Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. It's a negative.
Speaker 2: Three like a coffin the snees sniff is not a
Speaker 2: cough snee and a sniff. In twenty twenty two, ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: I am Quest Loved your host and with me is
Speaker 2: the Almighty Team Supreme. I feel like Don Cornelius every
Speaker 2: time I have a superlotan thing.
Speaker 3: We all mighty, now, you guys the Mighty team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're not the mighty with the Almighty.
Speaker 4: I think somebody just got soul trained on the mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm actually watching this whole thing right now. Anyway,
Speaker 1: sugar stea, what's up?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, so much.
Speaker 1: Feel like a new man now, don't you?
Speaker 5: I feel different? Yes, After I recorded an interview for
Speaker 5: Question of Supreme.
Speaker 1: With wait, well let's not give it away yet. Let's
Speaker 1: not give it away yet.
Speaker 2: But Steve, Steve took the lead and did miraculous Jimmy
Speaker 2: jam numbers four hours with UH with an incredible guest.
Speaker 1: And you know we'll hear that episode, yes soon. He
Speaker 1: got the nerd out.
Speaker 2: I mean I was there as a training Wills and
Speaker 2: then Irish exited him, you know, left.
Speaker 1: Him on to sell them but it can't wait. Sounded awesome,
Speaker 1: But you're finand Steve, everything's fine. I'm fine.
Speaker 5: I tell you said, you're the fund Steve, and that
Speaker 5: is how I feel like the fauns. Yeah, I'm definitely cool.
Speaker 1: Now, great, great fan, take a little.
Speaker 6: How's it going man, I'm cooling, bro, I'm cooling, man,
Speaker 6: cooland happy to have miss Denise he today.
Speaker 3: This is my childhood, close and personal for real.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and uh you know why you cannot contain ourselves.
Speaker 7: Listen, I am so you don't even understand. I am pumped,
Speaker 7: beyond pumped and yes, yes.
Speaker 1: So well.
Speaker 2: Our guest today absolutely needs an introduction. She's a legendary
Speaker 2: songbird with over seventeen albums, nineteen top forty R and
Speaker 2: P singles, two number one pop singles, thirteen Grammy nominations
Speaker 2: for wins, but basically just for the last five decades,
Speaker 2: has blessed us with that angelic voice of hers. Be
Speaker 2: it as a member of Wonderlove you know where we
Speaker 2: first got to see her on a national level, or
Speaker 2: just her illustrious solo career and told music with her
Speaker 2: own solo records on Columbia Records, or her pop career
Speaker 2: or her gospel career, and yes, in my opinion, one
Speaker 2: of the voices of one of my all time favorite
Speaker 2: TV themes.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, we'll get into that. This interview has been
Speaker 1: a long time coming.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questloft Supreme, the one
Speaker 2: and know me Denise Williams.
Speaker 1: Yes, how are you?
Speaker 8: How you doing wonderful? I'm wonderful and really excited to
Speaker 8: be with you, guys. Finally we've been trying and so
Speaker 8: here we are and it's lovely. I'm excited to be
Speaker 8: here with you.
Speaker 1: I have one question.
Speaker 2: I am going to start at the beginning of your life,
Speaker 2: but I got to get this out the way. So
Speaker 2: when when my parents brought home this is Niecy your
Speaker 2: your your first record on Columbia.
Speaker 1: Huh, all right? I was six.
Speaker 2: I you know, since then, I've had the record in
Speaker 2: other iterations like a trac and cassette and CD, but
Speaker 2: you know, the actual.
Speaker 1: Vinyl, like I only remember that from my childhood.
Speaker 2: Is the name Junior or June is Junior in your
Speaker 2: name or June something? Because in your liner notes I
Speaker 2: remember seeing that as your name, and I you know,
Speaker 2: I have an uncle named Juni, and I was trying
Speaker 2: to ask my mom like, wait, how's her name Junie?
Speaker 2: And she's a lady, like what is what is your
Speaker 2: your your full name?
Speaker 8: My full name is June Denise Williams. I was born
Speaker 8: on June third, so my full and first name is June. Ah.
Speaker 1: Okay, I get it now. I think throughout time, like
Speaker 1: you know, like when you see something once and then
Speaker 1: like decades go by.
Speaker 2: I think at the time I thought maybe your name
Speaker 2: was Denise Williams Junior.
Speaker 1: Or something like that, But.
Speaker 2: Because you was young, I didn't Yeah, I didn't associate
Speaker 2: the name June.
Speaker 1: When I saw that name, I thought of my uncle Juni.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, how does she have his name? So
Speaker 1: I get it related.
Speaker 2: You never know, I see, and you're a Gemini, yes,
Speaker 2: I ah, oh, I forgive you anyway.
Speaker 8: Nobody's perfect, right, my mother I will wake up and
Speaker 8: murder and my mother will look at me and say, okay,
Speaker 8: who are you today? You June or you Denise? Which
Speaker 8: one am I favor today?
Speaker 1: Oh? Really? You dealing with both of us? Okay?
Speaker 4: That who we have today? We have both today?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get it.
Speaker 8: I keep myself entertained too.
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2: I know that you were born in Gary and Deanna,
Speaker 2: so I usually start with where were you born?
Speaker 1: But I want to start with a different question.
Speaker 2: Uh, could you please tell me what your very first
Speaker 2: musical memory was.
Speaker 8: My very first musical memory is. I was three years
Speaker 8: old and I was sitting on the back porch at
Speaker 8: my grandparents' house and I said, we will now have
Speaker 8: a selection from Denise, and I started singing this song
Speaker 8: called There's a Man Waiting way beyond the clouds. And
Speaker 8: my dad's sister, my aunt, hurt me that. She came
Speaker 8: out and she said, if I asked you to sing
Speaker 8: that song in church on Sunday, would you do it?
Speaker 8: And I said okay, And so I sang the song
Speaker 8: and next thing I know, I was in the children's
Speaker 8: choir at my church. That's my very first musical memory.
Speaker 1: And what was it about that song that attracted you
Speaker 1: to it?
Speaker 8: I just loved it. I love the melody. I love
Speaker 8: the message of the song about someone in heaven waiting
Speaker 8: for me, and the beautiful melody and the fact that
Speaker 8: I just liked the sound of it. When I was
Speaker 8: singing the sound of my voice on it.
Speaker 2: Of course, you were born in the Midwest. You know,
Speaker 2: there's another famous nearby family. It's kind of synonymous with
Speaker 2: that series, that city of Gary, Indiana. But could you
Speaker 2: give me your version, like when I hear of Gary, Indiana?
Speaker 2: Besides the song Gary Indiana. You know, I only know
Speaker 2: of the Jackson's version of Gary, Indiana, which is basically
Speaker 2: the tale of a father using hook or crook to
Speaker 2: get his kids out of that city.
Speaker 1: But what are your memories of Gary, Indiana?
Speaker 8: I love growing up in Gary. We had in my neighborhood.
Speaker 8: You know, one thing I realized is that I didn't
Speaker 8: know that we were poor. You know, I thought we
Speaker 8: had everything. As long as we had tuna fish, I
Speaker 8: was fine.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 8: Right now, I'm saying. So, you know, I had an
Speaker 8: upbringing in the church. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 8: on the weekends with my grandparents, and my grandmother was
Speaker 8: the mother of the church fake temple church you got
Speaker 8: in christ Over in East Chicago. So I was there
Speaker 8: and basically, you know, just grew up, went to school,
Speaker 8: very Christian youngster, you know, didn't know a lot about
Speaker 8: what was going on. I think I was very innocent.
Speaker 8: I never remember. One time one of my neighbors said,
Speaker 8: you know, the way you got here is your mom
Speaker 8: and dad. They did the duty and I and I
Speaker 8: fought with her. I said they did not, And so
Speaker 8: you know, I was, you know, very innocent. Raised up
Speaker 8: with my brother, two brothers and a sister, and I
Speaker 8: really liked Gary in those days. You know, school was fun.
Speaker 8: I had a lot of fun friends, and I didn't
Speaker 8: know much about, you know, the political system of what
Speaker 8: was happening. But we did have the first black mayor,
Speaker 8: which was Richard Hatcher, and so you know, a lot
Speaker 8: of the history of Gary and the black communities was
Speaker 8: really really great.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: Later on, of course, there was the drug scene in that.
Speaker 8: But I grew up. I didn't start singing until I
Speaker 8: was a teenager, and so myth teacher owned a record
Speaker 8: store and I asked him for a job. I got
Speaker 8: a job, so I was singing. You know a lot
Speaker 8: of stuff in there. I had seen Michael and the
Speaker 8: Jackson Five perform at the Masonic Temple one time, and
Speaker 8: I think he was about five years old or something,
Speaker 8: and their cousin, the drummer in the group n Johnny
Speaker 8: had a crush on me. I thought it was a
Speaker 8: crush on my sister, and maybe it was. And so
Speaker 8: he used to come over to the house and we
Speaker 8: would see them. I remember, you know, some girls showed
Speaker 8: up at my house and they said, we wanted to
Speaker 8: sing in the Talent Show, but one of our singers
Speaker 8: is sick, and we heard that you can sing. And
Speaker 8: one of the girls of us, I said, can you sing?
Speaker 8: I said, well, if you came to church, you know. Okay,
Speaker 8: you know I sang in the Talent Show. But I said, well,
Speaker 8: the Jackson five is going to win the Talent Show.
Speaker 8: But we sang, and actually we sang It's going to
Speaker 8: take a miracle, and really that was the song we
Speaker 8: sang in the Talent Show. So, you know, I loved
Speaker 8: growing up in Indiana. It was a great time to
Speaker 8: be raised. There was great the discipline and the growing
Speaker 8: up in the church, and you know the way the
Speaker 8: elder black people were at that time and how proud
Speaker 8: they were as you know, doing their work and that
Speaker 8: kind of stuff. Of course, later on as a teenager,
Speaker 8: I did, you know, join the NAACP and I did
Speaker 8: some marchie for Jim Crow, you know, the John Birch
Speaker 8: Society and then folk so that was also part of
Speaker 8: my upbringing. But it was really wonderful to grew up
Speaker 8: in the Midwest where you had rules and regulations. You
Speaker 8: really knew who you were and you know, and what
Speaker 8: was going on. So it was wonderful. I'm grateful for
Speaker 8: my upbringing in the Midwest and in Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 2: Did you have any sort of interaction with other notable
Speaker 2: Gary people like I know that.
Speaker 1: Kim Misells from Gary as well, Kimzillia.
Speaker 2: No, okay, or like Fred Williamson or Ernest Ernest Lee
Speaker 2: Thomas who played rides from What's Happening.
Speaker 8: That's a funny story because my grandfather was a pastor.
Speaker 8: He had, you know, his membership. There's maybe about twenty
Speaker 8: twenty five of us up in my grandfather's church and
Speaker 8: he was a pastor, he was a musical director, he
Speaker 8: was the choir leader, and so the choir existed about
Speaker 8: five of us and Ernie Lee Ernie Thomas was one
Speaker 8: of the members of my grandfather's church. We grew up together.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, Wow, that's up.
Speaker 9: I've known him since I was about ten, probably in
Speaker 9: the early arts I comment I did a show at
Speaker 9: the House of Blues and you know, Ernest Lee Thomas
Speaker 9: was in the Foundation room like all excited, wanted to
Speaker 9: come back stage, and you know, I see him walking
Speaker 9: down the hallway and I'm all excited and.
Speaker 1: He's like asking me permission to, like, yo, can I
Speaker 1: can I meet him? Can I you know, take a photo?
Speaker 1: And everything? Da da da. He's like, I love this
Speaker 1: album and everything. He's like all excited and he goes
Speaker 1: to comment.
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, just you know, I'm trying to be
Speaker 2: respectful because you know, you know, ask your bodyguard first
Speaker 2: if you could, uh, you know, if.
Speaker 3: You could take a wow you were his bodyguard.
Speaker 10: I'm I'm gonna tell you something fun. That was the
Speaker 10: day where I was like, I have to lose weight.
Speaker 10: So when I never I never shared this story, but
Speaker 10: it was that day.
Speaker 6: When not I got to get more famous, so I
Speaker 6: gotta lose weight.
Speaker 2: No, I was like, wait a minute, I wear because
Speaker 2: he he he knew everything of that album, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, how do you know Common but don't
Speaker 2: know the Roots?
Speaker 1: And how do you not know that I'm a member
Speaker 1: of the Roots.
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, I'm sorry, No, offense, Sir, I
Speaker 2: thought you were his bodyguard, and I was like, ah, man,
Speaker 2: I gotta lose weight.
Speaker 10: So that that was the day.
