WEBVTT - Black Music Month QLS Classic: Kenny Gamble 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.480 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey what's up, y'all? 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.840 This is Questlove And as you've noticed throughout June, we 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:15.760 are celebrating Black Music Money by releasing an episode every day. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.880 So every day you're either going to hear a special 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.320 pick QLs Classic and on Wednesdays we're dropping new two 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.320 part episodes with Queene Brady and James. 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.640 Poyser, both of which were filmed in studio, so make 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.839 sure you also watch us on YouTube. We are closing 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.840 out with one of the architects of Black music Money, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.400 the amazing Kenny Gamble. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:56.440 Ladies and gentlemen. You know that's all I got, Ladies 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.840 and gentlemen. This is another episode of Quest Love Supreme. 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:01.400 We have this Preme team with us. We have Fine 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.240 Tikeolo in the house. Yeah, and we got Boss Bill 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.640 and yeah you hear loud and clear, we got Unpaid 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.720 Bill and we also have Sugar Steve and of course 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.360 like ya, how are you? This is a special episode. 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.640 We are not doing the Supreme rold Call. We are 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:26.200 in the presence of Black Music Royalty, Universal Music Royalty, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:27.840 and it's just going to cut this song off in 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:28.480 a minute too. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:30.039 This is my jam. 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:35.800 No, the best part is about to happen. Oh, ladies 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.800 and gentlemen, we are blessed to be in the presence 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:49.160 of one of the greatest, one of the greatest composers, businessman, producers, 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.680 so and so funk. Yeah, I can't even perform us something. 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:57.600 Just be quiet, talking, ladies and gentlemen. The man who. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.880 Gave us the sound of Philadelphia, the man who gave 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.560 me my own career. Without him, there is no sound 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.280 of Philadelphia, the one and only Kenny Gamble question. 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.600 And I almost don't want you to. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:18.840 I'm sorry. You got wait wait till my part come on. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.880 It's coming, don't don't. Can we tell people what the 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.160 song this is MFS Big Mysteries of the World. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:35.480 You kipped it? No, I didn't. This is so good. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:36.600 I had to go back to the top. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.120 I'm sorry, but this is right there. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:45.360 Actually I went to the end of the song to 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.880 avoid that bridge. But I didn't know that meant so 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.200 much that you know, I just ruined the moment for you. 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.640 You did, you did the quest. This this is what 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.880 I just argue about things. 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:58.400 Again. 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.760 Uh, mister Kenny Gamble, doctor Kenmble Man, thank you, this. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:09.240 Is that's beautiful. Wow, what about. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:11.239 Oh man? 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:12.760 I was listening to you Can't Be You can be 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:14.200 what you want to be this morning in the shower. 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:15.600 That's jam you want to be. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.760 It's a great one yea and one million miles from 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.840 the ground. So we're just gonna start. 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:28.239 I'm sorry, Yeah, I'm yeah, and I want to say 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.920 just it's I'm so. It's such an honor to have 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.880 you here because you're the first record label. As a kid, 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.120 I knew exactly what the records were going to sound 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:38.640 like just from the label. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:39.400 From the label. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.720 I remember like my aunt, she was like a big 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.320 you know, fill international, so she had everything. She was 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.800 a she was a really big Gene carn fan, and 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.920 so she used to play like I'm Back for More, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:49.880 like that's like one. 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:50.400 Of my favorite. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.560 But I remember like going through a record collection and 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.440 anytime I saw like that green the green label with 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.480 the little red, I knew it was gonna be strings. 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.080 I knew it was going be like super clean, like I 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:02.800 just knew that. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.760 And they tried to make it red, black and green. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.080 You know about that? 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.360 So the vinyl was black black, right because the people 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.960 the power levels so okay, So was it by design, 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.839 because there was a point in history when that logo 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.240 didn't have the two white dots in the middle logo. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.120 Yes, the very first like the odd Uh, I mean, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:30.720 I miss you. 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:31.760 Uh, how. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.400 There are the two white dots aren't in the middle 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.599 of the Philly International Look. That didn't come until like 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.600 seventy three, So there are a few albums that are 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.799 without that white dots. I thought that was by. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.880 No design and just the first I'm mean about. 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.720 What could have been different pressing plants similar. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:59.479 Yeah, but that's great, man, it really is. And uh, 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.359 I tell you we we tried our best, and we 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:05.719 had good people with us too. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:07.920 You guys succeeded as far as I'm yes. 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.360 Well, I'm thankful, thank you very much, and I'm glad 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.520 to be here. This is a beautiful thing with a 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.279 lot of energy going on. Were you born in Philadelphia, 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.640 South Philly? Yeah? Where fifteenth in Christian. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.000 Wow, down the block from where you live now. 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.320 Right down the block from where I lived, and you 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.320 still live there, still live there. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.760 How does it feel to grow up there? 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.720 To be born there and see where it it was 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:43.280 sort of dissolved to and you single handedly, well you 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.120 did gentrification the right way, the right way. Yeah, well 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.760 I had those restaurants. I loved eating those restaurants. Everything 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:51.960 that you did for that neighborhood. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.640 It was it's it's been, you know it really to me, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.719 it was like it was like a no brainer almost. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.840 You know, how can you live in the world where 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.400 you got the area that I grew up in, where 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.280 you got Malcolm X, you got Muhamad Ali, you got 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.800 Eli to Muhammads, you got revenuely On Sullivan, you got 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.240 all these great people. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.400 Talking about building our community. 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:19.880 And then I used to go to a lot of 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.080 meetings and now I would ask people, I said, well, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.360 who's going to do it? You know what I mean? 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:27.040 We all say, you know. 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.080 You know, we should do this, and we should do that, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:30.880 and we could have this, and we could have that. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.080 But the question is is who's going to do it. 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.800 So with my children and everything, with Cleave and Saladan 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.800 and an Idea and my family, you know, we decided 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.800 to give it a try. And I didn't live there 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.000 all the time. Of course, I lived there, and then 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.680 I moved away like everybody else do. I moved into 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.880 the suburbs and it was really nice, but I kept 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:00.000 thinking about South Philly, you know, and I'm always inside, 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.960 i feel, because that's where our office was and everything. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.640 So eventually a little inspiration comes came and said, look, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.960 and when we did, let's clean up the ghetto. That 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.720 was that was one of those ones that kept pounding 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.560 in your head. And so it's it's like, ah, you 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.440 gotta put one foot foot forward and see what you 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:26.400 can do. And and it all started pretty much with 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.600 with buying the properties. Once we started buying all the 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.600 properties and we had so many of them, he said, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.680 and what we're gonna do with all these raggedy houses, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.400 all all these bigger lots and raggedy houses and uh. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.720 And so it's just a matter of, hey, we're going 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.360 to clean up the ghetto. We're going to rebuild. And 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.119 the way to we not only rebuild the houses and whatever, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.320 but rebuild the people, rebuild the culture and and everything. 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.840 And so so it started working. It's we've been announced. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:05.920 We moved like nineteen ninety. Nineteen ninety is when we 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.640 moved back to South Philly, you know, and we were 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.880 we were in Gladwin, you know, because it was beautiful 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:17.800 out and glad one and but it wasn't as beautiful 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.040 as it was when we moved back to South Philly, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.160 although it was a culture shock for my kids everybody, 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.560 you know, but see where we're at now, you know. 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.640 But it's like one of those things where you know, 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:37.440 you can't you can't really keep asking somebody else to 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.560 do something for you talk about that you can do 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.840 for yourself, you know. So that's pretty much what this 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.320 is an effort. And then it's not by myself. We 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.880 got hundreds of people that really saw where we were 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.319 coming from. And you rebuild a whole neighborhood, you rebuild 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:55.720 a whole community of people. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:57.960 Not to mention the school system. 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.920 And the schools, and that was everything is evolves around health, 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:08.120 good health and education. That's it. So we have some 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:13.280 tremendous health programs that we work on. In education was 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.360 the was the number one thing that we got involved with, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:21.080 and that was the charter schools, and so we have 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.760 eight charter schools. And believe me, it's not an easy thing. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.079 It's not easy. It's going to take it's going to 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:36.760 take years, in years to reverse this this consciousness that 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:42.679 within especially the African American community. But it's working, it 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.400 can and it will work, you know. So so it's 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:47.640 not it's not it's not easy. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:49.280 Did you know that you were going to see it 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.720 through from the very beginning, assuming Matt you started acquiring 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.480 the property in the late eighties, because even I heard, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:01.920 like I when my uncle used to drive me to 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.880 and from school and we used to go like all 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:10.120 that dilapidated, busted down property, and he was like, yeah, 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.640 you know, Kenny Gamble owns all and I could imagine 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.000 like all these blocks and he's like, yeah, you know, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:22.280 And I couldn't see that far in the future to 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.559 figure out what vision you had to refurbish it and 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.360 restore it back to what it is now. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.680 Like so from what year did you start to say that. 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:35.720 I'm going to rebuild? 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.360 Well, we did records at fourteen and fifteen blocks in 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:46.840 South Philly, or well we well we started like from 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:52.080 from like eleventh Street all the way up to like 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.640 twenty fourth Street, from South Street all the way over 0:10:55.679 --> 0:11:00.720 to Washington Avenue. That was the area. And within that 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:05.280 area there were a lot of vacant We had maps, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.280 we had like a war room, you know what I mean, 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:13.199 maps that at every house, every abandoned lot, every school, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.000 everything on these on these maps and what we did 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.320 is came up with our plan. Our plan was to 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.880 be able to build a community that you could take 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.600 and have some open spaces, you know where you'd have 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:32.640 some some gardens and have something open. The schools, I mean, 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.800 this has been the hardest part is the schools, I 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:40.640 mean the education thing. And wasn't developing it, like you 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:41.560 just can't tell the city. