rock
Speaker 1: bands were played at Ted Nugion Emboy Dukes. That's when
Speaker 1: he had a group called the Amboy Dukes. And all
Speaker 1: the rock bands were famous for playing here. And then
Speaker 1: if I went the other way, it was Northwestern High School,
Speaker 1: which I end up graduating from. And then there was
Speaker 1: Motown down the street, so I could walk to Motown too.
Speaker 1: First of all, it was the guitar your first and
Speaker 1: no no, I played clarin at six years old, I
Speaker 1: assume that was school. That was elementary school. I had
Speaker 1: a teacher named Alfred T. Kirby, and he's probably the
Speaker 1: most important person in my life because at five years old,
Speaker 1: I was in kindergarten and I hated kindergarten because the
Speaker 1: gym class didn't have you dance these Russian dances with
Speaker 1: the girls. We we gotta change, you know, partners and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. I wasn't into those girls. You know,
Speaker 1: that's another story. Took me a long time to find
Speaker 1: girls when I found him. But you know, so I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do this. So at the type of
Speaker 1: person I was outgoing at you know, team time for
Speaker 1: the first grade and I'm six years old, I said,
Speaker 1: I ain't doing it. I'm not gonna do it. So
Speaker 1: I want to go talk to my parents about it,
Speaker 1: because they didn't really know I was talking about. So
Speaker 1: I decided to find out who's running this school, and
Speaker 1: so they told me the principle. I said, well, where
Speaker 1: is the principle, and so I marched out the class,
Speaker 1: went to the principal's office and said, look, I ain't
Speaker 1: digging the gym thing with the dancing with the girls.
Speaker 1: Is there something else I can do? So the principle
Speaker 1: looked at me, I'll never forget to look. First of all,
Speaker 1: the principle said absolutely nothing. For maybe us. It seemed
Speaker 1: like sixty seconds like this is little kid come in
Speaker 1: here talking it's crap, you know, So it was like
Speaker 1: that more of that. Then the principle said, okay, I
Speaker 1: got something for you and took me to the music class.
Speaker 1: He said, if you don't want to be in this
Speaker 1: gym class doing these dances, you can take a music class.
Speaker 1: I said, what's the music class? Said you pick an
Speaker 1: instrument and you're gonna play. Now, well, it's nice about
Speaker 1: the music class that I just this is a god giving,
Speaker 1: just a gift. Is my only had two best friends
Speaker 1: in the world. That was Nathan and Ali, and both
Speaker 1: of them were already in the music class. Brown and
Speaker 1: Nathan won elementary score them absolutely Jesus. Yeah, so the band.
Speaker 1: So so I go to the class. I walked into
Speaker 1: the room. There's Nathan playing his trumpet. Nathan played the
Speaker 1: trumpet all he was playing the drums, but at that
Speaker 1: time he had a snare drum and we hung a
Speaker 1: symbol from the ceiling, you know. And uh so the
Speaker 1: teacher asked me what I want to play? Well, I
Speaker 1: was a young kid. I wasn't gonna stay the tuba, right,
Speaker 1: take tuba? So I wanted to play the flute. And
Speaker 1: all the girls had taken the flute. So what's I said,
Speaker 1: what's the next smallest instrument? And the next small session
Speaker 1: was declaring that you know, and so Mr Kirby, who
Speaker 1: was a genius guy, I wish I could talk to
Speaker 1: him now. Mr Kirby. Uh he looked at me. He says,
Speaker 1: young man, this about a weekend to it. He could
Speaker 1: see that I was less and enthused as Ali and
Speaker 1: Nathan were. He says, we're gonna start the band. And
Speaker 1: this band is to be called a sting Rays, which
Speaker 1: was named after me. I didn't figure that out for
Speaker 1: twenty years. But the band was named after me, and
Speaker 1: you know who else didn't figure it out, Ali and Nathan,
Speaker 1: they were too stupid to figure out Radio was named
Speaker 1: after you too later a story so and I think
Speaker 1: he named it after me because I needed the most.
Speaker 1: I needed more encouragement than Nathan and Olie did you know.
Speaker 1: And so it was interesting. We did uh parent teacher
Speaker 1: conference stuff, orphanages and a whole bunch of stuff. And
Speaker 1: our hit song which was hit in the neighborhood, local
Speaker 1: local hit. It's called Airplane Do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do crash, you know, and that was
Speaker 1: and man, we were we were popular for somebody this
Speaker 1: is under ten years old. Six years old. We were
Speaker 1: six years old, were rocking. That's the show, Ladies and Go.
Speaker 1: I was dancing to one of your songs. And so
Speaker 1: that's how it all began is on the clarinet. Nathan
Speaker 1: played the trumpet, all he played the drums. Any any
Speaker 1: other notable UH Session Monster musicians also go to the
Speaker 1: school with you during this time period that when you know,
Speaker 1: Diana Ross went to that school, not when I went.
Speaker 1: Temptations went to that school. I think, yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a lot. No, this was a famous Now what you
Speaker 1: got a picture. I'm sure you've noticed that a lot
Speaker 1: of famous people have come out of Detroit. It was
Speaker 1: just a small area. So everybody was going to either
Speaker 1: that school or the school next to it, or cast
Speaker 1: Tech or you know. We were all in the same genre,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Kevin Tony went to high school with me,
Speaker 1: still plays with me. Now. The guy from the black
Speaker 1: Birds Creep Park doing it, Yeah, he was, and we
Speaker 1: all went to school together. That's what we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to his story for sure, that's he's a jazz guy
Speaker 1: and you know, so that's the whole story. But uh,
Speaker 1: and just to show you the progression. Later we met
Speaker 1: up with Sylvester Rivers, who was one of our good
Speaker 1: friends too, who end up doing all of the piano
Speaker 1: work in Invictus and Hot Wax and the other stuff.
Speaker 1: And Sylvester had a band for the first time. We
Speaker 1: hadn't we We thought we were smoking everybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were jamming. So now let's fast forward. It seemed
Speaker 1: like twenty years but eight years, oh, eight and a
Speaker 1: half years old. We're gonna fast forward eight and a
Speaker 1: half years. So the biggest thing that happened at eight
Speaker 1: and a half years old, is we heard Sylvester's band,
Speaker 1: And Sylvester's band had a bass guitar and he was
Speaker 1: playing a keyboard. We never really thought about chords, right,
Speaker 1: we didn't even have a bass drum yet. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, now we we're hearing chords for the
Speaker 1: first time, and we're hearing the bass note on the bottom. Man,
Speaker 1: that stuff seemed this big compared to just the trumpet,
Speaker 1: the claring it and the snare drum. Yeah, so Ali immediately,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess his parents borrow some money. He
Speaker 1: got a bass drum so he could get some bottom
Speaker 1: on at least the drum, so you could get a
Speaker 1: kick going, you know, foot going, and uh, I never
Speaker 1: you gets Sylvester wanted Ali to join his band, which
Speaker 1: was a more just the kid the band because their
Speaker 1: drummer wasn't happening and all. He was on the floor crying,
Speaker 1: you know, because he didn't want to leave his homies.
Speaker 1: You know, he just so he try, Okay, I'll never leave,
Speaker 1: it said, man, you need to leave. I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: do this anyway. Something else. I still wasn't committed at
Speaker 1: that agent and by that time, I was playing a
Speaker 1: little bit of saxophone. But the big thing, the big
Speaker 1: life change, was my dad bought a Magnavox tape recorder
Speaker 1: about this big, with real, the real, and I had
Speaker 1: the only tape recorder in the neighborhood that was real,
Speaker 1: the real. So the studio I was the studio believing,
Speaker 1: and I still like that today. But I was the studio.
Speaker 1: I had the tape recorder and my brother had a
Speaker 1: cheap box guitar, and I remember I had a Busher
Speaker 1: Busher saxophone. I took my brother's guitar and I put
Speaker 1: the microphone in the guitar and it amplified it. Right,
Speaker 1: it was an acoustic guitar, but I put the mic
Speaker 1: in the thing, passed the strings, stuck it up in there,
Speaker 1: turned the tape recorder up, and it's like, whoa, that's
Speaker 1: cool sounding. Plus I got more than one show. I
Speaker 1: couldn't plain things that you hit the strings, but it
Speaker 1: was more than one old at the time, and I
Speaker 1: was tired of breathing and stuff anyway, so ALI left
Speaker 1: the band. I didn't like this, and by the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I was starting to get a little taller,
Speaker 1: a little more ten years old, starting to get a
Speaker 1: little more handsome, you know, growing a little hair. Just
Speaker 1: ain't found the girls yet. But I'm just saying I
Speaker 1: was just starting up, going into your own. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: getting taller, you know, and the little clarinet's getting smaller.
Speaker 1: I'm getting taller, you know. It's what happened. So Ali
Speaker 1: quit the band and went with Sylvester and the bigger band.
Speaker 1: So I just said, I'm gonna play the guitar and
Speaker 1: you know, and we were still playing together sometimes, but
Speaker 1: they didn't want me to play the guitar. They wanted
Speaker 1: me to play the clarinet, you know. And I said,
Speaker 1: if you don't let me play the guitar and or record, y'all,
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. So that's how that went. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now I'm gonna let you'll take it back over.
Speaker 1: I'll be talking, I know, campfire stories. We should tell
Speaker 1: him who Ali? He keeps? Well? Now, now everything's coming
Speaker 1: to me now. Because I was trying to Ali and
Speaker 1: Jerry hooked up, and of course Jerry was also in radio,
Speaker 1: so that hooked them up years later. That's way I
Speaker 1: don't want to jump that for I don't jump that
Speaker 1: so okay, So were you self taught or did you
Speaker 1: have formal instruction? Self taught on the guitar? And this
Speaker 1: is normal for everyone in Detroit, Like am I to
Speaker 1: think that everyone's a wonder kind prodigy at their instrument.
Speaker 1: You know what, Yeah, it does seem like it. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you this. The level of musicianship was
Speaker 1: so high that before you could even tell anybody you
Speaker 1: played the instrument, you had to be good. Right. It's
Speaker 1: just like I never get Norm Nixon told me one time,
Speaker 1: he said all his guys he went to school with,
Speaker 1: all six or eight them went to the NBA because
Speaker 1: the level of practice that they all commanded from each other,
Speaker 1: it was so much higher than when they showed up
Speaker 1: with everybody else. The whole group was higher. And I
Speaker 1: think that's how Detroit was. You know, when I was
Speaker 1: a young kid, like fourteen, I'm playing in the in
Speaker 1: the at the twenty Grand Well, you know, James Jamison
Speaker 1: was sitting next to me, right, So that's just the
Speaker 1: way you played. James Jamison was sitting here. You know,
Speaker 1: Jack Anfred's so over there, proper white sitting here. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta play well, you gotta play you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's nowhere around it, and if you're not cutting it,
Speaker 1: everybody's point at you. And I gotta tell the street
Speaker 1: when the notes, when the bad notes get played, it
Speaker 1: wasn't me because I was perfect, right, I had to
Speaker 1: be perfect. I'd be out, but they'd all point to
Speaker 1: me anyway, the youngest. I get hit with the drumstick
Speaker 1: anyway because it's the youngest. So did you play with
Speaker 1: the Funk Brothers or were you? I didn't play with
Speaker 1: the Funk Brothers on the original. I don't mean that.
Speaker 1: I mean, but did you ever play with those guys?
Speaker 1: Every day? So the twenty Grand was just the epicenter
Speaker 1: of musician. I was in the house band at the Grand,
Speaker 1: so it was Michael Henderson would play sometime. Bo Hannon
Speaker 1: was the band leader. He's the guy that brought me
Speaker 1: your Hamilton handon, brought me in the band. Michael Henderson
Speaker 1: would play when he's not on tour with Miles or
Speaker 1: steviea somebody. But Jamison was there just about every night.
Speaker 1: Um Eddie Willis would play sometime. Why I was there
Speaker 1: all the time? Right Wing was from the Georgy as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the guitar while the thick L five because
Speaker 1: he pushed the phone in and get the wa wa pedal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my guitar. That ain't guitar. He still owed me
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars patented that when I was playing jazz,
Speaker 1: I put the phone in there because Melvin Sparks and
Speaker 1: George Benson had done it. And I bought an L five,
Speaker 1: you know, to play some jazz. I was playing jazz wa.
Speaker 1: I was living with this white chick and she stole
Speaker 1: all everything he had. So he came home to carveon
Speaker 1: was gone. He took all the money. He would have
Speaker 1: killed it, but he didn't have enough money to go
Speaker 1: get fined her to kill. Had a thin body guitar
Speaker 1: that he was playing all the time, and so I said, look,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna play jazz much no more. You could
Speaker 1: buy my L five, and he didn't have much of choice.
Speaker 1: He gave me a hundred two hundred bucks and said
Speaker 1: he paid me the rest, which I never ever, never did.
Speaker 1: But that's how he got the guitar. And then once
Speaker 1: he started playing with it, the wa pedal and the
Speaker 1: boxing tire feeding back gave him his new sound. He
Speaker 1: was like oh, I like this chick. So he's been
Speaker 1: playing it ever since. Now we out a deal because
Speaker 1: he smokes a lot of cigarettes, and so I say,
Speaker 1: if you croak early and when my guitar back, even
Speaker 1: that's probably that's priord of the deal. That's probably deal.
Speaker 1: Even though so I guess uh. Some previous episodes before um,
Speaker 1: we learned the idea of the house band, which was
Speaker 1: various acts will come to town. Learned the records to
Speaker 1: whoever you know? It was how much warning did you have, like,
Speaker 1: give us an example of you being in the house
Speaker 1: band and someone coming to the town. Is this okay,
Speaker 1: we're in the house span let's say Gladys Night and
Speaker 1: the Pips come to town. Chuck Jackson was a big
Speaker 1: guy to a come. No spanners will come there. In
Speaker 1: the warning you show up there this week, they say,
Speaker 1: the spinners showing. They put the charts up there and
Speaker 1: it's time to you know, you rehearsed a little bit
Speaker 1: with the charts and the four charts or actual like
Speaker 1: their court charts with some notes, so the guitars going
Speaker 1: or Dr Dawn that will be written then you go
Speaker 1: back to chords. Was that the same you mentioned Chuck Jackson.
Speaker 1: Was that the same Chuck Jackson the work with No, No, No,
Speaker 1: there was there was a guy singer, Chuck Jackson had
Speaker 1: a big horn section. Everything I know, Chuck Marvin Yancy
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, I did some of Natalie's records. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'ren't sophisticated, lady, right, I know. I'm on our love.
Speaker 1: I remember that because she was pregnant at the time, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So okay, so you're saying that without warning, someone puts
Speaker 1: paper in front of you and you gotta get. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta go. And I got my first gig at Motown,
Speaker 1: even before Hamilton Bohanna, even before the twenty grand Is
Speaker 1: with the Spinners, Okay, and Billy Henderson had a chart
Speaker 1: called Fascinating Rhythm. He says, I don't care how old you.
Speaker 1: You can read that chart. You got the gig. So
Speaker 1: I pulled out my guitar. Read that chart. Now, I
Speaker 1: got the gig. And so he came to my mom
Speaker 1: and they take us out on weekends, you know, and
Speaker 1: we go play with the Spanish. They were nobody at
Speaker 1: the time. They had Felipe Win hadn't even gotten the
Speaker 1: band yet, you know. So this is Detroit Spinish span. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at the twenty grand, which is interesting. Phelippe Win
Speaker 1: got in the bandag twenty grand. They ain't had no
Speaker 1: hits and they weren't signing the Philadelphia. But I do
Speaker 1: remember Felipe Win turning out the audience two shows a
Speaker 1: night with no hits. He just started doing that half
Speaker 1: half year. He was just the most energetic guy you
Speaker 1: ever seen. And when nobody knew what he was singing, right,
Speaker 1: it was like exciting anyway, I've heard the level of
Speaker 1: performing was unbelievable. Yeah, so Flip bay Win was off
Speaker 1: the change, and I heard he was like the greatest,
Speaker 1: like Ad Liver. He would just come up with stuff
Speaker 1: off the cuff like was Tom Bill would shortened all
Speaker 1: the songs to leave a long fade because they just
Speaker 1: would let him have a fade. So if you look
Speaker 1: at the Spinner songs, they you know, two minutes it
Speaker 1: starts to just go to the fad. There's a formula
Speaker 1: one Spinner songs because when you're the same with slide
Speaker 1: in Family Stone, like I used to think that Fleet
Speaker 1: Bay sang everything, whereas you know, I noticed that uh
Speaker 1: one of the other singers would sing the main lyrics
Speaker 1: and then it's time for the end straight. He rarely
Speaker 1: would get a song by him, stuff like Rubber Bandman
Speaker 1: maybe one of the time, but it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a formula at the Grand. So could you describe what
Speaker 1: what a typical night there was like, Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was at a nightclub. Is it it was a
Speaker 1: night theater or we need another nightclub like that? It
Speaker 1: was all black nightclub in the center of the ghetto.
Speaker 1: Capacity probably four or five people, but it would be packed.
Speaker 1: I mean this place would be packed seats everywhere Ladist
Speaker 1: night will have a line going outside in the wintertime
Speaker 1: all the way around the block. So if it's in
Speaker 1: the center of the hood, was there any concern where
Speaker 1: once you became of a certain stature, Say, if you're
Speaker 1: like Dina Ross, are you still going to the twenty
Speaker 1: Grands and see Norman Winfields there every night? I mean
Speaker 1: he used to pick on me as a kid, saying
Speaker 1: what's he doing here? And I said, sha, you hold
Speaker 1: up the drink. Shut up. It was like calling me
Speaker 1: out routinely. You know, are you coming under age? Like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was way under age. I mean when me and
Speaker 1: Norman Winfield we couldn't be friends for like another four
Speaker 1: years because he was called he was just calling me out,
Speaker 1: just you know. It took a while. I used to
Speaker 1: I don't know, he was just picking on me. And
Speaker 1: then he talked to me like third party two. He'd
Speaker 1: be like, why is he here? He's obviously too young.
Speaker 1: He was just picking you know what. He's like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I guess you know, he didn't know through you
Speaker 1: he might have someone that was sort of at one
Speaker 1: level with with Dennis or No, he didn't feel none
Speaker 1: of that. He wasn't feeling. It was all about Dennis
Speaker 1: and no one else that was kid punked out on
Speaker 1: the stage and just what that was. It wasn't headed
Speaker 1: that way. But the typical day is, you know, we
Speaker 1: go in reheard the songs or like say a show time,
Speaker 1: we do the first show almost like clockwork. Every night
Speaker 1: in the middle between the two shows, me and Jamison
Speaker 1: would hang out. Jameson had a black fleet with bro him.
Speaker 1: We go to his car, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: a really nice kid. Jamison would go in his glove box.
Speaker 1: And that's wintertime, so we got the rendos rolled up.
Speaker 1: We got a little bit of heat on cold and
Speaker 1: and then he had a bag of weat. Then the
Speaker 1: bag of wheat was sitting on his gun, you know,
Speaker 1: the gun, And I'm sorry the gun was sitting on
Speaker 1: the bag of First of all, everybody just by everybody
Speaker 1: in the gotta get used to that. You don't go
Speaker 1: nowhere without your gun and the globe box, you know.
Speaker 1: But he had a weed undergun, so he would get
Speaker 1: the weed put in the pipe and he starts smoking weeds.
Speaker 1: So I told my mother on James James what I said,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was making me feel weird. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, contact I just wasn't happening, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had to talk with my parents
Speaker 1: and they told me what to say because they didn't
Speaker 1: want me to get all get him in trump. So
Speaker 1: I went back and I said, you know, Mr Jamison,
Speaker 1: Mr Jameson, how old was he at the time. I
Speaker 1: don't know. He probably is in his late thirties, I'm guessing,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think I was fourteen fifteen. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't sit in a car with you
Speaker 1: no more, because you know, you're smoking these things and
Speaker 1: I can't, you know, I feel weird. H He promised
Speaker 1: me he'd never do it again, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a week lad. He said, he
Speaker 1: missed our hang out in the car, you know, because
Speaker 1: nobody else is hanging out because he liked to drink
Speaker 1: a little bit. People gone. So he told me he
Speaker 1: never do it again. So I said, okay, cool. You know,
Speaker 1: then we got back together and we go acted his car,
Speaker 1: listened to some music and kick it. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't know he's gonna be famous or everything. I just
Speaker 1: just the bass player. I was gonna say, was he
Speaker 1: because I've never heard any James Jamison stories whatsoever. For
Speaker 1: for those that know James Jamison is like the standard
Speaker 1: for which I personally judge every basse player I've ever
Speaker 1: played with. For those of you that are fans of
Speaker 1: of d'angelo's Voodoo and you praise Peno Palladino, Peano Palladino's
Speaker 1: basically the second coming to James Jamerson, like his his
Speaker 1: finger game is bar nothing. I mean, he's emulating James Jamerson.
Speaker 1: Even in the Shadows of Bowtown documentary is all Jamison, everybody.
Speaker 1: And they talked about the twenty grand as well. So
Speaker 1: was it a generation separation? That's what I want to know,
Speaker 1: like it was sort of a generation separation, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: but they were they were good guys, the Funk Brothers.
Speaker 1: You know, my mouth was probably a little too big.
Speaker 1: I remember the first song learned to play was I'm
Speaker 1: Losing You Down, and I had I had it down.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had my red three thirty five back
Speaker 1: pick up dude jink in the bottom note. They had
Speaker 1: the whole thing put together. And so I was showing
Speaker 1: Robert White. You know, we were sitting in the studio
Speaker 1: and I'm showing Robert White sort of not just playing
Speaker 1: for him, but sort of like, look at me, watch this.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm the man, you know, And Robert White
Speaker 1: looked at he says, he says, he says, that's really nice,
Speaker 1: young man. I played on the original record, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm like, really, you play on that?
Speaker 1: Says he. Then he I found he played mocked on.
