Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio Yo.
Speaker 2: It's Up Everybody. It's Fontigelow from Questlove Supreme. We are
Speaker 2: back with part two of our conversation with Nada Michael Walkin.
Speaker 1: This is an amazing two parter.
Speaker 2: If you haven't, please check out part one where Narrata
Speaker 2: talks about his Michigan upbringing, his deeply transformational time with
Speaker 2: the Maha Vishnu orchestruct Who Little Brother, Sample, Plug, Plug,
Speaker 2: Chikaia and Bore. Is April Jazz Appreciation Month, and this
Speaker 2: two parter certainly celebrates the genre and culture and I
Speaker 2: would shape so much music outside of the genre.
Speaker 3: Enjoy.
Speaker 4: There's a question I've been dying to know in the
Speaker 4: mid seventies jazz cats Now in the case if you're
Speaker 4: Miles David's disciple, I understand, Like m two May already
Speaker 4: explained to us that Miles' dependency he was getting out
Speaker 4: of control in the early seventies and then he's basically
Speaker 4: not too functional and the bands left without work and
Speaker 4: they're basically like, well, we got to pay the rent,
Speaker 4: and you know, m to May and Reggie Lucas of
Speaker 4: Miles Davis's you Know band were like, well, shit, we
Speaker 4: got to write some hits to pay the bills.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Can you explain to me why there was such a
Speaker 4: mass exodus of fusion musicians of jazz musicians that all
Speaker 4: of a sudden in the mid seventies became the architects
Speaker 4: and the proprietors of some of the poppiest songs we've
Speaker 4: ever heard.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a complete opposite. What was the.
Speaker 4: Transitional decision process to get out of fusion and into
Speaker 4: pop music?
Speaker 3: Very good? I got you my third solo album, we
Speaker 3: call Awakening. I was cutting it in La Stevie Wonders
Speaker 3: studio and Wayne Anderson was one of the producer type
Speaker 3: people with me and his teams and all that. And
Speaker 3: then I got a call after I was cutting that music.
Speaker 3: You know some cool stuff that Jim Dellahant from Atlantic,
Speaker 3: who's my an r. He said, you know what, if
Speaker 3: you don't have a hit on this next album, we're
Speaker 3: going to drop you. And that was the word of
Speaker 3: death to me. I knew that things were going through
Speaker 3: a change. He told me. He said, in New York
Speaker 3: this goes hot now dancing the Steve fifty four people. Really,
Speaker 3: it's like a big craze we really suggest that you
Speaker 3: come to New York and see what's going on. And
Speaker 3: I did, and when I went there, I felt what
Speaker 3: he was talking about. It was on firewood dance, and
Speaker 3: that wasn't hard for me because I'm raised with motime,
Speaker 3: I'm raised with people all kind of music. So after
Speaker 3: I cut the Awakening stuff in California, I decided to
Speaker 3: make side side of one that was strictly for dance
Speaker 3: and saved my career and not be dropped. And I
Speaker 3: used the examples of Rick James, you and I. He
Speaker 3: was a good person for me to kind of draw
Speaker 3: from because it was live drums, it was funky, it
Speaker 3: was live, it was horns, things I loved, and it
Speaker 3: was a style I could pull off. So in my
Speaker 3: hotel room at the Hilton in my I got a
Speaker 3: clavenet in the Roads in my room and I wrote
Speaker 3: four jams and I don't want nobody else won those jams.
Speaker 3: And I was so lucky to get Bobby clem Out
Speaker 3: from Power Station to be my engineer. What records he
Speaker 3: made with Chic on Good Times. I had never heard
Speaker 3: a more beautiful record than fucking Good Times. And it
Speaker 3: haven't be my engineer to get my drum sound. Yeah. See,
Speaker 3: so I'm cutting those records. I don't want nobody else.
Speaker 3: And then guess what else? Now, I got Randy Brecker
Speaker 3: coming to come in with Michael Brecker and David Sam
Speaker 3: want to put horns on my jam. So it's real
Speaker 3: musicians see it. So I'm happy. And then they said
Speaker 3: you got to use the cat who's big of a
Speaker 3: disco named Patrick Patrick Adams. Yes, because his name in
Speaker 3: the disco world with the strings and learning, he does well.
Speaker 3: Make sure you you know. So I said, okay, so
Speaker 3: you know. And he didn't come around there that much,
Speaker 3: but you might come out of love with a little
Speaker 3: sound on something to do a little thing a little
Speaker 3: and he was cool. What I'm saying is cutting that music.
Speaker 3: And then when I had success with that sound, it
Speaker 3: saved my career. At that time, I didn't want to
Speaker 3: be dropped. I wanted to be a strong person to
Speaker 3: make it. I just got married. I want to take
Speaker 3: care of my life. And it's fusionary music as we know,
Speaker 3: it was going away the people in the fans, for
Speaker 3: example Garden Love Light, that album didn't sell that much.
Speaker 3: I wasn't. I wasn't like some overnight star people. They
Speaker 3: were not they were not supporting, but they supposedly loved
Speaker 3: the fusion at those times going forward in the seventies
Speaker 3: early on, yes, but not those years. Those years it
Speaker 3: was a change up going on. Even even Lenning whit
Speaker 3: wouldn't my man return to forever? Those everything's kind of like, NA,
Speaker 3: So what are you gonna do? Be you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? If you're gonna support me, fine, we're making money,
Speaker 3: no money, I'm going I'm going to save my life.
Speaker 3: I did, brother, I got. I'm happy I did. It
Speaker 3: was wonderful, wonderful, and every out I do I was put,
Speaker 3: you know, a Son's dancing type jam on there. So
Speaker 3: I can still do that and I love it right,
Speaker 3: But I'm about having a radio hit and making some money,
Speaker 3: so I'm not shining shoes.
Speaker 4: I know that you've had Randy Jackson in your stable
Speaker 4: since he was a teenager, and not Michael's brother, but
Speaker 4: Randy Jackson, American idol, r Andy Jackson since he was sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 4: eighteen years old, I believe, but I always thought that
Speaker 4: was him killing I should have loved you. Someone told
Speaker 4: me like two weeks ago that was TM Stevens.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: Please can you please tell me just about Tim Stevens
Speaker 4: and tell me what it was like working with them.
Speaker 3: Team's a genius. I was in New York, I still
Speaker 3: lived in New York. I met Tiam before I moved
Speaker 3: to California seventy eight, So in seventy seven round those
Speaker 3: years I met t him. You know, he'd be like
Speaker 3: the stee you wonder the bass. He had that kind
Speaker 3: of power, that kind of energy, like a like just
Speaker 3: a huge band with the strength of God in his hands.
Speaker 3: And they could play Bookoo like that to be popping
Speaker 3: the two in the four as he's playing with lines
Speaker 3: right and just he was playing with a show called
Speaker 3: Your Arms Too Short the Box of God. And he
Speaker 3: had a drummer named Howie Great from Queen's and how
Speaker 3: he became my connection out in the Queen's area. All
Speaker 3: those good drummers out and people ou in Queen's area too. See,
Speaker 3: so now here's TM Steve. I mean, all these new
Speaker 3: cats are coming up with the great skills. And then
Speaker 3: as it worked out, I had to do a tour
Speaker 3: for I don't know a best dance with you, So
Speaker 3: I had to put a band together so I asked
Speaker 3: Tam drummer my touring band, you know, and Philip's says
Speaker 3: out of at Berkeley to play keyboards, and Pat Throw
Speaker 3: from Automatic Man from California come and play guitars and
Speaker 3: put a hot band together and toured and then came
Speaker 3: time for my fourth so woul become Dance of Life.
Speaker 3: And now I'm living in San Francisco, so I thought,
Speaker 3: I'll bring TM Stevens out here to work out this
Speaker 3: new material with me. And I know I still have
Speaker 3: to have another hit. I'll be dropped. So as it
Speaker 3: worked out, I brought him to California, be a little
Speaker 3: warehouse in Oakland. I said, team will play a game
Speaker 3: with you. I'm gonna play this groove on the drums,
Speaker 3: And every time I hit I hit, the symbol changed
Speaker 3: baselines and he'd be playing the baseline whatever it is
Speaker 3: right now. Then I had the symbol again, he changed.
Speaker 3: I cranked the symbol again, he changed. Then finally crap
Speaker 3: should have that I did? That was that's his massive baseline.
Speaker 3: Ran Jackson wasn't around then. That came. He came later,
Speaker 3: but I didn't think I find anyone whould play. I
Speaker 3: should have loved you like TM Stevens. He's the most
Speaker 3: massive cat in the world.
Speaker 4: For the longest I thought it was when you know,
Speaker 4: it came out when I was eight, so I thought
Speaker 4: it was chic initially. Yeah, but shit, I'm just realizing now.
Speaker 4: Before she passed away, we had Ali Willis on the show, Yes,
Speaker 4: and she was this mind blowing that we knew our
Speaker 4: whole discography only because a lot of the work that
Speaker 4: she did wound up being like iconic samples that we
Speaker 4: would later gravitate towards. And so she was kind of
Speaker 4: weirded out that we knew her history. But how did
Speaker 4: you link up with her to write that song?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, she's in LA I'm in San Francisco, and
Speaker 3: I hear about her work because of the Maurice White
Speaker 3: earthmen and fire stuff that I was exploding with her
Speaker 3: name on it, right, I knew she was mean somehow
Speaker 3: or other. I came into touch with her because of
Speaker 3: her publishing people, the company she was part of, Almo Irving,
Speaker 3: and I could find her number. Then when I talked
Speaker 3: on the phone, come to find out she's from damn
Speaker 3: my hometown, Detroit, Michigan. I'm from Kalamazoo she's from Detroit,
Speaker 3: so we had a kind of a bond immediately, and
Speaker 3: that I loved what she was doing. She said, well,
Speaker 3: come down to my house. So I did. I brought
Speaker 3: my eye should Love you down to her house. And
Speaker 3: our house was all what's that word? When everything's like
Speaker 3: old fashioned looking, old dolls and old things and everything old.
