Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Yo Yo, what's up, y'all? Welcome back to Part two
Speaker 2: of the Quest Love Show. I'm Questlove in case you're lost,
Speaker 2: and right now we're talking to the legendary James Alexander
Speaker 2: of the legendary Barcas and James flew in from Memphis
Speaker 2: specifically to sit down with us at iHeart Studios. And
Speaker 2: if you haven't started with Part one, make sure you do.
Speaker 2: In that episode, we cover all the early days of Memphis,
Speaker 2: the birth of Soul Finger and playing behind Otis Redding
Speaker 2: and surviving one of the most tragic moments in music history.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of music history here, so let's get started.
Speaker 2: This is James Alexander of the Barcas celebrating.
Speaker 3: Black History Month American History Month.
Speaker 2: Make sure you honor this living legend of black by
Speaker 2: listening to part two.
Speaker 3: It makes sure you like it to subscribe us. Also,
Speaker 3: all right, thank you for starters.
Speaker 2: When did you even start with the idea of okay,
Speaker 2: let's rebuild a new band? Like how long did you
Speaker 2: take off before you was like okay, let's get to it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: This happened in December nineteen sixty seven. By April of
Speaker 1: sixty eight had already reformed.
Speaker 3: A new band. How did you find these guys?
Speaker 1: I've tried to find a guy like each and every
Speaker 1: guy that was already that was in the group before.
Speaker 3: Found a white guy.
Speaker 1: They played the organ, you know, the same make the
Speaker 1: band up of the same landups, you know, the same instrumentation,
Speaker 1: a trumpet into tenor right in a rhythm section.
Speaker 2: So of course there's one main jarring friends between this
Speaker 2: band and the previous band, which is I feel one
Speaker 2: of the most unsung frontmen in all of soul music,
Speaker 2: really music period. First of all, how did you nab
Speaker 2: Larry Dotson away from the Timprez, a group that themselves
Speaker 2: were established and I believe stacks.
Speaker 1: So they weren't established then they were trying to come
Speaker 1: into their own. What happened was they were playing at
Speaker 1: a nightclub, and so by this point, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, you know, came with the idea. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, it's time for us to do something a
Speaker 1: little different rather than being a totally you know, instrumental group.
Speaker 1: So I went to this club one night. Somebody had
Speaker 1: told me about this group called the Timprees, and I
Speaker 1: went and heard him, and to be quite honest with us,
Speaker 1: they alright, alright, okay, but this guy, Larry, I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I just came to check y'all out because you know,
Speaker 1: we thinking about getting you know, getting you know, getting
Speaker 1: the vocalists.
Speaker 3: In our group.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm down, I said, when I said, said, wait,
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait wait wait hold up, dude, you're
Speaker 1: moving a little too fast, I said, first, because i've
Speaker 1: been you probably didn't know this, but see the TEMPERRIESE
Speaker 1: was his group. Yeah, So I said, man, you know
Speaker 1: we can meet, you know, a day or two later
Speaker 1: and talk about this thing. No, you can talk to
Speaker 1: me now, I said, dude. You know, you know I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be respectful. I ain't trying to talk to
Speaker 1: you on your gig. I'm trying to let you finish
Speaker 1: your gig. And I talked to you tomorrow or the
Speaker 1: next day or something like that, and I just had
Speaker 1: to say, I'm not I'm not talking to you now.
Speaker 3: Did that wear you that?
Speaker 2: In an instant he was just ready to leave us
Speaker 2: established because that could have happened to you too.
Speaker 3: He could be in the barcades and then I'm here
Speaker 3: I mean, I went, man, you have to understand, we're
Speaker 3: eighteen and nineteen.
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about nothing like that. Man, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about all of that now. Got back then,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about nothing. But you know, so you know,
Speaker 1: we finally talked and we ended up getting him in
Speaker 1: the group. I think this is around seventy one somewhere.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't even remote it. Anyway, I was
Speaker 1: working with a guy that ended up being my producer
Speaker 1: and manager, and we had started rehearsing with him.
Speaker 2: This is Alan Jones Jones. Yeah, okay, I have a
Speaker 2: lot of Alan Jones questions. Yeah, Jimmy jam And I
Speaker 2: had Alan Jones questions.
Speaker 1: I told Alan Jones, I said, man, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this guy's gonna make it, because I
Speaker 1: know he probably would hate me for saying this, but
Speaker 1: he really wasn't ship.
Speaker 3: He wasn't they good v Larry Dotson. He was not
Speaker 3: that good. Okay, No, he wouldn't that good. But it
Speaker 3: sounds like someone I know had to learn you had
Speaker 3: to learn the ropes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I learned the roses. I wouldn't say, you know,
Speaker 1: but you know, I went and talk to Alan. I said, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Man, I don't know if this guy
Speaker 1: gonna make it or not. Because, man, you because Alan
Speaker 1: before the plane Chris, you know, he had just got
Speaker 1: out of the army and he's the bass player by
Speaker 1: the way, too, and he was trying to get in,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get in stacks, trying to get
Speaker 1: in something, trying to get into the barcades, trying to
Speaker 1: get in somebody's past.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We trying to just get in, okay, but he tried
Speaker 1: to get involved with the original barcades. We said, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't you know, you know, you know, because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you after we got our first hind, I mean,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie to you. We had the fucking
Speaker 1: big head, right because you know, hey, we came we
Speaker 1: were a square from nowhere. We came up and after
Speaker 1: we went there all that incident, now we don't go
Speaker 1: from that. We got a record out, we got tailor
Speaker 1: made suits, and we got you know, five or six,
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars in our pocket. So we thought we
Speaker 1: were couldn't tell you nothing, couldn't.
Speaker 3: There me nothing.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we came up in the era where you
Speaker 1: your rehearse, you rehearse, you rehearse, you rehearsed, and you rehearsed,
Speaker 1: and you rehearse some more because of the repetitiveness. You know,
Speaker 1: I tell guys this all the time. You know, I
Speaker 1: have some guys. We call them gig daddies. And the
Speaker 1: gig daddy is well in this case. You know, I
Speaker 1: hate when a guy come to rehearsal, and when you
Speaker 1: get to the rehearsal and he comes to your rehearsal
Speaker 1: on his way somewhere else. Man, I'm coming here, but
Speaker 1: I need to leave. If you can't come and stay
Speaker 1: to my rehearsals.
Speaker 3: Though, don't come, got you right?
Speaker 1: So but anyway, we rehearsingharse and Larry kept getting better.
Speaker 1: He got so good until one incident. We were playing
Speaker 1: the La Sports Arena, and this is prior to the
Speaker 1: essential of Rick James. Man there and there were those
Speaker 1: cell phones, but Rick James had a big I don't
Speaker 1: even know it was a nikon or a counting camera
Speaker 1: with a lot of lens on it. So I've been
Speaker 1: knowing to us. Rick James was in the audience taking
Speaker 1: pictures of Larry Dotson's every move because by this time
Speaker 1: you know, Alan was I was gonna say gay, but no,
Speaker 1: I think I used a better word. Eccentric. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's a better word to fitting. There's a spectrum, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: masculine special, Yeah right. Anyway, I tell people all the time,
Speaker 1: I say Rick James is a Larry Dotson on steroids.
