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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to our our our nominated,

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Speaker 2: our nub A CP nominated Team Supreme. Like, yeah, hello,

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Speaker 2: how about you.

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Speaker 3: I'm feeling good. Image Award nominated, Sir, I have made it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's fine, and uh Suca, Steve, how are you

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Speaker 2: this evening? I'm good. My image has been nominated as

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Speaker 2: well by the nub A CP. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling.

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Speaker 2: I'm feeling good. And uh, you know, the keeper of

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Speaker 2: Rocco and Elmo, how you doing? Un pay Bill. I

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Speaker 2: can't say that I ever thought in all the awards

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Speaker 2: that I'd ever been nominated for an n double ACP Award.

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Speaker 2: So feels good, which put it like that.

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Speaker 3: There you go.

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Speaker 2: How's it going.

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Speaker 4: I'm good, brother, I'm good man, glad of you know

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Speaker 4: dominated and uh yeah, I never thought this would happen

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Speaker 4: this way over in for years right straight ship three,

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Speaker 4: It's okay, back here here, sir.

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Speaker 2: He went to get cigarettes for a long time. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so I know for the longest, you know, I've been

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Speaker 2: talking to our listeners at q LS, especially in the

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Speaker 2: last year, about you know the direction of transformation in

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Speaker 2: my life is going, and how it's important to often

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Speaker 2: get out of your comfort zone, you know, stretching out

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Speaker 2: to different territories. So I will be the first to

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Speaker 2: be very transparent with our longtime listeners of q LS

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Speaker 2: that this episode should be notable for Unlike previous Quest

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Speaker 2: of Supreme episodes, this will probably the first time that

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Speaker 2: and it's not like I have a PhD in every

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Speaker 2: guest that ever comes on the show, but this will

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Speaker 2: probably mark the first time that I don't know the

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Speaker 2: entire canon, the history of a particular guest of the

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Speaker 2: show like the back of my hand. I'm not saying

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Speaker 2: that I'm not familiar with our guest today. So that said,

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Speaker 2: I would actually like to say and in jac that

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Speaker 2: we have two special guests today. So joining the Team

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Speaker 2: Supreme is uh my brother and soul or soul aquarian

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Speaker 2: James aloisious poiser, producer, songwriter, fellow Randy watsoner extraordinaire and

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Speaker 2: Gospel of ficionado.

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Speaker 4: And me and world famous meme on Twitter.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, James is definitely like a meme. I'm not

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Speaker 2: even a meme, Like that's a life.

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Speaker 5: Do means get nominated for NAACP Awards five years.

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Speaker 6: Grammy backup, sir, backup.

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Speaker 2: You have Grammy and you know, but I'm certain that

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Speaker 2: the fame and the Meme Hall of Fame you will

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Speaker 2: make it. That said, I brought Brother James here to

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Speaker 2: help me pick up the pieces on things that I

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Speaker 2: otherwise wouldn't know, because for me, I don't want to

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Speaker 2: leave any stone unturned. Our guest today, I will say,

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Speaker 2: is one of the most legendary and influential musicians that

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Speaker 2: I know in Black music. That's not hyperbolic or anything.

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Speaker 2: I say this literally because I've not met a musician

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Speaker 2: post five that has not made our guests their north

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Speaker 2: star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get

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Speaker 2: with that in the show today. But without further ado,

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Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questlove supreme be legendary

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Speaker 2: brother Fred Hammond.

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Speaker 3: Yes, appreciate it. Appreciate it, and congratulations everybody and your

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Speaker 3: nomination book.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's weird. I didn't even know that you were active

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Speaker 2: on social media and you had left a comment in

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Speaker 2: one of my things, and I was like, yo, Fred Hammond,

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Speaker 2: knows who I am, Like, I had zero clue that

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Speaker 2: you even knew that I was alive or anything. So

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Speaker 2: this conversation is long, long overdue because, as I said

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Speaker 2: at the top, back when I was really honing my

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Speaker 2: skills as a musician, there was like one of three

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Speaker 2: routes you can go. Now we all knows I chose

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Speaker 2: the hip hop route. Most musicians in eighty three, eighty four,

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Speaker 2: eighty five, they chose the purple route. And then there's

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Speaker 2: a sect of black musicianship in which you might have

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Speaker 2: a household that might not allow secular music in the household.

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Speaker 2: And that said, I will say that you were probably

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Speaker 2: their main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about you and your very influential group commissioned. So I

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Speaker 2: thank you. I've been dying to have this conversation with

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Speaker 2: you because I need the edumacation. So where are you

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Speaker 2: right now.

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Speaker 3: As we speak. I'm at my studio here in Dallas.

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Speaker 3: I have a warehouse in the studio here that I

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Speaker 3: do everything out of me and my family, my brothers,

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Speaker 3: and I was actually just finishing up a vocal that

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Speaker 3: I'm working on for the New Addition tour, just to

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Speaker 3: kind of give them some stuff to go through, some transitions,

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Speaker 3: you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I

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Speaker 3: was just finishing up that, you know, and then we'll

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Speaker 3: send it out to them and say, you know, give

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Speaker 3: them some ideas of what can happen. My brother Ray

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Speaker 3: is the production manager for the tours. So when you

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Speaker 3: see BBD a new addition, he's front of the house

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Speaker 3: and the guy that runs the you know, gets everything

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Speaker 3: together production wise.

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Speaker 2: So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m

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Speaker 2: D or co MD of this reunions or that's.

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Speaker 3: About it's just uh, right now, we're just seeing some stuff.

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Speaker 3: And I wanted to show them like a lot of

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Speaker 3: the transitions that they want to do from song to

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Speaker 3: song the song that they could do some vocal right here,

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Speaker 3: that's simple, that's what they do because it's not normal

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Speaker 3: for them to do that. And so I just went

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Speaker 3: in there and just did some old commission new edition

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Speaker 3: type stuff, simple just to get them to the next song,

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Speaker 3: you know, so to give them another just to give

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Speaker 3: my idea of what can happen. So you know, it's

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Speaker 3: up to them. You know that.

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Speaker 7: Sounds like yeah, quasim okay, Well it's It's funny you

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Speaker 7: say that because I think maybe like a month ago,

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Speaker 7: I was listening to Heartbreak and I was just talking

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Speaker 7: to Jimmy jam about the intro song of that album,

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Speaker 7: which is called uh, That's the way We're Living, which,

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Speaker 7: as far as it's execution is concerned, I feel like

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Speaker 7: that definitely falls from the tree of what Commission was about.

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Speaker 2: You know, when a lot of these cats that have

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Speaker 2: what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that, you know,

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Speaker 2: they're sons of Commission. So always wanted to know how

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Speaker 2: you felt about your influence as far as the black

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Speaker 2: musicianship we have now with gospel chops. Like you know,

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Speaker 2: do you watch acts often in R and B say like, well,

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Speaker 2: that's our lick, and that's our lick, and that's our like.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know the thing about it is back then

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Speaker 3: a lot of people don't notice. But I was close

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Speaker 3: with a lot of those guys back then. You know.

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Speaker 3: You know, it was funny because you know, Davante, his

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Speaker 3: father is a pastor, and one day we did a

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Speaker 3: concert at their church and Davante said, yo, man, you

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Speaker 3: know he came up. I styled he was a young fella.

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Speaker 3: He said, hey, man, I just want to tell you

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Speaker 3: guys have been influenced to us. And I just got

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Speaker 3: signed to MCA eight and the name of my group

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Speaker 3: is called Jodasy. I say, really, he say, you know

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Speaker 3: k C. And I knew Little k C from Little Cedric.

