Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: You guys been at thirty Rocket fall along right for
Speaker 2: for a while?
Speaker 1: Pretty much? Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: We made it through the story.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it. You know, it's like everybody has
Speaker 2: everybody has a story for the last.
Speaker 1: Year, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: You ready?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh, I thought I hate Slart video. My bad?
Speaker 1: What's up here? I was up? Everybody?
Speaker 2: What's up? I made good up?
Speaker 1: What's up? Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host, Questo. We have Teams
Speaker 1: Supreme with us right now. Well, I can't assign myself
Speaker 1: another moniker.
Speaker 3: It just took you a second. I wasn't sure if
Speaker 3: you knew as.
Speaker 1: Guy who I was, because you know, whenever we're in
Speaker 1: the presence of greatness, I just I understand my thinking
Speaker 1: goes the other wise. Dude just played on every record ever.
Speaker 1: I wish, I truly wish we had like James Brown's intro,
Speaker 1: just so I can right right start naming it like
Speaker 1: literally dud tears in Heaven, get lucky? Uh whatloose? Saving
Speaker 1: all my love for you? I just can't stop loving you.
Speaker 1: Oh morning, algebral morning, Steve Steeves about to fit.
Speaker 2: This stuff?
Speaker 1: Easy, lovers, there you go through the fire. I mean
Speaker 1: even even underground classics like smooth Sailing by the eyes
Speaker 1: of I got freaking who has any work with Tina
Speaker 1: Marie Dion Warwick, like Whoever the Weekend? Justin Timberlake, BB King,
Speaker 1: Mary J Blise, Fish, ladies and gentlemen, the most used
Speaker 1: session musician of Wait, I'm kind of saying this is
Speaker 1: just but anthanist. Are you the most used session musician
Speaker 1: of all time?
Speaker 2: You know what? A mayor? I'm not exactly sure how
Speaker 2: to verify that, but we can say that I've been busy.
Speaker 1: Book and busy gentlemen. I love it. A great Philadelphian
Speaker 1: is on the show. Welcome East to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: It is a pleasure, a joy, and an honor to
Speaker 2: be here. I mean, you've had everybody from Michelle Obama to.
Speaker 1: We're working on him and now Nathanist Yeah. How how
Speaker 1: how are you right now? Where Where are you? Okay?
Speaker 1: I know that we can't see you because this is
Speaker 1: an audio show, but I should say that in the
Speaker 1: land of zoom, when you're watching like news pundits sit
Speaker 1: behind their library collection while the book Nah Nathan is stunning.
Speaker 1: Like I'm certain that all those guitars and basses hanging
Speaker 1: on your wall have a story to tell, correct.
Speaker 2: You know, they really do. There was there's the one
Speaker 2: that was on some of those early Barry White records
Speaker 2: that was like the white pea bass in the background
Speaker 2: is my Like.
Speaker 1: That's your Barry White? Was your first client as a
Speaker 1: professional bass player?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, late, Wow, Jesus Christ, let's start. This is the thing,
Speaker 1: Like I've known you for the longest and of course,
Speaker 1: like you know, you've come to the tonight show and
Speaker 1: you've sat it in and all that stuff. I still
Speaker 1: can't wrap my head around the fact that you're a Philadelphian.
Speaker 1: What is your and at that, like I'm really elated
Speaker 1: to speak to someone. Usually all the musician musical luminaries
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia that I talked to are are kind of
Speaker 1: from a certain like my dad's range, like born in
Speaker 1: the late thirties, early forties, and really can't give me
Speaker 1: a lay of the land of what Philly was like
Speaker 1: to grow up in Philly as as a youngster in
Speaker 1: the seventies when all this magic was happening. But what
Speaker 1: is your Philadelphia story? Where in Philly were you born?
Speaker 2: Well, actually North Philly Doctor's Hospital roughly sixty five years ago.
Speaker 2: And my my, that's the that's the we're supposed to
Speaker 2: give away those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you like that, you are actually.
Speaker 1: Rop the skincare routine, Nick, I need a skincare regimen.
Speaker 3: That's a renting all at least at night.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Even as you said that, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he might be like five years older than me, right,
Speaker 1: born in the Wow, Yeah, you know, in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Six, nineteen thitty five, you know. And you know, b
Speaker 2: my dad went to Cheney Cheney State in Cheney, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: He had the world's record in the fifty one hundred
Speaker 2: yard dash beat Jesse Owens in nineteen forty made the Olympics,
Speaker 2: but due to the war, the Olympics were canceled, So
Speaker 2: I didn't have that bragging right, but he was the
Speaker 2: world's fastest human. My daughter is now keeping it going.
Speaker 2: She runs track for UC Berkeley on their D one
Speaker 2: Pactael twelve track team there in Texas A And then
Speaker 2: this weekend, you know, for the for the regional finals.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's a lot, but Philly I left
Speaker 2: early when he had an aerodynamics aviation job in Convert,
Speaker 2: San Diego, where he moved the family. But we would
Speaker 2: go back to Philly every summer and kind of just
Speaker 2: jam and I a lot of great musical influences. And
Speaker 2: I don't know what's in the water. There's so many
Speaker 2: bass players, Anthony Jackson and Eddie Henderson. It's just like
Speaker 2: what it's base heaven over there.
Speaker 1: You know. So was your family immerged in music as
Speaker 1: well or just like how what was your first musical
Speaker 1: memory that you had?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was there was always a piano kind of
Speaker 2: around the house that uh, pops and moms both would play.
Speaker 2: But you know it was like, you know, music, music
Speaker 2: filled the neighborhood and and you know, so you'd hear
Speaker 2: Glutys Night, Marvin Gay Out, you know, blasting through the
Speaker 2: homes of this of the neighborhood. But it was really
Speaker 2: I'll never forget My first forty five was More Love
Speaker 2: by Smokey Robinson. We were just always gathered around the
Speaker 2: radio and listening to music. And I remember when I
Speaker 2: played cello for three years and then I discovered the
Speaker 2: bass and it was it was actually in church. My
Speaker 2: brothers and I were doing. They were doing like these
Speaker 2: folk masters back in the day when all that started
Speaker 2: and uh, and then there was a bass on the
Speaker 2: altar and I went up picked it up, and nobody
Speaker 2: claimed it and I picked it up and I said, oh.
Speaker 1: Lord, you take yourself out of play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I just started playing, just just out
Speaker 2: of my love for music. And it only had four strings,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't it wasn't that difficult.
Speaker 3: But you played the cello before.
Speaker 2: But I played the cello before anyway, I was in
Speaker 2: the range of the bass cleft, so that that kind
Speaker 2: of got me got me going.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is interesting because usually anyone that we interview
Speaker 1: on the show that's an axe men or an ax woman,
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten there's like a the thirty
Speaker 1: dollars Sears guitar thing story that happens, like with Sears
Speaker 1: having these affordable instruments and you know, people teaching their
Speaker 1: getting their kids lessons and whatnot. But you started on
Speaker 1: the cello and then worked your way.
Speaker 2: To the base, right, and the weather is the thirty
Speaker 2: actually forty nine dollars story story from from the pod
Speaker 2: shop where my mom got me. My first base was
Speaker 2: about that long. You know, it was a you know,
Speaker 2: a short scale, no name, but you know that that
Speaker 2: was my uh, you know, ticket to ticket to everything,
Speaker 2: you know. And then I started playing in all the
Speaker 2: bands and uh stage band in high school and okay,
Speaker 2: you know the drill. One thing leads to another, next thing.
Speaker 2: You know, you're doing a couple of gigs I learned.
Speaker 2: I learned the A string, the eastring, and then I
Speaker 2: had a gig already.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know.
Speaker 2: And then the first gigs were in church and obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, I always say that's the best place to
Speaker 2: have your first gigs because if you make a mistake,
Speaker 2: they're ready forgiving. You know, you don't get it, you
Speaker 2: don't get it.
Speaker 1: I see. Do you remember, well, at the time when
Speaker 1: you're learning your craft, were there any other notable musicians
Speaker 1: that you grew up with or or artists that you
Speaker 1: were kind of hanging with during your your formative the
Speaker 1: years as a.
Speaker 2: Teen or yeah, you know, well, as a team, we
Speaker 2: It's funny because we backed up. We had a band
Speaker 2: called Power and there was a staxed review that rufus
Speaker 2: Thomas Barry White, a bunch of people came and played
Speaker 2: and we were the house band for everybody. And after
Speaker 2: that gig, Barry White invited us all to his office
Speaker 2: up in Beverly Hills. We went up there and he
Speaker 2: hired our whole band on the spot to go tour
Speaker 2: with him. And so, like, my first gig was at
Speaker 2: the Apollo Theater. Then we did Madison Square Garden, we
Speaker 2: did Cobo Arena and Detroit. You know, I'm like sixteen
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: Wait, what year is this?
Speaker 2: This was like a let's see, seventy one maybe.
Speaker 1: Okay, so at the very beginning of Barry White's career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventy one two, and he started, you know, he
Speaker 2: had all these hits.
Speaker 1: And were you lying about your age? Like anybody you know.
Speaker 2: I didn't volunteer my age. It was just one of
Speaker 2: those things where you know, you're saying, opportunity, Knox, you got.
Speaker 4: To go, you know, and how do you propose this
Speaker 4: to your parents? How did that conversation?
Speaker 2: Well that was another thing that they were, you know
Speaker 2: how parents are. They're they're always a little reluctant about that,
Speaker 2: but they they went along to it because I was
Speaker 2: with my brothers, you know, my and all my my
Speaker 2: homies and from the neighborhood. So we were all together
Speaker 2: in this and it was it was really special to
Speaker 2: to be with an act like that, you know, an
Speaker 2: arena act where you're you know, selling out arenas, and
Speaker 2: it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So did you ever do the Philadelphia circuit that would
Speaker 1: have maybe eventually landed you in MFSB Or was that
Speaker 1: already Anthony's gig?
Speaker 2: And yeah, that was that was already done and dusted,
Speaker 2: and that would have been been his gig. And I
Speaker 2: would have been already out on the West coast by then.
Speaker 2: But those those were the you know, those were the
Speaker 2: dream gigs that everybody wanted, you know, gambling, huff and
Speaker 2: and those tombs are very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 2: But by that time we were out on the West coast.
Speaker 2: And then so so Barry was kind of he was
Speaker 2: kind of it. And and then you know, I played
Speaker 2: with him live before before I started recording, but then
Speaker 2: you know, started doing all those records, and and he would,
Speaker 2: you know, most people don't know, he'd drive up from
Speaker 2: from Watson a stuts bear cat with gold emblems on it,
Speaker 2: and then he'd get out with the three fifty seven magnum.
Speaker 2: You knows, twirling it like like he's in like he's
Speaker 2: in the country Western movie. It would sit on the console,
Speaker 2: you know, like this thing.
Speaker 3: No special occasion special.
Speaker 1: I wanted. I wanted to ask you. So you're you're
Speaker 1: the you're the third guest of the show that's had
Speaker 1: Barry White interactions. But I've heard, you know, through throughout
Speaker 1: my coming up in the industry, like some gangster Berry stories,
Speaker 1: but can't ever get like what was he like to
Speaker 1: deal deal with? Ray Parker Jr. Told the story of like,
Speaker 1: you know, he actually dently crashed Barry White Mercedes trying
Speaker 1: to play him the demo for one of those songs.
Speaker 1: Won't let the music play. And then his former tour manager,
Speaker 1: Alan Leeds had a few stories about you know, Barry's
Speaker 1: whole modus operandi, and you know I knew of the
Speaker 1: gun always there. Like in general, was he I don't
Speaker 1: want to say sugar nitish, Like was he fearsome or
Speaker 1: was he cool to get along with or.
Speaker 2: You know, in general he was he was very cool.
Speaker 2: We had a we had an amazing relationship, and he
Speaker 2: was just always he was always very supportive, I mean,
Speaker 2: especially if he liked you. You know, he was one
Speaker 2: of those guys that that you know, if he liked you.
Speaker 2: And then you know, Gene Page was the arranger for
Speaker 2: all those sessions, and you know, the great Gene Page
Speaker 2: and and so there was always just when it was happening,
Speaker 2: it was it was incredible, Like you know, Barry was
Speaker 2: just he loved the fact and you know we're making
Speaker 2: some some hits in there, so I mean, he was
Speaker 2: he was gracious and appreciative. We wrote a couple of
Speaker 2: things together. I had a song on the Love and
Speaker 2: Limited album called Easing Okay. And you know he would
Speaker 2: always end up with his name on everything, you know,
Speaker 2: the write a word, get a third concept.
Speaker 1: Right exactly the side note, does anyone ever remember the
Speaker 1: bridge to Jay Z's New York New York song? Do
Speaker 1: you remember New York which one exactly exactly jas New
Speaker 1: York song? Do you remember the bridge that's New York
Speaker 1: state of Mind? H Do you remember the bridge exactly?
Speaker 1: So you know, I teased all the time that, oh okay,
Speaker 1: because when Jay won the Grammy for that Alicia one
Speaker 1: two and I was trying to figure out what I
Speaker 1: was like, she insisted on adding that bridge. So that
Speaker 1: she too can get right as good for it. I
Speaker 1: never knew if that song had a bridge. I knew
Speaker 1: the who exactly exactly there's a bridge going, there's a
Speaker 1: bridget it.
Speaker 2: But conversely the bridge that Don't got Don't stop till
Speaker 2: you get Enough, which was written by Greg philin Games.
Speaker 1: Greg Philing Games, Yes, now that's the.
Speaker 2: You know, we know that story. And conversely, now that
Speaker 2: was something that that was worthy of you know what
Speaker 2: five percent.
Speaker 1: So it happens, it goes down with those sessions. Ray
Speaker 1: told us that very tracked everything at the same time,
Speaker 1: with multiple I mean, at least for Ray, you know,
Speaker 1: he would say like sometimes it'd be two sometimes four
Speaker 1: guitarist playing at the same time, and that he didn't
Speaker 1: do a lot of post mixing and none of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Like So, I'm just trying to figure out the one
Speaker 1: question I never got to ask him about that in
Speaker 1: doing it, is if Barry doesn't do any post mixing
Speaker 1: once the song is cut, how long do you guys
Speaker 1: have to play a song in the studio before the
Speaker 1: engineer captures the right EQ, the right compression, the right sound.
