Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What Up, y'all, it's unpaid bill for Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: As you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating
Speaker 2: Black Music one by releasing an episode every day, So
Speaker 2: every day you either hear especially picked a QLs classic,
Speaker 2: and on Wednesdays we are dropping new two part episodes
Speaker 2: with Wayne Brady and the legendary Dance Poyser, both of
Speaker 2: which were filmed in the studio. Black music is deeply
Speaker 2: important to me and has been an influence throughout my
Speaker 2: entire career. It's also something we celebrate here at QLs.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is the Pointer Sisters from twenty nineteen. Like
Speaker 2: several of the interviews we are revisiting this month, this
Speaker 2: one has special significance as Anita and Bonnie Pointer have
Speaker 2: since passed. In this interview, they were joined by brother Fritz.
Speaker 2: It's a special.
Speaker 3: One supremo Suprema role called Suprema suh Sun A roll
Speaker 3: call Suprema some supremo role called Suprema something Sun Supremo roll.
Speaker 4: Call one, two, three, four five, Yeah, I'm six seven
Speaker 4: eight nine, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Said eleven, Yeah, twelve roll.
Speaker 3: Supreme, Supreme roll call, Suprema something something supreme call.
Speaker 4: My name is Fonte. Yeah, I'm feeling free.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You gotta believe in something. Yeah, why not believe in me?
Speaker 7: Oh, Suprema something Suprema roll came.
Speaker 4: Suprema suck something supreme A roll car name is Sugar. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you can't hide your desire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, curse my roll call.
Speaker 8: Yeah, five.
Speaker 3: Supremo something Suprema roll call, Suprema s Suprema roll.
Speaker 9: Call when the sisters on here, y'all. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 9: you need to know. Yeah, loss Bill so excited. Yeah,
Speaker 9: like Jesse spannel.
Speaker 3: Suprema God Supreme rolla Suprema so so supremo.
Speaker 10: Role calls with the po ma'am Yeah, teaching me about Yeah,
Speaker 10: slow hand.
Speaker 3: Whoa supremo supremo role called Suprema so some Suprema role call.
Speaker 5: His name is Fritz. Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 5: Yeah are you folks?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I love so dear.
Speaker 8: Oh Suprema Subprema role called Suprema son, Supremo.
Speaker 6: Role called I'm a Nita. Yeah, and I'm excited to
Speaker 6: be here with you.
Speaker 11: Whoa Supreme roll.
Speaker 4: Some Supreme.
Speaker 6: Roll call Suprema so soun Supreme.
Speaker 11: Row your Bonnie Peep wants to be in the house.
Speaker 8: Get route Suprema.
Speaker 5: Supreme.
Speaker 6: I like that.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love
Speaker 1: Supreme Surprises of bound ladies and gentlemen even for us. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is an amazing day we have Team Supreme.
Speaker 5: Was nice anyway.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Jesse Spiano. Yes, I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to go the obvious route to say it. I'm
Speaker 1: so scared.
Speaker 9: I was going to, but that was too obvious.
Speaker 4: I see no, no good good, good work there. Thank you.
Speaker 1: What can I say, ladies and gentlemen, we have what
Speaker 1: I consider a dynasty, an absolute dynasty. Uh, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: one of the probably the what what I would call
Speaker 1: the the the ultimate metamorphosis in black music covering jazz, country, pop, rock, soul,
Speaker 1: R and B.
Speaker 5: You name it.
Speaker 1: Uh, this entire family and to have FONDI here is that?
Speaker 1: Wait even before we start, are you still good your
Speaker 1: esther Phillips imitation?
Speaker 11: Oh for sure, I surround my ho.
Speaker 5: I want to, I want to.
Speaker 1: We want to welcome Bonnie, Anita and Fritz one of
Speaker 1: the porters and brother, Thank you, thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for giving us the honor of celebrating uh, your book
Speaker 1: which is entitled fairy Tale a Pointered.
Speaker 4: Sister or a Pointer Family. What's the complete title?
Speaker 5: Fairy Tale the Pointer Sister's Family story, Okay?
Speaker 4: And fairy Tale course named after your historic our.
Speaker 11: Lives our first.
Speaker 6: Country country, best country vocal by dual or group. Bye
Speaker 6: we were.
Speaker 12: It was written by me and Bonnie and we went
Speaker 12: over the oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers Great Country.
Speaker 6: To Nashville, Tennessee. David Rubinson was our producer and he
Speaker 6: was just amazing and he had lived in Nashville, but
Speaker 6: he took us there to record it in Nashville with
Speaker 6: the Opry musician, all operate musicians.
Speaker 12: All musicians, and they didn't know that we were black
Speaker 12: at first.
Speaker 11: And they said and we got on stage, they said, hot,
Speaker 11: damn it. Them gals is black.
Speaker 6: That was Opry. Yeah, the first black females to ever
Speaker 6: perform there, Charlie Bride.
Speaker 10: It was a welcoming surprise.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 6: They loved us. After we sang the song though a
Speaker 6: thousand times, they had us sing it three times. Really, yeah,
Speaker 6: kept saying silent again, girl.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 11: It was funny. It was it was funny. I was
Speaker 11: far it was really surprising.
Speaker 1: So this was a collaborative effort from all of you
Speaker 1: as far as like is it an oral history book
Speaker 1: or how how's the book format it?
Speaker 6: It is a collaborative effort from all of us. My
Speaker 6: brother Fritz is the writer, okay, and we fed him information.
Speaker 11: He's professor Fritz.
Speaker 6: I just retired from Contracstal Coniversity. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I taught for thirty thirty five years.
Speaker 6: Yeah university.
Speaker 5: I taught. I was in the English department, but I
Speaker 5: taught African history and African literature, both oral and written
Speaker 5: African literature. And so I taught those courses for thirty
Speaker 5: three years here.
Speaker 11: And we had to sit there and learn them. And
Speaker 11: it was such a wonderful teacher.
Speaker 6: It was great because you know, growing up in Oakland,
Speaker 6: we got no history, black history in our schools. And
Speaker 6: when my brother came back from college and set up
Speaker 6: a center and we called it the Black Students Study Group,
Speaker 6: and he taught us history that we never knew, you know,
Speaker 6: important things that black kids should know to feel proud
Speaker 6: of themselves.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I feel like a Grillo because you know, the
Speaker 5: Greo is someone who the grio is someone who you know,
Speaker 5: recites poetry and history and then but the grio needs,
Speaker 5: uh some sort of heroic act in order to write about.
Speaker 5: And so I consider my sisters the heroines in this
Speaker 5: and I'm the grio who records their heroic deeds. So yes,
Speaker 5: can I?
Speaker 1: Can I assume one of my favorite songs by you
Speaker 1: guys when like I've been listening, like the like the
Speaker 1: back of my hand.
Speaker 4: But uh, the the.
Speaker 1: The intro to Steamed Heat where you guys talk about
Speaker 1: your So can I assume that was autobiographical?
Speaker 4: Like just.
Speaker 6: So it was really written? It was not what we experienced.
Speaker 6: We didn't have steam heat in Oakland. There was no
Speaker 6: stame heat in Oakland. And we were talking about the play.
Speaker 6: Was it a pajama game?
Speaker 11: Tell us about it.
Speaker 12: It was a pajama game that did in high school
Speaker 12: and to the group, and I started just sang that
Speaker 12: song to them a game and then I liked that song,
Speaker 12: so then I thought it today my sisters after after
Speaker 12: I graduated from school and started the Pointed Sisters.
Speaker 1: So what was uh your early childhood, uh memories like
Speaker 1: growing up in Oakland?
Speaker 4: What was the Oakland like back then.
Speaker 6: I thought it was a great town.
Speaker 11: I have fun a lot of.
Speaker 6: It's different now, it's changed so much. And we lived
Speaker 6: right across the street from Defirmary Park. That's where all
Speaker 6: the Black Panthers would have their rallies. But even before
Speaker 6: those times, we used to play at that park every day.
Speaker 6: It was our babysitter school.
Speaker 12: We went to cold School and go to Defirmary Park
Speaker 12: and play and.
Speaker 6: Mother and guns.
Speaker 4: There was charm school.
Speaker 12: We went to charm school at defferm Charm School, cookie class,
Speaker 12: dance classes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the only time we heard about that was Motown.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah.
Speaker 12: We had the Walkward books on our ass and hold
Speaker 12: our purses a certain way and.
Speaker 6: Have certain clothes and gloves.
Speaker 11: The mother made us do that.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think it's really good for women to have that.
Speaker 6: And Fritz talks about that too. With the importance of
Speaker 6: the parks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my brother now is Commissioner of Parks and wreck
Speaker 5: for the City of Tacoma, and it's an elected position.
Speaker 5: They have to vote him in every year, and he's
Speaker 5: been re elected for like three times. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 5: really concerned that the parks have seen a decline and
Speaker 5: they don't have the kind of upkeep and maintenance that
Speaker 5: they should have because when we were growing up, we
Speaker 5: could play basketball at night under the.
Speaker 11: Lights and.
Speaker 5: It was such a wonderful Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah, many.
Speaker 10: A few pointers. I'm sorry, are there they don't know.
Speaker 11: Whether some of you are.
Speaker 6: Everybody?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are six children children.
Speaker 4: Yes, mister Ruth.
Speaker 12: Aaron is the professional baseball player as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: He pad referee for many years and NFL referee for
Speaker 6: the NFL.
Speaker 11: He was he played for.
Speaker 12: The Chicago Cubs in Houston Astros and he was retired
Speaker 12: from and.
Speaker 5: He's the last professional baseball player to bat four hundred.
Speaker 5: No one has ever done that except our brother, and.
Speaker 6: He stopped playing fifty years ago. Yeah, still record.
Speaker 10: What an amazingly well rounded family.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yes, And we grew up in We grew
Speaker 5: up in a house with fifteen people and our cousins
Speaker 5: Paul Silas, and he's now he was a professional basketball
Speaker 5: player with the Boston Celtics and Uhlan.