Speaker 1: That's him on my girl. I mean I was like,
Speaker 1: I got quiet, you know, I got shut up. But
Speaker 1: those guys were teaching us. So, you know, Robert White
Speaker 1: taught me a lot of rhythm stuff and tricks and
Speaker 1: how to phrase it and how to use the things.
Speaker 1: So they were real helpful, They were real good guys,
Speaker 1: all of them. So am I just assuming that there
Speaker 1: is what I think are three classes because obviously when
Speaker 1: Norman Whitfield really started, uh kind of taken over where
Speaker 1: Holland Dejar Holland left off. If Holland Deljar Holland really
Speaker 1: utilized the Funk Brothers to their full ability, I feel
Speaker 1: like Norman Whinfield took Dennis Coffee's band wait was or was,
Speaker 1: but he just took Dennis Coffee in Wahwa basically. But
Speaker 1: the even the rhythm section was was different than some
Speaker 1: of the same guys. Sometimes. Yeah, Jamison was on some
Speaker 1: of his stuff before they could not get alone. They
Speaker 1: had some fights, you know. So I mean by the
Speaker 1: time that they had made in uh their exodus to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: what were you facing? Then? That was a godsend that
Speaker 1: that Holland do johanand left Motown really because yeah, because
Speaker 1: Jack Ashford, Dennis Coffee, Robert White, they had Motown sewed up.
Speaker 1: I did some Marvin Gay albums when Marvin wanted to
Speaker 1: be different. I did one thing with Smokey and the
Speaker 1: Snake Pit, but most of the sessions were done by
Speaker 1: the Funk brothers. So when Holland do joh Holland left,
Speaker 1: the Funk Brothers weren't supposed to be there, so that
Speaker 1: left me and my boys, Me and Sylvester step Yeah,
Speaker 1: let us want that, didn't young man? Singling free? So
Speaker 1: we all that, of course it is, yeah, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, Chairman of the board, lordly uh free
Speaker 1: to pay. I mean that's us doing all that those records.
Speaker 1: So that led us in on the thing. You know.
Speaker 1: So you were the house band for Yeah, I'm I'm on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's me. Yeah, so we're having a good time
Speaker 1: Marvin get Cutter record. I remember the first release was
Speaker 1: Year to Man, which I'm playing two or three guitars on.
Speaker 1: That's me a fifteen sixteen and I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: made like twenty grand in a month. My father worked
Speaker 1: at four he only made sixteen grand all year. So
Speaker 1: this posed a real interesting problem my dad. No. I
Speaker 1: had already told my dad I don't need no money.
Speaker 1: I told him that thirteen years and I got the money.
Speaker 1: Then I'm good. You don't have to pay nothing for
Speaker 1: me no more. But what was interesting is now I'm
Speaker 1: starting to make so much money. My dad thought for
Speaker 1: sure I was selling drugs. He was a hudd percent sure,
Speaker 1: So he hired my older cousin follow me around. Now
Speaker 1: this may have been prompted by if you ever saw
Speaker 1: the movie super Fly, the blue Cadillac with all this
Speaker 1: stuff on, Marvin Gaye had one just like it, but
Speaker 1: it was burgundy with a burgundy top. It was cold
Speaker 1: blooded bug eys. I mean, you know this thing was.
Speaker 1: So Marvin's at the studio one day and he's smoking
Speaker 1: a joint and I'd already kind of said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Bohana or somebody told him, you know, ray
Speaker 1: with to join him. So Marvin felt bad, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna stop smoking his joint. He just feel bad
Speaker 1: about it. So I'll never forget what he did. Man.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I had a driver's license or
Speaker 1: not at the time, but he looked over at me,
Speaker 1: he says, man, wann't you take the car for spend?
Speaker 1: Go out for a couple of hours and half a
Speaker 1: good time? And I'm like, really, man, I let me
Speaker 1: tell he let me drive the Pentmobile in Detroit. I
Speaker 1: was leaning so hard I think me and the mirror
Speaker 1: were like, sent it up, sent it up. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm driving through the neighborhood, so I know because so
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to protect my dad. Now, you know
Speaker 1: he saw that too, something he at least heard about it.
Speaker 1: He said, Man, we saw your son driving a fifty
Speaker 1: thousand capital. Now you said he made how much money?
Speaker 1: Last money? You need to check your own home talking
Speaker 1: about us. So I'm pulling up to the high school.
Speaker 1: I'm leaning hard right. I can't get no no girls
Speaker 1: in the car because I can't stop, because I'm scared
Speaker 1: to stop. I'm just leaning and if the police come,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'll take I shot at it. But
Speaker 1: I drove around for a couple of hours. I went
Speaker 1: back to do your best time in my life. You know.
Speaker 1: So your father just had no clue that you were
Speaker 1: pretty much a genius at your craft at this point.
Speaker 1: He thought that, first of all, if you weren't playing
Speaker 1: the saxophone, why are you playing any music? He says,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear anything about the saxophone. And my
Speaker 1: father was much older than me, by the way, I
Speaker 1: should say that he had me at forty six ft seven,
Speaker 1: So in his mind all he knew was the jazz
Speaker 1: musicians of the old days. They live out the suitcase.
Speaker 1: They make five dollars and they broke all right, So
Speaker 1: that's all he He didn't understand what recording was or
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. Okay, So what would session musician
Speaker 1: in Detroit make on a typical session. First of all,
Speaker 1: are you your own agent? Yes? Okay, we had no agents.
Speaker 1: They just call you on the phone. McKenley Jackson for
Speaker 1: Invictus would call up and say, hey, we're cutting at
Speaker 1: such and such a time. Can you make it ten
Speaker 1: o'clock ninety dollars for three hour session? How long do
Speaker 1: you have to learn the song? You don't have long.
Speaker 1: They spend half an hour on the drum sound. You
Speaker 1: go in there. What no amplifiers. Everybody had a little
Speaker 1: or a tone speaker next to him, and in the
Speaker 1: main room in Motown, everybody plugged in the same speaker
Speaker 1: clapping it. Bass guitar, everybody plugging the same thing. Then
Speaker 1: they had a drum booth for the drums. So they
Speaker 1: you run the song, but you gotta get three songs
Speaker 1: in three hours, or don't nobody want to see you
Speaker 1: no more? You gotta get three songs. Whatever. So you
Speaker 1: got a half an hour setting up the thing. You
Speaker 1: gotta change the stream whatever, y'all gotta tune up whatever.
Speaker 1: That's it. Now, let's play. And they come in and
Speaker 1: change the parts and they run it down and you
Speaker 1: have to get it. But what was exciting is you
Speaker 1: could hear your song on the radio within ten days.
Speaker 1: They get it out really quick back then, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was a singles world. Back then. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of albums, so everything we cut was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a hit single. All right, So during this period,
Speaker 1: what is your proudest moment of like, ah, that's my guitar? Like,
Speaker 1: what's what's your man? When I heard everything Good is
Speaker 1: Bad and Everything Bad is Good come back? It had
Speaker 1: four my guitars on it. That opened up and I
Speaker 1: was up loud. How many wait? How many tracks? Tracks? Okay?
Speaker 1: So what year is this? Now? This is seventy, I guess. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the studio used is this town or is it no? No?
Speaker 1: This was Holladjo Holland had their own studio and it
Speaker 1: was in a burned down movie theater on Grand River
Speaker 1: and Joy Road, which was happening to be two blocks
Speaker 1: over from the Grandy Ballroom, which was interesting because I
Speaker 1: always wondered why they had a burnt down movie studio
Speaker 1: and why they put all this sand under the control
Speaker 1: room floor. And when I first built my studio in
Speaker 1: Hollywood and American Studios, I didn't want to burn down
Speaker 1: movie theater, but I did put saying under the floor,
Speaker 1: which made it work right. And and now that I'm older,
Speaker 1: I traced it back to Memphis. The old Royal Studio
Speaker 1: was in a burned down movie theater and they got
Speaker 1: saying under the control room. And so it all really
Speaker 1: started in Memphis. They were trying to imitate, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly and Willie, Willie Mitchell during the Hollando John Holland
Speaker 1: period and the Marvitgate period. And I was just graduating
Speaker 1: out of high school. You know, I got out of
Speaker 1: high school seventeen. So I'm now doing a year of
Speaker 1: college that I say at the first in the middle
Speaker 1: of the first year, which I hated. Now, I was
Speaker 1: drafting car parts for Ford Motor Company. Here. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you can imagine me with a suit in town,
Speaker 1: you know, drawing car doors and trying to make it fit.
Speaker 1: You know, that didn't work out for me, and Stevie
Speaker 1: wanted to call me on the telephone, and I had
Speaker 1: never missed Stevie wanted. But Music from My Mind was
Speaker 1: my favorite album, you know, of all the time, which
Speaker 1: they recorded in this building. By the way, they did
Speaker 1: what affected what? What affected music on my Mind have
Speaker 1: on you? Like I never heard those sounds just to
Speaker 1: hear it, Like I never heard someone that was in
Speaker 1: that era describe it. I mean, I know what it
Speaker 1: is in hindsight as an adult. But by the way,
Speaker 1: that's my favorite album that he's ever recorded. And it's
Speaker 1: him playing all the instruments, but it's it's all these
Speaker 1: experimental sounds, and it's a breakaway from the traditional Motown sound.
Speaker 1: It's just him experimenting a free and experiment and just
Speaker 1: trying something totally new. And so I had pretty much,
Speaker 1: you know, when I first heard it, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I liked it that much. It was so new then
Speaker 1: as I then a month later, I had thrown away
Speaker 1: every other record. I had just had the eight track
Speaker 1: of that in my car play along which one which
Speaker 1: one grabbed you the most? On the album? Like the
Speaker 1: first you know what, I can't marry wants to be
Speaker 1: Super I can't. I can't even say I just would
Speaker 1: play the whole a track and just let it play.
Speaker 1: And I used to drive from Detroit to Cincinnati and
Speaker 1: back in eight hours just so I could just nobody
Speaker 1: could talk to me. I just turned up loud and
Speaker 1: just drive and just listen to it. Was that, you know.
Speaker 1: So what happened to me is right around my birthday
Speaker 1: in seventy two, right before my eighteenth birthday, I got
Speaker 1: a phone call from Stevie Wonder and this is the
Speaker 1: true strive to before I hung up on him, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's a common thing for every know, not believing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm playing the song the album in my
Speaker 1: car every day. I ain't got nothing but that, So
Speaker 1: it's got to be one of my boys messing around
Speaker 1: with me. Gotta but you know. And he called two
Speaker 1: or three times. I hung up to it three times.
Speaker 1: Four time he called back. I said some not some
Speaker 1: nice things and then still hung good thing. He had
Speaker 1: a sense of humor, so he called back in fifth tanks.
Speaker 1: Just look, he says, we ain't we ain't communicate say this.
Speaker 1: Steve wanted he's just listen to this, and he played
Speaker 1: me the rhythm track he had just started with Superstition,
Speaker 1: and I almost hung again because the rhythm tracking superstition
Speaker 1: starts off with marching drums topped, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's you know. Then if before I could hang up,
Speaker 1: I heard boom. I heard that, and I went, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, hanging up the phone. And there was still
Speaker 1: this shoe of the college with the door parts and
Speaker 1: learning that thing, you know, And there's a major problem
Speaker 1: there because my dad wanted me to finish college and
Speaker 1: get a real job and have a pension plan, and
Speaker 1: this still wasn't a real job. Still twenty in one month,
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm doing the twenty grand, making three fifty
Speaker 1: a week at the twenty grand in cash, no taxes.
Speaker 1: We didn't pay taxes in Detroit. Three fifty He's right,
Speaker 1: we'll shoot ten years ago to Mary. Didn't pay taxes.
Speaker 1: Don't go back to hip hop. So we make three fifty,
Speaker 1: So three fifty week, twenty grand uh ninety dollars every
Speaker 1: three hour session at Holland do Joholland. And then that
Speaker 1: one month with Marvin Gaye and Jewish Barty mrss and
Speaker 1: weddings on the weekends pay like thirty forty bucks. And
Speaker 1: we could do three, four or five of those easy
Speaker 1: so we're making plenty in Detroit house some of this
Speaker 1: money like pretty much. Yeah, But instead I bought myself
Speaker 1: a really nice con It's crazy. In the first house
Speaker 1: I bought, I bought my dad's house. I did do that,
Speaker 1: just so you know. When I made some real money
Speaker 1: about my dad's house, Mom took care of everybody, paid
Speaker 1: all the bills. They never paid a pennymore for the
Speaker 1: rest of their life. And he still didn't he didn't
Speaker 1: say you should still finish college. By that time I
Speaker 1: was twenty two, he was done talking parents do that
Speaker 1: like just side deep deep into Delf half life. My
Speaker 1: dad was still getting that you gotta get a real
Speaker 1: job exactly like my third record. He's still like, you
Speaker 1: gotta get a real job. You're something I love. You
Speaker 1: gotta come on straighten up. Yeah I got that. I
Speaker 1: didn't get it. It didn't get real to my mom
Speaker 1: until she saw me on the cover Double XL, Like
Speaker 1: when she like when she saw us on Double x
Speaker 1: L and then like the swords like see me in
Speaker 1: magazines that was your second album. It was like it
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, it's it's real. So with Stevie, did
Speaker 1: you you finally when did you move to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I moved to Los Angeles soon as I quit Stevie's band,
Speaker 1: and I stayed in the band a good eight months.
Speaker 1: I guess something like that. You know, I always wanted
Speaker 1: to go to l A. I just I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, even in Detroit. It's because it was always
Speaker 1: felt like the stork made a mistake and like dropped
Speaker 1: me in the wrong name. It just felt like that
Speaker 1: for some reason, you know, Like I saw the Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Billies on TV and I was like, wow, that's
Speaker 1: I like that restaurant road, you know, swimming pools, movie
Speaker 1: stars and the sunlight, and you know, I remember seeing
Speaker 1: Leave It to Beaver and nobody ever stole Beaver's bike
Speaker 1: and he wrote it to school, you know, I getting
Speaker 1: knifed up from my jacket and everybody got guns and
Speaker 1: we're going to pick each other up in the alley
Speaker 1: and go to school in the group and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Beaver didn't have to do none of
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, So I just I didn't know
Speaker 1: the difference. I just would ask my parents where's that at?
Speaker 1: And they don't stay California. I mean that everything was
Speaker 1: movies were done in cafe. I just thought, well, don't
Speaker 1: Robbie in California, so I mean it should be cool. Yeah, they'
Speaker 1: sure do. I learned that when I got there too.
Speaker 1: They steal your money and it takes you a year
Speaker 1: or two to figure out that you lost, like what happened.
Speaker 1: So when you're touring with Stevie, I mean you're with
Speaker 1: the heavy I mean out in hindsight, I don't think
Speaker 1: you saw it as I mean, these are the heavyweights,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's like, you know, it's Williams, was
Speaker 1: Denice Williams, And it was Raymond Pounds with you? Or
Speaker 1: was it? Like he wouldn't know it was somebody before Alie.
Speaker 1: I got Alie in the band. After Stevie and the
Speaker 1: drummer think his name is Chris, they had a fight
Speaker 1: and the drummer said, blind fai, I'm gonna how about this,
Speaker 1: Stevie one is used to being blind. The drummer thought
Speaker 1: he could put a thing around his eye and make
Speaker 1: it even right, and so he went for blows and
Speaker 1: Stevie every time he wait a minute, they fist. They
Speaker 1: got into a fist exclusive. I didn't think that was
Speaker 1: even up, but they ended up and of course, you
Speaker 1: know Stevie. Every time the guy even turned his head, bamd.
Speaker 1: Stevie was no, it was it was baby was like
Speaker 1: bang and so we all had stepped it to the doctors.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute. It didn't take long before we had
Speaker 1: to stop the fight. And then this guy still got fired,
Speaker 1: so he lost his game. But we did have Randy Brecker,
Speaker 1: David Sanborn, Denise Williams, you know, so it was it
Speaker 1: was Yeah, a lot of people in this band, Heavyway,
Speaker 1: Scotty Edwards. You know. It was a great band. So
Speaker 1: were you part of the infamous Rolling Stones tour? Absolutely
Speaker 1: the first tour I've been on the big tour. But
Speaker 1: why not? Just it was the reception, like the reception, yes, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, how did well? This is the thing. So
Speaker 1: we we interviewed the Revolution, uh some episodes back and
Speaker 1: of course, and I've heard mixed side of the story
Speaker 1: as well, and he was like, well, you know, he's
Speaker 1: on stage in his underwear, so of course they're going
Speaker 1: to throw stuff at him. The Revolution was basically saying
Speaker 1: that you know, Rolling Stones already, audience wasn't receiving them well,
Speaker 1: and they got booed and pelted with Jack Daniel Bottle.
Speaker 1: I was there when when Prince got hit with the jack,
Speaker 1: Daniel in the head with the bottle head somewhere in
Speaker 1: l A. He got hit in the head with the jack.
Speaker 1: Had to get off the stage. He got hit in
Speaker 1: the head. They said, plays them right and roll. I
Speaker 1: mean it was like bad, you know, I mean he
Speaker 1: came off the gate smoking with the guitar. So was
Speaker 1: still yeah, the theories behind that, But what was it
Speaker 1: like with you? Was there fear like we might not?
Speaker 1: First of all, I was too young to know anything.
Speaker 1: I thought the Rolling Stones had already come on. I
Speaker 1: thought Stevie was the headline. Okay, So it took me
Speaker 1: a minute or two by the time of tear gas
Speaker 1: got in the limousine and I figured out, okay, something
Speaker 1: else has happened here. And the thing, you know, so
Speaker 1: the whole thing, now you gotta remember this was I
Speaker 1: have really discovered girls yet, but I was about to
Speaker 1: discover lots of girls. So this is the first really
Speaker 1: big tour like go away from home and stayed for
Speaker 1: more than a week that I've ever been on. Was
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones tour in nineteen seventy two, and they
Speaker 1: were wonderful guys. We all had a great time. No
Speaker 1: one bowed Stevie Wonder off the stage and told him
Speaker 1: to get off. We didn't have that same experience as
Speaker 1: some of the other groups had, you know, maybe because
Speaker 1: he got the respect. And then we'd always go play
Speaker 1: a few songs with the Stones, and you know, we
Speaker 1: got to go to Playboy Mansion, which I've never been
Speaker 1: two before. You know, there's a documentary of it called
Speaker 1: the You ever see the Cocksuckers Blues? Uh the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones documentary? Yeah, yeah, they show I guess you guys
Speaker 1: playing satisfaction with the little skinny kid with a real
Speaker 1: good time. He really skinny after it. That'd be me.
Speaker 1: So were you ever like on their airplane? And that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be the penultimate standard of just yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be the beginning. It was pretty bad,
Speaker 1: really well, there was a lot of going on. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of things because if you don't like
Speaker 1: to smell of weed like that, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't do that. I didn't partake in that type
Speaker 1: of activity. Let you do it. And I do remember that,
Speaker 1: you know, last I had checked cocaine was white. Their
Speaker 1: cocaine was crystal clear, and it was clear, and he
Speaker 1: went up in a cone like that high and people
Speaker 1: could just go back and just get all they want.
Speaker 1: So this was only for eight months. The ruling stones
Speaker 1: to us for about four months, but I mean college
Speaker 1: tour with Stevie after that. So this is also I
Speaker 1: mean his morphing into something other than little Stevie want
Speaker 1: just a big time. Yeah. Yeah, he had changed and
Speaker 1: he became and he's an interesting guy, but he really was.
Speaker 1: We used to hang out all the time, like we
Speaker 1: race cars, you know, and and we crashed people like
Speaker 1: oh if you didn't let him drive your fifty dollar fine,
Speaker 1: wait what yeah, yeah, this episode is gonna fuel all
Speaker 1: the Stevie ain't blind. Don't believe the Stevie's blind's not
Speaker 1: gonna If you're sitting next to Steve, you know he's
Speaker 1: blind and he's driving the car. Now he assists on
Speaker 1: drive dose, he assisting when you being in the passenger.
Speaker 1: And yet and was worse than that is he insisted
Speaker 1: on me driving and then we'd have to race the
Speaker 1: car next to us. He didn't care about hitting the cars.
Speaker 1: He said, well hit him. Then I was about to
Speaker 1: say he's been and he's been in car accidents and
Speaker 1: he still drives. Let me tell you something, he hadn't
Speaker 1: been in the carrs in it yet still got some
Speaker 1: reservations about what happened. I'm gonna leave that alone because
Speaker 1: that was a couple of years later. But you know
Speaker 1: how you hear something on the radio like all that
Speaker 1: Cardadian stuff to be like, well, what really happen? Really happened?
Speaker 1: How does a limousine crash into a log thing? And
Speaker 1: oh boy? So I mean you just you know, come on,
Speaker 1: you getting back now that we're in the seventies, was
Speaker 1: was very white. Next. Now, first I left, and see
Speaker 1: I left Stevie's band because he was teaching me how
Speaker 1: to write songs. I had Buddy Miles playing the guitar
Speaker 1: upside down on some of my songs, and me and
Speaker 1: Stevie cut a bunch of stuff with us singing. But
Speaker 1: somehow he wasn't gonna release it. I figured it took
Speaker 1: me a minute, but I figured out he really wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna let me put it out. And so that sort
Speaker 1: of broke my heart because he didn't want me to
Speaker 1: lead a band. You know, so I wanted to lead
Speaker 1: a band ago Bray Parker Jr. Man, you're too valuable.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was to get his guitar player.
Speaker 1: You know, he wasn't feeling it. You know, I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be his boy. So he took it kind
Speaker 1: of personal that I left the band. But we were
Speaker 1: still really good friends because after that, I got Nathan
Speaker 1: in the band, which is a story into itself. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about it. Still old in the band, Yeah, what's interest.
Speaker 1: Nathan is the band leader, he's been in forty three years.
