Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sweat Godcat.
Speaker 1: My guest today is legendary songwriter David Ugo. Where's a
Speaker 1: new book, The Soul Mayor?
Speaker 2: David?
Speaker 1: Why this book? Why? Now?
Speaker 2: Well, there are a couple of numbers. One is eighty
Speaker 2: four and one is uh. The clock is ticking, and
Speaker 2: so for that reason, I wanted to be sure that
Speaker 2: the wonderful experience I've had being in this business called
Speaker 2: music and what has done for me, to me and
Speaker 2: through me, I wanted to be sure that my fans
Speaker 2: and grandkids and family would have something to keep that
Speaker 2: signifies they would have heard it from me. And the
Speaker 2: book gave me the opportunity to do just that.
Speaker 1: Bob, Okay, where do you live right now?
Speaker 2: I live in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: So you're still in Memphis. The book goes on a
Speaker 1: lot about Memphis. Let's start with how is Memphis different
Speaker 1: today from when you grew up?
Speaker 2: Well, I think with any city there is progress, there
Speaker 2: are changes. For the most part. If you're in love
Speaker 2: with the place that you've been all of your life,
Speaker 2: you look can see the beauty. And with any city
Speaker 2: there are challenges and circumstances that cause you to wonder,
Speaker 2: but you realize that in this too she pass away
Speaker 2: as an old statement, but it's a lot of truth
Speaker 2: to it. So Memphis is quite different than it was
Speaker 2: when I was younger. I was born in the forties,
Speaker 2: so you can imagine what that was for a kid
Speaker 2: born in the Deep South with circumstances that were not
Speaker 2: favorable for him, yet he had to go forward. And
Speaker 2: so being a part of that kind of initial phase,
Speaker 2: the only way was up. In Memphis has shown great
Speaker 2: deal of proper regress through the years, and at this
Speaker 2: particular time it is a major progress from where it
Speaker 2: used to be in many positive ways. And then there
Speaker 2: are growths in areas outside of music that are very
Speaker 2: positive as well. So I'm really really proud of this
Speaker 2: city and what it has done, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: for me and for those that I care about, and
Speaker 2: it's done wonderful things for many many people. And I've
Speaker 2: seen those kinds of circumstances and action as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've been to Memphis, and I always read about it.
Speaker 1: It's in Tennessee, people may or may not realize, across
Speaker 1: the river from Arkansas and very close to Mississippi, but
Speaker 1: it's the same state as Nashville, and they're radically different.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what makes Memphis different from Nashville.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not one to get into bashing any city,
Speaker 2: and certainly not a city that's in the state. Even
Speaker 2: there are some things inside of me that says hmm,
Speaker 2: but uh, I I just feel that that there is
Speaker 2: a a soulfulness, there is a persona that is unique
Speaker 2: uh for Memphis. Uh there is a a spirit of
Speaker 2: samples of of of kind of all around. You mentioned Mississippi, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and when whatever there are samples of of of of
Speaker 2: of things all around that plays a part in the
Speaker 2: meshing the melting pot of what makes for an interesting place.
Speaker 2: So there there are things that you you experienced in
Speaker 2: an ongoing way that was not like yesterday, but certainly
Speaker 2: you have no way of knowing if it will be
Speaker 2: similar to tomorrow. So Memphis affords you that kind of of
Speaker 2: of of kind of potential. But also the musical influence
Speaker 2: of Memphis versus what what uh uh has been historically
Speaker 2: in Nashville is quite different in in respect that Memphis
Speaker 2: has never run away from the value of the blues,
Speaker 2: never run away from the value of R and B.
Speaker 2: Never run away from the value of the significant contribution
Speaker 2: of blacks in not only in the country this country,
Speaker 2: but in and through music, and so just that embracing
Speaker 2: of it that became a factor that motivates other young kids,
Speaker 2: blacks and whites with aspirations to do music, that that's
Speaker 2: a good area to touch upon. And so Memphis makes
Speaker 2: a vast contribution to the to the significance of why
Speaker 2: there is they just intimilate for instance, or Charlie Rich
Speaker 2: for instance, or in Elvis Presley for other instances. I mean,
Speaker 2: but that's just part of the magic of what makes
Speaker 2: Memphis unique, the soulfulness that's never been compromised.
Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree was there racism growing up? And
Speaker 1: what degree were you aware of it?
Speaker 2: Well? Uh, to what degree there was racism? And what
Speaker 2: When I was very young, I didn't understand what to
Speaker 2: call it. I just knew for some reason that people
Speaker 2: who didn't look like me thought that they were better
Speaker 2: than me. The interesting thing about that was, as children
Speaker 2: or young people, you don't know how to define better
Speaker 2: because you're living from day to day, growing each and
Speaker 2: every day. But when someone gives you a spirit of
Speaker 2: non acceptance, don't be close to me, don't touch me,
Speaker 2: or don't drink from this water fountain of that kind
Speaker 2: of thing that tells you that they have a problem,
Speaker 2: not you, even as a kid, because I had to
Speaker 2: scratch my head in wonder what these people who think
Speaker 2: they're better do they ever use the restroom? Do theyny
Speaker 2: what toilet paper is? I mean, is there a difference?
Speaker 2: It's just it's just it just made a young kid
Speaker 2: wonder and not necessarily call it for what it was,
Speaker 2: because you were not clear on what it was. But
Speaker 2: you know there was a difference. And that was the
Speaker 2: experience for quite a while growing up. And then the
Speaker 2: music on the radio. When I started listening to the radio,
Speaker 2: initially I was hearing you know, Pat Boone and Frank
Speaker 2: Sinatra and artists of that il before nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: forty eight, when I was like heading tw what eight
Speaker 2: and nine years old. Then here comes a radio station
Speaker 2: called WDIA, and that gave me a sense of significance
Speaker 2: that made me one understand what race was, and two
Speaker 2: understand that this radio station was playing the music that
Speaker 2: was relatable and more digestible for people who look like
Speaker 2: me and the other music that I was hearing that
Speaker 2: I had to adapt to and appreciate, was really not
Speaker 2: necessarily for me, but it was something to hear. But
Speaker 2: I respected the value of good music, so I enjoyed
Speaker 2: that as a youngstery as well. Because I didn't know
Speaker 2: any better than when I started hearing w DI. I
Speaker 2: I didn't know that I like WDI like that. So
Speaker 2: how did you discover you? W dia A and tell
Speaker 2: us more about the programming, what the DJs were like,
Speaker 2: and what the songs were that they were playing. Well.
Speaker 2: WDA was the first African American radio station in America.
Speaker 2: They changed the format from pop country music to blues
Speaker 2: and rhythm and blues the early stages of rhythm and
Speaker 2: blues at that particular time, and that format involved with
Speaker 2: quite clarity are artists of the ILK of Chuck Berry
Speaker 2: and Bo Diddley, and how wof Jimmy Reid and eventually
Speaker 2: BB King then Bobby Blue Blair. All of the artists
Speaker 2: that you were able to listen to gave you a
Speaker 2: clear picture why most of the world was saying, y'all
Speaker 2: all look alike, you're this, you're not whatever, But this
Speaker 2: music was showing young kids in blacks in that area
Speaker 2: that the personalities, in the uniqueness that was in those
Speaker 2: artists potentially was in each and every person that looked
Speaker 2: like me. So that gave that generation that I was
Speaker 2: a part of, a drive to fight, to work to
Speaker 2: find the individuality that they believe existed in them. And
Speaker 2: so that radio station was amazing in that regard for
Speaker 2: getting you to see the value of you as a person.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're a little kid, you're listening to WDIA.
Speaker 1: What were a couple of record words that moved you
Speaker 1: that just blew your mind? A.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's hard to sell a couple, Bob, but I
Speaker 2: would look to Chuck Berry for one, Boldilly for another.
Speaker 2: And when I say blew my mind, the music of
Speaker 2: patterns that I'd been hearing was straight flow. There was
Speaker 2: no dynamics happening with it. The chord progressions were there,
Speaker 2: but there was no differentiating what those chord progressions were
Speaker 2: saying to you in addition to what the lyric was saying.
Speaker 2: When I was beginning to hear music on WDIA, the
Speaker 2: music spoke to me in concert with the message. The
Speaker 2: personality of the artists spoke to me in contact with
Speaker 2: the uniqueness of them, and it was like music was
Speaker 2: in fact a language. I started seeing the value of
Speaker 2: that as a young kid, and it made me have
Speaker 2: aspirations to try to find what that unique disc it
Speaker 2: possibly mean in my young life. So I started writing
Speaker 2: down lyrics and harm and melodies as I'm listening to
Speaker 2: songs being played on it that I was making up
Speaker 2: while I was listening to things that were being played.
Speaker 2: So it was it was that kind of magic with
Speaker 2: that format to WDA was having. In addition to that,
Speaker 2: they were making an offering of engaging more directly with
Speaker 2: the community. They were having talent shows on the radio.
Speaker 2: They were having singing choirs that sang on Saturdays, the
Speaker 2: teen Tones as it teen Towns rather as they used
Speaker 2: to call it, where they would perform on the radio.
Speaker 2: And now at these the kids from all different schools
Speaker 2: that would come together to rehearse to develop a format
Speaker 2: that they were being instructed by one of the radio
Speaker 2: personalities on the station of WDA, mister A. C. Williams.
Speaker 2: So it was it was just such an unbelievable country
Speaker 2: contribution of radio at that time. It was an educational platform.
Speaker 2: It was a spiritual platform on Sundays with church being played.
Speaker 2: But it also was a platform of seeing the individuality
Speaker 2: of black talents that were heard on that station, which
Speaker 2: was amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, we talk about the records on that station. You
Speaker 1: personally have been responsible for number of hit records, very
Speaker 1: successful records, not like today. When these records were hit,
Speaker 1: everybody in America was aware of these records. You're in
Speaker 1: the studio making a record. Do you know when it's
Speaker 1: a hit or when it's not a hit?
Speaker 2: Let me say it to you like this, Bob, because
Speaker 2: this ansin. I don't think there are fortune talents out here,
Speaker 2: but I think sometimes you get fortune. And so a
Speaker 2: couple of times I felt so comfortable broke the little money.
Speaker 2: Don't know what the platform of major success truly means,
Speaker 2: but I felt that that song was going to be successful.
