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 from Questlove Supreme. As
Speaker 2: you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating Black
Speaker 2: Music Month. We're at leasing 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 Main Brady and the legendary James Poyser, both of
Speaker 2: which were filmed in studio. Black music is deeply important
Speaker 2: to me and has been an influence throughout my entire career.
Speaker 2: It's also something to celebrate here in ULLs. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: QLs had father daughter, Bobby and Madison mcfaranog. This was
Speaker 2: a phone episode really worth revisiting given that they worked
Speaker 2: together on Madison's recent album I Hope You Can Forgive
Speaker 2: Me Enjoy.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Giving Baseline fun day a boom boom? Why are you
Speaker 3: thinking of the Jungle Brother's cool at the end of
Speaker 3: the record.
Speaker 1: My name is Questlove. Yeah, it's fact that one Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can remix my own theme. Yeah, anytime I want.
Speaker 4: Bo call Supreme Sun South Supreme, call Supreme, so Supreme.
Speaker 1: My name is Fante. Some say I'm Locoa. I had
Speaker 1: to sing it like Bobby and do it Aco Poco.
Speaker 1: Supreme Supreme called Supreme.
Speaker 5: Supreme.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar. Yeah, I always worry. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: never happy. Yes, just give up on me already.
Speaker 6: Supreme Supreme Supreme.
Speaker 7: Supreme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, love Supreme. Yeah, Tilling with the man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the best Cosby Theme.
Speaker 6: Supreme Supreme Supreme Supreme Role.
Speaker 5: It's like yeah, and Bobby mcphern. Yeah, now you know
Speaker 5: your friends A Night in the Tunisia and Blackbird. Yeah
Speaker 5: that's all I'm hearing. I don't care.
Speaker 6: Supreme Supreme Supreme.
Speaker 5: Supreme Role.
Speaker 8: My name is Maddie. Yeah, I'm here with dad. Yeah,
Speaker 8: this is my first time. Yeah, and I am happy.
Speaker 6: Supreme Supreme.
Speaker 1: Supreme, Supreme Supreme.
Speaker 9: My name and Bobby super Shabby. Yeah it's still.
Speaker 1: Uber Uber.
Speaker 6: Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, super Supreme.
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Bo bo.
Speaker 9: Don't watch me for a bunch of music nerds.
Speaker 5: We are just rolled over, like wait, they're still that's right, Jesus.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, where is this going like we
Speaker 1: are the the u exchelon of music knowledge. Yet we
Speaker 1: couldn't just theme breakout six pm every week like you
Speaker 1: you know, okay, often.
Speaker 7: Do you do these? These?
Speaker 1: You? You are what he will? We're past our hunter
Speaker 1: episode now episodes Yeah, yeah, first I was very bad
Speaker 1: at this, but now I'm just mediocre. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of course love Supreme on Pandora.
Speaker 1: As you our guest today is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most purest artists in the sense of the word pure. Uh.
Speaker 1: He is a living, breathing instrument very much Uh, as jazz,
Speaker 1: as he is hip hop, as he is soul, as
Speaker 1: he is classical.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 1: He is a ten time Grammy winner, absolutely bar none,
Speaker 1: probably one of the most unique chameleons, vocal chameleons and music,
Speaker 1: having collaborated with such illuminaries as Chick Area, Herbie Hancock,
Speaker 1: uh Farah Sanders, vocalists like Algie Road, George Benson, John Hendrix,
Speaker 1: smaal Ding, Manhattan Transfer, his own voice sestra, and his
Speaker 1: mind blowing I really want to talk about the Vocabularies
Speaker 1: project and recording twelve hundred vocal tracks is wow, I
Speaker 1: would say that he's probably the artist in which leaving
Speaker 1: his comfort zone is his actual comfort zone. He's made
Speaker 1: children's he's won Grammys for children's records with Jack Nicholson's
Speaker 1: done projects with Robin Williams simultaneously in Minnesota, with the
Speaker 1: Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra over in Barcelona, the ourrel I
Speaker 1: can't pronounce him, the Orleo Catalia that I'm going on effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one point where I was just doing like
Speaker 1: a bunch of abbreviations. But even his own freaking offspring
Speaker 1: are killing it. Of course, we love Taylor, who's uh
Speaker 1: noted be box God and he's uh right now in
Speaker 1: the in the contemporary jazz world making stuff with napalm
Speaker 1: from Hiatus Coyote and Robert glasper of course, Javan actor
Speaker 1: in his own right, is currently the title role in
Speaker 1: uh in a very unknown off Broadway production of his
Speaker 1: play called Hamilton. Oh I'm sorry my pocket okay, but yeah,
Speaker 1: okay anyway, Uh and last but not least are our
Speaker 1: second guest today, uh Madison, Yeah, last but not damn.
Speaker 1: This introducces is like seven minutes the extended disco version
Speaker 1: Our good Friend, Yes, our good Friend Madison McFerrin. She's
Speaker 1: blazing trails in her own right, uh, sort of with
Speaker 1: her brand of what I call sensual lapella. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: that's good sexual solapella with both her albums, The Foundation Projects,
Speaker 1: Volume one and Volume two. And yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that insane video too. Yeah. So, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: please welcome the McFerrin's to Quest Love Supreme. Yes, Bobby Madison. Yes,
Speaker 1: one day, I'm going to have like a very sustinct
Speaker 1: and just to the point intro that only takes thirty
Speaker 1: thirty second. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, we have Bob mcferrinn
Speaker 1: on the show. So how how are you today, sir?
Speaker 1: I well, thank you and yourself. I'm fine, easy to
Speaker 1: be here. You're speaking voices, calmed us down right two.
Speaker 1: We might as well do it on NPR levels. So
Speaker 1: you're you're fine today? You're good?
Speaker 7: Yes, I am, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: And Madison, how are you?
Speaker 8: I'm doing really well. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you in the month of Sundays, so
Speaker 1: it's good to see you.
Speaker 8: It's been a long time.
Speaker 1: It's since I've left Philadelphia. Wow. Yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: you got you guys. I know that you're you have
Speaker 1: roots in Philadelphia, Minnesota and the Bay Area, but like,
Speaker 1: what do you consider home or is it just where
Speaker 1: you lay your dreadlocks that's your home.
Speaker 7: Where I dread.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 7: Probably for me, the answer would be California.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 7: I grew up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 10: My parents moved to LA when I was eight, so
Speaker 10: I went through all my teenage years. I went to
Speaker 10: college in Sacramento. I went to Sacramento State, right I
Speaker 10: think now it's called California State University in Sacramento, where
Speaker 10: I was a composition student. Then all my kids were
Speaker 10: born in San Francisco, So I think that that pretty
Speaker 10: much covers it.
Speaker 8: And our family, like the people who we really are community,
Speaker 8: they're still in the Bay first.
Speaker 1: Area, so still fighting, still still there. They haven't been
Speaker 1: chased out yet.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my mom is in San Francisco right now. So okay,
Speaker 8: it just goes to show you when dad's away, she
Speaker 8: goes back there, goes back home to visit.
Speaker 1: So you were born and where were you originally?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 1: Not originally? Like there's a remix remix?
Speaker 7: Are you talking to me?
Speaker 1: Yes? I am. Where were you born?
Speaker 7: I was born here in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: You're in New York. Yeah, okay, okay, So what did
Speaker 1: your parents do for a living?
Speaker 7: They were both singers.
Speaker 10: My father was was the first African American to sign
Speaker 10: a contract with the Metropolitan Opera in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 10: He was the voice of Sidney Poitier in the movie
Speaker 10: version of Porgy and Porgy and Bess. He was yes,
Speaker 10: in nineteen.
Speaker 7: So that was all this time. I thought that was
Speaker 7: you thought that was Sydney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did know.
Speaker 7: No, that was my father.
Speaker 1: That explains a lot. So what what were your your
Speaker 1: your formative years at least before the age of ten,
Speaker 1: as far as exposure to music.
Speaker 10: And well, my parents love jazz and so in addition
Speaker 10: to Beethoven and Bach and Mozart, you know, I was
Speaker 10: exposed to Count Basie, to Joe Williams, to uh Dinah
Speaker 10: Washington and Edda Jones, uh.
Speaker 7: The Loneous mug.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: You know, lots of different different jazz artists.
Speaker 8: Weren't you also in that like Juilliard prodigy?
Speaker 10: I wrote Juilliard when I was six.
Speaker 1: By the way, can we just like mock roll the
Speaker 1: theme right now? That's the end of our.
Speaker 10: Wow?
Speaker 1: Really wow.
Speaker 10: Yeah. They had a program for aspiring musicians. At that
Speaker 10: that age, I was admitted and was under the tutelage
Speaker 10: of Miss Bamberger, and we did some compositions. In fact,
Speaker 10: there's a composition that I wrote when I was six
Speaker 10: that Maddie and I even play together sometimes on the
Speaker 10: piano call the Spanish fiesta do do Do Do Do
Speaker 10: Do Do Do Deep do do do Do Do Do
Speaker 10: do do do.
Speaker 8: But you wrote it on the fly.
Speaker 7: I wrote it on the fly. Yeah.
Speaker 10: I wrote it the night before the class the next
Speaker 10: day and it just it just it just kind of
Speaker 10: stayed out there.
Speaker 8: It's very good. As I like thinking about a six
Speaker 8: year old making this song. I couldn't make this song
Speaker 8: at twenty six. It blows my mind still.
Speaker 10: Wow.
Speaker 1: So initially, like were you studying piano or any other?
Speaker 10: Piano was my main instrument all through college. I played
Speaker 10: flute in the school orchestra. That was my second instrument.
Speaker 10: I was a composition major. I at the time thought
Speaker 10: that I wanted to write for for television and movies
Speaker 10: and do arrangements for various groups. And Dave Grusen was
Speaker 10: my hero at that time. I won one day, made
Speaker 10: a phone call to his home. I got his number
Speaker 10: from the Musicians Union directory, and I called him and
Speaker 10: he called, he called. He returned my call about three
Speaker 10: days later and invited me to his scoring session he
Speaker 10: was filming. He was doing a score for a film
Speaker 10: called Tell Him Willie Boyd's Here with Robert Redford. And
Speaker 10: he told me to bring me down my compositions. And
Speaker 10: so I became a student of his in composition for
Speaker 10: a while, and then later on in life we became friends.
Speaker 10: We worked together and became friends.
Speaker 1: Would that ever work in hip hop?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: Fante like, if someone like say Charles Hamilton, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: God do another example, rapper X okay just calls your
Speaker 1: you know yeah two thousand and one. Yeah, that kind
Speaker 1: of happened to me in twenty eleven. The real rapper
Speaker 1: that just sent me a text and I was like,
Speaker 1: is this really? Are you kidding me? And it was
Speaker 1: really him?
Speaker 5: But really you didn't really respond?
Speaker 1: No, I did respond. I did respond after I vetted
Speaker 1: and see if it was really him. I was like,
Speaker 1: is this really told me? He was like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: you gotta say who it was? Drake? But really, wait,
Speaker 1: that's how I thought Drake just mentioning like an interviews
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. Like I just got like a
Speaker 1: random text We're about the Blue one day and like
Speaker 1: he was back in like twenty eleven, and I hit
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, is this really him? He was like, nah,
Speaker 1: it's him, dude. I said, okay, oh damn, oh wow,
Speaker 1: Dave Grus, it works for you. No, I always catch him,
Speaker 1: like you know, when before they're bubbling over. Like while
Speaker 1: A swears that I was just no. John Legend swears
Speaker 1: that also.
Speaker 5: When he was John Stevens, he was kind of I didn't.
Speaker 1: He never made himself known. That's why we gotta get
Speaker 1: him on the show, because I'm tired of him saying
Speaker 1: that I was just sunning him all that time.
Speaker 5: Philly.
