Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Hey what's up, y'all?
Speaker 1: This is Questlove And as you've noticed throughout June, we
Speaker 1: are celebrating black music cum by releasing an.
Speaker 2: Episode every day.
Speaker 1: So every day you're either going to hear a special
Speaker 1: PIIC QLs classic and on Wednesdays we're dropping new two
Speaker 1: part episodes with Wayne Brady and James Poyser, both of
Speaker 1: which were filmed in studio, so make sure you also
Speaker 1: watch us on YouTube. And on this QLs we sat
Speaker 1: down with the emotions.
Speaker 2: That's right, the emotions. This is a special comprehensive chat three.
Speaker 1: Incredible Grammy Award winners, total manions, ladies and gentlemen. This
Speaker 1: is QLs classic from May tenth, twenty seventeen. With the emotion,
Speaker 1: we talked to the Grammy Award winning shook Alco Willnoise
Speaker 1: songbirds who had five decades under their belts of harmonies,
Speaker 1: hits and samples that have become the staple of our lives,
Speaker 1: joining them when it's also why am fon of Doctor
Speaker 1: Dre's The Pharmacy Show, and they recall their family history.
Speaker 2: And song and memories. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Kills Classic with the.
Speaker 3: Emotions Suprimo so So Supremo, roll call Suprema sun So Supremo,
Speaker 3: roll call Supremo so some supremo role called Suprema so
Speaker 3: So Suprema.
Speaker 2: Don't touch that down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't push into yeah, because you getting the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Suprema Roma suck.
Speaker 2: My name is Fante. Yeah, I am not quest lost,
Speaker 2: but it is my love. You get the best.
Speaker 4: Of Bill is my name? Yeah, chilling with the tribe. Yeah,
Speaker 4: shout out to the emotions. Yea for my jam love vide.
Speaker 5: Sup My name is Sugar. Yeah, we in l a Yeah,
Speaker 5: all these emotions. It's our last day, sup.
Speaker 2: Supremom montaid Bill.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Drinking cambucha.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's my ear.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I'm very excited.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Three beautiful ladies.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I know why I was invited?
Speaker 2: Who Suppreval? Whoa came suppriva some supreval.
Speaker 6: My name is Wanda.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you got the best on my leaf.
Speaker 7: I have a.
Speaker 6: Passion, Yeah, from the gift.
Speaker 2: Of sure Suprema so sure.
Speaker 9: I'm Waryan Vaughn. Yeah, the voice of reason. Yeah, I'm hot,
Speaker 9: I'm spicy. Call me well season.
Speaker 3: Whoa supprival, Suppriva some supreval.
Speaker 10: My name is Pam, Yeah, and I just came here.
Speaker 11: Give you my number.
Speaker 8: I'll play your game.
Speaker 2: Suprema suck, Suprema Roma, No come.
Speaker 3: Suprema son, Supremo bro called suprema some Supremo ro.
Speaker 2: Call damn.
Speaker 6: Me.
Speaker 2: I can't but your future rhyme ship rhymes with cam.
Speaker 2: It was pay drinking cam. Butch happy than toilets. I'm
Speaker 2: from the future.
Speaker 1: At least I got to say those also pretty futuristic
Speaker 1: toilets I am.
Speaker 2: I'm so busy trying to coordinate my sample that I
Speaker 2: couldn't that I couldn't. I was trying to coordinate my sample. Wowl.
Speaker 8: That is so funny.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another edition of Course Love
Speaker 1: Supreme or on Pandorah.
Speaker 2: We are in the presence of Royalty man, Ladies and gentlemen, Yes, royalties.
Speaker 1: For over five decades, the world is has has has
Speaker 1: been blessed with a distinct harmony and vocal stylings of
Speaker 1: our next guests. From their humble beginnings in Chicago, Chicago
Speaker 1: correct Yeah. As a gospel group, the Sunbeam Hutchison exactly
Speaker 1: uh later, evolving on the world stage as the Emotions.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Please welcome our very distinct guests, our
Speaker 1: first group.
Speaker 12: Well, yes, there's our first singing group.
Speaker 2: Our first singing group.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Oh, Madame, Pamela Hutcheson, Wanda Vaughn, and Hyan Vaughn,
Speaker 1: collectively known in our hearts as the emotional.
Speaker 6: So delighted to be here. I just must say, quest,
Speaker 6: I just love seeing you play those drums.
Speaker 2: I can't, I really can't.
Speaker 1: I know people think I'm being disingenuous when I say
Speaker 1: I can't believe you know that I'm alive.
Speaker 2: But this is this is really a great moment for me.
Speaker 1: So, you know, for the purpose of our show is
Speaker 1: to really go in depth into a guest that we
Speaker 1: have on the show, because oftentimes, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: you have favorites, but you really don't know them as
Speaker 1: as people. And you know, especially pre uh this decade,
Speaker 1: you know, people's lives are always on display more than
Speaker 1: their talent or whatever. You know, there's a lot of us,
Speaker 1: me included that you know, I don't know much about
Speaker 1: the emotions as at as humans. You know, I know
Speaker 1: about your beginnings in Chicago. So you guys started and
Speaker 1: obviously in church, in church, that's true.
Speaker 6: We were singing on Sunday sometimes Maya Jackson's Church over
Speaker 6: on eighty seventh Street, right down the street from what
Speaker 6: was the guys that played the boys, uh from Chicago. No,
Speaker 6: not the Shighlights, but okay, the Jackson five Emotions and
Speaker 6: the little guy that sings and drums. Oh I know,
Speaker 6: huh No not man condition that.
Speaker 8: He said, she said, singing and drum.
Speaker 6: Well, because they played the drums and then their sister
Speaker 6: was in the group the Stairsteps steps, the five Stairsteps.
Speaker 6: Because we all did the Apollo together. Just so happened
Speaker 6: the very first time we did it. Follow Jackson five Emotions. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and Ronnie millsap however, but anyway.
Speaker 2: Wait about Yeah, he had a hit in the eighties.
Speaker 6: Never had it so good.
Speaker 12: No, No, there was another one.
Speaker 2: It's top forty hight which one I can't remember. I remember.
Speaker 12: I'll get back to you.
Speaker 5: Let's let's we can We did skip.
Speaker 2: Played the Apollo, Yes, that is mind blowing. Well he's blind,
Speaker 2: so okay.
Speaker 6: Anyway, but we had a gospel show there in Chicago,
Speaker 6: called the We actually sang in al Abram's Pontiac. It
Speaker 6: was a showroom of all the Pontiacs that were at
Speaker 6: that time, Tempest, the Grand Prix, and we were the singers.
Speaker 6: My father playing guitar. He also sold the cars and
Speaker 6: people insurance and that's where we met Don Carnilius. He
Speaker 6: was actually giving insurance. I mean he was a salesman there,
Speaker 6: you know. But anyway, and we sang with a Jubilee
Speaker 6: showcase which is now on YouTube. It was on the
Speaker 6: Unsung But anyway, that was our first and I just
Speaker 6: happened to because you know how social Security sent you
Speaker 6: your very first thing that you did. That was the
Speaker 6: first thing that we did.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 6: And from what seven to eight years old when we
Speaker 6: first met you guys, ye win the emotion. Well we
Speaker 6: were they and then of course the Staples Singers.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, so it was sort of
Speaker 1: like your father was Pops was our father.
Speaker 6: Like Pop Staples, but he got Purviose Staples to manage.
Speaker 6: He was our manager. You know when we got with.
Speaker 2: Have a nightclub too, because I know that he.
Speaker 6: Left the seventy ninth Street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he left the State Singers too.
Speaker 6: I had a big Cadillac on the top of it,
Speaker 6: and that's when he was going with Melville Moore. But
Speaker 6: I remember that we were singing there about once a
Speaker 6: month and he would have people that come in town
Speaker 6: come there and Joe Simon, I mean, all the best.
Speaker 2: How easy was it to.
Speaker 1: Well, obviously you must have had your your your parents'
Speaker 1: blessings because they're in the act with you. But I
Speaker 1: often hear times of groups that start in gospel, yes,
Speaker 1: and try to sort of sneak their way into the
Speaker 1: secular world to the night clubs and whatever, like, how
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 2: Was it easy to switch the two?
Speaker 6: It was more of a situation for my grandmother, dad's
Speaker 6: mom out of Terre Haute, Indiana and Mama Rose and
Speaker 6: she was like, wow, you know you brought them girls
Speaker 6: up to sing for God now singing for the devil.
Speaker 6: Ain't bought of that, And I mean she was really
Speaker 6: like that. And our first at the what's the Regal
Speaker 6: Theater in Chicago when we won the contract and sixty
Speaker 6: nine to sing on Stax records, I can't go, I
Speaker 6: can't go, and you girls, you got to say, he said,
Speaker 6: but you got to promise me. You got to sing
Speaker 6: a gospel song every time you do a show, and
Speaker 6: if anybody knows us, when we do a show, we
Speaker 6: sing gospel. Yeah, so we kept that part in there.
Speaker 6: I said, but Mama, we're not singing about people who
Speaker 6: aren't married. We're just singing about people were getting married. Yes, yes,
Speaker 6: And you know, Sheila wrote the first song, so I
Speaker 6: Can Love You, which Isaac Hayes produced. But anyway, that
Speaker 6: was the first thing that came out in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: So what was that whole at least that the grind
Speaker 1: between Because I'm certain that you guys between Chicago.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that you went to Memphis.
Speaker 6: That's where we recorded in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: But I mean between Chicago, like just the Midwest, between Chicago, Indiana,
Speaker 1: just that whole circuit. What was it like like was
Speaker 1: everyone i mean a typical day for those contests or
Speaker 1: whatever were They're always.
Speaker 6: Yes, And we were still in school, so we always
Speaker 6: did the contest at the school, you know, at the
Speaker 6: high school and the junior high and we would have
Speaker 6: and everyone would want to sing with us because we
Speaker 6: still sang in Chicago before we had a record deal,
Speaker 6: so people knew of us, you know, in the area
Speaker 6: because my father had a radio show on the gospel
Speaker 6: morning radio, you know situation, so everyone kind of knew us.
Speaker 6: So they would want to sing with the hutcheson sunbeams
Speaker 6: when we would do the what do you call the
Speaker 6: show the Jubilee showcase, but you know we'd have to
Speaker 6: pick someone who's the winner the auditions. Oh yeah, talent
Speaker 6: show challenge all the time. That was a big thing
Speaker 6: in Chicago. Yeah, and then all of the radio folks,
Speaker 6: they always came out to the school. That's what's so
Speaker 6: different about this age and before they were more into
Speaker 6: the community exactly.
Speaker 10: It was at the Community Process Center. Yes, that even
Speaker 10: at nine years old. Yes, my brother had its own
Speaker 10: band and I sang Aretha Franklin song by myself.
Speaker 11: That's back.
Speaker 10: I didn't have a you know, at nine years old,
Speaker 10: I wanted to be kind of flashy, so I had
Speaker 10: an orange dress, red socks, a green pearl necklace. I
Speaker 10: was real colorful.
Speaker 6: Rainbow Can't would be the guy, I don't know if
Speaker 6: you remember her, the gent from Yes, and he would
Speaker 6: come to all the sock hops. We had sock cops.
Speaker 6: We tried to start that. We came out here, people
Speaker 6: went socks. Communities are going to come on the night.
Speaker 8: I don't know what sock hop in the gym because.
Speaker 6: You can't wear your shoes and dance, so you take
Speaker 6: off your shoes.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 13: I didn't know most people were bobby socks. I thought
Speaker 13: that that's what it was. Well, you couldn't wear shoes
Speaker 13: on the floor.