Speaker 2: What that meant in actuality, we told clarity No, I
Speaker 2: didn't know. I was learning, but I felt that the
Speaker 2: first song I felt that on significantly And we've been
Speaker 2: Isaac and I had done a few records before this,
Speaker 2: but the first song I significantly felt that was a
Speaker 2: song on Sam and Dave called you don't know like
Speaker 2: I know. And when that record came out, I assumed
Speaker 2: that record would only be played on black radio stations,
Speaker 2: and it was. But I also assumed that, if I'm
Speaker 2: thinking right, this music is digestible to people who don't
Speaker 2: go to church. But the spiritual significance that was in
Speaker 2: that particular melody and song came from the church, and
Speaker 2: I felt that that was going to do something special,
Speaker 2: and it did, and it was a chart record for
Speaker 2: Salm and Dave, and that was a road map for
Speaker 2: Isaac and I to cement the concept of creativity that
Speaker 2: we used all of the hits that we did.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's she use that first big Sam and Dave
Speaker 1: song as an example. When did you know you had
Speaker 1: it when you were writing it, when you were recording it,
Speaker 1: when they were receiving did you know from the time
Speaker 1: that you know it was composed or did you have
Speaker 1: to make a finished record to say now I've got
Speaker 1: all of it?
Speaker 2: No, No, Isaac and I worked from concepts. The reason
Speaker 2: we worked from concepts, if you don't mind me elaborating
Speaker 2: just a little bit, the reason we worked for concepts
Speaker 2: because when we would hear music on the radio motown records,
Speaker 2: we saw that motown records had more of an emphasis
Speaker 2: around a straight four beat, a straight four beat with
Speaker 2: amazing melodies on top of that and flowing strings and
Speaker 2: all horns that flowed with that and really great lyric
Speaker 2: and they were digestible for black and white audiences very easily.
Speaker 2: Burt Bacharac and Hal David were writers of another ill
Speaker 2: that had the most amazing melodies in their songs, and
Speaker 2: Bert would come up with some of the most intricate
Speaker 2: changes ever imaginable. I didn't understand what all of that meant,
Speaker 2: but I know what I felt and what Isaaca and
Speaker 2: I felt with the uniqueness of that, And so we
Speaker 2: knew that we could not outdo Motown and what they
Speaker 2: were doing, and we certainly could not outdo back Iraq
Speaker 2: and David and what they were doing. So we had
Speaker 2: to find a path of creativity that led us to
Speaker 2: have our own uniqueness. Remember I said I was being influenced,
Speaker 2: we all were in this community by the contribution that
Speaker 2: wd Ie the radio station was making with the individuality
Speaker 2: of black artists. So we came up with the concept
Speaker 2: of the low end using the bass, drums and guitar
Speaker 2: with signature patterns around that particular area that created the
Speaker 2: uniqueness for that and came up with with melodies and
Speaker 2: that was my specialties. Uh uh. That that gave an
Speaker 2: energy to those signatures on the low end, and we
Speaker 2: felt that that would separate us sonically with the sound.
Speaker 2: We didn't you know, we didn't get so technical in
Speaker 2: the sonical aspect of how to define what all these
Speaker 2: things were. But we we talked in terms of the
Speaker 2: sound of it, and we were we found that that
Speaker 2: was our path and what you don't know like I know, uh,
Speaker 2: we thought that that was a validation of that and
Speaker 2: from that point on we were able to go forward
Speaker 2: with a path that locked us into that. The next
Speaker 2: song that happened with that was a song called hold
Speaker 2: On I'm Coming, and it was it was just that
Speaker 2: ability is to to really define in our own minds
Speaker 2: what was going to work in a unique way for
Speaker 2: us and then be able to say this is going
Speaker 2: to be it, which it was, it's going to be
Speaker 2: a hit or wasn't. And so we called hold On
Speaker 2: I'm Coming as a hit and it was We called
Speaker 2: soul Man as a hit, and that was when we
Speaker 2: wrote it, not even before we recorded. When we wrote
Speaker 2: the song, we felt that my role was to to
Speaker 2: teach Sam and Dave, the melodies of the songs, the
Speaker 2: vocal patterns, and the nuances that created the uniqueness that
Speaker 2: gave them a spring inside of their personalities. They already
Speaker 2: had the soul for this, They already had their vibe,
Speaker 2: they had had records before, but they were willing to
Speaker 2: let us shape an order for them that was a
Speaker 2: little bit unique but different for them, but also merit
Speaker 2: where we were creating from. And at the time we
Speaker 2: put that together, the four of us, we didn't know
Speaker 2: it would be of the magnitude that had ultimately ended
Speaker 2: up being, but we did know that we had found
Speaker 2: a combination that was a strength for us, that seemnu
Speaker 2: at the uniqueness of what we were doing versus what
Speaker 2: we were hearing at Motown and or back of recond David,
Speaker 2: and so we were able to constantly turn out hitchel on,
Speaker 2: Sam and Dave with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've written a couple of you know, you talk
Speaker 1: about soul Man, hold On up Coming, and these are
Speaker 1: iconic numbers forever, But you've written many many other songs, right,
Speaker 1: So generally speaking, do you wait for inspiration or do
Speaker 1: you say, well, i'm working, I better write some songs
Speaker 1: or do you say an artist is coming into the studio,
Speaker 1: I better write some So what is the impetus of creation?
Speaker 2: Well that's a good question, abob because eventually we got
Speaker 2: into a situation where everyone wanted songs for us from
Speaker 2: us rather and in order to be sure that we
Speaker 2: didn't have things sounding a lot, we did what I
Speaker 2: mentioned a moment ago. We would first come up with
Speaker 2: a concept and then decide on whether or not we
Speaker 2: could be a significant compliment to a particular talent that
Speaker 2: wanted to work with us. And so we were working
Speaker 2: from that level of understanding, so we would would come
Speaker 2: up with the concept get a creative direction. We live
Speaker 2: by the philosophy that there are no new emotions. You
Speaker 2: have to find fresh ways to talk about common emotions,
Speaker 2: and so we wanted to be sure that the emotion
Speaker 2: that we talked about the love on this group didn't
Speaker 2: bump into the emotion that we talked about love with
Speaker 2: a Sam and Dave or Karla Thomas or Johnny Taylor.
Speaker 2: We have to find fresh ways to do it, and
Speaker 2: we wanted to be able to do it inside of
Speaker 2: what we were able to develop as a concept for
Speaker 2: the new uniqueness of the artists that we were working
Speaker 2: with today and me talking about this with you, it
Speaker 2: sounds like we were thinking in a very very scientific,
Speaker 2: highly analytical kind of way. That's not the case. We
Speaker 2: were feeling these things, living out of the emotion of
Speaker 2: what we were feeling, and then acting up on them,
Speaker 2: and they were validating the meaning and the strength of
Speaker 2: it based on the results of them. And as the
Speaker 2: results kept coming, we kept developing even a better understanding
Speaker 2: of what we were doing. And more importantly, we were doing
Speaker 2: what we were doing, so we were able to work
Speaker 2: different artists different times. When it's time to work write
Speaker 2: a song for particular artists, we had a concept for
Speaker 2: that artist. We know what that concept was, We know
Speaker 2: what the last record we had done on him. We
Speaker 2: know we didn't want to bump into them with a
Speaker 2: similar idea with the follow up record. We knew what
Speaker 2: they had done before, We knew that what was the
Speaker 2: hit on Sam or n or Dave or Johnny Taylor
Speaker 2: or whoever, And we knew that we didn't want to
Speaker 2: bump into any of those and we were fortunate enough
Speaker 2: not to because we've created a vacuum around each artist
Speaker 2: that we worked with that see minute, that aura for them,
Speaker 2: and it drew the listener's mind to them and where
Speaker 2: they were, more so than them being aware that really
Speaker 2: every song generally is talking about the same things. You
Speaker 2: hurt me, I hurt you, we fell in love yesterday,
Speaker 2: fell out after you, whatever. But it was able to
Speaker 2: be thought in terms of the active or other in
Speaker 2: terms of those ways. And even though those things end
Speaker 2: up being quite successful, we were not that brilliant about that.
Speaker 2: We just were feeling it the right kind of way.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you've heard the thing about you get
Speaker 2: on a run and then things work.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: We were on a run coming from a space of
Speaker 2: spirituality and emotional connectivity that was hard to define. Yet
Speaker 2: it was happening in such a continuum that it was
Speaker 2: creating a tremendous amount of excitement for us, for each
Speaker 2: and every artist that we worked with, because we were
Speaker 2: trying to outdo what we did on the last record.
Speaker 2: We never wanted to create something for any artist that
Speaker 2: we wanted to be as good as the last record
Speaker 2: that we did. We always wanted to be better than
Speaker 2: the last one that was dead we did, and so
Speaker 2: we were the best critic of one could have because
Speaker 2: we were the worst critic for criticizing what we were doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a famous story about how you come up
Speaker 1: with the title hold On Coming. Okay, Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: come up with that title, do you then say, oh,
Speaker 1: we should write a song or you try to write
Speaker 1: a song. You came up with the title and then
Speaker 1: it just flew from there.
Speaker 2: Well, first, if you allow me, Bob to say this, Uh,
Speaker 2: there was there was a a some journalists of some
Speaker 2: folk from from from London, from England, and they approached
Speaker 2: me about we're writing uh bathroom stories uh around music.
Speaker 2: Do you have anything that could be a bathroom story
Speaker 2: from something that you guys had done. Now, as strange
Speaker 2: as that was first place, I never would have thought
Speaker 2: that someone would have gotten me to talk about how
Speaker 2: hold On I'm Coming came about because I wasn't keen
Speaker 2: on wanting to tell somebody that I was in the restroom.
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking because I mean, at the time, we
Speaker 2: were a little popular, Isaac and I, but we were
Speaker 2: not household names. So I'm just thinking, well, what is
Speaker 2: it going to hurt? I'll just let them know what
Speaker 2: happened with this. Decades later, the whole world knows about
Speaker 2: hold On I'm coming and how it was created. So
Speaker 2: so no, we Isaac and I would quite often go
Speaker 2: to clubs just to air out, just to relax, just
Speaker 2: to just to take a break, and we would jay.
Speaker 2: In my book there's a picture of Isaac and I
Speaker 2: on stage. This is before he was recording at his
Speaker 2: artist performing, he and I performing together. We would do
Speaker 2: that often, leave the studio and go to a club, jam,
Speaker 2: leave there, go back to the studio, put our coats
Speaker 2: and jackets off, put something on, and go and write.
Speaker 2: This is one thirty two o'clock in the morning, one
Speaker 2: of those nights when we were trying to come up
Speaker 2: with the follow up to you Don't Know Like I Know.
