WEBVTT - Black Music Month QLS Classic: Donnie Simpson 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.040 episode was produced by the team at Pandora. 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.600 What up, y'all, it's unpaid bill Fromquest Love Supreme. As 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.560 you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating black 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.160 music model by releasing an episode every day. So every 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.040 day you added here especially picked QLs Classic, and on 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.840 Wednesdays we are dropping new two part episodes with Wayne 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.760 Brady and the legendary James Poyser, both of which were 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.760 filmed in studio. Black music is deeply important to me 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:29.640 and has been an influence throughout my entire career. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.960 It's also something to celebrated here at QLs. 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.000 Back in twenty seventeen, we had Donnie Simpson on QLs, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.440 the Radio Hall of Fame inductee, spoke about his journey, 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.520 his impact, and cultivating a personality that emphasized the power 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:42.880 of broadcasting. We are so glad you're tuning in. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:51.319 Here we go. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:01:00.360 Supremo, Sun Supremo Row, Suprema Sun Supreme O, Row called 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.600 Suprema something something, Supremo roll call some Prema. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:07.600 Some some Supreme roll. 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.880 Cool Quest Yeah, Yeah, I Got soul, Yeah, Donnie Simpson 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.679 Cool Yeah, Life Goals. 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:23.880 Cora something Supremo, roll called Suprema something something Supremo roll. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.160 My name is Fante, Yeah, rocking your world. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.560 Yeah, when my hair gets dry, Yeah, I use Donny's 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:31.720 Supercurl roll. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:39.800 Supremo roll Come, Supremath something Supremo roll call. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.160 My name is Sugar Yeah like Sugar Ray. Yeah, it's 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:53.680 great to be here with a real DJ. Suprema Son 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:59.680 something Supremo roll paid Bill. Yeah, I ain't got no problems. Yeah. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.400 Out out to North Korea and Dennis Rodmin. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:11.320 Pray Son Supprame A roll call Supreme Son Son Supreme. 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:16.040 Roll is here. Yeah, not far from Mars. Yeah, shot 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.160 for the Moon. Yeah, still among the stars. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:25.359 Roll call, Pray something Supreme A roll call suprameer some 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.320 something Suprame roll. 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.519 It's like and damn it, I'm hip. Yeah, Simpson in 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:33.240 the place. 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.920 Something something up. Roll call. My name is Donnie. 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:45.519 Yeah. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:47.040 They called me green Eyes. 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:47.560 Yeah. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.480 If I could finish this rap, yeah that would be 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:51.160 a surprise. 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.359 So Pray s Sun Up Brave A roll call, so 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:05.399 Pray sup Prame A roll call Supramo, roll Suppramo Son 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:06.679 so Supreme. 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:17.919 People out, So you quite audible with telling you you're 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:19.480 gonna say Donnie Simpsons year right. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:21.240 I'm not said written down? 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:22.920 Okay, run anyway. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:28.600 Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:30.959 I'm your host, chuss Love. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:31.320 Uh. 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.480 We have teams Supreme with us. Uh like you in 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:39.119 the place sees love in the house. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.600 Yeah, Quest Love is always in the house. Sugar Steve 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.280 is here. We got fun take alo uh unpaid Bill? 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.000 Yeah, Hey, how you doing. 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:48.360 I'm happy to be back. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.920 You've been so quiet that last few and I'm so 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:51.800 glad that you're here. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:54.119 And bost Bill's here as well. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:55.360 Uh. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.520 I will say that every culture UH needs a pioneer, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.680 and our guest today is beyond pioneer. For thirty years his. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:11.600 Morning show and WPGC the Doninice Simpson Morning Shows trail 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.040 Blazed and dumb wonders for the culture of soul and 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.360 R and B. And I guess you could say that 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:25.320 he's attained god status in the eyes of all of 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.480 us in this room for seventeen years as the host 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:36.080 of Ola La Video Soul norn BT, which practically gave 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:41.680 the world its first view of artists like Whitney, Houston 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:47.280 and Usher. You've done in depth conversations with greats like 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.720 Aretha Franklin, anybody from the Purple Camp that I've not 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:53.200 seen on any other networks. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:54.880 Jesse Johnson, Yes, Jesse. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.280 I mean the time, the list goes on and on, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.200 and he's just known for his his his grace, his 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.080 his his knowledge of music. I mean, do you imagine 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.880 that once upon a time there were hosts of radio 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:11.440 shows and video shows. 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:16.880 That actually had knowledge of the music. And yeah, that's 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:17.839 who would have thought. 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:23.200 That's that's a novel that's sadly missed right now. But 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.320 more than anything, this this episode will probably be a 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.440 masterclass on how to host. 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:34.200 Such so you can use Yeah, it would sound like 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:38.600 an amateur my favorite. Please welcome Dottie Simpson to ourself. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.880 Thank you, well, thank you, thank you, quest love appreciate 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:43.320 you bro. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:44.680 Yo, he just said name. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.599 Of of all the episodes, this is probably the one 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.000 that I will be the most nervous because I mean, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.680 I we all grew up with his voice and always 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.240 a Managine the day that we have an opportunity. I 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.640 never thought that my first time sitting with Donnie Simpson 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.520 would be on your show, not this show. 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.440 Well, I'm honored to be here man, I really am. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.920 This is awesome. Man. I'm a big fan of yours. 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:15.120 Bro. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.960 I yeah, I know it sounds like false honesty whenever 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:20.080 I say like, I can't believe you. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.039 Know I'm alive, But I mean that's really. 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.680 Oh for really man, mad respect for you, Thank you, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.000 thank you, thank you, and a lot of people in 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:31.560 this room, not all of them, but a lot of 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:37.960 sorry that. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.400 He shut you down. 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.200 So you're you're actually I know that we're lucky to 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.960 have you today because you are going to induct uh 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:54.599 your friends tonight. 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.240 Well I'm not actually inducting them. I'm just there, sport, Yeah, 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:00.000 just there in support. 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:01.200 It's amazing. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.520 Yes, I know that no one is a bigger fan 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.600 of Jimmy dam and Terry Lewis and the Time Family been. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:07.919 Oh no doubt you are. 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.520 Even to this day. I still watch your interviews on 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:12.040 YouTube with those guys. 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.960 And yeah, man, and those are my toughest interviews too. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.080 It's funny because yeah, because they were we were boys. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.120 You know, we're so close. So my toughest interview you 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.200 mentioned Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jimmy jam and 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.960 Terry Lewis and Smoky like those really boys always the 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.800 toughest interviews because you know, you know them so well, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.920 and then all of a sudden you're in this formal setting. 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:35.960 You know, you got to ask questions, and they're like, 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.720 well you're asking me that. You know that, But it's 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:39.720 just weird to me. 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.000 It's like those are your especially when you when you 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.960 did the I think the Pandemonium interview back in like 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:47.960 nineteen ninety. 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:48.280 One, yeah time. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.280 Yeah, like that was the first time where you know, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.680 normally there's there's a cool demeanor about you, but then 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.680 like I saw you just as the Billy Press into 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.400 their beatles, like the Times. Wow, it was just like, oh, well, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:04.880 Donnie Simpsons just like he's one of the one of 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:06.800 the crew, and he was on the records. 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.640 That's yeah, that's right, the Pandemonium malvel Wow, that's right. Well, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.240 you know, that's very flattering to say that. And I 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.960 remember when they got their starring the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.400 they said, man, all day long, all we kept saying 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.360 was just one person missing man, you know, and that 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.680 just you know what an honor. I mean, it wasn't me, 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:31.520 it was Billy Preston, but no, but you know, we 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.720 we are We're just friends like that. That that day 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.920 that we recorded that show, before we recorded it, Uh, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.400 Jimmy and Terry set me down at the board in 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.800 the studio and they're playing the album for me, the 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.920 Pandemonia malvel So I'm sitting there and the intro comes on, 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.280 and you know, I do the intro. I'm doing this 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.880 intro and I'm sitting there like, how wait, what wait? 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.440 That's my voice? How did I can figure it out? 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.319 How they got me to do this introduction that I 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:05.240 didn't record. And what happened was that they had lifted 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.800 it from like five or six years prior to that. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.000 I went to present them, just to introduce them at 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:16.320 the Minneapolis Black Musicians Awards shown and uh, and they 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.480 lifted it from that and used it as the intro 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.120 for the album. Man, I just it was just what 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.000 an honor to open up, to open up for the time. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.000 That's right, because they briefly when Mars did fish Nets. 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.839 I guess they briefly reunited as the time for that. 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.600 Were you actually introducing them back in eighty seven as 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.319 a full unit or were they just going on to 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:38.240 get an a warld. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.240 Wow in eighty Yeah, that was a full unit. Then, yeah, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.240 that was the time that was everybody before Fishnet. As 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.040 a matter of fact, fish Net was a part of 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:47.920 that show that you're talking about. I think that I 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:49.120 think we introduced that then. 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:50.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.880 There's a video on YouTube of you and the studio 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.560 with them and they were playing the track for fish Net. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:57.679 Is that right? Yeah, yeah, they were, They were in 0:09:57.679 --> 0:09:59.920 the studio together. That that was a few years earlier though. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.040 The song was so hot. Man. 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.719 So you know you're those that know you well know 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.400 of your love affair with music. But yeah, where did 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.679 it start? Where did your what was your childhood into you? 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:16.839 As far as your relationship with music. 