Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. All right,
Speaker 1: let me know when you guys are done, write your verses.
Speaker 1: Writing just off the top. For me, the best part
Speaker 1: of the show is the pre rold panic of the theme.
Speaker 1: It's a little I'll point to you when it's your turn.
Speaker 2: See, I know everything you say about to say.
Speaker 3: No, it's just that's that frequency is a little daring, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do it as pressure.
Speaker 1: Let's go mm hm. When three people are done, is
Speaker 1: had three four head time. Let's go kids, Let's go Dad.
Speaker 4: Suprema so Supremo role called Supremo Supremo roll.
Speaker 1: As I sit here, yeah, singing in this gym. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember a time the roots were almost on PolyGram.
Speaker 4: So Suprema roll called Supremo so so Supremo role.
Speaker 5: My name is Fante.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I'm not alone because I'm with my peoples
Speaker 6: in the comfort zone.
Speaker 4: Supremo roll call Suprema Supremo role.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like this setting. Yeah, but it's not as nice
Speaker 3: yeah as Klie's wedding.
Speaker 4: Supremo So Supremo roll.
Speaker 8: I'm unpaid bill, Yeah, I can't complain. Yeah, it's time
Speaker 8: for stories about purple ring.
Speaker 7: Whoa call.
Speaker 4: Supremo roll call Supremo Supremo roll.
Speaker 2: Like year, Yeah, exes here so much to say. Yeah,
Speaker 2: won't get in the rear.
Speaker 6: I didn't sup.
Speaker 7: Last name, first name is. How'd y'all get me? Yeah,
Speaker 7: come out of bed?
Speaker 4: Supremo roll call Supremo Supremo. Roll call Supremo Supremo, Roll
Speaker 4: call Supremo.
Speaker 1: Supremo roll call. Wow, that was interesting choice of versus
Speaker 1: you guys. We did good did Yeah? It was that
Speaker 1: was rather amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, shout out dj Khalil for making this happen, man,
Speaker 6: big shots.
Speaker 1: DJKJ made this happen.
Speaker 7: Okay, shots, that's FM.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, Okay, we are still live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: How is it going kids?
Speaker 7: Great is always dead?
Speaker 1: Okay? What was the highlight of your night?
Speaker 8: So nope, you can only tell a great story one
Speaker 8: time from watching you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wait a minute. That was a national commercial. Yeah
Speaker 1: oh yeah. They kind of presented in a local ways.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just a Tri state area.
Speaker 2: It's like, don't be a dragon lady. Wait, what's that
Speaker 2: non smoking? Don't be a dragon lady?
Speaker 1: Come on, that's a local Joe.
Speaker 5: We didn't have that one smoking.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, see I thought I thought that was just
Speaker 1: a Philly New York that was everywhere. That one in
Speaker 1: the in the Friday Eggs, that one all right. So
Speaker 1: of course if you're not familiar, this is Quest Love Supreme,
Speaker 1: the award winning Quest Love Supreme. We won so many
Speaker 1: awards before. I don't know the other words that we
Speaker 1: just all love.
Speaker 3: We swept at the Schmuckies this year.
Speaker 1: I see, how's it going on? Tigelow Ah going, good Man,
Speaker 1: I'm making it. I guess by the time this comes
Speaker 1: on the festival.
Speaker 6: And Darren, I think hopefully to be over it by
Speaker 6: the time this ship come out.
Speaker 5: But nahunked over seventh. We did it and it was great.
Speaker 1: Nice Steve jazz World, how's he treating you?
Speaker 3: Everything's good. We got the album you did with David
Speaker 3: Murray that's available now. It's streaming and you know people
Speaker 3: are gonna vote for it for the Grammys and everything.
Speaker 1: You know. I was just I was just having a
Speaker 1: conversation with a recent Quest Love Supreme guest on the show,
Speaker 1: and he suggested, hey, well we do a project together
Speaker 1: so that in Hath Newman, yes her like not too long.
Speaker 1: Faith Newman yes, at the NS birthday party, got down.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Pano wants to make something happen Cappin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, speaking of making it happen, Cavin, when we're
Speaker 1: we supposed to make something happen with Bob James.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, that got pushed ponned. Sorry, okay, but I love.
Speaker 2: A Quest Love Supreme collaboration a lot throughout the years.
Speaker 1: What's making happen?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, doctor Sesame Street.
Speaker 8: I listened to the David Murray Quest Love record and
Speaker 8: it is awesome.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, it's really good. I'm still discovering stuff. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of samples on its really you just isolate,
Speaker 1: very angry. That could be like the next twelve roots
Speaker 1: albums right there. Yeah, it's incorrect. Four platters, Yes, it's
Speaker 1: called plumb. What was your logic? I wanted to call
Speaker 1: it three Pleadians walk into a Bar, but of course
Speaker 1: you did. We did include that, right. One was called
Speaker 1: I got the name one song, but you know it's Steve.
Speaker 1: So what's our next project called peach? Okay? And what
Speaker 1: would that be?
Speaker 3: Hopefully Belile you Ray and Doyle Bramhall.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that, Okay, I'm with that.
Speaker 3: Oh and Elaina Pinder hughes on flute.
Speaker 1: Okay, like a quintet. That's what's up? Okay, Peach, I
Speaker 1: got it. How's how's life?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: Listen? It's good also for really like putting in the
Speaker 1: hard work and organizing these Uh. She's sort of our
Speaker 1: person that targets the guests that come on the show.
Speaker 2: Booker out of the.
Speaker 1: Booker that level. I just feel like, I feel like
Speaker 1: you run this ship.
Speaker 2: That's nice me yes me okay.
Speaker 1: Flowers, yeahs.
Speaker 2: You know we love you.
Speaker 1: Take this love. Thank you anyway, ladies and gentlemen. I
Speaker 1: will say that after are awesome Lisa Cortez episode of
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme in which we kind of went through
Speaker 1: the story of the close Butano Cigar outcome of where
Speaker 1: the roots were going to land as far as their
Speaker 1: major label was concerned. If you don't remember, we have been,
Speaker 1: you know, spending all of nineteen ninety three, thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: having showcases and whatnot. The very first label that we
Speaker 1: wanted to sign to, of course, Mercury PolyGram, and we
Speaker 1: were really excited. They took us out to dinner. We
Speaker 1: went to like a Black Sheep Legion video set. It
Speaker 1: was all exciting, and then because of a technicality, we
Speaker 1: wound up on another label. So I kinda see this
Speaker 1: as like an alternative universe. Yeah, yeah, like that movie
Speaker 1: Other Earth. This is an alternative universe in which I
Speaker 1: am talking to the former president of the label that
Speaker 1: I never got to sign to. But not that I
Speaker 1: mean as former president of Mercury, Hollo Graham. But he's
Speaker 1: also been a senior executive and also a producer, executive
Speaker 1: producer and a music producer for a lot of the
Speaker 1: music that we have grown up listening to still currently
Speaker 1: listen to. Name it, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, bon Jovi, Kiss,
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston, Quinny g Brian McKnight, Tony Tony Tony very
Speaker 1: happy about that reunion. By the way, did you see
Speaker 1: the North Carolina show? No?
Speaker 5: I didn't see that.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I thought their first they did a test
Speaker 1: show in North Carolina.
Speaker 6: I know there was in October first, which today is not.
Speaker 1: Oh, I get it, but you don't know that in
Speaker 1: September they did a secret show in North Carolina, Right,
Speaker 1: yeah they did. But the only thing about like towards
Speaker 1: when they start, if you don't see the first three shows,
Speaker 1: is all but guarantee that they're going to shop the
Speaker 1: songs in half once they find a rhythm. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: So I saw the set list of what their show
Speaker 1: was and it's way past the roots in ll It's
Speaker 1: like it's damn near three hours, like it's a.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 1: They start with all the classic filler. Then they go
Speaker 1: into Raphael's songs that he wrote for other people. Oh ship,
Speaker 1: because so he's doing cozy, He's doing what covied Covin
Speaker 1: and cozy.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry as a as a word player, getting my
Speaker 9: sea words mixed these things. Beyonce thing, well, she's she's
Speaker 9: too omni president Like Beyonce is like.
Speaker 1: A air and water. It's like hard to resist. And
Speaker 1: then they go into the solo stuff and then they
Speaker 1: end with the hits. So but of course, you know,
Speaker 1: management stuff's like, uh, can y'all just turn this into
Speaker 1: a two hour sho because your audience is like whatever?
Speaker 1: But anyway, so much with the Tony's Yes, our guest today,
Speaker 1: I pray has a lot of stories about his journey
Speaker 1: in this music business that we love. Please welcome to
Speaker 1: usself Supreme, the one and only Ed Eckstein. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 7: Thank you pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5: Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: Man, it's a long clap. We got away for forty
Speaker 1: seconds clapping. How much for that?
Speaker 2: I guess that. Listen to the show too, How.
Speaker 1: Are you to day? You listen to the show?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I do. I listened when I walk in the morning.
Speaker 1: Wow, that roll call then shot right off the damn
Speaker 1: we knew the jazz. Guys. Gotta I get the feeling
Speaker 1: you've been telling you about, Like we got you out
Speaker 1: of bed this morning. What what is your morning routine?
Speaker 1: What do you do? I like to know what executives
Speaker 1: and creatives do for the first half hour of the morning.
Speaker 1: What's your morning routine?
Speaker 7: I get up, I do a meditation and a prayer,
Speaker 7: and they go for a walk. I try to walk,
Speaker 7: you know, close to ten thousand steps for really more
Speaker 7: like five.
Speaker 1: Right. Hey, I'm with you.
Speaker 7: And I come home, you know, have my breakfast, chill
Speaker 7: with my wife and my son. Okay, you know, just
Speaker 7: get on and get on the computer, you know, do
Speaker 7: my thing.
Speaker 5: I was your son.
Speaker 7: He's twenty two, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what's your method for meditation? You know we're
Speaker 2: into that here. What's that about?
Speaker 7: Just close my eyes and you think about, you know,
Speaker 7: what I can do to better my life and be
Speaker 7: better for the for the world is collective that day,
Speaker 7: you know. Just so Yeah, just positivity. Try to be
Speaker 7: as positive as possible.
Speaker 1: You said something, and now now I want to get there.
Speaker 1: Everyone reveal your steps right now? What's on your phone?
Speaker 1: Your steps? Do you know how to look at your steps?
Speaker 7: I went to the Gyn's money. I'm gonna win.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is it? You go first?
Speaker 8: Eight three hundred and six.
Speaker 1: I hate you right now? That's mine. I told you
Speaker 1: on a good day. That's why I hope they get
Speaker 1: to like me. Getting above five thousand is my goal
Speaker 1: right now. I'm nine eighteen.
Speaker 8: That's not gonna that's I'm a lazy.
Speaker 1: That's like sometimes in my in my hotel, all the way,
Speaker 1: I'll walk twice. Hope I get it up to one thousand.
Speaker 1: What's your step, Steve?
Speaker 3: It says six in and out burgers, eighteen cigarettes.
Speaker 5: I'm at five hundred and forty four steps.
Speaker 2: I'm a twenty six seventy two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's try to get it up to five thousand.
Speaker 1: At least that will help us.
Speaker 2: Okay, were you did you say? Yours?
Speaker 1: I sit nine hundred and eighteen, I slept late.
Speaker 2: And use we just gonna do it.
Speaker 1: We just gonna do that. But you know, I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do at least ten thousand, you know, So, like
Speaker 1: I know for you, and it's rare to meet executives.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes I'll meet executives that are more about saving their
Speaker 1: jobs and submitting their legacy, and they don't really seem
Speaker 1: to be passionate about music or music fans. But I
Speaker 1: definitely know that you are a passionate You love music
Speaker 1: more than.
Speaker 7: Anything in the blood.
Speaker 1: It's almost weird to me. Do you do you find
Speaker 1: that as well? Like that executives aren't are mostly there
Speaker 1: to cross teas and dot ies and really not.
Speaker 7: Not all, but a significant portion. Yeah, during my period
Speaker 7: when I was active in it, there was certainly there
Speaker 7: were music guys in there. In the Wall Street takeover happened,
Speaker 7: and it became, you know, sort of an element of
Speaker 7: give me twelve pounds of music to go. You know,
Speaker 7: nobody's really listening to it.
Speaker 1: You know, in my head, I kind of hold like
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven as kind of the Mason Dixon line
Speaker 1: of where hip hop, you know, suddenly realized it's it's
Speaker 1: earning power, and then suddenly it became big business, right
Speaker 1: as opposed to whatever me living in the delusional state
Speaker 1: of Hey, people love music for music and it's an
Speaker 1: artful and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 10: Good luck with that, right well, I know, right, But
Speaker 10: for you on the executive side of things, was there
Speaker 10: a glory period and then was there the Mason Dixon
Speaker 10: line period of like what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 7: From the executive side, what got frustrating was in those
Speaker 7: days it was still terrestrial radio largely. That was the
Speaker 7: master that we had to honor. You know, there were
Speaker 7: so many situations where there were acts that you loved etad.
Speaker 7: You know, I'd love to try and go get after
Speaker 7: this and break it, but you knew that radio wasn't
Speaker 7: going to play it, and it was you had limited
Speaker 7: resources of what you could spend to make things happen,
Speaker 7: and so to a certain extent, I found myself in
Speaker 7: the position of chasing things that you thought were somewhat safer.
Speaker 7: But you know, not that my instincts may have gone
Speaker 7: in one direction, but the realities of the marketplace, and
Speaker 7: after all, I'm running a business, you know, is another.
Speaker 1: So all right, I need a five second moment of
Speaker 1: reflection right now, because instantly I'm regretting the decision I made.
Speaker 1: I'm literally sitting here like, wait a minute, if this
Speaker 1: person was at the top of the pyramid, how would
Speaker 1: of my life had turned out. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this particular tortoise in the hair journey it is for
Speaker 1: everybody and it's not. It was a long, hard thirty
Speaker 1: years in getting here, and I'm glad I'm here. So yes,
Speaker 1: I will say that I don't regret anything, but I
Speaker 1: will say that of anyone that I had dealt with
Speaker 1: in music, to even hear you speak on that level,
Speaker 1: in my head, I'm already like, damn, where's that person
Speaker 1: when I needed them in my career? Because we the
Speaker 1: reason why I'm here is because we had to fit
Speaker 1: for ourselves. People were just like, I don't know, figured
Speaker 1: it out for yourself, So we had to figure it
Speaker 1: out for ourselves. And so yeah, I'm having a moment
Speaker 1: of Oh, I wonder what happened to have we chose well?
Speaker 2: Who knows ed you might he might have been a
Speaker 2: different end in those days too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I'm gonna ask, were you the same
Speaker 1: ad now that you were thirty years ago.
Speaker 7: Well in some ways yes, but no. But as far
Speaker 7: as you guys were concerned, because I remember vividly Kenya
Speaker 7: I bet you do. Ken YadA Bell was the an
Speaker 7: R guy who was who was actually working for us,
Speaker 7: who who first identified you guys was excited about. He
Speaker 7: worked for Lisa Cortez, so he and Lisa came in
Speaker 7: and said, we're really interested in this band. They said
Speaker 7: the magic words banned to me because when I signed
Speaker 7: the Tonys was at a period when there was a
Speaker 7: lull in black bands, and I come up from that era,
Speaker 7: and I always viewed the Tonys as the last of
Speaker 7: the Mohicans on the R and B band level, but
Speaker 7: of the hip hop generation. I remember vividly seeing them
Speaker 7: play a performance at the Palladium one night in New York,
Speaker 7: and they were killing that night on stage and the
Speaker 7: audience was just dumbfounded, staring into space. And I was
Speaker 7: there with the late great Gary Harris, who was working
Speaker 7: for me at that time, and Gary and I say exactly,
Speaker 7: and Gary and I are saying, I'm look at him, said, gee,
Speaker 7: what's up man? How come nobody's reacting to him? They're
Speaker 7: killing up her? He says, you got to understand some man.