Speaker 1: Wow, I had to do that. Man shout out. Shout
Speaker 1: out to Ernest Thomas.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the thing is is that you grew up
Speaker 2: in a church environment. What were first of all, how
Speaker 2: many siblings did you have in your household?
Speaker 8: Uh? There were two brothers and my sister Derek is
Speaker 8: under me Diane, and then don a l.
Speaker 1: Are you the baby or the I'm.
Speaker 8: The eldest, I'm the oldest?
Speaker 4: Was the D stand for anything where everybody was a d.
Speaker 8: My mom thought she was being unique. You know what
Speaker 8: can I say? I mean, my name is d E
Speaker 8: n I E c E right, my sister is Diane,
Speaker 8: but it's d y A N N E. She was,
Speaker 8: you know, trying to be unique and artistic and whatever else.
Speaker 1: She was well you know what, hey, she knew she
Speaker 1: was naming like you. That's right, We're an artist. You
Speaker 1: gave art to the world.
Speaker 2: So growing up in that environment, how like often kind
Speaker 2: of a common theme with some of the singers that
Speaker 2: come on the show is often like secular music is
Speaker 2: frowned upon, Like you have to stay in the church.
Speaker 2: So often they're they're transitioning from the church to kind
Speaker 2: of you know, secular music whatever, it's sort of met
Speaker 2: with a frown. What was the general feeling of secular
Speaker 2: music back then as far as your household was concerned.
Speaker 8: Well, it was frowned upon. You know, if you did
Speaker 8: the Devil's music, you want to win and row stick
Speaker 8: it on your way to hell, you know. So I
Speaker 8: was trying to stay on a hell.
Speaker 1: But so you weren't allowed to listen to Motel?
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I did, of course I saw that was okay.
Speaker 8: That was that, you know. But the bottom line is
Speaker 8: that my mother, who who was born and raised in
Speaker 8: the church under my grandmother, said when she got grown
Speaker 8: she was never going to church again. And so she
Speaker 8: drop us off that church on Sunday when I wasn't
Speaker 8: with my grandfather, and she would pick us up, but
Speaker 8: she did not go in. She was doing the drop
Speaker 8: off pickup service. And my an incredible music fan, so
Speaker 8: she had a turntable in her bedroom and all of
Speaker 8: these different records. So when she would go to work
Speaker 8: and I would get home from school before she got
Speaker 8: it there, I was sneaking in my mother's room and
Speaker 8: play all her stuff. I mean, I wanted to look like,
Speaker 8: sound like, dress like Nancy Wilson. That was my girl.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm Nancy Wilson, Dakota Staton, you know, Billy Eckstein.
Speaker 8: I was listening to all of them, and you know,
Speaker 8: with my through my mother's music, she had a very
Speaker 8: e collected collection. Like I learned a lot of standards
Speaker 8: songs because she had an album on Jackie Gleason and Jackie.
Speaker 8: It was the Jackie Gleason Orchestra, and they did all
Speaker 8: these standards but no lyrics. It was just oohs and odds.
Speaker 8: And I learned, you know, I would sing along with
Speaker 8: all of these, you know these records Marlena Shaw. I mean,
Speaker 8: so my whole upbringing with music, the secular music was
Speaker 8: going on in my house. I just you know, my
Speaker 8: mama didn't know I was sneaking in there listening to
Speaker 8: all her stuff, but I was. I was up in there.
Speaker 8: And then on television when you would see certain artists
Speaker 8: like I even told Johnny Mathews, I said, Honey, I
Speaker 8: do this duet because I've been listening to singing with
Speaker 8: you for thirty years. I was already okay, because I
Speaker 8: listed in all these shows and I've been a rehearsal
Speaker 8: for a long time. So it was my mother's record collection,
Speaker 8: you know, that really introduced me to secular music. And
Speaker 8: then you know, and then also growing up and my
Speaker 8: math teacher had the record store, so I was over
Speaker 8: there doing that, so I listened to all of them.
Speaker 8: You know, I loved all kinds of music, so you know,
Speaker 8: there was a way made for me to listen even
Speaker 8: though it was forbidden. I was carrying all my secret
Speaker 8: music life and enjoying myself.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't imagine a time where you know,
Speaker 2: music almost had the same sort of status as you
Speaker 2: know in some black churchs as almost like pornography, Like
Speaker 2: it was just forbidden. So what was that like for
Speaker 2: you as a teenager, because you know, being as of
Speaker 2: the year you were born, you know, by the time.
Speaker 1: That's you're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, where like there's.
Speaker 2: Now black psychedelic rock, there's you know, towns going through
Speaker 2: new phase of sliding the family stone.
Speaker 1: Like how is that affecting your teen years? Well?
Speaker 8: I tell you it did. And probably the most impactful
Speaker 8: thing that happened to me was that I did do
Speaker 8: a local record you know when I was I think
Speaker 8: I was eighteen, called love Is Tears and it was
Speaker 8: written by Eugene Records of the Shylights in Barbara Makes
Speaker 8: a Woman, Barbara Acklin and Gene. Because my teacher who
Speaker 8: owned the the record store he was he came in
Speaker 8: the back one day and he heard me singing by
Speaker 8: Maretha Franklin record I think I was singing eight and
Speaker 8: no Way something like that. And then he came out
Speaker 8: to the record party. He said, I didn't know you
Speaker 8: could sing. I said, because you don't go to church,
Speaker 8: you know. So he's he it had talked to my
Speaker 8: mom and say, can I bring over some record people
Speaker 8: from Chicago to hear her sing, you know, to think
Speaker 8: about recording her. My mom said yes, because you know,
Speaker 8: she was like, listen, honey, you sing what you want
Speaker 8: to sing. Them other people in that church they crazy nice.
Speaker 8: And so they came over and they hurt me and
Speaker 8: they and we recorded this song called Love's Tears. And
Speaker 8: so but when my church found out that I had
Speaker 8: recorded that song, they stood me up in church. They
Speaker 8: stripped me up my membership. I was singing in five
Speaker 8: choirs at that Indiana State choir. They said I couldn't
Speaker 8: sing in the choirs anymore, and they went off on
Speaker 8: me because I was I was a sinner and I
Speaker 8: had done this. So you know, after they did that,
Speaker 8: I kind of swung over to my mother's side in
Speaker 8: a minute, like I'm not coming back and so go,
Speaker 8: you know, do what you want to do. Are you
Speaker 8: unhappy women getting up on Sundays snopping and crying at
Speaker 8: your husband street? Anyway, talk about.
Speaker 3: It, talk about it.
Speaker 6: So that first, that first song you did, the Love
Speaker 6: Is Tears, you did that under your name.
Speaker 3: That wasn't under Ali, it was.
Speaker 8: Under Denise Chandler because Williams's name. So it's Love Is
Speaker 8: Tears by Toddling Town Records. You know, I have one
Speaker 8: over there in my safe. I cot a little kept
Speaker 8: a little copy somebody sent me. And then they got
Speaker 8: mad with me and stripped me up my membership, and
Speaker 8: you know I couldn't go. And you know, my best
Speaker 8: friend at the time were my cousins, and we used
Speaker 8: to travel with their father who was the pastor, and sing.
Speaker 8: And they told me, oh, we can't have anything to
Speaker 8: do with you because of your voice. And I said, honey,
Speaker 8: I said, I am really that really hurts me. I'm
Speaker 8: sorry to hear that. But you have to live by
Speaker 8: what you believe, and I have to live by what
Speaker 8: I believe.
Speaker 1: So come nineteen seventy six, did you get your moment?
Speaker 8: I sure did, and I'm gonna get you more.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that, all right, we'll get to that.
Speaker 2: When did you wind up leaving Gary, Indiana?
Speaker 8: I love Gary, Indiana. I think when I was eighteen,
Speaker 8: I went away my you know, my band teacher, mister
Speaker 8: Bryant was like my father to me, and he got
Speaker 8: me into college. His roommate from college was the president
Speaker 8: of Morgan State.
Speaker 4: Yea, oh yes, almamado, Yes, I went there, all.
Speaker 8: Right, now, So he sent me to Morgan State, you
Speaker 8: know after that, and so it was like I went
Speaker 8: there and I majored in sex and drugs, and you know,
Speaker 8: the church people turned me a loose and I went
Speaker 8: to Morgan State and lost my mind. I ofques, I
Speaker 8: lost my mind.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, can you really be saying what was Baltimore
Speaker 4: like back then? Though? When you went to When you
Speaker 4: went to you.
Speaker 8: Know, Baltimore was wonderful. I enjoyed it. But I had
Speaker 8: a friend that lived in the dormitory, and she was
Speaker 8: in Philadelphia. Her name was China. So then you know,
Speaker 8: I was there on a student work kind of a program.
Speaker 8: And so I went into the high school in Baltimore
Speaker 8: to be a TA tacher teacher's assistant. And then women
Speaker 8: in that class they already had babies. Tenth graders had babies.
Speaker 8: They looked rough like they could eat me up. So
Speaker 8: I was so Chatta said, uh, girl, I heard they
Speaker 8: looking for a singer and a dancer down at this club.
Speaker 8: And so she said, let's go down there in the audition.
Speaker 8: And and so we went down to the club and
Speaker 8: I got the job singing, and she got the job dancing.
Speaker 8: And we were singing and dancing in a cage. She'd
Speaker 8: be on one cage and I was on another cage.
Speaker 8: So wow. Anyway, so.
Speaker 1: Hold on, let's go back to the cage.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, let's go back to the cage.
Speaker 4: It was the church.
Speaker 1: I'm already seeing the graphics for her episode.
Speaker 8: It was the opening act for these five guys that
Speaker 8: was called the Feminiques. They was waiting for the they
Speaker 8: change body, their surgery at John Hoppkins Hospital, Baltimore. Yes,
Speaker 8: opening up, Yes, yes, I forget the club.
Speaker 4: That was popping in Baltimore that was.
Speaker 6: Known Oh yeah, yes, So mister Denise, what was your
Speaker 6: attire in the cage?
Speaker 3: What was your outfit?
Speaker 8: I had on a love jumpsuit, you know, Tina had
Speaker 8: on little jumpsuits. And we was in the cage and
Speaker 8: I was singing by you know, the records of Rita
Speaker 8: and all that kind of stuff, and she'd be there. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I made more money in occasion I would have made
Speaker 8: if I stayed at school.
Speaker 1: And this was your first time out of away from home.
Speaker 8: And I'm telling you, this was my first time because
Speaker 8: my mom borrored my a neighbor's car Ronnie he Borreroddy
Speaker 8: car and she drove me from Gary, Indiana to Baltimore.
Speaker 8: And when my mom left us standing there and I
Speaker 8: pick up and she'd be down the road and then
Speaker 8: she's gone, and then I couldn't see. I said, who.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: School. I'm glad it had that history.
Speaker 8: Real nice, Thank God, albody. And they already had me church,
Speaker 8: had me set up in a church at Baltimore, and
Speaker 8: people that was gonna pick me up on Sunday and
Speaker 8: take me to church. I love to lasted about two.
Speaker 3: Months Oh it lasted that Long's that long?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it lasted that long.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: So, okay, you're in Baltimore. But the thing is, you
Speaker 2: released a single. So in your mind when you made
Speaker 2: that single, was that just a one off thing? Okay
Speaker 2: I made I made a forty five and whatever. But
Speaker 2: I mean, are you actively pursuing, like, Okay, I want
Speaker 2: to do this for real, I want to get a
Speaker 2: record deal and release music or is it just like Okay,
Speaker 2: I did that.
Speaker 1: That was fun.
Speaker 8: You know, I never wanted to sing.
Speaker 1: With that voice.
Speaker 8: No, because I grew up in a church with a
Speaker 8: lot of great gospel singers, my cousins. They would you know,
Speaker 8: they would sing and folks would be slaying in the
Speaker 8: spirit and falling out and shouting and running off through
Speaker 8: the church. And I would sing and they would listen
Speaker 8: and cry.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, well, and I was thinking, and.
Speaker 8: I'm doing something wrong because they're not falling out and
Speaker 8: speaking in tongue and doing all of that. They're just
Speaker 8: listening and they're crying. I mean, they would be boohoo
Speaker 8: crying when I was seeing and so I just thought
Speaker 8: I didn't have it. And my mom was a nurse's aide,
Speaker 8: My grandmother worked in the hospital as the nurse's age.
Speaker 8: I had an aunt who worked in sterilizing instruments, and
Speaker 8: so I wanted to be a nurse. That's what I
Speaker 8: was going to do.
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh wow, I remember that. Okay, I wanted to.
Speaker 8: Be a nurse. I wasn't thinking about the music industry
Speaker 8: or pursuing that at all.
Speaker 4: So who explained the tears to you and what they
Speaker 4: really meant?