Speaker 3: I mean, because this whole persona.
Speaker 2: I've always felt that Larry Dotson crawled so that Prince
Speaker 2: could run.
Speaker 3: Larry Dotson just had a presence.
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that I know that before
Speaker 2: the eighties there was kind of the spectrum that you
Speaker 2: could lie in between. Was like your softness was your
Speaker 2: falsetto smokey Ron Eisley soft voice, soft voice, or you're
Speaker 2: a Growland preacher, Teddy Pendergrass or Marvin Jr. Of the Dells,
Speaker 2: like your dad yelling at you. Yes, exactly. But I
Speaker 2: always felt that Larry Dotson had If Hendrick sang, I
Speaker 2: felt like that would be Larry Dotson. But even then, like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you an example. Let's take Don't Stop
Speaker 2: Dancing to the music. That's a very unusual song. Number
Speaker 2: one I've never heard crash Cymbals and ride cymbals use
Speaker 2: that much. Usually the high hat, which is supposed to
Speaker 2: be the metronome, is always silent, bleeds off the snare mic.
Speaker 3: We have two drums on there.
Speaker 2: Okay, if that explains it. I was about to say
Speaker 2: it sounds like a herd of elephants, and and Larry
Speaker 2: Dunson wouln't know that, by the way. But even what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is figure out how you guys
Speaker 2: went from your gup bucket Memphis discipline sound and the
Speaker 2: second that you start releasing like your records like anything
Speaker 2: before Cold Blooded.
Speaker 3: There was an aggressive rock feel to it.
Speaker 2: Now, most people I interviewed from the time period, it's
Speaker 2: like it's okay, Slide was.
Speaker 3: In this influence.
Speaker 2: Hendrix was an influence, but you guys like, it's one
Speaker 2: thing when your guitarist is loud. I e Ernie Eisley
Speaker 2: like Osley Brothers a soul, but Ernie's loud right, Funkadelic's funky.
Speaker 2: But you guys as a unit were more aggressive, more
Speaker 2: louder than anything.
Speaker 3: And I was trying to figure out what it was.
Speaker 2: At first I thought, Okay, was it the fact that
Speaker 2: the engineer didn't know better than use compression like everything's loud.
Speaker 2: Never heard drums that loud. It sounds like I heard
Speaker 2: of elephants? Like what was just the modus operandi in
Speaker 2: terms of.
Speaker 3: Of how we should sound? Were you trying to break
Speaker 3: out of the We trying to break out of the pack.
Speaker 3: We tried to break out of the pack.
Speaker 1: And I don't know way what pack that was, because
Speaker 1: God riscis so Me and Maurice Slide have had just
Speaker 1: as countless ours conversations about I missed that guess so
Speaker 1: much because it was kind of like we had a
Speaker 1: lot of one bad leader to the other conversations.
Speaker 2: Your directions are very similar, both from Memphis, both had
Speaker 2: original bands, both lost the original bands, and both had
Speaker 2: to rebuild the band. Basically go into the right define
Speaker 2: the seventies. Are you age wise? Were you slightly older
Speaker 2: than the cats that you hired.
Speaker 3: Didn't you? Guys? Yes? No, we were still all around
Speaker 3: the same age.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Mars was like ten years older than the
Speaker 2: rest of Earth Wind and Fire.
Speaker 1: So yeah, And but now you know the guys I
Speaker 1: have now of course younger.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm kind of like the og.
Speaker 1: In fact, I got to tell you this a little
Speaker 1: funny story. I said, because I got two or three
Speaker 1: bass players in mind, I'm gonna get this big king's chair.
Speaker 1: I would sit up on the throne with a grobo
Speaker 1: and a crown and with a magic wand to say.
Speaker 3: And just leave the band.
Speaker 1: That's some bull, but I mean, but you know, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it anyway. As old people say, as lone,
Speaker 1: as the blood is running warm in my veins and
Speaker 1: I don't get off the riders of her fingers or
Speaker 1: something like that, I will still trying to do it.
Speaker 2: What was the first session that the new version of
Speaker 2: the Barcades did outside of the Barcades, Like, because of
Speaker 2: course Isaac is also in the sidelines, like he talking
Speaker 2: about the hot buttered soul sessions, and.
Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, Don Davis came around, you know,
Speaker 1: Al Bell started using us. Sometimes we played on some
Speaker 1: like I can't even think of the song right now,
Speaker 1: when we played on some some B sides of staples singers.
Speaker 3: But most of the staple singer stuff were done in
Speaker 3: most of the shows. Let's see. Uh, we played on some
Speaker 3: Eddie Floyd records.
Speaker 1: But the person that used us a lot in the
Speaker 1: studio initially as a rhythm section was Rufus Thomas.
Speaker 3: So it's that you guys on.
Speaker 1: That's that's our rhythm sex ah and okay, the two,
Speaker 1: the two, the breakdown, no breakdown, believe it or not.
Speaker 3: The breakdown was the Isaacca's movement. That was his rhythm section.
Speaker 1: Okay, the Funky Chicken and push and pull, and then
Speaker 1: I can't even remember the land up on the Memphis train.
Speaker 1: You know, train number one is gone, Yes, train number
Speaker 1: two is being I played based on that.
Speaker 3: But I can't remember who else was on that session.
Speaker 1: You know, by this time, you know, I started getting high,
Speaker 1: so I started to.
Speaker 2: Say, you're young and it's the psychedelic sixties. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So how are you guys adjusting to that part of
Speaker 2: rock star life?
Speaker 3: To be quite honest with you, we were a hot mess.
Speaker 1: I remember back during the time we were working on
Speaker 1: Black Rock was also during the time when it was
Speaker 1: drafting people. And I got a letter from the draft board,
Speaker 1: so I had to go down to the draft board.
Speaker 1: So I put on one of my outfits that I
Speaker 1: were on stage, and I smoked I half a joint
Speaker 1: of angel Thus.
Speaker 3: And I went down to stare them. No.
Speaker 1: I you know, when the physician came in to, you know,
Speaker 1: do the examination.
Speaker 3: I said, what are you doing to me?
Speaker 1: And I had this cape on and I had like
Speaker 1: a zoro head on the you know, a mask, and
Speaker 1: they fell for that, like okay. No. After they called on,
Speaker 1: they said, you know, call the police. And when they
Speaker 1: did that, I ran up out of there. And all
Speaker 1: I can remember is I ran around the corner and
Speaker 1: went into a phone boot and I think I called
Speaker 1: I called my girlfriend or something like that. I said,
Speaker 1: I man, this phone boove around here, come pick me up.
Speaker 1: And I got picked up. Now, madam, I'm hound angel
Speaker 1: Us got you. And also I had this guy told
Speaker 1: me that some man get you some lunum for and
Speaker 1: take you know, maybe you know seven eight little small
Speaker 1: pieces take it and drinking and swallowing. So when they
Speaker 1: do an examination you, they look at your stone, they
Speaker 1: see this a luna four and there's something's wrong with
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: How long was it until they were like, no, he's
Speaker 2: not fit for fighting.
Speaker 3: They didn't call back no more. They didn't call me
Speaker 3: no more.
Speaker 2: So Verdie White told me a story that he starved
Speaker 2: himself until he was ninety six pounds. They were trying
Speaker 2: to draft him into the army, and he took three
Speaker 2: weeks to starve himself to like ninety six pounds, and
Speaker 2: they went into He's not gonna.
