Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Good People,
Speaker 1: Good People, What's up? Welcome back to Part two of
Speaker 1: QLs Musical Memories. I'm your host quest Love and I've
Speaker 1: asked his questions to hundreds, truly hundreds of people. You
Speaker 1: haven't checked out Part one, now's the time, but right now,
Speaker 1: here's part two. This one has a series of unique answers. Also,
Speaker 1: every one of these episodes are available to stream wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts and on the iHeart app. Right
Speaker 1: about now, we're going to start with one of my
Speaker 1: musical heroes. All right, this guy man drummer of the
Speaker 1: Average White Band. He's drummed on so many records by
Speaker 1: Shaka Khan and Just the God. This is Steve Farhon.
Speaker 1: He shared a story about tap dancing. Ironically, that's all
Speaker 1: I also got into drumming, you know, I had to
Speaker 1: learn to tap dance first, coordinate my feet. And he
Speaker 1: taught us also about how tab dancing taught him about
Speaker 1: race and culture living in Brighton, England. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to twenty twenty two with the great Steve FERRONI can.
Speaker 2: You tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, I was told.
Speaker 4: Was that I used to sit in the high chair
Speaker 4: and we didn't have TV back then. We had radio, okay,
Speaker 4: And I'd sit in the high chair with my spoon
Speaker 4: eating and then some music would come on and I'd
Speaker 4: start banging my spoon on the on the on the
Speaker 4: high chair, on the table there to just keep in
Speaker 4: time with whatever music was on the radio. And that's
Speaker 4: was when they decided that my grand my grandma, my grandmother,
Speaker 4: and my mother decided that I needed to channel that
Speaker 4: that ability somewhere. So my grandmother was a big fan
Speaker 4: of tap dancing. She loved Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly
Speaker 4: and Tic Tac Toe and those guys. She was aware
Speaker 4: of them, and so she sent me the tap dancing
Speaker 4: school when I was better, as soon as I could,
Speaker 4: about three years old.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to say, I just discovered that
Speaker 5: about you maybe a week ago when I was doing
Speaker 5: my research, and that's kind of my entry.
Speaker 1: And too.
Speaker 2: Drums.
Speaker 5: I went to perform in art school in the first grade,
Speaker 5: and it was one of those situations where you go
Speaker 5: to your drum lesson and the drums are right there
Speaker 5: and you're sort of like, let me at him, let
Speaker 5: me at him, and they're like nope, and they point
Speaker 5: to a practice pad on the corner, and you got
Speaker 5: to learn, like your roommate's like, it's almost like I
Speaker 5: had to practice to work my way up to the
Speaker 5: drum set. But even before I got to the practice pad, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I had to take tap dance. So yeah, yeah, all
Speaker 5: that bojangles me and my shadow like like I was,
Speaker 5: I was a hoofer, Like.
Speaker 2: Were you good at it? That was pretty good at it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was pretty good at it.
Speaker 4: I want medals and stuff.
Speaker 2: Really, can you can you still hoof now? Or is
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 3: Had a neat replacement that light on my feet anymore?
Speaker 3: But I could probably, I can probably I can do
Speaker 3: a timestep still, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like around around maybe nine, age nine or age ten.
Speaker 5: I kind of eased out of that and just became
Speaker 5: strictly like music.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I have.
Speaker 4: To say my first, like my moment that you had,
Speaker 4: that you said that you had with Average White Band,
Speaker 4: I had when I was about five years old. My
Speaker 4: parents used to take me. They used to take me.
Speaker 4: We had this I guess you call it Vaudeville or
Speaker 4: something like that. Vaudeville there was a theater called the
Speaker 4: Hippodrome and the Beatles played there actually, so it's kind
Speaker 4: of Bingo Hall now I think it is. But this
Speaker 4: is one of those theaters got sort of neglected and
Speaker 4: sort of let go little theater and uh and and
Speaker 4: they used to take me there to see these shows
Speaker 4: and and you know, usually it was comedians and pantomime
Speaker 4: at Christmas and stuff. And they took me there to
Speaker 4: see this show. And there was a band. There was
Speaker 4: a band, a close harmony group called the Deep River Boys.
Speaker 6: Deep from Brooklyn.
Speaker 4: Oh really okay, and they were very very big on
Speaker 4: Radio Luxembourg. Was was where you would where people would
Speaker 4: go to to listen to something other than the BBC,
Speaker 4: because the BBC used to just play classical music and
Speaker 4: it wasn't they didn't play anything at all, you know.
Speaker 4: So you go to Radio Luxembourg and you tune into
Speaker 4: Radio Luxembourg and they had a show on there and
Speaker 4: and I guess they also was it was also a
Speaker 4: show that was that was that was good for like uh,
Speaker 4: the the American forces were all over Europe at that point.
Speaker 4: They had the basis of France and Germany and and
Speaker 4: uh and and so they used to be on that
Speaker 4: on on the American Forces Broadcasting. But they had a
Speaker 4: regular show on this on this and they on Radio
Speaker 4: Luxembourg and they appeared at the Hippodron. So my parents
Speaker 4: took me down there and they did maybe it was
Speaker 4: kind of like gospel music, but I'd never heard anything
Speaker 4: like that, and I got really excited and started dancing
Speaker 4: around in the in the audience listening to this music
Speaker 4: is like, what's this?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: Wow?
Speaker 3: Well is that ehen you find vanilla ice cream? You
Speaker 3: give a vanilla I skream to a baby first time
Speaker 3: they have it, They're like, why didn't you give me
Speaker 3: this before?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 8: You get this baby food? Why where was this vanilla
Speaker 8: ice cream?
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 4: That was what what what I got with from their music,
Speaker 4: And they sent them manager there too me and they
Speaker 4: brought me backstage and befriended, befriended me.
Speaker 3: They made me Deep River Boys number six, and that
Speaker 3: was the time. That was when I found out that
Speaker 3: I was black. Oh word, okay, yeah, I had no idea.
Speaker 3: I had no idea that I was black until I
Speaker 3: went and saw these guys. And they took me back
Speaker 3: back to my parents, my grand my mom and my
Speaker 3: grandmother took me backstage to meet them, you know, with
Speaker 3: the they I've been invited back and I looked at
Speaker 3: these guys and they were six foot tall, which was
Speaker 3: then back then was gigantic, was a giant. And I said,
Speaker 3: I wish I could be black black you guys, back
Speaker 3: then we never said black was colored because it was disrespectful.
Speaker 3: It was disrespectful to say black black. Then I wish
Speaker 3: I was colored like you.
Speaker 4: And this guy Harry Douglas, who I stayed in touch
Speaker 4: with for years, he passed away sometimes sometime ago.
Speaker 2: Oh, you maintained a friendship with him.
Speaker 8: Yes, all through the years.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was just amazing.
Speaker 5: And uh and there the first Americans that you interacted
Speaker 5: with as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, how weird was it to hear? Did they have
Speaker 2: an accent to you?
Speaker 10: I didn't even know. I was just like, I was
Speaker 10: just so sweet. I mean that's how they sang. And
Speaker 10: they sang, they sang like, yeah, we heard. It seemed
Speaker 10: like we sort of heard about America.