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.079 I was always around music from the time I was twelve. Well, actually, 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:22.800 I'll say even earlier than that. I remember when we 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.839 got our first record player, and the first record we 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.559 got was The Drifters Save the Last Dance for Me, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:31.719 and we would play that thing over. It is the 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:33.880 only record we had, so we played it. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:34.400 Over and over. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:38.400 Forty five yep, forty five and big was the household? 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.000 Oh it was six kids. I had a five boys, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.199 one girl, my mom and dad, and so it was 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:46.720 eight in a little tiny house. 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:46.959 Man. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.600 We had two bedroom house. Mom and dad had a bedroom, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.480 my sister had a bedroom. Boys were upstairs. It was 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:59.280 like army bears up there lined up. Man, I'm telling you, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.240 but you know, but my mother decided to open a 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.920 record shop when she when I was twelve, and so 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:08.679 I worked in that record shop from the time I 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.559 was twelve. So it was always around music, you know. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.240 I knew when music came out, the day it came out, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.319 you know, everything. And then we used to have a 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.599 little contest between each other. We go, all right, so 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.120 what do you think this is going to do? I said, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.400 you know, I think it'll go number one R and B, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.839 top ten pop, you know. And I would be right 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.800 all the time. Man, I would always be able to 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.199 predict them, you know. And I this other thing, And 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.520 I don't know if it's like I don't maybe it's 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.040 not psychic. Maybe it's just from experience of knowing people. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.400 But I could see you coming across the street to 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.520 the record shop, and I'd go to the shelf and 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.440 pull off, say three songs and guarantee that they would 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.040 ask for those three, you know, and not two of 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.160 the three, but all three, you know. I would do 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.400 it all the time record with that. It was really good, 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:57.560 really good. Really? 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:01.080 So what city is this? Detroit from you were born? 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.800 So I grew up under Motown? Said wow, so don't 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.240 I'm not even can't even give Mama's Record Shop credit 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.480 for that. That's going back to the Motown Review, you know, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.040 living there in Detroit under Motown with the temps. Man, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:17.400 you know, I remember as a kid man, I used 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.480 to watch every Cadillac that went by, hoping you're gonna 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.640 see David Ruffman one of the Tempts, are some smoky 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.240 or one of their cousins would have just been just 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:31.880 just cool anybody man related. Sitting at the Motown Review, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.040 my wife Pam is here with me, and she can 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.520 she remembers that so well. We would go down there, man, 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.120 I mean five shows a day with the Temptations, four 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:45.559 top supremes, Bobby Taylor to Vancouver's junior Walker, Smokey Robinson. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.320 It was just endless, you know. So to grow up 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.240 under that, how could you not have a love for music, man, 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.520 you know? And so I was just always in that. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:05.040 When I was fifteen, this radio station there, WJLB, had 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.079 a group that called the WJLB Sol Teen reporters. One 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.439 student from each public school came in once a week 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.319 recorded a little sixty second spiel about what was going 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.319 on at their school. We'd beat Pershing High last week, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.600 fifty four to fifty two, cap and gown measurements of Friday, 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:20.880 the Lovers of the Week ad and the number one 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:22.360 song is you know that kind of thing. 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.120 So I thought it was the upfront. I was like, wow. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.080 So they had asked me to do that for my school, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.800 and so I kind of wasn't interested at first, but 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.199 finally my mother one day had a live broadcast with 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.240 a local DJ who came out and did his show 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.360 from there from the record store. And man, I went 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.000 into that booth and saw him doing his thing, man 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.360 and he's sitting here patting his foot to the music 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.200 man and grooving, And I was like, man, I could 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.000 do that, you know. And that was the very day 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.439 I fell in love with radio that I said, I'm 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.880 going to do that, And so I went and joined 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:04.959 the reporters, and in the I got so popular from 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.400 these little sixty second things that ran once maybe twice 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.120 a day, that I was more popular than the DJs 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.040 because I was his kid with a heavy voice. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:13.760 You know. 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.319 And so they started putting me on on weekends for 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.920 three hours on Saturday, and that lasted for about two months. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.840 They fired a guy who did eight to midnight weeknights 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:27.440 and asked me to sit in for him for one 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.040 week to give them time to find somebody else. I 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:31.480 sat there for seven and a half. 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.840 Years, a teenager with a radio job. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:37.960 Oh yeah, I mean I couldn't even do my whole 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.200 show live because I couldn't work past ten thirty, you know. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:42.760 So I used to go in after school. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.640 Yeah, so you've had that golden voice since you were 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:46.840 a teenager, since. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.480 My voice changed between the summer between seventh and eighth grade. 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.360 And I remember well because I was in the choir. Man, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.160 I was the only male first soprano, which I love 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:01.600 because I sat with the girls. Next time I come 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.640 back and I'm this baritone, you know. But yeah, so, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:07.440 I mean, so you know, I was really blessed to 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.040 have a start like that. Man, it was just it 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.280 was just heaven sent. 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.040 So for you, was it always radio aspirations? Did you 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.160 have music? Like did you want to maybe be a 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:17.840 singer or. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.120 I still want to be a singer, but I don't 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:28.560 think I'm gonna make this. Will tell you, she tells 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:30.920 you two things. He ain't no singer, and he ain't 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:32.000 no rocket scientist. 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:36.480 No no. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.560 But I mean, you know, I've always felt that anyone 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.760 who doesn't sing wants to sing or wants to be 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:44.920 a musician. As a matter of fact, I said, this 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.880 is my part of my induction speech when I was 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.200 inducted in the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.120 which was I said, this is just such an honor 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:59.640 for me because I've always felt that musicians always the 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.200 cooler people in the room, respect, questlove. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:09.320 You know, you're definitely learned from you. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.960 I offered as advice, I mean, as as proof. Prince 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.400 appearing at the Oscars, So you got the biggest stars 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.560 in the movie stars forty fifty million dollars a movie 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.680 Prince walked on that stage. They were like little girls, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.800 you know, musicians man. And I said, you know, for 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.600 one night, y'all, let me in your group, you know, 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.440 And I appreciate that, just for one night. I could 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.960 never be I just always wanted to be cool enough 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.040 to be a musician. I just I just ain't gonna 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:39.280 make it. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.280 So did you have formal training when you finally started 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.680 to do this radio because most people they'll go to 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.960 artf programs in their colleges to learn how to you know, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.360 do upfront and be prepared. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.880 We're going to put you to the test on that back. Yeah, 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.920 So you was it a learning curve where you just 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.359 had to learn on the spot how to do these things? 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.119 Or well, it's you know, I started so young. I 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.800 mean I did go to school eventually. I mean I 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.359 was in school or in high school, but I went 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.359 to college and studied radio and TV also. But I 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.120 was already doing it. I mean, you know, I mean 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.879 I was one of the most popular DJs in Detroit 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.240 and here I am going to college. It was like 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.280 the experience. Nothing beats that, and you know that nothing 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.280 beats doing it, and so you know, I think it 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.879 was just kind of a natural, god given gift that 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.600 I had, and you know, they certainly taught me how 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.840 to develop it. Like in school, I learned how to 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.760 use my diaphragm, you know, those exercises like singers, you know, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.480 because I remember, yeah, I remember my teacher coming up 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.080 to me in college one day. He walked up behind 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:56.960 me and he said, and I didn't know he was there. 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.480 He says, So, Donnie, how come you always talk like 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:06.720 this and hall? Because I'm a brother, That's how we 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.119 talk in the hall. But he's you know, he taught 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.440 me that you have to use your diaphragm, that you 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:15.520 you know, it's like a backhand in tennis. You got 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.760 to practice it so much that is second nature, that 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.600 that is the way you talk, and that you can 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.639 still be cool and talk from here. You don't have 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:24.960 to talk from here to be cool. 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.520 You know. Have you ever interviewed Barry White? 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.120 Oh yeah, Oh my god, I love Barry. 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.440 Anybody ever seen interview Barry White will suddenly find themselves 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:37.240 trying to. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.880 No, man, I love my little boys too much. I'm 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:45.160 trying to get down there with beer. 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:50.560 Okay. 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.920 So this is whenever, whenever we have anyone that has 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.760 a notable radio experience on the show. Uh huh, we 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.120 asked them to front celle or back sell of song. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:06.240 I'm pretty no, I. 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:06.800 Don't even want to. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:08.240 He'll know he just ang hit it. 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:08.560 Okay. 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.560 Now see, now I got to pick this the perfect 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.639 song with either a short into or long into or 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:16.160 middle intro. 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.760 What should I do? I think a long intro. 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.520 But longs are easy, just so they're easier. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:25.480 But no, but what if it's. 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.560 But if it's very wide extasy next, that's a one 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.720 minute minute. That's a woman in six Temptations. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:39.080 Papa was rolling Stone's to sixteen, so Jock worked for 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.320 me to actually hit that post once really to sixteen? 