00:00:00 Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Quest Love Show. I will say that our steam guests once sang I write the songs, but I digress. I believe that our guest is the song. He's embodied all of pop culture. He's a songwriter's Hall of Fame legend, thirteen number one hits, countless top ten, top forty hits, over eighty five million records sold, classic ad jingles like if I Sit Here and sing of his accolades. The interview will be over Grammy a Winner, Emmy Winner, Tony Winner, recent no man get It's flower time. You recently got the what is. 00:01:05 Speaker 2: Your It was the. 00:01:09 Speaker 1: The advertising Hall of Fame, which which you deserve. To this day, your commercials are still your music is being used. Shout out to Jake from the Steak Firm. And despite you know, all these achievements, he returns to us one more time. I don't believe that musicians ever truly leave, but yes, what a time is this first album in fifteen years. Most importantly, we're celebrating his recent victory over cancer. And this is your final concert run. And I am honored that our legendary guest today is giving us the pleasure of just talking to him for a little bit. Very man, a little welcome to the Quest Left Show. How are you? 00:01:51 Speaker 2: I've been wanting to do this ever since we met on the Tonight Show, but I don't get to the East coast very often like I used to. Yeah, I'm going to turn this off. 00:02:01 Speaker 1: It's okay, you're bettermental. You can do it. 00:02:03 Speaker 2: You know. I know you're kidding around, but I never think like that. I just never think like that. 00:02:09 Speaker 1: No, it's I'm not kidding. I mean your legend and legends should be celebrated. What is your first musical memory in life? Your first musical memory from childhood? 00:02:20 Speaker 2: My first musical memory was my mother singing to me. Okay, she was a good singer. What does she sing pop songs other day? 00:02:28 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:02:29 Speaker 2: And she was good. She should have made a career out of her, but I got in the way. She had to go out and work and support me, so she never did it. But she was good. 00:02:41 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:02:41 Speaker 2: So that was my first first memory. 00:02:44 Speaker 1: Okay. So you grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Now my version of Williamsburg is where I like to hang out for like dinner with friends, and I go to movies all the time there, like I hang out Williamsburg. But he described your version of Williamsburg as a child and a team. 00:03:01 Speaker 2: What was it like a dump? 00:03:06 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:03:07 Speaker 2: And you didn't want to go there? It was so dangerous. I would consider it a very good luck if I got home from school because I lived across the street from Eastern District High School, and if I made it home without getting beaten up, I considered it a good day. 00:03:25 Speaker 1: Have you been there recently? Have you seen Williamsburg? 00:03:29 Speaker 2: I did? I mean it's a year ago. So it looked like the village, right, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, Yeah, that's that's what they've turned it into. It looks like the village and it's much safer an now, Yeah. 00:03:43 Speaker 1: What part of New York City do you most identify it with? 00:03:46 Speaker 2: Though? 00:03:46 Speaker 1: Like what's your like all these boroughs? Like what's your favorite part. 00:03:49 Speaker 2: Of New York Manhattan? 00:03:51 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:03:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, My life began when I got a job at CBS and I liked all the people. I didn't know what I was to do it myself, but I liked it. I liked the vibe there. 00:04:04 Speaker 1: Okay, What were your duties at CBS You started working there in the early sixties, Like, what were your job duties? 00:04:10 Speaker 2: I was a male boy for a while, and then they promoted me into editing films, and that was good. I like that. I liked all the people there. They were funny and smart, and I had a great time at CBS. And then everybody knew I was musical because I would run away and play piano because there was a lot of rehearsal holes, so they would hear this skinny male boy playing piano. And I left CBS. And after I left CBS, I got a phone call from CBS saying they're putting up a brand new show, a local show called Callback. It's what we know today is trying to find a talented jung person and so they needed a music directory. So I was available. So I came back to CBS only and they're totally different. 00:05:08 Speaker 1: And your duties were to find songs, write songs, arrange songs, and as just a one man machine, or were you like with a bunch of collaborators. 00:05:17 Speaker 2: Or but there were people there, but it really was my gig to pull all the songs together. I would work with the singer, give them an arrangement, make sure it's in the right key, and then conduct the band on the day of the show. