Speaker 1: What's up, y'all, It's on pay bill here to give
Speaker 1: you the latest quest. Love Supreme Classic episode Back in October,
Speaker 1: Allen leads with a fifth guest on Quels. That conversation
Speaker 1: which I heard you all to check out has been
Speaker 1: re released, but even three hours down was not. He
Speaker 1: came back for a two part interview. Here's Allen Leads
Speaker 1: a second ql S appearance from right this one. He
Speaker 1: talks a lot about it. Here's James crowd some really
Speaker 1: great stuff about playing the Chiland circuit and put it together.
Speaker 1: Those epic James Brown review shows. You can hear why
Speaker 1: Allan Leads deserves three episodes. Episode one oh one. Enjoined
Speaker 1: to volume dolls and hipp yats across the nation. This
Speaker 1: is a special distide of course, Love I always wanted
Speaker 1: to talk like uh like a fifties sixties radio jock
Speaker 1: Uhlas and gentlemen, this is the quiet edition. Of course,
Speaker 1: Love Supreme saw many crabs outside, so should be backing
Speaker 1: about a mom. I'm the only smoker here and everybody
Speaker 1: else right exactly, Ladies and gentlemen, Our guest today needs
Speaker 1: absolutely no introduction. If you're a longtime fan of the show,
Speaker 1: this is one of our rare repeat guests. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: our guest today is probably one of the most organized
Speaker 1: humans in show business. At least I'm like to believe
Speaker 1: that you are. He's shaking his head right now, Denial.
Speaker 1: I would say that he is the glue that really
Speaker 1: ensures that you would have gotten your money's worth if
Speaker 1: you are seeing your favorite act perform in concert. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which which acts would they be? You can name
Speaker 1: them all from Colony Gang, the Bootsies, Robert Van to Kiss,
Speaker 1: to Print, whoever that is Uh, to Chris Rock, to
Speaker 1: D'Angelo to Rathfiel Sadiq to Maxwell Uh and of course
Speaker 1: the main reason that we're all gathered here today me
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar. No, of course, I'm speaking of
Speaker 1: his time with James Brown, which probably a domino effect
Speaker 1: his long standing power um and offered him the credibility
Speaker 1: to pretty much stand next to a kazillion geniuses and
Speaker 1: in music, his book, Thank God, there's this book entitled
Speaker 1: There Was a Time on post O Press, recently released
Speaker 1: this late winter. It was it was late February. Okay, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: still we don't know that yet anyway, Um, yeah, There
Speaker 1: Was the Time offers a rare glimpse into the world
Speaker 1: of the Chipland circuit, or outside the Chipland circuit as
Speaker 1: it morphed into regular show business for most R and
Speaker 1: b X one of my favorite human beings on Earth.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Alan leads back to screen. Were good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Alan. I'm Alan hates. That's where I get
Speaker 1: it from. When you guys say that I assue compliments,
Speaker 1: compliments and praise. Alan often cringes when I have to
Speaker 1: say that as well. Not on the inside. Gwen tells
Speaker 1: me it's because you don't know how to take compliments,
Speaker 1: so you pretend you don't care. Trying to be cool.
Speaker 1: Compliments are very hard. Um, I get it. Well, Steve,
Speaker 1: you're a great guy than you everybody. So do you
Speaker 1: how weird is it for you to be at this
Speaker 1: phase in your career? Like, are you the type of
Speaker 1: person that it was like when you write the book
Speaker 1: this is sort of end of a life chapter or
Speaker 1: I mean not to sound super morbid, but I just
Speaker 1: mean usually like the people came to me writing books
Speaker 1: like I was like, no, I have more life to
Speaker 1: live and I'll save it for later. Yes and no,
Speaker 1: okay no, because I started this book thirty years ago. Really, okay.
Speaker 1: I actually thought it when my first marriage broke up
Speaker 1: and I was sitting around nothing to do, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: at least diaries in papers and while it's frushing my mind,
Speaker 1: let me start putting stuff down. Now. I couldn't write
Speaker 1: a lick at that point. It was terrible because I've
Speaker 1: got there. That was after. It was after. Even the
Speaker 1: early line notes are pretty poorly written. But um, talking
Speaker 1: about the payback, he thanks very much. I was asking
Speaker 1: because that's the first one. He did write the line
Speaker 1: of notes for the payback on the inside, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a mother Damn. I forgot that. That worked. Ye,
Speaker 1: that work. There was There was a James Brown called Hammer,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, despite the title was Christmas record, and I
Speaker 1: wrote the line notes for that, and a jew writtening
Speaker 1: liner notes for a Christmas album. It's kind of an
Speaker 1: anomally to start with. What did he ask you to write? Yeah? Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because back then, you know, you had to put information
Speaker 1: on the back of the album. Well, he thought it
Speaker 1: was a genius just because I could write publicity releases.
Speaker 1: James Brown is coming to town and I could do that.
Speaker 1: One page in newspapers would take it and fill their
Speaker 1: pages up, and so he thought it was Shakespeare. Um
Speaker 1: so he said, let so you started thirty years ago
Speaker 1: writing in this book. Yeah, and it was. It was
Speaker 1: the kind of thing where you know that original draft
Speaker 1: besides of fact, they just poorly written. I'm looking to
Speaker 1: the finished book. It's just um, that was a bunch
Speaker 1: of drivel. It was really a tour diary. It was.
Speaker 1: It was like personal tour diary in fifty percent James
Speaker 1: Brown Body he was born and made that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And as time went on, realized that the diary was
Speaker 1: self indulgent and had a lot of stupid stuff that
Speaker 1: was no interest to anybody, not even me. And um,
Speaker 1: you know it was like what I had for breakfast
Speaker 1: before the show was dumb stuff. This guy actually act.
Speaker 1: But I was smoking a lot of weed that and
Speaker 1: it's like so you kept note, see that's the thing
Speaker 1: like I that was the horder So am I Yeah, Well, OK,
Speaker 1: half my houses I think we knew that. Um No.
Speaker 1: And when he left King Records for Paula Door Invent one,
Speaker 1: we're cleaning out the office and there's tons of foul
Speaker 1: cabinets full of old tiner hereies to routings, publicity pictures, UM,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff, the kind of stuff you would
Speaker 1: think would be in our office like that. And also
Speaker 1: we're recording session reports UM music Union session reports with
Speaker 1: dates and who plays what and that tracking sheets in
Speaker 1: sessions like saying loud and Funky drummer. The original tracking
Speaker 1: sheets were in the office. Yeah, not inside the real
Speaker 1: box where they were probably copies in the real boxes.
Speaker 1: But you know, it just meticulous with filing back, Like
Speaker 1: how did you know to save all that stuff? Like
Speaker 1: how did you know? Because I was a fanatic. It
Speaker 1: was just I was already you're one of us. He
Speaker 1: never did you already knew that of his history by then. No,
Speaker 1: I knew. I wanted it. It was purely selfish, I
Speaker 1: think it really, it really was. This comes from the
Speaker 1: fact that he never had credits on his records right right,
Speaker 1: So to a real fanatic, it was like, Okay, who's
Speaker 1: the drummer around this session? Who's the guitar point this session?
Speaker 1: Wouldn't did this guy leave the bands and replaced by
Speaker 1: the next guy. I was that guy who wanted to
Speaker 1: know who did everything on his records and here's the
Speaker 1: Holy Grail, and it's a copy of the King Master Book,
Speaker 1: which tells you the recording sessions and locations and dates
Speaker 1: and what time of day and all that kind of crap.
Speaker 1: So this is to somebody who was compiling the discography
Speaker 1: that that never really dreamt anybody who gives a shit
Speaker 1: about except me. But I wanted to know, so I
Speaker 1: asked him. They're gonna trash all this stuff literally dump
Speaker 1: put it in the dumpster because we're moving to New York,
Speaker 1: well some of us to Augusta. That's all another story
Speaker 1: that the book tells you about. But but and I
Speaker 1: just said Mr Brown, can I And He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: something to somebody want to keep it? It's history. He
Speaker 1: knew it was history. I knew it was a collection.
Speaker 1: I wanted. It was like baseball cards to me, I
Speaker 1: want the collection that was it? Okay? And of course
Speaker 1: time went by and you begin to realize that this
Speaker 1: is gonna be worth something. One as as his his
Speaker 1: stardom becomes a kind of classtic and so on. Time
Speaker 1: goes on. You really be getting to get this incident like, okay,
Speaker 1: I really need to preserve this and documented properly and
Speaker 1: so on. I mean, I've got a four hundred page
Speaker 1: discography that has every session's produced and even has the
Speaker 1: bootlegs of the concert recordings that I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: stupid little publishers that stuff. I mean, it's read it.