Speaker 1: We've been there a career before.
Speaker 3: So that was kind of wow. Okay, But we sat
Speaker 3: down and wrote the lyrics for I Should Love and
Speaker 3: she was just mean how her brain thought, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's so wait. She she's had that house of
Speaker 1: kitchen art there was.
Speaker 3: Tesy no, there's two. Was first house she had was
Speaker 3: become a smaller apartment house. It wasn't a big one,
Speaker 3: it was smaller, but it had all that stuff in it.
Speaker 3: Then later on, as we became even closer and friendlier
Speaker 3: over over years, then she got the bigger house that
Speaker 3: you're talking about, and we were always tight then too.
Speaker 4: Tell me about the process of going into producing and
Speaker 4: what did you learn that you couldn't apply for yourself
Speaker 4: that you wound up giving two other artists.
Speaker 3: Well, at that time I was hot with that I
Speaker 3: should have Loved you time all right those records. Why
Speaker 3: did you turn me on? And I asked Henry Allen,
Speaker 3: who was the president of Contillion Records. He's a partner
Speaker 3: with Atlantic Records. Black gentleman, Henry Allen, you gotta know
Speaker 3: about Henry Allen's He and his team. They had signed
Speaker 3: Stacy when she was about eleven and they made recording
Speaker 3: but it wasn't doing well. So I said, Henry, you
Speaker 3: know this girl, Stacy, why don't you let me do
Speaker 3: some songs on her. I'll do four songs. If you
Speaker 3: like him, I'll finished the album. If you don't like me,
Speaker 3: I haven't lost much as four songs. And he said,
Speaker 3: you know what, it's a good idea, go dude, do her.
Speaker 3: So I took it very, very seriously. This is my
Speaker 3: first real shot at pop production. My first jazz production
Speaker 3: was just before that, a cat named Don Cherry. Then
Speaker 3: now I'm gone to Restauranta Rose more jazz, you know,
Speaker 3: with Tony Williams and Lenny all that stuff in the
Speaker 3: pop world. Yes, it was Stacey Lantisa. So then I
Speaker 3: wrote these songs with a girl named Bunny Hull Buddy.
Speaker 3: It came to my house in San Francisco and my
Speaker 3: wife at the time, Lisa, Lisa Walden, I wrote these
Speaker 3: songs let Me be your Angel, Dynamite jumped to the beat,
Speaker 3: and I flew to go to Stacy's house. She had
Speaker 3: a very small house and like a little spin at
Speaker 3: piano and I just got on her piano and just
Speaker 3: kind of went through these teach teaching me the songs
Speaker 3: so make sure the keys are writing and all that,
Speaker 3: And then came back to San Francisco at the Sauce
Speaker 3: Leado record plant where Prince then made his first album.
Speaker 3: In there, I got my big drum sound Tommy Tommy Fly,
Speaker 3: the same guy that did for James' records on the Maybe
Speaker 3: Angel Dyning My joke, got a great sound with my
Speaker 3: band Karado guitar, TM on bass, Frank Martin on keyboards,
Speaker 3: and laid that stuff out. Mike gives strings, laid it out.
Speaker 3: Then went to power Station to get her vocals on
Speaker 3: those songs, and here she said, about eleven years old,
Speaker 3: that big voice you hear, and just I wanted to
Speaker 3: get it just right, and we did and it became
Speaker 3: his for us. So I'm just very very very very
Speaker 3: very proud of that time. And it opened up a
Speaker 3: lot of doors from me because because of that, Cam
Speaker 3: then Clive Davis calling and everybody else calling because I
Speaker 3: had that kind of sucessful stage and the stays actually
Speaker 3: to open them for Michael Jackson and Jackson five. That's
Speaker 3: how to get big. She got with Tiam Steven's on base.
Speaker 2: I was on to ask what that work with Stacy
Speaker 2: and then also going on with Sha Nice and Tevin Campbell.
Speaker 2: What was kind of your I guess you're your formula
Speaker 2: for working with children, because that's something that's really hard
Speaker 2: to do, like to write material that is can't sell,
Speaker 2: but it's also his aging appropriate. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: How did you kind of figure that out? And you know,
Speaker 2: kind of find that balance.
Speaker 3: You have to have a great hook. The hook is
Speaker 3: worth will always save you as far as making money
Speaker 3: on music business. The hook, of course, and I'm always
Speaker 3: aware of, like, well, who is it Stacy, she's eleven twelve.
Speaker 3: This whole angel concept is always cool, you know, and
Speaker 3: then she could talk. You know, you might think I'm
Speaker 3: too young to understand, but don't be fooled. You know,
Speaker 3: like a child, you know, I look into your eyes
Speaker 3: and I know someday, you know, I'll make you mine.
Speaker 3: I don't make kiddie music. That doesn't work. I learned
Speaker 3: from Michael Jackson the early I want you back. You
Speaker 3: know those records. You got to make records that everyone
Speaker 3: can party to, faboots. So I didn't travel make kiddie records.
Speaker 3: You mentioned Shoannie Wilson. She came here, she was sixteen,
Speaker 3: and I said, right down seven song titles, and she
Speaker 3: did justish, I hate to be lonely. I love your
Speaker 3: smile and I want my to keyboard, and just wrote
Speaker 3: those songs and God blessed me. Just I love I
Speaker 3: love you know smiles. Just looking at her, you can
Speaker 3: feel the energy coming off her and that smile. She's gone.
Speaker 3: That's what it was. Tavin Campbell, when Quincy Jones brought
Speaker 3: him here, I looked at him, just so beautiful, thin,
Speaker 3: a genius thinger like Whitney said, well, you need you
Speaker 3: need the song, showcase your voice and like a big
Speaker 3: a tour the fours man. I said, which what you
Speaker 3: want to do, Tavin, Yeah, tell me what you want
Speaker 3: me to do. That's just that's simple. Then you gotta
Speaker 3: put the big modulation so you can really go on.
Speaker 1: Right right right.
Speaker 4: Jimmy jam kind of teases me because when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, whenever a song would modulate, that would scare me.
Speaker 1: And so because it sounds dramatic. Yeah, and so wait,
Speaker 1: but here's the.
Speaker 4: Thing, you you know, often, in my obsession with historical firsts,
Speaker 4: I will actually say that if someone were to be
Speaker 4: credited with like the really first attempt at New Jack Swing, yeah,
Speaker 4: I would say Attack of the Name Game.
Speaker 1: Might be the.
Speaker 4: First experimentation of making a singer sing on a backtrack,
Speaker 4: that is that could be made for hip hop. All right,
Speaker 4: So for those that don't know, was it the Sneaking
Speaker 4: Out album?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so stay I see a lot of songs.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, I know she had albums before let
Speaker 4: Me Be Your Angel, So I would say her fourth album,
Speaker 4: maybe a third or fourth album. Yeah, But there's a
Speaker 4: song Attack of the Name Game, which even when I
Speaker 4: heard it as eleven year old, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is kind of made for me. Like this, this
Speaker 4: isn't a song that my dad would gravitate towards because
Speaker 4: this sounds like rap music.
Speaker 1: That I like, what was the process in trying to
Speaker 1: go there?
Speaker 3: Thank you? That's very cool man. Two things. One borrowing
Speaker 3: from the sixties idea of you know, a banana fan
Speaker 3: of fol fan of me and my mom. Man had
Speaker 3: taken that vibe, which I actually to pay them for,
Speaker 3: which I didn't mind because I love the college sept
Speaker 3: And then I joined that with yes I did, Yes
Speaker 3: I did. And then I joined that with my brain
Speaker 3: and made my own version of Tom Time Club, which
Speaker 3: was so hot in New York, Tino. Yeah, I take
Speaker 3: all those things and mix them together.
Speaker 1: I mean, let the listeners know. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Attack of the Name Game is what Mariah sampled for
Speaker 4: a heartbreaker.
Speaker 1: Heartbreaker, Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: So I was always looking to New York and even
Speaker 3: London too, was always gonna be the next wave. So
Speaker 3: I caught that wave, man, and I'm just you know,
Speaker 3: and then I've got Stacy to do that. The thing
Speaker 3: one when her brother became that kind of a sound
Speaker 3: talking like the alien from space.
Speaker 1: See, I thought that was you.
Speaker 3: That was her brother.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: If there's two human beings that I've seen that were
Speaker 4: otherworldly to me as far as like they're just on
Speaker 4: some almost pleadian alien level type of person, I've never
Speaker 4: seen Angela Bouefield give a normal interview on television. Okay,
Speaker 4: so can you please describe, because I've never seen a
Speaker 4: person put their humor out front, and like she always
Speaker 4: had a joke or a punchline, like maybe Vesta is
Speaker 4: in third place, like I'll see Tatsa Vega. Vesta and
Speaker 4: Angela Bouefield were like almost personalities.
Speaker 1: What was Angela Bufield?
Speaker 3: Like? Open hearted, funny, But I must tell you perfect pitch.
Speaker 3: It's so beautiful how she hears and how she can
Speaker 3: hit her notes and just make everything so musical. She's
Speaker 3: extremely musical. I was a fan of her stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: before I ever worked with her. You know, I try
Speaker 3: and those records she put out with Grusoon Dave Grusoon,
Speaker 3: which is beautiful. So then when Clyde Davis asked me
Speaker 3: to work with with Angela, he first picked the song
Speaker 3: of something about You and few of those type of ideas.
Speaker 3: But after I got to know her, I know that
Speaker 3: she liked the funk. To see that, I got excited
Speaker 3: and I came on one morning on my profit keyboard
Speaker 3: and my drum machine, my the machines and just made
Speaker 3: a demo. But I don't make demos some big records,
Speaker 3: but cutt an idea of too tough for her because
Speaker 3: I knew that she liked the funk and that was
Speaker 3: the most cutting ede stuf I stuff I could do.