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: And I loved it so back then I would imagine that as a working musician, would one have to site read on the spot, like be at any point where musicians that weren't able to read charts able to still get gigs, like if you could do chord charts or just notate to them what to play and watch me for the cues. 00:05:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't met many musicians who can't read, which is good because if you can read music, if you want to be a musician, you've got to learn how to read music, because if you can't, you'll always work. But if you can't, then these producers will not hire you because that means you got to memorize it on the spot, right, and that's not good for the producers. 00:06:18 Speaker 1: I know that at some point you started working either with the Sullivan Show or without. 00:06:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, I was very young, but I conducted for the summer at Sullivan Show. It was a big deal. 00:06:31 Speaker 1: I mean, how timidating was that process? 00:06:33 Speaker 2: It was. These older musicians did not like taking orders from me. It really didn't. I wasn't prepared for it, but they did not like or taking orders from me. 00:06:46 Speaker 1: How big were the orchestras? 00:06:49 Speaker 2: Not huge? But you know it was a TV size show, bigger than we have today. 00:06:56 Speaker 1: I've heard many a story about the Continental Baths, or like the Bete Midler Show, But I've heard the title what exactly can you just run me through? What that environment was like? Was it a place she entertained or was it a bar? Was it a restaurant? What is it? 00:07:14 Speaker 2: Was it a spa? 00:07:16 Speaker 1: So it was literally she would do a show inside of the spa. Okay, I've never heard of this before, but I've heard the Continental Bats and this is where she got her start. So they would have entertainment there, yes, okay. And you were her musical director. 00:07:29 Speaker 2: Or I was the music director of every weekend. I would show up whoever was performing there. They give me their music. I play for them at night. And bet was one of those girls, okay, and it was it was odd because they weren't wearing any clothes. 00:07:49 Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, I did not know this. So is it actually inside the spa? So how is the conversation and all that stuff worked? For the instruments and whatnot, Like there. 00:08:02 Speaker 2: Was just me at a rotten little piano and a drummer who tried to catch up. That was good, and a lot of people. 00:08:15 Speaker 1: Came out and her voice would amplify, like yeah, I'm still thinking of the technical part of it, like if you're if you're in a steam room with a microphone. 00:08:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was very amateurs. It was no big deal. 00:08:27 Speaker 1: What was the duration of these ninety minutes? Okay? 00:08:30 Speaker 2: She would take an intermission. All the girls. I don't think I ever saw a guy performing there. It was all the girls, got it. I was playing for all the girls as a as a musician and as a I would do their arrangements of it. And a lot of times I found that those girls were gonna be performing at the Continental Bass on Saturday night, So that was good. It was it was inbiting. I was not naked. I was not with a little towel around me at all. So much my hot, finish my gig and run. 00:09:06 Speaker 1: Okay. What I've heard about these shows is how legendary they were, Like what was it about her as a performer that made her stand out from anyone else? That's saying there and anyone else have notes sing there as well or just yeah. 00:09:19 Speaker 2: But bet was. She was brilliant. I mean the most brilliant young challenge that you've ever seen. And she was going to be a star, and I mean she was so she could do anything. She could do blues, she could do welcome rolls. So that was great for me because I could do that too. So got it. So we hated each other on site, but musically were great. 00:09:49 Speaker 1: Okay, we'll see your first client in producing. As far as albums, we're concerned or okay. So you know, I know that today producing is a very loose term, Like I know producers that do the work, and I know some producers just rubber stamp. But I know back then there was a whole process, or at least it was more discipline in terms of like getting rhythm arrangers, getting horn arrangers. Like without having had that experience before, how intimidating was it to man the ship for the first time? 00:10:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved it. I loved it, especially if they did have music that I could just play for them. That hardly had music. She was just coming up, she was broke, she didn't have she didn't have money to get arrangements that people could. Once I started working for I wrote out all of the arrangements that she would need and for nothing, because I saw this girl was so talented, was so talented, and when you see something like that, you have to support it. I felt rugby myself, but this girl was something else. 00:11:04 Speaker 1: Then what was your creative process? Like I know some songwriters Quincy Jones says he likes to arrange like between midnight and five am, or like for you, what is the creative process that you need in order to bring a song to light? 