Speaker 1: It's like the book that was James Poyser, not me anyway, No,
Speaker 1: throw him under the bus. So yeah, But at six,
Speaker 1: were you you knew what what path you wanted to
Speaker 1: take in life? Or was it just like your parents.
Speaker 10: Just I didn't really know what I wanted to do
Speaker 10: really until I was a senior in high school. And
Speaker 10: up until that time I thought of myself in different ways.
Speaker 10: I wasn't I can't recall off the top of my
Speaker 10: head what I was thinking. At that time, I think
Speaker 10: I was just into being a teenage kid who just
Speaker 10: loved to go to parties and dance and stuff like
Speaker 10: that and hang out. But I was called in to
Speaker 10: the senior counselor's office one day and he asked me
Speaker 10: a question, he said, and he asked, so what do
Speaker 10: you want to do with yourself? Who do you think
Speaker 10: you are? And my answer was, well, I guess I'm
Speaker 10: a musician.
Speaker 1: I don't know why he was understatement.
Speaker 7: Of I'm a musician life.
Speaker 10: And it wasn't until that moment that I actually have
Speaker 10: the thoughts solidified in my mind that that's really the
Speaker 10: path I wanted to take, because I didn't really know
Speaker 10: anything else.
Speaker 5: By his time, though, since your parents were professionals, did
Speaker 5: they notice that you were special in that way? Did
Speaker 5: they see it?
Speaker 10: My parents knew I was a musician before I was two.
Speaker 5: How did they say they know?
Speaker 7: They just they just knew it.
Speaker 1: You're going to be a musician. You're going to be
Speaker 1: a musician.
Speaker 7: What they could tell see?
Speaker 1: I was trying to before we got to this interview,
Speaker 1: I was trying to I guess I was analyzing or
Speaker 1: over analyzing the path that brought you here, and I thought, well, either,
Speaker 1: because the thing is you're you're you're spontaneous, fearless nature.
Speaker 1: It's so daredevil the way that you approach stuff that
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're a permanent thirteen year old. So
Speaker 1: either I thought so. Either, I thought, well, similar to
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, like you're you're making up for I thought, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: he had a rigid, strict childhood in the beginning, and
Speaker 1: then once he became a kyleege jage an adult and
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm gonna you know that that scene where
Speaker 1: in Home Alone where what's his name just goes crazy
Speaker 1: in the house. Uh mcauleay, call I thought it was that,
Speaker 1: or maybe you know, since the age of two, you
Speaker 1: were the class clown type, like always disruptive noises in
Speaker 1: those things, Like I didn't expect this answer that you
Speaker 1: developed into who you are ten fifteen years later in life,
Speaker 1: Like well, because to develop the gift that you have,
Speaker 1: I feel like that is beyond the ten thousand hour
Speaker 1: genius theory. I feel like that takes forty thousand hours
Speaker 1: of because it's fearlessness and you know, you can sing
Speaker 1: our peggios.
Speaker 10: What's interesting is that for the longest time. You know,
Speaker 10: even though I was studying piano and playing piano, I
Speaker 10: always had a nagging suspicion that I wasn't a pianist.
Speaker 10: You know, there was something that I wasn't satisfyed with
Speaker 10: just playing piano. Piano didn't do enough for me. And
Speaker 10: as I was asking myself this question about you.
Speaker 7: Know, who am I really?
Speaker 10: Am I a pianist even though I, in my inner
Speaker 10: self knew that the answer was in the negative, that
Speaker 10: I was not a pianist. I discovered Keith Jarrett and
Speaker 10: his solo concerts. So I thought to myself, if he
Speaker 10: can be on stage alone without knowing having the slightest
Speaker 10: idea of what he's going to play when he sits down,
Speaker 10: why can't I do something like that? So I decided
Speaker 10: to explore myself as a vocalist and dedicated six years
Speaker 10: to learning teaching myself my technique, and for about six
Speaker 10: years I practiced about two hours a day before I
Speaker 10: did my first solo.
Speaker 8: Concert and it started at twenty seven.
Speaker 7: Though I started at twenty seven, that is unheard.
Speaker 1: That is unheard.
Speaker 5: So what were you doing before? And then, like, what
Speaker 5: were you doing for a living?
Speaker 10: And I was doing casual gigs, you know, playing weddings
Speaker 10: and going on the road and playing lounges with lounge
Speaker 10: bands and playing stuff for covering the pop stuff on
Speaker 10: the radio.
Speaker 1: Give me example, what was like your repertoire in let's say,
Speaker 1: whatever band.
Speaker 10: You were in nineteen seventy nine, Like, well, by seventy nine,
Speaker 10: I was doing solo concerts.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this spirit is seventy five seventy four the spirit, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean just like you're pre pre solo concerts, solo
Speaker 1: concerts I was. I was playing in bands from playing
Speaker 1: piano and what songs were like hot at the time
Speaker 1: that you had to have.
Speaker 7: Marvin Gaye.
Speaker 10: And others, I mean, just other stuff. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 10: Stevie Wonder he's my prompter here.
Speaker 8: I've heard a lot of stories. I want to make
Speaker 8: sure that they like.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Okay, So I have a question real quick
Speaker 1: before we move on from Keith Jarrett.
Speaker 11: So he does that thing where he's sort of singing
Speaker 11: and grunting while he's playing. So was that part of
Speaker 11: the influence on what you're talking about?
Speaker 7: No influence on me at all. His grunting and squealing
Speaker 7: so it's just.
Speaker 1: His bravery up on stage or his improv.
Speaker 10: The fact that could walk and sit. I thought it
Speaker 10: was a very brave act action on his part to
Speaker 10: simply sit at the piano, greet the instrument, and engage
Speaker 10: in this musical dance that he had with, you know,
Speaker 10: with with that instrument, with that grand instrument. And I
Speaker 10: wanted to do that as a vocalist. Now, it took
Speaker 10: me some time to get enough courage to do it
Speaker 10: and enough stamina to be on stage alone for ninety
Speaker 10: minutes without any idea of what I was going to play.
Speaker 10: That's very, very difficult to do. It's funny, though I would.
Speaker 10: I made a rule for myself early on that my
Speaker 10: first two pieces would be completely improv complete improvisation. The
Speaker 10: first piece was easier than the second. The second one
Speaker 10: was really difficult to do.
Speaker 7: For some reason.
Speaker 10: I had the hardest time pushing through that wall of
Speaker 10: of anything, wall of just something that stopped me from
Speaker 10: going on.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 10: The first piece was just so easy to sit down
Speaker 10: and don't launch it, baby leive about And sometimes my
Speaker 10: first improvs would be ten minutes. Sometimes they'd be fifteen
Speaker 10: or twenty minutes. Then to stop and re enter into
Speaker 10: that improvisational space. Was for some reason a lot harder
Speaker 10: for me to do this. You know, the second piece
Speaker 10: was very, very difficult, so that that became part of
Speaker 10: my role do the riskiest thing first.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, well that one show that you and I
Speaker 1: did together at town Hall. I've never in my adult
Speaker 1: life lost more sleep or had more anxiety about any performance.
Speaker 1: And I'm in I've been in situations that like where
Speaker 1: I've had to give speeches and things I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do publicly.
Speaker 5: How do you even prepare for a BODYMC theory?
Speaker 1: That's the thing I kind of called and hinted like, okay,
Speaker 1: so to draw a map what should I do? And
Speaker 1: which is nothing, We'll just we'll figure it out on stage.
Speaker 1: And I'm like wait. So then it was to the
Speaker 1: point where I was like going to Jill new like
Speaker 1: how much your tickets? Okay, so how much people? How
Speaker 1: much entertainment does a person expect for? Blah blah blah?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 1: Right, Because usually when I, like, when I plan my
Speaker 1: shows or whatever, I start with what are the last
Speaker 1: three songs? Because in my mind, I'm like a person
Speaker 1: in the audience remembers the first ten minutes, how you
Speaker 1: come on stage, and even if you have an absolute
Speaker 1: shit show, if the last three songs ye are straight,
Speaker 1: then they that men in black flashies them and they
Speaker 1: forget and for the I was just like, well, wait,
Speaker 1: only have four things going for me? And I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I have an electronic drum set, a real
Speaker 1: drum set, and my turntables. And then even then I
Speaker 1: had like five things going for But once we got
Speaker 1: once we got into the groove, though, it was over
Speaker 1: and it was over and in this second and this
Speaker 1: is just you on drums and him on and him
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, never rehearsed, never like it was just
Speaker 1: a musical conversation.
Speaker 8: And then by the end you guys switched and he
Speaker 8: got on drums and you started doing something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, sir, I just want to say so, by uh,
Speaker 1: when I actually discovered you on your second album, The Voice,
Speaker 1: which you know, most Mcfharrinheit's are like that's their album.
Speaker 1: Assuming that you perfected or at least found, uh a
Speaker 1: formula if you will, on the Voice project previously, like
Speaker 1: what notes did you keep? Because I assuming that from
Speaker 1: your very first time that you did a solo show
Speaker 1: until that point in eighty four where at least sounded
Speaker 1: like you were comfortable on that album. What techniques have
Speaker 1: you learned besides the first and the second song, as
Speaker 1: far as like breath control and harmony and audience participation.
Speaker 10: In well, let me back up. I used to go
Speaker 10: to my father's recitals. He used to do classical recitals,
Speaker 10: and it always ended his shows with spirit negro spirituals,
Speaker 10: and he had a way on stage where he invited
Speaker 10: the audience and it was really genuine and comforting and
Speaker 10: caring and all these positive words that I can't think
Speaker 10: of right now. But I loved watching him on stage.
Speaker 10: He was very easy going and I wanted. I felt
Speaker 10: that the best thing for me to be on stage
Speaker 10: was to be as relaxed as possible, and that's a
Speaker 10: big key to the success of my concerts. You had
Speaker 10: to relax your audience. They have to feel very comfortable
Speaker 10: with you, and I allowed them to be participants with me.
Speaker 10: So it wasn't only myself singing, but it was the
Speaker 10: audience engaged in singing.
Speaker 7: Along with me.
Speaker 10: My technique was more than myself. It was me and
Speaker 10: the audience. You know what, I couldn't do the audience
Speaker 10: could do or they could hear, so they would fill
Speaker 10: in the blanks. So my solo technique is more about us.
Speaker 7: Than me, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Do you have a formula as far as the delivery
Speaker 1: upset song? Because even in doing the roll call theme,
Speaker 1: I was panicled like should I be the drums? Should
Speaker 1: it be? The bass? Should harmony? Should I?
Speaker 10: So?
Speaker 1: Is there some sort of polarizing because when I hear
Speaker 1: you sing a song, I can hear the blanks filled in,
Speaker 1: even the parts that I don't hear. I hear where
Speaker 1: you're going. So is it Is it a formula you've
Speaker 1: established where it's like, Okay, I'll do a little vocal
Speaker 1: here and then the established the basin.
Speaker 10: No, everything is a surprise. Every note is a surprise.
Speaker 10: I don't have any rules. I don't have any plans.
Speaker 10: I enter the stage empty and I exit full.
Speaker 1: Is that on the time?
Speaker 7: That's the time.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you a question that I
Speaker 1: ask most stand up comedians, because you're up there alone
Speaker 1: four year solo shows. How do you deal with the
Speaker 1: disruptive or heckler kind of incorporated? So that's how you
Speaker 1: extinguish the fire, That's.
Speaker 10: How I deal with it. I just I just take
Speaker 10: whatever the heckler is heckling me about and musicalize it.
Speaker 10: One time a guy came in late and he was
Speaker 10: sitting in a balcony and when he sat down, the
Speaker 10: chair squeaked. So I squeaked, and he squeaked, and I
Speaker 10: squeaked some more. So he started he started playing his
Speaker 10: seat the squeak. So I did a duet with the
Speaker 10: squeak and his seat.