Speaker 1: I'll read it an obsess over it. No, I'm serious,
Speaker 1: it's very important that but it comes out exactly it's important.
Speaker 1: So I can assume that if they can do for
Speaker 1: the Beatles, they can do it for times as in
Speaker 1: a side. Everybody I've talked to says, well, making a
Speaker 1: coffee table book, you don't need all the details, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, it's all about the details.
Speaker 1: They just don't get it because they're just looking. It's
Speaker 1: a research book. Yeah, it's not a coffee table book.
Speaker 1: It's not for the casual casual fan. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: for us. Right, So can I assume that the So
Speaker 1: you really were the source of most of the information
Speaker 1: in the startime box set. So you're so anytime I
Speaker 1: read who was on what and blah blah blah. So
Speaker 1: without that we would have just been guessing. Literally now,
Speaker 1: mind you, as time would go on, every time they'd
Speaker 1: have a session and This discontinued for years after I
Speaker 1: stopped working for him. Um, I would call Fred Wesley
Speaker 1: or David Matthews the arranger, and you know any sessions
Speaker 1: lately where when, what did your record? Who was on
Speaker 1: the session? I'm used to drive them crazy. Matthews talks
Speaker 1: about it his wax poetic story. He's like only that
Speaker 1: never really knew what he did, but he used to
Speaker 1: drive me crazy about details of the sessions, and he
Speaker 1: would write everything down. Um so yeah, do you have
Speaker 1: any of the original charts or the charts also in
Speaker 1: the office as well, like the horn arrangements and stuff.
Speaker 1: So they just write them down and then leave him
Speaker 1: at the studio. I think most of them were head
Speaker 1: charts really, just you know, he would do recordings like
Speaker 1: It's a Man the World with an arranger like Sammy Low,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be his band. They were charts for that.
Speaker 1: I never saw him the charts for that. I'm sure
Speaker 1: David Matthews did charts for his arrangements. Um, but as
Speaker 1: far as the the bulk of the hit records that
Speaker 1: James would his own band, those were all head charts alright.
Speaker 1: So then for James Brown himself, uh, would he could
Speaker 1: I could. I say that, I'm assuming that he freestyle
Speaker 1: a majority of this stuff, where like he just would
Speaker 1: have an idea and right down four lines. And it
Speaker 1: really varied. Um ofttimes there'd be an idea and many
Speaker 1: times I shouldn't say, Matty, but quite a few times
Speaker 1: ideas would come from having changed the arrangements of pruvious hits. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, like the vamp becomes the new song exactly, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. I mean sex Machine came out of
Speaker 1: a guitar lick that they were doing and give it up,
Speaker 1: return it loose. At some point they changed the guitar
Speaker 1: part and give it up, return it loose on the
Speaker 1: road the road arrangement, and he liked that part and
Speaker 1: ended up building a song around it was sex Machine.
Speaker 1: I see. So then with but I'm saying, like what
Speaker 1: I mean, a song that has actual lyrics like black
Speaker 1: and proud. I'm certain it was notated on paper whatnot,
Speaker 1: but then maybe maybe not, because the story goes I
Speaker 1: wasn't at that session, but Charles Bobb it was, and
Speaker 1: Bob a Dolt was claimed that it was a very
Speaker 1: impulsive thing, like they were talking in a hotel late
Speaker 1: at night, and Brown was staying, there needs to be
Speaker 1: a song like this, and I've got a lyric, and
Speaker 1: I suppose he went to pee and said, let's cook
Speaker 1: something up around this lyric. And you know whether whether
Speaker 1: they did it in the studio or the night before
Speaker 1: in the hotel, on the bus or whatever. But but
Speaker 1: I'm saying it has actual lyric structure. It's a poem, right,
Speaker 1: but for something like escapism, doing it? Escape it? All right?
Speaker 1: So alright, so Key's playing a song like escapism? Is
Speaker 1: it Escapeism? A long version, I think it's it's like
Speaker 1: a twenty minute it's ridiculous rap session where they just talk,
Speaker 1: actually talk about that session in the book and tell
Speaker 1: the whole story. But the short version is he was
Speaker 1: out of the club in Cincinnati where the de Police
Speaker 1: trio What's the House? But and this was a cocktail
Speaker 1: trio ja as you know, soft jazz trio that mostly
Speaker 1: played standards, and he used them for a couple of
Speaker 1: records where he dreamt the bean Sinatra for a minute.
Speaker 1: There was a time accident exactly exact example exactly. He
Speaker 1: was hanging out at this club and somebody used the
Speaker 1: word escape pism in the context of a casual conversation,
Speaker 1: like they had a drink and said, you know what's
Speaker 1: wrong to its kids. It's all escapism. They're not paying
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on in the New world. So
Speaker 1: and I just heard the horn squeal in my exactly.
Speaker 1: He came into the studio the next day and I
Speaker 1: was there. This wasn't an anti during one time. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, my brother Eric should be
Speaker 1: here to tell his story because he actually said it
Speaker 1: on the session. He didn't play, but but he was
Speaker 1: in the booths the whole day. The session was for
Speaker 1: and I know you got sold, Bobby Burn. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: about to record very real quick exactly, that's what the
Speaker 1: session was for. But James had this obsession with the
Speaker 1: word escapeism. So he comes in the running over the trap,
Speaker 1: which was ostensibly gonna be for a you Got Sold
Speaker 1: and at some point Jesus bird, I'm gonna do this one,
Speaker 1: and he had libbed to escape by sometimes I don't
Speaker 1: down the night, abody looking for it, everybody looking for
Speaker 1: the day. And according to Eric, who was actually in
Speaker 1: the boots, I was in the office. I couldn't hang out.
Speaker 1: It was during the afternoon so I had to be busy.
Speaker 1: I couldn't just hang in the studio or you know,
Speaker 1: how far is the studio from proximity for where the
Speaker 1: home offices were the same building. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: go down the hallway, go through a door, up a
Speaker 1: ramp in your in the studio because you hear them
Speaker 1: or was it like it was the studio there was
Speaker 1: a warehouse between that you had to kind of walk around,
Speaker 1: but it's in the same it's a huge factory like building.
Speaker 1: So no, you couldn't hear a thing. But so Eric
Speaker 1: was saying, yeah, so he was hearing, and he said
Speaker 1: that that you know, James just loved the track and
Speaker 1: he was dying to do something with this thing escapism,
Speaker 1: and listened to the record, you realized there's, as you say,
Speaker 1: there's a lyrical structure. It's just him, just him fucking
Speaker 1: with the band and at the limping ship. And it
Speaker 1: gets to the port where he's out of ideas. So
Speaker 1: he starts walking around the studio asking who's where are
Speaker 1: you from? You know? Okay, So when he does that, okay,
Speaker 1: So during this period he does that a lot, a
Speaker 1: lot on the JVS records, where he'll talk to jabbo
Speaker 1: and talk to various members of the band. Where is
Speaker 1: he holding a free mic in his hand as he's
Speaker 1: doing it? Or is it like a traditional studio set
Speaker 1: up that like, you know, are they like he set
Speaker 1: up like his stage show? No? No, actually, a few
Speaker 1: times I saw him record with the band. Um, probably
Speaker 1: have dozen, It's not a dozen times. First he'd be
Speaker 1: recording live, okay, and much to the engineer's chagrin, he'd
Speaker 1: sacrificed separation in favor of chemistry, vibe chemistry. So ofttimes
Speaker 1: the band was in like a semicircle and he would
Speaker 1: just be in the middle so he didn't have to
Speaker 1: walk with the mic. He could just you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a mic now. And he was just
Speaker 1: looking to hey, Jimmy from North Carolina, tell me about
Speaker 1: old Carolina. What do you have for breakfast? Fred? Where
Speaker 1: are you from? L A, Yeah, Lower Alabama? And to
Speaker 1: you know, this is just what he did. Okay. The
Speaker 1: track goes on and on and on, and of course
Speaker 1: the group was ferocious, and um, he walks in the
Speaker 1: I guess table was running out Ron Lenn HAPs the
Speaker 1: engineer probably signaled to him like, yo, dude, you know
Speaker 1: and he walks in and he says, whoa. And Eric
Speaker 1: just wrote this down. He had to remember it, and
Speaker 1: he says he could quote it perfectly. Um, he said.