Speaker 7: He said, most of the kids in this audience have
Speaker 7: never seen kids their own age playing a musical instrument.
Speaker 7: I was like, wow, really, and so that that was
Speaker 7: the reality of it. So when I heard about you guys,
Speaker 7: you know, the combination of you know, Tarik and a band,
Speaker 7: I said, this is interesting to me. I always remember
Speaker 7: that the showcase was the coldest hell night in SI
Speaker 7: studios myself half to death. I had a clause in
Speaker 7: my contract in those days, because I'm from LA that
Speaker 7: if it got to single digits in New York I
Speaker 7: could I would turn around and go home. I mean,
Speaker 7: and if I was walking through time times square, the
Speaker 7: time and temperature, you know of the sign of the world,
Speaker 7: if I looked up and there was you know, three
Speaker 7: point fifty two eight degrees, I'd walk back to my office, say,
Speaker 7: Chris booked me, I'm going home. And I think that
Speaker 7: night was one of those nights, you know, at least
Speaker 7: it got me to stick around to see the band. Thanks. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it's cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks brilliant though, that's brilliant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know to put that in there, like that's
Speaker 2: so interesting, Like did somebody else tell you once and
Speaker 2: you know, and when you do a new contract.
Speaker 7: No, because i'd worked, I'd spent enough time back he's
Speaker 7: because I went to high school back he's and I
Speaker 7: was working for Arista when I was at Ariston and
Speaker 7: I didn't have that. Clive wasn't playing that.
Speaker 1: I knew other name at x sign. Of course, when
Speaker 1: you read credits, I saw your name on like Vanessa
Speaker 1: Williams's projects and the Tony's and whatnot. But what was
Speaker 1: the road that led to your president? Like how long
Speaker 1: did it take from the moment you entered the mailroom
Speaker 1: to presidency? How long was that?
Speaker 7: I started at PolyGram in nineteen eighty seven. Dick Asher
Speaker 7: was the president of PolyGram in those days, and he
Speaker 7: because PolyGram, just for a little inside baseball, was a
Speaker 7: Dutch owned Phillips Dutch owned company based in based in Hilversom, Holland,
Speaker 7: with a with a European base in London, headquarters in
Speaker 7: New York, with satellite offices in Nashville and Los Angeles,
Speaker 7: but the creative centers were largely London in New York,
Speaker 7: so let's just extended Los Angeles. In those days, poly
Speaker 7: Phonogram UK would sign acts exclusively for UK and America
Speaker 7: wouldn't have the rights to the Dire Straits was one
Speaker 7: of those bands. Metallica was a banned like that. They
Speaker 7: weren't signed to PolyGram for the world. And so when
Speaker 7: a guy called Dick Asher took over, who would run
Speaker 7: a CBS role When when Dick took over PolyGram, part
Speaker 7: of the edict was to sign things for the world.
Speaker 7: So and they want up their presence as a West
Speaker 7: Coast creative center. So there was a head of A
Speaker 7: and R at PolyGram at the time. A guy called
Speaker 7: Dick wynd Gate shout out to Dick Richards, Yeah and
Speaker 7: uh so. Asher apparently had had a thing in his
Speaker 7: mind of who he was going to hire for this
Speaker 7: West Coast situation. But wing Gate and some of the
Speaker 7: A and R guys in the New York office felt
Speaker 7: he was going old, they want somebody younger.
Speaker 1: And I was going to ask you, is he well liked?
Speaker 1: Who only know the name Dick Asher? Because if you're
Speaker 1: a fan of liner notes, uh I believe on fear
Speaker 1: of Black Planet, Public Enemy wrote and fuck Dick Asher.
Speaker 1: We got Bill Stephanie watching our backs and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Dick was cool? Or he was
Speaker 1: just an executive.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Dick was cool. It was great to me once again,
Speaker 7: sidebar story that I was having a conversation with my
Speaker 7: pops at one point after PolyGram had offered me the deal.
Speaker 7: You made me an offer, made me my offer, and
Speaker 7: I said, well, tell me, baby, tell me about the deal.
Speaker 7: I told him ran the deal down to him. And
Speaker 7: when he sat in digest its, damn, sounds like you
Speaker 7: found old fashioned nigga lover. So those are kind of
Speaker 7: hard to find these days.
Speaker 1: Dick was great to me.
Speaker 7: Dick was absolutely wonderful, you know, and afford to be
Speaker 7: a great opportunity there.
Speaker 1: I see. All right, So what where were you born?
Speaker 7: Born here in l A all right, Saint John's Hospital,
Speaker 7: Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: Do you remember your very first musical memory?
Speaker 7: I do?
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 1: Being?
Speaker 7: My parents were having a party. We were living I
Speaker 7: was born in Santa Monica. We were living in Hollywood.
Speaker 7: My parents were having a party. I was apparently like
Speaker 7: two or three years old. They were having a party
Speaker 7: in the house, and a whole bunch of bird was there.
Speaker 7: Billie Holiday and different people are at the crib, and uh,
Speaker 7: this is all going on on the house.
Speaker 1: You know, wait, you were in this lifetime when Charlie Bird.
Speaker 7: Parker was was a life.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and you've seen or you've been in the presidence
Speaker 9: of Billie Holliday once is basically, but the story is
Speaker 9: even if you were too.
Speaker 7: My memory is because we had a two story house
Speaker 7: and the second floor, I somehow crawled out of my
Speaker 7: bed and there was you know, the second story and
Speaker 7: the you know, the things that hold them, and I
Speaker 7: was looking down at the party. My parents said they
Speaker 7: looked up and they could feel a presence, and all
Speaker 7: of a sudden they looked up and there was my
Speaker 7: little face looking down at everybody.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: I was attracted to the music and the noise and
Speaker 7: the cacophony.
Speaker 1: And Billie Holliday. All right, I mean more stories of
Speaker 1: your life, like give me a version of your childhood
Speaker 1: in which you don't know that God's in the room
Speaker 1: with you. Like, Oh, my parents once told me that
Speaker 1: whatever I went to the school with Jackie Jackson. Well
Speaker 1: that's a bad example. But you get.
Speaker 7: The best way I could answer that is just my
Speaker 7: dad was an avid golfer because he was on the
Speaker 7: road all the time, and when he'd come home from
Speaker 7: the road, he played golf a lot. And one of
Speaker 7: the things that was always fun was we'd come home
Speaker 7: from school, you know, because in our house you had
Speaker 7: like a little bar sort of speakeasy area where he
Speaker 7: used to chill after he played golf, and he never
Speaker 7: knew when we come home was going to be in
Speaker 7: the crib with him. We played golf with that day,
Speaker 7: had days where he'd come home and he was there
Speaker 7: with Smokey or there with Marvin Gaye, or there with
Speaker 7: Sean Connery.
Speaker 1: This is when he was on Motown, right.
Speaker 7: I know he signed in the mid sixties. Cool, but yeah,
Speaker 7: this is this is mid sixties stuff. I'm like twelve
Speaker 7: thirteen years old at that point. So just little things
Speaker 7: like that. The other aspects of it, there were there
Speaker 7: were moments because the whole Billy ecksteinness of it all
Speaker 7: was he was just Pops. But you know the fact
Speaker 7: that you know, people, my friend, my kid's parents reacted
Speaker 7: more to him than you know, anything else, you know.
Speaker 7: And one of things that Pop's always tried to do
Speaker 7: to my brothers and I for my brothers and I
Speaker 7: was demystify the business but also sort of put a
Speaker 7: vibe on it to make us understand that although people
Speaker 7: kind of went buck wild when when he was around,
Speaker 7: that we had to realize that he was no better
Speaker 7: or no worse than anybody else than the people across
Speaker 7: the street who had you know, regular quote unquote regular jobs.
Speaker 7: His just happened to be in lights and people got
Speaker 7: excited about it. So that was really that was sort
Speaker 7: of a God moment in its own way of just
Speaker 7: you know that how life was. You know, Pops is
Speaker 7: just you know, Pops. So many brothers and you have
Speaker 7: there's seven of us.
Speaker 1: Where do you fall?
Speaker 7: I fall in the middle. It's five boys, two girls,
Speaker 7: two older three older brothers, two of whom are deceased now,
Speaker 7: and then then me and then my little brother and
Speaker 7: two younger sisters.
Speaker 5: Any of all those siblings they go into music anyway.
Speaker 7: Well, my brother guys a producer and a manager, and
Speaker 7: and my youngest sister, our youngest sister, Gene is a singer.
Speaker 1: As as a child or as a teen. Would other
Speaker 1: adults annoy you if they start singing to you like
Speaker 1: Moody's mood or anything like that, your dad is really.
Speaker 7: Sort of get to us, was you know, collective because
Speaker 7: he was on the road so much, you know, And
Speaker 7: the only time we really talked to him was on
Speaker 7: the road was on Sunday nights. You know, hear from him.
Speaker 7: You know, Dad, I hit a home run on Tuesday
Speaker 7: byh blah blah, you're that kind of shit. So when
Speaker 7: he was home, there were very valuable, cherished moments. If
Speaker 7: we went out to dinner as a family, invariably there's
Speaker 7: somebody to come. Ah, mister b I saw you in Moleen,
Speaker 7: Illinois in nineteen fifty one, you know, and we're trying
Speaker 7: to talk to Pops. And you know, we were sort
Speaker 7: of taught slash trained that, you know that the fans
Speaker 7: are the lifeblood of you know, of us having the
Speaker 7: ability to live the lives that we live. So just
Speaker 7: kind of smile your way through it, you know, be polite,
Speaker 7: be nice, and Pops would handle it from there. And
Speaker 7: if you if they stayed a little too long to say,
Speaker 7: hey baby, I'm trying to have dinner with my family here,
Speaker 7: you know, and then if they stayed long, said get
Speaker 7: the fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: You know, I was I was going to issue a
Speaker 1: mandate like none of you do there, I go reference.
Speaker 3: So any what if you got us to do it,
Speaker 3: then we'd do it where you'd want us to do
Speaker 3: it so much deductive.
Speaker 2: Did you have peers in that way though, is as
Speaker 2: you were part of this kind of music musical family.
Speaker 2: Did you have other kids that kind of felt the
Speaker 2: pains that you were going to through because their parents
Speaker 2: weren't one tour.
Speaker 7: And ish But we're I grew up in Sino, California,
Speaker 7: So we're the only black family there till the Jackson.
Speaker 1: There are people, and the Jackson's got.
Speaker 2: There, Okay, So y'all were there first, right because he's
Speaker 2: your dad.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so any of the Sino at that point,
Speaker 7: it's it still is. In the San Fernando Valley in
Speaker 7: Cina was basically two lane dirt road with orange groves
Speaker 7: and a lot of almond trees and shit, and then
Speaker 7: somewhere in the late late fifties became a bit of
Speaker 7: a go West young Man syndrome. A lot of folks
Speaker 7: moving out to the hills there and a significant port
Speaker 7: because with the expanse of the film and TV business
Speaker 7: out here, and a lot of the folks that moved
Speaker 7: to that part of the valley were business people, largely
Speaker 7: Jewish from New York, from other parts of the country,
Speaker 7: and certain parts of the city here were redlined that
Speaker 7: you know, certain Jews and Blacks couldn't live in certain areas.
Speaker 7: So the valley became the area of development, you know,
Speaker 7: of of principal development, and the line of demarcation in
Speaker 7: the San Fernanda Valley is in tro Boulevard. And a
Speaker 7: lot of the kids I grew up with were, you know,
Speaker 7: Mo Austin's kids, Eddie Rosenblatt kids, different shiz show biz kids,
Speaker 7: you know, making movies of the selves as Steely Dan said, right,
Speaker 7: and don't give a fuck about nobody else.
Speaker 2: So so they were your peers, but they really weren't
Speaker 2: your pee.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there were peers, and since their parents weren't performers.
Speaker 7: But you know, there were some my older brothers, like
Speaker 7: my second and third my second oldest brother went to
Speaker 7: high school with Sally Field and uh and cheer. So yeah,
Speaker 7: she went to school. Had had a moment about this
Speaker 7: was called fifteen years ago. It was during the the
Speaker 7: Kobe shack Laker years. It was one of the playoffs
Speaker 7: championship games. Sally Field happened to be standing in front
Speaker 7: of me at that game and in the stand since
Speaker 7: I tapped her on the shoulder and said, she said hello,
Speaker 7: and said you went to high school with my brothers,
Speaker 7: and she kind of looked gave me a quizzical look
Speaker 7: of like, you know, to the sun Town. I was like,
Speaker 7: wait a minute, no, none of you motherfuckers said right.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh my god, you're kid.
Speaker 7: And Ron's brother.
Speaker 1: Instantly new so well, actually, I asked, okay. I asked
Speaker 1: the Jacksons the same question, but now that I know
Speaker 1: that you were there first, First of all, were you
Speaker 1: aware of the situation that you were placed in? I
Speaker 1: asked them what is it to be? Because I, you know,
Speaker 1: I always considered the Jacksons the first post civil rights result,
Speaker 1: like all that that between you know, reconstruction, slavery and
Speaker 1: civil rights, and then you get to this point post
Speaker 1: sixty eight, where the idea of freedom or the idea
Speaker 1: of pursuit of happiness whatever, and the Jacksons sort of
Speaker 1: took that. And I asked him, like, what was it
Speaker 1: like navigating in those first five years in Encino in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles? You know, I've seen the photos. You guys
Speaker 1: have roles, voices and fancy cars, see and roaster and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And Marlon was like yeah, and no,
Speaker 1: routinely got stopped by cops and all and stuff. So
Speaker 1: were you aware that was like proceed with caution or was.
Speaker 7: It like yeah, very aware, partially because how we were raised.
Speaker 7: You know, my dad was very active in the civil
Speaker 7: rights movement, and the conversation around the dinner table or
Speaker 7: all meals actually was either showbiz or the civil rights
Speaker 7: move because civil rights movement played out on TV every
Speaker 7: night on Walter Cronkite and stuff like that, and Pops
Speaker 7: was was close with Doctor King's close with Malcolm. So
Speaker 7: as a result, we were very aware of who we
Speaker 7: were and what was up, you know, my parents pretty much.
Speaker 7: That was one of the things they hammered home to us.
Speaker 7: You know, don't for one minute start thinking you're white
Speaker 7: open here. You know, it's this is the reality of
Speaker 7: your existence, you know.
Speaker 2: Which you must have confused people a little bit visually
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 7: And I realized that some of that too was you know,
Speaker 7: because there's a certain amount of ethnic ambiguity, you know,
Speaker 7: inherent to uh, to the suntan right and then you know,
Speaker 7: and and the hair at the time and uh and
Speaker 7: as a result, you know, there's but there was always
Speaker 7: a kid every year in school they want stepped to
Speaker 7: one of my brothers and nigger, you know, you pop
Speaker 7: somebody in the face and then uh, and then you
Speaker 7: get sent to the principal's office. And then they said, well,
Speaker 7: we're gonna call your parents. And you didn't want my
Speaker 7: mom coming down. You know, Mom was straight out of Georgia,
Speaker 7: Thomas and Georgia. She wouldn't have it. So she was like,
Speaker 7: you know, if they don't hit those people, if they
Speaker 7: don't punch them, you know, when they get home, they's
Speaker 7: go be their ass. That was that was that was
Speaker 7: our reality. But yeah, the Jackson's period was was cool
Speaker 7: because I that's when I first met them and John McClain.