Speaker 1: You know, So it's almost like you welcome it, because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're thinking of like a show
Speaker 1: like oh time eater, Oh good, I have something to
Speaker 1: eat up this particularly two minutes or whatever. But so
Speaker 1: you do you welcome those types of distractions or well?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 10: I guess it does depend, But I can honestly say
Speaker 10: that at least ninety percent of the time I use
Speaker 10: whatever is given to me. I just take it and
Speaker 10: incorporate it. And whatever the improvisation is, whatever the landscape is,
Speaker 10: I take it and I use it. So I don't
Speaker 10: I don't fear anything on stage really. In fact, I'm
Speaker 10: scared sitting in this chair just thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like everything I do, always have to map
Speaker 1: it out before I do it so well.
Speaker 10: I used to be that way as a composition student.
Speaker 10: You know, you're writing everything down exactly the way that
Speaker 10: you want it, and even solos. I would even write
Speaker 10: the solos out because I wanted to the solo was
Speaker 10: to go on a certain direction.
Speaker 7: But then.
Speaker 10: Miles Davis was playing at a club in Los Angeles
Speaker 10: called Shelley's Manhole. Shelley man the drummer, and the band
Speaker 10: included Keith Jarrett, h Michael Henderson, who was I think
Speaker 10: borrowed from James Brown or Slider family Stone or something.
Speaker 10: He was in Motown. Yeah, right, well you're right. Jack
Speaker 10: Djanet on drums, Gary bart On soprano, sacks. My Miles
Speaker 10: was sporting some black leather pants and a black shirt,
Speaker 10: playing a drag a black trumpet hooked up to a
Speaker 10: wild wah pedal. And when I left the club that night,
Speaker 10: I literally was walking on air. My feet didn't touch
Speaker 10: the ground for at least two weeks because I understood
Speaker 10: what improvisation was. From that moment on, I understood it.
Speaker 10: You know, it's complete musical freedom.
Speaker 8: You should tell that story, though, because that's a pretty
Speaker 8: good story of going to that show.
Speaker 7: When I was.
Speaker 10: When I arrived to the show, there was a line
Speaker 10: down the block and around the corner. The place was
Speaker 10: already packed with people, so the people that were standing
Speaker 10: in line, it was just hopeless that you were going
Speaker 10: to get in. So I'm standing there with my date.
Speaker 10: A woman walks out of the club and for some
Speaker 10: reason she stopped at me and said, do you would
Speaker 10: you like two tickets? And I said, well yes, So
Speaker 10: I had my two tickets, walked into the club and
Speaker 10: the last two seats were right next to the band stand,
Speaker 10: I mean just to butted the bandstand, so I got
Speaker 10: a full view of the entire band, last two seats.
Speaker 7: So that was the night that I was introduced to
Speaker 7: Keith Jarrett and the band just blew me away.
Speaker 1: Was this a Bitch's Brew tour or something like that?
Speaker 7: This was Live Evil?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, right before on the corner right, yeah, you
Speaker 1: should have been. There was James in to me. There
Speaker 1: is percussionists.
Speaker 7: I don't recall percussion okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, James, he came in seventy two, slightly.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this was in February of seventy one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right beforehand. So with well, that's good to see
Speaker 1: that you were open to that because then I know
Speaker 1: many a jazz snob. Who you know, depending on who
Speaker 1: you speak to, like former writer for The Village Voice
Speaker 1: of Boys, Stanley Kroud Stanley, Yeah, crowds would have been
Speaker 1: like whatever you know. But it's it's almost it's good
Speaker 1: to hear your your perspective of it as as a younger.
Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean, I know that you were immersed
Speaker 1: in jazz already, haven't grown up in it, but you know,
Speaker 1: usually people have different points of view of Miles's early period,
Speaker 1: right right? So who were your just as far as
Speaker 1: your musical idols at the time in the early seventies
Speaker 1: as you're finding yourself, like who were your absolute heroes?
Speaker 7: Oka?
Speaker 10: So mm hmmm, whoa Okay, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Speaker 7: H I've drawn I'm drawing a blank.
Speaker 1: Keith Jarrett, Herbie well, Herbie for sure. Wow, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: So okay, I want to skip slightly ahead to simple
Speaker 1: pleasures without mentioning the D word. But what I want
Speaker 1: but what I want to what I want to know
Speaker 1: is not that were you shocked at this success? But
Speaker 1: I'm certain that with the audience that discovered you, and
Speaker 1: I won't lie like I won't say like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I knew you were a bomb mean fair the whole time.
Speaker 1: When I first saw you on the Grammys, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you're doing around about Midnight with Herbie Hancock R. My
Speaker 1: first response was, Yo, that's the that's the Levi's file
Speaker 1: fiber one cluse die oh he sings. So the way
Speaker 1: that audiences have discovered you were you not slightly dismayed.
Speaker 1: But I know that it had to have been a
Speaker 1: weird change after Simple Pleasures comes out with with the
Speaker 1: with the massive success of Don't Worry Be Happy, whereas
Speaker 1: now maybe non jazz fans or non uh sophisticated music.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: He was on VH one, The video was on VH one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I'm just saying that is it.
Speaker 5: Is.
Speaker 1: It was it somewhat dismaying for you to have this
Speaker 1: new audience that really doesn't understand the art of jazz
Speaker 1: and what it is that you were about and you
Speaker 1: just want to don't Worry Be Happy.
Speaker 11: Guy.
Speaker 1: I never.
Speaker 10: I never really thought of myself as a jazz musician
Speaker 10: because I did so many different kinds of pieces during
Speaker 10: an evening. I mean I might follow up a James
Speaker 10: Brown piece, you know, seeing the Ave Maria by Bob
Speaker 10: then follow it up with the Beatles tune, and then
Speaker 10: follow that up with something just completely wild and crazy
Speaker 10: and out of hand and chaotic and rambunctious and and all.
Speaker 10: So I never thought I never promoted myself as a
Speaker 10: jazz singer, though I did sing jazz pieces.
Speaker 1: You know, of course, what was the process like just
Speaker 1: kind of going back a little bit to signing your
Speaker 1: record deal, like, how were you able you know, what
Speaker 1: was the market like for what you were doing at
Speaker 1: that time, because it was it was really unique.
Speaker 10: So how well after my first album, which was you know, selfish,
Speaker 10: self titled Bobby mcfair, and after that one.
Speaker 7: They wanted to make me into the new algi Row.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, my first album is rather
Speaker 1: traditional for what was right.
Speaker 10: So they hired a top Hollywood arranger by the name
Speaker 10: of Johnny Mandel, who was a fabulous musician.
Speaker 1: Any relations Steve no but he wrote the mash theme.
Speaker 1: I think also did that.
Speaker 7: Johnny Mandel, Oh really okay?
Speaker 10: And I was down in Los Angeles working in his
Speaker 10: studio for about two weeks when at the end of
Speaker 10: the session I said to him, you know, this doesn't
Speaker 10: feel right. I don't feel good about the direction that
Speaker 10: that they're pushing me towards. And so I called off
Speaker 10: that particular project and was immediately summoned into the Presidents office.
Speaker 7: AH.
Speaker 10: By the name of Bruce Lunvall. He had what was
Speaker 10: the name of the what was the name of the
Speaker 10: label musician elect Electric Musician, you see the logo, and
Speaker 10: he says, well, Bobby, what's what's going on. Why didn't
Speaker 10: you want to do the project? And I said, it's
Speaker 10: because I have in my heart to do solo pieces,
Speaker 10: solo concerts. And he asked me what that was, and
Speaker 10: I tried to explain to him. I said, well, it
Speaker 10: would just be me recording shows and improvising. And he says,
Speaker 10: this is really important to you, is it? And I said, yes,
Speaker 10: God wants me to do it. Yeah, that's what I said,
Speaker 10: And that's exactly what Bruce says. Well, we can't argue
Speaker 10: with God. So he allowed me to do my second
Speaker 10: album of the Voice.
Speaker 1: The way that you wanted to do it than I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. You did. There were a few a
Speaker 1: few a cappella esque songs on the first record, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I interrupted you to you I'm sorry, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I was just figuring if maybe that was added after
Speaker 1: the fact that you had the talking and said this
Speaker 1: is what I'm more about as opposed.
Speaker 10: To Right, that's pretty much I wanted to introduce my
Speaker 10: audience to the South. Then I knew that I was.
Speaker 1: I think Bruce later was president Blue Note right at
Speaker 1: the time when we were doing the Elvis Costello project.
Speaker 7: That's that's correct.
Speaker 1: Bruce also, I think, famously signed Bill Withers to Columbia
Speaker 1: after Clarence Avont dissolved Success Records. So that's how Bruce.
Speaker 10: So for the.
Speaker 1: How did the commercial world discover you with the Levi's
Speaker 1: stuff and the Ocean Spray and all the others.
Speaker 10: I don't know, in the Cosby theme, you know, all
Speaker 10: those those pieces, those those.
Speaker 1: Well, by the time Cosby came along, you were a
Speaker 1: household name. But I mean just in the beginning I
Speaker 1: heard your voice on commercials and that sort of thing like.
Speaker 7: Like Ocean Spray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was it was it? Mark? Was there marketing geniuses
Speaker 1: behind this, like this is how we're going to promote you?
Speaker 10: Or was it just how do people don't know how
Speaker 10: to answer that? Yeah, Linda is probably the answer to
Speaker 10: that question, manager. Okay, So with uh, you're is is
Speaker 10: the project? With wait, wait before I say anything, I
Speaker 10: got to figure out how Freddie Freeloader was recorded with Algio,
Speaker 10: John Hendricks and George Benson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who wrote the lyrics?
Speaker 7: John Hendricks?
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to study? Because at
Speaker 1: the time when I heard it, someone explained to me
Speaker 1: that you guys literally transposed every solo on the original
Speaker 1: Miles Davis piece applied words to it right and once
Speaker 1: I at first I didn't believe it, and then I
Speaker 1: had to literally get both copies and go and I
Speaker 1: was mind blown at the commitment that it took. Could
Speaker 1: you discuss the recording process of recording? Like was it
Speaker 1: done in parts or.
Speaker 10: It was done each singer recorded their part individually, you know,
Speaker 10: in their own studio.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 10: And I can't remember if I learned the original solo
Speaker 10: by Tommy Flanagan or if I if I had studied
Speaker 10: the words first. I don't remember, Okay, but it took me.
Speaker 10: It took me about four or five days, I think,
Speaker 10: to get it down. And what's really interesting is that
Speaker 10: he left out a verse. You know, he wrote he
Speaker 10: wrote all these words and I said, well, John, you
Speaker 10: forgot this verse, And he sat down in the studio
Speaker 10: and wrote the lyrics out.
Speaker 7: Then at that moment, I'm not sure.
Speaker 10: The spot on the spot, because he could he could
Speaker 10: hear words in melody, you know, he had this gift
Speaker 10: of understanding what the melodies were saying. So he wrote
Speaker 10: it out and we recorded it, and and it was
Speaker 10: It was a delightful. It had a delighted, delightful outcome.
Speaker 10: It was a good experience.
Speaker 1: Did you commit that entire solo to memory or was
Speaker 1: it like, Okay, I'll do eight bars here and then
Speaker 1: listen to the original and figure out Like.
