Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What up, y'all, it's unpaid bill for Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: As you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating
Speaker 2: black music a month by releasing an episode every day,
Speaker 2: so every day you will have to be here, especially
Speaker 2: picked QLs Classic, and on Wednesdays we are dropping new
Speaker 2: two part episodes with Wayne Brady and the legendary James Poyser,
Speaker 2: both of which were filmed in the studio. Black music
Speaker 2: is deeply important to me and has been an influence
Speaker 2: throughout my entire career. It's also something we celebrate here
Speaker 2: at QLs. Today, QLs revisits are Jeffrey Osborne Interview. This
Speaker 2: one is informative, but my co host Shoogy Steve also
Speaker 2: drops a few comedic gems in this special twenty eighteen episode.
Speaker 3: Supremo Suprema Roll Call, Suprema Suh Suh, Supremo roll Call,
Speaker 3: Suprema suck s, Suprema roll Call, Suprema sun So.
Speaker 1: Suprema Rolly. It's alright with me, Yeah, no matter what
Speaker 1: you want to believe. Yeah. Half of Supreme teams here
Speaker 1: or for me and Steve. Roll call Supremo built Supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll call, Suprema suck Son Suprema roll call.
Speaker 5: My name is Sugar. Yeah, what's it all about?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Roll call yeah or roll out. I'll explain later.
Speaker 4: Suprema roll call, Suprema su Suprema roll called.
Speaker 7: My shoelaces Yeah, have slowly loosened. Yeah, please forgive me. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm only human.
Speaker 4: Call Supreme Supprema roll call, Suprema Sun, Suprema roll call.
Speaker 1: My name is Joy.
Speaker 6: Some call me Jeffrey, Yeah, some call me Osborne. Hey,
Speaker 6: what's that for me?
Speaker 4: Bro Suprema soun Sun Supremo roll call, Suprema soun Sun
Speaker 4: Suprema roll call Supreme Son Son Supreme My roll call
Speaker 4: Suprema Son Son Suppreme my roll call.
Speaker 1: Wait before I do anything, Yes, I'm breaking tradition. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm asking a question first. Then I'll introduce our guests. Okay,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Osborne, you just introduced our guests. Is that you
Speaker 1: drumming for Smokey Robinson on Soul Trade in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 6: With the part down the middle of my head. A,
Speaker 6: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome.
Speaker 1: I knew it.
Speaker 6: I knew it.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. I am
Speaker 1: Quest Love and our Supreme team consisting.
Speaker 5: Of this team today Supreme.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sugars thief who's very excited. I think more than
Speaker 1: anyone wanted this episode to go down, Sugar Steve. Uh
Speaker 1: and of course, uh boss Bill with us, not with us.
Speaker 1: Fantakolo is still waiting on his titles for his for
Speaker 1: his basement house furnishing. Uh, like you somewhere getting our
Speaker 1: house together in U Los Angeles.
Speaker 7: Did you know that they did an audiobook recently? No,
Speaker 7: I didn't know that. Apparently he narrated a children's book.
Speaker 7: It's called The title is great. The title is called
Speaker 7: we used to have money, Now we have you.
Speaker 1: You have some explains to do, Fonte Uh and unpaid
Speaker 1: Bill somewhere on Sesame Street, Sesame Street land. Uh, Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, I'm so excited about our guest today that
Speaker 1: I did absolutely no prep work whatsoever because I think
Speaker 1: I can just go off the top of the dome
Speaker 1: one of my personal in my my top five soul
Speaker 1: singers ever. And uh, you know, I haven't been this
Speaker 1: happy for Steve I mean, he means much more, even
Speaker 1: more than me than Steve is mad at me already
Speaker 1: for putting on this spot. No, no, well.
Speaker 5: Don't I mean, I know.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jeffrey Osborne,
Speaker 1: quest of supre Won. Alright, all right, all right, we've
Speaker 1: been trying to make this happen for a second. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show.
Speaker 6: Oh it's great, man, I'm enjoying it and I even
Speaker 6: got started and I'm joining it trusting.
Speaker 1: This is this is Black Music, Nerd Paradise and Steve
Speaker 1: when the NERD came in. Yeah, so okay, where My
Speaker 1: first question is always where were you born?
Speaker 6: In Providence, Rhode Island? Really Providence, Rhode Island? Yeah, youngest
Speaker 6: of twelve, really really yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever had a situation where someon
Speaker 1: wasn't born down South or in the Midwest. You're probably
Speaker 1: our first Northeast oh really yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it was interesting growing up there not a
Speaker 6: lot of black people. I think my family probably represented
Speaker 6: the most black people in Pute Island. Really no, but
Speaker 6: that's not a lot. So it was kind of shocking
Speaker 6: when I met LTD because they told me it was
Speaker 6: a ten piece black band playing downtown. I'm like, and
Speaker 6: it wasn't black musicians together in a while Providence, so
Speaker 6: that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: They started in Providence.
Speaker 6: No, they were actually Sam and Dave's backup band back
Speaker 6: when Sam and Dave were rolling during the Hold on
Speaker 6: Them Coming Days, soul Man Days. They were called sol
Speaker 6: Men Ltd. Sole Men Limited. And they left them in
Speaker 6: the early well actually around sixty nine, and they were
Speaker 6: based in North Carolina. So they started coming up the
Speaker 6: East coast playing in the clubs. And I met him
Speaker 6: in a little nightclub in my hometown in Province. But
Speaker 6: I don't believe it or not.
Speaker 1: So was it a musical family my family, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: quite a bit.
Speaker 6: I say eight of eight of the twelve of us
Speaker 6: were into music. Either played instruments, saying. My father was
Speaker 6: a great trumpet player, and you know, he was one
Speaker 6: of those guys that never went after his dream. But
Speaker 6: you know, anytime and then the big bands came through town,
Speaker 6: like Ellington and Base, he would run down and play
Speaker 6: trumpet with them, and he was pretty amazing trumpet player.
Speaker 6: But he had twelve kids. That's what you get if
Speaker 6: I having twelve damn kids, Like, I don't even know
Speaker 6: you have twelve kids. You couldn't do it today. Back
Speaker 6: then it was you know, it was a lot of
Speaker 6: big families back then. Okay, so he just worked a
Speaker 6: few jobs, you know, during the day, and played at
Speaker 6: night in the clubs.
Speaker 1: And what was the mean well known what was the
Speaker 1: main industry in Rhode Island?
Speaker 6: Costume jewelry still is, you know really especially in Patucket,
Speaker 6: Rhode Island, huge costume jewelry place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So similar to people moving to Detroit for cars or
Speaker 1: threes in the Midwest, costume joy.
Speaker 6: Like the yeah, it was in Pentucket, Rhode Island, right.
Speaker 1: The more you know, wow, that's crazy. So uh well,
Speaker 1: leading back to my original question, can I assume that
Speaker 1: drums was your weapon of choice first or how did you?
Speaker 6: Well, I've always singing. I was winding up at a
Speaker 6: choice first. I started singing in nightclubs when I was thirteen.
Speaker 6: My mother used to chaperon me and I would go
Speaker 6: start at My first job was in New London, Connecticut,
Speaker 6: a little club called Ebony Lounge. Was pretty I was thirteen,
Speaker 6: you know, I thought I was doing big shit back then.
Speaker 6: I was making ten dollars a night, but you know
Speaker 6: that was that was way back then. And I started
Speaker 6: playing drums when I was about fifteen. My brother Billy,
Speaker 6: who was a drummer, left a set in the basement,
Speaker 6: you know, and so I kind of was a self
Speaker 6: taught drummer. But everything that's happened for me has happened
Speaker 6: through drumming. Like when I met LTD, their drummer had
Speaker 6: gotten locked up that night I went to see him
Speaker 6: for smoking weed. In nineteen seventy. That was like a
Speaker 6: major offense. Now everybody got a marijuana card, you know,
Speaker 6: it don't mean nothing today. But they locked him up
Speaker 6: and I sat in, played drums with him, sang a
Speaker 6: couple of songs, and they asked me to join the group.
Speaker 1: So you winged your first gig with LTD.
Speaker 6: Not know, Yeah, but they were doing Top forty and
Speaker 6: I used to work part time in the record store,
Speaker 6: so I kind of knew everything that was out there,
Speaker 6: so it was kind of easy. And I was playing
Speaker 6: locally in my band, So so I sat in with
Speaker 6: them and you know, sang a couple of songs and
Speaker 6: I don't know that guy was in jail for a while.
Speaker 6: So and then's the funny thing. When I was fifteen,
Speaker 6: I met the OJ's and a club in Province. So
Speaker 6: I went to see them perform and they had a drummer.
Speaker 1: And back then, you know, the.
Speaker 6: Drum of passion was heroin. You know, That's what a
Speaker 6: lot of our black musicians got hung up into back
Speaker 6: in the day. And so he was nodding out in
Speaker 6: between songs and I'm watching him and I'm like, damn,
Speaker 6: this dude was falling asleep in between songs. So club
Speaker 6: owner let me meet them. I talked to Eddie. I
Speaker 6: was like, you need a drummer. They said, okay, well
Speaker 6: if you can find us one, because you're too young.
Speaker 6: I'm like, no, I can play now, I said, okay.
Speaker 6: So I brought about three drummers up and auditioned and
Speaker 6: I got the job. So I played with them for
Speaker 6: two weeks while they were in Providence. And so I
Speaker 6: kind of old my career.
Speaker 1: To drugs, drug drums.
Speaker 6: But again, drumming is you know what opened the door
Speaker 6: for all that I'd see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, drumming opens the door. There you go to an industry. Wait,
Speaker 1: what year was the was it before?
Speaker 6: It was nineteen seventy, all right, So before.
Speaker 1: They made their in Philadelphia record a year l Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they actually they had five people in the group.
Speaker 6: It was five singers. OK, yeah that lineup.
Speaker 1: So so you're singing that before your nightclub hopping. You
Speaker 1: didn't have like a high school band experience or any.
Speaker 6: Not a high school band experience. But I played with
Speaker 6: a lot of the you know, the musicians that I
Speaker 6: played with were all from the same high school. We
Speaker 6: played together, but I was the only black one. But yeah,
Speaker 6: but I did play with a lot of musicians that
Speaker 6: were working their way through Berkeley School of Music in Boston.
Speaker 6: So that was nice because I got a chance to
Speaker 6: play with some really good musicians back then.
Speaker 1: Oh so you even had to learn rapertoire for rock music.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I was playing nightclubs, but it was actually
Speaker 1: the funny thing. It was in the ghetto. It was
Speaker 1: a hood.
Speaker 6: There was a hood in Providence. So I was basically
Speaker 6: doing mostly R and B, mostly R and B music,
Speaker 6: you know. But I you know, I grew up listening
Speaker 6: to jazz because my whole family was in the jazz.
