Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I'm raring this hat quest Love for you. This is
Speaker 2: my drumming hat in high school in the high school bands. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you still have that.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing. Yeah all right, Uh, I'm not nervous
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: Good. We gotta get your.
Speaker 3: Hat like that of mair ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4: This is quest Love Supreme. I am quest Love, your
Speaker 4: host of the day. We are here with fun Tigolo
Speaker 4: f Takeolo.
Speaker 3: Where you at right now?
Speaker 2: I'm at the crib man. I just uh, I came
Speaker 2: in just straight from the gym, so you know, sweat
Speaker 2: same shame here, yep, shame.
Speaker 4: It's it's something about uh March that creeps in that says, okay,
Speaker 4: summer coming.
Speaker 3: I gotta get my summer by yeah, mineus picnic.
Speaker 5: Body, so yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Want to look halfway presentable with the picnic. H Steve,
Speaker 4: how are you pal?
Speaker 2: I'm good, really looking forward to this interview like everybody else.
Speaker 3: How interesting was your evening?
Speaker 2: Super interesting? Definitely trying to hear you pronounce words and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 4: All right, Steve, As you guys know, I can't stop
Speaker 4: writing books. And one of the well I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to say unfortunate, but one of the things that I
Speaker 4: am not much of a fan of in the process
Speaker 4: of book writing is doing the audio books, especially when
Speaker 4: Steve is on standby to hear me struggle with college words.
Speaker 4: And he definitely got a ear full last night. But look,
Speaker 4: we got more important pressing matters on our hands. Let
Speaker 4: me just say that I know that a line share
Speaker 4: of my personal music knowledge, you know, honestly came into
Speaker 4: play once hip hop contextualized my parents boring record made
Speaker 4: it interesting, which you know, basically my age fourteen fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 4: Of course I could ratle off any musician's name, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't in a slouch either when I was a kid.
Speaker 4: But you know this, this knowledge I have a music
Speaker 4: really became a thing when I was a teenager.
Speaker 3: However, I will say that.
Speaker 4: In my life in real time, and I'm talking about
Speaker 4: when I'm seven years old, there were two particular drummers
Speaker 4: who I idolized. And of course, if you're a longtime
Speaker 4: listener of the podcast, you already know that I've had
Speaker 4: the pleasure of doing a one on one with my
Speaker 4: idol Steve Rone, formerly of The Average White band today
Speaker 4: is no exception, and today we'll actually complete that circle,
Speaker 4: because if I'm really honest with myself, our guest today
Speaker 4: might be the first air quote fusion drummer that I
Speaker 4: became familiar with.
Speaker 3: Not exactly by choice.
Speaker 4: It just so happens that a particular family excursion of
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy seven on a trip to Disney World in
Speaker 4: a van with an A track tape player as our
Speaker 4: entertainment and maybe six A track tapes in rotation, and
Speaker 4: one of those six A track tapes had heavy rotation
Speaker 4: of the debut album of our guest on the Show today,
Speaker 4: entitled Garden of Love Light. And one song in particular
Speaker 4: that I know that I personally put ten thousand Gladwellian
Speaker 4: hours in a practice was a tune called The Sun
Speaker 4: Is Dancing. And now that I think about it, I
Speaker 4: think the very first time that I nerded out on
Speaker 4: Bassis Megabasis will Lee of The Letterman Show was more
Speaker 4: about him playing on that album than it was anything
Speaker 4: else that Willy has done. Willie's done legendary shit, but
Speaker 4: I will say that his resume is beyond impressive. Name
Speaker 4: It Whitney Arefa, Mariah, George, Michael Jeff Beck Campbell, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Temi Campbell, Barbaris Streiss and Wynald Richie Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Dona.
Speaker 3: Ross, Rachel my Vision Orchestra.
Speaker 4: He's worked with everyone but me, and the time I
Speaker 4: think I'm trying to be him, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Not to mention, I will say that he's probably the
Speaker 4: first human being that I've ever taken note of that
Speaker 4: even mentioned the word that I'm obsessed with now post pandemic,
Speaker 4: which is meditation. So this is a long overdue conversation
Speaker 4: with the great legendary. Please welcome Nordom, Michael Walton, finally
Speaker 4: the Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much man, a long time man. Wow,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Happy to be here. This is wonderful.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of yours, breath, a big fan
Speaker 2: of yours. You know, you bring the funk, man, you
Speaker 2: bring the soul, and you bring the integrity to the music.
Speaker 2: Some I'm really really loving you.
Speaker 4: Then I'm bringing everything I ever learned from you, man, So.
Speaker 3: Now you know what it is.
Speaker 4: I'm also realizing I've met you briefly before, and I
Speaker 4: will say that there are very few human beings that
Speaker 4: have an instantaneous.
Speaker 3: Disarming chip that I wish I had. You have a
Speaker 3: level of.
Speaker 4: Calm that I now know that. Of course, your resume
Speaker 4: is that impressive because I believe that you have a
Speaker 4: sort of calming element, because you produced some people that
Speaker 4: I would believe would be some of the hardest people
Speaker 4: personality wise to even step with. I've said no to
Speaker 4: a few of these people were just like drumming with
Speaker 4: them or any of those things, because I couldn't bear
Speaker 4: to think of the thought of, you know.
Speaker 3: Of dealing with that.
Speaker 4: But can I ask you, like, what when did you
Speaker 4: develop this personality of just calmness, Like you have a
Speaker 4: very disarming like have you ever gotten angry in your life?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, sure, sure I do, of course I do.
Speaker 2: It's just that I learned, like what you're speaking about
Speaker 2: in production and working with other people that I wanted
Speaker 2: to get their best, and I realized that the love
Speaker 2: aspect was really powerful. It is really powerful. And then
Speaker 2: you mentioned meditation, So through meditation and the love aspect
Speaker 2: that became the most important part, and that the person
Speaker 2: I'm working with could feel that love to do their best,
Speaker 2: and then that would just make everything just go. So
Speaker 2: I kind of just pray, swim, you know, get myself
Speaker 2: together physically, and then get in that spirit that the
Speaker 2: person you really feel like, oh, you're not here to
Speaker 2: fight with me, You're going to me that great music.
Speaker 2: Then they start singing whatever they're going to do, and
Speaker 2: then endorphins kick in and are gone. But that spirit
Speaker 2: of love is really really important. That's what I want
Speaker 2: to say to.
Speaker 3: You about that.
Speaker 5: Do you have a pre studio ritual that you do
Speaker 5: or something like the kind of get ready to get
Speaker 5: into this.
Speaker 2: You know you can see behind me. I have a candle,
Speaker 2: two camels here and a candle up there. You know.