00:11:22 Speaker 2: What I need is a job. I don't like to write songs, and because they never go anywhere, and most of them are wonderful. I think they're wonderful. I only write these days if someone has a job and I know that it's going to land someplace, then I do it. But for so many years I just would write a song or I don't know, and they would go nowhere to go into the book, And so I stopped doing that. 00:11:56 Speaker 1: Okay, So, and I'm saying this in air quotes. This is your last go round, so you say, But I mean, how many are still left over? Or it's just that you write for the moment, for the task at hand. 00:12:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. I write on demand, but there are songs that I wrote with nothing in mind. 00:12:18 Speaker 1: So how do you deal with the pressure then and actually admire this this process which I never heard before, because everyone has this story, like one night I woke from a dream and I felt inspired. 00:12:28 Speaker 2: To da da da da. Like I don't one of those two. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not technically known as a songwriter, but oftentimes the first thing that's or my plate is the deadline. I need something by Thursday, March blah blah blah. 00:12:43 Speaker 2: Well we're saying the same thing. I need to know that it's going to land someplace. So I stopped just writing just to write to write, I mean, just wasting, wasting great music. And I was so proud of these things that they didn't go anywhere. So I won't do it unless I know it's going to go someplace. 00:13:04 Speaker 1: Have you ever had like a real severe case of writer's block where just nothing was happening at all. No, I've written lousy songs, but okay, well, I know you've had collaborators, but I mean Ron Dante is probably the person that would be that. But who's the person that could tell you you tried that idea before or maybe you used to do a key lower like who's the person that you trust to say? 00:13:29 Speaker 2: Well, these days it's a gun named David Benson, Okay, who I've known for years, and certainly my assistant Mark is sole musical. Those are the two guys that I run to to ask what do you think? 00:13:44 Speaker 1: And you accept their truth. They'll be honest with you. 00:13:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. 00:14:00 Speaker 1: When was the moment in your career that you knew that you could do this full time? Because I always imagine living in New York City, there's never the feeling of safety of like like when you get your first number one, do you feel like you arrived? There was like m I still might have to hustle my way through. 00:14:22 Speaker 2: Or well, that's two questions because at the beginning, I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So I wasn't even thinking about making records ever ever even thinking about doing that. 00:14:34 Speaker 1: Wait, why not? 00:14:35 Speaker 2: Well, coming from the slums of Brooklyn, New York, you don't think that big, Okay. 00:14:42 Speaker 1: So when you were when you were eleven, what were your goals in life? Like, what did you want to do for a living? What did you think you wanted. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: Just to get home from school just to start you want to do without getting what were you doing when you were eleving? Did you know you were going to be a musician. 00:15:01 Speaker 1: This is the worst humble prag. 00:15:03 Speaker 2: I mean. 00:15:03 Speaker 1: My my father was an oldies do wop singer from the fifties. Oh so he had a group called Le Andrews and the Hearts, and by the time I was born, it was the nostalgia period, so he kind of made it a family act. So like when I was twelve, because of a motorcycle accident of my dad's drummer, I became his de facto drummer and bandleader. Like my first gig was at Radio City Music Hall, whoa, And so I was tricked into the family business, like farming, you know, like they didn't believe in babysitters, so it's like, nope, you come with us. And so I got tricked into the family business. But I mean, pretty much, my dad's dream was for me to like to drum for you, like a respectable job, like I want you to do something with the dada I Philharmonic or that sort of thing. And you know, starting a rap group with my best friend in high school like was not as plans, even though I auditioned for Juilliard, Like the next day my act of rebellion was busking on the streets. And then that led to a record deal. 00:16:04 Speaker 2: And so when your father must have been really proud. 