Speaker 8: Who's playing?
Speaker 4: Was said?
Speaker 7: Who explained the tears to you? Like, who explained job? Yeah,
Speaker 7: because at the end of the day, you know, you
Speaker 7: still do that. So but it's it's a good thing.
Speaker 8: So they weren't saying anything to me, you know, they
Speaker 8: weren't saying a whole lot to my cousins, so that
Speaker 8: was falling out. You know, they would have their experience
Speaker 8: and falling out, but they didn't explain their reaction or
Speaker 8: their connection to what we were saying. Probably the only
Speaker 8: one that did that was my cousin who was kind
Speaker 8: of like my music teacher, you know, he was you know, Denise,
Speaker 8: there's if the altos are not strong enough, or the
Speaker 8: second soprano or first alan just feeling the hole, you know,
Speaker 8: just wherever the weakest.
Speaker 7: Oh no, Denise, I mean, did anybody ever explain to
Speaker 7: you that those tears mean so much more, you know
Speaker 7: or gift? Yes, because to this day those songs like
Speaker 7: your songs. I was listening today just remembering tearing up,
Speaker 7: So that's a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But they never said anything, you know, they would just
Speaker 8: you know, got critical when I did the R and
Speaker 8: B song expressed you know, their thoughts about my my
Speaker 8: talents and my cousins who had people fallen out. You know,
Speaker 8: they were the big, big cheese. They were the one
Speaker 8: and you know, the pastors children, and so they were
Speaker 8: the big folks in the church. And so I never
Speaker 8: thought I had a sad that I better go to
Speaker 8: school and be a nurse, you know. So that's the
Speaker 8: reason why I went to Baltimore. And like I said,
Speaker 8: I don't remember one professor's name, Professor Dix, And that
Speaker 8: was because she had gone to Africa and had all
Speaker 8: this fabulous jewelry, you know, from Africa, and I remember her.
Speaker 8: I don't remember the rest of it except being in
Speaker 8: the cage.
Speaker 1: Wow, man, I love the storyteller.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, is that was that your first
Speaker 2: like true professional experience.
Speaker 1: Singing background or with the national artist that I mean
Speaker 1: with Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 8: He was the very first. Well, no, let me back up.
Speaker 8: When I did the local song, I was asked to
Speaker 8: sing at the Masonic Temple on this show with Jerry Butler,
Speaker 8: and then I was asked if I would, you know,
Speaker 8: sing let it be me with him, because I think
Speaker 8: he sang with.
Speaker 1: A pretty good and.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah. So I sang let it be me with
Speaker 8: with with Jerry Butler, and I was like, oh gosh,
Speaker 8: I thought I had died and gone to heaven, you know,
Speaker 8: because I loved his voice. He was huge in those
Speaker 8: days in the Chicago area and you know, all over
Speaker 8: with music. And so that was my first time singing
Speaker 8: with a professional person. But the second time would be
Speaker 8: with Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 1: So what led you to that journey.
Speaker 8: I had a cousin, John Harris, and when John's grandmother
Speaker 8: and my grandmother were sisters. But John lived in Detroit.
Speaker 8: So the first time John came, oh Lord Jesus, I
Speaker 8: fell in love with that black man. He had compel.
Speaker 8: He was you know, he got yeah that in his hair, girl, okay,
Speaker 8: And so he would come. So my sister said, don't
Speaker 8: even think about it. That's your cousin. That's blood y'all.
Speaker 8: Get together. You're gonna have idiot children, you know what
Speaker 8: I mean?
Speaker 4: That real John.
Speaker 8: So John would come in, you know, every summer for
Speaker 8: one week and then what So he's from Detroit, So
Speaker 8: he kept telling me, telling us, you know, I worked
Speaker 8: for Stevie Wonder. I said, boy, Pinocchio, your nose is growing.
Speaker 8: You don't know Stevie Wonder. Everybody Detroit say they know
Speaker 8: Stevie Wonder. And he told me that for like three
Speaker 8: years that he knew and was working with Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 8: So when I went to school in Baltimore, he called me.
Speaker 8: He said, Okay, Stevie's doing a concert in Baltimore and
Speaker 8: I'm gonna give you a backstage pass. And so I
Speaker 8: went to the concert. He introduced me to Stevie. I
Speaker 8: think I first met him when I was eighteen, and
Speaker 8: he introduced me to Stevie. So I was apologizing to
Speaker 8: John Tell was insane. I believe it. Anyway, That's how
Speaker 8: I first met Do you know I let him drive
Speaker 8: my car with his blind stuff.
Speaker 4: Yo, It's like a whole long list of people who
Speaker 4: let him do this?
Speaker 2: Why is he we can do a compilation? And the
Speaker 2: amount of times Stevie wanted to has driven.
Speaker 1: Someone's car.
Speaker 8: My life flashing in front of my eyes and his too.
Speaker 6: But anyway, you were in the car while you weren't
Speaker 6: just letting him drive it. You were riding with him
Speaker 6: while he got on the brake.
Speaker 1: Ah, Sir, I.
Speaker 8: Love Jesus, but I wasn't trying to see him that day.
Speaker 8: So anyhow, about two years after that, Uh, John came
Speaker 8: and he said, hey, what you doing? And I said, Man,
Speaker 8: I have to leave school because that science was kicking
Speaker 8: my butt. I said, I don't know what I do
Speaker 8: with myself, but I you know I can't handle the science.
Speaker 8: He said, well, you want me to get you an
Speaker 8: audition with Stevie. I said, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 8: He said, no, Denise. He said, you know he's auditioning
Speaker 8: for singers, and if you want to, I'll get him
Speaker 8: to give you a ticket to come to Detroit and
Speaker 8: you can, you know, audition, And that's what happened. I
Speaker 8: went in. There was about twenty of us, and I
Speaker 8: was one of the three that he chose for wonder Love.
Speaker 1: I mean, I consider the core you Jim Gilstrap was.
Speaker 8: He Jim I first came aboard.
Speaker 1: Huh wow, Okay, I never saw one of Love with
Speaker 1: a male singer. Okay, that's dope.
Speaker 8: Lonnie Gross was there, Jim, and Lonnie Grosse was there
Speaker 8: when I joined, and then Shirley came a little bit
Speaker 8: after me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so well Green also, but before the.
Speaker 8: Supreen came after too. After Oh, Lonnie left.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's Jim singing, if I'm not mistaking.
Speaker 6: Is that Jim singing the first verse of your the
Speaker 6: Sunshine of My Life.
Speaker 2: He's also the male voice on Good Times. I Gotta
Speaker 2: tell the Storis We've mentioned Jim is a singing partner
Speaker 2: on that. There's another artist that was on Motown that
Speaker 2: Stevie was managing at the time named Blinky.
Speaker 1: And oh you know, okay, but.
Speaker 2: There's one scene in Summer and Soul that I had
Speaker 2: to leave out. Blinky was like a performer on the
Speaker 2: on the festival and they were doing a cover of
Speaker 2: Light My Fire.
Speaker 1: And you know, these are union musicians, not.
Speaker 2: Like people that are familiar with the music, and August
Speaker 2: of Wind came and blew the music sheet off of
Speaker 2: their stands. So it's one of the most hilarious moments
Speaker 2: of them not knowing how to end the song. So
Speaker 2: there they keep playing in a round circle and it's
Speaker 2: it's the greatest car crash I ever heard in my life,
Speaker 2: Like of her.
Speaker 1: Trying to end the song, but you know it couldn't happen.
Speaker 2: But I always wanted to know, like, was Blinky one
Speaker 2: of his background singers or just I never.
Speaker 8: Heard that she was one of his background singers. I
Speaker 8: know her as a singer and as an art as
Speaker 8: a recording artist, but I never heard that she was
Speaker 8: actually one of the females.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he managed her, or at least according to the
Speaker 2: contracts that that we had, he was one of her managers,
Speaker 2: but her and Yvonne Fair.
Speaker 1: Were under him.
Speaker 2: But okay, I always wanted to know, like about the
Speaker 2: other singers that were in the stable and if they
Speaker 2: were wonderlove members or whatnot.
Speaker 1: Did you talk about that.
Speaker 4: Experience, because I'm about to ask the audition, I was like,
Speaker 4: what was that?
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, what's that experience?
Speaker 8: Like that was scary because you know, some of them
Speaker 8: showed up with the piano, they had music they wanted
Speaker 8: to sing. I just showed up and just watching everybody
Speaker 8: you know, in their professional audition. I was sitting there saying,
Speaker 8: oh God, oh god, I don't know why I came.
Speaker 8: So then he called me up and I started to cry.
Speaker 8: I said, I don't know what to sing. I don't
Speaker 8: know what to do. So he started playing teach me Tonight,
Speaker 8: and then I would, you know, sing along with him,
Speaker 8: and I learned, and i'd, you know, do some riffs
Speaker 8: or something, would teach me Tonight, and then all of
Speaker 8: us at the very end, you know, it has split
Speaker 8: up into four part harmony, and we all ended with
Speaker 8: singing teach Me Tonight. And that was my audition. I
Speaker 8: was not prepared. I was not ready, but he saw something.
Speaker 1: I see, all right, that makes sense for our listeners
Speaker 1: who don't know. Everyone in that band was a legend.
Speaker 2: I mean, from drummer Alie Brown to of course we
Speaker 2: know Ray Parker Jr. Michael Simbello, yeah, yeah, Michael sim
Speaker 2: all those people, but even like the so just in general,
Speaker 2: like I was, I always thought of Wonderloves as an army.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you? How was your experience
Speaker 1: in touring with that unit?
Speaker 8: Well? I was scared, so it was difficult, but I
Speaker 8: came in Dave Samberg was on saxophone. The Brecker Brothers
Speaker 8: were playing with Stevie.
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, they were.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Samborn and the Brecker Brothers were there. So there
Speaker 8: was a lot of incredible musicians that came through Stevie's stable.
Speaker 8: It was hard for me in the beginning because I went,
Speaker 8: I actually came. By the time I did the audition,
Speaker 8: I had one son. You know, I had been married
Speaker 8: and I had had had a son. So me trying
Speaker 8: to balance motherhood and broals the professional business of the
Speaker 8: recording industry was really tough. But he really worked with
Speaker 8: me because you know, I'd be singing and one of
Speaker 8: the girlfriends would be standing on the side with the baby,
Speaker 8: you know. So you know, he really worked. And it
Speaker 8: was hard because I was the only one that was
Speaker 8: a parent. Nobody else had any children, so they weren't
Speaker 8: leading that double life of you know, having this profession
Speaker 8: and touring but still having to raise you know, my
Speaker 8: raise my child. And I think by the second year
Speaker 8: I was with him, I had another baby, you know,
Speaker 8: so it was you know, it wasn't easy. I was scared.
Speaker 8: You know. The very first concert I did with him,
Speaker 8: somebody said we were going to be doing in Philadelphia,
Speaker 8: and I remember it was a club in a King
Speaker 8: of pressure Philadelphia. I saw from outside the hotel, you know,
Speaker 8: saying Philly that way. We were in King of Pressure.
Speaker 8: But you know, it was just me. Thing for me
Speaker 8: was balancing a career and being a mother.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen seventy two, you know, because I think in
Speaker 2: everyone's mind, especially by the seventies, it's like, oh, you're
Speaker 2: on television, you must be a millionaire. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: they're on Sesame Street, they gotta be rich. So what's
Speaker 2: singing with one of the premiere acts of his era?
Speaker 2: Was that a good living?
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 8: Two, I think it was an okay living. You know,
Speaker 8: we made it work, but no Steven was making the
Speaker 8: money and you know, we were getting salary that was
Speaker 8: you know, it was okay, but it wasn't great. The
Speaker 8: thing that really helped me is that my mom left
Speaker 8: Indiana and moved out to California, so she was helping
Speaker 8: with the kids and we were living together. So that
Speaker 8: was a great help to me that my mom decided,
Speaker 8: you know, I want you to have this career and
Speaker 8: I don't want you to you know, so concerned about
Speaker 8: the boys, and and actually it had not it been
Speaker 8: for my mom coming out. I couldn't have trusted my
Speaker 8: children to anybody else. She took that off of me.
Speaker 8: And collectively, you know, we did Okay, was it? You know?
Speaker 8: Was was I rich or no? You know, but you
Speaker 8: know we we made it work, you know, definitely we
Speaker 8: made it work.
Speaker 1: So and being in wonder love.
Speaker 2: One of the requirements was well, not requirements, but you
Speaker 2: felt it was wise for you to move to Los
Speaker 2: Angeles as opposed to just going north to New York.
Speaker 8: Or initially in the beginning we did go to New York,
Speaker 8: but then after being there for a couple of months,
Speaker 8: Stevie decided to move to Los Angeles, and so we
Speaker 8: went to LA.