Speaker 2: I burn a little incense every now and again. I
Speaker 2: usually bring a gift to the person I'm working with,
Speaker 2: just kind of make them feel the love on a
Speaker 2: physical level, a Teddy bear flower or something sweet. And
Speaker 2: then I want to say one more thing about what
Speaker 2: you're asking about, because it's really important for me that.
Speaker 2: Probably the most incredible moment along this line was after
Speaker 2: I made the songs of two songs, Who's the Men Who?
Speaker 2: Until You Say You Love Me? And Here and flew
Speaker 2: back to Detroit, Michigan to meet Aretha. It looking in
Speaker 2: her eyes is scary that would that would scare you?
Speaker 2: That would that scared me? But there again, you know,
Speaker 2: I let her know in my spirit, my eyes, my love,
Speaker 2: I'm not here to fight, I'm not here to make
Speaker 2: a problem. I want I want to serve you, I
Speaker 2: love you, and help us make the best music. And
Speaker 2: then once the music comes on and then she starts
Speaker 2: opening up and singing, then again, like I said, it
Speaker 2: just gets happy. And then it's like, well, what do
Speaker 2: you want to eat? You want cheeseburger, you want, you know,
Speaker 2: fried chicken? What you want? And all that sounds happening.
Speaker 4: See, I wish I'd known you previously, Steve could have
Speaker 4: tested this.
Speaker 3: You know. Of course I'm still here at the tonight.
Speaker 4: Show and Lovely Lovely, and I've only had one client
Speaker 4: sort of put us through the ringer to the point
Speaker 4: where I just walked away. And you know, unfortunately, I've
Speaker 4: had the pleasure of playing practically with every person I've
Speaker 4: ever idolized.
Speaker 3: But when it.
Speaker 4: Came to a refa and the alpha level of testing
Speaker 4: that we were put through, I failed that test.
Speaker 3: Oh no, you know it was like.
Speaker 4: My ego was there because in my mind I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm holding up the tradition, like we are holding up
Speaker 4: the tradition of Cornell dupri and Bernard Purty like her seventies,
Speaker 4: her seventies crack band, and you know, she wanted to
Speaker 4: have a long talk, and she wanted us to audition
Speaker 4: and all this stuff, and you know, I just now
Speaker 4: regret that that move. But I was just like, well, no,
Speaker 4: I'm fine. If you want to sing behind your karaoke track,
Speaker 4: then go ahead and do so.
Speaker 3: And she did so, and.
Speaker 4: It could have been magic, but you know it was
Speaker 4: definitely I didn't know about what you just said, Like
Speaker 4: we're dealing with people and how to disarm them and
Speaker 4: all that stuff. And so first starters, Where were you born.
Speaker 2: I'm from Calamazoo, Michigan, between Chicago and Detroit, rightland middle
Speaker 2: in the country, Calumbo where they make gifts and guitars,
Speaker 2: you know, and Battle Creek, Michigan is not far away
Speaker 2: with the Mick Kellogg's conflicts, and that's where Junior Walk
Speaker 2: All the Star comes from, you know, with all that
Speaker 2: funk so Calams in Michigan.
Speaker 4: I'm only laughing because Kalamazoo is always my go to
Speaker 4: random hypothetical city when I say something like, oh you
Speaker 4: know I always in Kalamazoo, miss but I've never known
Speaker 4: one human being from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Speaker 2: Now you do, Now you do.
Speaker 4: I read a really interesting story about you in a magazine.
Speaker 3: I think it was right on.
Speaker 4: I'm not certain, but the very first thing I've ever
Speaker 4: read about you. I happen to be reading this story
Speaker 4: a year before were in Philadelphia. And I don't remember
Speaker 4: the exact lining of the earth whatever, but I do
Speaker 4: know that we were about to go through in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty four a major solar eclipse.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: And it was one of the things were like the
Speaker 4: school was like handing out these these sunglasses and.
Speaker 3: You must never look in the sun or else you'll
Speaker 3: go blind.
Speaker 4: And yes, yes, And I remember reading an interview of
Speaker 4: you where you said you were so inspired by Stevie
Speaker 4: Wonder that could you tell that story?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: Okay, brother, that's true story. Okay, let me just go
Speaker 2: back up just for a second to say that Ray Charles,
Speaker 2: George Sharing or blind men knocked me out with their genius.
Speaker 2: And then on the scene, my aunts, my mom's sisters,
Speaker 2: they're Vickian Valor there their twins. They said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: on the scene now is a little boy your age,
Speaker 2: maybe a little older than you, but he plays drums
Speaker 2: better than you play. And he's incredible. I said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I don't want to buy it. And he said, oh no.
Speaker 2: His little name is little Stevie Wonder you know. And
Speaker 2: he plays. I said, how can you he's blind, how
Speaker 2: can you even see the drums? Well he does, Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: But not long after came out a song that was
Speaker 2: a live version of Fingertips, and Fingertips were smoking and
Speaker 2: I mean smoking, like smoking smoking. And I was lucky
Speaker 2: enough to go to Chicago, my dad comes from Chicago,
Speaker 2: and go to the Regal Theater and see him play.
Speaker 2: And when they walked him out, it was like an alien.
Speaker 2: He walked like an alien, slowly, kind of back and forth,
Speaker 2: like you know, like I've never seen anything walk like
Speaker 2: like you walked. But now in the audience it's packed
Speaker 2: with screaming girls, like beatles, screaming, you know. And when
Speaker 2: he gets the microphone, he's just in control and his
Speaker 2: voice is high like a little boy, but just every
Speaker 2: little note just so perfect, just so perfect, and the
Speaker 2: band just rocking and on the harmonica perfect, and I
Speaker 2: just was like is true. He is better than me.
Speaker 2: He's got everyone in his pond of hand. He's challenging God.
Speaker 2: And that was the summer of the eclips you're talking
Speaker 2: about Signed in Chicago. I decide, Okay, if I'm blind,
Speaker 2: I can maybe be as good as these guys are
Speaker 2: are my hero. So I wasn't stare at the sun
Speaker 2: make myself blind. But the Good Lord said no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you keep your sight. But I did try to make
Speaker 2: myself blind.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, I read that story and I guess we had.
Speaker 4: You know, the next cycle of that was sometime in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty four, and you know again this and also
Speaker 4: you know, there's a thing like when you're a kid
Speaker 4: an adult tells you no, you're just instantly like, even
Speaker 4: if it's to your own detriment. And there was one
Speaker 4: point where I was like, yeah, Nardi Michael's right, like
Speaker 4: if I'm blind, like Stevie Wonder, I too can have gifts.
Speaker 4: And I was actually thinking, let me go outside and
Speaker 4: just stick. Do you remember your very first musical memory?