Speaker 6: I'm the youngest of twelve and I'm seventy years old,
Speaker 6: so so everybody was listening to Sarah Vaughn and Ela
Speaker 6: Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstein and Joe Williams. And my dad
Speaker 6: was in the Miles Day but his favorite trumpet players
Speaker 6: he was Clifford Brown. So I got a chance to
Speaker 6: listen to everything, you know. So, you know, back in
Speaker 6: when I started, I was singing a couple of jazz songs,
Speaker 6: you know, in R and B. You know, I kind
Speaker 6: of mixed it up, but I didn not a lot
Speaker 6: of rock. Wasn't in the rock.
Speaker 1: Who were your influences as far as vocal back then?
Speaker 6: You know, my biggest influence, which everybody finds strange, was
Speaker 6: a singer named Gloria Lynn. Gloria Lynn was actually my
Speaker 6: biggest influence. I didn't realize that too down the line,
Speaker 6: and I went back and started listening to the Gloria
Speaker 6: Linn records, and I'm like, damn, I phrased a lot
Speaker 6: of things like her. I guess subconsciously I was kind
Speaker 6: of really into her. But you know, Sarah was my favorite.
Speaker 6: I love Sarah Vaughan. I loved, you know, I loved
Speaker 6: all the jazz singers. And then of course coming up
Speaker 6: there was the Tip you know, the regulars, the Donnie
Speaker 6: Hathaway's the Marvin Gays.
Speaker 1: You know those people I loved, and.
Speaker 6: You know Stevie. Stevie was singing back then. You know,
Speaker 6: at thirteen years old, I was still trying to sing
Speaker 6: fingertips and my voice was that high back then. And
Speaker 6: my voice dropped from male soprano to bass from junior
Speaker 6: high school to high school one semester. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So when did LTD officially start or as a group,
Speaker 1: or even at that time you're freelancing as a drummer
Speaker 1: and right in the group at the same time.
Speaker 6: Well, we took a trip to LA and they were
Speaker 6: actually from Rhode Island. We drove to LA with a
Speaker 6: big U haul trailer on the back of the car
Speaker 6: and that broke off and snapped the bumper and rolled
Speaker 6: down the mountain in Flagstaff, Arizona. Wait wait, wait what, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean we were driving through flag Staff. People don't
Speaker 6: realize it's nose in Flagstaff, Arizona. So it was going
Speaker 6: up a little hill and it was icy and cars
Speaker 6: just started skidding and trailer snapped off roll down the hill.
Speaker 6: So we had to get someone to go down and
Speaker 6: pull it back up. And we were there for a
Speaker 6: couple of days trying to get the bumper repaired. And
Speaker 6: so we drove out to LA in nineteen seventy and
Speaker 6: we played in every nightclub in LA for no money.
Speaker 6: It was the price of admission. It was ten of
Speaker 6: us living in a one bedroom house and we played
Speaker 6: for the admission and with fee was back then it
Speaker 6: was two dollars ahead to get in. So you know,
Speaker 6: if we got forty people in the night club, we
Speaker 6: had eighty dollars to split ten ways. I was sending
Speaker 6: home for money, my pig, my baby. My ho was like,
Speaker 6: h don't you think it might be time to come
Speaker 6: back home. My older brother was like, I was like, dude,
Speaker 6: just send me the money. I don't want to lecture
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 1: I well, I do want to ask how is it
Speaker 1: or was it feasible? Because you know, the seventies had supergroups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in my mind, I mean I was in the
Speaker 1: nineties in a band of four members. We were struggling.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And so I you know, I used to wonder, like, well,
Speaker 1: what was the system like for bands in the seventies
Speaker 1: that were ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen strong. You all had costumes,
Speaker 1: you all had all these elements. Was per diem a
Speaker 1: thing back then in the day.
Speaker 6: Oh, I didn't even know what padem was until I
Speaker 6: became a solo artist, and then you had to pay it, right,
Speaker 6: That's when I had to pay it to other musicians.
Speaker 6: That's when I realized, oh, this is I got to
Speaker 6: pay this. But no, yeah, there was no padem back then.
Speaker 6: I mean, we were struggling just to get by and
Speaker 6: paid the rent. You know, it was I mean, what
Speaker 6: you got to look at it for what it is.
Speaker 6: I mean, even when we became a hit group in
Speaker 6: the seventy two was our first record, so it took
Speaker 6: us a couple of years to get rolling, you know.
Speaker 6: And then even when we were popular, you split anything
Speaker 6: ten ways, that ain't nothing. You think a million dollars
Speaker 6: split it ten ways, it ain't. So yeah, it gets
Speaker 6: it's rough for those groups back then, a lot of them.
Speaker 6: You don't realize the struggle that they went through. And
Speaker 6: then again then you got you know, people's personalities clashing
Speaker 6: and this one wants to do this and that one
Speaker 6: wants to do that, and there's always a struggle. It's
Speaker 6: it's tough. So I admired the groups that came out
Speaker 6: of that era.
Speaker 1: You know, so even before you were scheduled to do
Speaker 1: this show, I found a record on Sunday. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that there was a I guess your first record
Speaker 1: on an M And there was a woman in the
Speaker 1: group as well.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, Celeste. Her name was Celestia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so was she always in the group in the
Speaker 1: beginning or no?
Speaker 6: There was a girl named Tammy Starr in the group
Speaker 6: when I joined the group, and you know, there was
Speaker 6: you know a lot of people that went through that group.
Speaker 6: We had a baritone sacks player, yeah, a percussionists and
Speaker 6: times got hard and they dropped out before we even
Speaker 6: got the record going. You know, yeah, it upset now,
Speaker 6: but you know it happens like that. You know, it's
Speaker 6: hard to make that struggle and give up everything. So
Speaker 6: she was with us for one record.
Speaker 1: What was the audition process like? And how many other
Speaker 1: labels were you guys gunning for or how did you
Speaker 1: even game the well?
Speaker 6: We we actually got our first deal through a production
Speaker 6: deal that Jerry Butler had on In and Records.
Speaker 1: Very funny really yeah, yeah, Leon Silver, Like everyone has
Speaker 1: a Jerry.
Speaker 6: So we had a production company, production company, so we
Speaker 6: signed his production company and after our first record. The
Speaker 6: label then came over and signed us directly to the label,
Speaker 6: even though we didn't do any sales on the first record.
Speaker 6: I couldn't figure that out, but they they signed us
Speaker 6: directly to the label after the first record.
Speaker 1: What do you think it was that?
Speaker 6: I think back then it was so different than it
Speaker 6: is today because they had artists development departments, so they
Speaker 6: could look, they could see us live. They watched the
Speaker 6: potential and they said, three years down the line, we
Speaker 6: know what you could be.
Speaker 1: That don't happen anymore.
Speaker 6: Today, and so they invested in developing us and you know,
Speaker 6: they went out, they found producers, and that's why music
Speaker 6: is so different today today. I mean, we used to
Speaker 6: get a piano vocal and we'd be able to hear
Speaker 6: what this song could be, and record companies could Today.
Speaker 6: You got to give them a fully produced product and
Speaker 6: they still can't hear what it's supposed to be. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So when you nap that record deal, was there suddenly
Speaker 1: dreams and hopes of like okay, we made it big
Speaker 1: time and where were those early struggle days?
Speaker 6: Like well it was you know what we did first?
Speaker 6: Was it with the NM? Was we played behind a
Speaker 6: couple of their artists. So we played behind Mary Clayton
Speaker 6: and we did all her live shows and we had
Speaker 6: this one show was at the Monterey Folk Festival. I
Speaker 6: guess it was nineteen seventy one and the nineteen seventy
Speaker 6: one and somebody fell out, so they asked us to
Speaker 6: do a twenty minute set and we did a twenty
Speaker 6: minute set. It was like eighty thousand people and they
Speaker 6: went crazy. That's when the record company said, okay, we
Speaker 6: see what you can be now. So it was you know,
Speaker 6: it was a grind, but we were doing all original
Speaker 6: material and it was a lot of it was social
Speaker 6: protest material back then, so we were kind of turning
Speaker 6: people on and turning people off.
Speaker 1: If that seemed like so was it? Albert? Did you
Speaker 1: guys have a relationship with Albert or Moss at the time?
Speaker 6: When not really? Now the first year we didn't. We
Speaker 6: were trying to form a relationship. But but but Jerry
Speaker 6: was our guy, Jerry Moss, I mean herb Albert was
Speaker 6: the music guy, you know, because he was off doing
Speaker 6: his thing. But Jerry Moss is the one that really
Speaker 6: believed in us, and and uh, you know, he put
Speaker 6: the support behind us.
Speaker 1: See. Yeah, at the time I thought that the Getting
Speaker 1: Down album, I thought that was the first album.
Speaker 6: I didn't realize that there was one before that. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's just called LTD. Really a real forgettable record. You
Speaker 6: know Getting Down is kind of forgettable too, But you
Speaker 6: know it was the struggle was it was everybody wanted
Speaker 6: to sing. So if you listen to those early albums,
Speaker 6: there was about four different lead singers on.
Speaker 1: The record, and so I thought you were just the
Speaker 1: drummer of the group. And then figure out.
Speaker 6: So this is where the company came in and you know,
Speaker 6: the third record, they said, okay, you know this is
Speaker 6: our third your third record we're invested in. We now
Speaker 6: have to zero in on a voice. There's too many
Speaker 6: lead singers, and we think he should do the majority
Speaker 6: of the vocals.
Speaker 1: How was that.
Speaker 6: I don't think that still sits well with them wait
Speaker 6: to this day, to this day, Yeah, because they feel
Speaker 6: that if if everybody had a chance to sing when
Speaker 6: I left, they would still be viable. So I get that.
Speaker 6: You know, if it wasn't for the producer giving you
Speaker 6: all the damn songs and you know when you left,
Speaker 6: we'd have been straight white.
Speaker 1: Well should have had a hit with some of the
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad at cutting it up. No, that became
Speaker 1: you know, that became a hip hop staple. It was
Speaker 1: different because all this time I thought it was P
Speaker 1: Funk related. I didn't realize it was ALTD. But well,
Speaker 1: who was managing you guys at the time? Back then?
Speaker 6: It was a guy named ron Nadell. Okay, he was
Speaker 6: one of my first managers.
Speaker 1: And so in a situation like that, at least with
Speaker 1: ten people, like who's the Who's the alpha?
Speaker 6: The alpha figure that there was, It was an alpha
Speaker 6: figure when I first joined the group. His name was Onion.
Speaker 6: He had a ball ball headed Onion.
Speaker 1: Onion. Onion was the guy.
Speaker 6: He was the leader. And after I was in the
Speaker 6: group for about a year and a half, my brother
Speaker 6: Billy came into group. Okay, and he's an alpha.
Speaker 1: So they clashed.
Speaker 6: Oh you know. It was like, okay, I want to
Speaker 6: run it this way. I want run it this way.