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.720 Like, man, So wait a minute. 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.639 If if there is long space in the front, are 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.520 you expected to fill every last ounce in? 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.080 I don't think so. Well. You know that's interesting because 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:56.960 I think most radio people feel that you do. 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:57.800 Uh. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.760 But to me, I love music so much that sometimes 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:07.239 the music should you talk all over? Love's Theme by 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.840 Barry White and the Love and the Orchestra. No, I mean, 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.520 you know, some of the music is so beautiful. It's 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.000 vocal in itself, you know what I mean. It's it's 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.040 you know, it has a moment where it's the intro 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:21.520 is over, song is started. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.360 Okay, yeah, are you ready for your I think so listen, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:26.399 here we go. 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:32.240 Oh it's magic onetle two point three. You're listening to 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.520 Dottie Simpson hanging out with Questlove. Weve got my boys 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.440 on the stage now, man, these dudes do it right. 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.480 Let's gonna get hot in here not hot enough norse 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.240 to sweat. You know, he doesn't sweat, He just kind 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:46.840 of SATs a kiss. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.520 So does this also mean that you have to study 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.080 the song? Yeah, as in you. 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.719 I mean when you went at the at the at 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.159 the height of you being immersed inside of your your 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.960 your radio days, would you pick a designated day to 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:15.119 just study all the songs? 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:15.800 Definitely? 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:20.359 Not, definitely not. No, would never study. It's just knowing it. 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.119 It's just appreciating it. I know it because I love it. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:25.720 I see. You know. 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.040 No, I've never studied songs. You thought, Wow, sit there 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.240 with a stop watch. This is eighteen seconds. You just 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:33.600 feel it, you know, you just know, you know, you 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:34.560 know where the song is. 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:36.520 My songs usually have like a four bar eight bar 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:37.359 or whatever intro. 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.000 Okay, all right, I see if you write it too, 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:42.960 it's a rhythm thing because that's what you were just doing. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:49.160 You were writing it, Yeah, like a musician. So again, 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:50.040 like a musician. 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:57.200 Oh man, you wanted to make sure. So I will 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.119 say that Detroit is also. 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:07.000 A very unusual town as far as music culture is concerned, 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:13.720 because of their appreciation for other cultures as well. You know, 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.480 at one point I knew that, Uh, I forget that 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.480 the Jay gile Bands song that that was like number 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.160 two on a particular station up there. 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.600 I used to play, used to it was all kinds 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:29.720 of stuff about jailes. 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:34.640 So what was it that made such a black city 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:35.840 so open to. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.840 Gary knew the talking heads or fail out or like 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:45.359 just because I would look up old playlists from all 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:47.119 their radio stations up there, and. 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.639 It was endless. There were no boundaries on what was 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:53.359 black music. 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.040 Right. I don't. I can't. I wish I could tell 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.320 you why we are that way, But I was always 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.080 that way, man, love, you know, and I feel like this, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:06.800 you know for radio program directors or programmers that you know, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.720 radio people feel that people's ears are a lot narrower 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.080 than they are. You know, people like different things, man, 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:17.879 And you know, I mean growing up in Detroit, I 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.600 mean I played I played all that stuff on the radio, man, 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:25.760 Without doubt, the biggest moment in my radio career was 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:30.439 breaking Benny and the Jets by Elton John. I've been 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:32.480 sitting around with my boy, man, he's turning me on 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.879 to Elton, right, And so I kept this went on 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:38.040 for a week, man, I said, Man, I love this song, 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:40.760 Benny and the Jets, man, And but I was scared 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.800 to play it because you know, black folks didn't really 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.040 know Elton, you know. And so finally I said, Man, Claude, 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.119 I'm playing this song, and I played it. 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:49.400 Man. 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.000 I played it twice that night, and I played it 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:54.480 the second time because the phone was jumping off the 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:58.000 hook from the first time. I'd never seen anything like 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:02.760 it before or since. It was so instant. The next morning, 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:05.359 the morning DJ calls me at home, wakes me up 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.280 at seven thirty, Donnie, what is this song you played 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:10.639 last night, Jitny and the Nets or something. Man, you 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:12.720 got to bring that down here. We got to play 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:17.840 it so fast that in two days Elton was on 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:22.359 the phone really from London called wanted to know what's 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:24.920 going on here. Benny and the Jets is breaking black 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:25.600 in Detroit. 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:26.280 You know. 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:30.200 He comes to Detroit four or five months later to 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:32.480 present me with a gold record for I mean, and 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:34.800 this is at the height of his career. Man, this 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:37.880 is you know, man, that just turned me out. Man. 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.440 It was just it was amazing. Man, It was just 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:44.720 an amazing moment. And always use it, especially now when 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:49.840 I tell that story. It's important because it saddens me 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:55.640 that there are young people in radio now with good 0:24:55.680 --> 0:25:01.160 ears that can't express themselves musically. You know, sad to me, man, 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:02.920 you should be able to have a moment like that 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.600 to come in. I mean, DJ, I'm supposed to be 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:08.440 turning you on the music so it is understood. 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:10.639 And then whatever radio station you go to that you 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:13.120 have that some kind of freedom in that way where 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:15.199 you can play what you you. 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:16.360 Can take out in that way. 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:20.119 Okay, you have freedom to play whatever. 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:25.960 Absolutely, that's care because that's amazing because it's. 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:29.480 The programming director that was ringing the emergency line. Like 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:32.560 I'm certain every radio station has that, the red phone. 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:33.320 Whatever they do. 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:36.000 Man, bro, you can get me starting. 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:39.320 Are you playing Princess Dirty? Like I'm just saying like. 0:25:39.440 --> 0:25:41.119 They don't they know not to bother me with that. 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:42.800 I mean, I just you know, And I don't mean 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:45.240 that to sound vain. I think that I just you know, 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:47.640 they know that that's the only way I can work. 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:50.639 I'm not going to do this if you're going to 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:53.480 tell me how to do me, I can only do 0:25:53.640 --> 0:25:58.560 me and uh and if it works. I told in 0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:01.800 a negotiation for this return of mine. I said, Look, 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:04.639 it got caught up in a while, and I just 0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:07.920 finally said, look, let's make it real simple. I do 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:10.399 what I do. If it doesn't work, you tell me, 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:12.480 I take my records and go home. You don't have 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:15.679 to boun the rest of the contract. Nothing. I'm just gone, 0:26:16.160 --> 0:26:20.800 all right, Oh, I mean, you know, I just I 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:22.560 have to have that kind of freedom. 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:22.760 Man. 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:26.160 You know, I'm a look out the window kind of guy. Man, 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:29.520 how does the day feel? You know, because it's a 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:32.960 spirit that connects us all man. A computer can't do that. 0:26:33.280 --> 0:26:36.560 You can't tell me that this song works today, this 0:26:36.720 --> 0:26:38.800 day feels a certain way. I used to get it 0:26:38.920 --> 0:26:41.320 when I did the Morning show Man once an hour, 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:44.280 I would get out and walk around the building just 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:48.520 to smell it. I need to smell the day, you know. 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:52.840 And I know it may sound strange to people, you know, 0:26:54.280 --> 0:26:56.560 and you gotta have that to me, you know. And 0:26:56.640 --> 0:26:59.800 as far as like calling jocks, you know, I programmed 0:27:00.800 --> 0:27:05.440 WKYS in Washington for twelve years. I mean, and you 0:27:05.560 --> 0:27:08.080 talk about a meteoric rise, I mean, and I didn't 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:10.280 even I kind of bumped into it. I wasn't trying 0:27:10.280 --> 0:27:12.320 to program. I never wanted to program. I just wanted 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:14.640 to be a jock. But station was in sixteenth place. 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:17.000 We were losing so badly, and they said, what's wrong 0:27:17.040 --> 0:27:19.040 with the station? I told him what I felt about it. 0:27:20.080 --> 0:27:21.280 I said, well will you do that? 0:27:23.240 --> 0:27:23.480 Wow? 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:27.399 Yeah, okay, I mean I felt like I can at 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:30.640 least do better than sixteenth. Man, we went from sixteenth 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:33.720 to number one and nine months, you know, and it 0:27:33.840 --> 0:27:37.000 was just with feel, you know. I you know, I 0:27:37.080 --> 0:27:39.800 don't have anything against research. Research is cool as long 0:27:39.840 --> 0:27:43.920 as you use it. Don't let it use you. You know, 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:46.480 It's just another tool if you want to use it. 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:49.400 But I remember this programmer coming to me once had 0:27:49.680 --> 0:27:53.440 done this big research project, payed like sixty five gram 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:55.359 to research all these songs, and he came to me 0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:57.600 and he said, man, can do you know what the 0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:00.880 number one song tested for us was? Said Marvin Gay, 0:28:00.960 --> 0:28:04.720 Let's get it on. How did you know that? I 0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:12.040 was like, I'm a brother, I live, this dog ain't 0:28:12.080 --> 0:28:20.280 on safari, you know. So, but you know, when I 0:28:20.400 --> 0:28:22.080 was programming, I wanted to just bring this up to 0:28:22.240 --> 0:28:24.959 because it's you know, and and I certainly don't mean 0:28:25.000 --> 0:28:30.080 to come off like I'm like chastising programmers. But you 0:28:30.160 --> 0:28:33.920 know when I programmed Man Hotline hot you would it 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:37.080 would never ring. I never once called one of my 0:28:37.240 --> 0:28:39.640 jocks during the middle of his show to tell him 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:42.400 something was that was bad. Hell, I know you know what, 0:28:42.800 --> 0:28:44.840 you know what you did it. You know it's bad 0:28:44.960 --> 0:28:47.080 more than I do. Why would I call you at 0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:49.600 that moment? Sacrifice the last two hours of your show 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.760 for the first two that just and and then bigger 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:55.880 than that is that. What happens is that then you 0:28:56.080 --> 0:28:59.840 start talking to me because you're afraid of me. You're 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:02.440 to that phone ringing. I don't want you talking to me. 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:04.440 I ain't got nothing to do with this. Talk to 0:29:04.520 --> 0:29:07.920 the audience. Man, This is about y'all. You know that's 0:29:08.240 --> 0:29:11.200 and I gave my jocks freedom, you know, I just 0:29:11.520 --> 0:29:13.760 I'm old school like that. Man, bring your records, man, 0:29:13.840 --> 0:29:17.200 do you think you know? Just express You'll be amazed 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:22.120 at the performance you get from people when you entrust them, 0:29:22.560 --> 0:29:25.880 when you let them do what they do, when their 0:29:26.000 --> 0:29:28.400 name is on it instead of just them representing you. 0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:29.760 It's like you hired them for a reason. 0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:31.479 That's what you hired them for, right. 0:29:31.600 --> 0:29:34.280 Let them go, man, because this way of thought is 0:29:34.400 --> 0:29:38.560 not very prevalent right now, have you ever I mean, 0:29:38.600 --> 0:29:41.080 I know it's another burden, but have you ever considered ownership? 