Speaker 3: At that time. I said, and it's just coming in
Speaker 3: and to sing on this for me, and she did,
Speaker 3: and she got so excited she called Clive now to
Speaker 3: getting a hit. But I was really just wanted to
Speaker 3: be like raw a dude and done done, done, done
Speaker 3: like that, all that kind of thing, you know. And
Speaker 3: and we all we also had a lot of license
Speaker 3: to be a little little raunchy and lyrics now because
Speaker 3: now Prince Will been on the scene a lot of
Speaker 3: things to be on the scene. You could be a
Speaker 3: little bit cutting edge on the lyric in R and
Speaker 3: B and get away with it. So all those things
Speaker 3: kind of came into factor. But I love Angela. You know,
Speaker 3: she's had a little stroke. Now we're still talking to
Speaker 3: her and all she's all, I want to know what's
Speaker 3: going on, you know. But we made I Maderee albums
Speaker 3: for Lange, both for three albums, a lot of music,
Speaker 3: and she taught me how to them. Going to Whitney Houston.
Speaker 3: I have to say that my discipline with with the
Speaker 3: way Angela gave me knowing how to if I only
Speaker 3: have three hours with it? Within three hours here three hours,
Speaker 3: but two hours year. I knew how to cut vocals
Speaker 3: now because of Angela Beaufield.
Speaker 4: So before we get to Whitney, Yeah, one I want
Speaker 4: to know, like how do you climb the mountain? That
Speaker 4: is Clive Davis because of his just no nonsense, no
Speaker 4: bullshit kind of like give me the hit, take me
Speaker 4: to the mountaintop. What is your first meetings with Clive?
Speaker 4: Like like, how does he know that he can put
Speaker 4: his trust in you to deliver what is needed?
Speaker 3: I think when he heard let me be your Angel,
Speaker 3: he called me the telephone and he said, you know,
Speaker 3: how are you doing this? It was like a question
Speaker 3: to me, It's like, huh, how am I doing this? Well,
Speaker 3: I'm from Michigan, Callum's in Michigan. We love music and
Speaker 3: we just that's what we do. That's it.
Speaker 5: I said.
Speaker 3: From me, He goes, well, how would you want to
Speaker 3: work with some of my artists, you know, like angel
Speaker 3: the Boatfield. That's how it started. Just that's that humble.
Speaker 3: And then after I did the trust with Ange doing
Speaker 3: those records came then Phyllis Hyman and uh then then
Speaker 3: not long after that, he said, Dione Warrick, that's mine.
Speaker 3: You know, Burke backrecks Hal David is like, oh my god, healthy,
Speaker 3: you know, the Windows of the World, all that music.
Speaker 3: So that was mind belonged even to think about meeting
Speaker 3: that Dione Warwick. I put my little thirteen songs together,
Speaker 3: went to la during her home and Dion was not
Speaker 3: feeling my music. So I came back home and I
Speaker 3: called Clive. I said, Dion is not feeling my music.
Speaker 3: He said, don't worry, which I thought was very very kind.
Speaker 3: He said, don't worry. He said, how about Aarretha Franklin.
Speaker 3: How about Aretha Franklin? Right? He said, just here for
Speaker 3: a phone call, okay? And I did, And I called
Speaker 3: Aretha and I'm so glad I had my pen and
Speaker 3: paper and everything ready because I had no idea how
Speaker 3: deep she is? Can I can? I? Can I tell
Speaker 3: that story for you right now? Absolutely? Okay? I call Aretha.
Speaker 3: He she says, hi, And I said, well, what do
Speaker 3: you do for fun? You know, I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: break it down, you know, you Detroit, what do you
Speaker 3: do for fun? That's when she showed me who she is.
Speaker 3: She goes, hm, you know, maybe I not. I go
Speaker 3: out to a nightclub, you know, maybe in the corner,
Speaker 3: I see a guy like, you know, he looks, he
Speaker 3: looks at me. I look at him. It's like, who's zooming?
Speaker 3: Then he feels he's got me with the fish up
Speaker 3: off the hook? Who's zooming? Who the fish hump off
Speaker 3: the hook? That's how she talked. That's who she is.
Speaker 3: I was like, so that was I wasn't ready for
Speaker 3: all that, but I took that stuff. I said, resting
Speaker 3: my partner, we gotta write a song with this Who's
Speaker 3: the who fishing off the hook? She's crazy, man, It's crazy.
Speaker 3: That's how that happened. So that was Clyde Davis. Just
Speaker 3: give her a call.
Speaker 4: I believe that you can meditate and manifest whatever it
Speaker 4: is that you want to achieve in life. But I
Speaker 4: mean to be honest with you. When you're starting the
Speaker 4: Whitney Houston debut album, I mean, are you thinking that
Speaker 4: this person's about to be the Mount Rushmore of pop
Speaker 4: music as we know it at that time? Or were
Speaker 4: they just planning like respectable you know black casief numbers
Speaker 4: like she's gonna go gold and platinum, maybe double platinum,
Speaker 4: like coming into the door.
Speaker 1: Do you know what you guys were gunning for?
Speaker 3: Okay, that's very beautiful. Thank you for the honor and
Speaker 3: the love to give me. I can feel it when
Speaker 3: you're talking to me, and what it does is it
Speaker 3: makes me really think about what you're asking. So what
Speaker 3: I want to say is this. When I'm in the automat,
Speaker 3: I wasn't at Tarban studio shop. I was still in
Speaker 3: the city at the automat cutting a Wreatha Franklin, getting
Speaker 3: ready for Wretha Franklin. When the phone call came from
Speaker 3: Jerry Griffin, the an R of Arista, Narda, you got
Speaker 3: to make time for Whitney Houston, and I said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm working on Retha Franklin. I cannot lose my focus.
Speaker 3: He goes, yeah, I know, but you don't want to
Speaker 3: miss this younger we've signed who's gonna be big. But
Speaker 3: and also I gotta tell you, Narda, she is Sissy
Speaker 3: Houston's daughter. And then I had to stop and think
Speaker 3: Sissy Houston saying background a garden, love life, take me,
Speaker 3: take me, Take me to the God, the Light. And
Speaker 3: when the corner was a little eleven year old girl
Speaker 3: that was her daughter. I met with this little girl,
Speaker 3: which was eleven. Oh yeah, I said, well, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm busy. He goes, we have a hook a song.
Speaker 3: How will I know? Let me send you the idea.
Speaker 3: She sent me the idea, heard howl. I know cool. Cool, course,
Speaker 3: I call hi back to Jerry. There's no verses. I mean,
Speaker 3: if I'm getting involved, I gotta write some verses for
Speaker 3: this thing. Finish. It's gonna make a strong song because
Speaker 3: let me ask the writers. He called the writers, call
Speaker 3: me back right to stay fine. Now it's on. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So instead of doing another I read the song that day,
Speaker 3: I told Randy Jackson Kroto Preston, Walter Auson, Avia, Frank
Speaker 3: Martin Dave phrase of my team, We're gonna do a
Speaker 3: song called howell I know for Whitney Houston today. And
Speaker 3: I just went to the piano and banged it out
Speaker 3: and put a verses up. I know, here's the one
Speaker 3: of that kind of spirit. And they cut the hell
Speaker 3: out of it. And that was the time. Now Randy's
Speaker 3: playing this mo bass with one finger took a b.
Speaker 3: So we had this team, this hybrid like a Motown
Speaker 3: Corporation sound with the newest technology that we needed. To
Speaker 3: be competitive with Clints and Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and
Speaker 3: everybody else is doing records. So we put that thing down.
Speaker 3: Then I called with the Funcus. I hadn't spoken her yet,
Speaker 3: and I said, listen, I'm making the verse really high.
Speaker 3: Can you sing Hi? Yeah? I sing Hi? No? I said, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm cutting in San Francisco. I'm a fly to New
Speaker 3: York to go meet you with a tape. If it's
Speaker 3: the wrong key, we'll get we're off. Yeah, she says, no, no,
Speaker 3: I can sing Hi? Said all right, And then I
Speaker 3: went to New York. And when I go to New
Speaker 3: York at the media sound with Michael Barbiero with my injury,
Speaker 3: he was brilliant. He knew the right Mike, I like
Speaker 3: this noyman, beautiful Mike. Or we're in the studio making it.
Speaker 3: Everything's sounding good before she even walks in. And when
Speaker 3: she walked in, Now I'm gonna talk to you straight up.
Speaker 3: She was so beautiful. Just to put your eyes on
Speaker 3: her was just like, oh my god, now I'm understanding.
Speaker 3: We don't even heard her sing. Just looking at her,
Speaker 3: She's just the cheek bombs the fingers she's nineteen. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to understand here. Now go by the mic,
Speaker 3: sing the song, and God bless her. She knew that
Speaker 3: song of plenty song that beene with her. That was
Speaker 3: the only song she knew. How long is she? She
Speaker 3: was ready for it first album and she blew that song. Man,
Speaker 3: she killed that song like what you're hearing on that record.
Speaker 3: All that power and spitting and also control of the
Speaker 3: head voice to the chest voice, the chest voice back
Speaker 3: to the head voice. It was all effortless. I said, well,
Speaker 3: do you know what we've done about four or five
Speaker 3: takes this and you're so tight on that. I need
Speaker 3: to keep beating this horse. What we're gonna do now
Speaker 3: is do a few doublings, a few harmonies, and you
Speaker 3: want you to come listen to it? And she double?
Speaker 3: I want her double? She harmon want arm I said,
Speaker 3: come listen to it on the playback in the control room.
Speaker 3: If you were me and I'm her, she's looking at
Speaker 3: me like this. She's looking at me like that. I've
Speaker 3: never had anyone stare at me like that. The hollands bluring,
Speaker 3: all the speakers, healing it, and she's looking at me
Speaker 3: like do you hear that? Do you hear that? Now?
Speaker 3: It's like a Muhammad Ali moment, like you know, I'm
Speaker 3: the greatest, but I'm saying that just like now I'm realizing, damn,
Speaker 3: this is incredible and I'm bless us man. That's what
Speaker 3: I want to tell you. That's when it hit me that, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: we're on to something that's going to be like huge.