Speaker 4: I think we had TV by then, So there a
Speaker 4: couple of TV series that we've seen, not much of
Speaker 4: a TV little thing like this black bohite thing, right,
Speaker 4: But but Harry Douglas looked at me and he and
Speaker 4: he said to me, he says, you know, tonight I'm
Speaker 4: going to cast a spell. And when you wake up
Speaker 4: tomorrow morning, you go look in the mirror and you
Speaker 4: and you'll be you'll be colored like we are. Sleep.
Speaker 3: I went to sleep, and then I got up and
Speaker 3: I went to the mirror, and yes, it was.
Speaker 6: Anything more about it.
Speaker 2: Oh god, that's a great story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, that was Steve Farona, the average white band. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's played with so many giants. Next up, another great storyteller.
Speaker 1: You know, we gave our flowers to the one and
Speaker 1: only Tevin Campbell. What was your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 11: My aunt giving me the Amazing Grace album, the Franklin
Speaker 11: Mazin Grace album on the vinyl.
Speaker 8: She gave that to me when I was I think
Speaker 8: I was.
Speaker 11: That was the first album that I listened to continuously.
Speaker 8: Ah, I think I was maybe eight or nine. She
Speaker 8: gave it to you.
Speaker 1: So her version of Holy Holy is just like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: what were we talking about?
Speaker 8: Well, her version of Amazing Grace is, Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 11: I mean though the song was written by Amon, I
Speaker 11: didn't know that till years after a couple of years ago,
Speaker 11: I learned that.
Speaker 8: But anyway, she like, no, yeah, yeah, it does, it does.
Speaker 5: What was it like for you to see the film
Speaker 5: version of that after having lived with it so long?
Speaker 9: You mean you mean the her refas film version?
Speaker 1: She you know, when she was a she they tried
Speaker 1: to bring it out maybe like you know, like twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, and because of some sort of contractual dispute,
Speaker 1: she didn't allow it, so of course she had to
Speaker 1: pass away.
Speaker 9: Were you able to see the documentary or the concert
Speaker 9: the film.
Speaker 11: The Amazing Grace Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 11: I thought it was beautiful in a point in her
Speaker 11: life where she was very happy, not that she wasn't
Speaker 11: happy at any point in her life, but she was glowing,
Speaker 11: and she was she had this afro and it was
Speaker 11: just beautiful, man, And you know, seeing her in her element,
Speaker 11: I think it was the.
Speaker 8: Most beautiful thing. I think that people were touched by
Speaker 8: seeing that film.
Speaker 11: Because you don't a lot of people don't know that
Speaker 11: she sat and played that pid piano a lot of
Speaker 11: the songs that.
Speaker 8: She did, and a lot of songs on an Amazing Grace.
Speaker 11: Album too, So to see her sitting there in her element,
Speaker 11: playing behind her and singing.
Speaker 8: It's just amazing all the time.
Speaker 5: So that most people don't know that she's like just
Speaker 5: as good as a piano player.
Speaker 1: She is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's important for people to see that.
Speaker 1: Here's Bernadette Cooper of Climax. Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: your first musical memory was?
Speaker 12: Wow, when you say musical memory like.
Speaker 1: Band that I now just from as a baby, Like
Speaker 1: what like the very first musical memory as a child.
Speaker 12: Of course, you know, Aretha Franklin was my was my
Speaker 12: played in my household when there was happy times, when
Speaker 12: they were sad times. So Rita was a person that
Speaker 12: I used to listen to and follow her lyrics and
Speaker 12: her and her vocal movements and her hooks, and and
Speaker 12: it made me a better writer by the Rita Franklin songs.
Speaker 12: And then of course moving on Dio Daddo, Remember Dio Daddo. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 12: it was a little bit of all those guys. Jeff Beck,
Speaker 12: you know, I really got into that scene and kind
Speaker 12: of in the high school, junior high school era.
Speaker 8: But yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: Say, what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 13: My dad, my father, we were in a in a
Speaker 13: yard in the backyard in Outlan HALLI school, small little town,
Speaker 13: and it was like five o'clock in the afternoon. Everything's
Speaker 13: kind of gives gold you know, when the sound goes down,
Speaker 13: everything looks golden. And my father he was over there
Speaker 13: teaching me how to read and one of me teaching
Speaker 13: me how to play the violin. So he happened, opened
Speaker 13: up the violin case rather the violin put it put
Speaker 13: it up here like this, and then he goes.
Speaker 2: Meta, which means look meta. Then he went and I'm
Speaker 2: like what. And then a bird.
Speaker 13: Comes over this, a little lance lance on this street,
Speaker 13: and he was he goes best, do you see? He
Speaker 13: goes bess one more time?
Speaker 14: Bird.
Speaker 13: If you could talk to the birds, you could talk
Speaker 13: to people.
Speaker 14: Get it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, and that was Carlos Santana. And
Speaker 1: you can add bird calls to as many talents.
Speaker 14: Oh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, wow, here's Mars day. Maris, what was
Speaker 1: your what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 6: It went way.
Speaker 15: Back, you know, because I kind of just came into
Speaker 15: the world with the notion that I was going to
Speaker 15: be involved with music, you know, born in fifty six,
Speaker 15: you know, and I can remember listening to the Beatles
Speaker 15: on our little am radio that we had, and you know,
Speaker 15: then later remember doing you know the James Brown running
Speaker 15: around my.
Speaker 16: You know, the house in the projects and fruit of
Speaker 16: the looms on doing the splits, trying to do James
Speaker 16: round and all that, and then sixty four comes around.
Speaker 16: We were one of the first you know, let you
Speaker 16: know how what priorities were back then, but we had
Speaker 16: one of the first color TVs in the projects all that.
Speaker 16: Back then, I was watching Bandstand Man, and I'm watching
Speaker 16: the Supremes at four tops, you know, all these motown
Speaker 16: acts on Bandstand and I was like, that's what I
Speaker 16: want to do, you know.
Speaker 6: So those were my early memories, you know, of music.
Speaker 6: But I just it was just in.
Speaker 1: My blood, all right. So you know, last episode in
Speaker 1: part one of this compilation, I gave you one musical memory.
Speaker 1: Part two, I'll give you another musical memory. Jimmy Jam
Speaker 1: would make fun of me during the pandemic when I
Speaker 1: was like DJ and online and you can read the
Speaker 1: comments as you DJ. Jimmy Jam always noticed that I
Speaker 1: would let the listeners know when a particular song scared
Speaker 1: me in my childhood, and I realized that I never
Speaker 1: liked songs that had a modulation in it, like whenever
Speaker 1: there's a dramatic key change. I was never a fan
Speaker 1: of that, Like it just sounded scary, real scary, And
Speaker 1: that's how it's always been great. Example Aretha Franklin's classic
Speaker 1: covering of Bobby Woomex I'm in Love. There's like a
Speaker 1: moment where there's like a bridge and then they go
Speaker 1: to this modulation key change, and then Eric Martin and
Speaker 1: Jerry Wexler put extra extra reverb on Aretha's voice, and
Speaker 1: you know, like I now know like gospel singing sort
Speaker 1: of comes from pain and whatnot. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Just to my four year old ears, man, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it sounds like she was being murdered or whatever.