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:43.280 You got to work with them. 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:44.280 You got to work with. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.840 Them, even if it's a private school or well, these 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.680 are charter schools, so these are public private schools. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.520 The problem with private schools is the economics of it, 0:11:55.080 --> 0:12:00.000 you know, and and because many of our people don't 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.280 have the money to pay to go to a charter school, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.080 I mean to a private shart school. Yeah. So so 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.960 we have we got one wonderful thing going. And one 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.080 of the things I can't think of it now. You know. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.560 That's one of the things that happened when you get old, 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:19.120 you start missing things here you'd be thinking about it. 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.440 It's gone, but it'll come back, it'll come back later. 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.840 Yeah. Man. So how did music first enter your life 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:30.200 growing up in Philadelphia? 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.360 What got you into the music? Well, you know, the 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.160 music to me was always there. I always loved music. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.880 And there was a day that that sticks out in 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.840 my life. Right the day that sticks out in my 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.959 life was there used to be a baptism that used 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.920 to have happened on fifteen Christian where I used to live, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:02.400 and it was the Daddy Grace Church prayer House of prayer. 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.640 So the bands, I don't know if you ever heard 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.440 their bands in there, but it was around my birthdays 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:14.760 when they have their their convocations and uh. And that 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.040 morning when my mother I asked her, I said, well, 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.040 who is that you know up the street and they 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.920 were out there baptizing people with this hose with the hose, yeah, 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:31.960 with the water holes like and it was so interesting 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.920 that even today I still go there because they always 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.960 had the convocation around my birthday. They have it all 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.320 across the country, by the way, and so last that's 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.640 what really got me listening to music. That when and 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.720 when you listen to our music, listen to them horns 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.520 in there, because I try to get them horns going 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.000 in there, and it was good. One other thing you 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:59.040 asked me was seeing the whole project through the h 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.600 we started in the seventies with the buying. The properties 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.680 were cleaned up the ghetto. The intention was to buy 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:12.959 those properties and get the land first, and so that 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.280 was there was a brother's name was Norman Gatzon who 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.280 worked along with us, and he was he's a real 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.200 estate guy. He knew a lot about real estate, and 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:26.400 my wife she knew about real estate. So we kind 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.240 of disguised Norman as a person because then we could 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.640 get them for very low prices because at that particular time, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:41.880 the property in these neighborhoods that I mean these vacant 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.400 lots and whatever, at that time they were very very cheap, 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.000 you know, and the city really wanted to see things developed, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:56.080 and they had a couple of public housing programs and 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.920 so we were able to build up construction, development come 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.560 and it worked out good. It worked out real good 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:07.480 that the city of Philadelphia. It's not easy. It's not 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.920 easy because it's a lot of red tape involved in 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.520 all this stuff, but you know, you got to go 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.320 through it to get to where you want to go. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.200 And that's what started the whole thing. But the one 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.480 ingredient as we were doing this, brother, the one thing 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.960 that came into my mind was why haven't these programs 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.520 worked before? You have so many good intention people that 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.360 want to do something in the community. And what I 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.480 found out is that in the development business is that 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.840 you have people who live out of the African American 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:46.240 community doing all the work in the community. And so 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.600 what we decided to do is to live in the community. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.560 So that was the biggest decision of all is to 0:15:54.720 --> 0:16:00.240 move back into South Philadelphia and be there so that 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.840 the neighborhood, because it was all in the newspapers, you know, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.920 Kenny Gamble boos back to southfully, you know they once 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.640 because the what do you call it when the neighborhood's 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:16.280 being turned around? Gentrification, thank you brothers, that was starting 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.440 to happen. And even today, I mean, it's just unbelievable. 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.400 And you got lots in South Philadelphia that were at 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.840 that particular time maybe you know, you could buy them 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.000 for five thousand dollars or whatever, but today those same 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.800 lots today might cost you fifty one hundred thousand dollars. 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.440 And so it's become a money game. In fact, all 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:44.920 of it is based on economics. And it's just like 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.680 New York and Harlem. Same thing happened there, same things 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.800 happened in Washington, DC. All over the country. You know, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.840 so that's what happened. Wow. 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.800 So with music, what you were a guitar player correct 0:16:59.120 --> 0:16:59.960 or you played. 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:04.880 A still guitar. I've heard about you dabbling guitar back. Yeah, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.040 I got maybe about six cords that I can play. 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.200 What was the first musical performance he gave, like, how 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.920 did you developed your chops? 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:21.000 Well, well, you know, we had a band called the Romeos, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:27.120 and always we had some good people, I mean Rolling Chambers, 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.920 he was a guitar players. Oh, he was great man, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.399 you know. And and then his brother Karl was a 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:40.240 drummer called Chambers. And you had Tom Bell who played keyboards. 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.240 You had Leon Huff who was with us who played 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.560 keyboards and worlds and all that stuff. And you had 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:55.560 Lenny Pecoola who was played the organ. And so we 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:57.840 used to play. We used to play on the weekends 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.840 all the time. All the time. We play on the weekends, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.240 and and that that was a lot of fun. That 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.280 was a whole lot of fun working on the weekend. 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:13.200 Well, it's I would say that. So you're saying that 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:19.920 the gathering of the what you would form or dub 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.960 the sound of Philadelphia. The Tom Bell and all those guys, 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.480 they you all started together when you were in high school. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:34.000 Oh yeah, tom Bell. I met him. His sister. My 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.120 name is Barbara. She used to be in my class, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.240 and so she asked me. 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.520 She said, come on walk me home one day. One day, 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:44.000 so I walked home. She lived on. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.760 Parish Street fifty fiftieth in Parish. When I got to 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.760 the house, I heard somebody playing the piano. So I asked, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.160 I said, who was that playing the piano? She said, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.800 that's my brother, Tommy. I said, I Me, Me, Me 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.520 and Tommy Bell. We wrote three songs that day. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:00.359 Wow. 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.600 Really we still got those songs. I mean. And the 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:04.280 funny part about it is I. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.960 Keep telling them, I said, tom I said, we gotta 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:12.080 cut them songs. I said, we gotta cut them songs, man, 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.480 because if we go, nobody will know, you. 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:14.920 Know what I mean? 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.920 Well, wait, I got a question. You weren't you raised? 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:19.719 Were you raised Jehovah's witness Right? 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:20.240 Yeah? 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.000 So how did the music? How did you? Because I'm 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:24.720 kind of strict when it comes to the music, or 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:25.560 how did you? 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:31.200 Yeah? Well, yeah, they have their own music, Joe's Witnesses. 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:32.960 But they don't even know that scary. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.399 Yeah, well, I mean they're not their own music that 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.240 they have their own little song book. It's not like 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.159 going to a Baptist church or whatever. 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.280 And they got you were never raised in that sort 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.679 of none hollering fine brimstone. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.439 No, not really none, never raised in that. But you 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.520 know what, I loved it, you know, I love I 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:57.040 love being in the House of Prayer, and and I 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:58.000 still go around there. 0:19:58.000 --> 0:19:59.879 I still go there even now when I want to. 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.080 I want to. I want to see the real thing happening. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:04.919 I mean, you get it, like you said, you go there, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.160 go the good meal, right and and uh not only 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.000 spiritual food, but you get some physical food, you know, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.159 and uh wow. And so I always keep it on 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:14.960 on in mind. 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:19.000 You know your partnership with uh brother Leon Huff, when 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:19.280 did that? 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.240 Uh uh? That was that was really the key to 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:28.600 the whole thing. There used to be the Schubert Theater 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.840 on Broad Streuss And and Huff and I we were 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.840 working in the same building. I was working on the 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.520 sixth floor and Huff was working on the fourth floor. 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.840 I was working with a guy named Jerry Ross who 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:47.880 had a label the Dream Lovers. I don't know if 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.600 you remember them. When we get married, and all those 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.840 songs like that. And uh, and Huff was working with 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:01.639 Maderra and associates. They had they had Bunny Siegler, he 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.760 was working with them, and you had Lynn Barry who 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.760 did one, two three at they were working with Leslie Gore. 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.240 I mean, so me and me and me and Huff 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.600 just met up one day coming in that building and uh, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.560 and we started talking because it wasn't that many African 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:19.680 Americans in that building. 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.760 So was it kind of like a real building for Philadelphia. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.840 There you go, the same thing, but much much smaller 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.440 than the Brill Building, you know what I mean. And 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.240 so we was able to to meet up and talk 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.439 a little bit about what we wanted to do, you know, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.959 with our dreams and aspirations were. And so I went 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:42.560 over his eye. I said, I'm gonna come over your house. 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:44.560 He lived in Camden. So I went over his house 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:49.080 one day and we started writing songs. It was it 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:51.400 was just like me meeting Tommy Bell. Me enough must 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.480 have wrote maybe about six seven songs, you know, and uh. 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.320 From that point on, the Huff got in the band 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:04.720 the day. That's what made it really us gel even 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.560 closer because we would be arsing all the time and 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.960 the key to the Romeos was that the Romeos was 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.000 a band that we used to take songs that were 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:19.520 already out that were very popular, like Safer they keep 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.399 on Pushing, like Curtis Mayfield and people like that. We 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.560 would take their songs and rearrange them. We do a 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:32.360 lot of medals we do. People be familiar with the songs, 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.440 but they would be different. So and huff Is he's 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:41.080 a singer, Roland was a singer, Tommy was a singer. 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:43.280 I could sing a little bit. So we used to 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:45.240 do like the high Lows. 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.080 Oh wow, we were like yeah, like like take six. 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:51.199 We used to do that kind of music too, you know. 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.800 And I really liked that better than anything, you know, 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.679 when we all sang together, because I never really did 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:02.160 like being on stage myself, not by. 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:06.360 Myself, you know. I never did Strength and Numbers, Strength 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:08.240 and Numbers. It was beautiful, you know. 