Speaker 6: Yet it socks, yes, because you're on the court where
Speaker 6: the basketball players and you know you can't wear.
Speaker 9: You didn't want to scuff it up, right, Okay, they.
Speaker 8: Were dancing and flipping and doing all that.
Speaker 6: H Yes. And then at the Catholic Church, which is
Speaker 6: amazing because all the black folks went to the Catholic
Speaker 6: Church just to the sock hop. There was the skating.
Speaker 6: You skate to the seventies music at the UH at
Speaker 6: the Catholic Church because they had the big arena, you know.
Speaker 6: So but it was amazing because we come out and
Speaker 6: then all the white people be standing outside because they
Speaker 6: wouldn't come in on the nights that we that we
Speaker 6: had to skating.
Speaker 2: Integrated well, well at that time.
Speaker 6: Not at that time, and even when it does.
Speaker 13: You know, Chicago has always been an interesting like segregated
Speaker 13: type city.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 8: Interesting, yes, yes, still.
Speaker 6: But the church let us have it there. And there
Speaker 6: was certainly a Catholic you know, it wasn't the Baptist church.
Speaker 6: It was, it was, but they wanted to be a
Speaker 6: part of the community, which was really something. And uh
Speaker 6: and even the largest like the car dealers and so forth,
Speaker 6: they would let us have They would move the cars
Speaker 6: back and let people have a dance situation or talent.
Speaker 6: And you know what, it was really smart because they
Speaker 6: got their parents and then you know, they're fixing to
Speaker 6: buy a car, so they're going to buy a car
Speaker 6: from the place where they can go dance. And I'm like, gosh,
Speaker 6: I wish La had that kind of a you know now,
Speaker 6: but I don't know.
Speaker 8: I don't know if anywhere has that kind of a thing.
Speaker 14: Now.
Speaker 2: I was going to say.
Speaker 9: That community, it seemed like that was the center of
Speaker 9: everything though, that every like the radio outlets, cars, church,
Speaker 9: every one sold into the community.
Speaker 6: That's true. That's kind of awesome.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you said that, uh, Don Cornelius would
Speaker 1: be there, did you You guys obviously did the local
Speaker 1: version of Soul Training correct, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 6: We did. The very first one. Channel twenty six which
Speaker 6: was UHF. The very trains were on UHF.
Speaker 1: So how revolutionary was that at the time in Chicago,
Speaker 1: Like the idea of a show where you saw black
Speaker 1: teenagers dancing and.
Speaker 11: It was a really big deal.
Speaker 10: It was really uh because it was you know they
Speaker 10: normally the people would have what was that that guy?
Speaker 11: The real famous dance show American?
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 8: Yes, and this was.
Speaker 6: Before they moved out here, before they moved Soul Trains.
Speaker 2: The local Chicago.
Speaker 11: Yeah, the room, the room a little bigger than this.
Speaker 6: Well, the actual room where the coomber was at that
Speaker 6: hotel you know down there downtown. I had to wait
Speaker 6: with play. Yeah, that's the whole album. Were not were
Speaker 6: the dancing part where the people were Yeah it was small.
Speaker 6: Yeah did you do that one with the Monty you
Speaker 6: know what she's talking about what we were actually saying.
Speaker 6: But the dance part was in the lobby kind of
Speaker 6: you know, it was bigger. Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 8: It sounds like two different.
Speaker 14: You were nine years Okay, that was.
Speaker 11: In the group I did that.
Speaker 9: It was that question about this is you you both
Speaker 9: must know this is a real family business. And it's
Speaker 9: so funny because I have to remember, like these are
Speaker 9: real sisters.
Speaker 8: I see them as mom and Aunty.
Speaker 9: But when they have their fun times like this, I
Speaker 9: have to remember, like as if it was me and
Speaker 9: my sisters, that's called step back.
Speaker 8: I don't have jurisdiction. And that the fight was not.
Speaker 6: To us on YouTube. We didn't even know that was
Speaker 6: on YouTube.
Speaker 9: That was the one though, when you guys did when
Speaker 9: you had the white one and you did. Best of
Speaker 9: my love was that.
Speaker 13: It was.
Speaker 8: Telling you about that, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's the established one, the before when it's black and
Speaker 1: white and before and white before it you know, got
Speaker 1: big yes that vers. But you also mentioned, like a
Speaker 1: lot of your contemporaries, you just ever so casually like
Speaker 1: so because because Chicago is just the epicenter and such
Speaker 1: a musical you know, birthplace for for many of our
Speaker 1: favorites on a casual week like who were you seeing
Speaker 1: that that are gods now?
Speaker 2: But who it was? Just who would you run into?
Speaker 6: And the impressions all the time, and shot by yeah,
Speaker 6: Shot we went to school together and when they had
Speaker 6: the when King that thing happened and they were looting
Speaker 6: and doing all of this so called Chaka and I
Speaker 6: went to the Disciples, you know, the gangs, and because
Speaker 6: they loved us and knew us, they let us talk
Speaker 6: to them and you know, in the same room, and
Speaker 6: the police used us to go. I mean, it was
Speaker 6: just so wonderful, used us to go into their places
Speaker 6: where they would meet to talk to them and like,
Speaker 6: don't go over here. You know that's brother so and
Speaker 6: so's right business. And they were okay, so they and
Speaker 6: they did it, and we were like so shocked because
Speaker 6: me and Shaka had these froze like this, and we
Speaker 6: had those tops that stopped right here and the mail
Speaker 6: bottle pair and they would really listen to yea let's
Speaker 6: But anyway, it was it was quite quite a situation.
Speaker 9: Then you had that one picture when you guys were
Speaker 9: singing at Maheia's church and Mahea Jackson was looking up.
Speaker 8: Did you see her often?
Speaker 6: Yes, because my dad because he was singing with us
Speaker 6: when we were doing gospel and so what we would
Speaker 6: go to her church. It would be like a son
Speaker 6: the every other it was the tea when they would
Speaker 6: have the tea and we would do this repertoire and
Speaker 6: when Dad would sing with us, we did uh what
Speaker 6: was that? Alba Maria? We would do all these songs
Speaker 6: and things like barbershop or for a four or five
Speaker 6: part harmony, and he played well, he did play electric
Speaker 6: then because he started out not playing electric, but he
Speaker 6: would play these songs. And so she would ask if
Speaker 6: we did Prodigal Son and Somewhere over the Rainbow, you know,
Speaker 6: a lot of songs like that. And she said, she says,
Speaker 6: are you going to put these girls in some kind
Speaker 6: of music conservatory? I would love to, you know, be
Speaker 6: a part of their education. I mean she actually said
Speaker 6: that to him. When we were we weren't even thinking about,
Speaker 6: you know, music, because.
Speaker 1: Did you realize that she was Yes, because all these
Speaker 1: people would come from uh because it was in a
Speaker 1: black neighborhood, and they would be coming from Europe or
Speaker 1: coming from wherever.
Speaker 6: They hear her sing, and she would do that home song.
Speaker 6: She would do the oh my gosh, the song that
Speaker 6: was in the movie, you know, Imitation of Life, Oh
Speaker 6: my God. But she could sing, yes, the red amazing grace.
Speaker 6: When she was your skin would crawl, mind, ye would
Speaker 6: just crawl. And then I wasn't even you know, I
Speaker 6: was a kid, and I was like, why is my
Speaker 6: skin crumb? I mean, and she's not singing all these
Speaker 6: runs that everybody does today, she's not. But she's just
Speaker 6: singing that gutteral and and and then she had very
Speaker 6: little vibrato, and she knew when to make it the
Speaker 6: smooth tone and the contralto. And I didn't know those words, Dan,
Speaker 6: I couldn't figure out what was it making me go?
Speaker 6: You know? But anyway, I kind of enveloped it into
Speaker 6: my lead singing. And it was really a thing because
Speaker 6: I always sung the gospel, mostly in the group, and
Speaker 6: she had a way of doing a guttural low squall
Speaker 6: that I've never heard anyone do, and but she she
Speaker 6: did it. And I mean, your you just everyone in
Speaker 6: the place is crying. It's like, why are they crying?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 15: I mean, but anyway, so, how did you learn because
Speaker 15: hearing you use the term contralto and you know, the
Speaker 15: ver broader and everything. Did you ever actually take like
Speaker 15: formal lessons or with these just things you picked up?
Speaker 6: My father, My father he had us like, you know,
Speaker 6: when we would rehearse, he would have us just listen
Speaker 6: to uh now, I believe or not. We watched the
Speaker 6: Lawrence Welk show, Oh Wow, what's those girls that say?
Speaker 6: And we did a lot of commercials in town that were, uh,
Speaker 6: those guys the high lows, and we got to go
Speaker 6: down there to the barber shop stuff. Yeah, where the
Speaker 6: impressions recorded is actually where the CBS studios at that time,
Speaker 6: and we got a chance to watch them and we
Speaker 6: were like, wow, that's how Dad to are singing, you know,
Speaker 6: because we sang a cappella in the rehearsal. We weren't
Speaker 6: singing with music and stuff. And so Dad would go
Speaker 6: and you knew what this meant? You go, you go high?
Speaker 6: Because no one could figure out. I remember when b
Speaker 6: Angie b was recording I Don't Want to Lose Your
Speaker 6: Love and she said, how did you guys sing the
Speaker 6: the harmony?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 6: One time you be on top of the other one. Yeah.
Speaker 6: My father was into fourths and fifths because he said
Speaker 6: those were the anointed intervals intervals and anytime you see
Speaker 6: those movies, do that interval is always a fourth or
Speaker 6: a fifth. Well I really didn't know that then, but
Speaker 6: Dad would tell us the stuff. I'm like, no, where
Speaker 6: did he get this right? Right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: But anyway, that's that's kind of how we got into it.
Speaker 6: But it was it was something and the more that
Speaker 6: we sang and then saw others that knew I mean
Speaker 6: not new as to telling us, but you could hear
Speaker 6: it in their voices, like Stevie or you know, someone
Speaker 6: just had that voice. But BMGB was like, okay, you
Speaker 6: know she recorded I don't want louse you like Hammer
Speaker 6: called me one day. I couldn't believe it. I was
Speaker 6: cooking or doing something, and she said, hey, Wanda, this
Speaker 6: is I'm here with SO and so. You're the guy
Speaker 6: who knows you. I'm just calling you because I'm recording
Speaker 6: the song on b AB and it's just these words.
Speaker 6: I don't want to lose you. I don't want to
Speaker 6: lose you.
Speaker 7: I think you need my love.
Speaker 6: When we go to that, you can we go to
Speaker 6: a whole nother interval of harmony. He says, who stays
Speaker 6: on the bottom. No, don't the reed stay? I said, no,
Speaker 6: the lead doesn't stay.
Speaker 2: I ask you.
Speaker 9: And she had to find out in vote they call
Speaker 9: for those things, just the harmonies, just how they did
Speaker 9: the harmony.
Speaker 6: But Dad did that. He he did our harmonies that way.
Speaker 6: And I was like, And then when we got with
Speaker 6: Charles Stepney, he was saying, we were doing how can
Speaker 6: you stop loving someone, Yeah, how can you stop loving
Speaker 6: the one you do? And he says, wonder, how did
Speaker 6: you write this song? Do you know this is the Beethoven?
Speaker 6: But he named some sonata that Beethoven. I said, I
Speaker 6: don't know nothing about. He said, do you know you're
Speaker 6: actually doing twenty eight bars of the blah? I said, no,
Speaker 6: I don't know anything about that. But anyway, he said, okay,
Speaker 6: so I know. And people would ask us those kind
Speaker 6: of questions, and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 15: What was Charles Stepneed? Like he was someone the hero
Speaker 15: of mine? But I mean he died so young, so young.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: We were in this living room. Maurice was in Maurice
Speaker 6: White was in l A, and he told us how
Speaker 6: to get My father took us over to Charles's house
Speaker 6: and so we sat there upstairs and we're just hearing
Speaker 6: this lovely music come from the basement where his eight
Speaker 6: foot piano was. And he said, oh well, and his
Speaker 6: wife carried the Oh what was her name, Liz? She ca?