Speaker 1: But the great Nathan wants, by the way, master basse
Speaker 1: player I had got. Uh. This is a year and
Speaker 1: a half after I left the band. Me and Stevie
Speaker 1: was still drive around l A and we party and
Speaker 1: hang out. And I got Reggie McBride in the band
Speaker 1: because me and Reggie used to play together twelve years old.
Speaker 1: The time this got tom Gary used to play grand
Speaker 1: in the other room. And so Reggie left the band
Speaker 1: and went to Rare Earth, And then Stevie said, well,
Speaker 1: I want somebody else from Detroit in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 1: He wants that type of human being, that type of vibe.
Speaker 1: The only person left was Nathan, who played the trumpet
Speaker 1: right and I said, well, I got my buddy Nathan,
Speaker 1: who played the trumpet. He wants to play the bass,
Speaker 1: he says, I said, the game play the basse he
Speaker 1: just started, you know, And Stevie said, we'll have him
Speaker 1: come out there. He says he's a fast learner. I said, well,
Speaker 1: he's a fast learner, but he ain't got the base yet, right,
Speaker 1: so he has some kind of cheap harmony basse. And
Speaker 1: I remember Stevie heard him at the auditions events. Sounds
Speaker 1: really weird, you know. So then Nathan took my basse
Speaker 1: and went on, is Steve on my base? And the
Speaker 1: way the story goes, Nathan told me his eighteen other
Speaker 1: bass players there and everybody, I'll play him ten to one.
Speaker 1: But he still got the gig. You know what do
Speaker 1: you think it's? So he learned how to because Stevie
Speaker 1: just wants somebody from Detroit in the club down the
Speaker 1: street from me, the whole bit. And so he basically
Speaker 1: taught Nathan how to play bay name, not how to
Speaker 1: play the bassis his first gig, his first gig ever
Speaker 1: in life. So how does he because he can't see, um,
Speaker 1: is it a lot of he cannot see? So how
Speaker 1: are you guys learning? First of all, how is he
Speaker 1: writing these songs? I've heard he writes him in his
Speaker 1: head and he just play. He remembers every part, every everything,
Speaker 1: and he could play all part like I was in
Speaker 1: the studio with him the whole time when he did
Speaker 1: Living for the City and he started with the Fender
Speaker 1: Rose no click track when no click tracks at those times,
Speaker 1: so he just played it like this, and it really
Speaker 1: got weird when it dune dune and you know those
Speaker 1: chords going off beach. You know. I was like, oh, homeboard,
Speaker 1: you might be smoking. But I mean, you know, then
Speaker 1: he would layer it and then we'll come together. He
Speaker 1: put the drums on last. Always put the drums on last. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: you always put his drums on last. Usually the drums
Speaker 1: and drums first. That's interesting. Yeah. See me, I put
Speaker 1: a cup of parts down, but I need to put
Speaker 1: the drums down. Then lock relocked the base and everything
Speaker 1: back to whatever it is. But he just puts it down,
Speaker 1: put the drums on last. I always wanted to know
Speaker 1: how does he not tape ideas, especially when he can't. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that he writes, but I mean for you
Speaker 1: guys to know what he's saying, he hears it in
Speaker 1: his head and he'll he'll give it to you, but
Speaker 1: mostly on his records. That's him playing most of the
Speaker 1: stuff a lot of the time, and then he'll overdub
Speaker 1: what he needs, so you're only getting the finished product.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, he played the drums and stuff. Like
Speaker 1: when we did Maybe a Baby, the track was pretty
Speaker 1: much done. Okay. And more trivia. It's funny the second
Speaker 1: engineer we did that at Crystal Sound in l A.
Speaker 1: Turns out years later second engineer with Steve Perry from
Speaker 1: Journey Second. He was the second engineer on the date.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. So you know, whole Sherry fame. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on at that time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting time period in life, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean I look back on as I hope much creder,
Speaker 1: but at the time, just what was happening? That was it?
Speaker 1: You know? Well, I wanted to ask about that. When
Speaker 1: you did Barry White, was it just studio sessions or
Speaker 1: was it also touring with him? Yeah? I did both. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did y'all get paid? Because money had like seventy
Speaker 1: people in the band, Like every show about I don't
Speaker 1: know about the other guys, but I was getting triple
Speaker 1: scale playing with Barry White in the studio. But it
Speaker 1: was I came a little late, like I missed Dodd
Speaker 1: because I was playing with Stevie one tour and U.
Speaker 1: I met Barry White the next year, the following year,
Speaker 1: and he was my first, my last, everything even before that.
Speaker 1: But he was like a roughneck kind of guy, gangster
Speaker 1: friend the hood and you know, and I was a
Speaker 1: Detroit boy. I wasn't you know that clean, you know.
Speaker 1: So I had my afro, had my Lincoln Condental and
Speaker 1: gene Page famous rings. He needs to we need to
Speaker 1: get him an award on he needs a profit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's unbelievable, all the Lineal Richard. He even did the
Speaker 1: the Righteous Brothers song. So he's he's He was a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine from Detroit. I mean he lived
Speaker 1: out here, but I worked with him in Detroit and
Speaker 1: he brought me to the session. You know, Barry Waite
Speaker 1: wasn't paying no attention. I wasn't on the session, and
Speaker 1: verybody liked to play his music back loud nive console
Speaker 1: speakers all the way up, you know, stuff whacking, orchestra jamming,
Speaker 1: that stuff is going. And I had an idea for
Speaker 1: a tune, and you know I did what did I
Speaker 1: had to lose? I was off coming from the trip.
Speaker 1: What do I care? You know? So I pushed stop
Speaker 1: on the table recorder, you know, all the music stop.
Speaker 1: You know, you got rid of yourself. I did it
Speaker 1: and Barry session and Barry White looked over. He says,
Speaker 1: he says, oh yeah, what igniting mom me big? First
Speaker 1: of all, he says, what Frank, what happened? And then
Speaker 1: he looked around there to me in the corner. I said,
Speaker 1: excuse me, Mr White, And it was got real quiet,
Speaker 1: and he said he looked at somebody, says who because
Speaker 1: that right? And then he looked at Gene Page, like
Speaker 1: you brought him here? And I said, excuse me, Mr White, Um,
Speaker 1: that's a really nice song, but it's missing this guitar part.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and before he could punch
Speaker 1: me or kick me out, he said, we didn't get
Speaker 1: the funk in there and play it. Then, you know,
Speaker 1: so I went into Joe Jackson with you ask first
Speaker 1: and then gonna start an impact. Attentions rise at tensions rising, right, right?
Speaker 1: So I go out there and uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: starting to play the part, and I think, like anybody else,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope he likes it, because I like,
Speaker 1: I know what I gotta do. So I hit this line,
Speaker 1: the line was doing dude, dude, that kind of a thing,
Speaker 1: you know, And he loved it. And and so I said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll roll the tape back. He says, fuck you keep
Speaker 1: playing it now. So the only thing that's missing on
Speaker 1: the record. It's fun. You keep playing out, but you
Speaker 1: hear me out for a bar and I have two bars, right,
Speaker 1: And he said keep playing. So I just started back
Speaker 1: up playing it and he just left it like that
Speaker 1: because he didn't believe in fixing it. He just left it.
Speaker 1: Really yeah on the record it drops out for a
Speaker 1: bar where he told me, is this you know? So
Speaker 1: on this uh White Goal album, then me and Barry White,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say we were boys, but I thought
Speaker 1: we were boys, right, And you know, so his thing
Speaker 1: was he got all these rioters sound. He said, nobody
Speaker 1: gets a song with Barry White, no way, no, how
Speaker 1: y'all right for these guys, right, for these guys, right
Speaker 1: for all this time. And so I was determined to
Speaker 1: get a song with Barry White. So I got Jeane
Speaker 1: Paste to write out the charts, and I had the
Speaker 1: music demo tape cutting all this stuff, so I put
Speaker 1: Barry White had a little Mercedes convertible by this time.
Speaker 1: This is later in seventy four, and Barry came out
Speaker 1: to studio, said, Barry listening to this, and I pushed
Speaker 1: him in my car on by accident. I had the
Speaker 1: door open, you know, push him in, but I know
Speaker 1: he's gonna cut himself. So he damn, I'm the window
Speaker 1: because he was too big to get into Mercedes. He
Speaker 1: comes too big, you know, but he got in there.
Speaker 1: But he didn't want to acknowledge that he was too
Speaker 1: big to get in, so that worked in my favorite
Speaker 1: But anyway, I got to play him the track. You know.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, man, that's nice. So what about it?
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, to cut the track. He said,
Speaker 1: he's the man he doing. So we went back cut
Speaker 1: hit the rest of his stuff, you know. DA and
Speaker 1: Barry White had a specific and he says, everybody's getting
Speaker 1: triple scale. I'm cutting eight songs today. I ain't paying
Speaker 1: your pennymore. You can cut in one hour, you can
Speaker 1: cut it in ten hours. Don't care what you do.
Speaker 1: But once we get these songs sessions over. So this
Speaker 1: is one of those days. We were done already, right,
Speaker 1: we got like two or three hours left. Everybody want
Speaker 1: to go home, but they're all my boys. David T. Walker,
Speaker 1: you know, Lee ridden j Graden, Theme Parks and over
Speaker 1: in the corner. And to show you what kind of
Speaker 1: guy Jeane Paige was, I owe him way too much.
Speaker 1: He had already the night before written all the charts
Speaker 1: out for me for the whole band. Right, And so
Speaker 1: when we got done, I said, Barry, Man, you mirror song.
Speaker 1: Please let me cut the song. Man. He says, Ray,
Speaker 1: we're done here, man, we're going home. I said, why
Speaker 1: don't you do this? Why don't you go home? And
Speaker 1: I cut the track. Okay. He looked at me like
Speaker 1: little snotty knows kids. I mean, he's really pushing himself,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he went home, and I got
Speaker 1: Joe Sample and Wilton felt all the guys you know,
Speaker 1: to stay back with me and cut the tracks. So
Speaker 1: we cut the track in like twenty minutes, and I
Speaker 1: drove it up to Barry's house and he listened to
Speaker 1: what he says that's on the album. That's how I
Speaker 1: gotta cut on the White Gold album, which did really well. Wait,
Speaker 1: what's the title of the song always thinking of You?
Speaker 1: All right, let's go and always thinking of You? Written
Speaker 1: by Ray Parker Jr. For Barry White, White Gold Supreme.
Speaker 1: That's a million reasons. Why why I always always who?
Speaker 1: Who engineered this? Who? Frank Keshmar, Frank Keshmar? Who else
Speaker 1: was on the sessions? Well? On the Barry White sessions
Speaker 1: was Ed Green played the drums all right, all the time.
Speaker 1: Wilton Felder, who was a saxophone player for the Jasper Sayers,
Speaker 1: played the bass, and for those who don't know, he
Speaker 1: also played on all the Jackson five hits too, and
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other stuff. So when you hear
Speaker 1: a BC, that's Wilton Felder the sax player playing the bass. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Joe Sample played the keyboards. Gary Filming played the vibes,
Speaker 1: had the vibes, and on guitar would would be myself
Speaker 1: wa wah, David T. Walker Right, Dean Parks sometimes either
Speaker 1: j Gray or Lee written now time out Dean Parks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the great theme Parks was my boy Dean Parks. We
Speaker 1: played together many years on whole much of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what does Dean Parks doing in the Berry White session?
Speaker 1: It was on all the Rayway sessions. No, I just
Speaker 1: that's just I can't imagine Parks just you know Parks
Speaker 1: from when you the song you mentioned, Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: Jane Park. I'm playing on there too, but but that's
Speaker 1: I think that's me, Dean and Lee. But we're playing
Speaker 1: one note to piece, but they're all sunk together because
Speaker 1: Barry wouldn't let you play the whole parts. So we
Speaker 1: were playing one note to bed and we're sliding it
Speaker 1: up and that's all three of them. That's overd. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't like to overdue. So it's just normal to
Speaker 1: have four guitarists playing five what forward don't stop it
Speaker 1: for He just didn't want to overdone for monetary reasons. No,
Speaker 1: he just didn't like it. He mixed on the need
Speaker 1: console where all the faders are here in the monitor
Speaker 1: section here, and he just he believed that he should
Speaker 1: be to mix up here and if he didn't, hear
Speaker 1: the echo on the drums, take the whole takeover. So
Speaker 1: he wanted everything to sound like a record right here.
Speaker 1: He says, forget all that, do it later. I want.
Speaker 1: If I can't get it here, I ain't got no record,
Speaker 1: so it's up to the band the engineered everybody else
Speaker 1: to give him his record on those favors. And all
Speaker 1: he wanted to do is play with the volumes on
Speaker 1: his favor. But if he couldn't get the scenario, he
Speaker 1: couldn't get it cut over. So even mixing like, there's
Speaker 1: no like, okay, let's take a day out to mixing
Speaker 1: stuff like, because you already mixed it. It's already open this.
Speaker 1: You're hearing it the way he wants to hear what
Speaker 1: happened afterwards. By this time I would have figured you
Speaker 1: guys have figured out my ego. Of course I want more.
Speaker 1: I want a song that Barry White sings and me
Speaker 1: and him do together. I went through something very similar
Speaker 1: at my apartment where I lived upstairs Barry White's when
Speaker 1: of his manager guys lived there. So I figured out
Speaker 1: from the management when Barry was just going to show
Speaker 1: up right and I was gonna pull a coup real
Speaker 1: fast and playing his new cut ahead right, talking about
Speaker 1: I know most people said you should quit what feeling.
Speaker 1: So here it comes. I see Barry White pulling up.
Speaker 1: I can't wait, and I know where he's going. But
Speaker 1: I don't want him to get out of his car
Speaker 1: and go ring the buzz and go upstairs. I want
Speaker 1: to catch him while he's downstairs. So I see him
Speaker 1: come up the street because I've been waiting all this time.
Speaker 1: So as soon as I see him come to the street,
Speaker 1: I leave my park go downstairs, get in the car,
Speaker 1: and I pulled to the front. But when I pulled
Speaker 1: to the front out of the parking lot, it opens
Speaker 1: the gate. Barry White had parked his White Mark seven
Speaker 1: and the front of the gate illegally, but it was
Speaker 1: too close and I had already triggered it when I
Speaker 1: saw it was too late, so the gate was rising.
Speaker 1: He had parked and was getting out, the gate lifted
Speaker 1: up the front of his car. The car was too
Speaker 1: heavy comment back on the gate. It ripped the gate
Speaker 1: off the thing and it fell on top of his
Speaker 1: Mark set. So I wrecked his Mark seven. But I
Speaker 1: did get to play him the song where I needed that,
Speaker 1: but it was his fault he parking around space. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I did get him to listen to the song, and
Speaker 1: he did cut the song, and so I was one
Speaker 1: of the first people to ever get a song with that.
Speaker 1: I wrote with Barry White maybe the only and it's
Speaker 1: called you See the Trouble with Me, and we sold
Speaker 1: like seven or eight million records and then a group
Speaker 1: called Black Legend redid it in two thousand two or something.
Speaker 1: It went number one around the world again, so it's
Speaker 1: on all his greatest hits records. And I think he
Speaker 1: was just very kind to me to do it. First
Speaker 1: of all, he did it's kind enough not to beat
Speaker 1: me up after I trash Just White Mark seven, you know.
Speaker 1: So he's a good dude. That's crazy, so okay, So
Speaker 1: eventually you quit while your head. But we skipped Rufus
Speaker 1: and Shaka. How did you get tell me something good? Uh?
Speaker 1: That's Stevie song was let's go Let's get some more
Speaker 1: drama now because I know you guys like drawing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I wrote the song for Barry White and Stevie.
Speaker 1: None of him will cut it. So the next door
Speaker 1: to me is this girl Shaka Khan and Andre Fisher
Speaker 1: who I'm working with, and so me on Andre Fisher
Speaker 1: and David Foster are doing sessions for thirty five bucks
Speaker 1: for flat Top and Cookie At I continue to turn
Speaker 1: the studio. That's it's the starting out seventy four. We're
Speaker 1: doing budget, you know, we're trying to make some money.
Speaker 1: The David Foster, Yeah, but he won then, No, he was.
Speaker 1: He was. He's older than me, he's about four. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know he wrote that song
Speaker 1: don't Cry She's a Lady, Sweeten. That's how you got
Speaker 1: my respect. David Foster wrote that. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: we used to play that when I was a kid
Speaker 1: in the band. Were talking about you wrote that, David Foster, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wrote, ye, don't crash, She's a lad. Everybody used
Speaker 1: to be playing their band all the rest of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so it was one of those things where nobody
Speaker 1: would cut the song. So me and Andre were go
Speaker 1: in the studio and we lay it down. I played
Speaker 1: the guitar in the rest of that. He says his
Speaker 1: band of Ruth is gonna cut. I'm like, unknown whatever,
Speaker 1: cutting myself unknown band. So we cut the songs. Sha
Speaker 1: sings on and she's ain'ts really really, I'm like, who's
Speaker 1: that saying this is? This is gonna be something. I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: oh man, it's gonna be hot. And then she tells
Speaker 1: me the story. She says, you don't even remember me. Huh,
Speaker 1: I said, what are you talking about? Remember? She says, well,
Speaker 1: you know when you're back last year when you were
Speaker 1: playing with Stevie Wonder, Me and my sister I gave
Speaker 1: you the tape to listen to. You gave me an
Speaker 1: address to your house to MAILITUO in San Francisco and
Speaker 1: she says, and you don't even live in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and you were trying to bang me and you you know,
Speaker 1: so then you discover women. And I was like, guilty,
Speaker 1: y'll T, y'll t. But you know, I said, you
Speaker 1: really sang it. But she was pregnant with the time
Speaker 1: the making long story short, the record was gonna be
Speaker 1: the first single called you Got to Love. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were jammed and her sister boom, yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so here comes shot con. She sang the heck out
Speaker 1: the song. I'm liking the song, but no nobody knows
Speaker 1: who know rufus Is. They're invisible band. Nobody ever heard
Speaker 1: of it? Now, all right, just quit Stevies band. So
Speaker 1: you know, Stevie's gotta teach me a lesson, I mean,
Speaker 1: because he's upset. Now I'm gonna ask you this question,
Speaker 1: how in the world does Stevie wonder who just won
Speaker 1: eight Graham He's fine, if he's going to cut a song,
Speaker 1: why does he cutting on the most unknown singer on
Speaker 1: the planet because he found out that. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I'm just fine. I'm just telling you that,
Speaker 1: out all the records on the planet Earth, somehow he
Speaker 1: ended up with a single in front of mine. Y'all
Speaker 1: must have had this conversation. You got the love first, yes,
Speaker 1: and then where he got the Stevie. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: all the records in the world, he could have his
Speaker 1: choice of doing anybody on the planet. Somehow he migrated
Speaker 1: all the way to to mine, which was wonderful because
Speaker 1: tell me something good, open up. The album made and
Speaker 1: then my single came. I blew up and did y'all
Speaker 1: ever had a conversation you are Stevie? Well, whenever we
Speaker 1: have those conversations, just like the Queen of England. You know,
Speaker 1: did you see the movie? Now? Okay, well I didn't
Speaker 1: see it either. I mean it was an amicable parting.
Speaker 1: I assume it wasn't so bitter to the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, we love each other. But we've had some
Speaker 1: interesting you're not gonna speak to each other for a
Speaker 1: long time sessions. Then he apologized that we hugged Kiscar
Speaker 1: and then you know, then I was nominated for Oscar
Speaker 1: with him. He wouldn't speak to me again until until
Speaker 1: he one kissed me and we were good again. You
Speaker 1: know what we are nominated for with Oscar because he
Speaker 1: was woman ye and woman in red. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: called so I wanted the British Oscar and m the
Speaker 1: fifty seven Oscars opened up with me performing it when
Speaker 1: they spent like a half a minute, but they didn't
Speaker 1: ask him to perform, and I sat they sat me
Speaker 1: and back at him. I mean I had my hands
Speaker 1: on him near Prince was over here, had my hands
Speaker 1: on Stevie here, and you know, I mean he wasn't
Speaker 1: saying anything. Yeah. I had a funny suspicion that if
Speaker 1: I had won that Oscar, I think that would have
Speaker 1: been the end of the relationship. I think, well, I
Speaker 1: think we'd be done, be done by this point. Do
Speaker 1: you have like personal aspirations of your own VV artists
Speaker 1: or you just know, like what do you want to be?
Speaker 1: Do you want to be the the consummate, Sideman. Do
Speaker 1: you just want to songwriting publishing? Is that where it is,
Speaker 1: or do you want to be the start? Well, first
Speaker 1: I wanted to be the guitar player. Then I figured
Speaker 1: I might not make enough money doing that, and I
Speaker 1: really like nice things, so I thought, well, and when
Speaker 1: I work with Stevie, I liked the song writing and
Speaker 1: all that kind of thing, said, why you write the song,
Speaker 1: and that works us to write the songs. But it
Speaker 1: really wasn't until I took that Shaka con record Home
Speaker 1: and the very white White Goal album to my mom
Speaker 1: and dad because they thought I was failing in California.
Speaker 1: I should move back home. You know. I lost my
Speaker 1: linko an condemn for this little small Mercedes that didn't
Speaker 1: have electric seats and stuff, you know, then put it.
Speaker 1: They came out to my house, which I thought was cool.
Speaker 1: But the day my house was on top of a
Speaker 1: hill swim who view of the city, and my dad
Speaker 1: looked at it and said he couldn't afford the house
Speaker 1: on the bottom. With everybody else, they stuck the way
Speaker 1: up in the middle of nowhere. We had to go
Speaker 1: down this winey road and his house wasn't even made
Speaker 1: it out of bricks. He's had some stuck over, you know,
Speaker 1: blood build house sleeper together. So they were really they
Speaker 1: were depressed, and they were thought I wasn't doing so well.