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.680 So, so do you know the first song that you 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:17.720 charted on an artist pre Philly International, pre fully International, 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.960 the first hit that we had before International? 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:25.639 What was the label seemed like in Philly, Like, I know, 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:26.400 There's Lost Night. 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:28.439 It was a lot of them, Yeah, there was a 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.640 lot of them. It was Chancellor there was CAMEO Parkway 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:33.640 and I. 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.119 Did that like record for all these labels, although I 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.800 have a collection of like fifty labels, all with different 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:46.560 unbelievable and of the Andrew I was a fan of 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:51.720 you Can I knew him, Yeah, unbelievable he was. His 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.320 voice was like unbelievable. 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:54.879 Thank you. 0:23:55.600 --> 0:24:00.600 So how how was it that we had like over twenty. 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:06.160 Labels in Philadelphia and then suddenly they just started to 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:07.359 dissolve one by one. 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:12.040 The industry changed, Okay, industry change, it's like it's changing now. 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:17.520 The industry changed then because it went from independent distributors 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:25.240 to the corporations taken over. Say, for example, you would 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:30.440 have I would say in Philadelphia, they were about let's 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:36.280 say fifteen distributors in Philadelphia, and those distributors might might 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:40.159 be Rosen's was a distributor on North broad Street and 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:44.640 he would sell he would distribute maybe Mercury Records, ARSCA Records, 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:52.640 and maybe Epic. Then you'd have William's distribution. They would 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:58.639 have four or five other labels. Now, the thing of 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:01.480 it is is that it got down to the point 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:11.520 where where the industry became more consolidated, like a Chips 0:25:11.600 --> 0:25:15.160 Chippets had Motown, it had Scepter, it had had all 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:20.679 these labels, you know, and you would you would make 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:24.520 a record. We made records, and uh, it was much 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.080 easier in those days for us because you make a record, 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:31.720 you go get Chippets to distribute it for you and 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:35.440 you get it was airplay was the whole thing. You 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:39.080 got to get your record on the radio. Somebody's got 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:41.120 to play it in order for people to want it. 0:25:41.800 --> 0:25:49.200 And and so the whole industry changed when the CBS's, 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:54.880 the Warner Brothers and all of these major corporations started 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:59.960 to consolidate and they would buy all of these little 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:02.800 labels and put them all together. Then Warner Brothers became 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:09.440 a distributor themselves. Oh okay, Columbia Records became a distributor themselves. 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:14.040 And so once they became distributors, they were able to 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:19.880 take guys like Gambling Houff because we were independent. In fact, 0:26:19.920 --> 0:26:22.719 it was a good thing and a bad thing because 0:26:22.760 --> 0:26:26.280 they became your competition. Now you know, the major companies. 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:31.320 But what we were able to do is to survive 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:36.239 because we became a creative company and the marriage that 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.320 we needed was and that we searched for was an 0:26:40.320 --> 0:26:44.920 administrator who could collect whatever royalties, whatever money that was 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:48.720 due from all over the world because it's a worldwide industry, 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:53.080 so you got to be collect money from from Philippines 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:55.320 and Brazil, every place you can think of. 0:26:55.600 --> 0:27:01.840 Yeah, how familiar are you with the Harvard Report, which 0:27:04.760 --> 0:27:07.840 I believe that the original Harvard Report was drafted in 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.320 nineteen seventy one, of. 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:13.640 Which I guess it was stated that. 0:27:15.480 --> 0:27:18.000 For I don't know if the point was that for 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:21.920 major labels to survive or for black music to survive, 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:26.600 but basically the idea of a major label adopting that's 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:28.680 what we were, a smaller black label. 0:27:28.760 --> 0:27:31.000 Yeah, that's what Billa International was. 0:27:31.240 --> 0:27:36.199 So was it someone who because by that point in 0:27:36.240 --> 0:27:39.760 seventy two, even though there was there was backstabbers and 0:27:40.040 --> 0:27:43.240 like things were starting to heat up. But who was 0:27:43.320 --> 0:27:47.359 the person that you know who was inspired to write 0:27:47.400 --> 0:27:50.639 the Harvard Report that really argued for you guys to 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:54.000 have a deal with Clive Davis or he read this 0:27:54.080 --> 0:27:55.040 Harvard Report. 0:27:54.800 --> 0:27:56.600 And it's like, you know, you're right, I should do this. 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:00.760 I think they sponsored it. Oh, a lot of the 0:28:00.840 --> 0:28:05.080 record companies sponsored it because we were there at CBS, 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:08.960 like nineteen sixty nine seventy is when we was making 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:12.359 our deal, and it was kind of like it shadowed 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:19.199 what we were doing with CBS, because there was a 0:28:19.280 --> 0:28:25.280 time when we would do albums and we would have 0:28:25.359 --> 0:28:29.600 album covers and we would put the like an artist 0:28:29.880 --> 0:28:32.160 like Jerry Butler or somebody like that on the front cover, 0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:35.199 and their sales department was saying, now, we can't sell it. 0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:37.080 They can't sell it because it was a black face 0:28:37.119 --> 0:28:39.760 on it. Race Records, Race Records, this is where they 0:28:39.760 --> 0:28:43.280 were coming from. And so when we got into it, 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:47.680 it was a little more music became a little more 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:53.200 of a protests instrument, you know, and the industry just 0:28:53.280 --> 0:28:57.040 opened up. It opened up wide. Like in Texas, there 0:28:57.160 --> 0:28:59.240 was a rack job. At the rack job as a 0:28:59.240 --> 0:29:02.160 guy who's got a warehouse and he'll buy one hundred 0:29:02.200 --> 0:29:08.240 thousand albums and distributed them himself. But you'll see him 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:13.720 this guy's name, his name was Lieberman, and he wouldn't 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:17.440 really sell that many albums black albums in the beginning, 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:24.080 but radio changed from AM to FM had reached more people. 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:29.320 The whole marketplace just opened up. So a Lieberman, like 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:32.880 an earth Wind and Fire album, these albums were not 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:36.360 just hit R and B albums. These were hit pop, 0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:38.240 everything else you can think of. You can see it 0:29:38.280 --> 0:29:43.240 today in your commercials and everything. They're using that music 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:48.760 because that music crosses all those generations and and and 0:29:48.800 --> 0:29:51.040 so I think I think that's what really had the 0:29:51.160 --> 0:29:56.240 industry rolling, is that the times were changing. 0:29:55.520 --> 0:30:01.240 Knowing that you guys initially went to I met Er 0:30:02.480 --> 0:30:09.080 Uh and Wexler at Atlantic first Uh for Philly International. 0:30:09.640 --> 0:30:11.400 Have you guys spoken to them since? 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:16.840 Have they expressed any regret on not not taking the deal? 0:30:17.920 --> 0:30:21.040 Well, you know, all of them are gone. I'm and 0:30:21.160 --> 0:30:26.880 Jerry Wexler and Uh next you way, I think they 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:29.520 chose to work with Stax rather. 0:30:29.320 --> 0:30:31.040 Than us, and that wasn't have been. That wasn't a 0:30:31.040 --> 0:30:33.360 bad move. I mean Sax, but Stax was not like 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:37.120 Philly International. I worked with them a few times, you know. 0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:39.840 Yeah, there's definitely some sound. 0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:44.520 Archie Bell, Yeah, Wilson record, Don't let Degree Res Fool? 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:47.120 Yeah, that was a that was a echo of a session. 0:30:47.560 --> 0:30:49.600 Didn't the Romeos put a record out on that co? 0:30:50.320 --> 0:30:52.960 There you go? You know what I mean? It's hard 0:30:52.960 --> 0:30:55.400 to find the right girl. And yeah, eight days a 0:30:55.400 --> 0:30:57.600 week a week, eight days a week. That was before 0:30:57.600 --> 0:30:58.720 the Beatles do, by the. 0:30:58.680 --> 0:31:08.600 Way, So it should be noted that what you really 0:31:08.640 --> 0:31:13.680 brought to the game of music is just a level 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:20.880 of sheen and cleanness that was right for FM radio 0:31:21.600 --> 0:31:26.800 at the time. It wasn't It wasn't gut bucket back 0:31:26.840 --> 0:31:32.400 porch sounding, which I love that sound too, But this 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:37.680 is definitely, you know, in the era of I know 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:40.800 there's there's always a debate in the era, in the 0:31:40.920 --> 0:31:44.440 era of who holds the crown As far as I 0:31:44.480 --> 0:31:50.320 know that Isaac Hayes started working with orchestration and Barry 0:31:50.360 --> 0:31:53.760 White as well, But what was it about the sound 0:31:53.800 --> 0:31:57.760 of less orchestras that told you this is what we 0:31:57.880 --> 0:31:59.320 need in our music. 0:32:00.440 --> 0:32:06.000 During that time, Tommy Bell was he was evolving to 0:32:06.120 --> 0:32:09.320 a greater ranger, you know. He loved Burke Backack by 0:32:09.360 --> 0:32:13.560 the way, you know, and Bobby Martin. It just seemed 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:18.040 like everybody wanted to all of the rangers. They wanted 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:21.880 to work with violent orchestrations. Let me put it like that. 0:32:22.520 --> 0:32:25.120 It's so much different from what it is today today. 0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:28.520 I guess the fewer the instruments, the better it is. Well, 0:32:28.560 --> 0:32:31.240 you do get a better presence when you have fewer instruments, 0:32:31.280 --> 0:32:35.280 you know. But but that's I think that's just one 0:32:35.280 --> 0:32:37.600 of the simple way to say it is that that's 0:32:37.640 --> 0:32:39.320 what we heard in the music. You know. 0:32:39.600 --> 0:32:43.240 Oh, I was gonna say yeah, because when you guys 0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:46.800 are cutting a basic track, the strings aren't done yet. 0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:50.720 So how do you how hard is it for you 0:32:50.800 --> 0:32:52.000 to have faith that? 0:32:54.480 --> 0:33:01.680 All? Right? Great example, something as as bare as the Ojays. 0:33:01.600 --> 0:33:02.680 How can you Call Me Brother? 0:33:03.120 --> 0:33:06.600 Yeah, which is a very basic rhythm track but really 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:10.640 depends on the horn orchestration of that sort of thing. 0:33:10.680 --> 0:33:12.479 So is it that you have that much faith in 0:33:13.280 --> 0:33:16.520 Bobby or Norman Harris was also a good arranged for 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:20.280 you guys as well, that you just like, I know, 0:33:20.400 --> 0:33:23.920 once I feed them this, then they're gonna really put 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:24.680 the impact. 0:33:24.800 --> 0:33:29.760 You know. What we would do as we take a 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:34.200 concept player, we get a small cossette of the session 0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:37.640 with the rhythm and the voices on it, and I'd 0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:41.560 sit down with a Huff, would sit down with Bobby 0:33:41.560 --> 0:33:48.000 Martin and we would hum parts to them. This is 0:33:48.080 --> 0:33:50.239 what we want the trumpets to play, this is what 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:52.440 we want the trombones to play, this is what we 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:56.400 want the strings to play. And then and believe it 0:33:56.480 --> 0:33:59.160 or not, I'm gonna tell you something. Even today, I 0:33:59.200 --> 0:34:04.720 can still remember all those arrangements in my head. I mean, 0:34:04.760 --> 0:34:09.239 it's like the brainwashed me almost. You know, you can 0:34:09.280 --> 0:34:14.359 still hear it all. And it was unbelievable. Plus two, 0:34:14.400 --> 0:34:17.839 if if you listen to the tracks, a lot of 0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:20.920 the stuff happens when you write the song. The arrangement 0:34:21.040 --> 0:34:25.320 is in the song, you know. And so where Huff 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:30.440 used to play on every session, and between him and 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:34.960 myself and Tom Bell, and like you said, Norman Harris, 0:34:34.960 --> 0:34:38.720 Norman Harris, he did an excellent job because he couldn't 0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:41.800 even arrange at first. You're talking about guys who couldn't 0:34:41.800 --> 0:34:45.640 even write music when we first started. Now these guys 0:34:45.640 --> 0:34:48.880 are between Rolling and Bobby Martin. They probably taught all 0:34:48.880 --> 0:34:53.440 of those guys how to write and arrange music. And 0:34:53.800 --> 0:34:57.240 also Vince Montana. Oh yeah, it was great. 0:34:58.520 --> 0:35:03.160 But these are sixty pieces, right, we read sixty pieces. 0:35:03.480 --> 0:35:06.840 We would have at least eight or nine rhythm people. 0:35:08.600 --> 0:35:09.320 We would have. 0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:15.600 I'd say at least ten between trumpets, horns and brass. 0:35:15.920 --> 0:35:21.520 But see we would doubles things so it would sound sneaky. 0:35:22.600 --> 0:35:26.479 I thought it was super time recorded No, we would 0:35:26.480 --> 0:35:30.759 double stuff and triple stuff at that at sometimes to 0:35:30.840 --> 0:35:33.520 really get that fullness. Because you know, you mentioned something 0:35:33.520 --> 0:35:39.680 a moment ago when the industry moved from mono to stereo, 0:35:41.600 --> 0:35:44.960 was a big difference. When it moved from AM to film, 0:35:45.120 --> 0:35:48.799 it was a big change because you got to look 0:35:48.840 --> 0:35:53.480 at the mixing process became totally different. Joe Jarja was 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:54.759 an excellent engineer. 0:35:54.840 --> 0:35:57.839 I was going to say, talk about Joe Tarcia and 0:35:57.960 --> 0:36:04.200 how uh did you totally trust your mixing in his hands? 0:36:04.400 --> 0:36:07.399 Was it a thing where you guys had to micromanage 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:09.600 and be over his shoulders or he knew exactly what 0:36:09.680 --> 0:36:10.000 to do. 0:36:10.480 --> 0:36:13.239 We had to be there withinning. We had to be 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:16.200 there with him because you know what, sometimes we would 0:36:16.239 --> 0:36:18.800 mix him toil one two three o'clock in the morning. 0:36:18.880 --> 0:36:22.520 Right the next day, I come in and Joe don 0:36:22.600 --> 0:36:25.120 did something to it during the night. 0:36:25.400 --> 0:36:25.759 M M. 0:36:25.920 --> 0:36:28.080 I said, Joe, why did you pull that piano down 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:30.240 like that? He said, but you can hear that because 0:36:30.280 --> 0:36:34.080 you can hear stuff when it means something to you, right, Okay? 0:36:34.239 --> 0:36:36.680 And so Joe was he was excellent man. 0:36:36.719 --> 0:36:37.040 He was. 0:36:37.080 --> 0:36:39.759 He's a good he was a good team player. We 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:42.560 had a great team. That's that's what happened with us. 0:36:42.719 --> 0:36:44.520 Speaking of the team, I was going to ask you 0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:47.160 because we were talking about this before we got we 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:50.040 started recording about Larry Gold since we're in the house 0:36:50.080 --> 0:36:54.040 that he built. He's in the back somewhere. But I 0:36:54.080 --> 0:36:55.680 was trying to figure out, so back in these days, 0:36:55.719 --> 0:36:57.520 was he just like a session player, because now, of 0:36:57.600 --> 0:36:58.920 course he's a string ranger. 0:36:59.080 --> 0:36:59.760 Oh, he's great. 0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:04.560 But he was on all the sessions, him and and 0:37:04.600 --> 0:37:08.399 Don Rinaldo and uh, A lot of the guys from 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:11.480 the old Uptown Theater were part. 0:37:11.239 --> 0:37:11.840 Of our band. 0:37:12.160 --> 0:37:15.479 So the Uptown Theater had a house orchestra, house band. 0:37:15.680 --> 0:37:20.640 Oh yeah, Sam Reid, really Sam Reid was was the 0:37:20.680 --> 0:37:24.080 house band and he had. Most of those guys have 0:37:24.200 --> 0:37:29.080 passed now, but but the Uptown was I used to 0:37:29.080 --> 0:37:33.719 go get chicken sandwiches for them guys over at Pearls, 0:37:33.880 --> 0:37:39.560 you know, and the Uptown Theater was that was a 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:42.239 nest too for some great, great artists. You don't have 0:37:42.320 --> 0:37:46.200 places like the Uptown and places like that anymore to 0:37:46.200 --> 0:37:49.560 to develop new young people, you know, to give them 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:53.279 a chance to uh some reasonable price to get in 0:37:53.360 --> 0:37:54.680 a place or whatever. 