Speaker 2: When I was really little, my dad bought a record
Speaker 2: home called Froggy went a court and he did lie
Speaker 2: Froggy went according he did you know I was a
Speaker 2: little kid, kid, kid, kid kid. I remember that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. I also remember, very very young, I was
Speaker 2: so blessed by Santa with a toy toy Land drum
Speaker 2: set for Christmas. That blew my mind. These little drums
Speaker 2: with the paper heads. So you play them, but the
Speaker 2: head's been last very long because it's bit of paper.
Speaker 2: But I get orgasmic beating these damn things. And I
Speaker 2: see the happiness of my parents, my grandparents, and I
Speaker 2: got so happy. That's bigger when I knew that's it,
Speaker 2: that's a little little kid. I guess just after that
Speaker 2: would be like then making pillows and getting a pie
Speaker 2: ten and playing along with Na Simone live a town hall,
Speaker 2: you know, Summertime and that album, the live album of
Speaker 2: hers playing along with that, and then that became like
Speaker 2: kind of going on like that, you know, Ama Jamal
Speaker 2: and those those those type of records, playing along with them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just always there, that record, the young,
Speaker 2: the young vibe, catching the spirit of the music. So important.
Speaker 3: High tins were your symbols. Yeah A ten ten A
Speaker 3: we are the same person?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: So what is the significant of a pie tin symbol?
Speaker 5: What what what will we hear that on?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it just makes a high, high tending
Speaker 2: tink tink, you know it kind of if you don't
Speaker 2: have a symbol, at least it can make high kind
Speaker 2: of a sound like a symbol, so you know. H
Speaker 2: And a pillow, like a flat pillow can be like
Speaker 2: a bass drum or whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 4: I was set up chairs, Yeah, that's it. I was
Speaker 4: set up chairs, as my drum said. And then either
Speaker 4: the lamp, lamp shade or a pie ten.
Speaker 3: Was always my damn. I thought I was the only person.
Speaker 2: That thought about no, no, man. I bet Steven want
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 3: That is crazy.
Speaker 4: Recently I went back to my old neighborhood and I
Speaker 4: saw there's a lady that you know, still living and
Speaker 4: down the block, and she was telling like people's stories
Speaker 4: off like, eh, he used to always wail in the drums.
Speaker 4: I used to hear him five six houses away. So
Speaker 4: your parents lived in a household in which they encouraged
Speaker 4: you to make noise and all these things, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I got to say my dad was like
Speaker 2: eighteen when he had me. My mom was nineteen when
Speaker 2: they had me, and my dad wanted to be a drummer,
Speaker 2: and he would carry his best friend's drums around in
Speaker 2: a cant named Bill Dowdy from the Three Sounds. So
Speaker 2: he wasn't a drummer, but he loved it. So that
Speaker 2: was a big yes, you know, build out it from
Speaker 2: Three Sounds. Yes, well that was my dad's friend, and
Speaker 2: that's another record I was raised up playing along with
Speaker 2: him and my dad. Quite frankly, the only time he
Speaker 2: really kind of gave me the kudos like ild I
Speaker 2: could play was when I could play a note for
Speaker 2: note that record he bought. That was when he knew, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I guess you can play. But it wasn't until that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm letting you know that. The whole Billdouti thing
Speaker 2: in our family was a big to do and and
Speaker 2: I was I could make noise. So you're right, the
Speaker 2: parents loving you, loving what the sound? It's important.
Speaker 3: How old were you when you first started drumming?
Speaker 2: A little kid? Five, six, seven years old? But I
Speaker 2: didn't take stare droom lessons until like ten years old.
Speaker 2: You know, rudiment, five stroke, role paradiddles, you know like that,
Speaker 2: and then oh, your left hand is not as fast
Speaker 2: as your right hand. You gotta work right your left hand,
Speaker 2: all that kind of behavior. But then I'm really blessed.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're around the age of eleven twelve. There was
Speaker 2: a drummer on the north side of Kalamazoo, not apart
Speaker 2: from my grandparents house named Harold Mason. And Harold was
Speaker 2: a black cat who knew independency. And he had a
Speaker 2: Blue Book of Independency by Jim Chapin. So that book
Speaker 2: you play right hand written Jane Jane K Jean Chane
Speaker 2: K Jean Jechang like that, but then against it on
Speaker 2: the left hand. The pattern keeps changing, so you have
Speaker 2: to kind of, you know, keep reading the changing and
Speaker 2: like learning your mind how to break it up. Then
Speaker 2: you bring your feet into it, your bass drum, your
Speaker 2: high hat. But then he'd be so advanced. He would say, well,
Speaker 2: you know the jazz cats in New York, now you
Speaker 2: know what they're doing. They aren't just playing two and
Speaker 2: four in the hide anymore. They're playing with the high hand,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever they want to do on the on
Speaker 2: the on the left foot. I thought that that would
Speaker 2: be too much. I don't want to get into all that.
Speaker 2: I was happy just playing to do on the high
Speaker 2: hat with my foot. But he was that advanced breaking
Speaker 2: the mind up for independency, which really, to this day
Speaker 2: helped me. A lot of people don't understand its like
Speaker 2: learning to ride a bike. You can do it, then
Speaker 2: you can play all kind of crazy stuff. So it
Speaker 2: happened early in my life that I got with peril Maze.
Speaker 2: And then guess what happened. Harold went on to play
Speaker 2: the drumps for Stevie. Wonder. Now Stevie's a little older now,
Speaker 2: you know, signed to deliver. Those records are out and
Speaker 2: they came through Calumu Zoo a place called Western Michigan
Speaker 2: University of the College, and the place is to see
Speaker 2: Stevie won. He's a big star. So here's my teacher,
Speaker 2: Harold Maston, drums and the thing that caught the fire
Speaker 2: is this, and you'll appreciate you You're you're bad. Harold
Speaker 2: starts playing this groove, goes on the bell like one, two,
Speaker 2: the four dean t kitting dan thing, but bean to
Speaker 2: kitting thing thing, pan, kting thing thing, ticketing thing pan
Speaker 2: like that, and Steve's catching fire with us. Stevene runs
Speaker 2: over the blind stuff pushes us get off the drums.
Speaker 2: Harold gets on the drums and starts playing the same
Speaker 2: thing stronger.
Speaker 3: Dean Ti Kadan.
Speaker 2: King. I was like, damn. Then Stephen gets crazy. He
Speaker 2: stands up on the stool and the police goes ah.
Speaker 2: He falls off the stool on the floor, gets back
Speaker 2: up up again, falls on the floor and starts playing
Speaker 2: this groove. I'm like, these people are nuts. They're nuts,
Speaker 2: But it showed me that the level craziness you can
Speaker 2: go to and it's okay.
Speaker 3: You're one of the rare artists that I mean.
Speaker 4: We've had a few artists on the show that I
Speaker 4: have recollections of seeing one concert or two concerts or whatever.
Speaker 4: But a m I have believed that even since childhood,
Speaker 4: you were just regularly seeing shows of musicians.