Speaker 6: Lebron James coach. Yeah, it was his first coaching with
Speaker 6: the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cousin Paul Silas.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, we have at first, Yeah.
Speaker 11: You know what I mean? Then me okay, well, and
Speaker 11: then Ruth.
Speaker 5: And then Ruth who's not here, and then Anita, then
Speaker 5: Bonnie and then June who was not here with us. Yes,
Speaker 5: but there we had a Oh god, we had an
Speaker 5: exciting childhood. I mean, there were so many jobs in Oakland.
Speaker 5: Oakland was just full of employment all everywhere, never worried about.
Speaker 5: And then all of a sudden, it just the you know,
Speaker 5: the offshoring and the you know, relocation of industry, and
Speaker 5: now it's just depleted. Was the main industry, well, I
Speaker 5: think the main industry was steel. They had a US Steel,
Speaker 5: but they also had a huge like I remember the
Speaker 5: Carrisco Company.
Speaker 6: Was there, was there, was there, I never worried about.
Speaker 5: Job was not an issue when we were growing up.
Speaker 5: You know, it just became that way, and oh god,
Speaker 5: last twenty thirty years, it's just because it becomes they
Speaker 5: just depleted just all the jobs left, and they put
Speaker 5: in liquor stores and crack of course.
Speaker 6: And I remember going around the neighborhood collecting people's old
Speaker 6: magazines and then going back through those same neighborhoods selling them.
Speaker 6: Oh bood Nickel and that's three actually, I would usually
Speaker 6: get they were laughing. I had this magazine every time
Speaker 6: I got it from and I'll give it back to them.
Speaker 6: But we didn't worry about nobody shooting us or kidnapping
Speaker 6: us or you know. It was a great neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 6: where people were trusted. No guns, you know, no.
Speaker 11: Not until we went to Arkansas.
Speaker 12: And Bonnie went to Arkansas one year. I went three times.
Speaker 12: I went in the fifth grade, the seventh grade, and
Speaker 12: the tenth grade. The seventh grade. Bonnie wanted to come
Speaker 12: with me, so she came with me. And it was
Speaker 12: a hell of a trip to We rode all the
Speaker 12: way from Oakland to Arkansas and a big old transfer
Speaker 12: eighteen who.
Speaker 6: People were were your back. I was in. We they
Speaker 6: had like a little apartments set up in the back
Speaker 6: of the truck.
Speaker 11: And we left our family and and then Bonnie drove back.
Speaker 6: To Arkansas in that truck. We spent about two hours
Speaker 6: as the whole trip because they were stopping.
Speaker 11: I was I was like twelve or eleven or thirteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, this wasn't the visit family down south.
Speaker 6: It was just grandmother. We were head at the grandma's house.
Speaker 6: They were saying they were shocked when that big old
Speaker 6: truck pulled up and here we have.
Speaker 12: And then we wanted when while we were there it
Speaker 12: was it turned into Halloween, and we wanted to go
Speaker 12: tricky treating because we were from California, Okay, and we
Speaker 12: we thought we can go trick or treating, and they said.
Speaker 6: My grandma just told us don't be out after dark.
Speaker 6: Right after dark, not past the city line where there
Speaker 6: was a city line where and we lived right grandma's
Speaker 6: house was.
Speaker 11: Right across that line from that line.
Speaker 6: White side of town was just on the other side
Speaker 6: of the street. We lived on the other side, right
Speaker 6: across the street where.
Speaker 11: It was gravel on our side and it was paving
Speaker 11: on the on.
Speaker 10: The white side.
Speaker 6: Right all the roads on our side were gravel roads.
Speaker 6: All the streets on the white side were paved.
Speaker 10: But it was probably good for you guys to see
Speaker 10: that and be exposed to.
Speaker 6: Couldn't believe the conditions there when I went there, it
Speaker 6: was like I might have been going to a wild
Speaker 6: jungle somewhere, just you know, where people are living off
Speaker 6: the land and they didn't have indoor, indoor toilets.
Speaker 5: And this is in the fifties, and I think that's
Speaker 5: where Anita got her country ye.
Speaker 6: I kept doing it.
Speaker 5: From Yeah, she kept going back and she would sit
Speaker 5: outside these speakeasies and listen to yeah right, Albert King
Speaker 5: and King and yeah. So that's I think she got
Speaker 5: her chops, her Southern nights, so her you know, country genuine,
Speaker 5: they're not.
Speaker 6: Earl Thomas Conley. Yeah, yes, yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And we went back to the Grand Ole Opry and
Speaker 6: we were presenters at the Country Music Awards that year,
Speaker 6: and they never said mention of.
Speaker 11: That was I was how that came to me?
Speaker 1: How was music officially introduced to the family, Like who's
Speaker 1: the first?
Speaker 11: Was it?
Speaker 4: Church?
Speaker 6: Was it?
Speaker 11: Yeah? Church?
Speaker 6: And our mother was a singer. She sang at home
Speaker 6: all the time, saying to wake us up, you know,
Speaker 6: and singing to put us asleep. And she was a
Speaker 6: good singer, and she sang solos at church, and of
Speaker 6: course we be in the pastor's children. We got in
Speaker 6: the choir and we sang, and it really was good
Speaker 6: training for us.
Speaker 5: I think so too, because I think that's where they
Speaker 5: learned to sing harmonically and also thing together because uh,
Speaker 5: you know, having having to audition for a position in
Speaker 5: the choir, then they place you in different places and
Speaker 5: so you begin to learn your voice and your your
Speaker 5: you belong and how to hold on to your own
Speaker 5: notes and how be in your own group. And so
Speaker 5: it was excellent training for uh for learning to sing,
Speaker 5: you know, and learning to sing group singing in particular.
Speaker 11: Because they were like, don't get in my key, do
Speaker 11: not get in my notes? And then did you just
Speaker 11: get in my key.
Speaker 6: Note?
Speaker 1: Please mean to ask your sister Ruth, who's world famous
Speaker 1: for her based vocals.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, when did she developed that voice? Was that always?
Speaker 6: There was so weird? How we all just had Yeah,
Speaker 6: she didn't.
Speaker 5: Had it and she said she worked on it too,
Speaker 5: by screaming at our basketball games.
Speaker 6: Yes, love to get to those games.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, because we had an amazing sports school, our school,
Speaker 5: mcclimates High School, so many.
Speaker 6: Great basketball They never ever, ever ever lost a game.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, the girls the fifteen years well actually it
Speaker 5: was like five years or so that we had didn't
Speaker 5: lose again fifty I wouldn't stay in high school that long.
Speaker 6: But yeah, years year, five years they were.
Speaker 5: They never lost the game. But some of the names
Speaker 5: like Bill Russell went to our school, Yeah, Frank Robinson lost.
Speaker 5: Kareean no, no, no, no, no, yes, but also Frank Robinson,
Speaker 5: the first Major League baseball coach, Bill Russell, considered the
Speaker 5: best basketball player ever, Wendell Hayes, Vada Pinson, all of
Speaker 5: these guys, Joe Ellis, all these guys became professional athletes,
Speaker 5: the Jewel. So they called us the School of Champions
Speaker 5: because we would just that was our thing, you know, winning,
Speaker 5: We love winning, and we did.
Speaker 6: Him.
Speaker 5: So that's how I was able to go to college
Speaker 5: on a scholarship scholarship. My brother and I both and
Speaker 5: my cousin went to a university on athletic scholarships. In fact, yeah, my, my,
Speaker 5: my fact, my my uncle and my father got together
Speaker 5: and said, uh, well, if you want my cousin, Paul Silas,
Speaker 5: because he was really the star, they said, if you
Speaker 5: want him, you got to take Fritz. And so that's
Speaker 5: how I got. They negotiated me and was already gone, yes,
Speaker 5: Aaron was already gone. But they said, if you want Paul,
Speaker 5: you got to take Fritz. Yes, yeah, yeah, So they
Speaker 5: took me out of reform school to go to play basketball.
Speaker 4: So was what year was the beneficially started.
Speaker 11: I didn't know that.
Speaker 5: That that that that honor goes to Bonnie. She's the
Speaker 5: one who had the vision. She's the one who stepped
Speaker 5: out and said, we got I gotta do something. That
Speaker 5: Ruth and Anita were working jobs. You know, Anita was
Speaker 5: a secretary typing and Ruth was working as a key
Speaker 5: punch operator doing computer stuff and before computers, key punch
Speaker 5: and June was too young. But Bonnie said, hey, I
Speaker 5: want to do something different, and so she took that
Speaker 5: ride over to San Francisco and she and June I
Speaker 5: started singing together pointers a pair. They were called how.
Speaker 1: How culturally different was San Francisco to Oakland and the
Speaker 1: late sixties? Because I know that people consider.
Speaker 11: It totally different.
Speaker 1: Really, so the the whole idea of this utopian uh
Speaker 1: love love thing that's happened.
Speaker 11: I dontink I'm still dressed like that.
Speaker 4: So that wasn't happening in Oakland at the time or
Speaker 4: was it? Just like.
Speaker 12: Most Black Panthers, we were part of the Black Panther
Speaker 12: uprising in Oakland when it happened with Hugh in Newton
Speaker 12: and at the Black Church and then you know Panther Party.
Speaker 7: But then on the other side of Francis, it was
Speaker 7: the hippie and all the love.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was rock and roll and so much of
Speaker 6: that in Oakland, but rock did see some of it
Speaker 6: in Berkeley. Yeah, you know, more about the colleges, they
Speaker 6: had a lot of you know, used.
Speaker 11: To call it berserk.
Speaker 6: And meskilline and things like that, living people living in
Speaker 6: commune drugs.