Speaker 1: You know. Then I brought the record home to my mom,
Speaker 1: and it was really my mom that gave me the
Speaker 1: rude awakening. You know. My mom said, uh, And I said, hey, Mom,
Speaker 1: I had this big hit on Shotka Con I mean
Speaker 1: on the Rufus. You know. She was, what's the Rufus?
Speaker 1: I said, that's the name of the band. I guess
Speaker 1: she thought it was my band. I don't know what
Speaker 1: she thought. But so I gave my mom the record
Speaker 1: and she took the record and she looked at it,
Speaker 1: look at the front. She saw people, and she's, I
Speaker 1: don't see you right now. You gotta understand, I'm going
Speaker 1: home with an ego. I like making m Hollywood out
Speaker 1: that the site beart song on very white song. You know.
Speaker 1: She says, I don't see you, And then she took
Speaker 1: the very white ricks. She looked at me, I don't
Speaker 1: see you. I said, that's because mom, I wrote the song.
Speaker 1: Now I'm still feeling high and mighty and justified. So
Speaker 1: she pulled out the record and on Never you get ABC.
Speaker 1: Dunhill at the time had a black label and they
Speaker 1: write your name and silver. As I said, see, my
Speaker 1: mom says right there, right package, you know me. And
Speaker 1: she looked at it. Now. My mother's in her late
Speaker 1: sixt year time, and she was like, boy, gonna get
Speaker 1: my magnifying glass. So she gets her magnified glass and
Speaker 1: she she holds it back and she's doing like that
Speaker 1: and it says our period Parker. And I'll never forget
Speaker 1: these words. This is where I got it. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes simplicity, like you said, simplicity of a song, simplic
Speaker 1: simplicity is better. She said to me, she says, is
Speaker 1: that you are period Parker. I said, yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1: She said the period took one space. Couldn't they just
Speaker 1: give you another space? And uh, you know, so when
Speaker 1: I left home with a lot smaller head than when
Speaker 1: I got there, you know, I figured, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back until I get a record with
Speaker 1: I gotta get my face on the record. That's just
Speaker 1: that my mama does not understand what it is I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even explain to my mom what I did,
Speaker 1: and my mom couldn't even see me. My name was
Speaker 1: a small I didn't like the way it felt. By
Speaker 1: this point, you were also on the silver screen correct
Speaker 1: a little bit and Saturday night. I want to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's too brief. Well, I mean it was still like
Speaker 1: you know your mama, Yeah that's too brief, mama blink.
Speaker 1: You know, did you explain to your mama that the
Speaker 1: little name on the back of the album makes a
Speaker 1: lot of time more money than the big face on
Speaker 1: the cover. You know what. I could have explained it,
Speaker 1: but money wasn't the issue here. The issue is my
Speaker 1: mom was sitting there like she didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. She's sitting there like, you know, I'm coming
Speaker 1: home to my I got it. I want I want
Speaker 1: to like what you know. It's like I don't see nothing,
Speaker 1: you know. So that that struck a quarter message. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cut. I gotta cut something. My mama could see
Speaker 1: me on the cover, and that's just the way it's
Speaker 1: got to be. You know, this is question love Supreme
Speaker 1: Wren pen Door. If you're just joining us, we're almost
Speaker 1: through our two of our conversation with our guest Ray
Speaker 1: Parker Jr. We learned about his work with Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 1: Barry White con and we're digging deeper. And to his
Speaker 1: attempts after years of working in the music business to
Speaker 1: prove to his parents that he was a success. I
Speaker 1: guess my question is who did you fish for to
Speaker 1: get a record deal? Nobody? Okay, well, okay, this is
Speaker 1: where I want to know. I want you to describe
Speaker 1: Clive Davis. Now, we got to lead into clients. Gotta
Speaker 1: let me leave in the client days, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try and make it as brief as possible. After that,
Speaker 1: you got to love very White, all that kind of segment.
Speaker 1: I got a singles deal with A and M Records
Speaker 1: to do this girl a Nita Sherman, which she sang
Speaker 1: one song and the secretary at the studio said a
Speaker 1: few words to me. She burst out in tears. I
Speaker 1: had four hours of studio time left, and I had
Speaker 1: to sing the song myself because she was crying. Who
Speaker 1: she blew my entire record deal. And when I went
Speaker 1: to the A and M lot, at the corner of
Speaker 1: my eye looked like in the next building over there
Speaker 1: was Quincy Jones standing there and I was like us, John,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Quincy Johns stand over there. I mean
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones. I know what to do with myself because
Speaker 1: we played Killer Joe in the band when I was
Speaker 1: a kid with handing and all this stuff. So I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta go meet Quincy. I gotta go say
Speaker 1: something to Quincy Jones. So I just got this record
Speaker 1: on A and M my egos. I had plenty of
Speaker 1: ego at the time. Maybe it did much. So I
Speaker 1: went over to Quincy Jones and I said, Hi, you
Speaker 1: don't know me, but I'm the guy wh's gonna teach
Speaker 1: you how to produce hit records. I'm the guy's gonna
Speaker 1: teach you how to produce hit records. Well, to make
Speaker 1: a long story short, a couple of months later, the
Speaker 1: Brothers Johnson came out and he was number one on
Speaker 1: the pop charts and IRP charts, and they just sent
Speaker 1: me to Bernie Grimman's, which happened to be in the
Speaker 1: back of the nm A lot to get the box
Speaker 1: of records, the only ones in existence besides the radio
Speaker 1: and the Swamp radio in Florida that played my record.
Speaker 1: And as I was being escorted off the lot, the
Speaker 1: one thing that that was good for when I said
Speaker 1: that it's Quincy Jones saw me like this with my
Speaker 1: records going off to a lot. Now, by the way,
Speaker 1: by the time I got to Bernie Gramman's thing, and
Speaker 1: they had already told me I was fired. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm doing a really good job at this. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get to Bernie Grammans, get the records and get
Speaker 1: to my car, and my Adam's apples all choked up.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm about to cry. I met I'm holding
Speaker 1: all this, but my Adam's hurting right here has choked
Speaker 1: up some you know, being a little kid. But so,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so I'm just trying all I
Speaker 1: want to do to get my records and make it.
Speaker 1: And I was almost to the gate where they let
Speaker 1: you in and out, and I was getting ready because
Speaker 1: my cars parked out so I can't get on a
Speaker 1: lot no more. So I was about to leave, and
Speaker 1: then somebody said, hey, young man, I'm waiting on my
Speaker 1: production lessons. Hey, all I can say is I look
Speaker 1: like Lioness with the tile, and and he felt so
Speaker 1: bad he immediately stopped. Whoever he may have been talking
Speaker 1: to her about before, I know, but he left. Those
Speaker 1: guys immediately came over to me put his arms around him.
Speaker 1: He says, now, now side, I didn't mean that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, it ain't that bad. And he says, he says,
Speaker 1: I don't know who you are. He was just joking
Speaker 1: with me because he had a hit and he's keep
Speaker 1: me getting kicked all later. But he know how to
Speaker 1: take it that bad. He says, I don't know who
Speaker 1: you are, but you know you're obviously doing something right
Speaker 1: or else she wouldn't be on this lot, That's what
Speaker 1: he said. And he says, what you need to do
Speaker 1: now is just pick yourself back up and get back
Speaker 1: in the game, and do it fast, he said, don't
Speaker 1: take all day. He says, get back in it and
Speaker 1: do it quickly, you know. And then I left that lot,
Speaker 1: went to H. B. Barnham and Wawa at the studio
Speaker 1: where they gave me another rag and on and made
Speaker 1: me cry again. You know. So it's a bad day
Speaker 1: for so at the time, was was her Balbert and
Speaker 1: Jerry Marks? Were they in name only executives and those
Speaker 1: days they were running it. So what do you think
Speaker 1: it was like they just didn't see I didn't have
Speaker 1: a hit. Yeah, I was get off the lot. You
Speaker 1: don't have the head, get out here, get fired. Hey,
Speaker 1: and the guy A and M told me, he said,
Speaker 1: Mr Parker, and I only sing because the girl started crying.
Speaker 1: She messed up my record. I'm like everybody else, I'm
Speaker 1: blaming on somebody else me. But she didn't sing the song.
Speaker 1: She started crying when other girl was hitting on me,
Speaker 1: you know, And I was like, oh no, don't. She
Speaker 1: didn't even sing anything. Come on, you know, in those days,
Speaker 1: you only had X amount of hours for studio time.
Speaker 1: They let you the studio for six hours. Six hours,
Speaker 1: you're done. So I had to sing the song. The
Speaker 1: guy looked at me. Kip Comba was his name. I
Speaker 1: never forget his name. He says, Mr park you do
Speaker 1: a lot of things, right, guitar. We like what you
Speaker 1: right and said he said, but you gotta let this
Speaker 1: singing thing go. This. You ain't gonna be no star. This,
Speaker 1: ain't you. He says, that ain't gonna happen, you know.
Speaker 1: He says that ain't gonna happen. And famous last words.
Speaker 1: So now we're gonna get we're leading into the client
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So hold on, here we go.
Speaker 1: Does LEO happened? No, that's between it that's what leads
Speaker 1: me to climb. So so then I'm working with Richard
Speaker 1: period all the time, doing um a bunch of sessions.
Speaker 1: He's paying me triple scale. He's got a studio at
Speaker 1: the Paramount Lot with Paramount Universal Lot, and so he
Speaker 1: had my name on the concrete, says Ray Parker Juniors,
Speaker 1: where whenever I all up, I put on Paramount Lot
Speaker 1: park right there in the Ray Partet Jr. Space. We
Speaker 1: were boys, man, We're cutting Barbara Streich saying, Carly Simon,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody. Whatever he did, I was. I was
Speaker 1: this guy. He had Dave, the juice man come every day.
Speaker 1: They bring him cocaine and we and they bring me
Speaker 1: watermelon juice, you know what I mean. Eventually watermelon juice
Speaker 1: for rear. And so in those days, we didn't have
Speaker 1: like tape recorders and stuff like you have now with
Speaker 1: your iPhone. So I had a song that I've written
Speaker 1: at home with the little click drum machine. I'm beating
Speaker 1: on the thing on my Maestro rhythm ace and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to see what it sounds like. So I
Speaker 1: told the Green you played this, John Barnes, you play this,
Speaker 1: And so we all played our parts. And then Richard
Speaker 1: comes in to lunch break and says, man, that's jamming.
Speaker 1: What is that? I said, when that's a song. I
Speaker 1: wrote it home, you know. But we're just on lunch break.
Speaker 1: He says, well, can't we cut that on Leo Sayer?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I don't know. Yeah, he says,
Speaker 1: but but I mean I gotta get my party song.
Speaker 1: So he promises me my part of the song. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's a mystery issue. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I when't getting my part of the song to the
Speaker 1: record came out, you know. So the record comes out,
Speaker 1: it's jamming, and I don't see my name on anywhere.
Speaker 1: I stand in Tier Records for two hours trying to
Speaker 1: find my name on a forty five. You can imagine that.
Speaker 1: I just knew it was gonna appear, and I'm there
Speaker 1: for two hours. And the lady there was a security
Speaker 1: guard that comes down to me who ended up being
Speaker 1: burned at the meeting in the ladies room. Girl, you
Speaker 1: know Bernie and Cooper was the security guard because the
Speaker 1: move she was a security guard. She's about to rest me.
Speaker 1: She said, you're gonna buy this record of what I'm
Speaker 1: telling her. I'm about to start crying again. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of crying for a big dude. So I'm about
Speaker 1: to start crying again. She said, you buy this record? What?
Speaker 1: And then she finds, are you Ray Parker? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? She knew me from being a guitar player.
Speaker 1: She says, well, you gotta listen to my music. And
Speaker 1: I'm not listening to anything right now. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what happened to my song, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I had given him two songs and given him
Speaker 1: that one and Jack and Jail, right, And so Carol Childs,
Speaker 1: who was his head of his publishing company, felt so
Speaker 1: bad because she kept saying with Rickards, that's a mistake.
Speaker 1: Richard's gonna make it right. And Richard also told me
Speaker 1: he's gonna do a whole album on you. I like,
Speaker 1: you know, I like that. Give feed him, feed and
Speaker 1: feed him, just postpone, postpone, promise him the world. He says,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be Barbara Stretch and he's gonna cut a
Speaker 1: whole album on you, and I'll be by Richard Pere
Speaker 1: and you'll be on Warner Brothers. And that to be
Speaker 1: the end of that, okay. We then the contract came.
Speaker 1: It was like everything for him, nothing for me, you know,
Speaker 1: And I was broken heart because I'm like, how could
Speaker 1: you do this? I thought we've been working again on records.
Speaker 1: I've been helping you, giving more ideas than maybe I should.
Speaker 1: And he promised me a piece of the song. Wasn't
Speaker 1: like he had to give me all the song, just
Speaker 1: give me my share of the song. So he didn't
Speaker 1: do that, and Carol felt so bad. Carol Chims is
Speaker 1: her name at the time was Carol Pinkins. She felt
Speaker 1: so bad about it that she took the song to
Speaker 1: Roger Burnbaum, who when I was at a and m
Speaker 1: used to go get the hot dogs. Right now he
Speaker 1: owns the whole planet, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: at the time, Roger Burnbaum was the guy who gott
Speaker 1: got pizzas and stuff for us when we had to
Speaker 1: meet and Rudi, yeah, but I always drive him nice.
Speaker 1: Now he's the vice president of Arista, so he played
Speaker 1: off a clide. Clyde falls in love with Jack and you,
Speaker 1: Clive calls up, I don't want to talk to you
Speaker 1: any more. White people in the suiting time just don't
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? So I won't even meet
Speaker 1: with Clide. So this goes on for a month or so.
Speaker 1: Then Clive is very clever guy. He calls back and
Speaker 1: he says, um, you're a respectable guy in the music business.
Speaker 1: I'm a respectable guy in the music business. Let's say
Speaker 1: we don't talk about any of the stuff and we
Speaker 1: just have lunch. He says, that makes sense. He says,
Speaker 1: how could you refuse just having lunch. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's gonna come correct. Okay, we just go go have lunch.
Speaker 1: So Carol comes with me. We go to lunch and
Speaker 1: one thing leads to another. Classes so what are you
Speaker 1: planning on doing with all the sudden? Before he get
Speaker 1: finished talk, Carrol says, rased, and make a record dot.
Speaker 1: Then they go they started negotiate. I thought like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this has been prepped and I ain't. I'm part
Speaker 1: of it. I'm out the loop again once again. And
Speaker 1: so that's how we started talking about that stuff. And
Speaker 1: you know, he said, I'll get you the best. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We were talking about what to do, and to me,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't want to have an album like
Speaker 1: David T. Marker where they just kind of played on
Speaker 1: the jazz stations on that US I wanna be on
Speaker 1: Kiss FM, Top forty Radio Dot and so he told
Speaker 1: me what had to happen if I want to be
Speaker 1: on top for the race. He said, well, if you
Speaker 1: make if you don't make a record like all the
Speaker 1: with all them notes and chords and Dot, if you
Speaker 1: cut it like Jack and Jail, I get the three chords, boom,
Speaker 1: we got it. So we made a deal. I told
Speaker 1: him I'll never write a song I have them on
Speaker 1: three chords. Okay, it's gonna be intro verse court, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be very predictable, intro verse course verse chorse bridge,
Speaker 1: and you know. I said, I'm gonna do that. It'll
Speaker 1: be three minutes and forty five seconds long, and it
Speaker 1: would be some chords, and we have some great lyrics
Speaker 1: and story and at the end that we see the
Speaker 1: melody being will cover up the melody with a bunch
Speaker 1: of playing and that. And he was like, okay, I said,
Speaker 1: but can you get I want to be on Kiss FM,
Speaker 1: and Dot Dot told so. We we had that conversation,
Speaker 1: and then we had an interesting conversation. He said to me,
Speaker 1: I'll get you the best producers, I'll get you the
Speaker 1: best studio record playing. I get you the best ring,
Speaker 1: I get you the best of everything, and I just
Speaker 1: told him, you know, I really don't want none of that.
Speaker 1: What I like to do is just go home and
Speaker 1: cut it at home, because by this time I put
Speaker 1: a little sixteen track and board and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and me and Reggie doserm Doser brother, we wired the
Speaker 1: whole thing ourself. Took us two months. I mean when
Speaker 1: I say wired, I don't mean plugged in, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking about all the solder and Joyce wired everything, did
Speaker 1: the whole night. But then I had to give him
Speaker 1: my TV set to keep going. At one point I
Speaker 1: wish I had a video pretty much like a crack deal,
Speaker 1: you know. And for those who think I wasn't dedicated,
Speaker 1: I recorded my brother's band at ABC in in early
Speaker 1: seventy four, wiped out twenty seven thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of money in nineteen seventy five centuries. And
Speaker 1: then I had spent eighty seven thousand dollars on studio
Speaker 1: equipment and putting the studio in the house, at which
Speaker 1: everybody then was a hundred percent year. I had lost
Speaker 1: my mind at the same time I lost the song
Speaker 1: Little Here and getting kicked out of and just a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things going wrong. So at that point
Speaker 1: everywhere I went there and say, there he is. That's
Speaker 1: the idiot right there, spent all his money, you know,
Speaker 1: plays the hell of a guitar, but he's listening all
Speaker 1: his money doing other stuff, you know. And just to Cliff,
Speaker 1: what was the song with sa you make me feel
Speaker 1: like You made me feel like yeah. Yeah. So things
Speaker 1: are going like really south in a fast sense. So
Speaker 1: we wired the studio and I just told Climb, I'd
Speaker 1: like to cut it home if you don't mind, right,
Speaker 1: and his words to me, he thought about it and
Speaker 1: he said, okay, he says, but if you screw it up,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll listen to it. You screw it up,
Speaker 1: then let's do it the other way. I thought that
Speaker 1: was fair, that was fair, right, So give me a
Speaker 1: good shot at and I thought I could deliver the
Speaker 1: next thing that happened. I had done Boss gags and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff with Bill Shane, who was
Speaker 1: the really prominent engineer. Yeah. I think he did the
Speaker 1: Asia album for Steely Dan need one Grammys, and at
Speaker 1: the time he was probably the most prominent engineer in
Speaker 1: the business. All of a sudden, Bill Shane, who I've
Speaker 1: been working with years, he shows up at my house.
Speaker 1: Right now, I know this is the work of Cavala
Speaker 1: Roughalo and Carol Charles and everybody else. They're like Bill
Speaker 1: management to yeah, when I got everything Ante everything they
Speaker 1: were with Earth want to fire and Okay. So so
Speaker 1: they come over to my house to listen to the music,
Speaker 1: and so they had no cheer from the city, and
Speaker 1: so they're stand up and they're thinking, what kind of
Speaker 1: places this? I got cables on the roof, the stuff,
Speaker 1: the drums in the bedroom, and Mike's hanging fronts of things.
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't have enough money from Mike stands,
Speaker 1: you know. So things are looking pretty raw and rough,
Speaker 1: and so they send Bill Schnay over my house to
Speaker 1: talk me out of it, basically, and Bill listens to
Speaker 1: the song where I cut it, and he goes back.
Speaker 1: He says, well, besides eight of the tractor out of phase,
Speaker 1: and it don't sound that bad, he says, not what
Speaker 1: I would do, he said, but if it's a here,
Speaker 1: it's a hit. You know. I'm mentioning this because the
Speaker 1: turning point at that stage is when before then everything
Speaker 1: I did was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, right except
Speaker 1: right something good songs to play the guitar. Once Bill
Speaker 1: Schnay said that that record was gonna be okay. Nobody
Speaker 1: ever questioned about any of my studio stuff again ever
Speaker 1: in life. That was the end of it. I had
Speaker 1: the big boy come over and he's put he had
Speaker 1: put his hand on me. That was it. Right. Next
Speaker 1: thing I know, uh after that, Prince was coming over,
Speaker 1: right because he came over and he he was like
Speaker 1: what is he came to? And they were trying to
Speaker 1: sign Prince and he wasn't signing. He says, what y'all
Speaker 1: can do for me is taking me over race house
Speaker 1: because I hear he's got a studio. That's all he
Speaker 1: wanted to do, right, So they called me up. They said, man,
Speaker 1: Prince wants to come over your house. We're talking to
Speaker 1: him about that. He said, but he he just wants
Speaker 1: to see the studio in the house. He ain't saying
Speaker 1: nothing else but that, right, And they said, well, you
Speaker 1: know he's gonna come over and he ain't gonna talk much.
Speaker 1: You know, he's gonna say much. It wasn't like that
Speaker 1: or he when I got done, and I said, he
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to you guys. We weren't hang right.
Speaker 1: I was taking for a ride in the Rose Royce
Speaker 1: and we were cruising sun at Boulevard and you know,
Speaker 1: and he just wanted to get the studio equipment a side,
Speaker 1: so we we he didn't have quite as much money,
Speaker 1: so we didn't get him a JAG twenty four like
Speaker 1: I had the mcian staff. So we got him a
Speaker 1: Soundcraft board. Then I got my got Soundcraft and I
Speaker 1: got Steve flew back to Minneapolis and we put it
Speaker 1: in there. And I remember he had a BMW six
Speaker 1: thirty six, and so we I got a stereo system
Speaker 1: done in the car like my stereo system was done
Speaker 1: in the car. And we were hanging out, you know.
Speaker 1: And so Warner Brothers wanted me to produce the next album.
Speaker 1: I think it was Sexy danswer on all this time.
Speaker 1: So he comes back to my house the next trip
Speaker 1: to l A and he plays me what he got.
Speaker 1: You know, we're supposed to be working on it. And
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I probably talked to myself out
Speaker 1: of a lot of money, but I just told the truth.