Speaker 1: Like someone has to play over and over again while
Speaker 1: they're like okay, getting levels.
Speaker 2: Right while you're while you're playing over and over again
Speaker 2: and you're learning the tune, and Barry's given everybody a part.
Speaker 2: Like if you're looking in the studio, literally there's three
Speaker 2: guitars there, there's Ray Parker, There's Wah wah, you know,
Speaker 2: it could be Lee written hoor sometimes Parks, Dean Parks,
Speaker 2: I mean, David t. And so you'd have those guys.
Speaker 2: He had like a touring band at the time and
Speaker 2: they were not really known. So his name was Willie C. Straut,
Speaker 2: but another bass player because he was on there. Is
Speaker 2: the thing I remember about is he was always so nervous.
Speaker 2: He was sweating from the palms of his hand, you know,
Speaker 2: because when Barry came around you there was a force
Speaker 2: to be reckoned with, you know, and he'd starts singing
Speaker 2: a part to you. Okay, you play bowl, boul bowl,
Speaker 2: you know, and so he would he would so literally
Speaker 2: you got a room full of musicians Barry. There was
Speaker 2: a roads in the middle of the room. Jean was
Speaker 2: in there, Ed Green was over on drums, and then
Speaker 2: he'd go around and sing the part to every guy
Speaker 2: and and you would literally start to hear a hit
Speaker 2: being just developed just right before your very eyes, and
Speaker 2: pretty soon you're playing this thing like like for hours.
Speaker 2: And next thing, you know, when you add all those
Speaker 2: parts and bits and pieces, you know, they hit record.
Speaker 3: Oh Barry White didn't read or write music.
Speaker 2: No, no, he would if you said you said, here's
Speaker 2: play me middle c he wouldn't. He would not know
Speaker 2: where to go.
Speaker 1: Really really, as many times as I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing the piano and all that stuff, even.
Speaker 2: Though he was the maestro, you know, but but I mean,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, he knew. You know. That's
Speaker 2: that's what I love about music anyway, because you don't
Speaker 2: really have to, you know, be schooled for those notes
Speaker 2: to come out, you know. And we we all have
Speaker 2: the same twelve notes, like Quincy says, you know, we
Speaker 2: got the same twelve notes fort to work with.
Speaker 1: So are you on the do you know the the
Speaker 1: stretch of the very White discography that you were on
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: Or yeah that I think one of the first ones
Speaker 2: that I was on was called The Messages Love, and
Speaker 2: it had just the way you are, A bunch of
Speaker 2: those tunes I had, you know, there was whichever album
Speaker 2: had ecstasy when you lay down next to me.
Speaker 1: Just casually that baseline, you know, and and those you know.
Speaker 2: That was my first kind of heartbreak in the business,
Speaker 2: because you know when when you're in the studio every
Speaker 2: day all day and then you get that album and
Speaker 2: you crack it open and you look for your name
Speaker 2: and it's not there. It was like produced by Barry Wright,
Speaker 2: written by Barry White. Album, all songs and no musicians.
Speaker 2: And I said, what's what's up with this? Oh, he
Speaker 2: doesn't want anybody to steal his sound, you know, so
Speaker 2: you were surprised.
Speaker 3: You didn't know ahead of time that your name ain't I.
Speaker 2: Had, Your name is not gonna be on the record.
Speaker 1: And so really, guys, see, that's why I always thought
Speaker 1: that like rhythm arranger and all those other like made
Speaker 1: up credits is for you know, we won't give you
Speaker 1: right his credit or production credit, but we'll just say
Speaker 1: that you did rhythm arrangement or you're right, you know,
Speaker 1: just another auxiliary credit.
Speaker 2: I mean, love theme was was a gene arrangement to
Speaker 2: a song, and the arrangement was so bad that it
Speaker 2: was so powerful that they took the lyrics off the
Speaker 2: song and they didn't even finish the tune, you know, exactly.
Speaker 2: That was ABC Wide World is fos every Saturday.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like watching the guy fall down. Dude, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I remember it. How does one I'm not saying, I'm
Speaker 1: not asking, like how does one stay territorial? But okay,
Speaker 1: so your Barry's go to guy in your mind if
Speaker 1: you don't say how high when he says jump in
Speaker 1: terms of like all right, we got a session next week,
Speaker 1: can you make it? Can you make it? Who are
Speaker 1: you worried about that's right around the corner that might
Speaker 1: take your gig? Like were you territorial? Like, okay, I
Speaker 1: got Barry White? Now do you start sifting for other
Speaker 1: people so you can go higher and keep Barry White?
Speaker 1: Or because I'm trying to figure out, like if you're
Speaker 1: in LA and you're competing against like Chuck Raney and
Speaker 1: Louis Johnson and all those things. I know that mainly
Speaker 1: producers have their main guy that they always stick with, right,
Speaker 1: but you seem to be the main guy that everyone
Speaker 1: always sticks with. So how do you how do you
Speaker 1: want like your territory to make sure that the next
Speaker 1: guy behind you doesn't take it in case you get
Speaker 1: sick one day or.
Speaker 3: Well, while still being a teenager.
Speaker 2: Well, the only way to really mark your territory is
Speaker 2: is what you leave on the tape, you know, in
Speaker 2: the studio, the notes you play are your marketing. And
Speaker 2: and like Quincy used to always say, if he to
Speaker 2: get the call is one thing to get the call
Speaker 2: back is uh is the other part of the equation
Speaker 2: that like and and uh. And I never really was
Speaker 2: too territorial. I was. I was always just so appreciative
Speaker 2: because I said, man, with all these bad cats in
Speaker 2: this town, Lewis Johnson and Abe La Boya, I mean
Speaker 2: just I mean an a list of players. So whenever
Speaker 2: I kind of got a gig, I was just going,
Speaker 2: oh man, either they weren't available or you know, just
Speaker 2: just bring your bring your a game, you know. So
Speaker 2: that for me, it was just like just just leave it,
Speaker 2: you know, leave leave your mark on the on the tape.
Speaker 1: Right. So I want to ask this hypothetic speaking all right,
Speaker 1: let's say ed Green does not exist, and it's nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four and I'm Barry White's studio drummer. How much
Speaker 1: am I getting paid? How do I get paid? Is it?
Speaker 1: Are you getting paid by the hour? Is it by
Speaker 1: the song or just by the session.
Speaker 2: Those sessions usually had a contractor, and as we all know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of politics in this, you know, but
Speaker 2: the contractor was the he was actually the one getting paid,
Speaker 2: so he was like on double scale. And then because
Speaker 2: he was, he would put himself as the leader.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had to be afm.
Speaker 2: You had to be AFM.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then so there were two sessions to day. There
Speaker 2: was ten to one, two to five basically, so I see.
Speaker 1: So there was always someone there to make sure the
Speaker 1: musicians got paid. So it wasn't like Barry was just
Speaker 1: like reaching in his pocket like all right, here's forty
Speaker 1: five dollars.
Speaker 2: You know, you didn't get an envelope. It was it
Speaker 2: was all. It was all very unionized and and people
Speaker 2: like Gene Page was there. He was there to make
Speaker 2: sure that happened too, you know. So you you got paid,
Speaker 2: you know. And then back in the day, everybody would
Speaker 2: show up at the union and you'd have a stack
Speaker 2: of checks waiting for you.
Speaker 1: Right, and by the way, are you on are you
Speaker 1: on Gene Page's Love Look record?
Speaker 2: Love Look?
Speaker 1: It came out in Atlantic seventy five, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: You know, in all honesty, i'd have to look, okay,
Speaker 2: of course I'm thinking no, because I wouldn't forget that,
Speaker 2: you know. Okay, but there's you know when when there's
Speaker 2: been quite a few, you know, they start to they
Speaker 2: start to ba hard to keep trying.
Speaker 1: Yeah right.
Speaker 2: I always kind of go to AllMusic dot Com when
Speaker 2: I went, wow, well even they forget stuff too, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So what was your next pivot after Barry White? And
Speaker 2: I can remember when I had to because I started
Speaker 2: getting calls from Hubert Laws and and Ronnie Laws and
Speaker 2: some of the guys in the sort of in the
Speaker 2: jazz idiom. And I can remember having a call where
Speaker 2: it landed on the same day as Barry. And I
Speaker 2: can remember asking him because theoretically the way you go
Speaker 2: from single scale or double is if you have so
Speaker 2: much work that you that you have to charge double
Speaker 2: in order to keep so, so you could say no
Speaker 2: to somebody else, you know. So I can remember going
Speaker 2: to Berry and asking, you know, I said, man, what
Speaker 2: should I do? And the guy said, well, if you
Speaker 2: ask him, it's been nice knowing you, you know, there
Speaker 2: just like giving me their blessings. But I pulled them
Speaker 2: aside and I got up the guts, and I said,
Speaker 2: I was just wondering if I could just ask for
Speaker 2: double scale because I'm getting some other offers and if
Speaker 2: I say no to you, you know, then it'll help
Speaker 2: me say no to them if I get double here.
Speaker 2: So he looked at me. I saw the three fifty
Speaker 2: seven sitting there on the on the count wow, and
Speaker 2: he put he put his arm, he put his arm
Speaker 2: around me. Said, Nate, if you want that, you got that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it gave you a big smile. And it
Speaker 2: was like, I mean, these are the moments and music
Speaker 2: that like people don't know about, you know, are you stay?
Speaker 2: So that was the that was the first time. And
Speaker 2: then then then I was like a double scale cat,
Speaker 2: you know, which was cool.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what's up?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Are you one any of the Running Loss stuff or
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I want to know if you're on the
Speaker 1: pressure Sensitive album. But that's with uh, that's the that's
Speaker 1: the what you call it sample? Yeah, well tidal wave.
Speaker 2: Is but always there, oh always, that's.
Speaker 1: Uh with uh. That's on friends and strangers, correct, that's
Speaker 1: on friends say yeah, okay, I see again.
Speaker 2: I'd have to look because it's it's it's enough decades.
Speaker 2: It's it's longer than four decades ago. So i'd have
Speaker 2: to look quite.
Speaker 1: All right, quite all right? When you are booked, uh
Speaker 1: for a session, do you least get the courtesy of
Speaker 1: hearing the song first to see if this is something
Speaker 1: you might be into or you just kind of jump
Speaker 1: into it and not know what it's going to wind
Speaker 1: up being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, courtesy of the song. It's it's it's
Speaker 2: you get there and it's baptism by really or fire
Speaker 2: wow and you.
Speaker 1: So you have to learn these songs on the spot,
Speaker 1: on the spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wait a minute, a mere. Let me ask Nathan
Speaker 3: this what kind of music did you want to make?
Speaker 3: Like when you started out? Like what was the dream?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, no, the dream was was all these guys.
Speaker 2: I remember reading an article that sha Ka Khan was
Speaker 2: talking about. She said, Anthony Jackson is my favorite bass
Speaker 2: player because he laid down the gauntlet on all those recording.
Speaker 2: Now it was the bible of bass. You know what
Speaker 2: he played, and I studied it. But when I read
Speaker 2: that article, I thought, oh man, I would like to
Speaker 2: be everybody's favorite bass player. Like that was my.
Speaker 1: Dream and.
Speaker 2: I'm still living the dream. I mean, you couldn't you
Speaker 2: couldn't make it up, you know, once it started hitting
Speaker 2: in January. I remember January second, nineteen eighty I did
Speaker 2: it Hurts Rent a card jingle commercial. Gene Page was
Speaker 2: a composer. James Gatson was on drums, Ray Parker and
Speaker 2: Lee written Aragon guitar, Sonny Burke at the I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm up there writing in my diary all these guys,
Speaker 2: you know, And and I worked every day since then
Speaker 2: because then it was kind of like once these guys
Speaker 2: hear you, they start going telling people about you, and
Speaker 2: it was just like stepping zones and and it was
Speaker 2: crazy that way.
Speaker 3: And that's your tribe. So that's even crazy exactly.
Speaker 1: So for the musicians that listen to this podcast. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and ask this in a way so
Speaker 1: doesn't alienate or offend them. Already knows where I go,
Speaker 1: where I'm going, No, But I think this, I think
Speaker 1: this is important, and you know, this is this is
Speaker 1: a battle I always work with because we live in
Speaker 1: we live in a time now where musicianship is just
Speaker 1: in the wild wild West, right and again. And I've
Speaker 1: talked about gospel chops for a long time where like
Speaker 1: the gospel chop community sort of sci I mean, like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: why are you always coming down on this and playing
Speaker 1: on But and you know, I don't know if the
Speaker 1: rules that apply then apply now now I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: I come from a place where, you know, the musicianship
Speaker 1: of the sixties and seventies and some of the eighties,
Speaker 1: you know, that's my bread and butter, because you know
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's undeniably classic. However, you know
Speaker 1: there's a new generation that sort of feels like the
Speaker 1: need to go from one from zero to sixty and
Speaker 1: four seconds and kind of show you everything you know
Speaker 1: they have. But it's it's almost like in your opinion,
Speaker 1: where do you feel that that script got lost in
Speaker 1: or is this just a natural evolution? And now we
Speaker 1: just live in a time where you got to do
Speaker 1: everything but the kitchen sink to impress and keep your
Speaker 1: job right. Whereas you know, all the time I tell
Speaker 1: musicians like, dude, just play. You know, in the beginning
Speaker 1: I used to take their music their stuff away and
Speaker 1: just like play this one thing and this one thing only.
Speaker 1: But like, does someone have to tell you that? Like
Speaker 1: what's I guess what I'm asking is what stopped you
Speaker 1: from trying to showboat, to let people know like I'm
Speaker 1: the shit and just do what's called for. That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's it's very seductive to to want
Speaker 2: to in certain instruments. I think, like like piano like
Speaker 2: this this like crazy Olympic fast chops, you know they
Speaker 2: it kind of lends itself to to people wanting to
Speaker 2: really it. But but I never wanted somebody to walk
Speaker 2: away from a gig, said while he was the fastest
Speaker 2: guy ever ever heard.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What I actually like to do now is I go
Speaker 2: down the Instagram feed with the sound off, you know so,
Speaker 2: and then you know, you see everybody playing and and
Speaker 2: you try to figure out who's playing something that's worth listening.