Speaker 1: I have one question.
Speaker 4: Okay, you do something on that song. I've never heard
Speaker 4: in the history of pop music. I've never heard somebody
Speaker 4: like because the thing is, you're building up drama like
Speaker 4: go to the if he loves me, if he loves me,
Speaker 4: not think right.
Speaker 1: That is a ramp.
Speaker 4: You're building up to something, and when you build up
Speaker 4: to it, you modulate to a lower key.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that in the history of pop music.
Speaker 4: What was the thought behind because you know, again, modulation
Speaker 4: is supposed to be the dramatic moment where you higher
Speaker 4: and but yet like.
Speaker 2: I'm almost like I need to get down.
Speaker 1: How did you know that would come off?
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, before I even met with me,
Speaker 3: I work out the song in the studio and maybe
Speaker 3: I even get like one of my singers my girl
Speaker 3: singers come and just lay out the idea so I
Speaker 3: know it all works before I even go anywhere. I
Speaker 3: have a few different demo demo singers, but Kitty Behope
Speaker 3: at that time was one of my go tos to
Speaker 3: work out my ideas that it was all going to
Speaker 3: be like strong. That's what I always do. Put to
Speaker 3: make a blueprint so that when I get with a singer,
Speaker 3: if something doesn't work out, well, no, I know this work,
Speaker 3: Please do this. So that's how it worked it out,
Speaker 3: knowing it'll be great because it sounded great, and I
Speaker 3: put the backgrounds on it. The ideas everything worked out,
Speaker 3: so then when I see Whitney, it's powerful. But then
Speaker 3: after I did it with her, it was so incredible.
Speaker 3: I said, can you get your mom to come down
Speaker 3: and join on the background, And she did income Sissy
Speaker 3: Houston with her troop and then they're singing it. But
Speaker 3: then I said, no, you go to join your mother.
Speaker 3: Now that was the sound of all knowe again she
Speaker 3: know the lead, but she's also part of the background
Speaker 3: with her mom. That's power. So all that power, you
Speaker 3: don't know where is going up or down. It's just power.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, I hate the way that transitioning death makes me
Speaker 4: appreciate or listen to someone's music, Like when a person
Speaker 4: transitions and I go back to their catalog, then I
Speaker 4: hear something.
Speaker 1: It's like another chamber opens.
Speaker 4: Yes, So before I ask you, because the thing is
Speaker 4: is that I feel like right now and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm a DJ that that is very active and still
Speaker 4: spinning records, and I feel as though I want to
Speaker 4: dance with somebody is going through its September phase. Matter
Speaker 4: of fact, like what I call the smells like teen
Speaker 4: spirit effect. That's what I want to dance with somebody.
Speaker 4: Because of course it's like, Okay, we're celebrating her and whatnot.
Speaker 4: But please tell me what the air was like and
Speaker 4: the tension of working on the second album where you
Speaker 4: guys now have to first of all, are you ever
Speaker 4: thinking of like, Okay, I gotta live up to it,
Speaker 4: like you know, when you're working on rock a lot
Speaker 4: or whatever for like Aretha's next records or whatever, Like
Speaker 4: I gotta I got a top freeway of love. I
Speaker 4: gotta what's your creative process in terms of like following up,
Speaker 4: like what.
Speaker 1: Was the difference between it?
Speaker 3: There are a few things I want to say Clive
Speaker 3: Davis decided early on after the success and fastest rising
Speaker 3: hit of the Howl I Know, being the number one
Speaker 3: on the third album of the third number one off
Speaker 3: that record going so big. Then he called me to
Speaker 3: meet him at the bungalow, his bungalow in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: It wasn't long after How I Know. Then he says,
Speaker 3: come meet me. So I go to meet him. He
Speaker 3: plays for me I wouldn't dance for Somebody loves Me
Speaker 3: as a demo, the same people who worked on how
Speaker 3: I Know. But the demo is kind of like very poppy,
Speaker 3: like a Rodeo Cet type of record. But it's cool.
Speaker 3: Oh you can hear the hook in there. But the
Speaker 3: track is just so popular. I'm going immediately, I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: how am I going to make this a ghetto record?
Speaker 3: You know, really make a badass for the black people
Speaker 3: on the North side of Kalamazoo and around the world.
Speaker 3: That's why my money immediately goes. Then he played me
Speaker 3: a few more songs he wanted for where It Broke
Speaker 3: Our Arts Go, and maybe one or two more, and
Speaker 3: I played him with a pressing glass. Songs you know,
Speaker 3: the Preston written so.
Speaker 4: You're saying he's planning this even as the first album
Speaker 4: has yet to really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's your first time was still you know, but
Speaker 3: now he's like he decided because Whitney I worked so
Speaker 3: fast on how I know, we turned in so fast
Speaker 3: that he wants a fast second album kind of be
Speaker 3: able to pick up on this success. So I get it,
Speaker 3: and he plays me these ideas, and then I come
Speaker 3: back to the same room when I'm sitting here with
Speaker 3: you right now, which I want you to come make
Speaker 3: your record tart band studios.
Speaker 1: Same studio.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is it. Wow, Okay, And I get Randy Jackson.
Speaker 3: Who I do. I'm that one finger's synthesizer bass crowder,
Speaker 3: my Italian style guitar. Walter Snavi has not become a
Speaker 3: big producer yet for Titanic and all that and Mariah
Speaker 3: he's he's one of our stable cats, Preston Glass and
Speaker 3: my genius engineer of David Frasier. And I just take
Speaker 3: these ideas that these Karl Clive has given me and
Speaker 3: just put my thing on it, our thing on it,
Speaker 3: which means Quincy Jones taught me an out house bottom
Speaker 3: with a pent house view, and I put the vocals down,
Speaker 3: the lead vocals and the backing vocals. So it sounds
Speaker 3: like a finished record on five songs. And one of
Speaker 3: those songs would be the Odds of brother song for
Speaker 3: the Love of You, because Whitney wanted to do that.
Speaker 3: So before Whitney ever comes in the room, it's all
Speaker 3: ready for her and and and we are efficient because
Speaker 3: don't forget I put Disciple grew. I'm like, I'm like
Speaker 3: a I'm like an army. I'm like an army. There's
Speaker 3: no drinking, there's no smoking, there's so drugs. It's this
Speaker 3: vegetarian life, just like an army. Like your fallon show,
Speaker 3: You're on it. That's how it was in this room.
Speaker 3: So when she came here, I played for her I
Speaker 3: Somebody Loves Me. She was like, wow, I never heard
Speaker 3: it like that. And then I played for them the
Speaker 3: song I mean she didn't even like, which is where
Speaker 3: Broken Hearts Go. And I played her that. I said,
Speaker 3: does this cup for you? Now? Then she goes, Now,
Speaker 3: I'm starting to get it because now it's for her.
Speaker 3: Got the right basis, like, got the black on it.
Speaker 3: That's cool. So what I'm saying to you is I
Speaker 3: have to all say this now. The first song that
Speaker 3: she sang in this room was a song by the
Speaker 3: Isis for the Love of You. And what was so
Speaker 3: great about doing that song first because she said, I
Speaker 3: know that song. I'm not even learned of the songs yet,
Speaker 3: but I know that for love of You, So going on,
Speaker 3: I can sing that. So she sang that. I said,
Speaker 3: there are backing vocals on for the love you stack
Speaker 3: your voice, so we started stacking her voice twenty forty times,
Speaker 3: so it's all the harms are her voice. And she
Speaker 3: came back in the studio to hear. Now she's hearing
Speaker 3: like angels her voice, and I see the look on
Speaker 3: her face and she's getting inspired by the sound of
Speaker 3: her her voice. Stacked that many times, and I said,
Speaker 3: tomorrow we're gonna do I want to dance somebody who
Speaker 3: loves me. She's okay because she's high. Now she's excited
Speaker 3: by the sound of her voice. And next day she
Speaker 3: came in and we ran through it spoon feeding because
Speaker 3: you didn't know it. Do the verse, do the verse,
Speaker 3: you know, do do a course, do a course, do
Speaker 3: an of course, Pagna. Put the whole thing together. Now
Speaker 3: go to the outro and just go crazy for me,
Speaker 3: and she stumbled upon say you wanna dance? Don't you
Speaker 3: want to? Don't you want to dance? Say you wanna dance?
Speaker 3: Don't you wanna Danceday you want to dance? Oh don't
Speaker 3: you want to? Say you want to dance? Oh yeah? Man?
Speaker 3: Oh well something body ruler that came out of her.
Speaker 3: I was like, damn, I'm changing everything to go with that.
Speaker 3: With that, now that's gonna be the the highlight at
Speaker 3: the very end to go to right that came out
Speaker 3: of her. So I'm saying God came through. But I
Speaker 3: will say we knew we wanted to make records that
Speaker 3: would last forever. We pray about it. She loved Jesus.
Speaker 3: We pray about it, you know, Dear Lord Jesus Savior
Speaker 3: and all that. You know. Let me do my best work.
Speaker 3: Very devoted.
Speaker 1: The weather people want to you are not.
Speaker 4: You are probably the most bullseye standard of what we
Speaker 4: know as the eighties pop sounds. I know that Prince
Speaker 4: was an architect, I know that Michael was a god
Speaker 4: and all that stuff, But who does the person who's
Speaker 4: the standard? You know, because you're doing starships nothing like
Speaker 4: I can only imagine what your life is like once
Speaker 4: you have the success with Whitney, but first of all,
Speaker 4: it's like who was your who was your guide to
Speaker 4: even because I feel like every creator needs something to
Speaker 4: sponge off of, to be like, all right, this is
Speaker 4: where I'm gonna create. But what did the effect of
Speaker 4: the Whitney albums have on you in terms of, you know, demand,
Speaker 4: I need you to do my record.
Speaker 1: I need you to do my record.