Speaker 6: She said, Oh, don't worry. He does that about three
Speaker 6: hours every morning. He has to play. You know. Uh,
Speaker 6: it sounds like the Beethoven move the opera kind of music.
Speaker 6: Because one he was the director for the phil not
Speaker 6: phil Harmony, Chicago Symphony, and I didn't know that then,
Speaker 6: and so he was rehearsing because him and Many Ripperton
Speaker 6: were fixed the perform about a week that weekend or something.
Speaker 6: And I was like, Many Ripperton, but he's playing. I mean,
Speaker 6: he's playing. He said that's how he prepares. Wow, that's awesome. Wow.
Speaker 6: So when he said that, that really made me feel like, wow,
Speaker 6: he thinks I write a song is like a sonata
Speaker 6: from somebody.
Speaker 12: With you know, did you play piano?
Speaker 6: Piano?
Speaker 15: Okay, okay, and that's where you would start all your songs? Yes,
Speaker 15: you wrote on the pianel.
Speaker 1: How competitive were the the talent shows that you guys
Speaker 1: were doing, like you mentioned, you know, the Five Stair
Speaker 1: Steps and the Jackson's and all those like how I
Speaker 1: mean from the Jackson's and I know that you know
Speaker 1: they had to rehearse. Oh yeah, yes, question, I mean
Speaker 1: just in terms of in preparing for a particular competition.
Speaker 1: Was it like, you know, we have to like who
Speaker 1: was in your targets as in we gotta be as
Speaker 1: good as or.
Speaker 6: Yeah I did. I love Mavis and.
Speaker 8: The competitions When you guys be doing stable singer.
Speaker 6: Excuse me, because we were so much younger.
Speaker 2: Who was in the circuit of the talent shows that were.
Speaker 6: Like, who would you be going up against? M because
Speaker 6: that and that's something because the Jones girls had come,
Speaker 6: I remember they came, uh and there because we knew
Speaker 6: they my dad knew their dad and oh these other girls,
Speaker 6: but the Barrett sisters, like you were saying, you know,
Speaker 6: and and uh Joe Josephine Howard Caravans. See that would
Speaker 6: take us to all the gospel shows, the gospel of
Speaker 6: the concerts, and they would be at the high school
Speaker 6: auditorium where Vernie went to high school as a matter
Speaker 6: of fact, but that's where all of the it was
Speaker 6: because of was so huge and the sound was really cool,
Speaker 6: and we would see mighty clouds of joy. The Caravans,
Speaker 6: oh gosh, those were the say, the harmonies besides those
Speaker 6: girl the Lennon's sisters and I don't know, Dad had
Speaker 6: seventy eight so those and we he would play them
Speaker 6: and so but there were so many talent show just
Speaker 6: talent in Chicago that never got out that that was
Speaker 6: like like us and for whatever reason, I know a
Speaker 6: couple of them, you know, they tried to do some
Speaker 6: things in Chicago, but I don't know they just now
Speaker 6: you're talking about the singers that live in Chicago, right, Well.
Speaker 1: No, you mentioned doing a talent contest and winning the
Speaker 1: Stacks Prize, right, But I just met in the everyday circuit.
Speaker 2: Would you always see Jackson five? Would you always see
Speaker 2: those types of yeah?
Speaker 1: Like were they always and in your mind was it
Speaker 1: like we must win.
Speaker 2: Or was it like you know?
Speaker 6: But they were more helpful. You would go to the
Speaker 6: high school, you know situation, You would go to the
Speaker 6: the community center, and when you would rehearse, there was
Speaker 6: a oh, let's and so come up. Oh this is
Speaker 6: so and so family from blah blah blah. And they'd
Speaker 6: come up and you would actually help them when you
Speaker 6: know these oh can they show us something in that?
Speaker 6: And you would do that. That doesn't happen today, but
Speaker 6: that's what happened then, you know, because they're so competitive
Speaker 6: day nobody wants to help the other one you come up.
Speaker 6: But then I mean they were ready to ask and
Speaker 6: ready to learn. You know. I remember when we first
Speaker 6: met the Destiny Child, we were doing the Robert Thompson show.
Speaker 6: He had in the house in some kind of show parenthood, Yes, parenthood,
Speaker 6: And you know you always had to sing a song
Speaker 6: that you just did a cappella and that one that
Speaker 6: day was it was a gospel tune. Well, I'm trying
Speaker 6: to think be cause Sheila and and my girl Beyonce
Speaker 6: come over town. Remember when he came on in the
Speaker 6: House Flowers Together.
Speaker 8: I want to.
Speaker 2: Remember that episode.
Speaker 6: It was on that one and Tyresee was on there
Speaker 6: because I had to teach him Maurice's part for Wonderland.
Speaker 6: We all sang that at the end together, got it,
Speaker 6: got it. But that's the closest thing I brought that
Speaker 6: up that reminded me of and and there and beyon
Speaker 6: is so humble her heart, you know. And she came
Speaker 6: she said, well, y'all know, no'm I'm singing the right part.
Speaker 6: I mean, she just wow. And we wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 6: I said, well, it's not you, but it's the other girl. No, yes, yeah,
Speaker 6: but anyway.
Speaker 7: Like the other.
Speaker 2: But she was.
Speaker 8: She was actually very humble.
Speaker 9: And my mom to us out of high school for
Speaker 9: that because we went we went with her and I
Speaker 9: was in tenth grade. I was in my geometry class
Speaker 9: and they said, uh ms, Vaughan, your your mom has
Speaker 9: sent a limo for you outside.
Speaker 8: I was like, we're here. I am sixteen. I got up.
Speaker 9: Like they had a car that sent for us, and
Speaker 9: it took us down to I forgot what area we
Speaker 9: were in, maybe Century City ish so everything. I wasn't
Speaker 9: driving back then, but we went there and it was
Speaker 9: so nice the way that Robert Towns had done it,
Speaker 9: and everything was so nice in plusure or whatever. And
Speaker 9: they had all gone to do their makeup, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 9: Mom is coming back to this little cottage place where
Speaker 9: where the dressing room ex rest me where we were
Speaker 9: all stationed while they were all at makeup, and you know,
Speaker 9: we hear the knock and everything, and I'm like, Mama,
Speaker 9: and it's Beyonce.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 9: I'm just like, I like you, You're amazing. She's like, oh,
Speaker 9: I just wanted to come and tell you that I
Speaker 9: love y'all, Mom, like I love y'all Mo. I mean, like,
Speaker 9: so when she talks about her her admiration for the
Speaker 9: emotions and and she's a steward like she is a student,
Speaker 9: it's genuine.
Speaker 6: She's not.
Speaker 8: That's so real. And she was a sweetheart then and she's.
Speaker 6: She's still a sweet Yeah, she really is. All around.
Speaker 1: The contract that you guys won, uh brought you guys
Speaker 1: to Memphis, yes, were I mean you went down there
Speaker 1: by yourselves or your whole family moved.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, the Staples were on stacks, they were
Speaker 6: on right and so Purvis who was our manager, he said,
Speaker 6: albail good and uh oh, and then you know Maurice
Speaker 6: and them had.
Speaker 2: That's right, I forgot lived in Memphis.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, so but anyway, that was after I know
Speaker 6: that it was Isaac Hayes in Memphis, right, yeah, And
Speaker 6: but he produced the Staples singers, uh song Betty Cruck
Speaker 6: and what's the guy that did chef? Him? And David
Speaker 6: Porter and I mean the writers down there. You really
Speaker 6: you know you saw where that the blues because there
Speaker 6: was so many Oh Luther and we sung with Luther
Speaker 6: the first time. I can't believe that guy. His voice,
Speaker 6: the clarity, you know, there's asthm, but a voice like
Speaker 6: that actually since him, not even no, but not that pristine.
Speaker 6: It's you know, it's another league.
Speaker 8: You all were living down there when you was recording
Speaker 8: in Memphis. Did you guys live down there?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, we stayed there so long. I mean,
Speaker 6: we just made it our home. We knew where all
Speaker 6: the restaurants were, and the thing that they had were
Speaker 6: Martin Luther King Lorraine Motel, which the studio is nowhere
Speaker 6: from that walking distance, and so it just to pass
Speaker 6: that place. And then the where he would eat all
Speaker 6: the time at the four Way. That was the name
Speaker 6: of the restaurant at the best peach cobbler in the world.
Speaker 6: And oh my gosh, we haven't had lunch yet.
Speaker 12: What was what was the Stax Records operation?
Speaker 15: Like I've seen like just interviews with Al Bell and
Speaker 15: seen documentary and stuff.
Speaker 12: What was that like?
Speaker 15: Because at the time they were independent, they were a
Speaker 15: small black owned business.
Speaker 12: What was that? What was that like being?
Speaker 6: It was something because Marvel Thomas Rufus Thomas's son Marvel
Speaker 6: who played the Oregon and and so forth, and then
Speaker 6: what was his sister's name, Gee Wee Thomas to see
Speaker 6: them in there, and he's coming up with this song
Speaker 6: that he's just writing and his father wi always come
Speaker 6: that ain't fast enough every time, you know, he always
Speaker 6: say that ain't fast enough, no matter what it was.
Speaker 6: But he was so you know, genuine. I mean they
Speaker 6: were just something to work with. And and the mad
Speaker 6: lad and what was the guys James and them the
Speaker 6: rhythm section for the Barcays. Oh, I love just saying that. Okay,
Speaker 6: you would go in that studio see them. Then we
Speaker 6: go in the studio where Isaac is show me how
Speaker 6: that's what we were doing, and he's showing the strings
Speaker 6: are sitting there and I'm like, wow, look at and
Speaker 6: what he's doing is he's singing the parts to them.
Speaker 6: There was no no, maybe somebody wrote it out later,
Speaker 6: but what he just heard him in his head and
Speaker 6: he could play piano but not you know, real virtuoso
Speaker 6: or anything, but he could hear every string part and
Speaker 6: he could hear the horn parts and that's how he
Speaker 6: did it. And I was like, I didn't know. I
Speaker 6: didn't know that's the way you did. He said, well,
Speaker 6: most people don't. Most people, Johnny pet and all the
Speaker 6: rest they would actually write it out and then they
Speaker 6: would play it. But he just sung it to them
Speaker 6: and they would play well, they would note it, you know,
Speaker 6: and then play it show me how. And that was
Speaker 6: something for me to see, you know.
Speaker 2: So the first album was So I Can Love You.
Speaker 6: Correct, Yes, the first song.
Speaker 2: All right, So what is it weird to you guys? Now?
Speaker 2: Because from not the world I come from. I come
Speaker 2: from all worlds.
Speaker 1: But right, what's weird to me was that I really
Speaker 1: not until I started digging. Uh, when hip hop produces,
Speaker 1: you know, go through old records that are in their parents'
Speaker 1: collection or that sort of thing. So is it weird
Speaker 1: for you to see the renaissance of a lot of
Speaker 1: your songs, especially from the Stacks period, come up and
Speaker 1: sort of find new life in hip hop? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's weird because it's like blind because blind Alley.
Speaker 6: Really Blind Alley, Fine Daddy. If you listen to the lyrics,
Speaker 6: you know that's an old school you know, I've got
Speaker 6: who I won't God, who I won't? Sorry, you don't.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: That's how that would you know? That's you know, a
Speaker 6: dad thing, even you know something. And then when Big
Speaker 6: Daddy came, Yeah, I learned that I don't know, I
Speaker 6: just learned.