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Speaker 3: I used to so Little Cedric and the Haley Singers.

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Speaker 3: We would do concerts together and pass on the road

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Speaker 3: and do interviews and whatnot. So I was I kept

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Speaker 3: up with all of those guys. And you know a

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Speaker 3: lot of the cats, Chucky Booker and Da and they

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Speaker 3: bring me backstage. They would bring me backstage and whether

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Speaker 3: they were doing the Budwives and Superfessor, and I'm a student.

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Speaker 3: You know a lot of people, you know a lot

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Speaker 3: of church people, they don't go places and learn because

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Speaker 3: they can't control themselves when they get inside or behind

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Speaker 3: the curtain, you know. But I would go, you know,

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Speaker 3: I would go to Al Hayman, Budwiser, Superfessor, and I

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Speaker 3: would meet the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd

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Speaker 3: be a student of production of how they were playing,

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Speaker 3: and I would take it back to Commission. You know.

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Speaker 3: Commission is a amalgam of the Clark Sistory number one,

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Speaker 3: the vocal of the Clark Sisters. Then the is the Time,

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Speaker 3: Earth Wind and Fire, Genesis, you know, Chicago, we did

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Speaker 3: just a different thing, and we noticed that a lot

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Speaker 3: of the guys that were coming around at that time

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Speaker 3: were coming up to us and they were starting to

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Speaker 3: get get put on like boys and men, and we

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Speaker 3: just kept in touch and we were just cool and friendly.

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Speaker 3: Uh Little Joe and uh Buddy from the Rude Boys

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Speaker 3: always doing something. We're always together at some point doing something,

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Speaker 3: letting them hear music. They're letting us hear ours and

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Speaker 3: hear theirs, and you know, so we we kept connected

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Speaker 3: with our R and B family.

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Speaker 2: You know, did he just say Genesis? Yes, But if

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Speaker 2: you if you really look at it, yo, I mean

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Speaker 2: there's really not that much difference between prog rock and dude.

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Speaker 2: We just saw it like we just literally I forget

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Speaker 2: the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think

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Speaker 2: you remember this. Do you remember when Who's Who's the

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Speaker 2: group that who more they were formerly known as at

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Speaker 2: the drive in and then when one of their members,

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Speaker 2: So do you remember when Mars Volta auditioned a drummer

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Speaker 2: at our studio like behind literally next to your studio.

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Speaker 2: He was a gospel chops drummer.

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Speaker 5: Thomas Pridgin, I think, yes, yeah.

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Speaker 2: And it was a it was a match made it.

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Speaker 2: At first, I was like, that's weird that they got

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Speaker 2: a gospel chop drumming to do it. But because of

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Speaker 2: the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like

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Speaker 2: a marriage made in heaven. And that's when I realized

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Speaker 2: that gospel chops and prague rock are almost neck and

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Speaker 2: neck with each other. I mean, of course, gospel chop

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Speaker 2: has more soul.

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Speaker 6: To it, but every pop group now has a gospel

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Speaker 6: drummer on a grande and all those guys.

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Speaker 5: They all have.

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Speaker 6: It's all like big fills from three to four and

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Speaker 6: one every every bar. Literally music, I think music like

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Speaker 6: everything's like at the end of the four of our phrases.

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Speaker 2: What the notable thing about my entry in music is

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Speaker 2: that I'm the opposite of that, but literally, which is funny, well, yeah,

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Speaker 2: which I'm saying that Basically, I feel as though Commissioned

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Speaker 2: really is probably the most influential black group in at

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Speaker 2: least the last forty years of music, second to Prince,

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Speaker 2: you know, as far as the as far as the

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Speaker 2: ripple effect of Nah. Absolutely their contribution.

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Speaker 4: I mean, because you look at a song like I'm Learning,

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Speaker 4: I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.

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Speaker 4: I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a

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Speaker 4: Jobasy album or you know what I'm saying. Like it

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Speaker 4: was the they always liked about y'all. Y'all stuff was

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Speaker 4: that it was I could tell when you say, you know,

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Speaker 4: you were a student and you would go and meet

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Speaker 4: the other groups and stuff. The songs always sounded current,

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Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, a lot of times gospel

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Speaker 4: because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel

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Speaker 4: stuff would always be behind, like if it came out

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Speaker 4: in ninety two, it would sound like something from.

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Speaker 2: Like eighty eight eighty seven, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 4: But Commission Records, y'all was always like right on time

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Speaker 4: and it was never dated.

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Speaker 3: I always appreciated that man, that right there was it

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Speaker 3: was just our DNA. It was like we listened to everybody.

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Speaker 3: I give you a story. One of the guys wrote

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Speaker 3: a song called It's so Good to Know the Savior,

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Speaker 3: and he was a tempo guy, so it was like

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Speaker 3: a church tempo. It's so good and let's say, and

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Speaker 3: the record company didn't pick it. It was it had

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Speaker 3: all of the fizzle and the buzzer and everything. And

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Speaker 3: the guy he came to me and said, hey, man, listen,

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Speaker 3: I think we need to change the drummer out, and

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Speaker 3: which is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's

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Speaker 3: not that. I say, basically, it's man, it's kind of dated.

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Speaker 3: And I said, tomorrow, we just need to castle over

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Speaker 3: to that month. And they didn't know because they hadn't heard.

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Speaker 3: They hadn't heard LeVert. I was cool with Gerrell, and

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Speaker 3: so when Casanova came out, they hadn't heard it yet.

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Speaker 3: So I said, let's just get in the studio and

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Speaker 3: let me flip it a little bit. And I had

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Speaker 3: an ra drum machine and some stuff and I just

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Speaker 3: bo't boom boom boom boom cocka boom, and then it

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Speaker 3: changed into you can see a vamp into that and

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Speaker 3: then the song had life. Well that was because we

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Speaker 3: stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and

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Speaker 3: our counterparts. You know, we've paid attention to everybody from

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Speaker 3: the old school, whether it's Luther uh Al Green, you know,

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Speaker 3: earth Wind all the way up to the vert to

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Speaker 3: a babyface to the deal. You know, like we were

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Speaker 3: talking song we like Sweet November or do we like this?

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Speaker 3: Because our vocals were off of the whispers and the dramatics.

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Speaker 3: Those are our mail vote counterproces that we love do WoT.

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Speaker 3: So if you hear a lot of our harmonies we

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Speaker 3: sing like Ron Banks and Scottie and Walter, you will

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Speaker 3: hear a lot of that in But then we add

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Speaker 3: what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology.

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Speaker 3: We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it

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Speaker 3: was funny too. You said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry

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Speaker 3: is like my hero, Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim babyface in La.

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Speaker 3: So one time we were going to do this thing

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Speaker 3: in Minnesota called uh It's a Methodist church and they

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Speaker 3: were Soul Liberation Outreach and they said where you want

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Speaker 3: to go to? My said, can we go see flight Time?

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Speaker 3: Because we were just you know, we didn't have no studios.

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Speaker 3: So I said, can we go see flight Time? We

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Speaker 3: want to see some black guys who were owning something.

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Speaker 3: And I walked into flight Time and I was just

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Speaker 3: blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily

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Speaker 3: by you know, these two guys, and they were just

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Speaker 3: finishing the controls starting on We about to start on

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Speaker 3: this new record called Rhythm Nation they're recording now, and

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Speaker 3: we just had those moments. Then they said, well where

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Speaker 3: you want to go next? Now we we church boys,

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Speaker 3: now remember this, this is this is what we church boys.