Speaker 6: And so I'm sitting in the middle because I was
Speaker 6: doing most of the work and the lead singing. So
Speaker 6: it's like, who am I going to side with? So
Speaker 6: that got old with me. I had to side with somebody,
Speaker 6: you know. But there were two. There were two that
Speaker 6: really wanted to control the group, and a group was
Speaker 6: just set up wrong, you know, and you know you
Speaker 6: which is good, and you see the way groups are
Speaker 6: set up today, it's a lot better for the individuals
Speaker 6: to actually evolve. Back then, you know, we had this
Speaker 6: songwriters agreement that for some stupid reason, I signed, and
Speaker 6: so when I was ready to leave the group, I
Speaker 6: was still signed it as songwriters agreement. And then they
Speaker 6: didn't want to give me a solo record because A
Speaker 6: and M came to me and said, we want to
Speaker 6: give you a solo project. They're like, no, he can't
Speaker 6: do the solo project. He's exclusive with us. People that
Speaker 6: wanted me to write songs, no exclusive songwriter agreement with us.
Speaker 6: So it got stifling to the point where I really
Speaker 6: couldn't evolve if I wanted to. And you know, so
Speaker 6: I in nineteen seventy nine, I told him I wanted
Speaker 6: to leave the group, and then I stayed down another
Speaker 6: year just to make it easier for them to find someone.
Speaker 6: And then I did the next tour, and that was
Speaker 6: in seventy nine. That was the tour we did with
Speaker 6: the Jacksons, and that was so that was the last
Speaker 6: tour and then I think I did one more tour.
Speaker 6: But then when I got ready to leave the group
Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty, it got they got kind of ugly.
Speaker 6: That's so that's why there's never been a reunion.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: Everybody said, how come there's no LTD reunion? Well, even
Speaker 6: it's just the way that we split up. It wasn't
Speaker 6: It wasn't an It wasn't an amicable split, right.
Speaker 1: What was it like working with the Miselle brothers, who.
Speaker 6: Was interesting They produced the Blackbirds. Yeah, they produced Love
Speaker 6: to the World Record. They were interesting. Uh. They were
Speaker 6: good because they had you know, they they brought in
Speaker 6: some very good people as far as uh, you know,
Speaker 6: orchestrating things. You know, I think Love Ballot was orchestrated
Speaker 6: so well back then. And uh, but you know, we
Speaker 6: we did well with the with them. The funny story
Speaker 6: with them is that I think I sang the lead
Speaker 6: vocal on Love Ballot at five o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 6: after I sat and waited for them to show up,
Speaker 6: and I was so pissed off. I did one take
Speaker 6: and left and that was it. It was like, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, well I'm there at like nine o'clock. I'm
Speaker 6: all pump rady to sing no Show, No Show. I
Speaker 6: think they showed up about two thirty three o'clock in
Speaker 6: the morning, and so we had this big round table discussion.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm gone just sing
Speaker 6: this song one time, just try it, all right. So
Speaker 6: I sang it one take.
Speaker 1: That's the alpha.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 1: That's the infamous Quincy Jones Alpha state. Quincy Jones has
Speaker 1: a theory that well, for a lot of the music
Speaker 1: he would choose to record when he was making a dude,
Speaker 1: choose to record his musicians at those ungotly hours because
Speaker 1: he says that if you're fully aware, you'll tend to
Speaker 1: overthink your performance in the studio, whereas if you're just tired, uh,
Speaker 1: you just do the matter at hand without putting a
Speaker 1: second thought into it.
Speaker 6: And that might work for musicians, but if you're tired
Speaker 6: as a singer, no, but you can't.
Speaker 1: So you're saying when you listen to Love Ballot like,
Speaker 1: you're like I was pitching on the port or no it.
Speaker 6: Was I was, you know, but you know, for me,
Speaker 6: for the most part of my career, my first takes
Speaker 6: always my best take. Always, you know, and I would
Speaker 6: always go back and do another take, and it was
Speaker 6: like I was trying to sing like myself now I'm
Speaker 6: trying to you know, but the first impression was always
Speaker 6: the right impression. So I'm a I'm a big believer
Speaker 6: in that.
Speaker 1: You know, so rarely if you worked with the producers,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh yeah, one time, George.
Speaker 6: Duke, No, I love George Duke, he was George Duke
Speaker 6: was Oh man. I was so close with George Richard Perry,
Speaker 6: Richard Perry who had all these hits with the Point
Speaker 6: of Sisters, and he approves the emotional album with the
Speaker 6: wu Wu song.
Speaker 1: Okay okay and swato right, and yeah, that was my joy.
Speaker 6: But I pulled it from him after a certain point
Speaker 6: and took it. So we went on friends to this day.
Speaker 6: But about he uh yeah, I mean, I mean, I
Speaker 6: you know, I was like take twenty four and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 6: I'm not sang this song twenty times.
Speaker 1: You have it. But he never knew what he had.
Speaker 6: He had to sit up and listen to this, taking
Speaker 6: this take and then piece all this together and I'm like, man,
Speaker 6: that ain't even real. So we you know, after a
Speaker 6: while I was like, I got to get away. So
Speaker 6: and that was a A and M Records decision because
Speaker 6: that was the first record I did without George. He
Speaker 6: did my first three solo records, and then here comes
Speaker 6: Richard Perry and it was like, you know, George was
Speaker 6: a dream that he was to me, the best producer
Speaker 6: I've ever worked with as far as knowing how to
Speaker 6: work with a vocalist, because most of the other producers
Speaker 6: were kind of intimidate and didn't know what to tell
Speaker 6: me to do. But George was I mean, dude, dude,
Speaker 6: he's scary. He had like perfect pitch. He always said,
Speaker 6: he says he's on that perfect, but he had the
Speaker 6: perfect pitch.
Speaker 1: And uh.
Speaker 6: He would just make suggestions that were so right on,
Speaker 6: you know, and I'm like, yeah, George, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 6: That works, you know. So I had a great relationship
Speaker 6: with George. But Richard was a different guy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: It was back in the day when people were doing
Speaker 6: things that they shouldn't be doing in the booth and
Speaker 6: he never knew when he had it. And it was
Speaker 6: like that with the musicians. Also. He just was takeoff
Speaker 6: to take off, the take off to take so he
Speaker 6: was the one guy that I've never had that experience
Speaker 6: with any other.
Speaker 1: Who chose How did you guys even get a love ballot?
Speaker 1: Would Skip? Skip? Scarborough wrote it?
Speaker 6: Skip?
Speaker 1: Scarboro wrote it? And did he have a relationship with
Speaker 1: you guys? That was just like a song.
Speaker 6: I think Mizelle's knew him and Maurice passed on it.
Speaker 6: Maurice White passed on it. He gave him first.
Speaker 1: Oops, I'm trying to mat I'm trying to imagine that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably just didn't work for him, you know, I
Speaker 1: can kind of hear we would have the earth wind
Speaker 1: fire right, Yeah, okay, it would be like a love
Speaker 1: solid day. Yeah, yeah, I can see that now.
Speaker 6: Skip was great, though, Script was brilliant. Cat I used
Speaker 6: to wait play drums with Skip around town. It used
Speaker 6: to play behind artists all the time. Yeah, me and Skip.
Speaker 6: So Skip was cool guy, great songwriter.
Speaker 1: Wait, there was I have a question about like we
Speaker 1: had a cheap echosystem or like a reverb ecosystem and
Speaker 1: the mics thing, and like how that came out in seventy.
Speaker 6: Probably seven Love seventy seven okay, six, so the first.
Speaker 1: Song I even't heard it since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: It but I remember the first song, someone's yelling the
Speaker 1: words showdown on the fade. Yeah, right, And so in
Speaker 1: my father's speaker system, like all you have to do
Speaker 1: is test test one two one two one two, and
Speaker 1: something told me, Okay, go over there and turn on
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. But it's nightclub and I was permanently taken
Speaker 1: off of I never told y'all that I got fired
Speaker 1: from sound and he was like, no, you just work lights.
Speaker 1: Now you're not. You're not working mind, just sounds. That's funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, with you guys' presentation, which watching a lot
Speaker 1: of bands, I will say that maybe heat Wave is
Speaker 1: probably the only other band I knew that really put
Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on their choreography and their acrobatics.
Speaker 1: I mean heat Wave were.
Speaker 6: They were literally flips and back flips.
Speaker 1: You ever see heat Wave clips seen like a couple
Speaker 1: of clips you ever see like bring it On? Or
Speaker 1: like those cheerleading uh ESPN cheerleading squad where they're standing
Speaker 1: on shoulders and they're doing that. Heat Wave was damn
Speaker 1: near doing like human pyramids like but playing at the
Speaker 1: same time, but still like Johnny Wilder's like on someone's
Speaker 1: shoulders and someone's on his shoulders and crazy.
Speaker 6: But you guys were like, well horn section was flashy.
Speaker 6: They did all kind of steps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, y'all, y'all were so together with Yeah, so what
Speaker 1: was in that period when when when the wheels were
Speaker 1: turning the hits were coming, where you guys like, okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta have a presentation better than this group and
Speaker 1: that group like oh yeah.
Speaker 6: It was very competitive back then. The interesting thing was though,
Speaker 6: that there was one guy that made all the damn
Speaker 6: uniforms because.
Speaker 1: People don't know guy the ain't Bill Whitten.
Speaker 6: Bill Whitten made the Commodoa's uniforms Ltd's uniforms winning five.
Speaker 6: We all had those big tubes.
Speaker 1: And stuff and the mirrors on the I was wondering.
Speaker 6: Yeah it was a guy named Bill Whitten, and uh,
Speaker 6: you know, but yeah, it was you know, it was
Speaker 6: it was competitive back then, but it was a it
Speaker 6: was a fun kind of competitiveness. You know.
Speaker 1: We we would challenge each other. You know, did you
Speaker 1: ever think like, okay, well Parliament's cheating because they're using
Speaker 1: theatrics and we need to do that. We need to levitate,
Speaker 1: oh god, earth wind and fires using duty Duck Henning
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So was there any discussion of
Speaker 1: because I know that in the opening for the Jacksons
Speaker 1: and their affinity for explosive explosives and all those things, Like,
Speaker 1: was there the thought process like we now have to
Speaker 1: add on top of these songs, add these theatrical elements
Speaker 1: to our shows.
Speaker 6: I don't think we ever felt that. I think we
Speaker 6: were just happy to finally be getting a paycheck and
Speaker 6: put it all into production. But you're right, was that
Speaker 6: that uh that Jackson tool was eye opening for me?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: You know that was actually the year Michael came out
Speaker 6: with Off the Wall, that was his first solo record.
Speaker 6: So we used to open for them and then they
Speaker 6: would come out and do theirs, and then he would
Speaker 6: go back and come back as a solo artist. Right,
Speaker 6: And uh, it was a fascinating show. It was amazing. Uh,
Speaker 6: just that whole just traveling with that. I've never seen
Speaker 6: anybody that the fans went so crazy over as Michael.