Speaker 7: During that period of time, I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 7: I went to a boarding school in western Pennsylvania, a
Speaker 7: place called the Kisski School outside of Pittsburgh. Actually, Jake,
Speaker 7: your your producer, went to one of rival schools. So
Speaker 7: I was at the school Pennsylvania and one of my
Speaker 7: really close friends here was was screwing up in school
Speaker 7: here and he got sent to a private school, private
Speaker 7: day school here in town, which was where Motown sent
Speaker 7: to Jackson's once they could no longer go to public
Speaker 7: school here, a place called the Walton School. So when
Speaker 7: I come home on vacations, our vacations were out of
Speaker 7: sink with my friends vacations here. So ostensibly my days
Speaker 7: would end up being spend either hanging out with my
Speaker 7: mom because Pops was on the road, hanging out mom
Speaker 7: going doing what mom was gonna do, or sit at
Speaker 7: home and just listening to records all day, which I
Speaker 7: did a fair share of that, and play my guitar.
Speaker 7: But my buddy was like, Doude, once you come to
Speaker 7: the come down to my school and hang out with us.
Speaker 7: Jackson's are here, blah blah blah blah blah. All the
Speaker 7: honeys are on the Jackson's hard And I was in
Speaker 7: an all boys school, so I mean I'm in. So
Speaker 7: I started going to show up to show up on
Speaker 7: the campus. Yeah, we did, and play ball and we
Speaker 7: played ball all day and that's where I met met
Speaker 7: those guys. And Mike was Mike was little, you know,
Speaker 7: chasing insects and rats around.
Speaker 1: Right, sounds about right, It sounds about right. What was
Speaker 1: your Do you remember the first album you ever purchased.
Speaker 7: First album I ever purchased was Meet the Beatles. First
Speaker 7: single ever, which was My Girl.
Speaker 3: Where's the family record collection?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Where is the family record collection?
Speaker 7: I had? I sold my vinyl about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 7: I had, you know, fifteen thousand pieces sold all.
Speaker 1: Okay on behalf of on pay bill.
Speaker 7: Yeah, long story, long story, but yeah, I sold it
Speaker 7: and then h mom and Dad's collection. I still have
Speaker 7: a bunch of it, you know, but they had a
Speaker 7: fair share, not a lot. Some of this guy sold.
Speaker 7: I got a great story that we had a lady
Speaker 7: who was a housekeeper for us in the late fifties
Speaker 7: when Ray Charles was blown up with all the Atlantic records,
Speaker 7: and Mom and pops loved those records, so they had
Speaker 7: all the Ray Charles album you know, the early Ray
Speaker 7: Charles records. They came home from tour at one point,
Speaker 7: went to get to put their Ray Charles joints on.
Speaker 7: They weren't there, and they're like, where's the records in
Speaker 7: this one housekeeper, lady Gussie Gussie Gussie, you know, pinched
Speaker 7: the records. So she she she left, and Mom and
Speaker 7: Dad told us, look, all's forgiven, just bring the records back,
Speaker 7: you know, you gotta have your job back. No, she
Speaker 7: didn't want the job back. She kept the fucking records.
Speaker 2: Of her family right.
Speaker 1: Now, Now I got to check my collection. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, when you sell a record collection, that means
Speaker 1: you're really that music is in the rear view mirror. Well,
Speaker 1: I ever, I just digitized everything.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 1: Love you know, I need tangible proof, tactile thing I did.
Speaker 3: Something in the end of Man is judged by his
Speaker 3: record collection pretty much.
Speaker 1: People come in my house, That's the first thing they do.
Speaker 1: They like, what are you listening to? That sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, look at stuff.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I was known for it because when I used
Speaker 7: to go to go to Kiski schools called Kiski. When
Speaker 7: I kis come up with the holidays, I always have
Speaker 7: three or four foot lockers filled with vinyl, filled with records.
Speaker 7: They took me so all the kids school do me
Speaker 7: as a record guy?
Speaker 1: You know? Can I ask a little follow?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good question.
Speaker 3: So the first two records you bought, The Beatles and
Speaker 3: My Girl? Yeah, how did those first to purchase shape
Speaker 3: your taste in music and career?
Speaker 7: I was the Beatles on Ed Sullivan kid. You know,
Speaker 7: when I saw the Beatles and Ed Sullivan, I was like,
Speaker 7: I want to play guitar. I wanted to play drums first,
Speaker 7: but moms wouldn't happen it, right, I ain't gonna have
Speaker 7: all that noise over in my house, So so I
Speaker 7: play guitar. And then I got a guitar, you know,
Speaker 7: later that year for my birthday. Don't play well, but
Speaker 7: I collect him pretty well. But my son actually is
Speaker 7: this prolific player, prodigious player. And my girl was just
Speaker 7: because I love the single, you know, the lick and
Speaker 7: all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, And I always tell the story.
Speaker 7: People say, what do you sing? You sing like your dad.
Speaker 7: So I must have been like eleven, and I was
Speaker 7: singing my girl in the show. My dad opened the
Speaker 7: shower to stop singing. Boy closed the shower do and
Speaker 7: walked away. Billy XI tells me not to sing. I'm
Speaker 7: not going to sing.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, that's where the billy he
Speaker 1: ain't really works the prince. So I would assume being
Speaker 1: a young teenager in the late sixties early seventies, uh,
Speaker 1: and being in the position that you're in, you've been
Speaker 1: privy to many a concert experience. Can you give me
Speaker 1: your top three concert going experiences as a kid.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, kid, meaning under twenty one or just whenever.
Speaker 1: All right, well, give me your your what's the first
Speaker 1: concert you went to? That's not your dad, but even then,
Speaker 1: I'm certain that your dad's done festivals and stuff you've seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so you gotta include your dad.
Speaker 7: I want to see Marvin gay at what's now a
Speaker 7: club called Cerroo's with my older brother when he was
Speaker 7: when he was in college. I was like eight or
Speaker 7: nine years old, pre beard Marvin Gaye, Yeah, when he
Speaker 7: still still suits, you know, yeah, stubborn kind of fellow
Speaker 7: mark early.
Speaker 1: Was it just like man?
Speaker 7: Or did you it?
Speaker 1: Because I loved all that shit? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, I loved all And there used to be
Speaker 7: a theater out in the valley in Woodland Hills called
Speaker 7: the Valley Music Theater. It was one of those theaters
Speaker 7: in the round. Valley Music Theater used to do shows.
Speaker 7: And this was before the rock and roll industrial complex,
Speaker 7: as we've come to know it came to puish and
Speaker 7: came to life. And in those days, all this baby
Speaker 7: rock bands were out here making records, but there was
Speaker 7: really they're having hits, but there was nowhere for them
Speaker 7: to play. They weren't touring, so they would do a
Speaker 7: lot of promotion shows for local pop station r KRLA,
Speaker 7: and so Carol A did a show at the Valley
Speaker 7: Music Theater of like the Doors, The Birds, The Buffalo, Springfield,
Speaker 7: three other bands I'm not thinking of right now. I
Speaker 7: remember cutting going out one night, you know, on my bike,
Speaker 7: riding to the gig.
Speaker 1: My parents were work. My dad was on the road.
Speaker 7: Mom was with him going to that gig, and then
Speaker 7: you know down the road, you know once a, you know,
Speaker 7: professionally Stones nineteen seventy three at the Forum.
Speaker 1: Oh se you saw a post exile show.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, absolutely. When they did the tour with the
Speaker 7: Lotus Flower that opened, you know, yeah opened like they
Speaker 7: opened a honky talk woman and Mick was hanging off
Speaker 7: the front front Pedes tour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great. Was Stevie opening for them?
Speaker 7: Maybe Stevie was with Ray Parker and Ali and the band.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and uh Denise Williams do yep, exactly. She
Speaker 1: She gave a lot of debaucherous stories about that.
Speaker 7: And then Bootsy Bootsy at the Forum nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 7: you know, post the year, yeah, post post the Pfunk
Speaker 7: Earth tour, but just Bootsy play the thing, you know
Speaker 7: with uh, you know, with Macio doing the the opening
Speaker 7: High Bootsy, you know, you know, the place, the whole
Speaker 7: forum was just shaken.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. So by the mid seventies or even
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, are you trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what your path or what your goal in life was like?
Speaker 1: And I'm certain everyone asked you, like, and what do
Speaker 1: you want to be when you grew Like, all right,
Speaker 1: so when you were twelve, what did you want to
Speaker 1: be when you grew up?
Speaker 7: I wanted to pitch for the Dodgers. I want to
Speaker 7: be in the Black Sandy Kofax.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, this was up. So when you were in
Speaker 1: tenth grade fifteen sixteen, did that change?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I still wanted me Cofax, but I was mourned
Speaker 7: to me. I was also into music at that point,
Speaker 7: and in those days the Twain hadn't met yet. Where
Speaker 7: you know, basically jocks were jocks, and you know, it
Speaker 7: was very much sort of beer frat shit, you know,
Speaker 7: whereas music was hipper, you know, and the girls were there.
Speaker 7: And so I was like, yeah, I don't know, sports
Speaker 7: things cool, but no, and then it's certain when I
Speaker 7: got to college, it all sort of went up and
Speaker 7: smoked what kind of smoke? Indo smoke.
Speaker 1: Yes, by the time you got out of high school,
Speaker 1: Uh huh, would you say, then, that's when you saw
Speaker 1: your path too. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I knew I pretty much wanted to pursue something in
Speaker 7: the music business because right out of high school I
Speaker 7: did not want to go to college. Immediately. I wanted
Speaker 7: to take the you know, the bridge year as they
Speaker 7: called them in those days. Okay, and my parents weren't
Speaker 7: having that, you know, my parents were immediately what college
Speaker 7: was this Boston University? Oh shit, okay, So my parents
Speaker 7: weren't having it. You know, there was a striver thing
Speaker 7: and all that stuff, and if you go to Europe
Speaker 7: it means you're never coming back to college. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: So my interest was music. You know, I figured, you,
Speaker 7: I love my parents deally, but I want to get
Speaker 7: as far away from them as possible, which is la.
Speaker 7: I went to Boston, and Boston had a very thriving
Speaker 7: music scene in those days. That's it still does, you know,
Speaker 7: significant college population. So I just immersed myself in that.
Speaker 7: It's kept me a live used to walk down the street.
Speaker 7: Aerosmith was a local band. They're playing in front of
Speaker 7: the student union. Jay gilesman Peter Wolf was still on
Speaker 7: the radio in Boston. Giles band was playing.
Speaker 1: You got to witness these people when they were just upstarts.
Speaker 7: To see Aerosmith every freaking day, it seemed, playing on
Speaker 7: Commonwealth Avenue in front of the BU student Union, you know,
Speaker 7: doing the same stick that they did, you know, a
Speaker 7: zillion years later and cut to nineteen seventy three, seventy four.
Speaker 7: I'm here back home in LA I'm driving down the
Speaker 7: freeway and I'm listening to a rock station k Los
Speaker 7: and dream On plays and your dream I have that
Speaker 7: moment where it's they called something Here's why do I
Speaker 7: know that song? I know it's from somewhere. It was
Speaker 7: so out of context. And when when the guy fs,
Speaker 7: oh there are new bad boys from Boston Aerosmith, I
Speaker 7: was like, oh shit, those motherfuckers got.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 1: There have been a few guests on our show. What
Speaker 1: earlier you mentioned a and m exact oh John McClean
Speaker 1: that we always miss so you know, I mean, we've
Speaker 1: had guests on the show, notably Lenny Kravitz telling me
Speaker 1: of a period especially like between seventy five in eighty one,
Speaker 1: eighty two in which kind of black Hollywood, Black young
Speaker 1: Holly would That world was so small that you had
Speaker 1: to know the Carrie Gordy's, the Cravis's, the Medina's, like
Speaker 1: anybody in Apollo. Were you ever sort of associated or
Speaker 1: inducted in that circle? Because everyone seems to have known
Speaker 1: each other. We can never get John McClean on the show.
Speaker 1: And I'm mad as hell.
Speaker 7: I knew people. I knew them, but I didn't hang
Speaker 7: you know, I was in it, but not of it
Speaker 7: because I had my own little sort of world at
Speaker 7: that point, and that was earlier part of seventy five.
Speaker 7: I was already working for Quincy by then. But you know,
Speaker 7: seventy two seventy three period, that's when I first got
Speaker 7: in the game as a writer. That's when I first
Speaker 7: started doing writing for Soul magazine at the time.
Speaker 1: You wrote for Soul.
Speaker 7: That was my first gig.
Speaker 1: Shit, you know how much money I just put down
Speaker 1: for back issues of Soul? That is crazy.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Actually, the way I ended up there was I
Speaker 7: was there was a kid that I grew up with
Speaker 7: in my neighborhood, a guy called David Guest. David lived
Speaker 7: somewhat infamy as the guy was married.
Speaker 1: I somewhat yeah sure and U wait, what don't you
Speaker 1: family and.
Speaker 7: David and I grew up, grew up Ansino together, and uh,
Speaker 7: you know he was he was a record troll too.
Speaker 7: I see David a lot in the music stores. We
Speaker 7: had different pursuits because I was the guitar player. I
Speaker 7: was into guitar, you know, guitar rock stuff. David was
Speaker 7: was into girl groups and ship. So we had this thing,
Speaker 7: you know, mississ and whoever got on first would pull
Speaker 7: the other along. So David was writing for Soul at
Speaker 7: that point, and uh he.
Speaker 1: He wrote for Soul magazine. Yah, well, okay, wait for it.
Speaker 7: So so I used to tag along with him to
Speaker 7: shows and stuff because in those days l A the
Speaker 7: sort of deal here was like Monday nights stuff would
Speaker 7: happen at the Whiskey. Tuesday night was opening is at
Speaker 7: the Troubadour. Wednesdays with the Roxy Roxy was opened. By
Speaker 7: Thursday night would be a total experience down the hood
Speaker 7: and from Friday Friday Saturday, Friday Friday Saturday night would
Speaker 7: be concerts. So I would tag with David and as
Speaker 7: and in those days, the press was treated with a
Speaker 7: certain level of dare I say respect or cater to?
Speaker 7: And so I would, I would, I would. I would
Speaker 7: hang with my man and get in the rooms and
Speaker 7: you know, obviously be in this tall, tall dude, tall
Speaker 7: black dude in the rooms. There weren't a lot of
Speaker 7: us there. So as a result, one of the things
Speaker 7: that happened was I would see the shows with David,
Speaker 7: and David could hardly write his name, let alone write
Speaker 7: a story. And because I'd gone to a school that
Speaker 7: you know, English was you know, put upon us, I
Speaker 7: wrote all his stories. It wasn't like it was exactly
Speaker 7: true joints. I wrote his joints. So one day David
Speaker 7: had gotten hired by London Records to work with Al
Speaker 7: Green for Hot with High and UH, and he went
Speaker 7: into Regina and Regina and the editor at the time,
Speaker 7: he said, I'm leaving. I'm going to do this, blah, David,
Speaker 7: we don't want you to leave. We'll need the stuff
Speaker 7: so much, all that ship, you know, on and on.
Speaker 7: David says, well, you like my stuff so much, meet
Speaker 7: the guy who's been writing it, and and from stage
Speaker 7: left here I come and uh, and they signed me
Speaker 7: something and I wrote a couple you know, I wrote
Speaker 7: I wrote for him for about a year.