Speaker 1: I was young. I heard that am myself I don't
Speaker 1: know see what to do with this. This sounds great
Speaker 1: like it is, you know. So I told one of
Speaker 1: brother y'all should leave him along. This sounds great just
Speaker 1: like it is. And so they put it out like
Speaker 1: it was, and the rest is history is a hit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm finishing the studio now. And what's so
Speaker 1: sad about it is is every studio I've ever built,
Speaker 1: Prince was one of the first guys there. He is
Speaker 1: not coming to this one. Unfortunately. I was playing it on,
Speaker 1: you know. When I started working on this one was
Speaker 1: like years so going like, oh yeah, we get my
Speaker 1: boy over here. Blessed, you know, we go back to
Speaker 1: the right the way, the old days, the way we
Speaker 1: used to do it, you know, and this will be
Speaker 1: the first one he ain't making it too. That was
Speaker 1: important to me because here's another guy that was that
Speaker 1: had one hit record at the time. But at least
Speaker 1: what it made me think is I wasn't a complete idiot,
Speaker 1: because remember, everybody's making me feel like an idiot. So
Speaker 1: now here comes Prits coming over and the only thing
Speaker 1: he cares about is what's he doing over there? I
Speaker 1: want to do that. Then, Larry Graham came over and
Speaker 1: he got the same stuff I got and cut one
Speaker 1: of them, one in a million, on the same same system,
Speaker 1: same way, and it's like in his home. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: put the same he said he did. Larry told me
Speaker 1: he did exactly what I put in the bedrooms. Boom,
Speaker 1: cut it and that was it. But what's the sound?
Speaker 1: That radical back then? Too? So what was what was
Speaker 1: wrong in the studio is unlike it is today. You
Speaker 1: guys have the amplifiers. Everybody brings in their own gear
Speaker 1: bring there. Each studio there had its own sounds sort
Speaker 1: of and each the engineers all stayed with sort of
Speaker 1: one studio, and so you would be with their sound.
Speaker 1: And it's not that the sound was bad, but if
Speaker 1: you wanted to do something different or you have something
Speaker 1: different in your head, if you're paying two hundred an,
Speaker 1: you can't think about it. You know, you gotta move experimentation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what Prince want to do it just play with
Speaker 1: the guitar sound. Let me play with a different sound.
Speaker 1: Let me play with a different drum sound from me.
Speaker 1: Let me see what that would do. And so when
Speaker 1: you had the equipment at your house, they would allow
Speaker 1: you to do that sucking out the system, and it
Speaker 1: was just the beginning of it. So everybody kept saying,
Speaker 1: you can't do it. The walls don't work, this don't work,
Speaker 1: and it just wasn't true. Everybody said they equipment with brick,
Speaker 1: you need tech person, and I never had a tech person.
Speaker 1: Nothing broke, and so it was you know, it turned
Speaker 1: into a different scene. You know, if you read Clive's book,
Speaker 1: was nice about his book. First thing he says that, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did this a year before Prince and a year
Speaker 1: before anybody did. We we had experiment with that and
Speaker 1: did it, you know, and it made me feel better
Speaker 1: about myself. Just to see some other people that I
Speaker 1: respected thought that I wasn't crazy because I have been
Speaker 1: hearing you're crazy, you're crazy for so long. To hear
Speaker 1: two other guys say you think it's that crazy, that's
Speaker 1: all that good idea and then they go do it
Speaker 1: and have success with it too, was really rejuvenating. Well,
Speaker 1: I would figure, especially this is the era in which Stevie,
Speaker 1: who's constantly reinvented himself and doing the one man thing
Speaker 1: by himself, I would figure that all the labels would
Speaker 1: have been salivating for like, you know, we want armor
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you would think so, but they didn't.
Speaker 1: They just want somebody and and they didn't understand. They
Speaker 1: just want somebody in their box. And you know, sent
Speaker 1: him to the record plan. You know. Their thing was,
Speaker 1: get this engineer, get this arrange. Sent him to the plan.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happened. Get this producer, get you you know,
Speaker 1: someone sort of producing. Let's go. You know, I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta tell a funny story about this. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't even think Ray knew this. When Ray sitting
Speaker 1: with us after tonight show and we're going over this
Speaker 1: right now. This is about like four months after like
Speaker 1: my dad's passing. It was weird. I knew one of
Speaker 1: these days someone's gonna trigger the floodgate of tears. But
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be the sound of rape Park.
Speaker 1: You said that sometime. He said, he just broke me.
Speaker 1: My whole goal was just like you wanted to escape
Speaker 1: and in records without like people you break it down
Speaker 1: and cry. I was like, all right, I gotta get
Speaker 1: out this movie, and I gotta make it to my office.
Speaker 1: You know, none of the roots here, so they don't
Speaker 1: clown me. I try to get glass. I didn't know,
Speaker 1: glasses nothing, and I'm like bawling like a muff. So
Speaker 1: I think I just ran out of the room, like
Speaker 1: I was dabbing like a Right. It was this song
Speaker 1: Jack and Jail particularly, that's yeah, it's like like just
Speaker 1: hit him, just hit him. It just it just well
Speaker 1: because that was the first song I sang. I sang
Speaker 1: in the second grade pageant, like at performing arts you
Speaker 1: had to display some sort of talent or whatever, and
Speaker 1: so I remember I sang Jack and Jill the second
Speaker 1: and I see my parents, right, and so it was
Speaker 1: just a memory. But I mean there's nothing like the
Speaker 1: song like make me Sad grief though expected like that
Speaker 1: it did put you in that place. Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: it was just such an unexpected thing. And like I
Speaker 1: was like, man, I cannot see the roots and Steve
Speaker 1: and Ray Parker g see me crime. But don't you
Speaker 1: think it's interesting? Because I was thinking about about your music,
Speaker 1: and I feel like Ray Parker Jr's music, especially for
Speaker 1: seventy late seventies eighties babies, it gives them the members
Speaker 1: of an era, like it's kind of like a joyful
Speaker 1: time when you were no worries and you was my
Speaker 1: mama's first crush. That was when my aunt had money.
Speaker 1: My aunt like she loves you. I mean she was
Speaker 1: how I first got introduced to your music. And she
Speaker 1: would always buy, you know, the records and stuff, and
Speaker 1: like she had all the radio albums and everything, and um,
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me hearing you talk about your
Speaker 1: journey to becoming a singer. How you know that was
Speaker 1: something that I guess maybe you were a little reluctant
Speaker 1: to do, but I always thought you were like the
Speaker 1: coolest motherfucker ever. Right, here's a trick I was. I
Speaker 1: was a musician first, and I knew what it was
Speaker 1: supposed to sound like. So when I first started singing,
Speaker 1: it was out of tune. I mean, I didn't need
Speaker 1: nobody to tell me. I hear myself. So I surrounded
Speaker 1: myself with people who could sing, and then I started
Speaker 1: working on it. It's just like lifting weights. If you
Speaker 1: do it long enough, you get your voice and you
Speaker 1: get to go. But it wasn't until I think the
Speaker 1: third album, when I did A Woman's Love is the
Speaker 1: first real commercial record I sang all the way through
Speaker 1: by myself, you know, like Jack and Jail is me,
Speaker 1: but it's also Jerry and it's also RNL and Jerry
Speaker 1: sitting on the high notes by the way Woman the
Speaker 1: Love album that's the one with you in the white
Speaker 1: pants and the peachback the crack that was. That was
Speaker 1: like I just can't get That's like, we gotta We're
Speaker 1: still in recreation cocaine period, right, Why are we always
Speaker 1: associated with just saying no, no, I know that I
Speaker 1: didn't do it, but but you're absolutely got to think
Speaker 1: of the worst tragedy the black people, just like this
Speaker 1: recreational drug period. But yeah, that was the thing like
Speaker 1: my aunt would always tell your records and the thing
Speaker 1: that later on, I mean, I'm listening to this stuff
Speaker 1: as a kid, but listen to it later on. The
Speaker 1: thing that I always thought was James about what you
Speaker 1: did is that your presentation was very like smooth and
Speaker 1: like very sophisticated. But the lyrics like you'd be saying
Speaker 1: about something that story yeah, like you like damn, like
Speaker 1: the I don't want to know about yours, you don't
Speaker 1: know about mine, don't make sense to look too hard,
Speaker 1: but what your heart look? He made affairs sound like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a woman needs loves made sense. It's like she yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: your woman should get you you'll get your heart broke
Speaker 1: out the homie, Yeah, don't get calls. So how did
Speaker 1: you how did you organize radio? I mean, at what
Speaker 1: point did you bring our uh was our now Carmichael
Speaker 1: and now he was in my brother's band, Arndell and Vincent.
Speaker 1: What was your brothers band's name? Uh? Energy? Perry Como
Speaker 1: had had a really good quote and they said, like,
Speaker 1: what's the secret to your success? And he says, well,
Speaker 1: I never reach I mean I don't try too hard.
Speaker 1: But again it's it's that where it's where did our
Speaker 1: love go? Theory? You you had it, especially with with
Speaker 1: with Jerry Knight, someone that can sang s A n G.
Speaker 1: You know, to provide that. But what gave you the
Speaker 1: wisdom especially on your first album? Because I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you, I didn't learn this lesson until twenty years
Speaker 1: into my career, Like I've yet. Now that I have
Speaker 1: a wisdom, I'm gonna try and apply it to the
Speaker 1: next week album. But it took seventeen records from me
Speaker 1: figure out like, no, all this complex stuff you're doing,
Speaker 1: like you gotta do something simple, But there's art too simplicity,
Speaker 1: like I of like people would tend to look down
Speaker 1: on it, But what gave you the wisdom to keep
Speaker 1: it at a digestible level that wasn't so complex that
Speaker 1: it wasn't alienating. I mean, but it was still appealing.
Speaker 1: But yet here's what took me down the path. Let's say,
Speaker 1: and I think it was a small tunnel. And this
Speaker 1: is why I asked, because I know that he has
Speaker 1: a very narrow tunnel. This is a hit. This is
Speaker 1: not a hit exactly. He just you stayed with him
Speaker 1: for the longest, so obviously you had Well, it's it's
Speaker 1: a narrow tunnel. Especially when you think about music, you
Speaker 1: have to think about what is your gift to music?
Speaker 1: What are you talented at doing? What can you do?
Speaker 1: What can you not do? I can't dance like Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: still can't. You can put me on Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 1: I'm good for the first week, but you know I
Speaker 1: can't do the sping. I can't. I just can't do it.
Speaker 1: I don't have my bones, don't beat with the drums
Speaker 1: like they're gonna happen. Ain't gonna go. So I figured
Speaker 1: out a long time ago. I don't think I'm ever
Speaker 1: gonna sing like Luther van Dress. I'm not gonna sing
Speaker 1: it like glad Its Night. I'm not gonna So therefore
Speaker 1: take that away from the man. I ain't gonna get
Speaker 1: like Mark. You take that out the puzzle. Uh. The
Speaker 1: people who play way too many notes and way too
Speaker 1: much jazz at which I could have done, they never
Speaker 1: got on top for the radio. So take that out
Speaker 1: the mix. Right, you can't do that. Now you got
Speaker 1: the musical genius guys and Stevie Wonders, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. They can figure out complex chords, Maurice Wider
Speaker 1: from finding somehow get back to another chord eighty chords later.
Speaker 1: It still works on the radio. Steely Dan, I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. I don't understand that. Take that
Speaker 1: out to mix. So now you left with my hero.
Speaker 1: Uh that I try to patter myself off of on
Speaker 1: the first record, Casey and Sunshine Man this. But you
Speaker 1: are right. I don't want you all to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep you awake. I heard Casey singing
Speaker 1: get down Tonight, right. It was a number one record.
Speaker 1: It was jamming the people up dancing, and I said,
Speaker 1: he's singing two notes, do a little dance. Meg a
Speaker 1: little love, get down tonight, even the verse honey, honey,
Speaker 1: me and you and every now and then woo woo
Speaker 1: woo woo. That was the big one. But everything else,
Speaker 1: you know, and I thought about I said, well, you
Speaker 1: know what he Ain's singing all the news notes like
Speaker 1: everybody else, he's got it here. I could do that right.
Speaker 1: I may not be able to do that glad it's night,
Speaker 1: but I can do that. And so I said, you know,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a way. You just gotta channel it
Speaker 1: right to get those simple chords and to get it
Speaker 1: to move in such a way that it's comfortable for you,
Speaker 1: which I think Mick Jagger and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other people have really done, really really well. They figured
Speaker 1: out their style, their sound, and just play those chords
Speaker 1: at work for you and the things you learned one
Speaker 1: I never I wouldn't have put that one together. Two notes,
Speaker 1: but you you're making absolute sense. My career is not
Speaker 1: ship man. I got life through it, that's right. And
Speaker 1: the lyric thing for me, which we were talking about,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget if a couple of companies I went
Speaker 1: to early on they kept saying, your lyrics suck. I
Speaker 1: got tired of hearing your lyrics suck. So I started
Speaker 1: a period when I was like eighteen nineteen years and
Speaker 1: they kept saying your lyrics suck, Your lyrics suck, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, I'm I already got
Speaker 1: the music thing. I'm gonna work on this lyric thing listening.
Speaker 1: So I started listening to like me and Mrs Jones
Speaker 1: from a whole new standpoint. When I heard he was
Speaker 1: a kid, I heard the orchid bump buh bum. But
Speaker 1: but but I said, that sounds like Laurence. Well, what
Speaker 1: are they doing in Philadelphia? You know? Then I never
Speaker 1: heard we meet at the same cafe every day. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I was just too young to get it, you know.
Speaker 1: Then I started listening to songs like I saw a
Speaker 1: hell of the story. Now what they like that? You know,
Speaker 1: I really listened to Let's Get It On. I was
Speaker 1: listening to a different way that was going, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like all the songs had deeper meaning to me,
Speaker 1: especially the Holland oor Jo Holland songs okay, which they
Speaker 1: always had nursery rhymes and they tongue in cheek it.
Speaker 1: If you could beat me rocking, you can have my
Speaker 1: chair fee five for fun. I can smell the present
Speaker 1: of somebody, you know, somebody else's been sleeping and exposed.
Speaker 1: What was their secret to did they tell you our
Speaker 1: formula is well, they ain't handled for him. And first
Speaker 1: of all Lamant and Brian and they get in the week.
Speaker 1: They said they just go, you know, sitting in the
Speaker 1: house for two or three hours and write four or
Speaker 1: five hits and be done with it. You know. That's
Speaker 1: what I said. That's what I said. I said. There
Speaker 1: ain't a lot of encouragement laid Brian think that they
Speaker 1: sitting down. Brian had the classical stuff, so that's him
Speaker 1: putting on them classical chords. Lamont will come up with
Speaker 1: ridiculous lyrics. And Eddie did a little bit of everything,
Speaker 1: you know, so he had stuff. But they do really
Speaker 1: just sitting down and say when you know, Barry call
Speaker 1: us up there, we need one on the four times
Speaker 1: when they don't want dining ross. You know, we know
Speaker 1: it's a big meeting with smoking everybody, and so were
Speaker 1: just right for five up, you know, knocked that up.
Speaker 1: We can then we go back to the rest of
Speaker 1: what we're doing. He said. The records were coming in
Speaker 1: so fast. They were just giving them out to their friends,
Speaker 1: you know, said Gold Records. They would come every weekend
Speaker 1: just get rid of them, face at the house. So
Speaker 1: there's and again that's a different group. Now Prince was
Speaker 1: in that group. You know, we have men and him
Speaker 1: would have a lot of debt space on the phone
Speaker 1: because I call him up and I'm cutting a Woman's
Speaker 1: Love and I know I gotta smash. I'm working on
Speaker 1: this album. I'm poloshy and I'm getting it right. And
Speaker 1: then he'd be talking about, you know, I cut twelve song.
Speaker 1: He's talking about he cut eighty songs. So he's sitting
Speaker 1: on the phone and I'm like thinking myself, hell you
Speaker 1: do that phone, Why don't you just cut ten good ones?
Speaker 1: You know, when controversy was out, he sent me all
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety nine and all the Purple Rain and
Speaker 1: all of the time, all of the girls I got
Speaker 1: all this music. I'm like, what the heck is this right?
Speaker 1: He says? He says, he says with a nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine album is a double pack album. I said, why
Speaker 1: are you that double pack up? Nobody's buying that from
Speaker 1: the black folks at the type He says, an almost
Speaker 1: seller at this regular price. He says, I just did
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers taking them too long to put the records out.
Speaker 1: I don't want the stuff to get old, so I
Speaker 1: gotta just put them in the record. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got the second record. So he's trying to work and
Speaker 1: he said, this is the movie. So he's trying to
Speaker 1: do the movie when controversy just came out and ain't
Speaker 1: nobody even heard nine. And I'm like, I like that
Speaker 1: little red Corvette song, But but what's this you know
Speaker 1: down here? Do do Do Do? Do? Do Do Do Do?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the heck is that? You know? So
Speaker 1: he would just write that many songs, you know. Then
Speaker 1: it became apparent to me later, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I was Solidarity and he was Mozart or something. You know,
Speaker 1: you get that. I watched the movie. I was like,
Speaker 1: feels familiar, and you know one you know, there was
Speaker 1: one time, like Holland John the same thing. There's one
Speaker 1: time he went to Rio and he wanted the piano
Speaker 1: at the top floor, so they took a helicopter, flew
Speaker 1: the piano and knocked the windows out up. So he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be there a week doing whatever. He stays
Speaker 1: a week and then knocked they tear. It's the knock
Speaker 1: it out, take the piano. He comes back and say,
Speaker 1: I wrote a couple of albums. You know how about this?
Speaker 1: It sounds crazy, But if that motivated you to write
Speaker 1: a couple of albums, I wish I could. I knocked
Speaker 1: the windows out if you can get me two smash albums.
Speaker 1: You know. Even a good friend of mine who just died,
Speaker 1: Rob Temperton, always said he don't write nothing unless he's
Speaker 1: at his apartment on the freeway and worms Germany. This
Speaker 1: is Love Supremor and Panduran. If you're just tuning in,
Speaker 1: we're into hour three with our special guest Ray Parker Jr.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about the process for finding the right
Speaker 1: lyrics for a hit song. So where's your sweet spot? Like?
Speaker 1: Where did these hits come from? Where do you have
Speaker 1: to be? I started with the lyrics. I like a
Speaker 1: good story. You could be telling me about you and
Speaker 1: your old lady, and you can let something slip out
Speaker 1: and I go, So your source of information from your friends.
Speaker 1: I don't like to be singing about myself. That ain't good.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like taking your underwear down. You know.
Speaker 1: I like to expose, you know, especially if you put
Speaker 1: two or three relationships together, you can see a path.
Speaker 1: Then I take that. Oh yeah, we're going with this
Speaker 1: because like a woman's love. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: much of that I wrote. I mean, I have five
Speaker 1: girls in the studio, and while I went out to
Speaker 1: start how about this, I came back. I'm sitting at
Speaker 1: the board and they're just gossip and yeah, honey, he
Speaker 1: got thinks coming. If you can think that, that's the
Speaker 1: way things used to be, you know, And you can
Speaker 1: hear him talking about, you know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: back in the day, you know, got I used to
Speaker 1: tell people, don't tell anybody, don't tell nobody. Now I
Speaker 1: don't care if you're telling not. If he could do it,
Speaker 1: I get me something too. How you know he's getting
Speaker 1: I'm getting it. I was like, look at this. And
Speaker 1: then Gloria Alread was on the news at the time,
Speaker 1: all this stuff studio, but the girls were writing the song.
Speaker 1: They were talking about times have changed, things ain't the same.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, no longer, will we'll be taking this.
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah, And one girl's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he could do that if you want to come and
Speaker 1: leave me to stay, come home, but get his feelings here.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, I like that. One day you come,
Speaker 1: I just stop matching the thing together. No longer will
Speaker 1: the women are today be accepted that all the side.
Speaker 1: I said, this is it, said, it's the song. This
Speaker 1: is it, you know, And I tell you the biggest
Speaker 1: thing in the song. And this is why women are
Speaker 1: so sensitive to the lyrics. I said, she will fool
Speaker 1: around just like you do. Was not a hit. Didn't work.
Speaker 1: She will fool around meant that she was she will
Speaker 1: fool around. That's wrong. She can fool around. She has
Speaker 1: the option to. She has the option to. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, when I changed this, she will that she can.
Speaker 1: All the girls smiling in the studio. You gave us
Speaker 1: the option. If I had said she will on the radio,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that would have worked. But
Speaker 1: when I went to she can, it was a crowd pleaser, right,
Speaker 1: All the girls like, what do you mean she will
Speaker 1: fool around? I was like, well, I you know, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to sit there. She can't. Can't that wull work
Speaker 1: all the girls so that she can? And I was like, really,
Speaker 1: just over in one word I used to go to,
Speaker 1: she can mean you did it. He puts it back
Speaker 1: on you. You did it. If she will, she's already
Speaker 1: doing it. And you know what, I at that point
Speaker 1: in my life, all my songs were so beautiful and romantic,
Speaker 1: and the girls and everybody loved me. You know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be the bad boy a little bit. I
Speaker 1: just you know, I wanted to show just a little
Speaker 1: other side. I mean, it's like, you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got it. Did you feel a little pressure that, like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's two times are changing, Like I better come out
Speaker 1: with some I mean, because you didn't even really feature
Speaker 1: your your your guitar mastery, let alone your rockets, her
Speaker 1: mastery all that much on these records, you know. But
Speaker 1: that song, yeah, it was because I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I wasn't a guitar record first, you mean, but
Speaker 1: but I started saying I can play a little more guitar.