Speaker 6: I mean it was, it was. It was scary to
Speaker 6: watch it.
Speaker 1: How did for that particular tour, how did product I'm
Speaker 1: thinking in terms of production, like as far as backline
Speaker 1: is concerned, Like normally, if.
Speaker 6: We carried all of it back then, most of it
Speaker 6: really Yeah.
Speaker 1: Got set up and did your loading and all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well no we didn't.
Speaker 6: We had roadies, but I mean we you know, we
Speaker 6: weren't renting back line back then.
Speaker 1: You know. Well just even the point of like using
Speaker 1: an established act, wouldn't want an opening act that had
Speaker 1: you know, I would just think like LTD, damn all
Speaker 1: those microphones and then they got sound check, use their
Speaker 1: soundboard and then I got to wipe the board. There
Speaker 1: was no digital stuff back then, so it was like
Speaker 1: as big as their production was, then what space that
Speaker 1: leave you guys, all ten of you to set up
Speaker 1: your instruments and your equipment and you're well, you.
Speaker 6: Know, the biggest thing was them setting up. Because we won.
Speaker 6: We went on first, so it was kind of easy
Speaker 6: for us. I mean, you know, once we finished, then
Speaker 6: they had to set that whole stage up for them.
Speaker 6: But the thing but they made it tough for us.
Speaker 6: They did make it tough for us because I mean
Speaker 6: we had to. You know, I always tell people, they're
Speaker 6: like I do shows with people. They're like, well, you
Speaker 6: got this banner, take this band it down. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 6: I sang shows with the Jackson sign literally hanging on
Speaker 6: top of you, I'm ducking right.
Speaker 1: And these things.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so it was challenging because you know, they
Speaker 6: were the headline and act and so you know, they
Speaker 6: could leave their most of their stuff up, so we
Speaker 6: had to play around it. So a lot of times
Speaker 6: we didn't have that much room on stage. But we
Speaker 6: were incredible live band. I mean, uh, And they kicked
Speaker 6: us off that tour. Oh, they kicked us up before
Speaker 6: they went to LA. They was like, you will not
Speaker 6: be opening for us in LA. They kicked us off
Speaker 6: the tour. We did a handful of Dans, We did
Speaker 6: Madison Square, gotten here, and but we used to light
Speaker 6: them groups up, commodoors. Who's to light them up? Telling
Speaker 6: you there was nobody wanted us in front of them.
Speaker 6: We're a great live group and uh, you know, so
Speaker 6: that's that's how it was back in the day. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, you had to bring it. You had to
Speaker 1: bring it. You said that a competition was was really
Speaker 1: big back then. Who were some of the bands that
Speaker 1: you guys were afraid of? Were you afraid of it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 6: We I mean everybody was good back then. So you
Speaker 6: know we want shows with you know, with the Commodoors mainly,
Speaker 6: and the big tour back then was LTD Commodoors. We
Speaker 6: did maybe two three years of that tour and then
Speaker 6: we'll be on packages. So we were the Old Jays
Speaker 6: a lot comfunction. Uh you know, we did some days
Speaker 6: whining Fire, so it was it was competition. But you know,
Speaker 6: for most of the parts we were we were never headlining.
Speaker 6: Uh most of those shows, we were somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 6: We opened for the Commodoors, it was just us and
Speaker 6: the Commodore's and uh Jackson was just us in the Jackson's.
Speaker 6: But then we did a lot of those big places
Speaker 6: like the Dome and Atlanta and we had you know,
Speaker 6: the Old Jay's confunction LTD Commodoores and we'd be somewhere
Speaker 6: in the middle, and we used to always talk shit.
Speaker 6: And my favorite one of my.
Speaker 1: Friend yeah, because you know, my favorite, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite guys of all time is a LeVert.
Speaker 6: I just I thought he was probably one of the
Speaker 6: best entertainers I've ever seen because that dude brought it
Speaker 6: every single night. I knew there was not going to
Speaker 6: be one night that went by where he was not
Speaker 6: going to bring it. So we used to talk ship
Speaker 6: to each other and I'm a single love ballot the
Speaker 6: night saying I'll be sweeter than But it was always
Speaker 6: it was friendly. It was friendly. You know, it didn't
Speaker 6: start getting ugly until god like the nineties and them
Speaker 6: group started going crazy. It was shooting, going on checks.
Speaker 1: My era.
Speaker 6: Was all kind of wild.
Speaker 7: I wonder how friendly it got because you know, you
Speaker 7: listen to what was it Ankadelics, Let's take the stage
Speaker 7: and it's like slicking the family brick, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: they used to talk a lot. So I was just wondering,
Speaker 7: you know, did anybody ever get offended? You know it
Speaker 7: was anybody?
Speaker 6: I thought it was funny. Actually it didn't offend me.
Speaker 6: You know, I thought it was funny. They had names
Speaker 6: for us. They said, we had a two on our phone.
Speaker 6: Wait what O? T D had a two on the bunk,
Speaker 6: like we cut it twice. That's been funny.
Speaker 1: So with with I think the first time that we
Speaker 1: sort of communicated was when the new edition biopic came on.
Speaker 1: Were you were you surprised at all that they covered
Speaker 1: holding on in that or did they ever tell you
Speaker 1: like that was our.
Speaker 6: Johnny kept hitting to me, you know what they were doing.
Speaker 6: He said, man, you're gonna like this. You're gonna like this.
Speaker 6: I said, really, He said, oh yeah, man, we did
Speaker 6: it right. He said, you did it right. You're gonna
Speaker 6: You're gonna see. But I remember meeting them when they
Speaker 6: had first come out, and uh, you know, they brooke
Speaker 6: their manager, the choreographer brooke did everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 6: He they did a show and they opened up for
Speaker 6: me and he came to He said, man, I need
Speaker 6: you to come in the dressing room and talk to
Speaker 6: these kids. That's so wow, man, he said.
Speaker 5: They need and they love you.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 6: They love you. They love holding On, they love all
Speaker 6: your songs. So if you come and speak with a man,
Speaker 6: it would mean a lot. So I went to the
Speaker 6: dress room and talk to him and they was wild.
Speaker 1: Like you said, they was just kids.
Speaker 6: Man. They was having fun. But you know they that
Speaker 6: was the song they got their deal with, you know,
Speaker 6: holding On.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when I was watching it, I was just
Speaker 1: like yo, and I was I was more happy because, uh,
Speaker 1: normally in cases like that, they'll try to dumb down
Speaker 1: to the you know, the lowest common denominator. And normally,
Speaker 1: like work in a movie music placement, usually the producers like, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we pick a song that's more popular? Da
Speaker 1: da da da whatever? Right, And so I knew that
Speaker 1: movie was serious when they I was like, yo, they
Speaker 1: actually And I called the Barry, I called the music supervisors,
Speaker 1: like how did that even happen? He's like, yep, we
Speaker 1: wanted to keep authentic and meal and that's the song
Speaker 1: they always that was the song, always rehearsed.
Speaker 6: They slicked up a little bit with Jimmy and uh,
Speaker 6: Jimmy and Terry put a little put a little hardcore
Speaker 6: groove on it.
Speaker 1: It was funky.
Speaker 6: I was like, but yeah, no, they and then you know,
Speaker 6: I ran into Bobby at some functions. He was like, man,
Speaker 6: they gave you my play and they gave me in
Speaker 6: that movie.
Speaker 1: Were you shocked at all at the at the the
Speaker 1: reception of how Stranger got embraced in the dance tall
Speaker 1: community at all, or Stranger in the song Stranger? Uh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I didn't expect it to be that
Speaker 6: kind of a song, you know, but.
Speaker 1: It's And I hate to ask this because I want
Speaker 1: to I want to ask a sampling question.
Speaker 6: And then opened the door like it's been sampled a
Speaker 6: million times. Oh, Okay, you know about a million that
Speaker 6: lit if I got paid for every time someone's saying
Speaker 6: that no no, no, no, no, no no no, I'd
Speaker 6: be going.
Speaker 1: Through the bank. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was gonna everybody ripped that.
Speaker 1: That is he that is held down dance all music
Speaker 1: for so long that I was like, yo, I really
Speaker 1: kind of hope.
Speaker 6: Uh you know that's what that. You know, that copyright
Speaker 6: thing comes in. You know, you get four bars, you
Speaker 6: got to change it on the fourth bar and you're safe.
Speaker 1: Who did a I'm trying to figure out who initially
Speaker 1: did it? Oh no, no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: no kill he was the biggest, really but he but no,
Speaker 1: it's the dance all guy.
Speaker 6: Uh oh, I know you talked about it. I can't remember.
Speaker 5: I can't remember the.
Speaker 1: Name because my very first gold record came from him
Speaker 1: as well. Well he he sampled, Uh who am I?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 1: Who are you guys have music college? I know, but
Speaker 1: we're I'm failing today now we have to look it
Speaker 1: up now. I was saying that my my very first
Speaker 1: gold record for the longest was the only gold record
Speaker 1: I can claim, not my own. For your eventual exit
Speaker 1: uh from the group, going into your solo career. You
Speaker 1: said that it wasn't amicable, so you gave yourself like
Speaker 1: at least a year to.
Speaker 6: Well, I had to sit out a year before I
Speaker 6: could even sign with the and because of this songwriters agreement,
Speaker 6: because they really wanted to sign me as a writer
Speaker 6: on the publishing side and as an artist, so they
Speaker 6: wanted to deal the run concurrently. And uh so I
Speaker 6: was tied up with them and they wouldn't give me
Speaker 6: a release. And they told me that if I gave
Speaker 6: them a piece of my contract, they give me a release.
Speaker 6: So there's been some ugly stuff going on. So I said,
Speaker 6: I'll set this year out.
Speaker 1: Wait you were, you were signed, you had you had
Speaker 1: to sign the LTD and within him Like, no, I had.
Speaker 6: I had a songwriters agreement signed with LTD and it
Speaker 6: was another year on it. Okay, and so and M
Speaker 6: wackets wanted to sign me concurrently with a publishing deal
Speaker 6: and as an artist. And so they came to an
Speaker 6: M and said, well, we'll make a deal. If he
Speaker 6: gives us a piece of this and a piece of that,
Speaker 6: we'll give it. And I'm like, I'm not giving up
Speaker 6: a piece of nothing no more. So I just sat
Speaker 6: a year out.
Speaker 1: So, so is that why the Devotion and the Shine
Speaker 1: On record was so released in proximity because in my head,
Speaker 1: and you can't even find the Devotion album anymore on
Speaker 1: streaming services or anything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's hard to find it.
Speaker 1: Just like, okay, let's get this out with it.
Speaker 6: Then that's it.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 6: They they you know, they they put a little time
Speaker 6: into the record. It didn't affect that record. It affected
Speaker 6: their next record though, because you know, the company wasn't
Speaker 6: happy about what happened. So because they had their their
Speaker 6: last record on A and M was after I left
Speaker 6: the song, but they had a pull love on that song.