0:37:54.520 --> 0:37:55.920 You know, is that what you plan on doing a 0:37:55.960 --> 0:37:58.319 mirror when you fix up the Uptown, you're gonna bring 0:37:58.360 --> 0:37:58.800 it back. 0:37:58.640 --> 0:38:02.520 To that put me on the spot, sure, like yeah. 0:38:02.800 --> 0:38:04.520 I didn't even know if he knew that you was. 0:38:04.640 --> 0:38:06.680 I was really no, it's a dream of mind to 0:38:07.480 --> 0:38:09.200 bring it back. You know. We were talking to some 0:38:09.239 --> 0:38:11.520 people the other day, man Khalif, when they were talking 0:38:11.520 --> 0:38:14.880 about the Uptown you know, doing something then so we 0:38:15.040 --> 0:38:17.960 have to like it's it's too much history there, like, yeah, 0:38:18.160 --> 0:38:18.879 the Apollo. 0:38:18.640 --> 0:38:23.160 Is still thriving in DC theater. Howard Theaters is coming back. 0:38:23.280 --> 0:38:25.000 You know what you need to though with the Uptown 0:38:25.520 --> 0:38:30.120 money the same money you need. You need the same 0:38:30.160 --> 0:38:33.200 thing that Apollo as. You need somebody to underwrite it 0:38:33.280 --> 0:38:35.759 like a Coca Cola. I think it takes care of 0:38:35.840 --> 0:38:38.320 apollow and it's not a roo. 0:38:38.880 --> 0:38:44.320 Yeah, I need to know more billionaires. That's Ron Perelman. 0:38:44.400 --> 0:38:47.040 Is that the guy from Philly you're talking about? Ron 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:50.480 Perlmans from Proman's a very weird billionaire. 0:38:50.600 --> 0:38:54.399 He owns like he was a Revlon wasn't he too? 0:38:54.520 --> 0:38:56.839 Yeah, but he has a lot of companies. But things 0:38:56.840 --> 0:38:58.000 you don't think about. 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:02.080 Like you know, like person the person that that makes 0:39:02.200 --> 0:39:04.799 cotton balls or or Q tips or. 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:05.879 That's a good one. 0:39:06.520 --> 0:39:09.839 Rubber band companies like things that you don't think that 0:39:09.880 --> 0:39:15.360 people everything. A guy that owns duct tape, like. 0:39:16.120 --> 0:39:17.800 That's the type of business that ron. 0:39:19.800 --> 0:39:25.759 Right there. Yeah. So the the sound, I've always been 0:39:25.800 --> 0:39:29.960 curious about the sound of Philadelphia because along with that sophistication, 0:39:30.680 --> 0:39:32.520 you know, I would say that, you know, part of 0:39:32.520 --> 0:39:35.799 the part of the charm of Motown was like it 0:39:35.840 --> 0:39:41.360 was it was part church uh done by jazz musicians 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:43.520 who thought they were above playing pop music or whatever. 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:49.239 But and with stacks their sound was all the way 0:39:49.440 --> 0:39:57.440 you know, look, but yet just the sound, were you 0:39:57.560 --> 0:40:01.000 giving your input as far as like you wanted these 0:40:01.920 --> 0:40:05.000 drums to sound dead? Only bring this up because one 0:40:06.120 --> 0:40:09.800 I mean, like what my first five six records at Sigma, 0:40:10.600 --> 0:40:14.520 And one day Joe Tarcia is in the hallway and 0:40:14.600 --> 0:40:16.799 he knew how I was struggling with a drum part 0:40:17.400 --> 0:40:20.200 and I couldn't get it right, like I was wasting 0:40:20.239 --> 0:40:21.880 all this duct tape on my snare or whatever. 0:40:22.360 --> 0:40:23.960 And he says, say, hang on, I'll be right back, 0:40:24.000 --> 0:40:24.960 and he runs upstairs. 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:28.040 He comes down with this blue blanket and he's like, 0:40:28.239 --> 0:40:29.800 this is the blue blanket that I would put it 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:32.920 on top of, you know, on on top of Earl's 0:40:32.960 --> 0:40:37.040 drums and everything whatever, and he's like, this is the 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:38.799 sound you're looking for, And he like went to the 0:40:38.800 --> 0:40:41.520 board and did us a solid in ten minutes and 0:40:41.560 --> 0:40:42.640 I got the sound I wanted. 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:48.600 But it was so radical to see it at the time. 0:40:48.800 --> 0:40:54.520 Was it was it how did you guys construct this sound? 0:40:54.719 --> 0:40:58.600 Like it's it's such a like the drums are dead, 0:40:58.760 --> 0:41:03.759 but it's more live and plus with Earl Young being 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:08.360 the proprietor of disco, like, how how did you guys 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:12.320 discover Was it just accidentally discovering like, oh, people like 0:41:12.440 --> 0:41:13.640 dancing to this type of music? 0:41:13.680 --> 0:41:17.279 And you know, I used to always say, like the drums, 0:41:17.440 --> 0:41:20.800 there's two parts to the drums. It's the bass drum. 0:41:21.000 --> 0:41:25.680 That bass drum is very important, and also the snare 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:29.480 and the symbols and and so forth, and the sock symbol. 0:41:31.320 --> 0:41:34.440 That sock symbol sound that we came up with that 0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:39.120 come from the House of prayer. That's like that's like yeah, yeah, 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.520 like tambourines, you know what I mean. So it was 0:41:42.560 --> 0:41:46.040 a mix between all of that, you know, and we 0:41:46.160 --> 0:41:48.960 did it so much the musicians say, man, please, let's 0:41:48.960 --> 0:41:51.520 don't play that no more. You gotta play it because 0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:54.640 that's what that's keeping the food on. Yeah, keep it going. 0:41:54.719 --> 0:41:59.520 And then uh and then really the drums and the 0:41:59.600 --> 0:42:04.040 bass was like a pair, you know that basse the 0:42:04.120 --> 0:42:08.000 bass and the bass drum that they walk together. 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:11.959 One one question I always wanted to know when you're 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:19.399 doing basic cutting tracks for ballots. Let's say, okay, let's 0:42:19.400 --> 0:42:22.359 say Harold Melvin and Blue Notes be for Real? 0:42:22.760 --> 0:42:23.960 Yeah, where. 0:42:25.200 --> 0:42:26.560 For you hip hop fans? 0:42:26.880 --> 0:42:32.160 The song that ghost Face He uses to argue, oh wow, 0:42:32.280 --> 0:42:32.960 not Wildflower? 0:42:33.360 --> 0:42:36.319 No, no, well he uses be for Real with can 0:42:36.360 --> 0:42:37.800 I talk to you like the Teddy? 0:42:37.880 --> 0:42:43.000 Yeah? Yeah. My whole point is that it is are 0:42:43.040 --> 0:42:46.400 you guys saying that? Okay? We know that we want 0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:50.040 Teddy to have two minutes and forty seven seconds of 0:42:50.239 --> 0:42:54.239 dialogue right before the first core starts, Like, how do 0:42:54.280 --> 0:42:59.479 you guys map out without without Teddy and the group 0:42:59.520 --> 0:43:03.759 being there to have a compelling acting performance, you know 0:43:03.800 --> 0:43:05.840 the part of the song when the song's over, and 0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:06.640 then you got to talk to. 0:43:06.600 --> 0:43:10.160 Your trash Oh baby, you know I need you? And 0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:10.759 this goes on. 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:15.360 But the thing is is that the arrangement is so perfectly, 0:43:17.120 --> 0:43:21.800 it's so timed that I always wondered, do you map 0:43:21.840 --> 0:43:24.000 ahead of time, like, okay, well Teddy's going to talk 0:43:24.040 --> 0:43:28.040 for two minutes and forty seven seconds and then is 0:43:28.080 --> 0:43:29.200 he going on his own? 0:43:29.760 --> 0:43:34.239 Are you writing out his dialogue? When what happens with 0:43:34.400 --> 0:43:37.560 those kind of things is that we had a lot 0:43:37.600 --> 0:43:43.560 of rehearsals before these artists go into the studio. We 0:43:43.600 --> 0:43:46.080 would rehearse I mean with the Ojays off and I 0:43:46.160 --> 0:43:51.040 used to rehearse them days really days before we go 0:43:51.080 --> 0:43:54.200 into the studio. You know, we cut the tracks and 0:43:54.239 --> 0:43:56.640 then we rehearse them again with the track because it'd 0:43:56.680 --> 0:43:59.520 be different. It's one thing rehears them on the piano, 0:44:00.239 --> 0:44:01.839 you know, with me, and but then when you cut 0:44:01.880 --> 0:44:05.880 the track, it's totally different. You got different figures and everything. 0:44:06.000 --> 0:44:10.600 But like I think, I think the rehearsals were the 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:13.160 key to everything that we did. 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:17.760 You know, So for like Sunshine OJ's which is ten minutes, 0:44:18.320 --> 0:44:21.799 you're saying that even in rehearsal, Eddie LeVert is. 0:44:21.800 --> 0:44:25.400 Going balls to the wall that hard with his at libs. No, 0:44:26.160 --> 0:44:29.760 there's a certain part of it that the artist basically 0:44:29.800 --> 0:44:34.680 It's like Bunnie Sigler wrote Sunshine Okay on and he 0:44:34.680 --> 0:44:37.960 helped the produce it. He and what's the other guy 0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:40.920 that was with him, Phil Hurt I think Phil's name was. 0:44:41.480 --> 0:44:45.160 And so they did rehearse the ojys because the OJ's 0:44:45.239 --> 0:44:48.479 used to come in Philadelphia to record, and they would 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:50.959 stay here for a month, okay, for a whole month. 0:44:51.640 --> 0:44:53.719 The first week we would do nothing but send them 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:56.640 around to each little room. We had rooms, and Fat 0:44:56.640 --> 0:45:00.560 and White Ad had a room. Bunnie Sliger, Phil, I 0:45:00.600 --> 0:45:04.120 mean Sherman Marshall who wrote for Think Came Youth with 0:45:04.200 --> 0:45:07.480 Dion Warick and all that, right, and so everybody had 0:45:07.480 --> 0:45:10.160 their own rooms. So Huff and I would have about 0:45:10.160 --> 0:45:13.759 eighty nine songs for him, Bunny Siegler would have five 0:45:13.840 --> 0:45:15.839 or six songs for him, and then they we put 0:45:15.880 --> 0:45:18.000 them all on the cassette tape and then we listened 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:20.520 to him and figure out which ones we were going 0:45:20.560 --> 0:45:24.200 to cut. That would be the second phase, and once 0:45:24.239 --> 0:45:29.000 we start cutting the tracks, it could be fifteen sixteen 0:45:29.080 --> 0:45:37.240 tracks that we cut all total. And the ojs. 0:45:35.520 --> 0:45:38.000 Say, for example, like a song like I Love music right, 0:45:39.320 --> 0:45:42.640 it took all night to get those background parts together, 0:45:43.719 --> 0:45:45.120 no prosals all night. 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:49.440 Yeah, this was a whole different thing. And the editing 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:53.160 aspect of all this stuff here was just crazy because 0:45:53.200 --> 0:45:56.440 you got cutting tape all over the floor, you know. 0:45:56.640 --> 0:46:03.319 So so huff and he played the keyboards, and the 0:46:03.400 --> 0:46:09.800 keyboards was essential to finding out how many bars. 0:46:10.120 --> 0:46:12.919 I mean we talk about bar. We weren't really counting. 0:46:12.600 --> 0:46:17.719 Bars and stuff like that, you know, and and rehearsing 0:46:17.840 --> 0:46:19.959 like tells me now he said, Man, my back hurts. 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:22.319 I said, I guess so E've been rocking on that 0:46:22.400 --> 0:46:27.080 piano years. No, we had we had a great team 0:46:27.160 --> 0:46:31.320 of people working together. And I think that you know, 0:46:31.360 --> 0:46:34.680 when you got people like like Dexter when you played me, 0:46:35.320 --> 0:46:38.000 I mean, Dexter is to me, I thought he was 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:41.040 like Quincy Jones, to be honest with you, you know, and 0:46:41.080 --> 0:46:42.520 I used to always tell him, I said, you know, 0:46:42.600 --> 0:46:44.680 you should go out and get with Quincy Jones because 0:46:44.719 --> 0:46:47.319 this guy had that kind of talent in my view, 0:46:47.440 --> 0:46:47.640 you know. 0:46:48.640 --> 0:46:52.239 So in twenty nineteen, the kids no pop Linzel. 0:46:52.640 --> 0:46:55.960 Yeah, which is wonderful, Yes, it is. He used to be. 0:46:56.000 --> 0:46:58.040 He used to be walking around the floor all the time, 0:46:58.760 --> 0:46:59.480 which is great. 0:46:59.719 --> 0:47:03.359 You know, between you and Huff you mentioned that he 0:47:03.400 --> 0:47:05.719 would be uh, you know on the piano. Were you 0:47:05.840 --> 0:47:08.160 more of like the lyric writer or did you lyrics 0:47:08.200 --> 0:47:08.960 write music as well? 0:47:09.480 --> 0:47:14.560 No, I really didn't. Look I basically was lyrics, you know, 0:47:14.640 --> 0:47:19.960 and concepts and and we write lyrics sometimes too. And 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:22.120 I played like me and Missus Jones and stuff like that. 0:47:22.160 --> 0:47:24.600 I got I got about I got about six chords, 0:47:27.080 --> 0:47:28.440 a few chords on the guitar. 0:47:29.120 --> 0:47:31.600 And then so they come with the music verson and 0:47:31.680 --> 0:47:33.919 bring it to you or you're there at the same time. 0:47:34.000 --> 0:47:37.480 And no, when you when you say, say, for example 0:47:37.840 --> 0:47:41.200 and Fat and White there, who were how did they 0:47:41.200 --> 0:47:43.640 work together? They were? They were just like me and Huff. 0:47:44.680 --> 0:47:45.480 They were excellent. 0:47:45.800 --> 0:47:46.080 You know. 0:47:46.320 --> 0:47:48.799 They had Victor Carlstaffen that worked with them. He was 0:47:48.800 --> 0:47:52.080 a keyboard player and so and then you had Tom 0:47:52.120 --> 0:47:56.200 Bell and Linda Creed. Linda Creed was an unbelievable lyricist, 0:47:56.520 --> 0:47:58.400 you know, to be bet you by golly while all 0:47:58.440 --> 0:48:02.040 that stuff and uh, people make the world go around, 0:48:02.800 --> 0:48:05.000 how were you Okay? 0:48:05.120 --> 0:48:08.919 So of course a majority of the stuff is done 0:48:09.080 --> 0:48:13.520 under the Philly International umbrella, right, but for some of 0:48:13.520 --> 0:48:18.239 those projects that wanted that Philly sound Eddie Kendricks, he's 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:21.920 a friend or or then Kim you down work in 0:48:22.000 --> 0:48:26.879 the Spinners or even the Spinners themselves, Like how were 0:48:26.920 --> 0:48:31.800 you able to where they contractually bound to you guys 0:48:31.840 --> 0:48:34.600 first and you gained permission to Okay. 0:48:34.320 --> 0:48:36.520 You know what happened with that. Just take the Spinners 0:48:36.520 --> 0:48:39.759 for example, and tom Bell. Tom Bell was like an 0:48:39.800 --> 0:48:44.080 independent producer. They had an independent production because there were 0:48:44.080 --> 0:48:47.560 people like the Spinners, dayn Warick, Johnny Mathis. 0:48:47.160 --> 0:48:51.719 And all these people. The music was you, I mean, 0:48:51.880 --> 0:48:53.719 was it associated with you or was it? 0:48:53.840 --> 0:48:56.600 Yeah, we were all working together because where we all 0:48:56.640 --> 0:49:01.240 linked up at wasn't publishing see with the six three, 0:49:01.520 --> 0:49:04.279 mighty three, mighty three twenty three, Yeah we're publishing. And 0:49:04.400 --> 0:49:10.280 also too with with the cross pollination of of mcfatt 0:49:10.320 --> 0:49:12.800 and white Hair working with Tommy and it was different, 0:49:13.120 --> 0:49:18.000 different people all working together. But when Tom Bell brings 0:49:18.000 --> 0:49:20.360 in a Johnny Mathis to take because most of the 0:49:20.400 --> 0:49:23.440 songs he did with Johnny Mathis have been recorded before. 0:49:23.360 --> 0:49:26.160 That we cut before. So it was a new expansion 0:49:26.239 --> 0:49:26.600 for us. 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:31.560 And and that's pretty because Huff and I did we 0:49:31.600 --> 0:49:35.840 didn't really do a lot of outside production things with 0:49:35.960 --> 0:49:39.399 people on different labels. Earlier in the game, we did, 0:49:39.520 --> 0:49:43.080 you know, like Archie Bell and Wilson Piccott what you mentioned, 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:46.440 which was fun. But after we got to a certain point, 0:49:47.560 --> 0:49:50.880 our whole thing was to build Philly International, because what 0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:54.359 happened with that would be is more of a First 0:49:54.360 --> 0:49:57.200 of all, we had a strong association with CBS, and 0:49:57.239 --> 0:50:00.719 we were strong as anybody with the Internet national side 0:50:00.760 --> 0:50:07.040 of the industry. And then I would think that that 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:10.799 we had the same the same music. We had a 0:50:10.880 --> 0:50:14.239 great team in Philly and a great team in New York. 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:18.279 Ronald Luxemburg and Clive Davis and all these people, you know, 0:50:18.320 --> 0:50:20.320 we had. We had a good run. For the life 0:50:20.320 --> 0:50:22.880 of me. Can you please answer this question? Go ahead? 0:50:24.000 --> 0:50:30.680 Why why why did you guys not call T S 0:50:30.719 --> 0:50:30.960 O P. 0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:32.759 Soul train? 0:50:35.320 --> 0:50:39.760 Now you could have just called the song soul trained. 0:50:40.080 --> 0:50:46.160 Now let me tell you what happened. What happened was John, Yeah, doctor, 0:50:46.239 --> 0:50:48.440 you've seen that already. I haven't seen it, but I 0:50:49.080 --> 0:50:50.640 think I know where you're going with the store doctor 0:50:50.920 --> 0:50:53.520 is I told Don, I said, Don, I said, we're 0:50:53.520 --> 0:50:57.759 gonna call this soul trained thing. He said, Nah, I 0:50:57.800 --> 0:51:02.839 want to keep soul trained. Sad separate what I said. 0:51:02.920 --> 0:51:05.920 I said, you can't do that, you know, no, we 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:08.359 wanted to call it Soul Trained, but you just said right. 0:51:08.840 --> 0:51:11.760 So then what happened when it became such a monster 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:15.120 a monster, monster monster. It was number one all. 0:51:14.960 --> 0:51:15.480 Over the world. 0:51:15.560 --> 0:51:18.640 It was number one everywhere. And the funny part about 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:21.279 it is we called it the soul We called it 0:51:21.320 --> 0:51:25.160 the Sound of Philadelphia, and then parenthesis, it was the 0:51:25.239 --> 0:51:27.920 Soul Trained theme. But he didn't want it to be 0:51:28.040 --> 0:51:29.279 the Soul Trained. 0:51:29.239 --> 0:51:32.400 Or whatever, you know, just in case he didn't. 0:51:33.440 --> 0:51:36.799 But you know, he actually really said that, and they 0:51:36.800 --> 0:51:39.880 did an interview with him somewhere and he said that 0:51:40.000 --> 0:51:44.759 was the dumbest movie ever made. But he was good people. Man, 0:51:45.480 --> 0:51:49.320 We could you talk about a vehicle for our music? 0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:53.000 And I used to talk to him every week. Every 0:51:53.000 --> 0:51:55.000 week he said, Okay, we're gonna send out this week, 0:51:55.040 --> 0:51:57.920 you know what I mean. So we would always have 0:51:58.160 --> 0:52:00.000 a place on this show, and that was pretty much 0:52:01.239 --> 0:52:05.239 the it's show for for that particular time. I mean, 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:09.560 Soul Train was was unbelievable. 