Speaker 2: And did this also include session work as well? Like
Speaker 2: what notable songs are you singing the background on?
Speaker 8: I didn't do a lot of session work with him.
Speaker 8: I started doing a lot of session work when I
Speaker 8: left town, you know, so you know, I sang quite
Speaker 8: a bit with ROBERTA. Flack, who then eventually hired me,
Speaker 8: Lonnie Grose and Patty Austin to travel her with her
Speaker 8: as background singers. It was what was right, I think
Speaker 8: I'm on that's the time I feel like making love.
Speaker 8: And yes, roberta Flack, you know so. But when I
Speaker 8: was with Stevie, I didn't do a whole lot of
Speaker 8: background work.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: I was on a retainer, I was on a salary,
Speaker 8: and I felt a responsibility to stay there and sing
Speaker 8: with him and not go out and do a lot
Speaker 8: of stuff. But the minute I stepped away, I was
Speaker 8: doing quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, who else was poaching you at the time when
Speaker 2: you were in Wonder Love to come sing with me?
Speaker 8: Well, I had a real frightening experience with Ike Turner,
Speaker 8: you know, wow talk to me and he had me
Speaker 8: speaking in tongues up in there. I thought, Jesus, I
Speaker 8: got the gun. And uh, Kenny Gamble, you know, Philadelphia
Speaker 8: heard me singing and they approached me, and I said,
Speaker 8: you know, that's okay, because Kenny Gambles had like a
Speaker 8: chair that sat like a throne, sitting up high, and
Speaker 8: he had you sitting down, and I thought, I don't
Speaker 8: think I like this too much, so I said no,
Speaker 8: thank you.
Speaker 1: You know, based on the hystatics of his positioning of saying, man,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 8: Telling me to go up in there and I want
Speaker 8: to go, and I was scared, and he was saying,
Speaker 8: I don't think it's just for you, Denise, and I said,
Speaker 8: I agree, it's not.
Speaker 4: Bye, So wait, can you tell us what's the words?
Speaker 4: Did I say words to you that made you go?
Speaker 8: Or was it I wanted to know what I wanted
Speaker 8: to do and what I wanted to do with my
Speaker 8: career where you know, I think I wanted to go.
Speaker 8: And I said, uh, I think I'm gonna stay right
Speaker 8: there with wonder love for right now. And thank you
Speaker 8: so much for considering and talking to me.
Speaker 4: Thank you you could be taking them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you made the right decision.
Speaker 2: I should note that, you know, in seventy two one
Speaker 2: of the more unusual pairings. Again, even as unusual pairings go,
Speaker 2: like for those that have seen you know, Bill Graham's lineups,
Speaker 2: like it was very typical for you to see like
Speaker 2: Miles Davis and The Grateful Dead one Night, or like
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrickson, you know, like some other act that's the
Speaker 2: opposite of him.
Speaker 1: But you guys happened to be on tour.
Speaker 2: And you know, for those that followed the history of
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones, it should probably be noted that perhaps
Speaker 2: they're nineteen seventy two tour document it very well in
Speaker 2: a yet unseen documentary called Cocksucker Blues. Was really like
Speaker 2: one of the first sort of ganders into what we
Speaker 2: now think like debauchery rock life. Was, you know, the
Speaker 2: idea of private airplanes and groupies on the road and
Speaker 2: just at least at least the half hour of that
Speaker 2: documentary that I saw, can you talk about And I'm
Speaker 2: mainly asking this because you know, ten years later they'll
Speaker 2: try the same thing. But Prince and the experience was
Speaker 2: not good for Prince where you know, he was famously
Speaker 2: booed off stage. But at the time when Stevie Wonder
Speaker 2: is being asked a tour with the Rolling Stones, was
Speaker 2: there was there any trepidation at all, like, Okay, what
Speaker 2: do they want with this soul act and how do
Speaker 2: we like? What was the audience response night after night
Speaker 2: to to Stevie Wonder, who had yet to really prove
Speaker 2: himself as an adult artist.
Speaker 8: Well, they absolutely loved him. I mean, Stevie got during
Speaker 8: that particular tour, he got you know, mad reception from
Speaker 8: the audience, and I think that, you know, that's what
Speaker 8: really blew him up when he opened for the roly Stones,
Speaker 8: who was were renowned and well you know known, and
Speaker 8: the music well known. So that opened up the door,
Speaker 8: a giant door for uh Stevie to be there with them.
Speaker 8: And the reception was, you know, was good. He did
Speaker 8: very well.
Speaker 2: So you guys weren't pelted with any tomatoes or or
Speaker 2: any of those things.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the Prince story at all?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, Mick Jagger is a fan of
Speaker 2: dirty mining controversy and asked Prince to open up for
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones and about one song and just you know,
Speaker 2: the first time is this merciless booze and some Jack
Speaker 2: Daniel's bottles. But the next day they came armed with like,
Speaker 2: you know, chicken and watermelon and oh so it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Which is where considered that it's Los Angeles. He would think, like,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles is way harder, yeah, to please than New
Speaker 2: York City was.
Speaker 4: But you can't do that to a blind man. Now,
Speaker 4: you can't be throwing the water mountains on the steak.
Speaker 8: No, I didn't know that that happened to him, but we,
Speaker 8: you know, we were fine. I think the thing that
Speaker 8: terrified me, especially as a little church girl, is the
Speaker 8: drugs that were circulated, that they have their own doctor
Speaker 8: on the road with them to keep them pumped up.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh Jesus, So you know, we haven't
Speaker 2: had an artist on here that has been on a
Speaker 2: tour of that magnitude.
Speaker 1: So what can you describe?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean we have a I mean we can imagine
Speaker 2: like what it's like on a wild crazy tour, but
Speaker 2: you just generally describe what you saw like during that
Speaker 2: time period.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, it was really funny what usually happened
Speaker 8: with me on those tours. And it started with that
Speaker 8: tour is all the roadies really liked me, and they
Speaker 8: would say, you know, you want some Hashi you want
Speaker 8: you know, we got coke, we got that, And I'll say,
Speaker 8: not in Jesus knowing Jesus name, I don't want none
Speaker 8: of that. You know real quick that I'm not gonna
Speaker 8: be bothered with none of that. You can't have no Kuchie.
Speaker 8: And by back it, miss I had to play the
Speaker 8: Jesus card, you know, you know, because once I went
Speaker 8: to preaching and talking about Jesus, they would back up like,
Speaker 8: oh yeah, she really she's cute little girl, you know,
Speaker 8: but she really that she's not gonna do nothing, you know.
Speaker 8: But they, you know, they would offer me we we
Speaker 8: got this, and they walk up with the roll stuff
Speaker 8: and walk over with stuff, and I said, no, no, God,
Speaker 8: don't ID don't like that. So I, you know, I
Speaker 8: played that the Christian card and after a while they
Speaker 8: would see that I wasn't interested, so they would leave
Speaker 8: me alone. But I remember one night, for some reason,
Speaker 8: I got caught coming out late and we were supposed
Speaker 8: to come out and get on the bus, and for
Speaker 8: some reason, I don't know why, I got disconnected from
Speaker 8: the group, and so I went out. The crowd outside
Speaker 8: was crazy. It was in Chicago, and they were throwing teers.
Speaker 8: The police were throwing tear gas, and so I got
Speaker 8: caught up in that. I did our bus and I
Speaker 8: hopped on I got on it, but I did the
Speaker 8: you know, the tear gas thing, and had gotten my eyes.
Speaker 8: So that was probably one of the worst experiences I
Speaker 8: had with them, except for the after party at the
Speaker 8: Playboard matching in Chicago, when it took me a long
Speaker 8: time to get out of there because I couldn't find
Speaker 8: a dough.
Speaker 4: I love you so much to do.
Speaker 8: I just find the door, girl?
Speaker 1: How long?
Speaker 4: I just I wonder how long you was in there
Speaker 4: trying to find the door, and all the least.
Speaker 8: Forty five minutes in the one room. I walked down
Speaker 8: the hall and there was nothing in the room but
Speaker 8: a hole in a pole. So maybe if I go
Speaker 8: down the pole, out the door. So I went down the.
Speaker 1: Sliding down like a poll.
Speaker 7: Listen, I'm trying to be out down means out glass
Speaker 7: and slid down the pole.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I was trying to get out of there.
Speaker 4: And first of the last time you slid down the pole.
Speaker 8: Last first and the last, I said, Lord Jesus, if
Speaker 8: you getting me out of here, you don't have to
Speaker 8: never worry about me coming up in here again.
Speaker 1: And wow, okay, so.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait a minute. I would
Speaker 2: like to get her version of this story now. Uh
Speaker 2: you know your your your fellow? Uh wonder lovey and
Speaker 2: Ray Parker Parker Jr. Kind of gave a very ambiguous hint.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't totally confirm it.
Speaker 1: Uh we Also, I mean, this is way before great
Speaker 1: villain gains this time, but I need to ask. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the week that inner Visions gets released. Uh, you
Speaker 1: guys are booked somewhere in North Carolina. Stevie Wonder is
Speaker 1: in an accident. What is your version of what happened?
Speaker 8: I believe my cousin. What I remember is that my
Speaker 8: cousin John was driving. They were in the car and
Speaker 8: John fell asleep.
Speaker 1: Your cousin was the driver.
Speaker 7: I believe John was yeah, oh wow, okay, all these
Speaker 7: q are really tied together this yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, okay. I I wasn't even ready for that.
Speaker 1: I sort of had the feeling that they were trying.
Speaker 2: Ray was trying to allude to me that this is
Speaker 2: one of those moments where Stevie insisted on driving or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so I don't think.
Speaker 8: Any was driving. If I remember it correctly, my cousin
Speaker 8: John was driving, and he nodded a fell asleep or
Speaker 8: something like that. That's my recollection of the story. Doesn't
Speaker 8: make it true, but that's what I was I heard,
Speaker 8: and I have always thought.
Speaker 2: Happened because I was too young to remember it and
Speaker 2: only heard about it in sort of like retrospect. Was
Speaker 2: there were you guys basically like, well, he won't make
Speaker 2: it because I remember it.
Speaker 1: Steevie was in a coma for at least a month
Speaker 1: or so.
Speaker 8: Correct, I didn't know it was a month or so,
Speaker 8: but I know he was badly injured here, he was
Speaker 8: out of it for a while.
Speaker 1: But okay, so in your mind is it like he
Speaker 1: may make it, he may not make it, like what's
Speaker 1: going through the mind of the band, at least in
Speaker 1: terms of we.
Speaker 8: Didn't know exactly if he was going to make it
Speaker 8: or not. You know, we didn't know what was happening
Speaker 8: after that. But you know, you just pray and hope
Speaker 8: the best. And then he did come out of it,
Speaker 8: you know, so, And I was grateful for that, even
Speaker 8: for his sake, for John's sake, for feeling so guilty,
Speaker 8: so bad about to carry that load. So for him
Speaker 8: to come out with and it would accomplish the things
Speaker 8: he accomplished really helped the spirit and the heart of John.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So I also know that you're one of the last
Speaker 2: people to work with the great Charles Stephanie, whom you
Speaker 2: know for our QoS listeners, really, I mean, yeah, any
Speaker 2: anything on on Cadet records, the Lewis Ramsey Lewis, the
Speaker 2: seventies output of the Dells, you know, even some of
Speaker 2: the blues artists like you know with Muddy Waters record
Speaker 2: and the Electric Mud album and many Rippetons come to
Speaker 2: My Garden album, but you know, most notably his, he's
Speaker 2: the one that really took Earth Wind and Fire and
Speaker 2: was a mentor to Maurice White. So a big part
Speaker 2: of that Earthwind and Fire sound that we're so in
Speaker 2: love with. You know, it's due to the colors that
Speaker 2: Charles Stephanie painted. Knowing nothing about him, really, could you
Speaker 2: describe what Charles Stephanie was in your world and just
Speaker 2: in general for just that whole organization.