00:16:09 Speaker 1: And by my fourth album he was. But even even on the third album he was still like, you gotta get a real job. But that's the thing, Like I don't think a musician ever feels like they're totally safe or you know, like this is what I'm gonna do for a lifetime. So as far as your life as a jingle maker, how many drafts do you have to go through before you know you deserve a break? The day is the one? Or you know you're the Panpsy generation, Or did you also write I'm a pepper, he's a pepper? No, okay, but you wrote for doctor Pepper Rick correct band aid and I'm stuck going band aid And I'm sure you know everything or even today kids know like a good neighbor state farms there. How do you know when you have the perfect eight second tag? 00:17:02 Speaker 2: It comes really easy to me. And the commercial world, the world that I was in, they would give me a lyric or they would give me a couple of lines. That's what I had to create. So if they gave me a lyric, we'll get out of the way. I can write a melody to anything. And I got them a lot. I love those years. I just love those years. I learned so much about making records. I worked with the greatest musicians because you know, they get paid big to do a commercial, and so they were so helpful to me. You know, I was so green during those years. But when I left, I knew what I was doing, and I knew I wanted to stay there. I never really thought about singing, never. 00:17:51 Speaker 1: So the learning curve of it, like did you have a mentor to actually teach you the ropes or this stuff you have to learn? No, on the way to it. 00:17:59 Speaker 2: No, you know, it was just a job, and they liked what I did. And I was one of like five guys that tried out for these commercials. And I would get them, the other guy would get them, the girl would get them. I would get them, and we would all try to. 00:18:15 Speaker 1: So there's like four other versions of like a good neighbor of state farmers there that we don't know about. 00:18:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were great, these people were great. Really, I don't even know how I was able to compute with them. They were wonderful. 00:18:30 Speaker 1: I respect that because when I started Late Night. Yeah, one of the biggest songwriting challenges. This is one I knew, like, oh, I don't know anything about songwriting. It's like when you have to write a five second tag jingle and they would literally send us back, you know, they'd be like, Okay, this called hot dog in a Hole, give me five second jingle. And we'd write it and they'd be like, no, it's we need more. Like they literally wanted emotion, and I'm like, dude, it's just a five second tag for a game. Like I didn't think it was that serious. But after five years of doing that, I now realized that whatever I had before I came to the Tonight Show writing five second jingles as a muscle exercise is now made me a monster, you know, for real songs. How do you handle rejection if someone doesn't like it? Like do you come home and remix it? Or do you know? 00:19:25 Speaker 2: In that world it's yes or no. That's a general in mind, okay, and me I go on to. 00:19:32 Speaker 1: The next thing, all right, So I can imagine at least with the Bell Records connection. But can you talk about your working relationship with Ron Dante and him producing like your run of albums, how you your working relationship was, And first of all, well to hear you say it, how did you finally decide that, yes, I will become a singer and release my own music. 00:19:55 Speaker 2: Even when I read Ron Dante, I never considered myself a singer. I was a songwriter. I was the arranger. I was a piano player. So when I met Ron Dante had a commercial session, I had written the piece. I forget what the thing was. Then the producer asked me if to sing in that group. That's when I got some money when I was on the spot. If you're because as a songwriter you get I got five hundred. 00:20:25 Speaker 1: Dollars worked for hire. 00:20:28 Speaker 2: And then well they don't unless you're on the spot saying talking, you don't get residuals. So I wrote it. 00:20:34 Speaker 1: Wait, so the songwriter doesn't get residuals, but the person that sings it gets. So Luther Vangels will get all the residuals for singing. Yeah, I started your Pepsi song. 00:20:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, I started to get really big checks, but not as the songwriter. I got five hundred dollars for state farmers. There. That's it. 00:20:53 Speaker 1: So to this day when I hear it, five hundred, damn okay. 00:20:59 Speaker 2: But when I sang on the spot, well watch out those who really great, I mean especially for me. So I met ron Dante on a on one of those kind of singing sessions. He was fantastic. He doesn't read music, but he's so talented. He gets it like that. His voice is so pleasant on the radio. They hire him for everything. 