Speaker 2: And very rarely do I you when when I turn
Speaker 2: it off, you know, like very few notes. But I
Speaker 2: learned early on too, just play the play the groove
Speaker 2: and the ink and the and and let it, you know,
Speaker 2: play that funk.
Speaker 1: Does that? But does that truly matter? And like I
Speaker 1: think all of us in this room right now like
Speaker 1: agree with you. But then it's also like does that
Speaker 1: matter anymore? Does it truly matter? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think it will always matter and The only thing
Speaker 2: that I base that on is that I'm still I'm
Speaker 2: still fairly busy, like like like really really busy, you know,
Speaker 2: where every day there's something to do. After we finish here,
Speaker 2: I'm running the studio and uh, I got about four
Speaker 2: songs waiting. So to me, it's the same concept. And
Speaker 2: I remember when Barry said when the Lynn drum Machine came,
Speaker 2: he said, it's over for drummers, you know, and and
Speaker 2: so like, it can't be over for drummers that can play,
Speaker 2: you know, because this is a machine and it will
Speaker 2: not come up with something that God put in its
Speaker 2: head by itself, you know. And so I I think
Speaker 2: that regarding it. But it's tempting. It's seductive when you
Speaker 2: hear a machine to think that that's going to be
Speaker 2: the way of the world. But when it when it
Speaker 2: gets right down to it, just like you, you know,
Speaker 2: you play every day of your life, and and that's
Speaker 2: what you do, you know, and that's what people that's
Speaker 2: what I think the humans want to hear, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't necessarily want to hear a machine. And I
Speaker 2: don't think they want to hear a person playing like
Speaker 2: a machine.
Speaker 4: But that in that proof and like certain new artists
Speaker 4: putting like they still have to dip back like Bruno
Speaker 4: Mars still got to dip back like Anderson, and you
Speaker 4: still gotta dip back like there's just there are some
Speaker 4: artists that see, I'm gonna need this if I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be funky.
Speaker 2: And when they dip back, everybody, Oh, man, if you
Speaker 2: heard this is the most amazing thing I've heard.
Speaker 3: Exactly it. It's new y'all. Remember Childish Gambino's.
Speaker 1: That I'm playing Donald, I'm playing for you. Though, what personally,
Speaker 1: what do you prefer? Do you prefer studio rats or
Speaker 1: do you prefer like being a road dog?
Speaker 2: Which is a great question, you know, because some people
Speaker 2: are either either or I've enjoyed being both. You know,
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed my life on the road. It comes with
Speaker 2: experiences and and something that you know, when it's live,
Speaker 2: there's nothing like that, you know, especially if you're playing.
Speaker 2: You know, we did live aid two hundred fifty thousand
Speaker 2: people in Philly. You know, there's no feeling like that,
Speaker 2: you know, and to look out and see that. But
Speaker 2: then there's nothing else like being in the studio and
Speaker 2: here in your instrument, just like being recorded pristinely by
Speaker 2: one of the top engineers, and then when you hear
Speaker 2: that playback, it just sounds like heaven, you know. And
Speaker 2: and so those are those are the two kind of
Speaker 2: sides of the coin of a music of a musician,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think it's important to have both
Speaker 2: of those qualities.
Speaker 5: How did COVID change, you know, do your workflow in
Speaker 5: terms of you know, how did you have to shift
Speaker 5: once the pandemic hit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the I watched and I had some
Speaker 2: very significant touring set up. You know, Airic Clapton had
Speaker 2: three months in the summer and we were going to
Speaker 2: do like six Royal Albert Hall shows and then go
Speaker 2: to Europe, and we had all that.
Speaker 1: Planet and we've seen his tweets, I.
Speaker 2: Don't I had a Russian tour, you know, lined up
Speaker 2: and uh, playing with this Russian orchestra. So I was
Speaker 2: looking for that and so I watched. I watched, like
Speaker 2: literally the revenue for the whole year that would have
Speaker 2: tightened me up go right out the window, you know.
Speaker 2: And uh when when when COVID hit, It's like you
Speaker 2: are instantly becoming an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: Now you got some merchandise.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: You get to see how to deal with lamb, you know,
Speaker 2: and then what you're going to do, whether that's whether
Speaker 2: that's uber driving or which I have some friends that
Speaker 2: had to hit, you know, or or coming up with
Speaker 2: a way you know, never let a good pandemic go
Speaker 2: to waste. You know.
Speaker 4: So are your voice work because like when you said that,
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, you are a voice actor, dud
Speaker 4: I hear and that's what you did.
Speaker 2: I was blessed. I did some voiceover working, and since
Speaker 2: I have a studio, it really came in handy because
Speaker 2: people send me songs and files and so I could
Speaker 2: I could do that till four in the morning. I
Speaker 2: end up doing a lot.
Speaker 1: Have you written a book?
Speaker 2: You know what? I have a book in the works,
Speaker 2: and definitely there's some there's some fun stories. So that's
Speaker 2: that's in the works at the moment. No.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, I could probably just lists
Speaker 1: all the albums you played on. That would be the
Speaker 1: whole book. Right. Have you have you had a session
Speaker 1: that you were kind of not satisfied with your performance
Speaker 1: and you're shocked that like oh I got away with
Speaker 1: that or that sort of thing, or you.
Speaker 6: Know, it's funny because are you allowed are you allowed
Speaker 6: to like I'm certain that you're being hired because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: Nathan will be you know, Nathan will knock this out
Speaker 6: in one or two takes.
Speaker 1: Won't be that hard, let's go through it. Or you know,
Speaker 1: have you had a moment where you felt like I
Speaker 1: could have did better and they were like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with that. It's good. And then.
Speaker 2: You know what's funny is every everything that I ever
Speaker 2: hear back, I always think I always hear something that
Speaker 2: I said, Oh man, if I did it again, I
Speaker 2: would have I would have made that little hipperode or
Speaker 2: just put a little something extra on that note or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, everything I hear that I do, I always
Speaker 2: feel like there's there's a room for, uh, for some
Speaker 2: kind of improvement. But however, you know when the guys,
Speaker 2: like when when Daft Punk, they did get lucky and
Speaker 2: they were mixing the bass part and I actually had
Speaker 2: the chance to redo that because we recorded the track
Speaker 2: and then they sent it back and then Nile put
Speaker 2: his guitar on. And when Nile put the guitar on,
Speaker 2: that's where the funk just like it just it just
Speaker 2: pulled the funk out of the thing. So I asked
Speaker 2: the guys, I said, you know, if I could have
Speaker 2: another shot at the base and I kind of went
Speaker 2: from my Bernard Edward impersonation. And I was actually happy
Speaker 2: because they edited everything to the team, but they said, hey,
Speaker 2: your basebar. We ended up just using most of the
Speaker 2: one same take, one whole take. Oh cool wow, which
Speaker 2: was cool, and you know it was funded. Now that
Speaker 2: was a fun one to hear, and my kids thought
Speaker 2: I was cool because I played the.
Speaker 1: Right a question. Okay, So I guess for most bass players,
Speaker 1: especially bass players that are coming of it, sort of
Speaker 1: coming of age in the seventies. You being born in
Speaker 1: fifty five, you would have been fifteen years old in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, and I'm certain by this point you were playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah you were, you were a fully realized bass player
Speaker 1: by a nineteen seventy correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I was. I was like just jumping
Speaker 2: getting into the realization.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that said, can you describe to me what
Speaker 1: you're what the reaction or what the feeling was when
Speaker 1: you first heard Thank you for letting me be myself again?
Speaker 1: Because okay, so I have this thing with Christa McBride
Speaker 1: about my disdain for songs and E minor because, like I,
Speaker 1: I have an obsession with collecting really horrible funk songs
Speaker 1: in E minor because you know, it's like when you're
Speaker 1: playing E minor that that's the easiest key for a
Speaker 1: beginner and base to play. And of course my thought
Speaker 1: is that you're trying to top the mount Rushmore of
Speaker 1: E Minor, which is basically thank you for letting me
Speaker 1: be myself again music that's in there. But no, that's
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even consider that the mount Rushmore. I mean
Speaker 1: I was definitely not. I was just trying to think
Speaker 1: was that the same thing all songs in the kV
Speaker 1: so thank you for letting me be myself? Shining Star
Speaker 1: could be in there. I would think, Well, it's kind
Speaker 1: of weird because I don't know if I can let
Speaker 1: Larry in twice. I mean, he he's already the alpha.
Speaker 1: So anything that comes after, thank you for letting me
Speaker 1: be myself, no matter what song it is, release yourself,
Speaker 1: hair right, all those things. So but for you, though,
Speaker 1: did you have a like come to Jesus moment when
Speaker 1: you heard that? Like, what did you make of the
Speaker 1: sound because I always wanted to ask a bass player
Speaker 1: that was of age who knew what bass playing was beforehand,
Speaker 1: which I'm certain that you know, James Jamerson was the
Speaker 1: leader of that. Yeah, but what was thank you for
Speaker 1: letting me be myself for you in terms of hearing that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd have to say that was that was
Speaker 2: one of the wheels, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 2: was like and I can remember the guys in my
Speaker 2: back and you know, as I said, man, have you
Speaker 2: heard this cat Larry Graham? You know, and so they
Speaker 2: came in with Graham's Central Station and they came in
Speaker 2: with that, and like you're listening and you're just going,
Speaker 2: I mean, to be that innovative at that time period
Speaker 2: where there wasn't too much before that that that said
Speaker 2: that much, you know. And I love those youtubes now
Speaker 2: where you can see Slide in the studio listening to
Speaker 2: listening to those tracks, you know, just going wow, this
Speaker 2: is crazy, you know. And so it was. It was
Speaker 2: a it was a big revelation. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna lie and e Minor, I mean, you know, as
Speaker 2: a bass player, it's always funk any you know, everybody
Speaker 2: Lewis Johnson doubt it's drunk and he you know, I
Speaker 2: get I get asked to judge these Battle of the
Speaker 2: base bass contest sometimes, you know, almost I'd rather have
Speaker 2: a root canals. I mean, I walk out of there
Speaker 2: and everybody comes walks in the room with their thumb out,
Speaker 2: and you know, they don't they don't check the tuny,
Speaker 2: they don't check the volume. They just start whacking the bass,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's like funk and e and it's like, please, guys,
Speaker 2: it's like.
Speaker 1: How many ways can they reinvent the will?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: But for you it's okay. Well, I mean, is there
Speaker 1: still challenges that have yet to be discovered or or
Speaker 1: just in terms of the sport of bass playing.
Speaker 2: Well, if you if you think about baselines, like for
Speaker 2: the Love of Money, when Anthony Jackson walked in and
Speaker 2: saw a D minor on the paper, and then he
Speaker 2: came up with that baseline, you know, right, and and
Speaker 2: and then when you think about till you come back
Speaker 2: to me, Chuck Rainey, you know, these these are to
Speaker 2: me where the bass really caresses the song, you know.
Speaker 2: And and if there's one thing that I that I
Speaker 2: would tell and I have students at my online school
Speaker 2: of base, and I say, make every single note count. Don't.
Speaker 2: Don't just go in there and start playing. You first,
Speaker 2: you have to listen and know what the song is
Speaker 2: all about, you know, and and and we're just part
Speaker 2: of a big picture. So you know, when everybody goes
Speaker 2: in whacking and smacking the bass, it's like, really, guys,
Speaker 2: you know. And I remember Anthony Jackson used to say,
Speaker 2: if you if you want slapping and popping, you got
Speaker 2: to call Marcus, you know. He said, he said that
Speaker 2: cost me two hundred and fifty grand a year, but
Speaker 2: he would he refused to do it.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, Evan, he never played with his thumb at all.
Speaker 2: You have not heard if you find it, if you
Speaker 2: can find it, please.
Speaker 1: Did he always play? Did he always play with a
Speaker 1: pick at least? Or he used a pick?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a pick in his fingers. But but I think
Speaker 2: for the love of money is what you can hear?
Speaker 1: The pick? Yeah? For you, though, what is your what
Speaker 1: is your preferred weapon of choice? Your thumb?
Speaker 2: What I do is I grew my I grew my
Speaker 2: name just long enough so that I can switch between.
Speaker 2: If I need a little extra percussive sound, I'll hit
Speaker 2: it with the nail And actually that came from an
Speaker 2: article I read about Chuck Rainey said he did the
Speaker 2: same thing, So he would you'd use the meat, the
Speaker 2: meaty fleshy part of your finger, you know, and get
Speaker 2: that big fat Jamerson sound. But if you wanted to
Speaker 2: have a little more percussive like a pick sound, instead
Speaker 2: of using a pick, I just used my fingernails.
Speaker 1: And what is your preferred weapon as far as your
Speaker 1: your bass collections?
Speaker 2: And one of the basses, like all those songs you named,
Speaker 2: it's it's my U. It was the predecessor to my
Speaker 2: signature Yamaha bass, but it's called a motion bass and
Speaker 2: it's just we we had like this bass that they
Speaker 2: had made for me, and then this box that I
Speaker 2: used to carry around and it has it was like
Speaker 2: an EQ box that would shave the mid frequencies. And
Speaker 2: that's that's been the bass I've played on, you know,
Speaker 2: like countless. I need a bakerrect, I mean everything. You know,
Speaker 2: all those dudes name change the world, you get lucky
Speaker 2: And so that's my my fire string. It's it's the
Speaker 2: equivalent to my five string signature, but it's like a prototype.
Speaker 1: What was your okay, So you know, there's over two
Speaker 1: thousand credits you have, and at least two hundred of
Speaker 1: those songs are like life changing songs. So you know,
Speaker 1: I won't even pick your brain about each and every song.
Speaker 1: But what was the first song that you recalled out
Speaker 1: of your comfort zone that you played on? Like there's
Speaker 1: a difference between Barry White's as Ecstasy when You Lay
Speaker 1: next to Me and Footloose by Kenny Loggins, so like,
Speaker 1: or was it just a gradual thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: rock gig today or a pop gig or a yacht
Speaker 1: rock gig or but what was the first like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is out of out of my normal my out
Speaker 1: of my normal realm of client clientele.