Speaker 1: So that's like a scary moment to hear. But also
Speaker 1: the beginning of me not liking modulation starts once again
Speaker 1: in my childhood. Three years old. Yeah, someone called child
Speaker 1: services for all the shit that happened during my third
Speaker 1: year of life. My sister and I are staying in
Speaker 1: Alta Dina, California, in my aunt's house while my parents
Speaker 1: are recording the Congress Alley album, the same Congress Alley
Speaker 1: album that Doctor dre used on a nothing but a
Speaker 1: g thing. I mentioned that a few times, my parents
Speaker 1: being a sample of those voices in the hook.
Speaker 14: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So again in a bathtub, taking a bath, get
Speaker 1: out the bath and rambunctious two year old. I'm just
Speaker 1: running around, running around, and I slip and fall and
Speaker 1: I land kind of on my left side on our
Speaker 1: hot radiator. And the radiator has to be especially like
Speaker 1: back in the day radiators. Like now we have like
Speaker 1: you know, thermostats, and usually the heat comes from you know,
Speaker 1: like ventilators that are in the sky. But back in
Speaker 1: the day, man, they used to be on the ground,
Speaker 1: and they used to be burning and hot, like thinking
Speaker 1: of the equivalent of like an iron, just put an
Speaker 1: iron on and then just touch an iron, like that's
Speaker 1: how houses were heated back in the early seventies. And
Speaker 1: I slipped and my entire leg hits the radiator, and
Speaker 1: according to my sister, I think I had like second
Speaker 1: degree burns, but I was just screaming in pain. But
Speaker 1: right when this was happening, Soul Train was on and
Speaker 1: Curtis Mayfield was doing Freddy's Dead And there's a part
Speaker 1: in the middle of Freddy's Dead where they just briefly
Speaker 1: go to C sharp minor and a bunch of trombones
Speaker 1: and trumpets have the plunger, you know, like when New
Speaker 1: Orleans band uses the plunger, like that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and they're doing that line and Freddy's Dead man.
Speaker 14: And ah Man.
Speaker 1: I was never a fan of C sharp. C sharp
Speaker 1: minor is one of the keys that I don't like,
Speaker 1: Like when something scary happens in the movies or whatever,
Speaker 1: like that's the that's the key I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear for some reason. But any song that had a
Speaker 1: modulation after that I was not a fan of. Maybe
Speaker 1: with the exception. The only one that passed that test,
Speaker 1: I'll say was Stevie Wonder's Golden Lady, which used to,
Speaker 1: you know, at the end of the song, every four
Speaker 1: bars it would just go higher and hire and hire.
Speaker 1: So that's another distinctive memory from my childhood. What was
Speaker 1: your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 6: The Beatles.
Speaker 17: I was two years old, and it's the first not
Speaker 17: only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
Speaker 17: the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
Speaker 17: of my father being banished from my life my biological father.
Speaker 17: But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
Speaker 17: a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I remember.
Speaker 8: She loves you, yeah, yeah, and oh you.
Speaker 6: No no no, no no.
Speaker 17: If you don't understand, I want to hold your hand,
Speaker 17: and she loves you. That that is the earliest memory
Speaker 17: I have. And I just think it's so awesome that
Speaker 17: it was a musical memory as well, because nothing you
Speaker 17: know that that was the music that woke up my
Speaker 17: consciousness to the fact that I was existing in that life.
Speaker 14: So that was my first memory.
Speaker 17: I also remember seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's on television when
Speaker 17: it came on in nineteen sixty four, I think also too,
Speaker 17: or somewhere around thereabouts. And I remember my mother buying
Speaker 17: me some Batman cards because that was my first hero
Speaker 17: was Batman. So those memories around the same time. They
Speaker 17: were all the East Ards New Jersey memories.
Speaker 1: And that was the great Sanata Matreya from our twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four to one on one interview, and this is
Speaker 1: John oots back in twenty twenty two with a really
Speaker 1: touching memory of my father's music. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 9: Do you know your first musical memory was.
Speaker 6: I sure do. I absolutely do.
Speaker 18: Right after we moved to Pennsylvania, there was a place
Speaker 18: not too far away called Willa Grove Amusement Park. Okay,
Speaker 18: and now it was an airbase as well, but anyway,
Speaker 18: at the time it was an amusement park and my
Speaker 18: folks took me there and Bill Haley and the Comments
Speaker 18: were playing in the band show. And I don't know
Speaker 18: if you remember, but Bill Haley was from Camden, of course,
Speaker 18: and so I was like I was probably four maybe,
Speaker 18: and of course, you know, I had had this musical
Speaker 18: sensibility at the time, even though though I was a
Speaker 18: little kid.
Speaker 6: And I remember running down to the stage.
Speaker 18: It was the band show, so the stage was only
Speaker 18: maybe two feet high, and I remember being this little
Speaker 18: kid and I ran right down to the band shell.
Speaker 6: And I remember the.
Speaker 18: Bass player, the upright bass player. At one point in
Speaker 18: the show, he rode his bass like a horse, and
Speaker 18: I thought that was the most amazing things I'd ever seen.
Speaker 18: And that actually the first live music I ever heard
Speaker 18: was Rock around the Clock.
Speaker 6: And and uh, you know Bill Haley in the.
Speaker 5: Comets really, so they were just performing at the.
Speaker 6: They were in the they were performing at the Amusement Park.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to say, I think I believe
Speaker 5: that I too saw a latter day Bill Haley Beforemat.
Speaker 9: Then we used to we we had something called the
Speaker 9: Steel Pier.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I played at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9: Yeah, still here in a Lank City. It was in
Speaker 9: Lank City, right or wild Wood Yep.
Speaker 6: No, it was in Atlantic City.
Speaker 18: And when I was a really little kid, around five
Speaker 18: or six, I sang at something called Tony Grant Stars
Speaker 18: of Tomorrow, which was a kitty.
Speaker 6: Talent show at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9: In my dating myself, I had mentioned the word Al Alberts.
Speaker 5: Where you do you remember the Al albert show case
Speaker 5: at all?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 18: It was around that time, and there was a guy
Speaker 18: and it was actually before Dick Clark took over Bandstand
Speaker 18: and it was what was his name? There was a
Speaker 18: different host before Dick Clark, but it was during that
Speaker 18: period of time.
Speaker 6: It was in the mid fifties.
Speaker 5: And uh so you you were there for like the
Speaker 5: do Op era of Philadelphia.
Speaker 18: Yeah, du Op and Jerry Blavitt and all that stuff.
Speaker 18: Jerry Blavitt was a big hero of mine.
Speaker 6: Yeah, how was.
Speaker 18: That the radio show that he used to do from
Speaker 18: I think it was from Trenton where he'd play all
Speaker 18: B sides and man, I heard, you know songs like
Speaker 18: Viola by the Versatones and you know and Guided Missiles
Speaker 18: and you know these songs that were just unbelievable.
Speaker 6: And you know your.
Speaker 18: Your your father man Lee Andrews and the Hearts. Man,
Speaker 18: I mean, you know, tick tick ticking of the clock.