Speaker 5: Oakland had a lot of political infrastructure when I returned
Speaker 5: from college. The Urban League, the nb A c P,
Speaker 5: the Nation of Islam, uh, you know, African American Association. Uh,
Speaker 5: all of these organizations were were doing work in Oakland,
Speaker 5: you know, and that was really a very political more
Speaker 5: political than uh than then San Francisco, you know, so
Speaker 5: we got meshed in that. We in San Francisco, we're
Speaker 5: part of the Northern California Black Panther Party before the
Speaker 5: before the Black Panther Party, for we were.
Speaker 13: Talking about because they were talking about the whole establishment
Speaker 13: of Kwansa and whatnot.
Speaker 5: Yeah. In fact, there's a filmer in the in the
Speaker 5: in the in the movie called the Panthers about our organization.
Speaker 5: When the Black Panther part of our self defense came
Speaker 5: from Oakland, San Francisco and shot up our party and
Speaker 5: said we should not call ourselves that name.
Speaker 6: Anymore.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we said, okay, stole.
Speaker 6: Our money, now you're okay, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Because we wanted to be aligned with Lounges County, Alabama
Speaker 5: and the Freedom Democratic Party at Fanny lou Hamer and
Speaker 5: so I know I needed that. We're talking about going
Speaker 5: to uh there to be a part of that movement,
Speaker 5: but with Stokely Carmichael. So we did a lot of
Speaker 5: work there, you know.
Speaker 12: So I didn't poetry with Angela Davis. Time did back
Speaker 12: a couple of points with Angela Davis.
Speaker 4: Really did you?
Speaker 6: Guys?
Speaker 10: Did you publish him?
Speaker 6: Are they can?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 11: I have them in my head?
Speaker 5: Well, Huet Newton was hitting and tired of.
Speaker 11: Being sick and tired lost in the wilderness of white America.
Speaker 11: Are the masses asses cool? Said the masses to the slave, no.
Speaker 12: Problem, don't rob and still I'll be your driving will
Speaker 12: cool baby, And he willed us into three hundred years
Speaker 12: of black madness from hall guts, breaching, creams, promises and
Speaker 12: Uncle Thomas's to the streets to Watts to kill boom.
Speaker 12: Two Honkys gone, motherfucker, the police and Poxes the two
Speaker 12: black people tied, sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Speaker 4: You were saying that Huey Newton used.
Speaker 5: To hit in fact that, in fact that the night
Speaker 5: the night he.
Speaker 10: Knew it was fine though.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was fine.
Speaker 6: Beautiful brother had the center opened that we were having
Speaker 6: a party.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and he came.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and he tried to get Bonnie to leave with him,
Speaker 6: did I And she didn't go. A little while later,
Speaker 6: we get this pot call he's been shot. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: we all was glad. High in the hospital.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we got We got a car caravan of about
Speaker 5: ten cars and went to the hospital just to stand.
Speaker 6: Around because they had arrested him, staying he had shot
Speaker 6: a cop.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, so we went there to just make sure
Speaker 5: that they didn't do too much harm to him.
Speaker 6: The police let us know, you better get out of here.
Speaker 6: The game with their dogs their good.
Speaker 7: You could hear them.
Speaker 6: They stood in the line and everyone dispersed.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and we ran away, ran.
Speaker 7: Got away to live another day.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, jump.
Speaker 6: Oh that was just at a crazy.
Speaker 12: So that was one drive guy in my lifetime. We
Speaker 12: were in a drive by and that was in Oakland. Yeah,
Speaker 12: we were at a party in the backyard.
Speaker 6: Marty and the guy had a fight with somebody back
Speaker 6: there and came by shooting, and we jumped the fence
Speaker 6: and and.
Speaker 14: Get so far was that we got in convertible. It
Speaker 14: was a pink, pink convertible. We're trying to dugle on.
Speaker 11: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 10: So then you're already ready for this book to be
Speaker 10: the movie.
Speaker 5: Yes we are. Yeah, it'll be out in February. It'll
Speaker 5: be out in February. February this coming year, February Black
Speaker 5: History Month.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so black black, Yeah.
Speaker 11: Get back up out a day.
Speaker 4: Back when, back when it was Point as a pair.
Speaker 4: You guys were signed to Atlantic.
Speaker 12: No, we weren't signed to anyone then. No, we were
Speaker 12: just singing all over over San Francisco and everywhere. And
Speaker 12: in June we became when Anita joined the group. Then
Speaker 12: we became the Pointer Sisters.
Speaker 6: Okay, and was signed to Atlantic and signed to Atlanta.
Speaker 6: Terry Wexler saw we were playing at the Troubadour. We
Speaker 6: were backup singers, Me and Bonnie and June were backup
Speaker 6: seekers for groups in San Francisco, and we were.
Speaker 4: Saying, I don't know on my Sevester records, I've seen
Speaker 4: your name.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, I have so much fun with them.
Speaker 6: We were seeing he had the best clothes, Like I know,
Speaker 6: you got flying chickens on stage, hoops, wo fire people
Speaker 6: jumping through the hoops, and just people on swings. It
Speaker 6: was just like a circus. And we had we could
Speaker 6: have come out there and be singing our hands off
Speaker 6: as high as we could go because his voice was
Speaker 6: high right, and he wanted us above him.
Speaker 11: Our veins would be popping out of our next I.
Speaker 5: Think you said, did you did you? Did you attend
Speaker 5: his wedding at first kind of the first game wedding
Speaker 5: in San Francisco, Funny went to wedding?
Speaker 6: What was that in Golden Gate Park and Park?
Speaker 10: I'm saying, what did they What was the first dance?
Speaker 11: I don't I don't remember. We were too high, that.
Speaker 10: Makes sense to me.
Speaker 11: Tell you it was six was it seventy seventy two
Speaker 11: seventy one or something like that. Yeah, we all went
Speaker 11: to go.
Speaker 6: It was like seventy two seventy one. Yeah, just before
Speaker 6: we did our finished our We were finishing our album
Speaker 6: at the same time.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we loved his clothes.
Speaker 5: When when was the trip There was a trip where
Speaker 5: they took to I think Mississippi when they told you
Speaker 5: you couldn't sing. Uh, they had to sing you couldn't sing.
Speaker 6: That was what when we did the thing with Elvin
Speaker 6: at the Whiskey of Go Go with Jerry Wexler was
Speaker 6: in the audience and he called David Rubinson and said,
Speaker 6: I want to sign these girls. And like the next
Speaker 6: day we were off to New Orleans and from New
Speaker 6: Orleans to be with Wardale Kazar and from there we
Speaker 6: went to Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah. Jerry Wexler Aretha's producer. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and they got there, they gave us like five songs
Speaker 6: to learn overnight.
Speaker 1: How okay, Because of the intricacies of your presentation, First
Speaker 1: of all, when you're the point of Sisters, did you
Speaker 1: guys come out the gate?
Speaker 5: In the.
Speaker 1: Sort of filtered Andrew Sisters forties stick thing that.
Speaker 4: Defined you guys.
Speaker 1: For your first Blue Blue Note reclue, like was it,
Speaker 1: did you guys come out the gate? As in, Okay,
Speaker 1: our approach, it's going to be these forties harmonies with
Speaker 1: the dresses and we.
Speaker 6: Had the forties look, but we wanted to sing everything.
Speaker 6: And on the first but the first two albums we
Speaker 6: did stick with the jazz. We did a lot of
Speaker 6: jazz on the first two.
Speaker 1: Albums Cloudburst yea nine, How did you guys rehearse that?
Speaker 4: Because that's so intricate.
Speaker 6: Start off slow and yeah yeah, but we worked on
Speaker 6: it for you know, weeks. We sang it slow. Everybody
Speaker 6: get their note and you sing it slow and every
Speaker 6: day you speed it up.
Speaker 1: It's so hard for me to imagine that because, I mean,
Speaker 1: now with technology, I can go on the internet look
Speaker 1: up lyrics, you know, instantly repeat stuff.
Speaker 4: But you know, like there's a lot of words in Cloudburst.
Speaker 12: I know, so we got we got recognized in the
Speaker 12: Encyclopedia Britannica for singing five hundred words a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, Like, how how long did it take
Speaker 1: you before you mastered? Mastered it perfectly?
Speaker 11: After we fainted in the studio.
Speaker 7: A few times a week?
Speaker 6: Two weeks maybe, Yeah, it would take working day for hours.
Speaker 6: We go to David's office and just had a keyboard
Speaker 6: player that would just play it.
Speaker 4: You can tell like that that to me, like I
Speaker 4: feel like, whenever I want to put somebody.
Speaker 15: Down, that was always oh no, no, no, I knew
Speaker 15: from first you were my love because that's new great clubbers.
Speaker 7: My heart really flew.
Speaker 6: Class the first I Found Your Love and that's clubs.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, one of the things about that is that
Speaker 5: you know they were when they went to this southern event,
Speaker 5: they were told that they not supposed that they wanted
Speaker 5: to put them in a mold.
Speaker 6: And with the yeah, and we went from Jerry Wexler's
Speaker 6: said he wanted to sign us. They sent us down
Speaker 6: there to Wardale because they're and we went in singing
Speaker 6: country songs and uh, what else we have?
Speaker 4: Jada?
Speaker 6: Do we have Jada? Then too, and some other songs,
Speaker 6: and they laughed in our face. They told us, you
Speaker 6: can't sing songs like that. You guys are black girls,
Speaker 6: and you gotta sing like.
Speaker 11: The Jackson five. I want you to sound like the
Speaker 11: Honeycomb and he comes in the docks.
Speaker 6: That's what they told us.
Speaker 12: So then they gave me like the Honeycomb, a song
Speaker 12: called Don't try to take the Fifth on Me.
Speaker 6: Yeah. They gave us some songs that we lord.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, we did them and they put them out.
Speaker 6: They didn't do anything we knew. There wasn't us.
Speaker 11: Objection, not gone well, not gone with.
Speaker 6: Question and nature.
Speaker 7: Okay, So.