Speaker 8: Well, Charles Stephanie, like you said, brought a color and
Speaker 8: a style to Earth Wind and Fire that was really
Speaker 8: the most beautiful collaboration in their music. As far as
Speaker 8: I'm concerned, Charles Stephanie was just brilliant. When I was
Speaker 8: doing a song call on my first project, If you
Speaker 8: Don't Believe, and he just lifted up the top of
Speaker 8: the piano. He took a guitar pick and just strum
Speaker 8: on the strings. That's what you hear in the very
Speaker 8: in the very beginning of If you Don't Believe, He
Speaker 8: and Oscar for Schure on trump it and he's just
Speaker 8: taking a guitar pick and strumming on those strings. I
Speaker 8: don't know who else would have thought of that. The
Speaker 8: way he heard my music, the way he heard my voice,
Speaker 8: even the way he heard Minnie Ripperton's voice, and what
Speaker 8: he did with the Rotary Connection and with many, the
Speaker 8: way he you know, Charles Stephanie was just a brilliant
Speaker 8: producer and a ranger. And you can tell how the
Speaker 8: music changed and how he was missed. After Charles passed away,
Speaker 8: the sound of earth Wind and Fire changed. It didn't
Speaker 8: change in a bad way, but it changed in a
Speaker 8: different way. You've now got a whole different sound than
Speaker 8: the sound that Charles Stephanie created with That's the Way
Speaker 8: of the World and those you know, those songs. He
Speaker 8: it was that whole flavor, that whole feel, that whole
Speaker 8: touch was gone. He was very very, very very powerful
Speaker 8: or played a such a big role in my music,
Speaker 8: the emotions music, earth Wind and virus music. Many were
Speaker 8: in the Rotary Connection. There's just nobody like him. I
Speaker 8: know that Marie went with another arranger and he was
Speaker 8: very very good Tom Tom eighty Tom Tom eighty four,
Speaker 8: but Tom Tom eighty four and Charles Stephanie had two
Speaker 8: very very different sounds and approaches, And I believe that
Speaker 8: once Charles passed, what you could hear.
Speaker 2: It at the time, are you hoping that perhaps you
Speaker 2: could have your own career as a singer or maybe
Speaker 2: one of Love does a record, because you know, at
Speaker 2: the time Cev's doing the Serta album, he's also working
Speaker 2: with you know, he does stuff with the Supremes, he
Speaker 2: does Miracles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So for you, what was it about whatever mar east
Speaker 2: White was bringing to the table that made you decide
Speaker 2: to go with that camp?
Speaker 1: And how do you leave the Wonderlove camp? And was
Speaker 1: it amicable?
Speaker 8: I don't think no, it wasn't amicable. I think if
Speaker 8: you asked Ray Parker the same question, he probably said, no,
Speaker 8: that wasn't amicable.
Speaker 1: All right, So walk us through how do you leave
Speaker 1: the situation?
Speaker 8: Well, for three years I was with Steve for three
Speaker 8: three three and a half years, and for three years
Speaker 8: he promised to do a project on Wonderlove and it
Speaker 8: never happened. We would be in the studio writing and
Speaker 8: you know, rehearsing, and he never would record us. It
Speaker 8: was always one excuse after the other for him not
Speaker 8: to record us. Like you said, he was working with
Speaker 8: other artists, other artists you know that had careers already.
Speaker 8: He did something with the Jackson five, you know, you know,
Speaker 8: he he was working with other artists, but when it
Speaker 8: came to Wonderlove, he wasn't doing anything. And finally we
Speaker 8: had a discussion about it, and he got, you know,
Speaker 8: upset that I chose to confront him on this issue,
Speaker 8: and so I said, okay, I'm done. So what happened
Speaker 8: is one night when Wonderlove was performing, we would always
Speaker 8: perform one of our songs, and so this one night,
Speaker 8: they said, let's do Denise's song Free, you know, which
Speaker 8: I had written when I was with Susse Green and
Speaker 8: Nathan Watson when we were in Wonderlove, which was one
Speaker 8: of the songs that we were hoping to record us Wonderlove.
Speaker 8: And that night they said, we were you know, let's
Speaker 8: do Denise's songs. So I sang Free that night. But
Speaker 8: what I didn't know is Maury's White, Philip Bailey Verding White,
Speaker 8: and their attorney was sitting on the front row. I
Speaker 8: heard me singing Free. So then the attorney came backstage
Speaker 8: and he said, oh, we loved your performers who wrote
Speaker 8: that song song is that, I said, Well, I wrote
Speaker 8: it with a couple of people in the band, I said,
Speaker 8: but I got other songs too, and Philip can sing
Speaker 8: them because we got a same register. So that's how
Speaker 8: it happened that Maurice White, Maurice and those guys heard
Speaker 8: me sing, and that's you know, that's how I got
Speaker 8: introduced to them. It was while I was with Stevie.
Speaker 8: So I think another six seven months went by and
Speaker 8: Steve still wasn't doing anything. So I left and I
Speaker 8: left him and I got That's when I joined ROBERTA
Speaker 8: Flack with Lonnie Groves and Patty Austin. And while I
Speaker 8: was doing ROBERTA Flack, I got a call saying that
Speaker 8: Maurice wanted to meet with me, and I, you know,
Speaker 8: I had a meeting with them, and the seven songs
Speaker 8: that I sent hoping that Earth went at fire would
Speaker 8: cover them, and Philip was singing is the seven songs
Speaker 8: that Maurice wanted. Decided to do my first project on.
Speaker 8: So that's how that happened. You know, I just got,
Speaker 8: you know, a little tired of waiting on Steve to
Speaker 8: do what he kept telling us he would do it,
Speaker 8: and like even like six months after I'd been there,
Speaker 8: and he you know, he wasn't doing it. He did,
Speaker 8: he did many rippertendse perf I was on you know,
Speaker 8: Minni's album of the Perfect Angel album, and he was
Speaker 8: doing all this stuff with other people. And I understand that,
Speaker 8: you know, they had record deals, they had money to
Speaker 8: pay him for his production. I understood that, but I
Speaker 8: felt like, you could, we could at least record one
Speaker 8: song every other month or something to start a project together.
Speaker 8: And he was just really lax and doing that, and
Speaker 8: you know, I said no, And especially when you know,
Speaker 8: I made great money with ROBERTA. Flack and I will
Speaker 8: always be grateful to her because wonder love the girls.
Speaker 8: You know, we traveled with the band on the bus
Speaker 8: when we were singing with ROBERTA. Flat She said no, no, no,
Speaker 8: you're riding the limousine with me, and it was a
Speaker 8: whole different treatment. She taught me a lot about how
Speaker 8: to treat the people that you're on the stage with. That.
Speaker 8: You know, that is always carried with me, because, like
Speaker 8: I said, the ladies, we were on the bus with
Speaker 8: the band and the equipment and stuff, and with her
Speaker 8: we were riding the limousine and then you know, Mari's
Speaker 8: reached out. We had a meeting and I ended up
Speaker 8: recording with.
Speaker 2: Him songs in the key Life isn't even created yet.
Speaker 2: Was there a slight regret? Not regret, but you know,
Speaker 2: songs in the Key of Life comes out, and of
Speaker 2: course this is Stevie's magnum opus. Like even at that
Speaker 2: time period, did you have any sort of worries of trepidation, like, ah,
Speaker 2: we might have jumped the ship too early because this
Speaker 2: is a project that sets them off in the stratosphere.
Speaker 2: Or was it just like, Okay, I'm out here on
Speaker 2: my own, let's just no regrets, let's go for it.
Speaker 8: I wasn't on my own. I was with Earth Wind
Speaker 8: and Fire Well, and I was roberta Flack to you know,
Speaker 8: two groups who I respected, that's being who were interested
Speaker 8: in working with me, you know, so I did not
Speaker 8: feel like I was on my own. I was very
Speaker 8: happy for him, and I was more happy to be
Speaker 8: a part of that whole situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have oh oh, we can see the
Speaker 3: hardware in the back.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 8: I up here somewhere because he gave me a plaque,
Speaker 8: you know, for being on the being on the project.
Speaker 8: But in my heart and in my spirit, I felt
Speaker 8: it was time to go. I did not feel that
Speaker 8: there was any room to grow. I just felt like,
Speaker 8: you know, we're going to be here for the next
Speaker 8: twenty years. In fact, he has a band member that
Speaker 8: I was in a band with, Nathan Watson, is still
Speaker 8: there and it's been thirty five years.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, Nathan is still his bass player.
Speaker 8: He's still with them, And that could have been you know,
Speaker 8: any of us if we had decided to stay and
Speaker 8: I had babies and feed, I had mouths to feed.
Speaker 8: I didn't have time to be sitting there.
Speaker 7: Those job lessons right there? Are you supposed to give
Speaker 7: it what two three years? And if you know it
Speaker 7: ain't no movement, then you got on.
Speaker 8: That third year. It finally dawned on me this this
Speaker 8: could gone for a while and I really didn't want
Speaker 8: to to be there another three years or so years
Speaker 8: and he's still not do you know for wonder love
Speaker 8: what he was doing for other people, But like I say,
Speaker 8: you know, looking at it, you know he was being
Speaker 8: paid to produce. They had record labels, they had budgets,
Speaker 8: and you know he would have to do for us,
Speaker 8: So no, I didn't feel alone. I mean, especially when
Speaker 8: I jumped over there with earth Wind and Fire, there
Speaker 8: was no way to fill alone. And of course Philip
Speaker 8: Bailey and I became very very very close friends, you
Speaker 8: know during that time. That was my buddy.
Speaker 2: So were you opening for them at the time when
Speaker 2: you went to their camp, I was the opening act.
Speaker 8: I would trade off with the Emotions. I would, you know,
Speaker 8: do a couple of the tours and then the Emotion
Speaker 8: came on and then they had both of us as
Speaker 8: opening acts for Earth Wind Fire.
Speaker 2: So what did it feel like the first time in
Speaker 2: which you're in charge now where you're the artist and
Speaker 2: you have a band and all these things, Like was
Speaker 2: it weird now having to have the heavy lifting and
Speaker 2: decisions be up to you as opposed to getting an
Speaker 2: itinerary and see like what the thing is?
Speaker 1: And how did that feel for you? Like that first
Speaker 1: few months, it was very.
Speaker 8: Scared, you know, because I've been in the background and
Speaker 8: now I was in the forefront and they were literally
Speaker 8: pushing me out on stage. I didn't want to go.
Speaker 8: I was backstage and they were talking calling my name,
Speaker 8: and I said, I don't think I can do this.
Speaker 8: I don't want to do this. I don't think I
Speaker 8: can do this, and maybe back there you gotta do it.
Speaker 8: Push you know, I went out there. I mean it
Speaker 8: was like maybe three or four years before I feel
Speaker 8: comfortable going out there, you know. But you know, it's
Speaker 8: very different, like you said, when you're you know, somebody
Speaker 8: is taking care of everything, booking your hotels, booking your flights,
Speaker 8: you know, everything is going through you know, somebody else,
Speaker 8: and then all of a sudden, you've got to do this.
Speaker 8: So you have people that are doing it, but still
Speaker 8: you're you know, you're the head person that you've got
Speaker 8: to talk them through us. So it was very frightening,
Speaker 8: you know, for a while, and very frightening because one
Speaker 8: of my first tours as a solo artist was with
Speaker 8: the Ohio Players, them crazy folks.
Speaker 3: So wow, you sugarfoot with Sugarfoot, what.
Speaker 1: Was that like?
Speaker 8: I would say, okay, Jesus, okay, Jesus. I mean the
Speaker 8: boys was nuts one night and shook my hand and
Speaker 8: put his hotel room key in my hand and say,
Speaker 8: you know, I want to see you at midnight. So
Speaker 8: I ran to my road man, not him, but one
Speaker 8: of the mothers and which one it was it.
Speaker 1: Was a player, was a player players preaching?
Speaker 8: Well, he put his letner and I would run to
Speaker 8: my road manager, who was Leonard Smith, who was the
Speaker 8: big six foot eight guy in the show with Earth.
Speaker 8: When fire to hit the gong? Uh out there on
Speaker 8: the road with me, I said, Leonard. He said, don't
Speaker 8: worry about it, give me the key. D fool me
Speaker 8: after that at all?
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: He showed up.
Speaker 8: I got your right here.
Speaker 1: That was.
Speaker 8: But the thing about the tour with them was is
Speaker 8: that they had about thirty grand worth of lights and
Speaker 8: special lighting and stuff, and so the all of the
Speaker 8: light guys, all the the little you know, all the
Speaker 8: little roadies, they just loved me. So they said one
Speaker 8: night they said, you know, we don't use half of
Speaker 8: what we have, so we've been using it on you.
Speaker 8: I said, oh, you know, I was the open id
Speaker 8: been using it on you. And then as I was
Speaker 8: out there with them, free kept climbing up the charts,
Speaker 8: and so they got mad at me.
Speaker 3: Oh you was showing them up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there yeah, after yeah, it was your turn,
Speaker 1: just so you know, going up the charts.
Speaker 8: And they were just doing all they loved, you know,
Speaker 8: spending the thirty grand of light. They said, they're not
Speaker 8: using half of what we got, so we didn't using
Speaker 8: them on you.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, thank you, Wow, love it.