Speaker 8: I learned that that was Mom and Them song.
Speaker 9: In twenty fifteen, Dre taught me, oh wow, like fifteen,
Speaker 9: like two years ago, to walk me through it because.
Speaker 2: Listen has been simple.
Speaker 12: I love it.
Speaker 2: By Mariah Carrey yeah, yes, thank you heard the dream
Speaker 2: love but.
Speaker 8: Thank you?
Speaker 7: Thank you?
Speaker 1: How okay I played blind Alley for two seconds?
Speaker 12: You recognize it?
Speaker 6: And they did it at un l V.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I think a big Daddy came.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the Big Daddy can Daddy can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's clapped your hands.
Speaker 12: But first it's like a million.
Speaker 8: The Remax, the scenario an episode of.
Speaker 2: The Breaks, right, yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: See but what's even weirder is that those actual drums
Speaker 1: have like fed at least over four hundred hip hop
Speaker 1: songs like you know between and.
Speaker 6: That's muscle shows. Yeah, the random section. Really, that's muscle shows.
Speaker 2: That wasn't the Stax house man.
Speaker 6: They were the muscle shows were in Alaba, Alabama. Well
Speaker 6: that's something we didn't know when they said muscle show,
Speaker 6: we didn't know that was the place. We thought that
Speaker 6: was just that second that Dug Dawn and what's the
Speaker 6: white guy on the guitar? Oh, czu is the funkyest
Speaker 6: Steve Cropper and.
Speaker 5: Not ask me about any white guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Donald Duck And okay that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Okay, So does that mean that Al Jackson was on drums?
Speaker 6: Al Jackson, Yes, so crazy?
Speaker 1: So that okay, So I forgot why I went to
Speaker 1: the Stack Studio Memphis. But in a cage there is
Speaker 1: Al Jackson's one and only drum set, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you guys gonna do this drum? So you're
Speaker 1: just gonna keep it in a cage? Like if everyone
Speaker 1: display would be one thing.
Speaker 6: But it's just like, well, that's what he told you to.
Speaker 8: You know, it's supposed to be turning a display.
Speaker 6: Remember did we all we didn't get.
Speaker 8: The chance to go? We had, Yeah, we went. I
Speaker 8: must have came back for something then I must have
Speaker 8: had a tea. Yeah, ain't nothing. Y'all did it early,
Speaker 8: and that's probably.
Speaker 1: But man, there's also there's a I don't I believe
Speaker 1: it's it's on a one of those like the European
Speaker 1: version of the Stack Spots set. But you guys have
Speaker 1: a version of as long as I've got you. That's well,
Speaker 1: I mean, seam El has put it out, but there's
Speaker 1: an emotions version that's.
Speaker 2: Like it's killing.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know, like, for who who makes
Speaker 1: the final decisions of what makes you know the album
Speaker 1: the albums and those sort of things.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you it was Isaac Hayes because I would
Speaker 6: see them going through you know what. And it wasn't
Speaker 6: my father, you know, he wasn't involved in that part.
Speaker 6: But usually Isaac and David and then sometimes al bail
Speaker 6: and they would argue sometimes, but usually Isaac would win.
Speaker 6: So nice, that's the way it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the Japanese one of those Japanese compilations.
Speaker 2: I got the second you got the only killing though, dang.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's been a long time.
Speaker 7: Is that casual.
Speaker 2: Killing?
Speaker 13: Your mom and your auntie's the ship and you notice
Speaker 13: that's Jeanette.
Speaker 7: It is that.
Speaker 2: I think I like this version better.
Speaker 1: And for the like because because that because that that
Speaker 1: song is also a hip hop stable and it's not
Speaker 1: like you guys can see in nineteen sixty nine like
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 2: Iron music something that can just revitalize our entire catalog.
Speaker 10: Wow.
Speaker 1: But it's just like, But then it also goes to
Speaker 1: show you that quality things were so much high quality
Speaker 1: back then that even your throwaway songs wow, could have changed.
Speaker 2: Someone's life thirty years later.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know why didn't you guys release
Speaker 1: that song because.
Speaker 6: It's wow, And I've never heard that me neither. That's
Speaker 6: on the Stax compilation.
Speaker 8: We haven't the orange everything around me, that's cream march.
Speaker 8: I don't know what you're talking about. That is that's
Speaker 8: huge monkey.
Speaker 6: We should redo that, you guys do it.
Speaker 8: I'm floored.
Speaker 6: You know, it's almost like we were on the Tom
Speaker 6: Joiner Cruise. We're singing. Bear's Marquis comes up to us.
Speaker 6: Isn't this something? He comes up? He says, you know,
Speaker 6: there's never any he couldn't find how you say, how
Speaker 6: to get in touch with us? Because when he used
Speaker 6: the feeling is I said, you used what?
Speaker 2: Yeah? He did?
Speaker 6: Yeah, he actually he right there. He had whoever was
Speaker 6: with him, lawyer man, whoever it was, take Arthur. Do
Speaker 6: you know he started paying her from that too? And
Speaker 6: you know how long ago that had come out? Tom
Speaker 6: joined to just started those things cruise a few years ago,
Speaker 6: and he did. He got her thing and everything and
Speaker 6: start paying her.
Speaker 12: That's so dope.
Speaker 2: Really, I never use it. Yeah, feeling around comes around.
Speaker 15: Quit used it for I got the feeling click mom
Speaker 15: loves quick clickly oh quick, yeah, he.
Speaker 1: Loves waitmen, your mind must be blown. I hope you
Speaker 1: know about the ray quine only built for links uh
Speaker 1: verbally if you think you might as well do it
Speaker 1: if you think.
Speaker 8: Don't cry.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 12: If he hurts me.
Speaker 2: From I don't know what. It's such a it's such
Speaker 2: a crucis like that. That sample for me, man, listen, that's.
Speaker 1: Me was because I remember sitting a tour bus and
Speaker 1: the way the way that Riza uses samples and he,
Speaker 1: you know, he always dug into the stacks records. At
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, wait a minute, why are
Speaker 1: they rhyming over her talking?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 2: And we sat there the whole time like is this allowed?
Speaker 2: Like this is not usually with hip hop you wait.
Speaker 8: For the clean for bar exactly.
Speaker 1: And that was the first time I ever heard anyone
Speaker 1: from Wu Tang just blatantly rhyme over and it's like,
Speaker 1: we don't care if she's talking just and then ghost
Speaker 1: Face started rhyming over the record.
Speaker 6: Wait, so if you think you might as well do it,
Speaker 6: you're thinking.
Speaker 9: To Night Wonder shows me so much much. And how
Speaker 9: we missed that one because I didn't know that Blind
Speaker 9: Alley was in the remix to scenario Yes Jones, I
Speaker 9: didn't realize that he showed me some stuff. Dre showed
Speaker 9: me some stuff. I've never heard that my mind.
Speaker 2: Wow, No, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: In your show, like at least four or five of
Speaker 1: your stacks classics could be done, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: thirty to forty hip hop heads would just be like.
Speaker 8: Wow yo, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's you know, I mean beyond the Columbia stuff.
Speaker 2: So let's move to that.
Speaker 1: So how there was a law between nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, before the Flowers album came out.
Speaker 1: What was happening between so you were still contractually obligated
Speaker 1: to stay.
Speaker 6: Well, they went bankrupt and Union Planners took over everything.
Speaker 6: I didn't know a bank could take over songs, but
Speaker 6: Union Planner Bank in Tennessee, Memphis took over everything. So
Speaker 6: it was getting away from that Hella baloo and and
Speaker 6: how to you know, go to the next thing. But
Speaker 6: we got you know, we were riding high school and
Speaker 6: we were just at the park. We're in a senior
Speaker 6: I remember, because we had got I got a scholarship
Speaker 6: to go to Northwestern Minnesota in Missouri where Bell Beef
Speaker 6: devoted where he went for music anyway, but and we
Speaker 6: were like, oh gosh, well that's good, that's not happening.
Speaker 6: So now I could go and do like you know,
Speaker 6: and then here comes Maurice White. He says, hey, you know,
Speaker 6: I just did something I got Nissi yes, yes, and
Speaker 6: Ray Lewis and okay, but it was he needs a
Speaker 6: yes pockets. He wanted a girl group. And Ron Ellison,
Speaker 6: my father's friend, who also was a drummery and Chicago
Speaker 6: jazz trum anyway, and he lived with Maurice at the time. Anyway,
Speaker 6: they were playing around places in Chicago and he said, well, hey,
Speaker 6: n Iron says to Maurice, I could hook you up
Speaker 6: because Joe is my buddy, and we'll hook you up.
Speaker 6: And their thing is over with Stacks, so you know.
Speaker 6: And that's when they arranged the meeting. That was our
Speaker 6: first meeting was at Charles Stepney's house because Stepney had
Speaker 6: just done U the Ramsey song, the Ramsey Yes Yes,
Speaker 6: you had just done It.
Speaker 2: Was the Stax bankruptcy the reason why the third album
Speaker 2: didn't come.
Speaker 6: Out, yes, okay, because everything was held up. They put
Speaker 6: a hold on everything. You couldn't get no masters. Well
Speaker 6: whoever had to get the masters?
Speaker 15: Wow, how did you guys court yourselves in that time
Speaker 15: from seventy two to seventy six.
Speaker 6: Well, we were still doing things in Chicago, and we
Speaker 6: were on tour. Oh we were doing a little tours
Speaker 6: and so forth. So nice, that was how were you?
Speaker 6: And then we're doing a lot of commercials too. How
Speaker 6: were you guys then at that point sixteen seventeens, because
Speaker 6: see that my grandfather started them at three, four and five.
Speaker 6: So they're talking about all of this stuff they're doing,
Speaker 6: but they still are. Like eighteen, we were on the
Speaker 6: Jerry Van Dyke Show. That was the first contest besides
Speaker 6: the something mac Hour I forget that, but anyway, the
Speaker 6: Jerry Van Dyke Show in Tera Hoote, Indiana, and my
Speaker 6: father's mother was the talent coordinator for that show Intero, Indiana.
Speaker 6: Then we were on the Ed Sullivan Show and won
Speaker 6: the whatever on that, and the what's her name Donna
Speaker 6: Show Chevy show was Donna. That just shows you how
Speaker 6: many but that's what the Donna Shore Chevy Show. I mean,
Speaker 6: I know it had to do with cars. I don't know, right,
Speaker 6: looked like everything had to do with cars then, But
Speaker 6: and we won that talent show, so it was just
Speaker 6: you know, a time. I guess that we got through
Speaker 6: those particular ones and I was like, huh, why is
Speaker 6: there no other I would always wonder family groups that
Speaker 6: we knew of that should be on these shows it,
Speaker 6: But I don't know.
Speaker 13: So since you started out so young, did it take
Speaker 13: a while for like the men around you to respect
Speaker 13: your voice outside of the singing, just your voice and
Speaker 13: your opinions?
Speaker 10: Well?
Speaker 6: What was really something? When we sat down with Charles Stepney,
Speaker 6: he was saying, you know, Marie sent us all these songs,
Speaker 6: but do you guys have any songs? That was the
Speaker 6: first time we were ever asked that. Charles did it
Speaker 6: and we sat down, boy, we started playing songs. I
Speaker 6: had about twenty, Sheila had about how many. Ever, Jeanette
Speaker 6: had Love Vibe, you know Jette and oh, so we
Speaker 6: had all. He said, well, we go to Charles, we
Speaker 6: go throw these all the way we would do and
Speaker 6: we kept the one Denise wrote, did he order okay? Okay?