Speaker 2: Well, well, one of the one of the most challenging
Speaker 2: records was Wayne Short joy Rider and Trease Russian played
Speaker 2: on that. Robin Ford I think was on guitar. And
Speaker 2: it's one of those things like Wayne's writing, it doesn't
Speaker 2: it doesn't take into account like how the stuff lays
Speaker 2: under your fingers. It just it's just these notes that
Speaker 2: are that are in a uniquely random order that are
Speaker 2: that are amazing. But you really, I mean, I remember
Speaker 2: all of us having our heads buried in the music
Speaker 2: thinking and I think somebody said, hey, would it be
Speaker 2: cool to take this home for a couple of days
Speaker 2: and then come and shed it back, And they were
Speaker 2: kind of because you don't want to. You you want
Speaker 2: to make it sound like you own it when you
Speaker 2: when you're playing the music, you know. The song Footloose
Speaker 2: was was a bassline that we had. I had the
Speaker 2: benefit of playing on the road every day like for
Speaker 2: months with Kenny. We'd go practice the tune and by
Speaker 2: the time we recorded it, that was like one take,
Speaker 2: you know, but it was cool. Early on with Hubert Laws,
Speaker 2: there was an album called Family.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's that's my joint.
Speaker 2: Bobby Lyle Chik Korea was on there and.
Speaker 1: His sister was singing Devor sang.
Speaker 2: And and that that was one of the more kind
Speaker 2: of challenging I wrote a song that I played with
Speaker 2: the electric bass and piccolo where played the melody together
Speaker 2: and it was kind of a little bit of a chopbuster.
Speaker 2: It's called wild Fire.
Speaker 3: And the piccolo together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so piccolo and.
Speaker 1: Or separate tracks.
Speaker 2: And that the separate tracks, you know. I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, yeah, and so uh it was. It
Speaker 2: was one of those that you know, required a little
Speaker 2: bit of shedding before going into the studio. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, you go in the studio like sight Unseen,
Speaker 2: and they you know, they either throw this music in
Speaker 2: front of you or play a demo like you know,
Speaker 2: of the many ways to articulate what they want you
Speaker 2: to play, and you go from there.
Speaker 3: I was just going to ask things that you need
Speaker 3: for your session, that you have to have, you.
Speaker 2: Know, normally, it's it's not a one of the the
Speaker 2: last things we did and and we I got to
Speaker 2: congratulate John Fatist because we did the music for Soul
Speaker 2: and we were in Capitol. Yeah, congratulations, Yeah, and we're
Speaker 2: over there January twenty twenty, like like the first week
Speaker 2: of January twenty twenty. We were in Capital Studio A
Speaker 2: and uh that was interesting because he I had my
Speaker 2: upright bass, I had my electric upright, my electric bass,
Speaker 2: and we kind of auditioned all three and we ended
Speaker 2: up using my my my upright bass. You know, the
Speaker 2: real wood bass engineer got a fantastic sound out of it.
Speaker 2: And I was I was just so proud to see
Speaker 2: him walk away with the statue. You know. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was awesome.
Speaker 3: You always bring a choice with you at every session, and.
Speaker 2: If I can, a lot of times they if they
Speaker 2: just say, you know, they may just say bring the
Speaker 2: electric bass, you know, and for Babyface, you know, probably
Speaker 2: not going to be a lot of upright playing.
Speaker 1: Right, all right. So when you're when you're doing sessions,
Speaker 1: for instance, with all Right, let's let's say Through the Fire,
Speaker 1: do you mostly do you have good relationships with the
Speaker 1: producer that chooses you for the session or is it
Speaker 1: just all right? So what was it like working with
Speaker 1: I don't hear stories about h. R If Martin. It's
Speaker 1: hard to pronounce his name. Reef Martin, Yeah, a Reef Martin.
Speaker 1: Because you know, Shaka's album was such THEE I Feel
Speaker 1: for You album is such a landmark album which was
Speaker 1: sitting somewhere between uh, the past and the future that
Speaker 1: was to come, you know them, uh sort of exploring
Speaker 1: new sounds and new new technology. Were you on that
Speaker 1: entire record or were you just on Through the Fire?
Speaker 2: See? I was on a few album, a few cuts
Speaker 2: on that I'd have to look. But Through the Fire
Speaker 2: was actually produced by, written and produced by David Foster
Speaker 2: and my buddy who I share a studio with Tom
Speaker 2: Keane wrote it as co writer on that song. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was a cool song because David Foster, years before
Speaker 2: he had he came up with this kind of like
Speaker 2: a solo album of all instrumentals, and that tune was
Speaker 2: actually on it. I don't know if I didn't know that, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so I was familiar with the tune, loved the tune,
Speaker 2: and so again, you know, to get to play on it,
Speaker 2: I was I had a my heart was already connected
Speaker 2: to it, and then David was a friend, and so
Speaker 2: we were we were having a great time in the studio.
Speaker 2: John Robinson on drums, I think, Mike Landau on guitar,
Speaker 2: David on keys, and so the tune kind of played
Speaker 2: itself like that. Every song is unique, as we all know,
Speaker 2: like a song like Tears in Heaven. I always say
Speaker 2: that that that I didn't play that song. It played
Speaker 2: me because I knew Condor clapton Beautiful Little Boy, and
Speaker 2: just the emotion of going in the studio and recording
Speaker 2: that knowing what it was all about, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean I don't even remember the notes I played, and
Speaker 2: you know, like I say, the song kind of just
Speaker 2: plays you.
Speaker 1: Are there two versions of Is there a studio version
Speaker 1: of Tears in Heaven and the unplayed version or is
Speaker 1: it just one definitive.
Speaker 2: The other two? The studio version is on a soundtrack
Speaker 2: called Rush. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was Jefer Jason Lee Joints.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and you did both versions.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so you play with Okay, I see, yeah,
Speaker 1: when I I think when I first met you. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that we met before, but the first time I
Speaker 1: really got to talk to you, we were in a
Speaker 1: Carousel and it was one of the most surreal gigs
Speaker 1: of my life because it was at the time you
Speaker 1: were playing with Toto correct, right, Yeah, yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was it was Toto, Dinah Ross the Roots, Prince wow
Speaker 1: right and oh and Los Lobos and uh yeah.
Speaker 3: The one the one fest in London or.
Speaker 1: Something they be No, it was it was it was Okay,
Speaker 1: what's what's what's the event? What's the festival in Rotterdam.
Speaker 2: It's the North Sea Jazz Fest.
Speaker 1: Okay. It was like because Carousel is sort of occupied
Speaker 1: by uh yeah, the Netherlands, like it's it's the North
Speaker 1: Sea Jazz Festival before Carousel, like.
Speaker 3: I knew where that was. Ill kept staying out.
Speaker 1: And is is it slightly between like South America and
Speaker 1: it's somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It's not Europe
Speaker 1: and it's not South America. It's like that, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's like way below Cuba.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they brown, they're brown there, Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're kind of brown. Was on that Yeah, there was, Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a lot, but just that was the one
Speaker 1: time because we were there for I think four days
Speaker 1: before the gig even started. Like I thought, it was
Speaker 1: weird that we all came out early. Yeah, me too,
Speaker 1: to hang, I've never done that. Usually I get there
Speaker 1: the day of the gig, do the gig, and I'm
Speaker 1: out and hit it and then I'm like, wow, one,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll never catch me swimming or in the beach.
Speaker 1: But yet here I am swimming in the beach like
Speaker 1: and I'm talking to you know, to Toto, and you know,
Speaker 1: like everyone everyone's there. So yeah, wait a minute, was
Speaker 1: Journey also on that gig as well?
Speaker 2: God it may have been on that gig as well. Yes, Okay,
Speaker 2: so I'll bet you I could find the poster or
Speaker 2: something of that gig because I try to save you know,
Speaker 2: all the yeah, all the information. But I mean, it
Speaker 2: was like all these people and I sat next to
Speaker 2: Diana Russ on the flight back home. It's crazy. Really, yes,
Speaker 2: we got to talk. It was it was incredible.
Speaker 1: It was a very it was a very surreal, surreal gig.
Speaker 1: Even like the fact that Prince was so accessible.
Speaker 2: It was like, wow, let everybody stayed up to see Princes.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Prince. Prince was so killing that he did an additional
Speaker 1: two hours. That was the roots time. So so on
Speaker 1: Prince's side of the stage, there's like sixty thousand people
Speaker 1: warm more so so, and then on our side of
Speaker 1: the stage, it was like three hundred people.
Speaker 2: I mean, we just told them what promoter is going
Speaker 2: to get mad at him? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We told the promoter, what do you want us to
Speaker 1: do because Princeton took our time. He's just like, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: just do the seat and go home. So literally, like
Speaker 1: we did, Wow, we did three songs, we did the
Speaker 1: next movement. You got me. The scene was like, all right,
Speaker 1: good night people. You literally are like a golf clap.
Speaker 2: Like the promoter's dream, like Prince will not get off
Speaker 2: the stage, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, dude, that would. We were over there watching
Speaker 1: him and there was like, oh shit, we got to
Speaker 1: go on stage, like and I'm asking I'm literally asking
Speaker 1: him backshas like are you doing another encore? Because I
Speaker 1: gotta run to the other stage and I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: one more. I was like, okay, well there's no more routsho.
Speaker 1: But but when you're in that situation, like especially with
Speaker 1: legacy bands and whatnot, how often, like with TOTE, I'm
Speaker 1: certain that you're not just doing it for that gig.
Speaker 1: But do they hire you for like a year duration
Speaker 1: or is it just like for this particular tour.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that that particular tour was they they actually
Speaker 2: called me and said, you know, Mike Pricaro, who's who
Speaker 2: was the bass player this suffering with the als, and
Speaker 2: what we would like to do is go on tour
Speaker 2: and raise some money to help him with his medical expenses.
Speaker 2: So so this this was the tour where it was
Speaker 2: just from the heart, you know, and these guys I
Speaker 2: know thirty years and and those are all my boys,
Speaker 2: and so we we got together and proceed from the
Speaker 2: tour was going to his family to help him because
Speaker 2: he at that point he was you know, he was
Speaker 2: off the circuit.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, speaking of like Toto, can you can you
Speaker 1: explain the sort of the somewhat stranglehold that they had
Speaker 1: on just a particular sound and sonic Like I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not insulting when I say, like, oh, yacht rock
Speaker 1: or whatever, because like I'm a really big fan of
Speaker 1: all that Michael master Yamaha d X seven right, fretless
Speaker 1: bass sound like I like, you know, easy match, Like
Speaker 1: I love that yacht rock stuff. But I mean at
Speaker 1: the time when you're doing it, when you're doing it
Speaker 1: in real time, like between that period of like eighty
Speaker 1: one and eighty seven, when this new sort of la
Speaker 1: glossy sound sort of takes over, Like are you realizing
Speaker 1: that sonically it's a little bit different than what was
Speaker 1: kind of like with with the with the grid of
Speaker 1: the seventy sound, Like did you notice.
Speaker 2: A change or yeah, I mean it it and they
Speaker 2: got they got beat up for oh they're so slick.
Speaker 1: They got beat up in the beginning. But now it's like,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, I love the shit out that sound. So
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's almost like revision of history, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: I always loved Africa and for example, all those things, right,
Speaker 1: but like what were they? Were they the the who
Speaker 1: was who was the And it's always like some up
Speaker 1: for debate, like who's technically the first yacht rock smooth
Speaker 1: LA sound? Like people say like whoever the producer was
Speaker 1: of a captain in to Neil's leve will keep Us Together?
Speaker 1: Like many will cite that as the the first moment
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three where it's suddenly like that Neil
Speaker 1: Sedaka does it. And then but you know, at the
Speaker 1: time when you're gigging in LA, like what was the
Speaker 1: basic perception of like the Percaro guys, Like Oh, they's
Speaker 1: some badass motherfuckers.
Speaker 2: Or like absolutely, and you know, and and and back
Speaker 2: in the day too, like you had A and M studios,
Speaker 2: you know where the carpenters, you know, and they were
Speaker 2: there were all these like very very lush kind of
Speaker 2: sounding record It's funny. I was over there the other day.
Speaker 2: We were doing a Mary Clayton Tiny Desk concert. Nice yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was it was, it was really cool. But
Speaker 2: every time I go in there, it just takes me
Speaker 2: back because I mean I was in there. I did Johnny.
Speaker 2: I did Johnny Mathis with a fifty piece orchestra. I
Speaker 2: did Dion Warwick. A lot of people in there, uh
Speaker 2: you know Don Henley, I mean so many. They say
Speaker 2: the ten thousand hours, like like we we all have
Speaker 2: ten thousand hours and a lot of studios, you know,
Speaker 2: and the total the total project. If you think about
Speaker 2: every one of those guys has such a powerful individual
Speaker 2: voice on their instrument. I'm Steve Percaro Man wrote he
Speaker 2: wrote Human Nature from Michael Jackson, and you can hear
Speaker 2: in those chords that's Steve Pacarl. You know, one guy
Speaker 2: plays like that. David Page, same thing, very powerful personality.
Speaker 2: And and those guys were like all of us, you know,
Speaker 2: students of music. They studied, they studied sly and and everything,
Speaker 2: you know, so when they went in the studio there,
Speaker 2: those were the standards that they kept. You Jeff Picarl,
Speaker 2: you know these there were some bad they're La finance basically,
Speaker 2: you know. And so they they went in and you
Speaker 2: listened to you listen to Africa Now and and those
Speaker 2: songs like hold the Line, and so it was fun
Speaker 2: for me because as soon as as soon as they
Speaker 2: asked me to play, you know, it was like playing
Speaker 2: in the top forty band. He played great songs and
Speaker 2: Rosanna and and you know, I couldn't ever really figure
Speaker 2: out why they were getting such a bad rap. Oh
Speaker 2: they're too slick, and you know, I mean what you're
Speaker 2: getting punished for trying to have a good sound and
Speaker 2: come up with some good tunes, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So oftentimes if I get asked to do a
Speaker 1: gig nine times out of ten, on ass like, well,
Speaker 1: if I think they're hiring me because of a certain
Speaker 1: sound that I had, then I'll recommend them, Well, you
Speaker 1: should go to this studio because this is where I
Speaker 1: recorded this particular record that I and where you'll get
Speaker 1: the sound. Yeah, right, you'll get the sound that you want.