00:21:31 Speaker 1: He was once the voice of the Sugar Sugar for the cot. 00:21:35 Speaker 2: That was a big one for him anyway. So I was. We did a session together and we went out to lunch or something, and we started talking about what about making a record because I had written some stuff that he really liked. So we said sure, you know, so we pope pulled our money and we went into the recording studio and I thought he was going to sing it, sing the lead, because I really never even thought about myself as a singer never. But he didn't know the lyric and he didn't know the melody right. So I went in there and sang, and I, you know, I felt ridiculous because I've never really thought about being a singer. And we played our demos for record companies and they liked me. What are you talking about? But they like me, and eventually I got a record deal at Felt Records. 00:22:30 Speaker 1: So what is the key to your confidence then? Like if you're in your mind saying hey, why me? Like what gets you out of how do you deal with imposter syndrome? Like do I deserve to be here? Shouldn't you get a better guy to sing it? Like in your mind? Yeah, what's the voice of you hearing that should knock these songs out? 00:22:51 Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I know it was a long time ago, but but I no, I never considered myself a singer. I thought it was ridiculous. 00:22:58 Speaker 1: How did you deal with imposter syndrome? Realize that you are the one? 00:23:02 Speaker 2: I played the game I did. They wanted me to sing, Sure, I'll sing it was really about some buddy. 00:23:11 Speaker 1: Well, okay, so the first album didn't necessarily hit as much. So how did you deal with that not working? Did youus think like, okay, this is a one off and I did it and. 00:23:20 Speaker 2: I was hoping it didn't work. I didn't like the gig. I like the gig of writing way I like the gig of arranging. 00:23:28 Speaker 1: You know, only wanted to self sabotage her. 00:23:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, I was hoping this would go away. 00:23:34 Speaker 1: This often happens, Okay, so I would at least like to think that now you feel like, okay, I deserved it, and you still feel that way, So you don't feel like we appreciate you all that much or I'm gonna I'm gonna put it this way. You're so ubiquitous, like the fiber of you, so ubiquitous that I know your whole history and I'm not even your target audience. Like, but if I'm home as a third grader like you were on Dinah Shore, I think he had a group called Lady Flash or something like that. Yeah, like to watch Bandstand and Soldierin all the time. So like you're just a part of our fabric. So in case you don't know, you're appreciated. But the second time it did. 00:24:19 Speaker 2: Work, well, that was because Clive that tell me about and. 00:24:25 Speaker 1: You get prime Clive, you get prime hungry. I got to prove to Columbia and start an arist to like, I feel like, even though I know Eric Carmon and Bay City Rollers was sort of like out the Gate with him, But I feel like you are his main trojan horse in terms of like him him establishing himself. 00:24:49 Speaker 2: But I don't know why. 00:24:50 Speaker 1: Well, was the relationship contentious? 00:24:52 Speaker 2: Like, well, he wanted me to record songs that he liked? 00:24:57 Speaker 1: He would did you trust his zero back then? Or were you were lucky them? 00:25:00 Speaker 2: Like? 00:25:01 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:25:01 Speaker 2: No? But I wanted to record my own songs. Was I was a songwriter, and so we made a deal. I would give him two songs on the albums and the rest of them would be mine. And of course those two songs. I wonder how that. 00:25:22 Speaker 1: Would happen, right, Well, you told the story thing on the tonight show of you not liking Mandy when it first arrived to you. 00:25:30 Speaker 2: Well, did you ever hear that? 00:25:32 Speaker 1: I've heard the original? Okay, So when I still feel, we all still feel like a song is yours once it arrives in your hands. So when you get a song, how long do you have to sit with it before you filter it and process it and mold it to know that, Okay, this is now my song. 00:25:48 Speaker 2: Well, they're all different, but I mean Mandy, I played around with it and I changed the chords and I found the love song hiding in this rock and roll song. And that night Ronnie and I did a version of Brandy just like the demo, and Clive came in and said, what's that. I said, that's the record that you think I should do, and he said that's terrible. I said, I know it's terrible. That's not what I do. So I said, I've been playing in the afternoon. Come with me. So I sat him, I sat at the piano and I played him what I had played around with in the afternoon, which was I had found the love song hiding in this Mandy And he said, just do that, just and he backed the way into the control room and we did one take and that was it. What ah? Then we added strings. 00:26:48 Speaker 1: And so initially leaves this piano in your voice and no click track any Oh my god, there would been a nightmare for me. Yea, In your opinion, what is already for a great song? Is it? I'm a rhythm person because I'm a drummer. But for you is it? The words? Is the melody, it's the emotion. 00:27:11 Speaker 2: If you can get people to feel something, then you're halfway home. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: So at every arrangement of yours, every song of yours, has to have emotion that gives you know, Okay. I always wanted to know this because this is a karaoke nightmare song for the Copa cabana. I admire songs that have a narrative in it, and there's so much detail and linear detail packed in this song. Yet it's probably one of your most popular songs. 00:27:47 Speaker 2: And I don't know why, but and. 00:27:49 Speaker 1: There's no circular thing that like, I mean, the melody sticks with you, but there's so like I mean, someone gets shot, and like at the time when you were creating it, is this like going to be filler in your head like a great album cut or did you say this is going to be like my signature or something? 00:28:08 Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, it was the novelty cut on the album. 00:28:13 Speaker 1: Because so when it caught on, how did you feel about it? 00:28:17 Speaker 2: It was thrilling, Okay, thrilling, yeah, Runner. I took her to a disco around where the studio was. As soon as Copa came on, we you know, paid some guy and said the DJ, and as soon as it came on, everybody ran to the dance floor and pretended they were they were in the nineteen forties. 00:28:40 Speaker 1: Right, wash buckling and cast a blanket. 00:28:43 Speaker 2: Okay, I said to you, we're onto something and uh Claude hated it. 00:28:50 Speaker 1: Really. 00:28:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, Rista didn't put a penny behind promotion of Gopa Cabaa. 00:28:56 Speaker 1: It's so caught on because the word of mouth and just spreading. 00:28:59 Speaker 2: That's how it happened. Okay, when that is a real hit record. 00:29:03 Speaker 1: Whenever he is wrong, will he admit it or will he just hey, I knew it all? Will he just well? 00:29:11 Speaker 2: Ask him? He doesn't. He didn't. He doesn't like copa and he didn't do anything for it, but the public liked it, and they were calling in the radio stations and as saying to play mane los copa. Okay, yeah, that's how it happened. 00:29:28 Speaker 1: So you probably have one of the best co signs ever. When Sinatra famously said, hey, like you're the next great one. 00:29:38 Speaker 2: He didn't say that. He said, well, I know that. 00:29:41 Speaker 1: He said something to this. 00:29:42 Speaker 2: He said he's next, and I thought, am I gonna wind up where the horse was at? He's next? 00:29:52 Speaker 1: But he knew what he meant. 00:29:53 Speaker 2: Yes, he said he's next. I never really got to know him, but he sang a song of mine on the Tonight Show and he did a beautiful job. Not one of the hits. He found a real album cut, he memorized it, did a beautiful job. 00:30:13 Speaker 1: Is it weird when people cover your songs like so soon after you did it? I mean, Donna Summer started covering a song that you recorded, like maybe perhaps a year before. Like when a song is yours and then someone else does it, do you ever feel a certain way about it? 00:30:36 Speaker 2: Like I think everybody should record my songs? 00:30:39 Speaker 1: There you go. I don't care of the covers that were done, Like what was your favorites that were or the notable ones that you told? 00:30:47 Speaker 2: The answer is could it be magic? 00:30:49 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:30:49 Speaker 1: Could it be magic? 00:30:50 Speaker 3: All right? 00:31:02 Speaker 1: I gotta ask you this question in your arrangements, and you're one of these grand arrangers. Like, there's two things about your arrangements that I noticed. One, you rarely do a fade out. You do an ending, which doesn't happen anymore, like songs end in concert, but they never end on record, and that's a lost art. But also the modulation now of all your songs in which the modulation adds that last part. I gotta ask you about never love this way again? Because to me, the evil Canevil jump isn't landing on the final note, it's that hold on bridge in which Dion Warwick actually has to go. That modulation should be studied for the ages. What was on your mind when you make like you could have just go on it's the modulation and been there, but you had to. 00:32:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, it just felt better. It just felt better, and she was so great that she was able to pick it up. But it didn't throw you, did it? 00:32:13 Speaker 1: I mean one, I'm not a singer, but I've been witnessed to many a car accident. Yeah, singers attempting to figure out where that last hold on goes to before they had to land on the modulation. 00:32:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think anybody's ever had trouble with those modulations, even though they should. 