Speaker 1: That is crazy. Okay, So you mentioned those clubs and
Speaker 1: this is what I want to know. So my period
Speaker 1: of la obviously, I came after I came in on
Speaker 1: the tail end of whatever the former scene was, where
Speaker 1: like Sunset Boulevard was sort of a safe right, well,
Speaker 1: it was also the Death Road period, So say after
Speaker 1: ninety eight, it was more you know anyway, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to get at. But if you are
Speaker 1: wanting to hang with like where it's hip and your
Speaker 1: people's like, is the Total Experience club the only option
Speaker 1: in town?
Speaker 7: Mavericks Flats another club I've heard of that now, where
Speaker 7: is that at? Right down the street from on crnscheall
Speaker 7: right down the street from where the Total Experience was?
Speaker 1: So it was no thing to hang on Crenshaw in
Speaker 1: the seventies or in the eighties.
Speaker 7: It was well, well, Mavericks and Total Experience. In the eighties,
Speaker 7: maybe the Comedy Act theater. Okay, you know there was
Speaker 7: stuff to do there.
Speaker 1: Comedy Act is where like Robin Harrison.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, that's how I signed up.
Speaker 1: Damn, that's right, you signed Robin Harris. I got that.
Speaker 7: So for you though.
Speaker 1: Were you an open format fan as in, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna see Arrismith one night and the next night, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna see Rufus next night.
Speaker 7: Absolutely country, whatever the case may be. You know, I
Speaker 7: get it.
Speaker 1: Were you at all and see the LA punk scene
Speaker 1: like not much? Not much? So you didn't see like
Speaker 1: bands like X or nothing.
Speaker 7: I did see X, did see Missing Persons, Chili Peppers
Speaker 7: with the Chili Peppers, So.
Speaker 1: We were like those pre skoy Fish bony post punk
Speaker 1: band Where would they.
Speaker 7: Play Madam Wongs Madame Woks was a Chinese restaurant on
Speaker 7: on Wilshire Boulevard, Don Don Brentwood, Borderline, Brentwood, Santa Monica
Speaker 7: and then also there was Madame Wongs downtown. They would
Speaker 7: play there or the star Wood, which was at Los
Speaker 7: Sienega in Santa Monica Boulevard. Isn't that still a or
Speaker 7: of Crescent Heights and Santa Minchael Boulevard. It's not there anymore.
Speaker 7: I think it's been developed into like a mini mall
Speaker 7: or something. But that was a place where Van Halen
Speaker 7: emerged from, and I remember seeing Clinton do the Uncle
Speaker 7: Jam tour there. Uncle Jam Jam Show there Funkadelic show.
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned working for Quincy. What was your first
Speaker 1: industry get?
Speaker 7: Well, they paid me any money or just period because
Speaker 7: where you start soul music thing and then also soul
Speaker 7: magazine thing. And also I had a gig at Rogers
Speaker 7: and Collen one summer PR from Big Time PR from
Speaker 7: here Intown. They were looking after Stacks, uh, and the
Speaker 7: guy who was who was the head publicist there, a
Speaker 7: guy called Sandy Friedman. Sandy hired me to do some
Speaker 7: writing for them. I was working in the mailroom. Actually,
Speaker 7: Deanie Parker, who was ahead of PR for for Stacks,
Speaker 7: recommended me for this job. Al Bell recommended for the
Speaker 7: job actually in the mail room at Rogers and Cowen,
Speaker 7: and Uh, I was you know, I was token black kid.
Speaker 7: Did they hired because they had a black account And
Speaker 7: so I was there and did that for a minute.
Speaker 1: And you wait, guys, we we just had a guest
Speaker 1: on the show that also started out as PR and promote. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I was trying to get mine. Have you
Speaker 1: ran into him in circles before? Okay? Now I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it. Okay, Yeah, so you so the time,
Speaker 1: did you think you're going to start as a publicist.
Speaker 7: Or I kind of was that. I mean, Quincy initially
Speaker 7: hired me. That's pretty much what I was there to do.
Speaker 7: You know, I was there to sort of blow up.
Speaker 7: He called me a pigmy stretcher. He said, go stretch
Speaker 7: some fucking pigmies and that's Quincy pylons. Yeah. So he
Speaker 7: hired me to as he said, I'll make the music,
Speaker 7: you make the no and uh and that that was
Speaker 7: kind of what I did. So, Sarah, you basically do
Speaker 7: pr marketing and sort of keep an eye on his
Speaker 7: interest at the record company. And I was floating around
Speaker 7: the n M a lot people looking at me like,
Speaker 7: who is this nigga? What's he doing here? What's he doing?
Speaker 1: And this was it. This is for Quest Records, Quincy
Speaker 1: Jones Productions. So it was just like doing the sounds
Speaker 1: and stuff like that period or body heat, body heat.
Speaker 1: So he the reason why he did a really random
Speaker 1: guest on Soul Train, like with the brothers Johnson is my.
Speaker 7: Brother playing drums, my little brother playing drums. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: guys playing drums.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh my god. Oh I'm sorry now
Speaker 1: to watch it. What are your relationships like? Because I
Speaker 1: know now for instans, like there's former interns of mine
Speaker 1: at the Tonight Show that then interned that record labels,
Speaker 1: and maybe in a year or two they'll figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: my n R, my publicist or whatever. There's a system
Speaker 1: to go through. Are are you going through a road
Speaker 1: less traveled? Like in terms of publicity, like how do
Speaker 1: you know who to market Quincy Jones? Too? Like do
Speaker 1: you know the people at People magazine? Do you know
Speaker 1: if Rolling Stone's into them?
Speaker 7: It was at that point it was just pull out
Speaker 7: the gun and shoot where you may, you know, good luck,
Speaker 7: you know. So it was just too I mean, at
Speaker 7: that point he had voluminous credits and not a lot
Speaker 7: of hits, you know, and my job is to basically
Speaker 7: make those voluminous credits seem as I used to say
Speaker 7: at the time, you say to people, you know Quincy Jones, Yeah,
Speaker 7: I know the name.
Speaker 1: What can you have?
Speaker 7: No idea? People didn't really know what to attach the
Speaker 7: name to, you know, and my job is attached to
Speaker 7: I wanted to know how.
Speaker 1: Potent he was pre off the wall in terms of
Speaker 1: like because I know the idea of Quincy Jones, especially
Speaker 1: now he's definitely the post thriller effect. And you know
Speaker 1: he's told me stories that even off the Wall was
Speaker 1: a hard selle because like they didn't want him, you know,
Speaker 1: the guy's old, past his prime.
Speaker 7: Whatever. Well, actually the line was they said, he'll make
Speaker 7: him sound. He'll make Michael sound like the brothers Johnson
Speaker 7: and Brothers were, which Platinum was great, and Mike was like, okay, right,
Speaker 7: I see that. But in terms of the potency, I mean,
Speaker 7: obviously it was. It was a build because when he
Speaker 7: hired me. Ostensibly. The short of the very long story
Speaker 7: is I was there to do an interview with him
Speaker 7: about Body Heat. I got a call from the publicity
Speaker 7: department A and M asking me what I'm interested in
Speaker 7: talking to him about body Eat. So I listened to
Speaker 7: the record, loved it, said I'd love to. And I
Speaker 7: had known him since I was a kid because he
Speaker 7: had conducted for my dad and and he had signed
Speaker 7: my dad. He made some of my dad's records at
Speaker 7: Mercury when he was head of A and rn't Mercury.
Speaker 7: So we went. He told me to meet him at
Speaker 7: A and M because he was still doing his big
Speaker 7: band down down at Disneyland. Disneyland used to do big
Speaker 7: band shows during the summer. Uh he said, meet him
Speaker 7: in a. M met him in a and M got
Speaker 7: on the band bus, went down there. We sat backstage
Speaker 7: and talked for you know, all night. He never did
Speaker 7: do the interview, so come by the crib the next day.
Speaker 7: I did, and talked more for twelve more hours. Never
Speaker 7: did do the interview. Told me to come back Sunday
Speaker 7: and do it again. We didn't again on Sunday, and
Speaker 7: I really never did do the interview. And I realized
Speaker 7: after it was all said and done, while I was
Speaker 7: there to interview him, he was actually interviewing to me,
Speaker 7: and the truth was he had. He explained to me
Speaker 7: something I came to realize years later. Quincy shed skin
Speaker 7: every seven years seven years or so. You know, he
Speaker 7: makes changes overall, and changes and whatever he's working on,
Speaker 7: and he was about to make. He said to me,
Speaker 7: body heat was indicative of many things he was. He
Speaker 7: was moving away from the whole big band arrangement anything
Speaker 7: to a more rhythm section based electronic R and B vox.
Speaker 7: And as he said to me, say, man, he said,
Speaker 7: I feel like every day I'm going to film studios
Speaker 7: doing this big band conducting thing. But I'm going home
Speaker 7: at night listening to Stevie Rufus and Chako Ohio Players
Speaker 7: and Earth Wind and Fire and he said, I want
Speaker 7: to I want to jump in those waters. And that's
Speaker 7: ostensibly what Body Heat was. And then you know, Body
Speaker 7: Heat was his first gold record worked Melon Madness was,
Speaker 7: you know, first platinum record, first golden platinum, and Brothers
Speaker 7: Johnson Lookout for Number One was also platinum, the first
Speaker 7: golden platinum albums by Black Arts the A and M
Speaker 7: had had and he just you know, slowly built it
Speaker 7: from there. You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found your brother by the way.
Speaker 7: Yep, yep, there it is. That's got back to my
Speaker 7: brother guy.
Speaker 1: What is your How long did you stay with Quincy Jones?
Speaker 7: And he was there for eleven years from nineteen seventy
Speaker 7: three to nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Wow, who was the brain trust behind his branding? Like
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone have their logo on someone else's
Speaker 1: record before.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he said, he was like I want to, I
Speaker 7: want my logo on there, you know, and said we
Speaker 7: thought helped him fight for it.
Speaker 1: But that's so unprecedented though, Like who knew to do that? Like?
Speaker 1: Is that is that the First, Uh, what do you
Speaker 1: call the drop that every producer has, like, oh, like
Speaker 1: a guy a producer tag like this music.
Speaker 6: No, No, but seriously, I mean, if not to that extent,
Speaker 6: but no, it really was great, Brandon, because every time
Speaker 6: you saw that logo, you knew what the record was
Speaker 6: going to sound you, at least for me as a kid,
Speaker 6: like reading that and seeing Quincy Jones productions like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I know I'm getting Polino da Costa, Jerry Hay, I
Speaker 6: know I'm getting Rod Tempersent, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: It was already just kind of a building selling.
Speaker 7: The other thing we said you to is when he
Speaker 7: was doing a new artist, So I said, Quincy Jones presents,
Speaker 7: you know, Brothers Johnson or whatever.
Speaker 1: At any point do you sort of elevate past like
Speaker 1: doing this publicity to like actually working, So like, why
Speaker 1: do you work with Patty Austin where it's weird, Like
Speaker 1: I know, I believe she's this god daughter or.
Speaker 2: Her I feel like forever?
Speaker 1: Right, So, like, what was your first big responsibility Brothers
Speaker 1: Brothers Johnson? Really yeah? Okay? So for those three four.
Speaker 7: Albums, ibserved for four records, from the first album through
Speaker 7: through the star the night. Okay, look out for number one?
Speaker 7: Second record, right on time, right on time, and the.
Speaker 1: Worst beating in my life. Well, you know, because they
Speaker 1: jumped again. This is another impressible Americans in Trouble story.
Speaker 1: You know, they're jumping on the album cover and the
Speaker 1: I guess the camera right, And so I once I
Speaker 1: used to always go to my dad's band mates like
Speaker 1: and try it jumping. And I jumped and dropped the
Speaker 1: dad's guitar players and yeah, boy, and talk about lookout
Speaker 1: for number one? Number one was the belt.
Speaker 7: You live to tell?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, man? Yeah, So like what were your duties
Speaker 1: in terms of their projects? I was de facto manager,
Speaker 1: but really yeah, like a project manager or like manager.
Speaker 7: Of that product manager product as well as artist manager.
Speaker 7: You know, just sort of connected the dots on his
Speaker 7: behalf because in the early days, the first three records,
Speaker 7: yeah there were, Quincy had a management company called Mellow
Speaker 7: Management and then and it was he basically he and
Speaker 7: I got a guy called Peter Long, and Peter Long
Speaker 7: actually was it's funny missed in Sesame Street. He was
Speaker 7: married to uh along the red Along, Yeah exactly, and
Speaker 7: Peter Peter.
Speaker 1: Was how long was he married?
Speaker 7: To a long time. He played keyboards, right, No, uh no,
Speaker 7: he was a stage manager at the Apollo and he
Speaker 7: and he ran the Apollo Kids. Luther came through there, now,
Speaker 7: Rogers came through there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Luther the only authorized book. That's how I know.
Speaker 1: The name Luther kind of speaks of how like wanting
Speaker 1: Peter Long's approval of Like I guess Peter was sort
Speaker 1: of like the doting father that you know, never gave.
Speaker 1: He was very acerbic, right, and Luther always felt like
Speaker 1: no matter he would sell out consonants. He was Luther Vangrosen. Finally,
Speaker 1: like maybe the Busy Body tour the Night I Fell
Speaker 1: in Love tour, like Peter Long was like, I'm proud
Speaker 1: of you. You did well for yourself, and like Luther
Speaker 1: like cried, like finally I made my dad proud, like
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. That's how I know Peter Long.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Peter was the responsible adult because during the course
Speaker 7: of the early period of my existence with Quincy, he
Speaker 7: would always bring in because I was a kid. He
Speaker 7: hired me when I was nineteen, and he would always
Speaker 7: bring in a so called responsible adult to kind of
Speaker 7: you know, balance me out, you know, make sure I
Speaker 7: didn't get two buck and Peter was that guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so as a manager, and so I'm glad
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing someone who was a manager. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: were writers a thing? Yeah that okay, so similar to now.
Speaker 7: Ish but yeah, but you know now they're more pronounced,
Speaker 7: and in those days, you know, it was primarily you know,
Speaker 7: the black promoters consortium, you know, so you know, if
Speaker 7: you tried that, I only want the red eminems like
Speaker 7: nigga fuck all right?
Speaker 1: So I later found out from David Lee Roth that
Speaker 1: they weren't separating the green eminems. If you don't know,
Speaker 1: Van Halen was world famous for separating the brown Eminem's
Speaker 1: from the pile, and we thought that was the most
Speaker 1: arrogant rock star the boucher shit ever but we later
Speaker 1: discovered that not true. Yeah, we later found out that
Speaker 1: the reason why Van Halen had that in their writer
Speaker 1: was because sometimes promoters would not read the writers at all.
Speaker 5: To see if you're paying attention to details.
Speaker 1: Right, And so that was the that was the thing. Wait,
Speaker 1: one more question about them. What happened in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one with the Winners record and why didn't Quincy produced
Speaker 1: that album?
Speaker 7: I was gone by that. I mean, I wasn't gone then.
Speaker 7: You know, guys wanted to Quincy got tired of hearing Yeah,
Speaker 7: these records are great, but wait till you hear what
Speaker 7: we do when we get chanted it ourselves, you know,
Speaker 7: and Quincy was like, okay, have something with that, right.
Speaker 1: It's weird because it's not like they stopped working with
Speaker 1: I mean, you know Lewis still yeah, exactly was working
Speaker 1: with them. But in their mind they're like, did they
Speaker 1: feel as though they wanted to get a more modern
Speaker 1: sound or you thought they had graduated and were ready
Speaker 1: to get out on their own, you know, ah, and
Speaker 1: you don't let that happen. Is this also a classic
Speaker 1: case of like, you know, you gotta let them find out.