Speaker 2: In Kalamus and Michigan. We're in the country, so it's
Speaker 2: not like I'm in the city. So no, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say like I'm like a New York where Ucats were
Speaker 2: or Philadelphia. No, we're country cats. We're country mice. But
Speaker 2: our ears are big because we're hearing all the music
Speaker 2: out of Detroit, We're hearing all the music out of Chicago.
Speaker 2: You know, five stairsteps Curtis Mayfield. We're hearing everything. We're
Speaker 2: hearing everything. We're hearing them the brand new motown, you know,
Speaker 2: shop around Miracles, We're hearing all the new stuff. You know, baby,
Speaker 2: I need you to love them before you don't even hears it.
Speaker 2: It's there at our parties. So that's what it was.
Speaker 2: It was just hearing the radio. And then I gotta
Speaker 2: say pop music like Patty Page, Old Cape Cod, Johnny Mathis's.
Speaker 2: Chances are all that music is just as huge in Michigan.
Speaker 2: So you love Prince. That's why Prince is so bad ass,
Speaker 2: because Prince not only got the funks, but but he
Speaker 2: got all the white pop stuff just as wrong. That's
Speaker 2: what it is back there, miss Minnesota, Michigan. Right, It's
Speaker 2: like a big old gumbo.
Speaker 3: I see. Were you a big record collector as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the records. I love the records, and
Speaker 2: I loved also like playing that song by the who
Speaker 2: I Can See for miles and miles of miles in
Speaker 2: my basement. That was that caught my attention. I didn't
Speaker 2: even know who Keith Muon or anything that was. I
Speaker 2: just like the I can see I Can see you
Speaker 2: know that left power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who was your idol? Drumming? Wise? Uh wait, do
Speaker 3: you play any other instruments besides drums?
Speaker 2: I just played keyboard piano to write my songs. You know,
Speaker 2: keyboards to.
Speaker 3: Right, So drumming is still your first left?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Who were your idols?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Once you develop your style, like, who's the person that
Speaker 4: I'm that person?
Speaker 3: Who's your north star?
Speaker 2: I learned from everybody. Harold taught me so much, Harold Mason,
Speaker 2: Stevie that that thing I just told you about. I
Speaker 2: was blown out by the charisma ringo star. I gotta
Speaker 2: tell you. On the Ed Sullivan Show, to see him
Speaker 2: flirt with the chicks in the upper balcony as he
Speaker 2: was playing the open slushy high hands smiling at the
Speaker 2: chicks above. I thought that was badass. See the chrism
Speaker 2: aspect got me more than the chops, just the swinging
Speaker 2: and the smiling. Wow man, Okay. Then Mitch Mitchell with
Speaker 2: Hendricks was mean. It was mean, so I had to
Speaker 2: give him a lot of love.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: So I've talked to many an artist and of a
Speaker 4: certain age, of a certain age for a lot of them.
Speaker 3: There north star was the Beatles on Sullivan the same
Speaker 3: way like twenty years later.
Speaker 4: Of course, like Motown twenty five was another north Star
Speaker 4: moment for people that watched the Moon.
Speaker 3: But I'm more fascinated when black.
Speaker 4: People speak of the Beatles on Sullivan, like, could you
Speaker 4: explain what the fascination was? Because was it just that
Speaker 4: there was nothing else? Like what made black people even
Speaker 4: open to that moment?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I knew the Beatles were coming because I
Speaker 2: saw their album cover in downtown Kallumazoo and Paul McCartney
Speaker 2: had a cigarette on the cover and that was unusual,
Speaker 2: just to see a cat having a cigarette bowl on
Speaker 2: the cover. Just small things like that. There's a Catholic
Speaker 2: school and so the girls were already certain rumble about
Speaker 2: the Beatles. It was already catch them fire, and that
Speaker 2: was unusual because no one ever talked about music. So
Speaker 2: here they are rumbling about the Beatles. It's like, really,
Speaker 2: you guys are into this. So when it hit and
Speaker 2: the best thing was this man, not just that show,
Speaker 2: but check this out. It'd be John Lennon saying, well,
Speaker 2: our favorite female vocalist is Mary Wells. It's like, damn
Speaker 2: Mary well That's that's Detroit, That's where I live. But
Speaker 2: little white girls a little better at the school. They
Speaker 2: who's Mary. It's like, damn, that's Mary Wells. They don't die.
Speaker 2: I don't know Mary Wells, they would say, and then
Speaker 2: ring John would say, well, also, our favorite male singer
Speaker 2: is a little Richard, Little Richard, little Richard that was
Speaker 2: on a seven year you know, long tall sally all
Speaker 2: those records. So but they have no idea who they were.
Speaker 2: So the Beatles really educated all these people who I knew,
Speaker 2: the little white kids whatever to what was really going down.
Speaker 2: So I do and I liked that. I liked that
Speaker 2: that's caught. That caught us because they're not the're talking
Speaker 2: about black people and given a shine which we never had.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. That was a big to do.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, man, this whole beatle Mania thing
Speaker 2: was real. So you're born with seventy one? What do
Speaker 2: what do you born right?
Speaker 3: Seventy one?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, so this is like sixty three, sixty four.
Speaker 2: It was on fire. We never experienced like it. Just
Speaker 2: even the plane, the plane landing, looking at them coming
Speaker 2: off the plane, people going hysterical, so just it just
Speaker 2: you go wow, wow. The music was good, but it
Speaker 2: was all the frenzy around it me like incredible, damn.
Speaker 2: But then when they started loving black people, I was like,
Speaker 2: I like these kids, you know what I was talking
Speaker 2: to talk about, talk about litle Richard, you know what
Speaker 2: I was talking about by your married Wells. So that's
Speaker 2: what it was, man, the catching of all these things
Speaker 2: that were like cool.
Speaker 3: Got it got yeah? All right?
Speaker 4: So how far is Detroit from Kalamazoo? And at any
Speaker 4: point did you make a move to Detroit? Like was
Speaker 4: Motown calling you or that sort of thing?
Speaker 2: I would love. I would love to have gone to
Speaker 2: to Motown. I've gone. We would drive to Detroit to
Speaker 2: go visit a family friend or whatever and just go
Speaker 2: by the street. But you know, you could never go
Speaker 2: in there. It was like a sacred territory. You know,
Speaker 2: you could never go in there. But just to go
Speaker 2: buy it, just drive by it would be like a
Speaker 2: big deal. So I don't have any stories of like,
Speaker 2: you know, going inside there or anything. But we all
Speaker 2: were just like religion. The chord changes and the way
Speaker 2: they put it together with the sounds and the great singers.
Speaker 2: It was just a religion, man.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was your what was your band? Experience like
Speaker 4: in your teen years, like were you forming bands in high.