Speaker 1: He walks into Run looking up and he said, well, Run,
Speaker 1: that's a long one. That's gotta be ten minutes. Ron said,
Speaker 1: Mr Brown, it's twenty one minutes. And Brown looks at
Speaker 1: him and said, well that's enough for part one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four and five, all right. And so of course after
Speaker 1: that they recorded I know you got so Old with
Speaker 1: its own left because of right Eric, yeah, whatever else.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that they also do this live,
Speaker 1: and at least on the live of the Apollo did
Speaker 1: they often do Escapism live and recreate um because it's
Speaker 1: almost like, yeah, it's sorry to recreate, but they kind
Speaker 1: of matched on the Apollo record. Or he just knew,
Speaker 1: here's something interesting. When we were going through tapes back
Speaker 1: when the tape Vault was in Edison, New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: we had access, We're doing Start Time and a few
Speaker 1: of the other early CDs Harry and nine, Harry Executive
Speaker 1: Universe A Universal, we would go to the tape Fault
Speaker 1: and just spend days in there going through tapes and
Speaker 1: my whole mission. Again, it's my discography, what's in the tapes,
Speaker 1: what's on the tape boxes. So I'm just running around
Speaker 1: and making copies because they had a studio there where
Speaker 1: I could put the tapes up and burnt cededs or
Speaker 1: not sorry, make exactly and um, you know. And this
Speaker 1: all help because I'm listening to unishoot stuff that I
Speaker 1: can then document in the discography as well as the
Speaker 1: complete versions and stuff and get data. Anyway, long story short,
Speaker 1: So we're going through the tapes for Revolution of the Mind,
Speaker 1: which was the third live at the Apollo album, recorded
Speaker 1: in seventy one, shortly after he joined poland Or Records.
Speaker 1: They recorded eight shows and pulled from the eight shows
Speaker 1: to sequency album. And yes, yeah, I mean I don't
Speaker 1: think they used portions of all. Maybe they used portions
Speaker 1: at two or three, but they had eight shows to
Speaker 1: draw from, and no, I haven't listened to all eight shows.
Speaker 1: But here's the point. Someday we'll do with deluxe version.
Speaker 1: And you know then I've been on Harida. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's university there you go, so it'll come me
Speaker 1: for you and bringing this up. But that's why I
Speaker 1: bring it up. But here's here's the interesting thing. The
Speaker 1: only show he did Escapeism, all the other shows are identical,
Speaker 1: meeting the sequence is identical for all for the seven
Speaker 1: of the eight shows. He only did Escapism on the
Speaker 1: first show. Now, was that intentional because he wanted the
Speaker 1: title on the album but it wasn't really part of
Speaker 1: the show yet, or didn't he like cow it came off?
Speaker 1: I can't tell you why. I can just tell you
Speaker 1: that there's only one live version of that. Whereas we
Speaker 1: had eight shows, there's one escape him Now after the
Speaker 1: record came out and hit, it was in the show,
Speaker 1: but very briefly, and I honestly can't remember what it
Speaker 1: was like. I just I can hear the audience actually channing,
Speaker 1: you know, the lyrics, which I was like, wow, like
Speaker 1: they I'm just baffled that a spontaneous conversation is now
Speaker 1: a hit single, or at least where people are repeating
Speaker 1: a lyric back. That was actually my first thought when
Speaker 1: I first heard. I was like, wow, this this this
Speaker 1: was a hit record. Like it's strange people of course,
Speaker 1: who did that? I mean, can you see this reading
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Steve Cropper breakfast? Like that wasn't good
Speaker 1: appen So for that particular album, do you remember, all right?
Speaker 1: So if all the shows were recorded, um, were they
Speaker 1: all done night after night? Or were these like, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll record the twelve o'clock show, the three o'clock show,
Speaker 1: now he was doing. But then instead of doing the
Speaker 1: old four or five shows a day, he'd cut. He
Speaker 1: convinced the Apollos that for his appearance as he would
Speaker 1: just do to at night and maybe three on weekends,
Speaker 1: so he would do at seven o'clock, in ten o'clock
Speaker 1: something like that. And ye, when did that same thing
Speaker 1: stop in the seventies or early seventies? So was it
Speaker 1: that system for the live of the Apollo two albums?
Speaker 1: So in nine was seven the apollowed. There was a
Speaker 1: jun Juno sixties seven and they recorded two and a
Speaker 1: half shows that we found. We have two complete shows
Speaker 1: and about half of the third show. But what I'm
Speaker 1: asking is for that particular run at the Apollo, was
Speaker 1: that the one o'clock in the afternoon, the two o'clock,
Speaker 1: the three o'clock. Yes, okay, So, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we went through this the last time because I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to imagine how you squeezing five shows with I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that he at least had sort of a cavalcade
Speaker 1: of at least four acts. I mean it's Bird doing
Speaker 1: some solos. Yeah. In fact, on the deluxe edition, they
Speaker 1: didn't record Bird sets, but they did get two songs
Speaker 1: on tape and we used to we used to he
Speaker 1: did Sweets Sold Music, Arthurchly Sweet sould Music. And did
Speaker 1: we use a second track? Is? I don't think so? Um,
Speaker 1: you got to change your mind or ye that later.
Speaker 1: I think the only thing that we found with Sweets
Speaker 1: Sold Music. But what I'm asking is he's not not
Speaker 1: The show ran, yes, okay, the band would come out
Speaker 1: and and this was the shorter Obviously, you're doing four
Speaker 1: or five shows a day. They're shorter than you would
Speaker 1: get in a arena or a concert hall where you're
Speaker 1: just doing one show at eight o'clock, and the shows
Speaker 1: would maybe run three hours. In the Apollos had run
Speaker 1: maybe an hour forty five. Okay, okay, the band would
Speaker 1: come out and just do one or two instrumentals, whereas
Speaker 1: on tour they might do a half hour of instrumentals.
Speaker 1: For example, the the the nine eight Boston show that's
Speaker 1: on video, they recently discovered a reel with the instrumental
Speaker 1: set and they're doing five or six instrumentals before anything
Speaker 1: happens the band is but in the Apollo they do
Speaker 1: one or two just as a warm up. Okay, then
Speaker 1: Brown would come out and all right, let me think back. Um,
Speaker 1: he would come out and he would would go right
Speaker 1: into his his nightclub set where he does. That's life
Speaker 1: for if I ruled the world in Kansas City. All right,
Speaker 1: now I'm trying fifteen minutes. I'm treating you as a
Speaker 1: DVR right now, I'm pausing the show. So with someone
Speaker 1: of his stature ego at least, why would he deflate
Speaker 1: the balloons early and not come out with a bang? Like?
Speaker 1: Why was startime so late? Where? Like was it even
Speaker 1: fan fair? He was just building out? Yes, absolutely so
Speaker 1: he would play. See what the m C would say, Now,
Speaker 1: surprised the star of the show, James Brown. He's blown
Speaker 1: out because who expects him to come on the show
Speaker 1: just started ten minutes ago? What was his logic? Like,
Speaker 1: people know that I'm gonna show up earlier. It logic
Speaker 1: by then, and this was understanding everything. Apollo Too album
Speaker 1: is just as he's beginning to change his format. But
Speaker 1: even in the old days before that, he would come
Speaker 1: out earlier and play Oregon with the band for a
Speaker 1: half hour, and that wouldn't ruin the surprise. Really, No,
Speaker 1: it was all about building. It was all about building,
Speaker 1: and and his idea was that we're gonna save the
Speaker 1: explosions for the end, of course, for the climax. And
Speaker 1: he would come out and he would do back to
Speaker 1: Let's stick with the Apollo to seven. He would come out,
Speaker 1: Let's see he did. That's life. I want to be
Speaker 1: around both of them. He's sitting in a stool and
Speaker 1: just playing nightclub crooner, which was new for him. That
Speaker 1: was new, He'd never done that before. And he would
Speaker 1: do this at the Apolo. Yes, it's on the record.
Speaker 1: What was and what was the purpose though for to
Speaker 1: do that Frank Sinatra stuff at the Apollo. The purpose
Speaker 1: was to show another side of him that he was
Speaker 1: expanding beyond just a predictable soul singer with a predictable review.