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:11.880 And weren't we just watching some footage where he was 0:52:11.920 --> 0:52:14.640 actually an advocate for Black Music Month as well. So 0:52:14.840 --> 0:52:15.480 y'all were all in. 0:52:15.640 --> 0:52:18.440 Yah, yeah, yeah, we were. We were real good friends. 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:21.560 Yeah. Black Music Month. That was Deana, that was yeah. 0:52:21.560 --> 0:52:24.279 She was showing us the footage and he was testifying 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:26.520 the Congress on his way somewhere Black Music Month. 0:52:27.160 --> 0:52:31.280 Okay, I'm gonna I always present this in the worst 0:52:31.320 --> 0:52:33.080 possible scenario. Go ahead. 0:52:33.640 --> 0:52:35.600 So I'm not going to do gun to your head 0:52:35.719 --> 0:52:36.560 as I normally do. 0:52:36.920 --> 0:52:38.120 What is that? No? 0:52:38.120 --> 0:52:40.840 No, I always give you the ultimatum, go ahead. 0:52:40.960 --> 0:52:41.360 Okay. 0:52:41.920 --> 0:52:44.680 So between. 0:52:46.000 --> 0:52:49.120 Eddie Livert, I'm trying I'm trying to I'm trying to 0:52:49.160 --> 0:52:50.520 figure out your your top. 0:52:50.320 --> 0:52:51.360 Five starting squad. 0:52:51.680 --> 0:52:56.680 Good now in your powerhouse lead singing voice with Eddie 0:52:56.719 --> 0:52:59.960 Livert and Teddy Pendergrad. 0:53:01.320 --> 0:53:01.719 I don't know. 0:53:02.120 --> 0:53:05.640 Was Kenny Ebol even in the picture. Was he after 0:53:06.680 --> 0:53:10.680 a the Ebo joined the Blue Notes? Did he join 0:53:10.719 --> 0:53:14.200 the Blue Notes after reaching for the was? Okay? 0:53:14.239 --> 0:53:15.440 So you don't count, all right? 0:53:15.960 --> 0:53:23.320 So who is your Who gets the advantage? Eddie Livert, 0:53:24.000 --> 0:53:28.960 Teddy Pendergrass in your powerhouse lead singing voice? 0:53:29.080 --> 0:53:34.440 This is an easy one for me, really seriously, Yeah, alright, 0:53:34.440 --> 0:53:34.919 you go first. 0:53:35.480 --> 0:53:38.560 I say it's Eddie because Teddy is not available right now? 0:53:40.760 --> 0:53:43.480 Yeah, but I believe let's go let's go to history. 0:53:43.000 --> 0:53:48.360 If we're talking history, I still give it to That 0:53:48.400 --> 0:53:49.200 would be my pa. 0:53:49.239 --> 0:53:52.239 Because I mean, that's Eddie LeVert bro I don't know. 0:53:52.400 --> 0:53:55.200 I know Teddy, I've heard, I've heard Teddy Pendergrass singing. 0:53:55.239 --> 0:53:59.240 Teddy is a monster. But Eddie, oh my god, really 0:54:00.080 --> 0:54:01.319 he just to me it was more so. 0:54:01.400 --> 0:54:01.719 I don't know. 0:54:01.760 --> 0:54:04.120 I thought that Eddie was more of a He could 0:54:04.160 --> 0:54:05.440 just emote. 0:54:05.000 --> 0:54:07.359 A song better and like he I don't know, I mean, 0:54:07.400 --> 0:54:09.040 which is saying a lot compared to Teddy. 0:54:09.080 --> 0:54:12.480 But yeah, mother will go to Eddie too. All right, 0:54:12.960 --> 0:54:13.719 let me tell you what I. 0:54:16.960 --> 0:54:20.160 Like all of them. But I'll tell you this, y'all 0:54:20.239 --> 0:54:24.200 sleeping one guy. Wait, we're missing somebody you know. Let 0:54:24.239 --> 0:54:30.680 me tell you it's Walter. But he's my my Yeah, 0:54:30.920 --> 0:54:36.279 he's my assist. See is my best second. Lot of 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:37.239 people sleep. 0:54:37.040 --> 0:54:40.520 Walk because see, Eddie is more of a performing artist. 0:54:41.640 --> 0:54:43.359 When you think of Eddie, you think of a guy 0:54:43.400 --> 0:54:46.520 that's hollering and screaming and on the floor singer. 0:54:46.920 --> 0:54:47.520 But Walter. 0:54:48.160 --> 0:54:50.640 I remember when I used to give Walter the lyrics. 0:54:51.000 --> 0:54:55.080 He was excellent, man, he was exactly. He would just 0:54:55.120 --> 0:54:57.719 the way I heard him singing it. He would sing it. 0:54:57.920 --> 0:54:58.200 Wow. 0:54:58.600 --> 0:55:00.959 So but I know what you trying to get after 0:55:01.040 --> 0:55:05.759 here you're talking about who favorites, but well who is 0:55:06.680 --> 0:55:08.080 I still say Walter wins. 0:55:12.960 --> 0:55:15.600 So when you would do when you would write the songs, 0:55:15.680 --> 0:55:18.880 who would sing the demo or the reference tracks for 0:55:18.920 --> 0:55:20.040 the men? 0:55:20.120 --> 0:55:25.800 He was saying, really, yeah, So. 0:55:27.800 --> 0:55:29.160 Was there any time y'all was like, you know what? 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:30.960 I might keep this? Did y'all keep for yourself? 0:55:30.960 --> 0:55:32.640 I used to tell her that, me and him say 0:55:32.640 --> 0:55:34.120 that now, I said, he, I said, we should have 0:55:34.200 --> 0:55:41.160 kept that man, Missus Jones, we're being Vegas and me 0:55:41.200 --> 0:55:42.040 and Missus Jones. 0:55:42.120 --> 0:55:44.560 I wanted like, can we just the genius of that 0:55:44.640 --> 0:55:47.320 song because for years I didn't know it was about 0:55:47.440 --> 0:55:51.919 an affair, an affair we love affair? Yeah, we never 0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:55.439 we never thought that. But that's just all I knew 0:55:55.480 --> 0:55:57.239 was that him and Missus Jones had something going on 0:55:57.400 --> 0:55:57.640 going on. 0:55:57.800 --> 0:56:00.200 They don't know it was wrong. So the wrong didn't. 0:56:01.280 --> 0:56:03.239 Yeah it didn't. 0:56:03.640 --> 0:56:05.400 It was, but it was much too strong. 0:56:08.840 --> 0:56:13.839 So a lot of these songs from personal experience or 0:56:14.080 --> 0:56:16.600 is it just hey, this is what's going on in 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:20.520 life and let me you know, I would think like, okay, people, 0:56:20.520 --> 0:56:23.680 someone needs someone out there needs a song about this 0:56:23.760 --> 0:56:27.640 specific situation, and I'm I'm the funnel that's going to 0:56:28.560 --> 0:56:32.239 to bring it to life, Like how does this song 0:56:32.320 --> 0:56:33.080 like that come to be? 0:56:33.160 --> 0:56:35.160 And someone in your life is not looking at you 0:56:35.280 --> 0:56:37.600 side right right? You mean me? 0:56:37.640 --> 0:56:41.600 And Dean wasn't here before you. So there was a 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:45.920 couple of songs. She liked to claim, have you. 0:56:45.880 --> 0:56:49.400 Ever written a song that someone's like that's about in 0:56:49.440 --> 0:56:51.399 a minute that sounds like us? 0:56:53.280 --> 0:56:57.760 Well, yeah, you know what happened to me as a song, 0:56:57.840 --> 0:57:01.640 right and half we before we would write songs and 0:57:01.640 --> 0:57:03.440 we were sitting in the room just like this here 0:57:03.520 --> 0:57:07.279 like we're doing it and talk and just talk and 0:57:07.400 --> 0:57:11.400 laugh and talk about the fantasy. The fantasy was a 0:57:11.440 --> 0:57:13.560 bar that he was right across the street from us, 0:57:13.600 --> 0:57:15.640 and everybody used to be here, the fantasy, you know, 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:18.200 mister Loretta, and we used to go there to eat. 0:57:18.320 --> 0:57:23.480 It was Jordan Spruce, unbelievable. I went there once and 0:57:23.560 --> 0:57:26.400 more like, oh it was great. But anyway, so what 0:57:26.440 --> 0:57:29.680 we would do is going we could go into fantasy, right, 0:57:30.720 --> 0:57:33.640 and all you gotta do is sit there and you 0:57:33.640 --> 0:57:37.760 see all these people and and you make up stuff, 0:57:37.440 --> 0:57:40.320 you make up stories, make up just look at that 0:57:40.400 --> 0:57:43.480 guy over there. Man, he's with that young girl. Man 0:57:43.640 --> 0:57:46.000 that's not his wife or whatever, you know what I mean. Yeah, 0:57:46.120 --> 0:57:48.040 And then we go back and sit at. 0:57:47.880 --> 0:57:51.960 The piano and uh and come up with stories. 0:57:51.480 --> 0:57:55.000 About how often did I mean, because at this time, 0:57:55.040 --> 0:57:57.480 I mean, you got Eddie, you got Teddy. You know, 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:01.680 you have all these great singers, lou Rose I imagine, 0:58:01.760 --> 0:58:04.240 had several unbelievable how. 0:58:05.760 --> 0:58:06.840 Much of their lives. 0:58:06.640 --> 0:58:09.400 Would you look at and say, like, damn, Teddy's going 0:58:09.440 --> 0:58:11.600 through this, and then take it and write about it. 0:58:12.640 --> 0:58:15.600 I don't know. I mean, it was so much to 0:58:15.640 --> 0:58:20.240 write about, so much to write about, and we were 0:58:20.280 --> 0:58:22.320 having so much fun. And then, you know, you put 0:58:22.320 --> 0:58:27.080 a formula together. Our formula was because at that time, 0:58:27.280 --> 0:58:30.560 albums was the whole thing. Albums were selling. And so 0:58:30.760 --> 0:58:33.040 you take an artist like Teddy Pendergrads who was so 0:58:33.320 --> 0:58:36.800 versatile number one and as a matter of fact, I 0:58:36.840 --> 0:58:41.240 heard one of his songs today, my latest greatest, and 0:58:42.680 --> 0:58:45.760 and I was listening to us, said, wow, what a record, 0:58:46.240 --> 0:58:49.720 you know what I mean, just all of the parts 0:58:49.720 --> 0:58:50.880 of it, you know what I mean? 0:58:51.200 --> 0:58:54.800 So how many hours would it take for you to 0:58:54.960 --> 0:59:01.440 know that you have a great Teddy performance? Like and 0:59:01.520 --> 0:59:03.280 do you is there a code word? Like all right, 0:59:03.280 --> 0:59:04.840 take them take it home. You don't what to do 0:59:05.640 --> 0:59:06.840 because this guy. 0:59:07.080 --> 0:59:12.760 Teddy Penogras, we will rehearse him too. Wow, you weren't 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:16.600 scared to waste the performance? No, well, rehearse him because See, 0:59:17.080 --> 0:59:20.919 the theory we had was when you're recording, we don't 0:59:20.920 --> 0:59:24.240 want you standing in there reading on the paper. We 0:59:24.280 --> 0:59:26.919 wanted to to come from inside. You gotta come from here, 0:59:27.280 --> 0:59:32.200 forget that. You gotta know these songs, you see, because 0:59:32.200 --> 0:59:35.600 it's better. That makes sense, But it's a better performance. 0:59:36.360 --> 0:59:39.440 And so Teddy Penogras was the worst guy, you know, 0:59:39.560 --> 0:59:43.200 because he'd always lose the papers, you know, But. 0:59:44.080 --> 0:59:46.160 You had to do it. You gotta learn it, Teddy. 0:59:46.200 --> 0:59:48.160 You got to learn these lyrics and you gotta go 0:59:48.200 --> 0:59:49.880 in there and you gotta sing them. 0:59:50.200 --> 0:59:53.160 Well. Okay, So speaking of the latest greatest, I'm trying 0:59:53.200 --> 0:59:55.640 to figure it is that the song that Teddy has 0:59:55.760 --> 0:59:58.720 went the most. 1:00:02.240 --> 1:00:02.840 That's true. 1:00:02.880 --> 1:00:05.760 Man, When how do you pull. 1:00:07.520 --> 1:00:10.320 That out of I didn't do that. He did that hisself, 1:00:11.560 --> 1:00:15.840 And there was no I mean I wanted more. That 1:00:16.040 --> 1:00:18.520 was that was unusual for him to even do that, 1:00:18.640 --> 1:00:21.560 but that song made him do that really, you know. 1:00:21.600 --> 1:00:28.160 And then the background was so sweet with Cecil Womack Ahow, 1:00:28.640 --> 1:00:32.919 Leon Huff and myself. It was the three of us 1:00:33.320 --> 1:00:36.000 singing on that. It was Cecil Walmac I was saying, 1:00:36.920 --> 1:00:39.480 So we were still a Romeos. We're still background and 1:00:39.720 --> 1:00:43.160 sing and everything. So it was fun, you know what 1:00:43.200 --> 1:00:47.040 I mean to be in the studio and and sing background. 1:00:47.040 --> 1:00:52.120 We did background, uh for stylistics. We was on all 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:56.280 of that stuff, and we was on if you don't 1:00:56.320 --> 1:00:58.720 know me by now? We sang the background on that. 1:00:59.200 --> 1:01:03.760 Really okay? You know what I always wanted. 1:01:03.560 --> 1:01:09.160 To know, could you name three acts that were close 1:01:09.200 --> 1:01:13.000 but no cigar acts that could have been on Philly 1:01:13.040 --> 1:01:15.959 International or even produced by you, Like, did you guys 1:01:16.000 --> 1:01:18.040 have a chance to Always wanted to know if you 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:21.080 guys ever had a chance to at least talk with 1:01:21.120 --> 1:01:24.080 the Dells. I know that Charles Stephanie was with him 1:01:24.120 --> 1:01:27.120 for a long time. Then when he passed away, they 1:01:27.120 --> 1:01:28.600 were without a producer and. 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:32.200 They did Yeah, we did an album with him. 1:01:32.680 --> 1:01:37.240 When, uh, what year was that the Dells came I 1:01:37.280 --> 1:01:38.200 Salute you nineteen nine. 1:01:38.280 --> 1:01:42.320 I salute you. Yeah, what was it was Marvin Junior 1:01:42.520 --> 1:01:45.520 still in He's still in there, and you know what, 1:01:45.640 --> 1:01:48.800 we got stuff in on on uh in the can 1:01:48.840 --> 1:01:53.920 on them and because they did a version of Ave Maria, 1:01:54.920 --> 1:01:57.880 say what I'm telling no, We was just like in 1:01:57.960 --> 1:02:00.320 the studio and we were just all talking and everything, 1:02:00.400 --> 1:02:03.120 and then all of a sudden they started singing of 1:02:03.280 --> 1:02:05.600 the Maria and we had to we had to mic 1:02:05.720 --> 1:02:09.280 someone and everything, and man, I'll tell you it was beautiful. 1:02:10.320 --> 1:02:13.320 The Dell's doing Dells doing they could do that. 1:02:14.600 --> 1:02:17.880 There's they have a really weird version of You Are 1:02:17.960 --> 1:02:25.320 My Sunshine, which I never They did it a minor, right, 1:02:28.960 --> 1:02:32.360 Charles Stephanie and the Dells did like a minor version. 1:02:32.400 --> 1:02:35.760 It's like the darkest version, the most soulful, darkest version 1:02:35.800 --> 1:02:36.920 of You Are My Sunshine. 1:02:37.680 --> 1:02:40.720 He was talented, definitely excellent. 1:02:41.400 --> 1:02:44.840 So but what three acts did you have that you 1:02:46.200 --> 1:02:46.680 were close? 1:02:46.720 --> 1:02:49.840 But no Cigars like came to Philly and yeah, let's 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:51.640 work together, and then it just didn't happen. 1:02:52.200 --> 1:02:56.080 Well, Earth went Fire is one. What this was years 1:02:56.120 --> 1:02:59.760 and years like when we were first getting started, you know, 1:03:00.320 --> 1:03:02.800 and we had a we had a deal with chest 1:03:02.920 --> 1:03:07.760 Checker and we had a management company called Huga h 1:03:07.880 --> 1:03:12.160 u g a huffing gamble. It's called Hugo Hugo Management. 1:03:13.480 --> 1:03:15.680 And Earth went and fire. This is when they had 1:03:16.160 --> 1:03:19.440 the girl with them. I forget Justic cold Cleve and 1:03:19.680 --> 1:03:21.920 they came up and we were we were trying to 1:03:21.920 --> 1:03:24.640 get ourselves together, be honest with you, and they were 1:03:24.680 --> 1:03:27.360 trying to get theirselves together. But then they became monsters 1:03:27.680 --> 1:03:30.320 and we were at the same label they was with 1:03:30.440 --> 1:03:35.320 Columbia too, CBS. Well that's one, okay, one act like that. 1:03:35.560 --> 1:03:40.040 And I always wanted to cut the temptations, always tried 1:03:40.080 --> 1:03:43.080 to and they slipped right through my fingers temptations. 1:03:43.720 --> 1:03:46.040 And was this doing the period that they went to 1:03:46.080 --> 1:03:47.040 Atlantic instead? 1:03:47.520 --> 1:03:48.160 Yeah, okay. 1:03:48.200 --> 1:03:52.360 As a matter of fact, we were bringing we we 1:03:52.600 --> 1:03:55.440 had David Ruff and Eddie Kin. We had them all 1:03:55.480 --> 1:04:00.400 back together again. We did and man just didn't work out. 1:04:01.120 --> 1:04:04.320 It didn't work out. And oldest be and oldest always 1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:05.760 remained good friends. 1:04:05.560 --> 1:04:05.800 You know. 1:04:06.640 --> 1:04:07.280 And then. 1:04:08.680 --> 1:04:11.360 Somebody told me to mention Bob Marley. It was almost 1:04:11.680 --> 1:04:12.400 Bob Marley. 1:04:12.480 --> 1:04:14.480 Yeah wait what yeah, we. 1:04:17.360 --> 1:04:21.920 Yeah, Bob Marley Records. 1:04:22.240 --> 1:04:25.720 Man, that would have been great. Bob was he was 1:04:25.760 --> 1:04:27.960 for destiny and purpose, you know what I mean. So 1:04:28.000 --> 1:04:31.000 he liked what we were doing with music and the 1:04:31.040 --> 1:04:33.440 messages that were because our whole thing was the message 1:04:33.480 --> 1:04:34.040 in the music. 1:04:34.280 --> 1:04:36.640 You know this post clean up the Ghetto, right, Yeah, 1:04:36.880 --> 1:04:37.240 all of. 1:04:37.200 --> 1:04:42.120 This was And Bob Marley he was like when I 1:04:42.160 --> 1:04:44.080 met with him, he said, man, we can bring people 1:04:44.080 --> 1:04:47.560 together from all over the world. I said, well, let's 1:04:47.640 --> 1:04:51.160 do it. Let's get it. And so his manager and 1:04:51.320 --> 1:04:54.240 lawyer at the time, I think they were trying to 1:04:54.240 --> 1:04:56.160 get a big money deal, you know what I mean. 1:04:56.480 --> 1:04:58.120 And we didn't have a whole lot of money. 1:04:58.680 --> 1:04:59.200 We had we. 1:04:59.160 --> 1:05:02.840 Had a lot of talent on the preside. Yeah, Bob 1:05:02.960 --> 1:05:06.120 would have been Then Bob got sick, he got sick. 1:05:06.200 --> 1:05:10.120 This was gotta be I don't know. I guess around 1:05:10.160 --> 1:05:12.800 seventy nine eighty Philly. 1:05:13.720 --> 1:05:17.000 No, he did city Lights in eighty one, eighty one 1:05:18.160 --> 1:05:19.560 city Lights appearance. 1:05:20.360 --> 1:05:22.000 It was at his last one. Yeah, it was like 1:05:22.040 --> 1:05:25.840 this around that time where I met with him, and 1:05:25.880 --> 1:05:27.959 that could have been something. Oh, it would have been great. 1:05:28.040 --> 1:05:30.479 As a matter of fact, when we had the Black 1:05:30.560 --> 1:05:34.720 Music Association, we had Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder right 1:05:34.760 --> 1:05:38.120 here in Philadelphia. That was then Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder 1:05:38.160 --> 1:05:42.840 was the entertainment for the Black Music Associations. Wow, unbelievable. 1:05:46.680 --> 1:05:50.480 No, no, no, no, it's it's okay. So for some reason, 1:05:50.880 --> 1:05:52.680 are you guys familiar with. 1:05:54.400 --> 1:05:59.600 The seven? How many thousands of reels came from Sigma? 1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:01.240 You said seven? 1:06:02.000 --> 1:06:03.600 Yeah, like over seven? Okay. 1:06:03.680 --> 1:06:09.240 So when Sigma imploded a lot of these reels were 1:06:10.640 --> 1:06:13.680 just about to go in the trash like it was 1:06:13.720 --> 1:06:16.520 going to go to storage, and that didn't happen. So 1:06:16.880 --> 1:06:22.000 basically Drexel University wound up with thousands and thousands and 1:06:22.040 --> 1:06:28.280 thousands of reels. So there is a week that Stevie 1:06:28.280 --> 1:06:34.880 Wonders spent in Philadelphia. 1:06:32.600 --> 1:06:33.520 In which. 1:06:35.560 --> 1:06:38.840 I don't know the particular date on the call sheet, 1:06:38.960 --> 1:06:43.320 but he's at Sigma demoing what will Become I Love 1:06:43.360 --> 1:06:44.000 You Too Much? 1:06:44.200 --> 1:06:46.040 That was in square circles. 1:06:46.320 --> 1:06:49.200 Yeah, I think that the real day. 1:06:49.560 --> 1:06:52.320 Was it seventy nine to eighty or something? 1:06:52.600 --> 1:06:57.960 Yeah, So it's there is about there's about two weeks 1:06:58.000 --> 1:07:04.200 worth of Philadelphia Sigma reels of Stevie Wonder recutting a 1:07:04.320 --> 1:07:07.280 Seeds of Star and like five or six other songs. 1:07:07.320 --> 1:07:10.120 But one song is actually with al Green him giving 1:07:10.160 --> 1:07:12.920 it to al Green. It's it's like a demo, but 1:07:13.000 --> 1:07:18.680 it's good enough for me to steal and deja hey listen, 1:07:18.760 --> 1:07:21.480 he used to be here all the time, Stevie. Really yeah. 1:07:21.480 --> 1:07:23.120 He would fall asleep on the couch. 