Speaker 1: How much control do you have over like the sound
Speaker 1: and the texture of what you want or you just
Speaker 1: got to trust the engineer and the producer and that's it.
Speaker 2: You know, Al Schmidt who we just lost and worked
Speaker 2: a capital a lot, and we the Warner Brothers, used
Speaker 2: to have a studio and that we did when we
Speaker 2: first started four Play. The first real four Play album
Speaker 2: was was a Bob James album called Grand Piano Canyon
Speaker 2: and that was what he called me. Harvey Lee Lee
Speaker 2: written Hour and actually Harvey Mason and Lee Written and
Speaker 2: I Are both recommended me when he asked about who
Speaker 2: should I get on bass, you know, so the four
Speaker 2: of us got in that quartet. There's a song called Restoration.
Speaker 2: I call that the first four play songs on that album.
Speaker 2: And Al Schmidt recorded that. And I used to take
Speaker 2: that recording around to all the Stay and Sunset sound
Speaker 2: Oceanway and say, guys, my bass sounds like this, you know,
Speaker 2: because you know how like your drum you could play
Speaker 2: in ten different studios and it'll sound like ten different guys,
Speaker 2: you know, And I can't ever figure out, like how
Speaker 2: does the same instrument translate so differently in different studios,
Speaker 2: you know, So whenever possible, yeah, I'll recommend in one
Speaker 2: of my favorites spend tons of time and was ocean
Speaker 2: Way Studio. Oh okay, we did the first uh well,
Speaker 2: we did so much stuff there, but first four play record.
Speaker 2: But we used to record there with the Lionel Richie.
Speaker 2: We did, We did Kenny Loggins level will follow, I
Speaker 2: mean ton because I did. One of the things I'm
Speaker 2: most proud of is we did a song called if
Speaker 2: you Think You're Lonely Now Bobby Womack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say you were on the Monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ocean Way Studio. And as funny as all
Speaker 2: these tunes I can remember, I could kind of just
Speaker 2: remember being there. It's almost like the day and so
Speaker 2: that being one of my favorites. You know, when I
Speaker 2: went to go do my solo album, you know where
Speaker 2: did I go? Ocean Way which is now called United
Speaker 2: Studio back in the day.
Speaker 1: Record Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did podcasts there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did like three of the studios he dropped
Speaker 4: so Far, A and M Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, those are the big ones Capital Record.
Speaker 7: I have a question, Nathan, at any point in your
Speaker 7: career did you mess with key bass, you know, playing
Speaker 7: bass on a keyboard?
Speaker 2: You know, there was a there was I was sorry.
Speaker 2: There was a time in the algia days that he
Speaker 2: had a couple of tunes that had key base on,
Speaker 2: like uh, boogie down Down. There was one I can't
Speaker 2: right quite remember the name, but it was that this
Speaker 2: like really funky key base and.
Speaker 1: So so I got darked in the roof.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved him so much. I loved him.
Speaker 3: I loved him so much I couldn't even like him.
Speaker 2: But I'm trying to get that in Milwaukee. Yes, I
Speaker 2: used to call me.
Speaker 1: Wait, Nathan, can I ask have you ever worked with
Speaker 1: Tommy Lapuma?
Speaker 2: Yes, many, many, many times.
Speaker 1: Okay, have you have you worked with him between? Like
Speaker 1: the era that you worked with him was at least
Speaker 1: between seventy five and eighty five. Yes, Okay, Tommy Lupuma
Speaker 1: has such he has such a distinct sound. He has
Speaker 1: a very distinct sound with his production for all this stuff,
Speaker 1: for his Algebro stuff, for any record that he produces
Speaker 1: that I'm almost under the impression that whatever studio he used,
Speaker 1: he kept it on one setting and never ever adjusted
Speaker 1: because it's to me, it's it's so like even with
Speaker 1: the stuff they he did with, like Brenda Russell and
Speaker 1: oh my God, there's a sound that he gets in
Speaker 1: his base and his Spender Rhodes where I instantly know
Speaker 1: that's a Tommy Tommy.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Tommy Lapuma would start every session
Speaker 2: off with lunch at beach a you know, like you
Speaker 2: would like. He was more concerned about taking everybody to
Speaker 2: lunch and get the best bottle of wine in the place.
Speaker 2: And then once you got that, then you were cool,
Speaker 2: Let's go make some music.
Speaker 1: Is just another Quincy fake out. Do you know Quincy's
Speaker 1: theory about this? No, So Quincy Quincy does the same thing.
Speaker 1: He wants the sessions late at night, and he wants
Speaker 1: the guys to have the itis and to be a
Speaker 1: little tipsy and somewhat sleepy. And then he'll start usually
Speaker 1: at one in the morning because he knows that any yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not thinking, you're tired and all that stuff. So
Speaker 1: he he purposely will track important things between like one
Speaker 1: and six in the morning because like you're not as
Speaker 1: alert and you won't challenge him on something and overthink
Speaker 1: and overplay.
Speaker 2: I've had many Sunrise services with Quincy, by the way,
Speaker 2: and and Algero for that matter. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's funny because Stevie is the king. You know,
Speaker 2: he he called.
Speaker 1: You his time.
Speaker 2: He marches to a different I mean we recorded the
Speaker 2: last record. It was me, Ricky Lawson and him in
Speaker 2: the studio and he got to take it four am.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, oh, man, I got I got
Speaker 2: a ten am with Jay Graydon on someone he doesn't care.
Speaker 2: And but but yet, you know, getting back to Tommy,
Speaker 2: he he was that guy that he wasn't the kind
Speaker 2: of producer that told you, hey, I need an a
Speaker 2: flat on the third bar, the the you know, of
Speaker 2: the of the bridge, you know. But he he just
Speaker 2: knew how to put people together. And to this day,
Speaker 2: Anita Baker will tell you that the record she did
Speaker 2: with him is sonically her favorite record.
Speaker 1: Giving you the best that I got. No, it was
Speaker 1: was it Rhythm of Love or.
Speaker 2: I think it's Rhythm of Love? I'll have to check.
Speaker 1: It was the one that I apologize and body and soul.
Speaker 1: It was the one that came out in ninety four.
Speaker 1: I think you Fronte went on record and say that
Speaker 1: was his favorite. It's not a favorite. I think my
Speaker 1: favorite was Compositions.
Speaker 2: But I was just going to say we we had
Speaker 2: the most fun on compositions and Fair Tales being one
Speaker 2: of my favorite, two eleven minutes long, going acting a
Speaker 2: fool at the end. And for Ronnie, you know what
Speaker 2: it is, Okay?
Speaker 1: Well one her entire discography is not available for streaming,
Speaker 1: so I really I can't even lay judgment. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a cassette somewhere, but it's like I haven't
Speaker 1: touched my cassettes and eons, so you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I'm just like no rapture, nothing else.
Speaker 2: But you're well, I mean songstress was was? That was
Speaker 2: our first time in the studio together, and that the
Speaker 2: song as.
Speaker 1: Your own songstress? Oh yeah, that's your own angel. Yeah
Speaker 1: of course you Oh my gosh, from day one, you know,
Speaker 1: I love it? Wow? Yeah? What was her producer? The
Speaker 1: guy Michael J.
Speaker 2: Powell? What was he like?
Speaker 1: Because I've always you know, stuff about it.
Speaker 2: Michael, the gentle giant and the greatest, I mean, one
Speaker 2: of the greatest producers ever. We speak, we speak from
Speaker 2: time to time and again a producer's producer. It's really
Speaker 2: really soft spoken, but knew what he knew what he
Speaker 2: needed and got the best out of everybody, you know,
Speaker 2: and put some great cats together, you know.
Speaker 1: All right, So without naming names, because I know there's
Speaker 1: always two sides to a coin, right. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been in a situation where it's kind of like amateur
Speaker 1: hour with the producer like he didn't know what he's
Speaker 1: doing or not too communicative with you know, they wanted.
Speaker 2: Every now and then you get those guys that you say,
Speaker 2: how did they get to be the producer for this
Speaker 2: important project? You know? And one of the things those
Speaker 2: kind of producers do, and I have to give it
Speaker 2: to their credit is they'll they'll call the cats, you know,
Speaker 2: and one guy who will remain nameless. But we were
Speaker 2: in and Jeff Pacara was playing drums and after every
Speaker 2: take he would look to Jeff and Jeff would either say.
Speaker 1: Yeah or nay.
Speaker 2: It either was the take or wasn't, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's how you would determine if you do another take again.
Speaker 2: But I mean, for the most part, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people say, oh, have there been some some session
Speaker 2: that you've hated, But for the most part, I've enjoyed
Speaker 2: all of them and been blessed with some really talented,
Speaker 2: gifted producers.
Speaker 1: How do you know if a session is bad, Like
Speaker 1: if you have to spend more than an hour on
Speaker 1: a particular song, or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're beating up on a song and next thing
Speaker 2: you know, everybody's looking up at their watch and you
Speaker 2: don't have a take, and like you keep trying, and
Speaker 2: then the takes just get worse. I mean, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: maybe it wasn't in the song, but uh, you know,
Speaker 2: even even up till recently, you know, sometimes people bring
Speaker 2: a song in and somebody'll say, oh, man, this isn't
Speaker 2: really a great song, but they'll have like if you
Speaker 2: got filling gains on keys, he's gonna make the first different.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and I was telling David Foster the other day,
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. And of course Quincy, Quincy's the you know,
Speaker 2: one of the top guys ever. But we were doing
Speaker 2: uh Patty Austin, James Ingram, how do you keep the
Speaker 2: music playing?
Speaker 3: Dropping? Nathan dropping?
Speaker 2: But but we were in there and we don't have it,
Speaker 2: just like Quincy said, well, we don't have an intro
Speaker 2: for this, and and anybody and David Fosterer literally he
Speaker 2: has his legs closed and he says crossed, and he goes,
Speaker 2: what about this? And he plays the intro exactly what
Speaker 2: you hear on the record.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, David Foston, Lord, thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, speaking of which, and I'm sorry, fantee you, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm about to steal your question, but I
Speaker 1: gotta ask the intro to after the dance. Oh that's
Speaker 1: my question for play after the dance the barge. Yes,
Speaker 1: that intro to me is probably the first thing that
Speaker 1: I think of if I start thinking of like smooth
Speaker 1: Jazz FM. Yes, yes, it's such an earworm. It never
Speaker 1: leaves you. So it's not like I have an opinion
Speaker 1: on it. It's not like, oh that's my favorite or
Speaker 1: I hate that intro, but it's like it lives in
Speaker 1: my head. Rent Free, that was my favorite? Who came
Speaker 1: up with that intro? And by? Because I can't get rid.
Speaker 2: Of vibe James? You know what? And that's the same thing.
Speaker 2: That's what he he just said, how about you know
Speaker 2: he always writes everything else and he says, stand by
Speaker 2: and he writes this, how about this? And you play it?
Speaker 2: And now I'll go on record saying that's probably my
Speaker 2: favorite intro. Of course you can't gave it it's too
Speaker 2: only second to minute by minute Michael McDonald, Nathan, can
Speaker 2: you tell.
Speaker 4: The story of Nathan East and Bob James, because like,
Speaker 4: how did that marriage come together?
Speaker 3: And when did y'all know?
Speaker 2: It was like like we we knew we had something
Speaker 2: special on Bob's record and he was an an R.
Speaker 2: He was an executive at Warner Brothers Records when we
Speaker 2: did his solo album. So he said, guys, I could
Speaker 2: I could propose this to the Warner Brothers. He said,
Speaker 2: I think we could get a deal right away. He
Speaker 2: came back, he and and you know what, they didn't
Speaker 2: even have to hear a demo or anything. They said signed.
Speaker 2: And when we did our first session, we showed up
Speaker 2: at Ocean Way and and there was Mo Austin, Michael Austin,
Speaker 2: Lenny Warnker, I'm in the big Warner Brothers. Would they
Speaker 2: beat us to the studio?
Speaker 3: They were excited? That excited Dan.
Speaker 1: How was more Austin as an executive?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: I've heard like a lot of stories about him, But
Speaker 1: how was he?
Speaker 2: You know, the last of the Mohicans. You know, he
Speaker 2: was record When you look up record executive, there's his
Speaker 2: picture right there, you know. But that that was like
Speaker 2: our first you know, and it's it's it's here. It
Speaker 2: is nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one. And we go in
Speaker 2: the studio and when Bob wrote that intro, I just said,
Speaker 2: bro And but of course, like he wrote, you know
Speaker 2: that crazy arrangement of feel like making love and matter
Speaker 2: of fact, he had a hit with that instrumentally and ROBERTA.
Speaker 2: Flack had a hit with it. I mean it was
Speaker 2: like a hit time on two different formats, right, And
Speaker 2: so it's been you know, and believe it or not,
Speaker 2: we're having our thirtieth anniversary right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in my mind, my child mind, you're like the
Speaker 4: best of friends and y'all you'll have Sunday dinner and
Speaker 4: that's all.
Speaker 2: No, we're brothers. We're brothers without a dit from another mother,
Speaker 2: and and you know we we've had a chance to
Speaker 2: go around the world together and and just have you know,
Speaker 2: have the best time. And so he's he's actually he
Speaker 2: and Greg are actually godfathers to my son Noah, who
Speaker 2: plays keys. I'm I didn't know what, uh we want
Speaker 2: to do a record because we we've been playing a
Speaker 2: couple of gigs over the weekend. We played in Omaha
Speaker 2: for Walter Scott Junior's ninetieth birthday celebration and we had
Speaker 2: the best time ever. And you know, David Foster was
Speaker 2: there and all the guys and and he's he's turned
Speaker 2: into one of my favorite musicians.