Speaker 6: He got a.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 19: Man, first musical memory. My grandmother had like one of
Speaker 19: those big consoles that has like the eight track player
Speaker 19: and the record player and the speakers built in. And
Speaker 19: I remember being really young, maybe four, and messing around
Speaker 19: with all the vinyl yes and pulling out some of
Speaker 19: the albums and had them all on the floor, and
Speaker 19: my Grandma's like what you're doing, you know, like don't
Speaker 19: break them and all this, and I remember her putting
Speaker 19: on the Thriller album. I remember here. I remember hearing
Speaker 19: the speakers because it's like a tube system, remember them
Speaker 19: warm up, and then I could hear, you know, songs
Speaker 19: of Thriller coming out of the speakers and being like,
Speaker 19: what the hell is this, you know, kind of kind
Speaker 19: of amazed in the name of by the whole thing,
Speaker 19: not just the music, but just all of it. You know,
Speaker 19: the warmth of it coming on?
Speaker 1: Was that your kind of I don't mean come to
Speaker 1: Jesus moment, but for you, was that like the moment
Speaker 1: where it's like, Okay, well I want to also express
Speaker 1: myself in this way through music or.
Speaker 20: Nah.
Speaker 19: So no, not really, I mean I had that kind
Speaker 19: of moment when I was eleven. I I was in
Speaker 19: middle school and in my school, I don't know what
Speaker 19: if a grade eleven is fifth or sixth grade, and
Speaker 19: there was a band from our school that had rented
Speaker 19: out our gym and they were gonna put on a show.
Speaker 19: And I remember all throughout the day everybody was asking,
Speaker 19: are you gonna go to the show? You're gonna go
Speaker 19: to the show? I was like, I don't know, I'll
Speaker 19: see if I can get there. And so I get
Speaker 19: to the gym and I'm by myself, and I remember
Speaker 19: being like super anxious because I don't really know anybody
Speaker 19: at well, and the band plays and a musing them
Speaker 19: play on stage and kids I went to school with.
Speaker 19: It was like I didn't know these kids could do this.
Speaker 19: There were so talented. Look at the effects that having
Speaker 19: on people. It was songs that I liked and I knew,
Speaker 19: and it was like the coolest thing I had ever seen.
Speaker 19: And it was in that moment standing in the gym
Speaker 19: that I knew I wanted to be in a band,
Speaker 19: and I wanted to make my own music and I
Speaker 19: wanted to be up there like they were. Like, I
Speaker 19: think that was the come to Jesus moment for me.
Speaker 5: Okay, how long before you found other people that sort
Speaker 5: of had a common love for music? Like was music
Speaker 5: something that you kept close to the chest? Or like
Speaker 5: how big was the music community down there?
Speaker 19: It was? It was so small. I had to teach
Speaker 19: people how to play music to be in a band.
Speaker 14: Wow.
Speaker 19: So I would go teach myself the instruments, and then
Speaker 19: I would go back to school and I would just
Speaker 19: try to find a kid with some sort of musical
Speaker 19: talent like rhythm, and I'd be like, Okay, hey, do
Speaker 19: you want to learn how to play bass guitar? Like
Speaker 19: do you want learn how to play drums? And I
Speaker 19: would tutor them and see if that get to appointment
Speaker 19: where we could make music together. Some yes, but a
Speaker 19: lot no, Like it just didn't happen. I was trying
Speaker 19: to make it happen. And it wasn't until I was
Speaker 19: probably like sixteen years old that I finally met some
Speaker 19: kids who also were interested in making music. And that
Speaker 19: was Zach Zach copple Bassis for Albama Shakes. And then
Speaker 19: he's Fogg who became a guitar player, and it was them.
Speaker 19: So this whole thing really started from my school.
Speaker 1: Was guitar your very first instrument of choice? Or did
Speaker 1: you play other instruments as well?
Speaker 19: My first instrument, I guess technically is like piano, and
Speaker 19: then drums, drummer, heart and then basically yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 19: a lot of my yeah, a lot of the drums
Speaker 19: on my new record. I programmed those drums. I'm not
Speaker 19: saying I could play them like that, but I can
Speaker 19: hear it, you know. And uh yeah. Then I learned bass,
Speaker 19: and then I only learned guitar because I had to.
Speaker 19: I didn't really want to play guitar really, no, I
Speaker 19: want to be in the rhythm section. I just one
Speaker 19: I want to play bass.
Speaker 14: What is the gap though?
Speaker 9: Wait?
Speaker 21: The gap in between you knowing you wanted to do
Speaker 21: this and you teaching folks that the music.
Speaker 2: Like, how are you learning.
Speaker 14: You never kind of said that yet, Well you just yeah.
Speaker 19: So at firstly I didn't have those instruments like drums.
Speaker 19: I could have access to drums because there were a
Speaker 19: set of drums at our school, so I could go
Speaker 19: play those drums after school. When it came to bass guitar,
Speaker 19: I would just borrow one from one of the rich kids,
Speaker 19: because like, I don't know what it was about school, Well,
Speaker 19: all the rich kids had a bass guitar. Let me
Speaker 19: borrow it, you know, and they let me borrow it.
Speaker 19: And so I taught myself how to do that. And
Speaker 19: the guitar my my sister had a guitar like tucked
Speaker 19: away back in the closets, like one of those jcpenny
Speaker 19: guitars that looks like a Less Paul and it's like
Speaker 19: it's like one hundred and fifty pounds. And that's what
Speaker 19: I learned on was that guitar. So I was teaching myself.
Speaker 14: How long did it take?
Speaker 19: I mean, I haven't mastered any of those instruments, right,
Speaker 19: that's what we're doing, okay, no, no, no, no no no. Honestly,
Speaker 19: I was just learning as I went. So if I
Speaker 19: picked something up, I would make something with it. I
Speaker 19: would just learn as I went. So from from the
Speaker 19: very beginning, I wanted to make my own music. That
Speaker 19: was like the whole goal, that was like the whole purpose.
Speaker 19: But when I was originally learning, I had to learn
Speaker 19: other people's songs.
Speaker 6: So I just.
Speaker 19: Started with stuff that was easy, like like blink on
Speaker 19: a two, and I was like, kind of things like
Speaker 19: that that are pretty easy power chord stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you, am I the only
Speaker 1: one that goes through this?
Speaker 5: Like sometimes when we'll ask people about their childhood, you're
Speaker 5: thinking about your childhood, you but then you realize that
Speaker 5: their childhood is actually your adulthood, like.
Speaker 1: Childhood, and I'm like, wait a minute. I was thirty
Speaker 1: three years old when that came out, like pretty.
Speaker 2: Don't do the math, don't do the math.
Speaker 14: Don't do it.
Speaker 6: Don't do it.
Speaker 9: It hurts.
Speaker 14: I give my feelings hurt.
Speaker 1: I guess when we first played together was at the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and we
Speaker 1: were doing a tribute for Big Mama Thornton. In your childhood,
Speaker 1: was there did anyone ever put you onto her? Or
Speaker 1: was it like later in life when you discovered her
Speaker 1: I'm for a so called music historian. I you know,
Speaker 1: I admit, and I'm ashamed of it that I was
Speaker 1: probably in my mid forties before someone explained to me
Speaker 1: who Big Mama Thornton was, even though like I've heard
Speaker 1: hound Dog and all that stuff all my life, but.