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Speaker 3: So we don't do clubs and stuff like that. So

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Speaker 3: somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and

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Speaker 3: we was like, oh, I don't know. So I think

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Speaker 3: were like, I think something gonna jump on us. But

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Speaker 3: I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I want

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Speaker 3: to see it. So we went over there. Man, and

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Speaker 3: on the whole ride over there because at that point,

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Speaker 3: Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in that

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Speaker 3: that I want to I'm gonna really mess you up

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Speaker 3: with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up to

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Speaker 3: the place and people was praying Jesus help us God.

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Speaker 3: You know, we're walking into the spot and we're thinking, man,

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Speaker 3: you better pray put some annoy all on you. When

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Speaker 3: when we walked in, it was business as usual. People

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Speaker 3: just walking around doing business. It wasn't nothing crazy. And

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Speaker 3: I said, man, this is whole thing is a persona.

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Speaker 2: I thought it was.

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Speaker 3: And the rest of the guys, some of the guys said, man,

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Speaker 3: I'm just stay in there. I'm stay in the van.

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Speaker 3: I said, I'm going in. I want to see what's what?

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Speaker 3: I mean, how find you get this? How do you

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Speaker 3: get this close? And I see this guy had a complex.

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Speaker 3: I mean at that time, to think about Paisley, it

286
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Speaker 3: was it was it was like Cowboys Stadium at that time.

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Speaker 3: She said, I gotta go see it. But when I

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Speaker 3: walked through, they took us to his personal room and

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Speaker 3: they just my mind was blown because it was just business.

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Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, I said, man,

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Speaker 3: this is just a persona. And then I learned how

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Speaker 3: to be an owner. So now I mean I got

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Speaker 3: seventeen dous square feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry.

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Speaker 3: It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince, and Michael Powell who

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Speaker 3: lived in Detroit who baker that was my close friend.

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Speaker 3: So I had to learn, uh, and that's you know,

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Speaker 3: I looked at my big brothers to do that for me.

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Speaker 2: You know, Okay, I want to start at the beginning

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Speaker 2: of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan.

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Speaker 3: Was born in San Antonio.

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Speaker 2: Oh all right, See the one time I don't ask

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Speaker 2: the question, I get burnt. Sorry, Can you tell me

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Speaker 2: what your first musical memory was?

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Speaker 3: My first musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know,

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Speaker 3: I say this because a lot of people have, uh,

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Speaker 3: these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks

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Speaker 3: that they're perfect. I don't. I was. I was born different,

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Speaker 3: you know, I was. My mother and father were married

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Speaker 3: to other people, and he was a pastor and my

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Speaker 3: mother was a musician. And the church really dogged my

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Speaker 3: mom and protected him, and so they kind of put

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Speaker 3: her out. And so it was basically me and her.

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Speaker 3: And before I was born, you know, we went through

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Speaker 3: this whole thing about she was. She went and had

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Speaker 3: an abortion and it didn't work, you know. So it's

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Speaker 3: a lot of stuff that goes on with me being here.

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Speaker 2: So yeah's a blessing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And so she was my biggest musical influence. So

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Speaker 3: I followed her everywhere to because she taught choirs. She

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Speaker 3: was very amazing at teaching choirs and playing the piano

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Speaker 3: for churches. And I'll never forget I'll go back to.

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Speaker 3: She came home with this little forty five and I

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Speaker 3: had a cloth and play and she said, you know

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Speaker 3: I bought these boys, you know, And it was just

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Speaker 3: a picture of these five boys was Jackson's and she said,

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Speaker 3: you know, listen to this. I hadn't even heard him

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Speaker 3: on the radio. And I put it on my clothes

328
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Speaker 3: and play and I want you back came on, and

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Speaker 3: I just saw Michael as my age because they were

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Speaker 3: saying he was younger than they said he was my age.

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Speaker 3: I was probably five or six, and I was just

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Speaker 3: I was enamored with this group, and so I was singing.

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Speaker 3: And I found myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven

334
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Speaker 3: years old. And my mother said, you know, if you

335
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Speaker 3: open your mouth, you can sing better. You can sing

336
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Speaker 3: like that little boy right there. And I was very shy,

337
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Speaker 3: and I didn't want her to hear me because I

338
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Speaker 3: thought she would make me sing in front of people.

339
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Speaker 3: So I made sure she didn't ever hear me again.

340
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Speaker 3: So I took my clothes and play in the closet

341
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Speaker 3: because you ran her own batteries, and I sang in

342
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Speaker 3: the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing.

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Speaker 3: I was afraid she was going to put me up

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Speaker 3: there in front of the church. And so that's my

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Speaker 3: earliest knowledge right there.

346
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Speaker 4: So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church,

347
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Speaker 4: like since because of.

348
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Speaker 3: Your you know. The beautiful thing is God kept me

349
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Speaker 3: from that from the knowledge of people now thinking I

350
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Speaker 3: was worth it, you know, But when I look back

351
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Speaker 3: at it, a lot of people just thought I was

352
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Speaker 3: just worthless because you can't do nothing with God because

353
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Speaker 3: you're born out of web lite. Who are you? You know,

354
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Speaker 3: your mother, your mother's is an adult. So they just

355
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Speaker 3: kind of threw us away. But the reality is that's

356
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Speaker 3: why I'm probably effective today. Not because I sing good,

357
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Speaker 3: not because I play any instruments, or not because I

358
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Speaker 3: produce anything or sing on anybody's record. It's because I

359
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:37,920
Speaker 3: understand what broken people go through. And so my whole

360
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Speaker 3: job is to tell people, hey, man, I've been broken,

361
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Speaker 3: I understand brokenness. You why don't you come with me?

362
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Speaker 3: I believe this and you know, so there's no errors, it's.

363
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Speaker 2: Just it's a forgiveness element in there too, though, that

364
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Speaker 2: you got that, you.

365
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Speaker 3: Absolutely so when people like quest you said you understand

366
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Speaker 3: my pain when it comes to just you and your mom.

367
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Speaker 3: You understand that, you know, and maybe others do too.

368
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Speaker 3: But you know, my path, man, my path. It's just

369
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Speaker 3: it's been ordained to go through a rugged, rugged, feed

370
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Speaker 3: up path to get to this point to tell other people,

371
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Speaker 3: I understand where you are. I get it, I get it.

372
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Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean that's mine.

373
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Speaker 2: Wasn't as drastic as like being shunned or whatnot, but

374
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Speaker 2: definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation

375
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Speaker 2: where they were part of other unions, and you know,

376
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Speaker 2: that's kind of how you know, I came, I came

377
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Speaker 2: to the world. So for a lot of our listeners,

378
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Speaker 2: I don't know if they're fully aware, you know, I

379
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Speaker 2: would explain to people often that you know, we'll look

380
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Speaker 2: at somebody like, you know, Ray Charles now as a

381
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Speaker 2: national treasure. But you know, I would tell, like anybody

382
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Speaker 2: that I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact that

383
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Speaker 2: you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the NWA of

384
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Speaker 2: his day.

385
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Speaker 8: Like, yeah, the idea sing gospel music with secular lyrics

386
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Speaker 8: was highly controversial with the Black church.