Speaker 10: Nons, I believe my memory serves me well that I
Speaker 10: pretty much had it nearly perfectly memorized. But I think
Speaker 10: I even but I think I used the lyrics on
Speaker 10: a music stand, just just in case I should in
Speaker 10: recording the piece, you know, have a misstep and my
Speaker 10: memory and forget certain words. But but I think it
Speaker 10: came off pretty well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That that that is probably, bar none, my favorite
Speaker 1: performance of you. But I'll say that maybe like it's
Speaker 1: maybe my top ten songs of all time because beyond
Speaker 1: beyond the just beyond the magnitude of hearing. You know,
Speaker 1: four very unique vocalists again Algebra, George Benson, John Hendricks,
Speaker 1: and Bob McFerrin attempt this. John John Hendricks is like
Speaker 1: the father of what they call vocalist like they'll they'll
Speaker 1: often or you remember we were laughing at Eddie Jefferson
Speaker 1: doing bitches brus.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 1: But even even even Eddie Jefferson fault like I mean,
Speaker 1: Eddie Jefferson is more like I would say he's close
Speaker 1: to to like Rufus Thomas if Rufus Thomas were jazz
Speaker 1: center right or whatever or od b I don't know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, John Hendricks of formerly of A, Lambert Hendricks
Speaker 1: and Ross. I mean they were like the original Manhattan
Speaker 1: transfer slash.
Speaker 5: So is that why so because I'm looking, I'm looking
Speaker 5: up for free Loader?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 5: Is that why only John Hendrix is listed on the
Speaker 5: song on his album?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on his album. So it's sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, getting the most unique vocals. But even George
Speaker 1: Benson's uh approach, Uh you know that's an I tell
Speaker 1: him that's my favorite.
Speaker 5: Is this post Simple Pleasures or this pre Simple Pleasures?
Speaker 1: You guys did that in ninety I think I'd like
Speaker 1: to think it was nineteen ninety. I'm not sure.
Speaker 7: I think we were still living in San Francisco.
Speaker 8: If it was ninety, I wasn't a.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think before me. Yeah, that's right, Yeah around
Speaker 7: that time there, I.
Speaker 5: Asked because I was just wanted to in the still
Speaker 5: in the simple Pleasures bad because you said that you
Speaker 5: don't consider yourself a jazz vocalist. But I wonder if
Speaker 5: you consider yourself like a conduit to all music because
Speaker 5: a lot sometimes people don't know if you're aware of this,
Speaker 5: but sometimes people learn of other musical genres and songs
Speaker 5: through you.
Speaker 10: Well, I would call myself a folk musician, okay, okay,
Speaker 10: you know music music of the folk. You know. I
Speaker 10: tried to whenever I go to different countries, if I
Speaker 10: have an opportunity to hear some of the musical styles
Speaker 10: that come from that culture, I try and incorporate it
Speaker 10: in my improvs, you know, as well as I can.
Speaker 10: I've gone to several music schools, you know, in different
Speaker 10: countries where they would have ensembles play for me and
Speaker 10: invite me to participate with them. So I would take
Speaker 10: what I could from that experience, you know, onto the
Speaker 10: stage with me and play with the sounds and the
Speaker 10: scales and hm, how.
Speaker 5: Many countries do you think you've done that in, like
Speaker 5: improvising with other cultures like that?
Speaker 7: Lots?
Speaker 8: Are there any that have stumped you?
Speaker 7: Stumped me?
Speaker 8: Like, what's been the hardest to incorporate.
Speaker 5: Language?
Speaker 10: That's a good question. I can't think of any off
Speaker 10: the top of my head. Stumpers. Meet one man dare
Speaker 10: to up escape Yeah, like did.
Speaker 1: You see red Pepper? Yes, we often fall in the
Speaker 1: rabbit holes on this show. Wait you you're the one
Speaker 1: that put the link up right? Yeah? Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: I got to meet that dude. Man is black, Yes,
Speaker 1: a black as a brother in London that does like
Speaker 1: all that stuff that's the scary Uh in a world
Speaker 1: where so and something?
Speaker 5: I thought that was a white man with a my
Speaker 5: snad it was it was he died.
Speaker 1: He has but he looks like it looks like ving
Speaker 1: rains now like but has a polite accent co accent.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I said it right.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, sat on the streets saying crazy ship.
Speaker 1: I'm straat, I'm straight man. So okay, now I guess
Speaker 1: I will bring up the D word. Uh. At what
Speaker 1: point did you realize that this song was going beyond
Speaker 1: just having a hit single and that about d W
Speaker 1: B A W we got we got it, that's what you.
Speaker 8: Know.
Speaker 1: What I showed showed the shirt that he had on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I gave it to Slan you did. Yeah, they laughed
Speaker 1: at it. He had a shirt that said don't worry beyond.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I saw that it was my shirt, but I
Speaker 8: made him wear it for.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. They got a kick out. Yeah. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: was there a point where you because assuming that you
Speaker 1: took it out your repertoire or if you ever I
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever performed it live and kind
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 10: But I haven't performed that song live in concert since
Speaker 10: November of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Why why are you so specific?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 7: Because the election. The tune came out September September before that,
Speaker 7: I believe.
Speaker 5: Thirty year anniversary, Yes thirty I'm late, sorry, mass Well.
Speaker 1: Why specifically November? Like, what's the significance of.
Speaker 10: I just remember that when I started doing solo concerts
Speaker 10: that I refused to do that that peace on stage
Speaker 10: because I wanted the audience to to know me as
Speaker 10: an improviser, right, you know, So I didn't want to go,
Speaker 10: you know, be falling back on that tune all the time,
Speaker 10: or have them expected they they they grew out of
Speaker 10: it over time, you know, they said, well, he's not
Speaker 10: going to do that, he's not going to do that
Speaker 10: sound because he doesn't do it anymore.
Speaker 7: And I still do it.
Speaker 8: You still get asked, I still get hill.
Speaker 5: Do you make mean faces when they ask or you
Speaker 5: just say no.
Speaker 7: I don't make faces. I just say no. I probably
Speaker 7: won't do it.
Speaker 10: I occasionally might hint to the melody in the middle
Speaker 10: of an improv, you know, it might come up. I
Speaker 10: don't intentionally do it. And the only exceptions that I
Speaker 10: make are for kids. You know, for kids should say would.
Speaker 7: You sing that song?
Speaker 10: I might sing the chorus, you know, a chorus or something.
Speaker 8: And I've probably heard you sing like one verse in
Speaker 8: my entire life.
Speaker 1: Wow, probably okay, next show, I'm fringing like.
Speaker 8: The only time I've ever seen you do some of
Speaker 8: it in a show setting was one time when we
Speaker 8: were on tour and there was a kid who was
Speaker 8: severely disabled who asked, and so then I think you
Speaker 8: did like a verse and a chorus, But we did
Speaker 8: it in like a samba style or something like that,
Speaker 8: like it wasn't the same.
Speaker 10: What's that.
Speaker 1: That might be? Don't HERVEI be handcoffed?
Speaker 5: Didn't nobody asked you to circle around around the I
Speaker 5: hate to bring it on a downturn, but on the
Speaker 5: death of Robin Williams. Did anyone asked you to bring
Speaker 5: it back around during that then the time of the
Speaker 5: death of Robin Williams since the video.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 10: The weirdest request I ever had to do that to
Speaker 10: was the one year at the Academy Awards they wanted
Speaker 10: me to sing that song to.
Speaker 7: The losers and I said, shil are you out of
Speaker 7: your mind? You want me to sing that show? Sing
Speaker 7: that song on national television to the losers?
Speaker 1: You got to be ridiculous, speaking of which you hold
Speaker 1: the uh the Doobies honor of winning both Records and
Speaker 1: Song of the Year in a time in which I
Speaker 1: thought that man in the Mirror was going to be
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's redemption from losing the five awards of the
Speaker 1: previous year for the Bad Awards, and he didn't.
Speaker 8: I was.
Speaker 1: I was elated and happy that you won. What was
Speaker 1: your when did you feel as though like you had
Speaker 1: a chance.
Speaker 10: Or was it just like I didn't really pay much
Speaker 10: much attention to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you scattered your thank you thinging. I was like,
Speaker 1: I used to watch it all the time, like a stop.
Speaker 8: Is that the year that Michael sent you Beatles albums?
Speaker 8: That's like congratulations or something like that.
Speaker 1: He's about it.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have known about the Beatles if it wasn't
Speaker 5: for Bob may Fair and not for nothing, I would
Speaker 5: have took me a little longer. I will say that,
Speaker 5: like your driving my car was like oh, and then
Speaker 5: I heard it.
Speaker 9: I was like, oh, they did it too.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, I'll be honest. Yeah, I'll say that
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the Beatles catalog I discovered cover everyone else.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was like, oh blackbird the Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 8: know Blackbird Bird was a Beatles song for a very
Speaker 8: long time.
Speaker 1: And what's weird is I still consider his version the version, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even when McCartney still does it now, and in my
Speaker 1: head I can't imagine anyone not singing the it's hard
Speaker 1: to go to I've lost my voice voice, how do
Speaker 1: you handle sickness on the road?
Speaker 10: And I use what voice I've got If I've got
Speaker 10: two octaves I just used the two octaves.
Speaker 1: How many octaves? What's your octave range for?
Speaker 7: Wow, that's the average person health.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna say, translate.
Speaker 8: That for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was break you. I mean your octave range
Speaker 1: is I mean that average person? I'm sure me Steve octapers,
Speaker 1: I'm sure a singer, maybe fan taking maybe yeah, because
Speaker 1: he sings in this so maybe three. But when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with four and five octave range, that means you're special.
Speaker 10: So hello, everybody, aren't we.
Speaker 1: You? Have you ever had uh offers for Saturday Morning.
Speaker 10: Cartoons and voiceovers stuff like that, like.
Speaker 1: But a regular series, not just like.
Speaker 5: It though.
Speaker 8: I've been telling him that he needs to do it
Speaker 8: for the longest because this man, Yes, but this man
Speaker 8: gives the best story time ever.
Speaker 1: You Madison mcerne.
Speaker 8: I had him read me stories until I was twelve
Speaker 8: years old in bed because it was like and I
Speaker 8: wouldn't even have my mom read me stories because she
Speaker 8: couldn't do all the voices. It wasn't it wasn't the
Speaker 8: same thing.
Speaker 1: Where were Okay, So by the time you're born via
Speaker 1: medicine music, all right, I'll at least start you at three.
Speaker 8: I think I was like one when medicine music came out, right, I.
Speaker 1: Know that, but I'm just saying that, how are you
Speaker 1: when are you processing what you're in? Because you're the
Speaker 1: youngest of this brute, and I'm certain that your brothers
Speaker 1: are even via trickle down talent or just as spontaneous
Speaker 1: and creative as he was, Like, how are you processing
Speaker 1: the situation that you're in?
Speaker 8: I didn't realize the magnitude of who he was or
Speaker 8: what he could do until I got to college.
Speaker 1: So wait, say what before then?
Speaker 8: Yeah, you met me my freshman year of college, first semester, So.
Speaker 1: Before then he was just oh, that's dad.
Speaker 8: Yeah, pretty much to the records.
Speaker 1: You didn't realize.
Speaker 8: Well, see, here's the thing is like he my friend
Speaker 8: pointed this out to me, and I hadn't even realized
Speaker 8: until she did. I guess she got asked in a
Speaker 8: class once they were talking about my dad. She mentioned
Speaker 8: that she knew him and this is a friend of
Speaker 8: mine who I've known since we were three, And the
Speaker 8: professor was like, Oh, what's it like knowing him? And
Speaker 8: she said, oh, he makes noise all the time. And
Speaker 8: I didn't even recognize that that was a thing until
Speaker 8: she pointed that out to me, because he is, in
Speaker 8: fact making noise all the time, and when your dad
Speaker 8: is just making noise all the time, that doesn't Yeah,
Speaker 8: it doesn't register as something that's like particularly unique or
Speaker 8: particularly different or strange. Like I didn't realize. I didn't
Speaker 8: listen to his music as a musician until I got
Speaker 8: to college, and then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 8: this is very difficult to do. But this is somebody who,
Speaker 8: like I have been going to shows of his as
Speaker 8: long as I can remember, and so it's just like normal.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask, how can you take someone
Speaker 1: serious that's like have your ass home by ten? That's
Speaker 1: also like.