Speaker 5: Man the four play catalog. Man that for me, like
Speaker 5: the Between the Sheets album and the Alixa album. Those
Speaker 5: came out when I was in high school and so
Speaker 5: I used to do my homework of those records and
Speaker 5: like chant was my joints. I love those joints and
Speaker 5: y'all like I noticed like leave written now he was
Speaker 5: on those records and then the guitarist y'all switch?
Speaker 1: What was the reason for the changing personnel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think after three records Lee Lee really got
Speaker 2: into the more of executive branch of the of the
Speaker 2: record record business series in one of his friends and
Speaker 2: he and Dave Gruson and and g r P g
Speaker 2: r P Larry Rose, he started getting busy with kind
Speaker 2: of doing doing records on the executive level level, and
Speaker 2: so that takes up so much time too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, y'all record the joint the Phil Collins the why
Speaker 5: can't it wait till morning?
Speaker 1: Man? Y'all tell me about that session?
Speaker 2: Man? You know we sent that over to Phil. I
Speaker 2: called Phil's manager and uh, you know, it's great when
Speaker 2: these guys are your friends too. But I called Phil's
Speaker 2: manager and uh secretary answers and she said, she said,
Speaker 2: what what's this regard? And I said, it's far regarding
Speaker 2: for play. They said, well, I don't know if he
Speaker 2: can help you with that, but I'll get But I mean,
Speaker 2: he we said, and we wanted to do something obscure,
Speaker 2: so we we kind of found this song that wasn't necessary,
Speaker 2: like it wasn't the number one hit, but I can't
Speaker 2: wait till morning. It was a little obscure, and we
Speaker 2: we sent him over and again, Bob came up with
Speaker 2: this this in arrangement. We sent it over and he
Speaker 2: went into his studio put the vocal arm. When he
Speaker 2: sent it back, we all sat in the studio cried.
Speaker 5: You know, it was just like, what is this na,
Speaker 5: That's a gorgeous song man. Yeah, there was a singer
Speaker 5: that There was a singer that Lee used to work
Speaker 5: with the lot, Eric Tagg. Did you ever get any
Speaker 5: sessions with him?
Speaker 1: Yes? Dude, what was he like?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 5: Because he's like one of my favorite singers everybody's solo key.
Speaker 5: I don't even know if he's still making music now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He sang like Stevie Wonder too.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, yes, real big Steven Floydce.
Speaker 2: He was from Uh, he was from Texas mm hm.
Speaker 2: Really great guy and he was in Lee's band. I
Speaker 2: remember when I Lee's band was one of the first
Speaker 2: ones I was in. Uh. First time we went to
Speaker 2: Japan was with Lee and you know Eric was in
Speaker 2: those bands. You know that. That's the thing I love
Speaker 2: about music. There's so many great people out there that
Speaker 2: a lot of people hadn't even heard of.
Speaker 4: But you know, it was something about the way y'all
Speaker 4: pulled stuff out of People were talking about that earlier,
Speaker 4: about the Michael McDonald record. I was like, the way
Speaker 4: that Michael was singing on that record, but just felt different.
Speaker 2: Michael's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we know that different.
Speaker 2: If I could, if I could have a voice, it
Speaker 2: would be his, you know. And then I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: his his h Quest Love Supreme podcast too. He was
Speaker 2: he's so, he's so down and he sang on my
Speaker 2: first solo album, we did that version of moon Dance,
Speaker 2: you know, like a big band version came in and
Speaker 2: crushed this record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was, what's the process of picking the songs
Speaker 4: to reinvent? Because I was just listening to a song
Speaker 4: you did with Bob It was uh oh and Vince
Speaker 4: gil Oh crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy Yeah from
Speaker 4: crazy everybody do that.
Speaker 1: But I was singing, this is supreme your homework.
Speaker 2: You guys are unbelievable.
Speaker 4: But yeah, how do y'all decide which songs to reinvent?
Speaker 4: Which in your mind are you thinking this is how
Speaker 4: I always heard it? Or or man if I could
Speaker 4: only touch it a story and if you can apply.
Speaker 1: It and if you can apply that answer to your
Speaker 1: arrangement to Sir Duke, I would appreciate that because we
Speaker 1: still haven't forgive you were still are not forgiving you
Speaker 1: for that. It's some genius shit to this day, we
Speaker 1: we've studied it so much that it never moves us.
Speaker 2: First of all, you can't, like you can't touch a
Speaker 2: steviee song, Like if you're doing a Stevie song, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's already the Bible, you know, so you do that.
Speaker 2: But then for some weird reason, like right in the
Speaker 2: middle of the studio, I said, what if we when
Speaker 2: we got to this this part, we just changed like
Speaker 2: every four bars.
Speaker 1: Wait, let me let me explain to put in perspective.
Speaker 3: And I got it because I forget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you you know, he's taken. He's taking songs,
Speaker 1: you know, and sort of putting a new spin on it.
Speaker 1: So the song that he really did that too, was
Speaker 1: there's an arrangement of Sir Duke, of which that horn
Speaker 1: part is very intricate, just as is anyway, And what
Speaker 1: he decided to do was to just modulate and in
Speaker 1: some sort of non secutor way modulate the key into
Speaker 1: keys that aren't supposed to fit. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: instead of regularly to another key and then and then
Speaker 1: another key, so you you basically have to transpose every
Speaker 1: four bars a new key that's not related to what
Speaker 1: you did before.
Speaker 3: Stevie song.
Speaker 2: So there's no rhyme or reason. Literally, it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of random, just like pulling him out of there and saying, oh,
Speaker 2: well that works, and then okay, we got to get back.
Speaker 2: So what would we end? Which one? You know? So
Speaker 2: the first one you know is, you know, the last
Speaker 2: one has to lead you back, and then the other
Speaker 2: two heaven nose with it.
Speaker 1: I'll put it this way. I'll put it this way.
Speaker 1: Hip hop heads, if you're familiar with uh most y'all
Speaker 1: seen bays Cassy song, Yes and ye constant switching, Ye
Speaker 1: done this? This has nothing on that song. We I mean,
Speaker 1: we practiced Cassa Bay like maybe as a whole song
Speaker 1: an hour straight. But this one part of that Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonders song. Oh god, that that was almost like a
Speaker 1: two hour nightmare thing. Sorry, but I'm glad we survived it,
Speaker 1: and it was it was fun hittinged with it.
Speaker 3: No rhyme or reason. There was no song that y'all picked,
Speaker 3: and y'all were like, yeah, no, this is this is
Speaker 3: why I want to.
Speaker 2: Do, you know Stevie. And and I realized that every
Speaker 2: everything I've ever recorded, I I had Stevie. I've done
Speaker 2: like at least two or three Stevie. We did Overjoyed,
Speaker 2: which came out of I do these sting Rainforest benefits.
Speaker 2: We do them at Carnegie Hall every year, and Stevie
Speaker 2: was on one, and I was just fooling with the
Speaker 2: changes of uh over Joyed on Basi's kind of like
Speaker 2: at rehearsal when nothing was happening, and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: trying to figure him out. And next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: I hear harmonica and now he's playing, and now I
Speaker 2: look up their sting Elton, John Bonnie Rait. They're all
Speaker 2: just standing there looking like looking on and I'm going,
Speaker 2: oh Lord. And as I'm learning the changes, Stevie's playing
Speaker 2: and we get to the end, and you know, they
Speaker 2: all give they all start clapping, and then Stevie comes
Speaker 2: over and says, if you ever record that, call me.
Speaker 2: I want to play on it. So that was my
Speaker 2: next question.
Speaker 4: Some of the responses from these revisions, can you share
Speaker 4: like what have been those like?
Speaker 3: I wish I would have done that, Nathan, I wish
Speaker 3: you was suggested that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if Stevie offers to play on your record,
Speaker 2: you have to do it right, right, right, right, right, man.
Speaker 2: I could have had Stevie on my record, you know.
Speaker 2: So he came and blessed the record. And the way
Speaker 2: we what we did was we recorded a track and
Speaker 2: then when I played on his record, I brought the
Speaker 2: track over and then he you know, two in the morning,
Speaker 2: he he popped it on one take see you later
Speaker 2: because he wrote it.
Speaker 1: Really all right? We a former quest Love Supreme guest
Speaker 1: that we just had was out the barge. I know
Speaker 1: your name is on the In a Special Way album,
Speaker 1: but do you recall anything from that the barge session?
Speaker 1: Do you know what songs you played on? Are you
Speaker 1: going to Stay with Me? Are you on time Will Revealed?
Speaker 1: Are you on a dream?
Speaker 2: You know? I'm embarrassed.
Speaker 1: This is don't many records.
Speaker 3: It's called great It's called greatness of.
Speaker 2: An album called did you do an album called Gemini?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Do you know?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: That that when we did the whole thing and there
Speaker 2: are a few songs that really like stand out in
Speaker 2: my mind, like Broken Dreams, Okay and Turned Away, I mean,
Speaker 2: chick out these tunes, these and these are El Debars
Speaker 2: at his finest writing style, you know. And and and
Speaker 2: I'd have to look on the on the other one
Speaker 2: because back in those days, you were just ripping and
Speaker 2: running in and out of Motown studios and these studios,
Speaker 2: and literally everything was like a machine, you know. And
Speaker 2: I know Freddie Washington's on on at.
Speaker 1: Least the Yeah, the reason why I asked was because
Speaker 1: the other two names on bass were already Freddie Washington,
Speaker 1: but then James Jamison Jr.
Speaker 2: And jameson I did.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that James Jamison Junior had a career
Speaker 1: as a professional basis on records, you know. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. So I was trying to figure out like
Speaker 1: what songs were yours and what songs.
Speaker 2: Were Yeah, he was getting called and sometimes it's it's
Speaker 2: a little unfair because the way they listed they just
Speaker 2: they was a bass and they'd have three names, you know,
Speaker 2: so you wouldn't really know who played what in that
Speaker 2: you were very familiar with their their style. But speaking
Speaker 2: of James Jamison at that very studio that that we
Speaker 2: used to record at Motown. One day somebody asked me
Speaker 2: to replace the Jamison part. And that's the only time
Speaker 2: I've ever refused to play a part because I am
Speaker 2: not going to replace James Jamison, you know, right, please?
Speaker 1: Are you the type of can you shape shift your sound?
Speaker 1: So if I say like, okay, I want to go
Speaker 1: for something more bestore sounding, and you're like, okay, well
Speaker 1: I know exactly how to approximate that sound.
Speaker 2: And absolutely it's like, you know, it's like drawbars on
Speaker 2: the Hammond. You know, you can go from church to
Speaker 2: to jazz, you know, and everything in between, you know.
Speaker 2: But but on the base, if I want to go
Speaker 2: for the jackal signd, I go for the back pick up,
Speaker 2: you know, which is what he used to do. And
Speaker 2: then of course I have I offender jazz bassis yamaha,
Speaker 2: I mean I have I have a lot of basses
Speaker 2: that we can just get different sounds on. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's and that's one of the fun things to do.
Speaker 2: You know, you listen to the song, figure out you
Speaker 2: know what what is this song called for? Oh?
Speaker 5: I was gonna ask who were some of your favorite players,
Speaker 5: Like who were the guys that you learned from and
Speaker 5: that you learned from as you know, when you were younger,
Speaker 5: and some of the guys that you still pick up
Speaker 5: stuff from now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the guys I mentioned and early on
Speaker 2: it was like verding White from Mirth Wind, you know,
Speaker 2: Rocko from Tower Power, James Jammerson, Chuck Rainey, Ron Carter,
Speaker 2: Charlie Mingus. I mean it was like just the best,
Speaker 2: so many yeah, only the best, so many great guys.
Speaker 2: Anthony Jackson, Marcus Marx Miller Aby you know, you know,
Speaker 2: Jocko of course.
Speaker 1: So excluding excluding your four play guys, who would you
Speaker 1: pick in your your starting five lineup? Like career retrospective?
Speaker 1: Who's on drums? Well, who's on drums? And you played
Speaker 1: with the best?
Speaker 2: Dead or live?
Speaker 1: Yeah, dead or alive? Who who did you gel with
Speaker 1: the like what drummer brought brought the best out of you?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. I have to say, Jeffrey picarl If
Speaker 2: you listen to a song called Lady Loved Me by
Speaker 2: George Benson, Reef Martin produced it, I think.
Speaker 1: So yes, I know the song.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, another song, Yes, listen to the fade and
Speaker 2: what you hear in me and Jeff. It sounds like
Speaker 2: two kids playing in the sandbox, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: it was like it it was, and he was just
Speaker 2: every time we walked in the studio and saw each other,
Speaker 2: we just started smiling and we did We did everything
Speaker 2: for Maurice White's solo album, BG's Barbara streisand we did
Speaker 2: Randy Newman, I Love La all that kind of dude.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, I was going to ask you next, love
Speaker 1: it and doing and doing? Why do I feel like
Speaker 1: you're more or less ear to what's her name's video
Speaker 1: of that as opposed to the actual song?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, Chris Jenner made a You're allergic to
Speaker 1: that name?
Speaker 3: Original?
Speaker 1: I Love l A Right, But I'm only asking because
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite Randy Newman albums ever. And
Speaker 1: Real Emotional Girl is like one of my all time
Speaker 1: favorite songs.
Speaker 3: Uh, idiot, that's not David Lee Roth the original. I'm
Speaker 3: an idiot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, people, Randy, Randy was first. But yeah, what
Speaker 1: were your memories of doing that? The Randy Newman album.
Speaker 2: You know, the Memories was basically that was that was
Speaker 2: the entire total band, you know, Luke Lenny Castro was
Speaker 2: playing Cushion, Carl you know, I mean it was like Jeffcarl,
Speaker 2: it was. It was literally and and those guys were
Speaker 2: the go to guys for for everybody. You know, when
Speaker 2: when they're Clapton came to record his first uh you
Speaker 2: know when it's it's called behind the Sun in l A.
Speaker 2: The Warner, the Brothers guys. Okay, use our guys and
Speaker 2: there you go again, Jeff Carl Hill and Gaines Lucather,
Speaker 2: Michael Omarty and I mean it was like the the
Speaker 2: the session aces of that time. So that was the
Speaker 2: Randy Newman record was just amazing because he we'd sit
Speaker 2: around the piano and he showed up the tunes and
Speaker 2: then we just start go cutting.