387
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Speaker 2: And fast forwarding to where your entry into gospel music

388
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Speaker 2: is where you can put some funk inside it. Or

389
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 2: put some swing inside of your music and it really

390
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Speaker 2: not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just

391
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Speaker 2: the what brought you to Detroit? How did you make

392
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Speaker 2: that transition from San Antonio to Detroit.

393
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Speaker 3: Well, due to the circumstances situation, they sent us up

394
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Speaker 3: to Detroit. We was sitting oh.

395
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Speaker 1: Exile to Detroit exile.

396
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Speaker 3: We got a nice bus ticket up to a friendly

397
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Speaker 3: place called Detroit and a beautiful family called the Hope,

398
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 3: the Hoak's family. They took us in and they gave

399
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 3: us their attic and we became a part of their family.

400
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 3: While my mother went through her healing process, you know,

401
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 3: of which when she passes seventy four, she was still

402
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:16,959
Speaker 3: trying to validate herself as you know, forgiven, you know,

403
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 3: and she was a she's a great praise warrior, great,

404
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 3: you know. She she made a lot of strides, but

405
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 3: it just she couldn't get over some things. And so

406
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:30,679
Speaker 3: we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing.

407
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Speaker 2: How big is your family at this point as far

408
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 2: as your siblings, and.

409
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Speaker 3: At that time it was me and my mom. At

410
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,640
Speaker 3: this point it's me. I got two brothers, Ray and Dave,

411
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Speaker 3: and they have families. I have a family. I have

412
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Speaker 3: kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that live

413
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 3: in Atlanta from my mother's other union, you know. And

414
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Speaker 3: then then I have a brother and four other sisters

415
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Speaker 3: the other unit. So I'm right there in the middle. Okay,

416
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,479
Speaker 3: I'm the absolute when you count down, I'm the middle

417
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 3: child of all of that, you know. So that's we're

418
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 3: and now we're all kind of cluel together. My brother

419
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,239
Speaker 3: from my father's side, he comes and he drives our

420
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 3: tour bus from time to time, and my sisters are

421
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 3: so we're all kind of together, and you know, that's

422
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 3: that's the thing.

423
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Speaker 2: So, Okay, I know you were born in nineteen sixty,

424
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Speaker 2: I believe. So can you describe to me what it

425
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 2: is to grow up in Detroit, Michigan in the early seventies.

426
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Speaker 2: I know about you know, I've heard people tell me

427
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 2: about growing up in Detroit in the early sixties. And

428
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 2: I know, of course people who grew up in Detroit

429
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 2: between like the mid eighties and the in the early nineties.

430
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 2: But I really don't know people that have had a

431
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 2: period in Detroit in the early seventies, like around that period,

432
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 2: like United Sounds there where you know, motowns leaving. Could

433
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 2: you just describe to me basically what your life was

434
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 2: as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies.

435
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 3: You know, it was really just about about school and

436
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 3: surviving in the hood, you know, just you know one

437
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 3: of my good friends in the seventies. Yeah, I went

438
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 3: to well, my mom moved to California to Inglewood when

439
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 3: I was in the fourth grade, the first part of

440
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 3: the fourth grade, and she didn't like it, and we

441
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 3: came back to Detroit around December. But I hadn't been

442
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 3: in school, so that whole fourth grade year I had

443
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 3: to try to catch up. So this is like the seventies,

444
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 3: you know, this is and whatnot. The next year I

445
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 3: had to go to a parochial school with a seventy

446
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 3: at Venice, where I was good friends. My best friend

447
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,239
Speaker 3: was Greg Mathews, Judge Greg Mathews. So he and I

448
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 3: were in the Wow. Oh yeah, you and I were

449
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 3: in the fifth grade together and everything you ever hear

450
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:04,159
Speaker 3: that he ever said one hundred Because I lived in

451
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 3: the hood and he lived in the projects. He lived

452
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 3: in the Herman Gardens, and he had a bunch of brothers.

453
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 3: But he was smart as a whip. In the fifth

454
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 3: grade and I was struggling, but he and I were

455
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 3: just really good friends. So growing up there, it was

456
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 3: just you know, the seventies are almost a blur because

457
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 3: I wasn't musical yet. I was thinking more sports and whatnot,

458
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 3: and I hadn't done any real music until I got

459
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 3: to about sixteen, about fifteen or sixteen years old, and

460
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 3: I transitioned from drums in my church to bass guitar.

461
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 2: Okay, wait a minute, you're trying to tell me that.

462
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass,

463
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,360
Speaker 2: but this didn't happen until you were a teenager.

464
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, right around fourteen, thirteen years old, I start transitioned

465
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 3: because my mother. I went to a church called Greater

466
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 3: Grays Temple and the line play drums was around the

467
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 3: corner and the pastor's son he had a lot, Chuckie Ellis,

468
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 3: Charles Ellis. He's bitch of bellist now, but he was

469
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 3: an amazing drummer, and I had my sticks. I would

470
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 3: go every Sunday and I would try to play, and

471
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 3: you know, just never got a chance. So my mother said, hey,

472
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 3: you know, I don't like to see you, you know,

473
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 3: not getting a chance. Is there any other instrument. There

474
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 3: was a bass guitar laying over in the corner, and

475
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 3: nobody would come and play it because the guy was working.

476
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I like to play bass, maybe

477
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 3: I could try that. And that's when I moved to

478
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 3: bass guitar and I never looked back.

479
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 2: The reason why it's also important for me to know

480
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 2: about this specific period in the seventies is because I

481
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 2: know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially

482
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 2: in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois,

483
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 2: you know a lot of them are escaping the South,

484
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 2: the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're

485
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 2: getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying well,

486
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 2: and they're buying these houses, and the houses have garages

487
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 2: and of course instruments. You know, this is basically how

488
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:13,239
Speaker 2: like the first wave of the funk generation starts. And

489
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 2: I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration seventy

490
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 2: seventy one seventy two, you know, budgets started to get cut,

491
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 2: music education started to wane and whatnot, and the idea

492
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 2: of the garage band, you know, kind of wilted out.

493
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 2: So I mean, by that time period, even though you

494
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 2: were late in developing your musicianship. Were there musicians around

495
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 2: like next door and all those things, or were factories

496
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 2: closing by then? And then like that dream just died.

497
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 3: You know, music was still big, even though a lot

498
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 3: of the porch bands and the garage bands from the

499
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 3: sixties weren't very popular. But music was still a thing,

500
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 3: you know. So I hooked up the guy at my

501
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 3: fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and he was like

502
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 3: my best friend. And this guy could play every instrument

503
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 3: at that point. He play bass, he could play guitar,

504
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 3: he could play drums, and he was fluent at it

505
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 3: at fifteen years old. So he would take every day

506
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 3: we would come home to his house after school or

507
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 3: in the summertime, and we would just shed and he

508
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 3: would start to show me people. He was the person

509
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 3: he said, Man, I got this record, you really need

510
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 3: to hear. Check it out. This dude right here plays

511
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 3: all the instruments. His name is Prince and it was

512
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 3: the four You album. And so we're listening in the

513
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 3: basement and he's like, man, listen to that. Listen to that.

514
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 3: You got to get on your theory, Fred. He's teaching

515
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 3: me theory. He's like up, what's that? And I'd have

516
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 3: to kind of come back and name it. And so

517
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 3: every day we would shed and we would go places

518
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 3: like the Detroit miss the Detroit Music Union, and bands

519
00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 3: would play come in and audition, so it was still alive. Uh,

520
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 3: And then we would play in the garage. We played

521
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 3: Mister Magic for like four hours, you know, in the garage.