Speaker 8: It's he was never really the enforcer of that. That
Speaker 8: was my mom. So I didn't bad he was asleep,
Speaker 8: He goes to bed at like nine o'clock. He was
Speaker 8: kind of the Yeah he was in terms of good
Speaker 8: cop bad cop dynamic, he's the good cop okay slash
Speaker 8: the cop who's on the road all the time. So
Speaker 8: mom has to be bad cop hangers.
Speaker 1: Like in my mind, you're you're And I said, even
Speaker 1: the day where I first met you and your brothers,
Speaker 1: like you guys are like the animaniacs.
Speaker 8: To me, pretty pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: And he's doctor, uh, the one that in the tower
Speaker 1: with them. So yeah, So to you, did you know
Speaker 1: that you wanted to sing as well?
Speaker 8: Or just I decided I wanted to be a singer
Speaker 8: when I was five, And I don't know if that
Speaker 8: was It definitely wasn't because like my parents were like, oh,
Speaker 8: you're going to be a singer. I think it was
Speaker 8: like I saw my dad was a singer and he
Speaker 8: enjoyed doing it. I liked going to shows, I liked
Speaker 8: singing with him, and I was like, Oh, if dad
Speaker 8: can do it, I can do it. And then I
Speaker 8: kind of just didn't question that thought, which I'm curious
Speaker 8: about as an adult, like if that was really I mean,
Speaker 8: I still love doing it, but it was very much like, oh,
Speaker 8: I'm going to be a singer, and then I just
Speaker 8: didn't question.
Speaker 5: Decision inclines as you get older, your friend, exactly, how
Speaker 5: are you.
Speaker 11: All making decisions at age five and six? I don't
Speaker 11: even remember deciding anything at that age.
Speaker 8: Well before that, I wanted to be a tightrope walker.
Speaker 5: Okay, how does it feel?
Speaker 10: Boy?
Speaker 5: It's funny because I just saw Madison show for the
Speaker 5: first time, even though I've known her for a few
Speaker 5: years now, I'm like that, but I just saw her
Speaker 5: for the first time this year, and it is so
Speaker 5: derivative of you, but also just like her own fresh take. Yeah, like,
Speaker 5: what does that feel like watching your kids do that?
Speaker 10: I'm glad that they have taken what I've done and
Speaker 10: expanded on it, you know, and have developed it to.
Speaker 7: Something that.
Speaker 10: Then I feel I feel like I'm a part of it,
Speaker 10: you know what, Whatever they do, I feel like I
Speaker 10: am a part.
Speaker 1: Of it.
Speaker 7: Because of the influence I guess I've had on them
Speaker 7: in the musical.
Speaker 8: Field slash literal DNA.
Speaker 1: But I got I got, I got it right.
Speaker 5: But it's also to your father and your mom. It's
Speaker 5: all trickled down, and so it must be Sometimes you
Speaker 5: have a conscious moment of like, oh.
Speaker 10: My god, my parents, we're in a Broadway I can't
Speaker 10: remember if it was a Broadway show in nineteen forty
Speaker 10: nine called Lost in the Stars.
Speaker 7: Do you know this piece? No, Yeah, lost in the Stars.
Speaker 10: I've got an old program that someone found with the
Speaker 10: cast of characters, and at the bottom of the list
Speaker 10: is Robert McFerrin Villager. So he had a small role,
Speaker 10: and my mother was in the chorus, and so they
Speaker 10: had a chance to sing together. I remember early in
Speaker 10: my childhood they were away a lot, which I didn't like.
Speaker 10: I was very lonely for them as a kid. But
Speaker 10: we eventually ended up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Do you have any other siblings or it's just you.
Speaker 7: I have a sister who's also a singer.
Speaker 1: Really still currently.
Speaker 7: In and out of jobs.
Speaker 10: You know, the life of a musician, it can be
Speaker 10: really tough, especially in musical mecca life Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you get other people out of their
Speaker 1: comfort zone? Because, uh, my introduction to Yoyo Mam was
Speaker 1: through you. But then seeing him in his regular environment
Speaker 1: and in such a strict discipline atmosphere as classical music,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're really pulling him towards the the jazz
Speaker 1: world almost, you know, doing improvising and soloing. So one,
Speaker 1: how do you do you plan all your collaborations that way, Like,
Speaker 1: let's just throw some spaghetti on the wall and see
Speaker 1: what sticks.
Speaker 7: And well with yo Yo. We we just brought it.
Speaker 10: We didn't we didn't know what the album was going
Speaker 10: to sound like. We just got together and had a
Speaker 10: stack of music yeah. I remember, we must have had
Speaker 10: hundreds of pieces and we just went through them and said, well,
Speaker 10: let's try this, try that. And I had had also
Speaker 10: written five pieces I think for the album, and so
Speaker 10: we just kind of went through a lot of material
Speaker 10: and we worked. We worked on my stuff. I think
Speaker 10: it took about a week to record all this material.
Speaker 10: And I sensed from playing with him that he could
Speaker 10: improvise if he wanted to, just because of the spirit
Speaker 10: of his behind his playing. He had a very strong
Speaker 10: spirit and I could tell. I could tell that he
Speaker 10: would make a great improviser, and I kept telling him, so,
Speaker 10: I said, you can, you can do this, you can.
Speaker 10: So what I did to aid him was give him
Speaker 10: some some points for him to play too, you know,
Speaker 10: and then once he played to that point, that I
Speaker 10: would direct him to another point and have him play
Speaker 10: to that point. And I knew he could handle it.
Speaker 10: Even though he probably doesn't improvise much anymore, I really
Speaker 10: don't know. He has a group called the Silk Road Project, okay,
Speaker 10: and it's music gathered from various cultures. Then he's brought
Speaker 10: together as an ensemble, and I'm not sure exactly how
Speaker 10: he works within that ensemble. But I hope that he's
Speaker 10: doing some improv.
Speaker 1: Do you feel as though that your influence on him
Speaker 1: has caused him to step outside.
Speaker 7: Of his comfort zone?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Maybe a little, maybe a little.
Speaker 1: The Voice Sester project, which you know, as far as
Speaker 1: the phrasing, like, as far as the phrasing is concerned
Speaker 1: and the arrangements, how did you tackle that particularly because
Speaker 1: I don't I would assume that nothing on that album
Speaker 1: or any of your projects with Voice Voices Throw was spontaneous.
Speaker 5: Like it took so how many people?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so as far as writing parts for like, as
Speaker 1: far as rehearsal and all that.
Speaker 7: Well, you're you're referring to vocabularies that project.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I said voices, Yes, vocabularies yeah, how many?
Speaker 1: I read that it was over twelve hundred vocal tracks,
Speaker 1: the vocal tracks, yes, and everything on that project was done.
Speaker 7: By the voice was done by voice.
Speaker 10: Yes, what does that?
Speaker 1: There's me there's a project?
Speaker 8: Have you?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of vocal sampling from Cuba?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, like I thought, vocal sampling from it. They
Speaker 1: were it was like three cousins and three brothers, almost
Speaker 1: like the Take six Soil, but they're in Cuba. But
Speaker 1: when they do percussion, I swear to God it was
Speaker 1: the real thing, like I thought. I made them prove
Speaker 1: to me that. Yeah. And but this how as far
Speaker 1: as engineering and all that stuff, is that just you?
Speaker 10: And project began. I worked with an arranger by the
Speaker 10: name of Roger Trees, and he went through the vocester files.
Speaker 7: He just went through everything.
Speaker 10: He listened to all the the solo the the improvisational
Speaker 10: concerts that we did, and he found certain themes and
Speaker 10: developed them and he's responsible for all of the arrangements.
Speaker 10: I think we worked on the project for a good
Speaker 10: two years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: And he would record, say the basis for a while,
Speaker 10: and then he record another group, you know, the tenors
Speaker 10: and the altos and sopranos.
Speaker 7: So he did the one group at a time. Sorry
Speaker 7: I was coughing, and with my parts.
Speaker 10: He would simply put the recording on a loop so
Speaker 10: that you know, for example, he wanted a funky basline,
Speaker 10: so he would have me seeing a funky based line
Speaker 10: for eight bars and then he'd loop it around. So
Speaker 10: I would do twenty eight baselines, and then he'd choose
Speaker 10: the one that he wanted to work off of and
Speaker 10: That's pretty much how we worked. I just go into
Speaker 10: the studio and he'd say, I need a new melody
Speaker 10: for this line, and so I would just sing that
Speaker 10: melody or that line a multitude of times, and then
Speaker 10: he would take it, work on and expand and develop it.
Speaker 10: And that's pretty much how we worked on it.
Speaker 1: So it's physically only twelve people.
Speaker 10: There's probably more than twelve, but I'm not sure how
Speaker 10: many voices voices voice group, the performing group is twelve people.
Speaker 1: Has the Vocabulary Project ever done anything live?
Speaker 10: Uh? Well, a couple of pieces, say lad.
Speaker 8: No, it was like the Garden right, like when we
Speaker 8: went to Poland that time, there was that group that
Speaker 8: did some stuff from like two pieces from.
Speaker 7: It from good Danks, Goodanks with me. I've forgotten the question.
Speaker 1: No, it was just one of the Yes. No, just
Speaker 1: I'm trying to imagine you guys recreating any of those songs.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's today. Well, yeah, there is a group I
Speaker 10: think it's called They're called called.
Speaker 8: Sticks s t y Oh yeah, is that that you're
Speaker 8: thinking of Pentatonics?
Speaker 7: No, I'm not thinking.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 8: Oh, the German group that was in Poland with us,
Speaker 8: I think they were.
Speaker 5: Called sticks, but not another Jesus got about Pentatonics, though.
Speaker 8: I actually heard over the holidays Pentatonics. I guess they
Speaker 8: came out with a Christmas album or something like that.
Speaker 1: That's the only time I hear from me, right, And
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 8: In Bloomingdale's and you know, they're playing only Christmas music,
Speaker 8: and all of a sudden, I hear they don't Worry
Speaker 8: Be Happy theme and it's not him, you know, And
Speaker 8: so I recorded a video of myself being like, oh goodness,
Speaker 8: what is this all of a sudden, All of a sudden,
Speaker 8: it goes it goes from thank thank God. I was
Speaker 8: recording myself because it goes from the don't Worry Be
Speaker 8: Happy theme into sleigh bells ring, and I was like,
Speaker 8: the shock on my face was I'm still shocked. I
Speaker 8: don't know how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: You did a song it was a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: was a minute ago for Pixar short.
Speaker 8: Knick Knack Nick Knack?
Speaker 1: Is that out? Can like? But I love that song?
Speaker 8: Is it?
Speaker 10: Is it?
Speaker 1: Can you purchase it? Or can you email it to me?
Speaker 1: As his vocal was actually one of up being the
Speaker 1: that was the one they used. Yeah, yeah, and that
Speaker 1: which I forget which one was it that was in
Speaker 1: it was Finding Nemo. Yeah, because my son be around.
Speaker 8: Well then it actually you had actually done it in
Speaker 8: the eighties though, right, the original one, and then they
Speaker 8: brought it back they did for Finding Nemo.
Speaker 10: Which you supplying me with a fresh cup of tea.
Speaker 5: For I'm not even gonna touch.
Speaker 7: Zerr spoon from Yes.
Speaker 8: We actually saw that together, that we saw Finding Nemo together,
Speaker 8: just the two of us and Nick Knack came on,
Speaker 8: which apparently side note in the original one, the Mermaids
Speaker 8: boobs are a lot bigger, and so they shrunk them
Speaker 8: for the for the Disney a little more, a little
Speaker 8: more PG. And at the end of Nick Knack, you
Speaker 8: know in big letters, it says Bobby McFerrin, and my
Speaker 8: dad just leaned over and he was like, I wonder
Speaker 8: what he's doing right now.