Speaker 4: You gotta like because I'm certain now if people are
Speaker 4: hiring you, they're expecting you to contribute the song that's
Speaker 4: going to also bring them to twelve billion units and
Speaker 4: sixty million units, Like is.
Speaker 1: Filler even a thing to you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: Or even allowed the freedom to just write a song
Speaker 4: that's not going to be it?
Speaker 1: But this is really clever song and da da da
Speaker 1: da da, Like what is your life?
Speaker 3: I'd be allowed to write it. I'd be allowed to
Speaker 3: write it, But I was always knowing this is kb
Speaker 3: Alex quiet storm format song. This is top ten format song.
Speaker 3: This is R and B top ten song. I can
Speaker 3: differentiate because don't forget at that time, we don't talk
Speaker 3: about it, but I'll talk to you now. Any artist
Speaker 3: that came through our door, black artist We had always
Speaker 3: think how we're going to break them first on black
Speaker 3: radio R and B radio, we could just think pop.
Speaker 3: You just think, yeah, you want to get the bob,
Speaker 3: but you have to first go through your R and
Speaker 3: B door. So we knew those worlds R and B
Speaker 3: pop course of course country, you know, jazz and then
Speaker 3: quiet storm a hybrid easygoing music which now becomes smooth jazz,
Speaker 3: whatever that is. So we knew the different categories. You
Speaker 3: had to know that as a producer because if you didn't,
Speaker 3: you couldn't make it. As a producer. You had to
Speaker 3: be making no, no, this is going to be doing.
Speaker 3: This is going to give us the army radio, and
Speaker 3: then we have enough of the hook to go to
Speaker 3: p operate and do well. Even the thinking with Clive
Speaker 3: Davis and Arista putting out You Give Good Love first
Speaker 3: was to ingratiate Mom and Pops and black radio and
Speaker 3: our black community that she's ours. Before they came with
Speaker 3: a saving on my left for you and how I
Speaker 3: know that's for the world. That was a very thought
Speaker 3: about decision. You see what I'm saying. That's how it
Speaker 3: was at that time. Everything had to be a certain way.
Speaker 3: It was a black artist, a pop artist that you
Speaker 3: mentioned Starship. I'm not worrying about that because they already
Speaker 3: that's great slick. We love Mickey Thomas, killer Singer. It's
Speaker 3: a band that we all know they already had. We
Speaker 3: built this city and Sarah, they had damn hits, you
Speaker 3: know mean. So I got my electronic drums, shot I got,
Speaker 3: I got good studs, got good d put that funk
Speaker 3: drive on it on a Dyan Warren song that became
Speaker 3: her first number one, and it was so strong I
Speaker 3: knocked myself out of number one. George Michael Reath the
Speaker 3: Franklin the way me knocked myself out the number one.
Speaker 3: That's how I was at that time. Because the drums,
Speaker 3: the sound I knew was the power. You have to
Speaker 3: have it, and we changed the sound to be like mighty.
Speaker 3: And don't forget what our competition was. Your a friend Prince,
Speaker 3: he had the hell of the drums. He knew it.
Speaker 3: And not only did he know it, he puts you.
Speaker 3: He put his foot up your butt about it. Those
Speaker 3: drum chacks you put down. Look at Grupple rain and stout.
Speaker 3: The sound is almighty. He was a mean scientist and
Speaker 3: everyone you wanted to be competitive. You better be able
Speaker 3: to get down with it with these new machines or
Speaker 3: you're out.
Speaker 4: Could you also tell me about Areitha and Whitney's It
Speaker 4: isn't it? Wasn't it ever going to be like did
Speaker 4: they do them together or what was that those sessions?
Speaker 3: Like, well, there's two two different record you talk about.
Speaker 3: Now you're talking. You asked first about the George Michael record.
Speaker 1: I'm excited, okay, I am too.
Speaker 3: I am too man, I am too okay, So dig
Speaker 3: on I knew waiting for me as a Clive Davis Pick.
Speaker 3: Clive said, I met with George Michael. He wants to
Speaker 3: do a song with Aretha. He loves Aretha. I said, okay,
Speaker 3: and he said I found this song. I'm gonna send
Speaker 3: it to you. And then Clive sent me the song
Speaker 3: and powerful song. I went from me. But again it's
Speaker 3: the magic of my team to bring those chimes with
Speaker 3: Crawdle on the Syns guitar on the very beginning against
Speaker 3: the drum. You have to understand at that time you
Speaker 3: had to have this new sound before anybody opened the
Speaker 3: mouths this The sound of the record had to be
Speaker 3: like Ahead, kind of like Motown was the hit. No
Speaker 3: you won't hit you know what I mean. So in
Speaker 3: the electronic world, we have to put that thing down
Speaker 3: it sounds good in this room, and then lay it
Speaker 3: all out with the vocals back in, vocals, all sounding finished.
Speaker 3: And then when I went to Detroit, I've had three
Speaker 3: days and they were on tape. So we only have
Speaker 3: ten tracks a piece for a reth in for George.
Speaker 3: Wreatha comes in the first day, lays out her verses
Speaker 3: and choruses and then not blowing on the end. I
Speaker 3: want to save that for a live thing with George.
Speaker 3: Then the next day comes in George Areatha's not there.
Speaker 3: George is very nervous. He's very nervous, and he's a
Speaker 3: control freak. He's only produced himself. He's only had one
Speaker 3: guy produced him from that dude thing, you know, it's Chris.
Speaker 3: Besides that, he's done his own masterpieces. So we have
Speaker 3: ten tracks for George. I'm gonna just say this because
Speaker 3: this is important for my life. George goes on the
Speaker 3: mic and he sings the song, and he goes almost
Speaker 3: through damn ten those tracks. He goes through those damn
Speaker 3: ten tracks, and I happen to know the first four
Speaker 3: tracks are my record because he was so strong as
Speaker 3: he's gone to the sixth and seventh and eighth track
Speaker 3: is diminishing a little bit. He says to me, go
Speaker 3: back over those first tracks. I want to do more vocals.
Speaker 3: And that's when I became a producer, and I said, no,
Speaker 3: we're not doing that. These four tracks, that's my record.
Speaker 3: That's the record. You think you're getting better, but in
Speaker 3: fact you're diminishing.
Speaker 4: How do you Jedi mind trick an artist to get
Speaker 4: out of their head.
Speaker 3: You have to say dis trust me. That's all you
Speaker 3: got to do. Because you say, go home, let me
Speaker 3: comp this. When you come back tomorrow, I play, I
Speaker 3: sleep all night, go home. I'm gonna put it together.
Speaker 3: And when you hear tomorrow, you're come in fresh to
Speaker 3: do your backing vote. You come in fresh to your
Speaker 3: ad libs with the Queen. Get your Rest's be the
Speaker 3: challenge and if anything bothers you tomorrow, then we can
Speaker 3: do that. After I've had a chance to call him
Speaker 3: through what I know is my hit record. Then he
Speaker 3: said okay, but he looked at me like, who are
Speaker 3: you to talk to like this? You know, he looked
Speaker 3: at me like, you know who you think you are bad.
Speaker 3: Let him know, George, you think you're getting better. But
Speaker 3: in fact these first tracks were mighty. So then he
Speaker 3: just he gave in. He gave in the next day.
Speaker 3: That was genius because now he's meeting the queen, and
Speaker 3: the Queen's happened to meeting him because he's a big star.
Speaker 3: And then what it is, we have two mics. I
Speaker 3: have enough to do four rounds of adults on the
Speaker 3: ending with two tracks a piece. And Aretha goes easy
Speaker 3: on those first tracks. She's, you know, just feeling them
Speaker 3: out like a prize It's like a prize fighter. She's
Speaker 3: a fucking prize Fighter's a prize fighter. On the third
Speaker 3: and fourth go rounds, she let him have it, man,
Speaker 3: And that's on that record. Would you hear? And he stunned,
Speaker 3: He's stopped because he could have the power. No one can.
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying to you is, I'm very proud
Speaker 3: of that record now on because it's number one because
Speaker 3: the friendship that Jeorde and I made of him trusting
Speaker 3: me and me having to be strong to say no stopping.
Speaker 3: So like that, I can tell you.
Speaker 4: Did you do the same process? Whitney and Aretha like,
Speaker 4: do you prefer them to sing.
Speaker 3: Apart or that song they were together? Cut the tracks here,
Speaker 3: go to Detroit. You're not it sound with my enginet
Speaker 3: dave phrase, we fly together? You know it sound in
Speaker 3: the same studios where George Wilt be hanging out. I
Speaker 3: know we won't the fun all that stuff in the
Speaker 3: whole same rooms.
Speaker 1: Q tip has that board? Now who does Q tip
Speaker 1: has the API board? Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay board?
Speaker 1: So what was that session?
Speaker 4: It's again like you have two women at the top
Speaker 4: of their game, two gods at the top of their game.
Speaker 1: How are you refereeing how the song's gonna go?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: That you're allowed to tell me, And I can tell
Speaker 4: by the look on your face. You gotta hold some
Speaker 4: stuff back.
Speaker 3: They're both in heaven. They're both looking down upon us
Speaker 3: right now on the hairs and they and they give
Speaker 3: me love because it was love. But this is what
Speaker 3: I gotta share with you, which you know, Aretha Franklin,
Speaker 3: I mentioned to you a prize fighter. It is true
Speaker 3: Whitney Houston's one of the greatest of all time. But
Speaker 3: Aretha Whitney with Aretha Wreatha was a little girl when
Speaker 3: her mother sang back up on those hits with Aretha
Speaker 3: Reada's a little girl, Whitney's little girl around those sessions.
Speaker 3: So Aretha to Whitney is like Auntie re read like
Speaker 3: let us Auntie ree Red so sweet like that. So
Speaker 3: here I'm gonna go with. I'm sitting at the board.
Speaker 3: Whitney is sitting on the floor. We get there early.