Speaker 7: On their own and he did in their own way.
Speaker 7: And then then also Quincy at that point is doing
Speaker 7: other stuff, so you know Mike mic and his own records.
Speaker 1: And so where did you jump to after that?
Speaker 7: After Ariston? I went to aristone eighty four. I started
Speaker 7: in January eighty five, I had uh, so.
Speaker 1: It's kind of after you No, well, I mean I
Speaker 1: always consider Angelo Bouthfield like mine. Yeah, I loved it,
Speaker 1: loved her loved her.
Speaker 7: Yeah, what was he like?
Speaker 1: Because anytime she was on television, she was the most
Speaker 1: her and Tota Vega was the most eccentric humans I've
Speaker 1: ever seen get interviewed. She was And what was about her?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: Was he just does she have? Like? Was humor her shield?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I was crushed out because you know, she was on
Speaker 7: g RP and Gruson is one of Quincy's closest friends,
Speaker 7: and it was.
Speaker 1: D Dave Bruson really ran GRP.
Speaker 7: He and Larry Larry Rosen. Yeah, and I remember when
Speaker 7: she played here for the Angela Night record, you know,
Speaker 7: a big coming out party here in La and I
Speaker 7: was I was crushed out, crushed out fanboy. And uh,
Speaker 7: when I got to Arista, they too tough had just
Speaker 7: sort of happened, had happened, and they were doing the
Speaker 7: Greatest Hits record, and Clive had me looking for songs
Speaker 7: for the Greatest Hits Record. You know they want to
Speaker 7: add two extra song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, extra song.
Speaker 7: So we just song called still in Love that Derek
Speaker 7: Bramble produced and wrote, and uh, and she should call
Speaker 7: me high ed. She had little little cutesy voice and
Speaker 7: she was, you know, said kind of eccentric. Yeah, she
Speaker 7: was cool.
Speaker 2: She's very under the moon and over the star.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So what was working with prime Clive Davis?
Speaker 7: Like, well, nineteen eighty four, when Quincy and I stopped
Speaker 7: working together, I got a call from Neil Port. Now
Speaker 7: Port now you know who ran the Grammys. And Neil
Speaker 7: at that point was ahead of West head of the
Speaker 7: West Coast for Arista. So he calls me because I
Speaker 7: knew him from from record business out here. He worked
Speaker 7: for twenty Century Records, worked Verry White and stuff like that,
Speaker 7: very White, and then James Inger, the original James's first
Speaker 7: deal was actually a twentieth twentieth Century Wow. Yeah, we
Speaker 7: jacked him basically from them. And Neil calls me one
Speaker 7: day in the office and and what's up. Neil says,
Speaker 7: there's a rumor that you're leaving Quincy. He said, it's
Speaker 7: not a rumor. I said, I'm leaving. He said, would
Speaker 7: you be interested in talking to Clive? It's because Jerry
Speaker 7: Griffith is leaving. Jerry Griffith being the guy who had
Speaker 7: signed Whitney found Whitney. He said, would you be interested
Speaker 7: in talking to Clive? You know? I said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 7: because I was well aware of the legend of and
Speaker 7: all that stuff and had never met the man. Neil says,
Speaker 7: he said, there's just one thing to remember, and I said, well,
Speaker 7: he said, Eris is a label of artists, and Clive's
Speaker 7: the biggest artist on the label. And uh, oh, I
Speaker 7: got you. So I got a call and met him
Speaker 7: over at the Beverly Hills Hotel, you know, the legendary
Speaker 7: Enclaver he Old's court when he's here, and uh in
Speaker 7: a in a suite, you know, with speakers. Basically I
Speaker 7: thought it was in a fucking Metallica gig, you know, cranked,
Speaker 7: you know, and he people music and he's blasting, you know,
Speaker 7: and he's played me Whitney. He's Whitney was working progress.
Speaker 7: The first record he played, you Give Good Love, played
Speaker 7: a bit of how well I Know and Saving All
Speaker 7: My Love for you and you know when just back
Speaker 7: to back to back, and you couldn't really talk to
Speaker 7: him after I said, oh, that's Whitney. Hears that he
Speaker 7: goes really, how'd you know? I said, I said, I
Speaker 7: know these things, you know. And recently they had had
Speaker 7: a showcase here in LA for writers and producers, which
Speaker 7: was kind of legendary story at the time where he
Speaker 7: was pitching for songs and stuff and Quincy couldn't make it.
Speaker 7: But I was well aware and you know, Whitney was fine,
Speaker 7: you know, and I was smart enough to know that.
Speaker 1: So do those things generally work? Like when you gather uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of of of not even named
Speaker 1: brand but writers and producers in a room and someone
Speaker 1: tries to sell you on their artists, like we're going
Speaker 1: to really make it work.
Speaker 7: Sometimes that generally work. Sometimes when its Clive Davis or
Speaker 7: Quincy Jones. Yeah, you know, so when it's just you know,
Speaker 7: some pisher an our guy, but.
Speaker 1: Not so much.
Speaker 7: But yeah, so you know, he played me, played me,
Speaker 7: that played me a kashif some of the Kachiff record
Speaker 7: that was in motion, Kenny g record, which was basically
Speaker 7: record with Kenny playing solos.
Speaker 1: Was he generally you know, okay, not not to throw
Speaker 1: the bus, but like kind of like the way that
Speaker 1: Jimmy Ivying operated during the time when we were under
Speaker 1: the tutelage of Jimmy Ivy. Like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: if you're in a world where you're dealing with sting
Speaker 1: and no doubt in eminem then it's like you might
Speaker 1: just get like a once a year below there and whatever.
Speaker 1: But in general, was Clive the type of artist that
Speaker 1: paid attention to a group like Real, a group like
Speaker 1: Real to Real, just like he would you know about
Speaker 1: Real to Real? Dude, I'm a leon, We're a leon.
Speaker 7: And I took him a copy of the Real Real cassette.
Speaker 7: He'd forgotten all about it, Dude.
Speaker 1: They just released that that album. They just digitized it
Speaker 1: like maybe a month ago. Wow, it's finally on streaming.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying, would he pay attention to them as
Speaker 1: much as he would air supply or no?
Speaker 7: No, I don't know their situation. I mean basically the
Speaker 7: role of thumb that we had amongst the A and
Speaker 7: our staff, whether it was true or not, but it was.
Speaker 7: We found it to be the practical reality, which was
Speaker 7: if he had stuff that he was excited about at
Speaker 7: one point and then somehow had lost its luster, it
Speaker 7: didn't perform in the marketplace or whatever, and they went
Speaker 7: back in to do their fill in the blank second
Speaker 7: or third record, and the new songs that came in
Speaker 7: weren't his cool and blah blah blah, but they didn't
Speaker 7: want to pay out to throw the bone to the
Speaker 7: ANR guys here fix this, you know. And Real the
Speaker 7: Real was one of those situations for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, now know what happened to like average White band and.
Speaker 7: Real the Real and Patrese.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right, but yeah it feels so real, like well,
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell, like when if you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you hear a song long enough. Yeah yeah, but okay,
Speaker 1: So even Jeffrey Osborne explained to his situation with with
Speaker 1: the Aerosmith and the same with Ray Parker Jr. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like who would you at at Arista? Who what was
Speaker 1: your duties there as far as like.
Speaker 7: I was vice president of an R for aren't the.
Speaker 1: R and b R and b area what X came
Speaker 1: onto your tutelage?
Speaker 7: Obviously they were under clives too, right, you know? But
Speaker 7: uh uh, Aretha, it was during the Freeway love period,
Speaker 7: just heavily during the Narda period. I have some great fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please give me. I'm also curious about just how
Speaker 1: jazz fusion guys ironically weird enough start establishing the pop
Speaker 1: landscape of the eighties, and Nard is one of those.
Speaker 7: People there with him is I should have loved you?
Speaker 7: You know, I mean, yeah, very well because Brothers Johnson toured.
Speaker 7: The tour was Noardi, Michael Walden, Rufus and Shaka heat
Speaker 7: Wave and Brothers Johnson and Bill Yeah one, Bill Arenas
Speaker 7: and uh and Narda had like fifteen minutes up front.
Speaker 7: You know, basically, I should have loved you.
Speaker 1: And then you know some I don't want anybody else
Speaker 1: to dance with you. Now, I think that was what's
Speaker 1: his name?
Speaker 7: Jackson was?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was seventeen. Yeah, So as an an R
Speaker 1: and you know who your boss is, how heavy is
Speaker 1: the pressure to readjust your ears and your preferences to
Speaker 1: sort of blend in with his for survival's sake, as
Speaker 1: opposed to I think it should go in this direction.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was a frustrating experience, but I learned a
Speaker 7: great deal and I hold dear to my to my
Speaker 7: heart to twenty months that I worked for Clive because
Speaker 7: he puts you up on game, you know, because when
Speaker 7: I came out of Quincy, it was kind of like
Speaker 7: I'd been in a glorified mom and Pop or I've
Speaker 7: been at Howard and going to Clive was like going
Speaker 7: to Harvard.
Speaker 1: What's the main lessons that Quincy taught you that, And
Speaker 1: what's the main lessons that Clive taught.
Speaker 7: You, Quincy, I'd say song, song is king and melody
Speaker 7: is queen. Truth and honesty at all times, and.
Speaker 1: You know, creatively, your business all the above.
Speaker 7: Okay, Yeah, My take on q in those days was
Speaker 7: if there were two doors in a room, one was
Speaker 7: marked artist, one was marked business, ninety seven percent of
Speaker 7: the times he would go in and out of the
Speaker 7: artist or but you know the business store was was
Speaker 7: he was well oiled, he was in other you know,
Speaker 7: he was highly evolved.
Speaker 1: As a businessman.
Speaker 7: Get it. He was really driven by the business and
Speaker 7: his business drove his art in a lot of levels.
Speaker 5: So Clyde was the was it Everse was he was
Speaker 5: more business than.
Speaker 7: Clyde was song. But he was definitely business and it
Speaker 7: was the feel for the marketplace. This sounds like a
Speaker 7: pejorative and it's not intended to be per se, but
Speaker 7: we used to hear from time to time just because
Speaker 7: their artist doesn't mean they know what they're doing. It's
Speaker 7: our responsibility as a our people and creative people at
Speaker 7: the record company, because we're spending the money to find hits,
Speaker 7: to find the hits.
Speaker 1: For so is there an example of a song in
Speaker 1: which the artist might be perceived as kicking and screaming
Speaker 1: like there is air supply, like we had.
Speaker 7: This even I wasn't really with their supply. Their supply
Speaker 7: wasn't there when I was there, and Manilow had, Manelo
Speaker 7: had more or less had left the label at that point.
Speaker 7: I was there during the you know it was Billy Ocean,
Speaker 7: you know, with the give stuff, hoo DENI with the
Speaker 7: give stuff. That's what friends are for Dionne. Because that
Speaker 7: that was a frustrating record for me.
Speaker 1: Why didn't last night only getting the worse? That was
Speaker 1: just the record single? Yeah, what's the story of that?
Speaker 1: From your nuts?
Speaker 7: My frustration was Arthur Baker and little Stephen had come
Speaker 7: to me with the with the Sun City record. We
Speaker 7: didn't want to do that, and and and I played
Speaker 7: it for Climb and played it for Roy, rented up
Speaker 7: the Flagpoole for all the obvious reasons. I really wanted it,
Speaker 7: and I like Arthur and I like Steven, and I
Speaker 7: brought it in and it kind of dangled and dawdled
Speaker 7: for a bit and then we're not gonna do it.
Speaker 7: We're gonna do the Dion has just come to me
Speaker 7: with this idea from Burt Backrack. Blah blah blah. It
Speaker 7: was the front end of the whole AIDS epidemic thing,
Speaker 7: you know, And I admit that I was a bit
Speaker 7: of a knucklehead. I was like, fucking fuck that. Yea,
Speaker 7: this is important to Sun Cities. However, black people, black people,
Speaker 7: black people, and you know, they weren't having it, and
Speaker 7: then so he wasn't having it. So ultimately Arthur and
Speaker 7: Stephen took it to Manhattan to Bruce Lunvall. I guess yeah, uh,
Speaker 7: and then Clive, you know they did. That's what friends
Speaker 7: are for. And this is pre digital, so any kind
Speaker 7: of cuts and edits, we're actual tape cuts and stuff.
Speaker 7: And there's a guy who was on the A and
Speaker 7: R staff with me then, uh, still a friend of
Speaker 7: a guy called John Mervos. Mervos and I have had
Speaker 7: a running bit ever since then, because there was an
Speaker 7: A and R meeting at one point where Clive had
Speaker 7: us in there listening to a bazillion different mixes and
Speaker 7: different cuts. You know, Stevie first, Gladys first, you know,
Speaker 7: you keep smiling. He's smiling, so.
Speaker 1: You're trying to tell me that they wanted the piecemeal together,
Speaker 1: like yeah, all right, so we'll bring glass in the end.
Speaker 7: And they did it all they did. Everybody had a
Speaker 7: solo verse, everybody had an ad lib.
Speaker 1: So everyone saying the verse, and then you guys had
Speaker 1: to figure out the nomination.
Speaker 2: He would offer his You know that, how do you
Speaker 2: figure out the sequence first?
Speaker 7: There?
Speaker 5: I was always felt that song.
Speaker 6: I mean I was five six whenever it came out,
Speaker 6: but I always thought it felt like they were trying
Speaker 6: to make a wee all the world, like they were
Speaker 6: going for that moment, like another anthem kind of that's
Speaker 6: what Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But I always wondered why Gladys Knight never got a verse.
Speaker 1: She just comes in on the ad lib at the end. Smile,
Speaker 1: he smiling. That's the only time she appears on it, right,
Speaker 1: So goo ahead. So were you there for the recording
Speaker 1: of it or just like not.
Speaker 7: In the studio, but you know, in the in the
Speaker 7: office because you know that was a client project, so
Speaker 7: you know you'd bring me and our guys in, you
Speaker 7: know when when there was a decision to be made
Speaker 7: or listen to this what do you think kind of stuff?
Speaker 1: You know and uh, and how long did it take
Speaker 1: to slice together and all of those things.
Speaker 7: I don't know, I remember. I just remember the meeting
Speaker 7: being interminable, you know, and a certain pint like.
Speaker 1: We got to get Steve Little Stephen on the show
Speaker 1: because I just finished his reading his autobiography and him
Speaker 1: talking about leaving leaving right on the payoff of boring
Speaker 1: in the USA to do uh, artist against apartheid.
Speaker 7: And he's a good man. I almost almost hired him
Speaker 7: at one point at Mercury really because you know, he's
Speaker 7: part of the bon Jovie mob.
Speaker 1: And uh, he's a record guy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I used to see him a lot around
Speaker 7: John and Richie and those guys. Okay, you talked to
Speaker 7: me when he had it was just formed of the
Speaker 7: Disciples of Soul, his band, and uh. I remember being
Speaker 7: in England with bon Jovi and Stephen was there and
Speaker 7: kicking it with the said.
Speaker 1: Our job. You know. So how long was your your
Speaker 1: run at Arista?
Speaker 7: Twenty months?
Speaker 1: Okay from January it was your last few months, Like.
Speaker 7: Weird. It got weird there from a bit because the
Speaker 7: project that I ended up working on that took it
Speaker 7: became pretty clear to me early on in the process
Speaker 7: that I always said that, you know, it's Clive's candy store,
Speaker 7: and if he doesn't want a certain kind of chocolate
Speaker 7: in the candy store, you're fucked. And there were things
Speaker 7: that I wanted to do that you know, kept getting
Speaker 7: shot down because.