Speaker 2: School or yes, yeah, my first band was I was
Speaker 2: eleven and he'd be ten. He played Hammond B three
Speaker 2: and his name is Joel Brooks and he was brilliant,
Speaker 2: like Jimmy Smith, a young kid, Jimmy Smith. So it
Speaker 2: just drums me and him on organ. And his uncle
Speaker 2: owned a little nightclub called the Ambassador Lounge on the
Speaker 2: north side of Caladizoo, the Black side of calnal Zoo.
Speaker 2: So he can go on in the Ambassador Lounge and
Speaker 2: be the opening at because his uncle owned the place
Speaker 2: before Jim mcgrifford, whoever's coming through town is gonna play
Speaker 2: what it was, Yes, So it was like first hand
Speaker 2: experienced playing Jane Jane or where we were gonna play
Speaker 2: before they came on. And you know that was just
Speaker 2: mind blowing because I must tell you also a part
Speaker 2: of what I love there is a record by Kennat
Speaker 2: Jimmy Smith called The Sermon Is twenty two minutes long.
Speaker 2: Were what it did to my brain is e equals
Speaker 2: empty square. Art Blakey played a batbeat two and four
Speaker 2: the whole record, because you know those cat jazz guys
Speaker 2: are busy, No, but dude, it just rocks like a
Speaker 2: blues record. I realized the power of that, and that
Speaker 2: really helped me a lot. That you could just put
Speaker 2: down and it's and people love it even more so. Man,
Speaker 2: those experience when I was eleven with the Ambassadors, that
Speaker 2: helped me that band. And then we bring a little
Speaker 2: horn player into it. You know, Captain was studying at
Speaker 2: the at the university on trumpet Pierre, or a Sacic
Speaker 2: player or a vise player, Carl. You know, I gonna
Speaker 2: expand the sound. So I had great experience playing the
Speaker 2: young like that, and then uh, I would do that.
Speaker 2: Then the rock thing of my own bands. And then
Speaker 2: as I got a little I left home when I
Speaker 2: was about sixteen years old, right, and I had now
Speaker 2: go to keyboards. I played Fender bass Oregon and we
Speaker 2: do like what does It Take by Junior Walker all Stars,
Speaker 2: those type of songs. But I'm playing keyboards now. So
Speaker 2: and then that band was called Distance in the Far.
Speaker 2: Then I had another band I played bass that's called
Speaker 2: the Mother Thump with the Flunkies. Now we're doing Expressway
Speaker 2: to Your Heart and Grand Funk Railroad. You know, are
Speaker 2: you ready all that music. Yeah. So, and then before
Speaker 2: I left Kalamazoo, I joined a horn band, kind of
Speaker 2: a Chicago horn band, but very progressive called Avatar and
Speaker 2: they were really, really, like, probably the most progressive band
Speaker 2: I've been with. And then my friend who played trouble
Speaker 2: with that band, Bobby Napp, he said, do you know
Speaker 2: about this record by Cold Blood called I said no.
Speaker 2: He played me this cap man named Sandy McGee on
Speaker 2: an album called Siss. And to this day, you say
Speaker 2: north Star moment, that's still my north Star moment. Sandy
Speaker 2: McGee on drums.
Speaker 4: Wow, Okay, So when's the moment in which you're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is my profession.
Speaker 3: I am going to be a drummer.
Speaker 2: Always. I didn't want to ever do anything else. I
Speaker 2: remember one day I had joined a band called dickon
Speaker 2: Wings so Revival that came to Calamazoo. They took me
Speaker 2: up after I did want to be in college anymore.
Speaker 2: I went three semesters of college. I packed my drums
Speaker 2: in their school bus and went out to play them Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 2: these little nasty joints. But it was so important that
Speaker 2: I did that because that I really knew how to
Speaker 2: connect with the people people people, the people people people,
Speaker 2: and that was that same and my dad. I come
Speaker 2: back to Calendars to go play some more clubs, and
Speaker 2: my dad would saying, why didn't you just become a policeman,
Speaker 2: you know, because this whole road thing for you, I
Speaker 2: don't know if you should be doing that. But now
Speaker 2: now I was always a drummer. Then that band decided
Speaker 2: to go out to California. Now here we are going
Speaker 2: out to California. I came out to California, you know,
Speaker 2: we played shows out here and you know, in Hollywood
Speaker 2: and all that. Then that band broke up. Then I decided, no,
Speaker 2: I want to stay in California. And then that became hard.
Speaker 2: Now my ship from receiving clerk downtown La, wrapping boxes
Speaker 2: here in music, constantly just trying to get out of here,
Speaker 2: you know, how to save myself. And I had a
Speaker 2: few cousins, one that helped me out out in the
Speaker 2: Englewood area and then another one out in Pasadena. He said,
Speaker 2: come stay with me, and I did, and then it
Speaker 2: was there I could like really shed was now the
Speaker 2: Mobblished Workers album just came out. I had enough money
Speaker 2: to buy that Inner Mounting Flame album that just crush
Speaker 2: to me. I'd never heard anything like Colbum vishnu on
Speaker 2: that effort and seven nine eleven whatever, what the hell
Speaker 2: funk you like a fucking dog god? So that became
Speaker 2: my shedding shed And then I also love Buddy Miles,
Speaker 2: the live album that got that Bam S Joe text.
Speaker 2: You know, then for spiritual moments you put on Alice
Speaker 2: Coltrane's Universal Consciousness side too. You know, it could be
Speaker 2: Jack Vignette, you know, just like so how kind of
Speaker 2: got off on mixing these worlds, the Colbumn, cleanless Buddy
Speaker 2: funk and the Jackie net symbols. I love all that
Speaker 2: stuff that I got that I met this cat man
Speaker 2: you might know him Eddie Hazel. I had a band
Speaker 2: with him called Ouch Why he was so mean because
Speaker 2: me being good that he could play the funk really fast.
Speaker 2: That prepared me for provision you later. But he'd be like,
Speaker 2: look at and then you pass around this joint, but
Speaker 2: it'd be laced with PCP the angel dust. So now
Speaker 2: you're really getting out there. But you know you're looking
Speaker 2: at him because he's gorgeous, got his things on and
Speaker 2: gorgeous and just playing so clean and so fast aries.
Speaker 2: So those type of things happen for me. You know,
Speaker 2: I've had great experiences.
Speaker 4: I need I need to hear what Eddie Hazel was
Speaker 4: like from a person not in the p funk atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Just a big, big, big brain, you know, like Hendrick's
Speaker 2: a big brain, you know, and not afraid of anything,
Speaker 2: the rock, the tone, the funk, the black, like early prince,
Speaker 2: like a prince could hug like he was, that could
Speaker 2: do anything like in those worlds and not not scared
Speaker 2: of anything. And and again this powerful, it's powerful, this
Speaker 2: powerful thing that would go around and would be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I almost can't mess with that because
Speaker 2: I'm too I'm too sensitive, but it would just make
Speaker 2: you feel like whoa you know. So Eddie Hayes was
Speaker 2: an influent I didn't stayed them very long, you know,
Speaker 2: because he was always moving, but you know, but he
Speaker 2: made a big influence in my life. You know. You
Speaker 2: hear Maggot brains that how he plays on that record,
Speaker 2: It's like that's who he is.