Speaker 1: I love that song. I love immediately when I'm seeing it,
Speaker 1: seeing it and in here I was like, that's Bobby.
Speaker 1: It's got to be him. And then when it came
Speaker 1: out and I was like, that's cool. You had a
Speaker 1: really good, uh Finding Nemo experience.
Speaker 9: I mean, because.
Speaker 1: Finding experience, how is that possible? A long story, long story.
Speaker 1: Was it a date that feel bad? No, that's when
Speaker 1: Prince tired me and played Finding Nemo instead. I remember
Speaker 1: that that was like, you're so bad, I want to
Speaker 1: put this Dy in the club.
Speaker 8: Is a great movie though, so you know.
Speaker 1: Just I wasn't big on Dory though, was kind of
Speaker 1: like I thought it was.
Speaker 8: A decent follow up. It was a decent follow up,
Speaker 8: but like Finding Nemo is definitely not.
Speaker 1: That's the one that bigs all kind of but they
Speaker 1: got to get back on they was. I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can trust their the because
Speaker 1: now everything's just getting like top tier Rotten Tomato ratings,
Speaker 1: the cars and that was the one that like printed
Speaker 1: money and.
Speaker 8: You know the merchandise queens. He's actually to circle a background.
Speaker 8: He's wearing a Monster's Inc. Shirt right now, right now
Speaker 8: underneath if it was so cold in here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from your visit, I said, right, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the Paper Music Project. Okay, first of all,
Speaker 1: did you were you conducting and singing at the same
Speaker 1: time or was that.
Speaker 10: Just as far as on concerts I would conduct and
Speaker 10: sing at the same time, which I really didn't like
Speaker 10: to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, how can you do that, because that's.
Speaker 10: Well the pieces would have to be. They'd have to be,
Speaker 10: first off, not very complicated. They'd have to be something
Speaker 10: that the orchestra could play by themselves.
Speaker 1: So you were still conduct them by hand. And I
Speaker 1: still turn the page and still sing your solos.
Speaker 7: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 5: What did you I mean, I'm not just to as
Speaker 5: soon as you learn the art of conducting back when
Speaker 5: you were in.
Speaker 1: Know what happened.
Speaker 10: What happened was as my fortieth birthday was approaching, I
Speaker 10: wanted to give myself a special gift, and I went
Speaker 10: through a list of all kinds of ideas, and I
Speaker 10: had written down conducting on that list, and so I
Speaker 10: started attending. I was living in San Francisco at the time.
Speaker 10: I started attending concerts, classical concerts, and would end up
Speaker 10: backstage and I drop hints, you know, I'd say, boy,
Speaker 10: it'd be great to conduct you one day.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I'm sorry because you just said that.
Speaker 1: And I'm in my fortieth birthday and the only option
Speaker 1: I was thinking of, like are we doing Sylvia's or Red?
Speaker 5: I never wanting deeper.
Speaker 1: For real, Jesus.
Speaker 10: So I finally got a phone call from the from
Speaker 10: the Orchestra inviting me to to conduct them. This, you know,
Speaker 10: this is after of course, don't worry, be happy. So
Speaker 10: they're thinking pension, fun and all that kind of stuff, right,
Speaker 10: And so.
Speaker 1: Is this why you moved to Minnesota or is this
Speaker 1: because you were in Minnesota?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 10: I wasn't in Minnesota yet, okay, but eventually I got
Speaker 10: there through conduct you know, it was it was all
Speaker 10: about conducting anyway. So they invited me to conduct them,
Speaker 10: and my my fortieth birthday was available. So I conducted
Speaker 10: Beethoven seventh on my fortieth birthday. That was my That
Speaker 10: was my conducting debut, and as far as I was concerned,
Speaker 10: that was all the conducting I was I was going
Speaker 10: to do.
Speaker 7: I mean, it was a really difficult.
Speaker 5: Thing to That's what I'm saying. How did you know
Speaker 5: how to?
Speaker 10: Just? Well? I studied, I studied the score, and I
Speaker 10: had a couple of teachers. I had some lessons with Segozawa.
Speaker 7: One with Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 10: I ended up working on a continual basis with my
Speaker 10: conducting teacher, Gustav Meyer, who passed about a year ago.
Speaker 10: We went to the score, so I knew it pretty well.
Speaker 10: I conducted the piece and then I thought I was done,
Speaker 10: but I started getting phone calls. They started calling Linda,
Speaker 10: what can we get him to conduct our come to
Speaker 10: our city and conduct our orchestra. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 10: I found myself with all these conducting engagements. And when
Speaker 10: I was conducting the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minneapolis,
Speaker 10: there was a position open, and I asked for it
Speaker 10: because I wanted to At this point, I'm serious about conducting.
Speaker 7: I want to learn the art of conducting.
Speaker 10: So I asked for the position and got it and
Speaker 10: stayed with the stayed with the chamber orchestra for seven seasons.
Speaker 1: Can you explain us as exactly what goes into conducting,
Speaker 1: because it just like it's just you waving the Potomac's
Speaker 1: got No, it's.
Speaker 10: About your entire body. I mean, the way you look
Speaker 10: at an orchestra can influence that play. It's the gestures
Speaker 10: of the body. You display the music that's being played
Speaker 10: through through your body. You inform your orchestra what you
Speaker 10: want by the motion of your hands, the gestures of
Speaker 10: your of your body, you know, smiling at them, scowling
Speaker 10: at them, or whatever.
Speaker 7: But it takes a lot of work.
Speaker 10: It's it's tedious work, at least it us for me,
Speaker 10: and after eighteen years of doing it, I decided to stop.
Speaker 1: So you that's a challenge that was like a challenge
Speaker 1: that made you think twice about it, and.
Speaker 10: Well, I really do love it. I love conducting Mozart
Speaker 10: most of all. He's a very impish kind of character.
Speaker 10: He has. He tells lots of musical jokes. He's very playful,
Speaker 10: boisterous and serious and deep. I conducted a piece of
Speaker 10: his that he wrote when he was eight, and, for
Speaker 10: the life of mare, I can't think of the name
Speaker 10: of it. It was a short symphony, it was about
Speaker 10: fifty minutes in length, but as a piece that he
Speaker 10: wrote when he was eight years old, and when you
Speaker 10: listen to it, you wonder, how can an eight year
Speaker 10: old have those kinds, have this deep emotional depth of
Speaker 10: understanding of the human condition. You know, the emotions that
Speaker 10: he that he discovered through music was pretty profound. I
Speaker 10: couldn't understand how he could write something so deep at eight,
Speaker 10: But he was that well developed a musician, and he
Speaker 10: burned out in his thirties, you know, after writing some
Speaker 10: incredible music.
Speaker 7: He's my favorite to the dark.
Speaker 1: The world of classical music is so discipline. Do you
Speaker 1: feel as though maybe perhaps it rarely allowed any sort
Speaker 1: of spontaneity.
Speaker 10: Well, you know what surprised me standing in front of
Speaker 10: an orchestra, a full orchestra with eight bases. And during
Speaker 10: this time I was doing, I'd open up with a
Speaker 10: classical piece or two, and then i'd do a solo
Speaker 10: set and then the concept. Then there'd be an intermission,
Speaker 10: and then there'd be a classical piece, you know, Beethoven
Speaker 10: piece or Bernstein or something.
Speaker 7: Something would take place in the second half.
Speaker 10: And I remember walking over to the base section one
Speaker 10: by one, asked if one of them would be interested
Speaker 10: in playing a B flat blues with me? And none
Speaker 10: of them could do it. Wow, And that blew me
Speaker 10: away because I thought, how can you not play? How
Speaker 10: can you not give me a B flat blues? So
Speaker 10: I can, you know, improvise. On top of that, I
Speaker 10: just thought every bass player could you know, either classically
Speaker 10: trained or not, could play a B flat, A blues
Speaker 10: and B flat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we're classical musicians. They conditioned themselves to
Speaker 1: read on the spot.
Speaker 10: That's why I call it paper music, because they live
Speaker 10: on the page.
Speaker 7: Starts work right, but I love classical music.
Speaker 1: Well, you live in between worlds because you I assume
Speaker 1: that you can read on site. We're given five ten
Speaker 1: minutes to recap it. Okay, yes, so I mean do
Speaker 1: you when that blew your way? Like they didn't even
Speaker 1: know the technical the technical notes to do, like the
Speaker 1: one chord and then the four chord and the five four.
Speaker 10: Well that wasn't true of all orders. Says that there
Speaker 10: were some that could you know, play blues and B flat,
Speaker 10: but lots of things shocked me about that that world is.
Speaker 10: It's very very different. Everything he's organized, everything has to
Speaker 10: be discussed, even down to what are we going to wear?
Speaker 10: I conducted controversions of Porgy and Bess, and I wanted
Speaker 10: the orchestra in the chorus to be as colorful as possible.
Speaker 10: I didn't want the blacks, black and white suits and
Speaker 10: all that kind of stuff in Acquirro wearing black and
Speaker 10: white whatever.
Speaker 7: I didn't want that.
Speaker 10: I said, where everything where African garb? Where just be
Speaker 10: colorful because we're talking about catfish row here, we're talking
Speaker 10: about a village of people. So they didn't walk around
Speaker 10: in suits and ties. They walked around in bare feet
Speaker 10: and patches on their clothes and different colors.
Speaker 5: They must have loved it.
Speaker 10: So as soon as the cars would come in, even
Speaker 10: before we played a note, the audience knew that something
Speaker 10: was up, something wonderful was going at was going to happen,
Speaker 10: just because of the way everyone looked, even the orchestra.
Speaker 10: But they'd have to have meetings about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: What do you mean wear color?
Speaker 7: What colors?
Speaker 10: And I said many, many colors, short sleeve, long sleeve.
Speaker 10: I said, I don't care, jean slacks doesn't matter.
Speaker 7: I don't care. You know, free, You're free. Just play.
Speaker 1: Madison. What was this like for you growing up? Because
Speaker 1: you seen he seems like he would be like the
Speaker 1: coolest dad ever, Like, well, did he allow you to
Speaker 1: express yourself like that as well? Yeah?
Speaker 8: We were always really encouraged to express ourselves in whatever ways.
Speaker 1: They are, the Animaniacs, the Smallest.
Speaker 10: Stay, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: The Smalletts, Journey Smilett, the family. We had them on
Speaker 1: the show, like the whole When I see you know,
Speaker 1: the Tasmanian double, I just see that with the four them.
Speaker 5: Together, the Little Girl from East Byue, I was trying
Speaker 5: to give him a I'm like, what's the well.
Speaker 8: I mean, it was interesting and like similar to what
Speaker 8: I had mentioned earlier about not really putting two and
Speaker 8: two together until I got to college. We were always
Speaker 8: going to shows, you know, we were always going to
Speaker 8: whether it was a solo show or a classical show.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: I just remember being little and needing to like sit
Speaker 8: on my mom's jacket because I wasn't big enough to
Speaker 8: see the stage type of thing, you know.
Speaker 1: And and this was in San Francisco. This is where
Speaker 1: you were.
Speaker 8: I'm we moved from San Francisco when I was just
Speaker 8: under three, and then I did like elementary school in
Speaker 8: Minneapolis and then pretty much middle school and high school
Speaker 8: in Philadelphia. Uh. But it was another one of those
Speaker 8: things where you really take for granted that like I'm
Speaker 8: not thinking about the fact that, oh, all my friends
Speaker 8: aren't going to see classical shows like every other weekend.
Speaker 8: You know. Like that didn't that really didn't compute. And
Speaker 8: it also didn't connect because you know, he was gone
Speaker 8: a decent amount on the road and my two best friends,
Speaker 8: one of them her dad was a like a consultant
Speaker 8: who was on the road all the time, and the
Speaker 8: other one her mom was a businesswoman who was on
Speaker 8: the road all the time. So I was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 8: apparent is gone. That's just kind of the vibe.