Speaker 6: And yeah, but that kind of affected their deal, you know,
Speaker 6: because they basically h went back and said it was
Speaker 6: another it was a whole is a whole other thing.
Speaker 6: Now they went over budget with that record. So the
Speaker 6: record company said, oh okay. They called me. They said, okay,
Speaker 6: we got a wedge. Now they're over budget, so maybe
Speaker 6: I can work a deal with them and we'll give
Speaker 6: them the rest of the money if they give you
Speaker 6: the release. So said cool. So they worked the deal
Speaker 6: and no, but they didn't hold up to their end
Speaker 6: of the deal. LTD, which is why there was only
Speaker 6: one record left that they have.
Speaker 1: They so.
Speaker 6: It could have been could have been great group, though,
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, it's a great group.
Speaker 1: So with your solo record, I mean, was it a
Speaker 1: feeling of relief finally like or was it fear like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm here alone, Yeah, I'm responsible for everything?
Speaker 6: And well it was a little bit of both because
Speaker 6: I couldn't I didn't have you know, now I'm out front.
Speaker 6: It's like I got it now because my name was
Speaker 6: never out front of the group. It was always just LTD.
Speaker 6: But you know, you're on stage and you always feel
Speaker 6: the comfort of having ten of the nine other people
Speaker 6: behind you. So now it's just me and not in
Speaker 6: not ever having my name out there, I didn't know
Speaker 6: if people people didn't know my name, they knew my voice,
Speaker 6: they didn't know my name. So the biggest, uh, the
Speaker 6: biggest thing we had, the obstacle we had was to
Speaker 6: associate the name with the voice, which is why my
Speaker 6: first record was just called Jeffrey Osborne because back then
Speaker 6: radio used to backline everything, in front lock everything, so
Speaker 6: it'd be okay, this is really don't need No Light
Speaker 6: by Jeffery Osborne. From the album Jeffery Osborne, so they
Speaker 6: have to keep saying your name, so it kind of yeah,
Speaker 6: it's so it happened kind of quick. But George. You know,
Speaker 6: working with George was great too. It helped to have
Speaker 6: I just felt solid. You know, when you have like
Speaker 6: a guy that is that musically incredibly solid doing your project.
Speaker 6: You I felt good about that. I'm like, well, I
Speaker 6: know it's gonna be musically right.
Speaker 1: You personally chose him, yeah, or were there any other options?
Speaker 6: Like did you well, you know, they the record company
Speaker 6: was really cool. They said, you know, do we want
Speaker 6: to We want to find the right person for you,
Speaker 6: you know, so I talked to a few other people,
Speaker 6: but when I met George, I was like sold on George,
Speaker 6: you know, just you know, and I had we had
Speaker 6: done shows with George, so I had met George before.
Speaker 6: But he was what a guy talent.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm dying right now because I just wikipedia his
Speaker 1: first solo record. I didn't realize that Steve Farni was
Speaker 1: the drummer on that album and.
Speaker 6: Steve Farroni And now this is what's funny. George didn't
Speaker 6: even know Steve Froni. But I had done gigs with No.
Speaker 6: He didn't know Steve Rooniy because George was into more
Speaker 6: than do go chancellors. You know, the those kind of
Speaker 6: fusion kind of drummer. It's more so so. And I
Speaker 6: had been doing shows with AWB you know, a lot
Speaker 6: of shows, and he was my favorite drummer. I used
Speaker 6: to sit there and he was I just was fascinated.
Speaker 6: He had the most incredible press role I ever heard
Speaker 6: drummer too. I'm like, how do you do that? So
Speaker 6: I was like, I told George, I said, man, I
Speaker 6: would love to have this drummer, Steve Froni. He said,
Speaker 6: I don't know, Man, I don't know Steve. I said, man,
Speaker 6: I'm telling you. He said, well, he's in New York.
Speaker 6: We gotta fly him in, we gotta put him up.
Speaker 6: I said, it's gonna be worthy, George, It's gonna be worthy.
Speaker 6: He said, I'm gonna trust you on this.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, now, I have to listen to this
Speaker 1: entire record because God even the double hit at the
Speaker 1: end of one of the wings of Love right, wait
Speaker 1: till I tell my family that's the step is my idol.
Speaker 1: The reason why I drummed that he's one of my
Speaker 1: idols man. Yeah, it was my boys, his black and
Speaker 1: white kit that he used on the AWB tour, like
Speaker 1: his only drum kit. He gave me that snare drum
Speaker 1: my first day of the Tonight Show.
Speaker 6: Are you serious?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Like I was raised on a w B. When
Speaker 1: I saw him on Soul Train, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do for a living. So he
Speaker 1: gave me that on my first day at the Tonight Show. Yo.
Speaker 1: Incredible dude drumming on the wings love.
Speaker 5: Yeah, speaking of which we have now we have that
Speaker 5: in common.
Speaker 1: Yes, now for the next ninety minutes, Sugar, Steve, I mean,
Speaker 1: are we at that? Yes, We're We're there. I set
Speaker 1: you up for the alue.
Speaker 8: This is it feels ridiculous this guy's telling us an Actually,
Speaker 8: I mean no, don't be a shame.
Speaker 1: Listen, Steve has I've been waiting for you to tell
Speaker 1: this story to our listeners. We've been, we've been throughout
Speaker 1: the history of the show. Right, They've known that on
Speaker 1: the Wings of Love means something to Steve, but we
Speaker 1: never thoroughly explained really why.
Speaker 8: First of all, you're going to feel silly telling me no,
Speaker 8: I just got I'm a Jewish person. I have ten
Speaker 8: disclaimers I want to put first.
Speaker 1: Jeff have you ever had someone just nerd out on
Speaker 1: you and it's been a little awkward.
Speaker 5: No, it's not awkward.
Speaker 8: I've told the story literally one hundred times, one hundred
Speaker 8: times in my life, so it's not awkward.
Speaker 5: It's awkward telling it to you, but.
Speaker 1: Just pretending he's not here. Yeah, no, but you tell
Speaker 1: us about on the wings. I'm just talking to me
Speaker 1: and Bill. I'm about to Okay, thanks.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna tell it to Jeffrey that Actually, if you
Speaker 8: don't mind, all right, I'm gonna eat my oatmeal.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 8: But and I'm sure you've heard a thousand and one
Speaker 8: stories about this song and people's experiences with this song weddings,
Speaker 8: I'm sure, and this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: But for me, what what? What is it?
Speaker 8: Nineteen eighty two now is Yes? So I was eleven
Speaker 8: or twelve or something like that in seventh or eighth
Speaker 8: grade and and so junior high and we have music.
Speaker 8: It was a music class and one of the assignments
Speaker 8: mister Gallo was the teacher, and the assignment was called
Speaker 8: a roll out, which was basically, you take you choose
Speaker 8: a song, and you do illustrations based on the lyrics,
Speaker 8: and then you go in front of the class, you
Speaker 8: play the song, and as the song plays, you roll
Speaker 8: out the scroll of illustrations as the lyrics go by.
Speaker 8: So that was my favorite song at the time. It
Speaker 8: was on the top ten or whatever, and I was
Speaker 8: completely digging it. And so I chose that song, and
Speaker 8: I worked for weeks on this rollout, and I had
Speaker 8: the markers and the crayons, and I went to town.
Speaker 8: I mean it's you know, as the first verse starts
Speaker 8: and all the sunshine, you know, everything was sun and
Speaker 8: love and wings and hearts.
Speaker 1: And I'm having a hard time seeing this coming from you.
Speaker 1: And you didn't and you didn't say there was this
Speaker 1: junior high. I thought this was elementary.
Speaker 8: No, there's like seventh grade or something like that. Okay,
Speaker 8: junior high right out of elementary school. But whatever, whatever
Speaker 8: grade you're in when you're eleven or twelve. So so
Speaker 8: I did this, I mean I really, I have to say,
Speaker 8: I did a great job on this thing, real proud
Speaker 8: of it, and went into school the day that we
Speaker 8: were presenting it, and so sitting in the class and
Speaker 8: mister Gallows says, all right, the boys going to go first,
Speaker 8: And so the first boy went up and put He says,
Speaker 8: all right, you know, my song is Black Sabbath war
Speaker 8: Pigs and proceeds to play warp Pigs and rolls out
Speaker 8: this this rollout, and next next boy comes up and
Speaker 8: he says, yeah, this is a my song is van
Speaker 8: Halen running with the Devil? You know, does his thing?
Speaker 8: Next kid comes up, deep purple smoke on the water.
Speaker 8: You see where this is going. So next next up
Speaker 8: Stephen Mandel, you know, come to the front of the class.
Speaker 8: By this point, I know, I know that things are
Speaker 8: have gone horribly right from me already and are about
Speaker 8: to go much more horribly awry, of course, with all
Speaker 8: due respect to the greatness of your song.
Speaker 5: So I go up to the front of the class, hearts.
Speaker 8: Beating, everybody looking at me, put my cassette in, you know,
Speaker 8: in the boom box. Piano starts and uh and uh,
Speaker 8: you know, the intro, and then the first first starts.
Speaker 8: I start rolling out my scroll. Here comes the sun,
Speaker 8: Here comes the hearts, Here comes the wings. And I
Speaker 8: see all the girls looking at me like falling in love.
Speaker 8: And I see all the dudes pointing and laughing and
Speaker 8: screaming sorry, and uh it was you know, it was
Speaker 8: clearly at that moment when I realized, you know that.
Speaker 5: I wasn't cool. I guess according to SO, I was essentially.
Speaker 8: Excommunicated for the next I don't know, six years from
Speaker 8: the from the social scene of my junior high and
Speaker 8: then high school.
Speaker 5: I was. I was beat up, mocking laughed at, of course,
Speaker 5: m beat up and whooped.
Speaker 8: But here's here's the the end, or the punchline rather,
Speaker 8: which is, uh, the joke was on them because I
Speaker 8: got an A plus and uh. And it took it
Speaker 8: took a few years to recover from that socially, but
Speaker 8: never I never turned my back on the song, though
Speaker 8: I never said, I never said that.
Speaker 6: Song every time you heard it the opposite.
Speaker 1: He went deep into what's which actually leads me to
Speaker 1: my next question, because the song got so much traction
Speaker 1: on m R, which is, what is it? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so uh leased in eighty two there's there's there's a
Speaker 1: pattern that I noticed of seventies X uh, seventy soul
Speaker 1: X that go solo or sort of go to a
Speaker 1: promised land, like I never thought it was a thing
Speaker 1: of okay, what do I have to do to survive
Speaker 1: or justify my record deal? And I never you know,
Speaker 1: I've read some of that stuff in Jet magazine like
Speaker 1: Go and Pop or whatever or crossing Over. But you
Speaker 1: know between Coolna Gang, the Pornous Sisters, Lionel, Michael Jackson, whatever,
Speaker 1: I mean there there's there's this migration into a new, unchartered, black, smooth,
Speaker 1: black pop territory that you're kind of planting your flag
Speaker 1: and not occupying. I mean, at the time with On
Speaker 1: the Wings of Love, did you feel as though, okay,
Speaker 1: this is this might have the potential to be something
Speaker 1: more than it was, or to you it was just like,
Speaker 1: got another ballot here, this is it now?