Speaker 1: It was very unorthodox though, because you guys were like
Speaker 1: the first throwback group. Even though throwback wasn't a thing
Speaker 1: back in the seventies, you know, like the whole nostalgia
Speaker 1: culture things didn't really wasn't a thing that you guys
Speaker 1: were even taking it before the fifties.
Speaker 12: You were taking it to likewies and forties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, How did you guys convince?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: Well, you're you're still at Atlantic with short you went
Speaker 1: to Bob was Bob cresnew president of uh huh? What
Speaker 1: made him see the vision of you guys and what
Speaker 1: you could be?
Speaker 5: I think it was David David Rubinson. David Rubinson had
Speaker 5: a bit that thing. Yeah. Yeah, he was familiar with
Speaker 5: the catalog of jazz and Lambert Hendrickson Ross and Disica
Speaker 5: Lespie and Duke Ellington, and he wanted all of them.
Speaker 5: And when yes, and when they said, you know, we
Speaker 5: can sing anything, don't put us in a box, then
Speaker 5: David must have heard that and said okay, and then
Speaker 5: they able to do it. Yeah, yeah, and so what Yeah.
Speaker 6: When we got the record back from New Orleans, that Wardale,
Speaker 6: because there did that we recorded in Jackson, Mississippi, David
Speaker 6: Rubinson took the record and threw it across the it was,
Speaker 6: this is not what I wanted you to do.
Speaker 11: This is not what I wanted for your division.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it wasn't what we wanted to do either, because
Speaker 6: they just you know, didn't let us do our music.
Speaker 6: They took one country song that we took to them,
Speaker 6: Tulsa County, Oh my god, count and they they took
Speaker 6: that song and you wouldn't recognize it. After they finished
Speaker 6: with it, they rearranged it into an R and B
Speaker 6: country song, so it didn't need the sound country anymore,
Speaker 6: saying man, you're black, you can't say no country music, right, right, And.
Speaker 5: That reoccurred when they went to the Grand Ole Opry
Speaker 5: and they had signs out in the front greeting them
Speaker 5: saying keep country white, keep it keep yeah, yeah, keep
Speaker 5: country country, country country, Yeah, in front of the Grand
Speaker 5: Ole Opry.
Speaker 16: That was the original makerber great again, right exactly exactly,
Speaker 16: say yes, same thing, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So that was quite an event. And you know,
Speaker 5: the country western part of it, you know.
Speaker 4: Yes we can't can, which was Alan wrote that for
Speaker 4: you guys Allan.
Speaker 1: Lee Dorsey did it, Yeah, he did it first. How
Speaker 1: did you what was whose idea was it to cover
Speaker 1: that song.
Speaker 6: It was a pointers says. We had the record at
Speaker 6: the Lee Dorsey album and we took it to Day
Speaker 6: but it said this is the message we want to
Speaker 6: get to the world. So then we wrote the vamp
Speaker 6: the end of the song. But Alan wouldn't give us
Speaker 6: any credits on it. He said the song was to
Speaker 6: my song, my song, I give you no writers credits,
Speaker 6: even though we wrote the whole end. Now the time
Speaker 6: all the people come together as an equal take the
Speaker 6: burden off your brother, got to love one another. How
Speaker 6: can you sit there like there's nothing to do, just
Speaker 6: like you don't care with this world is coming to
Speaker 6: so many needy, so many poor understanding is the key
Speaker 6: to the door, you know?
Speaker 5: And you know for their first debut performance, what what
Speaker 5: club was that the built? Built?
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 5: You know where you did the where the Klan was
Speaker 5: in the uniforms?
Speaker 11: That was Bimbo and Ku Klex Klan.
Speaker 5: Their debut performance. The performance the band was in a
Speaker 5: Ku Klux Klan uniform.
Speaker 11: We were dressed like Billy Holiday. That was funny.
Speaker 12: And the band was dressed in hoods and capes and
Speaker 12: and they were playing their guitars and playing in their
Speaker 12: Hoods that kind of funny now, But our own backup
Speaker 12: band was the klu Klux Klan.
Speaker 5: Can you believe it? Can you believe it?
Speaker 11: Like Billie Holidays and everything that was so wonderful.
Speaker 6: I didn't even notice the band, didn't. We got off
Speaker 6: the stage and I saw pictures. Yeah, turn around, and
Speaker 6: then nobody turned once, so we did.
Speaker 7: I was so nervous on the first show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't even realize they wouldn't know that who
Speaker 6: the band was. I didn't know.
Speaker 11: I didn't care because I wouldn't pan them no attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those three sixties, that was our very first, our
Speaker 1: first American show.
Speaker 11: Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 6: Did you have the Klan band too?
Speaker 4: No? We did not. No.
Speaker 1: Wow, So what what was the what was the touring
Speaker 1: circuit like for that specific period? Because I know that
Speaker 1: at least with the Summer of Love, like between sixty
Speaker 1: seven and seventy three. Uh, Bill Graham was into mixing,
Speaker 1: you know, Miles Davis and the Grateful Dead, Like would
Speaker 1: you guys fit in anything that was Bill grammish at all?
Speaker 11: Or he was our manager managed the Fillmore West, Fillmore East. Yes,
Speaker 11: it was our manager, but he said.
Speaker 6: He didn't be able to know that. He was always
Speaker 6: giving us money and he.
Speaker 11: Think everybody that.
Speaker 12: He did very meant so influenced our career and helped
Speaker 12: us along and to grow be what we are now today.
Speaker 4: So would he promote you via the rock circuit or
Speaker 4: like we were doing backup.
Speaker 11: Singing at the time.
Speaker 6: We were back up going to feel More West singing
Speaker 6: with Evanship Maha Jefferson airplane and we lived right across
Speaker 6: the street from did not get in line, so we
Speaker 6: were always there. Bill Graham was our man. He loves.
Speaker 4: Really So was it just like mere seconds to learn
Speaker 4: a song or like just.
Speaker 11: Going to make up our own backgrounds with them?
Speaker 13: Oh?
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 6: We did a lot of background singing on record and
Speaker 6: we would go in and they would play the track
Speaker 6: and they say, now what would you put what background
Speaker 6: would you put on this man? So we would make
Speaker 6: up the background parts.
Speaker 4: The situation for David Sessions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we did with some. Betty she was funny. She
Speaker 6: was really around.
Speaker 4: She is actually.
Speaker 6: The documentary stepping in her mail the shoes. Yeah, Betty
Speaker 6: was cool.
Speaker 1: So was that just a regular day? I mean, because
Speaker 1: she's so uh mysterious with her you know, her life
Speaker 1: and everything that this documentary is finally our first glimpse
Speaker 1: into really was there anything notable about those sessions at all?
Speaker 1: Or I was just like, all right, we woke up
Speaker 1: one day, who Betty Davis looking.
Speaker 11: Pants?
Speaker 6: And she wrote that song about I mil shoes.
Speaker 11: I find out?
Speaker 1: All right, I want I'm gonna skip to seventy five
Speaker 1: when you guys did the Stepping album speaking of shoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the very first song I ever learned to
Speaker 1: play on drums was I bet you got a.
Speaker 7: Chick on the side, Get out of here.
Speaker 1: I mean, by that point I was big enough to
Speaker 1: actually fit on my dad's My father's a German drummer.
Speaker 11: No, no, no, he was.
Speaker 1: My father was an oldiest singer. But his band, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to always sneak on the drum
Speaker 1: set and.
Speaker 11: So sen of you for a minute, let's see what's
Speaker 11: going on.
Speaker 1: But I'll say that, uh, the Stepping album, especially with
Speaker 1: I sleeping alone and what's the other Stevie's yeah, bring.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: What were those sessions like working with them?
Speaker 6: Oh? They were just heavenly. I don't hardly remember. I
Speaker 6: was sing off Stevie.
Speaker 11: Sing but you're gazing into space?
Speaker 7: And we wrote together.
Speaker 6: We went to the condos and we were living in Saucelito,
Speaker 6: and he came over to Scalyo to our condo and
Speaker 6: we rode and then we went back to David's studio
Speaker 6: and we went to Wally Hiders studio in San Francisco,
Speaker 6: and it was just magical.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 6: I was just happy to were working with him. I
Speaker 6: loved him with all my heart. And then to be
Speaker 6: able to work with him too and write some songs.
Speaker 6: And I noticed we got we got credit on baby
Speaker 6: Bringing Your Sweet Stuff Home to Me, and and we
Speaker 6: wrote another one with him called Sleeping Alone, but we
Speaker 6: didn't get any credits on it. So, Stevie, if you're
Speaker 6: out there, tell me.
Speaker 4: I said the same thing on ourselves.
Speaker 6: You know, I wrote the whole into that song. It
Speaker 6: can give me some credits.
Speaker 5: Come on, Steven, wait on that.
Speaker 6: I'm sure he's not addling the publishing, you know himself.
Speaker 6: So and those people that do, they're all about the money.
Speaker 6: They don't care about nothing.
Speaker 17: Else, right Unfortunately, So with the the having a Party project,
Speaker 17: it was the approach was less about the forty what
Speaker 17: what means you guys?
Speaker 1: Just stylistically to modernize the group and not yeah forty
Speaker 1: sing anymore.
Speaker 4: Whose decision was that?
Speaker 6: Well, I guess a joint decision of us and producer.
Speaker 6: But we have been doing these songs, you know, and
Speaker 6: getting gold albums and but it it made no difference.
Speaker 6: You know, they barely would hear them on the radio.
Speaker 6: The songs wouldn't be played just.
Speaker 11: Like now huh.
Speaker 6: But once we got a gold single, everything changed, and
Speaker 6: I guess that's what we were headed for. We didn't
Speaker 6: get it with David with having a party, but we
Speaker 6: got some nice fun stuff on that record and great musicians.