Speaker 3: Let it take that much. That our Little Richard story too,
Speaker 3: Give me all the stories. What else? Fourteen?
Speaker 1: Now the man you just learned how to play bass
Speaker 1: a little bit. So Little Richard is in Nashville at
Speaker 1: a club called in you Era, a club at this
Speaker 1: time Jimmy Hendrix's playing guitar, Billy Cox is playing bass.
Speaker 3: So they quit and moved to London.
Speaker 1: So Little Richard got this, you know, this residency gig
Speaker 1: at this club in Nashville. So he found out about
Speaker 1: this little young base player down in Memphis, and he says,
Speaker 1: we want to try him out. So now I go
Speaker 1: and ask my dad. I said, Dad, I got an
Speaker 1: opportunity to play with Little Richard. Will you please drive
Speaker 1: me to Nashville? And guess what my dad? My dad
Speaker 1: said hell no, I.
Speaker 3: Said, Dad, why?
Speaker 1: I said, this is the golden opportunity And he said no.
Speaker 1: I said why Dad? He said, because he assists it
Speaker 1: not gay not he said, not e centric or nothing
Speaker 1: like that, you know, older people. Then I said, Dad, please,
Speaker 1: So I finally convinced him. So, my dad had a
Speaker 1: forty four magnum Have you ever seen one of those?
Speaker 3: I do long barrow.
Speaker 1: I loaded it up, put it under the front seat
Speaker 1: of his car and drove me to Nashville to this club.
Speaker 1: So Nashville is about now. It's about about a three
Speaker 1: hour drive from Nashville to Memphis. Memphis to Nashville's about
Speaker 1: a three hour drive back then it took about four
Speaker 1: and a half hours because it was not expressway all
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 3: Gotcha.
Speaker 1: So he drove me to the club and walked me
Speaker 1: to the door, and he said, I'm gonna be out
Speaker 1: in the car sleep.
Speaker 3: But he said, it's just like this.
Speaker 1: He said, that's just to say anything out of the
Speaker 1: way that you you come out here and get me.
Speaker 3: And I killed this a little bit, and he was serious.
Speaker 1: Well, he was here to tell you at the time
Speaker 1: that I played with little Richard. Little Richard never said
Speaker 1: anything out of the way to me.
Speaker 2: You just brought up isac case and I forgot about something.
Speaker 2: How did the idea of son and chef start.
Speaker 3: Son a chef came from?
Speaker 1: To be quite honest with you, we were trying to
Speaker 1: find ourselfs okay, And we had recorded Chef with Isaac
Speaker 1: Cays and.
Speaker 3: Alan Jones was kind of like a visionary.
Speaker 1: We would have these grown conversations about stuff. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of the songs that you hear the bark as
Speaker 1: they came out of hours sitting up in the rest rut. Well,
Speaker 1: you may not stay in the rest rut that long.
Speaker 1: You sitting in the restrut and the waitress. Really, we
Speaker 1: leave so somebody else can occupy this space. When you
Speaker 1: said that, what can.
Speaker 3: I help you? You want something else? Yeah, can bring
Speaker 3: me another right, right, right?
Speaker 1: Ordered nothing to just give the cocals, right, But we
Speaker 1: said in riskurants for hours and hours, that was your office.
Speaker 1: Just talk back, Yeah, gotcha, go back and forth. That's
Speaker 1: how a lot of ideas and songs came up.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know the inside joke with Jimmy
Speaker 2: Jamini is the method of the bar Kays kind of
Speaker 2: song cannon and how songs sound like other songs. But
Speaker 2: here's the deal. So I've been on a late night
Speaker 2: show seventeen years now.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: You know the thing is is that I'm also in
Speaker 2: hip hop, so I don't necessarily see it with the
Speaker 2: same scope that someone outside of hip hop would see it.
Speaker 2: Cause again it's like you could listen to fighting Fire
Speaker 2: with Fire. I clearly hear the ad libs of the
Speaker 2: Ojys when the World's at Peace live version from Live
Speaker 2: to London or whatever, even with shine sound like on
Speaker 2: your face or you know, or shake it from to
Speaker 2: the front or whatever. I do this practice a lot,
Speaker 2: which is I'll put a song on for ten seconds right,
Speaker 2: turned it up, then I'll stop it, and then I'll
Speaker 2: let like a minute go by, and then I'll be like,
Speaker 2: all right, let's start to play something. So even without
Speaker 2: like something, the band would catch on what I would do,
Speaker 2: but I purposely would play a song loud away so
Speaker 2: the influences in their head and then they start to
Speaker 2: mold it into another song. Is what is the process
Speaker 2: for which you guys are conducting songwriting sessions for this
Speaker 2: level of barks that I will.
Speaker 1: Tell you really what we did because we were a band,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the clubs, we were pretty much
Speaker 1: like a lot of bands, a cover band, okay, So
Speaker 1: we always made it a practice or whatever the hot
Speaker 1: songs were, we would learn them and then sometimes to
Speaker 1: start our writing sessions, we might play two or three
Speaker 1: hot songs, right, and then maybe this happens with a
Speaker 1: lot of bands, but we were the type band. If
Speaker 1: you play us, you could play on your face whatever
Speaker 1: the song may be, over and over again, and eventually
Speaker 1: we would end up playing away from it. If it
Speaker 1: makes any sense, then that But see, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: flipping it. But the flipping that you talked about and
Speaker 1: the flipping that I'm talking about is two different things.
Speaker 1: My flipping is because of the and I don't mean this,
Speaker 1: I don't negatively or anything. But when we play stuff
Speaker 1: so repetitive over and over and over again, it starts
Speaker 1: sounding it takes song.
Speaker 3: The life of us, if that makes sense of sense? Gotcha?
Speaker 1: In other words, I could be played the same baseline
Speaker 1: that Verdein plays and it's gonna sound different from the
Speaker 1: way Verdein plays it because I'm different from Verdein, which
Speaker 1: that's a whole nother story.
Speaker 3: Because we have a base. I got you, I got you.
Speaker 3: What year did you sign to.
Speaker 1: Mercury in nineteen seventy six? Why did you choose Mercury?
Speaker 1: We didn't choose Mercury. Mercury chose us. Now what happened
Speaker 1: is the whole recording situation was way different than than
Speaker 1: than what it ended up being. Stax Records closed in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: And there's one question I wanted to ask about that because,
Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned the hippo drum and you mentioned
Speaker 2: Al Bell. How did al Bell wind up being the
Speaker 2: default leader of Stack?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What was this role in Stax if Stax was already
Speaker 2: being operated by someone else?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How did Al Bell Jim Steward moved Al Bell to
Speaker 1: Memphis from Washington, d C. Al Bell was a DJ
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. And he had one artist. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had aspirations of being in the record bit and
Speaker 1: see back then, Okay, he had one artist that I
Speaker 1: know of.
Speaker 3: He may have had another one.
Speaker 1: He had another artist, but I can't think of his name,
Speaker 1: but he had Eddie Floyd. Eddie Floyd moved to Memphis
Speaker 1: with Albell. Okay, but he had another artist.