Speaker 6: I think, you know, under Wings of Love to me
Speaker 6: was a chance to showcase another side of myself that
Speaker 6: I hadn't really had that opportunity with LTD because LTD
Speaker 6: most of the ballots were straight up R and B ballots.
Speaker 6: So this was the first chance I got it because
Speaker 6: I always felt, you know, I mean, I want to
Speaker 6: be able to sing everything, no matter what it is.
Speaker 6: I want to be able to sing that, and I
Speaker 6: never really got. The closest thing we came to it
Speaker 6: was the year before was shine On, which was again
Speaker 6: written with Richard Kerr, who was one of those you know,
Speaker 6: big songwriters back then, and that didn't do as well
Speaker 6: as the R and B records. On that record, I mean,
Speaker 6: the R and B songs like where did We Go Wrong?
Speaker 6: Those were bigger than shine On, But I just felt
Speaker 6: like it was a nice departure and still trying to
Speaker 6: keep the record so that it was you know, it
Speaker 6: had an R and B flavor to it because I
Speaker 6: didn't want to leave the R and B roots, but
Speaker 6: I did want something that might go across.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 6: It was weird back in the seventies. I mean, it
Speaker 6: was a time we couldn't put our faces on the
Speaker 6: record covers. Yeah you know you remember that, you know,
Speaker 6: the rack jobs. They wouldn't rack it, and so it
Speaker 6: was weird. And we didn't even get a chance to
Speaker 6: have the pop department work our records at M Records.
Speaker 6: They never even worked our records. Back in Love just
Speaker 6: crossed over on its own. Really, they didn't know what happened.
Speaker 6: They looked up and it was on pop shots like okay,
Speaker 6: so then they want to take credit for it, right,
Speaker 6: like yeah, right, you did nothing, So yeah, so I
Speaker 6: kind of made you know, it's one of those songs.
Speaker 6: When I heard it, I was like, I wrote it
Speaker 6: with this guy piano player, and when he played it
Speaker 6: for me, I was like, I like that, that's kind
Speaker 6: of showcases another side.
Speaker 1: So well, now I'm realizing that, uh, you had every
Speaker 1: monster on this album. People there and yeah, Ernie Watson
Speaker 1: and Lark Graham and.
Speaker 6: Bark Graham did yeah, Michael.
Speaker 1: Lewis, Lewis Johnson, Louis.
Speaker 6: Johnson, Yeah, Mike so Bellow, it was Hawk Withlensky, I
Speaker 6: wrote a couple of yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So he had some people on that record. So at
Speaker 1: the time, were you just like a kid in the
Speaker 1: candy store, like I want the best of the best
Speaker 1: to work on this record, And well I was.
Speaker 6: I mean, but you know, it wasn't just me. It
Speaker 6: was George. You know, George was.
Speaker 1: Like getting George has the connections to get.
Speaker 6: Exactly and a lot of those people had worked with
Speaker 6: George before, with the exception of Ferroni, you know, and
Speaker 6: I don't know if Mike and Bello had worked with
Speaker 6: him before, but Mike was incredible, dude, man, Michael play
Speaker 6: play and mikel singing too. Mike was talented.
Speaker 1: You know, this is blew in my mind that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he's on all all these records, Peter Schles.
Speaker 6: Peter Schlesh, Yeah, he's He wrote the song with Peter
Speaker 6: Schless and when it's funny, I played played it for
Speaker 6: George and he was playing it real fast. You know,
Speaker 6: damn no, no, no, don't, don't don't. Joyce said, nah,
Speaker 6: I ain't hearing that, Like jeege, I'm gonna slow it down,
Speaker 6: you know, get this melody's gonna be right. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: write these incredible lyrics. You're gonna You're gonna have to.
Speaker 6: You're gonna really have to turn my head on this one.
Speaker 6: So I finally brought it into him. He said, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: I like that.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 5: And that was the first single on this rend.
Speaker 1: I Really Don't Need No Light.
Speaker 6: Really, don was the first single.
Speaker 1: I even when queuing up his singles for it for
Speaker 1: some reason. I Really Don't Need No Light and don't
Speaker 1: you get so mad? In my head they're the same song,
Speaker 1: the same song, and then I realized, like, oh wait
Speaker 1: a minute, they are two different songs.
Speaker 6: They're two different songs, but yeah, they got that same
Speaker 6: vibe and they were written by totally different people, which
Speaker 6: is interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, how did another barried Man in Cynthia?
Speaker 6: Uh what, yeah?
Speaker 1: Did Okay? So in the songwriters period of the eighties,
Speaker 1: and was it just that you go to a publishing
Speaker 1: house and they give you a slower cassettes to listen
Speaker 1: to and you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's basic, do you Yeah? Generally back then, you know,
Speaker 6: all these publishing companies they kind of put the word out,
Speaker 6: you know, on an artist is getting ready to do
Speaker 6: a record, you put the word out and then you
Speaker 6: start getting stuff submitted, you know, from all the other
Speaker 6: different publishing companies. And that's basically how it worked. And
Speaker 6: but with Barry Man Cynthia, while, they actually came to
Speaker 6: me and said they had a song that they thought
Speaker 6: would be good for me. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: there's a duo that had probably number one hit records
Speaker 6: going as far back as you know, the leader of
Speaker 6: the pack that stuff. I mean, you know every year
Speaker 6: they had a number one record. Who I was like,
Speaker 6: I'm sure not going to turn this down. So yeah,
Speaker 6: so it was it was it was great getting a
Speaker 6: song from them. And that's an intricate kind of a song.
Speaker 6: I mean, so they tailor made it just for you.
Speaker 6: I don't know if they tailor made it tailor made
Speaker 6: it for me. I think that they had written this
Speaker 6: song and they thought that it would be good for me,
Speaker 6: not like I went to him in front to write
Speaker 6: me a song.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: They came in with the song and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: this is this is a nice piece of work.
Speaker 1: I could tell that an M was really behind the
Speaker 1: baby stayed with me tonight because the commercials.
Speaker 6: That's funny though, because they and them told me I
Speaker 6: should take go back and sing that song again. I
Speaker 6: sang it too low. What I'll tell you this is
Speaker 6: just stories when you think, yeah, they told me, Nah,
Speaker 6: you didn't. This ain't right. You got to go back
Speaker 6: and sing it's too low. Your voice is too low.
Speaker 6: I'm like, too low, that's my voice. Who was your
Speaker 6: A and R on this project back then? I'm trying
Speaker 6: to think, well, Charlie Mino was to pop in our guy.
Speaker 6: I think it was this guy named Barry. I can't
Speaker 6: think of his last name. It was so long ago.
Speaker 6: Really yeah, but they basically told me, uh, I think
Speaker 6: you missed it and you should go back and re
Speaker 6: sing it. And I'm like, I'm not gonna go back
Speaker 6: and re sing this. This is how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 6: That's weird because we want me to do now taking
Speaker 6: any other octave and false that up.
Speaker 1: The commercial spots that they had for the album almost
Speaker 1: made it almost like James Bondish, like Osborne Osborn, like
Speaker 1: the and the logo on like it showed a lot
Speaker 1: during like Soul Train and Solid Gold.
Speaker 6: So that was Raymond Jones who actually wrote that song,
Speaker 6: and uh, it was kind of all of his vision.
Speaker 1: You know, he came in.
Speaker 6: He wanted Alfonso Johnson play bass. I mean he kind
Speaker 6: of had it. Oh you played bass, Okay, yeah, Alfonso
Speaker 6: Johnson and uh, you know Raymond had Raymond was a
Speaker 6: talented guy. You know he was with Chica all those
Speaker 6: years and uh, real talented guy. There was a different
Speaker 6: song for that period because I asked, funny because I
Speaker 6: hear that song now on the radio and it kind
Speaker 6: of almost sounds like what's going on today. It's it's
Speaker 6: actually sounds fresher than anything else I've done, and still
Speaker 6: it's an eighties song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the test of time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it had all the gimmicks and that was you
Speaker 6: know Hawkwlinsky was the gimmick guy too. Really, oh that
Speaker 6: guy was coming. He was the first person I ever
Speaker 6: seen coming with that Len drum machine. And uh sequence
Speaker 6: Plain Love was completely sequenced, and George was freaking out.
Speaker 6: George was like, yeah, he wrote.
Speaker 1: It, that'sh Yeah he was. George was like, George was
Speaker 1: not into that.
Speaker 6: He was like, I don't know, man, this is I
Speaker 6: don't know about this sequence stuff.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he wasn't.
Speaker 6: He wasn't crazy about just the way it was laid out.
Speaker 6: But I mean as we got into it, he was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I see who he's going after. But you know, there
Speaker 6: was like Sinn drums on there, some weird and even
Speaker 6: the twelve inch mix of it, Like the twelve inch
Speaker 6: was that's the only twelve inch mix that I liked
Speaker 6: of any song that was ever mixed of mine. I
Speaker 6: hate all the mixes. That's the only one I like.
Speaker 1: Even to this day. I dja the twelve inch mix
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 6: No, it works like that was the number one dance
Speaker 6: song in New York when it was out.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. That was like that was a bee
Speaker 1: Boy classic, had a break in the middle and all
Speaker 1: that stuff.
Speaker 6: When I come to New York to do shows, I
Speaker 6: have to do plain love and I don't do it
Speaker 6: most of the time, but I have to do it here.
Speaker 1: I was gonna Okay, so eventually one of these days, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna have you sit in on the
Speaker 1: tonight show.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: We've been waiting for this moment forever. And we were
Speaker 1: kind of on our group chatter and like, okay, what
Speaker 1: are the six? What do we make them do? What
Speaker 1: do we make it? Time?
Speaker 5: And you know, one slots filled right here?
Speaker 1: Yes, we know, we know.
Speaker 6: But this morning I was the east of a song
Speaker 6: to play.
Speaker 1: It's funny you say.
Speaker 6: Keyboard nightmare, but in my head I.
Speaker 1: Was like, yo, well he because in my head like
Speaker 1: even a deep cuts like so wato right? Uh? Playing
Speaker 1: love like all? I was just like he probably don't
Speaker 1: do that no more. He'll just I do it. I
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 6: It just depends. But I've been doing it a lot lately,
Speaker 6: actually playing love. Yeah, I've been doing it a lot lately. Hmm.
Speaker 7: Okay, I have a question about a song real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 7: was I Just Want to Be Your Friend? Ever released
Speaker 7: on an album?
Speaker 6: Was on that soundtrack? There was a soundtracks that sound.
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't find that soundtrack anyway.
Speaker 6: The Toy, The Toy with Richard.