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:44.480 Yeah? I used to think about it. We had looked 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:48.720 at it a long time ago, and god, radio stations 0:29:48.760 --> 0:29:50.920 had gotten so expensive then it was just kind of crazy. 0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:53.040 But you know, I don't know that it's a business 0:29:53.080 --> 0:29:54.680 that I would be that interested in now. 0:29:54.960 --> 0:29:55.120 You know. 0:29:55.280 --> 0:29:59.800 It's uh, you know, the dollars have dried up to 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:02.480 great degree, as you know, I mean with everything that 0:30:02.800 --> 0:30:10.840 is that advertising based model, radio, television, print, those dollars 0:30:10.880 --> 0:30:13.560 have gone to the internet, you know. So it's a 0:30:13.680 --> 0:30:16.880 different day, you know, and radio and TV are lucky 0:30:17.440 --> 0:30:23.400 most of them are just suffering pay cuts, print shutting 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:26.440 their doors, you know. I mean it's a different day. 0:30:26.600 --> 0:30:29.840 So you know, No, I don't have that level of 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:30.720 interest in it now. 0:30:31.200 --> 0:30:39.960 No, speaking of the uh you're breaking Elton John and 0:30:39.960 --> 0:30:43.840 bending the jets. What were some of the other notable 0:30:44.120 --> 0:30:47.600 artists that you had a first thing like, I feel 0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:49.680 like this person's the next one. 0:30:49.880 --> 0:30:51.920 Well, I had a I have a gold record at 0:30:51.960 --> 0:30:54.320 home that says thank you for being the first to 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:57.320 play Whitney Houston. You give good lack. 0:30:57.520 --> 0:30:59.520 I literally only pulled that out there. 0:31:00.280 --> 0:31:01.200 Oh I thought you knew that. 0:31:01.440 --> 0:31:03.440 No, I was just I was like, oh, I know 0:31:03.560 --> 0:31:06.440 you gave Whitney Houston what I saw her very when 0:31:06.520 --> 0:31:08.960 she first came to Video Soul. 0:31:09.360 --> 0:31:11.840 Yeah, I remember that interview. 0:31:11.560 --> 0:31:15.280 But remember Shade first interview with Shade, her first interview 0:31:16.000 --> 0:31:19.240 I think I know in America, if not on television period, 0:31:19.640 --> 0:31:24.960 was with me. You know, So you know I you know, 0:31:25.000 --> 0:31:26.920 I certainly don't want to sound like I started all 0:31:27.000 --> 0:31:27.600 of these careers. 0:31:28.480 --> 0:31:32.200 This is why you're here. This is a masterclass. 0:31:32.360 --> 0:31:34.760 Seriously, there's a lot of artists that we probably wouldn't 0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:37.000 know about if we hadn't seen them on Video Souls. 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:39.160 You know, you introducing them to us. So you are 0:31:39.160 --> 0:31:42.200 a very important part. Well, you know, it's thank you, 0:31:42.720 --> 0:31:44.640 and you're allowed to seat your own horn. 0:31:44.760 --> 0:31:47.600 No, and I wont, but it's it's it's so flat. 0:31:47.720 --> 0:31:51.440 I had Big Daddy Kane on my radio show yesterday 0:31:52.000 --> 0:31:54.960 and he was telling me. He says, man, I just 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:56.800 want to thank you for the first time I was 0:31:56.880 --> 0:32:00.440 on Video Soul. Man, he said, I was so nervous. Man, 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:02.640 I couldn't believe it. But he said, what blew me 0:32:02.720 --> 0:32:05.160 away was that I came in there, man, and you 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:08.760 treated me like all the other artists. You treated me 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:11.880 with respect, and I thought it would be just like, 0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:14.440 you know, all right, we got this rapper in here. 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:15.760 Let's get the rap thing out. 0:32:15.680 --> 0:32:16.760 Of the way, he said. 0:32:16.800 --> 0:32:19.400 And it was just so different, you know, which blew 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:21.400 me away that he thought I would treat him, you know, 0:32:22.960 --> 0:32:24.600 as I told him on the area yesterday. I said, 0:32:24.880 --> 0:32:29.320 kin man, if President Obama walked through this door right 0:32:29.360 --> 0:32:31.840 now or the janitor, they're gonna get the same level 0:32:31.920 --> 0:32:35.640 of love and respect for me. Believe that, you know so. 0:32:36.880 --> 0:32:40.160 But it's always fascinating to me that so many artists 0:32:40.320 --> 0:32:43.280 come up to you and tell you what you meant 0:32:43.320 --> 0:32:44.360 to their careers. 0:32:44.520 --> 0:32:44.680 You know. 0:32:45.160 --> 0:32:48.240 I remember going to see New Addition one night. This 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.640 is twenty five years ago. No, not new Addition, I'm sorry, 0:32:52.240 --> 0:32:54.840 new kids, not that new kids on the block boys. 0:32:55.000 --> 0:32:55.120 Men. 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:02.440 So I go backstage and they go, oh my god, 0:33:02.520 --> 0:33:07.920 Donnie's here, look at it. What's the date? April whatever? 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.640 One of nineteen eighty seven. They all knew the date. 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:15.160 They came on Video Soul. It was that significant to them, 0:33:15.720 --> 0:33:15.960 you know. 0:33:18.160 --> 0:33:21.680 Oh married, don't you week? Acapella? They were the team 0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:22.560 better than me. 0:33:23.320 --> 0:33:26.080 Wait only okay, because I was in the Motown Philly video. 0:33:26.680 --> 0:33:28.640 So even me and my parents were like sitting there 0:33:28.640 --> 0:33:31.560 with a VCR open, like like the video is going 0:33:31.600 --> 0:33:32.880 to come on because this is the first time that 0:33:32.920 --> 0:33:35.920 I'm seeing the video, Like, yeah, no, that was And 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:38.640 we all went to high school together, so that that 0:33:38.880 --> 0:33:42.720 was like a moment like someone from my homeroom classes 0:33:43.280 --> 0:33:46.080 that still it was me two thousand and thirty five cents, 0:33:47.600 --> 0:33:47.880 thank you. 0:33:48.520 --> 0:33:54.760 Uh you know is legit like on on Video Soul? 0:33:54.920 --> 0:33:57.080 Yeah, it meant something to sit on that couch, you know, 0:33:57.600 --> 0:34:02.800 and uh, that's that's that's flattering. That's really an awesome thing. 0:34:03.480 --> 0:34:05.960 How so, well, I want to ease intwo video sol. 0:34:06.120 --> 0:34:10.560 How did how are you convinced uh to Well, you 0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:14.000 didn't totally abandon radio when you did video solo? 0:34:14.040 --> 0:34:17.800 Oh no, you did both. But did you figure that? 0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:21.319 Okay, it's time for the black version of MTV too, 0:34:22.200 --> 0:34:25.400 uh to come to fruition and I want to be 0:34:25.440 --> 0:34:26.160 a part of history. 0:34:26.480 --> 0:34:28.239 Now, Well, this has not happened. I mean, it wasn't 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:34.720 my creation. I got a call from Bob Johnson asking 0:34:34.800 --> 0:34:39.439 me or actually was Jeff Lee his right hand man said, 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:43.319 we're starting this show called Video Soul, and we liked 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:47.520 for you to host it. At the time, I was 0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:49.680 still doing radio, of course, but I was also I 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:53.640 just started doing TV locally in DC. For the last 0:34:53.680 --> 0:34:57.040 two years, I was a sports anchor George Michael, Yeah 0:34:57.680 --> 0:35:02.080 Michael backup for George Michael Sports much Machine. So you know, so, yeah, 0:35:03.480 --> 0:35:05.759 it was cool. I mean, I enjoyed that, but I 0:35:05.960 --> 0:35:08.840 like music, you know, sports is not what I do. 0:35:09.280 --> 0:35:13.960 So anyway, thank you, go ahead. 0:35:14.600 --> 0:35:20.880 So sports that you're thinking, that's actually how how I 0:35:21.160 --> 0:35:23.160 know you. I went to school down in College Park, 0:35:23.200 --> 0:35:27.400 Maryland in late eighties, early nineties, so I was watching 0:35:27.480 --> 0:35:29.600 the George Michael Sports Oh Wow. 0:35:29.760 --> 0:35:36.640 Cool dream Machine Sports sports Machine sports legend Donnie Simpson. Yeah. 0:35:39.600 --> 0:35:42.799 So so anyway, they said, wanted me to do this show, 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:47.720 and I'll be very honest with you, my first answer 0:35:47.960 --> 0:35:51.000 was no. You know, no, I didn't want to do it. 0:35:52.400 --> 0:35:54.920 I've always been very careful about what I get involved 0:35:54.960 --> 0:36:00.160 in because all I have to sell is image, you know, 0:36:00.280 --> 0:36:03.080 so I'm very protective of that. You know, it's got 0:36:03.200 --> 0:36:06.840 to be right. And b e T in its infancy 0:36:07.600 --> 0:36:17.719 wasn't a pretty baby. Yeah, right, exactly, exactly right. So 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:19.600 I didn't want to do that, but I thought about 0:36:19.640 --> 0:36:22.719 it for two days and then finally the bottom line 0:36:22.800 --> 0:36:28.480 became this, that this is our first black television network. 0:36:28.920 --> 0:36:31.320 If you have something to offer it, you have to 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:31.640 do that. 0:36:32.360 --> 0:36:32.720 Period. 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:35.440 Let's go. And so I'm glad I did. 0:36:35.560 --> 0:36:35.719 Man. 0:36:35.800 --> 0:36:38.160 I mean it was, uh, you know, it was amazing. 0:36:38.200 --> 0:36:40.080 When we first started, we were in one and a 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:43.360 half million homes. When I left, that number was like 0:36:43.520 --> 0:36:46.720 forty five million. You know, now it's like one hundred 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:49.600 or something. I mean, it's just crazy, you know. And uh, 0:36:50.040 --> 0:36:53.120 you know, it put me in black houses all across 0:36:53.160 --> 0:36:56.239 this country, you know, just. 0:36:56.400 --> 0:36:57.919 Like you know about your radio career. 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:01.200 I just yeah, most people around the don't get shocked 0:37:01.200 --> 0:37:05.319 when they find out how do radio? Yeah, but uh yeah, 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:07.680 but you know it was really something special. Man, it 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:11.880 was uh you know. Uh, Terry Lewis we were talking 0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:16.239 about it recently and he was saying how that I 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:18.400 was just telling him about the love and respect that 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:20.840 I get and how it just blows me away, you 0:37:20.920 --> 0:37:24.840 know every time, and uh, he says, it's because you 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:28.600 mean something to people. You know, that you represented a 0:37:28.719 --> 0:37:32.719 time when music was fun. You know, the videos were 0:37:33.360 --> 0:37:36.080 fun and all of that. You know, it was clean, fun, 0:37:36.280 --> 0:37:38.239 you know, and you represent that time. It's like, well, 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:41.480 I've never thought about it like that, but you know. 0:37:42.280 --> 0:37:42.719 It's uh. 0:37:44.760 --> 0:37:48.480 I remember one night the VH one did a series 0:37:48.520 --> 0:37:51.720 called Black in the eighties, and then he had interviewed 0:37:51.760 --> 0:37:55.279 me for it, and so they told me there's coming on. 0:37:55.440 --> 0:37:57.120 So I watched it that night. It was an hour 0:37:57.239 --> 0:38:01.160 long and the first fifteen minutes they did Brian Gumbele, 0:38:01.719 --> 0:38:06.279 the first black to host the early morning national television show. 0:38:06.560 --> 0:38:10.160 Then they did or Senil Hall, first black to host 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:14.640 a late night talk show. Then they did Cosby The 0:38:14.719 --> 0:38:19.440 Cosby Show, and first black TV show where the mother 0:38:19.520 --> 0:38:21.840 and dad were doctor and a lawyer, not a plumber 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:23.960 and a janitor or something, you know. And then they 0:38:24.040 --> 0:38:28.040 did Donnie Simpson and Video Soul, and man, I'll never 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:32.000 forget it. When the show ended, all I could think was, well, 0:38:32.000 --> 0:38:37.000 how the hell am I supposed to sleep tonight? Seriously? 0:38:37.000 --> 0:38:39.400 Because I never had it put in perspective like that, 0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:40.120 you know what I mean. 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:41.040 It's like. 0:38:43.280 --> 0:38:47.040 A line from that I've always loved from Elton John 0:38:47.200 --> 0:38:51.279 rocket Love not rocket Love, that's Stevie wonder rocket ma 0:38:51.640 --> 0:38:54.360 man right when he says in all the science, I 0:38:54.440 --> 0:38:57.879 don't understand. It's just my job five days a week, 0:38:58.080 --> 0:39:00.000 you know, I mean, you think this is a rocket 0:39:00.160 --> 0:39:02.520 man an astronauts. It's like it's so glorious. You know, 0:39:02.600 --> 0:39:06.560 your DJ is a glorious You know, Man, I don't 0:39:06.600 --> 0:39:10.480 care who you are or what you do. It's just 0:39:10.560 --> 0:39:11.000 what you do. 0:39:12.239 --> 0:39:15.600 So at the time, you weren't thinking that you're doing 0:39:15.719 --> 0:39:20.360 a historical service for mankind. That there's a bunch of 0:39:20.440 --> 0:39:23.440 eleven year olds watching you and recording this because we 0:39:23.520 --> 0:39:28.759 will record the show and watch it over and over again. 0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:31.600 Crazy to me, No, I never thought. I mean I've 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:34.239 had three or four the ESPN anchors come up to 0:39:34.320 --> 0:39:36.399 me and tell me you're the reason I do TV 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:38.279 because I used to watch you. 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:38.759 It's like. 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:42.640 That, Man, that's mind blowing to me. Of course, I'm 0:39:42.680 --> 0:39:43.000 telling you. 0:39:43.080 --> 0:39:43.239 Man. 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:48.040 Between you and probably probably the only person that could 0:39:48.280 --> 0:39:51.319 challenge or even match your cool might be Don Cornelius. 0:39:51.480 --> 0:39:58.759 Like you two are parents. Yea cool one the next. 0:39:58.840 --> 0:39:59.520 And that's the thing. 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:07.360 You always pervade this, this level of intelligence and cool 0:40:08.040 --> 0:40:14.160 and knowledge, no matter who the artist was. Like if 0:40:14.320 --> 0:40:20.239 I were interviewing like Wild Animal era Vanity, I would 0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:27.680 have been sweating profusely. But you gave her the same 0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:33.560 level of respect that you would have done for Sergio 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:38.480 Mendez or or Side Garrett or Quincy Jones or I'll 0:40:38.520 --> 0:40:39.520 be short, like you know what I mean. 0:40:39.840 --> 0:40:43.240 Like that to me was was even more amazing. 0:40:43.400 --> 0:40:47.319 Like it's one thing to interview someone that you love 0:40:47.440 --> 0:40:49.520 and that you're you know that you have history of, 0:40:49.760 --> 0:40:52.760 Like I'm sure that you know if a Motown luminary 0:40:52.800 --> 0:40:54.680 comes on the show, then you know you're just giddy 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:54.960 about it. 0:40:55.320 --> 0:40:57.520 But how do you prepare yourself. 0:40:59.360 --> 0:41:02.239 For an artist that you might not know of, Like 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:05.359 say about first year Karen White comes on the show, 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:07.080 and you might not know that much about her, but. 0:41:07.560 --> 0:41:14.080 I ask her, ah, like you did. Seriously, that's how 0:41:14.120 --> 0:41:17.600 I prepare. There's no herd for like ten years, but 0:41:17.719 --> 0:41:21.000 there there's no preparation. I mean, every artist I've ever 0:41:21.040 --> 0:41:23.000 had on Video Soul, they would give me a bio 0:41:23.440 --> 0:41:25.360 and a list of questions and I would take a 0:41:25.480 --> 0:41:29.080 car right sit down on the side. Seriously, I would 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:33.120 never look at it because I felt that there's nothing 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:36.240 wrong with me not knowing you grew up in Tuscaloosa, 0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:39.080 that I can ask you that. I mean, this is 0:41:39.200 --> 0:41:41.879 an interview, this is getting to know you. What's wrong 0:41:41.960 --> 0:41:43.680 with that being the first of where you grow up at? 0:41:44.239 --> 0:41:46.719 You know, Oh, I grew up in Philip oh Man. 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:49.799 What happened to the Sixers the other night? That's conversation. 0:41:50.239 --> 0:41:54.000 Okay, you know it, that's just you know. 0:41:54.080 --> 0:41:56.800 I mean, if it's somebody I knew, I'm telling you 0:41:56.880 --> 0:41:59.360 this may be the depth of the preparation. I'd go, 0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:02.440 all right, Luther's on this show today. I'm riding in 0:42:02.520 --> 0:42:04.120 and I go, what is it you want to know 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:08.000 about Luther Man? Why you why does your weight keep 0:42:08.080 --> 0:42:08.919 going up and down? 