1:07:23.560 --> 1:07:26.520 He would come to the studio, I mean, unannounced everything. 1:07:26.640 --> 1:07:28.440 Just it sounds like Stevie. 1:07:28.440 --> 1:07:32.880 It was great to show up, like. 1:07:32.120 --> 1:07:34.040 Stevie wonder not the first time. 1:07:34.200 --> 1:07:36.040 Can we rewind just a little bit because we kind 1:07:36.040 --> 1:07:40.360 of see yeah, yeah, we skipped big. We skipped a 1:07:40.360 --> 1:07:43.160 couple of things, two of my favorite songs that have 1:07:43.240 --> 1:07:44.440 the Gamble and Tough name on them. 1:07:44.480 --> 1:07:45.960 Right, he was completely glossed over. 1:07:46.320 --> 1:07:48.960 We didn't we just I'm trying to turn the car 1:07:49.080 --> 1:07:51.680 back to mind. I was about to go back to 1:07:51.760 --> 1:07:55.200 Richard Barrett so we can come o. I was going 1:07:55.240 --> 1:07:57.640 back to the Soul Survivors and Expressway to Your Heart, 1:07:58.360 --> 1:07:59.760 which that's right. 1:07:59.840 --> 1:08:03.600 I remember I was probably like six or seven years 1:08:03.600 --> 1:08:07.160 old in my bedroom. Somehow that record had gotten into 1:08:07.200 --> 1:08:10.120 my room and it stayed on my little Fisher Price 1:08:10.160 --> 1:08:13.360 turntable for like three weeks. Like I played that record 1:08:13.400 --> 1:08:17.800 over and yeah, yeah, yeah, so but it was it 1:08:17.840 --> 1:08:21.680 was on Gamble Records, which predated Philadelphia International. So can 1:08:21.720 --> 1:08:23.880 you talk about that early label experience and what that 1:08:24.000 --> 1:08:27.480 was like and the transition into Philly International. 1:08:28.640 --> 1:08:33.599 Wow, Gamble Records was my partner. There was Benny Crash 1:08:33.640 --> 1:08:37.160 remember Crash Brother's clothing store. Yes, that was my partner. 1:08:38.320 --> 1:08:42.519 What Benny kras that loud guy Crash Brothers. Isn't it 1:08:42.560 --> 1:08:45.799 if you didn't buy your clothes Crash Brothers, you've been robbed? 1:08:46.040 --> 1:08:46.240 Yes? 1:08:47.000 --> 1:08:51.400 Wow, he's no New York he was. 1:08:52.439 --> 1:08:54.680 Yes, he probably made too much. It's kind of like 1:08:54.720 --> 1:09:00.719 the he was a crazy, crazy crazy Okay, but Crash Brothers, 1:09:00.760 --> 1:09:04.559 Grass Brothers like, he was your partner, my partner. 1:09:05.120 --> 1:09:06.960 Benny said, if you got to go, go in the 1:09:06.960 --> 1:09:15.200 Crass Brother's suit, he was in a casket. Benny was great. 1:09:15.240 --> 1:09:17.679 He taught me a lot man, he really did. And 1:09:18.520 --> 1:09:21.439 he loved music. He liked to sing himself. So one 1:09:21.520 --> 1:09:24.160 day I was in there, all of us used to 1:09:24.160 --> 1:09:26.519 buy clothes, stage and stuff like that, and he said, 1:09:26.520 --> 1:09:29.080 you know, can even want to make a record. He said, 1:09:29.160 --> 1:09:32.920 could you and your band work with me? I said, yeah, 1:09:32.920 --> 1:09:35.960 we'll work with you. I said, well, I said, I 1:09:36.040 --> 1:09:38.120 got some groups that I'm working with I said, I 1:09:38.200 --> 1:09:39.719 need you to help. 1:09:39.560 --> 1:09:40.840 Me out with them. 1:09:41.479 --> 1:09:44.680 So we made a deal. He became my partner and 1:09:45.760 --> 1:09:48.639 the groups he had his songs was called his group 1:09:48.720 --> 1:09:51.600 was called the Knights, and Arthur was the name of 1:09:51.600 --> 1:09:57.240 his group. And we cut that. It was good, and 1:09:57.320 --> 1:10:01.000 he had one song that Curtis Mayfield took what's called 1:10:01.080 --> 1:10:04.360 man old Man, Man, old Man. Have you been in 1:10:04.400 --> 1:10:06.920 the Spain? The young Jeezy sample? 1:10:07.080 --> 1:10:13.240 There you go, he wrote, man o Man, Man, old Man. 1:10:13.320 --> 1:10:17.840 He wrote it unbelievable. I gotta bring it. 1:10:18.160 --> 1:10:21.360 I wasn't going to do it, but I gotta read it. 1:10:23.960 --> 1:10:27.360 What is that crash that when someone drops a bomb? 1:10:27.560 --> 1:10:28.720 And I just got it? 1:10:29.040 --> 1:10:31.920 A crash brothers man, He wrote, man o. 1:10:32.000 --> 1:10:33.559 Man, Benny krash that's right. 1:10:33.760 --> 1:10:37.240 There's a key vital scene in Dead President's movie when 1:10:37.280 --> 1:10:39.440 that comes on, of which. 1:10:39.600 --> 1:10:42.479 Does something I'm never ever going I got to tell 1:10:42.560 --> 1:10:47.559 his daughter and that's Benny krash Man. 1:10:48.240 --> 1:10:50.759 Yeah, oh man, that's crazy. 1:10:51.000 --> 1:10:56.120 Yeah. So Filly in the National was in coming, you know, 1:10:56.160 --> 1:10:58.320 So me and how we were working with the intruders. 1:10:58.880 --> 1:11:00.759 Cowboys and girls, Boys and girls. 1:11:01.479 --> 1:11:03.880 I was going to bring up cowboys to girls. Always 1:11:03.880 --> 1:11:04.519 love my Mama. 1:11:05.360 --> 1:11:09.800 That was later much later. That was later, and let 1:11:09.840 --> 1:11:13.880 me think, Uh, we had a lot of little groups 1:11:14.000 --> 1:11:16.799 music Makers music Makers United. 1:11:16.880 --> 1:11:18.720 Yeah, that was another one that stayed in my room 1:11:18.760 --> 1:11:20.800 quite a bit too. We had the music Makers we 1:11:20.840 --> 1:11:23.720 also did. We did something else with them that I 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:26.920 really like. It was instrumental. I think it was I'm 1:11:26.920 --> 1:11:30.479 Gonna make you Love Me that we did on them. 1:11:30.560 --> 1:11:34.479 But uh, I think that from that experience we had. 1:11:35.680 --> 1:11:39.520 We had some girls from Camden called the Swans, the 1:11:39.520 --> 1:11:44.400 the Baby Dolls and Sammy Seven's everybody do the Crossfire. 1:11:44.520 --> 1:11:48.320 I mean, we we we were doing all kinds of stuff. Man, 1:11:48.320 --> 1:11:53.120 you're making me really think. My brain is going deep 1:11:53.160 --> 1:11:55.599 in my head thinking of those days, you know, because 1:11:55.640 --> 1:11:57.559 you had, like he was saying a moment ago, he 1:11:57.600 --> 1:12:00.640 had so many record companies in Philly and it was 1:12:00.680 --> 1:12:02.760 hard for me enough to get in there, you know what. 1:12:02.760 --> 1:12:10.599 I mean, Richard Barrett, I know who started the Three degrees? 1:12:10.760 --> 1:12:15.240 How did were you guys evolved at all involved it? 1:12:15.400 --> 1:12:17.760 Back when they were on I forget what label they 1:12:17.760 --> 1:12:20.880 were on before they came to Philly International. 1:12:21.680 --> 1:12:24.400 I don't even know what label they were on back then. 1:12:25.560 --> 1:12:30.160 Let me think Swan Records. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Huff 1:12:30.240 --> 1:12:32.600 was working with him then, Okay, Huff was working and 1:12:32.680 --> 1:12:35.200 I never worked with him until they came to Philly International. 1:12:35.840 --> 1:12:39.519 I love working with them because they were tremendous harmony 1:12:39.560 --> 1:12:46.760 they harmony was was really tight and Richard Richard was 1:12:47.040 --> 1:12:51.200 extremely talented. What was his role in the group? Was 1:12:51.240 --> 1:12:55.720 he their manager? Their manager and their I mean their conductor. 1:12:55.960 --> 1:12:58.080 I mean he was. He's the one that made him, 1:12:58.200 --> 1:13:01.439 to be honest with you. They taught them everything you know, 1:13:01.640 --> 1:13:05.200 and they were very disciplined. In Three Degrees that that 1:13:05.200 --> 1:13:09.760 that stage performers wasn't wasn't it was unbelievable. 1:13:10.479 --> 1:13:15.280 Who's whose idea was it? I guess it's no coincidence 1:13:15.400 --> 1:13:20.599 of the of all the live records cut in London. 1:13:21.680 --> 1:13:24.360 I guess when Philly International went on tour, because I 1:13:24.400 --> 1:13:29.080 know the OJ's cut their album True and and and 1:13:29.120 --> 1:13:31.200 Billy Paul in the Three Degrees. So was it just 1:13:31.320 --> 1:13:34.240 like were they all at this one venue? 1:13:34.400 --> 1:13:35.360 This one all that? 1:13:36.360 --> 1:13:38.240 I never knew if it was like separate times. 1:13:38.320 --> 1:13:41.000 No, it made sense, got everything at one time and 1:13:42.040 --> 1:13:46.840 it was great. Okay, Billy Pool. I guess we should 1:13:46.840 --> 1:13:51.599 also mentioned the Jackson I mean, that's accident Yeah. 1:13:51.640 --> 1:13:53.640 I wanted to ask you just about your work with 1:13:53.680 --> 1:13:56.519 them because I read the interview once. I think it 1:13:56.600 --> 1:14:00.760 was you that recognized that they were ready to produce themselves, 1:14:01.120 --> 1:14:03.680 and I just wanted to know what was it that 1:14:03.760 --> 1:14:06.000 you were One what were those sessions like just working 1:14:06.000 --> 1:14:06.280 with them? 1:14:06.320 --> 1:14:06.559 And two? 1:14:07.200 --> 1:14:11.040 Uh, how can you tell as a producer when someone 1:14:11.120 --> 1:14:12.280 is ready to produce themselves? 1:14:13.520 --> 1:14:15.479 Well, you can just feel it. You can feel like 1:14:15.560 --> 1:14:17.960 they got a pretty good sense of who they are. 1:14:19.040 --> 1:14:23.080 You know that Michael Jackson working with them. I used 1:14:23.120 --> 1:14:25.160 to ask him all the time. I said, you hear yourself. 1:14:25.439 --> 1:14:27.599 So he used to go to the piano. He played 1:14:27.600 --> 1:14:32.920 the piano a little bit and he said, well let 1:14:32.920 --> 1:14:37.480 me try. Let me try something. When we went to 1:14:37.080 --> 1:14:40.679 to overdub his voice, and that was the first time 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:45.040 that I saw an artist double live voice, triple live voice. 1:14:45.040 --> 1:14:47.120 He had all kinds of little tricks and stuff that 1:14:47.160 --> 1:14:50.840 he was doing to go yeah. I used to think 1:14:50.880 --> 1:14:51.960 that was one take. 1:14:55.320 --> 1:14:57.000 Sing that yeah. 1:14:57.240 --> 1:14:59.719 So he was he was showing me. I said, go ahead, 1:15:00.000 --> 1:15:01.559 you know what I mean, that's true. I think him 1:15:01.600 --> 1:15:05.080 and Tito, be honest with you. Tito was the musician, 1:15:05.920 --> 1:15:10.439 and so I think him and Tito was really really talented, 1:15:10.479 --> 1:15:14.879 and the other guys like Jackie and and Marlon, and 1:15:15.080 --> 1:15:16.680 you know, what I tried to do was bring it 1:15:16.720 --> 1:15:19.200 out of them because they had been beat down so much. 1:15:19.320 --> 1:15:23.840 With Michael just became just such a giant, you know 1:15:23.880 --> 1:15:25.679 what I mean that they were scared to say anything. 1:15:25.760 --> 1:15:32.200 Come on, Marlin was a tremendous dancer, still unbelievable. In fact, 1:15:32.200 --> 1:15:36.000 I talked to him the other day, and they've been 1:15:36.040 --> 1:15:39.080 through a lot. They've been through a lot, that group. 1:15:39.200 --> 1:15:46.000 And I'll say that my it's it's weird because, uh, 1:15:46.640 --> 1:15:51.880 Sony just re released the Jackson's Ain't Going Places, uh 1:15:52.200 --> 1:15:55.680 like a month ago, Like, oh really going place? Is 1:15:55.760 --> 1:15:58.439 still a personal favorite of mine, I don't. I mean, 1:15:58.520 --> 1:16:01.760 I just have sentimental attached into it because I was 1:16:01.760 --> 1:16:03.880 seven at the time and I used to see them. 1:16:04.240 --> 1:16:09.240 I never knew that Philly International was next to my school. 1:16:09.320 --> 1:16:11.320 I went to perform an art school on Broad Street. 1:16:11.400 --> 1:16:14.280 Broad Street three thirteen. You guys were three or nine, 1:16:14.360 --> 1:16:17.840 three o nine, and never knew that how long were 1:16:17.880 --> 1:16:19.000 you guys at three or nine? 1:16:19.479 --> 1:16:23.320 Oh my god? We went to three o nine about 1:16:24.520 --> 1:16:30.360 what was it about? Nineteen seventy nineteen sixty nine seventy. 1:16:30.560 --> 1:16:34.880 Y'all were always there. We were across the street at 1:16:34.960 --> 1:16:37.400 the Shooters Super on the sixth floor. 1:16:37.520 --> 1:16:39.200 Okay, can you tell the story how you had to 1:16:39.200 --> 1:16:41.840 have somebody else come in and look at the building? 1:16:41.960 --> 1:16:43.200 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:16:43.400 --> 1:16:46.120 What happened, Well, they wouldn't sell the building to us 1:16:46.320 --> 1:16:49.720 at first, of course. So what we did is we 1:16:49.840 --> 1:16:53.920 got a lawyer name was Eric Cromfell, got him to 1:16:54.000 --> 1:16:56.080 go to the bank and everything to make the settlement 1:16:56.080 --> 1:16:58.600 and everything. And then when it got down to the 1:16:58.640 --> 1:17:01.400 point where they needed us a sign, we've come over 1:17:01.840 --> 1:17:06.639 and signed the papers. Because see they were yeah, because 1:17:06.640 --> 1:17:09.599 that's exactly what it was too. They they looked at 1:17:10.160 --> 1:17:13.679 what's hard even today, it's hard for for African American 1:17:13.680 --> 1:17:18.160 people to get building a building credit, you know. But 1:17:18.240 --> 1:17:20.680 it was it was good move. It was a good Alan. 1:17:20.880 --> 1:17:23.000 As a matter of fact, Alan Klein was the owner 1:17:23.479 --> 1:17:26.960 of the building. Yeah, Alan, Alan Klin, the guy who 1:17:27.000 --> 1:17:27.679 had the Beatles. 1:17:27.760 --> 1:17:33.200 Yeah, app co And even with your stature at that time, 1:17:33.320 --> 1:17:34.519 they just felt like nope. 1:17:35.240 --> 1:17:38.160 So I'm telling you, I mean what they did to 1:17:38.240 --> 1:17:41.400 us was, uh, you got to get finance and we 1:17:41.640 --> 1:17:45.120 couldn't pay for the building. I wish, I wish we 1:17:45.160 --> 1:17:48.200 could have, but you have to get mortgages. Because the 1:17:48.280 --> 1:17:52.000 thing of it is, too is that that building. Uh, 1:17:52.439 --> 1:17:55.080 the tragedy of it is when we speak of that 1:17:55.120 --> 1:17:59.080 building is that there was an arson. The guy who 1:17:59.120 --> 1:18:02.400 who who put that place on fire? That was that 1:18:02.520 --> 1:18:04.439 was that was no way for that building to go. 1:18:04.680 --> 1:18:06.559 That was terrible, you know. 1:18:07.720 --> 1:18:09.240 Yeah, rest in peace? Three on nine. 1:18:09.439 --> 1:18:12.599 Yeah, it was a lot there, I'll tell you a 1:18:12.640 --> 1:18:13.200 whole lot. 1:18:13.760 --> 1:18:14.840 Now is it a parking lot? 1:18:14.880 --> 1:18:18.240 But no, Well it's about to be a hotel. 1:18:18.320 --> 1:18:21.519 Yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be a condominiums in 1:18:21.720 --> 1:18:24.840 uh in a hotel and no hotel all this time though. 1:18:26.439 --> 1:18:26.960 That's good. 1:18:27.560 --> 1:18:30.120 Did you put the Jacksons through the same rehearsal situation 1:18:30.160 --> 1:18:31.400 that you put through the other. 1:18:31.439 --> 1:18:34.240 Artists in exactly everybody? 1:18:34.280 --> 1:18:35.240 Everybody? 1:18:35.880 --> 1:18:39.800 Yeah? Yeah, and they were great? I mean and uh 1:18:40.520 --> 1:18:42.720 and they father man, this guy was. He was a 1:18:42.760 --> 1:18:44.920 wonderful dude. Man. 1:18:45.200 --> 1:18:45.800 He that a lot. 1:18:46.240 --> 1:18:47.960 Ye, No, he was. He's great. 1:18:48.080 --> 1:18:51.000 Here's a random question about the Jackson's. Did you miss 1:18:51.080 --> 1:18:53.880 Jermaine's presence? It would have been good if he was there. 1:18:53.960 --> 1:18:54.840 Let me put it like that. 1:18:55.439 --> 1:19:00.000 He also came to Philly. There's four songs. 1:19:00.000 --> 1:19:05.599 Songs. He also cuts some tracks at Sigma in nineteen 1:19:05.640 --> 1:19:08.240 seventy six. I don't know if it's with Tom Bell, 1:19:08.760 --> 1:19:13.400 but there was a point where Jermaine Jackson two, Yes, 1:19:13.920 --> 1:19:30.759 it's uh, what's good for the cancer? Norman Harris, Norman Harris. 1:19:30.840 --> 1:19:36.240 It sounds like that, sounds just like it. So just 1:19:36.280 --> 1:19:37.160 help me understand. 1:19:37.280 --> 1:19:42.760 So if someone comes into Sigma and leaves with a 1:19:42.880 --> 1:19:49.960 product that still has the gamble and huff DNA, like, 1:19:50.040 --> 1:19:52.519 you guys, don't wipe the board. You guys don't like 1:19:52.960 --> 1:19:58.960 you can't use our microphones or because even for that song, 1:19:59.000 --> 1:20:01.360 which technically has nothing to do with gambled and. 1:20:01.360 --> 1:20:06.320 Huff, you can hear it. Yeah, so it's like, how 1:20:06.360 --> 1:20:07.599 did you take the secret sauce? 1:20:07.960 --> 1:20:11.439 But you know, but then like David Bowie came to Philly, 1:20:12.920 --> 1:20:17.200 his records sound like, so, how do you do you 1:20:17.240 --> 1:20:19.400 feel some sort of did you ever feel sort of 1:20:19.400 --> 1:20:24.160 way when an artist comes to Sigma and still uses 1:20:24.479 --> 1:20:28.439 your board, you're mixing your your session, the rhythm section. 1:20:28.680 --> 1:20:30.120 Yes see that's what made it. 1:20:30.320 --> 1:20:32.640 But you know what I used to think, you know, 1:20:32.920 --> 1:20:34.960 it's enough for everybody, You know what I mean, and 1:20:35.760 --> 1:20:37.680 you know, that was a good hustle they had, you know, 1:20:37.760 --> 1:20:41.839 Joe good hustle. It was. It was a good hustle 1:20:42.080 --> 1:20:45.240 because everybody wanted that sound. BB King was there and 1:20:45.800 --> 1:20:49.120 like David Bowie was there, and who else, Elton John 1:20:49.280 --> 1:20:52.680 came over. But everybody was grabbing, trying to grab their 1:20:52.720 --> 1:20:53.759 little piece or whatever. 1:20:54.240 --> 1:20:56.519 But I never felt without coming to the water well 1:20:56.760 --> 1:20:59.880 because see the bottom line of it was it was 1:21:00.160 --> 1:21:03.559 this is that it's not to try to make that 1:21:03.680 --> 1:21:07.080 little bit of money from a session, is to make 1:21:07.120 --> 1:21:11.439 a classic product, because then you really got something. And 1:21:11.479 --> 1:21:12.880 I used to tell them, I said, you know what 1:21:13.280 --> 1:21:16.080 I said, you can't get around it. You can't get 1:21:16.120 --> 1:21:19.080 around hard work, and you can't get around having a 1:21:19.160 --> 1:21:22.120 great songs. And if you got if you just going 1:21:22.160 --> 1:21:24.960 in there and you're just gonna throw some people together 1:21:25.080 --> 1:21:27.799 and you're gonna do a record that it almost sounds 1:21:27.920 --> 1:21:32.040 like what they've come in there for, you wasting the 1:21:32.080 --> 1:21:35.680 whole thing. So because even and everybody was trying to 1:21:35.680 --> 1:21:39.559 get their little piece. Everybody, everybody, if bands was itching 1:21:39.560 --> 1:21:40.599 and they wanted to get money. 1:21:40.640 --> 1:21:43.920 They wanted to get money. Because I even told Tommy Bell, 1:21:44.040 --> 1:21:48.160 even with Elton John. It would have been great if 1:21:48.200 --> 1:21:51.479 we could have all worked on Elton John together. You know, 1:21:52.280 --> 1:21:56.679 but you know who knows who knows what would have happened? 1:21:56.800 --> 1:21:57.760 You know who? 1:21:58.800 --> 1:22:00.400 I'm just gonna ask to any of those artists have 1:22:00.400 --> 1:22:03.840 a circle back to you with no, not really, I mean, 1:22:03.880 --> 1:22:06.200 even with conversation about it. 1:22:06.560 --> 1:22:08.920 I wouldn't even I wouldn't do nothing with him. I 1:22:08.920 --> 1:22:10.080 mean we had our hands full. 1:22:10.160 --> 1:22:13.719 But believe me, but who decides the division of labor? 1:22:14.160 --> 1:22:21.400 Like if if some artist has only the second week 1:22:21.439 --> 1:22:23.720 of April to come to Philly to do something and 1:22:23.760 --> 1:22:27.479 you're not available, are you saying, okay, well take him 1:22:27.479 --> 1:22:31.360 to Dexter? Like are you the person that throws the 1:22:31.360 --> 1:22:32.920 ball and decides who goes where? 