Speaker 4: I would look to know at what point did the
Speaker 4: teachings of Sri Chamoy enter your life, Like was it
Speaker 4: during this period or was it later on.
Speaker 2: Just after this period. This is my passage in the
Speaker 2: LA experience I'm talking about, right, you know. And then
Speaker 2: I had to work hard to try to find work
Speaker 2: out in LA, you know, very hard. And they even
Speaker 2: go back in the big what's called a you know,
Speaker 2: an orderly in the hospitals to make ends meet. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't long after I got a phone call from Miami.
Speaker 2: A cat and down there named Santa Toronto, guitar player
Speaker 2: from a winter band down in Santa Morono. He found
Speaker 2: he heard about me. He said, come down to Miami.
Speaker 2: So he bought my first plane ticket. I'd never been
Speaker 2: on the plane before. What it be it maybe seventy one,
Speaker 2: seventy two, seventy one there, see, because I got to
Speaker 2: my high school seventy so that's now the year you're born,
Speaker 2: seventy one around that area. One that I fled in Miami,
Speaker 2: and I like Miami, and it really opened my eyes
Speaker 2: again because I'm at the universe. I wasn't at the university,
Speaker 2: but at the university would be all these great cats
Speaker 2: coming up. Pat Matheeni, you know, Danny Gotlieb hiring Bullock,
Speaker 2: Cliff Card and Patty Scaffolo's now married to Bruce Bringsteen.
Speaker 2: They are all these young people like that. But my
Speaker 2: friend was one of the teachers them stand SMOLDI and
Speaker 2: I stayed with him and he'd have books on the group.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, I said, this is the cat who's
Speaker 2: inspiring my vision news. Yes, so then you start reading
Speaker 2: the books of poetry on she was treaching moy that
Speaker 2: were inspiring my vision news. The poems of birds of fire,
Speaker 2: you know, my flute and immortality, all these things he
Speaker 2: was writing that were just beautiful and very God ordained.
Speaker 2: So I had a band down there called the New
Speaker 2: MacGuire Sisters. Now we really went full fledge rock spusion
Speaker 2: out there, odd meters to the limit because now Mobby
Speaker 2: Storchestra made it go there, and we'd have this big
Speaker 2: warehouse where the sound would just be like enormous, like
Speaker 2: I could mic my bass drum with a big SVT amplifier.
Speaker 2: So I got used to just making this huge sound
Speaker 2: in there. And then not long after we got all
Speaker 2: this together, that band then moved to Connecticut, a place
Speaker 2: called Canan, Connecticut, where up on the board of matth
Speaker 2: Houst's in Connecticut a farm a bard where we could play.
Speaker 2: It was an awesome sound, and then the little cabins
Speaker 2: in a main house and so we could keep kept working.
Speaker 2: But I was always scratching how am I gonna make it?
Speaker 2: But how am I gonna make it? How am I
Speaker 2: gonna make it? I was always on my soul. And
Speaker 2: then not long after came through Hartford the Mobys Shtorkers'
Speaker 2: second album, playing the Birds of Fire. And I had
Speaker 2: my friend, our manager, take me down to that show
Speaker 2: and dropped me off at the show. And what this
Speaker 2: is really important because you asked about Guru. This was
Speaker 2: my first time laying eyes on the real living Mobbish
Speaker 2: new and cobblem And as I'm getting the I'm bit late,
Speaker 2: the place is packed. There's a bright light on vish
Speaker 2: you and it's just him on double neck guitar and
Speaker 2: Cob going at it maybe in seventeen something so out
Speaker 2: there you would never you can't even count it. But
Speaker 2: they were like so intense with it. It was just nuts.
Speaker 2: So I decided to walk right down to the edge
Speaker 2: of the stage and look up in his eyes and
Speaker 2: see what the hell is going on? And I did.
Speaker 2: I looked right up in his eyes and he's he's
Speaker 2: just the bullets just bullets just like an adimal on fire,
Speaker 2: and his eyes are back in his head and I go, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is real. It's too intense to be made to me,
Speaker 2: to be like memorized. It's just flowing through him. And
Speaker 2: it went up for so long that could have been
Speaker 2: like tw many minutes of this. I heard John Coltrane
Speaker 2: on record with Elvin Jones just be out there for
Speaker 2: the longest times. I've never seen anything live in a
Speaker 2: rock setting. Marshals five's drum set, loud clean vibes. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, clear fives, loud clean. It could stop like
Speaker 2: that and back at it together. Oh Holy God, this
Speaker 2: is this is now my life. This is now gotta
Speaker 2: be what I gotta go to because if I if
Speaker 2: I do another direction of my life, I could die.
Speaker 2: I don't want to die. Jimmy, who are my fruit?
Speaker 2: My heroes? Now I knew that the vision was into God.
Speaker 2: He'd found the meditation way because I knew about his guru.
Speaker 2: So that night I saw a guy in white. I
Speaker 2: knew his disciple. His name is a Pikshah. I said, please,
Speaker 2: a paic Shaw, I really have to meet Morvish team
Speaker 2: back to meet him, and he was so kind to
Speaker 2: me of the whole audience something I'm nobody. He gets
Speaker 2: me backstage and Marvish to pokes his head and said,
Speaker 2: go in that little room and I'll meet you in
Speaker 2: one minute. And I wait that little tiny room and
Speaker 2: I'm scared because I've never seen anything like this. And
Speaker 2: I can hear Cobbm and Joan Hamer you know, Hi
Speaker 2: talk in the other room like Mcca you know, and
Speaker 2: Jon They're all and then maister comes in and he's
Speaker 2: like English with this black mob. Miles Davis talk, hello, brother,
Speaker 2: how are you?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Just like what is that? But that's how he was.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, my name is Michael Wallas and
Speaker 2: I said I've never seen anything like you, and I
Speaker 2: want to be like you. I played drums and he said, well,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm doing is larg as I do
Speaker 2: to my prayer life, my meditation life. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, because I ran on the back of your jackets.
Speaker 2: These the poems by your group. He said yeah. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see my grou at six in the morning
Speaker 2: and I'll tell I met you. And that was like damn.