Speaker 2: Uh? Did al write? Al McKay wrote flowers? Was was
Speaker 2: it with you guys?
Speaker 6: With Maurice? He brought us all m and who wrote flowers? Maurice?
Speaker 6: We saw him writing it right there and okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: yeah he was writing it. And at the same time
Speaker 6: he was writing it we were like doing just the
Speaker 6: hook because he always had we hold the Key to
Speaker 6: the World's Destiny. He always had that. And Charles was
Speaker 6: on the little Fender Roads electric piano and.
Speaker 1: Uh, but you wrote I don't want to Lose your
Speaker 1: left correct, yes, okay, And I.
Speaker 6: Wrote it made it sound like it does now. I
Speaker 6: wrote it as a slow. It was a slow torch song,
Speaker 6: or Dad called it a torch song. And uh, dinner
Speaker 6: is ready, and the way it's chilled, my baby is
Speaker 6: coming over. I want to let him know how I feel.
Speaker 6: Then with hey Cold, want to Lose Yo Love? I
Speaker 6: had a that slow and then my Reese heard it.
Speaker 6: He said, wonder that song. You know you've been singing
Speaker 6: for fifteen minutes and you still ain't done with that song.
Speaker 6: And then he said, I think we should speed it up.
Speaker 6: I said, here's somebody said make it faster. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 6: and you know that was rufous, but anyway, but he said,
Speaker 6: he said, well, let's and then his brother got on
Speaker 6: the drums. No on the drug Fred Fred played I
Speaker 6: Don't want to Lose Your Love. He played the drums
Speaker 6: on that, and he got on the drums and start.
Speaker 6: So he said, well, I don't know how they figured
Speaker 6: out how they could speed it up like that, but
Speaker 6: they did. And when he did, I just sung the
Speaker 6: same thing faster, you know, because I don't want them
Speaker 6: to lose yo love hot, I said, But I gotta
Speaker 6: make my runs faster because I used to make them
Speaker 6: real slow.
Speaker 13: And I.
Speaker 6: Was Tina Turner. I love Tina Turner, so I was
Speaker 6: Tina Turner. But he didn't. He wanted me to sing
Speaker 6: it faster so that it's a good call.
Speaker 14: Then my love to keep it and you know, breakdown.
Speaker 13: Did it takes being she be the same amount of
Speaker 13: time or she doubled. It took her longer to learn
Speaker 13: the song since.
Speaker 6: It's well yeah, because they just were singing the wrong lyrics,
Speaker 6: you know, in the breaks.
Speaker 1: And there wasn't a Wikipedia back then to look up
Speaker 1: the list.
Speaker 6: See you won't believe my love, and she would say
Speaker 6: you you won't can she see my love or something,
Speaker 6: But we weren't saying. We were saying you won't believe,
Speaker 6: but she just had the little words she just didn't hear.
Speaker 1: It's crazy like today's technology, we could just look on
Speaker 1: our phones and get lyrics instantly.
Speaker 15: But back then, you actually but it's dope that they
Speaker 15: actually called they respected. That's that's that's dope. What was
Speaker 15: working with Maurice like, working with Mauric's white What was
Speaker 15: that process like for you guys? What was he like
Speaker 15: in the studio?
Speaker 6: He was so cool him and Skip Scarborough looks like
Speaker 6: I got saying Scarborough because Sheila, you know the slow songs,
Speaker 6: I was the fast song when he we were staying
Speaker 6: at the Franklin Plaza at that time, and he gave
Speaker 6: us these songs to sing, gave Sheila's cassette, gave me one,
Speaker 6: and we had our little cassette player. And so I
Speaker 6: came in the next day and he said, okay, put
Speaker 6: the track on. Put the track on, and so I
Speaker 6: was singing. It doesn't take much to like Maybos down
Speaker 6: there like me. He said, Wanda, what are you doing?
Speaker 6: I said, I'm singing. He said, I want you to
Speaker 6: sing an octave hier. I said, well, you didn't say that.
Speaker 6: I don't sing high. I sing lo. I sing maybe
Speaker 6: and a.
Speaker 2: Little register at one point.
Speaker 6: No, that's how I came in that I was glad
Speaker 6: to night.
Speaker 11: I was.
Speaker 6: I was you know, Mahaya Jackson, I was, I was
Speaker 6: low and and but anyway, I said, oh, no reason,
Speaker 6: I don't think. He said, just stab at it, just
Speaker 6: just see and I said, okay, I'll do it. But
Speaker 6: she lost the high singer enginete. They're the ones that
Speaker 6: sing high I sing. Just try it, just try it, okay.
Speaker 6: So I did. I did everything octave hiher. He said,
Speaker 6: just belt it, don't worry about it, just belt it out.
Speaker 6: And I did. And believe or not, that one was
Speaker 6: the one you guys heard. We did about seven others,
Speaker 6: but they didn't like that, but they liked the first one. Wow.
Speaker 6: I was like, but I was, even if you listened
Speaker 6: to I mean, there's some little cracks of a little
Speaker 6: like you know, I can't believe I'm these notes, you
Speaker 6: know these. But anyway, and that became the one that
Speaker 6: they used. So then I started singing higher. You know,
Speaker 6: I wasn't singing you know, as low.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes in history you'll see when singers do multiple takes
Speaker 1: of a song, they always go back to take one
Speaker 1: or take two.
Speaker 12: That's the one I think is the most honest.
Speaker 15: The more you keep doing it, it gets kind of rehearsed,
Speaker 15: and it's like I can't recreate that first thing.
Speaker 2: How is it.
Speaker 1: How exciting was it for uh, you guys to because
Speaker 1: that song was number one for five weeks.
Speaker 6: I believe, yes, number one. I have the the what
Speaker 6: do you call bill bill board? Yeah, and the other one.
Speaker 6: And there were two songs the best of My giving
Speaker 6: you the best of My and every week they would
Speaker 6: change to one and we'd be two, and then they
Speaker 6: would be two and then bill board.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah. It would be you know, back and forth like that.
Speaker 6: And but it was that was amazing. Nothing like that.
Speaker 15: There was a song I had on I think it's
Speaker 15: Believes on Flowers. The changes we go through that was
Speaker 15: like a good y'all.
Speaker 6: I wrote that it was a long gospel song and
Speaker 6: and uh, but they said, oh, let's just try. And
Speaker 6: then Maurice, of course, he just or let's lose it
Speaker 6: as an interval. He called it an interval piece that
Speaker 6: we take through the album. I said, okay, And all
Speaker 6: we would do is we go to change changes.
Speaker 9: We gold to this to this day, that's a very
Speaker 9: very difficult harmony. I've learned it for like some of
Speaker 9: the shows that we do. But if my sisters try
Speaker 9: to join in sometimes it we'll just be doing something.
Speaker 8: They do what stereotypically.
Speaker 9: You know, you have your your your note, you have
Speaker 9: your third and your fist.
Speaker 6: No no, no.
Speaker 9: They and they interweed. They don't the first time, then
Speaker 9: Auntie is high. Then every time they.
Speaker 6: S we go to change changes, we go to and
Speaker 6: we go to change is the melody changes, we go
Speaker 6: to yeah and wow. But that's how my dad would
Speaker 6: do it because he didn't he didn't want anyone to
Speaker 6: sound like us. So he said, I know, we'll just
Speaker 6: switch up into I mean, you know, make it sound
Speaker 6: like one thing when it's another.
Speaker 13: So does the whole family sing? You just said your
Speaker 13: sister's wyan. Yes, So I'm like, does everybody w yes?
Speaker 8: Oh no, the Christmas is the one Christmas is the one's.
Speaker 9: Concert. Everybody is singing. It's pretty amazing. And so we're
Speaker 9: all the w's Wayne Wanda, Wayne Windy, Wyan, Whitney Warren.
Speaker 9: There you go, all ws on this side of Wayne Wanda,
Speaker 9: Wayne Wendy, Wyane, Whitney Warren. They all sing rap do
Speaker 9: me music, all of us. And then I say, Wayne,
Speaker 9: my husband wrote let's grew tonight? Yes, he wrote yes,
Speaker 9: yes exactly, and.
Speaker 6: About six other songs and by side Yeah, all right, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: The other where were the other one.
Speaker 6: Wrote?
Speaker 2: Who's Who's the cat I work with? In Japan? Yeah,
Speaker 2: between ninety six.
Speaker 1: And like two thousand, uh, Japanese singer named Toshi Koboda
Speaker 1: like the Lord Jesus Christ in Japan, like he played stadiums.
Speaker 6: Of like.
Speaker 1: Of eighty he would play like eighty thousand uh uh
Speaker 1: seed arenas, but uh.
Speaker 2: He came to Philadelphia to work with us, and.
Speaker 1: To him, he explained to me, I was always afraid
Speaker 1: of a fan of that raised album. Yeah, Earth Went
Speaker 1: in Fire, and for him, he's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be with you by Earth Wind and Fire.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I want to sound like. And all
Speaker 1: the ad libs at the end of that song, yes,
Speaker 1: all that he that was his life goal. So in
Speaker 1: four songs, literally all the ad libs that Maurice White
Speaker 1: would do on that.
Speaker 2: Was literally on every song. I can't believe that. What
Speaker 2: else did he write?
Speaker 8: Those are the three that I know the best. I
Speaker 8: don't know if you know what Daddy did.
Speaker 9: Please, I'm not gonna say that because I'm not sure,
Speaker 9: but I know those are three. And like I was
Speaker 9: telling Fante earlier, I'm I could be better at this.
Speaker 9: But I've I've kind of fell in love with greatest
Speaker 9: hits albums first, Yes, and hip hop actually helped me
Speaker 9: go back into digging in crates and stuff like that
Speaker 9: and understanding how dope you know the catalog actually is.
Speaker 9: But yeah, everybody sings Chloe. But my cousin, my Auntie's daughter,
Speaker 9: she's artistically inclined in the fine arts and the visual arts.
Speaker 9: So she's like an animator and a and a painter, and.
Speaker 8: She does illustration.
Speaker 9: I did a poetry book, shed all the illustrations from
Speaker 9: my book and her other cousins. There, everyone is singing
Speaker 9: some sort of art though, everything art, dancing, this, that,
Speaker 9: some everyone is doing something.
Speaker 8: It's always a party.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: You came aboard for the Rejoice record, correct, So what
Speaker 1: was it like coming in cold to to fill in
Speaker 1: that spot and to it?
Speaker 6: Was great.
Speaker 10: It was the best part of my life. I as
Speaker 10: a baby, was always in all the rehearsals. So when
Speaker 10: she said that when we were talking about the soul train,
Speaker 10: the local soul train, I was thinking about it, and
Speaker 10: possibly I was just there in the background and I
Speaker 10: just didn't remember. But I wasn't as young as she said.
Speaker 10: Because I do remember dancing in the with you know,
Speaker 10: an audience, and the room was small.
Speaker 2: But photo photos, yeah, it's like living room small.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 10: But and as long as I can remember, I've always
Speaker 10: been around the music, and then I've always looked forward
Speaker 10: to joining the group. And then one day when Dad
Speaker 10: asked me what I like to you know, he gave
Speaker 10: me a tape to start rehearsing. And this is like
Speaker 10: I'm about sixteen then, and I actually joined after I
Speaker 10: graduated in seventy six. Okay, so yeah, uh, but I
Speaker 10: had he had started training me, and he had his
Speaker 10: when they were out of town.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 10: He had his friend uncle Billy, Billy Shelton, one of
Speaker 10: the guys from his own singing group that he used
Speaker 10: to sing with when he was singing gospel, and he
Speaker 10: would train me and he would teach me all those songs,
Speaker 10: like you know with the harmonies, the groups, the andrew Sisters,
Speaker 10: what is that gosh, I can't think of their name,
Speaker 10: but another girl group. No, no, it was a men's group,
Speaker 10: but it was the different harmonies barbershop style. And he
Speaker 10: would give me the album to listen to and then
Speaker 10: he would have me sing each.