Speaker 1: It's weird because for hip hop, that's an album that
Speaker 1: a lot of hip hop produces gravitate towards because of
Speaker 1: you know, there's hip hop producers hear things different, so
Speaker 1: it's like like if there's a good four bars, there
Speaker 1: four bars, you know, that's sort of things. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of notable hip hop classics were you know,
Speaker 1: the foundation of a lot of the musical backdrop. That's
Speaker 1: an album to go to, you know with like drum
Speaker 1: loops and whatnot. That's good, but for you, you didn't
Speaker 1: particularly enjoy that album or that project or.
Speaker 6: That was the last project with David we did have
Speaker 6: the train station in La Union. It was just a
Speaker 6: crazy day. I remember it's working so hard and sweating, and.
Speaker 11: I don't remember it.
Speaker 4: Was hot.
Speaker 7: It was oh god, it was a fun day.
Speaker 6: Though. I enjoyed the video.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it, Okay. So how uh.
Speaker 1: As far as like the four of you concerned? I mean,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's family members sometimes agreeable, sometimes they
Speaker 1: bicker or whatnot. But like, how is it like is
Speaker 1: it truly always an agreeable atmosphere? Like how do you
Speaker 1: guys settle your differences and you're together all the time
Speaker 1: and you know how.
Speaker 6: Respect Yeah, and knowing each other as we grew together,
Speaker 6: you know, we just seemed to know what buttons not
Speaker 6: to push, you know, and when it'll be quiet.
Speaker 11: Me being the shortest and that one of the youngest.
Speaker 11: I believe me. I wasn't pushing no button nobody else's
Speaker 11: but not the tall people ain't too tall.
Speaker 6: No, she got tougher because she was the smallest, the
Speaker 6: biggest mouth, always ready to to get somebody. And Jack
Speaker 6: was the baby, so she was always handled with kid gloves.
Speaker 6: She was always kind of fragile, she really was, you know,
Speaker 6: And we kind of took care of her as much
Speaker 6: as we could.
Speaker 1: So you eventually went to Motown in seventy eight, seventy six,
Speaker 1: seventy eight with you released what Heaven must have sent you.
Speaker 4: I think I gotta say that all all.
Speaker 1: Of your soul training appearances, we're legendary because you and
Speaker 1: Don's flirt game.
Speaker 6: How much speak of Sea Ones, I'll.
Speaker 4: Hook you up. I got you on that you and
Speaker 4: Don's flirt game was really really I'll say that.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know what it was, but you know, there,
Speaker 1: I always felt like there was a lot of inside
Speaker 1: jokes whenever he would talk to you, like he would
Speaker 1: flirt with you the most.
Speaker 11: I'm keeping my mouth ship, so I would like.
Speaker 13: To know.
Speaker 1: Boss Bill and I for about maybe four or five years,
Speaker 1: we did a course as quasi professors at.
Speaker 5: N Y Youth and.
Speaker 1: One of the main themes of our class was the
Speaker 1: idea of what the eighties represented as far as uh
Speaker 1: for black groups transitioning too, what what lay ahead, or
Speaker 1: the idea of For some reason, the idea of crossovers
Speaker 1: seemed like a four letter word, But you know, I
Speaker 1: always explained to our class. There's a scene in film
Speaker 1: and Luiz where the very last scene. I don't want
Speaker 1: to spoiler alert.
Speaker 4: Did you see the movie, you know, the Cliff on
Speaker 4: the Cliff, But for.
Speaker 1: You know, for a lot of black artists that were
Speaker 1: notable in the seventies, uh, the eighties represented a cliff jump,
Speaker 1: and either some group's idea was to okay, well, the
Speaker 1: lead singer has to go, so I you know, Richie
Speaker 1: leaves the common doors and Michael Jackson eventually his way
Speaker 1: out of his family to go solo. And then some
Speaker 1: other groups kind of had a do or die situation,
Speaker 1: which is like either roll with the punches or you know,
Speaker 1: get left back into nostalgiaville. And I'll say that you guys,
Speaker 1: probably out of all the acts that attempted, that jump
Speaker 1: fared the best. Uh you know, Earth went and fired
Speaker 1: trying to make that jump cool in the gang, same situation.
Speaker 1: What when you guys went to Planet Records. I don't
Speaker 1: know what label that was under, but yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that you guys work with with Freddie Perrin Bridger parent par.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 1: What what was the trust situation between him as a
Speaker 1: producer and the group as far as.
Speaker 4: Convincing you guys to like see things my way? And
Speaker 4: I'm gonna put push you in a different direction, which.
Speaker 6: We kind of went to him wanting a different direction,
Speaker 6: and he liked our ideas. We took songs to him
Speaker 6: and uh, what were the songs? Everybody is a Star?
Speaker 6: It was one of the songs we took and let's see.
Speaker 4: I remember you did ah well Fired?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, but.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just saying that, Oh, well, do you revealed
Speaker 1: to me that you guys went to him? In my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking usually when we ask people that come on
Speaker 1: our show, usually it's a thing where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the label told us we have to do that, we
Speaker 1: have to do that, and always wanted to know because
Speaker 1: you're you're probably the first act that really has four stages,
Speaker 1: you know, Lias a singing act, four stages of.
Speaker 6: Life, as I had the list of the songs on
Speaker 6: my first album because there were a few that we
Speaker 6: brought to him. But he liked what we our ideas
Speaker 6: and we wanted to get away from the nostalgia thing
Speaker 6: because we didn't want people to compare it to what
Speaker 6: we used to do. We wanted to do something totally
Speaker 6: different and also more commercial. We ended up with Fire
Speaker 6: getting our first goal single and it made such a difference.
Speaker 6: We had gold albums and we never had a goal
Speaker 6: single before. But once we got that goal single, everything
Speaker 6: just shot up. Everything just went hey, it went crazy.
Speaker 6: You know, I wish I written that song.
Speaker 4: Bruce song to you guys are like Howard Songs presented
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 6: Richard Perry brought it to us and I heard it
Speaker 6: was originally recorded and written for Elvis Presley. But because
Speaker 6: when they brought it in and played it for it,
Speaker 6: so it's like I'm running in your car, wait turn
Speaker 6: on the radio. And I said what I said, maybe
Speaker 6: Ruthy should sing it. He said, I want you to
Speaker 6: sing it, and that nice, So I said, it is
Speaker 6: our first gold single.
Speaker 5: Well that was a kind of another kind of a
Speaker 5: mold breaking experience too, because there you ran into like
Speaker 5: you did with the country music. Black girls don't sing
Speaker 5: rock and roll, right, that was a crazy idea. I
Speaker 5: don't know where he got that from, but that's what
Speaker 5: I read that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because with Richard Perry that second album, Priority, we
Speaker 6: had such successful the first album and then Priority we
Speaker 6: put that and it was like all rock and roll,
Speaker 6: it's so good. I love it, and they wouldn't play
Speaker 6: it the radio.
Speaker 12: Said, they refused to play it because there's no such
Speaker 12: thing as black rock and rollus.
Speaker 11: Can you imagine that a rock and heart? What do
Speaker 11: they think started it?
Speaker 6: Really? Where did?
Speaker 10: The ones who copied it from the black radio couldn't
Speaker 10: play it either.
Speaker 6: They just weren't allowed to play it because you know,
Speaker 6: they owned by the white folks.
Speaker 11: It's to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Fan, Okay, I love it, well, I love I love
Speaker 1: the fact that your label wasn't discouraged or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got another chance because.
Speaker 6: Because our producer loved rock and roll. I mean he,
Speaker 6: I mean he was friends with Tina Turner and you know,
Speaker 6: Rod Stewart and all of them would always be at
Speaker 6: his house and stuff, and he loved it. And he
Speaker 6: felt that from getting that first album through with all
Speaker 6: the you know, the things that were on there, and
Speaker 6: he figured, well they and if plus he was producer
Speaker 6: of the year okay, he was that olser of the year.
Speaker 6: He got awards, accolades all and so he figured, I
Speaker 6: can do this, you know, and Noll accept it from me,
Speaker 6: and they did. He said, no, I'm a rock and
Speaker 6: roll guy too, and you know, and they did. They
Speaker 6: didn't they wouldn't accept it.
Speaker 10: Dang, it's still hard for him too. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: progress been slow for.
Speaker 1: The Special Things album. I know that the burying Cynthia, right,
Speaker 1: he's so shy. I know Cynthia. Well yeah, okay, I
Speaker 1: gotta look.
Speaker 6: He's so shy. Was Tom Tom and Cynthia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Barry became a songwriting partner. Tell you guys, how
Speaker 1: was that song?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: It was so much fun to was he We worked
Speaker 6: with him before on something else. I can't remember what song,
Speaker 6: but when he brought us, he's so shy, and we
Speaker 6: just loved the song and it was easy to sing,
Speaker 6: and people loved it and and I think guys loved
Speaker 6: it because we could sing to them, you know, and
Speaker 6: most guys are shy.
Speaker 12: To me.
Speaker 4: Happened on the Love Book with Isaac.
Speaker 11: And you went to school with him.
Speaker 6: I went to high school with Ted. We were we
Speaker 6: were in plays all the time. His mother had a
Speaker 6: radio show there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, was militant.
Speaker 6: We had a great drama teacher, mister Wayne. And we
Speaker 6: still keep in touch with him and Ted are still
Speaker 6: writing things, and I get in touch with them every
Speaker 6: now and then. We're not in touch like we should be.
Speaker 6: But I loved Ted and we went to high school together,
Speaker 6: and we were in all the plays together in high school.
Speaker 6: I really thought I would get into acting more than singing,
Speaker 6: because I really liked it. But once I started auditioning,
Speaker 6: I said.
Speaker 4: Oh no, this is not for me.
Speaker 7: I forgot car washing.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, that's true. Car Wash was so much fun.
Speaker 6: Oh god, that was so much fun working with Richard Pryor.
Speaker 6: I'm a kidney. He had us laughing all the time.
Speaker 7: It was hilarious.
Speaker 6: We went to his house and hung out with him
Speaker 6: there after, you know, the show shooting and stuff, and.
Speaker 11: Was on the road with him at that place and
Speaker 11: was that in New Jersey?