Speaker 2: Here We're on the backstage in Hartford. It's almost one
Speaker 2: in the morning. He is going to drive all night,
Speaker 2: go back to Queens, New York and see the grew
Speaker 2: at six am. That's not he's not going to sleep
Speaker 2: after just what I saw him do. Something is so
Speaker 2: small like that just rock my world. This is too
Speaker 2: much and you know what happened. It's just God. Because
Speaker 2: about a week later, I'm way out in the country
Speaker 2: of Hayman, Connecticut, in the woods at this farm I
Speaker 2: lived in, and the throne rings and it's Mahavish New.
Speaker 2: He says, Ah, Man, it's Marvish New. And I can't
Speaker 2: be the tonight, but I want you to go to
Speaker 2: the meditation in Norwalk and meet the Grew tonight. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: So Man, I had long hair. I brushed my hair back,
Speaker 2: you know, and I got my shaver and I shaved
Speaker 2: my beard off because I know they have no beards.
Speaker 2: And my mom had made me a kind of a
Speaker 2: white dog shiki. I put that white does she k on?
Speaker 2: And we had an old limousine that the new McGuire
Speaker 2: sisters had and my friend Greg Felt drove me down
Speaker 2: there and to nor Walk. And when I got there,
Speaker 2: that was I was a little bit late too, so
Speaker 2: guess what happened. I go inside and I leave my
Speaker 2: eyes on the grou The area is singing and playing
Speaker 2: the harmonium and singing, and he sees me and keep singing.
Speaker 2: And the girls are on one side, and the boys
Speaker 2: and the other side. They're all wearing white, and the
Speaker 2: girls are all wearing these kind of Indian sories. So
Speaker 2: there's one chair left on the girl's sides. I sit
Speaker 2: down with the girls, and then this old lady named Akoutie,
Speaker 2: she gets up front and she reads out of his
Speaker 2: new book called The Dance of Life, Part two. And
Speaker 2: the poems in this book were just like knives in
Speaker 2: my heart, because you know, it was just just crying
Speaker 2: to God. You know, Oh Lord, how many days, how
Speaker 2: many nights, how many minutes, seconds, hours must I cry
Speaker 2: to see your face? How long must I wait to
Speaker 2: see you? Go on and on like that, And then
Speaker 2: that hit me again, Maybe what you're asking for, Michael,
Speaker 2: It was not an ard, I was, Michael. Maybe what
Speaker 2: you're asking for you're not really ready for. That's what
Speaker 2: hit me again. Then I met a black gentleman just
Speaker 2: after the whole thing, named Lelehan. He's all, let's go
Speaker 2: stare as the library you know me by guy by
Speaker 2: a book, and then I can take you to the
Speaker 2: to the UH to the restaurant called Love and Serve. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I go up to the library and all these
Speaker 2: books you have written, I have just enough moneed to
Speaker 2: buy a book called The Dance of Life Part two
Speaker 2: that they had read the downstairs they had read from
Speaker 2: So I buy that one book and I said'm walking
Speaker 2: down the stairs. Man, here is the gurul in the
Speaker 2: living room, just standing there kind of meditating. And I
Speaker 2: stopped and he says, so you are mobbish and his
Speaker 2: friend I said, yes, said you would like you would
Speaker 2: like to become my disciple. I said I think I'm ready,
Speaker 2: And he went into a long meditation like just all moblished,
Speaker 2: the eyes back in his head, and just this feeling
Speaker 2: came over me as I stood before him. And then
Speaker 2: long after he said I accept through him my heart,
Speaker 2: and then he kind of walked away. But as he
Speaker 2: walked away, I kind of felt like an explosion and
Speaker 2: happening inside of me, and maybe explosion of gratitude that
Speaker 2: now I've not met my vision you now, I mean
Speaker 2: it's girl. His giru has just accepted me. Who am. I.
Speaker 2: That's what happened to me. And I was so grateful
Speaker 2: that to be to be accepted, and I knew that
Speaker 2: would save my life because I did not want to die.
Speaker 2: I'm the kind of cat LSD loved the experiences of
Speaker 2: being so high. But you can have a bad experience
Speaker 2: and be out of here or at his BSPs and
Speaker 2: the angel dosts and those things can just get you
Speaker 2: out of here. Man, so here, this is the God way.
Speaker 2: You just love God. You know you pray, you meditate,
Speaker 2: you know you you you do beautiful things that you
Speaker 2: offer your music to God. That change the whole trick
Speaker 2: is obtected in my life.
Speaker 3: All right, let me ask you something because it took me.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no no. I appreciate you sharing that because.
Speaker 4: The thing is is that it might have taken me
Speaker 4: about five decades to even be open to that level
Speaker 4: of spirituality. Because you know, for a lot of African
Speaker 4: Americans in America, like we clutch onto our Christianity like
Speaker 4: no one's business and any other kind of straying from
Speaker 4: you know, what your grandmom taught to you, what her
Speaker 4: grandmother taught her, what and so on and so forth
Speaker 4: back to you know, our presence in this country is
Speaker 4: often frowned upon amongst other black people. Like I remember
Speaker 4: seeing an interview with like Maurice White of earth Wood
Speaker 4: Fire maybe like in the late seventies early eighties, where
Speaker 4: he's talking about this level of spirituality and kind of
Speaker 4: looking at the adults in the room as he's saying
Speaker 4: it's on television. They're frowning like mm hmm, see that's
Speaker 4: that double shit. He ain't talking about Christianity. Da da da,
Speaker 4: So like, what made you? Because this is not even
Speaker 4: though this, this level of spirituality is our African origins?
Speaker 2: Yes, what made you?
Speaker 3: Just sort of bypass.
Speaker 4: The fear of what will others think about me? Or
Speaker 4: what will my parents say? Or what will my fellow
Speaker 4: Michigan's people or a fellow of black people?
Speaker 3: They think like, I'm this weird? What made you just
Speaker 3: bypass that?
Speaker 2: I want to save my life? It was just me
Speaker 2: against the world. It's just me against the world. How
Speaker 2: am I going to make it? This is the way
Speaker 2: to make it? Narada, My visions accepted you as a friend.
Speaker 2: He's calling you the phone. This is his guru, his
Speaker 2: grou's accepted you. It felt good to me. It was
Speaker 2: a way of living a good life, of having a
Speaker 2: way of directing my attention, my focus. And I needed that.
Speaker 2: I know, I knew I needed it. I was raised Catholic,
Speaker 2: I was raised with mother, married Jesus and all that,
Speaker 2: and I hold the communion and all that and all
Speaker 2: those things, you know, the your stay and the sanctuary
Speaker 2: and all the beautiful music. But but that wasn't saving me.
Speaker 2: And I had been clobbered by Morvish News Live, not
Speaker 2: only on record, you know, unspoken heights live, I see.
Speaker 2: And then to meet this teacher, he was beautiful, It
Speaker 2: was nothing wrong. It was like, okay, would you follow Jesus. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well there's a living example of someone living truth, talking truth.