Speaker 3: She's on the floor. Time. You can't read this here,
Speaker 3: She's just frost leg on the floor. When Aretha comes
Speaker 3: to the door in her fur coat and her prize
Speaker 3: fighter mode, like when the Narrow goes into his modes
Speaker 3: to make his movies. Already in character. She's in character
Speaker 3: to take this man or keep her man. So she
Speaker 3: looks at me, she goes, where is she? That kind
Speaker 3: of harsh like that? Where is she? Where is she? Now?
Speaker 3: You throw me off? Where is she?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, you mean Whitney. She's right here on the floor.
Speaker 3: And then she peers down and look at Whitney. You know. Oh,
Speaker 3: so you're miss Houston and Whitney's life Auntie Reary. The
Speaker 3: cast was spelt right there. The song would be like,
Speaker 3: how are you going to take my man? How you
Speaker 3: gonna even sing about taking my man? She put that
Speaker 3: that that that thing on the right from the very beginning,
Speaker 3: and from the very beginning we did the song. Whitney
Speaker 3: is so effortless at that time with her vocals, she
Speaker 3: did the most killer if I've ever heard her do.
Speaker 3: And then she left because she could feel that it
Speaker 3: wasn't a good vibe. And Retha stated, and Retha said,
Speaker 3: go to that part of the tape where she said
Speaker 3: she did that that cred thing. She didn't pushed me
Speaker 3: in right after it, okay, And we did, and she
Speaker 3: punched me out there again. Make sure I do what
Speaker 3: I want to do, because she wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: she was bringing her fire as strong as what we're
Speaker 3: dead done, just effortlessly, and we did. And then when
Speaker 3: she got what she won, which was killer, she left.
Speaker 3: But then she called me up on the phone and said,
Speaker 3: do you think I was too harsh today? Said, well,
Speaker 3: you might want to give her. He a phone call, says, yes,
Speaker 3: I will. She said I wasn't character for the song.
Speaker 3: I said, I know you were. Damn. When you're in character,
Speaker 3: I mean, you're like you're like life to death. Man.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing. I always see a duet as
Speaker 1: like a collaboration.
Speaker 4: I never like, I'm not thinking that like Michael Jackson
Speaker 4: and Paul McCartney about to start brawling, you know, like
Speaker 4: I'm an out sing you, you're out singing me. I
Speaker 4: think as the average listener, I wouldn't listen from the
Speaker 4: standpoint of like who's going to win this battle? I'm
Speaker 4: thinking of like how are they going to to create
Speaker 4: magic together? It's so weird that how artists getting their heads. Well, wait,
Speaker 4: I might as well throw one. One thing is because
Speaker 4: if I remember correctly, I believe on that record the
Speaker 4: opening song is James Brown and Aretha Franklin. Yes, how
Speaker 4: how was that session? Because I've talked to Full Force
Speaker 4: before about working with James Brown, and.
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of puncheons and whatnot, like like.
Speaker 3: James, James was is my hero. You know, you're a drummer,
Speaker 3: so you know the power of Cole Sweat. The power
Speaker 3: Cole Sweat with what they put down was just like
Speaker 3: so far ahead. If you want to be respected as
Speaker 3: any kind drummer, you have to be able to play
Speaker 3: caled Cole Sweat. And so here I am in this
Speaker 3: room with James Brown. You call mister Brown, you'll call
Speaker 3: him James, mister Brown, and we had He said, I
Speaker 3: want a few cards, And first of all, he thought,
Speaker 3: where is she? He wanted to see a Retha. I said,
Speaker 3: we she's not here. You're coming in and sing your
Speaker 3: parts and I'm gonna go to the Trent and butter parts.
Speaker 3: So he was sad because you really had a kind
Speaker 3: of a romantic thing in his mind about Aretha. Right,
Speaker 3: it'd be great that the king and the queen came together.
Speaker 3: And he was all there, you know. So we made
Speaker 3: these big Q cards. So here I'm holding big Q cards.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm kind of throwing away as he's singing
Speaker 3: the song, throwing cue cards. But that's how he recorded.
Speaker 3: And he's a killer just doing his grunts and this
Speaker 3: stuff and then reading the Q card and kind of
Speaker 3: being spontaneous. It was a killer session. I loved him.
Speaker 3: I loved you. And also we had a I knew
Speaker 3: he less like organ, so I have my organ in here.
Speaker 3: You go and fill up with the organ play.
Speaker 1: That you need.
Speaker 3: Yeah I would, Yeah, No, I would, because I know
Speaker 3: I make him happy. See and then he will say,
Speaker 3: use the only one keeping the funk alive. Damn, mister Brown.
Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that use the only one chieving
Speaker 3: the funk alive. Damn. Okay. So then I went back
Speaker 3: and put Aretha on Andreatha killed it too. He just
Speaker 3: wasn't meant to be. And Prince, you're bro did the
Speaker 3: remix on that record?
Speaker 1: Did you know that right? That's right? I okay, I
Speaker 1: heard I heard an outtake of it. You are correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I apologize for hogging this entire interview. Do you have
Speaker 1: any questions?
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask about the Temptations stay.
Speaker 2: I just thought that was just a brilliant move of
Speaker 2: sampling my girl to make a new song. So tell
Speaker 2: me about how that record came together and what that
Speaker 2: session was like.
Speaker 3: Man, I love the Temptations, Temptations four tops. That all
Speaker 3: that movement out of the motown list is just staggering.
Speaker 3: We're still learning from that catalog. We're still learning from
Speaker 3: most people. We're still learning. We're still trying to be
Speaker 3: half as good. That's what they put what they did. Man,
Speaker 3: we're just so the work Temptations is a big deal.
Speaker 3: And then Otis Williams is the only living memory when
Speaker 3: I worked with him, and I loved his wisdom, so
Speaker 3: it brought some out of me after I met with
Speaker 3: him to record some songs. It brought this out of
Speaker 3: me to kind of go, what can I do that
Speaker 3: would just really be something different? And I just God said,
Speaker 3: you sample the beginning of My Girl boom boom boom
Speaker 3: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, you know,
Speaker 3: and put a new song on top kind of what
Speaker 3: was coming out in New York. Again, you had a
Speaker 3: lot of cats taking other records and putting different songs
Speaker 3: on top. So it wasn't a new a brand new thing,
Speaker 3: but it's a brand new thing to do for the temptation,
Speaker 3: that's you know what I mean. So that's where did
Speaker 3: stay tune the moon and baby rock Me slow like
Speaker 3: I want to rock you on top of My Girl?
Speaker 3: So I had to guess Wilgie Robinson half the song
Speaker 3: because he wrote my Girl No Problem, and we got
Speaker 3: to know the other half. And it became a hit
Speaker 3: fors and they got a platinum record band of all
Speaker 3: those years here there I plotum and then they're going for
Speaker 3: the Grammy and all that stuff. So it made me
Speaker 3: very happy. But that's what it was. I was just
Speaker 3: really wanting to have a hit, and I thought, if
Speaker 3: I take something old like a wedding, something old, something new,
Speaker 3: that might be the thing. And it was.
Speaker 4: When you're approached about Mariah Carrey's first album, Yes, Now,
Speaker 4: unlike Whitney Houston, which again nobody had a ankling of
Speaker 4: a clue, what was headed down the road? Now that
Speaker 4: you know that there's a standard a road to follow.
Speaker 4: When Tommy and Donnie are bringing you Mariah Carey, are
Speaker 4: they putting the invisible pressure on you to put some
Speaker 4: numbers on the board, just like you did for your
Speaker 4: other star student.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, there are We're not talking numbers, We're not
Speaker 3: talking pressure. It's just the first folk call get from Tommy,
Speaker 3: not Donnie. Donnie I knew from working with Clive now
Speaker 3: he's over Sony, but I didn't evenly have a relationship
Speaker 3: to him and Sony yet. So it's really Tommy called me.
Speaker 3: He says, I found this girl and I want to
Speaker 3: send you a picture and a song on her, and
Speaker 3: then you know, and if you like her, let me know,
Speaker 3: said he said, But don't mack my babe, Okay, all right,
Speaker 3: I'm married. And the mail come was a little tiny
Speaker 3: slide of her that big and a cassette. So I
Speaker 3: listened to the cassete and said, oh, yeah, she sounds
Speaker 3: really nice, you know, so I let her know. You know,
Speaker 3: she's whatever I'm hearing is cool. Would you fly to
Speaker 3: New York come Meter? I said, yes, I will, because
Speaker 3: don't forget, Matola was a present for Sonya, now a
Speaker 3: big lady. I knew if he had his attention on something,
Speaker 3: it could be like something we really want to like
Speaker 3: take serious. So here I go to New York, come Meter.
Speaker 3: And in all respect Mariah, when I first met he
Speaker 3: was extremely shy, not the Mariah you see now where
Speaker 3: she's up front and talking and you know, and like
Speaker 3: the she would have them hair on one side of
Speaker 3: her face and talk to you with the hair on
Speaker 3: one side of the face, very quiet. And I would say, well,
Speaker 3: we're like, well, what do you what artists do you like?
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, I like George Michael. That's great. I
Speaker 3: just work with George Michael. You know, just did that.
Speaker 3: I know you're waiting for me, So I said, you
Speaker 3: know what, why don't we go? I can hear you
Speaker 3: singing a Michae. Let's just go to some studio and
Speaker 3: just not to sit on and talk. Let's go and
Speaker 3: do some music. So we did. We went over to
Speaker 3: Sony Studio, a mike for her, a mike for me,
Speaker 3: and my friend wrote piano and we wrote four songs.
Speaker 3: And I was surprised how fast she writes, And then
Speaker 3: I was surprised how good she sings. Then I was
Speaker 3: even more surprised that she could do like a young
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson. Well, like, that's not easy to be like
Speaker 3: to imitate a young Michael Jackson. She could do that.
Speaker 3: Then it hit me who I was messing with that
Speaker 3: it wasn't just some other whatever.
Speaker 1: How did you discover the whistle? Because you unleashed the
Speaker 1: whistle to the world.