00:32:32 Speaker 1: But well they're complex. Though they're complex. But is that a lost art? Like do you? I mean not? There's a certain art to music that that has lost again and the ending and the modulation, like is the modulation the when you spoke of the emotion of a song, is that the payoff? Like is the first three minutes the build up that leads to whatever you're supposed to feel. 00:32:57 Speaker 2: It all depends on the song. But the singer, the writer. There's no rules. There's no rules. It's art, it's music. You can't put it in a box. They're all different. I don't even remember the modulation, and I never loved this way again, But I mean, it's a beautiful song. She did a beautiful job, and that's all I got. 00:33:21 Speaker 1: There, you go. Speaking of which, Daja Vu is one of, like one of my favorite songs of all time. I know that Isaac Hayes wrote that song, but he just talked about the general process of producing that Dion record because by that point, you know, she had been kind of out there for five six years really without like a hit. So many people credit that entire album as her comeback album and established her for the eighties and whatnot. I mean started hosting Solid Gold. 00:33:51 Speaker 2: After I think she got a Grammy for Yeah, I don't know that was a again and dajelod another category. Yeah, I had never heard of one of those. 00:34:01 Speaker 1: So what was it like producing those sessions? 00:34:04 Speaker 2: It was just another session. You're not saying all about no, But by that time I knew those musicians. They were friends, and I would tell them what I'd like and they would play it, and that's it. I would love to tell you that I was loved to the vibe in the room. It says no, it was. It was a recording session. I had done a million of them. You know, they were great. These musicians were great. I would tell them little ideas that I wanted and they would do it okay. Sometimes they'll hit songs, and sometimes they weren't okay. 00:34:42 Speaker 1: So your album, which is your first record in fifteen years. Yeah, and by the way, congratulations on it. And I'm a person that is also has not released any product in ten years, and I'll admit that there's some sort of psychological fear of getting back in the ring and going back to the gym and working out how do you walk through the fear of just one more time, like let me do this again? How did you get through any self doubt you had or. 00:35:14 Speaker 2: Michael Lord and I made this album and it took a long time, and COVID was have happened in the middle of it, right, So it just took forever and made this album. I didn't even think it was going to ever come out after COVID, you know, I didn't know. It wasn't one of those albums that I've made record Company once Thursday. It wasn't that. It was a batch of songs and I really wanted to hear them done properly. And that's it. I love them and I think they're very well. Maybe an audience that feels the same way, But we'll see. 00:35:57 Speaker 1: How did Once Before I Go land in your life? And you know, why did you feel that was necessary to record? 00:36:03 Speaker 2: Clive? This man can't get rid of him, thank god. But he was having this big outdoor festival in Central Park and he got rained out. If you remember, he got rained out and he called me and said, did you have you ever heard of a so called Once Before I Go? And I said, yeah. Peter played it for me in my old apartment in New York. He said, you should do it. I said, but it's been a long time. Anyway, I went into the studio since I was making an album and then I was on the road. So goodness, Babyface Kenneth stepped in and made a beautiful record for me, and I got a top ten single out of it. I know, I haven't been on the last time I was at the often Washington was closing the Della Wheel. Really it's nuts. 00:37:10 Speaker 1: My final question to you so once the album is out, completed, and once you've done your very last show, and I hate asking this question because again every artist I talk to you says this is it? 00:37:26 Speaker 3: No more? 00:37:30 Speaker 1: All right, let me get a pen ultimate question before I ask the final question. 00:37:34 Speaker 2: One? 00:37:34 Speaker 1: Is there really such a thing as stopping? 00:37:38 Speaker 2: No? 00:37:39 Speaker 1: Okay, So once the album is out and you've done your very last show, what are you going to do for yourself? 00:37:47 Speaker 2: I'll tell you after I do it. 00:37:50 Speaker 1: Barry Manilo, I thank you for granted me this audience. You're such a legend and we appreciate and love you, and thank you for coming on the Question Show. Thank you so much. See all the next go around. 00:38:01 Speaker 2: This was great. 00:38:08 Speaker 1: A Quest Love Show is hosted by me Amir Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers. 00:38:13 Speaker 4: Are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Paine. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Blow. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe Break Review as a share of The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, and make sure you follow us on socials. 00:38:53 Speaker 1: That's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of episodes, including the Questlum Supreme Shows, and our podcast archives. The Quest Loam Show is a production of iHeartRadio