Speaker 1: What did you did your mom? She was not a
Speaker 1: singer or anything like that. No, music, not at all.
Speaker 8: No, my mom has wonderful taste in music.
Speaker 1: She's not chicken.
Speaker 10: Is very very very Yeah.
Speaker 5: And she's from the West Coast.
Speaker 8: No, she's from Illinois. Okay, but apparently, I mean dad
Speaker 8: can say this better than I can. But apparently one
Speaker 8: of the things that caught his eye when they met
Speaker 8: in seventy five is that when he went to her apartment,
Speaker 8: and this is a white woman, she had a copy
Speaker 8: of Downbeat magazine in her apartment. Did and so. But
Speaker 8: she is a different kind of artist in the sense
Speaker 8: of she is an incredible interior designer and has an
Speaker 8: eye for that kind of detail. And but she always
Speaker 8: says that if she could sing, she'd be a blues singer.
Speaker 8: So she had a voice, she would want to do that.
Speaker 5: But that is not what she does.
Speaker 8: But I think it's actually better that way, since he
Speaker 8: is like such a virtuoso. I feel like having two
Speaker 8: musician couple.
Speaker 1: Lawyer if not so like, have y'all collaborated? We are.
Speaker 8: I'm in his band in one of his bands with
Speaker 8: him called Spirit You Wall. So we did about two
Speaker 8: years of touring together, which was really fun. I said,
Speaker 8: I essentially got paid to travel the world.
Speaker 10: And last because we would something would happen on stage
Speaker 10: and we would get to laughing so hard so we
Speaker 10: couldn't even look at each other.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was bad. His sound guy, Dan Vaccari, he
Speaker 8: after one show he told me he was like, if
Speaker 8: something happens like you, you can't look at your dad
Speaker 8: because you guys will look at each other and he'll
Speaker 8: fall out and until turn into a whole thing. But
Speaker 8: we definitely have a way of setting each other off.
Speaker 8: I actually recently found a photo of the two of
Speaker 8: us sitting at the piano when I'm probably like six
Speaker 8: or something, and we're both making silly faces, and it
Speaker 8: pretty much sums up Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pretty What was What was your training like? Did you
Speaker 1: were you formally trained or did you just kind of
Speaker 1: pick it up.
Speaker 8: Yourself a little bit of both yourself. Uh. I started
Speaker 8: taking piano lessons when I was about like three or
Speaker 8: four or something like that. But then when we moved
Speaker 8: to Philadelphia. I still took up lessons, but I wasn't
Speaker 8: as serious about it. And then I also took drum
Speaker 8: lessons simultaneously, and same vibe. Wasn't as serious, and same thing.
Speaker 8: I took quarter lessons and wasn't as serious about it.
Speaker 8: I have a wooden recorder that my dad got me.
Speaker 8: That's pretty legit.
Speaker 1: And then how were you when you did that?
Speaker 8: Uh ten or eleven something like that to twelve?
Speaker 5: I could? I could.
Speaker 8: I could play pretty well. I was decent.
Speaker 5: I wasn't.
Speaker 8: I wasn't like the squeaky because I you know, they
Speaker 8: play that in school and I would always have to
Speaker 8: be put to the side because it was like you,
Speaker 8: this is past or this is below your pay grade.
Speaker 8: I couldn't. I mean, they never gave it to me,
Speaker 8: but I guess I probably could. I would have to
Speaker 8: like sit in the hallway while everybody else was learning
Speaker 8: something else because they were like, here's the more advanced
Speaker 8: piece that you can figure out for yourself. But I
Speaker 8: always knew I wanted to be a singer, so I
Speaker 8: was like in choirs and in high school, I was
Speaker 8: like in the a cappella group in the choir and
Speaker 8: the Madrials like and all that stuff. So I was
Speaker 8: singing every day of the week pretty much, and then
Speaker 8: we'd sing in the house, not anything like formally, and
Speaker 8: anytime he had a show that I was at a
Speaker 8: we always would do some kind of duet together. But
Speaker 8: definitely the most formal training I got was probably at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: After the facts, well, I know he produces, but does
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 8: Just dipping into the into the singing because he definitely
Speaker 8: he steered away from doing what Dad does, and I
Speaker 8: think as the oldest it was kind of like I'm
Speaker 8: trying to prove that I'm not my dad type of thing.
Speaker 8: So he's just now dipping into it. Whereas Javon and
Speaker 8: I both like were active in choirs and stuff. But
Speaker 8: Javon also always wanted to be an actor. Okay, I
Speaker 8: went to Germantown Friends School.
Speaker 1: Oh, Javon went to Kappa Okay, yeah, wait why Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: that's the question. Was it just like coming to America, like.
Speaker 7: It's the windsors Man the windsor.
Speaker 1: Minnesota was pretty bad, I can imagine.
Speaker 10: I was invited by the Philadelphia Orchestra to conduct him
Speaker 10: in April and so one. So I'm sitting with my
Speaker 10: soundman then at an outdoor cafe with the trees blooming
Speaker 10: and everything, and and I called up my wife and
Speaker 10: I said maybe we should think about because we were
Speaker 10: thinking about moving, but we didn't know where.
Speaker 7: I said, well, let's take a look at Philadelphia. And
Speaker 7: they were also.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: No Prince runnings in Minnesota. Nothing, No, no trips to
Speaker 1: Paisley Park.
Speaker 7: No, Yeah, we went to Paisley Park.
Speaker 1: Okay, have you ever played with him or done one of.
Speaker 10: His He's come to some couple I think a show
Speaker 10: or two of mine.
Speaker 8: Okay, didn't you see him in the club once or
Speaker 8: something like?
Speaker 7: So him in the club, we met and talked for
Speaker 7: a little bit.
Speaker 1: I did a show in La He.
Speaker 10: They cleared out the balcony so that he could sit
Speaker 10: in the balcony alone, so he could watch me in peace.
Speaker 10: And that was He was a very I wish I
Speaker 10: had gotten to know him. He was a very quiet.
Speaker 10: He had a very quiet voice. He was very small,
Speaker 10: but he had such a presence about him, you know,
Speaker 10: And it would have been great to have sat down
Speaker 10: with him as as we're as we are and just
Speaker 10: talk about music and talk about our lives.
Speaker 1: And so and finding your your voice, especially for your projects,
Speaker 1: Like how how much not nerve or how did you
Speaker 1: deal with any reservations you had with sharing your music
Speaker 1: with your family, let alone the world.
Speaker 10: But just.
Speaker 8: Well, I thankfully I got. I used to be really
Speaker 8: nervous when I would sing, especially in high school. But
Speaker 8: then when I was in college, I was in a
Speaker 8: band called Cosmodrome and we played a lot, and I
Speaker 8: did go to Berkeley.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Because that's a very doggy dog world.
Speaker 5: Her eyes are closed and she's thinking, wait a.
Speaker 1: Minute about it, Okay, Berkeley, wait right now.
Speaker 8: Berkeley is a place where I think I had a
Speaker 8: very interesting experien being my father's daughter that I was
Speaker 8: slightly unprepared for, just because you know, you go to
Speaker 8: college and you want to kind of be anonymous and
Speaker 8: figure out your own stuff. And even though I was
Speaker 8: outed before I even got there, apparently there were people
Speaker 8: who were talking administration. Yeah, administration had been like telling
Speaker 8: people that I was going to be there, and.
Speaker 1: So I it does a person that service, though, right,
Speaker 1: And so it was this it was this.
Speaker 8: Thing where like you know, obviously there's a little bit
Speaker 8: of you know, it's cool and popular type of thing.
Speaker 8: But then it was also this thing of like it
Speaker 8: was like that kind of thing, but also you know,
Speaker 8: like people introducing themselves and the first thing they would
Speaker 8: ask me is like, how's your dad doing? And I'm like,
Speaker 8: you don't want to know right exactly, And so it
Speaker 8: really it ended up giving me a lot of hesitation
Speaker 8: towards getting to know certain people because with a motivation, yeah,
Speaker 8: I don't know what their motivation is. And at the
Speaker 8: same time, it's like, like I had mentioned, it's like
Speaker 8: I hadn't really listened to him as a musician until
Speaker 8: I got there. So it's like people are freaking.
Speaker 5: Out because they've been studying him all right.
Speaker 8: They're freaking out, and I'm like, Yo, this is just
Speaker 8: my dad, and like he's a really wonderful father, and
Speaker 8: like that's cool that you really admire him, but like
Speaker 8: I'm still trying to figure out my stuff. People would
Speaker 8: automatically assume that I was like a really good scatter
Speaker 8: and it's like, no, like that's not what I do.
Speaker 1: Did you ever meet home from work day?
Speaker 5: Like that's the thing.
Speaker 8: He helped me move into my college norm room, you know,
Speaker 8: And so then people are like.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, bom fairness, like, but wait, do you
Speaker 5: know your story sounds similar to late Leila Halthaway in
Speaker 5: that way that doesn't surprise me, But her dad wasn't.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but.
Speaker 5: I'm awkward.
Speaker 8: I actually I actually d m her on Instagram on time,
Speaker 8: so I was like, I'm happy to see like fellow
Speaker 8: daughters of you.
Speaker 1: Know God, Yeah, did she hit?
Speaker 5: You did your back?
Speaker 1: She did?
Speaker 8: We following each other, but yeah, so I had I
Speaker 8: was able to like do the cosmodrome thing and then.
Speaker 1: I still that was how I just goage you. Actually
Speaker 1: I did well.
Speaker 8: Because that's when I was still doing my music music
Speaker 8: blog and I and Amir actually was like, oh if
Speaker 8: you write about foreign exchange fontale probably like.
Speaker 10: I saw it.
Speaker 1: I was like, And the thing was, though, like did
Speaker 1: you ever get that album one hundred?
Speaker 10: I did?
Speaker 1: She did?
Speaker 8: Album was Pippa Butterfly was number one.
Speaker 1: Because you know what I know all ninety nine, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what your hundred record yea, because the thing
Speaker 1: was I didn't even know I didn't find out who
Speaker 1: you were until afterwards, Like I was just reading your blog,
Speaker 1: like you did I join. I was like, okay, let
Speaker 1: me see what else she does. So then I was
Speaker 1: just following your blog. It wasn't until later on that
Speaker 1: I realized that, oh that's Madison Fair. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's Bobby's dog. Was like, oh, okay, some people.
Speaker 8: It takes a while for them to put the connection together.
Speaker 8: I don't know if it's because i'mlight skinned or what,
Speaker 8: but it's like some people I saw.
Speaker 1: It was then like because you would put up pictures
Speaker 1: like on Instagram and with you of your mom and
Speaker 1: you and your mom have like the exact twins. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: like for real?
Speaker 5: So can I ask the question? Because the first time
Speaker 5: I met Madison was with you and Miir and she
Speaker 5: was already singing live on stage. She was about to
Speaker 5: sing for Roots Picnic and sing some of the parts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's right. I forgot we did work together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I forget what.
Speaker 5: Made you go, Madison come over here sing come to
Speaker 5: the Roots Picnic? And how did that work?
Speaker 8: Because I was background?
Speaker 5: Okay, so that's what I was trying to go together.
Speaker 5: I know she sings a lot of singers.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no method in my math. Come real quick,
Speaker 1: And that's how it was.
Speaker 8: You asked me like a week before it happened or
Speaker 8: something like that.
Speaker 1: It was like very I prepare very late, and I
Speaker 1: realized like, oh, someone's gonna have to sing these day
Speaker 1: songs and it won't be me.
Speaker 5: Know.
Speaker 1: That was and I definitely like, it took me forever
Speaker 1: to meet you. Yeah, I purposely hid from him forever.
Speaker 5: You was you said that real fast. You was singing
Speaker 5: backgrounds for Daylight. But I'm just yeah, just well.