Speaker 1: He was like, I'm an all around entertainer. He was
Speaker 1: hoping to get gigs in Vegas and Miami Beach in
Speaker 1: the lucrative showrooms and and expand his his horizons and
Speaker 1: his audience. All right, so let me pause here. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's go to the copa more my i Ami. Now,
Speaker 1: if he's at a place that's the opposite of the Apollo,
Speaker 1: wouldn't right, So wouldn't the highlight them be the crooning
Speaker 1: stuff and then sort of be like this might be
Speaker 1: this might be too little rally for them, giving them
Speaker 1: a kind Yeah, it's a good point. You kind of
Speaker 1: know what you're getting, um and we would they be disappointed?
Speaker 1: Is a bathroom time or popcorn? His whole thing was
Speaker 1: it's about making a new audience meet him in his world.
Speaker 1: It was like, I'm not I'm gonna you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make changes and I'm gonna grow. It isn't hard.
Speaker 1: It's gonna show a different side to me, but I'm
Speaker 1: still gonna be true to who I am. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do anything that's going to disappoint my die hard fans.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, if I can attract that vagance audience, great,
Speaker 1: but I'm never going to turn my back on the
Speaker 1: hood because that's my base. Okay. So it was like
Speaker 1: it was like, you got to come to me on
Speaker 1: my terms. This is who I am. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to deny that. So if you don't like hard funk,
Speaker 1: then you can leave. But I'm gonna get you because
Speaker 1: I'm an entertainer. Even if you don't like my songs
Speaker 1: by records, I'm gonna do something that stage that's gonna
Speaker 1: make you stop and pay attention. Even in the seventies,
Speaker 1: so even by seventy two when he's just like afrowed
Speaker 1: out and well he had stopped doing the ballads and
Speaker 1: and that stuff like that. Um, And since I'm really
Speaker 1: dissecting every now, I wasn't. I wasn't joking about the
Speaker 1: food stuff and whatnot. Because the main reason why I
Speaker 1: probe and probe and ask you these questions for the
Speaker 1: last twenty years i've known you it is simply because
Speaker 1: I mean, had I been born thirty forty years earlier,
Speaker 1: I would have been the musician on that stage. So
Speaker 1: I'm just curious to see, as a working musician, how
Speaker 1: are our lives compare like the quest level of the
Speaker 1: late sixties. So what I want to know is, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like a stupid question, but I always
Speaker 1: wanted to know, right, Okay, So with with with a
Speaker 1: show that high energy I know that bottle water wasn't
Speaker 1: quite invented yet in the late sixties early seventies. How
Speaker 1: are they replenishing themselves on the state like is there
Speaker 1: boy on the side or intermission? Oh so you weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to bring a drink on stage or that's not professional.
Speaker 1: That's why I asked you. Would he allow that towels
Speaker 1: even up for police? Please please with the capes so
Speaker 1: only for him, So the band would have to meet
Speaker 1: jehold by the head of towel on the floor next
Speaker 1: to the kid. But don't let nobody see it. And
Speaker 1: I've never seen in any of the photos. I've never
Speaker 1: seen set lists, no tape to the oh, so you
Speaker 1: would have to know. But I mean, basically, remember this
Speaker 1: is this is a show that was on the road
Speaker 1: fifty one week. Saw the worked sometimes four nights a week,
Speaker 1: five sometimes six or seven, depending on the venues and
Speaker 1: the routing of the They could probably play it in
Speaker 1: the sleep exactly exactly, and the show gradually changed. It
Speaker 1: didn't change overnight. The set list, Um, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said, the Apollo three and Apollo two for them,
Speaker 1: and the set lists were the same for each show
Speaker 1: because they were there were segues in different dynamics that
Speaker 1: set up each song, and it was carefully structured. I
Speaker 1: mean it was you know, there was there was a
Speaker 1: method to the madness in terms of the pacing so
Speaker 1: that he could catch a breath. Um, you know as
Speaker 1: still where the ballots go and so on. Mean it's
Speaker 1: it's the chop one on one. Um, so all right,
Speaker 1: he's croony, yeah, continue, Okay, So he does that center
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, whatever it takes to do that. The last
Speaker 1: song that that said is Kansas City, which is uppeat,
Speaker 1: which means that he kicks the stool back, and halfway
Speaker 1: through Kansas City he jumps up and starts dancing a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's a tease. The band is smoking and
Speaker 1: he's giving it a tease of James Brown. That that
Speaker 1: James Brown, who slides across the state jump want foot,
Speaker 1: just the tease. Then he disappears, and here comes Bobby
Speaker 1: Bird to do two or three songs on two or
Speaker 1: maybe four songs and the Apollo maybe two. Then here
Speaker 1: comes Marvel Whitney. Then here comes James Brown again. No introduction,
Speaker 1: lights go dark, he walks on stage, lights come up,
Speaker 1: and he sings into Man's World. For fifteen minutes. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: there was a really long version that's that's on the
Speaker 1: Apollo To album. It's longer on the Deluxey d and
Speaker 1: it was on the album for out of us reasons, um.
Speaker 1: And that's another show stopper because it was a huge
Speaker 1: hit and it's a very dynamic, and he incorporates a
Speaker 1: medley of some of his older tunes within it, Bewildered,
Speaker 1: Lost Someone, some of that stuff to satisfy his older fans,
Speaker 1: and then he goes off stage again. Then either there's
Speaker 1: a comic. Clay Tyson was our own house comic who
Speaker 1: traveled as part of the show, and he'd come out
Speaker 1: and do ten minutes of old jokes and then would
Speaker 1: be an intermission, questions pause. I forgot that there's the
Speaker 1: JB Dancers who come out and do five minutes of
Speaker 1: dancing while the band plays Caravan or something. So when
Speaker 1: that stuff is playing, so when I'm listening to the
Speaker 1: stuff on YouTube, they're dancing the JB Dancers are playing
Speaker 1: or dance into those instrumentals. No, No, they get a
Speaker 1: feature in the first part of the show before and
Speaker 1: mission where they're introduced as the JB Dancers and their
Speaker 1: downstage center and they do a routine too. Oh they
Speaker 1: use different itsr metals. On the sixty seven Apollo it
Speaker 1: was caravan Um. Later on in the sixties it was
Speaker 1: the Massa Killers grazing in the grass and it just
Speaker 1: picked an instrumental and work out that that's there in
Speaker 1: the spotlight. So there's always been a Vegas element to issue.
Speaker 1: But but you know what it when you say Vegas,
Speaker 1: it wasn't cheesy, right, I mean sometimes maybe it was,
Speaker 1: but but let me put it this way. If it
Speaker 1: was cheesy, it was black cheesy, okay, But was it
Speaker 1: cheesy to you watching it in sight? No? The girls
Speaker 1: were hot, ask Okay, So right now I'm at my
Speaker 1: board phase, like I go through three. They weren't out
Speaker 1: there long enough for you to get put so bored.
Speaker 1: Well no, no, no, I'm just saying that when I
Speaker 1: when I go through my board phase, then this is
Speaker 1: when I start embracing uh nineties James Brown, like I'll
Speaker 1: look at can't get any harder for sake. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that out Like last week I watched
Speaker 1: uh his would Stop three performance, which was exactly I
Speaker 1: don't know when when the rumors of the when the
Speaker 1: when the was James Brown murdered rumors started seeping out.
Speaker 1: Then I just, I don't know, I felt the need
Speaker 1: to just look at the last ten years of his
Speaker 1: life to see what his show would become of, which
Speaker 1: he never straight away from the formula. Like in my mind,
Speaker 1: I never thought that there were dancing girls and this
Speaker 1: cover song and that sort of thing, because on the
Speaker 1: live album, you're just getting the James Brown show as
Speaker 1: you know it. And then once I discovered the tapes,
Speaker 1: then I realized, like, oh, there are dancing girls and
Speaker 1: there are that sort of thing. Well that That's why
Speaker 1: I was so happy with the expanded to c D
Speaker 1: version of Apollo too, because we were able to take
Speaker 1: the tapes from the two and a half shows and
Speaker 1: to the best of our ability, recreate what the show
Speaker 1: really flowed like. Because the album the original album, because
Speaker 1: of the length of songs, they weren't able to sequence
Speaker 1: it with any logic really, and the whole mission with
Speaker 1: the c D was, let's create the show with the
Speaker 1: flow and then you know, the ebbs and the peaks
Speaker 1: was actually was. I was really appreciative that the Frankie
Speaker 1: Crocker intros were included in that too, So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: d O J. Yeah, Um, can I see that? Letting
Speaker 1: Crocker or O J or a person of the day
Speaker 1: introduced the show was sort of like a greasy palm.