522
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 3: Then we graduated. Then we graduated to Herbie and you

523
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 3: know a Chameleon. I mean, you know, so once I

524
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 3: learned that them two songs and we have a little

525
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 3: crowd out there and we just play it, and then

526
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 3: there it was. I was so proud when I learned

527
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 3: the baseline too, that's the way of the world. And

528
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 3: I learned that that had doom doom, doom, doom doom.

529
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 3: When I learned that concept that that, man, it blew

530
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 3: me away. So we were still it was still a

531
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 3: powerful place to learn music. It hadn't died that whole seventies.

532
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 3: It hadn't died, you know.

533
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 2: Well living in Detroit was was any of the p

534
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 2: funk folklore, Like was that an influence on you at all?

535
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,959
Speaker 2: Like seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or

536
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,479
Speaker 2: any of those things or was that sort of like

537
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 2: after you know, they migrated and went to California, Like,

538
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 2: was any of that part of your DNA at all?

539
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 3: You know? They had a on eight Mile There was

540
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 3: a club called Axles. Okay believe the Woods, Lamont Johnson.

541
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 3: They would all play there. Yeah, so they would all

542
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 3: play there. Amp Fiddler would show up and they say, yo, man,

543
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 3: ant Fidler from U. He played with George Clinton. Uh,

544
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:31,239
Speaker 3: David Chong would I mean, and the only people And

545
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 3: we would try to go in there and sit in there,

546
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 3: sneaking because it was kind of under but we'd sneak

547
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 3: in and we'd listen to them and these cats. The

548
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 3: funk was heavy. It was still Brainstorm was just starting

549
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 3: to get started. Man, it was real, real strong. So

550
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 3: Amp Fidler, Uh, we never got a chance to see George,

551
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 3: but we played with a lot of the guys that

552
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 3: played on his record, like Butch Small I believe his

553
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 3: name is but Small. Yeah, he was big. He used

554
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 3: to run a studio called rm J, and so he

555
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 3: was the Lynn drum king. So he came and did

556
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 3: some lind drum on the first Commission record. You know,

557
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 3: but he was just somebody we looked up to, you know,

558
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 3: Warren Woods, the engineer, you know, man, it was just

559
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 3: it was still rich, Man, It hadn't died at all.

560
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 3: I mean, it was still really rich in the seventies,

561
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 3: especially going into the eighties.

562
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: So as a musician, who would you say, is is

563
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 2: your north star? As far as like, that's the musician

564
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 2: I want to emulate, because it's weird to me. Like

565
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies,

566
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 2: every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams, thank

567
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark. So

568
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 2: the fact that you started in seventy eight with Prince

569
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 2: tells me that you're sort of a later generation. So who,

570
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 2: as far as like your setting and as far as

571
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 2: like who you wanted to emulate, who is the musician

572
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 2: that is your north star?

573
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 3: Well number one? Okay, Well let's break it up into

574
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 3: two bass players. Okay, not because my total north star

575
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 3: is Stevie period, hands down, right, but as far as

576
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 3: bass players are going. Okay, So my first bass player

577
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 3: influence and I didn't really know it, but I would

578
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 3: pick his sound out when I heard I want you back.

579
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 3: That's James Jamison, James Jamison, I would hear his bass

580
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: lines and I just always locked him. Now as a

581
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 3: bass player, I definitely was Stanley and Jacko, and then

582
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 3: it was Abe Laboreal. It was Alfonso Johnson who played

583
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 3: this friendless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson, these

584
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 3: are my these are my go tos. And then of

585
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 3: course Marcus was younger, so he came on this seen

586
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 3: a little bit later. But those guys were my Jamison Clark,

587
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 3: Anthony Jackson, Jocko, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vanelli's bass player. I

588
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 3: don't know who it was, but we would listen to him.

589
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 3: So anybody that was really killing back then, we would

590
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 3: grab their record their music and we would just I

591
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 3: would share to it. So those are my north stars

592
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 3: right there.

593
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 2: So were you more team uh thumb Plucking or were

594
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 2: you more team index middle Finger for baby, I was like.

595
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 3: I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these.

596
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 3: I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely

597
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 3: a thumper. I was definitely team thump.

598
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 2: I get it, okay, I love it. At what point

599
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 2: are you forming uh or at least bonding with Marcus

600
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 2: Montreal like the other members of Commission, like, how are

601
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 2: you guys, how do you guys meet? And is that

602
00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 2: was that your first actual band or did you have

603
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 2: other bands before?

604
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 3: Well, Mitchell Jones and I we graduate. We went to

605
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 3: school together at Mumford Hide and we were together NonStop

606
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 3: all three years. So he and I started Commission. You know,

607
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 3: at the end of the day he and I started Commission,

608
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 3: I went off to play for The Winings. I was

609
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 3: the bass player for them from nineteen until I was

610
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,240
Speaker 3: like twenty three years old, and that's when I started.

611
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 3: That's when I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell,

612
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:33,280
Speaker 3: Keith Staton, Carl Reid, Michael Brooks, and Michael Williams the drummer,

613
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 3: and right around them, right.

614
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 2: Around are you talking live for studio?

615
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 3: Both with I'm sorry, oh, with the Winings, I was

616
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 3: just I was, man, they wouldn't even let me near

617
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 3: the studio. They wouldn't you could even you couldn't even

618
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 3: see nobody famous. Here's here's a joke. Andre Crouch came

619
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 3: to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man,

620
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 3: if you don't, if you be good, I'll let you

621
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 3: come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh, man,

622
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 3: the skin, and so they this is no joke. They

623
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 3: had us come over. He opened the door and we

624
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 3: had to look through the screen and I was sitting

625
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 3: in the chair over and said just look over there.

626
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 3: That's him right now. Wow. And we were like, wow,

627
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 3: that is him. Wow, this is We never asked can

628
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 3: we come in? And we never went in. They were

629
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 3: why go home?

630
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 4: Nah, That's how they protected their relationships, like.

631
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 3: Go home no. No. So I've never got a chance

632
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 3: to play on any album you know, with them or anything.

633
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 3: We weren't you know, we weren't good enough, but we

634
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 3: were good enough to do the road. And you know what,

635
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 3: we wasn't offended. We really weren't offended. When we heard

636
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 3: their records. We knew it was something different between Abe Laboreal,

637
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 3: Bill Maxwell, Hadley Howkin Smith. You know, we knew it

638
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 3: was something different. So we weren't tripping, you know, we

639
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 3: just appreciated the opportunity to just be in the number.

640
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 5: Now, let me ask you this, were you around that

641
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna nerd boy out on on the churches

642
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 5: while you're here? Were you back then on the church vibe?

643
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 5: Where where Thomas Woodfield and Rudolph Stance, Phil and all

644
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 5: them guys.

645
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 2: Whoa see that stuff. I wouldn't know to ask, like.

646
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 3: Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in

647
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 3: the studio and my base, my basse wasn't up to park,

648
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,479
Speaker 3: it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was too young.