Speaker 1: This is a canine story.
Speaker 7: I had LeVert early Wait what yeah, I had Lavert
Speaker 7: because because Eddie and uh Eddie and Harry Coombs called
Speaker 7: me one day and.
Speaker 1: Said, hey, man, what you doing.
Speaker 7: He said, me and Eddie are gonna come out here.
Speaker 7: You want your headies? Kid? He played me, played me.
Speaker 7: They had an independent record of the song I'm Still Yes,
Speaker 7: and then heard it and smash, you know, and the
Speaker 7: kid sounds like his dad was all good and uh
Speaker 7: and played it for the boss and he was like,
Speaker 7: you know, so pass.
Speaker 1: Okay without really in the most respectful way, or if
Speaker 1: you just want to be honest, does sometimes this black
Speaker 1: music have to be explained to him, like did he
Speaker 1: know the magic that he had in Hudini or is
Speaker 1: this like, oh these rap guys went gold too.
Speaker 7: That was really Clive Calder and Barry Wise and a
Speaker 7: Carle and Carly you should have on the show. Sometimes
Speaker 7: tokyoski Yo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a pretty good feeling. He had a
Speaker 1: feel for songs, songs and trends, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Okay, So I'm revisiting and there's a reason
Speaker 1: why I have all the Soul Trained stuff. So now
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in the Sole Train Awards thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm watching season two of the Soul Train Awards and
Speaker 1: you can clearly hear the booze and the jeers of
Speaker 1: the second album in the build. I was there, Okay,
Speaker 1: so in the building even though, And it's so weird
Speaker 1: because everyone's relationship with I want to dance with somebody now,
Speaker 1: like I put I want to dance with somebody in
Speaker 1: what I call the September file, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: believe that Earth when Fire really thought like September was
Speaker 1: going to be their signature song, just like I don't
Speaker 1: think Run DMC thought that It's tricky it's going to
Speaker 1: be their signature song. Now it's like when I play
Speaker 1: I want to Dance with Somebody who loves me, it's
Speaker 1: almost like I see the revisionist reaction of everyone, like
Speaker 1: we've always loved the song, but I.
Speaker 2: Did as a little girl when it came out as
Speaker 2: a that's.
Speaker 1: Because when you were young and no, no, no, and
Speaker 1: it's technically nothing, it's nothing wrong with it, but there's
Speaker 1: a reason.
Speaker 7: For me.
Speaker 1: Okay. So George Clinton once told this joke, said that
Speaker 1: slide Stone said this about Prince. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: he walked around here like they want to some sign
Speaker 1: of the Time show, and George is like, what'd you think?
Speaker 1: Like that was the first time that Sly really got
Speaker 1: to see Princess, and Sli allegedly said, man, man, he
Speaker 1: up there tasting like broccoli when he should be tasting
Speaker 1: like mustard greens. I got that, and so I think
Speaker 1: in my mind the thing was I tried to figure out. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the version that I would have wanted Whitney Houston
Speaker 1: to come out with then it would just probably been
Speaker 1: like a she record more thinking about you is more
Speaker 1: you give good loves, which we're still our gems. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. Oftentimes I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: fan that punishes someone for having to adjust to the climate.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like I don't know what the answer is,
Speaker 1: But I do remember when I got that record, you know,
Speaker 1: loves the Contact Sport, and I was just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is really poppy. And I wasn't thing like an
Speaker 1: an r at the age of fifteen, but even I knew,
Speaker 1: like from inception, the the motive always was.
Speaker 7: I remember just being there, She's a pop star, Whitney's
Speaker 7: gonna be the biggest pop star in the world, and
Speaker 7: that was that was that was the goal. And the
Speaker 7: Kashif tracks were there to basically introduce her to put
Speaker 7: toe in the water at black radio, get black folks,
Speaker 7: you know, to know what it is. But then we're
Speaker 7: crossing it from there, you know, did anyone ever asked?
Speaker 1: But at what cost? That's not Whitney Houston, because I'm
Speaker 1: almost certain that she too was like, hello, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, so do you know what the
Speaker 1: general feeling in the building was after the Sole Train
Speaker 1: Award situation, because I'm really shocked they didn't edit, so
Speaker 1: they later edited those booze out.
Speaker 2: But I recorded it like the full sentence of mere
Speaker 2: fort a young folk.
Speaker 1: Okay. So at the Soul Train Awards, and it really
Speaker 1: wasn't Whitney's fault, but she was just like, too you biquit,
Speaker 1: it's winning too much. And so when they were nominated
Speaker 1: and the nominas of her so emotional winning US and
Speaker 1: you just clearly hear it's just crazy crazy Booze and
Speaker 1: me and my mom looking at each other watching the
Speaker 1: Soul Train Awards like yo, like wow, and so who do.
Speaker 2: We want to win? I'm like, now a retrospect too,
Speaker 2: I'm like, who do we think? God dooped?
Speaker 1: I was frustrated at her career. I'm proud of this success,
Speaker 1: but there was just too much scene on it for me,
Speaker 1: too much Yamaha, Dix seven too much, you know, the
Speaker 1: Michael Master intros and everything. But it's weird because now
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I love this all along, which is
Speaker 1: you know, but what were your general feelings, like what
Speaker 1: was the feelings of the building after the Soul Train Awards?
Speaker 7: Just disappointment? Do you know what the fuck was that?
Speaker 7: You know kind of thing, you know, But was it an.
Speaker 1: Instant like we gotta fix this or was Claud aware
Speaker 1: like we might have to fix this.
Speaker 7: Let's just keep it moving. That was the vibe I guys,
Speaker 7: keep it moving, you know, keep putting it on the
Speaker 7: radio and blow it up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: What happened after Arista?
Speaker 7: What the PolyGram? There was a new music seminar was
Speaker 7: going on in New York. It was August July of
Speaker 7: eighty six, and I'd run into this guy called Bob
Speaker 7: Scoo Scorro ended up being in my head at A
Speaker 7: and R for Mercury the pop side. And Bob and
Speaker 7: I had known each other from out here because he
Speaker 7: used to be a song plugger for EMI Music. And
Speaker 7: I saw him when he was like, dude, how I am?
Speaker 1: You know one of those things? What's happening? I said, dude,
Speaker 1: get me out of here? He said what he said,
Speaker 1: just get me out of here.
Speaker 7: I see. It wasn't working out for me, it was
Speaker 7: it was weird environment. I said, I don't want to
Speaker 7: be here anymore. And I had aspirations of doing something.
Speaker 7: You know, Arista was not a great place to be
Speaker 7: at that time if you were a creative person who
Speaker 7: had illusions of your own personal grandeur.
Speaker 1: You know, who did you try to bring there that
Speaker 1: besides LeVert like.
Speaker 7: LeVert who got away? Basically LeVert us mostly songs? Could
Speaker 7: you find songs and stuff?
Speaker 1: You know that?
Speaker 7: Uh? That you what songs?
Speaker 1: Did you ride for that?
Speaker 7: Caravana Love for Angie?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow? Caravan Love Angel.
Speaker 7: Yeah, wow, my my ex girlfriend from years. Her sister
Speaker 7: was married to Ernie, and uh and yeah, I got
Speaker 7: to call it one one point. You know, Ernie and
Speaker 7: Chris have songs they want you to hear. So yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm looking for songs for Angie Bofield. Well we got
Speaker 7: a perfect song for They came up and played me
Speaker 7: Caravana Love, and uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it.
Speaker 7: No, so no, it was too preachy. So yeah, okay, Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 1: I assume that he's trying to hit Middle America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yesh okay, and you're trying to hit all of America exactly.
Speaker 7: Okay, So that got frustrating, and the projects that I
Speaker 7: actually ended up working with Kenny g got dropped in
Speaker 7: my lap, you know, because I did the toes Thank you?
Speaker 1: Can you plan that moment?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: Can you plan that level of lightning in a bottle?
Speaker 7: Here's the moment. I'd known Kenny as Kenny Gorlic when
Speaker 7: he was playing with Jeff Lauber's band. I was a
Speaker 7: Laber fan and uh and so when I got in
Speaker 7: then and once again I spent some time with Kashif
Speaker 7: and out here in La Hi, How You Doing was
Speaker 7: actually a hit record on the radio, which was a
Speaker 7: Kenney record, but it was Kaif with Kenny solo in it.
Speaker 7: And uh So, one day I get a call Clive
Speaker 7: actually Roy Lott, who's the number two guy in Ariston,
Speaker 7: and Roy says, you know Kenny Kenny g blah blah
Speaker 7: blah blah blah. So yeah cool, let me hear it.
Speaker 7: I said, I know who he is. Let me hear it.
Speaker 7: And then Kenny calls Kenny's manager, guy called Dennis Turner,
Speaker 7: who had managed George Benson. I knew. I knew him
Speaker 7: from the Gimme the night days. So they came by
Speaker 7: and Kenny walks in and he says, dude, I don't
Speaker 7: want to be here anymore. I want to get off
Speaker 7: the label. I hated here. I fucking hate it here.
Speaker 7: I'm tired of being a sideman on my own records.
Speaker 7: And I looked at I said, dude, I know who
Speaker 7: you are. I said, I saw you play with Jeff
Speaker 7: many times. I said, I like your playing. He looked
Speaker 7: at me, like what what what? He said, Yeah, Dick,
Speaker 7: how you sounded good with with Larber's band. I said,
Speaker 7: I know what you're trying to do. I said, but
Speaker 7: the reality is is people are trying to put you
Speaker 7: in a in a box that you need to be
Speaker 7: Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, when the reality of it is,
Speaker 7: I know you, your path in it is like David
Speaker 7: Sanborn and Grover you know, and Junior Walker. So that
Speaker 7: was like music to me. This it was at the time,
Speaker 7: was at the front end of the CD thing, but
Speaker 7: also it is at the front end of the whole
Speaker 7: smooth jazz, the wave format, you know. And I said,
Speaker 7: I think you can live in that zone. And then
Speaker 7: he gave me a cassette of you know, the home
Speaker 7: stuff that he was working on, which was ultimately the
Speaker 7: bones of the meat and bones of what was the
Speaker 7: duo ton And and I told him to say, man,
Speaker 7: look here's what we need to do. If you trust me,
Speaker 7: here's what we need to do to make this fly.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 7: So we got to do two covers. We got to
Speaker 7: do two vocal songs. One of them's got to be
Speaker 7: a cover and that was what does it Take to
Speaker 7: Win Your Love? And then another and another vocal song,
Speaker 7: which was don't Don't make Me Wait for love?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 7: We got a guy called Ellis Hall, who's a keyboard
Speaker 7: player up up in the Bay Area that did a
Speaker 7: lot of stuff for NARDA got Ellis to sing it,
Speaker 7: and ultimately he ended up putting Bolton on it. I said,
Speaker 7: and if we do that, we have some of the radio.
Speaker 7: Can promotion can take the radio. We're off to the
Speaker 7: race and the rest will live on it. So and
Speaker 7: you'll you'll be the king of you know whatever, smooth jazz.
Speaker 7: And we did so.
Speaker 1: Nowhere and you can't end it. We did, I mean
Speaker 1: we did. You weren't done you surely you weren't thinking like,
Speaker 1: and this is going to sell you ten million copies.
Speaker 7: No, I didn't think that because I didn't think the
Speaker 7: songbird would would end up emerging a.
Speaker 1: Songbird, even I was working at sam Goodies at the time.
Speaker 1: Even like the amount of people, that's how I knew.
Speaker 1: I realized that I knew some songs from a previous record, right,
Speaker 1: But the amount of people just kept in somber. That's
Speaker 1: I don't know what a duotones is. How did y'all?
Speaker 1: How did song I was?
Speaker 7: I was gone by then, But basically what happened. The
Speaker 7: story that I'm told is Donnie Einer, who is the
Speaker 7: head of promotion at Ariston in those days, best promotion
Speaker 7: man of his of his of his period, of his era.
Speaker 7: Donnie had gotten a call from some guy up and like,
Speaker 7: I want to say, Uh, what's the part of Pennsylvania
Speaker 7: that Biden talked about aways from? Uh, Scranton some some
Speaker 7: p d and Scranton had been using it for some
Speaker 7: using it as a theme for some like daytime call
Speaker 7: in show or something, just the melody, And I guess
Speaker 7: people started calling station what is that? What's that melody?
Speaker 7: Play man? And so they put the record on late
Speaker 7: at night and then phone started lighting up and they
Speaker 7: called Donnie and said, I think you may have something here,
Speaker 7: and Donnie pushed Donnie and Cliveve pushed the button, put
Speaker 7: it out and off off it went.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So at PolyGram, how long does it take
Speaker 1: you to get to the top of the mountain?
Speaker 7: I had I was working at aristonat and Ramon came
Speaker 7: by to see me one day, just you know, on
Speaker 7: some some whatever, and uh, Vanessa at that point, had
Speaker 7: you know done, just dur frysco at that shake and hey,
Speaker 7: good looking on on the PFONK record on George Clinton record,
Speaker 7: and uh, and I knew that they'd been in and
Speaker 7: out of mini offices here shopping a deal. And ostensibly
Speaker 7: what was happening was that she was kind of being
Speaker 7: ogled at by you know, record company presidents and A
Speaker 7: and R people whatever, but nobody was really taking it seriously.
Speaker 7: And he said, you know, we haven't been able to
Speaker 7: get anything happen, and blah blah blah blah. And I
Speaker 7: told him, I said, look on the lowest and I'm
Speaker 7: leaving here in about six weeks. I got this software
Speaker 7: PolyGram to start a label for them, and I'm going
Speaker 7: back home to California. I said I would entertain the
Speaker 7: notion then, because my theory at the time was I
Speaker 7: could start a new label with Susie Jones, you know,
Speaker 7: black on Army female that nobody nobody's ever heard of,
Speaker 7: or I could do with Vanessa Williams. I named that
Speaker 7: everybody knew, and I said it was in coming on
Speaker 7: me as an A and R guy and a record
Speaker 7: maker to make the music, to find the right hole
Speaker 7: to put her in. And so he's said, okay, cool.
Speaker 7: So I flew. I came home and she and I,
Speaker 7: she and I sat and had dinner one night, and uh,
Speaker 7: after the races, we went.
Speaker 1: You know is the goal of an an R to
Speaker 1: find like three signature artists so that you can eventually
Speaker 1: like get considered for well.
Speaker 7: Interestingly enough, the uh, the presidency thing was not what
Speaker 7: I ever aspired to be, you know, president of the
Speaker 7: whole Mercury thing. I never aspired to be that guy.
Speaker 7: But there was a certain aspect of when it was
Speaker 7: offered to me. I thought about a lot of those
Speaker 7: old school dudes that I knew from, you know, from
Speaker 7: my dad's era. You know, old old old brothers who
Speaker 7: would promotion and whatever the Dave Clark's, Joe Medlin's in
Speaker 7: the world. People like people probably worked your old man's records.
Speaker 7: So yeah, So those guys were very qualified and extremely
Speaker 7: good at what they did, but they never were offered.
Speaker 7: The situation never got never got shot. I thought about it.
Speaker 7: I said, who am I to say no? So they
Speaker 7: made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and I didn't
Speaker 7: refuse it. But the truth of the matter is the
Speaker 7: path if I had stayed on the path that I
Speaker 7: was on doing the wing thing Vanessa Blue, Tony's Blue,
Speaker 7: Robin Harris was was gonna do, was gonna blow. Unfortunately,
Speaker 7: lost them in a period of time, and then that's
Speaker 7: when I found Brian along the same period of time,
Speaker 7: Brian McKnight. So if I had just done those records
Speaker 7: and just stayed in their careers, you know that was
Speaker 7: you know that one success breeds another album. I would
Speaker 7: have been four or five albums deep on each one
Speaker 7: of them. You know.