Speaker 1: Let me well, they Frankie and Audio J. And it
Speaker 1: was also Rocky g who was the program director in
Speaker 1: the mid in late sixties. Um, they would sponsor shows
Speaker 1: at the Apollo, not just James's where they weren't really
Speaker 1: promoting the shows because it was in house the Apollo,
Speaker 1: but the Apollo would spiff them to put their names
Speaker 1: on there, so it would be Frankie Crocker, Video J
Speaker 1: Present James Brown and and that's something the Apollo had
Speaker 1: been doing for years and years. Wait slight slight jump
Speaker 1: into the future because I always wanted to know fast
Speaker 1: forward on your own leads remote control. Okay, so at
Speaker 1: the that you were uh tour managing. Uh. Crocker also
Speaker 1: introduces Vanity six. What was the lot? Like? Whose idea
Speaker 1: was that? Was it just hey, if you want me to?
Speaker 1: Was that you? Or was that I wasn't at the
Speaker 1: New York show? Was that I came in right after that? Oh?
Speaker 1: So I can't but but I'll tell you what I
Speaker 1: do remember. I remember before I went to work for Prince,
Speaker 1: when Vanity six record came out and Nasty Girls took off.
Speaker 1: I happened to be home in Brooklyn at the time
Speaker 1: with what was What was it? Then? Kiss? What's? The
Speaker 1: station was w L. Frankie was less at the time,
Speaker 1: and um, they did a promo studio visit with Frankie
Speaker 1: did I happen to hear? And U just happened to
Speaker 1: have the radio and the part in Brooklyn, And because
Speaker 1: I was a fan and Prince and Nasty Girls paid attention,
Speaker 1: and um, they seemed to bond. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a really playful interview that was memorable, exactly exactly exactly
Speaker 1: all the remembers they kept saying every time, I mean
Speaker 1: he'd asked them a question, Um, Susan and and V
Speaker 1: would go like Frankie, Frankie Panky, Frankie pranky, and and
Speaker 1: it just stuck with me. It was like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to meet them, you know, and with no
Speaker 1: idea that I would you be connected them forever. But
Speaker 1: you know, look, everybody knew Frankie had juice. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was in New York radio and um, you'd be
Speaker 1: crazy to come to town and not let him get
Speaker 1: on stage and say hello if he wanted to. Just
Speaker 1: as good to you as it is for you. You
Speaker 1: get so much with the Frankie crocod touch, after all,
Speaker 1: how can you lose with the stuff I use? Turn
Speaker 1: up the lightinghole, MITSI. Frankie says, it's just got to
Speaker 1: be all right. Closer than white song, right, is closer
Speaker 1: than coals on eyes, closer than a collas on a dog,
Speaker 1: closer than a hay Amazon, our country home, really young,
Speaker 1: and do ain't never had enough of nothing? Definitely ready
Speaker 1: if you need it, be steady. Everything's gonna be everything.
Speaker 1: But remember if you can't stand it, please don't demand it.
Speaker 1: I don't let your eyes get your mind messed up
Speaker 1: with your heart and soul desires something you know you
Speaker 1: just can't stand. Really, all I have to do is
Speaker 1: set the needle to the tracks, separate the soul from
Speaker 1: the wax lay and the groove, and hope to make
Speaker 1: you move. Okay, So he comes out and does the
Speaker 1: this gargantea in It's a Man's World. This whole episode
Speaker 1: is going to be about. And then you said that, Uh,
Speaker 1: Comedians So does this formula I assume that we're going
Speaker 1: to get the star time after intermission? Right, of course,
Speaker 1: does this formula work all over the United States? It's
Speaker 1: full proof, not one person trying to boo klay Tyson
Speaker 1: or Oh, they were people who didn't want to hear him. Sure,
Speaker 1: they were kids who didn't want to hear him, and
Speaker 1: that there were people who did. Because let's let's have
Speaker 1: to And this is really difficult to explain to anyone
Speaker 1: under the age of fifty. I suppose, um, this all
Speaker 1: came out of vaudeville, right, and that was that was
Speaker 1: Brown's template for creating a review of self contained show.
Speaker 1: Remember that most solo artists traveled solo or with their
Speaker 1: own accompaniment and so on, but they didn't have reviews
Speaker 1: because they either couldn't afford them or just weren't interested. Um,
Speaker 1: James Brown's idea was like, let's do all this in
Speaker 1: the house. I'm tired, you know when he was when
Speaker 1: he was younger, before he was had to influence in
Speaker 1: the success to to take over things. Um, he would
Speaker 1: be like everybody else and they'd be on shows where
Speaker 1: they'd be different acts every night, depend on you know,
Speaker 1: if you were in Chicago, you might have Martha Van
Speaker 1: Della's or Gene Channel or the Impressions or the Drifters
Speaker 1: on the show with you. And then you go to
Speaker 1: Cincinnati the next day in and so this writing and
Speaker 1: Carla Thomas, and you never know because the promoters would.
Speaker 1: First of all, they never felt that there was one
Speaker 1: entertainer who could sell out the theater or an arena
Speaker 1: on their own, so they felt obligated to take two
Speaker 1: or three semi stars and a bunch of one record
Speaker 1: acts and put a package together. And the idea was
Speaker 1: to have nine or ten acts, most of whom just
Speaker 1: did two or three songs. The star would do half
Speaker 1: an hour, and you had those tours and you've probably
Speaker 1: seen the vintage posters of that stuff, and they would
Speaker 1: go all over the country. So that's what people were
Speaker 1: used to. James Brown said, why do I have to
Speaker 1: share the revenue with all these other acts? Let me
Speaker 1: get my own acts. Let's stop Bobby Bird do three songs,
Speaker 1: so let's let Baby Lloyd, one of the other Flames,
Speaker 1: do a couple of songs. Let's get a girl singer
Speaker 1: who's cute and can hold a note, and let's she
Speaker 1: do three songs, and they were on salary, so I'm
Speaker 1: not paying uh, the promoters and paying Eddie James or
Speaker 1: the drifters and so on. I got my own review.
Speaker 1: And the template, of course was vaudeville, because that's where
Speaker 1: theater shows came from. And and if you go back
Speaker 1: and look at the bills, the weekly bills of the
Speaker 1: Apollo Theater throughout the sixties and going all the way
Speaker 1: back to the thirties, but even in the sixties, at
Speaker 1: the height of the soul music area, there would always
Speaker 1: be a median, there would always be a vocal group,
Speaker 1: there would always be a male singer, it would always
Speaker 1: be a female singer, and then god knows what else
Speaker 1: they needed to fill up the show. It was always
Speaker 1: a package unless you were Duke Kellington, you know, who
Speaker 1: would also play the Apollo. But even he would have
Speaker 1: his own, his own singers that would get a you know,
Speaker 1: promp Basi had Joe Williams for years and years, and
Speaker 1: and Ellington had singers. So people expected variety, a variety show,
Speaker 1: and the idea was that you have sex, yeah, something
Speaker 1: for the guys, something for the girls, and you have
Speaker 1: some laughs and you have some good instrumental music, and
Speaker 1: you had to have all those things to be a
Speaker 1: complete show, and that's what audiences expected. The Roots have failed.
Speaker 1: A question back to the Roots comedy because first, since
Speaker 1: since we're at the intermission of the show, UM, so
Speaker 1: far besides the comedy, it sounds like the band is
Speaker 1: out there the entire time, the same band. All. I
Speaker 1: just want to make that, make that clear to the listeners. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it should be noted that James Brown often at
Speaker 1: two or three drummers. Yeah, yes, in the basis they
Speaker 1: all went to the to the same gigs. But I
Speaker 1: mean so they would switch out. No, no, no, there
Speaker 1: was one band that traveled on the same bus and
Speaker 1: went to the same gigs. Absolutely, but different drummers would
Speaker 1: switch out for different acts, for different songs, different songs.
Speaker 1: I mean they were listen when he recorded. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean that's a whole lot of tangent. For a second, um,
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the Roots comedy just
Speaker 1: for a split because I had an inspiration. I had
Speaker 1: an idea that it's it's it's so obvious. You probably
Speaker 1: don't want to do it because it's too it's too obvious,
Speaker 1: but you can do Thank you. Notes translate that something
Speaker 1: to the stage. You know what, because either you or
Speaker 1: Arka somebody has to do is do they. I hate
Speaker 1: to say this, but when James is on these shows
Speaker 1: with us, it's like they get mad if it does
Speaker 1: not do thank you notes. They yell thank you notes now.