Speaker 1: It was it was the theme song.
Speaker 7: Know that songboy that The Toy is one of my
Speaker 7: favorite movies ever.
Speaker 1: So of course I've seen the intro like a billion
Speaker 1: times and it opens the movie. So it does. It's
Speaker 1: so funny.
Speaker 6: I mean, my my wife, you know, every now and
Speaker 6: then she'll be that movie will come on and she Okay,
Speaker 6: I can't believe that you're singing this stuff. I used
Speaker 6: to love that song.
Speaker 1: Come on, you worked with with Rod Temperton. How did
Speaker 1: you get I know that he opened the.
Speaker 6: Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: I got to look up the emotional it wasn't it
Speaker 1: was we belong to Love? We Belonged to Love was
Speaker 1: the song? Yeah? Yeah, he I know that Rod Temperton
Speaker 1: did that one. Did you Did he collaborate with you
Speaker 1: directly or was it just like no, he wrote it.
Speaker 6: I was trying to collaborate with him. But you know,
Speaker 6: Rod's different kind of guy. Rod's like, okay, well well mate,
Speaker 6: will we'll well mate, we'll we'll.
Speaker 1: Try to make this work.
Speaker 6: He didn't pull and he calls me and says, well,
Speaker 6: I got the songs.
Speaker 1: Did he Pool's team as he did it. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: he always right, that's right. Right, Wait a minute, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I hate the fact that I'm seeing as in real
Speaker 1: time Haymush Stewart.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, I did not know
Speaker 6: that really has brought the song to me. I was like,
Speaker 6: I like this song really. Yeah, I know it's kind
Speaker 6: of weird, isn't it. Did you think about him that song? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Like so I believe it's something you don't know, because
Speaker 6: damn you know every day you know more about me
Speaker 6: than I do.
Speaker 4: No, I.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that.
Speaker 6: You know what it is.
Speaker 1: I have most of your discography on cassette, right, A
Speaker 1: lot of those credits.
Speaker 6: Aren't it's so tiny, So yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: I didn't have it in no, if it was on record,
Speaker 1: if I have the records, actual.
Speaker 5: Writing is really small on here too.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 6: But I mean that's a lot bigger than anything you're
Speaker 6: gonna get today, though.
Speaker 1: If you get anything.
Speaker 5: I have a question.
Speaker 8: Whose decision or or request or desire was it to
Speaker 8: have Brian May from Queen on Stay with Me?
Speaker 6: That was was actually my manager, Jack Nelson, who used
Speaker 6: to manage Queen, and he did the guitar solo. He
Speaker 6: did the guitar solo on Yeah. Okay, so he said,
Speaker 6: you know, he said, well, maybe I can talk Brian
Speaker 6: into doing it. I said, really, that would be really
Speaker 6: good if Brian came in and did it. And he
Speaker 6: came in and did it. Great. Guy.
Speaker 5: We're a Queen fan, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I knew a lot of their stuff.
Speaker 6: I wasn't like a big Queen fan, but I knew
Speaker 6: a lot of their material, and I was shocked at
Speaker 6: some of the songs that Brian May wrote. I mean,
Speaker 6: I didn't know he wrote we Will Rock You. It's
Speaker 6: like in every stadium across the country. Dude's incredible.
Speaker 5: I can't read who played bass on Stay with Me Tonight.
Speaker 6: I'll find so Johnson.
Speaker 5: Okay, sorry you said that.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so with You should be mine, which, of course,
Speaker 1: the magic's in the woo woo woo ad libs. I mean,
Speaker 1: how does that presented to you in a way where
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, this will work, or because the thing
Speaker 1: is is like hearing you sing and I'm like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: hell I have that. But I can't imagine you hearing
Speaker 1: the demo and saying like, yeah, this is gonna work
Speaker 1: for me? Like how to?
Speaker 6: I didn't really know until I sang it. And once
Speaker 6: I sang it, I liked it. And I you know,
Speaker 6: back then, you know, you bring everything home and you
Speaker 6: bring it home and you put it on in the house,
Speaker 6: you know, and house tested. And my three year old daughter,
Speaker 6: she she's the one that confirmed it. I mean, she
Speaker 6: barely can talk and she's like, Daddy, what that woo
Speaker 6: song is so good? I'm like, what, I liked it?
Speaker 6: I said, it's not called the wool song. It's called
Speaker 6: you should be Mine. She said, no, that's the woo song.
Speaker 1: How bet you? Every black person ever met.
Speaker 6: Says everyone everyone. I mean, you know, they'll just somewhere.
Speaker 6: But yeah, that was that's a huge song man. I
Speaker 6: became the Woo Woo man all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: I was like, what they did? And why why did
Speaker 1: you and Duke stop working together after the the Emotional album.
Speaker 6: That was a record company kind of decision. They felt
Speaker 6: that we got there, but we didn't get where they
Speaker 6: thought I should be and they thought Richard they want Richard.
Speaker 6: Perry was the hardest thing out right then. So it
Speaker 6: was all for good reasons, but it kind of broke
Speaker 6: up a really good relationship that I had with George,
Speaker 6: and so I was kind of reluctant, and then it
Speaker 6: turned out so bad. I was like, wow, that was
Speaker 6: not good. But yeah, it was kind of them. They
Speaker 6: came to me and they said, well, you know, these
Speaker 6: guys are.
Speaker 1: Hot, man.
Speaker 6: They got all these hit records, and you know, Richard
Speaker 6: is great at finding good songs and this and that,
Speaker 6: and so you know, I gave it a shot.
Speaker 1: And in their mind, did they say like, okay, well
Speaker 1: you should be in Linel territory now, or like where
Speaker 1: where was their point of satisfaction?
Speaker 6: I think they felt that I should have been that
Speaker 6: I could reach another plateau in their mind, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: And I have to credit them with by saying, you know,
Speaker 6: they were looking out, you know, trying to do the
Speaker 6: best that they thought was in my interest. And I
Speaker 6: was kind of curious about it because I'm like, wow,
Speaker 6: these guys do have this Richard Perry doesn't have a
Speaker 6: serious track record of hits. And he brought in the
Speaker 6: big people, the Diane Warrens and all them, and you know,
Speaker 6: the only thing that worked off that record was the.
Speaker 1: Wools, Right.
Speaker 6: I still dunk wayo yeah. I mean, you know else,
Speaker 6: the Wada was great too. It was a couple of
Speaker 6: good songs out there. But you know, for the most part,
Speaker 6: it didn't. The relationship didn't work out with me and Richard.
Speaker 1: And was it just like because I oft didn't wonder
Speaker 1: when you have mega a mega producer of that level,
Speaker 1: and I guess he did the breakout record with Porn
Speaker 1: and Sisters, right, So when you have a megaproducer that
Speaker 1: is probably often in demand, it's probably paint by numbers
Speaker 1: if he's an industry like, Okay, I got you this
Speaker 1: week and then I got there. So do you feel
Speaker 1: as the least with the chemistry between you and George
Speaker 1: was that you guys sat down and took time to
Speaker 1: socialize with each other and got to know and be.
Speaker 6: On top of that, we were really good friends, you know.
Speaker 6: So we had a really good, relaxed relationship, you know,
Speaker 6: and you come into Richard and it's more of a
Speaker 6: hyper kind of thing where you know, he's and he
Speaker 6: was never satisfied with anything. So that was confusing me.
Speaker 6: I'm like, someone have all this success and he's never satisfied.
Speaker 6: You know, he would have you know, back then, you
Speaker 6: had your master twenty fourth track and he would have
Speaker 6: like five slaves. I'm like, dude, when are you gonna
Speaker 6: put all these up?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: So it was it was an interesting process working with
Speaker 6: Richard and we thought it would it would actually, you know,
Speaker 6: just lead to more and more success. Basically you made.
Speaker 1: A move to Arista for yeah, I did.
Speaker 6: That was an interesting move too.
Speaker 1: Was it Clive selling you the dream of I can
Speaker 1: make this happen?
Speaker 6: Exactly exactly because I actually was torn between Clive in
Speaker 6: Motown because Barry Gordy was made a big pitch for me.
Speaker 1: Wait in nineteen ninety yeah.
Speaker 6: But Motown wasn't really smoking hot then, it was. It
Speaker 6: was on the down side at that point. And Clive,
Speaker 6: you know, Clive did his number, he offered you know
Speaker 6: me the you know the right number right right. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but then we clashed, and Clive kind of clash because
Speaker 6: he doesn't like a strong personality. He likes somebody that's
Speaker 6: just gonna do whatever he says, and you know, I
Speaker 6: have a problem. Song was right, But then you know,
Speaker 6: this is a guy that wants a saxophone solo on
Speaker 6: every record. The couldn't be no other, no other, So
Speaker 6: it's gotta be saxophone record. Take that off, put the
Speaker 6: saxophone on it, exactly.
Speaker 1: Sorry, So we had a we had a that's the Arister,
Speaker 1: that's the Arista Sax.
Speaker 5: Like, sorry, Arista Sax.
Speaker 6: Think about it. It's the Kenny g thing for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so we you know, the first record, I had a
Speaker 6: great time with the Barry Uh, Barry Eastman. He did
Speaker 6: basically the whole record. So I came back here to
Speaker 6: New York and worked with Barry, and I love Barry.
Speaker 6: He was a great guy to work with. But I
Speaker 6: don't think really Clyide went after that record. I mean,
Speaker 6: only Human was was a hit, and then he kind
Speaker 6: of like fell off after that by going after he
Speaker 6: thought if my Brothers in Trouble was a hit, and
Speaker 6: he kind of pushed that song on me. It wasn't
Speaker 6: a song that I selected. And that's another way you
Speaker 6: run into problems with Clyde. He's so involved and he
Speaker 6: wants to basically tell you what you should have on
Speaker 6: your record and pick your songs. So I had a
Speaker 6: hard time with that because you know, I never had
Speaker 6: anybody telling me, well, you need to do this song
Speaker 6: and take that off, put this song on, do that
Speaker 6: and so we kind of clashed heads, and I think
Speaker 6: my personality was a little too strong. He doesn't clive,
Speaker 6: he doesn't like confrontation, and he does he give.
Speaker 1: You at least the warning in the beginning, like, look like,
Speaker 1: just let me drive the car, and I swear we'll
Speaker 1: get you to I've heard there before exactly.
Speaker 6: He gave me that whole pitch and then he you know,
Speaker 6: he makes it sound right. You know, you don't realize
Speaker 6: you're going to go into a situation where like my
Speaker 6: second record, after Only Human, was three years before he
Speaker 6: could decide on what songs I was supposed to sing.
Speaker 6: So at that point it got crazy and so we
Speaker 6: worked on an agreement to to get it released. So
Speaker 6: I only did one record.