Speaker 2: On Sam and Day, we went to a club called
Speaker 2: Club La Run and Isaac and I jam that night
Speaker 2: and we left there twelve thirty going on one o'clock
Speaker 2: and we came back to the studio. Well, in the
Speaker 2: Stack Studios, it was an old movie theater that Jim
Speaker 2: Stewart had converted into a recording studio. You know with
Speaker 2: the slope floor that you walk down, sit in your
Speaker 2: seat and look up to the screen. Well, in those theaters,
Speaker 2: there was no area outside in the lobby that you
Speaker 2: would go to the restroom. No in those theaters, and
Speaker 2: in those times, you'd walk through the door to go
Speaker 2: into the theater room itself, and right to the right
Speaker 2: or left would be a restroom. And because it was
Speaker 2: at that as soon as you were walking in the door,
Speaker 2: when you would go into the restroom, people wouldn't see
Speaker 2: the light from the restroom because they've gone down the
Speaker 2: floor and they're looking up. So it was placed in
Speaker 2: such a way that it was not an intrusive thing
Speaker 2: for a restroom to be inside of that of a
Speaker 2: theater room. But it also was used as as one
Speaker 2: of our echo chambers as well. On this particular evening,
Speaker 2: we were trying to come up with a follow up
Speaker 2: for a record on Salm and day. We went to
Speaker 2: the club, had a great time, came back to the studio.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, man, I'm gonna run to the restroom.
Speaker 2: He said, okay, go ahead, he said, He went on
Speaker 2: down to the piano and I couldn't have been in
Speaker 2: there very long at all. So but to your question,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about creating a song even in the restroom.
Speaker 2: Isaac is thinking about us creating a song even before
Speaker 2: we even started. So I'm in the restroom. He screams
Speaker 2: out to me, because he you could hear her. Hey, man,
Speaker 2: hurry up. I hadn't been in there very long. I said, man,
Speaker 2: hold on, I'm coming. And it hit me like a
Speaker 2: light went off. I walked out of the restroom. I said, Sack, Isaac,
Speaker 2: we got one. He said, what I said, hold on,
Speaker 2: I'm coming, He said, hold on, I'm coming. What you're
Speaker 2: talking about? I said, let's come up with a rescue song,
Speaker 2: you know, like the Superman kind of thing. I said,
Speaker 2: let's come up with that, and and and and and
Speaker 2: have a point counterpoint where Sam and Dave and talking
Speaker 2: about rescueing the check. But we also wrote with double
Speaker 2: meaning well, we also talked. I said, in this the
Speaker 2: media would be support and support for each other as
Speaker 2: a people in the times we were living. Because this
Speaker 2: is nineteen sixty six. He said, well, you know what
Speaker 2: you said, Superman and rescue. He said, man, I put
Speaker 2: down a horn pattern a couple of weeks ago with
Speaker 2: Wayne and Andrew. Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love were the
Speaker 2: Memphis Horns. They would do the sessions and stacks and
Speaker 2: we were all working together. He said, I just put
Speaker 2: this horn lick down we called a horn lick would
Speaker 2: be maybe eight bars or sixteen bars of a particular
Speaker 2: run or pattern, and you never know what you're going
Speaker 2: to do with it. But it was there, he said.
Speaker 2: I said, well, let me hear it. We went up
Speaker 2: in the with that time the control room from the
Speaker 2: studio room where we were writing. Isaac put a seven
Speaker 2: and a half tape on played which sounded like a
Speaker 2: superman flying through the air rescuing this. That's well in
Speaker 2: the stress. I said to him. He that's it, man,
Speaker 2: that'll be the signature for this song. We ought to
Speaker 2: start the song all with that, He said yeah, because
Speaker 2: we generally when it started the song featuring a horn pattern.
Speaker 2: Said yeah, So with that in mind, he now sits
Speaker 2: down at the piano. We've talked about it. He sat
Speaker 2: down at the piano. He hit a chord. I started
Speaker 2: singing right then, Bob, don't you ever feel sad, Lean
Speaker 2: on me when times are bad, When the day comes
Speaker 2: and you're down in a river of trouble in about
Speaker 2: to drown, Hold on, I'm coming. I sung it. It
Speaker 2: came right through me. In twenty minutes, we had written
Speaker 2: a song, and at the time it was things came
Speaker 2: to us that kind of way. We knew where we
Speaker 2: were going with Sam and Day, the point counterpoint kind
Speaker 2: of thing that was we'd already established that's what we
Speaker 2: were going to do with them. The church vibe is
Speaker 2: what we were also going to do, because you don't know,
Speaker 2: like I know, showed us that and that just came
Speaker 2: together that way. But it came together not with any
Speaker 2: kind of forethought except we were ready to work. We
Speaker 2: knew we were going to capture eye emotions and control
Speaker 2: the emotions targeted for the credibility of the artists that
Speaker 2: we were working with, and we stay true to that.
Speaker 2: He knew where that was. I knew where that was,
Speaker 2: and it things just flowed organically that way.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about Isaac laying down this sworn spot.
Speaker 1: You know, I realized he did it. But how much
Speaker 1: of there was there of doing that? And how would
Speaker 1: that be created? We said, oh, I have a riff
Speaker 1: in my head. I want to get it down or
Speaker 1: I need to create some riffs.
Speaker 2: How did they create the No? No, no, oh that's great. No. No,
Speaker 2: it was just if he felt something and he had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to stick it down, whether we use it
Speaker 2: or not, and we did that often. I did it.
Speaker 2: He did it, Steve Cropper did it, We all did it.
Speaker 2: Brook would do it. We just do it. And if
Speaker 2: you if you're working on something and thinking about something,
Speaker 2: you think you made it on, use something that it
Speaker 2: can marry. You talk about it, you put it out,
Speaker 2: Listen to it. If it jails with what you're thinking,
Speaker 2: find if it doesn't, you keep going. He has had
Speaker 2: that the hit had been there a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: He never said anything to me about it. By the
Speaker 2: same token with hold on, I'm coming. I already knew
Speaker 2: when we first sit down to write the song. I
Speaker 2: already knew what the beach should be, what the drum
Speaker 2: beat should be. I'm not a drummer, but head arrange
Speaker 2: what we all do at Stax and what we are
Speaker 2: all uh proficient at doing. I knew that there was
Speaker 2: a record that came out of New Orleans by an
Speaker 2: artist by the name of Lee Dorsey, and he had
Speaker 2: a hit record called Get Out of My Life Woman,
Speaker 2: and the drum beat on that record, I felt was
Speaker 2: an amazing drum beat. Al Jackson Jr. The drummer at Stacks,
Speaker 2: played on all those hit records, was a genius at
Speaker 2: being given a seed of an idea of what you're thinking,
Speaker 2: and he manifests that into the aura of what you're
Speaker 2: asking him for. He knew the get Out of My
Speaker 2: Life Woman beat, He tweaked the beat, put that pattern
Speaker 2: down on the Hold on Him Coming record, and it's
Speaker 2: one of the most revered records ever on a record.
Speaker 2: When you hear the record of hold on Him Coming
Speaker 2: on the radio with that horn pattern and that beat,
Speaker 2: if you listen close to the beat, you don't hear
Speaker 2: beats like that, and the uniqueness of the beat of
Speaker 2: that and the individuality of the horn pattern with the
Speaker 2: melody and that feel. We knew that was going to
Speaker 2: be a number one record, and it was. But that's
Speaker 2: that was one of those things that, like I said that,
Speaker 2: we don't go down and say, well, we're going to
Speaker 2: write a hit today or the other. No, we target
Speaker 2: what we're going to do, concept, what we're going to do.
Speaker 2: Stay true to that because she got a four piece
Speaker 2: rhythm basically, so you've got to make the same players
Speaker 2: that you're using regularly sound unique to what you're working on,
Speaker 2: and the only way you can do that is have
Speaker 2: a unique forethought to begin that, Isaac and I started
Speaker 2: working in a more significant way for the team the
Speaker 2: artists who made that obvious thing that could be a
Speaker 2: strength for Stax Records was Otis ready. When Otis would
Speaker 2: come to Memphis, Otis would walk around the room harm
Speaker 2: all of the pars that he had in his head,
Speaker 2: have the guys play the pars, and everything they played
Speaker 2: sounded nothing like anything else they had played. The uniqueness
Speaker 2: of it was right there in your face, and that
Speaker 2: was the magic what told us that the potential for
Speaker 2: them to do. Every artist we worked with was inside
Speaker 2: of them because Otis had broke them into that. When
Speaker 2: I said them, I'm talking about Booker, t Al Jackson Jr.
Speaker 2: Doug Don, and Steve Cropper. And instance, when when we
Speaker 2: were working on our records, it was Isaac on the keyboards.
Speaker 2: Occasionally we would use Booker, but that was the rhythm section.
Speaker 2: When when the records were being made on Albert King
Speaker 2: or Little Milton or Johnny Taylor, that same rhythm was used.
Speaker 2: And when we would use them on those artists on
Speaker 2: records that we songs that we were producing, we had
Speaker 2: a targeted creative way conceptually that we would use them
Speaker 2: to create the individuality for those songs. But that was
Speaker 2: where the magic came about, and that was the way
Speaker 2: the magic came about inside of the Stacks facility. We
Speaker 2: never started using other core musicians in rhythm records at
Speaker 2: Stacks into years later. It initially it was just those guys.
Speaker 2: It was what we call the Big Six. It was
Speaker 2: just us.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to like laying down horn parts.
Speaker 1: Let's say Isaac has an idea for a horn part,
Speaker 1: and let's assume he has it outside the studio that
Speaker 1: he wants to lay it down. Are the Course six
Speaker 1: coming every day so he knows they're going to cut it?
Speaker 1: Or does he have to call everybody up and say,
Speaker 1: you know you got to cut this part.
Speaker 2: No, every day, there were sessions being held every day
Speaker 2: you were coming into the studio. And you know the
Speaker 2: interesting thing about that, Bob, when you go back to
Speaker 2: the early sixties, there was not a lot of money
Speaker 2: being paid for musicians to play that The money went
Speaker 2: a long way, right, But broker T played the baritone
Speaker 2: horn that I got him to play on the roof
Speaker 2: of Time IMA's record of Course I Love You. He
Speaker 2: made fifteen dollars.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: And so it was easy to be able to record
Speaker 2: regularly for our core rhythm and horn section because you know,
Speaker 2: money was flowing in such a way that people had
Speaker 2: more accessibility, access access rhythm to the music, and you
Speaker 2: had more abilities to get people to play the music,
Speaker 2: and so people were able to what we call make
Speaker 2: a living at that time that way. So sessions were
Speaker 2: going on quite regular and the bigger our artist roster, god,
Speaker 2: the more artists would be recording regularly. It was a
Speaker 2: long time before we got a studio. B It was
Speaker 2: just one main studio, and we eventually had a great
Speaker 2: number of artists to work with.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go to the club, you put together talking
Speaker 1: and shitting mirror. Hold on, I'm coming. Do you record
Speaker 1: a demo?
Speaker 2: What's the demo? Bob? No, No, we we actually write
Speaker 2: the song. Get the artist. Sam and Dave did not
Speaker 2: live in Memphis. They would come to Memphis. I would
Speaker 2: teach them the song and tell them directionally where we're going.