Speaker 3: Well in honesty vision of love, where she goes it
Speaker 3: in that big whistle. She cut that vocal on her
Speaker 3: own with her other cat. I didn't cut that whistle.
Speaker 3: They had already cut that jam. Well, I got with her.
Speaker 3: I did a jam called I Don't want to Cry, I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to cry, My bad, my bad, okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, And then I got and then we got into
Speaker 3: all that on that record, knowing, wow, you know she
Speaker 3: could do it. So then we really just perfected it
Speaker 3: and just got what she wanted, and then I started
Speaker 3: realizing what a perfection she is. She even had me
Speaker 3: send that tape back in your because she wanted to
Speaker 3: fix on one riff, only send tape across the country
Speaker 3: well one rift, which already genius it was, but we did.
Speaker 3: That's how I realized what her standard was at that time.
Speaker 3: She wanted me so shy to now, being like, send
Speaker 3: me the tape. So we did. We got it back
Speaker 3: and it wasn't that much different, but she was a
Speaker 3: damn killer. And then from there Tommy says, what you're
Speaker 3: doing on these songs, I want Vision of Love to
Speaker 3: sound like and the album. So then they sent us
Speaker 3: Vision and then we just we went in and made
Speaker 3: Vision little sound more the track and with her voice
Speaker 3: and everything like what we're doing on the other music.
Speaker 3: That's what we did. And then she exploded. Man, she
Speaker 3: just exploded.
Speaker 1: So is that part exhausting?
Speaker 4: Because you know, La and Face said the same thing,
Speaker 4: jam and Lewis said the same thing, which is basically,
Speaker 4: before you even work with an artist, you have to
Speaker 4: go and get to know them and spend time with them.
Speaker 4: Is there a situation in which it was a struggle
Speaker 4: to get the artist to be vulnerable to trust you
Speaker 4: to Okay.
Speaker 3: You know what I do? You know, Quesse, I got you.
Speaker 3: You know, I did a quest. I pushed past it.
Speaker 3: I ignore it. Try this, try that, try this so
Speaker 3: fast they're off balance. Now before you know it, things
Speaker 3: are just magically happening.
Speaker 1: What was the hardest song you had to cut?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Go back, recall it, recall it, recall.
Speaker 3: Lover for Life? Why wasn't happy with Lover for Life?
Speaker 3: For Whitney? And not because cut it great? But he
Speaker 3: had a demo of it, and the demo had a
Speaker 3: base trum pattern on five it wasn't in four. Kept changing.
Speaker 3: I thought that wasn't going to be the way because
Speaker 3: you wouldn't even land on one.
Speaker 1: So he cut it.
Speaker 3: I cut it my way. I cut it in Needa
Speaker 3: Baker way. I cut it defetd in ways you know.
Speaker 3: But he couldn't get happy. I said, well, what is
Speaker 3: it with this thing? You know? Was the demo? I love?
Speaker 3: But the demo just so you know, the base trump
Speaker 3: is moving and it's not landing on down beach, which
Speaker 3: we expect as listeners. In a way, he goes, well,
Speaker 3: maybe that's why I like it about that demo that
Speaker 3: it's kind of floating. I go, well, then let me
Speaker 3: do that if that's what it is, and then he
Speaker 3: was happy. He wanted the base to move around. So yeah,
Speaker 3: then we got happy. So when you have the heardest
Speaker 3: song was the hardest song. It was just discovering when
Speaker 3: people like a demo and they likes something that working
Speaker 3: about a demo, and you got to realize, what is
Speaker 3: he like about that thing? You know?
Speaker 1: Wow, one of the most heartbreaking things. I think. When
Speaker 1: she passed.
Speaker 4: Away, I believe I heard you say that you guys
Speaker 4: were considering cutting brainstorms.
Speaker 1: Loving is really my game.
Speaker 3: Yes, she was crazy about that record. I didn't even
Speaker 3: know that record that much. She was saying, yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: And I said, oh, I've heard it, just I love
Speaker 3: that record. Would you cut it for me? Said? Sure,
Speaker 3: I will, Honey, I do. Didn't think you want me
Speaker 3: to do? And I cut it, and I cut it,
Speaker 3: and it was mean, it's in my vault right now.
Speaker 1: She cut her vocals.
Speaker 3: No, so I called this estate. I called down to
Speaker 3: that she in Atlanta. Oh, well, she's just not feeling well.
Speaker 3: I want to sing right now now, and now she's
Speaker 3: going off to do it to it now she's doing
Speaker 3: it would always be like something going on. I said,
Speaker 3: but I'm bringing what she's asking for. Well, she just
Speaker 3: can't do it. So we never could get her to
Speaker 3: sing it. And then I saw her for the last
Speaker 3: time after I cut it at one of those Clive
Speaker 3: things the year before she passed, right, you know, and
Speaker 3: she came and jumped on me. We just like hugged
Speaker 3: and kissed him. Ran Jackson was a witnessing it. It's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you know, and she just loved each other.
Speaker 3: And I said, I got it. I cut what you
Speaker 3: want me to cut? Oh I want to sing it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know, let's do it. But it wasn't to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, Like Balita Woods of Brainstorm was like one
Speaker 4: of the most unsung champions of soul singing. When people
Speaker 4: think of Brainstorm, they think of this must be in
Speaker 4: heaven for quiet Storm. But like Lovan is really my
Speaker 4: game was like that was a thing, like I remember
Speaker 4: that when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: But you but you have to say one more thing.
Speaker 3: It was Whitney. Also, Sugists suggests that I cut on
Speaker 3: every woman for Bodyguard. That wasn't Clyde, that was Whitney.
Speaker 3: So she had a really good idea, you know, of
Speaker 3: what she wanted to get into, like that record you
Speaker 3: love a brainstorm. So there you go.
Speaker 4: Ah, all right, I might as well ask, because I'm
Speaker 4: not going to have an opportunity to ever again.
Speaker 1: What was it?
Speaker 4: What was it like working with with with Eddie Murphy
Speaker 4: because you did push your mouth on me.
Speaker 3: Love Eddie, Eddie, Eddie came here man. First, Yes, you're
Speaker 3: in the video. Yeah, I'm a massive Eddie fanh And
Speaker 3: and Rick James.
Speaker 6: At the Sauce Will studio. You know they did the
Speaker 6: Parer Party at the time. Wow, you know they had
Speaker 6: massive success. So Eddie was like swinging. It wasn't like
Speaker 6: some joke anymore. I was like, you're you're recording artists, man.
Speaker 6: So I said, well, what do you want to write about?
Speaker 6: What kind of song you want to do?
Speaker 3: I said, you know, just give me some inspression what
Speaker 3: you want to talk about? And he said put your
Speaker 3: mouth on me.
Speaker 4: Okay, but you his version of kiss or something like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I figure, just.
Speaker 3: Vibe, just vibe. And we did it, you know, and
Speaker 3: I loved him and he again can imitate all those
Speaker 3: great voices in here. Michael everybody, Elvis pred anything. He's
Speaker 3: just a gifted cat man and but very quiet when
Speaker 3: he's not working that are discovered. Kind like Richard Pryor,
Speaker 3: these great comedians are very quiet when they're not doing
Speaker 3: what they do. They live in their head. You gotta
Speaker 3: you know, you gotta you know it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, this is my question. I just wanted to ask
Speaker 1: about a song.
Speaker 2: It was on the last My Visional album and you
Speaker 2: wrote called in My Life. Do you remember about anything
Speaker 2: about that session of writing?
Speaker 3: That was the most beautiful album done at Honky Chateau
Speaker 3: in France, out in the country, and it was so
Speaker 3: beautiful because we had this massive room and it was
Speaker 3: like a kind of a barn in that the back window,
Speaker 3: back door behind my drums could open so you could
Speaker 3: see the whole comfry side out back behind my drums,
Speaker 3: which took me more time to mic the drums and
Speaker 3: get the sound I wanted because the openness. But in
Speaker 3: that room was just so pastoral in the feeling. And
Speaker 3: that's when we cut on that album, all this high synthesizer, guitar,
Speaker 3: inner worlds and miles out. It was just like, oh
Speaker 3: my god. After all that then Vishnu said thank you
Speaker 3: for the flowers and trees and just this beautiful little thing.
Speaker 3: Now kind of chime on something, you know, whatever I
Speaker 3: bring to it a little bridge area. But it was
Speaker 3: really Vishnu that had that thank you for and Harold
Speaker 3: King came to me make it. Kunga's acoustic piano completely opposite.
Speaker 3: Were just cut and you know, if it's just something else, man,
Speaker 3: I gotta say about that guy, man, he said.
Speaker 2: No, man, we my group, my right group, our little brother.
Speaker 2: We actually we sampled that song like and we cleared it.
Speaker 2: And it was like literally at the last minute, we
Speaker 2: you know, had our people working on this stuff, but
Speaker 2: we hadn't heard anything. And so a buddy of mine
Speaker 2: had played with my vision in his band. He was like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: I got his email, we can try. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: I'll try. Jill emailed and was like, hey man, this
Speaker 2: is my group. By tell him what it is. He
Speaker 2: was on vacation with his family and he's like, hey man,
Speaker 2: I'm on vacation, but you know, I think it's great.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll do it, and and they cleared it
Speaker 2: and so thank you man, Like that was a beautiful
Speaker 2: song and.
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 4: Do you have a close but no cigar moment in an
Speaker 4: artist he was supposed to work with, not on work, but.
Speaker 3: You know, know there are a few. I met with
Speaker 3: Madonna and the album What Year, Well she had just made.
Speaker 3: I gave her those high heels that she wore that
Speaker 3: it's not called Borderline. The yellow high heels that those
Speaker 3: get from me. She can't envisit me. I picked up
Speaker 3: the airport in sant San Francisco. We had a great meeting.
Speaker 3: She loves Stacy Lattisol. She loved my music with Stacy,
Speaker 3: but she's hot on that kind of vibe. And then
Speaker 3: she went to New York. But a weekly she called said,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm going to stay in New York.