Speaker 19: I remember doing his sister though.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I talk about it.
Speaker 1: You know what you want to edit that? Yes? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and quest Love makes mistakes. Yes, I had a brain fart.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry he was a historian quest Love things.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry. I meant sisters at a thought. Yeah, were
Speaker 5: you at all familiar with her in your childhood or
Speaker 5: did that come to you later in life?
Speaker 19: It definitely came to me later in life, maybe mid twenties.
Speaker 19: Mid twenties is when I started getting curious about these
Speaker 19: women blues players, right, And then I had started hearing about, well,
Speaker 19: there's this woman that kind of inspired Chuck Berry and
Speaker 19: inspired of us Presley and had the electric guitar. And
Speaker 19: someone told me about it because I played an SG
Speaker 19: and they're like, oh this like sister was at a tharpe.
Speaker 6: She also put a SG.
Speaker 19: She put an SG custom in white, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 19: I've never heard of her, so I started looking into
Speaker 19: her stuff and I was like, the stuff she's actually
Speaker 19: playing on the guitar is so unique. It's it's her
Speaker 19: on that guitar. Nobody else is doing it. It's crazy.
Speaker 19: It's actually hard, it's hard to play how she's playing.
Speaker 19: And so that's when I kind of started diving into
Speaker 19: her stuff and in her story, which her story is
Speaker 19: really interesting as well.
Speaker 1: And that was Brittany Howard. And here's Ellie Reid from
Speaker 1: part one of our epic three parter.
Speaker 8: La.
Speaker 1: What was your very first musical memory, first musical memory ever,
Speaker 1: like ever your first thought of music? What? Like, what's
Speaker 1: it might be?
Speaker 5: It might be a little hazy, but I think that
Speaker 5: it was growing up Cincinnati, Ohio in the kitchen, small kitchen,
Speaker 5: transistor radio in the window, and I think it was
Speaker 5: It's my party and I cry if I want to. Yes,
Speaker 5: I think it was that because for some reason I
Speaker 5: remember that name, Quincy Jones. Don't know why, but like
Speaker 5: I knew that name as a baby and it never left,
Speaker 5: you know. I think it was that or it was
Speaker 5: something from Motown, right, like one of those dancing in
Speaker 5: the streets.
Speaker 9: So I can't exactly I was very young.
Speaker 5: But the one that the one that got me though,
Speaker 5: the one that, like the life changing moment, was when
Speaker 5: I heard give the drummer some and and cold sweat
Speaker 5: James Brown. That moment, like that was that the world stopped.
Speaker 5: So speaking of Cincinnati. Oh, by the way, uh, in
Speaker 5: case our listeners don't know, not many people know that
Speaker 5: Quincy Jones produced Leslie Gore's It's My Party. That's his
Speaker 5: very first, very first hits as a as a pop producer.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that I noticed, at least
Speaker 1: from what Bootsie told me and just from observing that
Speaker 1: anyone who's in proximity of King Records and their whole
Speaker 1: operation had their life changed, either as someone that works
Speaker 1: inside of King Records or the studio or the factory,
Speaker 1: or someone like Boucie Collins did hung in the alleyway
Speaker 1: and just hoped maybe one day we'll get used or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 14: Yep.
Speaker 1: But because there's a five year of five to ten year.
Speaker 5: Age discrepancy of you and Boucie's generation, right, how did
Speaker 5: the James Brown Ohio effect? And Plus this also explains
Speaker 5: why Ohio is the funk capital of the United States
Speaker 5: because I mean basically, King Records moved their operations to Cincinnati,
Speaker 5: and basically at a time period in which the ripple
Speaker 5: effects started happening even in other cities like Funk just
Speaker 5: spread throughout Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland, been all over. So just
Speaker 5: as a ten year old, were you aware of James
Speaker 5: Brown's presence in the city. I feel like I didn't
Speaker 5: know it officially, but I felt the presence. Like the
Speaker 5: first Contenter ever went to was a James Brown concert
Speaker 5: at the Cincinnati Convention Center, and I hung outside and
Speaker 5: I met Maceio Parker, and that that was a big
Speaker 5: deal for me, like literally walking down the street outside
Speaker 5: the convention Center. And also King Records was like a
Speaker 5: few doors down from like my karate school as a kid, Right,
Speaker 5: So I would go to karate school, but when I
Speaker 5: wait on the bus, right take the bus home afterwards,
Speaker 5: and I knew that that was King Records. So I
Speaker 5: never saw a soul, but I would just stare at it.
Speaker 5: I felt drawn to it. But then as I got
Speaker 5: like slightly older, all the musicians in Cincinnati were all
Speaker 5: so impacted by Bootsy and James Brown, but more Bootsy
Speaker 5: to be honest, right, James was like the godfather of soul.
Speaker 5: Bootsy was our local superstar. So everything that Bootsy did,
Speaker 5: we all, you know, aspire to do. Bootsy holds his
Speaker 5: base this way, so you hold your base like Bootsy. Right,
Speaker 5: Bootsy wears these kind of shoes, so he has these.
Speaker 5: Everything was about whatever Boots he did was the magic.
Speaker 5: You know, he was like a god to us. James
Speaker 5: Brown needed Booty more than Boots. He needed James even
Speaker 5: though Boosy needed that guidance, right, Yeah, James Brown needed
Speaker 5: that validation of you know, the next generation respecting him.
Speaker 9: And what was the first song, super bad.
Speaker 5: Very first song sex Machine? Sex Machine was bootsy very
Speaker 5: first one. Yeah, okay, you got it.
Speaker 1: There's there's an amazing all right, So they did that
Speaker 1: song in two takes, and there's a there's a really amazing,
Speaker 1: rare dialogue for James. Like if you listen to James's
Speaker 1: out takes, normally it's sarcasm or I mean not like
Speaker 1: mean spirited, but like if they mess up or whatever,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll hear him like chastise the engineer or something
Speaker 1: like that. But when they do the second take of
Speaker 1: sex Machine, there's like a forty five minute conversation of
Speaker 1: James just like you hear him walking in the studio
Speaker 1: and tell them like like being encouraging almost like which
Speaker 1: is rare for James Brown. But he's like obviously knows
Speaker 1: like these these six seventeen eighteen year old kids are
Speaker 1: really really scared right now, and he's just oh, no,
Speaker 1: you got it, man, Like you can do it, like,
Speaker 1: which is wow, compared to the rest of what James does,
Speaker 1: like on the other takes or whatnot, Like it's almost
Speaker 1: like he knew that he was dealing with children, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm.
Speaker 5: Right, So, yeah, some sensitivity and he's yeah, that's great.
Speaker 14: All right.
Speaker 1: Here is a DJ Premiere Premiere fun fact about Premiere
Speaker 1: secret comedian. See that was Premier playing piano right now.
Speaker 1: So to be fair, when this episode aired in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: I didn't ask the question. We were just in the
Speaker 1: studio talking and Premiere shared this. But it fits. You know,
Speaker 1: whenever the two of us get to talking, we have
Speaker 1: a lot to say. So Premiere.
Speaker 21: For me, it was my mom is an art teacher
Speaker 21: and she just had so many records in the house.