1:22:33.080 --> 1:22:36.640 Or not? Really? I mean because we generally work it 1:22:36.680 --> 1:22:41.880 out because the first part of the work is on us, 1:22:42.160 --> 1:22:46.479 is on me and Huff and mcfad and Whitehead, Dexter 1:22:46.600 --> 1:22:50.439 and Cynthia. Cynthia Biggs was great also too. She used 1:22:50.439 --> 1:22:55.040 to write with Dexter and Charlie Boy and Bruce Hall's. 1:22:55.840 --> 1:22:57.760 You know, we had a little group that we work 1:22:57.840 --> 1:23:00.920 with and we would the first thing that we would 1:23:00.960 --> 1:23:05.479 have to do is get the songs do we have 1:23:06.280 --> 1:23:09.120 the songs that we need before we bring these guys 1:23:09.120 --> 1:23:12.360 in here. And if we got the songs, and we 1:23:12.400 --> 1:23:15.880 all sit around and listening to the songs and we say, 1:23:15.960 --> 1:23:19.479 well we got some songs, let's bring them. Then we 1:23:19.520 --> 1:23:23.639 map out with their tour people like with the Old 1:23:23.720 --> 1:23:26.760 J's or our Melvin Blueenute whoever or Teddy say Okay, 1:23:26.800 --> 1:23:32.120 we need them for ten days. Then they can go 1:23:32.160 --> 1:23:35.640 away for a week and come back and give us 1:23:35.640 --> 1:23:40.720 another ten days. And they would schedule and then the reschedule, 1:23:40.720 --> 1:23:44.800 the release dates, photos for the album. Everything would be 1:23:44.800 --> 1:23:48.040 be set up, be set up so that so that 1:23:48.120 --> 1:23:53.040 it's not really it's not an inconvenience to anybody. The 1:23:53.080 --> 1:23:54.920 way we were recording. 1:23:54.479 --> 1:23:57.719 Why did you not why? But what was the inspiration 1:23:57.880 --> 1:24:01.799 behind you doing? You would alway do these paragraphs of whatever. 1:24:02.280 --> 1:24:03.920 The concept of the record was. 1:24:04.320 --> 1:24:11.800 Line of notes. Oh yeah, I forgot Yeah. I don't 1:24:11.800 --> 1:24:13.439 know why I started doing that, but I. 1:24:13.400 --> 1:24:16.080 Love that man. But it really got me obsessed with. 1:24:16.600 --> 1:24:19.040 Because you know what I used to write about what 1:24:19.080 --> 1:24:20.480 the theme of the album. 1:24:20.320 --> 1:24:22.760 Was, you know, you know, like would you name it? 1:24:22.800 --> 1:24:26.800 Sometimes the album ship a hoy and yeah, I used 1:24:26.840 --> 1:24:29.679 to say stuff on it. Who was I signing shipp 1:24:29.720 --> 1:24:32.880 Ahoy to it? Yeah, he's got him over there. Where's 1:24:32.920 --> 1:24:35.120 that album at I just signed it for it? Let 1:24:35.120 --> 1:24:35.519 me see that. 1:24:36.320 --> 1:24:38.639 So with ship a Hoy your concept and they were 1:24:38.680 --> 1:24:42.120 with it because this is pre roots, like nobody was 1:24:42.160 --> 1:24:44.200 really dealing with the slave trade and. 1:24:44.840 --> 1:24:50.080 Oh yeah this was something. Yeah yeah, ship Ahoy, Yeah 1:24:50.120 --> 1:24:53.559 this was something. It was Yeah, this was something because 1:24:53.600 --> 1:24:57.000 you know what this is around the time of the 1:24:57.040 --> 1:25:00.200 whole Alex Haley and the Roots and all that stuf. Elf, 1:25:00.200 --> 1:25:02.679 what's going on? I said, there's no music about it, 1:25:03.520 --> 1:25:05.960 you know. So we did this album, man, I got 1:25:06.040 --> 1:25:08.720 it's a it's a song that goes with this. We 1:25:08.840 --> 1:25:11.639 never got a chance to uh to do. 1:25:12.600 --> 1:25:15.479 Speaking of speaking of ship aboard, uh, I gotta know, 1:25:16.960 --> 1:25:20.280 how did you guys wind up with Anthony Jackson who 1:25:21.000 --> 1:25:24.360 he used to play with Billy Paul that base. 1:25:24.160 --> 1:25:27.000 Famous baseline probably of all time. Wasn't great? 1:25:27.600 --> 1:25:28.280 He was great? 1:25:28.920 --> 1:25:33.920 Yes? He also Anthony told me he invented the five 1:25:34.760 --> 1:25:35.720 string bass. 1:25:36.000 --> 1:25:37.080 I didn't know that. 1:25:37.160 --> 1:25:37.960 Did he invent that? 1:25:38.160 --> 1:25:41.160 Yes? He there was never a five string bass till 1:25:41.200 --> 1:25:44.320 he came along. And when he customized his bass he 1:25:44.600 --> 1:25:47.720 I tell you one thing. He was great that day 1:25:47.760 --> 1:25:48.280 he played. 1:25:48.360 --> 1:25:52.280 He played like I don't I'm telling you it was unbelievable. 1:25:53.160 --> 1:25:55.360 Did you have that baseline for for the Love of 1:25:55.360 --> 1:25:56.360 Money or was that? 1:25:56.800 --> 1:25:56.880 No? 1:25:57.040 --> 1:25:58.760 He was that in his mind. 1:25:59.000 --> 1:26:03.519 Yeah. No, we basically had the concept and he took 1:26:03.560 --> 1:26:07.559 it and emphasized. I mean, he just he took it 1:26:07.600 --> 1:26:10.639 to another level once you play that real quick intro. 1:26:11.400 --> 1:26:14.800 So you said there was a song that goes with that? 1:26:14.960 --> 1:26:15.439 What? 1:26:16.479 --> 1:26:19.120 No, No, he didn't recorded. 1:26:19.720 --> 1:26:22.040 Yeah right, you said that y'all didn't record or y'all 1:26:22.040 --> 1:26:23.040 didn't put it on the album. 1:26:23.200 --> 1:26:24.120 No, it's gotta be. 1:26:25.560 --> 1:26:25.600 No. 1:26:26.040 --> 1:26:29.479 On all of these albums there was the message. He 1:26:29.520 --> 1:26:31.120 would write a paragraph. 1:26:31.720 --> 1:26:33.200 You know. That's where. 1:26:35.240 --> 1:26:36.599 Now I want to know what the paragraph? 1:26:37.040 --> 1:26:38.880 I want to I guess we had it on it. 1:26:38.920 --> 1:26:41.160 I'm pretty sure this was important to me. 1:26:45.720 --> 1:26:48.960 It's the great Anthony Jackson on base y'all no echo 1:26:49.120 --> 1:26:52.120 right there? You know this right, it's not from the 1:26:52.200 --> 1:26:55.840 beginning again. That was that that Joe Tarcia, Oh that 1:26:55.960 --> 1:26:58.599 was Joseph told me you couldn't do it. I said, man, 1:26:58.640 --> 1:26:59.240 are you kidding? 1:27:01.600 --> 1:27:01.760 Now? 1:27:01.840 --> 1:27:13.240 Nowhere echo back? Oh? 1:27:13.280 --> 1:27:14.800 Does it go back and forth? Throughout the whole song. 1:27:14.880 --> 1:27:18.439 I never noticed intro like I knew. I noticed it 1:27:18.479 --> 1:27:20.920 in the intro button, but only that first time. 1:27:21.320 --> 1:27:22.800 You can tell me, say you can't do that? 1:27:23.000 --> 1:27:23.640 I said, why not? 1:27:25.560 --> 1:27:32.960 Why can't you put echo on a base? Can you? Can? 1:27:33.000 --> 1:27:35.960 You speak upon Teddy at it at the height of 1:27:36.040 --> 1:27:40.599 his powers, and I don't think there's there's not much 1:27:40.640 --> 1:27:48.880 emphasis on how powerful he was and where he was headed, uh, 1:27:49.120 --> 1:27:50.320 where he was headed. 1:27:50.040 --> 1:27:52.800 In his career. But it's unbelievable. 1:27:54.080 --> 1:27:57.479 And how how I mean starting as a drummer and 1:27:57.560 --> 1:28:00.799 howld Melvin the blue notes? Like how was that power 1:28:01.000 --> 1:28:05.640 just contained inside of that unit before you eventually had 1:28:05.680 --> 1:28:07.719 to bring it out like you always knew that voice 1:28:07.760 --> 1:28:09.000 was there. Nope. 1:28:09.080 --> 1:28:12.960 As a matter of fact, my introduction to Teddy pinegress 1:28:13.000 --> 1:28:17.639 I was out doing something and called me and upset 1:28:17.760 --> 1:28:21.519 Gamble because we were always telling Howard Melvin and he 1:28:21.600 --> 1:28:23.679 needed a lead singer. 1:28:24.080 --> 1:28:27.559 You know, how do he take that that he wasn't. 1:28:27.760 --> 1:28:29.759 He's like Charlie Brown, not the star of his own. 1:28:31.800 --> 1:28:35.439 But how how is a genius? I mean this man 1:28:35.479 --> 1:28:37.760 here he put he put that he could take all 1:28:37.840 --> 1:28:40.040 of us and make us the blue notes. You know, 1:28:40.400 --> 1:28:43.760 that's the kind of gift he has. And I used 1:28:43.800 --> 1:28:45.680 to tell him I was he was my friend number one, 1:28:45.720 --> 1:28:47.880 and we're trying to get we're trying to make it. 1:28:48.680 --> 1:28:50.760 And so the key of it would be is that 1:28:53.280 --> 1:28:55.559 he had a lot of competition out there, and so 1:28:55.680 --> 1:28:59.639 to compete, Hal had a softer voice, a real smooth voice, 1:28:59.640 --> 1:29:03.559 a nice voice. But you needed that voice that could 1:29:03.640 --> 1:29:06.360 rock the house. Yeah, you needed a voice that could 1:29:06.439 --> 1:29:08.280 rock the house. And so I've called me one day 1:29:08.280 --> 1:29:10.720 and said, man, said, how got a guy here that 1:29:10.800 --> 1:29:13.120 plays the drums? He said, yeah, but you got to 1:29:13.160 --> 1:29:15.400 hit this guy. So by the time I got down 1:29:15.479 --> 1:29:18.600 there to the office and I heard him, I said, oh, 1:29:19.080 --> 1:29:20.360 that's the guy we've been looking for. 1:29:22.320 --> 1:29:22.840 How did you. 1:29:22.840 --> 1:29:27.280 Break the news to Harold that how this guy should sing? 1:29:27.360 --> 1:29:27.800 I miss you? 1:29:29.080 --> 1:29:31.759 Because we all thought that was Harold Milt, right. 1:29:31.880 --> 1:29:34.640 I know it. That's where the problem came in at 1:29:34.960 --> 1:29:37.760 is that you know that there was some kind of 1:29:38.960 --> 1:29:40.840 Hald Melvin and the Blue Notes, and we had Al 1:29:40.920 --> 1:29:45.080 Melvin the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass, and then we 1:29:45.200 --> 1:29:47.680 even changed it because how was really putting together a 1:29:47.760 --> 1:29:51.639 fantastic show he had because it could have been Hal 1:29:51.680 --> 1:29:55.839 Melvin and The Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass and Shine Page. 1:29:56.760 --> 1:30:00.639 What was Sharon Page before she was singing in the group. 1:30:01.520 --> 1:30:05.240 McFadden and white Head brought Sharon Page in. You know, 1:30:05.280 --> 1:30:08.200 they knew her. She was from North Philly and she 1:30:08.240 --> 1:30:11.320 had well her voice is so sweet, man. I hope 1:30:11.320 --> 1:30:15.400 we can be together soon. That's great. And that was 1:30:15.439 --> 1:30:19.120 a song that we did with Dusty Springfield, Oh wow, 1:30:19.439 --> 1:30:22.120 years ago, hope we can be together soon. And and 1:30:22.240 --> 1:30:29.200 how Melvin took Sharon Page and rehearsed her. And when 1:30:29.240 --> 1:30:31.000 I listened to it, I said, wow, I said, this 1:30:31.120 --> 1:30:33.639 is good. I said, but you know what I said, 1:30:33.640 --> 1:30:37.280 we got to put Teddy on here. So so it 1:30:37.360 --> 1:30:41.040 was how Sharon Page and Teddy Pendergrass I put Teddy 1:30:41.080 --> 1:30:43.880 in on the end and right, yeah, which which really 1:30:43.880 --> 1:30:46.519 made it made it to me, made it nice, you know. 1:30:47.360 --> 1:30:49.960 And it was kind of hard to argue with success. 1:30:50.040 --> 1:30:53.360 But I know that that must have caused some sort 1:30:53.400 --> 1:30:54.519 of conflict with. 1:30:54.840 --> 1:30:56.559 I didn't know. I didn't look at it like that. 1:30:56.640 --> 1:31:00.240 I looked at it because well, I'm telling I was 1:31:00.280 --> 1:31:03.000 telling him. I said, were trying to make it, you know, 1:31:03.320 --> 1:31:06.680 and to me, you'd be like fooling yourself if you 1:31:06.760 --> 1:31:09.000 don't try to at least do the best that you 1:31:09.040 --> 1:31:09.400 can do. 1:31:09.640 --> 1:31:11.839 Did he try to attempt to sing these songs himself? 1:31:12.000 --> 1:31:13.880 He did, He did have a part in him. 1:31:13.960 --> 1:31:15.360 Oh, I was going to say, you have a version 1:31:15.400 --> 1:31:16.880 of I Miss You with Harold. 1:31:18.640 --> 1:31:19.280 I miss you. 1:31:20.280 --> 1:31:23.160 I mean, oh okay, I was like, I got here. 1:31:23.240 --> 1:31:28.200 I don't think it might be though, you know somewhere right, Okay, yeah, 1:31:28.240 --> 1:31:33.559 but no, that song was made for Teddy belly Gred. 1:31:33.720 --> 1:31:36.120 What was the decision to have him leave the group 1:31:36.280 --> 1:31:40.280 and did it cause did it cause a conflict of interests? 1:31:40.920 --> 1:31:43.679 Like, okay, you're going to produce us both now or. 1:31:44.080 --> 1:31:48.640 What we could have? And that's what I suggested. So 1:31:48.800 --> 1:31:51.400 was that a conflict of interest from them? Or well 1:31:51.640 --> 1:31:55.320 they wanted to leave, he they wanted they broke the group. 1:31:55.320 --> 1:31:58.400 But Teddy left the group right And he came to 1:31:58.400 --> 1:32:00.760 me and said, look, I'm leaving Harold Melvine and uh 1:32:01.520 --> 1:32:04.439 I can't get paid or whatever the situation was. I said, well, 1:32:04.840 --> 1:32:06.439 so he said can I stay here? I said, yeah, 1:32:06.439 --> 1:32:08.840 he can stay, it's no problem. So then when how 1:32:09.000 --> 1:32:13.160 came in and the house, well, you know, Teddy left 1:32:13.200 --> 1:32:14.960 the group. I got me a new singer, you know. 1:32:15.080 --> 1:32:17.920 I mean, and I'll stay, but I don't want Teddy 1:32:17.960 --> 1:32:20.360 over here. I said, well, I can't do that. 1:32:20.400 --> 1:32:22.559 You're gonna lose this one, right, I can't do it. 1:32:22.640 --> 1:32:26.000 So and he had a good group, because that's when Ebo, 1:32:26.120 --> 1:32:29.080 I think you were in David Ebo. I think his 1:32:29.200 --> 1:32:31.120 name was Kenny might be, but. 1:32:31.120 --> 1:32:32.400 Anyway, he was good. 1:32:33.560 --> 1:32:37.479 And but it wasn't like Teddy Pendergrass and the whole thing. 1:32:37.560 --> 1:32:40.400 And uh and I think that's during the time when 1:32:40.680 --> 1:32:45.519 wake Up Everybody came out and that was pretty much 1:32:46.479 --> 1:32:50.559 didn't need a background, wake Up Everybody, and so we 1:32:50.640 --> 1:32:53.240 didn't use the background. But that was before the group 1:32:53.280 --> 1:32:56.640 broke up anyway, right, Okay, okay, So it wasn't it 1:32:56.680 --> 1:33:00.560 wasn't anything. But I loved how Harold Melvin had. We 1:33:00.640 --> 1:33:04.240 had a lot of talent and h he's the guy 1:33:04.280 --> 1:33:06.960 who discovered Teddy Pentograss. 1:33:07.600 --> 1:33:12.400 So the of the classic Philly International records, I mean, 1:33:12.439 --> 1:33:17.880 do you consider the classic logo era of Philly International. 1:33:17.960 --> 1:33:21.200 Do you consider paddle la Belle to be the end 1:33:21.200 --> 1:33:22.000 of that sentence? 1:33:22.200 --> 1:33:26.760 Or Wow, ain't that something? She's great? I'm in love again. 1:33:26.800 --> 1:33:28.080 That's a great song, right, away. 1:33:29.040 --> 1:33:31.360 If only you knew that was like, that's one of 1:33:31.400 --> 1:33:32.879 my favorite my. 1:33:32.680 --> 1:33:34.680 Loved even want you. 1:33:36.160 --> 1:33:41.360 Yeah, you know, Patti LaBelle, She's a classic, you know. 1:33:41.680 --> 1:33:44.479 And I mean when we start to think of these people, 1:33:44.560 --> 1:33:48.120 you know, these are all all good friends. I try 1:33:48.120 --> 1:33:51.120 to make sure that we had not only make music together, 1:33:51.160 --> 1:33:56.280 but we also respect one another. And uh, Patty, I've 1:33:56.280 --> 1:33:58.200 been knowing Patty since we were teenagers. 1:33:58.640 --> 1:33:58.800 You know. 1:33:58.800 --> 1:34:00.800 I was really glad to be able to work with her, 1:34:00.840 --> 1:34:03.200 and I'm really glad to get the hits that we 1:34:03.280 --> 1:34:06.200 got with her. We got some stuff on her right 1:34:06.240 --> 1:34:08.320 now in the can that I want to get it out. 1:34:08.479 --> 1:34:10.040 So we're going to start trying to put some of 1:34:10.040 --> 1:34:12.040 this stuff out. I want to know what's in the can. 1:34:13.640 --> 1:34:16.439 You want you, I want to know what's in the can. Yeah, 1:34:16.720 --> 1:34:19.519 I want to know what's in the can. So are 1:34:19.520 --> 1:34:24.639 you of your entire Did you hear that? Yeah? 1:34:24.640 --> 1:34:30.840 I was like I heard it, but I didn't absorb it. Yeah, 1:34:31.120 --> 1:34:34.839 we'll talk about that. Yeah, okay, of of your entire canon? 1:34:34.880 --> 1:34:37.240 What do you what do you feel? What is the 1:34:37.280 --> 1:34:42.120 most special to you, the most sentimental? Your your baby, 1:34:42.200 --> 1:34:44.599 You're the song that you've written. Can you say that. 1:34:45.400 --> 1:34:47.639 Wow, there's quite a few. 1:34:49.200 --> 1:34:50.280 All right, I'll give you three. 1:34:50.560 --> 1:34:52.080 Give me what are your What are your three? 1:34:53.479 --> 1:35:01.280 Well, let's go with let's go with Family Reunion. That's 1:35:01.320 --> 1:35:04.880 a good one. Okay. You feel if you feel a 1:35:04.880 --> 1:35:07.120 certain way when you when you have songs. 1:35:06.840 --> 1:35:09.800 When when those opening notes come in, like it's just 1:35:10.000 --> 1:35:11.080 warmth all over there. 1:35:11.240 --> 1:35:14.360 It's great. Yeah, that's that's I love that record. Yeah, 1:35:14.360 --> 1:35:19.120 that's like potatoes out. Yeah, it's good for you in 1:35:19.160 --> 1:35:19.799 the kitchen. 1:35:20.720 --> 1:35:29.080 Oh, it's a real picture. 1:35:29.640 --> 1:35:30.679 Yeah, that's nice. 1:35:30.840 --> 1:35:37.760 And for nineteen seventy six, what else you got? I think, 1:35:39.920 --> 1:35:43.360 well this but for the love of money, of course, 1:35:43.400 --> 1:35:43.840 you know that. 1:35:44.000 --> 1:35:47.479 That's just you're doing your top earners over there. 1:35:51.240 --> 1:35:53.439 Check this out on this album. Here, here's a song 1:35:53.479 --> 1:35:55.080 that we did. It's called this Air. 1:35:55.160 --> 1:35:55.719 I breathe. 1:35:56.960 --> 1:35:59.800 Now, this was before all the pollution and oncology, right 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:02.439 is there? I breathe It don't belong to me. I 1:36:02.520 --> 1:36:05.000 breathe it in, I take it in and I breathe 1:36:05.040 --> 1:36:06.960 it out. It just won't stay in my mouth. That's 1:36:07.000 --> 1:36:13.840 the lyrics. Yeah, Wow, don't call me brother. That's a 1:36:13.880 --> 1:36:16.519 good one. People, I love that song. That's a good one. 1:36:16.520 --> 1:36:18.920 It's the truth. That is my favorite song. That's the 1:36:18.960 --> 1:36:21.800 original player hater call that. 1:36:22.680 --> 1:36:23.960 And I asked a question. 1:36:24.040 --> 1:36:27.280 Yes, I'm noticing in some of the songwriting credits sometimes 1:36:27.320 --> 1:36:31.320 it's uh huff gamble, sometimes it's gamble hoff. 1:36:32.360 --> 1:36:37.040 I didn't notice it. John Lennon, Lenna McCartney. 1:36:37.120 --> 1:36:38.719 Yeah, situation. I'm not sure. 1:36:38.920 --> 1:36:40.960 Did that mean anything that I represent? 1:36:41.800 --> 1:36:44.920 Not to me, I've never even seen that. 1:36:45.000 --> 1:36:49.760 Yeah, I'm the same album something executive songs. It's like, yeah, 1:36:49.800 --> 1:36:50.679 it might just be a type. 1:36:51.040 --> 1:36:51.920 What song is that? 1:36:52.560 --> 1:36:55.280 Nobody could take your place? As half gamble? Nobody could 1:36:55.320 --> 1:36:55.760 ever take it? 1:36:55.840 --> 1:36:59.800 Somewhere down the line is gamble hoof same thing? 1:37:00.000 --> 1:37:01.920 Nobody could ever take your place? That's a good song? 1:37:02.640 --> 1:37:04.880 Was lou Rawls You'll never find? Is that one of 1:37:04.920 --> 1:37:06.519 your top three? 1:37:06.439 --> 1:37:07.479 Ye, that's a good one. 1:37:08.600 --> 1:37:10.280 I got to give it to Belief again, I can't 1:37:10.280 --> 1:37:10.880 take the credit. 1:37:12.920 --> 1:37:14.360 Did you ever think a song wasn't going to be 1:37:14.400 --> 1:37:15.720 a hit and wound up being a hit? 1:37:16.080 --> 1:37:16.800 Or vice versa? 1:37:17.080 --> 1:37:19.280 Three degrees? What which one? 1:37:22.040 --> 1:37:22.240 You know? 1:37:22.880 --> 1:37:24.920 It just hit me that a big part of their 1:37:25.160 --> 1:37:28.000 notariety was the fact that that song was also a 1:37:28.000 --> 1:37:32.040 favorite of Prince Charles. Yeah, so the Prince Charles was 1:37:32.439 --> 1:37:37.599 like that was his was that was his TLC. So 1:37:37.640 --> 1:37:38.720 he invited them over. 1:37:39.320 --> 1:37:41.759 Yeah, yeah, he was cheating with Camilla. 1:37:44.760 --> 1:37:46.559 This is when this is when he was a teenager. 1:37:48.640 --> 1:37:52.080 He invited them over them and then like they were 1:37:52.080 --> 1:37:55.240 in the press, they're like, meet Prince Charles's favorite group, 1:37:55.360 --> 1:37:57.000 the Three Degrees and that that's. 1:37:56.760 --> 1:37:59.280 How like that that helped. 1:37:59.040 --> 1:38:08.520 Them a lot, like was the Drake of his day. 1:38:08.720 --> 1:38:11.920 The Jones girls. Wow, the Jones girls. 1:38:12.080 --> 1:38:16.559 Man, you guys are just pulling them out iterations of it. 1:38:16.800 --> 1:38:19.679 That goes back to Dexter WANs All again. 1:38:20.120 --> 1:38:21.800 Yeah, turned into the. 1:38:22.320 --> 1:38:27.000 Most The beautiful thing was we had so much competition 1:38:27.520 --> 1:38:32.160 amongst each other, you know, and so that makes it better. 