649
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 3: The first record was Vanessa Belle Armstrong Peace be Still

650
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 3: record Yes, and there's a song called I don't want

651
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 3: my living to be in vain and anyway you bless

652
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 3: me and playing those two Okay. My boy that honestly

653
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 3: he called in because my base didn't work was Leonard

654
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 3: Bradley Kurr. Okay, Kurr. Everybody knows that, Okay, So but

655
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 3: Kern was the king around there, and uh, he was

656
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 3: another guy that kind of schooled me. But that was

657
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 3: my first take on going in the studio. So then

658
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 3: when we did our demo as commission, we asked we

659
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 3: saved him some money, and we asked Thomas Whitfield, the producers. So, uh,

660
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 3: when you hear the bed track, when you hear the

661
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 3: rhythm track, like, if you listen to these four songs

662
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 3: given my problem to you, I can see Jesus if

663
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:37,720
Speaker 3: you listen to Uh, if we ever needed the Lord

664
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 3: before those three songs. The rhythm track of that was

665
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 3: produced by Thomas Whitfield, WHOA. And I was amazed by Thomas,

666
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 3: because you know, Thomas had narcolepsy. So Thomas would be

667
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 3: where he would be straight up like this, get that

668
00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 3: be flat out of there, and everybody stopped and somebody

669
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 3: played and they solo it, and sure enough, get that

670
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 3: player played the B flat that was kind of hidden

671
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 3: up under there. He said, I don't play that, No,

672
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 3: that's a scene, come on. And Thomas was my hero.

673
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 3: Thomas was really my hero. And I would sit in

674
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 3: the corner of RMJ studio and I went out. I

675
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 3: remember washing a garbage can out. It was like this

676
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 3: little gray high school bought garbage can we have in

677
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,800
Speaker 3: high school. I went and washed it out. I turned

678
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 3: it upside down and stuck it between the tape machine,

679
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 3: MCI tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat

680
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 3: in this little cubby hole and I didn't ask say

681
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 3: a word. I said, don't let him kick me out.

682
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 3: Don't let him kick me out. And I honestly just

683
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,720
Speaker 3: sat there and I listened and I prayed, and I said,

684
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 3: Lord show me how he thinks. And I probably was

685
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 3: eighteen years old at that time, I said, please show

686
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 3: me how he thinks, because he was a he was

687
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 3: a genius. When he sat down and played like he

688
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 3: sitt on the piano and played, man, it was it

689
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 3: was magical just the way he did it. And so

690
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 3: you know Thomas Woodfield, man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh man, Yes,

691
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 3: Rudolph was And I'm not sure if you remember this

692
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 3: guy because he was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J. Wright.

693
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 3: You know he was, he was, He was a genius.

694
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 3: So all these cats ran together and I just stood

695
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 3: in the background.

696
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 2: So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're not having

697
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,919
Speaker 2: the right base. What one? What was your first base

698
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 2: you used? And what is your acts of what is

699
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 2: sort of your acts of your your your favorite seal?

700
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, okay, so true story. Uh my mother we

701
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 3: went to kmart and when we're talking about doing to

702
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 3: a base, we went to kmart and there was a

703
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 3: base on sale for thirty five dollars and the headstock

704
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 3: was cracked, literally cracked, and they said thirty five dollars

705
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 3: and the guy said, if you buy it now, I'll

706
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 3: give it to you for twenty five now. It couldn't

707
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 3: stay in tune. It was impossible because between the A

708
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 3: and the G, you know there was it was cracked right.

709
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there and I'm going, I think we

710
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 3: can fix this. So I think we can take this

711
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 3: the wood shop and put it on a vice and

712
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 3: put some blue there. And I'm trying to figure out

713
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 3: how to make this thing work. So we took it

714
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 3: up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all

715
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 3: fix this? And the guy said, now you can't fix that.

716
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 3: You need to take that back and buy this one.

717
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 3: We'll give it to you for the same price if

718
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 3: you come back and buy it. We took it back

719
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,839
Speaker 3: to Kmart argued with him because it was no return,

720
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 3: but they gave us some money back. My mother took

721
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 3: the twenty five back to Wonderland and we bought this

722
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 3: Norma for that same amount, and so I never forget.

723
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 3: My mother said, if you if you put this under

724
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 3: your bed and you don't use it, I'm gonna sell it. Now.

725
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 3: You got to promised me. And so I promised her.

726
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 3: And I played, and I went to church and we

727
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 3: had a storefront church, and I played. I had a

728
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 3: little bitty amp and I played, and I would play

729
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 3: so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had

730
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 3: to play it like a lead because church be gone,

731
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 3: that's what to hear out, that little amp. And so

732
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 3: my mother got really I got discouraged, and I put

733
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 3: it up. So for four months my mother let us

734
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 3: sit up under the bed. And then one day she

735
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,399
Speaker 3: was going, we were going to choir wrestle and she said,

736
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 3: I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you. You promised me I'm

737
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 3: gonna sell that. I'm gonna sell it. And she wasn't

738
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 3: even looking at me. She just drive me. She said,

739
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,919
Speaker 3: I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with you wasn't

740
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 3: no talking. It was just she talked and I just listened,

741
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 3: and I felt horrible. And she said, why did you

742
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 3: disappoint me like that? You told me you promised you

743
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 3: better keep your word as a man. Why did you

744
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 3: tell me that? And I said, they laugh at me, Mam,

745
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:13,720
Speaker 3: She said, cool said everybody unskewer Eddie Charles. Everybody why,

746
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 3: they said, because it don't sound like a bass. And

747
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 3: she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended

748
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 3: up going to Oakland Mall Grenelle's music and we were

749
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 3: in there and so she was playing the piano like

750
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 3: she was playing the piano, and she said, which one

751
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 3: of them bases is better? And I picked up this

752
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 3: unifox and I said, well this one is, man. It's

753
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty dollars. Because at that point you

754
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:40,800
Speaker 3: could tell how much your base about how much it

755
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 3: costs one hundred eighty dollars from twenty five dollars is

756
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 3: a night you got a good base. I was sitting there, man,

757
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 3: and I was playing it. And then she said, okay,

758
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 3: wrap that up. I'm gonna take it for him. And

759
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 3: the salesman became the salesman. He said, ma'am, this boy

760
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 3: got talent. If you want him to be the best,

761
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 3: you gotta get him the best. And I'm telling the dude,

762
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 3: shut up. My mother's on the face. Yes, packed this

763
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 3: thing up and get the heck out of here. He said,

764
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 3: let me show you what it is. This boy's got talent.

765
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 3: He rolled. He pulled his fender out of the front,

766
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,760
Speaker 3: the same one that a w B had, the same

767
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 3: blind fender precision, and did we know about man, that's

768
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 3: my dude, that's my dude.

769
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 2: You're my man.

770
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 3: Oh god, okay, I'm sitting there. I'm in there, and

771
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 3: I'm asking can we play? I said, We're gonna get

772
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 3: this one, but can't I just leave play it and me?

773
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 3: We went through this rich. We said, take off your coat,

774
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 3: almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from on my feet.

775
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 3: Take off. He made sure he put a towel on me,

776
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 3: and he put the base down and I plugged it

777
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 3: into that amp that the Unifox had. He said, oh no, no, no, no,

778
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 3: you got to do this fright. And he pushed this

779
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 3: big red custom eight foot off and turned it up.

780
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 3: And the first thing I did it was dom don't, don't.

781
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 9: Boom, do don't, don't out don't And it was cool,

782
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 9: so smooth, and all of a sudden, I'm playing everything.

783
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 3: I said. I may not get a chance to play

784
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 3: this some more. So I played skin tight, I played

785
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:27,240
Speaker 3: I'll Take You Man, I played fire, I played everything

786
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 3: I could possibly play. Next thing, you know, there was

787
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 3: a crowd in front of Grenelle's brother saying, look at

788
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 3: that boy. Look at that boy in there playing that

789
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 3: bass like that. And my mother looked at it and

790
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 3: she said, they said, we can do a payment plan,

791
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 3: thirty dollars a month. He deserves it. He'll be good.