Speaker 21: You know, the rules were, don't touch the top of
Speaker 21: the record only all the edges or you get a.
Speaker 14: Do we call it a whooping? Not a spank and
Speaker 14: a whooping?
Speaker 21: I touched the top because I just wanted to see
Speaker 21: what is touch on the top?
Speaker 14: Do she goes, you got your fingerprints on it? Your
Speaker 14: dumb motherfucker's.
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 21: And then I mean I got plenty of whipons because
Speaker 21: you know, I looked at records as a toy, because
Speaker 21: the labels was what attracted me. The way they looked
Speaker 21: when they spun. I was really attracted to the labels.
Speaker 21: You know, It's like, wow, Motown, the way it looked
Speaker 21: in Tamala, dark skinned Motown versus light.
Speaker 14: Yeah. Oh, like the blue versus the yellow, and the.
Speaker 1: Motel was the yellow in the brown. Harry Winner once
Speaker 1: at Universal explained to me that because Motown used eighteen
Speaker 1: different factories across the United States UH to print it,
Speaker 1: like they didn't do their own pressing, it was never consistent.
Speaker 1: So the ink would be consistent. So you would have
Speaker 1: some Motown print that had a very dark queue to it,
Speaker 1: and then you had a lighter Motown. But sometimes even
Speaker 1: the Tamala would be a very dark label versus a
Speaker 1: light one, like it would just Gordy. It would depend
Speaker 1: on you know what pressing plant used.
Speaker 21: Yeah, but the labels always fascinated me, just the way
Speaker 21: and look when it's fun. And then on top of that,
Speaker 21: you know you had semi even not semi auto. You know,
Speaker 21: they went to semi automatics, but it little almost like
Speaker 21: a gun. But they even fully automatic turntables, which at
Speaker 21: that time my mother called it a record player, not
Speaker 21: a turntable. So seeing her stack the spindle with the
Speaker 21: that looks like a bottle rocket or whatever, and stack
Speaker 21: that and then puts five forty fives on there and
Speaker 21: let the arm hold it, and then the arm goes up,
Speaker 21: touches it, goes back, the record drops in it. I'm like,
Speaker 21: how does it know to land there?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 14: You know, so I took her as apart, which got me.
Speaker 21: That gets you because I wanted to see the mechanics
Speaker 21: of what's making it do that and you know where
Speaker 21: to land.
Speaker 14: And then on top of it, when you put a.
Speaker 21: Twelve, you know, an album, it knew to start at
Speaker 21: the album where it's like, how's it no go here?
Speaker 21: But on the forty five goes all the way insigne
Speaker 21: and lands right on the tank.
Speaker 14: I was in the juke boxes too.
Speaker 21: I would just stay at the jukebox because almost any
Speaker 21: restaurant back then had a juke box, and I would
Speaker 21: just stare at and watch it shuffle the records, and
Speaker 21: then you know, like that, that's why he's like happy Days.
Speaker 14: I don't.
Speaker 1: I do not feel would you? Would you rotate records
Speaker 1: without even listening to it, just see what it looked
Speaker 1: like spilling? Were you biased against labels that you didn't like?
Speaker 1: Copy wise, even if I had good music, did you
Speaker 1: judge it on the label?
Speaker 14: Judge it on the label like I do now?
Speaker 1: Like I never like Capital so it took me a
Speaker 1: long time, like especially.
Speaker 22: Old swimming purple or orange like Nat King cole Cat
Speaker 22: black with a rainbow around. Yeah, that's why I never
Speaker 22: touched my dad's Capitol record right, took me wrong to
Speaker 22: get the Beatles.
Speaker 1: And Beach Boys like Yeah, label who was the like
Speaker 1: the one I used? Like scary labels used to scare me.
Speaker 1: I never liked Buddha, yeah, with the little man at
Speaker 1: the bottom, like Kurd Time Curtains. But here's the thing
Speaker 1: you like Kurt Time. Yeah, I scared.
Speaker 14: Literally face say that.
Speaker 1: At the same I would never to listen to if
Speaker 1: there's Hell below, we all gotta go. We're all gonna
Speaker 1: go with all that psychedelic echo effect to it in
Speaker 1: the dark. As a three year old watching that Kurt
Speaker 1: Time label, Nah, but I'd be obsessed with it, like
Speaker 1: make him put it on. Then I run upstairs and
Speaker 1: hide on the cover.
Speaker 14: I don't.
Speaker 21: I hit under the covers when Jaws came out because
Speaker 21: I thought the shot could come in, and I'm like,
Speaker 21: and if you think about it, the shot can't swim
Speaker 21: without water. But I just remember going to see Jaws
Speaker 21: with my family and just.
Speaker 14: That boom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom doom.
Speaker 21: I was so scared of staying by myself, you know,
Speaker 21: my my parents let us stay by myself at a
Speaker 21: young age because it's just like that in the South,
Speaker 21: you know, you know, you leave your door unlocked and
Speaker 21: people just walk in, you know, like I'm from that, Like, hey,
Speaker 21: your dad, oh it's not you know, unchained fively. I
Speaker 21: learned that when I came to New York and my
Speaker 21: mom's from Baltimore. So even when we used to stay
Speaker 21: at my grandmother's house, same thing. They had all these
Speaker 21: like all these locks and You're just like, damn, you.
Speaker 14: Know, what's the you know?
Speaker 21: But then you see the corner store right outside the
Speaker 21: house where everybody's fighting and screaming and breaking glass, and
Speaker 21: I'm like.
Speaker 14: I want to go back to Texas, you know.
Speaker 21: And then you get to the teenage Agent where it's like, yo,
Speaker 21: I love all this violence stuff.
Speaker 14: And that's when the changes started. The change started to come.
Speaker 1: Your father, your father, he was a professor at PRAI Review.
Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, and he was my dean. Imagine that. So
Speaker 14: you went for free? No? Well, I mean yeah, he
Speaker 14: paid for it. What was computer science? But none of
Speaker 14: those languages exist, you know. I took for tran and basic.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, no, you can't get your receipt back.
Speaker 1: So wait, if the if the turntable was such a
Speaker 1: sacred holy ground in your household? What happened the very
Speaker 1: first time you ever heard the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
Speaker 1: on the Wheels is still? Did you hear it as
Speaker 1: a youngster in Texas?
Speaker 14: No? I was.
Speaker 21: I was going back and forth. Yeah, but I was
Speaker 21: going back and forth because my grandfather lived in Brooklyn.
Speaker 21: That's how the first Brooklyn connection happened. Because he ustaill.
Speaker 21: He lived in Brooklyn, so being staying with him, he
Speaker 21: and I used to always go to I was really
Speaker 21: in the in the pinball games heavy as a kid,
Speaker 21: so he's always take me to Playland in tom Square
Speaker 21: and then we always go to a Yankee game. So
Speaker 21: I was so used to going to baseball games with him.
Speaker 21: That's how I got into baseball. I played that played
Speaker 21: when I was young, and that he's the one that
Speaker 21: got me into that. And then he used to tour
Speaker 21: with his band and he played trombone, trumpet, guitar and
Speaker 21: upright bass.
Speaker 14: So he used to always show me all.