Speaker 2: Okay, my favorite album of yours was your your sophomore album,
Speaker 2: Song for That. I believe that the single from that
Speaker 2: record is baby My Love's All for You.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In my mind, I always thought that was like a massive,
Speaker 2: big hit. But what happened for that period in Songbird
Speaker 2: for You that didn't happen for the debut record, because
Speaker 2: I thought that album was bigger. It was my favorite,
Speaker 2: so I thought it was bigger. But can you talk
Speaker 2: to me about what happened there?
Speaker 8: I think that the main thing that happened there is
Speaker 8: that Charles Stephanie passed away and the sound changed.
Speaker 1: Okay, Murray was.
Speaker 8: Turning down original material that I had written to bring
Speaker 8: in outside material. So I think that that was two
Speaker 8: of the biggest problems with the project is that he
Speaker 8: no longer wanted to hear my personal expression and he
Speaker 8: brought another people to write, and that Charles Stephanie had
Speaker 8: passed away and we were now dealing with Tom Tom
Speaker 8: eighty for eighty eight, And those were the things that
Speaker 8: I think and I think so like, wait a minute,
Speaker 8: we heard this and now you're doing this, and we
Speaker 8: needed another project like this is NISSI to solidify who
Speaker 8: was And yet Maurice uh not, you know, not anything
Speaker 8: due to him, but it changed up and people were
Speaker 8: scrambling to find out, well, who is she really, you know,
Speaker 8: because this is not what we heard the first time around.
Speaker 8: And then I was also fighting with Sony, I mean
Speaker 8: Columbia case I did, God is truly amazing, and they
Speaker 8: were saying, we're not paying her to sing gospel stuff?
Speaker 8: What is this God of amazing stuff?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 8: And they were mad with me. I said, listen, if
Speaker 8: we got ten songs on a project, I'm gonna give
Speaker 8: him one. Get over it. And so we fought the
Speaker 8: next couple of years about me doing gospel music on
Speaker 8: my secular project. So that was going on to they
Speaker 8: were mad and.
Speaker 1: Was this the walk yet in the call period of
Speaker 1: Columbia or it.
Speaker 8: Was Walter and those guys, Yeah, very nice to me though,
Speaker 8: I you know, I would go in there and saying,
Speaker 8: what I need another couple of hundred grand what are
Speaker 8: you in here? But he would give it to me.
Speaker 8: So anyway, that was the bottom line. I didn't care
Speaker 8: how much he fussed. Go call Marvin down there and
Speaker 8: legal and send me my money. Baby needs shoes. And
Speaker 8: he always gave me the money, so you know, and
Speaker 8: no feels, no nothing, you know, get back up, just
Speaker 8: write the check now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh heavy.
Speaker 1: So that was still. That was prevalent. That was prevalent
Speaker 1: just throughout.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I love walking in the coffee. Was very
Speaker 8: very good to me. Bruce Lunvall started and then Walter.
Speaker 8: They were always very very good to me, uh and
Speaker 8: very respectful. And I will say, you know, I'm praying
Speaker 8: for you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: So they said, oh, oh, there she go, but they
Speaker 8: were very not happy with me. Would do it the
Speaker 8: gospel stuff.
Speaker 1: That's crazy because I of you know, of all your songs.
Speaker 1: I definitely remember that.
Speaker 2: That made a impression on my household, like God is
Speaker 2: really amazing and all those things.
Speaker 7: And that's the thing now for R and B singers
Speaker 7: to do to prove themselves on records now, putting the
Speaker 7: gospel record on it at a gospel jam last did.
Speaker 2: You feel the need to do that to sort of
Speaker 2: send a smoke signal back home to Gary, Indiana, to
Speaker 2: the church.
Speaker 8: You know, I did it because of my love for
Speaker 8: Father Son and Holy Ghost. I did it for me.
Speaker 8: I didn't do it for them, and at that time,
Speaker 8: I didn't really care about their opinion. But that's you know.
Speaker 8: I was raised in the church, and I felt like
Speaker 8: if people were going to have a total overview of
Speaker 8: me as an artist, I would have to do some
Speaker 8: gospel because that was a part of who I was.
Speaker 8: And so that's why I did it, you know. I
Speaker 8: did it for me and to make a statement to
Speaker 8: God that you know, I'm I'm really grateful for what
Speaker 8: you're allowing to happen in my life. And so I'm
Speaker 8: giving you this. You know, I'm dedicating this portion to you.
Speaker 2: But eventually you do return to Gary, Indiana. What is
Speaker 2: the response now that you're an established artist?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 8: Very different? And now I'm okay.
Speaker 2: Now you know church people, well, no, no, I met
Speaker 2: back in seventy seven, seventy six, seventy seven.
Speaker 8: Yeah, they're still acting a little funny, you know, because
Speaker 8: they still don't support or agree with what I'm doing.
Speaker 8: But it was funny. I came back around that time
Speaker 8: and I attended church with my two sons, and my
Speaker 8: uncle decided to preach a whole sermon and to church
Speaker 8: that Sunday on how I was going to hell because
Speaker 8: I had on makeup and beinging out polish and so
Speaker 8: and my children were there. So I got up and
Speaker 8: I came back, and you know, I was crying. I
Speaker 8: told my mother about it. So my mother wrote a
Speaker 8: letter to them, said, I heard what you guys did
Speaker 8: with my daughter, and this is what I want to tell.
Speaker 8: I heard you've been born burning up the mortgage papers
Speaker 8: because you done paid off the church. My daughter paid
Speaker 8: for that church. I want her money back with interest
Speaker 8: or I shut the hell up.
Speaker 1: Oh you what you did?
Speaker 8: The next time I went to church, my uncle said, Amen,
Speaker 8: sister Denise is here.
Speaker 3: Switched that tune up quick.
Speaker 8: For you them off. She said, I want her money
Speaker 8: back with interest. You over that burning the martgage paper
Speaker 8: and we know how you burning them. That's the tie
Speaker 8: she's been sent money.
Speaker 4: I said that. I didn't I say it, y'all, didn't
Speaker 4: I say?
Speaker 8: She said, I want the money back with aw shut
Speaker 8: the hell up, and did another word.
Speaker 2: Your first number one single comes a year later in
Speaker 2: probably the most unusual way, But this song was inescapable.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, Could you talk about the
Speaker 2: decision to pair up with Johnny Mathis and we do, well,
Speaker 2: just what that whole experience is like, and the irony
Speaker 2: that the second to last song on that record, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, winds up being even more popular than Too Much,
Speaker 2: Too Little, Too Late, which is of course the theme
Speaker 2: the family ties Without Us.
Speaker 1: Could you talk about that whole experience in doing that record, Well.
Speaker 8: It was wonderful. I was on the road opening up
Speaker 8: of Earth When a Fire, but I got a call
Speaker 8: from my manager and he was saying, you know, Johnny's
Speaker 8: considering doing a duet and your name has come up.
Speaker 8: What do you think. I said, Oh my god, I
Speaker 8: would love to sing with him. I didn't you know,
Speaker 8: looking and singing along with him on television all these years.
Speaker 8: I would love to do that. And so you know,
Speaker 8: they said, okay, Denise is willing to do it. Because
Speaker 8: they first went to my other the artists on the label.
Speaker 8: They went to Barbara Streissan and she said no, thank
Speaker 8: you God, yeah, she said no. So then they came
Speaker 8: to me, you know, the second strongest female artists on
Speaker 8: the label. Yeah. So it was funny. So when I
Speaker 8: told my mother I was going to see with Johnny Matthews.
Speaker 8: She don't ooh girl, I gotta get my nails done.
Speaker 1: I wanted to walk.
Speaker 8: And oh yeah, I said, Mom, I'm not taking you
Speaker 8: up in there because you know, I know she was
Speaker 8: gonna be buck wow. We won't go get no work
Speaker 8: done because she did that to me with Marvin gay.
Speaker 1: So you just.
Speaker 8: Go back, go back and will I'll introduce you to
Speaker 8: Johnny later. And I did you know, Wait, that's two stories,
Speaker 8: good bit.
Speaker 1: Wait what happened?
Speaker 8: Well, Marvin Gaye's brother was performing at a club called
Speaker 8: the Troubadour, and I wanted to see him, so we
Speaker 8: went down. I took my mom at the Trooper door
Speaker 8: and we went down to see Frankie singing. And so
Speaker 8: what happens is we sitting in our seats, but then
Speaker 8: here come Marvin. He come walking in there, and my
Speaker 8: mom was went off, Oh distant, lover, oh love, oh honey,
Speaker 8: and she just went off with marvat.
Speaker 11: Gay and I looked at her like, excuse me, Johnny
Speaker 11: rode around. I wasn't taking no chances, right.
Speaker 8: You don't meet him later, but you are not going
Speaker 8: to the studio. She didn't talk to me for a
Speaker 8: day or two, but she met him and it was
Speaker 8: all cold, best daughter ever.
Speaker 2: So in recording that record though, and especially with the
Speaker 2: song like too much, too Little, too Late, which okay, yes,
Speaker 2: you you're not the ilk of a tenor baritone gospel singer,
Speaker 2: you know of of the Mahelia Aretha.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: First of all, you're you're a soprano. So even with
Speaker 2: your the voice that you have, what is your active range? Like,
Speaker 2: are you able to also sing low as well? And
Speaker 2: you just chose to sing singing your upper register?
Speaker 8: Or I think I have a really nice low register
Speaker 8: that most people have not heard. But for some reason,
Speaker 8: when I was writing, I was just writing in those registers.
Speaker 8: So that's, you know, that's what I did. I never
Speaker 8: did write in the lower register or thinking the lower register. Now,
Speaker 8: A lot of what you hear me do is my mom.
Speaker 8: I used to you know, my mom was singing the
Speaker 8: shower and I'd be standing outside of the shower listening
Speaker 8: to her, and you know, all that stuff she did.
Speaker 8: You know, I got that from my You know, I
Speaker 8: got that from my mom. Choose to do so I
Speaker 8: think a lot of what you hear is me mimicking
Speaker 8: her as she did not, you know, sing I didn't
Speaker 8: hear her a lot in the law register, but I
Speaker 8: do have a really nice uh I'm lower registered.
Speaker 2: So that said, because you know, if I were of
Speaker 2: age of them, I wouldn't have been able to call
Speaker 2: that particular do what simply because I don't know Johnny
Speaker 2: as a belter or an ad lipper and that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. And of course, you know, when you get
Speaker 2: to the end of that song, I mean, you're just
Speaker 2: you're singing. You're not singing circles around him, but you
Speaker 2: know the way that your ad libs are, You're just
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's near Jordan levels of display, Like
Speaker 2: he's the sort of like I'm not trying to compare
Speaker 2: to Appen and Costello, like there's the straight man and
Speaker 2: then there's the punchline person.
Speaker 4: But Seinfeld and you know everybody.
Speaker 2: Do you guys, Do you guys discuss how you're going
Speaker 2: to do this? Are you singing together at the same time?
Speaker 2: Is it like I'll sing my part first and then
Speaker 2: you come and at your parts later, and then I'll
Speaker 2: read like for that album, are you singing is it
Speaker 2: together in person?
Speaker 1: Or how do you handle that? Well?
Speaker 8: We would listen to the song and the song would
Speaker 8: go down, and then John felt comfortable with me telling
Speaker 8: him a little bit of how to sing because he said,
Speaker 8: I've never sang with anybody before, and you sing with
Speaker 8: Stevie and Roberta, so you know, you know those kind
Speaker 8: of nuances. So basically we would run the song down
Speaker 8: and I say, I'm gonna sing this. You know, I'll
Speaker 8: sing this line and you sing that line. So basically
Speaker 8: he was the straight person and I would just kind of,
Speaker 8: you know, go around what he was doing and try
Speaker 8: to add some more color to it. And it was
Speaker 8: fun because when we did that, we complimented each other.
Speaker 8: We are running all over each other or not doing
Speaker 8: anything exciting, We just you know, it kind of worked
Speaker 8: out like that for me to do more of the
Speaker 8: coloring than due he drew.
Speaker 4: He was the lines and you kind of color.
Speaker 2: That's with the massive success of that song. Was there
Speaker 2: never a discussion to have a follow up record as well?
Speaker 8: No, well, you know, we wanted to do stuff, but
Speaker 8: really his managers were really scared of me because you know,
Speaker 8: I'm I'm a black woman, and I'm telling what to
Speaker 8: do and he started listening, and so I think that
Speaker 8: they came a conclusion we need to get her on
Speaker 8: out of there.
Speaker 1: So they did, seriously, there's just one and done.
Speaker 8: Well because Johnny you know, started really listening to me
Speaker 8: and I'm a strong independent woman and that's not hisality.