Speaker 2: Part and part. Yes, And that was.
Speaker 11: When he trained me, my dad.
Speaker 10: He would have me each part of the girls songs,
Speaker 10: so because he would call me the utility girl, which
Speaker 10: has but I could. I could sing every part of
Speaker 10: every everything everybody was doing. Yes, So whatever they you know,
Speaker 10: if they wanted me to go there because they were
Speaker 10: horse or something, I would go there. Or if they're
Speaker 10: having problems on stage, I would go there. You know,
Speaker 10: I can't go to any part.
Speaker 9: Uh, it's so weird because you have the highest I
Speaker 9: think you have the highest voice.
Speaker 10: Well yeah, but on harmonies I can go low too,
Speaker 10: real Yeah, well but you know I know all your parts.
Speaker 9: It's difficult, I promise you. I the the the stepping
Speaker 9: up to the plate. Because like we say, it's a
Speaker 9: family business. So that my grandfathers who put you know,
Speaker 9: the girls together, my mom and uns together, and my
Speaker 9: you know grandmother of course is hold down the four
Speaker 9: there's so three were always on the road and three
Speaker 9: were always at home. Right, So now being up in
Speaker 9: age and stuff, my grandmother is the one who needs,
Speaker 9: you know, her children's help. So currently my aunt's Auntie Sheila,
Speaker 9: whose place I'm taking in the group, and Auntie Jeanette
Speaker 9: are you know, being assisted by my grandmother is being
Speaker 9: assisted by them right now, you know, and everything because
Speaker 9: we're just self contained and everything is organic. But when
Speaker 9: my Auntie Sheila was teaching me technically how to become her, well,
Speaker 9: she was showing me some things because I come from
Speaker 9: you know, it sounds like they're beginnings. I'm even hearing
Speaker 9: more of this than on Unsung and in the House.
Speaker 9: So this is educational for me right now. But barbershop
Speaker 9: and gospel is a lot of their humble beginnings. Well,
Speaker 9: throw my dad in there, mister. You know Les groove
Speaker 9: and stuff.
Speaker 8: I knew.
Speaker 9: I knew Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and weather Report more
Speaker 9: than I know any gospel. I can probably name you
Speaker 9: a couple gospel people, uh Mahelia being one of them,
Speaker 9: and anyone else. I'm like Clark Sist jazz all day,
Speaker 9: jazz all day. I was scatting and stuff. I was
Speaker 9: like that, such sort of person Auntie Sheila, But is
Speaker 9: that true? She is more of the She's the jazziest
Speaker 9: singer of the girls. So it was almost seamless how
Speaker 9: that ended up happening. Yeah, And she and so she
Speaker 9: would teach me stage control because she's also the animated
Speaker 9: one on stage. She's the actress, you know, she's the
Speaker 9: you know, get out there. And when she says show
Speaker 9: me how, oh my lord, some of the stuff, I
Speaker 9: just sit there and just be like, show me more,
Speaker 9: because you can't take your eyes off her, Like like
Speaker 9: she's whenever she's singing, you believe her. Whatever she's saying,
Speaker 9: You're gonna believe it because she's that you know everything.
Speaker 9: You know. I wish you guys could see what I'm
Speaker 9: doing in the studio right now. I'm just kind of
Speaker 9: being a black woman right now.
Speaker 7: You know, I got the.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: But she's she's that sort of a singer.
Speaker 9: So if she was telling you not to ask her neighbor,
Speaker 9: or if she wants you to show her how, she's
Speaker 9: going to make you see that. Oh absolutely. And that's
Speaker 9: probably what the most of the learning because our voices
Speaker 9: and textures were kind of similar. She was like, no,
Speaker 9: you get out there, NISI, and you own it. You
Speaker 9: have to own It's people gonna look at you and
Speaker 9: be like, hey, she's not an original emotion, she's young nothing.
Speaker 9: You are, my baby, You're gonna get out there. I'm like,
Speaker 9: come on, Aunty, she was so but that's exactly what
Speaker 9: ended up happening, and that happened. It happened a couple
Speaker 9: of times so far as me stepping into the group.
Speaker 9: But by two thousand and nine fall semester, my first
Speaker 9: semester of my master's program, I think that was when
Speaker 9: I most consistently started.
Speaker 8: Being with mom and all Mama and all the girls and.
Speaker 15: Everything, so the other your other aunties, because I want
Speaker 15: to get the lineup straight. Beginning it was it was
Speaker 15: humans wander huh, and it was it was yes, and
Speaker 15: then Uhila, and then.
Speaker 6: That's my neighbor girl.
Speaker 8: That's what I'm telling you. Look to that dog.
Speaker 6: She did g whiz and and Carla, I mean she
Speaker 6: sat there and just cried. I mean when we were
Speaker 6: doing that, Marvel was playing. He's a genius too. No
Speaker 6: one really knew, but but I just love it. And
Speaker 6: how even Purpose Staples, who not that he wasn't a
Speaker 6: producer singer type, but he said, you you got always
Speaker 6: seen the sool song, that you got to always seen
Speaker 6: the fast song. And I'm like every producer after that
Speaker 6: said that, and they never met Purpose, but that was
Speaker 6: just the way it was.
Speaker 2: You know, what was it make him a Rejoice album.
Speaker 1: Uh, probably the The notable absence on that record was,
Speaker 1: of course, Charles Stephanie passing away was the Flowers album,
Speaker 1: one of the last albums he worked on that And
Speaker 1: this is nasy.
Speaker 2: I know Flower, I think he was. I think they
Speaker 2: were working on Spirit.
Speaker 1: When okay, but I thought that your records came out
Speaker 1: after after Spirit. I thought that Flowers came.
Speaker 10: Out seventy and then Flowers Flowers, Yes, okay.
Speaker 2: But I mean what was it like?
Speaker 1: Because I know that he was such a father figure
Speaker 1: in the studio and working with him, How was it,
Speaker 1: How was it making that transition from the.
Speaker 6: Two, from Maurice to.
Speaker 2: From Charles to Maurice.
Speaker 1: Was it pressure on him to be the rock and
Speaker 1: to fill in the blanks where what you.
Speaker 6: Know, the poet that Maurice was. That's the way he
Speaker 6: talked to you, like if you didn't know what we
Speaker 6: hold the key to the world's destiny. If you didn't
Speaker 6: know it, then that's on you. But he would tell
Speaker 6: it to you like that. Charles would tell you where
Speaker 6: a little two year old will know exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 6: And I believe it or not. Yes, Now, I went
Speaker 6: through it, and so did Ramsey. When Ramsey would be
Speaker 6: in there and they would be playing, you know, like
Speaker 6: the last thing that actually they were working on was
Speaker 6: Ramsey's album, and they were having another thing about the
Speaker 6: cord where it should go here, which one should be
Speaker 6: the course of it, and which one should be the hook?
Speaker 6: You know that I know nothing about that today when
Speaker 6: we talk to young kids, but because everything is, it's
Speaker 6: just eighty bars of whatever it is. But anyway, so
Speaker 6: they were they were having a thing with that and
Speaker 6: Ramsey and I'm just sitting there and I just love
Speaker 6: the fact that Maurice and Stephanie they would never have
Speaker 6: anyone in their recording sessions. That was their thing. They
Speaker 6: no one but I could always come and it was
Speaker 6: And one day I came in with Johnny Paty said, wow,
Speaker 6: you know, yeah, but I'd like seeing I don't talk,
Speaker 6: I don't ask any questions. I just you know, that's
Speaker 6: all I do. And reached knew it and you can't
Speaker 6: ask any questions, you can't have any and that's okay
Speaker 6: because it's not your tyme. And but they were having
Speaker 6: a okay, which one should it be? Should be? And
Speaker 6: I thought it was one time I wanted to say.
Speaker 6: So Ramseys was the one. And guess why I got it,
Speaker 6: because it's something my father had nothing to do. Actually
Speaker 6: probably with what they're thinking. But it was the fifth
Speaker 6: of the quarter of where the where the verses were,
Speaker 6: and I always thought you should go there for the reprize.
Speaker 6: I just always thought that, just in my observing different things.
Speaker 6: But I didn't say. And when they left her that afternoon,
Speaker 6: because they said, well, let's just break, we kind of
Speaker 6: you know, they had to break. Let's go to lunch,
Speaker 6: you know, And Ramsey said that I think, and so
Speaker 6: they did. Stepney never came back. That's when he died.
Speaker 6: He went up at the hotel and we were knocking
Speaker 6: on the door, like well, he said he was going over.
Speaker 6: He was going to stop by Famous Samos and his
Speaker 6: I know, his wife didn't want him to stop by
Speaker 6: Famous Samis because diabetic and that was.
Speaker 7: A store.
Speaker 2: Had a store.
Speaker 8: I remember him. I didn't know he had yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 6: And and so we're all waiting for him, and so
Speaker 6: they went on with the session and they sure he's
Speaker 6: gonna come sooner or later, and never did, and they
Speaker 6: went on with the thing. They finally did it though
Speaker 6: the reprised the way Ramsey, you know, uh so I
Speaker 6: for whatever he did, it just happened that way. Maybe
Speaker 6: because that we weren't there. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 6: because it was it was too much. It was a
Speaker 6: short period of time that you know, when they found
Speaker 6: it out, and so when they've got the hotel key
Speaker 6: to go in his room, that's.
Speaker 2: How Yeah, how did boogiey Wonderland come to be? A?
Speaker 12: Willis?
Speaker 6: Ali Willis? And I'm gonna tell you this, It's really
Speaker 6: something there's always a story.
Speaker 2: Was it an easy transition? I'm not an easy transition.
Speaker 1: I know much has been said about well much has
Speaker 1: been said about it. It sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've talked to Philip about it. I've talked to Maurice
Speaker 1: about it. They kind of have conflicting stories. It was
Speaker 1: conflicting and even David Foster has his two cents about it.
Speaker 2: What what is your you know?
Speaker 1: I mean, a Grammy one is a Grammy one, and
Speaker 1: that's something that you can't take away from you know.
Speaker 2: But at the time, like, how how did it? How
Speaker 2: did you?
Speaker 6: Even Marie was in New York doing Sergeant Pepper and
Speaker 6: he got a call and then Ali he said, listen,
Speaker 6: I just got this song, and I got to call
Speaker 6: Ben because I want Ben h to arrange it. When
Speaker 6: he when he heard it, he heard just this look
Speaker 6: huh dance. He just heard like the that little eight
Speaker 6: bar thing, not the verses or anything. He said, Oh,
Speaker 6: the Emotions have got to sing this. But Ali of course,
Speaker 6: Oh no, it's gonna be earth Wind and Fire, well,
Speaker 6: Lord from Fire, of course it's gonna finally do it. Yeah.
Speaker 6: But he heard it, you know, like that. And so
Speaker 6: my father said. And at that time they were into
Speaker 6: a thing with the Cavallo and them as to the
Speaker 6: record company, going uh, you know, by itself or something.
Speaker 6: And at that time I didn't know what they had
Speaker 6: to do it. But it was just the fact that
Speaker 6: my father wanted the song to be on album too,
Speaker 6: and that.
Speaker 2: Whole Bookie wanted the land was supposed to be an Emotions.