Speaker 1: And it's not just one more note. That's good, Okay,
Speaker 1: my other question, sorry, and we'll talk this. The show
Speaker 1: also sounds like it's, like you said, it's supposed to build,
Speaker 1: but it also sounds somewhat chronological. Is that is that
Speaker 1: correct as far as like his earliest and then his
Speaker 1: and then leading me into the big single or my latest.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily, but but you save the hits for the
Speaker 1: start time segment. Obviously, even his oldest hits Yeah Try
Speaker 1: Me and Police Please Please were the oldest songs that
Speaker 1: he would continue to do until he stopped working. Um,
Speaker 1: we're always in the startime set, so after intermission in startime, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, it's start time at the Apollo Theater.
Speaker 1: Million dollars seller, chry Me Please Please Please. Papa's got
Speaker 1: a brand new bag. This is a man's World. Puss
Speaker 1: constructive tune of nineteen sixty six don't be a dropout
Speaker 1: recently recall it. Let yourself go, baby, don't you week?
Speaker 1: Let's pick him on right now, everybody, the heartest working
Speaker 1: man in show business. I'm gonna let you say his name,
Speaker 1: James Brown, Lady and gentleman. And that's a half hour,
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes start. It's usually ran about an hour.
Speaker 1: I mean in the old days. In the old days,
Speaker 1: in the Apollo when they still had more support acts.
Speaker 1: For example, Apollo one was recorded in nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: and on the show was Bobby Womack and the Valentineo
Speaker 1: Solomon Burke. There were other real recording artists on record,
Speaker 1: not exactly like Pigmy Markham. What was on the show? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, so Brown would do? I mean the Apollo
Speaker 1: one album is about thirty five minutes and there's only
Speaker 1: one song cut out, so so he was doing forty minutes.
Speaker 1: But by sixty seven Star time, I mean, he had
Speaker 1: so many hits it pretty much was an hour and
Speaker 1: that that pretty much stayed that way until he changed
Speaker 1: the format late seventies. So you're saying from the instrumentals
Speaker 1: all the way to Clay Tyson, it's man's world before intermission.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like forty five minutes. I mean the
Speaker 1: bathroom breaks ten minutes obviously, and then he does fifty
Speaker 1: minutes to an hour and into the show. Okay, and
Speaker 1: your observation. They're doing this four to five times a day.
Speaker 1: They were up until sixty nine not kissed this when
Speaker 1: he started. Where do you feel the best show normally?
Speaker 1: Is like? Or was there? No? There is no Ah,
Speaker 1: he didn't do that much energy tonight as opposed to
Speaker 1: like can he keep it up all five shows? No?
Speaker 1: So for you. But but what James Brown, the difference,
Speaker 1: the difference between the slow show and the hot show,
Speaker 1: it's not that vast. So who's in the audience that
Speaker 1: the one one clock on a weekday? Some old ladies,
Speaker 1: some drunks. School really so it's a weekday one pm.
Speaker 1: Police aren't in the audience, like shouldn't you be in school?
Speaker 1: They may have occasionally, I don't know. These says were
Speaker 1: sold out, No, they weren't sold out. Was he disappointed?
Speaker 1: Were like the late sixties? They were? But but it
Speaker 1: wasn't typical to sell out every show. You couldn't do
Speaker 1: me m hmm. Okay, I mean there were times where
Speaker 1: you would played a half a house at one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, and that was not deflating to his
Speaker 1: ego or nothing. He was understanding that, oh it's one
Speaker 1: o'clock in the why would that? I mean, you got
Speaker 1: to see, this tradition goes back to the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I guess we've surmised that people in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties didn't have that much to do, and
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but but it's it's always been that.
Speaker 1: I mean it it's you know, the white vaudeville theaters
Speaker 1: in mid Tawm, Manhattan. We're doing the same thing, but
Speaker 1: they were doing it with Sinatra Woody Herman instead of
Speaker 1: James Brown, Duke Ellington. Um, it was just the world
Speaker 1: we lived in, and people would go to, you know,
Speaker 1: people who didn't want to fight the crowds at night
Speaker 1: because obviously the seven and ten o'clock shows were the
Speaker 1: busiest shows. And so depending on the demographic that in
Speaker 1: artists appealed to, Um, you know, it might be kids,
Speaker 1: it might be older people, it might be people who
Speaker 1: were bored and have nothing to do. I'd like to
Speaker 1: think that maybe the seven o'clock was the better show
Speaker 1: because that's where, yeah, you're off work and it's date
Speaker 1: night or something like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just
Speaker 1: sleep weekends. But to answer your question directly, the hottest
Speaker 1: show was the midnight show on Saturday. See, I figure
Speaker 1: he'd be worn out by then. He might be, but
Speaker 1: but all the players is there. The audience is hot. Okay,
Speaker 1: you could you couldn't. You couldn't. You couldn't skate okay.
Speaker 1: And the other one was the Wednesday night Late Show
Speaker 1: because that's the amateur night that brought out the serious
Speaker 1: audience that was dedicated to amateur night. So we're amateur
Speaker 1: night fitting late on a Wednesday show on the Late Show?
Speaker 1: What time like after James is over? You know, I
Speaker 1: can't honestly tell you. And it was a separate audience,
Speaker 1: separate letout let it no, no, no, no no. It
Speaker 1: was like a movie theater. If you bought a ticket
Speaker 1: at one o'clock, you could stay there all day and
Speaker 1: all night. You could watch kids could come in on
Speaker 1: Saturday morning and watched four shows. Oh they didn't clear
Speaker 1: the no theater. Is it standing room or seats? There were?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a little stupid in the Apology,
Speaker 1: they're standing room in the back, but it's of course
Speaker 1: it's seats. So but the people where they're pre brought
Speaker 1: tickets back in the day, like James Brown is coming
Speaker 1: May nineteen. No let me go and get tickets. You
Speaker 1: just lined up outside and as people left, they let
Speaker 1: people in. So it's like a nightclub in the theater exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, if if if, I mean there were times
Speaker 1: where they'd be lined up and actually be standing in
Speaker 1: line through a whole show that's going on inside because
Speaker 1: they're hoping they can get in for the next show.
Speaker 1: Now that's if you're hot. I mean, it wasn't typical
Speaker 1: of every week in every show, but by the time
Speaker 1: Brown really really got hot in the mid sixties, it
Speaker 1: was frequently like that, and there'd be a line around
Speaker 1: the block all the way up. But I would think
Speaker 1: that they would do a show, clear the place and
Speaker 1: let people buy tickets, like he could make more money,
Speaker 1: of course, and that's where he never once started that.
Speaker 1: Of course they did, and he insisted they do that
Speaker 1: at a certain point, and I want to say that
Speaker 1: point was either in or early sixty nine is when
Speaker 1: he went to the Apollo and said, look, what I'm
Speaker 1: doing this is do two shows. I'll do three on Saturday,
Speaker 1: and you got to clear the house. And was that
Speaker 1: foreign to them back in the day, Yes, absolutely, because
Speaker 1: it was the same. It was that's just how the
Speaker 1: theater was running. And it was typical of all these
Speaker 1: vaudeville theaters. So I could have bought a James Brown
Speaker 1: ticket for five dollars, walked and walked to the apollog
Speaker 1: two bucks three and seemed like calendar in sixties, one
Speaker 1: for me, one for you moms, two dollars in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, that's me spending two bucks today. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I mean I bet the earliest
Speaker 1: show and we were saying one o'clock, but maybe he
Speaker 1: was two o'clock, three o'clock, but I don't know. But
Speaker 1: never any later than that, and the first show was
Speaker 1: probably for a buck except on weekends. I mean envisioned
Speaker 1: an old movie theater. What a time to be alive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was crazy. Now, obviously shows had to
Speaker 1: be an automatic pilot at some point, because it's it's
Speaker 1: just how can even if you're not physically tired, how
Speaker 1: do you get mentally amped? Particularly somebody like Brown or
Speaker 1: his band who worked so hard and then you come
Speaker 1: off stage and they basically show a film. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but like yeah, short in the joke all was was
Speaker 1: they'd find the worst movies because they were trying and
Speaker 1: encourage people to get up and leave. Really yeah, okay, um,
Speaker 1: I'm cheating right now on my calculator. By the way,
Speaker 1: So if I were to play two dollars to see
Speaker 1: James Brown in, yes, fifteen bucks and okay, so that's
Speaker 1: still cheap. Yeah, and you could have seen like four
Speaker 1: shows that day for absolutely and so the standards of
Speaker 1: the day and back then, because then I would think, Wow,
Speaker 1: you see this joke before or you've seen this song before,
Speaker 1: like the same people. But no, I mean obviously everybody
Speaker 1: didn't do that, right, There's there's a handful of nuts
Speaker 1: who just either really love the artist. I'm raising my hands.