Speaker 3: I can't think of the artist an amis called the
Speaker 3: good Thing Man. Oh Frank Lucy. Was that his name?
Speaker 3: Frank Lucas? Yeah, okay, there you go. So Frank Lucas
Speaker 3: was the good thing Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the good thing Man. So Al Bell when he
Speaker 1: moved to Memphis, Jim Steward. No, he needed because he
Speaker 1: was dealing with predominantly black music. He needed somebody black
Speaker 1: to go in unicating smooth things out. And so the
Speaker 1: weird part about the whole thing is when Albell moved
Speaker 1: to Memphis. I don't know what if Sarah was, but
Speaker 1: they only had one telephone, so Jimp stew would be
Speaker 1: on the phone and al would need to make some
Speaker 1: phone calls like this, so he had to wait to
Speaker 1: jump still get other phones they could use the phone.
Speaker 3: Got you going back and forth one phone line operation? Yeah, right, gotcha.
Speaker 1: But Albill was just a unique guy. I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know. I mean when you get
Speaker 1: people like Barry Gordy. When Barry Gordon moved to California
Speaker 1: and Barry Gordon didn't do his way around, he called
Speaker 1: Albill to come and help him navigate, you know, how
Speaker 1: to operate gotch the record company.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of California, there's a very important question I
Speaker 2: forgot to ask you. Probably two of the films that
Speaker 2: I'm associated with are inspired by a movie that year
Speaker 2: in I'm talking about Dave Chapale's Block Party and of
Speaker 2: course Summer. So can you walk me through the process
Speaker 2: of what the Watstacks concert was for you? Was that
Speaker 2: just a regular concert and no big.
Speaker 3: Deal or no?
Speaker 1: When they told us that we were going to be
Speaker 1: involved with it, you know, even back then, we were
Speaker 1: trying to figure out a way to upstage. As you know,
Speaker 1: as a case was the undisputed headliner of that particular show, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So we went to California and we went down and
Speaker 1: where they had all the costumes and all that stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Now, O tell you what we wanted to
Speaker 1: do in the Los Angeles Coliseum. We wanted to rent
Speaker 1: some horses and chariots and ride into the Los Angeles Coliseum,
Speaker 1: ride up to the stage, and then jump off the
Speaker 1: horses and carriage and run up on this stage. Because
Speaker 1: you know, we had an all white Yeah, some of
Speaker 1: us had cape song. And so the Los Angeles called
Speaker 1: to see him. We're not gonna let you miss our turf,
Speaker 1: you know, miss out grass and stuff up. And then
Speaker 1: plus Isaac Cayes believed or not found out about it,
Speaker 1: and he said.
Speaker 3: He don't know. No, did he ever say he was
Speaker 3: the headliner? Yeah, he had to say. Yeah, he had
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 1: Now, man, you it makes no difference what we were
Speaker 1: the one that backed him on all the eight Isaacay's
Speaker 1: albums and all of that.
Speaker 3: That that didn't make any difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, because now he's the superstar Isaac's which me
Speaker 1: and him, you know, we had a big falling out
Speaker 1: on one of his sessions.
Speaker 3: He did, Oh yeah, what session.
Speaker 1: I don't I can't remember the session, but what it
Speaker 1: all amounted to was Isaac always like to record at night, right,
Speaker 1: And to be quite honest, I'm a I'm a.
Speaker 3: Freaking sleepy head. Okay, you know, night is the time
Speaker 3: to go to bed.
Speaker 1: But he always liked to start the session around seven
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, right. So this one night, I mean,
Speaker 1: we went the session, you know, and tuned up, were
Speaker 1: getting around waiting, waiting on the Maestro to appear. Eight
Speaker 1: o'clock comes by, still no nine o'clock, still no Isi.
Speaker 1: Ten o'clock, still no AI. Eleven o'clock. So I gets
Speaker 1: up and I tell the people, I said, look y'all,
Speaker 1: the hell with this, I'm out of here.
Speaker 3: I left and they said, man, where you going? I said,
Speaker 3: ben elf Isaac. I left.
Speaker 1: And that particular day, these guys at another studio called
Speaker 1: Lynn Lue Recording Studio and invited me over to their studio.
Speaker 1: They wanted me to play bass on a record by
Speaker 1: Tony Joe White.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever heard of him before.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of the record Poke Salern Annie
Speaker 1: Poke Salad, Annie Poke Salinn Annie.
Speaker 3: Never heard of this. I got to look it up.
Speaker 1: Ton Is your White recorded first, but Elvis Presley did
Speaker 1: a remake of it.
Speaker 3: Got You Okay?
Speaker 1: So we recorded that song. It was a number one
Speaker 1: pop record, okay. So I recorded that record with ton
Speaker 1: Joe White. So he had another song that he wanted
Speaker 1: to record, but the rhythm section was They said, man,
Speaker 1: I got this. I got one more song that I
Speaker 1: need to record, but we don't have the money to
Speaker 1: I don't have the money to pay y'all on it.
Speaker 1: So so you know, it's like a football thing, you know,
Speaker 1: the rhythm section. We hold, man, what we gonna do?
Speaker 1: And somebody said, well, man, you know what we already here,
Speaker 1: so so sof let's go record the song. And you
Speaker 1: know what the song was, hit me Rainy Night in Georgia. Really, yo,
Speaker 1: what happened? Tones Joe White wrote Rainy Night in Georgia.
Speaker 1: We did the demo and then gave it. The Brook
Speaker 1: Atlantic Records liked the demo so well they took Tony
Speaker 1: Joe White's voice off and put put Ben's voice on
Speaker 1: and put the strings on it. But well, that's you guys, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean that's people. I mean I was the only black
Speaker 3: gw on that.
Speaker 1: It was the white rental section that that recorded on
Speaker 1: Tony Joe White Scott.
Speaker 3: They just wanted me to play basse but I never
Speaker 3: was available.
Speaker 1: So because Isaac Case didn't show up, I just took
Speaker 1: that opportunity to to just say the hell with it.
Speaker 1: That went over to that session. Did he eventually show
Speaker 1: up or I don't know. I didn't never did go
Speaker 1: back that day and that that and that was the
Speaker 1: last time. Now whether he still used me for a
Speaker 1: while later, but he was working on getting you know,
Speaker 1: getting somebody else to replace my ass.
Speaker 3: At that point, I didn't really care.
Speaker 1: It didn't make any difference, you know, I didn't care,
Speaker 1: all right, So you were told no chariots, no.
Speaker 2: If you will again, is there any nervousness whatsoever if
Speaker 2: you're playing an event, like if I'm playing that event,
Speaker 2: I'm worried about if everyone knows who we are, if
Speaker 2: everyone knows the songs or oh we were.
Speaker 3: Kind of you.
Speaker 1: No, we didn't think about all that. But I have
Speaker 1: to tell you they're playing washtacks. At the beginning, I
Speaker 1: was beyond butterflies.
Speaker 3: I was scared of shit. What were you nervous about?
Speaker 1: I mean, I ain't never played in front of that
Speaker 1: many people before. I mean it was one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people over there.
Speaker 2: What was the feeling like seeing the final product on
Speaker 2: the screen, the movie?