Speaker 6: Yes, it was our album on that smile, Yes, yes,
Speaker 6: And you went to happen you mean it's supposed to
Speaker 6: be on your album as well. Yes, it should have
Speaker 6: been on our album. And and and and my father
Speaker 6: nearly had a heart attack with with you know, fussy,
Speaker 6: and I didn't understand why they wouldn't let it. So
Speaker 6: what it's it's too look like they get to double
Speaker 6: the money or it just looked like to me. But anyway,
Speaker 6: I don't know what the head trip was with it,
Speaker 6: but uh, we went out and den I said, well,
Speaker 6: you know we're doing this on our record time where
Speaker 6: you know, you're interrupting the you know, our session to
Speaker 6: do it, to do the vocals, So why would there
Speaker 6: be a problem with it going on our See That's
Speaker 6: why that just sounded like like, uh you no brainer.
Speaker 6: You know that it was supposed to go in there.
Speaker 6: They wouldn't allow it. It was they call and ruffalo
Speaker 6: and I don't know, you know, bad guys. I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 6: but uh and it didn't happen that way. But when
Speaker 6: we heard the song we did the you know, the
Speaker 6: dance dance, Buggy went down and he said, Ben Wright's
Speaker 6: got to uh Ben every time I hear him now
Speaker 6: on the justin Timberlake stuff. You know, you know he
Speaker 6: had to do it. But anyway, it was just amazing
Speaker 6: how how that part went down, and Maurice wasn't going
Speaker 6: to be able to even sing on it or anything
Speaker 6: until he got back from Sergeant Pepper so he was
Speaker 6: there doing the song for Sergeant Pepper. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 6: I don't know why he wasn't doing it in l A.
Speaker 6: But you know, we didn't know a lot of stuff then.
Speaker 6: But so he was doing that in New York. He said, well,
Speaker 6: happed him put the hook down, you know, I have
Speaker 6: him put the I'm gonna send you the track, Massenberg,
Speaker 6: And that's what happened. He sent him the track and
Speaker 6: we went on doing it. And then my father was like, oh, no,
Speaker 6: we got to get this on paper. No, because you're
Speaker 6: doing it on the girls session timing you Well, you know,
Speaker 6: I didn't really know what that had to do with it,
Speaker 6: but no, of course I know now.
Speaker 2: So your father was on it like a hawk.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So those guys were they managing you guys as well?
Speaker 8: Or yes?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 6: And on all the tours, of course, it was always
Speaker 6: them meeting you know, Dad and uh, you know uncle
Speaker 6: on what we did and where and.
Speaker 2: What was tour? What was touring like for you guys, because.
Speaker 6: We used to travel on a bus catching up with
Speaker 6: the airplane. And then I said, that's it, they're not
Speaker 6: going We're not traveling no more. If you don't get
Speaker 6: us in the airplane really, so then they got us
Speaker 6: in the airplane, but Denise wasn't an airplane, and then
Speaker 6: the other pocons was in the airplane. But but we're
Speaker 6: singing these songs. We I mean, we're actually it'd be
Speaker 6: different you are on paper with us, you know, doing
Speaker 6: and then well I didn't say that, and you know
Speaker 6: that's probably was dad thing.
Speaker 15: But that's the Boogie Wonderland episode that that kind of
Speaker 15: lead to the deterioration of you guys working relationship with Maurice.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, at the same time, See, he got away
Speaker 6: from Sony, he got away from Right and he got
Speaker 6: a ARC. That was when that happened. So we were
Speaker 6: signed to his production company. So it became a conflict
Speaker 6: of interests that what was told to us. It was
Speaker 6: a conflict of interest.
Speaker 1: So Bill, Bill and I Boss Bill and I often
Speaker 1: have these conflicts when I always say that the turning
Speaker 1: point of a career is once a producer is given
Speaker 1: his own studio complex and in vanity.
Speaker 2: Label, and that often the same Bill does not agree
Speaker 2: with me, but.
Speaker 12: Not in everything.
Speaker 1: But in both of our cases, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a if it's not broken, don't try.
Speaker 2: To improve it got it even to this day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm serious.
Speaker 1: Like the studio conditions that I recorded and have to
Speaker 1: be as dire and cheap as possible. Like if I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't need to throw you under the bus to
Speaker 1: Tarika is the one likes the fruit plates and the.
Speaker 2: Fresh cookies, the fresh big cookies and stuff.
Speaker 1: Nah, I need I need roaches running around my studio
Speaker 1: so I can feel I feel at home.
Speaker 2: Was was I mistaken?
Speaker 1: I believe sometime in nineteen ninety eight, was there not
Speaker 1: an off Broadway play about you guys' career bigger than Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: this makes sense now because there was a group that
Speaker 1: my band was working with at the time called the
Speaker 1: Jazzy Fat Nasties. And I remember this is like when
Speaker 1: we were making our fourth record and we were living
Speaker 1: in New York in an apartment, and I think for
Speaker 1: a week straight they were going to see I guess
Speaker 1: I think they were going to do something with the play.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they saw in the players something
Speaker 1: like that, but they kept telling me that, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that the emotions are trying to get their off
Speaker 1: Broadway play ramped up to do.
Speaker 2: But what was the what was the basis of the
Speaker 2: play was just about you guys.
Speaker 11: In the beginning.
Speaker 6: Yes, how we started and it opened with the scene
Speaker 6: my father. We were at the church and he's in
Speaker 6: the Uh, he's being he's in the coffin. It's a
Speaker 6: funeral row at his funeral, and we're rememberacing all of
Speaker 6: the things. How we started singing, and we started singing
Speaker 6: that our theme song, which was the Hutchison Jesus want
Speaker 6: was before awesome, too shy for him. Each day then
Speaker 6: we would sing that, then we would sing some of
Speaker 6: the other songs that back in the day and uh,
Speaker 6: but we would end up going on the road meeting Maurice,
Speaker 6: and then you would see all of these guys coming, promoters,
Speaker 6: you know, come here, come here, and do this, do that,
Speaker 6: and then you know, but and then it culminated with
Speaker 6: the fact of us having the Grammy, the American Music
Speaker 6: Award and receiving all these things, and then the breakup.
Speaker 6: And then it had the part, you know, the reconciliation.
Speaker 12: What were some of the causes of you guys breaking up?
Speaker 12: What happened?
Speaker 6: Well, the promoters singing, well, the record company sing different
Speaker 6: ways than my father, and that caused when the art
Speaker 6: thing happened that actually because we had to rewrite the
Speaker 6: contract because it's no, we don't rewrite it, you just
Speaker 6: stay with the Oh no, that says we got to
Speaker 6: rewrite the track because it was it was going to
Speaker 6: from one company to another.
Speaker 2: And this is after this who produced the New Affair album?
Speaker 6: Uh, Billy, what was the Billy? It was Maurice and
Speaker 6: and the guy.
Speaker 11: No New Affair that was fair.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that guy if you can't take his name, I know,
Speaker 6: and he's got to show out right now. And he's
Speaker 6: got those two sons. Uh, after the Love is Gone,
Speaker 6: David Foster. David Foster and Maurice. Why did I get
Speaker 6: with Billy?
Speaker 2: I know?
Speaker 6: And I'm like, Billy, I'm going there's another guy, guy.
Speaker 6: I know you know him too, because these the songs
Speaker 6: he wrote.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, have you guys ever done recording
Speaker 1: as a four as a quartet?
Speaker 13: No?
Speaker 6: Really, it was always whatever well on some of the
Speaker 6: songs something yes, all the lessons and even my uncle
Speaker 6: Joey wasn't his uncle Rejoice because he wrote that my
Speaker 6: brother yeah Joice.
Speaker 8: My uncle Joey was on there.
Speaker 9: And and when they would do their tour, you asked
Speaker 9: about tour life when they were out on tour stuff.
Speaker 6: Like that, on the line everything while Marie sung it
Speaker 6: on the record. Yeah, but we sung it all four
Speaker 6: of us. You're right, tour, I.
Speaker 8: Was gonna say.
Speaker 9: So they had some of some of them were it
Speaker 9: was a quartet, but it was it was three girls
Speaker 9: and my uncle uh Joey and Joe huh and everything,
Speaker 9: and then I think that would be what that would
Speaker 9: be Mom, Auntie, Sheila and Billy.
Speaker 8: There you go. You just remembered it, okay, and uncle Joe.
Speaker 9: So that when they did do a court tete quartet
Speaker 9: sort of a situation, it was three girls, one brother,
Speaker 9: right right.
Speaker 8: It was always I don't think it was ever all
Speaker 8: four of you.
Speaker 10: It was unblessed and blessed, Yes, blessed and rejoice, and
Speaker 10: it was one more.
Speaker 2: So were you fine with it ending in eighty one
Speaker 2: like okay, well, let's.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, because I start having a baby every year,
Speaker 6: and then eighty one, eighty two, and then eighty six,
Speaker 6: well yeah, and then we were doing that, and then
Speaker 6: I was writing with other with Patty and doing stuff
Speaker 6: with Rita, writing songs for her, and.
Speaker 8: They both write a whole for them.
Speaker 2: What did you write after.
Speaker 6: Two thousand Miles Away from Me the Diva album Diva? Yeah,
Speaker 6: did you see that? Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, it's just so much has been made
Speaker 1: of that particular record. But there's this is it's a
Speaker 1: duet that she did. Yes on there you wrote that song?
Speaker 6: No nothing, No.
Speaker 8: That's the album you're saying, that's the album that your
Speaker 8: song was on.
Speaker 6: You know that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: To this day, uh Aretha explains that her transferring to
Speaker 1: Clive at Arista and her anger at uh the old
Speaker 1: regime at Atlantic was because of the them dropping the
Speaker 1: ball on the Ladiva record.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Wow, that was something. That was something.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but they were doing that. You was doing.
Speaker 9: You was doing a lot more stuff at home because
Speaker 9: I remember when she did the Soul Train, like when
Speaker 9: they were in the white suits and that was in
Speaker 9: l A. She had to leave us and I was
Speaker 9: I saw them on TV and I was grabbing at
Speaker 9: the TV like mom, no, like.
Speaker 8: And my dad just oh.
Speaker 6: Yeah that was Midnight Special?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 6: Don Kirscher or.
Speaker 2: You can Rejoice of rock concert? Yes, I'm sorry, my
Speaker 2: middle name is well at.
Speaker 9: Wait where were you guys wearing on when you guys
Speaker 9: did the soul tray. I thought Dad said that I
Speaker 9: was going crazy over.
Speaker 16: The yeah dresses, Okay, okay, we had different uh designs.
Speaker 9: Of the same right, Well, I was going nuts and
Speaker 9: I wasn't. I wasn't happy. I was three.
Speaker 8: Yeah number one.
Speaker 9: You couldn't understand, you know, I couldn't explain why she
Speaker 9: was this tall, like five inches when I'm like, but.
Speaker 7: She's here, she's so much taller.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: I thought there was something wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, But when did you put two and two together?
Speaker 2: That mom was something?
Speaker 9: Oh late, I'm so late on that stuff because she
Speaker 9: was just mom. So I'm talking about like high schools.
Speaker 1: There wasn't there wasn't a mantle piece with these things.
Speaker 9: And but I never thought I never thought about it
Speaker 9: like that, because like Maurice was like a godfather for us.
Speaker 8: Oh, Stevie would be at the house and this is.
Speaker 2: Just this was ding you.
Speaker 8: That was so regular. That's so regular to me.
Speaker 2: I feel like helping him walk in the living room.
Speaker 8: Ya oh, how about this? You want to talk about pressure.
Speaker 9: I wrote my first song on the piano at ten
Speaker 9: years old, and the first person I had to audition
Speaker 9: it for with Stevie because She's like, WHOA, just.