Speaker 2: What you're gonna do? So for me, it was a blessing,
Speaker 2: absolute blessing. There was no doubt about that at all.
Speaker 2: Only data was Am I Am I good enough? Am
Speaker 2: I ready enough? Like I told you? When did you
Speaker 2: when did he grant you with the name Nara? Well
Speaker 2: that came later, he told me, laters, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna spoil you. I've spoiled so many, given
Speaker 2: them names too fast or do early. I'm not gonna spoil,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make you. And it wasn't until the release
Speaker 2: of Garden of Lovelight that he gave me a min
Speaker 2: named Narda. And he said, no row dumb, no ruh.
Speaker 2: That went on for so long, I don't know if
Speaker 2: a name is nah rah ar Da. So he said, Narda,
Speaker 2: Narda supreme musician. Narda' soul brings from having to Earth light,
Speaker 2: delight and compassion and takes back to having from Earth
Speaker 2: earth sufferings. So the music, this is my role now
Speaker 2: as Narda. Michael Oldham and uh yeah, what.
Speaker 3: Leads to your deal at Atlantic Records?
Speaker 4: And on top of that, how did you link with
Speaker 4: of all people Tom Dowd on your first album.
Speaker 2: I went through after I joined Mavish Orchestra and did
Speaker 2: like two and a half years with my Vish Orchestra.
Speaker 2: When that band stopped and Vishnu then went to Shakti
Speaker 2: with you know, Zakia Hussein and that genius stuff. Then
Speaker 2: I was really into a funk, in a depression because
Speaker 2: now I didn't know what to do with my life.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm I'm high now now all my chop
Speaker 2: everything is. But what are you gonna do? You're not
Speaker 2: in the band anymore. It was like the Beatle brook up.
Speaker 2: So I just tried to think of what I was
Speaker 2: going to do. I became a teacher for a while,
Speaker 2: the drama workshop, the teacher's thing, what the word was
Speaker 2: called someplace. I played top talk down there for a while. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm saying to you, I just had to focus, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, that's just going to my solo career.
Speaker 2: So then my attorney was Barry Plattine. He said, you
Speaker 2: know what, Epic Records will pay for you to make
Speaker 2: a demo, you know, because at least you've got some
Speaker 2: names from coming to Movis structure. I said, okay. So
Speaker 2: then I heard off Lenny White's album of Phoenician Summers,
Speaker 2: this cat named Raymond Gomez, who I thought, damn, this
Speaker 2: guy has got the chops like I'm wanting to hear.
Speaker 2: And then when I met him, he had the both
Speaker 2: sides of Candridge Blues with chops and infusionary. So I said, okay,
Speaker 2: I want you. Would you play make my demo with
Speaker 2: me and David Sanchez who had made his album Hime
Speaker 2: on keyboards and then a guy like ru Lee was
Speaker 2: David's bass player at the time. So then I went
Speaker 2: to Epic and made son Is Dancing maybe delightful and
Speaker 2: one wan one of the songs, or maybe maybe delfe
Speaker 2: on one of the songs three three things, and the
Speaker 2: Epic turned it down. So then walk on the streets
Speaker 2: thinking how you're gonna make it, How you're gonna make it,
Speaker 2: how you're gonna make And then Barry said, just you know,
Speaker 2: stay patient. And I got a phone call from my
Speaker 2: cat named Raymond Silva from Atlantic. They were doing well
Speaker 2: with now colbum and he said, you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe we'd be interested in you. So then I gave
Speaker 2: them my tape that I've done for the Epic of
Speaker 2: the Sun Is Dancing and maybe with a few things
Speaker 2: I've cut, and I met Jerry Greenberg, who was a
Speaker 2: president at the time, and then they offered me a deal.
Speaker 2: But guess what, they said, we want half your publishing.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, I wanted to deal that bad. I
Speaker 2: was doing well with Wired. I wrote four so Always
Speaker 2: on Wire for Jeff Beeck, so I'm making money so
Speaker 2: that they said we won't have to publish. I said not,
Speaker 2: I don't care. Just sign me, give me a shot,
Speaker 2: and they did, and then they said, you have your
Speaker 2: choice of two producers in house producers or Reef Martin
Speaker 2: or Tommy Dowd. And I said, well, I love them both,
Speaker 2: but this album is more on the rock side, and
Speaker 2: I want to use this engineer from London who did
Speaker 2: the last Mobish album called Inner Worlds, named Dennis McKay right,
Speaker 2: So I thought maybe I should use Timy Tommy Dowd
Speaker 2: because he's more on that side of things. And I did.
Speaker 2: Tommy said hey, let's work, and Timy was so cool
Speaker 2: and he just let me be me and help me.
Speaker 2: And I was in that studio brother Whereretha and ray
Speaker 2: and all that. That's why I cut the Garden Love
Speaker 2: and that main studio and it'd be on I do
Speaker 2: want to say. Another cat was there as Jimmy Douglas,
Speaker 2: a young backup cat. He was my He was the second.
Speaker 2: So it'd be him and desm Kay and Tommy, Tommy
Speaker 2: Dowd and my hot band of Raymond Gomez David Sanchez
Speaker 2: will Lee on bass and myself. That was the core.
Speaker 2: I deliverhearsal forts so they'd know what to expect in
Speaker 2: the studio so we could cut it fast because you know,
Speaker 2: as you know still your time and all that expensive.
Speaker 2: So we went in there and know I knew White
Speaker 2: Knight Ray and I wrote that and we knew how
Speaker 2: to do it. I brought in a created ranger named
Speaker 2: Michael Gibbs who did the Apocalypse album Mama Short, because
Speaker 2: he was brought up to range my strings when I
Speaker 2: wanted that. And then my friends came, like Carlos Santannaka
Speaker 2: did to think of First Love, which is beautiful, Jeff
Speaker 2: Beck Game to do Satan Lurascal, which is beautiful. So
Speaker 2: I'm just really honored by that album, and I'm glad
Speaker 2: that you know about it, because some people don't even
Speaker 2: know about it. But that was my first soul album.
Speaker 2: My baby, Yo, Yo, what up everybody. This is Fonte
Speaker 2: Fontibelo from Team Supreme. We haven't done this in.
Speaker 5: A while, but this conversation is so great and we
Speaker 5: had so much to cover that we had to make
Speaker 5: it a two parter. Look out for part two, drop
Speaker 5: it next week or above this in your podcast feed.
Speaker 5: In that conversation, Narta talks about his work with Whitney Houston,
Speaker 5: Aretha Franklin Starship, and becoming one of the most in Deman.
Speaker 1: Producers and all of music of all.
Speaker 3: Time, Top flight.
Speaker 5: Security of the world, Craig this conversation, it was mind
Speaker 5: blowing from me.
Speaker 2: And I know you're gonna enjoy it, all right, that's happening.
Speaker 1: Must Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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