Speaker 1: There's there's two guys that often see their names on credits,
Speaker 1: but they're not in the total circle because of course
Speaker 1: the page the page cats. But did you work a
Speaker 1: lot with uh like Bill Wolfer or Michael Bodkick Michael Bodkerker,
Speaker 1: Yes at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And Michael Botaker was another one of
Speaker 2: those names. You'd look on all these records and there's
Speaker 2: Michael Bodaker. George Benson, give me the Night, There's Michael Bodaker,
Speaker 2: you know, like all these records, and I and I
Speaker 2: did several several things with him, including the Academy Awards. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was down, we were down underneath the stage.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, guys, I knew, I know this is
Speaker 1: going to be an episode. We always have like a
Speaker 1: pors Mo post mortem thing where we finished an episode
Speaker 1: and then we start getting mad because we forgot. Oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot to askhole, We forgot.
Speaker 3: To ask place with Nathan. That's gonna happen recorded.
Speaker 1: I believe. I was trying to sit here and figure out, like,
Speaker 1: what is the ultimate signature based performance you've given on
Speaker 1: a record. I'm praying this is you. Are you playing
Speaker 1: bass on Dennis Edwards? Don't look any further. Yes there, Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that's the one thing I did. That's
Speaker 1: the one thing I need to do my homework. I
Speaker 1: was just like, get paid in full without that songo, dude,
Speaker 1: I totally forgot. I was like, I know, he has
Speaker 1: a signature song that is like a tattoo that's we're
Speaker 1: forgetting about.
Speaker 2: You know that is such you know, that is just
Speaker 2: incredible to me.
Speaker 1: This is a musicologist, but it's it's such an iconic
Speaker 1: bassline that Did you write that baseline or was it
Speaker 1: just like like it's such a base led thing. Did
Speaker 1: you get writers credit for it or did they tell
Speaker 1: you this is what you're playing. The baseline is the
Speaker 1: hook of that song.
Speaker 2: It's a combination and that's one of my favorite lines.
Speaker 2: It's a combination of what was already it was basically
Speaker 2: already there. Uh and so I was I was the
Speaker 2: executioner of that line.
Speaker 1: And wow, so did you how many times did you
Speaker 1: work with because you mentioned Dennis Lambert, did you work
Speaker 1: with them at all after that?
Speaker 2: Or yeah? Lots? Yeah, and Dennis So, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was a very fertile period. I mean
Speaker 2: we're talking you know. I'm just thankful that we were
Speaker 2: born at a time like the seventies, eighties, nineties where
Speaker 2: music was just it was so fertile. I mean, there
Speaker 2: was so much music.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I had somebody sent me a picture of a piano
Speaker 2: with two keys on it the other day, and the
Speaker 2: they used to write, you write it too now, you know,
Speaker 2: like and like you almost get penalized for having too
Speaker 2: many cores. Now you know where this you had lines, baselines,
Speaker 2: you had chords, you had melodies and and so uh
Speaker 2: you know another one of those baselines that it was
Speaker 2: the at the barge do Doom.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, a dream okay, that is you Okay,
Speaker 1: good right, but all of these.
Speaker 2: Dud I mean. And I'll never forget, you know, being
Speaker 2: in the studio that day, knowing that you know this
Speaker 2: one is special, very special.
Speaker 1: Okay. I was gonna ask you win all right? Good
Speaker 1: Steve asked the question to hit it.
Speaker 2: It's your question.
Speaker 1: He never answered it. The dream lineup. We only got
Speaker 1: to the drummer. We didn't get to the other.
Speaker 2: Way to go Steve way to referee to go yeah,
Speaker 2: Greg feeling games.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's your keyboard player.
Speaker 2: That's your keyboard player.
Speaker 1: So who's your guitarist?
Speaker 2: We got guitarist, I have to say, And this is
Speaker 2: you're gonna You're gonna you may you may laugh at
Speaker 2: this one, but Pat Metheni is my favorite guitar player.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I wouldn't. I'm not mad. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I Spring isn't here, not even how many how many
Speaker 1: Athenie albums are you on?
Speaker 2: None? You're not okay, I'm not a single Mathenia that's
Speaker 2: that's that's my bucket list. Yeah, wow, story really yep.
Speaker 2: We uh, we played a we played a concert for
Speaker 2: we had to sing at at Dodger Stadium. It was
Speaker 2: Elton John and Airic Clapton and and METHENI came and
Speaker 2: Steve and I quoted one of the songs that Steve's
Speaker 2: playing on it's in seven four and Steve and we
Speaker 2: started playing that during the solo and Pat went crazy.
Speaker 2: You know, it was like, you know, fifty thousand people
Speaker 2: out there. We saw Pat giving his wife a high
Speaker 2: five when we played this tune. You know, But you know,
Speaker 2: Pat's he's just he's just a consummate musician. And I've
Speaker 2: always he's always been one of the guys on my
Speaker 2: bucket list to play with, you know, to record with.
Speaker 2: We've played together, kind of jammed up at his place
Speaker 2: on the Upper West Side, but I've never had the
Speaker 2: pleasure of being on one of his records. Of course,
Speaker 2: Georgia Man saying, I mean and then you know, as
Speaker 2: bands go, you know, if you look at you know,
Speaker 2: we lost four play lost, Chuck Lobe, Who's oars. You know,
Speaker 2: the guy could do no wrong for I mean, he
Speaker 2: could play funk, jazz, rock and uh. And on top
Speaker 2: of all that, he was the sweetest guy. So you know,
Speaker 2: check I think about him every day.
Speaker 1: When did he pass? When did Chuck pass?
Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, they think.
Speaker 4: Can I ask what musicians or music you and Noah
Speaker 4: talk about? What is what does he put you onto?
Speaker 4: Since he is like an amazing musician.
Speaker 2: H Well, you know he's amazing because well, of course
Speaker 2: everybody's you know, onto Jacob Kayer, So he's like, he's
Speaker 2: like phenom of phenoms. But we you know, we we
Speaker 2: go with Herbie and he's I look at his you know,
Speaker 2: because he goes to the not only does he go
Speaker 2: to University of California b at Berkeley, but he goes
Speaker 2: to YouTube University.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, you started him there and.
Speaker 2: He studies you know, Billy Preston Goat Yeah, and people
Speaker 2: like Billy and and Herbie. Uh, you know, he he's
Speaker 2: kind of all over the map, you know, with with everything,
Speaker 2: and he loved we we do one of our favorite
Speaker 2: songs to play, Sunny Side of the Street, you know,
Speaker 2: which is a sixty year old song that that Louis
Speaker 2: Armstrong sang back in the day. So he he knows everything.
Speaker 2: But then we we love Algiou and you know, kind
Speaker 2: of kind of a z. I mean, he's just a
Speaker 2: musical musical guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah by the looks of YouTube, but like you had
Speaker 3: a baby music genius.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, he has perfect pitch and he not
Speaker 2: only does, he's not one of these guys that like,
Speaker 2: if you look, you're gonna hear a million Olympic chops,
Speaker 2: you know, but he's got heart and soul and the choices.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the it's the it's what you don't play.
Speaker 2: It's a space you leave that makes makes it specially,
Speaker 2: you know. And that's what I'd like to see a
Speaker 2: lot of the younger guys kind of understanding, because you know,
Speaker 2: now I just he starts scrolling. It's like you just
Speaker 2: hear everything a Z in the first bar.
Speaker 1: Right, Steve, do you want to ask the question? Should
Speaker 1: I go?
Speaker 7: Well, actually, I'm curious about you said you played at
Speaker 7: Live A in Philly.
Speaker 2: Was that with Phil Collins? That was with Kenny Moggins.
Speaker 2: Kenny Logins, Yeah, you're.
Speaker 1: Also very well known.
Speaker 2: For playing fifteen nineteen eighty five and.
Speaker 7: Mmy said at Ulliot Live. Yeah, yeah, but you're I
Speaker 7: guess you're you're you're applying my obsession with easy Lover
Speaker 7: and your association with with Phil How many Phil Collins?
Speaker 1: That was a Philip Bailey album that that song was on.
Speaker 2: Yet you know it was a Philip and and my
Speaker 2: relationship with Philip is what got me on the gig
Speaker 2: phil Phil Collins. He was going to be the producer
Speaker 2: and Phillip said, hey, I want to bring I want
Speaker 2: to bring Nate Nate East over to London with me
Speaker 2: and so yeah, you know, so we went to London,
Speaker 2: recorded that in.
Speaker 1: Wrote that song.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, we wrote that song. It was the last
Speaker 2: song that we recorded. It was like after two weeks
Speaker 2: of recording and Philips said, man, we still need like
Speaker 2: an undeniable single, and we went over the piano and
Speaker 2: about twenty minutes later that came out.
Speaker 1: Wow, just twenty minutes later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what it was was we kind of like
Speaker 2: had the we had all the parts and we said,
Speaker 2: let's make a demo over the track and then tomorrow
Speaker 2: we'll listen to the demo and come back. And so
Speaker 2: we made the demo. The next morning we put it
Speaker 2: up and George Masenberg was the engineer. He recorded, we
Speaker 2: played it and everybody, Hey, everybody liked it. Was wrong
Speaker 2: with that? Let's go with that. And then I heard
Speaker 2: Phil Collins kind of singing these choosy lover was the name,
Speaker 2: you know it was. It was the lyric and singing.
Speaker 2: But as he was singing, I said, manage voice sounds
Speaker 2: and I said, man, wy, don't you guys just do
Speaker 2: it as a duet? Okay?
Speaker 3: Really yeah, Nathan, everyone it.
Speaker 2: Was it was a Phil Bailey record, you know. But
Speaker 2: then you could hear like Phil's voice, and at that
Speaker 2: particular week, the song Against All Odds was number one,
Speaker 2: Phil's first number one, and it was like number one
Speaker 2: on the charts. So it was like, this is a
Speaker 2: no brainer. The two of them has to do it.
Speaker 2: And man used to hear it on like three radio
Speaker 2: stations at once.
Speaker 3: It's still one of the greatest.
Speaker 1: So that is I love that song.
Speaker 2: That was that that allowed me to kind of solidify
Speaker 2: my my standing with the folks. I bought my house
Speaker 2: and finally they said, you know, because you know, your
Speaker 2: parents were saying, yeah, but you should have something on.
Speaker 3: Your dad had a whole job. I still can't repeat
Speaker 3: arrows something.
Speaker 2: So he was in the air space business that design
Speaker 2: engineer aircraft. Yeah, he designed the F sixteen swept wings
Speaker 2: and the C five a tail, you know, and he
Speaker 2: used to always bring these rocket pictures home of these
Speaker 2: rockets and silos. So that's where we got our kind
Speaker 2: of We had four pilots in the family fly my
Speaker 2: brother's fly.
Speaker 3: My dad was a rocket scientist.
Speaker 1: Is there is there a session or song that you
Speaker 1: had to pass on that wound up becoming like like
Speaker 1: did you get the call first for like we Are
Speaker 1: the World or something like that, and you had to
Speaker 1: pass on it because you were already doing a gig somewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, fortunately I can't tell that story because because no
Speaker 2: is one of the words that I have not been
Speaker 2: able to say. And I don't turn down anything but
Speaker 2: my collar.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, talk about it.
Speaker 3: That's not possible.
Speaker 1: So I should take all the gigs, all right, thank you?
Speaker 2: You know. I mean I learned early on, like my
Speaker 2: accountant said, nobody's following you around with a pension plan.
Speaker 2: And we got to you know the career, well a
Speaker 2: studio musicians careers four years, so we got to figure
Speaker 2: out what to do with your money. And he told
Speaker 2: me that in nineteen eighty. You know, wow, So you
Speaker 2: know you're always thinking, you know, is this is this
Speaker 2: it a man the peak? And is it gonna? Am
Speaker 2: I going to be on the other side? You know?
Speaker 2: They say that the four stages of a musician's career
Speaker 2: is who's Nathanist, Get me a get me Nathanist, get
Speaker 2: me a young Nathanist. Who's nathan Who nathan How do
Speaker 2: you get that?
Speaker 1: One more time? I've read that before, one more time, say.
Speaker 2: Who's Nathanist, get me Nathanist, get me a young Nathanist.
Speaker 1: Who's Nathanist?
Speaker 2: I hate that. David Foster told me that that Hurtrillian.
Speaker 1: I've read that in one of my voice over books.
Speaker 2: They the U right of that has kept me going
Speaker 2: for forty years.
Speaker 1: Now, Wow, I've never heard it put that way, and
Speaker 1: now that that totally.
Speaker 5: Don't don't you start feeling all the part and the
Speaker 5: other part they say, The only other part I've heard
Speaker 5: of that same saying only other verision I've heard is
Speaker 5: the additional stage of get me Nathan East at any price.
Speaker 1: So like that's kind of before, you know, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Like that to this day. My brothers called me and
Speaker 2: they always and soon as they answer that get me
Speaker 2: a young Nathan Eist. You know, they always you know,
Speaker 2: but but it's good to kind of have a little
Speaker 2: bit of that fear because especially back in the day,
Speaker 2: there was always the new guy, you know, like in
Speaker 2: the eighties, you know, like especially young guitar you know,
Speaker 2: you had you had like Larry Carlton, and then you
Speaker 2: had Lee Written Hour and on these guys coming and
Speaker 2: Luca Third and so there was always like this this
Speaker 2: heavy hitter waiting in the wings, you know, to be
Speaker 2: the next guy. You know. So now I think we
Speaker 2: can we can rest a little easier because there's not
Speaker 2: a million studios and a million gigs going on like
Speaker 2: they were back then.