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was one of the most
Speaker 1: clever things that had ever happened. Which incidentally, Concord Records
Speaker 1: their headquarters was in Beverley Hills. Gotcha, FYI Concorders moved
Speaker 1: their headquarters from Beverly Hills to Nashville.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with Fantasy Records. Yeah. So one of my label
Speaker 2: people Collin right there.
Speaker 1: So in the lobby of Concord workers in Nashville, Like
Speaker 1: the lobby may be big as this room.
Speaker 3: The whole wall.
Speaker 1: Is a picture of the barks what stacks. So my
Speaker 1: attorney's in Nashville too, Okay, so he's cooking up something
Speaker 1: to use.
Speaker 3: That to our advantage.
Speaker 1: Oh, got you, because y'all must think something of us,
Speaker 1: even though it's of old enough to put our picture
Speaker 1: of the let's do something or something'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So I have a question about the last
Speaker 2: Stacks album. Now, usually what labels will do, there's two
Speaker 2: ways to go about it. One of course is if
Speaker 2: an artist dies, they'll release a posthumous record like whatever
Speaker 2: was left over in the vaults, will cook something together,
Speaker 2: will sweeten it, new album by Otis Redding, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, They'll have a posthumous record. But then
Speaker 2: on the other side of that coin is what I
Speaker 2: call cash in records. So Motown was notorious for this
Speaker 2: because look, I'm a young Jackson five fan. We all
Speaker 2: know the story that in nineteen seventy five they left
Speaker 2: the label. Of course, Michael Jackson becomes God six seven
Speaker 2: years later, but on the route to that, Motown is
Speaker 2: still releasing what I call cash in records. What they're
Speaker 2: contractually allowed to do. Whatever's in the vaults, just keep releasing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You know again, I'm made nine, ten years old, so
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh, the Jacksons must be recording for Epic
Speaker 2: and Motown at the same time. My dad explains, no,
Speaker 2: Motown's just trying to cash in. Now that Michael's more
Speaker 2: popular now like Let's cash In. So I always saw
Speaker 2: the Money Talks album, as you know, it's nothing new.
Speaker 2: When Ohio Players went to Mercury, west Bound was still
Speaker 2: releasing Ohio Players records. When Funkadelic went to Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: West Bound is still releasing Funkadelic records that they're contractually obligated.
Speaker 2: But the difference in nineteen seventy eight, and I believe
Speaker 2: this is either when Enjoy or Shine comes out, is
Speaker 2: Money Talks gets released at the same time, and which,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, contains my all time favorite song, which
Speaker 2: I consider your best song, which is Holy Ghost. You
Speaker 2: guys do something different that no other band does with
Speaker 2: their cash in record, which is you went out and
Speaker 2: actually promoted it as if normally. Again, it's like they're
Speaker 2: trying to cash in on us. Warner Brothers did it
Speaker 2: the earth Wind and Fire they blew up Warner Brothers
Speaker 2: re releasing that, you know catalog if Money Talks was
Speaker 2: essentially a whatever's left in the vaults compilation long after
Speaker 2: you guys went to Mercury. First of all, how do
Speaker 2: Mercury feel about you guys doing this? And why wasn't
Speaker 2: Holy Ghosts just on a Mercury record.
Speaker 1: First of all, Holy Ghost was not on a Mercury
Speaker 1: record because it was still owned by Fantasy Gotcha. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you know anything about record covers back
Speaker 1: in those days, they weren't having it.
Speaker 3: They kind of like this owned it.
Speaker 2: So Stax gave all their vault to Fantasy once they no.
Speaker 1: The any give its I mean just Fantasy inherited the ketalogue,
Speaker 1: gotcha and bought it or whatever.
Speaker 3: Whatever happened. So you were told this is coming out.
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't know about it until after they said, Man,
Speaker 1: have you heard this? They just did a couple of
Speaker 1: two or three overdose on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But what I'm asking is, did they present it
Speaker 2: to you or was it like, let's fix it up
Speaker 2: a little bit and then you put it out.
Speaker 3: No, it was already fixed and they told us about it.
Speaker 2: So you're telling me that Holy Ghost when did y'all
Speaker 2: record that? It came out in seventy eight? But what
Speaker 2: year did y'all really record that?
Speaker 1: Probably seventy three or seventy three or seventy four somewhere
Speaker 1: we recorded them before stacks closed, and y'all.
Speaker 2: Were just like and whatever, Yeah, what the hell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I seriously, I mean, see, you have to understand
Speaker 1: that because we were just in the studio all the time.
Speaker 1: We didn't really know I mean still at that point,
Speaker 1: we didn't know what we were doing. We were just doing something, man.
Speaker 1: We just get in the studio and do something, I
Speaker 1: mean skipping around.
Speaker 3: You know. I talked to Marcus Miller all the time,
Speaker 3: and he told me that.
Speaker 1: Man, he said, me and Luther used to sit up
Speaker 1: and listen to Isaac Hay's records. He said, the idea
Speaker 1: of Luther doing a cover song on every album came
Speaker 1: from every time I see him. I mean, man, we
Speaker 1: sit down and talk for hours and hours.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: In fact, we've done a couple of bass clinics together
Speaker 1: that was officiated by Kirk Whale. A guy asked him
Speaker 1: and which it really made me feel kind of good
Speaker 1: because we had a bass players workshop and we had
Speaker 1: about forty bass players there. The music stores donated some
Speaker 1: practice amps. He told the bass players that could bring
Speaker 1: their acts with him. Got you and this one guy,
Speaker 1: you know, young dude, he's playing a six string bas
Speaker 1: I said, dude's planning a six string. I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to learn how to play four strings. But anyway, he
Speaker 1: asked Marcus Milly said, man, who were some of the
Speaker 1: people that you used to listen to when you was
Speaker 1: growing up? And he said, man, you know what. One
Speaker 1: of them was right here in the building and said
Speaker 1: who is that? He said, change all that, man, I
Speaker 1: almost fell out the chair.
Speaker 3: Have you heard yourself play on the Holy Ghost? I
Speaker 3: don't pay no attention to that stuff. Man.
Speaker 2: When my parents would go on the road, I would
Speaker 2: say at my grandmother's house, and I lived next door
Speaker 2: to a DJ, and we had thin walls in southwest Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: so whenever he's practicing, I could hear it clearly in
Speaker 2: my bedroom and he would extend that drum break for
Speaker 2: hours practicing on Holy Ghost. I mean, well, you know,
Speaker 2: and for you that's just a shrug, like is that
Speaker 2: song even in the repertoire today, Like.
Speaker 1: Oh yo, this is it's just it's a muss play.
Speaker 3: Okay. I'm glad you reas acknowledged that it's it's a
Speaker 3: musplay song in the repertoire.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was somewhere Jimmy jam was there and
Speaker 1: he said, man, And then I had this whole hour
Speaker 1: and a half conversation with him about that song because
Speaker 1: he said, man, when I was a DJ, and you know,
Speaker 1: he went to that hole spield and all of that.
Speaker 1: So and then then we were talking back and forth
Speaker 1: because a flight time we played Minneapolis one time and
Speaker 1: they opened for us.
Speaker 3: This was back when the time opened up for the
Speaker 3: bar case. No, a flight time, Oh, flight time opened
Speaker 3: up for it.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is when Alexander O'Niel was the lead, say gotcha,
Speaker 1: And I was in the dressing room.
Speaker 3: I was always intrigged by Terry Lewis.