792
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 3: And she put her head down just like this because

793
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 3: she didn't have that kind of money, and she said,

794
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 3: wrap it up. I better not see this under the bed.

795
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 3: I said, I promise you you'll never see it under the bed.

796
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 3: Now that base retired. My mother side of it, All

797
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 3: of this stuff you see here, all of this every

798
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 3: time you see me on soulfire, every time you see

799
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 3: me anywhere. It was because she took a chance on

800
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 3: a four hundred and thirty dollars fender base. She didn't

801
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 3: have the money. She probably ended up paying eighteen hundred

802
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 3: dollars right, she bought us, but it paid for everything

803
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 3: that you see me about. She invested in me. She

804
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 3: invested in me, and that was what it was. And

805
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 3: I played that thing in the ground. Being young, I

806
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about. I couldn't afford to take it

807
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 3: to go and get calibrated. So I just changed the strings.

808
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:47,760
Speaker 3: And you know how we had to boil the strings

809
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:49,439
Speaker 3: to get that pop back. You know what I mean?

810
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 3: What boil them? You will put on?

811
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 2: Explain that process to me.

812
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 3: So here's the thing I ended up. I could buy

813
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 3: like I could save up enough money to buy strings

814
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 3: maybe once every five to six months. So I bought

815
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 3: these dear dairya lights. So you know they get all

816
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 3: craddy and stuff, they start sounding dull. Well, we learned

817
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 3: that if you take them off the base, ground them up,

818
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 3: put them in hot boiling water for about seven to

819
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 3: ten minutes, you pull them back off and they fresh.

820
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 3: You get that same bank right back again. So we

821
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 3: were boiling strings. We would never buy none. That's good style,

822
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 3: good stuff.

823
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,760
Speaker 5: Hey, Fred, did you play that on victory?

824
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 3: I played enough by that time I was able to

825
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:41,720
Speaker 3: buy another base, another finger, because that base got me fired.

826
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 3: That That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session. He said, man,

827
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 3: you're a good player, but you you got to keep

828
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 3: up with your axe and you just gotta I gotta

829
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 3: have somebody to play. And at that point Lenard Turn

830
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 3: had this Gibson and it was it was solid. So

831
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 3: I lost the gig, but he'd let me play the

832
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 3: least those two songs. And you know what it was.

833
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 3: It was an Ibanaz. I went and bought an Ibannaz

834
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 3: and that's the one that's on victory. That's the one

835
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 3: on victory. Yep.

836
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 2: Do you still have that original base? Just for prosperity

837
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 2: sake or.

838
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 3: I couldn't thin. But I went and bought one, just like,

839
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 3: just to remind me. I went and bought one just

840
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 3: not Now it's crazy. I don't play much no more

841
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 3: because of my arthritis and I'm just older, and so

842
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 3: I got a lot of young cats to play with me. Now.

843
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:35,359
Speaker 3: I ended up getting my own base line through base

844
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 3: Mind and everything on it, and I got about five

845
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 3: of them. And I'm like, man, you wait till I

846
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 3: can't play to give me this.

847
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 2: You didn't get to see that Dishy Fread never got damn,

848
00:48:54,440 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 2: but you know she's watching the spirit. Can you please

849
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:08,879
Speaker 2: tell me, as much as you feel comfortable with revealing

850
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 2: what's under the hood. I want to know what is

851
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 2: it to tour on the gospel circuit first of all,

852
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 2: to get to get the pole position of being the

853
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 2: go to guy to play these gigs. But then let's

854
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 2: say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I

855
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:35,280
Speaker 2: play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Winers,

856
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 2: but I mean I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,

857
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,879
Speaker 2: Like when do you start? When did they really start

858
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 2: taking you serious? As in friends my go to Like

859
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,680
Speaker 2: at what year are you the man?

860
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: You know? It never happened like that for me because

861
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 3: I went straight from the Winers straight to Commission, and

862
00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 3: with Commission, I dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every

863
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 3: week and moment to making sure that group did what

864
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 3: we needed to do. I will tell you this story

865
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 3: that I got fired off of a Commission off of

866
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:12,840
Speaker 3: a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that

867
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,959
Speaker 3: I was the go to guy.

868
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

869
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 3: Man, I'm trying to think it was. It was probably

870
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 3: I was out of school, so it could have been

871
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 3: like it was coming out of the Whinings. So it's

872
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 3: probably eighty three Rte her first real solo album, but.

873
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 2: Look at Me, Crisis at Me three.

874
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 3: Albums that album. I got fired off that gig. And

875
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 3: it was funny because Michael Wright was was one of

876
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 3: my best friends. Michael Williams is one of my best friends.

877
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 3: Michael Williams is the drummer. He's a drummer for Commission,

878
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 3: and Michael Wright was a guitar player. He was supposed

879
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 3: to be the seventh member of Commission and they Jeffrey

880
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 3: in the Valley was putting together a group uh to

881
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 3: go out and play for Tremaine. So me and Michael

882
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 3: bass player lead and then drummer, and everything was fine,

883
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 3: and we were rehearsed. We were shed in the basement

884
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 3: and I always sang the middle and Mike sang the top,

885
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 3: and that's just the way it was. The night we

886
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 3: got to Jeff to come in and do the audition, like,

887
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 3: let's let's start practicing my Mike froze and he started

888
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 3: singing the middle. Now in my head, I couldn't make

889
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:31,919
Speaker 3: that transition bass wise and singing, so I had to shed.

890
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 3: And once I learned my part, I'm good. But it's

891
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 3: not like, oh, let me switch to this PI or

892
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 3: let me sing this party. It's like, this is my part.

893
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 3: I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well,

894
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 3: he sang my part and he froze, and I'll never forget,

895
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 3: I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,

896
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 3: I sing the middle, and he looked right back at

897
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 3: me and said, no, I sing the middle. And I'm like, oh.

898
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 3: We had a situation there, and Jeff la Valley was

899
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 3: looking like this somebody somebody singing something, and so I said, well,

900
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 3: let me solveage this situation because he's my boy, I'll

901
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 3: try to sing this top I'll just learn it. And

902
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:12,799
Speaker 3: as I was doing it, I was struggling, and so

903
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 3: Jeff said, you know what, let's just come back tomorrow.

904
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 3: But when I came back the next day, they had

905
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,479
Speaker 3: somebody sitting in the car and the manager came and said,

906
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 3: we have a problem, and we seem to be a problem.

907
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 3: What's the problem and they said, well, I said, well,

908
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 3: we kind of learned kind of the same part. And

909
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 3: they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down

910
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:38,879
Speaker 3: the steps, Jonathan Dubos walking down the steps. He come

911
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 3: walking down the steps and Mike Wright, who's the guitar player.

912
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 3: I said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally he

913
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 3: literally started packing up his guitar. And they said no, no, no, no,

914
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 3: no no. They said, Fred, can he use your base

915
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:57,360
Speaker 3: and they all they rehearsed right in front of me,

916
00:52:57,719 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 3: and they said, Fred, I'm sorry, Unfortunately, we're not going

917
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 3: be able to use you all this time.

918
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 2: And they couldn't just take three hours so you can

919
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 2: relearn your harmony parts or whatever.