Speaker 2: Then we would get ready, because they were only in
Speaker 2: town for two or three days, we get ready to
Speaker 2: do the section. The next day, they got paper on
Speaker 2: the stand. Looking at the paper, now, that means that
Speaker 2: you got to be very compelling in your discussion to
Speaker 2: get them to understand the direction of a song. Well,
Speaker 2: how do you do that? Well, when when we recorded
Speaker 2: Sam and Dave, I were teaching the song now, the
Speaker 2: Stack studio was a slope old movie theater floor. We
Speaker 2: would be way at the top of the room, almost
Speaker 2: like you walk in the door at the movie. Stated
Speaker 2: there will be a baffle between us in the rhythm
Speaker 2: section on the floor. There would be a mic on
Speaker 2: the guitar amp, a mic on a bass amp, mike's
Speaker 2: on the piano. You know, I mean horns are standing
Speaker 2: behind the baffle, all standing in the room after we've
Speaker 2: talked them the song, them being everybody now, in order
Speaker 2: to secure that the imagery and attitude is not compromised
Speaker 2: with every act, including Collin Timbers, I would be on
Speaker 2: the opposite side of the microphone directing them like a
Speaker 2: choir director, and they would be on the mic, looking
Speaker 2: at the paper and following those cues. When people realize
Speaker 2: that that's how those records were recorded, they were surprised
Speaker 2: because we didn't go around telling people. Well, you know,
Speaker 2: when Sam and they recorded sol Man, they had to
Speaker 2: look at me as I direct them to do the
Speaker 2: squall or whatever on soul Man or whatever. But that's
Speaker 2: how it was done. So no one was going out
Speaker 2: talking about what our processes were. We were just marveling
Speaker 2: in the fact that these people all over everywhere thought
Speaker 2: we were geniuses. We knew we were not genius. We
Speaker 2: just knew how to do what we knew how to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's stay with hold On Coming for a second.
Speaker 1: So you guys write hold On I'm coming. You obviously
Speaker 1: write down the lyrics. You have the riff for the horn.
Speaker 1: Do you write anything else down so you can remember
Speaker 1: the song?
Speaker 2: No, okay, we knew well the musicians. They the musicians,
Speaker 2: those guys, they would put numbers down if they wanted
Speaker 2: to look at a piece of paper, numbers, not notes, numbers,
Speaker 2: and so if they wanted to. But by and large,
Speaker 2: when we get in the room, we are teaching patterns,
Speaker 2: so more so than just musical notes. They had to
Speaker 2: learn the pattern. Duck had to learn the bass pattern.
Speaker 2: Steve had to learn the get type pattern. Al Jackson
Speaker 2: knew what the drum pattern was. So each song they
Speaker 2: were inside a capsule of understanding of the pattern, and
Speaker 2: the pattern goes to whatever that pattern is for four
Speaker 2: bars or two bars, and then he goes to the five,
Speaker 2: and he goes to the to go back to the
Speaker 2: tongue to the one. You know, I mean, they were numbers,
Speaker 2: but you're you're, you're, you're, you're knowing what the patterns are.
Speaker 2: So no, there was no writing down the music in
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. Now, when we got into the
Speaker 2: orchestration years later, when Isaac got into that kind of thing,
Speaker 2: Isaac did not write music. He didn't. That wasn't that
Speaker 2: he didn't know how to write music. But Isaac knew
Speaker 2: how to create the parts by talking to an arranging
Speaker 2: guys that could copy out his melodies. And if you
Speaker 2: want to chord spread or one, three, five, or he
Speaker 2: wanted a suspensions or whatever, he could say, give me
Speaker 2: a spread on it, and that guy would would show
Speaker 2: him what that chords spread with sonically would sound like.
Speaker 2: And he said, yeah, that or no, and they would
Speaker 2: write that out for the strange players of the horn
Speaker 2: players or the flute players that come in on the
Speaker 2: session date. So but no, we never functioned by uh,
Speaker 2: let's write out the music charts for the songs we
Speaker 2: were going to record. That never happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's stay with hold on, I'm coming. You write
Speaker 1: the song in the middle of the night, you know
Speaker 1: it to hit. Okay, how long after that do you
Speaker 1: actually get to see him and David in the studio?
Speaker 1: And do you know you haven't hit so much that
Speaker 1: you're telling everybody you got to get him in soon,
Speaker 1: or you say, hey, we'll wait until their schedule opens up.
Speaker 2: No, no, no no. At that time when we were
Speaker 2: dealing with Sam and Dave, Otis, Karla Thomas, Johnny Taylor,
Speaker 2: I think Abbot King, Booker t and MG's, we had
Speaker 2: Gene and the Darlings. We didn't have the big artist
Speaker 2: Rushter at that time, so it was easy for us
Speaker 2: to say we were ready for Sam today Jim, because
Speaker 2: Jim had a relationship with Atlantic Records. Sam and they
Speaker 2: were actually the artists on Atlantic Records with Jerry Wexler,
Speaker 2: and so there was a relationship between Atlantic and New
Speaker 2: York and Stacks. And during that time, Wexler was smart
Speaker 2: enough to utilize our environment as much as he could,
Speaker 2: So he would get Wilson Pickett to come down to record,
Speaker 2: he would get Don Cove to come down to record,
Speaker 2: and it was that kind of a thing. So sessions
Speaker 2: being scheduled and artists being asked to come in was
Speaker 2: quite easy because it wasn't that big Hughes roster that
Speaker 2: we eventually got, and you were able to say I'm
Speaker 2: ready in two or three days. The artist would coming
Speaker 2: because they hadn't exploded yet after you don't know, like
Speaker 2: I know, that was when Sam and they just started
Speaker 2: doing quite a few gigs. They had just started that,
Speaker 2: so because they wanted their career to continue to explode,
Speaker 2: all we had to say was we need you in
Speaker 2: next week. Whatever they had. They would reschedule that if
Speaker 2: they had to, and be in that studio next week
Speaker 2: and I'd be teaching them the song. Three days later we'd
Speaker 2: have the song recorded.
Speaker 1: Okay, you hot the song? You get Sam and Dave
Speaker 1: to the studio. A do you work with the rhythm
Speaker 1: section beforehand or are you working with the vocalists the
Speaker 1: same time of the rhythms day section. In addition, once
Speaker 1: you teach everybody their song and they work out their parts,
Speaker 1: how many takes how many channels? How long does it take?
Speaker 2: When we start with Sam and Dave, they have four
Speaker 2: people in the room, Sam and Dave and Isaaca and
Speaker 2: I I'm teaching them the song. We're creating now semen.
Speaker 2: In the structure for the song. In some instance we
Speaker 2: would think that X would go where why is? But
Speaker 2: then we would change that and we would put see
Speaker 2: where why is. We would create the structure based on
Speaker 2: what we were hearing coming out of them and the
Speaker 2: marriage of the transitions that we feel worked effective for them,
Speaker 2: and we would do that and we would get them
Speaker 2: because it's all fresh to them. They're just learning the song.
Speaker 2: So to us, we know we made some drastic changes,
Speaker 2: but they don't. So what they're taught is what they know,
Speaker 2: and so to them, it's much much easier for them
Speaker 2: to feel and contain it than it would be for us,
Speaker 2: because Osica and I would have lived with it for
Speaker 2: three or four days sometime a week, and so we
Speaker 2: would be able to understand what we were doing and
Speaker 2: why we were doing, and they would be able to
Speaker 2: place close attention to what every thing they were hearing.
Speaker 2: So we would teach them the song, and then when
Speaker 2: we schedule for the session, we would bring the horns
Speaker 2: and the rhythm in and we would have the horns
Speaker 2: sitting outside until we were ready for them to come in.
Speaker 2: But they would be there and we work out the
Speaker 2: rhythm with the four rhythm cats, and we'd work out
Speaker 2: the parts right there. And as I mentioned, they were parts,
Speaker 2: they were lines, musical lines, and they would get those
Speaker 2: and they would they were so used to being together
Speaker 2: and working together. It was not as you know in Motown,
Speaker 2: I'm sure had the same kind of system where folks
Speaker 2: were able to feel each other, trust each other and
Speaker 2: go with it and know it would be right. And
Speaker 2: we had the same thing. But that was the advantage
Speaker 2: of having the same people that you're working with, who
Speaker 2: trusted each other, who felt each other, and he knew
Speaker 2: how to create the nuances necessary to communicate whatever the
Speaker 2: producer wanted from the song.
Speaker 1: Okay, see whom and Dave were brought in. You teach
Speaker 1: them the song. How many days later till the rhythm
Speaker 1: section and the horns are there. The rhythm section works
Speaker 1: it out, Then what do you do with the horns section?
Speaker 1: And at what point do you start recording.
Speaker 2: We bring the horns in when we get the rhythm,
Speaker 2: when the guys are comfortable with the rhythm. Now we
Speaker 2: bring the horns into the studio. We've got the rhythm.
Speaker 2: Now the horns are hearing the rhythm. Generally, when we
Speaker 2: would have those records, the guys, because those sections would
Speaker 2: be really locked together, the guys in the horn will
Speaker 2: be pumped to want to play it because it sounded interesting.
Speaker 2: All of the songs sounded interested in these guys because
Speaker 2: they knew they were part of something magical. They didn't
Speaker 2: know to what they sent The magic was magic until
Speaker 2: it was done. And then we talked about the nuances,
Speaker 2: the auras inside of the lines, and the kind of
Speaker 2: energy that we want to one of the lines. We go
Speaker 2: through all of that, so now they're ready to do
Speaker 2: it with the rhythm of the rhythm and go we
Speaker 2: run the whole song down. We don't have Sam and
Speaker 2: Dave screaming trying to sing the song at that particular time.
Speaker 2: We got them listening and learning what the music is doing.
Speaker 2: Now they still know where the melody is because I'm
Speaker 2: talking to them about where the sections are. Now, this
Speaker 2: is before they go back to the We go back
Speaker 2: to the back for them to sing. Now the horns
Speaker 2: and the rhythm lock, and when the rhythm lock, we're ready.
Speaker 2: Now we go to the microphone and the guys the
Speaker 2: rhythm and the horns hadn't heard Sam and Day blast yet.
Speaker 2: Now they hear Sam and Dave blast, and so when
Speaker 2: they start singing on the microphone, the energy escalates immediately
Speaker 2: in that room. That's in every song because it's fists
Speaker 2: like a glove. The concept that Isaac and I have
Speaker 2: for what we were doing and the way we went
Speaker 2: about accomplishing that always made the guys trust that it
Speaker 2: was going to be what we wanted it to be
Speaker 2: because we knew what we were doing, but it really
Speaker 2: was we knew who we could trust and we could
Speaker 2: trust them.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now everybody knows their parts. How many tracks
Speaker 1: are you recording to? Is everybody playing at the same time?
Speaker 1: And how many takes do you go before you were
Speaker 1: convinced you got it?
Speaker 2: Well, I won't to go back to when we first started.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to the four track days
Speaker 2: with the Life I Live in No Song, because we
Speaker 2: started with four track, then we went to a track,
Speaker 2: then we went to sixteen track, then to twenty four track.