Speaker 1: And in fact, three of my I mean, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, I mean Larry Graham, you know, like him,
Speaker 1: but three of my favorite bass players it's Terry Lewis,
Speaker 1: Robert Wilson. Okay, and cool there you go. Okay, they
Speaker 1: don't do much, but what they do, they don't have
Speaker 1: to do much. It's so tasty. So I mean Robert Wilson,
Speaker 1: I mean that. I mean God rest is soul. It's
Speaker 1: just something special.
Speaker 2: I want to know what the touring circuit was like
Speaker 2: in the seventies, all right, you told me the cameo story.
Speaker 2: At this time when like p Funk is using afrofuturists motifs,
Speaker 2: and spaceships and characters and freaky aliens and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and earth wind and fire is using magic tricks and
Speaker 2: all those things.
Speaker 3: What are you guys thinking.
Speaker 2: On the sidelines, Like, how are you figuring out what
Speaker 2: your plan of attack is? I mean, besides an occasional
Speaker 2: appearance on either rock concert or soul train or something
Speaker 2: like that, I've not seen a good representation of like
Speaker 2: your live show in the mid seventies.
Speaker 3: And when I look at the back cover of Too
Speaker 3: How To Stop, and you see the smoke and.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, the girl on the floor and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. I always wanted to know what your
Speaker 2: live show was like in the seventies.
Speaker 1: You know, we would you know, we would have powro
Speaker 1: and and you know they didn't you know, back in
Speaker 1: those days, they didn't have fog machines. So I'll tell
Speaker 1: you we got the idea of using smoking all that
Speaker 1: stuff like that. We got that idea from believe it
Speaker 1: or not, I continue the turner, okay, because let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. Even though I continue the turner, back
Speaker 1: in those days, they didn't have the repertoire for the
Speaker 1: you know, recorded music.
Speaker 3: They will act that you didn't want to go on behind?
Speaker 1: Really they were act that you didn't want to go behind,
Speaker 1: and Lord knows in the DC area you did not
Speaker 1: want to go on behind Chuck Brown?
Speaker 2: Is it cheating if Chuck Brown gets added to the lineup?
Speaker 3: Is it fair because he owns the DMV, he owns DC.
Speaker 2: So for you though, like, are you guys fully aware
Speaker 2: that a man like they're coming on?
Speaker 1: Like we gotta okay? You said, DC? What is the
Speaker 1: best city for the bar case as far as shows
Speaker 1: are concerned, Probably DC Chocolate City. What's the hardest city
Speaker 1: to penetrate? What's the hardest? I would say in New York.
Speaker 3: We're too cool for that. I mean, this is cold.
Speaker 1: But our strongest overall is the West Coast. Even to
Speaker 1: this day we have a huge uh Latino following. In fact,
Speaker 1: in the course of a year, we'll probably go to
Speaker 1: the West Coast, somewhere on the West coast, be it
Speaker 1: La Oakland, Services, Gold, San Diego, somewhere on the West coast,
Speaker 1: seven or eight times a year.
Speaker 3: Somewhere got you because they.
Speaker 2: Just I mean, hey, So, the one thing that I
Speaker 2: noticed about this band that most bands don't do is
Speaker 2: evolve and pivot. Now, I've seen every iteration of this band.
Speaker 2: I've seen the bar Kayes as a new jack swing
Speaker 2: trio in the nineties. I've seen the adjustment to the eighties.
Speaker 2: I thought was you know, like in Philly, sex Omatic
Speaker 2: got played every hour on black radio in Philly.
Speaker 3: Because the thing is, if you.
Speaker 2: Get a winning formula, sometimes that's your comfort zone. You
Speaker 2: want to stick with it, and then sometimes you gotta
Speaker 2: let go and wipe the slate clean and do something else.
Speaker 2: So you know, when you guys are leaving the era
Speaker 2: in which you know, the idea of fourteen member bands
Speaker 2: and all these things like the eighties are coming.
Speaker 3: Technology is coming into place.
Speaker 2: Like can you talk about like the making of like
Speaker 2: the Contagious Record, and like in in that that early
Speaker 2: eighties period when you guys are adjusting to drummer scenes,
Speaker 2: to synthesizers and to all those things, Like how easy
Speaker 2: or hard is it to adjust not doing what was
Speaker 2: killing two years ago at the LA Forum.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it was not that hard because
Speaker 1: my thing has always been about, let's try to do
Speaker 1: whatever works. I mean, you know, I learned a lot
Speaker 1: coming up in the beginning being around jazz musicians, A
Speaker 1: pure jazz musician. The stuff that we ended up doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you had these die hard jazz musicians,
Speaker 1: and man, I wouldn't do that. I don't give a
Speaker 1: damn how much money you make, you know, you know
Speaker 1: those musicians like that, I'm a jazz I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: jazz until I die. Well with me, bullshit, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do something big, you know, make some money. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't all that hard to adjust. It's just because you
Speaker 1: have to understand that. For instance, are you for me
Speaker 1: with art recording studios. No, it's in Memphis, Tennessee. It's
Speaker 1: owned by John Fry, It's probably Yeah, it's the well
Speaker 1: Audit Recording Studio probably is the most technolog.
Speaker 3: Well now technically advanced studio in town.
Speaker 1: In fact, now I stand to be corrected, but I
Speaker 1: think it ranked rates number two in the world, behind
Speaker 1: Abbey Road.
Speaker 3: Got You.
Speaker 1: We hold the record for being at Audit Recording.
Speaker 3: Studio the most.
Speaker 1: In other words, it would be nothing for us to
Speaker 1: go in the studio and block book the studio for
Speaker 1: three months or four months.
Speaker 3: To all the records would be recorded there.
Speaker 1: All the records after Stacks closed, all the records after
Speaker 1: that was recorded at Audums now.
Speaker 3: Privor to stacks closing.
Speaker 1: We talked Jim Stewart and Albail into letting us go
Speaker 1: for a period and record in La at the record plant,
Speaker 1: a little bit in uh La, but mostly in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: It's you know sarce Alito. Yeah, okay, because with sarce Alito,
Speaker 1: when you booked the studio a Sarcelito, you get the
Speaker 1: house and the boat.
Speaker 3: So James talked about this.
Speaker 2: I know Prince recorded his first two records in the
Speaker 2: salce Alito record plant.
Speaker 3: So you get the house in the boat.
Speaker 1: So we recorded a lot there and I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you why.
Speaker 3: You show y'all, I don't want I don't know what
Speaker 3: it called it done or what.
Speaker 1: We looked at the back of the album covers and
Speaker 1: we said, if Stevie Wonder recorded uh his ship at
Speaker 1: the at at at the record plant, and if the
Speaker 1: Eyes of Rose recorded this stuff it uh and they
Speaker 1: and they used these guys that that were doing all
Speaker 1: this programming, you know, CIVI sized programming. More that if
Speaker 1: we recorded if Sly records at the record plant, this
Speaker 1: is where we need to be recorded.
Speaker 3: You should go there.
Speaker 1: But but little did we know that it wasn't the studio,
Speaker 1: it was the cats in the study udio. We I mean,
Speaker 1: you know we had we had wrapped our brain around
Speaker 1: that part of it, right, But yeah, but the art.