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:15.160 I said, all right, that's what I'm going to ask him. 0:42:15.440 --> 0:42:18.400 And you know it's but you could ask him that 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:19.960 though I don't think nobody else could get away with. 0:42:20.760 --> 0:42:24.200 But you know, and and that is a blessing for 0:42:24.280 --> 0:42:27.360 you to say that you get it. That it's just 0:42:27.520 --> 0:42:31.960 like h on with all due respect, I'm going back 0:42:32.000 --> 0:42:38.840 to Johnny Carson the Tonight Show that when the conversation 0:42:38.960 --> 0:42:42.640 with Johnny was always different from any other host I 0:42:42.719 --> 0:42:46.640 ever saw, because they had so much respect for him. 0:42:46.880 --> 0:42:49.640 He could ask things that others might not because they 0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:54.280 just lose. But Jimmy's like that too, because he's so cool. 0:42:54.480 --> 0:42:57.319 You know when when you're cool with people like that man, 0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:01.520 and they feel you and it's real, it's not stage questions. 0:43:01.600 --> 0:43:03.840 And you know, when you've read the bio, the chances 0:43:03.880 --> 0:43:06.680 are I'm gonna ask you a question based on that bio. 0:43:06.760 --> 0:43:09.800 It's something that you've been asked a thousand times already before. 0:43:10.440 --> 0:43:13.560 What was your first interview on Do you remember your 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:14.719 very first interview on the show? 0:43:14.760 --> 0:43:17.719 Who was your first My very first interview is with 0:43:17.840 --> 0:43:26.160 the Fat Boys? Eighty three or eighty four? God, so 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:29.600 like that, yeah, man, the Fat Boys. Second one was 0:43:29.719 --> 0:43:30.920 with Rick James. 0:43:31.120 --> 0:43:37.080 Bitch, Okay, what was that? 0:43:37.360 --> 0:43:37.400 Like? 0:43:37.680 --> 0:43:41.800 Okay, we have yet to have a potential Off the 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:43.640 Chains guests. 0:43:43.840 --> 0:43:46.359 We're kind of entertaining that, like all of our guests 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:49.200 are either like super legend or we've worshiped them. Yeah, 0:43:49.520 --> 0:43:55.440 but okay, Rick James a perfect example. If someone has 0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:58.200 the potential disorder be off the Chains. 0:43:58.400 --> 0:44:01.400 Oh, how do you reel them? And how do you 0:44:02.200 --> 0:44:04.160 how do you maintain how do you drive the car 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:05.520 and not have them drive the car? 0:44:06.120 --> 0:44:09.120 Wow? That's wow, what a great question because. 0:44:08.880 --> 0:44:10.800 You still have to steer and navigate. 0:44:10.920 --> 0:44:12.480 Yeah, you still gotta steer and. 0:44:15.239 --> 0:44:15.359 Right. 0:44:16.120 --> 0:44:18.200 And it was the eighties, so we know that Rick 0:44:18.320 --> 0:44:20.759 might have been on that, you know, so you don't 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:22.360 know where the conversation was going to go. 0:44:22.440 --> 0:44:24.840 But I've never had that problem. I never had anybody, 0:44:24.960 --> 0:44:28.120 had anybody go rogue on me, just you know, go crazy, 0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:31.040 go just it just never happened. 0:44:31.080 --> 0:44:32.800 But a little left, you've had some people maybe go 0:44:32.840 --> 0:44:33.920 a little because even. 0:44:33.800 --> 0:44:41.239 That every everybody left, you know, shoot. 0:44:42.920 --> 0:44:45.480 Has an interview going a little weird, and you guys 0:44:45.520 --> 0:44:46.600 had to do a lot of editing. 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:50.480 Magic well back in the day for like what we're 0:44:50.480 --> 0:44:54.440 gonna do is like most of the years on Video Soul, 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:59.440 we were live. It was live until the last three 0:44:59.520 --> 0:44:59.960 or four years. 0:45:01.120 --> 0:45:03.680 Yeah, yeah, I never do that. 0:45:03.960 --> 0:45:05.200 Yeah yeah, we used to do it live. 0:45:05.280 --> 0:45:06.320 Man's risky. 0:45:06.760 --> 0:45:09.239 Well yeah, but today that's the way I liked it 0:45:09.800 --> 0:45:13.240 because that made it like radio for me. I hate tape. 0:45:13.760 --> 0:45:18.040 I hate recording. It's just it's a different pressure that 0:45:18.239 --> 0:45:21.200 you perform better when it's live. For me, you know, 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:23.000 when it's live and I know you don't get to 0:45:23.080 --> 0:45:25.440 back it up and then it's real because for me, 0:45:25.880 --> 0:45:29.239 when you're backing it up and editing, then you're trying 0:45:29.280 --> 0:45:32.560 to make it perfect. And like I never ever ever 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:36.279 watched video soul. I don't listen to tapes of my 0:45:36.440 --> 0:45:39.680 radio show because I feel like then I'm trying to 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:42.680 make myself perfect and I'll never be that. All I 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:46.239 need to be is me. That's it, That's all I 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:47.280 need to be, Donnie Simpson. 0:45:47.320 --> 0:45:49.000 Does that mean a programmer has never pulled you in 0:45:49.000 --> 0:45:49.880 aircheck meeting and. 0:45:49.840 --> 0:45:53.480 It said, oh lord, no, since you were a teenager. 0:45:53.040 --> 0:45:54.600 There's never been a boss, because I mean most I 0:45:54.680 --> 0:45:56.560 know people know this, but like in radio, usually your 0:45:56.640 --> 0:45:58.480 boss will at some point at the end of the week, 0:45:58.520 --> 0:45:59.960 pool you in a room and say, let's listen. 0:45:59.840 --> 0:46:03.720 To what you did here. You know what, for one period, 0:46:03.840 --> 0:46:08.600 when I first moved to DC in seventy seven, we 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:12.239 did have a program director and oh my goodness, it 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:14.279 was crazy for me. For a year and a half 0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:17.279 I did live under that. I've forgotten that because it 0:46:17.360 --> 0:46:19.160 was such you know, that's out of how many years 0:46:19.280 --> 0:46:23.000 got I started in sixty nine, so you know, one 0:46:23.040 --> 0:46:29.359 and a half years of slavery. But you know where 0:46:29.400 --> 0:46:32.000 he would walk in with a stopwatch and go. That 0:46:32.200 --> 0:46:35.320 was seventeen seconds. You had to come in under fifteen 0:46:35.360 --> 0:46:38.160 seconds on anything you said, you know, I mean, it 0:46:38.320 --> 0:46:40.480 was just so finally I was gone. 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:41.520 I was gone. 0:46:41.600 --> 0:46:43.440 I said I can't do this. I'm leaving. And I 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:48.320 had a job offer in LA and so they offered 0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:51.720 me the music directorship to keep me. So I stayed 0:46:52.160 --> 0:46:55.200 and then I worked under this music director. My music 0:46:55.280 --> 0:46:57.839 director was he's a brother, but he had so much 0:46:59.120 --> 0:47:00.799 or it was let me be careful. 0:47:00.680 --> 0:47:01.000 Yeah. 0:47:02.600 --> 0:47:04.719 We know, wink, we get it. 0:47:04.960 --> 0:47:13.160 Yeah, we need Muller to investigate this one. But he 0:47:13.880 --> 0:47:17.040 we would have our record meetings or every week, you know, 0:47:17.120 --> 0:47:19.440 the music meetings, and he'd go around the room. I 0:47:19.600 --> 0:47:22.440 was the music director under him. He was the program director. 0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:24.440 And I had two assistants, and both of them were 0:47:24.480 --> 0:47:28.160 political appointees. This is DC. One was David Brinkley's son, 0:47:28.200 --> 0:47:31.680 the other was his senator's son. He go around the room. 0:47:31.719 --> 0:47:33.759 He play, uh, I'll never forget this. When he played 0:47:33.800 --> 0:47:38.399 Beast of Burden, rolling Stones, you know, so he goes, so, John, 0:47:38.440 --> 0:47:39.160 what do you think of that? Oh? 0:47:39.200 --> 0:47:39.600 I love it. 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:41.080 I think it's great. David, what do you I think 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:43.000 it's great? I think Donnie what do you think. I 0:47:43.040 --> 0:47:51.399 think it's great. We can't play that ship you, right, 0:47:51.840 --> 0:47:53.719 you know, I mean I love it, but it's got 0:47:53.760 --> 0:47:54.520 the fit brothers. 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:58.920 Can I assume that that was the single after Miss You? 0:47:59.160 --> 0:48:00.160 Were you guys playing Miss You? 0:48:00.800 --> 0:48:03.560 No? That was that was before Miss You? Because I 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:06.160 Miss You came after, as I recall it, because I 0:48:06.280 --> 0:48:09.919 played Miss You as a program director, so I wasn't 0:48:10.000 --> 0:48:15.040 programming then. Yeah, we I'm pretty sure we could. We 0:48:15.120 --> 0:48:20.600 could check the records. Yeah, I think that's the way 0:48:20.640 --> 0:48:23.760 it went because I played Miss You. That works. Beast 0:48:23.840 --> 0:48:28.359 Burden does not. Little Riverband reminiscing. We can't play that, man, 0:48:28.760 --> 0:48:30.280 you know. Yeah, it's it's. 0:48:33.480 --> 0:48:35.400 Because you also got to consider the area, right, Like, 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:36.120 it's not just the. 0:48:36.160 --> 0:48:38.840 People in the area in d C and go go baby. 0:48:39.440 --> 0:48:42.879 You know it was hard. Yeah, that's my next question. 0:48:43.360 --> 0:48:49.759 Okay, Now, as the the top taste maker of DC 0:48:49.960 --> 0:48:54.880 that had the world's ears, how is such a beautiful 0:48:54.920 --> 0:48:57.680 subculture like go go, how's it met? 0:48:58.120 --> 0:48:59.839 So men? 0:49:00.120 --> 0:49:05.840 Me obstacles and I feel like the ripple never gets 0:49:05.920 --> 0:49:11.840 to expand west west more west than West Virginia or Ohio, 0:49:12.280 --> 0:49:17.320 West Virginia or Okay, It's like let's let's just go 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:18.120 back to Virginia. 0:49:20.000 --> 0:49:23.960 Yeah, but it's you've lived in DC for decades. I 0:49:24.040 --> 0:49:24.800 assume you still do. 0:49:25.080 --> 0:49:25.480 Oh yeah. 0:49:26.800 --> 0:49:31.480 How is black people's jam bam music not resonated to 0:49:31.719 --> 0:49:32.600 the rest of. 0:49:34.320 --> 0:49:36.080 The United States of America at least? 0:49:36.400 --> 0:49:41.799 I have no idea why that is. It's like, I mean, 0:49:41.920 --> 0:49:44.520 we thought it was going to break out when we've 0:49:44.560 --> 0:49:45.840 had Yeah well. 0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:47.359 And good to that movie came out. 0:49:47.600 --> 0:49:51.040 Chuck was the first bust and Loose was the first 0:49:51.520 --> 0:49:53.680 number one go go song in the country. I mean, 0:49:53.719 --> 0:49:55.400 it was number one song in the country. That was 0:49:55.480 --> 0:49:58.200 Go Go and uh. And then the second was the 0:49:58.280 --> 0:50:01.520 Butt by EU with the help of the movie School Days. 0:50:01.640 --> 0:50:01.800 You know. 0:50:02.239 --> 0:50:05.239 So we're thinking, man, this great breakout now, and it 0:50:05.400 --> 0:50:07.680 never did. Those are the only two to this day 0:50:08.200 --> 0:50:10.000 that ever went number one in the country. You know, 0:50:10.080 --> 0:50:14.160 you had people like Grace Jones, some people used it elements, yeah, 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:17.040 used elements. Yeah, but it just never broke out for 0:50:17.160 --> 0:50:20.200 some reason. And I don't know, you know, I don't 0:50:20.239 --> 0:50:23.040 know why Western world never caught on to drop the 0:50:23.120 --> 0:50:24.279 bomb on the White boy. 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:28.200 You know, I just don't get I. 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:35.920 Don't know. 0:50:42.160 --> 0:50:48.520 We see no idea how that didn't work out, shocker. 0:50:49.040 --> 0:50:52.920 So on the other side of that coin, though worrying 0:50:52.960 --> 0:50:58.359 about someone going rogue, there could be the other side 0:50:58.400 --> 0:51:02.160 of that coin of having artists that are signed reclusive. Now, 0:51:03.200 --> 0:51:08.279 as as I as obsessed as I am with all 0:51:08.320 --> 0:51:13.200 of David Rich's work as a as a writer and 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:17.800 read both of those Aretha books, I know that she 0:51:17.920 --> 0:51:20.480 was a frequent guest of yours on the show, and 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:22.279 you go into her house and her plan for you 0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:28.839 and she you know, she was rather loquacious. She talked 0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:32.040 a lot, which if she didn't know you, you could 0:51:32.080 --> 0:51:36.759 tell that. You know, there's a distance there. So how 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:40.279 did you what was a hard interview for you, like 0:51:40.480 --> 0:51:44.200 for an artist that wasn't that talkative? Or did you 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:45.840 ever interview Prince ever. 0:51:45.840 --> 0:51:46.440 In your career? 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:53.280 Yeah? On radio okay with Soul? This was about seven 0:51:53.960 --> 0:51:55.000 what years ago? 0:51:55.280 --> 0:51:56.560 Oh you seventy? 0:51:56.719 --> 0:51:58.000 I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no no, 0:51:58.920 --> 0:52:03.760 because you remember Prinsident He had done that one interview 0:52:04.280 --> 0:52:07.080 I think it ran on MTV and he interviewed himself. 0:52:08.040 --> 0:52:10.680 Actually, I was watching a click on on YouTube today 0:52:10.680 --> 0:52:12.719 of you introducing that on video Soul. 0:52:13.600 --> 0:52:17.600 Yeah yeah, yeah, so no, and it was Prince and 0:52:17.760 --> 0:52:20.160 Michael were the only two artists that I always wanted 0:52:20.200 --> 0:52:23.040 to interview, you know, but never got to have them 0:52:23.080 --> 0:52:24.520 on Video Soul, you. 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:26.399 Know, even though we ever get them. 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:31.520 Yeah, oh yeah, being Prince were friends. And you know, 0:52:31.960 --> 0:52:34.800 as a matter of fact, the night you referenced earlier 0:52:34.840 --> 0:52:39.960 when we went to UH flight Time for the Pandemonium 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:44.239 album for the time, Uh, we partied at UH at 0:52:44.280 --> 0:52:48.440 Paisley Park that night. You love this story. This is 0:52:48.480 --> 0:52:48.920 so funny. 0:52:48.960 --> 0:52:49.879 Yes, we bring the story. 0:52:51.000 --> 0:52:54.000 Uh that Wednesday, we're recording Video Soul. I had David 0:52:54.040 --> 0:52:58.160 Bowie on the show, and who was so cool and 0:52:58.600 --> 0:53:00.120 uh so after the show we were talking and I 0:53:00.200 --> 0:53:03.800 was telling him I was going to Minneapolis that Friday 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:07.080 to do this time thing, and he says, I'm playing 0:53:07.120 --> 0:53:09.759 Minneapolis Friday. You got to come to the show. I 0:53:09.840 --> 0:53:13.680 was all right, cool, I'm there, So get my buddy 0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:16.239 to go with me, Sugar, Ray Letter. So we rode 0:53:16.239 --> 0:53:18.799 to Minneapolis and we do the thing. 0:53:18.960 --> 0:53:19.480 I don't. 0:53:23.480 --> 0:53:26.480 We that's me and Ray hung every day man, my 0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:29.960 boy still to this day. But so anyway, we get 0:53:30.000 --> 0:53:33.200 to the show that Friday night and they set like 0:53:34.440 --> 0:53:38.520 eight seats at the sound board right so we go 0:53:38.719 --> 0:53:41.319 to sit in our seats, and so I'm going by 0:53:41.400 --> 0:53:42.759 and I bump this lady in front of me and 0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:58.880 I excuse me, ma'am. And Prince turns around. So what 0:53:59.040 --> 0:54:06.440 he says, Hey, Donnie, Prince Man, so sorry about that. 0:54:07.880 --> 0:54:10.000 And so then he turns back around a minute or 0:54:10.040 --> 0:54:12.000 two later, he says, I'm having a party at Paisley 0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:14.759 Park tonight, you and Ray are to come. I said, 0:54:14.800 --> 0:54:17.040 all right, cool. So we go to the party. Man, 0:54:17.600 --> 0:54:19.719 you know, it's like twelve people there. 0:54:19.800 --> 0:54:22.840 Man, he always parties were just yeah, six people. 0:54:23.040 --> 0:54:23.320 I know. 0:54:23.920 --> 0:54:30.080 It's me, Prince, Ray, David Boy and his band members Cat. 0:54:30.640 --> 0:54:34.120 He was dancing with him and my boy Jeff Newman, 0:54:34.120 --> 0:54:37.000 who produced my show video Soul. And I mean that 0:54:37.160 --> 0:54:39.120 was like that was it, you know. But we had 0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:41.879 the greatest time. Man. It was just the coolest night. 0:54:42.120 --> 0:54:47.480 And he played the Black Album that night. Okay. And 0:54:47.920 --> 0:54:51.320 now now this is so years later he tells me, 0:54:51.360 --> 0:54:54.280 because you know that album was notorious because it wasn't released. 0:54:54.960 --> 0:54:59.800 And so years later Prince told me, he said, you 0:55:00.040 --> 0:55:02.680 know you're the reason I didn't release the Black Album. 