Speaker 2: So the eight track was a fascinating time because a
Speaker 2: gentleman by the name of Tom Dowd, who was in
Speaker 2: New York with Atlantic Records, a genius, was one of
Speaker 2: the greatest minds in studio environment that could ever be,
Speaker 2: I believe, and he came down and straightened up so
Speaker 2: many things that were going wrong inside of our facility,
Speaker 2: and we didn't even know what it was. Jim Stewart
Speaker 2: didn't even know at that particular time that he should
Speaker 2: change the transitions in the little console. Tom Dowd changed
Speaker 2: the transitions in the console. And if you listen to
Speaker 2: the record you don't know like I know, you will
Speaker 2: hear the pristine sound of that record comparison to the
Speaker 2: records that followed on Sam and Dave and others, because
Speaker 2: those transitions were just putting that con off that record.
Speaker 2: So you can hear you don't know like I know,
Speaker 2: and it's just like crystal clear. And you could tell
Speaker 2: if somebody tell you to listen closer and you compare
Speaker 2: the record, you can say, what was that? No, it's
Speaker 2: the same room. But that those little kind of things
Speaker 2: that we didn't know what the heck we were listening
Speaker 2: to that Tom Dodd came and said, well, you guys
Speaker 2: need to change this and change this and whatever. And
Speaker 2: it was magical for us, but he was common knowledge
Speaker 2: for this guy who was a wizard at that kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: So would you record the act all at once? Who
Speaker 1: would record the vocal separate from the rhythm and separate
Speaker 1: from the horse?
Speaker 2: What? What do you who? When No. One, two, three,
Speaker 2: four downbeat on the one. Everybody's got to be right
Speaker 2: when the one happens, When that count offf happens, everybody
Speaker 2: has to be locked in in every kind of way possible,
Speaker 2: with the right kind of energy, the right amount of energy,
Speaker 2: the right conviction for the section as they would come.
Speaker 2: If you don't do that, we got to do it again.
Speaker 2: But because you're blowing your heart out on every cut,
Speaker 2: you can't afford to do it again. So everybody's locking
Speaker 2: in because you got to remember the patterns every time
Speaker 2: the pattern comes. So each time that count off happens,
Speaker 2: and when the one hits, everybody is locked. The singers locked,
Speaker 2: the musicians locked, Isaac and I locked in the production
Speaker 2: part of it, and we bring it off. And so
Speaker 2: we never had thirty cuts of forty cuts of anything.
Speaker 2: I don't know what. I wouldn't even rite count up
Speaker 2: to that. We never did anything like that because the
Speaker 2: emotional connectivity was on every track every time. That's what
Speaker 2: made the magic and the beauty of Albert King so unique.
Speaker 2: Every time Albert King played on a record, his guitar parts,
Speaker 2: the records that were out and hits some standards on
Speaker 2: the Albert King, every one of the out takes, it was
Speaker 2: the same thing. But that was with everybody. Everybody would
Speaker 2: would would give it all, every take, every cut, so
Speaker 2: and it was all done at once.
Speaker 1: Okay, So generally speaking, how many times would you cut
Speaker 1: a track? And once you got it, did you fix anything?
Speaker 1: Or that was it?
Speaker 2: There was a thing called splicing, taking a razor blade
Speaker 2: and cutting the tape and putting it together to make
Speaker 2: the section shorter or a little bit longer or whatever.
Speaker 2: That was something that was done. But generally, I mean no,
Speaker 2: you had to be on point, and and folks were
Speaker 2: on point very seldom. We didn't get into things such
Speaker 2: as overdubbing and those kind of things until we got
Speaker 2: into sixteen track and twenty four track.
Speaker 1: Okay, they cut it a certain number of times. You
Speaker 1: wrote the song with Isaac, You guys know what you're
Speaker 1: looking for? Is it making them play? You talk about
Speaker 1: how long they were?
Speaker 2: Could it?
Speaker 1: Could an alternative take been the hit? Or were you
Speaker 1: looking for the one?
Speaker 2: Always looking for the one. I think everyone who does
Speaker 2: what they do in an ongun way way looking for
Speaker 2: the one. You're looking for the one right now. You
Speaker 2: want the quality of your podcast to be on par
Speaker 2: to the level of everything that you do. So if
Speaker 2: something is not that as good as someone you may
Speaker 2: make feel when you're doing it, you're going to find
Speaker 2: a way to make it right. And and that's the
Speaker 2: same thing with making records. Those of us who are
Speaker 2: in the arts, we know what the art is and
Speaker 2: so we are looking for that and we're not open
Speaker 2: to something when you hear, When we hear funny notes
Speaker 2: or read a squeak on on the sack or something
Speaker 2: in the middle of a pattern that sounded good, we
Speaker 2: gotta do it again. We got to do it again.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have this gigantic kid with hold on, I'm coming.
Speaker 1: What do you know? You know that people are looking
Speaker 1: for another Salm and Dave record. Sam and Dave want
Speaker 1: to work with you guys again because they had all
Speaker 1: the success. To what degree do you feel the pressure
Speaker 1: and how do you come up with soul man.
Speaker 2: Well? And being honest, we young and Isaac and I
Speaker 2: didn't feel any pressure. Now that's strange to say right now,
Speaker 2: because having lived as long as I've lived to say that,
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Wow, that's and I know that's true. But
Speaker 2: why didn't we feel any pressure? Because we were so
Speaker 2: in love with what we were doing. We were so
Speaker 2: comfortable and what our gifts were, and we knew that
Speaker 2: we had to do it tomorrow, and so we were
Speaker 2: so comfortable that tomorrow it would come and we would
Speaker 2: do it till we didn't feel anything. We just were
Speaker 2: enjoying the journey. Now we had to understand what we
Speaker 2: were doing and why we were doing it. That's why
Speaker 2: the theory, as I mentioned earlier, about coming up with
Speaker 2: concepts with those that we work on, was so extremely important.
Speaker 2: If we were just writing and creating off the cuff,
Speaker 2: then yeah, you talk about pressure, but we didn't have
Speaker 2: any of that because we were not creating off the cuff.
Speaker 2: If we're going to do a Sam and Dave record,
Speaker 2: we know why we were doing Sam and David, and
Speaker 2: we know what we had to do and we know
Speaker 2: where we were going with it. If we were going
Speaker 2: to do a Colin Thomas record, we knew why we
Speaker 2: were doing. When we recorded B A B Y on
Speaker 2: Caller we knew what we were looking for with the record. Now,
Speaker 2: generally we have every pattern that we're looking for on
Speaker 2: a record, on every song that we would do. On
Speaker 2: B A B Y, we didn't have the bass pattern
Speaker 2: that we were satisfied with. Now we're working on it
Speaker 2: in the studio with the musicians, and we didn't have
Speaker 2: the bass pattern. But we knew we didn't because we said,
Speaker 2: let's try it again, let's try to gain because we
Speaker 2: were trying to get the rhythm to lock on it.
Speaker 2: Booker T. Jones and I will forever give a book
Speaker 2: a credit for this. It is in my book as well.
Speaker 2: Booker T said what about this pattern? And he played
Speaker 2: the pattern that you hear on BA B Y College
Speaker 2: tump on a bass pattern and we said, man, we
Speaker 2: like that pattern. So we used that bass pattern on
Speaker 2: B A B Y. And that was given to us
Speaker 2: by Booker T. And I say that because that was
Speaker 2: the energy that was inside of the stacked room. Generally
Speaker 2: it was Isaac and I giving away parts and lines
Speaker 2: and things like that for other people's record. That was
Speaker 2: one time that one was given to us by the
Speaker 2: great Booker T. Jones on a on a major hit record.
Speaker 1: Let's start with ba b y. You have success with
Speaker 1: that record, use your process. And then in the late seventies,
Speaker 1: Rachel Sweet comes out with a.
Speaker 2: Cup Yeah yeah, right, What did you think about.
Speaker 1: Her aid doing it? And if you remember what you
Speaker 1: thought of her version.
Speaker 2: Well, let me let me let me be honest with you.
Speaker 2: When I was complimented that she was doing two, I
Speaker 2: had no idea that would have the connection in the
Speaker 2: marketplace that it did, because in my mind, no one
Speaker 2: could top Colin Thomas version of it, and Karla did
Speaker 2: it so effortlessly. So I didn't think that anyone could
Speaker 2: be that relaxed doing a song like that and it
Speaker 2: come off that way, but it did. And so when
Speaker 2: I heard that, I mean, it was just a surprise
Speaker 2: to me. But what and it told me was that
Speaker 2: we had written a good song, and a good song
Speaker 2: on a good artist with a good combination of players
Speaker 2: can make a good record. And so I just felt wow, surprised,
Speaker 2: but please, And I hadn't heard anything else. I remember
Speaker 2: Achel by name, but I don't know any of the
Speaker 2: records by her.
Speaker 1: Well, that was her one big record. Going back to Otis,
Speaker 1: the legend is that Otis was the driver and he
Speaker 1: asked to sing, you know, late in the evenings. That
Speaker 1: legend true.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt. Otis was the driver for a guy
Speaker 2: by the name of Johnny Jenkins who I was there
Speaker 2: when Jim was trying to record him. And Johnny Jenkins
Speaker 2: was really not that talent in the studio. He was
Speaker 2: doing what we call it comedy called freezing in the studio,
Speaker 2: and that was Johnny Jenkins. And Otis was asking Al
Speaker 2: Jackson to get someone to take a listen to him,
Speaker 2: because Otis would be in the in the room, lying
Speaker 2: on the floor when they were trying to cut Johnny Jenkins.
Speaker 2: And there was no there was no magic happening with that.
Speaker 2: And so at the end of that, everybody was ready
Speaker 2: to go. And finally Al Jackson was the one who
Speaker 2: got Steve just to say something to Jim to listen
Speaker 2: to Otis, and he agreed to listen, and the rest
Speaker 2: is history.
Speaker 1: How did Al know that Otis was good?
Speaker 2: He didn't. He was just trying to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: No one knew Otis was good. No one knew that
Speaker 2: he was saying with Johnny Jenkins, he was the driver
Speaker 2: bringing it.
Speaker 1: No one knew, okay, so he starts to sing. Does
Speaker 1: the light bulb immediately go off over your.
Speaker 2: But not over my head, over Steve Cropper's head, Al
Speaker 2: Jackson's head, in Jim Stewart's head, because I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: just listening. But I'm sorry, I'm not just I wasn't
Speaker 2: in the room on that when he was singing that song.