Speaker 2: And studios, Okay, it was fun in this situation. And
Speaker 2: you mentioned about the idea of a democracy for this period.
Speaker 2: Are you the alpha member of the band that makes
Speaker 2: the our decisions or is it like, all right, all
Speaker 2: of us get to say, all eight of us or
Speaker 2: nine of us get to say you mean.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no no now no.
Speaker 1: But back then, back then, yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: kind of like the majority of rules. I mean, if
Speaker 1: it was nine people, you had to have five votes.
Speaker 2: And are these things for like small things like uh,
Speaker 2: sequence of the album or yeah, all of.
Speaker 1: That, all of that this single should be first? Or
Speaker 1: I had a little bore saying that because I just
Speaker 1: had the instinct about that song myself and Alan Jones,
Speaker 1: But even I gave him a lot of instinct because
Speaker 1: I have to tell you this for the story you
Speaker 1: heard the song called Attitudes by Yeah, is this attitude
Speaker 1: describes you?
Speaker 3: What else you want to be might not be what
Speaker 3: the people see.
Speaker 1: It's up to your adage attitude to describe the real you.
Speaker 3: But anyway, we got to fight.
Speaker 1: We got into we got into a fistfight on that
Speaker 1: song because the producer was in this studio. He was
Speaker 1: in the control room and we were out on the
Speaker 1: floor and the song is like about about two minutes
Speaker 1: and twenty seconds long. He wanted us to keep going
Speaker 1: right and half of us we got the signals all this,
Speaker 1: so half of the people stopped and half people got going.
Speaker 3: And so it came into men, man, where'd you stop? Man?
Speaker 3: We didn't know?
Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, you fucked us all up? Man, and
Speaker 1: all that we get we get out of my face,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it turned into a brawl.
Speaker 1: Ready in the middle, you guys together or the group
Speaker 1: so we were all out on the floor. Turned into
Speaker 1: a problem we had. We we ended the session that day.
Speaker 1: We couldn't do nothing else.
Speaker 2: This is on Flying High on your Love album.
Speaker 3: Yeah after two I have to stop. Yeah okay, So
Speaker 3: when when.
Speaker 2: A conflict happens, how does it get resolved the next day?
Speaker 1: Uh, we come to the studio and we just listen,
Speaker 1: listen to stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's almost like nothing happened. The day before.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, hey, man, we ain't and everybody
Speaker 1: sail you know, we ain't nobody holding no blast like
Speaker 1: that you covered a hickey on your head or bloody
Speaker 1: nose or whatever. I mean, we come back and try
Speaker 1: to do it again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Of the albums and in that period, like what is
Speaker 2: your what is your favorite? And I know you're gonna
Speaker 2: be like, once I make them, then it's behind me.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it would have to be Night Cruising,
Speaker 1: and uh, because that album we did something that we
Speaker 1: don't normally do. Night Cruising was one of those albums
Speaker 1: that we rehearsed on it for about a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: We rehearsed every song then and uh and and demoed it.
Speaker 1: So we went to the studio. I mean we I
Speaker 1: think we record that whole album in uh, a little
Speaker 1: under two weeks.
Speaker 3: His run is on Night Cruising, correct, I think?
Speaker 1: So okay, we called the whole album and almost in
Speaker 1: less than two weeks. Because see here's his name. He
Speaker 1: was on tour and back then the record company. You know,
Speaker 1: actually you get penalized if your turning date is a
Speaker 1: certain day. I mean, we were so notorious until if
Speaker 1: we didn't turn the record in on a particular day
Speaker 1: that we supposed.
Speaker 3: To turn it in while we were good. Find like
Speaker 3: they would hold back money. Yeah, they hold back money
Speaker 3: from our recording fund.
Speaker 1: Say we was getting one hundred and fifty thousand for
Speaker 1: the recording fun they hold back ten thousand and that.
Speaker 1: And so you know, a couple of times we ended
Speaker 1: up being upsid down. I mean, we owed more money
Speaker 1: than we had to finish paying with.
Speaker 2: As I said earlier, the eighties proved to be kind
Speaker 2: of a hard time for some bands and some acts
Speaker 2: to hang on unless they went totally crossover. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the Black seventies funk acts,
Speaker 2: sole acts adjusted, porn and Sisters adjusted, Corner Gang adjusted.
Speaker 2: A lot of people went solo in the seventies. Michael
Speaker 2: went solo, Lino, Richie went solo. Was there any point
Speaker 2: where Larry felt like I could do this on my
Speaker 2: own or like you guys stayed together.
Speaker 3: Though, And that's the thing, Like we stayed together over
Speaker 3: forty years. What's the key to that? We just had
Speaker 3: We just had a.
Speaker 1: Mutual respect for each other up until you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you know, when he retired several years ago in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: and then he decided to come back out as Larry Dowson.
Speaker 3: Well, he wanted to come back out as the bar
Speaker 3: Case featuring Larry Dawson.
Speaker 2: To me, this is almost like movie worthy, scripted movie worthy. Now,
Speaker 2: I know with your album history, you're like this songs
Speaker 2: that doesn't matter. It was a Tuesday we made the
Speaker 2: Holy Ghosts and then forgot about it. How are you
Speaker 2: now with as far as like your archives are concerned,
Speaker 2: or your just memories.
Speaker 3: Like are you sentimental? Do you collect things? Do you?
Speaker 2: And how do you plan on telling the story of
Speaker 2: the barcas well?
Speaker 1: I'm in the process now of finish my book, and
Speaker 1: I must add my wife is probably gonna get me
Speaker 1: about this procrastinating about it, but my plan is to
Speaker 1: have it finished sometimes, I mean forty years out.
Speaker 3: I had hoped that.
Speaker 1: Having finished should be finished by now, but I'm a
Speaker 1: little behind. But I have a story to tell. I
Speaker 1: got a story to tell, I mean, and a mirror.
Speaker 3: We hadn't even.
Speaker 1: Scratched the service. There's a whole slash story. There's a
Speaker 1: Don Corneil's story, and you know there's I got a
Speaker 1: lot of stories. I mean, Slash saved us. Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: there's a Jackson five story.
Speaker 2: What do you want us to know about the barcades
Speaker 2: that we don't know? And man, I'm gonna have you
Speaker 2: closed on the Slash story.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: What you should know about the barcades is that, first
Speaker 1: of all, number one, the first thing you should know, AMIRR,
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I'm a bass player posing as
Speaker 1: a promotion man, or a promotion man posing as a
Speaker 1: bass player. I don't know what because I did a
Speaker 1: lot of independent promotion work. I never worked for a company.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I did that for for minute. I worked
Speaker 1: with for Selecto hits. I'm the one that introduced three
Speaker 1: six Mathia eight balling them JG.
Speaker 3: Timet, I totally forgot.
Speaker 2: We talk about how your son, the legendary Jazzy Fay
Speaker 2: sort of revived Memphis hip hop, which as if.
Speaker 1: Fay, how he did that is well, First of all,
Speaker 1: number one, he tried.
Speaker 3: To be an artist.
Speaker 1: First, he was an artist. He was on Electra uh
Speaker 1: in the day's uh. Doug Daniels at Electoral Bob Krastno
Speaker 1: was the president. Doug Daniels over promotions and then they
Speaker 1: decided to bring in Ruben Rodriguez, okay, his Pendulum Records,
Speaker 1: and so Ruben fired everybody at at Electra.