0:55:03.120 --> 0:55:05.600 What And I said, why? What do you mean? He says, 0:55:05.680 --> 0:55:07.919 you remember what you said that night at Paisley Park. 0:55:08.560 --> 0:55:11.120 I said what he said, you said, this is such 0:55:11.160 --> 0:55:15.799 a groove, and I was about so much more. Wow, 0:55:15.880 --> 0:55:18.799 And I thought, wow, is he serious or is. 0:55:18.800 --> 0:55:19.120 He just. 0:55:22.760 --> 0:55:25.719 Seriously? That was really deep to me that because that 0:55:25.880 --> 0:55:27.480 is what I said. It's like, man, this is such 0:55:27.520 --> 0:55:30.680 a groove, you know. But but what Prince needed to 0:55:30.800 --> 0:55:33.399 know is that you could be about that much more. 0:55:33.800 --> 0:55:36.719 But I can't hear it. I don't hear lyrics. I 0:55:36.880 --> 0:55:39.759 hear groove, I hear vibe, I hear feel you know, 0:55:39.880 --> 0:55:42.719 I know where it is. But man, it could be 0:55:42.800 --> 0:55:44.600 thirty years later and I'd be like, damn, that's what 0:55:44.680 --> 0:55:47.840 they were talking about, you know, too close. 0:55:47.920 --> 0:55:54.480 He was, See the thing is, It's like, the thing is, 0:55:54.719 --> 0:55:58.160 I know I know that you know a lot of 0:55:59.320 --> 0:55:59.840 a lot of his. 0:56:00.080 --> 0:56:05.800 Earlier Nelson George reviews of his post Rise post nineteen 0:56:05.880 --> 0:56:09.400 ninety nine, Rise kind of got under his skin and 0:56:10.120 --> 0:56:12.279 that he didn't want to be that philosophical and he 0:56:12.440 --> 0:56:14.719 just wanted to let y'all know that he was still down. 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:18.640 And I've you know, that was his statement of letting 0:56:18.680 --> 0:56:21.560 y'all know, like, yo, I'm still down, and this is 0:56:21.640 --> 0:56:26.239 me but and you validated you're still down because that's 0:56:26.239 --> 0:56:29.320 such a groove. But maybe there's that itch in his 0:56:29.440 --> 0:56:33.600 soul that's just like say the deep statement, and you're. 0:56:33.520 --> 0:56:35.680 Right right, and we're stuck with love sexy. 0:56:40.600 --> 0:56:41.719 I got to tell you this is going back to 0:56:41.760 --> 0:56:44.279 something you said earlier. But it's so cool that because 0:56:44.360 --> 0:56:49.400 Jimmy and Terry, my boys and my mom introduced me 0:56:49.480 --> 0:56:52.040 to the time. That's who told me about the time, 0:56:52.160 --> 0:56:54.960 how well I was in DC. Mom still at a 0:56:55.000 --> 0:56:59.640 record shop in Detroit. You talked about that diversity. Simpson's 0:56:59.680 --> 0:57:05.759 Record out still there years fifty years, man, fifty years. Yes, 0:57:06.000 --> 0:57:06.719 I've never been there. 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:12.680 No, I always shop. I always shop in uh gross 0:57:12.719 --> 0:57:20.080 point blank. What's gross point in Michigan? Yeah, points a 0:57:20.080 --> 0:57:23.080 place called Melodies and Memories out there that I do 0:57:23.200 --> 0:57:23.760 all my digging. 0:57:23.840 --> 0:57:26.160 But Simpson's Record Shop is still there. Yeah. 0:57:26.200 --> 0:57:29.600 Yeah, a mom and pop YEP, mom and pop record store. 0:57:29.720 --> 0:57:31.600 When I told you that's where I started my career. 0:57:31.800 --> 0:57:32.400 Still there. 0:57:34.800 --> 0:57:40.560 Right now, Stephen doing a week tour of America record stores. 0:57:40.800 --> 0:57:43.760 We have more hot dogs and candy than she does records. 0:57:43.800 --> 0:57:46.640 Now, can I interject the question, Donnie, So, what's your 0:57:46.760 --> 0:57:49.160 what's your record collection looking like these days? 0:57:49.600 --> 0:57:49.760 Oh? 0:57:50.440 --> 0:57:54.000 We said, oh wait, there's a frown over there. Are 0:57:54.040 --> 0:57:55.760 you in a situation where you had to get rid 0:57:55.800 --> 0:57:57.000 of stuff and put it in storage? 0:57:57.760 --> 0:57:58.920 Marriage my records? 0:57:59.520 --> 0:57:59.720 Yeah? 0:58:01.640 --> 0:58:03.680 Are you asking? What am I into? 0:58:04.000 --> 0:58:07.640 Or what? Do you still have your physical like that? 0:58:07.760 --> 0:58:11.320 I still have everything everything, man, I would assume it's 0:58:11.360 --> 0:58:12.200 worth some money. Man. 0:58:13.040 --> 0:58:20.439 Okay, fire in the house hypothetical, that's a Knockwood situation. Yeah, 0:58:23.400 --> 0:58:27.160 fire in the house. You're saving five records? 0:58:27.720 --> 0:58:30.560 Okay, top five? What albums? 0:58:32.400 --> 0:58:35.840 What's your forty five is into? Okay? Yes? What out? 0:58:35.920 --> 0:58:37.840 What five albums are you saving? 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:41.280 What's going on? Hot Buttered Soul? 0:58:41.560 --> 0:58:41.720 Yes? 0:58:44.760 --> 0:58:48.400 Who off the wall? 0:58:49.560 --> 0:58:54.080 Wait now before you name the last two, I also 0:58:54.200 --> 0:58:57.840 mean that I'm certain that you have rare items of 0:58:58.120 --> 0:59:00.640 your your action as well. 0:59:00.800 --> 0:59:03.400 Can just save his whole collection? We'll all we'll all 0:59:03.440 --> 0:59:06.280 show up at the fire and help him get out. 0:59:11.520 --> 0:59:17.360 Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road. I got one more. That's hard. Well, 0:59:17.440 --> 0:59:19.080 look at they all fighting, they trying to get out 0:59:19.120 --> 0:59:27.960 the fire. Oh wow, one left? Oh god, I got Marvin. 0:59:28.680 --> 0:59:29.640 Let's see fires. 0:59:30.280 --> 0:59:41.520 Okay, Stevie's anthology. I'm cheating that off here STEVIEE right, 0:59:42.880 --> 0:59:44.320 wow one Stevie. 0:59:44.600 --> 0:59:48.320 Oh my goodness, man, you get Sophie's choice, you'll stream, 0:59:49.440 --> 0:59:51.800 you can stream the rest on Pandora. I'm just saying that, 0:59:54.120 --> 0:59:59.520 ah fulfilling, this first Finaley, that's the Stevie one, Jod, 1:00:00.040 --> 1:00:00.400 I don't know. 1:00:02.480 --> 1:00:08.160 That was a great cruschetto. I mean, what would you say? 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:11.000 That's what we're talking about, because out of the Genius period, 1:00:12.200 --> 1:00:15.760 that's my least favorite Stevie record of the Genius period. 1:00:16.280 --> 1:00:18.000 Really, that's the one I know the least songs on. 1:00:18.400 --> 1:00:25.680 I know it, but I mean besides my mind. 1:00:26.320 --> 1:00:29.800 For me, I don't know why I like Music of 1:00:29.880 --> 1:00:33.720 my Mind out of the five of them, because it 1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:35.600 was the first of the five. But even then I 1:00:35.760 --> 1:00:38.040 was like one, So I mean it was the first 1:00:38.080 --> 1:00:41.520 of the five. He was just more raw and that 1:00:41.920 --> 1:00:45.200 it was the first of the five, or do you first? 1:00:47.040 --> 1:00:49.800 It was the first five? Yes, my first. 1:00:49.800 --> 1:00:54.000 The first record I ever bought was by Stevie. It's tight. Really, 1:00:54.120 --> 1:00:56.560 that's the first purchase I ever made. 1:00:56.480 --> 1:00:59.920 Of music, the first your your very first record. 1:00:59.720 --> 1:01:02.600 Yeah, because that's before my mother. I didn't buy records 1:01:02.600 --> 1:01:05.560 for law because you open the record shop and then 1:01:05.600 --> 1:01:08.560 I got into radio. But yeah, I paid sixty nine 1:01:08.640 --> 1:01:12.200 cents for Babe Bit Everything is all right? 1:01:12.560 --> 1:01:15.360 So forty five were sixty nine cents back in Well 1:01:15.440 --> 1:01:17.280 that came out sixty sixty. 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:19.040 Yeah, sixty six or sixty seven. 1:01:24.200 --> 1:01:27.560 Well, I also know that you your you as a 1:01:27.920 --> 1:01:32.560 concert spectator, that you've probably seen some of the best 1:01:32.600 --> 1:01:33.560 shows of all time. 1:01:35.040 --> 1:01:37.400 Now in your radio career. You told us about your 1:01:37.480 --> 1:01:38.360 your childhood career. 1:01:38.440 --> 1:01:42.080 But what what were the experiences like, because I'm certain 1:01:42.120 --> 1:01:45.280 that you know you saw the very first Mothership Connection 1:01:45.400 --> 1:01:47.840 shows like stuff we take rant it now, like the 1:01:47.960 --> 1:01:50.520 ideas of the Jackson's levitating or earth Wind and fire 1:01:50.640 --> 1:01:54.880 levit taking all that stuff, like, man, what concert will 1:01:54.920 --> 1:01:55.920 stay with you forever? 1:01:56.040 --> 1:01:56.760 As far as like. 1:01:58.240 --> 1:02:00.960 All the Michael concerts really, I mean he's just the 1:02:01.040 --> 1:02:05.440 greatest ever to me, Yeah, without doubt, Michael the fire 1:02:06.280 --> 1:02:08.840 you know, see earth Wind and fire Man in their prime, 1:02:09.120 --> 1:02:14.760 you know with Maurice, you know, was amazing. The very 1:02:14.840 --> 1:02:19.120 first concert ever saw in my life, James, you know 1:02:19.280 --> 1:02:26.880 where Cobo Arena in Detroit. This had to be sixty seven, 1:02:27.520 --> 1:02:29.880 Jesus something like that, maybe sixty eight? Did he do 1:02:30.000 --> 1:02:32.960 say it loud? So? No, it was before said Loud, 1:02:33.840 --> 1:02:36.080 SOI say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud with 1:02:36.160 --> 1:02:39.960 sixty eight, you know. And James was my king, right, 1:02:40.120 --> 1:02:41.640 you know. And I used to tell them that all 1:02:41.680 --> 1:02:44.760 the time. Man, you're my king, I'm your soldier. There 1:02:44.800 --> 1:02:47.720 ain't nothing I wouldn't do for you. And I meant that, man, 1:02:48.000 --> 1:02:51.960 because he taught me to be proud of who I was. 1:02:52.280 --> 1:02:55.280 You know, my skin color man said loud was the 1:02:55.400 --> 1:02:59.280 most significant song ever for me. There would never be 1:02:59.360 --> 1:03:02.080 a song more important than that for me, you know. 1:03:02.520 --> 1:03:05.200 And so James gave me all that that sense of prime. 1:03:05.240 --> 1:03:05.400 You know. 1:03:05.560 --> 1:03:09.080 Me had assists from Curtis Mayfield and you know, but 1:03:09.320 --> 1:03:11.960 but it was James. So to see James and concert 1:03:12.080 --> 1:03:15.320 was just amazing early on because I remember as a 1:03:15.400 --> 1:03:18.120 kid sitting there at twelve years old. So wow, I 1:03:18.240 --> 1:03:21.680 was twelve. So that was that was sixty six and 1:03:23.560 --> 1:03:25.480 all I can think of. I'm not a musician, so 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:28.040 I don't know why, but I'm like, damn, this dude's 1:03:28.040 --> 1:03:31.440 got two drummers. He's gonna wear one out. 1:03:31.560 --> 1:03:34.080 He knows that ain't gonna make it. 1:03:38.640 --> 1:03:44.240 So wow, I saw Sammy Davis Junior. That was amazing 1:03:44.400 --> 1:03:52.520 to see Sammy. You know, wow, wow, you'll appreciate this, 1:03:52.680 --> 1:03:55.440 and I know shifting gears a little bit, but say 1:03:55.480 --> 1:03:59.200 it people that I've had the opportunity to spend time 1:03:59.360 --> 1:04:03.160 in the studio with Tell Okay, now, of course you 1:04:03.240 --> 1:04:06.880 know there are a bunch of them. But before the 1:04:07.040 --> 1:04:09.400 just when I think back on my life in my career, 1:04:09.480 --> 1:04:19.120 to just blow me away, Marvin Sly Prince, Prince invited 1:04:19.160 --> 1:04:21.080 me in the studio one night, and that's rare. He didn't, 1:04:21.120 --> 1:04:24.080 you know, yeh, didn't have people in the studio. Uh 1:04:24.840 --> 1:04:29.880 and Stevie, you know, to spend time in the studio 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:32.240 with Stevie, man, it was just oh my goodness. 1:04:32.400 --> 1:04:35.400 You speak of watching Marvin in the studio. Can you 1:04:35.480 --> 1:04:37.280 speak of watching Marvin in the studio? 1:04:38.080 --> 1:04:41.120 Actually it's kind of cheating because he wasn't He wasn't 1:04:41.160 --> 1:04:43.840 doing his album. He was recording the Originals. He was 1:04:43.920 --> 1:04:46.840 producing the Originals. Yeah did you know that, you know? 1:04:46.960 --> 1:04:47.120 Yes? 1:04:50.720 --> 1:04:56.280 Yeah, they yeah, yeah, But uh, Pam was with me. 1:04:56.400 --> 1:04:58.760 She was just my girlfriend. Then she's my wife of 1:04:58.880 --> 1:05:01.960 forty three years now. But I'm crazy, said she only 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:07.400 forty four. But I remember Pam saying to me like 1:05:07.840 --> 1:05:09.560 because Marven was trying to show him how to sing 1:05:09.680 --> 1:05:12.320 the song, and she goes, why didn't he just sing 1:05:12.400 --> 1:05:18.200 you can't nobody do that? Yeah, but you know Marvin, 1:05:18.280 --> 1:05:20.160 when he invited me to the studio, how cool is this. 1:05:20.960 --> 1:05:23.960 I'm hanging out with ron Banks of the dramatics. 1:05:24.000 --> 1:05:24.240 Wow. 1:05:24.440 --> 1:05:28.520 Yeah, me and Ronnie. Ronnie was my best friend and 1:05:29.080 --> 1:05:31.880 that side of the music, of the business of music. 1:05:32.120 --> 1:05:35.160 Ronnie was my best friend, all the dramatics, but Ronnie 1:05:35.160 --> 1:05:37.880 in particular. And uh so we're riding down the street 1:05:37.920 --> 1:05:40.400 and we see Marvin going in his house, going up 1:05:40.440 --> 1:05:43.640 the driveway, and uh so, Ronnie says, it's Marvin. Man, 1:05:43.720 --> 1:05:45.479 let's stop and say hello to him. I'm sorry. Cool. 1:05:45.920 --> 1:05:48.640 So we stopped and uh he introduces He said, yeah, man, 1:05:48.640 --> 1:05:50.640 I listen to you every night. Man. I was like, 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:55.360 all right, cool, And he says, you ought to come 1:05:55.360 --> 1:05:56.880 in and check me out in the studio. I said, 1:05:56.880 --> 1:05:58.800 all right, I'd love to do that. He says, well, 1:05:59.040 --> 1:06:01.600 I'm going in tomorrow all night. He says, but here, 1:06:01.680 --> 1:06:04.560 let me give you this phone number. Call me tomorrow morning, man, 1:06:04.720 --> 1:06:07.120 because I'll get up in the morning and decide to 1:06:07.160 --> 1:06:11.000 climb Mount Everest and I'll be gone, you know. And 1:06:11.120 --> 1:06:12.760 he said it in such a way as like I'm 1:06:12.800 --> 1:06:15.600 not trying to act like I'm eccentric or something like that. 1:06:16.160 --> 1:06:18.600 I'm just telling you, dog, you need to check because 1:06:18.640 --> 1:06:20.520 I do that. Right. 1:06:22.480 --> 1:06:24.920 He's known for that, right, he is known for that. 1:06:25.200 --> 1:06:28.520 Yeah, man, So how many cats know that Marvin lived 1:06:28.560 --> 1:06:32.960 in a bread truck for seven months in Hawaii? 1:06:33.400 --> 1:06:33.840 Oh? Yeah? 1:06:34.040 --> 1:06:34.480 Is that right? 1:06:34.720 --> 1:06:37.960 Right after Dream Lifetime came on, he took his remaining money. 1:06:38.200 --> 1:06:40.320 That was right before. I thought it was before a 1:06:40.360 --> 1:06:40.800 minute love. 1:06:40.880 --> 1:06:43.720 I thought, well, yeah, after dream before he did that, 1:06:44.160 --> 1:06:46.840 before he moved to Belgium and lived in the monastery. 1:06:46.880 --> 1:06:49.640 And what you call this is round eighty. Yeah. 1:06:49.760 --> 1:06:52.840 Yeah, he purchased a bread truck because I add a 1:06:52.840 --> 1:06:53.640 good room into it. 1:06:53.880 --> 1:06:58.000 Oh you mean our lifetime? Yeah, in our lifetime, I'm sorry, 1:06:58.080 --> 1:06:58.760 in our lifetime. 1:06:59.040 --> 1:07:01.920 If I had to pick one voice, I mean one artist, 1:07:02.160 --> 1:07:06.560 I mean, Marvin's my favorite vocalist ever. I just love Marvin. 1:07:07.000 --> 1:07:12.880 But the most intimate is that the right word. Most 1:07:12.920 --> 1:07:16.720 emotional moment I ever had with music was with Marvin. 1:07:16.800 --> 1:07:19.880 One night, I was sitting there listening to Flying High 1:07:19.920 --> 1:07:22.240 in a Friendly Sky, and I'd heard the song for 1:07:22.320 --> 1:07:24.520 forty years. I told you I don't hear lyrics, right, 1:07:24.680 --> 1:07:27.160 so not really. I mean flying I in the Friendly Sky, 1:07:27.280 --> 1:07:27.560 all right. 1:07:27.920 --> 1:07:28.600 I guess it's. 1:07:29.280 --> 1:07:32.080 Commercial for uniting it. I don't know, you know, but 1:07:32.720 --> 1:07:34.920 that night I'm sitting there and I'm listening to it, man, 1:07:35.120 --> 1:07:38.080 and I heard every word after It had to be 1:07:38.240 --> 1:07:42.680 thirty years at that point, and man, you know, I'm 1:07:42.760 --> 1:07:46.640 telling you, bruh, I sat there and cried for forty minutes, 1:07:46.920 --> 1:07:51.120 and I mean bawling, man, because I saw Marvin's life 1:07:51.200 --> 1:07:53.400 and his drug addiction. It spells it out so well. 1:07:54.240 --> 1:07:58.200 You know, my second oldest brother was classic Vietnam case, 1:07:58.640 --> 1:08:01.160 you know, came back from the non decorated war hero 1:08:01.800 --> 1:08:05.520 addicted to heroin, you know, and watched that struggle that 1:08:05.920 --> 1:08:08.240 he went through and sent my family through. You know, 1:08:08.360 --> 1:08:10.680 we you know, we all got touched by that thing. 1:08:10.920 --> 1:08:15.200 And you know, I just sat there, man, It just 1:08:15.400 --> 1:08:18.320 it just took me to a place where nothing but 1:08:18.600 --> 1:08:21.639 music could take me to where I went that night, 1:08:21.840 --> 1:08:24.200 you know, But you know, I go to the place 1:08:24.240 --> 1:08:28.679 where the danger waits me self destructions in my hands. 1:08:29.640 --> 1:08:32.280 You know, in the morning, I'll be all right, but 1:08:32.400 --> 1:08:35.040 then the pain soon the night comes and the pain. 1:08:35.960 --> 1:08:40.360 Oh man, it's just I was out running yesterday morning, 1:08:41.000 --> 1:08:46.840 and that's I always have my iPod on random, yeah, 1:08:46.880 --> 1:08:50.639 on shuffle, and that song came on. I'm running crying. 1:08:53.880 --> 1:08:55.360 You saw me, you thought I was sweating. 1:08:59.520 --> 1:09:06.400 So can I ask? I mean, it's no secret that. 1:09:08.120 --> 1:09:13.040 Where we are now in twenty seventeen is a long 1:09:13.160 --> 1:09:18.280 way from where we were in nineteen sixty seven or 1:09:18.439 --> 1:09:24.400 sixty nine when you first started. So I know that 1:09:24.560 --> 1:09:29.680 it has to be bothersome to not necessarily watch the 1:09:29.800 --> 1:09:33.600 evolution of where black music and black cultures go, the 1:09:33.720 --> 1:09:37.040 evolution or yeah, just the the evolution of it. 1:09:37.120 --> 1:09:42.000 Does it worry you that very few. 1:09:43.840 --> 1:09:48.000 Members of the next generation aren't necessarily grabbing onto the 1:09:48.040 --> 1:09:52.720 baton that the forefathers had and sort of not even 1:09:52.800 --> 1:09:58.200 dropping it, but just having a disregard or a sheep 1:09:58.240 --> 1:10:01.280 oft shrug like eh okay, yeah, like is it? 1:10:01.720 --> 1:10:01.920 Well? 1:10:02.200 --> 1:10:05.639 I'm just saying that you seem to be an open 1:10:05.680 --> 1:10:11.800 book culturally to everything, like you know in sixty nine, you. 1:10:11.840 --> 1:10:14.000 Know, say loud, I'm black. I'm proud changed your life. 1:10:14.439 --> 1:10:15.160 I'm certain that. 1:10:16.960 --> 1:10:22.679 Prince's arrival with or the the onslaught of dirty Mind 1:10:22.720 --> 1:10:25.799 and what he would later unleash was new and shocking, 1:10:25.920 --> 1:10:27.680 but you seem to be. 1:10:27.720 --> 1:10:29.639 A board of it and what came after. 