Speaker 1: But I heard, um, I tell you what inspired that
Speaker 1: song was. Rick Springfield had a tune called Jesse Girl,
Speaker 1: Right Jess. I wish I had a girl like Jesse's girl,
Speaker 1: you know, And I thought that what a punk attitude
Speaker 1: that is, you know, I wish I had go take
Speaker 1: the bitch. I just I ain't know, ain't the attitude
Speaker 1: I wish And he's sitting back dreaming about wishing what
Speaker 1: he had with his head come yet. But you kind
Speaker 1: of had the attitude as well. On Jamie, well you
Speaker 1: you she always minds. But he also said, like, you know,
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself, like, like, what do you have
Speaker 1: to bust somebody? I saw your lady the other day,
Speaker 1: but you know the other woman. I'm just the average guy,
Speaker 1: fool around a little on the side. Never thought it
Speaker 1: would amount too much. I never met a girl who's
Speaker 1: so tough now, who would have thought of one nice
Speaker 1: stand could turn into such a hot romance. But when
Speaker 1: she did it to me, I slept and fell in love.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just a true statement, you know,
Speaker 1: that's really And then you the reason I knew the
Speaker 1: rules of the game. You hit it once, breakaway clean.
Speaker 1: I should have never gone back, I know, but I
Speaker 1: had to have just a little bit. My my friends.
Speaker 1: My friends laugh, and that's all right. I may be
Speaker 1: a food, but I know what I like. I hate
Speaker 1: to have to cheat, but it feels better when that sneak. Okay,
Speaker 1: Then the dender line Clide Davis. Oh, this affair is unique.
Speaker 1: All my life, I never met such a freak. And
Speaker 1: she keeps me going strong for so long that by
Speaker 1: the time I get home, it's all gone. It makes
Speaker 1: me want to grab my guitar and play with Okay,
Speaker 1: So when you're taking us to client, he heard that,
Speaker 1: it just went, Oh that's it. I love that he
Speaker 1: heard that. He said, oh, that's it. He says, by
Speaker 1: the time we got to makes me want to grab
Speaker 1: my guts. He just play that again and want to
Speaker 1: play with it all night long. He says, Oh, that's smashed.
Speaker 1: But do you know what a unique position that is
Speaker 1: because the legend of Clive Davison being so hard to
Speaker 1: please as far as I know, and knowing instantly when
Speaker 1: there's a hit like that's some rare air, rare shipped
Speaker 1: too make him that enthused about anything. That he loved
Speaker 1: Jack and Jill. It was his most enthusism, he said, smash.
Speaker 1: He loved a woman. He's love love the other woman.
Speaker 1: He was not so into. Can't change that. M hm.
Speaker 1: That was what he didn't like. He he didn't liked it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't into that. In fact, that they were canning
Speaker 1: the whole album. He said, okay, pick one, we put
Speaker 1: it out. If it's a hit, we put that alm out.
Speaker 1: If not, go back and record that was. That was
Speaker 1: that kind of year. So that that's what got that
Speaker 1: album released. But what was interesting and and and it's
Speaker 1: me bragging on Clive, is that he really did do
Speaker 1: the right thing. He said, okay, you you picked one,
Speaker 1: you think that's it, let's put it out. And he
Speaker 1: didn't like, let's teach him and not put no money
Speaker 1: behind all. He actually went and promoted and gave it
Speaker 1: it's all and the song blew up and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: was hit. That's that. Put the Albu out another one.
Speaker 1: He didn't really like that much of the Ghostbusters. He said,
Speaker 1: you could take that to Geff and when you go,
Speaker 1: you know the shade. So you're saying like the rock
Speaker 1: Gorn album at all? No, me didn't like that. He
Speaker 1: wanted to start over. Really, yeah, what didn't you like
Speaker 1: about it? Like? Nothing about it? He didn't hear no
Speaker 1: hit like anything about and you know, there was everybody
Speaker 1: was because Jack and Jewel was a novelty song. They
Speaker 1: thought it was you know and uh, which I thought
Speaker 1: was Here's what I thought was funny. Lamane doj And
Speaker 1: and McKinley Jackson were teasing me about writing the nursery, right,
Speaker 1: I said, but I learned it from you guys. You know,
Speaker 1: y'all the guys taught me. How did they wanted? Young
Speaker 1: man singing? Free? Mean? Y'all taught me this stuff. So
Speaker 1: I was writing imitating them. You know, so can I
Speaker 1: when did you dissolve radio? Like? And what was the
Speaker 1: radios for me? Were you guys like, okay, are we
Speaker 1: really a band? Or is it just like let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about that because that's fun. First of all, I
Speaker 1: love all the guys in radio and we're best of
Speaker 1: friends today, the ones that are left. And when I
Speaker 1: first put the band together, I was a young kid
Speaker 1: and I just want to split everything now. Even though
Speaker 1: it was my record deal, they were signing me. I
Speaker 1: had the studio, I paid all the money. I wrote
Speaker 1: a song, it didn't matter me. I was like, just
Speaker 1: let's let's get five guy, let's split everything. That was
Speaker 1: my thing. Good thing. God made sure that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: The band led by Jerry. The funny thing about Jerry Knight,
Speaker 1: he's the biggest troublemaker, but he was my best buddy,
Speaker 1: and he would apologize for it later. He didn't hold back.
Speaker 1: He would say, MA, don't know why I did something
Speaker 1: that stupid. You know, he broke up with Jerry and Alive.
Speaker 1: But so the whole thing was Jerry was the first
Speaker 1: guy to put the pool to band again and say, look,
Speaker 1: we don't want to be signed to that white label.
Speaker 1: Arista has the Bay City Rollers and Barry Man. We
Speaker 1: don't want to be saying why don't you sign? We
Speaker 1: just want to get paid a salary. So that took
Speaker 1: me off of to split the money thing. That was
Speaker 1: his words, that was their words. They all collectively got together.
Speaker 1: But what was another option for them? The option for
Speaker 1: them was to sign the record they only take one
Speaker 1: fifth and one piece of the band. They didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that. They didn't want no piece of the band.
Speaker 1: They want cash and I'm sure the big picture, the
Speaker 1: final it was spearhead by Jared. I tried to talk
Speaker 1: him out of it. They weren't hearing it. They all
Speaker 1: wanted money, and they wanted money I didn't have. I
Speaker 1: think they wanted five hundred dollars a week on tour
Speaker 1: or something like that, and me by an instrument. So
Speaker 1: I went and borrowed like two hundred grand from tour
Speaker 1: support from Arisa to pay das. Yeah, as Ahead of
Speaker 1: Time record has just came out, I had no money.
Speaker 1: And what was interesting is when the record hit, the
Speaker 1: single went go album and go Jack and jail album
Speaker 1: with Gold in London. Now we're playing Hammersmith Oty in
Speaker 1: London and I go out with the head of the
Speaker 1: British company right, and then we go out to some
Speaker 1: club and he's saying, yeah, man, things are gonna grasp that. Man,
Speaker 1: life couldn't be better since it's like a dream come true.
Speaker 1: He says, well, I don't know how to tell you this,
Speaker 1: but your band wants a separate deal without you because
Speaker 1: they had met some British producer I forgot who he was,
Speaker 1: inspiring them to leave. Some of your guys. He's some
Speaker 1: of your guys are leaving and I'm like, I'm looking,
Speaker 1: this is the what's the president the President of England,
Speaker 1: not client, but the President of England. British up and
Speaker 1: he's speaking a British accent. I'm like, he thinks something something.
Speaker 1: He thinks black people all look the same. He thinks something.
Speaker 1: Somebody else what was he talking about? Right? And then
Speaker 1: he names the names. Man, I was about to crash
Speaker 1: so hard again. I had to get up and go
Speaker 1: to bathroom. I had to get him go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I'm choking. I had to go recompose myself and come
Speaker 1: back tell me what you just said. Again. I couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to get back to the hotel. So then we
Speaker 1: have our blowout meeting at the hotel and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: with the guys. I'm saying what I said, what is
Speaker 1: this that you want to deal by yourself? What is
Speaker 1: the what are you doing? Then it all came out, Well,
Speaker 1: you're getting all the royalties and we get nothing. I said,
Speaker 1: you're getting the money you asked for that I borrowed,
Speaker 1: and I'm still paying off on the last tour all
Speaker 1: the money that you took. And you took the keyboard,
Speaker 1: threw it off the stage. I was three grand of
Speaker 1: my money, you know, and I bought all the instruments
Speaker 1: off the stage. Throw it off the stage. Who they
Speaker 1: must have saw the movie or something, you know, So
Speaker 1: it was interesting. And then you know, Jerry looked at him, said, no,
Speaker 1: he's made five million on net on the tour. Five
Speaker 1: million on the first two day. Were eating popcorn when
Speaker 1: we were playing, you know. But he said he thought
Speaker 1: I made five million net on the tour and another
Speaker 1: five men on the album. I was like, really, because
Speaker 1: I'm in the whole surface above and it wasn't. So
Speaker 1: immediately three guys in the band quit right after the
Speaker 1: first hour. I think it was Charles, Jerry and one Vincent.
Speaker 1: Vincent wasn't even studio guy said please don't leave Vincent.
Speaker 1: You don't. They can't use the student. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: do anything. Don't worry. We're going with Jerry. Jerry is
Speaker 1: gonna sign it too a deal. Well, Jerry got a deal,
Speaker 1: didn't sign a none of the guys so they're not
Speaker 1: on the Overnight Sensation, none of the none of the
Speaker 1: they're not on none of that stuff and having none
Speaker 1: of that, and so Jerry Jerry got in with Don Kirshenbaum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the producer was a brainstorm, was he I'm messing him,
Speaker 1: I'm messing up the name. But that's the Don, not
Speaker 1: Kirching Kirshenbaum. Yeah, David Kirshenbaum, I'm sorry. And he had
Speaker 1: cut a rock and roll record, so you know then,
Speaker 1: but Jerry came out here and ma, I'm sorry to this.
Speaker 1: So I looked at Jared said, you know, Jerry, this
Speaker 1: is nineteen seventy nine. Whatever. I said, you heard a crossover,
Speaker 1: you know, R and B radio first for your top
Speaker 1: for the radio, said say'll play none of this stuff? Okay?
Speaker 1: So I talked him in the cutting Overnight Sensation because
Speaker 1: he didn't have that on the album. I always thought
Speaker 1: that was a radio record. Of course, it sounds like
Speaker 1: a radio record. It was the funk. How about this,
Speaker 1: even though he broke up the band, I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to save us. But look the record you played me.
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody playing that? It was all rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I said, you need to cut. Why don't you cut
Speaker 1: one and stick it on the back and see what
Speaker 1: you know? And then one record was Overnight Sensation. That
Speaker 1: saved him. Then we started Ray Parker Junior Radio. And
Speaker 1: then when I think another guy left and Clive just said,
Speaker 1: that's enough, all this personnel change. We're going to Ray
Speaker 1: Parker Junior. That's it. So he switched it like that.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, after Jerry messed up his album,
Speaker 1: then he got out and he didn't hire none of
Speaker 1: the guys in the band. So they were left in
Speaker 1: the cold man, so they didn't have my gig, and
Speaker 1: they the leader. It was terrible. They never recovered, you know.
Speaker 1: So the leader left them in the cold. And the
Speaker 1: next thing was was hooking g Area up with Ali,
Speaker 1: you know. So I got those two together and he
Speaker 1: looked out for him again with and so him and
Speaker 1: Ali they cut a big smash record with you know,
Speaker 1: there's no stuff, and then Jerry would go on stage
Speaker 1: without Ali, but Ali being in a dressing room with
Speaker 1: Jerry's already out there performing and he would just do
Speaker 1: crazy stuff, you know, he was. He'd come up front,
Speaker 1: he was clean with he said, Man, I did you
Speaker 1: know even before he died, I'm the one that got
Speaker 1: him at the hospital a few days before he died
Speaker 1: cancer hen and we spent most of that year together.
Speaker 1: He probably knew he was sick, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: he was sick, you know. And he told me some
Speaker 1: things that I never never dreamed of because in my
Speaker 1: mind I was always trying to help everybody because there's
Speaker 1: plenty of money for everybody, y'all go do it. But
Speaker 1: he always wanted me to sign him and take his
Speaker 1: publish and he always wanted me to to do it
Speaker 1: nice and men, I can't do that. I'll show you
Speaker 1: how to do it. You can take the money like
Speaker 1: he did a bunch of songs with the Jets. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say he broke Curiosity those Jets Jet. He
Speaker 1: wrote Curiosity and and and a two or three other
Speaker 1: big hits for the Jets. You rush on your jab
Speaker 1: And when he played me those songs, they sound like
Speaker 1: Jerry Knight records, right. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he was fifty fifty writer with Aaron Jackman said, who's
Speaker 1: Arry zick Man? The song sound the same as it
Speaker 1: did last week that you played for me. Well, he
Speaker 1: got the deal. He can get in places. What are
Speaker 1: you talking about? What you're talking about? It's the same song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so he ended up splitting in and giving him
Speaker 1: all the production and what stuff. And in the end
Speaker 1: it was an interesting conversation. Jerry looked at me, he says,
Speaker 1: he says, you know what, I'm a genius number two guy.
Speaker 1: And he was. Even after he left the band, we
Speaker 1: would always talk. He'd coached me on lyrics on the
Speaker 1: Other Woman, and he said, no, you can write a
Speaker 1: better verse and you can. He was just a guy.
Speaker 1: He says, I'm a genius. Number two guy, he says,
Speaker 1: but you're the number one guy. You should have signed
Speaker 1: my publishing. I would have been better off. And in hindsight,
Speaker 1: you know what he's righting. I didn't see it. Maybe
Speaker 1: he saw it. My thing was where everybody can do this,
Speaker 1: let me just show you how to do it. But
Speaker 1: everybody can't do everything. You know, everybody. It would have
Speaker 1: been better off because I would have paid him a time,
Speaker 1: represented songs. He would have been cool. But he said,
Speaker 1: he says, I'm a number two guy. He says, he said,
Speaker 1: leaving by myself. He says, I'll destruct everything destructive. He says,
Speaker 1: I am. I can just see was conscious of it. People,
Speaker 1: he said, that's what it is. He is a change,
Speaker 1: That's it, he said. But if you had led it
Speaker 1: and you had taken it, we would have got through this.
Speaker 1: You know, for those just join us. We're still talking
Speaker 1: to the Great Ray Parker Jr. Uh going down, uh,
Speaker 1: not even going down, getting life lessons, this question of
Speaker 1: supreme getting life lessons, and we haven't even got the ghosts.
Speaker 1: Let's just listen. Let's let's jump in the pools. Let
Speaker 1: us jump in the pool? Are you allowed to tell
Speaker 1: the Ghostbusters story? What Ghostbusters story? I would tell you
Speaker 1: everything you want to know the best of my ability. Okay.
Speaker 1: So as as a guy who's he's done a little
Speaker 1: bit of of scoring work and whatnot, you know, I
Speaker 1: often have clients that will say, uh, you know, let's
Speaker 1: let's take a song like, let's take Drake's hotline blink
Speaker 1: like you know for my show of something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cut of something exactly. Um so tols here Hughie side
Speaker 1: of the story. Who who's that? Who's that? All right
Speaker 1: to hear? Hughey Lewis's version? Uh am. I to believe
Speaker 1: that they pitched him the Ghostbusters movie. He thought it
Speaker 1: was rather silly and didn't want to license I Want
Speaker 1: a New Drug to them because he thought the movie
Speaker 1: was stilly and kind of dismissed it, and you know,
Speaker 1: just took his ball and went home. And then is
Speaker 1: this where they come to you, like, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: we'll give me the let me give me my my
Speaker 1: take on it. I didn't even I never heard what
Speaker 1: you heard that song ever? Ever thought that goes bust
Speaker 1: to sound like I want to. I never thought it, dude,
Speaker 1: But yeah, but just here's what I found out later,
Speaker 1: And this was only after I heard that they were
Speaker 1: doing a lawsuit something like that. I guess they approached
Speaker 1: him first to write the song, to write a theme song.
Speaker 1: I don't think they wanted his song, but I think
Speaker 1: they wanted him to write a theme song, and then
Speaker 1: they put his song in the temp track along with
Speaker 1: three other songs to sound just like that song. They
Speaker 1: also have one, four or five chords barband cords, So
Speaker 1: so if you were if you were in the room
Speaker 1: as a musician, you would know not to write neither
Speaker 1: one of us a ballot because you know that the
Speaker 1: guy was up temple barband song, so hit the hit
Speaker 1: in that direction. I had no idea to approached him.
Speaker 1: I had no idea about any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it was unfortunate that he named me in
Speaker 1: the lawsuit and named you know and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I tried to take him to dinner in Germany, but
Speaker 1: I guess this guy said, don't talk to that Ray guy.
Speaker 1: You know we're about to get me. Yeah, yeah, don't
Speaker 1: talk to that Ray guy. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: they were talking about. When I go you, I ain't
Speaker 1: free to no go. None of that sounds like the
Speaker 1: same song to me. But I think that maybe he
Speaker 1: had a case because they called him first and they
Speaker 1: put his song in the temp track. I think that's
Speaker 1: a thing for him in the movie company to discuss
Speaker 1: now on that on the settlement or whatever you call
Speaker 1: a settlement or whatever they got for it. And and
Speaker 1: I can't talk about the case. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: why because I have a genius lawyer named Don Passman,
Speaker 1: and dons what book? Donald passimans lawyer. You wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Everything you Need to Know about the Music Business?
Speaker 1: On the Music business class I took in college. That
Speaker 1: was our textbook. It was that in the cause Sheif book.
Speaker 1: Those were I to tell but that was like the Bible. Well,
Speaker 1: Donald pass Ms oldest client is me. I've been with
Speaker 1: him since the beginning. And that's a whole another story
Speaker 1: that goes through Bill Cosby. Back to Bill Cosby again,
Speaker 1: because Bill Cosby was represented by this firm that's not
Speaker 1: in the Yellow Pages or anything that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: and the only way you get into the firm and
Speaker 1: somebody brings up Bill Cosby brought me into the firm
Speaker 1: and that's how I met Don Passman. It's the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's very much like Tom Cruise. The phrase very much
Speaker 1: like that because there was a couple of people I
Speaker 1: told about it. Says, I can't find a phone up,
Speaker 1: but I don't see any advertising. They don't, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't advertise. They handled very elite group of people.
Speaker 1: And so my lawyer came to me. He says, okay, um,
Speaker 1: things have worked out or whatever. He said to me,
Speaker 1: do you want to know what happened? Right? Ray Parker
Speaker 1: answered to do you wanna know what happened? Is gout
Speaker 1: anything to do with me? I mean we're talking, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about it? Right? He said, nothing to do too.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, that's interesting, and then he says, I
Speaker 1: just prefer not to tell you. He says, because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, we have a gag rout
Speaker 1: on this finding for whatever they're gonna do. He says,
Speaker 1: it doesn't affect you. And if I don't tell your daughter,
Speaker 1: you can't talk. Okay. So I've never broken the rule
Speaker 1: because I don't know anything about through I haven't I
Speaker 1: don't know what anything of it was. It has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with me. My name's on the song I
Speaker 1: get I don't know nothing to do with me. I
Speaker 1: don't have that. So I never talked about it because
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it. But he talked about it.
Speaker 1: Why the like, who's it protect? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about it. My lawyer said, you can't
Speaker 1: talk about it because you don't know. No lawyer, he says,
Speaker 1: I know you ain't gonna talk about it because you
Speaker 1: don't know nothing about it, which he is correct. So
Speaker 1: now in two thousand three, I think it was VH
Speaker 1: one was coming calling me several times a week, which
Speaker 1: I thought, why I ain't that popular? Why am I
Speaker 1: getting some phone calls? Be on TV? And come to
Speaker 1: find out they had his version where they now and
Speaker 1: they want to have me on where they now and
Speaker 1: play him back to back right, So he said a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff in which I sued him and I won.
Speaker 1: He broke the GA agree was on TV. And how
Speaker 1: about this, I like Huie losing the news. I don't
Speaker 1: have anything bad to say about him. I never met him.
Speaker 1: You got seen each other in the last years. We've
Speaker 1: never seen each other ever. And I think the sad
Speaker 1: part in the irony part of the I think he
Speaker 1: takes it more personal because of however it happened. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things. Just the bomb built itself. But
Speaker 1: I really had nothing to try to do that. And
Speaker 1: I think if he had any right, maybe he should
Speaker 1: have had it with the other guys. They did it,
Speaker 1: but for some reason it seemed to be directed in
Speaker 1: my direction more than I think it should have been.
Speaker 1: Like I hear people talk about him. They say he's
Speaker 1: a nice guy. Other people say I'm a nice guy.
Speaker 1: Now when they're approaching you to do this, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I okay. So the end result is I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's really a dead and it's it's a dead
Speaker 1: heat tie between who owns the national Halloween anthem. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's either you or Michael Jackson, neck and neck. But
Speaker 1: I prefer to think I'm the winner. I mean, Rod
Speaker 1: Temper then just pass. I love rode Ian, you know,
Speaker 1: but like I took a picture, I'm just saying, around
Speaker 1: this time, this is when you're that's when your checks
Speaker 1: start looking real nice. Around this So you're thinking like that,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get concerned because I'm the only living
Speaker 1: songwriter from Halloween left. My Bobby Boys pick I did
Speaker 1: some shows where he's gone. Now Rod Temperton is gone.
Speaker 1: I mean you're kind of lonely here. I mean, but
Speaker 1: I guess if who you gonna call for Halloween? I
Speaker 1: mean right out and still here. So I mean at
Speaker 1: the time, were you thinking like, yo, if I write
Speaker 1: the right song, this will be played, this will be
Speaker 1: the happy birthday to you Halloween. No? No, no, but
Speaker 1: you gotta admit that it's never died. Yeah, you're talking
Speaker 1: about and is it a burden? Is it a burden that? No?
Speaker 1: Is the winning a lot of ticket of burden? Ever?
Speaker 1: Get too heavy to say? You know, I love you?
Speaker 1: Because dude, my ring tone, I mean the people what
Speaker 1: they want? My god, you know, give the people with
Speaker 1: the people call me, they tell me, don't answer the phone.