Speaker 2: They were just listening. And Steve has said many many
Speaker 2: times that the hair on his arm just stood up
Speaker 2: went over to start singing these arms of mine. And
Speaker 2: Steve was the one playing piano. And Steve is not
Speaker 2: a piano player at all, So what he was doing
Speaker 2: was playing tribleish on the piano because he was He's
Speaker 2: not a piano player. But Otis made his triblet playing
Speaker 2: sound magical because of his tone and the imagery that
Speaker 2: he was doing inside of his vocals. Otis was especially
Speaker 2: from day one, but no one knew that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what was your experience of working with Otis?
Speaker 2: Well, you have to know that, to me, one of
Speaker 2: the greatest lyrical minds that I'd ever seen was Otis. Ready.
Speaker 2: ODIs could take the most simplest of lyrics, said in
Speaker 2: the most abstract way, words that don't link up in
Speaker 2: a digestible, understandable way with each other at all and
Speaker 2: make you understand what told clarity, the meaning of it.
Speaker 2: How do you do that? He could do things with
Speaker 2: his voice and with his tone that would make you
Speaker 2: feel the emotion of what he was trying to convey
Speaker 2: through a lyric that was abstract to the lyric line
Speaker 2: that he was doing. That speaks volumes about artistry. And
Speaker 2: he was just magical with that. And then if you
Speaker 2: would ask him what are you here? With that, he
Speaker 2: would have the part in his head that he could
Speaker 2: tell you what to play. And it wasn't that he
Speaker 2: had thought long and hard about that part. It just
Speaker 2: when he was called for it, it just flowed out
Speaker 2: of him. And so that that just said trust, magic, confidence,
Speaker 2: and all of that wrapped in one and otis was
Speaker 2: that he was magical like that.
Speaker 1: Okay. One of the stories I loved the book was
Speaker 1: the creation of soul Finger, which is a song I
Speaker 1: always love. Can you tell that story?
Speaker 2: Well, Uh, this was during the time where I'm still
Speaker 2: trying to get my way into the foe in a
Speaker 2: lock in way with Stax Records. So I'm up there working,
Speaker 2: not getting any money, but working trying to convince them
Speaker 2: to bring me on because now I'm still selling it.
Speaker 2: I'm selling insurance at that time. And so they had
Speaker 2: a rhythm track of these kids that went to Booker T.
Speaker 2: Washington High School, which is the high school that I
Speaker 2: went to with James Alexander Ben call It and Jimmy King,
Speaker 2: those guys. And I walk in in the room where
Speaker 2: they're playing this rhythm riff. I being me and Isaac,
Speaker 2: we go in there and we hear this rhythm rift. Well,
Speaker 2: jim is standing on the floor this then, and they
Speaker 2: don't know what to do with this, and so I said, uh, you,
Speaker 2: matter of fact, try an idea. I was. I'm paraphrasing
Speaker 2: now because I asked for the chance to try idea
Speaker 2: on the track. Now you must understand that, because no
Speaker 2: one knew what to do with this rhythm track, they
Speaker 2: were open to that. Isaac said to he said, soul Finger. Now,
Speaker 2: James Alexander needs to tell his story because he knows
Speaker 2: it's true. Isaac came up with the title soul Fing.
Speaker 2: When when I heard that, I went outside, went to
Speaker 2: the grocery store next door. I bought two cases of
Speaker 2: Coca Cola, asked kids that were on the street if
Speaker 2: they would come inside of the studio because they had
Speaker 2: never been in the studio, I said, I want to
Speaker 2: come in the studio. I got them to come in
Speaker 2: the studio. They're all in the studio, were all in
Speaker 2: on the floor there. Just then I said, you want
Speaker 2: to do something for me? Would you like to be
Speaker 2: on the record. These are young kids, eight, nine, ten, eleven,
Speaker 2: twelve years They started screaming here. I said, listen, I'm
Speaker 2: going to wreck you like a choir, and every time
Speaker 2: I wave my fingers like this, I want you to
Speaker 2: scream as loud as you can. You want to scream
Speaker 2: like I said, Yes, I said, but why when the
Speaker 2: music is playing. I want you guys to talk to
Speaker 2: each other and have fun. Have fun, yes, I said,
Speaker 2: but listen, each time I bring my arms down, I
Speaker 2: want you to say soul finger. So soul finger every
Speaker 2: time I do that. So they thought that would be fun.
Speaker 2: Jim set up microphones around the room. They still don't
Speaker 2: know what this is, And be quite honest with you,
Speaker 2: I don't know how I'm going to direct them to
Speaker 2: do anything. So it's going to happen organically, and I'm
Speaker 2: not thinking analytical about organically. I'm just thinking I want
Speaker 2: to try something, and Bob, it was just I want
Speaker 2: to try something. ISAA came on with the titler, I
Speaker 2: want to try something. The only person that was out
Speaker 2: of any money was me for the two cases of coke.
Speaker 2: And because Jim is not paying me yet now, so
Speaker 2: I get the kids screaming, and then whole finger and
Speaker 2: so and then and when they heard that, they being
Speaker 2: Jim heard that there were no records even anywhere remotely
Speaker 2: close to anything like that. And because it was nothing
Speaker 2: remotely closed to anything like that, and because it was
Speaker 2: soul finger, and Jim, who I love, doesn't know what
Speaker 2: the soul finger is. Isaac does, but but so and
Speaker 2: the public doesn't. So so we put that on the record.
Speaker 2: They released the record. Now, uh the horns which Ben
Speaker 2: called it, and I forget who the seclay. When they
Speaker 2: heard this kid screaming, they put the horns down on it.
Speaker 2: On soul Fing, they put the horn down and Ben Carley,
Speaker 2: who was the actually trumpet player with the Barcade, had
Speaker 2: a signature sound with his horns, and so they were
Speaker 2: just having fun. They had no idea to know that
Speaker 2: that horn rift the way Ben was playing it along
Speaker 2: with the tennis side. That riff was going even more
Speaker 2: signature of that record. Of course, no trumpet player would
Speaker 2: play a lit like that on a record, and so
Speaker 2: because it was so filled with uniqueness, the record exploded.
Speaker 2: And here it is, decades and decades later later, still
Speaker 2: lives like that.
Speaker 1: I gotta ask, I think I know the answer. But
Speaker 1: if you made that record today, there'd be somebody running
Speaker 1: around with releases for all the kids to side.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: You didn't do any of that, right.
Speaker 2: Not at all, not at all the same thing with
Speaker 2: Will Smith's getting jigged with it, the kids don't getting
Speaker 2: jigged with it with no no Nina. Those were the
Speaker 2: same kids on nine at nine twenty sixty smacklamore that
Speaker 2: I got to put on a record called Sanging Dance
Speaker 2: on the Barcades. I produced that, wrote and produced that
Speaker 2: record for the Barcas. That's years later, right before Styck's closed.
Speaker 2: That's where that came from. Those kids.
Speaker 1: Okay, you finally get on the payroll, you're at a roll,
Speaker 1: you're working with Isaac, you're going to clubs, you're working
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. How do you maintain
Speaker 1: a relationship, you got a wife, you got kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's only twenty four hours in a day.
Speaker 2: In my book, if you read all the way to
Speaker 2: the end, I talk about the sacrifice not only that
Speaker 2: the creatives make, but the family make. And even they
Speaker 2: don't know they're making a family, they're just quite sad
Speaker 2: that they don't have the bond of a family unit
Speaker 2: because their father is working his you know what, off
Speaker 2: and try to make something happen that's meaningful in a
Speaker 2: constructive way for them. So you make a conscious decision
Speaker 2: as to what you're going to do if you're going
Speaker 2: to do this thing called music, and what that means
Speaker 2: is that you have to make a conscious decision of
Speaker 2: how much you're willing to give up to give yourself
Speaker 2: a legitimate chance to be successful at doing it. And if,
Speaker 2: by chance, you don't succeed at doing it, there is
Speaker 2: a possibility that you will have lost your family. If
Speaker 2: by chance you become successful, there is a possibility they
Speaker 2: may feel a similus of some value from you. And
Speaker 2: or if by chance there was so much dissension and
Speaker 2: anger because it just didn't work in a synergistic way.
Speaker 2: You got kids that don't think well of the family
Speaker 2: and the family's splend and whatever. And that's the sin,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, that this thing called
Speaker 2: music can do to you when you're passionate about working
Speaker 2: and making sure that you give you a simple, legitimate
Speaker 2: chance to be successful in it. And in the book,
Speaker 2: I say that the greatest sacrifice that could be made
Speaker 2: it is sacrifice that a family makes to endure that
Speaker 2: from someone who hass to find out if they have
Speaker 2: it or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, you come from a family of twelve kids. Your
Speaker 1: father dies when you're extremely young. You're living your life,
Speaker 1: you know, doing various things. You have sexual intercourse with
Speaker 1: a woman on her porch, she gets pregnant, and you
Speaker 1: marry her. Ay, what's going through your mind during all that?
Speaker 1: And two, how do you keep your mind focused on
Speaker 1: a music career when that happens? I have.
Speaker 2: I'm in high school, in the eleventh grade, in high school.
Speaker 2: In the book, I disclosed it. We don't really know
Speaker 2: each other. And as I mentioned, my father passed when
Speaker 2: I was very very young, two years old, as a
Speaker 2: matter of fact. And I don't know enough about the
Speaker 2: birds and the bees to know what I should or
Speaker 2: shouldn't do. And so I did something that I shouldn't
Speaker 2: have done, and I get a girl pregnant because I
Speaker 2: don't know what to do, and I'm in the eleventh grade.
Speaker 2: She has to drop out of school. By the time
Speaker 2: I finished, I'm in the eleventh I finished eleventh grade. I
Speaker 2: start the twelfth grade because I'm determined to finish high school.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to college. I had no money,
Speaker 2: but I wanted to make something happened with my life,
Speaker 2: and so I go to school. This is during the
Speaker 2: time that I didn't think I was the father because
Speaker 2: I didn't think I could get a girl pregnant by
Speaker 2: doing what I did. That shows you how brilliant I
Speaker 2: was about the birds and the bees, and so that's
Speaker 2: really what happened. So the music, I was still passionate
Speaker 2: about it. I was singing on talent shows and all
Speaker 2: of that, but nothing has started happening for me at
Speaker 2: that particular time. By the time I finished high school,
Speaker 2: I graduated from twelfth grade June sixth. My son was
Speaker 2: born June the twenty sixth, and I wasn't sure he
Speaker 2: was mine. And my mother told me that if you
Speaker 2: had sex, whether you have to marry it, and This
Speaker 2: is before there was anything like DNA or anything like that.
Speaker 2: But I come from a period of time when you
Speaker 2: do what you did, you don't have a choice. You
Speaker 2: have to marry the girl, and so that's what I did.
Speaker 2: And so it was that kind of situation. And I
Speaker 2: was just coming out of high school, and that's when
Speaker 2: I started working at a grocery store to take care
Speaker 2: of the kid. Two grocery stores, trying to hang around
Speaker 2: Bill Street to learn more about music, and trying to
Speaker 2: make some money to pay whatever little bills I could pay.