Speaker 3: I'm working now. Rogers said, okay. She goes, I'm just
Speaker 3: loving New York. I go, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 3: I get it because I wasn't hopped about of here relaxing.
Speaker 3: You know, she goes, you know, so then she made
Speaker 3: lack a version.
Speaker 1: Damn you gifted in Borderline.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 7: I need my one two questions and I just got
Speaker 7: to pick your brain about a couple of names that
Speaker 7: our viewers may or may not remember or no. From
Speaker 7: your early days as drummer. I'm a big CTI Records fan,
Speaker 7: as people might know, Creed Taylor and you worked with
Speaker 7: Alan Holdsworth on an album called Velvet Darkness in nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy six. Do you have any memories of those sessions
Speaker 7: and Alan, Yes.
Speaker 3: Alan asked me to come and record them as ct I.
Speaker 3: He's a guitar player, by the way, Yes, he's one
Speaker 3: of the most brilliant guitar players in the world, Alan Holdsworth,
Speaker 3: and we all know he's very sensitive. And I go
Speaker 3: in there and on keyboards as a cat who was
Speaker 3: from Tony Williams band Ala Pasquad clavin at keys and
Speaker 3: on basis from weather Port Alfonso Johnson, Oh wow. And
Speaker 3: I go in there with my drum kit. It's a
Speaker 3: white gratch kid with the enameled double painted on the inside,
Speaker 3: which sounds they aren't like vibes clear, but they're but
Speaker 3: they're mighty like that would. And so then Alan starts
Speaker 3: showing us these songs and as he saw it, shows
Speaker 3: the song. Then we play the song and they would
Speaker 3: cut it. Then we'd maybee cut it maybe a second
Speaker 3: time and that will be that. Then you know, we
Speaker 3: kind of went thro those songs like that. In his mind,
Speaker 3: he's thinking, he's just kind of showing us the songs
Speaker 3: and we're going to, you know, come back another time
Speaker 3: or whatever you think. I don't know, but Creed Taylor
Speaker 3: and Rudy van Gelo, the great Engineer, they were loving
Speaker 3: it and that was what they wanted to get, that live, fresh,
Speaker 3: raw vibe. And then they wanted to put it out
Speaker 3: and Alan wanted to do more, do more takes and
Speaker 3: whatever you wanted to do, you know. So it's some
Speaker 3: discrepancy between his got concept and maybe what theirs was.
Speaker 3: But I was just doing what I was asked to
Speaker 3: do and being paid to do whatever it was. So
Speaker 3: that was the album. It came out, and I'm proud
Speaker 3: of it. I'm proud to say I worked with Alban
Speaker 3: was worth Also, I want to say one more thing.
Speaker 3: In that same room, there were two pianos, black pianos
Speaker 3: that were owned by Rudy van geld with was a
Speaker 3: great engineer that Herbie Hancock or silver these genius had
Speaker 3: played on these damn pianos. And his wife had cancer,
Speaker 3: so he needed some money, so he said, I want
Speaker 3: to sell one of my pianos I just made forty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars with Wired Sales and Jeff Beck, so I said,
Speaker 3: I'll buy one of these pianos, and I bought it
Speaker 3: and that became my piano for letting be Angel everywhere.
Speaker 3: I love all my hits on that same piano, So
Speaker 3: that's part of that connection wise investment.
Speaker 1: Goddamn.
Speaker 7: You also played on a historic recording on a Jocko
Speaker 7: Pistorious record with Sam and Dave and come on, come over.
Speaker 7: Do you have any memories of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do. Jocko and I have care friends from Miami.
Speaker 3: That's where I first met him. That's why I suggested
Speaker 3: I bring him to Weatherport. When I was asked journal
Speaker 3: weather Report, I don't want to join with but I
Speaker 3: want to go ty bowhen and do rock and rollet
Speaker 3: panel the stage and go that way. And they said,
Speaker 3: well can you bring a baseball? And said, well, I
Speaker 3: know a cat crazy named Jocko Florida, so Joe's I
Speaker 3: think I've heard him. So we flew him out to
Speaker 3: LA and he came and does this great gam called
Speaker 3: Canniball and black Market. He starts playing that song and
Speaker 3: add all this stuff to Because you so had so
Speaker 3: much ideas, and then Joe stops in the middle and says,
Speaker 3: don't put that shit on my song, and it kind
Speaker 3: of freezes Jocko. You know what I mean. And what
Speaker 3: it does is it makes Jocko come Jocko. Now he's
Speaker 3: more thoughtful. Everything he plays puts it in the right place,
Speaker 3: and people kind of go, damn. He is genius. After that,
Speaker 3: he joined that band and made Weather Heavy Weather, with
Speaker 3: a remark you made teen Town those great pieces. He
Speaker 3: does a solo album and then because we're friends, he
Speaker 3: has to me to come player, come on, come over,
Speaker 3: And I went to place on top of a garage,
Speaker 3: the home studio of the great drummer Bobby calling me
Speaker 3: from Bloodswooting Tears. He was a produced set album. So
Speaker 3: this is his studio on top of the garage where
Speaker 3: I played his drums, a royal horn, Cats, Tom Malone,
Speaker 3: those type people, and then the rhythm section all in
Speaker 3: the same room with Jocko and Sam Moore. Maybe like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was live, just the funk, but didn't the funk,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like one or two things. That was it.
Speaker 3: But Jocko is mean in heaven right now you're looking down.
Speaker 3: He's mean, he's like all lay on the base.
Speaker 4: Mean my final question, because every hip hop producer will
Speaker 4: kill me if I don't ask this. Because both you
Speaker 4: and Ed Green are credited with drumming on Come Dancing.
Speaker 4: Who is playing the actual breakbeat at the top of
Speaker 4: that song?
Speaker 1: Is that you or Ed Green?
Speaker 3: Mean? I wrote that song that I cut the song, yeah,
Speaker 3: and then later on when I heard it on the
Speaker 3: record after I bought the record. Quite frankly, I heard
Speaker 3: ed greena on there and it was cool because he
Speaker 3: just made it a little even fatter. They overdubed the moments,
Speaker 3: making fatter. It's like damn. I In fact, in fact
Speaker 3: that all the Jon Hammer stuff, all that stuff, I'm wired.
Speaker 3: I didn't hear any of stuff till it came out
Speaker 3: and bought it. John overdubbed all his stuff, ed bring
Speaker 3: it overdubbed this thing. That's how it was. In fact,
Speaker 3: Jon Hammer didn mixed the album. It wasn't even mixed
Speaker 3: by Beatle producer George Martin. It was mixed by jan
Speaker 3: because Jeff went up there and fell in love. That's
Speaker 3: what you want to gad you sound, and that's what
Speaker 3: it was. Man.
Speaker 8: So I started out boom Scott boom Scott boom boom
Speaker 8: Scot boom boom boom Scott boom Scott boom book boom
Speaker 8: boom bang. I don't don't gang a boom bump a boom,
Speaker 8: pump skany pump, oh bull skang a boom bum skag.
Speaker 1: I all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fans of a Balloon, Mind State and day La
Speaker 4: Soul are very familiar with that drum break in.
Speaker 1: I had to ask that question. It's it's the song
Speaker 1: they sampled on a area codes.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 4: I have to say that very rarely does an episode
Speaker 4: of Quest of Supreme.
Speaker 1: Go beyond what I thought it would be.
Speaker 4: And the fact that there's even twelve more hours of
Speaker 4: questions I have for you shows how much of a god.
Speaker 1: You are in your creativity.
Speaker 4: And I just simply want to thank you for taking
Speaker 4: the time out for these last almost two hours to
Speaker 4: share these stories, man.
Speaker 1: Because like the world doesn't know how awesome you are man,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just say thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you, ques Man. I'm a fan of I
Speaker 3: love your work. I love your brin's, how you bring
Speaker 3: a tuba in with your drums on the shows and
Speaker 3: things like that. You bring these eclectic things. Wow. That's
Speaker 3: keeping the funk raw man. So dig you man, would
Speaker 3: love to work on something.
Speaker 1: With you when I'm out there next.
Speaker 4: We got to meet in person and shop it up
Speaker 4: for something, so we'll definitely the same in contact.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: On behalf of the family of Quest Love Supreme, font Tigolo,
Speaker 4: super Bill.
Speaker 1: I'm giving them new names.
Speaker 4: Steve, Layah cousin, Jake and Brittany and Fontigelo and the
Speaker 4: Great Nartamichael Walton.
Speaker 1: This is an awesome damn episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: We've been waiting on this one for a long time. Man, seriously,
Speaker 3: thank you for doing it. Cats Man, I really love it.
Speaker 3: This has been a highlight for me. I knew it
Speaker 3: was coming, and uh, you know, bag type of thing
Speaker 3: is that when you interviews, you know you want to
Speaker 3: make sure you're saying the right things that you're giving
Speaker 3: the love. And a lot of our people were talking
Speaker 3: about and having the jockal on that we through the
Speaker 3: Whitney's and they're looking down and with us right now.
Speaker 3: Like what you say, man, you better keep keep keep
Speaker 3: me alive. An'll be forgetting about me now. I'll whoop you.
Speaker 1: We'll see on the next go around.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Hey, thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 5: This podcast is hosted by an alf Ro, a mouth,
Speaker 5: a rapper, an engineer, and a man with too Many
Speaker 5: jobs aka a mere quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 9: Why are you a Saint Clair Fonte, Coleman, Sugar, Steve.
Speaker 5: Mandel and un Table the executive producers who get paid
Speaker 5: the big bucks a.
Speaker 9: Mere quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun ask
Speaker 9: them for money.
Speaker 5: Produced by the people who do all the real work
Speaker 5: Britney Benjamin, Jake Payne and Yes, why he is Saint Claire.
Speaker 9: And by another person who does the real work, Alex
Speaker 9: Conroy and those who approved the real work. Produced for
Speaker 9: iHeart by Noah Brown.
Speaker 1: Much Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.