Speaker 1: They got they got absolutely nothing else to do, you know,
Speaker 1: they found some good weed. They don't want to build
Speaker 1: their group, so they just okay, um, wow, for two bucks,
Speaker 1: you could just have the best entertainment of your life
Speaker 1: right all day? What's this? What's this merch teme? Look
Speaker 1: like we're there t shirts back then or like programs
Speaker 1: program There were programming books starting in I guess the
Speaker 1: earliest when I was, but that was from a tour.
Speaker 1: Wasn't in the theater. But they saw programmed books. And
Speaker 1: they used to have hats that would have a little
Speaker 1: picture of him in the band and um, you know,
Speaker 1: different jokes. But they never had T shirts. T shirts
Speaker 1: were the thing then. It wasn't some programmed books and photos.
Speaker 1: You get a glossy or button. You know, they had
Speaker 1: saying loud buttons they sold. Well, okay, okay, So the
Speaker 1: show is over, and how long does it break? Before
Speaker 1: forty five minutes? Maybe an hour? I mean I have
Speaker 1: to sit and do the math. I can't, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time. But all right, so let's
Speaker 1: say forty five minutes. I'm his drummer. What am I doing?
Speaker 1: All right? There's there's in all these theaters. And this
Speaker 1: goes for the Howard Washington uptown in Philly, in regally
Speaker 1: exactly from that circuit again old Vaudeville thing. There's a
Speaker 1: chalkboard backstage mhmm, and the stage manager of the theater
Speaker 1: puts up what's called the half hour, and in Vaudeville parlance,
Speaker 1: what that means is this is a half hour before
Speaker 1: the next show starts. If the next show is going
Speaker 1: to start at eight o'clock, then the half hour seven
Speaker 1: thirty post that in advance to let everybody in the
Speaker 1: cast know, you gotta be back here at That was
Speaker 1: the rule. You gotta be back in the house a
Speaker 1: half hour before the show starts. Okay, Now what you
Speaker 1: do up until that time is your business. So you
Speaker 1: can go up to the dressing room and go to sleep.
Speaker 1: You can go down in the basement and shoot craps,
Speaker 1: you can go down the street. Those dressing rooms are
Speaker 1: small as hell though, and I'm certain that James and
Speaker 1: his enter I Stuart taking up most rooms. So where
Speaker 1: does the band go in the basement? Don't now the
Speaker 1: Apollo is nice now, ye, No, the basement looked like rats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was rough. I mean, it wasn't anything like it
Speaker 1: it's now. It wasn't. It wasn't puddles of water in
Speaker 1: the corner. It was like the basement of some factory
Speaker 1: or something. That's so weird because in the basement I
Speaker 1: think would hurts there. Actually, the shows would open Friday.
Speaker 1: They would play Friday through Thursday, and on Thursdays. The
Speaker 1: next days the new show would rehearse in the basement.
Speaker 1: So when you're upstairs the James Brownson was playing up there,
Speaker 1: then there might be Sam and Dave in the basement
Speaker 1: working with the house band to get ready for tomorrow's opening.
Speaker 1: While that shows the that's crazy. So wait a minute, um,
Speaker 1: So in the laundry room in the basement of the Apollo,
Speaker 1: there's now a sign that hangs. It says like this
Speaker 1: is now the Flip Wilson room, because Flip Wilson would
Speaker 1: play here five nights a week and he would just
Speaker 1: set up Uh. He would put a couch in the
Speaker 1: laundry room and sometimes sleep here overnight. I would assume
Speaker 1: the saved cash whatever. But you're saying that the basement
Speaker 1: was less than desirable. It's not want to spend the night,
Speaker 1: but do what you gotta do. Wow, okay, okay. Food wise,
Speaker 1: is there catering back then or do you you just
Speaker 1: if if you could afford it, you sent some gophers
Speaker 1: out to go down the street with James was like,
Speaker 1: are you kidding? Really, dude, we would get on his
Speaker 1: lerid jet. Now I'm fast forwarding to like seventies seventy one,
Speaker 1: we get on the ridge. He got it in sixty six.
Speaker 1: You're right, Um, but I'm talking about when I was there,
Speaker 1: and I don't speak when I was there and Danny
Speaker 1: raised one of his many gigs was to make sure
Speaker 1: there was food for Brown after the show went and
Speaker 1: there it because frequently we'd fly out, depending on what
Speaker 1: city we were in. He didn't like spending the night
Speaker 1: in small towns. So if we were playing Making Georgia,
Speaker 1: we would fly to Atlanta because he had a favorite
Speaker 1: hotel there. If we were playing, well, the same same
Speaker 1: thing wherever you were, if you were in you So
Speaker 1: he had, you know, different places where he liked the
Speaker 1: hotels and where they had late night food and things
Speaker 1: to do and so on. So so we gotta look
Speaker 1: if you happen to be flying with him on the
Speaker 1: jet play the jet only seats five or six people
Speaker 1: at Forget, but small. It's a small plane. And um,
Speaker 1: it would be Danny Raid who was just fatily, and
Speaker 1: Henry Stallings who was a bodyguards hair stylist, and maybe
Speaker 1: his wife, maybe his girlfriend, right, and then there'd be
Speaker 1: room if if he wanted to talk to one of
Speaker 1: the musicians, maybe Will be pe we your Fred the
Speaker 1: band leader, because he'd have an idea for a new
Speaker 1: song or want to change something in the show and
Speaker 1: make them fly with him. And on the weekends, because
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the road constantly. Our job was in
Speaker 1: the office Monday through Thursday, and then on Fridays, one
Speaker 1: or both of us would fly out and meet the
Speaker 1: show wherever it was and hang on the weekend and
Speaker 1: then go back to the office. Um, unless we had
Speaker 1: to go to another city to advance the promotion of
Speaker 1: an upcoming show. Let's say tickets were slow selling in Nashville,
Speaker 1: so maybe Brown, so you better go to Nashville and
Speaker 1: go visit the radio stations and give the promotion to
Speaker 1: boost you know that kind of thing. So we're not
Speaker 1: on the same schedule as the show. Um, but he
Speaker 1: you get the jet and there'd be food for him,
Speaker 1: but nobody else, nobody else, and you just sit there
Speaker 1: and watch the meat and it was you know, and
Speaker 1: you just realize he's the boss and this this, this
Speaker 1: is how he rolls, and and everybody else is on
Speaker 1: their own, and you know it's like, Okay, I can
Speaker 1: feed myself. I'm not gonna beg for food see my
Speaker 1: rule is that it's a different time by I have
Speaker 1: to buy five times as much because each member of
Speaker 1: the Roots is going to ask me for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well listen, each one of the band could ask James
Speaker 1: for food, Do you gonna have a fronch frying? And
Speaker 1: he'd say no, that's all he got to learned his Nope.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know, Um, because of the way
Speaker 1: that Otis riding passed away. Was he ever afraid of
Speaker 1: flying on lear jets afterwards? Or you know, was he
Speaker 1: like no more flying for me? He was a little
Speaker 1: afraid all along, even before Otis's accident. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was always a nervous flyer when it was bad weather.
Speaker 1: And I was actually in the jet in a lightning
Speaker 1: storm once and it wasn't fun. That thing bounced around
Speaker 1: like like ping pong ball. Um, it's a small light
Speaker 1: along to the next gig, Mr Brown, pretty much it
Speaker 1: was a bit of an adventure and you could see
Speaker 1: him tightening up. I mean he was you know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't crazy, but he loved the convenience of it, the
Speaker 1: idea that he could play some stupid town and then
Speaker 1: and I mean, if I use the same example if
Speaker 1: we played Making Georgian, he didn't want to stay there.
Speaker 1: We'd be in Atlanta in the hotel by twelve thirty.
Speaker 1: You know, show comes down at ten thirty or eleven,
Speaker 1: and he drives off and you get out and you're
Speaker 1: in a plane by twelve, and you know, well, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe not twelve thirty, but wonder one thirty. You know,
Speaker 1: it's still doable hours in a major city, you can
Speaker 1: probably still find something decent to eat. I have a
Speaker 1: question about advances. Normally, at least a day, tour managers
Speaker 1: collect the money now, at least in our standard today,
Speaker 1: when you book an act, uh, you're supposed to have
Speaker 1: half the money up front in months in evance, three
Speaker 1: or four months in evance, and before said act goes
Speaker 1: on stage, maybe an hour before, you're supposed to settle
Speaker 1: advances and get the rest of the deposit before they
Speaker 1: go on stage. Was it always that protocol or did
Speaker 1: you guys have to wait until all box office for
Speaker 1: seats were counted Because we were promoting most of the
Speaker 1: shows ourselves. We were waiting for somebody to pay us.