1:38:32.200 --> 1:38:34.680 When you got people that you have to compete with, 1:38:34.720 --> 1:38:41.080 you gotta win, so you gotta be good. And I 1:38:41.240 --> 1:38:48.160 listened to songs like like Sadie Jefferson and Simmons. It 1:38:48.280 --> 1:38:51.440 was a great song Sadie, you know. And the Spinners 1:38:52.320 --> 1:38:56.840 were they were excellent. I mean Philippe, the guy who 1:38:56.960 --> 1:39:00.000 was the lead single fan when this guy was unbelievable, 1:39:00.560 --> 1:39:01.160 you know he was. 1:39:01.240 --> 1:39:05.200 He was as good almost as a Teddy Pendergrass. 1:39:06.320 --> 1:39:08.559 You know what I mean especially in performing, like out 1:39:08.600 --> 1:39:11.320 on stage, this guy would turn the joint out man. 1:39:11.920 --> 1:39:15.880 And it's unfortunate that he that he got hisself in 1:39:16.439 --> 1:39:18.920 that in that situation where he had that heart attack 1:39:19.000 --> 1:39:24.240 or whatever, but he had a tremendous future. I would 1:39:24.280 --> 1:39:28.920 even compare him to who had the potential of becoming 1:39:29.000 --> 1:39:32.280 like a Sam Cook. That's the kind of voice that 1:39:32.320 --> 1:39:36.200 this guy had. You know, they had some great albums together. 1:39:36.320 --> 1:39:39.879 I mean Tommy Bell, I mean, he made some beautiful 1:39:39.960 --> 1:39:43.960 music with the Spinners, Din Warick. And then there's another 1:39:44.000 --> 1:39:48.120 songwriter that we had with us as Vinny Barrett. She 1:39:48.320 --> 1:39:49.960 was great, Benny Barrett. 1:39:50.520 --> 1:39:54.759 What is your favorite obscure piro joint? 1:39:55.800 --> 1:40:00.000 Probably one of them is Oh, Jay's my favorite person. 1:40:00.080 --> 1:40:04.639 So good one. Jam That's a good one. Yeah, yeah, 1:40:04.760 --> 1:40:10.720 like yours. Bill I mentioned it earlier. It's Dexter one. 1:40:11.000 --> 1:40:13.360 You can be what you want to be, Okay, Like, yeah, 1:40:13.439 --> 1:40:15.080 I love that one. 1:40:15.600 --> 1:40:19.240 Just asked I did mine niceer reason because I know 1:40:19.280 --> 1:40:23.439 it's not but I know some people but it was. 1:40:23.479 --> 1:40:28.400 But I'm just saying, but no, that's that's a great song. 1:40:28.600 --> 1:40:32.040 I people talk about like clean. 1:40:31.960 --> 1:40:33.720 Up the Ghetto is still skew to some people, So 1:40:33.880 --> 1:40:34.639 I'll take that one. 1:40:34.760 --> 1:40:39.479 I wasn't familiar with until Daft Punk used cold Bottom. 1:40:42.760 --> 1:40:44.000 I forgot that was p I R. 1:40:44.160 --> 1:40:46.519 Yeah. Oh wow damn yeah. 1:40:46.600 --> 1:40:51.800 Well yeah, actually there's three daft Punk samples off that first. 1:40:51.920 --> 1:40:55.120 Uh, Edwards, how do you feel about people sampling your stuff? 1:40:55.600 --> 1:40:59.799 It's great, I'll take another. 1:41:00.040 --> 1:41:04.360 All that's a perfect answer because it basically it recontextualizes 1:41:04.400 --> 1:41:07.479 it for an entire new generation. Like I mean, there's 1:41:07.520 --> 1:41:10.280 so much classic music that was sampled via hip hop 1:41:10.479 --> 1:41:11.680 that I probably wouldn't have heard of. 1:41:12.479 --> 1:41:15.080 So it just opened my ears to so much more. 1:41:15.400 --> 1:41:17.639 Oh, that was the Kanye story I was telling earlier 1:41:17.680 --> 1:41:19.840 when we was on stage and Kanye asked, you could 1:41:19.840 --> 1:41:22.280 he get hit there's some samples for free beautiful? 1:41:22.400 --> 1:41:24.240 Yeah, and you literally. 1:41:23.920 --> 1:41:26.080 Literally he was like we literally. 1:41:25.840 --> 1:41:27.280 Kobe said, would you like. 1:41:27.240 --> 1:41:28.439 What was the first thing you would like to say 1:41:28.479 --> 1:41:30.840 to mister Gamble? Can I get some samples for free? 1:41:32.840 --> 1:41:33.360 Promise you? 1:41:34.360 --> 1:41:35.280 What was your response? 1:41:35.600 --> 1:41:36.120 No? 1:41:36.120 --> 1:41:41.240 No, I can't do that. All yeah, I mean free. 1:41:41.360 --> 1:41:44.240 We can work together, maybe nothing off the top, but 1:41:44.720 --> 1:41:45.680 something off the back end. 1:41:45.720 --> 1:41:50.000 But it's good to work you know. But Kanye, he's 1:41:50.040 --> 1:41:51.800 done good. He's not real good. 1:41:52.040 --> 1:41:54.120 Do you have a faith? How long ages that? That 1:41:54.240 --> 1:41:56.519 was like fifteen years ago? 1:41:56.680 --> 1:41:56.920 Wow? 1:41:58.360 --> 1:42:00.559 I mean it's been a long Like do you have 1:42:00.600 --> 1:42:03.280 a favorite use of a of a sample of your song? 1:42:04.600 --> 1:42:05.400 Oh? Man? 1:42:07.800 --> 1:42:09.920 Oh no, Cliff, they did what did y'all do? What 1:42:10.000 --> 1:42:16.000 was that thing y'all did that CD did with Anthony Ellis? 1:42:17.720 --> 1:42:24.439 Samthology was? What's biggest smalls on that? Use? 1:42:24.520 --> 1:42:28.880 The Dynasty record? The jay z on more? 1:42:28.920 --> 1:42:34.360 Can I say? Well, mindset singing something nothing y That's 1:42:34.400 --> 1:42:35.360 not what I'm talking about. 1:42:35.360 --> 1:42:40.360 I'm talking about. That's another song he used. 1:42:41.439 --> 1:42:46.240 Yeah, yeah, do you have anything else? Man? I got 1:42:46.280 --> 1:42:46.599 so many? 1:42:46.720 --> 1:42:50.559 So okay, I want to say and correct me if 1:42:50.600 --> 1:42:53.320 I'm wrong. I remember, I think I remember this was 1:42:53.760 --> 1:42:57.439 like ninety seven ninety eight. You did an interview with 1:42:57.600 --> 1:43:00.880 Vibe I want to say, and they played you. They 1:43:00.920 --> 1:43:02.720 were playing you like some new songs and you were 1:43:02.800 --> 1:43:04.600 kind of getting your opinion on them, and one of 1:43:04.600 --> 1:43:09.040 the songs that you really liked was it was hot 1:43:09.080 --> 1:43:12.559 at that time, happily happily ever after about the case. 1:43:13.479 --> 1:43:16.400 And I remember you, you know you really liked that song. 1:43:16.479 --> 1:43:18.160 You were saying, you know, this reminds me of something 1:43:18.200 --> 1:43:20.280 that you know me and that we would have did 1:43:20.320 --> 1:43:22.080 back in our day. And I was and that was 1:43:22.120 --> 1:43:25.720 one of the times I really I had even more 1:43:25.720 --> 1:43:28.040 respect for you because a lot of times the older 1:43:28.080 --> 1:43:30.479 cats would look at the younger dudes like, nah, that 1:43:30.479 --> 1:43:33.200 that's not real music. But that was a hot record 1:43:33.280 --> 1:43:35.960 and it was a really good song at studio when 1:43:35.960 --> 1:43:40.000 I thought because first one. So when I saw you 1:43:40.040 --> 1:43:42.840 give that process, I was like, Okay, he's still on it. 1:43:42.880 --> 1:43:43.840 You know, he's still in it. 1:43:43.880 --> 1:43:46.599 So do you have any artists now that you hear, 1:43:46.760 --> 1:43:48.960 like from a songwriter perspective, and you're like, you know what, 1:43:49.000 --> 1:43:50.240 this is a really good crafted song. 1:43:50.240 --> 1:43:57.719 I wish I had read that well. I think song wise, 1:43:58.240 --> 1:43:59.960 I think what what comes in my head right now? 1:44:00.160 --> 1:44:01.920 It's that song about meet me in the middle. 1:44:04.760 --> 1:44:07.360 Yeah, I love. 1:44:07.240 --> 1:44:07.920 You all right now? 1:44:08.080 --> 1:44:12.120 And because right now, yeah I don't know, in the 1:44:12.200 --> 1:44:14.800 uber some point right now. 1:44:15.960 --> 1:44:16.240 Stuff. 1:44:16.439 --> 1:44:19.599 It's like a really popular tonight show. So you still 1:44:19.600 --> 1:44:20.639 lost at Target? 1:44:20.760 --> 1:44:26.599 Target, Why don't you you've heard the song world? 1:44:27.240 --> 1:44:31.519 Probably I got a feeling of two thousand and seventeen, 1:44:32.439 --> 1:44:33.479 it still has a. 1:44:33.680 --> 1:44:36.080 You know, I thought it was good. I think it's 1:44:36.080 --> 1:44:38.519 a good it's real catchy you know, yeah. 1:44:38.479 --> 1:44:40.759 And that girl was a songwriter first, she just started 1:44:40.760 --> 1:44:41.759 really thanks singing. 1:44:42.000 --> 1:44:43.680 Yeah. 1:44:43.920 --> 1:44:48.680 Marin Moore surprising, show's surprised as the bell she's on street. 1:44:49.400 --> 1:44:53.559 I like this girl. Her name is her yeah yeah? 1:44:54.600 --> 1:45:02.200 And what's the other girl's name? Yell yeah boot. I 1:45:02.280 --> 1:45:02.960 like both of them. 1:45:02.960 --> 1:45:05.439 I like, I like it's a little bit different, you 1:45:05.479 --> 1:45:07.519 know what I mean. And their voices are different. 1:45:07.720 --> 1:45:12.559 You like John Legend. I love John Legend. Yeah. Version 1:45:12.560 --> 1:45:16.240 of wake Up, Wake Up Everybody. I think there's too 1:45:16.280 --> 1:45:17.240 many people on it. 1:45:19.200 --> 1:45:19.400 Yeah. 1:45:19.439 --> 1:45:21.120 I think I should have did it by itself. 1:45:21.720 --> 1:45:24.120 You know, yeah, I think so too. I think so too. 1:45:24.360 --> 1:45:24.840 I think something. 1:45:24.880 --> 1:45:25.880 You know who produced that record? 1:45:27.200 --> 1:45:27.479 Quest? 1:45:29.600 --> 1:45:39.840 That's why you yes, exactly great. 1:45:37.280 --> 1:45:39.680 So in terms of how many people like you, why 1:45:39.680 --> 1:45:41.280 didn't know Common Melanie were on it? 1:45:41.400 --> 1:45:44.040 You know, we just we did the bear tracks and 1:45:44.080 --> 1:45:45.360 then went on tour and it's. 1:45:45.200 --> 1:45:47.840 Like, oh, came back and it was But you. 1:45:47.840 --> 1:45:50.360 Know what, that song is going to be around a 1:45:50.400 --> 1:45:52.960 long time because of that, because of y'all doing it, 1:45:53.000 --> 1:45:57.120 because all of y'all careers is just blooming, get bigger 1:45:57.120 --> 1:45:59.479 and bigger and bigger, and it's just gonna make more 1:45:59.520 --> 1:46:03.240 people let's into it when I got an oscar? Now, yeah, 1:46:03.160 --> 1:46:06.760 what was that common comment? Yeah, it's great. He was, 1:46:06.760 --> 1:46:07.320 he gonna wake. 1:46:07.280 --> 1:46:08.439 Up everything him to. 1:46:11.479 --> 1:46:12.320 What did what did you. 1:46:14.400 --> 1:46:16.559 Don't ask you about? What do you think about new stuff? 1:46:17.280 --> 1:46:21.120 It was it was on that epic or Columbia, Columbia, Columbia. 1:46:21.360 --> 1:46:23.040 I was just gonna ask him what he thought about 1:46:23.040 --> 1:46:25.880 the resurgence of like Philly Soul when you know the 1:46:25.960 --> 1:46:29.000 roots black Lily, like when that Jill, when all that happened, 1:46:29.360 --> 1:46:30.200 you thinking. 1:46:30.320 --> 1:46:33.200 I loved it. I love I love the whole black 1:46:33.280 --> 1:46:33.479 I mean. 1:46:33.520 --> 1:46:39.320 He worked with Victor Play, Victor Cook, Victor Play. 1:46:39.240 --> 1:46:44.559 And James Poyser, who, yes mc fee also worked in 1:46:45.560 --> 1:46:46.000 pr R. 1:46:46.160 --> 1:46:47.960 Right, Yeah, I love it man, because you know what, 1:46:48.680 --> 1:46:51.320 like I've seen James in the in the train station 1:46:51.439 --> 1:46:54.280 one day and men were sitting there talking, were waiting 1:46:54.280 --> 1:46:57.639 for the train, and I said, James, I said, you're 1:46:57.680 --> 1:46:58.639 really doing good. 1:46:58.800 --> 1:46:59.040 Man. 1:46:59.560 --> 1:47:01.519 I said, I said, I see you every night. Like 1:47:01.520 --> 1:47:04.280 I told him, was I see you every night? And uh, 1:47:05.200 --> 1:47:08.720 you talk about talented people like James is a very 1:47:08.760 --> 1:47:11.400 talented person. I mean I was telling him, I said, 1:47:11.400 --> 1:47:17.400 you know the the part that Jimmy fallon does when 1:47:17.439 --> 1:47:18.280 he says thank you. 1:47:18.320 --> 1:47:19.400 Oh yeah, the thank you notes. 1:47:19.680 --> 1:47:22.720 Well, that's a beautiful melody he's playing there, you know 1:47:22.760 --> 1:47:25.080 what I mean. I would let's not guess. 1:47:24.920 --> 1:47:29.160 James Award winning James. 1:47:29.600 --> 1:47:32.719 Yeah, I mean that that is in my view, that's 1:47:32.760 --> 1:47:36.040 a great melody. And I'm listening to us as Wow, 1:47:36.080 --> 1:47:39.680 I said, that would be great. Maybe if you had maybe. 1:47:38.960 --> 1:47:40.880 Keep a song over it. You should borrow it and 1:47:40.920 --> 1:47:41.680 do something with it. 1:47:43.680 --> 1:47:43.720 You. 1:47:44.400 --> 1:47:46.640 I'm talking to mister Gamble over here. You should give 1:47:46.680 --> 1:47:48.200 that songs the blue Face make it hit. 1:47:49.600 --> 1:47:52.360 Blue Face. Don't go down there. 1:47:52.360 --> 1:47:55.040 I'm saying, all the all the kids are taking your stuff, 1:47:55.040 --> 1:47:57.320 so why don't you take some of the I just. 1:47:57.320 --> 1:48:02.720 Might it's take it back and finish it there. Yeah, well, 1:48:03.120 --> 1:48:04.360 you don't need no lyrics to it. 1:48:04.320 --> 1:48:06.040 It's a melody, you know what I mean. 1:48:06.160 --> 1:48:08.559 And you know, but some words could take it to 1:48:08.560 --> 1:48:13.599 the next place. Okay, Well with. 1:48:13.479 --> 1:48:16.040 That said, I just want to love is the message 1:48:16.160 --> 1:48:22.200 MFSB Oh, yeah, I was. Are you aware of the 1:48:22.400 --> 1:48:25.439 So there's a version probably like the most famous version. Honestly, 1:48:25.520 --> 1:48:27.200 the first version of love is the message that I 1:48:27.200 --> 1:48:27.679 ever heard. 1:48:27.840 --> 1:48:29.559 Like I don't even know which version of Love. 1:48:29.680 --> 1:48:33.680 Never Yeah, because I just don't agree with it. 1:48:33.800 --> 1:48:36.720 So there's a DJ named Danny Crivitt that did a 1:48:36.920 --> 1:48:38.559 re edit of Love is the. 1:48:38.760 --> 1:48:41.639 New York From New York, I've heard it, Okay, what 1:48:41.640 --> 1:48:44.000 were your thoughts on I thought it was great, Okay, 1:48:44.840 --> 1:48:46.479 because that was the first version I heard I love. 1:48:46.560 --> 1:48:48.320 Man, how did you feel when you found out that 1:48:48.360 --> 1:48:52.160 song was such a huge record in discos? Like it's 1:48:52.160 --> 1:48:54.559 like it's was the loft, it was the anthem of 1:48:54.600 --> 1:48:56.080 the loft, it was the work. 1:48:56.439 --> 1:48:59.880 Yeah, Like you know what Mike Tyson told me, he said, Man, 1:49:01.600 --> 1:49:04.080 he said, I used to take that song Love is 1:49:04.080 --> 1:49:04.639 a Message. 1:49:04.680 --> 1:49:07.160 He said, I used to exercise to it. 1:49:07.760 --> 1:49:11.160 Oh yeah, I'll tell you something. 1:49:11.760 --> 1:49:13.479 You know, you know how I know it's summer in 1:49:13.479 --> 1:49:13.920 New York. 1:49:15.880 --> 1:49:17.920 Somebody driving down the street playing Love is a Message, 1:49:18.000 --> 1:49:19.280 no matter what neighborhood I'm. 1:49:19.120 --> 1:49:22.040 In, Ain't that's something they could have gone a different way. 1:49:22.360 --> 1:49:24.240 I'm like, God. 1:49:24.800 --> 1:49:25.280 Thank God. 1:49:25.320 --> 1:49:26.040 But no, Like. 1:49:27.640 --> 1:49:29.400 I think I think I noticed it, maybe the I 1:49:29.439 --> 1:49:31.479 moved to New York and maybe like two two thousand 1:49:31.479 --> 1:49:34.080 and two, I probably noticed that summer, like I first 1:49:34.080 --> 1:49:37.160 heard somebody driving down the street, and then every summer afterwards, 1:49:37.200 --> 1:49:41.360 I would notice, like I'm always hearing somebody blasting love 1:49:41.479 --> 1:49:43.720 is a message going down the street, no matter what 1:49:43.760 --> 1:49:44.599 neighborhood I'm in. 1:49:45.080 --> 1:49:46.400 Ain't that's something were you? 1:49:47.120 --> 1:49:52.120 Were you guys aware at the impact of because based 1:49:52.160 --> 1:49:54.560 on the times that I see on these records, and 1:49:54.600 --> 1:49:56.120 you weren't making twelve inch. 1:49:57.479 --> 1:49:59.840 Records as of yet, But did. 1:49:59.680 --> 1:50:01.760 You guys have an inkling like, Okay, the longer we 1:50:02.000 --> 1:50:05.000 make the song, the more they keep it on, the. 1:50:05.120 --> 1:50:05.720 Better it is. 1:50:05.840 --> 1:50:11.559 Yeah, I'm telling you. They tell you we had. 1:50:11.560 --> 1:50:14.559 We had a fight with with CBS when we were 1:50:14.680 --> 1:50:18.920 with them because the first long Vergin record that we 1:50:19.000 --> 1:50:22.960 did was The Love I Lost, Yes, and then we 1:50:23.040 --> 1:50:25.880 came back. Yeah, this was a good one. I mean 1:50:25.920 --> 1:50:31.080 that was that was smoking that track. And we told 1:50:31.120 --> 1:50:35.160 them about the twelve inches, right, but CBS wanted to 1:50:35.520 --> 1:50:36.960 have them on a forty five. 1:50:39.080 --> 1:50:40.920 It's not gonna work, you know what I mean. You 1:50:41.040 --> 1:50:46.720 gotta have you gotta have. The twelve inch has got 1:50:46.760 --> 1:50:50.760 to be the same size as the album because mastering it. 1:50:50.800 --> 1:50:55.680 If you try to master for a little forty five, ye, 1:50:55.800 --> 1:50:58.800 the grooves gonna knod. Yeah, you wouldn't get the same sound. 1:50:59.520 --> 1:51:05.920 But yeah, that that, but we finally won and and 1:51:06.080 --> 1:51:10.400 uh the battle with them on that twelve inch being 1:51:11.479 --> 1:51:17.400 the long version thirty three and the third and ain't 1:51:17.400 --> 1:51:18.519 no stopping this now. 1:51:20.640 --> 1:51:22.960 I think we must have sold like seventy five thousand 1:51:23.880 --> 1:51:27.599 in New York alone on the twelve inch. I got 1:51:27.760 --> 1:51:32.719 warmer question than you got to wrap up Jacko's Rhythm Talk. 1:51:33.160 --> 1:51:39.040 Oh my god, that's my man. I love Jacko. How okay? 1:51:39.040 --> 1:51:39.519 What was that? 1:51:40.320 --> 1:51:40.479 Oh? 1:51:40.560 --> 1:51:42.400 I'm this is gonna be my last song that I 1:51:42.479 --> 1:51:46.880 played right when when rappers the light was red hot. 1:51:47.080 --> 1:51:51.360 Jacko Jacko Henderson basically is the father of hip hop. 1:51:51.400 --> 1:51:55.200 That that kind of cat, who's hey Papa. He used 1:51:55.240 --> 1:51:58.160 to get in the back Philly guy. 1:51:58.640 --> 1:52:00.280 Uh he was a. 1:52:01.960 --> 1:52:08.880 New York Yes, yeah, probably a month later after rappers 1:52:08.880 --> 1:52:12.920 are like, rhythm Talk comes out and at least in Philadelphia, 1:52:13.040 --> 1:52:14.360 it just dominated. 1:52:15.240 --> 1:52:19.519 Jocko used to tell me, he said, rap is the thing, Kenny, 1:52:20.520 --> 1:52:22.640 And he said, he said, let me go in the 1:52:22.640 --> 1:52:24.720 studio and give me this track. So he went in 1:52:24.760 --> 1:52:30.000 there and did that track. He did an excellent job. Yes, 1:52:30.080 --> 1:52:31.280 I've heard the music. 1:52:31.320 --> 1:52:34.880 I've heard this and that's how we're going to fade out, Yo, 1:52:35.720 --> 1:52:40.880 doctor Gamble. Great listen, thank you for everything, everything and 1:52:41.040 --> 1:52:44.719 everything for everything. 1:52:44.880 --> 1:52:46.639 I love it. 1:52:46.720 --> 1:53:00.080 It's beautiful family. I remember. 1:52:58.560 --> 1:53:01.559 And this used to get the dude. I copied all 1:53:01.600 --> 1:53:05.160 these lyrics and performed it in fourth grade. 1:53:05.200 --> 1:53:16.559 Good but don't let probably for you? Wow? What year 1:53:17.439 --> 1:53:18.000 seventy nine? 1:53:19.120 --> 1:53:23.320 Wow, November seventy nine. It's my part, said. 1:53:29.360 --> 1:53:34.639 The originator of Mumble Rap. Yeah, Mumble rap, God jac anyway, 1:53:35.000 --> 1:53:37.000 I want we have everybody on Quest Love Supreme, this 1:53:37.080 --> 1:53:38.120 Quest Love the Family. 1:53:38.120 --> 1:53:40.200 Thank you, doctor gamb I appreciate it. Man, please shout 1:53:40.280 --> 1:53:43.439 up and glee. Thank you for let us go next up. 1:53:43.640 --> 1:53:45.479 I need the hood, I need to hoodie. 1:53:45.560 --> 1:53:48.599 Yes, absolutely, we'll see you all next time on Quest Supreme. 1:53:49.040 --> 1:53:50.320 Got you against the love. 1:53:51.240 --> 1:53:53.760 I'm gonna make you scream for Mom, says bringing me 1:53:54.920 --> 1:53:55.760 up to you, Mom. 1:53:55.840 --> 1:53:57.479 Your sister's naming your needs. 1:53:57.640 --> 1:54:01.080 Freeze you like first. 1:54:01.120 --> 1:54:05.840 Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 1:54:07.080 --> 1:54:10.360 For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:54:10.600 --> 1:54:13.639 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.