920
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 3: They told me to go home and learn it, and

921
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 3: they gave me a knight and I went home and

922
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 3: I learned it and when I went back, Gloria Hawkins

923
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 3: was there, Jeff Lavalley was there, and Jonathan was standing there.

924
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 3: They were just there. And I can't imaginef Jonathan came

925
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 3: in yet, but I know it was doubt. And the

926
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 3: pressure hit me so hard. And I started playing and

927
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 3: I was singing a note that I could not sing,

928
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 3: and I just remember stopping and put my head down

929
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 3: and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy. This is

930
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 3: kind of the first time I sold. It was his fault.

931
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 3: I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal

932
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 3: while Jonathan Dubo's practiced on my base.

933
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 2: Wow.

934
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 3: And I tell everybody. One of the reasons why probably

935
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 3: I am decently sucessful, it's because I never carried bitterness

936
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 3: towards anyone.

937
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 2: Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you're

938
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 2: seeing these people every day like.

939
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 3: We were still boys, Okay, we never you know, you

940
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 3: don't rat your boy out, And that's just what it was.

941
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 3: And it was unspoken at that time that that's what

942
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 3: the problem was. And I never I never rated him out.

943
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 3: And I just it was crazy too, because they toured

944
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 3: for about a year to two years and I was broken.

945
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 2: I was broken. See James, we would have rated each

946
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 2: other out.

947
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:40,400
Speaker 3: Man. My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the

948
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 3: drummer for Commission, and he has no filter, so he

949
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 3: would come back just tell them, yeah, we just came

950
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:48,839
Speaker 3: from Amsterdam, man. Man, let me tell you something, man,

951
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:51,439
Speaker 3: just that I just bought this, I bought that, and

952
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 3: we did that, and I just I sat there and

953
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 3: I just I just took it. You know.

954
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:58,399
Speaker 2: So what did you wind up doing?

955
00:54:58,440 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 3: Like?

956
00:54:58,560 --> 00:54:59,439
Speaker 2: Did you take that ass?

957
00:54:59,480 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 3: Like?

958
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 2: Okay, I a set even harder.

959
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've said I'm never gonna let that happen

960
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,880
Speaker 3: to me again. But what I did was I focused

961
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:14,280
Speaker 3: deep on getting commissioned together because we had to learn managers.

962
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 3: We had to try to find managers. We didn't have

963
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 3: the easy role man. People thought that commission was signed

964
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 3: and somebody saw us. Man. We spent We raised thirteen

965
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 3: thousand dollars from aunts, uncles, cousins, skating parties, receptions. We

966
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 3: would put them in a shoe box under my bed

967
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 3: and go buy studio time. And finally we had a

968
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 3: finished product and we leased that first record that I'm

969
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:38,319
Speaker 3: going on. It was a lease.

970
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:39,240
Speaker 2: I'm going on record.

971
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 3: Yep, our manager. We went to ty Scott Records and

972
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 3: Leonard Scott said, I'll sign you guys. We didn't know

973
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 3: what to ask for. We said, can we just have

974
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 3: the money back to pay our parents and our family back?

975
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 3: And he said sure. But then Derek Dirkson, who was

976
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 3: the leader of Chapter eight, you know, he was the

977
00:55:56,840 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 3: drummer and the leader of Chapter he said, let me

978
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 3: manage you. Guys. You just walked away from the wine.

979
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 3: He said, let me manage you and uh, we said okay.

980
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 3: He said, give me two weeks. I'm gonna take it

981
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 3: to Light Records, and if they don't come back within

982
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 3: two weeks, we'll go over. The tys guy, well he

983
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 3: called on his relationships. He did a lease steal. We

984
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 3: put the record out and the rest is history. And

985
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,720
Speaker 3: then we got signed the second record all from second

986
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 3: record All.

987
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

988
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 4: I was just going to ask you about the business

989
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 4: of that. So how did that work in terms of like,

990
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 4: do you guys own those masters?

991
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 9: Now?

992
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 3: Was it a deal that they own?

993
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 4: How was business done in the gospel world as compared

994
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 4: to the kind of secular music.

995
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:43,720
Speaker 3: It was done the same same thing. Jack, I believe

996
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 3: we own the masters now though we do own the

997
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 3: masters off to the first five records, but other than that,

998
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 3: we just got took.

999
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,240
Speaker 2: So in your mind and you're saying that the Winings

1000
00:56:57,320 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 2: was like your first gig before you went with or

1001
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 2: your biggest gig before you went to forming commission? In

1002
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:11,720
Speaker 2: your mind, is the Whinings and doing that circuit as

1003
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,280
Speaker 2: good as it gets, like as top as it gets.

1004
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,920
Speaker 2: Is there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I

1005
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 2: should go to Los Angeles to become a session musician,

1006
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 2: or are there any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker

1007
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 2: in the chapter? You know, like are you are your

1008
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 2: eyes looking elsewhere? Or for you? It's like, I'm gonna

1009
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,439
Speaker 2: stay in the gospel world and the Winings is as

1010
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,840
Speaker 2: good as it gets to get out there.

1011
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 3: I never looked to do a secular group or play

1012
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 3: in the club or anything else. I really felt like

1013
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 3: I was called. And this is before I knew my

1014
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 3: birth issues or anything. I honestly felt like I was

1015
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 3: called to gospel music. So the Winings was as big

1016
00:57:56,880 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 3: as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be

1017
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 3: paying for them right now at sixty years old. I

1018
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 3: never thought I was gonna leave. And I didn't want

1019
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 3: to leave when I left, you know, honestly, there was

1020
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 3: a little high coup that happened in commission. He I'm

1021
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,160
Speaker 3: gonna give you all some real little son behind the scene.

1022
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:20,960
Speaker 3: A couple members called me with our managers at that time,

1023
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 3: into a basement at twelve o'clock at night and they

1024
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 3: told me, if you don't leave the winings, we're gonna

1025
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 3: take this group from you. You out here traveling, you

1026
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 3: out here doing that, you can't be no group leader.

1027
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:34,840
Speaker 3: They didn't have a record deal, they didn't have anything,

1028
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 3: but there was some scuttle but that was going on

1029
00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 3: between two members and the management, and they were literally

1030
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 3: trying to take the group from me. And I said,

1031
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 3: they said, if you don't leave them, we're going to

1032
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:49,640
Speaker 3: take this group from me. So I had to go

1033
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 3: back to the winings. And I couldn't be no rat.

1034
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 3: So I couldn't tell them, Man, they're making me do this.

1035
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 3: I had to tell them and then after Chicago that's

1036
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 3: my last, that's my last gig. I'm going to make commission.

1037
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:08,120
Speaker 3: And they were so mad at me, really, and they

1038
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 3: were so mad. They understood no no, no, no no no,

1039
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 3: that's what they said. But it was because we were family.

1040
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 3: And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson,

1041
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:24,919
Speaker 3: the Mighty Clouds of Joey al Green and a bunch

1042
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 3: of people in Chicago, and I'll never forget. I cried

1043
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 3: like a baby. And in the van they got together

1044
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:34,960
Speaker 3: as brothers and they sang this song to find His Keepers.

1045
00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 3: I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend, we

1046
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 3: love having you.

1047
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 4: What up, y'all finclo here? That was part one of

1048
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 4: our two part interviews with the legendary bred Hammond. Y'all

1049
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:55,919
Speaker 4: stay tuned. Part two is coming up next week, and

1050
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 4: it gets even better right here on QLs. Of course

1051
00:59:58,720 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 4: Love Spring Yep.

1052
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

1053
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1054
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.