Speaker 1: Let it ring through, you know. And so it's just
Speaker 1: you know that logo for those you can't see that
Speaker 1: if you ring the phone, it plays not who you're
Speaker 1: gonna call, but who are you trying to call? Leave
Speaker 1: your name and number after the tone. Who you're trying
Speaker 1: to call me? You know, like calling right now? I
Speaker 1: was call me comic Nick, comic. You're gonna like exp
Speaker 1: another question? Ringing toll. Who is this on my phone? Yes,
Speaker 1: leave your name the number after the tone. He's trying
Speaker 1: to call that available. We shouldn't make that available. But
Speaker 1: as with all Ray Parker stories, you do want the
Speaker 1: juice right always as you guys are looking for but
Speaker 1: your way over there, and it starts over there. In
Speaker 1: the very White days, there was a guy named Gary
Speaker 1: Lemel who ran Barry White's publishing company Aaron Schroder at
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, the other woman got a temp job
Speaker 1: working for Mary L. Mal the Columbia Pictures who I
Speaker 1: just happened to be. Me and her were doing whatever
Speaker 1: we were doing, and so that hooked me back up
Speaker 1: with Gary line Male, who wanted me to save him
Speaker 1: by writing the song Oh my whole friend. Man. That's
Speaker 1: how we made the connection. Okay, So he brought the
Speaker 1: project here. Yeah, and so he figured that I could.
Speaker 1: He says, you got the right humor, you got the
Speaker 1: right thing. He says, I think you're right for the job.
Speaker 1: I'll give you fifty grand. Just go write the song,
Speaker 1: whether if we don't use it, you keep the money.
Speaker 1: What the heck? They headed like that, you know, And
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna be no record wasn't gonna be in this.
Speaker 1: It was twenty seconds of music at the library scene.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a minute and fifteen seconds of it,
Speaker 1: just because I don't know how to do twenty seconds
Speaker 1: of music. You know, by the time I do one
Speaker 1: group and go to the other group, I got a
Speaker 1: minute and a half of men and fifteen seconds of
Speaker 1: men and ten seconds something like that. And so I
Speaker 1: played the guy a little snippet I had, and that's
Speaker 1: what he loved I right, he just loved it. Right.
Speaker 1: I went to meet and he loved it. Called me
Speaker 1: at three in the morning, I'll sleepy getting the stuff girl.
Speaker 1: Now there's some magic to those girls yelling. There's really
Speaker 1: huh okay. So now I was dating little valley girl
Speaker 1: um in in the valley. I woke her up at
Speaker 1: five in the morning, told her to get her high
Speaker 1: school friends together because the messengers coming at eight thirty
Speaker 1: nine o'clock and I need to get these voices on.
Speaker 1: And it was their first time they were being a studio,
Speaker 1: so they were excited. They could be like six seven
Speaker 1: and this is your recording at your house, this recording
Speaker 1: that American. So they're screaming and yelling ghostbusters which I
Speaker 1: think made the magic in the record. You know. That's
Speaker 1: how the song came about. And then we took to
Speaker 1: tape recorders and started linking the tracks together to make
Speaker 1: the song four minute song because I only had a
Speaker 1: minute in fifteen seconds of it. And then the breakdown
Speaker 1: section that's just me playing some stuff over the same
Speaker 1: groove without the guitars in the base and over dubbing
Speaker 1: and just making sections out of it. But it's really
Speaker 1: only a minute and ten seconds of music. You can't
Speaker 1: but not that I think that when you tend to
Speaker 1: overthink it or try to like concoct, like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make an anthem for Halloween, it never happened. You just
Speaker 1: got to do it. But he just wasn't even overthinking it.
Speaker 1: Was just like, to you, was this just some arbitrary
Speaker 1: He grabbed his fifty grand and exactly, I take the money.
Speaker 1: I told my account yang, I'll see it. I'm spending
Speaker 1: this because my bonusbody. So at what point did you?
Speaker 1: At what point was the oh God like the holy ship?
Speaker 1: The is too fast. Let me tell you how the
Speaker 1: best idea of my life came. The first thing is
Speaker 1: I got the music really quick. I had all this
Speaker 1: stuff I was jamming. I could not. The guy wanted
Speaker 1: the words ghostbusters in the song I don't get my
Speaker 1: fifty grand. Well, we friend Detroit, you don't get your
Speaker 1: fifty grand. Just don't get it back. Don't get it back.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it in there. But it was impossible
Speaker 1: to sing ghostbusters, right, I mean, it's just it wasn't
Speaker 1: even Ghostbusters. I created that. It was Ghostbusters. That's what
Speaker 1: they kept saying, Ghostbusters. We want Ghostbusters in the song.
Speaker 1: You heard it now, So it's not fair. But at
Speaker 1: the time, they hired plenty of writers over the time
Speaker 1: span of a year, and nobody could get that word
Speaker 1: in the song. It was a stupid word the sing.
Speaker 1: Can't sing ghostbusters. It just doesn't sing. So you're saying
Speaker 1: other people were trying to dem own and yeah, the
Speaker 1: guy said they had been doing this a year. They
Speaker 1: don't like none of the song directed on like none
Speaker 1: of who I don't I don't know, but some famous
Speaker 1: people trying. But it's interesting he says that because that's
Speaker 1: the same thing that Bobby Brown did on the second Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: He didn't sing it either. On our own joint. He
Speaker 1: didn't sing it either. So he was, but he was
Speaker 1: off the hook. They wanted Ghostbusters in the song, right
Speaker 1: because he didn't have to say ghosts. So here's what.
Speaker 1: So here's what we're at. And I'm sitting there. So
Speaker 1: I got the song done, and I haven't called a
Speaker 1: girl yet because I don't have anything myself. So it's
Speaker 1: like nas three thirty four o'clock in the morning, my
Speaker 1: fifty grand starting to float out the window, you know.
Speaker 1: And then this commercial comes on TV, which I wasn't
Speaker 1: really trying to write a commercial, but I remember the
Speaker 1: part of the film they had the Ghostbusters with the
Speaker 1: backpacks and they had the phone number under it. And
Speaker 1: when I was half asleep trying to stay awake but
Speaker 1: trying to write this lyric, I was dozing off, half asleep,
Speaker 1: and on comes this commercial on TV with like some
Speaker 1: insect repelling guys or the you know, the the exterminator guys,
Speaker 1: and they got their backpacks and they look just like
Speaker 1: the Ghostbuster guys to me, or to wash this troubles
Speaker 1: down the drain whatever that you know, wrote a router
Speaker 1: guy something, it's some kind of guy like that, and
Speaker 1: so I'm looking at it. When they got the phone number,
Speaker 1: who do you call? And I went, look, just like
Speaker 1: the Ghostbuster guys, we're gonna make it who you gonna call? Right,
Speaker 1: So that's Detroit. I said, I'm just gonna like not
Speaker 1: seeing the words Ghostbusters. I'm gonna let the crowd go
Speaker 1: go Busters, and I just go who you're gonna call?
Speaker 1: So my song is who you're gonna call? I had
Speaker 1: no idea what's gonna be commercials and rested. I mean
Speaker 1: it didn't take, but that call on like wildfire. As
Speaker 1: soon as that song that the director loved it, he says, oh, man,
Speaker 1: that's he's I like the way you're going. And he
Speaker 1: was a Jewish guy. So he says, I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: of any ghosts. He said, but you're going, what are
Speaker 1: you saying? I said, no, I'm miss like, I ain't
Speaker 1: afraid no ghosts. Man. He says, I like how you
Speaker 1: phrasing that. He says, I like, he's I like the phrases.
Speaker 1: He says, I said, I had a background. He's no,
Speaker 1: I like how you're saying it. I like, you go out,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of any ghost I'm like, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at him like I'm looking at where at and I'm
Speaker 1: saying no, I ain't afraid no ghosts. He says, say
Speaker 1: it again slow, I said, I ain't afraid no ghost
Speaker 1: and I hadn't really thought about what I was saying.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I ain't fraid no ghost just I
Speaker 1: like that man. So we didn't re redid that, and
Speaker 1: that's what changed the whole world because when they when
Speaker 1: they licensed the song for commercials, it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the movie because they don't license Ghostbusters. They
Speaker 1: license who You're gonna call, and they put their own
Speaker 1: name in the back of it. Ah, that's really okay.
Speaker 1: My question is are you is this your song or
Speaker 1: is this like whenever someone wants to utilize Ghostbusters, do
Speaker 1: you have to go through a whole protocol of getting
Speaker 1: the movie company? And it's pretty much my solf. Now
Speaker 1: there are protocols, Okay, if the movie was released like
Speaker 1: this film, there's a three month moratorium on each side. Dude,
Speaker 1: I's only forgot Ghostbusters got released again this year, there's
Speaker 1: a three month moratorium on the front. Well, they didn't
Speaker 1: want people to do it, but I have such a
Speaker 1: wonderful deal that if you offered me a million dollars
Speaker 1: to do it within that three month period. They can
Speaker 1: say no, you can't do it, but then they give
Speaker 1: me a million dollars. Oh, so I still don't lose
Speaker 1: the money. Oh, but I mean doing it asking. You
Speaker 1: can't perform it anywhere or for me. And I'm just
Speaker 1: talking about that. They want to use the commercials and
Speaker 1: other stuff. You know. You know when you do a
Speaker 1: film thing, they don't want you in conflict with the film, right,
Speaker 1: so you can't do any commercials for the first three
Speaker 1: months after it comes down. Now, but you on the
Speaker 1: words too, like the merchandizing merch So we're coming out
Speaker 1: with a clothing line of Ray Parkard Jr. Collections Clothing
Speaker 1: on because I think they figured out that on the words.
Speaker 1: So they want to put the words with the characters.
Speaker 1: So we have a t shirt line and clothing line
Speaker 1: coming out. Did they use the yours in the two?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen part of the new one. This is
Speaker 1: probably three by the way, part they used the snippet
Speaker 1: of it. In my opinion, they should have played the
Speaker 1: themes every time, but they put in there some parts.
Speaker 1: But you know every time. To me, Indiana Jones that
Speaker 1: that that's how you know. The good guys just play
Speaker 1: the same thing someone. I think, I hope next time
Speaker 1: they do that, you know. But they played a little
Speaker 1: bit of mine. Then they have twenty other versions where
Speaker 1: they mixed it up and did a different ways, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they cut a whole album with these guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got writes, probably ten songs on the album,
Speaker 1: but nobody had a hit on the album. Movie did well,
Speaker 1: you know, they tried it tried. Maybe next time he'll
Speaker 1: So when you're turning in this master, at what point
Speaker 1: do you realize I have the national anthem for Halloween
Speaker 1: two weeks after it coming, and it will never die.
Speaker 1: It will never know Halloween. We didn't know till later.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about Halloween. But so you're not seeing
Speaker 1: a grand love. The only thing I knew is that
Speaker 1: the record came out. Well, I had already told, been
Speaker 1: told what's gonna happen. You know, the the movie in
Speaker 1: those days will come out almost nine months later overseas
Speaker 1: in different places. So client had already said, okay, we
Speaker 1: released a single in front of the film, and then
Speaker 1: when the film comes out, we wait and release it overseas. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in those days they want to stop as
Speaker 1: MENI imports as possible, so they just let it low low,
Speaker 1: and within the first two weeks we had sold so
Speaker 1: many records and clients says, what do you think has
Speaker 1: happened their export and the records? We gotta sent ship
Speaker 1: it out overseas, he said, But the movie's not coming
Speaker 1: out for eight nine months. We're gonna be way ahead
Speaker 1: of the film, he says. I'm I'm torn between putting
Speaker 1: it out, he said, but my distributors are making me
Speaker 1: put it out because they're selling so many of them.
Speaker 1: And I think within the first few weeks we were
Speaker 1: so three and a half million records overseas, there were exports,
Speaker 1: so they forced him into release in it. He says,
Speaker 1: why do you think they're buying this? They don't understand
Speaker 1: what you're saying in Italy or other places. I said,
Speaker 1: if I knew that, I would have cut a bunch
Speaker 1: of them. We are you talking about record? Put the
Speaker 1: record out? You know? So? And by meet him when
Speaker 1: meet Him came um that February were rapture, like I
Speaker 1: think they gave me a record with fifteen million selling
Speaker 1: albums or something like that was just crazy. It's one
Speaker 1: of those songs that took off every everybody. There was
Speaker 1: something in the song there so infectious, are so happy
Speaker 1: that you didn't need to know what language it was,
Speaker 1: You didn't need to understand everything. It just went number
Speaker 1: one in fifty two comes Trees. It just just went everybody.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a burden on you, like, oh no,
Speaker 1: all that money to the bank, A wear in my pocket,
Speaker 1: down my pants. What's your family saying now? Oh? Then yeah,
Speaker 1: he's all right, he's gonna be all right aside from
Speaker 1: the ghostbuses. Uh, we read that like you're I think
Speaker 1: the highest paid guitar, like the highest Oh that's nonsense.
Speaker 1: I read that thing. Yeah, well, you know what what
Speaker 1: I like about it is, you know you read. You
Speaker 1: can't believe everything you read. First of all, my kids
Speaker 1: they come up to me, so Dan, we read your
Speaker 1: your net worth two million dollars, right, all these different things.
Speaker 1: Two million dollars. I think, where do you get that
Speaker 1: number from? We just spent a million dollars just on
Speaker 1: the studio in the back yard. Okay, what about the
Speaker 1: rest of his place or whatever to do? And then
Speaker 1: that article comes out he's the highest pay he made,
Speaker 1: He's worth four hndred million dollars. He just made an
Speaker 1: eighty nine million last year. I'm like I did somewhere
Speaker 1: in the middle. I don't even know if it's the
Speaker 1: middle somewhere between this. It's kind of crazy the things.
Speaker 1: I mean, who comes up with this stuff? Who writes
Speaker 1: this stuff on the matter? And then my neighbor he's
Speaker 1: worth like eighty million, I mean, all these different um
Speaker 1: and Denise Willmas was worth almost a billion dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's worth like nine hundred and fifty billion dollars on
Speaker 1: the website. Get it. So I'm just saying, there's all
Speaker 1: these numbers and telling my kids, I said, you can't
Speaker 1: believe everything you read. Look at this right here. You
Speaker 1: know what other stuff were you able to put your
Speaker 1: money in and like investing and stuff just to stay well?
Speaker 1: You know, I lost lots of money years ago, especially
Speaker 1: in the stock market when I got too greedy. But
Speaker 1: recently I had a really a good land for I
Speaker 1: bought a bow bunch of a Tesla stock that seven dollars,
Speaker 1: I mean a meaning for a lot enough where I
Speaker 1: made in five months a few million dollars. I got leave.
Speaker 1: And you know what's even better, because I'm older and
Speaker 1: wise I actually cashed to me and I still got
Speaker 1: a lot of it, but I cashed and it took
Speaker 1: most eight percent off the table. I was smart enough
Speaker 1: to finally, you know. So I look for a little
Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, I do the safe stuff now,
Speaker 1: really stay a little bit, bonds, you know that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Stay out of trouble, pay your taxes, get
Speaker 1: don't you want to be going to jail like the
Speaker 1: other guys, you know, keep the country rolling, and just
Speaker 1: just do normal stuff. If you if you, if you
Speaker 1: pay attention. The key thing with money is just not
Speaker 1: to buy more stuff that you've got money for. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants to look like this. If you like this, it's okay,
Speaker 1: look like that. Don't go up there, you know, just
Speaker 1: don't get out of hand with it and get stupid,
Speaker 1: you know, life lessons. Yeah, so okay, uh, I guess
Speaker 1: doing the tornado of the success of the single, I
Speaker 1: noticed that in eighty four you didn't put the record
Speaker 1: out though, no Ghostbusters, and they had me all over
Speaker 1: the place and sex and single Man that year or whatever.
Speaker 1: Later we did put a record out, Chartbusters track and
Speaker 1: that was Clive Davis. This thing and I never get Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Greatest Hits, which we had already had the Greatest
Speaker 1: Hits album the year before. I said another Greatest Hits.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. We packaged the Greatest Hits.
Speaker 1: I had a cold on one of the songs. He said,
Speaker 1: just put the thing out there. Cut the stuff. Sold
Speaker 1: a million plus albums. Wow. Right, So Clid was right again.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was an unbelievable pay day for not
Speaker 1: a lot of work. So that really happened. Great. Was
Speaker 1: I don't think that man should sleep alone? Was that
Speaker 1: on sex a second? The next record? Second? The end
Speaker 1: of Barrister? Yeah, that's what. They didn't promote anything. They
Speaker 1: just kind of let it go bye bye. But okay,
Speaker 1: that was just one slight blemish and you wanted it
Speaker 1: off or was it? Oh no, no, I was off
Speaker 1: for Arista in eighty three before Ghostbusters. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was. It was one of those things where, um,
Speaker 1: I think it was a missing stand. I never wanted
Speaker 1: to leave there still, but Clive wanted me to do
Speaker 1: a Dion Wark album and he called my manager and
Speaker 1: somehow they were arguing about the price, and he says, well,
Speaker 1: if it's gonna cost down, I want to know what
Speaker 1: did it take to renegotiate Ray, and we think, what
Speaker 1: do you reading Ray for? I got four more years
Speaker 1: left to the contract. It's somewhere in there. He wanted
Speaker 1: me to do an album, and to me, it's just
Speaker 1: told him misunderstanding and things got out of hand and
Speaker 1: he had offered some really low amount of money and
Speaker 1: everybody got nervous, and David Geffen offered like an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of money and it was too late to turn back.
Speaker 1: Sort of a deal. Yeah, so I ended up signing
Speaker 1: with Did he hate losing your Yeah, but we remained friends.
Speaker 1: I actually went back to him a little bit later.
Speaker 1: And uh so when I cut Ghostbusters, I was really
Speaker 1: already sort of leaving, so it could go either way.
Speaker 1: But I gave it to Cline because I said, well,
Speaker 1: you could put it out fast, and he didn't like it.
Speaker 1: I said, we don't have to like it. They're gonna
Speaker 1: pay you all the money to promote it. Just take
Speaker 1: it and pressing, put put the fill it full of
Speaker 1: your album, feel out, full of your artists, and go,
Speaker 1: and which he was wonderfully happy about. You know, m hm, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm the greatest part of theft ever. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. I'm a very fortunate guy because after that,
Speaker 1: I went to Geffen and we could that I don't
Speaker 1: think man should sleeping on that Dark album, which did
Speaker 1: well went gold in England. They kind of smissed the
Speaker 1: ball here, crossing it over pop the usually way that
Speaker 1: we do all my records. Because David Geffen was selling
Speaker 1: the company at the time, and I remember the numbers
Speaker 1: and I think he gave me a million dollars up
Speaker 1: front another million to the record and he said, I'm
Speaker 1: getting out the music business. I'm selling the whole company.
Speaker 1: And if you go to m c A, you can
Speaker 1: keep all the money. You have to pay it back.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm down for that. Just get the
Speaker 1: money off, the pay it back, you know. So that
Speaker 1: mean I went to m c A, but I kept
Speaker 1: my contract, but he owed me all the money and
Speaker 1: I'm free and clear and I'm starting to zero. Ah, bro,
Speaker 1: so I'm starting to zero. So I said that that works.
Speaker 1: The only problem is I got to m c A
Speaker 1: and even though I had to it on Bobby Brown
Speaker 1: and those guys, you know, I had another but I
Speaker 1: had another artist, and I had an an artist, Randy
Speaker 1: Hall signed there too. They was your artist or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he were signing me, and I signed him to the
Speaker 1: m c A and so now I'm going to MC
Speaker 1: after all of this. So while it's going on, and
Speaker 1: they were like they wanted to have an A and
Speaker 1: R meeting and listen to what I was going to
Speaker 1: record and all that, and I just wasn't feeling that.
Speaker 1: It's like kind of like making an actor audition. After
Speaker 1: he's my contract said I could do whatever I want
Speaker 1: to do, and you give me I think it was
Speaker 1: a million bucks up front, Just give me a million
Speaker 1: bucks when I started, so I hadn't got my money right,
Speaker 1: and they were talking about, well you can come on there.
Speaker 1: I said, come in, where come into? Where is my
Speaker 1: million dollars? We're talking, you know, And I had a
Speaker 1: bunch of more albums that they had to take, like
Speaker 1: several more albums, and so the conversation came up as too.
Speaker 1: And my parents were sick at the time. So I
Speaker 1: really want to spend more time Detroit. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to record. And so that's why I say this
Speaker 1: worked out perfect time they decided to to get rid
Speaker 1: of me, right, but they was this under Jerald Busby
Speaker 1: or no, he had just left Ernie Singleton and I
Speaker 1: love both of those guys, but they were gonna do
Speaker 1: it this way, which is fine. So that the idea
Speaker 1: came Let's by real, so I believe it. I thought
Speaker 1: my lawyers thought he was crazy. I said, they'll never
Speaker 1: do that. You know, they'll they'll just make me cut
Speaker 1: all the records and they're gonna sell them and do whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, they wrote me a big fat check
Speaker 1: for all the next several albums. They mightn't have to
Speaker 1: do anything that is unheard of. I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you deal with the changing times and when the event
Speaker 1: of hip hop coming in? And like, how are you
Speaker 1: dealing with this? I've heard various uh if you heard,
Speaker 1: uh the infamous Michael Henderson rant, and there's a there's
Speaker 1: a famous Michael Henderson and yeah, a Japan rant where
Speaker 1: more write it down where he's just, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of ranting over the changing times of music and how
Speaker 1: it's it might be leaving him behind, Like how are
Speaker 1: you taking it at that moment? You know what's the
Speaker 1: interesting thing. I never really thought about getting left behind,
Speaker 1: and I never really thought about changing. Um. I think
Speaker 1: I do so many things in the music business. There
Speaker 1: was a time I took a lifelong vacation, which is
Speaker 1: probably after that. In my check I just felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, I moved to the mountains, I bought an airplane,
Speaker 1: and I started flying around the country. You know, so
Speaker 1: you just wanted to take it easy. And I bought
Speaker 1: a really nice airplane that that I can fly like,
Speaker 1: I can fly to New York and back. You know,
Speaker 1: some people take vacations of me. I know, it's amazing,
Speaker 1: right all right, like the airplane. So I got a
Speaker 1: little making so I got a little out of not
Speaker 1: out of control, but you know, I was like water
Speaker 1: skiing everything that I dreamed about that. I bought a
Speaker 1: house in the mountains and lived up eight thousand feet
Speaker 1: overlooking the lake and the fresh air, and I was
Speaker 1: snowmobile ski eighty days a year and just had a
Speaker 1: wonderful time of it. You know, girls couldn't e find
Speaker 1: because they didn't know what I lived. I fly my
Speaker 1: airplane to the girl's house, have a date, and I
Speaker 1: split and go back home. They'd nobody find life. I
Speaker 1: was having a great time, and I did that for
Speaker 1: several years. And yeah, if you got a plane, had motorcycles,
Speaker 1: dirt bikes, I mean I just was having a great time.