Speaker 2: This before I even got a place to stay. So
Speaker 2: that's where that was. It was no success. By the
Speaker 2: time my career started going in a successful way, I
Speaker 2: was not with the mother of my children.
Speaker 1: So how do you get yourself into stacks?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm working at the grocery store across the street
Speaker 2: and I see that they're doing construction across the street
Speaker 2: in this billing. I go over there just to see
Speaker 2: what it was. And in the building, I see a
Speaker 2: man with a hamming thing, and I see they got
Speaker 2: a who it looks like a room that they're gonna
Speaker 2: have somebody in with some equipment. And I see this
Speaker 2: wide open space which was was the live room for
Speaker 2: studio A. I didn't know that at a time, and
Speaker 2: he's almost finished with a studio room and I inquire
Speaker 2: about what it was and he said that, uh, they
Speaker 2: moved from another part in the city. But they they're
Speaker 2: gonna they're doing country records there. That's what they're gonna
Speaker 2: be doing. Well. This community that he just was moving
Speaker 2: and was doing the studio and was just converting over
Speaker 2: to a black community. The white cenistery was moving out
Speaker 2: of the community and more and more blacks were moving
Speaker 2: into it. Additionally, I'm working at the grocery store across
Speaker 2: the street. Additionally, there was a records shop that Jim
Speaker 2: Stewart's sister opened right next to the interests inside of
Speaker 2: the studio. So I just went into the record store
Speaker 2: and started asking her about who she was, and she
Speaker 2: told me who she was, and they were part of that,
Speaker 2: and I started developing a rapport with her because I
Speaker 2: was able to go over there. I couldn't buy the records,
Speaker 2: but I could hear records playing on my breaks, but
Speaker 2: I also could talk to her about is it any
Speaker 2: possibilities that her brother would give me an audition? And
Speaker 2: it was her that convinced him to give me an audition.
Speaker 2: That didn't happen right away, but when he got the
Speaker 2: urge to pay a little bit more attention to me,
Speaker 2: I was already hanging around every opportunity I could get,
Speaker 2: I'd walk over there and hang around her. So I
Speaker 2: was finding out where their sensibilities were as it relates
Speaker 2: to doing music and changing because they were not having
Speaker 2: any success with the two artists they had during country.
Speaker 1: Okay, but at the time, you saw yourself as a
Speaker 1: singer more than a songwriter, right right, So how did
Speaker 1: you ultimately realize songwriter was the way for you to
Speaker 1: really get in?
Speaker 2: Well before he let me in, I had also developed
Speaker 2: a relationship with Isaac. Isaac went to a rival high school,
Speaker 2: Nance's High School. I went to Booker T. Washington High School.
Speaker 2: We used to go to Belle Street on Wednesday nights
Speaker 2: and sing on talent shows. I from Booker T. Washington
Speaker 2: I had a group called the Marquettes. Isaac from Nanca's
Speaker 2: High school, had a group called the teen Tones. He
Speaker 2: sang bass in the group. He wasn't even a lead singer,
Speaker 2: and so we would rival on Wednesday nights trying to
Speaker 2: win three dollars, which was the prize for first place.
Speaker 2: That's how we met. So here it comes. I graduated
Speaker 2: from high school, I'm hanging around the studio across the street.
Speaker 2: I want to do music. I got a family started.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find a way to do that while
Speaker 2: I'm trying to work crazy hours, two and three jobs
Speaker 2: to take care of that. And Isaac and I start talking.
Speaker 2: He's got a family, he has no money either. So
Speaker 2: I come up. I'm one of those kids that's a
Speaker 2: little bit aggressive in respect that I believe that when
Speaker 2: I make my mind up that I want to do something,
Speaker 2: I would go for it. So I said, well, let's
Speaker 2: start a record company. Now, mind you, I don't know
Speaker 2: anything about a record company, but I can't get into
Speaker 2: the stack studios, and I don't know how to do
Speaker 2: a record company. But I know how to make a
Speaker 2: record because I've made a record called Farewell right as
Speaker 2: I graduated from high school with a shyster that it
Speaker 2: recorded me and skipped left town. I never saw anything
Speaker 2: after that. I heard it on the radio, but I
Speaker 2: never saw anything. So I was already being proactive with
Speaker 2: working toward making something happen. So Isaac agreed with me,
Speaker 2: let's let's do something. Well. I've been selling insurance in
Speaker 2: addition to working at a grocery store, and in one
Speaker 2: of the instances of selling insurance, I met and made
Speaker 2: a relationship with a gentleman by the name of ge Patterson.
Speaker 2: So I said, we can make this record my classmate
Speaker 2: Homer Banks, who sings. He had just graduated and I
Speaker 2: love his tone. Mind you, I've been hearing these tones
Speaker 2: of individuality from these artists from WDIA, so I know
Speaker 2: that if you got something that sounds just like you,
Speaker 2: there's a chance, because something can happen. So I'm not
Speaker 2: thinking about making me a start at that time. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about here's a guy who's got a really unique sound.
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, how are we going to do it?
Speaker 2: I said, well, let me see. So I go and
Speaker 2: I talk to a gin jockey and convince him to
Speaker 2: go into partnership with Isaac. I now, mind you, this
Speaker 2: is illegal, and I don't know it's illegal, and I'm
Speaker 2: telling him I would give you twenty five percent of
Speaker 2: the record company that we have and he says okay.
Speaker 2: So now I go to Chips Moment, who had been
Speaker 2: at Stacks, but who had left, you know, right right
Speaker 2: before the name changed, right as his name was changed.
Speaker 2: Chips left because he didn't want to do the music
Speaker 2: they were doing and they were going to do, and
Speaker 2: he left and started his own thing. So Chips had
Speaker 2: this building over in North Memphis. Because Chips knew me.
Speaker 2: I went and talked to Chips. I said, Ships, which
Speaker 2: you let me have some studio time. I'll give you
Speaker 2: part ownership of this record. He says, what record? I said,
Speaker 2: we're cutting recording this artist right here. He heard the
Speaker 2: guy's tone, he liked his tone. We hadn't even recorded
Speaker 2: the songs yet, he says, for what are we talking about?
Speaker 2: I said, twenty five percent? Okay, mind you. I don't
Speaker 2: know how to negotiate. So now Isaac has twenty five percent.
Speaker 2: I have twenty five percent, Chips has twenty five percent,
Speaker 2: and a dishocking by the name of hal Alkins has
Speaker 2: twenty five percent, and give we take three percent from
Speaker 2: each of us and give the artists twelve percent. Rawdy
Speaker 2: So so I borrow money from a gentleman that I
Speaker 2: met for selling him insurance. I borrow five hundred dollars
Speaker 2: and we record a little Lady of Stone on one
Speaker 2: record in Sweetie Pie on the B side, and another
Speaker 2: record called Ain't That a Lot of Love? Now, while
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out how to get into stacks,
Speaker 2: I not only do that record, which did make any money,
Speaker 2: I do another record at High Studios under the pseudonym
Speaker 2: name of Kenny Kine. I record that, and I do
Speaker 2: another record of Savoi Records in New Jersey by a
Speaker 2: gentleman by the name of fred Mindlsson, none of which
Speaker 2: I give anything from. But I'm I'm hustling trying to
Speaker 2: make something happen. By now I'm getting more experience. So
Speaker 2: while all that's going on, Jim Stewart is now trying
Speaker 2: to record Rufus and Colin Thomas. Because I'm still hanging
Speaker 2: around there. He doesn't know how to put a band
Speaker 2: together for Rufus and call it for that record. But
Speaker 2: I knew who Booker T. Jones was because I skipped
Speaker 2: over this. But Estelle had convinced Jim to do an
Speaker 2: audition for me, and I did the audition. I bought
Speaker 2: William Bell singing background on my audition, and you love
Speaker 2: playing ten of sacks on my audition. Booker T. Jones
Speaker 2: playing baritone horn on my audition, and I sang the song,
Speaker 2: got a rhythm session, got a piano player by the
Speaker 2: name of Bob Tality to play for me, and I
Speaker 2: stumped because I froze in his studio. But I bought
Speaker 2: what eventually became some of the cornerstones of Stax Records
Speaker 2: on that audition. Beyond that, we moved forward to when
Speaker 2: they were trying to put a band together for the
Speaker 2: color for the Rufus and Caller record of Course I
Speaker 2: Love You. I went and got Booker T. Jones to
Speaker 2: play baritone horn on that record. The signature sound on
Speaker 2: costs I Love You by Rufus and Khala, that's Booker T. Jones.
Speaker 2: If you listen to the record, that's a high school
Speaker 2: senior by the name of Booker T. Jones that I
Speaker 2: went and got the play on that record. I got
Speaker 2: some other musicians to play on the cost I Love
Speaker 2: Your record as well. That's before I even get into Stacks.
Speaker 2: But that is the kind of and I talk about
Speaker 2: this Inine the book. That is the kind of out
Speaker 2: there kind of spirit that I had that got in
Speaker 2: the mix of a lot of things, including Stacks.
Speaker 1: Okay, generally speaking for a creator, all the money in
Speaker 1: music is in the publishing. So you started in an
Speaker 1: era where writers didn't tend to own the publishing. The
Speaker 1: publishing was owned by somebody else. So how did the
Speaker 1: ownership work with your songs and do you own them today?
Speaker 2: Well, let's be honest, years and years ago, talents were
Speaker 2: not given the information about what their rice were. So consequently,
Speaker 2: people who own their music when they wrote it did
Speaker 2: not know that they owned two pieces of that music
Speaker 2: pieces of every music piece. So they think when they
Speaker 2: wrote the song, that was the money. They not realizing
Speaker 2: they because they were never told me included that there
Speaker 2: is the writer position in the publisher position. So these
Speaker 2: people who know that are taking advantage of us as
Speaker 2: green as we were, and take the publishing part of that.
Speaker 2: And so we ended up agreeing to sign away the
Speaker 2: songwrite a contract. Was in that contract you signing away
Speaker 2: your publisher rights. Isaac Hayes, David Porter, William Bell, Biggert,
Speaker 2: all of us did that. We did that because the
Speaker 2: information was never disclosed to us about what our actual
Speaker 2: rights were in that regard. Well, that was the nature
Speaker 2: of the business during that particular time. That was how
Speaker 2: it was done. We all eventually learned more about the business,
Speaker 2: including how not to allow that to happen in an
Speaker 2: ongoing way. But by then the Book of the Magical
Speaker 2: Songs were already controlled by someone else. The only thing
Speaker 2: about that was that at some point that material publishing
Speaker 2: side of it and writers would revert back to the writer.
Speaker 2: But by now you find that information out. So there
Speaker 2: are people that's trying to get you to even sign
Speaker 2: that away. But if you know better, you do better.
Speaker 2: So I, like so many other folks, knew better, and
Speaker 2: I did better, and I got all of mine back.