Speaker 6: Were we're open for him?
Speaker 17: At?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 6: That place in back East and I can't remember. And
Speaker 6: he would get out on See.
Speaker 4: The US won't get me. Know.
Speaker 11: I love the I love them, but they won't give me.
Speaker 16: What was it like working with Norman Whitfield? You gotta
Speaker 16: believe what was he like in the studio.
Speaker 6: He was wonderful, He loved us. He know we should
Speaker 6: have had the hit song the war songs that he
Speaker 6: was his group Rose roy So and they did a
Speaker 6: fabulous job and they were wonderful, but he know that
Speaker 6: should have been our song.
Speaker 11: He wanted us to sound like the Female Temptations.
Speaker 6: We were I was up at Ruthie's apartment. Gary Stromberg,
Speaker 6: I think it was, who was one of the producers,
Speaker 6: was AT's house, remember AIDA's house, And we went down
Speaker 6: there and Gary Stromberg was there and he said he's
Speaker 6: doing a movie. And we said, well, put us in
Speaker 6: the movie. You know, if you're doing a movie. We
Speaker 6: were hot at the time. We had hit songs and
Speaker 6: on TV and all that stuff. So he did. He
Speaker 6: called us the next day and say we got We
Speaker 6: wrote you in And it wasn't a big part, but
Speaker 6: it was a fabulous time. It was yeah.
Speaker 7: With Bill Rich.
Speaker 11: Yeah you got to believe in something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, wellhy not believe in me? Yeah that was too much.
Speaker 4: But how many days did it take the shoot? Was
Speaker 4: it just like a one day shoot or no?
Speaker 7: It was like a week?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, a week because yeah, it was fun. And the
Speaker 6: last day of shooting we had our own little rat party.
Speaker 6: We were all so happy that it was over. Oh
Speaker 6: my god. And then we got to call the next
Speaker 6: morning saying we need close ups. I thought I was
Speaker 6: going to die close up today all night.
Speaker 5: It's crazy. I ran into Rose Royce and Beijing. Wow,
Speaker 5: really she's performing over there?
Speaker 10: I wonder, Yeah, were you lecturing?
Speaker 5: No, No, my wife and I were just visiting Beijing,
Speaker 5: and of course you and of course she didn't. She
Speaker 5: wasn't very friendly. And then I found out the backstory
Speaker 5: and found out that that that they had been brought
Speaker 5: into the studio by normal I think to say, sing
Speaker 5: it like the Pointer sisters.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 10: That's a long time to hold I know.
Speaker 6: She said that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, she didn't say anything out why she was
Speaker 5: so unfriendly to us because I introduced myself.
Speaker 6: They were very rude to Rose Royce while we were
Speaker 6: in the studio.
Speaker 11: Wow, were that.
Speaker 6: Norman Whitfield was tough and he wanted to show that
Speaker 6: he was was you know, sing it again and sing
Speaker 6: it about. You can sing it better than that.
Speaker 5: Wow, pu's it up there?
Speaker 6: Come on? And it was really just hard on them.
Speaker 6: I couldn't understand because I never had a producer talk
Speaker 6: to me that way and he didn't. No, he didn't
Speaker 6: talk to us that way at all.
Speaker 4: They sing it at all.
Speaker 9: We got it.
Speaker 11: We don't want to.
Speaker 13: Us.
Speaker 6: We got it right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It was a great honor to work with him. He's
Speaker 6: such a legend and the world another borl.
Speaker 5: Will Miss Bonnie studied under Cecil Brown, who did a
Speaker 5: biography of Richard Pryor at that kind at Merritt College
Speaker 5: in Oakland. Yes, he did a biography of Richard Cecil Brown.
Speaker 5: He wrote some wonderful books stagger lye and you talking
Speaker 5: about dancer, You mean a book a book? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: but he wrote a biography.
Speaker 11: Did you study Bonnie Oakland Mills College, Miracle?
Speaker 10: What did you study there?
Speaker 6: Art?
Speaker 10: Visual art?
Speaker 7: Yes, Pa, we got to get.
Speaker 6: Got to get a new easel and I got.
Speaker 4: What was it like doing? Well, how did y'all get
Speaker 4: the call? I guess for the pinball thing?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yes, I love call this so I don't know how
Speaker 6: they they called and asked us to do it, and
Speaker 6: we went over to San Francisco and we took our kids.
Speaker 6: I had Jada was there and fun and Malik I
Speaker 6: think she gone and Nandi were there to I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think so princes kids.
Speaker 11: My kids were very cool working.
Speaker 4: In the studio with Herbie. Was he there at the time?
Speaker 11: What the pinball machine?
Speaker 4: Handcock?
Speaker 11: No, the pen Mam machine is the sesame street.
Speaker 1: Music wise, we always told that Herbie Hancock did the music.
Speaker 6: Really well, we weren't there.
Speaker 11: I don't even know we did it. We did sing
Speaker 11: one to the four, five, eleven, twelve.
Speaker 4: Always a different times.
Speaker 12: Yeah, well that's that's the and we did the ab
Speaker 12: school cool crazy swinging alphabets.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, it's interesting to when they talk about how
Speaker 5: the technology has developed and how when they were singing
Speaker 5: earlier on they didn't have this looping protos.
Speaker 11: We were twelve times.
Speaker 12: We had the twelve hundred times we would be in
Speaker 12: the studio till our hands fell, like.
Speaker 1: One of one of our usually it's six of us
Speaker 1: and one of our members. Uh, unpaid Bill is.
Speaker 11: Unpaid Bill, that's his name.
Speaker 1: He's now the Joe Roposal of Sesame Street.
Speaker 5: He like, oh wow, beautiful.
Speaker 4: He was going through all the.
Speaker 1: Old tapes and realized that you guys had to do
Speaker 1: twelve individual versions of that song.
Speaker 11: And wow, I didn't even know that. I don't remember.
Speaker 11: Wow about eleven twelve, I get it.
Speaker 4: I'm glad it wasn't. Yeah, it could have been twenty.
Speaker 7: That's what I like it.
Speaker 6: At the studio.
Speaker 11: Yeah, what time is that we have to be there?
Speaker 12: Now?
Speaker 6: Finished? Thirteen?
Speaker 1: I have a question because I know that you always
Speaker 1: wanted to know you wrote on the Special Things album.
Speaker 4: Could I be dreaming?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Can I ask you something? How much have influenced the
Speaker 4: Jackson shake Your Boy Down to the ground half on
Speaker 4: that song?
Speaker 15: You know what?
Speaker 6: I didn't think a minute enough to ever come to you.
Speaker 6: But the thing is, the track was done by Trevor Lawrence,
Speaker 6: my friend. He brought me the track. I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 6: I never never even entered my mind anything about Michael
Speaker 6: Jackson or the Jackson's And when a friend played it
Speaker 6: for a friend and she told me that I wanted
Speaker 6: to pop her in the what just like Jackson's what
Speaker 6: you're talking about?
Speaker 4: Witness?
Speaker 6: It was so hard. I'm like, this is one of
Speaker 6: the best songs I ever wrote. I love it.
Speaker 13: The thing was.
Speaker 4: When radio first started playing it, Jackson.
Speaker 6: And That's something A minute, Wow, that was? That was
Speaker 6: really cold, you know, because I'm sorry, thanks for bringing
Speaker 6: that up to say that, you know, And there are
Speaker 6: songs that sounded like.
Speaker 11: Out there all the time, I know, and they wouldn't
Speaker 11: play mine.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing.
Speaker 12: Here's the thing though, because you're a Nita Pointer and
Speaker 12: you're black, You're not a Jackson.
Speaker 1: We just we just had Randy Jackson on the show
Speaker 1: for him and for him, he admitted that shake your
Speaker 1: body down to the ground was basically his version of
Speaker 1: Teddy Pendergrass, Get up, get down.
Speaker 7: Believe me, you know what.
Speaker 6: We take some songs all the time, but I swear
Speaker 6: to God if when I was doing that song, I
Speaker 6: had no there was no inkling, no thought about the
Speaker 6: Jackson song at all. We've had songs that we've taken
Speaker 6: from John Lee Hooker, you know him, that we've done,
Speaker 6: and we you know, did some things from his.
Speaker 7: We did that on it was bet you got to
Speaker 7: check on the side, really.
Speaker 6: Say that. But I believe me, I'm proud to say, whoever,
Speaker 6: because that's what music is all about, going round and
Speaker 6: round and you know, coming back backing in and and
Speaker 6: so I would never not get him that. But I
Speaker 6: took the Jackson song for for Could I be dreaming?
Speaker 6: Because I never thought about the.
Speaker 11: Jackson the thing that, yeah, the music I would that narration.
Speaker 6: I wanted to be heard, and they won't even play
Speaker 6: the damn song and they think.
Speaker 11: So we're gonna flap somebody, Yes.
Speaker 6: It's released.
Speaker 12: How things like that happened? Like when I was writing
Speaker 12: the song man with the Right Rhythm. Janet came out
Speaker 12: with Rhythm Nation, and.
Speaker 6: Even when I did, uh, when I did, could I
Speaker 6: be dreaming? Jermaine or one of the brothers came out
Speaker 6: with tell Me I'm not dreaming?
Speaker 11: You know, keep your mouth.
Speaker 6: That when I was, Oh my god. John Bettison, marcou Jacko, Michael.
Speaker 4: Clark, human Nature.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that became like the women's national anthem. You know,
Speaker 5: I called it the American female anthem because it certainly
Speaker 5: speaks to today's hashtag me too, beneath the man.
Speaker 11: A company.
Speaker 16: That slower reminds me of just being a kid, and
Speaker 16: like hearing that on the radio and kind of like
Speaker 16: a kind of like a country count.
Speaker 4: I used to look like that.
Speaker 6: Nashville writers John Bettison, Michael Clark.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah them. I just remember hearing that song and
Speaker 4: like Crystal Gale.
Speaker 7: And like all those that was.