Speaker 1: This went on for a while, you know, until I
Speaker 1: met my future wife, but finally made you just had
Speaker 1: to get married. I don't know, I met a girl
Speaker 1: like none other did. I would rather watch TV with
Speaker 1: and go bang a couple of them one. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just just a man. It was real romance. I think,
Speaker 1: you know and feel that way today, even I don't
Speaker 1: want to say that. Yeah, you have a record a
Speaker 1: song on, you know, the Mexico when you talk about that,
Speaker 1: was that inspired by her or by your wife? No,
Speaker 1: I was just in Mexico write some song, just fooling around.
Speaker 1: You wait till you hear the next record. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm almost halfway done with it. It's funky. It's nine three.
Speaker 1: You know what he said, he don't write about his life.
Speaker 1: He and then what I'm doing now this is I'm
Speaker 1: cutting me? What am I cutting? This? New record? Sounds
Speaker 1: like me? Funky delic Rick James. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: that here. You know, it's back to my ear. If
Speaker 1: the instruments were created much after that, I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: have it on there. I mean, and you know it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't feel the least bit because I'm not really
Speaker 1: money motivated to make the record, so I don't feel
Speaker 1: the least bit. I gotta listen to us on the
Speaker 1: radio try to go boobah boo, bah boo. But if
Speaker 1: they go booboo, I just want to do it my way,
Speaker 1: you know, and just keep it true to what it is,
Speaker 1: you know, and people if somebody says, well, how you
Speaker 1: gonna sell, I don't know. Maybe we're selling, maybe we'd know.
Speaker 1: But I never really made music to to to try
Speaker 1: to make money. I was always trying to make music
Speaker 1: because I love the music. How do your kids feel
Speaker 1: about your career? Like, do they know that you're the
Speaker 1: coolest dude walking the planet? Or My kids thought nothing
Speaker 1: until they saw me get a star on Hollywood Boulevard,
Speaker 1: And really that got let me tell you something. I
Speaker 1: never they don't move over anything, right. But we came
Speaker 1: home from the star ceremony and my youngest son took
Speaker 1: the picture of somebody down the hung his star up
Speaker 1: that I gave you, and I was like, really, I mean, y'all,
Speaker 1: really we got to yall. I mean we finally tapped
Speaker 1: you just a little bit. I got a thirty year
Speaker 1: old sixteen and eighteen. So the younger ones, you know,
Speaker 1: the older ones, you know, they greal with all this nonsense,
Speaker 1: they ain't getting it. But for some reason, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: for some reason, even the older kids, the star on
Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard was a life changer. That was the game changing.
Speaker 1: Forget all the money to get all that stuff. They
Speaker 1: know they live in the house, that the money bar.
Speaker 1: They got that, but that's just their thing. But for
Speaker 1: some reason, the star thing everybody got. You know, even
Speaker 1: my wife. We were driving home. I said, I don't
Speaker 1: know about your other boyfriends, but I bet you didn't
Speaker 1: want to know. Holly, just start tell something. I thought
Speaker 1: we were gonna have something going right. And she looked
Speaker 1: at me, she says, I let you slide with that
Speaker 1: one to put the blind you know, she let me.
Speaker 1: She let it go. She did even let that one go.
Speaker 1: So that was interesting thing with your kids, like how
Speaker 1: do you because they grew up, you know, particularly old ones,
Speaker 1: growing up growing up in that kind of goperster, how
Speaker 1: do you teach them like the importance of work ethic
Speaker 1: and like what are they into? Them out of the
Speaker 1: house and cut them off like years ago, and well,
Speaker 1: you know, they started you know the problem is the
Speaker 1: kid they think your money is their money. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. So I kicked my kids out, and you
Speaker 1: know what, they all fell to the ground, and now
Speaker 1: they're all making a lot of money doing well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so hopefully the younger ones will do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And it's really painful to the fine I told my
Speaker 1: kids old stories got hurt me more, it's gonna hurt you.
Speaker 1: But guess what I get that funk out. I came
Speaker 1: home one day and both of them were supposed to
Speaker 1: be looking for a job. One of graduated college. One
Speaker 1: it dropped out, and they were the swimming pool drinking
Speaker 1: Margarita's and it was noon. I said, with the job,
Speaker 1: They said, we searched the all day, all day. It's
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock. So we finally put them out. They were
Speaker 1: like two and twenty four. Okay, that's reasonable. You gets
Speaker 1: every It may have been because the oldest one had graduated,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's twenty three and that's why the other
Speaker 1: one dropped out at the time. Y'all can move together
Speaker 1: and share my s That's that's real. Like, did you
Speaker 1: ever have a deadline? Like when I was my dad
Speaker 1: was like, yo, something got to happen. But I wasn't lucky.
Speaker 1: I got my record deal like within a year and
Speaker 1: a half. But I got super lucky. It was eighteen
Speaker 1: for me, and I knew. Once I graduated high school,
Speaker 1: I was just like, yeah, I can't come back. So
Speaker 1: then I went to college and even coming back for
Speaker 1: the summers was tough. You know what I'm saying. Had
Speaker 1: to pay something. Yeah, oh totally. I was working everything.
Speaker 1: So then finally my senior year, me and my buddy,
Speaker 1: we got our own apartment and so that was then.
Speaker 1: I also had a kid on the way. I had
Speaker 1: my son on the way, so that come. So I was.
Speaker 1: I was hustling. And then I graduated and then we
Speaker 1: signed our first deal. We complete we complete the listing
Speaker 1: like a couple of months and I graduated. So what
Speaker 1: about you? Unpaid Bill and Steve? Your parents were like,
Speaker 1: I get then out. It's like Rody Dangerfield, don't stay
Speaker 1: home back to school? Are there any last I have
Speaker 1: one last question, but I have to rewind back a
Speaker 1: little bit on because it means so much to me.
Speaker 1: But um, I just have to say, like you your
Speaker 1: theme the Prior's place, you know that that was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite shoes ever, Like, what was it like
Speaker 1: working with Richard Pryor? And how did how did you
Speaker 1: maan that that was wonderful? Um I got that because
Speaker 1: I was dating the director's daughter. The other I need
Speaker 1: one more like Campfire Story, leave the rest of that alone.
Speaker 1: So her dad asked me to come in and write
Speaker 1: the song, you know, and working with Richard Pryor was
Speaker 1: wonderful and it was like a dream come true. Then
Speaker 1: they put me in the video and I bounced a
Speaker 1: basketball and Richard man, I'm like, oh man, this is
Speaker 1: as cool as he can get, right, And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I don't know where the ratings come out.
Speaker 1: The thing is and great and it's as kids cartoons,
Speaker 1: I mean kids think. So I'm thinking, wow, this is
Speaker 1: every everything, this is it. I got it. Then Richard
Speaker 1: probably says I don't want to do no more, like
Speaker 1: after several episodes, and everybody's like, yeah, what happened? I
Speaker 1: thought we said the ratings said ratings. Richard just doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like doing anymore, you know, No, he just didn't
Speaker 1: feel just change his mind. It was the Black Sesame Street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just changed. He came on eleven thirty right before Soldier.
Speaker 1: He just decided I'm not gonna do the more wow.
Speaker 1: And you know, and when that happens, you know, like
Speaker 1: what about us little guys? You know, come on, you
Speaker 1: know it must be nice, it must be nice. Just
Speaker 1: walk away right in the middle of it. Don't care,
Speaker 1: you just go so okay, any any I mean your
Speaker 1: new addition session was Okay, you're gonna like this. So
Speaker 1: I wrote Mr. Telephone Man right alongside Jack and Jill
Speaker 1: and some other stuff all at the same time, right,
Speaker 1: and I thought a stupid song, Mr Tell I don't
Speaker 1: know why did I write that? So I can it
Speaker 1: and I don't do anything with it, and we end
Speaker 1: up recording it on this kid on Geffen Records, Kid
Speaker 1: Junior Tucker, and they they for some reason, they throw
Speaker 1: his album with David Foster cut some first Jay grading
Speaker 1: it comes something. They didn't like anything, and they gave
Speaker 1: it to me at discounted budget, and I actually finished
Speaker 1: the record for him, gotta done, and then they just
Speaker 1: came the thing and he didn't do nothing with it,
Speaker 1: but somehow the new edition heard it through this guy,
Speaker 1: Dale Kanoshima used to work for Michael Jackson, and uh,
Speaker 1: they loved the song. I didn't know that they had
Speaker 1: heard it. So Gerald Buzzby called me up in Detroit
Speaker 1: while my parents were sick, and he says, um, I
Speaker 1: want you to fly to New York Boston to hear
Speaker 1: these kids singing, because you know they want you to
Speaker 1: work with him on a song. That's why he didn't
Speaker 1: say right. He say work with him on a song.
Speaker 1: And my parents were sick. I've been in Detroit for months,
Speaker 1: it's freezing cold, and he wanted me to go to Boston.
Speaker 1: It's January. Not even not feeling it right. So I
Speaker 1: tell Gerald, thanks of man, man, I don't think something
Speaker 1: man feeling So Gerald, being a smart guy, he was
Speaker 1: called back a month later. A few weeks later, he says,
Speaker 1: how about we take the jet and go to the
Speaker 1: Bahamas and stay at the Trump thing there and go
Speaker 1: to the restaurant and we party. I said that that works.
Speaker 1: Do that. So we fly down to the Bahamas. We
Speaker 1: rent motorcycles, were going the casino. We eated the same restaurant.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump stand over there. We're sitting here and we
Speaker 1: party so hard. We get to the kids concert. They
Speaker 1: walk off the stage. Right, there's Mr Parker. How did
Speaker 1: you like our song I ain't even heard of yet.
Speaker 1: Gerald looked at me. I'm looking at him like, oh man,
Speaker 1: we're late. We missed the whole thing, you know. And
Speaker 1: we're like, oh yeah, that was great, yeah that. And
Speaker 1: so I go back and I'm feeling bad now because
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, Gerald and my parents are sick, really
Speaker 1: not feeling this. Write the song thing and go back
Speaker 1: to you know, just he says, oh man, you ain't
Speaker 1: gotta write the song. He said, they were playing your song.
Speaker 1: They just want you to re record it. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what song, Mr telephone, that's how they hear that.
Speaker 1: He says, No, they worked out there, they know what.
Speaker 1: They want you to cut it, just like the old stuff.
Speaker 1: So we got went back to California and uh, the
Speaker 1: kids say, look, just cut it just like. In fact,
Speaker 1: we buy the old track. I said, no, that Blondes again.
Speaker 1: You can't buy it over. But it's me playing on
Speaker 1: the instruments, so I'll cut it again. So I put
Speaker 1: all the instruments together. Yeah yeah, yeah, so that's me playing.
Speaker 1: I play the drums and over the I'm I'm like Steve,
Speaker 1: I put the drums on last, you know. So I
Speaker 1: played the bass and all the rest. Well, that's how
Speaker 1: the master taught me. I'm just doing it like EI
Speaker 1: did it. So I put all the stuff on. We
Speaker 1: get the track done, We get the singing on. Ralph
Speaker 1: sings the versus sounds great. Nobody can sing the chorus,
Speaker 1: and said Bobby because he's he didn't want He said,
Speaker 1: I don't sing. I rap n I said, well, you
Speaker 1: gotta sing because anybody else singing it. So he's yelling
Speaker 1: and screaming up. So we get him on up. Later
Speaker 1: he tells me, you know, I saw him a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago. He told me, says what Ray Prone Jr. Said,
Speaker 1: I can sing something. Quit the band so I do
Speaker 1: my own album. I said, boy, that was a confidence.
Speaker 1: I'm gone, you know. But it was interesting. Uh they cut,
Speaker 1: We cut the record, turned it in and they were
Speaker 1: a little out of tune on some parts. It was
Speaker 1: worked to get the vocals done. So Jerald Buzzy listen
Speaker 1: to me, says, can you cut four or five more songs?
Speaker 1: You know? I said, man, I can't do that. I'm
Speaker 1: doing this. He says, well, get your boys, Allie, and
Speaker 1: wasn't naming them to do it. He says they can
Speaker 1: ghost it for you. He says, you got my permission.
Speaker 1: So I go to my boys and said, man, y'all
Speaker 1: you want to cut the stuff. I got pockets full
Speaker 1: of cash burn here, you know, do this. We don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. We don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, but they said we don't want to
Speaker 1: Nobody want to do it. What I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to do it. No, I couldn't get all. I mean
Speaker 1: people needed integrity, too much integrity or too much poor judgment,
Speaker 1: so nobody would take the money to do it. So
Speaker 1: that's how I ended up with just the one song.
Speaker 1: I turned the song in and believe it not, that's
Speaker 1: the same week when they called me for Ghostbusters. So
Speaker 1: when Gary Lemel called me from Ghostbusters, you know, I
Speaker 1: had been in Spargo's and I was sitting with the
Speaker 1: lady right there, Claire. We were looking at that red
Speaker 1: i mean black poster with it just had a circle
Speaker 1: on it or something like that, and I said, what
Speaker 1: is that? And I said I got a phone call
Speaker 1: from my friend about there, and with Gary was saying
Speaker 1: it was you know, spent a couple of days I
Speaker 1: paid the right to sciences. Man, I'm not doing this
Speaker 1: so I'm going back to the Troit, he says. He says,
Speaker 1: you're not doing music. He says, what are you doing
Speaker 1: here now? Since I'm doing a new edition, says we
Speaker 1: don't doing music? Then what you're talking about? My money
Speaker 1: ain't good, but there is, you know. So that's how
Speaker 1: he talked me to doing this. I was already in
Speaker 1: town doing a new edition, you know, so he said
Speaker 1: stay two more days, fifty grandy. So that year I
Speaker 1: had missed a telephone man and Ghostbusters came out the
Speaker 1: same year. Man, same changes, get any changes, Ray Parker Jr.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you guy. Thanks one of the new edition.
Speaker 1: Ray Parker. You almost didn't happen, just like Ghostbusters almost
Speaker 1: didn't happen, just like Jack and Jill almost didn't happen. Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what lesson like, there's so many I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's that I should start dating all
Speaker 1: the daughters of all the mine is I'm kicking my
Speaker 1: kids out of the house. Yeah, information like exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm like? What was the day right A? Ghostbusters? So
Speaker 1: um yeah myself they got to go numbered already. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you're taking for this ar Yeah they yeah,
Speaker 1: they gotta get out. I mean once they're not legal yet,
Speaker 1: they're not not and ten, but my basically saying this
Speaker 1: seven three to seven years fifteen, gotta get out. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. I mean it was like that for me.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, I did, right, I ended
Speaker 1: up in the room with you. Motherfucker'd. A child has
Speaker 1: to suffer to make it in life. I don't think
Speaker 1: you gotta suffer. I just you know what, man, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's tough because like we talk about this is
Speaker 1: to call him night like, you know, looking at what
Speaker 1: was it was? You god right, saying like his kids
Speaker 1: are like super nerds. So a lot of ways, like
Speaker 1: hip hop and the kids of entertainers, hip hop has
Speaker 1: afforded the kids way better lives than the fathers and mothers,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So that's the good thing.
Speaker 1: But then in some aspects, you kind of lose that
Speaker 1: thing that made your dad right or whatever, a hunger drive, whatever,
Speaker 1: So you kind of gotta walk that line. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: do I want to give my kids everything that I
Speaker 1: didn't have, or do I want to make them live
Speaker 1: like Antoine Fisher? So I'm just kind of like I
Speaker 1: mean not like not like I mean not, I mean
Speaker 1: mine is still here. I'm still strong. Oh, nigga, I
Speaker 1: don't know who your people be. So no, I mean
Speaker 1: so that's that's my that is my conflict because I
Speaker 1: want to give you the things. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want my kids to grow up like in the crack
Speaker 1: house and ship like I experienced. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't want them, you know, to just be soft
Speaker 1: and yeah, goddamn job at noon. Yeah. So so that
Speaker 1: was my lisbon kick your kids out. I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to radio show to nerd out a little bit.
Speaker 1: I didn't want this to be the moment of your
Speaker 1: life changing. Uh so, Bill, you seem to agree about
Speaker 1: kicking my kids out of the house. You would kick
Speaker 1: one daughter out with you know it like tomorrow. No,
Speaker 1: I'm playing, but you're not. I'm not. I don't. I
Speaker 1: you know, I haven't given much thought to kicking my
Speaker 1: kids out the house. I feel like a few years
Speaker 1: ahead of me. So yeah, your kids, your daughters so much. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are days, but those are late Jordan's
Speaker 1: there's two kids and I'm babe Bill's life and one
Speaker 1: might be testing his patients just a little bit more
Speaker 1: than the other one. Everybody's patients, not just but do
Speaker 1: you feel I mean, is it too late? She's only three, right,
Speaker 1: she's four? Is it too late to do what? Get
Speaker 1: her back? Yes, it's too late for that. I have
Speaker 1: about three friends who thought. One one of them infamously said,
Speaker 1: you know he had a son and a darty. He says, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna saying my bill money up for
Speaker 1: my son, a college stuition up for her. And now
Speaker 1: they're older, it's the complete opposite. The angel is now
Speaker 1: a nightmare. I've heard that they switch and right, so
Speaker 1: who knows, like the apple of your eye? Might you know?
Speaker 1: It might be bail money time. I mean, I hope
Speaker 1: you know about girls? To keep him off the poll,
Speaker 1: the only thing you need to do. I've heard that,
Speaker 1: all right, So Steve drop drops the science man, what
Speaker 1: would you learn? Man? I thought some of the interesting
Speaker 1: things he was talking about was the Stevie Wonder playing
Speaker 1: drums on his stuff last Yeah, I mean that's that,
Speaker 1: and it's just so it's just mind blowing. How does
Speaker 1: that make it? No? Click? So he's playing to what? Well,
Speaker 1: because Steve is one of the most adventurous uh high
Speaker 1: hat players all time. That just makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: The fluctuation of his drumming is because he does it
Speaker 1: last and I'm never the same. I'm gonna cut a
Speaker 1: song album every part. That's what I was thinking the
Speaker 1: whole time. You know, I gotta try this. I love
Speaker 1: that in two weeks. Let's let's let's let's try that's
Speaker 1: something cool. And and also Stevie wonders a parent competitiveness
Speaker 1: with with Ray Parker and trying to that on the
Speaker 1: Shaka Khan thing and all that um and then uh
Speaker 1: that fugilism skills as well, and that Barry White didn't
Speaker 1: like over dubs and then he was he was doing
Speaker 1: all that. No, but in general, we're choosing people here
Speaker 1: that seemed to know everybody, who have seemed to have
Speaker 1: done everything, and it's like it's just so much data
Speaker 1: going and you know, we need to choose somebody who
Speaker 1: just did like a one hit wonder. So what did
Speaker 1: you learn besides the fact that you might possibly I
Speaker 1: want Ray Parker Junior to be your your baby dead,
Speaker 1: just at least the soundtrack to you know Me and
Speaker 1: My Baby. You know what I learned, and I learned
Speaker 1: this every week on this show. Excuse me, not jokes,
Speaker 1: but I learned that you gotta pay attention. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because You'll made the joke about having a one
Speaker 1: hit Wonder on the show, and I'm like, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people listening might think that Ray Parker,
Speaker 1: well the one hit one there. So it just goes
Speaker 1: to show that you and not to plug our own show,
Speaker 1: but you need to pay attention to the quest love
Speaker 1: Supreme because you will find out some ship that you
Speaker 1: never knew. And then I think at the same time,
Speaker 1: you should have your phone open on Google and discogs
Speaker 1: or whatever else you need to do so that you
Speaker 1: can be, you know, more musically educated person. Bill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's up? What did I learn? Um? I learned that
Speaker 1: it's a good idea to maintain relationships because you will
Speaker 1: never know when you will need certain people again. Any
Speaker 1: other last words, Boss Bill? Um, Like, as far as
Speaker 1: the relationships maintained relationships, Um, Ray Parker Jr. Still want
Speaker 1: the coolest dudes on the planet still talks, right, Think
Speaker 1: Drake's going to be that cool when he's there. I
Speaker 1: just realized we forgot to ask him Ray Parker what
Speaker 1: it was like to uh to be Land up Col'
Speaker 1: seeing st Good night, ladies and gentlemen. There's another episode
Speaker 1: of Question Love Supreme. Boss Bill tune in next week.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Land, ok, it wasn't think. That wasn't him,
Speaker 1: I was Sugar Steve. I'm Bill Prote Edit Scott Wait
Speaker 1: what Scott Spurn? What this is a quest love? Come
Speaker 1: next week again at one pm Eastern Standard time am
Speaker 1: Specific Standard time, and uh we hope you still are
Speaker 1: listening to this quest Love Supre? Thank you. What's Love
Speaker 1: Supreme is production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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