Speaker 1: You came through the Tonys because of Foster mceilroy, but
Speaker 1: I thought they were more Warner based and no, like,
Speaker 1: how did they come to you?
Speaker 7: I put them with Denny Tommy. Oh yeah, short. How
Speaker 7: they came to me was the Tony said made us
Speaker 7: made a single, the twelve inch on Macolo Records, the
Speaker 7: local indie record, indy label.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he tells you designs video games.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I forget to nip because I was thinking about it.
Speaker 7: I can't find it now. I shouldn't have sold my vinyl. Yes,
Speaker 7: So they had a twelve inch on mycola and my
Speaker 7: head of promotion at Wing at the time was a
Speaker 7: guy called Michael Johnson. And Michael came to me one
Speaker 7: day and said, man, you got to hear this record
Speaker 7: and I heard. I said, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I said, he.
Speaker 7: Said, man, they're here in times. Let's you want to
Speaker 7: fuck with him? And said yeah. Their manager came by
Speaker 7: and I sat with him a little bit and and
Speaker 7: upon hearing it, I went, these guys sound good, but
Speaker 7: they need help. They need somebody to help far sort
Speaker 7: it out a little bit. In those days, my theory
Speaker 7: was every producer worth any degree of salt had a
Speaker 7: cassette in his back pocket of an act that they
Speaker 7: wanted to work with. You know, Oh, this is my cousin,
Speaker 7: this is my brother, you know what? And uh, I said,
Speaker 7: you know, these guys are cool, so let me. David Lombard,
Speaker 7: who manages Denny and Tommy, was a friend, and I
Speaker 7: went to see Club Nouveau because Club Nouveau was playing
Speaker 7: here in town. So when Danny and Tommy were still
Speaker 7: in the band before they left, it was actually the
Speaker 7: last gig they played with him, So was the show
Speaker 7: with David, and he introduced me with Danny and Tommy,
Speaker 7: and I told him, I said, man, I'd like to
Speaker 7: have you guys work on this band that I'm thinking
Speaker 7: about signing. Really who And I told me, oh, we
Speaker 7: know those guys. They knew them from Oakland because I
Speaker 7: guess they'd worked with Tommy in the studio up in Oakland.
Speaker 1: So at the time, did you realize that you were
Speaker 1: working with possibly the last well not the last R
Speaker 1: and B group, But I meant, if it starts with
Speaker 1: Sling the Family Stone in sixty eight and it kind
Speaker 1: of the bracket ends with Tony Tony Tony in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 7: I was very aware of it. Absolutely, So you.
Speaker 1: Knew that black music was in trouble even in eighty
Speaker 1: six seven.
Speaker 5: And what were some of the indicators for you?
Speaker 7: Black radio? You know, there was that that MTV video
Speaker 7: of video killed the radio star, and I said, black
Speaker 7: radio killed the Black radio star during the period of
Speaker 7: time you know about that?
Speaker 1: Is it just in terms of promoting you talk about
Speaker 1: Donnie Iron, which I didn't know it even started and
Speaker 1: start there, but that was when it was a big
Speaker 1: gig before he went to we went to Son. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So when you talk about promotion, men, do you tell
Speaker 1: about the difference between as much as you're allowed to say,
Speaker 1: like how these songs get on radio or how they
Speaker 1: get promoted as opposed to that which.
Speaker 2: I you know, and explain what you mean about how
Speaker 2: it killed because we didn't really explain it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that part.
Speaker 7: Yeah, both of the above. So to give a perfect
Speaker 7: example as it worked with me, was when we released
Speaker 7: the first Brothers Johnson album in nineteen seventy six, look
Speaker 7: Out for Number One. The first city that it blew
Speaker 7: up in was d C. So we being George and Lewis,
Speaker 7: were going to d C to do some promotion and
Speaker 7: we're coming in from Dulles in the car and we're
Speaker 7: hearing and turn on h U R and Ky asked
Speaker 7: whatever the other stations in d C and they're blasting
Speaker 7: good to you. Get the phone, look out my face, thunders,
Speaker 7: thumbs and lightings like free and single and tomorrow praying
Speaker 7: five even the filler yet five cuts deep, you know,
Speaker 7: playing the ship out of it. You know this is
Speaker 7: exactly playing a ship out of it, and say, oh
Speaker 7: my god, this is great, you know it was.
Speaker 1: It's all like that.
Speaker 7: So that night we were the local guy in the
Speaker 7: market took us to dinner with the program director music
Speaker 7: director of.
Speaker 1: W o L, the big radio one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was preen w L w M m J
Speaker 5: is Katy.
Speaker 2: Katy's first station.
Speaker 7: So they took us to dinner with these guys. It
Speaker 7: was a program director at the time is a guy
Speaker 7: called Bobby Bennett who was known as the Burner, sort
Speaker 7: of legendary radio guy, another guy called Chuck McCool, guy
Speaker 7: called Cortes Thompson who went on to become a head
Speaker 7: of promotion at at Warner Brothers. And another guy whose
Speaker 7: name escapes soon. So you know, we're at the dinner
Speaker 7: table and I'm green behind you as I'm geeked, Oh,
Speaker 7: this is worth the palm. This is great, this is great.
Speaker 7: You guys are playing it right the car. Well, we
Speaker 7: heard our record the whole way in uh. And one
Speaker 7: of them looks, come, young brother, let me talk to
Speaker 7: you a minute. He took me into the bathroom, you know,
Speaker 7: and said, and then five guys come in the bathroom
Speaker 7: and what the fuck this? Let me explain something to you,
Speaker 7: it said, Okay, said basically, you know, we're playing the
Speaker 7: Ship out of your record, but you know we can
Speaker 7: play the Ship out of his record or her record
Speaker 7: or his record too. But here's here's here's your payback
Speaker 7: for this.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do it.
Speaker 7: We're doing this. We're also concert promoters. We're gonna do
Speaker 7: a series of shows in the d C d M
Speaker 7: v DC, Maryland, Virginia, it was p P Funk, Natalie
Speaker 7: Cole and the Bootsy and the Brothers Johnson and whatever
Speaker 7: you're going rate is, it's not gonna be your going rate.
Speaker 7: So and we'll keep you'll keep those spins up. And
Speaker 7: they did and we did, and uh, this is.
Speaker 1: How the Chef Gordon Teddy Pendergrast story comes into play
Speaker 1: because Shef Gordon told us that programmers and DJs were,
Speaker 1: like any concerts that you saw in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: were due to the radio station, not independent of Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm coming to town and you pay me right, so
Speaker 1: they the promo show.
Speaker 2: I guess era getting of the promo shows because that.
Speaker 7: Show you're gonna play our Christmas show, you know years later.
Speaker 2: A see, So how did they kill it? How did
Speaker 2: black radio kill it? For you?
Speaker 7: There's so much I don't want to say payola, but
Speaker 7: just there are limited spots. Guys were taking money and
Speaker 7: then you know they wouldn't play the way you know,
Speaker 7: it didn't get the spends that you know that you
Speaker 7: expected to get, you know, so many hours in the
Speaker 7: day and then you know, but legitimate hits got played,
Speaker 7: but stuff that you know that you you want to
Speaker 7: get a shot. You know, I think we could do
Speaker 7: well with this. Here's X amount. You know, I need whatever.
Speaker 1: Fifty spins this weekend.
Speaker 7: Whatever didn't happen, you know, guys took your money and ran,
Speaker 7: you know, and then all of a sudden, there's no
Speaker 7: loyalty anymore to legacy acts.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: You know when you see like that, I'm talking early
Speaker 7: into late nineties. When you're seeing that, Luther Stevie, I
Speaker 7: need a People out there are having to fight to
Speaker 7: get on the radio at black radio. That's really a
Speaker 7: sad state of affairs, it is.
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time. But for you,
Speaker 1: it's like when when do you consider you leaving or
Speaker 1: do you consider yourself completely graduated from quote unquote the business?
Speaker 7: Yeah, am, I'm more or less retired. I still do
Speaker 7: little bits and pieces of stuff here and there, you know,
Speaker 7: because I get these occasional phone calls, Hey, Ed, I
Speaker 7: got an idea, And I always say, does the check
Speaker 7: come with that idea? I'll pay attention.
Speaker 1: So what do you is watching the state of music
Speaker 1: right now? Is it a dizzying experience somewhat? Is it
Speaker 1: like a beautiful mind meme where you see like, is
Speaker 1: it like that for you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, somewhat. It was interesting. In preparation for today, I
Speaker 7: was thinking about, you know, I said, if I get
Speaker 7: asked the question, what are you listening to?
Speaker 1: And I had to realize I hate answering that question.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I realized that, you know, of most of
Speaker 7: the new stuff that I listened to is old stuff
Speaker 7: that's either been released or it's new on my radar,
Speaker 7: you know. But it's just not a lot of new
Speaker 7: stuff that you know, I don't mean to sound like
Speaker 7: an old man, but it's not a new a lot
Speaker 7: of new stuff that rocks my world.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: We're we're a.
Speaker 1: Band of a folk who it's somewhat frustrated.
Speaker 2: It's just harder to find it these days. There's way
Speaker 2: too many options. Because at the same time we say that,
Speaker 2: but then I also I'll hear y'all two talking about
Speaker 2: like new R and B acts and stuff like that
Speaker 2: that I've never heard of, and I'm just like, fuck,
Speaker 2: how do I even find these people?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think now you have to have
Speaker 1: the patience to you know, either scroll on the internet
Speaker 1: or in my case, I have at least twenty music
Speaker 1: snobs that I just peek on their Spotify and see
Speaker 1: what they're listening to, and then I'll take that and
Speaker 1: take That's whose salt was, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: So I like salt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's quick, there's there's there's a few, a few left.
Speaker 6: I don't want to ask what year. So you're president
Speaker 6: of a Mercury from what years?
Speaker 5: When did you?
Speaker 7: I was co president? Initially, I was a polygra. I
Speaker 7: was a PolyGram during the wing from nineteen eighty six
Speaker 7: to nineteen eighty eight, and then I became co president
Speaker 7: of Mercury from nineteen eighty eight till nineteen ninety with
Speaker 7: a guy called Mike Bone, and then I became the
Speaker 7: sole president from nineteen ninety till I left to nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, it was a run.
Speaker 6: So in terms of I wanted to know with hip hop,
Speaker 6: looking back on it now, like Murcury was always a
Speaker 6: label with hip hop. I mean, y'all had black sheet
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. You had like elous scratch, you.
Speaker 7: Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Like y'all have records edog, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And so for me, it seems like Mercury was one
Speaker 6: of the first labels that I in retrospect. Now, they
Speaker 6: y'all had like records and artists, but it was kind
Speaker 6: of like unless that artists was attached to like black.
Speaker 5: Sheet, they were attached to Native tones, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying.
Speaker 6: But if you had artists that had great records, if
Speaker 6: they weren't attached to another production company, like you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, or like like you know what became
Speaker 6: Rockefeller and murder In and all of those things, it
Speaker 6: was kind of the beginning for me of losing faith.
Speaker 5: In major labels doing hip hop.
Speaker 6: Like if I just saw Columbia, I'm like that, if
Speaker 6: I see you know, Rockefeller slash, I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker 7: You know what I mean, it's like a good housekeeping
Speaker 7: stamp over approval or the Quincy Jones reduction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So, how did you as a labelhad how did push
Speaker 6: in hip hop coming from like the pop background and
Speaker 6: with Clive and stuff, How did you adapt to marketing
Speaker 6: hip hop?
Speaker 7: You just get in where you can fit in, you know.
Speaker 7: And if it was this case of finding stuff that
Speaker 7: was attached to somebody else or something else, that's how
Speaker 7: you did it, you know, because you knew there was
Speaker 7: an uphill climb if you're starting it from scratch, because
Speaker 7: at radio once again, the first question you're going to
Speaker 7: ask is who are they down with?
Speaker 1: You know who?
Speaker 8: So it was that, you know, Similarly, there's like a
Speaker 8: new phase of white rock music in the same time period,
Speaker 8: right it's bon Jovi, def Leppard, Mellencamp, Tears for Fears, Kiss, Like,
Speaker 8: what what made the diversity of what you were doing?
Speaker 8: I think you started with R and B. Now it's
Speaker 8: rock music like they were. How'd you feel about being
Speaker 8: that guy that ushered that kind of stuff?
Speaker 7: Yeah, the h all those artists were already at the
Speaker 7: label when I got there, you know, I inherited them
Speaker 7: and it was interesting.
Speaker 1: Did you have good relationships with most of them? Or
Speaker 1: did you did you feel that there was resistance from
Speaker 1: the rock people that maybe you don't understand them. I
Speaker 1: know there was a situation where Sylvia roon at Elektra
Speaker 1: with like Metallica, and there was a lot of disrespect
Speaker 1: on their end because they're like, who does this black
Speaker 1: woman know about that?
Speaker 7: Like I had my version of that, you know. One
Speaker 7: point was sort of asked the question what does he
Speaker 7: know about rock? And roll and I say a whole
Speaker 7: lot more than you know about R and B.
Speaker 2: You know that my people created it, right.
Speaker 8: But there's a line here that says John Mellencamp being difficult.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a story there. John's also an essentric.
Speaker 1: I think all artists are centric, So you know, I.
Speaker 7: Liked him, but he's he definitely what's the Q tip
Speaker 7: line record? Yeah, John definitely read that book and then
Speaker 7: had had suspicion of everybody.
Speaker 1: Everybody record company is an idiot, you know, and uh
Speaker 1: and you know, and he was successful though he was,
Speaker 1: but he just had you know, everything was were you
Speaker 1: the brain chow behind him?
Speaker 7: What is.
Speaker 1: Tim? Tim will be our new words a lot?
Speaker 7: Tim White? Timothy White who used to be the editor
Speaker 7: of Billboard. Tim and I were pretty friendly, and he
Speaker 7: was one of John's closest friends. And I knew that
Speaker 7: if I pitched John directly, here's an idea I have
Speaker 7: for a duet, But he was fuck you. So Tim
Speaker 7: calls me at one point and says we're having a conversation.
Speaker 7: He goes, I'm trying to help John make some sense
Speaker 7: to this next record. He said, what do you think?
Speaker 7: I said, Well, a cover might be a cool idea.
Speaker 7: I covered it day he goes let's got it, I said,
Speaker 7: Michelle and na Ocello, she was the girl of the moment,
Speaker 7: and so I said, John, you know it's satisfied his
Speaker 7: Negro Jane and so.
Speaker 1: Hey, this is once play a little Ricorvette at a
Speaker 1: walk man like to his audience, like back in eighty two.
Speaker 7: And so yeah, Tim basically with the John So here's
Speaker 7: an idea, but mine and John Levan Morrison, so it's cool.
Speaker 7: Then he did it.
Speaker 1: I was at I was at a Michelle's show at
Speaker 1: the Blue Note and some poor soul in the back
Speaker 1: was like shouted it out. I was like, how was
Speaker 1: the response?
Speaker 6: She laughed, Okay, oh that ass How involving you and
Speaker 6: the creation of Vanessa's The Comfort Zone album one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent okay? Producer you work with on it?
Speaker 5: Keith Thomas.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Keith, Yeah, man, Like, how did that?
Speaker 6: Because was my favorite song on that album again, Goodbye
Speaker 6: that was by mc knights comes in at the end.