Speaker 1: Well, who who in your in your eyes was uh
Speaker 1: kind of uh who who do you admire of that? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess like young lions to you are now established musicians.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if I'm talking to mid nineties Nathan Ese, like,
Speaker 1: who who are the musicians that were coming up that
Speaker 1: you were like, okay, I messed with them? Or you know,
Speaker 1: like who's do you feel that the future is safe with?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean when because I remember, you know, first
Speaker 2: here in s browns Espaldine and she was one of
Speaker 2: these like she was young, new newcomer, and then next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, she had Album of the Year, you know,
Speaker 2: the Grammys. And then again there's people like Jacob Kaier
Speaker 2: and and Justin Lee Schultz. Now that are that I
Speaker 2: think are very very promising that I feel comfortable leaving
Speaker 2: them with the with the torch, you know, because they
Speaker 2: they seem to be putting in some serious time. And
Speaker 2: then they're there. There are quite a few, and and
Speaker 2: I'm I'm excited by my son Noah too, because I
Speaker 2: think he's he's becoming a student of music and really
Speaker 2: like a sponge, you know, just absorbing everybody from Keith
Speaker 2: Charott to Bill Levin's too, you know, to Herbie and uh,
Speaker 2: everybody in between these. But now he's playing Hammond Oregon
Speaker 2: B three and so he's listening to a lot of
Speaker 2: the lot of the cats there, Jimmy Smith, Joey, It's
Speaker 2: crazy all right.
Speaker 1: Before we wind up, I just I'm still thinking of
Speaker 1: the post mortem talk.
Speaker 3: It's no way you can avoid it.
Speaker 1: No I just okay, are you I know you play
Speaker 1: with the Pointer sisters. Are you on? I'm so excited,
Speaker 1: I'm on, I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: Jesus I played the posters of my Cousins by Marriage.
Speaker 2: So we actually uh, we actually re recorded all the
Speaker 2: hits and they asked me to produce it because a
Speaker 2: lot of times, you know, like PEPSI will say hey,
Speaker 2: we want to use I'm so excited, and the record
Speaker 2: labels say, okay, give us something master and give us
Speaker 2: something crazy, and so they they hired me to produce it.
Speaker 2: So it was so easy because then I just called
Speaker 2: Greg and John Barnes and all the guys that played
Speaker 2: on the original and we went in and recruit recreated
Speaker 2: all those songs oh wowow and used them on you
Speaker 2: know now when you see them on a Pepsi commercial,
Speaker 2: those are the ones and they're they're benefiting from it,
Speaker 2: which is great, so cool, And that's.
Speaker 1: What Prince did you know, Yeah you can re recall.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, because you you know, the label onto
Speaker 2: the Masters and you know that's when Prince put slave
Speaker 2: on his right head and he just went in and
Speaker 2: recut him.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it backfires, like you know before, think, thank
Speaker 1: you Sylvia Room for finally releasing the heat Wave discography
Speaker 1: for streaming, because I don't know if I could have
Speaker 1: taken another like Boogie Nights twenty twenty. You know, some
Speaker 1: acts like re recording it not really quite nailing it
Speaker 1: the way that you know in some cases it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: but in this case it does work. Another dance classic
Speaker 1: of yours is that your base work on Wolmack and
Speaker 1: Womack's Baby I'm Scared of You.
Speaker 2: I'm on Womack and Willmack, and I'd have to I'd
Speaker 2: have to look and remember if I could the particular tune.
Speaker 2: So let me look that up and I'll get back
Speaker 2: to you on that one.
Speaker 1: That's a great problem to have fully accept it, I except.
Speaker 2: Start stacking them up, you know, after after a ten
Speaker 2: thousand tunes, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fante, he's on another iconic hip hop bass sample?
Speaker 1: Which one? So you you're you're you're playing on uh
Speaker 1: Flack and Bryson's Born to Love album? Correct? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're they're there duet right yeah, yeah, second Childhood Primo
Speaker 1: boo b B boom.
Speaker 2: You know, you reminded me of stuff that I that
Speaker 2: I completed. And you know this happens in Japan because
Speaker 2: they pay attention to everything, and sometimes I'm walking down
Speaker 2: the street, they come up with a big armful of
Speaker 2: vinyl records that you completely forgot that you played on
Speaker 2: the side and everything.
Speaker 1: But see, that's and that's what I I wish that
Speaker 1: you know, the powers that be and and the Red
Speaker 1: Tape the red Tape people and the lawyers and whatnot
Speaker 1: would realize that the beauty of sampling is that cats
Speaker 1: like us will see what gets sampled, and now not
Speaker 1: only will we purchase the the ROBERTA. Flack and people
Speaker 1: bryceon album, but then we're gonna read the credits and
Speaker 1: see who played on it and then purchase everything that
Speaker 1: they played on and so on and so the rabbit
Speaker 1: hole p s.
Speaker 4: I would like to tell the masters who are listening
Speaker 4: to this, there's an app for that, and it's called Deeper.
Speaker 3: Just saying black owned, go get it deeper. It's an
Speaker 3: app called Deeper.
Speaker 4: Like if you find a song you like the bass player,
Speaker 4: you touched the bass player's name and you can see
Speaker 4: everything that the bass player did.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, are yeah deeper?
Speaker 2: And well you know it's it's it's like Aaron Schwartz
Speaker 2: did with Reddit. He he wanted to make available legal
Speaker 2: documents that usually people that are in MT studying, they
Speaker 2: have to pay thirty five bucks to get a legal thing.
Speaker 2: So so he kind of he started making those things
Speaker 2: available and that's where he got in trouble. He got
Speaker 2: sued by the government. But oh, it's it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where you are we gonna are we gonna
Speaker 2: keep it going, moving forward so that people can know
Speaker 2: what would happened before, you know, because we don't want
Speaker 2: them to forget about Natalie Cole and you know, Ella Fitzgerald.
Speaker 2: You just don't want you know, Billie Holiday and and
Speaker 2: you you want our youth to really have access to that.
Speaker 2: You know, So if we put too many restrictions and
Speaker 2: and again, you know, they'll they'll figure out a way
Speaker 2: to monetize and get it. But I think to to
Speaker 2: kind of put so many restrictions on everything, it's just
Speaker 2: it's just rough, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, warmer thing. Okay, give me three more because there's
Speaker 1: too many, man, because be remiss.
Speaker 3: And I would hate how long I'm trying to remember
Speaker 3: because those are two.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have this. I'm gonna in the whole. But
Speaker 1: you've also worked with NARDA. Michael Walden of course doing
Speaker 1: his magic streak with Aretha and Whitney and whatnot. That's
Speaker 1: you on saving all my love for you? Yes, dude,
Speaker 1: that okay, what kind of base are you play on
Speaker 1: on saving all my love for you?
Speaker 2: Because that white base, right, it's this white base right
Speaker 2: behind me. It's a BB three thousand yamaha bass. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's uh, Gene Page wrote, listen. Gene Page wrote all
Speaker 2: those those notes too. Michael Masser was producing. We were
Speaker 2: at Devonshire Studios. We you know that the greatest love
Speaker 2: of all.
Speaker 1: Right behind me. But my question about saving all my
Speaker 1: love for you though? And is that a five string bass?
Speaker 2: It's five string bass.
Speaker 1: Okay. That explains everything, because the thing is is that
Speaker 1: even though I didn't, I didn't. I mean when when
Speaker 1: when I don came out, I was fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: but was it was in the eighties, yeah, eighty five.
Speaker 1: And so for me though, when you get to the
Speaker 1: last bridge, because the night is the night, good Field
Speaker 1: and all right, you played in such a low register
Speaker 1: there that I was like, there's no there's no base
Speaker 1: that can actually pay like he's playing below uh an
Speaker 1: e right, you were, and I never heard that, like
Speaker 1: normally someone would would go to the upper register to
Speaker 1: play it. But you went low with it and okay,
Speaker 1: you played on a five string and I.
Speaker 2: Was I was actually shocked that because that was the
Speaker 2: first kind of some of the first five string records
Speaker 2: I was playing on, and I was kind of saying,
Speaker 2: as is this really going to be cool? Or am
Speaker 2: I going to get away with this?
Speaker 1: You know, because it was that was a risk. It
Speaker 1: was unusual to hear because I just never heard a
Speaker 1: base go that low before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and okay, you know, I have to say, and
Speaker 2: by the way, congratulations. You did an amazing job as
Speaker 2: musical director for the Oscars and I appreciate that you have.
Speaker 2: You know, to me, you brought the show into into
Speaker 2: the current statement.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about something beyond nineteen fifty. No, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you it seemed like on paper, it just
Speaker 1: seems easy, like oh, quest love dj' di it. But man, oh,
Speaker 1: the only reason why I know those three letters AFM. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course we have an AFM here at the tonight show,
Speaker 1: and we deal with the rigamarole of whatever. But yo,
Speaker 1: they do not play in Los Angeles, and I thought
Speaker 1: everything was going to be gravy, and then the AFM
Speaker 1: rep came and was like he wanted to know every
Speaker 1: song I was playing, and I guess the deal they
Speaker 1: made was like, basically, if these are AFM Orchestra members,
Speaker 1: then you have to pay a certain rate for this
Speaker 1: and that. So it's it's really the night before I
Speaker 1: had to redo and clear a whole bunch of songs
Speaker 1: because you know, I plan on just playing like movie
Speaker 1: themes and John Williams scores and not like do the
Speaker 1: normal thing. And then the AFM guy was like, nope,
Speaker 1: there are FM union members. We got to pay them
Speaker 1: all like we were trying to find our way to
Speaker 1: safety in a pandemic. And then like the last minute,
Speaker 1: the guy's like, no, you must play. You must pay
Speaker 1: all seventy members of the people who played the theme
Speaker 1: the Rocky in order for you to play the song
Speaker 1: out there. And I was like, no, we're not doing that.
Speaker 1: So I had to get super super creative and it
Speaker 1: was just like, Okay, I'm just going to play regular songs.
Speaker 2: Are most young musicians in the union, well, those those
Speaker 2: particular things that you mentioned are going to be a
Speaker 2: lot of the strength players that you know had had recorded.
Speaker 3: Those, right, That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: A lot of them aren't even living right, So the
Speaker 1: generation do they know that money on the money goes
Speaker 1: to the FM.
Speaker 2: But but it's it's great that if it's possible for
Speaker 2: it to get to the people that they're a state deal.
Speaker 2: But but they yeah, they will, they will come and
Speaker 2: and check on you now. And you had access to
Speaker 2: the tracks, right, I mean you yeah?
Speaker 1: Well for uh for as as was great by the way.
Speaker 1: I took a risk and I was just like I
Speaker 1: hit up Stevie. It was just like can I can
Speaker 1: I get the master please? And you know wow, had
Speaker 1: to explain like what I wanted to do and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And when he heard it, one, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that Dean Parks was playing acoustic guitar on that.
Speaker 1: And what's even funnier was you think you're bad? Stevie
Speaker 1: didn't know that, and so he was sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, how did you make this? It's it's like
Speaker 1: a country song. And I was like, no, that's that's
Speaker 1: just Dean Parks. I just left you and Dean Parks
Speaker 1: singing alone. He felt like we redid and did a
Speaker 1: whole nother arrangement to it, and I'm like no, I
Speaker 1: just I took what was there and just accented some
Speaker 1: things and that sort of thing, but that's literally you know.
Speaker 2: It was really a beautiful person. And how great is
Speaker 2: it that you can get the original master from Stevie
Speaker 2: and be able to do that. You know, that's that's impressive.
Speaker 1: That's that's the perky. That's the perk of the job.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: And I was with Dean Parks over the weekend and
Speaker 2: it's we were playing. We went to a club and
Speaker 2: sat in and I said, Man, it's not every day
Speaker 2: we get to hear Dean Park stretch out like this,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean he was he brought it and
Speaker 2: here he is, you know, still doing it after all
Speaker 2: these years.
Speaker 1: But he's another dream of mine. Yeah, he's I got
Speaker 1: to meet him two years ago at the Oscars and
Speaker 1: he's such a such a.
Speaker 2: Cool cat, very cool and but yeah, the original open
Speaker 2: I'm going wait a second, I think A Mayor got
Speaker 2: the track. Oh this is incredible. Yeah, yeah, I got
Speaker 2: lucky work about working your magic.
Speaker 1: No, it was really great, Thank you, Thank you. Yo.
Speaker 1: I know there's like forty nine other songs that I
Speaker 1: can nerd out on and albums that you've played on.
Speaker 1: But you know, the whole thing is that you. You
Speaker 1: You're the You're the magic touch. And I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show and man, talking to us.
Speaker 2: I was so excited that last night I kept looking
Speaker 2: at my watch. Oh man, okay, it's only twelve more hours.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to come because listen, I mean, you've
Speaker 2: you've met everybody. Come on, Michelle Obama.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1: Wait now now that you mentioned it, yo, you should
Speaker 1: really because when I'm closing my eyes I thought I
Speaker 1: was talking to Donnie Simpson for half a second. You
Speaker 1: you really have you you have a future in voice over,
Speaker 1: working it, but really have a future like that should
Speaker 1: be your your your your pivot, Brenton.
Speaker 2: But it's a lot of fun. You know. I was
Speaker 2: friends with Don la Fontaine, who was the Yes who
Speaker 2: is the guy? Yes? Yes, family and I are still
Speaker 2: very dear and very close. But he he's you have
Speaker 2: great pipes. Wow, he had the voice of god. You know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I thank you very much for doing the show.
Speaker 2: And thank you guys, and no thanks man, this is music.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the music on what you're doing.
Speaker 2: It's it's very relevant. It's not irreal relevant very much,
Speaker 2: so thank you very much, thanks for everything you do,
Speaker 2: and congratulations on everything Disney collaboration and you know, thank
Speaker 2: you everything.
Speaker 3: We're looking forward to the next generation of East shout
Speaker 3: us and.
Speaker 2: Noah, okay, now right, yeah, well listen, it's been a joy,
Speaker 2: pleasure and a honor and uh let's uh, let's keep
Speaker 2: it going a show.
Speaker 1: Well you heard it from the horses, mount ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: That was Nathan East and on behalf of Fontillo. Like,
Speaker 1: my name is quest Love and this is pust Love
Speaker 1: Supreme and we'll see you on the next go round
Speaker 1: the next episode of Love Supreme. All right, yoh, what's up?
Speaker 5: It's is Sponte. Make sure you keep up with us
Speaker 5: on Instagram at QLs and let us know what you
Speaker 5: think and who should be next to sit down with us.
Speaker 5: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right, peace.
Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production on iheartnet Radio. For
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.