Speaker 8: Play that for Savie.
Speaker 9: I'm like, now I do know who Sev is? In
Speaker 9: my head at ten, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not
Speaker 9: gonna do it.
Speaker 8: Nah, are you serious? And everything, and so this was
Speaker 8: New Year's even she finally had me on one.
Speaker 9: I just I was like, oh my lord, heavens. So
Speaker 9: I ended up doing it or whatever and he did
Speaker 9: not laugh at me. And I respect that man to
Speaker 9: this day for just letting me be. And I'm like,
Speaker 9: fingers shaking and plunking and.
Speaker 8: Stuff or whatever.
Speaker 9: But yeah, for Mom and them, I would say, it's
Speaker 9: so funny, no, not even you know, putting on hip
Speaker 9: hop is what explained to me how serious Mom and
Speaker 9: them were from the sampling type stuff and from when
Speaker 9: people would see me in the studio and learn me
Speaker 9: and it would be like, oh she said, oh she's
Speaker 9: a great girl, great energy, so nice blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 9: and wait her mom is what who know?
Speaker 6: Who?
Speaker 12: We met?
Speaker 2: Like I was.
Speaker 15: I was kind of insulted because because she was like
Speaker 15: because she because we did this.
Speaker 12: It was after Foreign Shane show.
Speaker 15: We did it, and so how we met and she
Speaker 15: was like, what's going on? We did an interview and
Speaker 15: she was like, oh, well, you know, my mom is
Speaker 15: no wander what I know? And she was like yeah,
Speaker 15: She's like I'm sorry, I just most of these young
Speaker 15: guys I don't know.
Speaker 12: I'm like, listen, thank.
Speaker 2: You for calling me a young guy.
Speaker 12: I'm like, honey, I think you know you're talking to
Speaker 12: like your mom is who of what?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 15: Do you understand how I grew up? Like how my
Speaker 15: mother used to play these records? Yes, every day, Like
Speaker 15: don't ask my neighbor was the morning song going to school?
Speaker 2: Like dude, do you yes?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was well.
Speaker 15: I want to ask you about covers because on it
Speaker 15: was Jade's album and night they cover Blessed and yeah,
Speaker 15: I thought they sounded great.
Speaker 6: I did. I thought it was wonderful. I remember Skip
Speaker 6: Scarborough telling anybody he said, I like it, but they're
Speaker 6: using the wrong chords.
Speaker 2: Well actually, there you go.
Speaker 15: Yes, did any people ever seek you out after, you know,
Speaker 15: after eighty one, once you know you guys had kind
Speaker 15: of disbanded. Did you do any like backup work because
Speaker 15: or session work for just for uh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we did a lot of commercials.
Speaker 11: I went on to its.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, Yes, Jeffrey Osborne.
Speaker 10: Well, we were when she had her they had their
Speaker 10: song Forget Me Nuts, Yes, Forget Me Nuts.
Speaker 17: Yes, I remember eighty two, yes, because my dad was
Speaker 17: still alive.
Speaker 8: So yeah, yeah, what was working with Patricia?
Speaker 11: Patrice's rushing like it was great?
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 10: It was just me and her as the only girls.
Speaker 10: She would always go play racketball and she would invite
Speaker 10: me to go and and.
Speaker 2: The people love.
Speaker 8: They did.
Speaker 6: I learned backgammon on the plane with earth Wind Fire, Yes,
Speaker 6: when I learned black and then we would always play
Speaker 6: tennis and Andrew Woolfolk and I was always Maurice, Maurice
Speaker 6: and uh who would always be party besides Dad? Someone
Speaker 6: else but me and Andrew.
Speaker 2: We were.
Speaker 6: We were the net, you know, Lord, I was the
Speaker 6: best of BALI.
Speaker 9: They really she literally in her head she coaches Serena
Speaker 9: and Venus as she watches them on everything they do today.
Speaker 9: But yeah, yeah, so you did that back in eighties,
Speaker 9: but she always yeah, eighty two, eighty three.
Speaker 2: So seventy eight. For the longest, my aunt and I
Speaker 2: would go to record store and harassed the sales clerk.
Speaker 1: About do you have the emotions forty five? You're going
Speaker 1: to make me love somebody else?
Speaker 6: Oh wow, four weeks?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, not that one. It was.
Speaker 1: It took us seven weeks to realize that was not
Speaker 1: the emotions.
Speaker 2: What were your feelings on.
Speaker 1: The Jones girls, You're going to make me love somebody?
Speaker 2: Was like, what, I love.
Speaker 6: Them, but I love singing them and I love their voices.
Speaker 2: You guys are severely diplomatic.
Speaker 15: Wow you did you feel any way like they biting?
Speaker 1: Or it was because when Free came out, I just
Speaker 1: naturally assumed that because I Williams.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though, I mean, this is all is
Speaker 2: just coming out when I'm six and seven.
Speaker 6: So I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not a super adult, but super you're not. You're seven.
Speaker 1: But I was maturre. I'll say that at seven I
Speaker 1: was probably No. I was probably nineteen as a musician
Speaker 1: because of the household I grew up here, n nice
Speaker 1: I knew. I knew earth wind and fires backdrop when
Speaker 1: I heard it, that's my yea certain.
Speaker 2: Because they were using that stuff.
Speaker 1: So in my head, I thought, oh, Free, that's the emotions.
Speaker 1: And I also thought, because of a certain it's a
Speaker 1: certain clave. Uh uh that that spoon thing that uses
Speaker 1: it's a lot on your choice is on joy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also when you're going to make me
Speaker 2: love somebody else.
Speaker 6: I was like, the emotion right right, and it wasn't
Speaker 6: It wasn't cost Costa.
Speaker 2: It probably was, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Usually Philly international musicians are self contained. It wasn't him, however, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you were saying that we love the Jones girls.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, okay, not ones. We are like.
Speaker 6: But you know what, everyone had that perception that we
Speaker 6: should have been.
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's it's it's it is definitely building on you, guys.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna tell you that Riah called Carrie called me
Speaker 6: from m t V. I'm sitting in my living room
Speaker 6: and that song that came out that everybody thought she
Speaker 6: bid off of yes emotions and everybody wanted us to
Speaker 6: be mad at her, but.
Speaker 2: It was obviously.
Speaker 6: I thought it was just the most wonderful thing that
Speaker 6: she did that. And I said it, you know, because
Speaker 6: I had no idea she was gonna call or anything,
Speaker 6: and that was just so happened. I was like, oh
Speaker 6: my gosh, I thought it was wonderful. I thought it
Speaker 6: just made me feel special. Maybe, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 6: I just thought it was wonderful. And then I had
Speaker 6: met her some time ago and there anyway, she was
Speaker 6: so cool. What is the backup singer for.
Speaker 13: Luther?
Speaker 6: It was Luther and Lisa? What Lisa? Yes, they were
Speaker 6: both on the Anita Baker Luther.
Speaker 8: It's crazy because Lisa was a background singer.
Speaker 11: I love it.
Speaker 6: I remember that I would go to hear the background.
Speaker 6: I knew what Luther was.
Speaker 2: Just watch them.
Speaker 6: Amazing to hear them swing back.
Speaker 12: What is life like for you guys?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 15: I know y'all still toured? You still write Miss Wanda
Speaker 15: like what do what do y'all do now?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: And we are touring with all the seventies uh stylistics.
Speaker 6: We're always the only girls that are there but from
Speaker 6: the seventies except for one Atlantic Star though when some
Speaker 6: of them are yeah and heat wave and oh yeah
Speaker 6: he waves blue notes, blue magic, blue magic, Coober Cooper. Yeah.
Speaker 8: And we did temps. We did the temps. The Temptations was.
Speaker 6: On, and then Billy Paul. That's amazing that Billy Paul
Speaker 6: past was. I mean we're in nine days we were
Speaker 6: together on stage, yes, then nine days later he was gone.
Speaker 6: That was and we know we know his wife really well,
Speaker 6: and but that was something and he could be some
Speaker 6: kind of way off stage and you wouldn't know. I mean,
Speaker 6: he was.
Speaker 8: Cool to me.
Speaker 9: He always thought me the youngster on on the You
Speaker 9: would tell us so I love no, I love them
Speaker 9: every time us like, hey, I got my young my
Speaker 9: youngsters here. I'm like, hey, you know so, don't I
Speaker 9: always bring the hip hop to the seventies soul jam?
Speaker 13: Why are you the only second generation on those kind
Speaker 13: of shows? Are the other second generation?
Speaker 8: There are some other replaced members. I don't remember the
Speaker 8: Timp Temps, Paul Paul, Oh, Paul's son son.
Speaker 6: With the oldest, Yeah, otis I'm sorry.
Speaker 9: With Dennis, Yes, with Dennis, he's he's a second generation.
Speaker 9: But the other ones, they have people who are in
Speaker 9: who aren't the original members.
Speaker 8: But I don't know the girls right, Yeah, they do.
Speaker 8: We haven't been on anything.
Speaker 6: One thing and that was the same night.
Speaker 8: That was it. It was in Las Vegas.
Speaker 9: They were in the we were in the stands, in
Speaker 9: the stands, we were in the we was watching and
Speaker 9: we were on a different night, so it was like
Speaker 9: a whole thing they were just doing or whatever, and
Speaker 9: we just got to stay for all of them. But
Speaker 9: I got to see uh Kathy and her man that
Speaker 9: she says something that baby the new generation is that
Speaker 9: girl is pretty.
Speaker 8: She's a pretty her name.
Speaker 6: Gorgeous.
Speaker 8: She's gorgeous. A little sweet.
Speaker 9: But yeah, so on the when we're out there, though, yeah,
Speaker 9: we're all it's it's very rarely that we have anyone
Speaker 9: my age. But wait, what's my boy from the del Phonics.
Speaker 9: He's the most hip hop of everybody I've met on
Speaker 9: those things, and he'll keep up with any young thing
Speaker 9: that anything.
Speaker 8: What what what you got for me? What you got
Speaker 8: for me? Who out there?
Speaker 6: And her heart is.
Speaker 8: Work with his son and he's the coolest one.
Speaker 2: He just did that record with Adrian Young a couple yeah,
Speaker 2: a couple of years.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really fun.
Speaker 6: Cool man.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So I go there and mom always has to advise
Speaker 9: me to be more my R and B self than my.
Speaker 6: Yeah, than my hip hop self.
Speaker 8: So I know I.
Speaker 9: Am way too amp some nights, I'll be honest, and
Speaker 9: I know better. So now and now I've been doing
Speaker 9: this since what two thousand and nine, so here it
Speaker 9: is twenty seventeen, so we I'm.
Speaker 6: Starting almost doing the crip walk on Best of My Life.
Speaker 8: I stopped it.
Speaker 7: I stopped it.
Speaker 8: I stopped it.
Speaker 2: I had to.
Speaker 9: Lady.
Speaker 6: When they first did it in l A, I didn't
Speaker 6: even know why I heard.
Speaker 2: You were doing that.
Speaker 6: Yes, you're not supposed to do something, he said. We
Speaker 6: weren't supposed to do the step on there or something.
Speaker 9: He appreciated us though, he appreciated. Yes, he calls them
Speaker 9: unty and and yeah he does. He did him proud Yes,
Speaker 9: then shout out uncle Snoopy.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, ladies, we thank you very much for doing our
Speaker 1: show today so much.
Speaker 12: It was amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, aunts on behalf of Ronnie Mille, Steps Sugar, Steve, Boss,
Speaker 1: Bill Fan Ciccolo, Unpaidabill and lie Here. This is Quest Love,
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora.
Speaker 2: We'll see you on the next cover.
Speaker 12: Thank you, West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production my Heart Radio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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