Speaker 6: Like all the.
Speaker 13: But that's easy to for you to digest and accept
Speaker 13: other songs like the Kenny Rogers, the Dolly Partons and whatnot.
Speaker 6: I loved it. I thought it was a great song.
Speaker 6: I'm glad to sing it.
Speaker 1: You know what, not many people know that a lot
Speaker 1: of people I believe that I'm So Excited debuted on Breakout,
Speaker 1: not knowing that.
Speaker 4: Two years beforehand.
Speaker 7: It was I'm so excited, it was excited.
Speaker 4: What was what was the reasoning behind re releasing it
Speaker 4: for Breakout?
Speaker 6: I begged Richard Perry because I said, this song is
Speaker 6: a hit. It's a shame too much. Let this song
Speaker 6: go to waste, and it's a great song. And they
Speaker 6: just made me sick not listening to us, and they
Speaker 6: put it on the first album and then put out
Speaker 6: American Music as the single. You know, we're all patriotic
Speaker 6: and Hayden, yeah, I'm telling you. And then I said, David,
Speaker 6: come on, you know we rode with all our hearts
Speaker 6: and this is a great song and you can't let
Speaker 6: it go. We want this on the next album, and
Speaker 6: he did it. I didn't know. I didn't know if
Speaker 6: that had ever been done before, but I said, you
Speaker 6: got to do this. You got to save this song
Speaker 6: and get it back out there. It was on the
Speaker 6: Breakout album, it was on the So Excited album. The
Speaker 6: album was titled and it still wouldn't play it.
Speaker 11: That's ridiculous, you know.
Speaker 6: And then it put it on the next album and
Speaker 6: coming out as an instant hit.
Speaker 1: So you're telling me that because again, I mean, I
Speaker 1: was listening to black radio exclusively like when I was
Speaker 1: a kid.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't like I was taking the charts to
Speaker 4: the billboard, none of that stuff. But I heard it
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 1: But you're saying that from your perspective in eighty two
Speaker 1: when it first came out on So Excited album, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a hit. It wasn't a hit hit like across
Speaker 1: the board in your eyes, or it was number is wise.
Speaker 6: It just wasn't right right, not until it got on
Speaker 6: the breakout album.
Speaker 1: So in your minds, unless it's a pop hit officially
Speaker 1: like covering all bases of the black charts and pop radio,
Speaker 1: then it's like, okay, it's satisfactory or well.
Speaker 6: When you get the numbers, the ratings from people buying
Speaker 6: the album, you know, that's the main way to judge it,
Speaker 6: I guess. And then the requests for playing your songs.
Speaker 6: I don't know. It's a whole different market now though,
Speaker 6: with Instagram and stream and music, and people don't buy it,
Speaker 6: they just stream it.
Speaker 4: And download it.
Speaker 7: That counts work they downloaded, and but they pay for.
Speaker 5: That, right, Well, that that's One of the things that
Speaker 5: David mentioned too, is that it was alternative radio that
Speaker 5: really promoted the point of Sisters early because black radio
Speaker 5: wasn't playing them, and they still have problems playing the
Speaker 5: point of Sisters for whatever. I don't know. At least they.
Speaker 7: Can't get don't hear nothing.
Speaker 4: They was definitely playing I'm So Excited on w.
Speaker 10: D S and Philly, So those two, at least I'm
Speaker 10: so excited I.
Speaker 4: Would jump that was excited.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean Breakout was just short of thriller.
Speaker 1: They had seven singles on it. So were you shocked
Speaker 1: at the at the mass excepstance of Breakout the album
Speaker 1: and how.
Speaker 6: Shocked and thrilled? Happy, just elated? Yeah, it was wonderful
Speaker 6: to have an album go triple platinum.
Speaker 4: So we had Ali Willis on our show, have Anita
Speaker 4: pointer or.
Speaker 11: Okay, so we heard or.
Speaker 1: She explained to this that that song almost didn't make
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills cop Like the way that was discovered by
Speaker 1: the producers was kind of an accident.
Speaker 4: Yeah, were you guys are aware of how it was
Speaker 4: added last minute? Like by accident?
Speaker 6: Somewhat? I don't. I don't remember the whole story, but
Speaker 6: I remember there being some conflict with the lyric and
Speaker 6: thinking of neutron bombs and you know, yeah song about
Speaker 6: war and some people. I'm so happy, she said, yes,
Speaker 6: it is.
Speaker 5: I think there's some deep irony in there, though she's
Speaker 5: been very sarcastic, deeply sardonic. I mean, it's not just
Speaker 5: you know, she's she's really saying, you know, you really
Speaker 5: just put where you want the world to go? Can
Speaker 5: you can you really you know, deal with.
Speaker 6: I don't want to take it anymore exactly, I'll stay
Speaker 6: here locked behind the door, right, so it has stop.
Speaker 4: And get away where it is now, I can't separate
Speaker 4: it from a truck chase.
Speaker 9: And I also said somebody actually stole tried to steal
Speaker 9: her brand new Chevrolet.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's the lyric.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and the redom I have no.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 4: We go back to uh, the So Excited album for
Speaker 4: a second.
Speaker 9: Huh Yeah, go ahead, You guys covered one of my
Speaker 9: favorite songs in that record, Princess, I Feel for You?
Speaker 4: Where did that I do from?
Speaker 11: You?
Speaker 4: Guys?
Speaker 6: Cover that from Richard Pry He brought it to us
Speaker 6: and we love Prince. Prince had come into the studio
Speaker 6: too to watch us record one time, and and so uh,
Speaker 6: he invited us to come to Paisley Park and do
Speaker 6: it there. And that's what we did. What we did.
Speaker 6: What was that Like he had all his his factory
Speaker 6: upstairs where they made all his clothes, close, shoes, everything
Speaker 6: to match. And and he had like a cave area
Speaker 6: where he had the purple Rain motorcycle. And it was
Speaker 6: a whole big room there with pillows on the floor.
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to envision it. I haven't been back
Speaker 6: so long. With pillows on the floor and and you know, silk.
Speaker 4: On the walls, and and the eyes watching you.
Speaker 1: From the painting, there's too many murals of his face
Speaker 1: with the eyes watching that.
Speaker 9: It was like the Three Stooges, like like you walk
Speaker 9: one way. And after they did the big remodel for
Speaker 9: the for the kids, Well, no, I went before and after.
Speaker 4: Oh, but I thought the.
Speaker 9: Eyes went up there until after they after they remodeled,
Speaker 9: Well in two thousand was that?
Speaker 4: That was after ninety six is when they remodeled.
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, we were there before that.
Speaker 4: Eyes were watching, watching, eyes were definitely watching.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: With breakout, Uh, you know, it's it's just unprecedented that
Speaker 1: six album, six singles from one album.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm short of thriller. That's this is unprecedented. Then,
Speaker 4: Like what was it? What was the label's reaction to
Speaker 4: you guys as far as like were you there? Priority?
Speaker 5: Were you there?
Speaker 6: They were happy?
Speaker 11: That sounds happy.
Speaker 16: We got by that time, I mean, having such a
Speaker 16: huge record, where was the biggest source of income coming from.
Speaker 4: Records? And did the tour money go up?
Speaker 11: Like you got to hit that help the tour money up?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we got good tourings and and as the years
Speaker 6: go up, the publishing gets better.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've seen you guys twice doing that period. That was
Speaker 1: like the only non Jackson's Prince show that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: So you guys once at a Universal Amphitheater.
Speaker 6: Yeah was that line over?
Speaker 1: Uh no, the year after you guys were at Universal
Speaker 1: Amphitheater by yourself.
Speaker 4: All I remember is, uh.
Speaker 1: Was June came out in a crazy outfit to do
Speaker 1: our solo song about the piano or something.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, like give me a fucking break, guys, Like
Speaker 4: it was. She had great common time.
Speaker 6: As he did that doctor doctor bit on stage. I
Speaker 6: don't know if that was the one dressed like a
Speaker 6: nurse and piano and.
Speaker 1: Hey, are you guys aware of Jeremy's second life in
Speaker 1: the sort of the euro d M world.
Speaker 6: No tell me about the baby making.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's yeah, it's it's sort of uh, how
Speaker 1: can I describe it? Like, uh, I forget, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's skrillics or like someone that's big in
Speaker 1: the dum world, the electric electric dance, music dance and
Speaker 1: music world sort of like kind of took there me
Speaker 1: and sort of remade it. And it's it's weird because
Speaker 1: when I spend the original in clubs now, like the
Speaker 1: audience store, like, and then when I get to the hooks,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh shit, you know, like they get where
Speaker 1: it comes from. Like it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: big sample in the medium world.
Speaker 11: I didn't know that. So or is it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 4: So? Is that? Is that still in the current lineup?
Speaker 4: As far as your songs? Like that you do now?
Speaker 4: Or is it? Do you do? Dear me?
Speaker 7: Well, I don't.
Speaker 6: I'm not on the road anymore.
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't know it not till this morning.
Speaker 6: Ruth, my sister, Ruth and her daughter and her granddaughter
Speaker 6: Sedaco are traveling as the new the new point. Okay,
Speaker 6: and I retired in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 5: I'm enjoying it and start working on this book.
Speaker 6: Start working on the book, and your exhibition another working
Speaker 6: Champagne King and.
Speaker 4: People like, oh man, how was she doing? How was
Speaker 4: Evelyn doing?
Speaker 11: Great?
Speaker 4: Good?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I deal with you know, Fandelais and a lot
Speaker 12: of the old rock and rosters and disco shall I
Speaker 12: say disco stars mm hmm yeah.
Speaker 4: I also I'll say that I also believe that.
Speaker 1: You guys deserve to be in the Rock and Roll
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4: I do, and they would, you know, from my mouth
Speaker 4: to their ears, right right right, that should happen. So
Speaker 4: the book comes out in February.
Speaker 5: Comes out in February. Yeah, we're just so excited about that.