Speaker 3: And brought in Pen Recause. And that was kind of
Speaker 3: like the black part of Electra.
Speaker 2: We almost signed the pen shout out Togable Planet Jazz.
Speaker 1: It put out one album rising to the top, and
Speaker 1: he said, Daddy, I don't want to be no artist
Speaker 1: no more.
Speaker 3: I want to start producing. So he still was in Memphis, right,
Speaker 3: and uh, I know he didn't want me to tell
Speaker 3: this story.
Speaker 1: I went by some apartment one day, right, opened the
Speaker 1: door to his apartment, and this big puff of smoke
Speaker 1: hit me in the face.
Speaker 3: I got a contact high. There you go.
Speaker 1: I went ballistic. So he didn't have that many dishes
Speaker 1: in his in his cabinet. I went in his I
Speaker 1: went in this in the kitchen, and every dish in
Speaker 1: the kitchen I broke it. I just I went I
Speaker 1: went berserk. And then they and then everybody looking at
Speaker 1: me like you know, they thought of you know, I
Speaker 1: thought him as smoking crack or something. But that was
Speaker 1: I mean, I just went off. And then so I
Speaker 1: told him, I said, you're gonna have to make a
Speaker 1: decision in twenty four hours of what you're gonna do
Speaker 1: with your life.
Speaker 3: So he came back and he said, Dad, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do. I don't know where
Speaker 3: to go or nothing like that. I gave him a
Speaker 3: little more time, and he came back to me. He
Speaker 3: said he's gonna move to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So he didn't have nothing, I mean nothing but what
Speaker 1: I gave him every now and then he called me
Speaker 1: and said, Dad, can you you know it was no
Speaker 1: cash out or nothing like that.
Speaker 3: Then say can you put me some on the wire.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking maybe you know, like hey, one hundred bucks
Speaker 1: or something like that that I need five hundred bucks
Speaker 1: short on my rent.
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, you need to get a job.
Speaker 1: So that went on for one or two times, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden he started happening and I
Speaker 1: asked around. I asked faced in particular, and ain't no
Speaker 1: future in your front?
Speaker 3: Who's the mc bre Yeah, cause he stayed with him.
Speaker 3: She read when he first got to.
Speaker 1: Atlanta, facing that were on a BMI panel in Nashville.
Speaker 3: And you mean scarface, no baby face, oh baby Okay.
Speaker 3: So he kept saying that.
Speaker 1: Somebody was asking the question and he was talking about
Speaker 1: writer's block, face having writer's block come on, so even
Speaker 1: facing so he said, man, I had to writers block
Speaker 1: on this song. And uh, I founded that. This kid
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, they said he called himself Jazzy Faye. He
Speaker 1: said he said it in the track and he said
Speaker 1: it in amount of hours he had to set the
Speaker 1: track back. It was a Tony Braxton song, but I
Speaker 1: don't know which one it was that he had. He
Speaker 1: kind of like finished it in like a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: and he and he just, you know, he just thought
Speaker 1: he was amazing. He went on and on and on
Speaker 1: and on about him. So he started, you know, he
Speaker 1: just he started doing this thing. I had a problem
Speaker 1: with it because I was in the studio. I was
Speaker 1: in patchwork one day and j D was in there,
Speaker 1: Sean Garrett, Jazz, all of them. You know, they were
Speaker 1: smoking a little few blunts and they passed around to
Speaker 1: me and I wouldn't partake in it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a tendency for going off. I got up
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, I don't want your
Speaker 1: damn dope. I said, but y'all ain't gonna be shit
Speaker 1: until y'all bring an old ass person like me back
Speaker 1: from the day they make a hit for me. And
Speaker 1: then I left. Okay, I left the studio, and so
Speaker 1: I guess Jess felt bad. So about nine years ago
Speaker 1: he called me and said, damn, you need to come
Speaker 1: to the studio and he wrote a song for us
Speaker 1: called grown Folks. You don't need permission to do what
Speaker 1: grown folks do. You don't have to ask nobody, because
Speaker 1: guess what has grown there?
Speaker 3: It is. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to have this conversation with you, and
Speaker 2: I thank you anytime. Thank you brother, now, even though
Speaker 2: I'm saying goodbye. If this is the encore, give me
Speaker 2: the Slidestone story. Slat Stone was.
Speaker 1: We was opening the show for slash Stone at the
Speaker 1: Cobo Arena in Detroit.
Speaker 3: Wait year this was.
Speaker 1: He just said, danced to the music out. Oh Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ is sixty eight era. Okay good. And he had
Speaker 1: an endorsement with Fender. Okay, uh, Fender gave it an endorsements.
Speaker 1: They had all Fender, Fender everything, Fender amps, get to
Speaker 1: us everything. We won our way to Detroit, we would
Speaker 1: have opened in that So whatever vehicle we were traveling
Speaker 1: broke down. So if we got to the venue, we
Speaker 1: weren't gonna have time to set our equipment up, because
Speaker 1: the promoter goes, whatever time we took the setup, you
Speaker 1: go deduct that from out whatever time we spoke performed.
Speaker 1: So SLID's dad and slide I came out said, man,
Speaker 1: don't y'all worry about techingyogy equipment out. Man, let's use
Speaker 1: some of this shit up on stage. And he let
Speaker 1: us use all this equipment. We didn't have to sit
Speaker 1: the equipment up. He saved us because otherwise we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to do our set.
Speaker 3: And so you know, we became friends ever since.
Speaker 1: And I can't tell the Don Coneian story, but when
Speaker 1: Don Conneius moved from Chicago to La when he got
Speaker 1: his you know, because Soul Train was a local show,
Speaker 1: he got picked up by Tribune and then went national,
Speaker 1: Don called me and saim I know absolutely nobody in La.
Speaker 3: So I was in La.
Speaker 1: So I said, just meet me at the Record plant.
Speaker 1: So on his first night in La, I introduced him
Speaker 1: to slide Stone, Bobby Womack and Billy Preston and I
Speaker 1: and so see, so can you said, man for that,
Speaker 1: anytime you come to La you can do Soul Train.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what is official or unofficial, but
Speaker 1: we may hold the records.
Speaker 2: You guys are third behind the whispers. I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how I knew this, but I knew this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know too much. No, no, no, you're good.
Speaker 1: We probably hold the record for doing Soul Training, cause
Speaker 1: eventually we do. We had to do Soul Train at
Speaker 1: least ten or fifteen times.
Speaker 3: You guys are third. Uh.
Speaker 2: The whispers are first, O Jay's or second. You guys
Speaker 2: are third. Right in terms of solid appearances, yes that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Dub we became friends in fact. Next week
Speaker 1: we leave to go on to sould Train crew Soul
Speaker 1: Train crews. Brother Alexander, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: This is the Quest Love Show, so I gotta say
Speaker 2: see yall next week. The Quest Loup Show is hosted
Speaker 2: by me a Mere Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are.
Speaker 3: Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin
Speaker 3: and Jake Paine.
Speaker 1: Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, edited by Alex Conroy.
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Speaker 1: by Nick Helloe. Additional support by Lance Colbert Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Kathy Wrong Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe,
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Speaker 1: that's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of
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