Speaker 1: So today you own all your songs.
Speaker 2: Well, well let me just say it to you, like
Speaker 2: this Universal Music on all of my songs, I own
Speaker 2: all of the money that I ever need the rest
Speaker 2: of my life for my songs.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to make it because we'ren THEUS. Errah, you
Speaker 1: sold your rights to Universal for a lump of money. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So you know you co wrote a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff with Isaac. Yes, was Isaac in agreement with you
Speaker 1: on all these rights? And what then Isaac died? What
Speaker 1: about his airs?
Speaker 2: Well, isaac position was protected by his heirs and and
Speaker 2: by him, so he had his position concrete because we
Speaker 2: each we were fifty percent owners of everything that we did,
Speaker 2: and I had my position concrete. I took my position
Speaker 2: and acted up on it in a sound beneficial way.
Speaker 2: I always looked out for Isaac when he got sick
Speaker 2: and all of that, and was close, very close to him,
Speaker 2: even to the point of his passing.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was in the hospital with his with him when
Speaker 2: he had passed, so I I was very close. But
Speaker 2: he had his ownership position in I had mine.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did Isaac end up being an act?
Speaker 2: Well? Uh, that's an interesting story because when Jim Stewart
Speaker 2: made the relationship with Atlantic Records, that relationship was one
Speaker 2: that Jim didn't have told clarity of because the contract
Speaker 2: that Jerry Wexler got Jim Stewart to sign, Jim forfeited
Speaker 2: ownership of all of the masters of all of that
Speaker 2: music that we had done. I mean naturally the Salmon
Speaker 2: and Dave because that was an artist that Atlantic bought there,
Speaker 2: but all of it, and Jim had signed away that
Speaker 2: ownership to Atlantic Records, and we had no masters. When
Speaker 2: Atlantic came out of the deal, Jim got out of
Speaker 2: the relationship and so we started from scratch. Al Baill,
Speaker 2: who I give credit to being the god sin for
Speaker 2: all of us, ended up making some magical things happen
Speaker 2: fus Stacked, Jim began was beginning to fade back. Al
Speaker 2: took over an ownership position at Stacks, the six of
Speaker 2: US six being Steve Cropper, Dug Dunn, Isaac Hayes, Booker, T. Jones, L.
Speaker 2: Jackson Jr. And myself Were given an ownership position by
Speaker 2: Al Bell And what Al wanted to do was build
Speaker 2: up the catalog of the company again because we had
Speaker 2: no masters, and so he came up with this novel
Speaker 2: idea of recording twenty seven or eight albums in flooding
Speaker 2: the marketplace with albums. Now, this was during the time
Speaker 2: where it was not known the album sales would be
Speaker 2: astronomical as they ultimately became, But that was an idea
Speaker 2: that Al had. So Al was trying to get any
Speaker 2: and everybody to record albums, and he gave Isaac the
Speaker 2: opportunity to do that. Now, mind you, we were still
Speaker 2: Isaac and I were still producing. He gave him the
Speaker 2: opportunity to do that. Isaac took advantage of that. The
Speaker 2: first album I recorded was an album called Presenting Isaac Hages,
Speaker 2: which sold about two thousand albums. It was not successful
Speaker 2: at all, but that's what he did then because al
Speaker 2: was still trying to get album product. I just said, well,
Speaker 2: do you want me to do another album? El said yes,
Speaker 2: because he's trying to get more product. He said, well,
Speaker 2: if I did one, I'd have to do it the
Speaker 2: way I want to do it. Al agreed to let
Speaker 2: him do it the way he wanted to do it. Now,
Speaker 2: mind you, al Bell did not know what he was saying,
Speaker 2: because Isaac recorded the next album called Hot Buded Soul
Speaker 2: with four songs on it. Nineteen minutes long, was a
Speaker 2: song never in the history of the music business had
Speaker 2: there ever been anything like that. Additionally, he didn't write
Speaker 2: the song, but he took a thing that we did
Speaker 2: at the clubs when we would going jam and come
Speaker 2: back from the clubs to write songs. He took a
Speaker 2: song that we did at the club by the time
Speaker 2: I Get to Phoenix by Glenn Campbell, and he came
Speaker 2: up with a concept for that song that ended up
Speaker 2: being the staple for the album Hot Butter Soul. It
Speaker 2: sold the album nineteen minutes and it exploded his career. Now,
Speaker 2: Isaac then crystallized the concept of the chain look and
Speaker 2: the look that he had. He knew about staging, and
Speaker 2: he knew about concept, and he merged all of that
Speaker 2: into what he was doing, and the rest is history. Well,
Speaker 2: by then, now I'm producing the acts because Isaac had
Speaker 2: to go on the road and he was making stupid money,
Speaker 2: crazy money at that time. And I'm producing artists. But
Speaker 2: in the meantime, I get the feeling, well, well, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna record an album myself. So I recorded an album.
Speaker 2: The album sold about one hundred and fifty two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand albums. Now, in the scheme of things in proportion
Speaker 2: of Isaac, that small potatoes been in proportion of money,
Speaker 2: that's great money for Stax Records. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So so, but I don't get to note the riodley
Speaker 2: as an artist. Isaac does, in which I'm happy for Now.
Speaker 2: I record a second album with hang On Sloopy on it,
Speaker 2: which I covered a song that sells another two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand plus album. But I don't get the note rioting.
Speaker 2: But people know about I'm now. I go on a
Speaker 2: tour with Isaac and we played an example Philadelphia Spectrum,
Speaker 2: which is in my book. The picture of that of
Speaker 2: That's post is in my book that Miles Davis is
Speaker 2: to open and act for us, and we have a
Speaker 2: sellout on Thursday night in Philadelphia with Isaac Hayes, especially
Speaker 2: against our David Porter Miles Davis. I still didn't want
Speaker 2: to go on the road as a regular so now
Speaker 2: I'm still producing artists in the studio. Isaac is traveling
Speaker 2: all over the world doing amazing the will. I decided
Speaker 2: to cut one more album, a concept album called Victim
Speaker 2: of the Joke, an opera with acting scenes, sound effect
Speaker 2: the whole nine yards. It becomes a cult album. One
Speaker 2: of the most sample pieces of product Imaginal is that album,
Speaker 2: and so many records have sample from the album Victim
Speaker 2: of the Joke. But it's amazing years later, just me personally,
Speaker 2: about five hundred samples of stuff that's directed to me,
Speaker 2: which is crazy. Isaac is a global superstar all over
Speaker 2: the world, and I decided to put all of this
Speaker 2: inside of the story, inside of a book and let
Speaker 2: people know with clarity more about me who I was
Speaker 2: comfortable and not disclosing all of what I was about
Speaker 2: who I was or anything such as that and certainly
Speaker 2: not comfortable in talking about my life to the extent
Speaker 2: that I have, but I wanted to make sure that
Speaker 2: I used this opportunity to let people know because they
Speaker 2: are hearing music that was done by me and that's
Speaker 2: on records. Magan Statu, you had a record last year
Speaker 2: that's a sample of David portersong. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: it's just amazing what it's been. And the fact that
Speaker 2: I wanted to share my life experience with the people
Speaker 2: through this book was something. But that speaks to what
Speaker 2: was happening at Stax and why even with a bank
Speaker 2: attempting to close it down, why years later, even when
Speaker 2: they thought they'd closed it down, the music catalog still
Speaker 2: explodes after Stacks closed, Bob, I think I know you know,
Speaker 2: but I don't know how much of your audience would
Speaker 2: know after Stacks was closed, where they thought that they
Speaker 2: had destroyed Stacks. There were major hit stars from Stax.
Speaker 2: Johnny Taylor had a record on CBS figure this called
Speaker 2: Disco Lady. The first multi platinum single you can google
Speaker 2: this in history was Disco Lady. The Staple Singers had
Speaker 2: Let's Do It Again, number one record Pop charted all
Speaker 2: of that, Johnny Taylor, all of that. Oh, I mean
Speaker 2: so many of the artists, the Barcays, many many gold
Speaker 2: and gold albums that they've did for Mercular, the artists
Speaker 2: that were a part of the spirit of what Stacks
Speaker 2: was kept living on and survived and still played a
Speaker 2: pertinent part inside of the fabric of music appreciation all
Speaker 2: over the world. And it was just a magical kind
Speaker 2: of thing to just get the opportunity to talk about
Speaker 2: as I'm doing with you today.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell my audience you're a great storyteller.
Speaker 1: There are these stories and more in your book. You
Speaker 1: know you've already left your mark. You're letting more people
Speaker 1: know about the details of this situation, fleshing out the
Speaker 1: story of Stax Vault, which has gotten some of its
Speaker 1: undue status in the last ten or fifteen years with documentaries. David,
Speaker 1: I could talk to you all day. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for talking, taking this time and talking to my audience.
Speaker 2: Bob. I have such great respect for you, and I
Speaker 2: certainly thank so far for media for connecting us and
Speaker 2: vast appreciation for what they've done, and much respect to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing this.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love hearing these stories, these details, this
Speaker 1: is what I lived for.
Speaker 2: I'm fine didn't telling them. I'm fortunate enough to be
Speaker 2: able to still be around.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I say, you got all your marbles
Speaker 1: and you tell a good story. Not everybody can still
Speaker 1: do that. Or yes, I said, unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 1: people are no longer here. So it's good that you
Speaker 1: laid this stuff down.
Speaker 2: Now, well I laid it down, and I feel quite fortunate.
Speaker 2: I started a nonprofit bob several years ago, as a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, fourteen years ago, called the Consortium which MMT.
Speaker 2: The Consortium MMT which stands for Memphis Music Town, which
Speaker 2: gives creative instincts for songwriting, music production and recording artists,
Speaker 2: instincts to them to learn about some of us, all
Speaker 2: the guys who and ladies who played a role in
Speaker 2: the fabric of American music, how we did what we
Speaker 2: did and how we went about that. And I have
Speaker 2: in video one hundred and thirty plus videos of some
Speaker 2: of everyone from Stevie Wonder to I have a booklet
Speaker 2: from Maurice White who Maurice is my best friend, we
Speaker 2: grow up together, to Jimmy jam the producer, to Steve
Speaker 2: Jordans with the stones. Now to Ray Parker Junior who
Speaker 2: just all of these great great talents, so many Eric
Speaker 2: Benney and yes letters see it's Valie Simpson, so many
Speaker 2: amazing talents. I get them to tell their stories of
Speaker 2: the creative process and their exceptional skill levels, of their focus,
Speaker 2: and I'm able to give this free to Africans who
Speaker 2: enter the program. They consortium MMT program and they get
Speaker 2: that free. And I feel so honored as you say,
Speaker 2: they have the marbles to still do things like that.
Speaker 2: It's a special special.
Speaker 1: Gift given back. You've given back today, Till next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sets