Speaker 5: We're going to have books signing up in Oakland. And
Speaker 5: Anita's working on another book of exhibitions. She's been saving
Speaker 5: their costumes for the last what thirty years, and she's
Speaker 5: got all of them. She has all of them, and
Speaker 5: she's now created a book because she's sorry. Up to
Speaker 5: ninety person told me over one hundred pages now of
Speaker 5: costumes that they want to do.
Speaker 6: This is a many we have a big book. That's
Speaker 6: that just gives you a few of the things that
Speaker 6: we have.
Speaker 4: But how are you whoa you do?
Speaker 1: Okay, this is official how to our listeners out there.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at uh a miniature book the size of
Speaker 1: a CD booklet of all their how were you able
Speaker 1: to preserve?
Speaker 11: And in her garage?
Speaker 6: Those?
Speaker 5: But there there were for.
Speaker 6: They're in their Bob Mackie the first designer, and then
Speaker 6: Bob Long from Australia.
Speaker 4: Like with your designer seeking you guys out will you might.
Speaker 6: Be Long designed for all the New York plays and
Speaker 6: things and he's really great and we are gonna it's
Speaker 6: going to be digital, so you can go on, we'll
Speaker 6: go the music, will send it out to the museums
Speaker 6: we went and looked at today. Can get the password
Speaker 6: to enter the book online so we can let them
Speaker 6: see what we have clothes in the museum and you know, yes.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, we have a Are you guys aware of
Speaker 1: the well I keep called the Black Son That's what
Speaker 1: I call it.
Speaker 4: It is the Black in d C.
Speaker 5: Yes, you went there, We're in there and there there Okay,
Speaker 5: we want.
Speaker 6: More in there? Do you want someone there that we
Speaker 6: can get us some stuff.
Speaker 4: We have a hook up for you.
Speaker 5: VM you hear it.
Speaker 11: I know blank in there, I know the banks.
Speaker 4: How many children is it? Did you guys have like
Speaker 4: the for the next generation.
Speaker 6: The next Uh? Well, Fritz has four.
Speaker 11: I'm barren.
Speaker 6: I have one my daughters. Sorry to say, my daughter
Speaker 6: died in two thousand and three and that kind of
Speaker 6: killed me. That's why I slowly just had to stop.
Speaker 6: You had to stop going on the road and singing.
Speaker 5: And her only child child.
Speaker 11: So it's not getting.
Speaker 6: It's very hard. I don't on anyone. It's the worst
Speaker 6: thing ever. I'll never get over it. It's just terrible.
Speaker 11: Now, let's go and move on to happier.
Speaker 6: Yeahs. And our older brother Aaron.
Speaker 5: Has four three four four three or four four.
Speaker 6: Barbarice and you have Barb I have four and two sons. Yeah,
Speaker 6: here's four.
Speaker 4: You have off.
Speaker 6: You know, we've never had a family reunion.
Speaker 5: What never?
Speaker 4: We have enough we have we're going to change.
Speaker 6: When we were kids in Oakland and our im we're
Speaker 6: coming over and barbecue and all the family would be there.
Speaker 6: That'd be like our family reunion. And that was all
Speaker 6: the time we lived together. The green T shirts, the
Speaker 6: lives we lived up there exactly.
Speaker 13: Y'all know that family has expanded and folks don't know
Speaker 13: each other. We are at that point in our family
Speaker 13: now where it's like, okay, let's travel to see family.
Speaker 10: Make up the West.
Speaker 11: Coast half of the people and there are.
Speaker 6: People want people related.
Speaker 11: And they go something pointer, and I go, what that's
Speaker 11: your family? Who are they right?
Speaker 1: The majority of the majority of the family in Oakland
Speaker 1: still or are you guys.
Speaker 5: Spread Oh, we're spread out now.
Speaker 6: To Oakland.
Speaker 5: My brother's Tacoma. My brother is, he's been there for
Speaker 5: twenty five thirty years.
Speaker 4: Kids they want to do music as well? Or are
Speaker 4: they working on music?
Speaker 5: I have a son who studying building a studio into music.
Speaker 5: My son is yeah, but that's the only one that
Speaker 5: we know of right now.
Speaker 11: There are different aspects of My granddaughter.
Speaker 6: Roxy does music. Yes, that's my granddaughter, and she does music.
Speaker 6: He's got hundreds of incredible tracks. And I'm telling her,
Speaker 6: my chop liver, can I sing yourself? She says, she's
Speaker 6: working on this, the right thing she wants me to do.
Speaker 4: It's a gam for your grandma.
Speaker 12: I will go bust the room and join them all
Speaker 12: over they've been working on some great stuff.
Speaker 6: Alan Alvin is a rapper and he is I love
Speaker 6: his rapping, don't you love it?
Speaker 11: I love it?
Speaker 6: And something doing some great stuff. I'm proud of this.
Speaker 1: There's one proud of there's one I forgot. What was
Speaker 1: it like being a part of USA for Africa?
Speaker 4: We are the world? Night?
Speaker 6: Oh god, what tonight. We had just come from the
Speaker 6: I think the am A Awards and went to the
Speaker 6: studio and I was in awe. Everybody top secret like
Speaker 6: the famous people.
Speaker 4: Found out about it, and was the top secret like
Speaker 4: we found out like.
Speaker 6: The day before because they sent us sheet music and
Speaker 6: a cassette and having the frame.
Speaker 9: Princey's house and he has the lead sheet framed on it.
Speaker 6: I got a lead with everybody. I went around that
Speaker 6: night and made everybody designed my music and I got
Speaker 6: my frame.
Speaker 4: D of intimidated by anybody that was.
Speaker 11: In the room or you guys, like everybody everybody was
Speaker 11: like you, oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 12: Michael Jackson, you want to Linel Richie, Yes, wonderful, Yeah,
Speaker 12: bet Middler.
Speaker 6: Else was there? Uh no, well, chi LEI was there.
Speaker 11: I think that's Oakland too, r that's Oakland.
Speaker 6: And LaToya Jackson was like, right beside me, Turner, Turner,
Speaker 6: that was a wonderful, wonderful night. I mean we got
Speaker 6: out of there. The sun was coming up there all night.
Speaker 4: Did you have any experiences with Aretha while she was alive?
Speaker 5: No, Well, Ruth, Ruth had some competition with area Dennis Edwards.
Speaker 5: In fact, in fact, her daughter.
Speaker 11: Edwards.
Speaker 5: Wow, there singing with her. Her daughter who singing with
Speaker 5: her is product of Ruth and Dennis.
Speaker 6: Edwards, and she and Maria were dating. Dennis like, oh
Speaker 6: yeah the same time.
Speaker 12: Wow.
Speaker 4: Wow, I'm so frozen. I don't even do myself. I'm
Speaker 4: doing my sound right now.
Speaker 11: Too much information, baby.
Speaker 1: Well you know I have to say that enough, can I?
Speaker 1: This is a pleasant, pleasant surprise. Again, Bonnie is such
Speaker 1: a fan in the my viewers for the longest. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad to finally met you. I never thought I
Speaker 1: wouldn't you ever. Thank you the same for you your
Speaker 1: whole family. And again, yes, rock and roll Hall of Fame, I.
Speaker 11: Gotta be.
Speaker 6: We've got a star on the Hollywood and welcome fan Arkansas,
Speaker 6: Black Hall of Fame.
Speaker 11: Everything, it don't matter, yes, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: I just want to say that something I said earlier today.
Speaker 4: You guys were in my childhood.
Speaker 9: And every time I listen to your music, I'm just
Speaker 9: taking back to such a wonderful place and time in
Speaker 9: my life. Wonder just to be sitting across from you
Speaker 9: guys like beside my.
Speaker 4: Kicking out here.
Speaker 6: We see we talked you well. I see that T
Speaker 6: shirt you have on. You got a lot of good
Speaker 6: information from the morning.
Speaker 16: One question before before we break Mays was she an
Speaker 16: influence lord?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were listening to a song we were doing
Speaker 6: We did Respect Yourself, Yes, in Vegas, and Fritz brought
Speaker 6: up a CD and played it. We played it last
Speaker 6: night with us singing in Vegas at Caesar's Palace singing
Speaker 6: Respect Yourself. Maybe we were on the road, but yeah.
Speaker 6: And Prince was very good friends with May Staples and
Speaker 6: we had some fun fun times together.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I was also the friends with with Purpose.
Speaker 7: He was a differend of mine. He would go to
Speaker 7: those night.
Speaker 6: Clubs and you go in there. Oh my god, this
Speaker 6: is a gun sitting right there on the desk.
Speaker 5: Where we have sound check.
Speaker 4: Wow, okay, I just got one of the silhouettes from that.
Speaker 11: You know that is that's a tattoo. I look on
Speaker 11: the back and the tattoos.
Speaker 4: You gotta be like a SoundCloud rapper. Put it on
Speaker 4: your face. Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you for coming on the show today.
Speaker 13: Much.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: Team Supreme and the Porn Sisters and brother Fritz. Like
Speaker 1: every English professor, I had.
Speaker 4: What you said? What was what you said? It was?
Speaker 4: It was? What was the words you used?
Speaker 7: She had got some words.
Speaker 13: You can't English as well as African American studies.
Speaker 18: You know you gotta peop. He got the sky and
Speaker 18: he got on the grip. He got on the grill
Speaker 18: and sandals, yes like you cancuse you on the grill?
Speaker 5: What frist was about?
Speaker 11: Show me a little necklace, some tattoo. Tattoo point Nicholas, get.
Speaker 4: You got one.
Speaker 6: On the free.
Speaker 5: Had you got to get a hat sometimes.
Speaker 10: Like your brass bangle toih.
Speaker 5: That's from the towering people in West.
Speaker 11: How do you like my bangle? What does it say?
Speaker 10: I could just see them glasses.
Speaker 11: It says fall risk a risk.
Speaker 4: This is What's Love Supreme only on Pandora. We will
Speaker 4: see you next go around.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
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