Speaker 7: That was the Yeah, Keith Thomas, because I really like
Speaker 7: the B, B and C C record I'm Lost Without You.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And then Keith had produced that record, wrote and produced
Speaker 7: that record, and uh, Keith was kind of Christian David Foster,
Speaker 7: you know, that was the vibe, you know. And when
Speaker 7: when the publishing person played me save the Best for
Speaker 7: Last and I said yeah, and I played for v
Speaker 7: and she dug it. I said, who's the right person
Speaker 7: to produce that? Foster would be great to do it,
Speaker 7: but I know he won't. But Uh, Keith Thomas. I
Speaker 7: called Keith Scott. Folks who was in our capit on
Speaker 7: those days were front on you. Everybody fronted up.
Speaker 1: Dreaming was a proven hit by the folks. Folks fronted, yeah,
Speaker 1: she had to do it again to prove it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Goddamn.
Speaker 7: Keith respect called Keith and and they and they, and
Speaker 7: he said, yeah, I'm down. The funny part about it
Speaker 7: is Keith's production assistant had sent me a cassette of
Speaker 7: just ideas that he had and then left out to
Speaker 7: two songs that Keith thought had come to me he
Speaker 7: thought it passed on. One of them was Baby Baby,
Speaker 7: the Amy Grant record, and the other was the song
Speaker 7: that was this big Selena hit. So that's that's the
Speaker 7: Keith Thomas story. You know, Keith, Keith, Keith was a
Speaker 7: good dude.
Speaker 5: And how was it Because another one of your hip
Speaker 5: hop I dimond d. He had what you involve.
Speaker 7: We had a deal with I can't remember the name
Speaker 7: of the label, Mistry Chemistry Records, Chemistry Records, a guy
Speaker 7: called Brian Chen. Brian was the dance dance music editor
Speaker 7: Billboard for a long time. And and Brian had a
Speaker 7: partner whose name escapes me right now. But they did,
Speaker 7: they did, They had chemistry. Eto Ge was theirs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a few things, diamond D Yeah, so yeah, can
Speaker 1: you please tell us the girlfriend's story?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 7: So nineteen eighty seven, eighty six, eighty seven, I'm working
Speaker 7: with Vanessa on her first record, so we're trying to
Speaker 7: make some sense of who would produce, who would work
Speaker 7: with on that record. And I knew these two guys
Speaker 7: from Cincinnati at the time, called Kenny Edmunds and Antonio Reid.
Speaker 7: I had met them because when I was working for Quincy,
Speaker 7: there was a local street producer entrepreneur, a guy called
Speaker 7: Pablo Davis in the Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio area, and Pablo
Speaker 7: turned me onto the Callaway Brothers then and also and
Speaker 7: he was looking after Kenny. Kenny and Antonio they were
Speaker 7: just becoming La and Babyface. They hadn't gotten on yet,
Speaker 7: and they came by my office, had Vanessa go by
Speaker 7: their place and they worked. She worked with him on
Speaker 7: some songs and they gave her a song called Girlfriend,
Speaker 7: which was great. I forget who was singing the lead
Speaker 7: on the demo, and I've heard it, so this smash.
Speaker 7: I got to have this record, and I thought we'd
Speaker 7: made a deal. We played let's make a deal, and
Speaker 7: v was she was pregnant with her first child at
Speaker 7: that point. And I guess truth of the matter is
Speaker 7: cut to the end, Pebbles was the perfect person for
Speaker 7: it because she had the attitude. She was that persona.
Speaker 7: Vanessa's not that persona.
Speaker 11: But it was tried with the yeah, yeah, the right
Speaker 11: stuff was a little bomb squatted out and yeah and
Speaker 11: and the second single, uh from the cumber Zone.
Speaker 7: Album, Yeah, running back to you, right, yeah, so attitude anyway, So,
Speaker 7: like I said, I thought it had made a deal
Speaker 7: for these like four songs on the tape, that we
Speaker 7: wanted them all and her girlfriend was one of them.
Speaker 7: And at the last minute, right when I thought it
Speaker 7: was time for us to get started, l A Baiales,
Speaker 7: he said, He said, I can't fuck with you on
Speaker 7: this recommend. You know, I guess Lowell that he played
Speaker 7: him for Lowell and Lil you know Lowland Jerrell and
Speaker 7: they you know, they loved him, loved it. And then
Speaker 7: you know, threw money I made and Offrey couldn't refuse,
Speaker 7: and you know I got left ass out. So yeah,
Speaker 7: I wasn't. I was, you know, it was it was.
Speaker 7: It was nearly an an R wars, you know, because
Speaker 7: I was like, I want to beat this brother's ass.
Speaker 7: Thank you many. Yeah. So so what do you feel
Speaker 7: from Afar from CET three or two of the Bleachers?
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Do you have hope that sort of the
Speaker 1: thing that And again, I know this is such a
Speaker 1: subjective question because I'm certain that there's some fourteen year
Speaker 1: old that's in their feelings at a Billie Eilish show
Speaker 1: that you know, probably the same way your dad's looking
Speaker 1: at Sli the family Stone, like what the hell is this?
Speaker 1: Like I knew Billy Holliday, But in your mind, do
Speaker 1: you think that there will be an itch that gets
Speaker 1: scratched as far as your relationship to music and and
Speaker 1: what brought you to it?
Speaker 7: I don't know, Or is it just in your kid's
Speaker 7: hands now is my kid's hands now? Because there's a
Speaker 7: certain aspect of it that I wonder that, you know,
Speaker 7: if the tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?
Speaker 7: You know, I'm wondering at times that if whatever that
Speaker 7: next big flash point is, if it happens, William Bay
Speaker 7: really how much William Bay really give a fuck? And
Speaker 7: the give a fuck factor is decidedly different now in
Speaker 7: terms of what that impact is. You know, it's the
Speaker 7: because there's so many options, you.
Speaker 1: Know, you know, this is probably this is this is
Speaker 1: the episode that I wish. The Faith Newman episode was
Speaker 1: like I feel satisfied. I always always tease her about like,
Speaker 1: you know, you made the worst Q less.
Speaker 7: It's just the Monica episode was the bomb.
Speaker 2: That's your favorite's favorite QL episode so far.
Speaker 7: Bootsy was cool.
Speaker 1: That was great.
Speaker 7: Monica was cool.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love the Robert Townsend episode. That is like
Speaker 1: Robert Towns in it. In my opinion, has put the
Speaker 1: Family Stand Jimmy Jam was first.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jam was great. That was great.
Speaker 1: But then for me, the Family Stand episode was the
Speaker 1: Jimmy Jam episode with humor and a lot of salacious,
Speaker 1: unnecessary and are slashing I pray that Sylvia comes on
Speaker 1: the show eventually, and then Robert. I don't know the
Speaker 1: Robert Towns's episode was an unexpected nice surprise. But no,
Speaker 1: this is equally satisfied. Man, I learned so much today,
Speaker 1: man can reach.
Speaker 2: One roots question. Yes, So in retrospect, as you were
Speaker 2: watching this ship go by without you, did you ever
Speaker 2: have any moments where you were like, man, if I
Speaker 2: only able to sign with me, I would have did
Speaker 2: da d H. I would have been had them and
Speaker 2: so and so.
Speaker 1: And so someone told you that five minutes after this episode.
Speaker 7: For us, for me my roots moment because once again
Speaker 7: I wasn't as invested at the time when you were
Speaker 7: showcasing it was really Lisa and Kenyata and I would
Speaker 7: have jumped on board had you know, had we gotten
Speaker 7: the mid green lighted the deal, So I would have
Speaker 7: jumped on board to give you a little sidebar to
Speaker 7: digress them. But how the whole thing went down when
Speaker 7: you know a couple of names were spelled wrong. Yes,
Speaker 7: that ended up being a huge moment for us inside
Speaker 7: the label because a PolyGram At that time, all business
Speaker 7: affairs was kind of done centrally out of corporate and
Speaker 7: the label. Individual labels didn't have their own business affairs people,
Speaker 7: and I made so much fucking noise.
Speaker 2: About that I fired fired somebody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I.
Speaker 7: Didn't fire the person, but one of the business fairs persons.
Speaker 7: And ultimately what it led to was me getting my
Speaker 7: own business fairs person inside of the company, which is
Speaker 7: a woman called Julie Swiddler and Swiddler's Julie's now they
Speaker 7: had of business affairs and has been for the last
Speaker 7: ten years at Sony globally.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and she crossed every team dot every idea,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So I was drugg that we lost you.
Speaker 7: But answer your question, what really resonated with me was
Speaker 7: when you got went to England, because I was dealing
Speaker 7: with Giles a lot in those days. And then also
Speaker 7: that how you know when you initially blew up quote
Speaker 7: unquote blew up. I met a couple of my friend's kids,
Speaker 7: white who were college students in the East, were he
Speaker 7: have you.
Speaker 1: Heard ever heard of the roots red?
Speaker 7: I'm pretty sure that was me, So yeah, there's a
Speaker 7: lot of that. I was like, I loved what you
Speaker 7: guys were generating it on your own, because I don't
Speaker 7: think it was being marketed that.
Speaker 1: Now, Wendy Goldstein did what was allowed at the time.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's almost like literally the second we signed,
Speaker 1: then the crisis started happening. No more Nirvana, no more Aerosmith,
Speaker 1: no more you know, guns and Roses. And then it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: we should have went to the PolyGram.
Speaker 7: Maybe I got a couple of things here.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, he's presenting me with records. Yeah, whoa, Okay,
Speaker 1: he explaining what this is.
Speaker 7: Yes, speak to ship. It's a seventy eight of Wow
Speaker 7: the Hearts, Wow on chests with your racial chests, logan.
Speaker 1: His dad's group, Wow on chest chests.
Speaker 2: Records, don't cry.
Speaker 1: Up.
Speaker 5: Whatever you need to do it have your moment.
Speaker 7: That was That was That was an artifact that came
Speaker 7: from my mom and dad. You know Pops. Pops didn't
Speaker 7: give a funk about Duop, but apparently he likes your
Speaker 7: dad's grew man because you had their record Wow.
Speaker 5: And it's a seventy eight. Do you have something to
Speaker 5: play at seventy eight on?
Speaker 7: Like you.
Speaker 1: I had to frame this.
Speaker 7: That's what you do with that?
Speaker 5: Don't play that?
Speaker 1: I feel like it'll just like I'm so I'm beyond
Speaker 1: grateful for this man. This is.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: I've never seen not a speechless guy.
Speaker 7: Ed made a speechless guy.
Speaker 1: Well done, man, that's real now. And oh man, even
Speaker 1: Roy Calhoun's the girl around the corners on the beach.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, and what do you have?
Speaker 7: Well, wait a minute, look at the back of it,
Speaker 7: and I'll read you the letter, because there's a.
Speaker 10: What is it?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 7: The legend is told that when Prince was initially doing
Speaker 7: demos and shopping himself, he only made three demos to
Speaker 7: send out. One was to go to the one was
Speaker 7: to go to Warner Brothers. One was to go to Columbia.
Speaker 7: And the lore has been A and M, but it
Speaker 7: was Quincy Jones and and so I got this letter.
Speaker 1: I got this letter. You guys have to see this.
Speaker 7: I got this letter. This is like a year before
Speaker 7: COVID from Owen Husney. Owen was Prince, the original managers
Speaker 7: and old friend ed. Sorry, this is forty years later
Speaker 7: in getting to you. You know how the mail is
Speaker 7: these days. This is the early eight track demo before
Speaker 7: me we made the original twenty four track demo that
Speaker 7: got him signed to Warner Brothers. Your name is in
Speaker 7: my hand and writing, and the rest is Prince you
Speaker 7: can still make an offer to sign him if you
Speaker 7: like what's on the tape. Hope all is well, Please
Speaker 7: keep the secure as this is worth quite a bit
Speaker 7: to collectors.
Speaker 1: Holy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there is someting wet and aces that.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I mean, it's up with this
Speaker 1: very stereo, very very very stereous.
Speaker 7: Prince Rogers Nelson Esquire.
Speaker 2: Right, this is why it's so important to know your
Speaker 2: history and the players. And we gotta keep saying your name,
Speaker 2: say your name, say your name, dude, go.
Speaker 1: To nice gift and for the rest of us, the first.
Speaker 2: Dominant, he wrote, Prince Nelson Esquire, Prince Nelson Esquire.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious, very stereo. He's a lawyer, man.
Speaker 5: That's so that's seventy How how is that? How you
Speaker 5: think that pression is well.
Speaker 1: Tear drops came out and fifth fifty eight?
Speaker 5: Wow? Bro, yeah, holy you guys show the camera that
Speaker 5: they got No.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, this this this came out in fifty eight,
Speaker 1: so wow.
Speaker 5: And that's an original press and that's like.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, you can say somebody played the ship out
Speaker 7: of it.
Speaker 1: A yeah, Wow, that's amazing. Wow, this is I brought
Speaker 1: a couple of why you signed? Did you sign Joe? Huh?
Speaker 1: You signed Joe? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Anyone? He was signed?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah he was.
Speaker 1: I had the first album, guy called Dave McPherson signed him. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Also, we didn't discuss the Jason's Lyrics soundtrack, perhaps one
Speaker 8: of my favorite soundtracks time.
Speaker 1: It is that the way for whatever reason you.
Speaker 7: I love that.
Speaker 1: But that was so wow. This is your this is your.
Speaker 2: This is your Blackman unit wasn't.
Speaker 7: We can talk about that?
Speaker 1: Actually, wait a minute, did you take a stab at
Speaker 1: di'angelo before you signed it?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Gary?
Speaker 7: And then Joscelyn. Jocelyn was working for me in there
Speaker 7: in those days too.
Speaker 1: Were you in the were you in the wait? Joscelyn
Speaker 1: was shopping at the time or no.
Speaker 7: Joscelyn had a publishing company with me. I'd made we
Speaker 7: made a deal called for Midnight Music and uh, when
Speaker 7: Gary took a em I Jocelyn signed the publishing deal
Speaker 7: had him and Gary. They weren't going to use you
Speaker 7: will know for his album and George Jackson and Doug
Speaker 7: mckenry were doing Jason's lyric and it brought me in.
Speaker 7: I was music supervising it with him and I'd heard
Speaker 7: you will know from Gary, and I said this would
Speaker 7: be perfect for the for the for the soundtrack, given
Speaker 7: the theme of the film and all that stuff and having,
Speaker 7: you know, come from the sort of the Q world.
Speaker 7: I came up with the idea of let's do it
Speaker 7: as were the worldish kind of thing and called it
Speaker 7: black bm you because that's what they're calling prisons at
Speaker 7: that point, black Man University was, you know, because in
Speaker 7: jail prisons called b U. And I said, let's call
Speaker 7: it BMMU. And then I said black Men United, oh ship,
Speaker 7: and then we.
Speaker 1: Did so then but you also did the same for
Speaker 1: women for the Panther exactly. Well, I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show man. Thank you person.
Speaker 6: You've been by like some of my favorite records man,
Speaker 6: like Amy, like you know, just from Vanessa Williams and
Speaker 6: the Tony's you know, like if I saw your name
Speaker 6: on it, I was like, okay, it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 7: Basically not for real.
Speaker 1: Man. Thank you for listening to The Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 1: hosted by Amra cous loved Thomas, Why You, Saint, Clair Sugar,
Speaker 1: Steve Mandell An unpaid Bill Sherman Executive Producers are a
Speaker 1: mere Quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calton. Produced
Speaker 1: by Britney, benjer Cousin, Jake Payne, Wah Sinkley, edited by
Speaker 1: Alex Connolly, Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown and Mike John's.
Speaker 1: Audio engineering by Graham Gibson.
Speaker 12: And iHeart Eli Studio. West Love Supreme is a production
Speaker 12: of iHeart Radio.
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