Speaker 8: Just at the Roots picnic and then another time on
Speaker 8: Valin and then there was like a Super Bowl Budweiser party. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but that was before I was even doing solo stuff.
Speaker 8: I just started doing solo stuff about two years ago,
Speaker 8: so that was. But I thankfully had enough practice under
Speaker 8: my belt and had played music for my family and
Speaker 8: my friends to be able to be like.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me do that, like like playing music for
Speaker 1: your family.
Speaker 8: I mean, like the solo stuff. Well I was really,
Speaker 8: I mean I was. This was the first time that
Speaker 8: I was releasing solo music, and I was really happy
Speaker 8: with what I had come out with, and the fact
Speaker 8: that it was a cappella stuff actually made me a
Speaker 8: little more comfortable, which I think some people probably would
Speaker 8: assume that I would be less comfortable playing it for
Speaker 8: my dad, but it for me it was more like, oh,
Speaker 8: I have this amazing resource to be like, what do
Speaker 8: you think of this music that is completely derivative of you?
Speaker 8: And you have been around the block a few times,
Speaker 8: and even like I did the first one by myself
Speaker 8: using his studio, after he'd go to sleep, I'd like, no,
Speaker 8: I wasn't sneaking. He knew I was doing it, but
Speaker 8: I was like, he goes to bed at nine, and
Speaker 8: so I'd be in there from like ten to four.
Speaker 8: And so then the second time around, I was much
Speaker 8: more time.
Speaker 1: At four o'clock in the morning, No, I get up.
Speaker 8: But I had to go to bed. Oh school I
Speaker 8: forgot Well, no, I wasn't in school anymore. She's like,
Speaker 8: I like sleep changing. Yeah. But then the second time around,
Speaker 8: I was much more with finding Foundations volume two, I
Speaker 8: was even that much more intentional with having him be
Speaker 8: a part of the process, and just while I was
Speaker 8: making it, be like, what do you think of this?
Speaker 8: What are your arrangement notes? Like do you think I
Speaker 8: should take something out? Do you think I should put
Speaker 8: something in? And there were definitely some key parts.
Speaker 1: Is it hard to be honest or not. Is it
Speaker 1: hard to be honest because the one thing in life
Speaker 1: I can't do is give a critique. I'd rather end
Speaker 1: of friendship.
Speaker 5: I've never given donatique staying in a family since Like, it's.
Speaker 1: I don't critique nobody. I hate doing vocals like I
Speaker 1: just I. So you're saying you don't critique in terms
Speaker 1: of like while you're recording or like after the record
Speaker 1: is done this period, I like, give me your honest opinion, like,
Speaker 1: because if I discover your music, it's because I actually
Speaker 1: like you and I dig you. But you know, but
Speaker 1: so if somebody's like, give me honest to be on this,
Speaker 1: you don't. You're just like nah.
Speaker 8: I found that out very early because I asked him
Speaker 8: an opinion about something and he was like, I don't
Speaker 8: do that, and I was like, all right, I mean
Speaker 8: you know, I mean this was also like six seven
Speaker 8: years ago.
Speaker 1: Love does not do emotions? Well is this same? So
Speaker 1: what's the next around the bend for you?
Speaker 8: I have produced music in the works, okay and right, yeah,
Speaker 8: but that was stuff. This is the thing. I wrote
Speaker 8: this produced stuff before I wrote the a cappella stuff.
Speaker 8: But I, similar to my dad, had a vision of
Speaker 8: me being on stage by myself and so, but I
Speaker 8: can't play all these other instruments, and I don't even
Speaker 8: I can play the piano. I don't feel super confident
Speaker 8: playing and singing at the same time, even though that's
Speaker 8: how I wrote the songs that are going to be produced.
Speaker 8: And so I was like, oh, snap, I need something
Speaker 8: else if I'm going to do these solo shows. And
Speaker 8: so I wrote some a cappella tunes with my loop pedal,
Speaker 8: and I was like, oh, these are pretty cool. I'll
Speaker 8: like record these and then just put these out.
Speaker 1: All those loops are programmed inside your loop.
Speaker 8: Pedal when I do it live, but when I record them,
Speaker 8: I record each track individually. Each track is doubled.
Speaker 5: I don't want no shading nobody else. But watching Madison
Speaker 5: on stage is like watching what Eric could be trying
Speaker 5: to do with her machine on stage, but then you
Speaker 5: kind of just execute it in a Sometimes she use
Speaker 5: a machine on stage, but you execute it like.
Speaker 1: But air could put that machine down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was a compliment.
Speaker 8: That was Actually the first time I saw somebody use
Speaker 8: loop pedal was at Roots Picnic when two Yards played
Speaker 8: like the second Yeah, like the second Roots Picnic or something.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: I was asking because when Kirk used to do that
Speaker 1: on his guitar solos, he would lose the information at
Speaker 1: the end turn it off. I was like, well, damn,
Speaker 1: what's the sense in looping if you can't keep you know,
Speaker 1: in a hard drive or whatever. But I was asking, like,
Speaker 1: in your pedal, you.
Speaker 8: You can keep, you can save it. Okay, so I
Speaker 8: save stuff and you can like technically save it and
Speaker 8: then just put it into the computer and have that
Speaker 8: be that. But I much prefer you can't get like
Speaker 8: doubles and panning and all, like I'm trying to get
Speaker 8: it rich.
Speaker 5: And it's phenomenal to watch. It's dope.
Speaker 8: But yeah, so that the acapella thing happened totally by accident,
Speaker 8: so it was just like and people are really into that.
Speaker 8: So I was like, okay, I'll do that. And also
Speaker 8: is very easy for me to travel, you know. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 8: one pedal that I put in a backpack and then
Speaker 8: I'm off to the race.
Speaker 1: I hope you don't lose that.
Speaker 8: Well you know, it stays on my back, you know,
Speaker 8: and even if I do lose it, it's like I
Speaker 8: all of my tracks, I performed them live, so if
Speaker 8: I lose it, then like that sucks, but like it doesn't,
Speaker 8: so you just don't have a background. I just need
Speaker 8: to go to a guitar center and like buy a pedal.
Speaker 8: I have not lost a pedal, but yeah, but I know.
Speaker 8: But I'm just saying that, like it's not even though
Speaker 8: there are ideas in there that I would love to have,
Speaker 8: I'm not so attached to them that if I were
Speaker 8: to lose it, I would be like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: there's one there's one idea in there that I composed
Speaker 8: that I don't know how to remake it. And I
Speaker 8: even played it for my dad and he was like, WHOA.
Speaker 8: But I still to this day am like there are
Speaker 8: too many lines and parts where I'm like, I don't
Speaker 8: know how to re constructed. I really would too, so
Speaker 8: that'd probably be the only one that I would be
Speaker 8: sad about.
Speaker 1: Are you and Taylor do y'all do anything together? Because
Speaker 1: I really liked this album. Was supposed to be on
Speaker 1: that album We Want Something Something, but no, I love
Speaker 1: that record and like I like what you do.
Speaker 8: So you know, he's actually supposed to produce what the
Speaker 8: next produced project is. Hopefully he's got to finish his album. First,
Speaker 8: I have one song that is finished and it's actually
Speaker 8: a song that's on Finding Foundations Volume one that I
Speaker 8: had written for the first produced project and then he
Speaker 8: he produced it and I'm really excited about it. But
Speaker 8: it's funny. We used to live in the same building
Speaker 8: and like kept being like, we need to make music,
Speaker 8: we need to make music, and then like it didn't happen,
Speaker 8: and now he lives in LA and it's like, so
Speaker 8: when we make a music, but he makes he I mean, granted,
Speaker 8: I'm so biased, but like he produces the kind of
Speaker 8: music that like I hear in my head, you know,
Speaker 8: which I'm sure that comes from. We have the same upbringing.
Speaker 8: But whenever I think about I would love to, Yeah,
Speaker 8: I would love to get into production at some point
Speaker 8: in time, but like until that point, like he produces
Speaker 8: the kind of music that I right.
Speaker 10: So DNA, DNA. You know what's really interesting is Taylor
Speaker 10: would come to me sometimes he said, Dad, you gotta
Speaker 10: hear this, you gotta hear this, and he played for
Speaker 10: me and I go, man, this was my favorite favorite
Speaker 10: piece you know when I was your age. You know,
Speaker 10: he plays something else for me and I said, he said, Dad,
Speaker 10: you got to hear this. This is really great. I say, man,
Speaker 10: I love that piece.
Speaker 7: I already knew that piece.
Speaker 10: You know it must be DNA thing because I would
Speaker 10: be constantly shocked at the stuff that he loved was
Speaker 10: also stuff that I loved, you know, before I even
Speaker 10: had kids, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: This is George Duke album.
Speaker 10: Like I don't know if it was his first one
Speaker 10: or his second one, but he was working with Frank
Speaker 10: Zapp at the time, and he produced his own album.
Speaker 10: And the opening piece on this album I used to play.
Speaker 7: Over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 10: And so he comes to me by day and says, Dad,
Speaker 10: you got to hear this.
Speaker 7: And it's the George do the same thing.
Speaker 10: It's the same thing he didn't even he didn't remember.
Speaker 5: Just just way with our parents, I feel like all
Speaker 5: of us are not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe now I'm playing. You know you are joking.
Speaker 1: I'm joking, all right, So have my dad's record collection
Speaker 1: before we split. I just want to know about the
Speaker 1: Give Me Five project, And well, yeah.
Speaker 7: It's a miniature voice sister, Okay.
Speaker 10: It incorporates I have one soprano one out to one
Speaker 10: tenor in one base and myself, and it's all improvised.
Speaker 7: It's just five of us.
Speaker 1: Ah, well, you guys have been singing together forever, so
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. I would hope that you know each
Speaker 1: other that well. But that was so scary to me to.
Speaker 7: Not know what's gonna happ.
Speaker 1: Well, they would they trust that you're the alpha? Would
Speaker 1: they trust that? Okay, we'll follow his lead and when
Speaker 1: you end the song, and.
Speaker 10: Yeah, pretty much we've been working. Some of them, like Rhiannon,
Speaker 10: who's thet sits to my left. We met in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 10: We've been working since nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Okay, so.
Speaker 7: That's that's what it is. It's just a small improv group,
Speaker 7: five voices.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm really glad and happy that we finally have
Speaker 1: this conversation. It's like our first real conversation. We did it.
Speaker 10: We did it.
Speaker 7: Fifteen years.
Speaker 1: No, I really appreciate it, and I pluge your artistry
Speaker 1: and it's effect on me, even though I'm one of
Speaker 1: those stick to what I know, stay in my comfort
Speaker 1: zone type people. But yeah, thank you for your music. Man.
Speaker 1: It's so many parts of my childhood, Like I have
Speaker 1: distinct memories of like stuff you've done and like just
Speaker 1: your voice. It like takes me back to when I
Speaker 1: was a kid.
Speaker 5: So think you Simple Pleasures was me and my father's joy.
Speaker 5: Like that's what we would play on the weekends and just.
Speaker 8: Won't cry.
Speaker 1: We're gonna just out this way, gentlemen on behalf of
Speaker 1: the Supreme team. Sugar Steve paid up and about to
Speaker 1: cry down down.
Speaker 5: I got a little manitude call him in the morning.
Speaker 8: That take kids, it's sound and they get on their.
Speaker 10: Clothes, ball the silly, your loud and.
Speaker 8: King these.
Speaker 4: Then I come a bet, David.
Speaker 1: I said, there to get it, get it.
Speaker 5: It's trying to get yourself together. It's such a beautiful
Speaker 5: d outside.
Speaker 8: Simple get there, I'll go happen. I'm a happy man and.
Speaker 5: So simple things all the.
Speaker 1: Bad simple things on the board. That's it. Please say
Speaker 1: that work.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Of course. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.