Speaker 8: And so after you know, talking with him and hanging
Speaker 8: out with him a couple of times, they said, she's
Speaker 8: a little bit too much of an influence over him.
Speaker 2: So now so the thing is is that I can't
Speaker 2: you know, Philip talked to about it a little bit,
Speaker 2: but you know, he didn't really go into it. But
Speaker 2: of course, like the second big producer that comes into
Speaker 2: their Earth Wind Fire stratosphere is David Foster. And you know,
Speaker 2: like our listeners know that David you know, did like
Speaker 2: Wildflower everything everything. Yeah, I mean well, I mean but
Speaker 2: mostly just as a soul guy, like did like New
Speaker 2: Birth and all that stuff. And of course, even even
Speaker 2: though Earth Wind and Fire was able to coast to
Speaker 2: a fine level with the all in all record with
Speaker 2: Marius at the Helm, of course David Foster comes aboard.
Speaker 2: And it's always been controversial with David Foster. I think
Speaker 2: in real time people were sort of grumbling about David
Speaker 2: Foster's production. And of course now the decades.
Speaker 1: Have gone by. Everyone's like, oh, I always loved After
Speaker 1: the Love Is Gone and all those things. But I
Speaker 1: know that Foster.
Speaker 2: Worked on, uh, the when Love Comes Calling record, and
Speaker 2: and I'm not certain what the chart position was of
Speaker 2: I got the next dance. I remember hearing a lot
Speaker 2: on black radio in Philadelphia. What was your experience or
Speaker 2: your feeling about the Wind Love Comes Calling record? Because
Speaker 2: I knew that sounded very radically different, yeah, than the
Speaker 2: first two albums produced by Maurice and Maurice and Charles.
Speaker 1: But for Wind Love Comes Calling, who decided to really
Speaker 1: change it up?
Speaker 8: Well, Maurice was working with David and so then they said,
Speaker 8: well let's put Denise with David. But it was not
Speaker 8: a good pairing for me and David to work together.
Speaker 8: First of all, he was very condescending, you know, producer
Speaker 8: to artists, and he, you know, says something to me
Speaker 8: one day and I took the headphones off and I
Speaker 8: came in. I said, you know what, we will not
Speaker 8: work together if you do that again. I said, I
Speaker 8: don't even want to go there. I said, you will
Speaker 8: not try that with me. I don't know who you
Speaker 8: talked to like that, but you won't be talking to
Speaker 8: me like that. I said, we will not be doing this.
Speaker 8: I said, you're going to respect me like you want
Speaker 8: me to respect you. And if you can't do that,
Speaker 8: then you need to walk out of here now because
Speaker 8: I am not having it. So I left the studio.
Speaker 8: I told Marius, I said, if he don't turn his
Speaker 8: attitude around, it's not going to work with he and I.
Speaker 8: And the very next day he was married to this
Speaker 8: girl from Alabama and she said, I just want to,
Speaker 8: you know, apologize, Well what happened yesterday? And I brought up,
Speaker 8: you know, a surprise for you, you know, something for you,
Speaker 8: and she set the plate down and flipped it over
Speaker 8: his fried because I understand you guys like fried chicken.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry what.
Speaker 1: No, oh god, wait a minute, half of me.
Speaker 6: As soon as she said Alabama, I knew, I said,
Speaker 6: but was it good a mirror?
Speaker 8: And I told David, I said, baby, y'all about to
Speaker 8: get your Yeah, I don't even.
Speaker 4: Want to say you get the wrong one hurt up
Speaker 4: in him.
Speaker 8: Okay, somebody's gonna get So we didn't work out to
Speaker 8: this very day. David is scared of me, and I
Speaker 8: like k.
Speaker 1: So it's not word under the bridge at all.
Speaker 4: No, and you did not write into that chicken. Correct, No,
Speaker 4: none of that.
Speaker 1: She could have. You know why you called me out? Like, wait,
Speaker 1: why you call out.
Speaker 7: Good?
Speaker 1: That's not my krypto. Chugen is not my kryptonite. I
Speaker 1: wasn't call I was suspects me. I don't care if
Speaker 1: it's Popeye himself. No, I'm not eating that chicken.
Speaker 4: I wasn't.
Speaker 8: I was just getting your question answered.
Speaker 1: That's all. Was it good? Though? Yeah, I'm sorry you
Speaker 1: didn't need it.
Speaker 2: However, I will at least skip even though it was
Speaker 2: a you know, I think when you're younger, you take
Speaker 2: everything in and you know, I loved that record, even
Speaker 2: though I didn't realize.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you didn't have any idea of the vaccine.
Speaker 2: However, you came to my hometown and actually uh my
Speaker 2: home studio of Sigma to uh to work on your
Speaker 2: your next few records. Did Tom Bell and uh, what's
Speaker 2: her name? Yeah, Linda Creed at the time? Did they
Speaker 2: stop working together?
Speaker 1: By this period?
Speaker 8: They stopped working together because Linda Creed became very ill
Speaker 8: with cancer. I don't know, okay, and that's what she
Speaker 8: passed away from. So Linda Creed wasn't well. But also
Speaker 8: I had I started writing with Tom Bell. Tom Bell
Speaker 8: and I started writing because he wasn't writing with Linda,
Speaker 8: and so you know that's what happened. The only songs
Speaker 8: that we didn't write together or was. I remember sitting
Speaker 8: and we used to cook before we would record or
Speaker 8: work on a song. And so I told Tom really,
Speaker 8: you know, I've been I've been walking around my house
Speaker 8: for twenty somebody years singing this song and I really
Speaker 8: like to sing it again. I said, I love this song.
Speaker 8: He said, what is that? I said, I love It's
Speaker 8: gonna take a miracle by the word or less, I said.
Speaker 8: He got left the kitchen, went onto the piano, started
Speaker 8: playing it, and then, uh, you know, we recorded it
Speaker 8: and it was what like a top five pocket for me.
Speaker 8: It's gonna take a miracle. And so, but the songs
Speaker 8: that I did with Tom Bell we wrote together or
Speaker 8: either I wrote them, and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I know you also worked with the legendaria Clarence McDonald,
Speaker 2: who his I know that silly you did silly with
Speaker 2: Clarence McDonald and his his resume is out of this world,
Speaker 2: Like how did how did that come.
Speaker 8: About Actually, Lonnie Groves was dating Claireson McDonald at that
Speaker 8: time and wonderful of it. She said, Oh, I'm, you know,
Speaker 8: dating this guy and he's doing a lot of stuff.
Speaker 8: She's doing a lot of stuff, and so we started
Speaker 8: going out, going over to Clarence's house and we started writing.
Speaker 8: And that's how, you know, a couple of the big songs,
Speaker 8: especially on the first and second.
Speaker 6: Album, came about during your time working in the Earth
Speaker 6: Wind the Fire Camp. Did you have any dealings with
Speaker 6: Skip Scarborough?
Speaker 8: I did?
Speaker 1: What was he like?
Speaker 3: He's one of my favorite songwriters.
Speaker 8: Skip was such an incredible, loving guy, really soft spirit.
Speaker 8: We went to the same church, you know. He was
Speaker 8: just the genius. Just the jenis when you absolutely you know,
Speaker 8: don't ask my neighbor, and all the songs that skipping.
Speaker 8: It's just incredible working with Skip Scarborough. You're right, he
Speaker 8: was very special.
Speaker 2: Of course he did two albums with Tom Bell and
Speaker 2: that's also like your your your last record with the
Speaker 2: Arc Organization with Maurice White. What happened, Like did the
Speaker 2: label just disintegrate or And I'm I'm only asking because
Speaker 2: like again that that that giant logo on on the
Speaker 2: record was no longer on your records. Yeah, the RC
Speaker 2: logo wasn't there. So when I saw the I'm So
Speaker 2: Prout record, I was like, oh that's it and no
Speaker 2: more So how did how did that happen?
Speaker 8: Well, Maris became you know, Maurice and Columbia Records started
Speaker 8: having a following out differences of what where they wanted
Speaker 8: to go. So then Marris call me and said, we're leaving,
Speaker 8: and uh, you know, just know that everything's going to right.
Speaker 8: You're going to go with us, And they actually started
Speaker 8: talking to r C I And at that time, you know,
Speaker 8: I had had any relationship with Columbia or anything outside
Speaker 8: of you know, going in and talking to Walter. I
Speaker 8: would talk to Walk, so we did have a relationship.
Speaker 8: Let me back up. But I went into Walk and
Speaker 8: I said, listen, what's gonna happen? I said, ARC is leaving?
Speaker 8: And what do I do? He says, Oh, don't worry
Speaker 8: about it. He says, out of you know, everybody on
Speaker 8: the label with ARC, you're the only one that we're keeping.
Speaker 8: And I was the only act that Columbia count Oh.
Speaker 2: Man, okay, well, of course your your next collaborator, your
Speaker 2: most consistent collaborator in my opinion is the work with
Speaker 2: George Duke I'm missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, could you talk about working with him and just
Speaker 1: what it was like.
Speaker 8: Oh, I tell you, George Duke was one of them.
Speaker 8: It was an incredible genius. I mean you could put
Speaker 8: George in any music genre and it would come off incredible.
Speaker 8: I mean, you know with Zappa, you know Frank Zaper,
Speaker 8: you know Stanley Clark, all that stuff that George did.
Speaker 8: But you know, he could do classical, he could do gospel,
Speaker 8: he could do R and B, he could do pop.
Speaker 8: George could do anything. And the thing that was most
Speaker 8: incredible about him is he was just a big teddy bear.
Speaker 8: He was a big teddy bear. I mean I just
Speaker 8: as a person. I loved him. I loved his wife Corrine,
Speaker 8: And like I said, I missed him so much. I
Speaker 8: still can't even walk a drive by their street without teary.
Speaker 8: That's how much I miss him. But it was funny
Speaker 8: because we were in the studio and we were recording
Speaker 8: Black Butterfly, and then we get this call and they said, oh,
Speaker 8: you know, they said, we're doing a soundtrack to a
Speaker 8: movie and there's one song left and we want to
Speaker 8: know if Denise want to do it. So I said, yeah,
Speaker 8: I want to do it. So they said, okay, here's
Speaker 8: you go over to the songwriters and they're going to
Speaker 8: play you this song. So we go over there, Dean
Speaker 8: Pittring and thompsnow on the pair they singing less Here
Speaker 8: for the Boy and they gave us Hey. We walked
Speaker 8: out of there and George Juke said, we ain't doing
Speaker 8: that song. I said, come on, I said, George, wait
Speaker 8: a minute, Wait a minute. I said, it's in a movie.
Speaker 8: I said, you know. He said, we're not doing that song.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna tell you right now, We're not doing that
Speaker 8: stupid song, I said, George, I said, I just read
Speaker 8: an article. They said, I'm a great ballot, you know
Speaker 8: of our times. I said, I could do up tempo
Speaker 8: like that. You can, and he said I hate that song,
Speaker 8: and so I you know, I tell him my show.
Speaker 8: I said, you know, the man is the head, but
Speaker 8: the woman is the neck, and she can turn that
Speaker 8: head any way. She won't, yes, George, and I went
Speaker 8: to his wife, Correne. I said, Corene, wanta do that
Speaker 8: song with me, and I need your help. She said, girl,
Speaker 8: don't worry about it. I'll handle it.
Speaker 4: So we water.
Speaker 8: We was in the studio and George is mad as hell.
Speaker 8: But we was in the studio recording less.
Speaker 1: Here listen and how do you feel when? How do
Speaker 1: you feel? When it went to number one?
Speaker 8: You know what I'm saying. And then when we did
Speaker 8: the unsung, they did this unsung on me and George's
Speaker 8: on that. I still don't like that song, so I said,
Speaker 8: you know what, then give me your producer's royalty. I'll
Speaker 8: take you all right.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell you. Every little girl like me was like,
Speaker 4: that's the jam.
Speaker 1: I had that.
Speaker 3: I had that on a forty five. I had that,
Speaker 3: I had that on a forty five.
Speaker 8: Give me your money, since you feel like that. And
Speaker 8: so because I also tell him at my show, I said,
Speaker 8: one night, I was at this club in Los Angeles
Speaker 8: and I was singing, and I before less Here for
Speaker 8: the Boy, I always ask the good man to raise
Speaker 8: their hand, and so this guy in the corner of
Speaker 8: the dark raised his hand, but I couldn't see him
Speaker 8: because the lights was in my eye. So I looked up.
Speaker 8: I said, put your hand down. You're not a good man.
Speaker 8: So Becausert, my my son Forrest walked up to me
Speaker 8: and said, Mom, do you know who you told me
Speaker 8: to put their hand down? They want a good man.
Speaker 8: I said, no, the lights in my I can't see.