Speaker 21: The pictures like, yeah, this is when I was in German,
Speaker 21: this is when I was here, just when I was there.
Speaker 14: And I remember his wife, Rooney, God bless her.
Speaker 21: She's always going, oh, Bill, there you go. He loves
Speaker 21: to brag about all the places he's been. But for me,
Speaker 21: it was like, wow, all this music took you all
Speaker 21: these places, you know, So I wanted to do that
Speaker 21: same thing.
Speaker 14: See yeah, but so.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like you scratched on the home term
Speaker 1: table and nah, not then.
Speaker 21: But by the time scratching came out, I just was
Speaker 21: wanted to figure out how they able to bring it
Speaker 21: back like that. And then my homie who's still a
Speaker 21: friend of mine, RP.
Speaker 14: Coler.
Speaker 21: His name is Randy Pettis. He went to my college.
Speaker 21: So I didn't really understand the scratching aspect as far
Speaker 21: as how they're making the record come back until like
Speaker 21: nineteen eighty five, when when eighty four, I'm sorry, eighty
Speaker 21: four when I was in college, cause I graduated high
Speaker 21: school in eighty four.
Speaker 14: My freshman year in college, I went.
Speaker 21: I went to summer school just so I just wanted
Speaker 21: to be in college so bad, because you know, just
Speaker 21: to get away hang out with all the people.
Speaker 14: And we don't.
Speaker 21: We only live five minutes from the college, but it's
Speaker 21: still a different way now. On the dorms and with
Speaker 21: the boys, we're drinking, we're doing all the stuff that
Speaker 21: and that that you want to do away from your parents.
Speaker 21: And and uh, I just remember, man, he was scratching
Speaker 21: and and he had these felt pads on there, and
Speaker 21: I was like, yo, how are you doing that? And
Speaker 21: and he.
Speaker 14: Was like, I'll show you. He's come to my dorm.
Speaker 14: And I went to this dorm.
Speaker 21: He showed me how to cut on his old big Gemini.
Speaker 21: It was a big Gemini mixer. It was silver with
Speaker 21: wood on the side. That's all I remember, the big silver.
Speaker 14: Damn. He had to run to get the cross fader,
Speaker 14: you know, and he was and the way, the way,
Speaker 14: the way the dorms were.
Speaker 21: Set up shot the Holly Hall that was, that was
Speaker 21: the dorm of all the wildness. He the way he
Speaker 21: had to set up he a two on the right
Speaker 21: because he couldn't.
Speaker 14: He couldn't.
Speaker 21: He couldn't do nothing right because well he cult left
Speaker 21: and right, but only when he was doing the gigs
Speaker 21: at his whole, at his dorm, he would set him
Speaker 21: up on the right. So, being I got so used
Speaker 21: to learning it that way, I just stuck with that
Speaker 21: way I could. You know, I got better now where
Speaker 21: you have to cross over and everything, but now I
Speaker 21: don't want him that But if it's set up that way,
Speaker 21: I'm still nice to do it with him on the
Speaker 21: right or And then the second thing that led me
Speaker 21: just keeping on the right was when Malcolm Claren and
Speaker 21: the world famous Supreme Team came out with the album
Speaker 21: d You Like Scratching? You see the turntable together, Yeah,
Speaker 21: the turntables together on the cover and the mixer is
Speaker 21: a GLI mixer in the front. So I was like,
Speaker 21: I want to do that, but I'm just gonna move
Speaker 21: them back over like the way RP taught me.
Speaker 1: All Right, So when anyone ever asked me, like, what
Speaker 1: is the most exemplary episode to listen to? I always
Speaker 1: referred them to the Great Jimmy Jam one of my
Speaker 1: favorite QLs episodes of all time, talking about musical diversity
Speaker 1: and his upbringing.
Speaker 20: My earliest memories were always, you know, I always loved
Speaker 20: the harmony groups. I loved Seals and Cross America America Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 20: you know that kind of stuff. Bred that was. I mean,
Speaker 20: to this day, that's the way I stacked my harmonies
Speaker 20: because of the way they sang those songs. Back then,
Speaker 20: a little bit later in life, I liked, like, around
Speaker 20: the time I met Terry, I was really into Chicago
Speaker 20: that was. That was my favorite band ever, you know,
Speaker 20: and me and Terry both loved them, And then Terry
Speaker 20: then turned me on to when I met him, he
Speaker 20: turned me on too, earth Wind and Fired, Tower of Power,
Speaker 20: New Birth. I met Terry in seventy two. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 20: so we're just we're talking last days in time, Earth Winding,
Speaker 20: Fire and music in my mind Stevie Wonder. You know,
Speaker 20: these were the albums and Terry turned me on to those.
Speaker 1: Black radio You didn't have no black radio experience at
Speaker 1: the age of ten twelve.
Speaker 20: There wasn't a black radio experience for me. When I
Speaker 20: got into high school, I was really into or junior
Speaker 20: high and into high school, I was really into Gambling,
Speaker 20: Huff and everything coming out of Philadelphia. Blue Magic was
Speaker 20: my favorite all time group. I know everybody was into Stylistics,
Speaker 20: but Blue Magic was my group.
Speaker 1: But how could you hear it or see it?
Speaker 9: Was?
Speaker 20: Oh, yeah, Soul Train definitely was on and you definitely
Speaker 20: would hear it on Soul Train. But I I remember
Speaker 20: I had a friend of mine whose dad was an
Speaker 20: executive of music Land, which is one of the big
Speaker 20: retail stores back in the day. So he used to
Speaker 20: get every single record that came out. And my thing
Speaker 20: was I was always a big liner note reader and
Speaker 20: a big label reader. So my thing was we all
Speaker 20: collective and bill yes. So my whole thing was, I
Speaker 20: remember there were records that would come out and I
Speaker 20: would particularly during the Motown era because I really I
Speaker 20: really loved the Motown records, all of that stuff. The
Speaker 20: Holland Dozer Holland, like I remember I did. I remember
Speaker 20: looking at a Supremes album at a like a family
Speaker 20: reunion or something back in sixty two or something or
Speaker 20: sixty so I was like three or four years old,
Speaker 20: and I remember that Holland Dozer Holland it was. The
Speaker 20: album was called The Supreme sing Holland Dozer HOLLANDLD Record,
Speaker 20: and I the gold record, right. I had no idea
Speaker 20: what that meant. I kept going, what does this mean
Speaker 20: mean they singing Holland Dozer Holland, And somebody explained to me, no,
Speaker 20: they wrote the songs. The girls are the singers, but
Speaker 20: somebody wrote the songs, and something went off in my
Speaker 20: head at that point. That always made me look who
Speaker 20: wrote it, who produced it? And so I remember like
Speaker 20: all the Motown records would be the first ones I'd
Speaker 20: always go to. And I remember like staring at the
Speaker 20: first time I heard I Want You Back Jackson five,
Speaker 20: and you know Dinnah Ross and Dinah Ross presents the
Speaker 20: Jackson five and I thought, oh, wow, that's cool, and
Speaker 20: I looked down the record. I'm like, well, I don't
Speaker 20: see Donna Ross's name anywhere on here. There's some dudes
Speaker 20: called the somebody. I gotta find out who the corporation is,
Speaker 20: you know.