Speaker 1: It was our money. So who's there to count like,
Speaker 1: who's there to make sure that you know manager personal
Speaker 1: manager when I'm on the road, me or Bob Patton,
Speaker 1: who was my colleague with booking New Tour, whichever one
Speaker 1: of us was there, we were all there. We would
Speaker 1: all go up and we would do the settlements. But
Speaker 1: the settlements wouldn't You had to wait for the box
Speaker 1: office to close. So if the show started at eight,
Speaker 1: chances are you can't start settling until there's no deposits
Speaker 1: because we're renting the buildings. Were the promoters? I see?
Speaker 1: So who's to stop? Said? Uh, let's all right in.
Speaker 1: We're in Chattanooga, Tennessee, right now at a at a theater.
Speaker 1: So who's to stop the I mean the guy that
Speaker 1: the house manager, somebody from letting is eight family members
Speaker 1: in for free? Like you know that there's six hundred
Speaker 1: seats in the theater and you know the show sold out? Sir?
Speaker 1: Are you saying that, okay? Well six tickets at you know? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Are you? Who's doing force? If someone comes short? All right,
Speaker 1: here's what happens the box office. And you know there
Speaker 1: were variations on this, but let's use the the standard rule.
Speaker 1: The box office of a venue would give you a
Speaker 1: report at some point on ten o'clock at night, and
Speaker 1: on that report would be how many tickets were sold
Speaker 1: at which price, because you have different prices, three tickets,
Speaker 1: all tickets or whatever, how many comps came to the door,
Speaker 1: And if the number of comps was reasonable, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: squawk about it, because if if, if, if you had
Speaker 1: a successful date and and the manager of the building
Speaker 1: one to let his kids in. To use your example,
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm not going to make an issue of
Speaker 1: that because we want to play that building again, and
Speaker 1: I want this building manager to give us first DIBs
Speaker 1: at good dates. We would even tip them literally literally
Speaker 1: tip them. Yeah, I mean, these weren't city employees. And
Speaker 1: I talk about this in the book too, and how
Speaker 1: different the business was about then basically what the book
Speaker 1: is about. And um, they were city employees that made,
Speaker 1: you know, very middle class if if that income they're
Speaker 1: on salary from the city that manage these these m arenas.
Speaker 1: Oh so they weren't privately owned, No, it's it's it varied.
Speaker 1: Do you take five venues, the structures of them might
Speaker 1: be completely different if you're playing a theater and might
Speaker 1: be privately owned. If you're playing a dance hall, it
Speaker 1: might be it might be a local promoter who rented
Speaker 1: the building and you're dealing with that promoter. Um, if
Speaker 1: you play the apollo, you're dealing with in the theater.
Speaker 1: But if you're playing an arena, which is mostly what
Speaker 1: we were doing when I was there, the guys who
Speaker 1: run those buildings are they're usually city owned buildings. Okay,
Speaker 1: you go to Roanoke, Virginia's Cincinnati. Um, there's there's no
Speaker 1: Donald Trump building arenas there was, you know, and this
Speaker 1: was before they were sponsorships in the arena's all had
Speaker 1: names of banks and stuff on him, because he didn't
Speaker 1: have that. And even then, if if, if, if the
Speaker 1: bank is sponsoring an arena, it doesn't mean they run.
Speaker 1: There's still a guy who's got the job to run
Speaker 1: the arena, run the box office and so on. And
Speaker 1: these are not guys get rich. They're just start a
Speaker 1: city salary. If it's assuming it's the city owned building.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, so you can look together. Way
Speaker 1: as long as the cops were koshers, you know, five
Speaker 1: comps gonna fight, but you know, if it's twenty, who cares?
Speaker 1: And mind you, we would also give out comps to
Speaker 1: radio people and newspaper people, and you know, anybody was
Speaker 1: going to help us build the promotion. So cops were like,
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was a commodity that we
Speaker 1: could use to influence the promotion. So there'd always be
Speaker 1: a certain amount of comps. But but here's the deal.
Speaker 1: If you didn't trust the promoter or the building for
Speaker 1: any reason at all, the only way you could deal
Speaker 1: with it then was count the ticket stubbs to see
Speaker 1: if the ticket stub counts. Because you get a stub,
Speaker 1: they tear the ticket when you come in and throw
Speaker 1: it in a bucket and keep the stubbs right. So
Speaker 1: there were nights where we literally had to sit down
Speaker 1: and count thousands of ticket stubs, and you'd be there
Speaker 1: till two in the morning because you felt something about
Speaker 1: the report was fishy. It's like, well, I mean, if
Speaker 1: there's ten thousand tickets ten I was in seats in here,
Speaker 1: the place is jam packed, and you're telling me you
Speaker 1: sold tickets. M hmm, it's bullshit. So now I'm going
Speaker 1: to count the ticket stubs. Now. What stopped them from
Speaker 1: pulling out a thousand stubs before I got up there? Nothing?
Speaker 1: So there were sometimes where we actually would put a
Speaker 1: guy on the door with a clicker really to count
Speaker 1: the people that came in so that you could then
Speaker 1: match that. In some venues, the tickets were just rolls
Speaker 1: of tickets and were numbered, and you get the number
Speaker 1: of the starting ticket so you could do the math
Speaker 1: at the end of the night. It was a moment
Speaker 1: pop business. So I have a question. I would assume
Speaker 1: that you guys were the standard or the best game
Speaker 1: in town for a black tour And during that period,
Speaker 1: what stopped MYB activity from wanting to I was getting
Speaker 1: ready to go there? Yea, what stops MYB activity from
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, like now, it's hard to do because corporations,
Speaker 1: like if you remember that Sopranos episode where where Tony's
Speaker 1: guys like going to the Starbucks for the first time
Speaker 1: and they're trying to shake down the Starbucks and then
Speaker 1: it's slowly realizing like, oh, this isn't like a mom
Speaker 1: and pop operation like art, and they realize like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: we're dinosaurs because we can't shake down a corporation like
Speaker 1: we used to, so or not? What stops like have
Speaker 1: people try to I want a piece of the action.
Speaker 1: How do you wrangle out of that? Like how do
Speaker 1: you You don't have a manager who's mommed up, you
Speaker 1: don't have a booking agency that's mobbed up, and you're
Speaker 1: not on a record company that's mopped up. And there
Speaker 1: were mobbed influences in all three of those areas, but
Speaker 1: there were protects you. Who protects you from someone trying
Speaker 1: to edging? Who's to stop age Knight of the sixties.
Speaker 1: The only thing I can say is this. When I
Speaker 1: went to work with James, one of the things he
Speaker 1: told me is if anybody fishy ever tries to buddy
Speaker 1: up to you and acts like they want in or
Speaker 1: want to get next to me, or become your friend
Speaker 1: and make offers that sound too good to be true,
Speaker 1: let me know immediately. And that was his way of saying,
Speaker 1: don't let that happen. Mm hmmm. And I can only
Speaker 1: say that he was smart enough and discriminating enough about
Speaker 1: who he hired that there was never one of us
Speaker 1: in a position that could have encouraged that kind of development.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it was trying meeting to listen to
Speaker 1: my I've had pieces of studios, recording studios in New York.
Speaker 1: The Mob had certain a lot of independent record labels,
Speaker 1: were bopped up. There were several booking agencies that booked
Speaker 1: Black Guardians that were mopped up, not all of them.
Speaker 1: They were everywhere time out, Time out, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I knew you hate when this happens, but you know
Speaker 1: it had to happen. Yes, you're gonna have to wait
Speaker 1: for a part two of this story with Allen Leads.
Speaker 1: Of course, he has a gazillion stories. And yes, you
Speaker 1: Prince fans, I'm not gonna leave you out. You know
Speaker 1: good and well. He's gonna tell some print stories in
Speaker 1: addition to Moore James Brown stories. So tune in next
Speaker 1: week for another epic episode of the Allen Leads Quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme return show. Thank You Court Love Supreme is
Speaker 1: a production I Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced
Speaker 1: by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcast
Speaker 1: Asked or wherever you listen to your favorite shoes