Speaker 8: He said that was Bobby Brown. I said that wasn't
Speaker 8: That was the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 11: I had dinner with Bobby and his wife about two
Speaker 11: months ago. I apologize, I said, Bobby, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: He said, was right, was right.
Speaker 2: I will say that to me, Black Butterfly is one
Speaker 2: of my favorite all time songs of yours, more than Free,
Speaker 2: more than any of those songs.
Speaker 6: I heard that song at every like any kind of
Speaker 6: black pageant, like yeah, kind of like graduation for like,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 1: Emi.
Speaker 2: Only one one night is what the guys would saying
Speaker 2: in Black Butterfly was what the woman was saying, for.
Speaker 3: Real, for real.
Speaker 8: What happened was somebody had sent the song to George,
Speaker 8: and George played it for me, and the artist who's
Speaker 8: a well known artist and I'm not gonna name, was singing.
Speaker 8: It was all over the So I told you Orge,
Speaker 8: take him off, take him off, and let me live
Speaker 8: with it. And I loved it because it spoke about
Speaker 8: the trials and the tribulations and what it took for
Speaker 8: us to you know, to get here our belief, our
Speaker 8: strength and tell your sons and daughters passing that message
Speaker 8: John and I said, you know, I didn't write it,
Speaker 8: but I have to sing it. And for me to
Speaker 8: be nominated on the top ten list of songs that
Speaker 8: Black Lives Matters has been playing and you know, promoting
Speaker 8: with their thing that Black Butterfly was on that list
Speaker 8: really touched my heart, you know, because you do work,
Speaker 8: but you never know what's going to happen or how
Speaker 8: are you going to impact people? So that was a
Speaker 8: blessing for me.
Speaker 5: Wikipedia says Barry Man and Cynthia Cynthia well A while
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Two, Yeah, what's your your your training? Like like are
Speaker 2: you a student of seth Riggs? Like how do you
Speaker 2: how do you train your voice? How do you you know,
Speaker 2: does it if you get easily hoarse?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Is it the Wretha Franklin thing where you have to
Speaker 2: have the air off in the room in order to
Speaker 2: sing and open your trichea to hit these notes?
Speaker 1: Like what's your regiment?
Speaker 8: God?
Speaker 1: I mean, there you go.
Speaker 8: You know, I don't do anything special. I do warm up.
Speaker 8: God is amazing? Was actually my exercise vocal that I
Speaker 8: used to do before I actually wrote the song to
Speaker 8: you know, open up my vocals. But I just have
Speaker 8: to blame it on the Lord because you know, just
Speaker 8: I mean what I am sang in about a month
Speaker 8: and yet.
Speaker 4: You know they just.
Speaker 1: Happened, right.
Speaker 4: But do you also like not smoke or you don't
Speaker 4: do the dairy like, do you do that stuff?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 8: I don't smoke anything.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: I try to be cool, you know, in the club
Speaker 8: with rum and coke and a cool cigarette. But then
Speaker 8: when I found out that this was going to be
Speaker 8: how I was making my living and taking care of
Speaker 8: my children, I stopped that. I said, no more. I
Speaker 8: don't smoke. You know, I don't do any of that
Speaker 8: anything that would interfere with my throat. I did hookah
Speaker 8: one time, and she said, okay, keep doing that and
Speaker 8: if I cooperate with you. So no, I'm very particular,
Speaker 8: you know. No, I don't want to do anything that
Speaker 8: would interfere with the gift God has given me.
Speaker 2: I know that you had switch labels that your gospel
Speaker 2: output was not on Columbia at all. You mean, at
Speaker 2: no point did they just think like, yeah, this makes sense,
Speaker 2: let's let her do a gospel record, like, why did
Speaker 2: your gospel stuff come out on? I think it was
Speaker 2: Word Records, I believe No.
Speaker 8: I was with Sparrow, but Philip and I went to
Speaker 8: Columbia to glather and asked them to give us a
Speaker 8: half a million dollars to start a gospel label for
Speaker 8: Columbia and they said no. So right as they said no,
Speaker 8: let's hear it for the boy. You know, it was
Speaker 8: number one and my contract ran out. So I said, okay,
Speaker 8: this is it. I'm coming back. I'll resign, but I
Speaker 8: want to do gospel music somewhere else. And they agreed.
Speaker 8: So I ended up on Sparrow and Philip ended up
Speaker 8: on Word.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, okay, that's just.
Speaker 2: And even with your Grammy success with gospel and whatnot, like,
Speaker 2: they still didn't double back and just say, like, you
Speaker 2: know what are bad, let's do let's do something.
Speaker 8: Know what they did and they gave this other guy
Speaker 8: six million dollars to start a gospel label and he
Speaker 8: spent it on Arabian horses in Nashville. And they come
Speaker 8: calling up fussle with me. I said, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: you wouldn't gave him that six million dollars. I Ali
Speaker 8: had asked you for a familiar So now don't don't
Speaker 8: call me God bless you, Bye bye.
Speaker 7: M I had to fast forward and see when Columbia
Speaker 7: got like deep into gods. I guess they did in
Speaker 7: Mahalia Jackson, but I was like, man, okay, So Mary,
Speaker 7: Mary and the crad they got they got the message.
Speaker 1: Show somebody like.
Speaker 8: Now they come down and they got the message.
Speaker 2: And all right, So with where you are now, especially
Speaker 2: well you said you haven't sang in a month, So
Speaker 2: is this the first extended break? Like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of us a post pandemic kind of had a complete
Speaker 2: world stop to sort of regroup for the first time
Speaker 2: in our lives for you, was that like the first
Speaker 2: extended break that you took when the pandemic started? As
Speaker 2: far as uh, not doing like a lot of gigs
Speaker 2: and whatnot, just relaxing, Like how did you how did
Speaker 2: you spend your twenty twenty when it occurred?
Speaker 8: Well, I've been working on producer. I'm co producing a
Speaker 8: theater piece called Live at the Crescendo Love with Elfie Gerald,
Speaker 8: Saravon and Pearl Bailey. So I really sink a lot
Speaker 8: of time into you know, working on the theater piece.
Speaker 8: We hired our director, we hired our writer, we hired
Speaker 8: our music supervisor, we hired a theater company. So we've
Speaker 8: been working on that for the past two years, almost
Speaker 8: on that particular theater piece and going through music for
Speaker 8: these three ladies. So I, you know, I've been doing
Speaker 8: that and I'm you know, keeping my chops up for
Speaker 8: a lot of reasons. I'm still touring, but I'm also
Speaker 8: hoping to be able to do the role of Sarah Von,
Speaker 8: especially in the beginning, I want to do stuff, So I,
Speaker 8: you know, I've been doing what I can to keep
Speaker 8: my chops up for that because I, you know, I
Speaker 8: don't want to do anything that would embarrass this incredible,
Speaker 8: beautiful vocalist. You know. For Elfizgerald, my my wishless would
Speaker 8: be Patty, We'll see what happens. For Pearl Bailey, my
Speaker 8: wishless would be read at devond So what can potentially happen.
Speaker 8: But That's what I've been working on with that live
Speaker 8: at the Crescendo Club, and then with my other son,
Speaker 8: we have a children's cartoon that we've been working on
Speaker 8: and we have a distribution deal with Ruku. So we're
Speaker 8: working now and filming episodes for Lizzie the Lake Monster,
Speaker 8: which is our children's program. And then my other son
Speaker 8: and I started our own coffee company, so we're we
Speaker 8: have a coffee shop. So we're doing coffee the Culture
Speaker 8: Coffee Company. We're working on that.
Speaker 4: And yeah, you said you have a shop.
Speaker 8: We have an actual shop. And the girls got a
Speaker 8: halked the tops and a little short pasts in the Yeah,
Speaker 8: is this.
Speaker 4: A Nevada or is it? Where's a shop in Las Vegas?
Speaker 8: Our first store, So we are, you know, we're doing that.
Speaker 8: And then I'm beginning to get back into you know,
Speaker 8: getting back on faceboo, well, getting back on my social
Speaker 8: media because I backed up away from that, you know,
Speaker 8: just doing the writing and trying to be creative. Started
Speaker 8: three books, haven't finished none of them, so any have
Speaker 8: That's you busy, you know, I mean we weren't able
Speaker 8: to tour, but there were other things to be done,
Speaker 8: to be work, other projects to be worked onne and
Speaker 8: so I've spent this time working on the other projects.
Speaker 2: Well besides the play and whatnot. Is there another kind
Speaker 2: of bucket list dream that you've yet to fulfill in
Speaker 2: your career.
Speaker 8: No, I think that, you know, with the various projects
Speaker 8: that we have, and we also have another theater piece
Speaker 8: called the Fairytale Chronicles stuff that we're working on. So
Speaker 8: I think, you know, for me in the music industry,
Speaker 8: I accomplished more than I ever thought I would and
Speaker 8: it made it's made an impression of positive impression on
Speaker 8: a lot of people who grew up with me, like
Speaker 8: you and who love the music. But since we weren't
Speaker 8: able to go out and do concerts and stuff, I
Speaker 8: just started working on some other things creatively that popped
Speaker 8: up in my spirit, and so I'm excited to, you know,
Speaker 8: see this happen. I'm excited to get out on the
Speaker 8: road with the theater piece. I'm excited to get our
Speaker 8: episodes done for our children's cartoon. I'm just excited about
Speaker 8: all of the various projects that we're working on right now.
Speaker 8: You know, in my hands are full.
Speaker 4: It also sounds great for the people who saw your unsung.
Speaker 7: It's a nice continuation of chapter to see that you're
Speaker 7: working with your sons, right, that's great.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah. One of the books is called you know,
Speaker 8: the Next Chapter Chapter two. No, the book is called Second.
Speaker 7: Act is the children's book, no book that I'm writing
Speaker 7: for that you're working on one of the three.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you know I just wanted to front you
Speaker 1: look like he's about to.
Speaker 6: Oh man, I was just gonna say just this this
Speaker 6: thank you for the music, like you're there that this
Speaker 6: is an easy album. That's like one of the first
Speaker 6: records I remember seeing in my grandparents' house, like coming
Speaker 6: up and so I just remember as a kid because
Speaker 6: I was, I mean, this is I was probably four
Speaker 6: or five years old, but I remember the front that
Speaker 6: you had on the it's like the black and with
Speaker 6: the kind of yellow.
Speaker 1: Was the wall.
Speaker 8: I couldn't I was like, was I was so afraid
Speaker 8: when that album cover came out because one of the
Speaker 8: leaves did the entirely cover that titty and about this
Speaker 8: big My grandmother said that what the big mama see
Speaker 8: that part of my titty is out? Oh god, I was.
Speaker 1: I was so.
Speaker 6: Yeah because the back of seriously the back cover that
Speaker 6: I mean, I had to just qustian music kid. Just
Speaker 6: that was one of the just the first covers I
Speaker 6: remember seeing that I wasn't afraid of because it was
Speaker 6: because covers were so big, you know, but you on
Speaker 6: the back, and I remember you had like that big
Speaker 6: smile and I was like, man, like, this is just
Speaker 6: you look really beautiful on that and that's just one
Speaker 6: of my favorite memories from childhood.
Speaker 3: And I love that album, so just think you so much.
Speaker 2: I was kind of afraid of that cover, Fante, because
Speaker 2: again I thought the wall was eating her up.
Speaker 4: I wasn't sure either a mirror I was with you again,
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 1: That Stevie Wonder is drowning in donuts on songs in
Speaker 1: the Wife. So you know, what do I know?
Speaker 8: Oy?
Speaker 2: I still did they think that he's drowning and donuts.
Speaker 2: But you know, you know, we really thank you for
Speaker 2: doing this as solid and coming on your show and
Speaker 2: sharing your.
Speaker 7: Story and be impatient because this has been like our
Speaker 7: third time rescheduling this, and I just appreciate you for that.
Speaker 7: And although you may not evoke all kinds of yells
Speaker 7: and screams do your music, the emotion that you wouldvoke
Speaker 7: is priceless, timeless, and we just thank you.
Speaker 3: For it, sir and Steve anything, thank you for Let's
Speaker 3: here for the boy.
Speaker 8: From my heart.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to make a joke. Thank you, just
Speaker 3: even if even just for.
Speaker 5: That for real though, because that's where that's that's where
Speaker 5: I found you and then and then went backwards.
Speaker 1: So thank you, yes, absolutely well once again, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: This is Denise Williams on Quest Love Supreme on behalf
Speaker 2: of Fun Takeelow and Layah.
Speaker 5: And and based on that partial titty, I'm going record
Speaker 5: shopping tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick that one up anyway. This is question.
Speaker 1: We'll see you on the next go around. This is Steve.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bye bye West. Love Supreme is a production
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