Speaker 1: Whatever, okay was, especially in the late eighties and the
Speaker 1: early nineties, was the onslaught of new jack swing and
Speaker 1: what was happening with traditional R and B. Was that
Speaker 1: troublesome for you at the time, Like, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna have to do the running man now on these
Speaker 1: videos pull James ingram Y record, that's right, record, it's real? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 6: Well, you know I just never gave into that. I
Speaker 6: you know, it was all around me, and it was
Speaker 6: temptation maybe I should go this way, but I kind
Speaker 6: of said, you know, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna.
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna try to stay doing what I do,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean, I think what happens with veteran
Speaker 6: artists is that, you know, you get to a point
Speaker 6: where there's there's always something new coming in, there's always
Speaker 6: a new flavor. Especially with R and B and black audiences,
Speaker 6: they're on to the next hip thing all the time.
Speaker 6: So if you don't keep up, you kind of just
Speaker 6: kind of get pushed back. And then radio does the
Speaker 6: same thing. Unfortunately, you know, if it doesn't fit this format,
Speaker 6: you're not going to get played and they can't appreciate,
Speaker 6: you know, what you have to offer. Although they play
Speaker 6: your old stuff, they won't play this stuff, you know,
Speaker 6: And so then there's the sellout point. Well you know,
Speaker 6: you know, do you do this and then they say
Speaker 6: you're selling out. So it's a kind of a catch
Speaker 6: twenty two. As you get longer and longer into your career,
Speaker 6: it becomes it becomes a challenge. It's a demographic battle.
Speaker 6: You know, you're fighting for the people that actually go
Speaker 6: out and buy the records, which are the younger crowd,
Speaker 6: the younger crowd, and it happens, and every entertained his life.
Speaker 6: I see people getting all My favorite singers got phased
Speaker 6: out when I was hot. You know, they were like
Speaker 6: still doing their thing, but radio wasn't embracing it, and
Speaker 6: they didn't want to flip over to do this, And
Speaker 6: so I guess it's a natural process of evolution. The
Speaker 6: only person I've seen whether the whole damn storm, is
Speaker 6: Damn Tony Bennett. I can't figure out. This guy is
Speaker 6: like nowhere, nowhere, He'll still be still singing. Yeah, thats
Speaker 6: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Touring wise, what are your favorite territories?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I think here in the US, you know,
Speaker 6: there's always markets that you like to come to. You know,
Speaker 6: New York is one. There are tough markets. New York's
Speaker 6: a tough market, isn't it. Well you better you better
Speaker 6: be good in New York or they'll let you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think, Well, I'm not relevant to what you guys
Speaker 1: want to at least fourteen instant classics like back up, But.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you still better be good when you go
Speaker 6: out there to do them.
Speaker 1: You can't phone it in from home. No, okay, you
Speaker 1: know you got you gotta do all at the end
Speaker 1: of love ballot or else like way, Mama, you missed one.
Speaker 6: That's funny. But yeah, I mean, you know these are
Speaker 6: to me New York, Philly, DC. Those are those are
Speaker 6: the markets that actually break you, you know, the West
Speaker 6: Coast market, so they kind of follow, kind of follow suit.
Speaker 6: But these are the tough market. So I like New York,
Speaker 6: I like Philly, I like DC. And then my favorite
Speaker 6: place is New Orleans because New Orleans is just crazy.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: They just love everything down there. Yeah, they love it.
Speaker 1: They drink twenty four seven. So the party has already started. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, what about what about outside of the United States?
Speaker 1: Like where is a market?
Speaker 6: You know, I like you, I love the Islands, you know,
Speaker 6: I just have a fun time now.
Speaker 1: I like the people.
Speaker 6: I feel like I'm right at home and they've supported
Speaker 6: me forever there. I mean, China is like the national
Speaker 6: anthem in Jamaica exactly. It's like what nowhere else in
Speaker 6: the world China national anthem. But it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 6: because I you know, I don't do a lot abroad.
Speaker 6: You know, I've done Europe, but not a lot of Europe,
Speaker 6: you know. And I'm just getting calls from Sweden like
Speaker 6: we want you over here. And I've never been to Sweden.
Speaker 6: So there's places, there's places I've never performed, a lot
Speaker 6: of places I've never performed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, you got to do it. Wait where
Speaker 1: do you reside? Now?
Speaker 6: I live in La Okay, I've been in La since
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy, so you know I left with LTD back
Speaker 6: this nineteen.
Speaker 1: So since that, Wait, you never told us at the
Speaker 1: did you guys ever recover that trailer that women did? Mountainside?
Speaker 6: Did beat up some of our equipment, Uh, you know,
Speaker 6: but we recovered it and uh got it back up
Speaker 6: the mountain there and put it back on, hitched it
Speaker 6: and went on our way to La.
Speaker 1: I thought, you guys are just like, oh, there's that.
Speaker 1: That's that.
Speaker 6: No, we got it back, you know, we had to
Speaker 6: get it back. We were broke ass people just quick.
Speaker 1: So you just released worth it all? You did you
Speaker 1: work with on on on that record?
Speaker 6: I worked with me and that's it. I mean really
Speaker 6: I wrote everything and I produced everything on the record.
Speaker 6: So Good's probably the first record that I wrote everything on.
Speaker 6: It I have one song that I actually wrote with
Speaker 6: my son, and he's, uh, it's like it's it's interesting.
Speaker 6: He's he's a junior, never was into music, went to school,
Speaker 6: played basketball, came home from Collins and told me he raps. Now,
Speaker 6: I'm like, what really, I raised your ass and I
Speaker 6: never heard you rap once. Well, now you know, I've
Speaker 6: been in the dorm with my friends and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: we all started rapping, and so I'm into rap. So
Speaker 6: so he's doing his thing now, he's you know, rapping
Speaker 6: and writing. He's now writing music and he's a great engineer.
Speaker 6: He does my sound live sound. Now, my sound engineer
Speaker 6: took him under this wing and he taught him well
Speaker 6: because now when my engineer can't do it, he does
Speaker 6: my house and he's really good at it. So I figured, uh,
Speaker 6: he here is different than I do. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 6: so let me give me a track.
Speaker 1: Side note. That's also how I broke the news to
Speaker 1: my own dad that I was starting the Roots. Really,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, by the way, it's on your
Speaker 1: second album though, right, well, yeah, he saw on the newspaper.
Speaker 5: What is this.
Speaker 1: I was like, hell, a little project with Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it took my second album to for me to
Speaker 1: break that news to my dad. He wanted me and
Speaker 1: Juilliard and whatever. Yeah, I just have to say that
Speaker 1: this is it's amazing.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm still salty that I'd let a Steve Frown project
Speaker 1: go on for so long that I never knew about.
Speaker 1: I just saw him too. Oh. Man.
Speaker 6: I did a show in La I was one of
Speaker 6: the wineries in Mecula and he was on the gig
Speaker 6: playing with Mindy A Bear.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, oh, okay, at least he's still gigging,
Speaker 1: because after.
Speaker 6: He just let he had just left Tom Petty and
Speaker 6: so at the time. So yeah, well Steve always has
Speaker 6: the best gigs. Yeah, he always has the best gigs
Speaker 6: he does. But he's still my favorite drummer.
Speaker 1: Mane.
Speaker 6: And then I saw but Not Purtty at one of
Speaker 6: my shows and uh, really Houston and that that just
Speaker 6: lit me up. I love that dude.
Speaker 1: You still play I mean the.
Speaker 6: Rock Steady song that was it. But yeah, he's evolutionized
Speaker 6: all that. No, I don't play. I haven't played since
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy. I'm going to say when Love Ballot became
Speaker 6: a hit, I was seventy five they reck a company
Speaker 6: came to me and said, you have got to get
Speaker 6: up from behind the drums because I used to play
Speaker 6: and sing a long time. They said, you know, this
Speaker 6: song is a hit with the ladies. They can't see
Speaker 6: you with four horn players standing in front of you.
Speaker 6: You got to get out. I didn't even know what
Speaker 6: to do my hands. I was so used to singing
Speaker 6: and playing. So they got me this guy that was
Speaker 6: the president of a theater at the LA Community College,
Speaker 6: and he came in. He kind of worked with me
Speaker 6: and showed me how to kind of open up and
Speaker 6: you know, and from that point on, I played on
Speaker 6: the next couple of records, but I never got a
Speaker 6: chance to really sit down and play, and my career
Speaker 6: kind of took off. And it's it's one of those
Speaker 6: instruments that is really touch sensitive. I mean if you
Speaker 6: don't do it. I mean I could sit down and
Speaker 6: play a groove, but when I start trying to get
Speaker 6: around it. So never en concert. Were you like I
Speaker 6: used to do? I did at one point. I used
Speaker 6: to play in the show, but I don't needmore and
Speaker 6: my band is stepping on me. You need to get back.
Speaker 6: You need to play at the show man.
Speaker 1: You need to but I got to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I got to sit down and I
Speaker 6: have the ship. You got three months before I would
Speaker 6: even attempt. Man, it's like the bike.
Speaker 1: No, it ain't okay.
Speaker 6: I mean playing the groove, playing the groom was like
Speaker 6: riding the bike. But when you start getting around exactly
Speaker 6: I'm here so but you know, I might.
Speaker 1: Get back into it.
Speaker 6: I just need to take the time out to sit
Speaker 6: down and do it because it was it was kind
Speaker 6: of what got me into this business.
Speaker 1: Really open up the doors for me. Well, we thank
Speaker 1: you for it, Steve. Any other things you.
Speaker 6: Man, he kind of opened up a lot yea therapeutics.
Speaker 5: It was my wings.
Speaker 1: Feel good, mister Osborne. We thank you so much. Man,
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure. Hopefully one day you'll come on
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show and sit in with the group. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great man.
Speaker 6: Yes, I gotta get you guys to come down to
Speaker 6: my you know, I have a celebrity golf tournament trying
Speaker 6: to get you. It's in July this year, the twenty ninth,
Speaker 6: thirtieth and thirty.
Speaker 1: First Jeffrey Osborne Celebrity.
Speaker 6: It's an incredible tournament, man, and I have all the
Speaker 6: old school singers come, Smokey comes, OJ's come, Johnny Gill comes,
Speaker 6: Philip Bailey comes, and it's so it's more than just
Speaker 6: a tournament because we jam, you know, and then you know,
Speaker 6: Magic Johnson hosted for me every year. So I got
Speaker 6: Sugar Rayling, I got the most of the top athletes
Speaker 6: along with the best entertainers, and we just party. Man,
Speaker 6: it's a three day party. Man, it's it's incredible, said Foxwoods.
Speaker 6: Now I got at the casino, so it loves that, right.
Speaker 1: We thank you very much for coming on the show
Speaker 1: on behalf of Sugar Steve and Boss Bill and I'm
Speaker 1: Paybill and fan Tickeolo and who are not here?
Speaker 5: No no, no, no, no suckers.
Speaker 1: Yeahs. Anyway, this is Quest Love Quest Love Supreme. We
Speaker 1: will see you on the nextico.
Speaker 6: Thank a right.
Speaker 1: Course. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Papandora. For more
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