1:10:29.840 --> 1:10:34.880 Yeah, at what point and you don't have to specifically 1:10:35.000 --> 1:10:37.880 mention names or whatever, but at what point or at 1:10:37.920 --> 1:10:41.600 least the year did you were the seeds of indifference 1:10:41.640 --> 1:10:45.400 there for you? Or it's sort of like, man, like, 1:10:46.080 --> 1:10:47.920 I guess, I guess this is what this is what 1:10:48.240 --> 1:10:51.519 passes for talent, or this is what passes for music 1:10:51.720 --> 1:10:53.679 or m I guess I'm just getting older. 1:10:54.439 --> 1:10:56.560 Yeah, well, you know, well, first of all, I have 1:10:56.640 --> 1:10:59.759 to tell you this that I was, I was always 1:10:59.800 --> 1:11:02.439 has to. I never wanted to make the statement that 1:11:03.080 --> 1:11:06.400 they don't make music like they used to, okay, because 1:11:06.439 --> 1:11:10.479 I felt like every generation makes that statement, and they're right, 1:11:10.840 --> 1:11:11.680 they don't make it like. 1:11:11.720 --> 1:11:12.160 They used to. 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:16.720 They never have, they never will. It's always changing. So 1:11:17.920 --> 1:11:21.960 and then I remember when we did the interview with 1:11:22.040 --> 1:11:24.559 Quincy Jones from his house to back on the Block album. 1:11:24.720 --> 1:11:27.679 I was gonna say you committed him on being open minded, 1:11:27.920 --> 1:11:29.960 and that always stuck with me, like I never want 1:11:30.000 --> 1:11:32.240 to be the old guy that's like exactly, you know, 1:11:32.640 --> 1:11:34.680 I hate this music, right, And you said that and 1:11:34.720 --> 1:11:36.519 I was like, oh, okay, that's what I need to be. 1:11:36.640 --> 1:11:39.400 Yeah, like Quincy, you know you look, I mean that album. 1:11:39.439 --> 1:11:41.599 I go to do this interview with Quincy. I mean 1:11:41.680 --> 1:11:45.920 there's Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Big Daddy Kane, 1:11:46.800 --> 1:11:49.599 iced Tea. You know, let me kick my credentials, young 1:11:49.680 --> 1:11:52.559 player bread in South Central LA, Home of the body 1:11:52.640 --> 1:11:55.360 Bag You Want to Die had colored rag. I used 1:11:55.400 --> 1:11:57.280 to walk in stores in the LA down you finish 1:11:57.280 --> 1:11:58.760 a inch a ca Spray. 1:11:58.880 --> 1:12:09.000 Who Man I just wrapped with He said, you deserve that. 1:12:09.640 --> 1:12:12.360 But the first time I heard that, Me and l A. 1:12:12.520 --> 1:12:15.200 Reid had this conversation because I was telling him, said, man, 1:12:15.240 --> 1:12:16.800 when I first got that album, I was listening to it. 1:12:16.920 --> 1:12:18.960 I said, it took me forty minutes to get through 1:12:19.000 --> 1:12:23.280 the first song. And he said me too, because you know, 1:12:23.720 --> 1:12:26.840 I mean, I know, Gula Matari, Quincy Jones. You know 1:12:27.360 --> 1:12:29.240 I'm right. And then I opened up. The first thing 1:12:29.280 --> 1:12:32.800 I hear is this gangster rap. But then all through 1:12:32.880 --> 1:12:36.479 the album was like a lesson to me that you know, 1:12:37.040 --> 1:12:39.760 you can embrace it all all right. So now they're 1:12:39.800 --> 1:12:41.000 doing the human beat. 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:41.640 Box all right? 1:12:41.720 --> 1:12:46.000 So all right, little Let's get Ella Sarah Sarah, Bobby 1:12:46.080 --> 1:12:49.280 McFerrin and take six no instruments. All right, well, let's 1:12:49.320 --> 1:12:52.479 do that. You know, it was just he could make 1:12:52.520 --> 1:12:57.360 it all work, all right, Now get past that, and 1:12:57.720 --> 1:12:59.920 I'll have to tell you that in the last five, six, 1:13:00.120 --> 1:13:03.599 seven years, you know, it's not like there was any 1:13:03.680 --> 1:13:06.920 particular moment where I felt like, well, where are we? 1:13:07.439 --> 1:13:12.880 Where is R and B? But you know, I look 1:13:12.920 --> 1:13:16.400 at the charts. It's like me and Jimmy and Terry 1:13:16.439 --> 1:13:18.640 have had this conversation like it's just like it's just 1:13:20.200 --> 1:13:25.559 hip hop and pop, you know, like we're not there. 1:13:25.760 --> 1:13:25.880 You know. 1:13:26.000 --> 1:13:32.559 I miss those days. Man, when the top ten pop songs, 1:13:32.920 --> 1:13:34.800 you know, half of them are black, you know, and 1:13:34.920 --> 1:13:40.760 I mean black black, you know, right, so the soul charge, right, 1:13:41.280 --> 1:13:43.680 you know, I miss that. It seems like it's just 1:13:44.320 --> 1:13:49.360 it's changed. And that's very frustrating for me, you know. 1:13:49.600 --> 1:13:52.280 And and uh, you're asking me the question, but I 1:13:52.360 --> 1:13:54.960 ask you the question. Is it Is it that the 1:13:55.120 --> 1:13:59.000 musicians have bailed on it they're just so nonchalant about it, 1:13:59.160 --> 1:14:03.040 or is it that the music companies don't I have 1:14:03.240 --> 1:14:05.040 thought that ever giving it voice. 1:14:05.160 --> 1:14:07.120 I have a theory. No because they're there. 1:14:08.080 --> 1:14:10.920 I could name about six or seven people on the 1:14:10.960 --> 1:14:15.400 Internet that are like killing that might not get a 1:14:15.479 --> 1:14:19.920 shot because they're not easily digestible. But I also feel 1:14:19.960 --> 1:14:30.160 as though I don't know where black people are spiritually. Yeah, 1:14:30.160 --> 1:14:33.280 I don't know where we are spiritually now, as opposed 1:14:33.320 --> 1:14:36.280 to fifty years ago where we relied on the church. 1:14:36.680 --> 1:14:38.000 As a training ground for singers. 1:14:38.120 --> 1:14:42.080 Yeah, now that's true, you know, and musicians. I never 1:14:42.120 --> 1:14:42.640 thought about that. 1:14:43.080 --> 1:14:47.680 I'm going to be This is probably the most explicitly 1:14:47.880 --> 1:14:51.920 honest I've ever been concerning my spirituality on this show. 1:14:53.960 --> 1:15:03.439 But just lately, just as far as the the political turmoil. 1:15:03.080 --> 1:15:06.639 That we're living in right now, House of Cars season six, Yeah, 1:15:06.720 --> 1:15:11.920 pretty much, and what's been going on in the past 1:15:12.000 --> 1:15:14.000 three years as far as. 1:15:16.040 --> 1:15:20.360 Justice is concerned, as far as the unarmed killings of 1:15:22.120 --> 1:15:27.680 black boys and black women. You know, I used to 1:15:27.760 --> 1:15:31.519 question on Twitter, like, well, you know, where's the spiritual 1:15:31.600 --> 1:15:36.080 center that says that this is wrong? Like if this 1:15:36.240 --> 1:15:40.799 were if the injustice that was happening in twenty sixteen, 1:15:40.840 --> 1:15:44.800 all those unarmed shootings were happening in sixty six, sixty seven, 1:15:44.960 --> 1:15:47.320 I would have heard from the church from now and 1:15:47.360 --> 1:15:50.800 I'm not saying that, Okay, well, I'm maybe question you know, 1:15:50.880 --> 1:15:54.240 because it's so blasphemous for black folks that have been 1:15:54.360 --> 1:15:56.600 raising the church to even have thoughts. 1:15:56.360 --> 1:15:57.960 Of atheism or whatever. 1:15:58.080 --> 1:16:03.240 But you know, just where the idea of Christianity in 1:16:03.479 --> 1:16:08.040 twenty sixteen, it seems very tainted to me then it 1:16:08.240 --> 1:16:10.040 was when I was a kid growing up in church. 1:16:10.080 --> 1:16:12.320 And you know, your grandmam took to U church, you 1:16:12.360 --> 1:16:15.200 had to be there for eight hours. So I know 1:16:15.360 --> 1:16:18.360 that if I'm sort of questioning that, then I know 1:16:18.479 --> 1:16:21.720 there's a lot of people that are just like me 1:16:22.720 --> 1:16:26.160 that are moving away from that spirituality. I'm not saying that, oh, well, 1:16:26.200 --> 1:16:29.240 God doesn't exist if all this injustice is happening, but 1:16:29.520 --> 1:16:34.560 I know that, you know, our answer was always primarily 1:16:34.680 --> 1:16:35.800 always hang on to the Lord. 1:16:36.120 --> 1:16:37.160 The Lord will make it all right. 1:16:37.280 --> 1:16:40.280 And just you know, and I don't know if black 1:16:40.320 --> 1:16:43.120 people are there now, like even in our singers, like 1:16:43.600 --> 1:16:47.920 the hero now is Rihanna, who is about is not 1:16:48.240 --> 1:16:51.560 in the church anti She's more the mall or the 1:16:51.800 --> 1:16:53.439 you know, like I don't know where, like her home 1:16:53.479 --> 1:16:55.479 base is where you think of a reef, it's like, 1:16:55.800 --> 1:17:00.280 oh that's the church. Do you know, but the generation 1:17:00.400 --> 1:17:03.200 that Rihanna's raising isn't spiritual based. 1:17:03.520 --> 1:17:07.000 Like Lauren Hill in a way that yeah, that's that's and. 1:17:07.120 --> 1:17:08.840 It's not just blank. I mean you look at what 1:17:08.920 --> 1:17:11.519 the Christian right just allowed to happen in our last election, 1:17:12.080 --> 1:17:14.320 you know, I mean, if you can give him a 1:17:14.400 --> 1:17:16.519 pass for talking about grabbing women how he wants to 1:17:16.520 --> 1:17:19.960 grab and that's okay, Yeah, we've. 1:17:19.840 --> 1:17:23.640 Just lost spirituality, not even religion, but just spirituality. So 1:17:23.960 --> 1:17:24.760 I just feel like. 1:17:26.520 --> 1:17:31.960 That that reflects in the music and if that's not there, 1:17:32.080 --> 1:17:37.439 then we've pretty much lost soul music unless the spirit 1:17:37.479 --> 1:17:40.160 of it has just gone to the UK where. 1:17:41.439 --> 1:17:43.120 There's still people there, and. 1:17:43.160 --> 1:17:45.840 We're also becoming more inclusive as a people as wells 1:17:45.880 --> 1:17:46.960 and I think that has a lot to do with 1:17:47.040 --> 1:17:48.760 it too. We weren't, you know, we can know, I 1:17:48.840 --> 1:17:50.479 mean not watered down for lack of a better term, 1:17:50.520 --> 1:17:52.240 but you're talking about the sixties and when music was 1:17:52.320 --> 1:17:55.240 made then it definitely was not as inclusive as it 1:17:55.320 --> 1:17:57.519 is in twenty seventeen. And then you have to do 1:17:57.600 --> 1:18:00.160 with the cultural appropriation and who's making the money off 1:18:00.200 --> 1:18:02.280 of this sole means, I just. 1:18:02.320 --> 1:18:04.840 Point out a labels not wanting to do more work 1:18:04.920 --> 1:18:07.840 than you know, if they can just market one artist 1:18:08.080 --> 1:18:10.040 one certain way instead of having to do it a 1:18:10.040 --> 1:18:12.080 whole bunch of different ways to target you know, all 1:18:12.120 --> 1:18:12.719 these different. 1:18:12.520 --> 1:18:14.160 Audisms, and if they can sing soul and not be 1:18:14.280 --> 1:18:16.000 black and capture two different audiences. 1:18:16.200 --> 1:18:24.600 Who So do you find it ironically weird that some 1:18:24.840 --> 1:18:29.320 of the more popular soul artists are not looking like 1:18:29.439 --> 1:18:31.400 the person in the mirror when you're listening to it. 1:18:31.560 --> 1:18:33.600 Like or is that to you? 1:18:33.840 --> 1:18:36.560 Just I'm sorry you no, no, no, I'm saying that 1:18:36.720 --> 1:18:40.800 now if you think of soul music, nine times out 1:18:40.840 --> 1:18:44.120 of ten, it's sam right right, right. 1:18:44.120 --> 1:18:49.519 Right right right? Oh? I know, yeah, it's strange. Yeah, 1:18:49.760 --> 1:18:51.240 it's it's strange. 1:18:50.880 --> 1:18:51.000 You know. 1:18:51.360 --> 1:18:55.960 And I mean I don't fault you for that, you know, 1:18:56.160 --> 1:18:58.400 I mean you got sold. I mean the artists that 1:18:58.479 --> 1:19:01.240 you just named very soulful and I love their music, 1:19:01.840 --> 1:19:06.559 you know, but you know, it reminds me of watching 1:19:06.720 --> 1:19:09.840 and gosh, should I call this out in American idol 1:19:10.000 --> 1:19:12.800 or you know these shows? And you know, my wife 1:19:12.840 --> 1:19:14.720 and my daughter gets so mad at me. 1:19:15.000 --> 1:19:15.160 Was it? 1:19:16.040 --> 1:19:18.200 They finally just stopped watching it with me because I'm 1:19:18.200 --> 1:19:24.160 sitting oh god, he's so crazy. It's like what you know, 1:19:24.760 --> 1:19:27.200 So you you like, I take you to church this 1:19:27.360 --> 1:19:30.439 Sunday and find and just on this Sunday and find 1:19:30.479 --> 1:19:33.400 you three four voices better than anything you've heard on 1:19:33.520 --> 1:19:34.240 this whole season. 1:19:34.960 --> 1:19:35.120 You know. 1:19:36.080 --> 1:19:37.400 That's that's how I always. 1:19:37.160 --> 1:19:38.479 Felt about Fantasian. 1:19:38.560 --> 1:19:41.400 Jennifer Hudson, Well, yeah, there were moments, right right. 1:19:41.520 --> 1:19:45.360 The thing that I find problematic about reality shows and 1:19:45.680 --> 1:19:48.960 the contest is that, you know, I feel like since 1:19:49.080 --> 1:19:53.240 ninety seven we've negated the idea of subculture or an 1:19:53.360 --> 1:19:56.719 underground you know, Aretha Franklin wasn't. 1:19:56.520 --> 1:19:57.679 Made in thirteen weeks. 1:19:57.880 --> 1:20:02.400 Yeah, it was made in seventeen years, started at eight, 1:20:02.840 --> 1:20:06.760 you know, and it took slow development in her father's church, 1:20:06.880 --> 1:20:09.880 in a subculture, and you know, because of the rush, 1:20:10.400 --> 1:20:12.920 because music is more as a means of escape for 1:20:13.040 --> 1:20:17.680 poverty for a lot of black folk. You know, it's 1:20:17.760 --> 1:20:21.880 it's more or less probably used now as a means 1:20:21.960 --> 1:20:26.679 to survive as opposed to express your spirituality. So yeah, 1:20:26.920 --> 1:20:30.160 I'd find those shows rather dangerous. But that's a whole 1:20:30.320 --> 1:20:31.599 another episode, of course. 1:20:32.200 --> 1:20:34.639 And those shows aren't really about music, They're about TV, 1:20:34.800 --> 1:20:37.200 you know, I mean it's not about that, you know 1:20:37.280 --> 1:20:39.599 what I'm saying about who's the greatest. It's about That's 1:20:39.640 --> 1:20:41.439 why you get William Hunks out there. 1:20:42.600 --> 1:20:45.280 Right right, like try to get you to watch. 1:20:52.320 --> 1:20:53.400 So what would you? 1:20:53.640 --> 1:20:56.800 By the way, I found a CD at my mother's 1:20:56.840 --> 1:21:00.280 record shop of Aretha singing in her church, in her 1:21:00.320 --> 1:21:02.920 father's church when she was twelve. How good is that 1:21:03.360 --> 1:21:06.120 my ma had that in the record shop. Oh my god, 1:21:06.760 --> 1:21:08.479 I haven't she doesn't have anymore. 1:21:09.240 --> 1:21:11.519 I was just gonna say, did you guys sell a 1:21:12.080 --> 1:21:14.200 Reverend cl Franklin's ceremony? 1:21:14.320 --> 1:21:14.479 Yeah? 1:21:14.760 --> 1:21:17.320 Yeah, oh yeah, man, we're making a pilgrimage because I 1:21:17.360 --> 1:21:18.759 know somewhere in the storage unit. 1:21:18.600 --> 1:21:20.479 There's a gym in there. 1:21:20.960 --> 1:21:23.479 Yeah yeah, oh yeah, we are going up there. She 1:21:24.400 --> 1:21:27.640 more or less specializes in gospel music now anyway. As 1:21:27.680 --> 1:21:30.920 a matter of fact, Wow, going back, I remember I 1:21:31.040 --> 1:21:35.600 used to send Elton gospel music to London because he 1:21:35.600 --> 1:21:38.920 couldn't get it right right. I'd send the stuff, send 1:21:39.000 --> 1:21:40.800 him stuff from my mom's record shop. Man. 1:21:41.600 --> 1:21:48.639 Yeah, all right, we are coming to Joy. 1:21:50.160 --> 1:21:51.679 Is that where? Okay? So it's right because the record 1:21:51.720 --> 1:21:52.920 store is still in existence, right. 1:21:52.920 --> 1:21:55.439 Yeah, it's still for right now, it's struggling though. 1:21:55.479 --> 1:21:57.880 It's tight because it sounded like he might have half 1:21:57.920 --> 1:21:59.240 of the records in DC too. 1:21:59.720 --> 1:22:01.120 No, yeah, well I got a few. 1:22:02.520 --> 1:22:04.200 We'll come and save the store. Don't do no worry. 1:22:04.360 --> 1:22:06.080 We wait. 1:22:06.120 --> 1:22:08.360 I want to ask one this kind of backwards, to 1:22:08.680 --> 1:22:11.400 go back then. But since uh, there's a movie about 1:22:11.439 --> 1:22:15.320 Detroit coming out in August about the sixty seven riots, 1:22:16.200 --> 1:22:19.640 I want to ask, how was your mom's story, How 1:22:19.760 --> 1:22:23.080 was that unscathed from because sixty percent of the city 1:22:23.120 --> 1:22:27.600 went up in flames during those riots up there? Like, 1:22:27.800 --> 1:22:30.680 how are you guys able to protect the store and 1:22:30.840 --> 1:22:31.679 not have it affected? 1:22:32.080 --> 1:22:38.360 Well, we also had Simpsons patrol service got started first. 1:22:38.439 --> 1:22:41.280 Actually my dad had a rent a cops service, so 1:22:42.080 --> 1:22:46.800 he actually he protected the store. Plus you know, she 1:22:47.000 --> 1:22:50.280 was protected anyway, everybody in the neighborhood knew. They knew. Okay, 1:22:50.400 --> 1:22:53.639 oh yeah, she was protected. They weren't, you know, Mama 1:22:53.720 --> 1:22:54.240 was They. 1:22:54.160 --> 1:22:55.200 Weren't going to burn the jams. 1:22:55.680 --> 1:22:58.880 No, they weren't going to burn no, none of that. No, 1:22:59.640 --> 1:23:02.160 but uh, you know, and mom has always been cool. Man, 1:23:02.280 --> 1:23:04.920 like you go over there. My mother has always say 1:23:04.920 --> 1:23:08.360 it has the best security force there is, the Winos. 1:23:11.040 --> 1:23:12.680 They don't miss no days. 1:23:14.280 --> 1:23:14.519 Don't. 1:23:16.400 --> 1:23:19.160 Yeah, you know, And they were always so cool with mom. 1:23:19.240 --> 1:23:21.240 You know, if they need a cigarette, whatever, man, you know, 1:23:21.400 --> 1:23:24.920 Mom's got them. Man, just whatever. MISSI they called Mississippi, 1:23:28.200 --> 1:23:30.280 but uh, you know she come to open up. Man, 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:32.840 they'd be standing in front of her store. They stand there, 1:23:32.920 --> 1:23:36.200 make sure she's in. Okay, Once she's in, they gone 1:23:36.200 --> 1:23:38.439 across the street because they know it's bad for business, 1:23:38.760 --> 1:23:43.040 you know, but let somebody come in there looking threatening 1:23:43.240 --> 1:23:45.320 the enforced Baby. 1:23:45.960 --> 1:23:47.680 I'm telling you what side of Detroit? Was it on 1:23:47.880 --> 1:23:49.880 east side? 1:23:49.920 --> 1:23:52.800 Yeah? Not far east? Yeah? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah 1:23:55.439 --> 1:23:58.600 right yeah. You start thinking about your pilgrimage. 1:23:58.920 --> 1:24:09.240 I was like, I want to ask you, do you 1:24:09.320 --> 1:24:11.240 still keep in touch with any of the old crew, 1:24:11.360 --> 1:24:12.320 like Sherry Carter. 1:24:12.600 --> 1:24:17.720 Madeline, like all those everybody you just named? Yes? 1:24:17.880 --> 1:24:19.519 Is it a Facebook group somewhere that y'all have? 1:24:21.360 --> 1:24:27.960 Yeah, you'll be going in yeah yeah yeah yeah, no 1:24:28.080 --> 1:24:28.760 we still talk? 1:24:29.000 --> 1:24:30.439 Yeah? Yeah? 1:24:30.520 --> 1:24:30.640 Man? 1:24:30.800 --> 1:24:32.600 Did they ever talk on it? I was just a 1:24:32.640 --> 1:24:33.519 strength of what you just said. 1:24:33.560 --> 1:24:36.879 Is there ever talk of like a full out reunion 1:24:37.080 --> 1:24:39.280 on B E T with you everybody? 1:24:39.640 --> 1:24:39.920 Okay? 1:24:40.040 --> 1:24:46.960 That that was a very quick are you no? You 1:24:47.040 --> 1:24:49.280 know for me, you know, when it was done, it 1:24:49.400 --> 1:24:51.680 was done, and that's the way I am when i'm you. 1:24:51.760 --> 1:24:54.360 Know the end. When When was when the video so 1:24:54.520 --> 1:24:58.920 officially in that's a cool question. No, it was hold 1:24:58.960 --> 1:24:59.799 on the Planet Grooves. 1:24:59.800 --> 1:25:04.120 Wh It was like nineteen ninety seven, I think. I 1:25:04.240 --> 1:25:06.240 know because they brought me back to do a special 1:25:06.360 --> 1:25:10.840 Millennium show or the Top Videos of the Century, and 1:25:12.120 --> 1:25:16.360 so I came back for that. But for the last 1:25:16.400 --> 1:25:18.639 two years that I did the show, I'm telling you, man, 1:25:19.000 --> 1:25:22.320 it was on New York Avenue, and every night I 1:25:22.360 --> 1:25:24.280 would drive up New York Avenue and all I could 1:25:24.280 --> 1:25:28.519 think was that, God, forty minutes more and you could 1:25:28.560 --> 1:25:32.000 be at the Bay having dinner with Pam. That's all 1:25:32.080 --> 1:25:34.680 I thought about every night. And that told me that 1:25:34.800 --> 1:25:37.760 it was time. Yeah, that it was time. I didn't 1:25:37.800 --> 1:25:39.600 want to do it anymore, you know, And it just 1:25:39.720 --> 1:25:43.439 changed for me, I think because I started. They started before. 1:25:43.479 --> 1:25:45.799 We used to do it in the afternoon at one o'clock, 1:25:46.000 --> 1:25:48.880 and sometimes for a number of years we did at three, 1:25:50.479 --> 1:25:54.040 but always live. And then we started recording it at 1:25:54.280 --> 1:25:56.280 seven o'clock at night, and you know, with me doing 1:25:56.360 --> 1:25:59.000 my morning radio show, it's just too much. I just 1:25:59.360 --> 1:26:01.760 it didn't feel same to me. I didn't. I just 1:26:02.320 --> 1:26:04.880 I don't know. And it was fourteen years, you know, 1:26:05.520 --> 1:26:10.559 and so no, I you know, my it was done. 1:26:11.160 --> 1:26:13.479 It was people always go mad. God, don't you miss it? 1:26:14.000 --> 1:26:14.160 You know? 1:26:15.600 --> 1:26:18.400 I don't. I mean, well, I missed the people. The 1:26:18.479 --> 1:26:21.320 show was fun, But I always think about those last 1:26:21.360 --> 1:26:23.639 two years, man, where it's just like, no, it was time. 1:26:24.320 --> 1:26:27.680 Everything has its time, you know. That's the way I feel, man. 1:26:27.840 --> 1:26:29.880 And we had our run and it was cool, it 1:26:30.000 --> 1:26:32.560 was great. It served his purpose for that moment, and 1:26:33.000 --> 1:26:33.680 we're done with it. 1:26:33.840 --> 1:26:35.560 But you did miss TV because you came back with 1:26:35.880 --> 1:26:36.960 Donnie have the Dark a little bit? 1:26:37.120 --> 1:26:40.880 Yeah, yeah, I decided I wanted to. That was Pam's fault. Really, 1:26:42.120 --> 1:26:43.200 she wants you out of the house. 1:26:48.160 --> 1:26:48.400 Quest. 1:26:48.439 --> 1:26:51.240 Let me tell you how she put it though. She said, Donnie, 1:26:51.320 --> 1:26:54.000 everywhere we go, all you hear is how much they 1:26:54.160 --> 1:26:56.640 love you and want you to do something else. You know, 1:26:56.760 --> 1:26:58.760 God has given you a talent that you should be 1:26:58.840 --> 1:27:01.880 sharing with people. That's the way she put it. What 1:27:02.000 --> 1:27:06.320 I heard was get out. It's been five and a 1:27:06.360 --> 1:27:07.120 half years. 1:27:08.479 --> 1:27:11.760 I brought you out of the house records. 1:27:13.000 --> 1:27:15.519 Because I didn't do anything for five and a half years. Man, 1:27:15.880 --> 1:27:16.640 What was that like? 1:27:16.800 --> 1:27:20.519 We're going from just going going going, having years to chill. 1:27:20.960 --> 1:27:24.040 It was cool, man, it was great. I tell everybody 1:27:24.120 --> 1:27:27.519 I started. I started a shuttle service. Yeah, I would 1:27:27.520 --> 1:27:29.240 shuttle grand babies back and forth. 1:27:32.479 --> 1:27:33.479 And I was good at it. 1:27:33.760 --> 1:27:36.240 And in the summer I became a pool boy, you know, 1:27:37.920 --> 1:27:41.120 for my grandkids. Man. So so I loved it, man, 1:27:41.240 --> 1:27:43.840 But but I'm happy to be back in the game. 1:27:44.120 --> 1:27:44.280 You know. 1:27:44.640 --> 1:27:51.160 It's you know, I love music in particular, and I 1:27:51.240 --> 1:27:53.040 felt like it was five and a half years of 1:27:53.240 --> 1:27:56.479 me not knowing what was going on, you know, and 1:27:56.640 --> 1:27:59.280 I don't and I never experienced that before. I've never 1:27:59.360 --> 1:28:01.160 been out of loops as the time I was twelve, 1:28:01.720 --> 1:28:03.760 you know, I always knew what was happening, you know. 1:28:04.920 --> 1:28:07.599 So you know, so it's been cool, man. And then 1:28:07.840 --> 1:28:09.760 and then the love of the people give you two man. 1:28:09.920 --> 1:28:10.559 You know, It's just. 1:28:12.160 --> 1:28:14.960 You know, it was almost like me and Ray Leonard 1:28:15.000 --> 1:28:17.640 had this conversation because we were talking. He took off 1:28:17.680 --> 1:28:19.879 for five years before he came back and fought Hagler, 1:28:20.320 --> 1:28:24.720 and he was talking about how it was so much 1:28:24.800 --> 1:28:28.639 more intense when you came back because you know people, 1:28:29.080 --> 1:28:31.120 you know, they're used to you, and then you're gone 1:28:31.280 --> 1:28:33.519 for this and you figured that's it, there's no more, 1:28:33.520 --> 1:28:35.320 and then all of a sudden you come back and 1:28:35.479 --> 1:28:39.400 it's a different level of appreciation, you know, and uh, 1:28:40.000 --> 1:28:42.519 you know people just people treat me swell. 1:28:42.880 --> 1:28:46.439 But when did you realize that you probably could never 1:28:46.720 --> 1:28:49.719 do radio anywhere else but the DMV, Like the DMV 1:28:49.880 --> 1:28:50.479 might not let you. 1:28:50.880 --> 1:28:53.920 Was there a moment where you realized that you came. 1:28:54.000 --> 1:28:55.760 Or that you just wouldn't a dog you got you 1:28:55.840 --> 1:28:57.439 painting them straight up gangs now. 1:29:00.880 --> 1:29:03.800 Him right like you on Ben's chili bowl wall now 1:29:03.880 --> 1:29:04.960 like you can't leave? 1:29:10.720 --> 1:29:16.680 You are like, no, I never felt like that, like 1:29:17.160 --> 1:29:19.360 they wouldn't let you leave. I mean, you know, I 1:29:19.439 --> 1:29:22.439 mean because I was always so you love DC across 1:29:22.479 --> 1:29:26.799 the country anyway. I absolutely love d C without doubt. 1:29:26.640 --> 1:29:29.679 Because I'm certain that at one point you could write 1:29:29.680 --> 1:29:31.519 your own ticket and let me see what it's up 1:29:31.520 --> 1:29:32.400 in Chicago. 1:29:32.200 --> 1:29:34.519 Or go to l A or But for what I mean, 1:29:34.720 --> 1:29:39.080 you know, I mean d Yeah, and I love Detroit. 1:29:39.160 --> 1:29:43.320 I mean Detroit, that's you know, that's home. Baby. But 1:29:44.080 --> 1:29:49.080 you know, I mean, I'm already. I've been in Chicago. 1:29:50.680 --> 1:29:53.640 Be Et video Soul put me in every city in 1:29:53.720 --> 1:29:57.000 this country. I don't need radio to do that. I've 1:29:57.080 --> 1:29:59.760 never felt the need to to leave to go. 1:30:00.360 --> 1:30:00.519 You know. 1:30:01.200 --> 1:30:03.800 That's another reason why I've never felt pressure to do syndication. 1:30:05.640 --> 1:30:07.720 You know, I'm ask you know. 1:30:07.960 --> 1:30:08.200 B E. 1:30:08.320 --> 1:30:13.360 T put me in more homes, and syndication could ever 1:30:13.560 --> 1:30:16.760 put me in from radio, you know it could that 1:30:16.840 --> 1:30:18.800 could never be matched with radio what B E. 1:30:18.920 --> 1:30:19.680 T did for me. 1:30:20.080 --> 1:30:22.519 So that's not that big a deal to me, you know. 1:30:22.640 --> 1:30:25.080 And when I've had those conversations and I go, well, 1:30:25.120 --> 1:30:28.000 I play some of everything, you know, So what happens 1:30:28.080 --> 1:30:31.920 on this station in Detroit kim all the time? What 1:30:32.080 --> 1:30:39.559 happens when I play uh Drake or Tupac or whatever, 1:30:39.800 --> 1:30:41.519 you know, whatever it is. I'm like, well, you can 1:30:41.600 --> 1:30:43.640 play them, but you know, and you can talk about them. 1:30:43.840 --> 1:30:48.720 But we'll cover the Tupac song with Luthor. Oh no, no, 1:30:48.920 --> 1:30:53.120 you won't, you know, because you know, for me, it's 1:30:53.200 --> 1:30:56.200 not like I'm not a bit driven show, you know. 1:30:58.600 --> 1:31:01.800 I just I play music, we talk about it, and 1:31:02.760 --> 1:31:04.760 you know that's what I do. So music is such 1:31:04.760 --> 1:31:07.400 a big part of what I do. I can't. You 1:31:07.479 --> 1:31:09.720 can't take them, you can't cover It's got to be 1:31:09.800 --> 1:31:12.040 like a listen line. I mean, you know, you got 1:31:12.160 --> 1:31:14.439 to listen to the same thing in Chicago and San 1:31:14.479 --> 1:31:18.519 Francisco that they're listening to in DC. You can't cover 1:31:18.720 --> 1:31:21.800 my music with something else, right, you know, that's part 1:31:21.800 --> 1:31:24.040 of that's the biggest part of the experience to me. 1:31:25.040 --> 1:31:28.160 And sometimes it's good to be local, you know. Sometimes 1:31:28.600 --> 1:31:32.160 I'm telling you, man, this is one of those cases. 1:31:31.880 --> 1:31:34.120 Where be local is to be better. 1:31:34.320 --> 1:31:37.240 And you know, I'm old school in that way. I 1:31:37.439 --> 1:31:40.759 like that. But again, I'm very blessed in that TV 1:31:41.200 --> 1:31:44.960 gave me that thing that most people in radio are 1:31:45.040 --> 1:31:50.120 seeking through syndication. I had it in TV already. 1:31:50.960 --> 1:31:53.000 One question I ad to you was in regards to 1:31:53.200 --> 1:31:56.920 the culture of BT when you talk about the early years, 1:31:56.920 --> 1:31:58.800 and you were saying that it wasn't pretty, you know 1:31:58.840 --> 1:32:01.640 what I'm saying. I remember those early years, and I 1:32:01.680 --> 1:32:04.080 remember it was kind of rough, but it was also 1:32:04.320 --> 1:32:07.320 really real. And I mean just from watching your show, 1:32:07.920 --> 1:32:10.240 and I remember there was this other show I think 1:32:10.240 --> 1:32:11.680 you just come on after the video, so the it 1:32:11.800 --> 1:32:13.599 was a movie show, and it was this lady had 1:32:13.600 --> 1:32:21.160 a segment called Popcorn and pig Feet what. Yes, But 1:32:21.600 --> 1:32:25.439 in this this particular episode was notable because they dissed 1:32:25.760 --> 1:32:30.840 Graffiti Bridge, like I mean straight up smashed Graffiti Bridge. 1:32:31.280 --> 1:32:34.920 And I was like whole, Like, I mean, there was 1:32:35.000 --> 1:32:35.439 that segment. 1:32:35.479 --> 1:32:37.639 There was another segment where like Dwayne Martin was going 1:32:37.680 --> 1:32:40.040 through the record store like holding up records like on 1:32:40.160 --> 1:32:42.160 some like Kiss of the disc kind of shit like Yo, 1:32:42.280 --> 1:32:44.800 this new Tony Tony Tony album is crazy, Yo, this 1:32:45.000 --> 1:32:46.920 is the new t Shir Campel album. 1:32:46.960 --> 1:32:47.559 This shit is whack. 1:32:47.680 --> 1:32:50.160 Like, I mean, they were just it was ruthless, you 1:32:50.200 --> 1:32:52.200 know what I mean, and so and even like on 1:32:52.360 --> 1:32:54.680 your show, I mean you would give like I mean, 1:32:54.800 --> 1:32:55.760 god man, was. 1:32:55.800 --> 1:32:57.200 It like vertical hole. I think that was the first 1:32:57.240 --> 1:32:59.960 place seems too much too visually. I remember that interview. 1:33:00.320 --> 1:33:05.840 She had had a cold, ye, so like you don't 1:33:05.880 --> 1:33:08.719 remember so much so real and it was no PC, 1:33:09.040 --> 1:33:11.599 no cut card. It just seemed to be I mean, 1:33:11.640 --> 1:33:13.800 as as much as you described those early years as 1:33:13.840 --> 1:33:15.840 they were kind of rough and kind of ugly, to me, 1:33:16.040 --> 1:33:17.719 that was the charm because I knew I was getting 1:33:17.840 --> 1:33:18.439 just uncut. 1:33:19.800 --> 1:33:20.759 When did that change? 1:33:20.960 --> 1:33:22.360 Do you or do you remember when it kind of 1:33:22.400 --> 1:33:23.840 shifted and they were like, all right, maybe we gotta 1:33:23.880 --> 1:33:25.559 polish it up, like we can't just you. 1:33:25.600 --> 1:33:28.559 Know, be this, and people like I can't play commercial, 1:33:28.920 --> 1:33:29.760 you know, No, I don't. 1:33:29.880 --> 1:33:32.400 I don't know, I can't play what the rough Side 1:33:32.400 --> 1:33:33.879 of the Mountain commercial I found. 1:33:36.560 --> 1:33:37.559 Coming up Jesus. 1:33:44.520 --> 1:33:46.800 But no, I don't know when that when that changed. Man, 1:33:46.840 --> 1:33:50.040 I don't know. You know, I've I've always felt like 1:33:50.040 --> 1:33:53.320 you got to keep it real. Like there are times 1:33:53.360 --> 1:33:55.200 when I play a song to this day and I'll go, 1:33:55.439 --> 1:34:00.000 you know, wow, my boys will kill me, but almost 1:34:00.080 --> 1:34:05.360 say it anyway, Cooling the Gang celebration I played that 1:34:08.439 --> 1:34:11.320 you are talking about that song on the air, is like, God, 1:34:11.400 --> 1:34:14.720 I can't take that song anymore, I said, I you know, 1:34:15.040 --> 1:34:17.519 I mean, I'm happy for Cooling the Gang that this 1:34:18.920 --> 1:34:23.200 every bar, it's for wedding, any celebration you got over 1:34:23.240 --> 1:34:26.320 the last thirty five years they played that song, I said, 1:34:26.320 --> 1:34:32.599 But when I go down to Jamaica and I hear 1:34:33.479 --> 1:34:35.640 it's a celebration, it's like. 1:34:37.160 --> 1:34:37.960 You can't escape it. 1:34:39.080 --> 1:34:41.680 Escaping it, you know, give me some of the other 1:34:41.840 --> 1:34:44.200 cooler stuff. That's but you know, I think that people 1:34:44.240 --> 1:34:47.280 appreciate that because it's real, and that's just my opinion. 1:34:47.760 --> 1:34:54.680 You know that if everything is great, then you can 1:34:54.760 --> 1:35:01.120 no longer be believable because everything's not great. You know, Yeah, 1:35:01.200 --> 1:35:04.360 you should sometimes say yeah, you know that song is 1:35:04.400 --> 1:35:06.800 not for me, but I play it. It's popular. People 1:35:06.840 --> 1:35:07.840 are crazy, you know. 1:35:08.479 --> 1:35:11.240 Well, Donnie uh, we thank you for coming on the 1:35:11.280 --> 1:35:13.960 show and this has definitely been a master class in man. 1:35:14.439 --> 1:35:17.439 Man, thanks for having me. I wanted to have one 1:35:17.560 --> 1:35:18.160 final question. 1:35:18.320 --> 1:35:20.960 This is from my mother, who like absolutely loves you. 1:35:22.000 --> 1:35:23.360 She wants to know I guess I want to know, 1:35:23.479 --> 1:35:25.160 did you have a smoke before you went on the air. 1:35:26.560 --> 1:35:31.360 No, Man, definitely not always waited to laughter the show. 1:35:38.680 --> 1:35:41.200 How people used to ask me that all the time. 1:35:41.280 --> 1:35:43.880 And one show I actually came out I addressed that. 1:35:44.280 --> 1:35:47.200 I said, people always ask me that, and but no, 1:35:47.520 --> 1:35:51.400 I am not high, I said, but when I smile, 1:35:51.600 --> 1:35:54.519 I squeimped my eyes closed. They would try out kind 1:35:54.560 --> 1:35:56.880 of make up and stuff trying to get my eyes 1:35:56.960 --> 1:35:59.120 to look more open, and it's just that's just. 1:35:59.160 --> 1:35:59.599 Who I am. 1:35:59.640 --> 1:36:02.320 It just so I explained all that on the air, 1:36:02.360 --> 1:36:04.240 and I said, so anyway, so no, I do not 1:36:04.360 --> 1:36:07.479 get high, but let's get our show started. We're gonna 1:36:07.960 --> 1:36:09.640 play this video and I'm gonna go in the back 1:36:09.720 --> 1:36:11.360 smoke a joint. We'll be back in a minute. 1:36:15.240 --> 1:36:15.840 Oh god. 1:36:17.240 --> 1:36:20.000 I thank you Donnie Simpson for all that you've done 1:36:20.080 --> 1:36:23.240 for us. And you know raising, I don't want to 1:36:23.240 --> 1:36:26.600 put it like no, he. 1:36:26.680 --> 1:36:30.280 Pretty much raised like any any left of center like 1:36:30.520 --> 1:36:32.760 black stuff you got put on like it came through video. 1:36:32.840 --> 1:36:36.320 So thank you, hey man, thank you very much. We 1:36:36.400 --> 1:36:37.519 appreciate you. One more time. 1:36:37.760 --> 1:36:38.840 Thank y'all. 1:36:39.120 --> 1:36:40.960 I won't be happy to be here. 1:36:41.280 --> 1:36:44.240 I won't be happy here, Sugar Steve, Boss, Bill On Bifield, 1:36:44.320 --> 1:36:44.920 bron Tickelo. 1:36:45.040 --> 1:36:47.240 This is Quest Love. You've been listening to Quest Love 1:36:47.320 --> 1:36:50.280 Supreme only on Pandora. We see you on the next program. 1:36:50.520 --> 1:36:50.760 Thank you. 1:36:52.840 --> 1:36:56.559 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic 1:36:56.600 --> 1:37:02.320 episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more 1:37:02.400 --> 1:37:06.880 podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 1:37:06.880 --> 1:37:08.519 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.