Speaker 9: So that was.
Speaker 20: Always my my thing and and I knew that because
Speaker 20: what I learned was there were certain there were groups
Speaker 20: I like, but it was all about who produced them.
Speaker 20: Like it was. It was like, you know, like Eddie
Speaker 20: Kendricks could come out with a song and I would
Speaker 20: be like, Yeah, that's okay. And then you come out
Speaker 20: with a song, I go oh, oh, I love that song. Okay,
Speaker 20: who did that song? Okay, Leonard Caston and you know,
Speaker 20: Frank Wilson and okay. And then I'd hear another song
Speaker 20: that had nothing to do with Eddie Kendricks, but I'd go, oh,
Speaker 20: I like that track. Who did that? And it'd be
Speaker 20: the same dudes, right, And that's when I got That's
Speaker 20: when I started going, Okay, that's that's my thing. And
Speaker 20: so for me, that's what always excited me, and that's what,
Speaker 20: you know, ultimately made me want to become a songwriter
Speaker 20: and a producer.
Speaker 1: We're gonna close with Adam Levine. This is from an
Speaker 1: End Studio in twenty twenty four episode, and it really
Speaker 1: just captures the rabbit holeness of QLs, Eddie Grant into
Speaker 1: Cat Stevens and everywhere in between. And we'll close this
Speaker 1: and we'll catch up with you guys soon. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you. What was your very first musical memory in life?
Speaker 7: And I know the first record I bought other than
Speaker 7: my parents playing music in the car, right, which probably
Speaker 7: always the Beatles. This is so funny, but I remember
Speaker 7: very distinctly buying the Eddie Grant Electric Avenue. Electric that
Speaker 7: I like it was, but it was like like a tick.
Speaker 7: I played the song like my parents were like I
Speaker 7: never need to hear the song.
Speaker 1: Again, so what uh, it's not unusual. It's to John mlaney,
Speaker 1: that's what electric Avenue was.
Speaker 14: To use the kid.
Speaker 7: It was like it was like ad nauseum all day long.
Speaker 7: Please God, I don't ever want to hear it again.
Speaker 1: That song comes on, that song holds up, dude. Jimmy
Speaker 1: wanted him on the show to do Electric Avenue, and
Speaker 1: the first thing he wanted to do, you know, like
Speaker 1: artists might have that smells like teen spirit moment where
Speaker 1: they don't want to do the song that they're known for.
Speaker 7: Like Bobby mcfairn, like like, you know, like I want
Speaker 7: to do like play that so and so listen to
Speaker 7: the song and realize what it's about and then realize
Speaker 7: he should play.
Speaker 1: Okay, when he came on the show, you remember this, Steve,
Speaker 1: he wanted to do like a different version of it.
Speaker 1: He wanted to mix it with it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to dance like the other minor hits that.
Speaker 14: He wanted to do.
Speaker 1: The B side, time Warp Yes, yo, Wait, so do
Speaker 1: you know about time Warp? No, dude, So time Warp is.
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice this, but we've all heard time Warp.
Speaker 1: So Time Warris is kind of a song of his
Speaker 1: that was like a B side that wound up being
Speaker 1: not him going rogue the only way I can describe it,
Speaker 1: you know, like dog was a donut on Cat Stevens's record. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a metaphor.
Speaker 14: That is a deep cut.
Speaker 1: It's like an instrumental. Right, it's an instrumental. Okay, So Encyclopedia.
Speaker 1: In seventy seven, Cat Stevens had a synthesizer endorsement deal
Speaker 1: with the company of which he promised, like, Okay, one
Speaker 1: of these songs, I'll play your instruments on the record.
Speaker 1: But Cat Stevens ain't necessarily a synth based artist, he's
Speaker 1: like acoustic yeah, you don't say right, And so basically
Speaker 1: that the penultimate cut, like the song before the album ends,
Speaker 1: he did a quickie, little four minute demonstration song of
Speaker 1: this new drum machine and whatever, and it actually fucked
Speaker 1: around and wound up being like a bee boy classic.
Speaker 7: But who's about right now Stevens, which into Adam, let's
Speaker 7: get Seddie and then back to my mind just exploded.
Speaker 1: This is dog wasn't donut by uh oh okay, yeah right,
Speaker 1: which is basically like this is that's what you went?
Speaker 3: Adams, Like, where do we start with this?
Speaker 1: He that's not castaing. It is because he contractually had
Speaker 1: to make a song up with all this darm machines.
Speaker 7: That's a weird contractualbligation.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy seven. He was the first with the like
Speaker 1: Lynn drum and all that stuff. So he made this
Speaker 1: ship and of course the b boy community press work
Speaker 1: immediately picked up on it and it became a classic
Speaker 1: unbetown to him. But the same way Eddie Grant. Eddie
Speaker 1: Grant did kind of an Overheim synthesizer song called time Work,
Speaker 1: which is he had.
Speaker 7: A foot in that door already though that the cast
Speaker 7: even ship is crazy. Yeah, I never heard anything like
Speaker 7: that in my life from him, Like, what was that?
Speaker 1: I want to hear it.
Speaker 2: I didn't know, right, none of us knew what it
Speaker 2: was him.
Speaker 8: You've got to get this.
Speaker 1: So this, this is the B side of Electric Avenue.
Speaker 1: So basically, at Paradise Garage this became an anthem. And
Speaker 1: if it's played at Paradise Garage, it also means that
Speaker 1: at Crocker is also playing it on his radio show.
Speaker 1: So Eddie Grant wanted to come and do Time.
Speaker 14: Ward came back, We got full circle.
Speaker 1: I'm there, I'm very focused in the morning, and now
Speaker 1: the show's over. Thank you very much, Eddie Grant. Really anyway,
Speaker 1: so you loved Electric Avenue.
Speaker 2: He came and wanted to do the B side.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's just crazy.
Speaker 1: Jimmy is always watching the music guests from his dressing
Speaker 1: room or his office because he has a monitor in there,
Speaker 1: and he tries not to come out and freak out
Speaker 1: the people that early in the morning. But that's the
Speaker 1: one time in which you know, we're like, okay, so
Speaker 1: we'll do one verse of Electric Avenue and then we'll
Speaker 1: do Time Warp, and which you're not singing at all.
Speaker 1: Jimmy ran in and it was like, guys, no, I
Speaker 1: need you to do electric avenue. And then at that
Speaker 1: he wanted to do like a blues harmonica version of it.
Speaker 7: Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard when that's like
Speaker 7: we had, right.
Speaker 5: We had to wrestle him out of that and just
Speaker 5: do regular ass letric avenue.
Speaker 1: You guys had already like sampled all the weird little samples.
Speaker 5: In all the little all those little stuff Burbson's frame.
Speaker 1: It's like Ray Parker not doing Ghostbusters some ship like that.
Speaker 14: True, Yeah's true.
Speaker 1: So Huey lewis not doing Ghostbusters. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Quest Love Supreme Hosted by Amir quest Love, Thompson,
Speaker 1: Why You, Saint Clair Sugar, Steve Mandell, and unpaid Bill Sherman.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Mira quest Love, Thompson, Sean g and
Speaker 1: Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brady Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Eliah
Speaker 1: Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by
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